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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha Webb, by Anna Katherine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Agatha Webb
+
+Author: Anna Katherine Green
+
+Posting Date: April 30, 2011 [EBook #5162]
+Release Date: February, 2004
+[This file was first posted on May 24, 2002]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA WEBB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA WEBB
+
+BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN (MRS. CHARLES ROHLFS)
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR" "LOST MAN'S
+LANE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND
+
+PROFESSOR A. V. DICEY
+
+OF OXFORD, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+     I--A Cry on the Hill
+    II--One Night's Work
+   III--The Empty Drawer
+    IV--The Full Drawer
+     V--A Spot on the Lawn
+    VI--"Breakfast is Served, Gentlemen!"
+   VII--"Marry Me"
+  VIII--"A Devil That Understands Men"
+    IX--A Grand Woman
+     X--Detective Knapp Arrives
+    XI--The Man with a Beard
+   XII--Wattles Comes
+  XIII--Wattles Goes
+   XIV--A Final Temptation
+    XV--The Zabels Visited
+   XVI--Local Talent at Work
+  XVII--The Slippers, the Flower, and What Sweetwater Made of Them
+ XVIII--Some Leading Questions
+   XIX--Poor Philemon
+    XX--A Surprise for Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+   XXI--Sweetwater Reasons
+  XXII--Sweetwater Acts
+ XXIII--A Sinister Pair
+  XXIV--In the Shadow of the Mast
+   XXV--In Extremity
+  XXVI--The Adventure of the Parcel
+ XXVII--The Adventure of the Scrap of Paper and the Three Words
+XXVIII--"Who Are You?" 
+  XXIX--Home Again
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+   XXX--What Followed the Striking of the Clock
+  XXXI--A Witness Lost
+ XXXII--Why Agatha Webb will Never be Forgotten in Sutherlandtown
+XXXIII--Father and Son
+ XXXIV--"Not When They Are Young Girls"
+  XXXV--Sweetwater Pays His Debt at Last to Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+
+I
+
+A CRY ON THE HILL
+
+
+The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests had all
+departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the
+ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn
+became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, plain-featured young
+man of ungainly aspect but penetrating eye, called the attention of the
+others to it.
+
+"Look!" said he; "there is the daylight! This has been a gay night for
+Sutherlandtown."
+
+"Too gay," muttered another, starting aside as the slight figure of a
+young man coming from the house behind them rushed hastily by. "Why,
+who's that?"
+
+As they one and all had recognised the person thus alluded to, no one
+answered till he had dashed out of the gate and disappeared in the woods
+on the other side of the road. Then they all spoke at once.
+
+"It's Mr. Frederick!"
+
+"He seems in a desperate hurry."
+
+"He trod on my toes."
+
+"Did you hear the words he was muttering as he went by?"
+
+As only the last question was calculated to rouse any interest, it alone
+received attention.
+
+"No; what were they? I heard him say something, but I failed to catch
+the words."
+
+"He wasn't talking to you, or to me either, for that matter; but I have
+ears that can hear an eye wink. He said: 'Thank God, this night of
+horror is over!' Think of that! After such a dance and such a spread, he
+calls the night horrible and thanks God that it is over. I thought he
+was the very man to enjoy this kind of thing."
+
+"So did I."
+
+"And so did I."
+
+The five musicians exchanged looks, then huddled in a group at the gate.
+
+"He has quarrelled with his sweetheart," suggested one.
+
+"I'm not surprised at that," declared another. "I never thought it would
+be a match."
+
+"Shame if it were!" muttered the ungainly youth who had spoken first.
+
+As the subject of this comment was the son of the gentleman whose house
+they were just leaving, they necessarily spoke low; but their tones were
+rife with curiosity, and it was evident that the topic deeply interested
+them. One of the five who had not previously spoken now put in a word:
+
+"I saw him when he first led out Miss Page to dance, and I saw him again
+when he stood up opposite her in the last quadrille, and I tell you,
+boys, there was a mighty deal of difference in the way he conducted
+himself toward her in the beginning of the evening and the last. You
+wouldn't have thought him the same man. Reckless young fellows like him
+are not to be caught by dimples only. They want cash."
+
+"Or family, at least; and she hasn't either. But what a pretty girl she
+is! Many a fellow as rich as he and as well connected would be satisfied
+with her good looks alone."
+
+"Good looks!" High scorn was observable in this exclamation, which was
+made by the young man whom I have before characterised as ungainly. "I
+refuse to acknowledge that she has any good looks. On the contrary, I
+consider her plain."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" burst in protest from more than one mouth. "And why does she
+have every fellow in the room dangling after her, then?" asked the
+player on the flageolet.
+
+"She hasn't a regular feature."
+
+"What difference does that make when it isn't her features you notice,
+but herself?"
+
+"I don't like her."
+
+A laugh followed this.
+
+"That won't trouble her, Sweetwater. Sutherland does, if you don't, and
+that's much more to the point. And he'll marry her yet; he can't help
+it. Why, she'd witch the devil into leading her to the altar if she took
+a notion to have him for her bridegroom."
+
+"There would be consistency in that," muttered the fellow just
+addressed. "But Mr. Frederick--"
+
+"Hush! There's some one on the doorstep. Why, it's she!"
+
+They all glanced back. The graceful figure of a young girl dressed in
+white was to be seen leaning toward them from the open doorway. Behind
+her shone a blaze of light--the candles not having been yet extinguished
+in the hall--and against this brilliant background her slight form, with
+all its bewitching outlines, stood out in plain relief.
+
+"Who was that?" she began in a high, almost strident voice, totally out
+of keeping with the sensuous curves of her strange, sweet face. But the
+question remained unanswered, for at that moment her attention, as well
+as that of the men lingering at the gate, was attracted by the sound of
+hurrying feet and confused cries coming up the hill.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" was the word panted out by more than one harsh voice;
+and in another instant a dozen men and boys came rushing into sight in a
+state of such excitement that the five musicians recoiled from the gate,
+and one of them went so far as to start back toward the house. As he did
+so he noticed a curious thing. The young woman whom they had all
+perceived standing in the door a moment before had vanished, yet she was
+known to possess the keenest curiosity of any one in town.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" A terrible and unprecedented cry in this old,
+God-fearing town. Then came in hoarse explanation from the jostling
+group as they stopped at the gate: "Mrs. Webb has been killed! Stabbed
+with a knife! Tell Mr. Sutherland!"
+
+Mrs. Webb!
+
+As the musicians heard this name, so honoured and so universally
+beloved, they to a man uttered a cry. Mrs. Webb! Why, it was impossible.
+Shouting in their turn for Mr. Sutherland, they all crowded forward.
+
+"Not Mrs. Webb!" they protested. "Who could have the daring or the heart
+to kill HER?"
+
+"God knows," answered a voice from the highway. "But she's dead--we've
+just seen her!"
+
+"Then it's the old man's work," quavered a piping voice. "I've always
+said he would turn on his best friend some day. 'Sylum's the best place
+for folks as has lost their wits. I--"
+
+But here a hand was put over his mouth, and the rest of the words was
+lost in an inarticulate gurgle. Mr. Sutherland had just appeared on the
+porch.
+
+He was a superb-looking man, with an expression of mingled kindness and
+dignity that invariably awakened both awe and admiration in the
+spectator. No man in the country--I was going to say no woman was more
+beloved, or held in higher esteem. Yet he could not control his only
+son, as everyone within ten miles of the hill well knew.
+
+At this moment his face showed both pain and shock.
+
+"What name are you shouting out there?" he brokenly demanded. "Agatha
+Webb? Is Agatha Webb hurt?"
+
+"Yes, sir; killed," repeated a half-dozen voices at once. "We've just
+come from the house. All the town is up. Some say her husband did it."
+
+"No, no!" was Mr. Sutherland's decisive though half-inaudible response.
+"Philemon Webb might end his own life, but not Agatha's. It was the
+money--"
+
+Here he caught himself up, and, raising his voice, addressed the crowd
+of villagers more directly.
+
+"Wait," said he, "and I will go back with you. Where is Frederick?" he
+demanded of such members of his own household as stood about him.
+
+No one knew.
+
+"I wish some one would find my son. I want him to go into town with me."
+
+"He's over in the woods there," volunteered a voice from without.
+
+"In the woods!" repeated the father, in a surprised tone.
+
+"Yes, sir; we all saw him go. Shall we sing out to him?"
+
+"No, no; I will manage very well without him." And taking up his hat Mr.
+Sutherland stepped out again upon the porch.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. A hand had been laid on his arm and an insinuating
+voice was murmuring in his ear:
+
+"Do you mind if I go with you? I will not make any trouble."
+
+It was the same young lady we have seen before.
+
+The old gentleman frowned--he who never frowned and remarked shortly:
+
+"A scene of murder is no place for women."
+
+The face upturned to his remained unmoved.
+
+"I think I will go," she quietly persisted. "I can easily mingle with
+the crowd."
+
+He said not another word against it. Miss Page was under pay in his
+house, but for the last few weeks no one had undertaken to contradict
+her. In the interval since her first appearance on the porch, she had
+exchanged the light dress in which she had danced at the ball, for a
+darker and more serviceable one, and perhaps this token of her
+determination may have had its influence in silencing him. He joined the
+crowd, and together they moved down-hill. This was too much for the
+servants of the house. One by one they too left the house till it stood
+absolutely empty. Jerry snuffed out the candles and shut the front door,
+but the side entrance stood wide open, and into this entrance, as the
+last footstep died out on the hillside, passed a slight and resolute
+figure. It was that of the musician who had questioned Miss Page's
+attractions.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ONE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+
+Sutherlandtown was a seaport. The village, which was a small one,
+consisted of one long street and numerous cross streets running down
+from the hillside and ending on the wharves. On one of the corners thus
+made, stood the Webb house, with its front door on the main street and
+its side door on one of the hillside lanes. As the group of men and boys
+who had been in search of Mr. Sutherland entered this last-mentioned
+lane, they could pick out this house from all the others, as it was the
+only one in which a light was still burning. Mr. Sutherland lost no time
+in entering upon the scene of tragedy. As his imposing figure emerged
+from the darkness and paused on the outskirts of the crowd that was
+blocking up every entrance to the house, a murmur of welcome went up,
+after which a way was made for him to the front door.
+
+But before he could enter, some one plucked him by the sleeve.
+
+"Look up!" whispered a voice into his ear.
+
+He did so, and saw a woman's body hanging half out of an upper window.
+It hung limp, and the sight made him sick, notwithstanding his
+threescore years of experience.
+
+"Who's that?" he cried. "That's not Agatha Webb."
+
+"No, that's Batsy, the cook. She's dead as well as her mistress. We left
+her where we found her for the coroner to see."
+
+"But this is horrible," murmured Mr. Sutherland. "Has there been a
+butcher here?"
+
+As he uttered these words, he felt another quick pressure on his arm.
+Looking down, he saw leaning against him the form of a young woman, but
+before he could address her she had started upright again and was moving
+on with the throng. It was Miss Page.
+
+"It was the sight of this woman hanging from the window which first drew
+attention to the house," volunteered a man who was standing as a sort of
+guardian at the main gateway. "Some of the sailors' wives who had been
+to the wharves to see their husbands off on the ship that sailed at
+daybreak, saw it as they came up the lane on their way home, and gave
+the alarm. Without that we might not have known to this hour what had
+happened."
+
+"But Mrs. Webb?"
+
+"Come in and see."
+
+There was a board fence about the simple yard within which stood the
+humble house forever after to be pointed out as the scene of
+Sutherlandtown's most heart-rending tragedy. In this fence was a gate,
+and through this gate now passed Mr. Sutherland, followed by his
+would-be companion, Miss Page. A path bordered by lilac bushes led up to
+the house, the door of which stood wide open. As soon as Mr. Sutherland
+entered upon this path a man approached him from the doorway. It was
+Amos Fenton, the constable.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Sutherland," said he, "sad business, a very sad business! But
+what little girl have you there?"
+
+"This is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece. She would come.
+Inquisitiveness the cause. I do not approve of it."
+
+"Miss Page must remain on the doorstep. We allow no one inside excepting
+yourself," he said respectfully, in recognition of the fact that nothing
+of importance was ever undertaken in Sutherlandtown without the
+presence of Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page curtsied, looking so bewitching in the fresh morning light
+that the tough old constable scratched his chin in grudging admiration.
+But he did not reconsider his determination. Seeing this, she accepted
+her defeat gracefully, and moved aside to where the bushes offered her
+more or less protection from the curiosity of those about her. Meanwhile
+Mr. Sutherland had stepped into the house.
+
+He found himself in a small hall with a staircase in front and an open
+door at the left. On the threshold of this open door a man stood, who at
+sight of him doffed his hat. Passing by this man, Mr. Sutherland entered
+the room beyond. A table spread with eatables met his view, beside
+which, in an attitude which struck him at the moment as peculiar, sat
+Philemon Webb, the well-known master of the house.
+
+Astonished at seeing his old friend in this room and in such a position,
+he was about to address him, when Mr. Fenton stopped him.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Take a look at poor Philemon before you disturb him.
+When we broke into the house a half-hour ago he was sitting just as you
+see him now, and we have let him be for reasons you can easily
+appreciate. Examine him closely, Mr. Sutherland; he won't notice it."
+
+"But what ails him? Why does he sit crouched against the table? Is he
+hurt too?"
+
+"No; look at his eyes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland stooped and pushed aside the long grey locks that half
+concealed the countenance of his aged friend.
+
+"Why," he cried, startled, "they are closed! He isn't dead?"
+
+"No, he is asleep."
+
+"Asleep?"
+
+"Yes. He was asleep when we came in and he is asleep yet. Some of the
+neighbours wanted to wake him, but I would not let them. His wits are
+not strong enough to bear a sudden shock."
+
+"No, no, poor Philemon! But that he should sit sleeping here while
+she--But what do these bottles mean and this parade of supper in a room
+they were not accustomed to eat in?"
+
+"We don't know. It has not been eaten, you see. He has swallowed a glass
+of port, but that is all. The other glasses have had no wine in them,
+nor have the victuals been touched."
+
+"Seats set for three and only one occupied," murmured Mr. Sutherland.
+"Strange! Could he have expected guests?"
+
+"It looks like it. I didn't know that his wife allowed him such
+privileges; but she was always too good to him, and I fear has paid for
+it with her life."
+
+"Nonsense! he never killed her. Had his love been anything short of the
+worship it was, he stood in too much awe of her to lift his hand against
+her, even in his most demented moments."
+
+"I don't trust men of uncertain wits," returned the other. "You have not
+noticed everything that is to be seen in this room."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, recalled to himself by these words, looked quickly about
+him. With the exception of the table and what was on and by it there was
+nothing else in the room. Naturally his glance returned to Philemon
+Webb.
+
+"I don't see anything but this poor sleeping man," he began.
+
+"Look at his sleeve."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a start, again bent down. The arm of his old friend
+lay crooked upon the table, and on its blue cotton sleeve there was a
+smear which might have been wine, but which was--blood.
+
+As Mr. Sutherland became assured of this, he turned slightly pale and
+looked inquiringly at the two men who were intently watching him.
+
+"This is bad," said he. "Any other marks of blood below stairs?"
+
+"No; that one smear is all."
+
+"Oh, Philemon!" burst from Mr. Sutherland, in deep emotion. Then, as he
+looked long and shudderingly at his friend, he added slowly:
+
+"He has been in the room where she was killed; so much is evident. But
+that he understood what was done there I cannot believe, or he would not
+be sleeping here like a log. Come, let us go up-stairs."
+
+Fenton, with an admonitory gesture toward his subordinate, turned
+directly toward the staircase. Mr. Sutherland followed him, and they at
+once proceeded to the upper hall and into the large front room which had
+been the scene of the tragedy.
+
+It was the parlour or sitting-room of this small and unpretentious
+house. A rag carpet covered the floor and the furniture was of the
+plainest kind, but the woman who lay outstretched on the stiff,
+old-fashioned lounge opposite the door was far from being in accord with
+the homely type of her surroundings. Though the victim of a violent
+death, her face and form, both of a beauty seldom to be found among
+women of any station, were so majestic in their calm repose, that Mr.
+Sutherland, accustomed as he was to her noble appearance, experienced a
+shock of surprise that found vent in these words:
+
+"Murdered! she? You have made some mistake, my friends. Look at her
+face!"
+
+But even in the act of saying this his eyes fell on the blood which had
+dyed her cotton dress and he cried:
+
+"Where was she struck and where is the weapon which has made this
+ghastly wound?"
+
+"She was struck while standing or sitting at this table," returned the
+constable, pointing to two or three drops of blood on its smooth
+surface. "The weapon we have not found, but the wound shows that it was
+inflicted by a three-sided dagger."
+
+"A three-sided dagger?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I didn't know there was such a thing in town. Philemon could have had
+no dagger."
+
+"It does not seem so, but one can never tell. Simple cottages like these
+often contain the most unlooked-for articles."
+
+"I cannot imagine a dagger being among its effects," declared Mr.
+Sutherland. "Where was the body of Mrs. Webb lying when you came in?"
+
+"Where you see it now. Nothing has been moved or changed."
+
+"She was found here, on this lounge, in the same position in which we
+see her now?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But that is incredible. Look at the way she lies! Hands crossed, eyes
+closed, as though made ready for her burial. Only loving hands could
+have done this. What does it mean?"
+
+"It means Philemon; that is what it means Philemon."
+
+Mr. Sutherland shuddered, but said nothing. He was dumbfounded by these
+evidences of a crazy man's work. Philemon Webb always seemed so
+harmless, though he had been failing in mind for the last ten years.
+
+"But" cried Mr. Sutherland, suddenly rousing, "there is another victim.
+I saw old woman Batsy hanging from a window ledge, dead."
+
+"Yes, she is in this other room; but there is no wound on Batsy."
+
+"How was she killed, then?"
+
+"That the doctors must tell us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, guided by Mr. Fenton's gesture, entered a small room
+opening into the one in which they stood. His attention was at once
+attracted by the body of the woman he had seen from below, lying half in
+and half out of the open window. That she was dead was evident; but, as
+Mr. Fenton had said, no wound was to be seen upon her, nor were there
+any marks of blood on or about the place where she lay.
+
+"This is a dreadful business," groaned Mr. Sutherland, "the worst I have
+ever had anything to do with. Help me to lift the woman in; she has been
+long enough a show for the people outside."
+
+There was a bed in this room (indeed, it was Mrs. Webb's bedroom), and
+upon this poor Batsy was laid. As the face came uppermost both gentlemen
+started and looked at each other in amazement. The expression of terror
+and alarm which it showed was in striking contrast to the look of
+exaltation to be seen on the face of her dead mistress.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE EMPTY DRAWER
+
+
+As they re-entered the larger room, they were astonished to come upon
+Miss Page standing in the doorway. She was gazing at the recumbent
+figure of the dead woman, and for a moment seemed unconscious of their
+presence.
+
+"How did you get in? Which of my men was weak enough to let you pass,
+against my express instructions?" asked the constable, who was of an
+irritable and suspicious nature.
+
+She let the hood drop from her head, and, turning, surveyed him with a
+slow smile. There was witchery in that smile sufficient to affect a much
+more cultivated and callous nature than his, and though he had been
+proof against it once he could not quite resist the effect of its
+repetition.
+
+"I insisted upon entering," said she. "Do not blame the men; they did
+not want to use force against a woman." She had not a good voice and she
+knew it; but she covered up this defect by a choice of intonations that
+carried her lightest speech to the heart. Hard-visaged Amos Fenton gave
+a grunt, which was as near an expression of approval as he ever gave to
+anyone.
+
+"Well! well!" he growled, but not ill-naturedly, "it's a morbid
+curiosity that brings you here. Better drop it, girl; it won't do you
+any good in the eyes of sensible people."
+
+"Thank you," was her demure reply, her lips dimpling at the corners in a
+way to shock the sensitive Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Glancing from her to the still outlines of the noble figure on the
+couch, he remarked with an air of mild reproof:
+
+"I do not understand you, Miss Page. If this solemn sight has no power
+to stop your coquetries, nothing can. As for your curiosity, it is both
+ill-timed and unwomanly. Let me see you leave this house at once, Miss
+Page; and if in the few hours which must elapse before breakfast you can
+find time to pack your trunks, you will still farther oblige me."
+
+"Oh, don't send me away, I entreat you."
+
+It was a cry from her inner heart, which she probably regretted, for she
+instantly sought to cover up her inadvertent self-betrayal by a
+submissive bend of the head and a step backward. Neither Mr. Fenton nor
+Mr. Sutherland seemed to hear the one or see the other, their attention
+having returned to the more serious matter in hand.
+
+"The dress which our poor friend wears shows her to have been struck
+before retiring," commented Mr. Sutherland, after another short survey
+of Mrs. Webb's figure. "If Philemon--"
+
+"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the voice of the young man who had been
+left in the hall, "the lady is listening to what you say. She is still
+at the head of the stairs."
+
+"She is, is she!" cried Fenton, sharply, his admiration for the
+fascinating stranger having oozed out at his companion's rebuff. "I will
+soon show her--" But the words melted into thin air as he reached the
+door. The young girl had disappeared, and only a faint perfume remained
+in the place where she had stood.
+
+"A most extraordinary person," grumbled the constable, turning back, but
+stopping again as a faint murmur came up from below.
+
+"The gentleman is waking," called up a voice whose lack of music was
+quite perceptible at a distance.
+
+With a bound Mr. Fenton descended the stairs, followed by Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page stood before the door of the room in which sat Philemon Webb.
+As they reached her side, she made a little bow that was half mocking,
+half deprecatory, and slipped from the house. An almost unbearable
+sensation of incongruity vanished with her, and Mr. Sutherland, for one,
+breathed like a man relieved.
+
+"I wish the doctor would come," Fenton said, as they watched the slow
+lifting of Philemon Webb's head. "Our fastest rider has gone for him,
+but he's out Portchester way, and it may be an hour yet before he can
+get here."
+
+"Philemon!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend's side.
+
+"Philemon, what has become of your guests? You've waited for them here
+until morning."
+
+The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on either side
+of him and shook his head.
+
+"James and John are getting proud," said he, "or they forget, they
+forget."
+
+James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many others
+answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made another effort.
+
+"Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for her!"
+
+"Agatha's sick, Agatha's cross; she don't care for a poor old man like
+me."
+
+"Agatha's dead and you know it," thundered back the constable, with
+ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell me that. Who killed her?"
+
+A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old man's
+eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with that strange
+gurgle which proclaims an utterly irresponsible mind, he cried:
+
+"The pussy cat! It was the pussy cat. Who's killed? I'm not killed.
+Let's go to Jericho."
+
+Mr. Sutherland took him by the arm and led him up-stairs. Perhaps the
+sight of his dead wife would restore him. But he looked at her with the
+same indifference he showed to everything else.
+
+"I don't like her calico dresses," said he. "She might have worn silk,
+but she wouldn't. Agatha, will you wear silk to my funeral?"
+
+The experiment was too painful, and they drew him away. But the
+constable's curiosity had been roused, and after they had found some one
+to take care of him, he drew Mr. Sutherland aside and said:
+
+"What did the old man mean by saying she might have worn silk? Are they
+better off than they seem?" Mr. Sutherland closed the door before
+replying.
+
+"They are rich," he declared, to the utter amazement of the other. "That
+is, they were; but they may have been robbed; if so, Philemon was not
+the wretch who killed her. I have been told that she kept her money in
+an old-fashioned cupboard. Do you suppose they alluded to that one?"
+
+He pointed to a door set in the wall over the fireplace, and Mr. Fenton,
+perceiving a key sticking in the lock, stepped quickly across the floor
+and opened it. A row of books met his eyes, but on taking them down a
+couple of drawers were seen at the back.
+
+"Are they locked?" asked Mr. Sutherland.
+
+"One is and one is not."
+
+"Open the one that is unlocked."
+
+Mr. Fenton did so.
+
+"It is empty," said he.
+
+Mr. Sutherland cast a look toward the dead woman, and again the perfect
+serenity of her countenance struck him.
+
+"I do not know whether to regard her as the victim of her husband's
+imbecility or of some vile robber's cupidity. Can you find the key to
+the other drawer?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+"Suppose you begin, then, by looking on her person. It should be in her
+pocket, if no marauder has been here."
+
+"It is not in her pocket."
+
+"Hanging to her neck, then, by a string?"
+
+"No; there is a locket here, but no key. A very handsome locket, Mr.
+Sutherland, with a child's lock of golden hair--"
+
+"Never mind, we will see that later; it is the key we want just now."
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is in her hand; the one that lies underneath."
+
+"Ah! A point, Fenton."
+
+"A great point."
+
+"Stand by her, Fenton. Don't let anyone rob her of that key till the
+coroner comes, and we are at liberty to take it."
+
+"I will not leave her for an instant."
+
+"Meanwhile, I will put back these books."
+
+He had scarcely done so when a fresh arrival occurred. This time it was
+one of the village clergymen.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FULL DRAWER
+
+
+This gentleman had some information to give. It seems that at an early
+hour of this same night he had gone by this house on his way home from
+the bedside of a sick parishioner. As he was passing the gate he was run
+into by a man who came rushing out of the yard, in a state of violent
+agitation. In this man's hand was something that glittered, and though
+the encounter nearly upset them both, he had not stopped to utter an
+apology, but stumbled away out of sight with a hasty but infirm step,
+which showed he was neither young nor active. The minister had failed to
+see his face, but noticed the ends of a long beard blowing over his
+shoulder as he hurried away.
+
+Philemon was a clean-shaven man.
+
+Asked if he could give the time of this encounter, he replied that it
+was not far from midnight, as he was in his own house by half-past
+twelve.
+
+"Did you glance up at these windows in passing?" asked Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I must have; for I now remember they were both lighted."
+
+"Were the shades up?"
+
+"I think not. I would have noticed it if they had been."
+
+"How were the shades when you broke into the house this morning?"
+inquired Mr. Sutherland of the constable.
+
+"Just as they are now; we have moved nothing. The shades were both
+down--one of them over an open window."
+
+"Well, we may find this encounter of yours with this unknown man a
+matter of vital importance, Mr. Crane."
+
+"I wish I had seen his face."
+
+"What do you think the object was you saw glittering in his hand?"
+
+"I should not like to say; I saw it but an instant."
+
+"Could it have been a knife or an old-fashioned dagger?"
+
+"It might have been."
+
+"Alas! poor Agatha! That she, who so despised money, should fall a
+victim to man's cupidity! Unhappy life, unhappy death! Fenton, I shall
+always mourn for Agatha Webb."
+
+"Yet she seems to have found peace at last," observed the minister. "I
+have never seen her look so contented." And leading Mr. Sutherland
+aside, he whispered: "What is this you say about money? Had she, in
+spite of appearances, any considerable amount? I ask, because in spite
+of her humble home and simple manner of living, she always put more on
+the plate than any of her neighbours. Besides which, I have from time to
+time during my pastorate received anonymously certain contributions,
+which, as they were always for sick or suffering children--"
+
+"Yes, yes; they came from her, I have no doubt of it. She was by no
+means poor, though I myself never knew the extent of her means till
+lately. Philemon was a good business man once; but they evidently
+preferred to live simply, having no children living--"
+
+"They have lost six, I have been told."
+
+"So the Portchester folks say. They probably had no heart for display or
+for even the simplest luxuries. At all events, they did not indulge in
+them."
+
+"Philemon has long been past indulging in anything."
+
+"Oh, he likes his comfort, and he has had it too. Agatha never stinted
+him."
+
+"But why do you think her death was due to her having money?"
+
+"She had a large sum in the house, and there are those in town who knew
+this."
+
+"And is it gone?"
+
+"That we shall know later."
+
+As the coroner arrived at this moment, the minister's curiosity had to
+wait. Fortunately for his equanimity, no one had the presumption to ask
+him to leave the room.
+
+The coroner was a man of but few words, and but little given to emotion.
+Yet they were surprised at his first question:
+
+"Who is the young woman standing outside there, the only one in the
+yard?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, moving rapidly to the window, drew aside the shade.
+
+"It is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece," he explained. "I do not
+understand her interest in this affair. She followed me here from the
+house and could hardly be got to leave this room, into which she
+intruded herself against my express command."
+
+"But look at her attitude!" It was Mr. Fenton who spoke. "She's crazier
+than Philemon, it seems to me."
+
+There was some reason for this remark. Guarded by the high fence from
+the gaze of the pushing crowd without, she stood upright and immovable
+in the middle of the yard, like one on watch. The hood, which she had
+dropped from her head when she thought her eyes and smile might be of
+use to her in the furtherance of her plans, had been drawn over it
+again, so that she looked more like a statue in grey than a living,
+breathing woman. Yet there was menace in her attitude and a purpose in
+the solitary stand she took in that circle of board-girded grass, which
+caused a thrill in the breasts of those who looked at her from that
+chamber of death.
+
+"A mysterious young woman," muttered the minister.
+
+"And one that I neither countenance nor understand," interpolated Mr.
+Sutherland. "I have just shown my displeasure at her actions by
+dismissing her from my house."
+
+The coroner gave him a quick look, seemed about to speak, but changed
+his mind and turned toward the dead woman.
+
+"We have a sad duty before us," said he.
+
+The investigations which followed elicited one or two new facts. First,
+that all the doors of the house were found unlocked; and, secondly, that
+the constable had been among the first to enter, so that he could vouch
+that no disarrangement had been made in the rooms, with the exception of
+Batsy's removal to the bed.
+
+Then, his attention being drawn to the dead woman, he discovered the key
+in her tightly closed hand.
+
+"Where does this key belong?" he asked.
+
+They showed him the drawers in the cupboard.
+
+"One is empty," remarked Mi. Sutherland. "If the other is found to be in
+the same condition, then her money has been taken. That key she holds
+should open both these drawers."
+
+"Then let it be made use of at once. It is important that we should know
+whether theft has been committed here as well as murder." And drawing
+the key out, he handed it to Mr. Fenton.
+
+The constable immediately unlocked the drawer and brought it and its
+contents to the table.
+
+"No money here," said he.
+
+"But papers as good as money," announced the doctor. "See! here are
+deeds and more than one valuable bond. I judge she was a richer woman
+than any of us knew."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, meantime, was looking with an air of disappointment into
+the now empty drawer.
+
+"Just as I feared," said he. "She has been robbed of her ready money. It
+was doubtless in the other drawer."
+
+"How came she by the key, then?"
+
+"That is one of the mysteries of the affair; this murder is by no means
+a simple one. I begin to think we shall find it full of mysteries."
+
+"Batsy's death, for instance?"
+
+"O yes, Batsy! I forgot that she was found dead too."
+
+"Without a wound, doctor."
+
+"She had heart disease. I doctored her for it. The fright has killed
+her."
+
+"The look of her face confirms that."
+
+"Let me see! So it does; but we must have an autopsy to prove it."
+
+"I would like to explain before any further measures are taken, how I
+came to know that Agatha Webb had money in her house," said Mr.
+Sutherland, as they stepped back into the other room. "Two days ago, as
+I was sitting with my family at table, old gossip Judy came in. Had Mrs.
+Sutherland been living, this old crone would not have presumed to
+intrude upon us at mealtime, but as we have no one now to uphold our
+dignity, this woman rushed into our presence panting with news, and told
+us all in one breath how she had just come from Mrs. Webb; that Mrs.
+Webb had money; that she had seen it, she herself; that, going into the
+house as usual without knocking, she had heard Agatha stepping overhead
+and had gone up; and finding the door of the sitting-room ajar, had
+looked in, and seen Agatha crossing the room with her hands full of
+bills; that these bills were big bills, for she heard Agatha cry, as she
+locked them up in the cupboard behind the book-shelves, 'A thousand
+dollars! That is too much money to have in one's house'; that she, Judy,
+thought so too, and being frightened at what she had seen, had crept
+away as silently as she had entered and run away to tell the neighbours.
+Happily, I was the first she found up that morning, but I have no doubt
+that, in spite of my express injunctions, she has since related the news
+to half the people in town."
+
+"Was the young woman down yonder present when Judy told this story?"
+asked the coroner, pointing towards the yard.
+
+Mr. Sutherland pondered. "Possibly; I do not remember. Frederick was
+seated at the table with me, and my housekeeper was pouring out the
+coffee, but it was early for Miss Page. She has been putting on great
+airs of late."
+
+"Can it be possible he is trying to blind himself to the fact that his
+son Frederick wishes to marry this girl?" muttered the clergyman into
+the constable's ear.
+
+The constable shook his head. Mr. Sutherland was one of those debonair
+men, whose very mildness makes them impenetrable.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SPOT ON THE LAWN
+
+
+The coroner, on leaving the house, was followed by Mr. Sutherland. As
+the fine figures of the two men appeared on the doorstep, a faint cheer
+was heard from the two or three favoured persons who were allowed to
+look through the gate. But to this token of welcome neither gentleman
+responded by so much as a look, all their attention being engrossed by
+the sight of the solitary figure of Miss Page, who still held her stand
+upon the lawn. Motionless as a statue, but with her eyes fixed upon
+their faces, she awaited their approach. When they were near her she
+thrust one hand from under her cloak, and pointing to the grass at her
+feet, said quietly:
+
+"See this?"
+
+They hastened towards her and bent down to examine the spot she
+indicated.
+
+"What do you find there?" cried Mr. Sutherland, whose eyesight was not
+good.
+
+"Blood," responded the coroner, plucking up a blade of grass and
+surveying it closely.
+
+"Blood," echoed Miss Page, with so suggestive a glance that Mr.
+Sutherland stared at her in amazement, not understanding his own
+emotion.
+
+"How were you able to discern a stain so nearly imperceptible?" asked
+the coroner.
+
+"Imperceptible? It is the only thing I see in the whole yard," she
+retorted, and with a slight bow, which was not without its element of
+mockery, she turned toward the gate.
+
+"A most unaccountable girl," commented the doctor. "But she is right
+about these stains. Abel," he called to the man at the gate, "bring a
+box or barrel here and cover up this spot. I don't want it disturbed by
+trampling feet."
+
+Abel started to obey, just as the young girl laid her hand on the gate
+to open it.
+
+"Won't you help me?" she asked. "The crowd is so great they won't let me
+through."
+
+"Won't they?" The words came from without. "Just slip out as I slip in,
+and you'll find a place made for you."
+
+Not recognising the voice, she hesitated for a moment, but seeing the
+gate swaying, she pushed against it just as a young man stepped through
+the gap. Necessarily they came face to face.
+
+"Ah, it's you," he muttered, giving her a sharp glance.
+
+"I do not know you," she haughtily declared, and slipped by him with
+such dexterity she was out of the gate before he could respond.
+
+But he only snapped his finger and thumb mockingly at her, and smiled
+knowingly at Abel, who had lingered to watch the end of this encounter.
+
+"Supple as a willow twig, eh?" he laughed. "Well, I have made whistles
+out of willows before now, and hallo! where did you get that?"
+
+He was pointing to a rare flower that hung limp and faded from Abel's
+buttonhole.
+
+"This? Oh, I found it in the house yonder. It was lying on the floor of
+the inner room, almost under Batsy's skirts. Curious sort of flower. I
+wonder where she got it?"
+
+The intruder betrayed at once an unaccountable emotion. There was a
+strange glitter in his light green eyes that made Abel shift rather
+uneasily on his feet. "Was that before this pretty minx you have just
+let out came in here with Mr. Sutherland?"
+
+"O yes; before anyone had started for the hill at all. Why, what has
+this young lady got to do with a flower dropped by Batsy?"
+
+"She? Nothing. Only--and I have never given you bad advice, Abel--don't
+let that thing hang any longer from your buttonhole. Put it into an
+envelope and keep it, and if you don't hear from me again in regard to
+it, write me out a fool and forget we were ever chums when little
+shavers."
+
+The man called Abel smiled, took out the flower, and went to cover up
+the grass as Dr. Talbot had requested. The stranger took his place at
+the gate, toward which the coroner and Mr. Sutherland were now
+advancing, with an air that showed his great anxiety to speak with them.
+He was the musician whom we saw secretly entering the last-mentioned
+gentleman's house after the departure of the servants.
+
+As the coroner paused before him he spoke. "Dr. Talbot," said he,
+dropping his eyes, which were apt to betray his thoughts too plainly,
+"you have often promised that you would give me a job if any matter came
+up where any nice detective work was wanted. Don't you think the time
+has come to remember me?"
+
+"You, Sweetwater? I'm afraid the affair is too deep for an inexperienced
+man's first effort. I shall have to send to Boston for an expert.
+Another time, Sweetwater, when the complications are less serious."
+
+The young fellow, with a face white as milk, was turning away.
+
+"But you'll let me stay around here?" he pleaded, pausing and giving the
+other an imploring look.
+
+"O yes," answered the good-natured coroner. "Fenton will have work
+enough for you and half a dozen others. Go and tell him I sent you."
+
+"Thank you," returned the other, his face suddenly losing its aspect of
+acute disappointment. "Now I shall see where that flower fell," he
+murmured.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+"BREAKFAST IS SERVED, GENTLEMEN!"
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland returned home. As he entered the broad hall he met his
+son, Frederick. There was a look on the young man's face such as he had
+not seen there in years.
+
+"Father," faltered the youth, "may I have a few words with you?"
+
+The father nodded kindly, though it is likely he would have much
+preferred his breakfast; and the young man led him into a little
+sitting-room littered with the faded garlands and other tokens of the
+preceding night's festivities.
+
+"I have an apology to make," Frederick began, "or rather, I have your
+forgiveness to ask. For years" he went on, stumbling over his words,
+though he gave no evidence of a wish to restrain them--"for years I have
+gone contrariwise to your wishes and caused my mother's heart to ache
+and you to wish I had never been born to be a curse to you and her."
+
+He had emphasised the word mother, and spoke altogether with force and
+deep intensity. Mr. Sutherland stood petrified; he had long ago given up
+this lad as lost.
+
+"I--I wish to change. I wish to be as great a pride to you as I have
+been a shame and a dishonour. I may not succeed at once; but I am in
+earnest, and if you will give me your hand--"
+
+The old man's arms were round the young man's shoulders at once.
+
+"Frederick!" he cried, "my Frederick!"
+
+"Do not make me too much ashamed," murmured the youth, very pale and
+strangely discomposed. "With no excuse for my past, I suffer intolerable
+apprehension in regard to my future, lest my good intentions should fail
+or my self-control not hold out. But the knowledge that you are
+acquainted with my resolve, and regard it with an undeserved sympathy,
+may suffice to sustain me, and I should certainly be a base poltroon if
+I should disappoint you or her twice."
+
+He paused, drew himself from his father's arms, and glanced almost
+solemnly out of the window. "I swear that I will henceforth act as if
+she were still alive and watching me."
+
+There was strange intensity in his manner. Mr. Sutherland regarded him
+with amazement. He had seen him in every mood natural to a reckless man,
+but never in so serious a one, never with a look of awe or purpose in
+his face. It gave him quite a new idea of Frederick.
+
+"Yes," the young man went on, raising his right hand, but not removing
+his eyes from the distant prospect on which they were fixed, "I swear
+that I will henceforth do nothing to discredit her memory. Outwardly and
+inwardly, I will act as though her eye were still upon me and she could
+again suffer grief at my failures or thrill with pleasure at my
+success."
+
+A portrait of Mrs. Sutherland, painted when Frederick was a lad of ten,
+hung within a few feet of him as he spoke. He did not glance at it, but
+Mr. Sutherland did, and with a look as if he expected to behold a
+responsive light beam from those pathetic features.
+
+"She loved you very dearly," was his slow and earnest comment. "We have
+both loved you much more deeply than you have ever seemed to realise,
+Frederick."
+
+"I believe it," responded the young man, turning with an expression of
+calm resolve to meet his father's eye. "As proof that I am no longer
+insensible to your affection, I have made up my mind to forego for your
+sake one of the dearest wishes of my heart. Father" he hesitated before
+he spoke the word, but he spoke it firmly at last,--"am I right in
+thinking you would not like Miss Page for a daughter?"
+
+"Like my housekeeper's niece to take the place in this house once
+occupied by Marietta Sutherland? Frederick, I have always thought too
+well of you to believe you would carry your forgetfulness of me so far
+as that, even when I saw that you were influenced by her attractions."
+
+"You did not do justice to my selfishness, father. I did mean to marry
+her, but I have given up living solely for myself, and she could never
+help me to live for others. Father, Amabel Page must not remain in this
+house to cause division between you and me."
+
+"I have already intimated to her the desirability of her quitting a home
+where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman declared. "She
+leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning at the house of Mrs.
+Webb--who perhaps you do not know was most cruelly and foully murdered
+last night--was such as to cause comment and make her an undesirable
+adjunct to any gentleman's family."
+
+Frederick paled. Something in these words had caused him a great shock.
+Mr. Sutherland was fond enough to believe that it was the news of this
+extraordinary woman's death. But his son's words, as soon as he could
+find any, showed that his mind was running on Amabel, whom he perhaps
+had found it difficult to connect even in the remotest way with crime.
+
+"She at this place of death? How could that be? Who would take a young
+girl there?"
+
+The father, experiencing, perhaps, more compassion for this
+soon-to-be-disillusioned lover than he thought it incumbent upon him to
+show, answered shortly, but without any compromise of the unhappy truth:
+
+"She went; she was not taken. No one, not even myself, could keep her
+back after she had heard that a murder had been committed in the town.
+She even intruded into the house; and when ordered out of the room of
+death took up her stand in the yard in front, where she remained until
+she had the opportunity of pointing out to us a stain of blood on the
+grass, which might otherwise have escaped our attention."
+
+"Impossible!" Frederick's eye was staring; he looked like a man struck
+dumb by surprise or fear. "Amabel do this? You are mocking me, sir, or I
+may be dreaming, which may the good God grant."
+
+His father, who had not looked for so much emotion, eyed his son in
+surprise, which rapidly changed to alarm as the young man faltered and
+fell back against the wall.
+
+"You are ill, Frederick; you are really ill. Let me call down Mrs.
+Harcourt. But no, I cannot summon her. She is this girl's aunt."
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood up.
+
+"Do not call anybody," he entreated. "I expect to suffer some in casting
+this fascinating girl out of my heart. Ultimately I will conquer the
+weakness; indeed I will. As for her interest in Mrs. Webb's death"--how
+low his voice sank and how he trembled!" she may have been better
+friends with her than we had any reason to suppose. I can think of no
+other motive for her conduct. Admiration for Mrs. Webb and horror---"
+
+"Breakfast is served, gentlemen!" cried a thrilling voice behind them.
+Amabel Page stood smiling in the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"MARRY ME"
+
+
+"Wait a moment, I must speak to you." It was Amabel who was holding
+Frederick back. She had caught him by the arm as he was about leaving
+the room with his father, and he felt himself obliged to stop and
+listen.
+
+"I start for Springfield to-day," she announced. "I have another
+relative there living at the house. When shall I have the pleasure of
+seeing you in my new home?"
+
+"Never." It was said regretfully, and yet with a certain brusqueness,
+occasioned perhaps by over-excited feeling. "Hard as it is for me to say
+it, Amabel, it is but just for me to tell you that after our parting
+here to-day we will meet only as strangers. Friendship between us would
+be mockery, and any closer relationship has become impossible."
+
+It had cost him an immense effort to say these words, and he expected,
+fondly expected, I must admit, to see her colour change and her head
+droop. But instead of this she looked at him steadily for a moment, then
+slipped her hand down his arm till she reached his palm, which she
+pressed with sudden warmth, drawing him into the room as she did so, and
+shutting the door behind them. He was speechless, for she never had
+looked so handsome or so glowing. Instead of showing depression or
+humiliation even, she confronted him with a smile more dangerous than
+any display of grief, for it contained what it had hitherto lacked,
+positive and irresistible admiration. Her words were equally dangerous.
+
+"I kiss your hand, as the Spaniards say." And she almost did so, with a
+bend of her head, which just allowed him to catch a glimpse of two
+startling dimples.
+
+He was astounded. He thought he knew this woman well, but at this moment
+she was as incomprehensible to him as if he had never made a study of
+her caprices and sought an explanation for her ever-shifting
+expressions.
+
+"I am sensible of the honour," said he, "but hardly understand how I
+have earned it."
+
+Still that incomprehensible look of admiration continued to illumine her
+face.
+
+"I did not know I could ever think so well of you," she declared. "If
+you do not take care, I shall end by loving you some day."
+
+"Ah!" he ejaculated, his face contracting with sudden pain; "your love,
+then, is but a potentiality. Very well, Amabel, keep it so and you will
+be spared much misery. As for me, who have not been as wise as you---"
+
+"Frederick!" She had come so near he did not have the strength to
+finish. Her face, with its indefinable charm, was raised to his, as she
+dropped these words one by one from her lips in lingering cadence:
+"Frederick--do you love me, then, so very much?"
+
+He was angry; possibly because he felt his resolution failing him. "You
+know!" he hotly began, stepping back. Then with a sudden burst of
+feeling, that was almost like prayer, he resumed: "Do not tempt me,
+Amabel. I have trouble enough, without lamenting the failure of my first
+steadfast purpose."
+
+"Ah!" she said, stopping where she was, but drawing him toward her by
+every witchery of which her mobile features were capable; "your generous
+impulse has strengthened into a purpose, has it? Well, I'm not worth it,
+Frederick."
+
+More and more astounded, understanding her less than ever, but charmed
+by looks that would have moved an anchorite, he turned his head away in
+a vain attempt to escape an influence that was so rapidly undermining
+his determination.
+
+She saw the movement, recognised the weakness it bespoke, and in the
+triumph of her heart allowed a low laugh to escape her.
+
+Her voice, as I have before said, was unmusical though effective; but
+her laugh was deliciously sweet, especially when it was restrained to a
+mere ripple, as now.
+
+"You will come to Springfield soon," she avowed, slipping from before
+him so as to leave the way to the door open.
+
+"Amabel!" His voice was strangely husky, and the involuntary opening and
+shutting of his hands revealed the emotion under which he was labouring.
+"Do you love me? You have acknowledged it now and then, but always as if
+you did not mean it. Now you acknowledge that you may some day, and this
+time as if you did mean it. What is the truth? Tell me, without coquetry
+or dissembling, for I am in dead earnest, and---" He paused, choked, and
+turned toward the window where but a few minutes before he had taken
+that solemn oath. The remembrance of it seemed to come back with the
+movement. Flushing with a new agitation, he wheeled upon her sharply.
+"No, no," he prayed, "say nothing. If you swore you did not love me I
+should not believe it, and if you swore that you did I should only find
+it harder to repeat what must again be said, that a union between us can
+never take place. I have given my solemn promise to---"
+
+"Well, well. Why do you stop? Am I so hard to talk to that the words
+will not leave your lips?"
+
+"I have promised my father I will never marry you. He feels that he has
+grounds of complaint against you, and as I owe him everything---"
+
+He stopped amazed. She was looking at him intently, that same low laugh
+still on her lips.
+
+"Tell the truth," she whispered. "I know to what extent you consider
+your father's wishes. You think you ought not to marry me after what
+took place last night. Frederick, I like you for this evidence of
+consideration on your part, but do not struggle too relentlessly with
+your conscience. I can forgive much more in you than you think, and if
+you really love me---"
+
+"Stop! Let us understand each other." He had turned mortally pale, and
+met her eyes with something akin to alarm. "What do you allude to in
+speaking of last night? I did not know there was anything said by us in
+our talk together---"
+
+"I do not allude to our talk."
+
+"Or--or in the one dance we had---"
+
+"Frederick, a dance is innocent."
+
+The word seemed to strike him with the force of a blow.
+
+"Innocent," he repeated, "innocent?" becoming paler still as the full
+weight of her meaning broke gradually upon him.
+
+"I followed you into town," she whispered, coming closer, and breathing
+the words into his ear. "But what I saw you do there will not prevent me
+from obeying you if you say: 'Follow me wherever I go, Amabel;
+henceforth our lives are one.'"
+
+"My God!"
+
+It was all he said, but it seemed to create a gulf between them. In the
+silence that followed, the evil spirit latent beneath her beauty began
+to make itself evident even in the smile which no longer called into
+view the dimples which belong to guileless mirth, while upon his face,
+after the first paralysing effect of her words had passed, there
+appeared an expression of manly resistance that betrayed a virtue which
+as yet had never appeared in his selfish and altogether reckless life.
+
+That this was more than a passing impulse he presently made evident by
+lifting his hand and pushing her slowly back.
+
+"I do not know what you saw me do," said he; "but whatever it was, it
+can make no difference in our relations."
+
+Her whisper, which had been but a breath before, became scarcely
+audible.
+
+"I did not pause at the gate you entered," said she. "I went in after
+you."
+
+A gasp of irresistible feeling escaped him, but he did not take his eyes
+from her face.
+
+"It was a long time before you came out," she went on, "but previous to
+that time the shade of a certain window was thrust aside, and---"
+
+"Hush!" he commanded, in uncontrollable passion, pressing his hand with
+impulsive energy against her mouth. "Not another word of that, or I
+shall forget you are a woman or that I have ever loved you."
+
+Her eyes, which were all she had remaining to plead with, took on a
+peculiar look of quiet satisfaction, and power. Seeing it, he let his
+hand fall and for the first time began to regard her with anything but a
+lover's eyes.
+
+"I was the only person in sight at that time," she continued. "You have
+nothing to fear from the world at large."
+
+"Fear?"
+
+The word made its own echo; she had no need to emphasise it even by a
+smile. But she watched him as it sunk into his consciousness with an
+intentness it took all his strength to sustain. Suddenly her bearing and
+expression changed. The few remains of sweetness in her face vanished,
+and even the allurement which often lasts when the sweetness is gone,
+disappeared in the energy which now took possession of her whole
+threatening and inflexible personality.
+
+"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer of
+Agatha Webb."
+
+She had seen the death of love in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"A DEVIL THAT UNDERSTANDS MEN"
+
+
+Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he himself,
+perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments of stupefaction
+following the astounding alternative which had been given him, he broke
+out with the last sentence she probably expected to hear:
+
+"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your wishes
+you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"
+
+She met him on his own ground.
+
+"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret
+desire. "Can you ask a poor girl like me, born in a tenement house, but
+with tastes and ambitions such as are usually only given to those who
+can gratify them? I want to be the rich Mr. Sutherland's daughter;
+acknowledged or unacknowledged, the wife of one who can enter any house
+in Boston as an equal. With a position like that I can rise to anything.
+I feel that I have the natural power and aptitude. I have felt it since
+I was a small child."
+
+"And for that---" he began.
+
+"And for that," she broke in, "I am quite willing to overlook a blot on
+your record. Confident that you will never repeat the risk of last
+night, I am ready to share the burden of your secret through life. If
+you treat me well, I am sure I can make that burden light for you."
+
+With a quick flush and an increase of self-assertion, probably not
+anticipated by her, he faced the daring girl with a desperate resolution
+that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once got control of his
+body.
+
+"Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a devil."
+
+Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.
+
+"A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip of her
+dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not hesitate long
+over this matter; a week, perhaps."
+
+"I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my course
+easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."
+
+Still she was not abashed.
+
+"It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such unnecessary
+struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain of you then. This
+day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."
+
+He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage, shook her
+with a desperate hand.
+
+"Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his face,
+notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.
+
+"I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home just now
+I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain hollow tree, where
+you and I have held more than one tryst, conceals within its depths a
+package containing over one thousand dollars. Frederick, I hold your
+life in my hands."
+
+The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled upon
+his features, and recognising the impossibility of further concealing
+the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair and covered his
+face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of triumph, which
+brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it was to say:
+
+"If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set, well
+and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should be
+shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day. Now, if
+you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."
+
+He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.
+
+Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture of
+passion and elation.
+
+"You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our armistice
+lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me while any hope
+remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I have suggested."
+
+And still he did not move.
+
+"Frederick?"
+
+Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger snarl
+one moment and fawn the next?
+
+"Frederick, I have a final word to say--a last farewell. Up to this hour
+I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted them, for I
+always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the master of my heart.
+But now it is love that I feel, love; and love with me is no fancy, but
+a passion--do you hear?--a passion which will make life a heaven or hell
+for the man who has inspired it. You should have thought of this when
+you opposed me."
+
+And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery, she bent
+and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she was gone.
+
+Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil, he
+rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered that she had
+been detained in the hall by two or three men who had just come in by
+the front door.
+
+"Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.
+
+"Yes, I am Miss Page--Amabel Page" she replied with suave politeness.
+"If you have any business with me, state it quickly, for I am about to
+leave town."
+
+"That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man who
+seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over the
+remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard yourself as a
+possible witness."
+
+"Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide
+opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished child.
+"What have I got to do with it?"
+
+"You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and--well, the
+coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the town
+without running the risk of arrest"
+
+"Then I will stay in it," she smiled. "I have no liking for arrests,"
+and the glint of her eye rested for a moment on Frederick. "Mr.
+Sutherland," she continued, as that gentleman appeared at the
+dining-room door, "I shall have to impose upon your hospitality for a
+few days longer. These men here inform me that my innocent interest in
+pointing out to you that spot of blood on Mrs. Webb's lawn has awakened
+some curiosity, and that I am wanted as a witness by the coroner."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a quick stride, lessened the distance between
+himself and these unwelcome intruders. "The coroner's wishes are
+paramount just now," said he, but the look he gave his son was not soon
+forgotten by the spectators.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A GRAND WOMAN
+
+
+There was but one topic discussed in the country-side that day, and that
+was the life and character of Agatha Webb.
+
+Her history had not been a happy one. She and Philemon had come from
+Portchester some twenty or more years before to escape the sorrows
+associated with their native town. They had left behind them six small
+graves in Portchester churchyard; but though evidences of their
+affliction were always to be seen in the countenances of either, they
+had entered with so much purpose into the life of their adopted town
+that they had become persons of note there till Philemon's health began
+to fail, when Agatha quit all outside work and devoted herself
+exclusively to him. Of her character and winsome personality we can
+gather some idea from the various conversations carried on that day from
+Portchester Green to the shipyards in Sutherlandtown.
+
+In Deacon Brainerd's cottage, the discussion was concerning Agatha's
+lack of vanity; a virtue not very common at that time among the women of
+this busy seaport.
+
+"For a woman so handsome," the good deacon was saying "(and I think I
+can safely call her the finest-featured woman who ever trod these
+streets), she showed as little interest in dress as anyone I ever knew.
+Calico at home and calico at church, yet she looked as much of a lady in
+her dark-sprigged gowns as Mrs. Webster in her silks or Mrs. Parsons in
+her thousand-dollar sealskin."
+
+As this was a topic within the scope of his eldest daughter's
+intelligence she at once spoke up: "I never thought she needed to dress
+so plainly. I don't believe in such a show of poverty myself. If one is
+too poor to go decent, all right; but they say she had more money than
+most anyone in town. I wonder who is going to get the benefit of it?"
+
+"Why, Philemon, of course; that is, as long as he lives. He doubtless
+had the making of it."
+
+"Is it true that he's gone clean out of his head since her death?"
+interposed a neighbour who had happened in.
+
+"So they say. I believe widow Jones has taken him into her house."
+
+"Do you think," asked a second daughter with becoming hesitation, "that
+he had anything to do with her death? Some of the neighbours say he
+struck her while in one of his crazy fits, while others declare she was
+killed by some stranger, equally old and almost as infirm."
+
+"We won't discuss the subject," objected the deacon. "Time will show who
+robbed us of the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in these
+parts."
+
+"And will time show who killed Batsy?" It was a morsel of a girl who
+spoke; the least one of the family, but the brightest. "I'm sorry for
+Batsy; she always gave me cookies when I went to see Mrs. Webb."
+
+"Batsy was a good girl for a Swede," allowed the deacon's wife, who had
+not spoken till now. "When she first came into town on the spars of that
+wrecked ship we all remember, there was some struggle between Agatha and
+me as to which of us should have her. But I didn't like the task of
+teaching her the name of every pot and pan she had to use in the
+kitchen, so I gave her up to Agatha; and it was fortunate I did, for
+I've never been able to understand her talk to this day."
+
+"I could talk with her right well," lisped the little one. "She never
+called things by their Swedish names unless she was worried; and I never
+worried her."
+
+"I wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet, as
+she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife with just
+the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.
+
+"I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town," retorted
+his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.
+
+In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire Fisher
+was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I knew Agatha
+when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest manners and the
+most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's daughter between the
+coast and Springfield. She did not dress in calico then. She wore the
+gayest clothes her father could buy. her, and old Jacob was not without
+means to make his daughter the leading figure in town. How we young
+fellows did adore her, and what lengths we went to win one of her
+glorious smiles! Two of us, John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors
+for her sake to this very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I
+married and"--something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the
+sentence.
+
+"What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"
+
+"Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be sure.
+James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too, but he got
+into some difficulty--I never knew just what it was, but it was regarded
+as serious at the time--and that match was broken off. Afterwards she
+married Philemon. You see, I was out of it altogether; had never been in
+it, perhaps; but there were three good years of my life in which I
+thought of little else than Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There
+was something more taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as
+that was. She ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I
+have wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be
+satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing wits.
+But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from her lips;
+and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far transcended the
+haughtiness of those days when she had but to smile to have all the
+youth of Portchester at her feet."
+
+"I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her to a
+quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children, one after the
+other, without some modification taking place in her character."
+
+"Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a splendid
+looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women now."
+
+In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was nursing a
+baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.
+
+"I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she faltered;
+"I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer neighbours then than
+now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec being away at sea. I was too
+young to know much about sickness, but something told me that I must
+have help before morning or my baby would die. Though I could just walk
+across the floor, I threw a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms,
+and opened the door. A blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm
+was raging and I had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.
+
+"I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my knees as
+it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag myself inside.
+The baby began to moan and everything was turning dark before me, when I
+heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the roadway:
+
+"'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by? I
+cannot see my way down the hillside.'
+
+"With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the doorway,
+with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know her, but her face
+was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart. Holding up my baby, I
+cried:
+
+"'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees bent
+under me. Help me, as you are a mother--I--- '
+
+"I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I was lying by
+the hearth, looking up into her face, which was bending over me. She was
+white as the rag I had tied about my baby's throat, and by the way her
+breast heaved she was either very much frightened or very sorry.
+
+"'I wish you had the help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies perish in
+my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much as I yearn to.
+But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you what is the matter with
+it.'
+
+"I showed her the baby's face, and she bent over it, trembling very
+much, almost as much indeed as myself.
+
+"'It is very sick,' she said, 'but if you will use the remedies I
+advise, I think you can save it.' And she told me what to do, and helped
+me all she could; but she did not lay a finger on the little darling,
+though from the way she watched it I saw that her heart was set on his
+getting better. And he did; in an hour he was sleeping peacefully, and
+the terrible weight was gone from my heart and from hers. When the storm
+stopped, and she could leave the house, she gave me a kiss; but the look
+she gave him meant more than kisses. God must have forgotten her
+goodness to me that night when He let her die so pitiable a death."
+
+At the minister's house they were commenting upon the look of serenity
+observable in her dead face.
+
+"I have known her for thirty years," her pastor declared, "and never
+before have I seen her wear a look of real peace. It is wonderful,
+considering the circumstances. Do you think she was so weary of her
+life's long struggle that she hailed any release from it, even that of
+violence?"
+
+A young man, a lawyer, visiting them from New York, was the only one to
+answer.
+
+"I never saw the woman you are talking about," said he, "and know
+nothing of the circumstances of her death beyond what you have told me.
+But from the very incongruity between her expression and the violent
+nature of her death, I argue that there are depths to this crime which
+have not yet been sounded."
+
+"What depths? It is a simple case of murder followed by theft. To be
+sure we do not yet know the criminal, but money was his motive; that is
+clear enough."
+
+"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"
+
+This was a startling proposition to the minister.
+
+"You forget my cloth," said he.
+
+The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious to
+show how strong my conviction was against any such easy explanation of a
+crime marked by such contradictory features."
+
+Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish confidences.
+
+"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.
+
+"Naw! How should I?"
+
+"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't you
+know she had six children once, and that she killed every one of them?"
+
+"Killed'em--she?"
+
+"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there was a
+blight on her house--I don't know what that is; but I guess it's
+something big and heavy--and that it fell on every one of her children,
+as fast as they came, and killed 'em."
+
+"Then I'm glad I ben't her child."
+
+Very different were the recollections interchanged between two
+middle-aged Portchester women.
+
+"She was drinking tea at my house when her sister Sairey came running in
+with the news that the baby she had left at home wasn't quite right.
+That was her first child, you know."
+
+"Yes, yes, for I was with her when that baby came," broke in the other,
+"and such joy as she showed when they told her it was alive and well I
+never saw. I do not know why she didn't expect it to be alive, but she
+didn't, and her happiness was just wonderful to see."
+
+"Well, she didn't enjoy it long. The poor little fellow died young. But
+I was telling you of the night when she first heard he was ailing.
+Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were all laughing, when
+Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She always had the most brilliant
+eyes in the county, but that day they were superbly dazzling. They
+changed, though, at the sight of Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet
+her just as if she knew what Sairey was going to say before ever a word
+left her lips. 'My baby!' (I can hear her yet.) 'Something is the matter
+with the baby!' And though Sairey made haste to tell her that he was
+only ailing and not at all ill, she turned upon Philemon with a look
+none of us ever quite understood; he changed so completely under it,
+just as she had under Sairey's; and to neither did the old happiness
+ever return, for the child died within a week, and when the next came it
+died also, and the next, till six small innocents lay buried in yonder
+old graveyard."
+
+"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon were
+both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are past
+rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon---"
+
+"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."
+
+Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six gravestones
+raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead infants. He had been
+sent there to choose a spot in which to lay the mother, and was full of
+the shock it gave him to see that line of little stones, telling of a
+past with which the good people of Sutherlandtown found it hard to
+associate Philemon and Agatha Webb.
+
+"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to his old
+wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone. "I spend a
+good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I saw those six
+little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them, I couldn't help
+feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny headstone I read these
+words:"
+
+  STEPHEN,
+
+  Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,
+
+  Died, Aged Six Weeks.
+
+  God be merciful to me a sinner!
+
+"Now what does that mean? Did you ever hear anyone say?"
+
+"No," was his old wife's answer. "Perhaps she was one of those Calvinist
+folks who believe babies go to hell if they are not baptised."
+
+"But her children were all baptised. I've been told so; some of them
+before she was well out of her bed. 'God be merciful to me a sinner!'
+And the chick not six weeks old! Something queer about that, dame, if it
+did happen more than thirty years ago."
+
+"What did you see over the grave of the child who was killed in her arms
+by lightning?"
+
+"This:
+
+"'And he was not, for God took him.'"
+
+Farmer Waite had but one word to say:
+
+"She came to me when my Sissy had the smallpox; the only person in town
+who would enter my doors. More than that; when Sissy was up and I went
+to pay the doctor's bill I found it had been settled. I did not know
+then who had enough money and compassion to do this for me; now I do."
+
+Many an act of kindness which had been secretly performed in that town
+during the last twenty years came to light on that day, the most notable
+of which was the sending of a certain young lad to school and his
+subsequent education as a minister.
+
+But other memories of a sweeter and more secret nature still came up
+likewise, among them the following:
+
+A young girl, who was of a very timid but deeply sensitive nature, had
+been urged into an engagement with a man she did not like. Though the
+conflict this occasioned her and the misery which accompanied it were
+apparent to everybody, nobody stirred in her behalf but Agatha. She went
+to see her, and, though it was within a fortnight of the wedding, she
+did not hesitate to advise the girl to give him up, and when the poor
+child said she lacked the courage, Agatha herself went to the man and
+urged him into a display of generosity which saved the poor, timid thing
+from a life of misery. They say this was no easy task for Agatha, and
+that the man was sullen for a year. But the girl's gratitude was
+boundless.
+
+Of her daring, which was always on the side of right and justice, the
+stories were numerous; so were the accounts, mostly among the women, of
+her rare tenderness and sympathy for the weak and the erring. Never was
+a man talked to as she talked to Jake Cobleigh the evening after he
+struck his mother, and if she had been in town on the day when Clarissa
+Mayhew ran away with that Philadelphia adventurer many said it would
+never have happened, for no girl could stand the admonition, or resist
+the pleading, of this childless mother.
+
+It was reserved for Mr. Halliday and Mr. Sutherland to talk of her
+mental qualities. Her character was so marked and her manner so simple
+that few gave attention to the intellect that was the real basis of her
+power. The two mentioned gentlemen, however, appreciated her to the
+full, and it was while listening to their remarks that Frederick was
+suddenly startled by some one saying to him:
+
+"You are the only person in town who have nothing to say about Agatha
+Webb. Didn't you ever exchange any words with her?--for I can hardly
+believe you could have met her eye to eye without having some remark to
+make about her beauty or her influence."
+
+The speaker was Agnes Halliday, who had come in with her father for a
+social chat. She was one of Frederick's earliest playmates, but one with
+whom he had never assimilated and who did not like him. He knew this, as
+did everyone else in town, and it was with some hesitation he turned to
+answer her.
+
+"I have but one recollection," he began, and for the moment got no
+farther, for in turning his head to address his young guest he had
+allowed his gaze to wander through the open window by which she sat,
+into the garden beyond, where Amabel could be seen picking flowers. As
+he spoke, Amabel lifted her face with one of her suggestive looks. She
+had doubtless heard Miss Halliday's remark.
+
+Recovering himself with an effort, he repeated his words: "I have but
+one recollection of Mrs. Webb that I can give you. Years ago when I was
+a lad I was playing on the green with several other boys. We had had
+some dispute about a lost ball, and I was swearing angrily and loud when
+I suddenly perceived before me the tall form and compassionate face of
+Mrs. Webb. She was dressed in her usual simple way, and had a basket on
+her arm, but she looked so superior to any other woman I had ever met
+that I did not know whether to hide my face in her skirts or to follow
+my first impulse and run away. She saw the emotion she had aroused, and
+lifting up my face by the chin, she said: 'Little boy, I have buried six
+children, all of them younger than you, and now my husband and myself
+live alone. Often and often have I wished that one at least of these
+darling infants might have been spared us. But had God given me the
+choice of having them die young and innocent, or of growing up to swear
+as I have heard you to-day, I should have prayed God to take them, as He
+did. You have a mother. Do not break her heart by taking in vain the
+name of the God she reveres.' And with that she kissed me, and, strange
+as it may seem to you, in whatever folly or wickedness I have indulged,
+I have never made use of an oath from that day to this--and I thank God
+for it."
+
+There was such unusual feeling in his voice, a feeling that none had
+ever suspected him capable of before, that Miss Halliday regarded him
+with astonishment and quite forgot to indulge in her usual banter. Even
+the gentlemen sat still, and there was a momentary silence, through
+which there presently broke the incongruous sound of a shrill and
+mocking laugh.
+
+It came from Amabel, who had just finished gathering her bouquet in the
+garden outside.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+DETECTIVE KNAPP ARRIVES
+
+
+Meanwhile, in a small room at the court-house, a still more serious
+conversation was in progress. Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and a certain able
+lawyer in town by the name of Harvey, were in close discussion. The last
+had broken the silence of years, and was telling what he knew of Mrs.
+Webb's affairs.
+
+He was a shrewd man, of unblemished reputation. When called upon to
+talk, he talked well, but he much preferred listening, and was, as now
+appeared, the safest repository of secrets to be found in all that
+region. He had been married three times, and could still count thirteen
+children around his board, one reason, perhaps, why he had learned to
+cultivate silence to such a degree. Happily, the time had come for him
+to talk, and he talked. This is what he said:
+
+"Some fifteen years ago Philemon Webb came to me with a small sum of
+money, which he said he wished to have me invest for his wife. It was
+the fruit of a small speculation of his and he wanted it given
+unconditionally to her without her knowledge or that of the neighbours.
+I accordingly made out a deed of gift, which he signed with joyful
+alacrity, and then after due thought and careful investigation, I put
+the money into a new enterprise then being started in Boston. It was the
+best stroke of business I ever did in my life. At the end of a year it
+paid double, and after five had rolled away the accumulated interest had
+reached such a sum that both Philemon and myself thought it wisest to
+let her know what she was worth and what was being done with the money.
+I was in hopes it would lead her to make some change in her mode of
+living, which seemed to me out of keeping with her appearance and mental
+qualifications; while he, I imagine, looked for something more important
+still--a smile on the face which had somehow lost the trick of
+merriment, though it had never acquired that of ill nature. But we did
+not know Agatha; at least I did not. When she learned that she was rich,
+she looked at first awestruck and then heart-pierced. Forgetting me, or
+ignoring me, it makes no matter which, she threw herself into Philemon's
+arms and wept, while he, poor faithful fellow, looked as distressed as
+if he had brought news of failure instead of triumphant success. I
+suppose she thought of her buried children, and what the money would
+have been to her if they had lived; but she did not speak of them, nor
+am I quite sure they were in her thoughts when, after the first
+excitement was over, she drew back and said quietly, but in a tone of
+strong feeling, to Philemon: 'You meant me a happy surprise, and you
+must not be disappointed. This is heart money; we will use it to make
+our townsfolk happy.' I saw him glance at her dress, which was a purple
+calico. I remember it because of that look and because of the sad smile
+with which she followed his glance. 'Can we not afford now,' he
+ventured, 'a little show of luxury, or at least a ribbon or so for this
+beautiful throat of yours?' She did not answer him; but her look had a
+rare compassion in it, a compassion, strange to say, that seemed to be
+expended upon him rather than upon herself. Philemon swallowed his
+disappointment. 'Agatha is right,' he said to me. 'We do not need
+luxury. I do not know how I so far forgot myself as to mention it.' That
+was ten years ago, and every day since then her property has increased.
+I did not know then, and I do not know now, why they were both so
+anxious that all knowledge of their good fortune should be kept from
+those about them; but that it was to be so kept was made very evident to
+me; and, notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary, I have
+refrained from uttering a word likely to give away their secret. The
+money, which to all appearance was the cause of her tragic and untimely
+death, was interest money which I was delegated to deliver her. I took
+it to her day before yesterday, and it was all in crisp new notes, some
+of them twenties, but most of them tens and fives. I am free to say
+there was not such another roll of fresh money in town."
+
+"Warn all shopkeepers to keep a sharp lookout for new bills in the money
+they receive," was Dr. Talbot's comment to the constable. "Fresh ten-and
+twenty-dollar bills are none too common in this town. And now about her
+will. Did you draw that up, Harvey?"
+
+"No. I did not know she had made one. I often spoke to her about the
+advisability of her doing so, but she always put me off. And now it
+seems that she had it drawn up in Boston. Could not trust her old friend
+with too many secrets, I suppose."
+
+"So you don't know how her money has been left?"
+
+"No more than you do."
+
+Here an interruption occurred. The door opened and a slim young man,
+wearing spectacles, came in. At sight of him they all rose.
+
+"Well?" eagerly inquired Dr. Talbot.
+
+"Nothing new," answered the young man, with a consequential air. "The
+elder woman died from loss of blood consequent upon a blow given by a
+small, three-sided, slender blade; the younger from a stroke of
+apoplexy, induced by fright."
+
+"Good! I am glad to hear my instincts were not at fault. Loss of blood,
+eh? Death, then, was not instantaneous?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Strange!" fell from the lips of his two listeners. "She lived, yet gave
+no alarm."
+
+"None that was heard," suggested the young doctor, who was from another
+town.
+
+"Or, if heard, reached no ears but Philemon's," observed the constable.
+"Something must have taken him up-stairs."
+
+"I am not so sure," said the coroner, "that Philemon is not answerable
+for the whole crime, notwithstanding our failure to find the missing
+money anywhere in the house. How else account for the resignation with
+which she evidently met her death? Had a stranger struck her, Agatha
+Webb would have struggled. There is no sign of struggle in the room."
+
+"She would have struggled against Philemon had she had strength to
+struggle. I think she was asleep when she was struck."
+
+"Ah! And was not standing by the table? How about the blood there,
+then?"
+
+"Shaken from the murderer's fingers in fright or disgust."
+
+"There was no blood on Philemon's fingers."
+
+"No; he wiped them on his sleeve."
+
+"If he was the one to use the dagger against her, where is the dagger?
+Should we not be able to find it somewhere about the premises?"
+
+"He may have buried it outside. Crazy men are supernaturally cunning."
+
+"When you can produce it from any place inside that board fence, I will
+consider your theory. At present I limit my suspicions of Philemon to
+the half-unconscious attentions which a man of disordered intellect
+might give a wife bleeding and dying under his eyes. My idea on the
+subject is---"
+
+"Would you be so kind as not to give utterance to your ideas until I
+have been able to form some for myself?" interrupted a voice from the
+doorway.
+
+As this voice was unexpected, they all turned. A small man with sleek
+dark hair and expressionless features stood before them. Behind him was
+Abel, carrying a hand-bag and umbrella.
+
+"The detective from Boston," announced the latter. Coroner Talbot rose.
+
+"You are in good time," he remarked. "We have work of no ordinary nature
+for you."
+
+The man failed to look interested. But then his countenance was not one
+to show emotion.
+
+"My name is Knapp," said he. "I have had my supper, and am ready to go
+to work. I have read the newspapers; all I want now is any additional
+facts that have come to light since the telegraphic dispatches were sent
+to Boston. Facts, mind you; not theories. I never allow myself to be
+hampered by other persons' theories."
+
+Not liking his manner, which was brusque and too self-important for a
+man of such insignificant appearance, Coroner Talbot referred him to Mr.
+Fenton, who immediately proceeded to give him the result of such
+investigations as he and his men had been able to make; which done, Mr.
+Knapp put on his hat and turned toward the door.
+
+"I will go to the house and see for myself what is to be learned there,"
+said he. "May I ask the privilege of going alone?" he added, as Mr.
+Fenton moved. "Abel will see that I am given admittance."
+
+"Show me your credentials," said the coroner. He did so. "They seem all
+right, and you should be a man who understands his business. Go alone,
+if you prefer, but bring your conclusions here. They may need some
+correcting."
+
+"Oh, I will return," Knapp nonchalantly remarked, and went out, having
+made anything but a favourable impression upon the assembled gentlemen.
+
+"I wish we had shown more grit and tried to handle this thing
+ourselves," observed Mr. Fenton. "I cannot bear to think of that cold,
+bloodless creature hovering over our beloved Agatha."
+
+"I wonder at Carson. Why should he send us such a man? Could he not see
+the matter demanded extraordinary skill and judgment?"
+
+"Oh, this fellow may have skill. But he is so unpleasant. I hate to deal
+with folks of such fish-like characteristics. But who is this?" he asked
+as a gentle tap was heard at the door. "Why, it's Loton. What can he
+want here?"
+
+The man whose presence in the doorway had called out this exclamation
+started at the sound of the doctor's heavy voice, and came very
+hesitatingly forward. He was of a weak, irritable type, and seemed to be
+in a state of great excitement.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he, "for showing myself. I don't like to intrude
+into such company, but I have something to tell you which may be of use,
+sirs, though it isn't any great thing, either."
+
+"Something about the murder which has taken place?" asked the coroner,
+in a milder tone. He knew Loton well, and realised the advisability of
+encouragement in his case.
+
+"The murder! Oh, I wouldn't presume to say anything about the murder.
+I'm not the man to stir up any such subject as that. It's about the
+money--or some money--more money than usually falls into my till. It--it
+was rather queer, sirs, and I have felt the flutter of it all day. Shall
+I tell you about it? It happened last night, late last night, sirs, so
+late that I was in bed with my wife, and had been snoring, she said,
+four hours."
+
+"What money? New money? Crisp, fresh bills, Loton?" eagerly questioned
+Mr. Fenton.
+
+Loton, who was the keeper of a small confectionery and bakery store on
+one of the side streets leading up the hill, shifted uneasily between
+his two interrogators, and finally addressed himself to the coroner:
+
+"It was new money. I thought it felt so at night, but I was sure of it
+in the morning. A brand-new bill, sir, a--But that isn't the queerest
+thing about it. I was asleep, sir, sound asleep, and dreaming of my
+courting days (for I asked Sally at the circus, sirs, and the band
+playing on the hill made me think of it), when I was suddenly shook
+awake by Sally herself, who says she hadn't slept a wink for listening
+to the music and wishing she was a girl again. 'There's a man at the
+shop door,' cries she. 'He's a-calling of you; go and see what he
+wants.' I was mad at being wakened. Dreaming is pleasant, specially when
+clowns and kissing get mixed up in it, but duty is duty, and so into the
+shop I stumbled, swearing a bit perhaps, for I hadn't stopped for a
+light and it was as dark as double shutters could make it. The hammering
+had become deafening. No let up till I reached the door, when it
+suddenly ceased.
+
+"'What is it?' I cried. 'Who's there and what do you want?'
+
+"A trembling voice answered me. 'Let me in,' it said. 'I want to buy
+something to eat. For God's sake, open the door!'
+
+"I don't know why I obeyed, for it was late, and I did not know the
+voice, but something in the impatient rattling of the door which
+accompanied the words affected me in spite of myself, and I slowly
+opened my shop to this midnight customer.
+
+"'You must be hungry,' I began. But the person who had crowded in as
+soon as the opening was large enough wouldn't let me finish.
+
+"'Bread! I want bread, or crackers, or anything that you can find
+easiest,' he gasped, like a man who had been running. 'Here's money';
+and he poked into my hand a bill so stiff that it rattled. 'It's more
+than enough,' he hastened to say, as I hesitated over it, 'but never
+mind that; I'll come for the change in the morning.'
+
+"'Who are you? I cried. 'You are not Blind Willy, I'm sure.'
+
+"But his only answer was 'Bread!' while he leaned so hard against the
+counter I felt it shake.
+
+"I could not stand that cry of 'Bread!' so I groped about in the dark,
+and found him a stale loaf, which I put into his arms, with a short,
+'There! Now tell me what your name is.'
+
+"But at this he seemed to shrink into himself; and muttering something
+that might pass for thanks, he stumbled towards the door and rushed
+hastily out. Running after him, I listened eagerly to his steps. They
+went up the hill."
+
+"And the money? What about the money?" asked the coroner. "Didn't he
+come back for the change?"
+
+"No. I put it in the till, thinking it was a dollar bill. But when I
+came to look at it in the morning, it was a twenty; yes, sirs, a
+twenty!"
+
+This was startling. The coroner and the constable looked at each other
+before looking again at him.
+
+"And where is that bill now?" asked the former. "Have you brought it
+with you?"
+
+"I have, sir. It's been in and out of the till twenty times to-day. I
+haven't known what to do with it. I don't like to think wrong of
+anybody, but when I heard that Mrs. Webb (God bless her!) was murdered
+last night for money, I couldn't rest for the weight of this thing on my
+conscience. Here's the bill, sir. I wish I had let the old man rap on my
+door till morning before I had taken it from him."
+
+They did not share this feeling. A distinct and valuable clew seemed to
+be afforded them by the fresh, crisp bill they saw in his hand. Silently
+Dr. Talbot took it, while Mr. Fenton, with a shrewd look, asked:
+
+"What reasons have you for calling this mysterious customer old? I
+thought it was so dark you could not see him."
+
+The man, who looked relieved since he had rid himself of the bill, eyed
+the constable in some perplexity.
+
+"I didn't see a feature of his face," said he, "and yet I'm sure he was
+old. I never thought of him as being anything else."
+
+"Well, we will see. And is that all you have to tell us?"
+
+His nod was expressive, and they let him go.
+
+An hour or so later Detective Knapp made his reappearance.
+
+"Well," asked the coroner, as he came quietly in and closed the door
+behind him, "what's your opinion?"
+
+"Simple case, sir. Murdered for money. Find the man with a flowing
+beard."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE MAN WITH A BEARD
+
+
+There were but few men in town who wore long beards. A list was made of
+these and handed to the coroner, who regarded it with a grim smile.
+
+"Not a man whose name is here would be guilty of a misdemeanour, let
+alone a crime. You must look outside of our village population for the
+murderer of Agatha Webb."
+
+"Very likely, but tell me something first about these persons," urged
+Knapp. "Who is Edward Hope?"
+
+"A watch repairer; a man of estimable character."
+
+"And Sylvester Chubb?"
+
+"A farmer who, to support his mother, wife, and seven children, works
+from morning till sundown on his farm, and from sundown till 11 o'clock
+at night on little fancy articles he cuts out from wood and sells in
+Boston."
+
+"John Barker, Thomas Elder, Timothy Sinn?"
+
+"All good men; I can vouch for every one of them."
+
+"And John Zabel, James Zabel?"
+
+"Irreproachable, both of them. Famous ship--builders once, but the change
+to iron ship-building has thrown them out of business. Pity, too, for
+they were remarkable builders. By the by, Fenton, we don't see them at
+church or on the docks any more."
+
+"No, they keep very much to themselves; getting old, like ourselves,
+Talbot."
+
+"Lively boys once. We must hunt them up, Fenton. Can't bear to see old
+friends drop away from good company. But this isn't business. You need
+not pause over their names, Knapp."
+
+But Knapp had slipped out.
+
+We will follow him.
+
+Walking briskly down the street, he went up the steps of a certain house
+and rang the bell. A gentleman with a face not entirely unknown to us
+came to the door.
+
+The detective did not pause for preliminaries.
+
+"Are you Mr. Crane?" he asked,--"the gentleman who ran against a man
+coming out of Mrs. Webb's house last night?"
+
+"I am Mr. Crane," was the slightly surprised rejoinder, "and I was run
+against by a man there, yes."
+
+"Very well," remarked the detective, quietly, "my name is Knapp. I have
+been sent from Boston to look into this matter, and I have an idea that
+you can help me more than any other man here in Sutherlandtown. Who was
+this person who came in contact with you so violently? You know, even if
+you have been careful not to mention any names."
+
+"You are mistaken. I don't know; I can't know. He wore a sweeping beard,
+and walked and acted like a man no longer young, but beyond that---"
+
+"Mr. Crane, excuse me, but I know men. If you had no suspicion as to
+whom that person was you would not look so embarrassed. You suspect, or,
+at least, associate in your own mind a name with the man you met. Was it
+either of these you see written here?"
+
+Mr. Crane glanced at the card on which the other had scribbled a couple
+of names, and started perceptibly.
+
+"You have me," said he; "you must be a man of remarkable perspicacity."
+
+The detective smiled and pocketed his card. The names he thus concealed
+were John Zabel, James Zabel.
+
+"You have not said which of the two it was," Knapp quietly suggested.
+
+"No," returned the minister, "and I have not even thought. Indeed, I am
+not sure that I have not made a dreadful mistake in thinking it was
+either. A glimpse such as I had is far from satisfactory; and they are
+both such excellent men---"
+
+"Eight! You did make a mistake, of course, I have not the least doubt of
+it. So don't think of the matter again. I will find out who the real man
+was; rest easy."
+
+And with the lightest of bows, Knapp drew off and passed as quickly as
+he could, without attracting attention, round the corner to the
+confectioner's.
+
+Here his attack was warier. Sally Loton was behind the counter with her
+husband, and they had evidently been talking the matter over very
+confidentially. But Knapp was not to be awed by her small, keen eye or
+strident voice, and presently succeeded in surprising a knowing look on
+the lady's face, which convinced him that in the confidences between
+husband and wife a name had been used which she appeared to be less
+unwilling to impart than he. Knapp, consequently, turned his full
+attention towards her, using in his attack that oldest and subtlest
+weapon against the sex--flattery.
+
+"My dear madam," said he, "your good heart is apparent; your husband has
+confided to you a name which you, out of fear of some mistake, hesitate
+to repeat. A neighbourly spirit, ma'am, a very neighbourly spirit; but
+you should not allow your goodness to defeat the ends of justice. If you
+simply told us whom this man resembled we would be able to get some idea
+of his appearance."
+
+"He didn't resemble anyone I know," growled Loton. "It was too dark for
+me to see how he looked."
+
+"His voice, then? People are traced by their voices."
+
+"I didn't recognise his voice."
+
+Knapp smiled, his eye still on the woman.
+
+"Yet you have thought of someone he reminded you of?"
+
+The man was silent, but the wife tossed her head ever so lightly.
+
+"Now, you must have had your reasons for that. No one thinks of a good
+and respectable neighbour in connection with the buying of a loaf of
+bread at midnight with a twenty-dollar bill, without some positive
+reason."
+
+"The man wore a beard. I felt it brush my hand as he took the loaf."
+
+"Good! That is a point."
+
+"Which made me think of other men who wore beards."
+
+"As, for instance---"
+
+The detective had taken from his pocket the card which he had used with
+such effect at the minister's, and as he said these words twirled it so
+that the two names written upon it fell under Sally Loton's inquisitive
+eyes. The look with which she read them was enough. John Zabel, James
+Zabel.
+
+"Who told you it was either of these men?" she asked.
+
+"You did," he retorted, pocketing the card with a smile.
+
+"La, now! Samuel, I never spoke a word," she insisted, in anxious
+protest to her husband, as the detective slid quietly from the store.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+WATTLES COMES
+
+
+The Hallidays lived but a few rods from the Sutherlands. Yet as it was
+dusk when Miss Halliday rose to depart, Frederick naturally offered his
+services as her escort.
+
+She accepted them with a slight blush, the first he had ever seen on her
+face, or at least had ever noted there. It caused him such surprise that
+he forgot Amabel's presence in the garden till they came upon her at the
+gate.
+
+"A pleasant evening," observed that young girl in her high, unmusical
+voice.
+
+"Very," was Miss Halliday's short reply; and for a moment the two faces
+were in line as he held open the gate before his departing guest.
+
+They were very different faces in feature and expression, and till that
+night he had never thought of comparing them. Indeed, the fascination
+which beamed from Amabel Page's far from regular features had put all
+others out of his mind, but now, as he surveyed the two girls, the
+candour and purity which marked Agnes's countenance came out so strongly
+under his glance that Amabel lost all attraction for him, and he drew
+his young neighbour hastily away.
+
+Amabel noted the movement and smiled. Her contempt for Agnes Halliday's
+charms amounted to disdain.
+
+She might have felt less confidence in her own had she been in a
+position to note the frequent glances Frederick cast at his old playmate
+as they proceeded slowly up the road. Not that there was any passion in
+them--he was too full of care for that; but the curiosity which could
+prompt him to turn his head a dozen times in the course of so short a
+walk, to see why Agnes Halliday held her face so persistently away from
+him, had an element of feeling in it that was more or less significant.
+As for Agnes, she was so unlike her accustomed self as to astonish even
+herself. Whereas she had never before walked a dozen steps with him
+without indulging in some sharp saying, she found herself disinclined to
+speak at all, much less to speak lightly. In mutual silence, then, they
+reached the gateway leading into the Halliday grounds. But Agnes having
+passed in, they both stopped and for the first time looked squarely at
+each other. Her eyes fell first, perhaps because his had changed in his
+contemplation of her. He smiled as he saw this, and in a half-careless,
+half-wistful tone, said quietly:
+
+"Agnes, what would you think of a man who, after having committed little
+else but folly all his life, suddenly made up his mind to turn
+absolutely toward the right and to pursue it in face of every obstacle
+and every discouragement?"
+
+"I should think," she slowly replied, with one quick lift of her eyes
+toward his face, "that he had entered upon the noblest effort of which
+man is capable, and the hardest. I should have great sympathy for that
+man, Frederick."
+
+"Would you?" he said, recalling Amabel's face with bitter aversion as he
+gazed into the womanly countenance he had hitherto slighted as
+uninteresting. "It is the first kind word you have ever given me, Agnes.
+Possibly it is the first I have ever deserved."
+
+And without another word he doffed his hat, saluted her, and vanished
+down the hillside.
+
+She remained; remained so long that it was nearly nine when she entered
+the family parlour. As she came in her mother looked up and was startled
+at her unaccustomed pallor.
+
+"Why, Agnes," cried her mother, "what is the matter?"
+
+Her answer was inaudible. What was the matter? She dreaded, even feared,
+to ask herself.
+
+Meantime a strange scene was taking place in the woods toward which she
+had seen Frederick go. The moon, which was particularly bright that
+night, shone upon a certain hollow where a huge tree lay. Around it the
+underbrush was thick and the shadow dark, but in this especial place the
+opening was large enough for the rays to enter freely. Into this circlet
+of light Frederick Sutherland had come. Alone and without the restraint
+imposed upon him by watching eyes, he showed a countenance so wan and
+full of trouble that it was well it could not be seen by either of the
+two women whose thoughts were at that moment fixed upon him. To Amabel
+it would have given a throb of selfish hope, while to Agnes it would
+have brought a pang of despair which might have somewhat too suddenly
+interpreted to her the mystery of her own sensations.
+
+He had bent at once to the hollow space made by the outspreading roots
+just mentioned, and was feeling with an air of confidence along the
+ground for something he had every reason to expect to find, when the
+shock of a sudden distrust seized him, and he flung himself down in
+terror, feeling and feeling again among the fallen leaves and broken
+twigs, till a full realisation of his misfortune reached him, and he was
+obliged to acknowledge that the place was empty.
+
+Overwhelmed at his loss, aghast at the consequences it must entail upon
+him, he rose in a trembling sweat, crying out in his anger and dismay:
+
+"She has been here! She has taken it!" And realising for the first time
+the subtlety and strength of the antagonist pitted against him, he
+forgot his new resolutions and even that old promise made in his
+childhood to Agatha Webb, and uttered oath after oath, cursing himself,
+the woman, and what she had done, till a casual glance at the heavens
+overhead, in which the liquid moon hung calm and beautiful, recalled him
+to himself. With a sense of shame, the keener that it was a new
+sensation in his breast, he ceased his vain repinings, and turning from
+the unhallowed spot, made his way with deeper and deeper misgivings
+toward a home made hateful to him now by the presence of the woman who
+was thus bent upon his ruin.
+
+He understood her now. He rated at its full value both her determination
+and her power, and had she been so unfortunate as to have carried her
+imprudence to the point of surprising him by her presence, it would have
+taken more than the memory of that day's solemn resolves to have kept
+him from using his strength against her. But she was wise, and did not
+intrude upon him in his hour of anger, though who could say she was not
+near enough to hear the sigh which broke irresistibly from his lips as
+he emerged from the wood and approached his father's house?
+
+A lamp was still burning in Mr. Sutherland's study over the front door,
+and the sight of it seemed to change for a moment the current of
+Frederick's thoughts. Pausing at the gate, he considered with himself,
+and then with a freer countenance and a lighter step was about to
+proceed inward, when he heard the sound of a heavy breather coming up
+the hill, and hesitated--why he hardly knew, except that every advancing
+step occasioned him more or less apprehension.
+
+The person, whoever it was, stopped before reaching the brow of the
+hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick heard.
+Though it was no more profane than those which had just escaped his own
+lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him which was only second
+in intensity to the terror of the discovery that the money he had so
+safely hidden was gone.
+
+Trembling in every limb, he dashed down the hill and confronted the
+person standing there.
+
+"You!" he cried, "you!" And for a moment he looked as if he would like
+to fell to the ground the man before him.
+
+But this man was a heavyweight of no ordinary physical strength and
+adroitness, and only smiled at Frederick's heat and threatening
+attitude.
+
+"I thought I would be made welcome," he smiled, with just the hint of
+sinister meaning in his tone. Then, before Frederick could speak: "I
+have merely saved you a trip to Boston; why so much anger, friend? You
+have the money; of that I am positive."
+
+"Hush! We can't talk here," whispered Frederick. "Come into the grounds,
+or, what would be better, into the woods over there."
+
+"I don't go into any woods with you," laughed the other; "not after last
+night, my friend. But I will talk low; that's no more than fair; I don't
+want to put you into any other man's power, especially if you have the
+money."
+
+"Wattles,"--Frederick's tone was broken, almost unintelligible,--"what
+do you mean by your allusion to last night? Have you dared to connect
+me---"
+
+"Pooh! Pooh!" interrupted the other, good-humouredly. "Don't let us
+waste words over a chance expression I may have dropped. I don't care
+anything about last night's work, or who was concerned in it. That's
+nothing to me. All I want, my boy, is the money, and that I want
+devilish bad, or I would not have run up here from Boston, when I might
+have made half a hundred off a countryman Lewis brought in from the
+Canada wilds this morning."
+
+"Wattles, I swear---"
+
+But the hand he had raised was quickly drawn down by the other.
+
+"Don't," said the older man, shortly. "It won't pay, Sutherland.
+Stage-talk never passed for anything with me. Besides, your white face
+tells a truer story than your lips, and time is precious. I want to take
+the 11 o'clock train back. So down with the cash. Nine hundred and
+fifty-five it is, but, being friends, we will let the odd five go."
+
+"Wattles, I was to bring it to you to-morrow, or was it the next day? I
+do not want to give it to you to-night; indeed, I cannot, but--Wattles,
+wait, stop! Where are you going?"
+
+"To see your father. I want to tell him that his son owes me a debt;
+that this debt was incurred in a way that lays him liable to arrest for
+forgery; that, bad as he thinks you, there are facts which can be picked
+up in Boston which would render Frederick Sutherland's continued
+residence under the parental roof impossible; that, in fact, you are a
+scamp of the first water, and that only my friendship for you has kept
+you out of prison so long. Won't that make a nice story for the old
+gentleman's ears!"
+
+"Wattles--I--oh, my God! Wattles, stop a minute and listen to me. I have
+not got the money. I had enough this morning to pay you, had it
+legitimately, Wattles, but it has been stolen from me and---"
+
+"I will also tell him," the other broke in, as quietly as if Frederick
+had not uttered a word, "that in a certain visit to Boston you lost five
+hundred dollars on one hand; that you lost it unfairly, not having a
+dollar to pay with; that to prevent scandal I became your security,
+with the understanding that I was to be paid at the end of ten days from
+that night; that you thereupon played again and lost four hundred and
+odd more, so that your debt amounted to nine hundred and fifty-five
+dollars; that the ten days passed without payment; that, wanting money,
+I pressed you and even resorted to a threat or two; and that, seeing me
+in earnest, you swore that the dollars should be mine within five days;
+that instead of remaining in Boston to get them, you came here; and that
+this morning at a very early hour you telegraphed that the funds were to
+hand and that you would bring them down to me to-morrow. The old
+gentleman may draw conclusions from this, Sutherland, which may make his
+position as your father anything but grateful to him. He may even--Ah,
+you would try that game, would you?"
+
+The young man had flung himself at the older man's throat as if he would
+choke off the words he saw trembling on his lips. But the struggle thus
+begun was short. In a moment both stood panting, and Frederick, with
+lowered head, was saying humbly:
+
+"I beg pardon, Wattles, but you drive me mad with your suggestions and
+conclusions. I have not got the money, but I will try and get it. Wait
+here."
+
+"For ten minutes, Sutherland; no longer! The moon is bright, and I can
+see the hands of my watch distinctly. At a quarter to ten, you will
+return here with the amount I have mentioned, or I will seek it at your
+father's hands in his own study."
+
+Frederick made a hurried gesture and vanished up the walk. Next moment
+he was at his father's study door.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WATTLES GOES
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was busily engaged with a law paper when his son entered
+his presence, but at sight of that son's face, he dropped the paper with
+an alacrity which Frederick was too much engaged with his own thoughts
+to notice.
+
+"Father," he began without preamble or excuse, "I am in serious and
+immediate need of nine hundred and fifty dollars. I want it so much that
+I ask you to make me a check for that amount to-night, conscious though
+I am that you have every right to deny me this request, and that my debt
+to you already passes the bound of presumption on my part and indulgence
+on yours. I cannot tell you why I want it or for what. That belongs to
+my past life, the consequences of which I have not yet escaped, but I
+feel bound to state that you will not be the loser by this material
+proof of confidence in me, as I shall soon be in a position to repay all
+my debts, among which this will necessarily stand foremost."
+
+The old gentleman looked startled and nervously fingered the paper he
+had let fall. "Why do you say you will soon be in a position to repay
+me? What do you mean by that?"
+
+The flash, which had not yet subsided from the young man's face, ebbed
+slowly away as he encountered his father's eye.
+
+"I mean to work," he murmured. "I mean to make a man of myself as soon
+as possible."
+
+The look which Mr. Sutherland gave him was more inquiring than
+sympathetic.
+
+"And you need this money for a start?" said he.
+
+Frederick bowed; he seemed to be losing the faculty of speech. The clock
+over the mantel had told off five of the precious moments.
+
+"I will give it to you," said his father, and drew out his check-book.
+But he did not hasten to open it; his eyes still rested on his son.
+
+"Now," murmured the young man. "There is a train leaving soon. I wish to
+get it away on that train."
+
+His father frowned with natural distrust.
+
+"I wish you would confide in me," said he.
+
+Frederick did not answer. The hands of the clock were moving on.
+
+"I will give it to you; but I should like to know what for."
+
+"It is impossible for me to tell you," groaned the young man, starting
+as he heard a step on the walk without.
+
+"Your need has become strangely imperative," proceeded the other. "Has
+Miss Page---"
+
+Frederick took a step forward and laid his hand on his father's arm.
+
+"It is not for her," he whispered. "It goes into other hands."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had turned over the document as his son approached,
+breathed more easily. Taking up his pen, he dipped it in the ink.
+Frederick watched him with constantly whitening cheek. The step on the
+walk had mounted to the front door.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty?" inquired the father.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty," answered the son.
+
+The judge, with a last look, stooped over the book. The hands of the
+clock pointed to a quarter to ten.
+
+"Father, I have my whole future in which to thank you," cried Frederick,
+seizing the check his father held out to him and making rapidly for the
+door. "I will be back before midnight." And he flung himself down-stairs
+just as the front door opened and Wattles stepped in.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the latter, as his eye fell on the paper fluttering in
+the other's hand, "I expected money, not paper."
+
+"The paper is good," answered Frederick, drawing him swiftly out of the
+house. "It has my father's signature upon it."
+
+"Your father's signature?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wattles gave it a look, then slowly shook his head at Frederick.
+
+"Is it as well done as the one you tried to pass off on Brady?"
+
+Frederick cringed, and for a moment looked as if the struggle was too
+much for him. Then he rallied and eying Wattles firmly, said:
+
+"You have a right to distrust me, but you are on the wrong track,
+Wattles. What I did once, I can never do again; and I hope I may live to
+prove myself a changed man. As for that check, I will soon prove its
+value in your eyes. Follow me up-stairs to my father."
+
+His energy--the energy of despair, no doubt seemed to make an impression
+on the other.
+
+"You might as well proclaim yourself a forger outright, as to force your
+father to declare this to be his signature," he observed.
+
+"I know it," said Frederick.
+
+"Yet you will run that risk?"
+
+"If you oblige me."
+
+Wattles shrugged his shoulders. He was a magnificent-looking man and
+towered in that old colonial hall like a youthful giant.
+
+"I bear you no ill will," said he. "If this represents money, I am
+satisfied, and I begin to think it does. But listen, Sutherland.
+Something has happened to you. A week ago you would have put a bullet
+through my head before you would have been willing to have so
+compromised yourself. I think I know what that something is. To save
+yourself from being thought guilty of a big crime you are willing to
+incur suspicion of a small one. It's a wise move, my boy, but look out!
+No tricks with me or my friendship may not hold. Meantime, I cash this
+check to-morrow." And he swung away through the night with a grand-opera
+selection on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+A FINAL TEMPTATION
+
+
+Frederick looked like a man thoroughly exhausted when the final echo of
+this hateful voice died away on the hillside. For the last twenty hours
+he had been the prey of one harrowing emotion after another, and human
+nature could endure no more without rest.
+
+But rest would not come. The position in which he found himself, between
+Amabel and the man who had just left, was of too threatening a nature
+for him to ignore. But one means of escape presented itself. It was a
+cowardly one; but anything was better than to make an attempt to stand
+his ground against two such merciless antagonists; so he resolved upon
+flight.
+
+Packing up a few necessaries and leaving a letter behind him for his
+father, he made his way down the stairs of the now darkened house to a
+door opening upon the garden. To his astonishment he found it unlocked,
+but, giving little heed to this in his excitement, he opened it with
+caution, and, with a parting sigh for the sheltering home he was about
+to leave forever, stepped from the house he no longer felt worthy to
+inhabit.
+
+His intention was to take the train at Portchester, and that he might
+reach that place without inconvenient encounters, he decided to proceed
+by a short cut through the fields. This led him north along the ridge
+that overlooks the road running around the base of the hill. He did not
+think of this road, however, or of anything, in fact, but the necessity
+of taking the very earliest train out of Portchester. As this left at
+3.30 A.M., he realised that he must hasten in order to reach it. But he
+was not destined to take it or any other train out of Portchester that
+night, for when he reached the fence dividing Mr. Sutherland's grounds
+from those of his adjoining neighbour, he saw, drawn up in the moonlight
+just at the point where he had intended to leap the fence, the form of a
+woman with one hand held out to stop him.
+
+It was Amabel.
+
+Confounded by this check and filled with an anger that was nigh to
+dangerous, he fell back and then immediately sprang forward.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he cried. "Don't you know that it is eleven
+o'clock and that my father requires the house to be closed at that
+hour?"
+
+"And you?" was her sole retort; "what are you doing here? Are you
+searching for flowers in the woods, and is that valise you carry the
+receptacle in which you hope to put your botanical specimens?"
+
+With a savage gesture he dropped the valise and took her fiercely by the
+shoulders.
+
+"Where have you hidden my money?" he hissed. "Tell me, or---"
+
+"Or what?" she asked, smiling into his face in a way that made him lose
+his grip.
+
+"Or--or I cannot answer for myself," he proceeded, stammering. "Do you.
+think I can endure everything from you because you are a woman? No; I
+will have those bills, every one of them, or show myself your master.
+Where are they, you incarnate fiend?"
+
+It was an unwise word to use, but she did not seem to heed it.
+
+"Ah," she said softly, and with a lingering accent, as if his grasp of
+her had been a caress to which she was not entirely averse. "I did not
+think you would discover its loss so soon. When did you go to the woods,
+Frederick? And was Miss Halliday with you?"
+
+He had a disposition to strike her, but controlled himself. Blows would
+not avail against the softness of this suave, yet merciless, being. Only
+a will as strong as her own could hope to cope with this smiling fury;
+and this he was determined to show, though, alas! he had everything to
+lose in a struggle that robbed her of nothing but a hope which was but a
+baseless fabric at best; for he was more than ever determined never to
+marry her.
+
+"A man does not need to wait long to miss his own," said he. "And if you
+have taken this money, which, you do not deny, you have shown yourself
+very short-sighted, for danger lies closer to the person holding this
+money than to the one you vilify by your threats. This you will find,
+Amabel, when you come to make use of the weapon with which you have
+thought to arm yourself."
+
+"Tut, tut!" was her contemptuous reply. "Do you consider me a child? Do
+I look like a babbling infant, Frederick?"
+
+Her face, which had been lifted to his in saying this, was so illumined,
+both by her smile, which was strangely enchanting for one so evil, and
+by the moonlight, which so etherialises all that it touches, that he
+found himself forced to recall that other purer, truer face he had left
+at the honeysuckle porch to keep down a last wild impulse toward her,
+which would have been his undoing, both in this world and the next, as
+he knew.
+
+"Or do I look simply like a woman?" she went on, seeing the impression
+she had made, and playing upon it. "A woman who understands herself and
+you and all the secret perils of the game we are both playing? If I am a
+child, treat me as a child; but if I am a woman---"
+
+"Stand out of my way!" he cried, catching up his valise and striding
+furiously by her. "Woman or child, know that I will not be your
+plaything to be damned in this world and in the next."
+
+"Are you bound for the city of destruction?" she laughed, not moving,
+but showing such confidence in her power to hold him back that he
+stopped in spite of himself. "If so, you are taking the direct road
+there and have only to hasten. But you had better remain in your
+father's house; even if you are something of a prisoner there, like my
+very insignificant self. The outcome will be more satisfactory, even if
+you have to share your future with me."
+
+"And what course will you take," he asked, pausing with his hand on the
+fence, "if I decide to choose destruction without you, rather than
+perdition with you?"
+
+"What course? Why, I shall tell Dr. Talbot just enough to show you to be
+as desirable a witness in the impending inquest as myself. The result I
+leave to your judgment. But you will not drive me to this extremity. You
+will come back and--"
+
+"Woman, I will never come back. I shall have to dare your worst in a
+week and will begin by daring you now. I--"
+
+But he did not leap the fence, though he made a move to do so, for at
+that moment a party of men came hurrying by on the lower road, one of
+whom was heard to say:
+
+"I will bet my head that we will put our hand on Agatha Webb's murderer
+to-night. The man who shoves twenty-dollar bills around so heedlessly
+should not wear a beard so long it leads to detection."
+
+It was the coroner, the constable, Knapp, and Abel on their way to the
+forest road on which lived John and James Zabel.
+
+Frederick and Amabel confronted each other, and after a moment's silence
+returned as if by a common impulse towards the house.
+
+"What have they got in their heads?" queried she. "Whatever it is, it
+may serve to occupy them till the week of your probation is over."
+
+He did not answer. A new and overwhelming complication had been added to
+the difficulties of his situation.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE ZABELS VISITED
+
+
+Let us follow the party now winding up the hillside.
+
+In a deeply wooded spot on a side road stood the little house to which
+John and James Zabel had removed when their business on the docks had
+terminated. There was no other dwelling of greater or lesser pretension
+on the road, which may account for the fact that none of the persons now
+approaching it had been in that neighbourhood for years, though it was
+by no means a long walk from the village in which they all led such busy
+lives.
+
+The heavy shadows cast by the woods through which the road meandered
+were not without their effect upon the spirits of the four men passing
+through them, so that long before they reached the opening in which the
+Zabel cottage stood, silence had fallen upon the whole party. Dr. Talbot
+especially looked as if he little relished this late visit to his old
+friends, and not till they caught a glimpse of the long sloping roof and
+heavy chimney of the Zabel cottage did he shake off the gloom incident
+to the nature of his errand.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, coming to a sudden halt, "let us understand each
+other. We are about to make a call on two of our oldest and most
+respectable townsfolk. If in the course of that call I choose to make
+mention of the twenty-dollar bill left with Loton, well and good, but if
+not, you are to take my reticence as proof of my own belief that they
+had nothing to do with it."
+
+Two of the party bowed; Knapp, only, made no sign.
+
+"There is no light in the window," observed Abel. "What if we find them
+gone to bed?"
+
+"We will wake them," said the constable. "I cannot go back without being
+myself assured that no more money like that given to Loton remains in
+the house."
+
+"Very well," remarked Knapp, and going up to the door before him, he
+struck a resounding knock sufficiently startling in that place of
+silence.
+
+But loud as the summons was it brought no answer. Not only the
+moon-lighted door, but the little windows on each side of it remained
+shut, and there was no evidence that the knock had been heard.
+
+"Zabel! John Zabel!" shouted the constable, stepping around the side of
+the house. "Get up, my good friends, and let an old crony in. James!
+John! Late as it is, we have business with you. Open the door; don't
+stop to dress."
+
+But this appeal received no more recognition than the first, and after
+rapping on the window against which he had flung the words, he came back
+and looked up and down the front of the house.
+
+It had a solitary aspect and was much less comfortable-looking than he
+had expected. Indeed, there were signs of poverty, or at least of
+neglect, about the place that astonished him. Not only had the weeds
+been allowed to grow over the doorstep, but from the unpainted front
+itself bits of boards had rotted away, leaving great gaps about the
+window-ledges and at the base of the sunken and well-nigh toppling
+chimney. The moon flooding the roof showed up all these imperfections
+with pitiless insistence, and the torn edges of the green paper shades
+that half concealed the rooms within were plainly to be seen, as well as
+the dismantled knocker which hung by one nail to the old cracked door.
+The vision of Knapp with his ear laid against this door added to the
+forlorn and sinister aspect of the scene, and gave to the constable, who
+remembered the brothers in their palmy days when they were the life and
+pride of the town, a by no means agreeable sensation, as he advanced
+toward the detective and asked him what they should do now.
+
+"Break down the door!" was the uncompromising reply. "Or, wait! The
+windows of country houses are seldom fastened; let me see if I cannot
+enter by some one of them."
+
+"Better not," said the coroner, with considerable feeling. "Let us
+exhaust all other means first." And he took hold of the knob of the door
+to shake it, when to his surprise it turned and the door opened. It had
+not been locked.
+
+Rather taken aback by this, he hesitated. But Knapp showed less scruple.
+Without waiting for any man's permission, he glided in and stepped
+cautiously, but without any delay, into a room the door of which stood
+wide open before him. The constable was about to follow when he saw
+Knapp come stumbling back.
+
+"Devilish work," he muttered, and drew the others in to see.
+
+Never will any of these men forget the sight that there met their eyes.
+
+On the floor near the entrance lay one brother, in a streak of
+moonlight, which showed every feature of his worn and lifeless face, and
+at a table drawn up in the centre of the room sat the other, rigid in
+death, with a book clutched in his hand.
+
+Both, had been dead some time, and on the faces and in the aspects of
+both was visible a misery that added its own gloom to the pitiable and
+gruesome scene, and made the shining of the great white moon, which
+filled every corner of the bare room, seem a mockery well-nigh
+unendurable to those who contemplated it. John, dead in his chair!
+James, dead on the floor!
+
+Knapp, who of all present was least likely to feel the awesome nature of
+the tragedy, was naturally the first to speak.
+
+"Both wear long beards," said he, "but the one lying on the floor was
+doubtless Loton's customer. Ah!" he cried, pointing at the table, as he
+carefully crossed the floor. "Here is the bread, and--" Even he had his
+moments of feeling. The appearance of that loaf had stunned him; one
+corner of it had been gnawed off.
+
+"A light! let us have a light!" cried Mr. Fenton, speaking for the first
+time since his entrance. "These moonbeams are horrible; see how they
+cling to the bodies as if they delighted in lighting up these wasted and
+shrunken forms."
+
+"Could it have been hunger?" began Abel, tremblingly following Knapp's
+every movement as he struck a match and lit a lantern which he had
+brought in his pocket.
+
+"God help us all if it was!" said Fenton, in a secret remorse no one but
+Dr. Talbot understood. "But who could have believed it of men who were
+once so prosperous? Are you sure that one of them has gnawed this bread?
+Could it not have been--"
+
+"These are the marks of human teeth," observed Knapp, who was examining
+the loaf carefully. "I declare, it makes me very uncomfortable,
+notwithstanding it's in the line of regular experiences." And he laid
+the bread down hurriedly.
+
+Meantime, Mr. Fenton, who had been bending over another portion of the
+table, turned and walked away to the window.
+
+"I am glad they are dead," he muttered. "They have at least shared the
+fate of their victims. Take a look under that old handkerchief lying
+beside the newspaper, Knapp."
+
+The detective did so. A three-edged dagger, with a curiously wrought
+handle, met his eye. It had blood dried on its point, and was, as all
+could see, the weapon with which Agatha Webb had been killed.
+
+
+
+
+XYI
+
+LOCAL TALENT AT WORK
+
+
+"Gentlemen, we have reached the conclusion of this business sooner than
+I expected," announced Knapp. "If you will give me just ten minutes I
+will endeavour to find that large remainder of money we have every
+reason to think is hidden away in this house."
+
+"Stop a minute," said the coroner. "Let me see what book John is holding
+so tightly. Why," he exclaimed, drawing it out and giving it one glance,
+"it is a Bible."
+
+Laying it reverently down he met the detective's astonished glance and
+seriously remarked:
+
+"There is some incongruity between the presence of this book and the
+deed we believe to have been performed down yonder."
+
+"None at all," quoth the detective. "It was not the man in the chair,
+but the one on the floor, who made use of that dagger. But I wish you
+had left it to me to remove that book, sir."
+
+"You? and why? What difference would it have made?"
+
+"I would have noticed between what pages his finger was inserted.
+Nothing like making yourself acquainted with every detail in a case like
+this."
+
+Dr. Talbot gazed wistfully at the book. He would have liked to know
+himself on what especial passage his friend's eyes had last rested.
+
+"I will stand aside," said he, "and hear your report when you are done."
+
+The detective had already begun his investigations.
+
+"Here is a spot of blood," said he. "See! on the right trouser leg of
+the one you call James. This connects him indisputably with the crime in
+which this dagger was used. No signs of violence on his body. She was
+the only one to receive a blow. His death is the result of God's
+providence."
+
+"Or man's neglect," muttered the constable.
+
+"There is no money in any of their pockets, or on either wasted figure,"
+the detective continued, after a few minutes of silent search. "It must
+be hidden in the room, or--look through that Bible, sirs."
+
+The coroner, glad of an opportunity to do something, took up the book,
+and ran hurriedly through its leaves, then turned it and shook it out
+over the table. Nothing fell out; the bills must be looked for
+elsewhere.
+
+"The furniture is scanty," Abel observed, with an inquiring look about
+him.
+
+"Very, very scanty," assented the constable, still with that biting
+remorse at his heart.
+
+"There is nothing in this cupboard," pursued the detective, swinging
+open a door in the wall, "but a set of old china more or less nicked."
+
+Abel started. An old recollection had come up. Some weeks before, he had
+been present when James had made an effort to sell this set. They were
+all in Warner's store, and James Zabel (he could see his easy attitude
+yet, and hear the off-hand tones with which he tried to carry the affair
+off) had said, quite as if he had never thought of it before: "By the
+by, I have a set of china at the house which came over in the Mayflower.
+John likes it, but it has grown to be an eyesore to me, and if you hear
+of anybody who has a fancy for such things, send him up to the cottage.
+I will let it go for a song." Nobody answered, and James disappeared. It
+was the last time, Abel remembered, that he had been seen about town.
+
+"I can't stand it," cried the lad. "I can't stand it. If they died of
+hunger I must know it. I am going to take a look at their larder." And
+before anyone could stop him he dashed to the rear of the house.
+
+The constable would have liked to follow him, but he looked about the
+walls of the room instead. John and James had been fond of pictures and
+had once indulged their fancy to the verge of extravagance, but there
+were no pictures on the walls now, nor was there so much as a
+candlestick on the empty and dust-covered mantel. Only on a bracket in
+one corner there was a worthless trinket made out of cloves and beads
+which had doubtless been given them by some country damsel in their
+young bachelor days. But nothing of any value anywhere, and Mr. Fenton
+felt that he now knew why they had made so many visits to Boston at one
+time, and why they always returned with a thinner valise than they took
+away. He was still dwelling on the thought of the depths of misery to
+which highly respectable folks can sink without the knowledge of the
+nearest neighbours, when Abel came back looking greatly troubled.
+
+"It is the saddest thing I ever heard of," said he. "These men must have
+been driven wild by misery. This room is sumptuous in comparison to the
+ones at the back; and as for the pantry, there is not even a scrap there
+a mouse could eat. I struck a match and glanced into the flour barrel.
+It looked as if it had been licked. I declare, it makes a fellow feel
+sick."
+
+The constable, with a shudder, withdrew towards the door.
+
+"The atmosphere here is stifling," said he. "I must have a breath of
+out-door air."
+
+But he was not destined to any such immediate relief. As he moved down
+the hall the form of a man darkened the doorway and he heard an anxious
+voice exclaim:
+
+"Ah, Mr. Fenton, is that you? I have been looking for you everywhere."
+
+It was Sweetwater, the young man who had previously shown so much
+anxiety to be of service to the coroner.
+
+Mr. Fenton looked displeased.
+
+"And how came you to find me here?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, some men saw you take this road, and I guessed the rest."
+
+"Oh, ah, very good. And what do you want, Sweetwater?"
+
+The young man, who was glowing with pride and all alive with an
+enthusiasm which he had kept suppressed for hours, slipped up to the
+constable and whispered in his ear: "I have made a discovery, sir. I
+know you will excuse the presumption, but I couldn't bring myself to
+keep quiet and follow in that other fellow's wake. I had to make
+investigations on my own account, and--and"--stammering in his eagerness
+"they have been successful, sir. I have found out who was the murderer
+of Agatha Webb."
+
+The constable, compassionating the disappointment in store for him,
+shook his head, with a solemn look toward the room from which he had
+just emerged. "You are late, Sweetwater," said he. "We have found him
+out ourselves, and he lies there, dead."
+
+It was dark where they stood and Sweetwater's back was to the moonlight,
+so that the blank look which must have crossed his face at this
+announcement was lost upon the constable. But his consternation was
+evident from the way he thrust out either hand to steady himself against
+the walls of the narrow passageway, and Mr. Fenton was not at all
+surprised to hear him stammer out:
+
+"Dead! He! Whom do you mean by he, Mr. Fenton?"
+
+"The man in whose house we now are," returned the other. "Is there
+anyone else who can be suspected of this crime?"
+
+Sweetwater gave a gulp that seemed to restore him to himself.
+
+"There are two men living here, both very good men, I have heard. Which
+of them do you mean, and why do you think that either John or James
+Zabel killed Agatha Webb?"
+
+For reply Mr. Fenton drew him toward the room in which such a great
+heart-tragedy had taken place.
+
+"Look," said he, "and see what can happen in a Christian land, in the
+midst of Christian people living not fifty rods away. These men are
+dead, Sweetwater, dead from hunger. The loaf of bread you see there came
+too late. It was bought with a twenty-dollar bill, taken from Agatha
+Webb's cupboard drawer."
+
+Sweetwater, to whom the whole scene seemed like some horrible nightmare,
+stared at the figure of James lying on the floor, and then at the figure
+of John seated at the table, as if his mind had failed to take in the
+constable's words.
+
+"Dead!" he murmured. "Dead! John and James Zabel. What will happen next?
+Is the town under a curse?" And he fell on his knees before the
+prostrate form of James, only to start up again as he saw the eyes of
+Knapp resting on him.
+
+"Ah," he muttered, "the detective!" And after giving the man from Boston
+a close look he turned toward Mr. Fenton.
+
+"You said something about this good old man having killed Agatha Webb.
+What was it? I was too dazed to take it in."
+
+Mr. Fenton, not understanding the young man's eagerness, but willing
+enough to enlighten him as to the situation, told him what reasons there
+were for ascribing the crime in the Webb cottage to the mad need of
+these starving men. Sweetwater listened with open eyes and confused
+bearing, only controlling himself when his eyes by chance fell upon the
+quiet figure of the detective, now moving softly to and fro through the
+room.
+
+"But why murder when he could have had his loaf for the asking?"
+remonstrated Sweetwater. "Agatha Webb would have gone without a meal any
+time to feed a wandering tramp; how much more to supply the necessities
+of two of her oldest and dearest friends!"
+
+"Yes," remarked Fenton, "but you forget or perhaps never knew that the
+master passion of these men was pride. James Zabel ask for bread! I can
+much sooner imagine him stealing it; yes, or striking a blow for it, so
+that the blow shut forever the eyes that saw him do it."
+
+"You don't believe your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?"
+Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke, and
+his manner was almost solemn. "You must not take it for granted," he
+went on, his green eyes twinkling with a curious light, "that all wisdom
+comes from Boston. We in Sutherlandtown have some sparks of it, if they
+have not yet been recognised. You are satisfied"--here he addressed
+himself to Knapp--"that the blow which killed Agatha Webb was struck by
+this respectable old man?"
+
+Knapp smiled as if a child had asked him this question; but he answered
+him good-humouredly enough.
+
+"You see the dagger lying here with which the deed was done, and you see
+the bread that was bought from Loton with a twenty-dollar bill of Agatha
+Webb's money. In these you can read my answer."
+
+"Good evidence," acknowledged Sweetwater--"very good evidence,
+especially when we remember that Mr. Crane met an old man rushing from
+her gateway with something glittering in his hand. I never was so beat
+in my life, and yet--and yet--if I could have a few minutes of quiet
+thought all by myself I am certain I could show you that there is more
+to this matter than you think. Indeed, I know that there is, but I do
+not like to give my reasons till I have conquered the difficulties
+presented by these men having had the twenty-dollar bill."
+
+"What fellow is this?" suddenly broke in Knapp.
+
+"A fiddler, a nobody," quietly whispered Mr. Fenton in his ear.
+
+Sweetwater heard him and changed in a twinkling from the uncertain,
+half-baffled, wholly humble person they had just seen, to a man with a
+purpose strong enough to make him hold up his head with the best.
+
+"I am a musician," he admitted, "and I play on the violin for money
+whenever the occasion offers, something which you will yet congratulate
+yourselves upon if you wish to reach the root of this mysterious and
+dastardly crime. But that I am a nobody I deny, and I even dare to hope
+that you will agree with me in this estimate of myself before this very
+night is over. Only give me an opportunity for considering this subject,
+and the permission to walk for a few minutes about this house."
+
+"That is my prerogative," protested the detective firmly, but without
+any display of feeling. "I am the man employed to pick up whatever clews
+the place may present."
+
+"Have you picked up all that are to be found in this room?" asked
+Sweetwater calmly.
+
+Knapp shrugged his shoulders. He was very well satisfied with himself.
+
+"Then give me a chance," prayed Sweetwater. "Mr. Fenton," he urged more
+earnestly, "I am not the fool you take me for. I feel, I know, I have a
+genius for this kind of thing, and though I am not prepossessing to look
+at, and though I do play the fiddle, I swear there are depths to this
+affair which none of you have as yet sounded. Sirs, where are the nine
+hundred and eighty dollars in bills which go to make up the clean
+thousand that was taken from the small drawer at the back of Agatha
+Webb's cupboard?"
+
+"They are in some secret hiding-place, no doubt, which we will presently
+come upon as we go through the house," answered Knapp.
+
+"Umph! Then I advise you to put your hand on them as soon as possible,"
+retorted Sweetwater. "I will confine myself to going over the ground you
+have already investigated." And with a sudden ignoring of the others'
+presence, which could only have sprung from an intense egotism or from
+an overwhelming belief in his own theory, he began an investigation of
+the room that threw the other's more commonplace efforts entirely in the
+shade.
+
+Knapp, with a slight compression of his lips, which was the sole
+expression of anger he ever allowed himself, took up his hat and made
+his bow to Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I see," said he, "that the sympathy of those present is with local
+talent. Let local talent work, then, sir, and when you feel the need of
+a man of training and experience, send to the tavern on the docks, where
+I will be found till I am notified that my services are no longer
+required."
+
+"No, no!" protested Mr. Fenton. "This boy's enthusiasm will soon
+evaporate. Let him fuss away if he will. His petty business need not
+interrupt us."
+
+"But he understands himself," whispered Knapp. "I should think he had
+been on our own force for years."
+
+"All the more reason to see what he's up to. Wait, if only to satisfy
+your curiosity. I shan't let many minutes go by before I pull him up."
+
+Knapp, who was really of a cold and unimpressionable temperament,
+refrained from further argument, and confined himself to watching the
+young man, whose movements seemed to fascinate him.
+
+"Astonishing!" Mr. Fenton heard him mutter to himself. "He's more like
+an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound himself out and
+in through that room, seeing everything that came under his eye, was a
+sight well worth any professional's attention. Pausing before the dead
+man on the floor, he held the lantern close to the white, worn face.
+"Ha!" said he, picking something from the long beard, "here's a crumb of
+that same bread. Did you see that, Mr. Knapp?"
+
+The question was so sudden and so sharp that the detective came near
+replying to it; but he bethought himself, and said nothing.
+
+"That settles which of the two gnawed the loaf," continued Sweetwater.
+
+The next minute he was hovering over the still more pathetic figure of
+John, sitting in the chair.
+
+"Sad! Sad!" he murmured.
+
+Suddenly he laid his finger on a small rent in the old man's faded vest.
+"You saw this, of course," said he, with a quick glance over his
+shoulder at the silent detective.
+
+No answer, as before.
+
+"It's a new slit," declared the officious youth, looking closer,
+"and--yes--there's blood on its edges. Here, take the lantern, Mr.
+Fenton, I must see how the skin looks underneath. Oh, gentlemen, no
+shirt! The poorest dockhand has a shirt! Brocaded vest and no shirt; but
+he's past our pity now. Ah, only a bruise over the heart. Sirs, what did
+you make out of this?"
+
+As none of them had even seen it, Knapp was not the only one to remain
+silent.
+
+"Shall I tell you what I make out of it?" said the lad, rising hurriedly
+from the floor, which he had as hurriedly examined. "This old man has
+tried to take his life with the dagger already wet with the blood of
+Agatha Webb. But his arm was too feeble. The point only pierced the
+vest, wiping off a little blood in its passage, then the weapon fell
+from his hand and struck the floor, as you will see by the fresh dent in
+the old board I am standing on. Have you anything to say against these
+simple deductions?"
+
+Again the detective opened his lips and might have spoken, but
+Sweetwater gave him no chance.
+
+"Where is the letter he was writing?" he demanded. "Have any of you seen
+any paper lying about here?"
+
+"He was not writing," objected Knapp; "he was reading; reading in that
+old Bible you see there."
+
+Sweetwater caught up the book, looked it over, and laid it down, with
+that same curious twinkle of his eye they had noted in him before.
+
+"He was writing," he insisted. "See, here is his pencil." And he showed
+them the battered end of a small lead-pencil lying on the edge of his
+chair.
+
+"Writing at some time," admitted Knapp.
+
+"Writing just before the deed," insisted Sweetwater. "Look at the
+fingers of his right hand. They have not moved since the pencil fell out
+of them."
+
+"The letter, or whatever it was, shall be looked for," declared the
+constable.
+
+Sweetwater bowed, his eyes roving restlessly into every nook and corner
+of the room.
+
+"James was the stronger of the two," he remarked; "yet there is no
+evidence that he made any attempt at suicide."
+
+"How do you know that it was suicide John attempted?" asked someone.
+"Why might not the dagger have fallen from James's hand in an effort to
+kill his brother?"
+
+"Because the dent in the floor would have been to the right of the chair
+instead of to the left," he returned. "Besides, James's hand would not
+have failed so utterly, since he had strength to pick up the weapon
+afterward and lay it where you found it."
+
+"True, we found it lying on the table," observed Abel, scratching his
+head in forced admiration of his old schoolmate.
+
+"All easy, very easy," Sweetwater remarked, seeing the wonder in every
+eye. "Matters like those are for a child's reading, but what is
+difficult, and what I find hard to come by, is how the twenty-dollar
+bill got into the old man's hand. He found it here, but how--"
+
+"Found it here? How do you know that?"
+
+"Gentlemen, that is a point I will make clear to you later, when I have
+laid my hand on a certain clew I am anxiously seeking. You know this is
+new work for me and I have to advance warily. Did any of you gentlemen,
+when you came into this room, detect the faintest odour of any kind of
+perfume?"
+
+"Perfume?" echoed Abel, with a glance about the musty apartment. "Rats,
+rather."
+
+Sweetwater shook his head with a discouraged air, but suddenly
+brightened, and stepping quickly across the floor, paused at one of the
+windows. It was that one in which the shade had been drawn.
+
+Peering at this shade he gave a grunt.
+
+"You must excuse me for a minute," said he; "I have not found what I
+wanted in this room and now must look outside for it. Will someone bring
+the lantern?"
+
+"I will," volunteered Knapp, with grim good humour. Indeed, the
+situation was almost ludicrous to him.
+
+"Bring it round the house, then, to the ground under this window,"
+ordered Sweetwater, without giving any sign that he noticed or even
+recognised the other's air of condescension. "And, gentlemen, please
+don't follow. It's footsteps I am after, and the fewer we make
+ourselves, the easier will it be for me to establish the clew I am
+after."
+
+Mr. Fenton stared. What had got into the fellow?
+
+The lantern gone, the room resumed its former appearance.
+
+Abel, who had been much struck by Sweetwater's mysterious manoeuvres,
+drew near Dr. Talbot and whispered in his ear: "We might have done
+without that fellow from Boston."
+
+To which the coroner replied:
+
+"Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Sweetwater has not yet proved his case;
+let us wait till he explains himself." Then, turning to the constable,
+he showed him an old-fashioned miniature, which he had found lying on
+James's breast, when he made his first examination. It was set with
+pearls and backed with gold and was worth many meals, for the lack of
+which its devoted owner had perished.
+
+"Agatha Webb's portrait," explained Talbot, "or rather Agatha
+Gilchrist's; for I presume this was painted when she and James were
+lovers."
+
+"She was certainly a beauty," commented Fenton, as he bent over the
+miniature in the moonlight. "I do not wonder she queened it over the
+whole country."
+
+"He must have worn it where I found it for the last forty years," mused
+the doctor. "And yet men say that love is a fleeting passion. Well,
+after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it impossible to
+believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one so fondly
+remembered. Sweetwater's instinct was truer than Knapp's."
+
+"Or ours," muttered Fenton.
+
+"Gentlemen," interposed Abel, pointing to a bright spot that just then
+made its appearance in the dark outline of the shade before alluded to,
+"do you see that hole? It was the sight of that prick in the shade which
+sent Sweetwater outside looking for footprints. See! Now his eye is to
+it" (as the bright spot became suddenly eclipsed). "We are under
+examination, sirs, and the next thing we will hear is that he's not the
+only person who's been peering into this room through that hole."
+
+He was so far right that the first words of Sweetwater on his
+re-entrance were: "It's all O. K., sirs. I have found my missing clew.
+James Zabel was not the only person who came up here from the Webb
+cottage last night." And turning to Knapp, who was losing some of his
+supercilious manner, he asked, with significant emphasis: "If, of the
+full amount stolen from Agatha Webb, you found twenty dollars in the
+possession of one man and nine hundred and eighty dollars in the
+possession of another, upon which of the two would you fix as the
+probable murderer of the good woman?"
+
+"Upon him who held the lion's share, of course."
+
+"Very good; then it is not in this cottage you will find the person most
+wanted. You must look--But there! first let me give you a glimpse of the
+money. Is there anyone here ready to accompany me in search of it? I
+shall have to take him a quarter of a mile farther up-hill."
+
+"You have seen the money? You know where it is?" asked Dr. Talbot and
+Mr. Fenton in one breath.
+
+"Gentlemen, I can put my hand on it in ten minutes."
+
+At this unexpected and somewhat startling statement Knapp looked at Dr.
+Talbot and Dr. Talbot looked at the constable, but only the last spoke.
+
+"That is saying a good deal. But no matter. I am willing to credit the
+assertion. Lead on, Sweetwater; I'll go with you."
+
+Sweetwater seemed to grow an inch taller in his satisfied vanity. "And
+Dr. Talbot?" he suggested.
+
+But the coroner's duty held him to the house and he decided not to
+accompany them. Knapp and Abel, however, yielded to the curiosity which
+had been aroused by these extraordinary promises, and presently the four
+men mentioned started on their small expedition up the hill.
+
+Sweetwater headed the procession. He had admonished silence, and his
+wish in this regard was so well carried out that they looked more like a
+group of spectres moving up the moon-lighted road, than a party of eager
+and impatient men. Not till they turned into the main thoroughfare did
+anyone speak. Then Abel could no longer restrain himself and he cried
+out:
+
+"We are going to Mr. Sutherland's."
+
+But Sweetwater quickly undeceived him.
+
+"No," said he, "only into the woods opposite his house."
+
+But at this Mr. Fenton drew him back.
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?" he said. "Have you really seen this money
+and is it concealed in this forest?"
+
+"I have seen the money," Sweetwater solemnly declared, "and it is hidden
+in these woods."
+
+Mr. Fenton dropped his arm, and they moved on till their way was blocked
+by the huge trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+"It is here we are to look," cried Sweetwater, pausing and motioning
+Knapp to turn his lantern on the spot where the shadows lay thickest.
+"Now, what do you see?" he asked.
+
+"The upturned roots of a great tree," said Mr. Fenton.
+
+"And under them?"
+
+"A hole, or, rather, the entrance to one."
+
+"Very good; the money is in that hole. Pull it out, Mr. Fenton."
+
+The assurance with which Sweetwater spoke was such that Mr. Fenton at
+once stooped and plunged his hand into the hole. But when, after a
+hurried search, he drew it out again, there was nothing in it; the place
+was empty. Sweetwater stared at Mr. Fenton amazed.
+
+"Don't you find anything?" he asked. "Isn't there a roll of bills in
+that hole?"
+
+"No," was the gloomy answer, after a renewed attempt and a second
+disappointment. "There is nothing to be found here. You are labouring
+under some misapprehension, Sweetwater."
+
+"But I can't be. I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person who
+hid it there. Let me look for it, constable. I will not give up the
+search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy."
+
+Kneeling down in Mr. Fenton's place, he thrust his hand into the hole.
+On either side of him peered the faces of Mr. Fenton and Knapp. (Abel
+had slipped away at a whisper from Sweetwater.) They were lit with a
+similar expression of anxious interest and growing doubt. His own
+countenance was a study of conflicting and by no means cheerful
+emotions. Suddenly his aspect changed. With a quick twist of his lithe,
+if awkward, body, he threw himself lengthwise on the ground, and began
+tearing at the earth inside the hole, like a burrowing animal.
+
+"I cannot be mistaken. Nothing will make me believe it is not here. It
+has simply been buried deeper than I thought. Ah! What did I tell you?
+See here! And see here!"
+
+Bringing his hands into the full blaze of the light, he showed two rolls
+of new, crisp bills.
+
+"They were lying under half a foot of earth," said he, "but if they had
+been buried as deep as Grannie Fuller's well, I'd have unearthed them."
+
+Meantime Mr. Fenton was rapidly counting one roll and Knapp the other.
+The result was an aggregate sum of nine hundred and eighty dollars, just
+the amount Sweetwater had promised to show them.
+
+"A good stroke of business," cried Mr. Fenton. "And now, Sweetwater,
+whose is the hand that buried this treasure? Nothing is to be gained by
+preserving silence on this point any longer."
+
+Instantly the young man became very grave. With a quick glance around
+which seemed to embrace the secret recesses of the forest rather than
+the eager faces bending towards him, he lowered his voice and quietly
+said:
+
+"The hand that buried this money under the roots of this old tree is the
+same which you saw pointing downward at the spot of blood in Agatha
+Webb's front yard."
+
+"You do not mean Amabel Page!" cried Mr. Fenton, with natural surprise.
+
+"Yes, I do; and I am glad it is you who have named her."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE SLIPPERS, THE FLOWER, AND WHAT SWEETWATER MADE OF THEM
+
+
+A half-hour later these men were all closeted with Dr. Talbot in the
+Zabel kitchen. Abel had rejoined them, and Sweetwater was telling his
+story with great earnestness and no little show of pride.
+
+"Gentlemen, when I charge a young woman of respectable appearance and
+connections with such a revolting crime as murder, I do so with good
+reason, as I hope presently to make plain to you all.
+
+"Gentlemen, on the night and at the hour Agatha Webb was killed, I was
+playing with four other musicians in Mr. Sutherland's hallway. From the
+place where I sat I could see what went on in the parlour and also have
+a clear view of the passageway leading down to the garden door. As the
+dancing was going on in the parlour I naturally looked that way most,
+and this is how I came to note the eagerness with which, during the
+first part of the evening, Frederick Sutherland and Amabel Page came
+together in the quadrilles and country dances. Sometimes she spoke as
+she passed him, and sometimes he answered, but not always, although he
+never failed to show he was pleased with her or would have been if
+something--perhaps it was his lack of confidence in her, sirs--had not
+stood in the way of a perfect understanding. She seemed to notice that
+he did not always respond, and after a while showed less inclination to
+speak herself, though she did not fail to watch him, and that intently.
+But she did not watch him any more closely than I did her, though I
+little thought at the time what would come of my espionage. She wore a
+white dress and white shoes, and was as coquettish and seductive as the
+evil one makes them. Suddenly I missed her. She was in the middle of the
+dance one minute and entirely out of it the next. Naturally I supposed
+her to have slipped aside with Frederick Sutherland, but he was still in
+sight, looking so pale and so abstracted, however, I was sure the young
+miss was up to some sort of mischief. But what mischief? Watching and
+waiting, but no longer confining my attention to the parlour, I
+presently espied her stealing along the passageway I have mentioned,
+carrying a long cloak which she rolled up and hid behind the open door.
+Then she came back humming a gay little song which didn't deceive me for
+a moment. 'Good!' thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join
+company.' And they did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again
+caught sight of her stealthy white figure in that distant doorway.
+Seizing the cloak, she wrapped it round her, and with just one furtive
+look backwards, seen, I warrant, by no one but myself, she vanished in
+the outside dark. 'Now to note who follows her!' But nobody followed
+her. This struck me as strange, and having a natural love for detective
+work, in spite of my devotion to the arts, I consulted the clock at the
+foot of the stairs, and noting that it was half-past eleven, scribbled
+the hour on the margin of my music, with the intention of seeing how
+long my lady would linger outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours
+before I saw her face again. How she got back into the house I do not
+know. It was not by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at
+or near half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw
+her descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from
+it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with
+Frederick again. They were dancing, but not with the same spirit as
+before, and even while I watched them they separated. Now where was Miss
+Page during those two long hours? I think I know, and it is time I
+unburdened myself to the police.
+
+"But first I must inform you of a small discovery I made while the dance
+was still in progress. Miss Page had descended the stairs, as I have
+said, from what I now know to have been her own room. Her dress was, in
+all respects, the same as before, with one exception--her white slippers
+had been exchanged for blue ones. This seemed to show that they had been
+rendered unserviceable, or at least unsightly, by the walk she had
+taken. This in itself was not remarkable nor would her peculiar escapade
+have made more than a temporary impression upon my curiosity if she had
+not afterward shown in my presence such an unaccountable and
+extraordinary interest in the murder which had taken place in the town
+below during the very hours of her absence from Mr. Sutherland's ball.
+This, in consideration of her sex, and her being a stranger to the
+person attacked, was remarkable, and, though perhaps I had no business
+to do what I did, I no sooner saw the house emptied of master and
+servants than I stole softly back, and climbed the stairs to her room.
+Had no good followed this intrusion, which, I am quite ready to
+acknowledge, was a trifle presumptuous, I would have held my peace in
+regard to it; but as I did make a discovery there, which has, as I
+believe, an important bearing on this affair, I have forced myself to
+mention it. The lights in the house having been left burning, I had no
+difficulty in finding her apartment. I knew it by the folderols
+scattered about. But I did not stop to look at them. I was on a search
+for her slippers, and presently came upon them, thrust behind an old
+picture in the dimmest corner of the room. Taking them down, I examined
+them closely. They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut
+and rubbed. In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the young
+lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put them into my
+pocket, and carried them to my own home. Abel has just been for them, so
+you can see them for yourselves, and if your judgment coincides with
+mine, you will discover something more on them than mud."
+
+Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man's confessed
+theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned them
+over. They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and soiled, and
+showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or two of a bright red
+colour, quite unmistakable in its character.
+
+"Blood," declared the coroner. "There is no doubt about it. Miss Page
+was where blood was spilled last night."
+
+"I have another proof against her," Sweetwater went on, in full
+enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had
+barely recognised his existence. "When, full of the suspicion that Miss
+Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at Mrs. Webb's
+house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I hastened down to the
+scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman issuing from the front
+gate. She had just been making herself conspicuous by pointing out a
+trail of blood on the grass plot. Dr. Talbot, who was there, will
+remember how she looked on that occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how
+Abel here looked, or so much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy
+had stuck in his buttonhole."
+
+"--me if I did!" ejaculated the coroner.
+
+"Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case. He had found
+it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy's skirts, and as soon
+as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and keep it, for,
+gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like of which can only be
+found in this town in Mr. Sutherland's conservatory. I remember seeing
+such a one in Miss Page's hair, early in the evening. Have you that
+flower about you, Abel?"
+
+Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the doctor
+and to Mr. Fenton. It was withered and faded in hue, but it was
+unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.
+
+"It was lying near Batsy," explained Abel. "I drew Mr. Fenton's
+attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it."
+
+"I will make up for my indifference now," said that gentleman.
+
+"I should have been shown that flower," put in Knapp.
+
+"So you should," acknowledged Sweetwater, "but when the detective
+instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals;
+besides, I was otherwise occupied. I had Miss Page to watch. Happily for
+me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to leave town till
+after the inquest, and so my task became easy. This whole day I have
+spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland's house, and at nightfall I was
+rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged walk in the garden by a
+hurried dash into the woods opposite. I followed her and noted carefully
+all that she did. As she had just seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss
+Halliday disappear up the road together, she probably felt free to do as
+she liked, for she walked very directly to the old tree we have just
+come from, and kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath
+something which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we
+associate with fresh bank-notes. I had approached her as near as I
+dared, and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again
+and plunged both hands into the hole. She remained in this position so
+long that I did not know what to make of it. But she rose at last and
+turned toward home, laughing to herself in a wicked but pleased way that
+did not tend to make me think any more of her. The moon was shining very
+brightly by this time and I could readily perceive every detail of her
+person. She held her hands out before her and shook them more than once
+as she trod by me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is
+why I was so confident we should find the money still in the hole.
+
+"When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the
+court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I learned
+where to look for you. But at last a fellow at Brighton's corner said he
+saw four men go by on their way to Zabel's cottage, and on the chance of
+finding you amongst them, I turned down here. The shock you gave me in
+announcing that you had discovered the murderer of Agatha Webb knocked
+me over for a moment, but now I hope you realise, as I do, that this
+wretched man could never have had an active hand in her death,
+notwithstanding the fact that one of the stolen bills has been found in
+his possession. For, and here is my great point, the proof is not
+wanting that Miss Page visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb's during
+her famous escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I
+have just been searching. A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very
+plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to compare it
+with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it to have been made
+by the foot that wore that slipper."
+
+The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up to
+Sweetwater's eager face, showed a decided disposition to make the
+experiment thus suggested. But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full of the
+Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question:
+
+"But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel
+trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs. Webb's
+cupboard? Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give him that
+money?"
+
+"You ask ME that, Mr. Fenton. Do you wish to know what _I_ think of the
+connection between these two great tragedies?"
+
+"Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater."
+
+"Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the blame of
+her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old men. She is
+sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so; and circumstances
+certainly favoured her. Shall I show how?"
+
+Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head. The Boston detective
+was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would prove the case.
+
+"Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from inanition;
+this their condition amply shows. He was weak himself, but John was
+weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out to ask a crumb of
+bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly--for I have heard some whispers of
+an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at his yearly merry-making and
+so obtain in a natural way the bite for himself and brother he perhaps
+had not the courage to ask for outright. But death had been in the Webb
+cottage before him, which awful circumstance, acting on his already
+weakened nerves, drove him half insane from the house and sent him
+wandering blindly about the streets for a good half-hour before he
+reappeared in his own house. How do I know this? From a very simple
+fact. Abel here has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane
+remembers the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down
+the main street from visiting old widow Walker. Fortunately he does, for
+the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found himself
+humming it over more than once since. Well, that waltz was played by us
+at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of the encounter at
+Mrs. Webb's gateway pretty accurately. But, as you will soon see, it was
+ten minutes to one before James Zabel knocked at Loton's door. How do I
+know this? By the same method of reasoning by which I determined the
+time of Mr. Crane's encounter. Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the
+music played that night, and had all her windows open in order to hear
+it, and she says we were playing 'Money Musk' when that knocking came to
+disturb her. Now, gentlemen, we played 'Money Musk' just before we were
+called out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can
+see just how my calculation was made. Thirty-five minutes, then, passed
+between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs. Webb's gateway
+and that in which he appeared at Loton's bakery, demanding a loaf of
+bread, and offering in exchange one of the bills which had been stolen
+from the murdered woman's drawer. Thirty-five minutes! And he and his
+brother were starving. Does it look, then, as if that money was in his
+possession when he left Mrs. Webb's house? Would any man who felt the
+pangs of hunger as he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food
+before his eyes, allow thirty-five minutes to elapse before he made use
+of the money that rightfully or wrongfully had come into his hand? No;
+and so I say that he did not have it when Mr. Crane met him. That,
+instead of committing crime to obtain it, he found it in his own home,
+lying on his table, when, after his frenzied absence, he returned to
+tell his dreadful news to the brother he had left behind him. But how
+did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen, remember the footprints under the
+window. Amabel Page brought it. Having seen or perhaps met this old man
+roaming in or near the Webb cottage during the time she was there
+herself, she conceived the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the
+crime she had herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from
+one so crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging
+over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that he
+was there alone and asleep, and, creeping in by the front door, laid on
+the table beside him the twenty-dollar bill and the bloody dagger with
+which she had just slain Agatha Webb. Then she stole out again, and in
+twenty minutes more was leading the dance in Mr. Sutherland's parlour."
+
+"Well reasoned!" murmured Abel, expecting the others to echo him. But,
+though Mr. Fenton and Dr. Talbot looked almost convinced, they said
+nothing, while Knapp, of course, was quiet as an oyster.
+
+Sweetwater, with an easy smile calculated to hide his disappointment,
+went on as if perfectly satisfied.
+
+"Meanwhile John awakes, sees the dagger, and thinks to end his misery
+with it, but finds himself too feeble. The cut in his vest, the dent in
+the floor, prove this, but if you call for further proof, a little fact,
+which some, if not all, of you seem to have overlooked, will amply
+satisfy you that this one at least of my conclusions is correct. Open
+the Bible, Abel; open it, not to shake it for what will never fall from
+between its leaves, but to find in the Bible itself the lines I have
+declared to you he wrote as a dying legacy with that tightly clutched
+pencil. Have you found them?"
+
+"No," was Abel's perplexed retort; "I cannot see any sign of writing on
+flyleaf or margin."
+
+"Are those the only blank places in the sacred book? Search the leaves
+devoted to the family record. Now! what do you find there?"
+
+Knapp, who was losing some of his indifference, drew nearer and read for
+himself the scrawl which now appeared to every eye on the discoloured
+page which Abel here turned uppermost.
+
+"Almost illegible," he said; "one can just make out these words:
+'Forgive me, James--tried to use dagger--found lying--but hand
+wouldn't--dying without--don't grieve--true men--haven't disgraced
+ourselves--God bless--' That is all."
+
+"The effort must have overcome him," resumed Sweetwater in a voice from
+which he carefully excluded all signs of secret triumph, "and when James
+returned, as he did a few minutes later, he was evidently unable to ask
+questions, even if John was in a condition to answer them. But the
+fallen dagger told its own story, for James picked it up and put it back
+on the table, and it was at this minute he saw, what John had not, the
+twenty-dollar bill lying there with its promise of life and comfort.
+Hope revives; he catches up the bill, flies down to Loton's, procures a
+loaf of bread, and comes frantically back, gnawing it as he runs; for
+his own hunger is more than he can endure. Re-entering his brother's
+presence, he rushes forward with the bread. But the relief has come too
+late; John has died in his absence; and James, dizzy with the shock,
+reels back and succumbs to his own misery. Gentlemen, have you anything
+to say in contradiction to these various suppositions?"
+
+For a moment Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and even Knapp stood silent; then
+the last remarked, with pardonable dryness:
+
+"All this is ingenious, but, unfortunately, it is up set by a little
+fact which you yourself have overlooked. Have you examined attentively
+the dagger of which you have so often spoken, Mr. Sweetwater?"
+
+"Not as I would like to, but I noticed it had blood on its edge, and was
+of the shape and size necessary to inflict the wound from which Mrs.
+Webb died."
+
+"Very good, but there is something else of interest to be observed on
+it. Fetch it, Abel."
+
+Abel, hurrying from the room, soon brought back the weapon in question.
+Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment disturbing him, took it
+eagerly and studied it very closely. But he only shook his head.
+
+"Bring it nearer to the light," suggested Knapp, "and examine the little
+scroll near the top of the handle."
+
+Sweetwater did so, and at once changed colour. In the midst of the
+scroll were two very small but yet perfectly distinct letters; they were
+J. Z.
+
+"How did Amabel Page come by a dagger marked with the Zabel initials?"
+questioned Knapp. "Do you think her foresight went so far as to provide
+herself with a dagger ostensibly belonging to one of these brothers? And
+then, have you forgotten that when Mr. Crane met the old man at Mrs.
+Webb's gateway he saw in his hand something that glistened? Now what was
+that, if not this dagger?"
+
+Sweetwater was more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge.
+
+"That just shows my lack of experience," he grumbled. "I thought I had
+turned this subject so thoroughly over in my mind that no one could
+bring an objection against it."
+
+Knapp shook his head and smiled. "Young enthusiasts like yourself are
+great at forming theories which well-seasoned men like myself must
+regard as fantastical. However," he went on, "there is no doubt that
+Miss Page was a witness to, even if she has not profited by, the murder
+we have been considering. But, with this palpable proof of the Zabels'
+direct connection with the affair, I would not recommend her arrest as
+yet."
+
+"She should be under surveillance, though," intimated the coroner.
+
+"Most certainly," acquiesced Knapp.
+
+As for Sweetwater, he remained silent till the opportunity came for him
+to whisper apart to Dr. Talbot, when he said:
+
+"For all the palpable proof of which Mr. Knapp speaks--the J. Z. on the
+dagger, and the possibility of this being the object he was seen
+carrying out of Philemon Webb's gate--I maintain that this old man in
+his moribund condition never struck the blow that killed Agatha Webb. He
+hadn't strength enough, even if his lifelong love for her had not been
+sufficient to prevent him."
+
+The coroner looked thoughtful.
+
+"You are right," said he; "he hadn't strength enough. But don't expend
+too much energy in talk. Wait and see what a few direct questions will
+elicit from Miss Page."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+SOME LEADING QUESTIONS
+
+
+Frederick rose early. He had slept but little. The words he had
+overheard at the end of the lot the night before were still ringing in
+his ears. Going down the back stairs, in his anxiety to avoid Amabel, he
+came upon one of the stablemen.
+
+"Been to the village this morning?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir, but Lem has. There's great news there. I wonder if anyone has
+told Mr. Sutherland."
+
+"What news, Jake? I don't think my father is up yet."
+
+"Why, sir, there were two more deaths in town last night--the brothers
+Zabel; and folks do say (Lem heard it a dozen times between the grocery
+and the fish market) that it was one of these old men who killed Mrs.
+Webb. The dagger has been found in their house, and most of the money.
+Why, sir, what's the matter? Are you sick?"
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood upright. He had nearly fallen.
+
+"No; that is, I am not quite myself. So many horrors, Jake. What did
+they die of? You say they are both dead--both?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and it's dreadful to think of, but it was hunger, sir. Bread
+came too late. Both men are mere skeletons to look at. They have kept
+themselves close for weeks now, and nobody knew how bad off they were. I
+don't wonder it upset you, sir. We all feel it a bit, and I just dread
+to tell Mr. Sutherland."
+
+Frederick staggered away. He had never in his life been so near mental
+and physical collapse. At the threshold of the sitting-room door he met
+his father. Mr. Sutherland was looking both troubled and anxious; more
+so, Frederick thought, than when he signed the check for him on the
+previous night. As their eyes met, both showed embarrassment, but
+Frederick, whose nerves had been highly strung by what he had just
+heard, soon controlled himself, and surveying his father with forced
+calmness, began:
+
+"This is dreadful news, sir."
+
+But his father, intent on his own thought, hurriedly interrupted him.
+
+"You told me yesterday that everything was broken off between you and
+Miss Page. Yet I saw you reenter the house together last night a little
+while after I gave you the money you asked for."
+
+"I know, and it must have had a bad appearance. I entreat you, however,
+to believe that this meeting between Miss Page and myself was against my
+wish, and that the relations between us have not been affected by
+anything that passed between us."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, my son. You could not do worse by yourself than
+to return to your old devotion."
+
+"I agree with you, sir." And then, because he could not help it,
+Frederick inquired if he had heard the news.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, evidently startled, asked what news; to which Frederick
+replied:
+
+"The news about the Zabels. They are both dead, sir,--dead from hunger.
+Can you imagine it!"
+
+This was something so different from what his father had expected to
+hear, that he did not take it in at first. When he did, his surprise and
+grief were even greater than Frederick had anticipated. Seeing him so
+affected, Frederick, who thought that the whole truth would be no harder
+to bear than the half, added the suspicion which had been attached to
+the younger one's name, and then stood back, scarcely daring to be a
+witness to the outraged feelings which such a communication could not
+fail to awaken in one of his father's temperament.
+
+But though he thus escaped the shocked look which crossed his father's
+countenance, he could not fail to hear the indignant exclamation which
+burst from his lips, nor help perceiving that it would take more than
+the most complete circumstantial evidence to convince his father of the
+guilt of men he had known and respected for so many years.
+
+For some reason Frederick experienced great relief at this, and was
+bracing himself to meet the fire of questions which his statement must
+necessarily call forth, when the sound of approaching steps drew the
+attention of both towards a party of men coming up the hillside.
+
+Among them was Mr. Courtney, Prosecuting Attorney for the district, and
+as Mr. Sutherland recognised him he sprang forward, saying, "There's
+Courtney; he will explain this."
+
+Frederick followed, anxious and bewildered, and soon had the doubtful
+pleasure of seeing his father enter his study in company with the four
+men considered to be most interested in the elucidation of the Webb
+mystery.
+
+As he was lingering in an undecided mood in the small passageway leading
+up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his shoulder. Looking up,
+he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning toward him over the
+banisters. She was smiling, and, though her face was not without
+evidences of physical languor, there was a charm about her person which
+would have been sufficiently enthralling to him twenty-four hours
+before, but which now caused him such a physical repulsion that he
+started back in the effort to rid his shoulder from her disturbing
+touch.
+
+She frowned. It was an instantaneous expression of displeasure which was
+soon lost in one of her gurgling laughs.
+
+"Is my touch so burdensome?" she demanded. "If the pressure of one
+finger is so unbearable to your sensitive nerves, how will you relish
+the weight of my whole hand?"
+
+There was a fierceness in her tone, a purpose in her look, that for the
+first time in his struggle with her revealed the full depth of her dark
+nature. Shrinking from her appalled, he put up his hand in protest, at
+which she changed again in a twinkling, and with a cautious gesture
+toward the room into which Mr. Sutherland and his friends had
+disappeared, she whispered significantly:
+
+"We may not have another chance to confer together. Understand, then,
+that it will not be necessary for you to tell me, in so many words, that
+you are ready to link your fortunes to mine; the taking off of the ring
+you wear and your slow putting of it on again, in my presence, will be
+understood by me as a token that you have reconsidered your present
+attitude and desire my silence and--myself."
+
+Frederick could not repress a shudder.
+
+For an instant he was tempted to succumb on the spot and have the long
+agony over. Then his horror of the woman rose to such a pitch that he
+uttered an execration, and, turning away from her face, which was
+rapidly growing loathsome to him, he ran out of the passageway into the
+garden, seeing as he ran a persistent vision of himself pulling off the
+ring and putting it back again, under the spell of a look he rebelled
+against even while he yielded to its influence.
+
+"I will not wear a ring, I will not subject myself to the possibility of
+obeying her behest under a sudden stress of fear or fascination," he
+exclaimed, pausing by the well-curb and looking over it at his
+reflection in the water beneath. "If I drop it here I at least lose the
+horror of doing what she suggests, under some involuntary impulse." But
+the thought that the mere absence of the ring from his finger would not
+stand in the way of his going through the motions to which she had just
+given such significance, deterred him from the sacrifice of a valuable
+family jewel, and he left the spot with an air of frenzy such as a man
+displays when he feels himself on the verge of a doom he can neither
+meet nor avert.
+
+As he re-entered the house, he felt himself enveloped in the atmosphere
+of a coming crisis. He could hear voices in the upper hall, and amongst
+them he caught the accents of her he had learned so lately to fear.
+Impelled by something deeper than curiosity and more potent even than
+dread, he hastened toward the stairs. When half-way up, he caught sight
+of Amabel. She was leaning back against the balustrade that ran across
+the upper hall, with her hands gripping the rail on either side of her
+and her face turned toward the five men who had evidently issued from
+Mr. Sutherland's study to interview her.
+
+As her back was to Frederick he could not judge of the expression of
+that face save by the effect it had upon the different men confronting
+her. But to see them was enough. From their looks he could perceive that
+this young girl was in one of her baffling moods, and that from his
+father down, not one of the men present knew what to make of her.
+
+At the sound his feet made, a relaxation took place in her body and she
+lost something of the defiant attitude she had before maintained.
+Presently he heard her voice:
+
+"I am willing to answer any questions you may choose to put to me here;
+but I cannot consent to shut myself in with you in that small study; I
+should suffocate."
+
+Frederick could perceive the looks which passed between the five men
+assembled before her, and was astonished to note that the insignificant
+fellow they called Sweetwater was the first to answer.
+
+"Very well," said he; "if you enjoy the publicity of the open hall, no
+one here will object. Is not that so, gentlemen?"
+
+Her two little fingers, which were turned towards Frederick, ran up and
+down the rail, making a peculiar rasping noise, which for a moment was
+the only sound to be heard. Then Mr. Courtney said:
+
+"How came you to have the handling of the money taken from Agatha Webb's
+private drawer?"
+
+It was a startling question, but it seemed to affect Amabel less than it
+did Frederick. It made him start, but she only turned her head a trifle
+aside, so that the peculiar smile with which she prepared to answer
+could be seen by anyone standing below.
+
+"Suppose you ask something less leading than that, to begin with," she
+suggested, in her high, unmusical voice. "From the searching nature of
+this inquiry, you evidently believe I have information of an important
+character to give you concerning Mrs. Webb's unhappy death. Ask me about
+that; the other question I will answer later."
+
+The aplomb with which this was said, mixed as it was with a feminine
+allurement of more than ordinary subtlety, made Mr. Sutherland frown and
+Dr. Talbot look perplexed, but it did not embarrass Mr. Courtney, who
+made haste to respond in his dryest accents:
+
+"Very well, I am not particular as to what you answer first. A flower
+worn by you at the dance was found near Batsy's skirts, before she was
+lifted up that morning. Can you explain this, or, rather, will you?"
+
+"You are not obliged to, you know," put in Mr. Sutherland, with his
+inexorable sense of justice. "Still, if you would, it might rob these
+gentlemen of suspicions you certainly cannot wish them to entertain."
+
+"What I say," she remarked slowly, "will be as true to the facts as if I
+stood here on my oath. I can explain how a flower from my hair came to
+be in Mrs. Webb's house, but not how it came to be found under Batsy's
+feet. That someone else must clear up." Her little finger, lifted from
+the rail, pointed toward Frederick, but no one saw this, unless it was
+that gentleman himself. "I wore a purple orchid in my hair that night,
+and there would be nothing strange in its being afterward picked up in
+Mrs. Webb's house, because I was in that house at or near the time she
+was murdered."
+
+"You in that house?"
+
+"Yes, as far as the ground floor; no farther." Here the little finger
+stopped pointing. "I am ready to tell you about it, sirs, and only
+regret I have delayed doing so so long, but I wished to be sure it was
+necessary. Your presence here and your first question show that it is."
+
+There was suavity in her tone now, not unmixed with candour. Sweetwater
+did not seem to relish this, for he moved uneasily and lost a shade of
+his self-satisfied attitude. He had still to be made acquainted with all
+the ins and outs of this woman's remarkable nature.
+
+"We are waiting," suggested Dr. Talbot.
+
+She turned to face this new speaker, and Frederick was relieved from the
+sight of her tantalising smile.
+
+"I will tell my story simply," said she, "with the simple suggestion
+that you believe me; otherwise you will make a mistake. While I was
+resting from a dance the other night, I heard two of the young people
+talking about the Zabels. One of them was laughing at the old men, and
+the other was trying to relate some half-forgotten story of early love
+which had been the cause, she thought, of their strange and melancholy
+lives. I was listening to them, but I did not take in much of what they
+were saying till I heard behind me an irascible voice exclaiming: 'You
+laugh, do you? I wonder if you would laugh so easily if you knew that
+these two poor old men haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight?' I
+didn't know the speaker, but I was thrilled by his words. Not had a good
+meal, these men, for a fortnight! I felt as if personally guilty of
+their suffering, and, happening to raise my eyes at this minute and
+seeing through an open door the bountiful refreshments prepared for us
+in the supper room, I felt guiltier than ever. Suddenly I took a
+resolution. It was a queer one, and may serve to show you some of the
+oddities of my nature. Though I was engaged for the next dance, and
+though I was dressed in the flimsy garments suitable to the occasion, I
+decided to leave the ball and carry some sandwiches down to these old
+men. Procuring a bit of paper, I made up a bundle and stole out of the
+house without having said a word to anybody of my intention. Not wishing
+to be seen, I went out by the garden door, which is at the end of the
+dark hall--"
+
+"Just as the band was playing the Harebell mazurka," interpolated
+Sweetwater.
+
+Startled for the first time from her careless composure by an
+interruption of which it was impossible for her at that time to measure
+either the motive or the meaning, she ceased to play with her fingers on
+the baluster rail and let her eyes rest for a moment on the man who had
+thus spoken, as if she hesitated between her desire to annihilate him
+for his impertinence and a fear of the cold hate she saw actuating his
+every word and look. Then she went on, as if no one had spoken:
+
+"I ran down the hill recklessly. I was bent on my errand and not at all
+afraid of the dark. When I reached that part of the road where the
+streets branch off, I heard footsteps in front of me. I had overtaken
+someone. Slackening my pace, so that I should not pass this person, whom
+I instinctively knew to be a man, I followed him till I came to a high
+board fence. It was that surrounding Agatha Webb's house, and when I saw
+it I could not help connecting the rather stealthy gait of the man in
+front of me with a story I had lately heard of the large sum of money
+she was known to keep in her house. Whether this was before or after
+this person disappeared round the corner I cannot say, but no sooner had
+I become certain that he was bent upon entering this house than my
+impulse to follow him became greater than my precaution, and turning
+aside from the direct path to the Zabels', I hurried down High Street
+just in time to see the man enter Mrs. Webb's front gateway.
+
+"It was a late hour for visiting, but as the house had lights in both
+its lower and upper stories, I should by good rights have taken it for
+granted that he was an expected guest and gone on my way to the Zabels'.
+But I did not. The softness with which this person stepped and the
+skulking way in which he hesitated at the front gate aroused my worst
+fears, and after he had opened that gate and slid in, I was so pursued
+by the idea that he was there for no good that I stepped inside the gate
+myself and took my stand in the deep shadow cast by the old pear tree on
+the right-hand side of the walk. Did anyone speak?"
+
+There was a unanimous denial from the five gentlemen before her, yet she
+did not look satisfied.
+
+"I thought I heard someone make a remark," she repeated, and paused
+again for a half-minute, during which her smile was a study, it was so
+cold and in such startling contrast to the vivid glances she threw
+everywhere except behind her on the landing where Frederick stood
+listening to her every word.
+
+"We are very much interested," remarked Mr. Courtney. "Pray, go on."
+
+Drawing her left hand from the balustrade where it had rested, she
+looked at one of her fingers with an odd backward gesture.
+
+"I will," she said, and her tone was hard and threatening. "Five
+minutes, no longer, passed, when I was startled by a loud and terrible
+cry from the house, and looking up at the second-story window from which
+the sound proceeded, I saw a woman's figure hanging out in a seemingly
+pulseless condition. Too terrified to move, I clung trembling to the
+tree, hearing and not hearing the shouts and laughter of a dozen or more
+men, who at that minute passed by the corner on their way to the
+wharves. I was dazed, I was choking, and only came to myself when,
+sooner or later, I do not know how soon or how late, a fresh horror
+happened. The woman whom I had just seen fall almost from the window was
+a serving woman, but when I heard another scream I knew that the
+mistress of the house was being attacked, and rivetting my eyes on those
+windows, I beheld the shade of one of them thrown back and a hand
+appear, flinging out something which fell in the grass on the opposite
+side of the lawn. Then the shade fell again, and hearing nothing
+further, I ran to where the object flung out had fallen, and feeling for
+it, found and picked up an old-fashioned dagger, dripping with blood.
+Horrified beyond all expression, I dropped the weapon and retreated into
+my former place of concealment.
+
+"But I was not satisfied to remain there. A curiosity, a determination
+even, to see the man who had committed this dastardly deed, attacked me
+with such force that I was induced to leave my hiding-place and even to
+enter the house where in all probability he was counting the gains he
+had just obtained at the price of so much precious blood. The door,
+which he had not perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in,
+and before I had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of
+this ill-fated house."
+
+The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now expressed
+itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr. Sutherland, who
+had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed eagerly, and in a tone which
+proved that he, for the moment at least, believed this more than
+improbable tale:
+
+"Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the moment
+when you entered the house?"
+
+As everyone there present realised the importance of this question, a
+general movement took place and each and all drew nearer as she met
+their eyes and answered placidly:
+
+"Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep. He was the only person I
+saw."
+
+"Oh, I know he never committed this crime," gasped his old friend, in a
+relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.
+
+"Now I have courage for the rest. Go on, Miss Page."
+
+But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that sideways
+toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the situation to any who
+did not know of the compact between herself and the listening man below.
+
+"I hate to go back to that moment," said she; "for when I saw the
+candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at that
+very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the room
+overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt something rise in
+my throat that made me deathly sick for a moment. Then I went right in
+where he was, and was about to shake his arm and wake him, when I
+detected a spot of blood on my finger from the dagger I had handled.
+That gave me another turn, and led me to wipe off my finger on his
+sleeve."
+
+"It's a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too," murmured
+Sweetwater.
+
+Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the face
+of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but now so
+filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all her apparent
+scorn.
+
+"Slippers," she murmured.
+
+"Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on the
+grass?"
+
+She disdained to answer him.
+
+"I have accounted for the blood on my hand," she said, not looking at
+him, but at Mr. Courtney. "If there is any on my slippers it can be
+accounted for in the same way." And she rapidly resumed her narrative.
+"I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never thought of anyone
+suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps on the stairs and knew
+that the murderer was coming down, and in another instant would pass the
+open door before which I stood.
+
+"Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was seized by
+a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face one whose hands
+were perhaps dripping with the blood of his victim. To confront him
+there and then might mean death to me, and I did not want to die, but to
+live, for I am young, sirs, and not without a prospect of happiness
+before me. So I sprang back, and seeing no other place of concealment in
+the whole bare room, crouched down in the shadow of the man you call
+Philemon. For one, two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal
+terror, while the feet descended, paused, started to enter the room
+where I was, hesitated, turned, and finally left the house."
+
+"Miss Page, wait, wait," put in the coroner. "You saw him; you can tell
+who this man was?"
+
+The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her. A slight colour
+appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the words
+for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she gave a
+start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more or less
+sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.
+
+Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.
+
+"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he, advancing into their midst with an
+air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward agitation. "The few
+words I have just heard Miss Page say interest me so much, I find it
+impossible not to join you."
+
+Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as he
+stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret astonishment at the
+indifference they showed, and then dropped her eyes to his hands with an
+intent gaze which seemed to affect him unpleasantly, for he thrust them
+immediately behind him, though he did not lower his head or lose his air
+of determination.
+
+"Is my presence here undesirable?" he inquired, with a glance towards
+his father.
+
+Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume to say
+anything, and the others being too interested in the developments of
+Miss Page's story to waste any time on lesser matters, Frederick
+remained, greatly to Miss Page's evident satisfaction.
+
+"Did you see this man's face?" Mr. Courtney now broke in, in urgent
+inquiry.
+
+Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick's
+direction.
+
+"No, I did not dare to make the effort. I was obliged to crouch too
+close to the floor. I simply heard his footsteps."
+
+"See, now!" muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not hear
+him. "She condemns herself. There isn't a woman living who would fail to
+look up under such circumstances, even at the risk of her life."
+
+Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his one
+idea, pressed his former question, saying:
+
+"Was it an old man's step?"
+
+"It was not an agile one."
+
+"And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man's face or figure?"
+
+"Not a glimpse."
+
+"So you are in no position to identify him?"
+
+"If by any chance I should hear those same footsteps coming down a
+flight of stairs, I think I should be able to recognise them," she
+allowed, in the sweetest tones at her command.
+
+"She knows it is too late for her to hear those of the two dead Zabels,"
+growled the man from Boston.
+
+"We are no nearer the solution of this mystery than we were in the
+beginning," remarked the coroner.
+
+"Gentlemen, I have not yet finished my story," intimated Amabel,
+sweetly. "Perhaps what I have yet to tell may give you some clew to the
+identity of this man."
+
+"Ah, yes; go on, go on. You have not yet explained how you came to be in
+possession of Agatha's money."
+
+"Just so," she answered, with another quick look at Frederick, the last
+she gave him for some time. "As soon, then, as I dared, I ran out of the
+house into the yard. The moon, which had been under a cloud, was now
+shining brightly, and by its light I saw that the space before me was
+empty and that I might venture to enter the street. But before doing so
+I looked about for the dagger I had thrown from me before going in, but
+I could not find it. It had been picked up by the fugitive and carried
+away. Annoyed at the cowardice which had led me to lose such a valuable
+piece of evidence through a purely womanish emotion, I was about to
+leave the yard, when my eyes fell on the little bundle of sandwiches
+which I had brought down from the hill and which I had let fall under
+the pear tree, at the first scream I had heard from the house. It had
+burst open and two or three of the sandwiches lay broken on the ground.
+But those that were intact I picked up, and being more than ever anxious
+to cover up by some ostensible errand my absence from the party, I
+rushed away toward the lonely road where these brothers lived, meaning
+to leave such fragments as remained on the old doorstep, beyond which I
+had been told such suffering existed.
+
+"It was now late, very late, for a girl like myself to be out, but,
+under the excitement of what I had just seen and heard, I became
+oblivious to fear, and rushed into those dismal shadows as into
+transparent daylight. Perhaps the shouts and stray sounds of laughter
+that came up from the wharves where a ship was getting under way gave me
+a certain sense of companionship. Perhaps--but it is folly for me to
+dilate upon my feelings; it is my errand you are interested in, and what
+happened when I approached the Zabels' dreary dwelling."
+
+The look with which she paused, ostensibly to take breath, but in
+reality to weigh and criticise the looks of those about her, was one of
+those wholly indescribable ones with which she was accustomed to control
+the judgment of men who allowed themselves to watch too closely the
+ever-changing expression of her weird yet charming face. But it fell
+upon men steeled against her fascinations, and realising her inability
+to move them, she proceeded with her story before even the most anxious
+of her hearers could request her to do so.
+
+"I had come along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were
+lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep.
+But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house
+stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the
+doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old
+man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment he slowly and with
+great feebleness rose to his feet and began to grope about for the door.
+As he did so, I heard a sharp tinkling sound, as of something metallic
+falling on the doorstone, and, taking a quick step forward, I looked
+over his shoulder and espied in the moonlight at his feet a dagger so
+like the one I had lately handled in Mrs. Webb's yard that I was
+overwhelmed with astonishment, and surveyed the aged and feeble form of
+the man who had dropped it with a sensation difficult to describe. The
+next moment he was stooping for the weapon, with a startled air that has
+impressed itself distinctly upon my memory, and when, after many feeble
+attempts, he succeeded in grasping it, he vanished into the house so
+suddenly that I could not be sure whether or not he had seen me standing
+there.
+
+"All this was more than surprising to me, for I had never thought of
+associating an old man with this crime. Indeed, I was so astonished to
+find him in possession of this weapon that I forgot all about my errand
+and only wondered how I could see and know more. Fearing detection, I
+slid in amongst the bushes and soon found myself under one of the
+windows. The shade was down and I was about to push it aside when I
+heard someone moving about inside and stopped. But I could not restrain
+my curiosity, so pulling a hairpin from my hair, I worked a little hole
+in the shade and through this I looked into a room brightly illumined by
+the moon which shone in through an adjoining window. And what did I see
+there?" Her eye turned on Frederick. His right hand had stolen toward
+his left, but it paused under her look and remained motionless. "Only an
+old man sitting at a table and--" Why did she pause, and why did she
+cover up that pause with a wholly inconsequential sentence? Perhaps
+Frederick could have told, Frederick, whose hand had now fallen at his
+side. But Frederick volunteered nothing, and no one, not even
+Sweetwater, guessed all that lay beyond that AND which was left hovering
+in the air to be finished--- when? Alas! had she not set the day and the
+hour?
+
+What she did say was in seeming explanation of her previous sentence.
+"It was not the same old man I had seen on the doorstep, and while I was
+looking at him I became aware of someone leaving the house and passing
+me on the road up-hill. Of course this ended my interest in what went on
+within, and turning as quickly as I could I hurried into the road and
+followed the shadow I could just perceive disappearing in the woods
+above me. I was bound, gentlemen, as you see, to follow out my adventure
+to the end. But my task now became very difficult, for the moon was high
+and shone down upon the road so distinctly that I could not follow the
+person before me as closely as I wished without running the risk of
+being discovered by him. I therefore trusted more to my ear than to my
+eye, and as long as I could hear his steps in front of me I was
+satisfied. But presently, as we turned up this very hill, I ceased to
+hear these steps and so became confident that he had taken to the woods.
+I was so sure of this that I did not hesitate to enter them myself, and,
+knowing the paths well, as I have every opportunity of doing, living, as
+we do, directly opposite this forest, I easily found my way to the
+little clearing that I have reason to think you gentlemen have since
+become acquainted with. But though from the sounds I heard I was assured
+that the person I was following was not far in advance of me, I did not
+dare to enter this brilliantly illumined space, especially as there was
+every indication of this person having completed whatever task he had
+set for himself. Indeed, I was sure that I heard his steps coming back.
+So, for the second time, I crouched down in the darkest place I could
+find and let this mysterious person pass me. When he had quite
+disappeared, I made my own retreat, for it was late, and I was afraid of
+being missed at the ball. But later, or rather the next day, I recrossed
+the road and began a search for the money which I was confident had been
+left in the woods opposite, by the person I had been following. I found
+it, and when the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has
+presumed to take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the
+bills in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten gains I had
+come upon."
+
+"Ah, and so making them your own," quoth Sweetwater, stung by the
+sarcasm in that word fiddler.
+
+But with a suavity against which every attack fell powerless, she met
+his significant look with one fully as significant, and quietly said:
+
+"If I had wanted the money for myself I would not have risked leaving it
+where the murderer could find it by digging up a few handfuls of mould
+and a bunch of sodden leaves. No, I had another motive for my action, a
+motive with which few, if any, of you will be willing to credit me. I
+wished to save the murderer, whom I had some reason, as you see, for
+thinking I knew, from the consequences of his own action."
+
+Mr. Courtney, Dr. Talbot, and even Mr. Sutherland, who naturally
+believed she referred to Zabel, and who, one and all, had a lingering
+tenderness for this unfortunate old man, which not even this seeming act
+of madness on his part could quite destroy, felt a species of reaction
+at this, and surveyed the singular being before them with, perhaps, the
+slightest shade of relenting in their severity. Sweetwater alone
+betrayed restlessness, Knapp showed no feeling at all, while Frederick
+stood like one petrified, and moved neither hand nor foot.
+
+"Crime is despicable when it results from cupidity only," she went on,
+with a deliberateness so hard that the more susceptible of her auditors
+shuddered. "But crime that springs from some imperative and overpowering
+necessity of the mind or body might well awaken sympathy, and I am not
+ashamed of having been sorry for this frenzied and suffering man. Weak
+and impulsive as you may consider me, I did not want him to suffer on
+account of a moment's madness, as he undoubtedly would if he were ever
+found with Agatha Webb's money in his possession, so I plunged it deeper
+into the soil and trusted to the confusion which crime always awakens
+even in the strongest mind, for him not to discover its hiding-place
+till the danger connected with it was over."
+
+"Ha! wonderful! Devilish subtle, eh? Clever, too clever!" were some of
+the whispered exclamations which this curious explanation on her part
+brought out. Yet only Sweetwater showed his open and entire disbelief of
+the story, the others possibly remembering that for such natures as hers
+there is no governing law and no commonplace interpretation.
+
+To Sweetwater, however, this was but so much display of feminine
+resource and subtlety. Though he felt he should keep still in the
+presence of men so greatly his superiors, he could not resist saying:
+
+"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I should never have
+attributed any such motive as you mention to the young girl I saw
+leaving this spot with many a backward glance at the hole from which we
+afterwards extracted the large sum of money in question. But say that
+this reburying of stolen funds was out of consideration for the feeble
+old man you describe as having carried them there, do you not see that
+by this act you can be held as an accessory after the fact?"
+
+Her eyebrows went up and the delicate curve of her lips was not without
+menace as she said:
+
+"You hate me, Mr. Sweetwater. Do you wish me to tell these gentlemen
+why?"
+
+The flush which, notwithstanding this peculiar young man's nerve,
+instantly crimsoned his features, was a surprise to Frederick. So was it
+to the others, who saw in it a possible hint as to the real cause of his
+persistent pursuit of this young girl, which they had hitherto ascribed
+entirely to his love of justice. Slighted love makes some hearts
+venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once loved and been disdained
+by this bewitching piece of unreliability?
+
+It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater's blush was the
+only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had amply served
+its turn.
+
+To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an effort and
+addressed her himself.
+
+"Your conduct," said he, "has not been that of a strictly honourable
+person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-entered my house
+after being witness to this double tragedy?"
+
+Her serenity was not to be disturbed.
+
+"I have just explained," she reminded him, "that I had sympathy for the
+criminal."
+
+"We all have sympathy for James Zabel, but--"
+
+"I do not believe one word of this story," interposed Sweetwater, in
+reckless disregard of proprieties. "A hungry, feeble old man, like
+Zabel, on the verge of death, could not have found his way into these
+woods. You carried the money there yourself, miss; you are the--"
+
+"Hush!" interposed the coroner, authoritatively; "do not let us go too
+fast--yet. Miss Page has an air of speaking the truth, strange and
+unaccountable as it may seem. Zabel was an admirable man once, and if he
+was led into theft and murder, it was not until his faculties had been
+weakened by his own suffering and that of his much-loved brother."
+
+"Thank you," was her simple reply; and for the first time every man
+there thrilled at her tone. Seeing it, all the dangerous fascination of
+her look and manner returned upon her with double force. "I have been
+unwise," said she, "and let my sympathy run away with my judgment. Women
+have impulses of this kind sometimes, and men blame them for it, till
+they themselves come to the point of feeling the need of just such blind
+devotion. I am sure I regret my short-sightedness now, for I have lost
+esteem by it, while he--" With a wave of the hand she dismissed the
+subject, and Dr. Talbot, watching her, felt a shade of his distrust
+leave him, and in its place a species of admiration for the lithe,
+graceful, bewitching personality before them, with her childish impulses
+and womanly wit which half mystified and half imposed upon them.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, on the contrary, was neither charmed from his antagonism
+nor convinced of her honesty. There was something in this matter that
+could not be explained away by her argument, and his suspicion of that
+something he felt perfectly sure was shared by his son, toward whose
+cold, set face he had frequently cast the most uneasy glances. He was
+not ready, however, to probe into the subject more deeply, nor could he,
+for the sake of Frederick, urge on to any further confession a young
+woman whom his unhappy son professed to love, and in whose discretion he
+had so little confidence. As for Sweetwater, he had now fully recovered
+his self-possession, and bore himself with great discretion when Dr.
+Talbot finally said:
+
+"Well, gentlemen, we have got more than we expected when we came here
+this morning. There remains, however, a point regarding which we have
+received no explanation. Miss Page, how came that orchid, which I am
+told you wore in your hair at the dance, to be found lying near the hem
+of Batsy's skirts? You distinctly told us that you did not go up-stairs
+when you were in Mrs. Webb's house."
+
+"Ah, that's so!" acquiesced the Boston detective dryly. "How came that
+flower on the scene of the murder?"
+
+She smiled and seemed equal to the emergency.
+
+"That is a mystery for us all to solve," she said quietly, frankly
+meeting the eyes of her questioner.
+
+"A mystery it is your business to solve," corrected the district
+attorney. "Nothing that you have told us in support of your innocence
+would, in the eyes of the law, weigh for one instant against the
+complicity shown by that one piece of circumstantial evidence against
+you."
+
+Her smile carried a certain high-handed denial of this to one heart
+there, at least. But her words were humble enough.
+
+"I am aware of that," said she. Then, turning to where Sweetwater stood
+lowering upon her from out his half-closed eyes, she impetuously
+exclaimed: "You, sir, who, with no excuse an honourable person can
+recognise, have seen fit to arrogate to yourself duties wholly out of
+your province, prove yourself equal to your presumption by ferreting
+out, alone and unassisted, the secret of this mystery. It can be done,
+for, mark, _I_ did not carry that flower into the room where it was
+found. This I am ready to assert before God and before man!"
+
+Her hand was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and--hard as it
+was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it--truth. He felt that he had
+received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who barely
+responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of Dr. Talbot.
+
+Amabel at once dropped her hand.
+
+"May I go?" she now cried appealingly to Mr. Courtney. "I really have no
+more to say, and I am tired."
+
+"Did you see the figure of the man who brushed by you in the wood? Was
+it that of the old man you saw on the doorstep?"
+
+At this direct question Frederick quivered in spite of his dogged
+self-control. But she, with her face upturned to meet the scrutiny of
+the speaker, showed only a childish kind of wonder. "Why do you ask
+that? Is there any doubt about its being the same?"
+
+What an actress she was! Frederick stood appalled. He had been amazed at
+the skill with which she had manipulated her story so as to keep her
+promise to him, and yet leave the way open for that further confession
+which would alter the whole into a denunciation of himself which he
+would find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet. But this extreme
+dissimulation made him lose heart. It showed her to be an antagonist of
+almost illimitable resource and secret determination.
+
+"I did not suppose there could be any doubt," she added, in such a
+natural tone of surprise that Mr. Courtney dropped the subject, and Dr.
+Talbot turned to Sweetwater, who for the moment seemed to have robbed
+Knapp of his rightful place as the coroner's confidant.
+
+"Shall we let her go for the present?" he whispered. "She does look
+tired, poor girl."
+
+The public challenge which Sweetwater had received made him wary, and
+his reply was a guarded one:
+
+"I do not trust her, yet there is much to confirm her story. Those
+sandwiches, now. She says she dropped them in Mrs. Webb's yard under the
+pear tree, and that the bag that held them burst open. Gentlemen, the
+birds were so busy there on the morning after the murder that I could
+not but notice them, notwithstanding my absorption in greater matters. I
+remember wondering what they were all pecking at so eagerly. But how
+about the flower whose presence on the scene of guilt she challenges me
+to explain? And the money so deftly reburied by her? Can any explanation
+make her other than accessory to a crime on whose fruits she lays her
+hand in a way tending solely to concealment? No, sirs; and so I shall
+not relax my vigilance over her, even if, in order to be faithful to it,
+I have to suggest that a warrant be made out for her imprisonment."
+
+"You are right," acquiesced the coroner, and turning to Miss Page, he
+told her she was too valuable a witness to be lost sight of, and
+requested her to prepare to accompany him into town.
+
+She made no objection. On the contrary her cheeks dimpled, and she
+turned away with alacrity towards her room. But before the door closed
+on her she looked back, and, with a persuasive smile, remarked that she
+had told all she knew, or thought she knew at the time. But that
+perhaps, after thinking the matter carefully over, she might remember
+some detail that would throw some extra light on the subject.
+
+"Call her back!" cried Mr. Courtney. "She is withholding something. Let
+us hear it all."
+
+But Mr. Sutherland, with a side look at Frederick, persuaded the
+district attorney to postpone all further examination of this artful
+girl until they were alone. The anxious father had noted, what the rest
+were too preoccupied to observe, that Frederick had reached the limit of
+his strength and could not be trusted to preserve his composure any
+longer in face of this searching examination into the conduct of a woman
+from whom he had so lately detached himself.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+POOR PHILEMON
+
+
+The next day was the day of Agatha's funeral. She was to be buried in
+Portchester, by the side of her six children, and, as the day was fine,
+the whole town, as by common consent, assembled in the road along which
+the humble cortege was to make its way to the spot indicated.
+
+From the windows of farmhouses, from between the trees of the few
+scattered thickets along the way, saddened and curious faces looked
+forth till Sweetwater, who walked as near as he dared to the immediate
+friends of the deceased, felt the impossibility of remembering them all
+and gave up the task in despair.
+
+Before one house, about a mile out of town, the procession paused, and
+at a gesture from the minister everyone within sight took off their
+hats, amid a hush which made almost painfully apparent the twittering of
+birds and the other sounds of animate and inanimate nature, which are
+inseparable from a country road. They had reached widow Jones's cottage
+in which Philemon was then staying.
+
+The front door was closed, and so were the lower windows, but in one of
+the upper casements a movement was perceptible, and in another instant
+there came into view a woman and man, supporting between them the
+impassive form of Agatha's husband. Holding him up in plain sight of the
+almost breathless throng below, the woman pointed to where his darling
+lay and appeared to say something to him.
+
+Then there was to be seen a strange sight. The old man, with his thin
+white locks fluttering in the breeze, leaned forward with a smile, and
+holding out his arms, cried in a faint but joyful tone: "Agatha!" Then,
+as if realising for the first time that it was death he looked upon, and
+that the crowd below was a funeral procession, his face altered and he
+fell back with a low heartbroken moan into the arms of those who
+supported him.
+
+As his white head disappeared from sight, the procession moved on, and
+from only one pair of lips went up that groan of sorrow with which every
+heart seemed surcharged. One groan. From whose lips did it come?
+Sweetwater endeavoured to ascertain, but was not able, nor could anyone
+inform him, unless it was Mr. Sutherland, whom he dared not approach.
+
+This gentleman was on foot like the rest, with his arm fast linked in
+that of his son Frederick. He had meant to ride, for the distance was
+long for men past sixty; but finding the latter resolved to walk, he had
+consented to do the same rather than be separated from his son.
+
+He had fears for Frederick--he could hardly have told why; and as the
+ceremony proceeded and Agatha was solemnly laid away in the place
+prepared for her, his sympathies grew upon him to such an extent that he
+found it difficult to quit the young man for a moment, or even to turn
+his eyes away from the face he had never seemed to know till now. But as
+friends and strangers were now leaving the yard, he controlled himself,
+and assuming a more natural demeanour, asked his son if he were now
+ready to ride back. But, to his astonishment, Frederick replied that he
+did not intend to return to Sutherlandtown at present; that he had
+business in Portchester, and that he was doubtful as to when he would be
+ready to return. As the old gentleman did not wish to raise a
+controversy, he said nothing, but as soon as he saw Frederick disappear
+up the road, he sent back the carriage he had ordered, saying that he
+would return in a Portchester gig as soon as he had settled some affairs
+of his own, which might and might not detain him there till evening.
+
+Then he proceeded to a little inn, where he hired a room with windows
+that looked out on the high-road. In one of these windows he sat all
+day, watching for Frederick, who had gone farther up the road.
+
+But no Frederick appeared, and with vague misgivings, for which as yet
+he had no name, he left the window and set out on foot for home.
+
+It was now dark, but a silvery gleam on the horizon gave promise of the
+speedy rising of a full moon. Otherwise he would not have attempted to
+walk over a road proverbially dark and dismal.
+
+The churchyard in which they had just laid away Agatha lay in his
+course. As he approached it he felt his heart fail, and stopping a
+moment at the stone wall that separated it from the high-road, he leaned
+against the trunk of a huge elm that guarded the gate of entrance. As he
+did so he heard a sound of repressed sobbing from some spot not very far
+away, and, moved by some undefinable impulse stronger than his will, he
+pushed open the gate and entered the sacred precincts.
+
+Instantly the weirdness and desolation of the spot struck him. He
+wished, yet dreaded, to advance. Something in the grief of the mourner
+whose sobs he had heard had seized upon his heart-strings, and yet, as
+he hesitated, the sounds came again, and forgetting that his intrusion
+might not prove altogether welcome, he pressed forward, till he came
+within a few feet of the spot from which the sobs issued.
+
+He had moved quietly, feeling the awesomeness of the place, and when he
+paused it was with a sensation of dread, not to be entirely explained by
+the sad and dismal surroundings. Dark as it was, he discerned the
+outline of a form lying stretched in speechless misery across a grave;
+but when, impelled by an almost irresistible compassion, he strove to
+speak, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he only drew back
+farther into the shadow.
+
+He had recognised the mourner and the grave. The mourner was Frederick
+and the grave that of Agatha Webb.
+
+A few minutes later Mr. Sutherland reappeared at the door of the inn,
+and asked for a gig and driver to take him back to Sutherlandtown. He
+said, in excuse for his indecision, that he had undertaken to walk, but
+had found his strength inadequate to the exertion. He was looking very
+pale, and trembled so that the landlord, who took his order, asked him
+if he were ill. But Mr. Sutherland insisted that he was quite well, only
+in a hurry, and showed the greatest impatience till he was again started
+upon the road.
+
+For the first half-mile he sat perfectly silent. The moon was now up,
+and the road stretched before them, flooded with light. As long as no
+one was to be seen on this road, or on the path running beside it, Mr.
+Sutherland held himself erect, his eyes fixed before him, in an attitude
+of anxious inquiry. But as soon as any sound came to break the silence,
+or there appeared in the distance ahead of them the least appearance of
+a plodding wayfarer, he drew back, and hid himself in the recesses of
+the vehicle. This happened several times. Then his whole manner changed.
+They had just passed Frederick, walking, with bowed head, toward
+Sutherlandtown.
+
+But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few minutes
+previously they had passed another man walking in the same direction. As
+Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself peering through the
+small window at the back of the buggy, striving to catch another glimpse
+of the two men plodding behind him. He could see them both, his son's
+form throwing its long shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too
+closely by the man whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to
+himself was growing only too familiar in his eyes.
+
+Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses, and
+the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to manhood,
+flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one house and one
+place drew his attention with a force that startled him again into an
+erect attitude, and seizing with one hand the arm of the driver, he
+pointed with the other at the door of the cottage they were passing,
+saying in choked tones:
+
+"See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we passed by here this
+morning. That is crape, Samuel, crape, hanging from the doorpost
+yonder!"
+
+"Yes, it is crape," answered the driver, jumping out and running up the
+path to look. "Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon."
+
+Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a moment, then
+he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road beside the driver.
+
+"Get in again," said he, "and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then come back
+for me. I must see the widow Jones."
+
+The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had called up
+in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr. Sutherland,
+with a glance back at the road he had just traversed, walked painfully
+up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.
+
+A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons proved
+the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had passed away. He had
+never rallied from the shock he had received. He had joined his beloved
+Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long tragedy of their mutual
+life was over.
+
+"It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains," quoth the
+good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused in this
+much-revered friend.
+
+The assent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously studying
+the road leading toward Portchester.
+
+Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.
+
+"Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a few
+minutes?" he asked. "I should like to rest there for an instant alone.
+This final blow has upset me."
+
+The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town. She
+did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so pointedly
+emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said, comfortable, and
+went back to her duties in the room above.
+
+It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner had
+her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the
+easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow
+Jones had insisted on lighting, passed directly to the window, through
+which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.
+
+A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland
+recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the
+appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and
+penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon
+Frederick, causing him to look up.
+
+The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance the
+father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye fell on
+that fluttering bit of crape, testifying to another death in this
+already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then in a pause of
+doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers grasped this symbol of
+mourning and clung there. Next moment he was far down the road, plunging
+toward home in a state of great mental disorder.
+
+A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not overtaken
+Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow. Ascertaining at his
+own door that his son had not yet come in, but had been seen going
+farther up the hill, he turned back again into the road and proceeded
+after him on foot.
+
+The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he approached
+it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half out of the
+honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be Frederick. But he soon
+saw that it was the fellow who had been following his son all the way
+from Portchester, and, controlling his first movement of dislike, he
+stepped up to him and quietly said:
+
+"Sweetwater, is this you?"
+
+The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation,
+quickly suppressed, however. "Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you know
+what I am doing here?"
+
+"I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--"
+
+Sweetwater made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.
+
+"Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say anything
+about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as you are. I
+never suspected him of having any direct connection with this murder;
+only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately attached himself. But
+after what I have seen, what am I to think? what am I to do? I honour
+you; I would not grieve you; but--but--oh, sir, perhaps you can help me
+out of the maze into which I have stumbled. Perhaps you can assure me
+that Mr. Frederick did not leave the ball at the time she did. I missed
+him from among the dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three,
+but perhaps you did; and--and--"
+
+His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr. Sutherland.
+As for the latter, who found himself unable to reassure the other on
+this very vital point, having no remembrance himself of having seen
+Frederick among his guests during those fatal hours, he stood
+speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and horror of which only a father
+can appreciate. Sweetwater respected his anguish and for a moment was
+silent himself. Then he burst out:
+
+"I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of shame or
+suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf, dumb--"
+
+Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.
+
+"You make too much of what you saw," said he. "My boy has faults and has
+lived anything but a satisfactory life, but he is not as bad as you
+would intimate. He can never have taken life. That would be incredible,
+monstrous, in one brought up as he has been. Besides, if he were so far
+gone in evil as to be willing to attempt crime, he had no motive to do
+so; Sweetwater, he had no motive. A few hundred dollars but these he
+could have got from me, and did, but--"
+
+Why did the wretched father stop? Did he recall the circumstances under
+which Frederick had obtained these last hundreds from him? They were not
+ordinary circumstances, and Frederick had been in no ordinary strait.
+Mr. Sutherland could not but acknowledge to himself that there was
+something in this whole matter which contradicted the very plea he was
+making, and not being able to establish the conviction of his son's
+innocence in his own mind, he was too honourable to try to establish it
+in that of another. His next words betrayed the depth of his struggle:
+
+"It is that girl who has ruined him, Sweetwater. He loves but doubts
+her, as who could help doing after the story she told us day before
+yesterday? Indeed, he has doubted her ever since that fatal night, and
+it is this which has broken his heart, and not--not--" Again the old
+gentleman paused; again he recovered himself, this time with a touch of
+his usual dignity and self-command. "Leave me," he cried. "Nothing that
+you have seen has escaped me; but our interpretations of it may differ.
+I will watch over my son from this hour, and you may trust my
+vigilance."
+
+Sweetwater bowed.
+
+"You have a right to command me," said he. "You may have forgotten, but
+I have not, that I owe my life to you. Years ago--perhaps you can recall
+it--it was at the Black Pond--I was going down for the third time and my
+mother was screaming in terror on the bank, when you plunged in
+and--Well, sir, such things are never forgotten, and, as I said before,
+you have only to command me." He turned to go, but suddenly came back.
+There were signs of mental conflict in his face and voice. "Mr.
+Sutherland, I am not a talkative man. If I trust your vigilance you may
+trust my discretion. Only I must have your word that you will convey no
+warning to your son."
+
+Mr. Sutherland made an indefinable gesture, and Sweetwater again
+disappeared, this time not to return. As for Mr. Sutherland, he remained
+standing before Mr. Halliday's door. What had the young man meant by
+this emphatic repetition of his former suggestion? That he would be
+quiet, also, and not speak of what he had seen? Why, then--But to the
+hope thus given, this honest-hearted gentleman would yield no quarter,
+and seeing a duty before him, a duty he dare not shirk, he brought his
+emotions, violent as they were, into complete and absolute subjection,
+and, opening Mr. Halliday's door, entered the house. They were old
+neighbours, and ceremony was ignored between them.
+
+Finding the hall empty and the parlour door open he walked immediately
+into the latter room. The sight that met his eyes never left his memory.
+Agnes, his little Agnes, whom he had always loved and whom he had vainly
+longed to call by the endearing name of daughter, sat with her face
+towards him, looking up at Frederick. That young gentleman had just
+spoken to her, or she had just received something from his hand for her
+own was held out and her expression was one of gratitude and acceptance.
+She was not a beautiful girl, but she had a beautiful look, and at this
+moment it was exalted by a feeling the old gentleman had once longed,
+but now dreaded inexpressibly, to see there. What could it mean? Why did
+she show at this unhappy crisis, interest, devotion, passion almost, for
+one she had regarded with open scorn when it was the dearest wish of his
+heart to see them united? It was one of the contradictions of our
+mysterious human nature, and at this crisis and in this moment of secret
+heart-break and miserable doubt it made the old gentleman shrink, with
+his first feeling of actual despair.
+
+The next moment Agnes had risen and they were both facing him.
+
+"Good-evening, Agnes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland forced himself to speak lightly.
+
+"Ah, Frederick, do I find you here?" The latter question had more
+constraint in it.
+
+Frederick smiled. There was an air of relief about him, almost of
+cheerfulness.
+
+"I was just leaving," said he. "I was the bearer of a message to Miss
+Halliday." He had always called her Agnes before.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had found his faculties confused by the expression
+he had surprised on the young girl's face, answered with a divided
+attention:
+
+"And I have a message to give you. Wait outside on the porch for me,
+Frederick, till I exchange a word with our little friend here."
+
+Agnes, who had thrust something she held into a box that lay beside her
+on a table, turned with a confused blush to listen.
+
+Mr. Sutherland waited till Frederick had stepped into the hall. Then he
+drew Agnes to one side and remorselessly, persistently, raised her face
+toward him till she was forced to meet his benevolent but searching
+regard.
+
+"Do you know," he whispered, in what he endeavoured to make a bantering
+tone, "how very few days it is since that unhappy boy yonder confessed
+his love for a young lady whose name I cannot bring myself to utter in
+your presence?"
+
+The intent was kind, but the effect was unexpectedly cruel. With a droop
+of her head and a hurried gasp which conveyed a mixture of entreaty and
+reproach, Agnes drew back in a vague endeavour to hide her sudden
+uneasiness. He saw his mistake, and let his hands drop.
+
+"Don't, my dear," he whispered. "I had no idea it would hurt you to hear
+this. You have always seemed indifferent, hard even, toward my
+scapegrace son. And this was right, for--for--" What could he say, how
+express one-tenth of that with which his breast was labouring! He could
+not, he dared not, so ended, as we have intimated, by a confused
+stammering.
+
+Agnes, who had never before seen this object of her lifelong admiration
+under any serious emotion, felt an impulse of remorse, as if she herself
+had been guilty of occasioning him embarrassment. Plucking up her
+courage, she wistfully eyed him.
+
+"Did you imagine," she murmured, "that I needed any warning against
+Frederick, who has never honoured me with his regard, as he has the
+young lady you cannot mention? I'm afraid you don't know me, Mr.
+Sutherland, notwithstanding I have sat on your knee and sometimes
+plucked at your beard in my infantile insistence upon attention."
+
+"I am afraid I don't know you," he answered. "I feel that I know nobody
+now, not even my son."
+
+He had hoped she would look up at this, but she did not.
+
+"Will my little girl think me very curious and very impertinent if I ask
+her what my son Frederick was saying when I came into the room?"
+
+She looked up now, and with visible candour answered him immediately and
+to the point:
+
+"Frederick is in trouble, Mr. Sutherland. He has felt the need of a
+friend who could appreciate this, and he has asked me to be that friend.
+Besides, he brought me a packet of letters which he entreated me to keep
+for him. I took them, Mr. Sutherland, and I will keep them as he asked
+me to do, safe from everybody's inspection, even my own."
+
+Oh! why had he questioned her? He did not want to know of these letters;
+he did not want to know that Frederick possessed anything which he was
+afraid to retain in his own possession.
+
+"My son did wrong," said he, "to confide anything to your care which he
+did not desire to retain in his own home. I feel that I ought to see
+these letters, for if my son is in trouble, as you say, I, his father,
+ought to know it."
+
+"I am not sure about that," she smiled. "His trouble may be of a
+different nature than you imagine. Frederick has led a life that he
+regrets. I think his chief source of suffering lies in the fact that it
+is so hard for him to make others believe that he means to do
+differently in the future."
+
+"Does he mean to do differently?"
+
+She flushed. "He says so, Mr. Sutherland. And I, for one, cannot help
+believing him. Don't you see that he begins to look like another man?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland was taken aback. He had noticed this fact, and had found
+it a hard one to understand. To ascertain what her explanation of it
+might be, he replied at once:
+
+"There is a change in him--a very evident change. What is the occasion
+of it? To what do you ascribe it, Agnes?"
+
+How breathlessly he waited for her answer! Had she any suspicion of the
+awful doubts which were so deeply agitating himself that night? She did
+not appear to have.
+
+"I hesitate," she faltered, "but not from any doubt of Frederick, to
+tell you just what I think lies at the bottom of the sudden change
+observable in him. Miss Page (you see, I can name her, if you cannot)
+has proved herself so unworthy of his regard that the shock he has
+received has opened his eyes to certain failings of his own which made
+his weakness in her regard possible. I do not know of any other
+explanation. Do you?"
+
+At this direct question, breathed though it was by tender lips, and
+launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his heart, Mr.
+Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the door. Then with
+forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are so much nearer his
+age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not feel sure of his real
+feelings, how should I, who am his father, but have never been his
+confidant?"
+
+"Oh," she cried, holding out her hands, "such a good father! Some day he
+will appreciate that fact as well as others. Believe it, Mr. Sutherland,
+believe it." And then, ashamed of her glowing interest, which was a
+little more pronounced than became her simple attitude of friend toward
+a man professedly in love with another woman, she faltered and cast the
+shyest of looks upward at the face she had never seen turned toward her
+with anything but kindness. "I have confidence in Frederick's good
+heart," she added, with something like dignity.
+
+"Would God that I could share it!" was the only answer she received.
+Before she could recover from the shock of these words, Mr. Sutherland
+was gone.
+
+Agnes was more or less disconcerted by this interview. There was a
+lingering in her step that night, as she trod the little white-embowered
+chamber sacred to her girlish dreams, which bespake an overcharged
+heart; a heart that, before she slept, found relief in these few words
+whispered by her into the night air, laden with the sweetness of
+honeysuckles:
+
+"Can it be that he is right? Did I need such a warning,--I, who have
+hated this man, and who thought that it was my hatred which made it
+impossible for me to think of anything or anybody else since we parted
+from each other last night? O me, if it is so!"
+
+And from the great, wide world without, tremulous with moonlight, the
+echo seemed to come back:
+
+"Woe to thee, Agnes Halliday, if this be so!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+A SURPRISE FOR MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland and Frederick stood facing each other in the
+former's library. Nothing had been said during their walk down the hill,
+and nothing seemed likely to proceed from Frederick now, though his
+father waited with great and growing agitation for some explanation that
+would relieve the immense strain on his heart. At last he himself spoke,
+dryly, as we all speak when the heart is fullest and we fear to reveal
+the depth of our emotions.
+
+"What papers were those you gave into Agnes Halliday's keeping? Anything
+which we could not have more safely, not to say discreetly, harboured in
+our own house?"
+
+Frederick, taken aback, for he had not realised that his father had seen
+these papers, hesitated for a moment; then he boldly said:
+
+"They were letters--old letters--which I felt to be better out of this
+house than in it. I could not destroy them, so I gave them into the
+guardianship of the most conscientious person I know. I hope you won't
+demand to see those letters. Indeed, sir, I hope you won't demand to see
+them. They were not written for your eye, and I would rather rest under
+your displeasure than have them in any way made public."
+
+Frederick showed such earnestness, rather than fear, that Mr. Sutherland
+was astonished.
+
+"When were these letters written?" he asked. "Lately, or before--You say
+they are old; how old?"
+
+Frederick's breath came easier.
+
+"Some of them were written years ago--most of them, in fact. It is a
+personal matter--every man has such. I wish I could have destroyed them.
+You will leave them with Agnes, sir?"
+
+"You astonish me," said Mr. Sutherland, relieved that he could at least
+hope that these letters were in nowise connected with the subject of his
+own frightful suspicions. "A young girl, to whom you certainly were most
+indifferent a week ago, is a curious guardian of letters you decline to
+show your father."
+
+"I know it," was Frederick's sole reply.
+
+Somehow the humility with which this was uttered touched Mr. Sutherland
+and roused hopes he had supposed dead. He looked his son for the first
+time directly in the eye, and with a beating heart said:
+
+"Your secrets, if you have such, might better be entrusted to your
+father. You have no better friend--" and there he stopped with a
+horrified, despairing feeling of inward weakness. If Frederick had
+committed a crime, anything would be better than knowing it. Turning
+partially aside, he fingered the papers on the desk before which he was
+standing. A large envelope, containing some legal document, lay before
+him. Taking it up mechanically, he opened it. Frederick as mechanically
+watched him.
+
+"I know," said the latter, "that I have no better friend. You have been
+too good, too indulgent. What is it, father? You change colour, look
+ill, what is there in that paper?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland straightened himself; there was a great reserve of
+strength in this broken-down man yet. Fixing Frederick with a gaze more
+penetrating than any he had yet bestowed upon him, he folded his hands
+behind him with the document held tightly between them, and remarked:
+
+"When you borrowed that money from me you did it like a man who expected
+to repay it. Why? Whence did you expect to receive the money with which
+to repay me? Answer, Frederick; this is your hour for confession."
+
+Frederick turned so pale his father dropped his eyes in mercy.
+
+"Confess?" he repeated. "What should I confess? My sins? They are too
+many. As for that money, I hoped to return it as any son might hope to
+reimburse his father for money advanced to pay a gambler's debt. I said
+I meant to work. My first money earned shall be offered to you. I--"
+
+"Well? Well?" His father was holding the document he had just read,
+opened out before his eyes.
+
+"Didn't you expect THIS?" he asked. "Didn't you know that that poor
+woman, that wretchedly murdered, most unhappy woman, whose death the
+whole town mourns, had made you her heir? That by the terms of this
+document, seen by me here and now for the first time, I am made executor
+and you the inheritor of the one hundred thousand dollars or more left
+by Agatha Webb?"
+
+"No!" cried Frederick, his eyes glued to the paper, his whole face and
+form expressing something more akin to terror than surprise. "Has she
+done this? Why should she? I hardly knew her."
+
+"No, you hardly knew her. And she? She hardly knew you; if she had she
+would have abhorred rather than enriched you. Frederick, I had rather
+see you dead than stand before me the inheritor of Philemon and Agatha
+Webb's hard-earned savings."
+
+"You are right; it would be better," murmured Frederick, hardly heeding
+what he said. Then, as he encountered his father's eye resting upon him
+with implacable scrutiny, he added, in weak repetition: "Why should she
+give her money to me? What was I to her that she should will me her
+fortune?"
+
+The father's finger trembled to a certain line in the document, which
+seemed to offer some explanation of this; but Frederick did not follow
+it. He had seen that his father was expecting a reply to the question he
+had previously put, and he was casting about in his mind how to answer
+it.
+
+"When did you know of this will?" Mr. Sutherland now repeated. "For know
+of it you did before you came to me for money."
+
+Frederick summoned up his full courage and confronted his father
+resolutely.
+
+"No," said he, "I did not know of it. It is as much of a surprise to me
+as it is to you."
+
+He lied. Mr. Sutherland knew that he lied and Frederick knew that he
+knew it. A shadow fell between them, which the older, with that
+unspeakable fear upon him roused by Sweetwater's whispered suspicions,
+dared no longer attempt to lift.
+
+After a few minutes in which Frederick seemed to see his father age
+before his eyes, Mr. Sutherland coldly remarked:
+
+"Dr. Talbot must know of this will. It has been sent here to me from
+Boston by a lawyer who drew it up two years ago. The coroner may not as
+yet have heard of it. Will you accompany me to his office to-morrow? I
+should like to have him see that we wish to be open with him in an
+affair of such importance."
+
+"I will accompany you gladly," said Frederick, and seeing that his
+father neither wished nor was able to say anything further, he bowed
+with distant ceremony as to a stranger and quietly withdrew. But when
+the door had closed between them and only the memory of his father's
+changed countenance remained to trouble him, he paused and laid his hand
+again on the knob, as if tempted to return. But he left without doing
+so, only to turn again at the end of the hall and gaze wistfully back.
+Yet he went on.
+
+As he opened his own door and disappeared within, he said half audibly:
+
+"Easy to destroy me now, Amabel. One word and I am lost!"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+
+XXI
+
+SWEETWATER REASONS
+
+
+And what of Sweetwater, in whose thoughts and actions the interest now
+centres?
+
+When he left Mr. Sutherland it was with feelings such as few who knew
+him supposed him capable of experiencing. Unattractive as he was in
+every way, ungainly in figure and unprepossessing of countenance, this
+butt of the more favoured youth in town had a heart whose secret fires
+were all the warmer for being so persistently covered, and this heart
+was wrung with trouble and heavy with a struggle that bade fair to leave
+him without rest that night, if not for many nights to come. Why? One
+word will explain. Unknown to the world at large and almost unknown to
+himself, his best affections were fixed upon the man whose happiness he
+thus unexpectedly saw himself destined to destroy. He loved Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+The suspicion which he now found transferred in his own mind from the
+young girl whose blood-stained slippers he had purloined during the
+excitement of the first alarm, to the unprincipled but only son of his
+one benefactor, had not been lightly embraced or thoughtlessly
+expressed. He had had time to think it out in all its bearings. During
+that long walk from Portchester churchyard to Mr. Halliday's door, he
+had been turning over in his mind everything that he had heard and seen
+in connection with this matter, till the dim vision of Frederick's
+figure going on before him was not more apparent to his sight than was
+the guilt he so deplored to his inward understanding.
+
+He could not help but recognise him as the active party in the crime he
+had hitherto charged Amabel with. With the clew offered by Frederick's
+secret anguish at the grave of Agatha, he could read the whole story of
+this detestable crime as plainly as if it had been written in letters of
+fire on the circle of the surrounding darkness. Such anguish under such
+circumstances on the part of such a man could mean but one
+thing--remorse; and remorse in the breast of one so proverbially
+careless and corrupt, over the death of a woman who was neither relative
+nor friend, could have but one interpretation, and that was guilt.
+
+No other explanation was possible. Could one be given, or if any
+evidence could be adduced in contradiction of this assumption, he would
+have dismissed his new suspicion with more heartiness even than he had
+embraced his former one. He did not wish to believe Frederick guilty. He
+would have purchased an inner conviction of his innocence almost at the
+price of his own life, not because of any latent interest in the young
+man himself, but because he was Charles Sutherland's son, and the dear,
+if unworthy, centre of all that noble man's hopes, aims, and happiness.
+But he could come upon no fact capable of shaking his present belief.
+Taking for truth Amabel's account of what she had seen and done on that
+fatal night--something which he had hesitated over the previous day, but
+which he now found himself forced to accept or do violence to his own
+secret convictions--and adding to it such facts as had come to his own
+knowledge in his self-imposed role of detective, he had but to test the
+events of that night by his present theory of Frederick's guilt, to find
+them hang together in a way too complete for mistake.
+
+For what had been his reasons for charging Amabel herself with the guilt
+of a crime she only professed to have been a partial witness to?
+
+They were many.
+
+First--The forced nature of her explanations in regard to her motive for
+leaving a merry ball and betaking herself to the midnight road in her
+party dress and slippers. A woman of her well-known unsympathetic nature
+might use the misery of the Zabels as a pretext for slipping into town
+at night, but never would be influenced by it as a motive.
+
+Second--The equally unsatisfactory nature of the reasons she gave for
+leaving the course she had marked out for herself and entering upon the
+pursuit of an unknown man into a house in which she had no personal
+interest and from which she had just seen a bloody dagger thrown out.
+The most callous of women would have shrunk from letting her curiosity
+carry her thus far.
+
+Third--The poverty of her plea that, after having braved so much in her
+desire to identify this criminal, she was so frightened at his near
+approach as to fail to lift her head when the opportunity was given her
+to recognise him.
+
+Fourth--Her professed inability to account for the presence of the
+orchid from her hair being found in the room with Batsy.
+
+Fifth--Her evident attempt to throw the onus of the crime on an old man
+manifestly incapable from physical causes of committing it.
+
+Sixth--The improbability, which she herself should have recognised, of
+this old man, in his extremely weak condition, ignoring the
+hiding-places offered by the woods back of his own house, for the sake
+of one not only involving a long walk, but situated close to a
+much-frequented road, and almost in view of the Sutherland mansion.
+
+Seventh--The transparent excuse of sympathy for the old man and her
+desire to save him from the consequences of his crime, which she offered
+in extenuation of her own criminal avowal of having first found and then
+reburied the ill-gotten gains she had come upon in her persistent
+pursuit of the flying criminal. So impulsive an act might be consistent
+with the blind compassion of some weak-headed but warm-hearted woman,
+but not with her self-interested nature, incapable of performing any
+heroic deed save from personal motives or the most headlong passion.
+
+Lastly--The weakness of her explanation in regard to the cause which led
+her to peer into the Zabel cottage through a hole made in the
+window-shade. Curiosity has its limits even in a woman's breast, and
+unless she hoped to see more than was indicated by her words, her action
+was but the precursor of a personal entrance into a room where we have
+every reason to believe the twenty-dollar bill was left.
+
+A telling record and sufficient to favour the theory of her personal
+guilt if, after due thought, certain facts in contradiction to this
+assumption had not offered themselves to his mind even before he thought
+of Frederick as the unknown man she had followed down the hillside, as,
+for instance:
+
+This crime, if committed by her, was done deliberately and with a
+premeditation antedating her departure from the ballroom. Yet she went
+upon this errand in slippers, white slippers at that, something which so
+cool and calculating a woman would have avoided, however careless she
+might have shown herself in other regards.
+
+Again, guilt awakens cunning, even in the dullest breast; but she, keen
+beyond most men even, and so self-poised that the most searching
+examination could not shake her self-control, betrayed an utter
+carelessness as to what she did with these slippers on her return,
+thrusting them into a place easily accessible to the most casual search.
+Had she been conscious of guilt and thus amenable to law, the sight of
+blood and mud-stains on those slippers would have appalled her, and she
+would have made some attempt to destroy them, and not put them behind a
+picture and forgotten them.
+
+Again, would she have been so careless with a flower she knew to be
+identified with herself? A woman who deliberately involves herself in
+crime has quick eyes; she would have seen that flower fall. At all
+events, if she had been immediately responsible for its being on the
+scene of crime she would, with her quick wit, have found some excuse or
+explanation for it, instead of defying her examiners with some such
+words as these: "It is a fact for you to explain. I only know that I did
+not carry this flower into that room of death."
+
+Again, had she been actuated in her attempt to fix the crime on old
+James Zabel by a personal consciousness of guilt and a personal dread,
+she would not have stopped at suggestion in her allusions to the person
+she watched burying the treasure in the woods. Instead of speaking of
+him as a shadow whose flight she had followed at a distance, she would
+have described his figure as that of the same old man she had seen enter
+the Zabel cottage a few minutes before, there being no reason for
+indefiniteness on this point, her conscience being sufficiently elastic
+for any falsehood that would further her ends. And lastly, her manner,
+under the examination to which she had been subjected, was not that of
+one who felt herself under a personal attack. It was a strange,
+suggestive, hesitating manner, baffling alike to him who had more or
+less sounded her strange nature and to those who had no previous
+knowledge of her freaks and subtle intellectual power, and only reaching
+its height of hateful charm and mysterious daring when Frederick
+appeared on the scene and joined, or seemed to join, himself to the
+number of her examiners.
+
+Now, let all suspicion of her as an active agent in this crime be
+dropped, assume Frederick to be the culprit and she the simple accessory
+after the fact, and see how inconsistencies vanish, and how much more
+natural the whole conduct of this mysterious woman appears.
+
+Amabel Page left a merry dance at midnight and stole away into the
+Sutherland garden in her party dress and slippers--why? Not to fulfil an
+errand which anyone who knows her cold and unsympathetic nature can but
+regard as a pretext, but because she felt it imperative to see if her
+lover (with whose character, temptations, and necessities she was fully
+acquainted, and in whose excited and preoccupied manner she had probably
+discovered signs of a secretly growing purpose) meant indeed to elude
+his guests and slip away to town on the dangerous and unholy enterprise
+suggested by their mutual knowledge of the money to be obtained there by
+one daring enough to enter a certain house open like their own to
+midnight visitors.
+
+She followed at such an hour and into such a place, not an unknown man
+casually come upon, but her lover, whom she had tracked from the garden
+of his father's house, where she had lain in wait for him. It took
+courage to do this, but a courage no longer beyond the limit of feminine
+daring, for her fate was bound up in his and she could not but feel the
+impulse to save him from the consequences of crime, if not from the
+crime itself.
+
+As for the aforementioned flower, what more natural than that Frederick
+should have transferred it from her hair to his buttonhole during some
+of their interviews at the ball, and that it should have fallen from its
+place to the floor in the midst of his possible struggle with Batsy?
+
+And with this assumption of her perfect knowledge as to who the man was
+who had entered Mrs. Webb's house, how much easier it is to understand
+why she did not lift her head when she heard him descend the stairs! No
+woman, even one so depraved as she, would wish to see the handsome face
+of her lover in the glare of a freshly committed crime, and besides she
+might very easily be afraid of him, for a man has but a blow for the
+suddenly detected witness of his crime unless that witness is his
+confidant, which from every indication Sweetwater felt bound to believe
+Amabel was not.
+
+Her flight to the Zabel cottage, after an experience which would madden
+most women, can now be understood. She was still following her lover.
+The plan of making Agatha's old and wretched friend amenable for her
+death originated with Frederick and not with Amabel. It was he who first
+started for the Zabel cottage. It was he who left the bank bill there.
+This is all clear, and even the one contradictory fact of the dagger
+having been seen in the old man's hand was not a stumbling-block to
+Sweetwater. With the audacity of one confident of his own insight, he
+explained it to himself thus: The dagger thrown from the window by the
+assassin, possibly because he knew of Zabel's expected visit there that
+night, fell on the grass and was picked up by Amabel, only to be flung
+down again in the brightest part of the lawn. It was lying there then,
+when, a few minutes later and before either Frederick or Amabel had left
+the house, the old man entered the yard in a state of misery bordering
+on frenzy. He and his brother were starving, had been starving for days.
+He was too proud to own his want, and too loyal to his brother to leave
+him for the sake of the food prepared for them both at Agatha's house,
+and this was why he had hesitated over his duty till this late hour,
+when his own secret misery or, perhaps, the hope of relieving his
+brother drove him to enter the gate he had been accustomed to see open
+before him in glad hospitality. He finds the lights burning in the house
+above and below, and encouraged by the welcome they seem to hold out, he
+staggers up the path, ignorant of the tragedy which was at that very
+moment being enacted behind those lighted windows. But half-way toward
+the house he stops, the courage which has brought him so far suddenly
+fails, and in one of those quick visions which sometimes visit men in
+extremity, he foresees the astonishment which his emaciated figure is
+likely to cause in these two old friends, and burying his face in his
+hands he stops and bitterly communes with himself before venturing
+farther. Fatal stop! fatal communing! for as he stands there he sees a
+dagger, his own old dagger, how lost or how found he probably did not
+stop to ask, lying on the grass and offering in its dumb way suggestions
+as to how he might end this struggle without any further suffering.
+Dizzy with the new hope, preferring death to the humiliation he saw
+before him in Agatha's cottage, he dashes out of the yard, almost
+upsetting Mr. Crane, who was passing by on his homeward way from an
+errand of mercy. A little while later Amabel comes upon him lying across
+his own doorstep. He has made an effort to enter, but his long walk and
+the excitement of this last bitter hour have been too much for him. As
+she watches him he gains strength and struggles to his feet, while she,
+aghast at the sight of the dagger she had herself flung down in Agatha's
+yard, and dreading the encounter between this old man and the lover she
+had been following to this place, creeps around the house and looks into
+the first window she finds open. What does she expect to see? Frederick
+brought face to face with this desperate figure with its uplifted knife.
+But instead of that she beholds another old man seated at a table
+and--Amabel had paused when she reached that AND--and Sweetwater had not
+then seen how important this pause was, but now he understood it. Now he
+saw that if she had not had a subtle purpose in view, that if she had
+wished to tell the truth rather than produce false inferences in the
+minds of those about her calculated to save the criminal as she called
+him, she would have completed her sentence thus: "I saw an old man
+seated at a table and Frederick Sutherland standing over him." For
+Sweetwater had no longer a doubt that Frederick was in that room at that
+moment. What further she saw, whether she was witness to an encounter
+between this intruder and James, or whether by some lingering on the
+latter's part Frederick was able to leave the house without running
+across him, was a matter of comparative unimportance. What is of
+importance is that he did leave it and that Amabel, knowing it was
+Frederick, strove to make her auditors believe it was Zabel, who carried
+the remainder of the money into the woods. Yet she did not say so, and
+if her words on this subject could be carefully recalled, one would see
+that it was still her lover she was following and no old man, tottering
+on the verge of the grave and only surviving because of the task he was
+bent on performing.
+
+Amabel's excuse for handling the treasure, and for her reburial of the
+same, comes now within the bounds of possibility. She hoped to share
+this money some day, and her greed was too great for her to let such an
+amount lie there untouched, while her caution led her to bury it deeper,
+even at the risk of the discovery she was too inexperienced to fear.
+
+That she should forget to feign surprise when the alarm of murder was
+raised was very natural, and so was the fact that a woman with a soul so
+blunted to all delicate instincts, and with a mind so intent upon
+perfecting the scheme entered into by the murderer of throwing the blame
+upon the man whose dagger had been made use of, should persist in
+visiting the scene of crime and calling attention to the spot where that
+dagger had fallen. And so with her manner before her examiners. Baffling
+as that manner was, it still showed streaks of consistency, when you
+thought of it as the cloak of a subtle, unprincipled woman, who sees
+amongst her interlocutors the guilty man whom by a word she can destroy,
+but whom she exerts herself to save, even at the cost of a series of
+bizarre explanations. She was playing with a life, a life she loved, but
+not with sincerity sufficient to rob the game of a certain delicate, if
+inconceivable, intellectual enjoyment. [Footnote: That Sweetwater in his
+hate, and with no real clew to the real situation, should come so near
+the truth as in this last supposition, shows the keenness of his
+insight.]
+
+And Frederick? Had there been anything in his former life or in his
+conduct since the murder to give the lie to these heavy doubts against
+him? On the contrary. Though Sweetwater knew little of the dark record
+which had made this young man the disgrace of his family, what he did
+know was so much against him that he could well see that the distance
+usually existing between simple dissipation and desperate crime might be
+easily bridged by some great necessity for money. Had there been such a
+necessity? Sweetwater found it easy to believe so. And Frederick's
+manner? Was it that of an honest man simply shocked by the suspicions
+which had fallen upon the woman he loved? Had he, Sweetwater, not
+observed certain telltale moments in his late behaviour that required a
+deeper explanation even than this?
+
+The cry, for instance, with which he had rushed from the empty ballroom
+into the woods on the opposite side of the road! Was it a natural cry or
+an easily explainable one? "Thank God! this terrible night is over!"
+Strange language to be uttered by this man at such a time and in such a
+place, if he did not already know what was to make this night of nights
+memorable through all this region. He did know, and this cry which had
+struck Sweetwater strangely at the time and still more strangely when he
+regarded it simply as a coincidence, now took on all the force of a
+revelation and the irresistible bubbling up in Frederick's breast of
+that remorse which had just found its full expression on Agatha's grave.
+
+To some that remorse and all his other signs of suffering might be
+explained by his passion for the real criminal. But to Sweetwater it was
+only too evident that an egotist like Frederick Sutherland cannot suffer
+for another to such an extent as this, and that a personal explanation
+must be given for so personal a grief, even if that explanation involves
+the dreadful charge of murder.
+
+It was when Sweetwater reached this point in his reasoning that
+Frederick disappeared beneath Mr. Halliday's porch, and Mr. Sutherland
+came up behind him. After the short conversation in which Sweetwater saw
+his own doubts more than reflected in the uneasy consciousness of this
+stricken father, he went home and the struggle of his life began.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+SWEETWATER ACTS
+
+
+Sweetwater had promised Mr. Sutherland that he would keep counsel in
+regard to his present convictions concerning Frederick's guilt; but this
+he knew he could not do if he remained in Sutherlandtown and fell under
+the pitiless examination of Mr. Courtney, the shrewd and able
+prosecuting attorney of the district. He was too young, too honest, and
+had made himself too conspicuous in this affair to succeed in an
+undertaking requiring so much dissimulation, if not actual falsehood.
+Indeed, he was not sure that in his present state of mind he could hear
+Frederick's name mentioned without flushing, and slight as such a hint
+might be, it would be enough to direct attention to Frederick, which
+once done could but lead to discovery and permanent disgrace to all who
+bore the name of Sutherland.
+
+What was he to do then? How avoid a consequence he found himself
+absolutely unable to face? It was a problem which this night must solve
+for him. But how? As I have said, he went down to his house to think.
+
+Sweetwater was not a man of absolute rectitude. He was not so much
+high-minded as large-hearted. He had, besides, certain foibles. In the
+first place, he was vain, and vanity in a very plain man is all the more
+acute since it centres in his capabilities, rather than in his
+appearance. Had Sweetwater been handsome, or even passably attractive,
+he might have been satisfied with the approbation of demure maidens and
+a comradeship with his fellows. But being one who could hope for nothing
+of this kind, not even for a decent return to the unreasoning
+heart-worship he felt himself capable of paying, and which he had once
+paid for a few short days till warned of his presumption by the
+insolence of the recipient, he had fixed his hope and his ambition on
+doing something which would rouse the admiration of those about him and
+bring him into that prominence to which he felt himself entitled. That
+he, a skilful musician, should desire to be known as a brilliant
+detective, is only one of the anomalies of human nature which it would
+be folly and a waste of time on our part to endeavour to explain. That,
+having chosen to exercise his wits in this way, he should so well
+succeed that he dared not for his life continue in the work he had so
+publicly undertaken, occasioned in him a pang of disappointment almost
+as insufferable as that brought by the realisation of what his efforts
+were likely to bring upon the man to whose benevolence he owed his very
+life. Hence his struggle, which must be measured by the extent of his
+desires and the limitations which had been set to his nature by his
+surroundings and the circumstances of his life and daily history.
+
+If we enter with him into the humble cottage where he was born and from
+which he had hardly strayed more than a dozen miles in the twenty-two
+years of his circumscribed life, we may be able to understand him
+better.
+
+It was an unpainted house perched on an arid hillside, with nothing
+before it but the limitless sea. He had found his way to it
+mechanically, but as he approached the narrow doorway he paused and
+turned his face towards the stretch of heaving waters, whose low or loud
+booming had been first his cradle song and then the ceaseless
+accompaniment of his later thoughts and aspirations. It was heaving yet,
+ceaselessly heaving, and in its loud complaint there was a sound of
+moaning not always to be found there, or so it seemed to Sweetwater in
+his present troubled mood.
+
+Sighing as this sound reached his ear, and shuddering as its meaning
+touched his heart, Sweetwater pushed open the door of his small house,
+and entered.
+
+"It is I, mamsie!" he shouted, in what he meant to be his usual voice;
+but to a sensitive ear--and what ear is so sensitive as a
+mother's?--there was a tremble in it that was not wholly natural.
+
+"Is anything the matter, dear?" called out that mother, in reply.
+
+The question made him start, though he replied quickly enough, and in
+more guarded tones:
+
+"No, mamsie. Go to sleep. I'm tired, that's all."
+
+Would to God that was all! He recalled with envy the days when he
+dragged himself into the house at sundown, after twelve long hours of
+work on the docks. As he paused in the dark hallway and listened till he
+heard the breathing of her who had called him DEAR--the only one in the
+world who ever had or ever would call him DEAR--he had glimpses of that
+old self which made him question if his self-tutoring on the violin, and
+the restless ambition which had driven him out of the ways of his
+ancestors into strange attempts for which he was not prepared by any
+previous discipline, had brought him happiness or improved his manhood.
+He was forced to acknowledge that the sleep of those far-distant nights
+of his busy boyhood was sweeter than the wakefulness of these later
+days, and that it would have been better for him, and infinitely better
+for her, if he had remained at the carpenter's bench and been satisfied
+with a repetition of his father's existence.
+
+His mother was the only person sharing that small house with him, and
+once assured that she was asleep, he lighted a lamp in the empty kitchen
+and sat down.
+
+It was just twelve o'clock. This, to anyone accustomed to this peculiar
+young man's habits, had nothing unusual in it. He was accustomed to come
+home late and sit thus by himself for a short time before going
+up-stairs. But, to one capable of reading his sharp and none too mobile
+countenance, there was a change in the character of the brooding into
+which he now sank, which, had that mother been awake to watch him, would
+have made every turn of his eye and movement of his hand interesting and
+important.
+
+In the first place, the careless attitude into which he had fallen was
+totally at variance with the restless glance which took in every object
+in that well-known room so associated with his mother and her daily work
+that he could not imagine her in any other surroundings, and wondered
+sometimes if she would seem any longer his mother if transplanted to
+other scenes and engaged in other tasks.
+
+Little things, petty objects of household use or ornament, which he had
+seen all his life without specially noticing them, seemed under the
+stress of his present mood to acquire a sudden importance and fix
+themselves indelibly in his memory. There, on a nail driven long before
+he was born, hung the little round lid-holder he had pieced together in
+his earliest years and presented to his mother in a gush of pride
+greater than any he had since experienced. She had never used it, but it
+always hung upon the one nail in the one place, as a symbol of his love
+and of hers. And there, higher up on the end of the shelf barren enough
+of ornaments, God wot, were a broken toy and a much-defaced primer,
+mementos likewise of his childhood; and farther along the wall, on a
+sort of raised bench, a keg, the spigot of which he was once guilty of
+turning on in his infantile longing for sweets, only to find he could
+not turn it back again until all the floor was covered with molasses,
+and his appetite for the forbidden gratified to the full. And yonder,
+dangling from a peg, never devoted to any other use, hung his father's
+old hat, just where he had placed it on the fatal morning when he came
+in and lay down on the sitting-room lounge for the last time; and close
+to it, lovingly close to it, Sweetwater thought, his mother's apron, the
+apron he had seen her wear at supper, and which he would see her wear at
+breakfast, with all its suggestions of ceaseless work and patient
+every-day thrift.
+
+Somehow, he could not bear the sight of that apron. With the expectation
+now forming in his mind, of leaving this home and leaving this mother,
+this symbol of humble toil became an intolerable grief to him. Jumping
+up, he turned in another direction; but now another group of objects
+equally eloquent came under his eye. It was his mother's work-basket he
+saw, with a piece of sewing in it intended for him, and as if this were
+not enough, the table set for two, and at his place a little covered
+dish which held the one sweetmeat he craved for breakfast. The
+spectacles lying beside her plate told him how old she was, and as he
+thought of her failing strength and enfeebled ways, he jumped up again
+and sought another corner. But here his glances fell on his violin, and
+a new series of emotions awakened within him. He loved the instrument
+and played as much from natural intuition as acquired knowledge, but in
+the plan of action he had laid out for himself his violin could have no
+part. He would have to leave it behind. Feeling that his regrets were
+fast becoming too much for him, he left the humble kitchen and went
+up-stairs. But not to sleep. Locking the door (something he never
+remembered doing before in all his life), he began to handle over his
+clothes and other trivial belongings. Choosing out a certain strong
+suit, he laid it out on the bed and then went to a bureau drawer and
+drew out an old-fashioned wallet. This he opened, but after he had
+counted the few bills it contained he shook his head and put them all
+back, only retaining a little silver, which he slipped into one of the
+pockets of the suit he had chosen. Then he searched for and found a
+little Bible which his mother had once given him. He was about to thrust
+that into another pocket, but he seemed to think better of this, too,
+for he ended by putting it back into the drawer and taking instead a bit
+from one of his mother's old aprons which he had chanced upon on the
+stairway. This he placed as carefully in his watch pocket as if it had
+been the picture of a girl he loved. Then he undressed and went to bed.
+
+Mrs. Sweetwater said afterwards that she never knew Caleb to talk so
+much and eat so little as he did that next morning at breakfast. Such
+plans as he detailed for unmasking the murderer of Mrs. Webb! Such
+business for the day! So many people to see! It made her quite dizzy,
+she said. And, indeed, Sweetwater was more than usually voluble that
+morning,--perhaps because he could not bear his mother's satisfied
+smile; and when he went out of the house it was with a laugh and a
+cheery "Good-bye, mamsie" that was in spiking contrast to the
+irrepressible exclamation of grief which escaped him when the door was
+closed between them. Ah, when should he enter those four walls again,
+and when should he see the old mother?
+
+He proceeded immediately to town. A ship was preparing to sail that
+morning for the Brazils, and the wharves were alive with bustle. He
+stopped a moment to contemplate the great hulk rising and falling at her
+moorings, then he passed on and entered the building where he had every
+reason to expect to find Dr. Talbot and Knapp in discussion. It was very
+important to him that morning to learn just how they felt concerning the
+great matter absorbing him, for if suspicion was taking the direction of
+Frederick, or if he saw it was at all likely to do so, then would his
+struggle be cut short and all necessity for leaving town be at an end.
+It was to save Frederick from this danger that he was prepared to cut
+all the ties binding him to this place, and nothing short of the
+prospect of accomplishing this would make him willing to undergo such a
+sacrifice.
+
+"Well, Sweetwater, any news, eh?" was the half-jeering,
+half-condescending greeting he received from the coroner.
+
+Sweetwater, who had regained entire control over his feelings as soon as
+he found himself under the eye of this man and the supercilious
+detective he had attempted to rival, gave a careless shrug and passed
+the question on to Knapp. "Have you any news?" he asked.
+
+Knapp, who would probably not have acknowledged it if he had, smiled the
+indulgent smile of a self-satisfied superior and uttered a few equivocal
+sentences. This was gall and wormwood to Sweetwater, but he kept his
+temper admirably and, with an air of bravado entirely assumed for the
+occasion, said to Dr. Talbot:
+
+"I think I shall have something to tell you soon which will materially
+aid you in your search for witnesses. By to-morrow, at least, I shall
+know whether I am right or wrong in thinking I have discovered an
+important witness in quite an unexpected quarter."
+
+Sweetwater knew of no new witness, but it was necessary for him not only
+to have a pretext for the move he contemplated, but to so impress these
+men with an idea of his extreme interest in the approaching proceedings,
+that no suspicion should ever arise of his having premeditated an escape
+from them. He wished to appear the victim of accident; and this is why
+he took nothing from his home which would betray any intention of
+leaving it.
+
+"Ha! indeed!" ejaculated the coroner with growing interest. "And may I
+ask----"
+
+"Please," urged Sweetwater, with a side look at Knapp, "do not ask me
+anything just yet. This afternoon, say, after I have had a certain
+interview with--What, are they setting sails on the Hesper already?" he
+burst out, with a quick glance from the window at the great ship riding
+at anchor a little distance from them in the harbour. "There is a man on
+her I must see. Excuse me--Oh, Mr. Sutherland!"
+
+He fell back in confusion. That gentleman had just entered the room in
+company with Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+A SINISTER PAIR
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," stammered Sweetwater, starting aside and losing on
+the instant all further disposition to leave the room.
+
+Indeed, he had not the courage to do so, even if he had had the will.
+The joint appearance of these two men in this place, and at an hour so
+far in advance of that which usually saw Mr. Sutherland enter the town,
+was far too significant in his eyes for him to ignore it. Had any
+explanation taken place between them, and had Mr. Sutherland's integrity
+triumphed over personal considerations to the point of his bringing
+Frederick here to confess?
+
+Meanwhile Dr. Talbot had risen with a full and hearty greeting which
+proved to Sweetwater's uneasy mind that notwithstanding Knapp's
+disquieting reticence no direct suspicion had as yet fallen on the
+unhappy Frederick. Then he waited for what Mr. Sutherland had to say,
+for it was evident he had come there to say something. Sweetwater
+waited, too, frozen almost into immobility by the fear that it would be
+something injudicious, for never had he seen any man so changed as Mr.
+Sutherland in these last twelve hours, nor did it need a highly
+penetrating eye to detect that the relations between him and Frederick
+were strained to a point that made it almost impossible for them to more
+than assume their old confidential attitude. Knapp, knowing them but
+superficially, did not perceive this, but Dr. Talbot was not blind to
+it, as was shown by the inquiring look he directed towards them both
+while waiting.
+
+Mr. Sutherland spoke at last.
+
+"Pardon me for interrupting you so early," said he, with a certain
+tremble in his voice which Sweetwater quaked to hear. "For certain
+reasons, I should be very glad to know, WE should be very glad to know,
+if during your investigations into the cause and manner of Agatha Webb's
+death, you have come upon a copy of her will."
+
+"No."
+
+Talbot was at once interested, so was Knapp, while Sweetwater withdrew
+further into his corner in anxious endeavour to hide his blanching
+cheek. "We have found nothing. We do not even know that she has made a
+will."
+
+"I ask," pursued Mr. Sutherland, with a slight glance toward Frederick,
+who seemed, at least in Sweetwater's judgment, to have braced himself up
+to bear this interview unmoved, "because I have not only received
+intimation that she made such a will, but have even been entrusted with
+a copy of it as chief executor of the same. It came to me in a letter
+from Boston yesterday. Its contents were a surprise to me. Frederick,
+hand me a chair. These accumulated misfortunes--for we all suffer under
+the afflictions which have beset this town--have made me feel my years."
+
+Sweetwater drew his breath more freely. He thought he might understand
+by this last sentence that Mr. Sutherland had come here for a different
+cause than he had at first feared. Frederick, on the contrary, betrayed
+a failing ability to hide his emotion. He brought his father a chair,
+placed it, and was drawing back out of sight when Mr. Sutherland
+prevented him by a mild command to hand the paper he had brought to the
+coroner.
+
+There was something in his manner that made Sweetwater lean forward and
+Frederick look up, so that the father's and son's eyes met under that
+young man's scrutiny. But while he saw meaning in both their regards,
+there was nothing like collusion, and, baffled by these appearances,
+which, while interesting, told him little or nothing, he transferred his
+attention to Dr. Talbot and Knapp, who had drawn together to see what
+this paper contained.
+
+"As I have said, the contents of this will are a surprise to me,"
+faltered Mr. Sutherland. "They are equally so to my son. He can hardly
+be said to have been a friend even of the extraordinary woman who thus
+leaves him her whole fortune."
+
+"I never spoke with her but twice," exclaimed Frederick with a studied
+coldness, which was so evidently the cloak of inner agitation that
+Sweetwater trembled for its effect, notwithstanding the state of his own
+thoughts, which were in a ferment. Frederick, the inheritor of Agatha
+Webb's fortune! Frederick, concerning whom his father had said on the
+previous night that he possessed no motive for wishing this good woman's
+death! Was it the discovery that such a motive existed which had so aged
+this man in the last twelve hours? Sweetwater dared not turn again to
+see. His own face might convey too much of his own fears, doubts, and
+struggle.
+
+But the coroner, for whose next words Sweetwater listened with acute
+expectancy, seemed to be moved simply by the unexpectedness of the
+occurrence. Glancing at Frederick with more interest than he had ever
+before shown him, he cried with a certain show of enthusiasm:
+
+"A pretty fortune! A very pretty fortune!" Then with a deprecatory air
+natural to him in addressing Mr. Sutherland, "Would it be indiscreet for
+me to ask to what our dear friend Agatha alludes in her reference to
+your late lamented wife?" His finger was on a clause of the will and his
+lips next minute mechanically repeated what he was pointing at:
+
+"'In remembrance of services rendered me in early life by Marietta
+Sutherland, wife of Charles Sutherland of Sutherlandtown, I bequeath to
+Frederick, sole child of her affection, all the property, real and
+personal, of which I die possessed.' Services rendered! They must have
+been very important ones," suggested Dr. Talbot.
+
+Mr. Sutherland's expression was one of entire perplexity and doubt.
+
+"I do not remember my wife ever speaking of any special act of kindness
+she was enabled to show Agatha Webb. They were always friends, but never
+intimate ones. However, Agatha could be trusted to make no mistake. She
+doubtless knew to what she referred. Mrs. Sutherland was fully capable
+of doing an extremely kind act in secret."
+
+For all his respect for the speaker, Dr. Talbot did not seem quite
+satisfied. He glanced at Frederick and fumbled the paper uneasily.
+
+"Perhaps you were acquainted with the reason for this legacy--this large
+legacy," he emphasised.
+
+Frederick, thus called upon, nay, forced to speak, raised his head, and
+without perhaps bestowing so much as a thought on the young man behind
+him who was inwardly quivering in anxious expectancy of some betrayal on
+his part which would precipitate disgrace and lifelong sorrow on all who
+bore the name of Sutherland, met Dr. Talbot's inquiring glance with a
+simple earnestness surprising to them all, and said:
+
+"My record is so much against me that I am not surprised that you wonder
+at my being left with Mrs. Webb's fortune. Perhaps she did not fully
+realise the lack of estimation in which I am deservedly held in this
+place, or perhaps, and this would be much more like her, she hoped that
+the responsibility of owing my independence to so good and so
+unfortunate a woman might make a man of me."
+
+There was a manliness in Frederick's words and bearing that took them
+all by surprise. Mr. Sutherland's dejection visibly lightened, while
+Sweetwater, conscious of the more than vital interests hanging upon the
+impression which might be made by this event upon the minds of the men
+present, turned slightly so as to bring their faces into the line of his
+vision.
+
+The result was a conviction that as yet no real suspicion of Frederick
+had seized upon either of their minds. Knapp's face was perfectly calm
+and almost indifferent, while the good coroner, who saw this and every
+other circumstance connected with this affair through the one medium of
+his belief in Amabel's guilt, was surveying Frederick with something
+like sympathy.
+
+"I fear," said he, "that others were not as ignorant of your prospective
+good fortune as you were yourself," at which Frederick's cheek turned a
+dark red, though he said nothing, and Sweetwater, with a sudden
+involuntary gesture indicative of resolve, gazed for a moment
+breathlessly at the ship, and then with an unexpected and highly
+impetuous movement dashed from the room crying loudly:
+
+"I've seen him! I've seen him! he's just going on board the ship. Wait
+for me, Dr. Talbot. I'll be back in fifteen minutes with such a
+witness--"
+
+Here the door slammed. But they could hear his hurrying footsteps as he
+plunged down the stairs and rushed away from the building.
+
+It was an unexpected termination to an interview fast becoming
+unbearable to the two Sutherlands, but no one, not even the old
+gentleman himself, took in its full significance.
+
+He was, however, more than agitated by the occurrence and could hardly
+prevent himself from repeating aloud Sweetwater's final word, which
+after their interview at Mr. Halliday's gate, the night before, seemed
+to convey to him at once a warning and a threat. To keep himself from
+what he feared might prove a self-betrayal, he faltered out in very
+evident dismay:
+
+"What is the matter? What has come over the lad?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dr. Talbot, "he's been watching that ship for an hour. He is
+after some man he has just seen go aboard her. Says he's a new and
+important witness in this case. Perhaps he is. Sweetwater is no man's
+fool, for all his small eyes and retreating chin. If you want proof of
+it, wait till he comes back. He'll be sure to have something to say."
+
+Meanwhile they had all pressed forward to the window. Frederick, who
+carefully kept his face out of his father's view, bent half-way over the
+sill in his anxiety to watch the flying figure of Sweetwater, who was
+making straight for the dock, while Knapp, roused at last, leaned over
+his shoulder and pointed to the sailors on the deck, who were pulling in
+the last ropes, preparatory to sailing.
+
+"He's too late: they won't let him aboard now. What a fool to hang
+around here till he saw his man, instead of being at the dock to nab
+him! That comes of trusting a country bumpkin. I knew he'd fail us at
+the pinch. They lack training, these would-be detectives. See, now! He's
+run up against the mate, and the mate pushes him back. His cake is all
+dough, unless he's got a warrant. Has he a warrant, Dr. Talbot?"
+
+"No," said the coroner, "he didn't ask for one. He didn't even tell me
+whom he wanted. Can it be one of those two passengers you see on the
+forward deck, there?"
+
+It might well be. Even from a distance these two men presented a
+sinister appearance that made them quite marked figures among the crowd
+of hurrying sailors and belated passengers.
+
+"One of them is peering over the rail with a very evident air of
+anxiety. His eye is on Sweetwater, who is dancing with impatience. See,
+he is gesticulating like a monkey, and--By the powers, they are going to
+let him go aboard!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had been leaning heavily against the window-jamb in
+the agitation of doubt and suspense which Sweetwater's unaccountable
+conduct had evoked, here crossed to the other side and stole a
+determined look at Frederick. Was his son personally interested in this
+attempt of the amateur detective? Did he know whom Sweetwater sought,
+and was he suffering as much or more than himself from the uncertainty
+and fearful possibilities of the moment? He thought he knew Frederick's
+face, and that he read dread there, but Frederick had changed so
+completely since the commission of this crime that even his father could
+no longer be sure of the correct meaning either of his words or
+expression.
+
+The torture of the moment continued.
+
+"He climbs like a squirrel," remarked Dr. Talbot, with a touch of
+enthusiasm. "Look at him now--he's on the quarterdeck and will be down
+in the cabins before you can say Jack Robinson. I warrant they have told
+him to hurry. Captain Dunlap isn't the man to wait five minutes after
+the ropes are pulled in."
+
+"Those two men have shrunk away behind some mast or other," cried Knapp.
+"They are the fellows he's after. But what can they have to do with the
+murder? Have you ever seen them here about town, Dr. Talbot?"
+
+"Not that I remember; they have a foreign air about them. Look like
+South Americans."
+
+"Well, they're going to South America. Sweetwater can't stop them. He
+has barely time to get off the ship himself. There goes the last rope!
+Have they forgotten him? They're drawing up the ladder."
+
+"No: the mate stops them; see, he's calling the fellow. I can hear his
+voice, can't you? Sweetwater's game is up. He'll have to leave in a
+hurry. What's the rumpus now?"
+
+"Nothing, only they've scattered to look for him; the fox is down in the
+cabins and won't come up, laughing in his sleeve, no doubt, at keeping
+the vessel waiting while he hunts up his witness."
+
+"If it's one of those two men he's laying a trap for he won't snare him
+in a hurry. They're sneaks, those two, and--Why, the sailors are coming
+back shaking their heads. I can almost hear from here the captain's
+oaths."
+
+"And such a favourable wind for getting out of the harbour! Sweetwater,
+my boy, you are distinguishing yourself. If your witness don't pan out
+well you won't hear the last of this in a hurry."
+
+"It looks as if they meant to sail without waiting to put him ashore,"
+observed Frederick in a low tone, too carefully modulated not to strike
+his father as unnatural.
+
+"By jingoes, so it does!" ejaculated Knapp. "There go the sails! The
+pilot's hand is on the wheel, and Dr. Talbot, are you going to let your
+cunning amateur detective and his important witness slip away from you
+like this?"
+
+"I cannot help myself," said the coroner, a little dazed himself at this
+unexpected chance. "My voice wouldn't reach them from this place;
+besides they wouldn't heed me if it did. The ship is already under way
+and we won't see Sweetwater again till the pilot's boat comes back."
+
+Mr. Sutherland moved from the window and crossed to the door like a man
+in a dream. Frederick, instantly conscious of his departure, turned to
+follow him, but presently stopped and addressing Knapp for the first
+time, observed quietly:
+
+"This is all very exciting, but I think your estimate of this fellow
+Sweetwater is just. He's a busybody and craves notoriety above
+everything. He had no witness on board, or, if he had, it was an
+imaginary one. You will see him return quite crestfallen before night,
+with some trumped-up excuse of mistaken identity."
+
+The shrug which Knapp gave dismissed Sweetwater as completely from the
+affair as if he had never been in it.
+
+"I think I may now regard myself as having this matter in my sole
+charge," was his curt remark, as he turned away, while Frederick, with a
+respectful bow to Dr. Talbot, remarked in leaving:
+
+"I am at your service, Dr. Talbot, if you require me to testify at the
+inquest in regard to this will. My testimony can all be concentrated
+into the one sentence, 'I did not expect this bequest, and have no
+theories to advance in explanation of it.' But it has made me feel
+myself Mrs. Webb's debtor, and given me a justifiable interest in the
+inquiry which, I am told, you open to-morrow into the cause and manner
+of her death. If there is a guilty person in this case, I shall raise no
+barrier in the way of his conviction."
+
+And while the coroner's face still showed the embarrassment which this
+last sentence called up, his mind being now, as ever, fixed on Amabel,
+Frederick offered his arm to his father, whose condition was not
+improved by the excitements of the last half-hour, and proceeded to lead
+him from the building.
+
+Whatever they thought, or however each strove to hide their conclusions
+from the other, no words passed between them till they came in full
+sight of the sea, on a distant billow of which the noble-ship bound for
+the Brazils rode triumphantly on its outward course. Then Mr. Sutherland
+remarked, with a suggestive glance at the vessel:
+
+"The young man who has found an unexpected passage on that vessel will
+not come back with the pilot."
+
+Was the sigh which was Frederick's only answer one of relief? It
+certainly seemed so.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+IN THE SHADOW OP THE MAST
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was right. Sweetwater did not return with the pilot.
+According to the latter there was no Sweetwater on board the ship to
+return. At all events the minutest search had not succeeded in finding
+him in the cabins, though no one had seen him leave the vessel, or,
+indeed, seen him at all after his hasty dash below decks. It was thought
+on board that he had succeeded in reaching shore before the ship set
+sail, and the pilot was suitably surprised at learning this was not so.
+So were Sweetwater's friends and associates with the exception of a
+certain old gentleman living on the hill, and Knapp the detective. He,
+that is the latter, had his explanation at his tongue's end:
+
+"Sweetwater is a fakir. He thought he could carry off the honours from
+the regular force, and when he found he couldn't he quietly disappeared.
+We shall hear of him again in the Brazils."
+
+An opinion that speedily gained ground, so that in a few hours
+Sweetwater was all but forgotten, save by his mother, whose heart was
+filled with suspense, and by Mr. Sutherland, whose breast was burdened
+by gratitude. The amazing fact of Frederick, the village scapegrace and
+Amabel's reckless, if aristocratic, lover, having been made the legatee
+of the upright Mrs. Webb's secret savings had something to do with this.
+With such a topic at hand, not only the gossips, but those who had the
+matter of Agatha's murder in hand, found ample material to occupy their
+thoughts and tongues, without wasting time over a presumptuous busybody,
+who had not wits enough to know that five minutes before sailing-time is
+an unfortunate moment in which to enter a ship.
+
+And where was Sweetwater, that he could not be found on the shore or on
+the ship? We will follow him and see. Accustomed from his youth to
+ramble over the vessels while in port, he knew this one as well as he
+did his mother's house. It was, therefore, a surprise to the sailors
+when, shortly after the departure of the pilot, they came upon him lying
+in the hold, half buried under a box which had partially fallen upon
+him. He was unconscious, or appeared to be so, and when brought into
+open light showed marks of physical distress and injury; but his eye was
+clear and his expression hardly as rueful as one would expect in a man
+who finds himself en route for the Brazils with barely a couple of
+dollars in his pocket and every prospect of being obliged to work before
+the mast to earn his passage. Even the captain noticed this and eyed him
+with suspicion. But Sweetwater, rousing to the necessities of the
+occasion, forthwith showed such a mixture of discouragement and
+perplexity that the honest sailor was deceived and abated half at least
+of his oaths. He gave Sweetwater a hammock and admitted him to the mess,
+but told him that as soon as his bruises allowed him to work he should
+show himself on deck or expect the rough treatment commonly bestowed on
+stowaways.
+
+It was a prospect to daunt some men, but not Sweetwater. Indeed it was
+no more than he had calculated upon when he left his savings behind with
+his old mother and entered upon this enterprise with only a little
+change in his pocket. He had undertaken out of love and gratitude to Mr.
+Sutherland to rid Frederick of a dangerous witness and he felt able to
+complete the sacrifice. More than that, he was even strangely happy for
+a time. The elation of the willing victim was his, that is for a few
+short hours, then he began to think of his mother. How had she borne his
+sudden departure? What would she think had befallen him, and how long
+would he have to wait before he could send her word of his safety? If he
+was to be of real service to the man he venerated, he must be lost long
+enough for the public mind to have become settled in regard to the
+mysteries of the Webb murder and for his own boastful connection with it
+to be forgotten. This might mean years of exile. He rather thought it
+did; meanwhile his mother! Of himself he thought little.
+
+By sundown he felt himself sufficiently recovered from his bruises to go
+up on deck. It was a mild night, and the sea was running in smooth long
+waves that as yet but faintly presaged the storm brewing on the distant
+horizon. As he inhaled the fresh air, the joy of renewed health began to
+infuse its life into his veins and lift the oppression from his heart,
+and, glad of a few minutes of quiet enjoyment, he withdrew to a solitary
+portion of the deck and allowed himself to forget his troubles in
+contemplation of the rapidly deepening sky and boundless stretch of
+waters.
+
+But such griefs and anxieties as weighed upon this man's breast are not
+so easily shaken off. Before he realised it his thoughts had recurred to
+the old theme, and he was wondering if he was really of sufficient
+insignificance in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen not to be sought for
+and found in that distant country to which he was bound. Would they, in
+spite of his precautions, suspect that he had planned this evasion and
+insist on his return, or would he be allowed to slip away and drop out
+of sight like the white froth he was watching on the top of the
+ever-shifting waves? He had boasted of possessing a witness. Would they
+believe that boast and send a detective in search of him, or would they
+take his words for the bombast they really were and proceed with their
+investigations in happy relief at the loss of his intrusive assistance?
+
+As this was a question impossible for him to answer, he turned to other
+thoughts and fretted himself for a while with memories of Amabel's
+disdain and Frederick's careless acceptance of a sacrifice he could
+never know the cost of, mixed strangely with relief at being free of it
+all and on the verge of another life. As the dark settled, his head fell
+farther and farther forward on the rail he was leaning against, till he
+became to any passing eye but a blurred shadow mixing with other shadows
+equally immovable.
+
+Unlike them, however, his shadow suddenly shifted. Two men had drawn
+near him, one speaking pure Spanish and the other English. The English
+was all that Sweetwater could understand, and this half of the
+conversation was certainly startling enough. Though he could not, of
+coarse, know to what or whom it referred, and though it certainly had
+nothing to do with him, or any interest he represented or understood, he
+could not help listening and remembering every word. The
+English-speaking man uttered the first sentence he comprehended. It was
+this:
+
+"Shall it be to-night?"
+
+The answer was in Spanish.
+
+Again the English voice:
+
+"He has come up. I saw him distinctly as he passed the second mast."
+
+More Spanish; then English:
+
+"You may if you want to, but I'll never breathe easy while he's on the
+ship. Are you sure he's the fellow we fear?"
+
+A rapid flow of words from which Sweetwater got nothing. Then slowly and
+distinctly in the sinister tones he had already begun to shiver at:
+
+"Very good. The R. F. A. should pay well for this," with the quick
+addition following a hurried whisper: "All right! I'd send a dozen men
+to the bottom for half that money. But 'ware there! Here's a fellow
+watching us! If he has heard--"
+
+Sweetwater turned, saw two desperate faces projected toward him,
+realised that something awful, unheard of, was about to happen, and
+would have uttered a yell of dismay, but that the very intensity of his
+fright took away his breath. The next minute he felt himself launched
+into space and enveloped in the darkness of the chilling waters. He had
+been lifted bodily and flung headlong into the sea.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+IN EXTREMITY
+
+
+Sweetwater's one thought as he sank was, "Now Mr. Sutherland need fear
+me no longer."
+
+But the instinct of life is strong in every heart, and when he found
+himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly and grasped
+a spar.
+
+It was life to him, hope, reconnection with his kind. He clutched,
+clung, and, feeling himself floating, uttered a shout of mingled joy and
+appeal that unhappily was smothered in the noise of the waters and the
+now rapidly rising wind.
+
+Whence had come this spar in his desperate need? He never knew, but
+somewhere in his remote consciousness an impression remained of a shock
+to the waves following his own plunge into the water, which might mean
+that this spar had been thrown out after him, perhaps by the already
+repentant hands of the wretches who had tossed him to his death. However
+it came, or from whatever source, it had at least given him an
+opportunity to measure his doom and realise the agonies of hope when it
+alternates with despair.
+
+The darkness was impenetrable. It was no longer that of heaven, but of
+the nether world, or so it seemed to this dazed soul, plunged suddenly
+from dreams of exile into the valley of the shadow of death. And such a
+death! As he realised its horrors, as he felt the chill of night and the
+oncoming storm strike its piercing fangs into his marrow, and knew that
+his existence and the hope of ever again seeing the dear old face at the
+fireside rested upon the strength of his will and the tenacity of his
+life-clutch, he felt his heart fail, and the breath that was his life
+cease in a gurgle of terror. But he clung on, and, though no comfort
+came, still clung, while vague memories of long-ago shipwrecks, and
+stories told in his youth of men, women, and children tossing for hours
+on a drifting plank, flashed through his benumbed brain, and lent their
+horror to his own sensations of apprehension and despair.
+
+He wanted to live. Now that the dread spectre had risen out of the water
+and had its clutch on his hair, he realised that the world held much for
+him, and that even in exile he might work and love and enjoy God's
+heaven and earth, the green fields and the blue sky. Not such skies as
+were above him now. No, this was not sky that overarched him, but a
+horrible vault in which the clouds, rushing in torn masses, had the
+aspect of demons stooping to contend for him with those other demons
+that with long arms and irresistible grip were dragging at him from
+below. He was alone on a whirling spar in the midst of a midnight ocean,
+but horror and a pitiless imagination made this conflict more than that
+of the elements, and his position an isolation beyond that of man
+removed from his fellows. He was almost mad. Yet he clung.
+
+Suddenly a better frame of mind prevailed. The sky was no lighter, save
+as the lightning came to relieve the overwhelming darkness by a still
+more overwhelming glare, nor were the waves less importunate or his hold
+on the spar more secure; but the horror seemed to have lifted, and the
+practical nature of the man reasserted itself. Other men had gone
+through worse dangers than these and survived to tell the tale, as he
+might survive to tell his. The will was all--will and an indomitable
+courage; and he had will and he had courage, or why had he left his home
+to dare a hard and threatening future purely from a sentiment of
+gratitude? Could he hold on long enough, daylight would come; and if, as
+he now thought possible, he had been thrown into the sea within twenty
+hours after leaving Sutherlandtown, then he must be not far from Cape
+Cod, and in the direct line of travel from New York to Boston. Rescue
+would come, and if the storm which was breaking over his head more and
+more furiously made it difficult for him to retain his hold, it
+certainly would not wreck his spar or drench him more than he was
+already drenched, while every blast would drive him shoreward. The
+clinging was all, and filial love would make him do that, even in the
+semi-unconsciousness which now and then swept over him. Only, would it
+not be better for Mr. Sutherland if he should fail and drop away into
+the yawning chasms of the unknown world beneath? There were moments when
+he thought so, and then his clutch perceptibly weakened; but only once
+did he come near losing his hold altogether. And that was when he
+thought he heard a laugh. A laugh, here in the midst of ocean! in the
+midst of storm! a laugh! Were demons a reality, then? Yes; but the demon
+he had heard was of his own imagination; it had a face of Medusa
+sweetness and the laugh--Only Amabel's rang out so thrillingly false,
+and with such diabolic triumph. Amabel, who might be laughing in her
+dreams at this very moment of his supreme misery, and who assuredly
+would laugh if conscious of his suffering and aware of the doom to which
+his self-sacrifice had brought him. Amabel! the thought of her made the
+night more dark, the waters more threatening, the future less promising.
+Yet he would hold on if only to spite her who hated him and whom he
+hated almost as much as he loved Mr. Sutherland.
+
+It was his last conscious thought for hours. When morning broke he was
+but a nerveless figure, with sense enough to cling, and that was all.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARCEL
+
+
+"A man! Haul him in! Don't leave a poor fellow drifting about like
+that."
+
+The speaker, a bluff, hearty skipper, whose sturdy craft had outridden
+one of the worst storms of the season, pointed to our poor friend
+Sweetwater, whose head could just be seen above the broken spar he clung
+to. In another moment a half-dozen hands were stretched for him, and the
+insensible form was drawn in and laid on a deck which still showed the
+results of the night's fierce conflict with the waters.
+
+"Damn it! how ugly he is!" cried one of the sailors, with a leer at the
+half-drowned man's face. "I'd like to see the lass we'd please in saving
+him. He's only fit to poison a devil-fish!"
+
+But though more than one laugh rang out, they gave him good care, and
+when Sweetwater came to life and realised that his blood was pulsing
+warmly again through his veins, and that a grey sky had taken the place
+of darkness, and a sound board supported limbs which for hours had
+yielded helplessly to the rocking billows, he saw a ring of hard but
+good-natured faces about him and realised quite well what had been done
+for him when one of them said:
+
+"There! he'll do now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford in
+two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the man
+at the tiller. "We'll sup with our old women in forty-eight hours!"
+
+New Bedford! It was the only word Sweetwater heard. So, he was no
+farther away from Sutherlandtown than that. Evidently Providence had not
+meant him to escape. Or was it his fortitude that was being tried? A man
+as humble as he might easily be lost even in a place as small as New
+Bedford. It was his identity he must suppress. With that unrecognised he
+might remain in the next village to Sutherlandtown without fear of being
+called up as a witness against Frederick. But could he suppress it? He
+thought he could. At all events he meant to try.
+
+"What's your name?" were the words he now heard shouted in his ear.
+
+"Jonathan Briggs," was his mumbled reply. "I was blown off a ship's deck
+in the gale last night."
+
+"What ship?"
+
+"The Proserpine." It was the first name that suggested itself to him.
+
+"Oh, I thought it might have been the Hesper; she foundered off here
+last night."
+
+"Foundered? The Hesper?" The hot blood was shooting now through his
+veins.
+
+"Yes, we just picked up her name-board. That was before we got a hold on
+you."
+
+Foundered! The ship from which he had been so mercilessly thrown! And
+all on board lost, perhaps. He began to realise the hand of Providence
+in his fate.
+
+"It was the Hesper I sailed on. I'm not just clear yet in my head. My
+first voyage was made on the Proserpine. Well, bless the gale that blew
+me from that deck!"
+
+He seemed incoherent, and they left him again for a little while. When
+they came back he had his story all ready, which imposed upon them just
+so far as it was for their interest. Their business on this coast was
+not precisely legitimate, and when they found he simply wanted to be set
+on shore, they were quite willing to do thus much for him. Only they
+regretted that he had barely two dollars and his own soaked clothing to
+give in exchange for the motley garments they trumped up among them for
+his present comfort. But he, as well as they, made the best of a bad
+bargain, he especially, as his clothes, which would be soon scattered
+among half a dozen families, were the only remaining clew connecting him
+with his native town. He could now be Jonathan Briggs indeed. Only who
+was Jonathan Briggs, and how was he to earn a living under these
+unexpected conditions?
+
+At the end of a couple of days he was dexterously landed on the end of a
+long pier, which they passed without stopping, on their way to their own
+obscure anchorage. As he jumped from the rail to the pier and felt again
+the touch of terra firma he drew a long breath of uncontrollable
+elation. Yet he had not a cent in the world, no friends, and certainly
+no prospects. He did not even know whether to turn to the right or the
+left as he stepped out upon the docks, and when he had decided to turn
+to the right as being on the whole more lucky, he did not know whether
+to risk his fortune in the streets of the town or to plunge into one of
+the low-browed drinking houses whose signs confronted him on this
+water-lane.
+
+He decided that his prospects for a dinner were slim in any case, and
+that his only hope of breaking fast that day lay in the use he might
+make of one of his three talents. Either he must find a fiddle to play
+on, a carpenter's bench to work at, or a piece of detective shadowing to
+do. The last would bring him before the notice of the police, which was
+just the thing he must avoid; so it was fiddling or carpentry he must
+seek, either of which would be difficult to obtain in his present garb.
+But of difficulties Sweetwater was not a man to take note. He had
+undertaken out of pure love for a good man to lose himself. He had
+accomplished this, and now was he to complain because in doing so he was
+likely to go hungry for a day or two? No; Amabel might laugh at him, or
+he might fancy she did, while struggling in the midst of rapidly
+engulfing waters, but would she laugh at him now? He did not think she
+would. She was of the kind who sometimes go hungry themselves in old
+age. Some premonition of this might give her a fellow feeling.
+
+He came to a stand before a little child sitting on an ill-kept
+doorstep. Smiling at her kindly, he waited for her first expression to
+see how he appeared in the eyes of innocence. Not so bad a man, it
+seemed, though his naturally plain countenance was not relieved by the
+seaman's cap and knitted shirt he wore. For she laughed as she looked at
+him, and only ran away because there wasn't room for him to pass beside
+her.
+
+Comforted a little, he sauntered on, glancing here and there with that
+sharp eye of his for a piece of work to be done. Suddenly he came to a
+halt. A market-woman had got into an altercation with an oysterman, and
+her stall had been upset in the contention, and her vegetables were
+rolling here and there. He righted her stall, picked up her vegetables,
+and in return got two apples and a red herring he would not have given
+to a dog at home. Yet it was the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted, and
+the apples might have been grown in the garden of the Hesperides from
+the satisfaction and pleasure they gave this hungry man. Then,
+refreshed, he dashed into the town. It should now go hard but he would
+earn a night's lodging.
+
+The day was windy and he was going along a narrow street, when something
+floated down from a window above past his head. It was a woman's veil,
+and as he looked up to see where it came from he met the eyes of its
+owner looking down from an open casement above him. She was
+gesticulating, and seemed to point to someone up the street. Glad to
+seize at anything which promised emolument or adventure, he shouted up
+and asked her what she wanted.
+
+"That man down there!" she cried; "the one in a long black coat going up
+the street. Keep after him and stop him; tell him the telegram has come.
+Quick, quick, before he gets around the corner! He will pay you; run!"
+
+Sweetwater, with joy in his heart,--for five cents was a boon to him in
+the present condition of his affairs,--rushed after the man she had
+pointed out and hastily stopped him.
+
+"Someone," he added, "a woman in a window back there, bade me run after
+you and say the telegram has come. She told me you would pay me," he
+added, for he saw the man was turning hastily back, without thinking of
+the messenger. "I need the money, and the run was a sharp one."
+
+With a preoccupied air, the man thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled
+out a coin, and handed it to him. Then he walked hurriedly off.
+Evidently the news was welcome to him. But Sweetwater stood rooted to
+the ground. The man had given him a five-dollar gold piece instead of
+the nickel he had evidently intended.
+
+How hungrily Sweetwater eyed that coin! In it was lodging, food, perhaps
+a new article or so of clothing. But after a moment of indecision which
+might well be forgiven him, he followed speedily after the man and
+overtook him just as he reached the house from which the woman's veil
+had floated.
+
+"Sir, pardon me; but you gave me five dollars instead of five cents. It
+was a mistake; I cannot keep the money."
+
+The man, who was not just the sort from whom kindness would be expected,
+looked at the money in Sweetwater's palm, then at the miserable,
+mud-bespattered clothes he wore (he had got that mud helping the poor
+market-woman), and stared hard at the face of the man who looked so
+needy and yet returned him five dollars.
+
+"You're an honest fellow," he declared, not offering to take back the
+gold piece. Then, with a quick glance up at the window, "Would you like
+to earn that money?"
+
+Sweetwater broke out into a smile, which changed his whole countenance.
+
+"Wouldn't I, sir?"
+
+The man eyed him for another minute with scrutinising intensity. Then he
+said shortly:
+
+"Come up-stairs with me."
+
+They entered the house, went up a flight or two, and stopped at a door
+which was slightly ajar.
+
+"We are going into the presence of a lady," remarked the man. "Wait here
+until I call you."
+
+Sweetwater waited, the many thoughts going through his mind not
+preventing him from observing all that passed.
+
+The man, who had left the door wide open, approached the lady who was
+awaiting him, and who was apparently the same one who had sent
+Sweetwater on his errand, and entered into a low but animated
+conversation. She held a telegram in her hand which she showed him, and
+then after a little earnest parley and a number of pleading looks from
+them both toward the waiting Sweetwater, she disappeared into another
+room, from which she brought a parcel neatly done up, which she handed
+to the man with a strange gesture. Another hurried exchange of words and
+a meaning look which did not escape the sharp eye of the watchful
+messenger, and the man turned and gave the parcel into Sweetwater's
+hands.
+
+"You are to carry this," said he, "to the town hall. In the second room
+to the right on entering you will see a table surrounded by chairs,
+which at this hour ought to be empty. At the head of the table you will
+find an arm-chair. On the table directly in front of this you will lay
+this packet. Mark you, directly before the chair and not too far from
+the edge of the table. Then you are to come out. If you see anyone, say
+you came to leave some papers for Mr. Gifford. Do this and you may keep
+the five dollars and welcome."
+
+Sweetwater hesitated. There was something in the errand or in the manner
+of the man and woman that he did not like.
+
+"Don't potter!" spoke up the latter, with an impatient look at her
+watch. "Mr. Gifford will expect those papers."
+
+Sweetwater's sensitive fingers closed on the package he held. It did not
+feel like papers.
+
+"Are you going?" asked the man.
+
+Sweetwater looked up with a smile. "Large pay for so slight a
+commission," he ventured, turning the packet over and over in his hand.
+
+"But then you will execute it at once, and according to the instructions
+I have given you," retorted the man. "It is your trustworthiness I pay
+for. Now go."
+
+Sweetwater turned to go. After all it was probably all right, and five
+dollars easily earned is doubly five dollars. As he reached the
+staircase he stumbled. The shoes he wore did not fit him.
+
+"Be careful, there!" shouted the woman, in a shrill, almost frightened
+voice, while the man stumbled back into the room in a haste which seemed
+wholly uncalled for. "If you let the packet fall you will do injury to
+its contents. Go softly, man, go softly!"
+
+Yet they had said it held papers!
+
+Troubled, yet hardly knowing what his duty was, Sweetwater hastened down
+the stairs, and took his way up the street. The town hall should be easy
+to find; indeed, he thought he saw it in the distance. As he went, he
+asked himself two questions: Could he fail to deliver the package
+according to instructions, and yet earn his money? And was there any way
+of so delivering it without risk to the recipient or dereliction of duty
+to the man who had intrusted it to him and whose money he wished to
+earn? To the first question his conscience at once answered no; to the
+second the reply came more slowly, and before fixing his mind
+determinedly upon it he asked himself why he felt that this was no
+ordinary commission. He could answer readily enough. First, the pay was
+too large, arguing that either the packet or the placing of the packet
+in a certain position on Mr. Gifford's table was of uncommon importance
+to this man or this woman. Secondly, the woman, though plainly and
+inconspicuously clad, had the face of a more than ordinarily
+unscrupulous adventuress, while her companion was one of those
+saturnine-faced men we sometimes meet, whose first look puts us on our
+guard and whom, if we hope nothing from him, we instinctively shun.
+Third, they did not look like inhabitants of the house and rooms in
+which he found them. Nothing beyond the necessary articles of furniture
+was to be seen there; not a trunk, not an article of clothing, nor any
+of the little things that mark a woman's presence in a spot where she
+expects to spend a day or even an hour. Consequently they were
+transients and perhaps already in the act of flight. Then he was being
+followed. Of this he felt sure. He had followed people himself, and
+something in his own sensations assured him that his movements were
+under surveillance. It would, therefore, not do to show any
+consciousness of this, and he went on directly and as straight to his
+goal as his rather limited knowledge of the streets would allow. He was
+determined to earn this money and to earn it without disadvantage to
+anyone. And he thought he saw his way.
+
+At the entrance of the town hall he hesitated an instant. An officer was
+standing in the doorway, it would be easy to call his attention to the
+packet he held and ask him to keep his eye on it. But this might involve
+him with the police, and this was something, as we know, which he was
+more than anxious to avoid. He reverted to his first idea.
+
+Mixing with the crowd just now hurrying to and fro through the long
+corridors, he reached the room designated and found it, as he had been
+warned he should, empty.
+
+Approaching the table, he laid down the packet just as he had been
+directed, in front of the big arm chair, and then, casting a hurried
+look towards the door and failing to find anyone watching him, he took
+up a pencil lying near-by and scrawled hastily across the top of the
+packet the word "Suspicious." This he calculated would act as a warning
+to Mr. Gifford in case there was anything wrong about the package, and
+pass as a joke with him, and even the sender, if there was not. And
+satisfied that he had both earned his money and done justice to his own
+apprehensions, he turned to retrace his steps. As before, the corridors
+were alive with hurrying men of various ages and appearance, but only
+two attracted his notice. One of these was a large, intellectual-looking
+man, who turned into the room from which he had just emerged, and the
+other a short, fair man, with a countenance he had known from boyhood.
+Mr. Stone of Sutherlandtown was within ten paces of him, and he was as
+well known to the good postmaster as the postmaster was to him. Could
+anyone have foreseen such a chance!
+
+Turning his back with a slow slouch, he made for a rear door he saw
+swinging in and out before him. As he passed through he cast a quick
+look behind him. He had not been recognised. In great relief he rushed
+on, knocking against a man standing against one of the outside pillars.
+
+"Halloo!" shouted this man.
+
+Sweetwater stopped. There was a tone of authority in the voice which he
+could not resist.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SCRAP OF PAPER AND THE THREE WORDS
+
+
+"What are you trying to do? Why do you fall over a man like that? Are
+you drunk?"
+
+Sweetwater drew himself up, made a sheepish bow, and muttered pantingly:
+
+"Excuse me, sir. I'm in a hurry; I'm a messenger."
+
+The man who was not in a hurry seemed disposed to keep him for a moment.
+He had caught sight of Sweetwater's eye, which was his one remarkable
+feature, and he had also been impressed by that word messenger, for he
+repeated it with some emphasis.
+
+"A messenger, eh? Are you going on a message now?"
+
+Sweetwater, who was anxious to get away from the vicinity of Mr. Stone,
+shrugged his shoulders in careless denial, and was pushing on when the
+gentleman again detained him.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "that I like your looks? You are not a beauty,
+but you look like a fellow who, if he promised to do a thing, would do
+it and do it mighty well too."
+
+Sweetwater could not restrain a certain movement of pride. He was
+honest, and he knew it, but the fact had not always been so openly
+recognised.
+
+"I have just earned five dollars by doing a commission for a man," said
+he, with a straightforward look. "See, sir. It was honestly earned."
+
+The man, who was young and had a rather dashing but inscrutable
+physiognomy, glanced at the coin Sweetwater showed him and betrayed a
+certain disappointment.
+
+"So you're flush," said he. "Don't want another job?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Sweetwater, edging slowly down the street, "I'm
+always ready for business. Five dollars won't last forever, and,
+besides, I'm in need of new togs."
+
+"Well, rather," retorted the other, carelessly following him. "Do you
+mind going up to Boston?"
+
+Boston! Another jump toward home.
+
+"No," said Sweetwater, hesitatingly, "not if it's made worth my while.
+Do you want your message delivered to-day?"
+
+"At once. That is, this evening. It's a task involving patience and more
+or less shrewd judgment. Have you these qualities, my friend? One would
+not judge it from your clothes."
+
+"My clothes!" laughed Sweetwater. Life was growing very interesting all
+at once. "I know it takes patience to WEAR them, and as for any lack of
+judgment I may show in their choice, I should just like to say I did not
+choose them myself, sir; they fell to me promiscuous-like as a sort of
+legacy from friends. You'll see what I'll do in that way if you give me
+the chance to earn an extra ten."
+
+"Ah, it's ten dollars you want. Well, come in here and have a drink and
+then we'll see."
+
+They were before a saloon house of less than humble pretensions, and as
+he followed the young gentleman in it struck him that it was himself
+rather than his well-dressed and airy companion who would be expected to
+drink here. But he made no remark, though he intended to surprise the
+man by his temperance.
+
+"Now, look here," said the young gentleman, suddenly seating himself at
+a dingy table in a very dark corner and motioning Sweetwater to do the
+same; "I've been looking for a man all day to go up to Boston for me,
+and I think you'll do. You know Boston?"
+
+Sweetwater had great command over himself, but he flushed slightly at
+this question, though it was so dark where he sat with this man that it
+made very little difference.
+
+"I have been there," said he.
+
+"Very well, then, you will go again to-night. You will arrive there
+about seven, you will go the rounds of some half-dozen places whose
+names I will give you, and when you come across a certain gentleman whom
+I will describe to you, you will give him--"
+
+"Not a package?" Sweetwater broke out with a certain sort of dread of a
+repetition of his late experience.
+
+"No, this slip on which two words are written. He will want one more
+word, but before you give it to him you must ask for your ten dollars.
+You'll get them," he answered in response to a glance of suspicion from
+Sweetwater. Sweetwater was convinced that he had got hold of another
+suspicious job. It made him a little serious. "Do I look like a
+go-between for crooks?" he asked himself. "I'm afraid I'm not so much of
+a success as I thought myself." But he said to the man before him: "Ten
+dollars is small pay for such business. Twenty-five would be nearer the
+mark."
+
+"Very well, he will give you twenty-five dollars. I forgot that ten
+dollars was but little in advance of your expenses."
+
+"Twenty-five if I find him, and he is in funds. What if I don't?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Except your ticket; that I'll give you."
+
+Sweetwater did not know what to say. Like the preceding job it might be
+innocent and it might not. And then, he did not like going to Boston,
+where he was liable to meet more than one who knew him.
+
+"There is no harm in the business," observed the other, carelessly,
+pushing a glass of whiskey which had just been served him toward
+Sweetwater. "I would even be willing to do it myself, if I could leave
+New Bedford to-night, but I can't. Come! It's as easy as crooking your
+elbow."
+
+"Just now you said it wasn't," growled Sweetwater, drinking from his
+glass. "But no matter about that, go ahead, I'll do it. Shall I have to
+buy other clothes?"
+
+"I'd buy a new pair of trousers," suggested the other. "The rest you can
+get in Boston. You don't want to be too much in evidence, you know."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with. him. To attract attention was what he most
+dreaded. "When does the train start?" he asked.
+
+The young man told him.
+
+"Well, that will give me time to buy what I want. Now, what are your
+instructions?"
+
+The young man gave him a memorandum, containing four addresses. "You
+will find him at one of these places," said he. "And now to know your
+man when you see him. He is a large, handsome fellow, with red hair and
+a moustache like the devil. He has been hurt, and wears his left hand in
+a sling, but he can play cards, and will be found playing cards, and in
+very good company too. You will have to use your discretion in
+approaching him. When once he sees this bit of paper, all will be easy.
+He knows what these two words mean well enough, and the third one, the
+one that is worth twenty-five dollars to you, is FREDERICK."
+
+Sweetwater, who had drunk half his glass, started so at this word, which
+was always humming in his brain, that he knocked over his tumbler and
+spilled what was left in it.
+
+"I hope I won't forget that word," he remarked, in a careless tone,
+intended to carry off his momentary show of feeling.
+
+"If you do, then don't expect the twenty-five dollars," retorted the
+other, finishing his own glass, but not offering to renew Sweetwater's.
+
+Sweetwater laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and rose.
+In a half-hour he was at the depot, and in another fifteen minutes
+speeding out of New Bedford on his way to Boston.
+
+He had had but one anxiety--that Mr. Stone might be going up to Boston
+too. But, once relieved of this apprehension, he settled back, and for
+the first time in twelve hours had a minute in which to ask himself who
+he was, and what he was about. Adventure had followed so fast upon
+adventure that he was in a more or less dazed condition, and felt as
+little capable of connecting event with event as if he had been asked to
+recall the changing pictures of a kaleidoscope. That affair of the
+packet, now, was it or was it not serious, and would he ever know what
+it meant or how it turned out?
+
+Like a child who had been given a pebble, and told to throw it over the
+wall, he had thrown and run, giving a shout of warning, it is true, but
+not knowing, nor ever likely to know, where the stone had fallen, or
+what it was meant to do. Then this new commission on which he was
+bent--was it in any way connected with the other, or merely the odd
+result of his being in the right place at the right moment? He was
+inclined to think the latter. And yet how odd it was that one doubtful
+errand should be followed by another, in a town no larger than New
+Bedford, forcing him from scene to scene, till he found himself speeding
+toward the city he least desired to enter, and from which he had the
+most to fear!
+
+But brooding over a case like this brings small comfort. He felt that he
+had been juggled with, but he neither knew by whose hand nor in what
+cause. If the hand was that of Providence, why he had only to go on
+following the beck of the moment, while if it was that of Fate, the very
+uselessness of struggling with it was apparent at once. Poor reasoning,
+perhaps, but no other offered, and satisfied that whatever came his
+intentions were above question, he settled himself at last for a nap, of
+which he certainly stood in good need. When he awoke he was in Boston.
+
+The first thing he did was to show his list of addresses and inquire
+into what quarter they would lead him. To his surprise he found it to be
+the fashionable quarter. Two of them were names of well-known
+club-houses, a third that of a first-class restaurant, and the fourth
+that of a private house on Commonwealth Avenue. Heigho! and he was
+dressed like a tramp, or nearly so!
+
+"Queer messenger, I, for such kind of work," thought he. "I wonder why
+he lighted on such a rough-looking customer. He must have had his
+reasons. I wonder if he wished the errand to fail. He bore himself very
+nonchalantly at the depot. When I last saw him his face and attitude
+were those of a totally unconcerned man. Have I been sent on a fool's
+chase after all?"
+
+The absurdity of this conclusion struck him, however, as he reasoned:
+"Why, then, should he have paid my fare? Not as a benefit to me, of
+course, but for his own ends, whatever they might be. Let us see, then,
+what those ends are. So now for the gentleman of the red hair who plays
+cards with one arm in a sling."
+
+He thought that he might get entrance into the club-houses easily
+enough. He possessed a certain amount of insinuation when necessity
+required, and, if hard-featured, had a good expression which in
+unprejudiced minds defied criticism. Of porters and doorkeepers he was
+not afraid, and these were the men he must first encounter.
+
+At the first club-house he succeeded easily enough in getting word with
+the man waiting in the large hall, and before many minutes learned that
+the object of his search was not to be found there that evening. He also
+learned his name, which was a great step towards the success of his
+embassy. It was Wattles, Captain Wattles, a marked man evidently, even
+in this exclusive and aristocratic club.
+
+Armed with this new knowledge, he made his way to the second building of
+the kind and boldly demanded speech with Captain Wattles. But Captain
+Wattles had not yet arrived and he went out again this time to look him
+up at the restaurant.
+
+He was not there. As Sweetwater was going out two gentlemen came in, one
+of whom said to the other in passing:
+
+"Sick, do you say? I thought Wattles was made of iron."
+
+"So he was," returned the other, "before that accident to his arm. Now
+the least thing upsets him. He's down at Haberstow's."
+
+That was all; the door was swung to between them. Sweetwater had
+received his clew, but what a clew! Haberstow's? Where was that?
+
+Thinking the bold course the best one, he re-entered the restaurant and
+approached the gentlemen he had just seen enter.
+
+"I heard you speak the name of Captain Wattles," said he. "I am hunting
+for Captain Wattles. Can you tell me where he is?"
+
+He soon saw that he had struck the wrong men for information. They not
+only refused to answer him, but treated him with open disdain. Unwilling
+to lose time, he left them, and having no other resource, hastened to
+the last place mentioned on his list.
+
+It was now late, too late to enter a private house under ordinary
+circumstances, but this house was lighted up, and a carriage stood in
+front of it; so he had the courage to run up the steps and consult the
+large door-plate visible from the sidewalk. It read thus:
+
+HABERSTOW.
+
+Fortune had favoured him better than he expected.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then decided to ring the bell. But before he had
+done so, the door opened and an old gentleman appeared seeing a younger
+man out. The latter had his arm in a sling, and bore himself with a
+fierceness that made his appearance somewhat alarming; the other seemed
+to be in an irate state of mind.
+
+"No apologies!" the former was saying. "I don't mind the night air; I'm
+not so ill as that. When I'm myself again we'll have a little more talk.
+My compliments to your daughter, sir. I wish you a very good evening, or
+rather night."
+
+The old gentleman bowed, and as he did so Sweetwater caught a glimpse
+(it was the shortest glimpse in the world) of a sweet face beaming from
+a doorway far down the hall. There was pain in it and a yearning anxiety
+that made it very beautiful; then it vanished, and the old gentleman,
+uttering some few sarcastic words, closed the door, and Sweetwater found
+himself alone and in darkness.
+
+The kaleidoscope had been given another turn.
+
+Dashing down the stoop, he came upon the gentleman who had preceded him,
+just as he was seating himself in the carriage.
+
+"Pardon me," he gasped, as the driver caught up the reins; "you have
+forgotten something." Then, as Captain Wattles looked hastily out, "You
+have forgotten me."
+
+The oath that rang out from under that twitching red moustache was
+something to startle even him. But he clung to the carriage window and
+presently managed to say:
+
+"A messenger, sir, from New Bedford. I have been on the hunt for you for
+two hours. It won't keep, sir, for more than a half-hour longer. Where
+shall I find you during that time?"
+
+Captain Wattles, on whom the name New Bedford seemed to have made some
+impression, pointed up at the coachman's box with a growl, in which
+command mingled strangely with menace. Then he threw himself back.
+Evidently the captain was not in very good humour.
+
+Sweetwater, taking this as an order to seat himself beside the driver,
+did so, and the carriage drove off. It went at a rapid pace, and before
+he had time to propound more than a question or two to the coachman, it
+stopped before a large apartment-house in a brilliantly lighted street.
+
+Captain Wattles got out, and Sweetwater followed him. The former, who
+seemed to have forgotten Sweetwater, walked past him and entered the
+building with a stride and swing that made the plain, lean,
+insignificant-looking messenger behind him feel smaller than ever.
+Indeed, he had never felt so small, for not only was the captain a man
+of superb proportions and conspicuous bearing, but he possessed, in
+spite of his fiery hair and fierce moustache, that _beauté de diable_
+which is at once threatening and imposing. Added to this, he was angry
+and so absorbed in his own thoughts that he would be very apt to visit
+punishment of no light character upon anyone who interfered with him. A
+pleasing prospect for Sweetwater, who, however, kept on with the dogged
+determination of his character up the first flight of stairs and then up
+another till they stopped, Captain Wattles first and afterwards his
+humble follower, before a small door into which the captain endeavoured
+to fit a key. The oaths which followed his failure to do this were not
+very encouraging to the man behind, nor was the kick which he gave the
+door after the second more successful attempt calculated to act in a
+very reassuring way upon anyone whose future pay for a doubtful task
+rested upon this man's good nature.
+
+The darkness which met them both on the threshold of this now open room
+was speedily relieved by a burst of electric light, that flooded the
+whole apartment and brought out the captain's swaggering form and
+threatening features with startling distinctness. He had thrown off his
+hat and was relieving himself of a cloak in a furious way that caused
+Sweetwater to shrink back, and, as the French say, efface himself as
+much as possible behind a clothes-tree standing near the door. That the
+captain had entirely forgotten him was evident, and for the present
+moment that gentleman was too angry to care or even notice if a dozen
+men stood at the door. As he was talking all this time, or rather
+jerking out sharp sentences, as men do when in a towering rage,
+Sweetwater was glad to be left unnoticed, for much can be gathered from
+scattered sentences, especially when a man is in too reckless a frame of
+mind to weigh them. He, therefore, made but little movement and
+listened; and these are some of the ejaculations and scraps of talk he
+heard:
+
+"The old purse-proud fool! Honoured by my friendship, but not ready to
+accept me as his daughter's suitor! As if I would lounge away hours that
+mean dollars to me in his stiff old drawing-room, just to hear his
+everlasting drone about stocks up and stocks down, and politics gone all
+wrong. He has heard that I play cards, and--How pretty she looked! I
+believe I half like that girl, and when I think she has a million in her
+own right--Damn it, if I cannot win her openly and with papa's consent,
+I will carry her off with only her own. She's worth the effort, doubly
+worth it, and when I have her and her money--Eh! Who are you?"
+
+He had seen Sweetwater at last, which was not strange, seeing that he
+had turned his way, and was within two feet of him.
+
+"What are you doing here, and who let you in? Get out, or--"
+
+"A message, Captain Wattles! A message from New Bedford. You have
+forgotten, sir; you bade me follow you."
+
+It was curious to see the menace slowly die out of the face of this
+flushed and angry man as he met Sweetwater's calm eye and unabashed
+front, and noticed, as he had not done at first, the slip of paper which
+the latter resolutely held out.
+
+"New Bedford; ah, from Campbell, I take it. Let me see!" And the hand
+which had shook with rage now trembled with a very different sort of
+emotion as he took the slip, cast his eyes over it, and then looked back
+at Sweetwater.
+
+Now, Sweetwater knew the two words written on that paper. He could see
+out of the back of his head at times, and he had been able to make out
+these words when the man in New Bedford was writing them.
+
+"Happenings; Afghanistan," with the figures 2000 after the latter.
+
+Not much sense in them singly or in conjunction, but the captain,
+muttering them over to himself, consulted a little book which he took
+from his breast pocket and found, or seemed to, a clew to their meaning.
+It could only have been a partial one, however, for in another instant
+he turned on Sweetwater with a sour look and a thundering oath.
+
+"Is this all?" he shouted. "Does he call this a complete message?"
+
+"There is another word," returned Sweetwater, "which he bade me give you
+by word of mouth; but that word don't go for nothing. It's worth just
+twenty-five dollars. I've earned it, sir. I came up from New Bedford on
+purpose to deliver it to you."
+
+Sweetwater expected a blow, but he only got a stare.
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," muttered the captain. "Well, it's fortunate that
+I have them. And who are you?" he asked. "Not one of Campbell's
+pick-ups, surely?"
+
+"I am a confidential messenger," smiled Sweetwater, amused against his
+will at finding a name for himself. "I carry messages and execute
+commissions that require more or less discretion in the handling. I am
+paid well. Twenty-five dollars is the price of this job."
+
+"So you have had the honour of informing me before," blustered the other
+with an attempt to hide some serious emotion. "Why, man, what do you
+fear? Don't you see I'm hurt? You could knock me over with a feather if
+you touched my game arm."
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," repeated Sweetwater.
+
+The captain grew angrier. "Dash it! aren't you going to have them?
+What's the word?"
+
+But Sweetwater wasn't going to be caught by chaff.
+
+"C. O. D.," he insisted firmly, standing his ground, though certain that
+the blow would now fall. But no, the captain laughed, and tugging away
+with his one free hand at his pocket, he brought out a pocket-book, from
+which he managed deftly enough to draw out three bills. "There," said
+he, laying them on the table, but keeping one long vigorous finger on
+them. "Now, the word."
+
+Sweetwater laid his own hand on the bills.
+
+"Frederick," said he.
+
+"Ah!" said the other thoughtfully, lifting his finger and proceeding to
+stride up and down the room. "He's a stiff one. What he says, he will
+do. Two thousand dollars! and soon, too, I warrant. Well, I'm in a devil
+of a fix at last." He had again forgotten the presence of Sweetwater.
+
+Suddenly he turned or rather stopped. His eye was on the messenger, but
+he did not even see him. "One Frederick must offset the other," he
+cried. "It's the only loophole out," and he threw himself into a chair
+from which he immediately sprang up again with a yell. He had hurt his
+wounded arm.
+
+Pandemonium reigned in that small room for a minute, then his eye fell
+again on Sweetwater, who, under the fascination of the spectacle offered
+him, had only just succeeded in finding the knob of the door. This time
+there was recognition in his look.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I may have use for you too. Confidential messengers
+are hard to come by, and one that Campbell would employ must be all
+right. Sit down there! I'll talk to you when I'm ready."
+
+Sweetwater was not slow in obeying this command. Business was booming
+with him. Besides, the name of Frederick acted like a charm upon him.
+There seemed to be so many Fredericks in the world, and one of them lay
+in such a curious way near his heart.
+
+Meanwhile the captain reseated himself, but more carefully. He had a
+plan or method of procedure to think out, or so it seemed, for he sat a
+long time in rigid immobility, with only the scowl of perplexity or
+ill-temper on his brow to show the nature of his thoughts. Then he drew
+a sheet of paper toward him, and began to write a letter. He was so
+absorbed over this letter and the manipulation of it, having but one
+hand to work with, that Sweetwater determined upon a hazardous stroke.
+The little book which the captain had consulted, and which had
+undoubtedly furnished him with a key to those two incongruous words, lay
+on the floor not far from him, having been flung from its owner's hand
+during the moments of passion and suffering I have above mentioned. To
+reach this book with his foot, to draw it toward him, and, finally, to
+get hold of it with his hand, was not difficult for one who aspired to
+be a detective, and had already done some good work in that direction.
+But it was harder to turn the leaves and find the words he sought
+without attracting the attention of his fierce companion. He, however,
+succeeded in doing this at last, the long list of words he found on
+every page being arranged alphabetically. It was a private code for
+telegraphic or cable messages, and he soon found that "Happenings"
+meant: "Our little game discovered; play straight until I give you the
+wink." And that "Afghanistan" stood for: "Hush money." As the latter was
+followed by the figures I have mentioned, the purport of the message
+needed no explanation, but the word "Frederick" did. So he searched for
+that, only to find that it was not in the book. There was but one
+conclusion to draw. This name was perfectly well known between them, and
+was that of the person, no doubt, who laid claim to the two thousand
+dollars.
+
+Satisfied at holding this clew to the riddle, he dropped the book again
+at his side and skilfully kicked it far out into the room. Captain
+Wattles had seen nothing. He was a man who took in only one thing at a
+time.
+
+The penning of that letter went on laboriously. It took so long that
+Sweetwater dozed, or pretended to, and when it was at last done, the
+clock on the mantelpiece had struck two.
+
+"Halloo there, now!" suddenly shouted the captain, turning on the
+messenger. "Are you ready for another journey?"
+
+"That depends," smiled Sweetwater, rising sleepily and advancing.
+"Haven't got over the last one yet, and would rather sleep than start
+out again."
+
+"Oh, you want pay? Well, you'll get that fast enough if you succeed in
+your mission. This letter" he shook it with an impatient hand--"should
+be worth two thousand five hundred dollars to me. If you bring me back
+that money or its equivalent within twenty-four hours, I will give you a
+clean hundred of it. Good enough pay, I take it, for five hours'
+journey. Better than sleep, eh? Besides, you can doze on the cars."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with him in all these assertions. Putting on his cap,
+he reached for the letter. He didn't like being made an instrument for
+blackmail, but he was curious to see to whom he was about to be sent.
+But the captain had grown suddenly wary.
+
+"This is not a letter to be dropped in the mailbox," said he. "You
+brought me a line here whose prompt delivery has prevented me from
+making a fool of myself to-night. You must do as much with this one. It
+is to be carried to its destination by yourself, given to the person
+whose name you will find written on it, and the answer brought back
+before you sleep, mind you, unless you snatch a wink or so on the cars.
+That it is night need not disturb you. It will be daylight before you
+arrive at the place to which this is addressed, and if you cannot get
+into the house at so early an hour, whistle three times like
+this--listen and one of the windows will presently fly up. You have had
+no trouble finding me; you'll have no trouble finding him. When you
+return, hunt me up as you did to-night. Only you need not trouble
+yourself to look for me at Haberstow's," he added under his breath in a
+tone that was no doubt highly satisfactory to himself. "I shall not be
+there. And now, off with you!" he shouted. "You've your hundred dollars
+to make before daylight, and it's already after two."
+
+Sweetwater, who had stolen a glimpse at the superscription on the letter
+he held, stumbled as he went out of the door. It was directed, as he had
+expected, to a Frederick, probably to the second one of whom Captain
+Wattles had spoken, but not, as he had expected, to a stranger. The name
+on the letter was Frederick Sutherland, and the place of his destination
+was Sutherlandtown.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+"WHO ARE YOU?"
+
+
+The round had come full circle. By various chances and a train of
+circumstances for which he could not account, he had been turned from
+his first intention and was being brought back stage by stage to the
+very spot he had thought it his duty to fly from. Was this fate? He
+began to think so, and no longer so much as dreamed of struggling
+against it. But he felt very much dazed, and walked away through the now
+partially deserted streets with an odd sense of failure that was only
+compensated by the hope he now cherished of seeing his mother again, and
+being once more Caleb Sweetwater of Sutherlandtown.
+
+He was clearer, however, after a few blocks of rapid walking, and then
+he began to wonder over the contents of the letter he held, and how they
+would affect its recipient. Was it a new danger he was bringing him?
+Instead of aiding Mr. Sutherland in keeping his dangerous secret, was he
+destined to bring disgrace upon him, not only by his testimony before
+the coroner, but by means of this letter, which, whatever it contained,
+certainly could not bode good to the man from whom it was designed to
+wrest two thousand five hundred dollars?
+
+The fear that he was destined to do so grew upon him rapidly, and the
+temptation to open the letter and make himself master of its contents
+before leaving town at last became so strong that his sense of honour
+paled before it, and he made up his mind that before he ventured into
+the precincts of Sutherlandtown he would know just what sort of a
+bombshell he was carrying into the Sutherland family. To do this he
+stopped at the first respectable lodging-house he encountered and hired
+a room. Calling for hot water "piping hot," he told them--he subjected
+the letter to the effects of steam and presently had it open. He was not
+disappointed in its contents, save that they were even more dangerous
+than he had anticipated. Captain Wattles was an old crony of Frederick's
+and knew his record better than anyone else in the world. From this fact
+and the added one that Frederick had stood in special need of money at
+the time of Agatha Webb's murder, the writer had no hesitation in
+believing him guilty of the crime which opened his way to a fortune, and
+though under ordinary circumstances he would, as his friend Frederick
+already knew, be perfectly willing to keep his opinions to himself, he
+was just now under the same necessity for money that Frederick had been
+at that fatal time, and must therefore see the colour of two thousand
+five hundred dollars before the day was out if Frederick desired to have
+his name kept out of the Boston papers. That it had been kept out up to
+this time argued that the crime had been well enough hidden to make the
+alternative thus offered an important one.
+
+There was no signature.
+
+Sweetwater, affected to an extent he little expected, resealed the
+letter, made his excuses to the landlord, and left the house. Now he
+could see why he had not been allowed to make his useless sacrifice.
+Another man than himself suspected Frederick, and by a word could
+precipitate the doom he already saw hung too low above the devoted head
+of Mr. Sutherland's son to be averted.
+
+"Yet I'll attempt that too," burst impetuously from his lips. "If I
+fail, I can but go back with a knowledge of this added danger. If I
+succeed, why I must still go back. From some persons and from some
+complications it is useless to attempt flight."
+
+Returning to the club-house he had first entered in his search for
+Captain Wattles, he asked if that gentleman had yet come in. This time
+he was answered by an affirmative, though he might almost as well have
+not been, for the captain was playing cards in a private room and would
+not submit to any interruption.
+
+"He will submit to mine," retorted Sweetwater to the man who had told
+him this. "Or wait; hand him back this letter and say that the messenger
+refuses to deliver it."
+
+This brought the captain out, as he had fully expected it would.
+
+"Why, what--" began that gentleman in a furious rage.
+
+But Sweetwater, laying his hand on the arm he knew to be so sensitive,
+rose on tiptoe and managed to whisper in the angry man's ear:
+
+"You are a card-sharp, and it will be easy enough to ruin you. Threaten
+Frederick Sutherland and in two weeks you will be boycotted by every
+club in this city. Twenty-five hundred dollars won't pay you for that."
+
+This from a nondescript fellow with no grains of a gentleman about him
+in form, feature, or apparel! The captain stared nonplussed, too much
+taken aback to be even angry.
+
+Suddenly he cried:
+
+"How do you know all this? How do you know what is or is not in the
+letter I gave you?"
+
+Sweetwater, with a shrug that in its quiet significance seemed to make
+him at once the equal of his interrogator, quietly pressed the quivering
+limb under his hand and calmly replied:
+
+"I know because I have read it. Before putting my head in the lion's
+mouth, I make it a point to count his teeth," and lifting his hand, he
+drew back, leaving the captain reeling.
+
+"What is your name? Who are you?" shouted out Wattles as Sweetwater was
+drawing off.
+
+It was the third time he had been asked that question within twenty-four
+hours, but not before with this telling emphasis. "Who are you, I say,
+and what can you do to me--?"
+
+"I am--But that is an insignificant detail unworthy of your curiosity.
+As to what I can do, wait and see. But first burn that letter."
+
+And turning his back he fled out of the building, followed by oaths
+which, if not loud, were certainly deep and very far-reaching.
+
+It was the first time Captain Wattles had met his match in audacity.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+HOME AGAIN
+
+
+On his way to the depot, Sweetwater went into the Herald office and
+bought a morning paper. At the station he opened it. There was one
+column devoted to the wreck of the Hesper, and a whole half-page to the
+proceedings of the third day's inquiry into the cause and manner of
+Agatha Webb's death. Merely noting that his name was mentioned among the
+lost, in the first article, he began to read the latter with justifiable
+eagerness. The assurance given in Captain Wattles's letter was true. No
+direct suspicion had as yet fallen on Frederick. As the lover of Amabel
+Page, his name was necessarily mentioned, but neither in the account of
+the inquest nor in the editorials on the subject could he find any proof
+that either the public or police had got hold of the great idea that he
+was the man who had preceded Amabel to Agatha's cottage. Relieved on
+this score, Sweetwater entered more fully into the particulars, and
+found that though the jury had sat three days, very little more had come
+to light than was known on the morning he made that bold dash into the
+Hesper. Most of the witnesses had given in their testimony, Amabel's
+being the chief, and though no open accusation had been made, it was
+evident from the trend of the questions put to the latter that Amabel's
+connection with the affair was looked upon as criminal and as placing
+her in a very suspicious light. Her replies, however, as once before,
+under a similar but less formal examination, failed to convey any
+recognition on her part either of this suspicion or of her own position;
+yet they were not exactly frank, and Sweetwater saw, or thought he saw
+(naturally failing to have a key to the situation), that she was still
+working upon her old plan of saving both herself and Frederick, by
+throwing whatever suspicion her words might raise upon the deceased
+Zabel. He did not know, and perhaps it was just as well that he did not
+at this especial juncture, that she was only biding her time--now very
+nearly at hand--and that instead of loving Frederick, she hated him, and
+was determined upon his destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that
+Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his
+position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweetwater grew very serious,
+and, while no change took place in his mind as to his present duty, he
+decided that his return must be as unobtrusive as possible, and his only
+too timely reappearance on the scene of the inquiry kept secret till Mr.
+Sutherland had given his evidence and retired from under the eyes of his
+excited fellow-citizens.
+
+"The sight of me might unnerve him," was Sweetwater's thought,
+"precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word on his
+part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had a hand in
+the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can save Frederick
+from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my silence, or Amabel's
+finesse. The young man will be lost."
+
+He did not know, as we do, that Amabel's finesse was devoted to winning
+a husband for herself, and that, in the event of failure, the action she
+threatened against her quondam lover would be precipitated that very day
+at the moment when the clock struck twelve.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater arrived home by the way of Portchester. He had seen one or
+two persons he knew, but, so far, had himself escaped recognition. The
+morning light was dimly breaking when he strode into the outskirts of
+Sutherlandtown and began to descend the hill. As he passed Mr.
+Halliday's house he looked up, and was astonished to see a light burning
+in one deeply embowered window. Alas! he did not know how early one
+anxious heart woke during those troublous days. The Sutherland house was
+dark, but as he crept very close under its overhanging eaves he heard a
+deep sigh uttered over his head, and knew that someone was up here also
+in anxious expectation of a day that was destined to hold more than even
+he anticipated.
+
+Meanwhile, the sea grew rosy, and the mother's cottage was as yet far
+off. Hurrying on, he came at last under the eye of more than one of the
+early risers of Sutherlandtown.
+
+"What, Sweetwater! Alive and well!"
+
+"Hey, Sweetwater, we thought you were lost on the Hesper!"
+
+"Halloo! Home in time to see the pretty Amabel arrested?" Phrases like
+these met him at more than one corner; but he eluded them all, stopping
+only to put one hesitating question. Was his mother well?
+
+Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that
+humble cottage door.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+
+XXX
+
+WHAT FOLLOWED THE STRIKING OF THE CLOCK
+
+
+It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be the
+least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say had long
+ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon Sweetwater slid
+into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in obtaining near the
+coroner, it was to find in two faces only any signs of the eagerness and
+expectancy which filled his own breast to suffocation. But as these
+faces were those of Agnes Halliday and Amabel Page, he soon recognised
+that his own judgment was not at fault, and that notwithstanding outward
+appearances and the languid interest shown in the now lagging
+proceedings, the moment presaged an event full of unseen but vital
+consequence.
+
+Frederick was not visible in the great hall; but that he was near at
+hand soon became evident from the change Sweetwater now saw in Amabel.
+For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze with only the
+faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable features, she roused
+as the hands of the clock moved toward noon, and glanced at the great
+door of entrance with an evil expectancy that startled even Sweetwater,
+so little had he really understood the nature of the passions labouring
+in that venomous breast.
+
+Next moment the door opened, and Frederick and his father came in. The
+air of triumphant satisfaction with which Amabel sank back into her seat
+was as marked in its character as her previous suspense. What did it
+mean? Sweetwater, noting it, and the vivid contrast it offered to
+Frederick's air of depression, felt that his return had been well timed.
+
+Mr. Sutherland was looking very feeble. As he took the chair offered
+him, the change in his appearance was apparent to all who knew him, and
+there were few there who did not know him. And, startled by these
+evidences of suffering which they could not understand and feared to
+interpret even to themselves, more than one devoted friend stole uneasy
+glances at Frederick to see if he too were under the cloud which seemed
+to envelop his father almost beyond recognition.
+
+But Frederick was looking at Amabel, and his erect head and determined
+aspect made him a conspicuous figure in the room. She who had called up
+this expression, and alone comprehended it fully, smiled as she met his
+eye, with that curious slow dipping of her dimples which had more than
+once confounded the coroner, and rendered her at once the admiration and
+abhorrence of the crowd who for so long a time had had the opportunity
+of watching her.
+
+Frederick, to whom this smile conveyed a last hope as well as a last
+threat, looked away as soon as possible, but not before her eyes had
+fallen in their old inquiring way to his hands, from which he had
+removed the ring which up to this hour he had invariably worn on his
+third finger. In this glance of hers and this action of his began the
+struggle that was to make that day memorable in many hearts.
+
+After the first stir occasioned by the entrance of two such important
+persons the crowd settled back into its old quietude under the coroner's
+hand. A tedious witness was having his slow say, and to him a full
+attention was being given in the hope that some real enlightenment would
+come at last to settle the questions which had been raised by Amabel's
+incomplete and unsatisfactory testimony. But no man can furnish what he
+does not possess, and the few final minutes before noon passed by
+without any addition being made to the facts which had already been
+presented for general consideration.
+
+As the witness sat down the clock began to strike. As the slow,
+hesitating strokes rang out, Sweetwater saw Frederick yield to a sudden
+but most profound emotion. The old fear, which we understand, if
+Sweetwater did not, had again seized the victim of Amabel's ambition,
+and under her eye, which was blazing full upon him now with a fell and
+steady purpose, he found his right hand stealing toward the left in the
+significant action she expected. Better to yield than fall headlong into
+the pit one word of hers would open. He had not meant to yield, but now
+that the moment had come, now that he must at once and forever choose
+between a course that led simply to personal unhappiness and one that
+involved not only himself, but those dearest to him, in disgrace and
+sorrow, he felt himself weaken to the point of clutching at whatever
+would save him from the consequences of confession. Moral strength and
+that tenacity of purpose which only comes from years of self-control
+were too lately awakened in his breast to sustain him now. As stroke
+after stroke fell on the ear, he felt himself yielding beyond recovery,
+and had almost touched his finger in the significant action of assent
+which Amabel awaited with breathless expectation, when--was it miracle
+or only the suggestion of his better nature?--the memory of a face full
+of holy pleading rose from the past before his eyes and with an inner
+cry of "Mother!" he flung his hand out and clutched his father's arm in
+a way to break the charm of his own dread and end forever the effects of
+the intolerable fascination that was working upon him. Next minute the
+last stroke of noon rang out, and the hour was up which Amabel had set
+as the limit of her silence.
+
+A pause, which to their two hearts if to no others seemed strangely
+appropriate, followed the cessation of these sounds, then the witness
+was dismissed, and Amabel, taking advantage of the movement, was about
+to lean toward Mr. Courtney, when Frederick, leaping with a bound to his
+feet, drew all eyes towards himself with the cry:
+
+"Let me be put on my oath. I have testimony to give of the utmost
+importance in this case."
+
+The coroner was astounded; everyone was astounded. No one had expected
+anything from him, and instinctively every eye turned towards Amabel to
+see how she was affected by his action.
+
+Strangely, evidently, for the look with which she settled back in her
+seat was one which no one who saw it ever forgot, though it conveyed no
+hint of her real feelings, which were somewhat chaotic.
+
+Frederick, who had forgotten her now that he had made up his mind to
+speak, waited for the coroner's reply.
+
+"If you have testimony," said that gentleman after exchanging a few
+hurried words with Mr. Courtney and the surprised Knapp, "you can do no
+better than give it to us at once. Mr. Frederick Sutherland, will you
+take the stand?"
+
+With a noble air from which all hesitation had vanished, Frederick
+started towards the place indicated, but stopped before he had taken a
+half-dozen steps and glanced back at his father, who was visibly
+succumbing under this last shock.
+
+"Go!" he whispered, but in so thrilling a tone it was heard to the
+remotest corner of the room. "Spare me the anguish of saying what I have
+to say in your presence. I could not bear it. You could not bear it.
+Later, if you will wait for me in one of these rooms, I will repeat my
+tale in your ears, but go now. It is my last entreaty."
+
+There was a silence; no one ventured a dissent, no one so much as made a
+gesture of disapproval. Then Mr. Sutherland struggled to his feet, cast
+one last look around him, and disappeared through a door which had
+opened like magic before him. Then and not till then did Frederick move
+forward.
+
+The moment was intense. The coroner seemed to share the universal
+excitement, for his first question was a leading one and brought out
+this startling admission:
+
+"I have obtruded myself into this inquiry and now ask to be heard by
+this jury, because no man knows more than I do of the manner and cause
+of Agatha Webb's death. This you will believe when I tell you that _I_
+was the person Miss Page followed into Mrs. Webb's house and whom she
+heard descend the stairs during the moment she crouched behind the
+figure of the sleeping Philemon."
+
+It was more, infinitely more, than anyone there had expected. It was not
+only an acknowledgment but a confession, and the shock, the surprise,
+the alarm, which it occasioned even to those who had never had much
+confidence in this young man's virtue, was almost appalling in its
+intensity. Had it not been for the consciousness of Mr. Sutherland's
+near presence the feeling would have risen to outbreak; and many voices
+were held in subjection by the remembrance of this venerated man's last
+look, that otherwise would have made themselves heard in despite of the
+restrictions of the place and the authority of the police.
+
+To Frederick it was a moment of immeasurable grief and humiliation. On
+every face, in every shrinking form, in subdued murmurs and open cries,
+he read instant and complete condemnation, and yet in all his life from
+boyhood up to this hour, never had he been so worthy of their esteem and
+consideration. But though he felt the iron enter his soul, he did not
+lose his determined attitude. He had observed a change in Amabel and a
+change in Agnes, and if only to disappoint the vile triumph of the one
+and raise again the drooping courage of the other, he withstood the
+clamour and began speaking again, before the coroner had been able to
+fully restore quiet.
+
+"I know," said he, "what this acknowledgment must convey to the minds of
+the jury and people here assembled. But if anyone who listens to me
+thinks me guilty of the death I was so unfortunate as to have witnessed,
+he will be doing me a wrong which Agatha Webb would be the first to
+condemn. Dr. Talbot, and you, gentlemen of the jury, in the face of God
+and man, I here declare that Mrs. Webb, in my presence and before my
+eyes, gave to herself the blow which has robbed us all of a most
+valuable life. She was not murdered."
+
+It was a solemn assertion, but it failed to convince the crowd before
+him. As by one impulse men and women broke into a tumult. Mr. Sutherland
+was forgotten and cries of "Never! She was too good! It's all calumny! A
+wretched lie!" broke in unrestrained excitement from every part of the
+large room. In vain the coroner smote with his gavel, in vain the local
+police endeavoured to restore order; the tide was up and over-swept
+everything for an instant till silence was suddenly restored by the
+sight of Amabel smoothing out the folds of her crisp white frock with an
+incredulous, almost insulting, smile that at once fixed attention again
+on Frederick. He seized the occasion and spoke up in a tone of great
+resolve.
+
+"I have made an assertion," said he, "before God and before this jury.
+To make it seem a credible one I shall have to tell my own story from
+the beginning. Am I allowed to do so, Mr. Coroner?"
+
+"You are," was the firm response.
+
+"Then, gentlemen," continued Frederick, still without looking at Amabel,
+whose smile had acquired a mockery that drew the eyes of the jury toward
+her more than once during the following recital, "you know, and the
+public generally now know, that Mrs. Webb has left me the greater
+portion of the money of which she died possessed. I have never before
+acknowledged to anyone, not even to the good man who awaits this jury's
+verdict on the other side of that door yonder, that she had reasons for
+this, good reasons, reasons of which up to the very evening of her death
+I was myself ignorant, as I was ignorant of her intentions in my regard,
+or that I was the special object of her attention, or that we were under
+any mutual obligations in any way. Why, then, I should have thought of
+going to her in the great strait in which I found myself on that day, I
+cannot say. I knew she had money in her house; this I had unhappily been
+made acquainted with in an accidental way, and I knew she was of kindly
+disposition and quite capable of doing a very unselfish act. Still, this
+would not seem to be reason enough for me to intrude upon her late at
+night with a plea for a large loan of money, had I not been in a
+desperate condition of mind, which made any attempt seem reasonable that
+promised relief from the unendurable burden of a pressing and
+disreputable debt. I was obliged to have money, a great deal of money,
+and I had to have it at once; and while I know that this will not serve
+to lighten the suspicion I have brought upon myself by my late
+admissions, it is the only explanation I can give you for leaving the
+ball at my father's house and hurrying down secretly and alone into town
+to the little cottage where, as I had been told early in the evening, a
+small entertainment was being given, which would insure its being open
+even at so late an hour as midnight. Miss Page, who will, I am sure,
+pardon the introduction of her name into this narrative, has taken pains
+to declare to you that in the expedition she herself made into town that
+evening, she followed some person's steps down-hill. This is very likely
+true, and those steps were probably mine, for after leaving the house by
+the garden door, I came directly down the main road to the corner of the
+lane running past Mrs. Webb's cottage. Having already seen from the
+hillside the light burning in her upper windows, I felt encouraged to
+proceed, and so hastened on till I came to the gate on High Street. Here
+I had a moment of hesitation, and thoughts bitter enough for me to
+recall them at this moment came into my mind, making that instant,
+perhaps, the very worst in my life; but they passed, thank God, and with
+no more desperate feeling than a sullen intention of having my own way
+about this money, I lifted the latch of the front door and stepped in.
+
+"I had expected to find a jovial group of friends in her little ground
+parlour, or at least to hear the sound of merry voices and laughter in
+the rooms above; but no sounds of any sort awaited me; indeed the house
+seemed strangely silent for one so fully lighted, and, astonished at
+this, I pushed the door ajar at my left and looked in. An unexpected and
+pitiful sight awaited me. Seated at a table set with abundance of
+untasted food, I saw the master of the house with his head sunk forward
+on his arms, asleep. The expected guests had failed to arrive, and he,
+tired out with waiting, had fallen into a doze at the board.
+
+"This was a condition of things for which I was not prepared. Mrs. Webb,
+whom I wished to see, was probably up-stairs, and while I might summon
+her by a sturdy rap on the door beside which I stood, I had so little
+desire to wake her husband, of whose mental condition I was well aware,
+that I could not bring myself to make any loud noise within his hearing.
+Yet I had not the courage to retreat. All my hope of relief from the
+many difficulties that menaced me lay in the generosity of this
+great-hearted woman, and if out of pusillanimity I let this hour go by
+without making my appeal, nothing but shame and disaster awaited me. Yet
+how could I hope to lure her down-stairs without noise? I could not, and
+so, yielding to the impulse of the moment, without any realisation, I
+here swear, of the effect which my unexpected presence would have on the
+noble woman overhead, I slipped up the narrow staircase, and catching at
+that moment the sound of her voice calling out to Batsy, I stepped up to
+the door I saw standing open before me and confronted her before she
+could move from the table before which she was sitting, counting over a
+large roll of money.
+
+"My look (and it was doubtless not a common look, for the sight of a
+mass of money at that moment, when money was everything to me, roused
+every lurking demon in my breast) seemed to appall, if it did not
+frighten her, for she rose, and meeting my eye with a gaze in which
+shock and some strange and poignant agony totally incomprehensible to me
+were strangely blended, she cried out:
+
+"'No, no, Frederick! You don't know what you are doing. If you want my
+money, take it; if you want my life, I will give it to you with my own
+hand. Don't stain yours--don't--'
+
+"I did not understand her. I did not know until I thought it over
+afterward that my hand was thrust convulsively into my breast in a way
+which, taken with my wild mien, made me look as if I had come to murder
+her for the money over which she was hovering. I was blind, deaf to
+everything but that money, and bending madly forward in a state of
+mental intoxication awful enough for me to remember now, I answered her
+frenzied words by some such broken exclamations as these:
+
+"'Give, then! I want hundreds--thousands--now, now, to save myself!
+Disgrace, shame, prison await me if I don't have them. Give, give!' And
+my hand went out toward it, not toward her; but she mistook the action,
+mistook my purpose, and, with a heart-broken cry, to save me, ME, from
+crime, the worst crime of which humanity is capable, she caught up a
+dagger lying only too near her hand in the open drawer against which she
+leaned, and in a moment of fathomless anguish which we who can never
+know more than the outward seeming of her life can hardly measure,
+plunged against it and--I can tell you no more. Her blood and Batsy's
+shriek from the adjoining room swam through my consciousness, and then
+she fell, as I supposed, dead upon the floor, and I, in scarcely better
+case, fell also.
+
+"This, as God lives, is the truth concerning the wound found in the
+breast of this never-to-be-forgotten woman."
+
+The feeling, the pathos, the anguish even, to be found in his tone made
+this story, strange and incredible as it seemed, appear for the moment
+plausible.
+
+"And Batsy?" asked the coroner.
+
+"Must have fallen when we did, for I never heard her voice after the
+first scream. But I shall speak of her again. What I must now explain is
+how the money in Mrs. Webb's drawer came into my possession, and how the
+dagger she had planted in her breast came to be found on the lawn
+outside. When I came to myself, and that must have been very soon, I
+found that the blow of which I had been such a horrified witness had not
+yet proved fatal. The eyes I had seen close, as I had supposed, forever,
+were now open, and she was looking at me with a smile that has never
+left my memory, and never will.
+
+"'There is no blood on you,' she murmured. 'You did not strike the blow.
+Was it money only that you wanted, Frederick? If so, you could have had
+it without crime. There are five hundred dollars on that table. Take
+them and let them pave your way to a better life. My death will help you
+to remember.' Do these words, this action of hers, seem incredible to
+you, sirs? Alas! alas! they will not when I tell you"--and here he cast
+one anxious, deeply anxious, glance at the room in which Mr. Sutherland
+was hidden--"that unknown to me, unknown to anyone living but herself,
+unknown to that good man from whom it can no longer be kept hidden,
+Agatha Webb was my mother. I am Philemon's son and not the offspring of
+Charles and Marietta Sutherland!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+A WITNESS LOST
+
+
+Impossible! Incredible!
+
+Like a wave suddenly lifted the whole assemblage rose in surprise if not
+in protest. But there was no outburst. The very depth of the feelings
+evoked made all ebullition impossible, and as one sees the billow pause
+ere it breaks, and gradually subside, so this crowd yielded to its awe,
+and man by man sank back into his seat till quiet was again restored,
+and only a circle of listening faces confronted the man who had just
+stirred a whole roomful to its depths. Seeing this, and realising his
+opportunity, Frederick at once entered into the explanations for which
+each heart there panted.
+
+"This will be overwhelming news to him who has cared for me since
+infancy. You have heard him call me son; with what words shall I
+overthrow his confidence in the truth and rectitude of his long-buried
+wife and make him know in his old age that he has wasted years of
+patience upon one who was not of his blood or lineage? The wonder, the
+incredulity you manifest are my best excuse for my long delay in
+revealing the secret entrusted to me by this dying woman."
+
+An awed silence greeted these words. Never was the interest of a crowd
+more intense or its passions held in greater restraint. Yet Agnes's
+tears flowed freely, and Amabel's smiles--well, their expression had
+changed; and to Sweetwater, who alone had eyes for her now, they were
+surcharged with a tragic meaning, strange to see in one of her callous
+nature.
+
+Frederick's voice broke as he proceeded in his self-imposed task.
+
+"The astounding fact which I have just communicated to you was made
+known by my mother, with the dagger still plunged in her breast. She
+would not let me draw it out. She knew that death would follow that act,
+and she prized every moment remaining to her because of the bliss she
+enjoyed of seeing and having near her her only living child. The love,
+the passion, the boundless devotion she showed in those last few minutes
+transformed me in an instant from a selfish brute into a deeply
+repentant man. I knelt before her in anguish. I made her feel that,
+wicked as I had been, I was not the conscienceless wretch she had
+imagined, and that she was mistaken as to the motives which led me into
+her presence. And when I saw, by her clearing brow and peaceful look,
+that I had fully persuaded her of this, I let her speak what words she
+would, and tell, as she was able, the secret tragedy of her life.
+
+"It is a sacred story to me, and if you must know it, let it be from her
+own words in the letters she left behind her. She only told me that to
+save me from the fate of the children who had preceded me, the five
+little girls and boys who had perished almost at birth in her arms, she
+had parted from me in early infancy to Mrs. Sutherland, then mourning
+the sudden death of her only child; that this had been done secretly and
+under circumstances calculated to deceive Mr. Sutherland, consequently
+he had never known I was not his own child, and in terror of the effect
+which the truth might have upon him she enjoined me not to enlighten him
+now, if by any sacrifice on my part I could rightfully avoid it; that
+she was happy in having me hear the truth before she died; that the joy
+which this gave her was so great she did not regret her fatal act,
+violent and uncalled for as it was, for it had showed her my heart and
+allowed me to read hers. Then she talked of my father, by whom I mean
+him whom you call Philemon; and she made me promise I would care for him
+to the last with tenderness, saying that I would be able to do this
+without seeming impropriety, since she had willed me all her fortune
+under this proviso. Finally, she gave me a key, and pointing out where
+the money lay hidden, bade me carry it away as her last gift, together
+with the package of letters I would find with it. And when I had taken
+these and given her back the key, she told me that but for one thing she
+would die happy. And though her strength and breath were fast failing
+her, she made me understand that she was worried about the Zabels, who
+had not come according to a sacred custom between them, to celebrate the
+anniversary of her wedding, and prayed me to see the two old gentlemen
+before I slept, since nothing but death or dire distress would have kept
+them from gratifying the one whim of my father's failing mind. I
+promised, and with perfect peace in her face, she pointed to the dagger
+in her breast.
+
+"But before I could lay my hand upon it she called for Batsy. 'I want
+her to hear me declare before I go,' said she, 'that this stroke was
+delivered by myself upon myself.' But when I rose to look for Batsy I
+found that the shock of her mistress's fatal act had killed her and that
+only her dead body was lying across the window-sill of the adjoining
+room. It was a chance that robbed me of the only witness who could
+testify to my innocence, in case my presence in this house of death
+should become known, and realising all the danger in which it threw me,
+I did not dare to tell my mother, for fear it would make her last
+moments miserable. So I told her that the poor woman had understood what
+she wished, but was too terrified to move or speak; and this satisfied
+my mother and made her last breath one of trust and contented love. She
+died as I drew the dagger from her breast, and seeing this, I was seized
+with horror of the instrument which had cost me such a dear and valuable
+life and flung it wildly from the window. Then I lifted her and laid her
+where you found her, on the sofa. I did not know that the dagger was an
+old-time gift of her former lover, James Zabel, much less that it bore
+his initials on the handle."
+
+He paused, and the awe occasioned by the scene he had described was so
+deep and the silence so prolonged that a shudder passed over the whole
+assemblage when from some unknown quarter a single cutting voice arose
+in this one short, mocking comment:
+
+"Oh, the fairy tale!"
+
+Was it Amabel who spoke? Some thought so and looked her way, but they
+only beheld a sweet, tear-stained face turned with an air of moving
+appeal upon Frederick as if begging pardon for the wicked doubts which
+had driven him to this defence.
+
+Frederick met that look with one so severe it partook of harshness;
+then, resuming his testimony, he said:
+
+"It is of the Zabel brothers I must now speak, and of how one of them,
+James by name, came to be involved in this affair.
+
+"When I left my dead mother's side I was in such a state of mind that I
+passed with scarcely so much as a glance the room where my new-found
+father sat sleeping. But as I hastened on toward the quarter where the
+Zabels lived, I was seized by such compunction for his desolate state
+that I faltered in my rapid flight and did not arrive at the place of my
+destination as quickly as I intended. When I did I found the house dark
+and the silence sepulchral. But I did not turn away. Remembering my
+mother's anxiety, an anxiety so extreme it disturbed her final moments,
+I approached the front door and was about to knock when I found it open.
+Greatly astonished, I at once passed in, and, seeing my way perfectly in
+the moonlight, entered the room on the left, the door of which also
+stood open. It was the second house I had entered unannounced that
+night, and in this as in the other I encountered a man sitting asleep by
+the table.
+
+"It was John, the elder of the two, and, perceiving that he was
+suffering for food and in a condition of extreme misery, I took out the
+first bill my hand encountered in my overfull pockets and laid it on the
+table by his side. As I did so he gave a sigh, but did not wake; and
+satisfied that I had done all that was wise and all that even my mother
+would expect of me under the circumstances, and fearing to encounter the
+other brother if I lingered, I hastened away and took the shortest path
+home. Had I been more of a man, or if my visit to Mrs. Webb had been
+actuated by a more communicable motive, I would have gone at once to the
+good man who believed me to be of his own flesh and blood, and told him
+of the strange and heart-rending adventure which had changed the whole
+tenor of my thoughts and life, and begged his advice as to what I had
+better do under the difficult circumstances in which I found myself
+placed. But the memory of a thousand past ingratitudes, together with
+the knowledge of the shock which he could not fail to receive on
+learning at this late day, and under conditions at once so tragic and
+full of menace, that the child which his long-buried wife had once
+placed in his arms as his own was neither of her blood nor his, rose up
+between us and caused me not only to attempt silence, but to secrete in
+the adjoining woods the money I had received, in the vain hope that all
+visible connection between myself and my mother's tragic death would
+thus be lost. You see I had not calculated on Miss Amabel Page."
+
+The flash he here received from that lady's eyes startled the crowd, and
+gave Sweetwater, already suffering under shock after shock of mingled
+surprise and wonder, his first definite idea that he had never rightly
+understood the relations between these two, and that something besides
+justice had actuated Amabel in her treatment of this young man. This
+feeling was shared by others, and a reaction set in in Frederick's
+favour, which even affected the officials who were conducting the
+inquiry. This was shown by the difference of manner now assumed by the
+coroner and by the more easily impressed Sweetwater, who had not yet
+learned the indispensable art of hiding his feelings. Frederick himself
+felt the change and showed it by the look of relief and growing
+confidence he cast at Agnes.
+
+Of the questions and answers which now passed between him and the
+various members of the jury I need give no account. They but emphasised
+facts already known, and produced but little change in the general
+feeling, which was now one of suppressed pity for all who had been drawn
+into the meshes of this tragic mystery. When he was allowed to resume
+his seat, the name of Miss Amabel Page was again called.
+
+She rose with a bound. Nought that she had anticipated had occurred;
+facts of which she could know nothing had changed the aspect of affairs
+and made the position of Frederick something so remote from any she
+could have imagined, that she was still in the maze of the numberless
+conflicting emotions which these revelations were calculated to call out
+in one who had risked all on the hazard of a die and lost. She did not
+even know at this moment whether she was glad or sorry he could explain
+so cleverly his anomalous position. She had caught the look he had cast
+at Agnes, and while this angered her, it did not greatly modify her
+opinion that he was destined for herself. For, however other people
+might feel, she did not for a moment believe his story. She had not a
+pure enough heart to do so. To her all self-sacrifice was an anomaly. No
+woman of the mental or physical strength of Agatha Webb would plant a
+dagger in her own breast just to prevent another person from committing
+a crime, were he lover, husband, or son. So Amabel believed and so would
+these others believe also when once relieved of the magnetic personality
+of this extraordinary witness. Yet how thrilling it had been to hear him
+plead his cause so well! It was almost worth the loss of her revenge to
+meet his look of hate, and dream of the possibility of turning it later
+into the old look of love. Yes, yes, she loved him now; not for his
+position, for that was gone; not even for his money, for she could
+contemplate its loss; but for himself, who had so boldly shown that he
+was stronger than she and could triumph over her by the sheer force of
+his masculine daring.
+
+With such feelings, what should she say to these men; how conduct
+herself under questions which would be much more searching now than
+before? She could not even decide in her own mind. She must let impulse
+have its way.
+
+Happily, she took the right stand at first. She did not endeavour to
+make any corrections in her former testimony, only acknowledging that
+the flower whose presence on the scene of death had been such a mystery,
+had fallen from her hair at the ball and that she had seen Frederick
+pick it up and put it in his buttonhole. Beyond this, and the inferences
+it afterward awakened in her mind, she would not go, though many
+present, and among them Frederick, felt confident that her attitude had
+been one of suspicion from the first, and that it was to follow him
+rather than to supply the wants of the old man, Zabel, she had left the
+ball and found her way to Agatha Webb's cottage.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+WHY AGATHA WEBB WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN IN SUTHERLANDTOWN
+
+
+Meanwhile Sweetwater had been witness to a series of pantomimic actions
+that interested him more than Amabel's conduct under this final
+examination. Frederick, who had evidently some request to make or
+direction to give, had sent a written line to the coroner, who, on
+reading it, had passed it over to Knapp, who a few minutes later was to
+be seen in conference with Agnes Halliday. As a result, the latter rose
+and left the room, followed by the detective. She was gone a half-hour,
+then simultaneously with her reappearance, Sweetwater saw Knapp hand a
+bundle of letters to the coroner, who, upon opening them, chose out
+several which he proceeded to read to the jury. They were the letters
+referred to by Frederick as having been given to him by his mother. The
+first was dated thirty-five years previously and was in the handwriting
+of Agatha herself. It was directed to James Zabel, and was read amid a
+profound hush.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+You are too presumptuous. When I let you carry me away from John in that
+maddening reel last night, I did not mean you to draw the inference you
+did. That you did draw it argues a touch of vanity in a man who is not
+alone in the field where he imagines himself victor. John, who is
+humbler, sees some merit in--well, in Frederick Snow, let us say. So do
+I, but merit does not always win, any more than presumption. When we
+meet, let it be as friends, but as friends only. A girl cannot be driven
+into love. To ride on your big mare, Judith, is bliss enough for my
+twenty years. Why don't you find it so too? I think I hear you say you
+do, but only when she stops at a certain gate on Portchester highway.
+Folly! there are other roads and other gates, though if I should see you
+enter one--There! my pen is galloping away with me faster than Judith
+ever did, and it is time I drew rein. Present my regards to John--But
+no; then he would know I had written you a letter, and that might hurt
+him. How could he guess it was only a scolding letter, such as it would
+grieve him to receive, and that it does not count for anything! Were it
+to Frederick Snow, now--There! some horses are so hard to pull up--and
+so are some pens. I will come to a standstill, but not before your door.
+
+Respectfully your neighbour,
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST.
+
+  DEAR JAMES:
+
+I know I have a temper, a wicked temper, and now you know it too. When
+it is roused, I forget love, gratitude, and everything else that should
+restrain me, and utter words I am myself astonished at. But I do not get
+roused often, and when all is over I am not averse to apologising or
+even to begging forgiveness. My father says my temper will undo me, but
+I am much more afraid of my heart than I am of my temper. For instance,
+here I am writing to you again just because I raised my riding-whip and
+said--But you know what I said, and I am not fond of recalling the
+words, for I cannot do so without seeing your look of surprise and
+contrasting it with that of Philemon's. Yours had judgment in it, while
+Philemon's held only indulgence. Yet I liked yours best, or should have
+liked it best if it were not for the insufferable pride which is a part
+of my being. Temper such as mine OUGHT to surprise you, yet would I be
+Agatha Gilchrist without it? I very much fear not. And not being Agatha
+Gilchrist, should I have your love? Again I fear not. James, forgive me.
+When I am happier, when I know my own heart, I will have less
+provocation. Then, if that heart turns your way, you will find a great
+and bountiful serenity where now there are lowering and thunderous
+tempests. Philemon said last night that he would be content to have my
+fierce word o' mornings, if only I would give him one drop out of the
+honey of my better nature when the sun went down and twilight brought
+reflection and love. But I did not like him any the better for saying
+this. YOU would not halve the day so. The cup with which you would
+refresh yourself must hold no bitterness. Will it not have to be
+proffered, then, by other hands than those of
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST?
+
+MR. PHILEMON WEBB.
+
+Respected Sir:
+
+You are persistent. I am willing to tell YOU, though I shall never
+confide so much to another, that it will take a stronger nature than
+yours, and one that loves me less, to hold me faithful and make me the
+happy, devoted wife which I must be if I would not be a demon. I cannot,
+I dare not, marry where I am not held in a passionate, self-forgetful
+subjection. I am too proud, too sensitive, too little mistress of myself
+when angry or aroused. If, like some strong women, I loved what was
+weaker than myself, and could be controlled by goodness and unlimited
+kindness, I might venture to risk living at the side of the most
+indulgent and upright man I know. But I am not of that kind. Strength
+only can command my admiration or subdue my pride. I must fear where I
+love, and own for husband him who has first shown himself my master.
+
+So do not fret any more for me, for you, less than any man I know, will
+ever claim my obedience or command my love. Not that I will not yield my
+heart to you, but that I cannot; and, knowing that I cannot, feel it
+honest to say so before any more of your fine, young manhood is wasted.
+Go your ways, then, Philemon, and leave me to the rougher paths my feet
+were made to tread. I like you now and feel something like a tender
+regard for your goodness, but if you persist in a courtship which only
+my father is inclined to smile upon, you will call up an antagonism that
+can lead to nothing but evil, for the serpent that lies coiled in my
+breast has deadly fangs, and is to be feared, as you should know who
+have more than once seen me angry.
+
+Do not blame John or James Zabel, or Frederick Snow, or even Samuel
+Barton for this. It would be the same if none of these men existed. I
+was not made to triumph over a kindly nature, but to yield the
+haughtiest heart in all this county to the gentle but firm control of
+its natural master. Do you want to know who that master is? I cannot
+tell you, for I have not yet named him to myself.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am going away. I am going to leave Portchester for several months. I
+am going to see the world. I did not tell you this last night for fear
+of weakening under your entreaties, or should I say commands? Lately I
+have felt myself weakening more than once, and I want to know what it
+means. Absence will teach me, absence and the sight of new faces. Do you
+quarrel with this necessity? Do you think I should know my mind without
+any such test? Alas! James, it is not a simple mind and it baffles me at
+times. Let us then give it a chance. If the glow and glamour of elegant
+city life can make me forget certain snatches of talk at our old gate,
+or that night when you drew my hand through your arm and softly kissed
+my fingertips, then I am no mate for you, whose love, however critical,
+has never wavered, but has made itself felt, even in rebuke, as the
+strongest, sweetest thing that has entered my turbulent life. Because I
+would be worthy of you, I submit to a separation which will either be a
+permanent one or the last that will ever take place between you and me.
+John will not bear this as well as you, yet he does not love me as well,
+possibly because to him I am simply a superior being, while to you I am
+a loving but imperfect woman who wishes to do right but can only do so
+under the highest guidance.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I feel that I owe you a letter because you have been so patient. You may
+show it to James if you like, but I mean it for you as an old and dear
+friend who will one day dance at my wedding.
+
+I am living in a whirl of enjoyment. I am seeing and tasting of
+pleasures I have only dreamed about till now. From a farmhouse kitchen
+to Mrs. Andrews's drawing-room is a lively change for a girl who loves
+dress and show only less than daily intercourse with famous men and
+brilliant women. But I am bearing it nobly and have developed tastes I
+did not know I possessed; expensive tastes, John, which I fear may unfit
+me for the humble life of a Portchester matron. Can you imagine me
+dressed in rich brocade, sitting in the midst of Washington's choicest
+citizens and exchanging sallies with senators and judges? You may find
+it hard, yet so it is, and no one seems to think I am out of place, nor
+do I feel so, only--do not tell James--there are movements in my heart
+at times which make me shut my eyes when the lights are brightest, and
+dream, if but for an instant, of home and the tumble-down gateway where
+I have so often leaned when someone (you know who it is now, John, and I
+shall not hurt you too deeply by mentioning him) was saying good-night
+and calling down the blessings of Heaven upon a head not worthy to
+receive them.
+
+Does this argue my speedy return? Perhaps. Yet I do not know. There are
+fond hearts here also, and a life in this country's centre would be a
+great life for me if only I could forget the touch of a certain
+restraining hand which has great power over me even as a memory. For the
+sake of that touch shall I give up the grandeur and charm of this broad
+life? Answer, John. You know him and me well enough now to say.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I do not understand your letter. You speak in affectionate terms of
+everybody, yet you beg me to wait and not be in a hurry to return. Why?
+Do you not realise that such words only make me the more anxious to see
+old Portchester again? If there is anything amiss at home, or if James
+is learning to do without me--but you do not say that; you only intimate
+that perhaps I will be better able to make up my mind later than now,
+and hint of great things to come if I will only hold my affections in
+check a little longer. This is all very ambiguous and demands a fuller
+explanation. So write to me once more, John, or I shall sever every
+engagement I have made here and return.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Your letter is plain enough this time. James read the letter I wrote you
+about my pleasure in the life here and was displeased at it. He thinks I
+am growing worldly and losing that simplicity which he has always looked
+upon as my most attractive characteristic. So! so! Well, James is right;
+I am becoming less the country girl and more the woman of the world
+every day I remain here. That means I am becoming less worthy of him.
+So--But whatever else I have to say on this topic must be said to him.
+For this you will pardon me like the good brother you are. I cannot help
+my preference. He is nearer my own age; besides, we were made for each
+other.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am not worldly; I am not carried away by the pleasures and
+satisfactions of this place,--at least not to the point of forgetting
+what is dearer and better. I have seen Washington, I have seen gay life;
+I like it, but I LOVE Portchester. Consequently I am going to return to
+Portchester, and that very soon. Indeed I cannot stay away much longer,
+and if you are glad of this, and if you wish to be convinced that a girl
+who has been wearing brocade and jewels can content herself quite gaily
+again with calico, come up to the dear old gate a week from now and you
+will have the opportunity. Do you object to flowers? I may wear a flower
+in my hair.
+
+Your wayward but ever-constant
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+Why must I write? Why am I not content with the memory of last night?
+When one's cup is quite full, a cup that has been so long in
+filling,--must some few drops escape just to show that a great joy like
+mine is not satisfied to be simply quiescent? I have suffered so long
+from uncertainty, have tried you and tried myself with so tedious an
+indecision, that, now I know no other man can ever move my heart as you
+have done, the ecstasy of it makes me over-demonstrative. I want to tell
+you that I love you; that I do not simply accept your love, but give you
+back in fullest measure all the devotion you have heaped upon me in
+spite of my many faults and failings. You took me to your heart last
+night, and seemed satisfied; but it does not satisfy me that I just let
+you do it without telling you that I am proud and happy to be the chosen
+one of your heart, and that as I saw your smile and the proud passion
+which lit up your face, I felt how much sweeter was the dear domestic
+bliss you promised me than the more brilliant but colder life of a
+statesman's wife in Washington.
+
+I missed the flower from my hair when I went back to my room last night.
+Did you take it, dear? If so, do not cherish it. I hate to think of
+anything withering on your breast. My love is deathless, James, and owns
+no such symbol as that. But perhaps you are not thinking of my love, but
+of my faults. If so, let the flower remain where you have put it; and
+when you gaze on it say, "Thus is it with the defects of my darling;
+once in full bloom, now a withered remembrance. When I gathered her they
+began to fade." O James, I feel as if I never could feel anger again.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I do not, I cannot, believe it. Though you said to me on going out,
+"Your father will explain," I cannot content myself with his
+explanations and will never believe what he said of you except you
+confirm his accusations by your own act. If, after I have told you
+exactly what passed between us, you return me this and other letters,
+then I shall know that I have leaned my weight on a hollow staff, and
+that henceforth I am to be without protector or comforter in this world.
+
+O James, were we not happy! I believed in you and felt that you believed
+in me. When we stood heart to heart under the elm tree (was it only last
+night?) and you swore that if it lay in the power of earthly man to make
+me happy, I should taste every sweet that a woman's heart naturally
+craved, I thought my heaven had already come and that now it only
+remained for me to create yours. Yet that very minute my father was
+approaching us, and in another instant we heard these words:
+
+"James, I must talk with you before you make my daughter forget herself
+any further." Forget herself! What had happened? This was not the way my
+father had been accustomed to talk, much as he had always favoured the
+suit of Philemon Webb, and pleased as he would have been had my choice
+fallen on him. Forget herself! I looked at you to see how these
+insulting words would affect you. But while you turned pale, or seemed
+to do so in the fading moonlight, you were not quite so unprepared for
+them as I was myself, and instead of showing anger, followed my father
+into the house, leaving me shivering in a spot which had held no chill
+for me a moment before. You were gone--how long? To me it seemed an
+hour, and perhaps it was. It would seem to take that long for a man's
+face to show such change as yours did when you confronted me again in
+the moonlight. Yet a lightning stroke makes quick work, and perhaps my
+countenance in that one minute showed as great a change as yours. Else
+why did you shudder away from me, and to my passionate appeal reply with
+this one short phrase: "Your father will explain"? Did you think any
+other words than yours would satisfy me, or that I could believe even
+him when he accused you of a base and dishonest act? Much as I have
+always loved and revered my father, I find it impossible not to hope
+that in his wish to see me united to Philemon he has resorted to an
+unworthy subterfuge to separate us; therefore I give you our interview
+word for word. May it shock you as much as it shocked me. Here is what
+he said first:
+
+"Agatha, you cannot marry James Zabel. He is not an honest man. He has
+defrauded me, ME, your father, of several thousand dollars. In a clever
+way, too, showing him to be as subtle as he is unprincipled. Shall I
+tell you the wretched story, my girl? He has left me to do so. He sees
+as plainly as I do that any communication between you two after the
+discovery I have this day made would be but an added offence. He is at
+least a gentleman, which is something, considering how near he came to
+being my son-in-law."
+
+I may have answered. People do cry out when they are stabbed, sometimes,
+but I rather think I did not say a word, only looked a disdain which at
+that minute was as measureless as my belief in you. YOU dishonest?
+YOU--Or perhaps I laughed; that would have been truer to my feeling;
+yes, I must have laughed.
+
+My father's next words indicated that I did something.
+
+"You do not believe in his guilt," he went on, and there was a kindness
+in his tone which gave me my first feeling of real terror. "I can
+readily comprehend that, Agatha. He has been in my office and acted
+under my eye for several years now, and I had almost as much confidence
+in him as you had, notwithstanding the fact that I liked him much better
+as my confidential clerk than as your probable or prospective husband.
+He has never held the key to my heart; would God he never had to yours!
+But he was a good and reliable man in the office, or so I thought, and I
+gave into his hand much of the work I ought to have done myself,
+especially since my health has more or less failed me. My trust he
+abused. A month ago--it was during that ill turn you remember I received
+a letter from a man I had never expected to hear from again. He was in
+my debt some ten thousand dollars, and wrote that he had brought with
+him as much of this sum as he had been able to save in the last five
+years, to Sutherlandtown, where he was now laid up with a dangerous
+illness from which he had small hope of recovering. Would I come there
+and get it? He was a stranger and wished to take no one into his
+confidence, but he had the money and would be glad to place it in my
+hands. He added that as he was a lone man, without friends or relatives
+to inherit from him, he felt a decided pleasure at the prospect of
+satisfying his only creditor, and devoutly hoped he would be well enough
+to realise the transaction and receive my receipt. But if his fever
+increased and he should be delirious or unconscious when I reached him,
+then I was to lift up the left-hand corner of the mattress on which he
+lay and take from underneath his head a black wallet in which I would
+find the money promised me. He had elsewhere enough to pay all his
+expenses, so that the full contents of the wallet were mine.
+
+"I remembered the man and I wanted the money; so, not being able to go
+for it myself, I authorised James Zabel to collect it for me. He started
+at once for Sutherlandtown, and in a few hours returned with the wallet
+alluded to. Though I was suffering intensely at the time, I remember
+distinctly the air with which he laid it down and the words with which
+he endeavoured to carry off a certain secret excitement visible in him.
+'Mr. Orr was alive, sir, and fully conscious; but he will not outlive
+the night. He seemed quite satisfied with the messenger and gave up the
+wallet without any hesitation.' I roused up and looked at him. 'What has
+shaken you up so?' I asked. He was silent a moment before replying. 'I
+have ridden fast,' said he; then more slowly, 'One feels sorry for a man
+dying alone and amongst strangers.' I thought he showed an unnecessary
+emotion, but paid no further heed to it at the time.
+
+"The wallet held two thousand and more dollars, which was less than I
+expected, but yet a goodly sum and very welcome. As I was counting it
+over I glanced at the paper accompanying it. It was an acknowledgment of
+debt and mentioned the exact sum I should find in the wallet--$2753.67.
+Pointing them out to James, I remarked, 'The figures are in different
+ink from the words. How do you account for that?' I thought his answer
+rather long in coming, though when it did come it was calm, if not
+studied. 'I presume,' said he, 'that the sum was inserted at
+Sutherlandtown, after Mr. Orr was quite sure just how much he could
+spare for the liquidation of this old debt.' 'Very likely,' I assented,
+not bestowing another thought upon the matter.
+
+"But to-day it has been forced back upon my attention in a curious if
+not providential way. I was over in Sutherlandtown for the first time
+since my illness, and having some curiosity about my unfortunate but
+honest debtor, went to the hotel and asked to see the room in which he
+died. It being empty they at once showed it to me; and satisfied that he
+had been made comfortable in his last hours, I was turning away, when I
+espied on a table in one corner an inkstand and what seemed to be an old
+copy-book. Why I stopped and approached this table I do not know, but
+once in front of it I remembered what Zabel had said about the figures,
+and taking up the pen I saw there, I dipped it in the ink-pot and
+attempted to scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found
+in the copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was
+not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making
+any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they were so
+exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr's
+memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was
+instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had been done,
+as James had said, in this room, and with the very pen I was then
+handling. As there was nothing extraordinary in this, I was turning
+away, when a gust of wind from the open window lifted the loose sheet of
+paper I had been scribbling on and landed it, the other side up, on the
+carpet. As I stooped for it I saw figures on it, and feeling sure that
+they had been scrawled there by Mr. Orr in his attempt to make the pen
+write, I pulled out the memorandum again and compared the two minutely.
+They were the work of the same hand, but the figures on the stray leaf
+differed from those in the memorandum in a very important particular.
+Those in the memorandum began with a 2, while those on the stray sheet
+began with a 7--a striking difference. Look, Agatha, here is the piece
+of paper just as I found it. You see here, there, and everywhere the one
+set of figures, 7753.67. Here it is hardly legible, here it is blotted
+with too much ink, here it is faint but sufficiently distinct, and
+here--well, there can be no mistake about these figures, 7753.67; yet
+the memorandum reads, $2753.67, and the money returned to me amounts to
+$2753.67--a clean five thousand dollars' difference."
+
+Here, James, my father paused, perhaps to give me a commiserating look,
+though I did not need it; perhaps to give himself a moment in which to
+regain courage for what he still had to say. I did not break the
+silence; I was too sure of your integrity; besides, my tongue could not
+have moved if it would; all my faculties seemed frozen except that
+instinct which cried out continually within me: "No! there is no fault
+in James. He has done no wrong. No one but himself shall ever convince
+me that he has robbed anyone of anything except poor me of my poor
+heart." But inner cries of this kind are inaudible and after a moment's
+interval my father went on:
+
+"Five thousand dollars is no petty sum, and the discrepancy in the two
+sets of figures which seemed to involve me in so considerable a loss set
+me thinking. Convinced that Mr. Orr would not be likely to scribble one
+number over so many times if it was not the one then in his mind, I went
+to Mr. Forsyth's office and borrowed a magnifying-glass, through which I
+again subjected the figures in the memorandum to a rigid scrutiny. The
+result was a positive conviction that they had been tampered with after
+their first writing, either by Mr. Orr himself or by another whom I need
+not name. The 2 had originally been a 7, and I could even see where the
+top line of the 7 had been given a curl and where a horizontal stroke
+had been added at the bottom.
+
+"Agatha, I came home as troubled a man as there was in all these parts.
+I remembered the suppressed excitement which had been in James Zabel's
+face when he handed me over the money, and I remembered also that you
+loved him, or thought you did, and that, love or no love, you were
+pledged to marry him. If I had not recalled all this I might have
+proceeded more warily. As it was, I took the bold and open course and
+gave James Zabel an opportunity to explain himself. Agatha, he did not
+embrace it. He listened to my accusations and followed my finger when I
+pointed out the discrepancy between the two sets of figures, but he made
+no protestations of innocence, nor did he show me the front of an honest
+man when I asked if he expected me to believe that the wallet had held
+only two thousand and over when Mr. Orr handed it over to him. On the
+contrary he seemed to shrink into himself like a person whose life has
+been suddenly blasted, and replying that he would expect me to believe
+nothing except his extreme contrition at the abuse of confidence of
+which he had been guilty, begged me to wait till to-morrow before taking
+any active steps in the matter. I replied that I would show him that
+much consideration if he would immediately drop all pretensions to your
+hand. This put him in a bad way; but he left, as you see, with just a
+simple injunction to you to seek from me an explanation of his strange
+departure. Does that look like innocence or does it look like guilt?"
+
+I found my tongue at this and passionately cried: "James Zabel's life,
+as I have known it, shows him to be an honest man. If he has done what
+you suggest, given you but a portion of the money entrusted to him and
+altered the figures in the memorandum to suit the amount he brought you,
+then there is a discrepancy between this act and all the other acts of
+his life which I find it more difficult to reconcile than you did the
+two sets of figures in Mr. Orr's handwriting. Father, I must hear from
+his own lips a confirmation of your suspicions before I will credit
+them."
+
+And this is why I write you so minute an account of what passed between
+my father and myself last night. If his account of the matter is a
+correct one, and you have nothing to add to it in way of explanation,
+then the return of this letter will be token enough that my father has
+been just in his accusations and that the bond between us must be
+broken. But if--O James, if you are the true man I consider you, and all
+that I have heard is a fabrication or mistake, then come to me at once;
+do not delay, but come at once, and the sight of your face at the gate
+will be enough to establish your innocence in my eyes.
+
+AGATHA. 
+
+The letter that followed this was very short:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+The package of letters has been received. God help me to bear this shock
+to all my hopes and the death of all my girlish beliefs. I am not angry.
+Only those who have something left to hold on to in life can be angry.
+
+My father tells me he has received a packet too. It contained five
+thousand dollars in ten five-hundred-dollar notes. James! James! was not
+my love enough, that you should want my father's money too?
+
+I have begged my father, and he has promised me, to keep the cause of
+this rupture secret. No one shall know from either of us that James
+Zabel has any flaw in his nature.
+
+The next letter was dated some months later. It is to Philemon:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+The gloves are too small; besides, I never wear gloves. I hate their
+restraint and do not feel there is any good reason for hiding my hands,
+in this little country town where everyone knows me. Why not give them
+to Hattie Weller? She likes such things, while I have had my fill of
+finery. A girl whose one duty is to care for a dying father has no room
+left in her heart for vanities.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+It is impossible. I have had my day of love and my heart is quite dead.
+Show your magnanimity by ceasing to urge me any longer to forget the
+past. It is all you can do for
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You WILL have my hand though I have told you that my heart does not go
+with it. It is hard to understand such persistence, but if you are
+satisfied to take a woman of my strength against her will, then God have
+mercy upon you, for I will be your wife.
+
+But do not ask me to go to Sutherlandtown. I will live here. And do not
+expect to keep up your intimacy with the Zabels. There is no tie of
+affection remaining between James and myself, but if I am to shed that
+half-light over your home which is all I can promise and all that you
+can hope to receive, then keep me from all influence but your own. That
+this in time may grow sweet and dear to me is my earnest prayer to-day,
+for you are worthy of a true wife.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I am going to be married. My father exacts it and there is no good
+reason why I should not give him this final satisfaction. At least I do
+not think there is; but if you or your brother differ from me--Say
+good-bye to James from me. I pray that his life may be peaceful. I know
+that it will be honest.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+My father is worse. He fears that if we wait till Tuesday he will not be
+able to see us married. Decide, then, what our duty is; I am ready to
+abide by your pleasure.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+The following is from John Zabel to his brother James, and is dated one
+day after the above:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+When you read this I will be far away, never to look in your face again,
+unless you bid me. Brother, brother, I meant it for the best, but God
+was not with me and I have made four hearts miserable without giving
+help to anyone.
+
+When I read Agatha's letter--the last for more reasons than one that I
+shall ever receive from her--I seemed to feel as never before what I had
+done to blast your two lives. For the first time I realised to the full
+that but for me she might have been happy and you the respected husband
+of the one grand woman to be found in Portchester. That I had loved her
+so fiercely myself came back to me in reproach, and the thought that she
+perhaps suspected that the blame had fallen where it was not deserved
+roused me to such a pitch that I took the sudden and desperate
+resolution of telling her the truth before she gave her hand to
+Philemon. Why the daily sight of your misery should not have driven me
+before to this act, I cannot tell. Some remnants of the old jealousy may
+have been still festering in my heart; or the sense of the great
+distance between your self-sacrificing spirit and the selfishness of my
+weaker nature risen like a barrier between me and the only noble act
+left for a man in my position. Whatever the cause, it was not till
+to-day the full determination came to brave the obloquy of a full
+confession; but when it did come I did not pause till I reached Mr.
+Gilchrist's house and was ushered into his presence.
+
+He was lying on the sitting-room lounge, looking very weak and
+exhausted, while on one side of him stood Agatha and on the other
+Philemon, both contemplating him with ill-concealed anxiety. I had not
+expected to find Philemon there, and for a moment I suffered the extreme
+agony of a man who has not measured the depth of the plunge he is about
+to take; but the sight of Agatha trembling under the shock of my
+unexpected presence restored me to myself and gave me firmness to
+proceed. Advancing with a bow, I spoke quickly the one word I had come
+there to say.
+
+"Agatha, I have done you a great wrong and I am here to undo it. For
+months I have felt driven to confession, but not till to-day have I
+possessed the necessary courage. NOW, nothing shall hinder me."
+
+I said this because I saw in both Mr. Gilchrist and Philemon a
+disposition to stop me where I was. Indeed Mr. Gilchrist had risen on
+his elbow and Philemon was making that pleading gesture of his which we
+know so well.
+
+Agatha alone looked eager. "What is it?" she cried. "I have a right to
+know." I went to the door, shut it, and stood with my back against it, a
+figure of shame and despair; suddenly the confession burst from me.
+"Agatha," said I, "why did you break with my brother James? Because you
+thought him guilty of theft; because you believed he took the five
+thousand dollars out of the sum entrusted to him by Mr. Orr for your
+father. Agatha, it was not James who did this it was I; and James knew
+it, and bore the blame of my misdoing because he was always a loyal soul
+and took account of my weakness and knew, alas! too well, that open
+shame would kill me."
+
+It was a weak plea and merited no reply. But the silence was so dreadful
+and lasted so long that I felt first crushed and then terrified. Raising
+my head, for I had not dared to look any of them in the face, I cast one
+glance at the group before me and dropped my head again, startled. Only
+one of the three was looking at me, and that was Agatha. The others had
+their heads turned aside, and I thought, or rather the passing fancy
+took me, that they shrank from meeting her gaze with something of the
+same shame and dread I myself felt. But she! Can I ever hope to make you
+realise her look, or comprehend the pang of utter self-abasement with
+which I succumbed before it? It was so terrible that I seemed to hear
+her utter words, though I am sure she did not speak; and with some wild
+idea of stemming the torrent of her reproaches, I made an effort at
+explanation, and impetuously cried: "It was not for my own good, Agatha,
+not for self altogether, I did this. I too loved you, madly,
+despairingly, and, good brother as I seemed, I was jealous of James and
+hoped to take his place in your regard if I could show a greater
+prosperity and get for you those things his limited prospects denied
+him. You enjoy money, beauty, ease; I could see that by your letters,
+and if James could not give them to you and I could--Oh, do not look at
+me like that! I see now that millions could not have bought you."
+
+"Despicable!" was all that came from her lips. At which I shuddered and
+groped about for the handle of the door. But she would not let me go.
+Subduing with an unexpected grand self-restraint the emotions which had
+hitherto swelled too high in her breast for either speech or action, she
+thrust out one arm to stay me and said in short, commanding tones: "How
+was this thing done? You say you took the money, yet it was James who
+was sent to collect it--or so my father says." Here she tore her looks
+from me and cast one glance at her father. What she saw I cannot say,
+but her manner changed and henceforth she glanced his way as much as
+mine and with nearly as much emotion. "I am waiting to hear what you
+have to say," she exclaimed, laying her hand on the door over my head so
+as to leave me no opportunity for escape. I bowed and attempted an
+explanation.
+
+"Agatha," said I, "the commission was given to James and he rode to
+Sutherlandtown to perform it. But it was on the day when he was
+accustomed to write to you, and he was not easy in his mind, for he
+feared he would miss sending you his usual letter. When, therefore, he
+came to the hotel and saw me in Philemon's room--I was often there in
+those days, often without Philemon's knowing it--he saw, or thought he
+did, a way out of his difficulties. Entering where I was, he explained
+to me his errand, and we being then--though never, alas! since--one in
+everything but the secret hopes he enjoyed, he asked me if I would go in
+his stead to Mr. Orr's room, present my credentials, and obtain the
+money while he wrote the letter with which his mind was full. Though my
+jealousy was aroused and I hated the letter he was about to write, I did
+not see how I could refuse him; so after receiving such credentials as
+he himself carried, and getting full instructions how to proceed, I left
+him writing at Philemon's table and hastened down the hall to the door
+he had pointed out. If Providence had been on the side of guilt, the
+circumstances could not have been more favourable for the deception I
+afterwards played. No one was in the hall, no one was with Mr. Orr to
+note that it was I instead of James who executed Mr. Gilchrist's
+commission. But I was thinking of no deception then. I proceeded quite
+innocently on my errand, and when the feeble voice of the invalid bade
+me enter, I experienced nothing but a feeling of compassion for a man
+dying in this desolate way, alone. Of course Mr. Orr was surprised to
+see a stranger, but after reading Mr. Gilchrist's letter which I handed
+him, he seemed quite satisfied and himself drew out the wallet at the
+head of his bed and handed it over. 'You will find,' said he, 'a
+memorandum inside of the full amount, $7758.67. I should like to have
+returned Mr. Gilchrist the full ten thousand which I owe him, but this
+is all I possess, barring a hundred dollars which I have kept for my
+final expenses.' 'Mr. Gilchrist will be satisfied,' I assured him.
+'Shall I make you out a receipt?' He shook his head with a sad smile. 'I
+shall be dead in twenty-four hours. What good will a receipt do me?' But
+it seemed unbusinesslike not to give it, so I went over to the table,
+where I saw a pen and paper, and recognising the necessity of counting
+the money before writing a receipt, I ran my eye over the bills, which
+were large, and found the wallet contained just the amount he had named.
+Then I glanced at the memorandum. It had evidently been made out by him
+at some previous time, for the body of the writing was in firm
+characters and the ink blue, while the figures were faintly inscribed in
+muddy black. The 7 especially was little more than a straight line, and
+as I looked at it the devil that is in every man's nature whispered at
+first carelessly, then with deeper and deeper insistence: 'How easy it
+would be to change that 7 to a 2! Only a little mark at the top and the
+least additional stroke at the bottom and these figures would stand for
+five thousand less. It might be a temptation to some men.' It presently
+became a temptation to me; for, glancing furtively up, I discovered that
+Mr. Orr had fallen either into a sleep or into a condition of
+insensibility which made him oblivious to my movements. Five thousand
+dollars! just the sum of the ten five-hundred-dollar bills that made the
+bulk of the amount I had counted. In this village and at my age this sum
+would raise me at once to comparative independence. The temptation was
+too strong for resistance. I succumbed to it, and seizing the pen before
+me, I made the fatal marks. When I went back to James the wallet was in
+my hand, and the ten five-hundred-dollar bills in my breast pocket."
+
+Agatha had begun to shudder. She shook so she rattled the door against
+which I leaned.
+
+"And when you found that Providence was not so much upon your side as
+you thought, when you saw that the fraud was known and that your brother
+was suspected of it--"
+
+"Don't!" I pleaded, "don't make me recall that hour!"
+
+But she was inexorable. "Recall that and every hour," she commanded.
+"Tell me why he sacrificed himself, why he sacrificed me, to a cur--"
+
+She feared her own tongue, she feared her own anger, and stopped.
+"Speak," she whispered, and it was the most ghastly whisper that ever
+left mortal lips. I was but a foot from her and she held me as by a
+strong enchantment. I could not help obeying her.
+
+"To make it all clear," I pursued, "I must go back to the time I
+rejoined James in Philemon's room. He had finished his letter when I
+entered and was standing with it, sealed, in his hand. I may have cast
+it a disdainful glance. I may have shown that I was no longer the same
+man I had been when I left him a half-hour before, for he looked
+curiously at me for a moment previous to saying:
+
+"'Is that the wallet you have there? Was Mr. Orr conscious, and did he
+give it to you himself?' 'Mr. Orr was conscious,' I returned,--and I
+didn't like the sound of my own voice, careful as I was to speak
+naturally,--' but he fainted just before I came out, and I think you had
+better ask the clerk as you go down to send someone up to him.'
+
+"James was weighing the pocket-book in his hand. 'How much do you think
+there is in here? The debt was ten thousand.' I had turned carelessly
+away and was looking out of the window. 'The memorandum inside gives the
+figures as two thousand,' I declared. 'He apologises for not sending the
+full amount. He hasn't it.' Again I felt James looking at me. Why? Could
+he see that guilty wad of bills lying on my breast? 'How came you to
+read the memorandum?' he asked. 'Mr. Orr wished me to. I looked at it to
+please him.' This was a lie--the first I had ever uttered. James's eyes
+had not moved. 'John,' said he, 'this little bit of business seems to
+have disturbed you. I ought to have attended to it myself. I am quite
+sure I ought to have attended to it myself.' 'The man is dying,' I
+muttered. 'You escaped a sad sight. Be satisfied that you have got the
+money. Shall I post that letter for you?' He put it jealously in his
+pocket, and again I saw him look at me, but he said nothing more except
+that he repeated that same phrase, 'I ought to have attended to it
+myself. Agatha might better have waited.' Then he went out; but I
+remained till Philemon came home. My brother and myself were no longer
+companions; a crime divided us,--a crime he could not suspect, yet which
+made itself felt in both our hearts and prepared him for the revelation
+made to him by Mr. Gilchrist some weeks after. That night he came to
+Sutherlandtown, where I was, and entered my bedroom--not in the
+fraternal way of the old days, but as an elder enters the presence of a
+younger. 'John,' he said, without any preamble or preparation, 'where
+are the five thousand dollars you kept back from Mr. Gilchrist? The
+memorandum said seven and you delivered to me only two.' There are
+death-knells sounded in every life; those words sounded mine, or would
+have if he had not immediately added: 'There! I knew you had no stamina.
+I have taken your crime on myself, who am really to blame for it, since
+I delegated my duty to another, and you will only have to bear the
+disgrace of having James Zabel for a brother. In exchange, give me the
+money; it shall be returned to-morrow. You cannot have disposed of it
+already. After which, you, or rather I, will be in the eyes of the world
+only a thief in intent, not in fact.' Had he only stopped there!--but he
+went on: 'Agatha is lost to me, John. In return, be to me the brother I
+always thought you up to the unhappy day the sin of Achan came between
+us.'
+
+"YOU were lost to him! It was all I heard. YOU were lost to him! Then,
+if I acknowledged the crime I should not only take up my own burden of
+disgrace, but see him restored to his rights over the only woman I had
+ever loved. The sacrifice was great and my virtue was not equal to it. I
+gave him back the money, but I did not offer to assume the
+responsibility of my own crime."
+
+"And since?"
+
+In what a hard tone she spoke!
+
+"I have had to see Philemon gradually assume the rights James once
+enjoyed."
+
+"John," she asked,--she was under violent self-restraint,--"why do you
+come now?"
+
+I cast my eyes at Philemon. He was standing, as before, with his eyes
+turned away. There was discouragement in his attitude, mingled with a
+certain grand patience. Seeing that he was better able to bear her loss
+than either you or myself, I said to her very low, "I thought you ought
+to know the truth before you gave your final word. I am late, but I
+would have been TOO LATE a week from now."
+
+Her hand fell from the door, but her eyes remained fixed on my face.
+Never have I sustained such a look; never will I encounter such another.
+
+"It is too late NOW," she murmured. "The clergyman has just gone who
+united me to Philemon."
+
+The next minute her back was towards me; she had faced her father and
+her new-made husband.
+
+"Father, you knew this thing!" Keen, sharp, incisive, the words rang
+out. "I saw it in your face when he began to speak."
+
+Mr. Gilchrist drooped slightly; he was a very sick man and the scene
+had been a trying one.
+
+"If I did," was his low response, "it was but lately. You were engaged
+then to Philemon. Why break up this second match?"
+
+She eyed him as if she found it difficult to credit her ears. Such
+indifference to the claims of innocence was incredible to her. I saw her
+grand profile quiver, then the slow ebbing from her cheek of every drop
+of blood indignation had summoned there.
+
+"And you, Philemon?" she suggested, with a somewhat softened aspect.
+"You committed this wrong ignorantly. Never having heard of this crime,
+you could not know on what false grounds I had been separated from
+James."
+
+I had started to escape, but stopped just beyond the threshold of the
+door as she uttered these words. Philemon was not as ignorant as she
+supposed. This was evident from his attitude and expression.
+
+"Agatha," he began, but at this first word, and before he could clasp
+the hands held helplessly out before her, she gave a great cry, and
+staggering back, eyed both her father and himself in a frenzy of
+indignation that was all the more uncontrollable from the superhuman
+effort which she had hitherto made to suppress it.
+
+"You too!" she shrieked. "You too! and I have just sworn to love,
+honour, and obey you! Love YOU! Honour YOU! the unconscionable wretch
+who--"
+
+But here Mr. Gilchrist rose. Weak, tottering, quivering with something
+more than anger, he approached his daughter and laid his finger on her
+lips.
+
+"Be quiet!" he said. "Philemon is not to blame. A month ago he came to
+me and prayed that as a relief to his mind I would tell him why you had
+separated yourself from James. He had always thought the match had
+fallen through on account of some foolish quarrel or incompatibility,
+but lately he had feared there was something more than he suspected in
+this break, something that he should know. So I told him why you had
+dismissed James; and whether he knew James better than we did, or
+whether he had seen something in his long acquaintance with these
+brothers which influenced his judgment, he said at once: 'This cannot be
+true of James. It is not in his nature to defraud any man; but John--I
+might believe it of John. Isn't there some complication here?' I had
+never thought of John, and did not see how John could be mixed up with
+an affair I had supposed to be a secret between James and myself, but
+when we came to locate the day, Philemon remembered that on returning to
+his room that night, he had found John awaiting him. As his room was not
+five doors from that occupied by Mr. Orr, he was convinced that there
+was more to this matter than I had suspected. But when he laid the
+matter before James, he did not deny that John was guilty, but was
+peremptory in wishing you not to be told before your marriage. He knew
+that you were engaged to a good man, a man that your father approved, a
+man that could and would make you happy. He did not want to be the means
+of a second break, and besides, and this, I think, was at the bottom of
+the stand he took, for James Zabel was always the proudest man I ever
+knew,--he never could bear, he said, to give to one like Agatha a name
+which he knew and she knew was not entirely free from reproach. It would
+stand in the way of his happiness and ultimately of hers; his brother's
+dishonour was his. So while he still loved you, his only prayer was that
+after you were safely married and Philemon was sure of your affection,
+he should tell you that the man you once regarded so favourably was not
+unworthy of that regard. To obey him, Philemon has kept silent, while
+I--Agatha, what are you doing? Are you mad, my child?"
+
+She looked so for the moment. Tearing off the ring which she had worn
+but an hour, she flung it on the floor. Then she threw her arms high up
+over her head and burst out in an awful voice:
+
+"Curses on the father, curses on the husband, who have combined to make
+me rue the day I was born! The father I cannot disown, but the
+husband--"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+It was Mr. Gilchrist who dared her fury. Philemon said nothing.
+
+"Hush! he may be the father of your children. Don't curse--"
+
+But she only towered the higher and her beauty, from being simply
+majestic, became appalling.
+
+"Children!" she cried. "If ever I bear children to this man, may the
+blight of Heaven strike them as it has struck me this day. May they die
+as my hopes have died, or, if they live, may they bruise his heart as
+mine is bruised, and curse their father as--"
+
+Here I fled the house. I was shaking as if this awful denunciation had
+fallen on my own head. But before the door closed behind me, a different
+cry called me back. Mr. Gilchrist was lying lifeless on the floor, and
+Philemon, the patient, tender Philemon, had taken Agatha to his breast
+and was soothing her there as if the words she had showered upon him had
+been blessings instead of the most fearful curses which had ever left
+the lips of mortal woman.
+
+The next letter was in Agatha's handwriting. It was dated some months
+later and was stained and crumpled more than any other in the whole
+packet. Could Philemon once have told why? Were these blotted lines the
+result of his tears falling fast upon them, tears of forty years ago,
+when he and she were young and love had been doubtful? Was the sheet so
+yellowed and so seamed because it had been worn on his breast and folded
+and unfolded so often? Philemon, thou art in thy grave, sleeping sweetly
+at last by thy deeply idolised one, but these marks of feeling still
+remain indissolubly connected with the words that gave them birth.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You are gone for a day and a night only, but it seems a lengthened
+absence to me, meriting a little letter. You have been so good to me,
+Philemon, ever since that dreadful hour following our marriage, that
+sometimes--I hardly dare yet to say always--I feel that I am beginning
+to love you and that God did not deal with me so harshly when He cast me
+into your arms. Yesterday I tried to tell you this when you almost
+kissed me at parting. But I was afraid it was a momentary sentimentality
+and so kept still. But to-day such a warm well-spring of joy rises in my
+heart when I think that to-morrow the house will be bright again, and
+that in place of the empty wall opposite me at table I shall see your
+kindly and forbearing face, I know that the heart I had thought
+impregnable has begun to yield, and that daily gentleness, and a
+boundless consideration from one who had excuse for bitter thoughts and
+recrimination, are doing what all of us thought impossible a few short
+months ago.
+
+Oh, I am so happy, Philemon, so happy to love where it is now my duty to
+love; and if it were not for that dreadful memory of a father dying with
+harsh words in his ears, and the knowledge that you, my husband, yet not
+my husband, are bearing ever about with you echoes of words that in
+another nature would have turned tenderness into gall, I could be merry
+also and sing as I go about the house making it pleasant and comfortable
+against your speedy return. As it is I can but lay my hand softly on my
+heart as its beatings grow too impetuous and say, "God bless my absent
+Philemon and help him to forgive me! I forgive him and love him as I
+never thought I could."
+
+That you may see that these are not the weak outpourings of a lonely
+woman, I will here write that I heard to-day that John and James Zabel
+have gone into partnership in the ship-building business, John's uncle
+having left him a legacy of several thousand dollars. I hope they will
+do well. James, they say, is full of business and is, to all appearance,
+perfectly cheerful. This relieves me from too much worry in his regard.
+God certainly knew what kind of a husband I needed. May you find
+yourself equally blessed in your wife.
+
+Another letter to Philemon, a year later:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+Hasten home, Philemon; I do not like these absences. I am just now too
+weak and fearful. Since we knew the great hope before us, I have looked
+often in your face for a sign that you remembered what this hope cannot
+but recall to my shuddering memory. Philemon, Philemon, was I mad? When
+I think what I said in my rage, and then feel the little life stirring
+about my heart, I wonder that God did not strike me dead rather than
+bestow upon me the greatest blessing that can come to woman. Philemon,
+Philemon, if anything should happen to the child! I think of it by day,
+I think of it by night. I know you think of it too, though you show me
+such a cheerful countenance and make such great plans for the future.
+"Will God remember my words, or will He forget? It seems as if my reason
+hung upon this question."
+
+A note this time in answer to one from John Zabel:
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Thank you for words which could have come from nobody else. My child is
+dead. Could I expect anything different? If I did, God has rebuked me.
+
+Philemon thinks only of me. We understand each other so perfectly now
+that our greatest suffering comes in seeing each other's pain. My load I
+can bear, but HIS--Come and see me, John; and tell James our house is
+open to him. We have all done wrong, and are caught in one net of
+misfortune. Let it make us friends again.
+
+Below this in Philemon's hand:
+
+My wife is superstitious. Strong and capable as she is, she has regarded
+this sudden taking off of our first-born as a sign that certain words
+uttered by her on her marriage day, unhappily known to you and, as I
+take it, to James also, have been remembered by the righteous God above
+us. This is a weakness which I cannot combat. Can you, who alone of all
+the world beside know both it and its cause, help me by a renewed
+friendship, whose cheerful and natural character may gradually make her
+forget? If so, come like old neighbours, and dine with us on our wedding
+day. If God sees that we have buried the past and are ready to forgive
+each other the faults of our youth, perhaps He will further spare this
+good woman. I think she will be able to bear it. She has great strength
+except where a little child is concerned. That alone can henceforth stir
+the deepest recesses of her heart.
+
+After this, a gap of years. One, two, three, four, five children were
+laid away to rest in Portchester churchyard, then Philemon and she came
+to Sutherlandtown; but not till after a certain event had occurred, best
+made known by this last letter to Philemon:
+
+DEAREST HUSBAND:
+
+Our babe is born, our sixth and our dearest, and the reproach of its
+first look had to be met by me alone. Oh, why did I leave you and come
+to this great Boston where I have no friend but Mrs. Sutherland? Did I
+think I could break the spell of fate or providence by giving birth to
+my last darling among strangers? I shall have to do something more than
+that if I would save this child to our old age. It is borne in upon me
+like fate that never will a child prosper at my breast or survive the
+clasp of my arms. If it is to live it must be reared by others. Some
+woman who has not brought down the curse of Heaven upon her by her own
+blasphemies must nourish the tender frame and receive the blessing of
+its growing love. Neither I nor you can hope to see recognition in our
+babe's eye. Before it can turn upon us with love, it will close in its
+last sleep and we will be left desolate. What shall we do, then, with
+this little son? To whose guardianship can we entrust it? Do you know a
+man good enough or a woman sufficiently tender? I do not, but if God
+wills that our little Frederick should live, He will raise up someone.
+By the pang of possible separation already tearing my heart, I believe
+that He WILL raise up someone. Meanwhile I do not dare to kiss the
+child, lest I should blight it. He is so sturdy, Philemon, so different
+from all the other five.
+
+I open this to add that Mrs. Sutherland has just been in--with her
+five-weeks-old infant. His father is away, too, and has not yet seen his
+boy; and this is their first after ten years of marriage. Oh, that my
+future opened before me as brightly as hers!
+
+The next letter opens with a cry:
+
+Philemon! Come to me, Philemon! I have done what I threatened. I have
+made the sacrifice. Our child is no longer ours, and now, perhaps, he
+may live. But oh, my breaking heart! my empty arms! Help me to bear my
+desolation, for it is for life. We will never have another child.
+
+And where is it? Ah, that is the wonder of it. Near you, Philemon, yet
+not too near. Mrs. Sutherland has it, and you may have seen its little
+face through the car window if you were in the station last night when
+the express passed through to Sutherlandtown. Ah! but she has her burden
+to bear too. An awful, secret burden like my own, only she will have the
+child--for, Philemon, she has taken it in lieu of her own, which died
+last night in my sight; and Mr. Sutherland does not know what she has
+done, and never will, if you keep the secret as I shall, for the sake of
+the life our little innocent has thus won.
+
+What do I mean and how was it all? Philemon, it was God's work, all but
+the deception, and that is for the good of all, and to save four broken
+hearts. Listen. Yesterday, only yesterday,--it seems a month ago,--Mrs.
+Sutherland came again to see me with her baby in her arms. Mr.
+Sutherland is expected home, as you know, this week, and she was about
+to start out for Sutherlandtown so as to be in her own house when he
+came. The baby was looking well and she was the happiest of women; for
+the one wish of his heart and hers had been fulfilled and she was soon
+going to have the bliss of showing the child to his father. My own babe
+was on the bed asleep, and I, who am feeling wonderfully strong, was
+sitting up in a little chair as far away from him as possible, not out
+of hatred or indifference--oh, no!--but because he seemed to rest better
+when left entirely by himself and not under the hungry look of my eye.
+Mrs. Sutherland went over to look at it. "Oh, he is fair like my baby,"
+she said, "and almost as sturdy, though mine is a month older." And she
+stooped down and kissed him. Philemon, he smiled for her, though he
+never had for me. I saw it with a greedy longing that almost made me cry
+out. Then I turned to her and we talked.
+
+Of what? I cannot remember now. At home we had never been intimate
+friends. She is from Sutherlandtown and I am from Portchester, and the
+distance of nine miles is enough to estrange people. But here, each with
+a husband absent and a darling infant lying asleep under our eyes,
+interests we have never thought identical drew us to one another and we
+chatted with ever-increasing pleasure--when suddenly Mrs. Sutherland
+jumped up in a terrible fright. The infant she had been rocking on her
+breast was blue; the next minute it shuddered; the next--it lay in her
+arms DEAD!
+
+I hear the shriek yet with which she fell with it still in her arms to
+the floor. Fortunately no other ears were open to her cry. I alone saw
+her misery. I alone heard her tale. The child had been poisoned,
+Philemon, poisoned by her. She had mistaken a cup of medicine for a cup
+of water and had given the child a few drops in a spoon just before
+setting out from her hotel. She had not known at the time what she had
+done, but now she remembered that the fatal cup was just like the other
+and that the two stood very near together. Oh, her innocent child, and
+oh, her husband!
+
+It seemed as if the latter thought would drive her wild. "He has so
+wished for a child," she moaned. "We have been married ten years and
+this baby seemed to have been sent from heaven. He will curse me, he
+will hate me, he will never be able after this to bear me in his sight."
+This was not true of Mr. Sutherland, but it was useless to argue with
+her. Instead of attempting it, I took another way to stop her ravings.
+Lifting the child out of her hands, I first listened at its heart, and
+then, finding it was really dead,--Philemon, I have seen too many
+lifeless children not to know,--I began slowly to undress it. "What are
+you doing?" she cried. "Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Webb, what are you doing?" For
+reply I pointed to the bed, where two little arms could be seen feebly
+fluttering. "You shall have my child," I whispered. "I have carried too
+many babies to the tomb to dare risk bringing up another." And catching
+her poor wandering spirit with my eye, I held her while I told her my
+story.
+
+Philemon, I saved that woman. Before I had finished speaking I saw the
+reason return to her eye and the dawning of a pitiful hope in her
+passion-drawn face. She looked at the child in my arms and then she
+looked at the one in the bed, and the long-drawn sigh with which she
+finally bent down and wept over our darling told me that my cause was
+won. The rest was easy. When the clothes of the two children had been
+exchanged, she took our baby in her arms and prepared to leave. Then I
+stopped her. "Swear," I cried, holding her by the arm and lifting my
+other hand to heaven, "swear you will be a mother to this child! Swear
+you will love it as your own and rear it in the paths of truth and
+righteousness!" The convulsive clasp with which she drew the baby to her
+breast assured me more than her shuddering "I swear!" that her heart had
+already opened to it. I dropped her arm and covered my face with my
+hands. I could not see my darling go; it was worse than death--for the
+moment it was worse than death. "O God, save him!" I groaned. "God, make
+him an honour--" But here she caught me by the arm. Her clutch was
+frenzied, her teeth were chattering. "Swear in your turn!" she gasped.
+"Swear that if I do a mother's duty by this boy, you will keep my secret
+and never, never reveal to my husband, to the boy, or to the world that
+you have any claims upon him!" It was like tearing the heart from my
+breast with my own hand, but I swore, Philemon, and she in her turn drew
+back. But suddenly she faced me again, terror and doubt in all her
+looks. "Your husband!" she whispered. "Can you keep such a secret from
+him? You will breathe it in your dreams." "I shall tell him," I
+answered. "Tell him!" The hair seemed to rise on her forehead and she
+shook so that I feared she would drop the babe. "Be careful!" I cried.
+"See! you frighten the babe. My husband has but one heart with me. What
+I do he will subscribe to. Do not fear Philemon." So I promised in your
+name. Gradually she grew calmer. When I saw she was steady again, I
+motioned her to go. Even my more than mortal strength was failing, and
+the baby--Philemon, I had never kissed it and I did not kiss it then. I
+heard her feet draw slowly towards the door, I heard her hand fall on
+the knob, heard it turn, uttered one cry, and then----
+
+They found me an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the dead
+infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I fell with the
+child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life went out during my
+insensibility. Of its features, like and yet unlike our boy's, no one
+seems to take heed. The nurse who cared for it is gone, and who else
+would know that little face but me? They are very good to me, and are
+full of self-reproaches for leaving me so long in my part of the
+building alone. But though they watch me now, I have contrived to write
+this letter, which you will get with the one telling of the baby's death
+and my own dangerous condition. Destroy it, Philemon, and then COME.
+Nothing in all the world will give me comfort but your hand laid under
+my head and your true eyes looking into mine. Ah, we must love each
+other now, and live humbly! All our woe has come from my early girlish
+delight in gay and elegant things. From this day on I eschew all
+vanities and find in your affection alone the solace which Heaven will
+not deny to our bewildered hearts. Perhaps in this way the blessing that
+has been denied us will be visited on our child, who will live. I am now
+sure, to be the delight of our hearts and the pride of our eyes, even
+though we are denied the bliss of his presence and affection.
+
+Mrs. Sutherland was not seen to enter or go out of my rooms. Being on
+her way to the depot, she kept on her way, and must be now in her own
+home. Her secret is safe, but ours--oh, you will help me to preserve it!
+Help me not to betray--tell them I have lost five babies before this
+one--delirious--there may be an inquest--she must not be mentioned--let
+all the blame fall on me if there is blame--I fell--there is a bruise on
+the baby's forehead--and--and--I am growing incoherent--I will try and
+direct this and then love--love--O God!
+
+[A scrawl for the name.]
+
+Under it these words:
+
+Though bidden to destroy this, I have never dared to do so. Some day it
+may be of inestimable value to us or our boy. PHILEMON WEBB.
+
+This was the last letter found in the first packet. As it was laid down,
+sobs were heard all over the room, and Frederick, who for some time now
+had been sitting with his head in his hands, ventured to look up and
+say: "Do you wonder that I endeavoured to keep this secret, bought at
+such a price and sealed by the death of her I thought my mother and of
+her who really was? Gentlemen, Mr. Sutherland loved his wife and
+honoured her memory. To tell him, as I shall have to within the hour,
+that the child she placed in his arms twenty-five years ago was an
+alien, and that all his love, his care, his disappointment, and his
+sufferings had been lavished on the son of a neighbour, required greater
+courage than to face doubt on the faces of my fellow-townsmen, or
+anything, in short, but absolute arraignment on the charge of murder.
+Hence my silence, hence my indecision, till this woman"--here he pointed
+a scornful finger at Amabel, now shrinking in her chair--"drove me to it
+by secretly threatening me with a testimony which would have made me the
+murderer of my mother and the lasting disgrace of a good man who alone
+has been without blame from the beginning to the end of this desperate
+affair. She was about to speak when I forestalled her. My punishment, if
+I deserve such, will be to sit and hear in your presence the reading of
+the letters still remaining in the coroner's hands."
+
+These letters were certain ones written by Agatha to her unacknowledged
+son. They had never been sent. The first one dated from his earliest
+infancy, and its simple and touching hopefulness sent a thrill through
+every heart. It read as follows:
+
+Three years old, my darling! and the health flush has not faded from
+your cheek nor the bright gold from your hair.
+
+Oh, how I bless Mrs. Sutherland that she did not rebuke me when your
+father and I came to Sutherlandtown and set up our home where I could at
+least see your merry form toddling through the streets, holding on to
+the hand of her who now claims your love. My darling, my pride, my
+angel, so near and yet so far removed, will you ever know, even in the
+heaven to which we all look for joy after our weary pilgrimage is over,
+how often in this troublous world, and in these days of your early
+infancy, I have crept out of my warm bed, dressed myself, and, without a
+word to your father, whose heart it would break, gone out and climbed
+the steep hillside just to look at the window of your room to see if it
+were light or dark and you awake or sleeping? To breathe the scent of
+the eglantine which climbs up to your nursery window, I have braved the
+night-damps and the watching eyes of Heaven; but you have a child's
+blissful ignorance of all this; you only grow and grow and live, my
+darling, LIVE!--which is the only boon I crave, the only recompense I
+ask.
+
+Have I but added another sin to my account and brought a worse vengeance
+on myself than that of seeing you die in your early infancy? Frederick,
+my son, my son, I heard you swear to-day! Not lightly, thoughtlessly, as
+boys sometimes will in imitation of their elders, but bitterly,
+revengefully, as if the seeds of evil passions were already pushing to
+life in the boyish breast I thought so innocent. Did you wonder at the
+strange woman who stopped you? Did you realise the awful woe from which
+my commonplace words sprang? No, no, what grown mind could take that in,
+least of all a child's? To have forsworn the bliss of motherhood and
+entered upon a life of deception for THIS! Truly Heaven is implacable
+and my last sin is to be punished more inexorably than my first.
+
+There are worse evils than death. This I have always heard, but now I
+know it. God was merciful when He slew my babes, and I, presumptous in
+my rebellion, and the efforts with which I tried to prevent His work.
+Frederick, you are weak, dissipated, and without conscience. The darling
+babe, the beautiful child, has grown into a reckless youth whose
+impulses Mr. Sutherland will find it hard to restrain, and over whom his
+mother--do _I_ call her your mother?--has little influence, though she
+tries hard to do a mother's part and save herself and myself from
+boundless regret. My boy, my boy, do you feel the lack of your own
+mother's vigour? Might you have lived under my care and owned a better
+restraint and learned to work and live a respectable life in
+circumstances less provocative of self-indulgence? Such questions, when
+they rise, are maddening. When I see them form themselves in Philemon's
+eyes I drive them out with all the force of my influence, which is still
+strong over him. But when they make way in my own breast, I can find no
+relief, not even in prayer. Frederick, were I to tell you the truth
+about your parentage, would the shock of such an unexpected revelation
+make a man of you? I have been tempted to make the trial, at times. Deep
+down in my heart I have thought that perhaps I should best serve the
+good man who is growing grey under your waywardness, by opening up
+before you the past and present agonies of which you are the unconscious
+centre. But I cannot do this while SHE lives. The look she gave me one
+day when I approached you a step too near at the church door, proves
+that it would be the killing of her to reveal her long-preserved secret
+now. I must wait her death, which seems near, and then--No, I cannot do
+it. Mr. Sutherland has but one staff to lean on, and that is you. It may
+be a poor one, a breaking one, but it is still a staff. I dare not take
+it away--I dare not. Ah, if Philemon was the man he was once, he might
+counsel me, but he is only a child now; just as if God had heard my cry
+for children and had given me--HIM.
+
+More money, and still more money! and I hate it except for what it will
+do for the poor and incapable about me. How strange are the ways of
+Providence! To us who have no need of aught beyond a competence, money
+pours in almost against our will, while to those who long and labour for
+it, it comes not, or comes so slowly the life wears out in the waiting
+and the working. The Zabels, now! Once well-to-do ship-builders, with a
+good business and a home full of curious works of art, they now appear
+to find it hard to obtain even the necessities of life. Such are the
+freaks of fortune; or should I say, the dealings of an inscrutable
+Providence? Once I tried to give something out of my abundance to these
+old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the attempt failed.
+Worse than that. As if to show that benefits should proceed from them to
+me rather than from me to them, James bestowed on me a gift. It is a
+strange one,--nothing more nor less than a quaint Florentine dagger
+which I had often admired for its exquisite workmanship. Was it the last
+treasure he possessed? I am almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie
+here in my table-drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not
+good for Philemon. He must have cheerful objects before him, happy faces
+such as mine tries to be. But ah!
+
+I would gladly give my life if I could once hold you in my arms, my
+erring but beloved son. Will the day ever come when I can? Will you have
+strength enough to hear my story and preserve your peace and let me go
+down to the grave with the memory of one look, one smile, that is for me
+alone? Sometimes I foresee this hour and am happy for a few short
+minutes; and then some fresh story of your recklessness is wafted
+through the town and--What stopped her at this point we shall never
+know. Some want of Philemon's, perhaps. At all events she left off here
+and the letter was never resumed. It was the last secret outpouring of
+her heart. With this broken sentence Agatha's letters terminated..
+
+......
+
+That afternoon, before the inquiry broke up, the jury brought in their
+verdict. It was:
+
+"Death by means of a wound inflicted upon herself in a moment of terror
+and misapprehension."
+
+It was all his fellow-townsmen could do for Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+But Frederick's day of trial was not yet over. There was a closed door
+to open and a father to see (as in his heart he still called Mr.
+Sutherland). Then there were friends to face, and foes, under conditions
+he better than anyone else, knew were in some regards made worse rather
+than better by the admissions and revelations of this eventful
+day--Agnes, for instance. How could he meet her pure gaze? But it was
+his father he must first confront, his father to whom he would have to
+repeat in private the tale which robbed the best of men of a past, and
+took from him a son, almost a wife, without leaving him one memory
+calculated to console him. Frederick was so absorbed in this
+anticipation that he scarcely noticed the two or three timid hands
+stretched out in encouragement toward him, and was moving slowly toward
+the door behind which his father had disappeared so many hours before,
+when he was recalled to the interests of the moment by a single word,
+uttered not very far from him. It was simply, "Well?" But it was uttered
+by Knapp and repeated by Mr. Courtney.
+
+Frederick shuddered, and was hurrying on when he found himself stopped
+by a piteous figure that, with appealing eyes and timid gestures,
+stepped up before him. It was Amabel.
+
+"Forgive!" she murmured, looking like a pleading saint. "I did not
+know--I never dreamed--you were so much of a man, Frederick: that you
+bore such a heart, cherished such griefs, were so worthy of love and a
+woman's admiration. If I had--"
+
+Her expression was eloquent, more eloquent than he had ever seen it, for
+it had real feeling in it; but he put her coldly by.
+
+"When my father's white hairs become black again, and the story of my
+shame is forgotten in this never-forgetting world, then come back and I
+will forgive you."
+
+And he was passing on when another touch detained him. He turned, this
+time in some impatience, only to meet the frank eyes of Sweetwater. As
+he knew very little of this young man, save that he was the amateur
+detective who had by some folly of his own been carried off on the
+Hesper, and who was probably the only man saved from its wreck, he was
+about to greet him with some commonplace phrase of congratulation, when
+Sweetwater interrupted him with the following words:
+
+"I only wanted to say that it may be easier for you to approach your
+father with the revelations you are about to make if you knew that in
+his present frame of mind he is much more likely to be relieved by such
+proofs of innocence as you can give him than overwhelmed by such as show
+the lack of kinship between you. For two weeks Mr. Sutherland has been
+bending under the belief of your personal criminality in this matter.
+This was his secret, which was shared by me."
+
+"By you?"
+
+"Yes, by me! I am more closely linked to this affair than you can
+readily imagine. Some day I may be able to explain myself, but not now.
+Only remember what I have said about your father--pardon me, I should
+perhaps say Mr. Sutherland--and act accordingly. Perhaps it was to tell
+you this that I was forced back here against my will by the strangest
+series of events that ever happened to a man. But," he added, with a
+sidelong look at the group of men still hovering about the coroner's
+table, "I had rather think it was for some more important office still.
+But this the future will show,--the future which I seem to see lowering
+in the faces over there."
+
+And, waiting for no reply, he melted into the crowd.
+
+Frederick passed at once to his father.
+
+No one interrupted them during this solemn interview, but the large
+crowd that in the halls and on the steps of the building awaited
+Frederick's reappearance showed that the public interest was still warm
+in a matter affecting so deeply the heart and interests of their best
+citizen. When, therefore, that long-closed door finally opened and
+Frederick was seen escorting Mr. Sutherland on his arm, the tide of
+feeling which had not yet subsided since Agatha's letters were read
+vented itself in one great sob of relief. For Mr. Sutherland's face was
+calmer than when they had last seen it, and his step more assured, and
+he leaned, or made himself lean, on Frederick's arm, as if to impress
+upon all who saw them that the ties of years cannot be shaken off so
+easily, and that he still looked upon Frederick as his son.
+
+But he was not contented with this dumb show, eloquent as it was. As the
+crowd parted and these two imposing figures took their way down the
+steps to the carriage which had been sent for them, Mr. Sutherland cast
+one deep and long glance about him on faces he knew and on faces he did
+not know, on those who were near and those who were far, and raising his
+voice, which did not tremble as much as might have been expected, said
+deliberately:
+
+"My son accompanies me to his home. If he should afterwards be wanted,
+he will be found at his own fireside. Good-day, my friends. I thank you
+for the goodwill you have this day shown us both."
+
+Then he entered the carriage.
+
+The solemn way in which Frederick bared his head in acknowledgment of
+this public recognition of the hold he still retained on this one
+faithful heart, struck awe into the hearts of all who saw it. So that
+the carriage rolled off in silence, closing one of the most thrilling
+and impressive scenes ever witnessed in that time-worn village.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+"NOT WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG GIRLS"
+
+
+But, alas! all tides have their ebb as well as flow, and before Mr.
+Sutherland and Frederick were well out of the main street the latter
+became aware that notwithstanding the respect with which his
+explanations had been received by the jury, there were many of his
+fellow-townsmen who were ready to show dissatisfaction at his being
+allowed to return in freedom to that home where he had still every
+prospect of being called the young master. Doubt, that seed of ramifying
+growth, had been planted in more than one breast, and while it failed as
+yet to break out into any open manifestation, there were evidences
+enough in the very restraint visible in such groups of people as they
+passed that suspicion had not been suppressed or his innocence
+established by the over-favourable verdict of the coroner's jury.
+
+To Mr. Sutherland, suffering now from the reaction following all great
+efforts, much, if not all, of this quiet but significant display of
+public feeling passed unnoticed. But to Frederick, alive to the least
+look, the least sign that his story had not been accepted unquestioned,
+this passage through the town was the occasion of the most poignant
+suffering.
+
+For not only did these marks of public suspicion bespeak possible
+arraignment in the future, but through them it became evident that even
+if he escaped open condemnation in the courts, he could never hope for
+complete reinstatement before the world, nor, what was to him a still
+deeper source of despair, anticipate a day when Agnes's love should make
+amends to him for the grief and errors of his more than wayward youth.
+He could never marry so pure a being while the shadow of crime separated
+him from the mass of human beings. Her belief in his innocence and the
+exact truth of his story (and he was confident she did believe him)
+could make no difference in this conclusion. While he was regarded
+openly or in dark corners or beside the humblest fireside as a possible
+criminal, neither Mr. Sutherland nor her father, nor his own heart even,
+would allow him to offer her anything but a friend's gratitude, or win
+from her anything but a neighbour's sympathy; yet in bidding good-bye to
+larger hopes and more importunate desires, he parted with the better
+part of his heart and the only solace remaining in this world for the
+boundless griefs and tragic experiences of his still young life. He had
+learned to love through suffering, only to realise that the very nature
+of his suffering forbade him to indulge in love.
+
+And this seemed a final judgment, even in this hour of public
+justification. He had told his story and been for the moment believed,
+but what was there in his life, what was there in the facts as witnessed
+by others, what was there in his mother's letters and the revelation of
+their secret relationship, to corroborate his assertions, or to prove
+that her hand and not his had held the weapon when the life-blood gushed
+from her devoted breast? Nothing, nothing; only his word to stand
+against all human probabilities and natural inference; only his word and
+the generous nature of the great-hearted woman who had thus perished!
+Though a dozen of his fellow-citizens had by their verdict professed
+their belief in his word and given him the benefit of a doubt involving
+his life as well as his honour, he, as well as they, knew that neither
+the police nor the general public were given to sentimentality, and that
+the question of his guilt still lay open and must remain so till his
+dying day. For from the nature of things no proof of the truth was
+probable. Batsy being dead, only God and his own heart could know that
+the facts of that awful half-hour were as he had told them.
+
+Had God in His justice removed in this striking way his only witness, as
+a punishment for his sins and his mad indulgence in acts so little short
+of crime as to partake of its guilt and merit its obloquy?
+
+He was asking himself this question as he bent to fasten the gate. His
+father had passed in, the carriage had driven off, and the road was
+almost solitary--but not quite. As he leaned his arm over the gate and
+turned to take a final glance down the hillside, he saw, with what
+feelings no one will ever know, the light figure of Agnes advancing on
+the arm of her father.
+
+He would have drawn back, but a better impulse intervened and he stood
+his ground. Mr. Halliday, who walked very close to Agnes, cast her an
+admonitory glance which Frederick was not slow in interpreting, then
+stopped reluctantly, perhaps because he saw her falter, perhaps because
+he knew that an interview between these two was unavoidable and had best
+be quickly over.
+
+Frederick found his voice first.
+
+"Agnes," said he, "I am glad of this opportunity for expressing my
+gratitude. You have acted like a friend and have earned my eternal
+consideration, even if we never speak again."
+
+There was a momentary silence. Her head, which had drooped under his
+greeting, rose again. Her eyes, humid with feeling, sought his face.
+
+"Why do you speak like that?" said she. "Why shouldn't we meet? Does not
+everyone recognise your innocence, and will not the whole world soon
+see, as I have, that you have left the old life behind and have only to
+be your new self to win everyone's regard?"
+
+"Agnes," returned Frederick, smiling sadly as he observed the sudden
+alarm visible in her father's face at these enthusiastic words, "you
+know me perhaps better than others do and are prepared to believe my
+words and my more than unhappy story. But there are few like you in the
+world. People in general will not acquit me, and if there was only one
+person who doubted "--Mr. Halliday began to look relieved--"I would fail
+to give any promise of the new life you hope to see me lead, if I
+allowed the shadow under which I undoubtedly rest to fall in the
+remotest way across yours. You and I have been friends and will continue
+such, but we will hold little intercourse in future, hard as I find it
+to say so. Does not Mr. Halliday consider this right? As your father he
+must."
+
+Agnes's eyes, leaving Frederick's for a moment, sought her father's.
+Alas! there was no mistaking their language. Sighing deeply, she again
+hung her head.
+
+"Too much care for people's opinion," she murmured, "and too little for
+what is best and noblest in us. I do not recognise the necessity of a
+farewell between us any more than I recognise that anyone who saw and
+heard you to-day can believe in your guilt."
+
+"But there are so many who did not hear and see me. Besides" (here he
+turned a little and pointed to the garden in his rear), "for the past
+week a man--I need not state who, nor under what authority he acts--has
+been in hiding under that arbour, watching my every movement, and almost
+counting my sighs. Yesterday he left for a short space, but to-day he is
+back. What does that argue, dear friend? Innocence, completely
+recognised, does not call for such guardianship."
+
+The slight frame of the young girl bending so innocently toward him
+shuddered involuntarily at this, and her eyes, frightened and flashing,
+swept over the arbour before returning to his face.
+
+"If there is a watcher there, and if such a fact proves you to be in
+danger of arrest for a crime you never committed, then it behooves your
+friends to show where they stand in this matter, and by lending their
+sympathy give you courage and power to meet the trials before you."
+
+"Not when they are young girls," murmured Frederick, and casting a
+glance at Mr. Halliday, he stepped softly back.
+
+Agnes flushed and yielded to her father's gentle pressure. "Good-bye, my
+friend," she said, the quiver in her tones sinking deep into Frederick's
+heart. "Some day it will be good-morrow," and her head, turned back over
+her shoulder, took on a beautiful radiance that fixed itself forever in
+the hungry heart of him who watched it disappear. When she was quite
+gone, a man not the one whom Frederick had described, as lying in hiding
+in the arbour, but a different one, in fact, no other than our old
+friend the constable--advanced around the corner of the house and
+presented a paper to him.
+
+It was the warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+SWEETWATER PAYS HIS DEBT AT LAST TO MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Frederick's arrest had been conducted so quietly that no hint of the
+matter reached the village before the next morning. Then the whole town
+broke into uproar, and business was not only suspended, but the streets
+and docks overflowed with gesticulating men and excited women, carrying
+on in every corner and across innumerable doorsteps the endless debate
+which such an action on the part of the police necessarily opened.
+
+But the most agitated face, though the stillest tongue, was not to be
+seen in town that morning, but in a little cottage on an arid hill-slope
+overlooking the sea. Here Sweetwater sat and communed with his great
+monitor, the ocean, and only from his flashing eye and the firm set of
+his lips could the mother of Sweetwater see that the crisis of her son's
+life was rapidly approaching, and that on the outcome of this long
+brooding rested not only his own self-satisfaction, but the interests of
+the man most dear to them.
+
+Suddenly, from that far horizon upon which Sweetwater's eye rested with
+a look that was almost a demand, came an answer that flushed him with a
+hope as great as it was unexpected. Bounding to his feet, he confronted
+his mother with eager eyes and outstretched hand.
+
+"Give me money, all the money we have in the house. I have an idea that
+may be worth all I can ever make or can ever hope to have. If it
+succeeds, we save Frederick Sutherland; if it fails, I have only to meet
+another of Knapp's scornful looks. But it won't fail; the inspiration
+came from the sea, and the sea, you know, is my second mother!"
+
+What this inspiration was he did not say, but it carried him presently
+into town and landed him in the telegraph office.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+The scene later in the day, when Frederick entered the village under the
+guardianship of the police, was indescribable. Mr. Sutherland had
+insisted upon accompanying him, and when the well-loved figure and white
+head were recognised, the throng, which had rapidly collected in the
+thoroughfare leading to the depot, succumbed to the feelings occasioned
+by this devotion, and fell into a wondering silence.
+
+Frederick had never looked better. There is something in the extremity
+of fate which brings out a man's best characteristics, and this man,
+having much that was good in him, showed it at that moment as never
+before in his short but over-eventful life. As the carriage stopped
+before the court-house on its way to the train, a glimpse was given of
+his handsome head to those who had followed him closest, and as there
+became visible for the first time in his face, so altered under his
+troubles, a likeness to their beautiful and commanding Agatha, a murmur
+broke out around him that was half a wail and half a groan, and which
+affected him so that he turned from his father, whose hand he was
+secretly holding, and taking the whole scene in with one flash of his
+eye, was about to speak, when a sudden hubbub broke out in the direction
+of the telegraph office, and a man was seen rushing down the street
+holding a paper high over his head. It was Sweetwater.
+
+"News!" he cried. "News! A cablegram from the Azores! A Swedish
+sailor--"
+
+But here a man with more authority than the amateur detective pushed his
+way to the carriage and took off his hat to Mr. Sutherland.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he, "but the prisoner will not leave town
+to-day. Important evidence has just reached us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland saw that it was in Frederick's favour and fainted on his
+son's neck. As the people beheld his head fall forward, and observed the
+look with which Frederick received him in his arms, they broke into a
+great shout.
+
+"News!" they shrieked. "News! Frederick Sutherland is innocent! See! the
+old man has fainted from joy!" And caps went up and tears fell, before a
+mother's son of them knew what grounds he had for his enthusiasm.
+
+Later, they found they were good and substantial ones. Sweetwater had
+remembered the group of sailors who had passed by the corner of Agatha's
+house just as Batsy fell forward on the window-sill, and cabling to the
+captain of the vessel, at the first port at which they were likely to
+put in, was fortunate enough to receive in reply a communication from
+one of the men, who remembered the words she shouted. They were in
+Swedish and none of his mates had understood them, but he recalled them
+well. They were:
+
+"Hjelp! Hjelp! Frun håller på alb döda sig. Hon har en knif. Hjelp!
+Hjelp!"
+
+In English:
+
+"Help! Help! My mistress kills herself. She has a knife. Help! Help!"
+
+The impossible had occurred. Batsy was not dead, or at least her
+testimony still remained and had come at Sweetwater's beck from the
+other side of the sea to save her mistress's son.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater was a made man. And Frederick? In a week he was the idol of
+the town. In a year--but let Agnes's contented face and happy smile show
+what he was then. Sweet Agnes, who first despised, then encouraged, then
+loved him, and who, next to Agatha, commanded the open worship of his
+heart.
+
+Agatha is first, must be first, as anyone can see who beholds him, on a
+certain anniversary of each year, bury his face in the long grass which
+covers the saddest and most passionate heart which ever yielded to the
+pressure of life's deepest tragedy.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha Webb, by Anna Katherine Green
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha Webb, by Anna Katherine Green
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Agatha Webb
+
+Author: Anna Katherine Green
+
+Posting Date: April 30, 2011 [EBook #5162]
+Release Date: February, 2004
+[This file was first posted on May 24, 2002]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGATHA WEBB ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AGATHA WEBB
+
+BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN (MRS. CHARLES ROHLFS)
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR" "LOST MAN'S
+LANE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND
+
+PROFESSOR A. V. DICEY
+
+OF OXFORD, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+     I--A Cry on the Hill
+    II--One Night's Work
+   III--The Empty Drawer
+    IV--The Full Drawer
+     V--A Spot on the Lawn
+    VI--"Breakfast is Served, Gentlemen!"
+   VII--"Marry Me"
+  VIII--"A Devil That Understands Men"
+    IX--A Grand Woman
+     X--Detective Knapp Arrives
+    XI--The Man with a Beard
+   XII--Wattles Comes
+  XIII--Wattles Goes
+   XIV--A Final Temptation
+    XV--The Zabels Visited
+   XVI--Local Talent at Work
+  XVII--The Slippers, the Flower, and What Sweetwater Made of Them
+ XVIII--Some Leading Questions
+   XIX--Poor Philemon
+    XX--A Surprise for Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+   XXI--Sweetwater Reasons
+  XXII--Sweetwater Acts
+ XXIII--A Sinister Pair
+  XXIV--In the Shadow of the Mast
+   XXV--In Extremity
+  XXVI--The Adventure of the Parcel
+ XXVII--The Adventure of the Scrap of Paper and the Three Words
+XXVIII--"Who Are You?" 
+  XXIX--Home Again
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+   XXX--What Followed the Striking of the Clock
+  XXXI--A Witness Lost
+ XXXII--Why Agatha Webb will Never be Forgotten in Sutherlandtown
+XXXIII--Father and Son
+ XXXIV--"Not When They Are Young Girls"
+  XXXV--Sweetwater Pays His Debt at Last to Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+
+I
+
+A CRY ON THE HILL
+
+
+The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests had all
+departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the
+ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn
+became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, plain-featured young
+man of ungainly aspect but penetrating eye, called the attention of the
+others to it.
+
+"Look!" said he; "there is the daylight! This has been a gay night for
+Sutherlandtown."
+
+"Too gay," muttered another, starting aside as the slight figure of a
+young man coming from the house behind them rushed hastily by. "Why,
+who's that?"
+
+As they one and all had recognised the person thus alluded to, no one
+answered till he had dashed out of the gate and disappeared in the woods
+on the other side of the road. Then they all spoke at once.
+
+"It's Mr. Frederick!"
+
+"He seems in a desperate hurry."
+
+"He trod on my toes."
+
+"Did you hear the words he was muttering as he went by?"
+
+As only the last question was calculated to rouse any interest, it alone
+received attention.
+
+"No; what were they? I heard him say something, but I failed to catch
+the words."
+
+"He wasn't talking to you, or to me either, for that matter; but I have
+ears that can hear an eye wink. He said: 'Thank God, this night of
+horror is over!' Think of that! After such a dance and such a spread, he
+calls the night horrible and thanks God that it is over. I thought he
+was the very man to enjoy this kind of thing."
+
+"So did I."
+
+"And so did I."
+
+The five musicians exchanged looks, then huddled in a group at the gate.
+
+"He has quarrelled with his sweetheart," suggested one.
+
+"I'm not surprised at that," declared another. "I never thought it would
+be a match."
+
+"Shame if it were!" muttered the ungainly youth who had spoken first.
+
+As the subject of this comment was the son of the gentleman whose house
+they were just leaving, they necessarily spoke low; but their tones were
+rife with curiosity, and it was evident that the topic deeply interested
+them. One of the five who had not previously spoken now put in a word:
+
+"I saw him when he first led out Miss Page to dance, and I saw him again
+when he stood up opposite her in the last quadrille, and I tell you,
+boys, there was a mighty deal of difference in the way he conducted
+himself toward her in the beginning of the evening and the last. You
+wouldn't have thought him the same man. Reckless young fellows like him
+are not to be caught by dimples only. They want cash."
+
+"Or family, at least; and she hasn't either. But what a pretty girl she
+is! Many a fellow as rich as he and as well connected would be satisfied
+with her good looks alone."
+
+"Good looks!" High scorn was observable in this exclamation, which was
+made by the young man whom I have before characterised as ungainly. "I
+refuse to acknowledge that she has any good looks. On the contrary, I
+consider her plain."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" burst in protest from more than one mouth. "And why does she
+have every fellow in the room dangling after her, then?" asked the
+player on the flageolet.
+
+"She hasn't a regular feature."
+
+"What difference does that make when it isn't her features you notice,
+but herself?"
+
+"I don't like her."
+
+A laugh followed this.
+
+"That won't trouble her, Sweetwater. Sutherland does, if you don't, and
+that's much more to the point. And he'll marry her yet; he can't help
+it. Why, she'd witch the devil into leading her to the altar if she took
+a notion to have him for her bridegroom."
+
+"There would be consistency in that," muttered the fellow just
+addressed. "But Mr. Frederick--"
+
+"Hush! There's some one on the doorstep. Why, it's she!"
+
+They all glanced back. The graceful figure of a young girl dressed in
+white was to be seen leaning toward them from the open doorway. Behind
+her shone a blaze of light--the candles not having been yet extinguished
+in the hall--and against this brilliant background her slight form, with
+all its bewitching outlines, stood out in plain relief.
+
+"Who was that?" she began in a high, almost strident voice, totally out
+of keeping with the sensuous curves of her strange, sweet face. But the
+question remained unanswered, for at that moment her attention, as well
+as that of the men lingering at the gate, was attracted by the sound of
+hurrying feet and confused cries coming up the hill.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" was the word panted out by more than one harsh voice;
+and in another instant a dozen men and boys came rushing into sight in a
+state of such excitement that the five musicians recoiled from the gate,
+and one of them went so far as to start back toward the house. As he did
+so he noticed a curious thing. The young woman whom they had all
+perceived standing in the door a moment before had vanished, yet she was
+known to possess the keenest curiosity of any one in town.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" A terrible and unprecedented cry in this old,
+God-fearing town. Then came in hoarse explanation from the jostling
+group as they stopped at the gate: "Mrs. Webb has been killed! Stabbed
+with a knife! Tell Mr. Sutherland!"
+
+Mrs. Webb!
+
+As the musicians heard this name, so honoured and so universally
+beloved, they to a man uttered a cry. Mrs. Webb! Why, it was impossible.
+Shouting in their turn for Mr. Sutherland, they all crowded forward.
+
+"Not Mrs. Webb!" they protested. "Who could have the daring or the heart
+to kill HER?"
+
+"God knows," answered a voice from the highway. "But she's dead--we've
+just seen her!"
+
+"Then it's the old man's work," quavered a piping voice. "I've always
+said he would turn on his best friend some day. 'Sylum's the best place
+for folks as has lost their wits. I--"
+
+But here a hand was put over his mouth, and the rest of the words was
+lost in an inarticulate gurgle. Mr. Sutherland had just appeared on the
+porch.
+
+He was a superb-looking man, with an expression of mingled kindness and
+dignity that invariably awakened both awe and admiration in the
+spectator. No man in the country--I was going to say no woman was more
+beloved, or held in higher esteem. Yet he could not control his only
+son, as everyone within ten miles of the hill well knew.
+
+At this moment his face showed both pain and shock.
+
+"What name are you shouting out there?" he brokenly demanded. "Agatha
+Webb? Is Agatha Webb hurt?"
+
+"Yes, sir; killed," repeated a half-dozen voices at once. "We've just
+come from the house. All the town is up. Some say her husband did it."
+
+"No, no!" was Mr. Sutherland's decisive though half-inaudible response.
+"Philemon Webb might end his own life, but not Agatha's. It was the
+money--"
+
+Here he caught himself up, and, raising his voice, addressed the crowd
+of villagers more directly.
+
+"Wait," said he, "and I will go back with you. Where is Frederick?" he
+demanded of such members of his own household as stood about him.
+
+No one knew.
+
+"I wish some one would find my son. I want him to go into town with me."
+
+"He's over in the woods there," volunteered a voice from without.
+
+"In the woods!" repeated the father, in a surprised tone.
+
+"Yes, sir; we all saw him go. Shall we sing out to him?"
+
+"No, no; I will manage very well without him." And taking up his hat Mr.
+Sutherland stepped out again upon the porch.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. A hand had been laid on his arm and an insinuating
+voice was murmuring in his ear:
+
+"Do you mind if I go with you? I will not make any trouble."
+
+It was the same young lady we have seen before.
+
+The old gentleman frowned--he who never frowned and remarked shortly:
+
+"A scene of murder is no place for women."
+
+The face upturned to his remained unmoved.
+
+"I think I will go," she quietly persisted. "I can easily mingle with
+the crowd."
+
+He said not another word against it. Miss Page was under pay in his
+house, but for the last few weeks no one had undertaken to contradict
+her. In the interval since her first appearance on the porch, she had
+exchanged the light dress in which she had danced at the ball, for a
+darker and more serviceable one, and perhaps this token of her
+determination may have had its influence in silencing him. He joined the
+crowd, and together they moved down-hill. This was too much for the
+servants of the house. One by one they too left the house till it stood
+absolutely empty. Jerry snuffed out the candles and shut the front door,
+but the side entrance stood wide open, and into this entrance, as the
+last footstep died out on the hillside, passed a slight and resolute
+figure. It was that of the musician who had questioned Miss Page's
+attractions.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ONE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+
+Sutherlandtown was a seaport. The village, which was a small one,
+consisted of one long street and numerous cross streets running down
+from the hillside and ending on the wharves. On one of the corners thus
+made, stood the Webb house, with its front door on the main street and
+its side door on one of the hillside lanes. As the group of men and boys
+who had been in search of Mr. Sutherland entered this last-mentioned
+lane, they could pick out this house from all the others, as it was the
+only one in which a light was still burning. Mr. Sutherland lost no time
+in entering upon the scene of tragedy. As his imposing figure emerged
+from the darkness and paused on the outskirts of the crowd that was
+blocking up every entrance to the house, a murmur of welcome went up,
+after which a way was made for him to the front door.
+
+But before he could enter, some one plucked him by the sleeve.
+
+"Look up!" whispered a voice into his ear.
+
+He did so, and saw a woman's body hanging half out of an upper window.
+It hung limp, and the sight made him sick, notwithstanding his
+threescore years of experience.
+
+"Who's that?" he cried. "That's not Agatha Webb."
+
+"No, that's Batsy, the cook. She's dead as well as her mistress. We left
+her where we found her for the coroner to see."
+
+"But this is horrible," murmured Mr. Sutherland. "Has there been a
+butcher here?"
+
+As he uttered these words, he felt another quick pressure on his arm.
+Looking down, he saw leaning against him the form of a young woman, but
+before he could address her she had started upright again and was moving
+on with the throng. It was Miss Page.
+
+"It was the sight of this woman hanging from the window which first drew
+attention to the house," volunteered a man who was standing as a sort of
+guardian at the main gateway. "Some of the sailors' wives who had been
+to the wharves to see their husbands off on the ship that sailed at
+daybreak, saw it as they came up the lane on their way home, and gave
+the alarm. Without that we might not have known to this hour what had
+happened."
+
+"But Mrs. Webb?"
+
+"Come in and see."
+
+There was a board fence about the simple yard within which stood the
+humble house forever after to be pointed out as the scene of
+Sutherlandtown's most heart-rending tragedy. In this fence was a gate,
+and through this gate now passed Mr. Sutherland, followed by his
+would-be companion, Miss Page. A path bordered by lilac bushes led up to
+the house, the door of which stood wide open. As soon as Mr. Sutherland
+entered upon this path a man approached him from the doorway. It was
+Amos Fenton, the constable.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Sutherland," said he, "sad business, a very sad business! But
+what little girl have you there?"
+
+"This is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece. She would come.
+Inquisitiveness the cause. I do not approve of it."
+
+"Miss Page must remain on the doorstep. We allow no one inside excepting
+yourself," he said respectfully, in recognition of the fact that nothing
+of importance was ever undertaken in Sutherlandtown without the
+presence of Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page curtsied, looking so bewitching in the fresh morning light
+that the tough old constable scratched his chin in grudging admiration.
+But he did not reconsider his determination. Seeing this, she accepted
+her defeat gracefully, and moved aside to where the bushes offered her
+more or less protection from the curiosity of those about her. Meanwhile
+Mr. Sutherland had stepped into the house.
+
+He found himself in a small hall with a staircase in front and an open
+door at the left. On the threshold of this open door a man stood, who at
+sight of him doffed his hat. Passing by this man, Mr. Sutherland entered
+the room beyond. A table spread with eatables met his view, beside
+which, in an attitude which struck him at the moment as peculiar, sat
+Philemon Webb, the well-known master of the house.
+
+Astonished at seeing his old friend in this room and in such a position,
+he was about to address him, when Mr. Fenton stopped him.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Take a look at poor Philemon before you disturb him.
+When we broke into the house a half-hour ago he was sitting just as you
+see him now, and we have let him be for reasons you can easily
+appreciate. Examine him closely, Mr. Sutherland; he won't notice it."
+
+"But what ails him? Why does he sit crouched against the table? Is he
+hurt too?"
+
+"No; look at his eyes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland stooped and pushed aside the long grey locks that half
+concealed the countenance of his aged friend.
+
+"Why," he cried, startled, "they are closed! He isn't dead?"
+
+"No, he is asleep."
+
+"Asleep?"
+
+"Yes. He was asleep when we came in and he is asleep yet. Some of the
+neighbours wanted to wake him, but I would not let them. His wits are
+not strong enough to bear a sudden shock."
+
+"No, no, poor Philemon! But that he should sit sleeping here while
+she--But what do these bottles mean and this parade of supper in a room
+they were not accustomed to eat in?"
+
+"We don't know. It has not been eaten, you see. He has swallowed a glass
+of port, but that is all. The other glasses have had no wine in them,
+nor have the victuals been touched."
+
+"Seats set for three and only one occupied," murmured Mr. Sutherland.
+"Strange! Could he have expected guests?"
+
+"It looks like it. I didn't know that his wife allowed him such
+privileges; but she was always too good to him, and I fear has paid for
+it with her life."
+
+"Nonsense! he never killed her. Had his love been anything short of the
+worship it was, he stood in too much awe of her to lift his hand against
+her, even in his most demented moments."
+
+"I don't trust men of uncertain wits," returned the other. "You have not
+noticed everything that is to be seen in this room."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, recalled to himself by these words, looked quickly about
+him. With the exception of the table and what was on and by it there was
+nothing else in the room. Naturally his glance returned to Philemon
+Webb.
+
+"I don't see anything but this poor sleeping man," he began.
+
+"Look at his sleeve."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a start, again bent down. The arm of his old friend
+lay crooked upon the table, and on its blue cotton sleeve there was a
+smear which might have been wine, but which was--blood.
+
+As Mr. Sutherland became assured of this, he turned slightly pale and
+looked inquiringly at the two men who were intently watching him.
+
+"This is bad," said he. "Any other marks of blood below stairs?"
+
+"No; that one smear is all."
+
+"Oh, Philemon!" burst from Mr. Sutherland, in deep emotion. Then, as he
+looked long and shudderingly at his friend, he added slowly:
+
+"He has been in the room where she was killed; so much is evident. But
+that he understood what was done there I cannot believe, or he would not
+be sleeping here like a log. Come, let us go up-stairs."
+
+Fenton, with an admonitory gesture toward his subordinate, turned
+directly toward the staircase. Mr. Sutherland followed him, and they at
+once proceeded to the upper hall and into the large front room which had
+been the scene of the tragedy.
+
+It was the parlour or sitting-room of this small and unpretentious
+house. A rag carpet covered the floor and the furniture was of the
+plainest kind, but the woman who lay outstretched on the stiff,
+old-fashioned lounge opposite the door was far from being in accord with
+the homely type of her surroundings. Though the victim of a violent
+death, her face and form, both of a beauty seldom to be found among
+women of any station, were so majestic in their calm repose, that Mr.
+Sutherland, accustomed as he was to her noble appearance, experienced a
+shock of surprise that found vent in these words:
+
+"Murdered! she? You have made some mistake, my friends. Look at her
+face!"
+
+But even in the act of saying this his eyes fell on the blood which had
+dyed her cotton dress and he cried:
+
+"Where was she struck and where is the weapon which has made this
+ghastly wound?"
+
+"She was struck while standing or sitting at this table," returned the
+constable, pointing to two or three drops of blood on its smooth
+surface. "The weapon we have not found, but the wound shows that it was
+inflicted by a three-sided dagger."
+
+"A three-sided dagger?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I didn't know there was such a thing in town. Philemon could have had
+no dagger."
+
+"It does not seem so, but one can never tell. Simple cottages like these
+often contain the most unlooked-for articles."
+
+"I cannot imagine a dagger being among its effects," declared Mr.
+Sutherland. "Where was the body of Mrs. Webb lying when you came in?"
+
+"Where you see it now. Nothing has been moved or changed."
+
+"She was found here, on this lounge, in the same position in which we
+see her now?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But that is incredible. Look at the way she lies! Hands crossed, eyes
+closed, as though made ready for her burial. Only loving hands could
+have done this. What does it mean?"
+
+"It means Philemon; that is what it means Philemon."
+
+Mr. Sutherland shuddered, but said nothing. He was dumbfounded by these
+evidences of a crazy man's work. Philemon Webb always seemed so
+harmless, though he had been failing in mind for the last ten years.
+
+"But" cried Mr. Sutherland, suddenly rousing, "there is another victim.
+I saw old woman Batsy hanging from a window ledge, dead."
+
+"Yes, she is in this other room; but there is no wound on Batsy."
+
+"How was she killed, then?"
+
+"That the doctors must tell us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, guided by Mr. Fenton's gesture, entered a small room
+opening into the one in which they stood. His attention was at once
+attracted by the body of the woman he had seen from below, lying half in
+and half out of the open window. That she was dead was evident; but, as
+Mr. Fenton had said, no wound was to be seen upon her, nor were there
+any marks of blood on or about the place where she lay.
+
+"This is a dreadful business," groaned Mr. Sutherland, "the worst I have
+ever had anything to do with. Help me to lift the woman in; she has been
+long enough a show for the people outside."
+
+There was a bed in this room (indeed, it was Mrs. Webb's bedroom), and
+upon this poor Batsy was laid. As the face came uppermost both gentlemen
+started and looked at each other in amazement. The expression of terror
+and alarm which it showed was in striking contrast to the look of
+exaltation to be seen on the face of her dead mistress.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE EMPTY DRAWER
+
+
+As they re-entered the larger room, they were astonished to come upon
+Miss Page standing in the doorway. She was gazing at the recumbent
+figure of the dead woman, and for a moment seemed unconscious of their
+presence.
+
+"How did you get in? Which of my men was weak enough to let you pass,
+against my express instructions?" asked the constable, who was of an
+irritable and suspicious nature.
+
+She let the hood drop from her head, and, turning, surveyed him with a
+slow smile. There was witchery in that smile sufficient to affect a much
+more cultivated and callous nature than his, and though he had been
+proof against it once he could not quite resist the effect of its
+repetition.
+
+"I insisted upon entering," said she. "Do not blame the men; they did
+not want to use force against a woman." She had not a good voice and she
+knew it; but she covered up this defect by a choice of intonations that
+carried her lightest speech to the heart. Hard-visaged Amos Fenton gave
+a grunt, which was as near an expression of approval as he ever gave to
+anyone.
+
+"Well! well!" he growled, but not ill-naturedly, "it's a morbid
+curiosity that brings you here. Better drop it, girl; it won't do you
+any good in the eyes of sensible people."
+
+"Thank you," was her demure reply, her lips dimpling at the corners in a
+way to shock the sensitive Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Glancing from her to the still outlines of the noble figure on the
+couch, he remarked with an air of mild reproof:
+
+"I do not understand you, Miss Page. If this solemn sight has no power
+to stop your coquetries, nothing can. As for your curiosity, it is both
+ill-timed and unwomanly. Let me see you leave this house at once, Miss
+Page; and if in the few hours which must elapse before breakfast you can
+find time to pack your trunks, you will still farther oblige me."
+
+"Oh, don't send me away, I entreat you."
+
+It was a cry from her inner heart, which she probably regretted, for she
+instantly sought to cover up her inadvertent self-betrayal by a
+submissive bend of the head and a step backward. Neither Mr. Fenton nor
+Mr. Sutherland seemed to hear the one or see the other, their attention
+having returned to the more serious matter in hand.
+
+"The dress which our poor friend wears shows her to have been struck
+before retiring," commented Mr. Sutherland, after another short survey
+of Mrs. Webb's figure. "If Philemon--"
+
+"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the voice of the young man who had been
+left in the hall, "the lady is listening to what you say. She is still
+at the head of the stairs."
+
+"She is, is she!" cried Fenton, sharply, his admiration for the
+fascinating stranger having oozed out at his companion's rebuff. "I will
+soon show her--" But the words melted into thin air as he reached the
+door. The young girl had disappeared, and only a faint perfume remained
+in the place where she had stood.
+
+"A most extraordinary person," grumbled the constable, turning back, but
+stopping again as a faint murmur came up from below.
+
+"The gentleman is waking," called up a voice whose lack of music was
+quite perceptible at a distance.
+
+With a bound Mr. Fenton descended the stairs, followed by Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page stood before the door of the room in which sat Philemon Webb.
+As they reached her side, she made a little bow that was half mocking,
+half deprecatory, and slipped from the house. An almost unbearable
+sensation of incongruity vanished with her, and Mr. Sutherland, for one,
+breathed like a man relieved.
+
+"I wish the doctor would come," Fenton said, as they watched the slow
+lifting of Philemon Webb's head. "Our fastest rider has gone for him,
+but he's out Portchester way, and it may be an hour yet before he can
+get here."
+
+"Philemon!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend's side.
+
+"Philemon, what has become of your guests? You've waited for them here
+until morning."
+
+The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on either side
+of him and shook his head.
+
+"James and John are getting proud," said he, "or they forget, they
+forget."
+
+James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many others
+answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made another effort.
+
+"Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for her!"
+
+"Agatha's sick, Agatha's cross; she don't care for a poor old man like
+me."
+
+"Agatha's dead and you know it," thundered back the constable, with
+ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell me that. Who killed her?"
+
+A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old man's
+eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with that strange
+gurgle which proclaims an utterly irresponsible mind, he cried:
+
+"The pussy cat! It was the pussy cat. Who's killed? I'm not killed.
+Let's go to Jericho."
+
+Mr. Sutherland took him by the arm and led him up-stairs. Perhaps the
+sight of his dead wife would restore him. But he looked at her with the
+same indifference he showed to everything else.
+
+"I don't like her calico dresses," said he. "She might have worn silk,
+but she wouldn't. Agatha, will you wear silk to my funeral?"
+
+The experiment was too painful, and they drew him away. But the
+constable's curiosity had been roused, and after they had found some one
+to take care of him, he drew Mr. Sutherland aside and said:
+
+"What did the old man mean by saying she might have worn silk? Are they
+better off than they seem?" Mr. Sutherland closed the door before
+replying.
+
+"They are rich," he declared, to the utter amazement of the other. "That
+is, they were; but they may have been robbed; if so, Philemon was not
+the wretch who killed her. I have been told that she kept her money in
+an old-fashioned cupboard. Do you suppose they alluded to that one?"
+
+He pointed to a door set in the wall over the fireplace, and Mr. Fenton,
+perceiving a key sticking in the lock, stepped quickly across the floor
+and opened it. A row of books met his eyes, but on taking them down a
+couple of drawers were seen at the back.
+
+"Are they locked?" asked Mr. Sutherland.
+
+"One is and one is not."
+
+"Open the one that is unlocked."
+
+Mr. Fenton did so.
+
+"It is empty," said he.
+
+Mr. Sutherland cast a look toward the dead woman, and again the perfect
+serenity of her countenance struck him.
+
+"I do not know whether to regard her as the victim of her husband's
+imbecility or of some vile robber's cupidity. Can you find the key to
+the other drawer?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+"Suppose you begin, then, by looking on her person. It should be in her
+pocket, if no marauder has been here."
+
+"It is not in her pocket."
+
+"Hanging to her neck, then, by a string?"
+
+"No; there is a locket here, but no key. A very handsome locket, Mr.
+Sutherland, with a child's lock of golden hair--"
+
+"Never mind, we will see that later; it is the key we want just now."
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is in her hand; the one that lies underneath."
+
+"Ah! A point, Fenton."
+
+"A great point."
+
+"Stand by her, Fenton. Don't let anyone rob her of that key till the
+coroner comes, and we are at liberty to take it."
+
+"I will not leave her for an instant."
+
+"Meanwhile, I will put back these books."
+
+He had scarcely done so when a fresh arrival occurred. This time it was
+one of the village clergymen.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FULL DRAWER
+
+
+This gentleman had some information to give. It seems that at an early
+hour of this same night he had gone by this house on his way home from
+the bedside of a sick parishioner. As he was passing the gate he was run
+into by a man who came rushing out of the yard, in a state of violent
+agitation. In this man's hand was something that glittered, and though
+the encounter nearly upset them both, he had not stopped to utter an
+apology, but stumbled away out of sight with a hasty but infirm step,
+which showed he was neither young nor active. The minister had failed to
+see his face, but noticed the ends of a long beard blowing over his
+shoulder as he hurried away.
+
+Philemon was a clean-shaven man.
+
+Asked if he could give the time of this encounter, he replied that it
+was not far from midnight, as he was in his own house by half-past
+twelve.
+
+"Did you glance up at these windows in passing?" asked Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I must have; for I now remember they were both lighted."
+
+"Were the shades up?"
+
+"I think not. I would have noticed it if they had been."
+
+"How were the shades when you broke into the house this morning?"
+inquired Mr. Sutherland of the constable.
+
+"Just as they are now; we have moved nothing. The shades were both
+down--one of them over an open window."
+
+"Well, we may find this encounter of yours with this unknown man a
+matter of vital importance, Mr. Crane."
+
+"I wish I had seen his face."
+
+"What do you think the object was you saw glittering in his hand?"
+
+"I should not like to say; I saw it but an instant."
+
+"Could it have been a knife or an old-fashioned dagger?"
+
+"It might have been."
+
+"Alas! poor Agatha! That she, who so despised money, should fall a
+victim to man's cupidity! Unhappy life, unhappy death! Fenton, I shall
+always mourn for Agatha Webb."
+
+"Yet she seems to have found peace at last," observed the minister. "I
+have never seen her look so contented." And leading Mr. Sutherland
+aside, he whispered: "What is this you say about money? Had she, in
+spite of appearances, any considerable amount? I ask, because in spite
+of her humble home and simple manner of living, she always put more on
+the plate than any of her neighbours. Besides which, I have from time to
+time during my pastorate received anonymously certain contributions,
+which, as they were always for sick or suffering children--"
+
+"Yes, yes; they came from her, I have no doubt of it. She was by no
+means poor, though I myself never knew the extent of her means till
+lately. Philemon was a good business man once; but they evidently
+preferred to live simply, having no children living--"
+
+"They have lost six, I have been told."
+
+"So the Portchester folks say. They probably had no heart for display or
+for even the simplest luxuries. At all events, they did not indulge in
+them."
+
+"Philemon has long been past indulging in anything."
+
+"Oh, he likes his comfort, and he has had it too. Agatha never stinted
+him."
+
+"But why do you think her death was due to her having money?"
+
+"She had a large sum in the house, and there are those in town who knew
+this."
+
+"And is it gone?"
+
+"That we shall know later."
+
+As the coroner arrived at this moment, the minister's curiosity had to
+wait. Fortunately for his equanimity, no one had the presumption to ask
+him to leave the room.
+
+The coroner was a man of but few words, and but little given to emotion.
+Yet they were surprised at his first question:
+
+"Who is the young woman standing outside there, the only one in the
+yard?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, moving rapidly to the window, drew aside the shade.
+
+"It is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece," he explained. "I do not
+understand her interest in this affair. She followed me here from the
+house and could hardly be got to leave this room, into which she
+intruded herself against my express command."
+
+"But look at her attitude!" It was Mr. Fenton who spoke. "She's crazier
+than Philemon, it seems to me."
+
+There was some reason for this remark. Guarded by the high fence from
+the gaze of the pushing crowd without, she stood upright and immovable
+in the middle of the yard, like one on watch. The hood, which she had
+dropped from her head when she thought her eyes and smile might be of
+use to her in the furtherance of her plans, had been drawn over it
+again, so that she looked more like a statue in grey than a living,
+breathing woman. Yet there was menace in her attitude and a purpose in
+the solitary stand she took in that circle of board-girded grass, which
+caused a thrill in the breasts of those who looked at her from that
+chamber of death.
+
+"A mysterious young woman," muttered the minister.
+
+"And one that I neither countenance nor understand," interpolated Mr.
+Sutherland. "I have just shown my displeasure at her actions by
+dismissing her from my house."
+
+The coroner gave him a quick look, seemed about to speak, but changed
+his mind and turned toward the dead woman.
+
+"We have a sad duty before us," said he.
+
+The investigations which followed elicited one or two new facts. First,
+that all the doors of the house were found unlocked; and, secondly, that
+the constable had been among the first to enter, so that he could vouch
+that no disarrangement had been made in the rooms, with the exception of
+Batsy's removal to the bed.
+
+Then, his attention being drawn to the dead woman, he discovered the key
+in her tightly closed hand.
+
+"Where does this key belong?" he asked.
+
+They showed him the drawers in the cupboard.
+
+"One is empty," remarked Mi. Sutherland. "If the other is found to be in
+the same condition, then her money has been taken. That key she holds
+should open both these drawers."
+
+"Then let it be made use of at once. It is important that we should know
+whether theft has been committed here as well as murder." And drawing
+the key out, he handed it to Mr. Fenton.
+
+The constable immediately unlocked the drawer and brought it and its
+contents to the table.
+
+"No money here," said he.
+
+"But papers as good as money," announced the doctor. "See! here are
+deeds and more than one valuable bond. I judge she was a richer woman
+than any of us knew."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, meantime, was looking with an air of disappointment into
+the now empty drawer.
+
+"Just as I feared," said he. "She has been robbed of her ready money. It
+was doubtless in the other drawer."
+
+"How came she by the key, then?"
+
+"That is one of the mysteries of the affair; this murder is by no means
+a simple one. I begin to think we shall find it full of mysteries."
+
+"Batsy's death, for instance?"
+
+"O yes, Batsy! I forgot that she was found dead too."
+
+"Without a wound, doctor."
+
+"She had heart disease. I doctored her for it. The fright has killed
+her."
+
+"The look of her face confirms that."
+
+"Let me see! So it does; but we must have an autopsy to prove it."
+
+"I would like to explain before any further measures are taken, how I
+came to know that Agatha Webb had money in her house," said Mr.
+Sutherland, as they stepped back into the other room. "Two days ago, as
+I was sitting with my family at table, old gossip Judy came in. Had Mrs.
+Sutherland been living, this old crone would not have presumed to
+intrude upon us at mealtime, but as we have no one now to uphold our
+dignity, this woman rushed into our presence panting with news, and told
+us all in one breath how she had just come from Mrs. Webb; that Mrs.
+Webb had money; that she had seen it, she herself; that, going into the
+house as usual without knocking, she had heard Agatha stepping overhead
+and had gone up; and finding the door of the sitting-room ajar, had
+looked in, and seen Agatha crossing the room with her hands full of
+bills; that these bills were big bills, for she heard Agatha cry, as she
+locked them up in the cupboard behind the book-shelves, 'A thousand
+dollars! That is too much money to have in one's house'; that she, Judy,
+thought so too, and being frightened at what she had seen, had crept
+away as silently as she had entered and run away to tell the neighbours.
+Happily, I was the first she found up that morning, but I have no doubt
+that, in spite of my express injunctions, she has since related the news
+to half the people in town."
+
+"Was the young woman down yonder present when Judy told this story?"
+asked the coroner, pointing towards the yard.
+
+Mr. Sutherland pondered. "Possibly; I do not remember. Frederick was
+seated at the table with me, and my housekeeper was pouring out the
+coffee, but it was early for Miss Page. She has been putting on great
+airs of late."
+
+"Can it be possible he is trying to blind himself to the fact that his
+son Frederick wishes to marry this girl?" muttered the clergyman into
+the constable's ear.
+
+The constable shook his head. Mr. Sutherland was one of those debonair
+men, whose very mildness makes them impenetrable.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SPOT ON THE LAWN
+
+
+The coroner, on leaving the house, was followed by Mr. Sutherland. As
+the fine figures of the two men appeared on the doorstep, a faint cheer
+was heard from the two or three favoured persons who were allowed to
+look through the gate. But to this token of welcome neither gentleman
+responded by so much as a look, all their attention being engrossed by
+the sight of the solitary figure of Miss Page, who still held her stand
+upon the lawn. Motionless as a statue, but with her eyes fixed upon
+their faces, she awaited their approach. When they were near her she
+thrust one hand from under her cloak, and pointing to the grass at her
+feet, said quietly:
+
+"See this?"
+
+They hastened towards her and bent down to examine the spot she
+indicated.
+
+"What do you find there?" cried Mr. Sutherland, whose eyesight was not
+good.
+
+"Blood," responded the coroner, plucking up a blade of grass and
+surveying it closely.
+
+"Blood," echoed Miss Page, with so suggestive a glance that Mr.
+Sutherland stared at her in amazement, not understanding his own
+emotion.
+
+"How were you able to discern a stain so nearly imperceptible?" asked
+the coroner.
+
+"Imperceptible? It is the only thing I see in the whole yard," she
+retorted, and with a slight bow, which was not without its element of
+mockery, she turned toward the gate.
+
+"A most unaccountable girl," commented the doctor. "But she is right
+about these stains. Abel," he called to the man at the gate, "bring a
+box or barrel here and cover up this spot. I don't want it disturbed by
+trampling feet."
+
+Abel started to obey, just as the young girl laid her hand on the gate
+to open it.
+
+"Won't you help me?" she asked. "The crowd is so great they won't let me
+through."
+
+"Won't they?" The words came from without. "Just slip out as I slip in,
+and you'll find a place made for you."
+
+Not recognising the voice, she hesitated for a moment, but seeing the
+gate swaying, she pushed against it just as a young man stepped through
+the gap. Necessarily they came face to face.
+
+"Ah, it's you," he muttered, giving her a sharp glance.
+
+"I do not know you," she haughtily declared, and slipped by him with
+such dexterity she was out of the gate before he could respond.
+
+But he only snapped his finger and thumb mockingly at her, and smiled
+knowingly at Abel, who had lingered to watch the end of this encounter.
+
+"Supple as a willow twig, eh?" he laughed. "Well, I have made whistles
+out of willows before now, and hallo! where did you get that?"
+
+He was pointing to a rare flower that hung limp and faded from Abel's
+buttonhole.
+
+"This? Oh, I found it in the house yonder. It was lying on the floor of
+the inner room, almost under Batsy's skirts. Curious sort of flower. I
+wonder where she got it?"
+
+The intruder betrayed at once an unaccountable emotion. There was a
+strange glitter in his light green eyes that made Abel shift rather
+uneasily on his feet. "Was that before this pretty minx you have just
+let out came in here with Mr. Sutherland?"
+
+"O yes; before anyone had started for the hill at all. Why, what has
+this young lady got to do with a flower dropped by Batsy?"
+
+"She? Nothing. Only--and I have never given you bad advice, Abel--don't
+let that thing hang any longer from your buttonhole. Put it into an
+envelope and keep it, and if you don't hear from me again in regard to
+it, write me out a fool and forget we were ever chums when little
+shavers."
+
+The man called Abel smiled, took out the flower, and went to cover up
+the grass as Dr. Talbot had requested. The stranger took his place at
+the gate, toward which the coroner and Mr. Sutherland were now
+advancing, with an air that showed his great anxiety to speak with them.
+He was the musician whom we saw secretly entering the last-mentioned
+gentleman's house after the departure of the servants.
+
+As the coroner paused before him he spoke. "Dr. Talbot," said he,
+dropping his eyes, which were apt to betray his thoughts too plainly,
+"you have often promised that you would give me a job if any matter came
+up where any nice detective work was wanted. Don't you think the time
+has come to remember me?"
+
+"You, Sweetwater? I'm afraid the affair is too deep for an inexperienced
+man's first effort. I shall have to send to Boston for an expert.
+Another time, Sweetwater, when the complications are less serious."
+
+The young fellow, with a face white as milk, was turning away.
+
+"But you'll let me stay around here?" he pleaded, pausing and giving the
+other an imploring look.
+
+"O yes," answered the good-natured coroner. "Fenton will have work
+enough for you and half a dozen others. Go and tell him I sent you."
+
+"Thank you," returned the other, his face suddenly losing its aspect of
+acute disappointment. "Now I shall see where that flower fell," he
+murmured.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+"BREAKFAST IS SERVED, GENTLEMEN!"
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland returned home. As he entered the broad hall he met his
+son, Frederick. There was a look on the young man's face such as he had
+not seen there in years.
+
+"Father," faltered the youth, "may I have a few words with you?"
+
+The father nodded kindly, though it is likely he would have much
+preferred his breakfast; and the young man led him into a little
+sitting-room littered with the faded garlands and other tokens of the
+preceding night's festivities.
+
+"I have an apology to make," Frederick began, "or rather, I have your
+forgiveness to ask. For years" he went on, stumbling over his words,
+though he gave no evidence of a wish to restrain them--"for years I have
+gone contrariwise to your wishes and caused my mother's heart to ache
+and you to wish I had never been born to be a curse to you and her."
+
+He had emphasised the word mother, and spoke altogether with force and
+deep intensity. Mr. Sutherland stood petrified; he had long ago given up
+this lad as lost.
+
+"I--I wish to change. I wish to be as great a pride to you as I have
+been a shame and a dishonour. I may not succeed at once; but I am in
+earnest, and if you will give me your hand--"
+
+The old man's arms were round the young man's shoulders at once.
+
+"Frederick!" he cried, "my Frederick!"
+
+"Do not make me too much ashamed," murmured the youth, very pale and
+strangely discomposed. "With no excuse for my past, I suffer intolerable
+apprehension in regard to my future, lest my good intentions should fail
+or my self-control not hold out. But the knowledge that you are
+acquainted with my resolve, and regard it with an undeserved sympathy,
+may suffice to sustain me, and I should certainly be a base poltroon if
+I should disappoint you or her twice."
+
+He paused, drew himself from his father's arms, and glanced almost
+solemnly out of the window. "I swear that I will henceforth act as if
+she were still alive and watching me."
+
+There was strange intensity in his manner. Mr. Sutherland regarded him
+with amazement. He had seen him in every mood natural to a reckless man,
+but never in so serious a one, never with a look of awe or purpose in
+his face. It gave him quite a new idea of Frederick.
+
+"Yes," the young man went on, raising his right hand, but not removing
+his eyes from the distant prospect on which they were fixed, "I swear
+that I will henceforth do nothing to discredit her memory. Outwardly and
+inwardly, I will act as though her eye were still upon me and she could
+again suffer grief at my failures or thrill with pleasure at my
+success."
+
+A portrait of Mrs. Sutherland, painted when Frederick was a lad of ten,
+hung within a few feet of him as he spoke. He did not glance at it, but
+Mr. Sutherland did, and with a look as if he expected to behold a
+responsive light beam from those pathetic features.
+
+"She loved you very dearly," was his slow and earnest comment. "We have
+both loved you much more deeply than you have ever seemed to realise,
+Frederick."
+
+"I believe it," responded the young man, turning with an expression of
+calm resolve to meet his father's eye. "As proof that I am no longer
+insensible to your affection, I have made up my mind to forego for your
+sake one of the dearest wishes of my heart. Father" he hesitated before
+he spoke the word, but he spoke it firmly at last,--"am I right in
+thinking you would not like Miss Page for a daughter?"
+
+"Like my housekeeper's niece to take the place in this house once
+occupied by Marietta Sutherland? Frederick, I have always thought too
+well of you to believe you would carry your forgetfulness of me so far
+as that, even when I saw that you were influenced by her attractions."
+
+"You did not do justice to my selfishness, father. I did mean to marry
+her, but I have given up living solely for myself, and she could never
+help me to live for others. Father, Amabel Page must not remain in this
+house to cause division between you and me."
+
+"I have already intimated to her the desirability of her quitting a home
+where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman declared. "She
+leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning at the house of Mrs.
+Webb--who perhaps you do not know was most cruelly and foully murdered
+last night--was such as to cause comment and make her an undesirable
+adjunct to any gentleman's family."
+
+Frederick paled. Something in these words had caused him a great shock.
+Mr. Sutherland was fond enough to believe that it was the news of this
+extraordinary woman's death. But his son's words, as soon as he could
+find any, showed that his mind was running on Amabel, whom he perhaps
+had found it difficult to connect even in the remotest way with crime.
+
+"She at this place of death? How could that be? Who would take a young
+girl there?"
+
+The father, experiencing, perhaps, more compassion for this
+soon-to-be-disillusioned lover than he thought it incumbent upon him to
+show, answered shortly, but without any compromise of the unhappy truth:
+
+"She went; she was not taken. No one, not even myself, could keep her
+back after she had heard that a murder had been committed in the town.
+She even intruded into the house; and when ordered out of the room of
+death took up her stand in the yard in front, where she remained until
+she had the opportunity of pointing out to us a stain of blood on the
+grass, which might otherwise have escaped our attention."
+
+"Impossible!" Frederick's eye was staring; he looked like a man struck
+dumb by surprise or fear. "Amabel do this? You are mocking me, sir, or I
+may be dreaming, which may the good God grant."
+
+His father, who had not looked for so much emotion, eyed his son in
+surprise, which rapidly changed to alarm as the young man faltered and
+fell back against the wall.
+
+"You are ill, Frederick; you are really ill. Let me call down Mrs.
+Harcourt. But no, I cannot summon her. She is this girl's aunt."
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood up.
+
+"Do not call anybody," he entreated. "I expect to suffer some in casting
+this fascinating girl out of my heart. Ultimately I will conquer the
+weakness; indeed I will. As for her interest in Mrs. Webb's death"--how
+low his voice sank and how he trembled!" she may have been better
+friends with her than we had any reason to suppose. I can think of no
+other motive for her conduct. Admiration for Mrs. Webb and horror---"
+
+"Breakfast is served, gentlemen!" cried a thrilling voice behind them.
+Amabel Page stood smiling in the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"MARRY ME"
+
+
+"Wait a moment, I must speak to you." It was Amabel who was holding
+Frederick back. She had caught him by the arm as he was about leaving
+the room with his father, and he felt himself obliged to stop and
+listen.
+
+"I start for Springfield to-day," she announced. "I have another
+relative there living at the house. When shall I have the pleasure of
+seeing you in my new home?"
+
+"Never." It was said regretfully, and yet with a certain brusqueness,
+occasioned perhaps by over-excited feeling. "Hard as it is for me to say
+it, Amabel, it is but just for me to tell you that after our parting
+here to-day we will meet only as strangers. Friendship between us would
+be mockery, and any closer relationship has become impossible."
+
+It had cost him an immense effort to say these words, and he expected,
+fondly expected, I must admit, to see her colour change and her head
+droop. But instead of this she looked at him steadily for a moment, then
+slipped her hand down his arm till she reached his palm, which she
+pressed with sudden warmth, drawing him into the room as she did so, and
+shutting the door behind them. He was speechless, for she never had
+looked so handsome or so glowing. Instead of showing depression or
+humiliation even, she confronted him with a smile more dangerous than
+any display of grief, for it contained what it had hitherto lacked,
+positive and irresistible admiration. Her words were equally dangerous.
+
+"I kiss your hand, as the Spaniards say." And she almost did so, with a
+bend of her head, which just allowed him to catch a glimpse of two
+startling dimples.
+
+He was astounded. He thought he knew this woman well, but at this moment
+she was as incomprehensible to him as if he had never made a study of
+her caprices and sought an explanation for her ever-shifting
+expressions.
+
+"I am sensible of the honour," said he, "but hardly understand how I
+have earned it."
+
+Still that incomprehensible look of admiration continued to illumine her
+face.
+
+"I did not know I could ever think so well of you," she declared. "If
+you do not take care, I shall end by loving you some day."
+
+"Ah!" he ejaculated, his face contracting with sudden pain; "your love,
+then, is but a potentiality. Very well, Amabel, keep it so and you will
+be spared much misery. As for me, who have not been as wise as you---"
+
+"Frederick!" She had come so near he did not have the strength to
+finish. Her face, with its indefinable charm, was raised to his, as she
+dropped these words one by one from her lips in lingering cadence:
+"Frederick--do you love me, then, so very much?"
+
+He was angry; possibly because he felt his resolution failing him. "You
+know!" he hotly began, stepping back. Then with a sudden burst of
+feeling, that was almost like prayer, he resumed: "Do not tempt me,
+Amabel. I have trouble enough, without lamenting the failure of my first
+steadfast purpose."
+
+"Ah!" she said, stopping where she was, but drawing him toward her by
+every witchery of which her mobile features were capable; "your generous
+impulse has strengthened into a purpose, has it? Well, I'm not worth it,
+Frederick."
+
+More and more astounded, understanding her less than ever, but charmed
+by looks that would have moved an anchorite, he turned his head away in
+a vain attempt to escape an influence that was so rapidly undermining
+his determination.
+
+She saw the movement, recognised the weakness it bespoke, and in the
+triumph of her heart allowed a low laugh to escape her.
+
+Her voice, as I have before said, was unmusical though effective; but
+her laugh was deliciously sweet, especially when it was restrained to a
+mere ripple, as now.
+
+"You will come to Springfield soon," she avowed, slipping from before
+him so as to leave the way to the door open.
+
+"Amabel!" His voice was strangely husky, and the involuntary opening and
+shutting of his hands revealed the emotion under which he was labouring.
+"Do you love me? You have acknowledged it now and then, but always as if
+you did not mean it. Now you acknowledge that you may some day, and this
+time as if you did mean it. What is the truth? Tell me, without coquetry
+or dissembling, for I am in dead earnest, and---" He paused, choked, and
+turned toward the window where but a few minutes before he had taken
+that solemn oath. The remembrance of it seemed to come back with the
+movement. Flushing with a new agitation, he wheeled upon her sharply.
+"No, no," he prayed, "say nothing. If you swore you did not love me I
+should not believe it, and if you swore that you did I should only find
+it harder to repeat what must again be said, that a union between us can
+never take place. I have given my solemn promise to---"
+
+"Well, well. Why do you stop? Am I so hard to talk to that the words
+will not leave your lips?"
+
+"I have promised my father I will never marry you. He feels that he has
+grounds of complaint against you, and as I owe him everything---"
+
+He stopped amazed. She was looking at him intently, that same low laugh
+still on her lips.
+
+"Tell the truth," she whispered. "I know to what extent you consider
+your father's wishes. You think you ought not to marry me after what
+took place last night. Frederick, I like you for this evidence of
+consideration on your part, but do not struggle too relentlessly with
+your conscience. I can forgive much more in you than you think, and if
+you really love me---"
+
+"Stop! Let us understand each other." He had turned mortally pale, and
+met her eyes with something akin to alarm. "What do you allude to in
+speaking of last night? I did not know there was anything said by us in
+our talk together---"
+
+"I do not allude to our talk."
+
+"Or--or in the one dance we had---"
+
+"Frederick, a dance is innocent."
+
+The word seemed to strike him with the force of a blow.
+
+"Innocent," he repeated, "innocent?" becoming paler still as the full
+weight of her meaning broke gradually upon him.
+
+"I followed you into town," she whispered, coming closer, and breathing
+the words into his ear. "But what I saw you do there will not prevent me
+from obeying you if you say: 'Follow me wherever I go, Amabel;
+henceforth our lives are one.'"
+
+"My God!"
+
+It was all he said, but it seemed to create a gulf between them. In the
+silence that followed, the evil spirit latent beneath her beauty began
+to make itself evident even in the smile which no longer called into
+view the dimples which belong to guileless mirth, while upon his face,
+after the first paralysing effect of her words had passed, there
+appeared an expression of manly resistance that betrayed a virtue which
+as yet had never appeared in his selfish and altogether reckless life.
+
+That this was more than a passing impulse he presently made evident by
+lifting his hand and pushing her slowly back.
+
+"I do not know what you saw me do," said he; "but whatever it was, it
+can make no difference in our relations."
+
+Her whisper, which had been but a breath before, became scarcely
+audible.
+
+"I did not pause at the gate you entered," said she. "I went in after
+you."
+
+A gasp of irresistible feeling escaped him, but he did not take his eyes
+from her face.
+
+"It was a long time before you came out," she went on, "but previous to
+that time the shade of a certain window was thrust aside, and---"
+
+"Hush!" he commanded, in uncontrollable passion, pressing his hand with
+impulsive energy against her mouth. "Not another word of that, or I
+shall forget you are a woman or that I have ever loved you."
+
+Her eyes, which were all she had remaining to plead with, took on a
+peculiar look of quiet satisfaction, and power. Seeing it, he let his
+hand fall and for the first time began to regard her with anything but a
+lover's eyes.
+
+"I was the only person in sight at that time," she continued. "You have
+nothing to fear from the world at large."
+
+"Fear?"
+
+The word made its own echo; she had no need to emphasise it even by a
+smile. But she watched him as it sunk into his consciousness with an
+intentness it took all his strength to sustain. Suddenly her bearing and
+expression changed. The few remains of sweetness in her face vanished,
+and even the allurement which often lasts when the sweetness is gone,
+disappeared in the energy which now took possession of her whole
+threatening and inflexible personality.
+
+"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer of
+Agatha Webb."
+
+She had seen the death of love in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"A DEVIL THAT UNDERSTANDS MEN"
+
+
+Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he himself,
+perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments of stupefaction
+following the astounding alternative which had been given him, he broke
+out with the last sentence she probably expected to hear:
+
+"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your wishes
+you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"
+
+She met him on his own ground.
+
+"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret
+desire. "Can you ask a poor girl like me, born in a tenement house, but
+with tastes and ambitions such as are usually only given to those who
+can gratify them? I want to be the rich Mr. Sutherland's daughter;
+acknowledged or unacknowledged, the wife of one who can enter any house
+in Boston as an equal. With a position like that I can rise to anything.
+I feel that I have the natural power and aptitude. I have felt it since
+I was a small child."
+
+"And for that---" he began.
+
+"And for that," she broke in, "I am quite willing to overlook a blot on
+your record. Confident that you will never repeat the risk of last
+night, I am ready to share the burden of your secret through life. If
+you treat me well, I am sure I can make that burden light for you."
+
+With a quick flush and an increase of self-assertion, probably not
+anticipated by her, he faced the daring girl with a desperate resolution
+that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once got control of his
+body.
+
+"Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a devil."
+
+Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.
+
+"A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip of her
+dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not hesitate long
+over this matter; a week, perhaps."
+
+"I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my course
+easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."
+
+Still she was not abashed.
+
+"It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such unnecessary
+struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain of you then. This
+day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."
+
+He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage, shook her
+with a desperate hand.
+
+"Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his face,
+notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.
+
+"I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home just now
+I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain hollow tree, where
+you and I have held more than one tryst, conceals within its depths a
+package containing over one thousand dollars. Frederick, I hold your
+life in my hands."
+
+The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled upon
+his features, and recognising the impossibility of further concealing
+the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair and covered his
+face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of triumph, which
+brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it was to say:
+
+"If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set, well
+and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should be
+shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day. Now, if
+you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."
+
+He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.
+
+Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture of
+passion and elation.
+
+"You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our armistice
+lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me while any hope
+remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I have suggested."
+
+And still he did not move.
+
+"Frederick?"
+
+Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger snarl
+one moment and fawn the next?
+
+"Frederick, I have a final word to say--a last farewell. Up to this hour
+I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted them, for I
+always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the master of my heart.
+But now it is love that I feel, love; and love with me is no fancy, but
+a passion--do you hear?--a passion which will make life a heaven or hell
+for the man who has inspired it. You should have thought of this when
+you opposed me."
+
+And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery, she bent
+and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she was gone.
+
+Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil, he
+rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered that she had
+been detained in the hall by two or three men who had just come in by
+the front door.
+
+"Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.
+
+"Yes, I am Miss Page--Amabel Page" she replied with suave politeness.
+"If you have any business with me, state it quickly, for I am about to
+leave town."
+
+"That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man who
+seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over the
+remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard yourself as a
+possible witness."
+
+"Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide
+opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished child.
+"What have I got to do with it?"
+
+"You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and--well, the
+coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the town
+without running the risk of arrest"
+
+"Then I will stay in it," she smiled. "I have no liking for arrests,"
+and the glint of her eye rested for a moment on Frederick. "Mr.
+Sutherland," she continued, as that gentleman appeared at the
+dining-room door, "I shall have to impose upon your hospitality for a
+few days longer. These men here inform me that my innocent interest in
+pointing out to you that spot of blood on Mrs. Webb's lawn has awakened
+some curiosity, and that I am wanted as a witness by the coroner."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a quick stride, lessened the distance between
+himself and these unwelcome intruders. "The coroner's wishes are
+paramount just now," said he, but the look he gave his son was not soon
+forgotten by the spectators.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A GRAND WOMAN
+
+
+There was but one topic discussed in the country-side that day, and that
+was the life and character of Agatha Webb.
+
+Her history had not been a happy one. She and Philemon had come from
+Portchester some twenty or more years before to escape the sorrows
+associated with their native town. They had left behind them six small
+graves in Portchester churchyard; but though evidences of their
+affliction were always to be seen in the countenances of either, they
+had entered with so much purpose into the life of their adopted town
+that they had become persons of note there till Philemon's health began
+to fail, when Agatha quit all outside work and devoted herself
+exclusively to him. Of her character and winsome personality we can
+gather some idea from the various conversations carried on that day from
+Portchester Green to the shipyards in Sutherlandtown.
+
+In Deacon Brainerd's cottage, the discussion was concerning Agatha's
+lack of vanity; a virtue not very common at that time among the women of
+this busy seaport.
+
+"For a woman so handsome," the good deacon was saying "(and I think I
+can safely call her the finest-featured woman who ever trod these
+streets), she showed as little interest in dress as anyone I ever knew.
+Calico at home and calico at church, yet she looked as much of a lady in
+her dark-sprigged gowns as Mrs. Webster in her silks or Mrs. Parsons in
+her thousand-dollar sealskin."
+
+As this was a topic within the scope of his eldest daughter's
+intelligence she at once spoke up: "I never thought she needed to dress
+so plainly. I don't believe in such a show of poverty myself. If one is
+too poor to go decent, all right; but they say she had more money than
+most anyone in town. I wonder who is going to get the benefit of it?"
+
+"Why, Philemon, of course; that is, as long as he lives. He doubtless
+had the making of it."
+
+"Is it true that he's gone clean out of his head since her death?"
+interposed a neighbour who had happened in.
+
+"So they say. I believe widow Jones has taken him into her house."
+
+"Do you think," asked a second daughter with becoming hesitation, "that
+he had anything to do with her death? Some of the neighbours say he
+struck her while in one of his crazy fits, while others declare she was
+killed by some stranger, equally old and almost as infirm."
+
+"We won't discuss the subject," objected the deacon. "Time will show who
+robbed us of the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in these
+parts."
+
+"And will time show who killed Batsy?" It was a morsel of a girl who
+spoke; the least one of the family, but the brightest. "I'm sorry for
+Batsy; she always gave me cookies when I went to see Mrs. Webb."
+
+"Batsy was a good girl for a Swede," allowed the deacon's wife, who had
+not spoken till now. "When she first came into town on the spars of that
+wrecked ship we all remember, there was some struggle between Agatha and
+me as to which of us should have her. But I didn't like the task of
+teaching her the name of every pot and pan she had to use in the
+kitchen, so I gave her up to Agatha; and it was fortunate I did, for
+I've never been able to understand her talk to this day."
+
+"I could talk with her right well," lisped the little one. "She never
+called things by their Swedish names unless she was worried; and I never
+worried her."
+
+"I wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet, as
+she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife with just
+the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.
+
+"I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town," retorted
+his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.
+
+In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire Fisher
+was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I knew Agatha
+when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest manners and the
+most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's daughter between the
+coast and Springfield. She did not dress in calico then. She wore the
+gayest clothes her father could buy. her, and old Jacob was not without
+means to make his daughter the leading figure in town. How we young
+fellows did adore her, and what lengths we went to win one of her
+glorious smiles! Two of us, John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors
+for her sake to this very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I
+married and"--something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the
+sentence.
+
+"What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"
+
+"Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be sure.
+James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too, but he got
+into some difficulty--I never knew just what it was, but it was regarded
+as serious at the time--and that match was broken off. Afterwards she
+married Philemon. You see, I was out of it altogether; had never been in
+it, perhaps; but there were three good years of my life in which I
+thought of little else than Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There
+was something more taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as
+that was. She ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I
+have wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be
+satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing wits.
+But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from her lips;
+and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far transcended the
+haughtiness of those days when she had but to smile to have all the
+youth of Portchester at her feet."
+
+"I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her to a
+quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children, one after the
+other, without some modification taking place in her character."
+
+"Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a splendid
+looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women now."
+
+In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was nursing a
+baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.
+
+"I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she faltered;
+"I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer neighbours then than
+now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec being away at sea. I was too
+young to know much about sickness, but something told me that I must
+have help before morning or my baby would die. Though I could just walk
+across the floor, I threw a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms,
+and opened the door. A blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm
+was raging and I had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.
+
+"I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my knees as
+it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag myself inside.
+The baby began to moan and everything was turning dark before me, when I
+heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the roadway:
+
+"'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by? I
+cannot see my way down the hillside.'
+
+"With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the doorway,
+with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know her, but her face
+was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart. Holding up my baby, I
+cried:
+
+"'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees bent
+under me. Help me, as you are a mother--I--- '
+
+"I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I was lying by
+the hearth, looking up into her face, which was bending over me. She was
+white as the rag I had tied about my baby's throat, and by the way her
+breast heaved she was either very much frightened or very sorry.
+
+"'I wish you had the help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies perish in
+my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much as I yearn to.
+But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you what is the matter with
+it.'
+
+"I showed her the baby's face, and she bent over it, trembling very
+much, almost as much indeed as myself.
+
+"'It is very sick,' she said, 'but if you will use the remedies I
+advise, I think you can save it.' And she told me what to do, and helped
+me all she could; but she did not lay a finger on the little darling,
+though from the way she watched it I saw that her heart was set on his
+getting better. And he did; in an hour he was sleeping peacefully, and
+the terrible weight was gone from my heart and from hers. When the storm
+stopped, and she could leave the house, she gave me a kiss; but the look
+she gave him meant more than kisses. God must have forgotten her
+goodness to me that night when He let her die so pitiable a death."
+
+At the minister's house they were commenting upon the look of serenity
+observable in her dead face.
+
+"I have known her for thirty years," her pastor declared, "and never
+before have I seen her wear a look of real peace. It is wonderful,
+considering the circumstances. Do you think she was so weary of her
+life's long struggle that she hailed any release from it, even that of
+violence?"
+
+A young man, a lawyer, visiting them from New York, was the only one to
+answer.
+
+"I never saw the woman you are talking about," said he, "and know
+nothing of the circumstances of her death beyond what you have told me.
+But from the very incongruity between her expression and the violent
+nature of her death, I argue that there are depths to this crime which
+have not yet been sounded."
+
+"What depths? It is a simple case of murder followed by theft. To be
+sure we do not yet know the criminal, but money was his motive; that is
+clear enough."
+
+"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"
+
+This was a startling proposition to the minister.
+
+"You forget my cloth," said he.
+
+The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious to
+show how strong my conviction was against any such easy explanation of a
+crime marked by such contradictory features."
+
+Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish confidences.
+
+"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.
+
+"Naw! How should I?"
+
+"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't you
+know she had six children once, and that she killed every one of them?"
+
+"Killed'em--she?"
+
+"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there was a
+blight on her house--I don't know what that is; but I guess it's
+something big and heavy--and that it fell on every one of her children,
+as fast as they came, and killed 'em."
+
+"Then I'm glad I ben't her child."
+
+Very different were the recollections interchanged between two
+middle-aged Portchester women.
+
+"She was drinking tea at my house when her sister Sairey came running in
+with the news that the baby she had left at home wasn't quite right.
+That was her first child, you know."
+
+"Yes, yes, for I was with her when that baby came," broke in the other,
+"and such joy as she showed when they told her it was alive and well I
+never saw. I do not know why she didn't expect it to be alive, but she
+didn't, and her happiness was just wonderful to see."
+
+"Well, she didn't enjoy it long. The poor little fellow died young. But
+I was telling you of the night when she first heard he was ailing.
+Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were all laughing, when
+Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She always had the most brilliant
+eyes in the county, but that day they were superbly dazzling. They
+changed, though, at the sight of Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet
+her just as if she knew what Sairey was going to say before ever a word
+left her lips. 'My baby!' (I can hear her yet.) 'Something is the matter
+with the baby!' And though Sairey made haste to tell her that he was
+only ailing and not at all ill, she turned upon Philemon with a look
+none of us ever quite understood; he changed so completely under it,
+just as she had under Sairey's; and to neither did the old happiness
+ever return, for the child died within a week, and when the next came it
+died also, and the next, till six small innocents lay buried in yonder
+old graveyard."
+
+"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon were
+both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are past
+rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon---"
+
+"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."
+
+Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six gravestones
+raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead infants. He had been
+sent there to choose a spot in which to lay the mother, and was full of
+the shock it gave him to see that line of little stones, telling of a
+past with which the good people of Sutherlandtown found it hard to
+associate Philemon and Agatha Webb.
+
+"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to his old
+wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone. "I spend a
+good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I saw those six
+little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them, I couldn't help
+feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny headstone I read these
+words:"
+
+  STEPHEN,
+
+  Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,
+
+  Died, Aged Six Weeks.
+
+  God be merciful to me a sinner!
+
+"Now what does that mean? Did you ever hear anyone say?"
+
+"No," was his old wife's answer. "Perhaps she was one of those Calvinist
+folks who believe babies go to hell if they are not baptised."
+
+"But her children were all baptised. I've been told so; some of them
+before she was well out of her bed. 'God be merciful to me a sinner!'
+And the chick not six weeks old! Something queer about that, dame, if it
+did happen more than thirty years ago."
+
+"What did you see over the grave of the child who was killed in her arms
+by lightning?"
+
+"This:
+
+"'And he was not, for God took him.'"
+
+Farmer Waite had but one word to say:
+
+"She came to me when my Sissy had the smallpox; the only person in town
+who would enter my doors. More than that; when Sissy was up and I went
+to pay the doctor's bill I found it had been settled. I did not know
+then who had enough money and compassion to do this for me; now I do."
+
+Many an act of kindness which had been secretly performed in that town
+during the last twenty years came to light on that day, the most notable
+of which was the sending of a certain young lad to school and his
+subsequent education as a minister.
+
+But other memories of a sweeter and more secret nature still came up
+likewise, among them the following:
+
+A young girl, who was of a very timid but deeply sensitive nature, had
+been urged into an engagement with a man she did not like. Though the
+conflict this occasioned her and the misery which accompanied it were
+apparent to everybody, nobody stirred in her behalf but Agatha. She went
+to see her, and, though it was within a fortnight of the wedding, she
+did not hesitate to advise the girl to give him up, and when the poor
+child said she lacked the courage, Agatha herself went to the man and
+urged him into a display of generosity which saved the poor, timid thing
+from a life of misery. They say this was no easy task for Agatha, and
+that the man was sullen for a year. But the girl's gratitude was
+boundless.
+
+Of her daring, which was always on the side of right and justice, the
+stories were numerous; so were the accounts, mostly among the women, of
+her rare tenderness and sympathy for the weak and the erring. Never was
+a man talked to as she talked to Jake Cobleigh the evening after he
+struck his mother, and if she had been in town on the day when Clarissa
+Mayhew ran away with that Philadelphia adventurer many said it would
+never have happened, for no girl could stand the admonition, or resist
+the pleading, of this childless mother.
+
+It was reserved for Mr. Halliday and Mr. Sutherland to talk of her
+mental qualities. Her character was so marked and her manner so simple
+that few gave attention to the intellect that was the real basis of her
+power. The two mentioned gentlemen, however, appreciated her to the
+full, and it was while listening to their remarks that Frederick was
+suddenly startled by some one saying to him:
+
+"You are the only person in town who have nothing to say about Agatha
+Webb. Didn't you ever exchange any words with her?--for I can hardly
+believe you could have met her eye to eye without having some remark to
+make about her beauty or her influence."
+
+The speaker was Agnes Halliday, who had come in with her father for a
+social chat. She was one of Frederick's earliest playmates, but one with
+whom he had never assimilated and who did not like him. He knew this, as
+did everyone else in town, and it was with some hesitation he turned to
+answer her.
+
+"I have but one recollection," he began, and for the moment got no
+farther, for in turning his head to address his young guest he had
+allowed his gaze to wander through the open window by which she sat,
+into the garden beyond, where Amabel could be seen picking flowers. As
+he spoke, Amabel lifted her face with one of her suggestive looks. She
+had doubtless heard Miss Halliday's remark.
+
+Recovering himself with an effort, he repeated his words: "I have but
+one recollection of Mrs. Webb that I can give you. Years ago when I was
+a lad I was playing on the green with several other boys. We had had
+some dispute about a lost ball, and I was swearing angrily and loud when
+I suddenly perceived before me the tall form and compassionate face of
+Mrs. Webb. She was dressed in her usual simple way, and had a basket on
+her arm, but she looked so superior to any other woman I had ever met
+that I did not know whether to hide my face in her skirts or to follow
+my first impulse and run away. She saw the emotion she had aroused, and
+lifting up my face by the chin, she said: 'Little boy, I have buried six
+children, all of them younger than you, and now my husband and myself
+live alone. Often and often have I wished that one at least of these
+darling infants might have been spared us. But had God given me the
+choice of having them die young and innocent, or of growing up to swear
+as I have heard you to-day, I should have prayed God to take them, as He
+did. You have a mother. Do not break her heart by taking in vain the
+name of the God she reveres.' And with that she kissed me, and, strange
+as it may seem to you, in whatever folly or wickedness I have indulged,
+I have never made use of an oath from that day to this--and I thank God
+for it."
+
+There was such unusual feeling in his voice, a feeling that none had
+ever suspected him capable of before, that Miss Halliday regarded him
+with astonishment and quite forgot to indulge in her usual banter. Even
+the gentlemen sat still, and there was a momentary silence, through
+which there presently broke the incongruous sound of a shrill and
+mocking laugh.
+
+It came from Amabel, who had just finished gathering her bouquet in the
+garden outside.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+DETECTIVE KNAPP ARRIVES
+
+
+Meanwhile, in a small room at the court-house, a still more serious
+conversation was in progress. Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and a certain able
+lawyer in town by the name of Harvey, were in close discussion. The last
+had broken the silence of years, and was telling what he knew of Mrs.
+Webb's affairs.
+
+He was a shrewd man, of unblemished reputation. When called upon to
+talk, he talked well, but he much preferred listening, and was, as now
+appeared, the safest repository of secrets to be found in all that
+region. He had been married three times, and could still count thirteen
+children around his board, one reason, perhaps, why he had learned to
+cultivate silence to such a degree. Happily, the time had come for him
+to talk, and he talked. This is what he said:
+
+"Some fifteen years ago Philemon Webb came to me with a small sum of
+money, which he said he wished to have me invest for his wife. It was
+the fruit of a small speculation of his and he wanted it given
+unconditionally to her without her knowledge or that of the neighbours.
+I accordingly made out a deed of gift, which he signed with joyful
+alacrity, and then after due thought and careful investigation, I put
+the money into a new enterprise then being started in Boston. It was the
+best stroke of business I ever did in my life. At the end of a year it
+paid double, and after five had rolled away the accumulated interest had
+reached such a sum that both Philemon and myself thought it wisest to
+let her know what she was worth and what was being done with the money.
+I was in hopes it would lead her to make some change in her mode of
+living, which seemed to me out of keeping with her appearance and mental
+qualifications; while he, I imagine, looked for something more important
+still--a smile on the face which had somehow lost the trick of
+merriment, though it had never acquired that of ill nature. But we did
+not know Agatha; at least I did not. When she learned that she was rich,
+she looked at first awestruck and then heart-pierced. Forgetting me, or
+ignoring me, it makes no matter which, she threw herself into Philemon's
+arms and wept, while he, poor faithful fellow, looked as distressed as
+if he had brought news of failure instead of triumphant success. I
+suppose she thought of her buried children, and what the money would
+have been to her if they had lived; but she did not speak of them, nor
+am I quite sure they were in her thoughts when, after the first
+excitement was over, she drew back and said quietly, but in a tone of
+strong feeling, to Philemon: 'You meant me a happy surprise, and you
+must not be disappointed. This is heart money; we will use it to make
+our townsfolk happy.' I saw him glance at her dress, which was a purple
+calico. I remember it because of that look and because of the sad smile
+with which she followed his glance. 'Can we not afford now,' he
+ventured, 'a little show of luxury, or at least a ribbon or so for this
+beautiful throat of yours?' She did not answer him; but her look had a
+rare compassion in it, a compassion, strange to say, that seemed to be
+expended upon him rather than upon herself. Philemon swallowed his
+disappointment. 'Agatha is right,' he said to me. 'We do not need
+luxury. I do not know how I so far forgot myself as to mention it.' That
+was ten years ago, and every day since then her property has increased.
+I did not know then, and I do not know now, why they were both so
+anxious that all knowledge of their good fortune should be kept from
+those about them; but that it was to be so kept was made very evident to
+me; and, notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary, I have
+refrained from uttering a word likely to give away their secret. The
+money, which to all appearance was the cause of her tragic and untimely
+death, was interest money which I was delegated to deliver her. I took
+it to her day before yesterday, and it was all in crisp new notes, some
+of them twenties, but most of them tens and fives. I am free to say
+there was not such another roll of fresh money in town."
+
+"Warn all shopkeepers to keep a sharp lookout for new bills in the money
+they receive," was Dr. Talbot's comment to the constable. "Fresh ten-and
+twenty-dollar bills are none too common in this town. And now about her
+will. Did you draw that up, Harvey?"
+
+"No. I did not know she had made one. I often spoke to her about the
+advisability of her doing so, but she always put me off. And now it
+seems that she had it drawn up in Boston. Could not trust her old friend
+with too many secrets, I suppose."
+
+"So you don't know how her money has been left?"
+
+"No more than you do."
+
+Here an interruption occurred. The door opened and a slim young man,
+wearing spectacles, came in. At sight of him they all rose.
+
+"Well?" eagerly inquired Dr. Talbot.
+
+"Nothing new," answered the young man, with a consequential air. "The
+elder woman died from loss of blood consequent upon a blow given by a
+small, three-sided, slender blade; the younger from a stroke of
+apoplexy, induced by fright."
+
+"Good! I am glad to hear my instincts were not at fault. Loss of blood,
+eh? Death, then, was not instantaneous?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Strange!" fell from the lips of his two listeners. "She lived, yet gave
+no alarm."
+
+"None that was heard," suggested the young doctor, who was from another
+town.
+
+"Or, if heard, reached no ears but Philemon's," observed the constable.
+"Something must have taken him up-stairs."
+
+"I am not so sure," said the coroner, "that Philemon is not answerable
+for the whole crime, notwithstanding our failure to find the missing
+money anywhere in the house. How else account for the resignation with
+which she evidently met her death? Had a stranger struck her, Agatha
+Webb would have struggled. There is no sign of struggle in the room."
+
+"She would have struggled against Philemon had she had strength to
+struggle. I think she was asleep when she was struck."
+
+"Ah! And was not standing by the table? How about the blood there,
+then?"
+
+"Shaken from the murderer's fingers in fright or disgust."
+
+"There was no blood on Philemon's fingers."
+
+"No; he wiped them on his sleeve."
+
+"If he was the one to use the dagger against her, where is the dagger?
+Should we not be able to find it somewhere about the premises?"
+
+"He may have buried it outside. Crazy men are supernaturally cunning."
+
+"When you can produce it from any place inside that board fence, I will
+consider your theory. At present I limit my suspicions of Philemon to
+the half-unconscious attentions which a man of disordered intellect
+might give a wife bleeding and dying under his eyes. My idea on the
+subject is---"
+
+"Would you be so kind as not to give utterance to your ideas until I
+have been able to form some for myself?" interrupted a voice from the
+doorway.
+
+As this voice was unexpected, they all turned. A small man with sleek
+dark hair and expressionless features stood before them. Behind him was
+Abel, carrying a hand-bag and umbrella.
+
+"The detective from Boston," announced the latter. Coroner Talbot rose.
+
+"You are in good time," he remarked. "We have work of no ordinary nature
+for you."
+
+The man failed to look interested. But then his countenance was not one
+to show emotion.
+
+"My name is Knapp," said he. "I have had my supper, and am ready to go
+to work. I have read the newspapers; all I want now is any additional
+facts that have come to light since the telegraphic dispatches were sent
+to Boston. Facts, mind you; not theories. I never allow myself to be
+hampered by other persons' theories."
+
+Not liking his manner, which was brusque and too self-important for a
+man of such insignificant appearance, Coroner Talbot referred him to Mr.
+Fenton, who immediately proceeded to give him the result of such
+investigations as he and his men had been able to make; which done, Mr.
+Knapp put on his hat and turned toward the door.
+
+"I will go to the house and see for myself what is to be learned there,"
+said he. "May I ask the privilege of going alone?" he added, as Mr.
+Fenton moved. "Abel will see that I am given admittance."
+
+"Show me your credentials," said the coroner. He did so. "They seem all
+right, and you should be a man who understands his business. Go alone,
+if you prefer, but bring your conclusions here. They may need some
+correcting."
+
+"Oh, I will return," Knapp nonchalantly remarked, and went out, having
+made anything but a favourable impression upon the assembled gentlemen.
+
+"I wish we had shown more grit and tried to handle this thing
+ourselves," observed Mr. Fenton. "I cannot bear to think of that cold,
+bloodless creature hovering over our beloved Agatha."
+
+"I wonder at Carson. Why should he send us such a man? Could he not see
+the matter demanded extraordinary skill and judgment?"
+
+"Oh, this fellow may have skill. But he is so unpleasant. I hate to deal
+with folks of such fish-like characteristics. But who is this?" he asked
+as a gentle tap was heard at the door. "Why, it's Loton. What can he
+want here?"
+
+The man whose presence in the doorway had called out this exclamation
+started at the sound of the doctor's heavy voice, and came very
+hesitatingly forward. He was of a weak, irritable type, and seemed to be
+in a state of great excitement.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he, "for showing myself. I don't like to intrude
+into such company, but I have something to tell you which may be of use,
+sirs, though it isn't any great thing, either."
+
+"Something about the murder which has taken place?" asked the coroner,
+in a milder tone. He knew Loton well, and realised the advisability of
+encouragement in his case.
+
+"The murder! Oh, I wouldn't presume to say anything about the murder.
+I'm not the man to stir up any such subject as that. It's about the
+money--or some money--more money than usually falls into my till. It--it
+was rather queer, sirs, and I have felt the flutter of it all day. Shall
+I tell you about it? It happened last night, late last night, sirs, so
+late that I was in bed with my wife, and had been snoring, she said,
+four hours."
+
+"What money? New money? Crisp, fresh bills, Loton?" eagerly questioned
+Mr. Fenton.
+
+Loton, who was the keeper of a small confectionery and bakery store on
+one of the side streets leading up the hill, shifted uneasily between
+his two interrogators, and finally addressed himself to the coroner:
+
+"It was new money. I thought it felt so at night, but I was sure of it
+in the morning. A brand-new bill, sir, a--But that isn't the queerest
+thing about it. I was asleep, sir, sound asleep, and dreaming of my
+courting days (for I asked Sally at the circus, sirs, and the band
+playing on the hill made me think of it), when I was suddenly shook
+awake by Sally herself, who says she hadn't slept a wink for listening
+to the music and wishing she was a girl again. 'There's a man at the
+shop door,' cries she. 'He's a-calling of you; go and see what he
+wants.' I was mad at being wakened. Dreaming is pleasant, specially when
+clowns and kissing get mixed up in it, but duty is duty, and so into the
+shop I stumbled, swearing a bit perhaps, for I hadn't stopped for a
+light and it was as dark as double shutters could make it. The hammering
+had become deafening. No let up till I reached the door, when it
+suddenly ceased.
+
+"'What is it?' I cried. 'Who's there and what do you want?'
+
+"A trembling voice answered me. 'Let me in,' it said. 'I want to buy
+something to eat. For God's sake, open the door!'
+
+"I don't know why I obeyed, for it was late, and I did not know the
+voice, but something in the impatient rattling of the door which
+accompanied the words affected me in spite of myself, and I slowly
+opened my shop to this midnight customer.
+
+"'You must be hungry,' I began. But the person who had crowded in as
+soon as the opening was large enough wouldn't let me finish.
+
+"'Bread! I want bread, or crackers, or anything that you can find
+easiest,' he gasped, like a man who had been running. 'Here's money';
+and he poked into my hand a bill so stiff that it rattled. 'It's more
+than enough,' he hastened to say, as I hesitated over it, 'but never
+mind that; I'll come for the change in the morning.'
+
+"'Who are you? I cried. 'You are not Blind Willy, I'm sure.'
+
+"But his only answer was 'Bread!' while he leaned so hard against the
+counter I felt it shake.
+
+"I could not stand that cry of 'Bread!' so I groped about in the dark,
+and found him a stale loaf, which I put into his arms, with a short,
+'There! Now tell me what your name is.'
+
+"But at this he seemed to shrink into himself; and muttering something
+that might pass for thanks, he stumbled towards the door and rushed
+hastily out. Running after him, I listened eagerly to his steps. They
+went up the hill."
+
+"And the money? What about the money?" asked the coroner. "Didn't he
+come back for the change?"
+
+"No. I put it in the till, thinking it was a dollar bill. But when I
+came to look at it in the morning, it was a twenty; yes, sirs, a
+twenty!"
+
+This was startling. The coroner and the constable looked at each other
+before looking again at him.
+
+"And where is that bill now?" asked the former. "Have you brought it
+with you?"
+
+"I have, sir. It's been in and out of the till twenty times to-day. I
+haven't known what to do with it. I don't like to think wrong of
+anybody, but when I heard that Mrs. Webb (God bless her!) was murdered
+last night for money, I couldn't rest for the weight of this thing on my
+conscience. Here's the bill, sir. I wish I had let the old man rap on my
+door till morning before I had taken it from him."
+
+They did not share this feeling. A distinct and valuable clew seemed to
+be afforded them by the fresh, crisp bill they saw in his hand. Silently
+Dr. Talbot took it, while Mr. Fenton, with a shrewd look, asked:
+
+"What reasons have you for calling this mysterious customer old? I
+thought it was so dark you could not see him."
+
+The man, who looked relieved since he had rid himself of the bill, eyed
+the constable in some perplexity.
+
+"I didn't see a feature of his face," said he, "and yet I'm sure he was
+old. I never thought of him as being anything else."
+
+"Well, we will see. And is that all you have to tell us?"
+
+His nod was expressive, and they let him go.
+
+An hour or so later Detective Knapp made his reappearance.
+
+"Well," asked the coroner, as he came quietly in and closed the door
+behind him, "what's your opinion?"
+
+"Simple case, sir. Murdered for money. Find the man with a flowing
+beard."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE MAN WITH A BEARD
+
+
+There were but few men in town who wore long beards. A list was made of
+these and handed to the coroner, who regarded it with a grim smile.
+
+"Not a man whose name is here would be guilty of a misdemeanour, let
+alone a crime. You must look outside of our village population for the
+murderer of Agatha Webb."
+
+"Very likely, but tell me something first about these persons," urged
+Knapp. "Who is Edward Hope?"
+
+"A watch repairer; a man of estimable character."
+
+"And Sylvester Chubb?"
+
+"A farmer who, to support his mother, wife, and seven children, works
+from morning till sundown on his farm, and from sundown till 11 o'clock
+at night on little fancy articles he cuts out from wood and sells in
+Boston."
+
+"John Barker, Thomas Elder, Timothy Sinn?"
+
+"All good men; I can vouch for every one of them."
+
+"And John Zabel, James Zabel?"
+
+"Irreproachable, both of them. Famous ship--builders once, but the change
+to iron ship-building has thrown them out of business. Pity, too, for
+they were remarkable builders. By the by, Fenton, we don't see them at
+church or on the docks any more."
+
+"No, they keep very much to themselves; getting old, like ourselves,
+Talbot."
+
+"Lively boys once. We must hunt them up, Fenton. Can't bear to see old
+friends drop away from good company. But this isn't business. You need
+not pause over their names, Knapp."
+
+But Knapp had slipped out.
+
+We will follow him.
+
+Walking briskly down the street, he went up the steps of a certain house
+and rang the bell. A gentleman with a face not entirely unknown to us
+came to the door.
+
+The detective did not pause for preliminaries.
+
+"Are you Mr. Crane?" he asked,--"the gentleman who ran against a man
+coming out of Mrs. Webb's house last night?"
+
+"I am Mr. Crane," was the slightly surprised rejoinder, "and I was run
+against by a man there, yes."
+
+"Very well," remarked the detective, quietly, "my name is Knapp. I have
+been sent from Boston to look into this matter, and I have an idea that
+you can help me more than any other man here in Sutherlandtown. Who was
+this person who came in contact with you so violently? You know, even if
+you have been careful not to mention any names."
+
+"You are mistaken. I don't know; I can't know. He wore a sweeping beard,
+and walked and acted like a man no longer young, but beyond that---"
+
+"Mr. Crane, excuse me, but I know men. If you had no suspicion as to
+whom that person was you would not look so embarrassed. You suspect, or,
+at least, associate in your own mind a name with the man you met. Was it
+either of these you see written here?"
+
+Mr. Crane glanced at the card on which the other had scribbled a couple
+of names, and started perceptibly.
+
+"You have me," said he; "you must be a man of remarkable perspicacity."
+
+The detective smiled and pocketed his card. The names he thus concealed
+were John Zabel, James Zabel.
+
+"You have not said which of the two it was," Knapp quietly suggested.
+
+"No," returned the minister, "and I have not even thought. Indeed, I am
+not sure that I have not made a dreadful mistake in thinking it was
+either. A glimpse such as I had is far from satisfactory; and they are
+both such excellent men---"
+
+"Eight! You did make a mistake, of course, I have not the least doubt of
+it. So don't think of the matter again. I will find out who the real man
+was; rest easy."
+
+And with the lightest of bows, Knapp drew off and passed as quickly as
+he could, without attracting attention, round the corner to the
+confectioner's.
+
+Here his attack was warier. Sally Loton was behind the counter with her
+husband, and they had evidently been talking the matter over very
+confidentially. But Knapp was not to be awed by her small, keen eye or
+strident voice, and presently succeeded in surprising a knowing look on
+the lady's face, which convinced him that in the confidences between
+husband and wife a name had been used which she appeared to be less
+unwilling to impart than he. Knapp, consequently, turned his full
+attention towards her, using in his attack that oldest and subtlest
+weapon against the sex--flattery.
+
+"My dear madam," said he, "your good heart is apparent; your husband has
+confided to you a name which you, out of fear of some mistake, hesitate
+to repeat. A neighbourly spirit, ma'am, a very neighbourly spirit; but
+you should not allow your goodness to defeat the ends of justice. If you
+simply told us whom this man resembled we would be able to get some idea
+of his appearance."
+
+"He didn't resemble anyone I know," growled Loton. "It was too dark for
+me to see how he looked."
+
+"His voice, then? People are traced by their voices."
+
+"I didn't recognise his voice."
+
+Knapp smiled, his eye still on the woman.
+
+"Yet you have thought of someone he reminded you of?"
+
+The man was silent, but the wife tossed her head ever so lightly.
+
+"Now, you must have had your reasons for that. No one thinks of a good
+and respectable neighbour in connection with the buying of a loaf of
+bread at midnight with a twenty-dollar bill, without some positive
+reason."
+
+"The man wore a beard. I felt it brush my hand as he took the loaf."
+
+"Good! That is a point."
+
+"Which made me think of other men who wore beards."
+
+"As, for instance---"
+
+The detective had taken from his pocket the card which he had used with
+such effect at the minister's, and as he said these words twirled it so
+that the two names written upon it fell under Sally Loton's inquisitive
+eyes. The look with which she read them was enough. John Zabel, James
+Zabel.
+
+"Who told you it was either of these men?" she asked.
+
+"You did," he retorted, pocketing the card with a smile.
+
+"La, now! Samuel, I never spoke a word," she insisted, in anxious
+protest to her husband, as the detective slid quietly from the store.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+WATTLES COMES
+
+
+The Hallidays lived but a few rods from the Sutherlands. Yet as it was
+dusk when Miss Halliday rose to depart, Frederick naturally offered his
+services as her escort.
+
+She accepted them with a slight blush, the first he had ever seen on her
+face, or at least had ever noted there. It caused him such surprise that
+he forgot Amabel's presence in the garden till they came upon her at the
+gate.
+
+"A pleasant evening," observed that young girl in her high, unmusical
+voice.
+
+"Very," was Miss Halliday's short reply; and for a moment the two faces
+were in line as he held open the gate before his departing guest.
+
+They were very different faces in feature and expression, and till that
+night he had never thought of comparing them. Indeed, the fascination
+which beamed from Amabel Page's far from regular features had put all
+others out of his mind, but now, as he surveyed the two girls, the
+candour and purity which marked Agnes's countenance came out so strongly
+under his glance that Amabel lost all attraction for him, and he drew
+his young neighbour hastily away.
+
+Amabel noted the movement and smiled. Her contempt for Agnes Halliday's
+charms amounted to disdain.
+
+She might have felt less confidence in her own had she been in a
+position to note the frequent glances Frederick cast at his old playmate
+as they proceeded slowly up the road. Not that there was any passion in
+them--he was too full of care for that; but the curiosity which could
+prompt him to turn his head a dozen times in the course of so short a
+walk, to see why Agnes Halliday held her face so persistently away from
+him, had an element of feeling in it that was more or less significant.
+As for Agnes, she was so unlike her accustomed self as to astonish even
+herself. Whereas she had never before walked a dozen steps with him
+without indulging in some sharp saying, she found herself disinclined to
+speak at all, much less to speak lightly. In mutual silence, then, they
+reached the gateway leading into the Halliday grounds. But Agnes having
+passed in, they both stopped and for the first time looked squarely at
+each other. Her eyes fell first, perhaps because his had changed in his
+contemplation of her. He smiled as he saw this, and in a half-careless,
+half-wistful tone, said quietly:
+
+"Agnes, what would you think of a man who, after having committed little
+else but folly all his life, suddenly made up his mind to turn
+absolutely toward the right and to pursue it in face of every obstacle
+and every discouragement?"
+
+"I should think," she slowly replied, with one quick lift of her eyes
+toward his face, "that he had entered upon the noblest effort of which
+man is capable, and the hardest. I should have great sympathy for that
+man, Frederick."
+
+"Would you?" he said, recalling Amabel's face with bitter aversion as he
+gazed into the womanly countenance he had hitherto slighted as
+uninteresting. "It is the first kind word you have ever given me, Agnes.
+Possibly it is the first I have ever deserved."
+
+And without another word he doffed his hat, saluted her, and vanished
+down the hillside.
+
+She remained; remained so long that it was nearly nine when she entered
+the family parlour. As she came in her mother looked up and was startled
+at her unaccustomed pallor.
+
+"Why, Agnes," cried her mother, "what is the matter?"
+
+Her answer was inaudible. What was the matter? She dreaded, even feared,
+to ask herself.
+
+Meantime a strange scene was taking place in the woods toward which she
+had seen Frederick go. The moon, which was particularly bright that
+night, shone upon a certain hollow where a huge tree lay. Around it the
+underbrush was thick and the shadow dark, but in this especial place the
+opening was large enough for the rays to enter freely. Into this circlet
+of light Frederick Sutherland had come. Alone and without the restraint
+imposed upon him by watching eyes, he showed a countenance so wan and
+full of trouble that it was well it could not be seen by either of the
+two women whose thoughts were at that moment fixed upon him. To Amabel
+it would have given a throb of selfish hope, while to Agnes it would
+have brought a pang of despair which might have somewhat too suddenly
+interpreted to her the mystery of her own sensations.
+
+He had bent at once to the hollow space made by the outspreading roots
+just mentioned, and was feeling with an air of confidence along the
+ground for something he had every reason to expect to find, when the
+shock of a sudden distrust seized him, and he flung himself down in
+terror, feeling and feeling again among the fallen leaves and broken
+twigs, till a full realisation of his misfortune reached him, and he was
+obliged to acknowledge that the place was empty.
+
+Overwhelmed at his loss, aghast at the consequences it must entail upon
+him, he rose in a trembling sweat, crying out in his anger and dismay:
+
+"She has been here! She has taken it!" And realising for the first time
+the subtlety and strength of the antagonist pitted against him, he
+forgot his new resolutions and even that old promise made in his
+childhood to Agatha Webb, and uttered oath after oath, cursing himself,
+the woman, and what she had done, till a casual glance at the heavens
+overhead, in which the liquid moon hung calm and beautiful, recalled him
+to himself. With a sense of shame, the keener that it was a new
+sensation in his breast, he ceased his vain repinings, and turning from
+the unhallowed spot, made his way with deeper and deeper misgivings
+toward a home made hateful to him now by the presence of the woman who
+was thus bent upon his ruin.
+
+He understood her now. He rated at its full value both her determination
+and her power, and had she been so unfortunate as to have carried her
+imprudence to the point of surprising him by her presence, it would have
+taken more than the memory of that day's solemn resolves to have kept
+him from using his strength against her. But she was wise, and did not
+intrude upon him in his hour of anger, though who could say she was not
+near enough to hear the sigh which broke irresistibly from his lips as
+he emerged from the wood and approached his father's house?
+
+A lamp was still burning in Mr. Sutherland's study over the front door,
+and the sight of it seemed to change for a moment the current of
+Frederick's thoughts. Pausing at the gate, he considered with himself,
+and then with a freer countenance and a lighter step was about to
+proceed inward, when he heard the sound of a heavy breather coming up
+the hill, and hesitated--why he hardly knew, except that every advancing
+step occasioned him more or less apprehension.
+
+The person, whoever it was, stopped before reaching the brow of the
+hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick heard.
+Though it was no more profane than those which had just escaped his own
+lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him which was only second
+in intensity to the terror of the discovery that the money he had so
+safely hidden was gone.
+
+Trembling in every limb, he dashed down the hill and confronted the
+person standing there.
+
+"You!" he cried, "you!" And for a moment he looked as if he would like
+to fell to the ground the man before him.
+
+But this man was a heavyweight of no ordinary physical strength and
+adroitness, and only smiled at Frederick's heat and threatening
+attitude.
+
+"I thought I would be made welcome," he smiled, with just the hint of
+sinister meaning in his tone. Then, before Frederick could speak: "I
+have merely saved you a trip to Boston; why so much anger, friend? You
+have the money; of that I am positive."
+
+"Hush! We can't talk here," whispered Frederick. "Come into the grounds,
+or, what would be better, into the woods over there."
+
+"I don't go into any woods with you," laughed the other; "not after last
+night, my friend. But I will talk low; that's no more than fair; I don't
+want to put you into any other man's power, especially if you have the
+money."
+
+"Wattles,"--Frederick's tone was broken, almost unintelligible,--"what
+do you mean by your allusion to last night? Have you dared to connect
+me---"
+
+"Pooh! Pooh!" interrupted the other, good-humouredly. "Don't let us
+waste words over a chance expression I may have dropped. I don't care
+anything about last night's work, or who was concerned in it. That's
+nothing to me. All I want, my boy, is the money, and that I want
+devilish bad, or I would not have run up here from Boston, when I might
+have made half a hundred off a countryman Lewis brought in from the
+Canada wilds this morning."
+
+"Wattles, I swear---"
+
+But the hand he had raised was quickly drawn down by the other.
+
+"Don't," said the older man, shortly. "It won't pay, Sutherland.
+Stage-talk never passed for anything with me. Besides, your white face
+tells a truer story than your lips, and time is precious. I want to take
+the 11 o'clock train back. So down with the cash. Nine hundred and
+fifty-five it is, but, being friends, we will let the odd five go."
+
+"Wattles, I was to bring it to you to-morrow, or was it the next day? I
+do not want to give it to you to-night; indeed, I cannot, but--Wattles,
+wait, stop! Where are you going?"
+
+"To see your father. I want to tell him that his son owes me a debt;
+that this debt was incurred in a way that lays him liable to arrest for
+forgery; that, bad as he thinks you, there are facts which can be picked
+up in Boston which would render Frederick Sutherland's continued
+residence under the parental roof impossible; that, in fact, you are a
+scamp of the first water, and that only my friendship for you has kept
+you out of prison so long. Won't that make a nice story for the old
+gentleman's ears!"
+
+"Wattles--I--oh, my God! Wattles, stop a minute and listen to me. I have
+not got the money. I had enough this morning to pay you, had it
+legitimately, Wattles, but it has been stolen from me and---"
+
+"I will also tell him," the other broke in, as quietly as if Frederick
+had not uttered a word, "that in a certain visit to Boston you lost five
+hundred dollars on one hand; that you lost it unfairly, not having a
+dollar to pay with; that to prevent scandal I became your security,
+with the understanding that I was to be paid at the end of ten days from
+that night; that you thereupon played again and lost four hundred and
+odd more, so that your debt amounted to nine hundred and fifty-five
+dollars; that the ten days passed without payment; that, wanting money,
+I pressed you and even resorted to a threat or two; and that, seeing me
+in earnest, you swore that the dollars should be mine within five days;
+that instead of remaining in Boston to get them, you came here; and that
+this morning at a very early hour you telegraphed that the funds were to
+hand and that you would bring them down to me to-morrow. The old
+gentleman may draw conclusions from this, Sutherland, which may make his
+position as your father anything but grateful to him. He may even--Ah,
+you would try that game, would you?"
+
+The young man had flung himself at the older man's throat as if he would
+choke off the words he saw trembling on his lips. But the struggle thus
+begun was short. In a moment both stood panting, and Frederick, with
+lowered head, was saying humbly:
+
+"I beg pardon, Wattles, but you drive me mad with your suggestions and
+conclusions. I have not got the money, but I will try and get it. Wait
+here."
+
+"For ten minutes, Sutherland; no longer! The moon is bright, and I can
+see the hands of my watch distinctly. At a quarter to ten, you will
+return here with the amount I have mentioned, or I will seek it at your
+father's hands in his own study."
+
+Frederick made a hurried gesture and vanished up the walk. Next moment
+he was at his father's study door.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WATTLES GOES
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was busily engaged with a law paper when his son entered
+his presence, but at sight of that son's face, he dropped the paper with
+an alacrity which Frederick was too much engaged with his own thoughts
+to notice.
+
+"Father," he began without preamble or excuse, "I am in serious and
+immediate need of nine hundred and fifty dollars. I want it so much that
+I ask you to make me a check for that amount to-night, conscious though
+I am that you have every right to deny me this request, and that my debt
+to you already passes the bound of presumption on my part and indulgence
+on yours. I cannot tell you why I want it or for what. That belongs to
+my past life, the consequences of which I have not yet escaped, but I
+feel bound to state that you will not be the loser by this material
+proof of confidence in me, as I shall soon be in a position to repay all
+my debts, among which this will necessarily stand foremost."
+
+The old gentleman looked startled and nervously fingered the paper he
+had let fall. "Why do you say you will soon be in a position to repay
+me? What do you mean by that?"
+
+The flash, which had not yet subsided from the young man's face, ebbed
+slowly away as he encountered his father's eye.
+
+"I mean to work," he murmured. "I mean to make a man of myself as soon
+as possible."
+
+The look which Mr. Sutherland gave him was more inquiring than
+sympathetic.
+
+"And you need this money for a start?" said he.
+
+Frederick bowed; he seemed to be losing the faculty of speech. The clock
+over the mantel had told off five of the precious moments.
+
+"I will give it to you," said his father, and drew out his check-book.
+But he did not hasten to open it; his eyes still rested on his son.
+
+"Now," murmured the young man. "There is a train leaving soon. I wish to
+get it away on that train."
+
+His father frowned with natural distrust.
+
+"I wish you would confide in me," said he.
+
+Frederick did not answer. The hands of the clock were moving on.
+
+"I will give it to you; but I should like to know what for."
+
+"It is impossible for me to tell you," groaned the young man, starting
+as he heard a step on the walk without.
+
+"Your need has become strangely imperative," proceeded the other. "Has
+Miss Page---"
+
+Frederick took a step forward and laid his hand on his father's arm.
+
+"It is not for her," he whispered. "It goes into other hands."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had turned over the document as his son approached,
+breathed more easily. Taking up his pen, he dipped it in the ink.
+Frederick watched him with constantly whitening cheek. The step on the
+walk had mounted to the front door.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty?" inquired the father.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty," answered the son.
+
+The judge, with a last look, stooped over the book. The hands of the
+clock pointed to a quarter to ten.
+
+"Father, I have my whole future in which to thank you," cried Frederick,
+seizing the check his father held out to him and making rapidly for the
+door. "I will be back before midnight." And he flung himself down-stairs
+just as the front door opened and Wattles stepped in.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the latter, as his eye fell on the paper fluttering in
+the other's hand, "I expected money, not paper."
+
+"The paper is good," answered Frederick, drawing him swiftly out of the
+house. "It has my father's signature upon it."
+
+"Your father's signature?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wattles gave it a look, then slowly shook his head at Frederick.
+
+"Is it as well done as the one you tried to pass off on Brady?"
+
+Frederick cringed, and for a moment looked as if the struggle was too
+much for him. Then he rallied and eying Wattles firmly, said:
+
+"You have a right to distrust me, but you are on the wrong track,
+Wattles. What I did once, I can never do again; and I hope I may live to
+prove myself a changed man. As for that check, I will soon prove its
+value in your eyes. Follow me up-stairs to my father."
+
+His energy--the energy of despair, no doubt seemed to make an impression
+on the other.
+
+"You might as well proclaim yourself a forger outright, as to force your
+father to declare this to be his signature," he observed.
+
+"I know it," said Frederick.
+
+"Yet you will run that risk?"
+
+"If you oblige me."
+
+Wattles shrugged his shoulders. He was a magnificent-looking man and
+towered in that old colonial hall like a youthful giant.
+
+"I bear you no ill will," said he. "If this represents money, I am
+satisfied, and I begin to think it does. But listen, Sutherland.
+Something has happened to you. A week ago you would have put a bullet
+through my head before you would have been willing to have so
+compromised yourself. I think I know what that something is. To save
+yourself from being thought guilty of a big crime you are willing to
+incur suspicion of a small one. It's a wise move, my boy, but look out!
+No tricks with me or my friendship may not hold. Meantime, I cash this
+check to-morrow." And he swung away through the night with a grand-opera
+selection on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+A FINAL TEMPTATION
+
+
+Frederick looked like a man thoroughly exhausted when the final echo of
+this hateful voice died away on the hillside. For the last twenty hours
+he had been the prey of one harrowing emotion after another, and human
+nature could endure no more without rest.
+
+But rest would not come. The position in which he found himself, between
+Amabel and the man who had just left, was of too threatening a nature
+for him to ignore. But one means of escape presented itself. It was a
+cowardly one; but anything was better than to make an attempt to stand
+his ground against two such merciless antagonists; so he resolved upon
+flight.
+
+Packing up a few necessaries and leaving a letter behind him for his
+father, he made his way down the stairs of the now darkened house to a
+door opening upon the garden. To his astonishment he found it unlocked,
+but, giving little heed to this in his excitement, he opened it with
+caution, and, with a parting sigh for the sheltering home he was about
+to leave forever, stepped from the house he no longer felt worthy to
+inhabit.
+
+His intention was to take the train at Portchester, and that he might
+reach that place without inconvenient encounters, he decided to proceed
+by a short cut through the fields. This led him north along the ridge
+that overlooks the road running around the base of the hill. He did not
+think of this road, however, or of anything, in fact, but the necessity
+of taking the very earliest train out of Portchester. As this left at
+3.30 A.M., he realised that he must hasten in order to reach it. But he
+was not destined to take it or any other train out of Portchester that
+night, for when he reached the fence dividing Mr. Sutherland's grounds
+from those of his adjoining neighbour, he saw, drawn up in the moonlight
+just at the point where he had intended to leap the fence, the form of a
+woman with one hand held out to stop him.
+
+It was Amabel.
+
+Confounded by this check and filled with an anger that was nigh to
+dangerous, he fell back and then immediately sprang forward.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he cried. "Don't you know that it is eleven
+o'clock and that my father requires the house to be closed at that
+hour?"
+
+"And you?" was her sole retort; "what are you doing here? Are you
+searching for flowers in the woods, and is that valise you carry the
+receptacle in which you hope to put your botanical specimens?"
+
+With a savage gesture he dropped the valise and took her fiercely by the
+shoulders.
+
+"Where have you hidden my money?" he hissed. "Tell me, or---"
+
+"Or what?" she asked, smiling into his face in a way that made him lose
+his grip.
+
+"Or--or I cannot answer for myself," he proceeded, stammering. "Do you.
+think I can endure everything from you because you are a woman? No; I
+will have those bills, every one of them, or show myself your master.
+Where are they, you incarnate fiend?"
+
+It was an unwise word to use, but she did not seem to heed it.
+
+"Ah," she said softly, and with a lingering accent, as if his grasp of
+her had been a caress to which she was not entirely averse. "I did not
+think you would discover its loss so soon. When did you go to the woods,
+Frederick? And was Miss Halliday with you?"
+
+He had a disposition to strike her, but controlled himself. Blows would
+not avail against the softness of this suave, yet merciless, being. Only
+a will as strong as her own could hope to cope with this smiling fury;
+and this he was determined to show, though, alas! he had everything to
+lose in a struggle that robbed her of nothing but a hope which was but a
+baseless fabric at best; for he was more than ever determined never to
+marry her.
+
+"A man does not need to wait long to miss his own," said he. "And if you
+have taken this money, which, you do not deny, you have shown yourself
+very short-sighted, for danger lies closer to the person holding this
+money than to the one you vilify by your threats. This you will find,
+Amabel, when you come to make use of the weapon with which you have
+thought to arm yourself."
+
+"Tut, tut!" was her contemptuous reply. "Do you consider me a child? Do
+I look like a babbling infant, Frederick?"
+
+Her face, which had been lifted to his in saying this, was so illumined,
+both by her smile, which was strangely enchanting for one so evil, and
+by the moonlight, which so etherialises all that it touches, that he
+found himself forced to recall that other purer, truer face he had left
+at the honeysuckle porch to keep down a last wild impulse toward her,
+which would have been his undoing, both in this world and the next, as
+he knew.
+
+"Or do I look simply like a woman?" she went on, seeing the impression
+she had made, and playing upon it. "A woman who understands herself and
+you and all the secret perils of the game we are both playing? If I am a
+child, treat me as a child; but if I am a woman---"
+
+"Stand out of my way!" he cried, catching up his valise and striding
+furiously by her. "Woman or child, know that I will not be your
+plaything to be damned in this world and in the next."
+
+"Are you bound for the city of destruction?" she laughed, not moving,
+but showing such confidence in her power to hold him back that he
+stopped in spite of himself. "If so, you are taking the direct road
+there and have only to hasten. But you had better remain in your
+father's house; even if you are something of a prisoner there, like my
+very insignificant self. The outcome will be more satisfactory, even if
+you have to share your future with me."
+
+"And what course will you take," he asked, pausing with his hand on the
+fence, "if I decide to choose destruction without you, rather than
+perdition with you?"
+
+"What course? Why, I shall tell Dr. Talbot just enough to show you to be
+as desirable a witness in the impending inquest as myself. The result I
+leave to your judgment. But you will not drive me to this extremity. You
+will come back and--"
+
+"Woman, I will never come back. I shall have to dare your worst in a
+week and will begin by daring you now. I--"
+
+But he did not leap the fence, though he made a move to do so, for at
+that moment a party of men came hurrying by on the lower road, one of
+whom was heard to say:
+
+"I will bet my head that we will put our hand on Agatha Webb's murderer
+to-night. The man who shoves twenty-dollar bills around so heedlessly
+should not wear a beard so long it leads to detection."
+
+It was the coroner, the constable, Knapp, and Abel on their way to the
+forest road on which lived John and James Zabel.
+
+Frederick and Amabel confronted each other, and after a moment's silence
+returned as if by a common impulse towards the house.
+
+"What have they got in their heads?" queried she. "Whatever it is, it
+may serve to occupy them till the week of your probation is over."
+
+He did not answer. A new and overwhelming complication had been added to
+the difficulties of his situation.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE ZABELS VISITED
+
+
+Let us follow the party now winding up the hillside.
+
+In a deeply wooded spot on a side road stood the little house to which
+John and James Zabel had removed when their business on the docks had
+terminated. There was no other dwelling of greater or lesser pretension
+on the road, which may account for the fact that none of the persons now
+approaching it had been in that neighbourhood for years, though it was
+by no means a long walk from the village in which they all led such busy
+lives.
+
+The heavy shadows cast by the woods through which the road meandered
+were not without their effect upon the spirits of the four men passing
+through them, so that long before they reached the opening in which the
+Zabel cottage stood, silence had fallen upon the whole party. Dr. Talbot
+especially looked as if he little relished this late visit to his old
+friends, and not till they caught a glimpse of the long sloping roof and
+heavy chimney of the Zabel cottage did he shake off the gloom incident
+to the nature of his errand.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, coming to a sudden halt, "let us understand each
+other. We are about to make a call on two of our oldest and most
+respectable townsfolk. If in the course of that call I choose to make
+mention of the twenty-dollar bill left with Loton, well and good, but if
+not, you are to take my reticence as proof of my own belief that they
+had nothing to do with it."
+
+Two of the party bowed; Knapp, only, made no sign.
+
+"There is no light in the window," observed Abel. "What if we find them
+gone to bed?"
+
+"We will wake them," said the constable. "I cannot go back without being
+myself assured that no more money like that given to Loton remains in
+the house."
+
+"Very well," remarked Knapp, and going up to the door before him, he
+struck a resounding knock sufficiently startling in that place of
+silence.
+
+But loud as the summons was it brought no answer. Not only the
+moon-lighted door, but the little windows on each side of it remained
+shut, and there was no evidence that the knock had been heard.
+
+"Zabel! John Zabel!" shouted the constable, stepping around the side of
+the house. "Get up, my good friends, and let an old crony in. James!
+John! Late as it is, we have business with you. Open the door; don't
+stop to dress."
+
+But this appeal received no more recognition than the first, and after
+rapping on the window against which he had flung the words, he came back
+and looked up and down the front of the house.
+
+It had a solitary aspect and was much less comfortable-looking than he
+had expected. Indeed, there were signs of poverty, or at least of
+neglect, about the place that astonished him. Not only had the weeds
+been allowed to grow over the doorstep, but from the unpainted front
+itself bits of boards had rotted away, leaving great gaps about the
+window-ledges and at the base of the sunken and well-nigh toppling
+chimney. The moon flooding the roof showed up all these imperfections
+with pitiless insistence, and the torn edges of the green paper shades
+that half concealed the rooms within were plainly to be seen, as well as
+the dismantled knocker which hung by one nail to the old cracked door.
+The vision of Knapp with his ear laid against this door added to the
+forlorn and sinister aspect of the scene, and gave to the constable, who
+remembered the brothers in their palmy days when they were the life and
+pride of the town, a by no means agreeable sensation, as he advanced
+toward the detective and asked him what they should do now.
+
+"Break down the door!" was the uncompromising reply. "Or, wait! The
+windows of country houses are seldom fastened; let me see if I cannot
+enter by some one of them."
+
+"Better not," said the coroner, with considerable feeling. "Let us
+exhaust all other means first." And he took hold of the knob of the door
+to shake it, when to his surprise it turned and the door opened. It had
+not been locked.
+
+Rather taken aback by this, he hesitated. But Knapp showed less scruple.
+Without waiting for any man's permission, he glided in and stepped
+cautiously, but without any delay, into a room the door of which stood
+wide open before him. The constable was about to follow when he saw
+Knapp come stumbling back.
+
+"Devilish work," he muttered, and drew the others in to see.
+
+Never will any of these men forget the sight that there met their eyes.
+
+On the floor near the entrance lay one brother, in a streak of
+moonlight, which showed every feature of his worn and lifeless face, and
+at a table drawn up in the centre of the room sat the other, rigid in
+death, with a book clutched in his hand.
+
+Both, had been dead some time, and on the faces and in the aspects of
+both was visible a misery that added its own gloom to the pitiable and
+gruesome scene, and made the shining of the great white moon, which
+filled every corner of the bare room, seem a mockery well-nigh
+unendurable to those who contemplated it. John, dead in his chair!
+James, dead on the floor!
+
+Knapp, who of all present was least likely to feel the awesome nature of
+the tragedy, was naturally the first to speak.
+
+"Both wear long beards," said he, "but the one lying on the floor was
+doubtless Loton's customer. Ah!" he cried, pointing at the table, as he
+carefully crossed the floor. "Here is the bread, and--" Even he had his
+moments of feeling. The appearance of that loaf had stunned him; one
+corner of it had been gnawed off.
+
+"A light! let us have a light!" cried Mr. Fenton, speaking for the first
+time since his entrance. "These moonbeams are horrible; see how they
+cling to the bodies as if they delighted in lighting up these wasted and
+shrunken forms."
+
+"Could it have been hunger?" began Abel, tremblingly following Knapp's
+every movement as he struck a match and lit a lantern which he had
+brought in his pocket.
+
+"God help us all if it was!" said Fenton, in a secret remorse no one but
+Dr. Talbot understood. "But who could have believed it of men who were
+once so prosperous? Are you sure that one of them has gnawed this bread?
+Could it not have been--"
+
+"These are the marks of human teeth," observed Knapp, who was examining
+the loaf carefully. "I declare, it makes me very uncomfortable,
+notwithstanding it's in the line of regular experiences." And he laid
+the bread down hurriedly.
+
+Meantime, Mr. Fenton, who had been bending over another portion of the
+table, turned and walked away to the window.
+
+"I am glad they are dead," he muttered. "They have at least shared the
+fate of their victims. Take a look under that old handkerchief lying
+beside the newspaper, Knapp."
+
+The detective did so. A three-edged dagger, with a curiously wrought
+handle, met his eye. It had blood dried on its point, and was, as all
+could see, the weapon with which Agatha Webb had been killed.
+
+
+
+
+XYI
+
+LOCAL TALENT AT WORK
+
+
+"Gentlemen, we have reached the conclusion of this business sooner than
+I expected," announced Knapp. "If you will give me just ten minutes I
+will endeavour to find that large remainder of money we have every
+reason to think is hidden away in this house."
+
+"Stop a minute," said the coroner. "Let me see what book John is holding
+so tightly. Why," he exclaimed, drawing it out and giving it one glance,
+"it is a Bible."
+
+Laying it reverently down he met the detective's astonished glance and
+seriously remarked:
+
+"There is some incongruity between the presence of this book and the
+deed we believe to have been performed down yonder."
+
+"None at all," quoth the detective. "It was not the man in the chair,
+but the one on the floor, who made use of that dagger. But I wish you
+had left it to me to remove that book, sir."
+
+"You? and why? What difference would it have made?"
+
+"I would have noticed between what pages his finger was inserted.
+Nothing like making yourself acquainted with every detail in a case like
+this."
+
+Dr. Talbot gazed wistfully at the book. He would have liked to know
+himself on what especial passage his friend's eyes had last rested.
+
+"I will stand aside," said he, "and hear your report when you are done."
+
+The detective had already begun his investigations.
+
+"Here is a spot of blood," said he. "See! on the right trouser leg of
+the one you call James. This connects him indisputably with the crime in
+which this dagger was used. No signs of violence on his body. She was
+the only one to receive a blow. His death is the result of God's
+providence."
+
+"Or man's neglect," muttered the constable.
+
+"There is no money in any of their pockets, or on either wasted figure,"
+the detective continued, after a few minutes of silent search. "It must
+be hidden in the room, or--look through that Bible, sirs."
+
+The coroner, glad of an opportunity to do something, took up the book,
+and ran hurriedly through its leaves, then turned it and shook it out
+over the table. Nothing fell out; the bills must be looked for
+elsewhere.
+
+"The furniture is scanty," Abel observed, with an inquiring look about
+him.
+
+"Very, very scanty," assented the constable, still with that biting
+remorse at his heart.
+
+"There is nothing in this cupboard," pursued the detective, swinging
+open a door in the wall, "but a set of old china more or less nicked."
+
+Abel started. An old recollection had come up. Some weeks before, he had
+been present when James had made an effort to sell this set. They were
+all in Warner's store, and James Zabel (he could see his easy attitude
+yet, and hear the off-hand tones with which he tried to carry the affair
+off) had said, quite as if he had never thought of it before: "By the
+by, I have a set of china at the house which came over in the Mayflower.
+John likes it, but it has grown to be an eyesore to me, and if you hear
+of anybody who has a fancy for such things, send him up to the cottage.
+I will let it go for a song." Nobody answered, and James disappeared. It
+was the last time, Abel remembered, that he had been seen about town.
+
+"I can't stand it," cried the lad. "I can't stand it. If they died of
+hunger I must know it. I am going to take a look at their larder." And
+before anyone could stop him he dashed to the rear of the house.
+
+The constable would have liked to follow him, but he looked about the
+walls of the room instead. John and James had been fond of pictures and
+had once indulged their fancy to the verge of extravagance, but there
+were no pictures on the walls now, nor was there so much as a
+candlestick on the empty and dust-covered mantel. Only on a bracket in
+one corner there was a worthless trinket made out of cloves and beads
+which had doubtless been given them by some country damsel in their
+young bachelor days. But nothing of any value anywhere, and Mr. Fenton
+felt that he now knew why they had made so many visits to Boston at one
+time, and why they always returned with a thinner valise than they took
+away. He was still dwelling on the thought of the depths of misery to
+which highly respectable folks can sink without the knowledge of the
+nearest neighbours, when Abel came back looking greatly troubled.
+
+"It is the saddest thing I ever heard of," said he. "These men must have
+been driven wild by misery. This room is sumptuous in comparison to the
+ones at the back; and as for the pantry, there is not even a scrap there
+a mouse could eat. I struck a match and glanced into the flour barrel.
+It looked as if it had been licked. I declare, it makes a fellow feel
+sick."
+
+The constable, with a shudder, withdrew towards the door.
+
+"The atmosphere here is stifling," said he. "I must have a breath of
+out-door air."
+
+But he was not destined to any such immediate relief. As he moved down
+the hall the form of a man darkened the doorway and he heard an anxious
+voice exclaim:
+
+"Ah, Mr. Fenton, is that you? I have been looking for you everywhere."
+
+It was Sweetwater, the young man who had previously shown so much
+anxiety to be of service to the coroner.
+
+Mr. Fenton looked displeased.
+
+"And how came you to find me here?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, some men saw you take this road, and I guessed the rest."
+
+"Oh, ah, very good. And what do you want, Sweetwater?"
+
+The young man, who was glowing with pride and all alive with an
+enthusiasm which he had kept suppressed for hours, slipped up to the
+constable and whispered in his ear: "I have made a discovery, sir. I
+know you will excuse the presumption, but I couldn't bring myself to
+keep quiet and follow in that other fellow's wake. I had to make
+investigations on my own account, and--and"--stammering in his eagerness
+"they have been successful, sir. I have found out who was the murderer
+of Agatha Webb."
+
+The constable, compassionating the disappointment in store for him,
+shook his head, with a solemn look toward the room from which he had
+just emerged. "You are late, Sweetwater," said he. "We have found him
+out ourselves, and he lies there, dead."
+
+It was dark where they stood and Sweetwater's back was to the moonlight,
+so that the blank look which must have crossed his face at this
+announcement was lost upon the constable. But his consternation was
+evident from the way he thrust out either hand to steady himself against
+the walls of the narrow passageway, and Mr. Fenton was not at all
+surprised to hear him stammer out:
+
+"Dead! He! Whom do you mean by he, Mr. Fenton?"
+
+"The man in whose house we now are," returned the other. "Is there
+anyone else who can be suspected of this crime?"
+
+Sweetwater gave a gulp that seemed to restore him to himself.
+
+"There are two men living here, both very good men, I have heard. Which
+of them do you mean, and why do you think that either John or James
+Zabel killed Agatha Webb?"
+
+For reply Mr. Fenton drew him toward the room in which such a great
+heart-tragedy had taken place.
+
+"Look," said he, "and see what can happen in a Christian land, in the
+midst of Christian people living not fifty rods away. These men are
+dead, Sweetwater, dead from hunger. The loaf of bread you see there came
+too late. It was bought with a twenty-dollar bill, taken from Agatha
+Webb's cupboard drawer."
+
+Sweetwater, to whom the whole scene seemed like some horrible nightmare,
+stared at the figure of James lying on the floor, and then at the figure
+of John seated at the table, as if his mind had failed to take in the
+constable's words.
+
+"Dead!" he murmured. "Dead! John and James Zabel. What will happen next?
+Is the town under a curse?" And he fell on his knees before the
+prostrate form of James, only to start up again as he saw the eyes of
+Knapp resting on him.
+
+"Ah," he muttered, "the detective!" And after giving the man from Boston
+a close look he turned toward Mr. Fenton.
+
+"You said something about this good old man having killed Agatha Webb.
+What was it? I was too dazed to take it in."
+
+Mr. Fenton, not understanding the young man's eagerness, but willing
+enough to enlighten him as to the situation, told him what reasons there
+were for ascribing the crime in the Webb cottage to the mad need of
+these starving men. Sweetwater listened with open eyes and confused
+bearing, only controlling himself when his eyes by chance fell upon the
+quiet figure of the detective, now moving softly to and fro through the
+room.
+
+"But why murder when he could have had his loaf for the asking?"
+remonstrated Sweetwater. "Agatha Webb would have gone without a meal any
+time to feed a wandering tramp; how much more to supply the necessities
+of two of her oldest and dearest friends!"
+
+"Yes," remarked Fenton, "but you forget or perhaps never knew that the
+master passion of these men was pride. James Zabel ask for bread! I can
+much sooner imagine him stealing it; yes, or striking a blow for it, so
+that the blow shut forever the eyes that saw him do it."
+
+"You don't believe your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?"
+Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he spoke, and
+his manner was almost solemn. "You must not take it for granted," he
+went on, his green eyes twinkling with a curious light, "that all wisdom
+comes from Boston. We in Sutherlandtown have some sparks of it, if they
+have not yet been recognised. You are satisfied"--here he addressed
+himself to Knapp--"that the blow which killed Agatha Webb was struck by
+this respectable old man?"
+
+Knapp smiled as if a child had asked him this question; but he answered
+him good-humouredly enough.
+
+"You see the dagger lying here with which the deed was done, and you see
+the bread that was bought from Loton with a twenty-dollar bill of Agatha
+Webb's money. In these you can read my answer."
+
+"Good evidence," acknowledged Sweetwater--"very good evidence,
+especially when we remember that Mr. Crane met an old man rushing from
+her gateway with something glittering in his hand. I never was so beat
+in my life, and yet--and yet--if I could have a few minutes of quiet
+thought all by myself I am certain I could show you that there is more
+to this matter than you think. Indeed, I know that there is, but I do
+not like to give my reasons till I have conquered the difficulties
+presented by these men having had the twenty-dollar bill."
+
+"What fellow is this?" suddenly broke in Knapp.
+
+"A fiddler, a nobody," quietly whispered Mr. Fenton in his ear.
+
+Sweetwater heard him and changed in a twinkling from the uncertain,
+half-baffled, wholly humble person they had just seen, to a man with a
+purpose strong enough to make him hold up his head with the best.
+
+"I am a musician," he admitted, "and I play on the violin for money
+whenever the occasion offers, something which you will yet congratulate
+yourselves upon if you wish to reach the root of this mysterious and
+dastardly crime. But that I am a nobody I deny, and I even dare to hope
+that you will agree with me in this estimate of myself before this very
+night is over. Only give me an opportunity for considering this subject,
+and the permission to walk for a few minutes about this house."
+
+"That is my prerogative," protested the detective firmly, but without
+any display of feeling. "I am the man employed to pick up whatever clews
+the place may present."
+
+"Have you picked up all that are to be found in this room?" asked
+Sweetwater calmly.
+
+Knapp shrugged his shoulders. He was very well satisfied with himself.
+
+"Then give me a chance," prayed Sweetwater. "Mr. Fenton," he urged more
+earnestly, "I am not the fool you take me for. I feel, I know, I have a
+genius for this kind of thing, and though I am not prepossessing to look
+at, and though I do play the fiddle, I swear there are depths to this
+affair which none of you have as yet sounded. Sirs, where are the nine
+hundred and eighty dollars in bills which go to make up the clean
+thousand that was taken from the small drawer at the back of Agatha
+Webb's cupboard?"
+
+"They are in some secret hiding-place, no doubt, which we will presently
+come upon as we go through the house," answered Knapp.
+
+"Umph! Then I advise you to put your hand on them as soon as possible,"
+retorted Sweetwater. "I will confine myself to going over the ground you
+have already investigated." And with a sudden ignoring of the others'
+presence, which could only have sprung from an intense egotism or from
+an overwhelming belief in his own theory, he began an investigation of
+the room that threw the other's more commonplace efforts entirely in the
+shade.
+
+Knapp, with a slight compression of his lips, which was the sole
+expression of anger he ever allowed himself, took up his hat and made
+his bow to Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I see," said he, "that the sympathy of those present is with local
+talent. Let local talent work, then, sir, and when you feel the need of
+a man of training and experience, send to the tavern on the docks, where
+I will be found till I am notified that my services are no longer
+required."
+
+"No, no!" protested Mr. Fenton. "This boy's enthusiasm will soon
+evaporate. Let him fuss away if he will. His petty business need not
+interrupt us."
+
+"But he understands himself," whispered Knapp. "I should think he had
+been on our own force for years."
+
+"All the more reason to see what he's up to. Wait, if only to satisfy
+your curiosity. I shan't let many minutes go by before I pull him up."
+
+Knapp, who was really of a cold and unimpressionable temperament,
+refrained from further argument, and confined himself to watching the
+young man, whose movements seemed to fascinate him.
+
+"Astonishing!" Mr. Fenton heard him mutter to himself. "He's more like
+an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound himself out and
+in through that room, seeing everything that came under his eye, was a
+sight well worth any professional's attention. Pausing before the dead
+man on the floor, he held the lantern close to the white, worn face.
+"Ha!" said he, picking something from the long beard, "here's a crumb of
+that same bread. Did you see that, Mr. Knapp?"
+
+The question was so sudden and so sharp that the detective came near
+replying to it; but he bethought himself, and said nothing.
+
+"That settles which of the two gnawed the loaf," continued Sweetwater.
+
+The next minute he was hovering over the still more pathetic figure of
+John, sitting in the chair.
+
+"Sad! Sad!" he murmured.
+
+Suddenly he laid his finger on a small rent in the old man's faded vest.
+"You saw this, of course," said he, with a quick glance over his
+shoulder at the silent detective.
+
+No answer, as before.
+
+"It's a new slit," declared the officious youth, looking closer,
+"and--yes--there's blood on its edges. Here, take the lantern, Mr.
+Fenton, I must see how the skin looks underneath. Oh, gentlemen, no
+shirt! The poorest dockhand has a shirt! Brocaded vest and no shirt; but
+he's past our pity now. Ah, only a bruise over the heart. Sirs, what did
+you make out of this?"
+
+As none of them had even seen it, Knapp was not the only one to remain
+silent.
+
+"Shall I tell you what I make out of it?" said the lad, rising hurriedly
+from the floor, which he had as hurriedly examined. "This old man has
+tried to take his life with the dagger already wet with the blood of
+Agatha Webb. But his arm was too feeble. The point only pierced the
+vest, wiping off a little blood in its passage, then the weapon fell
+from his hand and struck the floor, as you will see by the fresh dent in
+the old board I am standing on. Have you anything to say against these
+simple deductions?"
+
+Again the detective opened his lips and might have spoken, but
+Sweetwater gave him no chance.
+
+"Where is the letter he was writing?" he demanded. "Have any of you seen
+any paper lying about here?"
+
+"He was not writing," objected Knapp; "he was reading; reading in that
+old Bible you see there."
+
+Sweetwater caught up the book, looked it over, and laid it down, with
+that same curious twinkle of his eye they had noted in him before.
+
+"He was writing," he insisted. "See, here is his pencil." And he showed
+them the battered end of a small lead-pencil lying on the edge of his
+chair.
+
+"Writing at some time," admitted Knapp.
+
+"Writing just before the deed," insisted Sweetwater. "Look at the
+fingers of his right hand. They have not moved since the pencil fell out
+of them."
+
+"The letter, or whatever it was, shall be looked for," declared the
+constable.
+
+Sweetwater bowed, his eyes roving restlessly into every nook and corner
+of the room.
+
+"James was the stronger of the two," he remarked; "yet there is no
+evidence that he made any attempt at suicide."
+
+"How do you know that it was suicide John attempted?" asked someone.
+"Why might not the dagger have fallen from James's hand in an effort to
+kill his brother?"
+
+"Because the dent in the floor would have been to the right of the chair
+instead of to the left," he returned. "Besides, James's hand would not
+have failed so utterly, since he had strength to pick up the weapon
+afterward and lay it where you found it."
+
+"True, we found it lying on the table," observed Abel, scratching his
+head in forced admiration of his old schoolmate.
+
+"All easy, very easy," Sweetwater remarked, seeing the wonder in every
+eye. "Matters like those are for a child's reading, but what is
+difficult, and what I find hard to come by, is how the twenty-dollar
+bill got into the old man's hand. He found it here, but how--"
+
+"Found it here? How do you know that?"
+
+"Gentlemen, that is a point I will make clear to you later, when I have
+laid my hand on a certain clew I am anxiously seeking. You know this is
+new work for me and I have to advance warily. Did any of you gentlemen,
+when you came into this room, detect the faintest odour of any kind of
+perfume?"
+
+"Perfume?" echoed Abel, with a glance about the musty apartment. "Rats,
+rather."
+
+Sweetwater shook his head with a discouraged air, but suddenly
+brightened, and stepping quickly across the floor, paused at one of the
+windows. It was that one in which the shade had been drawn.
+
+Peering at this shade he gave a grunt.
+
+"You must excuse me for a minute," said he; "I have not found what I
+wanted in this room and now must look outside for it. Will someone bring
+the lantern?"
+
+"I will," volunteered Knapp, with grim good humour. Indeed, the
+situation was almost ludicrous to him.
+
+"Bring it round the house, then, to the ground under this window,"
+ordered Sweetwater, without giving any sign that he noticed or even
+recognised the other's air of condescension. "And, gentlemen, please
+don't follow. It's footsteps I am after, and the fewer we make
+ourselves, the easier will it be for me to establish the clew I am
+after."
+
+Mr. Fenton stared. What had got into the fellow?
+
+The lantern gone, the room resumed its former appearance.
+
+Abel, who had been much struck by Sweetwater's mysterious manoeuvres,
+drew near Dr. Talbot and whispered in his ear: "We might have done
+without that fellow from Boston."
+
+To which the coroner replied:
+
+"Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Sweetwater has not yet proved his case;
+let us wait till he explains himself." Then, turning to the constable,
+he showed him an old-fashioned miniature, which he had found lying on
+James's breast, when he made his first examination. It was set with
+pearls and backed with gold and was worth many meals, for the lack of
+which its devoted owner had perished.
+
+"Agatha Webb's portrait," explained Talbot, "or rather Agatha
+Gilchrist's; for I presume this was painted when she and James were
+lovers."
+
+"She was certainly a beauty," commented Fenton, as he bent over the
+miniature in the moonlight. "I do not wonder she queened it over the
+whole country."
+
+"He must have worn it where I found it for the last forty years," mused
+the doctor. "And yet men say that love is a fleeting passion. Well,
+after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it impossible to
+believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one so fondly
+remembered. Sweetwater's instinct was truer than Knapp's."
+
+"Or ours," muttered Fenton.
+
+"Gentlemen," interposed Abel, pointing to a bright spot that just then
+made its appearance in the dark outline of the shade before alluded to,
+"do you see that hole? It was the sight of that prick in the shade which
+sent Sweetwater outside looking for footprints. See! Now his eye is to
+it" (as the bright spot became suddenly eclipsed). "We are under
+examination, sirs, and the next thing we will hear is that he's not the
+only person who's been peering into this room through that hole."
+
+He was so far right that the first words of Sweetwater on his
+re-entrance were: "It's all O. K., sirs. I have found my missing clew.
+James Zabel was not the only person who came up here from the Webb
+cottage last night." And turning to Knapp, who was losing some of his
+supercilious manner, he asked, with significant emphasis: "If, of the
+full amount stolen from Agatha Webb, you found twenty dollars in the
+possession of one man and nine hundred and eighty dollars in the
+possession of another, upon which of the two would you fix as the
+probable murderer of the good woman?"
+
+"Upon him who held the lion's share, of course."
+
+"Very good; then it is not in this cottage you will find the person most
+wanted. You must look--But there! first let me give you a glimpse of the
+money. Is there anyone here ready to accompany me in search of it? I
+shall have to take him a quarter of a mile farther up-hill."
+
+"You have seen the money? You know where it is?" asked Dr. Talbot and
+Mr. Fenton in one breath.
+
+"Gentlemen, I can put my hand on it in ten minutes."
+
+At this unexpected and somewhat startling statement Knapp looked at Dr.
+Talbot and Dr. Talbot looked at the constable, but only the last spoke.
+
+"That is saying a good deal. But no matter. I am willing to credit the
+assertion. Lead on, Sweetwater; I'll go with you."
+
+Sweetwater seemed to grow an inch taller in his satisfied vanity. "And
+Dr. Talbot?" he suggested.
+
+But the coroner's duty held him to the house and he decided not to
+accompany them. Knapp and Abel, however, yielded to the curiosity which
+had been aroused by these extraordinary promises, and presently the four
+men mentioned started on their small expedition up the hill.
+
+Sweetwater headed the procession. He had admonished silence, and his
+wish in this regard was so well carried out that they looked more like a
+group of spectres moving up the moon-lighted road, than a party of eager
+and impatient men. Not till they turned into the main thoroughfare did
+anyone speak. Then Abel could no longer restrain himself and he cried
+out:
+
+"We are going to Mr. Sutherland's."
+
+But Sweetwater quickly undeceived him.
+
+"No," said he, "only into the woods opposite his house."
+
+But at this Mr. Fenton drew him back.
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?" he said. "Have you really seen this money
+and is it concealed in this forest?"
+
+"I have seen the money," Sweetwater solemnly declared, "and it is hidden
+in these woods."
+
+Mr. Fenton dropped his arm, and they moved on till their way was blocked
+by the huge trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+"It is here we are to look," cried Sweetwater, pausing and motioning
+Knapp to turn his lantern on the spot where the shadows lay thickest.
+"Now, what do you see?" he asked.
+
+"The upturned roots of a great tree," said Mr. Fenton.
+
+"And under them?"
+
+"A hole, or, rather, the entrance to one."
+
+"Very good; the money is in that hole. Pull it out, Mr. Fenton."
+
+The assurance with which Sweetwater spoke was such that Mr. Fenton at
+once stooped and plunged his hand into the hole. But when, after a
+hurried search, he drew it out again, there was nothing in it; the place
+was empty. Sweetwater stared at Mr. Fenton amazed.
+
+"Don't you find anything?" he asked. "Isn't there a roll of bills in
+that hole?"
+
+"No," was the gloomy answer, after a renewed attempt and a second
+disappointment. "There is nothing to be found here. You are labouring
+under some misapprehension, Sweetwater."
+
+"But I can't be. I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person who
+hid it there. Let me look for it, constable. I will not give up the
+search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy."
+
+Kneeling down in Mr. Fenton's place, he thrust his hand into the hole.
+On either side of him peered the faces of Mr. Fenton and Knapp. (Abel
+had slipped away at a whisper from Sweetwater.) They were lit with a
+similar expression of anxious interest and growing doubt. His own
+countenance was a study of conflicting and by no means cheerful
+emotions. Suddenly his aspect changed. With a quick twist of his lithe,
+if awkward, body, he threw himself lengthwise on the ground, and began
+tearing at the earth inside the hole, like a burrowing animal.
+
+"I cannot be mistaken. Nothing will make me believe it is not here. It
+has simply been buried deeper than I thought. Ah! What did I tell you?
+See here! And see here!"
+
+Bringing his hands into the full blaze of the light, he showed two rolls
+of new, crisp bills.
+
+"They were lying under half a foot of earth," said he, "but if they had
+been buried as deep as Grannie Fuller's well, I'd have unearthed them."
+
+Meantime Mr. Fenton was rapidly counting one roll and Knapp the other.
+The result was an aggregate sum of nine hundred and eighty dollars, just
+the amount Sweetwater had promised to show them.
+
+"A good stroke of business," cried Mr. Fenton. "And now, Sweetwater,
+whose is the hand that buried this treasure? Nothing is to be gained by
+preserving silence on this point any longer."
+
+Instantly the young man became very grave. With a quick glance around
+which seemed to embrace the secret recesses of the forest rather than
+the eager faces bending towards him, he lowered his voice and quietly
+said:
+
+"The hand that buried this money under the roots of this old tree is the
+same which you saw pointing downward at the spot of blood in Agatha
+Webb's front yard."
+
+"You do not mean Amabel Page!" cried Mr. Fenton, with natural surprise.
+
+"Yes, I do; and I am glad it is you who have named her."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE SLIPPERS, THE FLOWER, AND WHAT SWEETWATER MADE OF THEM
+
+
+A half-hour later these men were all closeted with Dr. Talbot in the
+Zabel kitchen. Abel had rejoined them, and Sweetwater was telling his
+story with great earnestness and no little show of pride.
+
+"Gentlemen, when I charge a young woman of respectable appearance and
+connections with such a revolting crime as murder, I do so with good
+reason, as I hope presently to make plain to you all.
+
+"Gentlemen, on the night and at the hour Agatha Webb was killed, I was
+playing with four other musicians in Mr. Sutherland's hallway. From the
+place where I sat I could see what went on in the parlour and also have
+a clear view of the passageway leading down to the garden door. As the
+dancing was going on in the parlour I naturally looked that way most,
+and this is how I came to note the eagerness with which, during the
+first part of the evening, Frederick Sutherland and Amabel Page came
+together in the quadrilles and country dances. Sometimes she spoke as
+she passed him, and sometimes he answered, but not always, although he
+never failed to show he was pleased with her or would have been if
+something--perhaps it was his lack of confidence in her, sirs--had not
+stood in the way of a perfect understanding. She seemed to notice that
+he did not always respond, and after a while showed less inclination to
+speak herself, though she did not fail to watch him, and that intently.
+But she did not watch him any more closely than I did her, though I
+little thought at the time what would come of my espionage. She wore a
+white dress and white shoes, and was as coquettish and seductive as the
+evil one makes them. Suddenly I missed her. She was in the middle of the
+dance one minute and entirely out of it the next. Naturally I supposed
+her to have slipped aside with Frederick Sutherland, but he was still in
+sight, looking so pale and so abstracted, however, I was sure the young
+miss was up to some sort of mischief. But what mischief? Watching and
+waiting, but no longer confining my attention to the parlour, I
+presently espied her stealing along the passageway I have mentioned,
+carrying a long cloak which she rolled up and hid behind the open door.
+Then she came back humming a gay little song which didn't deceive me for
+a moment. 'Good!' thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join
+company.' And they did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again
+caught sight of her stealthy white figure in that distant doorway.
+Seizing the cloak, she wrapped it round her, and with just one furtive
+look backwards, seen, I warrant, by no one but myself, she vanished in
+the outside dark. 'Now to note who follows her!' But nobody followed
+her. This struck me as strange, and having a natural love for detective
+work, in spite of my devotion to the arts, I consulted the clock at the
+foot of the stairs, and noting that it was half-past eleven, scribbled
+the hour on the margin of my music, with the intention of seeing how
+long my lady would linger outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours
+before I saw her face again. How she got back into the house I do not
+know. It was not by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at
+or near half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw
+her descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from
+it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with
+Frederick again. They were dancing, but not with the same spirit as
+before, and even while I watched them they separated. Now where was Miss
+Page during those two long hours? I think I know, and it is time I
+unburdened myself to the police.
+
+"But first I must inform you of a small discovery I made while the dance
+was still in progress. Miss Page had descended the stairs, as I have
+said, from what I now know to have been her own room. Her dress was, in
+all respects, the same as before, with one exception--her white slippers
+had been exchanged for blue ones. This seemed to show that they had been
+rendered unserviceable, or at least unsightly, by the walk she had
+taken. This in itself was not remarkable nor would her peculiar escapade
+have made more than a temporary impression upon my curiosity if she had
+not afterward shown in my presence such an unaccountable and
+extraordinary interest in the murder which had taken place in the town
+below during the very hours of her absence from Mr. Sutherland's ball.
+This, in consideration of her sex, and her being a stranger to the
+person attacked, was remarkable, and, though perhaps I had no business
+to do what I did, I no sooner saw the house emptied of master and
+servants than I stole softly back, and climbed the stairs to her room.
+Had no good followed this intrusion, which, I am quite ready to
+acknowledge, was a trifle presumptuous, I would have held my peace in
+regard to it; but as I did make a discovery there, which has, as I
+believe, an important bearing on this affair, I have forced myself to
+mention it. The lights in the house having been left burning, I had no
+difficulty in finding her apartment. I knew it by the folderols
+scattered about. But I did not stop to look at them. I was on a search
+for her slippers, and presently came upon them, thrust behind an old
+picture in the dimmest corner of the room. Taking them down, I examined
+them closely. They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut
+and rubbed. In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the young
+lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put them into my
+pocket, and carried them to my own home. Abel has just been for them, so
+you can see them for yourselves, and if your judgment coincides with
+mine, you will discover something more on them than mud."
+
+Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man's confessed
+theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned them
+over. They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and soiled, and
+showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or two of a bright red
+colour, quite unmistakable in its character.
+
+"Blood," declared the coroner. "There is no doubt about it. Miss Page
+was where blood was spilled last night."
+
+"I have another proof against her," Sweetwater went on, in full
+enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had
+barely recognised his existence. "When, full of the suspicion that Miss
+Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at Mrs. Webb's
+house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I hastened down to the
+scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman issuing from the front
+gate. She had just been making herself conspicuous by pointing out a
+trail of blood on the grass plot. Dr. Talbot, who was there, will
+remember how she looked on that occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how
+Abel here looked, or so much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy
+had stuck in his buttonhole."
+
+"--me if I did!" ejaculated the coroner.
+
+"Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case. He had found
+it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy's skirts, and as soon
+as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and keep it, for,
+gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like of which can only be
+found in this town in Mr. Sutherland's conservatory. I remember seeing
+such a one in Miss Page's hair, early in the evening. Have you that
+flower about you, Abel?"
+
+Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the doctor
+and to Mr. Fenton. It was withered and faded in hue, but it was
+unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.
+
+"It was lying near Batsy," explained Abel. "I drew Mr. Fenton's
+attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it."
+
+"I will make up for my indifference now," said that gentleman.
+
+"I should have been shown that flower," put in Knapp.
+
+"So you should," acknowledged Sweetwater, "but when the detective
+instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals;
+besides, I was otherwise occupied. I had Miss Page to watch. Happily for
+me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to leave town till
+after the inquest, and so my task became easy. This whole day I have
+spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland's house, and at nightfall I was
+rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged walk in the garden by a
+hurried dash into the woods opposite. I followed her and noted carefully
+all that she did. As she had just seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss
+Halliday disappear up the road together, she probably felt free to do as
+she liked, for she walked very directly to the old tree we have just
+come from, and kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath
+something which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we
+associate with fresh bank-notes. I had approached her as near as I
+dared, and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again
+and plunged both hands into the hole. She remained in this position so
+long that I did not know what to make of it. But she rose at last and
+turned toward home, laughing to herself in a wicked but pleased way that
+did not tend to make me think any more of her. The moon was shining very
+brightly by this time and I could readily perceive every detail of her
+person. She held her hands out before her and shook them more than once
+as she trod by me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is
+why I was so confident we should find the money still in the hole.
+
+"When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the
+court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I learned
+where to look for you. But at last a fellow at Brighton's corner said he
+saw four men go by on their way to Zabel's cottage, and on the chance of
+finding you amongst them, I turned down here. The shock you gave me in
+announcing that you had discovered the murderer of Agatha Webb knocked
+me over for a moment, but now I hope you realise, as I do, that this
+wretched man could never have had an active hand in her death,
+notwithstanding the fact that one of the stolen bills has been found in
+his possession. For, and here is my great point, the proof is not
+wanting that Miss Page visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb's during
+her famous escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I
+have just been searching. A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very
+plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to compare it
+with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it to have been made
+by the foot that wore that slipper."
+
+The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up to
+Sweetwater's eager face, showed a decided disposition to make the
+experiment thus suggested. But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full of the
+Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question:
+
+"But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel
+trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs. Webb's
+cupboard? Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give him that
+money?"
+
+"You ask ME that, Mr. Fenton. Do you wish to know what _I_ think of the
+connection between these two great tragedies?"
+
+"Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater."
+
+"Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the blame of
+her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old men. She is
+sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so; and circumstances
+certainly favoured her. Shall I show how?"
+
+Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head. The Boston detective
+was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would prove the case.
+
+"Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from inanition;
+this their condition amply shows. He was weak himself, but John was
+weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out to ask a crumb of
+bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly--for I have heard some whispers of
+an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at his yearly merry-making and
+so obtain in a natural way the bite for himself and brother he perhaps
+had not the courage to ask for outright. But death had been in the Webb
+cottage before him, which awful circumstance, acting on his already
+weakened nerves, drove him half insane from the house and sent him
+wandering blindly about the streets for a good half-hour before he
+reappeared in his own house. How do I know this? From a very simple
+fact. Abel here has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane
+remembers the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down
+the main street from visiting old widow Walker. Fortunately he does, for
+the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found himself
+humming it over more than once since. Well, that waltz was played by us
+at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of the encounter at
+Mrs. Webb's gateway pretty accurately. But, as you will soon see, it was
+ten minutes to one before James Zabel knocked at Loton's door. How do I
+know this? By the same method of reasoning by which I determined the
+time of Mr. Crane's encounter. Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the
+music played that night, and had all her windows open in order to hear
+it, and she says we were playing 'Money Musk' when that knocking came to
+disturb her. Now, gentlemen, we played 'Money Musk' just before we were
+called out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can
+see just how my calculation was made. Thirty-five minutes, then, passed
+between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs. Webb's gateway
+and that in which he appeared at Loton's bakery, demanding a loaf of
+bread, and offering in exchange one of the bills which had been stolen
+from the murdered woman's drawer. Thirty-five minutes! And he and his
+brother were starving. Does it look, then, as if that money was in his
+possession when he left Mrs. Webb's house? Would any man who felt the
+pangs of hunger as he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food
+before his eyes, allow thirty-five minutes to elapse before he made use
+of the money that rightfully or wrongfully had come into his hand? No;
+and so I say that he did not have it when Mr. Crane met him. That,
+instead of committing crime to obtain it, he found it in his own home,
+lying on his table, when, after his frenzied absence, he returned to
+tell his dreadful news to the brother he had left behind him. But how
+did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen, remember the footprints under the
+window. Amabel Page brought it. Having seen or perhaps met this old man
+roaming in or near the Webb cottage during the time she was there
+herself, she conceived the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the
+crime she had herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from
+one so crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging
+over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that he
+was there alone and asleep, and, creeping in by the front door, laid on
+the table beside him the twenty-dollar bill and the bloody dagger with
+which she had just slain Agatha Webb. Then she stole out again, and in
+twenty minutes more was leading the dance in Mr. Sutherland's parlour."
+
+"Well reasoned!" murmured Abel, expecting the others to echo him. But,
+though Mr. Fenton and Dr. Talbot looked almost convinced, they said
+nothing, while Knapp, of course, was quiet as an oyster.
+
+Sweetwater, with an easy smile calculated to hide his disappointment,
+went on as if perfectly satisfied.
+
+"Meanwhile John awakes, sees the dagger, and thinks to end his misery
+with it, but finds himself too feeble. The cut in his vest, the dent in
+the floor, prove this, but if you call for further proof, a little fact,
+which some, if not all, of you seem to have overlooked, will amply
+satisfy you that this one at least of my conclusions is correct. Open
+the Bible, Abel; open it, not to shake it for what will never fall from
+between its leaves, but to find in the Bible itself the lines I have
+declared to you he wrote as a dying legacy with that tightly clutched
+pencil. Have you found them?"
+
+"No," was Abel's perplexed retort; "I cannot see any sign of writing on
+flyleaf or margin."
+
+"Are those the only blank places in the sacred book? Search the leaves
+devoted to the family record. Now! what do you find there?"
+
+Knapp, who was losing some of his indifference, drew nearer and read for
+himself the scrawl which now appeared to every eye on the discoloured
+page which Abel here turned uppermost.
+
+"Almost illegible," he said; "one can just make out these words:
+'Forgive me, James--tried to use dagger--found lying--but hand
+wouldn't--dying without--don't grieve--true men--haven't disgraced
+ourselves--God bless--' That is all."
+
+"The effort must have overcome him," resumed Sweetwater in a voice from
+which he carefully excluded all signs of secret triumph, "and when James
+returned, as he did a few minutes later, he was evidently unable to ask
+questions, even if John was in a condition to answer them. But the
+fallen dagger told its own story, for James picked it up and put it back
+on the table, and it was at this minute he saw, what John had not, the
+twenty-dollar bill lying there with its promise of life and comfort.
+Hope revives; he catches up the bill, flies down to Loton's, procures a
+loaf of bread, and comes frantically back, gnawing it as he runs; for
+his own hunger is more than he can endure. Re-entering his brother's
+presence, he rushes forward with the bread. But the relief has come too
+late; John has died in his absence; and James, dizzy with the shock,
+reels back and succumbs to his own misery. Gentlemen, have you anything
+to say in contradiction to these various suppositions?"
+
+For a moment Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and even Knapp stood silent; then
+the last remarked, with pardonable dryness:
+
+"All this is ingenious, but, unfortunately, it is up set by a little
+fact which you yourself have overlooked. Have you examined attentively
+the dagger of which you have so often spoken, Mr. Sweetwater?"
+
+"Not as I would like to, but I noticed it had blood on its edge, and was
+of the shape and size necessary to inflict the wound from which Mrs.
+Webb died."
+
+"Very good, but there is something else of interest to be observed on
+it. Fetch it, Abel."
+
+Abel, hurrying from the room, soon brought back the weapon in question.
+Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment disturbing him, took it
+eagerly and studied it very closely. But he only shook his head.
+
+"Bring it nearer to the light," suggested Knapp, "and examine the little
+scroll near the top of the handle."
+
+Sweetwater did so, and at once changed colour. In the midst of the
+scroll were two very small but yet perfectly distinct letters; they were
+J. Z.
+
+"How did Amabel Page come by a dagger marked with the Zabel initials?"
+questioned Knapp. "Do you think her foresight went so far as to provide
+herself with a dagger ostensibly belonging to one of these brothers? And
+then, have you forgotten that when Mr. Crane met the old man at Mrs.
+Webb's gateway he saw in his hand something that glistened? Now what was
+that, if not this dagger?"
+
+Sweetwater was more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge.
+
+"That just shows my lack of experience," he grumbled. "I thought I had
+turned this subject so thoroughly over in my mind that no one could
+bring an objection against it."
+
+Knapp shook his head and smiled. "Young enthusiasts like yourself are
+great at forming theories which well-seasoned men like myself must
+regard as fantastical. However," he went on, "there is no doubt that
+Miss Page was a witness to, even if she has not profited by, the murder
+we have been considering. But, with this palpable proof of the Zabels'
+direct connection with the affair, I would not recommend her arrest as
+yet."
+
+"She should be under surveillance, though," intimated the coroner.
+
+"Most certainly," acquiesced Knapp.
+
+As for Sweetwater, he remained silent till the opportunity came for him
+to whisper apart to Dr. Talbot, when he said:
+
+"For all the palpable proof of which Mr. Knapp speaks--the J. Z. on the
+dagger, and the possibility of this being the object he was seen
+carrying out of Philemon Webb's gate--I maintain that this old man in
+his moribund condition never struck the blow that killed Agatha Webb. He
+hadn't strength enough, even if his lifelong love for her had not been
+sufficient to prevent him."
+
+The coroner looked thoughtful.
+
+"You are right," said he; "he hadn't strength enough. But don't expend
+too much energy in talk. Wait and see what a few direct questions will
+elicit from Miss Page."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+SOME LEADING QUESTIONS
+
+
+Frederick rose early. He had slept but little. The words he had
+overheard at the end of the lot the night before were still ringing in
+his ears. Going down the back stairs, in his anxiety to avoid Amabel, he
+came upon one of the stablemen.
+
+"Been to the village this morning?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir, but Lem has. There's great news there. I wonder if anyone has
+told Mr. Sutherland."
+
+"What news, Jake? I don't think my father is up yet."
+
+"Why, sir, there were two more deaths in town last night--the brothers
+Zabel; and folks do say (Lem heard it a dozen times between the grocery
+and the fish market) that it was one of these old men who killed Mrs.
+Webb. The dagger has been found in their house, and most of the money.
+Why, sir, what's the matter? Are you sick?"
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood upright. He had nearly fallen.
+
+"No; that is, I am not quite myself. So many horrors, Jake. What did
+they die of? You say they are both dead--both?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and it's dreadful to think of, but it was hunger, sir. Bread
+came too late. Both men are mere skeletons to look at. They have kept
+themselves close for weeks now, and nobody knew how bad off they were. I
+don't wonder it upset you, sir. We all feel it a bit, and I just dread
+to tell Mr. Sutherland."
+
+Frederick staggered away. He had never in his life been so near mental
+and physical collapse. At the threshold of the sitting-room door he met
+his father. Mr. Sutherland was looking both troubled and anxious; more
+so, Frederick thought, than when he signed the check for him on the
+previous night. As their eyes met, both showed embarrassment, but
+Frederick, whose nerves had been highly strung by what he had just
+heard, soon controlled himself, and surveying his father with forced
+calmness, began:
+
+"This is dreadful news, sir."
+
+But his father, intent on his own thought, hurriedly interrupted him.
+
+"You told me yesterday that everything was broken off between you and
+Miss Page. Yet I saw you reenter the house together last night a little
+while after I gave you the money you asked for."
+
+"I know, and it must have had a bad appearance. I entreat you, however,
+to believe that this meeting between Miss Page and myself was against my
+wish, and that the relations between us have not been affected by
+anything that passed between us."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, my son. You could not do worse by yourself than
+to return to your old devotion."
+
+"I agree with you, sir." And then, because he could not help it,
+Frederick inquired if he had heard the news.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, evidently startled, asked what news; to which Frederick
+replied:
+
+"The news about the Zabels. They are both dead, sir,--dead from hunger.
+Can you imagine it!"
+
+This was something so different from what his father had expected to
+hear, that he did not take it in at first. When he did, his surprise and
+grief were even greater than Frederick had anticipated. Seeing him so
+affected, Frederick, who thought that the whole truth would be no harder
+to bear than the half, added the suspicion which had been attached to
+the younger one's name, and then stood back, scarcely daring to be a
+witness to the outraged feelings which such a communication could not
+fail to awaken in one of his father's temperament.
+
+But though he thus escaped the shocked look which crossed his father's
+countenance, he could not fail to hear the indignant exclamation which
+burst from his lips, nor help perceiving that it would take more than
+the most complete circumstantial evidence to convince his father of the
+guilt of men he had known and respected for so many years.
+
+For some reason Frederick experienced great relief at this, and was
+bracing himself to meet the fire of questions which his statement must
+necessarily call forth, when the sound of approaching steps drew the
+attention of both towards a party of men coming up the hillside.
+
+Among them was Mr. Courtney, Prosecuting Attorney for the district, and
+as Mr. Sutherland recognised him he sprang forward, saying, "There's
+Courtney; he will explain this."
+
+Frederick followed, anxious and bewildered, and soon had the doubtful
+pleasure of seeing his father enter his study in company with the four
+men considered to be most interested in the elucidation of the Webb
+mystery.
+
+As he was lingering in an undecided mood in the small passageway leading
+up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his shoulder. Looking up,
+he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning toward him over the
+banisters. She was smiling, and, though her face was not without
+evidences of physical languor, there was a charm about her person which
+would have been sufficiently enthralling to him twenty-four hours
+before, but which now caused him such a physical repulsion that he
+started back in the effort to rid his shoulder from her disturbing
+touch.
+
+She frowned. It was an instantaneous expression of displeasure which was
+soon lost in one of her gurgling laughs.
+
+"Is my touch so burdensome?" she demanded. "If the pressure of one
+finger is so unbearable to your sensitive nerves, how will you relish
+the weight of my whole hand?"
+
+There was a fierceness in her tone, a purpose in her look, that for the
+first time in his struggle with her revealed the full depth of her dark
+nature. Shrinking from her appalled, he put up his hand in protest, at
+which she changed again in a twinkling, and with a cautious gesture
+toward the room into which Mr. Sutherland and his friends had
+disappeared, she whispered significantly:
+
+"We may not have another chance to confer together. Understand, then,
+that it will not be necessary for you to tell me, in so many words, that
+you are ready to link your fortunes to mine; the taking off of the ring
+you wear and your slow putting of it on again, in my presence, will be
+understood by me as a token that you have reconsidered your present
+attitude and desire my silence and--myself."
+
+Frederick could not repress a shudder.
+
+For an instant he was tempted to succumb on the spot and have the long
+agony over. Then his horror of the woman rose to such a pitch that he
+uttered an execration, and, turning away from her face, which was
+rapidly growing loathsome to him, he ran out of the passageway into the
+garden, seeing as he ran a persistent vision of himself pulling off the
+ring and putting it back again, under the spell of a look he rebelled
+against even while he yielded to its influence.
+
+"I will not wear a ring, I will not subject myself to the possibility of
+obeying her behest under a sudden stress of fear or fascination," he
+exclaimed, pausing by the well-curb and looking over it at his
+reflection in the water beneath. "If I drop it here I at least lose the
+horror of doing what she suggests, under some involuntary impulse." But
+the thought that the mere absence of the ring from his finger would not
+stand in the way of his going through the motions to which she had just
+given such significance, deterred him from the sacrifice of a valuable
+family jewel, and he left the spot with an air of frenzy such as a man
+displays when he feels himself on the verge of a doom he can neither
+meet nor avert.
+
+As he re-entered the house, he felt himself enveloped in the atmosphere
+of a coming crisis. He could hear voices in the upper hall, and amongst
+them he caught the accents of her he had learned so lately to fear.
+Impelled by something deeper than curiosity and more potent even than
+dread, he hastened toward the stairs. When half-way up, he caught sight
+of Amabel. She was leaning back against the balustrade that ran across
+the upper hall, with her hands gripping the rail on either side of her
+and her face turned toward the five men who had evidently issued from
+Mr. Sutherland's study to interview her.
+
+As her back was to Frederick he could not judge of the expression of
+that face save by the effect it had upon the different men confronting
+her. But to see them was enough. From their looks he could perceive that
+this young girl was in one of her baffling moods, and that from his
+father down, not one of the men present knew what to make of her.
+
+At the sound his feet made, a relaxation took place in her body and she
+lost something of the defiant attitude she had before maintained.
+Presently he heard her voice:
+
+"I am willing to answer any questions you may choose to put to me here;
+but I cannot consent to shut myself in with you in that small study; I
+should suffocate."
+
+Frederick could perceive the looks which passed between the five men
+assembled before her, and was astonished to note that the insignificant
+fellow they called Sweetwater was the first to answer.
+
+"Very well," said he; "if you enjoy the publicity of the open hall, no
+one here will object. Is not that so, gentlemen?"
+
+Her two little fingers, which were turned towards Frederick, ran up and
+down the rail, making a peculiar rasping noise, which for a moment was
+the only sound to be heard. Then Mr. Courtney said:
+
+"How came you to have the handling of the money taken from Agatha Webb's
+private drawer?"
+
+It was a startling question, but it seemed to affect Amabel less than it
+did Frederick. It made him start, but she only turned her head a trifle
+aside, so that the peculiar smile with which she prepared to answer
+could be seen by anyone standing below.
+
+"Suppose you ask something less leading than that, to begin with," she
+suggested, in her high, unmusical voice. "From the searching nature of
+this inquiry, you evidently believe I have information of an important
+character to give you concerning Mrs. Webb's unhappy death. Ask me about
+that; the other question I will answer later."
+
+The aplomb with which this was said, mixed as it was with a feminine
+allurement of more than ordinary subtlety, made Mr. Sutherland frown and
+Dr. Talbot look perplexed, but it did not embarrass Mr. Courtney, who
+made haste to respond in his dryest accents:
+
+"Very well, I am not particular as to what you answer first. A flower
+worn by you at the dance was found near Batsy's skirts, before she was
+lifted up that morning. Can you explain this, or, rather, will you?"
+
+"You are not obliged to, you know," put in Mr. Sutherland, with his
+inexorable sense of justice. "Still, if you would, it might rob these
+gentlemen of suspicions you certainly cannot wish them to entertain."
+
+"What I say," she remarked slowly, "will be as true to the facts as if I
+stood here on my oath. I can explain how a flower from my hair came to
+be in Mrs. Webb's house, but not how it came to be found under Batsy's
+feet. That someone else must clear up." Her little finger, lifted from
+the rail, pointed toward Frederick, but no one saw this, unless it was
+that gentleman himself. "I wore a purple orchid in my hair that night,
+and there would be nothing strange in its being afterward picked up in
+Mrs. Webb's house, because I was in that house at or near the time she
+was murdered."
+
+"You in that house?"
+
+"Yes, as far as the ground floor; no farther." Here the little finger
+stopped pointing. "I am ready to tell you about it, sirs, and only
+regret I have delayed doing so so long, but I wished to be sure it was
+necessary. Your presence here and your first question show that it is."
+
+There was suavity in her tone now, not unmixed with candour. Sweetwater
+did not seem to relish this, for he moved uneasily and lost a shade of
+his self-satisfied attitude. He had still to be made acquainted with all
+the ins and outs of this woman's remarkable nature.
+
+"We are waiting," suggested Dr. Talbot.
+
+She turned to face this new speaker, and Frederick was relieved from the
+sight of her tantalising smile.
+
+"I will tell my story simply," said she, "with the simple suggestion
+that you believe me; otherwise you will make a mistake. While I was
+resting from a dance the other night, I heard two of the young people
+talking about the Zabels. One of them was laughing at the old men, and
+the other was trying to relate some half-forgotten story of early love
+which had been the cause, she thought, of their strange and melancholy
+lives. I was listening to them, but I did not take in much of what they
+were saying till I heard behind me an irascible voice exclaiming: 'You
+laugh, do you? I wonder if you would laugh so easily if you knew that
+these two poor old men haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight?' I
+didn't know the speaker, but I was thrilled by his words. Not had a good
+meal, these men, for a fortnight! I felt as if personally guilty of
+their suffering, and, happening to raise my eyes at this minute and
+seeing through an open door the bountiful refreshments prepared for us
+in the supper room, I felt guiltier than ever. Suddenly I took a
+resolution. It was a queer one, and may serve to show you some of the
+oddities of my nature. Though I was engaged for the next dance, and
+though I was dressed in the flimsy garments suitable to the occasion, I
+decided to leave the ball and carry some sandwiches down to these old
+men. Procuring a bit of paper, I made up a bundle and stole out of the
+house without having said a word to anybody of my intention. Not wishing
+to be seen, I went out by the garden door, which is at the end of the
+dark hall--"
+
+"Just as the band was playing the Harebell mazurka," interpolated
+Sweetwater.
+
+Startled for the first time from her careless composure by an
+interruption of which it was impossible for her at that time to measure
+either the motive or the meaning, she ceased to play with her fingers on
+the baluster rail and let her eyes rest for a moment on the man who had
+thus spoken, as if she hesitated between her desire to annihilate him
+for his impertinence and a fear of the cold hate she saw actuating his
+every word and look. Then she went on, as if no one had spoken:
+
+"I ran down the hill recklessly. I was bent on my errand and not at all
+afraid of the dark. When I reached that part of the road where the
+streets branch off, I heard footsteps in front of me. I had overtaken
+someone. Slackening my pace, so that I should not pass this person, whom
+I instinctively knew to be a man, I followed him till I came to a high
+board fence. It was that surrounding Agatha Webb's house, and when I saw
+it I could not help connecting the rather stealthy gait of the man in
+front of me with a story I had lately heard of the large sum of money
+she was known to keep in her house. Whether this was before or after
+this person disappeared round the corner I cannot say, but no sooner had
+I become certain that he was bent upon entering this house than my
+impulse to follow him became greater than my precaution, and turning
+aside from the direct path to the Zabels', I hurried down High Street
+just in time to see the man enter Mrs. Webb's front gateway.
+
+"It was a late hour for visiting, but as the house had lights in both
+its lower and upper stories, I should by good rights have taken it for
+granted that he was an expected guest and gone on my way to the Zabels'.
+But I did not. The softness with which this person stepped and the
+skulking way in which he hesitated at the front gate aroused my worst
+fears, and after he had opened that gate and slid in, I was so pursued
+by the idea that he was there for no good that I stepped inside the gate
+myself and took my stand in the deep shadow cast by the old pear tree on
+the right-hand side of the walk. Did anyone speak?"
+
+There was a unanimous denial from the five gentlemen before her, yet she
+did not look satisfied.
+
+"I thought I heard someone make a remark," she repeated, and paused
+again for a half-minute, during which her smile was a study, it was so
+cold and in such startling contrast to the vivid glances she threw
+everywhere except behind her on the landing where Frederick stood
+listening to her every word.
+
+"We are very much interested," remarked Mr. Courtney. "Pray, go on."
+
+Drawing her left hand from the balustrade where it had rested, she
+looked at one of her fingers with an odd backward gesture.
+
+"I will," she said, and her tone was hard and threatening. "Five
+minutes, no longer, passed, when I was startled by a loud and terrible
+cry from the house, and looking up at the second-story window from which
+the sound proceeded, I saw a woman's figure hanging out in a seemingly
+pulseless condition. Too terrified to move, I clung trembling to the
+tree, hearing and not hearing the shouts and laughter of a dozen or more
+men, who at that minute passed by the corner on their way to the
+wharves. I was dazed, I was choking, and only came to myself when,
+sooner or later, I do not know how soon or how late, a fresh horror
+happened. The woman whom I had just seen fall almost from the window was
+a serving woman, but when I heard another scream I knew that the
+mistress of the house was being attacked, and rivetting my eyes on those
+windows, I beheld the shade of one of them thrown back and a hand
+appear, flinging out something which fell in the grass on the opposite
+side of the lawn. Then the shade fell again, and hearing nothing
+further, I ran to where the object flung out had fallen, and feeling for
+it, found and picked up an old-fashioned dagger, dripping with blood.
+Horrified beyond all expression, I dropped the weapon and retreated into
+my former place of concealment.
+
+"But I was not satisfied to remain there. A curiosity, a determination
+even, to see the man who had committed this dastardly deed, attacked me
+with such force that I was induced to leave my hiding-place and even to
+enter the house where in all probability he was counting the gains he
+had just obtained at the price of so much precious blood. The door,
+which he had not perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in,
+and before I had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of
+this ill-fated house."
+
+The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now expressed
+itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr. Sutherland, who
+had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed eagerly, and in a tone which
+proved that he, for the moment at least, believed this more than
+improbable tale:
+
+"Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the moment
+when you entered the house?"
+
+As everyone there present realised the importance of this question, a
+general movement took place and each and all drew nearer as she met
+their eyes and answered placidly:
+
+"Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep. He was the only person I
+saw."
+
+"Oh, I know he never committed this crime," gasped his old friend, in a
+relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.
+
+"Now I have courage for the rest. Go on, Miss Page."
+
+But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that sideways
+toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the situation to any who
+did not know of the compact between herself and the listening man below.
+
+"I hate to go back to that moment," said she; "for when I saw the
+candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at that
+very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the room
+overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt something rise in
+my throat that made me deathly sick for a moment. Then I went right in
+where he was, and was about to shake his arm and wake him, when I
+detected a spot of blood on my finger from the dagger I had handled.
+That gave me another turn, and led me to wipe off my finger on his
+sleeve."
+
+"It's a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too," murmured
+Sweetwater.
+
+Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the face
+of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but now so
+filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all her apparent
+scorn.
+
+"Slippers," she murmured.
+
+"Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on the
+grass?"
+
+She disdained to answer him.
+
+"I have accounted for the blood on my hand," she said, not looking at
+him, but at Mr. Courtney. "If there is any on my slippers it can be
+accounted for in the same way." And she rapidly resumed her narrative.
+"I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never thought of anyone
+suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps on the stairs and knew
+that the murderer was coming down, and in another instant would pass the
+open door before which I stood.
+
+"Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was seized by
+a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face one whose hands
+were perhaps dripping with the blood of his victim. To confront him
+there and then might mean death to me, and I did not want to die, but to
+live, for I am young, sirs, and not without a prospect of happiness
+before me. So I sprang back, and seeing no other place of concealment in
+the whole bare room, crouched down in the shadow of the man you call
+Philemon. For one, two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal
+terror, while the feet descended, paused, started to enter the room
+where I was, hesitated, turned, and finally left the house."
+
+"Miss Page, wait, wait," put in the coroner. "You saw him; you can tell
+who this man was?"
+
+The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her. A slight colour
+appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the words
+for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she gave a
+start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more or less
+sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.
+
+Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.
+
+"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he, advancing into their midst with an
+air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward agitation. "The few
+words I have just heard Miss Page say interest me so much, I find it
+impossible not to join you."
+
+Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as he
+stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret astonishment at the
+indifference they showed, and then dropped her eyes to his hands with an
+intent gaze which seemed to affect him unpleasantly, for he thrust them
+immediately behind him, though he did not lower his head or lose his air
+of determination.
+
+"Is my presence here undesirable?" he inquired, with a glance towards
+his father.
+
+Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume to say
+anything, and the others being too interested in the developments of
+Miss Page's story to waste any time on lesser matters, Frederick
+remained, greatly to Miss Page's evident satisfaction.
+
+"Did you see this man's face?" Mr. Courtney now broke in, in urgent
+inquiry.
+
+Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick's
+direction.
+
+"No, I did not dare to make the effort. I was obliged to crouch too
+close to the floor. I simply heard his footsteps."
+
+"See, now!" muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not hear
+him. "She condemns herself. There isn't a woman living who would fail to
+look up under such circumstances, even at the risk of her life."
+
+Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his one
+idea, pressed his former question, saying:
+
+"Was it an old man's step?"
+
+"It was not an agile one."
+
+"And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man's face or figure?"
+
+"Not a glimpse."
+
+"So you are in no position to identify him?"
+
+"If by any chance I should hear those same footsteps coming down a
+flight of stairs, I think I should be able to recognise them," she
+allowed, in the sweetest tones at her command.
+
+"She knows it is too late for her to hear those of the two dead Zabels,"
+growled the man from Boston.
+
+"We are no nearer the solution of this mystery than we were in the
+beginning," remarked the coroner.
+
+"Gentlemen, I have not yet finished my story," intimated Amabel,
+sweetly. "Perhaps what I have yet to tell may give you some clew to the
+identity of this man."
+
+"Ah, yes; go on, go on. You have not yet explained how you came to be in
+possession of Agatha's money."
+
+"Just so," she answered, with another quick look at Frederick, the last
+she gave him for some time. "As soon, then, as I dared, I ran out of the
+house into the yard. The moon, which had been under a cloud, was now
+shining brightly, and by its light I saw that the space before me was
+empty and that I might venture to enter the street. But before doing so
+I looked about for the dagger I had thrown from me before going in, but
+I could not find it. It had been picked up by the fugitive and carried
+away. Annoyed at the cowardice which had led me to lose such a valuable
+piece of evidence through a purely womanish emotion, I was about to
+leave the yard, when my eyes fell on the little bundle of sandwiches
+which I had brought down from the hill and which I had let fall under
+the pear tree, at the first scream I had heard from the house. It had
+burst open and two or three of the sandwiches lay broken on the ground.
+But those that were intact I picked up, and being more than ever anxious
+to cover up by some ostensible errand my absence from the party, I
+rushed away toward the lonely road where these brothers lived, meaning
+to leave such fragments as remained on the old doorstep, beyond which I
+had been told such suffering existed.
+
+"It was now late, very late, for a girl like myself to be out, but,
+under the excitement of what I had just seen and heard, I became
+oblivious to fear, and rushed into those dismal shadows as into
+transparent daylight. Perhaps the shouts and stray sounds of laughter
+that came up from the wharves where a ship was getting under way gave me
+a certain sense of companionship. Perhaps--but it is folly for me to
+dilate upon my feelings; it is my errand you are interested in, and what
+happened when I approached the Zabels' dreary dwelling."
+
+The look with which she paused, ostensibly to take breath, but in
+reality to weigh and criticise the looks of those about her, was one of
+those wholly indescribable ones with which she was accustomed to control
+the judgment of men who allowed themselves to watch too closely the
+ever-changing expression of her weird yet charming face. But it fell
+upon men steeled against her fascinations, and realising her inability
+to move them, she proceeded with her story before even the most anxious
+of her hearers could request her to do so.
+
+"I had come along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet were
+lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make a misstep.
+But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place where the house
+stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure crouching on the
+doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as the road. It was an old
+man's figure, and as I paused in my embarrassment he slowly and with
+great feebleness rose to his feet and began to grope about for the door.
+As he did so, I heard a sharp tinkling sound, as of something metallic
+falling on the doorstone, and, taking a quick step forward, I looked
+over his shoulder and espied in the moonlight at his feet a dagger so
+like the one I had lately handled in Mrs. Webb's yard that I was
+overwhelmed with astonishment, and surveyed the aged and feeble form of
+the man who had dropped it with a sensation difficult to describe. The
+next moment he was stooping for the weapon, with a startled air that has
+impressed itself distinctly upon my memory, and when, after many feeble
+attempts, he succeeded in grasping it, he vanished into the house so
+suddenly that I could not be sure whether or not he had seen me standing
+there.
+
+"All this was more than surprising to me, for I had never thought of
+associating an old man with this crime. Indeed, I was so astonished to
+find him in possession of this weapon that I forgot all about my errand
+and only wondered how I could see and know more. Fearing detection, I
+slid in amongst the bushes and soon found myself under one of the
+windows. The shade was down and I was about to push it aside when I
+heard someone moving about inside and stopped. But I could not restrain
+my curiosity, so pulling a hairpin from my hair, I worked a little hole
+in the shade and through this I looked into a room brightly illumined by
+the moon which shone in through an adjoining window. And what did I see
+there?" Her eye turned on Frederick. His right hand had stolen toward
+his left, but it paused under her look and remained motionless. "Only an
+old man sitting at a table and--" Why did she pause, and why did she
+cover up that pause with a wholly inconsequential sentence? Perhaps
+Frederick could have told, Frederick, whose hand had now fallen at his
+side. But Frederick volunteered nothing, and no one, not even
+Sweetwater, guessed all that lay beyond that AND which was left hovering
+in the air to be finished--- when? Alas! had she not set the day and the
+hour?
+
+What she did say was in seeming explanation of her previous sentence.
+"It was not the same old man I had seen on the doorstep, and while I was
+looking at him I became aware of someone leaving the house and passing
+me on the road up-hill. Of course this ended my interest in what went on
+within, and turning as quickly as I could I hurried into the road and
+followed the shadow I could just perceive disappearing in the woods
+above me. I was bound, gentlemen, as you see, to follow out my adventure
+to the end. But my task now became very difficult, for the moon was high
+and shone down upon the road so distinctly that I could not follow the
+person before me as closely as I wished without running the risk of
+being discovered by him. I therefore trusted more to my ear than to my
+eye, and as long as I could hear his steps in front of me I was
+satisfied. But presently, as we turned up this very hill, I ceased to
+hear these steps and so became confident that he had taken to the woods.
+I was so sure of this that I did not hesitate to enter them myself, and,
+knowing the paths well, as I have every opportunity of doing, living, as
+we do, directly opposite this forest, I easily found my way to the
+little clearing that I have reason to think you gentlemen have since
+become acquainted with. But though from the sounds I heard I was assured
+that the person I was following was not far in advance of me, I did not
+dare to enter this brilliantly illumined space, especially as there was
+every indication of this person having completed whatever task he had
+set for himself. Indeed, I was sure that I heard his steps coming back.
+So, for the second time, I crouched down in the darkest place I could
+find and let this mysterious person pass me. When he had quite
+disappeared, I made my own retreat, for it was late, and I was afraid of
+being missed at the ball. But later, or rather the next day, I recrossed
+the road and began a search for the money which I was confident had been
+left in the woods opposite, by the person I had been following. I found
+it, and when the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has
+presumed to take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the
+bills in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten gains I had
+come upon."
+
+"Ah, and so making them your own," quoth Sweetwater, stung by the
+sarcasm in that word fiddler.
+
+But with a suavity against which every attack fell powerless, she met
+his significant look with one fully as significant, and quietly said:
+
+"If I had wanted the money for myself I would not have risked leaving it
+where the murderer could find it by digging up a few handfuls of mould
+and a bunch of sodden leaves. No, I had another motive for my action, a
+motive with which few, if any, of you will be willing to credit me. I
+wished to save the murderer, whom I had some reason, as you see, for
+thinking I knew, from the consequences of his own action."
+
+Mr. Courtney, Dr. Talbot, and even Mr. Sutherland, who naturally
+believed she referred to Zabel, and who, one and all, had a lingering
+tenderness for this unfortunate old man, which not even this seeming act
+of madness on his part could quite destroy, felt a species of reaction
+at this, and surveyed the singular being before them with, perhaps, the
+slightest shade of relenting in their severity. Sweetwater alone
+betrayed restlessness, Knapp showed no feeling at all, while Frederick
+stood like one petrified, and moved neither hand nor foot.
+
+"Crime is despicable when it results from cupidity only," she went on,
+with a deliberateness so hard that the more susceptible of her auditors
+shuddered. "But crime that springs from some imperative and overpowering
+necessity of the mind or body might well awaken sympathy, and I am not
+ashamed of having been sorry for this frenzied and suffering man. Weak
+and impulsive as you may consider me, I did not want him to suffer on
+account of a moment's madness, as he undoubtedly would if he were ever
+found with Agatha Webb's money in his possession, so I plunged it deeper
+into the soil and trusted to the confusion which crime always awakens
+even in the strongest mind, for him not to discover its hiding-place
+till the danger connected with it was over."
+
+"Ha! wonderful! Devilish subtle, eh? Clever, too clever!" were some of
+the whispered exclamations which this curious explanation on her part
+brought out. Yet only Sweetwater showed his open and entire disbelief of
+the story, the others possibly remembering that for such natures as hers
+there is no governing law and no commonplace interpretation.
+
+To Sweetwater, however, this was but so much display of feminine
+resource and subtlety. Though he felt he should keep still in the
+presence of men so greatly his superiors, he could not resist saying:
+
+"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I should never have
+attributed any such motive as you mention to the young girl I saw
+leaving this spot with many a backward glance at the hole from which we
+afterwards extracted the large sum of money in question. But say that
+this reburying of stolen funds was out of consideration for the feeble
+old man you describe as having carried them there, do you not see that
+by this act you can be held as an accessory after the fact?"
+
+Her eyebrows went up and the delicate curve of her lips was not without
+menace as she said:
+
+"You hate me, Mr. Sweetwater. Do you wish me to tell these gentlemen
+why?"
+
+The flush which, notwithstanding this peculiar young man's nerve,
+instantly crimsoned his features, was a surprise to Frederick. So was it
+to the others, who saw in it a possible hint as to the real cause of his
+persistent pursuit of this young girl, which they had hitherto ascribed
+entirely to his love of justice. Slighted love makes some hearts
+venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once loved and been disdained
+by this bewitching piece of unreliability?
+
+It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater's blush was the
+only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had amply served
+its turn.
+
+To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an effort and
+addressed her himself.
+
+"Your conduct," said he, "has not been that of a strictly honourable
+person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-entered my house
+after being witness to this double tragedy?"
+
+Her serenity was not to be disturbed.
+
+"I have just explained," she reminded him, "that I had sympathy for the
+criminal."
+
+"We all have sympathy for James Zabel, but--"
+
+"I do not believe one word of this story," interposed Sweetwater, in
+reckless disregard of proprieties. "A hungry, feeble old man, like
+Zabel, on the verge of death, could not have found his way into these
+woods. You carried the money there yourself, miss; you are the--"
+
+"Hush!" interposed the coroner, authoritatively; "do not let us go too
+fast--yet. Miss Page has an air of speaking the truth, strange and
+unaccountable as it may seem. Zabel was an admirable man once, and if he
+was led into theft and murder, it was not until his faculties had been
+weakened by his own suffering and that of his much-loved brother."
+
+"Thank you," was her simple reply; and for the first time every man
+there thrilled at her tone. Seeing it, all the dangerous fascination of
+her look and manner returned upon her with double force. "I have been
+unwise," said she, "and let my sympathy run away with my judgment. Women
+have impulses of this kind sometimes, and men blame them for it, till
+they themselves come to the point of feeling the need of just such blind
+devotion. I am sure I regret my short-sightedness now, for I have lost
+esteem by it, while he--" With a wave of the hand she dismissed the
+subject, and Dr. Talbot, watching her, felt a shade of his distrust
+leave him, and in its place a species of admiration for the lithe,
+graceful, bewitching personality before them, with her childish impulses
+and womanly wit which half mystified and half imposed upon them.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, on the contrary, was neither charmed from his antagonism
+nor convinced of her honesty. There was something in this matter that
+could not be explained away by her argument, and his suspicion of that
+something he felt perfectly sure was shared by his son, toward whose
+cold, set face he had frequently cast the most uneasy glances. He was
+not ready, however, to probe into the subject more deeply, nor could he,
+for the sake of Frederick, urge on to any further confession a young
+woman whom his unhappy son professed to love, and in whose discretion he
+had so little confidence. As for Sweetwater, he had now fully recovered
+his self-possession, and bore himself with great discretion when Dr.
+Talbot finally said:
+
+"Well, gentlemen, we have got more than we expected when we came here
+this morning. There remains, however, a point regarding which we have
+received no explanation. Miss Page, how came that orchid, which I am
+told you wore in your hair at the dance, to be found lying near the hem
+of Batsy's skirts? You distinctly told us that you did not go up-stairs
+when you were in Mrs. Webb's house."
+
+"Ah, that's so!" acquiesced the Boston detective dryly. "How came that
+flower on the scene of the murder?"
+
+She smiled and seemed equal to the emergency.
+
+"That is a mystery for us all to solve," she said quietly, frankly
+meeting the eyes of her questioner.
+
+"A mystery it is your business to solve," corrected the district
+attorney. "Nothing that you have told us in support of your innocence
+would, in the eyes of the law, weigh for one instant against the
+complicity shown by that one piece of circumstantial evidence against
+you."
+
+Her smile carried a certain high-handed denial of this to one heart
+there, at least. But her words were humble enough.
+
+"I am aware of that," said she. Then, turning to where Sweetwater stood
+lowering upon her from out his half-closed eyes, she impetuously
+exclaimed: "You, sir, who, with no excuse an honourable person can
+recognise, have seen fit to arrogate to yourself duties wholly out of
+your province, prove yourself equal to your presumption by ferreting
+out, alone and unassisted, the secret of this mystery. It can be done,
+for, mark, _I_ did not carry that flower into the room where it was
+found. This I am ready to assert before God and before man!"
+
+Her hand was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and--hard as it
+was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it--truth. He felt that he had
+received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who barely
+responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of Dr. Talbot.
+
+Amabel at once dropped her hand.
+
+"May I go?" she now cried appealingly to Mr. Courtney. "I really have no
+more to say, and I am tired."
+
+"Did you see the figure of the man who brushed by you in the wood? Was
+it that of the old man you saw on the doorstep?"
+
+At this direct question Frederick quivered in spite of his dogged
+self-control. But she, with her face upturned to meet the scrutiny of
+the speaker, showed only a childish kind of wonder. "Why do you ask
+that? Is there any doubt about its being the same?"
+
+What an actress she was! Frederick stood appalled. He had been amazed at
+the skill with which she had manipulated her story so as to keep her
+promise to him, and yet leave the way open for that further confession
+which would alter the whole into a denunciation of himself which he
+would find it difficult, if not impossible, to meet. But this extreme
+dissimulation made him lose heart. It showed her to be an antagonist of
+almost illimitable resource and secret determination.
+
+"I did not suppose there could be any doubt," she added, in such a
+natural tone of surprise that Mr. Courtney dropped the subject, and Dr.
+Talbot turned to Sweetwater, who for the moment seemed to have robbed
+Knapp of his rightful place as the coroner's confidant.
+
+"Shall we let her go for the present?" he whispered. "She does look
+tired, poor girl."
+
+The public challenge which Sweetwater had received made him wary, and
+his reply was a guarded one:
+
+"I do not trust her, yet there is much to confirm her story. Those
+sandwiches, now. She says she dropped them in Mrs. Webb's yard under the
+pear tree, and that the bag that held them burst open. Gentlemen, the
+birds were so busy there on the morning after the murder that I could
+not but notice them, notwithstanding my absorption in greater matters. I
+remember wondering what they were all pecking at so eagerly. But how
+about the flower whose presence on the scene of guilt she challenges me
+to explain? And the money so deftly reburied by her? Can any explanation
+make her other than accessory to a crime on whose fruits she lays her
+hand in a way tending solely to concealment? No, sirs; and so I shall
+not relax my vigilance over her, even if, in order to be faithful to it,
+I have to suggest that a warrant be made out for her imprisonment."
+
+"You are right," acquiesced the coroner, and turning to Miss Page, he
+told her she was too valuable a witness to be lost sight of, and
+requested her to prepare to accompany him into town.
+
+She made no objection. On the contrary her cheeks dimpled, and she
+turned away with alacrity towards her room. But before the door closed
+on her she looked back, and, with a persuasive smile, remarked that she
+had told all she knew, or thought she knew at the time. But that
+perhaps, after thinking the matter carefully over, she might remember
+some detail that would throw some extra light on the subject.
+
+"Call her back!" cried Mr. Courtney. "She is withholding something. Let
+us hear it all."
+
+But Mr. Sutherland, with a side look at Frederick, persuaded the
+district attorney to postpone all further examination of this artful
+girl until they were alone. The anxious father had noted, what the rest
+were too preoccupied to observe, that Frederick had reached the limit of
+his strength and could not be trusted to preserve his composure any
+longer in face of this searching examination into the conduct of a woman
+from whom he had so lately detached himself.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+POOR PHILEMON
+
+
+The next day was the day of Agatha's funeral. She was to be buried in
+Portchester, by the side of her six children, and, as the day was fine,
+the whole town, as by common consent, assembled in the road along which
+the humble cortege was to make its way to the spot indicated.
+
+From the windows of farmhouses, from between the trees of the few
+scattered thickets along the way, saddened and curious faces looked
+forth till Sweetwater, who walked as near as he dared to the immediate
+friends of the deceased, felt the impossibility of remembering them all
+and gave up the task in despair.
+
+Before one house, about a mile out of town, the procession paused, and
+at a gesture from the minister everyone within sight took off their
+hats, amid a hush which made almost painfully apparent the twittering of
+birds and the other sounds of animate and inanimate nature, which are
+inseparable from a country road. They had reached widow Jones's cottage
+in which Philemon was then staying.
+
+The front door was closed, and so were the lower windows, but in one of
+the upper casements a movement was perceptible, and in another instant
+there came into view a woman and man, supporting between them the
+impassive form of Agatha's husband. Holding him up in plain sight of the
+almost breathless throng below, the woman pointed to where his darling
+lay and appeared to say something to him.
+
+Then there was to be seen a strange sight. The old man, with his thin
+white locks fluttering in the breeze, leaned forward with a smile, and
+holding out his arms, cried in a faint but joyful tone: "Agatha!" Then,
+as if realising for the first time that it was death he looked upon, and
+that the crowd below was a funeral procession, his face altered and he
+fell back with a low heartbroken moan into the arms of those who
+supported him.
+
+As his white head disappeared from sight, the procession moved on, and
+from only one pair of lips went up that groan of sorrow with which every
+heart seemed surcharged. One groan. From whose lips did it come?
+Sweetwater endeavoured to ascertain, but was not able, nor could anyone
+inform him, unless it was Mr. Sutherland, whom he dared not approach.
+
+This gentleman was on foot like the rest, with his arm fast linked in
+that of his son Frederick. He had meant to ride, for the distance was
+long for men past sixty; but finding the latter resolved to walk, he had
+consented to do the same rather than be separated from his son.
+
+He had fears for Frederick--he could hardly have told why; and as the
+ceremony proceeded and Agatha was solemnly laid away in the place
+prepared for her, his sympathies grew upon him to such an extent that he
+found it difficult to quit the young man for a moment, or even to turn
+his eyes away from the face he had never seemed to know till now. But as
+friends and strangers were now leaving the yard, he controlled himself,
+and assuming a more natural demeanour, asked his son if he were now
+ready to ride back. But, to his astonishment, Frederick replied that he
+did not intend to return to Sutherlandtown at present; that he had
+business in Portchester, and that he was doubtful as to when he would be
+ready to return. As the old gentleman did not wish to raise a
+controversy, he said nothing, but as soon as he saw Frederick disappear
+up the road, he sent back the carriage he had ordered, saying that he
+would return in a Portchester gig as soon as he had settled some affairs
+of his own, which might and might not detain him there till evening.
+
+Then he proceeded to a little inn, where he hired a room with windows
+that looked out on the high-road. In one of these windows he sat all
+day, watching for Frederick, who had gone farther up the road.
+
+But no Frederick appeared, and with vague misgivings, for which as yet
+he had no name, he left the window and set out on foot for home.
+
+It was now dark, but a silvery gleam on the horizon gave promise of the
+speedy rising of a full moon. Otherwise he would not have attempted to
+walk over a road proverbially dark and dismal.
+
+The churchyard in which they had just laid away Agatha lay in his
+course. As he approached it he felt his heart fail, and stopping a
+moment at the stone wall that separated it from the high-road, he leaned
+against the trunk of a huge elm that guarded the gate of entrance. As he
+did so he heard a sound of repressed sobbing from some spot not very far
+away, and, moved by some undefinable impulse stronger than his will, he
+pushed open the gate and entered the sacred precincts.
+
+Instantly the weirdness and desolation of the spot struck him. He
+wished, yet dreaded, to advance. Something in the grief of the mourner
+whose sobs he had heard had seized upon his heart-strings, and yet, as
+he hesitated, the sounds came again, and forgetting that his intrusion
+might not prove altogether welcome, he pressed forward, till he came
+within a few feet of the spot from which the sobs issued.
+
+He had moved quietly, feeling the awesomeness of the place, and when he
+paused it was with a sensation of dread, not to be entirely explained by
+the sad and dismal surroundings. Dark as it was, he discerned the
+outline of a form lying stretched in speechless misery across a grave;
+but when, impelled by an almost irresistible compassion, he strove to
+speak, his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he only drew back
+farther into the shadow.
+
+He had recognised the mourner and the grave. The mourner was Frederick
+and the grave that of Agatha Webb.
+
+A few minutes later Mr. Sutherland reappeared at the door of the inn,
+and asked for a gig and driver to take him back to Sutherlandtown. He
+said, in excuse for his indecision, that he had undertaken to walk, but
+had found his strength inadequate to the exertion. He was looking very
+pale, and trembled so that the landlord, who took his order, asked him
+if he were ill. But Mr. Sutherland insisted that he was quite well, only
+in a hurry, and showed the greatest impatience till he was again started
+upon the road.
+
+For the first half-mile he sat perfectly silent. The moon was now up,
+and the road stretched before them, flooded with light. As long as no
+one was to be seen on this road, or on the path running beside it, Mr.
+Sutherland held himself erect, his eyes fixed before him, in an attitude
+of anxious inquiry. But as soon as any sound came to break the silence,
+or there appeared in the distance ahead of them the least appearance of
+a plodding wayfarer, he drew back, and hid himself in the recesses of
+the vehicle. This happened several times. Then his whole manner changed.
+They had just passed Frederick, walking, with bowed head, toward
+Sutherlandtown.
+
+But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few minutes
+previously they had passed another man walking in the same direction. As
+Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself peering through the
+small window at the back of the buggy, striving to catch another glimpse
+of the two men plodding behind him. He could see them both, his son's
+form throwing its long shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too
+closely by the man whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to
+himself was growing only too familiar in his eyes.
+
+Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses, and
+the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to manhood,
+flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one house and one
+place drew his attention with a force that startled him again into an
+erect attitude, and seizing with one hand the arm of the driver, he
+pointed with the other at the door of the cottage they were passing,
+saying in choked tones:
+
+"See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we passed by here this
+morning. That is crape, Samuel, crape, hanging from the doorpost
+yonder!"
+
+"Yes, it is crape," answered the driver, jumping out and running up the
+path to look. "Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon."
+
+Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a moment, then
+he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road beside the driver.
+
+"Get in again," said he, "and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then come back
+for me. I must see the widow Jones."
+
+The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had called up
+in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr. Sutherland,
+with a glance back at the road he had just traversed, walked painfully
+up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.
+
+A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons proved
+the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had passed away. He had
+never rallied from the shock he had received. He had joined his beloved
+Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long tragedy of their mutual
+life was over.
+
+"It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains," quoth the
+good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused in this
+much-revered friend.
+
+The assent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously studying
+the road leading toward Portchester.
+
+Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.
+
+"Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a few
+minutes?" he asked. "I should like to rest there for an instant alone.
+This final blow has upset me."
+
+The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town. She
+did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so pointedly
+emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said, comfortable, and
+went back to her duties in the room above.
+
+It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner had
+her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the
+easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp widow
+Jones had insisted on lighting, passed directly to the window, through
+which he began to peer with looks of the deepest anxiety.
+
+A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr. Sutherland
+recognised him he leaned forward with increased anxiety, till at the
+appearance of his son in front his scrutiny grew so strained and
+penetrating that it seemed to exercise a magnetic influence upon
+Frederick, causing him to look up.
+
+The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance the
+father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye fell on
+that fluttering bit of crape, testifying to another death in this
+already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then in a pause of
+doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers grasped this symbol of
+mourning and clung there. Next moment he was far down the road, plunging
+toward home in a state of great mental disorder.
+
+A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not overtaken
+Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow. Ascertaining at his
+own door that his son had not yet come in, but had been seen going
+farther up the hill, he turned back again into the road and proceeded
+after him on foot.
+
+The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he approached
+it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half out of the
+honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be Frederick. But he soon
+saw that it was the fellow who had been following his son all the way
+from Portchester, and, controlling his first movement of dislike, he
+stepped up to him and quietly said:
+
+"Sweetwater, is this you?"
+
+The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation,
+quickly suppressed, however. "Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you know
+what I am doing here?"
+
+"I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--"
+
+Sweetwater made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.
+
+"Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say anything
+about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as you are. I
+never suspected him of having any direct connection with this murder;
+only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately attached himself. But
+after what I have seen, what am I to think? what am I to do? I honour
+you; I would not grieve you; but--but--oh, sir, perhaps you can help me
+out of the maze into which I have stumbled. Perhaps you can assure me
+that Mr. Frederick did not leave the ball at the time she did. I missed
+him from among the dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three,
+but perhaps you did; and--and--"
+
+His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr. Sutherland.
+As for the latter, who found himself unable to reassure the other on
+this very vital point, having no remembrance himself of having seen
+Frederick among his guests during those fatal hours, he stood
+speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and horror of which only a father
+can appreciate. Sweetwater respected his anguish and for a moment was
+silent himself. Then he burst out:
+
+"I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of shame or
+suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf, dumb--"
+
+Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.
+
+"You make too much of what you saw," said he. "My boy has faults and has
+lived anything but a satisfactory life, but he is not as bad as you
+would intimate. He can never have taken life. That would be incredible,
+monstrous, in one brought up as he has been. Besides, if he were so far
+gone in evil as to be willing to attempt crime, he had no motive to do
+so; Sweetwater, he had no motive. A few hundred dollars but these he
+could have got from me, and did, but--"
+
+Why did the wretched father stop? Did he recall the circumstances under
+which Frederick had obtained these last hundreds from him? They were not
+ordinary circumstances, and Frederick had been in no ordinary strait.
+Mr. Sutherland could not but acknowledge to himself that there was
+something in this whole matter which contradicted the very plea he was
+making, and not being able to establish the conviction of his son's
+innocence in his own mind, he was too honourable to try to establish it
+in that of another. His next words betrayed the depth of his struggle:
+
+"It is that girl who has ruined him, Sweetwater. He loves but doubts
+her, as who could help doing after the story she told us day before
+yesterday? Indeed, he has doubted her ever since that fatal night, and
+it is this which has broken his heart, and not--not--" Again the old
+gentleman paused; again he recovered himself, this time with a touch of
+his usual dignity and self-command. "Leave me," he cried. "Nothing that
+you have seen has escaped me; but our interpretations of it may differ.
+I will watch over my son from this hour, and you may trust my
+vigilance."
+
+Sweetwater bowed.
+
+"You have a right to command me," said he. "You may have forgotten, but
+I have not, that I owe my life to you. Years ago--perhaps you can recall
+it--it was at the Black Pond--I was going down for the third time and my
+mother was screaming in terror on the bank, when you plunged in
+and--Well, sir, such things are never forgotten, and, as I said before,
+you have only to command me." He turned to go, but suddenly came back.
+There were signs of mental conflict in his face and voice. "Mr.
+Sutherland, I am not a talkative man. If I trust your vigilance you may
+trust my discretion. Only I must have your word that you will convey no
+warning to your son."
+
+Mr. Sutherland made an indefinable gesture, and Sweetwater again
+disappeared, this time not to return. As for Mr. Sutherland, he remained
+standing before Mr. Halliday's door. What had the young man meant by
+this emphatic repetition of his former suggestion? That he would be
+quiet, also, and not speak of what he had seen? Why, then--But to the
+hope thus given, this honest-hearted gentleman would yield no quarter,
+and seeing a duty before him, a duty he dare not shirk, he brought his
+emotions, violent as they were, into complete and absolute subjection,
+and, opening Mr. Halliday's door, entered the house. They were old
+neighbours, and ceremony was ignored between them.
+
+Finding the hall empty and the parlour door open he walked immediately
+into the latter room. The sight that met his eyes never left his memory.
+Agnes, his little Agnes, whom he had always loved and whom he had vainly
+longed to call by the endearing name of daughter, sat with her face
+towards him, looking up at Frederick. That young gentleman had just
+spoken to her, or she had just received something from his hand for her
+own was held out and her expression was one of gratitude and acceptance.
+She was not a beautiful girl, but she had a beautiful look, and at this
+moment it was exalted by a feeling the old gentleman had once longed,
+but now dreaded inexpressibly, to see there. What could it mean? Why did
+she show at this unhappy crisis, interest, devotion, passion almost, for
+one she had regarded with open scorn when it was the dearest wish of his
+heart to see them united? It was one of the contradictions of our
+mysterious human nature, and at this crisis and in this moment of secret
+heart-break and miserable doubt it made the old gentleman shrink, with
+his first feeling of actual despair.
+
+The next moment Agnes had risen and they were both facing him.
+
+"Good-evening, Agnes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland forced himself to speak lightly.
+
+"Ah, Frederick, do I find you here?" The latter question had more
+constraint in it.
+
+Frederick smiled. There was an air of relief about him, almost of
+cheerfulness.
+
+"I was just leaving," said he. "I was the bearer of a message to Miss
+Halliday." He had always called her Agnes before.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had found his faculties confused by the expression
+he had surprised on the young girl's face, answered with a divided
+attention:
+
+"And I have a message to give you. Wait outside on the porch for me,
+Frederick, till I exchange a word with our little friend here."
+
+Agnes, who had thrust something she held into a box that lay beside her
+on a table, turned with a confused blush to listen.
+
+Mr. Sutherland waited till Frederick had stepped into the hall. Then he
+drew Agnes to one side and remorselessly, persistently, raised her face
+toward him till she was forced to meet his benevolent but searching
+regard.
+
+"Do you know," he whispered, in what he endeavoured to make a bantering
+tone, "how very few days it is since that unhappy boy yonder confessed
+his love for a young lady whose name I cannot bring myself to utter in
+your presence?"
+
+The intent was kind, but the effect was unexpectedly cruel. With a droop
+of her head and a hurried gasp which conveyed a mixture of entreaty and
+reproach, Agnes drew back in a vague endeavour to hide her sudden
+uneasiness. He saw his mistake, and let his hands drop.
+
+"Don't, my dear," he whispered. "I had no idea it would hurt you to hear
+this. You have always seemed indifferent, hard even, toward my
+scapegrace son. And this was right, for--for--" What could he say, how
+express one-tenth of that with which his breast was labouring! He could
+not, he dared not, so ended, as we have intimated, by a confused
+stammering.
+
+Agnes, who had never before seen this object of her lifelong admiration
+under any serious emotion, felt an impulse of remorse, as if she herself
+had been guilty of occasioning him embarrassment. Plucking up her
+courage, she wistfully eyed him.
+
+"Did you imagine," she murmured, "that I needed any warning against
+Frederick, who has never honoured me with his regard, as he has the
+young lady you cannot mention? I'm afraid you don't know me, Mr.
+Sutherland, notwithstanding I have sat on your knee and sometimes
+plucked at your beard in my infantile insistence upon attention."
+
+"I am afraid I don't know you," he answered. "I feel that I know nobody
+now, not even my son."
+
+He had hoped she would look up at this, but she did not.
+
+"Will my little girl think me very curious and very impertinent if I ask
+her what my son Frederick was saying when I came into the room?"
+
+She looked up now, and with visible candour answered him immediately and
+to the point:
+
+"Frederick is in trouble, Mr. Sutherland. He has felt the need of a
+friend who could appreciate this, and he has asked me to be that friend.
+Besides, he brought me a packet of letters which he entreated me to keep
+for him. I took them, Mr. Sutherland, and I will keep them as he asked
+me to do, safe from everybody's inspection, even my own."
+
+Oh! why had he questioned her? He did not want to know of these letters;
+he did not want to know that Frederick possessed anything which he was
+afraid to retain in his own possession.
+
+"My son did wrong," said he, "to confide anything to your care which he
+did not desire to retain in his own home. I feel that I ought to see
+these letters, for if my son is in trouble, as you say, I, his father,
+ought to know it."
+
+"I am not sure about that," she smiled. "His trouble may be of a
+different nature than you imagine. Frederick has led a life that he
+regrets. I think his chief source of suffering lies in the fact that it
+is so hard for him to make others believe that he means to do
+differently in the future."
+
+"Does he mean to do differently?"
+
+She flushed. "He says so, Mr. Sutherland. And I, for one, cannot help
+believing him. Don't you see that he begins to look like another man?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland was taken aback. He had noticed this fact, and had found
+it a hard one to understand. To ascertain what her explanation of it
+might be, he replied at once:
+
+"There is a change in him--a very evident change. What is the occasion
+of it? To what do you ascribe it, Agnes?"
+
+How breathlessly he waited for her answer! Had she any suspicion of the
+awful doubts which were so deeply agitating himself that night? She did
+not appear to have.
+
+"I hesitate," she faltered, "but not from any doubt of Frederick, to
+tell you just what I think lies at the bottom of the sudden change
+observable in him. Miss Page (you see, I can name her, if you cannot)
+has proved herself so unworthy of his regard that the shock he has
+received has opened his eyes to certain failings of his own which made
+his weakness in her regard possible. I do not know of any other
+explanation. Do you?"
+
+At this direct question, breathed though it was by tender lips, and
+launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his heart, Mr.
+Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the door. Then with
+forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are so much nearer his
+age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not feel sure of his real
+feelings, how should I, who am his father, but have never been his
+confidant?"
+
+"Oh," she cried, holding out her hands, "such a good father! Some day he
+will appreciate that fact as well as others. Believe it, Mr. Sutherland,
+believe it." And then, ashamed of her glowing interest, which was a
+little more pronounced than became her simple attitude of friend toward
+a man professedly in love with another woman, she faltered and cast the
+shyest of looks upward at the face she had never seen turned toward her
+with anything but kindness. "I have confidence in Frederick's good
+heart," she added, with something like dignity.
+
+"Would God that I could share it!" was the only answer she received.
+Before she could recover from the shock of these words, Mr. Sutherland
+was gone.
+
+Agnes was more or less disconcerted by this interview. There was a
+lingering in her step that night, as she trod the little white-embowered
+chamber sacred to her girlish dreams, which bespake an overcharged
+heart; a heart that, before she slept, found relief in these few words
+whispered by her into the night air, laden with the sweetness of
+honeysuckles:
+
+"Can it be that he is right? Did I need such a warning,--I, who have
+hated this man, and who thought that it was my hatred which made it
+impossible for me to think of anything or anybody else since we parted
+from each other last night? O me, if it is so!"
+
+And from the great, wide world without, tremulous with moonlight, the
+echo seemed to come back:
+
+"Woe to thee, Agnes Halliday, if this be so!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+A SURPRISE FOR MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland and Frederick stood facing each other in the
+former's library. Nothing had been said during their walk down the hill,
+and nothing seemed likely to proceed from Frederick now, though his
+father waited with great and growing agitation for some explanation that
+would relieve the immense strain on his heart. At last he himself spoke,
+dryly, as we all speak when the heart is fullest and we fear to reveal
+the depth of our emotions.
+
+"What papers were those you gave into Agnes Halliday's keeping? Anything
+which we could not have more safely, not to say discreetly, harboured in
+our own house?"
+
+Frederick, taken aback, for he had not realised that his father had seen
+these papers, hesitated for a moment; then he boldly said:
+
+"They were letters--old letters--which I felt to be better out of this
+house than in it. I could not destroy them, so I gave them into the
+guardianship of the most conscientious person I know. I hope you won't
+demand to see those letters. Indeed, sir, I hope you won't demand to see
+them. They were not written for your eye, and I would rather rest under
+your displeasure than have them in any way made public."
+
+Frederick showed such earnestness, rather than fear, that Mr. Sutherland
+was astonished.
+
+"When were these letters written?" he asked. "Lately, or before--You say
+they are old; how old?"
+
+Frederick's breath came easier.
+
+"Some of them were written years ago--most of them, in fact. It is a
+personal matter--every man has such. I wish I could have destroyed them.
+You will leave them with Agnes, sir?"
+
+"You astonish me," said Mr. Sutherland, relieved that he could at least
+hope that these letters were in nowise connected with the subject of his
+own frightful suspicions. "A young girl, to whom you certainly were most
+indifferent a week ago, is a curious guardian of letters you decline to
+show your father."
+
+"I know it," was Frederick's sole reply.
+
+Somehow the humility with which this was uttered touched Mr. Sutherland
+and roused hopes he had supposed dead. He looked his son for the first
+time directly in the eye, and with a beating heart said:
+
+"Your secrets, if you have such, might better be entrusted to your
+father. You have no better friend--" and there he stopped with a
+horrified, despairing feeling of inward weakness. If Frederick had
+committed a crime, anything would be better than knowing it. Turning
+partially aside, he fingered the papers on the desk before which he was
+standing. A large envelope, containing some legal document, lay before
+him. Taking it up mechanically, he opened it. Frederick as mechanically
+watched him.
+
+"I know," said the latter, "that I have no better friend. You have been
+too good, too indulgent. What is it, father? You change colour, look
+ill, what is there in that paper?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland straightened himself; there was a great reserve of
+strength in this broken-down man yet. Fixing Frederick with a gaze more
+penetrating than any he had yet bestowed upon him, he folded his hands
+behind him with the document held tightly between them, and remarked:
+
+"When you borrowed that money from me you did it like a man who expected
+to repay it. Why? Whence did you expect to receive the money with which
+to repay me? Answer, Frederick; this is your hour for confession."
+
+Frederick turned so pale his father dropped his eyes in mercy.
+
+"Confess?" he repeated. "What should I confess? My sins? They are too
+many. As for that money, I hoped to return it as any son might hope to
+reimburse his father for money advanced to pay a gambler's debt. I said
+I meant to work. My first money earned shall be offered to you. I--"
+
+"Well? Well?" His father was holding the document he had just read,
+opened out before his eyes.
+
+"Didn't you expect THIS?" he asked. "Didn't you know that that poor
+woman, that wretchedly murdered, most unhappy woman, whose death the
+whole town mourns, had made you her heir? That by the terms of this
+document, seen by me here and now for the first time, I am made executor
+and you the inheritor of the one hundred thousand dollars or more left
+by Agatha Webb?"
+
+"No!" cried Frederick, his eyes glued to the paper, his whole face and
+form expressing something more akin to terror than surprise. "Has she
+done this? Why should she? I hardly knew her."
+
+"No, you hardly knew her. And she? She hardly knew you; if she had she
+would have abhorred rather than enriched you. Frederick, I had rather
+see you dead than stand before me the inheritor of Philemon and Agatha
+Webb's hard-earned savings."
+
+"You are right; it would be better," murmured Frederick, hardly heeding
+what he said. Then, as he encountered his father's eye resting upon him
+with implacable scrutiny, he added, in weak repetition: "Why should she
+give her money to me? What was I to her that she should will me her
+fortune?"
+
+The father's finger trembled to a certain line in the document, which
+seemed to offer some explanation of this; but Frederick did not follow
+it. He had seen that his father was expecting a reply to the question he
+had previously put, and he was casting about in his mind how to answer
+it.
+
+"When did you know of this will?" Mr. Sutherland now repeated. "For know
+of it you did before you came to me for money."
+
+Frederick summoned up his full courage and confronted his father
+resolutely.
+
+"No," said he, "I did not know of it. It is as much of a surprise to me
+as it is to you."
+
+He lied. Mr. Sutherland knew that he lied and Frederick knew that he
+knew it. A shadow fell between them, which the older, with that
+unspeakable fear upon him roused by Sweetwater's whispered suspicions,
+dared no longer attempt to lift.
+
+After a few minutes in which Frederick seemed to see his father age
+before his eyes, Mr. Sutherland coldly remarked:
+
+"Dr. Talbot must know of this will. It has been sent here to me from
+Boston by a lawyer who drew it up two years ago. The coroner may not as
+yet have heard of it. Will you accompany me to his office to-morrow? I
+should like to have him see that we wish to be open with him in an
+affair of such importance."
+
+"I will accompany you gladly," said Frederick, and seeing that his
+father neither wished nor was able to say anything further, he bowed
+with distant ceremony as to a stranger and quietly withdrew. But when
+the door had closed between them and only the memory of his father's
+changed countenance remained to trouble him, he paused and laid his hand
+again on the knob, as if tempted to return. But he left without doing
+so, only to turn again at the end of the hall and gaze wistfully back.
+Yet he went on.
+
+As he opened his own door and disappeared within, he said half audibly:
+
+"Easy to destroy me now, Amabel. One word and I am lost!"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+
+XXI
+
+SWEETWATER REASONS
+
+
+And what of Sweetwater, in whose thoughts and actions the interest now
+centres?
+
+When he left Mr. Sutherland it was with feelings such as few who knew
+him supposed him capable of experiencing. Unattractive as he was in
+every way, ungainly in figure and unprepossessing of countenance, this
+butt of the more favoured youth in town had a heart whose secret fires
+were all the warmer for being so persistently covered, and this heart
+was wrung with trouble and heavy with a struggle that bade fair to leave
+him without rest that night, if not for many nights to come. Why? One
+word will explain. Unknown to the world at large and almost unknown to
+himself, his best affections were fixed upon the man whose happiness he
+thus unexpectedly saw himself destined to destroy. He loved Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+The suspicion which he now found transferred in his own mind from the
+young girl whose blood-stained slippers he had purloined during the
+excitement of the first alarm, to the unprincipled but only son of his
+one benefactor, had not been lightly embraced or thoughtlessly
+expressed. He had had time to think it out in all its bearings. During
+that long walk from Portchester churchyard to Mr. Halliday's door, he
+had been turning over in his mind everything that he had heard and seen
+in connection with this matter, till the dim vision of Frederick's
+figure going on before him was not more apparent to his sight than was
+the guilt he so deplored to his inward understanding.
+
+He could not help but recognise him as the active party in the crime he
+had hitherto charged Amabel with. With the clew offered by Frederick's
+secret anguish at the grave of Agatha, he could read the whole story of
+this detestable crime as plainly as if it had been written in letters of
+fire on the circle of the surrounding darkness. Such anguish under such
+circumstances on the part of such a man could mean but one
+thing--remorse; and remorse in the breast of one so proverbially
+careless and corrupt, over the death of a woman who was neither relative
+nor friend, could have but one interpretation, and that was guilt.
+
+No other explanation was possible. Could one be given, or if any
+evidence could be adduced in contradiction of this assumption, he would
+have dismissed his new suspicion with more heartiness even than he had
+embraced his former one. He did not wish to believe Frederick guilty. He
+would have purchased an inner conviction of his innocence almost at the
+price of his own life, not because of any latent interest in the young
+man himself, but because he was Charles Sutherland's son, and the dear,
+if unworthy, centre of all that noble man's hopes, aims, and happiness.
+But he could come upon no fact capable of shaking his present belief.
+Taking for truth Amabel's account of what she had seen and done on that
+fatal night--something which he had hesitated over the previous day, but
+which he now found himself forced to accept or do violence to his own
+secret convictions--and adding to it such facts as had come to his own
+knowledge in his self-imposed role of detective, he had but to test the
+events of that night by his present theory of Frederick's guilt, to find
+them hang together in a way too complete for mistake.
+
+For what had been his reasons for charging Amabel herself with the guilt
+of a crime she only professed to have been a partial witness to?
+
+They were many.
+
+First--The forced nature of her explanations in regard to her motive for
+leaving a merry ball and betaking herself to the midnight road in her
+party dress and slippers. A woman of her well-known unsympathetic nature
+might use the misery of the Zabels as a pretext for slipping into town
+at night, but never would be influenced by it as a motive.
+
+Second--The equally unsatisfactory nature of the reasons she gave for
+leaving the course she had marked out for herself and entering upon the
+pursuit of an unknown man into a house in which she had no personal
+interest and from which she had just seen a bloody dagger thrown out.
+The most callous of women would have shrunk from letting her curiosity
+carry her thus far.
+
+Third--The poverty of her plea that, after having braved so much in her
+desire to identify this criminal, she was so frightened at his near
+approach as to fail to lift her head when the opportunity was given her
+to recognise him.
+
+Fourth--Her professed inability to account for the presence of the
+orchid from her hair being found in the room with Batsy.
+
+Fifth--Her evident attempt to throw the onus of the crime on an old man
+manifestly incapable from physical causes of committing it.
+
+Sixth--The improbability, which she herself should have recognised, of
+this old man, in his extremely weak condition, ignoring the
+hiding-places offered by the woods back of his own house, for the sake
+of one not only involving a long walk, but situated close to a
+much-frequented road, and almost in view of the Sutherland mansion.
+
+Seventh--The transparent excuse of sympathy for the old man and her
+desire to save him from the consequences of his crime, which she offered
+in extenuation of her own criminal avowal of having first found and then
+reburied the ill-gotten gains she had come upon in her persistent
+pursuit of the flying criminal. So impulsive an act might be consistent
+with the blind compassion of some weak-headed but warm-hearted woman,
+but not with her self-interested nature, incapable of performing any
+heroic deed save from personal motives or the most headlong passion.
+
+Lastly--The weakness of her explanation in regard to the cause which led
+her to peer into the Zabel cottage through a hole made in the
+window-shade. Curiosity has its limits even in a woman's breast, and
+unless she hoped to see more than was indicated by her words, her action
+was but the precursor of a personal entrance into a room where we have
+every reason to believe the twenty-dollar bill was left.
+
+A telling record and sufficient to favour the theory of her personal
+guilt if, after due thought, certain facts in contradiction to this
+assumption had not offered themselves to his mind even before he thought
+of Frederick as the unknown man she had followed down the hillside, as,
+for instance:
+
+This crime, if committed by her, was done deliberately and with a
+premeditation antedating her departure from the ballroom. Yet she went
+upon this errand in slippers, white slippers at that, something which so
+cool and calculating a woman would have avoided, however careless she
+might have shown herself in other regards.
+
+Again, guilt awakens cunning, even in the dullest breast; but she, keen
+beyond most men even, and so self-poised that the most searching
+examination could not shake her self-control, betrayed an utter
+carelessness as to what she did with these slippers on her return,
+thrusting them into a place easily accessible to the most casual search.
+Had she been conscious of guilt and thus amenable to law, the sight of
+blood and mud-stains on those slippers would have appalled her, and she
+would have made some attempt to destroy them, and not put them behind a
+picture and forgotten them.
+
+Again, would she have been so careless with a flower she knew to be
+identified with herself? A woman who deliberately involves herself in
+crime has quick eyes; she would have seen that flower fall. At all
+events, if she had been immediately responsible for its being on the
+scene of crime she would, with her quick wit, have found some excuse or
+explanation for it, instead of defying her examiners with some such
+words as these: "It is a fact for you to explain. I only know that I did
+not carry this flower into that room of death."
+
+Again, had she been actuated in her attempt to fix the crime on old
+James Zabel by a personal consciousness of guilt and a personal dread,
+she would not have stopped at suggestion in her allusions to the person
+she watched burying the treasure in the woods. Instead of speaking of
+him as a shadow whose flight she had followed at a distance, she would
+have described his figure as that of the same old man she had seen enter
+the Zabel cottage a few minutes before, there being no reason for
+indefiniteness on this point, her conscience being sufficiently elastic
+for any falsehood that would further her ends. And lastly, her manner,
+under the examination to which she had been subjected, was not that of
+one who felt herself under a personal attack. It was a strange,
+suggestive, hesitating manner, baffling alike to him who had more or
+less sounded her strange nature and to those who had no previous
+knowledge of her freaks and subtle intellectual power, and only reaching
+its height of hateful charm and mysterious daring when Frederick
+appeared on the scene and joined, or seemed to join, himself to the
+number of her examiners.
+
+Now, let all suspicion of her as an active agent in this crime be
+dropped, assume Frederick to be the culprit and she the simple accessory
+after the fact, and see how inconsistencies vanish, and how much more
+natural the whole conduct of this mysterious woman appears.
+
+Amabel Page left a merry dance at midnight and stole away into the
+Sutherland garden in her party dress and slippers--why? Not to fulfil an
+errand which anyone who knows her cold and unsympathetic nature can but
+regard as a pretext, but because she felt it imperative to see if her
+lover (with whose character, temptations, and necessities she was fully
+acquainted, and in whose excited and preoccupied manner she had probably
+discovered signs of a secretly growing purpose) meant indeed to elude
+his guests and slip away to town on the dangerous and unholy enterprise
+suggested by their mutual knowledge of the money to be obtained there by
+one daring enough to enter a certain house open like their own to
+midnight visitors.
+
+She followed at such an hour and into such a place, not an unknown man
+casually come upon, but her lover, whom she had tracked from the garden
+of his father's house, where she had lain in wait for him. It took
+courage to do this, but a courage no longer beyond the limit of feminine
+daring, for her fate was bound up in his and she could not but feel the
+impulse to save him from the consequences of crime, if not from the
+crime itself.
+
+As for the aforementioned flower, what more natural than that Frederick
+should have transferred it from her hair to his buttonhole during some
+of their interviews at the ball, and that it should have fallen from its
+place to the floor in the midst of his possible struggle with Batsy?
+
+And with this assumption of her perfect knowledge as to who the man was
+who had entered Mrs. Webb's house, how much easier it is to understand
+why she did not lift her head when she heard him descend the stairs! No
+woman, even one so depraved as she, would wish to see the handsome face
+of her lover in the glare of a freshly committed crime, and besides she
+might very easily be afraid of him, for a man has but a blow for the
+suddenly detected witness of his crime unless that witness is his
+confidant, which from every indication Sweetwater felt bound to believe
+Amabel was not.
+
+Her flight to the Zabel cottage, after an experience which would madden
+most women, can now be understood. She was still following her lover.
+The plan of making Agatha's old and wretched friend amenable for her
+death originated with Frederick and not with Amabel. It was he who first
+started for the Zabel cottage. It was he who left the bank bill there.
+This is all clear, and even the one contradictory fact of the dagger
+having been seen in the old man's hand was not a stumbling-block to
+Sweetwater. With the audacity of one confident of his own insight, he
+explained it to himself thus: The dagger thrown from the window by the
+assassin, possibly because he knew of Zabel's expected visit there that
+night, fell on the grass and was picked up by Amabel, only to be flung
+down again in the brightest part of the lawn. It was lying there then,
+when, a few minutes later and before either Frederick or Amabel had left
+the house, the old man entered the yard in a state of misery bordering
+on frenzy. He and his brother were starving, had been starving for days.
+He was too proud to own his want, and too loyal to his brother to leave
+him for the sake of the food prepared for them both at Agatha's house,
+and this was why he had hesitated over his duty till this late hour,
+when his own secret misery or, perhaps, the hope of relieving his
+brother drove him to enter the gate he had been accustomed to see open
+before him in glad hospitality. He finds the lights burning in the house
+above and below, and encouraged by the welcome they seem to hold out, he
+staggers up the path, ignorant of the tragedy which was at that very
+moment being enacted behind those lighted windows. But half-way toward
+the house he stops, the courage which has brought him so far suddenly
+fails, and in one of those quick visions which sometimes visit men in
+extremity, he foresees the astonishment which his emaciated figure is
+likely to cause in these two old friends, and burying his face in his
+hands he stops and bitterly communes with himself before venturing
+farther. Fatal stop! fatal communing! for as he stands there he sees a
+dagger, his own old dagger, how lost or how found he probably did not
+stop to ask, lying on the grass and offering in its dumb way suggestions
+as to how he might end this struggle without any further suffering.
+Dizzy with the new hope, preferring death to the humiliation he saw
+before him in Agatha's cottage, he dashes out of the yard, almost
+upsetting Mr. Crane, who was passing by on his homeward way from an
+errand of mercy. A little while later Amabel comes upon him lying across
+his own doorstep. He has made an effort to enter, but his long walk and
+the excitement of this last bitter hour have been too much for him. As
+she watches him he gains strength and struggles to his feet, while she,
+aghast at the sight of the dagger she had herself flung down in Agatha's
+yard, and dreading the encounter between this old man and the lover she
+had been following to this place, creeps around the house and looks into
+the first window she finds open. What does she expect to see? Frederick
+brought face to face with this desperate figure with its uplifted knife.
+But instead of that she beholds another old man seated at a table
+and--Amabel had paused when she reached that AND--and Sweetwater had not
+then seen how important this pause was, but now he understood it. Now he
+saw that if she had not had a subtle purpose in view, that if she had
+wished to tell the truth rather than produce false inferences in the
+minds of those about her calculated to save the criminal as she called
+him, she would have completed her sentence thus: "I saw an old man
+seated at a table and Frederick Sutherland standing over him." For
+Sweetwater had no longer a doubt that Frederick was in that room at that
+moment. What further she saw, whether she was witness to an encounter
+between this intruder and James, or whether by some lingering on the
+latter's part Frederick was able to leave the house without running
+across him, was a matter of comparative unimportance. What is of
+importance is that he did leave it and that Amabel, knowing it was
+Frederick, strove to make her auditors believe it was Zabel, who carried
+the remainder of the money into the woods. Yet she did not say so, and
+if her words on this subject could be carefully recalled, one would see
+that it was still her lover she was following and no old man, tottering
+on the verge of the grave and only surviving because of the task he was
+bent on performing.
+
+Amabel's excuse for handling the treasure, and for her reburial of the
+same, comes now within the bounds of possibility. She hoped to share
+this money some day, and her greed was too great for her to let such an
+amount lie there untouched, while her caution led her to bury it deeper,
+even at the risk of the discovery she was too inexperienced to fear.
+
+That she should forget to feign surprise when the alarm of murder was
+raised was very natural, and so was the fact that a woman with a soul so
+blunted to all delicate instincts, and with a mind so intent upon
+perfecting the scheme entered into by the murderer of throwing the blame
+upon the man whose dagger had been made use of, should persist in
+visiting the scene of crime and calling attention to the spot where that
+dagger had fallen. And so with her manner before her examiners. Baffling
+as that manner was, it still showed streaks of consistency, when you
+thought of it as the cloak of a subtle, unprincipled woman, who sees
+amongst her interlocutors the guilty man whom by a word she can destroy,
+but whom she exerts herself to save, even at the cost of a series of
+bizarre explanations. She was playing with a life, a life she loved, but
+not with sincerity sufficient to rob the game of a certain delicate, if
+inconceivable, intellectual enjoyment. [Footnote: That Sweetwater in his
+hate, and with no real clew to the real situation, should come so near
+the truth as in this last supposition, shows the keenness of his
+insight.]
+
+And Frederick? Had there been anything in his former life or in his
+conduct since the murder to give the lie to these heavy doubts against
+him? On the contrary. Though Sweetwater knew little of the dark record
+which had made this young man the disgrace of his family, what he did
+know was so much against him that he could well see that the distance
+usually existing between simple dissipation and desperate crime might be
+easily bridged by some great necessity for money. Had there been such a
+necessity? Sweetwater found it easy to believe so. And Frederick's
+manner? Was it that of an honest man simply shocked by the suspicions
+which had fallen upon the woman he loved? Had he, Sweetwater, not
+observed certain telltale moments in his late behaviour that required a
+deeper explanation even than this?
+
+The cry, for instance, with which he had rushed from the empty ballroom
+into the woods on the opposite side of the road! Was it a natural cry or
+an easily explainable one? "Thank God! this terrible night is over!"
+Strange language to be uttered by this man at such a time and in such a
+place, if he did not already know what was to make this night of nights
+memorable through all this region. He did know, and this cry which had
+struck Sweetwater strangely at the time and still more strangely when he
+regarded it simply as a coincidence, now took on all the force of a
+revelation and the irresistible bubbling up in Frederick's breast of
+that remorse which had just found its full expression on Agatha's grave.
+
+To some that remorse and all his other signs of suffering might be
+explained by his passion for the real criminal. But to Sweetwater it was
+only too evident that an egotist like Frederick Sutherland cannot suffer
+for another to such an extent as this, and that a personal explanation
+must be given for so personal a grief, even if that explanation involves
+the dreadful charge of murder.
+
+It was when Sweetwater reached this point in his reasoning that
+Frederick disappeared beneath Mr. Halliday's porch, and Mr. Sutherland
+came up behind him. After the short conversation in which Sweetwater saw
+his own doubts more than reflected in the uneasy consciousness of this
+stricken father, he went home and the struggle of his life began.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+SWEETWATER ACTS
+
+
+Sweetwater had promised Mr. Sutherland that he would keep counsel in
+regard to his present convictions concerning Frederick's guilt; but this
+he knew he could not do if he remained in Sutherlandtown and fell under
+the pitiless examination of Mr. Courtney, the shrewd and able
+prosecuting attorney of the district. He was too young, too honest, and
+had made himself too conspicuous in this affair to succeed in an
+undertaking requiring so much dissimulation, if not actual falsehood.
+Indeed, he was not sure that in his present state of mind he could hear
+Frederick's name mentioned without flushing, and slight as such a hint
+might be, it would be enough to direct attention to Frederick, which
+once done could but lead to discovery and permanent disgrace to all who
+bore the name of Sutherland.
+
+What was he to do then? How avoid a consequence he found himself
+absolutely unable to face? It was a problem which this night must solve
+for him. But how? As I have said, he went down to his house to think.
+
+Sweetwater was not a man of absolute rectitude. He was not so much
+high-minded as large-hearted. He had, besides, certain foibles. In the
+first place, he was vain, and vanity in a very plain man is all the more
+acute since it centres in his capabilities, rather than in his
+appearance. Had Sweetwater been handsome, or even passably attractive,
+he might have been satisfied with the approbation of demure maidens and
+a comradeship with his fellows. But being one who could hope for nothing
+of this kind, not even for a decent return to the unreasoning
+heart-worship he felt himself capable of paying, and which he had once
+paid for a few short days till warned of his presumption by the
+insolence of the recipient, he had fixed his hope and his ambition on
+doing something which would rouse the admiration of those about him and
+bring him into that prominence to which he felt himself entitled. That
+he, a skilful musician, should desire to be known as a brilliant
+detective, is only one of the anomalies of human nature which it would
+be folly and a waste of time on our part to endeavour to explain. That,
+having chosen to exercise his wits in this way, he should so well
+succeed that he dared not for his life continue in the work he had so
+publicly undertaken, occasioned in him a pang of disappointment almost
+as insufferable as that brought by the realisation of what his efforts
+were likely to bring upon the man to whose benevolence he owed his very
+life. Hence his struggle, which must be measured by the extent of his
+desires and the limitations which had been set to his nature by his
+surroundings and the circumstances of his life and daily history.
+
+If we enter with him into the humble cottage where he was born and from
+which he had hardly strayed more than a dozen miles in the twenty-two
+years of his circumscribed life, we may be able to understand him
+better.
+
+It was an unpainted house perched on an arid hillside, with nothing
+before it but the limitless sea. He had found his way to it
+mechanically, but as he approached the narrow doorway he paused and
+turned his face towards the stretch of heaving waters, whose low or loud
+booming had been first his cradle song and then the ceaseless
+accompaniment of his later thoughts and aspirations. It was heaving yet,
+ceaselessly heaving, and in its loud complaint there was a sound of
+moaning not always to be found there, or so it seemed to Sweetwater in
+his present troubled mood.
+
+Sighing as this sound reached his ear, and shuddering as its meaning
+touched his heart, Sweetwater pushed open the door of his small house,
+and entered.
+
+"It is I, mamsie!" he shouted, in what he meant to be his usual voice;
+but to a sensitive ear--and what ear is so sensitive as a
+mother's?--there was a tremble in it that was not wholly natural.
+
+"Is anything the matter, dear?" called out that mother, in reply.
+
+The question made him start, though he replied quickly enough, and in
+more guarded tones:
+
+"No, mamsie. Go to sleep. I'm tired, that's all."
+
+Would to God that was all! He recalled with envy the days when he
+dragged himself into the house at sundown, after twelve long hours of
+work on the docks. As he paused in the dark hallway and listened till he
+heard the breathing of her who had called him DEAR--the only one in the
+world who ever had or ever would call him DEAR--he had glimpses of that
+old self which made him question if his self-tutoring on the violin, and
+the restless ambition which had driven him out of the ways of his
+ancestors into strange attempts for which he was not prepared by any
+previous discipline, had brought him happiness or improved his manhood.
+He was forced to acknowledge that the sleep of those far-distant nights
+of his busy boyhood was sweeter than the wakefulness of these later
+days, and that it would have been better for him, and infinitely better
+for her, if he had remained at the carpenter's bench and been satisfied
+with a repetition of his father's existence.
+
+His mother was the only person sharing that small house with him, and
+once assured that she was asleep, he lighted a lamp in the empty kitchen
+and sat down.
+
+It was just twelve o'clock. This, to anyone accustomed to this peculiar
+young man's habits, had nothing unusual in it. He was accustomed to come
+home late and sit thus by himself for a short time before going
+up-stairs. But, to one capable of reading his sharp and none too mobile
+countenance, there was a change in the character of the brooding into
+which he now sank, which, had that mother been awake to watch him, would
+have made every turn of his eye and movement of his hand interesting and
+important.
+
+In the first place, the careless attitude into which he had fallen was
+totally at variance with the restless glance which took in every object
+in that well-known room so associated with his mother and her daily work
+that he could not imagine her in any other surroundings, and wondered
+sometimes if she would seem any longer his mother if transplanted to
+other scenes and engaged in other tasks.
+
+Little things, petty objects of household use or ornament, which he had
+seen all his life without specially noticing them, seemed under the
+stress of his present mood to acquire a sudden importance and fix
+themselves indelibly in his memory. There, on a nail driven long before
+he was born, hung the little round lid-holder he had pieced together in
+his earliest years and presented to his mother in a gush of pride
+greater than any he had since experienced. She had never used it, but it
+always hung upon the one nail in the one place, as a symbol of his love
+and of hers. And there, higher up on the end of the shelf barren enough
+of ornaments, God wot, were a broken toy and a much-defaced primer,
+mementos likewise of his childhood; and farther along the wall, on a
+sort of raised bench, a keg, the spigot of which he was once guilty of
+turning on in his infantile longing for sweets, only to find he could
+not turn it back again until all the floor was covered with molasses,
+and his appetite for the forbidden gratified to the full. And yonder,
+dangling from a peg, never devoted to any other use, hung his father's
+old hat, just where he had placed it on the fatal morning when he came
+in and lay down on the sitting-room lounge for the last time; and close
+to it, lovingly close to it, Sweetwater thought, his mother's apron, the
+apron he had seen her wear at supper, and which he would see her wear at
+breakfast, with all its suggestions of ceaseless work and patient
+every-day thrift.
+
+Somehow, he could not bear the sight of that apron. With the expectation
+now forming in his mind, of leaving this home and leaving this mother,
+this symbol of humble toil became an intolerable grief to him. Jumping
+up, he turned in another direction; but now another group of objects
+equally eloquent came under his eye. It was his mother's work-basket he
+saw, with a piece of sewing in it intended for him, and as if this were
+not enough, the table set for two, and at his place a little covered
+dish which held the one sweetmeat he craved for breakfast. The
+spectacles lying beside her plate told him how old she was, and as he
+thought of her failing strength and enfeebled ways, he jumped up again
+and sought another corner. But here his glances fell on his violin, and
+a new series of emotions awakened within him. He loved the instrument
+and played as much from natural intuition as acquired knowledge, but in
+the plan of action he had laid out for himself his violin could have no
+part. He would have to leave it behind. Feeling that his regrets were
+fast becoming too much for him, he left the humble kitchen and went
+up-stairs. But not to sleep. Locking the door (something he never
+remembered doing before in all his life), he began to handle over his
+clothes and other trivial belongings. Choosing out a certain strong
+suit, he laid it out on the bed and then went to a bureau drawer and
+drew out an old-fashioned wallet. This he opened, but after he had
+counted the few bills it contained he shook his head and put them all
+back, only retaining a little silver, which he slipped into one of the
+pockets of the suit he had chosen. Then he searched for and found a
+little Bible which his mother had once given him. He was about to thrust
+that into another pocket, but he seemed to think better of this, too,
+for he ended by putting it back into the drawer and taking instead a bit
+from one of his mother's old aprons which he had chanced upon on the
+stairway. This he placed as carefully in his watch pocket as if it had
+been the picture of a girl he loved. Then he undressed and went to bed.
+
+Mrs. Sweetwater said afterwards that she never knew Caleb to talk so
+much and eat so little as he did that next morning at breakfast. Such
+plans as he detailed for unmasking the murderer of Mrs. Webb! Such
+business for the day! So many people to see! It made her quite dizzy,
+she said. And, indeed, Sweetwater was more than usually voluble that
+morning,--perhaps because he could not bear his mother's satisfied
+smile; and when he went out of the house it was with a laugh and a
+cheery "Good-bye, mamsie" that was in spiking contrast to the
+irrepressible exclamation of grief which escaped him when the door was
+closed between them. Ah, when should he enter those four walls again,
+and when should he see the old mother?
+
+He proceeded immediately to town. A ship was preparing to sail that
+morning for the Brazils, and the wharves were alive with bustle. He
+stopped a moment to contemplate the great hulk rising and falling at her
+moorings, then he passed on and entered the building where he had every
+reason to expect to find Dr. Talbot and Knapp in discussion. It was very
+important to him that morning to learn just how they felt concerning the
+great matter absorbing him, for if suspicion was taking the direction of
+Frederick, or if he saw it was at all likely to do so, then would his
+struggle be cut short and all necessity for leaving town be at an end.
+It was to save Frederick from this danger that he was prepared to cut
+all the ties binding him to this place, and nothing short of the
+prospect of accomplishing this would make him willing to undergo such a
+sacrifice.
+
+"Well, Sweetwater, any news, eh?" was the half-jeering,
+half-condescending greeting he received from the coroner.
+
+Sweetwater, who had regained entire control over his feelings as soon as
+he found himself under the eye of this man and the supercilious
+detective he had attempted to rival, gave a careless shrug and passed
+the question on to Knapp. "Have you any news?" he asked.
+
+Knapp, who would probably not have acknowledged it if he had, smiled the
+indulgent smile of a self-satisfied superior and uttered a few equivocal
+sentences. This was gall and wormwood to Sweetwater, but he kept his
+temper admirably and, with an air of bravado entirely assumed for the
+occasion, said to Dr. Talbot:
+
+"I think I shall have something to tell you soon which will materially
+aid you in your search for witnesses. By to-morrow, at least, I shall
+know whether I am right or wrong in thinking I have discovered an
+important witness in quite an unexpected quarter."
+
+Sweetwater knew of no new witness, but it was necessary for him not only
+to have a pretext for the move he contemplated, but to so impress these
+men with an idea of his extreme interest in the approaching proceedings,
+that no suspicion should ever arise of his having premeditated an escape
+from them. He wished to appear the victim of accident; and this is why
+he took nothing from his home which would betray any intention of
+leaving it.
+
+"Ha! indeed!" ejaculated the coroner with growing interest. "And may I
+ask----"
+
+"Please," urged Sweetwater, with a side look at Knapp, "do not ask me
+anything just yet. This afternoon, say, after I have had a certain
+interview with--What, are they setting sails on the Hesper already?" he
+burst out, with a quick glance from the window at the great ship riding
+at anchor a little distance from them in the harbour. "There is a man on
+her I must see. Excuse me--Oh, Mr. Sutherland!"
+
+He fell back in confusion. That gentleman had just entered the room in
+company with Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+A SINISTER PAIR
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," stammered Sweetwater, starting aside and losing on
+the instant all further disposition to leave the room.
+
+Indeed, he had not the courage to do so, even if he had had the will.
+The joint appearance of these two men in this place, and at an hour so
+far in advance of that which usually saw Mr. Sutherland enter the town,
+was far too significant in his eyes for him to ignore it. Had any
+explanation taken place between them, and had Mr. Sutherland's integrity
+triumphed over personal considerations to the point of his bringing
+Frederick here to confess?
+
+Meanwhile Dr. Talbot had risen with a full and hearty greeting which
+proved to Sweetwater's uneasy mind that notwithstanding Knapp's
+disquieting reticence no direct suspicion had as yet fallen on the
+unhappy Frederick. Then he waited for what Mr. Sutherland had to say,
+for it was evident he had come there to say something. Sweetwater
+waited, too, frozen almost into immobility by the fear that it would be
+something injudicious, for never had he seen any man so changed as Mr.
+Sutherland in these last twelve hours, nor did it need a highly
+penetrating eye to detect that the relations between him and Frederick
+were strained to a point that made it almost impossible for them to more
+than assume their old confidential attitude. Knapp, knowing them but
+superficially, did not perceive this, but Dr. Talbot was not blind to
+it, as was shown by the inquiring look he directed towards them both
+while waiting.
+
+Mr. Sutherland spoke at last.
+
+"Pardon me for interrupting you so early," said he, with a certain
+tremble in his voice which Sweetwater quaked to hear. "For certain
+reasons, I should be very glad to know, WE should be very glad to know,
+if during your investigations into the cause and manner of Agatha Webb's
+death, you have come upon a copy of her will."
+
+"No."
+
+Talbot was at once interested, so was Knapp, while Sweetwater withdrew
+further into his corner in anxious endeavour to hide his blanching
+cheek. "We have found nothing. We do not even know that she has made a
+will."
+
+"I ask," pursued Mr. Sutherland, with a slight glance toward Frederick,
+who seemed, at least in Sweetwater's judgment, to have braced himself up
+to bear this interview unmoved, "because I have not only received
+intimation that she made such a will, but have even been entrusted with
+a copy of it as chief executor of the same. It came to me in a letter
+from Boston yesterday. Its contents were a surprise to me. Frederick,
+hand me a chair. These accumulated misfortunes--for we all suffer under
+the afflictions which have beset this town--have made me feel my years."
+
+Sweetwater drew his breath more freely. He thought he might understand
+by this last sentence that Mr. Sutherland had come here for a different
+cause than he had at first feared. Frederick, on the contrary, betrayed
+a failing ability to hide his emotion. He brought his father a chair,
+placed it, and was drawing back out of sight when Mr. Sutherland
+prevented him by a mild command to hand the paper he had brought to the
+coroner.
+
+There was something in his manner that made Sweetwater lean forward and
+Frederick look up, so that the father's and son's eyes met under that
+young man's scrutiny. But while he saw meaning in both their regards,
+there was nothing like collusion, and, baffled by these appearances,
+which, while interesting, told him little or nothing, he transferred his
+attention to Dr. Talbot and Knapp, who had drawn together to see what
+this paper contained.
+
+"As I have said, the contents of this will are a surprise to me,"
+faltered Mr. Sutherland. "They are equally so to my son. He can hardly
+be said to have been a friend even of the extraordinary woman who thus
+leaves him her whole fortune."
+
+"I never spoke with her but twice," exclaimed Frederick with a studied
+coldness, which was so evidently the cloak of inner agitation that
+Sweetwater trembled for its effect, notwithstanding the state of his own
+thoughts, which were in a ferment. Frederick, the inheritor of Agatha
+Webb's fortune! Frederick, concerning whom his father had said on the
+previous night that he possessed no motive for wishing this good woman's
+death! Was it the discovery that such a motive existed which had so aged
+this man in the last twelve hours? Sweetwater dared not turn again to
+see. His own face might convey too much of his own fears, doubts, and
+struggle.
+
+But the coroner, for whose next words Sweetwater listened with acute
+expectancy, seemed to be moved simply by the unexpectedness of the
+occurrence. Glancing at Frederick with more interest than he had ever
+before shown him, he cried with a certain show of enthusiasm:
+
+"A pretty fortune! A very pretty fortune!" Then with a deprecatory air
+natural to him in addressing Mr. Sutherland, "Would it be indiscreet for
+me to ask to what our dear friend Agatha alludes in her reference to
+your late lamented wife?" His finger was on a clause of the will and his
+lips next minute mechanically repeated what he was pointing at:
+
+"'In remembrance of services rendered me in early life by Marietta
+Sutherland, wife of Charles Sutherland of Sutherlandtown, I bequeath to
+Frederick, sole child of her affection, all the property, real and
+personal, of which I die possessed.' Services rendered! They must have
+been very important ones," suggested Dr. Talbot.
+
+Mr. Sutherland's expression was one of entire perplexity and doubt.
+
+"I do not remember my wife ever speaking of any special act of kindness
+she was enabled to show Agatha Webb. They were always friends, but never
+intimate ones. However, Agatha could be trusted to make no mistake. She
+doubtless knew to what she referred. Mrs. Sutherland was fully capable
+of doing an extremely kind act in secret."
+
+For all his respect for the speaker, Dr. Talbot did not seem quite
+satisfied. He glanced at Frederick and fumbled the paper uneasily.
+
+"Perhaps you were acquainted with the reason for this legacy--this large
+legacy," he emphasised.
+
+Frederick, thus called upon, nay, forced to speak, raised his head, and
+without perhaps bestowing so much as a thought on the young man behind
+him who was inwardly quivering in anxious expectancy of some betrayal on
+his part which would precipitate disgrace and lifelong sorrow on all who
+bore the name of Sutherland, met Dr. Talbot's inquiring glance with a
+simple earnestness surprising to them all, and said:
+
+"My record is so much against me that I am not surprised that you wonder
+at my being left with Mrs. Webb's fortune. Perhaps she did not fully
+realise the lack of estimation in which I am deservedly held in this
+place, or perhaps, and this would be much more like her, she hoped that
+the responsibility of owing my independence to so good and so
+unfortunate a woman might make a man of me."
+
+There was a manliness in Frederick's words and bearing that took them
+all by surprise. Mr. Sutherland's dejection visibly lightened, while
+Sweetwater, conscious of the more than vital interests hanging upon the
+impression which might be made by this event upon the minds of the men
+present, turned slightly so as to bring their faces into the line of his
+vision.
+
+The result was a conviction that as yet no real suspicion of Frederick
+had seized upon either of their minds. Knapp's face was perfectly calm
+and almost indifferent, while the good coroner, who saw this and every
+other circumstance connected with this affair through the one medium of
+his belief in Amabel's guilt, was surveying Frederick with something
+like sympathy.
+
+"I fear," said he, "that others were not as ignorant of your prospective
+good fortune as you were yourself," at which Frederick's cheek turned a
+dark red, though he said nothing, and Sweetwater, with a sudden
+involuntary gesture indicative of resolve, gazed for a moment
+breathlessly at the ship, and then with an unexpected and highly
+impetuous movement dashed from the room crying loudly:
+
+"I've seen him! I've seen him! he's just going on board the ship. Wait
+for me, Dr. Talbot. I'll be back in fifteen minutes with such a
+witness--"
+
+Here the door slammed. But they could hear his hurrying footsteps as he
+plunged down the stairs and rushed away from the building.
+
+It was an unexpected termination to an interview fast becoming
+unbearable to the two Sutherlands, but no one, not even the old
+gentleman himself, took in its full significance.
+
+He was, however, more than agitated by the occurrence and could hardly
+prevent himself from repeating aloud Sweetwater's final word, which
+after their interview at Mr. Halliday's gate, the night before, seemed
+to convey to him at once a warning and a threat. To keep himself from
+what he feared might prove a self-betrayal, he faltered out in very
+evident dismay:
+
+"What is the matter? What has come over the lad?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dr. Talbot, "he's been watching that ship for an hour. He is
+after some man he has just seen go aboard her. Says he's a new and
+important witness in this case. Perhaps he is. Sweetwater is no man's
+fool, for all his small eyes and retreating chin. If you want proof of
+it, wait till he comes back. He'll be sure to have something to say."
+
+Meanwhile they had all pressed forward to the window. Frederick, who
+carefully kept his face out of his father's view, bent half-way over the
+sill in his anxiety to watch the flying figure of Sweetwater, who was
+making straight for the dock, while Knapp, roused at last, leaned over
+his shoulder and pointed to the sailors on the deck, who were pulling in
+the last ropes, preparatory to sailing.
+
+"He's too late: they won't let him aboard now. What a fool to hang
+around here till he saw his man, instead of being at the dock to nab
+him! That comes of trusting a country bumpkin. I knew he'd fail us at
+the pinch. They lack training, these would-be detectives. See, now! He's
+run up against the mate, and the mate pushes him back. His cake is all
+dough, unless he's got a warrant. Has he a warrant, Dr. Talbot?"
+
+"No," said the coroner, "he didn't ask for one. He didn't even tell me
+whom he wanted. Can it be one of those two passengers you see on the
+forward deck, there?"
+
+It might well be. Even from a distance these two men presented a
+sinister appearance that made them quite marked figures among the crowd
+of hurrying sailors and belated passengers.
+
+"One of them is peering over the rail with a very evident air of
+anxiety. His eye is on Sweetwater, who is dancing with impatience. See,
+he is gesticulating like a monkey, and--By the powers, they are going to
+let him go aboard!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had been leaning heavily against the window-jamb in
+the agitation of doubt and suspense which Sweetwater's unaccountable
+conduct had evoked, here crossed to the other side and stole a
+determined look at Frederick. Was his son personally interested in this
+attempt of the amateur detective? Did he know whom Sweetwater sought,
+and was he suffering as much or more than himself from the uncertainty
+and fearful possibilities of the moment? He thought he knew Frederick's
+face, and that he read dread there, but Frederick had changed so
+completely since the commission of this crime that even his father could
+no longer be sure of the correct meaning either of his words or
+expression.
+
+The torture of the moment continued.
+
+"He climbs like a squirrel," remarked Dr. Talbot, with a touch of
+enthusiasm. "Look at him now--he's on the quarterdeck and will be down
+in the cabins before you can say Jack Robinson. I warrant they have told
+him to hurry. Captain Dunlap isn't the man to wait five minutes after
+the ropes are pulled in."
+
+"Those two men have shrunk away behind some mast or other," cried Knapp.
+"They are the fellows he's after. But what can they have to do with the
+murder? Have you ever seen them here about town, Dr. Talbot?"
+
+"Not that I remember; they have a foreign air about them. Look like
+South Americans."
+
+"Well, they're going to South America. Sweetwater can't stop them. He
+has barely time to get off the ship himself. There goes the last rope!
+Have they forgotten him? They're drawing up the ladder."
+
+"No: the mate stops them; see, he's calling the fellow. I can hear his
+voice, can't you? Sweetwater's game is up. He'll have to leave in a
+hurry. What's the rumpus now?"
+
+"Nothing, only they've scattered to look for him; the fox is down in the
+cabins and won't come up, laughing in his sleeve, no doubt, at keeping
+the vessel waiting while he hunts up his witness."
+
+"If it's one of those two men he's laying a trap for he won't snare him
+in a hurry. They're sneaks, those two, and--Why, the sailors are coming
+back shaking their heads. I can almost hear from here the captain's
+oaths."
+
+"And such a favourable wind for getting out of the harbour! Sweetwater,
+my boy, you are distinguishing yourself. If your witness don't pan out
+well you won't hear the last of this in a hurry."
+
+"It looks as if they meant to sail without waiting to put him ashore,"
+observed Frederick in a low tone, too carefully modulated not to strike
+his father as unnatural.
+
+"By jingoes, so it does!" ejaculated Knapp. "There go the sails! The
+pilot's hand is on the wheel, and Dr. Talbot, are you going to let your
+cunning amateur detective and his important witness slip away from you
+like this?"
+
+"I cannot help myself," said the coroner, a little dazed himself at this
+unexpected chance. "My voice wouldn't reach them from this place;
+besides they wouldn't heed me if it did. The ship is already under way
+and we won't see Sweetwater again till the pilot's boat comes back."
+
+Mr. Sutherland moved from the window and crossed to the door like a man
+in a dream. Frederick, instantly conscious of his departure, turned to
+follow him, but presently stopped and addressing Knapp for the first
+time, observed quietly:
+
+"This is all very exciting, but I think your estimate of this fellow
+Sweetwater is just. He's a busybody and craves notoriety above
+everything. He had no witness on board, or, if he had, it was an
+imaginary one. You will see him return quite crestfallen before night,
+with some trumped-up excuse of mistaken identity."
+
+The shrug which Knapp gave dismissed Sweetwater as completely from the
+affair as if he had never been in it.
+
+"I think I may now regard myself as having this matter in my sole
+charge," was his curt remark, as he turned away, while Frederick, with a
+respectful bow to Dr. Talbot, remarked in leaving:
+
+"I am at your service, Dr. Talbot, if you require me to testify at the
+inquest in regard to this will. My testimony can all be concentrated
+into the one sentence, 'I did not expect this bequest, and have no
+theories to advance in explanation of it.' But it has made me feel
+myself Mrs. Webb's debtor, and given me a justifiable interest in the
+inquiry which, I am told, you open to-morrow into the cause and manner
+of her death. If there is a guilty person in this case, I shall raise no
+barrier in the way of his conviction."
+
+And while the coroner's face still showed the embarrassment which this
+last sentence called up, his mind being now, as ever, fixed on Amabel,
+Frederick offered his arm to his father, whose condition was not
+improved by the excitements of the last half-hour, and proceeded to lead
+him from the building.
+
+Whatever they thought, or however each strove to hide their conclusions
+from the other, no words passed between them till they came in full
+sight of the sea, on a distant billow of which the noble-ship bound for
+the Brazils rode triumphantly on its outward course. Then Mr. Sutherland
+remarked, with a suggestive glance at the vessel:
+
+"The young man who has found an unexpected passage on that vessel will
+not come back with the pilot."
+
+Was the sigh which was Frederick's only answer one of relief? It
+certainly seemed so.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+IN THE SHADOW OP THE MAST
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was right. Sweetwater did not return with the pilot.
+According to the latter there was no Sweetwater on board the ship to
+return. At all events the minutest search had not succeeded in finding
+him in the cabins, though no one had seen him leave the vessel, or,
+indeed, seen him at all after his hasty dash below decks. It was thought
+on board that he had succeeded in reaching shore before the ship set
+sail, and the pilot was suitably surprised at learning this was not so.
+So were Sweetwater's friends and associates with the exception of a
+certain old gentleman living on the hill, and Knapp the detective. He,
+that is the latter, had his explanation at his tongue's end:
+
+"Sweetwater is a fakir. He thought he could carry off the honours from
+the regular force, and when he found he couldn't he quietly disappeared.
+We shall hear of him again in the Brazils."
+
+An opinion that speedily gained ground, so that in a few hours
+Sweetwater was all but forgotten, save by his mother, whose heart was
+filled with suspense, and by Mr. Sutherland, whose breast was burdened
+by gratitude. The amazing fact of Frederick, the village scapegrace and
+Amabel's reckless, if aristocratic, lover, having been made the legatee
+of the upright Mrs. Webb's secret savings had something to do with this.
+With such a topic at hand, not only the gossips, but those who had the
+matter of Agatha's murder in hand, found ample material to occupy their
+thoughts and tongues, without wasting time over a presumptuous busybody,
+who had not wits enough to know that five minutes before sailing-time is
+an unfortunate moment in which to enter a ship.
+
+And where was Sweetwater, that he could not be found on the shore or on
+the ship? We will follow him and see. Accustomed from his youth to
+ramble over the vessels while in port, he knew this one as well as he
+did his mother's house. It was, therefore, a surprise to the sailors
+when, shortly after the departure of the pilot, they came upon him lying
+in the hold, half buried under a box which had partially fallen upon
+him. He was unconscious, or appeared to be so, and when brought into
+open light showed marks of physical distress and injury; but his eye was
+clear and his expression hardly as rueful as one would expect in a man
+who finds himself en route for the Brazils with barely a couple of
+dollars in his pocket and every prospect of being obliged to work before
+the mast to earn his passage. Even the captain noticed this and eyed him
+with suspicion. But Sweetwater, rousing to the necessities of the
+occasion, forthwith showed such a mixture of discouragement and
+perplexity that the honest sailor was deceived and abated half at least
+of his oaths. He gave Sweetwater a hammock and admitted him to the mess,
+but told him that as soon as his bruises allowed him to work he should
+show himself on deck or expect the rough treatment commonly bestowed on
+stowaways.
+
+It was a prospect to daunt some men, but not Sweetwater. Indeed it was
+no more than he had calculated upon when he left his savings behind with
+his old mother and entered upon this enterprise with only a little
+change in his pocket. He had undertaken out of love and gratitude to Mr.
+Sutherland to rid Frederick of a dangerous witness and he felt able to
+complete the sacrifice. More than that, he was even strangely happy for
+a time. The elation of the willing victim was his, that is for a few
+short hours, then he began to think of his mother. How had she borne his
+sudden departure? What would she think had befallen him, and how long
+would he have to wait before he could send her word of his safety? If he
+was to be of real service to the man he venerated, he must be lost long
+enough for the public mind to have become settled in regard to the
+mysteries of the Webb murder and for his own boastful connection with it
+to be forgotten. This might mean years of exile. He rather thought it
+did; meanwhile his mother! Of himself he thought little.
+
+By sundown he felt himself sufficiently recovered from his bruises to go
+up on deck. It was a mild night, and the sea was running in smooth long
+waves that as yet but faintly presaged the storm brewing on the distant
+horizon. As he inhaled the fresh air, the joy of renewed health began to
+infuse its life into his veins and lift the oppression from his heart,
+and, glad of a few minutes of quiet enjoyment, he withdrew to a solitary
+portion of the deck and allowed himself to forget his troubles in
+contemplation of the rapidly deepening sky and boundless stretch of
+waters.
+
+But such griefs and anxieties as weighed upon this man's breast are not
+so easily shaken off. Before he realised it his thoughts had recurred to
+the old theme, and he was wondering if he was really of sufficient
+insignificance in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen not to be sought for
+and found in that distant country to which he was bound. Would they, in
+spite of his precautions, suspect that he had planned this evasion and
+insist on his return, or would he be allowed to slip away and drop out
+of sight like the white froth he was watching on the top of the
+ever-shifting waves? He had boasted of possessing a witness. Would they
+believe that boast and send a detective in search of him, or would they
+take his words for the bombast they really were and proceed with their
+investigations in happy relief at the loss of his intrusive assistance?
+
+As this was a question impossible for him to answer, he turned to other
+thoughts and fretted himself for a while with memories of Amabel's
+disdain and Frederick's careless acceptance of a sacrifice he could
+never know the cost of, mixed strangely with relief at being free of it
+all and on the verge of another life. As the dark settled, his head fell
+farther and farther forward on the rail he was leaning against, till he
+became to any passing eye but a blurred shadow mixing with other shadows
+equally immovable.
+
+Unlike them, however, his shadow suddenly shifted. Two men had drawn
+near him, one speaking pure Spanish and the other English. The English
+was all that Sweetwater could understand, and this half of the
+conversation was certainly startling enough. Though he could not, of
+coarse, know to what or whom it referred, and though it certainly had
+nothing to do with him, or any interest he represented or understood, he
+could not help listening and remembering every word. The
+English-speaking man uttered the first sentence he comprehended. It was
+this:
+
+"Shall it be to-night?"
+
+The answer was in Spanish.
+
+Again the English voice:
+
+"He has come up. I saw him distinctly as he passed the second mast."
+
+More Spanish; then English:
+
+"You may if you want to, but I'll never breathe easy while he's on the
+ship. Are you sure he's the fellow we fear?"
+
+A rapid flow of words from which Sweetwater got nothing. Then slowly and
+distinctly in the sinister tones he had already begun to shiver at:
+
+"Very good. The R. F. A. should pay well for this," with the quick
+addition following a hurried whisper: "All right! I'd send a dozen men
+to the bottom for half that money. But 'ware there! Here's a fellow
+watching us! If he has heard--"
+
+Sweetwater turned, saw two desperate faces projected toward him,
+realised that something awful, unheard of, was about to happen, and
+would have uttered a yell of dismay, but that the very intensity of his
+fright took away his breath. The next minute he felt himself launched
+into space and enveloped in the darkness of the chilling waters. He had
+been lifted bodily and flung headlong into the sea.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+IN EXTREMITY
+
+
+Sweetwater's one thought as he sank was, "Now Mr. Sutherland need fear
+me no longer."
+
+But the instinct of life is strong in every heart, and when he found
+himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly and grasped
+a spar.
+
+It was life to him, hope, reconnection with his kind. He clutched,
+clung, and, feeling himself floating, uttered a shout of mingled joy and
+appeal that unhappily was smothered in the noise of the waters and the
+now rapidly rising wind.
+
+Whence had come this spar in his desperate need? He never knew, but
+somewhere in his remote consciousness an impression remained of a shock
+to the waves following his own plunge into the water, which might mean
+that this spar had been thrown out after him, perhaps by the already
+repentant hands of the wretches who had tossed him to his death. However
+it came, or from whatever source, it had at least given him an
+opportunity to measure his doom and realise the agonies of hope when it
+alternates with despair.
+
+The darkness was impenetrable. It was no longer that of heaven, but of
+the nether world, or so it seemed to this dazed soul, plunged suddenly
+from dreams of exile into the valley of the shadow of death. And such a
+death! As he realised its horrors, as he felt the chill of night and the
+oncoming storm strike its piercing fangs into his marrow, and knew that
+his existence and the hope of ever again seeing the dear old face at the
+fireside rested upon the strength of his will and the tenacity of his
+life-clutch, he felt his heart fail, and the breath that was his life
+cease in a gurgle of terror. But he clung on, and, though no comfort
+came, still clung, while vague memories of long-ago shipwrecks, and
+stories told in his youth of men, women, and children tossing for hours
+on a drifting plank, flashed through his benumbed brain, and lent their
+horror to his own sensations of apprehension and despair.
+
+He wanted to live. Now that the dread spectre had risen out of the water
+and had its clutch on his hair, he realised that the world held much for
+him, and that even in exile he might work and love and enjoy God's
+heaven and earth, the green fields and the blue sky. Not such skies as
+were above him now. No, this was not sky that overarched him, but a
+horrible vault in which the clouds, rushing in torn masses, had the
+aspect of demons stooping to contend for him with those other demons
+that with long arms and irresistible grip were dragging at him from
+below. He was alone on a whirling spar in the midst of a midnight ocean,
+but horror and a pitiless imagination made this conflict more than that
+of the elements, and his position an isolation beyond that of man
+removed from his fellows. He was almost mad. Yet he clung.
+
+Suddenly a better frame of mind prevailed. The sky was no lighter, save
+as the lightning came to relieve the overwhelming darkness by a still
+more overwhelming glare, nor were the waves less importunate or his hold
+on the spar more secure; but the horror seemed to have lifted, and the
+practical nature of the man reasserted itself. Other men had gone
+through worse dangers than these and survived to tell the tale, as he
+might survive to tell his. The will was all--will and an indomitable
+courage; and he had will and he had courage, or why had he left his home
+to dare a hard and threatening future purely from a sentiment of
+gratitude? Could he hold on long enough, daylight would come; and if, as
+he now thought possible, he had been thrown into the sea within twenty
+hours after leaving Sutherlandtown, then he must be not far from Cape
+Cod, and in the direct line of travel from New York to Boston. Rescue
+would come, and if the storm which was breaking over his head more and
+more furiously made it difficult for him to retain his hold, it
+certainly would not wreck his spar or drench him more than he was
+already drenched, while every blast would drive him shoreward. The
+clinging was all, and filial love would make him do that, even in the
+semi-unconsciousness which now and then swept over him. Only, would it
+not be better for Mr. Sutherland if he should fail and drop away into
+the yawning chasms of the unknown world beneath? There were moments when
+he thought so, and then his clutch perceptibly weakened; but only once
+did he come near losing his hold altogether. And that was when he
+thought he heard a laugh. A laugh, here in the midst of ocean! in the
+midst of storm! a laugh! Were demons a reality, then? Yes; but the demon
+he had heard was of his own imagination; it had a face of Medusa
+sweetness and the laugh--Only Amabel's rang out so thrillingly false,
+and with such diabolic triumph. Amabel, who might be laughing in her
+dreams at this very moment of his supreme misery, and who assuredly
+would laugh if conscious of his suffering and aware of the doom to which
+his self-sacrifice had brought him. Amabel! the thought of her made the
+night more dark, the waters more threatening, the future less promising.
+Yet he would hold on if only to spite her who hated him and whom he
+hated almost as much as he loved Mr. Sutherland.
+
+It was his last conscious thought for hours. When morning broke he was
+but a nerveless figure, with sense enough to cling, and that was all.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARCEL
+
+
+"A man! Haul him in! Don't leave a poor fellow drifting about like
+that."
+
+The speaker, a bluff, hearty skipper, whose sturdy craft had outridden
+one of the worst storms of the season, pointed to our poor friend
+Sweetwater, whose head could just be seen above the broken spar he clung
+to. In another moment a half-dozen hands were stretched for him, and the
+insensible form was drawn in and laid on a deck which still showed the
+results of the night's fierce conflict with the waters.
+
+"Damn it! how ugly he is!" cried one of the sailors, with a leer at the
+half-drowned man's face. "I'd like to see the lass we'd please in saving
+him. He's only fit to poison a devil-fish!"
+
+But though more than one laugh rang out, they gave him good care, and
+when Sweetwater came to life and realised that his blood was pulsing
+warmly again through his veins, and that a grey sky had taken the place
+of darkness, and a sound board supported limbs which for hours had
+yielded helplessly to the rocking billows, he saw a ring of hard but
+good-natured faces about him and realised quite well what had been done
+for him when one of them said:
+
+"There! he'll do now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford in
+two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the man
+at the tiller. "We'll sup with our old women in forty-eight hours!"
+
+New Bedford! It was the only word Sweetwater heard. So, he was no
+farther away from Sutherlandtown than that. Evidently Providence had not
+meant him to escape. Or was it his fortitude that was being tried? A man
+as humble as he might easily be lost even in a place as small as New
+Bedford. It was his identity he must suppress. With that unrecognised he
+might remain in the next village to Sutherlandtown without fear of being
+called up as a witness against Frederick. But could he suppress it? He
+thought he could. At all events he meant to try.
+
+"What's your name?" were the words he now heard shouted in his ear.
+
+"Jonathan Briggs," was his mumbled reply. "I was blown off a ship's deck
+in the gale last night."
+
+"What ship?"
+
+"The Proserpine." It was the first name that suggested itself to him.
+
+"Oh, I thought it might have been the Hesper; she foundered off here
+last night."
+
+"Foundered? The Hesper?" The hot blood was shooting now through his
+veins.
+
+"Yes, we just picked up her name-board. That was before we got a hold on
+you."
+
+Foundered! The ship from which he had been so mercilessly thrown! And
+all on board lost, perhaps. He began to realise the hand of Providence
+in his fate.
+
+"It was the Hesper I sailed on. I'm not just clear yet in my head. My
+first voyage was made on the Proserpine. Well, bless the gale that blew
+me from that deck!"
+
+He seemed incoherent, and they left him again for a little while. When
+they came back he had his story all ready, which imposed upon them just
+so far as it was for their interest. Their business on this coast was
+not precisely legitimate, and when they found he simply wanted to be set
+on shore, they were quite willing to do thus much for him. Only they
+regretted that he had barely two dollars and his own soaked clothing to
+give in exchange for the motley garments they trumped up among them for
+his present comfort. But he, as well as they, made the best of a bad
+bargain, he especially, as his clothes, which would be soon scattered
+among half a dozen families, were the only remaining clew connecting him
+with his native town. He could now be Jonathan Briggs indeed. Only who
+was Jonathan Briggs, and how was he to earn a living under these
+unexpected conditions?
+
+At the end of a couple of days he was dexterously landed on the end of a
+long pier, which they passed without stopping, on their way to their own
+obscure anchorage. As he jumped from the rail to the pier and felt again
+the touch of terra firma he drew a long breath of uncontrollable
+elation. Yet he had not a cent in the world, no friends, and certainly
+no prospects. He did not even know whether to turn to the right or the
+left as he stepped out upon the docks, and when he had decided to turn
+to the right as being on the whole more lucky, he did not know whether
+to risk his fortune in the streets of the town or to plunge into one of
+the low-browed drinking houses whose signs confronted him on this
+water-lane.
+
+He decided that his prospects for a dinner were slim in any case, and
+that his only hope of breaking fast that day lay in the use he might
+make of one of his three talents. Either he must find a fiddle to play
+on, a carpenter's bench to work at, or a piece of detective shadowing to
+do. The last would bring him before the notice of the police, which was
+just the thing he must avoid; so it was fiddling or carpentry he must
+seek, either of which would be difficult to obtain in his present garb.
+But of difficulties Sweetwater was not a man to take note. He had
+undertaken out of pure love for a good man to lose himself. He had
+accomplished this, and now was he to complain because in doing so he was
+likely to go hungry for a day or two? No; Amabel might laugh at him, or
+he might fancy she did, while struggling in the midst of rapidly
+engulfing waters, but would she laugh at him now? He did not think she
+would. She was of the kind who sometimes go hungry themselves in old
+age. Some premonition of this might give her a fellow feeling.
+
+He came to a stand before a little child sitting on an ill-kept
+doorstep. Smiling at her kindly, he waited for her first expression to
+see how he appeared in the eyes of innocence. Not so bad a man, it
+seemed, though his naturally plain countenance was not relieved by the
+seaman's cap and knitted shirt he wore. For she laughed as she looked at
+him, and only ran away because there wasn't room for him to pass beside
+her.
+
+Comforted a little, he sauntered on, glancing here and there with that
+sharp eye of his for a piece of work to be done. Suddenly he came to a
+halt. A market-woman had got into an altercation with an oysterman, and
+her stall had been upset in the contention, and her vegetables were
+rolling here and there. He righted her stall, picked up her vegetables,
+and in return got two apples and a red herring he would not have given
+to a dog at home. Yet it was the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted, and
+the apples might have been grown in the garden of the Hesperides from
+the satisfaction and pleasure they gave this hungry man. Then,
+refreshed, he dashed into the town. It should now go hard but he would
+earn a night's lodging.
+
+The day was windy and he was going along a narrow street, when something
+floated down from a window above past his head. It was a woman's veil,
+and as he looked up to see where it came from he met the eyes of its
+owner looking down from an open casement above him. She was
+gesticulating, and seemed to point to someone up the street. Glad to
+seize at anything which promised emolument or adventure, he shouted up
+and asked her what she wanted.
+
+"That man down there!" she cried; "the one in a long black coat going up
+the street. Keep after him and stop him; tell him the telegram has come.
+Quick, quick, before he gets around the corner! He will pay you; run!"
+
+Sweetwater, with joy in his heart,--for five cents was a boon to him in
+the present condition of his affairs,--rushed after the man she had
+pointed out and hastily stopped him.
+
+"Someone," he added, "a woman in a window back there, bade me run after
+you and say the telegram has come. She told me you would pay me," he
+added, for he saw the man was turning hastily back, without thinking of
+the messenger. "I need the money, and the run was a sharp one."
+
+With a preoccupied air, the man thrust his hand into his pocket, pulled
+out a coin, and handed it to him. Then he walked hurriedly off.
+Evidently the news was welcome to him. But Sweetwater stood rooted to
+the ground. The man had given him a five-dollar gold piece instead of
+the nickel he had evidently intended.
+
+How hungrily Sweetwater eyed that coin! In it was lodging, food, perhaps
+a new article or so of clothing. But after a moment of indecision which
+might well be forgiven him, he followed speedily after the man and
+overtook him just as he reached the house from which the woman's veil
+had floated.
+
+"Sir, pardon me; but you gave me five dollars instead of five cents. It
+was a mistake; I cannot keep the money."
+
+The man, who was not just the sort from whom kindness would be expected,
+looked at the money in Sweetwater's palm, then at the miserable,
+mud-bespattered clothes he wore (he had got that mud helping the poor
+market-woman), and stared hard at the face of the man who looked so
+needy and yet returned him five dollars.
+
+"You're an honest fellow," he declared, not offering to take back the
+gold piece. Then, with a quick glance up at the window, "Would you like
+to earn that money?"
+
+Sweetwater broke out into a smile, which changed his whole countenance.
+
+"Wouldn't I, sir?"
+
+The man eyed him for another minute with scrutinising intensity. Then he
+said shortly:
+
+"Come up-stairs with me."
+
+They entered the house, went up a flight or two, and stopped at a door
+which was slightly ajar.
+
+"We are going into the presence of a lady," remarked the man. "Wait here
+until I call you."
+
+Sweetwater waited, the many thoughts going through his mind not
+preventing him from observing all that passed.
+
+The man, who had left the door wide open, approached the lady who was
+awaiting him, and who was apparently the same one who had sent
+Sweetwater on his errand, and entered into a low but animated
+conversation. She held a telegram in her hand which she showed him, and
+then after a little earnest parley and a number of pleading looks from
+them both toward the waiting Sweetwater, she disappeared into another
+room, from which she brought a parcel neatly done up, which she handed
+to the man with a strange gesture. Another hurried exchange of words and
+a meaning look which did not escape the sharp eye of the watchful
+messenger, and the man turned and gave the parcel into Sweetwater's
+hands.
+
+"You are to carry this," said he, "to the town hall. In the second room
+to the right on entering you will see a table surrounded by chairs,
+which at this hour ought to be empty. At the head of the table you will
+find an arm-chair. On the table directly in front of this you will lay
+this packet. Mark you, directly before the chair and not too far from
+the edge of the table. Then you are to come out. If you see anyone, say
+you came to leave some papers for Mr. Gifford. Do this and you may keep
+the five dollars and welcome."
+
+Sweetwater hesitated. There was something in the errand or in the manner
+of the man and woman that he did not like.
+
+"Don't potter!" spoke up the latter, with an impatient look at her
+watch. "Mr. Gifford will expect those papers."
+
+Sweetwater's sensitive fingers closed on the package he held. It did not
+feel like papers.
+
+"Are you going?" asked the man.
+
+Sweetwater looked up with a smile. "Large pay for so slight a
+commission," he ventured, turning the packet over and over in his hand.
+
+"But then you will execute it at once, and according to the instructions
+I have given you," retorted the man. "It is your trustworthiness I pay
+for. Now go."
+
+Sweetwater turned to go. After all it was probably all right, and five
+dollars easily earned is doubly five dollars. As he reached the
+staircase he stumbled. The shoes he wore did not fit him.
+
+"Be careful, there!" shouted the woman, in a shrill, almost frightened
+voice, while the man stumbled back into the room in a haste which seemed
+wholly uncalled for. "If you let the packet fall you will do injury to
+its contents. Go softly, man, go softly!"
+
+Yet they had said it held papers!
+
+Troubled, yet hardly knowing what his duty was, Sweetwater hastened down
+the stairs, and took his way up the street. The town hall should be easy
+to find; indeed, he thought he saw it in the distance. As he went, he
+asked himself two questions: Could he fail to deliver the package
+according to instructions, and yet earn his money? And was there any way
+of so delivering it without risk to the recipient or dereliction of duty
+to the man who had intrusted it to him and whose money he wished to
+earn? To the first question his conscience at once answered no; to the
+second the reply came more slowly, and before fixing his mind
+determinedly upon it he asked himself why he felt that this was no
+ordinary commission. He could answer readily enough. First, the pay was
+too large, arguing that either the packet or the placing of the packet
+in a certain position on Mr. Gifford's table was of uncommon importance
+to this man or this woman. Secondly, the woman, though plainly and
+inconspicuously clad, had the face of a more than ordinarily
+unscrupulous adventuress, while her companion was one of those
+saturnine-faced men we sometimes meet, whose first look puts us on our
+guard and whom, if we hope nothing from him, we instinctively shun.
+Third, they did not look like inhabitants of the house and rooms in
+which he found them. Nothing beyond the necessary articles of furniture
+was to be seen there; not a trunk, not an article of clothing, nor any
+of the little things that mark a woman's presence in a spot where she
+expects to spend a day or even an hour. Consequently they were
+transients and perhaps already in the act of flight. Then he was being
+followed. Of this he felt sure. He had followed people himself, and
+something in his own sensations assured him that his movements were
+under surveillance. It would, therefore, not do to show any
+consciousness of this, and he went on directly and as straight to his
+goal as his rather limited knowledge of the streets would allow. He was
+determined to earn this money and to earn it without disadvantage to
+anyone. And he thought he saw his way.
+
+At the entrance of the town hall he hesitated an instant. An officer was
+standing in the doorway, it would be easy to call his attention to the
+packet he held and ask him to keep his eye on it. But this might involve
+him with the police, and this was something, as we know, which he was
+more than anxious to avoid. He reverted to his first idea.
+
+Mixing with the crowd just now hurrying to and fro through the long
+corridors, he reached the room designated and found it, as he had been
+warned he should, empty.
+
+Approaching the table, he laid down the packet just as he had been
+directed, in front of the big arm chair, and then, casting a hurried
+look towards the door and failing to find anyone watching him, he took
+up a pencil lying near-by and scrawled hastily across the top of the
+packet the word "Suspicious." This he calculated would act as a warning
+to Mr. Gifford in case there was anything wrong about the package, and
+pass as a joke with him, and even the sender, if there was not. And
+satisfied that he had both earned his money and done justice to his own
+apprehensions, he turned to retrace his steps. As before, the corridors
+were alive with hurrying men of various ages and appearance, but only
+two attracted his notice. One of these was a large, intellectual-looking
+man, who turned into the room from which he had just emerged, and the
+other a short, fair man, with a countenance he had known from boyhood.
+Mr. Stone of Sutherlandtown was within ten paces of him, and he was as
+well known to the good postmaster as the postmaster was to him. Could
+anyone have foreseen such a chance!
+
+Turning his back with a slow slouch, he made for a rear door he saw
+swinging in and out before him. As he passed through he cast a quick
+look behind him. He had not been recognised. In great relief he rushed
+on, knocking against a man standing against one of the outside pillars.
+
+"Halloo!" shouted this man.
+
+Sweetwater stopped. There was a tone of authority in the voice which he
+could not resist.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SCRAP OF PAPER AND THE THREE WORDS
+
+
+"What are you trying to do? Why do you fall over a man like that? Are
+you drunk?"
+
+Sweetwater drew himself up, made a sheepish bow, and muttered pantingly:
+
+"Excuse me, sir. I'm in a hurry; I'm a messenger."
+
+The man who was not in a hurry seemed disposed to keep him for a moment.
+He had caught sight of Sweetwater's eye, which was his one remarkable
+feature, and he had also been impressed by that word messenger, for he
+repeated it with some emphasis.
+
+"A messenger, eh? Are you going on a message now?"
+
+Sweetwater, who was anxious to get away from the vicinity of Mr. Stone,
+shrugged his shoulders in careless denial, and was pushing on when the
+gentleman again detained him.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "that I like your looks? You are not a beauty,
+but you look like a fellow who, if he promised to do a thing, would do
+it and do it mighty well too."
+
+Sweetwater could not restrain a certain movement of pride. He was
+honest, and he knew it, but the fact had not always been so openly
+recognised.
+
+"I have just earned five dollars by doing a commission for a man," said
+he, with a straightforward look. "See, sir. It was honestly earned."
+
+The man, who was young and had a rather dashing but inscrutable
+physiognomy, glanced at the coin Sweetwater showed him and betrayed a
+certain disappointment.
+
+"So you're flush," said he. "Don't want another job?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Sweetwater, edging slowly down the street, "I'm
+always ready for business. Five dollars won't last forever, and,
+besides, I'm in need of new togs."
+
+"Well, rather," retorted the other, carelessly following him. "Do you
+mind going up to Boston?"
+
+Boston! Another jump toward home.
+
+"No," said Sweetwater, hesitatingly, "not if it's made worth my while.
+Do you want your message delivered to-day?"
+
+"At once. That is, this evening. It's a task involving patience and more
+or less shrewd judgment. Have you these qualities, my friend? One would
+not judge it from your clothes."
+
+"My clothes!" laughed Sweetwater. Life was growing very interesting all
+at once. "I know it takes patience to WEAR them, and as for any lack of
+judgment I may show in their choice, I should just like to say I did not
+choose them myself, sir; they fell to me promiscuous-like as a sort of
+legacy from friends. You'll see what I'll do in that way if you give me
+the chance to earn an extra ten."
+
+"Ah, it's ten dollars you want. Well, come in here and have a drink and
+then we'll see."
+
+They were before a saloon house of less than humble pretensions, and as
+he followed the young gentleman in it struck him that it was himself
+rather than his well-dressed and airy companion who would be expected to
+drink here. But he made no remark, though he intended to surprise the
+man by his temperance.
+
+"Now, look here," said the young gentleman, suddenly seating himself at
+a dingy table in a very dark corner and motioning Sweetwater to do the
+same; "I've been looking for a man all day to go up to Boston for me,
+and I think you'll do. You know Boston?"
+
+Sweetwater had great command over himself, but he flushed slightly at
+this question, though it was so dark where he sat with this man that it
+made very little difference.
+
+"I have been there," said he.
+
+"Very well, then, you will go again to-night. You will arrive there
+about seven, you will go the rounds of some half-dozen places whose
+names I will give you, and when you come across a certain gentleman whom
+I will describe to you, you will give him--"
+
+"Not a package?" Sweetwater broke out with a certain sort of dread of a
+repetition of his late experience.
+
+"No, this slip on which two words are written. He will want one more
+word, but before you give it to him you must ask for your ten dollars.
+You'll get them," he answered in response to a glance of suspicion from
+Sweetwater. Sweetwater was convinced that he had got hold of another
+suspicious job. It made him a little serious. "Do I look like a
+go-between for crooks?" he asked himself. "I'm afraid I'm not so much of
+a success as I thought myself." But he said to the man before him: "Ten
+dollars is small pay for such business. Twenty-five would be nearer the
+mark."
+
+"Very well, he will give you twenty-five dollars. I forgot that ten
+dollars was but little in advance of your expenses."
+
+"Twenty-five if I find him, and he is in funds. What if I don't?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Except your ticket; that I'll give you."
+
+Sweetwater did not know what to say. Like the preceding job it might be
+innocent and it might not. And then, he did not like going to Boston,
+where he was liable to meet more than one who knew him.
+
+"There is no harm in the business," observed the other, carelessly,
+pushing a glass of whiskey which had just been served him toward
+Sweetwater. "I would even be willing to do it myself, if I could leave
+New Bedford to-night, but I can't. Come! It's as easy as crooking your
+elbow."
+
+"Just now you said it wasn't," growled Sweetwater, drinking from his
+glass. "But no matter about that, go ahead, I'll do it. Shall I have to
+buy other clothes?"
+
+"I'd buy a new pair of trousers," suggested the other. "The rest you can
+get in Boston. You don't want to be too much in evidence, you know."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with. him. To attract attention was what he most
+dreaded. "When does the train start?" he asked.
+
+The young man told him.
+
+"Well, that will give me time to buy what I want. Now, what are your
+instructions?"
+
+The young man gave him a memorandum, containing four addresses. "You
+will find him at one of these places," said he. "And now to know your
+man when you see him. He is a large, handsome fellow, with red hair and
+a moustache like the devil. He has been hurt, and wears his left hand in
+a sling, but he can play cards, and will be found playing cards, and in
+very good company too. You will have to use your discretion in
+approaching him. When once he sees this bit of paper, all will be easy.
+He knows what these two words mean well enough, and the third one, the
+one that is worth twenty-five dollars to you, is FREDERICK."
+
+Sweetwater, who had drunk half his glass, started so at this word, which
+was always humming in his brain, that he knocked over his tumbler and
+spilled what was left in it.
+
+"I hope I won't forget that word," he remarked, in a careless tone,
+intended to carry off his momentary show of feeling.
+
+"If you do, then don't expect the twenty-five dollars," retorted the
+other, finishing his own glass, but not offering to renew Sweetwater's.
+
+Sweetwater laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and rose.
+In a half-hour he was at the depot, and in another fifteen minutes
+speeding out of New Bedford on his way to Boston.
+
+He had had but one anxiety--that Mr. Stone might be going up to Boston
+too. But, once relieved of this apprehension, he settled back, and for
+the first time in twelve hours had a minute in which to ask himself who
+he was, and what he was about. Adventure had followed so fast upon
+adventure that he was in a more or less dazed condition, and felt as
+little capable of connecting event with event as if he had been asked to
+recall the changing pictures of a kaleidoscope. That affair of the
+packet, now, was it or was it not serious, and would he ever know what
+it meant or how it turned out?
+
+Like a child who had been given a pebble, and told to throw it over the
+wall, he had thrown and run, giving a shout of warning, it is true, but
+not knowing, nor ever likely to know, where the stone had fallen, or
+what it was meant to do. Then this new commission on which he was
+bent--was it in any way connected with the other, or merely the odd
+result of his being in the right place at the right moment? He was
+inclined to think the latter. And yet how odd it was that one doubtful
+errand should be followed by another, in a town no larger than New
+Bedford, forcing him from scene to scene, till he found himself speeding
+toward the city he least desired to enter, and from which he had the
+most to fear!
+
+But brooding over a case like this brings small comfort. He felt that he
+had been juggled with, but he neither knew by whose hand nor in what
+cause. If the hand was that of Providence, why he had only to go on
+following the beck of the moment, while if it was that of Fate, the very
+uselessness of struggling with it was apparent at once. Poor reasoning,
+perhaps, but no other offered, and satisfied that whatever came his
+intentions were above question, he settled himself at last for a nap, of
+which he certainly stood in good need. When he awoke he was in Boston.
+
+The first thing he did was to show his list of addresses and inquire
+into what quarter they would lead him. To his surprise he found it to be
+the fashionable quarter. Two of them were names of well-known
+club-houses, a third that of a first-class restaurant, and the fourth
+that of a private house on Commonwealth Avenue. Heigho! and he was
+dressed like a tramp, or nearly so!
+
+"Queer messenger, I, for such kind of work," thought he. "I wonder why
+he lighted on such a rough-looking customer. He must have had his
+reasons. I wonder if he wished the errand to fail. He bore himself very
+nonchalantly at the depot. When I last saw him his face and attitude
+were those of a totally unconcerned man. Have I been sent on a fool's
+chase after all?"
+
+The absurdity of this conclusion struck him, however, as he reasoned:
+"Why, then, should he have paid my fare? Not as a benefit to me, of
+course, but for his own ends, whatever they might be. Let us see, then,
+what those ends are. So now for the gentleman of the red hair who plays
+cards with one arm in a sling."
+
+He thought that he might get entrance into the club-houses easily
+enough. He possessed a certain amount of insinuation when necessity
+required, and, if hard-featured, had a good expression which in
+unprejudiced minds defied criticism. Of porters and doorkeepers he was
+not afraid, and these were the men he must first encounter.
+
+At the first club-house he succeeded easily enough in getting word with
+the man waiting in the large hall, and before many minutes learned that
+the object of his search was not to be found there that evening. He also
+learned his name, which was a great step towards the success of his
+embassy. It was Wattles, Captain Wattles, a marked man evidently, even
+in this exclusive and aristocratic club.
+
+Armed with this new knowledge, he made his way to the second building of
+the kind and boldly demanded speech with Captain Wattles. But Captain
+Wattles had not yet arrived and he went out again this time to look him
+up at the restaurant.
+
+He was not there. As Sweetwater was going out two gentlemen came in, one
+of whom said to the other in passing:
+
+"Sick, do you say? I thought Wattles was made of iron."
+
+"So he was," returned the other, "before that accident to his arm. Now
+the least thing upsets him. He's down at Haberstow's."
+
+That was all; the door was swung to between them. Sweetwater had
+received his clew, but what a clew! Haberstow's? Where was that?
+
+Thinking the bold course the best one, he re-entered the restaurant and
+approached the gentlemen he had just seen enter.
+
+"I heard you speak the name of Captain Wattles," said he. "I am hunting
+for Captain Wattles. Can you tell me where he is?"
+
+He soon saw that he had struck the wrong men for information. They not
+only refused to answer him, but treated him with open disdain. Unwilling
+to lose time, he left them, and having no other resource, hastened to
+the last place mentioned on his list.
+
+It was now late, too late to enter a private house under ordinary
+circumstances, but this house was lighted up, and a carriage stood in
+front of it; so he had the courage to run up the steps and consult the
+large door-plate visible from the sidewalk. It read thus:
+
+HABERSTOW.
+
+Fortune had favoured him better than he expected.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then decided to ring the bell. But before he had
+done so, the door opened and an old gentleman appeared seeing a younger
+man out. The latter had his arm in a sling, and bore himself with a
+fierceness that made his appearance somewhat alarming; the other seemed
+to be in an irate state of mind.
+
+"No apologies!" the former was saying. "I don't mind the night air; I'm
+not so ill as that. When I'm myself again we'll have a little more talk.
+My compliments to your daughter, sir. I wish you a very good evening, or
+rather night."
+
+The old gentleman bowed, and as he did so Sweetwater caught a glimpse
+(it was the shortest glimpse in the world) of a sweet face beaming from
+a doorway far down the hall. There was pain in it and a yearning anxiety
+that made it very beautiful; then it vanished, and the old gentleman,
+uttering some few sarcastic words, closed the door, and Sweetwater found
+himself alone and in darkness.
+
+The kaleidoscope had been given another turn.
+
+Dashing down the stoop, he came upon the gentleman who had preceded him,
+just as he was seating himself in the carriage.
+
+"Pardon me," he gasped, as the driver caught up the reins; "you have
+forgotten something." Then, as Captain Wattles looked hastily out, "You
+have forgotten me."
+
+The oath that rang out from under that twitching red moustache was
+something to startle even him. But he clung to the carriage window and
+presently managed to say:
+
+"A messenger, sir, from New Bedford. I have been on the hunt for you for
+two hours. It won't keep, sir, for more than a half-hour longer. Where
+shall I find you during that time?"
+
+Captain Wattles, on whom the name New Bedford seemed to have made some
+impression, pointed up at the coachman's box with a growl, in which
+command mingled strangely with menace. Then he threw himself back.
+Evidently the captain was not in very good humour.
+
+Sweetwater, taking this as an order to seat himself beside the driver,
+did so, and the carriage drove off. It went at a rapid pace, and before
+he had time to propound more than a question or two to the coachman, it
+stopped before a large apartment-house in a brilliantly lighted street.
+
+Captain Wattles got out, and Sweetwater followed him. The former, who
+seemed to have forgotten Sweetwater, walked past him and entered the
+building with a stride and swing that made the plain, lean,
+insignificant-looking messenger behind him feel smaller than ever.
+Indeed, he had never felt so small, for not only was the captain a man
+of superb proportions and conspicuous bearing, but he possessed, in
+spite of his fiery hair and fierce moustache, that _beaute de diable_
+which is at once threatening and imposing. Added to this, he was angry
+and so absorbed in his own thoughts that he would be very apt to visit
+punishment of no light character upon anyone who interfered with him. A
+pleasing prospect for Sweetwater, who, however, kept on with the dogged
+determination of his character up the first flight of stairs and then up
+another till they stopped, Captain Wattles first and afterwards his
+humble follower, before a small door into which the captain endeavoured
+to fit a key. The oaths which followed his failure to do this were not
+very encouraging to the man behind, nor was the kick which he gave the
+door after the second more successful attempt calculated to act in a
+very reassuring way upon anyone whose future pay for a doubtful task
+rested upon this man's good nature.
+
+The darkness which met them both on the threshold of this now open room
+was speedily relieved by a burst of electric light, that flooded the
+whole apartment and brought out the captain's swaggering form and
+threatening features with startling distinctness. He had thrown off his
+hat and was relieving himself of a cloak in a furious way that caused
+Sweetwater to shrink back, and, as the French say, efface himself as
+much as possible behind a clothes-tree standing near the door. That the
+captain had entirely forgotten him was evident, and for the present
+moment that gentleman was too angry to care or even notice if a dozen
+men stood at the door. As he was talking all this time, or rather
+jerking out sharp sentences, as men do when in a towering rage,
+Sweetwater was glad to be left unnoticed, for much can be gathered from
+scattered sentences, especially when a man is in too reckless a frame of
+mind to weigh them. He, therefore, made but little movement and
+listened; and these are some of the ejaculations and scraps of talk he
+heard:
+
+"The old purse-proud fool! Honoured by my friendship, but not ready to
+accept me as his daughter's suitor! As if I would lounge away hours that
+mean dollars to me in his stiff old drawing-room, just to hear his
+everlasting drone about stocks up and stocks down, and politics gone all
+wrong. He has heard that I play cards, and--How pretty she looked! I
+believe I half like that girl, and when I think she has a million in her
+own right--Damn it, if I cannot win her openly and with papa's consent,
+I will carry her off with only her own. She's worth the effort, doubly
+worth it, and when I have her and her money--Eh! Who are you?"
+
+He had seen Sweetwater at last, which was not strange, seeing that he
+had turned his way, and was within two feet of him.
+
+"What are you doing here, and who let you in? Get out, or--"
+
+"A message, Captain Wattles! A message from New Bedford. You have
+forgotten, sir; you bade me follow you."
+
+It was curious to see the menace slowly die out of the face of this
+flushed and angry man as he met Sweetwater's calm eye and unabashed
+front, and noticed, as he had not done at first, the slip of paper which
+the latter resolutely held out.
+
+"New Bedford; ah, from Campbell, I take it. Let me see!" And the hand
+which had shook with rage now trembled with a very different sort of
+emotion as he took the slip, cast his eyes over it, and then looked back
+at Sweetwater.
+
+Now, Sweetwater knew the two words written on that paper. He could see
+out of the back of his head at times, and he had been able to make out
+these words when the man in New Bedford was writing them.
+
+"Happenings; Afghanistan," with the figures 2000 after the latter.
+
+Not much sense in them singly or in conjunction, but the captain,
+muttering them over to himself, consulted a little book which he took
+from his breast pocket and found, or seemed to, a clew to their meaning.
+It could only have been a partial one, however, for in another instant
+he turned on Sweetwater with a sour look and a thundering oath.
+
+"Is this all?" he shouted. "Does he call this a complete message?"
+
+"There is another word," returned Sweetwater, "which he bade me give you
+by word of mouth; but that word don't go for nothing. It's worth just
+twenty-five dollars. I've earned it, sir. I came up from New Bedford on
+purpose to deliver it to you."
+
+Sweetwater expected a blow, but he only got a stare.
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," muttered the captain. "Well, it's fortunate that
+I have them. And who are you?" he asked. "Not one of Campbell's
+pick-ups, surely?"
+
+"I am a confidential messenger," smiled Sweetwater, amused against his
+will at finding a name for himself. "I carry messages and execute
+commissions that require more or less discretion in the handling. I am
+paid well. Twenty-five dollars is the price of this job."
+
+"So you have had the honour of informing me before," blustered the other
+with an attempt to hide some serious emotion. "Why, man, what do you
+fear? Don't you see I'm hurt? You could knock me over with a feather if
+you touched my game arm."
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," repeated Sweetwater.
+
+The captain grew angrier. "Dash it! aren't you going to have them?
+What's the word?"
+
+But Sweetwater wasn't going to be caught by chaff.
+
+"C. O. D.," he insisted firmly, standing his ground, though certain that
+the blow would now fall. But no, the captain laughed, and tugging away
+with his one free hand at his pocket, he brought out a pocket-book, from
+which he managed deftly enough to draw out three bills. "There," said
+he, laying them on the table, but keeping one long vigorous finger on
+them. "Now, the word."
+
+Sweetwater laid his own hand on the bills.
+
+"Frederick," said he.
+
+"Ah!" said the other thoughtfully, lifting his finger and proceeding to
+stride up and down the room. "He's a stiff one. What he says, he will
+do. Two thousand dollars! and soon, too, I warrant. Well, I'm in a devil
+of a fix at last." He had again forgotten the presence of Sweetwater.
+
+Suddenly he turned or rather stopped. His eye was on the messenger, but
+he did not even see him. "One Frederick must offset the other," he
+cried. "It's the only loophole out," and he threw himself into a chair
+from which he immediately sprang up again with a yell. He had hurt his
+wounded arm.
+
+Pandemonium reigned in that small room for a minute, then his eye fell
+again on Sweetwater, who, under the fascination of the spectacle offered
+him, had only just succeeded in finding the knob of the door. This time
+there was recognition in his look.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I may have use for you too. Confidential messengers
+are hard to come by, and one that Campbell would employ must be all
+right. Sit down there! I'll talk to you when I'm ready."
+
+Sweetwater was not slow in obeying this command. Business was booming
+with him. Besides, the name of Frederick acted like a charm upon him.
+There seemed to be so many Fredericks in the world, and one of them lay
+in such a curious way near his heart.
+
+Meanwhile the captain reseated himself, but more carefully. He had a
+plan or method of procedure to think out, or so it seemed, for he sat a
+long time in rigid immobility, with only the scowl of perplexity or
+ill-temper on his brow to show the nature of his thoughts. Then he drew
+a sheet of paper toward him, and began to write a letter. He was so
+absorbed over this letter and the manipulation of it, having but one
+hand to work with, that Sweetwater determined upon a hazardous stroke.
+The little book which the captain had consulted, and which had
+undoubtedly furnished him with a key to those two incongruous words, lay
+on the floor not far from him, having been flung from its owner's hand
+during the moments of passion and suffering I have above mentioned. To
+reach this book with his foot, to draw it toward him, and, finally, to
+get hold of it with his hand, was not difficult for one who aspired to
+be a detective, and had already done some good work in that direction.
+But it was harder to turn the leaves and find the words he sought
+without attracting the attention of his fierce companion. He, however,
+succeeded in doing this at last, the long list of words he found on
+every page being arranged alphabetically. It was a private code for
+telegraphic or cable messages, and he soon found that "Happenings"
+meant: "Our little game discovered; play straight until I give you the
+wink." And that "Afghanistan" stood for: "Hush money." As the latter was
+followed by the figures I have mentioned, the purport of the message
+needed no explanation, but the word "Frederick" did. So he searched for
+that, only to find that it was not in the book. There was but one
+conclusion to draw. This name was perfectly well known between them, and
+was that of the person, no doubt, who laid claim to the two thousand
+dollars.
+
+Satisfied at holding this clew to the riddle, he dropped the book again
+at his side and skilfully kicked it far out into the room. Captain
+Wattles had seen nothing. He was a man who took in only one thing at a
+time.
+
+The penning of that letter went on laboriously. It took so long that
+Sweetwater dozed, or pretended to, and when it was at last done, the
+clock on the mantelpiece had struck two.
+
+"Halloo there, now!" suddenly shouted the captain, turning on the
+messenger. "Are you ready for another journey?"
+
+"That depends," smiled Sweetwater, rising sleepily and advancing.
+"Haven't got over the last one yet, and would rather sleep than start
+out again."
+
+"Oh, you want pay? Well, you'll get that fast enough if you succeed in
+your mission. This letter" he shook it with an impatient hand--"should
+be worth two thousand five hundred dollars to me. If you bring me back
+that money or its equivalent within twenty-four hours, I will give you a
+clean hundred of it. Good enough pay, I take it, for five hours'
+journey. Better than sleep, eh? Besides, you can doze on the cars."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with him in all these assertions. Putting on his cap,
+he reached for the letter. He didn't like being made an instrument for
+blackmail, but he was curious to see to whom he was about to be sent.
+But the captain had grown suddenly wary.
+
+"This is not a letter to be dropped in the mailbox," said he. "You
+brought me a line here whose prompt delivery has prevented me from
+making a fool of myself to-night. You must do as much with this one. It
+is to be carried to its destination by yourself, given to the person
+whose name you will find written on it, and the answer brought back
+before you sleep, mind you, unless you snatch a wink or so on the cars.
+That it is night need not disturb you. It will be daylight before you
+arrive at the place to which this is addressed, and if you cannot get
+into the house at so early an hour, whistle three times like
+this--listen and one of the windows will presently fly up. You have had
+no trouble finding me; you'll have no trouble finding him. When you
+return, hunt me up as you did to-night. Only you need not trouble
+yourself to look for me at Haberstow's," he added under his breath in a
+tone that was no doubt highly satisfactory to himself. "I shall not be
+there. And now, off with you!" he shouted. "You've your hundred dollars
+to make before daylight, and it's already after two."
+
+Sweetwater, who had stolen a glimpse at the superscription on the letter
+he held, stumbled as he went out of the door. It was directed, as he had
+expected, to a Frederick, probably to the second one of whom Captain
+Wattles had spoken, but not, as he had expected, to a stranger. The name
+on the letter was Frederick Sutherland, and the place of his destination
+was Sutherlandtown.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+"WHO ARE YOU?"
+
+
+The round had come full circle. By various chances and a train of
+circumstances for which he could not account, he had been turned from
+his first intention and was being brought back stage by stage to the
+very spot he had thought it his duty to fly from. Was this fate? He
+began to think so, and no longer so much as dreamed of struggling
+against it. But he felt very much dazed, and walked away through the now
+partially deserted streets with an odd sense of failure that was only
+compensated by the hope he now cherished of seeing his mother again, and
+being once more Caleb Sweetwater of Sutherlandtown.
+
+He was clearer, however, after a few blocks of rapid walking, and then
+he began to wonder over the contents of the letter he held, and how they
+would affect its recipient. Was it a new danger he was bringing him?
+Instead of aiding Mr. Sutherland in keeping his dangerous secret, was he
+destined to bring disgrace upon him, not only by his testimony before
+the coroner, but by means of this letter, which, whatever it contained,
+certainly could not bode good to the man from whom it was designed to
+wrest two thousand five hundred dollars?
+
+The fear that he was destined to do so grew upon him rapidly, and the
+temptation to open the letter and make himself master of its contents
+before leaving town at last became so strong that his sense of honour
+paled before it, and he made up his mind that before he ventured into
+the precincts of Sutherlandtown he would know just what sort of a
+bombshell he was carrying into the Sutherland family. To do this he
+stopped at the first respectable lodging-house he encountered and hired
+a room. Calling for hot water "piping hot," he told them--he subjected
+the letter to the effects of steam and presently had it open. He was not
+disappointed in its contents, save that they were even more dangerous
+than he had anticipated. Captain Wattles was an old crony of Frederick's
+and knew his record better than anyone else in the world. From this fact
+and the added one that Frederick had stood in special need of money at
+the time of Agatha Webb's murder, the writer had no hesitation in
+believing him guilty of the crime which opened his way to a fortune, and
+though under ordinary circumstances he would, as his friend Frederick
+already knew, be perfectly willing to keep his opinions to himself, he
+was just now under the same necessity for money that Frederick had been
+at that fatal time, and must therefore see the colour of two thousand
+five hundred dollars before the day was out if Frederick desired to have
+his name kept out of the Boston papers. That it had been kept out up to
+this time argued that the crime had been well enough hidden to make the
+alternative thus offered an important one.
+
+There was no signature.
+
+Sweetwater, affected to an extent he little expected, resealed the
+letter, made his excuses to the landlord, and left the house. Now he
+could see why he had not been allowed to make his useless sacrifice.
+Another man than himself suspected Frederick, and by a word could
+precipitate the doom he already saw hung too low above the devoted head
+of Mr. Sutherland's son to be averted.
+
+"Yet I'll attempt that too," burst impetuously from his lips. "If I
+fail, I can but go back with a knowledge of this added danger. If I
+succeed, why I must still go back. From some persons and from some
+complications it is useless to attempt flight."
+
+Returning to the club-house he had first entered in his search for
+Captain Wattles, he asked if that gentleman had yet come in. This time
+he was answered by an affirmative, though he might almost as well have
+not been, for the captain was playing cards in a private room and would
+not submit to any interruption.
+
+"He will submit to mine," retorted Sweetwater to the man who had told
+him this. "Or wait; hand him back this letter and say that the messenger
+refuses to deliver it."
+
+This brought the captain out, as he had fully expected it would.
+
+"Why, what--" began that gentleman in a furious rage.
+
+But Sweetwater, laying his hand on the arm he knew to be so sensitive,
+rose on tiptoe and managed to whisper in the angry man's ear:
+
+"You are a card-sharp, and it will be easy enough to ruin you. Threaten
+Frederick Sutherland and in two weeks you will be boycotted by every
+club in this city. Twenty-five hundred dollars won't pay you for that."
+
+This from a nondescript fellow with no grains of a gentleman about him
+in form, feature, or apparel! The captain stared nonplussed, too much
+taken aback to be even angry.
+
+Suddenly he cried:
+
+"How do you know all this? How do you know what is or is not in the
+letter I gave you?"
+
+Sweetwater, with a shrug that in its quiet significance seemed to make
+him at once the equal of his interrogator, quietly pressed the quivering
+limb under his hand and calmly replied:
+
+"I know because I have read it. Before putting my head in the lion's
+mouth, I make it a point to count his teeth," and lifting his hand, he
+drew back, leaving the captain reeling.
+
+"What is your name? Who are you?" shouted out Wattles as Sweetwater was
+drawing off.
+
+It was the third time he had been asked that question within twenty-four
+hours, but not before with this telling emphasis. "Who are you, I say,
+and what can you do to me--?"
+
+"I am--But that is an insignificant detail unworthy of your curiosity.
+As to what I can do, wait and see. But first burn that letter."
+
+And turning his back he fled out of the building, followed by oaths
+which, if not loud, were certainly deep and very far-reaching.
+
+It was the first time Captain Wattles had met his match in audacity.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+HOME AGAIN
+
+
+On his way to the depot, Sweetwater went into the Herald office and
+bought a morning paper. At the station he opened it. There was one
+column devoted to the wreck of the Hesper, and a whole half-page to the
+proceedings of the third day's inquiry into the cause and manner of
+Agatha Webb's death. Merely noting that his name was mentioned among the
+lost, in the first article, he began to read the latter with justifiable
+eagerness. The assurance given in Captain Wattles's letter was true. No
+direct suspicion had as yet fallen on Frederick. As the lover of Amabel
+Page, his name was necessarily mentioned, but neither in the account of
+the inquest nor in the editorials on the subject could he find any proof
+that either the public or police had got hold of the great idea that he
+was the man who had preceded Amabel to Agatha's cottage. Relieved on
+this score, Sweetwater entered more fully into the particulars, and
+found that though the jury had sat three days, very little more had come
+to light than was known on the morning he made that bold dash into the
+Hesper. Most of the witnesses had given in their testimony, Amabel's
+being the chief, and though no open accusation had been made, it was
+evident from the trend of the questions put to the latter that Amabel's
+connection with the affair was looked upon as criminal and as placing
+her in a very suspicious light. Her replies, however, as once before,
+under a similar but less formal examination, failed to convey any
+recognition on her part either of this suspicion or of her own position;
+yet they were not exactly frank, and Sweetwater saw, or thought he saw
+(naturally failing to have a key to the situation), that she was still
+working upon her old plan of saving both herself and Frederick, by
+throwing whatever suspicion her words might raise upon the deceased
+Zabel. He did not know, and perhaps it was just as well that he did not
+at this especial juncture, that she was only biding her time--now very
+nearly at hand--and that instead of loving Frederick, she hated him, and
+was determined upon his destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that
+Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his
+position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweetwater grew very serious,
+and, while no change took place in his mind as to his present duty, he
+decided that his return must be as unobtrusive as possible, and his only
+too timely reappearance on the scene of the inquiry kept secret till Mr.
+Sutherland had given his evidence and retired from under the eyes of his
+excited fellow-citizens.
+
+"The sight of me might unnerve him," was Sweetwater's thought,
+"precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word on his
+part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had a hand in
+the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can save Frederick
+from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my silence, or Amabel's
+finesse. The young man will be lost."
+
+He did not know, as we do, that Amabel's finesse was devoted to winning
+a husband for herself, and that, in the event of failure, the action she
+threatened against her quondam lover would be precipitated that very day
+at the moment when the clock struck twelve.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater arrived home by the way of Portchester. He had seen one or
+two persons he knew, but, so far, had himself escaped recognition. The
+morning light was dimly breaking when he strode into the outskirts of
+Sutherlandtown and began to descend the hill. As he passed Mr.
+Halliday's house he looked up, and was astonished to see a light burning
+in one deeply embowered window. Alas! he did not know how early one
+anxious heart woke during those troublous days. The Sutherland house was
+dark, but as he crept very close under its overhanging eaves he heard a
+deep sigh uttered over his head, and knew that someone was up here also
+in anxious expectation of a day that was destined to hold more than even
+he anticipated.
+
+Meanwhile, the sea grew rosy, and the mother's cottage was as yet far
+off. Hurrying on, he came at last under the eye of more than one of the
+early risers of Sutherlandtown.
+
+"What, Sweetwater! Alive and well!"
+
+"Hey, Sweetwater, we thought you were lost on the Hesper!"
+
+"Halloo! Home in time to see the pretty Amabel arrested?" Phrases like
+these met him at more than one corner; but he eluded them all, stopping
+only to put one hesitating question. Was his mother well?
+
+Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that
+humble cottage door.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+
+XXX
+
+WHAT FOLLOWED THE STRIKING OF THE CLOCK
+
+
+It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be the
+least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say had long
+ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon Sweetwater slid
+into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in obtaining near the
+coroner, it was to find in two faces only any signs of the eagerness and
+expectancy which filled his own breast to suffocation. But as these
+faces were those of Agnes Halliday and Amabel Page, he soon recognised
+that his own judgment was not at fault, and that notwithstanding outward
+appearances and the languid interest shown in the now lagging
+proceedings, the moment presaged an event full of unseen but vital
+consequence.
+
+Frederick was not visible in the great hall; but that he was near at
+hand soon became evident from the change Sweetwater now saw in Amabel.
+For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze with only the
+faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable features, she roused
+as the hands of the clock moved toward noon, and glanced at the great
+door of entrance with an evil expectancy that startled even Sweetwater,
+so little had he really understood the nature of the passions labouring
+in that venomous breast.
+
+Next moment the door opened, and Frederick and his father came in. The
+air of triumphant satisfaction with which Amabel sank back into her seat
+was as marked in its character as her previous suspense. What did it
+mean? Sweetwater, noting it, and the vivid contrast it offered to
+Frederick's air of depression, felt that his return had been well timed.
+
+Mr. Sutherland was looking very feeble. As he took the chair offered
+him, the change in his appearance was apparent to all who knew him, and
+there were few there who did not know him. And, startled by these
+evidences of suffering which they could not understand and feared to
+interpret even to themselves, more than one devoted friend stole uneasy
+glances at Frederick to see if he too were under the cloud which seemed
+to envelop his father almost beyond recognition.
+
+But Frederick was looking at Amabel, and his erect head and determined
+aspect made him a conspicuous figure in the room. She who had called up
+this expression, and alone comprehended it fully, smiled as she met his
+eye, with that curious slow dipping of her dimples which had more than
+once confounded the coroner, and rendered her at once the admiration and
+abhorrence of the crowd who for so long a time had had the opportunity
+of watching her.
+
+Frederick, to whom this smile conveyed a last hope as well as a last
+threat, looked away as soon as possible, but not before her eyes had
+fallen in their old inquiring way to his hands, from which he had
+removed the ring which up to this hour he had invariably worn on his
+third finger. In this glance of hers and this action of his began the
+struggle that was to make that day memorable in many hearts.
+
+After the first stir occasioned by the entrance of two such important
+persons the crowd settled back into its old quietude under the coroner's
+hand. A tedious witness was having his slow say, and to him a full
+attention was being given in the hope that some real enlightenment would
+come at last to settle the questions which had been raised by Amabel's
+incomplete and unsatisfactory testimony. But no man can furnish what he
+does not possess, and the few final minutes before noon passed by
+without any addition being made to the facts which had already been
+presented for general consideration.
+
+As the witness sat down the clock began to strike. As the slow,
+hesitating strokes rang out, Sweetwater saw Frederick yield to a sudden
+but most profound emotion. The old fear, which we understand, if
+Sweetwater did not, had again seized the victim of Amabel's ambition,
+and under her eye, which was blazing full upon him now with a fell and
+steady purpose, he found his right hand stealing toward the left in the
+significant action she expected. Better to yield than fall headlong into
+the pit one word of hers would open. He had not meant to yield, but now
+that the moment had come, now that he must at once and forever choose
+between a course that led simply to personal unhappiness and one that
+involved not only himself, but those dearest to him, in disgrace and
+sorrow, he felt himself weaken to the point of clutching at whatever
+would save him from the consequences of confession. Moral strength and
+that tenacity of purpose which only comes from years of self-control
+were too lately awakened in his breast to sustain him now. As stroke
+after stroke fell on the ear, he felt himself yielding beyond recovery,
+and had almost touched his finger in the significant action of assent
+which Amabel awaited with breathless expectation, when--was it miracle
+or only the suggestion of his better nature?--the memory of a face full
+of holy pleading rose from the past before his eyes and with an inner
+cry of "Mother!" he flung his hand out and clutched his father's arm in
+a way to break the charm of his own dread and end forever the effects of
+the intolerable fascination that was working upon him. Next minute the
+last stroke of noon rang out, and the hour was up which Amabel had set
+as the limit of her silence.
+
+A pause, which to their two hearts if to no others seemed strangely
+appropriate, followed the cessation of these sounds, then the witness
+was dismissed, and Amabel, taking advantage of the movement, was about
+to lean toward Mr. Courtney, when Frederick, leaping with a bound to his
+feet, drew all eyes towards himself with the cry:
+
+"Let me be put on my oath. I have testimony to give of the utmost
+importance in this case."
+
+The coroner was astounded; everyone was astounded. No one had expected
+anything from him, and instinctively every eye turned towards Amabel to
+see how she was affected by his action.
+
+Strangely, evidently, for the look with which she settled back in her
+seat was one which no one who saw it ever forgot, though it conveyed no
+hint of her real feelings, which were somewhat chaotic.
+
+Frederick, who had forgotten her now that he had made up his mind to
+speak, waited for the coroner's reply.
+
+"If you have testimony," said that gentleman after exchanging a few
+hurried words with Mr. Courtney and the surprised Knapp, "you can do no
+better than give it to us at once. Mr. Frederick Sutherland, will you
+take the stand?"
+
+With a noble air from which all hesitation had vanished, Frederick
+started towards the place indicated, but stopped before he had taken a
+half-dozen steps and glanced back at his father, who was visibly
+succumbing under this last shock.
+
+"Go!" he whispered, but in so thrilling a tone it was heard to the
+remotest corner of the room. "Spare me the anguish of saying what I have
+to say in your presence. I could not bear it. You could not bear it.
+Later, if you will wait for me in one of these rooms, I will repeat my
+tale in your ears, but go now. It is my last entreaty."
+
+There was a silence; no one ventured a dissent, no one so much as made a
+gesture of disapproval. Then Mr. Sutherland struggled to his feet, cast
+one last look around him, and disappeared through a door which had
+opened like magic before him. Then and not till then did Frederick move
+forward.
+
+The moment was intense. The coroner seemed to share the universal
+excitement, for his first question was a leading one and brought out
+this startling admission:
+
+"I have obtruded myself into this inquiry and now ask to be heard by
+this jury, because no man knows more than I do of the manner and cause
+of Agatha Webb's death. This you will believe when I tell you that _I_
+was the person Miss Page followed into Mrs. Webb's house and whom she
+heard descend the stairs during the moment she crouched behind the
+figure of the sleeping Philemon."
+
+It was more, infinitely more, than anyone there had expected. It was not
+only an acknowledgment but a confession, and the shock, the surprise,
+the alarm, which it occasioned even to those who had never had much
+confidence in this young man's virtue, was almost appalling in its
+intensity. Had it not been for the consciousness of Mr. Sutherland's
+near presence the feeling would have risen to outbreak; and many voices
+were held in subjection by the remembrance of this venerated man's last
+look, that otherwise would have made themselves heard in despite of the
+restrictions of the place and the authority of the police.
+
+To Frederick it was a moment of immeasurable grief and humiliation. On
+every face, in every shrinking form, in subdued murmurs and open cries,
+he read instant and complete condemnation, and yet in all his life from
+boyhood up to this hour, never had he been so worthy of their esteem and
+consideration. But though he felt the iron enter his soul, he did not
+lose his determined attitude. He had observed a change in Amabel and a
+change in Agnes, and if only to disappoint the vile triumph of the one
+and raise again the drooping courage of the other, he withstood the
+clamour and began speaking again, before the coroner had been able to
+fully restore quiet.
+
+"I know," said he, "what this acknowledgment must convey to the minds of
+the jury and people here assembled. But if anyone who listens to me
+thinks me guilty of the death I was so unfortunate as to have witnessed,
+he will be doing me a wrong which Agatha Webb would be the first to
+condemn. Dr. Talbot, and you, gentlemen of the jury, in the face of God
+and man, I here declare that Mrs. Webb, in my presence and before my
+eyes, gave to herself the blow which has robbed us all of a most
+valuable life. She was not murdered."
+
+It was a solemn assertion, but it failed to convince the crowd before
+him. As by one impulse men and women broke into a tumult. Mr. Sutherland
+was forgotten and cries of "Never! She was too good! It's all calumny! A
+wretched lie!" broke in unrestrained excitement from every part of the
+large room. In vain the coroner smote with his gavel, in vain the local
+police endeavoured to restore order; the tide was up and over-swept
+everything for an instant till silence was suddenly restored by the
+sight of Amabel smoothing out the folds of her crisp white frock with an
+incredulous, almost insulting, smile that at once fixed attention again
+on Frederick. He seized the occasion and spoke up in a tone of great
+resolve.
+
+"I have made an assertion," said he, "before God and before this jury.
+To make it seem a credible one I shall have to tell my own story from
+the beginning. Am I allowed to do so, Mr. Coroner?"
+
+"You are," was the firm response.
+
+"Then, gentlemen," continued Frederick, still without looking at Amabel,
+whose smile had acquired a mockery that drew the eyes of the jury toward
+her more than once during the following recital, "you know, and the
+public generally now know, that Mrs. Webb has left me the greater
+portion of the money of which she died possessed. I have never before
+acknowledged to anyone, not even to the good man who awaits this jury's
+verdict on the other side of that door yonder, that she had reasons for
+this, good reasons, reasons of which up to the very evening of her death
+I was myself ignorant, as I was ignorant of her intentions in my regard,
+or that I was the special object of her attention, or that we were under
+any mutual obligations in any way. Why, then, I should have thought of
+going to her in the great strait in which I found myself on that day, I
+cannot say. I knew she had money in her house; this I had unhappily been
+made acquainted with in an accidental way, and I knew she was of kindly
+disposition and quite capable of doing a very unselfish act. Still, this
+would not seem to be reason enough for me to intrude upon her late at
+night with a plea for a large loan of money, had I not been in a
+desperate condition of mind, which made any attempt seem reasonable that
+promised relief from the unendurable burden of a pressing and
+disreputable debt. I was obliged to have money, a great deal of money,
+and I had to have it at once; and while I know that this will not serve
+to lighten the suspicion I have brought upon myself by my late
+admissions, it is the only explanation I can give you for leaving the
+ball at my father's house and hurrying down secretly and alone into town
+to the little cottage where, as I had been told early in the evening, a
+small entertainment was being given, which would insure its being open
+even at so late an hour as midnight. Miss Page, who will, I am sure,
+pardon the introduction of her name into this narrative, has taken pains
+to declare to you that in the expedition she herself made into town that
+evening, she followed some person's steps down-hill. This is very likely
+true, and those steps were probably mine, for after leaving the house by
+the garden door, I came directly down the main road to the corner of the
+lane running past Mrs. Webb's cottage. Having already seen from the
+hillside the light burning in her upper windows, I felt encouraged to
+proceed, and so hastened on till I came to the gate on High Street. Here
+I had a moment of hesitation, and thoughts bitter enough for me to
+recall them at this moment came into my mind, making that instant,
+perhaps, the very worst in my life; but they passed, thank God, and with
+no more desperate feeling than a sullen intention of having my own way
+about this money, I lifted the latch of the front door and stepped in.
+
+"I had expected to find a jovial group of friends in her little ground
+parlour, or at least to hear the sound of merry voices and laughter in
+the rooms above; but no sounds of any sort awaited me; indeed the house
+seemed strangely silent for one so fully lighted, and, astonished at
+this, I pushed the door ajar at my left and looked in. An unexpected and
+pitiful sight awaited me. Seated at a table set with abundance of
+untasted food, I saw the master of the house with his head sunk forward
+on his arms, asleep. The expected guests had failed to arrive, and he,
+tired out with waiting, had fallen into a doze at the board.
+
+"This was a condition of things for which I was not prepared. Mrs. Webb,
+whom I wished to see, was probably up-stairs, and while I might summon
+her by a sturdy rap on the door beside which I stood, I had so little
+desire to wake her husband, of whose mental condition I was well aware,
+that I could not bring myself to make any loud noise within his hearing.
+Yet I had not the courage to retreat. All my hope of relief from the
+many difficulties that menaced me lay in the generosity of this
+great-hearted woman, and if out of pusillanimity I let this hour go by
+without making my appeal, nothing but shame and disaster awaited me. Yet
+how could I hope to lure her down-stairs without noise? I could not, and
+so, yielding to the impulse of the moment, without any realisation, I
+here swear, of the effect which my unexpected presence would have on the
+noble woman overhead, I slipped up the narrow staircase, and catching at
+that moment the sound of her voice calling out to Batsy, I stepped up to
+the door I saw standing open before me and confronted her before she
+could move from the table before which she was sitting, counting over a
+large roll of money.
+
+"My look (and it was doubtless not a common look, for the sight of a
+mass of money at that moment, when money was everything to me, roused
+every lurking demon in my breast) seemed to appall, if it did not
+frighten her, for she rose, and meeting my eye with a gaze in which
+shock and some strange and poignant agony totally incomprehensible to me
+were strangely blended, she cried out:
+
+"'No, no, Frederick! You don't know what you are doing. If you want my
+money, take it; if you want my life, I will give it to you with my own
+hand. Don't stain yours--don't--'
+
+"I did not understand her. I did not know until I thought it over
+afterward that my hand was thrust convulsively into my breast in a way
+which, taken with my wild mien, made me look as if I had come to murder
+her for the money over which she was hovering. I was blind, deaf to
+everything but that money, and bending madly forward in a state of
+mental intoxication awful enough for me to remember now, I answered her
+frenzied words by some such broken exclamations as these:
+
+"'Give, then! I want hundreds--thousands--now, now, to save myself!
+Disgrace, shame, prison await me if I don't have them. Give, give!' And
+my hand went out toward it, not toward her; but she mistook the action,
+mistook my purpose, and, with a heart-broken cry, to save me, ME, from
+crime, the worst crime of which humanity is capable, she caught up a
+dagger lying only too near her hand in the open drawer against which she
+leaned, and in a moment of fathomless anguish which we who can never
+know more than the outward seeming of her life can hardly measure,
+plunged against it and--I can tell you no more. Her blood and Batsy's
+shriek from the adjoining room swam through my consciousness, and then
+she fell, as I supposed, dead upon the floor, and I, in scarcely better
+case, fell also.
+
+"This, as God lives, is the truth concerning the wound found in the
+breast of this never-to-be-forgotten woman."
+
+The feeling, the pathos, the anguish even, to be found in his tone made
+this story, strange and incredible as it seemed, appear for the moment
+plausible.
+
+"And Batsy?" asked the coroner.
+
+"Must have fallen when we did, for I never heard her voice after the
+first scream. But I shall speak of her again. What I must now explain is
+how the money in Mrs. Webb's drawer came into my possession, and how the
+dagger she had planted in her breast came to be found on the lawn
+outside. When I came to myself, and that must have been very soon, I
+found that the blow of which I had been such a horrified witness had not
+yet proved fatal. The eyes I had seen close, as I had supposed, forever,
+were now open, and she was looking at me with a smile that has never
+left my memory, and never will.
+
+"'There is no blood on you,' she murmured. 'You did not strike the blow.
+Was it money only that you wanted, Frederick? If so, you could have had
+it without crime. There are five hundred dollars on that table. Take
+them and let them pave your way to a better life. My death will help you
+to remember.' Do these words, this action of hers, seem incredible to
+you, sirs? Alas! alas! they will not when I tell you"--and here he cast
+one anxious, deeply anxious, glance at the room in which Mr. Sutherland
+was hidden--"that unknown to me, unknown to anyone living but herself,
+unknown to that good man from whom it can no longer be kept hidden,
+Agatha Webb was my mother. I am Philemon's son and not the offspring of
+Charles and Marietta Sutherland!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+A WITNESS LOST
+
+
+Impossible! Incredible!
+
+Like a wave suddenly lifted the whole assemblage rose in surprise if not
+in protest. But there was no outburst. The very depth of the feelings
+evoked made all ebullition impossible, and as one sees the billow pause
+ere it breaks, and gradually subside, so this crowd yielded to its awe,
+and man by man sank back into his seat till quiet was again restored,
+and only a circle of listening faces confronted the man who had just
+stirred a whole roomful to its depths. Seeing this, and realising his
+opportunity, Frederick at once entered into the explanations for which
+each heart there panted.
+
+"This will be overwhelming news to him who has cared for me since
+infancy. You have heard him call me son; with what words shall I
+overthrow his confidence in the truth and rectitude of his long-buried
+wife and make him know in his old age that he has wasted years of
+patience upon one who was not of his blood or lineage? The wonder, the
+incredulity you manifest are my best excuse for my long delay in
+revealing the secret entrusted to me by this dying woman."
+
+An awed silence greeted these words. Never was the interest of a crowd
+more intense or its passions held in greater restraint. Yet Agnes's
+tears flowed freely, and Amabel's smiles--well, their expression had
+changed; and to Sweetwater, who alone had eyes for her now, they were
+surcharged with a tragic meaning, strange to see in one of her callous
+nature.
+
+Frederick's voice broke as he proceeded in his self-imposed task.
+
+"The astounding fact which I have just communicated to you was made
+known by my mother, with the dagger still plunged in her breast. She
+would not let me draw it out. She knew that death would follow that act,
+and she prized every moment remaining to her because of the bliss she
+enjoyed of seeing and having near her her only living child. The love,
+the passion, the boundless devotion she showed in those last few minutes
+transformed me in an instant from a selfish brute into a deeply
+repentant man. I knelt before her in anguish. I made her feel that,
+wicked as I had been, I was not the conscienceless wretch she had
+imagined, and that she was mistaken as to the motives which led me into
+her presence. And when I saw, by her clearing brow and peaceful look,
+that I had fully persuaded her of this, I let her speak what words she
+would, and tell, as she was able, the secret tragedy of her life.
+
+"It is a sacred story to me, and if you must know it, let it be from her
+own words in the letters she left behind her. She only told me that to
+save me from the fate of the children who had preceded me, the five
+little girls and boys who had perished almost at birth in her arms, she
+had parted from me in early infancy to Mrs. Sutherland, then mourning
+the sudden death of her only child; that this had been done secretly and
+under circumstances calculated to deceive Mr. Sutherland, consequently
+he had never known I was not his own child, and in terror of the effect
+which the truth might have upon him she enjoined me not to enlighten him
+now, if by any sacrifice on my part I could rightfully avoid it; that
+she was happy in having me hear the truth before she died; that the joy
+which this gave her was so great she did not regret her fatal act,
+violent and uncalled for as it was, for it had showed her my heart and
+allowed me to read hers. Then she talked of my father, by whom I mean
+him whom you call Philemon; and she made me promise I would care for him
+to the last with tenderness, saying that I would be able to do this
+without seeming impropriety, since she had willed me all her fortune
+under this proviso. Finally, she gave me a key, and pointing out where
+the money lay hidden, bade me carry it away as her last gift, together
+with the package of letters I would find with it. And when I had taken
+these and given her back the key, she told me that but for one thing she
+would die happy. And though her strength and breath were fast failing
+her, she made me understand that she was worried about the Zabels, who
+had not come according to a sacred custom between them, to celebrate the
+anniversary of her wedding, and prayed me to see the two old gentlemen
+before I slept, since nothing but death or dire distress would have kept
+them from gratifying the one whim of my father's failing mind. I
+promised, and with perfect peace in her face, she pointed to the dagger
+in her breast.
+
+"But before I could lay my hand upon it she called for Batsy. 'I want
+her to hear me declare before I go,' said she, 'that this stroke was
+delivered by myself upon myself.' But when I rose to look for Batsy I
+found that the shock of her mistress's fatal act had killed her and that
+only her dead body was lying across the window-sill of the adjoining
+room. It was a chance that robbed me of the only witness who could
+testify to my innocence, in case my presence in this house of death
+should become known, and realising all the danger in which it threw me,
+I did not dare to tell my mother, for fear it would make her last
+moments miserable. So I told her that the poor woman had understood what
+she wished, but was too terrified to move or speak; and this satisfied
+my mother and made her last breath one of trust and contented love. She
+died as I drew the dagger from her breast, and seeing this, I was seized
+with horror of the instrument which had cost me such a dear and valuable
+life and flung it wildly from the window. Then I lifted her and laid her
+where you found her, on the sofa. I did not know that the dagger was an
+old-time gift of her former lover, James Zabel, much less that it bore
+his initials on the handle."
+
+He paused, and the awe occasioned by the scene he had described was so
+deep and the silence so prolonged that a shudder passed over the whole
+assemblage when from some unknown quarter a single cutting voice arose
+in this one short, mocking comment:
+
+"Oh, the fairy tale!"
+
+Was it Amabel who spoke? Some thought so and looked her way, but they
+only beheld a sweet, tear-stained face turned with an air of moving
+appeal upon Frederick as if begging pardon for the wicked doubts which
+had driven him to this defence.
+
+Frederick met that look with one so severe it partook of harshness;
+then, resuming his testimony, he said:
+
+"It is of the Zabel brothers I must now speak, and of how one of them,
+James by name, came to be involved in this affair.
+
+"When I left my dead mother's side I was in such a state of mind that I
+passed with scarcely so much as a glance the room where my new-found
+father sat sleeping. But as I hastened on toward the quarter where the
+Zabels lived, I was seized by such compunction for his desolate state
+that I faltered in my rapid flight and did not arrive at the place of my
+destination as quickly as I intended. When I did I found the house dark
+and the silence sepulchral. But I did not turn away. Remembering my
+mother's anxiety, an anxiety so extreme it disturbed her final moments,
+I approached the front door and was about to knock when I found it open.
+Greatly astonished, I at once passed in, and, seeing my way perfectly in
+the moonlight, entered the room on the left, the door of which also
+stood open. It was the second house I had entered unannounced that
+night, and in this as in the other I encountered a man sitting asleep by
+the table.
+
+"It was John, the elder of the two, and, perceiving that he was
+suffering for food and in a condition of extreme misery, I took out the
+first bill my hand encountered in my overfull pockets and laid it on the
+table by his side. As I did so he gave a sigh, but did not wake; and
+satisfied that I had done all that was wise and all that even my mother
+would expect of me under the circumstances, and fearing to encounter the
+other brother if I lingered, I hastened away and took the shortest path
+home. Had I been more of a man, or if my visit to Mrs. Webb had been
+actuated by a more communicable motive, I would have gone at once to the
+good man who believed me to be of his own flesh and blood, and told him
+of the strange and heart-rending adventure which had changed the whole
+tenor of my thoughts and life, and begged his advice as to what I had
+better do under the difficult circumstances in which I found myself
+placed. But the memory of a thousand past ingratitudes, together with
+the knowledge of the shock which he could not fail to receive on
+learning at this late day, and under conditions at once so tragic and
+full of menace, that the child which his long-buried wife had once
+placed in his arms as his own was neither of her blood nor his, rose up
+between us and caused me not only to attempt silence, but to secrete in
+the adjoining woods the money I had received, in the vain hope that all
+visible connection between myself and my mother's tragic death would
+thus be lost. You see I had not calculated on Miss Amabel Page."
+
+The flash he here received from that lady's eyes startled the crowd, and
+gave Sweetwater, already suffering under shock after shock of mingled
+surprise and wonder, his first definite idea that he had never rightly
+understood the relations between these two, and that something besides
+justice had actuated Amabel in her treatment of this young man. This
+feeling was shared by others, and a reaction set in in Frederick's
+favour, which even affected the officials who were conducting the
+inquiry. This was shown by the difference of manner now assumed by the
+coroner and by the more easily impressed Sweetwater, who had not yet
+learned the indispensable art of hiding his feelings. Frederick himself
+felt the change and showed it by the look of relief and growing
+confidence he cast at Agnes.
+
+Of the questions and answers which now passed between him and the
+various members of the jury I need give no account. They but emphasised
+facts already known, and produced but little change in the general
+feeling, which was now one of suppressed pity for all who had been drawn
+into the meshes of this tragic mystery. When he was allowed to resume
+his seat, the name of Miss Amabel Page was again called.
+
+She rose with a bound. Nought that she had anticipated had occurred;
+facts of which she could know nothing had changed the aspect of affairs
+and made the position of Frederick something so remote from any she
+could have imagined, that she was still in the maze of the numberless
+conflicting emotions which these revelations were calculated to call out
+in one who had risked all on the hazard of a die and lost. She did not
+even know at this moment whether she was glad or sorry he could explain
+so cleverly his anomalous position. She had caught the look he had cast
+at Agnes, and while this angered her, it did not greatly modify her
+opinion that he was destined for herself. For, however other people
+might feel, she did not for a moment believe his story. She had not a
+pure enough heart to do so. To her all self-sacrifice was an anomaly. No
+woman of the mental or physical strength of Agatha Webb would plant a
+dagger in her own breast just to prevent another person from committing
+a crime, were he lover, husband, or son. So Amabel believed and so would
+these others believe also when once relieved of the magnetic personality
+of this extraordinary witness. Yet how thrilling it had been to hear him
+plead his cause so well! It was almost worth the loss of her revenge to
+meet his look of hate, and dream of the possibility of turning it later
+into the old look of love. Yes, yes, she loved him now; not for his
+position, for that was gone; not even for his money, for she could
+contemplate its loss; but for himself, who had so boldly shown that he
+was stronger than she and could triumph over her by the sheer force of
+his masculine daring.
+
+With such feelings, what should she say to these men; how conduct
+herself under questions which would be much more searching now than
+before? She could not even decide in her own mind. She must let impulse
+have its way.
+
+Happily, she took the right stand at first. She did not endeavour to
+make any corrections in her former testimony, only acknowledging that
+the flower whose presence on the scene of death had been such a mystery,
+had fallen from her hair at the ball and that she had seen Frederick
+pick it up and put it in his buttonhole. Beyond this, and the inferences
+it afterward awakened in her mind, she would not go, though many
+present, and among them Frederick, felt confident that her attitude had
+been one of suspicion from the first, and that it was to follow him
+rather than to supply the wants of the old man, Zabel, she had left the
+ball and found her way to Agatha Webb's cottage.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+WHY AGATHA WEBB WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN IN SUTHERLANDTOWN
+
+
+Meanwhile Sweetwater had been witness to a series of pantomimic actions
+that interested him more than Amabel's conduct under this final
+examination. Frederick, who had evidently some request to make or
+direction to give, had sent a written line to the coroner, who, on
+reading it, had passed it over to Knapp, who a few minutes later was to
+be seen in conference with Agnes Halliday. As a result, the latter rose
+and left the room, followed by the detective. She was gone a half-hour,
+then simultaneously with her reappearance, Sweetwater saw Knapp hand a
+bundle of letters to the coroner, who, upon opening them, chose out
+several which he proceeded to read to the jury. They were the letters
+referred to by Frederick as having been given to him by his mother. The
+first was dated thirty-five years previously and was in the handwriting
+of Agatha herself. It was directed to James Zabel, and was read amid a
+profound hush.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+You are too presumptuous. When I let you carry me away from John in that
+maddening reel last night, I did not mean you to draw the inference you
+did. That you did draw it argues a touch of vanity in a man who is not
+alone in the field where he imagines himself victor. John, who is
+humbler, sees some merit in--well, in Frederick Snow, let us say. So do
+I, but merit does not always win, any more than presumption. When we
+meet, let it be as friends, but as friends only. A girl cannot be driven
+into love. To ride on your big mare, Judith, is bliss enough for my
+twenty years. Why don't you find it so too? I think I hear you say you
+do, but only when she stops at a certain gate on Portchester highway.
+Folly! there are other roads and other gates, though if I should see you
+enter one--There! my pen is galloping away with me faster than Judith
+ever did, and it is time I drew rein. Present my regards to John--But
+no; then he would know I had written you a letter, and that might hurt
+him. How could he guess it was only a scolding letter, such as it would
+grieve him to receive, and that it does not count for anything! Were it
+to Frederick Snow, now--There! some horses are so hard to pull up--and
+so are some pens. I will come to a standstill, but not before your door.
+
+Respectfully your neighbour,
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST.
+
+  DEAR JAMES:
+
+I know I have a temper, a wicked temper, and now you know it too. When
+it is roused, I forget love, gratitude, and everything else that should
+restrain me, and utter words I am myself astonished at. But I do not get
+roused often, and when all is over I am not averse to apologising or
+even to begging forgiveness. My father says my temper will undo me, but
+I am much more afraid of my heart than I am of my temper. For instance,
+here I am writing to you again just because I raised my riding-whip and
+said--But you know what I said, and I am not fond of recalling the
+words, for I cannot do so without seeing your look of surprise and
+contrasting it with that of Philemon's. Yours had judgment in it, while
+Philemon's held only indulgence. Yet I liked yours best, or should have
+liked it best if it were not for the insufferable pride which is a part
+of my being. Temper such as mine OUGHT to surprise you, yet would I be
+Agatha Gilchrist without it? I very much fear not. And not being Agatha
+Gilchrist, should I have your love? Again I fear not. James, forgive me.
+When I am happier, when I know my own heart, I will have less
+provocation. Then, if that heart turns your way, you will find a great
+and bountiful serenity where now there are lowering and thunderous
+tempests. Philemon said last night that he would be content to have my
+fierce word o' mornings, if only I would give him one drop out of the
+honey of my better nature when the sun went down and twilight brought
+reflection and love. But I did not like him any the better for saying
+this. YOU would not halve the day so. The cup with which you would
+refresh yourself must hold no bitterness. Will it not have to be
+proffered, then, by other hands than those of
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST?
+
+MR. PHILEMON WEBB.
+
+Respected Sir:
+
+You are persistent. I am willing to tell YOU, though I shall never
+confide so much to another, that it will take a stronger nature than
+yours, and one that loves me less, to hold me faithful and make me the
+happy, devoted wife which I must be if I would not be a demon. I cannot,
+I dare not, marry where I am not held in a passionate, self-forgetful
+subjection. I am too proud, too sensitive, too little mistress of myself
+when angry or aroused. If, like some strong women, I loved what was
+weaker than myself, and could be controlled by goodness and unlimited
+kindness, I might venture to risk living at the side of the most
+indulgent and upright man I know. But I am not of that kind. Strength
+only can command my admiration or subdue my pride. I must fear where I
+love, and own for husband him who has first shown himself my master.
+
+So do not fret any more for me, for you, less than any man I know, will
+ever claim my obedience or command my love. Not that I will not yield my
+heart to you, but that I cannot; and, knowing that I cannot, feel it
+honest to say so before any more of your fine, young manhood is wasted.
+Go your ways, then, Philemon, and leave me to the rougher paths my feet
+were made to tread. I like you now and feel something like a tender
+regard for your goodness, but if you persist in a courtship which only
+my father is inclined to smile upon, you will call up an antagonism that
+can lead to nothing but evil, for the serpent that lies coiled in my
+breast has deadly fangs, and is to be feared, as you should know who
+have more than once seen me angry.
+
+Do not blame John or James Zabel, or Frederick Snow, or even Samuel
+Barton for this. It would be the same if none of these men existed. I
+was not made to triumph over a kindly nature, but to yield the
+haughtiest heart in all this county to the gentle but firm control of
+its natural master. Do you want to know who that master is? I cannot
+tell you, for I have not yet named him to myself.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am going away. I am going to leave Portchester for several months. I
+am going to see the world. I did not tell you this last night for fear
+of weakening under your entreaties, or should I say commands? Lately I
+have felt myself weakening more than once, and I want to know what it
+means. Absence will teach me, absence and the sight of new faces. Do you
+quarrel with this necessity? Do you think I should know my mind without
+any such test? Alas! James, it is not a simple mind and it baffles me at
+times. Let us then give it a chance. If the glow and glamour of elegant
+city life can make me forget certain snatches of talk at our old gate,
+or that night when you drew my hand through your arm and softly kissed
+my fingertips, then I am no mate for you, whose love, however critical,
+has never wavered, but has made itself felt, even in rebuke, as the
+strongest, sweetest thing that has entered my turbulent life. Because I
+would be worthy of you, I submit to a separation which will either be a
+permanent one or the last that will ever take place between you and me.
+John will not bear this as well as you, yet he does not love me as well,
+possibly because to him I am simply a superior being, while to you I am
+a loving but imperfect woman who wishes to do right but can only do so
+under the highest guidance.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I feel that I owe you a letter because you have been so patient. You may
+show it to James if you like, but I mean it for you as an old and dear
+friend who will one day dance at my wedding.
+
+I am living in a whirl of enjoyment. I am seeing and tasting of
+pleasures I have only dreamed about till now. From a farmhouse kitchen
+to Mrs. Andrews's drawing-room is a lively change for a girl who loves
+dress and show only less than daily intercourse with famous men and
+brilliant women. But I am bearing it nobly and have developed tastes I
+did not know I possessed; expensive tastes, John, which I fear may unfit
+me for the humble life of a Portchester matron. Can you imagine me
+dressed in rich brocade, sitting in the midst of Washington's choicest
+citizens and exchanging sallies with senators and judges? You may find
+it hard, yet so it is, and no one seems to think I am out of place, nor
+do I feel so, only--do not tell James--there are movements in my heart
+at times which make me shut my eyes when the lights are brightest, and
+dream, if but for an instant, of home and the tumble-down gateway where
+I have so often leaned when someone (you know who it is now, John, and I
+shall not hurt you too deeply by mentioning him) was saying good-night
+and calling down the blessings of Heaven upon a head not worthy to
+receive them.
+
+Does this argue my speedy return? Perhaps. Yet I do not know. There are
+fond hearts here also, and a life in this country's centre would be a
+great life for me if only I could forget the touch of a certain
+restraining hand which has great power over me even as a memory. For the
+sake of that touch shall I give up the grandeur and charm of this broad
+life? Answer, John. You know him and me well enough now to say.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I do not understand your letter. You speak in affectionate terms of
+everybody, yet you beg me to wait and not be in a hurry to return. Why?
+Do you not realise that such words only make me the more anxious to see
+old Portchester again? If there is anything amiss at home, or if James
+is learning to do without me--but you do not say that; you only intimate
+that perhaps I will be better able to make up my mind later than now,
+and hint of great things to come if I will only hold my affections in
+check a little longer. This is all very ambiguous and demands a fuller
+explanation. So write to me once more, John, or I shall sever every
+engagement I have made here and return.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Your letter is plain enough this time. James read the letter I wrote you
+about my pleasure in the life here and was displeased at it. He thinks I
+am growing worldly and losing that simplicity which he has always looked
+upon as my most attractive characteristic. So! so! Well, James is right;
+I am becoming less the country girl and more the woman of the world
+every day I remain here. That means I am becoming less worthy of him.
+So--But whatever else I have to say on this topic must be said to him.
+For this you will pardon me like the good brother you are. I cannot help
+my preference. He is nearer my own age; besides, we were made for each
+other.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am not worldly; I am not carried away by the pleasures and
+satisfactions of this place,--at least not to the point of forgetting
+what is dearer and better. I have seen Washington, I have seen gay life;
+I like it, but I LOVE Portchester. Consequently I am going to return to
+Portchester, and that very soon. Indeed I cannot stay away much longer,
+and if you are glad of this, and if you wish to be convinced that a girl
+who has been wearing brocade and jewels can content herself quite gaily
+again with calico, come up to the dear old gate a week from now and you
+will have the opportunity. Do you object to flowers? I may wear a flower
+in my hair.
+
+Your wayward but ever-constant
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+Why must I write? Why am I not content with the memory of last night?
+When one's cup is quite full, a cup that has been so long in
+filling,--must some few drops escape just to show that a great joy like
+mine is not satisfied to be simply quiescent? I have suffered so long
+from uncertainty, have tried you and tried myself with so tedious an
+indecision, that, now I know no other man can ever move my heart as you
+have done, the ecstasy of it makes me over-demonstrative. I want to tell
+you that I love you; that I do not simply accept your love, but give you
+back in fullest measure all the devotion you have heaped upon me in
+spite of my many faults and failings. You took me to your heart last
+night, and seemed satisfied; but it does not satisfy me that I just let
+you do it without telling you that I am proud and happy to be the chosen
+one of your heart, and that as I saw your smile and the proud passion
+which lit up your face, I felt how much sweeter was the dear domestic
+bliss you promised me than the more brilliant but colder life of a
+statesman's wife in Washington.
+
+I missed the flower from my hair when I went back to my room last night.
+Did you take it, dear? If so, do not cherish it. I hate to think of
+anything withering on your breast. My love is deathless, James, and owns
+no such symbol as that. But perhaps you are not thinking of my love, but
+of my faults. If so, let the flower remain where you have put it; and
+when you gaze on it say, "Thus is it with the defects of my darling;
+once in full bloom, now a withered remembrance. When I gathered her they
+began to fade." O James, I feel as if I never could feel anger again.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I do not, I cannot, believe it. Though you said to me on going out,
+"Your father will explain," I cannot content myself with his
+explanations and will never believe what he said of you except you
+confirm his accusations by your own act. If, after I have told you
+exactly what passed between us, you return me this and other letters,
+then I shall know that I have leaned my weight on a hollow staff, and
+that henceforth I am to be without protector or comforter in this world.
+
+O James, were we not happy! I believed in you and felt that you believed
+in me. When we stood heart to heart under the elm tree (was it only last
+night?) and you swore that if it lay in the power of earthly man to make
+me happy, I should taste every sweet that a woman's heart naturally
+craved, I thought my heaven had already come and that now it only
+remained for me to create yours. Yet that very minute my father was
+approaching us, and in another instant we heard these words:
+
+"James, I must talk with you before you make my daughter forget herself
+any further." Forget herself! What had happened? This was not the way my
+father had been accustomed to talk, much as he had always favoured the
+suit of Philemon Webb, and pleased as he would have been had my choice
+fallen on him. Forget herself! I looked at you to see how these
+insulting words would affect you. But while you turned pale, or seemed
+to do so in the fading moonlight, you were not quite so unprepared for
+them as I was myself, and instead of showing anger, followed my father
+into the house, leaving me shivering in a spot which had held no chill
+for me a moment before. You were gone--how long? To me it seemed an
+hour, and perhaps it was. It would seem to take that long for a man's
+face to show such change as yours did when you confronted me again in
+the moonlight. Yet a lightning stroke makes quick work, and perhaps my
+countenance in that one minute showed as great a change as yours. Else
+why did you shudder away from me, and to my passionate appeal reply with
+this one short phrase: "Your father will explain"? Did you think any
+other words than yours would satisfy me, or that I could believe even
+him when he accused you of a base and dishonest act? Much as I have
+always loved and revered my father, I find it impossible not to hope
+that in his wish to see me united to Philemon he has resorted to an
+unworthy subterfuge to separate us; therefore I give you our interview
+word for word. May it shock you as much as it shocked me. Here is what
+he said first:
+
+"Agatha, you cannot marry James Zabel. He is not an honest man. He has
+defrauded me, ME, your father, of several thousand dollars. In a clever
+way, too, showing him to be as subtle as he is unprincipled. Shall I
+tell you the wretched story, my girl? He has left me to do so. He sees
+as plainly as I do that any communication between you two after the
+discovery I have this day made would be but an added offence. He is at
+least a gentleman, which is something, considering how near he came to
+being my son-in-law."
+
+I may have answered. People do cry out when they are stabbed, sometimes,
+but I rather think I did not say a word, only looked a disdain which at
+that minute was as measureless as my belief in you. YOU dishonest?
+YOU--Or perhaps I laughed; that would have been truer to my feeling;
+yes, I must have laughed.
+
+My father's next words indicated that I did something.
+
+"You do not believe in his guilt," he went on, and there was a kindness
+in his tone which gave me my first feeling of real terror. "I can
+readily comprehend that, Agatha. He has been in my office and acted
+under my eye for several years now, and I had almost as much confidence
+in him as you had, notwithstanding the fact that I liked him much better
+as my confidential clerk than as your probable or prospective husband.
+He has never held the key to my heart; would God he never had to yours!
+But he was a good and reliable man in the office, or so I thought, and I
+gave into his hand much of the work I ought to have done myself,
+especially since my health has more or less failed me. My trust he
+abused. A month ago--it was during that ill turn you remember I received
+a letter from a man I had never expected to hear from again. He was in
+my debt some ten thousand dollars, and wrote that he had brought with
+him as much of this sum as he had been able to save in the last five
+years, to Sutherlandtown, where he was now laid up with a dangerous
+illness from which he had small hope of recovering. Would I come there
+and get it? He was a stranger and wished to take no one into his
+confidence, but he had the money and would be glad to place it in my
+hands. He added that as he was a lone man, without friends or relatives
+to inherit from him, he felt a decided pleasure at the prospect of
+satisfying his only creditor, and devoutly hoped he would be well enough
+to realise the transaction and receive my receipt. But if his fever
+increased and he should be delirious or unconscious when I reached him,
+then I was to lift up the left-hand corner of the mattress on which he
+lay and take from underneath his head a black wallet in which I would
+find the money promised me. He had elsewhere enough to pay all his
+expenses, so that the full contents of the wallet were mine.
+
+"I remembered the man and I wanted the money; so, not being able to go
+for it myself, I authorised James Zabel to collect it for me. He started
+at once for Sutherlandtown, and in a few hours returned with the wallet
+alluded to. Though I was suffering intensely at the time, I remember
+distinctly the air with which he laid it down and the words with which
+he endeavoured to carry off a certain secret excitement visible in him.
+'Mr. Orr was alive, sir, and fully conscious; but he will not outlive
+the night. He seemed quite satisfied with the messenger and gave up the
+wallet without any hesitation.' I roused up and looked at him. 'What has
+shaken you up so?' I asked. He was silent a moment before replying. 'I
+have ridden fast,' said he; then more slowly, 'One feels sorry for a man
+dying alone and amongst strangers.' I thought he showed an unnecessary
+emotion, but paid no further heed to it at the time.
+
+"The wallet held two thousand and more dollars, which was less than I
+expected, but yet a goodly sum and very welcome. As I was counting it
+over I glanced at the paper accompanying it. It was an acknowledgment of
+debt and mentioned the exact sum I should find in the wallet--$2753.67.
+Pointing them out to James, I remarked, 'The figures are in different
+ink from the words. How do you account for that?' I thought his answer
+rather long in coming, though when it did come it was calm, if not
+studied. 'I presume,' said he, 'that the sum was inserted at
+Sutherlandtown, after Mr. Orr was quite sure just how much he could
+spare for the liquidation of this old debt.' 'Very likely,' I assented,
+not bestowing another thought upon the matter.
+
+"But to-day it has been forced back upon my attention in a curious if
+not providential way. I was over in Sutherlandtown for the first time
+since my illness, and having some curiosity about my unfortunate but
+honest debtor, went to the hotel and asked to see the room in which he
+died. It being empty they at once showed it to me; and satisfied that he
+had been made comfortable in his last hours, I was turning away, when I
+espied on a table in one corner an inkstand and what seemed to be an old
+copy-book. Why I stopped and approached this table I do not know, but
+once in front of it I remembered what Zabel had said about the figures,
+and taking up the pen I saw there, I dipped it in the ink-pot and
+attempted to scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found
+in the copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was
+not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in making
+any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they were so
+exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr. Orr's
+memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I was
+instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had been done,
+as James had said, in this room, and with the very pen I was then
+handling. As there was nothing extraordinary in this, I was turning
+away, when a gust of wind from the open window lifted the loose sheet of
+paper I had been scribbling on and landed it, the other side up, on the
+carpet. As I stooped for it I saw figures on it, and feeling sure that
+they had been scrawled there by Mr. Orr in his attempt to make the pen
+write, I pulled out the memorandum again and compared the two minutely.
+They were the work of the same hand, but the figures on the stray leaf
+differed from those in the memorandum in a very important particular.
+Those in the memorandum began with a 2, while those on the stray sheet
+began with a 7--a striking difference. Look, Agatha, here is the piece
+of paper just as I found it. You see here, there, and everywhere the one
+set of figures, 7753.67. Here it is hardly legible, here it is blotted
+with too much ink, here it is faint but sufficiently distinct, and
+here--well, there can be no mistake about these figures, 7753.67; yet
+the memorandum reads, $2753.67, and the money returned to me amounts to
+$2753.67--a clean five thousand dollars' difference."
+
+Here, James, my father paused, perhaps to give me a commiserating look,
+though I did not need it; perhaps to give himself a moment in which to
+regain courage for what he still had to say. I did not break the
+silence; I was too sure of your integrity; besides, my tongue could not
+have moved if it would; all my faculties seemed frozen except that
+instinct which cried out continually within me: "No! there is no fault
+in James. He has done no wrong. No one but himself shall ever convince
+me that he has robbed anyone of anything except poor me of my poor
+heart." But inner cries of this kind are inaudible and after a moment's
+interval my father went on:
+
+"Five thousand dollars is no petty sum, and the discrepancy in the two
+sets of figures which seemed to involve me in so considerable a loss set
+me thinking. Convinced that Mr. Orr would not be likely to scribble one
+number over so many times if it was not the one then in his mind, I went
+to Mr. Forsyth's office and borrowed a magnifying-glass, through which I
+again subjected the figures in the memorandum to a rigid scrutiny. The
+result was a positive conviction that they had been tampered with after
+their first writing, either by Mr. Orr himself or by another whom I need
+not name. The 2 had originally been a 7, and I could even see where the
+top line of the 7 had been given a curl and where a horizontal stroke
+had been added at the bottom.
+
+"Agatha, I came home as troubled a man as there was in all these parts.
+I remembered the suppressed excitement which had been in James Zabel's
+face when he handed me over the money, and I remembered also that you
+loved him, or thought you did, and that, love or no love, you were
+pledged to marry him. If I had not recalled all this I might have
+proceeded more warily. As it was, I took the bold and open course and
+gave James Zabel an opportunity to explain himself. Agatha, he did not
+embrace it. He listened to my accusations and followed my finger when I
+pointed out the discrepancy between the two sets of figures, but he made
+no protestations of innocence, nor did he show me the front of an honest
+man when I asked if he expected me to believe that the wallet had held
+only two thousand and over when Mr. Orr handed it over to him. On the
+contrary he seemed to shrink into himself like a person whose life has
+been suddenly blasted, and replying that he would expect me to believe
+nothing except his extreme contrition at the abuse of confidence of
+which he had been guilty, begged me to wait till to-morrow before taking
+any active steps in the matter. I replied that I would show him that
+much consideration if he would immediately drop all pretensions to your
+hand. This put him in a bad way; but he left, as you see, with just a
+simple injunction to you to seek from me an explanation of his strange
+departure. Does that look like innocence or does it look like guilt?"
+
+I found my tongue at this and passionately cried: "James Zabel's life,
+as I have known it, shows him to be an honest man. If he has done what
+you suggest, given you but a portion of the money entrusted to him and
+altered the figures in the memorandum to suit the amount he brought you,
+then there is a discrepancy between this act and all the other acts of
+his life which I find it more difficult to reconcile than you did the
+two sets of figures in Mr. Orr's handwriting. Father, I must hear from
+his own lips a confirmation of your suspicions before I will credit
+them."
+
+And this is why I write you so minute an account of what passed between
+my father and myself last night. If his account of the matter is a
+correct one, and you have nothing to add to it in way of explanation,
+then the return of this letter will be token enough that my father has
+been just in his accusations and that the bond between us must be
+broken. But if--O James, if you are the true man I consider you, and all
+that I have heard is a fabrication or mistake, then come to me at once;
+do not delay, but come at once, and the sight of your face at the gate
+will be enough to establish your innocence in my eyes.
+
+AGATHA. 
+
+The letter that followed this was very short:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+The package of letters has been received. God help me to bear this shock
+to all my hopes and the death of all my girlish beliefs. I am not angry.
+Only those who have something left to hold on to in life can be angry.
+
+My father tells me he has received a packet too. It contained five
+thousand dollars in ten five-hundred-dollar notes. James! James! was not
+my love enough, that you should want my father's money too?
+
+I have begged my father, and he has promised me, to keep the cause of
+this rupture secret. No one shall know from either of us that James
+Zabel has any flaw in his nature.
+
+The next letter was dated some months later. It is to Philemon:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+The gloves are too small; besides, I never wear gloves. I hate their
+restraint and do not feel there is any good reason for hiding my hands,
+in this little country town where everyone knows me. Why not give them
+to Hattie Weller? She likes such things, while I have had my fill of
+finery. A girl whose one duty is to care for a dying father has no room
+left in her heart for vanities.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+It is impossible. I have had my day of love and my heart is quite dead.
+Show your magnanimity by ceasing to urge me any longer to forget the
+past. It is all you can do for
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You WILL have my hand though I have told you that my heart does not go
+with it. It is hard to understand such persistence, but if you are
+satisfied to take a woman of my strength against her will, then God have
+mercy upon you, for I will be your wife.
+
+But do not ask me to go to Sutherlandtown. I will live here. And do not
+expect to keep up your intimacy with the Zabels. There is no tie of
+affection remaining between James and myself, but if I am to shed that
+half-light over your home which is all I can promise and all that you
+can hope to receive, then keep me from all influence but your own. That
+this in time may grow sweet and dear to me is my earnest prayer to-day,
+for you are worthy of a true wife.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I am going to be married. My father exacts it and there is no good
+reason why I should not give him this final satisfaction. At least I do
+not think there is; but if you or your brother differ from me--Say
+good-bye to James from me. I pray that his life may be peaceful. I know
+that it will be honest.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+My father is worse. He fears that if we wait till Tuesday he will not be
+able to see us married. Decide, then, what our duty is; I am ready to
+abide by your pleasure.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+The following is from John Zabel to his brother James, and is dated one
+day after the above:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+When you read this I will be far away, never to look in your face again,
+unless you bid me. Brother, brother, I meant it for the best, but God
+was not with me and I have made four hearts miserable without giving
+help to anyone.
+
+When I read Agatha's letter--the last for more reasons than one that I
+shall ever receive from her--I seemed to feel as never before what I had
+done to blast your two lives. For the first time I realised to the full
+that but for me she might have been happy and you the respected husband
+of the one grand woman to be found in Portchester. That I had loved her
+so fiercely myself came back to me in reproach, and the thought that she
+perhaps suspected that the blame had fallen where it was not deserved
+roused me to such a pitch that I took the sudden and desperate
+resolution of telling her the truth before she gave her hand to
+Philemon. Why the daily sight of your misery should not have driven me
+before to this act, I cannot tell. Some remnants of the old jealousy may
+have been still festering in my heart; or the sense of the great
+distance between your self-sacrificing spirit and the selfishness of my
+weaker nature risen like a barrier between me and the only noble act
+left for a man in my position. Whatever the cause, it was not till
+to-day the full determination came to brave the obloquy of a full
+confession; but when it did come I did not pause till I reached Mr.
+Gilchrist's house and was ushered into his presence.
+
+He was lying on the sitting-room lounge, looking very weak and
+exhausted, while on one side of him stood Agatha and on the other
+Philemon, both contemplating him with ill-concealed anxiety. I had not
+expected to find Philemon there, and for a moment I suffered the extreme
+agony of a man who has not measured the depth of the plunge he is about
+to take; but the sight of Agatha trembling under the shock of my
+unexpected presence restored me to myself and gave me firmness to
+proceed. Advancing with a bow, I spoke quickly the one word I had come
+there to say.
+
+"Agatha, I have done you a great wrong and I am here to undo it. For
+months I have felt driven to confession, but not till to-day have I
+possessed the necessary courage. NOW, nothing shall hinder me."
+
+I said this because I saw in both Mr. Gilchrist and Philemon a
+disposition to stop me where I was. Indeed Mr. Gilchrist had risen on
+his elbow and Philemon was making that pleading gesture of his which we
+know so well.
+
+Agatha alone looked eager. "What is it?" she cried. "I have a right to
+know." I went to the door, shut it, and stood with my back against it, a
+figure of shame and despair; suddenly the confession burst from me.
+"Agatha," said I, "why did you break with my brother James? Because you
+thought him guilty of theft; because you believed he took the five
+thousand dollars out of the sum entrusted to him by Mr. Orr for your
+father. Agatha, it was not James who did this it was I; and James knew
+it, and bore the blame of my misdoing because he was always a loyal soul
+and took account of my weakness and knew, alas! too well, that open
+shame would kill me."
+
+It was a weak plea and merited no reply. But the silence was so dreadful
+and lasted so long that I felt first crushed and then terrified. Raising
+my head, for I had not dared to look any of them in the face, I cast one
+glance at the group before me and dropped my head again, startled. Only
+one of the three was looking at me, and that was Agatha. The others had
+their heads turned aside, and I thought, or rather the passing fancy
+took me, that they shrank from meeting her gaze with something of the
+same shame and dread I myself felt. But she! Can I ever hope to make you
+realise her look, or comprehend the pang of utter self-abasement with
+which I succumbed before it? It was so terrible that I seemed to hear
+her utter words, though I am sure she did not speak; and with some wild
+idea of stemming the torrent of her reproaches, I made an effort at
+explanation, and impetuously cried: "It was not for my own good, Agatha,
+not for self altogether, I did this. I too loved you, madly,
+despairingly, and, good brother as I seemed, I was jealous of James and
+hoped to take his place in your regard if I could show a greater
+prosperity and get for you those things his limited prospects denied
+him. You enjoy money, beauty, ease; I could see that by your letters,
+and if James could not give them to you and I could--Oh, do not look at
+me like that! I see now that millions could not have bought you."
+
+"Despicable!" was all that came from her lips. At which I shuddered and
+groped about for the handle of the door. But she would not let me go.
+Subduing with an unexpected grand self-restraint the emotions which had
+hitherto swelled too high in her breast for either speech or action, she
+thrust out one arm to stay me and said in short, commanding tones: "How
+was this thing done? You say you took the money, yet it was James who
+was sent to collect it--or so my father says." Here she tore her looks
+from me and cast one glance at her father. What she saw I cannot say,
+but her manner changed and henceforth she glanced his way as much as
+mine and with nearly as much emotion. "I am waiting to hear what you
+have to say," she exclaimed, laying her hand on the door over my head so
+as to leave me no opportunity for escape. I bowed and attempted an
+explanation.
+
+"Agatha," said I, "the commission was given to James and he rode to
+Sutherlandtown to perform it. But it was on the day when he was
+accustomed to write to you, and he was not easy in his mind, for he
+feared he would miss sending you his usual letter. When, therefore, he
+came to the hotel and saw me in Philemon's room--I was often there in
+those days, often without Philemon's knowing it--he saw, or thought he
+did, a way out of his difficulties. Entering where I was, he explained
+to me his errand, and we being then--though never, alas! since--one in
+everything but the secret hopes he enjoyed, he asked me if I would go in
+his stead to Mr. Orr's room, present my credentials, and obtain the
+money while he wrote the letter with which his mind was full. Though my
+jealousy was aroused and I hated the letter he was about to write, I did
+not see how I could refuse him; so after receiving such credentials as
+he himself carried, and getting full instructions how to proceed, I left
+him writing at Philemon's table and hastened down the hall to the door
+he had pointed out. If Providence had been on the side of guilt, the
+circumstances could not have been more favourable for the deception I
+afterwards played. No one was in the hall, no one was with Mr. Orr to
+note that it was I instead of James who executed Mr. Gilchrist's
+commission. But I was thinking of no deception then. I proceeded quite
+innocently on my errand, and when the feeble voice of the invalid bade
+me enter, I experienced nothing but a feeling of compassion for a man
+dying in this desolate way, alone. Of course Mr. Orr was surprised to
+see a stranger, but after reading Mr. Gilchrist's letter which I handed
+him, he seemed quite satisfied and himself drew out the wallet at the
+head of his bed and handed it over. 'You will find,' said he, 'a
+memorandum inside of the full amount, $7758.67. I should like to have
+returned Mr. Gilchrist the full ten thousand which I owe him, but this
+is all I possess, barring a hundred dollars which I have kept for my
+final expenses.' 'Mr. Gilchrist will be satisfied,' I assured him.
+'Shall I make you out a receipt?' He shook his head with a sad smile. 'I
+shall be dead in twenty-four hours. What good will a receipt do me?' But
+it seemed unbusinesslike not to give it, so I went over to the table,
+where I saw a pen and paper, and recognising the necessity of counting
+the money before writing a receipt, I ran my eye over the bills, which
+were large, and found the wallet contained just the amount he had named.
+Then I glanced at the memorandum. It had evidently been made out by him
+at some previous time, for the body of the writing was in firm
+characters and the ink blue, while the figures were faintly inscribed in
+muddy black. The 7 especially was little more than a straight line, and
+as I looked at it the devil that is in every man's nature whispered at
+first carelessly, then with deeper and deeper insistence: 'How easy it
+would be to change that 7 to a 2! Only a little mark at the top and the
+least additional stroke at the bottom and these figures would stand for
+five thousand less. It might be a temptation to some men.' It presently
+became a temptation to me; for, glancing furtively up, I discovered that
+Mr. Orr had fallen either into a sleep or into a condition of
+insensibility which made him oblivious to my movements. Five thousand
+dollars! just the sum of the ten five-hundred-dollar bills that made the
+bulk of the amount I had counted. In this village and at my age this sum
+would raise me at once to comparative independence. The temptation was
+too strong for resistance. I succumbed to it, and seizing the pen before
+me, I made the fatal marks. When I went back to James the wallet was in
+my hand, and the ten five-hundred-dollar bills in my breast pocket."
+
+Agatha had begun to shudder. She shook so she rattled the door against
+which I leaned.
+
+"And when you found that Providence was not so much upon your side as
+you thought, when you saw that the fraud was known and that your brother
+was suspected of it--"
+
+"Don't!" I pleaded, "don't make me recall that hour!"
+
+But she was inexorable. "Recall that and every hour," she commanded.
+"Tell me why he sacrificed himself, why he sacrificed me, to a cur--"
+
+She feared her own tongue, she feared her own anger, and stopped.
+"Speak," she whispered, and it was the most ghastly whisper that ever
+left mortal lips. I was but a foot from her and she held me as by a
+strong enchantment. I could not help obeying her.
+
+"To make it all clear," I pursued, "I must go back to the time I
+rejoined James in Philemon's room. He had finished his letter when I
+entered and was standing with it, sealed, in his hand. I may have cast
+it a disdainful glance. I may have shown that I was no longer the same
+man I had been when I left him a half-hour before, for he looked
+curiously at me for a moment previous to saying:
+
+"'Is that the wallet you have there? Was Mr. Orr conscious, and did he
+give it to you himself?' 'Mr. Orr was conscious,' I returned,--and I
+didn't like the sound of my own voice, careful as I was to speak
+naturally,--' but he fainted just before I came out, and I think you had
+better ask the clerk as you go down to send someone up to him.'
+
+"James was weighing the pocket-book in his hand. 'How much do you think
+there is in here? The debt was ten thousand.' I had turned carelessly
+away and was looking out of the window. 'The memorandum inside gives the
+figures as two thousand,' I declared. 'He apologises for not sending the
+full amount. He hasn't it.' Again I felt James looking at me. Why? Could
+he see that guilty wad of bills lying on my breast? 'How came you to
+read the memorandum?' he asked. 'Mr. Orr wished me to. I looked at it to
+please him.' This was a lie--the first I had ever uttered. James's eyes
+had not moved. 'John,' said he, 'this little bit of business seems to
+have disturbed you. I ought to have attended to it myself. I am quite
+sure I ought to have attended to it myself.' 'The man is dying,' I
+muttered. 'You escaped a sad sight. Be satisfied that you have got the
+money. Shall I post that letter for you?' He put it jealously in his
+pocket, and again I saw him look at me, but he said nothing more except
+that he repeated that same phrase, 'I ought to have attended to it
+myself. Agatha might better have waited.' Then he went out; but I
+remained till Philemon came home. My brother and myself were no longer
+companions; a crime divided us,--a crime he could not suspect, yet which
+made itself felt in both our hearts and prepared him for the revelation
+made to him by Mr. Gilchrist some weeks after. That night he came to
+Sutherlandtown, where I was, and entered my bedroom--not in the
+fraternal way of the old days, but as an elder enters the presence of a
+younger. 'John,' he said, without any preamble or preparation, 'where
+are the five thousand dollars you kept back from Mr. Gilchrist? The
+memorandum said seven and you delivered to me only two.' There are
+death-knells sounded in every life; those words sounded mine, or would
+have if he had not immediately added: 'There! I knew you had no stamina.
+I have taken your crime on myself, who am really to blame for it, since
+I delegated my duty to another, and you will only have to bear the
+disgrace of having James Zabel for a brother. In exchange, give me the
+money; it shall be returned to-morrow. You cannot have disposed of it
+already. After which, you, or rather I, will be in the eyes of the world
+only a thief in intent, not in fact.' Had he only stopped there!--but he
+went on: 'Agatha is lost to me, John. In return, be to me the brother I
+always thought you up to the unhappy day the sin of Achan came between
+us.'
+
+"YOU were lost to him! It was all I heard. YOU were lost to him! Then,
+if I acknowledged the crime I should not only take up my own burden of
+disgrace, but see him restored to his rights over the only woman I had
+ever loved. The sacrifice was great and my virtue was not equal to it. I
+gave him back the money, but I did not offer to assume the
+responsibility of my own crime."
+
+"And since?"
+
+In what a hard tone she spoke!
+
+"I have had to see Philemon gradually assume the rights James once
+enjoyed."
+
+"John," she asked,--she was under violent self-restraint,--"why do you
+come now?"
+
+I cast my eyes at Philemon. He was standing, as before, with his eyes
+turned away. There was discouragement in his attitude, mingled with a
+certain grand patience. Seeing that he was better able to bear her loss
+than either you or myself, I said to her very low, "I thought you ought
+to know the truth before you gave your final word. I am late, but I
+would have been TOO LATE a week from now."
+
+Her hand fell from the door, but her eyes remained fixed on my face.
+Never have I sustained such a look; never will I encounter such another.
+
+"It is too late NOW," she murmured. "The clergyman has just gone who
+united me to Philemon."
+
+The next minute her back was towards me; she had faced her father and
+her new-made husband.
+
+"Father, you knew this thing!" Keen, sharp, incisive, the words rang
+out. "I saw it in your face when he began to speak."
+
+Mr. Gilchrist drooped slightly; he was a very sick man and the scene
+had been a trying one.
+
+"If I did," was his low response, "it was but lately. You were engaged
+then to Philemon. Why break up this second match?"
+
+She eyed him as if she found it difficult to credit her ears. Such
+indifference to the claims of innocence was incredible to her. I saw her
+grand profile quiver, then the slow ebbing from her cheek of every drop
+of blood indignation had summoned there.
+
+"And you, Philemon?" she suggested, with a somewhat softened aspect.
+"You committed this wrong ignorantly. Never having heard of this crime,
+you could not know on what false grounds I had been separated from
+James."
+
+I had started to escape, but stopped just beyond the threshold of the
+door as she uttered these words. Philemon was not as ignorant as she
+supposed. This was evident from his attitude and expression.
+
+"Agatha," he began, but at this first word, and before he could clasp
+the hands held helplessly out before her, she gave a great cry, and
+staggering back, eyed both her father and himself in a frenzy of
+indignation that was all the more uncontrollable from the superhuman
+effort which she had hitherto made to suppress it.
+
+"You too!" she shrieked. "You too! and I have just sworn to love,
+honour, and obey you! Love YOU! Honour YOU! the unconscionable wretch
+who--"
+
+But here Mr. Gilchrist rose. Weak, tottering, quivering with something
+more than anger, he approached his daughter and laid his finger on her
+lips.
+
+"Be quiet!" he said. "Philemon is not to blame. A month ago he came to
+me and prayed that as a relief to his mind I would tell him why you had
+separated yourself from James. He had always thought the match had
+fallen through on account of some foolish quarrel or incompatibility,
+but lately he had feared there was something more than he suspected in
+this break, something that he should know. So I told him why you had
+dismissed James; and whether he knew James better than we did, or
+whether he had seen something in his long acquaintance with these
+brothers which influenced his judgment, he said at once: 'This cannot be
+true of James. It is not in his nature to defraud any man; but John--I
+might believe it of John. Isn't there some complication here?' I had
+never thought of John, and did not see how John could be mixed up with
+an affair I had supposed to be a secret between James and myself, but
+when we came to locate the day, Philemon remembered that on returning to
+his room that night, he had found John awaiting him. As his room was not
+five doors from that occupied by Mr. Orr, he was convinced that there
+was more to this matter than I had suspected. But when he laid the
+matter before James, he did not deny that John was guilty, but was
+peremptory in wishing you not to be told before your marriage. He knew
+that you were engaged to a good man, a man that your father approved, a
+man that could and would make you happy. He did not want to be the means
+of a second break, and besides, and this, I think, was at the bottom of
+the stand he took, for James Zabel was always the proudest man I ever
+knew,--he never could bear, he said, to give to one like Agatha a name
+which he knew and she knew was not entirely free from reproach. It would
+stand in the way of his happiness and ultimately of hers; his brother's
+dishonour was his. So while he still loved you, his only prayer was that
+after you were safely married and Philemon was sure of your affection,
+he should tell you that the man you once regarded so favourably was not
+unworthy of that regard. To obey him, Philemon has kept silent, while
+I--Agatha, what are you doing? Are you mad, my child?"
+
+She looked so for the moment. Tearing off the ring which she had worn
+but an hour, she flung it on the floor. Then she threw her arms high up
+over her head and burst out in an awful voice:
+
+"Curses on the father, curses on the husband, who have combined to make
+me rue the day I was born! The father I cannot disown, but the
+husband--"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+It was Mr. Gilchrist who dared her fury. Philemon said nothing.
+
+"Hush! he may be the father of your children. Don't curse--"
+
+But she only towered the higher and her beauty, from being simply
+majestic, became appalling.
+
+"Children!" she cried. "If ever I bear children to this man, may the
+blight of Heaven strike them as it has struck me this day. May they die
+as my hopes have died, or, if they live, may they bruise his heart as
+mine is bruised, and curse their father as--"
+
+Here I fled the house. I was shaking as if this awful denunciation had
+fallen on my own head. But before the door closed behind me, a different
+cry called me back. Mr. Gilchrist was lying lifeless on the floor, and
+Philemon, the patient, tender Philemon, had taken Agatha to his breast
+and was soothing her there as if the words she had showered upon him had
+been blessings instead of the most fearful curses which had ever left
+the lips of mortal woman.
+
+The next letter was in Agatha's handwriting. It was dated some months
+later and was stained and crumpled more than any other in the whole
+packet. Could Philemon once have told why? Were these blotted lines the
+result of his tears falling fast upon them, tears of forty years ago,
+when he and she were young and love had been doubtful? Was the sheet so
+yellowed and so seamed because it had been worn on his breast and folded
+and unfolded so often? Philemon, thou art in thy grave, sleeping sweetly
+at last by thy deeply idolised one, but these marks of feeling still
+remain indissolubly connected with the words that gave them birth.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You are gone for a day and a night only, but it seems a lengthened
+absence to me, meriting a little letter. You have been so good to me,
+Philemon, ever since that dreadful hour following our marriage, that
+sometimes--I hardly dare yet to say always--I feel that I am beginning
+to love you and that God did not deal with me so harshly when He cast me
+into your arms. Yesterday I tried to tell you this when you almost
+kissed me at parting. But I was afraid it was a momentary sentimentality
+and so kept still. But to-day such a warm well-spring of joy rises in my
+heart when I think that to-morrow the house will be bright again, and
+that in place of the empty wall opposite me at table I shall see your
+kindly and forbearing face, I know that the heart I had thought
+impregnable has begun to yield, and that daily gentleness, and a
+boundless consideration from one who had excuse for bitter thoughts and
+recrimination, are doing what all of us thought impossible a few short
+months ago.
+
+Oh, I am so happy, Philemon, so happy to love where it is now my duty to
+love; and if it were not for that dreadful memory of a father dying with
+harsh words in his ears, and the knowledge that you, my husband, yet not
+my husband, are bearing ever about with you echoes of words that in
+another nature would have turned tenderness into gall, I could be merry
+also and sing as I go about the house making it pleasant and comfortable
+against your speedy return. As it is I can but lay my hand softly on my
+heart as its beatings grow too impetuous and say, "God bless my absent
+Philemon and help him to forgive me! I forgive him and love him as I
+never thought I could."
+
+That you may see that these are not the weak outpourings of a lonely
+woman, I will here write that I heard to-day that John and James Zabel
+have gone into partnership in the ship-building business, John's uncle
+having left him a legacy of several thousand dollars. I hope they will
+do well. James, they say, is full of business and is, to all appearance,
+perfectly cheerful. This relieves me from too much worry in his regard.
+God certainly knew what kind of a husband I needed. May you find
+yourself equally blessed in your wife.
+
+Another letter to Philemon, a year later:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+Hasten home, Philemon; I do not like these absences. I am just now too
+weak and fearful. Since we knew the great hope before us, I have looked
+often in your face for a sign that you remembered what this hope cannot
+but recall to my shuddering memory. Philemon, Philemon, was I mad? When
+I think what I said in my rage, and then feel the little life stirring
+about my heart, I wonder that God did not strike me dead rather than
+bestow upon me the greatest blessing that can come to woman. Philemon,
+Philemon, if anything should happen to the child! I think of it by day,
+I think of it by night. I know you think of it too, though you show me
+such a cheerful countenance and make such great plans for the future.
+"Will God remember my words, or will He forget? It seems as if my reason
+hung upon this question."
+
+A note this time in answer to one from John Zabel:
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Thank you for words which could have come from nobody else. My child is
+dead. Could I expect anything different? If I did, God has rebuked me.
+
+Philemon thinks only of me. We understand each other so perfectly now
+that our greatest suffering comes in seeing each other's pain. My load I
+can bear, but HIS--Come and see me, John; and tell James our house is
+open to him. We have all done wrong, and are caught in one net of
+misfortune. Let it make us friends again.
+
+Below this in Philemon's hand:
+
+My wife is superstitious. Strong and capable as she is, she has regarded
+this sudden taking off of our first-born as a sign that certain words
+uttered by her on her marriage day, unhappily known to you and, as I
+take it, to James also, have been remembered by the righteous God above
+us. This is a weakness which I cannot combat. Can you, who alone of all
+the world beside know both it and its cause, help me by a renewed
+friendship, whose cheerful and natural character may gradually make her
+forget? If so, come like old neighbours, and dine with us on our wedding
+day. If God sees that we have buried the past and are ready to forgive
+each other the faults of our youth, perhaps He will further spare this
+good woman. I think she will be able to bear it. She has great strength
+except where a little child is concerned. That alone can henceforth stir
+the deepest recesses of her heart.
+
+After this, a gap of years. One, two, three, four, five children were
+laid away to rest in Portchester churchyard, then Philemon and she came
+to Sutherlandtown; but not till after a certain event had occurred, best
+made known by this last letter to Philemon:
+
+DEAREST HUSBAND:
+
+Our babe is born, our sixth and our dearest, and the reproach of its
+first look had to be met by me alone. Oh, why did I leave you and come
+to this great Boston where I have no friend but Mrs. Sutherland? Did I
+think I could break the spell of fate or providence by giving birth to
+my last darling among strangers? I shall have to do something more than
+that if I would save this child to our old age. It is borne in upon me
+like fate that never will a child prosper at my breast or survive the
+clasp of my arms. If it is to live it must be reared by others. Some
+woman who has not brought down the curse of Heaven upon her by her own
+blasphemies must nourish the tender frame and receive the blessing of
+its growing love. Neither I nor you can hope to see recognition in our
+babe's eye. Before it can turn upon us with love, it will close in its
+last sleep and we will be left desolate. What shall we do, then, with
+this little son? To whose guardianship can we entrust it? Do you know a
+man good enough or a woman sufficiently tender? I do not, but if God
+wills that our little Frederick should live, He will raise up someone.
+By the pang of possible separation already tearing my heart, I believe
+that He WILL raise up someone. Meanwhile I do not dare to kiss the
+child, lest I should blight it. He is so sturdy, Philemon, so different
+from all the other five.
+
+I open this to add that Mrs. Sutherland has just been in--with her
+five-weeks-old infant. His father is away, too, and has not yet seen his
+boy; and this is their first after ten years of marriage. Oh, that my
+future opened before me as brightly as hers!
+
+The next letter opens with a cry:
+
+Philemon! Come to me, Philemon! I have done what I threatened. I have
+made the sacrifice. Our child is no longer ours, and now, perhaps, he
+may live. But oh, my breaking heart! my empty arms! Help me to bear my
+desolation, for it is for life. We will never have another child.
+
+And where is it? Ah, that is the wonder of it. Near you, Philemon, yet
+not too near. Mrs. Sutherland has it, and you may have seen its little
+face through the car window if you were in the station last night when
+the express passed through to Sutherlandtown. Ah! but she has her burden
+to bear too. An awful, secret burden like my own, only she will have the
+child--for, Philemon, she has taken it in lieu of her own, which died
+last night in my sight; and Mr. Sutherland does not know what she has
+done, and never will, if you keep the secret as I shall, for the sake of
+the life our little innocent has thus won.
+
+What do I mean and how was it all? Philemon, it was God's work, all but
+the deception, and that is for the good of all, and to save four broken
+hearts. Listen. Yesterday, only yesterday,--it seems a month ago,--Mrs.
+Sutherland came again to see me with her baby in her arms. Mr.
+Sutherland is expected home, as you know, this week, and she was about
+to start out for Sutherlandtown so as to be in her own house when he
+came. The baby was looking well and she was the happiest of women; for
+the one wish of his heart and hers had been fulfilled and she was soon
+going to have the bliss of showing the child to his father. My own babe
+was on the bed asleep, and I, who am feeling wonderfully strong, was
+sitting up in a little chair as far away from him as possible, not out
+of hatred or indifference--oh, no!--but because he seemed to rest better
+when left entirely by himself and not under the hungry look of my eye.
+Mrs. Sutherland went over to look at it. "Oh, he is fair like my baby,"
+she said, "and almost as sturdy, though mine is a month older." And she
+stooped down and kissed him. Philemon, he smiled for her, though he
+never had for me. I saw it with a greedy longing that almost made me cry
+out. Then I turned to her and we talked.
+
+Of what? I cannot remember now. At home we had never been intimate
+friends. She is from Sutherlandtown and I am from Portchester, and the
+distance of nine miles is enough to estrange people. But here, each with
+a husband absent and a darling infant lying asleep under our eyes,
+interests we have never thought identical drew us to one another and we
+chatted with ever-increasing pleasure--when suddenly Mrs. Sutherland
+jumped up in a terrible fright. The infant she had been rocking on her
+breast was blue; the next minute it shuddered; the next--it lay in her
+arms DEAD!
+
+I hear the shriek yet with which she fell with it still in her arms to
+the floor. Fortunately no other ears were open to her cry. I alone saw
+her misery. I alone heard her tale. The child had been poisoned,
+Philemon, poisoned by her. She had mistaken a cup of medicine for a cup
+of water and had given the child a few drops in a spoon just before
+setting out from her hotel. She had not known at the time what she had
+done, but now she remembered that the fatal cup was just like the other
+and that the two stood very near together. Oh, her innocent child, and
+oh, her husband!
+
+It seemed as if the latter thought would drive her wild. "He has so
+wished for a child," she moaned. "We have been married ten years and
+this baby seemed to have been sent from heaven. He will curse me, he
+will hate me, he will never be able after this to bear me in his sight."
+This was not true of Mr. Sutherland, but it was useless to argue with
+her. Instead of attempting it, I took another way to stop her ravings.
+Lifting the child out of her hands, I first listened at its heart, and
+then, finding it was really dead,--Philemon, I have seen too many
+lifeless children not to know,--I began slowly to undress it. "What are
+you doing?" she cried. "Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Webb, what are you doing?" For
+reply I pointed to the bed, where two little arms could be seen feebly
+fluttering. "You shall have my child," I whispered. "I have carried too
+many babies to the tomb to dare risk bringing up another." And catching
+her poor wandering spirit with my eye, I held her while I told her my
+story.
+
+Philemon, I saved that woman. Before I had finished speaking I saw the
+reason return to her eye and the dawning of a pitiful hope in her
+passion-drawn face. She looked at the child in my arms and then she
+looked at the one in the bed, and the long-drawn sigh with which she
+finally bent down and wept over our darling told me that my cause was
+won. The rest was easy. When the clothes of the two children had been
+exchanged, she took our baby in her arms and prepared to leave. Then I
+stopped her. "Swear," I cried, holding her by the arm and lifting my
+other hand to heaven, "swear you will be a mother to this child! Swear
+you will love it as your own and rear it in the paths of truth and
+righteousness!" The convulsive clasp with which she drew the baby to her
+breast assured me more than her shuddering "I swear!" that her heart had
+already opened to it. I dropped her arm and covered my face with my
+hands. I could not see my darling go; it was worse than death--for the
+moment it was worse than death. "O God, save him!" I groaned. "God, make
+him an honour--" But here she caught me by the arm. Her clutch was
+frenzied, her teeth were chattering. "Swear in your turn!" she gasped.
+"Swear that if I do a mother's duty by this boy, you will keep my secret
+and never, never reveal to my husband, to the boy, or to the world that
+you have any claims upon him!" It was like tearing the heart from my
+breast with my own hand, but I swore, Philemon, and she in her turn drew
+back. But suddenly she faced me again, terror and doubt in all her
+looks. "Your husband!" she whispered. "Can you keep such a secret from
+him? You will breathe it in your dreams." "I shall tell him," I
+answered. "Tell him!" The hair seemed to rise on her forehead and she
+shook so that I feared she would drop the babe. "Be careful!" I cried.
+"See! you frighten the babe. My husband has but one heart with me. What
+I do he will subscribe to. Do not fear Philemon." So I promised in your
+name. Gradually she grew calmer. When I saw she was steady again, I
+motioned her to go. Even my more than mortal strength was failing, and
+the baby--Philemon, I had never kissed it and I did not kiss it then. I
+heard her feet draw slowly towards the door, I heard her hand fall on
+the knob, heard it turn, uttered one cry, and then----
+
+They found me an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the dead
+infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I fell with the
+child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life went out during my
+insensibility. Of its features, like and yet unlike our boy's, no one
+seems to take heed. The nurse who cared for it is gone, and who else
+would know that little face but me? They are very good to me, and are
+full of self-reproaches for leaving me so long in my part of the
+building alone. But though they watch me now, I have contrived to write
+this letter, which you will get with the one telling of the baby's death
+and my own dangerous condition. Destroy it, Philemon, and then COME.
+Nothing in all the world will give me comfort but your hand laid under
+my head and your true eyes looking into mine. Ah, we must love each
+other now, and live humbly! All our woe has come from my early girlish
+delight in gay and elegant things. From this day on I eschew all
+vanities and find in your affection alone the solace which Heaven will
+not deny to our bewildered hearts. Perhaps in this way the blessing that
+has been denied us will be visited on our child, who will live. I am now
+sure, to be the delight of our hearts and the pride of our eyes, even
+though we are denied the bliss of his presence and affection.
+
+Mrs. Sutherland was not seen to enter or go out of my rooms. Being on
+her way to the depot, she kept on her way, and must be now in her own
+home. Her secret is safe, but ours--oh, you will help me to preserve it!
+Help me not to betray--tell them I have lost five babies before this
+one--delirious--there may be an inquest--she must not be mentioned--let
+all the blame fall on me if there is blame--I fell--there is a bruise on
+the baby's forehead--and--and--I am growing incoherent--I will try and
+direct this and then love--love--O God!
+
+[A scrawl for the name.]
+
+Under it these words:
+
+Though bidden to destroy this, I have never dared to do so. Some day it
+may be of inestimable value to us or our boy. PHILEMON WEBB.
+
+This was the last letter found in the first packet. As it was laid down,
+sobs were heard all over the room, and Frederick, who for some time now
+had been sitting with his head in his hands, ventured to look up and
+say: "Do you wonder that I endeavoured to keep this secret, bought at
+such a price and sealed by the death of her I thought my mother and of
+her who really was? Gentlemen, Mr. Sutherland loved his wife and
+honoured her memory. To tell him, as I shall have to within the hour,
+that the child she placed in his arms twenty-five years ago was an
+alien, and that all his love, his care, his disappointment, and his
+sufferings had been lavished on the son of a neighbour, required greater
+courage than to face doubt on the faces of my fellow-townsmen, or
+anything, in short, but absolute arraignment on the charge of murder.
+Hence my silence, hence my indecision, till this woman"--here he pointed
+a scornful finger at Amabel, now shrinking in her chair--"drove me to it
+by secretly threatening me with a testimony which would have made me the
+murderer of my mother and the lasting disgrace of a good man who alone
+has been without blame from the beginning to the end of this desperate
+affair. She was about to speak when I forestalled her. My punishment, if
+I deserve such, will be to sit and hear in your presence the reading of
+the letters still remaining in the coroner's hands."
+
+These letters were certain ones written by Agatha to her unacknowledged
+son. They had never been sent. The first one dated from his earliest
+infancy, and its simple and touching hopefulness sent a thrill through
+every heart. It read as follows:
+
+Three years old, my darling! and the health flush has not faded from
+your cheek nor the bright gold from your hair.
+
+Oh, how I bless Mrs. Sutherland that she did not rebuke me when your
+father and I came to Sutherlandtown and set up our home where I could at
+least see your merry form toddling through the streets, holding on to
+the hand of her who now claims your love. My darling, my pride, my
+angel, so near and yet so far removed, will you ever know, even in the
+heaven to which we all look for joy after our weary pilgrimage is over,
+how often in this troublous world, and in these days of your early
+infancy, I have crept out of my warm bed, dressed myself, and, without a
+word to your father, whose heart it would break, gone out and climbed
+the steep hillside just to look at the window of your room to see if it
+were light or dark and you awake or sleeping? To breathe the scent of
+the eglantine which climbs up to your nursery window, I have braved the
+night-damps and the watching eyes of Heaven; but you have a child's
+blissful ignorance of all this; you only grow and grow and live, my
+darling, LIVE!--which is the only boon I crave, the only recompense I
+ask.
+
+Have I but added another sin to my account and brought a worse vengeance
+on myself than that of seeing you die in your early infancy? Frederick,
+my son, my son, I heard you swear to-day! Not lightly, thoughtlessly, as
+boys sometimes will in imitation of their elders, but bitterly,
+revengefully, as if the seeds of evil passions were already pushing to
+life in the boyish breast I thought so innocent. Did you wonder at the
+strange woman who stopped you? Did you realise the awful woe from which
+my commonplace words sprang? No, no, what grown mind could take that in,
+least of all a child's? To have forsworn the bliss of motherhood and
+entered upon a life of deception for THIS! Truly Heaven is implacable
+and my last sin is to be punished more inexorably than my first.
+
+There are worse evils than death. This I have always heard, but now I
+know it. God was merciful when He slew my babes, and I, presumptous in
+my rebellion, and the efforts with which I tried to prevent His work.
+Frederick, you are weak, dissipated, and without conscience. The darling
+babe, the beautiful child, has grown into a reckless youth whose
+impulses Mr. Sutherland will find it hard to restrain, and over whom his
+mother--do _I_ call her your mother?--has little influence, though she
+tries hard to do a mother's part and save herself and myself from
+boundless regret. My boy, my boy, do you feel the lack of your own
+mother's vigour? Might you have lived under my care and owned a better
+restraint and learned to work and live a respectable life in
+circumstances less provocative of self-indulgence? Such questions, when
+they rise, are maddening. When I see them form themselves in Philemon's
+eyes I drive them out with all the force of my influence, which is still
+strong over him. But when they make way in my own breast, I can find no
+relief, not even in prayer. Frederick, were I to tell you the truth
+about your parentage, would the shock of such an unexpected revelation
+make a man of you? I have been tempted to make the trial, at times. Deep
+down in my heart I have thought that perhaps I should best serve the
+good man who is growing grey under your waywardness, by opening up
+before you the past and present agonies of which you are the unconscious
+centre. But I cannot do this while SHE lives. The look she gave me one
+day when I approached you a step too near at the church door, proves
+that it would be the killing of her to reveal her long-preserved secret
+now. I must wait her death, which seems near, and then--No, I cannot do
+it. Mr. Sutherland has but one staff to lean on, and that is you. It may
+be a poor one, a breaking one, but it is still a staff. I dare not take
+it away--I dare not. Ah, if Philemon was the man he was once, he might
+counsel me, but he is only a child now; just as if God had heard my cry
+for children and had given me--HIM.
+
+More money, and still more money! and I hate it except for what it will
+do for the poor and incapable about me. How strange are the ways of
+Providence! To us who have no need of aught beyond a competence, money
+pours in almost against our will, while to those who long and labour for
+it, it comes not, or comes so slowly the life wears out in the waiting
+and the working. The Zabels, now! Once well-to-do ship-builders, with a
+good business and a home full of curious works of art, they now appear
+to find it hard to obtain even the necessities of life. Such are the
+freaks of fortune; or should I say, the dealings of an inscrutable
+Providence? Once I tried to give something out of my abundance to these
+old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the attempt failed.
+Worse than that. As if to show that benefits should proceed from them to
+me rather than from me to them, James bestowed on me a gift. It is a
+strange one,--nothing more nor less than a quaint Florentine dagger
+which I had often admired for its exquisite workmanship. Was it the last
+treasure he possessed? I am almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie
+here in my table-drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not
+good for Philemon. He must have cheerful objects before him, happy faces
+such as mine tries to be. But ah!
+
+I would gladly give my life if I could once hold you in my arms, my
+erring but beloved son. Will the day ever come when I can? Will you have
+strength enough to hear my story and preserve your peace and let me go
+down to the grave with the memory of one look, one smile, that is for me
+alone? Sometimes I foresee this hour and am happy for a few short
+minutes; and then some fresh story of your recklessness is wafted
+through the town and--What stopped her at this point we shall never
+know. Some want of Philemon's, perhaps. At all events she left off here
+and the letter was never resumed. It was the last secret outpouring of
+her heart. With this broken sentence Agatha's letters terminated..
+
+......
+
+That afternoon, before the inquiry broke up, the jury brought in their
+verdict. It was:
+
+"Death by means of a wound inflicted upon herself in a moment of terror
+and misapprehension."
+
+It was all his fellow-townsmen could do for Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+But Frederick's day of trial was not yet over. There was a closed door
+to open and a father to see (as in his heart he still called Mr.
+Sutherland). Then there were friends to face, and foes, under conditions
+he better than anyone else, knew were in some regards made worse rather
+than better by the admissions and revelations of this eventful
+day--Agnes, for instance. How could he meet her pure gaze? But it was
+his father he must first confront, his father to whom he would have to
+repeat in private the tale which robbed the best of men of a past, and
+took from him a son, almost a wife, without leaving him one memory
+calculated to console him. Frederick was so absorbed in this
+anticipation that he scarcely noticed the two or three timid hands
+stretched out in encouragement toward him, and was moving slowly toward
+the door behind which his father had disappeared so many hours before,
+when he was recalled to the interests of the moment by a single word,
+uttered not very far from him. It was simply, "Well?" But it was uttered
+by Knapp and repeated by Mr. Courtney.
+
+Frederick shuddered, and was hurrying on when he found himself stopped
+by a piteous figure that, with appealing eyes and timid gestures,
+stepped up before him. It was Amabel.
+
+"Forgive!" she murmured, looking like a pleading saint. "I did not
+know--I never dreamed--you were so much of a man, Frederick: that you
+bore such a heart, cherished such griefs, were so worthy of love and a
+woman's admiration. If I had--"
+
+Her expression was eloquent, more eloquent than he had ever seen it, for
+it had real feeling in it; but he put her coldly by.
+
+"When my father's white hairs become black again, and the story of my
+shame is forgotten in this never-forgetting world, then come back and I
+will forgive you."
+
+And he was passing on when another touch detained him. He turned, this
+time in some impatience, only to meet the frank eyes of Sweetwater. As
+he knew very little of this young man, save that he was the amateur
+detective who had by some folly of his own been carried off on the
+Hesper, and who was probably the only man saved from its wreck, he was
+about to greet him with some commonplace phrase of congratulation, when
+Sweetwater interrupted him with the following words:
+
+"I only wanted to say that it may be easier for you to approach your
+father with the revelations you are about to make if you knew that in
+his present frame of mind he is much more likely to be relieved by such
+proofs of innocence as you can give him than overwhelmed by such as show
+the lack of kinship between you. For two weeks Mr. Sutherland has been
+bending under the belief of your personal criminality in this matter.
+This was his secret, which was shared by me."
+
+"By you?"
+
+"Yes, by me! I am more closely linked to this affair than you can
+readily imagine. Some day I may be able to explain myself, but not now.
+Only remember what I have said about your father--pardon me, I should
+perhaps say Mr. Sutherland--and act accordingly. Perhaps it was to tell
+you this that I was forced back here against my will by the strangest
+series of events that ever happened to a man. But," he added, with a
+sidelong look at the group of men still hovering about the coroner's
+table, "I had rather think it was for some more important office still.
+But this the future will show,--the future which I seem to see lowering
+in the faces over there."
+
+And, waiting for no reply, he melted into the crowd.
+
+Frederick passed at once to his father.
+
+No one interrupted them during this solemn interview, but the large
+crowd that in the halls and on the steps of the building awaited
+Frederick's reappearance showed that the public interest was still warm
+in a matter affecting so deeply the heart and interests of their best
+citizen. When, therefore, that long-closed door finally opened and
+Frederick was seen escorting Mr. Sutherland on his arm, the tide of
+feeling which had not yet subsided since Agatha's letters were read
+vented itself in one great sob of relief. For Mr. Sutherland's face was
+calmer than when they had last seen it, and his step more assured, and
+he leaned, or made himself lean, on Frederick's arm, as if to impress
+upon all who saw them that the ties of years cannot be shaken off so
+easily, and that he still looked upon Frederick as his son.
+
+But he was not contented with this dumb show, eloquent as it was. As the
+crowd parted and these two imposing figures took their way down the
+steps to the carriage which had been sent for them, Mr. Sutherland cast
+one deep and long glance about him on faces he knew and on faces he did
+not know, on those who were near and those who were far, and raising his
+voice, which did not tremble as much as might have been expected, said
+deliberately:
+
+"My son accompanies me to his home. If he should afterwards be wanted,
+he will be found at his own fireside. Good-day, my friends. I thank you
+for the goodwill you have this day shown us both."
+
+Then he entered the carriage.
+
+The solemn way in which Frederick bared his head in acknowledgment of
+this public recognition of the hold he still retained on this one
+faithful heart, struck awe into the hearts of all who saw it. So that
+the carriage rolled off in silence, closing one of the most thrilling
+and impressive scenes ever witnessed in that time-worn village.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+"NOT WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG GIRLS"
+
+
+But, alas! all tides have their ebb as well as flow, and before Mr.
+Sutherland and Frederick were well out of the main street the latter
+became aware that notwithstanding the respect with which his
+explanations had been received by the jury, there were many of his
+fellow-townsmen who were ready to show dissatisfaction at his being
+allowed to return in freedom to that home where he had still every
+prospect of being called the young master. Doubt, that seed of ramifying
+growth, had been planted in more than one breast, and while it failed as
+yet to break out into any open manifestation, there were evidences
+enough in the very restraint visible in such groups of people as they
+passed that suspicion had not been suppressed or his innocence
+established by the over-favourable verdict of the coroner's jury.
+
+To Mr. Sutherland, suffering now from the reaction following all great
+efforts, much, if not all, of this quiet but significant display of
+public feeling passed unnoticed. But to Frederick, alive to the least
+look, the least sign that his story had not been accepted unquestioned,
+this passage through the town was the occasion of the most poignant
+suffering.
+
+For not only did these marks of public suspicion bespeak possible
+arraignment in the future, but through them it became evident that even
+if he escaped open condemnation in the courts, he could never hope for
+complete reinstatement before the world, nor, what was to him a still
+deeper source of despair, anticipate a day when Agnes's love should make
+amends to him for the grief and errors of his more than wayward youth.
+He could never marry so pure a being while the shadow of crime separated
+him from the mass of human beings. Her belief in his innocence and the
+exact truth of his story (and he was confident she did believe him)
+could make no difference in this conclusion. While he was regarded
+openly or in dark corners or beside the humblest fireside as a possible
+criminal, neither Mr. Sutherland nor her father, nor his own heart even,
+would allow him to offer her anything but a friend's gratitude, or win
+from her anything but a neighbour's sympathy; yet in bidding good-bye to
+larger hopes and more importunate desires, he parted with the better
+part of his heart and the only solace remaining in this world for the
+boundless griefs and tragic experiences of his still young life. He had
+learned to love through suffering, only to realise that the very nature
+of his suffering forbade him to indulge in love.
+
+And this seemed a final judgment, even in this hour of public
+justification. He had told his story and been for the moment believed,
+but what was there in his life, what was there in the facts as witnessed
+by others, what was there in his mother's letters and the revelation of
+their secret relationship, to corroborate his assertions, or to prove
+that her hand and not his had held the weapon when the life-blood gushed
+from her devoted breast? Nothing, nothing; only his word to stand
+against all human probabilities and natural inference; only his word and
+the generous nature of the great-hearted woman who had thus perished!
+Though a dozen of his fellow-citizens had by their verdict professed
+their belief in his word and given him the benefit of a doubt involving
+his life as well as his honour, he, as well as they, knew that neither
+the police nor the general public were given to sentimentality, and that
+the question of his guilt still lay open and must remain so till his
+dying day. For from the nature of things no proof of the truth was
+probable. Batsy being dead, only God and his own heart could know that
+the facts of that awful half-hour were as he had told them.
+
+Had God in His justice removed in this striking way his only witness, as
+a punishment for his sins and his mad indulgence in acts so little short
+of crime as to partake of its guilt and merit its obloquy?
+
+He was asking himself this question as he bent to fasten the gate. His
+father had passed in, the carriage had driven off, and the road was
+almost solitary--but not quite. As he leaned his arm over the gate and
+turned to take a final glance down the hillside, he saw, with what
+feelings no one will ever know, the light figure of Agnes advancing on
+the arm of her father.
+
+He would have drawn back, but a better impulse intervened and he stood
+his ground. Mr. Halliday, who walked very close to Agnes, cast her an
+admonitory glance which Frederick was not slow in interpreting, then
+stopped reluctantly, perhaps because he saw her falter, perhaps because
+he knew that an interview between these two was unavoidable and had best
+be quickly over.
+
+Frederick found his voice first.
+
+"Agnes," said he, "I am glad of this opportunity for expressing my
+gratitude. You have acted like a friend and have earned my eternal
+consideration, even if we never speak again."
+
+There was a momentary silence. Her head, which had drooped under his
+greeting, rose again. Her eyes, humid with feeling, sought his face.
+
+"Why do you speak like that?" said she. "Why shouldn't we meet? Does not
+everyone recognise your innocence, and will not the whole world soon
+see, as I have, that you have left the old life behind and have only to
+be your new self to win everyone's regard?"
+
+"Agnes," returned Frederick, smiling sadly as he observed the sudden
+alarm visible in her father's face at these enthusiastic words, "you
+know me perhaps better than others do and are prepared to believe my
+words and my more than unhappy story. But there are few like you in the
+world. People in general will not acquit me, and if there was only one
+person who doubted "--Mr. Halliday began to look relieved--"I would fail
+to give any promise of the new life you hope to see me lead, if I
+allowed the shadow under which I undoubtedly rest to fall in the
+remotest way across yours. You and I have been friends and will continue
+such, but we will hold little intercourse in future, hard as I find it
+to say so. Does not Mr. Halliday consider this right? As your father he
+must."
+
+Agnes's eyes, leaving Frederick's for a moment, sought her father's.
+Alas! there was no mistaking their language. Sighing deeply, she again
+hung her head.
+
+"Too much care for people's opinion," she murmured, "and too little for
+what is best and noblest in us. I do not recognise the necessity of a
+farewell between us any more than I recognise that anyone who saw and
+heard you to-day can believe in your guilt."
+
+"But there are so many who did not hear and see me. Besides" (here he
+turned a little and pointed to the garden in his rear), "for the past
+week a man--I need not state who, nor under what authority he acts--has
+been in hiding under that arbour, watching my every movement, and almost
+counting my sighs. Yesterday he left for a short space, but to-day he is
+back. What does that argue, dear friend? Innocence, completely
+recognised, does not call for such guardianship."
+
+The slight frame of the young girl bending so innocently toward him
+shuddered involuntarily at this, and her eyes, frightened and flashing,
+swept over the arbour before returning to his face.
+
+"If there is a watcher there, and if such a fact proves you to be in
+danger of arrest for a crime you never committed, then it behooves your
+friends to show where they stand in this matter, and by lending their
+sympathy give you courage and power to meet the trials before you."
+
+"Not when they are young girls," murmured Frederick, and casting a
+glance at Mr. Halliday, he stepped softly back.
+
+Agnes flushed and yielded to her father's gentle pressure. "Good-bye, my
+friend," she said, the quiver in her tones sinking deep into Frederick's
+heart. "Some day it will be good-morrow," and her head, turned back over
+her shoulder, took on a beautiful radiance that fixed itself forever in
+the hungry heart of him who watched it disappear. When she was quite
+gone, a man not the one whom Frederick had described, as lying in hiding
+in the arbour, but a different one, in fact, no other than our old
+friend the constable--advanced around the corner of the house and
+presented a paper to him.
+
+It was the warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+SWEETWATER PAYS HIS DEBT AT LAST TO MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Frederick's arrest had been conducted so quietly that no hint of the
+matter reached the village before the next morning. Then the whole town
+broke into uproar, and business was not only suspended, but the streets
+and docks overflowed with gesticulating men and excited women, carrying
+on in every corner and across innumerable doorsteps the endless debate
+which such an action on the part of the police necessarily opened.
+
+But the most agitated face, though the stillest tongue, was not to be
+seen in town that morning, but in a little cottage on an arid hill-slope
+overlooking the sea. Here Sweetwater sat and communed with his great
+monitor, the ocean, and only from his flashing eye and the firm set of
+his lips could the mother of Sweetwater see that the crisis of her son's
+life was rapidly approaching, and that on the outcome of this long
+brooding rested not only his own self-satisfaction, but the interests of
+the man most dear to them.
+
+Suddenly, from that far horizon upon which Sweetwater's eye rested with
+a look that was almost a demand, came an answer that flushed him with a
+hope as great as it was unexpected. Bounding to his feet, he confronted
+his mother with eager eyes and outstretched hand.
+
+"Give me money, all the money we have in the house. I have an idea that
+may be worth all I can ever make or can ever hope to have. If it
+succeeds, we save Frederick Sutherland; if it fails, I have only to meet
+another of Knapp's scornful looks. But it won't fail; the inspiration
+came from the sea, and the sea, you know, is my second mother!"
+
+What this inspiration was he did not say, but it carried him presently
+into town and landed him in the telegraph office.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+The scene later in the day, when Frederick entered the village under the
+guardianship of the police, was indescribable. Mr. Sutherland had
+insisted upon accompanying him, and when the well-loved figure and white
+head were recognised, the throng, which had rapidly collected in the
+thoroughfare leading to the depot, succumbed to the feelings occasioned
+by this devotion, and fell into a wondering silence.
+
+Frederick had never looked better. There is something in the extremity
+of fate which brings out a man's best characteristics, and this man,
+having much that was good in him, showed it at that moment as never
+before in his short but over-eventful life. As the carriage stopped
+before the court-house on its way to the train, a glimpse was given of
+his handsome head to those who had followed him closest, and as there
+became visible for the first time in his face, so altered under his
+troubles, a likeness to their beautiful and commanding Agatha, a murmur
+broke out around him that was half a wail and half a groan, and which
+affected him so that he turned from his father, whose hand he was
+secretly holding, and taking the whole scene in with one flash of his
+eye, was about to speak, when a sudden hubbub broke out in the direction
+of the telegraph office, and a man was seen rushing down the street
+holding a paper high over his head. It was Sweetwater.
+
+"News!" he cried. "News! A cablegram from the Azores! A Swedish
+sailor--"
+
+But here a man with more authority than the amateur detective pushed his
+way to the carriage and took off his hat to Mr. Sutherland.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he, "but the prisoner will not leave town
+to-day. Important evidence has just reached us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland saw that it was in Frederick's favour and fainted on his
+son's neck. As the people beheld his head fall forward, and observed the
+look with which Frederick received him in his arms, they broke into a
+great shout.
+
+"News!" they shrieked. "News! Frederick Sutherland is innocent! See! the
+old man has fainted from joy!" And caps went up and tears fell, before a
+mother's son of them knew what grounds he had for his enthusiasm.
+
+Later, they found they were good and substantial ones. Sweetwater had
+remembered the group of sailors who had passed by the corner of Agatha's
+house just as Batsy fell forward on the window-sill, and cabling to the
+captain of the vessel, at the first port at which they were likely to
+put in, was fortunate enough to receive in reply a communication from
+one of the men, who remembered the words she shouted. They were in
+Swedish and none of his mates had understood them, but he recalled them
+well. They were:
+
+"Hjelp! Hjelp! Frun haller pa alb doeda sig. Hon har en knif. Hjelp!
+Hjelp!"
+
+In English:
+
+"Help! Help! My mistress kills herself. She has a knife. Help! Help!"
+
+The impossible had occurred. Batsy was not dead, or at least her
+testimony still remained and had come at Sweetwater's beck from the
+other side of the sea to save her mistress's son.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater was a made man. And Frederick? In a week he was the idol of
+the town. In a year--but let Agnes's contented face and happy smile show
+what he was then. Sweet Agnes, who first despised, then encouraged, then
+loved him, and who, next to Agatha, commanded the open worship of his
+heart.
+
+Agatha is first, must be first, as anyone can see who beholds him, on a
+certain anniversary of each year, bury his face in the long grass which
+covers the saddest and most passionate heart which ever yielded to the
+pressure of life's deepest tragedy.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha Webb, by Anna Katherine Green
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Agatha Webb, by Anna Katherine Green
+(#9 in our series by Anna Katherine Green)
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Agatha Webb
+
+Author: Anna Katherine Green
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5162]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 24, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, AGATHA WEBB ***
+
+
+
+
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+AGATHA WEBB
+
+BY ANNA KATHARINE GREEN (MRS. CHARLES ROHLFS)
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE LEAVENWORTH CASE," "THAT AFFAIR NEXT DOOR" "LOST
+MAN'S LANE," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND
+
+PROFESSOR A. V. DICEY
+
+OF OXFORD, ENGLAND
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+     I--A Cry on the Hill
+    II--One Night's Work
+   III--The Empty Drawer
+    IV--The Full Drawer
+     V--A Spot on the Lawn
+    VI--"Breakfast is Served, Gentlemen!"
+   VII--"Marry Me"
+  VIII--"A Devil That Understands Men"
+    IX--A Grand Woman
+     X--Detective Knapp Arrives
+    XI--The Man with a Beard
+   XII--Wattles Comes
+  XIII--Wattles Goes
+   XIV--A Final Temptation
+    XV--The Zabels Visited
+   XVI--Local Talent at Work
+  XVII--The Slippers, the Flower, and What Sweetwater Made of Them
+ XVIII--Some Leading Questions
+   XIX--Poor Philemon
+    XX--A Surprise for Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+   XXI--Sweetwater Reasons
+  XXII--Sweetwater Acts
+ XXIII--A Sinister Pair
+  XXIV--In the Shadow of the Mast
+   XXV--In Extremity
+  XXVI--The Adventure of the Parcel
+ XXVII--The Adventure of the Scrap of Paper and the Three Words
+XXVIII--"Who Are You?" XXIX--Home Again
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+   XXX--What Followed the Striking of the Clock
+  XXXI--A Witness Lost
+ XXXII--Why Agatha Webb will Never be Forgotten in Sutherlandtown
+XXXIII--Father and Son
+ XXXIV--"Not When They Are Young Girls"
+  XXXV--Sweetwater Pays His Debt at Last to Mr. Sutherland
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I
+
+THE PURPLE ORCHID
+
+
+I
+
+A CRY ON THE HILL
+
+
+The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests
+had all departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed
+out through the ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint
+streak of early dawn became visible in the east. One of them, a
+lank, plain-featured young man of ungainly aspect but penetrating
+eye, called the attention of the others to it.
+
+"Look!" said he; "there is the daylight! This has been a gay night
+for Sutherlandtown."
+
+"Too gay," muttered another, starting aside as the slight figure
+of a young man coming from the house behind them rushed hastily
+by. "Why, who's that?"
+
+As they one and all had recognised the person thus alluded to, no
+one answered till he had dashed out of the gate and disappeared in
+the woods on the other side of the road. Then they all spoke at
+once.
+
+"It's Mr. Frederick!"
+
+"He seems in a desperate hurry."
+
+"He trod on my toes."
+
+"Did you hear the words he was muttering as he went by?"
+
+As only the last question was calculated to rouse any interest, it
+alone received attention.
+
+"No; what were they? I heard him say something, but I failed to
+catch the words."
+
+"He wasn't talking to you, or to me either, for that matter; but I
+have ears that can hear an eye wink. He said: 'Thank God, this
+night of horror is over!' Think of that! After such a dance and
+such a spread, he calls the night horrible and thanks God that it
+is over. I thought he was the very man to enjoy this kind of
+thing."
+
+"So did I."
+
+"And so did I."
+
+The five musicians exchanged looks, then huddled in a group at the
+gate.
+
+"He has quarrelled with his sweetheart," suggested one.
+
+"I'm not surprised at that," declared another. "I never thought it
+would be a match."
+
+"Shame if it were!" muttered the ungainly youth who had spoken
+first.
+
+As the subject of this comment was the son of the gentleman whose
+house they were just leaving, they necessarily spoke low; but
+their tones were rife with curiosity, and it was evident that the
+topic deeply interested them. One of the five who had not
+previously spoken now put in a word:
+
+"I saw him when he first led out Miss Page to dance, and I saw him
+again when he stood up opposite her in the last quadrille, and I
+tell you, boys, there was a mighty deal of difference in the way
+he conducted himself toward her in the beginning of the evening
+and the last. You wouldn't have thought him the same man. Reckless
+young fellows like him are not to be caught by dimples only. They
+want cash."
+
+"Or family, at least; and she hasn't either. But what a pretty
+girl she is! Many a fellow as rich as he and as well connected
+would be satisfied with her good looks alone."
+
+"Good looks!" High scorn was observable in this exclamation, which
+was made by the young man whom I have before characterised as
+ungainly. "I refuse to acknowledge that she has any good looks. On
+the contrary, I consider her plain."
+
+"Oh! Oh!" burst in protest from more than one mouth. "And why does
+she have every fellow in the room dangling after her, then?" asked
+the player on the flageolet.
+
+"She hasn't a regular feature."
+
+"What difference does that make when it isn't her features you
+notice, but herself?"
+
+"I don't like her."
+
+A laugh followed this.
+
+"That won't trouble her, Sweetwater. Sutherland does, if you
+don't, and that's much more to the point. And he'll marry her yet;
+he can't help it. Why, she'd witch the devil into leading her to
+the altar if she took a notion to have him for her bridegroom."
+
+"There would be consistency in that," muttered the fellow just
+addressed. "But Mr. Frederick--"
+
+"Hush! There's some one on the doorstep. Why, it's she!"
+
+They all glanced back. The graceful figure of a young girl dressed
+in white was to be seen leaning toward them from the open doorway.
+Behind her shone a blaze of light--the candles not having been yet
+extinguished in the hall--and against this brilliant background
+her slight form, with all its bewitching outlines, stood out in
+plain relief.
+
+"Who was that?" she began in a high, almost strident voice,
+totally out of keeping with the sensuous curves of her strange,
+sweet face. But the question remained unanswered, for at that
+moment her attention, as well as that of the men lingering at the
+gate, was attracted by the sound of hurrying feet and confused
+cries coming up the hill.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" was the word panted out by more than one harsh
+voice; and in another instant a dozen men and boys came rushing
+into sight in a state of such excitement that the five musicians
+recoiled from the gate, and one of them went so far as to start
+back toward the house. As he did so he noticed a curious thing.
+The young woman whom they had all perceived standing in the door a
+moment before had vanished, yet she was known to possess the
+keenest curiosity of any one in town.
+
+"Murder! Murder!" A terrible and unprecedented cry in this old,
+God-fearing town. Then came in hoarse explanation from the
+jostling group as they stopped at the gate: "Mrs. Webb has been
+killed! Stabbed with a knife! Tell Mr. Sutherland!"
+
+Mrs. Webb!
+
+As the musicians heard this name, so honoured and so universally
+beloved, they to a man uttered a cry. Mrs. Webb! Why, it was
+impossible. Shouting in their turn for Mr. Sutherland, they all
+crowded forward.
+
+"Not Mrs. Webb!" they protested. "Who could have the daring or the
+heart to kill HER?"
+
+"God knows," answered a voice from the highway. "But she's dead--
+we've just seen her!"
+
+"Then it's the old man's work," quavered a piping voice. "I've
+always said he would turn on his best friend some day. 'Sylum's
+the best place for folks as has lost their wits. I--"
+
+But here a hand was put over his mouth, and the rest of the words
+was lost in an inarticulate gurgle. Mr. Sutherland had just
+appeared on the porch.
+
+He was a superb-looking man, with an expression of mingled
+kindness and dignity that invariably awakened both awe and
+admiration in the spectator. No man in the country--I was going to
+say no woman was more beloved, or held in higher esteem. Yet he
+could not control his only son, as everyone within ten miles of
+the hill well knew.
+
+At this moment his face showed both pain and shock.
+
+"What name are you shouting out there?" he brokenly demanded.
+"Agatha Webb? Is Agatha Webb hurt?"
+
+"Yes, sir; killed," repeated a half-dozen voices at once. "We've
+just come from the house. All the town is up. Some say her husband
+did it."
+
+"No, no!" was Mr. Sutherland's decisive though half-inaudible
+response. "Philemon Webb might end his own life, but not Agatha's.
+It was the money--"
+
+Here he caught himself up, and, raising his voice, addressed the
+crowd of villagers more directly.
+
+"Wait," said he, "and I will go back with you. Where is
+Frederick?" he demanded of such members of his own household as
+stood about him.
+
+No one knew.
+
+"I wish some one would find my son. I want him to go into town
+with me."
+
+"He's over in the woods there," volunteered a voice from without.
+
+"In the woods!" repeated the father, in a surprised tone.
+
+"Yes, sir; we all saw him go. Shall we sing out to him?"
+
+"No, no; I will manage very well without him." And taking up his
+hat Mr. Sutherland stepped out again upon the porch.
+
+Suddenly he stopped. A hand had been laid on his arm and an
+insinuating voice was murmuring in his ear:
+
+"Do you mind if I go with you? I will not make any trouble."
+
+It was the same young lady we have seen before.
+
+The old gentleman frowned--he who never frowned and remarked
+shortly:
+
+"A scene of murder is no place for women."
+
+The face upturned to his remained unmoved.
+
+"I think I will go," she quietly persisted. "I can easily mingle
+with the crowd."
+
+He said not another word against it. Miss Page was under pay in
+his house, but for the last few weeks no one had undertaken to
+contradict her. In the interval since her first appearance on the
+porch, she had exchanged the light dress in which she had danced
+at the ball, for a darker and more serviceable one, and perhaps
+this token of her determination may have had its influence in
+silencing him. He joined the crowd, and together they moved down-
+hill. This was too much for the servants of the house. One by one
+they too left the house till it stood absolutely empty. Jerry
+snuffed out the candles and shut the front door, but the side
+entrance stood wide open, and into this entrance, as the last
+footstep died out on the hillside, passed a slight and resolute
+figure. It was that of the musician who had questioned Miss Page's
+attractions.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+ONE NIGHT'S WORK
+
+
+Sutherlandtown was a seaport. The village, which was a small one,
+consisted of one long street and numerous cross streets running
+down from the hillside and ending on the wharves. On one of the
+corners thus made, stood the Webb house, with its front door on
+the main street and its side door on one of the hillside lanes. As
+the group of men and boys who had been in search of Mr. Sutherland
+entered this last-mentioned lane, they could pick out this house
+from all the others, as it was the only one in which a light was
+still burning. Mr. Sutherland lost no time in entering upon the
+scene of tragedy. As his imposing figure emerged from the darkness
+and paused on the outskirts of the crowd that was blocking up
+every entrance to the house, a murmur of welcome went up, after
+which a way was made for him to the front door.
+
+But before he could enter, some one plucked him by the sleeve.
+
+"Look up!" whispered a voice into his ear.
+
+He did so, and saw a woman's body hanging half out of an upper
+window. It hung limp, and the sight made him sick, notwithstanding
+his threescore years of experience.
+
+"Who's that?" he cried. "That's not Agatha Webb."
+
+"No, that's Batsy, the cook. She's dead as well as her mistress.
+We left her where we found her for the coroner to see."
+
+"But this is horrible," murmured Mr. Sutherland. "Has there been a
+butcher here?"
+
+As he uttered these words, he felt another quick pressure on his
+arm. Looking down, he saw leaning against him the form of a young
+woman, but before he could address her she had started upright
+again and was moving on with the throng. It was Miss Page.
+
+"It was the sight of this woman hanging from the window which
+first drew attention to the house," volunteered a man who was
+standing as a sort of guardian at the main gateway. "Some of the
+sailors' wives who had been to the wharves to see their husbands
+off on the ship that sailed at daybreak, saw it as they came up
+the lane on their way home, and gave the alarm. Without that we
+might not have known to this hour what had happened."
+
+"But Mrs. Webb?"
+
+"Come in and see."
+
+There was a board fence about the simple yard within which stood
+the humble house forever after to be pointed out as the scene of
+Sutherlandtown's most heartrending tragedy. In this fence was a
+gate, and through this gate now passed Mr. Sutherland, followed by
+his would-be companion, Miss Page. A path bordered by lilac bushes
+led up to the house, the door of which stood wide open. As soon as
+Mr. Sutherland entered upon this path a man approached him from
+the doorway. It was Amos Fenton, the constable.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Sutherland," said he, "sad business, a very sad business!
+But what little girl have you there?"
+
+"This is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece. She would come.
+Inquisitiveness the cause. I do not approve of it."
+
+"Miss Page must remain on the doorstep. We allow no one inside
+excepting yourself," he said respectfully, in recognition of the
+fact that nothing of importance was ever undertaken in Sutherland
+town without the presence of Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page curtsied, looking so bewitching in the fresh morning
+light that the tough old constable scratched his chin in grudging
+admiration. But he did not reconsider his determination. Seeing
+this, she accepted her defeat gracefully, and moved aside to where
+the bushes offered her more or less protection from the curiosity
+of those about her. Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland had stepped into the
+house.
+
+He found himself in a small hall with a staircase in front and an
+open door at the left. On the threshold of this open door a man
+stood, who at sight of him doffed his hat. Passing by this man,
+Mr. Sutherland entered the room beyond. A table spread with
+eatables met his view, beside which, in an attitude which struck
+him at the moment as peculiar, sat Philemon Webb, the well-known
+master of the house.
+
+Astonished at seeing his old friend in this room and in such a
+position, he was about to address him, when Mr. Fenton stopped
+him.
+
+"Wait!" said he. "Take a look at poor Philemon before you disturb
+him. When we broke into the house a half-hour ago he was sitting
+just as you see him now, and we have let him be for reasons you
+can easily appreciate. Examine him closely, Mr. Sutherland; he
+won't notice it."
+
+"But what ails him? Why does he sit crouched against the table? Is
+he hurt too?"
+
+"No; look at his eyes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland stooped and pushed aside the long grey locks that
+half concealed the countenance of his aged friend.
+
+"Why," he cried, startled, "they are closed! He isn't dead?"
+
+"No, he is asleep."
+
+"Asleep?"
+
+"Yes. He was asleep when we came in and he is asleep yet. Some of
+the neighbours wanted to wake him, but I would not let them. His
+wits are not strong enough to bear a sudden shock."
+
+"No, no, poor Philemon! But that he should sit sleeping here while
+she--But what do these bottles mean and this parade of supper in a
+room they were not accustomed to eat in?"
+
+"We don't know. It has not been eaten, you see. He has swallowed a
+glass of port, but that is all. The other glasses have had no wine
+in them, nor have the victuals been touched."
+
+"Seats set for three and only one occupied," murmured Mr.
+Sutherland. "Strange! Could he have expected guests?"
+
+"It looks like it. I didn't know that his wife allowed him such
+privileges; but she was always too good to him, and I fear has
+paid for it with her life."
+
+"Nonsense! he never killed her. Had his love been anything short
+of the worship it was, he stood in too much awe of her to lift his
+hand against her, even in his most demented moments."
+
+"I don't trust men of uncertain wits," returned the other. "You
+have not noticed everything that is to be seen in this room."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, recalled to himself by these words, looked quickly
+about him. With the exception of the table and what was on and by
+it there was nothing else in the room. Naturally his glance
+returned to Philemon Webb.
+
+"I don't see anything but this poor sleeping man," he began.
+
+"Look at his sleeve."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a start, again bent down. The arm of his old
+friend lay crooked upon the table, and on its blue cotton sleeve
+there was a smear which might have been wine, but which was--
+blood.
+
+As Mr. Sutherland became assured of this, he turned slightly pale
+and looked inquiringly at the two men who were intently watching
+him.
+
+"This is bad," said he. "Any other marks of blood below stairs?"
+
+"No; that one smear is all."
+
+"Oh, Philemon!" burst from Mr. Sutherland, in deep emotion. Then,
+as he looked long and shudderingly at his friend, he added slowly:
+
+"He has been in the room where she was killed; so much is evident.
+But that he understood what was done there I cannot believe, or he
+would not be sleeping here like a log. Come, let us go up-stairs."
+
+Fenton, with an admonitory gesture toward his subordinate, turned
+directly toward the staircase. Mr. Sutherland followed him, and
+they at once proceeded to the upper hall and into the large front
+room which had been the scene of the tragedy.
+
+It was the parlour or sitting-room of this small and unpretentious
+house. A rag carpet covered the floor and the furniture was of the
+plainest kind, but the woman who lay outstretched on the stiff,
+old-fashioned lounge opposite the door was far from being in
+accord with the homely type of her surroundings. Though the victim
+of a violent death, her face and form, both of a beauty seldom to
+be found among women of any station, were so majestic in their
+calm repose, that Mr. Sutherland, accustomed as he was to her
+noble appearance, experienced a shock of surprise that found vent
+in these words:
+
+"Murdered! she? You have made some mistake, my friends. Look at
+her face!"
+
+But even in the act of saying this his eyes fell on the blood
+which had dyed her cotton dress and he cried:
+
+"Where was she struck and where is the weapon which has made this
+ghastly wound?"
+
+"She was struck while standing or sitting at this table," returned
+the constable, pointing to two or three drops of blood on its
+smooth surface. "The weapon we have not found, but the wound shows
+that it was inflicted by a three-sided dagger."
+
+"A three-sided dagger?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I didn't know there was such a thing in town. Philemon could have
+had no dagger."
+
+"It does not seem so, but one can never tell. Simple cottages like
+these often contain the most unlooked-for articles."
+
+"I cannot imagine a dagger being among its effects," declared Mr.
+Sutherland. "Where was the body of Mrs. Webb lying when you came
+in?"
+
+"Where you see it now. Nothing has been moved or changed."
+
+"She was found here, on this lounge, in the same position in which
+we see her now?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"But that is incredible. Look at the way she lies! Hands crossed,
+eyes closed, as though made ready for her burial. Only loving
+hands could have done this. What does it mean?"
+
+"It means Philemon; that is what it means Philemon."
+
+Mr. Sutherland shuddered, but said nothing. He was dumbfounded by
+these evidences of a crazy man's work. Philemon Webb always seemed
+so harmless, though he had been failing in mind for the last ten
+years.
+
+"But" cried Mr. Sutherland, suddenly rousing, "there is another
+victim. I saw old woman Batsy hanging from a window ledge, dead."
+
+"Yes, she is in this other room; but there is no wound on Batsy."
+
+"How was she killed, then?"
+
+"That the doctors must tell us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, guided by Mr. Fenton's gesture, entered a small
+room opening into the one in which they stood. His attention was
+at once attracted by the body of the woman he had seen from below,
+lying half in and half out of the open window. That she was dead
+was evident; but, as Mr. Fenton had said, no wound was to be seen
+upon her, nor were there any marks of blood on or about the place
+where she lay.
+
+"This is a dreadful business," groaned Mr. Sutherland, "the worst
+I have ever had anything to do with. Help me to lift the woman in;
+she has been long enough a show for the people outside."
+
+There was a bed in this room (indeed, it was Mrs. Webb's bedroom),
+and upon this poor Batsy was laid. As the face came uppermost both
+gentlemen started and looked at each other in amazement. The
+expression of terror and alarm which it showed was in striking
+contrast to the look of exaltation to be seen on the face of her
+dead mistress.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+THE EMPTY DRAWER
+
+
+As they re-entered the larger room, they were astonished to come
+upon Miss Page standing in the doorway. She was gazing at the
+recumbent figure of the dead woman, and for a moment seemed
+unconscious of their presence.
+
+"How did you get in? Which of my men was weak enough to let you
+pass, against my express instructions?" asked the constable, who
+was of an irritable and suspicious nature.
+
+She let the hood drop from her head, and, turning, surveyed him
+with a slow smile. There was witchery in that smile sufficient to
+affect a much more cultivated and callous nature than his, and
+though he had been proof against it once he could not quite resist
+the effect of its repetition.
+
+"I insisted upon entering," said she. "Do not blame the men; they
+did not want to use force against a woman." She had not a good
+voice and she knew it; but she covered up this defect by a choice
+of intonations that carried her lightest speech to the heart.
+Hard-visaged Amos Fenton gave a grunt, which was as near an
+expression of approval as he ever gave to anyone.
+
+"Well! well!" he growled, but not ill-naturedly, "it's a morbid
+curiosity that brings you here. Better drop it, girl; it won't do
+you any good in the eyes of sensible people."
+
+"Thank you," was her demure reply, her lips dimpling at the
+corners in a way to shock the sensitive Mr. Sutherland.
+
+Glancing from her to the still outlines of the noble figure on the
+couch, he remarked with an air of mild reproof:
+
+"I do not understand you, Miss Page. If this solemn sight has no
+power to stop your coquetries, nothing can. As for your curiosity,
+it is both ill-timed and unwomanly. Let me see you leave this
+house at once, Miss Page; and if in the few hours which must
+elapse before breakfast you can find time to pack your trunks, you
+will still farther oblige me."
+
+"Oh, don't send me away, I entreat you."
+
+It was a cry from her inner heart, which she probably regretted,
+for she instantly sought to cover up her inadvertent self-betrayal
+by a submissive bend of the head and a step backward. Neither Mr.
+Fenton nor Mr. Sutherland seemed to hear the one or see the other,
+their attention having returned to the more serious matter in
+hand.
+
+"The dress which our poor friend wears shows her to have been
+struck before retiring," commented Mr. Sutherland, after another
+short survey of Mrs. Webb's figure. "If Philemon--"
+
+"Excuse me, sir," interrupted the voice of the young man who had
+been left in the hall, "the lady is listening to what you say. She
+is still at the head of the stairs."
+
+"She is, is she!" cried Fenton, sharply, his admiration for the
+fascinating stranger having oozed out at his companion's rebuff.
+"I will soon show her--" But the words melted into thin air as he
+reached the door. The young girl had disappeared, and only a faint
+perfume remained in the place where she had stood.
+
+"A most extraordinary person," grumbled the constable, turning
+back, but stopping again as a faint murmur came up from below.
+
+"The gentleman is waking," called up a voice whose lack of music
+was quite perceptible at a distance.
+
+With a bound Mr. Fenton descended the stairs, followed by Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+Miss Page stood before the door of the room in which sat Philemon
+Webb. As they reached her side, she made a little bow that was
+half mocking, half deprecatory, and slipped from the house. An
+almost unbearable sensation of incongruity vanished with her, and
+Mr. Sutherland, for one, breathed like a man relieved.
+
+"I wish the doctor would come," Fenton said, as they watched the
+slow lifting of Philemon Webb's head. "Our fastest rider has gone
+for him, but he's out Portchester way, and it may be an hour yet
+before he can get here."
+
+"Philemon!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend's
+side.
+
+"Philemon, what has become of your guests? You've waited for them
+here until morning."
+
+The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on
+either side of him and shook his head.
+
+"James and John are getting proud," said he, "or they forget, they
+forget."
+
+James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many
+others answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made
+another effort.
+
+"Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for
+her!"
+
+"Agatha's sick, Agatha's cross; she don't care for a poor old man
+like me."
+
+"Agatha's dead and you know it," thundered back the constable,
+with ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell me that. Who
+killed her?"
+
+A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old
+man's eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with
+that strange gurgle which proclaims an utterly irresponsible mind,
+he cried:
+
+"The pussy cat! It was the pussy cat. Who's killed? I'm not
+killed. Let's go to Jericho."
+
+Mr. Sutherland took him by the arm and led him up-stairs. Perhaps
+the sight of his dead wife would restore him. But he looked at her
+with the same indifference he showed to everything else.
+
+"I don't like her calico dresses," said he. "She might have worn
+silk, but she wouldn't. Agatha, will you wear silk to my funeral?"
+
+The experiment was too painful, and they drew him away. But the
+constable's curiosity had been roused, and after they had found
+some one to take care of him, he drew Mr. Sutherland aside and
+said:
+
+"What did the old man mean by saying she might have worn silk? Are
+they better off than they seem?" Mr. Sutherland closed the door
+before replying.
+
+"They are rich," he declared, to the utter amazement of the other.
+"That is, they were; but they may have been robbed; if so,
+Philemon was not the wretch who killed her. I have been told that
+she kept her money in an old-fashioned cupboard. Do you suppose
+they alluded to that one?"
+
+He pointed to a door set in the wall over the fireplace, and Mr.
+Fenton, perceiving a key sticking in the lock, stepped quickly
+across the floor and opened it. A row of books met his eyes, but
+on taking them down a couple of drawers were seen at the back.
+
+"Are they locked?" asked Mr. Sutherland.
+
+"One is and one is not."
+
+"Open the one that is unlocked."
+
+Mr. Fenton did so.
+
+"It is empty," said he.
+
+Mr. Sutherland cast a look toward the dead woman, and again the
+perfect serenity of her countenance struck him.
+
+"I do not know whether to regard her as the victim of her
+husband's imbecility or of some vile robber's cupidity. Can you
+find the key to the other drawer?"
+
+"I will try."
+
+"Suppose you begin, then, by looking on her person. It should be
+in her pocket, if no marauder has been here."
+
+"It is not in her pocket."
+
+"Hanging to her neck, then, by a string?"
+
+"No; there is a locket here, but no key. A very handsome locket,
+Mr. Sutherland, with a child's lock of golden hair--"
+
+"Never mind, we will see that later; it is the key we want just
+now."
+
+"Good heavens!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It is in her hand; the one that lies underneath."
+
+"Ah! A point, Fenton."
+
+"A great point."
+
+"Stand by her, Fenton. Don't let anyone rob her of that key till
+the coroner comes, and we are at liberty to take it."
+
+"I will not leave her for an instant."
+
+"Meanwhile, I will put back these books."
+
+He had scarcely done so when a fresh arrival occurred. This time
+it was one of the village clergymen.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE FULL DRAWER
+
+
+This gentleman had some information to give. It seems that at an
+early hour of this same night he had gone by this house on his way
+home from the bedside of a sick parishioner. As he was passing the
+gate he was run into by a man who came rushing out of the yard, in
+a state of violent agitation. In this man's hand was something
+that glittered, and though the encounter nearly upset them both,
+he had not stopped to utter an apology, but stumbled away out of
+sight with a hasty but infirm step, which showed he was neither
+young nor active. The minister had failed to see his face, but
+noticed the ends of a long beard blowing over his shoulder as he
+hurried away.
+
+Philemon was a clean-shaven man.
+
+Asked if he could give the time of this encounter, he replied that
+it was not far from midnight, as he was in his own house by half-
+past twelve.
+
+"Did you glance up at these windows in passing?" asked Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I must have; for I now remember they were both lighted."
+
+"Were the shades up?"
+
+"I think not. I would have noticed it if they had been."
+
+"How were the shades when you broke into the house this morning?"
+inquired Mr. Sutherland of the constable.
+
+"Just as they are now; we have moved nothing. The shades were both
+down--one of them over an open window."
+
+"Well, we may find this encounter of yours with this unknown man a
+matter of vital importance, Mr. Crane."
+
+"I wish I had seen his face."
+
+"What do you think the object was you saw glittering in his hand?"
+
+"I should not like to say; I saw it but an instant."
+
+"Could it have been a knife or an old-fashioned dagger?"
+
+"It might have been."
+
+"Alas! poor Agatha! That she, who so despised money, should fall a
+victim to man's cupidity! Unhappy life, unhappy death! Fenton, I
+shall always mourn for Agatha Webb."
+
+"Yet she seems to have found peace at last," observed the
+minister. "I have never seen her look so contented." And leading
+Mr. Sutherland aside, he whispered: "What is this you say about
+money? Had she, in spite of appearances, any considerable amount?
+I ask, because in spite of her humble home and simple manner of
+living, she always put more on the plate than any of her
+neighbours. Besides which, I have from time to time during my
+pastorate received anonymously certain contributions, which, as
+they were always for sick or suffering children--"
+
+"Yes, yes; they came from her, I have no doubt of it. She was by
+no means poor, though I myself never knew the extent of her means
+till lately. Philemon was a good business man once; but they
+evidently preferred to live simply, having no children living--"
+
+"They have lost six, I have been told."
+
+"So the Portchester folks say. They probably had no heart for
+display or for even the simplest luxuries. At all events, they did
+not indulge in them."
+
+"Philemon has long been past indulging in anything."
+
+"Oh, he likes his comfort, and he has had it too. Agatha never
+stinted him."
+
+"But why do you think her death was due to her having money?"
+
+"She had a large sum in the house, and there are those in town who
+knew this."
+
+"And is it gone?"
+
+"That we shall know later."
+
+As the coroner arrived at this moment, the minister's curiosity
+had to wait. Fortunately for his equanimity, no one had the
+presumption to ask him to leave the room.
+
+The coroner was a man of but few words, and but little given to
+emotion. Yet they were surprised at his first question:
+
+"Who is the young woman standing outside there, the only one in
+the yard?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, moving rapidly to the window, drew aside the
+shade.
+
+"It is Miss Page, my housekeeper's niece," he explained. "I do not
+understand her interest in this affair. She followed me here from
+the house and could hardly be got to leave this room, into which
+she intruded herself against my express command."
+
+"But look at her attitude!" It was Mr. Fenton who spoke. "She's
+crazier than Philemon, it seems to me."
+
+There was some reason for this remark. Guarded by the high fence
+from the gaze of the pushing crowd without, she stood upright and
+immovable in the middle of the yard, like one on watch. The hood,
+which she had dropped from her head when she thought her eyes and
+smile might be of use to her in the furtherance of her plans, had
+been drawn over it again, so that she looked more like a statue in
+grey than a living, breathing woman. Yet there was menace in her
+attitude and a purpose in the solitary stand she took in that
+circle of board-girded grass, which caused a thrill in the breasts
+of those who looked at her from that chamber of death.
+
+"A mysterious young woman," muttered the minister.
+
+"And one that I neither countenance nor under-stand," interpolated
+Mr. Sutherland. "I have just shown my displeasure at her actions
+by dismissing her from my house."
+
+The coroner gave him a quick look, seemed about to speak, but
+changed his mind and turned toward the dead woman.
+
+"We have a sad duty before us," said he.
+
+The investigations which followed elicited one or two new facts.
+First, that all the doors of the house were found unlocked; and,
+secondly, that the constable had been among the first to enter, so
+that he could vouch that no disarrangement had been made in the
+rooms, with the exception of Batsy's removal to the bed.
+
+Then, his attention being drawn to the dead woman, he discovered
+the key in her tightly closed hand.
+
+"Where does this key belong?" he asked.
+
+They showed him the drawers in the cupboard.
+
+"One is empty," remarked Mi. Sutherland. "If the other is found to
+be in the same condition, then her money has been taken. That key
+she holds should open both these drawers."
+
+"Then let it be made use of at once. It is important that we
+should know whether theft has been committed here as well as
+murder." And drawing the key out, he handed it to Mr. Fenton.
+
+The constable immediately unlocked the drawer and brought it and
+its contents to the table.
+
+"No money here," said he.
+
+"But papers as good as money," announced the doctor. "See! here
+are deeds and more than one valuable bond. I judge she was a
+richer woman than any of us knew."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, meantime, was looking with an air of
+disappointment into the now empty drawer.
+
+"Just as I feared," said he. "She has been robbed of her ready
+money. It was doubtless in the other drawer."
+
+"How came she by the key, then?"
+
+"That is one of the mysteries of the affair; this murder is by no
+means a simple one. I begin to think we shall find it full of
+mysteries."
+
+"Batsy's death, for instance?"
+
+"O yes, Batsy! I forgot that she was found dead too."
+
+"Without a wound, doctor."
+
+"She had heart disease. I doctored her for it. The fright has
+killed her."
+
+"The look of her face confirms that."
+
+"Let me see! So it does; but we must have an autopsy to prove it."
+
+"I would like to explain before any further measures are taken,
+how I came to know that Agatha Webb had money in her house," said
+Mr. Sutherland, as they stepped back into the other room. "Two
+days ago, as I was sitting with my family at table, old gossip
+Judy came in. Had Mrs. Sutherland been living, this old crone
+would not have presumed to intrude upon us at mealtime, but as we
+have no one now to uphold our dignity, this woman rushed into our
+presence panting with news, and told us all in one breath how she
+had just come from Mrs. Webb; that Mrs. Webb had money; that she
+had seen it, she herself; that, going into the house as usual
+without knocking, she had heard Agatha stepping overhead and had
+gone up; and finding the door of the sitting-room ajar, had looked
+in, and seen Agatha crossing the room with her hands full of
+bills; that these bills were big bills, for she heard Agatha cry,
+as she locked them up in the cupboard behind the book-shelves, 'A
+thousand dollars! That is too much money to have in one's house';
+that she, Judy, thought so too, and being frightened at what she
+had seen, had crept away as silently as she had entered and run
+away to tell the neighbours. Happily, I was the first she found up
+that morning, but I have no doubt that, in spite of my express
+injunctions, she has since related the news to half the people in
+town."
+
+"Was the young woman down yonder present when Judy told this
+story?" asked the coroner, pointing towards the yard.
+
+Mr. Sutherland pondered. "Possibly; I do not remember. Frederick
+was seated at the table with me, and my housekeeper was pouring
+out the coffee, but it was early for Miss Page. She has been
+putting on great airs of late."
+
+"Can it be possible he is trying to blind himself to the fact that
+his son Frederick wishes to marry this girl?" muttered the
+clergyman into the constable's ear.
+
+The constable shook his head. Mr. Sutherland was one of those
+debonair men, whose very mildness makes them impenetrable.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A SPOT ON THE LAWN
+
+
+The coroner, on leaving the house, was followed by Mr. Sutherland.
+As the fine figures of the two men appeared on the doorstep, a
+faint cheer was heard from the two or three favoured persons who
+were allowed to look through the gate. But to this token of
+welcome neither gentleman responded by so much as a look, all
+their attention being engrossed by the sight of the solitary
+figure of Miss Page, who still held her stand upon the lawn.
+Motionless as a statue, but with her eyes fixed upon their faces,
+she awaited their approach. When they were near her she thrust one
+hand from under her cloak, and pointing to the grass at her feet,
+said quietly:
+
+"See this?"
+
+They hastened towards her and bent down to examine the spot she
+indicated.
+
+"What do you find there?" cried Mr. Sutherland, whose eyesight was
+not good.
+
+"Blood," responded the coroner, plucking up a blade of grass and
+surveying it closely.
+
+"Blood," echoed Miss Page, with so suggestive a glance that Mr.
+Sutherland stared at her in amazement, not understanding his own
+emotion.
+
+"How were you able to discern a stain so nearly imperceptible?"
+asked the coroner.
+
+"Imperceptible? It is the only thing I see in the whole yard," she
+retorted, and with a slight bow, which was not without its element
+of mockery, she turned toward the gate.
+
+"A most unaccountable girl," commented the doctor. "But she is
+right about these stains. Abel," he called to the man at the
+gate, "bring a box or barrel here and cover up this spot. I don't
+want it disturbed by trampling feet."
+
+Abel started to obey, just as the young girl laid her hand on the
+gate to open it.
+
+"Won't you help me?" she asked. "The crowd is so great they won't
+let me through."
+
+"Won't they?" The words came from without. "Just slip out as I
+slip in, and you'll find a place made for you."
+
+Not recognising the voice, she hesitated for a moment, but seeing
+the gate swaying, she pushed against it just as a young man
+stepped through the gap. Necessarily they came face to face.
+
+"Ah, it's you," he muttered, giving her a sharp glance.
+
+"I do not know you," she haughtily declared, and slipped by him
+with such dexterity she was out of the gate before he could
+respond.
+
+But he only snapped his finger and thumb mockingly at her, and
+smiled knowingly at Abel, who had lingered to watch the end of
+this encounter.
+
+"Supple as a willow twig, eh?" he laughed. "Well, I have made
+whistles out of willows before now, and hallo! where did you get
+that?"
+
+He was pointing to a rare flower that hung limp and faded from
+Abel's buttonhole.
+
+"This? Oh, I found it in the house yonder. It was lying on the
+floor of the inner room, almost under Batsy's skirts. Curious sort
+of flower. I wonder where she got it?"
+
+The intruder betrayed at once an unaccountable emotion. There was
+a strange glitter in his light green eyes that made Abel shift
+rather uneasily on his feet. "Was that before this pretty minx you
+have just let out came in here with Mr. Sutherland?"
+
+"O yes; before anyone had started for the hill at all. Why, what
+has this young lady got to do with a flower dropped by Batsy?"
+
+"She? Nothing. Only--and I have never given you bad advice, Abel--
+don't let that thing hang any longer from your buttonhole. Put it
+into an envelope and keep it, and if you don't hear from me again
+in regard to it, write me out a fool and forget we were ever chums
+when little shavers."
+
+The man called Abel smiled, took out the flower, and went to cover
+up the grass as Dr. Talbot had requested. The stranger took his
+place at the gate, toward which the coroner and Mr. Sutherland
+were now advancing, with an air that showed his great anxiety to
+speak with them. He was the musician whom we saw secretly entering
+the last-mentioned gentleman's house after the departure of the
+servants.
+
+As the coroner paused before him he spoke. "Dr. Talbot," said he,
+dropping his eyes, which were apt to betray his thoughts too
+plainly, "you have often promised that you would give me a job if
+any matter came up where any nice detective work was wanted. Don't
+you think the time has come to remember me?"
+
+"You, Sweetwater? I'm afraid the affair is too deep for an
+inexperienced man's first effort. I shall have to send to Boston
+for an expert. Another time, Sweetwater, when the complications
+are less serious."
+
+The young fellow, with a face white as milk, was turning away.
+
+"But you'll let me stay around here?" he pleaded, pausing and
+giving the other an imploring look.
+
+"O yes," answered the good-natured coroner. "Fenton will have work
+enough for you and half a dozen others. Go and tell him I sent
+you."
+
+"Thank you," returned the other, his face suddenly losing its
+aspect of acute disappointment. "Now I shall see where that flower
+fell," he murmured.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+"BREAKFAST IS SERVED, GENTLEMEN!"
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland returned home. As he entered the broad hall he met
+his son, Frederick. There was a look on the young man's face such
+as he had not seen there in years.
+
+"Father," faltered the youth, "may I have a few words with you?"
+
+The father nodded kindly, though it is likely he would have much
+preferred his breakfast; and the young man led him into a little
+sitting-room littered with the faded garlands and other tokens of
+the preceding night's festivities.
+
+"I have an apology to make," Frederick began, "or rather, I have
+your forgiveness to ask. For years" he went on, stumbling over his
+words, though he gave no evidence of a wish to restrain them--"for
+years I have gone contrariwise to your wishes and caused my
+mother's heart to ache and you to wish I had never been born to be
+a curse to you and her."
+
+He had emphasised the word mother, and spoke altogether with force
+and deep intensity. Mr. Sutherland stood petrified; he had long
+ago given up this lad as lost.
+
+"I--I wish to change. I wish to be as great a pride to you as I
+have been a shame and a dishonour. I may not succeed at once; but
+I am in earnest, and if you will give me your hand--"
+
+The old man's arms were round the young man's shoulders at once.
+
+"Frederick!" he cried, "my Frederick!"
+
+"Do not make me too much ashamed," murmured the youth, very pale
+and strangely discomposed. "With no excuse for my past, I suffer
+intolerable apprehension in regard to my future, lest my good
+intentions should fail or my self-control not hold out. But the
+knowledge that you are acquainted with my resolve, and regard it
+with an undeserved sympathy, may suffice to sustain me, and I
+should certainly be a base poltroon if I should disappoint you or
+her twice."
+
+He paused, drew himself from his father's arms, and glanced almost
+solemnly out of the window. "I swear that I will henceforth act as
+if she were still alive and watching me."
+
+There was strange intensity in his manner. Mr. Sutherland regarded
+him with amazement. He had seen him in every mood natural to a
+reckless man, but never in so serious a one, never with a look of
+awe or purpose in his face. It gave him quite a new idea of
+Frederick.
+
+"Yes," the young man went on, raising his right hand, but not
+removing his eyes from the distant prospect on which they were
+fixed, "I swear that I will henceforth do nothing to discredit her
+memory. Outwardly and inwardly, I will act as though her eye were
+still upon me and she could again suffer grief at my failures or
+thrill with pleasure at my success."
+
+A portrait of Mrs. Sutherland, painted when Frederick was a lad of
+ten, hung within a few feet of him as he spoke. He did not glance
+at it, but Mr. Sutherland did, and with a look as if he expected
+to behold a responsive light beam from those pathetic features.
+
+"She loved you very dearly," was his slow and earnest comment. "We
+have both loved you much more deeply than you have ever seemed to
+realise, Frederick."
+
+"I believe it," responded the young man, turning with an
+expression of calm resolve to meet his father's eye. "As proof
+that I am no longer insensible to your affection, I have made up
+my mind to forego for your sake one of the dearest wishes of my
+heart. Father" he hesitated before he spoke the word, but he spoke
+it firmly at last,--"am I right in thinking you would not like
+Miss Page for a daughter?"
+
+"Like my housekeeper's niece to take the place in this house once
+occupied by Marietta Sutherland? Frederick, I have always thought
+too well of you to believe you would carry your forgetfulness of
+me so far as that, even when I saw that you were influenced by her
+attractions."
+
+"You did not do justice to my selfishness, father. I did mean to
+marry her, but I have given up living solely for myself, and she
+could never help me to live for others. Father, Amabel Page must
+not remain in this house to cause division between you and me."
+
+"I have already intimated to her the desirability of her quitting
+a home where she is no longer respected," the old gentleman
+declared. "She leaves on the 10.45 train. Her conduct this morning
+at the house of Mrs. Webb--who perhaps you do not know was most
+cruelly and foully murdered last night--was such as to cause
+comment and make her an undesirable adjunct to any gentleman's
+family."
+
+Frederick paled. Something in these words had caused him a great
+shock. Mr. Sutherland was fond enough to believe that it was the
+news of this extraordinary woman's death. But his son's words, as
+soon as lie could find any, showed that his mind was running on
+Amabel, whom he perhaps had found it difficult to connect even in
+the remotest way with crime.
+
+"She at this place of death? How could that be? Who would take a
+young girl there?"
+
+The father, experiencing, perhaps, more compassion for this soon-
+to-be-disillusioned lover than he thought it incumbent upon him to
+show, answered shortly, but without any compromise of the unhappy
+truth:
+
+"She went; she was not taken. No one, not even myself, could keep
+her back after she had heard that a murder had been committed in
+the town. She even intruded into the house; and when ordered out
+of the room of death took up her stand in the yard in front, where
+she remained until she had the opportunity of pointing out to us a
+stain of blood on the grass, which might otherwise have escaped
+our attention."
+
+"Impossible!" Frederick's eye was staring; he looked like a man
+struck dumb by surprise or fear. "Amabel do this? You are mocking
+me, sir, or I may be dreaming, which may the good God grant."
+
+His father, who had not looked for so much emotion, eyed his son
+in surprise, which rapidly changed to alarm as the young man
+faltered and fell back against the wall.
+
+"You are ill, Frederick; you are really ill. Let me call down Mrs.
+Harcourt. But no, I cannot summon her. She is this girl's aunt."
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood up.
+
+"Do not call anybody," he entreated. "I expect to suffer some in
+casting this fascinating girl out of my heart. Ultimately I will
+conquer the weakness; indeed I will. As for her interest in Mrs.
+Webb's death"--how low his voice sank and how he trembled!" she
+may have been better friends with her than we had any reason to
+suppose. I can think of no other motive for her conduct.
+Admiration for Mrs. Webb and horror---"
+
+"Breakfast is served, gentlemen!" cried a thrilling voice behind
+them. Amabel Page stood smiling in the doorway.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+"MARRY ME"
+
+
+"Wait a moment, I must speak to you." It was Amabel who was
+holding Frederick back. She had caught him by the arm as he was
+about leaving the room with his father, and he felt himself
+obliged to stop and listen.
+
+"I start for Springfield to-day," she announced. "I have another
+relative there living at the house. When shall I have the pleasure
+of seeing you in my new home?"
+
+"Never." It was said regretfully, and yet with a certain
+brusqueness, occasioned perhaps by over-excited feeling. "Hard as
+it is for me to say it, Amabel, it is but just for me to tell you
+that after our parting here to-day we will meet only as strangers.
+Friendship between us would be mockery, and any closer
+relationship has become impossible."
+
+It had cost him an immense effort to say these words, and he
+expected, fondly expected, I must admit, to see her colour change
+and her head droop. But instead of this she looked at him steadily
+for a moment, then slipped her hand down his arm till she reached
+his palm, which she pressed with sudden warmth, drawing him into
+the room as she did so, and shutting the door behind them. He was
+speechless, for she never had looked so handsome or so glowing.
+Instead of showing depression or humiliation even, she confronted
+him with a smile more dangerous than any display of grief, for it
+contained what it had hitherto lacked, positive and irresistible
+admiration. Her words were equally dangerous.
+
+"I kiss your hand, as the Spaniards say." And she almost did so,
+with a bend of her head, which just allowed him to catch a glimpse
+of two startling dimples.
+
+He was astounded. He thought he knew this woman well, but at this
+moment she was as incomprehensible to him as if he had never made
+a study of her caprices and sought an explanation for her ever-
+shifting expressions.
+
+"I am sensible of the honour," said he, "but hardly understand how
+I have earned it."
+
+Still that incomprehensible look of admiration continued to
+illumine her face.
+
+"I did not know I could ever think so well of you," she declared.
+"If you do not take care, I shall end by loving you some day."
+
+"Ah!" he ejaculated, his face contracting with sudden pain; "your
+love, then, is but a potentiality. Very well, Amabel, keep it so
+and you will be spared much misery. As for me, who have not been
+as wise as you---"
+
+"Frederick!" She had come so near he did not have the strength to
+finish. Her face, with its indefinable charm, was raised to his,
+as she dropped these words one by one from her lips in lingering
+cadence: "Frederick--do you love me, then, so very much?"
+
+He was angry; possibly because he felt his resolution failing him.
+"You know!" he hotly began, stepping back. Then with a sudden
+burst of feeling, that was almost like prayer, he resumed: "Do not
+tempt me, Amabel. I have trouble enough, without lamenting the
+failure of my first steadfast purpose."
+
+"Ah!" she said, stopping where she was, but drawing him toward her
+by every witchery of which her mobile features were capable; "your
+generous impulse has strengthened into a purpose, has it? Well,
+I'm not worth it, Frederick."
+
+More and more astounded, understanding her less than ever, but
+charmed by looks that would have moved an anchorite, he turned his
+head away in a vain attempt to escape an influence that was so
+rapidly undermining his determination.
+
+She saw the movement, recognised the weakness it bespoke, and in
+the triumph of her heart allowed a low laugh to escape her.
+
+Her voice, as I have before said, was unmusical though effective;
+but her laugh was deliciously sweet, especially when it was
+restrained to a mere ripple, as now.
+
+"You will come to Springfield soon," she avowed, slipping from
+before him so as to leave the way to the door open.
+
+"Amabel!" His voice was strangely husky, and the involuntary
+opening and shutting of his hands revealed the emotion under which
+he was labouring. "Do you love me? You have acknowledged it now
+and then, but always as if you did not mean it. Now you
+acknowledge that you may some day, and this time as if you did
+mean it. What is the truth? Tell me, without coquetry or
+dissembling, for I am in dead earnest, and---" He paused, choked,
+and turned toward the window where but a few minutes before he had
+taken that solemn oath. The remembrance of it seemed to come back
+with the movement. Flushing with a new agitation, he wheeled upon
+her sharply. "No, no," he prayed, "say nothing. If you swore you
+did not love me I should not believe it, and if you swore that you
+did I should only find it harder to repeat what must again be
+said, that a union between us can never take place. I have given
+my solemn promise to---"
+
+"Well, well. Why do you stop? Am I so hard to talk to that the
+words will not leave your lips?"
+
+"I have promised my father I will never marry you. He feels that
+he has grounds of complaint against you, and as I owe him
+everything---"
+
+He stopped amazed. She was looking at him intently, that same low
+laugh still on her lips.
+
+"Tell the truth," she whispered. "I know to what extent you
+consider your father's wishes. You think you ought not to marry me
+after what took place last night. Frederick, I like you for this
+evidence of consideration on your part, but do not struggle too
+relentlessly with your conscience. I can forgive much more in you
+than you think, and if you really love me---"
+
+"Stop! Let us understand each other." He had turned mortally pale,
+and met her eyes with something akin to alarm. "What do you allude
+to in speaking of last night? I did not know there was anything
+said by us in our talk together---"
+
+"I do not allude to our talk."
+
+"Or--or in the one dance we had---"
+
+"Frederick, a dance is innocent."
+
+The word seemed to strike him with the force of a blow.
+
+"Innocent," he repeated, "innocent?" becoming paler still as the
+full weight of her meaning broke gradually upon him.
+
+"I followed you into town," she whispered, coming closer, and
+breathing the words into his ear. "But what I saw you do there
+will not prevent me from obeying you if you say: 'Follow me
+wherever I go, Amabel; henceforth our lives are one.'"
+
+"My God!"
+
+It was all he said, but it seemed to create a gulf between them.
+In the silence that followed, the evil spirit latent beneath her
+beauty began to make itself evident even in the smile which no
+longer called into view the dimples which belong to guileless
+mirth, while upon his face, after the first paralysing effect of
+her words had passed, there appeared an expression of manly
+resistance that betrayed a virtue which as yet had never appeared
+in his selfish and altogether reckless life.
+
+That this was more than a passing impulse he presently made
+evident by lifting his hand and pushing her slowly back.
+
+"I do not know what you saw me do," said he; "but whatever it was,
+it can make no difference in our relations."
+
+Her whisper, which had been but a breath before, became scarcely
+audible.
+
+"I did not pause at the gate you entered," said she. "I went in
+after you."
+
+A gasp of irresistible feeling escaped him, but he did not take
+his eyes from her face.
+
+"It was a long time before you came out," she went on, "but
+previous to that time the shade of a certain window was thrust
+aside, and---"
+
+"Hush!" he commanded, in uncontrollable passion, pressing his hand
+with impulsive energy against her mouth. "Not another word of
+that, or I shall forget you are a woman or that I have ever loved
+you."
+
+Her eyes, which were all she had remaining to plead with, took on
+a peculiar look of quiet satisfaction, and power. Seeing it, he
+let his hand fall and for the first time began to regard her with
+anything but a lover's eyes.
+
+"I was the only person in sight at that time," she continued. "You
+have nothing to fear from the world at large."
+
+"Fear?"
+
+The word made its own echo; she had no need to emphasise it even
+by a smile. But she watched him as it sunk into his consciousness
+with an intentness it took all his strength to sustain. Suddenly
+her bearing and expression changed. The few remains of sweetness
+in her face vanished, and even the allurement which often lasts
+when the sweetness is gone, disappeared in the energy which now
+took possession of her whole threatening and inflexible
+personality.
+
+"Marry me," she cried, "or I will proclaim you to be the murderer
+of Agatha Webb."
+
+She had seen the death of love in his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"A DEVIL THAT UNDERSTANDS MEN"
+
+
+Frederick Sutherland was a man of finer mental balance than he
+himself, perhaps, had ever realised. After the first few moments
+of stupefaction following the astounding alternative which had
+been given him, he broke out with the last sentence she probably
+expected to hear:
+
+"What do you hope from a marriage with me, that to attain your
+wishes you thus sacrifice every womanly instinct?"
+
+She met him on his own ground.
+
+"What do I hope?" She actually glowed with the force of her secret
+desire. "Can you ask a poor girl like me, born in a tenement
+house, but with tastes and ambitions such as are usually only
+given to those who can gratify them? I want to be the rich Mr.
+Sutherland's daughter; acknowledged or unacknowledged, the wife of
+one who can enter any house in Boston as an equal. With a position
+like that I can rise to anything. I feel that I have the natural
+power and aptitude. I have felt it since I was a small child."
+
+"And for that---" he began.
+
+"And for that," she broke in, "I am quite willing to overlook a
+blot on your record. Confident that you will never repeat the risk
+of last night, I am ready to share the burden of your secret
+through life. If you treat me well, I am sure I can make that
+burden light for you."
+
+With a quick flush and an increase of self-assertion, probably not
+anticipated by her, he faced the daring girl with a desperate
+resolution that showed how handsome he could be if his soul once
+got control of his body.
+
+"Woman," he cried, "they were right; you are little less than a
+devil."
+
+Did she regard it as a compliment? Her smile would seem to say so.
+
+"A devil that understands men," she answered, with that slow dip
+of her dimples that made her smile so dangerous. "You will not
+hesitate long over this matter; a week, perhaps."
+
+"I shall not hesitate at all. Seeing you as you are, makes my
+course easy. You will never share any burden with me as my wife."
+
+Still she was not abashed.
+
+"It is a pity," she whispered; "it would have saved you such
+unnecessary struggle. But a week is not long to wait. I am certain
+of you then. This day week at twelve o'clock, Frederick."
+
+He seized her by the arm, and lost to everything but his rage,
+shook her with a desperate hand.
+
+"Do you mean it?" he cried, a sudden horror showing itself in his
+face, notwithstanding his efforts to conceal it.
+
+"I mean it so much," she assured him, "that before I came home
+just now I paid a visit to the copse over the way. A certain
+hollow tree, where you and I have held more than one tryst,
+conceals within its depths a package containing over one thousand
+dollars. Frederick, I hold your life in my hands."
+
+The grasp with which he held her relaxed; a mortal despair settled
+upon his features, and recognising the impossibility of further
+concealing the effect of her words upon him, he sank into a chair
+and covered his face with his hands. She viewed him with an air of
+triumph, which brought back some of her beauty. When she spoke it
+was to say:
+
+"If you wish to join me in Springfield before the time I have set,
+well and good. I am willing that the time of our separation should
+be shortened, but it must not be lengthened by so much as a day.
+Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and pack my trunks."
+
+He shuddered; her voice penetrated him to the quick.
+
+Drawing herself up, she looked down on him with a strange mixture
+of passion and elation.
+
+"You need fear no indiscretion on my part, so long as our
+armistice lasts," said she. "No one can drag the truth from me
+while any hope remains of your doing your duty by me in the way I
+have suggested."
+
+And still he did not move.
+
+"Frederick?"
+
+Was it her voice that was thus murmuring his name? Can the tiger
+snarl one moment and fawn the next?
+
+"Frederick, I have a final word to say--a last farewell. Up to
+this hour I have endured your attentions, or, let us say, accepted
+them, for I always found you handsome and agreeable, if not the
+master of my heart. But now it is love that I feel, love; and love
+with me is no fancy, but a passion--do you hear?--a passion which
+will make life a heaven or hell for the man who has inspired it.
+You should have thought of this when you opposed me."
+
+And with a look in which love and hatred contended for mastery,
+she bent and imprinted a kiss upon his forehead. Next moment she
+was gone.
+
+Or so he thought. But when, after an interval of nameless recoil,
+he rose and attempted to stagger from the place, he discovered
+that she had been detained in the hall by two or three men who had
+just come in by the front door.
+
+"Is this Miss Page?" they were asking.
+
+"Yes, I am Miss Page--Amabel Page" she replied with suave
+politeness. "If you have any business with me, state it quickly,
+for I am about to leave town."
+
+"That is what we wish to prevent," declared a tall, thin young man
+who seemed to take the lead. "Till the inquest has been held over
+the remains of Mrs. Webb, Coroner Talbot wishes you to regard
+yourself as a possible witness."
+
+"Me?" she cried, with an admirable gesture of surprise and a wide
+opening of her brown eyes that made her look like an astonished
+child. "What have I got to do with it?"
+
+"You pointed out a certain spot of blood on the grass, and--well,
+the coroner's orders have to be obeyed, miss. You cannot leave the
+town without running the risk of arrest"
+
+"Then I will stay in it," she smiled. "I have no liking for
+arrests," and the glint of her eye rested for a moment on
+Frederick. "Mr. Sutherland," she continued, as that gentleman
+appeared at the dining-room door, "I shall have to impose upon
+your hospitality for a few days longer. These men here inform me
+that my innocent interest in pointing out to you that spot of
+blood on Mrs. Webb's lawn has awakened some curiosity, and that I
+am wanted as a witness by the coroner."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, with a quick stride, lessened the distance between
+himself and these unwelcome intruders. "The coroner's wishes are
+paramount just now," said he, but the look he gave his son was not
+soon forgotten by the spectators.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+A GRAND WOMAN
+
+
+There was but one topic discussed in the country-side that day,
+and that was the life and character of Agatha Webb.
+
+Her history had not been a happy one. She and Philemon had come
+from Portchester some twenty or more years before to escape the
+sorrows associated with their native town. They had left behind
+them six small graves in Portchester churchyard; but though
+evidences of their affliction were always to be seen in the
+countenances of either, they had entered with so much purpose into
+the life of their adopted town that they had become persons of
+note there till Philemon's health began to fail, when Agatha quit
+all outside work and devoted herself exclusively to him. Of her
+character and winsome personality we can gather some idea from the
+various conversations carried on that day from Portchester Green
+to the shipyards in Sutherlandtown.
+
+In Deacon Brainerd's cottage, the discussion was concerning
+Agatha's lack of vanity; a virtue not very common at that time
+among the women of this busy seaport.
+
+"For a woman so handsome," the good deacon was saying "(and I
+think I can safely call her the finest-featured woman who ever
+trod these streets), she showed as little interest in dress as
+anyone I ever knew. Calico at home and calico at church, yet she
+looked as much of a lady in her dark-sprigged gowns as Mrs.
+Webster in her silks or Mrs. Parsons in her thousand-dollar
+sealskin."
+
+As this was a topic within the scope of his eldest daughter's
+intelligence she at once spoke up: "I never thought she needed to
+dress so plainly. I don't believe in such a show of poverty
+myself. If one is too poor to go decent, all right; but they say
+she had more money than most anyone in town. I wonder who is going
+to get the benefit of it?"
+
+"Why, Philemon, of course; that is, as long as he lives. He
+doubtless had the making of it."
+
+"Is it true that he's gone clean out of his head since her death?"
+interposed a neighbour who had happened in.
+
+"So they say. I believe widow Jones has taken him into her house."
+
+"Do you think," asked a second daughter with becoming hesitation,
+"that he had anything to do with her death? Some of the neighbours
+say he struck her while in one of his crazy fits, while others
+declare she was killed by some stranger, equally old and almost as
+infirm."
+
+"We won't discuss the subject," objected the deacon. "Time will
+show who robbed us of the greatest-hearted and most capable woman
+in these parts."
+
+"And will time show who killed Batsy?" It was a morsel of a girl
+who spoke; the least one of the family, but the brightest. "I'm
+sorry for Batsy; she always gave me cookies when I went to see
+Mrs. Webb."
+
+"Batsy was a good girl for a Swede," allowed the deacon's wife,
+who had not spoken till now. "When she first came into town on the
+spars of that wrecked ship we all remember, there was some
+struggle between Agatha and me as to which of us should have her.
+But I didn't like the task of teaching her the name of every pot
+and pan she had to use in the kitchen, so I gave her up to Agatha;
+and it was fortunate I did, for I've never been able to understand
+her talk to this day."
+
+"I could talk with her right well," lisped the little one. "She
+never called things by their Swedish names unless she was worried;
+and I never worried her."
+
+"I wonder if she would have worshipped the ground under your feet,
+as she did that under Agatha's?" asked the deacon, eying his wife
+with just the suspicion of a malicious twinkle in his eye.
+
+"I am not the greatest-hearted and most capable woman in town,"
+retorted his wife, clicking her needles as she went on knitting.
+
+In Mr. Sprague's house on the opposite side of the road, Squire
+Fisher was relating some old tales of bygone Portchester days. "I
+knew Agatha when she was a girl," he avowed. "She had the grandest
+manners and the most enchanting smile of any rich or poor man's
+daughter between the coast and Springfield. She did not dress in
+calico then. She wore the gayest clothes her father could buy.
+her, and old Jacob was not without means to make his daughter the
+leading figure in town. How we young fellows did adore her, and
+what lengths we went to win one of her glorious smiles! Two of us,
+John and James Zabel, have lived bachelors for her sake to this
+very day; but I hadn't courage enough for that; I married and"--
+something between a sigh and a chuckle filled out the sentence.
+
+"What made Philemon carry off the prize? His good looks?"
+
+"Yes, or his good luck. It wasn't his snap; of that you may be
+sure. James Zabel had the snap, and he was her first choice, too,
+but he got into some difficulty--I never knew just what it was,
+but it was regarded as serious at the time--and that match was
+broken off. Afterwards she married Philemon. You see, I was out of
+it altogether; had never been in it, perhaps; but there were three
+good years of my life in which I thought of little else than
+Agatha. I admired her spirit, you see. There was something more
+taking in her ways than in her beauty, wonderful as that was. She
+ruled us with a rod of iron, and yet we worshipped her. I have
+wondered to see her so meek of late. I never thought she would be
+satisfied with a brick-floored cottage and a husband of failing
+wits. But no one, to my knowledge, has ever heard a complaint from
+her lips; and the dignity of her afflicted wife-hood has far
+transcended the haughtiness of those days when she had but to
+smile to have all the youth of Portchester at her feet."
+
+"I suppose it was the loss of so many children that reconciled her
+to a quiet life. A woman cannot close the eyes of six children,
+one after the other, without some modification taking place in her
+character."
+
+"Yes, she and Philemon have been unfortunate; but she was a
+splendid looking girl, boys. I never see such grand-looking women
+now."
+
+ In a little one-storied cottage on the hillside a woman was
+nursing a baby and talking at the same time of Agatha Webb.
+
+"I shall never forget the night my first baby fell sick," she
+faltered; "I was just out of bed myself, and having no nearer
+neighbours then than now, I was all alone on the hillside, Alec
+being away at sea. I was too young to know much about sickness,
+but something told me that I must have help before morning or my
+baby would die. Though I could just walk across the floor, I threw
+a shawl around me, took my baby in my arms, and opened the door. A
+blinding gust of rain blew in. A terrible storm was raging and I
+had not noticed it, I was so taken up with the child.
+
+"I could not face that gale. Indeed, I was so weak I fell on my
+knees as it struck me and became dripping wet before I could drag
+myself inside. The baby began to moan and everything was turning
+dark before me, when I heard a strong, sweet voice cry out in the
+roadway:
+
+"'Is there room in this house for me till the storm has blown by?
+I cannot see my way down the hillside.'
+
+"With a bursting heart I looked up. A woman was standing in the
+doorway, with the look of an angel in her eyes. I did not know
+her, but her face was one to bring comfort to the saddest heart.
+Holding up my baby, I cried:
+
+"'My baby is dying; I tried to go for the doctor, but my knees
+bent under me. Help me, as you are a mother--I---'
+
+"I must have fallen again, for the next thing I remember I was
+lying by the hearth, looking up into her face, which was bending
+over me. She was white as the rag I had tied about my baby's
+throat, and by the way her breast heaved she was either very much
+frightened or very sorry.
+
+"'I wish you had the help of anyone else,' said she. 'Babies
+perish in my arms and wither at my breast. I cannot touch it, much
+as I yearn to. But let me see its face; perhaps I can tell you
+what is the matter with it.'
+
+"I showed her the baby's face, and she bent over it, trembling
+very much, almost as much indeed as myself.
+
+"'It is very sick,' she said, 'but if you will use the remedies I
+advise, I think you can save it.' And she told me what to do, and
+helped me all she could; but she did not lay a finger on the
+little darling, though from the way she watched it I saw that her
+heart was set on his getting better. And he did; in an hour he was
+sleeping peacefully, and the terrible weight was gone from my
+heart and from hers. When the storm stopped, and she could leave
+the house, she gave me a kiss; but the look she gave him meant
+more than kisses. God must have forgotten her goodness to me that
+night when He let her die so pitiable a death."
+
+At the minister's house they were commenting upon the look of
+serenity observable in her dead face.
+
+"I have known her for thirty years," her pastor declared, "and
+never before have I seen her wear a look of real peace. It is
+wonderful, considering the circumstances. Do you think she was so
+weary of her life's long struggle that she hailed any release from
+it, even that of violence?"
+
+A young man, a lawyer, visiting them from New York, was the only
+one to answer.
+
+"I never saw the woman you are talking about," said he, "and know
+nothing of the circumstances of her death beyond what you have
+told me. But from the very incongruity between her expression and
+the violent nature of her death, I argue that there are depths to
+this crime which have not yet been sounded."
+
+"What depths? It is a simple case of murder followed by theft. To
+be sure we do not yet know the criminal, but money was his motive;
+that is clear enough."
+
+"Are you ready to wager that that is all there is to it?"
+
+This was a startling proposition to the minister.
+
+"You forget my cloth," said he.
+
+The young man smiled. "That is true. Pardon me. I was only anxious
+to show how strong my conviction was against any such easy
+explanation of a crime marked by such contradictory features."
+
+ Two children on the Portchester road were exchanging boyish
+confidences.
+
+"Do you know what I think about it?" asked one.
+
+"Naw! How should I?"
+
+"Wall, I think old Mrs. Webb got the likes of what she sent. Don't
+you know she had six children once, and that she killed every one
+of them?"
+
+"Killed'em--she?"
+
+"Yes, I heard her tell granny once all about it. She said there
+was a blight on her house--I don't know what that is; but I guess
+it's something big and heavy--and that it fell on every one of her
+children, as fast as they came, and killed 'em."
+
+"Then I'm glad I ben't her child."
+
+Very different were the recollections interchanged between two
+middle-aged Portchester women.
+
+"She was drinking tea at my house when her sister Sairey came
+running in with the news that the baby she had left at home wasn't
+quite right. That was her first child, you know."
+
+"Yes, yes, for I was with her when that baby came," broke in the
+other, "and such joy as she showed when they told her it was alive
+and well I never saw. I do not know why she didn't expect it to be
+alive, but she didn't, and her happiness was just wonderful to
+see."
+
+"Well, she didn't enjoy it long. The poor little fellow died
+young. But I was telling you of the night when she first heard he
+was ailing. Philemon had been telling a good story, and we were
+all laughing, when Sairey came in. I can see Agatha now. She
+always had the most brilliant eyes in the county, but that day
+they were superbly dazzling. They changed, though, at the sight of
+Sairey's face, and she jumped to meet her just as if she knew what
+Sairey was going to say before ever a word left her lips. 'My
+baby!' (I can hear her yet.) 'Something is the matter with the
+baby!' And though Sairey made haste to tell her that he was only
+ailing and not at all ill, she turned upon Philemon with a look
+none of us ever quite understood; he changed so completely under
+it, just as she had under Sairey's; and to neither did the old
+happiness ever return, for the child died within a week, and when
+the next came it died also, and the next, till six small innocents
+lay buried in yonder old graveyard."
+
+"I know; and sad enough it was too, especially as she and Philemon
+were both fond of children. Well, well, the ways of Providence are
+past rinding out! And now she is gone and Philemon---"
+
+"Ah, he'll follow her soon; he can't live without Agatha."
+
+Nearer home, the old sexton was chattering about the six
+gravestones raised in Portchester churchyard to these six dead
+infants. He had been sent there to choose a spot in which to lay
+the mother, and was full of the shock it gave him to see that line
+of little stones, telling of a past with which the good people of
+Sutherlandtown found it hard to associate Philemon and Agatha
+Webb.
+
+"I'm a digger of graves," he mused, half to himself and half to
+his old wife watching him from the other side of the hearthstone.
+"I spend a good quarter of my time in the churchyard; but when I
+saw those six little mounds, and read the inscriptions over them,
+I couldn't help feeling queer. Think of this! On the first tiny
+headstone I read these words:"
+
+  STEPHEN,
+
+  Son of Philemon and Agatha Webb,
+
+  Died, Aged Six Weeks.
+
+  God be merciful to me a sinner!
+
+"Now what does that mean? Did you ever hear anyone say?"
+
+"No," was his old wife's answer. "Perhaps she was one of those
+Calvinist folks who believe babies go to hell if they are not
+baptised."
+
+"But her children were all baptised. I've been told so; some of
+them before she was well out of her bed. 'God be merciful to me a
+sinner!' And the chick not six weeks old! Something queer about
+that, dame, if it did happen more than thirty years ago."
+
+"What did you see over the grave of the child who was killed in
+her arms by lightning?"
+
+"This:
+
+"'And he was not, for God took him.'"
+
+Farmer Waite had but one word to say:
+
+"She came to me when my Sissy had the smallpox; the only person in
+town who would enter my doors. More than that; when Sissy was up
+and I went to pay the doctor's bill I found it had been settled. I
+did not know then who had enough money and compassion to do this
+for me; now I do."
+
+Many an act of kindness which had been secretly performed in that
+town during the last twenty years came to light on that day, the
+most notable of which was the sending of a certain young lad to
+school and his subsequent education as a minister.
+
+But other memories of a sweeter and more secret nature still came
+up likewise, among them the following:
+
+A young girl, who was of a very timid but deeply sensitive nature,
+had been urged into an engagement with a man she did not like.
+Though the conflict this occasioned her and the misery which
+accompanied it were apparent to everybody, nobody stirred in her
+behalf but Agatha. She went to see her, and, though it was within
+a fortnight of the wedding, she did not hesitate to advise the
+girl to give him up, and when the poor child said she lacked the
+courage, Agatha herself went to the man and urged him into a
+display of generosity which saved the poor, timid thing from a
+life of misery. They say this was no easy task for Agatha, and
+that the man was sullen for a year. But the girl's gratitude was
+boundless.
+
+Of her daring, which was always on the side of right and justice,
+the stories were numerous; so were the accounts, mostly among the
+women, of her rare tenderness and sympathy for the weak and the
+erring. Never was a man talked to as she talked to Jake Cobleigh
+the evening after he struck his mother, and if she had been in
+town on the day when Clarissa Mayhew ran away with that
+Philadelphia adventurer many said it would never have happened,
+for no girl could stand the admonition, or resist the pleading, of
+this childless mother.
+
+It was reserved for Mr. Halliday and Mr. Sutherland to talk of her
+mental qualities. Her character was so marked and her manner so
+simple that few gave attention to the intellect that was the real
+basis of her power. The two mentioned gentlemen, however,
+appreciated her to the full, and it was while listening to their
+remarks that Frederick was suddenly startled by some one saying to
+him:
+
+"You are the only person in town who have nothing to say about
+Agatha Webb. Didn't you ever exchange any words with her?--for I
+can hardly believe you could have met her eye to eye without
+having some remark to make about her beauty or her influence."
+
+The speaker was Agnes Halliday, who had come in with her father
+for a social chat. She was one of Frederick's earliest playmates,
+but one with whom he had never assimilated and who did not like
+him. He knew this, as did everyone else in town, and it was with
+some hesitation he turned to answer her.
+
+"I have but one recollection," he began, and for the moment got no
+farther, for in turning his head to address his young guest he had
+allowed his gaze to wander through the open window by which she
+sat, into the garden beyond, where Amabel could be seen picking
+flowers. As he spoke, Amabel lifted her face with one of her
+suggestive looks. She had doubtless heard Miss Halliday's remark.
+
+Recovering himself with an effort, he repeated his words: "I have
+but one recollection of Mrs. Webb that I can give you. Years ago
+when I was a lad I was playing on the green with several other
+boys. We had had some dispute about a lost ball, and I was
+swearing angrily and loud when I suddenly perceived before me the
+tall form and compassionate face of Mrs. Webb. She was dressed in
+her usual simple way, and had a basket on her arm, but she looked
+so superior to any other woman I had ever met that I did not know
+whether to hide my face in her skirts or to follow my first
+impulse and run away. She saw the emotion she had aroused, and
+lifting up my face by the chin, she said: 'Little boy, I have
+buried six children, all of them younger than you, and now my
+husband and myself live alone. Often and often have I wished that
+one at least of these darling infants might have been spared us.
+But had God given me the choice of having them die young and
+innocent, or of growing up to swear as I have heard you to-day, I
+should have prayed God to take them, as He did. You have a mother.
+Do not break her heart by taking in vain the name of the God she
+reveres.' And with that she kissed me, and, strange as it may seem
+to you, in whatever folly or wickedness I have indulged, I have
+never made use of an oath from that day to this--and I thank God
+for it."
+
+There was such unusual feeling in his voice, a feeling that none
+had ever suspected him capable of before, that Miss Halliday
+regarded him with astonishment and quite forgot to indulge in her
+usual banter. Even the gentlemen sat still, and there was a
+momentary silence, through which there presently broke the
+incongruous sound of a shrill and mocking laugh.
+
+It came from Amabel, who had just finished gathering her bouquet
+in the garden outside.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+DETECTIVE KNAPP ARRIVES
+
+
+Meanwhile, in a small room at the court-house, a still more
+serious conversation was in progress. Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and
+a certain able lawyer in town by the name of Harvey, were in close
+discussion. The last had broken the silence of years, and was
+telling what he knew of Mrs. Webb's affairs.
+
+He was a shrewd man, of unblemished reputation. When called upon
+to talk, he talked well, but he much preferred listening, and was,
+as now appeared, the safest repository of secrets to be found in
+all that region. He had been married three times, and could still
+count thirteen children around his board, one reason, perhaps, why
+he had learned to cultivate silence to such a degree. Happily, the
+time had come for him to talk, and he talked. This is what he
+said:
+
+"Some fifteen years ago Philemon Webb came to me with a small sum
+of money, which he said he wished to have me invest for his wife.
+It was the fruit of a small speculation of his and he wanted it
+given unconditionally to her without her knowledge or that of the
+neighbours. I accordingly made out a deed of gift, which he signed
+with joyful alacrity, and then after due thought and careful
+investigation, I put the money into a new enterprise then being
+started in Boston. It was the best stroke of business I ever did
+in my life. At the end of a year it paid double, and after five
+had rolled away the accumulated interest had reached such a sum
+that both Philemon and myself thought it wisest to let her know
+what she was worth and what was being done with the money. I was
+in hopes it would lead her to make some change in her mode of
+living, which seemed to me out of keeping with her appearance and
+mental qualifications; while he, I imagine, looked for something
+more important still--a smile on the face which had somehow lost
+the trick of merriment, though it had never acquired that of ill
+nature. But we did not know Agatha; at least I did not. When she
+learned that she was rich, she looked at first awestruck and then
+heart-pierced. Forgetting me, or ignoring me, it makes no matter
+which, she threw herself into Philemon's arms and wept, while he,
+poor faithful fellow, looked as distressed as if he had brought
+news of failure instead of triumphant success. I suppose she
+thought of her buried children, and what the money would have been
+to her if they had lived; but she did not speak of them, nor am I
+quite sure they were in her thoughts when, after the first
+excitement was over, she drew back and said quietly, but in a tone
+of strong feeling, to Philemon: 'You meant me a happy surprise,
+and you must not be disappointed. This is heart money; we will use
+it to make our townsfolk happy.' I saw him glance at her dress,
+which was a purple calico. I remember it because of that look and
+because of the sad smile with which she followed his glance. 'Can
+we not afford now,' he ventured, 'a little show of luxury, or at
+least a ribbon or so for this beautiful throat of yours?' She did
+not answer him; but her look had a rare compassion in it, a
+compassion, strange to say, that seemed to be expended upon him
+rather than upon herself. Philemon swallowed his disappointment.
+'Agatha is right,' he said to me. 'We do not need luxury. I do not
+know how I so far forgot myself as to mention it.' That was ten
+years ago, and every day since then her property has increased. I
+did not know then, and I do not know now, why they were both so
+anxious that all knowledge of their good fortune should be kept
+from those about them; but that it was to be &o kept was made very
+evident to me; and, notwithstanding all temptations to the
+contrary, I have refrained from uttering a word likely to give
+away their secret. The money, which to all appearance was the
+cause of her tragic and untimely death, was interest money which I
+was delegated to deliver her. I took it to her day before
+yesterday, and it was all in crisp new notes, some of them
+twenties, but most of them tens and fives. I am free to say there
+was not such another roll of fresh money in town."
+
+"Warn all shopkeepers to keep a sharp lookout for new bills in the
+money they receive," was Dr. Talbot's comment to the constable.
+"Fresh ten-and twenty-dollar bills are none too common in this
+town. And now about her will. Did you draw that up, Harvey?"
+
+"No. I did not know she had made one. I often spoke to her about
+the advisability of her doing so, but she always put me off. And
+now it seems that she had it drawn up in Boston. Could not trust
+her old friend with too many secrets, I suppose."
+
+"So you don't know how her money has been left?"
+
+"No more than you do."
+
+Here an interruption occurred. The door opened and a slim young
+man, wearing spectacles, came in. At sight of him they all rose.
+
+"Well?" eagerly inquired Dr. Talbot.
+
+"Nothing new," answered the young man, with a consequential air.
+"The elder woman died from loss of blood consequent upon a blow
+given by a small, three-sided, slender blade; the younger from a
+stroke of apoplexy, induced by fright."
+
+"Good! I am glad to hear my instincts were not at fault. Loss of
+blood, eh? Death, then, was not instantaneous?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Strange!" fell from the lips of his two listeners. "She lived,
+yet gave no alarm."
+
+"None that was heard," suggested the young doctor, who was from
+another town.
+
+"Or, if heard, reached no ears but Philemon's," observed the
+constable. "Something must have taken him upstairs."
+
+"I am not so sure," said the coroner, "that Philemon is not
+answerable for the whole crime, notwithstanding our failure to
+find the missing money anywhere in the house. How else account for
+the resignation with which she evidently met her death? Had a
+stranger struck her, Agatha Webb would have struggled. There is no
+sign of struggle in the room."
+
+"She would have struggled against Philemon had she had strength to
+struggle. I think she was asleep when she was struck."
+
+"Ah! And was not standing by the table? How about the blood there,
+then?"
+
+"Shaken from the murderer's fingers in fright or disgust."
+
+"There was no blood on Philemon's fingers."
+
+"No; he wiped them on his sleeve."
+
+"If he was the one to use the dagger against her, where is the
+dagger? Should we not be able to find it somewhere about the
+premises?"
+
+"He may have buried it outside. Crazy men are super naturally
+cunning."
+
+"When you can produce it from any place inside that board fence, I
+will consider your theory. At present I limit my suspicions of
+Philemon to the half-unconscious attentions which a man of
+disordered intellect might give a wife bleeding and dying under
+his eyes. My idea on the subject is---"
+
+"Would you be so kind as not to give utterance to your ideas until
+I have been able to form some for myself?" interrupted a voice
+from the doorway.
+
+As this voice was unexpected, they all turned. A small man with
+sleek dark hair and expressionless features stood before them.
+Behind him was Abel, carrying a hand-bag and umbrella.
+
+"The detective from Boston," announced the latter. Coroner Talbot
+rose.
+
+"You are in good time," he remarked. "We have work of no ordinary
+nature for you."
+
+The man failed to look interested. But then his countenance was
+not one to show emotion.
+
+"My name is Knapp," said he. "I have had my supper, and am ready
+to go to work. I have read the newspapers; all I want now is any
+additional facts that have come to light since the telegraphic
+dispatches were sent to Boston. Facts, mind you; not theories. I
+never allow myself to be hampered by other persons' theories."
+
+Not liking his manner, which was brusque and too self-important
+for a man of such insignificant appearance, Coroner Talbot
+referred him to Mr. Fenton, who immediately proceeded to give him
+the result of such investigations as he and his men had been able
+to make; which done, Mr. Knapp put on his hat and turned toward
+the door.
+
+"I will go to the house and see for myself what is to be learned
+there," said he. "May I ask the privilege of going alone?" he
+added, as Mr. Fenton moved. "Abel will see that I am given
+admittance."
+
+"Show me your credentials," said the coroner. He did so. "They
+seem all right, and you should be a man who understands his
+business. Go alone, if you prefer, but bring your conclusions
+here. They may need some correcting."
+
+"Oh, I will return," Knapp nonchalantly remarked, and went out,
+having made anything but a favourable impression upon the
+assembled gentlemen.
+
+"I wish we had shown more grit and tried to handle this thing
+ourselves," observed Mr. Fenton. "I cannot bear to think of that
+cold, bloodless creature hovering over our beloved Agatha."
+
+"I wonder at Carson. Why should he send us such a man? Could he
+not see the matter demanded extraordinary skill and judgment?"
+
+"Oh, this fellow may have skill. But he is so unpleasant. I hate
+to deal with folks of such fish-like characteristics. But who is
+this?" he asked as a gentle tap was heard at the door. "Why, it's
+Loton. What can he want here?"
+
+The man whose presence in the doorway had called out this
+exclamation started at the sound of the doctor's heavy voice, and
+came very hesitatingly forward. He was of a weak, irritable type,
+and seemed to be in a state of great excitement.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he, "for showing myself. I don't like to
+intrude into such company, but I have something to tell you which
+may be of use, sirs, though it isn't any great thing, either."
+
+"Something about the murder which has taken place?" asked the
+coroner, in a milder tone. He knew Loton well, and realised the
+advisability of encouragement in his case.
+
+"The murder! Oh, I wouldn't presume to say anything about the
+murder. I'm not the man to stir up any such subject as that. It's
+about the money--or some money--more money than usually falls into
+my till. It--it was rather queer, sirs, and I have felt the
+flutter of it all day. Shall I tell you about it? It happened last
+night, late last night, sirs, so late that I was in bed with my
+wife, and had been snoring, she said, four hours."
+
+"What money? New money? Crisp, fresh bills, Loton?" eagerly
+questioned Mr. Fenton.
+
+Loton, who was the keeper of a small confectionery and bakery
+store on one of the side streets leading up the hill, shifted
+uneasily between his two interrogators, and finally addressed
+himself to the coroner:
+
+"It was new money. I thought it felt so at night, but I was sure
+of it in the morning. A brand-new bill, sir, a--But that isn't
+the queerest thing about it. I was asleep, sir, sound asleep, and
+dreaming of my courting days (for I asked Sally at the circus,
+sirs, and the band playing on the hill made me think of it), when
+I was suddenly shook awake by Sally herself, who says she hadn't
+slept a wink for listening to the music and wishing she was a girl
+again. 'There's a man at the shop door,' cries she. 'He's a-
+calling of you; go and see what he wants.' I was mad at being
+wakened. Dreaming is pleasant, specially when clowns and kissing
+get mixed up in it, but duty is duty, and so into the shop I
+stumbled, swearing a bit perhaps, for I hadn't stopped for a light
+and it was as dark as double shutters could make it. The hammering
+had become deafening. No let up till I reached the door, when it
+suddenly ceased.
+
+"'What is it?' I cried. 'Who's there and what do you want?'
+
+"A trembling voice answered me. 'Let me in,' it said. 'I want to
+buy something to eat. For God's sake, open the door!'
+
+"I don't know why I obeyed, for it was late, and I did not know
+the voice, but something in the impatient rattling of the door
+which accompanied the words affected me in spite of myself, and I
+slowly opened my shop to this midnight customer.
+
+"'You must be hungry,' I began. But the person who had crowded in
+as soon as the opening was large enough wouldn't let me finish.
+
+"'Bread! I want bread, or crackers, or anything that you can find
+easiest,' he gasped, like a man who had been running. 'Here's
+money'; and he poked into my hand a bill so stiff that it rattled.
+'It's more than enough,' he hastened to say, as I hesitated over
+it, 'but never mind that; I'll come for the change in the
+morning.'
+
+"'Who are you? I cried. 'You are not Blind Willy, I'm sure.'
+
+"But his only answer was 'Bread!' while he leaned so hard against
+the counter I felt it shake.
+
+"I could not stand that cry of 'Bread!' so I groped about in the
+dark, and found him a stale loaf, which I put into his arms, with
+a short, 'There! Now tell me what your name is.'
+
+"But at this he seemed to shrink into himself; and muttering
+something that might pass for thanks, he stumbled towards the door
+and rushed hastily out. Running after him, I listened eagerly to
+his steps. They went up the hill."
+
+"And the money? What about the money?" asked the coroner. "Didn't
+he come back for the change?"
+
+"No. I put it in the till, thinking it was a dollar bill. But when
+I came to look at it in the morning, it was a twenty; yes, sirs, a
+twenty!"
+
+This was startling. The coroner and the constable looked at each
+other before looking again at him.
+
+"And where is that bill now?" asked the former. "Have you brought
+it with you?"
+
+"I have, sir. It's been in and out of the till twenty times to-
+day. I haven't known what to do with it. I don't like to think
+wrong of anybody, but when I heard that Mrs. Webb (God bless her!)
+was murdered last night for money, I couldn't rest for the weight
+of this thing on my conscience. Here's the bill, sir. I wish I had
+let the old man rap on my door till morning before I had taken it
+from him."
+
+They did not share this feeling. A distinct and valuable clew
+seemed to be afforded them by the fresh, crisp bill they saw in
+his hand. Silently Dr. Talbot took it, while Mr. Fenton, with a
+shrewd look, asked:
+
+"What reasons have you for calling this mysterious customer old? I
+thought it was so dark you could not see him."
+
+The man, who looked relieved since he had rid himself of the bill,
+eyed the constable in some perplexity.
+
+"I didn't see a feature of his face," said he, "and yet I'm sure
+he was old. I never thought of him as being anything else."
+
+"Well, we will see. And is that all you have to tell us?"
+
+His nod was expressive, and they let him go.
+
+An hour or so later Detective Knapp made his reappearance.
+
+"Well," asked the coroner, as he came quietly in and closed the
+door behind him, "what's your opinion?"
+
+"Simple case, sir. Murdered for money. Find the man with a flowing
+beard."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+THE MAN WITH A BEARD
+
+
+There were but few men in town who wore long beards. A list was
+made of these and handed to the coroner, who regarded it with a
+grim smile.
+
+"Not a man whose name is here would be guilty of a misdemeanour,
+let alone a crime. You must look outside of our village population
+for the murderer of Agatha Webb."
+
+"Very likely, but tell me something first about these persons,"
+urged Knapp. "Who is Edward Hope?"
+
+"A watch repairer; a man of estimable character."
+
+"And Sylvester Chubb?"
+
+"A farmer who, to support his mother, wife, and seven children,
+works from morning till sundown on his farm, and from sundown till
+11 o'clock at night on little fancy articles he cuts out from wood
+and sells in Boston."
+
+"John Barker, Thomas Elder, Timothy Sinn?"
+
+"All good men; I can vouch for every one of them."
+
+"And John Zabel, James Zabel?"
+
+"Irreproachable, both of them. Famous shipbuilders once, but the
+change to iron shipbuilding has thrown them out of business. Pity,
+too, for they were remarkable builders. By the by, Fenton, we
+don't see them at church or on the docks any more."
+
+"No, they keep very much to themselves; getting old, like
+ourselves, Talbot."
+
+"Lively boys once. We must hunt them up, Fenton. Can't bear to see
+old friends drop away from good company. But this isn't business.
+You need not pause over their names, Knapp."
+
+But Knapp had slipped out.
+
+We will follow him.
+
+Walking briskly down the street, he went up the steps of a certain
+house and rang the bell. A gentleman with a face not entirely
+unknown to us came to the door.
+
+The detective did not pause for preliminaries.
+
+"Are you Mr. Crane?" he asked,--"the gentleman who ran against a
+man coming out of Mrs. Webb's house last night?"
+
+"I am Mr. Crane," was the slightly surprised rejoinder, "and I was
+run against by a man there, yes."
+
+"Very well," remarked the detective, quietly, "my name is Knapp. I
+have been sent from Boston to look into this matter, and I have an
+idea that you can help me more than any other man here in
+Sutherlandtown. Who was this person who came in contact with you
+so violently? You know, even if you have been careful not to
+mention any names."
+
+"You are mistaken. I don't know; I can't know. He wore a sweeping
+beard, and walked and acted like a man no longer young, but beyond
+that---"
+
+"Mr. Crane, excuse me, but I know men. If you had no suspicion as
+to whom that person was you would not look so embarrassed. You
+suspect, or, at least, associate in your own mind a name with the
+man you met. Was it either of these you see written here?"
+
+Mr. Crane glanced at the card on which the other had scribbled a
+couple of names, and started perceptibly.
+
+"You have me," said he; "you must be a man of remarkable
+perspicacity."
+
+The detective smiled and pocketed his card. The names he thus
+concealed were John Zabel, James Zabel.
+
+"You have not said which of the two it was," Knapp quietly
+suggested.
+
+"No," returned the minister, "and I have not even thought. Indeed,
+I am not sure that I have not made a dreadful mistake in thinking
+it was either. A glimpse such as I had is far from satisfactory;
+and they are both such excellent men---"
+
+"Eight! You did make a mistake, of course, I have not the least
+doubt of it. So don't think of the matter again. I will find out
+who the real man was; rest easy."
+
+And with the lightest of bows, Knapp drew off and passed as
+quickly as he could, without attracting attention, round the
+corner to the confectioner's.
+
+Here his attack was warier. Sally Loton was behind the counter
+with her husband, and they had evidently been talking the matter
+over very confidentially. But Knapp was not to be awed by her
+small, keen eye or strident voice, and presently succeeded in
+surprising a knowing look on the lady's face, which convinced him
+that in the confidences between husband and wife a name had been
+used which she appeared to be less unwilling to impart than he.
+Knapp, consequently, turned his full attention towards her, using
+in his attack that oldest and subtlest weapon against the sex--
+flattery.
+
+"My dear madam," said he, "your good heart is apparent; your
+husband has confided to you a name which you, out of fear of some
+mistake, hesitate to repeat. A neighbourly spirit, ma'am, a very
+neighbourly spirit; but you should not allow your goodness to
+defeat the ends of justice. If you simply told us whom this man
+resembled we would be able to get some idea of his appearance."
+
+"He didn't resemble anyone I know," growled Loton. "It was too
+dark for me to see how he looked."
+
+"His voice, then? People are traced by their voices."
+
+"I didn't recognise his voice."
+
+Knapp smiled, his eye still on the woman.
+
+"Yet you have thought of someone he reminded you of?"
+
+The man was silent, but the wife tossed her head ever so lightly.
+
+"Now, you must have had your reasons for that. No one thinks of a
+good and respectable neighbour in connection with the buying of a
+loaf of bread at mid-night with a twenty-dollar bill, without some
+positive reason."
+
+"The man wore a beard. I felt it brush my hand as he took the
+loaf."
+
+"Good! That is a point."
+
+"Which made me think of other men who wore beards."
+
+"As, for instance---"
+
+The detective had taken from his pocket the card which he had used
+with such effect at the minister's, and as he said these words
+twirled it so that the two names written upon it fell under Sally
+Loton's inquisitive eyes. The look with which she read them was
+enough. John Zabel, James Zabel.
+
+"Who told you it was either of these men?" she asked.
+
+"You did," he retorted, pocketing the card with a smile.
+
+"La, now! Samuel, I never spoke a word," she insisted, in anxious
+protest to her husband, as the detective slid quietly from the
+store.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+WATTLES COMES
+
+
+The Hallidays lived but a few rods from the Sutherlands. Yet as it
+was dusk when Miss Halliday rose to depart, Frederick naturally
+offered his services as her escort.
+
+She accepted them with a slight blush, the first he had ever seen
+on her face, or at least had ever noted there. It caused him such
+surprise that he forgot Amabel's presence in the garden till they
+came upon her at the gate.
+
+"A pleasant evening," observed that young girl in her high,
+unmusical voice.
+
+"Very," was Miss Halliday's short reply; and for a moment the two
+faces were in line as he held open the gate before his departing
+guest.
+
+They were very different faces in feature and expression, and till
+that night he had never thought of comparing them. Indeed, the
+fascination which beamed from Amabel Page's far from regular
+features had put all others out of his mind, but now, as he
+surveyed the two girls, the candour and purity which marked
+Agnes's countenance came out so strongly under his glance that
+Amabel lost all attraction for him, and he drew his young
+neighbour hastily away.
+
+Amabel noted the movement and smiled. Her contempt for Agnes
+Halliday's charms amounted to disdain.
+
+She might have felt less confidence in her own had she been in a
+position to note the frequent glances Frederick cast at his old
+playmate as they proceeded slowly up the road. Not that there was
+any passion in them--he was too full of care for that; but the
+curiosity which could prompt him to turn his head a dozen times in
+the course of so short a walk, to see why Agnes Halliday held her
+face so persistently away from him, had an element of feeling in
+it that was more or less significant. As for Agnes, she was so
+unlike her accustomed self as to astonish even herself. Whereas
+she had never before walked a dozen steps with him without
+indulging in some sharp saying, she found herself disinclined to
+speak at all, much less to speak lightly. In mutual silence, then,
+they reached the gateway leading into the Halliday grounds. But
+Agnes having passed in, they both stopped and for the first time
+looked squarely at each other. Her eyes fell first, perhaps
+because his had changed in his contemplation of her. He smiled as
+he saw this, and in a half-careless, half-wistful tone, said
+quietly:
+
+"Agnes, what would you think of a man who, after having committed
+little else but folly all his life, suddenly made up his mind to
+turn absolutely toward the right and to pursue it in face of every
+obstacle and every discouragement?"
+
+"I should think," she slowly replied, with one quick lift of her
+eyes toward his face, "that he had entered upon the noblest effort
+of which man is capable, and the hardest. I should have great
+sympathy for that man, Frederick."
+
+"Would you?" he said, recalling Amabel's face with bitter aversion
+as he gazed into the womanly countenance he had hitherto slighted
+as uninteresting. "It is the first kind word you have ever given
+me, Agnes. Possibly it is the first I have ever deserved."
+
+And without another word he doffed his hat, saluted her, and
+vanished down the hillside.
+
+She remained; remained so long that it was nearly nine when she
+entered the family parlour. As she came in her mother looked up
+and was startled at her unaccustomed pallor.
+
+"Why, Agnes," cried her mother, "what is the matter?"
+
+Her answer was inaudible. What was the matter? She dreaded, even
+feared, to ask herself.
+
+Meantime a strange scene was taking place in the woods toward
+which she had seen Frederick go. The moon, which was particularly
+bright that night, shone upon a certain hollow where a huge tree
+lay. Around it the underbrush was thick and the shadow dark, but
+in this especial place the opening was large enough for the rays
+to enter freely. Into this circlet of light Frederick Sutherland
+had come. Alone and without the restraint imposed upon him by
+watching eyes, he showed a countenance so wan and full of trouble
+that it was well it could not be seen by either of the two women
+whose thoughts were at that moment fixed upon him. To Amabel it
+would have given a throb of selfish hope, while to Agnes it would
+have brought a pang of despair which might have somewhat too
+suddenly interpreted to her the mystery of her own sensations.
+
+He had bent at once to the hollow space made by the outspreading
+roots just mentioned, and was feeling with an air of confidence
+along the ground for something he had every reason to expect to
+find, when the shock of a sudden distrust seized him, and he flung
+himself down in terror, feeling and feeling again among the fallen
+leaves and broken twigs, till a full realisation of his misfortune
+reached him, and he was obliged to acknowledge that the place was
+empty.
+
+Overwhelmed at his loss, aghast at the consequences it must entail
+upon him, he rose in a trembling sweat, crying out in his anger
+and dismay:
+
+"She has been here! She has taken it!" And realising for the first
+time the subtlety and strength of the antagonist pitted against
+him, he forgot his new resolutions and even that old promise made
+in his childhood to Agatha Webb, and uttered oath after oath,
+cursing himself, the woman, and what she had done, till a casual
+glance at the heavens overhead, in which the liquid moon hung calm
+and beautiful, recalled him to himself. With a sense of shame, the
+keener that it was a new sensation in his breast, he ceased his
+vain repinings, and turning from the unhallowed spot, made his way
+with deeper and deeper misgivings toward a home made hateful to
+him now by the presence of the woman who was thus bent upon his
+ruin.
+
+He understood her now. He rated at its full value both her
+determination and her power, and had she been so unfortunate as to
+have carried her imprudence to the point of surprising him by her
+presence, it would have taken more than the memory of that day's
+solemn resolves to have kept him from using his strength against
+her. But she was wise, and did not intrude upon him in his hour of
+anger, though who could say she was not near enough to hear the
+sigh which broke irresistibly from his lips as he emerged from the
+wood and approached his father's house?
+
+A lamp was still burning in Mr. Sutherland's study over the front
+door, and the sight of it seemed to change for a moment the
+current of Frederick's thoughts. Pausing at the gate, he
+considered with himself, and then with a freer countenance and a
+lighter step was about to proceed inward, when he heard the sound
+of a heavy breather coming up the hill, and hesitated--why he
+hardly knew, except that every advancing step occasioned him more
+or less apprehension.
+
+The person, whoever it was, stopped before reaching the brow of
+the hill, and, panting heavily, muttered an oath which Frederick
+heard. Though it was no more profane than those which had just
+escaped his own lips in the forest, it produced an effect upon him
+which was only second in intensity to the terror of the discovery
+that the money he had so safely hidden was gone.
+
+Trembling in every limb, he dashed down the hill and confronted
+the person standing there.
+
+"You!" he cried, "you!" And for a moment he looked as if he would
+like to fell to the ground the man before him.
+
+But this man was a heavyweight of no ordinary physical strength
+and adroitness, and only smiled at Frederick's heat and
+threatening attitude.
+
+"I thought I would be made welcome," he smiled, with just the hint
+of sinister meaning in his tone. Then, before Frederick could
+speak: "I have merely saved you a trip to Boston; why so much
+anger, friend? You have the money; of that I am positive."
+
+"Hush! We can't talk here," whispered Frederick. "Come into the
+grounds, or, what would be better, into the woods over there."
+
+"I don't go into any woods with you," laughed the other; "not
+after last night, my friend. But I will talk low; that's no more
+than fair; I don't want to put you into any other man's power,
+especially if you have the money."
+
+"Wattles,"--Frederick's tone was broken, almost unintelligible,--
+"what do you mean by your allusion to last night? Have you dared
+to connect me---"
+
+"Pooh! Pooh!" interrupted the other, good-humouredly. "Don't let
+us waste words over a chance expression I may have dropped. I
+don't care anything about last night's work, or who was concerned
+in it. That's nothing to me. All I want, my boy, is the money, and
+that I want devilish bad, or I would not have run up here from
+Boston, when I might have made half a hundred off a countryman
+Lewis brought in from the Canada wilds this morning."
+
+"Wattles, I swear---"
+
+But the hand he had raised was quickly drawn down by the other.
+
+"Don't," said the older man, shortly. "It won't pay, Sutherland.
+Stage-talk never passed for anything with me. Besides, your white
+face tells a truer story than your lips, and time is precious. I
+want to take the 11 o'clock train back. So down with the cash.
+Nine hundred and fifty-five it is, but, being friends, we will let
+the odd five go."
+
+"Wattles, I was to bring it to you to-morrow, or was it the next
+day? I do not want to give it to you to-night; indeed, I cannot,
+but--Wattles, wait, stop! Where are you going?"
+
+"To see your father. I want to tell him that his son owes me a
+debt; that this debt was incurred in a way that lays him liable to
+arrest for forgery; that, bad as he thinks you, there are facts
+which can be picked up in Boston which would render Frederick
+Sutherland's continued residence under the parental roof
+impossible; that, in fact, you are a scamp of the first water, and
+that only my friendship for you has kept you out of prison so
+long. Won't that make a nice story for the old gentleman's ears!"
+
+"Wattles--I--oh, my God! Wattles, stop a minute and listen to me.
+I have not got the money. I had enough this morning to pay you,
+had it legitimately, Wattles, but it has been stolen from me and--
+-"
+
+"I will also tell him," the other broke in, as quietly as if
+Frederick had not uttered a word, "that in a certain visit to
+Boston you lost five hundred dollars on one hand; that you lost it
+unfairly, not having a dollar to pay with; that to prevent scandal
+I be came your security, with the understanding that I was to be
+paid at the end of ten days from that night; that you thereupon
+played again and lost four hundred and odd more, so that your debt
+amounted to nine hundred and fifty-five dollars; that the ten days
+passed without payment; that, wanting money, I pressed you and
+even resorted to a threat or two; and that, seeing me in earnest,
+you swore that the dollars should be mine within five days; that
+instead of remaining in Boston to get them, you came here; and
+that this morning at a very early hour you telegraphed that the
+funds were to hand and that you would bring them down to me to-
+morrow. The old gentleman may draw conclusions from this,
+Sutherland, which may make his position as your father anything
+but grateful to him. He may even--Ah, you would try that game,
+would you?"
+
+The young man had flung himself at the older man's throat as if he
+would choke off the words he saw trembling on his lips. But the
+struggle thus begun was short. In a moment both stood panting, and
+Frederick, with lowered head, was saying humbly:
+
+"I beg pardon, Wattles, but you drive me mad with your suggestions
+and conclusions. I have not got the money, but I will try and get
+it. Wait here."
+
+"For ten minutes, Sutherland; no longer! The moon is bright, and I
+can see the hands of my watch distinctly. At a quarter to ten, you
+will return here with the amount I have mentioned, or I will seek
+it at your father's hands in his own study."
+
+Frederick made a hurried gesture and vanished up the walk. Next
+moment he was at his father's study door.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WATTLES GOES
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was busily engaged with a law paper when his son
+entered his presence, but at sigh of that son's face, he dropped
+the paper with an alacrity which Frederick was too much engaged
+with his own thoughts to notice.
+
+"Father," he began without preamble or excuse, "I am in serious
+and immediate need of nine hundred and fifty dollars. I want it so
+much that I ask you to make me a check for that amount to-night,
+conscious though I am that you have every right to deny me this
+request, and that my debt to you already passes the bound of
+presumption on my part and indulgence on yours. I cannot tell you
+why I want it or for what. That belongs to my past life, the
+consequences of which I have not yet escaped, but I feel bound to
+state that you will not be the loser by this material proof of
+confidence in me, as I shall soon be in a position to repay all my
+debts, among which this will necessarily stand foremost."
+
+The old gentleman looked startled and nervously fingered the paper
+he had let fall. "Why do you say you will soon be in a position to
+repay me? What do you mean by that?"
+
+The flash, which had not yet subsided from the young man's face,
+ebbed slowly away as he encountered his father's eye.
+
+"I mean to work," he murmured. "I mean to make a man of myself as
+soon as possible."
+
+The look which Mr. Sutherland gave him was more inquiring than
+sympathetic.
+
+"And you need this money for a start?" said he.
+
+Frederick bowed; he seemed to be losing the faculty of speech. The
+clock over the mantel had told off five of the precious moments.
+
+"I will give it to you," said his father, and drew out his check-
+book. But he did not hasten to open it; his eyes still rested on
+his son.
+
+"Now," murmured the young man. "There is a train leaving soon. I
+wish to get it away on that train."
+
+His father frowned with natural distrust.
+
+"I wish you would confide in me," said he.
+
+Frederick did not answer. The hands of the clock were moving on.
+
+"I will give it to you; but I should like to know what for."
+
+"It is impossible for me to tell you," groaned the young man,
+starting as he heard a step on the walk without.
+
+"Your need has become strangely imperative," proceeded the other.
+"Has Miss Page---"
+
+Frederick took a step forward and laid his hand on his father's
+arm.
+
+"It is not for her," he whispered. "It goes into other hands."
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had turned over the document as his son
+approached, breathed more easily. Taking up his pen, he dipped it
+in the ink. Frederick watched him with constantly whitening cheek.
+The step on the walk had mounted to the front door.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty?" inquired the father.
+
+"Nine hundred and fifty," answered the son.
+
+The judge, with a last look, stooped over the book. The hands of
+the clock pointed to a quarter to ten.
+
+"Father, I have my whole future in which to thank you," cried
+Frederick, seizing the check his father held out to him and making
+rapidly for the door. "I will be back before midnight." And he
+flung himself down-stairs just as the front door opened and
+Wattles stepped in.
+
+"Ah," exclaimed the latter, as his eye fell on the paper
+fluttering in the other's hand, "I expected money, not paper."
+
+"The paper is good," answered Frederick, drawing him swiftly out
+of the house. "It has my father's signature upon it."
+
+"Your father's signature?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Wattles gave it a look, then slowly shook his head at Frederick.
+
+"Is it as well done as the one you tried to pass off on Brady?"
+
+Frederick cringed, and for a moment looked as if the struggle was
+too much for him. Then he rallied and eying Wattles firmly, said:
+
+"You have a right to distrust me, but you are on the wrong track,
+Wattles. What I did once, I can never do again; and I hope I may
+live to prove myself a changed man. As for that check, I will soon
+prove its value in your eyes. Follow me up-stairs to my father."
+
+His energy--the energy of despair, no doubt seemed to make an
+impression on the other.
+
+"You might as well proclaim yourself a forger outright, as to
+force your father to declare this to be his signature," he
+observed.
+
+"I know it," said Frederick.
+
+"Yet you will run that risk?"
+
+"If you oblige me."
+
+Wattles shrugged his shoulders. He was a magnificent-looking man
+and towered in that old colonial hall like a youthful giant.
+
+"I bear you no ill will," said he. "If this represents money, I am
+satisfied, and I begin to think it does. But listen, Sutherland.
+Something has happened to you. A week ago you would have put a
+bullet through my head before you would have been willing to have
+so compromised yourself. I think I know what that something is. To
+save yourself from being thought guilty of a big crime you are
+willing to incur suspicion of a small one. It's a wise move, my
+boy, but look out! No tricks with me or my friendship may not
+hold. Meantime, I cash this check to-morrow." And he swung away
+through the night with a grand-opera selection on his lips.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+A FINAL TEMPTATION
+
+
+Frederick looked like a man thoroughly exhausted when the final
+echo of this hateful voice died away on the hillside. For the last
+twenty hours he had been the prey of one harrowing emotion after
+another, and human nature could endure no more without rest.
+
+But rest would not come. The position in which he found himself,
+between Amabel and the man who had just left, was of too
+threatening a nature for him to ignore. But one means of escape
+presented itself. It was a cowardly one; but anything was better
+than to make an attempt to stand his ground against two such
+merciless antagonists; so he resolved upon flight.
+
+Packing up a few necessaries and leaving a letter behind him for
+his father, he made his way down the stairs of the now darkened
+house to a door opening upon the garden. To his astonishment he
+found it unlocked, but, giving little heed to this in his
+excitement, he opened it with caution, and, with a parting sigh
+for the sheltering home he was about to leave forever, stepped
+from the house he no longer felt worthy to inhabit.
+
+His intention was to take the train at Portchester, and that he
+might reach that place without inconvenient encounters, he decided
+to proceed by a short cut through the fields. This led him north
+along the ridge that overlooks the road running around the base of
+the hill. He did not think of this road, however, or of anything,
+in fact, but the necessity of taking the very earliest train out
+of Portchester. As this left at 3.30 A.M., he realised that he
+must hasten in order to reach it. But he was not destined to take
+it or any other train out of Portchester that night, for when he
+reached the fence dividing Mr. Sutherland's grounds from those of
+his adjoining neighbour, he saw, drawn up in the moonlight just at
+the point where he had intended to leap the fence, the form of a
+woman with one hand held out to stop him.
+
+It was Amabel.
+
+Confounded by this check and filled with an anger that was nigh to
+dangerous, he fell back and then immediately sprang forward.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he cried. "Don't you know that it is
+eleven o'clock and that my father requires the house to be closed
+at that hour?"
+
+"And you?" was her sole retort; "what are you doing here? Are you
+searching for flowers in the woods, and is that valise you carry
+the receptacle in which you hope to put your botanical specimens?"
+
+With a savage gesture he dropped the valise and took her fiercely
+by the shoulders.
+
+"Where have you hidden my money?" he hissed. "Tell me, or---"
+
+"Or what?" she asked, smiling into his face in a way that made him
+lose his grip.
+
+"Or--or I cannot answer for myself," he proceeded, stammering. "Do
+you. think I can endure everything from you because you are a
+woman? No; I will have those bills, every one of them, or show
+myself your master. Where are they, you incarnate fiend?"
+
+It was an unwise word to use, but she did not seem to heed it.
+
+"Ah," she said softly, and with a lingering accent, as if his
+grasp of her had been a caress to which she was not entirely
+averse. "I did not think you would discover its loss so soon. When
+did you go to the woods, Frederick? And was Miss Halliday with
+you?"
+
+He had a disposition to strike her, but controlled himself. Blows
+would not avail against the softness of this suave, yet merciless,
+being. Only a will as strong as her own could hope to cope with
+this smiling fury; and this he was determined to show, though,
+alas! he had everything to lose in a struggle that robbed her of
+nothing but a hope which was but a baseless fabric at best; for he
+was more than ever determined never to marry her.
+
+"A man does not need to wait long to miss his own," said he. "And
+if you have taken this money, which, you do not deny, you have
+shown yourself very short-sighted, for danger lies closer to the
+person holding this money than to the one you vilify by your
+threats. This you will find, Amabel, when you come to make use of
+the weapon with which you have thought to arm yourself."
+
+"Tut, tut!" was her contemptuous reply. "Do you consider me a
+child? Do I look like a babbling infant, Frederick?"
+
+Her face, which had been lifted to his in saying this, was so
+illumined, both by her smile, which was strangely enchanting for
+one so evil, and by the moon-light, which so etherialises all that
+it touches, that he found himself forced to recall that other
+purer, truer face he had left at the honeysuckle porch to keep
+down a last wild impulse toward her, which would have been his
+undoing, both in this world and the next, as he knew.
+
+"Or do I look simply like a woman?" she went on, seeing the
+impression she had made, and playing upon it. "A woman who
+understands herself and you and all the secret perils of the game
+we are both playing? If I am a child, treat me as a child; but if
+I am a woman---"
+
+"Stand out of my way!" he cried, catching up his valise and
+striding furiously by her. "Woman or child, know that I will not
+be your plaything to be damned in this world and in the next."
+
+"Are you bound for the city of destruction?" she laughed, not
+moving, but showing such confidence in her power to hold him back
+that he stopped in spite of himself. "If so, you are taking the
+direct road there and have only to hasten. But you had better
+remain in your father's house; even if you are something of a
+prisoner there, like my very insignificant self. The outcome will
+be more satisfactory, even if you have to share your future with
+me."
+
+"And what course will you take," he asked, pausing with his hand
+on the fence, "if I decide to choose destruction without you,
+rather than perdition with you?"
+
+"What course? Why, I shall tell Dr. Talbot just enough to show you
+to be as desirable a witness in the impending inquest as myself.
+The result I leave to your judgment. But you will not drive me to
+this extremity. You will come back and--"
+
+"Woman, I will never come back. I shall have to dare your worst in
+a week and will begin by daring you now. I--"
+
+But he did not leap the fence, though he made a move to do so, for
+at that moment a party of men came hurrying by on the lower road,
+one of whom was heard to say:
+
+"I will bet my head that we will put our hand on Agatha Webb's
+murderer to-night. The man who shoves twenty-dollar bills around
+so heedlessly should not wear a beard so long it leads to
+detection."
+
+It was the coroner, the constable, Knapp, and Abel on their way to
+the forest road on which lived John and James Zabel.
+
+Frederick and Amabel confronted each other, and after a moment's
+silence returned as if by a common impulse towards the house.
+
+"What have they got in their heads?" queried she. "Whatever it is,
+it may serve to occupy them till the week of your probation is
+over."
+
+He did not answer. A new and overwhelming complication had been
+added to the difficulties of his situation.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THE ZABELS VISITED
+
+
+Let us follow the party now winding up the hillside.
+
+In a deeply wooded spot on a side road stood the little house to
+which John and James Zabel had removed when their business on the
+docks had terminated. There was no other dwelling of greater or
+lesser pretension on the road, which may account for the fact that
+none of the persons now approaching it had been in that
+neighbourhood for years, though it was by no means a long walk
+from the village in which they all led such busy lives.
+
+The heavy shadows cast by the woods through which the road
+meandered were not without their effect upon the spirits of the
+four men passing through them, so that long before they reached
+the opening in which the Zabel cottage stood, silence had fallen
+upon the whole party. Dr. Talbot especially looked as if he little
+relished this late visit to his old friends, and not till they
+caught a glimpse of the long sloping roof and heavy chimney of the
+Zabel cottage did he shake off the gloom incident to the nature of
+his errand.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, coming to a sudden halt, "let us understand
+each other. We are about to make a call on two of our oldest and
+most respectable townsfolk. If in the course of that call I choose
+to make mention of the twenty-dollar bill left with Loton, well
+and good, but if not, you are to take my reticence as proof of my
+own belief that they had nothing to do with it."
+
+Two of the party bowed; Knapp, only, made no sign.
+
+"There is no light in the window," observed Abel. "What if we find
+them gone to bed?"
+
+"We will wake them," said the constable. "I cannot go back without
+being myself assured that no more money like that given to Loton
+remains in the house."
+
+"Very well," remarked Knapp, and going up to the door before him,
+he struck a resounding knock sufficiently startling in that place
+of silence.
+
+But loud as the summons was it brought no answer. Not only the
+moon-lighted door, but the little windows on each side of it
+remained shut, and there was no evidence that the knock had been
+heard.
+
+"Zabel! John Zabel!" shouted the constable, stepping around the
+side of the house. "Get up, my good friends, and let an old crony
+in. James! John! Late as it is, we have business with you. Open
+the door; don't stop to dress."
+
+But this appeal received no more recognition than the first, and
+after rapping on the window against which he had flung the words,
+he came back and looked up and down the front of the house.
+
+It had a solitary aspect and was much less comfortable-looking
+than he had expected. Indeed, there were signs of poverty, or at
+least of neglect, about the place that astonished him. Not only
+had the weeds been allowed to grow over the doorstep, but from the
+unpainted front itself bits of boards had rotted away, leaving
+great gaps about the window-ledges and at the base of the sunken
+and well-nigh toppling chimney. The moon flooding the roof showed
+up all these imperfections with pitiless insistence, and the torn
+edges of the green paper shades that half concealed the rooms
+within were plainly to be seen, as well as the dismantled knocker
+which hung by one nail to the old cracked door. The vision of
+Knapp with his ear laid against this door added to the forlorn and
+sinister aspect of the scene, and gave to the constable, who
+remembered the brothers in their palmy days when they were the
+life and pride of the town, a by no means agreeable sensation, as
+he advanced toward the detective and asked him what they should do
+now.
+
+"Break down the door!" was the uncompromising reply. "Or, wait!
+The windows of country houses are seldom fastened; let me see if I
+cannot enter by some one of them."
+
+"Better not," said the coroner, with considerable feeling. "Let us
+exhaust all other means first." And he took hold of the knob of
+the door to shake it, when to his surprise it turned and the door
+opened. It had not been locked.
+
+Rather taken aback by this, he hesitated. But Knapp showed less
+scruple. Without waiting for any man's permission, he glided in
+and stepped cautiously, but without any delay, into a room the
+door of which stood wide open before him. The constable was about
+to follow when he saw Knapp come stumbling back.
+
+"Devilish work," he muttered, and drew the others in to see.
+
+Never will any of these men forget the sight that there met their
+eyes.
+
+On the floor near the entrance lay one brother, in a streak of
+moonlight, which showed every feature of his worn and lifeless
+face, and at a table drawn up in the centre of the room sat the
+other, rigid in death, with a book clutched in his hand.
+
+Both, had been dead some time, and on the faces and in the aspects
+of both was visible a misery that added its own gloom to the
+pitiable and gruesome scene, and made the shining of the great
+white moon, which filled every corner of the bare room, seem a
+mockery well-nigh unendurable to those who contemplated it. John,
+dead in his chair! James, dead on the floor!
+
+Knapp, who of all present was least likely to feel the awesome
+nature of the tragedy, was naturally the first to speak.
+
+"Both wear long beards," said he, "but the one lying on the floor
+was doubtless Loton's customer. Ah!" he cried, pointing at the
+table, as he carefully crossed the floor. "Here is the bread, and-
+-" Even he had his moments of feeling. The appearance of that loaf
+had stunned him; one corner of it had been gnawed off.
+
+"A light! let us have a light!" cried Mr. Fenton, speaking for the
+first time since his entrance. "These moonbeams are horrible; see
+how they cling to the bodies as if they delighted in lighting up
+these wasted and shrunken forms."
+
+"Could it have been hunger?" began Abel, tremblingly following
+Knapp's every movement as he struck a match and lit a lantern
+which he had brought in his pocket.
+
+"God help us all if it was!" said Fenton, in a secret remorse no
+one but Dr. Talbot understood. "But who could have believed it of
+men who were once so prosperous? Are you sure that one of them has
+gnawed this bread? Could it not have been--"
+
+"These are the marks of human teeth," observed Knapp, who was
+examining the loaf carefully. "I declare, it makes me very
+uncomfortable, notwithstanding it's in the line of regular
+experiences." And he laid the bread down hurriedly.
+
+Meantime, Mr. Fenton, who had been bending over another portion of
+the table, turned and walked away to the window.
+
+"I am glad they are dead," he muttered. "They have at least shared
+the fate of their victims. Take a look under that old handkerchief
+lying beside the newspaper, Knapp."
+
+The detective did so. A three-edged dagger, with a curiously
+wrought handle, met his eye. It had blood dried on its point, and
+was, as all could see, the weapon with which Agatha Webb had been
+killed.
+
+
+
+
+XYI
+
+LOCAL TALENT AT WORK
+
+
+"Gentlemen, we have reached the conclusion of this business sooner
+than I expected," announced Knapp. "If you will give me just ten
+minutes I will endeavour to find that large remainder of money we
+have every reason to think is hidden away in this house."
+
+"Stop a minute," said the coroner. "Let me see what book John is
+holding so tightly. Why," he exclaimed, drawing it out and giving
+it one glance, "it is a Bible."
+
+Laying it reverently down he met the detective's astonished glance
+and seriously remarked:
+
+"There is some incongruity between the presence of this book and
+the deed we believe to have been performed down yonder."
+
+"None at all," quoth the detective. "It was not the man in the
+chair, but the one on the floor, who made use of that dagger. But
+I wish you had left it to me to remove that book, sir."
+
+"You? and why? What difference would it have made?"
+
+"I would have noticed between what pages his finger was inserted.
+Nothing like making yourself acquainted with every detail in a
+case like this."
+
+Dr. Talbot gazed wistfully at the book. He would have liked to
+know himself on what especial passage his friend's eyes had last
+rested.
+
+"I will stand aside," said he, "and hear your report when you are
+done."
+
+The detective had already begun his investigations.
+
+"Here is a spot of blood," said he. "See! on the right trouser leg
+of the one you call James. This connects him indisputably with the
+crime in which this dagger was used. No signs of violence on his
+body. She was the only one to receive a blow. His death is the
+result of God's providence."
+
+"Or man's neglect," muttered the constable.
+
+"There is no money in any of their pockets, or on either wasted
+figure," the detective continued, after a few minutes of silent
+search. "It must be hidden in the room, or--look through that
+Bible, sirs."
+
+The coroner, glad of an opportunity to do something, took up the
+book, and ran hurriedly through its leaves, then turned it and
+shook it out over the table. Nothing fell out; the bills must be
+looked for elsewhere.
+
+"The furniture is scanty," Abel observed, with an inquiring look
+about him.
+
+"Very, very scanty," assented the constable, still with that
+biting remorse at his heart.
+
+"There is nothing in this cupboard," pursued the detective,
+swinging open a door in the wall, "but a set of old china more or
+less nicked."
+
+Abel started. An old recollection had come up. Some weeks before,
+he had been present when James had made an effort to sell this
+set. They were all in Warner's store, and James Zabel (he could
+see his easy attitude yet, and hear the off-hand tones with which
+he tried to carry the affair off) had said, quite as if he had
+never thought of it before: "By the by, I have a set of china at
+the house which came over in the Mayflower. John likes it, but it
+has grown to be an eyesore to me, and if you hear of anybody who
+has a fancy for such things, send him up to the cottage. I will
+let it go for a song." Nobody answered, and James disappeared. It
+was the last time, Abel remembered, that he had been seen about
+town.
+
+"I can't stand it," cried the lad. "I can't stand it. If they died
+of hunger I must know it. I am going to take a look at their
+larder." And before anyone could stop him he dashed to the rear of
+the house.
+
+The constable would have liked to follow him, but he looked about
+the walls of the room instead. John and James had been fond of
+pictures and had once indulged their fancy to the verge of
+extravagance, but there were no pictures on the walls now, nor was
+there so much as a candlestick on the empty and dust-covered
+mantel. Only on a bracket in one corner there was a worthless
+trinket made out of cloves and beads which had doubtless been
+given them by some country damsel in their young bachelor days.
+But nothing of any value anywhere, and Mr. Fenton felt that he now
+knew why they had made so many visits to Boston at one time, and
+why they always returned with a thinner valise than they took
+away. He was still dwelling on the thought of the depths of misery
+to which highly respectable folks can sink without the knowledge
+of the nearest neighbours, when Abel came back looking greatly
+troubled.
+
+"It is the saddest thing I ever heard of," said he. "These men
+must have been driven wild by misery. This room is sumptuous in
+comparison to the ones at the back; and as for the pantry, there
+is not even a scrap there a mouse could eat. I struck a match and
+glanced into the flour barrel. It looked as if it had been licked.
+I declare, it makes a fellow feel sick."
+
+The constable, with a shudder, withdrew towards the door.
+
+"The atmosphere here is stifling," said he. "I must have a breath
+of out-door air."
+
+But he was not destined to any such immediate relief. As he moved
+down the hall the form of a man darkened the doorway and he heard
+an anxious voice exclaim:
+
+"Ah, Mr. Fenton, is that you? I have been looking for you
+everywhere."
+
+It was Sweetwater, the young man who had previously shown so much
+anxiety to be of service to the coroner.
+
+Mr. Fenton looked displeased.
+
+"And how came you to find me here?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, some men saw you take this road, and I guessed the rest."
+
+"Oh, ah, very good. And what do you want, Sweetwater?"
+
+The young man, who was glowing with pride and all alive with an
+enthusiasm which he had kept suppressed for hours, slipped up to
+the constable and whispered in his ear: "I have made a discovery,
+sir. I know you will excuse the presumption, but I couldn't bring
+myself to keep quiet and follow in that other fellow's wake. I had
+to make investigations on my own account, and--and"--stammering in
+his eagerness "they have been successful, sir. I have found out
+who was the murderer of Agatha Webb."
+
+The constable, compassionating the disappointment in store for
+him, shook his head, with a solemn look toward the room from which
+he had just emerged. "You are late, Sweetwater," said he. "We have
+found him out ourselves, and he lies there, dead."
+
+It was dark where they stood and Sweetwater's back was to the
+moonlight, so that the blank look which must have crossed his face
+at this announcement was lost upon the constable. But his
+consternation was evident from the way he thrust out either hand
+to steady himself against the walls of the narrow passageway, and
+Mr. Fenton was not at all surprised to hear him stammer out:
+
+"Dead! He! Whom do you mean by he, Mr. Fenton?"
+
+"The man in whose house we now are," returned the other. "Is there
+anyone else who can be suspected of this crime?"
+
+Sweetwater gave a gulp that seemed to restore him to himself.
+
+"There are two men living here, both very good men, I have heard.
+Which of them do you mean, and why do you think that either John
+or James Zabel killed Agatha Webb?"
+
+For reply Mr. Fenton drew him toward the room in which such a
+great heart-tragedy had taken place.
+
+"Look," said he, "and see what can happen in a Christian land, in
+the midst of Christian people living not fifty rods away. These
+men are dead, Sweetwater, dead from hunger. The loaf of bread you
+see there came too late. It was bought with a twenty-dollar bill,
+taken from Agatha Webb's cupboard drawer."
+
+Sweetwater, to whom the whole scene seemed like some horrible
+nightmare, stared at the figure of James lying on the floor, and
+then at the figure of John seated at the table, as if his mind had
+failed to take in the constable's words.
+
+"Dead!" he murmured. "Dead! John and James Zabel. What will happen
+next? Is the town under a curse?" And he fell on his knees before
+the prostrate form of James, only to start up again as he saw the
+eyes of Knapp resting on him.
+
+"Ah," he muttered, "the detective!" And after giving the man from
+Boston a close look he turned toward Mr. Fenton.
+
+"You said something about this good old man having killed Agatha
+Webb. What was it? I was too dazed to take it in."
+
+Mr. Fenton, not understanding the young man's eagerness, but
+willing enough to enlighten him as to the situation, told him what
+reasons there were for ascribing the crime in the Webb cottage to
+the mad need of these starving men. Sweetwater listened with open
+eyes and confused bearing, only controlling himself when his eyes
+by chance fell upon the quiet figure of the detective, now moving
+softly to and fro through the room.
+
+"But why murder when he could have had his loaf for the asking?"
+remonstrated Sweetwater. "Agatha Webb would have gone without a
+meal any time to feed a wandering tramp; how much more to supply
+the necessities of two of her oldest and dearest friends!"
+
+"Yes," remarked Fenton, "but you forget or perhaps never knew that
+the master passion of these men was pride. James Zabel ask for
+bread! I can much sooner imagine him stealing it; yes, or striking
+a blow for it, so that the blow shut forever the eyes that saw him
+do it."
+
+"You don't believe your own words, Mr. Fenton. How can you?"
+Sweetwater's hand was on the breast of the accused man as he
+spoke, and his manner was almost solemn. "You must not take it for
+granted," he went on, his green eyes twinkling with a curious
+light, "that all wisdom comes from Boston. We in Sutherlandtown
+have some sparks of it, if they have not yet been recognised. You
+are satisfied"--here he addressed himself to Knapp--"that the blow
+which killed Agatha Webb was struck by this respectable old man?"
+
+Knapp smiled as if a child had asked him this question; but he
+answered him good-humouredly enough.
+
+"You see the dagger lying here with which the deed was done, and
+you see the bread that was bought from Loton with a twenty-dollar
+bill of Agatha Webb's money. In these you can read my answer."
+
+"Good evidence," acknowledged Sweetwater--"very good evidence,
+especially when we remember that Mr. Crane met an old man rushing
+from her gateway with something glittering in his hand. I never
+was so beat in my life, and yet--and yet--if I could have a few
+minutes of quiet thought all by myself I am certain I could show
+you that there is more to this matter than you think. Indeed, I
+know that there is, but I do not like to give my reasons till I
+have conquered the difficulties presented by these men having had
+the twenty-dollar bill."
+
+"What fellow is this?" suddenly broke in Knapp.
+
+"A fiddler, a nobody," quietly whispered Mr. Fenton in his ear.
+
+Sweetwater heard him and changed in a twinkling from the
+uncertain, half-baffled, wholly humble person they had just seen,
+to a man with a purpose strong enough to make him hold up his head
+with the best.
+
+"I am a musician," he admitted, "and I play on the violin for
+money whenever the occasion offers, something which you will yet
+congratulate yourselves upon if you wish to reach the root of this
+mysterious and dastardly crime. But that I am a nobody I deny, and
+I even dare to hope that you will agree with me in this estimate
+of myself before this very night is over. Only give me an
+opportunity for considering this subject, and the permission to
+walk for a few minutes about this house."
+
+"That is my prerogative," protested the detective firmly, but
+without any display of feeling. "I am the man employed to pick up
+whatever clews the place may present."
+
+"Have you picked up all that are to be found in this room?" asked
+Sweetwater calmly.
+
+Knapp shrugged his shoulders. He was very well satisfied with
+himself.
+
+"Then give me a chance," prayed Sweetwater. "Mr. Fenton," he urged
+more earnestly, "I am not the fool you take me for. I feel, I
+know, I have a genius for this kind of thing, and though I am not
+prepossessing to look at, and though I do play the fiddle, I swear
+there are depths to this affair which none of you have as yet
+sounded. Sirs, where are the nine hundred and eighty dollars in
+bills which go to make up the clean thousand that was taken from
+the small drawer at the back of Agatha Webb's cupboard?"
+
+"They are in some secret hiding-place, no doubt, which we will
+presently come upon as we go through the house," answered Knapp.
+
+"Umph! Then I advise you to put your hand on them as soon as
+possible," retorted Sweetwater. "I will confine myself to going
+over the ground you have already investigated." And with a sudden
+ignoring of the others' presence, which could only have sprung
+from an intense egotism or from an overwhelming belief in his own
+theory, he began an investigation of the room that threw the
+other's more commonplace efforts entirely in the shade.
+
+Knapp, with a slight compression of his lips, which was the sole
+expression of anger he ever allowed himself, took up his hat and
+made his bow to Mr. Fenton.
+
+"I see," said he, "that the sympathy of those present is with
+local talent. Let local talent work, then, sir, and when you feel
+the need of a man of training and experience, send to the tavern
+on the docks, where I will be found till I am notified that my
+services are no longer required."
+
+"No, no!" protested Mr. Fenton. "This boy's enthusiasm will soon
+evaporate. Let him fuss away if he will. His petty business need
+not interrupt us."
+
+"But he understands himself," whispered Knapp. "I should think he
+had been on our own force for years."
+
+"All the more reason to see what he's up to. Wait, if only to
+satisfy your curiosity. I shan't let many minutes go by before I
+pull him up."
+
+Knapp, who was really of a cold and unimpressionable temperament,
+refrained from further argument, and confined himself to watching
+the young man, whose movements seemed to fascinate him.
+
+"Astonishing!" Mr. Fenton heard him mutter to himself. "He's more
+like an eel than a man." And indeed the way Sweetwater wound
+himself out and in through that room, seeing everything that came
+under his eye, was a sight well worth any professional's
+attention. Pausing before the dead man on the floor, he held the
+lantern close to the white, worn face. "Ha!" said he, picking
+something from the long beard, "here's a crumb of that same bread.
+Did you see that, Mr. Knapp?"
+
+The question was so sudden and so sharp that the detective came
+near replying to it; but he bethought himself, and said nothing.
+
+"That settles which of the two gnawed the loaf," continued
+Sweetwater.
+
+The next minute he was hovering over the still more pathetic
+figure of John, sitting in the chair.
+
+"Sad! Sad!" he murmured.
+
+Suddenly he laid his finger on a small rent in the old man's faded
+vest. "You saw this, of course," said he, with a quick glance over
+his shoulder at the silent detective.
+
+No answer, as before.
+
+"It's a new slit," declared the officious youth, looking closer,
+"and--yes--there's blood on its edges. Here, take the lantern, Mr.
+Fenton, I must see how the skin looks underneath. Oh, gentlemen,
+no shirt! The poorest dockhand has a shirt! Brocaded vest and no
+shirt; but he's past our pity now. Ah, only a bruise over the
+heart. Sirs, what did you make out of this?"
+
+As none of them had even seen it, Knapp was not the only one to
+remain silent.
+
+"Shall I tell you what I make out of it?" said the lad, rising
+hurriedly from the floor, which he had as hurriedly examined.
+"This old man has tried to take his life with the dagger already
+wet with the blood of Agatha Webb. But his arm was too feeble. The
+point only pierced the vest, wiping off a little blood in its
+passage, then the weapon fell from his hand and struck the floor,
+as you will see by the fresh dent in the old board I am standing
+on. Have you anything to say against these simple deductions?"
+
+Again the detective opened his lips and might have spoken, but
+Sweetwater gave him no chance.
+
+"Where is the letter he was writing?" he demanded. "Have any of
+you seen any paper lying about here?"
+
+"He was not writing," objected Knapp; "he was reading; reading in
+that old Bible you see there."
+
+Sweetwater caught up the book, looked it over, and laid it down,
+with that same curious twinkle of his eye they had noted in him
+before.
+
+"He was writing," he insisted. "See, here is his pencil." And he
+showed them the battered end of a small lead-pencil lying on the
+edge of his chair.
+
+"Writing at some time," admitted Knapp.
+
+"Writing just before the deed," insisted Sweetwater. "Look at the
+fingers of his right hand. They have not moved since the pencil
+fell out of them."
+
+"The letter, or whatever it was, shall be looked for," declared
+the constable.
+
+Sweetwater bowed, his eyes roving restlessly into every nook and
+corner of the room.
+
+"James was the stronger of the two," he remarked; "yet there is no
+evidence that he made any attempt at suicide."
+
+"How do you know that it was suicide John attempted?" asked
+someone. "Why might not the dagger have fallen from James's hand
+in an effort to kill his brother?"
+
+"Because the dent in the floor would have been to the right of the
+chair instead of to the left," he returned. "Besides, James's hand
+would not have failed so utterly, since he had strength to pick up
+the weapon afterward and lay it where you found it."
+
+"True, we found it lying on the table," observed Abel, scratching
+his head in forced admiration of his old schoolmate.
+
+"All easy, very easy," Sweetwater remarked, seeing the wonder in
+every eye. "Matters like those are for a child's reading, but what
+is difficult, and what I find hard to come by, is how the twenty-
+dollar bill got into the old man's hand. He found it here, but
+how--"
+
+"Found it here? How do you know that?"
+
+"Gentlemen, that is a point I will make clear to you later, when I
+have laid my hand on a certain clew I am anxiously seeking. You
+know this is new work for me and I have to advance warily. Did any
+of you gentlemen, when you came into this room, detect the
+faintest odour of any kind of perfume?"
+
+"Perfume?" echoed Abel, with a glance about the musty apartment.
+"Rats, rather."
+
+Sweetwater shook his head with a discouraged air, but suddenly
+brightened, and stepping quickly across the floor, paused at one
+of the windows. It was that one in which the shade had been drawn.
+
+Peering at this shade he gave a grunt.
+
+"You must excuse me for a minute," said he; "I have not found what
+I wanted in this room and now must look outside for it. Will
+someone bring the lantern?"
+
+"I will," volunteered Knapp, with grim good humour. Indeed, the
+situation was almost ludicrous to him.
+
+"Bring it round the house, then, to the ground under this window,"
+ordered Sweetwater, without giving any sign that he noticed or
+even recognised the other's air of condescension. "And, gentlemen,
+please don't follow. It's footsteps I am after, and the fewer we
+make ourselves, the easier will it be for me to establish the clew
+I am after."
+
+Mr. Fenton stared. What had got into the fellow?
+
+The lantern gone, the room resumed its former appearance.
+
+Abel, who had been much struck by Sweetwater's mysterious
+manoeuvres, drew near Dr. Talbot and whispered in his ear: "We
+might have done without that fellow from Boston."
+
+To which the coroner replied:
+
+"Perhaps so, and perhaps not. Sweetwater has not yet proved his
+case; let us wait till he explains himself." Then, turning to the
+constable, he showed him an old-fashioned miniature, which he had
+found lying on James's breast, when he made his first examination.
+It was set with pearls and backed with gold and was worth many
+meals, for the lack of which its devoted owner had perished.
+
+"Agatha Webb's portrait," explained Talbot, "or rather Agatha
+Gilchrist's; for I presume this was painted when she and James
+were lovers."
+
+"She was certainly a beauty," commented Fenton, as he bent over
+the miniature in the moonlight. "I do not wonder she queened it
+over the whole country."
+
+"He must have worn it where I found it for the last forty years,"
+mused the doctor. "And yet men say that love is a fleeting
+passion. Well, after coming upon this proof of devotion, I find it
+impossible to believe James Zabel accountable for the death of one
+so fondly remembered. Sweetwater's instinct was truer than
+Knapp's."
+
+"Or ours," muttered Fenton.
+
+"Gentlemen," interposed Abel, pointing to a bright spot that just
+then made its appearance in the dark outline of the shade before
+alluded to, "do you see that hole? It was the sight of that prick
+in the shade which sent Sweetwater outside looking for footprints.
+See! Now his eye is to it" (as the bright spot became suddenly
+eclipsed). "We are under examination, sirs, and the next thing we
+will hear is that he's not the only person who's been peering into
+this room through that hole."
+
+He was so far right that the first words of Sweetwater on his re-
+entrance were: "It's all O. K., sirs. I have found my missing
+clew. James Zabel was not the only person who came up here from
+the Webb cottage last night." And turning to Knapp, who was losing
+some of his supercilious manner, he asked, with significant
+emphasis: "If, of the full amount stolen from Agatha Webb, you
+found twenty dollars in the possession of one man and nine hundred
+and eighty dollars in the possession of another, upon which of the
+two would you fix as the probable murderer of the good woman?"
+
+"Upon him who held the lion's share, of course."
+
+"Very good; then it is not in this cottage you will find the
+person most wanted. You must look--But there! first let me give
+you a glimpse of the money. Is there anyone here ready to
+accompany me in search of it? I shall have to take him a quarter
+of a mile farther up-hill."
+
+"You have seen the money? You know where it is?" asked Dr. Talbot
+and Mr. Fenton in one breath.
+
+"Gentlemen, I can put my hand on it in ten minutes."
+
+At this unexpected and somewhat startling statement Knapp looked
+at Dr. Talbot and Dr. Talbot looked at the constable, but only the
+last spoke.
+
+"That is saying a good deal. But no matter. I am willing to credit
+the assertion. Lead on, Sweetwater; I'll go with you."
+
+Sweetwater seemed to grow an inch taller in his satisfied vanity.
+"And Dr. Talbot?" he suggested.
+
+But the coroner's duty held him to the house and he decided not to
+accompany them. Knapp and Abel, however, yielded to the curiosity
+which had been aroused by these extraordinary promises, and
+presently the four men mentioned started on their small expedition
+up the hill.
+
+Sweetwater headed the procession. He had admonished silence, and
+his wish in this regard was so well carried out that they looked
+more like a group of spectres moving up the moon-lighted road,
+than a party of eager and impatient men. Not till they turned into
+the main thoroughfare did anyone speak. Then Abel could no longer
+restrain himself and he cried out:
+
+"We are going to Mr. Sutherland's."
+
+But Sweetwater quickly undeceived him.
+
+"No," said he, "only into the woods opposite his house."
+
+But at this Mr. Fenton drew him back.
+
+"Are you sure of yourself?" he said. "Have you really seen this
+money and is it concealed in this forest?"
+
+"I have seen the money," Sweetwater solemnly declared, "and it is
+hidden in these woods."
+
+Mr. Fenton dropped his arm, and they moved on till their way was
+blocked by the huge trunk of a fallen tree.
+
+"It is here we are to look," cried Sweetwater, pausing and
+motioning Knapp to turn his lantern on the spot where the shadows
+lay thickest. "Now, what do you see?" he asked.
+
+"The upturned roots of a great tree," said Mr. Fenton.
+
+"And under them?"
+
+"A hole, or, rather, the entrance to one."
+
+"Very good; the money is in that hole. Pull it out, Mr. Fenton."
+
+The assurance with which Sweetwater spoke was such that Mr. Fenton
+at once stooped and plunged his hand into the hole. But when,
+after a hurried search, he drew it out again, there was nothing in
+it; the place was empty. Sweetwater stared at Mr. Fenton amazed.
+
+"Don't you find anything?" he asked. "Isn't there a roll of bills
+in that hole?"
+
+"No," was the gloomy answer, after a renewed attempt and a second
+disappointment. "There is nothing to be found here. You are
+labouring under some misapprehension, Sweetwater."
+
+"But I can't be. I saw the money; saw it in the hand of the person
+who hid it there. Let me look for it, constable. I will not give
+up the search till I have turned the place topsy-turvy."
+
+Kneeling down in Mr. Fenton's place, he thrust his hand into the
+hole. On either side of him peered the faces of Mr. Fenton and
+Knapp. (Abel had slipped away at a whisper from Sweetwater.) They
+were lit with a similar expression of anxious interest and growing
+doubt. His own countenance was a study of conflicting and by no
+means cheerful emotions. Suddenly his aspect changed. With a quick
+twist of his lithe, if awkward, body, he threw himself lengthwise
+on the ground, and began tearing at the earth inside the hole,
+like a burrowing animal.
+
+"I cannot be mistaken. Nothing will make me believe it is not
+here. It has simply been buried deeper than I thought. Ah! What
+did I tell you? See here! And see here!"
+
+Bringing his hands into the full blaze of the light, he showed two
+rolls of new, crisp bills.
+
+"They were lying under half a foot of earth," said he, "but if
+they had been buried as deep as Grannie Fuller's well, I'd have
+unearthed them."
+
+Meantime Mr. Fenton was rapidly counting one roll and Knapp the
+other. The result was an aggregate sum of nine hundred and eighty
+dollars, just the amount Sweetwater had promised to show them.
+
+"A good stroke of business," cried Mr. Fenton. "And now,
+Sweetwater, whose is the hand that buried this treasure? Nothing
+is to be gained by preserving silence on this point any longer."
+
+Instantly the young man became very grave. With a quick glance
+around which seemed to embrace the secret recesses of the forest
+rather than the eager faces bending towards him, he lowered his
+voice and quietly said:
+
+"The hand that buried this money under the roots of this old tree
+is the same which you saw pointing downward at the spot of blood
+in Agatha Webb's front yard."
+
+"You do not mean Annabel Page!" cried Mr. Fenton, with natural
+surprise.
+
+"Yes, I do; and I am glad it is you who have named her."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE SLIPPERS, THE FLOWER, AND WHAT SWEETWATER MADE OF THEM
+
+
+A half-hour later these men were all closeted with Dr. Talbot in
+the Zabel kitchen. Abel had rejoined them, and Sweetwater was
+telling his story with great earnestness and no little show of
+pride.
+
+"Gentlemen, when I charge a young woman of respectable appearance
+and connections with such a revolting crime as murder, I do so
+with good reason, as I hope presently to make plain to you all.
+
+"Gentlemen, on the night and at the hour Agatha Webb was killed, I
+was playing with four other musicians in Mr. Sutherland's hallway.
+From the place where I sat I could see what went on in the parlour
+and also have a clear view of the passageway leading down to the
+garden door. As the dancing was going on in the parlour I
+naturally looked that way most, and this is how I came to note the
+eagerness with which, during the first part of the evening,
+Frederick Sutherland and Amabel Page came together in the
+quadrilles and country dances. Sometimes she spoke as she passed
+him, and sometimes he answered, but not always, although he never
+failed to show he was pleased with her or would have been if
+something--perhaps it was his lack of confidence in her, sirs--had
+not stood in the way of a perfect understanding. She seemed to
+notice that he did not always respond, and after a while showed
+less inclination to speak herself, though she did not fail to
+watch him, and that intently. But she did not watch him any more
+closely than I did her, though I little thought at the time what
+would come of my espionage. She wore a white dress and white
+shoes, and was as coquettish and seductive as the evil one makes
+them. Suddenly I missed her. She was in the middle of the dance
+one minute and entirely out of it the next. Naturally I supposed
+her to have slipped aside with Frederick Sutherland, but he was
+still in sight, looking so pale and so abstracted, however, I was
+sure the young miss was up to some sort of mischief. But what
+mischief? Watching and waiting, but no longer confining my
+attention to the parlour, I presently espied her stealing along
+the passageway I have mentioned, carrying a long cloak which she
+rolled up and hid behind the open door. Then she came back humming
+a gay little song which didn't deceive me for a moment. 'Good!'
+thought I, 'she and that cloak will soon join company.' And they
+did. As we were playing the Harebell mazurka I again caught sight
+of her stealthy white figure in that distant doorway. Seizing the
+cloak, she wrapped it round her, and with just one furtive look
+backwards, seen, I warrant, by no one but myself, she vanished in
+the outside dark. 'Now to note who follows her!' But nobody
+followed her. This struck me as strange, and having a natural love
+for detective work, in spite of my devotion to the arts, I
+consulted the clock at the foot of the stairs, and noting that it
+was half-past eleven, scribbled the hour on the margin of my
+music, with the intention of seeing how long my lady would linger
+outside alone. Gentlemen, it was two hours before I saw her face
+again. How she got back into the house I do not know. It was not
+by the garden door, for my eye seldom left it; yet at or near
+half-past one I heard her voice on the stair above me and saw her
+descend and melt into the crowd as if she had not been absent from
+it for more than five minutes. A half-hour later I saw her with
+Frederick again. They were dancing, but not with the same spirit
+as before, and even while I watched them they separated. Now where
+was Miss Page during those two long hours? I think I know, and it
+is time I unburdened myself to the police.
+
+"But first I must inform you of a small discovery I made while the
+dance was still in progress. Miss Page had descended the stairs,
+as I have said, from what I now know to have been her own room.
+Her dress was, in all respects, the same as before, with one
+exception--her white slippers had been exchanged for blue ones.
+This seemed to show that they had been rendered unserviceable, or
+at least unsightly, by the walk she had taken. This in itself was
+not remarkable nor would her peculiar escapade have made more than
+a temporary impression upon my curiosity if she had not afterward
+shown in my presence such an unaccountable and extraordinary
+interest in the murder which had taken place in the town below
+during the very hours of her absence from Mr. Sutherland's ball.
+This, in consideration of her sex, and her being a stranger to the
+person attacked, was remarkable, and, though perhaps I had no
+business to do what I did, I no sooner saw the house emptied of
+master and servants than I stole softly back, and climbed the
+stairs to her room. Had no good followed this intrusion, which, I
+am quite ready to acknowledge, was a trifle presumptuous, I would
+have held my peace in regard to it; but as I did make a discovery
+there, which has, as I believe, an important bearing on this
+affair, I have forced myself to mention it. The lights in the
+house having been left burning, I had no difficulty in finding her
+apartment. I knew it by the folderols scattered about. But I did
+not stop to look at them. I was on a search for her slippers, and
+presently came upon them, thrust behind an old picture in the
+dimmest corner of the room. Taking them down, I examined them
+closely. They were not only soiled, gentlemen, but dreadfully cut
+and rubbed. In short, they were ruined, and, thinking that the
+young lady herself would be glad to be rid of them, I quietly put
+them into my pocket, and carried them to my own home. Abel has
+just been for them, so you can see them for yourselves, and if
+your judgment coincides with mine, you will discover something
+more on them than mud."
+
+Dr. Talbot, though he stared a little at the young man's confessed
+theft, took the slippers Abel was holding out and carefully turned
+them over. They were, as Sweetwater had said, grievously torn and
+soiled, and showed, beside several deep earth-stains, a mark or
+two of a bright red colour, quite unmistakable in its character.
+
+"Blood," declared the coroner. "There is no doubt about it. Miss
+Page was where blood was spilled last night."
+
+"I have another proof against her," Sweetwater went on, in full
+enjoyment of his prominence amongst these men, who, up to now, had
+barely recognised his existence. "When, full of the suspicion that
+Miss Page had had a hand in the theft which had taken place at
+Mrs. Webb's house, if not in the murder that accompanied it, I
+hastened down to the scene of the tragedy, I met this young woman
+issuing from the front gate. She had just been making herself
+conspicuous by pointing out a trail of blood on the grass plot.
+Dr. Talbot, who was there, will remember how she looked on that
+occasion; but I doubt if he noticed how Abel here looked, or so
+much as remarked the faded flower the silly boy had stuck in his
+buttonhole."
+
+"--me if I did!" ejaculated the coroner.
+
+"Yet that flower has a very important bearing on this case. He had
+found it, as he will tell you, on the floor near Batsy's skirts,
+and as soon as I saw it in his coat, I bade him take it out and
+keep it, for, gentlemen, it was a very uncommon flower, the like
+of which can only be found in this town in Mr. Sutherland's
+conservatory. I remember seeing such a one in Miss Page's hair,
+early in the evening. Have you that flower about you, Abel?"
+
+Abel had, and being filled with importance too, showed it to the
+doctor and to Mr. Fenton. It was withered and faded in hue, but it
+was unmistakably an orchid of the rarest description.
+
+"It was lying near Batsy," explained Abel. "I drew Mr. Fenton's
+attention to it at the time, but he scarcely noticed it."
+
+"I will make up for my indifference now," said that gentleman.
+
+"I should have been shown that flower," put in Knapp.
+
+"So you should," acknowledged Sweetwater, "but when the detective
+instinct is aroused it is hard for a man to be just to his rivals;
+besides, I was otherwise occupied. I had Miss Page to watch.
+Happily for me, you had decided that she should not be allowed to
+leave town till after the inquest, and so my task became easy.
+This whole day I have spent in sight of Mr. Sutherland's house,
+and at nightfall I was rewarded by detecting her end a prolonged
+walk in the garden by a hurried dash into the woods opposite. I
+followed her and noted carefully all that she did. As she had just
+seen Frederick Sutherland and Miss Halliday disappear up the road
+together, she probably felt free to do as she liked, for she
+walked very directly to the old tree we have just come from, and
+kneeling down beside it pulled from the hole underneath something
+which rattled in her hand with that peculiar sound we associate
+with fresh bank-notes. I had approached her as near as I dared,
+and was peering around a tree trunk, when she stooped down again
+and plunged both hands into the hole. She remained in this
+position so long that I did not know what to make of it. But she
+rose at last and turned toward home, laughing to herself in a
+wicked but pleased way that did not tend to make me think any more
+of her. The moon was shining very brightly by this time and I
+could readily perceive every detail of her person. She held her
+hands out before her and shook them more than once as she trod by
+me, so I was sure there was nothing in them, and this is why I was
+so confident we should find the money still in the hole.
+
+"When I saw her enter the house, I set out to find you, but the
+court-house room was empty, and it was a long time before I
+learned where to look for you. But at last a fellow at Brighton's
+corner said he saw four men go by on their way to Zabel's cottage,
+and on the chance of finding you amongst them, I turned down here.
+The shock you gave me in announcing that you had discovered the
+murderer of Agatha Webb knocked me over for a moment, but now I
+hope you realise, as I do, that this wretched man could never have
+had an active hand in her death, notwithstanding the fact that one
+of the stolen bills has been found in his possession. For, and
+here is my great point, the proof is not wanting that Miss Page
+visited this house as well as Mrs. Webb's during her famous
+escapade; or at least stood under the window beneath which I have
+just been searching. A footprint can be seen there, sirs, a very
+plain footprint, and if Dr. Talbot will take the trouble to
+compare it with the slipper he holds in his hand, he will find it
+to have been made by the foot that wore that slipper."
+
+The coroner, with a quick glance from the slipper in his hand up
+to Sweetwater's eager face, showed a decided disposition to make
+the experiment thus suggested. But Mr. Fenton, whose mind was full
+of the Zabel tragedy, interrupted them with the question:
+
+"But how do you explain by this hypothesis the fact of James Zabel
+trying to pass one of the twenty-dollar bills stolen from Mrs.
+Webb's cupboard? Do you consider Miss Page generous enough to give
+him that money?"
+
+"You ask ME that, Mr. Fenton. Do you wish to know what _I_ think
+of the connection between these two great tragedies?"
+
+"Yes; you have earned a voice in this matter; speak, Sweetwater."
+
+"Well, then, I think Miss Page has made an effort to throw the
+blame of her own misdoing on one or both of these unfortunate old
+men. She is sufficiently cold-blooded and calculating to do so;
+and circumstances certainly favoured her. Shall I show how?"
+
+Mr. Fenton consulted Knapp, who nodded his head. The Boston
+detective was not without curiosity as to how Sweetwater would
+prove the case.
+
+"Old James Zabel had seen his brother sinking rapidly from
+inanition; this their condition amply shows. He was weak himself,
+but John was weaker, and in a moment of desperation he rushed out
+to ask a crumb of bread from Agatha Webb, or possibly--for I have
+heard some whispers of an old custom of theirs to join Philemon at
+his yearly merry-making and so obtain in a natural way the bite
+for himself and brother he perhaps had not the courage to ask for
+outright. But death had been in the Webb cottage before him, which
+awful circumstance, acting on his already weakened nerves, drove
+him half insane from the house and sent him wandering blindly
+about the streets for a good half-hour before he reappeared in his
+own house. How do I know this? From a very simple fact. Abel here
+has been to inquire, among other things, if Mr. Crane remembers
+the tune we were playing at the great house when he came down the
+main street from visiting old widow Walker. Fortunately he does,
+for the trip, trip, trip in it struck his fancy, and he has found
+himself humming it over more than once since. Well, that waltz was
+played by us at a quarter after midnight, which fixes the time of
+the encounter at Mrs. Webb's gateway pretty accurately. But, as
+you will soon see, it was ten minutes to one before James Zabel
+knocked at Loton's door. How do I know this? By the same method of
+reasoning by which I determined the time of Mr. Crane's encounter.
+Mrs. Loton was greatly pleased with the music played that night,
+and had all her windows open in order to hear it, and she says we
+were playing 'Money Musk' when that knocking came to disturb her.
+Now, gentlemen, we played 'Money Musk' just before we were called
+out to supper, and as we went to supper promptly at one, you can
+see just how my calculation was made. Thirty-five minutes, then,
+passed between the moment James Zabel was seen rushing from Mrs.
+Webb's gateway and that in which he appeared at Loton's bakery,
+demanding a loaf of bread, and offering in exchange one of the
+bills which had been stolen from the murdered woman's drawer.
+Thirty-five minutes! And he and his brother were starving. Does it
+look, then, as if that money was in his possession when he left
+Mrs. Webb's house? Would any man who felt the pangs of hunger as
+he did, or who saw a brother perishing for food before his eyes,
+allow thirty-five minutes to elapse before he made use of the
+money that rightfully or wrongfully had come into his hand? No;
+and so I say that he did not have it when Mr. Crane met him. That,
+instead of committing crime to obtain it, he found it in his own
+home, lying on his table, when, after his frenzied absence, he
+returned to tell his dreadful news to the brother he had left
+behind him. But how did it come there? you ask. Gentlemen,
+remember the footprints under the window. Amabel Page brought it.
+Having seen or perhaps met this old man roaming in or near the
+Webb cottage during the time she was there herself, she conceived
+the plan of throwing upon him the onus of the crime she had
+herself committed, and with a slyness to be expected from one so
+crafty, stole up to his home, made a hole in the shade hanging
+over an open window, looked into the room where John sat, saw that
+he was there alone and asleep, and, creeping in by the front door,
+laid on the table beside him the twenty-dollar bill and the bloody
+dagger with which she had just slain Agatha Webb. Then she stole
+out again, and in twenty minutes more was leading the dance in Mr.
+Sutherland's parlour."
+
+"Well reasoned!" murmured Abel, expecting the others to echo him.
+But, though Mr. Fenton and Dr. Talbot looked almost convinced,
+they said nothing, while Knapp, of course, was quiet as an oyster.
+
+Sweetwater, with an easy smile calculated to hide his
+disappointment, went on as if perfectly satisfied.
+
+"Meanwhile John awakes, sees the dagger, and thinks to end his
+misery with it, but finds himself too feeble. The cut in his vest,
+the dent in the floor, prove this, but if you call for further
+proof, a little fact, which some, if not all, of you seem to have
+overlooked, will amply satisfy you that this one at least of my
+conclusions is correct. Open the Bible, Abel; open it, not to
+shake it for what will never fall from between its leaves, but to
+find in the Bible itself the lines I have declared to you he wrote
+as a dying legacy with that tightly clutched pencil. Have you
+found them?"
+
+"No," was Abel's perplexed retort; "I cannot see any sign of
+writing on flyleaf or margin."
+
+"Are those the only blank places in the sacred book? Search the
+leaves devoted to the family record. Now! what do you find there?"
+
+Knapp, who was losing some of his indifference, drew nearer and
+read for himself the scrawl which now appeared to every eye on the
+discoloured page which Abel here turned uppermost.
+
+"Almost illegible," he said; "one can just make out these words:
+'Forgive me, James--tried to use dagger--found lying--but hand
+wouldn't--dying without--don't grieve--true men--haven't disgraced
+ourselves--God bless--' That is all."
+
+"The effort must have overcome him," resumed Sweetwater in a voice
+from which he carefully excluded all signs of secret triumph, "and
+when James returned, as he did a few minutes later, he was
+evidently unable to ask questions, even if John was in a condition
+to answer them. But the fallen dagger told its own story, for
+James picked it up and put it back on the table, and it was at
+this minute he saw, what John had not, the twenty-dollar bill
+lying there with its promise of life and comfort. Hope revives; he
+catches up the bill, flies down to Loton's, procures a loaf of
+bread, and comes frantically back, gnawing it as he runs; for his
+own hunger is more than he can endure. Re-entering his brother's
+presence, he rushes forward with the bread. But the relief has
+come too late; John has died in his absence; and James, dizzy with
+the shock, reels back and succumbs to his own misery. Gentlemen,
+have you anything to say in contradiction to these various
+suppositions?"
+
+For a moment Dr. Talbot, Mr. Fenton, and even Knapp stood silent;
+then the last remarked, with pardonable dryness:
+
+"All this is ingenious, but, unfortunately, it is up set by a
+little fact which you yourself have overlooked. Have you examined
+attentively the dagger of which you have so often spoken, Mr.
+Sweetwater?"
+
+"Not as I would like to, but I noticed it had blood on its edge,
+and was of the shape and size necessary to inflict the wound from
+which Mrs. Webb died."
+
+"Very good, but there is something else of interest to be observed
+on it. Fetch it, Abel."
+
+Abel, hurrying from the room, soon brought back the weapon in
+question. Sweetwater, with a vague sense of disappointment
+disturbing him, took it eagerly and studied it very closely. But
+he only shook his head.
+
+"Bring it nearer to the light," suggested Knapp, "and examine the
+little scroll near the top of the handle."
+
+Sweetwater did so, and at once changed colour. In the midst of the
+scroll were two very small but yet perfectly distinct letters;
+they were J. Z.
+
+"How did Amabel Page come by a dagger marked with the Zabel
+initials?" questioned Knapp. "Do you think her foresight went so
+far as to provide herself with a dagger ostensibly belonging to
+one of these brothers? And then, have you forgotten that when Mr.
+Crane met the old man at Mrs. Webb's gateway he saw in his hand
+something that glistened? Now what was that, if not this dagger?"
+
+Sweetwater was more disturbed than he cared to acknowledge.
+
+"That just shows my lack of experience," he grumbled. "I thought I
+had turned this subject so thoroughly over in my mind that no one
+could bring an objection against it."
+
+Knapp shook his head and smiled. "Young enthusiasts like yourself
+are great at forming theories which well-seasoned men like myself
+must regard as fantastical. However," he went on, "there is no
+doubt that Miss Page was a witness to, even if she has not
+profited by, the murder we have been considering. But, with this
+palpable proof of the Zabels' direct connection with the affair, I
+would not recommend her arrest as yet."
+
+"She should be under surveillance, though," intimated the coroner.
+
+"Most certainly," acquiesced Knapp.
+
+As for Sweetwater, he remained silent till the opportunity came
+for him to whisper apart to Dr. Talbot, when he said:
+
+"For all the palpable proof of which Mr. Knapp speaks--the J. Z.
+on the dagger, and the possibility of this being the object he was
+seen carrying out of Philemon Webb's gate--I maintain that this
+old man in his moribund condition never struck the blow that
+killed Agatha Webb. He hadn't strength enough, even if his
+lifelong love for her had not been sufficient to prevent him."
+
+The coroner looked thoughtful.
+
+"You are right," said he; "he hadn't strength enough. But don't
+expend too much energy in talk. Wait and see what a few direct
+questions will elicit from Miss Page."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+SOME LEADING QUESTIONS
+
+
+Frederick rose early. He had slept but little. The words he had
+overheard at the end of the lot the night before were still
+ringing in his ears. Going down the back stairs, in his anxiety to
+avoid Amabel, he came upon one of the stablemen.
+
+"Been to the village this morning?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir, but Lem has. There's great news there. I wonder if
+anyone has told Mr. Sutherland."
+
+"What news, Jake? I don't think my father is up yet."
+
+"Why, sir, there were two more deaths in town last night--the
+brothers Zabel; and folks do say (Lem heard it a dozen times
+between the grocery and the fish market) that it was one of these
+old men who killed Mrs. Webb. The dagger has been found in their
+house, and most of the money. Why, sir, what's the matter? Are you
+sick?"
+
+Frederick made an effort and stood upright. He had nearly fallen.
+
+"No; that is, I am not quite myself. So many horrors, Jake. What
+did they die of? You say they are both dead--both?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and it's dreadful to think of, but it was hunger, sir.
+Bread came too late. Both men are mere skeletons to look at. They
+have kept themselves close for weeks now, and nobody knew how bad
+off they were. I don't wonder it upset you, sir. We all feel it a
+bit, and I just dread to tell Mr. Sutherland."
+
+Frederick staggered away. He had never in his life been so near
+mental and physical collapse. At the threshold of the sitting-room
+door he met his father. Mr. Sutherland was looking both troubled
+and anxious; more so, Frederick thought, than when he signed the
+check for him on the previous night. As their eyes met, both
+showed embarrassment, but Frederick, whose nerves had been highly
+strung by what he had just heard, soon controlled himself, and
+surveying his father with forced calmness, began:
+
+"This is dreadful news, sir."
+
+But his father, intent on his own thought, hurriedly interrupted
+him.
+
+"You told me yesterday that everything was broken off between you
+and Miss Page. Yet I saw you reenter the house together last night
+a little while after I gave you the money you asked for."
+
+"I know, and it must have had a bad appearance. I entreat you,
+however, to believe that this meeting between Miss Page and myself
+was against my wish, and that the relations between us have not
+been affected by anything that passed between us."
+
+"I am glad to hear it, my son. You could not do worse by yourself
+than to return to your old devotion."
+
+"I agree with you, sir." And then, because he could not help it,
+Frederick inquired if he had heard the news.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, evidently startled, asked what news; to which
+Frederick replied:
+
+"The news about the Zabels. They are both dead, sir,--dead from
+hunger. Can you imagine it!"
+
+This was something so different from what his father had expected
+to hear, that he did not take it in at first. When he did, his
+surprise and grief were even greater than Frederick had
+anticipated. Seeing him so affected, Frederick, who thought that
+the whole truth would be no harder to bear than the half, added
+the suspicion which had been attached to the younger one's name,
+and then stood back, scarcely daring to be a witness to the
+outraged feelings which such a communication could not fail to
+awaken in one of his father's temperament.
+
+But though he thus escaped the shocked look which crossed his
+father's countenance, he could not fail to hear the indignant
+exclamation which burst from his lips, nor help perceiving that it
+would take more than the most complete circumstantial evidence to
+convince his father of the guilt of men he had known and respected
+for so many years.
+
+For some reason Frederick experienced great relief at this, and
+was bracing himself to meet the fire of questions which his
+statement must necessarily call forth, when the sound of
+approaching steps drew the attention of both towards a party of
+men coming up the hillside.
+
+Among them was Mr. Courtney, Prosecuting Attorney for the
+district, and as Mr. Sutherland recognised him he sprang forward,
+saying, "There's Courtney; he will explain this."
+
+Frederick followed, anxious and bewildered, and soon had the
+doubtful pleasure of seeing his father enter his study in company
+with the four men considered to be most interested in the
+elucidation of the Webb mystery.
+
+As he was lingering in an undecided mood in the small passageway
+leading up-stairs he felt the pressure of a finger on his
+shoulder. Looking up, he met the eyes of Amabel, who was leaning
+toward him over the banisters. She was smiling, and, though her
+face was not without evidences of physical languor, there was a
+charm about her person which would have been sufficiently
+enthralling to him twenty-four hours before, but which now caused
+him such a physical repulsion that he started back in the effort
+to rid his shoulder from her disturbing touch.
+
+She frowned. It was an instantaneous expression of displeasure
+which was soon lost in one of her gurgling laughs.
+
+"Is my touch so burdensome?" she demanded. "If the pressure of one
+finger is so unbearable to your sensitive nerves, how will you
+relish the weight of my whole hand?"
+
+There was a fierceness in her tone, a purpose in her look, that
+for the first time in his struggle with her revealed the full
+depth of her dark nature. Shrinking from her appalled, he put up
+his hand in protest, at which she changed again in a twinkling,
+and with a cautious gesture toward the room into which Mr.
+Sutherland and his friends had disappeared, she whispered
+significantly:
+
+"We may not have another chance to confer together. Understand,
+then, that it will not be necessary for you to tell me, in so many
+words, that you are ready to link your fortunes to mine; the
+taking off of the ring you wear and your slow putting of it on
+again, in my presence, will be understood by me as a token that
+you have reconsidered your present attitude and desire my silence
+and--myself."
+
+Frederick could not repress a shudder.
+
+For an instant he was tempted to succumb on the spot and have the
+long agony over. Then his horror of the woman rose to such a pitch
+that he uttered an execration, and, turning away from her face,
+which was rapidly growing loathsome to him, he ran out of the
+passageway into the garden, seeing as he ran a persistent vision
+of himself pulling off the ring and putting it back again, under
+the spell of a look he rebelled against even while he yielded to
+its influence.
+
+"I will not wear a ring, I will not subject myself to the
+possibility of obeying her behest under a sudden stress of fear or
+fascination," he exclaimed, pausing by the well-curb and looking
+over it at his reflection in the water beneath. "If I drop it here
+I at least lose the horror of doing what she suggests, under some
+involuntary impulse." But the thought that the mere absence of the
+ring from his finger would not stand in the way of his going
+through the motions to which she had just given such significance,
+deterred him from the sacrifice of a valuable family jewel, and he
+left the spot with an air of frenzy such as a man displays when he
+feels himself on the verge of a doom he can neither meet nor
+avert.
+
+As he re-entered the house, he felt himself enveloped in the
+atmosphere of a coming crisis. He could hear voices in the upper
+hall, and amongst them he caught the accents of her he had learned
+so lately to fear. Impelled by something deeper than curiosity and
+more potent even than dread, he hastened toward the stairs. When
+half-way up, he caught sight of Amabel. She was leaning back
+against the balustrade that ran across the upper hall, with her
+hands gripping the rail on either side of her and her face turned
+toward the five men who had evidently issued from Mr. Sutherland's
+study to interview her.
+
+As her back was to Frederick he could not judge of the expression
+of that face save by the effect it had upon the different men
+confronting her. But to see them was enough. From their looks he
+could perceive that this young girl was in one of her baffling
+moods, and that from his father down, not one of the men present
+knew what to make of her.
+
+At the sound his feet made, a relaxation took place in her body
+and she lost something of the defiant attitude she had before
+maintained. Presently he heard her voice:
+
+"I am willing to answer any questions you may choose to put to me
+here; but I cannot consent to shut myself in with you in that
+small study; I should suffocate."
+
+Frederick could perceive the looks which passed between the five
+men assembled before her, and was astonished to note that the
+insignificant fellow they called Sweetwater was the first to
+answer.
+
+"Very well," said he; "if you enjoy the publicity of the open
+hall, no one here will object. Is not that so, gentlemen?"
+
+Her two little fingers, which were turned towards Frederick, ran
+up and down the rail, making a peculiar rasping noise, which for a
+moment was the only sound to be heard. Then Mr. Courtney said:
+
+"How came you to have the handling of the money taken from Agatha
+Webb's private drawer?"
+
+It was a startling question, but it seemed to affect Amabel less
+than it did Frederick. It made him start, but she only turned her
+head a trifle aside, so that the peculiar smile with which she
+prepared to answer could be seen by anyone standing below.
+
+"Suppose you ask something less leading than that, to begin with,"
+she suggested, in her high, unmusical voice. "From the searching
+nature of this inquiry, you evidently believe I have information
+of an important character to give you concerning Mrs. Webb's
+unhappy death. Ask me about that; the other question I will answer
+later."
+
+The aplomb with which this was said, mixed as it was with a
+feminine allurement of more than ordinary subtlety, made Mr.
+Sutherland frown and Dr. Talbot look perplexed, but it did not
+embarrass Mr. Courtney, who made haste to respond in his dryest
+accents:
+
+"Very well, I am not particular as to what you answer first. A
+flower worn by you at the dance was found near Batsy's skirts,
+before she was lifted up that morning. Can you explain this, or,
+rather, will you?"
+
+"You are not obliged to, you know," put in Mr. Sutherland, with
+his inexorable sense of justice. "Still, if you would, it might
+rob these gentlemen of suspicions you certainly cannot wish them
+to entertain."
+
+"What I say," she remarked slowly, "will be as true to the facts
+as if I stood here on my oath. I can explain how a flower from my
+hair came to be in Mrs. Webb's house, but not how it came to be
+found under Batsy's feet. That someone else must clear up." Her
+little finger, lifted from the rail, pointed toward Frederick, but
+no one saw this, unless it was that gentleman himself. "I wore a
+purple orchid in my hair that night, and there would be nothing
+strange in its being afterward picked up in Mrs. Webb's house,
+because I was in that house at or near the time she was murdered."
+
+"You in that house?"
+
+"Yes, as far as the ground floor; no farther." Here the little
+finger stopped pointing. "I am ready to tell you about it, sirs,
+and only regret I have delayed doing so so long, but I wished to
+be sure it was necessary. Your presence here and your first
+question show that it is."
+
+There was suavity in her tone now, not unmixed with candour.
+Sweetwater did not seem to relish this, for he moved uneasily and
+lost a shade of his self-satisfied attitude. He had still to be
+made acquainted with all the ins and outs of this woman's
+remarkable nature.
+
+"We are waiting," suggested Dr. Talbot.
+
+She turned to face this new speaker, and Frederick was relieved
+from the sight of her tantalising smile.
+
+"I will tell my story simply," said she, "with the simple
+suggestion that you believe me; otherwise you will make a mistake.
+While I was resting from a dance the other night, I heard two of
+the young people talking about the Zabels. One of them was
+laughing at the old men, and the other was trying to relate some
+half-forgotten story of early love which had been the cause, she
+thought, of their strange and melancholy lives. I was listening to
+them, but I did not take in much of what they were saying till I
+heard behind me an irascible voice exclaiming: 'You laugh, do you?
+I wonder if you would laugh so easily if you knew that these two
+poor old men haven't had a decent meal in a fortnight?' I didn't
+know the speaker, but I was thrilled by his words. Not had a good
+meal, these men, for a fortnight! I felt as if personally guilty
+of their suffering, and, happening to raise my eyes at this minute
+and seeing through an open door the bountiful refreshments
+prepared for us in the supper room, I felt guiltier than ever.
+Suddenly I took a resolution. It was a queer one, and may serve to
+show you some of the oddities of my nature. Though I was engaged
+for the next dance, and though I was dressed in the flimsy
+garments suitable to the occasion, I decided to leave the ball and
+carry some sandwiches down to these old men. Procuring a bit of
+paper, I made up a bundle and stole out of the house without
+having said a word to anybody of my intention. Not wishing to be
+seen, I went out by the garden door, which is at the end of the
+dark hall--"
+
+"Just as the band was playing the Harebell mazurka," interpolated
+Sweetwater.
+
+Startled for the first time from her careless composure by an
+interruption of which it was impossible for her at that time to
+measure either the motive or the meaning, she ceased to play with
+her fingers on the baluster rail and let her eyes rest for a
+moment on the man who had thus spoken, as if she hesitated between
+her desire to annihilate him for his impertinence and a fear of
+the cold hate she saw actuating his every word and look. Then she
+went on, as if no one had spoken:
+
+"I ran down the hill recklessly. I was bent on my errand and not
+at all afraid of the dark. When I reached that part of the road
+where the streets branch off, I heard footsteps in front of me. I
+had overtaken someone. Slackening my pace, so that I should not
+pass this person, whom I instinctively knew to be a man, I
+followed him till I came to a high board fence. It was that
+surrounding Agatha Webb's house, and when I saw it I could not
+help connecting the rather stealthy gait of the man in front of me
+with a story I had lately heard of the large sum of money she was
+known to keep in her house. Whether this was before or after this
+person disappeared round the corner I cannot say, but no sooner
+had I become certain that he was bent upon entering this house
+than my impulse to follow him became greater than my precaution,
+and turning aside from the direct path to the Zabels', I hurried
+down High Street just in time to see the man enter Mrs. Webb's
+front gateway.
+
+"It was a late hour for visiting, but as the house had lights in
+both its lower and upper stories, I should by good rights have
+taken it for granted that he was an expected guest and gone on my
+way to the Zabels'. But I did not. The softness with which this
+person stepped and the skulking way in which he hesitated at the
+front gate aroused my worst fears, and after he had opened that
+gate and slid in, I was so pursued by the idea that he was there
+for no good that I stepped inside the gate myself and took my
+stand in the deep shadow cast by the old pear tree on the right-
+hand side of the walk. Did anyone speak?"
+
+There was a unanimous denial from the five gentlemen before her,
+yet she did not look satisfied.
+
+"I thought I heard someone make a remark," she repeated, and
+paused again for a half-minute, during which her smile was a
+study, it was so cold and in such startling contrast to the vivid
+glances she threw everywhere except behind her on the landing
+where Frederick stood listening to her every word.
+
+"We are very much interested," remarked Mr. Courtney. "Pray, go
+on."
+
+Drawing her left hand from the balustrade where it had rested, she
+looked at one of her fingers with an odd backward gesture.
+
+"I will," she said, and her tone was hard and threatening. "Five
+minutes, no longer, passed, when I was startled by a loud and
+terrible cry from the house, and looking up at the second-story
+window from which the sound proceeded, I saw a woman's figure
+hanging out in a seemingly pulseless condition. Too terrified to
+move, I clung trembling to the tree, hearing and not hearing the
+shouts and laughter of a dozen or more men, who at that minute
+passed by the corner on their way to the wharves. I was dazed, I
+was choking, and only came to myself when, sooner or later, I do
+not know how soon or how late, a fresh horror happened. The woman
+whom I had just seen fall almost from the window was a serving
+woman, but when I heard another scream I knew that the mistress of
+the house was being attacked, and rivetting my eyes on those
+windows, I beheld the shade of one of them thrown back and a hand
+appear, flinging out something which fell in the grass on the
+opposite side of the lawn. Then the shade fell again, and hearing
+nothing further, I ran to where the object flung out had fallen,
+and feeling for it, found and picked up an old-fashioned dagger,
+dripping with blood. Horrified beyond all expression, I dropped
+the weapon and retreated into my former place of concealment.
+
+"But I was not satisfied to remain there. A curiosity, a
+determination even, to see the man who had committed this
+dastardly deed, attacked me with such force that I was induced to
+leave my hiding-place and even to enter the house where in all
+probability he was counting the gains he had just obtained at the
+price of so much precious blood. The door, which he had not
+perfectly closed behind him, seemed to invite me in, and before I
+had realised my own temerity, I was standing in the hall of this
+ill-fated house."
+
+The interest, which up to this moment had been breathless, now
+expressed itself in hurried ejaculations and broken words; and Mr.
+Sutherland, who had listened like one in a dream, exclaimed
+eagerly, and in a tone which proved that he, for the moment at
+least, believed this more than improbable tale:
+
+"Then you can tell us if Philemon was in the little room at the
+moment when you entered the house?"
+
+As everyone there present realised the importance of this
+question, a general movement took place and each and all drew
+nearer as she met their eyes and answered placidly:
+
+"Yes; Mr. Webb was sitting in a chair asleep. He was the only
+person I saw."
+
+"Oh, I know he never committed this crime," gasped his old friend,
+in a relief so great that one and all seemed to share it.
+
+"Now I have courage for the rest. Go on, Miss Page."
+
+But Miss Page paused again to look at her finger, and give that
+sideways toss to her head that seemed so uncalled for by the
+situation to any who did not know of the compact between herself
+and the listening man below.
+
+"I hate to go back to that moment," said she; "for when I saw the
+candles burning on the table, and the husband of the woman who at
+that very instant was possibly breathing her last breath in the
+room overhead, sitting there in unconscious apathy, I felt
+something rise in my throat that made me deathly sick for a
+moment. Then I went right in where he was, and was about to shake
+his arm and wake him, when I detected a spot of blood on my finger
+from the dagger I had handled. That gave me another turn, and led
+me to wipe off my finger on his sleeve."
+
+"It's a pity you did not wipe off your slippers too," murmured
+Sweetwater.
+
+Again she looked at him, again her eyes opened in terror upon the
+face of this man, once so plain and insignificant in her eyes, but
+now so filled with menace she inwardly quaked before it, for all
+her apparent scorn.
+
+"Slippers," she murmured.
+
+"Did not your feet as well as your hands pass through the blood on
+the grass?"
+
+She disdained to answer him.
+
+"I have accounted for the blood on my hand," she said, not looking
+at him, but at Mr. Courtney. "If there is any on my slippers it
+can be accounted for in the same way." And she rapidly resumed her
+narrative. "I had no sooner made my little finger clean I never
+thought of anyone suspecting the old gentleman when I heard steps
+on the stairs and knew that the murderer was coming down, and in
+another instant would pass the open door before which I stood.
+
+"Though I had been courageous enough up to that minute, I was
+seized by a sudden panic at the prospect of meeting face to face
+one whose hands were perhaps dripping with the blood of his
+victim. To confront him there and then might mean death to me, and
+I did not want to die, but to live, for I am young, sirs, and not
+without a prospect of happiness before me. So I sprang back, and
+seeing no other place of concealment in the whole bare room,
+crouched down in the shadow of the man you call Philemon. For one,
+two minutes, I knelt there in a state of mortal terror, while the
+feet descended, paused, started to enter the room where I was,
+hesitated, turned, and finally left the house."
+
+"Miss Page, wait, wait," put in the coroner. "You saw him; you can
+tell who this man was?"
+
+The eagerness of this appeal seemed to excite her. A slight colour
+appeared in her cheeks and she took a step forward, but before the
+words for which they so anxiously waited could leave her lips, she
+gave a start and drew back with, an ejaculation which left a more
+or less sinister echo in the ears of all who heard it.
+
+Frederick had just shown himself at the top of the staircase.
+
+"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he, advancing into their midst
+with an air whose unexpected manliness disguised his inward
+agitation. "The few words I have just heard Miss Page say interest
+me so much, I find it impossible not to join you."
+
+Amabel, upon whose lips a faint complacent smile had appeared as
+he stepped by her, glanced up at these words in secret
+astonishment at the indifference they showed, and then dropped her
+eyes to his hands with an intent gaze which seemed to affect him
+unpleasantly, for he thrust them immediately behind him, though he
+did not lower his head or lose his air of determination.
+
+"Is my presence here undesirable?" he inquired, with a glance
+towards his father.
+
+Sweetwater looked as if he thought it was, but he did not presume
+to say anything, and the others being too interested in the
+developments of Miss Page's story to waste any time on lesser
+matters, Frederick remained, greatly to Miss Page's evident
+satisfaction.
+
+"Did you see this man's face?" Mr. Courtney now broke in, in
+urgent inquiry.
+
+Her answer came slowly, after another long look in Frederick's
+direction.
+
+"No, I did not dare to make the effort. I was obliged to crouch
+too close to the floor. I simply heard his footsteps."
+
+"See, now!" muttered Sweetwater, but in so low a tone she did not
+hear him. "She condemns herself. There isn't a woman living who
+would fail to look up under such circumstances, even at the risk
+of her life."
+
+Knapp seemed to agree with him, but Mr. Courtney, following his
+one idea, pressed his former question, saying:
+
+"Was it an old man's step?"
+
+"It was not an agile one."
+
+"And you did not catch the least glimpse of the man's face or
+figure?"
+
+"Not a glimpse."
+
+"So you are in no position to identify him?"
+
+"If by any chance I should hear those same footsteps coming down a
+flight of stairs, I think I should be able to recognise them," she
+allowed, in the sweetest tones at her command.
+
+"She knows it is too late for her to hear those of the two dead
+Zabels," growled the man from Boston.
+
+"We are no nearer the solution of this mystery than we were in the
+beginning," remarked the coroner.
+
+"Gentlemen, I have not yet finished my story," intimated Amabel,
+sweetly. "Perhaps what I have yet to tell may give you some clew
+to the identity of this man."
+
+"Ah, yes; go on, go on. You have not yet explained how you came to
+be in possession of Agatha's money."
+
+"Just so," she answered, with another quick look at Frederick, the
+last she gave him for some time. "As soon, then, as I dared, I ran
+out of the house into the yard. The moon, which had been under a
+cloud, was now shining brightly, and by its light I saw that the
+space before me was empty and that I might venture to enter the
+street. But before doing so I looked about for the dagger I had
+thrown from me before going in, but I could not find it. It had
+been picked up by the fugitive and carried away. Annoyed at the
+cowardice which had led me to lose such a valuable piece of
+evidence through a purely womanish emotion, I was about to leave
+the yard, when my eyes fell on the little bundle of sandwiches
+which I had brought down from the hill and which I had let fall
+under the pear tree, at the first scream I had heard from the
+house. It had burst open and two or three of the sandwiches lay
+broken on the ground. But those that were intact I picked up, and
+being more than ever anxious to cover up by some ostensible errand
+my absence from the party, I rushed away toward the lonely road
+where these brothers lived, meaning to leave such fragments as
+remained on the old doorstep, beyond which I had been told such
+suffering existed.
+
+"It was now late, very late, for a girl like myself to be out,
+but, under the excitement of what I had just seen and heard, I
+became oblivious to fear, and rushed into those dismal shadows as
+into transparent daylight. Perhaps the shouts and stray sounds of
+laughter that came up from the wharves where a ship was getting
+under way gave me a certain sense of companionship. Perhaps--but
+it is folly for me to dilate upon my feelings; it is my errand you
+are interested in, and what happened when I approached the Zabels'
+dreary dwelling."
+
+The look with which she paused, ostensibly to take breath, but in
+reality to weigh and criticise the looks of those about her, was
+one of those wholly indescribable ones with which she was
+accustomed to control the judgment of men who allowed themselves
+to watch too closely the ever-changing expression of her weird yet
+charming face. But it fell upon men steeled against her
+fascinations, and realising her inability to move them, she
+proceeded with her story before even the most anxious of her
+hearers could request her to do so.
+
+"I had come along the road very quietly," said she, "for my feet
+were lightly shod, and the moonlight was too bright for me to make
+a misstep. But as I cleared the trees and came into the open place
+where the house stands I stumbled with surprise at seeing a figure
+crouching on the doorstep I had anticipated finding as empty as
+the road. It was an old man's figure, and as I paused in my
+embarrassment he slowly and with great feebleness rose to his feet
+and began to grope about for the door. As he did so, I heard a
+sharp tinkling sound, as of something metallic falling on the
+doorstone, and, taking a quick step forward, I looked over his
+shoulder and espied in the moonlight at his feet a dagger so like
+the one I had lately handled in Mrs. Webb's yard that I was
+overwhelmed with astonishment, and surveyed the aged and feeble
+form of the man who had dropped it with a sensation difficult to
+describe. The next moment he was stooping for the weapon, with a
+startled air that has impressed itself distinctly upon my memory,
+and when, after many feeble attempts, he succeeded in grasping it,
+he vanished into the house so suddenly that I could not be sure
+whether or not he had seen me standing there.
+
+"All this was more than surprising to me, for I had never thought
+of associating an old man with this crime. Indeed, I was so
+astonished to find him in possession of this weapon that I forgot
+all about my errand and only wondered how I could see and know
+more. Fearing detection, I slid in amongst the bushes and soon
+found myself under one of the windows. The shade was down and I
+was about to push it aside when I heard someone moving about
+inside and stopped. But I could not restrain my curiosity, so
+pulling a hairpin from my hair, I worked a little hole in the
+shade and through this I looked into a room brightly illumined by
+the moon which shone in through an adjoining window. And what did
+I see there?" Her eye turned on Frederick. His right hand had
+stolen toward his left, but it paused under her look and remained
+motionless. "Only an old man sitting at a table and--" Why did she
+pause, and why did she cover up that pause with a wholly
+inconsequential sentence? Perhaps Frederick could have told,
+Frederick, whose hand had now fallen at his side. But Frederick
+volunteered nothing, and no one, not even Sweetwater, guessed all
+that lay beyond that AND which was left hovering in the air to be
+finished---when? Alas! had she not set the day and the hour?
+
+What she did say was in seeming explanation of her previous
+sentence. "It was not the same old man I had seen on the doorstep,
+and while I was looking at him I became aware of someone leaving
+the house and passing me on the road up-hill. Of course this ended
+my interest in what went on within, and turning as quickly as I
+could I hurried into the road and followed the shadow I could just
+perceive disappearing in the woods above me. I was bound,
+gentlemen, as you see, to follow out my adventure to the end. But
+my task now became very difficult, for the moon was high and shone
+down upon the road so distinctly that I could not follow the
+person before me as closely as I wished without running the risk
+of being discovered by him. I therefore trusted more to my ear
+than to my eye, and as long as I could hear his steps in front of
+me I was satisfied. But presently, as we turned up this very hill,
+I ceased to hear these steps and so became confident that he had
+taken to the woods. I was so sure of this that I did not hesitate
+to enter them myself, and, knowing the paths well, as I have every
+opportunity of doing, living, as we do, directly opposite this
+forest, I easily found my way to the little clearing that I have
+reason to think you gentlemen have since become acquainted with.
+But though from the sounds I heard I was assured that the person I
+was following was not far in advance of me, I did not dare to
+enter this brilliantly illumined space, especially as there was
+every indication of this person having completed whatever task he
+had set for himself. Indeed, I was sure that I heard his steps
+coming back. So, for the second time, I crouched down in the
+darkest place I could find and let this mysterious person pass me.
+When he had quite disappeared, I made my own retreat, for it was
+late, and I was afraid of being missed at the ball. But later, or
+rather the next day, I recrossed the road and began a search for
+the money which I was confident had been left in the woods
+opposite, by the person I had been following. I found it, and when
+the man here present who, though a mere fiddler, has presumed to
+take a leading part in this interview, came upon me with the bills
+in my hand, I was but burying deeper the ill-gotten gains I had
+come upon."
+
+"Ah, and so making them your own," quoth Sweetwater, stung by the
+sarcasm in that word fiddler.
+
+But with a suavity against which every attack fell powerless, she
+met his significant look with one fully as significant, and
+quietly said:
+
+"If I had wanted the money for myself I would not have risked
+leaving it where the murderer could find it by digging up a few
+handfuls of mould and a bunch of sodden leaves. No, I had another
+motive for my action, a motive with which few, if any, of you will
+be willing to credit me. I wished to save the murderer, whom I had
+some reason, as you see, for thinking I knew, from the
+consequences of his own action."
+
+Mr. Courtney, Dr. Talbot, and even Mr. Sutherland, who naturally
+believed she referred to Zabel, and who, one and all, had a
+lingering tenderness for this unfortunate old man, which not even
+this seeming act of madness on his part could quite destroy, felt
+a species of reaction at this, and surveyed the singular being
+before them with, perhaps, the slightest shade of relenting in
+their severity. Sweetwater alone betrayed restlessness, Knapp
+showed no feeling at all, while Frederick stood like one
+petrified, and moved neither hand nor foot.
+
+"Crime is despicable when it results from cupidity only," she went
+on, with a deliberateness so hard that the more susceptible of her
+auditors shuddered. "But crime that springs from some imperative
+and overpowering necessity of the mind or body might well awaken
+sympathy, and I am not ashamed of having been sorry for this
+frenzied and suffering man. Weak and impulsive as you may consider
+me, I did not want him to suffer on account of a moment's madness,
+as he undoubtedly would if he were ever found with Agatha Webb's
+money in his possession, so I plunged it deeper into the soil and
+trusted to the confusion which crime always awakens even in the
+strongest mind, for him not to discover its hiding-place till the
+danger connected with it was over."
+
+"Ha! wonderful! Devilish subtle, eh? Clever, too clever!" were
+some of the whispered exclamations which this curious explanation
+on her part brought out. Yet only Sweetwater showed his open and
+entire disbelief of the story, the others possibly remembering
+that for such natures as hers there is no governing law and no
+commonplace interpretation.
+
+To Sweetwater, however, this was but so much display of feminine
+resource and subtlety. Though he felt he should keep still in the
+presence of men so greatly his superiors, he could not resist
+saying:
+
+"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. I should never have
+attributed any such motive as you mention to the young girl I saw
+leaving this spot with many a backward glance at the hole from
+which we afterwards extracted the large sum of money in question.
+But say that this reburying of stolen funds was out of
+consideration for the feeble old man you describe as having
+carried them there, do you not see that by this act you can be
+held as an accessory after the fact?"
+
+Her eyebrows went up and the delicate curve of her lips was not
+without menace as she said:
+
+"You hate me, Mr. Sweetwater. Do you wish me to tell these
+gentlemen why?"
+
+The flush which, notwithstanding this peculiar young man's nerve,
+instantly crimsoned his features, was a surprise to Frederick. So
+was it to the others, who saw in it a possible hint as to the real
+cause of his persistent pursuit of this young girl, which they had
+hitherto ascribed entirely to his love of justice. Slighted love
+makes some hearts venomous. Could this ungainly fellow have once
+loved and been disdained by this bewitching piece of
+unreliability?
+
+It was a very possible assumption, though Sweetwater's blush was
+the only answer he gave to her question, which nevertheless had
+amply served its turn.
+
+To fill the gap caused by his silence, Mr. Sutherland made an
+effort and addressed her himself.
+
+"Your conduct," said he, "has not been that of a strictly
+honourable person. Why did you fail to give the alarm when you re-
+entered my house after being witness to this double tragedy?"
+
+Her serenity was not to be disturbed.
+
+"I have just explained," she reminded him, "that I had sympathy
+for the criminal."
+
+"We all have sympathy for James Zabel, but--"
+
+"I do not believe one word of this story," interposed Sweetwater,
+in reckless disregard of proprieties. "A hungry, feeble old man,
+like Zabel, on the verge of death, could not have found his way
+into these woods. You carried the money there yourself, miss; you
+are the--"
+
+"Hush!" interposed the coroner, authoritatively; "do not let us go
+too fast--yet. Miss Page has an air of speaking the truth, strange
+and unaccountable as it may seem. Zabel was an admirable man once,
+and if he was led into theft and murder, it was not until his
+faculties had been weakened by his own suffering and that of his
+much-loved brother."
+
+"Thank you," was her simple reply; and for the first time every
+man there thrilled at her tone. Seeing it, all the dangerous
+fascination of her look and manner returned upon her with double
+force. "I have been unwise," said she, "and let my sympathy run
+away with my judgment. Women have impulses of this kind sometimes,
+and men blame them for it, till they themselves come to the point
+of feeling the need of just such blind devotion. I am sure I
+regret my short-sightedness now, for I have lost esteem by it,
+while he--" With a wave of the hand she dismissed the subject, and
+Dr. Talbot, watching her, felt a shade of his distrust leave him,
+and in its place a species of admiration for the lithe, graceful,
+bewitching personality before them, with her childish impulses and
+womanly wit which half mystified and half imposed upon them.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, on the contrary, was neither charmed from his
+antagonism nor convinced of her honesty. There was something in
+this matter that could not be explained away by her argument, and
+his suspicion of that something he felt perfectly sure was shared
+by his son, toward whose cold, set face he had frequently cast the
+most uneasy glances. He was not ready, however, to probe into the
+subject more deeply, nor could he, for the sake of Frederick, urge
+on to any further confession a young woman whom his unhappy son
+professed to love, and in whose discretion he had so little
+confidence. As for Sweetwater, he had now fully recovered his
+self-possession, and bore himself with great discretion when Dr.
+Talbot finally said:
+
+"Well, gentlemen, we have got more than we expected when we came
+here this morning. There remains, however, a point regarding which
+we have received no explanation. Miss Page, how came that orchid,
+which I am told you wore in your hair at the dance, to be found
+lying near the hem of Batsy's skirts? You distinctly told us that
+you did not go up-stairs when you were in Mrs. Webb's house."
+
+"Ah, that's so!" acquiesced the Boston detective dryly. "How came
+that flower on the scene of the murder?"
+
+She smiled and seemed equal to the emergency.
+
+"That is a mystery for us all to solve," she said quietly, frankly
+meeting the eyes of her questioner.
+
+"A mystery it is your business to solve," corrected the district
+attorney. "Nothing that you have told us in support of your
+innocence would, in the eyes of the law, weigh for one instant
+against the complicity shown by that one piece of circumstantial
+evidence against you."
+
+Her smile carried a certain high-handed denial of this to one
+heart there, at least. But her words were humble enough.
+
+"I am aware of that," said she. Then, turning to where Sweetwater
+stood lowering upon her from out his half-closed eyes, she
+impetuously exclaimed: "You, sir, who, with no excuse an
+honourable person can recognise, have seen fit to arrogate to
+yourself duties wholly out of your province, prove yourself equal
+to your presumption by ferreting out, alone and unassisted, the
+secret of this mystery. It can be done, for, mark, _I_ did not
+carry that flower into the room where it was found. This I am
+ready to assert before God and before man!"
+
+Her hand was raised, her whole attitude spoke defiance and--hard
+as it was for Sweetwater to acknowledge it--truth. He felt that he
+had received a challenge, and with a quick glance at Knapp, who
+barely responded by a shrug, he shifted over to the side of Dr.
+Talbot.
+
+Amabel at once dropped her hand.
+
+"May I go?" she now cried appealingly to Mr. Courtney. "I really
+have no more to say, and I am tired."
+
+"Did you see the figure of the man who brushed by you in the wood?
+Was it that of the old man you saw on the doorstep?"
+
+At this direct question Frederick quivered in spite of his dogged
+self-control. But she, with her face upturned to meet the scrutiny
+of the speaker, showed only a childish kind of wonder. "Why do you
+ask that? Is there any doubt about its being the same?"
+
+What an actress she was! Frederick stood appalled. He had been
+amazed at the skill with which she had manipulated her story so as
+to keep her promise to him, and yet leave the way open for that
+further confession which would alter the whole into a denunciation
+of himself which he would find it difficult, if not impossible, to
+meet. But this extreme dissimulation made him lose heart. It
+showed her to be an antagonist of almost illimitable resource and
+secret determination.
+
+"I did not suppose there could be any doubt," she added, in such a
+natural tone of surprise that Mr. Courtney dropped the subject,
+and Dr. Talbot turned to Sweetwater, who for the moment seemed to
+have robbed Knapp of his rightful place as the coroner's
+confidant.
+
+"Shall we let her go for the present?" he whispered. "She does
+look tired, poor girl."
+
+The public challenge which Sweetwater had received made him wary,
+and his reply was a guarded one:
+
+"I do not trust her, yet there is much to confirm her story. Those
+sandwiches, now. She says she dropped them in Mrs. Webb's yard
+under the pear tree, and that the bag that held them burst open.
+Gentlemen, the birds were so busy there on the morning after the
+murder that I could not but notice them, notwithstanding my
+absorption in greater matters. I remember wondering what they were
+all pecking at so eagerly. But how about the flower whose presence
+on the scene of guilt she challenges me to explain? And the money
+so deftly reburied by her? Can any explanation make her other than
+accessory to a crime on whose fruits she lays her hand in a way
+tending solely to concealment? No, sirs; and so I shall not relax
+my vigilance over her, even if, in order to be faithful to it, I
+have to suggest that a warrant be made out for her imprisonment."
+
+"You are right," acquiesced the coroner, and turning to Miss Page,
+he told her she was too valuable a witness to be lost sight of,
+and requested her to prepare to accompany him into town.
+
+She made no objection. On the contrary her cheeks dimpled, and she
+turned away with alacrity towards her room. But before the door
+closed on her she looked back, and, with a persuasive smile,
+remarked that she had told all she knew, or thought she knew at
+the time. But that perhaps, after thinking the matter carefully
+over, she might remember some detail that would throw some extra
+light on the subject.
+
+"Call her back!" cried Mr. Courtney. "She is withholding
+something. Let us hear it all."
+
+But Mr. Sutherland, with a side look at Frederick, persuaded the
+district attorney to postpone all further examination of this
+artful girl until they were alone. The anxious father had noted,
+what the rest were too preoccupied to observe, that Frederick had
+reached the limit of his strength and could not be trusted to
+preserve his composure any longer in face of this searching
+examination into the conduct of a woman from whom he had so lately
+detached himself.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+POOR PHILEMON
+
+
+The next day was the day of Agatha's funeral. She was to be buried
+in Portchester, by the side of her six children, and, as the day
+was fine, the whole town, as by common consent, assembled in the
+road along which the humble cortege was to make its way to the
+spot indicated.
+
+From the windows of farmhouses, from between the trees of the few
+scattered thickets along the way, saddened and curious faces
+looked forth till Sweetwater, who walked as near as he dared to
+the immediate friends of the deceased, felt the impossibility of
+remembering them all and gave up the task in despair.
+
+Before one house, about a mile out of town, the procession paused,
+and at a gesture from the minister everyone within sight took off
+their hats, amid a hush which made almost painfully apparent the
+twittering of birds and the other sounds of animate and inanimate
+nature, which are inseparable from a country road. They had
+reached widow Jones's cottage in which Philemon was then staying.
+
+The front door was closed, and so were the lower windows, but in
+one of the upper casements a movement was perceptible, and in
+another instant there came into view a woman and man, supporting
+between them the impassive form of Agatha's husband. Holding him
+up in plain sight of the almost breathless throng below, the woman
+pointed to where his darling lay and appeared to say something to
+him.
+
+Then there was to be seen a strange sight. The old man, with his
+thin white locks fluttering in the breeze, leaned forward with a
+smile, and holding out his arms, cried in a faint but joyful tone:
+"Agatha!" Then, as if realising for the first time that it was
+death he looked upon, and that the crowd below was a funeral
+procession, his face altered and he fell back with a low
+heartbroken moan into the arms of those who supported him.
+
+As his white head disappeared from sight, the procession moved on,
+and from only one pair of lips went up that groan of sorrow with
+which every heart seemed surcharged. One groan. From whose lips
+did it come? Sweetwater endeavoured to ascertain, but was not
+able, nor could anyone inform him, unless it was Mr. Sutherland,
+whom he dared not approach.
+
+This gentleman was on foot like the rest, with his arm fast linked
+in that of his son Frederick. He had meant to ride, for the
+distance was long for men past sixty; but finding the latter
+resolved to walk, he had consented to do the same rather than be
+separated from his son.
+
+He had fears for Frederick--he could hardly have told why; and as
+the ceremony proceeded and Agatha was solemnly laid away in the
+place prepared for her, his sympathies grew upon him to such an
+extent that he found it difficult to quit the young man for a
+moment, or even to turn his eyes away from the face he had never
+seemed to know till now. But as friends and strangers were now
+leaving the yard, he controlled himself, and assuming a more
+natural demeanour, asked his son if he were now ready to ride
+back. But, to his astonishment, Frederick replied that he did not
+intend to return to Sutherland town at present; that he had
+business in Portchester, and that he was doubtful as to when he
+would be ready to return. As the old gentleman did not wish to
+raise a controversy, he said nothing, but as soon as he saw
+Frederick disappear up the road, he sent back the carriage he had
+ordered, saying that he would return in a Portchester gig as soon
+as he had settled some affairs of his own, which might and might
+not detain him there till evening.
+
+Then he proceeded to a little inn, where he hired a room with
+windows that looked out on the high-road. In one of these windows
+he sat all day, watching for Frederick, who had gone farther up
+the road.
+
+But no Frederick appeared, and with vague misgivings, for which as
+yet he had no name, he left the window and set out on foot for
+home.
+
+It was now dark, but a silvery gleam on the horizon gave promise
+of the speedy rising of a full moon. Otherwise he would not have
+attempted to walk over a road proverbially dark and dismal.
+
+The churchyard in which they had just laid away Agatha lay in his
+course. As he approached it he felt his heart fail, and stopping a
+moment at the stone wall that separated it from the highroad, he
+leaned against the trunk of a huge elm that guarded the gate of
+entrance. As he did so he heard a sound of repressed sobbing from
+some spot not very far away, and, moved by some undefinable
+impulse stronger than his will, he pushed open the gate and
+entered the sacred precincts.
+
+Instantly the weirdness and desolation of the spot struck him. He
+wished, yet dreaded, to advance. Something in the grief of the
+mourner whose sobs he had heard had seized upon his heart-strings,
+and yet, as he hesitated, the sounds came again, and forgetting
+that his intrusion might not prove altogether welcome, he pressed
+forward, till he came within a few feet of the spot from which the
+sobs issued.
+
+He had moved quietly, feeling the awesomeness of the place, and
+when he paused it was with a sensation of dread, not to be
+entirely explained by the sad and dismal surroundings. Dark as it
+was, he discerned the outline of a form lying stretched in
+speechless misery across a grave; but when, impelled by an almost
+irresistible compassion, he strove to speak, his tongue clove to
+the roof of his mouth and he only drew back farther into the
+shadow.
+
+He had recognised the mourner and the grave. The mourner was
+Frederick and the grave that of Agatha Webb.
+
+A few minutes later Mr. Sutherland reappeared at the door of the
+inn, and asked for a gig and driver to take him back to
+Sutherlandtown. He said, in excuse for his indecision, that he had
+undertaken to walk, but had found his strength inadequate to the
+exertion. He was looking very pale, and trembled so that the
+landlord, who took his order, asked him if he were ill. But Mr.
+Sutherland insisted that he was quite well, only in a hurry, and
+showed the greatest impatience till he was again started upon the
+road.
+
+For the first half-mile he sat perfectly silent. The moon was now
+up, and the road stretched before them, flooded with light. As
+long as no one was to be seen on this road, or on the path running
+beside it, Mr. Sutherland held himself erect, his eyes fixed
+before him, in an attitude of anxious inquiry. But as soon as any
+sound came to break the silence, or there appeared in the distance
+ahead of them the least appearance of a plodding wayfarer, he drew
+back, and hid himself in the recesses of the vehicle. This
+happened several times. Then his whole manner changed. They had
+just passed Frederick, walking, with bowed head, toward
+Sutherlandtown.
+
+But he was not the only person on the road at this time. A few
+minutes previously they had passed another man walking in the same
+direction. As Mr. Sutherland mused over this he found himself
+peering through the small window at the back of the buggy,
+striving to catch another glimpse of the two men plodding behind
+him. He could see them both, his son's form throwing its long
+shadow over the moonlit road, followed only too closely by the man
+whose ungainly shape he feared to acknowledge to himself was
+growing only too familiar in his eyes.
+
+Falling into a troubled reverie, he beheld the well-known houses,
+and the great trees under whose shadow he had grown from youth to
+manhood, flit by him like phantoms in a dream. But suddenly one
+house and one place drew his attention with a force that startled
+him again into an erect attitude, and seizing with one hand the
+arm of the driver, he pointed with the other at the door of the
+cottage they were passing, saying in choked tones:
+
+"See! see! Something dreadful has happened since we passed by here
+this morning. That is crape, Samuel, crape, hanging from the
+doorpost yonder!"
+
+"Yes, it is crape," answered the driver, jumping out and running
+up the path to look. "Philemon must be dead; the good Philemon."
+
+Here was a fresh blow. Mr. Sutherland bowed before it for a
+moment, then he rose hurriedly and stepped down into the road
+beside the driver.
+
+"Get in again," said he, "and drive on. Ride a half-mile, then
+come back for me. I must see the widow Jones."
+
+The driver, awed both by the occasion and the feeling it had
+called up in Mr. Sutherland, did as he was bid and drove away. Mr.
+Sutherland, with a glance back at the road lie had just traversed,
+walked painfully up the path to Mrs. Jones's door.
+
+A moment's conversation with the woman who answered his summons
+proved the driver's supposition to be correct. Philemon had passed
+away. He had never rallied from the shock he had received. He had
+joined his beloved Agatha on the day of her burial, and the long
+tragedy of their mutual life was over.
+
+"It is a mercy that no inheritor of their misfortune remains,"
+quoth the good woman, as she saw the affliction her tidings caused
+in this much-revered friend.
+
+The assent Mr. Sutherland gave was mechanical. He was anxiously
+studying the road leading toward Portchester.
+
+Suddenly he stepped hastily into the house.
+
+"Will you be so good as to let me sit down in your parlour for a
+few minutes?" he asked. "I should like to rest there for an
+instant alone. This final blow has upset me."
+
+The good woman bowed. Mr. Sutherland's word was law in that town.
+She did not even dare to protest against the ALONE which he had so
+pointedly emphasised, but left him after making him, as she said,
+comfortable, and went back to her duties in the room above.
+
+It was fortunate she was so amenable to his wishes, for no sooner
+had her steps ceased to be heard than Mr. Sutherland rose from the
+easy-chair in which he had been seated, and, putting out the lamp
+widow Jones had insisted on lighting, passed directly to the
+window, through which he began to peer with looks of the deepest
+anxiety.
+
+A man was coming up the road, a young man, Frederick. As Mr.
+Sutherland recognised him he leaned forward with increased
+anxiety, till at the appearance of his son in front his scrutiny
+grew so strained and penetrating that it seemed to exercise a
+magnetic influence upon Frederick, causing him to look up.
+
+The glance he gave the house was but momentary, but in that glance
+the father saw all that he had secretly dreaded. As his son's eye
+fell on that fluttering bit of crape, testifying to another death
+in this already much-bereaved community, he staggered wildly, then
+in a pause of doubt drew nearer and nearer till his fingers
+grasped this symbol of mourning and clung there. Next moment he
+was far down the road, plunging toward home in a state of great
+mental disorder.
+
+A half-hour afterwards Mr. Sutherland reached home. He had not
+overtaken Frederick again, or even his accompanying shadow.
+Ascertaining at his own door that his son had not yet come in, but
+had been seen going farther up the hill, he turned back again into
+the road and proceeded after him on foot.
+
+The next place to his own was occupied by Mr. Halliday. As he
+approached it he caught sight of a man standing half in and half
+out of the honeysuckle porch, whom he at first thought to be
+Frederick. But he soon saw that it was the fellow who had been
+following his son all the way from Portchester, and, controlling
+his first movement of dislike, he stepped up to him and quietly
+said:
+
+"Sweetwater, is this you?"
+
+The young man fell back and showed a most extraordinary agitation,
+quickly suppressed, however. "Yes, sir, it is no one else. Do you
+know what I am doing here?"
+
+"I fear I do. You have been to Portchester. You have seen my son--
+"
+
+Sweetwater made a hurried, almost an entreating, gesture.
+
+"Never mind that, Mr. Sutherland. I had rather you wouldn't say
+anything about that. I am as much broken up by what I have seen as
+you are. I never suspected him of having any direct connection
+with this murder; only the girl to whom he has so unfortunately
+attached himself. But after what I have seen, what am I to think?
+what am I to do? I honour you; I would not grieve you; but--but--
+oh, sir, perhaps you can help me out of the maze into which I have
+stumbled. Perhaps you can assure me that Mr. Frederick did not
+leave the ball at the time she did. I missed him from among the
+dancers. I did not see him between twelve and three, but perhaps
+you did; and--and--"
+
+His voice broke. He was almost as profoundly agitated as Mr.
+Sutherland. As for the latter, who found himself unable to
+reassure the other on this very vital point, having no remembrance
+himself of having seen Frederick among his guests during those
+fatal hours, he stood speechless, lost in abysses, the depth and
+horror of which only a father can appreciate. Sweetwater respected
+his anguish and for a moment was silent himself. Then he burst
+out:
+
+"I had rather never lived to see this day than be the cause of
+shame or suffering to you. Tell me what to do. Shall I be deaf,
+dumb--"
+
+Here Mr. Sutherland found voice.
+
+"You make too much of what you saw," said he. "My boy has faults
+and has lived anything but a satisfactory life, but he is not as
+bad as you would intimate. He can never have taken life. That
+would be incredible, monstrous, in one brought up as he has been.
+Besides, if he were so far gone in evil as to be willing to
+attempt crime, he had no motive to do so; Sweetwater, he had no
+motive. A few hundred dollars but these he could have got from me,
+and did, but--"
+
+Why did the wretched father stop? Did he recall the circumstances
+under which Frederick had obtained these last hundreds from him?
+They were not ordinary circumstances, and Frederick had been in no
+ordinary strait. Mr. Sutherland could not but acknowledge to
+himself that there was something in this whole matter which
+contradicted the very plea he was making, and not being able to
+establish the conviction of his son's innocence in his own mind,
+he was too honourable to try to establish it in that of another.
+His next words betrayed the depth of his struggle:
+
+"It is that girl who has ruined him, Sweetwater. He loves but
+doubts her, as who could help doing after the story she told us
+day before yesterday? Indeed, he has doubted her ever since that
+fatal night, and it is this which has broken his heart, and not--
+not--" Again the old gentleman paused; again he recovered himself,
+this time with a touch of his usual dignity and self-command.
+"Leave me," he cried. "Nothing that you have seen has escaped me;
+but our interpretations of it may differ. I will watch over my son
+from this hour, and you may trust my vigilance."
+
+Sweetwater bowed.
+
+"You have a right to command me," said he. "You may have
+forgotten, but I have not, that I owe my life to you. Years ago--
+perhaps you can recall it--it was at the Black Pond--I was going
+down for the third time and my mother was screaming in terror on
+the bank, when you plunged in and--Well, sir, such things are
+never forgotten, and, as I said before, you have only to command
+me." He turned to go, but suddenly came back. There were signs of
+mental conflict in his face and voice. "Mr. Sutherland, I am not a
+talkative man. If I trust your vigilance you may trust my
+discretion. Only I must have your word that you will convey no
+warning to your son."
+
+Mr. Sutherland made an indefinable gesture, and Sweetwater again
+disappeared, this time not to return. As for Mr. Sutherland, he
+remained standing before Mr. Halliday's door. What had the young
+man meant by this emphatic repetition of his former suggestion?
+That he would be quiet, also, and not speak of what he had seen?
+Why, then--But to the hope thus given, this honest-hearted
+gentleman would yield no quarter, and seeing a duty before him, a
+duty he dare not shirk, he brought his emotions, violent as they
+were, into complete and absolute subjection, and, opening Mr.
+Halliday's door, entered the house. They were old neighbours, and
+ceremony was ignored between them.
+
+Finding the hall empty and the parlour door open he walked
+immediately into the latter room. The sight that met his eyes
+never left his memory. Agnes, his little Agnes, whom he had always
+loved and whom he had vainly longed to call by the endearing name
+of daughter, sat with her face towards him, looking up at
+Frederick. That young gentleman had just spoken to her, or she had
+just received something from his hand for her own was held out and
+her expression was one of gratitude and acceptance. She was not a
+beautiful girl, but she had a beautiful look, and at this moment
+it was exalted by a feeling the old gentleman had once longed, but
+now dreaded inexpressibly, to see there. What could it mean? Why
+did she show at this unhappy crisis, interest, devotion, passion
+almost, for one she had regarded with open scorn when it was the
+dearest wish of his heart to see them united? It was one of the
+contradictions of our mysterious human nature, and at this crisis
+and in this moment of secret heart-break and miserable doubt it
+made the old gentleman shrink, with his first feeling of actual
+despair.
+
+The next moment Agnes had risen and they were both facing him.
+
+"Good-evening, Agnes."
+
+Mr. Sutherland forced himself to speak lightly.
+
+"Ah, Frederick, do I find you here?" The latter question had more
+constraint in it.
+
+Frederick smiled. There was an air of relief about him, almost of
+cheerfulness.
+
+"I was just leaving," said he. "I was the bearer of a message to
+Miss Halliday." He had always called her Agnes before.
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had found his faculties confused by the
+expression he had surprised on the young girl's face, answered
+with a divided attention:
+
+"And I have a message to give you. Wait outside on the porch for
+me, Frederick, till I exchange a word with our little friend
+here."
+
+Agnes, who had thrust something she held into a box that lay
+beside her on a table, turned with a confused blush to listen.
+
+Mr. Sutherland waited till Frederick had stepped into the hall.
+Then he drew Agnes to one side and remorselessly, persistently,
+raised her face toward him till she was forced to meet his
+benevolent but searching regard.
+
+"Do you know," he whispered, in what he endeavoured to make a
+bantering tone, "how very few days it is since that unhappy boy
+yonder confessed his love for a young lady whose name I cannot
+bring myself to utter in your presence?"
+
+The intent was kind, but the effect was unexpectedly cruel. With a
+droop of her head and a hurried gasp which conveyed a mixture of
+entreaty and reproach, Agnes drew back in a vague endeavour to
+hide her sudden uneasiness. He saw his mistake, and let his hands
+drop.
+
+"Don't, my dear," he whispered. "I had no idea it would hurt you
+to hear this. You have always seemed indifferent, hard even,
+toward my scapegrace son. And this was right, for--for--" What
+could he say, how express one-tenth of that with which his breast
+was labouring! He could not, he dared not, so ended, as we have
+intimated, by a confused stammering.
+
+Agnes, who had never before seen this object of her lifelong
+admiration under any serious emotion, felt an impulse of remorse,
+as if she herself had been guilty of occasioning him
+embarrassment. Plucking up her courage, she wistfully eyed him.
+
+"Did you imagine," she murmured, "that I needed any warning
+against Frederick, who has never honoured me with his regard, as
+he has the young lady you cannot mention? I'm afraid you don't
+know me, Mr. Sutherland, notwithstanding I have sat on your knee
+and sometimes plucked at your beard in my infantile insistence
+upon attention."
+
+"I am afraid I don't know you," he answered. "I feel that I know
+nobody now, not even my son."
+
+He had hoped she would look up at this, but she did not.
+
+"Will my little girl think me very curious and very impertinent if
+I ask her what my son Frederick was saying when I came into the
+room?"
+
+She looked up now, and with visible candour answered him
+immediately and to the point:
+
+"Frederick is in trouble, Mr. Sutherland. He has felt the need of
+a friend who could appreciate this, and he has asked me to be that
+friend. Besides, he brought me a packet of letters which he
+entreated me to keep for him. I took them, Mr. Sutherland, and I
+will keep them as he asked me to do, safe from everybody's
+inspection, even my own."
+
+Oh! why had he questioned her? He did not want to know of these
+letters; he did not want to know that Frederick possessed anything
+which he was afraid to retain in his own possession.
+
+"My son did wrong," said he, "to confide anything to your care
+which he did not desire to retain in his own home. I feel that I
+ought to see these letters, for if my son is in trouble, as you
+say, I, his father, ought to know it."
+
+"I am not sure about that," she smiled. "His trouble may be of a
+different nature than you imagine. Frederick has led a life that
+he regrets. I think his chief source of suffering lies in the fact
+that it is so hard for him to make others believe that he means to
+do differently in the future."
+
+"Does he mean to do differently?"
+
+She flushed. "He says so, Mr. Sutherland. And I, for one, cannot
+help believing him. Don't you see that he begins to look like
+another man?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland was taken aback. He had noticed this fact, and had
+found it a hard one to understand. To ascertain what her
+explanation of it might be, he replied at once:
+
+"There is a change in him--a very evident change. What is the
+occasion of it? To what do you ascribe it, Agnes?"
+
+How breathlessly he waited for her answer! Had she any suspicion
+of the awful doubts which were so deeply agitating himself that
+night? She did not appear to have.
+
+"I hesitate," she faltered, "but not from any doubt of Frederick,
+to tell you just what I think lies at the bottom of the sudden
+change observable in him. Miss Page (you see, I can name her, if
+you cannot) has proved herself so unworthy of his regard that the
+shock he has received has opened his eyes to certain failings of
+his own which made his weakness in her regard possible. I do not
+know of any other explanation. Do you?"
+
+At this direct question, breathed though it was by tender lips,
+and launched in ignorance of the barb which carried it to his
+heart, Mr. Sutherland recoiled and cast an anxious look upon the
+door. Then with forced composure he quietly said: "If you who are
+so much nearer his age, and, let me hope, his sympathy, do not
+feel sure of his real feelings, how should I, who am his father,
+but have never been his confidant?"
+
+"Oh," she cried, holding out her hands, "such a good father! Some
+day he will appreciate that fact as well as others. Believe it,
+Mr. Sutherland, believe it." And then, ashamed of her glowing
+interest, which was a little more pronounced than became her
+simple attitude of friend toward a man professedly in love with
+another woman, she faltered and cast the shyest of looks upward at
+the face she had never seen turned toward her with anything but
+kindness. "I have confidence in Frederick's good heart," she
+added, with something like dignity.
+
+"Would God that I could share it!" was the only answer she
+received. Before she could recover from the shock of these words,
+Mr. Sutherland was gone.
+
+Agnes was more or less disconcerted by this interview. There was a
+lingering in her step that night, as she trod the little white-
+embowered chamber sacred to her girlish dreams, which bespake an
+overcharged heart; a heart that, before she slept, found relief in
+these few words whispered by her into the night air, laden with
+the sweetness of honeysuckles:
+
+"Can it be that he is right? Did I need such a warning,--I, who
+have hated this man, and who thought that it was my hatred which
+made it impossible for me to think of anything or anybody else
+since we parted from each other last night? O me, if it is so!"
+
+And from the great, wide world without, tremulous with moonlight,
+the echo seemed to come back:
+
+"Woe to thee, Agnes Halliday, if this be so!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+A SURPRISE FOR MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Meanwhile Mr. Sutherland and Frederick stood facing each other in
+the former's library. Nothing had been said during their walk down
+the hill, and nothing seemed likely to proceed from Frederick now,
+though his father waited with great and growing agitation for some
+explanation that would relieve the immense strain on his heart. At
+last he himself spoke, dryly, as we all speak when the heart is
+fullest and we fear to reveal the depth of our emotions.
+
+"What papers were those you gave into Agnes Halliday's keeping?
+Anything which we could not have more safely, not to say
+discreetly, harboured in our own house?"
+
+Frederick, taken aback, for he had not realised that his father
+had seen these papers, hesitated for a moment; then he boldly
+said:
+
+"They were letters--old letters--which I felt to be better out of
+this house than in it. I could not destroy them, so I gave them
+into the guardianship of the most conscientious person I know. I
+hope you won't demand to see those letters. Indeed, sir, I hope
+you won't demand to see them. They were not written for your eye,
+and I would rather rest under your displeasure than have them in
+any way made public."
+
+Frederick showed such earnestness, rather than fear, that Mr.
+Sutherland was astonished.
+
+"When were these letters written?" he asked. "Lately, or before--
+You say they are old; how old?"
+
+Frederick's breath came easier.
+
+"Some of them were written years ago--most of them, in fact. It is
+a personal matter--every man has such. I wish I could have
+destroyed them. You will leave them with Agnes, sir?"
+
+"You astonish me," said Mr. Sutherland, relieved that he could at
+least hope that these letters were in nowise connected with the
+subject of his own frightful suspicions. "A young girl, to whom
+you certainly were most indifferent a week ago, is a curious
+guardian of letters you decline to show your father."
+
+"I know it," was Frederick's sole reply.
+
+Somehow the humility with which this was uttered touched Mr.
+Sutherland and roused hopes he had supposed dead. He looked his
+son for the first time directly in the eye, and with a beating
+heart said:
+
+"Your secrets, if you have such, might better be entrusted to your
+father. You have no better friend--" and there he stopped with a
+horrified, despairing feeling of inward weakness. If Frederick had
+committed a crime, anything would be better than knowing it.
+Turning partially aside, he fingered the papers on the desk before
+which he was standing. A large envelope, containing some legal
+document, lay before him. Taking it up mechanically, he opened it.
+Frederick as mechanically watched him.
+
+"I know," said the latter, "that I have no better friend. You have
+been too good, too indulgent. What is it, father? You change
+colour, look ill, what is there in that paper?"
+
+Mr. Sutherland straightened himself; there was a great reserve of
+strength in this broken-down man yet. Fixing Frederick with a gaze
+more penetrating than any he had yet bestowed upon him, he folded
+his hands behind him with the document held tightly between them,
+and remarked:
+
+"When you borrowed that money from me you did it like a man who
+expected to repay it. Why? Whence did you expect to receive the
+money with which to repay me? Answer, Frederick; this is your hour
+for confession."
+
+Frederick turned so pale his father dropped his eyes in mercy.
+
+"Confess?" he repeated. "What should I confess? My sins? They are
+too many. As for that money, I hoped to return it as any son might
+hope to reimburse his father for money advanced to pay a gambler's
+debt. I said I meant to work. My first money earned shall be
+offered to you. I--"
+
+"Well? Well?" His father was holding the document he had just
+read, opened out before his eyes.
+
+"Didn't you expect THIS?" he asked. "Didn't you know that that
+poor woman, that wretchedly murdered, most unhappy woman, whose
+death the whole town mourns, had made you her heir? That by the
+terms of this document, seen by me here and now for the first
+time, I am made executor and you the inheritor of the one hundred
+thousand dollars or more left by Agatha Webb?"
+
+"No!" cried Frederick, his eyes glued to the paper, his whole face
+and form expressing something more akin to terror than surprise.
+"Has she done this? Why should she? I hardly knew her."
+
+"No, you hardly knew her. And she? She hardly knew you; if she had
+she would have abhorred rather than enriched you. Frederick, I had
+rather see you dead than stand before me the inheritor of Philemon
+and Agatha Webb's hard-earned savings."
+
+"You are right; it would be better," murmured Frederick, hardly
+heeding what he said. Then, as he encountered his father's eye
+resting upon him with implacable scrutiny, he added, in weak
+repetition: "Why should she give her money to me? What was I to
+her that she should will me her fortune?"
+
+The father's finger trembled to a certain line in the document,
+which seemed to offer some explanation of this; but Frederick did
+not follow it. He had seen that his father was expecting a reply
+to the question he had previously put, and he was casting about in
+his mind how to answer it.
+
+"When did you know of this will?" Mr. Sutherland now repeated.
+"For know of it you did before you came to me for money."
+
+Frederick summoned up his full courage and confronted his father
+resolutely.
+
+"No," said he, "I did not know of it. It is as much of a surprise
+to me as it is to you."
+
+He lied. Mr. Sutherland knew that he lied and Frederick knew that
+he knew it. A shadow fell between them, which the older, with that
+unspeakable fear upon him roused by Sweetwater's whispered
+suspicions, dared no longer attempt to lift.
+
+After a few minutes in which Frederick seemed to see his father
+age before his eyes, Mr. Sutherland coldly remarked:
+
+"Dr. Talbot must know of this will. It has been sent here to me
+from Boston by a lawyer who drew it up two years ago. The coroner
+may not as yet have heard of it. Will you accompany me to his
+office to-morrow? I should like to have him see that we wish to be
+open with him in an affair of such importance."
+
+"I will accompany you gladly," said Frederick, and seeing that his
+father neither wished nor was able to say anything further, he
+bowed with distant ceremony as to a stranger and quietly withdrew.
+But when the door had closed between them and only the memory of
+his father's changed countenance remained to trouble him, he
+paused and laid his hand again on the knob, as if tempted to
+return. But he left without doing so, only to turn again at the
+end of the hall and gaze wistfully back. Yet he went on.
+
+As he opened his own door and disappeared within, he said half
+audibly:
+
+"Easy to destroy me now, Amabel. One word and I am lost!"
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II
+
+THE MAN OF NO REPUTATION
+
+
+XXI
+
+SWEETWATER REASONS
+
+
+And what of Sweetwater, in whose thoughts and actions the interest
+now centres?
+
+When he left Mr. Sutherland it was with feelings such as few who
+knew him supposed him capable of experiencing. Unattractive as he
+was in every way, ungainly in figure and unprepossessing of
+countenance, this butt of the more favoured youth in town had a
+heart whose secret fires were all the warmer for being so
+persistently covered, and this heart was wrung with trouble and
+heavy with a struggle that bade fair to leave him without rest
+that night, if not for many nights to come. Why? One word will
+explain. Unknown to the world at large and almost unknown to
+himself, his best affections were fixed upon the man whose
+happiness he thus unexpectedly saw himself destined to destroy. He
+loved Mr. Sutherland.
+
+The suspicion which he now found transferred in his own mind from
+the young girl whose blood-stained slippers he had purloined
+during the excitement of the first alarm, to the unprincipled but
+only son of his one benefactor, had not been lightly embraced or
+thoughtlessly expressed. He had had time to think it out in all
+its bearings. During that long walk from Portchester churchyard to
+Mr. Halliday's door, he had been turning over in his mind
+everything that he had heard and seen in connection with this
+matter, till the dim vision of Frederick's figure going on before
+him was not more apparent to his sight than was the guilt he so
+deplored to his inward understanding.
+
+He could not help but recognise him as the active party in the
+crime he had hitherto charged Amabel with. With the clew offered
+by Frederick's secret anguish at the grave of Agatha, he could
+read the whole story of this detestable crime as plainly as if it
+had been written in letters of fire on the circle of the
+surrounding darkness. Such anguish under such circumstances on the
+part of such a man could mean but one thing--remorse; and remorse
+in the breast of one so proverbially careless and corrupt, over
+the death of a woman who was neither relative nor friend, could
+have but one interpretation, and that was guilt.
+
+No other explanation was possible. Could one be given, or if any
+evidence could be adduced in contradiction of this assumption, he
+would have dismissed his new suspicion with more heartiness even
+than he had embraced his former one. He did not wish to believe
+Frederick guilty. He would have purchased an inner conviction of
+his innocence almost at the price of his own life, not because of
+any latent interest in the young man himself, but because he was
+Charles Sutherland's son, and the dear, if unworthy, centre of all
+that noble man's hopes, aims, and happiness. But he could come
+upon no fact capable of shaking his present belief. Taking for
+truth Amabel's account of what she had seen and done on that fatal
+night--something which he had hesitated over the previous day, but
+which he now found himself forced to accept or do violence to his
+own secret convictions--and adding to it such facts as had come to
+his own knowledge in his self-imposed role of detective, he had
+but to test the events of that night by his present theory of
+Frederick's guilt, to find them hang together in a way too
+complete for mistake.
+
+For what had been his reasons for charging Amabel herself with the
+guilt of a crime she only professed to have been a partial witness
+to?
+
+They were many.
+
+First--The forced nature of her explanations in regard to her
+motive for leaving a merry ball and betaking herself to the
+midnight road in her party dress and slippers. A woman of her
+well-known unsympathetic nature might use the misery of the Zabels
+as a pretext for slipping into town at night, but never would be
+influenced by it as a motive.
+
+Second--The equally unsatisfactory nature of the reasons she gave
+for leaving the course she had marked out for herself and entering
+upon the pursuit of an unknown man into a house in which she had
+no personal interest and from which she had just seen a bloody
+dagger thrown out. The most callous of women would have shrunk
+from letting her curiosity carry her thus far.
+
+Third--The poverty of her plea that, after having braved so much
+in her desire to identify this criminal, she was so frightened at
+his near approach as to fail to lift her head when the opportunity
+was given her to recognise him.
+
+Fourth--Her professed inability to account for the presence of the
+orchid from her hair being found in the room with Batsy.
+
+Fifth--Her evident attempt to throw the onus of the crime on an
+old man manifestly incapable from physical causes of committing
+it.
+
+Sixth--The improbability, which she herself should have
+recognised, of this old man, in his extremely weak condition,
+ignoring the hiding-places offered by the woods back of his own
+house, for the sake of one not only involving a long walk, but
+situated close to a much-frequented road, and almost in view of
+the Sutherland mansion.
+
+Seventh--The transparent excuse of sympathy for the old man and
+her desire to save him from the consequences of his crime, which
+she offered in extenuation of her own criminal avowal of having
+first found and then reburied the ill-gotten gains she had come
+upon in her persistent pursuit of the flying criminal. So
+impulsive an act might be consistent with the blind compassion of
+some weak-headed but warm-hearted woman, but not with her self-
+interested nature, incapable of performing any heroic deed save
+from personal motives or the most headlong passion.
+
+Lastly--The weakness of her explanation in regard to the cause
+which led her to peer into the Zabel cottage through a hole made
+in the window-shade. Curiosity has its limits even in a woman's
+breast, and unless she hoped to see more than was indicated by her
+words, her action was but the precursor of a personal entrance
+into a room where we have every reason to believe the twenty-
+dollar bill was left.
+
+A telling record and sufficient to favour the theory of her
+personal guilt if, after due thought, certain facts in
+contradiction to this assumption had not offered themselves to his
+mind even before he thought of Frederick as the unknown man she
+had followed down the hillside, as, for instance:
+
+This crime, if committed by her, was done deliberately and with a
+premeditation antedating her departure from the ballroom. Yet she
+went upon this errand in slippers, white slippers at that,
+something which so cool and calculating a woman would have
+avoided, however careless she might have shown herself in other
+regards.
+
+Again, guilt awakens cunning, even in the dullest breast; but she,
+keen beyond most men even, and so self-poised that the most
+searching examination could not shake her self-control, betrayed
+an utter carelessness as to what she did with these slippers on
+her return, thrusting them into a place easily accessible to the
+most casual search. Had she been conscious of guilt and thus
+amenable to law, the sight of blood and mud-stains on those
+slippers would have appalled her, and she would have made some
+attempt to destroy them, and not put them behind a picture and
+forgotten them.
+
+Again, would she have been so careless with a flower she knew to
+be identified with herself? A woman who deliberately involves
+herself in crime has quick eyes; she would have seen that flower
+fall. At all events, if she had been immediately responsible for
+its being on the scene of crime she would, with her quick wit,
+have found some excuse or explanation for it, instead of defying
+her examiners with some such words as these: "It is a fact for you
+to explain. I only know that I did not carry this flower into that
+room of death."
+
+Again, had she been actuated in her attempt to fix the crime on
+old James Zabel by a personal consciousness of guilt and a
+personal dread, she would not have stopped at suggestion in her
+allusions to the person she watched burying the treasure in the
+woods. Instead of speaking of him as a shadow whose flight she had
+followed at a distance, she would have described his figure as
+that of the same old man she had seen enter the Zabel cottage a
+few minutes before, there being no reason for indefiniteness on
+this point, her conscience being sufficiently elastic for any
+falsehood that would further her ends. And lastly, her manner,
+under the examination to which she had been subjected, was not
+that of one who felt herself under a personal attack. It was a
+strange, suggestive, hesitating manner, baffling alike to him who
+had more or less sounded her strange nature and to those who had
+no previous knowledge of her freaks and subtle intellectual power,
+and only reaching its height of hateful charm and mysterious
+daring when Frederick appeared on the scene and joined, or seemed
+to join, himself to the number of her examiners.
+
+Now, let all suspicion of her as an active agent in this crime be
+dropped, assume Frederick to be the culprit and she the simple
+accessory after the fact, and see how inconsistencies vanish, and
+how much more natural the whole conduct of this mysterious woman
+appears.
+
+Amabel Page left a merry dance at midnight and stole away into the
+Sutherland garden in her party dress and slippers--why? Not to
+fulfil an errand which anyone who knows her cold and unsympathetic
+nature can but regard as a pretext, but because she felt it
+imperative to see if her lover (with whose character, temptations,
+and necessities she was fully acquainted, and in whose excited and
+preoccupied manner she had probably discovered signs of a secretly
+growing purpose) meant indeed to elude his guests and slip away to
+town on the dangerous and unholy enterprise suggested by their
+mutual knowledge of the money to be obtained there by one daring
+enough to enter a certain house open like their own to midnight
+visitors.
+
+She followed at such an hour and into such a place, not an unknown
+man casually come upon, but her lover, whom she had tracked from
+the garden of his father's house, where she had lain in wait for
+him. It took courage to do this, but a courage no longer beyond
+the limit of feminine daring, for her fate was bound up in his and
+she could not but feel the impulse to save him from the
+consequences of crime, if not from the crime itself.
+
+As for the aforementioned flower, what more natural than that
+Frederick should have transferred it from her hair to his
+buttonhole during some of their interviews at the ball, and that
+it should have fallen from its place to the floor in the midst of
+his possible struggle with Batsy?
+
+And with this assumption of her perfect knowledge as to who the
+man was who had entered Mrs. Webb's house, how much easier it is
+to understand why she did not lift her head when she heard him
+descend the stairs! No woman, even one so depraved as she, would
+wish to see the handsome face of her lover in the glare of a
+freshly committed crime, and besides she might very easily be
+afraid of him, for a man has but a blow for the suddenly detected
+witness of his crime unless that witness is his confidant, which
+from every indication Sweetwater felt bound to believe Amabel was
+not.
+
+Her flight to the Zabel cottage, after an experience which would
+madden most women, can now be understood. She was still following
+her lover. The plan of making Agatha's old and wretched friend
+amenable for her death originated with Frederick and not with
+Amabel. It was he who first started for the Zabel cottage. It was
+he who left the bank bill there. This is all clear, and even the
+one contradictory fact of the dagger having been seen in the old
+man's hand was not a stumbling-block to Sweetwater. With the
+audacity of one confident of his own insight, he explained it to
+himself thus: The dagger thrown from the window by the assassin,
+possibly because he knew of Zabel's expected visit there that
+night, fell on the grass and was picked up by Amabel, only to be
+flung down again in the brightest part of the lawn. It was lying
+there then, when, a few minutes later and before either Frederick
+or Amabel had left the house, the old man entered the yard in a
+state of misery bordering on frenzy. He and his brother were
+starving, had been starving for days. He was too proud to own his
+want, and too loyal to his brother to leave him for the sake of
+the food prepared for them both at Agatha's house, and this was
+why he had hesitated over his duty till this late hour, when his
+own secret misery or, perhaps, the hope of relieving his brother
+drove him to enter the gate he had been accustomed to see open
+before him in glad hospitality. He finds the lights burning in the
+house above and below, and encouraged by the welcome they seem to
+hold out, he staggers up the path, ignorant of the tragedy which
+was at that very moment being enacted behind those lighted
+windows. But half-way toward the house he stops, the courage which
+has brought him so far suddenly fails, and in one of those quick
+visions which sometimes visit men in extremity, he foresees the
+astonishment which his emaciated figure is likely to cause in
+these two old friends, and burying his face in his hands he stops
+and bitterly communes with himself before venturing farther. Fatal
+stop! fatal communing! for as he stands there he sees a dagger,
+his own old dagger, how lost or how found he probably did not stop
+to ask, lying on the grass and offering in its dumb way
+suggestions as to how he might end this struggle without any
+further suffering. Dizzy with the new hope, preferring death to
+the humiliation he saw before him in Agatha's cottage, he dashes
+out of the yard, almost upsetting Mr. Crane, who was passing by on
+his homeward way from an errand of mercy. A little while later
+Amabel comes upon him lying across his own doorstep. He has made
+an effort to enter, but his long walk and the excitement of this
+last bitter hour have been too much for him. As she watches him he
+gains strength and struggles to his feet, while she, aghast at the
+sight of the dagger she had herself flung down in Agatha's yard,
+and dreading the encounter between this old man and the lover she
+had been following to this place, creeps around the house and
+looks into the first window she finds open. What does she expect
+to see? Frederick brought face to face with this desperate figure
+with its uplifted knife. But instead of that she beholds another
+old man seated at a table and--Amabel had paused when she reached
+that AND--and Sweetwater had not then seen how important this
+pause was, but now he understood it. Now he saw that if she had
+not had a subtle purpose in view, that if she had wished to tell
+the truth rather than produce false inferences in the minds of
+those about her calculated to save the criminal as she called him,
+she would have completed her sentence thus: "I saw an old man
+seated at a table and Frederick Sutherland standing over him." For
+Sweetwater had no longer a doubt that Frederick was in that room
+at that moment. What further she saw, whether she was witness to
+an encounter between this intruder and James, or whether by some
+lingering on the latter's part Frederick was able to leave the
+house without running across him, was a matter of comparative
+unimportance. What is of importance is that he did leave it and
+that Amabel, knowing it was Frederick, strove to make her auditors
+believe it was Zabel, who carried the remainder of the money into
+the woods. Yet she did not say so, and if her words on this
+subject could be carefully recalled, one would see that it was
+still her lover she was following and no old man, tottering on the
+verge of the grave and only surviving because of the task he was
+bent on performing.
+
+Amabel's excuse for handling the treasure, and for her reburial of
+the same, comes now within the bounds of possibility. She hoped to
+share this money some day, and her greed was too great for her to
+let such an amount lie there untouched, while her caution led her
+to bury it deeper, even at the risk of the discovery she was too
+inexperienced to fear.
+
+That she should forget to feign surprise when the alarm of murder
+was raised was very natural, and so was the fact that a woman with
+a soul so blunted to all delicate instincts, and with a mind so
+intent upon perfecting the scheme entered into by the murderer of
+throwing the blame upon the man whose dagger had been made use of,
+should persist in visiting the scene of crime and calling
+attention to the spot where that dagger had fallen. And so with
+her manner before her examiners. Baffling as that manner was, it
+still showed streaks of consistency, when you thought of it as the
+cloak of a subtle, unprincipled woman, who sees amongst her
+interlocutors the guilty man whom by a word she can destroy, but
+whom she exerts herself to save, even at the cost of a series of
+bizarre explanations. She was playing with a life, a life she
+loved, but not with sincerity sufficient to rob the game of a
+certain delicate, if inconceivable, intellectual enjoyment.
+[Footnote: That Sweetwater in his hate, and with no real clew to
+the real situation, should come so near the truth as in this last
+supposition, shows the keenness of his insight.]
+
+And Frederick? Had there been anything in his former life or in
+his conduct since the murder to give the lie to these heavy doubts
+against him? On the contrary. Though Sweetwater knew little of the
+dark record which had made this young man the disgrace of his
+family, what he did know was so much against him that he could
+well see that the distance usually existing between simple
+dissipation and desperate crime might be easily bridged by some
+great necessity for money. Had there been such a necessity?
+Sweetwater found it easy to believe so. And Frederick's manner?
+Was it that of an honest man simply shocked by the suspicions
+which had fallen upon the woman he loved? Had he, Sweetwater, not
+observed certain telltale moments in his late behaviour that
+required a deeper explanation even than this?
+
+The cry, for instance, with which he had rushed from the empty
+ballroom into the woods on the opposite side of the road! Was it a
+natural cry or an easily explainable one? "Thank God! this
+terrible night is over!" Strange language to be uttered by this
+man at such a time and in such a place, if he did not already know
+what was to make this night of nights memorable through all this
+region. He did know, and this cry which had struck Sweetwater
+strangely at the time and still more strangely when he regarded it
+simply as a coincidence, now took on all the force of a revelation
+and the irresistible bubbling up in Frederick's breast of that
+remorse which had just found its full expression on Agatha's
+grave.
+
+To some that remorse and all his other signs of suffering might be
+explained by his passion for the real criminal. But to Sweetwater
+it was only too evident that an egotist like Frederick Sutherland
+cannot suffer for another to such an extent as this, and that a
+personal explanation must be given for so personal a grief, even
+if that explanation involves the dreadful charge of murder.
+
+It was when Sweetwater reached this point in his reasoning that
+Frederick disappeared beneath Mr. Halliday's porch, and Mr.
+Sutherland came up behind him. After the short conversation in
+which Sweetwater saw his own doubts more than reflected in the
+uneasy consciousness of this stricken father, he went home and the
+struggle of his life began.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+SWEETWATER ACTS
+
+
+Sweetwater had promised Mr. Sutherland that he would keep counsel
+in regard to his present convictions concerning Frederick's guilt;
+but this he knew he could not do if he remained in Sutherlandtown
+and fell under the pitiless examination of Mr. Courtney, the
+shrewd and able prosecuting attorney of the district. He was too
+young, too honest, and had made himself too conspicuous in this
+affair to succeed in an undertaking requiring so much
+dissimulation, if not actual falsehood. Indeed, he was not sure
+that in his present state of mind he could hear Frederick's name
+mentioned without flushing, and slight as such a hint might be, it
+would be enough to direct attention to Frederick, which once done
+could but lead to discovery and permanent disgrace to all who bore
+the name of Sutherland.
+
+What was he to do then? How avoid a consequence he found himself
+absolutely unable to face? It was a problem which this night must
+solve for him. But how? As I have said, he went down to his house
+to think.
+
+Sweetwater was not a man of absolute rectitude. He was not so much
+high-minded as large-hearted. He had, besides, certain foibles. In
+the first place, he was vain, and vanity in a very plain man is
+all the more acute since it centres in his capabilities, rather
+than in his appearance. Had Sweetwater been handsome, or even
+passably attractive, he might have been satisfied with the
+approbation of demure maidens and a comradeship with his fellows.
+But being one who could hope for nothing of this kind, not even
+for a decent return to the unreasoning heart-worship he felt
+himself capable of paying, and which he had once paid for a few
+short days till warned of his presumption by the insolence of the
+recipient, he had fixed his hope and his ambition on doing
+something which would rouse the admiration of those about him and
+bring him into that prominence to which he felt himself entitled.
+That he, a skilful musician, should desire to be known as a
+brilliant detective, is only one of the anomalies of human nature
+which it would be folly and a waste of time on our part to
+endeavour to explain. That, having chosen to exercise his wits in
+this way, he should so well succeed that he dared not for his life
+continue in the work he had so publicly undertaken, occasioned in
+him a pang of disappointment almost as insufferable as that
+brought by the realisation of what his efforts were likely to
+bring upon the man to whose benevolence he owed his very life.
+Hence his struggle, which must be measured by the extent of his
+desires and the limitations which had been set to his nature by
+his surroundings and the circumstances of his life and daily
+history.
+
+If we enter with him into the humble cottage where he was born and
+from which he had hardly strayed more than a dozen miles in the
+twenty-two years of his circumscribed life, we may be able to
+understand him better.
+
+It was an unpainted house perched on an arid hillside, with
+nothing before it but the limitless sea. He had found his way to
+it mechanically, but as he approached the narrow doorway he paused
+and turned his face towards the stretch of heaving waters, whose
+low or loud booming had been first his cradle song and then the
+ceaseless accompaniment of his later thoughts and aspirations. It
+was heaving yet, ceaselessly heaving, and in its loud complaint
+there was a sound of moaning not always to be found there, or so
+it seemed to Sweetwater in his present troubled mood.
+
+Sighing as this sound reached his ear, and shuddering as its
+meaning touched his heart, Sweetwater pushed open the door of his
+small house, and entered.
+
+"It is I, mamsie!" he shouted, in what he meant to be his usual
+voice; but to a sensitive ear--and what ear is so sensitive as a
+mother's?--there was a tremble in it that was not wholly natural.
+
+"Is anything the matter, dear?" called out that mother, in reply.
+
+The question made him start, though he replied quickly enough, and
+in more guarded tones:
+
+"No, mamsie. Go to sleep. I'm tired, that's all."
+
+Would to God that was all! He recalled with envy the days when he
+dragged himself into the house at sundown, after twelve long hours
+of work on the docks. As he paused in the dark hallway and
+listened till he heard the breathing of her who had called him
+DEAR--the only one in the world who ever had or ever would call
+him DEAR--he had glimpses of that old self which made him question
+if his self-tutoring on the violin, and the restless ambition
+which had driven him out of the ways of his ancestors into strange
+attempts for which he was not prepared by any previous discipline,
+had brought him happiness or improved his manhood. He was forced
+to acknowledge that the sleep of those far-distant nights of his
+busy boyhood was sweeter than the wakefulness of these later days,
+and that it would have been better for him, and infinitely better
+for her, if he had remained at the carpenter's bench and been
+satisfied with a repetition of his father's existence.
+
+His mother was the only person sharing that small house with him,
+and once assured that she was asleep, he lighted a lamp in the
+empty kitchen and sat down.
+
+It was just twelve o'clock. This, to anyone accustomed to this
+peculiar young man's habits, had nothing unusual in it. He was
+accustomed to come home late and sit thus by himself for a short
+time before going up-stairs. But, to one capable of reading his
+sharp and none too mobile countenance, there was a change in the
+character of the brooding into which he now sank, which, had that
+mother been awake to watch him, would have made every turn of his
+eye and movement of his hand interesting and important.
+
+In the first place, the careless attitude into which he had fallen
+was totally at variance with the restless glance which took in
+every object in that well-known room so associated with his mother
+and her daily work that he could not imagine her in any other
+surroundings, and wondered sometimes if she would seem any longer
+his mother if transplanted to other scenes and engaged in other
+tasks.
+
+Little things, petty objects of household use or ornament, which
+he had seen all his life without specially noticing them, seemed
+under the stress of his present mood to acquire a sudden
+importance and fix themselves indelibly in his memory. There, on a
+nail driven long before he was born, hung the little round lid-
+holder he had pieced together in his earliest years and presented
+to his mother in a gush of pride greater than any he had since
+experienced. She had never used it, but it always hung upon the
+one nail in the one place, as a symbol of his love and of hers.
+And there, higher up on the end of the shelf barren enough of
+ornaments, God wot, were a broken toy and a much-defaced primer,
+mementos likewise of his childhood; and farther along the wall, on
+a sort of raised bench, a keg, the spigot of which he was once
+guilty of turning on in his infantile longing for sweets, only to
+find he could not turn it back again until all the floor was
+covered with molasses, and his appetite for the forbidden
+gratified to the full. And yonder, dangling from a peg, never
+devoted to any other use, hung his father's old hat, just where he
+had placed it on the fatal morning when he came in and lay down on
+the sitting-room lounge for the last time; and close to it,
+lovingly close to it, Sweetwater thought, his mother's apron, the
+apron he had seen her wear at supper, and which he would see her
+wear at breakfast, with all its suggestions of ceaseless work and
+patient every-day thrift.
+
+Somehow, he could not bear the sight of that apron. With the
+expectation now forming in his mind, of leaving this home and
+leaving this mother, this symbol of humble toil became an
+intolerable grief to him. Jumping up, he turned in another
+direction; but now another group of objects equally eloquent came
+under his eye. It was his mother's work-basket he saw, with a
+piece of sewing in it intended for him, and as if this were not
+enough, the table set for two, and at his place a little covered
+dish which held the one sweetmeat he craved for breakfast. The
+spectacles lying beside her plate told him how old she was, and as
+he thought of her failing strength and enfeebled ways, he jumped
+up again and sought another corner. But here his glances fell on
+his violin, and a new series of emotions awakened within him. He
+loved the instrument and played as much from natural intuition as
+acquired knowledge, but in the plan of action he had laid out for
+himself his violin could have no part. He would have to leave it
+behind. Feeling that his regrets were fast becoming too much for
+him, he left the humble kitchen and went up-stairs. But not to
+sleep. Locking the door (something he never remembered doing
+before in all his life), he began to handle over his clothes and
+other trivial belongings. Choosing out a certain strong suit, he
+laid it out on the bed and then went to a bureau drawer and drew
+out an old-fashioned wallet. This he opened, but after he had
+counted the few bills it contained he shook his head and put them
+all back, only retaining a little silver, which he slipped into
+one of the pockets of the suit he had chosen. Then he searched for
+and found a little Bible which his mother had once given him. He
+was about to thrust that into another pocket, but he seemed to
+think better of this, too, for he ended by putting it back into
+the drawer and taking instead a bit from one of his mother's old
+aprons which he had chanced upon on the stairway. This he placed
+as carefully in his watch pocket as if it had been the picture of
+a girl he loved. Then he undressed and went to bed.
+
+Mrs. Sweetwater said afterwards that she never knew Caleb to talk
+so much and eat so little as he did that next morning at
+breakfast. Such plans as he detailed for unmasking the murderer of
+Mrs. Webb! Such business for the day! So many people to see! It
+made her quite dizzy, she said. And, indeed, Sweetwater was more
+than usually voluble that morning,--perhaps because he could not
+bear his mother's satisfied smile; and when he went out of the
+house it was with a laugh and a cheery "Good-bye, mamsie" that was
+in spiking contrast to the irrepressible exclamation of grief
+which escaped him when the door was closed between them. Ah, when
+should he enter those four walls again, and when should he see the
+old mother?
+
+He proceeded immediately to town. A ship was preparing to sail
+that morning for the Brazils, and the wharves were alive with
+bustle. He stopped a moment to contemplate the great hulk rising
+and falling at her moorings, then he passed on and entered the
+building where he had every reason to expect to find Dr. Talbot
+and Knapp in discussion. It was very important to him that morning
+to learn just how they felt concerning the great matter absorbing
+him, for if suspicion was taking the direction of Frederick, or if
+he saw it was at all likely to do so, then would his struggle be
+cut short and all necessity for leaving town be at an end. It was
+to save Frederick from this danger that he was prepared to cut all
+the ties binding him to this place, and nothing short of the
+prospect of accomplishing this would make him willing to undergo
+such a sacrifice.
+
+"Well, Sweetwater, any news, eh?" was the half-jeering, half-
+condescending greeting he received from the coroner.
+
+Sweetwater, who had regained entire control over his feelings as
+soon as he found himself under the eye of this man and the
+supercilious detective he had attempted to rival, gave a careless
+shrug and passed the question on to Knapp. "Have you any news?" he
+asked.
+
+Knapp, who would probably not have acknowledged it if he had,
+smiled the indulgent smile of a self-satisfied superior and
+uttered a few equivocal sentences. This was gall and wormwood to
+Sweetwater, but he kept his temper admirably and, with an air of
+bravado entirely assumed for the occasion, said to Dr. Talbot:
+
+"I think I shall have something to tell you soon which will
+materially aid you in your search for witnesses. By to-morrow, at
+least, I shall know whether I am right or wrong in thinking I have
+discovered an important witness in quite an unexpected quarter."
+
+Sweetwater knew of no new witness, but it was necessary for him
+not only to have a pretext for the move he contemplated, but to so
+impress these men with an idea of his extreme interest in the
+approaching proceedings, that no suspicion should ever arise of
+his having premeditated an escape from them. He wished to appear
+the victim of accident; and this is why he took nothing from his
+home which would betray any intention of leaving it.
+
+"Ha! indeed!" ejaculated the coroner with growing interest. "And
+may I ask----"
+
+"Please," urged Sweetwater, with a side look at Knapp, "do not ask
+me anything just yet. This afternoon, say, after I have had a
+certain interview with--What, are they setting sails on the
+Hesper already?" he burst out, with a quick glance from the window
+at the great ship riding at anchor a little distance from them in
+the harbour. "There is a man on her I must see. Excuse me--Oh, Mr.
+Sutherland!"
+
+He fell back in confusion. That gentleman had just entered the
+room in company with Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+A SINISTER PAIR
+
+
+"I beg your pardon," stammered Sweetwater, starting aside and
+losing on the instant all further disposition to leave the room.
+
+Indeed, he had not the courage to do so, even if he had had the
+will. The joint appearance of these two men in this place, and at
+an hour so far in advance of that which usually saw Mr. Sutherland
+enter the town, was far too significant in his eyes for him to
+ignore it. Had any explanation taken place between them, and had
+Mr. Sutherland's integrity triumphed over personal considerations
+to the point of his bringing Frederick here to confess?
+
+Meanwhile Dr. Talbot had risen with a full and hearty greeting
+which proved to Sweetwater's uneasy mind that notwithstanding
+Knapp's disquieting reticence no direct suspicion had as yet
+fallen on the unhappy Frederick. Then he waited for what Mr.
+Sutherland had to say, for it was evident he had come there to say
+something. Sweetwater waited, too, frozen almost into immobility
+by the fear that it would be something injudicious, for never had
+he seen any man so changed as Mr. Sutherland in these last twelve
+hours, nor did it need a highly penetrating eye to detect that the
+relations between him and Frederick were strained to a point that
+made it almost impossible for them to more than assume their old
+confidential attitude. Knapp, knowing them but superficially, did
+not perceive this, but Dr. Talbot was not blind to it, as was
+shown by the inquiring look he directed towards them both while
+waiting.
+
+Mr. Sutherland spoke at last.
+
+"Pardon me for interrupting you so early," said he, with a certain
+tremble in his voice which Sweetwater quaked to hear. "For certain
+reasons, I should be very glad to know, WE should be very glad to
+know, if during your investigations into the cause and manner of
+Agatha Webb's death, you have come upon a copy of her will."
+
+"No."
+
+Talbot was at once interested, so was Knapp, while Sweetwater
+withdrew further into his corner in anxious endeavour to hide his
+blanching cheek. "We have found nothing. We do not even know that
+she has made a will."
+
+"I ask," pursued Mr. Sutherland, with a slight glance toward
+Frederick, who seemed, at least in Sweetwater's judgment, to have
+braced himself up to bear this interview unmoved, "because I have
+not only received intimation that she made such a will, but have
+even been entrusted with a copy of it as chief executor of the
+same. It came to me in a letter from Boston yesterday. Its
+contents were a surprise to me. Frederick, hand me a chair. These
+accumulated misfortunes--for we all suffer under the afflictions
+which have beset this town--have made me feel my years."
+
+Sweetwater drew his breath more freely. He thought he might
+understand by this last sentence that Mr. Sutherland had come here
+for a different cause than he had at first feared. Frederick, on
+the contrary, betrayed a failing ability to hide his emotion. He
+brought his father a chair, placed it, and was drawing back out of
+sight when Mr. Sutherland prevented him by a mild command to hand
+the paper he had brought to the coroner.
+
+There was something in his manner that made Sweetwater lean
+forward and Frederick look up, so that the father's and son's eyes
+met under that young man's scrutiny. But while he saw meaning in
+both their regards, there was nothing like collusion, and, baffled
+by these appearances, which, while interesting, told him little or
+nothing, he transferred his attention to Dr. Talbot and Knapp, who
+had drawn together to see what this paper contained.
+
+"As I have said, the contents of this will are a surprise to me,"
+faltered Mr. Sutherland. "They are equally so to my son. He can
+hardly be said to have been a friend even of the extraordinary
+woman who thus leaves him her whole fortune."
+
+"I never spoke with her but twice," exclaimed Frederick with a
+studied coldness, which was so evidently the cloak of inner
+agitation that Sweetwater trembled for its effect, notwithstanding
+the state of his own thoughts, which were in a ferment. Frederick,
+the inheritor of Agatha Webb's fortune! Frederick, concerning whom
+his father had said on the previous night that he possessed no
+motive for wishing this good woman's death! Was it the discovery
+that such a motive existed which had so aged this man in the last
+twelve hours? Sweetwater dared not turn again to see. His own face
+might convey too much of his own fears, doubts, and struggle.
+
+But the coroner, for whose next words Sweetwater listened with
+acute expectancy, seemed to be moved simply by the unexpectedness
+of the occurrence. Glancing at Frederick with more interest than
+he had ever before shown him, he cried with a certain show of
+enthusiasm:
+
+"A pretty fortune! A very pretty fortune!" Then with a deprecatory
+air natural to him in addressing Mr. Sutherland, "Would it be
+indiscreet for me to ask to what our dear friend Agatha alludes in
+her reference to your late lamented wife?" His finger was on a
+clause of the will and his lips next minute mechanically repeated
+what he was pointing at:
+
+"'In remembrance of services rendered me in early life by Marietta
+Sutherland, wife of Charles Sutherland of Sutherlandtown, I
+bequeath to Frederick, sole child of her affection, all the
+property, real and personal, of which I die possessed.' Services
+rendered! They must have been very important ones," suggested Dr.
+Talbot.
+
+Mr. Sutherland's expression was one of entire perplexity and
+doubt.
+
+"I do not remember my wife ever speaking of any special act of
+kindness she was enabled to show Agatha Webb. They were always
+friends, but never intimate ones. However, Agatha could be trusted
+to make no mistake. She doubtless knew to what she referred. Mrs.
+Sutherland was fully capable of doing an extremely kind act in
+secret."
+
+For all his respect for the speaker, Dr. Talbot did not seem quite
+satisfied. He glanced at Frederick and fumbled the paper uneasily.
+
+"Perhaps you were acquainted with the reason for this legacy--this
+large legacy," he emphasised.
+
+Frederick, thus called upon, nay, forced to speak, raised his
+head, and without perhaps bestowing so much as a thought on the
+young man behind him who was inwardly quivering in anxious
+expectancy of some betrayal on his part which would precipitate
+disgrace and lifelong sorrow on all who bore the name of
+Sutherland, met Dr. Talbot's inquiring glance with a simple
+earnestness surprising to them all, and said:
+
+"My record is so much against me that I am not surprised that you
+wonder at my being left with Mrs. Webb's fortune. Perhaps she did
+not fully realise the lack of estimation in which I am deservedly
+held in this place, or perhaps, and this would be much more like
+her, she hoped that the responsibility of owing my independence to
+so good and so unfortunate a woman might make a man of me."
+
+There was a manliness in Frederick's words and bearing that took
+them all by surprise. Mr. Sutherland's dejection visibly
+lightened, while Sweetwater, conscious of the more than vital
+interests hanging upon the impression which might be made by this
+event upon the minds of the men present, turned slightly so as to
+bring their faces into the line of his vision.
+
+The result was a conviction that as yet no real suspicion of
+Frederick had seized upon either of their minds. Knapp's face was
+perfectly calm and almost indifferent, while the good coroner, who
+saw this and every other circumstance connected with this affair
+through the one medium of his belief in Amabel's guilt, was
+surveying Frederick with something like sympathy.
+
+"I fear," said he, "that others were not as ignorant of your
+prospective good fortune as you were yourself," at which
+Frederick's cheek turned a dark red, though he said nothing, and
+Sweetwater, with a sudden involuntary gesture indicative of
+resolve, gazed for a moment breathlessly at the ship, and then
+with an unexpected and highly impetuous movement dashed from the
+room crying loudly:
+
+"I've seen him! I've seen him! he's just going on board the ship.
+Wait for me, Dr. Talbot. I'll be back in fifteen minutes with such
+a witness--"
+
+Here the door slammed. But they could hear his hurrying footsteps
+as he plunged down the stairs and rushed away from the building.
+
+It was an unexpected termination to an interview fast becoming
+unbearable to the two Sutherlands, but no one, not even the old
+gentleman himself, took in its full significance.
+
+He was, however, more than agitated by the occurrence and could
+hardly prevent himself from repeating aloud Sweetwater's final
+word, which after their interview at Mr. Halliday's gate, the
+night before, seemed to convey to him at once a warning and a
+threat. To keep himself from what he feared might prove a self-
+betrayal, he faltered out in very evident dismay:
+
+"What is the matter? What has come over the lad?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Dr. Talbot, "he's been watching that ship for an hour.
+He is after some man he has just seen go aboard her. Says he's a
+new and important witness in this case. Perhaps he is. Sweetwater
+is no man's fool, for all his small eyes and retreating chin. If
+you want proof of it, wait till he comes back. He'll be sure to
+have something to say."
+
+Meanwhile they had all pressed forward to the window. Frederick,
+who carefully kept his face out of his father's view, bent half-
+way over the sill in his anxiety to watch the flying figure of
+Sweetwater, who was making straight for the dock, while Knapp,
+roused at last, leaned over his shoulder and pointed to the
+sailors on the deck, who were pulling in the last ropes,
+preparatory to sailing.
+
+"He's too late: they won't let him aboard now. What a fool to hang
+around here till he saw his man, instead of being at the dock to
+nab him! That comes of trusting a country bumpkin. I knew he'd
+fail us at the pinch. They lack training, these would-be
+detectives. See, now! He's run up against the mate, and the mate
+pushes him back. His cake is all dough, unless he's got a warrant.
+Has he a warrant, Dr. Talbot?"
+
+"No," said the coroner, "he didn't ask for one. He didn't even
+tell me whom he wanted. Can it be one of those two passengers you
+see on the forward deck, there?"
+
+It might well be. Even from a distance these two men presented a
+sinister appearance that made them quite marked figures among the
+crowd of hurrying sailors and belated passengers.
+
+"One of them is peering over the rail with a very evident air of
+anxiety. His eye is on Sweetwater, who is dancing with impatience.
+See, he is gesticulating like a monkey, and--By the powers, they
+are going to let him go aboard!"
+
+Mr. Sutherland, who had been leaning heavily against the window-
+jamb in the agitation of doubt and suspense which Sweetwater's
+unaccountable conduct had evoked, here crossed to the other side
+and stole a determined look at Frederick. Was his son personally
+interested in this attempt of the amateur detective? Did he know
+whom Sweetwater sought, and was he suffering as much or more than
+himself from the uncertainty and fearful possibilities of the
+moment? He thought he knew Frederick's face, and that he read
+dread there, but Frederick had changed so completely since the
+commission of this crime that even his father could no longer be
+sure of the correct meaning either of his words or expression.
+
+The torture of the moment continued.
+
+"He climbs like a squirrel," remarked Dr. Talbot, with a touch of
+enthusiasm. "Look at him now--he's on the quarterdeck and will be
+down in the cabins before you can say Jack Robinson. I warrant
+they have told him to hurry. Captain Dunlap isn't the man to wait
+five minutes after the ropes are pulled in."
+
+"Those two men have shrunk away behind some mast or other," cried
+Knapp. "They are the fellows he's after. But what can they have to
+do with the murder? Have you ever seen them here about town, Dr.
+Talbot?"
+
+"Not that I remember; they have a foreign air about them. Look
+like South Americans."
+
+"Well, they're going to South America. Sweetwater can't stop
+them. He has barely time to get off the ship himself. There goes
+the last rope! Have they forgotten him? They're drawing up the
+ladder."
+
+"No: the mate stops them; see, he's calling the fellow. I can hear
+his voice, can't you? Sweetwater's game is up. He'll have to leave
+in a hurry. What's the rumpus now?"
+
+"Nothing, only they've scattered to look for him; the fox is down
+in the cabins and won't come up, laughing in his sleeve, no doubt,
+at keeping the vessel waiting while he hunts up his witness."
+
+"If it's one of those two men he's laying a trap for he won't
+snare him in a hurry. They're sneaks, those two, and--Why, the
+sailors are coming back shaking their heads. I can almost hear
+from here the captain's oaths."
+
+"And such a favourable wind for getting out of the harbour!
+Sweetwater, my boy, you are distinguishing yourself. If your
+witness don't pan out well you won't hear the last of this in a
+hurry."
+
+"It looks as if they meant to sail without waiting to put him
+ashore," observed Frederick in a low tone, too carefully modulated
+not to strike his father as unnatural.
+
+"By jingoes, so it does!" ejaculated Knapp. "There go the sails!
+The pilot's hand is on the wheel, and Dr. Talbot, are you going to
+let your cunning amateur detective and his important witness slip
+away from you like this?"
+
+"I cannot help myself," said the coroner, a little dazed himself
+at this unexpected chance. "My voice wouldn't reach them from this
+place; besides they wouldn't heed me if it did. The ship is
+already under way and we won't see Sweetwater again till the
+pilot's boat comes back."
+
+Mr. Sutherland moved from the window and crossed to the door like
+a man in a dream. Frederick, instantly conscious of his departure,
+turned to follow him, but presently stopped and addressing Knapp
+for the first time, observed quietly:
+
+"This is all very exciting, but I think your estimate of this
+fellow Sweetwater is just. He's a busybody and craves notoriety
+above everything. He had no witness on board, or, if he had, it
+was an imaginary one. You will see him return quite crestfallen
+before night, with some trumped-up excuse of mistaken identity."
+
+The shrug which Knapp gave dismissed Sweetwater as completely from
+the affair as if he had never been in it.
+
+"I think I may now regard myself as having this matter in my sole
+charge," was his curt remark, as he turned away, while Frederick,
+with a respectful bow to Dr. Talbot, remarked in leaving:
+
+"I am at your service, Dr. Talbot, if you require me to testify at
+the inquest in regard to this will. My testimony can all be
+concentrated into the one sentence, 'I did not expect this
+bequest, and have no theories to advance in explanation of it.'
+But it has made me feel myself Mrs. Webb's debtor, and given me a
+justifiable interest in the inquiry which, I am told, you open to-
+morrow into the cause and manner of her death. If there is a
+guilty person in this case, I shall raise no barrier in the way of
+his conviction."
+
+And while the coroner's face still showed the embarrassment which
+this last sentence called up, his mind being now, as ever, fixed
+on Amabel, Frederick offered his arm to his father, whose
+condition was not improved by the excitements of the last half-
+hour, and proceeded to lead him from the building.
+
+Whatever they thought, or however each strove to hide their
+conclusions from the other, no words passed between them till they
+came in full sight of the sea, on a distant billow of which the
+noble-ship bound for the Brazils rode triumphantly on its outward
+course. Then Mr. Sutherland remarked, with a suggestive glance at
+the vessel:
+
+"The young man who has found an unexpected passage on that vessel
+will not come back with the pilot."
+
+Was the sigh which was Frederick's only answer one of relief? It
+certainly seemed so.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+IN THE SHADOW OP THE MAST
+
+
+Mr. Sutherland was right. Sweetwater did not return with the
+pilot. According to the latter there was no Sweetwater on board
+the ship to return. At all events the minutest search had not
+succeeded in finding him in the cabins, though no one had seen him
+leave the vessel, or, indeed, seen him at all after his hasty dash
+below decks. It was thought on board that he had succeeded in
+reaching shore before the ship set sail, and the pilot was
+suitably surprised at learning this was not so. So were
+Sweetwater's friends and associates with the exception of a
+certain old gentleman living on the hill, and Knapp the detective.
+He, that is the latter, had his explanation at his tongue's end:
+
+"Sweetwater is a fakir. He thought he could carry off the honours
+from the regular force, and when he found he couldn't he quietly
+disappeared. We shall hear of him again in the Brazils."
+
+An opinion that speedily gained ground, so that in a few hours
+Sweetwater was all but forgotten, save by his mother, whose heart
+was filled with suspense, and by Mr. Sutherland, whose breast was
+burdened by gratitude. The amazing fact of Frederick, the village
+scapegrace and Amabel's reckless, if aristocratic, lover, having
+been made the legatee of the upright Mrs. Webb's secret savings
+had something to do with this. With such a topic at hand, not only
+the gossips, but those who had the matter of Agatha's murder in
+hand, found ample material to occupy their thoughts and tongues,
+without wasting time over a presumptuous busybody, who had not
+wits enough to know that five minutes before sailing-time is an
+unfortunate moment in which to enter a ship.
+
+And where was Sweetwater, that he could not be found on the shore
+or on the ship? We will follow him and see. Accustomed from his
+youth to ramble over the vessels while in port, he knew this one
+as well as he did his mother's house. It was, therefore, a
+surprise to the sailors when, shortly after the departure of the
+pilot, they came upon him lying in the hold, half buried under a
+box which had partially fallen upon him. He was unconscious, or
+appeared to be so, and when brought into open light showed marks
+of physical distress and injury; but his eye was clear and his
+expression hardly as rueful as one would expect in a man who finds
+himself en route for the Brazils with barely a couple of dollars
+in his pocket and every prospect of being obliged to work before
+the mast to earn his passage. Even the captain noticed this and
+eyed him with suspicion. But Sweetwater, rousing to the
+necessities of the occasion, forthwith showed such a mixture of
+discouragement and perplexity that the honest sailor was deceived
+and abated half at least of his oaths. He gave Sweetwater a
+hammock and admitted him to the mess, but told him that as soon as
+his bruises allowed him to work he should show himself on deck or
+expect the rough treatment commonly bestowed on stowaways.
+
+It was a prospect to daunt some men, but not Sweetwater. Indeed it
+was no more than he had calculated upon when he left his savings
+behind with his old mother and entered upon this enterprise with
+only a little change in his pocket. He had undertaken out of love
+and gratitude to Mr. Sutherland to rid Frederick of a dangerous
+witness and he felt able to complete the sacrifice. More than
+that, he was even strangely happy for a time. The elation of the
+willing victim was his, that is for a few short hours, then he
+began to think of his mother. How had she borne his sudden
+departure? What would she think had befallen him, and how long
+would he have to wait before he could send her word of his safety?
+If he was to be of real service to the man he venerated, he must
+be lost long enough for the public mind to have become settled in
+regard to the mysteries of the Webb murder and for his own
+boastful connection with it to be forgotten. This might mean years
+of exile. He rather thought it did; meanwhile his mother! Of
+himself he thought little.
+
+By sundown he felt himself sufficiently recovered from his bruises
+to go up on deck. It was a mild night, and the sea was running in
+smooth long waves that as yet but faintly presaged the storm
+brewing on the distant horizon. As he inhaled the fresh air, the
+joy of renewed health began to infuse its life into his veins and
+lift the oppression from his heart, and, glad of a few minutes of
+quiet enjoyment, he withdrew to a solitary portion of the deck and
+allowed himself to forget his troubles in contemplation of the
+rapidly deepening sky and boundless stretch of waters.
+
+But such griefs and anxieties as weighed upon this man's breast
+are not so easily shaken off. Before he realised it his thoughts
+had recurred to the old theme, and he was wondering if he was
+really of sufficient insignificance in the eyes of his fellow-
+townsmen not to be sought for and found in that distant country to
+which he was bound. Would they, in spite of his precautions,
+suspect that he had planned this evasion and insist on his return,
+or would he be allowed to slip away and drop out of sight like the
+white froth he was watching on the top of the ever-shifting waves?
+He had boasted of possessing a witness. Would they believe that
+boast and send a detective in search of him, or would they take
+his words for the bombast they really were and proceed with their
+investigations in happy relief at the loss of his intrusive
+assistance?
+
+As this was a question impossible for him to answer, he turned to
+other thoughts and fretted himself for a while with memories of
+Amabel's disdain and Frederick's careless acceptance of a
+sacrifice he could never know the cost of, mixed strangely with
+relief at being free of it all and on the verge of another life.
+As the dark settled, his head fell farther and farther forward on
+the rail he was leaning against, till he became to any passing eye
+but a blurred shadow mixing with other shadows equally immovable.
+
+Unlike them, however, his shadow suddenly shifted. Two men had
+drawn near him, one speaking pure Spanish and the other English.
+The English was all that Sweetwater could understand, and this
+half of the conversation was certainly startling enough. Though he
+could not, of coarse, know to what or whom it referred, and though
+it certainly had nothing to do with him, or any interest he
+represented or understood, he could not help listening and
+remembering every word. The English-speaking man uttered the first
+sentence he comprehended. It was this:
+
+"Shall it be to-night?"
+
+The answer was in Spanish.
+
+Again the English voice:
+
+"He has come up. I saw him distinctly as he passed the second
+mast."
+
+More Spanish; then English:
+
+"You may if you want to, but I'll never breathe easy while he's on
+the ship. Are you sure he's the fellow we fear?"
+
+A rapid flow of words from which Sweetwater got nothing. Then
+slowly and distinctly in the sinister tones he had already begun
+to shiver at:
+
+"Very good. The R. F. A. should pay well for this," with the quick
+addition following a hurried whisper: "All right! I'd send a dozen
+men to the bottom for half that money. But 'ware there! Here's a
+fellow watching us! If he has heard--"
+
+Sweetwater turned, saw two desperate faces projected toward him,
+realised that something awful, unheard of, was about to happen,
+and would have uttered a yell of dismay, but that the very
+intensity of his fright took away his breath. The next minute he
+felt himself launched into space and enveloped in the darkness of
+the chilling waters. He had been lifted bodily and flung headlong
+into the sea.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+IN EXTREMITY
+
+
+Sweetwater's one thought as he sank was, "Now Mr. Sutherland need
+fear me no longer."
+
+But the instinct of life is strong in every heart, and when he
+found himself breathing the air again he threw out his arms wildly
+and grasped a spar.
+
+It was life to him, hope, reconnection with his kind. He clutched,
+clung, and, feeling himself floating, uttered a shout of mingled
+joy and appeal that unhappily was smothered in the noise of the
+waters and the now rapidly rising wind.
+
+Whence had come this spar in his desperate need? He never knew,
+but somewhere in his remote consciousness an impression remained
+of a shock to the waves following his own plunge into the water,
+which might mean that this spar had been thrown out after him,
+perhaps by the already repentant hands of the wretches who had
+tossed him to his death. However it came, or from whatever source,
+it had at least given him an opportunity to measure his doom and
+realise the agonies of hope when it alternates with despair.
+
+The darkness was impenetrable. It was no longer that of heaven,
+but of the nether world, or so it seemed to this dazed soul,
+plunged suddenly from dreams of exile into the valley of the
+shadow of death. And such a death! As he realised its horrors, as
+he felt the chill of night and the oncoming storm strike its
+piercing fangs into his marrow, and knew that his existence and
+the hope of ever again seeing the dear old face at the fireside
+rested upon the strength of his will and the tenacity of his life-
+clutch, he felt his heart fail, and the breath that was his life
+cease in a gurgle of terror. But he clung on, and, though no
+comfort came, still clung, while vague memories of long-ago
+shipwrecks, and stories told in his youth of men, women, and
+children tossing for hours on a drifting plank, flashed through
+his benumbed brain, and lent their horror to his own sensations of
+apprehension and despair.
+
+He wanted to live. Now that the dread spectre had risen out of the
+water and had its clutch on his hair, he realised that the world
+held much for him, and that even in exile he might work and love
+and enjoy God's heaven and earth, the green fields and the blue
+sky. Not such skies as were above him now. No, this was not sky
+that overarched him, but a horrible vault in which the clouds,
+rushing in torn masses, had the aspect of demons stooping to
+contend for him with those other demons that with long arms and
+irresistible grip were dragging at him from below. He was alone on
+a whirling spar in the midst of a midnight ocean, but horror and a
+pitiless imagination made this conflict more than that of the
+elements, and his position an isolation beyond that of man removed
+from his fellows. He was almost mad. Yet he clung.
+
+Suddenly a better frame of mind prevailed. The sky was no lighter,
+save as the lightning came to relieve the overwhelming darkness by
+a still more overwhelming glare, nor were the waves less
+importunate or his hold on the spar more secure; but the horror
+seemed to have lifted, and the practical nature of the man
+reasserted itself. Other men had gone through worse dangers than
+these and survived to tell the tale, as he might survive to tell
+his. The will was all--will and an indomitable courage; and he had
+will and he had courage, or why had he left his home to dare a
+hard and threatening future purely from a sentiment of gratitude?
+Could he hold on long enough, daylight would come; and if, as he
+now thought possible, he had been thrown into the sea within
+twenty hours after leaving Sutherlandtown, then he must be not far
+from Cape Cod, and in the direct line of travel from New York to
+Boston. Rescue would come, and if the storm which was breaking
+over his head more and more furiously made it difficult for him to
+retain his hold, it certainly would not wreck his spar or drench
+him more than he was already drenched, while every blast would
+drive him shoreward. The clinging was all, and filial love would
+make him do that, even in the semi-unconsciousness which now and
+then swept over him. Only, would it not be better for Mr.
+Sutherland if he should fail and drop away into the yawning chasms
+of the unknown world beneath? There were moments when he thought
+so, and then his clutch perceptibly weakened; but only once did he
+come near losing his hold altogether. And that was when he thought
+he heard a laugh. A laugh, here in the midst of ocean! in the
+midst of storm! a laugh! Were demons a reality, then? Yes; but the
+demon he had heard was of his own imagination; it had a face of
+Medusa sweetness and the laugh--Only Amabel's rang out so
+thrillingly false, and with such diabolic triumph. Amabel, who
+might be laughing in her dreams at this very moment of his supreme
+misery, and who assuredly would laugh if conscious of his
+suffering and aware of the doom to which his self-sacrifice had
+brought him. Amabel! the thought of her made the night more dark,
+the waters more threatening, the future less promising. Yet he
+would hold on if only to spite her who hated him and whom he hated
+almost as much as he loved Mr. Sutherland.
+
+It was his last conscious thought for hours. When morning broke he
+was but a nerveless figure, with sense enough to cling, and that
+was all.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARCEL
+
+
+"A man! Haul him in! Don't leave a poor fellow drifting about like
+that."
+
+The speaker, a bluff, hearty skipper, whose sturdy craft had
+outridden one of the worst storms of the season, pointed to our
+poor friend Sweetwater, whose head could just be seen above the
+broken spar he clung to. In another moment a half-dozen hands were
+stretched for him, and the insensible form was drawn in and laid
+on a deck which still showed the results of the night's fierce
+conflict with the waters.
+
+"Damn it! how ugly he is!" cried one of the sailors, with a leer
+at the half-drowned man's face. "I'd like to see the lass we'd
+please in saving him. He's only fit to poison a devil-fish!"
+
+But though more than one laugh rang out, they gave him good care,
+and when Sweetwater came to life and realised that his blood was
+pulsing warmly again through his veins, and that a grey sky had
+taken the place of darkness, and a sound board supported limbs
+which for hours had yielded helplessly to the rocking billows, he
+saw a ring of hard but good-natured faces about him and realised
+quite well what had been done for him when one of them said:
+
+"There! he'll do now; all hands on deck! We can get into New
+Bedford in two days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the
+skipper to the man at the tiller. "We'll sup with our old women in
+forty-eight hours!"
+
+New Bedford! It was the only word Sweetwater heard. So, he was no
+farther away from Sutherlandtown than that. Evidently Providence
+had not meant him to escape. Or was it his fortitude that was
+being tried? A man as humble as he might easily be lost even in a
+place as small as New Bedford. It was his identity he must
+suppress. With that unrecognised he might remain in the next
+village to Sutherlandtown without fear of being called up as a
+witness against Frederick. But could he suppress it? He thought he
+could. At all events he meant to try.
+
+"What's your name?" were the words he now heard shouted in his
+ear.
+
+"Jonathan Briggs," was his mumbled reply. "I was blown off a
+ship's deck in the gale last night."
+
+"What ship?"
+
+"The Proserpine." It was the first name that suggested itself to
+him.
+
+"Oh, I thought it might have been the Hesper; she foundered off
+here last night."
+
+"Foundered? The Hesper?" The hot blood was shooting now through
+his veins.
+
+"Yes, we just picked up her name-board. That was before we got a
+hold on you."
+
+Foundered! The ship from which he had been so mercilessly thrown!
+And all on board lost, perhaps. He began to realise the hand of
+Providence in his fate.
+
+"It was the Hesper I sailed on. I'm not just clear yet in my head.
+My first voyage was made on the Proserpine. Well, bless the gale
+that blew me from that deck!"
+
+He seemed incoherent, and they left him again for a little while.
+When they came back he had his story all ready, which imposed upon
+them just so far as it was for their interest. Their business on
+this coast was not precisely legitimate, and when they found he
+simply wanted to be set on shore, they were quite willing to do
+thus much for him. Only they regretted that he had barely two
+dollars and his own soaked clothing to give in exchange for the
+motley garments they trumped up among them for his present
+comfort. But he, as well as they, made the best of a bad bargain,
+he especially, as his clothes, which would be soon scattered among
+half a dozen families, were the only remaining clew connecting him
+with his native town. He could now be Jonathan Briggs indeed. Only
+who was Jonathan Briggs, and how was he to earn a living under
+these unexpected conditions?
+
+At the end of a couple of days he was dexterously landed on the
+end of a long pier, which they passed without stopping, on their
+way to their own obscure anchorage. As he jumped from the rail to
+the pier and felt again the touch of terra firma he drew a long
+breath of uncontrollable elation. Yet he had not a cent in the
+world, no friends, and certainly no prospects. He did not even
+know whether to turn to the right or the left as he stepped out
+upon the docks, and when he had decided to turn to the right as
+being on the whole more lucky, he did not know whether to risk his
+fortune in the streets of the town or to plunge into one of the
+low-browed drinking houses whose signs confronted him on this
+water-lane.
+
+He decided that his prospects for a dinner were slim in any case,
+and that his only hope of breaking fast that day lay in the use he
+might make of one of his three talents. Either he must find a
+fiddle to play on, a carpenter's bench to work at, or a piece of
+detective shadowing to do. The last would bring him before the
+notice of the police, which was just the thing he must avoid; so
+it was fiddling or carpentry he must seek, either of which would
+be difficult to obtain in his present garb. But of difficulties
+Sweetwater was not a man to take note. He had undertaken out of
+pure love for a good man to lose himself. He had accomplished
+this, and now was he to complain because in doing so he was likely
+to go hungry for a day or two? No; Amabel might laugh at him, or
+he might fancy she did, while struggling in the midst of rapidly
+engulfing waters, but would she laugh at him now? He did not think
+she would. She was of the kind who sometimes go hungry themselves
+in old age. Some premonition of this might give her a fellow
+feeling.
+
+He came to a stand before a little child sitting on an ill-kept
+doorstep. Smiling at her kindly, he waited for her first
+expression to see how he appeared in the eyes of innocence. Not so
+bad a man, it seemed, though his naturally plain countenance was
+not relieved by the seaman's cap and knitted shirt he wore. For
+she laughed as she looked at him, and only ran away because there
+wasn't room for him to pass beside her.
+
+Comforted a little, he sauntered on, glancing here and there with
+that sharp eye of his for a piece of work to be done. Suddenly he
+came to a halt. A market-woman had got into an altercation with an
+oysterman, and her stall had been upset in the contention, and her
+vegetables were rolling here and there. He righted her stall,
+picked up her vegetables, and in return got two apples and a red
+herring he would not have given to a dog at home. Yet it was the
+sweetest morsel he had ever tasted, and the apples might have been
+grown in the garden of the Hesperides from the satisfaction and
+pleasure they gave this hungry man. Then, refreshed, he dashed
+into the town. It should now go hard but he would earn a night's
+lodging.
+
+The day was windy and he was going along a narrow street, when
+something floated down from a window above past his head. It was a
+woman's veil, and as he looked up to see where it came from he met
+the eyes of its owner looking down from an open casement above
+him. She was gesticulating, and seemed to point to someone up the
+street. Glad to seize at anything which promised emolument or
+adventure, he shouted up and asked her what she wanted.
+
+"That man down there!" she cried; "the one in a long black coat
+going up the street. Keep after him and stop him; tell him the
+telegram has come. Quick, quick, before he gets around the corner!
+He will pay you; run!"
+
+Sweetwater, with joy in his heart,--for five cents was a boon to
+him in the present condition of his affairs,--rushed after the man
+she had pointed out and hastily stopped him.
+
+"Someone," he added, "a woman in a window back there, bade me run
+after you and say the telegram has come. She told me you would pay
+me," he added, for he saw the man was turning hastily back,
+without thinking of the messenger. "I need the money, and the run
+was a sharp one."
+
+With a preoccupied air, the man thrust his hand into his pocket,
+pulled out a coin, and handed it to him. Then he walked hurriedly
+off. Evidently the news was welcome to him. But Sweetwater stood
+rooted to the ground. The man had given him a five-dollar gold
+piece instead of the nickel he had evidently intended.
+
+How hungrily Sweetwater eyed that coin! In it was lodging, food,
+perhaps a new article or so of clothing. But after a moment of
+indecision which might well be forgiven him, he followed speedily
+after the man and overtook him just as he reached the house from
+which the woman's veil had floated.
+
+"Sir, pardon me; but you gave me five dollars instead of five
+cents. It was a mistake; I cannot keep the money."
+
+The man, who was not just the sort from whom kindness would be
+expected, looked at the money in Sweetwater's palm, then at the
+miserable, mud-bespattered clothes he wore (he had got that mud
+helping the poor market-woman), and stared hard at the face of the
+man who looked so needy and yet returned him five dollars.
+
+"You're an honest fellow," he declared, not offering to take back
+the gold piece. Then, with a quick glance up at the window, "Would
+you like to earn that money?"
+
+Sweetwater broke out into a smile, which changed his whole
+countenance.
+
+"Wouldn't I, sir?"
+
+The man eyed him for another minute with scrutinising intensity.
+Then he said shortly:
+
+"Come up-stairs with me."
+
+They entered the house, went up a flight or two, and stopped at a
+door which was slightly ajar.
+
+"We are going into the presence of a lady," remarked the man.
+"Wait here until I call you."
+
+Sweetwater waited, the many thoughts going through his mind not
+preventing him from observing all that passed.
+
+The man, who had left the door wide open, approached the lady who
+was awaiting him, and who was apparently the same one who had sent
+Sweetwater on his errand, and entered into a low but animated
+conversation. She held a telegram in her hand which she showed
+him, and then after a little earnest parley and a number of
+pleading looks from them both toward the waiting Sweetwater, she
+disappeared into another room, from which she brought a parcel
+neatly done up, which she handed to the man with a strange
+gesture. Another hurried exchange of words and a meaning look
+which did not escape the sharp eye of the watchful messenger, and
+the man turned and gave the parcel into Sweetwater's hands.
+
+"You are to carry this," said he, "to the town hall. In the second
+room to the right on entering you will see a table surrounded by
+chairs, which at this hour ought to be empty. At the head of the
+table you will find an arm-chair. On the table directly in front
+of this you will lay this packet. Mark you, directly before the
+chair and not too far from the edge of the table. Then you are to
+come out. If you see anyone, say you came to leave some papers for
+Mr. Gifford. Do this and you may keep the five dollars and
+welcome."
+
+Sweetwater hesitated. There was something in the errand or in the
+manner of the man and woman that he did not like.
+
+"Don't potter!" spoke up the latter, with an impatient look at her
+watch. "Mr. Gifford will expect those papers."
+
+Sweetwater's sensitive fingers closed on the package he held. It
+did not feel like papers.
+
+"Are you going?" asked the man.
+
+Sweetwater looked up with a smile. "Large pay for so slight a
+commission," he ventured, turning the packet over and over in his
+hand.
+
+"But then you will execute it at once, and according to the
+instructions I have given you," retorted the man. "It is your
+trustworthiness I pay for. Now go."
+
+Sweetwater turned to go. After all it was probably all right, and
+five dollars easily earned is doubly five dollars. As he reached
+the staircase he stumbled. The shoes he wore did not fit him.
+
+"Be careful, there!" shouted the woman, in a shrill, almost
+frightened voice, while the man stumbled back into the room in a
+haste which seemed wholly uncalled for. "If you let the packet
+fall you will do injury to its contents. Go softly, man, go
+softly!"
+
+Yet they had said it held papers!
+
+Troubled, yet hardly knowing what his duty was, Sweetwater
+hastened down the stairs, and took his way up the street. The town
+hall should be easy to find; indeed, he thought he saw it in the
+distance. As he went, he asked himself two questions: Could he
+fail to deliver the package according to instructions, and yet
+earn his money? And was there any way of so delivering it without
+risk to the recipient or dereliction of duty to the man who had
+intrusted it to him and whose money he wished to earn? To the
+first question his conscience at once answered no; to the second
+the reply came more slowly, and before fixing his mind
+determinedly upon it he asked himself why he felt that this was no
+ordinary commission. He could answer readily enough. First, the
+pay was too large, arguing that either the packet or the placing
+of the packet in a certain position on Mr. Gifford's table was of
+uncommon importance to this man or this woman. Secondly, the
+woman, though plainly and inconspicuously clad, had the face of a
+more than ordinarily unscrupulous adventuress, while her companion
+was one of those saturnine-faced men we sometimes meet, whose
+first look puts us on our guard and whom, if we hope nothing from
+him, we instinctively shun. Third, they did not look like
+inhabitants of the house and rooms in which he found them. Nothing
+beyond the necessary articles of furniture was to be seen there;
+not a trunk, not an article of clothing, nor any of the little
+things that mark a woman's presence in a spot where she expects to
+spend a day or even an hour. Consequently they were transients and
+perhaps already in the act of flight. Then he was being followed.
+Of this he felt sure. He had followed people himself, and
+something in his own sensations assured him that his movements
+were under surveillance. It would, therefore, not do to show any
+consciousness of this, and he went on directly and as straight to
+his goal as his rather limited knowledge of the streets would
+allow. He was determined to earn this money and to earn it without
+disadvantage to anyone. And he thought he saw his way.
+
+At the entrance of the town hall he hesitated an instant. An
+officer was standing in the doorway, it would be easy to call his
+attention to the packet he held and ask him to keep his eye on it.
+But this might involve him with the police, and this was
+something, as we know, which he was more than anxious to avoid. He
+reverted to his first idea.
+
+Mixing with the crowd just now hurrying to and fro through the
+long corridors, he reached the room designated and found it, as he
+had been warned he should, empty.
+
+Approaching the table, he laid down the packet just as he had been
+directed, in front of the big arm chair, and then, casting a
+hurried look towards the door and failing to find anyone watching
+him, he took up a pencil lying near-by and scrawled hastily across
+the top of the packet the word "Suspicious." This he calculated
+would act as a warning to Mr. Gifford in case there was anything
+wrong about the package, and pass as a joke with him, and even the
+sender, if there was not. And satisfied that he had both earned
+his money and done justice to his own apprehensions, he turned to
+retrace his steps. As before, the corridors were alive with
+hurrying men of various ages and appearance, but only two
+attracted his notice. One of these was a large, intellectual-
+looking man, who turned into the room from which he had just
+emerged, and the other a short, fair man, with a countenance he
+had known from boyhood. Mr. Stone of Sutherlandtown was within ten
+paces of him, and he was as well known to the good postmaster as
+the postmaster was to him. Could anyone have foreseen such a
+chance!
+
+Turning his back with a slow slouch, he made for a rear door he
+saw swinging in and out before him. As he passed through he cast a
+quick look behind him. He had not been recognised. In great relief
+he rushed on, knocking against a man standing against one of the
+outside pillars.
+
+"Halloo!" shouted this man.
+
+Sweetwater stopped. There was a tone of authority in the voice
+which he could not resist.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SCRAP OF PAPER AND THE THREE WORDS
+
+
+"What are you trying to do? Why do you fall over a man like that?
+Are you drunk?"
+
+Sweetwater drew himself up, made a sheepish bow, and muttered
+pantingly:
+
+"Excuse me, sir. I'm in a hurry; I'm a messenger."
+
+The man who was not in a hurry seemed disposed to keep him for a
+moment. He had caught sight of Sweetwater's eye, which was his one
+remarkable feature, and he had also been impressed by that word
+messenger, for he repeated it with some emphasis.
+
+"A messenger, eh? Are you going on a message now?"
+
+Sweetwater, who was anxious to get away from the vicinity of Mr.
+Stone, shrugged his shoulders in careless denial, and was pushing
+on when the gentleman again detained him.
+
+"Do you know," said he, "that I like your looks? You are not a
+beauty, but you look like a fellow who, if he promised to do a
+thing, would do it and do it mighty well too."
+
+Sweetwater could not restrain a certain movement of pride. He was
+honest, and he knew it, but the fact had not always been so openly
+recognised.
+
+"I have just earned five dollars by doing a commission for a man,"
+said he, with a straightforward look. "See, sir. It was honestly
+earned."
+
+The man, who was young and had a rather dashing but inscrutable
+physiognomy, glanced at the coin Sweetwater showed him and
+betrayed a certain disappointment.
+
+"So you're flush," said he. "Don't want another job?"
+
+"Oh, as to that," said Sweetwater, edging slowly down the street,
+"I'm always ready for business. Five dollars won't last forever,
+and, besides, I'm in need of new togs."
+
+"Well, rather," retorted the other, carelessly following him. "Do
+you mind going up to Boston?"
+
+Boston! Another jump toward home.
+
+"No," said Sweetwater, hesitatingly, "not if it's made worth my
+while. Do you want your message delivered to-day?"
+
+"At once. That is, this evening. It's a task involving patience
+and more or less shrewd judgment. Have you these qualities, my
+friend? One would not judge it from your clothes."
+
+"My clothes!" laughed Sweetwater. Life was growing very
+interesting all at once. "I know it takes patience to WEAR them,
+and as for any lack of judgment I may show in their choice, I
+should just like to say I did not choose them myself, sir; they
+fell to me promiscuous-like as a sort of legacy from friends.
+You'll see what I'll do in that way if you give me the chance to
+earn an extra ten."
+
+"Ah, it's ten dollars you want. Well, come in here and have a
+drink and then we'll see."
+
+They were before a saloon house of less than humble pretensions,
+and as he followed the young gentleman in it struck him that it
+was himself rather than his well-dressed and airy companion who
+would be expected to drink here. But he made no remark, though he
+intended to surprise the man by his temperance.
+
+"Now, look here," said the young gentleman, suddenly seating
+himself at a dingy table in a very dark corner and motioning
+Sweetwater to do the same; "I've been looking for a man all day to
+go up to Boston for me, and I think you'll do. You know Boston?"
+
+Sweetwater had great command over himself, but he flushed slightly
+at this question, though it was so dark where he sat with this man
+that it made very little difference.
+
+"I have been there," said he.
+
+"Very well, then, you will go again to-night. You will arrive
+there about seven, you will go the rounds of some half-dozen
+places whose names I will give you, and when you come across a
+certain gentleman whom I will describe to you, you will give him--
+"
+
+"Not a package?" Sweetwater broke out with a certain sort of dread
+of a repetition of his late experience.
+
+"No, this slip on which two words are written. He will want one
+more word, but before you give it to him you must ask for your ten
+dollars. You'll get them," he answered in response to a glance of
+suspicion from Sweetwater. Sweetwater was convinced that he had
+got hold of another suspicious job. It made him a little serious.
+"Do I look like a go-between for crooks?" he asked himself. "I'm
+afraid I'm not so much of a success as I thought myself." But he
+said to the man before him: "Ten dollars is small pay for such
+business. Twenty-five would be nearer the mark."
+
+"Very well, he will give you twenty-five dollars. I forgot that
+ten dollars was but little in advance of your expenses."
+
+"Twenty-five if I find him, and he is in funds. What if I don't?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Except your ticket; that I'll give you."
+
+Sweetwater did not know what to say. Like the preceding job it
+might be innocent and it might not. And then, he did not like
+going to Boston, where he was liable to meet more than one who
+knew him.
+
+"There is no harm in the business," observed the other,
+carelessly, pushing a glass of whiskey which had just been served
+him toward Sweetwater. "I would even be willing to do it myself,
+if I could leave New Bedford to-night, but I can't. Come! It's as
+easy as crooking your elbow."
+
+"Just now you said it wasn't," growled Sweetwater, drinking from
+his glass. "But no matter about that, go ahead, I'll do it. Shall
+I have to buy other clothes?"
+
+"I'd buy a new pair of trousers," suggested the other. "The rest
+you can get in Boston. You don't want to be too much in evidence,
+you know."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with. him. To attract attention was what he most
+dreaded. "When does the train start?" he asked.
+
+The young man told him.
+
+"Well, that will give me time to buy what I want. Now, what are
+your instructions?"
+
+The young man gave him a memorandum, containing four addresses.
+"You will find him at one of these places," said he. "And now to
+know your man when you see him. He is a large, handsome fellow,
+with red hair and a moustache like the devil. He has been hurt,
+and wears his left hand in a sling, but he can play cards, and
+will be found playing cards, and in very good company too. You
+will have to use your discretion in approaching him. When once he
+sees this bit of paper, all will be easy. He knows what these two
+words mean well enough, and the third one, the one that is worth
+twenty-five dollars to you, is FREDERICK."
+
+Sweetwater, who had drunk half his glass, started so at this word,
+which was always humming in his brain, that he knocked over his
+tumbler and spilled what was left in it.
+
+"I hope I won't forget that word," he remarked, in a careless
+tone, intended to carry off his momentary show of feeling.
+
+"If you do, then don't expect the twenty-five dollars," retorted
+the other, finishing his own glass, but not offering to renew
+Sweetwater's.
+
+Sweetwater laughed, said he thought he could trust his memory, and
+rose. In a half-hour he was at the depot, and in another fifteen
+minutes speeding out of New Bedford on his way to Boston.
+
+He had had but one anxiety--that Mr. Stone might be going up to
+Boston too. But, once relieved of this apprehension, he settled
+back, and for the first time in twelve hours had a minute in which
+to ask himself who he was, and what he was about. Adventure had
+followed so fast upon adventure that he was in a more or less
+dazed condition, and felt as little capable of connecting event
+with event as if he had been asked to recall the changing pictures
+of a kaleidoscope. That affair of the packet, now, was it or was
+it not serious, and would he ever know what it meant or how it
+turned out?
+
+Like a child who had been given a pebble, and told to throw it
+over the wall, he had thrown and run, giving a shout of warning,
+it is true, but not knowing, nor ever likely to know, where the
+stone had fallen, or what it was meant to do. Then this new
+commission on which he was bent--was it in any way connected with
+the other, or merely the odd result of his being in the right
+place at the right moment? He was inclined to think the latter.
+And yet how odd it was that one doubtful errand should be followed
+by another, in a town no larger than New Bedford, forcing him from
+scene to scene, till he found himself speeding toward the city he
+least desired to enter, and from which he had the most to fear!
+
+But brooding over a case like this brings small comfort. He felt
+that he had been juggled with, but he neither knew by whose hand
+nor in what cause. If the hand was that of Providence, why he had
+only to go on following the beck of the moment, while if it was
+that of Fate, the very uselessness of struggling with it was
+apparent at once. Poor reasoning, perhaps, but no other offered,
+and satisfied that whatever came his intentions were above
+question, he settled himself at last for a nap, of which he
+certainly stood in good need. When he awoke he was in Boston.
+
+The first thing he did was to show his list of addresses and
+inquire into what quarter they would lead him. To his surprise he
+found it to be the fashionable quarter. Two of them were names of
+well-known club-houses, a third that of a first-class restaurant,
+and the fourth that of a private house on Commonwealth Avenue.
+Heigho! and he was dressed like a tramp, or nearly so!
+
+"Queer messenger, I, for such kind of work," thought he. "I wonder
+why he lighted on such a rough-looking customer. He must have had
+his reasons. I wonder if he wished the errand to fail. He bore
+himself very nonchalantly at the depot. When I last saw him his
+face and attitude were those of a totally unconcerned man. Have I
+been sent on a fool's chase after all?"
+
+The absurdity of this conclusion struck him, however, as he
+reasoned: "Why, then, should he have paid my fare? Not as a
+benefit to me, of course, but for his own ends, whatever they
+might be. Let us see, then, what those ends are. So now for the
+gentleman of the red hair who plays cards with one arm in a
+sling."
+
+He thought that he might get entrance into the club-houses easily
+enough. He possessed a certain amount of insinuation when
+necessity required, and, if hard-featured, had a good expression
+which in unprejudiced minds defied criticism. Of porters and
+doorkeepers he was not afraid, and these were the men he must
+first encounter.
+
+At the first club-house he succeeded easily enough in getting word
+with the man waiting in the large hall, and before many minutes
+learned that the object of his search was not to be found there
+that evening. He also learned his name, which was a great step
+towards the success of his embassy. It was Wattles, Captain
+Wattles, a marked man evidently, even in this exclusive and
+aristocratic club.
+
+Armed with this new knowledge, be made his way to the second
+building of the kind and boldly demanded speech with Captain
+Wattles. But Captain Wattles had not yet arrived and he went out
+again this time to look him up at the restaurant.
+
+He was not there. As Sweetwater was going out two gentlemen came
+in, one of whom said to the other in passing:
+
+"Sick, do you say? I thought Wattles was made of iron."
+
+"So he was," returned the other, "before that accident to his arm.
+Now the least thing upsets him. He's down at Haberstow's."
+
+That was all; the door was swung to between them. Sweetwater had
+received his clew, but what a clew! Haberstow's? Where was that?
+
+Thinking the bold course the best one, he re-entered the
+restaurant and approached the gentlemen he had just seen enter.
+
+"I heard you speak the name of Captain Wattles," said he. "I am
+hunting for Captain Wattles. Can you tell me where he is?"
+
+He soon saw that he had struck the wrong men for information. They
+not only refused to answer him, but treated him with open disdain.
+Unwilling to lose time, he left them, and having no other
+resource, hastened to the last place mentioned on his list.
+
+It was now late, too late to enter a private house under ordinary
+circumstances, but this house was lighted up, and a carriage stood
+in front of it; so he had the courage to run up the steps and
+consult the large door-plate visible from the sidewalk. It read
+thus:
+
+HABERSTOW.
+
+Fortune had favoured him better than he expected.
+
+He hesitated a moment, then decided to ring the bell. But before
+he had done so, the door opened and an old gentleman appeared
+seeing a younger man out. The latter had his arm in a sling, and
+bore himself with a fierceness that made his appearance somewhat
+alarming; the other seemed to be in an irate state of mind.
+
+"No apologies!" the former was saying. "I don't mind the night
+air; I'm not so ill as that. When I'm myself again we'll have a
+little more talk. My compliments to your daughter, sir. I wish you
+a very good evening, or rather night."
+
+The old gentleman bowed, and as he did so Sweetwater caught a
+glimpse (it was the shortest glimpse in the world) of a sweet face
+beaming from a doorway far down the hall. There was pain in it and
+a yearning anxiety that made it very beautiful; then it vanished,
+and the old gentleman, uttering some few sarcastic words, closed
+the door, and Sweetwater found himself alone and in darkness.
+
+The kaleidoscope had been given another turn.
+
+Dashing down the stoop, he came upon the gentleman who had
+preceded him, just as he was seating himself in the carriage.
+
+"Pardon me," he gasped, as the driver caught up the reins; "you
+have forgotten something." Then, as Captain Wattles looked hastily
+out, "You have forgotten me."
+
+The oath that rang out from under that twitching red moustache was
+something to startle even him. But he clung to the carriage window
+and presently managed to say:
+
+"A messenger, sir, from New Bedford. I have been on the hunt for
+you for two hours. It won't keep, sir, for more than a half-hour
+longer. Where shall I find you during that time?"
+
+Captain Wattles, on whom the name New Bedford seemed to have made
+some impression, pointed up at the coachman's box with a growl, in
+which command mingled strangely with menace. Then he threw himself
+back. Evidently the captain was not in very good humour.
+
+Sweetwater, taking this as an order to seat himself beside the
+driver, did so, and the carriage drove off. It went at a rapid
+pace, and before he had time to propound more than a question or
+two to the coachman, it stopped before a large apartment-house in
+a brilliantly lighted street.
+
+Captain Wattles got out, and Sweetwater followed him. The former,
+who seemed to have forgotten Sweetwater, walked past him and
+entered the building with a stride and swing that made the plain,
+lean, insignificant-looking messenger behind him feel smaller than
+ever. Indeed, he had never felt so small, for not only was the
+captain a man of superb proportions and conspicuous bearing, but
+he possessed, in spite of his fiery hair and fierce moustache,
+that beaute de diable which is at once threatening and imposing.
+Added to this, he was angry and so absorbed in his own thoughts
+that he would be very apt to visit punishment of no light
+character upon anyone who interfered with him. A pleasing prospect
+for Sweetwater, who, however, kept on with the dogged
+determination of his character up the first flight of stairs and
+then up another till they stopped, Captain Wattles first and
+afterwards his humble follower, before a small door into which the
+captain endeavoured to fit a key. The oaths which followed his
+failure to do this were not very encouraging to the man behind,
+nor was the kick which he gave the door after the second more
+successful attempt calculated to act in a very reassuring way upon
+anyone whose future pay for a doubtful task rested upon this man's
+good nature.
+
+The darkness which met them both on the threshold of this now open
+room was speedily relieved by a burst of electric light, that
+flooded the whole apartment and brought out the captain's
+swaggering form and threatening features with startling
+distinctness. He had thrown off his hat and was relieving himself
+of a cloak in a furious way that caused Sweetwater to shrink back,
+and, as the French say, efface himself as much as possible behind
+a clothes-tree standing near the door. That the captain had
+entirely forgotten him was evident, and for the present moment
+that gentleman was too angry to care or even notice if a dozen men
+stood at the door. As he was talking all this time, or rather
+jerking out sharp sentences, as men do when in a towering rage,
+Sweetwater was glad to be left unnoticed, for much can be gathered
+from scattered sentences, especially when a man is in too reckless
+a frame of mind to weigh them. He, therefore, made but little
+movement and listened; and these are some of the ejaculations and
+scraps of talk he heard:
+
+"The old purse-proud fool! Honoured by my friendship, but not
+ready to accept me as his daughter's suitor! As if I would lounge
+away hours that mean dollars to me in his stiff old drawing-room,
+just to hear his everlasting drone about stocks up and stocks
+down, and politics gone all wrong. He has heard that I play cards,
+and--How pretty she looked! I believe I half like that girl, and
+when I think she has a million in her own right--Damn it, if I
+cannot win her openly and with papa's consent, I will carry her
+off with only her own. She's worth the effort, doubly worth it,
+and when I have her and her money--Eh! Who are you?"
+
+He had seen Sweetwater at last, which was not strange, seeing that
+he had turned his way, and was within two feet of him.
+
+"What are you doing here, and who let you in? Get out, or--"
+
+"A message, Captain Wattles! A message from New Bedford. You have
+forgotten, sir; you bade me follow you."
+
+It was curious to see the menace slowly die out of the face of
+this flushed and angry man as he met Sweetwater's calm eye and
+unabashed front, and noticed, as he had not done at first, the
+slip of paper which the latter resolutely held out.
+
+"New Bedford; ah, from Campbell, I take it. Let me see!" And the
+hand which had shook with rage now trembled with a very different
+sort of emotion as he took the slip, cast his eyes over it, and
+then looked back at Sweetwater.
+
+Now, Sweetwater knew the two words written on that paper. He could
+see out of the back of his head at times, and he had been able to
+make out these words when the man in New Bedford was writing them.
+
+"Happenings; Afghanistan," with the figures 2000 after the latter.
+
+Not much sense in them singly or in conjunction, but the captain,
+muttering them over to himself, consulted a little book which he
+took from his breast pocket and found, or seemed to, a clew to
+their meaning. It could only have been a partial one, however, for
+in another instant he turned on Sweetwater with a sour look and a
+thundering oath.
+
+"Is this all?" he shouted. "Does he call this a complete message?"
+
+"There is another word," returned Sweetwater, "which he bade me
+give you by word of mouth; but that word don't go for nothing.
+It's worth just twenty-five dollars. I've earned it, sir. I came
+up from New Bedford on purpose to deliver it to you."
+
+Sweetwater expected a blow, but he only got a stare.
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," muttered the captain. "Well, it's fortunate
+that I have them. And who are you?" he asked. "Not one of
+Campbell's pick-ups, surely?"
+
+"I am a confidential messenger," smiled Sweetwater, amused against
+his will at finding a name for himself. "I carry messages and
+execute commissions that require more or less discretion in the
+handling. I am paid well. Twenty-five dollars is the price of this
+job."
+
+"So you have had the honour of informing me before," blustered the
+other with an attempt to hide some serious emotion. "Why, man,
+what do you fear? Don't you see I'm hurt? You could knock me over
+with a feather if you touched my game arm."
+
+"Twenty-five dollars," repeated Sweetwater.
+
+The captain grew angrier. "Dash it! aren't you going to have them?
+What's the word?"
+
+But Sweetwater wasn't going to be caught by chaff.
+
+"C. O. D.," he insisted firmly, standing his ground, though
+certain that the blow would now fall. But no, the captain laughed,
+and tugging away with his one free hand at his pocket, he brought
+out a pocketbook, from which he managed deftly enough to draw out
+three bills. "There," said he, laying them on the table, but
+keeping one long vigorous finger on them. "Now, the word."
+
+Sweetwater laid his own hand on the bills.
+
+"Frederick," said he.
+
+"Ah!" said the other thoughtfully, lifting his finger and
+proceeding to stride up and down the room. "He's a stiff one. What
+he says, he will do. Two thousand dollars! and soon, too, I
+warrant. Well, I'm in a devil of a fix at last." He had again
+forgotten the presence of Sweetwater.
+
+Suddenly he turned or rather stopped. His eye was on the
+messenger, but he did not even see him. "One Frederick must offset
+the other," he cried. "It's the only loophole out," and he threw
+himself into a chair from which he immediately sprang up again
+with a yell. He had hurt his wounded arm.
+
+Pandemonium reigned in that small room for a minute, then his eye
+fell again on Sweetwater, who, under the fascination of the
+spectacle offered him, had only just succeeded in finding the knob
+of the door. This time there was recognition in his look.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I may have use for you too. Confidential
+messengers are hard to come by, and one that Campbell would employ
+must be all right. Sit down there! I'll talk to you when I'm
+ready."
+
+Sweetwater was not slow in obeying this command. Business was
+booming with him. Besides, the name of Frederick acted like a
+charm upon him. There seemed to be so many Fredericks in the
+world, and one of them lay in such a curious way near his heart.
+
+Meanwhile the captain reseated himself, but more carefully. He had
+a plan or method of procedure to think out, or so it seemed, for
+he sat a long time in rigid immobility, with only the scowl of
+perplexity or ill-temper on his brow to show the nature of his
+thoughts. Then he drew a sheet of paper toward him, and began to
+write a letter. He was so absorbed over this letter and the
+manipulation of it, having but one hand to work with, that
+Sweetwater determined upon a hazardous stroke. The little book
+which the captain had consulted, and which had undoubtedly
+furnished him with a key to those two incongruous words, lay on
+the floor not far from him, having been flung from its owner's
+hand during the moments of passion and suffering I have above
+mentioned. To reach this book with his foot, to draw it toward
+him, and, finally, to get hold of it with his hand, was not
+difficult for one who aspired to be a detective, and had already
+done some good work in that direction. But it was harder to turn
+the leaves and find the words he sought without attracting the
+attention of his fierce companion. He, however, succeeded in doing
+this at last, the long list of words he found on every page being
+arranged alphabetically. It was a private code for telegraphic or
+cable messages, and he soon found that "Happenings" meant: "Our
+little game discovered; play straight until I give you the wink."
+And that "Afghanistan" stood for: "Hush money." As the latter was
+followed by the figures I have mentioned, the purport of the
+message needed no explanation, but the word "Frederick" did. So he
+searched for that, only to find that it was not in the book. There
+was but one conclusion to draw. This name was perfectly well known
+between them, and was that of the person, no doubt, who laid claim
+to the two thousand dollars.
+
+Satisfied at holding this clew to the riddle, he dropped the book
+again at his side and skilfully kicked it far out into the room.
+Captain Wattles had seen nothing. He was a man who took in only
+one thing at a time.
+
+The penning of that letter went on laboriously. It took so long
+that Sweetwater dozed, or pretended to, and when it was at last
+done, the clock on the mantelpiece had struck two.
+
+"Halloo there, now!" suddenly shouted the captain, turning on the
+messenger. "Are you ready for another journey?"
+
+"That depends," smiled Sweetwater, rising sleepily and advancing.
+"Haven't got over the last one yet, and would rather sleep than
+start out again."
+
+"Oh, you want pay? Well, you'll get that fast enough if you
+succeed in your mission. This letter" he shook it with an
+impatient hand--"should be worth two thousand five hundred dollars
+to me. If you bring me back that money or its equivalent within
+twenty-four hours, I will give you a clean hundred of it. Good
+enough pay, I take it, for five hours' journey. Better than sleep,
+eh? Besides, you can doze on the cars."
+
+Sweetwater agreed with him in all these assertions. Putting on his
+cap, he reached for the letter. He didn't like being made an
+instrument for blackmail, but he was curious to see to whom he was
+about to be sent. But the captain had grown suddenly wary.
+
+"This is not a letter to be dropped in the mailbox," said he. "You
+brought me a line here whose prompt delivery has prevented me from
+making a fool of myself to-night. You must do as much with this
+one. It is to be carried to its destination by yourself, given to
+the person whose name you will find written on it, and the answer
+brought back before you sleep, mind you, unless you snatch a wink
+or so on the cars. That it is night need not disturb you. It will
+be daylight before you arrive at the place to which this is
+addressed, and if you cannot get into the house at so early an
+hour, whistle three times like this--listen and one of the windows
+will presently fly up. You have had no trouble finding me; you'll
+have no trouble finding him. When you return, hunt me up as you
+did to-night. Only you need not trouble yourself to look for me at
+Haberstow's," he added under his breath in a tone that was no
+doubt highly satisfactory to himself. "I shall not be there. And
+now, off with you!" he shouted. "You've your hundred dollars to
+make before daylight, and it's already after two."
+
+Sweetwater, who had stolen a glimpse at the superscription on the
+letter he held, stumbled as he went out of the door. It was
+directed, as he had expected, to a Frederick, probably to the
+second one of whom Captain Wattles had spoken, but not, as he had
+expected, to a stranger. The name on the letter was Frederick
+Sutherland, and the place of his destination was Sutherlandtown.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+"WHO ARE YOU?"
+
+
+The round had come full circle. By various chances and a train of
+circumstances for which he could not account, he had been turned
+from his first intention and was being brought back stage by stage
+to the very spot he had thought it his duty to fly from. Was this
+fate? He began to think so, and no longer so much as dreamed of
+struggling against it. But he felt very much dazed, and walked
+away through the now partially deserted streets with an odd sense
+of failure that was only compensated by the hope he now cherished
+of seeing his mother again, and being once more Caleb Sweetwater
+of Sutherlandtown.
+
+He was clearer, however, after a few blocks of rapid walking, and
+then he began to wonder over the contents of the letter he held,
+and how they would affect its recipient. Was it a new danger he
+was bringing him? Instead of aiding Mr. Sutherland in keeping his
+dangerous secret, was he destined to bring disgrace upon him, not
+only by his testimony before the coroner, but by means of this
+letter, which, whatever it contained, certainly could not bode
+good to the man from whom it was designed to wrest two thousand
+five hundred dollars?
+
+The fear that he was destined to do so grew upon him rapidly, and
+the temptation to open the letter and make himself master of its
+contents before leaving town at last became so strong that his
+sense of honour paled before it, and he made up his mind that
+before he ventured into the precincts of Sutherlandtown he would
+know just what sort of a bombshell he was carrying into the
+Sutherland family. To do this he stopped at the first respectable
+lodging-house he encountered and hired a room. Calling for hot
+water "piping hot," he told them--he subjected the letter to the
+effects of steam and presently had it open. He was not
+disappointed in its contents, save that they were even more
+dangerous than he had anticipated. Captain Wattles was an old
+crony of Frederick's and knew his record better than anyone else
+in the world. From this fact and the added one that Frederick had
+stood in special need of money at the time of Agatha Webb's
+murder, the writer had no hesitation in believing him guilty of
+the crime which opened his way to a fortune, and though under
+ordinary circumstances he would, as his friend Frederick already
+knew, be perfectly willing to keep his opinions to himself, he was
+just now under the same necessity for money that Frederick had
+been at that fatal time, and must therefore see the colour of two
+thousand five hundred dollars before the day was out if Frederick
+desired to have his name kept out of the Boston papers. That it
+had been kept out up to this time argued that the crime had been
+well enough hidden to make the alternative thus offered an
+important one.
+
+There was no signature.
+
+Sweetwater, affected to an extent he little expected, resealed the
+letter, made his excuses to the landlord, and left the house. Now
+he could see why he had not been allowed to make his useless
+sacrifice. Another man than himself suspected Frederick, and by a
+word could precipitate the doom he already saw hung too low above
+the devoted head of Mr. Sutherland's son to be averted.
+
+"Yet I'll attempt that too," burst impetuously from his lips. "If
+I fail, I can but go back with a knowledge of this added danger.
+If I succeed, why I must still go back. From some persons and from
+some complications it is useless to attempt flight."
+
+Returning to the club-house he had first entered in his search for
+Captain Wattles, he asked if that gentleman had yet come in. This
+time he was answered by an affirmative, though he might almost as
+well have not been, for the captain was playing cards in a private
+room and would not submit to any interruption.
+
+"He will submit to mine," retorted Sweetwater to the man who had
+told him this. "Or wait; hand him back this letter and say that
+the messenger refuses to deliver it."
+
+This brought the captain out, as he had fully expected it would.
+
+"Why, what--" began that gentleman in a furious rage.
+
+But Sweetwater, laying his hand on the arm he knew to be so
+sensitive, rose on tiptoe and managed to whisper in the angry
+man's ear:
+
+"You are a card-sharp, and it will be easy enough to ruin you.
+Threaten Frederick Sutherland and in two weeks you will be
+boycotted by every club in this city. Twenty-five hundred dollars
+won't pay you for that."
+
+This from a nondescript fellow with no grains of a gentleman about
+him in form, feature, or apparel! The captain stared nonplussed,
+too much taken aback to be even angry.
+
+Suddenly he cried:
+
+"How do you know all this? How do you know what is or is not in
+the letter I gave you?"
+
+Sweetwater, with a shrug that in its quiet significance seemed to
+make him at once the equal of his interrogator, quietly pressed
+the quivering limb under his hand and calmly replied:
+
+"I know because I have read it. Before putting my head in the
+lion's mouth, I make it a point to count his teeth," and lifting
+his hand, he drew back, leaving the captain reeling.
+
+"What is your name? Who are you?" shouted out Wattles as
+Sweetwater was drawing off.
+
+It was the third time he had been asked that question within
+twenty-four hours, but not before with this telling emphasis. "Who
+are you, I say, and what can you do to me--?"
+
+"I am--But that is an insignificant detail unworthy of your
+curiosity. As to what I can do, wait and see. But first burn that
+letter."
+
+And turning his back he fled out of the building, followed by
+oaths which, if not loud, were certainly deep and very far-
+reaching.
+
+It was the first time Captain Wattles had met his match in
+audacity.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+HOME AGAIN
+
+
+On his way to the depot, Sweetwater went into the Herald office
+and bought a morning paper. At the station he opened it. There was
+one column devoted to the wreck of the Hesper, and a whole half-
+page to the proceedings of the third day's inquiry into the cause
+and manner of Agatha Webb's death. Merely noting that his name was
+mentioned among the lost, in the first article, he began to read
+the latter with justifiable eagerness. The assurance given in
+Captain Wattles's letter was true. No direct suspicion had as yet
+fallen on Frederick. As the lover of Amabel Page, his name was
+necessarily mentioned, but neither in the account of the inquest
+nor in the editorials on the subject could he find any proof that
+either the public or police had got hold of the great idea that he
+was the man who had preceded Amabel to Agatha's cottage. Relieved
+on this score, Sweetwater entered more fully into the particulars,
+and found that though the jury had sat three days, very little
+more had come to light than was known on the morning he made that
+bold dash into the Hesper. Most of the witnesses had given in
+their testimony, Amabel's being the chief, and though no open
+accusation had been made, it was evident from the trend of the
+questions put to the latter that Amabel's connection with the
+affair was looked upon as criminal and as placing her in a very
+suspicious light. Her replies, however, as once before, under a
+similar but less formal examination, failed to convey any
+recognition on her part either of this suspicion or of her own
+position; yet they were not exactly frank, and Sweetwater saw, or
+thought he saw (naturally failing to have a key to the situation),
+that she was still working upon her old plan of saving both
+herself and Frederick, by throwing whatever suspicion her words
+might raise upon the deceased Zabel. He did not know, and perhaps
+it was just as well that he did not at this especial juncture,
+that she was only biding her time--now very nearly at hand--and
+that instead of loving Frederick, she hated him, and was
+determined upon his destruction. Reading, as a final clause, that
+Mr. Sutherland was expected to testify soon in explanation of his
+position as executor of Mrs. Webb's will, Sweetwater grew very
+serious, and, while no change took place in his mind as to his
+present duty, he decided that his return must be as unobtrusive as
+possible, and his only too timely reappearance on the scene of the
+inquiry kept secret till Mr. Sutherland had given his evidence and
+retired from under the eyes of his excited fellow-citizens.
+
+"The sight of me might unnerve him," was Sweetwater's thought,
+"precipitating the very catastrophe we dread. One look, one word
+on his part indicative of his inner apprehensions that his son had
+a hand in the crime which has so benefited him, and nothing can
+save Frederick from the charge of murder. Not Knapp's skill, my
+silence, or Amabel's finesse. The young man will be lost."
+
+He did not know, as we do, that Amabel's finesse was devoted to
+winning a husband for herself, and that, in the event of failure,
+the action she threatened against her quondam lover would be
+precipitated that very day at the moment when the clock struck
+twelve.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater arrived home by the way of Portchester. He had seen one
+or two persons he knew, but, so far, had himself escaped
+recognition. The morning light was dimly breaking when he strode
+into the outskirts of Sutherlandtown and began to descend the
+hill. As he passed Mr. Halliday's house he looked up, and was
+astonished to see a light burning in one deeply embowered window.
+Alas! he did not know how early one anxious heart woke during
+those troublous days. The Sutherland house was dark, but as he
+crept very close under its overhanging eaves he heard a deep sigh
+uttered over his head, and knew that someone was up here also in
+anxious expectation of a day that was destined to hold more than
+even he anticipated.
+
+Meanwhile, the sea grew rosy, and the mother's cottage was as yet
+far off. Hurrying on, he came at last under the eye of more than
+one of the early risers of Sutherlandtown.
+
+"What, Sweetwater! Alive and well!"
+
+"Hey, Sweetwater, we thought you were lost on the Hesper!"
+
+"Halloo! Home in time to see the pretty Amabel arrested?" Phrases
+like these met him at more than one corner; but he eluded them
+all, stopping only to put one hesitating question. Was his mother
+well?
+
+Home fears had made themselves felt with his near approach to that
+humble cottage door.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III
+
+HAD BATSY LIVED!
+
+
+XXX
+
+WHAT FOLLOWED THE STEIKING OF THE CLOCK
+
+
+It was the last day of the inquest, and to many it bade fair to be
+the least interesting. All the witnesses who had anything to say
+had long ago given in their testimony, and when at or near noon
+Sweetwater slid into the inconspicuous seat he had succeeded in
+obtaining near the coroner, it was to find in two faces only any
+signs of the eagerness and expectancy which filled his own breast
+to suffocation. But as these faces were those of Agnes Halliday
+and Amabel Page, he soon recognised that his own judgment was not
+at fault, and that notwithstanding outward appearances and the
+languid interest shown in the now lagging proceedings, the moment
+presaged an event full of unseen but vital consequence.
+
+Frederick was not visible in the great hall; but that he was near
+at hand soon became evident from the change Sweetwater now saw in
+Amabel. For while she had hitherto sat under the universal gaze
+with only the faint smile of conscious beauty on her inscrutable
+features, she roused as the hands of the clock moved toward noon,
+and glanced at the great door of entrance with an evil expectancy
+that startled even Sweetwater, so little had he really understood
+the nature of the passions labouring in that venomous breast.
+
+Next moment the door opened, and Frederick and his father came in.
+The air of triumphant satisfaction with which Amabel sank back
+into her seat was as marked in its character as her previous
+suspense. What did it mean? Sweetwater, noting it, and the vivid
+contrast it offered to Frederick's air of depression, felt that
+his return had been well timed.
+
+Mr. Sutherland was looking very feeble. As he took the chair
+offered him, the change in his appearance was apparent to all who
+knew him, and there were few there who did not know him. And,
+startled by these evidences of suffering which they could not
+understand and feared to interpret even to themselves, more than
+one devoted friend stole uneasy glances at Frederick to see if he
+too were under the cloud which seemed to envelop his father almost
+beyond recognition.
+
+But Frederick was looking at Amabel, and his erect head and
+determined aspect made him a conspicuous figure in the room. She
+who had called up this expression, and alone comprehended it
+fully, smiled as she met his eye, with that curious slow dipping
+of her dimples which had more than once confounded the coroner,
+and rendered her at once the admiration and abhorrence of the
+crowd who for so long a time had had the opportunity of watching
+her.
+
+Frederick, to whom this smile conveyed a last hope as well as a
+last threat, looked away as soon as possible, but not before her
+eyes had fallen in their old inquiring way to his hands, from
+which he had removed the ring which up to this hour he had
+invariably worn on his third finger. In this glance of hers and
+this action of his began the struggle that was to make that day
+memorable in many hearts.
+
+After the first stir occasioned by the entrance of two such
+important persons the crowd settled back into its old quietude
+under the coroner's hand. A tedious witness was having his slow
+say, and to him a full attention was being given in the hope that
+some real enlightenment would come at last to settle the questions
+which had been raised by Amabel's incomplete and unsatisfactory
+testimony. But no man can furnish what he does not possess, and
+the few final minutes before noon passed by without any addition
+being made to the facts which had already been presented for
+general consideration.
+
+As the witness sat down the clock began to strike. As the slow,
+hesitating strokes rang out, Sweetwater saw Frederick yield to a
+sudden but most profound emotion. The old fear, which we
+understand, if Sweetwater did not, had again seized the victim of
+Amabel's ambition, and under her eye, which was blazing full upon
+him now with a fell and steady purpose, he found his right hand
+stealing toward the left in the significant action she expected.
+Better to yield than fall headlong into the pit one word of hers
+would open. He had not meant to yield, but now that the moment had
+come, now that he must at once and forever choose between a course
+that led simply to personal unhappiness and one that involved not
+only himself, but those dearest to him, in disgrace and sorrow, he
+felt himself weaken to the point of clutching at whatever would
+save him from the consequences of confession. Moral strength and
+that tenacity of purpose which only comes from years of self-
+control were too lately awakened in his breast to sustain him now.
+As stroke after stroke fell on the ear, he felt himself yielding
+beyond recovery, and had almost touched his finger in the
+significant action of assent which Amabel awaited with breathless
+expectation, when--was it miracle or only the suggestion of his
+better nature?--the memory of a face full of holy pleading rose
+from the past before his eyes and with an inner cry of "Mother!"
+he flung his hand out and clutched his father's arm in a way to
+break the charm of his own dread and end forever the effects of
+the intolerable fascination that was working upon him. Next minute
+the last stroke of noon rang out, and the hour was up which Amabel
+had set as the limit of her silence.
+
+A pause, which to their two hearts if to no others seemed
+strangely appropriate, followed the cessation of these sounds,
+then the witness was dismissed, and Amabel, taking advantage of
+the movement, was about to lean toward Mr. Courtney, when
+Frederick, leaping with a bound to his feet, drew all eyes towards
+himself with the cry:
+
+"Let me be put on my oath. I have testimony to give of the utmost
+importance in this case."
+
+The coroner was astounded; everyone was astounded. No one had
+expected anything from him, and instinctively every eye turned
+towards Amabel to see how she was affected by his action.
+
+Strangely, evidently, for the look with which she settled back in
+her seat was one which no one who saw it ever forgot, though it
+conveyed no hint of her real feelings, which were somewhat
+chaotic.
+
+Frederick, who had forgotten her now that he had made up his mind
+to speak, waited for the coroner's reply.
+
+"If you have testimony," said that gentleman after exchanging a
+few hurried words with Mr. Courtney and the surprised Knapp, "you
+can do no better than give it to us at once. Mr. Frederick
+Sutherland, will you take the stand?"
+
+With a noble air from which all hesitation had vanished, Frederick
+started towards the place indicated, but stopped before he had
+taken a half-dozen steps and glanced back at his father, who was
+visibly succumbing under this last shock.
+
+"Go!" he whispered, but in so thrilling a tone it was heard to the
+remotest corner of the room. "Spare me the anguish of saying what
+I have to say in your presence. I could not bear it. You could not
+bear it. Later, if you will wait for me in one of these rooms, I
+will repeat my tale in your ears, but go now. It is my last
+entreaty."
+
+There was a silence; no one ventured a dissent, no one so much as
+made a gesture of disapproval. Then Mr. Sutherland struggled to
+his feet, cast one last look around him, and disappeared through a
+door which had opened like magic before him. Then and not till
+then did Frederick move forward.
+
+The moment was intense. The coroner seemed to share the universal
+excitement, for his first question was a leading one and brought
+out this startling admission:
+
+"I have obtruded myself into this inquiry and now ask to be heard
+by this jury, because no man knows more than I do of the manner
+and cause of Agatha Webb's death. This you will believe when I
+tell you that _I_ was the person Miss Page followed into Mrs.
+Webb's house and whom she heard descend the stairs during the
+moment she crouched behind the figure of the sleeping Philemon."
+
+It was more, infinitely more, than anyone there had expected. It
+was not only an acknowledgment but a confession, and the shock,
+the surprise, the alarm, which it occasioned even to those who had
+never had much confidence in this young man's virtue, was almost
+appalling in its intensity. Had it not been for the consciousness
+of Mr. Sutherland's near presence the feeling would have risen to
+outbreak; and many voices were held in subjection by the
+remembrance of this venerated man's last look, that otherwise
+would have made themselves heard in despite of the restrictions of
+the place and the authority of the police.
+
+To Frederick it was a moment of immeasurable grief and
+humiliation. On every face, in every shrinking form, in subdued
+murmurs and open cries, he read instant and complete condemnation,
+and yet in all his life from boyhood up to this hour, never had he
+been so worthy of their esteem and consideration. But though he
+felt the iron enter his soul, he did not lose his determined
+attitude. He had observed a change in Amabel and a change in
+Agnes, and if only to disappoint the vile triumph of the one and
+raise again the drooping courage of the other, he withstood the
+clamour and began speaking again, before the coroner had been able
+to fully restore quiet.
+
+"I know," said he, "what this acknowledgment must convey to the
+minds of the jury and people here assembled. But if anyone who
+listens to me thinks me guilty of the death I was so unfortunate
+as to have witnessed, he will be doing me a wrong which Agatha
+Webb would be the first to condemn. Dr. Talbot, and you, gentlemen
+of the jury, in the face of God and man, I here declare that Mrs.
+Webb, in my presence and before my eyes, gave to herself the blow
+which has robbed us all of a most valuable life. She was not
+murdered."
+
+It was a solemn assertion, but it failed to convince the crowd
+before him. As by one impulse men and women broke into a tumult.
+Mr. Sutherland was forgotten and cries of "Never! She was too
+good! It's all calumny! A wretched lie!" broke in unrestrained
+excitement from every part of the large room. In vain the coroner
+smote with his gavel, in vain the local police endeavoured to
+restore order; the tide was up and over-swept everything for an
+instant till silence was suddenly restored by the sight of Amabel
+smoothing out the folds of her crisp white frock with an
+incredulous, almost insulting, smile that at once fixed attention
+again on Frederick. He seized the occasion and spoke up in a tone
+of great resolve.
+
+"I have made an assertion," said he, "before God and before this
+jury. To make it seem a credible one I shall have to tell my own
+story from the beginning. Am I allowed to do so, Mr. Coroner?"
+
+"You are," was the firm response.
+
+"Then, gentlemen," continued Frederick, still without looking at
+Amabel, whose smile had acquired a mockery that drew the eyes of
+the jury toward her more than once during the following recital,
+"you know, and the public generally now know, that Mrs. Webb has
+left me the greater portion of the money of which she died
+possessed. I have never before acknowledged to anyone, not even to
+the good man who awaits this jury's verdict on the other side of
+that door yonder, that she had reasons for this, good reasons,
+reasons of which up to the very evening of her death I was myself
+ignorant, as I was ignorant of her intentions in my regard, or
+that I was the special object of her attention, or that we were
+under any mutual obligations in any way. Why, then, I should have
+thought of going to her in the great strait in which I found
+myself on that day, I cannot say. I knew she had money in her
+house; this I had unhappily been made acquainted with in an
+accidental way, and I knew she was of kindly disposition and quite
+capable of doing a very unselfish act. Still, this would not seem
+to be reason enough for me to intrude upon her late at night with
+a plea for a large loan of money, had I not been in a desperate
+condition of mind, which made any attempt seem reasonable that
+promised relief from the unendurable burden of a pressing and
+disreputable debt. I was obliged to have money, a great deal of
+money, and I had to have it at once; and while I know that this
+will not serve to lighten the suspicion I have brought upon myself
+by my late admissions, it is the only explanation I can give you
+for leaving the ball at my father's house and hurrying down
+secretly and alone into town to the little cottage where, as I had
+been told early in the evening, a small entertainment was being
+given, which would insure its being open even at so late an hour
+as midnight. Miss Page, who will, I am sure, pardon the
+introduction of her name into this narrative, has taken pains to
+declare to you that in the expedition she herself made into town
+that evening, she followed some person's steps down-hill. This is
+very likely true, and those steps were probably mine, for after
+leaving the house by the garden door, I came directly down the
+main road to the corner of the lane running past Mrs. Webb's
+cottage. Having already seen from the hillside the light burning
+in her upper windows, I felt encouraged to proceed, and so
+hastened on till I came to the gate on High Street. Here I had a
+moment of hesitation, and thoughts bitter enough for me to recall
+them at this moment came into my mind, making that instant,
+perhaps, the very worst in my life; but they passed, thank God,
+and with no more desperate feeling than a sullen intention of
+having my own way about this money, I lifted the latch of the
+front door and stepped in.
+
+"I had expected to find a jovial group of friends in her little
+ground parlour, or at least to hear the sound of merry voices and
+laughter in the rooms above; but no sounds of any sort awaited me;
+indeed the house seemed strangely silent for one so fully lighted,
+and, astonished at this, I pushed the door ajar at my left and
+looked in. An unexpected and pitiful sight awaited me. Seated at a
+table set with abundance of untasted food, I saw the master of the
+house with his head sunk forward on his arms, asleep. The expected
+guests had failed to arrive, and he, tired out with waiting, had
+fallen into a doze at the board.
+
+"This was a condition of things for which I was not prepared. Mrs.
+Webb, whom I wished to see, was probably upstairs, and while I
+might summon her by a sturdy rap on the door beside which I stood,
+I had so little desire to wake her husband, of whose mental
+condition I was well aware, that I could not bring myself to make
+any loud noise within his hearing. Yet I had not the courage to
+retreat. All my hope of relief from the many difficulties that
+menaced me lay in the generosity of this great-hearted woman, and
+if out of pusillanimity I let this hour go by without making my
+appeal, nothing but shame and disaster awaited me. Yet how could I
+hope to lure her down-stairs without noise? I could not, and so,
+yielding to the impulse of the moment, without any realisation, I
+here swear, of the effect which my unexpected presence would have
+on the noble woman overhead, I slipped up the narrow staircase,
+and catching at that moment the sound of her voice calling out to
+Batsy, I stepped up to the door I saw standing open before me and
+confronted her before she could move from the table before which
+she was sitting, counting over a large roll of money.
+
+"My look (and it was doubtless not a common look, for the sight of
+a mass of money at that moment, when money was everything to me,
+roused every lurking demon in my breast) seemed to appall, if it
+did not frighten her, for she rose, and meeting my eye with a gaze
+in which shock and some strange and poignant agony totally
+incomprehensible to me were strangely blended, she cried out:
+
+"'No, no, Frederick! You don't know what you are doing. If you
+want my money, take it; if you want my life, I will give it to you
+with my own hand. Don't stain yours--don't--'
+
+"I did not understand her. I did not know until I thought it over
+afterward that my hand was thrust convulsively into my breast in a
+way which, taken with my wild mien, made me look as if I had come
+to murder her for the money over which she was hovering. I was
+blind, deaf to everything but that money, and bending madly
+forward in a state of mental intoxication awful enough for me to
+remember now, I answered her frenzied words by some such broken
+exclamations as these:
+
+"'Give, then! I want hundreds--thousands--now, now, to save
+myself! Disgrace, shame, prison await me if I don't have them.
+Give, give!' And my hand went out toward it, not toward her; but
+she mistook the action, mistook my purpose, and, with a heart-
+broken cry, to save me, ME, from crime, the worst crime of which
+humanity is capable, she caught up a dagger lying only too near
+her hand in the open drawer against which she leaned, and in a
+moment of fathomless anguish which we who can never know more than
+the outward seeming of her life can hardly measure, plunged
+against it and--I can tell you no more. Her blood and Batsy's
+shriek from the adjoining room swam through my consciousness, and
+then she fell, as I supposed, dead upon the floor, and I, in
+scarcely better case, fell also.
+
+"This, as God lives, is the truth concerning the wound found in
+the breast of this never-to-be-forgotten woman."
+
+The feeling, the pathos, the anguish even, to be found in his tone
+made this story, strange and incredible as it seemed, appear for
+the moment plausible.
+
+"And Batsy?" asked the coroner.
+
+"Must have fallen when we did, for I never heard her voice after
+the first scream. But I shall speak of her again. What I must now
+explain is how the money in Mrs. Webb's drawer came into my
+possession, and how the dagger she had planted in her breast came
+to be found on the lawn outside. When I came to myself, and that
+must have been very soon, I found that the blow of which I had
+been such a horrified witness had not yet proved fatal. The eyes I
+had seen close, as I had supposed, forever, were now open, and she
+was looking at me with a smile that has never left my memory, and
+never will.
+
+"'There is no blood on you,' she murmured. 'You did not strike the
+blow. Was it money only that you wanted, Frederick? If so, you
+could have had it without crime. There are five hundred dollars on
+that table. Take them and let them pave your way to a better life.
+My death will help you to remember.' Do these words, this action
+of hers, seem incredible to you, sirs? Alas! alas! they will not
+when I tell you"--and here he cast one anxious, deeply anxious,
+glance at the room in which Mr. Sutherland was hidden--"that
+unknown to me, unknown to anyone living but herself, unknown to
+that good man from whom it can no longer be kept hidden, Agatha
+Webb was my mother. I am Philemon's son and not the offspring of
+Charles and Marietta Sutherland!"
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+A WITNESS LOST
+
+
+Impossible! Incredible!
+
+Like a wave suddenly lifted the whole assemblage rose in surprise
+if not in protest. But there was no outburst. The very depth of
+the feelings evoked made all ebullition impossible, and as one
+sees the billow pause ere it breaks, and gradually subside, so
+this crowd yielded to its awe, and man by man sank back into his
+seat till quiet was again restored, and only a circle of listening
+faces confronted the man who had just stirred a whole roomful to
+its depths. Seeing this, and realising his opportunity, Frederick
+at once entered into the explanations for which each heart there
+panted.
+
+"This will be overwhelming news to him who has cared for me since
+infancy. You have heard him call me son; with what words shall I
+overthrow his confidence in the truth and rectitude of his long-
+buried wife and make him know in his old age that he has wasted
+years of patience upon one who was not of his blood or lineage?
+The wonder, the incredulity you manifest are my best excuse for my
+long delay in revealing the secret entrusted to me by this dying
+woman."
+
+An awed silence greeted these words. Never was the interest of a
+crowd more intense or its passions held in greater restraint. Yet
+Agnes's tears flowed freely, and Amabel's smiles--well, their
+expression had changed; and to Sweetwater, who alone had eyes for
+her now, they were surcharged with a tragic meaning, strange to
+see in one of her callous nature.
+
+Frederick's voice broke as he proceeded in his self-imposed task.
+
+"The astounding fact which I have just communicated to you was
+made known by my mother, with the dagger still plunged in her
+breast. She would not let me draw it out. She knew that death
+would follow that act, and she prized every moment remaining to
+her because of the bliss she enjoyed of seeing and having near her
+her only living child. The love, the passion, the boundless
+devotion she showed in those last few minutes transformed me in an
+instant from a selfish brute into a deeply repentant man. I knelt
+before her in anguish. I made her feel that, wicked as I had been,
+I was not the conscienceless wretch she had imagined, and that she
+was mistaken as to the motives which led me into her presence. And
+when I saw, by her clearing brow and peaceful look, that I had
+fully persuaded her of this, I let her speak what words she would,
+and tell, as she was able, the secret tragedy of her life.
+
+"It is a sacred story to me, and if you must know it, let it be
+from her own words in the letters she left behind her. She only
+told me that to save me from the fate of the children who had
+preceded me, the five little girls and boys who had perished
+almost at birth in her arms, she had parted from me in early
+infancy to Mrs. Sutherland, then mourning the sudden death of her
+only child; that this had been done secretly and under
+circumstances calculated to deceive Mr. Sutherland, consequently
+he had never known I was not his own child, and in terror of the
+effect which the truth might have upon him she enjoined me not to
+enlighten him now, if by any sacrifice on my part I could
+rightfully avoid it; that she was happy in having me hear the
+truth before she died; that the joy which this gave her was so
+great she did not regret her fatal act, violent and uncalled for
+as it was, for it had showed her my heart and allowed me to read
+hers. Then she talked of my father, by whom I mean him whom you
+call Philemon; and she made me promise I would care for him to the
+last with tenderness, saying that I would be able to do this
+without seeming impropriety, since she had willed me all her
+fortune under this proviso. Finally, she gave me a key, and
+pointing out where the money lay hidden, bade me carry it away as
+her last gift, together with the package of letters I would find
+with it. And when I had taken these and given her back the key,
+she told me that but for one thing she would die happy. And though
+her strength and breath were fast failing her, she made me
+understand that she was worried about the Zabels, who had not come
+according to a sacred custom between them, to celebrate the
+anniversary of her wedding, and prayed me to see the two old
+gentlemen before I slept, since nothing but death or dire distress
+would have kept them from gratifying the one whim of my father's
+failing mind. I promised, and with perfect peace in her face, she
+pointed to the dagger in her breast.
+
+"But before I could lay my hand upon it she called for Batsy. 'I
+want her to hear me declare before I go,' said she, 'that this
+stroke was delivered by myself upon myself.' But when I rose to
+look for Batsy I found that the shock of her mistress's fatal act
+had killed her and that only her dead body was lying across the
+window-sill of the adjoining room. It was a chance that robbed me
+of the only witness who could testify to my innocence, in case my
+presence in this house of death should become known, and realising
+all the danger in which it threw me, I did not dare to tell my
+mother, for fear it would make her last moments miserable. So I
+told her that the poor woman had understood what she wished, but
+was too terrified to move or speak; and this satisfied my mother
+and made her last breath one of trust and contented love. She died
+as I drew the dagger from her breast, and seeing this, I was
+seized with horror of the instrument which had cost me such a dear
+and valuable life and flung it wildly from the window. Then I
+lifted her and laid her where you found her, on the sofa. I did
+not know that the dagger was an old-time gift of her former lover,
+James Zabel, much less that it bore his initials on the handle."
+
+He paused, and the awe occasioned by the scene he had described
+was so deep and the silence so prolonged that a shudder passed
+over the whole assemblage when from some unknown quarter a single
+cutting voice arose in this one short, mocking comment:
+
+"Oh, the fairy tale!"
+
+Was it Amabel who spoke? Some thought so and looked her way, but
+they only beheld a sweet, tear-stained face turned with an air of
+moving appeal upon Frederick as if begging pardon for the wicked
+doubts which had driven him to this defence.
+
+Frederick met that look with one so severe it partook of
+harshness; then, resuming his testimony, he said:
+
+"It is of the Zabel brothers I must now speak, and of how one of
+them, James by name, came to be involved in this affair.
+
+"When I left my dead mother's side I was in such a state of mind
+that I passed with scarcely so much as a glance the room where my
+new-found father sat sleeping. But as I hastened on toward the
+quarter where the Zabels lived, I was seized by such compunction
+for his desolate state that I faltered in my rapid flight and did
+not arrive at the place of my destination as quickly as I
+intended. When I did I found the house dark and the silence
+sepulchral. But I did not turn away. Remembering my mother's
+anxiety, an anxiety so extreme it disturbed her final moments, I
+approached the front door and was about to knock when I found it
+open. Greatly astonished, I at once passed in, and, seeing my way
+perfectly in the moonlight, entered the room on the left, the door
+of which also stood open. It was the second house I had entered
+unannounced that night, and in this as in the other I encountered
+a man sitting asleep by the table.
+
+"It was John, the elder of the two, and, perceiving that he was
+suffering for food and in a condition of extreme misery, I took
+out the first bill my hand encountered in my overfull pockets and
+laid it on the table by his side. As I did so he gave a sigh, but
+did not wake; and satisfied that I had done all that was wise and
+all that even my mother would expect of me under the
+circumstances, and fearing to encounter the other brother if I
+lingered, I hastened away and took the shortest path home. Had I
+been more of a man, or if my visit to Mrs. Webb had been actuated
+by a more communicable motive, I would have gone at once to the
+good man who believed me to be of his own flesh and blood, and
+told him of the strange and heart-rending adventure which had
+changed the whole tenor of my thoughts and life, and begged his
+advice as to what I had better do under the difficult
+circumstances in which I found myself placed. But the memory of a
+thousand past ingratitudes, together with the knowledge of the
+shock which he could not fail to receive on learning at this late
+day, and under conditions at once so tragic and full of menace,
+that the child which his long-buried wife had once placed in his
+arms as his own was neither of her blood nor his, rose up between
+us and caused me not only to attempt silence, but to secrete in
+the adjoining woods the money I had received, in the vain hope
+that all visible connection between myself and my mother's tragic
+death would thus be lost. You see I had not calculated on Miss
+Amabel Page."
+
+The flash he here received from that lady's eyes startled the
+crowd, and gave Sweetwater, already suffering under shock after
+shock of mingled surprise and wonder, his first definite idea that
+he had never rightly understood the relations between these two,
+and that something besides justice had actuated Amabel in her
+treatment of this young man. This feeling was shared by others,
+and a reaction set in in Frederick's favour, which even affected
+the officials who were conducting the inquiry. This was shown by
+the difference of manner now assumed by the coroner and by the
+more easily impressed Sweetwater, who had not yet learned the
+indispensable art of hiding his feelings. Frederick himself felt
+the change and showed it by the look of relief and growing
+confidence he cast at Agnes.
+
+Of the questions and answers which now passed between him and the
+various members of the jury I need give no account. They but
+emphasised facts already known, and produced but little change in
+the general feeling, which was now one of suppressed pity for all
+who had been drawn into the meshes of this tragic mystery. When he
+was allowed to resume his seat, the name of Miss Amabel Page was
+again called.
+
+She rose with a bound. Nought that she had anticipated had
+occurred; facts of which she could know nothing had changed the
+aspect of affairs and made the position of Frederick something so
+remote from any she could have imagined, that she was still in the
+maze of the numberless conflicting emotions which these
+revelations were calculated to call out in one who had risked all
+on the hazard of a die and lost. She did not even know at this
+moment whether she was glad or sorry he could explain so cleverly
+his anomalous position. She had caught the look he had cast at
+Agnes, and while this angered her, it did not greatly modify her
+opinion that he was destined for herself. For, however other
+people might feel, she did not for a moment believe his story. She
+had not a pure enough heart to do so. To her all self-sacrifice
+was an anomaly. No woman of the mental or physical strength of
+Agatha Webb would plant a dagger in her own breast just to prevent
+another person from committing a crime, were he lover, husband, or
+son. So Amabel believed and so would these others believe also
+when once relieved of the magnetic personality of this
+extraordinary witness. Yet how thrilling it had been to hear him
+plead his cause so well! It was almost worth the loss of her
+revenge to meet his look of hate, and dream of the possibility of
+turning it later into the old look of love. Yes, yes, she loved
+him now; not for his position, for that was gone; not even for his
+money, for she could contemplate its loss; but for himself, who
+had so boldly shown that he was stronger than she and could
+triumph over her by the sheer force of his masculine daring.
+
+With such feelings, what should she say to these men; how conduct
+herself under questions which would be much more searching now
+than before? She could not even decide in her own mind. She must
+let impulse have its way.
+
+Happily, she took the right stand at first. She did not endeavour
+to make any corrections in her former testimony, only
+acknowledging that the flower whose presence on the scene of death
+had been such a mystery, had fallen from her hair at the ball and
+that she had seen Frederick pick it up and put it in his
+buttonhole. Beyond this, and the inferences it afterward awakened
+in her mind, she would not go, though many present, and among them
+Frederick, felt confident that her attitude had been one of
+suspicion from the first, and that it was to follow him rather
+than to supply the wants of the old man, Zabel, she had left the
+ball and found her way to Agatha Webb's cottage.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+WHY AGATHA WEBB WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN IN SUTHERLANDTOWN
+
+
+Meanwhile Sweetwater had been witness to a series of pantomimic
+actions that interested him more than Amabel's conduct under this
+final examination. Frederick, who had evidently some request to
+make or direction to give, had sent a written line to the coroner,
+who, on reading it, had passed it over to Knapp, who a few minutes
+later was to be seen in conference with Agnes Halliday. As a
+result, the latter rose and left the room, followed by the
+detective. She was gone a half-hour, then simultaneously with her
+reappearance, Sweetwater saw Knapp hand a bundle of letters to the
+coroner, who, upon opening them, chose out several which he
+proceeded to read to the jury. They were the letters referred to
+by Frederick as having been given to him by his mother. The first
+was dated thirty-five years previously and was in the handwriting
+of Agatha herself. It was directed to James Zabel, and was read
+amid a profound hush.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+You are too presumptuous. When I let you carry me away from John
+in that maddening reel last night, I did not mean you to draw the
+inference you did. That you did draw it argues a touch of vanity
+in a man who is not alone in the field where he imagines himself
+victor. John, who is humbler, sees some merit in--well, in
+Frederick Snow, let us say. So do I, but merit does not always
+win, any more than presumption. When we meet, let it be as
+friends, but as friends only. A girl cannot be driven into love.
+To ride on your big mare, Judith, is bliss enough for my twenty
+years. Why don't you find it so too? I think I hear you say you
+do, but only when she stops at a certain gate on Portchester
+highway. Folly! there are other roads and other gates, though if I
+should see you enter one--There! my pen is galloping away with me
+faster than Judith ever did, and it is time I drew rein. Present
+my regards to John--But no; then he would know I had written you a
+letter, and that might hurt him. How could he guess it was only a
+scolding letter, such as it would grieve him to receive, and that
+it does not count for anything! Were it to Frederick Snow, now--
+There! some horses are so hard to pull up--and so are some pens. I
+will come to a standstill, but not before your door.
+
+Respectfully your neighbour,
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST.
+
+ DEAR JAMES:
+
+I know I have a temper, a wicked temper, and now you know it too.
+When it is roused, I forget love, gratitude, and everything else
+that should restrain me, and utter words I am myself astonished
+at. But I do not get roused often, and when all is over I am not
+averse to apologising or even to begging forgiveness. My father
+says my temper will undo me, but I am much more afraid of my heart
+than I am of my temper. For instance, here I am writing to you
+again just because I raised my riding-whip and said--But you know
+what I said, and I am not fond of recalling the words, for I
+cannot do so without seeing your look of surprise and contrasting
+it with that of Philemon's. Yours had judgment in it, while
+Philemon's held only indulgence. Yet I liked yours best, or should
+have liked it best if it were not for the insufferable pride which
+is a part of my being. Temper such as mine OUGHT to surprise you,
+yet would I be Agatha Gilchrist without it? I very much fear not.
+And not being Agatha Gilchrist, should I have your love? Again I
+fear not. James, forgive me. When I am happier, when I know my own
+heart, I will have less provocation. Then, if that heart turns
+your way, you will find a great and bountiful serenity where now
+there are lowering and thunderous tempests. Philemon said last
+night that he would be content to have my fierce word o' mornings,
+if only I would give him one drop out of the honey of my better
+nature when the sun went down and twilight brought reflection and
+love. But I did not like him any the better for saying this. YOU
+would not halve the day so. The cup with which you would refresh
+yourself must hold no bitterness. Will it not have to be
+proffered, then, by other hands than those of
+
+AGATHA GILCHRIST?
+
+MR. PHILEMON WEBB.
+
+Respected Sir:
+
+You are persistent. I am willing to tell YOU, though I shall never
+confide so much to another, that it will take a stronger nature
+than yours, and one that loves me less, to hold me faithful and
+make me the happy, devoted wife which I must be if I would not be
+a demon. I cannot, I dare not, marry where I am not held in a
+passionate, self-forgetful subjection. I am too proud, too
+sensitive, too little mistress of myself when angry or aroused.
+If, like some strong women, I loved what was weaker than myself,
+and could be controlled by goodness and unlimited kindness, I
+might venture to risk living at the side of the most indulgent and
+upright man I know. But I am not of that kind. Strength only can
+command my admiration or subdue my pride. I must fear where I
+love, and own for husband him who has first shown himself my
+master.
+
+So do not fret any more for me, for you, less than any man I know,
+will ever claim my obedience or command my love. Not that I will
+not yield my heart to you, but that I cannot; and, knowing that I
+cannot, feel it honest to say so before any more of your fine,
+young manhood is wasted. Go your ways, then, Philemon, and leave
+me to the rougher paths my feet were made to tread. I like you now
+and feel something like a tender regard for your goodness, but if
+you persist in a courtship which only my father is inclined to
+smile upon, you will call up an antagonism that can lead to
+nothing but evil, for the serpent that lies coiled in my breast
+has deadly fangs, and is to be feared, as you should know who have
+more than once seen me angry.
+
+Do not blame John or James Zabel, or Frederick Snow, or even
+Samuel Barton for this. It would be the same if none of these men
+existed. I was not made to triumph over a kindly nature, but to
+yield the haughtiest heart in all this county to the gentle but
+firm control of its natural master. Do you want to know who that
+master is? I cannot tell you, for I have not yet named him to
+myself.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am going away. I am going to leave Portchester for several
+months. I am going to see the world. I did not tell you this last
+night for fear of weakening under your entreaties, or should I say
+commands? Lately I have felt myself weakening more than once, and
+I want to know what it means. Absence will teach me, absence and
+the sight of new faces. Do you quarrel with this necessity? Do you
+think I should know my mind without any such test? Alas! James, it
+is not a simple mind and it baffles me at times. Let us then give
+it a chance. If the glow and glamour of elegant city life can make
+me forget certain snatches of talk at our old gate, or that night
+when you drew my hand through your arm and softly kissed my
+fingertips, then I am no mate for you, whose love, however
+critical, has never wavered, but has made itself felt, even in
+rebuke, as the strongest, sweetest thing that has entered my
+turbulent life. Because I would be worthy of you, I submit to a
+separation which will either be a permanent one or the last that
+will ever take place between you and me. John will not bear this
+as well as you, yet he does not love me as well, possibly because
+to him I am simply a superior being, while to you I am a loving
+but imperfect woman who wishes to do right but can only do so
+under the highest guidance.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I feel that I owe you a letter because you have been so patient.
+You may show it to James if you like, but I mean it for you as an
+old and dear friend who will one day dance at my wedding.
+
+I am living in a whirl of enjoyment. I am seeing and tasting of
+pleasures I have only dreamed about till now. From a farmhouse
+kitchen to Mrs. Andrews's drawing-room is a lively change for a
+girl who loves dress and show only less than daily intercourse
+with famous men and brilliant women. But I am bearing it nobly and
+have developed tastes I did not know I possessed; expensive
+tastes, John, which I fear may unfit me for the humble life of a
+Portchester matron. Can you imagine me dressed in rich brocade,
+sitting in the midst of Washington's choicest citizens and
+exchanging sallies with senators and judges? You may find it hard,
+yet so it is, and no one seems to think I am out of place, nor do
+I feel so, only--do not tell James--there are movements in my
+heart at times which make me shut my eyes when the lights are
+brightest, and dream, if but for an instant, of home and the
+tumble-down gateway where I have so often leaned when someone (you
+know who it is now, John, and I shall not hurt you too deeply by
+mentioning him) was saying good-night and calling down the
+blessings of Heaven upon a head not worthy to receive them.
+
+Does this argue my speedy return? Perhaps. Yet I do not know.
+There are fond hearts here also, and a life in this country's
+centre would be a great life for me if only I could forget the
+touch of a certain restraining hand which has great power over me
+even as a memory. For the sake of that touch shall I give up the
+grandeur and charm of this broad life? Answer, John. You know him
+and me well enough now to say.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I do not understand your letter. You speak in affectionate terms
+of everybody, yet you beg me to wait and not be in a hurry to
+return. Why? Do you not realise that such words only make me the
+more anxious to see old Portchester again? If there is anything
+amiss at home, or if James is learning to do without me--but you
+do not say that; you only intimate that perhaps I will be better
+able to make up my mind later than now, and hint of great things
+to come if I will only hold my affections in check a little
+longer. This is all very ambiguous and demands a fuller
+explanation. So write to me once more, John, or I shall sever
+every engagement I have made here and return.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Your letter is plain enough this time. James read the letter I
+wrote you about my pleasure in the life here and was displeased at
+it. He thinks I am growing worldly and losing that simplicity
+which he has always looked upon as my most attractive
+characteristic. So! so! Well, James is right; I am becoming less
+the country girl and more the woman of the world every day I
+remain here. That means I am becoming less worthy of him. So--But
+whatever else I have to say on this topic must be said to him. For
+this you will pardon me like the good brother you are. I cannot
+help my preference. He is nearer my own age; besides, we were made
+for each other.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I am not worldly; I am not carried away by the pleasures and
+satisfactions of this place,--at least not to the point of
+forgetting what is dearer and better. I have seen Washington, I
+have seen gay life; I like it, but I LOVE Portchester.
+Consequently I am going to return to Portchester, and that very
+soon. Indeed I cannot stay away much longer, and if you are glad
+of this, and if you wish to be convinced that a girl who has been
+wearing brocade and jewels can content herself quite gaily again
+with calico, come up to the dear old gate a week from now and you
+will have the opportunity. Do you object to flowers? I may wear a
+flower in my hair.
+
+Your wayward but ever-constant
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+Why must I write? Why am I not content with the memory of last
+night? When one's cup is quite full, a cup that has been so long
+in filling,--must some few drops escape just to show that a great
+joy like mine is not satisfied to be simply quiescent? I have
+suffered so long from uncertainty, have tried you and tried myself
+with so tedious an indecision, that, now I know no other man can
+ever move my heart as you have done, the ecstasy of it makes me
+over-demonstrative. I want to tell you that I love you; that I do
+not simply accept your love, but give you back in fullest measure
+all the devotion you have heaped upon me in spite of my many
+faults and failings. You took me to your heart last night, and
+seemed satisfied; but it does not satisfy me that I just let you
+do it without telling you that I am proud and happy to be the
+chosen one of your heart, and that as I saw your smile and the
+proud passion which lit up your face, I felt how much sweeter was
+the dear domestic bliss you promised me than the more brilliant
+but colder life of a statesman's wife in Washington.
+
+I missed the flower from my hair when I went back to my room last
+night. Did you take it, dear? If so, do not cherish it. I hate to
+think of anything withering on your breast. My love is deathless,
+James, and owns no such symbol as that. But perhaps you are not
+thinking of my love, but of my faults. If so, let the flower
+remain where you have put it; and when you gaze on it say, "Thus
+is it with the defects of my darling; once in full bloom, now a
+withered remembrance. When I gathered her they began to fade." O
+James, I feel as if I never could feel anger again.
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+I do not, I cannot, believe it. Though you said to me on going
+out, "Your father will explain," I cannot content myself with his
+explanations and will never believe what he said of you except you
+confirm his accusations by your own act. If, after I have told you
+exactly what passed between us, you return me this and other
+letters, then I shall know that I have leaned my weight on a
+hollow staff, and that henceforth I am to be without protector or
+comforter in this world.
+
+O James, were we not happy! I believed in you and felt that you
+believed in me. When we stood heart to heart under the elm tree
+(was it only last night?) and you swore that if it lay in the
+power of earthly man to make me happy, I should taste every sweet
+that a woman's heart naturally craved, I thought my heaven had
+already come and that now it only remained for me to create yours.
+Yet that very minute my father was approaching us, and in another
+instant we heard these words:
+
+"James, I must talk with you before you make my daughter forget
+herself any further." Forget herself! What had happened? This was
+not the way my father had been accustomed to talk, much as he had
+always favoured the suit of Philemon Webb, and pleased as he would
+have been had my choice fallen on him. Forget herself! I looked at
+you to see how these insulting words would affect you. But while
+you turned pale, or seemed to do so in the fading moonlight, you
+were not quite so unprepared for them as I was myself, and instead
+of showing anger, followed my father into the house, leaving me
+shivering in a spot which had held no chill for me a moment
+before. You were gone--how long? To me it seemed an hour, and
+perhaps it was. It would seem to take that long for a man's face
+to show such change as yours did when you confronted me again in
+the moonlight. Yet a lightning stroke makes quick work, and
+perhaps my countenance in that one minute showed as great a change
+as yours. Else why did you shudder away from me, and to my
+passionate appeal reply with this one short phrase: "Your father
+will explain"? Did you think any other words than yours would
+satisfy me, or that I could believe even him when he accused you
+of a base and dishonest act? Much as I have always loved and
+revered my father, I find it impossible not to hope that in his
+wish to see me united to Philemon he has resorted to an unworthy
+subterfuge to separate us; therefore I give you our interview word
+for word. May it shock you as much as it shocked me. Here is what
+he said first:
+
+"Agatha, you cannot marry James Zabel. He is not an honest man. He
+has defrauded me, ME, your father, of several thousand dollars. In
+a clever way, too, showing him to be as subtle as he is
+unprincipled. Shall I tell you the wretched story, my girl? He has
+left me to do so. He sees as plainly as I do that any
+communication between you two after the discovery I have this day
+made would be but an added offence. He is at least a gentleman,
+which is something, considering how near he came to being my son-
+in-law."
+
+I may have answered. People do cry out when they are stabbed,
+sometimes, but I rather think I did not say a word, only looked a
+disdain which at that minute was as measureless as my belief in
+you. YOU dishonest? YOU--Or perhaps I laughed; that would have
+been truer to my feeling; yes, I must have laughed.
+
+My father's next words indicated that I did something.
+
+"You do not believe in his guilt," he went on, and there was a
+kindness in his tone which gave me my first feeling of real
+terror. "I can readily comprehend that, Agatha. He has been in my
+office and acted under my eye for several years now, and I had
+almost as much confidence in him as you had, notwithstanding the
+fact that I liked him much better as my confidential clerk than as
+your probable or prospective husband. He has never held the key to
+my heart; would God he never had to yours! But he was a good and
+reliable man in the office, or so I thought, and I gave into his
+hand much of the work I ought to have done myself, especially
+since my health has more or less failed me. My trust he abused. A
+month ago--it was during that ill turn you remember I received a
+letter from a man I had never expected to hear from again. He was
+in my debt some ten thousand dollars, and wrote that he had
+brought with him as much of this sum as he had been able to save
+in the last five years, to Sutherlandtown, where he was now laid
+up with a dangerous illness from which he had small hope of
+recovering. Would I come there and get it? He was a stranger and
+wished to take no one into his confidence, but he had the money
+and would be glad to place it in my hands. He added that as he was
+a lone man, without friends or relatives to inherit from him, he
+felt a decided pleasure at the prospect of satisfying his only
+creditor, and devoutly hoped he would be well enough to realise
+the transaction and receive my receipt. But if his fever increased
+and he should be delirious or unconscious when I reached him, then
+I was to lift up the left-hand corner of the mattress on which he
+lay and take from underneath his head a black wallet in which I
+would find the money promised me. He had elsewhere enough to pay
+all his expenses, so that the full contents of the wallet were
+mine.
+
+"I remembered the man and I wanted the money; so, not being able
+to go for it myself, I authorised James Zabel to collect it for
+me. He started at once for Sutherlandtown, and in a few hours
+returned with the wallet alluded to. Though I was suffering
+intensely at the time, I remember distinctly the air with which he
+laid it down and the words with which he endeavoured to carry off
+a certain secret excitement visible in him. 'Mr. Orr was alive,
+sir, and fully conscious; but he will not outlive the night. He
+seemed quite satisfied with the messenger and gave up the wallet
+without any hesitation.' I roused up and looked at him. 'What has
+shaken you up so?' I asked. He was silent a moment before
+replying. 'I have ridden fast,' said he; then more slowly, 'One
+feels sorry for a man dying alone and amongst strangers.' I
+thought he showed an unnecessary emotion, but paid no further heed
+to it at the time.
+
+"The wallet held two thousand and more dollars, which was less
+than I expected, but yet a goodly sum and very welcome. As I was
+counting it over I glanced at the paper accompanying it. It was an
+acknowledgment of debt and mentioned the exact sum I should find
+in the wallet--$2753.67. Pointing them out to James, I remarked,
+'The figures are in different ink from the words. How do you
+account for that?' I thought his answer rather long in coming,
+though when it did come it was calm, if not studied. 'I presume,'
+said he, 'that the sum was inserted at Sutherlandtown, after Mr.
+Orr was quite sure just how much he could spare for the
+liquidation of this old debt.' 'Very likely,' I assented, not
+bestowing another thought upon the matter.
+
+"But to-day it has been forced back upon my attention in a curious
+if not providential way. I was over in Sutherlandtown for the
+first time since my illness, and having some curiosity about my
+unfortunate but honest debtor, went to the hotel and asked to see
+the room in which he died. It being empty they at once showed it
+to me; and satisfied that he had been made comfortable in his last
+hours, I was turning away, when I espied on a table in one corner
+an inkstand and what seemed to be an old copy-book. Why I stopped
+and approached this table I do not know, but once in front of it I
+remembered what Zabel had said about the figures, and taking up
+the pen I saw there, I dipped it in the ink-pot and attempted to
+scribble a number or two on a piece of loose paper I found in the
+copy-book. The ink was thick and the pen corroded, so that it was
+not till after several ineffectual efforts that I succeeded in
+making any strokes that were at all legible. But when I did, they
+were so exactly similar in colour to the numbers inserted in Mr.
+Orr's memorandum (which I had fortunately brought with me) that I
+was instantly satisfied this especial portion of the writing had
+been done, as James had said, in this room, and with the very pen
+I was then handling. As there was nothing extraordinary in this, I
+was turning away, when a gust of wind from the open window lifted
+the loose sheet of paper I had been scribbling on and landed it,
+the other side up, on the carpet. As I stooped for it I saw
+figures on it, and feeling sure that they had been scrawled there
+by Mr. Orr in his attempt to make the pen write, I pulled out the
+memorandum again and compared the two minutely. They were the work
+of the same hand, but the figures on the stray leaf differed from
+those in the memorandum in a very important particular. Those in
+the memorandum began with a 2, while those on the stray sheet
+began with a 7--a striking difference. Look, Agatha, here is the
+piece of paper just as I found it. You see here, there, and
+everywhere the one set of figures, 7753.67. Here it is hardly
+legible, here it is blotted with too much ink, here it is faint
+but sufficiently distinct, and here--well, there can be no mistake
+about these figures, 7753.67; yet the memorandum reads, $2753.67,
+and the money returned to me amounts to $2753.67--a clean five
+thousand dollars' difference."
+
+Here, James, my father paused, perhaps to give me a commiserating
+look, though I did not need it; perhaps to give himself a moment
+in which to regain courage for what he still had to say. I did not
+break the silence; I was too sure of your integrity; besides, my
+tongue could not have moved if it would; all my faculties seemed
+frozen except that instinct which cried out continually within me:
+"No! there is no fault in James. He has done no wrong. No one but
+himself shall ever convince me that he has robbed anyone of
+anything except poor me of my poor heart." But inner cries of this
+kind are inaudible and after a moment's interval my father went
+on:
+
+"Five thousand dollars is no petty sum, and the discrepancy in the
+two sets of figures which seemed to involve me in so considerable
+a loss set me thinking. Convinced that Mr. Orr would not be likely
+to scribble one number over so many times if it was not the one
+then in his mind, I went to Mr. Forsyth's office and borrowed a
+magnifying-glass, through which I again subjected the figures in
+the memorandum to a rigid scrutiny. The result was a positive
+conviction that they had been tampered with after their first
+writing, either by Mr. Orr himself or by another whom I need not
+name. The 2 had originally been a 7, and I could even see where
+the top line of the 7 had been given a curl and where a horizontal
+stroke had been added at the bottom.
+
+"Agatha, I came home as troubled a man as there was in all these
+parts. I remembered the suppressed excitement which had been in
+James Zabel's face when he handed me over the money, and I
+remembered also that you loved him, or thought you did, and that,
+love or no love, you were pledged to marry him. If I had not
+recalled all this I might have proceeded more warily. As it was, I
+took the bold and open course and gave James Zabel an opportunity
+to explain himself. Agatha, he did not embrace it. He listened to
+my accusations and followed my finger when I pointed out the
+discrepancy between the two sets of figures, but he made no
+protestations of innocence, nor did he show me the front of an
+honest man when I asked if he expected me to believe that the
+wallet had held only two thousand and over when Mr. Orr handed it
+over to him. On the contrary he seemed to shrink into himself like
+a person whose life has been suddenly blasted, and replying that
+he would expect me to believe nothing except his extreme
+contrition at the abuse of confidence of which he had been guilty,
+begged me to wait till to-morrow before taking any active steps in
+the matter. I replied that I would show him that much
+consideration if he would immediately drop all pretensions to your
+hand. This put him in a bad way; but he left, as you see, with
+just a simple injunction to you to seek from me an explanation of
+his strange departure. Does that look like innocence or does it
+look like guilt?"
+
+I found my tongue at this and passionately cried: "James Zabel's
+life, as I have known it, shows him to be an honest man. If he has
+done what you suggest, given you but a portion of the money
+entrusted to him and altered the figures in the memorandum to suit
+the amount he brought you, then there is a discrepancy between
+this act and all the other acts of his life which I find it more
+difficult to reconcile than you did the two sets of figures in Mr.
+Orr's handwriting. Father, I must hear from his own lips a
+confirmation of your suspicions before I will credit them."
+
+And this is why I write you so minute an account of what passed
+between my father and myself last night. If his account of the
+matter is a correct one, and you have nothing to add to it in way
+of explanation, then the return of this letter will be token
+enough that my father has been just in his accusations and that
+the bond between us must be broken. But if--O James, if you are
+the true man I consider you, and all that I have heard is a
+fabrication or mistake, then come to me at once; do not delay, but
+come at once, and the sight of your face at the gate will be
+enough to establish your innocence in my eyes.
+
+AGATHA. The letter that followed this was very short:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+The package of letters has been received. God help me to bear this
+shock to all my hopes and the death of all my girlish beliefs. I
+am not angry. Only those who have something left to hold on to in
+life can be angry.
+
+My father tells me he has received a packet too. It contained five
+thousand dollars in ten five-hundred-dollar notes. James! James!
+was not my love enough, that you should want my father's money
+too?
+
+I have begged my father, and he has promised me, to keep the cause
+of this rupture secret. No one shall know from either of us that
+James Zabel has any flaw in his nature.
+
+ The next letter was dated some months later. It is to Philemon:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+The gloves are too small; besides, I never wear gloves. I hate
+their restraint and do not feel there is any good reason for
+hiding my hands, in this little country town where everyone knows
+me. Why not give them to Hattie Weller? She likes such things,
+while I have had my fill of finery. A girl whose one duty is to
+care for a dying father has no room left in her heart for
+vanities.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+It is impossible. I have had my day of love and my heart is quite
+dead. Show your magnanimity by ceasing to urge me any longer to
+forget the past. It is all you can do for
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You WILL have my hand though I have told you that my heart does
+not go with it. It is hard to understand such persistence, but if
+you are satisfied to take a woman of my strength against her will,
+then God have mercy upon you, for I will be your wife.
+
+But do not ask me to go to Sutherlandtown. I will live here. And
+do not expect to keep up your intimacy with the Zabels. There is
+no tie of affection remaining between James and myself, but if I
+am to shed that half-light over your home which is all I can
+promise and all that you can hope to receive, then keep me from
+all influence but your own. That this in time may grow sweet and
+dear to me is my earnest prayer to-day, for you are worthy of a
+true wife.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+I am going to be married. My father exacts it and there is no good
+reason why I should not give him this final satisfaction. At least
+I do not think there is; but if you or your brother differ from
+me--
+
+Say good-bye to James from me. I pray that his life may be
+peaceful. I know that it will be honest.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+My father is worse. He fears that if we wait till Tuesday he will
+not be able to see us married. Decide, then, what our duty is; I
+am ready to abide by your pleasure.
+
+AGATHA.
+
+The following is from John Zabel to his brother James, and is
+dated one day after the above:
+
+DEAR JAMES:
+
+When you read this I will be far away, never to look in your face
+again, unless you bid me. Brother, brother, I meant it for the
+best, but God was not with me and I have made four hearts
+miserable without giving help to anyone.
+
+When I read Agatha's letter--the last for more reasons than one
+that I shall ever receive from her--I seemed to feel as never
+before what I had done to blast your two lives. For the first time
+I realised to the full that but for me she might have been happy
+and you the respected husband of the one grand woman to be found
+in Portchester. That I had loved her so fiercely myself came back
+to me in reproach, and the thought that she perhaps suspected that
+the blame had fallen where it was not deserved roused me to such a
+pitch that I took the sudden and desperate resolution of telling
+her the truth before she gave her hand to Philemon. Why the daily
+sight of your misery should not have driven me before to this act,
+I cannot tell. Some remnants of the old jealousy may have been
+still festering in my heart; or the sense of the great distance
+between your self-sacrificing spirit and the selfishness of my
+weaker nature risen like a barrier between me and the only noble
+act left for a man in my position. Whatever the cause, it was not
+till to-day the full determination came to brave the obloquy of a
+full confession; but when it did come I did not pause till I
+reached Mr. Gilchrist's house and was ushered into his presence.
+
+He was lying on the sitting-room lounge, looking very weak and
+exhausted, while on one side of him stood Agatha and on the other
+Philemon, both contemplating him with ill-concealed anxiety. I had
+not expected to find Philemon there, and for a moment I suffered
+the extreme agony of a man who has not measured the depth of the
+plunge he is about to take; but the sight of Agatha trembling
+under the shock of my unexpected presence restored me to myself
+and gave me firmness to proceed. Advancing with a bow, I spoke
+quickly the one word I had come there to say.
+
+"Agatha, I have done you a great wrong and I am here to undo it.
+For months I have felt driven to confession, but not till to-day
+have I possessed the necessary courage. NOW, nothing shall hinder
+me."
+
+I said this because I saw in both Mr. Gilchrist and Philemon a
+disposition to stop me where I was. Indeed Mr. Gilchrist had risen
+on his elbow and Philemon was making that pleading gesture of his
+which we know so well.
+
+Agatha alone looked eager. "What is it?" she cried. "I have a
+right to know." I went to the door, shut it, and stood with my
+back against it, a figure of shame and despair; suddenly the
+confession burst from me. "Agatha," said I, "why did you break
+with my brother James? Because you thought him guilty of theft;
+because you believed he took the five thousand dollars out of the
+sum entrusted to him by Mr. Orr for your father. Agatha, it was
+not James who did this it was I; and James knew it, and bore the
+blame of my misdoing because he was always a loyal soul and took
+account of my weakness and knew, alas! too well, that open shame
+would kill me."
+
+It was a weak plea and merited no reply. But the silence was so
+dreadful and lasted so long that I felt first crushed and then
+terrified. Raising my head, for I had not dared to look any of
+them in the face, I cast one glance at the group before me and
+dropped my head again, startled. Only one of the three was looking
+at me, and that was Agatha. The others had their heads turned
+aside, and I thought, or rather the passing fancy took me, that
+they shrank from meeting her gaze with something of the same shame
+and dread I myself felt. But she! Can I ever hope to make you
+realise her look, or comprehend the pang of utter self-abasement
+with which I succumbed before it? It was so terrible that I seemed
+to hear her utter words, though I am sure she did not speak; and
+with some wild idea of stemming the torrent of her reproaches, I
+made an effort at explanation, and impetuously cried: "It was not
+for my own good, Agatha, not for self altogether, I did this. I
+too loved you, madly, despairingly, and, good brother as I seemed,
+I was jealous of James and hoped to take his place in your regard
+if I could show a greater prosperity and get for you those things
+his limited prospects denied him. You enjoy money, beauty, ease; I
+could see that by your letters, and if James could not give them
+to you and I could--Oh, do not look at me like that! I see now
+that millions could not have bought you."
+
+"Despicable!" was all that came from her lips. At which I
+shuddered and groped about for the handle of the door. But she
+would not let me go. Subduing with an unexpected grand self-
+restraint the emotions which had hitherto swelled too high in her
+breast for either speech or action, she thrust out one arm to stay
+me and said in short, commanding tones: "How was this thing done?
+You say you took the money, yet it was James who was sent to
+collect it--or so my father says." Here she tore her looks from me
+and cast one glance at her father. What she saw I cannot say, but
+her manner changed and henceforth she glanced his way as much as
+mine and with nearly as much emotion. "I am waiting to hear what
+you have to say," she exclaimed, laying her hand on the door over
+my head so as to leave me no opportunity for escape. I bowed and
+attempted an explanation.
+
+"Agatha," said I, "the commission was given to James and he rode
+to Sutherlandtown to perform it. But it was on the day when he was
+accustomed to write to you, and he was not easy in his mind, for
+he feared he would miss sending you his usual letter. When,
+therefore, he came to the hotel and saw me in Philemon's room--I
+was often there in those days, often without Philemon's knowing
+it--he saw, or thought he did, a way out of his difficulties.
+Entering where I was, he explained to me his errand, and we being
+then--though never, alas! since--one in everything but the secret
+hopes he enjoyed, he asked me if I would go in his stead to Mr.
+Orr's room, present my credentials, and obtain the money while he
+wrote the letter with which his mind was full. Though my jealousy
+was aroused and I hated the letter he was about to write, I did
+not see how I could refuse him; so after receiving such
+credentials as he himself carried, and getting full instructions
+how to proceed, I left him writing at Philemon's table and
+hastened down the hall to the door he had pointed out. If
+Providence had been on the side of guilt, the circumstances could
+not have been more favourable for the deception I afterwards
+played. No one was in the hall, no one was with Mr. Orr to note
+that it was I instead of James who executed Mr. Gilchrist's
+commission. But I was thinking of no deception then. I proceeded
+quite innocently on my errand, and when the feeble voice of the
+invalid bade me enter, I experienced nothing but a feeling of
+compassion for a man dying in this desolate way, alone. Of course
+Mr. Orr was surprised to see a stranger, but after reading Mr.
+Gilchrist's letter which I handed him, he seemed quite satisfied
+and himself drew out the wallet at the head of his bed and handed
+it over. 'You will find,' said he, 'a memorandum inside of the
+full amount, $7758.67. I should like to have returned Mr.
+Gilchrist the full ten thousand which I owe him, but this is all I
+possess, barring a hundred dollars which I have kept for my final
+expenses.' 'Mr. Gilchrist will be satisfied,' I assured him.
+'Shall I make you out a receipt?' He shook his head with a sad
+smile. 'I shall be dead in twenty-four hours. What good will a
+receipt do me?' But it seemed unbusinesslike not to give it, so I
+went over to the table, where I saw a pen and paper, and
+recognising the necessity of counting the money before writing a
+receipt, I ran my eye over the bills, which were large, and found
+the wallet contained just the amount he had named. Then I glanced
+at the memorandum. It had evidently been made out by him at some
+previous time, for the body of the writing was in firm characters
+and the ink blue, while the figures were faintly inscribed in
+muddy black. The 7 especially was little more than a straight
+line, and as I looked at it the devil that is in every man's
+nature whispered at first carelessly, then with deeper and deeper
+insistence: 'How easy it would be to change that 7 to a 2! Only a
+little mark at the top and the least additional stroke at the
+bottom and these figures would stand for five thousand less. It
+might be a temptation to some men.' It presently became a
+temptation to me; for, glancing furtively up, I discovered that
+Mr. Orr had fallen either into a sleep or into a condition of
+insensibility which made him oblivious to my movements. Five
+thousand dollars! just the sum of the ten five-hundred-dollar
+bills that made the bulk of the amount I had counted. In this
+village and at my age this sum would raise me at once to
+comparative independence. The temptation was too strong for
+resistance. I succumbed to it, and seizing the pen before me, I
+made the fatal marks. When I went back to James the wallet was in
+my hand, and the ten five-hundred-dollar bills in my breast
+pocket."
+
+Agatha had begun to shudder. She shook so she rattled the door
+against which I leaned.
+
+"And when you found that Providence was not so much upon your side
+as you thought, when you saw that the fraud was known and that
+your brother was suspected of it--"
+
+"Don't!" I pleaded, "don't make me recall that hour!"
+
+But she was inexorable. "Recall that and every hour," she
+commanded. "Tell me why he sacrificed himself, why he sacrificed
+me, to a cur--"
+
+She feared her own tongue, she feared her own anger, and stopped.
+"Speak," she whispered, and it was the most ghastly whisper that
+ever left mortal lips. I was but a foot from her and she held me
+as by a strong enchantment. I could not help obeying her.
+
+"To make it all clear," I pursued, "I must go back to the time I
+rejoined James in Philemon's room. He had finished his letter when
+I entered and was standing with it, sealed, in his hand. I may
+have cast it a disdainful glance. I may have shown that I was no
+longer the same man I had been when I left him a half-hour before,
+for he looked curiously at me for a moment previous to saying:
+
+"'Is that the wallet you have there? Was Mr. Orr conscious, and
+did he give it to you himself?' 'Mr. Orr was conscious,' I
+returned,--and I didn't like the sound of my own voice, careful as
+I was to speak naturally,--' but he fainted just before I came
+out, and I think you had better ask the clerk as you go down to
+send someone up to him.'
+
+"James was weighing the pocket-book in his hand. 'How much do you
+think there is in here? The debt was ten thousand.' I had turned
+carelessly away and was looking out of the window. 'The memorandum
+inside gives the figures as two thousand,' I declared. 'He
+apologises for not sending the full amount. He hasn't it.' Again I
+felt James looking at me. Why? Could he see that guilty wad of
+bills lying on my breast? 'How came you to read the memorandum?'
+he asked. 'Mr. Orr wished me to. I looked at it to please him.'
+This was a lie--the first I had ever uttered. James's eyes had not
+moved. 'John,' said he, 'this little bit of business seems to have
+disturbed you. I ought to have attended to it myself. I am quite
+sure I ought to have attended to it myself.' 'The man is dying,' I
+muttered. 'You escaped a sad sight. Be satisfied that you have got
+the money. Shall I post that letter for you?' He put it jealously
+in his pocket, and again I saw him look at me, but he said nothing
+more except that he repeated that same phrase, 'I ought to have
+attended to it myself. Agatha might better have waited.' Then he
+went out; but I remained till Philemon came home. My brother and
+myself were no longer companions; a crime divided us,--a crime he
+could not suspect, yet which made itself felt in both our hearts
+and prepared him for the revelation made to him by Mr. Gilchrist
+some weeks after. That night he came to Sutherlandtown, where I
+was, and entered my bedroom--not in the fraternal way of the old
+days, but as an elder enters the presence of a younger. 'John,' he
+said, without any preamble or preparation, 'where are the five
+thousand dollars you kept back from Mr. Gilchrist? The memorandum
+said seven and you delivered to me only two.' There are death-
+knells sounded in every life; those words sounded mine, or would
+have if he had not immediately added: 'There! I knew you had no
+stamina. I have taken your crime on myself, who am really to blame
+for it, since I delegated my duty to another, and you will only
+have to bear the disgrace of having James Zabel for a brother. In
+exchange, give me the money; it shall be returned to-morrow. You
+cannot have disposed of it already. After which, you, or rather I,
+will be in the eyes of the world only a thief in intent, not in
+fact.' Had he only stopped there!--but he went on: 'Agatha is lost
+to me, John. In return, be to me the brother I always thought you
+up to the unhappy day the sin of Achan came between us.'
+
+"YOU were lost to him! It was all I heard. YOU were lost to him!
+Then, if I acknowledged the crime I should not only take up my own
+burden of disgrace, but see him restored to his rights over the
+only woman I had ever loved. The sacrifice was great and my virtue
+was not equal to it. I gave him back the money, but I did not
+offer to assume the responsibility of my own crime."
+
+"And since?"
+
+In what a hard tone she spoke!
+
+"I have had to see Philemon gradually assume the rights James once
+enjoyed."
+
+"John," she asked,--she was under violent self-restraint,--"why do
+you come now?"
+
+I cast my eyes at Philemon. He was standing, as before, with his
+eyes turned away. There was discouragement in his attitude,
+mingled with a certain grand patience. Seeing that he was better
+able to bear her loss than either you or myself, I said to her
+very low, "I thought you ought to know the truth before you gave
+your final word. I am late, but I would have been TOO LATE a week
+from now."
+
+Her hand fell from the door, but her eyes remained fixed on my
+face. Never have I sustained such a look; never will I encounter
+such another.
+
+"It is too late NOW," she murmured. "The clergyman has just gone
+who united me to Philemon."
+
+The next minute her back was towards me; she had faced her father
+and her new-made husband.
+
+"Father, you knew this thing!" Keen, sharp, incisive, the words
+rang out. "I saw it in your face when he began to speak."
+
+Mr. Gilchrist drooped slightly; lie was a very sick man and the
+scene had been a trying one.
+
+"If I did," was his low response, "it was but lately. You were
+engaged then to Philemon. Why break up this second match?"
+
+She eyed him as if she found it difficult to credit her ears. Such
+indifference to the claims of innocence was incredible to her. I
+saw her grand profile quiver, then the slow ebbing from her cheek
+of every drop of blood indignation had summoned there.
+
+"And you, Philemon?" she suggested, with a somewhat softened
+aspect. "You committed this wrong ignorantly. Never having heard
+of this crime, you could not know on what false grounds I had been
+separated from James."
+
+I had started to escape, but stopped just beyond the threshold of
+the door as she uttered these words. Philemon was not as ignorant
+as she supposed. This was evident from his attitude and
+expression.
+
+"Agatha," he began, but at this first word, and before he could
+clasp the hands held helplessly out before her, she gave a great
+cry, and staggering back, eyed both her father and himself in a
+frenzy of indignation that was all the more uncontrollable from
+the superhuman effort which she had hitherto made to suppress it.
+
+"You too!" she shrieked. "You too! and I have just sworn to love,
+honour, and obey you! Love YOU! Honour YOU! the unconscionable
+wretch who--"
+
+But here Mr. Gilchrist rose. Weak, tottering, quivering with
+something more than anger, he approached his daughter and laid his
+finger on her lips.
+
+"Be quiet!" he said. "Philemon is not to blame. A month ago he
+came to me and prayed that as a relief to his mind I would tell
+him why you had separated yourself from James. He had always
+thought the match, had fallen through on account of some foolish
+quarrel or incompatibility, but lately he had feared there was
+something more than he suspected in this break, something that he
+should know. So I told him why you had dismissed James; and
+whether he knew James better than we did, or whether he had seen
+something in his long acquaintance with these brothers which
+influenced his judgment, he said at once: 'This cannot be true of
+James. It is not in his nature to defraud any man; but John--I
+might believe it of John. Isn't there some complication here?' I
+had never thought of John, and did not see how John could be mixed
+up with an affair I had supposed to be a secret between James and
+myself, but when we came to locate the day, Philemon remembered
+that on returning to his room that night, he had found John
+awaiting him. As his room was not five doors from that occupied by
+Mr. Orr, he was convinced that there was more to this matter than
+I had suspected. But when he laid the matter before James, he did
+not deny that John was guilty, but was peremptory in wishing you
+not to be told before your marriage. He knew that you were engaged
+to a good man, a man that your father approved, a man that could
+and would make you happy. He did not want to be the means of a
+second break, and besides, and this, I think, was at the bottom of
+the stand he took, for James Zabel was always the proudest man I
+ever knew,--he never could bear, he said, to give to one like
+Agatha a name which he knew and she knew was not entirely free
+from reproach. It would stand in the way of his happiness and
+ultimately of hers; his brother's dishonour was his. So while he
+still loved you, his only prayer was that after you were safely
+married and Philemon was sure of your affection, he should tell
+you that the man you once regarded so favourably was not unworthy
+of that regard. To obey him, Philemon has kept silent, while I--
+Agatha, what are you doing? Are you mad, my child?"
+
+She looked so for the moment. Tearing off the ring which she had
+worn but an hour, she flung it on the floor. Then she threw her
+arms high up over her head and burst out in an awful voice:
+
+"Curses on the father, curses on the husband, who have combined to
+make me rue the day I was born! The father I cannot disown, but
+the husband--"
+
+"Hush!"
+
+It was Mr. Gilchrist who dared her fury. Philemon said nothing.
+
+"Hush! he may be the father of your children. Don't curse--"
+
+But she only towered the higher and her beauty, from being simply
+majestic, became appalling.
+
+"Children!" she cried. "If ever I bear children to this man, may
+the blight of Heaven strike them as it has struck me this day. May
+they die as my hopes have died, or, if they live, may they bruise
+his heart as mine is bruised, and curse their father as--"
+
+Here I fled the house. I was shaking as if this awful denunciation
+had fallen on my own head. But before the door closed behind me, a
+different cry called me back. Mr. Gilchrist was lying lifeless on
+the floor, and Philemon, the patient, tender Philemon, had taken
+Agatha to his breast and was soothing her there as if the words
+she had showered upon him had been blessings instead of the most
+fearful curses which had ever left the lips of mortal woman.
+
+ The next letter was in Agatha's handwriting. It was dated some
+months later and was stained and crumpled more than any other in
+the whole packet. Could Philemon once have told why? Were these
+blotted lines the result of his tears falling fast upon them,
+tears of forty years ago, when he and she were young and love had
+been, doubtful? Was the sheet so yellowed and so seamed because it
+had been worn on his breast and folded and unfolded so often?
+Philemon, thou art in thy grave, sleeping sweetly at last by thy
+deeply idolised one, but these marks of feeling still remain
+indissolubly connected with the words that gave them birth.
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+You are gone for a day and a night only, but it seems a lengthened
+absence to me, meriting a little letter. You have been so good to
+me, Philemon, ever since that dreadful hour following our
+marriage, that sometimes--I hardly dare yet to say always--I feel
+that I am beginning to love you and that God did not deal with me
+so harshly when He cast me into your arms. Yesterday I tried to
+tell you this when you almost kissed me at parting. But I was
+afraid it was a momentary sentimentality and so kept still. But
+to-day such a warm well-spring of joy rises in my heart when I
+think that to-morrow the house will be bright again, and that in
+place of the empty wall opposite me at table I shall see your
+kindly and forbearing face, I know that the heart I had thought
+impregnable has begun to yield, and that daily gentleness, and a
+boundless consideration from one who had excuse for bitter
+thoughts and recrimination, are doing what all of us thought
+impossible a few short months ago.
+
+Oh, I am so happy, Philemon, so happy to love where it is now my
+duty to love; and if it were not for that dreadful memory of a
+father dying with harsh words in his ears, and the knowledge that
+you, my husband, yet not my husband, are bearing ever about with
+you echoes of words that in another nature would have turned
+tenderness into gall, I could be merry also and sing as I go about
+the house making it pleasant and comfortable against your speedy
+return. As it is I can but lay my hand softly on my heart as its
+beatings grow too impetuous and say, "God bless my absent Philemon
+and help him to forgive me! I forgive him and love him as I never
+thought I could."
+
+That you may see that these are not the weak outpourings of a
+lonely woman, I will here write that I heard to-day that John and
+James Zabel have gone into partnership in the ship-building
+business, John's uncle having left him a legacy of several
+thousand dollars. I hope they will do well. James, they say, is
+full of business and is, to all appearance, perfectly cheerful.
+This relieves me from too much worry in his regard. God certainly
+knew what kind of a husband I needed. May you find yourself
+equally blessed in your wife.
+
+ Another letter to Philemon, a year later:
+
+DEAR PHILEMON:
+
+Hasten home, Philemon; I do not like these absences. I am just now
+too weak and fearful. Since we knew the great hope before us, I
+have looked often in your face for a sign that you remembered what
+this hope cannot but recall to my shuddering memory. Philemon,
+Philemon, was I mad? When I think what I said in my rage, and then
+feel the little life stirring about my heart, I wonder that God
+did not strike me dead rather than bestow upon me the greatest
+blessing that can come to woman. Philemon, Philemon, if anything
+should happen to the child! I think of it by day, I think of it by
+night. I know you think of it too, though you show me such a
+cheerful countenance and make such great plans for the future.
+"Will God remember my words, or will He forget? It seems as if my
+reason hung upon this question."
+
+A note this time in answer to one from John Zabel:
+
+DEAR JOHN:
+
+Thank you for words which could have come from nobody else. My
+child is dead. Could I expect anything different? If I did, God
+has rebuked me.
+
+Philemon thinks only of me. We understand each other so perfectly
+now that our greatest suffering comes in seeing each other's pain.
+My load I can bear, but HIS--Come and see me, John; and tell James
+our house is open to him. We have all done wrong, and are caught
+in one net of misfortune. Let it make us friends again.
+
+Below this in Philemon's hand:
+
+My wife is superstitious. Strong and capable as she is, she has
+regarded this sudden taking off of our first-born as a sign that
+certain words uttered by her on her marriage day, unhappily known
+to you and, as I take it, to James also, have been remembered by
+the righteous God above us. This is a weakness which I cannot
+combat. Can you, who alone of all the world beside know both it
+and its cause, help me by a renewed friendship, whose cheerful and
+natural character may gradually make her forget? If so, come like
+old neighbours, and dine with us on our wedding day. If God sees
+that we have buried the past and are ready to forgive each other
+the faults of our youth, perhaps He will further spare this good
+woman. I think she will be able to bear it. She has great strength
+except where a little child is concerned. That alone can
+henceforth stir the deepest recesses of her heart.
+
+ After this, a gap of years. One, two, three, four, five children
+were laid away to rest in Portchester churchyard, then Philemon
+and she came to Sutherlandtown; but not till after a certain event
+had occurred, best made known by this last letter to Philemon:
+
+DEAREST HUSBAND:
+
+Our babe is born, our sixth and our dearest, and the reproach of
+its first look had to be met by me alone. Oh, why did I leave you
+and come to this great Boston where I have no friend but Mrs.
+Sutherland? Did I think I could break the spell of fate or
+providence by giving birth to my last darling among strangers? I
+shall have to do something more than that if I would save this
+child to our old age. It is borne in upon me like fate that never
+will a child prosper at my breast or survive the clasp of my arms.
+If it is to live it must be reared by others. Some woman who has
+not brought down the curse of Heaven upon her by her own
+blasphemies must nourish the tender frame and receive the blessing
+of its growing love. Neither I nor you can hope to see recognition
+in our babe's eye. Before it can turn upon us with love, it will
+close in its last sleep and we will be left desolate. What shall
+we do, then, with this little son? To whose guardianship can we
+entrust it? Do you know a man good enough or a woman sufficiently
+tender? I do not, but if God wills that our little Frederick
+should live, He will raise up someone. By the pang of possible
+separation already tearing my heart, I believe that He WILL raise
+up someone. Meanwhile I do not dare to kiss the child, lest I
+should blight it. He is so sturdy, Philemon, so different from all
+the other five.
+
+I open this to add that Mrs. Sutherland has just been in--with her
+five-weeks-old infant. His father is away, too, and has not yet
+seen his boy; and this is their first after ten years of marriage.
+Oh, that my future opened before me as brightly as hers!
+
+The next letter opens with a cry:
+
+Philemon! Come to me, Philemon! I have done what I threatened. I
+have made the sacrifice. Our child is no longer ours, and now,
+perhaps, he may live. But oh, my breaking heart! my empty arms!
+Help me to bear my desolation, for it is for life. We will never
+have another child.
+
+And where is it? Ah, that is the wonder of it. Near you, Philemon,
+yet not too near. Mrs. Sutherland has it, and you may have seen
+its little face through the car window if you were in the station
+last night when the express passed through to Sutherlandtown. Ah!
+but she has her burden to bear too. An awful, secret burden like
+my own, only she will have the child--for, Philemon, she has taken
+it in lieu of her own, which died last night in my sight; and Mr.
+Sutherland does not know what she has done, and never will, if you
+keep the secret as I shall, for the sake of the life our little
+innocent has thus won.
+
+What do I mean and how was it all? Philemon, it was God's work,
+all but the deception, and that is for the good of all, and to
+save four broken hearts. Listen. Yesterday, only yesterday,--it
+seems a month ago,--Mrs. Sutherland came again to see me with her
+baby in her arms. Mr. Sutherland is expected home, as you know,
+this week, and she was about to start out for Sutherlandtown so as
+to be in her own house when he came. The baby was looking well and
+she was the happiest of women; for the one wish of his heart and
+hers had been fulfilled and she was soon going to have the bliss
+of showing the child to his father. My own babe was on the bed
+asleep, and I, who am feeling wonderfully strong, was sitting up
+in a little chair as far away from him as possible, not out of
+hatred or indifference--oh, no!--but because he seemed to rest
+better when left entirely by himself and not under the hungry look
+of my eye. Mrs. Sutherland went over to look at it. "Oh, he is
+fair like my baby," she said, "and almost as sturdy, though mine
+is a month older." And she stooped down and kissed him. Philemon,
+he smiled for her, though he never had for me. I saw it with a
+greedy longing that almost made me cry out. Then I turned to her
+and we talked.
+
+Of what? I cannot remember now. At home we had never been intimate
+friends. She is from Sutherlandtown and I am from Portchester, and
+the distance of nine miles is enough to estrange people. But here,
+each with a husband absent and a darling infant lying asleep under
+our eyes, interests we have never thought identical drew us to one
+another and we chatted with ever-increasing pleasure--when
+suddenly Mrs. Sutherland jumped up in a terrible fright. The
+infant she had been rocking on her breast was blue; the next
+minute it shuddered; the next--it lay in her arms DEAD!
+
+I hear the shriek yet with which she fell with it still in her
+arms to the floor. Fortunately no other ears were open to her cry.
+I alone saw her misery. I alone heard her tale. The child had been
+poisoned, Philemon, poisoned by her. She had mistaken a cup of
+medicine for a cup of water and had given the child a few drops in
+a spoon just before setting out from her hotel. She had not known
+at the time what she had done, but now she remembered that the
+fatal cup was just like the other and that the two stood very near
+together. Oh, her innocent child, and oh, her husband!
+
+It seemed as if the latter thought would drive her wild. "He has
+so wished for a child," she moaned. "We have been married ten
+years and this baby seemed to have been sent from heaven. He will
+curse me, he will hate me, he will never be able after this to
+bear me in his sight." This was not true of Mr. Sutherland, but it
+was useless to argue with her. Instead of attempting it, I took
+another way to stop her ravings. Lifting the child out of her
+hands, I first listened at its heart, and then, finding it was
+really dead,--Philemon, I have seen too many lifeless children not
+to know,--I began slowly to undress it. "What are you doing?" she
+cried. "Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Webb, what are you doing?" For reply I
+pointed to the bed, where two little arms could be seen feebly
+fluttering. "You shall have my child," I whispered. "I have
+carried too many babies to the tomb to dare risk bringing up
+another." And catching her poor wandering spirit with my eye, I
+held her while I told her my story.
+
+Philemon, I saved that woman. Before I had finished speaking I saw
+the reason return to her eye and the dawning of a pitiful hope in
+her passion-drawn face. She looked at the child in my arms and
+then she looked at the one in the bed, and the long-drawn sigh
+with which she finally bent down and wept over our darling told me
+that my cause was won. The rest was easy. When the clothes of the
+two children had been exchanged, she took our baby in her arms and
+prepared to leave. Then I stopped her. "Swear," I cried, holding
+her by the arm and lifting my other hand to heaven, "swear you
+will be a mother to this child! Swear you will love it as your own
+and rear it in the paths of truth and righteousness!" The
+convulsive clasp with which she drew the baby to her breast
+assured me more than her shuddering "I swear!" that her heart had
+already opened to it. I dropped her arm and covered my face with
+my hands. I could not see my darling go; it was worse than death
+for the moment it was worse than death. "O God, save him!" I
+groaned. "God, make him an honour--" But here she caught me by the
+arm. Her clutch was frenzied, her teeth were chattering. "Swear in
+your turn!" she gasped. "Swear that if I do a mother's duty by
+this boy, you will keep my secret and never, never reveal to my
+husband, to the boy, or to the world that you have any claims upon
+him!" It was like tearing the heart from my breast with my own
+hand, but I swore, Philemon, and she in her turn drew back. But
+suddenly she faced me again, terror and doubt in all her looks.
+"Your husband!" she whispered. "Can you keep such a secret from
+him? You will breathe it in your dreams." "I shall tell him," I
+answered. "Tell him!" The hair seemed to rise on her forehead and
+she shook so that I feared she would drop the babe. "Be careful!"
+I cried. "See! you frighten the babe. My husband has but one heart
+with me. What I do he will subscribe to. Do not fear Philemon." So
+I promised in your name. Gradually she grew calmer. When I saw she
+was steady again, I motioned her to go. Even my more than mortal
+strength was failing, and the baby--Philemon, I had never kissed
+it and I did not kiss it then. I heard her feet draw slowly
+towards the door, I heard her hand fall on the knob, heard it
+turn, uttered one cry, and then---
+
+They found me an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the
+dead infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I
+fell with the child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life
+went out during my insensibility. Of its features, like and yet
+unlike our boy's, no one seems to take heed. The nurse who cared
+for it is gone, and who else would know that little face but me?
+They are very good to me, and are full of self-reproaches for
+leaving me so long in my part of the building alone. But though
+they watch me now, I have contrived to write this letter, which
+you will get with the one telling of the baby's death and my own
+dangerous condition. Destroy it, Philemon, and then COME. Nothing
+in all the world will give me comfort but your hand laid under my
+head and your true eyes looking into mine. Ah, we must love each
+other now, and live humbly! All our woe has come from my early
+girlish delight in gay and elegant things. From this day on I
+eschew all vanities and find in your affection alone the solace
+which Heaven will not deny to our bewildered hearts. Perhaps in
+this way the blessing that has been denied us will be visited on
+our child, who will live. I am now sure, to be the delight of our
+hearts and the pride of our eyes, even though we are denied the
+bliss of his presence and affection.
+
+Mrs. Sutherland was not seen to enter or go out of my rooms. Being
+on her way to the depot, she kept on her way, and must be now in
+her own home. Her secret is safe, but ours--oh, you will help me
+to preserve it! Help me not to betray--tell them I have lost five
+babies before this one--delirious--there may be an inquest--she
+must not be mentioned--let all the blame fall on me if there is
+blame--I fell--there is a bruise on the baby's forehead--and--and-
+-I am growing incoherent--I will try and direct this and then
+love--love--O God!
+
+[A scrawl for the name.]
+
+Under it these words:
+
+Though bidden to destroy this, I have never dared to do so. Some
+day it may be of inestimable value to us or our boy. PHILEMON
+WEBB.
+
+This was the last letter found in the first packet. As it was laid
+down, sobs were heard all over the room, and Frederick, who for
+some time now had been sitting with his head in his hands,
+ventured to look up and say: "Do you wonder that I endeavoured to
+keep this secret, bought at such a price and sealed by the death
+of her I thought my mother and of her who really was? Gentlemen,
+Mr. Sutherland loved his wife and honoured her memory. To tell
+him, as I shall have to within the hour, that the child she placed
+in his arms twenty-five years ago was an alien, and that all his
+love, his care, his disappointment, and his sufferings had been
+lavished on the son of a neighbour, required greater courage than
+to face doubt on the faces of my fellow-townsmen, or anything, in
+short, but absolute arraignment on the charge of murder. Hence my
+silence, hence my indecision, till this woman"--here he pointed a
+scornful finger at Amabel, now shrinking in her chair--"drove me
+to it by secretly threatening me with a testimony which would have
+made me the murderer of my mother and the lasting disgrace of a
+good man who alone has been without blame from the beginning to
+the end of this desperate affair. She was about to speak when I
+forestalled her. My punishment, if I deserve such, will be to sit
+and hear in your presence the reading of the letters still
+remaining in the coroner's hands."
+
+These letters were certain ones written by Agatha to her
+unacknowledged son. They had never been sent. The first one dated
+from his earliest infancy, and its simple and touching hopefulness
+sent a thrill through every heart. It read as follows:
+
+Three years old, my darling! and the health flush has not faded
+from your cheek nor the bright gold from your hair.
+
+Oh, how I bless Mrs. Sutherland that she did not rebuke me when
+your father and I came to Sutherlandtown and set up our home where
+I could at least see your merry form toddling through the streets,
+holding on to the hand of her who now claims your love. My
+darling, my pride, my angel, so near and yet so far removed, will
+you ever know, even in the heaven to which we all look for joy
+after our weary pilgrimage is over, how often in this troublous
+world, and in these days of your early infancy, I have crept out
+of my warm bed, dressed myself, and, without a word to your
+father, whose heart it would break, gone out and climbed the steep
+hillside just to look at the window of your room to see if it were
+light or dark and you awake or sleeping? To breathe the scent of
+the eglantine which climbs up to your nursery window, I have
+braved the night-damps and the watching eyes of Heaven; but you
+have a child's blissful ignorance of all this; you only grow and
+grow and live, my darling, LIVE!--which is the only boon I crave,
+the only recompense I ask.
+
+Have I but added another sin to my account and brought a worse
+vengeance on myself than that of seeing you die in your early
+infancy? Frederick, my son, my son, I heard you swear to-day! Not
+lightly, thoughtlessly, as boys sometimes will in imitation of
+their elders, but bitterly, revengefully, as if the seeds of evil
+passions were already pushing to life in the boyish breast I
+thought so innocent. Did you wonder at the strange woman who
+stopped you? Did you realise the awful woe from which my
+commonplace words sprang? No, no, what grown mind could take that
+in, least of all a child's? To have forsworn the bliss of
+motherhood and entered upon a life of deception for THIS! Truly
+Heaven is implacable and my last sin is to be punished more
+inexorably than my first.
+
+There are worse evils than death. This I have always heard, but
+now I know it. God was merciful when He slew my babes, and I,
+presumptous in my rebellion, and the efforts with which I tried to
+prevent His work. Frederick, you are weak, dissipated, and without
+conscience. The darling babe, the beautiful child, has grown into
+a reckless youth whose impulses Mr. Sutherland will find it hard
+to restrain, and over whom his mother--do _I_ call her your
+mother?--has little influence, though she tries hard to do a
+mother's part and save herself and myself from boundless regret.
+My boy, my boy, do you feel the lack of your own mother's vigour?
+Might you have lived under my care and owned a better restraint
+and learned to work and live a respectable life in circumstances
+less provocative of self-indulgence? Such questions, when they
+rise, are maddening. When I see them form themselves in Philemon's
+eyes I drive them out with all the force of my influence, which is
+still strong over him. But when they make way in my own breast, I
+can find no relief, not even in prayer. Frederick, were I to tell
+you the truth about your parentage, would the shock of such an
+unexpected revelation make a man of you? I have been tempted to
+make the trial, at times. Deep down in my heart I have thought
+that perhaps I should best serve the good man who is growing grey
+under your waywardness, by opening up before you the past and
+present agonies of which you are the unconscious centre. But I
+cannot do this while SHE lives. The look she gave me one day when
+I approached you a step too near at the church door, proves that
+it would be the killing of her to reveal her long-preserved secret
+now. I must wait her death, which seems near, and then--
+
+No, I cannot do it. Mr. Sutherland has but one staff to lean on,
+and that is you. It may be a poor one, a breaking one, but it is
+still a staff. I dare not take it away--I dare not. Ah, if
+Philemon was the man he was once, he might counsel me, but he is
+only a child now; just as if God had heard my cry for children and
+had given me--HIM.
+
+More money, and still more money! and I hate it except for what it
+will do for the poor and incapable about me. How strange are the
+ways of Providence! To us who have no need of aught beyond a
+competence, money pours in almost against our will, while to those
+who long and labour for it, it comes not, or comes so slowly the
+life wears out in the waiting and the working. The Zabels, now!
+Once well-to-do ship-builders, with a good business and a home
+full of curious works of art, they now appear to find it hard to
+obtain even the necessities of life. Such are the freaks of
+fortune; or should I say, the dealings of an inscrutable
+Providence? Once I tried to give something out of my abundance to
+these old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the
+attempt failed. Worse than that. As if to show that benefits
+should proceed from them to me rather than from me to them, James
+bestowed on me a gift. It is a strange one,--nothing more nor less
+than a quaint Florentine dagger which I had often admired for its
+exquisite workmanship. Was it the last treasure he possessed? I am
+almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie here in my table-
+drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not good for
+Philemon. He must have cheerful objects before him, happy faces
+such as mine tries to be. But ah!
+
+I would gladly give my life if I could once hold you in my arms,
+my erring but beloved son. Will the day ever come when I can? Will
+you have strength enough to hear my story and preserve your peace
+and let me go down to the grave with the memory of one look, one
+smile, that is for me alone? Sometimes I foresee this hour and am
+happy for a few short minutes; and then some fresh story of your
+recklessness is wafted through the town and--
+
+What stopped her at this point we shall never know. Some want of
+Philemon's, perhaps. At all events she left off here and the
+letter was never resumed. It was the last secret outpouring of her
+heart. With this broken sentence Agatha's letters terminated. .
+
+.       .       .       .       .       .
+
+That afternoon, before the inquiry broke up, the jury brought in
+their verdict. It was:
+
+"Death by means of a wound inflicted upon herself in a moment of
+terror and misapprehension."
+
+It was all his fellow-townsmen could do for Frederick.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+FATHER AND SON
+
+
+But Frederick's day of trial was not yet over. There was a closed
+door to open and a father to see (as in his heart he still called
+Mr. Sutherland). Then there were friends to face, and foes, under
+conditions he better than anyone else, knew were in some regards
+made worse rather than better by the admissions and revelations of
+this eventful day--Agnes, for instance. How could he meet her pure
+gaze? But it was his father he must first confront, his father to
+whom he would have to repeat in private the tale which robbed the
+best of men of a past, and took from him a son, almost a wife,
+without leaving him one memory calculated to console him.
+Frederick was so absorbed in this anticipation that he scarcely
+noticed the two or three timid hands stretched out in
+encouragement toward him, and was moving slowly toward the door
+behind which his father had disappeared so many hours before, when
+he was recalled to the interests of the moment by a single word,
+uttered not very far from him. It was simply, "Well?" But it was
+uttered by Knapp and repeated by Mr. Courtney.
+
+Frederick shuddered, and was hurrying on when he found himself
+stopped by a piteous figure that, with appealing eyes and timid
+gestures, stepped up before him. It was Amabel.
+
+"Forgive!" she murmured, looking like a pleading saint. "I did not
+know--I never dreamed--you were so much of a man, Frederick: that
+you bore such a heart, cherished such griefs, were so worthy of
+love and a woman's admiration. If I had--"
+
+Her expression was eloquent, more eloquent than he had ever seen
+it, for it had real feeling in it; but he put her coldly by.
+
+"When my father's white hairs become black again, and the story of
+my shame is forgotten in this never-forgetting world, then come
+back and I will forgive you."
+
+And he was passing on when another touch detained him. He turned,
+this time in some impatience, only to meet the frank eyes of
+Sweetwater. As he knew very little of this young man, save that he
+was the amateur detective who had by some folly of his own been
+carried off on the Hesper, and who was probably the only man saved
+from its wreck, he was about to greet him with some commonplace
+phrase of congratulation, when Sweetwater interrupted him with the
+following words:
+
+"I only wanted to say that it may be easier for you to approach
+your father with the revelations you are about to make if you knew
+that in his present frame of mind he is much more likely to be
+relieved by such proofs of innocence as you can give him than
+overwhelmed by such as show the lack of kinship between you. For
+two weeks Mr. Sutherland has been bending under the belief of your
+personal criminality in this matter. This was his secret, which
+was shared by me."
+
+"By you?"
+
+"Yes, by me! I am more closely linked to this affair than you can
+readily imagine. Some day I may be able to explain myself, but not
+now. Only remember what I have said about your father--pardon me,
+I should perhaps say Mr. Sutherland--and act accordingly. Perhaps
+it was to tell you this that I was forced back here against my
+will by the strangest series of events that ever happened to a
+man. But," he added, with a sidelong look at the group of men
+still hovering about the coroner's table, "I had rather think it
+was for some more important office still. But this the future will
+show,--the future which I seem to see lowering in the faces over
+there."
+
+And, waiting for no reply, he melted into the crowd.
+
+Frederick passed at once to his father.
+
+No one interrupted them during this solemn interview, but the
+large crowd that in the halls and on the steps of the building
+awaited Frederick's reappearance showed that the public interest
+was still warm in a matter affecting so deeply the heart and
+interests of their best citizen. When, therefore, that long-closed
+door finally opened and Frederick was seen escorting Mr.
+Sutherland on his arm, the tide of feeling which had not yet
+subsided since Agatha's letters were read vented itself in one
+great sob of relief. For Mr. Sutherland's face was calmer than
+when they had last seen it, and his step more assured, and he
+leaned, or made himself lean, on Frederick's arm, as if to impress
+upon all who saw them that the ties of years cannot be shaken off
+so easily, and that he still looked upon Frederick as his son.
+
+But he was not contented with this dumb show, eloquent as it was.
+As the crowd parted and these two imposing figures took their way
+down the steps to the carriage which had been sent for them, Mr.
+Sutherland cast one deep and long glance about him on faces he
+knew and on faces he did not know, on those who were near and
+those who were far, and raising his voice, which did not tremble
+as much as might have been expected, said deliberately:
+
+"My son accompanies me to his home. If he should afterwards be
+wanted, he will be found at his own fireside. Good-day, my
+friends. I thank you for the goodwill you have this day shown us
+both."
+
+Then he entered the carriage.
+
+The solemn way in which Frederick bared his head in acknowledgment
+of this public recognition of the hold he still retained on this
+one faithful heart, struck awe into the hearts of all who saw it.
+So that the carriage rolled off in silence, closing one of the
+most thrilling and impressive scenes ever witnessed in that time-
+worn village.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+"NOT WHEN THEY ARE YOUNG GIRLS"
+
+
+But, alas! all tides have their ebb as well as flow, and before
+Mr. Sutherland and Frederick were well out of the main street the
+latter became aware that notwithstanding the respect with which
+his explanations had been received by the jury, there were many of
+his fellow-townsmen who were ready to show dissatisfaction at his
+being allowed to return in freedom to that home where he had still
+every prospect of being called the young master. Doubt, that seed
+of ramifying growth, had been planted in more than one breast, and
+while it failed as yet to break out into any open manifestation,
+there were evidences enough in the very restraint visible in such
+groups of people as they passed that suspicion had not been
+suppressed or his innocence established by the over-favourable
+verdict of the coroner's jury.
+
+To Mr. Sutherland, suffering now from the reaction following all
+great efforts, much, if not all, of this quiet but significant
+display of public feeling passed unnoticed. But to Frederick,
+alive to the least look, the least sign that his story had not
+been accepted unquestioned, this passage through the town was the
+occasion of the most poignant suffering.
+
+For not only did these marks of public suspicion bespeak possible
+arraignment in the future, but through them it became evident that
+even if he escaped open condemnation in the courts, he could never
+hope for complete reinstatement before the world, nor, what was to
+him a still deeper source of despair, anticipate a day when
+Agnes's love should make amends to him for the grief and errors of
+his more than wayward youth. He could never marry so pure a being
+while the shadow of crime separated him from the mass of human
+beings. Her belief in his innocence and the exact truth of his
+story (and he was confident she did believe him) could make no
+difference in this conclusion. While he was regarded openly or in
+dark corners or beside the humblest fireside as a possible
+criminal, neither Mr. Sutherland nor her father, nor his own heart
+even, would allow him to offer her anything but a friend's
+gratitude, or win from her anything but a neighbour's sympathy;
+yet in bidding good-bye to larger hopes and more importunate
+desires, he parted with the better part of his heart and the only
+solace remaining in this world for the boundless griefs and tragic
+experiences of his still young life. He had learned to love
+through suffering, only to realise that the very nature of his
+suffering forbade him to indulge in love.
+
+And this seemed a final judgment, even in this hour of public
+justification. He had told his story and been for the moment
+believed, but what was there in his life, what was there in the
+facts as witnessed by others, what was there in his mother's
+letters and the revelation of their secret relationship, to
+corroborate his assertions, or to prove that her hand and not his
+had held the weapon when the life-blood gushed from her devoted
+breast? Nothing, nothing; only his word to stand against all human
+probabilities and natural inference; only his word and the
+generous nature of the great-hearted woman who had thus perished!
+Though a dozen of his fellow-citizens had by their verdict
+professed their belief in his word and given him the benefit of a
+doubt involving his life as well as his honour, he, as well as
+they, knew that neither the police nor the general public were
+given to sentimentality, and that the question of his guilt still
+lay open and must remain so till his dying day. For from the
+nature of things no proof of the truth was probable. Batsy being
+dead, only God and his own heart could know that the facts of that
+awful half-hour were as he had told them.
+
+Had God in His justice removed in this striking way his only
+witness, as a punishment for his sins and his mad indulgence in
+acts so little short of crime as to partake of its guilt and merit
+its obloquy?
+
+He was asking himself this question as he bent to fasten the gate.
+His father had passed in, the carriage had driven off, and the
+road was almost solitary--but not quite. As he leaned his arm over
+the gate and turned to take a final glance down the hillside, he
+saw, with what feelings no one will ever know, the light figure of
+Agnes advancing on the arm of her father.
+
+He would have drawn back, but a better impulse intervened and he
+stood his ground. Mr. Halliday, who walked very close to Agnes,
+cast her an admonitory glance which Frederick was not slow in
+interpreting, then stopped reluctantly, perhaps because he saw her
+falter, perhaps because he knew that an interview between these
+two was unavoidable and had best be quickly over.
+
+Frederick found his voice first.
+
+"Agnes," said he, "I am glad of this opportunity for expressing my
+gratitude. You have acted like a friend and have earned my eternal
+consideration, even if we never speak again."
+
+There was a momentary silence. Her head, which had drooped under
+his greeting, rose again. Her eyes, humid with feeling, sought his
+face.
+
+"Why do you speak like that?" said she. "Why shouldn't we meet?
+Does not everyone recognise your innocence, and will not the whole
+world soon see, as I have, that you have left the old life behind
+and have only to be your new self to win everyone's regard?"
+
+"Agnes," returned Frederick, smiling sadly as he observed the
+sudden alarm visible in her father's face at these enthusiastic
+words, "you know me perhaps better than others do and are prepared
+to believe my words and my more than unhappy story. But there are
+few like you in the world. People in general will not acquit me,
+and if there was only one person who doubted "--Mr. Halliday began
+to look relieved--"I would fail to give any promise of the new
+life you hope to see me lead, if I allowed the shadow under which
+I undoubtedly rest to fall in the remotest way across yours. You
+and I have been friends and will continue such, but we will hold
+little intercourse in future, hard as I find it to say so. Does
+not Mr. Halliday consider this right? As your father he must."
+
+Agnes's eyes, leaving Frederick's for a moment, sought her
+father's. Alas! there was no mistaking their language. Sighing
+deeply, she again hung her head.
+
+"Too much care for people's opinion," she murmured, "and too
+little for what is best and noblest in us. I do not recognise the
+necessity of a farewell between us any more than I recognise that
+anyone who saw and heard you to-day can believe in your guilt."
+
+"But there are so many who did not hear and see me. Besides" (here
+he turned a little and pointed to the garden in his rear), "for
+the past week a man--I need not state who, nor under what
+authority he acts--has been in hiding under that arbour, watching
+my every movement, and almost counting my sighs. Yesterday he left
+for a short space, but to-day he is back. What does that argue,
+dear friend? Innocence, completely recognised, does not call for
+such guardianship."
+
+The slight frame of the young girl bending so innocently toward
+him shuddered involuntarily at this, and her eyes, frightened and
+flashing, swept over the arbour before returning to his face.
+
+"If there is a watcher there, and if such a fact proves you to be
+in danger of arrest for a crime you never committed, then it
+behooves your friends to show where they stand in this matter, and
+by lending their sympathy give you courage and power to meet the
+trials before you."
+
+"Not when they are young girls," murmured Frederick, and casting a
+glance at Mr. Halliday, he stepped softly back.
+
+Agnes flushed and yielded to her father's gentle pressure. "Good-
+bye, my friend," she said, the quiver in her tones sinking deep
+into Frederick's heart. "Some day it will be good-morrow," and her
+head, turned back over her shoulder, took on a beautiful radiance
+that fixed itself forever in the hungry heart of him who watched
+it disappear. When she was quite gone, a man not the one whom
+Frederick had described, as lying in hiding in the arbour, but a
+different one, in fact, no other than our old friend the
+constable--advanced around the corner of the house and presented a
+paper to him.
+
+It was the warrant for his arrest on a charge of murder.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+SWEETWATER PAYS HIS DEBT AT LAST TO MR. SUTHERLAND
+
+
+Frederick's arrest had been conducted so quietly that no hint of
+the matter reached the village before the next morning. Then the
+whole town broke into uproar, and business was not only suspended,
+but the streets and docks overflowed with gesticulating men and
+excited women, carrying on in every corner and across innumerable
+doorsteps the endless debate which such an action on the part of
+the police necessarily opened.
+
+But the most agitated face, though the stillest tongue, was not to
+be seen in town that morning, but in a little cottage on an arid
+hill-slope overlooking the sea. Here Sweetwater sat and communed
+with his great monitor, the ocean, and only from his flashing eye
+and the firm set of his lips could the mother of Sweetwater see
+that the crisis of her son's life was rapidly approaching, and
+that on the outcome of this long brooding rested not only his own
+self-satisfaction, but the interests of the man most dear to them.
+
+Suddenly, from that far horizon upon which Sweetwater's eye rested
+with a look that was almost a demand, came an answer that flushed
+him with a hope as great as it was unexpected. Bounding to his
+feet, he confronted his mother with eager eyes and outstretched
+hand.
+
+"Give me money, all the money we have in the house. I have an idea
+that may be worth all I can ever make or can ever hope to have. If
+it succeeds, we save Frederick Sutherland; if it fails, I have
+only to meet another of Knapp's scornful looks. But it won't fail;
+the inspiration came from the sea, and the sea, you know, is my
+second mother!"
+
+What this inspiration was he did not say, but it carried him
+presently into town and landed him in the telegraph office.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+The scene later in the day, when Frederick entered the village
+under the guardianship of the police, was indescribable. Mr.
+Sutherland had insisted upon accompanying him, and when the well-
+loved figure and white head were recognised, the throng, which had
+rapidly collected in the thoroughfare leading to the depot,
+succumbed to the feelings occasioned by this devotion, and fell
+into a wondering silence.
+
+Frederick had never looked better. There is something in the
+extremity of fate which brings out a man's best characteristics,
+and this man, having much that was good in him, showed it at that
+moment as never before in his short but over-eventful life. As the
+carriage stopped before the court-house on its way to the train, a
+glimpse was given of his handsome head to those who had followed
+him closest, and as there became visible for the first time in his
+face, so altered under his troubles, a likeness to their beautiful
+and commanding Agatha, a murmur broke out around him that was half
+a wail and half a groan, and which affected him so that he turned
+from his father, whose hand he was secretly holding, and taking
+the whole scene in with one flash of his eye, was about to speak,
+when a sudden hubbub broke out in the direction of the telegraph
+office, and a man was seen rushing down the street holding a paper
+high over his head. It was Sweetwater.
+
+"News!" he cried. "News! A cablegram from the Azores! A Swedish
+sailor--"
+
+But here a man with more authority than the amateur detective
+pushed his way to the carriage and took off his hat to Mr.
+Sutherland.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said he, "but the prisoner will not leave
+town to-day. Important evidence has just reached us."
+
+Mr. Sutherland saw that it was in Frederick's favour and fainted
+on his son's neck. As the people beheld his head fall forward, and
+observed the look with which Frederick received him in his arms,
+they broke into a great shout.
+
+"News!" they shrieked. "News! Frederick Sutherland is innocent!
+See! the old man has fainted from joy!" And caps went up and tears
+fell, before a mother's son of them knew what grounds he had for
+his enthusiasm.
+
+Later, they found they were good and substantial ones. Sweetwater
+had remembered the group of sailors who had passed by the corner
+of Agatha's house just as Batsy fell forward on the window-sill,
+and cabling to the captain of the vessel, at the first port at
+which they were likely to put in, was fortunate enough to receive
+in reply a communication from one of the men, who remembered the
+words she shouted. They were in Swedish and none of his mates had
+understood them, but he recalled them well. They were:
+
+"Hjelp! Hjelp! Frun haller pa alb doda sig. Hon har en knif.
+Hjelp! Hjelp!"
+
+In English:
+
+"Help! Help! My mistress kills herself. She has a knife. Help!
+Help!"
+
+The impossible had occurred. Batsy was not dead, or at least her
+testimony still remained and had come at Sweetwater's beck from
+the other side of the sea to save her mistress's son.
+
+       .       .       .       .       .       .
+
+Sweetwater was a made man. And Frederick? In a week he was the
+idol of the town. In a year--but let Agnes's contented face and
+happy smile show what he was then. Sweet Agnes, who first
+despised, then encouraged, then loved him, and who, next to
+Agatha, commanded the open worship of his heart.
+
+Agatha is first, must be first, as anyone can see who beholds him,
+on a certain anniversary of each year, bury his face in the long
+grass which covers the saddest and most passionate heart which
+ever yielded to the pressure of life's deepest tragedy.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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