The Mill Mystery
Anna Katherine Green




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I       THE ALARM
II      A FEARFUL QUESTION
III     ADA
IV      THE POLLARDS
V       DOUBTS AND QUERIES
VI      MRS. POLLARD
VII     ADVANCES
VIII    A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY
IX      AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
X       RHODA COLWELL
XI      UNDER THE MILL FLOOR
XII     DWIGHT POLLARD
XIII    GUY POLLARD
XIV     CORRESPONDENCE
XV      A GOSSIP
XVI     THE GREEN ENVELOPE
XVII    DAVID BARROWS
XVIII   A LAST REQUEST
XIX     A FATAL DELAY
XX      THE OLD MILL
XXI     THE VAT
XXII    THE CYPHER
XXIII   TOO LATE
XXIV    CONFRONTED
XXV     THE FINAL BLOW
XXVI    A FELINE TOUCH
XXVII   REPARATION
XXVIII  TWO OR ONE



* * * * *




I.

THE ALARM.


  Life, struck sharp on death,
  Makes awful lightning.
--MRS. BROWNING.

I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It
was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High
School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her
pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the
letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I
thought no more of it; my mind was too full, my heart too heavy with
my own trouble.

Going to the window, I leaned my cheek against the pane. Oh, the
deep sadness of a solitary woman's life! The sense of helplessness
that comes upon her when every effort made, every possibility
sounded, she realizes that the world has no place for her, and that
she must either stoop to ask the assistance of friends or starve! I
have no words for the misery I felt, for I am a proud woman,
and--But no lifting of the curtain that shrouds my past. It has fallen
for ever, and for you and me and the world I am simply Constance
Sterling, a young woman of twenty-five, without home, relatives, or
means of support, having in her pocket seventy-five cents of change,
and in her breast a heart like lead, so utterly had every hope
vanished in the day's rush of disappointments.

How long I stood with my face to the window I cannot say. With eyes
dully fixed upon the blank walls of the cottages opposite, I stood
oblivious to all about me till the fading sunlight--or was it some
stir in the room behind me?--recalled me to myself, and I turned to
find my pretty room-mate staring at me with a troubled look that for
a moment made me forget my own sorrows and anxieties.

"What is it?" I asked, going towards her with an irresistible
impulse of sympathy.

"I don't know," she murmured; "a sudden pain here," laying her hand
on her heart.

I advanced still nearer, but her face, which had been quite pale,
turned suddenly rosy; and, with a more natural expression, she took
me by the hand, and said:

"But you look more than ill, you look unhappy. Would you mind
telling me what worries you?"

The gentle tone, the earnest glance of modest yet sincere interest,
went to my heart. Clutching her hand convulsively, I burst into
tears.

"It is nothing," said I; "only my last resource has failed, and I
don't know where to get a meal for to-morrow. Not that this is any
thing in itself," I hastened to add, my natural pride reasserting
itself; "but the future! the future!--what am I to do with my
future?"

She did not answer at first. A gleam--I can scarcely call it a
glow--passed over her face, and her eyes took a far-away look that
made them very sweet. Then a little flush stole into her cheek, and,
pressing my hand, she said:

"Will you trust it to me for a while?"

I must have looked my astonishment, for she hastened to add:

"Your future I have little concern for. With such capabilities as
yours, you must find work. Why, look at your face!" and she drew me
playfully before the glass. "See the forehead, the mouth, and tell
me you read failure there! But your present is what is doubtful, and
that I can certainly take care of."

"But--" I protested, with a sensation of warmth in my cheeks.

The loveliest smile stopped me before I could utter a word more.

"As you would take care of mine," she completed, "if our positions
were reversed." Then, without waiting for a further demur on my
part, she kissed me, and as if the sweet embrace had made us sisters
at once, drew me to a chair and sat down at my feet. "You know," she
naively murmured, "I am almost rich; I have five hundred dollars
laid up in the bank, and--"

I put my hand over her lips; I could not help it. She was such a
frail little thing, so white and so ethereal, and her poor five
hundred had been earned by such weary, weary work.

"But that is nothing, nothing," I said. "You have a future to
provide for, too, and you are not as strong as I am, if you have
been more successful."

She laughed, then blushed, then laughed again, and impulsively
cried:

"It is, however, more than I need to buy a wedding-dress with, don't
you think?" And as I looked up surprised, she flashed out: "Oh, it's
my secret; but I am going to be married in a month, and--and then I
won't need to count my pennies any more; and, so I say, if you will
stay here with me without a care until that day comes, you will make
me very happy, and put me at the same time under a real obligation;
for I shall want a great many things done, as you can readily
conceive."

What did I say--what could I say, with her sweet blue eyes looking
so truthfully into mine, but--"Oh, you darling girl!" while my heart
filled with tears, which only escaped from overflowing my eyes,
because I would not lessen her innocent joy by a hint of my own
secret trouble.

"And who is the happy man?" I asked, at last, rising to pull down
the curtain across a too inquisitive ray of afternoon sunshine.

"Ah, the noblest, best man in town!" she breathed, with a burst of
gentle pride. "Mr. B--"

She went no further, or if she did, I did not hear her, for just
then a hubbub arose in the street, and lifting the window, I looked
out.

"What is it?" she cried, coming hastily towards me.

"I don't know," I returned. "The people are all rushing in one
direction, but I cannot see what attracts them."

"Come away then!" she murmured; and I saw her hand go to her heart,
in the way it did when she first entered the room a half-hour
before. But just then a sudden voice exclaimed below: "The
clergyman! It is the clergyman!" And giving a smothered shriek, she
grasped me by the arm, crying: "What do they say? '_The
clergyman_'? Do they say 'The clergyman'?"

"Yes," I answered, turning upon her with alarm. But she was already
at the door. "Can it be?" I asked myself, as I hurriedly followed,
"that it is Mr. Barrows she is going to marry?"

For in the small town of S-- Mr. Barrows was the only man who
could properly be meant by "The clergyman"; for though Mr. Kingston,
of the Baptist Church, was a worthy man in his way, and the
Congregational minister had an influence with his flock that was not
to be despised, Mr. Barrows, alone of all his fraternity, had so won
upon the affections and confidence of the people as to merit the
appellation of "The clergyman."

"If I am right," thought I, "God grant that no harm has come to
him!" and I dashed down the stairs just in time to see the frail
form of my room-mate flying out of the front door.

I overtook her at last; but where? Far out of town on that dark and
dismal road, where the gaunt chimneys of the deserted mill rise from
a growth of pine-trees. But I knew before I reached her what she
would find; knew that her short dream of love was over, and that
stretched amongst the weeds which choked the entrance to the old
mill lay the dead form of the revered young minister, who, by his
precept and example, had won not only the heart of this young
maiden, but that of the whole community in which he lived and
labored.




II.

A FEARFUL QUESTION.


  Nay, yet there's more in this:
  I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
  As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of thoughts
  The worst of words.
               --OTHELLO.

My room-mate was, as I have intimated, exceedingly frail and
unobtrusive in appearance; yet when we came upon this scene, the
group of men about the inanimate form of her lover parted
involuntarily as if a spirit had come upon them; though I do not
think one of them, until that moment, had any suspicion of the
relations between her and their young pastor. Being close behind
her, I pressed forward too, and so it happened that I stood by her
side when her gaze first fell upon her dead lover. Never shall I
forget the cry she uttered, or the solemn silence that fell over
all, as her hand, rigid and white as that of a ghost's, slowly rose
and pointed with awful question at the pallid brow upturned before
her. It seemed as if a spell had fallen, enchaining the roughest
there from answering, for the truth was terrible, and we knew it;
else why those dripping locks and heavily soaked garments oozing,
not with the limpid waters of the stream we could faintly hear
gurgling in the distance, but with some fearful substance that dyed
the forehead blue and left upon the grass a dark stain that floods
of rain would scarcely wash away?

"What is it? Oh, what does it mean?" she faintly gasped, shuddering
backward with wondering dread as one of those tiny streams of
strange blue moisture found its way to her feet.

Still that ominous silence.

"Oh, I must know!" she whispered. "I was his betrothed"; and her
eyes wandered for a moment with a wild appeal upon those about her.

Whereupon a kindly voice spoke up. "He has been drowned, miss. The
blue--" and there he hesitated.

"The blue is from the remains of some old dye that must have been in
the bottom of the vat out of which we drew him," another voice went
on.

"The vat!" she repeated. "The vat! Was he found--"

"In the vat? Yes, miss." And there the silence fell again.

It was no wonder. For a man like him, alert, busy, with no time nor
inclination for foolish explorations, to have been found drowned in
the disused vat of a half-tumbled-down old mill on a lonesome and
neglected road meant----But what did it mean? What could it mean?
The lowered eyes of those around seemed to decline to express even a
conjecture.

My poor friend, so delicate, so tender, reeled in my arms. "In the
vat!" she reiterated again and again, as if her mind refused to take
in a fact so astounding and unaccountable.

"Yes, miss, and he might never have been discovered," volunteered a
voice at last, over my shoulder, "if a parcel of school-children
hadn't strayed into the mill this afternoon. It is a dreadful
lonesome spot, you see, and----"

"Hush!" I whispered; "hush!" and I pointed to her face, which at
these words had changed as if the breath of death had blown across
it; and winding my arms still closer about her, I endeavored to lead
her away.

But I did not know my room-mate. Pushing me gently aside, she turned
to a stalwart man near by, whose face seemed to invite confidence,
and said:

"Take me in and show me the vat."

He looked at her amazed; so did we.

"I must see it," she said, simply; and she herself took the first
step towards the mill.

There was no alternative but to follow. This we did in terror and
pity, for the look with which she led the way was not the look of
any common determination, and the power which seemed to force her
feeble body on upon its fearful errand was of that strained and
unnatural order which might at any moment desert her, and lay her a
weak and helpless burden at our feet.

"It must be dark by this time down there," objected the man she had
appealed to, as he stepped doubtfully forward.

But she did not seem to heed. Her eyes were fixed upon the ruined
walls before her, rising drear and blank against the pale-green
evening sky.

"He could have had no errand here," I heard her murmur. "How then be
drowned here?--how? how?"

Alas! that was the mystery, dear heart, with which every mind was
busy!

The door of the mill had fallen down and rotted away years before,
so we had no difficulty in entering. But upon crossing the threshold
and making for the steps that led below, we found that the growing
twilight was any thing but favorable to a speedy or even safe
advance. For the flooring was badly broken in places, and the stairs
down which we had to go were not only uneven, but strangely rickety
and tottering.

But the sprite that led us paused for nothing, and long before I had
passed the first step she had reached the bottom one, and was
groping her way towards the single gleam of light that infused
itself through the otherwise pitchy darkness.

"Be careful, miss; you may fall into the vat yourself!" exclaimed
more than one voice behind her.

But she hurried on, her slight form showing like a spectre against
the dim gleam towards which she bent her way, till suddenly she
paused and we saw her standing with clasped hands, and bent head,
looking down into what? We could readily conjecture.

"She will throw herself in," whispered a voice; but as, profoundly
startled, I was about to hasten forward, she hurriedly turned and
came towards us.

"I have seen it," she quietly said, and glided by us, and up the
stairs, and out of the mill to where that still form lay in its
ghostly quietude upon the sodden grass.

For a moment she merely looked at it, then she knelt, and, oblivious
to the eyes bent pityingly upon her, kissed the brow and then the
cheeks, saying something which I could not hear, but which lent a
look of strange peace to her features, that were almost as pallid
and set now as his. Then she arose, and holding out her hand to me,
was turning away, when a word uttered by some one, I could not tell
whom, stopped her, and froze her, as it were, to the spot.

That word was _suicide!_

I think I see her yet, the pale-green twilight on her forehead, her
lips parted, and her eyes fixed in an incredulous stare.

"Do you mean," she cried, "that _he_ deserves any such name as
that? That his death here was not one of chance or accident,
mysterious, if you will, but still one that leaves no stigma on his
name as a man and a clergyman?"

"Indeed, miss," came in reply, "we would not like to say."

"Then, _I_ say, that unless Mr. Barrows was insane, he never
premeditated a crime of this nature. He was too much of a Christian.
And if that does not strike you as good reasoning, he was too--
happy."

The last word was uttered so low that if it had not been for the
faint flush that flitted into her cheek, it would scarcely have been
understood. As it was, the furtive looks of the men about showed
that they comprehended all that she would say; and, satisfied with
the impression made, she laid her hand on my arm, and for the second
time turned towards home.




III.

ADA.


  For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die.
                 --OTHELLO.

There was death in her face; I saw it the moment we reached the
refuge of our room. But I was scarcely prepared for the words which
she said to me.

"Mr. Barrows and I will be buried in one grave. The waters which
drowned him have gone over my head also. But before the moment comes
which proves my words true, there is one thing I wish to impress
upon you, and that is: That no matter what people may say, or what
conjectures they may indulge in, Mr. Barrows never came to his end
by any premeditation of his own. And that you may believe me, and
uphold his cause in the face of whatever may arise, I will tell you
something of his life and mine. Will you listen?"

Would I listen? I could not speak, but I drew up the lounge, and
sitting down by her side, pressed my cheek close to hers. She smiled
faintly, all unhappiness gone from her look, and in sweet, soft
tones, began:

"We are both orphans. As far as I know, neither of us have any
nearer relatives than distant cousins; a similarity of condition
that has acted as a bond between us since we first knew and loved
each other. When I came to S---- he was just settled here, a young
man full of zeal and courage. Whatever the experience of his college
days had been--and he has often told me that at that time ambition
was the mainspring of his existence,--the respect and appreciation
which he found here, and the field which daily opened before him for
work, had wakened a spirit of earnest trust that erelong developed
that latent sweetness in his disposition which more than his mental
qualities, perhaps, won him universal confidence and love.

"You have heard him preach, and you know he was not lacking in
genius; but you have not heard him speak, eye to eye and hand to
hand. It was there his power came in, and there, too, perhaps, his
greatest temptation. For he was one for women to love, and it is not
always easy to modify a naturally magnetic look and tone because the
hand that touches yours is shy and white, and the glance which
steals up to meet your own has within it the hint of unconscious
worship. Yet what he could do he did; for, unknown, perhaps, to any
one here, he was engaged to be married, as so many young ministers
are, to a girl he had met while at college.

"I do not mean to go into too many particulars, Constance. He did
not love this girl, but he meant to be true to her. He was even
contented with the prospect of marrying her, till----Oh, Constance,
I almost forget that he is gone, and that my own life is at an end,
when I think of that day, six months ago--the day when we first met,
and, without knowing it, first loved. And then the weeks which
followed when each look was an event, and a passing word the making
or the marring of a day. I did not know what it all meant; but he
realized only too soon the precipice upon which we stood, and I
began to see him less, and find him more reserved when, by any
chance, we were thrown together. His cheek grew paler, too, and his
health wavered. A struggle was going on in his breast--a struggle of
whose depth and force I had little conception then, for I dared not
believe he loved me, though I knew by this time he was bound to
another who would never be a suitable companion for him.

"At last he became so ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for
a month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us.
He was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had
to bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of
my own crushed and broken heart.

"But one morning--shall I ever forget it?--the door opened, and he,
_he_ came in where I was, and without saying a word, knelt down
by my side, and drew my head forward and laid it on his breast. I
thought at first it was a farewell, and trembled with a secret
anguish that was yet strangely blissful, for did not the passionate
constraint of his arms mean love? But when, after a moment that
seemed a lifetime, I drew back and looked into his face, I saw it
was not a farewell, but a greeting, he had brought me, and that we
had not only got our pastor back to life, but that this pastor was
a lover as well, who would marry the woman he loved.

"And I was right. In ten minutes I knew, that a sudden freak on the
part of the girl he was engaged to had released him, without fault
of his own, and that with this release new life had entered his
veins, for the conflict was over and love and duty were now in
harmony.

"Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect
man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that
was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at
times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical
causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its
strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying
calling. But whatever his weaknesses--and they were very few,--he
was conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men
would be affected but slightly. You can imagine his joy, then, over
this unexpected end to his long pain; and remembering that it is
only a month previous to the day set apart by us for our marriage,
ask yourself whether he would be likely to seek any means of death,
let alone such a horrible and lonesome one as that which has robbed
us of him to-day?"

"No!" I burst out, for she waited for my reply. "A thousand times,
no, no, no!"

"He has not been so well lately, and I have not seen as much of him
as usual; but that is because he had some literary work he wished to
finish before the wedding-day. Ah, it will never be finished now!
and our wedding-day is to-day! and the bride is almost ready. But!"
she suddenly exclaimed, "I must not go yet--not till you have said
again that he was no suicide. Tell me," she vehemently continued--
"tell me from your soul that you believe he is not answerable for
his death!"

"I do!" I rejoined, alarmed and touched at once by the fire in her
cheek and eye.

"And that," she went, "you will hold to this opinion in the face of
all opposition! That, whatever attack men may make upon his memory,
you will uphold his honor and declare his innocence! Say you will be
my deputy in this, and I will love you even in my cold grave, and
bless you as perhaps only those who see the face of the Father can
bless!"

"Ada!" I murmured, "Ada!"

"You will do this, will you not?" she persisted. "I can die knowing
I can trust you as I would myself."

I took her cold hand in mine and promised, though I felt how feeble
would be any power of mine to stop the tide of public opinion if
once it set in any definite direction.

"He had no enemies," she whispered; "but I would sooner believe he
had, than that he sought this fearful spot of his own accord."

And seemingly satisfied to have dropped this seed in my breast, she
tremblingly arose, and going for her writing-desk, brought it back
and laid it on the lounge by her side. "Go for Mrs. Gannon," she
said.

Mrs. Gannon was our neighbor in the next room, a widow who earned
her livelihood by nursing the sick; and I was only too glad to have
her with me at this time, for my poor Ada's face was growing more
and more deathly, and I began to fear she had but prophesied the
truth when she said this was her wedding-day.

I was detained only a few minutes, but when I came back with Mrs.
Gannon, I found my room-mate writing.

"Come!" said she, in a voice so calm, my companion started and
hastily looked at her face for confirmation of the fears I had
expressed; "I want you both to witness my signature."

With one last effort of strength she wrote her name, and then handed
the pen to Mrs. Gannon, who took it without a word.

"It is my will," she faintly smiled, watching me as I added my name
at the bottom. "We have had to do without lawyers, but I don't think
there will be any one to dispute my last wishes." And taking the
paper in her hand, she glanced hastily at it, then folded it, and
handed it back to me with a look that made my heart leap with
uncontrollable emotion. "I can trust you," she said, and fell softly
back upon the pillow.

"You had better go for Dr. Farnham," whispered Mrs. Gannon in my
ear, with an ominous shake of her head.

And though I felt it to be futile, I hastened to comply.

But Dr. Farnham was out, attending to a very urgent case, I was
told; and so, to my growing astonishment and dismay, were Dr.
Spaulding and Dr. Perry. I was therefore obliged to come back alone,
which I did with what speed I could; for I begrudged every moment
spent away from the side of one I had so lately learned to love, and
must so soon lose.

Mrs. Gannon met me at the door, and with a strange look, drew me in
and pointed towards the bed. There lay Ada, white as the driven
snow, with closed eyes, whose faintly trembling lids alone betokened
that she was not yet fled to the land of quiet shadows. At her side
was a picture of the man she loved, and on her breast lay a bunch of
withered roses I could easily believe had been his last gift. It was
a vision of perfect peace, and I could not but contrast it with what
my imagination told me must have been the frenzied anguish of that
other death.

My approach, though light, disturbed her. Opening her eyes, she gave
me one long, long look. Then, as if satisfied, she softly closed
them again, breathed a little sigh, and in another moment was no
more.




IV.

THE POLLARDS.


  There's something in his soul,
  O'er which his melancholy sits on brood.
                 --HAMLET.

Fearful as the experiences of this day had been, they were not yet
at an end for me. Indeed, the most remarkable were to come. As I sat
in this room of death--it was not far from midnight--I suddenly
heard voices at the door, and Mrs. Gannon came in with Dr. Farnham.

"It is very extraordinary," I heard him mutter as he crossed the
threshold. "One dying and another dead, and both struck down by the
same cause."

I could not imagine what he mean, so I looked at him with some
amazement. But he did not seem to heed me. Going straight to the
bed, he gazed silently at Ada's pure features, with what I could not
but consider a troubled glance. Then turning quickly to Mrs.
Gannon, he said, in his somewhat brusque way:

"All is over here; you can therefore leave. I have a patient who
demands your instant care."

"But----" she began.

"I have come on purpose for you," he put in, authoritatively. "It is
an urgent case; do not keep me waiting."

"But, sir," she persisted, "it is impossible. I am expected early in
the morning at Scott's Corners, and was just going to bed when you
came in, in order to get a little sleep before taking the train."

"Dr. Perry's case?"

"Yes."

He frowned, and I am not sure but what he uttered a mild oath. At
all events, he seemed very much put out.

I immediately drew near.

"Oh, sir," I cried, "if you would have confidence in me. I am not
unused to the work, and----"

His stare frightened me, it was so searching and so keen.

"Who are you?" he asked.

I told him, and Mrs. Gannon put in a word for me. I was reliable,
she said, and if too much experience was not wanted, would do better
than such and such a one--naming certain persons, probably
neighbors.

But the doctor's steady look told me he relied more on his own
judgment than on anything she or I could say.

"Can you hold your tongue?" he asked.

I started. Who would not have done so?

"I see that you can," he muttered, and glanced down at my dress.
"When can you be ready?" he inquired. "You may be wanted for days,
and it may be only for hours."

"Will ten minutes be soon enough?" I asked.

A smile difficult to fathom crossed his firm lip.

"I will give you fifteen," he said, and turned towards the door. But
on the threshold he paused and looked back. "You have not asked who
or what your patient is," he grimly suggested.

"No," I answered shortly.

"Well," said he, "it is Mrs. Pollard, and she is going to die."

Mrs. Pollard! Mrs. Gannon and I involuntarily turned and looked at
each other.

"Mrs. Pollard!" repeated the good nurse, wonderingly. "I did not
know she was sick"

"She wasn't this noon. It is a sudden attack. Apoplexy we call it.
She fell at the news of Mr. Barrows' death."

And with this parting shot, he went out and closed the door behind
him.

I sank, just a little bit weakened, on the lounge, then rose with
renewed vigor. "The work has fallen into the right hands," thought
I. "Ada would wish me to leave her for such a task as this."

And yet I was troubled. For though this sudden prostration of Mrs.
Pollard, on the hearing of her young pastor's sorrowful death,
seemed to betoken a nature of more than ordinary sensibility, I had
always heard that she was a hard woman, with an eye of steel and a
heart that could only be reached through selfish interests. But then
she was the magnate of the place, the beginning and end of the
aristocracy of S----; and when is not such a one open to calumny? I
was determined to reserve my judgment.

In the fifteen minutes allotted me, I was ready. Suitable
arrangements had already been made for the removal of my poor Ada's
body to the house that held her lover. For the pathos of the
situation had touched all hearts, and her wish to be laid in the
same grave with him met with no opposition. I could therefore leave
with a clear conscience; Mrs. Gannon promising to do all that was
necessary, even if she were obliged to take a later train than she
had expected to.

Dr. Farnham was in the parlor waiting for me, and uttered a grunt of
satisfaction as he saw me enter, fully equipped.

"Come; this is business," he said, and led the way at once to his
carriage.

We did not speak for the first block. He seemed meditating, and I
was summoning up courage for the ordeal before me. For, now that we
were started, I began to feel a certain inward trembling not to be
entirely accounted for by the fact that I was going into a strange
house to nurse a woman of whom report did not speak any too kindly.
Nor did the lateness of the hour, and the desolate aspect of the
unlighted streets, tend greatly to reassure me.

Indeed, something of the weird and uncanny seemed to mingle with the
whole situation, and I found myself dreading our approach to the
house, which from its old-time air and secluded position had always
worn for me an aspect of gloomy reserve, that made it even in the
daylight, a spot of somewhat fearful interest.

Dr. Farnham, who may have suspected my agitation, though he gave no
token of doing so, suddenly spoke up.

"It is only right to tell you," he said, "that I should never have
accepted the service of an inexperienced girl like you, if any thing
was necessary but watchfulness and discretion. Mrs. Pollard lies
unconscious, and all you will have to do is to sit at her side and
wait for the first dawning of returning reason. It may come at any
moment, and it may never come at all. She is a very sick woman."

"I understand," I murmured, plucking up heart at what did not seem
so very difficult a task.

"Her sons will be within call; so will I. By daybreak we hope to
have her daughter from Newport with her. You do not know Mrs.
Harrington?"

I shook my head. Who was I, that I should know these grand folks?
And yet----But I promised I would say nothing about days now so
completely obliterated.

"She will not be much of an assistance," he muttered. "But it is
right she should come--quite right."

I remembered that I had heard that Mrs. Pollard's daughter was a
beauty, and that she had made a fine match; which, said of Mrs.
Pollard's daughter, must have meant a great deal. I, however, said
nothing, only listened in a vague hope of hearing more, for my
curiosity was aroused in a strange way about these people, and
nothing which the good doctor could have said about them would have
come amiss at this time.

But our drive had been too rapid, and we were too near the house for
him to think of any thing but turning into the gateway with the
necessary caution. For the night was unusually dark, and it was
difficult to tell just where the gate-posts were. We, however,
entered without accident, and in another moment a gleam of light
greeted us from the distant porch.

"They are expecting us," he said, and touched up his horse. We flew
up the gravelled road, and before I could still the sudden heart-
beat that attacked me at sight of the grim row of cedars which
surrounded the house, we were hurrying up between the two huge lions
rampant that flanked the steps, to where a servant stood holding
open the door. A sense of gloom and chill at once overwhelmed me.
From the interior, which I faintly saw stretching before me, there
breathed even in that first moment of hurried entrance a cold and
haughty grandeur that, however rich and awe-inspiring, was any thing
but attractive to a nature like mine.

Drawing back, I let Dr. Farnham take the lead, which he did in his
own brusque way. And then I saw what the dim light had not revealed
before, a young man's form standing by the newel-post of the wide
staircase that rose at our left. He at once came forward, and as the
light from the lamp above us fell fully upon him, I saw his face,
and started.

Why? I could not tell. Not because his handsome features struck me
pleasantly, for they did not. There was something in their
expression which I did not like, and yet as I looked at them a
sudden sensation swept over me that made my apprehensions of a
moment back seem like child's play, and I became conscious that if a
sudden call of life or death were behind me urging me on the instant
to quit the house, I could not do it while that face was before me
to be fathomed, and, if possible, understood.

"Ah, I see you have brought the nurse," were the words with which he
greeted Dr. Farnham. And the voice was as thrilling in its tone as
the face was in its expression. "But," he suddenly exclaimed, as his
eyes met mine, "this is not Mrs. Gannon." And he hurriedly drew the
doctor down the hall. "Why have you brought this young girl?" he
asked, in tones which, however lowered, I could easily distinguish.
"Didn't you know there were reasons why we especially wanted an
elderly person?"

"No," I heard the doctor say, and then, his back being towards me, I
lost the rest of his speech till the words, "She is no gossip," came
to salute me and make me ask myself if there was a secret skeleton
in this house, that they feared so much the eyes of a stranger.

"But," the young man went hurriedly on, "she is not at all the kind
of person to have over my mother. How could we----" and there his
voice fell so as to become unintelligible.

But the doctor's sudden exclamation helped me out.

"What!" he wonderingly cried, "do you intend to sit up too?"

"I or my brother," was the calm response, "Would you expect us to
leave her alone with a stranger?"

The doctor made no answer, and the young man, taking a step
sidewise, threw me a glance full of anxiety and trouble.

"I don't like it," he murmured; "but there must be a woman of some
kind in the room, and a stranger----"

He did not finish his words, but it seemed as if he were going to
say: "And a stranger may, after all, be preferable to a neighbor."
But I cannot be sure of this, for he was not a man easy to sound.
But what I do know is that he stepped forward, to me with an easy
grace, and giving me a welcome as courteous as if I had been the one
of all others he desired to see, led me up the stairs to a room
which he announced to be mine, saying, as he left me at the door:

"Come out in five minutes, and my brother will introduce you to your
duties."

So far I had seen no woman in the house, and I was beginning to
wonder if Mrs. Pollard had preferred to surround herself with males,
when the door was suddenly opened and a rosy-cheeked girl stepped
in.

"Ah, excuse me," she said, with a stare; "I thought it was the nurse
as was here."

"And it is the nurse," I returned, smiling in spite of myself at her
look of indignant surprise. "Do you want any thing of me?" I
hastened to ask, for her eyes were like saucers and her head was
tossing airily.

"No," she said, almost with spite. "I came to see if you wanted any
thing?"

I shook my head with what good nature I could, for I did not wish to
make an enemy in this house, even of a chambermaid.

"And you are really the nurse?" she asked, coming nearer and looking
at me in the full glare of the gas.

"Yes," I assured her, "really and truly the nurse."

"Well, I don't understand it!" she cried. "I was always Mrs.
Pollard's favorite maid, and I was with her when she was took, and
would be with her now, but they won't let me set a foot inside the
door. And when I asked why they keep me out, who was always
attentive and good to her, they say I am too young. And here you be
younger than I, and a stranger too. I don't like it," she cried,
tossing her head again and again. "I haven't deserved it, and I
think it is mighty mean."

I saw the girl was really hurt, so I hastened to explain that I was
not the nurse they expected, and was succeeding, I think, in
mollifying her, when a step was heard in the hall, and she gave a
frightened start, and hurried towards the door.

"So you are sure you don't want anything?" she cried, and was out of
my sight before I could answer.

There was nothing to detain me, and I hastened to follow. As I
crossed the sill I almost started too, at sight of the tall, slim,
truly sinister figure that awaited me, leaning against the opposite
wall. He was younger than his brother, and had similar features, but
there was no charm here to make you forget that the eye was darkly
glittering, and the lip formidable in its subtlety and power. He
advanced with much of the easy nonchalance that had so characterized
the other.

"Miss Sterling, I believe," said he; and with no further word,
turned and led me down the hall to the sick-room. I noticed even
then that he paused and listened before he pushed open the door, and
that with our first step inside he cast a look of inquiry at the bed
that had something beside a son's loving anxiety in it. And I hated
the man as I would a serpent, though he bowed as he set me a chair,
and was careful to move a light he thought shone a little too
directly in my eyes.

The other brother was not present, and I could give my undivided
attention to my charge. I found her what report had proclaimed her
to be, a handsome woman of the sternly imposing type. Even with her
age against her and the shadow of death lying on her brow and cheek,
there was something strangely attractive in the features and the
stately contour of her form. But it was attraction that was confined
to the eye, and could by no means allure the heart, for the same
seal of mysterious reserve was upon her that characterized her sons,
and in her, as in the younger one of these, it inspired a distrust
which I could imagine no smile as dissipating. She lay in a state of
coma, and her heavy breathing was the only sound that broke the
silence of the great room. "God help me!" thought I; but had no wish
to leave. Instead of that, I felt a fearful pleasure in the prospect
before me--such effect had a single look had upon me from eyes I
trembled to meet again or read.

I do not know how long I sat there gazing in the one direction for
that faint sign of life for which the doctor had bid me watch. That
he who inspired me with dread was behind me, I knew; but I would not
turn my head towards him. I was determined to resist the power of
this man, even if I must succumb a trifle to that of the other.

I was, therefore, surprised when a hand was thrust over my shoulder,
and a fan dropped into my lap.

"It is warm here," was the comment which accompanied the action.

I thanked him, but felt that his sole object had been to cover his
change of position. For, when he sat down again, it was where he
could see my face. I therefore felt justified in plying the fan he
had offered me, in such a way as to shut off his somewhat basilisk
gaze. And so a dreary hour went by.

It was now well on towards morning, and I was beginning to suffer
from the languor natural after so many harrowing excitements, when
the door opened behind me, and the electric thrill shooting through
all my members, testified as to whose step it was that entered. At
the same moment the young man at my side arose, and with what I
felt to be a last sharp look in my direction, hastened to where his
brother stood, and entered into a whispered conversation with him.
Then I heard the door close again, and almost at the same instant
Mr. Pollard the elder advanced, and without seeking an excuse for
his action, sat down close by my side. The fan at once dropped; I
had no wish to avoid this man's scrutiny.

And yet when with a secret bracing of my nerves I looked up and met
his eyes fixed with that baffling expression upon mine, I own that
I felt an inward alarm, as if something vaguely dangerous had reared
itself in my path, which by its very charm instinctively bade me
beware. I, however, subdued my apprehensions, thinking, with a
certain haughty pride which I fear will never be eliminated from my
nature, of the dangers I had already met with and overcome in my
brief but troubled life; and meeting his look with a smile which I
knew to contain a spice of audacity, I calmly waited for the words I
felt to be hovering upon his lips. They were scarcely the ones I
expected.

"Miss Sterling," said he, "you have seen Anice, my mother's waiting-
maid?"

I bowed. I was too much disconcerted to speak.

"And she has told you her story of my mother's illness?" he went on,
pitilessly holding me with his glance. "You need not answer," he
again proceeded, as I opened my lips. "I know Anice; she has not the
gift of keeping her thoughts to herself."

"An unfortunate thing in this house," I inwardly commented, and made
a determination on the spot that whatever emotions I might
experience from the mysteries surrounding me, this master of reserve
should find there was one who could keep her thoughts to herself,
even, perhaps, to his own secret disappointment and chagrin.

"She told you my mother was stricken at the sudden news of Mr.
Barrows' death?"

"That was told me," I answered; for this was a direct question, put,
too, with an effort I could not help but feel, notwithstanding the
evident wish on his part to preserve an appearance of calmness.

"Then some explanation is needed," he remarked, his eyes flashing
from his mother's face to mine with equal force and intentness. "My
mother"--his words were low, but it was impossible not to hear
them--"has not been well since my father died, two months ago. It needed
but the slightest shock to produce the result you unhappily see
before you. That shock this very girl supplied by the inconsiderate
relation of Mr. Barrows' fearful fate. We have taken a prejudice
against the girl, in consequence. Do you blame us? This is our
mother."

What could I feel or say but No? What could any one, under the
circumstances? Why then did a sudden vision of Ada's face, as she
gave me that last look, rise up before me, bidding me remember the
cause to which I was pledged, and not put too much faith in this man
and his plausible explanations.

"I only hope death will not follow the frightful occurrence," he
concluded; and do what he would, his features became drawn, and his
face white, as his looks wandered back to his mother.

A sudden impulse seized me.

"Another death, you mean," said I; "one already has marked the
event, though it happened only a few short hours ago."

His eyes flashed to mine, and a very vivid and real horror blanched
his already pallid cheek till it looked blue in the dim light.

"What do you mean?" he gasped; and I saw the doctor had refrained
from telling him of Ada's pitiful doom.

"I mean," said I, with a secret compunction I strove in vain to
subdue, "that Mr. Barrows' betrothed could not survive his terrible
fate--that she died a few hours since, and will be buried in the
same grave as her lover."

"His betrothed?" Young Mr. Pollard had risen to his feet, and was
actually staggering under the shock of his emotions. "I did not know
he had any betrothed. I thought she had jilted him----"

"It is another woman," I broke in, jealous for my poor dead Ada's
fame. "The woman he was formerly engaged to never loved him; but
this one----" I could not finish the sentence. My own agitation was
beginning to master me.

He looked at me, horrified, and I could have sworn the hair rose on
his forehead.

"What was her name?" he asked. "Is it--is it any one I know?" Then,
as if suddenly conscious that he was betraying too keen an emotion
for the occasion, pitiful as it was, he forced his lips into a
steadier curve, and quietly said: "After what has happened here, I
am naturally overcome by a circumstance so coincident with our own
trouble."

"Naturally," I assented with a bow, and again felt that secret
distrust warring with a new feeling that was not unlike compassion.

"Her name is Ada Reynolds," I continued, remembering his last
question. "She lived----"

"I know," he interrupted; and without another word walked away, and
for a long time stood silent at the other end of the room. Then he
came back and sat down, and when I summoned up courage to glance at
his face, I saw that a change had passed over it, that in all
probability was a change for life.

And my heart sank--sank till I almost envied that unconscious form
before which we sat, and from which alone now came the one sound
which disturbed the ghostly silence of that dread chamber.




V.

DOUBTS AND QUERIES.


                And that well might
  Advise him to a caution, to hold what distance
  His wisdom can provide.
                 --MACBETH.

At daybreak the doctor came in. Taking advantage of the occasion, I
slipped away for a few minutes to my own room, anxious for any
change that would relieve me from the gloom and oppression caused by
this prolonged and silent _tete-a-tete_ with a being that at
once so interested and repelled me. Observing that my windows looked
towards the east, I hastened to throw wide the blinds and lean out
into the open air. A burst of rosy sunlight greeted me. "Ah!"
thought I, "if I have been indulging in visions, this will dispel
them"; and I quaffed deeply and long of the fresh and glowing
atmosphere before allowing my thoughts to return for an instant to
the strange and harrowing experiences I had just been through. A
sense of rising courage and renewed power rewarded me; and blessing
the Providence that had granted us a morning of sunshine after a
night of so much horror, I sat down and drew from my breast the
little folded paper which represented my poor Ada's will. Opening it
with all the reverent love which I felt for her memory, I set myself
to decipher the few trembling lines which she had written, in the
hope they would steady my thoughts and suggest, if not reveal, the
way I should take in the more than difficult path I saw stretching
before me.

My agitation may be conceived when I read the following:

"It is my last wish that all my personal effects, together with the
sum of five hundred dollars, now credited to my name in the First
National Bank of S----, should be given to my friend, Constance
Sterling, who I hope will not forget the promise I exacted from
her."

Five hundred dollars! and yesterday I had nothing. Ah, yes, I had
_a friend!_

The thoughts awakened by this touching memorial from the innocent
dead distracted me for a few moments from further consideration of
present difficulties, but soon the very nature of the bequest
recalled them to my mind, by that allusion to a promise which more
than any thing else lay at the bottom of the dilemma in which I
found myself. For, humiliating as it is to confess, the persistency
with which certain impressions remained in my mind, in spite of the
glowing daylight that now surrounded me, warned me that it would be
for my peace to leave this house before my presentiments became
fearful realities; while on the other hand my promise to Ada seemed
to constrain me to remain in it till I had at least solved some of
those mysteries of emotion which connected one and all of this
family so intimately with the cause to which I had pledged myself.

"If the general verdict in regard to Mr. Barrows' death should be
one of suicide," thought I, "how could I reconcile myself to the
fact that I fled at the first approaching intimation that all was
not as simple in his relations as was supposed, and that somewhere,
somehow, in the breast of certain parishioners of his, a secret lay
hidden, which, if known, would explain the act which otherwise must
imprint an ineffaceable stain upon his memory?"

My heart and brain were still busy with this question when the sound
of Mr. Pollard's footsteps passing my door recalled me to a sense of
my present duty. Rising, I hurried across the hall to the sick-
chamber, and was just upon the point of entering, when the doctor
appeared before me, and seeing me, motioned me back, saying:

"Mrs. Harrington has just arrived. As she will doubtless wish to see
her mother at once, you had better wait a few moments till the first
agitation is over."

Glad of any respite, and particularly glad to escape an introduction
to Mrs. Harrington at this time, I slipped hastily away, but had not
succeeded in reaching my room before the two brothers and their
sister appeared at the top of the stairs. I had thus a full
opportunity of observing them, and being naturally quick to gather
impressions, took in with a glance the one member of the Pollard
family who was likely to have no mystery about her.

I found her pretty; prettier, perhaps, than any woman it had ever
been my lot to meet before, but with a doll's prettiness that
bespoke but little dignity or force of mind. Dressed with faultless
taste and with an attention to detail that at a moment like the
present struck one with a sense of painful incongruity, she
advanced, a breathing image of fashion and perhaps folly; her
rustling robes, and fresh, if troubled face, offering a most
striking contrast to the gloom and reserve of the two sombre figures
that walked at her side.

Knowing as by instinct that nothing but humiliation would follow any
obtrusion of myself upon this petted darling of fortune, I withdrew
as much as possible into the shadow, receiving for my reward a short
look from both the brothers; the one politely deprecating in its
saturnine courtesy, the other full of a bitter demand for what I in
my selfish egotism was fain to consider sympathy. The last look did
not tend to calm my already disturbed thoughts, and, anxious to
efface its impression, I impulsively descended the stairs and
strolled out on the lawn, asking myself what was meant by the
difference in manner which I had discerned in these two brothers
towards their sister. For while the whole bearing of the younger had
expressed interest in this pretty, careless butterfly of a woman
thus brought suddenly face to face with a grave trouble, the elder
had only averted looks to offer, and an arm that seemed to shrink at
her touch as if the weight of her light hand on his was almost more
than he could bear. Could it be that affection and generosity were
on the side of the younger after all, and that in this respect, at
least, he was the truer man and more considerate brother?

I could find no more satisfactory answer for this question than for
the many others that had suggested themselves since I had been in
this house; and being determined not to allow myself to fall into a
reverie which at this moment might be dangerous, I gave up
consideration of all kinds, and yielded myself wholly to the
pleasure of my ramble. And it was a pleasure! For however solemn and
austere might be the interior of the Pollard mansion, without here
on the lawn all was cheeriness, bloom, and verdure; the grim row of
cedars encircling the house seeming to act as a barrier beyond which
its gloom and secrecy could not pass. At all events such was the
impression given to my excited fancy at the time, and, filled with
the sense of freedom which this momentary escape from the house and
its influences had caused, I hastened to enjoy the beauties of walk
and _parterre_, stopping only when some fairer blossom than
ordinary lured me from my path to inspect its loveliness or inhale
its perfume.

The grounds were not large, though, situated as they were in the
midst of a thickly populated district, they appeared so. It did not,
therefore, take me long to exhaust their attractions, and I was
about to return upon my course, when I espied a little summer-house
before me, thickly shrouded in vines. Thinking what a charming
retreat it offered, I stepped forward to observe it more closely,
when to my great surprise I saw it was already occupied, and by a
person whose attitude and appearance were such as to at once arouse
my strongest curiosity. This person was a boy, slight of build, and
fantastic in his dress, with a face like sculptured marble, and an
eye which, if a little contracted, had a strange glitter in it that
made you look and look again. He was kneeling on the floor of the
summer-house, and his face, seen by me in profile, was turned with
the fixedness of an extreme absorption towards a small opening in
the vines, through which he was intently peering. What he saw or
wished to see I could not imagine, for nothing but the blank end of
the house lay before him, and there could be very little which was
interesting in that, for not one of its windows were open, unless
you except the solitary one in my room. His expression, however,
showed that he was engaged in watching something, and by the
corrugation in his white brow and the peculiar compression of his
fresh red lip, that something showed itself to be of great
importance to him; a fact striking enough in itself if you consider
the earliness of the hour and the apparent immaturity of his age,
which did not appear to be more than fourteen.

Resolved to solve this simple mystery, I gave an admonitory cough,
and stepped into the summer-house. He at once started to his feet,
and faced me with a look I am pondering upon yet, there was so much
in it that was wrathful, curious, dismayed, and defiant. The next
moment a veil seemed to fall over his vision, the rich red lip
relaxed from its expressive curve, and from being one of the most
startling visions I ever saw, he became--what? It would be hard to
tell, only not a fully responsible being, I am sure, however near he
had just strayed to the border-land of judgment and good sense.
Relieved, I scarcely knew why, and remembering almost at the same
instant some passing gossip I had once heard about the pretty
imbecile boy that ran the streets of S----, I gave him a cheerful
smile, and was about to bestow some encouraging word upon him, when
he suddenly broke into a laugh, and looking at me with a meaningless
stare, asked:

"Who are you?"

I was willing enough to answer, so I returned: "I am Constance
Sterling"; and almost immediately added: "And who are you?"

"I am the cat that mews in the well." Then suddenly, "Do you live
here?"

"No," I replied, "I am only staying here. Mrs. Pollard is sick--"

"Do they like you?"

The interruption was quick, like all his speech, and caused me a
curious sensation. But I conquered it with a laugh, and cheerily
replied:

"As I only came last night, it would be hard to say"--and was going
to add more, when the curious being broke out:

"She only came last night!" and, repeating the phrase again and
again, suddenly darted from my side on to the lawn, where he stood
for an instant, murmuring and laughing to himself before speeding
away through the shrubbery that led to the gate.

This incident, trivial as it seemed, made a vivid impression upon
me, and it was with a mind really calmed from its past agitation
that I re-entered the house and took up my watch in the sick-room. I
found every thing as I had left it an hour or so before, with the
exception of my companion; the younger Mr. Pollard having taken the
place of his brother. Mrs. Harrington was nowhere to be seen, but as
breakfast had been announced I did not wonder at this, nor at the
absence of the elder son, who was doubtless engaged in doing the
honors of the house.

My own call to breakfast came sooner than I anticipated; soon
enough, indeed, for me to expect to find Mr. Pollard and his sister
still at the table. It therefore took some courage for me to
respond to the summons, especially as I had to go alone, my
companion, of course, refusing to leave his mother. But a glance in
the hall-mirror, as I went by, encouraged me, for it was no weak
woman's face I encountered, and if Mrs. Harrington was as beautiful
as she was haughty, and as haughty as she was beautiful, Constance
Sterling at least asked no favors and showed no embarrassment.
Indeed, I had never felt more myself than when I lifted the
_portiere_ from before the dining-room door and stepped in
under the gaze of these two contradictory beings, either of which
exerted an influence calculated to overawe a person in my position.
The past----But what have I promised myself and you? Not the past,
then, but my present will and determination made the ordeal easy.

Mr. Pollard, who is certainly a man to attract any woman's eye, rose
gravely as I approached, and presented me with what struck me as a
somewhat emphasized respect, to his sister. Her greeting was nothing
more nor less than what I expected--that is, indifferently civil,--
though I thought I detected a little glimmer of curiosity in the
corner of her eye, as if some words had passed in regard to me that
made her anxious to know what sort of a woman I was.

But my faculty for observation was very wide-awake that morning, and
I may have imagined this, especially as she did not look at me again
till she had finished her breakfast and rose to quit the room. Then,
indeed, she threw me a hurried glance, half searching, half doubtful
in its character, as if she hesitated whether she ought to leave us
alone together. Instantly a wild thrill passed through me, and I
came perilously near blushing. But the momentary emotion, if emotion
it could be called, was soon lost in the deeper feeling which ensued
when Mrs. Harrington, pausing at the door, observed, with a forced
lightness:

"By-the-way, where is Mr. Barrows? I thought he was always on hand
in time of trouble."

I looked at her; somehow, I dared not look at her brother; and,
while making to myself such trivial observations as, "She has not
been told the truth," and, "They took good care she should overhear
no gossip at the station," I was inwardly agitating myself with the
new thought, "Can _she_ have had any thing to do with Mr.
Barrows? Can she be the woman he was engaged to before he fell in
love with Ada?"

The expression of her face, turned though

It was full upon us, told nothing, and my attention, though not my
glances, passed to Mr. Pollard, who, motionless in his place,
hesitated what reply to give to this simple question.

"Guy has not told you, then," said he, "what caused the shock that
has prostrated our mother?"

"No," she returned, coming quickly back.

"It was the news of Mr. Barrows' death, Agnes; the servants say so,
and the servants ought to know."

"Mr. Barrows' death! Is Mr. Barrows dead, then?" she asked, in a
tone of simple wonder, which convinced me that my surmise of a
moment ago was without any foundation. "I did not know he was sick,"
she went on. "Was his death sudden, that it should affect mother
so?"

A short nod was all her brother seemed to be able to give to this
question. At sight of it I felt the cold chills run through my
veins, and wished that fate had not obliged me to be present at this
conversation.

"How did Mr. Barrows die?" queried Mrs. Harrington, after waiting in
manifest surprise and impatience for her brother to speak.

"He was drowned."

"Drowned?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Yesterday."

"Where?"

This time the answer was not forthcoming. Was it because he knew the
place too well? I dared not lift my eyes to see.

"Was it in the mill-stream?" she asked.

This time he uttered a hollow "No." Then, as if he felt himself too
weak to submit to this cross-questioning, he pushed back his chair,
and, hurriedly rising, said:

"It is a very shocking affair, Agnes. Mr. Barrows was found in a vat
in the cellar of the old mill. He drowned _himself._ No one
knows his motive."

"Drowned _himself?_" Did she speak or I? I saw her lips move,
and I heard the words uttered as I thought in her voice; but it was
to me he directed his look, and to me he seemed to reply:

"Yes; how else account for the circumstances? Is he a man to have
enemies?--or is that a place a man would be likely to seek for
pleasure?"

"But--" the trembling little woman at my side began.

"I say it is a suicide," he broke in, imperiously, giving his sister
one look, and then settling his eyes back again upon my face. "No
other explanation fits the case, and no other explanation will ever
be given. Why he should have committed such a deed," he went on, in
a changed voice, and after a momentary pause, "it would be
impossible for me, and perhaps for any other man, to say; but that
he did do it is evident, and that is all I mean to assert. The rest
I leave for wiser heads than mine." And turning from me with an
indescribable look that to my reason, if not to my head, seemed to
belie his words, he offered his arm to his bewildered sister and
quietly led her towards the door.

The breath of relief I gave as the _portiere_ closed behind
them was, however, premature, for scarcely had he seen her on her
way upstairs than he came back, and taking his stand directly before
me, said:

"You and I do not agree on this question; I see it in your eyes. Now
what explanation do you give of Mr. Barrows' death?"

The suddenness of the attack brought the blood to my cheeks, while
the necessity of answering drove it as quickly away. He saw I was
agitated, and a slight tremble--it could not be called a smile--
disturbed the set contour of his lips. The sight of it gave me
courage. I let my own curl as I replied:

"You do me too much honor to ask my opinion. But since you wish to
know what I think, I consider it only justice to say that it would
be easier for an unprejudiced mind to believe that Mr. Barrows had a
secret enemy, or that his death was owing to some peculiar and
perhaps unexplainable accident, than that he should seek it himself,
having, as he did, every reason for living."

"He was very happy, then?" murmured my companion, looking for an
instant away, as if he could not bear the intensity of my gaze.

"He loved deeply a noble woman; they were to have been married in a
month; does that look like happiness?" I asked.

The roving eye came back, fixed itself upon me, and turned
dangerously dark and deep.

"It _looks_ like it," he emphasized, and a strange smile passed
over his lips, the utter melancholy of which was all that was plain
to me.

"And it _was_!" I persisted, determined not to yield an iota of
my convictions to the persuasiveness of this man. "The woman who
knew him best declared it to be so as she was dying; and I am forced
to trust in her judgment, whatever the opinion of others may be."

"But happy men----" he began.

"Sometimes meet with accidents," I completed.

"And your credulity is sufficient to allow you to consider Mr.
Barrows' death as the result of accident?"

Lightly as the question was put, I felt that nothing but a deep
anxiety had prompted it, else why that earnest gaze from which my
own could not falter, or that white line showing about the lip he
essayed in vain to steady? Recoiling inwardly, though I scarcely
knew why, I forced myself to answer with the calmness of an
inquisitor:

"My credulity is not sufficient for me to commit myself to that
belief. If investigation should show that Mr. Barrows had an
enemy----"

"Mr. Barrows had no enemy!" flashed from Mr. Pollard's lips. "I
mean," he explained, with instant composure, "that he was not a man
to awaken jealousy or antagonism; that, according to all accounts,
he had the blessing, and not the cursing, of each man in the
community."

"Yes," I essayed.

"He never came to his death through the instrumentality of another
person," broke in Mr. Pollard, with a stern insistence. "He fell
into the vat intentionally or unintentionally, but no man put him
there. Do you believe me, Miss Sterling?"

Did I believe him? Was he upon trial, then, and was he willing I
should see he understood it? No, no, that could not be; yet why
asseverate so emphatically a fact of which no man could be sure
unless he had been present at the scene of death, or at least known
more of the circumstances attending it than was compatible with the
perfect ignorance which all men professed to have of them. Did he
not see that such words were calculated to awaken suspicion, and
that it would be harder, after such a question, to believe he spoke
from simple conviction, than from a desire to lead captive the will
of a woman whose intuitions, his troubled conscience told him, were
to be feared? Rising, as an intimation that the conversation was
fast becoming insupportable to me, I confronted him with my proudest
look.

"You must excuse me," said I, "if I do not linger to discuss a
matter whose consequences just now are more important to us than the
fact itself. While your mother lies insensible I cannot rest
comfortable away from her side. You will therefore allow me to
return to her."

"In a moment," he replied. "There are one or two questions it would
please me to have you answer first." And his manner took on a charm
that robbed his words of all peremptoriness, and made it difficult,
if not impossible, for me to move. "You have spoken of Miss
Reynolds," he resumed; "have told me that she declared upon her
dying bed that the relations between Mr. Barrows and herself were
very happy. Were you with her then? Did you know her well?"

"She was my room-mate," I returned.

It was a blow; I saw it, though not a muscle of his face quivered.
He had not expected to hear that I was upon terms of intimacy with
her.

"I loved her," I went on, with a sense of cruel pleasure that must
have sprung from the inward necessity I felt to struggle with this
strong nature. "The proof that she loved me lies in the fact that
she has made me heir to all her little savings. We were friends," I
added, seeing he was not yet under sufficient control to speak.

"I see," he now said, moving involuntarily between me and the door.
"And by friends you mean confidantes, I presume?"

"Perhaps," I answered, coolly, dropping my eyes.

His voice took a deeper tone; it was steel meeting steel, he saw.

"And she told you Mr. Barrows was happy?"

"That has been already discussed," said I.

"Miss Sterling"--I think I never heard such music in a human voice--
"you think me inquisitive, presuming, ungentlemanly, persistent,
perhaps. But I have a great wish to know the truth about this
matter, if only to secure myself from forming false impressions and
wrongfully influencing others by them. Bear with me, then, strangers
though we are, and if you feel you can trust me"--here he forced me
to look at him,--"let me hear, I pray, what reasons you have for
declaring so emphatically that Mr. Barrows did not commit suicide?"

"My reasons, Mr. Pollard? Have I not already given them to you? Is
it necessary for me to repeat them?"

"No," he earnestly rejoined, charming me, whether I would or not, by
the subtle homage he infused into his look, "if you will assure me
that you have no others--that the ones you have given form the sole
foundation for your conclusions. Will you?" he entreated; and while
his eyes demanded the truth, his lip took a curve which it would
have been better for me not to have seen if I wished to preserve
unmoved my position as grand inquisitor.

I was compelled, or so it seemed to me, to answer without reserve. I
therefore returned a quiet affirmative, adding only in qualification
of the avowal, "What other reasons were necessary?"

"None, none," was the quick reply, "for _you_ to believe as you
do. A woman but proves her claim to our respect when she attaches
such significance to the master-passion as to make it the argument
of a perfect happiness."

I do not think he spoke in sarcasm, though to most minds it might
appear so. I think he spoke in relief, a joyous relief, that was
less acceptable to me at that moment than the sarcasm would have
been. I therefore did not blush, but rather grew pale, as with a bow
I acknowledged his words, and took my first step towards the
doorway.

"I have wounded you," he murmured, softly, following me.

"You do not know me well enough," I answered, turning with a sense
of victory in the midst of my partial defeat.

"It is a misfortune that can be remedied," he smiled.

"Your brother waits for us," I suggested, and, lifting the
_portiere_ out of his hand, I passed through, steady as a dart,
but quaking, oh, how fearfully quaking within! for this interview
had not only confirmed me in my belief that something dark and
unknown connected the life of this household with that which had
suddenly gone out in the vat at the old mill, but deepened rather
than effaced the fatal charm which, contrary to every instinct of my
nature, held me in a bondage that more than all things else must
make any investigation into this mystery a danger and a pain from
which any woman might well recoil, even though she bore in her heart
memories of a past like mine.




VI.

MRS. POLLARD.


  My mind she has mated, and amazed my sight;
  I think but dare not speak.
                 --MACBETH.

That day was a marked one in my life. It was not only the longest I
have ever known, but it was by far the dreariest, and, if I may use
the word in this connection, the most unearthly. Indeed, I cannot
think of it to this day without a shudder; its effect being much the
same upon my memory as that of a vigil in some underground tomb,
where each moment was emphasized with horror lest the dead lying
before me might stir beneath their cerements and wake. The continual
presence of one or both of the brothers at my side did not tend to
alleviate the dread which the silence, the constant suspense, the
cold gloom of the ever dimly-lighted chamber were calculated to
arouse; for the atmosphere of unreality and gloom was upon them
too, and, saving the quick, short sigh that escaped from their lips
now and then, neither of them spoke nor relaxed for an instant from
that strain of painful attention which had for its focus their
mother's stony face. Mrs. Harrington, who, in her youthful freshness
and dimpled beauty, might have relieved the universal sombreness of
the scene, was not in the room all day; but whether this was on
account of her inability to confront sickness and trouble, or
whether it was the result of the wishes of her brothers, I have
never been able to decide; probably the latter, for, though she was
a woman of frivolous mind, she had a due sense of the proprieties,
and was never known to violate them except under the stress of
another will more powerful than her own.

At last, as the day waned, and what light there was gradually
vanished from the shadowy chamber, Guy made a movement of
discouragement, and, rising from his place, approached his brother,
dropped a word in his ear, and quietly left the room. The relief I
felt was instantaneous. It was like having one coil of an oppressive
nightmare released from my breast. Dwight, on the contrary, who had
sat like a statue ever since the room began to darken, showed no
evidence of being influenced by this change, and, convinced that any
movement towards a more cheerful order of things must come from me,
I rose, and, without consulting his wishes, dropped the curtains and
lighted the lamp. The instant I had done so I saw why he was so
silent and immovable. Overcome by fatigue, and possibly by a long
strain of suppressed emotion, he had fallen asleep, and, ignorant of
the fact that Guy had left the room, slumbered as peacefully as if
no break had occurred in the mysterious watch they had hitherto so
uninterruptedly maintained over their mother and me.

The peacefulness of his sleeping face made a deep impression upon
me. Though I knew that with his waking the old look would come back,
it was an indescribable pleasure to me to see him, if but for an
instant, free from that shadowy something which dropped a vail of
mistrust between us. It seemed to show me that evil was not innate
in this man, and explained, if it did not justify, the weakness
which had made me more lenient to what was doubtful in his
appearance and character than I had been to that of his equally
courteous but less attractive brother.

The glances I allowed myself to cast in his direction were fleeting
enough, however. Even if womanly delicacy had not forbidden me to
look too often and too long that way, the sense of the unfair
advantage I was possibly taking of his weakness made the possibility
of encountering his waking eye a matter of some apprehension. I knew
that honor demanded I should rouse him, that he would not thank me
for letting him sleep after his brother had left the room; and yet,
whether from too much heart--he was in such sore need of rest--or
from too little conscience--I was in such sore need of knowledge--I
let him slumber on, and never made so much as a move after my first
startled discovery of his condition.

And so five minutes, ten minutes, went by, and, imperceptibly to
myself, the softening influence which his sleeping countenance
exerted upon me deepened and strengthened till I began to ask if I
had not given too much scope to my, imagination since I had been in
this house, and foolishly attributed a meaning to expressions and
events that in my calmer moments would show themselves to possess no
special significance.

The probability was that I had, and once allowing myself to admit
this idea, it is astonishing how rapidly it gained possession of my
judgment, altering the whole tenor of my thoughts, and if not
exactly transforming the situation into one of cheerfulness and
ease, at least robbing it of much of that sepulchral character which
had hitherto made it so nearly unbearable to me. The surroundings,
too, seemed to partake of the new spirit of life which had seized
me. The room looked less shadowy, and lost some of that element of
mystery which had made its dimly seen corners the possible abode of
supernatural visitants. Even the clock ticked less lugubriously, and
that expressionless face on the pillow--

Great God! it is looking at me! With two wide open, stony eyes it is
staring into my very soul like a spirit from the tomb, awakening
there a horror infinitely deeper than any I had felt before, though
I knew it was but the signal of returning life to the sufferer, and
that I ought to rouse myself and welcome it with suitable
ministrations, instead of sitting there like a statue of fear in
the presence of an impending fate. But do what I would, say to
myself what I would, I could not stir. A nightmare of terror was
upon me, and not till I saw the stony lips move and the face take a
look of life in the effort made to speak, did I burst the spell that
held me and start to my feet. Even then I dared not look around nor
raise my voice to warn the sleeper behind me that the moment so long
waited for had come. A power behind myself seemed to hold me silent,
waiting, watching for those words that struggled to life so
painfully before me. At last they came, filling the room with echoes
hollow as they were awful!

"Dwight! Guy! If you do not want me to haunt you, swear you will
never divulge what took place between you and Mr. Barrows at the
mill."

"_Mother_!" rang in horror through the room. And before I could
turn my head, Dwight Pollard leaped by me, and hiding the face of
the dying woman on his breast, turned on me a gaze that was half
wild, half commanding, and said:

"Go for my brother! He is in the northwest room. Tell him our mother
raves." Then, as I took a hurried, though by no means steady, step
towards the door, he added: "I need not ask you to speak to no one
else?"

"No," my cold lips essayed to utter, but an unmeaning murmur was
all that left them. The reaction from hope and trust to a now
really tangible fear had been too sudden and overwhelming.

But by the time I had reached the room to which I had been directed,
I had regained in a measure my self-control. Guy Pollard at least
should not see that I could be affected by any thing which could
happen in this house. Yet when, in answer to my summons, he joined
me in the hall, I found it difficult to preserve the air of
respectful sympathy I had assumed, so searching was his look, and so
direct the question with which he met his brother's message.

"My mother raves, you say; will you be kind enough to tell me what
her words were?"

"Yes," returned I, scorning to prevaricate in a struggle I at least
meant should be an honest one. "She called upon her sons, and said
that she would haunt them if ever they divulged what took place
between them and Mr. Barrows at the mill."

"Ah!" he coldly laughed; "she does indeed rave." And while I admired
his self-control, I could not prevent myself from experiencing an
increased dread of this nature that was so ready for all emergencies
and so panoplied against all shock.

I might have felt a more vivid apprehension still, had I known what
was passing in his mind as we traversed the hall back to the sick-
chamber. But the instinct which had warned me of so much, did not
warn me of that, and it was with no other feeling than one of
surprise that I noted the extreme deference with which he opened his
mother's door for me, and waited even in that moment of natural
agitation and suspense for me to pass over the threshold before he
presumed to enter himself.

Dwight Pollard, however, did not seem to be so blind, for a change
passed over his face as he saw us, and he half rose from the
crouching position he still held over his mother's form. He subsided
back, however, as I drew to one side and let Guy pass unheeded to
the bed, and it was in quite a natural tone he bade me seat myself
in the alcove towards which he pointed, till his mother's condition
required my services.

That there was really nothing to be done for her, I saw myself in
the one glimpse I caught of her face as he started up. She was on
the verge of death, and her last moments were certainly due to her
children. So I passed into the alcove, which was really a small room
opening out of the large one, and flinging myself on the lounge I
saw there, asked myself whether I ought to shut the door between us,
or whether my devotion to Ada's cause bade me listen to whatever
came directly in my way to hear? The fact that I was in a measure
prisoned there, there being no other outlet to the room than the one
by which I had entered, determined me to ignore for once the natural
instincts of my ladyhood; and pale and trembling to a degree I would
not have wished seen by either of these two mysterious men, I sat in
a dream of suspense, hearing and not hearing the low hum of their
voices as they reasoned with or consoled the mother, now fast
drifting away into an endless night.

Suddenly--shall I ever forget the thrill it gave me?--her voice rose
again in those tones whose force and commanding power I have found
it impossible to describe.

"The oath! the oath! Dwight, Guy, by my dying head----"

"Yes, mother," I heard one voice interpose; and by the solemn murmur
that followed, I gathered that Guy had thought it best to humor her
wishes.

The long-drawn sigh which issued from her lips testified to the
relief he had given her, and the "Now Dwight!" which followed was
uttered in tones more gentle and assured.

But to this appeal no solemn murmur ensued, for at that instant a
scream arose from the bed, and to the sound of an opening door rang
out the words: "Keep her away! What do you let her come in here
for, to confound me and make me curse the day she was born! Away! I
say, away!"

Horrified, and unable to restrain the impulse that moved me, I
sprang to my feet and rushed upon the scene. The picture that met my
eyes glares at me now from the black background of the past. On the
bed, that roused figure, awful with the shadows of death, raised, in
spite of the constraining hands of her two sons, into an attitude
expressive of the most intense repulsion, terror, and dread; and at
the door, the fainting form of the pretty, dimpled, care-shunning
daughter, who, struck to the heart by this poisoned dart from the
hand that should have been lifted in blessing, stood swaying in
dismay, her wide blue eyes fixed on the terrible face before her,
and her hands outstretched and clutching in vague fear after some
support that would sustain her, and prevent her falling crushed to
the floor.

To bound to her side, and lift her gently out of her mother's sight,
was the work of a moment. But in that moment my eyes had time to see
such a flash of infinite longing take the place of the fierce
passions upon that mother's face, that my heart stood still, and I
scarcely knew whether to bear my burden from the room, or to rush
with it to that bedside and lay it, in all its childlike beauty, on
that maddened mother's dying breast. A low, deep groan from the bed
decided me. With that look of love on her face, otherwise distorted
by every evil passion, Mrs. Pollard had fallen back into the arms of
her two sons, and quietly breathed her last.




VII.

ADVANCES.


  For they are actions that a man might play;
  But I have that within which passeth show.
                 --HAMLET.

"Miss Sterling?"

I was sitting by the side of Mrs. Harrington in her own room. By a
feverish exertion of strength I had borne her thither from her
mother's chamber, and was now watching the returning hues of life
color her pale cheek. At the sound of my name, uttered behind me, I
arose. I had expected a speedy visit from one of the brothers, but I
had been in hopes that it would be Dwight, and not Guy, who would
make it.

"I must speak to you at once; will you follow me?" asked that
gentleman, bowing respectfully as I turned.

I glanced at Mrs. Harrington, but he impatiently shook his head.

"Anice is at the door," he remarked. "She is accustomed to Mrs.
Harrington, and will see that she is properly looked after." And,
leading the way, he ushered me out, pausing only to cast one hurried
glance back at his sister, as if to assure himself she was not yet
sufficiently recovered to note his action.

In the hall he offered me his arm.

"The gas has not yet been lighted," he explained, "and I wish you to
go with me to the parlor."

This sounded formidable, but I did not hesitate. I felt able to
confront this man.

"I am at your service," I declared, with a comfortable sensation
that my tone conveyed something of the uncompromising spirit I felt.

The room to which he conducted me was on the first floor, and was
darkness itself when we entered. It was musty, too, and chill, as
with the memory of a past funeral and the premonition of a new one.

Even the light which he soon made did not seem to be at home in the
spot, but wavered and flickered with faint gasps, as if it longed to
efface itself and leave the grand and solitary apartment to its
wonted atmosphere of cold reserve. By its feeble flame I noted but
two details: one was the portrait of Mrs. Pollard in her youth, and
the other was my own reflection in some distant mirror. The first
filled me with strange thoughts, the face was so wickedly powerful,
if I may so speak; handsome, but with that will beneath its beauty
which, when allied to selfishness, has produced the Lucretia Borgias
and Catherine de Medicis of the world.

The reflection of which I speak, dimly seen as it was, had, on the
contrary, a calming effect upon my mind. Weary as I undoubtedly was,
and pale if not haggard with the emotions I had experienced, there
was still something natural and alive in my image that recalled
happier scenes to my eyes, and gave me the necessary strength to
confront the possibilities of the present interview..

Mr. Pollard, who in his taciturn gloom seemed like the natural
genius of the spot, appeared to be struck by this same sensation
also, for his eyes wandered more than once to the mirror, before he
summoned up courage, or, perhaps, I should say, before he took the
determination to look me in the face and open the conversation. When
he did, it was curious to note the strife of expression between his
eye and lip: the one hard, cold, and unyielding; the other
deprecating in its half-smile and falsely gentle, as if the mind
that controlled it was even then divided between its wish to subdue
and the necessity it felt to win.

"Miss Sterling," so he began, "it would be only folly for me to
speak as if nothing had occurred but an ordinary and natural death.
It would be doing your good sense and womanly judgment but little
honor, and putting myself, or, rather, ourselves--for we children
are but one in this matter--in a position which would make any
after-explanations exceedingly difficult. For explanations can be
given, and in a word; for what has doubtless struck you as strange
and terrible in my mother's last hours,--explanations which I am
sure you will be glad to accept, as it is not natural for one so
blooming in her womanliness to wish to hamper her youth with dark
thoughts, or to nurse suspicions contrary to her own candid and
noble nature."

He paused, but meeting with no response beyond a rather cool bow,
the strife between his eye and lip became more marked. He went on,
however, as if perfectly satisfied, his voice retaining its
confident tone, whatever the disturbance communicated to his inward
nature.

"The explanation to which I allude is this," said he. "My mother for
the past three months has been the victim of many unwholesome
delusions. The sickness of my father, which was somewhat prolonged,
made great inroads upon her strength; and his death, followed by the
necessity of parting with Mrs. Harrington--whom you perhaps know was
for family reasons married immediately upon my father's decease,--
sowed the seed of a mental weakness which culminated on her deathbed
into a positive delirium. She had a notion, and has had it for
weeks, unknown to every one but my brother and myself, that Mrs.
Harrington had been the occasion of some great misfortune to us;
whereas the innocent girl had done nothing but follow out her
mother's wishes, both in her marriage and in her settlement in a
distant town. But the love my mother had felt for her was always
the ruling passion of her life, and when she came to find herself
robbed of a presence that was actually necessary to her well-being,
her mind, by some strange subtlety of disease I do not profess to
understand, confounded the source of her grief with its cause,
attributing to this well-beloved daughter's will the suffering,
which only sprang out of the circumstances of the case. As to her
wild remarks in regard to Mr. Barrows," he added, with studied
indifference, "and the oath she wished us to take, that was but an
outgrowth of the shock she had received in hearing of the
clergyman's death. For, of course, I need not assure you, Miss
Sterling, that for all our readiness to take the oath she demanded,
neither my brother nor myself ever were at the mill, or knew any
more of the manner or cause of Mr. Barrows' death than you do."

This distinct denial, made in quiet but emphatic tones, caused me to
look up at him with what was perhaps something of an expressive
glance. For at its utterance the longing cry had risen in my heart,
"Oh, that it were Dwight who had said that!" And the realization
which it immediately brought of the glad credence which it would
have received from me had it only fallen from _his_ lips caused
an inward tremble of self-consciousness which doubtless communicated
itself to my glance. For Guy Pollard, without waiting for any words
I might have to say, leaned towards me with a gratified air, and
with what I would like to call a smile, exclaimed:

"You have been in the house scarce twenty-four hours, but I feel as
if I could already give you the title of friend. Will you accept it
from me, Miss Sterling, and with it my most cordial appreciation and
esteem?"

"Ah, this is mere bait!" I thought, and was tempted to indignantly
repel the hand he held out; but something restrained me which I am
to proud to call fear, and which in reality I do not think was fear,
so much as it was wonder and a desire to understand the full motive
of a condescension I could not but feel was unprecedented in this
arrogant nature. I therefore gave him my hand, but in a steady,
mechanical way that I flattered myself committed me to nothing;
though the slight but unmistakable pressure he returned seemed to
show that he took it for a sign of amity, if not of absolute
surrender.

"You relieve me of a great weight," he acknowledged. "Had you been
of the commonplace type of woman, you might have made it very
uncomfortable for us." "And what have I said and done," I could
not help remarking, though neither so bitterly nor with so much
irony as I might have done had that desire of which I have spoken
been less keen than it was, "to lead you to think I shall not yet do
so?"

"Your glance is your surety," was the response he made. "That and
your honest hand, which does not lightly fall in that of a
stranger." And with a real smile now, though it was by no means the
reassuring and perhaps attractive one he doubtless meant it to be,
he fixed me with his subtle glance, in which I began to read a
meaning, if not a purpose, that made the blood leap indignantly to
my heart, and caused me to feel as if I had somehow stumbled into a
snare from which it would take more than ordinary skill and patience
to escape.

A look down the shadowy room restored my equanimity, however. It was
all so unreal, so ghostly, I could not help acknowledging to myself
that I was moving in a dream which exaggerated every impression I
received, even that which might be given by the bold gaze of an
unscrupulous man. So I determined not to believe in it, or in any
thing else I should see that night, unless it were in the stern soul
of the woman who had just died; a qualification which my mind could
not help making to itself as my eyes fell again upon her portrait,
with its cruel, unrelenting expression.

"You do not feel at home!" exclaimed Guy, interpreting according to
his needs my silence and the look I had thrown about me. "I do not
wonder," he pursued. "Dreariness like this has little to do with
youth and beauty. But I hope"--here he took a step nearer, while
that meaning look--oh, my God! was I deceiving myself?--deepened in
his eyes--"I hope the day will come when you will see the sunshine
stream through the gloom of these dim recesses, and in the new cheer
infused into the life of this old mansion forget the scenes of
horror that encompassed the beginning of our friendship." And with a
bow that seemed to intimate that necessity, and not his wishes,
forced him to terminate this interview, he was stepping back, when
the door opened quickly behind him, and the face of Dwight Pollard
showed itself on the threshold.

The look he cast first at his brother and then at me caused a fresh
tumult to take place in my breast. Was it displeasure he showed? I
was pleased to think so. I could not be sure of his feeling,
however, for almost on the instant his brow cleared, and advancing
with an excuse for his interruption, he spoke a few low words to
Guy. The latter gravely bowed, and with just a slight glance in my
direction, immediately left the room. I was once more alone with
Dwight Pollard.

He seemed to feel the situation as much as I did, for it was several
moments before he spoke, and when he did, his voice had a subdued
tremble in it which I had not noticed before.

"Miss Sterling," he remarked, "my brother has been talking to you,
trying, I presume, to explain to you the distressing scene to which
you have just been witness."

I bowed, for I seemed to have no words to say, though he evidently
longed to hear me speak.

"My brother is not always considerate in his manner of address," he
went on, after a moment's intent scrutiny of my face. "I hope he has
not made you feel other than satisfied of our good-will towards
you?"

"No," I faintly smiled, wishing I knew what feeling prompted this
subtle attempt to learn the nature of the interview which had just
passed. "Mr. Guy Pollard has never been any thing but polite to me."

He looked at me again as if he would read my very soul, but I gave
him no help to its understanding, and he presently dropped his eyes.

"Did he tell you," he at last resumed, with some effort, "that it is
our wish for you to remain in this house till our mother is buried?"

"No," I returned, "he said nothing about it."

"But you will do so?" he queried, in that rich and deep tone which
thrilled so dangerously to my heart.

"I--I must have time to think," I faltered, taken by surprise, and
not seeing my way as clearly as I could wish. "It is my desire to
attend the funeral of Mr. Barrows and Miss Reynolds, and--Mr.
Pollard!" I suddenly exclaimed, taking perhaps the most courageous
resolution of my life, "I must be honest with you. It is useless for
me to deny that the manner and circumstances of your mother's death
have made a great impression upon me; that I cannot, in spite of all
explanations, but connect some special significance to the oath you
were requested to take; and that, weakened as your mother may have
been, something more terrible than the mere shock of hearing of her
pastor's sudden decease must have occasioned emotions so intense as
to end in death and delirium. If, therefore, you are willing to
assure me, as your brother has done, that it was entirely a fancy of
hers that you ever held any communication with Mr. Barrows at the
mill, I will gladly promise to disabuse my mind of all unfavorable
impressions, and even promise to stay here, if such be your desire,
till the days of your trouble are over, and the body of your mother
is laid in her grave."

"And has my brother given you such an assurance as you speak of?"

"He has," I returned.

"Then why do you ask one from me?"

Was it possible for me to tell him?

"If it was not enough coming from his lips, how could it be coming
from mine?" he continued.

Shame and confusion kept me silent.

"Would it be?" he persisted, this time with feeling and something
like a hint of eagerness in his voice.

I dared not say "Yes," and yet I must have the assurance I demanded,
if ever I was to know peace again.

"You no not answer; but I think, I feel confident you would believe
my word, Miss Sterling."

"I have asked for it," I returned.

He turned frightfully pale; it seemed as if he would speak, but the
words did not come. I felt, my heart growing sick, and as for him,
he started violently away from my side, and took a turn or two up
and down the room.

"I cannot deny what looks like an accusation," he declared at last,
coming and standing before me with a sombre but determined air. "My
pride alone is sufficient to deter me. Will you accept from me any
thing less. I am not such a man as my brother."

"I will accept your assurance that as the true friend to Ada
Reynolds I may remain in this house without stain to her memory or
love."

"Then you think--"

"No," said I, with a burst I could not control, "I do not think; I
do not want to think; do not make me, I entreat."

He smiled, a sad and fearful smile, and took another turn up and
down the seemingly darkening room. When he came back I was cold as
marble, and almost as insensible.

"Miss Sterling," were his words, "do you remember a conversation we
had this morning?"

I bowed, with a sudden rush of hope that almost melted me again.

"In that conversation I made a solemn assertion; do you recollect
what it was?"

"Yes," I looked, if I did not audibly reply.

"I make that assertion again--is it sufficient?" he asked.

At that moment it seemed to me that it was. I looked and felt as if
a great weight had been lifted from my heart, and though he flushed
deeply, as any man of spirit, let alone one of such a proud and
aristocratic nature as his, would be apt to under the circumstances,
I saw that he experienced a relief also, and giving way to an
impulse I do not yet know whether to regret or not, I held out my
hand, saying calmly:

"I will remain, Mr. Pollard."




VIII.

A FLOWER FROM THE POLLARD CONSERVATORY.


  You may wear your rue with a difference.
                 --HAMLET.

Mrs. Harrington did not immediately recover from the shock she had
received. I therefore found myself fully employed the next day.
Towards evening, however, a respite came, and I took the opportunity
for a stroll up-street, as much for the sake of hearing the gossip
of the town as to escape from the atmosphere of sorrow and
perplexity by which I was surrounded.

My walk down to the gate was full of a certain uneasy apprehension.
I had made no secret of my intentions at the supper-table, and for
the reason that neither of the brothers had ventured upon any reply
to my remark, I expected one, if not both, of them to join me on the
way. But I reached the last turn of the path without meeting any
one, and I was congratulating myself upon the prospect of having an
hour of perfect freedom, when I detected, leaning on the gate before
me, the firm, well-knit figure of a man.

As the two Pollards were more or less alike in form, I could not
distinguish at first glance which of the brothers it was. I
therefore faltered back a step, and was indeed debating whether I
should not give up my project and return to the house, when I saw
the gentleman's head turn, and realized that it was too late to
retreat. I therefore advanced with as much calmness as I could
assume, determined not to vary my conduct, no matter which of the
brothers it should turn out to be. But, to my great surprise, the
gentleman before me gave me no opportunity to test my resolution. No
sooner did he perceive me than he made a hurried gesture that I did
not at that moment understand; and, just lifting his hat in
courteous farewell, vanished from my sight in the thick bushes which
at that place encumbered the grounds.

"It was Dwight; it was Guy," I alternately explained to myself, and
knew not whether it would give me most relief to find myself
shunned by the one or the other. My final conclusion, that I wished
to have nothing further to do with either of them, received,
notwithstanding, a rude shock when I arrived at the gate-post. For
there, on its broad top, lay a magnificent blossom, the choicest
fruit of the hot-house, and it was to beg my acceptance of this that
the gentleman had made the peculiar gesture I had noticed--an act
which, if it came from Dwight, certainly possessed a significance
which I was not yet ready to ignore; while, if it proceeded from his
cold and crafty brother--But I would not allow myself to dwell upon
that possibility. The flower must be mine, and if afterwards I found
that it was to Guy I owed its possession, it would be time enough
then for me to determine what to do. So I took the gorgeous blossom
off the post and was speeding away down the street, when I was
suddenly stopped by the thought that only Guy would have the egotism
to bestow a gift upon me in this way; that Dwight, if he had wished
to present it at all, would have done so with his own hand, and not
left it lying on a gate-post with the assurance it would be gathered
up by the fortunate recipient of his favor.

Disgusted with myself, and instantly alive to the possible
consequences of my act, I opened my fingers with the laudable
intention of dropping the flower to the ground, when I saw standing
in the road directly in front of me the beautiful idiot boy whose
peculiarities of appearance and conduct had so attracted my
attention in the summer-house the day before. He was looking at me
with a strange gaze of mingled curiosity and imbecile good-nature,
and his hands, white as milk, trembled in the air before him, as if
he could scarcely restrain himself from snatching out of my grasp
the superb flower I seemed so willing to throw away.

A happy impulse seized me.

"Here," said I, proffering him the blossom. "This will give you more
pleasure than it will me."

But, to my great astonishment, he turned on his heel with a loud
laugh, and then, shaking his head, and rolling it curiously from
side to side, exclaimed, with his usual repetition:

"No, no, it is a lover's gift, a lover's gift; you will wear it in
your hair." And he danced about me with grotesque gayety for a
moment, then flitted away to a position from which he could still
see me without being within reach of my hand.

Under these circumstances I was too proud to fling the flower away;
so I dropped it into a basket I held, and walked swiftly down the
street. The idiot boy followed me; now skipping a pace or two in
advance, and now falling back till I had passed far beyond him. As
he flashed back and forth, I saw that his eyes were always on my
face, and once, as I confronted him with mine, he broke out into a
series of chuckles, and cried: "Do they like you now? do they like
you now?" and laughed and danced, and laughed again, till I began to
find the situation somewhat embarrassing, and was glad enough when
at the corner of a street he disappeared from my view, with the
final cry of: "One day, two days; wait till you have been there ten;
wait till you have been there twenty!"

Hot and trembling with apprehension lest his foolish speeches had
been heard by some passer-by, I hurried on my way to the house where
I lived. I reached it in a few minutes, and being so fortunate as to
find my landlady in, succeeded before another half-hour had passed
in learning all that was generally known about the serious
occurrences in which I was just then so profoundly interested.

I heard first that the vat in the old mill had been examined for the
purpose of ascertaining how it came to be full enough of water to
drown a man; and it was found that, owing to a heavy storm which had
lately devastated the country, a portion of the wall above the vat
had been broken in by a falling tree, allowing the rain to enter in
floods from a jutting portion of the roof. Next, that although an
inquest had been held over Mr. Barrows' remains, and a verdict been
given of accidental death, the common judgment of the community
ascribed his end to suicide. This was mainly owing to the fact that
the woman in whose house he had lived had testified to having
observed a great change in his appearance during the last few weeks;
a change which many were now ready to allow they had themselves
perceived; though, from the fact of its having escaped the attention
of Ada, I cannot but think they were greatly helped to this
conclusion by their own imagination.

The last thing I made sure of was that the two deaths which had
followed his so tragically had awakened on all sides the deepest
interest and pity, but nothing more. That although the general
features of Mrs. Pollard's end were well enough known, no whisper of
suspicion had been breathed against her or hers, that showed in the
faintest way that any doubt mingled with the general feeling of
commiseration. And yet it was too evident she was no favorite with
the world at large, and that the respect with which she was
universally mentioned was rather the result of the pride felt in her
commanding manners and position, than from any personal liking for
the woman herself.

As for the sons, they were fine young men in their way, and had the
sympathy of everybody in their bereavement; but gossip, if it busied
itself with their names at all, was much more interested in
wondering what disposition they would make of the property now
coming to them, than in inquiring whether or not they could have had
any secret relations with the man now dead, which were calculated to
explain in any way his mysterious end.

Finally I learned that Ada and Mr. Barrows were to be buried the
next day.

Satisfied with the information obtained, I started immediately for
the Pollard mansion. It was my wish to re-enter it before dark. But
the twilight fell fast, and by the time I reached the gate I could
barely discern that a masculine figure was again leaning there,
waiting, as it appeared, for my return. The discovery caused me a
sensation of relief. Now I should at least learn which of the two
brothers showed this interest in my movements, for this time the
gentleman betrayed no disposition to leave at my approach; on the
contrary, he advanced, and in the mellow accents I had learned in so
short a time to listen for, observed:

"I knew you wished to go alone, Miss Sterling, or I should have
offered you my protection in your dismal walk. I am glad to see you
return before it is quite dark."

"Thank you," I responded, with almost a degree of joyousness in my
tone, I was so glad to be rid of the perplexity that had weighed
down my spirits for the last half-hour. "It is not pleasant to walk
the streets at dusk alone, but necessity has accustomed me to it,
and I scarcely think of its dangers now."

"You utter that in a proud tone," he declared, reaching out and
taking the basket that hung on my arm.

"I have reason to," I replied, glad it was so dark he could not see
the blush which his action had caused. "It was no slight struggle
for me to overcome certain prejudices in which I have been reared.
That I have been able to do so gives me wholesome satisfaction. I am
no longer ashamed to own that I stand by myself, and work for every
benefit I obtain."

"Nor need you be," he murmured. "In this age and in this country a
woman like you forfeits nothing by maintaining her own independence.
On the contrary, she gains something, and that is the respect of
every true-hearted man that knows her." And his step lagged more and
more in spite of my conscientious efforts to maintain the brisk pace
in which I had indulged before I had encountered him at the gate.

"This is a grand old place," I remarked, vaguely anxious to change
the drift of the conversation.

"Yes," he answered, moodily; "but it is shadowed." And with a sudden
relapse into his most sombre self, he walked at my side in silence,
till the sight of the high porch showing itself through the trees
warned him that if he had any thing further to say to me, it must be
said soon. He therefore paused, forcing me by the action to pause
too, and earnestly observed: "I know, however you may address me,
Miss Sterling, you cherish a doubt of me in your heart. I cannot
resent this, much as my natural pride might prompt me to do so.
During the short time in which I have known you, you have won so
deeply upon my esteem, that the utmost which I feel able to ask of
you under the circumstances is, that, in the two or three days you
will yet remain with us, you will allow yourself but one thought
concerning me, and that is, that I aspire to be an honest man, and
to do not only what the world thinks right, but even what such a
conscientious soul as yours must consider so. Are you willing to
regard me in this light, and will my mere word be sufficient to
cause you to do so?"

It was a searching question after his proffer, and my acceptance of
the flower I held concealed, and I hesitated a moment before
replying to it. I am so intensely proud; and then I could not but
acknowledge to myself that, whatever my excuse, I was certainly
running a risk of no ordinary nature in listening to the addresses
of a man who could inspire me, or ever had inspired me, with the
faintest element of distrust.

He noted my silence and drew back, uttering a sigh that was half
impatient and half sorrowful. I felt this sigh, nondescript as it
was, re-echo painfully in my heart, and hung my head in remorse; but
not before I had caught a glimpse of his face, and been struck by
its expression of deep melancholy.

"You have no favor to show me, then?" he asked.

Instantly and without premeditation I seized upon the basket he held
in his hand, and impetuously opened the lid.

"Have I not shown you one?" I inquired.

A sound--it never came from him or from me--made us both start. With
a fierce expression he turned towards the bushes at our right, but
not before I had seen, by the look of astonishment he had cast upon
the flower, that, notwithstanding the coincidence of finding him at
the gate, he had had nothing to do with its culling or presentation.

"Some one is presuming to play the spy upon us," said he, and
drawing my hand through his arm, he led me swiftly towards the
porch. "You need not tremble so," he whispered, as we halted an
instant between the cedars before mounting the steep steps. "No one
in this house wishes to annoy you--or if there should be any one who
does," he corrected in a quick tone, while he cast a glance of quick
suspicion at the basket in my hand, "that person and I will soon
come to an understanding."

"I was only startled," was my quick rejoinder, glad to explain my
tremulousness in this way. "Let us go in," I added, feeling that I
must escape to some place of solitude, if only to hide my shame and
chagrin from every eye.

He acquiesced in my wishes at once, and we were proceeding slowly up
the steps, when suddenly a shrill, strange laugh broke from amid the
bushes, and the weird voice of the idiot boy, whom I thought had
been left behind me in the town, rose once more to my ear, uttering
those same words which had so annoyed me earlier in the evening.

"Oh, do you think they like you now? Say, say, do you think they
like you now?" But the tone with which he addressed me this time had
a ring of menace in it, and I was not surprised to see Dwight
Pollard start, though I was somewhat affected by the deep agitation
he showed as I tried to explain:

"Oh, it is only the little idiot boy whom you must have seen running
about the streets. He seems to have taken a fancy to me, for he
followed me nearly all the while I was gone, with something of the
same senseless remarks as now."

"The idiot boy!" repeated Mr. Pollard. "Well, we will leave the
idiot boy outside." And he held the door open till I had hurried in,
when he vehemently closed it, looking at the same time as if he had
shut the door on a threatening evil, or, at the most, on a bitter
and haunting memory.

 That night I did an unworthy thing; I listened to conversation
which was not intended for my ears. It happened in this wise: I had
been down-stairs on an errand for Mrs. Harrington, and was coming
back through the dimly lighted hall, when I saw Dwight Pollard step
out of a room in front of me and accost a man that was locking and
bolting the front door.

"Simon," I heard him say, "you remember that beautiful flower I
noticed yesterday in the conservatory?"

"Yes, sir," the man replied, with some embarrassment in his voice.

"Well, I want it picked to-morrow for my mother's funeral. You will
bring it to my room."

"Oh, sir," I heard the man hurriedly interpose, "I'm sure I'm very
sorry, sir; but it has already been picked, and there won't be
another out before next week."

I knew I ought not to stay there and listen, especially as I could
easily have gone on my way without attracting attention; but having
heard thus much, I found it impossible to go on till I had at least
learned if Mr. Pollard had the motive I suspected in these inquiries
of his. His next words satisfied me on this point.

"And who was the fortunate one to obtain this flower?" he asked, in
an accent indifferent enough to deceive a merely casual listener.

"Mr. Guy, sir."

"Ah, so he noticed it too!" was the remark with which Mr. Pollard
dropped the subject, and hurried away from the gardener's side.

The next instant I perceived him pass into Guy's room, and I saw
that an explanation of some kind was about to take place between the
brothers.




IX.

AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY.


  Hold, hold my heart!
  And you, my sinews, grow not instant old.
  But bear me stiffly up!

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I was saved the
embarrassment of meeting Guy Pollard at the breakfast-table the next
morning. I was, therefore, left in ignorance as to the result of the
conversation between the brothers, though from the softened manner
of Dwight, and the quiet assurance with which he surrounded me with
the delicate atmosphere of his homage, I could not but argue that he
had come out master of the situation.

It was, therefore, with mingled feelings of pleasure and
apprehension that I left the house at the hour appointed for the
double funeral; feelings that would have been yet more alive had I
realized that I should not re-enter those gates again, or see the
interior of that fatal house, till I had passed through many bitter
experiences.

The ceremonies, in spite of the latent suspicion of the community
that Mr. Barrows' death had been one of his own seeking, were of the
most touching and impressive description. I was overcome by them,
and left the churchyard before the final prayer was said, feeling as
if the life of the last three days had been a dream, and that here
in the memory of my lovely Ada and her griefs lay my true existence
and the beginning and ending of my most sacred duty.

Pursuant to this thought I did not turn immediately back to the
gloomy mansion which claimed me for the present as its own, but
wandered away in an opposite direction, soothing my conscience by
the thought that it was many hours yet before the services would be
held for Mrs. Pollard, and that neither the brothers nor Mrs.
Harrington could have any use for me till that time.

The road I had taken was a sequestered one, and strange as it may
seem to some, did not awaken special memories in my mind till I
came to a point where an opening in the trees gave to my view the
vision of two tall chimneys; when like a flash it came across me
that I was on the mill road, and within a few short rods of the
scene of Mr. Barrows' death.

The sensation that seized me at this discovery was of the strangest
kind. I felt that I had been led there; and without a thought of
what I was doing, pressed on with ever-increasing rapidity till I
came to the open doorway with its dismantled entrance.

To pass over the now much-trodden grass and take my stand by the
dismal walls was the work of an instant; but when I had done this
and experienced in a rush the loneliness and ghostly influence of
the place, I was fain to turn back and leave it to the dream of its
own fearful memories. But the sight of a small piece of paper pinned
or pasted on the board that had been nailed in futile precaution
across the open doorway deterred me. It was doubtless nothing more
important than a notice from the town authorities, or possibly from
the proprietors of the place, but my curiosity was excited, and I
desired to see it. So I hastened over to where it was, and with
little apprehension of the shock that was destined to overwhelm me,
read these words:

"Those who say Mr. Barrows committed suicide lie. He was murdered,
and by parties whose position places them above suspicion, as their
wealth and seeming prosperity rob them of even the appearance of
motive for such a terrible deed."

No names mentioned; but O God! And that word _murdered_. It
swam before my eyes; it burned itself into every thing upon which I
looked, it settled like a weight of iron upon my heart, pressing me
nearer and nearer and nearer to the ground, till finally----Ah! can
it be that this is really I, and that I am standing here in a
desolate place alone, with no human being in sight, and with a paper
in my hand that seems to grow larger and larger as I gaze, and ask
me what I mean to do now, and whether in tearing it from the wall
where it hung, I allied myself to the accused, or by one stroke
proclaimed myself that avenger which, if the words on this paper
were true, I owed it to my Ada and the promise which I had given her
to be? The cloud that enveloped my brain pressed upon me too closely
for me to give an answer to questions so vital and terrific. I was
in a maze,--a horrible dream; I could not think, I could only
suffer, and at last creep away like a shadow of guiltiness to where
a cluster of pine-trees made a sort of retreat into which I felt I
could thrust my almost maddened head and be lost.

For great shocks reveal deep secrets, and in the light of this
pitiless accusation, this fact had revealed itself without disguise
to my eyes, that it was love I felt for Dwight Pollard; not
admiration, not curiosity, not even the natural desire to understand
one so seemingly impenetrable, but love, real, true, yearning, and
despotic love, which if well founded might have made my bliss for a
lifetime, and which now----I thrust the paper between my lips to
keep down the cry that rose there, and hiding my face deep down in
the turf, mourned the weakness that made me so ready a victim, while
at the same time I prepared to sustain the struggle which I knew
must there and then be waged and decided if I was ever to face the
world again with the strength and calmness which my nature demanded,
and the extraordinary circumstances of my position imposed.

The result was an hour of misery, with a sensation of triumph at
the end; though I do not pretend to say that in this one effort I
overcame the admiration and interest which attached my thoughts to
this man. The accusation was as yet too vague, and its source too
doubtful, to blot his image with ineffaceable stains; but I did
succeed in gaining sufficient mastery over myself to make it
possible to review the situation and give what I meant should be an
unbiased judgment as to the duty it imposed upon me.

The result was a determination to hold myself neutral till I had at
least discovered the author of the lines I held in my hand. If they
came from a credible person--but how could they do so and be written
and posted up in the manner they were? An honest man does not seek
any such roundabout way to strike his blow. Only a coward or a
villain would take this method to arouse public curiosity, and
perhaps create public suspicion.

And yet who could say that a coward and a villain might not be
speaking the truth even in an accusation of this nature? The very
fact that it met and gave form and substance to my own dim and
unrecognized fears, proved that something as yet unknown and
unsounded connected the mysterious death of Mr. Barrows with the
family towards which this accusation evidently pointed. While my own
heart beat with dread, how could I ignore the possibility of these
words being the work of an accomplice disgusted with his crime, or
of a tool anxious to save himself, and at the same time to avenge
some fancied slight? I could not. If peace and hope were lost in the
effort, I must learn the truth and satisfy myself, once and for all,
as to whose hatred and fear the Pollards were indebted for
insinuations at once so tremendous and so veiled.

That I was the only person who had probably seen and read these
fatal words, lent purpose to my resolution. If, as I madly hoped,
they were but the expression of suspicion, rather than of knowledge,
what a satisfaction it would be for me to discover the fact, and
possibly unmask the cowardly author, before the public mind had been
infected by his doubts.

But how could I, a woman and a stranger, with no other talisman than
my will and patience, accomplish a purpose which would be, perhaps,
no easy one for a trained detective to carry out to a successful
issue? The characters in which the fatal insinuations had been
conveyed offered no clue. They were printed, and in so rough and
commonplace a manner that the keenest mind would have found itself
baffled if it had attempted to trace its way to the writer through
the mere medium of the lines he had transcribed. I must, therefore,
choose some other means of attaining my end; but what one?

I had never, in spite of the many trials and embarrassments of my
life, been what is called an intriguing woman. Nor had I ever amused
myself with forming plots or devising plans for extricating
imaginary characters out of fancied difficulties by the mere
exercise of their wits. _Finesse_ was almost an unknown word to
me, and yet, as I sat there with this fatal bit of paper in my hand,
I felt that a power hitherto unguessed was awakening within me, and
that if I could but restrain the emotions which threatened to
dissipate my thoughts, I should yet hit upon a plan by which my
design could be attained with satisfaction to myself and safety to
others.

For--and this was my first idea--the paper had not been on the wall
long. It was too fresh to have hung there overnight, and had,
moreover, been too poorly secured to have withstood even for an hour
the assaults of a wind as keen as that which had been blowing all
the morning. It had, therefore, been put up a few moments before I
came, or, in other words, while the funeral services were being
held; a fact which, to my mind, argued a deep calculation on the
part of the writer, for the hour was one to attract all wanderers to
the other end of the town, while the following one would, on the
contrary, see this quarter overflow with human beings, anxious to
complete the impression made by the funeral services, by a visit to
the scene of the tragedy.

That the sky had clouded over very much in the last half-hour, and
that the first drops of a heavy thunder-shower were even now sifting
through the branches over my head, was doubtless the reason why no
one besides myself had yet arrived upon the scene; and, should the
storm continue, this evil might yet be averted, and the one person I
was most anxious to see, have an opportunity to show himself at the
place, without being confounded with a mass of disinterested people.
For I felt he would return, and soon, to note the result of his
daring action. In the crowd, if a crowd assembled, or alone, if it
so chanced that no one came to the spot, he would draw near the
mill, and, if he found the notice gone, would betray, must betray,
an interest or an alarm that would reveal him to my watchful eye.
For I intended to take up my stand within the doorway, using, if
necessary, the storm as my excuse for desiring its shelter; while as
a precaution against suspicions that might be dangerous to me, as
well as a preventive against any one else ever reading these
accusatory lines, I determined to dip the paper in the stream, and
then drop it near the place where it had been tacked, that it might
seem as if it had been beaten off by the rain, now happily falling
faster and faster.

All this I did, not without some apprehension of being observed by a
watchful eye. For what surety had I that the writer of these words
was not even now in hiding, or had not been looking at me from some
secret retreat at the very moment I tore the paper off the wall and
fled with it into the bushes?

But this fear, if fear it was, was gradually dispelled as the
moments sped by, and nothing beyond the wind and the fast driving
rain penetrated to where I stood. Nor did it look as if any break in
what seemed likely to become a somewhat dread monotony would ever
occur. The fierce dash of the storm was like a barrier, shutting me
off from the rest of the world, and had my purpose been less
serious, my will less nerved, I might have succumbed to the
dreariness of the outlook and taken myself away while yet the
gruesome influences that lay crouched in the darkness at my back
remained in abeyance, and neither ghost's step nor man's step had
come to shake the foundations of my courage and make of my silent
watch a struggle and a fear.

But an intent like mine was not to be relinquished at the first call
of impatience or dread. Honor, love, and duty were at stake, and I
held to my resolution, though each passing moment made it more
difficult to maintain my hope as well as to sustain my composure.

At last--oh, why did that hollow of darkness behind me reverberate
so continually in my fancy?--there seemed, there was, a movement in
the bushes by the road, and a form crept gradually into sight that,
when half seen, made the blood cease coursing through my veins; and,
when fully in view, sent it in torrents to heart and brain; so deep,
so vivid, so peculiar was the relief I felt. For--realize the effect
upon me if you can--the figure that now stole towards me through the
dank grass, looking and peering for the notice I had torn from the
wall, was no other than my friend--or was it my enemy?--the idiot
boy.

He was soaked with the rain, but he seemed oblivious of the fact.
For him the wind had evidently no fierceness, the wet no chill. All
his energies--and he seemed, as in that first moment when I saw him
in the summer-house, to be alive with them--were concentrated in the
gaze of his large eyes, as, coming nearer and nearer, he searched
the wall, then the ground, and finally, with a leap, picked up the
soaked and useless paper which I had dropped there.

His expression as he raised himself and looked fiercely about almost
made me reveal myself. This an idiot, this trembling, wrathful,
denunciatory figure, with its rings of hair clinging to a forehead
pale with passion and corrugated with thought! Were these gestures,
sudden, determined, and full of subdued threatening, the offspring
of an erratic brain or the expression of a fool's hatred? I could
not believe it, and stood as if fascinated before this vision, that
not only upset every past theory which my restless mind had been
able to form of the character and motives of the secret denunciator
of the Pollards, but awakened new thoughts and new inquiries of a
nature which I vaguely felt to be as mysterious as any which had
hitherto engaged my attention.

Meantime the boy had crushed the useless paper in his hand, and,
flinging it aside, turned softly about as if to go. I had no wish to
detain him. I wished to make inquiries first, and learn if possible
all that was known of his history and circumstances before I
committed myself to an interview. If he were an idiot--well, that
would simplify matters much; but, if he were not, or, being one, had
moments of reason, then a mystery appeared that would require all
the ingenuity and tact of a Machiavelli to elucidate. The laugh
which had risen from the shrubbery the night before, and the look
which Dwight Pollard had given when he heard it, proved that a
mystery did exist, and gave me strength to let the boy vanish from
my sight with his secret unsolved and his purposes unguessed.




X.

RHODA COLWELL.


  I spare you common curses.
                 --MRS. BROWNING.

It was not long after this that the storm began to abate. Sunshine
took the place of clouds, and I was enabled to make my way back to
the town at the risk of nothing worse than wet feet. I went at once
to my boarding-house. Though I was expected back at the Pollards',
though my presence seemed almost necessary there, I felt that it
would be impossible for me to enter their door till something of the
shadow that now enveloped their name had fallen away. I therefore
sent them word that unlooked-for circumstances compelled me to
remain at home for the present; and having thus dismissed one
anxiety from my mind, set myself to the task of gleaning what
knowledge I could of the idiot boy.

The result was startling. He was, it seemed, a real idiot--or so had
always been regarded by those who had known him from his birth. Not
one of the ugly, mischievous sort, but a gentle, chuckling vacant-
brained boy, who loved to run the streets and mingle his harmless
laughter with the shouts of playing children and the noise of mills
and manufactories.

He was an orphan, but was neither poor nor dependent, for--and here
was where the fact cam