The Step on the Stair

BOOK III WHICH OF US TWO? — XXXII — XXXIII — XXXIV — XXXV — XXXVI — XXXVII — XXXVIII — XXXIX — XL — XLI — XLII — XLIII — XLIV — XLV — XLVI — XLVII — XLVIII — XLIX — L

Solitude! How do we picture it?

A man alone on a raft in the midst of a boundless sea. A figure against a graying sky, with chasms beneath and ice peaks above. Such a derelict between life and death I felt myself to be, as on leaving the court-house, I stepped again into the street and faced my desperate future. I almost wished that I might feel a hand upon my shoulder and hear a voice in my ear saying: “Here is my warrant. I arrest you for murder in the name of the law;” for then I should know where my head would be laid for the night. Now I knew nothing.

Had Edgar joined me—But that would have been asking too much. I stood alone; I walked alone; and heads fell and eyes turned aside as I threaded my slow way down the street.

Where should I go? Suddenly it came to me that Orpha would expect me to return home. I had no reason for thinking so; but the impression once yielded to, I was sure of her expectancy and sure of the grave welcome I should receive. But how could I face them all with that brand between my eyes! To see Clarke’s accusing face and Wealthy’s attempt not to show her hatred of me too plainly! It would take a man with a heart of adamant to endure that. I had no such heart. Yet if I failed to go, it might look to some persons like an acknowledgment of guilt. And that would be worse. I would go, but for the night only. To-morrow should see me far on my way to other quarters—that is, if the police would allow it. The police! Well, why not see the Inspector! He had visited me; why should I not visit him?

An objective was found. I turned towards the Police Station. But before I reached it I met Mr. Jackson. He never admitted it, but I think he had been dogging me, having perhaps some inkling as to my mood. The straightforward way in which he held out his hand gave me the first gleam of comfort I had had that day.

Could it be that he was sincere in this show of confidence? That he had not been influenced by Wealthy’s story, or his judgment palsied by the fact patent to all, that with the exception of myself there was not a person among those admitted to my uncle’s room who had not lived in the house for years and given always and under all circumstances evidences of the most devoted attachment to him?

Or did he simply look upon me as the millionaire client who would yet come into his own and whose favor it would be well to secure in this hour of present trial?

A close study of his face satisfied me that he was really the friend he seemed, and, yielding to his guidance, I allowed him to lead me to his office where we sat down together and had our first serious talk.

He did believe me and would stand by me if I so desired it. Edgar Bartholomew was a favorite everywhere, but if his uncle who had loved him and reared him in the hope of uniting him with his daughter, could be moved from that position to the point of having a second will of an opposing nature drawn up and signed by another lawyer on the same day, it must have been because he felt he had found a better man to inherit his fortune and to marry his daughter. It was a fact well enough known that Edgar was beginning to show a streak of recklessness in his demeanor which could not have been pleasing to his staid and highly respectable uncle. There was another man near by of characteristics more trustworthy; and his conscience favored this man.

“A strong nature, that of our late friend. He had but one weakness—an inordinate partiality for this irresponsible, delightful nephew. That is how I see the matter. If you will put your affairs in my hands, I think I can make it lively for those who may oppose you.”

“But Wealthy’s testimony, linking my presence at the upper door of uncle’s room with the person she heard tampering with the glass believed by all to have held the draught which was the cause of his death?”

“Mr. Bartholomew, are you sure she saw your figure fleeing down the hall?”

I was on the point of saying, “Whose else? I did rush down the hall,” when he sharply interrupted me.

“What we want to know and must endeavor to find out is whether, under the conditions, she could see your shadow or that of any other person who might be passing from front to rear sufficiently well to identify it.”

Greatly excited, I stared at him.

“How can that be done?”

“Well, Mr. Bartholomew, fortunately for us we have a friend at court. If we had not, I judge that you would have been arrested on leaving the court-house.”

“Who? Who?” My heart beat to suffocation; I could hardly articulate. Did I hope to hear a name which would clear my sky of every cloud, and make the present, doubtful as it seemed, a joy instead of a menace? If I did, I was doomed to disappointment.

“The Inspector who was the first to examine you does not believe in your guilt.”

Disappointment! but a great—a hopeful surprise also! I rose to my feet in my elation, this unexpected news coming with such a shock on the heels of my despair. But sat again with a gesture of apology as I met his steady look.

“I know this, because he is a friend of mine,” he averred by way of explanation.

“And will help us?”

“He will see that the experiment I mention is made. Poison could not have got into that glass without hands. Those hands must be located. The Police will not cease their activities.”

“Mr. Jackson, I give you the case. Do what you can for me; but—”

I had risen again, and was walking restlessly away from him as I came to this quick halt in what I was about to say. He was watching me, carefully, thoughtfully, out of the corner of his eye. I was aware of this and, as I turned to face him again, I took pains to finish my sentence with quite a different ending from that which had almost slipped from my unwary tongue.

“But first, I want your advice. Shall I return to the house, or go to the hotel and send for my clothes?”

“Return to the house, by all means. You need not stay there more than the one night. You are innocent. You believe that the house and much more are yours by your uncle’s will. Why should you not return to your own? You are not the man to display any bravado; neither are you the man to accept the opinion of servants and underlings.”

“But—but—my cousin, Orpha? The real owner, as I look at it, of everything there?”

“Miss Bartholomew has a just mind. She will accept your point of view—for the present, at least.”

I dared not say more. I was never quite myself when I had to speak her name.

He seemed to respect my reticence and after some further talk, I left him and betook myself to the house which held for me everything I loved and everything I feared in the world I had made for myself.

During the first portion of this walk I forced my mind to dwell on the astonishing fact that the Inspector whom I had regarded as holding me in suspicion was the one man most convinced of my innocence. He had certainly shown no leaning that way in the memorable interview we had held together. What had changed him? Or had I simply misunderstood his attitude, natural enough to an amateur who finds himself for the first time in his life subject to the machinations of the police.

As I had no means of answering this query, I gradually allowed the matter, great as it was, to slip from my mind, and another and more present interest to fill it.

I was approaching the Bartholomew mansion, and its spell was already upon me. An embodiment of beauty and of mystery! A glorious pile of masonry, hiding a secret on the solution of which my honor as a man and my hope as a lover seemed absolutely to depend.

There was a mob at either gate, dispersing slowly under the efforts of the police. To force my way through a crowd of irritated, antagonistic men and women collected perhaps for the purpose of intercepting me, required not courage, but a fool’s bravado. Between me and it I saw an open door. It belonged to a small shop where I had sometimes traded. I ventured to look in. The woman who usually stood behind the counter was not there, but her husband was and gave me a sharp look as I entered.

“I want nothing but a refuge,” I hastily announced. “The crowd below there will soon be gone. Will it incommode you if I remain here till the street is clear?”

“Yes, it will,” he rejoined abruptly, but with a twinkle of interest in his eye showing that his feelings were kindlier than his manner. “The better part of the crowd, you see, are coming this way and some of them are in a mood far from Christian.”

By “some of them,” I gathered that he meant his wife, and I stepped back.

“People have such a way of making up their minds before they see a thing out,” he muttered, slipping from behind the counter and shutting the door she had probably left open. “If you will come with me,” he added more cheerfully, “I will show you the only thing you can do if you don’t want a dozen women’s hands in your hair.”

And, crossing to the rear, he opened another door leading into the yard, where he pointed out a small garage, empty, as it chanced, of his Ford. “Step in there and when all is quiet yonder, you can slip into the street without difficulty. I shall know nothing about it.”

And with this ignominious episode associated with my return, I finally approached the house I had entered so often under very different auspices.

I had a latch-key in my pocket, but I did not choose to use it. I rang, instead. When the door opened I took a look at the man who held the knob in hand. Though he occupied the position of butler in the great establishment, and was therefore continually to be seen at meals, I did not know him very well—did not know him at all; for he was one of the machine-made kind whose perfect service left nothing to be desired, but of whose thoughts and wishes he gave no intimation unless it was to those he had known much longer than he had me.

Would he reveal himself in face of my intrusion? I was fully as curious as I was anxious to see. No; he was still the perfect servant and opened the door wide, without a gleam of hostility in his eye or any change in his usual manner.

Passing him, I stepped into the court. The fountain was playing. The house was again a home, but would it be a home to me? I resolved to put the question to an immediate test upstairs. Hearing Haines’ steps passing behind me on his way to the rear, I turned and asked him if Mr. Bartholomew had returned. Then I saw a change in the man’s face—a flash of feeling gone as quickly as it came. It had always been, “Does Mr. Edgar want this or Mr. Edgar want that?” The use of his uncle’s name in designating him, seemed to seal that uncle forever in his tomb.

“You will find him in the library,” was Haines’ reply as he passed on; and looking up, I saw Edgar standing in the doorway awaiting me.

Without any hesitation I approached him, but stopped before I was too near. I was resolved to speak very plainly and I did.

“Edgar, I can understand why with this hideous doubt still unsettled as to the exact person who, through accident we hope, was unfortunate enough to be responsible for our uncle’s death, you should find it very unpleasant to see me here. I have not come to stay, though it might be better all around if I were to remain for this one night. I loved Uncle. I am innocent of doing him any harm. I believe him to have made me the heir to this estate in the will thus unhappily lost to sight, but I shall not press my claim and am willing to drop it if you will drop yours, leaving Orpha to inherit.”

“That would be all right if the loss of the will were all.”—Was this Edgar speaking?—“But you know and I know that the loss of the will is of small moment in comparison to the real question you mentioned first. The verdict was murder. There is no murder without an active hand. Whose hand? You say that it was not yours. I—I want to believe you, but—”

“You do not.”

His set expression gave way; it was an unnatural one for him; but in the quick play of feature which took its place I could not read his mind, one emotion blotting out another so rapidly that neither heart nor reason could seize satisfactorily upon any.

“You do not?” I repeated.

“I know nothing about it. It is all a damnable mystery.

“Edgar, shall I pack up my belongings and go?”

He controlled himself.

“Stay the night,” he said, and, turning on his heel, went back into the library.

Then it was that I became aware of the dim figure of a man sitting quietly in an inconspicuous corner near the stairway.

It needed no perspicacity on my part to recognize in him a police detective.

I found another on the second floor and my heart misgave me for Orpha. Verily, the police were in occupation! When I reached the third, I found two more stationed like sentinels at the two doors of my departed Uncle’s room. This I did not wonder at and I was able to ignore them as I hurried by to my own room where I locked myself in.

I was thankful to be allowed to do this. I had reached the point where I felt the necessity of absolute rest from questioning or any thought of the present trouble. I would amuse myself; I would smoke and gradually pack. The darkness ahead was not impenetrable. I had a friend in the Inspector. Edgar had not treated me ill—not positively ill. It would be possible for me to appear at the dinner-table; possibly to face Orpha if she found strength to come. Yet were it not well for her to be warned that I was in the house? Would Edgar think of this? Yes, I felt positive that he would and then if she did not come—

But nothing must keep her from the table. I would not go myself unless summoned. I stood in no need of a meal. In those days I was scarcely aware of what I ate. On this night it seemed simply unbelievable that I should ever again crave food.

But a smoke was different. Sitting down by the window, I opened my favorite box. It was nearly empty. Only a part of the lower layer remained. Taking out a cigar, I was about to reach for a match when I caught sight of a loose piece of paper protruding from under the few cigars which remained. It had an odd, out-of-the-way look and I hastened to pull it forth. Great Heaven! it appeared to be a note. The end of a sheet of paper taken from my own desk had been folded once and, on opening it, I saw this:

The kEy which MR. BARTH olomew ALWAYS WORE ON A STRING ABOUT His neck wAs not there WHEN they Came to Undress HIM BURN THIS aT Once

No signature; the letters, as shown above, had been cut carefully from some magazine or journal. Was it a trap laid by the police; or the well meant message of a friend? Alas! here was matter for fresh questioning and I was wearied to the last point of human endurance. I sat dazed, my brain in confusion, my faculties refusing to work. One thing only remained clear—that I was to burn this scrawl as soon as read. Well, I could do that. There was a fireplace in my room, sometimes used but oftener not. It had not been used that day, which had been a mild one. But that did not matter. The draught was good and would easily carry up and out of sight a shred of paper like this. But my hand shook as I set fire to it and watched it fly in one quick blaze up the chimney. As it disappeared and the last spark was lost in the blackness of the empty shaft, I seemed to have wakened from a dream in which I was myself a shadow amongst shadows, so remote was this incident and all the rest of this astounding drama from my natural self and the life I had hoped to live when I crossed the ocean to make my home in rich but commonplace America.

“Miss Bartholomew wishes me to say that she would be glad to see you at dinner.”

I stared stupidly from the open doorway at Haines standing respectfully before me. I was wondering if the note I had just burned had come from him. He had shown feeling and he had not shown me any antagonism. But the feeling was not for me, but for the master he had served almost as long as I was years old. So I ended in accepting his formality with an equal show of the same; and determined to be done with questions for this one night if no longer, I prepared myself for dinner and went down.

I found Orpha pacing slowly to and fro under the glow of the colored lamps which illuminated the fountain. Older but lovelier and nobler in the carriage of her body and in the steady look with which she met my advance.

Suddenly I stopped dead short. It was the first time I had entered her presence without a vivid sense of the barrier raised between us by the understanding under which we all met, that we were cousins and nothing more, till the word was given which should release us to be our natural selves again.

But the lift of one of her fingers, scarcely perceptible save to a lover’s eye, brought me back to reason. This was no time for breaking down that barrier, even if we were alone, which I now felt open to doubt, and my greeting had just that hesitation in it which one in my position would be likely to show to one in hers. Her attitude was kindly, nothing more, and Edgar presently relieved me of the embarrassment of further conversation by sauntering in from the conservatory side by side with Miss Colfax.

Remembering the scene between them to which I had been a witness on the night of the ball, I wondered at seeing them thus together; but perceiving by the bearing of all three that she was domiciled here as a permanent guest, this wonder was lost in another: why Orpha should not sense the secret with which, as I watched them, the whole air seemed to palpitate.

But then she had not had my opportunities for enlightenment.

A little old lady whom I had not seen before but who was evidently a much esteemed relative of the family made the fifth at the dinner table. Formality reigned. It was our only refuge from an embarrassment which would have made speech impossible. As it was, Miss Colfax was the only one who talked and what she said was of too little moment to be remembered. I was glad when the meal was at an end and I could with propriety withdraw.

Better the loneliest of rooms in the dreariest of hotels than this. Better a cell—Ah, no, no! my very soul recoiled. Not that! not that! I am afraid that I was just a little mad as I paused at the foot of the great staircase on my way up.

But I was sane enough the next moment. The front door had opened, admitting the Inspector. I immediately crossed the court to meet him. Accosting him, I said in explanation of my presence, “You see me here, Inspector; but if not detained, I shall seek other quarters to-morrow. I was very anxious to get back to my desk in New York, if the firm are willing to receive me. But whether there or here, I am always at your call till this dreadful matter is settled. Now if you have no questions to ask, I am going to my room, where I can be found at any minute.”

“Very good,” was his sole reply, uttered without any display of feeling; and, seeing that he wished nothing from me, I left him and went quickly upstairs.

I always dreaded the passage from the second floor to the third,—to-night more than ever. Not that I was affected by the superstitious idea connected by many with that especial flight of steps—certainly I was too sensible a man for that, though I had had my own experience too—but the dread of the acute memories associated with the doors I must pass was strong upon me, and it was with relief that I found myself at last in my own little hall, even if I had yet to hurry by the small winding staircase at the bottom of which was a listening ear acquainted with my every footfall.

Briskly as I had taken the turn from the main hall, I had had time to note the quiet figure of Wealthy seated in her old place—hands in lap—face turned my way—a figure of stone with all the wonted good humor and kindliness of former days stricken from it, making it to my eyes one of deliberate accusation. Was not this exactly what I had feared and dreaded to encounter? Yes, and the experience was not an agreeable one. But for all that it was not without its compensations. Any idea I may have had of her being the one to warn me that the key invariably carried by my uncle on his person was not to be found there at his death, was now definitely eliminated from my mind. She could not have shown this sympathy for me in my anomalous position and then eye me as she had just done with such implacable hostility.

My attention thus brought back to a subject which, if it had seemed to lie passive in my mind, had yet made its own atmosphere there during every distraction of the past hour, I decided to have it out with myself as to what this communication had meant and from whom it had come.

That it was no trap but an honest hint from some person, who, while not interested enough to show himself openly as my friend but who was nevertheless desirous of affording me what help he could in my present extremity, I was ready to accept as a self-evident truth. The difficulty—and it was no mean one, I assure you—was to settle upon the man or woman willing to take this secret stand.

Was it Clarke? I smiled grimly at the very thought.

Was it Orpha? I held my breath for a moment as I contemplated this possibility—the incredible possibility that this made-up, patched-up line of printed letters could have been the work of her hands. It was too difficult to believe this, and I passed on.

The undertaker’s man? That could easily be found out. But why such effort at concealment from an outsider? No, it was not the undertaker’s man. But who else was there in all the house who would have knowledge of the fact thus communicated to me in this mysterious fashion? Martha? Eliza? Haines? Bliss? The chef who never left his kitchen, all orders being conveyed to him by Wealthy or by telephone from the sick room?

No, no.

There was but one name left—the most unlikely of all—Edgar’s. Could it be possible—

I did not smile this time, grimly or otherwise, as I turned away from this supposition also. I laughed; and, startled by the sound which was such as had never left my lips before, I rose with a bound from my chair, resolved to drop the whole matter from my mind and calm myself by returning to my task of looking over and sorting out my effects. Otherwise I should get no sleep.

What was it? It was hardly a noise, yet somebody was astir in the house and not very far from my door. Listening, I caught the sound of heavy breathing in the hall outside, and, slipping out of bed, crossed to the door and suddenly pulled it wide open.

A face confronted me, every feature distinct in the flood of moonlight pouring into the room from the opposite window. Alarm and repugnance made it almost unrecognizable, but it was the face of Edgar and no other, and, as in my astonishment I started backward, he spoke.

“I was told—they said—that you were ill—that groans were heard coming from this room. I—I am glad it is not so. Pardon me for waking you.” And he was gone, staggering slightly as he disappeared down the hall. A moment later I heard his voice raised further on, then a door slam and after that, quiet.

Confounded, for the man was shaken by emotion, I sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to compose my faculties sufficiently to understand the meaning of this surprising episode.

Automatically, I looked at my watch. It was just three. I had associations with that hour. What were they? Suddenly I remembered. It was the hour I visited my uncle’s door the night before his death, when Wealthy—

The name steadied the rush and counter-rush of swirling, not-to-be-controlled thoughts. Mr. Jackson had spoken of an experiment to be made by the police for the purpose of determining whether the shadow Wealthy professed to have seen about that time flitting by on the wall further down would be visible from the place where she stood.

Had they been trying this?

Had he been the one—

There was no thoroughfare in this direction. And wearied to death, I sank back on my pillow and after a few restless minutes fell into a heavy sleep.

Next day the thunderbolt fell. Entering Mr. Jackson’s office, I found him quite alone and waiting for me. Though the man was almost a stranger to me and I had very little knowledge of his face or its play of expression, I felt sure that the look with which he greeted me was not common to him and that so far as he was concerned, my cause had rather gained than lost in interest since our last meeting.

“You did not telephone me last night,” were his first words.

“No,” I said, “there was really no occasion.”

“Yet something very important happened in your house between three and four in the morning.”

“I thought so; I hoped so; but I knew so little what, that I dared not call you up for anything so indefinite. This morning life seems normal again, but in the night—”

“Go on, I want to hear.”

“My cousin, Edgar, came to my door in a state of extreme agitation. He had been told that I was ill. I was not; but say that I had been, I do not see why he should have been so affected by the news. I am a trial to him; an incubus; a rival whom he must hate. Why should he shiver at sight of me and whirl away to his room?”

“It was odd. You had heard nothing previously, then?”

“No, I was fortunate enough to be asleep.”

“And this being a silent drama you did not wake.”

“Not till the time I said.”

He was very slow, and I very eager, but I restrained myself. The peculiarity observable in his manner had increased rather than diminished. He seemed on fire to speak, yet unaccountably hesitated, turning away from my direct gaze and busying himself with some little thing on his desk. I began to feel hesitant also and inclined to shirk the interview.

And now for a confession. There was something in my own mind which I had refused to bare even to my own perceptions. Something from which I shrank and yet which would obtrude itself at moments like these. Could it be that I was about to hear, put in words, what I had never so much as whispered to myself?

It was several minutes later and after much had been said before I learned. He began with explanations.

“A woman is the victim of her own emotions. On that night Wealthy had been on the watch for hours either in the hall or in the sick room. She had seen you and another come and go under circumstances very agitating to one so devoted to the family. She was, therefore, not in a purely normal condition when she started up from her nap to settle a question upon which the life of a man might possibly hang.

“At least this was how the police reasoned. So they put off the experiment upon which they were resolved to an hour approximately the same in which the occurrence took place which they were planning to reproduce, keeping her, in the meantime, on watch for what interested her most. Pardon me, it was in connection with yourself,” he commented, flashing me a look from under his shaggy brows. “She has very strong beliefs on that point—strong enough to blind her or—” he broke off suddenly and as suddenly went on with his story. “Not till in apparent solitude she had worked herself up to a fine state of excitement did the Inspector show himself, and with a fine tale of the uselessness of expecting anything of a secret nature to take place in the house while her light was still burning and her figure guarded the hall, induced her to enter the room from which she might hope to see a repetition of what had happened on that fatal night. I honor the police. We could not do without them;—but their methods are sometimes—well, sometimes a little misleading.

“After another half hour of keen expectancy, during which she had not dozed, I warrant, there came the almost inaudible sound of the knob turning in the upper door. Had she been alone, she would have screamed, but the Inspector’s hand was on her arm and he made his presence felt to such a purpose that she simply shuddered, but that so violently that her teeth chattered. A fire had been lit on the hearth, for it was by the light thus given that she had seen what she said she had seen that night. Also, the curtains of the bed had been drawn back as they had not been then but must be now for her to see through to the shelf where the glass of medicine had been standing. Her face, as she waited for whomever might appear there, was one of bewilderment mingled with horror. But no one appeared. The door had been locked and all that answered that look was the impression she received of some one endeavoring to open it.

“As shaken by these terrors, she turned to face the Inspector, he pressed her arm again and drew her towards the door by which they had entered and from which she had seen the shadow she had testified to before the Coroner. Stepping the length of the passage-way intervening between the room and the door itself, he waited a moment, then threw the latter open just as the shadow of a man shot through the semi-darkness across the opposite wall.

“‘Do you recognize it?’ the Inspector whispered in her ear. ‘Is it the same?’

“She nodded wildly and drew back, suppressing the sob which gurgled in her throat.

“‘The Englishman?’ he asked again.

“Again she nodded.

“Carefully he closed the door; he was himself a trifle affected. The figure which had fled down the hall was that of the man who had just been told that you were ill in your room. I need not name him.”

Slowly I rose to my feet. The agitation caused by these words was uncontrollable. How much did he mean by them and why should I be so much more moved by hearing them spoken than by the suppressed thought?

He made no move to enlighten me, and, walking again to the window, I affected to look out. When I turned back it was to ask:

“What do you make of it, Mr. Jackson? This seems to place me on a very different footing; but—”

“The woman spoke at random. She saw no shadow. Her whole story was a fabrication.”

“A fabrication?”

“Yes, that is how we look at it. She may have heard some one in the room—she may even have heard the setting down of the glass on the shelf, but she did not see your shadow, or if she did, she did not recognize it as such; for the light was the same and so was every other condition as on the previous night, yet the Inspector standing at her side and knowing well who was passing, says there was nothing to be seen on the wall but a blur; no positive outline by which any true conclusion could be drawn.”

“Does she hate me so much as that? So honest a woman fabricate a story in order to involve me in anything so serious as crime?” I could not believe this myself.

“No, it was not through hate of you; rather through her great love for another. Don’t you see what lies at the bottom of her whole conduct? She thinks—”

“Don’t!” The word burst from me unawares. “Don’t put it into words. Let us leave some things to be understood, not said.” Then as his lips started to open and a cynical gleam came into his eyes, I hurriedly added: “I want to tell you something. On the night when the question of poison was first raised by the girl Martha’s ignorant outbreak over her master’s casket, I was standing with Miss Bartholomew in the balcony; Wealthy was on her other side. As that word rang up from the court, Miss Bartholomew fainted, and as I shrieked out some invective against the girl for speaking so in her mistress’ presence, I heard these words hissed into my ear. ‘Would you blame the girl for what you yourself have brought upon us?’ It was Wealthy speaking, and she certainly hated me then. And,” I added, perhaps with unnecessary candor, “with what she evidently thought very good reason.”

At this Mr. Jackson’s face broke into a smile half quizzical and half kindly:

“You believe in telling the truth,” said he. “So do I, but not all of it. You may feel yourself exonerated in the eyes of the police, but remember the public. It will be uphill work exonerating yourself with them.”

“I know it; and no man could feel the sting of his position more keenly. But you must admit that it is my duty to be as just to Edgar as to myself. Nay, more so. I know how much my uncle loved this last and dearest namesake of his. I know—no man better—that if what we do not say and must not say were true, and Uncle could rise from his grave to meet it, it would be with shielding hands and a forgiveness which would demand this and this only from the beloved ingrate, that he should not marry Orpha. Uncle was my benefactor and in honor to his memory I must hold the man he loved innocent unless forced to find him otherwise. Even for Orpha’s sake—”

“Does she love him?”

The question came too quickly and the hot flush would rise. But I answered him.

“He is loved by all who know him. It would be strange if his lifelong playmate should be the only one who did not.”

“Deuce take it!” burst from the irate lawyer’s lips, “I was speaking of a very different love from that.”

And I was thinking of a very different one.

The embarrassment this caused to both of us made a break in the conversation. But it was presently resumed by my asking what he thought the police were likely to do under the circumstances.

He shot out one word at me.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” My face brightened, but my heart sank.

“That is, as I feel bound to inform you, this is one of those cases where a premature move would be fatal to official prestige. The Bartholomews are held in much too high esteem in this town for thoughtless attack. The old gentleman was the czar of this community. No one more respected and no one more loved. Had his death been attributed to the carelessness or aggression of an outsider, no one but the Governor of the state could have held the people in check. But the story of the two wills having got about, suspicion took its natural course; the family itself became involved—an enormity which would have been inconceivable had it not been that the one suspected was the one least known and—you will pardon me if I speak plainly, even if I touch the raw—the one least liked: a foreigner, moreover, come, as all thought, from England on purpose to gather in this wealth. You felt their animosity at the inquest and you also must have felt their restraint; but had any one dared to say of Edgar what was said of you, either a great shout of derisive laughter would have gone up or hell would have broken loose in that court-room. With very few exceptions, no one there could have imagined him playing any such part. And they cannot to-day. They have known him too long, admired him too long, seen him too many times in loving companionship with the man now dead to weigh any testimony or be moved by any circumstance suggestive of anything so flagrant as guilt of this nature. The proof must be absolute before the bravest among us would dare assail his name to this extent. And the proof is not absolute. On the contrary, it is very defective; for so far as any of us can see, the crime, if perpetrated by him, lacks motive. Shall I explain?”

“Pray do. Since we have gone thus far, let us go the full length. Light is what I want; light on every angle of this affair. If it serves to clear him as it now seems it has served to clear me, I shall rejoice.”

Mr. Jackson, with a quick motion, held out his hand. I took it. We were friends from that hour.

“First, then,” continued the lawyer, “you must understand that Edgar has undergone a rigid examination at the hands of the police. This may not have appeared at the inquest but nevertheless what I say is true. Now taking his story as a basis, we have this much to go upon:

“He has always been led to believe that his future had been cut out for him according to the schedule universally understood and accepted. He was not only to marry Orpha, but to inherit personally the vast fortune which was to support her in the way to which she is entitled. No doubt as to this being his uncle’s intention—an intention already embodied in a will drawn up by Mr. Dunn—ever crossed his mind till you came upon the scene; and not then immediately. Even the misunderstanding with his uncle, occasioned, as I am told, by Mr. Bartholomew learning of some obligations he had entered into of which he was himself ashamed, failed to awaken the least fear in his mind of any change in his uncle’s testamentary intentions, or any real lessening of the affection which had prompted these intentions. Indeed, so much confidence did he have in his place in his uncle’s heart that he consented, almost with a smile, to defer the announcement of what he considered a definite engagement with Orpha, because he saw signs of illness in his uncle and could not think of crossing him. But he had no fear, as I have said, that all would not come right in time and the end be what it should be.

“Nor did his mind change with the sudden signs of favor shown by his uncle towards yourself. The odd scheme of sharing with you, by a definite arrangement, the care which your uncle’s invalid condition soon called for, he accepted without question, as he did every other whim of his autocratic relative. But when the servants began to talk to him of how much writing his uncle did while lying in his bed, and whispers of a new will, drawn up in your absence as well as in his began to circulate through the house, he grew sufficiently alarmed to call on Mr. Dunn at his office and propound a few inquiries. The result was a complete restoration of his tranquillity; for Mr. Dunn, having been kept in ignorance of another lawyer having visited Quenton Court immediately upon his departure, and supposing that the will he had prepared and seen attested was the last expression of Mr. Bartholomew’s wishes, gave Edgar such unqualified assurances of a secured future that he naturally was thrown completely off his balance when on the night which proved to be Mr. Bartholomew’s last, he was summoned to his uncle’s presence and was shown not only one new will but two, alike in all respects save in the essential point with which we are both acquainted. Now, as I am as anxious as you are to do justice to the young man, I will say that if your uncle was looking for any wonderful display of generosity from one who saw in a moment the hopes of a lifetime threatened with total disaster, then he was expecting too much. Of course, Edgar rebelled and said words which hurt the old gentleman. He would not have been normal otherwise. But what I want to impress upon you in connection with this interview is this. He left the room with these words ringing in his ears, ‘Now we will see what your cousin has to say. When he quits me, but one of these two wills will remain, and that one you must make up your mind to recognize.’ Therefore,” and here Mr. Jackson leaned towards me in his desire to hold my full attention, “he went from that room with every reason to fear that the will to be destroyed was the one favoring himself, and the one to be retained that which made you chief heir and the probable husband of Orpha. Have we heard of anything having occurred between then and early morning to reverse the conclusions of that moment? No. Then why should he resort to crime in order to shorten the few remaining days of his uncle’s life when he had every reason to believe that his death would only hasten the triumph of his rival?”

I was speechless, dazed by a fact that may have visited my mind, but which had never before been clearly formulated there! Seeing this, the lawyer went on to say:

“That is why our hands are held.”

Still I did not speak. I was thinking. What I had said we would not do had been done. The word crime had been used in connection with Edgar, and I had let it pass. The veil was torn aside. There was no use in asking to have it drawn to again. I would serve him better by looking the thing squarely in the face and meeting it as I had met the attack against myself, with honesty and high purpose. But first I must make some acknowledgment of the conclusion to which this all pointed, and I did it in these words.

“You see! The boy is innocent.”

“I have not said that.”

“But I have said it.”

“Very good, you have said it; now go on.”

This was not so easy. But the lawyer was waiting and watching me and I finally stammered forth:

“There is some small fact thus far successfully suppressed which when known will change the trend of public opinion and clarify the whole situation.”

“Exactly, and till it is, we will continue the search for the will which I honestly believe lies hidden somewhere in that mysterious house. Had he destroyed it during that interval in which he was left alone, there would have been some signs left in the ashes on the hearth; and Wealthy denies seeing anything of the sort when she stooped to replenish the fire that night, and so does Clarke, who, at Edgar’s instigation, took up the ashes after their first failure to find the will and carefully sifted them in the cellar.”

“I have been wondering if they did that.”

“Well, they did, or so I have been told. Besides, you must remember the look of consternation, if not of horror, which crossed your uncle’s face as he felt that death was upon him and he could no longer speak. If he had destroyed both wills, the one when alone, the other in the face of you all, he would have shown no such emotion. He had simply been eliminating every contestant save his daughter—something which should have given him peace.”

“You are right. And as for myself I propose to keep quiet, hoping that the mystery will soon end. Do you think that the police will allow me to leave town?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Back to work; to my desk at Meadows & Waite in New York.”

“I don’t think that I would do that. You will meet with much unpleasantness.”

“I must learn to endure cold looks and hypocritical smiles.”

“But not unnecessarily. I would advise you to take a room at the Sheldon; live quietly and wait. If you wish to write a suitable explanation to your firm, do so. There can be no harm in that.”

My heart leaped. His advice was good. I should at least be in the same town as Orpha.

“There is just one thing more,” I observed, as we were standing near his office door preparatory to my departure. “Did Edgar say whether he saw the wills themselves or, like myself, only the two envelopes presumably holding them?”

He was shown them open. Mr. Bartholomew took them one after the other from their envelopes and, spreading them out on the desk, pointed out the name of Edgar Quenton, the son of my brother, Frederick, on the one, and Edgar Quenton, the son of my brother, James, on the other, and so stood with his finger pressed on the latter while they had their little scene. When that was over, he folded the two wills up again and put them back in their several envelopes, all without help, Edgar looking on, as I have no doubt, in a white heat of perfectly justifiable indignation. “Can’t you see the picture?”

I could and did, but I had no disposition to dwell on it. A question had risen in my mind to which I must have an answer.

“You speak of Edgar looking on. At what, may I ask? At Uncle’s handling of the wills or in a general way at Uncle himself?”

“He said that he kept his eye on the two wills.”

“Oh! and did he note into which envelope the one went in which he was most interested,—the one favoring himself?”

“Yes, but the envelopes were alike, neither being marked at that time, and as his uncle jumbled them together in his hands, this did not help him or us.”

“Ah, the red mark was put on later?”

“Yes. The pencil with which he did it was found on the floor.”

I tried to find a way through these shadows,—to spur my memory into recalling the one essential thing which would settle a very vexing question—but I was obliged to give it up with the acknowledgment:

“That mark was in the corner of one of the envelopes at the time I saw them; but I do not know which will it covered. God! what a complication!”

“Yes. No daylight yet, my boy. But it will come. Some trivial matter, unseen as yet, or if seen regarded as of no account, will provide us with a clew, leading straight to the very heart of this mystery. I believe this, and you must, too; otherwise you will find your life a little hard to bear.”

I braced myself. I shrank unaccountably from what I felt it to be my present duty to communicate. I always did when there was any possibility of Orpha’s name coming up.

“Some trivial matter? An unexpected clew?” I repeated. “Mr. Jackson, I have been keeping back a trivial matter which may yet prove to be a clew.”

And I told him of the note made up of printed letters which I had found in my box of cigars.

He was much interested in it and regretted exceedingly that I had obeyed the injunction to burn it.

“From whom did this communication come?”

That I could not answer. I had my own thoughts. Much thinking and perhaps much hoping had led me to believe that it was from Orpha; but I could not say this to him. Happily his own thoughts had turned to the servants and I foresaw that sooner or later they were likely to have a strenuous time with him. As his brows puckered and he seemed in imagination to have them already under examination, I took a sudden resolution.

“Mr. Jackson, I have heard—I have read—of a means now in use in police investigation which sometimes leads to astonishing results.” I spoke hesitatingly, for I felt the absurdity of my offering any suggestion to this able lawyer. “The phial which held the poison was handled—must have been handled. Wouldn’t it show finger-prints—”

The lawyer threw back his head with a good-natured snort and I stopped confused.

“I know that it is ridiculous for me,” I began—

But he cut me short very quickly.

“No, it’s not ridiculous. I was just pleased; that’s all. Of course the police made use of this new method of detection. Looked about for finger-prints and all that and found some, I have been told. But you must remember that two days at least elapsed between Mr. Bartholomew’s death and any suspicion of foul play. That such things as the glass and other small matters had all been removed and—here is the important point; the most important of all,—that the cabinet which held the medicines had been visited and the bottle labeled dangerous touched, if not lifted entirely out, and that by more than one person. Of course, they found finger-prints on it and on the woodwork of the cabinet, but they were those of Orpha, Edgar and Wealthy who rushed up to examine the same at the first intimation that your uncle’s death might have been due to the use of this deadly drug. And now you will see why I felt something like pleasure at your naïve mention of finger-prints. Of all the persons who knew of the location and harmful nature of this medicine, you only failed to leave upon the phial this irrefutable proof of having had it in your hand. Now you know the main reason why the police have had the courage to dare public opinion. Your finger-prints were not to be found on anything connected with that cabinet.”

“My finger-prints? What do they know of my finger-prints. I never had them taken.”

Again that characteristic snort.

“You have had a personal visit, I am told, from the Inspector. What do you think of him? Don’t you judge him to be quite capable of securing an impression of your finger-tips, if he so desired, during the course of an interview lasting over two hours?”

I remembered his holding out to me a cigarette case and urging me to smoke. Did I do so? Yes. Did I touch the case? Yes, I took it in hand. Well, as it had done me no harm, I could afford to smile and I did.

“Yes, he is quite capable of putting over a little thing like that. Bless him for it.”

“Yes, you are a fortunate lad to have won his good will.”

I thought of Edgar and of the power which, seemingly without effort, he exercised over every kind of person with whom he came in contact, and was grateful that in my extremity I had found one man, if not two, who trusted me.

Just a little buoyed up by my success in this venture, I attempted another.

“There is just one thing more, Mr. Jackson. There is a name which we have not mentioned—that is, in any serious connection,—but which, if we stop to think, may suggest something to our minds worthy of discussion. I mean—Clarke’s. Can it be that under his straightforward and devoted manner he has held concealed jealousies or animosities which demanded revenge?”

“I have no acquaintance with the man; but I heard the Inspector say that he wished every one he had talked to about this crime had the simple candor and quiet understanding of Luke Clarke. Though broken-hearted over his loss, he stands ready to answer any and all questions; declaring that life will be worth nothing to him till he knows who killed the man he has served for fifteen years. I don’t think there is anything further to be got out of Clarke. The Inspector is positive that there is not.”

But was I? By no means. I was not sure of anything but Orpha’s beauty and worth and the love I felt for her; and vented my dissatisfaction in the querulous cry:

“Why should I waste your time any longer? I have nothing to offer; nothing more to suggest. To tell the truth, Mr. Jackson, I am all at sea.”

And he, being, I suspect, somewhat at sea himself, accepted my “Good day,” and allowed me to go.

“There is some small fact thus far successfully suppressed, which, when known, will alter the trend of public opinion and clarify the whole situation.”

A sentence almost fatuous in its expression of a self-evident truth. One, too, which had been uttered by myself. But foolish and fatuous as it was, it kept ringing on in my brain all that day and far into the night, until I formulated for myself another one less general and more likely to lead to a definite conclusion:

“Something occurred between the hour I left Uncle’s room and my visit to his door at three o’clock in the morning which from its nature was calculated to make Edgar indifferent to the destruction of the will marked with red and Wealthy so apprehensive of harm to him that to save him from the attention of the police she was willing to sacrifice me and perjure herself before the Coroner.” What was it?

You see from declining to connect Edgar with this crime, I had come to the point of not only admitting the possibility of his guilt, but of arguing for and against it in my own mind. I had almost rather have died than do this; but the word having once passed between me and Mr. Jackson, every instinct within me clamored for a confutation of my doubt or a confirmation of it so strong that my duty would be plain and the future of Orpha settled as her father would have it.

To repeat then: to understand this crime and to locate the guilty hand which dropped poison into the sick man’s soothing mixture it was necessary to discover what had happened somewhere in the house between the hours I have mentioned, of sufficient moment to account for Edgar’s attitude and that of the faithful Wealthy.

But one conjecture suggested itself after hours of thought. Was it not possible that while I was below, Clarke in his room, and Wealthy in Orpha’s, that Edgar had made his way for the second time into his uncle’s presence, persuaded him to revoke his decision and even gone so far as to obtain from him the will adverse to his own hopes?

Thus fortified, but still fearful of further vacillation on the part of one whose mind, once so strong, seemed now to veer this way or that with every influence brought to bear upon it, what more natural than, given a criminal’s heart, he should think of the one and only way of ending this indecision and making himself safe from this very hour.

A glass of water—a drop of medicine from the bottle labeled dangerous—a quick good-night—and a hasty departure!

It made the hair stir on my forehead to conceive of all this in connection with a man like Edgar. But my thoughts, once allowed to enter this groove, would run on.

The deed is done; now to regain his room. That room is near. He has but to cross the hall. A few steps and he is at the stair-head,—has passed it, when a noise from below startles him, and peering down, he sees Wealthy coming up from the lower floor.

Wealthy! ready to tell any story when confronted as she soon would be by the fact that death had followed his visit—death which in this case meant murder.

It was base beyond belief: hardly to be thought of, but did it not explain every fact?

I would see.

First, it accounted for the empty envelope and the disappearance of the will which it had held. Also for the fact that this will could not be found in any place accessible to a man too feeble to leave his own room. It had been given to Edgar and he had carried it away.

(Had they searched his room for it? They had searched mine and they had searched me. Had they been fair enough to search his room and to search him?)

Secondly: Edgar’s restlessness on that fatal night. The watch he kept on Uncle’s door. The interest he had shown at seeing me there and possibly his reluctance to incriminate me by any absolute assertion which would link me to a crime which he, above all others, knew that I had not committed.

Thirdly: the comparative calmness with which he saw his uncle, still undecided, or what was fully as probable, confused in mind by his sufferings and the near approach of death, order the destruction of the remaining will, to preserve which and make it operative he had risked the remorse of a lifetime. He knew that with both wills gone, the third and original one which at that time he believed to be still in existence would secure for him even more than the one he saw being consumed before his eyes, viz.: the undisputed possession of the Bartholomew estate.

So much for the time preceding the discovery that crime and not the hazard of disease had caused our uncle’s sudden death. How about Edgar’s conduct since? Was there anything in that to dispute this theory?

Not absolutely. Emotion, under circumstances so tragic, would be expected from him; and with his quick mind and knowledge of the worshipful affection felt for him by every member of the household, he must have had little fear of any unfortunate results to himself and a most lively recognition of where the blame would fall if he acted his part with the skill of which he was the undoubted master.

There was but one remote possibility which might turn the tables. Perhaps, it came across him like a flash; perhaps, he had thought of it before, but considered it of no consequence so long as it was the universally accepted belief that Uncle had died at natural death.

And this brings us to Fourthly:

Was it in accordance with my theory or the reverse, for him, immediately and before the doctor could appear, to rush upstairs in company with Orpha and Nurse Wealthy to inspect the cabinet where the medicines were kept?

In full accordance with my theory. Knowing that he must have left finger-marks there on bottle or shelf, he takes the one way to confound suspicion: adds more of his own, and passes the phial into the hands of the two who accompanied him on this very excusable errand.

Was there any other fact which I could remember which might tip the scale, so heavily weighted, even a trifle the other way?

Yes, one—a big one. The impossibility for me even now to attribute such deviltry to a man who had certainly loved the victim of this monstrous crime.

As I rose from this effort to sound the murky depths into which my thoughts had groveled in spite of myself and all the proprieties, I found by the strong feeling of revulsion which made the memory of the past hour hateful to me, that I could never pursue the road which I had thus carefully mapped out for myself. That, innocent or guilty, Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, beloved by our uncle, was sacred in my eyes because of that love, and that whatever might be done by others to fix this crime upon him, I could do nothing—would do nothing to help them even if I must continue to bear to the very end the opprobrium under which I now labored.

And Orpha? Had I forgotten my fears for her—the duty I had felt to preserve her from a step which might mean more than unhappiness—might mean shame?

No; but in that moment of decision made for me by my own nature, the conviction had come that I need not be apprehensive of Orpha marrying Edgar or marrying me while this question between us remained unsettled.

She would be neutral to the end, aye, even if her heart broke. I knew my darling.

In this mood and in this determination I remained for two weeks. I tried to divert myself by reading, and I think my love for books which presently grew into a passion had its inception in that monotonous succession of day after day without a break in the suspense which held me like a hand upon my throat.

I was not treated ill, I was simply boycotted. This made it unpleasant for me to walk the streets, though I never hesitated to do so when I had a purpose in view.

Of Orpha I heard little, though now and then some whiff of gossip from Quenton Court would reach me. She had filled the house with guests, but there was no gayety. The only young person among them was Lucy Colfax, who was preparing for her wedding. The rest were relatives of humble means and few pleasures to whom life amid the comforts and splendors of Quenton Court was like a visit to fairyland. Edgar had followed my example and taken up his abode in one of the hotels. But he spent most of his evenings at the house where he soon became the idol of the various aunts and cousins who possibly would never have honored me with anything beyond a certain civility.

Ere long I heard of his intention to leave town. With his position no better defined than it was, he found C—— intolerable.

I wondered if they would let him go! By they I meant the police. If they did, I meant to go too, or at least to make an effort to do so. I wanted to work. I wanted to feel my manhood once again active. I wrote to the firm in whose offices I had a desk.

This is my letter robbed of its heading and signature.

This dispatched, I waited three days for a response. Then I received this telegram:

Going immediately to Headquarters, I sought out the Inspector and showed him this message.

“Shall I go or shall I not?” I asked.

He did not answer at once; seemed to hesitate and finally left the room for a few minutes. When he came back he smiled and said:

“My answer is yes. You are young. If you wait for full justification in this case, you may have to wait a lifetime. And then again you may not.”

I wrung his hand and for the next hour forgot everything but the manner in which I would make the attempt to see Orpha. I could not leave without a word of farewell to the one being for whose sake I kept my soul from despair.

I dared not call without permission. I feared a rebuff at the front door; Orpha would certainly be out. Again, I might write and she might get the letter, but I could not be sure. Bliss handled the mail and—and—Of course I was unreasonably suspicious, but it was so important for me to reach her very self, or to know that any refusal or inability to see me came from her very self, that I wished to take every precaution. In pursuance of this idea I ran over the list of servants to see if there was one who in my estimation could be trusted to hand her a note. From Wealthy down I named them one by one and shook my head over each. Discouraged, I rose and went out and almost at the first corner I ran upon Clarke.

What came over me at the sight of his uncompromising countenance I do not know, but I stopped him and threw myself upon his mercy. It was an act more in keeping with Edgar’s character than with mine, and I cannot account for it save by the certainty I possessed that if he did not want to do what I requested, he would say so. He might be blunt, even accusing, but he would not be insincere or play me false.

“Clarke, well met.” Thus I accosted him. “I am going to leave town. I may come back and I may not. Will you do me this favor? I am very anxious to have Miss Bartholomew know that I greatly desire to say good-by to her, but hardly feel at liberty to telephone. If she is willing to see me I shall feel honored.”

“I have left Quenton Court for the present,” he objected. “I hope to return when it has a master.”

If he noticed my emotion at this straightforward if crude statement, he gave no sign of having done so. He simply remained standing like a man awaiting orders, and I hastened to remark:

“But you will be going there to see your old friends, to-day possibly, to-night at latest if you have any good reason for it.”

“Yes, I have still a trunk or two there. I will call for them to-night, and I will give Miss Orpha your message. Where shall I bring the reply?”

I told him and he walked off, erect, unmoved, and to all appearance totally unconscious of the fact—or if conscious of it totally unaffected by it—that he had thrown a ray of light into a cavern of gloom, and helped a man to face life again who had almost preferred death.

Evening came and with it a telephone message.

What should I say to her? How begin? How keep the poise due to her and due to myself, with her dear face turned up to mine and possibly her hand responding to my clasp?

Futile questions. When I entered her presence it was to find that my course was properly marked out. She was not alone. Lucy Colfax was with her and the greeting I received from the one was dutifully repeated by the other. I was caught as in a trap; but pride came to my rescue, coupled with a recognition of the real service she was doing me in restraining me to the formalities of a friendly call.

But I would not be restrained too far. What in my colder moments I had planned to say, I would say, even with Lucy Colfax standing by and listening. Lucy Colfax! whose story I knew much better than she did mine.

“Cousin Orpha,” I began, with a side glance at Miss Colfax which that brilliant brunette did not take amiss, “I am going almost immediately to New York to take up again the business in which I was occupied when all was well here and my duty seemed plain. Inspector Redding has my address and I will always be at his call. And at that of any one else who wants me for any service worth the journey. If you—” a little catch in my voice warned me to be brief. “If you have need of me, though it be but a question you want answered, I will come as readily as though it were a peremptory summons. I am your cousin and there is no reason in the world why I should not do a cousin’s duty by you.”

“None,” she answered. But she did not reach out her hand. Only stood there, a sweet, sane woman, bidding good-by to a friend.

I honored her for her attitude; but my heart bade me begone. Bowing to Miss Colfax whose eyes I felt positive had never left my face, I tried to show the same deference to Orpha. Perhaps I succeeded but somehow I think I failed, for when I was in the street again all I could remember was the surprised look in her eyes which yet were the sweetest it had ever been my good fortune to meet.

It was a dream,—nothing else—but it made a very strong impression upon me. I could not forget it, though I was much occupied the next morning and for several days afterwards. It was so like life and the picture it left behind it was so vivid.

What was the picture? Just this; but as plain to my eye as if presented to it by a motion-picture film. Orpha, standing by herself alone, staring at some object lying in her open palm. She was dressed in white, not black. This I distinctly remember. Also that her hair which I had never seen save when dressed and fastened close to her head, lay in masses on her shoulders. A picture of loveliness but of great mental perplexity also. She was intrigued by what she was looking at. Astonishment was visible on her features and what I instinctively interpreted as alarm gave a rigidity to her figure far from natural to it.

Such was my dream; such the picture which would not leave me, nor explain itself for days.

I had got well into the swing of work and was able, strange as it may seem, to hold my own in all business matters, notwithstanding the personal anxieties which devoured my mind and heart the moment I was released from present duty. I had received one or two letters from Mr. Jackson, which while encouraging in a general way, added little to my knowledge of how matters in which I was so concerned were progressing in C——. Edgar was no longer there. In fact, he was in the same city as myself, but for what purpose or where located he could not tell me. The press had ceased covering the first page with unmeaning headlines concerning a tragedy which offered no new features; and although there was a large quota of interested persons who inveighed against the police for allowing me to leave town, there were others, the number of which was rapidly growing, who ventured to state that time and effort, however aided by an inexhaustible purse, would fail to bring to light any further explanation of their leading citizen’s sudden death, for the very good reason that there was nothing further to bring out,—the doctor’s report having been a mistaken one, and the death simply natural,—that is, the result of undue excitement.

“But there remain some few things of which the public is ignorant.”

In this manner Mr. Jackson ended his last letter.

There remain some few things of which the public is ignorant. This was equally true of the police, or some move would have been made by them before this.

The clew afforded by the disappearance simultaneously with that of the will of a key considered of enough importance by its owner to have been kept upon his person had evidently led to nothing. This surprised me, for I had laid great store by it; and it was after some hours of irritating thought on this subject that I had the dream with which I have opened this account of a fresh phase in my troubled life.

Perhaps, the dream was but a natural sequence of the thought which had preceded it. I was willing to believe so. But what help was there in that? What help was there for me in anything but work; and to my work I went.

But with evening came a fresh trial. I was walking up Broadway when I ran almost into the arms of Edgar. He recoiled and I recoiled, then, with a quick nod, he hurried past, leaving behind him an impression which brought up strange images. A blind prisoner groping in the dark. A marooned sailor searching the boundless waste for a ship which will never show itself above the horizon. A desert wanderer who sees the oasis which promises the one drop of water which will save him fade into ghastly mirage. Anything, everything which bespeaks the loss of hope and the approach of doom.

I was struck to the heart. I tried to follow him, when, plainly before me—as plainly as he had himself appeared a moment previous, I saw her standing in a light place looking down at something in her hand, and I stopped short.

When I was ready to move on again, he was gone, leaving me very unhappy. The gay youth, the darling of society, the beloved of the finest, of the biggest-natured, and, above all, of the tenderest heart I knew—come to this in a few short weeks! As God lives, during the days while the impression lay strongest upon me, I could have cursed the hour I left my own country to be the cause, however innocently, of such an overthrow.

That he had shown signs of dissipation added poignancy to my distress. Self-indulgence of any kind had never been one of his failings. The serpent coiled about his heart must be biting deep into its core to drive one so fastidious into excess.

Three days later I saw him again. Strange as this may seem in a city of over a million, it happened, and that is all there is to it. I was passing down Forty-second Street on my way to the restaurant I patronized when he turned the corner ahead of me and moved languidly on in the same direction. I had still a block to walk, so I kept my pace, wondering if he could possibly be bound for the same eating-place, which, by the way, was the one where we had first met. If so, would it be well for me to follow; and I was yet debating this point when I saw another man turn that same corner and move along in his wake some fifty feet behind him and some thirty in front of me.

This was a natural occurrence enough, and would not even have attracted my attention if there had not been something familiar in this man’s appearance—something which brought vividly to mind my former encounter with Edgar on Broadway. What was the connection? Then suddenly I remembered. As I shook myself free from the apathy following this startling vision of Orpha which, like the clutch of a detaining hand, had hindered my mad rush after Edgar, I found myself staring at the face of a man brushing by me with a lack of ceremony which showed that he was in a hurry if I was not. He was the same as the one now before me walking more and more slowly but still holding his own about midway between us two. No coincidence in this. He was here because Edgar was here, or—I had to acknowledge it to myself—because I was here, always here at this time in the late afternoon.

I did not stop to decide on which of us two his mind was most set—on both perhaps—but pursued my course, entering the restaurant soon after the plain clothes man who appeared to be shadowing us.

Edgar was already seated when I stepped in, but in such a remote and inconspicuous corner that the man who had preceded me had to look covertly in all directions before he espied him. When he did, he took a seat near the door and in a moment was lost to sight behind the newspaper which he had taken from his pocket. There being but one empty seat, I took it. It, too, was near the door.

It seemed a farce to order a meal under these circumstances. But necessity knows no law; it would not do to appear singular. And when my dinner was served, I ate it, happy that I was so placed that I could neither see Edgar nor he me.

The man behind the newspaper, after a considerable wait, turned his attention to the chafing-dish which had been set down before him. Fifteen minutes went by; and then I saw from a sudden movement made by this man that Edgar had risen and was coming my way. Though there was some little disturbance at the time, owing to the breaking up of a party of women all seeking egress through the same narrow passage, it seemed to me that I could hear his footsteps amid all the rest, and waited and watched till I saw our man rise and carelessly add himself to the merry throng.

As he went by me, I was sure that he gave me one quick look which did not hinder me from rising, money in hand, for the waiter who fortunately stood within call.

My back was to the passage through which Edgar must approach, but I was sure that I knew the very instant he went by, and was still more certain that I should not leave the place without another encounter with him, eye to eye.

But this was the time when my foresight failed me. He did not linger as usual to buy a cigar, and so was out of the door a minute or two before me. When I felt the pavement under my feet and paused to look for him in the direction from which he had come, it was to see him going the other way, nonchalantly followed by the man I had set down in my mind as an agent of police.

That he really was such became a surety when they both vanished together around the next corner. Edgar was being shadowed. Was I? I judged not; for on looking back I found the street to be quite clear.

That night, the vision came for the third time of Orpha gazing intently down at her open palm. It held me; it gripped me till, bathed in sweat, I started up, assured at last of its actual meaning. It was the key, the missing key that was offered to my view in my darling’s grasp. She had been made the repositor of it—or she had found it—and did not know what to do with it. I saw it all, I was practical; above all else, practical.

However, I sent this letter to Mr. Jackson the next morning: “What have the police done about the key? Have they questioned Miss Bartholomew?” and was more restless than ever till I got the reply.

So! the hopes I had founded upon my dream and its consequent visions had all vanished in mist. The clew was in other hands than Orpha’s. She was as ignorant now as ever of the existence of the key, concerning which I had from time to time imagined that she had had some special knowledge. I suppose I should have been thankful to see her thus removed from direct connection with what might involve her in unknown difficulties. Perhaps I was. Certainly there was nothing more that I could do for her or for any one; least of all for myself. I could but add one more to the many persons waiting, some in patience, some in indignant protest for developments which would end all wild guessing and fix the blame where it rightfully belonged.

But when it became a common thing for me to run upon Edgar at the restaurant in Forty-second Street, sometimes getting his short nod, sometimes nothing but a stare, I began to think that his frequent appearance there had a meaning I could safely associate with myself. For under the obvious crustiness of this new nature of his I observed a quickly checked impulse to accost me—a desire almost passionate to speak, held back by scorn or fear. What if I should accost him! Force the words from his lips which I always saw hovering there? It might precipitate matters. The man whom I had regarded as his shadow was no longer in evidence. To be sure his place might have been taken by some one else whom I had not yet identified. But that must be risked. Accordingly the next time Edgar showed himself at the restaurant, I followed him into his corner and, ignoring the startled frown by which I was met, sat down in front of him, saying with blunt directness which left him no opportunity for protest.

“Let us talk. We are both suffering. I cannot live this way nor can you. Let us have it out. If not here, then in some other place. I will go anywhere you say. But first before we take a step you must understand this. I am an honest man, Edgar, and my feeling for you is one from which you need not shrink. If you will be as honest with me—”

He laughed, but in a tone totally different from the merry peal which had once brought a smile from lips now buried out of sight.

“Honest with you?” He muttered; but rose as he said this and reached for his overcoat, to the astonishment of the waiter advancing to serve us.

Laying a coin on the table, I rose to my feet and in a few minutes we were both in the street, walking I knew not where, for I was not so well acquainted with the city as he, and was quite willing to follow where he led.

Meantime we were silent, his breath coming quickly and mine far from equable. I was glad when we paused, but surprised that it was in the middle of a quiet block with a high boarded fence running half its length, against which he took his stand, as he said:

“Why go further? You have seen my misery and you want to talk. Talk about what? Our uncle’s death? You know more about that than I do; and more about the will, too, I am ready to take my oath. And you want to talk! talk! You—”

“No names, Edgar. You heard what I said at the inquest. I can but repeat every word of denial which I uttered then. You may find it hard to believe me or you may be just amusing yourself with me for some purpose which I find it hard to comprehend. I am willing it should be either, if you will be plain with me and say your say. For I am quite aware, however you may seek to hide it, that there is something you wish me to know; something that would clear the road between us; something which it would be better for you to speak and for me to hear than this fruitless interchange of meaningless words which lead nowhere and bring small comfort.”

“What do you mean?” He was ghastly white or the pale gleam from the opposite lamp-post was very deceptive. “I don’t know what you mean,” he repeated, stepping forward from the closely boarded fence that I might not see how he was shaking.

“I am very sorry,” I began; then abruptly, “I am sure that you do know what I mean, but if you prefer silence,—prefer things to go on as they are, I will try and bear it, hoping that some of these mysteries may be cleared up and confidence restored again between us, if only for Orpha’s sake. You must wish that too.”

“Orpha!” He spoke the word strangely, almost mechanically. There was no thought behind the utterance. Then as he looked up and met my eye, the color came into his cheeks and he cried:

“Do not remind me of all that I have lost. Uncle, fortune, love. I am poorer than a beggar, for he—”

He pulled himself up with a jerk, drew a deep breath and cast an uneasy look up and down the street.

“Do you know,” he half whispered, “I sometimes think I am followed. I cannot seem to get away all by myself. There is always some one around. Do you think that pure fancy? Am I getting to be a little batty? Are they afraid that I will destroy myself? I have been tempted to do so, but I am not yet ready to meet my uncle’s eye.”

I heard this though it was rather muttered than said and my cold heart seemed to turn over in my bosom, for despair was in the tone and the vision which came with it was not that of Orpha but of another woman—the woman he had lost as he had lost his fortune and lost the man whose gaze he dared not cross death’s river to meet.

I tried to take his hand—to bridge the fathomless gulf between us; but he fixed me with his eye, and, laughing with an echo which caused the two or three passers-by to turn their heads as they hurried on, he said in measured tones:

“You are the cause of it all.” And turned away and passed quickly down the street, leaving me both exhausted and unenlightened.

Next day I received a telegram from Mr. Jackson. It was to the effect that he would like some information concerning a man named John E. Miller, who had his office somewhere on Thirty-fifth Street. He was an attorney and in some way connected with the business in which we were interested.

This, as you will see, brings us to the incident related in the first chapter of this story. Having obtained Mr. Miller’s address from the telephone book, I was searching the block for his number when the gentleman himself, anxious to be off to his injured child and, observing how I looked this way and that, rushed up to me and making sure that I answered to the name of Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, thrust into my hands a letter and after that a package containing, as he said, a key of much importance, both of which were obviously meant for Edgar and not for me.

Why, in the confusion of the moment, I let him go, leaving the key and letter in my hand, and why, after taking them to my hotel, I had the struggle of my life deciding what I should do with them, should now be plain to you. For I felt as sure then as later, that the key which had thus, by a stroke of Providence, come into my possession was the key found by some one and forwarded by some one, without the knowledge of the police, to this Mr. Miller who in turn supposed he had placed it in Edgar’s hands.

Believing this, I also believed that it was the only Open sesame to some hitherto undiscovered drawer or cupboard in which the will might be found. If passed on to Edgar what surety had I that if this will should prove to be inimical to his interests it would ever see the light.

There is a devil in every man’s soul and mine was not silent that night. I wanted to be the first to lay hands on that will and learn its contents. Would I be to blame if I kept this key and made use of it to find what was my own? I would never, never treat Edgar as I felt sure that he would treat me, if this advantage should be his. The house and everything in it had been bequeathed to me. Morally it was all mine and soon would be legally so if I profited by this chance. So I reasoned, hating myself all the while, but keeping up the struggle hour in and hour out.

Perhaps the real cause of my trouble, the furtive sting which kept me on the offensive, was the fear—shall I not say the belief—that the unknown person who had thus betrayed her love and sympathy for Edgar was Orpha. Had I not seen her in my dream with a key lying in her hand? That key was now in mine, but not by her intention. She had meant it for him;—to give him whatever advantage might accrue from its possession—she, whom I had believed to be so just that she would decline to favor him at my expense.

Jealousy! the gnawing fiend that will not let our hearts rest. I might have gathered comfort from the thought that dreams were not be relied upon; that I had no real foundation for my conclusions. The hand-writing was not hers either on packet or letter; and yet the human heart is so constituted that despite all this; despite my faith, my love, the conviction remained, clouding my judgment and thwarting my better instincts.

But morning brought me counsel, and I saw my duty more clearly. To some it may seem that there was but one thing to do, viz: to hand over packet and letter to the police. But I had not the heart to place Orpha in so compromising a position, without making an effort to save her from their reprobation and it might be from their suspicion. I recognized a better course. Edgar must be allowed to open his own mail, but in my presence. I would seek him out as soon as I could hope to find him and, together, we would form some plan by which the truth might be made known without injuring Orpha. If it meant destruction to him, I would help him face it. She must be protected at all hazards. He was man enough still to see that. He had not lost all sense of chivalry in the débâcle which had sapped his courage and made him the wreck I had seen him the night before. But where should I go? Where reach him?

The police knew his whereabouts but as it was my especial wish to avoid the complication of their presence, this afforded me small help. Mr. Miller was my man. He must have Edgar’s address or how could he have made an appointment with him. It was for me to get into communication with this attorney.

Hunting up his name in the telephone book, I found that he lived in Newark. Calling him up I learned that he was at home and willing to talk to me. Thereupon I gave him my name and asked him how his child was, and, on hearing that she was better, inquired when he would be at his office. He named what for me, in my impatience, was a very late hour; and driven to risk all, rather than lose a possible advantage, I told him of the mistake we had made, he in giving and I in receiving a package, etc., belonging, as I now thought to my cousin of the same name, and assuring him that I had not opened either package or letter, asked for my cousin’s address that I might immediately deliver them.

Well, that floored him for the moment, judging from the expletive which reached my ear. No one could be ignorant of what my name stood for with the mass of people. He had blundered most egregiously and seemed to be well aware of it.

But he was a man of the world and soon was explaining and apologizing for his mistake. He had never seen my cousin, and, being in some disorder of mind at the time, had been misled by a certain family resemblance I bore to the other Edgar as he was presented to the public in the newspapers. Would I pardon him, and, above all, ask my cousin to pardon him, winding up by giving me the name of the hotel where Edgar was to be found.

Thanking him, I hung up the receiver, put on my hat and went out.

I had not far to go; the steps I took were few, but my thoughts were many. In what mood should I find my cousin? In what mood should I find myself? Was I doing a foolish thing?—a wrong thing?—a dangerous thing? What would be its upshot?

Knowing that I was simply weakening myself by this anticipatory holding of an interview which might take a very different course from any I was likely to imagine, I yet continued to put questions and answer them in my own mind till my arrival at the hotel I was seeking put a sudden end to them.

And well it might; for now the question was how to get speech with him. I could not send up my name, which as you will remember was the same as his; nor would I send up a false one. Yet I must see him in his room. How was this to be managed? I thought a minute, then acted.

Saying that I was a messenger from Mr. John E. Miller with an important letter for Mr. Bartholomew, I asked if that gentleman was in his room and if so, whether I might go up.

They would see.

While I waited I could count my own heart-beats. The hands of the clock dragged and I wondered how long I could stand this. Finally, the answer came: he was in and would see me.

He had just finished shaving when I entered and for a moment did not turn. When he did and perceived who it was, the oath he uttered showed me what I might expect.

But the resolution with which I faced him calmed him more quickly than I had any reason to anticipate. Evidently, I had not yet found the key to his nature. Edgar at that moment was a mystery to me. But he should not remain so much longer.

Waiting for nothing, I addressed him as brother to brother. The haggard look in his eye had appealed to me. Would to God there was not the reason for it that I feared!

“Edgar, the message I sent up was a correct one. I come as an agent from Mr. John E. Miller with a letter and a package addressed to your name which you will remember is identical with my own. Do you know any such man?”

“I have heard of him.” Why did his eyes fall and his cheek take on a faint flush?

“Have you heard from him?”

“Yes, I got a message from him yesterday, asking me to call at his office, but—but I did not go.”

I wanted to inquire why, but felt it unwise to divert his attention from the main issue for the mere purpose of satisfying my curiosity.

“Then,” I declared, “these articles must belong to you. They were handed to me under the supposition that I was the man to whom they were addressed. But, having some doubts about this myself, I have brought them to you in the same state in which I received them—that is, intact. Edgar, there is a key in this package. I know this to be so because Mr. Miller said so particularly. We are both interested in a key. If this is the one our uncle wore about his neck I should be allowed to inspect it as well as yourself.”

I had expected rebuff—an assertion of rights which might culminate in an open quarrel. But to my amazement the first gleam of light I had discerned on his countenance since the inquest came with that word.

“Give me it,” he cried. “I am willing that you should see me open it.”

I laid down the package before him, but before he had more than touched it, I placed the letter beside it, with the intimation that perhaps it would be better for him to read that first.

In an instant the package was pushed aside and the letter seized upon. The action and the glance he gave it made my heart stand still. The fervor and the devouring eagerness thus displayed was that of a lover.

Had his affection for Orpha already reached the point of passion?

Meanwhile, he had thrust the letter out of sight and taken up the small package in which possibly lay our mutual fate. As he loosened the string and pulled off the wrappers, I bent forward, and in another moment we were gazing at a very thin key of the Yale type he held out between us on his open palm.

“It is according to description,” I said.

To my astonishment he threw it down on the table before which we were standing.

“You are right,” he cried. “I had better read the letter first. It may enlighten us.”

Walking off to a window, he slipped behind a curtain and for a few minutes the earth for me stood still. When he reappeared, it was with the air and presence of the old Edgar, a little worse for the dissipation of the last few weeks, but master of himself and master of others,—relieved, happy, almost triumphant.

“It was found by Orpha,” he calmly announced. (It was not like him to be calm in a crisis like this.) “Found in a flower-pot which had been in Uncle’s room at the time of his death. She had carried it to hers and night before last, while trying to place it on a shelf, it had fallen from her hands to the floor, breaking apart and scattering the earth in every direction. Amid this débris lay the key with the chain falling loose from it. There is no doubt that it is the one we have been looking for; hidden there by a sick man in a moment of hallucination. It may lead to the will—it may lead to nothing. When shall we go?”

“Go?”

“To C——. We must follow up this clew. Somewhere in that room we shall find the aperture this key will fit.”

“Do you mean for us to go together?” I had a sensation of pleasure in spite of the reaction in my spirits caused by Edgar’s manner.

With an unexpected earnestness, he seized me by the arm and, holding me firmly, surveyed me inquiringly. Then with a peculiar twitch of his lips and a sudden loosening of his hand he replied with a short:

“I do.”

“Then let us go as quickly as the next train will take us.”

He nodded, and, lifting the key, put it in his pocket.

Ungenerously, perhaps, certainly quite foolishly, I wished he had allowed me to put it in mine.

We went out together. I did not mean to leave him by himself for an instant, now that he had that precious key on his person. I had had one lesson and that was enough. In coming down the stairs, he had preceded me, which was desirable perhaps, but it had its disadvantages as I perceived when on reaching the ground floor, we passed by a small reception-room in which a bright wood-fire was burning. For with a deftness altogether natural to him he managed to slip ahead of me and enter that room just as a noisy, pushing group of incoming guests swept in between us, cutting off my view. When I saw him again, he was coming from the fireplace inside, where the sudden blaze shooting up showed what had become of the letter which undoubtedly it would have been very much to my advantage to have seen.

But who can say? Not I. It was gone; and there was no help for it. Another warning for me to be careful, and one which I should not have needed, as I seemed to see in the eye of a man standing near us as we two came together again on our way to the desk.

“There’s a fellow ready to aid me in my work, or to hinder according to his discretion,” I inwardly commented.

But if so, and if he followed us and noted our several preparations before taking the train, he did it like an expert, for I do not remember running upon him again.

The chief part which I took in these preparations was the sending of two telegrams; one to the office and one to Inspector Redding in C——. Edgar did not send any. The former was a notification of absence; the latter, a simple announcement that I was returning to C—— and on what train to expect me. No word about the key. Possibly he already knew as much about it as I did.

Edgar continued to surprise me. On our arrival he showed gratification rather than displeasure at encountering the Inspector at the station.

“Here’s luck,” he cheerfully exclaimed. “This will save me a stop at Headquarters. I hear that my cousin has found a key, presumably the one for which we have all been searching. Quenton and myself are here to see if we cannot find a keyhole to fit it. Any objections, Inspector?”

His old manner, but a little over-emphasized. I looked to see if the Inspector noticed this, but he was a man so quiet in his ways that it would take one as astute as himself to read anything from his looks.

Meantime he was saying:

“That’s already been tried. We’ve been all the morning at it. But if you have any new ideas on the subject I am willing to accompany you back to the house.”

The astonishment this caused me was hard to conceal. How could they have made the trial spoken of when the key necessary for it was at that very moment in Edgar’s pocket? But I remembered the last word he had said to me before leaving the train, “If you love me—if you love yourself—above all, if you love Orpha, allow me to run this business in my own way;” and held myself back, willing enough to test his way and see if it were a good one.

“I don’t know as I have any new ideas,” Edgar protested. “I fear I exhausted all my ideas, new and old, before I went to New York. However, if you—” and here he drew the Inspector aside and had a few earnest words with him, while I stood by in a daze.

The end of it all was that we went one way and the Inspector another, with but few more words said and only one look given that conveyed any message and that was to me. It came from the Inspector and conveyed to me the meaning, whether true or false, that he was leaving this matter in my hands.

And Edgar thought it was in his!

One incident more and I will take you with me to Quenton Court. As we, that is, Edgar and myself, turned to go down the street, he remarked in a natural but perfectly casual manner:

“Orpha has the key.”

As the Inspector was just behind us on his way to the curb, I perceived that this sentence was meant for his ear rather than for mine and let it pass till we were well out of hearing when I asked somewhat curtly:

“What do you mean by that? What has your whole conduct meant? You have the key—”

“Quenton, do you want the police hanging over us while we potter all over that room, trying all sorts of ridiculous experiments in our search for an elusive keyhole? Orpha has a key but not the right one. That is in my pocket, as you know.”

At this I stopped him short, right there in the street. We were not far from Quenton Court, but much as I longed to enter its doors again I was determined not to do so till I had had it out with this man.

“Edgar, do you mean to tell me that Orpha has lent herself to this deception?”

“Deception? I call it only proper circumspection. She knew what this key meant to me—to you—to herself. Why should she give up anything so precious into hands of whose consequent action she could form no opinion. I admire her for her spirit. I love—” He stopped short with an apologetic shrug. “Pardon me, Quenton, I don’t mean to be disagreeable.” Then, forcing me on, he added feverishly, “Leave it to me. Leave Orpha to me. I do not say permanently—that depends—but for the present. I’ll see this thing through and with great spirit. You will be satisfied. I’m a better friend to you than you think. Will you come?”

“Yes, I will come. But, Edgar, I promise you this. As soon as I find myself in Orpha’s presence I am going to ask her whether she realizes what effect this deception played upon the police may have upon us all.”

“You will not.” For the first and only time in all our intercourse a dangerous gleam shot from his mild blue eye. “That is,” he made haste to add with a more conciliatory aspect, “you will not wish to do so when I tell you that whatever feelings of distrust or jealous fear I once cherished towards you are gone. Now I have confidence in your word and in the disinterestedness of your attentions to our uncle. You have expressed a wish that we should be friends. I am ready, Quenton. Your conduct for the last two days has endeared you to me. Will you take my hand?”

The old Edgar now, without any question or exaggeration. The insouciant, the appealing, the fascinating youth, the child of happy fortunes! I did not trust him, but my heart went out to him in spite of all the past and of a future it took all my courage to face, and I took his hand.

Haines’ welcome to us at the front door was a study in character which I left to a later hour to thoroughly enjoy.

The sudden flush which rose to his lank cheek gave evidence to his surprise. The formal bow and respectful greeting, to the command he had over it. Had one of us appeared alone, there would have been no surprise, only the formal greeting. But to see us together was enough to stir the blood of even one who had been for years under the discipline of Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, the one and only.

Edgar did not notice it but stepped in with an air which left nothing for me to display in the way of self-assertion. I think at that moment as he stood in face of the unrivalled beauties of the leaping fountain against its Moorish background he felt himself as much the master of it all as though he already had in his hand the will he was making this final attempt to discover. So rapidly could this man of quick impulses pile glorious hope on hope and soar into the empyrean at the least turn of fate.

As I was watching him I heard a little moan. It came from the stairway. Alarmed, for the voice was Orpha’s, we both turned quickly. She was looking at us from one of the arches, her figure swaying, eyes wide with alarm. She, too, had felt the shock of seeing us together.

Above, in strong contrast to her pathetic figure, Lucy Colfax stood waiting, elegant in pose and attire, but altogether unmoved in face and bearing and, as I thought, quite without feeling, till I saw her suddenly step down and throw her arm about Orpha. Perhaps it was not possible for her naturally composed features to change except under heart-breaking emotions. But it was not upon her, interesting as she was at that moment, that my glances lingered, but upon Orpha who had rapidly regained her poise and was now on her way down.

We met her as she stepped down into the court and I for one with a smile. All my love and all my confidence had returned at the sight of her face, which, if troubled, had never looked more ingenuous.

“What does this mean?” she asked, a little tremulously, but with a growing courage beaming in her eye. “Why are you both here! Do the police know?”

“Yes, and approve,” Edgar assured her. “We have come to test the key which was such a failure in their hands.” And in his lordly way he took possession of her, leading her across the court to the library, leaving me to follow with Miss Colfax, who gave me her first smile as she graciously consented to join me. He had got the better of me at the start; but in my determination that he should not retain this advantage, I proceeded to emulate the sang froid of the glowing creature at my side whom I had once seen with her soul bared in a passionate parting from the man she loved, and who now, in close proximity to that man moving ahead of her with the woman he hoped to claim, walked like a goddess in anticipation of a marriage which might bring her prestige but no romance.

What we said when we were all four collected in the library is immaterial. It was very near the dinner hour and after a hurried consultation as to the manner and time of the search we had come there to undertake, Edgar and I went upstairs, each to our several rooms to prepare for the meal awaiting us, as if no interval of absence had occurred and we were still occupants of the house.

I had rather not have walked down that third story hall up to and past the cozy corner. I did not want to see Wealthy’s rigid figure rise from her accustomed seat, or hear the well-remembered voices of the maids float up the spiral staircase. But I might have spared myself these anticipations. I met nobody. That end of the hall was silent. It was even cold; like my heart lying so heavily in my despairing breast.

A gloomy evening. I am speaking of its physical aspects. A lowering sky, a pelting rain with a wind that drove the lurching branches of the closely encircling trees against windows reeking with wet.

Every lamp in the electroliers from the ground floor to the top was alight. Edgar would have it so. As he swung into Uncle’s room, that too leaped vividly into view, under his hand. It was as of old; every disturbed thing had been restored to order; the bed, the picture; ah, the picture! the winged chair with its infinite memories, all stood in their proper places. Had Uncle been entering instead of ourselves, he would have found everything as he was accustomed to see it. Could it be that he was there, unseen, impalpable but strong as ever in love and purpose?

We were gathered at the foot of the bed.

“Let me have the key, Orpha.”

She put up her hand to her neck and then I perceived there the encircling glint of a very finely linked chain. As she drew this up a key came with it. As she allowed this to fall to the full length of the chain, it became evident that the latter was long enough to be passed over her head without unclasping. But it was with an indifferent eye I watched her do this and hand key and chain to Edgar, for a thought warm with recovered joy had come to me that had she not believed the key thus cherished to be the very one worn by her father she would never have placed it thus over her heart.

I think Edgar must have recognized my thought from the look he cast me as he drew the key from the chain and laid the latter on the table standing in its corner by the fire-place. Instantly I recognized his purpose; and watched his elbows for what I knew would surely take place before he turned around again. Always an adept at legerdemain it was a simple thing for him to substitute the key he had brought from New York for the one he had just received from Orpha; and in a moment he had done this and was facing us as before, altogether his most interesting self, ready for action and primed to succeed.

“Do you know,” he began, taking us all in with one sweeping glance from his proud eye, “I have felt for years, though I have never spoken of it, that Uncle had some place of concealment in this room inaccessible to anybody but himself. Papers which had not been sent to the bank and had not been put away in his desk would disappear between night and morning only to come into view again when wanted, and this without any explanation. I used to imagine that he hid these things in the drawer at the back of his bed, but I soon found out that this was not so, and, losing all interest in the matter, scarcely gave it another thought. But now its importance has become manifest; and what we must look for is a crack in or out of this room, along which we can slip the point of this key. It will find its home somewhere.” And he began to look about him.

I remained where I was but missed not one of his movements whether of eye or hand. The girls, on the contrary, followed him step by step, Lucy with an air of polite interest and Orpha eagerly if not hopefully. But the cracks were few in that carefully paneled room, and the moments sped by without apparent accomplishment. As Edgar’s spirits began to give way before repeated disappointment, I asked him to grant me a momentary trial with the key.

“I have an idea.”

He passed it over to me, without demur. Indeed, with some relief.

It was the first time I had held it in my hand and a thrill ran through me at the contact. Was my idea a good one?

“Uncle was a large man and tall. He wore the chain about his neck. The chain is long; I doubt if he found it necessary to take off the key in using it. The crack, as you call it, must have been within easy reach of his hand. Let us see.”

Taking up the chain, I ran it through the hole in the end of the key and snapping the clasp, threw the chain over my head. As I did so, I chanced to be looking at Orpha. The change in her expression was notable. With eyes fixed on the key dangling at my breast, the color which had enlivened her checks slowly died out, leaving her pale and slightly distraught as though she were struggling to revive some memory or settle some question she did not quite understand.

“Let me think,” she murmured dreamily. “Let me think.”

And we, lost in our own wonder, watched her as the color came creeping back to her cheeks, and order took place in her thoughts, and with hands suddenly pressed against her eyes, she cried:

“I see it all again. My father, with that chain hanging just so over his coat. I am in his arms—a hole—all dark—dark. He draws my head down—he stoops.... The rest is gone from me. I can remember nothing further.”

Edgar stared. Lucy glanced vaguely about the walls. Orpha dropped her hands and her glance flew to my face and not to the key this time—when with a crash! a burst of wind rushed upon the house, shaking the windows blinded with wet, and ripping a branch from the tree whose huge bulk nestled against the western wall.

They shuddered, but not I. I was thinking as I had never thought before. Memories of things said, of things done, were coming back to match the broken and imperfect ones of my confused darling. My reasoning faculties are not of the best but I used what I had in formulating the theory which was fast taking on the proportions of a settled conviction. When I saw that I had them all expectant, I spoke. I had to raise my voice a little for the storm just then was at its height.

“What Orpha has said”—so I began—“has recalled the surprise which I felt on first entering this room. To you who have been brought up in it, its peculiarities have so long been accepted by you as a matter of course that you are blind to the impression they make on a stranger. Look at this wall.”

I laid my hand on the one running parallel with the main hall—the one in which was sunk the alcove holding the head of the bed.

“You are used to the two passageways connecting the wall of this room with that of the hall where the staircase runs down to the story below. You have not asked why this should be in a mansion so wonderful in its proportions and its finish, or if you have, you have accounted for it by the fact that a new house with new walls had been joined to an old one, whose wall was allowed to stand, thus necessitating little oddities in construction which, on the whole, were interesting and added to the quaintness of the interior. But what of the space between those two walls? It cannot have been filled. If I see right and calculate right there must run from here down to the second floor, if no further, an empty space less than one yard in width, blocked from sight by the wall of this room, by that of the hall and”—here I pulled open the closet door—“by that of this closet at one end and by the wall holding the medicine cabinet at the other. Isn’t that so, Edgar? Has my imagination run away with me; or is my conclusion a reasonable one?”

“It—it looks that way,” he stammered; “but—but why—”

“Ah! the why is another matter. That may be buried in Uncle’s grave. It is the fact I want to impress upon you that there is a place somewhere near us, a place dark and narrow, down which Orpha, when a child, was once carried and which if we can reach it will open up for us the solution of where Uncle used to hide the papers which, according to Edgar, never went to the bank and not into any of the drawers which this room contains.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Orpha, “if I could only remember! But all is blank except what I have already told you. The dark—my father stooping—and a box—yes, I saw a box—he laid my hand upon it—but where or why I cannot say. Only, there is no suggestion of fear in these strange, elusive memories. Rather one of happiness,—of love,—of a soft peace which was like a blessing. What does it all mean? You have got us thus far, take us further.”

“I will try.” But I hesitated over what I had to say next. I was risking something. But it could not be helped. It was to be all or nothing with me. I must speak, whatever the result.

“Orpha, did you ever think, or you, Edgar, that there was some grain of truth in the tradition that this house held a presence never seen but sometimes felt?”

Orpha started, and, gripping Edgar by the arm, stood thus, a figure of amazement and dawning comprehension. Edgar, whom I had always looked upon as a man of most vivid imagination, appeared on the contrary to lack the power—even the wish to follow me into this field of suggestion.

“So, that’s coming in,” he exclaimed in a tone of open irony.

“Yes,” I answered, “that is coming in; for I have had my own experience with this so-called Presence. I was coming up the stairs outside one night when I felt—Well, a little peculiar and knew that the experience of which I had heard others speak was about to be mine. But when it came, it came with a difference. I heard a cough. A sight—a sound may be supernatural,—that is from the romanticist’s standpoint,—but not a cough. I told Uncle about it once and I am sure he flushed. Edgar, there is a second staircase between these walls, and the Presence was Uncle.”

“It may be.” His tone was hearty; he seemed glad to be convinced. “And if so,” he added, with a gesture towards the key hanging over my breast, “you have the means there of reaching it. How do you propose to go about it?”

“There is but one possible way. This closet provides that. Somewhere along these shelves, among these shoes and hats we shall find the narrow slit this key will fit.”

Turning the bulb in the square of ceiling above me, the closet was flooded with light. When they were all in, the narrow space was filled and I was enabled to correct an impression I had previously formed. Miss Colfax was so near me I could hear her pulses beat. For all her lofty bearing she was as eager and interested as any one could be whose fortunes were not directly wrapped up in the discoveries of the next few minutes.

Calling attention to a molding running along the edge of one of the shelves, I observed quite boldly: “To my eyes there is a line there dark enough to indicate the presence of something like a slit. Let us see.” And lifting the key from my breast I ran its end along the line I had pointed out till suddenly it came to a stop, entered, and, yielding to the turn I gave it, moved the lock cunningly hidden beyond and the whole series of shelves swung back, revealing an opening into which we were very nearly precipitated in our hurry and surprise.

Recovering our equilibrium, we stood with fascinated gaze fixed on what we beheld slanting away into the darkness of this gap between two walls.

A series of iron steps with a railing on one side—ancient of make, but still serviceable, offered us a means of descent into depths which the light from the closet ceiling, strong as it was, did not entirely penetrate.

“Will you go down?” I asked Edgar; “or shall I? The ladies had better remain where they are.”

I was quite confident what his answer would be and I was not disappointed.

“I will go down, of course. You can follow if you wish: Lucy, Orpha, not one step after me, do you hear?”

His tone and attitude were masterful; and instinctively they shrank back. But my anxiety for their safety was equal to his. So I added my appeal.

“You will do as Edgar says,” I prayed. “We must go down, both of us; but you will remain here?”

“Unless you call us.”

“Unless you are gone too long.”

“I will not be gone too long.” And I hurried down, Edgar having got the start of me by several steps.

As I went, I noticed what settled a question which had risen in my mind since I became assured of the existence of this secret stairway.

My uncle was an unusually tall man. How could he with so many inches to his credit manage to pass under the bridge between the two walls made by the flooring of the intervening alcove. It must have caused effort—an extraordinary effort for a man so weakened, so near to being moribund. But I saw that it could be done if he had the strength and knew just when to bend his body forward, for the incline of the stairway was rapid and moreover began much further back from the alcove than I had supposed in measuring the distance with my eye. Indeed the whole construction, as I noted it in my hasty descent, was a remarkable piece of masonry built by an expert with the evident intention of defying detection except by one as knowing as himself. The wall of the inn, which had been a wooden structure, had been reënforced by a brick one into which was sunk the beams of the various bridges upholding the passage-ways and the floor of the alcove already alluded to. Hundreds of dollars must have been spent in perfecting this arrangement, but why and to what end was a question which did not then disturb me, for the immediate mystery of what we should find below was sufficiently engrossing to drive all lesser subjects from my mind.

Meanwhile Edgar had reached a small wooden platform backed by a wall which cut off all further descent, and was calling up for more light. As the stairs, narrowed by the brick reënforcement of which I have spoken, were barely wide enough to allow the passage down of a goodly sized man, I could not but see that it was necessary for me to remove myself from his line of vision for him to get the light he wanted. So with a bound or two I cleared the way and stood in a sort of demi-glow at his side.

A bare wall in front,—nothing there, and nothing at the right; but on the left an old-fashioned box clamped to the wall at the height of a man’s shoulder. It was indeed an ancient box, and stained brown with dust and mold. There was a lid to it. This lid was half wrenched away and hung over at one side, leaving the box open. From the top of this box protruded the folded ends of what looked like a legal document.

As our eyes simultaneously fell on this, we each made a movement and our glances clashed. Then a long deep breath from him was answered by the same from my own chest heaving to suffocation.

“We have found it,” he muttered, choking; and reached out his hand.

But I was quicker than he.

“Wait,” said I, pulling him back. “Before either of us touch it, listen to me. If that is the will we are looking for and if it makes you the master here, I here swear to recognize your rights instantly and without question. There will be no legal procedure and no unpleasantness so far as I am concerned.”

With this I loosened my clasp.

Would he respond with a like promise? No, he could not. It was not in his nature to do so. He tried,—I felt him make the struggle, but all that resulted were some choked words in recognition of my generosity, followed by a quick seizure of the paper and a rush up the first half dozen steps. But there he stopped, his silhouette against the light making a picture stamped indelibly upon my memory.

“I’ve got it; I’ve got it!” he shouted to those above, waving the paper over his head in a triumph almost delirious.

I could not see their faces, but I heard two gasping cries and dashed up, overtaking him just as he emerged into the full light.

He was unfolding the document, all eagerness and anticipatory delight. He could not wait to reach the room itself; he could not wait even to reach the closet; he must see now—at once—while the woman he loved was within reach. A minute lost was so much stolen from the coming rapture.

I was at his shoulder eager to know my own fate, as his trembling fingers threw the covering leaf back. I knew where to look—I endeavored to forget everything but the spot where the name should be,—the name which would tell all; I wished to see it first. I wished—

A cloud came over me, but through it as if the words blazed beyond the power of any mist to hide them I read:

Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, son of James—

Myself!

He had not seen it yet. But he would. In one more moment he would. I waited for his cry; but as it delayed, I reached over and put my finger on the word James. Then I drew back, steadying myself by a clutch on the rail running up at my side.

Slowly he took it in. Slowly he turned and gave me one look; then with a moan, rather than a cry he flung himself up and dashing by the two girls who had started back at his wild aspect, threw himself into the great room where he fell headlong to the floor.

I stood back while they ministered to him. He had not fainted for I heard him now and then cry out, “Wealthy! call Wealthy.” And this they finally did. As Orpha passed me on her way to ring the bell communicating with the cozy corner, I saw her full face for the first time since Edgar’s action had told her the truth. It was pale, but as I looked the blush came and as I looked again it was gone. I felt myself reeling a trifle, and seeing the will lying on the floor where he had dropped it, I lifted it up and folding it anew, put it in my pocket. Then I walked away, wondering at the silence, for even the elements warring without had their hushed moments, and creaking panes and wrestling boughs no longer spoke of tumult.

In this instant of quiet we heard a knock. Wealthy was at the door.

As Orpha stepped to unlock it, I turned again. Edgar had leaped to his feet, his eyes blazing, all his features working in rage. Lucy had withdrawn into the background, the only composed one amongst us. As the old nurse entered Edgar advanced to meet her.

“I am ill,” he began. “Let me take your arm to my room. I have no further rights here unless it is a night’s lodging.” Here he turned towards me with a sarcastic bow. “There is your master,” he added, indicating me with one hand as he reached with the other for her arm. “The will has been found. He has it in his pocket. By that you may know what it does for him and”—his voice falling—“what it does for me.”

But his mood changed before he reached the door. With a quick twist of his body he took us all again within the sweep of his vision. “But don’t any of you think that I am going to yield my rights without a struggle. I am no hypocrite. I do not say to my cousin, ‘No litigation for me.’ I dare him to meet me without gloves in an open fight. He knew that the will taken from the envelope and hidden in the box below there was the one favoring himself. How did he know it?”

For a moment I forebore to answer. Evil passions raged within me. The Devil himself seemed whispering in my ear; then I remembered Uncle’s own admonition and I turned and looked up at Orpha’s picture and that old hour came back and my heart softened and, advancing towards him, I replied:

“I did not know it; but I felt confident of it because our uncle told me what to expect and I trusted him.”

“You will never be master here,” stormed Edgar, livid with fury.

“Yes, I will,” I answered mildly, “for this night.”

Wealthy drew him away. It would have been hard to tell which was trembling the most, he or the nurse.

They left the door open. I was glad of this. I would have been gladder if the whole household had come trooping in. Orpha standing silent by the great bed; Lucy drawn up against my uncle’s old chair—and I wishing the winds would blow and the trees crack,—anything to break the deathly quiet in which we could hear the footfalls of those two disappearing up the hall.

Lucy, marking my trouble, was the first to move.

“I am no longer needed here,” she said almost sweetly. “Orpha, if you want to talk, come to me in my room.”

At that I started forward. “We will all go.” And I closed the closet door and seeing a key in the lock, turned it and, drawing it out, handed it to Orpha, together with the one hanging from my neck.

“They are yours,” I said; but did not meet her eyes or touch her hand. “Go with Lucy,” I added, “and sleep; I pray you sleep. You have suffered enough for one night.”

I felt her leave me; felt every light step she took through the passage-way press in anguish upon my heart. Then the storm rushed upon us again and amid its turmoil I shut the door, dropped the hangings and sat down with bursting heart and throbbing head before her picture.

Another night of sleeplessness in this house which I had once entered in such gayety of spirits.

At an early hour I summoned Haines. He came quickly; he had heard the news.

But I ignored this fact, apparent as it was.

“Haines,” said I, “you see me here. That is because my uncle’s will has been found which grants me the right to give orders from this room. But I shall not abuse the devotion you feel for my cousin. I have only one order to give and that will please rather than disturb you. My cousin, Mr. Edgar, is not satisfied with things as they are. He will contest this will; he has told me so. This being so, I shall await events elsewhere. You have a mistress. See that she is well cared for and that everything goes on as it should. As for myself, do not look for me at breakfast. I am going to the hotel; only see that this note is delivered to Miss Bartholomew before she leaves her room. Good-by, Haines; trust me.”

He did not know what to say; or what to do. He looked from me to the note which he held, and from the note back to me. I thought that his lip quivered. Taking pity on his indecision, I spoke up more cheerfully and asked him if he would be good enough to get my bag for me from my old little room, and as he turned in evident relief to do this, I started down the stairs, presently followed by him to the front door, where he helped me on with my coat and handed me my hat. He wanted me to wait for the car, but I refused, acceding only to his request that I would allow him to send a boy to the hotel with my bag. As I passed down the walk I noticed that he closed the door very slowly.

The few lines I had left for Orpha were very simple, though they came from my heart. I merely wrote:

BOOK IV LOVE — LI — LII — LIII — LIV — LV — LVI — LVII — LVIII — LIX — LX — LXI — LXII — LXIII — LXIV — LXV — LXVI — LXVII — LXVIII — LXIX — LXX — LXXI — LXXII — LXXIII

By night the whole town rang with the extraordinary news that I have just endeavored to convey to you. I had visited Mr. Jackson at his office and had a rather serious talk with the Inspector at the Police Station while I myself had many visitors, to all of whom I excused myself with the exception of one. That one was an elderly man who had in his possession an old picture of the inn which had been incorporated in the Bartholomew mansion. He offered to show it to me. I could not resist seeing it, so I ordered him sent up to my room.

At the first glimpse I got of this picture I understood much that I had been doubtful about before. The eighteen or twenty steps we had discovered leading down from Uncle’s closet, were but the upper portion of the long flight originally running up from the ground to the large hall where entertainments had been given. The platform where we had found the box made the only break in the descent. This was on a level with the floor of the second story of the inn and from certain indications visible in this old print I judged that it acted as the threshold of a door opening into this story, just as the upper one now represented by the floor of Uncle’s closet opened into the great hall. The remaining portions of the building had been so disguised and added to by the clever architect, that only from the picture I was now studying could one see what it had originally been.

I thanked the man and seeing that for a consideration he was willing to part with this picture, made myself master of it at once, wishing to show it to Orpha.

Orpha! Would I hear from her? Was my letter to her little more than a pebble dropped into a bottomless well?

I tried not to think of her. How could I with the future rising before me an absolutely blank wall? Both the Inspector and Mr. Jackson advised me to keep very quiet—as I certainly wished to do—and make no move till the will had been offered for probate and the surrogate’s decision obtained. The complications were great; time alone would straighten them out. The murder charge not made as yet but liable to fall any day like a thunderbolt on one or the other of us—Edgar’s violent character hidden under an exterior so delightful—the embarrassing position of Orpha—all combined to make it wise for me to walk softly and leave my affairs to their sole manipulation. I was willing, but—

And instantly I became more than willing. A note was handed in. It was from Orpha and vied with mine in its simplicity.

During the days which now passed I talked to no one, but I read with avidity what was said in the various journals of the discovery of the will under the bizarre circumstances I have already related, and consequently was quite aware that public opinion was as much divided over what bearing this latest phase had upon the main issue as it had been over the main issue itself and the various mystifying events attending it.

Gaining advocates in one quarter, I lost them in another and my heart frequently stood still with dismay as I realized the strength of the prejudice which shut me away from the sympathy and understanding of my fellow creatures.

I was waiting with all the courage possible for some strong and decisive move to be made by Edgar or his lawyers, when the news came that he was ill. Greatly distressed by this, I begged Mr. Jackson to procure for me such particulars as he could gather of the exact condition of things at Quenton Court. He did so and by evening I had learned that Edgar’s illness dated from the night of our finding the will. That an attempt had been made to keep this fact from the public, but it had gradually leaked out and with it the rumor that nobody but those in attendance on him had been allowed to enter his part of the house, though no mention of contagion had been made nor any signs perceived of its being apprehended. That Orpha was in great distress because she was included amongst those debarred from the sick room—so distressed that she braved the displeasure of doctor and nurse and crept up to his door only to hear him shouting in delirium. That some of the servants wanted to leave, not so much because the house seemed fated but because they had come to fear the woman Wealthy, who had changed very markedly during these days of anxious nursing. She could not be got to speak, hardly to eat. When she came down into the kitchen as she was obliged to do at times, it was not as in the old days when she brought with her cheer and pleasant fellowship to them all. She brought nothing now but silence and a face contorted from its usual kindly expression into one to frighten any but the most callous or the most ignorant.

For the last twenty-four hours Edgar had given signs of improvement, but Wealthy had looked worse. She seemed to dread the time when he would be out of her hands.

All this had come to Mr. Jackson from private sources, but he assured me that he had no reason to doubt its truth.

Troubled, and fearing I scarcely knew what, I had another of my sleepless nights. Nor was I quite myself all the next day till at nightfall I was called to the telephone and heard Orpha’s voice in anxious appeal begging me to come to her.

“Wealthy is so strange that we none of us know what to do with her. Edgar is better, but she won’t allow any of us in his room, though I think some one of us ought to see him. She says the doctor is on her side; that she is only fulfilling his orders, and I’m afraid this is so, for when I telephoned him an hour ago he told me not to worry, that in a few days we could see him, but that just now it was better for him to see nobody whose presence would remind him of his troubles. The doctor was very kind, but not quite natural—not quite like his old self, and—and I’m frightened. There is certainly something very wrong going on in this house; even the servants feel it, and say that the master ought to be here if only to get the truth out of Wealthy.”

The master! Dear heart, how little she knew! how little any of us knew how much we should have to go through before either Edgar or myself could assume that rôle. But I could assume that of her friend and protector, and so with a good conscience I promised to go to her at once.

But I would not do this without notifying the Inspector. A premonition that we were at a turn in the twisted path we were all treading which might offer me a problem which it would be beyond my powers to handle under present auspices, deterred me. So I telephoned to Headquarters that I was going to make a call at Quenton Court; after which, I proceeded through the well-known streets to the home of my heart and of Orpha.

I knew from the relieved expression with which Haines greeted me that Orpha had not exaggerated the situation.

He, however, said nothing beyond the formal announcement that Miss Bartholomew awaited me in the library; and there I presently found her. She was not alone (had I expected her to be?), but the lady I saw sitting by the fire was not Miss Colfax this time but the elderly relative of whom I have previously spoken.

Oh, the peace and quiet look of trust which shone in Orpha’s eyes as she laid her hand in mine. It gave me strength to withhold my lips from the hand I had not touched in many, many weeks; to face her with a smile, though my heart was sad to bursting; to face anything which might lie before us with not only consideration for her but for him who ever held his own in the background of my mind as the possible master of all I saw here, if not of Orpha.

I had noticed that Haines, after ushering me into the library had remained in the court; and so I was in a degree prepared for Orpha’s first words.

“There is something Haines wants to show you. It will give you a better idea of our trouble than anything I can say. Will you go up with him quietly to—to the floor where—”

“I will go anywhere you wish,” I broke in, in my anxiety to save her distress. “Will you go, too, or am I to go up with him alone?”

“Alone, and—and by the rear stairs. Do you mind? You will understand when you are near your old room.”

“Anything you wish,” I repeated; and conscious of Haines’ impatience, I joined him without delay.

We went up to the second floor by the Moorish staircase, but when there, traversed the hall to the rear which, with one exception, is a replica of the one above. It had no cozy corner, but there was the same turn to the right leading to the little winding stairway which I knew so well.

As we reached the foot of this, Haines whispered:

“I hope you will pardon me, sir, for taking you this way and for asking you to wait in the small hall overhead till I beckon you to come on. We don’t want to surprise any one, or to be surprised, do you see, sir?” And, with a quick, light movement, he sprang ahead, beckoning me to follow.

There was not much light. Only one bulb had been turned on in the third story hall, and that was at the far end. As I reached the top of the little staircase and moved forward far enough to see down to the bend leading away from the cozy corner, I could only dimly discern Haines’ figure between me and the faintly illuminated wall beyond. He seemed to be standing quietly and without any movement till suddenly I saw his arm go up, and realizing that I was wanted, I stepped softly forward and before I knew it was ensconced in Wealthy’s old place behind the screen, with just enough separation between its central leaves for me to see through.

Haines was at my side, but he said nothing, only slightly touched my elbow as if to bid me take the look thus offered me.

And I did, not knowing what to expect. Would it be Edgar I should see? Or would it be Wealthy?

It was Wealthy. She was standing at the door of Edgar’s bedroom, with her head bent forward, listening. As I stared uncomprehendingly at her figure, her head rose and she began to pace up and down before his door, her hands clenched, her arms held rigid at her side, her face contorted, her mind in torture. Was she sane? I turned towards Haines for explanation.

“Like that all the time she is not in the room with him,” he whispered. “Walking, walking, and sometimes muttering, but most often not.”

“Does the doctor know?”

“She is not like this when he comes.”

“You should tell him.”

“We have tried to; but you have to see her.”

“How long has she been like this?”

“Only so bad as this since noon. Miss Orpha is afeard of her, and there being nobody here but Mrs. Ferris, I advised her to send for you to comfort her a bit. I thought Dr. Cameron might heed what you said, sir. He thinks us just foolish.”

“Miss Colfax? Where is she?”

“Gone to New York to buy her wedding-clothes.”

“When did she go?”

“To-day, sir.”

I looked back at Wealthy. She was again bending at Edgar’s door, listening.

“Is his case so bad? Is this emotion all for him? Is she afraid he will die?”

“No; he is better.”

“But still delirious?”

“By spells.”

“Has she no one to help her? Does she remain near him night as well as day, without rest and without change?”

“She has a helper.”

“Ah! Who?”

“A young girl, sir, but she—”

“Well, Haines?”

“Is in affliction, too. She is deaf—and she is dumb; a deaf mute, sir.”

“Haines!”

“The truth, sir. Miss Wealthy would have no other. They get along together somehow; but the girl cannot speak a word.”

“Nor hear?”

“Not a thing.”

“And the doctor?”

“He brought her here himself.”

The truth was evident. Delirium has its revelations. If one should listen where I saw Wealthy listening, the mystery enveloping us all might be cleared. Was it for me to do this? No, a thousand times, no. The idea horrified me. But I could not leave matters where they were. Wealthy might develop mania. For as I stood there watching her she suddenly started upright again, presenting a picture of heart-rending grief,—wringing her hands and sobbing heavily without the relief of tears.

She had hitherto remained at the far end of the hall close by Edgar’s rooms; but now she turned and began walking slowly in our direction.

“She is coming here. You know her room is just back of this,” whispered Haines.

I took a sudden resolution. Bidding him to stay where he was, I took a few steps forward and pulled the chain of the large electrolier which lighted this portion of the hall.

She started; stopping short, her eyes opening wide and staring glassily as they met mine. Then her hands went up and covered her face while her large and sturdy form swayed dizzily till I feared she would fall.

“Wealthy!” I cried, advancing hurriedly to her side. “Are you ill? Is my presence so disagreeable to you? Why do you look at me like this?”

She broke her silence with a gasp.

“Because—because”—she moaned—“I—I—” With a despairing cry, she grasped me by the arm. “Let us go somewhere and talk. I cannot keep my secret any longer. I—I don’t know what to do? I tried to injure you—I have injured you, but I never meant to injure Miss Orpha. Will—will you listen?”

“Yes, I will listen and with sympathy. But where shall we go? Into my uncle’s room?”

“No, no.” She shrank back in sick distaste. “Into my little cozy corner.”

“That is too far from Edgar’s room,” I protested. “He is alone, is he not?”

“Yes, yes; but he is sleeping. He is well enough for me to leave him for a little while. I cannot talk in the open hall.”

I felt that I was in a dilemma. She must not know of Haines’ near presence or she would not open her mouth. I thought of my own room, then of Clarke’s, but I dared not run the risk of her passing the cozy corner lest she might for some reason pause and look in. Impulsively, I made a bold suggestion.

“Edgar has two rooms. Let us go into his den; you will be near him and what is better, we shall be undisturbed.”

Her mouth opened, but she said nothing; she was wholly taken aback. Then some thought came which changed her whole aspect. She brightened with some fierce resolve and, acceding to my request, led me quickly down the hall.

At the furtherest door of all she stopped; it was the door from which Edgar had looked out on that fatal night to see if I were still lingering in the hall opposite. It had been dark there then; it was bright enough now.

With finger on lip she waited for an instant while she listened for any sounds from within. There were none. With a firm but quiet turning of the knob, she opened the door and motioned me to enter. The room was perfectly dark; but only for an instant. She had crossed the floor while I was feeling my way, and opening the door communicating with the bedroom, allowed the light from within to permeate the room where I stood. As it was heavily shaded, the result was what one might call a visible gloom, through which I saw her figure in a silhouette of rigid outline, so tense had she become under the influence of this daring undertaking.

Next moment I felt her hand on my arm, and in another, her voice in my ear. This is what she said:

“I thought he loved Orpha. Before God I thought he loved her as much as he loved fortune. Had I not, I would have let things alone and given you your full chance. But—but—listen.”

Edgar was stirring in the adjoining room, throwing his arms about and muttering words which soon took on emphasis and I heard:

“Lucy! Lucy! how could I help it? I had to do what Uncle said. Every one had to. But you are my only love, you! you!”

As these words subsided into moans, and moans into silence, I felt my arm gripped.

“That’s what’s killing me,” was breathed again into my ears. “I did what I did and all for this. He will fight for the money but not to spend on Orpha, and you, you love her. We all know that now.”

“Be calm,” I said. “It is all coming right. Miss Colfax will soon be married. And—and if Edgar is innocent—”

“Innocent?”

“Of anything worse than planning to marry one woman while loving another—”

“But he is not. He—”

I stopped her in time. I was not there to listen to anything which would force me to act. If there was action to be taken she must take it or Edgar.

“I don’t want to hear anything against Edgar,” I admonished her as soon as I could get her attention. “I am not the one to be told his faults. If they are such as Justice requires to have made known, you must seek another confessor. What I want is for you to refrain from further alarming the whole household. Miss Bartholomew is frightened, very much frightened by what she hears of your manner below stairs and of the complete isolation in which you keep your patient. It was she who sent for me to come here. I do not want to stay,—I cannot. Will you promise me to remain quiet for the rest of the night? To think out your problem quietly and then to take advice either from the doctor who appears to understand some of your difficulties or from—”

“Don’t say it! Don’t say it,” she cried below breath. “I know what my duty is, but, oh, I had rather die on the spot than do it.”

“Remember your young mistress. Remember how she is placed. Forget yourself. Forget your love for Edgar. Forget everything but what you owe to your dead master whose strongest wish was to see his daughter happy.”

“How can she be? How can she be? How can any of us ever be light-hearted again? But I will remember. I—will—try.” Then in a burst, as another cry of “Lucy” came from the other room, “Do you think Miss Orpha’s heart will go out to you if—if—”

I shrank away from her; I groped for the door. That question here!—in this semi-gloom—from such lips as these! A question far too sacred and too fraught with possibilities of yea and nay for me to hear it unmoved, bade me begone before I lost myself in uncontrollable anger.

“Do not ask me that,” I managed to exclaim. “All I can say is that I love my cousin sincerely and that some day I hope to marry her, fortune or no fortune.”

I thought I heard her murmur “And you shall,” but I was not sure and never will be. What I did hear was a promise from her to be quiet and to keep to the room where she was.

However, when I had rejoined Haines and we had gone to the floor below, I asked him if he would be good enough to relieve me for the night by keeping a personal watch over his young mistress. “If only I could feel assured that you were sitting here somewhere within sight of her door I should rest easy. Will you do that for me, Haines?”

“As I did that last night on my own account, I do not think it will be very hard for me to do it to-night on yours. I am proud to think you trust me, sir, to help you in your trouble.”

And this was the man I had dared to stigmatize in my own thoughts as a useful but unfeeling machine!

I left Orpha cheered, and passing down the driveway came upon a plain clothes man awaiting me in the shadow of the high hedge separating the extensive grounds from the street.

I was not surprised, and stopping short, paused for him to speak.

He did this readily enough.

“You will find a limousine waiting in front of one of the shops halfway down on the next block. It’s the Inspector’s. He would be glad to have a word with you.”

“Very good. I’ll be sure to stop.”

It could not be helped. We were in the toils and I knew it. Useless to attempt an evasion. The lion had his paw on my shoulder. I walked briskly that I might not have too much time for thought.

“Well?” was the greeting I received, when seated at the Inspector’s side I turned to see what mood he was in before we passed too far from the street lamp for me to get a good look at his features. “Anything new?”

“No.” I could say this conscientiously because I had not learned anything new. It was all old; long thought of, long apprehended. “Miss Bartholomew was concerned over the illness in the house. She is young and virtually alone, her only companion being an elderly relative with about as little force and character as a jelly fish. I felt that a call would encourage her and I went. Mrs. Ferris was present—”

“Never mind that. I’ve been young myself. But—” We were passing another lamp, the light was on my face, he saw my eyes fall before his and he instantly seized his advantage—“Are you sure,” he asked, “that you have nothing to tell me?”

I gave him a direct look now, and spoke up resolutely.

“Have pity, Inspector. You know how I am situated. I have no facts to give you except—”

“The young fellow talks in his sleep; we know that. I see that you know it, too; possibly you have heard him—”

“If I have I should not feel justified in repeating a man’s ravings to an officer of the law intent on official business. Ravings that spring from fever are not testimony. I’m sure you see that. You cannot require—”

“No, not to-night.” The words came slowly, reluctantly from his lips.

I faced him with a look of gratitude and real admiration. This man with a famous case on his hands, the solution of which would make his reputation from one end of the continent to the other, was heeding my plea—was showing me mercy. Or perhaps, he was reading in my countenance (why, we were in business streets, the best lighted in the city!) what my tongue so hesitated to utter.

“Not to-night,” he repeated. “Nor ever if we can help it. I am willing you should know that it is a matter of pride with me to get at the truth of this matter without subjecting you to further inquisition. Your position is a peculiar one and consideration should be shown you. But, mark me, the truth has got to be reached. Justice, morality, the future of your family and of the innocent girl who is its present representative all demand this. I shall leave no stone unturned. I can only say that, if possible, I shall leave your stone to be attended to last.”

“Inspector, you shall have this much from me. If you will wait two days, I think—I am almost certain—that a strand will be drawn from this tangle which will make the unravelling of the rest easy. It will be by another hand than mine; but you can trust that hand; it is an honest one.”

“I will wait two days, unless circumstances should arise demanding immediate action.”

And with no further talk we separated. But he understood me and I understood him and words would have added but little to our satisfaction.

The phone in my room rang early on the following morning. Haines had promised to let me know what kind of a night they had had, and he was promptly keeping his word.

All had gone well, so far as appeared. If he learned to the contrary later he would let me know. With this I had to be content for some three hours, then the phone rang again. It was Haines calling and this time to the effect that Nurse Wealthy was going out; that she had demanded an hour off, saying that she must have a breath of air or die. Miss Orpha had gladly given her the leave of absence she desired, and, to Haines’ own amazement, he had been put in charge of the sick room till her return, Mr. Edgar being much better this morning. No one knew where she was going but the moment she came back I should hear of it.

This was as I expected. But where was Wealthy going? Could she possibly be coming to see me in my hotel or was her destination Police Headquarters?

Strangely neither guess was correct. A third ring at the phone and I was notified that my presence was urgently desired at Mr. Jackson’s office, and upon hastening there I found her closeted with the lawyer in his private room. Her veil—a heavy mourning one,—was down and her attitude one of humility; but there was no mistaking her identity, and Mr. Jackson made no attempt at speaking her name, entering at once upon the momentous reason for which I had been summoned.

“I am sorry to have made you this trouble, Mr. Bartholomew,” said he, after having given orders that we were to be left undisturbed. “But this woman whom I am sure you recognize would not speak without your presence; and I judge that she has something important to tell.”

“Yes,” she insisted, moving a trifle in her restlessness. “I thought that nothing would ever make me talk; but we don’t know ourselves. I have not slept and do not think I shall ever sleep again unless I tell you—”

“Don’t you remember what I insisted upon in our talk last night, Wealthy? How it was not to me you must tell your story, but to—”

“I know whom you mean,” she interrupted breathlessly. “But it’s not for the police to hear what I have to say; only yourself and lawyer. I did you a wrong. You must know just what that wrong was. I have a conscience, sir. It’s troubled me all my life but never so much as now. Won’t you listen? Tell him to listen, Mr. Jackson, or I’ll leave this place and keep silence till I die.”

It was no idle threat. If she had been motherly and sweet in the old days, she was inflexible and determined in these. Under the kindliness of an affectionate nature there lay forces such as give constancy to the martyr. She would do what she said.

Looking away, I encountered the eye of Mr. Jackson. Its language was unmistakable. I felt myself in a trap.

But I would not yield without another effort. Smiling faintly, I said:

“You have never liked me, Nurse Wealthy; why, then, drag me into this? Let me go. Mr. Jackson will be a sympathetic listener, I know.”

“I cannot let you go; but I can go myself,” she retorted, rising slowly and turning her back upon me. She was trembling in sheer desperation as she took a step towards the door.

I could not see her go. I was not her sole auditor as on the night before. My duty seemed plain.

“Come back,” I called to her. “Speak, and I will listen.”

She drew a deep breath, loosened her veil, but did not lift it; then quietly reseated herself.

“I loved the Bartholomew family, all of them, till—You will excuse me, sir, I can hide nothing in telling my story—till you came to visit us and things began to go wrong.

“It was not liking I felt for them, but a passionate devotion, especially for Mr. Edgar, whose like I had never seen before. That he would marry Miss Orpha and that I should always live with them was as much a settled fact in my mind as the knowledge that I should some day die. And I was happy. But trouble came. The night which should have seen their engagement announced saw Mr. Bartholomew stricken with illness, and the beginning of changes, for which I blamed nobody but you.”

She was addressing me exclusively.

“I felt that you were working against us—against Mr. Edgar I mean,—and my soul turned bitter and my hatred grew till I no longer knew myself. That Mr. Edgar could do anything wrong—that he could deceive himself or Miss Orpha or the uncle who doted on him you could not have made me believe in those days. It was you, you who did all the harm, and Mr. Bartholomew, weakened by illness, was your victim. So I reasoned as I saw how things went and how you were given an equal chance with Mr. Edgar to sit with him and care for him, nights as well as days.

“Then the lawyers came, and though I am not over bright, it was plain enough to me that something very wrong was being done, and I got all wrought up and listened and watched to see if I could get hold of the truth; and I saw and heard enough to convince me that Mr. Edgar’s chance of fortune and happiness with Miss Orpha needed guarding and that if worst came to worst, I must be ready to do my part in saving him from losing the property destined for him since he was a little child.

“I said nothing of this to any one, but I hardly slept in my eagerness to know whether the two documents your uncle kept in the little drawer near his head were really two different wills. I had never heard of anybody keeping two wills ready to hand before. But Mr. Bartholomew was not like other men and you could not judge him by what other men do. That I was right in thinking that these two documents were really two wills I soon felt quite sure from his actions. There was not a day he did not handle them. I often found him poring over them, and he always seemed displeased if I approached him too closely at these times. Then again he would simply lie there holding them, one in each hand, as if weighing them one against the other,—his eyes on the great picture of Miss Orpha and a look of sore trouble on his face. It was the same look with which I saw him in the last few days glance from your cousin Edgar to yourself, and back again, when by any chance you were both in the room at the same time.

“I often wanted to have a good talk with Miss Orpha about these strange unnatural doings; but I didn’t dare. I knew she wouldn’t listen; and so with a heart eaten into by anxiety, I went on with my nursing, loving her and Mr. Edgar more than ever and hating you almost to the point of frenzy.

“You must pardon me for speaking so plainly, but it is necessary for you to know just how I felt or you would never understand what got into me on that last night of your uncle’s life. I could see long before any of the rest of you that something of great importance was going to happen in the house before we slept. I had watched him too long and too closely not to draw certain conclusions from his moods. When he ordered his evening meal to be set out near the fireplace and sent for Clarke to dress him, I felt confident that the great question which was driving him into his grave was on the eve of being settled. But how? This was what I was determined to find out, and was quite prepared if I found things going against Mr. Edgar to do whatever I could to help him.

“You will think this very presumptuous in a woman in my position; but those two motherless children were like my own so far as feeling went, and if there is any excuse for me it lies in this, that I honestly thought that your uncle was under an influence which might force him to do in his present condition what in his right mind he would never dream of doing, no, not if it were to save his life.”

Here she paused to catch her breath and gather strength to proceed. Her veil was still down, but her breast was heaving tumultuously with the fierce beating of her heart. We were watching her carefully, both Mr. Jackson and myself, but we made no move, nor did we speak. Nothing must check her at this point of her narrative.

We showed wisdom in this, for after a short interval in which nothing could be heard but her quick gasps for breath, she spoke again and in the same tone and with the same fervor as before.

“The supper cleared and everything made right in the room, he asked for Clarke, and when he came bade him go for Mr. Edgar. I could not stay after that. I knew his wishes. I knew this, too, that the prospect of doing something, after his many days of worriful thinking, had brought him strength;—that he was in one of those tense moods when to cross him meant danger; and that I must be careful what I said and did if I was to serve him, and that I must urge Mr. Edgar to be careful, too.

“But no opportunity was given me to speak to him. He came up, with Clarke following close behind, and went directly to your uncle’s room just as I stole away to the cozy corner. When he came out my eye was at the slit in my screen. From the way he walked I knew that things had gone wrong with him and later when you came out, I saw that they had gone well with you. Your head was high; his had been held low.

“I like Clarke, and perhaps you think, because we were sitting there together waiting for orders that I took him into my confidence. But I didn’t. I was too full of rage and fear for that. Nobody must know my heart, nobody, at least not during this uncertainty. For I was still determined to act; to say or do something if I got the chance. When after going to your uncle’s room, he came back and said that Mr. Bartholomew was not yet ready to go to bed,—that he wanted to be left alone for a half hour and that I was to see from the place where I was that no one came to disturb him, I felt that the chance I wanted was to be mine, and as soon as Clarke went on to his room, I got up and started to go down the hall.

“I am giving a full story, Mr. Quenton, for I want you to know it all; so I will not omit a little thing of which I ought to be ashamed, but of which I was rather proud at the time. When I had taken a few steps I remembered that a half hour was a long time, and that Clarke might find it so and be tempted to take a look to see if I was keeping watch as he had bid me. Not that he seemed to doubt me, but because he was always over particular in every matter where his master was concerned. So I came back and going to my room brought out a skirt like the one I had on and threw it over a chair behind the screen so that a little bit of the hem would show outside. Then I went to your uncle’s door and with a slow turn of the knob opened it without a sound and stepped into the passage-way. To my great satisfaction the portières which separated it from the room itself were down and pulled closely together. I could stand there and not be seen, same as in the cozy corner.

“Hearing nothing, I drew the heavy hangings apart ever so slightly and peered through the slit thus made at his figure sitting close by the fireside. He was in his big chair with the wings on either side and placed as it was, only his head was visible. I trembled as I saw him, for he was too near the hearth. What if he should fall forward!

“But as I stood there hesitating, I saw one of his hands come into view from the side of his chair—the side nearest the fire. In it was one of the big envelopes and for an instant I held my breath, for he seemed about ready to toss it into the fire. But he soon drew it back again and I heard a moan, then the low cry, ‘My boy! my boy! I cannot.’ And I knew then what it all meant. That there were really two wills and that he was trying to summon up courage to destroy the one which would disinherit his favorite nephew. Rebelling against the act and determined to stop it if I could, I slipped into the room and without making any noise, for I had on my felt slippers, I crept across the floor nearer and nearer till I was almost at his back. His head was bent a little forward, but he gave no sign of being aware of my presence. I could hear the fire crackle and now and then the little moan which left his lips, but nothing else. The house was like the house of the dead; not a sound disturbed it.

“Taking another step, I looked over his shoulder. He was holding those two documents, just as I had frequently seen him in his bed, one in each hand. He seemed to be staring at them and now one hand would tremble and now the other, and I was so close that I could see a red cross scrawled on the envelope he held in his right—the one he had stretched out to the fire and drawn back again a few minutes before.

“Dared I speak? Dared I plead the cause of the boy I loved, that he loved? No, I didn’t dare do that; he was a terrible man when he was roused and this might rouse him, who could tell. Besides, words were leaving his lips, he was muttering aloud to himself and soon I could understand what he was saying and it was something like this:

“‘I’m too old—too weak—some one else must do it—Orpha, who will not know what she is doing, not I,—not I. There’s time yet—I asked the doctor—two weeks was what he said—Edgar! my boy, my boy.’ Every murmur ending thus, ‘My boy! my boy!’

“All was well then; I need not fear for to-night. To-morrow I would pray Edgar to exert himself to some purpose. Better for me to slide back to my place behind the portière; the half hour would soon be up—But just then I heard a different cry, his head had turned, he was looking up at his daughter’s picture and now a sob shook him, and then came the words:

“‘Your mother was a just woman; and she says this must be done. I have always heeded her voice. To-morrow you shall burn—’

“There he stopped. His head sank back against the chair top, and, frightened out of my senses, I was about to start forward, when I saw the one will—the one with the red mark on it slip from his hand and slide across the hearth close to the burning logs.

“That was all I needed to make me forget myself and rush to the rescue of Edgar’s inheritance. I was on my knees in front of the fire before I realized what I had done, and clutching at the paper, knelt there with it in my hand looking up at your uncle.

“He was staring straight at me but he saw nothing. One of the spells of brief unconsciousness which he sometimes had had come upon him. I could see his breast rise and fall but he took no note of me, and, thanking God in my heart, I reached up and drew the other will from his unresisting hand and finding both of the envelopes unsealed, I changed the will in the marked one for that in the other and laid them both in his lap.

“I was behind his chair again before I heard the deep sigh with which he woke from that momentary trance; and I was already behind the portière and watching as before when I heard a slight rattle of paper and knew that he had taken the two wills again into his hands.

“But he did nothing further; simply sat there and as soon as I reckoned that the half hour was nearly up and that Clarke would be coming from his room to attend him, I stole out of the door and into my cozy corner in time to greet Clarke when he showed himself. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life, and doubtful as to whether what I had done would be helpful to Edgar or the reverse. What might not happen before the morrow of which he spoke. I was afraid of my own shadow creeping ahead of me along the wall as I hurried to take my place at your uncle’s bedside.

“But I was more doubtful yet and much more frightened when upon asking him if I should not put away the documents I saw on the stand at his side (a pile such as I had often taken from his little drawer in the bed-head with the two I was most interested in on top) he said that he wanted me for another purpose and sent me in great haste downstairs on a foolish little errand to Miss Orpha’s room. He was again to be left alone and for a long while, too.

“I wanted to call Clarke, but while your uncle looked at me as he was looking then, I knew that it would be madness to interfere, so I sped away on my errand, conscious that he was listening for the opening and shutting of the door below as proof that I had obeyed him.

“Was it a whim? It could easily be that, for the object he wanted had belonged to his dead wife and men as sick as he have such whims. But it might just as well be that he wanted to be alone so as to look at the two wills again, and if that was his purpose, what would happen when I got back?

“The half hour during which I helped my poor, tired young lady to hunt through drawers and trunks for the little old-fashioned shawl he had sent for was one of great trial to me. But we found it at last and when I saw it in her hand and the sweetness of her face as she stooped to kiss it, I wanted to take her in my arms, but did not dare to, for something stood between us which I did not understand then but which I know now was my sin.

“There was a clock on her dresser and when I saw how late it was I left her very suddenly and started on my way back. What happened to me on my way up you’ve already heard me tell;—the Presence, which was foolishness, and afterwards, on reaching the stair-head, something which was not foolishness,—I mean the hearing of the two doors of your uncle’s room being unlocked, one after the other, in expectation of my coming. What had he been doing? Why had he locked himself in? The question agitated me so that it was quite a few minutes before I could summon up courage to enter the room. When I did, it was with a sinking heart. Should I find the two wills still lying where I had last seen them, huddled with the other papers on the little stand? If they were, I need not fret; but if they were in his hands or had been hidden away somewhere, the fear and anxiety would be insupportable.

“But my first glance towards the little stand reassured me. They were still there. There was no mistaking those stiff dark envelopes; and, greatly heartened, I stepped to the bedside and took my first look at him. He was lying with closed eyes, panting a little but otherwise peaceful. I spoke his name and held out the little shawl. As he took it he smiled. I shall never forget that smile, never. Had it been meant for me I would have fallen on my knees, and told him what I had done, but it was for that young wife of his, dead for some seventeen years now; and the delight I saw in it hardened rather than softened me and gave me courage to keep silent.

“He was ready now to have those papers put away, and drawing the key to the little drawer from under the pillow, he handed it to me and watched me while I lifted the whole pile of business documents and put them back in the place from which they had been taken; and as nothing in his manner showed that he felt the least suspicion that any of these papers had been tampered with, I was very glad to see them put away for the night. I remember thinking as I gave him back the key that nothing must hinder me from seeking an early opportunity to urge Mr. Edgar to exert himself to win his uncle’s favor back. I knew that he could if he tried; and, satisfied so far, I was almost happy.

“Now we know that your uncle himself had tampered with them while I was gone that good half hour after the little shawl. He had taken out one of the wills from its envelope and carried it—he who could hardly stand—down that concealed stairway to the box dangling from one of the walls below. But how could I dream of anything so inconceivable as that—I who had been in and out of that room and up and down the main staircase for fifteen years without a suspicion that the Presence which sometimes haunted that spot was actual and not imaginary. I thought that all was well for the night at least and was bustling about when he suddenly called me.

“Running to his bedside, I found him well enough but in a very earnest mood. ‘Wealthy,’ he said, ‘I am old and I am weak. I no longer trust myself. The doctor said when he left to-day that I had two full weeks before me; but who knows; a whiff of air may blow me away at any minute, and the thing I want done might go undone and infinite trouble ensue. I am resolved to act as though my span of life was that of a day instead of a fortnight. To-morrow morning we will have the children all in and I will wind up the business which will set everything right. And lest I should not feel as well then as I do now, I will tell you before I sleep just what I want you to do.’ And then he explained about the bowl and the candles which I was to put on the stand when the time came and made it all so clear that I was now thoroughly convinced that it was really his intention to have Miss Orpha burn the will he had not had the courage to burn himself, and this speedily,—probably in the early morning.

“I stared at him, stupefied. What if they looked at the will before they burned it. This, Mr. Edgar would be likely to do, and give himself away in his surprise and so spoil all. I must hinder that; and when Mr. Bartholomew fell into a doze I crept to Mr. Edgar’s room, putting out the lights as I went, and, finding him awake, I told him what I had done and said that he need not worry if we found his uncle in the same mind in the morning as now and ordered the will burned which was in the marked envelope, for that was the one which should be burned and which he would himself burn if he were the man he used to be and had not been influenced by a stranger. Meaning you, sir, of course. God forgive me.”

“So he knew!” I burst forth, leaping to my feet in my excitement. “That’s why he took it all so calmly. Why from that day to this he has found it so difficult to meet my eye. Why he has followed me, seeming to want to speak—to tell me something—”

I did not go on—a thousand questions were rising in my mind. I cast a quick glance at Mr. Jackson and saw that he was startled too and waited, with every confidence in his judgment, for him to say what was in his mind.

“At what time was this?” he asked, leaning forward and forcing her to meet his eye.

“I don’t know.” She tried to shun his gaze; her hands began to tremble. “I didn’t take any notice. I just ran to his room and back; I had enough to think of without looking at clocks.”

“Was it before you heard the glass set back on the shelf?”

She gave a start, and pressing the two arms of her chair with those trembling hands of hers tried to rise, but finding that her knees would not support her, fell back. In the desperation of the moment she turned towards me, putting up her veil as she did so. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” she pleaded. “I am all unstrung; I’ve had no sleep, no rest, no ease for days. When I found that Mr. Edgar—you know what I would say, sir—I don’t want to repeat it here—”

“Yes, we know,” Mr. Jackson broke in. “You cannot bridle the curiosity of servants. We know that he loves another woman than your young mistress with all her advantages. You may speak plainly.”

“Oh, but it hurts!” she moaned. Then, as if no break had occurred, “When I found that he was not the man I thought him—that nothing I could do would ever make good the dream of years, I hated myself and what I had done and above all my treatment of you, Mr. Quenton. I did not succeed in the wrong I planned,—something happened—God knows what—to upset all that, but the feeling was there and I am sorry; and now that I have said so, may I not go? I have heard that you are kind; that none of us knew how kind; let me go—”

She paused, her lips half closed, every sense on the alert. She was no longer looking at me but straight ahead of her though the danger was approaching from the rear. A door behind her was opening. I could see the face of the man who entered and felt my own heart sink. Next moment he was at her side, his finger pressing on her shoulder.

“Let us hear your answer to the question which Mr. Jackson has just put to you. Was your visit to Mr. Bartholomew’s room before or after you heard the setting down of the medicine glass on the shelf?”

“Before.”

She spoke like one in a dream. She seemed to know who her interlocutor was though she did not turn to look at him.

“You lied when you said that you saw this gentleman here hurrying down the hall immediately after you had heard some one carefully shutting the door next to the medicine cabinet?”

“Yes, I lied.”

Still like one in a dream.

“Did you see him or his shadow pass down the hall at any time that night?”

“No.”

“Why these stories then? Why these lies?”

She was silent.

“Was it not Edgar Bartholomew you heard or saw at that door; and did you not know it was he?”

Again silence; but now a horrified one.

“Are you sure that he did not come in at that door you heard shut? That the only mistake made that night was that the dose was not strong enough—that your patient did not die in time for the will in this gentleman’s favor to be abstracted and destroyed, leaving the other one as the final expression of Mr. Bartholomew’s wishes and testamentary intentions? You need not answer. It is a law of this country that no one can be compelled to incriminate himself. But that is how it looks to us, Mrs. Starr. That is how it looks.”

With this he lifted his finger; and the breath held back in all our throats broke from us in a simultaneous gasp. She only did not move, but sat gazing as before, cheek and brow and even lips growing whiter and whiter till we all shrank back appalled. As the silence grew longer and heavier and more threatening I covered my face with my hands. I could not look and listen too. A vision of Edgar in his most buoyant mood, with laughter in his eye and winsome bonhomie in every feature flashed before me and passed. I could hardly bear it. Then I heard her voice, thin, toneless, and ringing like a wire which has been struck:

“Edgar is innocent. He never entered the room. No one entered it. That was another lie. I alone mixed the dose. I thought he would die at once and let me do what you said. It came to me as I sat there waiting for the morning—the morning I did not feel myself strong enough to face.”

We believed her. I, because it lifted a great load from my heart; Lawyer Jackson and the Inspector because of their long experience with criminal humanity. Misery has its own voice! So has conscience; and conscience, despite the strain she had put upon it during these last few evil days was yet alive within her.

Notwithstanding this, the Inspector would not let the moment pass without a warning.

“Mrs. Starr,” said he, “it is my duty to tell you that you will be making a great mistake in taking upon yourself the full burden of this crime if you are simply its accessory before or after. The real culprit cannot escape by any such means as that, and you will neither help him or yourself by taking such a stand.”

The dullness which had crept into her eyes, the loose set of her lips, the dejection, with every purpose gone, which showed in the collapse of her hitherto firmly held body offered the best proof which had yet been given that she had not exaggerated her position. Even her voice had changed; all its ringing quality was gone; it sounded dead, utterly, without passion, almost without feeling:

“I did it myself when I was alone with—with my patient and this—this is why. If I must tell all, I will tell all, though the shame of it will kill me. When I got back from Mr. Edgar’s room, I took another look at Mr. Bartholomew. He was still sleeping and as much of his face as I could see for the little shawl, was calmer than before and his breath even more regular. I should have been happy, but I was not, and stood looking at him, asking myself again and again what he had been doing while I was below and if I were right in thinking that he had not looked into the envelopes. If he had and had changed the wills back where should we be? Mr. Edgar would lose his inheritance and all my wicked work would go for nothing. I could not bear the thought. If only I dared open that little drawer, and have a peep at those documents. I had not the least suspicion that one of them had been withdrawn from its envelope. The full one was on top and I was so nervous handling them under his eye that the emptiness of the under one had escaped me. So I had not that to worry about, only the uncertainty as to which was in the marked envelope—the envelope he had held over the fire and drew back saying that Orpha must do what he could not.

“I knew that if he should wake and detect me fumbling under his pillow for his key that I should fall at his bedside in shame and terror; yet I was putting out my hand, when he moved and turned his head, disarranging the shawl, and I saw projecting from under the pillow not the key but his eye-glasses and started back and let the curtain fall and sank into the chair I always had near, overcome by a certainty which took away all my strength just when I needed it for fresh thought.

“For there was no mistaking now what he had been doing in my absence. He could not read without his glasses, though he could see other things quite well. He had risen to get them—for I remembered only too clearly that they had been lying on his desk when I left the room. I can see them now, just where they lay close against the inkstand; and having got them, and being on his feet, he had locked the doors so that he would not be interrupted while he satisfied himself that the will he had resolved to destroy was in the marked envelope. That he had done more than this—taken the will he wished kept and carried it out of the room, was not within the mind of a poor woman like me to conceive. I was in a bad enough case as it was. He knew in which envelope was the will which would give Edgar his inheritance and I did not. Should I go and consult Edgar as to what we should do now? No; whatever was to be done should be done by me alone; he should not be dragged into it. That is how I felt. But what to do? I did not know. For an hour I sat there, the curtain drawn between us, listening to his breathing. And I thought it all out. I would do just what you said here a little moment ago. Open the drawer and take out the will I hated and burn it to ashes in the fireplace, leaving only the one which would make everything right. But to be free to do this he—must—first—die. I loved Edgar; I was willing to do anything for him but meet his uncle’s accusing eye. That would take bravery I did not possess. So I rose at last, very determined now my mind was made up, and moving quietly around the foot of the bed, crept stealthily to the medicine cabinet, and lifting out the phial I wanted, set it on a lower shelf and then returning for the glass of soothing mixture already prepared, dropped into it what I thought was a heavy dose, and putting back the medicine phial, carried the glass to the bedside where I put it on a chair close to his hand; for he had turned over again by this time and lay with his face toward the windows.

“The light from the fire added to that of the lamp on the other side of the bed made the room bright enough for me to do all this; but when I got back and had seated myself again, the lamp-light seemed an offense and I put it out. The glow from the fire was enough! He could see to reach the glass—and I waited—waited—till I heard a sigh—then a movement—then a quietly whispered Wealthy?—and then, a slight tinkle as though the button at his wrist had touched the glass—and then—

“Oh, God! will I ever forget it? Or how I waited and waited for what must follow, watching the shadows gather on the ceiling, and creep slowly down the walls till they settled upon my head and about the bed where I still heard him moving and muttering now and then words which had no meaning. Why moving? Why muttering? I had expected silence long before this. And why such a chill and so heavy a darkness? Then I realized that the fire he so loved was out for the first time since his illness,—the fire that was to destroy the will I had not yet touched or even sought out, and I rose to rebuild it, when he suddenly cried out, ‘Light!’ and shaken by the tone, subdued in one instant to my old obedient self, I turned on the lamp and pulled back the curtain.

“He was looking at me, not unkindly, but in the imperious way of one who knows he has but to speak to have his least wish carried out.

“He was ill. I was to rouse the house—bring the bowl—the candles—no waiting,—I knew what I was to do; he had told me the night before.

“And I did each and every thing just as he commanded. Alive to seeming failure, to possible despair, I went about my task, hoping against hope that all would yet go right; that Fate would step in and make my sin of some avail at this terrible crisis. Though the hands I wrung together in my misery as I ran through the hall were like ice to the touch, I was all on fire within. Now there is no more fire left here”—her hand falling heavy on her breast—“than on the stones of the desolated hearth;—only ashes! ashes!”

The Inspector moved, and was about to speak, but ceased as her voice rose again in that same awful monotone.

“I loved my Mr. Edgar then.” She spoke as though years had intervened instead of a few flitting days. “I used to think that in return for one of his gay smiles I would put my hands under his feet. But to-day, I do not seem to care enough for him to be glad that he is not guilty. If he were, and had to face what I have to face—shame, when I have always prided myself on my good-name—isolation, when to help others has been my life—death, when—” She paused at that, her head falling forward, her eyes opening into a wide stare, as though she saw for the first time the abyss into which she was sinking,—“I should not now be so lonely.”

The Inspector drew back, Mr. Jackson turned away his head. I could not move feature or limb. I was beholding for the first time the awakening of a lost soul to the horror of its own sin.

“I don’t know why it is,” she went on, still in that toneless voice more moving than any wail or even shriek. “It did not seem such a dreadful thing to do that night. It was but hastening his death by a few days, possibly by only a few hours. But now—now—” Suddenly to our amazement she was on her feet, her eyes roaming from one face to the other of us three, all signs of apathy gone, passion restored to her heart, feeling restored to her voice, as she cried out: “Will Miss Orpha have to know? I wish I could see her before she knows. I wish—I wish—”

It was my turn now. Leaping to her side, I held her while the sobs came in agony from her breast, shaking her and distorting her features till in mercy I pulled down her veil and seated her again in her chair.

As I withdrew my arm she managed to press my hand. And I heard very faintly from behind that veil:

“I am glad something happened to give you what you wanted.”

I thought I had only to go now, and leave her to the Inspector who I felt would deal with her as mercifully as he could. But Mr. Jackson shook his head as I was about to depart, and stepping up to the Inspector said a few earnest words to him after which the former sat down at his desk and wrote a few lines which he put in the official’s hands. Then he drew me apart.

“Wait,” he said; “we may want your signature.”

It was a written confession which the Inspector took upon himself to ask her to sign.

She was sitting back in her chair, very quiet now, her veil down, her figure immovable. The slow heaving of her chest bespoke life and that was all. The Inspector bent down as he reached her and after a minute’s scrutiny of her veiled features said to her not unkindly:

“It will save you much mental suffering if you will sign these words which I first ask you to listen to. Are you ready to hear them?”

She nodded, her hands which were clasped about a little bag she was carrying, twitching convulsively.

“Water, first,” she begged, turning up her eyes till they rested on his face.

He made me a motion, but did not stir from where he stood before her. Instead, he directed his full glance at her hands, and unclasping them gently from the bag she was clutching, opened them out and took away the bag which he laid aside. Then he raised her veil, and handed her the glass which I had brought and watched her while she drank. A few drops seemed to suffice to reinvigorate her, and giving back the glass, she waited for him to read.

The words were mercifully few but they told the full story. As she listened, she sank back into her old pose, only that her hands missing the little bag clutched the arms of the chair in which she sat, and seemed to grow rigid there. But they loosed their grasp readily enough as the Inspector brought a pad and a pen and laying the pad in her lap with the words she had listened to plainly before her, handed her the pen and asked her to sign them.

She roused herself to do this, and when he would draw her veil again she put up her hand in protest, after which she wrote somehow, almost without seeing what she did, the three words which formed her name. Then she sank back again and as he carried away the pad, and, laying the signed confession on the desk for Mr. Jackson and myself to affix our signatures to it as witnesses, she clutched again the arms of her chair and so sat as before, without further word or seeming interest in what was being done.

Should I go now without a word to her, without asking if she had any message to send to Edgar or to Orpha? While I was hesitating, whether or not to address her, I saw the Inspector start and laying his hand on Mr. Jackson’s arm point to her silent figure. A coldness, icy and penetrating struck my heart. I saw them hurriedly advance, I saw the Inspector for the second time slowly lift her veil, give one look and drop it again. And I saw nothing more for a minute, then as my senses cleared, I met the eyes of the two men fixed on me and not on her, and summoning up my strength I said:

“It is better so.”

They did not answer, but in each man’s eye I saw that had they spoken it would have been in repetition of my words:

“It is better so.”

My first duty, now as ever, was to Orpha. Before rumor reached her she must know, and from no other lips than mine, what had happened. Then,—I did not get much beyond that then, for mortal foresight is of all things most untrustworthy, and I had fought too long with facts to wish to renew my battle with delusive fancies.

To shut out every imagining which might get the better of my good sense, I forced myself to recall the foolish reasoning in which I had indulged when the possibility of Uncle having been the victim of Edgar’s cupidity was obsessing my brain. How I had attributed to him acts of which he had been entirely guiltless. How in order to explain our uncle’s death by poison I had imagined him going to the sick room upon seeing Wealthy leave it, and winning the old gentleman to his mind, had carried off the will whose existence threatened his rights, and burned it, with our uncle’s consent, in his own room. All this, while uncle was really behind locked doors making his painful journey down between the walls of his house, in order to place in safe keeping,—possibly from his own vacillation,—the will which endowed myself with what had previously been meant for Edgar alone.

That I had thus allowed my imagination to run so far away from facts was another lesson of the danger we incur in trusting to fanciful reasoning where our own interests are involved; and that I should have carried my futile deductions further, even to the point of supposing that after the question of poisoning was mooted he had taken Orpha and Wealthy upstairs in order to confuse his former finger-prints with fresh ones of his own and theirs, brought me a humiliation in my own eyes now that I knew the truth, which possibly was the best preparation I could have for the interview which now lay before me.

That I was not yet out of the woods,—that I was still open to the attack of vituperative tongues I knew full well; but that could not be helped. What I wanted was to square myself with my own conscience before I faced Orpha and turned another leaf in our heavy book of troubles.

Haines, for all his decorum, showed an anxious face when he opened the door to me. It changed, however, to one of satisfaction as he saw who had come.

“Oh, sir!” he cried, as I stepped in, “where is Wealthy? Mr. Edgar has been asking for her this half hour. The girl is no good and he will have none of the rest of us in his room.”

“I will go to him. Is Miss Bartholomew in?”

“Yes, sir; he won’t see her either.”

“Haines, I have something serious to say to Miss Bartholomew. You may tell her that I should be very glad to have a few words with her. But first I must quiet him; and while I am in the third story, whether it be for a few minutes or half an hour, I rely on you to see that Miss Bartholomew receives no callers and no message from any one. If the phone rings, choke it off. Cut the wire if necessary. I am in earnest, Haines. Will you do as I ask?”

“I will, sir.”

I could see how anxious he was to know what all this meant, but he did not ask and I should not have told him if he had. It was for Edgar first, and then for Orpha to hear what I had to relate.

When I entered Edgar’s room he was sitting propped up in bed, a woeful figure. He had just flung a book at the poor mute who had vainly tried to find for him the thing he wanted. When he saw me he whitened and slid down half out of sight under the bed-clothes.

“Where is Wealthy?” he shouted out. “I want her and nobody else.” But before I could answer, he spoke again and this time with a show of his old-time lightness. “Not but what it is good of you to come and see a poor devil like me.”

“Edgar,” I said, advancing straight to his bedside and sitting down on its edge, “I have come, not only to see what can be done for you to-day, but to ask if you will let me stay by you till you are well enough and strong enough to kick me out.”

“But where is Wealthy?” he cried, with a note of alarm in his voice. “She went out for an hour. She should be back. I—I must have Wealthy, glum as she is.”

Should I shock him with the truth? Would it prove to be too much for him in his present feverish state? For a moment I feared so, then as I noticed the restlessness which made his every member quiver, I decided that he would be less physically disturbed by a full knowledge of Wealthy’s guilt and the events of the last hour, than by a prolonged impatience at her absence and the vexation which any attempt at deception would occasion him.

“Won’t I possibly do for a substitute?” I smiled. “Wealthy cannot come. She will not come any more, Edgar. Though you may not have known it she was a great sufferer—a great sinner—a curse to this house during the last few weeks. It was she—”

“Ah!”

He had me by the arm. He had half raised himself again so that his eyes, hot with fever and the horror of this revelation burned close upon mine. His lips shook; his whole body trembled, but he understood me. I did not need to complete my unfinished sentence.

“You must take it calmly,” I urged. “Think what this uncertainty has done to the family. It has almost destroyed us in the eyes of the world. Now we can hold up our heads again; now you can hold up your head again. It should comfort you.”

“You don’t know,” he muttered, turning his head away. Then quickly, violently, “I can never get away from the shame of it. She did it for me. I know that she did it for me and people will think—”

“No,” I said, “they will not think. She exonerates you completely. Edgar, I have to tell this news to Orpha. She must not hear it first from one of the servants or from some newspaper man. Let me go down to her. I will come back, but not to weary you, or allow you to weary yourself with talk. When you are better we will have it all out. What you have to do now is to get well, and I am going to help you.”

I started to rise but he drew me back again.

“There is something I must confess to you before you undertake that. I have not been fair—”

I took him by both hands.

“Let us forget that. It has come between us long enough. It must not do so any longer.”

“You know—”

“I had to listen to Wealthy’s story.”

Letting go of his hands, I again tried to rise; but for the second time he drew me back.

“You are going to tell Orpha. Are you going to tell Lucy, too?”

“Miss Colfax is not in the house; she left this noon for New York.”

He stiffened where he lay. I was glad I had let go of his hands. I could affect more easily a nonchalant manner. “She has an aunt there, I believe. Is there anything you want before I go down?”

Oh, the hunger in his stare! “Nothing now, nothing but to get well. You have promised to help me and you shall.” Then as I crossed to the door, “Where have they put her? Wealthy, I mean. I ought to do something.”

“No, Edgar, she is being cared for. She confessed, you know, and they will not be too harsh with her. I will tell you another time all that I have failed to say to-day. For two days we will not speak her name. After that you may ask me anything you will.”

With that I closed the door behind me. The greater trial was to come.

So I thought, but the first view I had of Orpha’s face reassured me. Haines had successfully carried out the rôle I had assigned him and she was still ignorant of what had occurred to change the aspect of all our lives. Her expression was not uncheerful, only a little wistful; and we were alone, which made the interview both easier and harder.

“How is Edgar?”

Those were her first words.

“Better. I left him in a much calmer mood. He has been worrying about Wealthy. Have you been worrying, too?”

“Not worrying. I think she has been a long time gone, but she was very tired and needed a change and the air.”

“Orpha, how much faith do you put in this woman who has been so useful here?”

“Why, all there is in the world. She has never failed us. What do you mean?”

“You have found her good as well as useful?”

“Always. She has seemed more like a friend than a housekeeper. Why do you ask? Why are we discussing her when there are so many other things we ought to talk about?”

“Because this nurse of Edgar concerns us more than any one else in the world to-day. Because through her we nearly came to grief and now through her we are to see the light again. Will you try to understand me? Without further words, understand me?”

I could see the knowledge coming, growing, flaming in her face.

“Wealthy!” she cried. “Wealthy! Not any one nearer and dearer! I could never bring myself to believe that it was. But not to know! I could not have borne it much longer.”

And I had to sit there, with her dear hand so near and not touch it. To explain, counsel and console, with that old adjuration from lips whose dictates still remained authoritative over me, not to pass the line from cousinship to lover till he had taken off the ban or was dead. He was dead, but the ban had not yet been removed, for there were some things I must be sure of before love could triumph; one of which I was resolved to settle before I left Orpha’s presence.

So when we had said all there was to say of the day’s tragedy and what was to be expected from it, I spoke to her of the odd little key which had opened the way to the hidden stairway and asked her if she had it about her as I greatly desired to see it again.

“I am wearing it for a little while,” she answered and drawing the chain from her neck she laid both that and the key in my hand.

I studied the latter closely before putting the inquiry:

“Is this the key you found in the earth of the flower-pot, Orpha?”

“Yes, Quenton.”

“Is it the one you gave to the police when they came the next day?”

“Of course. It was still on the chain. But I took it off when I gave it to them. They had only the key.”

“Did you know that while they were working with that key here, another one—the one which finally found lodgment in the slit in the molding upstairs was traveling up from New York in Edgar’s pocket?”

Oh, the joy of seeing her eyes open wide in innocent amazement! She had had nothing to do with that trick! I was convinced of it before; but now I was certain.

“But how can that be? This key opens the way to the secret staircase. I know because I have tried it. How could there be another?”

“If Wealthy were still living I think she could tell you. At some time when you were not looking, she slipped the one key off and slipped on the other. She was used to making exchanges and her idea was to give him a chance to try the key, and, if possible, find the will unknown to you or the police. She had a friend in New York to whom she sent the key and a letter enclosing one for Edgar; and had not Providence intervened and given them both into my hands—”

Orpha had shaken her head in protest more than once while I was speaking but now she looked so piteously eager that I stopped.

“Am I not right?” I asked.

“No, no. Wealthy never knew anything about the key till the police came to try it. I told nobody but—”

The change in her countenance was so sudden and so marked that I turned quickly about, thinking that some one had entered the room. But it was not that; it was something quite different—something which called up more than one emotion—something which both lifted her head and caused it to droop again as if pride were battling with humiliation in her dismayed heart.

“Won’t you finish, Orpha?” I begged. “You said that you had told only one person about it and that this person was not Wealthy. Who, then, was it?”

“Lucy,” she breathed, bringing her hands, which had been lying supine in her lap, sharply together in a passionate clutch.

“Lucy! Ah!”

“She was with me the night I dropped the flower pot and picked up the chain and key from the scattered dirt. I had brought the pot from Father’s room the morning he died, for the flower in it was just opening and it seemed to speak of him. But I did not like the place where I had put it and was carrying it to another shelf, when it slipped from my hands. If I had left it in Father’s room the key might have been found long before; for I noticed on first watering it that the soil on top gave evidences of having been lately stirred up—something which made no impression on me, but which might have made a decisive one on the Inspector. Who do you think hid the key there? Father?”

“I wish I knew, Orpha; there are several things we do not know and never may now Wealthy is gone. But Miss Colfax? Tell me what passed between you when you talked about the key?”

It was a subject Orpha would have liked to avoid; which she would have avoided if I had not been insistent. Why? Had she begun to suspect the truth which made it hard for her to discuss her friend? Had some echo from the cry which for days had filled the spaces of the overhead rooms drifted down to her through the agency of some gossiping servant? It was likely; it was more than likely; it was true. I saw it in the proud detached air with which she waited for me to urge her into speech.

And I did urge her. It would not do at a moment when the shadows surrounding the past were so visibly clearing to allow one cloud to remain which might be dissipated by mutual confidence. So, gently, but persistently, I begged her to tell me the whole story that I might know just what pitfalls remained in our path.

Thus entreated, she no longer hesitated, though I noticed she stammered every time when obliged to speak the name of the woman who had shared with her—so much more than shared with her—Edgar’s affection.

“The flower-pot lay broken on the floor and I was surveying with the utmost surprise the key which I had picked up from the mold lying all about on the rug, when Lucy came in to say good night. When she saw what I held in my hand, she showed surprise also, but failed to make any remark,—which was like—Lucy.

“But I could not keep still. I had to talk if only to express my wonder and obtain a little sisterly advice. But she was in no hurry to give it, and not till I reminded her how lonely I was for all my host of so-called friends, and had convinced her by showing the chain, that this was the very key my father had worn about his neck and for which we had all been looking, did she show any real interest.

“‘And if it were?’ she asked. To which I answered eagerly, ‘Then, perhaps, we have in our hands the clew to where the will itself lies hidden.’ This roused her, for a spot of red came out on her cheek which had been an even white before; and glad to have received the least sign that she recognized the importance of my dilemma, I pressed her to tell me what I should do with this key now that I had found it.

“Even then she was slow to speak. She began one sentence, then broke it off and began another, ending up at last by entreating me to let her consider the subject before offering advice. You will acknowledge that it was a difficult problem for two ignorant girls like ourselves to solve, so I felt willing to wait; though I could not but wonder at her showing all at once so much emotion over what concerned me so much and herself so little—our cold Lucy always so proper, always so perfectly the mistress of herself whatever the occasion. Never had I seen her look as she was looking then nor observed in her before that slow moving of the eye till it met mine askance; nor heard her speak as she did when she finally asked:

“‘Who do you want to have it?’”

Orpha shot me a sudden glance as she repeated this question of Lucy’s, but did not wait for any comment, rather hastened to say:

“I am telling you just what she said and just how she looked because it means something to me now. Then it simply aroused my curiosity. Nor did I dream what was in her mind, when upon my protesting that it was not a question of what I wanted, but of what it was right for me to do, she responded by asking if I needed to be told that. The right thing, of course, for me to do was to call up the police and get from them the advice I needed.

“But, Quenton, I have a great dread of the police; they know too much and too little. So I shook my head, and seeing that Lucy was anxious to examine the key more closely, I put it in her hands and watched her as she ran her fingers over it remarking as she called my attention to it that she had never seen one quite so thin before—that she could almost bend it. Then in a quick low tone altogether unlike her own, added, as she handed it back that we had somebody’s fate in our hands, whose, she would not say. But this much was certain, mine was indissolubly linked with it. And when I shuddered at the way she spoke, she threw her arms about my neck and begged me to believe that she was sorry for me.

“This gave me courage to ask,”—and here Orpha’s lip took a sarcastic curve more expressive of self-disdain than of any scorn she may have felt for her confidant—“whether she thought Dr. Hunter would be willing to act as my advisor; that I did not like Mr. Dunn and never had, and now that my two cousins were away I could think of no one but him.

“But she rejected the idea at once—almost with anger, saying that it was a family matter and that he was not one of the family yet. That we must wait; come to no decision to-night, unless I was willing to try what we two could do with the key. Perhaps we might find the lock it fitted somewhere in my father’s room.

“But I refused, remembering that some member of the police is always in or near the grounds ready to remark any unusual lighting up of the third story windows. She did not seem sorry and, begging me to put the whole matter out of my mind till the next day, stood by while I dropped the chain and key into one of my bureau drawers, and then kissing me, went smilingly away.

“Quenton, I thought her manner strange,—at once too hurried and too affectionate to seem quite real—but I never thought of doubting her or of—of—Tell me if you know what I find it so difficult to say. Have the servants—”

“Yes, Orpha, I know through them what I have long known from other sources.” And waited with a chill at my heart to see how she took this acknowledgment.

Gratefully. Almost with a smile. She was so lovely that never was a man harder put to it to restrain his ardor than I was at that moment. But my purpose held. It had to; the time was not yet.

“I am glad,” fell softly from her lips; then she hurried on. “How could I doubt her or doubt him? We have been a thousand times together—all three, and never had I seen—or felt—Perhaps it is only he, not she. Listen, for I’m not through. Something happened in the night, or I dreamed it. I do not really know which. From what you say, I think it happened. I didn’t then, but I do now.”

“Go on; I am listening, Orpha.”

“I was very troubled. I slept, but only fitfully. My mind would be quite blank, then a sudden sharp realization would come of my being awake and seeing my room and the things in it with unusual distinctness. The moon would account for this, the curtains being drawn from one of the western windows, allowing a broad beam of unclouded light to pour into the room and lie in one large square on the floor. I once half rose to shut it out, but forgot myself and fell asleep again. When I woke the next time things were not so distinct, rather they were hazy as if seen through a veil. But I recognized what I saw; it was my own image I was staring at, standing with my hand held out, the key in my open palm with the chain falling away from it. Dazed, wondering if I were in a dream or in another world—it was all so strange and so unreal,—I was lost in the mystery of it till slowly the realization came that I was standing before my mirror, and that I was really holding in my hand the chain and key which I had taken from my bureau drawer. What is the matter, Quenton? Why did you start like that?”

“Never mind now. I will tell you some other time.”

She looked as if she hated to lose the present explanation; but, with a little smile charming in its naïveté, she went bravely on:

“As I took this quite in, I started to move away, afraid of my image, afraid of my own self, for I had never done anything like this before. And what seems very strange to me, I don’t remember the walk back to my bed; and yet I was in my bed when the next full consciousness came, and there was daylight in the room and everything appeared natural again and felt natural, with the one exception of my arm, which was sore, and when I came to look at it, it was bruised, as if it had been clutched strongly above the elbow. Yet I had no remembrance of falling or of hitting myself. I spoke to Lucy about it later, and about the image in the glass, too, which I took to be a dream because—”

“Because what, Orpha?”

“Because the chain and key were just where I had put them the night before,—the same chain and what I supposed to be the same key or I would never have said so when Lucy asked me about it.”

“Orpha, Miss Colfax has a streak of subtlety in her nature. I think you know that now, so there is no harm in my saying so. She was in the room when you laid by that key. She was watching you. It was she who helped you into your bed. She had a key of her own not unlike the one belonging to your father. She went for this and while you slept put it on the chain you may have dropped in crossing the floor or which she may have taken from your unresisting hand. And it was she who carefully restored it to the place it had occupied in the bureau drawer, ready to hand, in case the police should want it the next day. The other one—the real one, she mailed to Edgar. Did you ever hear her speak of a New York lawyer by the name of Miller?”

“Oh, yes; he is her aunt’s husband. It is to them she has gone. She is to be married in their house. They live in Newark.”

I own that I was a little startled by this information. In handing me the key and his letter two days before in Thirty-fifth Street he had taken me for Edgar. This he could not have done had he ever met him. Could it be that they were strangers? To settle the question, I ventured to remark:

“Edgar goes everywhere. Do you suppose he ever visited the Millers?”

“Oh, no. Lucy has not been there herself in years.”

“Then you do not think they are acquainted with him?”

“I have no reason to. They have never met Dr. Hunter. Why should they have met Edgar?”

Her cheek was aglow; she seemed to misunderstand my reason for these questions; so I hastened to explain myself by relating the episode which had had such an effect on all our lives. This once made clear I was preparing to consult with her about my plans for Edgar, when she cast a swift glance towards the door, the portières of which were drawn wide, and observing nobody in the court, said with the slightest hint of trouble in her voice:

“There is something else I ought to speak about. You remember that you advised me to make use of my first opportunity to visit the little stairway hidden these many years from everybody but my father? I did so, as I have already told you, and in that box, from which the will was drawn I found, doubled up and crushed into the bottom of it, this.”

Thrusting her hand into a large silken bag which lay at her side on the divan on which she was seated, she drew out a crumpled document which I took from her with some misgiving.

“The first will of all,” I exclaimed on opening it. “The one he was told by his lawyer to destroy, and did not.”

“But it is of no use now,” she protested. “It—it—”

“Take it,” I broke in almost harshly. The sight of it had affected me far beyond what it should have done. “Put it away—keep it—till I have time to—”

“To do what?” she asked, eyeing me with some wonder as she put the document back in the bag.

“To think out my whole duty,” I smiled, recovering myself and waving the subject aside.

“But,” she suggested timidly but earnestly as well, “won’t it complicate matters? Mr. Dunn bade Father to destroy it.” And her eye stole towards the fireplace where some small logs were burning.

“He would not tell us to do so now,” I protested. “You must keep it religiously, as we hope to keep our honor. Don’t you see that, cousin mine?”

“Yes,” came with pride now. But from what that pride sprung it would take more than man to tell.

And then I spoke of Edgar and won her glad consent to my intention of taking care of him as long as he would suffer it or need me. After which, she left me with the understanding that I would summon all the remaining members of the household and tell them from my personal knowledge what they would soon be learning, possibly with less accuracy, from the city newspapers.

Night again in this house of many mysteries. Late night. Quiet had succeeded intense excitement; darkness, the flashing here and there of many lights. Orpha had retired; even Edgar was asleep. I alone kept watch.

To these others peace of a certain nature had come amid all the distraction; but not to me. For me the final and most desperate struggle of all was on,—that conflict with self which I had foreseen with something like fear when I opened the old document so lately found by Orpha, and beheld Edgar’s name once more in its place as chief beneficiary.

Till then, my course had seemed plain enough. But with this previous will still in existence, signed and attested to and openly recognized as it had been for many years as the exact expression of my uncle’s wishes, confusion had come again and with it the return of old doubts which I had thought exorcized forever.

Had the assault been a feeble one—had these doubts been mere shadows cast by a discarded past, I might not have quailed at their onslaught so readily. But their strength was of the present and bore down upon me with a malignancy which made all their former attacks seem puerile and inconsequent.

For the events of the day previous to Orpha’s production of the old will had shown to my satisfaction that I might yet look for happiness whether my claim would be allowed or disallowed by the surrogate. If allowed, it left me free to do my duty by Edgar, now relieved forever in my eyes of all complicity in our uncle’s tragic death. If disallowed, it left Orpha free, as heiress and mistress of her own fortunes, to follow her inclination and formulate her future as her heart and reason dictated.

But now, with this former will still in existence, the question was whether I could find the strength to carry out the plan which my better nature prompted, when the alternative would be the restoration of Edgar to his old position with all the obligations it involved.

This was a matter not to be settled without a struggle. I must fight it out, and as I have said, alone. No one could help me; no one could advise me. Only myself could know myself and what was demanded of me by my own nature. No other being knew what had passed between Uncle and myself in those hours when it was given me to learn his heart’s secrets and the strength of the wish which had dominated his later life. Had Wealthy not spoken—had she not cleared Edgar from all complicity in Uncle’s premature death,—had I possessed a doubt or even the shadow of one, that in this she had spoken the whole unvarnished truth, there would have been no question as to my duty in the present emergency and I should have been sleeping, at this midnight hour just as Edgar was, or at the most, keeping a nurse’s watch over him, but no vigil such as I was holding now.

He was guilty of deception—guilty of taking an unfair advantage of me at a critical point in my life. He did not rightly love Orpha, and was lacking in many qualities desirable in one destined to fill a large place in civic life. But these were peccadilloes in comparison to what we had feared; and remembering his good points and the graces which embellished him, and the absolute certainty which I could not but feel that in time, with Lucy married and irrevocably removed from him, he would come to appreciate Orpha, I felt bound to ask myself whether I was justified in taking from him every incentive towards the higher life which our uncle had foreseen for him when he planned his future—a future which, I must always remember, my coming and my coming only had disturbed.

I have not said it, but from the night when, lying on my bed I saw my uncle at my side and felt his trembling arms pressing on my breast and heard him in the belief that it was at Edgar’s bedside he knelt, sobbing in my ear, “I cannot do it. I have tried to and the struggle is killing me,” I had earnestly vowed and, with every intention of keeping my vow, that I would let no ambition of my own, no love of luxury or power, no craving for Orpha’s affection, nothing which savored entirely of self should stand in the way of Edgar’s fortunes so long as I believed him worthy of my consideration. This may explain my sense of duty towards Orpha and also the high-strung condition of my nerves from the day tragedy entered our home and with it the deep felt fear that he did not merit that consideration.

I was aware what Mr. Jackson would say to all this—what any lawyer would say who had me for a client. They would find reason enough for me to let things take their natural course.

But would that exonerate me from acting the part of a true man as I had come to conceive it?

Would my days and nights be happier and my sleep more healthful if with a great fortune in hand, and blessed with a wife I adored, I had to contemplate the lesser fortunes of him who was the darling of the man from whom I had received these favors?

I shuddered at the mere thought of such a future. Always would his image rise in shadowy perspective before me. It would sit with me at meals, brood at my desk, and haunt every room in this house which had been his home from childhood while it had been mine for the space only of a few months. Together, we had fathomed its secret. Together, we had trod its strangely concealed stairway. The sense of an unseen presence which had shaken the hearts of many in traversing its halls was no longer a mystery; but the by-ways in life which the harassed soul must tread have their own hidden glooms and their own unexpectedness; and the echoes of steps we hear but cannot see, linger long in the consciousness and do not always end with the years. Should I brave them? Dare I brave them when something deep within me protested with an insistent, inexorable disclaimer?

The conflict waxed so keen and seemed destined to be so prolonged—for self is a wily adversary and difficult to conquer—that I grew impatient and the air heavy with the oppression of the darkness in which I sat. I was in Edgar’s den and comfortable enough; but such subjects as occupied me in this midnight hour call for light, space and utmost freedom of movement if they would be viewed aright and settled sensibly. Edgar was sleeping quietly; why not visit Uncle’s old room and do what he once told me to do when under the stress of an overwhelming temptation—sit within view of Orpha’s portrait and test my wishes by its wordless message.

But when I had entered the great room and, still in solitude though not in darkness, pulled the curtain from before that breathing canvas, the sight of features so dear bursting thus suddenly upon me made me forget my errand—forget everything but love. But gradually as I gazed, the purity of those features and the searching power they possessed regained its influence over me and I knew that if I would be true to her and true to myself,—above all, if I would be true to my uncle and the purpose of his life, I should give Edgar his chance.

For, in these long hours of self-analysis, I had discovered that deep in the inmost recesses of my mind there existed a doubt, vitiating every hope as it rose, whether we were right in assuming that the will we had come upon at the bottom of the walled-in stairway was the one he meant us to find and abide by. The box in which it was thrust held a former testament of his manifestly discarded. What proof had we that in thus associating the two he had not meant to discard both. None whatever. We could not even tell whether he knew or did not know which will he was handling. The right will was in the right envelope when we found it, he must therefore have changed them back, but whether in full knowledge of what he was doing, or in the confusion of a mind greatly perturbed by the struggle Wealthy had witnessed in him at the fireside, who could now decide. The intention with which this mortally sick man, with no longer prospect of life before him than the two weeks promised him by the doctor, forced himself to fit a delicate key into an imperceptible lock and step by step, without assistance, descend a stairway but little wider than his tread, into depths damp with the chill of years for the purpose of secreting there a will contradictory to the one he had left in the room above, could never now be known. We could but guess at it, I in my way, and Edgar in his, and the determining power—by which I mean the surrogate’s court—in its.

And because intention is all and guessing would never satisfy me, I vowed again that night, with my eyes fixed on Orpha’s as they shone upon me from her portrait, that come weal, or come woe,

Edgar should have his chance.

The next day I took up my abode in Edgar’s room, not to leave him again till he was strong enough to face the importunities of friends and the general talk of the public. The doctor, warned by Orpha of my intention, fell into it readily enough after a short conversation we had together, and a week went by without Edgar hearing of Wealthy’s death or the inevitable inquest which had followed it. Then there came a day when I told him the whole story; and after the first agitation caused by this news had passed, I perceived with strengthening hope that the physical crisis had passed and that with a little more care he would soon be well and able to listen to what I had to say to him about the future.

Till then we both studiously avoided every topic connected with the present. This, strange as it may appear, was at his request. He wanted to get well. He was bent upon getting well and that as quickly as it was in his power to do so. Whether this desire, which was almost violent in its nature, sprang from his wish to begin proceedings against me in the surrogate’s court or from a secret purpose to have one last word with Lucy Colfax before her speedily approaching marriage, the result was an unswerving control over himself and a steady increase in health.

Miss Colfax was in Newark where the ceremony was to take place. The cards were just out and in my anxiety to know what was really seething in his mind—for his detached air and effort from time to time at gayety of manner and speech had not deceived me—I asked the doctor if it would be safe for me to introduce into my conversation with Edgar any topic which would be sure to irritate, if not deeply distress him.

“Do you consider it really necessary to broach any such topic at this time?”

“I certainly do, Doctor; circumstances demand it.”

“Then go ahead. I think your judgment can be depended upon to know at what moment to stop.”

I was not long in taking advantage of this permission. As soon as the doctor was gone, I drew from my pocket the cards which had come in the morning’s mail and handed them to Edgar, with just the friendly display of interest which it would be natural for me to show if conditions had been what they seemed to be rather than what they were.

I heard the paper crunch under the violent clutch which his fingers gave it but I did not look at him, though the silence seemed long before he spoke. When he did, there was irony in his tone which poorly masked the suffering underlying it.

“Lucy will make a man like Dr. Hunter a model wife,” was what he finally remarked; but the deliberate way in which he tore up the cards and threw the fragments away—possibly to hide the marks of his passion upon them—troubled me and caused me to listen eagerly as he went on to remark: “I have never liked Dr. Hunter. We could never hit it off. Talk about a crooked stick! She with all her lovers! What date is it? The seventeenth? We must send her a present!”

I sat aghast; his tone was indescribable. I felt that the time had come to change the subject.

“Edgar,” said I, “the doctor has assured me that so far as symptoms go your condition is satisfactory. That all you need now is rest of mind; and that I propose to give you if I can. You remember how when we two were at the bottom of that stairway with the unopened will between us that I declared to you that I would abide by the expression of our uncle’s wishes when once they were made plain to me? My mind has not changed in that regard. If you can prove to me that his last intention was to recur—”

“You know I cannot do that,” he broke in petulantly, “why talk?”

“Because I cannot prove that he did not so intend any more than you can prove that he did.”

I felt a ghostly hand on my arm jerking me back. I thought of Mr. Jackson and of how it would be like him to do this if he were standing by and heard me. But I shook off this imagined clutch, just as I would have withdrawn my arm from his had he been there; and went quietly on as Edgar’s troubled eyes rose to mine.

“I am not going to weary you by again offering you my friendship. I have done that once and my mind does not easily change. But I here swear that if you choose to contest the will now in the hands of the surrogate, I will not offer any defense, once I am positively assured that Orpha’s welfare will not suffer. The man who marries the daughter of Edgar Quenton Bartholomew must have no dark secret in his life. Tell me—we are both young, both fortunate enough, or shall I say unfortunate enough, to have had very much our own way in life up to the difficult present—what was the cause of your first rupture with Uncle? It is not as a father confessor I ask you this, but as a man who cannot rightfully regulate his own conduct till he has a full knowledge of yours.”

With starting eyes he rose before me, slowly and by jerks as though his resisting muscles had to be coerced to their task. But once at his full height, he suddenly sank back into his chair with a loud shout of laughter.

“You should have been a lawyer,” he scoffed. “You put your finger instinctively on the weakest spot in the defense.” Then as I waited, he continued in a different tone and with a softer aspect: “It won’t do, Quenton. If you are going to base your action on Orpha’s many deserts and my appreciation of them, you had better save yourself the trouble. I”—his head fell and he had to summon up courage to proceed—“I love her as my childhood’s playmate, and I admire her as a fine girl who will make a still finer woman, but—”

I put up my hand. “You need not say it, Edgar. I will spare you that much. I know—we all know where your preference lies. You shouted it out in your sickness. But that is something which time will take care of if—”

“There is no if; and time! That is what is eating me up; making me the wretch you have found me. It is not the fortune that Uncle left which I so much want,” he hurried on as his impulsive nature fully asserted itself. “Not for myself I mean, but for its influence on her. She is a queen and has a queen’s right to all that this world can give of splendor and of power. But Orpha has her rights, too; Lucy can never be mistress here. I see that as well as you do and so thanking you for your goodness, for you have been good to me, let us call it all off. I am not penniless. I can go my own way; you will soon be rid of me.”

Why couldn’t I find a word? Now was the time to speak, but my lips were dumb; my thoughts at a standstill. He, on the contrary, was burning to talk—to free himself from the bitterness of months by a frank outpouring of the hopes and defeats of his openly buoyant but secretly dissatisfied young life.

“You asked me what came between Uncle and myself on that wretched night of the ball,” he hurried on. “I have a notion to tell you. Since you know about Lucy—” His tongue tripped on the word but he shook his head and began volubly again. “I am not a fellow given to much thought unless it is about art or books or music, so I was deep in love before I knew it. She had come back from school—But I cannot go into that. You have seen her, and perhaps can understand my infatuation. I had supposed myself happy in the prospects always held out to me. But a few days of companionship with her convinced me that there was but one road to happiness for me and that was closed against me. That was when I should have played the man—told Uncle, and persuaded him to leave his fortune directly to Orpha. Instead of which, I let Uncle dream his dreams while Lucy and I met here and there, outwardly just friends, but inwardly—Well, I won’t make a fool of myself by talking about it. Had Orpha been older and more discerning, things might have been different; but she was a child, happy in the pleasures of the day and her father’s affection. When he, eager to see his plans matured, proposed a ball and the announcement of our engagement at this ball, she consented joyfully, more because she was in love with the ball than with me. But to Lucy and me it was quite another matter. We woke to the realities of life and saw no way of opposing them. For me to be designated as my uncle’s heir and marry Orpha had been the expectation of us all for years. Besides, there is no use in my concealing from you who know me so well, I saw no life ahead of me without fortune. I was accustomed to it and it was my natural heritage; nor would Lucy have married a poor man; it was not in her; there are some things one can never accept.

“I am speaking of affairs as they were that week when Lucy and I virtually parted. Before it was over she had engaged herself to Dr. Hunter, in order, as she said, to save ourselves from further folly. This marked the end of my youth and of something good in me which has never come back. I blamed nobody but I began to think for myself and plan for myself with little thought of others, unless it was for Lucy. If only something would happen to prevent that announcement! Then it might be possible for me to divert matters in a way to secure for me the desires I cherished. How little I dreamed what would happen, and that within a short half hour!

“I have asked the doctor and he says that he thinks Uncle’s health had begun to wane before that day. That is a comfort to me; but there are times when I wish I had died before I did what I did that night. You have asked to know it and you shall, for I am reckless enough now to care little about what any one thinks of me. I had come upon Uncle rather unexpectedly, as, dressed for the ball, he sat at his desk which was then as you know in the little room off his where we afterwards slept. He was looking over his will—he said so—the one which had been drawn up long before and which had been brought to the house that day by Mr. Dunn. As I met his eye he smiled, and tapping the document which he had hurriedly folded, remarked cheerfully, ‘This will see you well looked after,’ and put it back in one of the drawers. With some affectionate remark I told him my errand—I forget what it was now—and left him just as he rose from his desk. But the thought which came to me as he did this went with me down the stairs. I wanted to see that will. I wanted to know just how much it bound me to Orpha—Don’t look at me like that. I was in love, I tell you, and the thought which had come to me was this; he had not locked the drawer.

“Uncle was happy as a king as he joined us below that night. He looked at Orpha in her new dress as if he had never seen her before, and the word or two he uttered in my ear before the guests came made my heart burn but did not disturb my purpose. When I could—when most of the guests were assembled and the dance well under way—I stole through the dining-room into the rear and so up the back stairs to Uncle’s study. No one was on that floor; all the servants were below, even Wealthy. I found everything as we had left it; the drawer still unlocked, and the will inside.

“I took it out—yes, I did that—and I read it greedily. Its provisions were most generous so far as I was concerned. I was given almost everything after some legacies and public bequests had been made; but it was not this which excited me; it was that no conditions were attached to my inheriting this great fortune. Orpha’s name was not even mentioned in connection with it. I should be free—

“My thoughts had got thus far—dishonorable as they may appear—when I felt a sudden chill so quick and violent that the paper rattled in my hands; and looking up I beheld Uncle standing in the doorway with his eyes fixed upon me in a way no man’s eyes had ever been before; his, least of all. He had remembered that he had not locked up his desk and had come back to do so and found me reading his will.

“Quenton, I could have fallen at his feet in my shame and humiliation, for I loved him. I swear to you now that I loved him and do now above every one in the world but—but Lucy. But he was not used to such demonstrations, so I simply rose and folding up the paper laid it between us on the desk, not looking at him again. I felt like a culprit. I do yet when I think of it, and I declare to you that bad as I am, when, as sometimes happens I awake in the night fresh from a dream of orchestral music and the tread of dancing feet, I find my forehead damp and my hands trembling. That sound was all I heard between the time I laid down the will and the moment when he finally spoke:

“‘So eager, Edgar?’

“I was eager or had been, but not for what he thought. But how could I say so? How could I tell him the motive which had driven me to unfold a personal document he had never shown me? I who can talk by the hour had not a word to say. He saw it and observed very coldly:

“‘A curiosity which defies honor and the trust of one who has never failed you has its root in some secret but overpowering desire. What is that desire, Edgar? Love of money or love of Orpha?’

“A piercing thrust before which any man would quail. I could not say ‘Love of Orpha,’ that was too despicable; nor could I tell the truth for that would lose me all; so after a moment of silent agony, I faltered:

“‘I—I’m afraid I rate too high the advantages of great wealth. I am ashamed—’

“He would not let me finish.

“‘Haven’t you every advantage now? Has anything ever been denied you? Must you have all in a heap? Must I die to satisfy your cupidity? I would not believe it of you, boy, if you had not yourself said it. I can hardly believe it now, but—’

“At that he stumbled and I sprang to steady him. But he would not let me touch him.

“‘Go down,’ he said. ‘You have guests. I may forget this, in time, but not at once. And heed me in this. No announcement of any engagement between you and Orpha! We will substitute for that the one between Lucy and Dr. Hunter. That will satisfy the crowd and please the two lovers. See to it. I shall not go down again.’

“I tried to protest, but the calamity I had brought upon myself robbed me of all initiative and I could only stammer useless if not meaningless words which he soon cut short.

“‘Your guests are waiting,’ came again from his lips as he bent forward, but not with his usual precision, and took up the will.

“And I had to go. When halfway down the stairs I heard him lock the door of his room. It gave me a turn, but I did not know then how deeply he had been stricken—that before another hour he would be really ill. I had my own ordeal to face; you know what it was. My degeneration began from that hour. Quenton, it is not over. I—” He flung his hands over his face; when he dropped them I saw a different man—one whom I hardly understood.

“You see,” he now quietly remarked, “I am no fit husband for Orpha.”

And after that he would listen to nothing on this or any other serious topic.

Two flights of stairs and two only, separated Edgar’s rooms from the library in which I hoped to find Orpha. But as I went down them step by step they seemed at one moment to be too many for my impatience and at another too few for a wise decision as to what I should say when I reached her. As so frequently before my heart and my head were opposed. I dared not yield to the instincts of the former without giving ear to the monitions of the latter. Edgar had renounced his claim, ungraciously, doubtless, but yet to all appearance sincerely enough. But he was a man of moods, guided almost entirely by impulses, and to-morrow, under a fresh stress of feeling, his mood might change, with unpleasant if not disastrous results. True, I might raise a barrier to any decided change of front on his part by revealing to Orpha what had occurred and securing her consent to our future union. But the indelicacy of any such haste was not in accord with the reverent feelings with which I regarded her; and how far I would have allowed myself to go had I found her in one of the rooms below, I cannot say, for she was not in any of them nor was she in the house, as Haines hastened to tell me when I rang for him.

The respite was a fortunate one perhaps; at least, I have always thought so; and accepting it with as much equanimity as such a disappointment would admit of, I decided to seek an interview with Mr. Jackson before I made another move. He was occupied when I entered his office, but we ultimately had our interview and it lasted long enough for considerable time to have elapsed before I turned again towards home. When I did, it was with the memory of only a few consecutive sentences of all he had uttered. These were the sentences:

“You will get your inheritance. You will be master of Quenton Court and of a great deal besides. But what I am working for and am very anxious to see, is your entrance upon this large estate with the sympathy of your fellow-citizens. Therefore, I caution restraint till Edgar recovers his full health and has had time to show his hand. I will give him two weeks. With his head-long nature that should be sufficient. You can afford to wait.”

Yes, I could afford to wait with such a prospect before me; and I had made up my mind to do so by the time I had rung the bell on my return.

But that and all other considerations were driven from my mind when I saw a renewal of the old anxiety in Haines’ manner as he opened the door to admit me.

“Oh, sir!” was his eager cry as I stepped in. “We don’t know how it happened or how he was ever able to get away; but Mr. Edgar is gone. When I went to his room a little while ago to see if he wanted anything I found it in disorder and this—this note, for you, sir.”

I took it from his hand; looked at it stupidly, feeling afraid to open it. Like a stray whiff of wind soaring up from some icy gulf, I heard again those final words of his, “You will soon be rid of me.” I felt the paper flutter in my hand; my fingers were refusing to hold it. “Take it, and open it,” I said to Haines.

He did so, and when he had drawn out the card it held and I had caught a glimpse of the few words it contained, my fear became a premonition; and, seizing it, I carried it into the library.

Once there and free to be myself; to suffer and be unobserved, I looked down at those words and read:

Two weeks! What did he mean by two weeks? Mr. Jackson had made use of the same expression. What did he mean? Then it came to me what Edgar meant, not what Mr. Jackson had. Lucy Colfax was to be married in two weeks. If he could face the world after that with a smile—

Ah, Edgar, my more than brother! Weak, faulty, but winsome even when most disturbing,—if any one could face a future bereft of all that gives it charm, you can. But the limit may have been reached. Who knows? It was for me to follow him, search him out and see.

“Haines,” I called.

He came with a rush.

“Has Miss Bartholomew returned?”

“No, sir, not yet. She and Mrs. Ferris are out for a long ride.”

“When she does come back, give her this note.” And I scribbled a few lines. “And now, Haines, answer me. Mr. Edgar could not have left on foot. Who drove him away?”

“Sammy.”

He mentioned a boy who helped in the garage.

“In what car?”

“The Stutz. Mr. Edgar must have come down the rear stairs, carrying his own bag, and slipped out at the side without any one seeing him. Bliss is out with Miss Orpha and Mrs. Ferris and so he could have every chance with Sammy, who is overfond of small change, sir.”

“Has Sammy shown up since? Is the car in the garage?”

“No, sir.”

“Haines, don’t give me away. Understand that this is to be taken quietly. Mr. Edgar told me that he was going to leave, but he did not say when. If he had, I would have seen that he went more comfortably. The doctor made his last call this morning and gave him permission to try the air, and he is doing so. We don’t know when he will return; possibly in two weeks. He said something to that effect. This is what you are to say to the other servants and to every inquirer. But, Haines, to Clarke—You know where Clarke is?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can you reach him by telephone?”

“Easily, sir.”

“Then telephone him at once. Go to my room to do it. Say that I have need of his services, that Mr. Edgar, who is just off a sick bed, has left the house to go we don’t know where, and that he and I must find him. Bid him provide for a possible trip out of town, though I hope that a few hours will suffice to locate Mr. Bartholomew. Add that before coming here he is to make a few careful inquiries at the stations and wherever he thinks my cousin would be apt to go on a sudden impulse. That when he has done so he is to call you up. Above all, impress upon him that he is to give rise to no alarm.”

“I will, sir. You may rely upon me.” And as though to give proof of his sincerity, Haines started with great alacrity upstairs.

I was not long in following him. When I reached my room I found that he had got into communication with Clarke and been assured that all orders received by him from me would be obeyed as if they had come from his old master.

This relieved me immensely. Confident that he would perform the task I had given him with much better results than I could and at the same time rouse very much less suspicion, I busied myself with preparations for my own departure in case I should be summoned away in haste, thankful for any work which would keep me from dwelling too closely on what I had come to regard with increasing apprehension. When I had reached the end, I just sat still and waited; and this was the hardest of all. Fortunately, the time was short. At six o’clock precisely my phone rang. Haines had received a message from Clarke and took this way of communicating it to me.

No signs of the Stutz at either station, but Clarke had found a man who had seen it going out Main Street and another who had encountered it heading for Morrison. What should he do next?

I answered without hesitation. “Tell him to get a fast car and follow. After dinner, I will get another somewhere down street and take the same road. If I go before dinner, questions will be asked which it will be difficult for me to answer. Let me find a message awaiting me at Five Oaks.”

Five Oaks was a small club-house on the road to Morrison.

When at a suitable time after dinner I took my leave of Orpha, it was with the understanding that I might not return that night, but that she would surely hear from me in the morning. I had not confided to her all my fears, but possibly she suspected them, for her parting glance haunted me all the way to the club-house I have mentioned.

Arriving there without incident, I was about to send in the man acting as my chauffeur to make inquiries when a small auto coming from the rear of the house suddenly shot past us down the driveway and headed towards Houston.

Though its lights were blinding I knew it at a glance; it was Edgar’s yellow Stutz. He was either in it and consequently on his way back home, or he was through with the car and I should find him inside the club-house.

Knowing him well enough to be sure that I could do nothing worse than to show myself to him at this time, I reverted to my first idea and sent in the chauffeur to reconnoiter and also see if any message had been left for James E. Budd—the name under which I thought it best to disguise my own.

He came back presently with a sealed note left for me by Clarke. It conveyed the simple information that Edgar had picked up another car and another chauffeur and had gone straight on to Morrison. I was to follow and on reaching the outskirts of the town to give four short toots with the horn to which he would respond.

It was written in haste. He was evidently close behind Edgar, but I had no means of knowing the capacity of his car nor at what speed we could go ourselves. However, all that I had to do was to proceed, remembering the signal which I was to use whenever we sighted anything ahead.

It was a lonely road, and I wondered why Edgar had chosen it. A monotonous stretch of low fences with empty fields beyond, broken here and there by a poorly wooded swamp or a solitary farmhouse, all looking dreary enough in the faint light of a half-veiled gibbous moon.

A few cars passed us, but there was but little life on the road, and I found myself starting sharply when suddenly the quick whistle of an unseen train shrilled through the stagnant air. It seemed so near, yet I could get no glimpse of it or even of its trailing smoke.

I felt like speaking—asking some question—but I did not. It was a curious experience—this something which made me hold my peace.

My chauffeur whom I had chosen from five others I saw lounging about the garage was a taciturn being. I was rather glad of it, for any talk save that of the most serious character seemed out of keeping with these moments of dread—a dread as formless as many of the objects we passed and as chill as the mist now rising from meadow and wood in a white cloud which soon would envelop the whole landscape as in a shroud.

To relieve my feelings, I ordered him to sound the four short blasts agreed upon as a signal. To my surprise they were answered, but by three only. There was a car coming and presently it dashed by us, but it was not Clarke’s.

“Keep it up,” I ordered. “This mist will soon be a fog.” My chauffeur did so,—at intervals of course—now catching a reply but oftener not, until from far ahead of us, through the curtain of fog shutting off the road in front, there came in response the four clear precise blasts for which my ears were astretch.

“There are my friends,” I declared. “Go slowly.”

At which we crawled warily along till out of the white gloom a red spark broke mistily upon our view, and guided us to where a long low racing machine stood before a house, the outlines of which were so vague I could not determine its exact character.

Next minute Clarke was by my side.

“I shall have to ask you to get out here,” he said, with a sidelong glance at my chauffeur. “And as the business you have come to settle may take quite a little while, it would be better for the car to swing in beside mine, so as to be a little way off the road.”

“Very good,” I answered, joining him immediately and seeing at the same time that the house was a species of tavern, illy-lit, but open to the public.

“What does it mean?” I questioned anxiously as he led me aside, not towards the tavern’s entrance, but rather to the right of it.

“I don’t know, sir. He is not inside. He drove up here about ten minutes ago, dismissed the car which brought him from the club-house, went in,—which was about the time I appeared upon the scene—and came out again with a man carrying a lantern. As I was then on my feet and about where we are standing now, I got one quick look at him as he passed through the doorway. I didn’t like his looks, sir; he must be feeling very ill. And I didn’t like the way he carried himself as he went about the turn you see there at the rear of the building. And I wanted to follow, though of course he is safe enough with the man he is with; but just then I heard your signal and ran to answer. That is all I have to tell you. But where is he going in such a mist? Shall I run in and ask?”

“Do,” I said; and waited impatiently enough for his reappearance which was delayed quite unaccountably, I thought. But then minutes seem hours in such a crisis.

When he did come, he, too, had a lantern.

“Let us follow,” said he, not waiting to give me any explanations. And keeping as closely to him as I could lest we should lose each other in the fog, I stumbled along a path worn in the stubbly grass, not knowing where I was going and unable to see anything to right or left or even in front but the dancing, hazy glow of the swinging lantern.

Suddenly that glow was completely extinguished; but before I could speak Clarke had me by the arm.

“Step aside,” he whispered. “The man is coming back; he has left Mr. Edgar to go on alone.”

And then I heard a hollow sound as of steps on an echoing board.

“That must be a bridge Mr. Edgar is crossing,” whispered Clarke. “But see! he is doing it without light. The man has the lantern.”

“Where is your lantern?” I asked.

“Under my coat.”

We held our breath. The man came slowly on, picking his way and mumbling to himself rather cheerfully than otherwise. I was on the point of accosting him when Clarke stopped me and, as soon as the man had gone by, drew me back into the path, whispering:

“The steps on the bridge have stopped. Let us hurry.”

Next minute he had plucked out his lantern from under his coat and we were pressing on, led now by the sound of rushing water.

“It’s growing lighter. The fog is lifting,” came from Clarke as I felt the boards of the bridge under my feet.

Next minute he had the lantern again under his coat, but for all that, I found, after a few more steps, that I could see a little way ahead. Was that Edgar leaning against one of the supports of the bridge?

I caught at Clarke’s hand.

“Shall we go forward?” I asked.

His fingers closed spasmodically on mine, and as suddenly loosened.

“Let me,” he breathed, rather than whispered, and started to run, but almost instantly stopped and broke into a merry whistle. I thought I heard a sigh from that hardly discerned figure in front; but that was impossible. What did happen was a sudden starting back from the brink over which he had been leaning and the sound of two pairs of feet crossing the bridge to the other side.

Clarke’s happy thought had worked. One dangerous moment was passed. How soon would another confront us?

I was on and over that bridge almost as soon as they. And then I began to see quite clearly where we were. The lights of a small flagging station winked at me through the rapidly dissolving mist, and I remembered having often gone by it on the express. Now it assumed an importance beyond all measurement, for the thunder of an approaching train was in the air and Edgar poised on the brink of the platform was gazing down the track as a few minutes before he had gazed down at the swirling waters under the bridge.

Ah, this was worse! Should I shout aloud his name? entreat him to listen, rush upon him with outstretched arms? There was not time even for decision—the train was near—upon us—slackening. It was going to stop. As he took this in I distinctly heard him draw a heavy breath. Then as the big lumbering train came to a standstill, he turned, bag still in his hand, and detecting me standing not a dozen steps behind him, uttered the short laugh I had come to know so well and with a bow of surpassing grace which yet had its suggestion of ironic humor, leaped aboard the train and was gone before I could recover from my terror and confusion.

But it was not so with Clarke. As the last car went whizzing by I caught sight of him on the rear platform and caught his shout:

“Home, sir, and wait for news!”

All was not lost, then. But that station with the brawling stream beyond, and the square and ugly tavern overlooking it all, have a terror for me which it will take years for me to overcome.

I did not tell Orpha of this episode, then or ever. Why burden her young heart with griefs and fears? I merely informed her when I met her the next morning at breakfast that having seen Edgar take a late train for New York my anxieties were quelled and I had returned to tell her so before starting out again for the city on an errand of my own.

When I came to say good-by, as I did after receiving a telegram from Clarke—of which I will say more later—I told her not to be anxious or to worry while I was away; that being in New York, I should be able to keep a watch over Edgar and see that he was well looked after if by any chance he fell ill again; and the smile I received in return, though infinitely sad, had such confidence in it that I would not have exchanged it for the gayest one I had seen on her lips on that memorable night of the ball.

The telegram I have mentioned was none too encouraging. It had been sent from New York and ran thus:

It was two hours before the second one came. It was to the point as witness:

This sent me off in great haste without another interview with Orpha. On reaching the station in New York I found Clarke waiting for me according to promise. His story was short but graphic. He had had no difficulty on the train. He had been able to keep his eye on Edgar without being seen by him; but some excitement occurring at the short stop made at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street—a pickpocket run down or something of that kind—he had leaned from his window to look out and in that instant Edgar had stepped from the train and disappeared in the crowd.

He had tried to follow but was checked in doing so by the quick starting up of the train. But he had a talk with the conductor, who informed him that the man to whom he probably referred had shown decided symptoms of illness, and that he himself had advised him to leave the train and be driven to a hospital, being really afraid that he would break out in delirium if he stayed. This was a guide to Clarke and next morning by going the rounds of upper New York hospitals he had found him. He had been registered under his own name and might be seen if it was imperative to identify him, but at present he was in a delirious condition and it would be better for him not to be disturbed.

Thankful that it was not worse, but nevertheless sufficiently alarmed, a relapse being frequently more serious than the original attack, I called a taxi and we rode at once to the hospital. Good news awaited us. Edgar had shown some favorable symptoms in the last hour and if kept quiet, might escape the worst consequence of a journey for which he had not had the necessary strength. The only thing which puzzled the doctors was his desire to write. He asked for paper and pen continually; but when they were brought to him he produced nothing but a scrawl. But he would have this put in an envelope and sealed. But he failed to address it, saying that he would do that after he had a nap. But though he had his nap he did not on waking recur to the subject, though his first look was at the table where the so-called letter had been laid. It was there now and there they had decided to let it lie, since his eyes seldom left it and if they did, returned immediately to it again as if his whole life were bound up in that wordless scrawl.

This was pitiful news to me, but I could do nothing to save the situation but wait, leaving it to the discretion of the doctors to say when an interview with my cousin would be safe. I did not hesitate to tell them that my presence would cause him renewed excitement, and they, knowing well enough who we were, took in the situation without too much explanation. They succeeded in startling me, however, with the statement that it would probably be two weeks before I could hope to see him.

Two weeks again! Why always two weeks?

There was no help for it. All I could do was to settle down nearby and wait for the passing of those two weeks as we await the falling of a blow whose force we have no means of measuring. Short notes passed between Orpha and myself, but they were all about Edgar, whose condition was sensibly improving, but hardly so rapidly as we had hoped. Clarke had been given access to him; and as Clarke had wisely forborne from mentioning my name in the matter, simply explaining his own presence there by the accounts which had appeared in the papers of his former young master’s illness, he was greeted so warmly that he almost gave way under it. Thereafter, he spent much time at Edgar’s bedside, reporting to me at night the few words which had passed between them. For, Edgar, so loquacious in health, had little to say in convalescence; but lay brooding with a wild light coming and going in his eyes, which now as before were turned on that table where the unaddressed letter still lay.

For whom was that indecipherable scrawl meant? We knew; for Lucy.

I think that it was on the tenth day of my long wait,—I know that it was just two before Miss Colfax’s wedding—that Clarke came in looking a trifle out of sorts and said that he had done something which I might not approve of. He had mailed the letter which Edgar had finally addressed to Miss Colfax. A few words in explanation, and I perceived that he could hardly have helped it; Edgar was so appealing and so entirely unconvinced by what the nurse said concerning the incoherence of its contents. “I know what I have written,” he kept saying; and made Clarke swear that he would put it in the first box he saw on leaving the hospital.

“What harm can it do?” Clark anxiously inquired. “It may perplex and trouble Miss Colfax; but we can explain later; can we not, sir?”

I thought of the haughty self-contained Lucy, with a manner so cold and a heart so aflame, receiving this jumble of words amid the preparation for her marriage,—perhaps when her bridal veil was being tried on, or a present displayed,—and had nothing to say. Explanations would not ease the anguish of that secretly distracted heart.

“Shall we do anything about it, sir? I know where Miss Colfax lives.”

“No, we can do nothing. A matter of that sort is better left alone.”

But I was secretly very uneasy until Clarke came in from the hospital the following day with the glad story that Edgar had improved so much since the sending of this letter that he had been allowed to take an airing in the afternoon. “And to-morrow I am to go early and accompany him to a jeweler’s shop where he proposes to buy a present for the bride-to-be. He seemed quite cheerful about it, and the doctors have given their consent. He looks like another man, Mr. Bartholomew. You will find that when this wedding is over he will be very much like his old self.”

And again I said nothing; but I took a much less optimistic view of my cousin’s apparent cheerfulness.

“He sent me away early. He says that he is going to rest every minute till I come for him in one of Jones’ fine motor cars.”

“It’s a late hour for sending presents,” I remarked. “Three hours before the ceremony.”

“I am to bring him back to the hospital and then take the car and deliver it.”

“Very well, Clarke; only watch him and don’t be surprised if you find us on the road behind you. There is something in all this I don’t understand.”

But when on the following morning I actually found myself riding in the wake of these two and saw Edgar alight with almost a jaunty air before one of the smallest, but most fashionable jeweler shops on the Avenue, I could not but ask myself if my fears had any such foundation as I had supposed. He really did look almost cheerful and walked with a perfectly assured air into the shop.

But he went alone; and when quite some little time had elapsed and he did not reappear, I was ready to brave anything to be sure that all was right. So taking advantage of a little break in the traffic, I ordered my chauffeur to draw up beside the auto waiting at the curb; and when we got abreast of it, I leaned out and asked Clarke, who hastily lowered his window, why he had not gone in with Mr. Bartholomew.

“Because he would not let me. He wanted to feel free to take his own time. He told me that it would take him at least half an hour to choose the article he wanted. He has been gone now just twenty-seven minutes.”

“Can you see the whole length of the shop from where you sit?”

“No, sir. There are several people in front—”

“Get out and go in at once. Don’t you see that this shop is next to the corner? That it may have a side entrance—”

He was out of the car before I had finished and in three minutes came running back.

“You are right, sir. He did not buy a thing. There is no sign of him in the shop or in the street. I deserve—”

“We won’t talk. Pay your chauffeur and dismiss him. Then get in with me, and we will drive as fast as the law allows to that house in Newark where he said the present was to go. If we do not find him there we may as well give up all hope; we shall never see him again.”

It was a wild ride. If he had been fortunate enough to secure a taxi within a few minutes after reaching the street, he must have had at least twenty minutes the start of us. But the point was not to overtake him, but to come upon him at Mr. Miller’s before any mischief could take place. I was an invited guest, though probably not expected; and it being a house-wedding, I felt sure of being received even if I was not in a garb suited to the occasion.

There were delays made up by a few miles of speeding along the country roads, and when we finally struck the street in which Mr. Miller lived, it lacked just one hour of noon.

What should we do? It was too soon to present ourselves. The few autos standing about were business ones, with a single exception. Pointing this out to Clarke, I bade him get busy and find out if this car were a local or a New York one.

He came back very soon to the spot where we had drawn up to say that it belonged to some relative of the bride; and satisfied from this and the quiet aspect of the house itself that nothing of a disturbing character had yet occurred, I advised Clarke to hang about and learn what he could, while I waited for the appearance of Edgar whom we had probably outridden in crossing the marshes.

We had a place on the opposite side of the street, from which I could see the windows of Mr. Miller’s house. I took note of every automobile which drove up before me, but I took note also of those windows and once got a glimpse in one of the upper ones of a veiled head and a white face turned eagerly towards the street.

She was expecting him. Nothing else would account for so haggard a look on a face so young; and with a thought of Orpha and how I would rather die than see her in the grip of such despair, I nerved myself for what might come, without a hope that any weal could follow such a struggle of unknown forces as apparently threatened us.

The house in which my whole interest was centered at this moment was of somewhat pretentious size, built of brick painted brown and set back far enough from the sidewalk to allow for a square of turf, in the center of which rose a fountain dry as the grass surrounding it. From what conjunction of ideas that fountain with its image of a somewhat battered Cupid got in my way and inflicted itself upon my thoughts, I cannot say. I was watching for Edgar’s appearance, but I saw this fountain; and now when the memory of that day comes back, first and foremost before anything else rises a picture of that desolate basin and its almost headless Cupid. I was trying to escape this obsession when I saw him. He had alighted by that time and was halfway up the walk, but I entered the door almost at his heels.

He was stepping quickly, but I was close behind and was looking for an opportunity to speak to him when he took a course through the half-filled hall which led him into a portion of the house where it would have been presumptuous in me to follow.

We had been asked to go upstairs, but with a shake of the head and the air of one at home, he had pressed straight on to the rear and so out of my sight. There was nothing left for me to do but to mount the stairs in front which I did very unwillingly.

However, once at the top and while still in the shadow of a screen of palms running across this end of the hall, I heard his voice from behind these palms asking for Miss Colfax. He had come up a rear staircase.

By this time there were others in the hall besides myself making for the dressing-rooms opening back and front, and I saw many heads turn, but nobody stop. The hour for the ceremony was approaching.

What to do? The question was soon answered for me. Edgar had stepped from behind the palms and was rapidly going front in the direction of the third story staircase. She was above, as I knew, and any colloquy between them must be stopped if my presence would prevent it.

Following in his wake, but not resorting to the leaps and bounds by which he reached the top of the stairs in a twinkling, I did not see the rush of the white-clad figure which fell into his arms with a moan which was more eloquent of joy than despair. But I was in time to hear him gasp out in wild excitement:

“I am here. I have come for you. You shall never marry any one but me. Sickness has held me back—hospital—delirium. I cannot live without you. I will not. Lucy, Lucy, take off that veil. We do not need veils, or wedding guests or orchestra or luncheon. We only need each other. Do you consent? Will you take me weakened by illness, deprived of my inheritance but true to you when the full realization came.”

And listening for her answer I heard just a sigh. But that sigh was eloquent and it had barely left her lips when I heard a rush from below and, noting who it was, I slipped quickly up to Edgar and touching him on the arm, said quietly but very firmly:

“Dr. Hunter.”

They started apart and Edgar, drawing back, cried under his breath:

“You here!”

“Would you wish it otherwise?” I asked; and stepped aside as Dr. Hunter, pale to the lips, but very dignified and very stern, advanced from the top of the stairs followed by a lady and gentleman who, as I afterwards learned, were Lucy’s aunt and uncle. There was a silence; which, repeated as it was below stairs, held the house in a hush for one breathless moment. Then I took the lead, and, pointing to an open door in front, I addressed the outraged bridegroom with all the respect I felt for him.

“Pardon me, Dr. Hunter. As the cousin and friend of Edgar Bartholomew, allow me to urge that we say what we have to say behind closed doors. The house is rapidly filling. Everything said in this hall can be heard below. Let us disappoint the curiosity of Mrs. Miller’s guests. Miss Colfax, will you lead the way?”

With a quick gesture she turned, and moving with the poise of a queen, entered the room from which I had seen her looking down into the street, followed by the rest of us in absolute silence. I came last and it was I who closed the door. When I turned, Dr. Hunter and Edgar were confronting each other in the middle of the room. Lucy was standing by herself, an image of beauty but cold to the eye as the marble she suggested. Mr. and Mrs. Miller stood aghast, speechless, and a little frightened. I hastened to put in a word.

“Edgar left a hospital bed to be here this morning. Have a little care, Dr. Hunter. His case has been a serious one.”

The doctor’s lips took a sarcastic curve.

“I have a physician’s eye,” was his sole return. Then without a word to Edgar, he stepped up to Lucy. “Will you take my arm?” he asked. “The clergyman who is to marry us is waiting.”

The image moved, but, oh, so slightly. “I cannot,” she replied. “It would be an outrage to you. All my heart goes out to the man behind you. It always has. He was not free—not really free—and I thought to help him do his duty by marrying you. But I cannot—I cannot.” And now all the fire in that woman’s soul flamed forth in one wild outburst as she cried aloud in undisguised passion, “I cannot so demean you, and I cannot so discourage Edgar. Free me, or—or I shall go mad.” Then she became quiet again, the old habit of self-restraint returned, the image resumed its calm, only her eyes steady and burning with the inner flame she sought to hide, held his with an undeviating demand.

He bowed before it, wincing a little as she lifted her arms and with a slow, deft movement, took the veil from her head and as slowly and deftly began to fold it up. I see her now as she did this and the fascination which held those two men in check—the one in a passion of rejoicing, the other in the agitation of seeing, for the first time, doubtless, in his placid courtship, the real woman beneath the simulated one who had accepted his attentions but refused him her love.

When she had finished and laid the veil aside, she had the grace to thank him for his forbearance.

But this he could not stand.

“It is for me to thank you,” said he. “It were better if more brides thought twice before bringing a loveless heart to their husband’s hearthstone.” And always dignified; always a man to admire, he turned towards the door.

Mr. Miller sought to stop him—to hold him back until the guests had been dismissed and the way prepared for him to depart, unseen and uncommiserated. But he would have none of that.

“I have been honest in my wish to make your niece happy and I need not fear the looks of any one. I will go alone. Take care of the sick man there. I have known great joy kill as effectually as great pain.”

Lucy’s head fell. Edgar started and reached out his hand. But the door was quickly opened and as quickly shut behind the doctor’s retreating form.

A sob from Lucy; an instant of quiet awe; then life came rushing back upon us with all its requirements and its promise of halcyon days to the two who had found their souls in the action and reaction of a few months of desperate trial and ceaselessly shifting circumstances.

And what of myself, as, with peace made with the Millers and arrangements entered into whereby Edgar was to remain with them till his health was restored, I rode back to New York and then—

Home! As the bee flies, home!

When I entered C—— in the late afternoon I was met by a very different reception from any which had ever been accorded me before. It began at the station. News travels fast, especially when it concerns people already in the public eye, and in every face I saw, and in every handshake offered me, I read the welcome due to the change in my circumstances made by Edgar’s choice of a wife. The Edgar whom they had held in preference above all others was a delightful fellow, a companion in a thousand and of a nature rich and romantic enough to give up fortune and great prestige for love; but he was no longer the Edgar of Quenton Court, and they meant me to realize it.

And I did. But there was one whose judgment I sought—whose judgment I awaited—whom I must see and understand before I could return these amenities with all the grace which they demanded. There was nothing for me in this open and unabashed homage, rendered after weeks of dislike and suspicion, if the welcome I should not fail to receive from Orpha’s courtesy should be shot through with the sorrow of a loss too great for any love of mine to offset.

So I hastened and came to Quenton Court, and entering there found the court ablaze with color and every servant which the house contained drawn up in order to receive me. It was English, but then by birth I am an Englishman and the tribute pleased me. For their faces were no longer darkened by distrust and some even were brightened by liking; and were I to remain master here—

But that was yet to be determined; and when they saw with what an eager glance I searched the gallery for the coming of their youthful mistress, they filed quickly away till I was left alone with the leaping water and the rainbow hues and the countless memories of joy and terror with which the place was teeming.

Orpha had a favorite collie which from the first had shown a preference for my company that was sometimes embarrassing but oftener pleasing, since it gave me an opportunity to whisper many secrets in his ear. As I stood there with my eyes on the gallery, he came running to me with so many evidences of affection that I was fain to take it as an omen that all would be well with me when she who held him dear would greet me in her turn.

When would she come? The music of the falling drops plashing in their basin behind me was sweet, but I longed for the tones of her voice. Why did she linger? Dare I guess, when at last I heard her footfall in the gallery above, and caught the glimpse of her figure, first in one opening of its lattice work and then in another as she advanced towards the stairs which were all that now separated us, unless it were the sorrow whose ravages in her tender breast she might seek to hide, and might succeed in hiding from every eye but mine?

No, I would guess at nothing. I would wait; but my heart leaped high, and when she had passed the curve marking the turn of the great staircase, I bounded forward and so had the sweetest vision that ever comes to love—the descent, from tread to tread of the lady of one’s heart into the arms which have yearned for her in hope and in doubt for many weary days.

For I knew before she reached me that she loved me. It was in her garb of white, filmy and virginal, in her eager, yet timid step, in the glow of youth—of joyous expectation which gave radiance to her beauty and warmth to my own breast. But I said not a word nor did I move from my position at the foot of the stairs till she reached the last step but one and paused; then I uttered her name.

Had I uttered it before? Had she ever heard it before? Surely not as at that moment. For her eyes, as she slowly lifted them to mine, had a look of wonder in them which grew as I went on to say:

“Before I speak a word of all that has been burning in my heart since first I saw you from the gallery above us, I want you to know that I consider all the splendor surrounding us as yours, both by right of birth and the love of your father. I am ready to sign it all over—what we see and what we do not see—if you desire to possess it in freedom, or think you would be happier with a mate of your own choosing. I love you. There! I have said it, Orpha—but I love you so well that I would rather lose all that goes with your hand than be a drag upon your life, meant as you are for peace and joy and an unhampered existence. Do you believe that?”

“Yes, I believe that. But—” Oh, the delicious naïveté of her smile, bringing every dimple into play and lighting up into radiance the gravity of her gaze, “why should you think that I might want to be free to live in this great house alone? For me, that would be desolation.”

“Desolation because you would be alone or because—” even now I hardly dared to say it—“because it would be life without reality—without love? Orpha, I must know;—know beyond the shadow of a doubt. I cannot take the great gift bequeathed me by your father, unless with it receive the greatest gift of all—your undivided heart. You are young and very lovely—a treasure which many men will crave. I should never be satisfied for you to be merely content. I want you to know the thrill—the ecstasy of love—such love as I feel for you—”

I could not go on. The pressure of all the past was upon me. The story of the days and nights when in rapture and in tragedy she was my chief thought, my one unfailing inspiration to hold to the right and to dare misapprehension and the calumny of those who saw in me an interloper here without conscience or mercy, passed in one wild phantasmagoria through my mind, rendering me speechless.

With that fine intuition of hers—or perhaps, because she had shared alike my pains and my infinite horrors—she respected my silence till the time came for words and then she spoke but one:

“Quenton!”

Had she ever spoken it before? Or had I ever heard it as it fell at this moment from her lips? Never. It linked us two together. It gave the nay to all my doubts. I felt sure now, sure; and yet such is the hunger of a lover’s heart that I wanted her assurance in words. Would she grant me that?

Yes; but it came very softly and with a delicate aloofness at first which gave me the keenest delight.

“When you spoke of the first time you saw me and said it was from the gallery above us, you spoke as if life had begun for you that night. Did you never think that possibly it might have begun for me also? That content had revealed itself as content, not love? That I was happy that what we had expected to take place that night did not take place—that—that—”

Here her aloofness all vanished and her soul looked through her eyes. We were very near, but the collie was leaping about us, and the place was large and the gorgeousness of it all overpowering; so I contented myself with laying my hand softly on hers where it pressed against the edge of the final pillar supporting the lattice work.

“Let us go into the library,” I whispered.

But she led me elsewhere. Quieting the dog, she drew me away into a narrow hall, the purpose of which I had never understood till I had learned the secret of the hidden stairway and how this hall denoted the space which the lower end of the inn’s outside stairway had formerly occupied. Pausing, she gave me an earnest look, then, speaking very softly:

“It was here—on the steps which once united the ground with those still remaining above, that my father and my mother pledged themselves to each other in a love that has survived death. Shall we—”

She said no more: I had her in my arms and life had begun for us in very truth.

Lovers have much to say when the barriers which have separated them are once down, and I will not hazard a guess at the hour when after a moment of delicious silence I ventured to remark:

“We have talked much about ourselves and our future. Shall we not talk a little now about Edgar?”

“Oh, yes; tell me the whole story. I’ve only heard that he arrived in time to prevent the marriage. That Dr. Hunter generously released her from all obligation to him and that she and Edgar will be united very soon.”

I was glad to comply. Glad to throw light into that darksome corner none of us had ever penetrated, our Lucy’s heart. When I had finished, we sat a moment in awe of the passionate tale, then I said:

“We must do something for Edgar. He will have no wedding, but he must have a wedding present.”

“Let it be much.”

“It shall be much.”

“But not too much. Edgar is reckless with money and even queens in these days sometimes come to grief. Shall we not put by a fund for the time when we see the sparkle leaving his eye and anxiety making Lucy’s pale cheeks still more pallid?”

“You shall do just as you wish, Orpha.”

“No; just as Father would wish.”

Ah! my beloved one!

I have one more memory of that night. As I was leaving—for I was resolved to remain at my hotel until our marriage, which, for many reasons, was to be an immediate one without preparation and with but little ceremony,—I asked my love why in the months of her father’s illness, and during the time when perplexities of various kinds were in all our hearts, she never allowed herself to remain alone with me or to go where I went even with her father’s permission.

And her answer, given with a smile and a blush was this:

“I did not dare.”

She did not dare! My conscientious darling.

And I had not dared. But my fears were not her fears. I had feared to be presumptuous; of building up a fairyland out of dreams; of yielding to my imagination rather than to my good sense. And yet, deep down in some inner consciousness, a faint insidious hope had whispered to itself that if I showed myself worthy, perhaps—perhaps—

And now perhaps had become reality, and all doubt and mistrust a vanished dream.

But though I had walked in clouded ways and had not known my Orpha’s heart, there had been one in the household who had. I learned it that night from a few words uttered by Clarke on my return to the hotel.

I was not surprised to find him waiting for me in the lobby; we had come into such close contact during the strenuous days that had just passed, that it would have seemed unnatural not to have found him there. But what did astonish me was to see the wistful look with which he contemplated me as I signified to him my wish for him to follow me upstairs. But once together in my room, I understood, and letting the full joyousness of my heart to appear, I smilingly said:

“You may congratulate me, Clarke. My good fortune is complete.”

And this is what he uttered in response, greatly to my surprise and possibly to his own:

“I thought it would all come right, sir.”

But it was not till he was on the point of leaving me for the night that I learned his full mind.

His hand was on the knob of the door and he was about to turn it, when he suddenly loosened his hold and came back.

“Excuse me, sir, but I shan’t feel quite right till I tell you all the truth about myself. Did you, when things looked a little dark after the terrible news the doctors gave us, get a queer looking sort of note hidden in your box of cigars?”

“Yes, I did, Clarke; and I don’t know yet who took that much compassion on me?”

“It was I, Mr. Bartholomew.” (Never had he called me that before. I wonder if it came with a long dreaded effort.) “But it was not from compassion for you, sir—more’s the pity; but because I knew my young lady’s heart and felt willing to help her that much in her great trouble.”

“You knew—”

“Not by any words, sir; but by a look I saw on her face one day as she stood in the window watching you motor away. You were to be gone a week and she could not stand the thought of it. I hope you will pardon me for speaking so plainly. I have always felt the highest regard for Miss Bartholomew.”

Oh, the pictures that came back! Pictures I had not seen at the time but which now would never leave me.

Perhaps he saw my emotion; perhaps he only realized it, but an instant of silence passed before he quietly added:

“A man thinks he’s honest till he comes to the point of trial. When they asked me if I wrote anything to anybody about that key, I said No, for I didn’t write anything as you must know who read the printed letters I pasted in such crooked lines on a slip of paper.”

I smiled; it was easy to smile that night.

“You know where the key was found. How do you think it got there?”

“In the flower-pot? Of course, I can’t say for certain, but this is how I’ve figured it out. On the morning he died, you found him, as you must remember, in the same flannel robe which he had worn while sitting up. This was because he would not allow me as he had always done before to remove it. That robe was buttoned close to his neck when we left him, but it was not so buttoned in the morning, and we know why. He had wanted to use the key he wore strung on a chain about his neck, and that key hung under his pajama jacket. To get it he had first to unfasten his dressing-gown and then his pajama jacket, or if he did not want to go to that trouble, to simply pull it up into his hand by means of the chain which held it. He probably did the latter, being naturally impatient with buttons and such like and letting it fall within reach, went about the business he had planned.

“So far excitement had kept him up, but when, after an act which would have tired a well man, he came back into his room—Well! that was different. He could draw into place the shelves which had hidden the secret stairway, and he could put out the light in his closet; for all this had to be done if he did not want to give away his secret. And he could manage, though not without difficulty, I’m sure, to reach and unlock his two doors; but that done, the little job of unbuttoning his jacket, throwing the chain over his head and rearranging his whole clothing so that the key would be invisible to his nurse when she came in, was just a little too much. But the key had to be hidden, and hidden quickly and easily, and he being, as there is every reason to believe on the further side of the bed where he had gone to unlock the upper door, he was at this time of failing strength within a foot of the potted plant standing in the window, and this gave him his idea.

“Gathering up the chain and key in his hand, he made use of the latter to push aside the soil in the pot sufficiently to make a hole large enough to hold anything so thin and slight as that chain and key. A flick given by his fingers to the loose mold and they were covered. That’s how I’ve reasoned it out; and if it is not all true some of it is for his slippers were found lying on that side of the bed, instead of under the stand by the closet where I had placed them on taking them off. What do you think, sir? Doesn’t that answer your question?”

“Yes, Clarke, as well as it ever will be answered. Have you given this explanation to Miss Bartholomew, or to any one else in fact?”

“No, sir. I’m not quick to talk and I should not have said as much to you if you had not asked me. For after all it is only my thoughts, sir. We shall never know all that passed through the mind of your uncle during those last three hours.”

It was after our return from a very short wedding journey, during which we had seen Edgar married to Lucy, that one evening when life seemed very sweet to us, Orpha put into my hands a sheet of discolored paper, folded letter-wise, saying softly:

“My last secret, Quenton. That is an old, old letter written by my father and found by me at the same time I found the early will in the old box at the foot of the hidden stairway. It was lying underneath the will and would have escaped my notice if the box had not fallen from its peg while I was pulling at the crumpled-up document in my effort to get it out. It is a treasure and the time has come for you to share it with me. Read it, Quenton.”

And this is what I read:

THE END

Transcriber’s Note