A Strange Disappearance

A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

CHAPTER I. A NOVEL CASE

“Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that

Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come

under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects,

at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise

not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the

affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding it.”

The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally acknowledged

by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious and

unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course excepting

Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but arouse our

deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around which we

were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so dear to

a detective’s heart, we gave with alacrity the required promise; and

settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man who has a good

story to tell that does not entirely lack certain points redounding to

his own credit, he began:

I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when

the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,

whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I

asked her what she wanted.

“A detective,” she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of

the various men scattered through the room. “I don’t wish anything said

about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night, and”--she

stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--“and I want some one to

look her up,” she went on at last with the most intense emphasis.

“A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say

our house?”

She looked at me keenly before replying. “You are a young man,” said

she; “isn’t there some one here more responsible than yourself that I

can talk to?”

I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then

passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him aside,

she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He listened

nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I knew

indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his face--but you

know what Gryce’s face is. I was about to walk off, convinced he had

got hold of something he would prefer to manage himself, when the

Superintendent came in.

“Where is Gryce?” asked he; “tell him I want him.”

Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he whispered,

“Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and send me word

if you want me; I will be here for two hours.”

I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I reapproached

the woman. “Where do you come from,” said I, “I am to go back with you

and investigate the affair it seems.”

“Did he say so?” she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with his

back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.

I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. “I come from No.----

Second Avenue: Mr. Blake’s house,” she whispered, uttering a name so

well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce’s movement of sudden interest

“A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night in a way to

alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--” “Yes,” she cried

vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity, “taken from her

room; she never went of her own accord; and she must be found if I spend

every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in the bank against my old

age.”

Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so vehement,

I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of hers that

she felt her abduction so keenly.

“No,” she replied, “not a relative, but,” she went on, looking every way

but in my face, “a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they call

it, of mine; I--I--She must be found,” she again reiterated.

We were by this time in the street.

“Nothing must be said about it,” she now whispered, catching me by the

arm. “I told him so,” nodding back to the building from which we had

just issued, “and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks

knowing anything about it, can’t it?”

“What?” I asked.

“Finding the girl.”

“Well,” said I, “we can tell you better about that when we know a few

more of the facts. What is the girl’s name and what makes you think she

didn’t go out of the house-door of her own accord?”

“Why, why, everything. She wasn’t the person to do it; then the looks of

her room, and--They all got out of the window,” she cried suddenly, “and

went away by the side gate into ------ Street.”

“They? Who do you mean by they?”

“Why, whoever they were who carried her off.”

I could not suppress the “bah!” that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might

have been able to, but I am not Gryce.

“You don’t believe,” said she, “that she was carried off?”

“Well, no,” said I, “not in the sense you mean.”

She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so

distant. “He did’nt seem to doubt it at all.”

I laughed. “Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in this

way?”

“Yes, and he said, ‘Very likely.’ And well he might, for I heard the men

talking in her room, and--”

“You heard men talking in her room--when?”

“O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep and

the noise they made whispering, woke me.”

“Wait,” I said, “tell me where her room is, hers and yours.”

“Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor.”

“Who are you?” I now inquired. “What position do you occupy in Mr.

Blake’s house?”

“I am the housekeeper.”

Mr. Blake was a bachelor.

“And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to

come from this girl’s room.”

“Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear them

when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it came from

her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a good girl,”

she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant eyes,

“a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don’t you dare, any

of you, to hint at anything else o--”

“Come, come,” I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too

communicative face, “I haven’t said anything, we will take it for

granted she is as good as gold, go on.”

The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.

“Where was I?” said she. “O, I heard voices and was surprised and got

up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have

startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a

moment, then I turned the knob and called her: she did not reply and I

called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it. ‘What is

it?’ she asked. ‘O,’ said I, ‘I thought I heard talking here and I was

frightened,’ ‘It must have been next door,’ said she. I begged pardon

and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but when in the

morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the window open and

signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had not been mistaken;

that there were men with her when I went to her door, and that they had

carried her off--”

This time I could not restrain myself.

“Did they drop her out of the window?” I inquired.

“O,” said she, “we are building an extension, and there is a ladder

running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took

her.”

“Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim,” I remarked.

The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. “Don’t you believe it,”

gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. “I tell you if what

I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did carry her

off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will kill her if

it has not done so already. You don’t know what you are talking about,

you never saw her--”

“Was she pretty,” I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one

passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed in

some way to give her a shock.

“Ah, I don’t know,” she muttered; “some might not think so, I always

did; it depended upon the way you looked at her.”

For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my

veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in a

sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her own

mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever it was

that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a very sharp

eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her face, I asked

her how it was that she came to be the one to inform the authorities of

the girl’s disappearance.

“Doesn’t Mr. Blake know anything about it?”

The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. “Yes,” said she,

“I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn’t take much interest

in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me.”

“Then he does not know you have come for the police?”

“No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is

not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr. Blake

is a man who never meddles with anything, and--”

“What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this

girl--By the way, what is her name?”

“Emily.”

“That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?”

“Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table

reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an

absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants’ affairs

without troubling him.”

“And you let it drop?”

“Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to.”

I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for

though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which if

maintained in private must have made him very difficult of approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion

regarded by this scion of New York’s aristocracy as one of the most

desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had

accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for

the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to the

woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she proposed to

get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.

“O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back stairs;

he won’t notice, or if he does will not ask any questions.”

And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key

from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us into

the dwelling.

CHAPTER II. A FEW POINTS

Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the

third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not but

notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and heavily

frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from what we see

now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue mansions. Many

as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to enter in the line

of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold of such an one as

this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish sentimentalities,

I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of invading with police

investigation, this home of ancient Knicker-bocker respectability. But

once in the room of the missing girl, every consideration fled save that

of professional pride and curiosity. For almost at first blush, I saw

that whether Mrs. Daniels was correct or not in her surmises as to the

manner of the girl’s disappearance, the fact that she had disappeared

was likely to prove an affair of some importance. For, let me state

the facts in the order in which I noticed them. The first thing that

impressed me was, that whatever Mrs. Daniels called her, this was no

sewing girl’s room into which I now stepped. Plain as was the furniture

in comparison with the elaborate richness of the walls and ceiling,

there were still scattered through the room, which was large even for

a thirty foot house, articles of sufficient elegance to make the

supposition that it was the abode of an ordinary seamstress open to

suspicion, if no more.

Mrs. Daniels, seeing my look of surprise, hastened to provide some

explanation. “It is the room which has always been devoted to sewing,”

said she; “and when Emily came, I thought it would be easier to put up

a bed here than to send her upstairs. She was a very nice girl and

disarranged nothing.”

I glanced around on the writing-case lying open on a small table in the

centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered roses, on

the mantel-piece, the Shakespeare, and Macaulay’s History lying on the

stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, but said nothing.

“You found the door locked this morning?” asked I, after a moment’s

scrutiny of the room in which three facts had become manifest: first,

that the girl had not occupied the bed the night before; second, that

there had been some sort of struggle or surprise,--one of the curtains

being violently torn as if grasped by an agitated hand, to say nothing

of a chair lying upset on the floor with one of its legs broken; third,

that the departure, strange as it may seem, had been by the window.

“Yes,” returned she; “but there is a passageway leading from my room

to hers and it was by that means we entered. There was a chair placed

against the door on this side but we easily pushed it away.”

I stepped to the window and looked out. Ah, it would not be so very

difficult for a man to gain the street from that spot in a dark night,

for the roof of the newly-erected extension was almost on a level with

the window.

“Well,” said she anxiously, “couldn’t she have been got out that way?”

“More difficult things have been done,” said I; and was about to step

out upon the roof when I bethought to inquire of Mrs. Daniels if any of

the girl’s clothing was missing.

She immediately flew to the closets and thence to bureau drawers which

she turned hastily over. “No, nothing is missing but a hat and cloak

and--” She paused confusedly.

“And what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” returned she, hurriedly closing the bureau drawer; “only some

little knick-knacks.”

“Knick-knacks!” quoth I. “If she stopped for knick-knacks, she couldn’t

have gone in any very unwilling frame of mind.” And somewhat disgusted,

I was about to throw up the whole affair and leave the room. But the

indecision in Mrs. Daniels’ own face deterred me.

“I don’t understand it,” murmured she, drawing her hand across her eyes.

“I don’t understand it. But,” she went on with even an increase in her

old tone of heart-felt conviction, “no matter whether we understand it

or not, the case is serious; I tell you so, and she must be found.”

I resolved to know the nature of that must, used as few women in her

position would use it even under circumstances to all appearance more

aggravated than these.

“Why, must?” said I. “If the girl went of her own accord as some things

seem to show, why should you, no relative as you acknowledge, take the

matter so to heart as to insist she shall be followed and brought back?”

She turned away, uneasily taking up and putting down some little matters

on the table before her. “Is it not enough that I promise to pay for

all expenses which a search will occasion, without my being forced to

declare just why I should be willing to do so? Am I bound to tell you I

love the girl? that I believe she has been taken away by foul means,

and that to her great suffering and distress? that being fond of her and

believing this, I am conscientious enough to put every means I possess

at the command of those who will recover her?”

I was not satisfied with this but on that very account felt my

enthusiasm revive.

“But Mr. Blake? Surely he is the one to take this interest if anybody.”

“I have before said,” returned she, paling however as she spoke, “that

Mr. Blake takes very little interest in his servants.”

I cast another glance about the room. “How long have you been in this

house?” asked I.

“I was in the service of Mr. Blake’s father and he died a year ago.”

“Since when you have remained with Mr. Blake himself?”

“Yes sir.”

“And this Emily, when did she come here?”

“Oh it must be eleven months or so ago.”

“An Irish girl?”

“O no, American. She is not a common person, sir.”

“What do you mean by that? That she was educated, lady-like, pretty, or

what?”

“I don’t know what to say. She was educated, yes, but not as you would

call a lady educated. Yet she knew a great many things the rest of us

did’nt. She liked to read, you see, and--O sir, ask the girls about her,

I never know what to say when I am questioned.”

I scanned the gray-haired woman still more intently than I had yet done.

Was she the weak common-place creature she seemed, or had she really

some cause other than appeared for these her numerous breaks and

hesitations.

“Where did you get this girl?” I inquired. “Where did she live before

coming here?”

“I cannot say, I never asked her to talk about herself. She came to me

for work and I liked her and took her without recommendation.”

“And she has served you well?”

“Excellently.”

“Been out much? Had any visitors?”

She shook her head. “Never went out and never had any visitors.”

I own I was nonplussed, “Well,” said I, “no more of this at present.

I must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with

others.” And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the

extension.

As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not

in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the girl

had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover to help

her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force need

be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she said,

ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of this girl,

why need that money be divided up any more than was necessary. Yet Gryce

was not one to be dallied with. He had said, send for him if the affair

seemed to call for his judgment, and somehow the affair did promise to

be a trifle complicated. I was yet undetermined when I reached the edge

of the roof.

It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath

would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a

woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld

something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself

if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a drop

of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another, and

yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon the very

window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the carpet for

further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find anything

upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused pattern of

mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop very low.

“What are you looking for?” cried Mrs. Daniels.

I pointed to the drop on the window sill. “Do you see that?” I asked.

She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. “Blood!” cried she, and

stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. “They have

killed her and he will never--”

As she did not finish I looked up.

“Do you think it was her blood?” she whispered in a horrified tone.

“There is every reason to believe so,” rejoined I, pointing to a spot

where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many,

scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.

“Ah, it is worse than I thought,” murmured she. “What are you going to

do? What can we do?

“I am going to send for another detective,” returned I; and stepping to

the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr. Gryce.

“The one we saw at the Station?”

I bowed assent.

Her face lost something of its drawn expression. “O I am glad; he will

do something.”

Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in

taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention. They

were not many. The open writing-desk--in which, however I found no

letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of paper,

with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the bureau as

though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her hair (if she

had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile of work such as

one would expect to see in a room set apart for sewing, were all I could

discover. Not much to help us, in case this was to prove an affair of

importance as I began to suspect.

With Mr. Gryce’s arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape.

He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant, had

the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his finger-ends in

a moment, and was up-stairs and in that room before I, who am called the

quickest man in the force as you all know, could have time to determine

just what difference his presence would make to me in a pecuniary way in

event of Mrs. Daniels’ promises amounting to anything. He did not remain

there long, but when he came down I saw that his interest was in no wise

lessened.

“What kind of a looking girl was this?” he asked, hurrying up to Mrs.

Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all this

was going on. “Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.; you

know.”

“I--I--don’t know as I can,” she stammered reluctantly, turning very

red in the face. “I am a poor one for noticing. I will call one of the

girls, I--” She was gone before we realized she had not finished her

sentence.

“Humph!” broke from Mr. Gryce’s lips as he thoughtfully took down a vase

that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.

I did not venture a word.

When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of

prepossessing appearance.

“This is Fanny,” said she; “she knows Emily well, being in the habit of

waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear. I

have explained to her,” she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with a

composure such as she had not before displayed; “that you are looking

for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go into some sort

of service.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration

to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the

cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he

repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:

“O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as

likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed the

spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair, which

was the blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for her

figure--” Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person, and gave

a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.

“Is this description true?” Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs. Daniels,

though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl’s head which

was covered with a little cap.

“Sufficiently so,” returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however.

Then with a sudden display of energy, “Emily’s figure is not what

you would call plump. I have seen her--” She broke off as if a little

startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.

“Wait a moment,” interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. “You said the

girl’s hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?”

“O, yes sir;” replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons on

her cap.

“Let me see your hair.”

She took off her cap with a smile.

“Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other girls

I suppose?”

“Two, sir;” returned Mrs. Daniels.

“How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily’s?”

“Yes, sir; about like Fanny’s.”

Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of

his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.

“We will now proceed to the yard,” said he. But at that moment the door

of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into the

hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the house. He

was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At the sight

we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots of her gray

hair.

Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud,

reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the

light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his

face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I

involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great

man’s privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.

“Mr. Blake, I believe,” said he, bowing in that deferential way he knows

so well how to assume.

The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked

hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce’s bland smile, he returned the bow, but

haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” proceeded my superior. “I am Mr. Gryce

from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl

in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a somewhat

strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man here, to

see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire into. With many

apologies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your orders.”

With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and

detecting Mrs. Daniels, said: “Did you consider the affair so serious as

that?”

She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.

He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. “I can

hardly think,” said he, “such extreme measures were necessary; the girl

will doubtless come back, or if not--” His shoulders gave a slight shrug

and he took out his gloves.

“The difficulty seems to be,” quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with

his most intent and concentrated look, “that the girl did not go alone,

but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had previously

broken into your house.”

“That is a strange circumstance,” remarked Mr. Blake, but still without

any appearance of interest, “and if you are sure of what you say,

demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything in the

way of justice succoring the injured. But--” again he gave that slight

shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not indifference.

Mrs. Daniels trembled, and took a step forward. I thought she was

going to speak, but instead of that she drew back again in her strange

hesitating way.

Mr. Gryce did not seem to notice.

“Perhaps sir,” said he, “if you will step upstairs with me to the room

occupied by this girl, I may be able to show you certain evidences which

will convince you that our errand here is not one of presumption.”

“I am ready to concede that without troubling myself with proof,”

observed the master of the house with the faintest show of asperity.

“Yet if there is anything to see of a startling nature, perhaps I had

best yield to your wishes. Whereabouts in the house is this girl’s room,

Mrs. Daniels?”

“It is--I gave her the third story back, Mr. Blake;” replied that woman,

nervously eyeing his face. “It was large and light for sewing, and she

was so nice--”

He impatiently waved his hand on which he had by this time fitted his

glove to a nicety, as if these details were an unnecessary bore to him,

and motioned her to show the way. Instantly a new feeling appeared to

seize her, that of alarm.

“I hardly think you need trouble Mr. Blake to go up-stairs,” she

murmured, turning towards Mr. Gryce. “I am sure when you tell him the

curtains were torn, and the chair upset, the window open and--”

But Mr. Gryce was already on the stairs with Mr. Blake, whom this small

opposition seemed to have at once determined.

“O my God!” she murmured to herself, “who could have foreseen this.”

And ignoring my presence with all the egotism of extreme agitation, she

hurried past me to the room above, where I speedily joined her.

CHAPTER III. THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER

Mr. Blake was standing in the centre of the room when I entered,

carelessly following with his eyes the motion of Mr. Gryce’s finger as

that gentleman pointed with unwearying assiduity to the various little

details that had struck us. His hat was still in his hand, and he

presented a very formidable and imposing appearance, or so Mrs. Daniels

appeared to think as she stood watching him from the corner, whither she

had withdrawn herself.

“A forcible departure you see,” exclaimed Mr. Gryce; “she had not even

time to gather up her clothes;” and with a sudden movement he stooped

and pulled out one of the bureau drawers before the eyes of his

nonchalant listener.

Immediately a smothered exclamation struck our ears, and Mrs. Daniels

started forward.

“I pray, gentlemen,” she entreated, advancing in such a way as to place

herself against the front of the bureau in a manner to preclude the

opening of any more drawers, “that you will remember that a modest woman

such as this girl was, would hardly like to have her clothing displayed

before the eyes of strangers.”

Mr. Gryce instantly closed the drawer.

“You are right,” said he; “pardon the rough ways of a somewhat hardened

officer of the law.”

She drew up closer to the bureau, still protecting it with her meagre

but energetic form while her eyes rested with almost a savage expression

upon the master of the house as if he, and not the detective, had been

the aggressor whose advances she feared.

Mr. Blake did not return the look.

“If that is all you can show me, I think I will proceed to my

appointment,” said he. “The matter does seem to be more serious than I

thought, and if you judge it necessary to take any active measures, why,

let no consideration of my great and inherent dislike to notoriety of

any kind, interfere with what you consider your duty. As for the house,

it is at your command, under Mrs. Daniels’ direction. Good morning.” And

returning our bows with one singularly impressive for all its elegant

carelessness, he at once withdrew.

Mrs. Daniels took one long deep breath and came from the bureau.

Instantly Mr. Gryce stooped and pulled out the drawer she had so visibly

protected. A white towel met our eyes, spread neatly out at its full

length. Lifting it, we looked beneath. A carefully folded dress of dark

blue silk, to all appearance elegantly made, confronted our rather

eager eyes. Beside it, a collar of exquisite lace--I know enough of such

matters to be a judge--pricked through by a gold breast-pin of a strange

and unique pattern. A withered bunch of what appeared to have been a

bouquet of red roses, surmounted the whole, giving to the otherwise

commonplace collection the appearance of a relic from the tomb.

We both drew back in some amazement, involuntarily glancing up at Mrs.

Daniels.

“I have no explanation to give,” said that woman, with a calmness

strangely in contrast to the agitation she had displayed while Mr. Blake

had remained in the room. “That those things rich as they are, really

belonged to the girl, I have no doubt. She brought them when she came,

and they only confirm what I have before intimated: that she was no

ordinary sewing girl, but a woman who had seen better days.”

With a low “humph!” and another glance at the dark blue dress and

delicate collar, Mr. Gryce carefully replaced the cloth he had taken

from them, and softly closed the drawer without either of us having laid

a finger upon a single article. Five minutes later he disappeared from

the room.

I did not see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him

softly issue from Mr. Blake’s private apartment. Meeting me, he smiled,

and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or not, he had

come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself some theory

with which he was more or less satisfied.

“An elegant apartment, that,” whispered he, nodding sideways toward the

room he had just left, “pity you haven’t time to examine it.”

“Are you sure that I haven’t?” returned I, drawing a step nearer to

escape the eyes of Mrs. Daniels who had descended after me.

“Quite sure;” and we hastened down together into the yard.

But my curiosity once aroused in this way would not let me rest. Taking

an opportunity when Mr. Gryce was engaged in banter with the girls

below, and in this way learning more in a minute of what he wanted to

know than some men would gather in an hour by that or any other method,

I stole lightly back and entered this room.

I almost started in my surprise. Instead of the luxurious apartment I

had prepared myself to behold, a plain, scantily-furnished room opened

before me, of a nature between a library and a studio. There was not

even a carpet on the polished floor, only a rug, which strange to say

was not placed in the centre of the room or even before the fireplace,

but on one side, and directly in front of a picture that almost at first

blush had attracted my attention as being the only article in the room

worth looking at. It was the portrait of a woman, handsome, haughty and

alluring; a modern beauty, with eyes of fire burning beneath high piled

locks of jetty blackness, that were only relieved from being too intense

by the scarlet hood of an opera cloak, that was drawn over them. “A

sister,” I thought to myself, “it is too modern for his mother,” and I

took a step nearer to see if I could trace any likeness in the chiselled

features of this disdainful brunette, to the more characteristic ones

of the careless gentleman who had stood but a few moments before in my

presence. As I did so, I was struck with the distance with which

the picture stood out from the wall, and thought to myself that

the awkwardness of the framing came near marring the beauty of this

otherwise lovely work of art. As for the likeness I was in search of, I

found it or thought I did, in the expression of the eyes which were

of the same color as Mr. Blake’s but more full and passionate; and

satisfied that I had exhausted all the picture could tell me, I

turned to make what other observations I could, when I was startled by

confronting the agitated countenance of Mrs. Daniels who had entered

behind me.

“This is Mr. Blake’s room,” said she with dignity; “no one ever intrudes

here but myself, not even the servants.”

“I beg pardon,” said I, glancing around in vain for the something which

had awakened that look of satisfaction in Mr. Gryce’s eyes. “I was

attracted by the beauty of this picture visible through the half open

door and stepped in to favor myself with a nearer view. It is very

lovely. A sister of Mr. Blake?”

“No, his cousin;” and she closed the door after us with an emphasis that

proclaimed she was anything but pleased.

It was my last effort to obtain information on my own account. In a few

moments later Mr. Gryce appeared from below, and a conversation ensued

with Mrs. Daniels that absorbed my whole attention.

“You are very anxious, my man here tells me, that this girl should be

found?” remarked Mr. Gryce; “so much so that you are willing to defray

all the expenses of a search?”

She bowed. “As far as I am able sir; I have a few hundreds in the

bank, you are welcome to them. I would not keep a dollar back if I

had thousands, but I am poor, and can only promise you what I myself

possess; though--” and her cheeks grew flushed and hot with an unnatural

agitation--“I believe that thousands would not be lacking if they were

found necessary. I--I could almost swear you shall have anything in

reason which you require; only the girl must be found and soon.”

“Have you thought,” proceeded Mr. Gryce, utterly ignoring the wildness

of these statements, “that the girl may come back herself if let alone?”

“She will come back if she can,” quoth Mrs. Daniels.

“Did she seem so well satisfied with her home as to warrant you in

saying that?”

“She liked her home, but she loved me,” returned the woman steadily.

“She loved me so well she would never have gone as she did without being

forced. Yes,” said she, “though she made no outcry and stopped to put

on her bonnet and shawl. She was not a girl to make a fuss. If they had

killed her outright, she would never have uttered a cry.”

“Why do you say they?”

“Because I am confident I heard more than one man’s voice in her room.”

“Humph! Would you know those voices if you heard them again?”

“No.”

There was a surprise in this last negative which Mr. Gryce evidently

noticed.

“I ask,” said he, “because I have been told that Mr. Blake lately kept a

body servant who has been seen to look at this girl more than once, when

she has passed him on the stairs.”

Mrs. Daniels’ face turned scarlet with rage and she hastily rose from

the chair. “I don’t believe it,” said she; “Henry was a man who knew his

place, and--I won’t hear such things,” she suddenly exclaimed; “Emily

was--was a lady, and--”

“Well, well,” interposed Mr. Gryce soothingly, “though the cat looks at

the king, it is no sign the king looks at the cat. We have to think of

everything you know.”

“You must never think of anything like that.”

Mr. Gryce softly ran his thumb around the brim of the hat he held in his

hand. “Mrs. Daniels,” observed he, “it would greatly facilitate matters

if you would kindly tell us why you take such an interest in this girl.

One glimpse at her real history would do more towards setting us on the

right track than anything else you could offer.”

Her face assumed an unmistakable frown. “Have I not told you,” said she,

“what is known of it? That she came to me about two years ago for work;

that I liked her, and so hired her; that she has been with us ever since

and--”

“Then you will not tell us?” exclaimed Mr. Gryce.

Her face fell and a look of hesitation crossed it.

“I doubt if we can do anything unless you do,” continued he.

Her countenance settled again into a resolved expression.

“You are mistaken,” said she; “if the girl had a secret--as nearly all

girls have, brought low as she has evidently been--it had nothing to do

with her disappearance, nor would a knowledge of it help you in any way.

I am confident of this and so shall hold my peace.”

She was not a woman to be frightened or cajoled into making revelations

she did not think necessary, and seeing it, Mr. Gryce refrained from

urging her further.

“However, you will at least tell me this,” said he, “what were the

knick-knacks she took away with her from her bureau drawer?”

“No,” said she, “for they have nothing to do with her abduction. They

were articles of positive value to her, though I assure you of little

importance to any one else. All that is shown by their disappearance is

the fact that she had a moment’s time allowed her in which to collect

what she most wanted.”

Mr. Gryce arose. “Well,” said he, “you have given us a hard sum to

work out, but I am not the man to recoil from anything hard. If I can

discover the whereabouts of this girl I will certainly do it, but you

must help me.”

“I, how?”

“By inserting a personal in the Herald. You say she loves you; and would

come back if she could. Now whether you believe it or not this is open

to doubt; therefore I would advise that you take some such means as

that to inform her of the anxiety of her friends and their desire to

communicate with her.”

“Impossible,” she cried vehemently. “I should be afraid--”

“Well?”

“I might put it that Mrs. D----, anxious about Emily, desires

information of her whereabouts--”

“Put it any way you like.”

“You had better add,” said I, speaking for the first time, “that you

would be willing to pay for information.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Gryce, “add that.”

Mrs. Daniels frowned, but made no objection, and after getting as minute

a description as possible of the clothing worn by the girl the night

before, we left the house.

CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON’S STORY

“An affair of some mystery,” remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at the

corner to take a final look at the house and its environs. “Why a girl

should choose such a method of descent as that,”--and he pointed to the

ladder down which we believed her to have come--“to leave a house of

which she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can tell you. If

it were not for those marks of blood which betray her track, I would

be disinclined to believe any such hare-brained adventure was ever

perpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would’nt I give for her

photograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin figure! what a

description whereby to find a girl in this great city of New York.

Ah!” said he with sudden gratification, “here is Mr. Blake again; his

appointment must have been a failure. Let us see if his description will

be any more definite.” And hurrying towards the advancing figure of that

gentleman, he put some questions to him.

Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then

replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear:

“I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but I

have not the remotest idea how the girl looked. I did not know till

this morning even, that there was such a person in my house as a

sewing-woman. I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs.

Daniels.”

Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question. The answer came

as before, distinctly to my ears.

“O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often run

across the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short, light

or dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir.” Then with

a dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce’s position,

inquired,

“Is that all?”

It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.

Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteously

remarked,

“I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me. Henry

was an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which I

never allow in any one who approaches me. I dismissed him and that was

the end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him.”

Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty step

peculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.

“I should not like to get into that man’s clutches,” said I, as my

superior rejoined me; “he has a way of making one appear so small.”

Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following him

along the pavement. “Yet it may happen that you will have to run the

risk of that very experience.”

I glanced towards him in amazement.

“If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not succeed

in getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to place you

where you can study into the ways of this gentleman’s household. If the

affair is a mystery, it has its centre in that house.”

I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly. “You have come across

something which I have missed,” observed I, “or you could not speak so

positively.”

“I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body who

had eyes to see it,” he returned shortly.

I shook my head slightly mortified.

“You had it all before you,” continued he, “and if you were not able

to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you mustn’t

blame me for it.”

More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with

him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to

reestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over.

Accordingly hunting up the man who had patrolled the district the night

before, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side gate

of Mr. Blake’s house on ----- street, between the hours of eleven and

one.

“No,” said he, “but I heard Thompson tell a curious story this morning

about some one he had seen.”

“What was it?”

“He said he was passing that way last night about twelve o’clock when he

remarked standing under the lamp on the corner of Second Avenue, a group

consisting of two men and a woman, who no sooner beheld him than they

separated, the men drawing back into Second Avenue and the woman coming

hastily towards him. Not understanding the move, he stood waiting her

approach, when instead of advancing to where he was, she paused at the

gate of Mr. Blake’s house and lifted her hand as if to open it, when

with a wild and terrified gesture she started back, covering her

face with her hands, and before he knew it, had actually fled in the

direction from which she had come. A little startled, Thompson advanced

and looked through the gate before him to see if possible what had

alarmed her, when to his great surprise, he beheld the pale face of the

master of the house, Mr. Blake himself, looking through the bars from

the other side of the gate. He in his turn started back and before he

could recover himself, Mr. Blake had disappeared. He says he tried the

gate after that, but found it locked.”

“Thompson tells you this story, does he?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” said I, “it’s a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have

got to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing

it around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are

concerned.” And I departed to hunt up Thompson.

But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl

appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a shawl.

My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety into the

private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and discovered--well, such

facts as these:

That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to domestic

affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except upon occasions

of great political importance, when he was always to be found on

the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the ordinary

observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks, fine position,

and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only manifested a distaste

for it, but even went so far as to refuse to participate in the social

dinners of his most intimate friends; the only table to which he would

sit down being that of some public caterer, where he was sure of finding

none but his political associates assembled.

To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by

the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place of

amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a

man, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, and

marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was

if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their

eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some marked

peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would never treat a

man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare to him, nor would

he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in that divine poet

beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr. Blake’s uncle hated

all members of the legal profession, and as for his grandfather--but you

have heard what a mania of dislike he had against that simple article of

diet, fish; how his friends were obliged to omit it from their bills of

fare whenever they expected him to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose

to have any pet antipathy--as for women for instance--he surely

had precedent enough in his own family to back him. However, it was

whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a former political colleague of

his who had been with him in Washington, that he was known at one time

to show considerable attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of

his who has since made such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and

straightway losing by death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble,

the Count De Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about,

Madame the Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all

appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.

Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake’s private apartment, I

asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the

most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon something

in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with my

information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I would

have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth lying at

the bottom of this well.

CHAPTER V. A NEW YORK BELLE

Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate or

whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile. Even

the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no effect; and

frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the accounts of that

same Mrs. Daniels’ strange and unaccountable behavior during these days

of suspense, which came to me through Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at

Mr. Blake’s, whose acquaintance I had lately taken to cultivating,)

aroused once more my dormant energies and led me to ask myself if the

affair was quite as hopeless as it seemed.

“If she was a ghost,” was her final expression on the subject, “she

could’nt go peramberlating this house more than she does. It seems as if

she could’nt keep still a minute. Upstairs and down, upstairs and down,

till we’re most wild. And so white as she is and so trembling! Why her

hands shake so all the time she never dares lift a dish off the table.

And then the way she hangs about Mr. Blake’s door when he’s at home!

She never goes in, that’s the oddest part of it, but walks up and down

before it, wringing her hands and talking to herself just like a mad

woman. Why, I have seen her almost put her hand on the knob twice in

an afternoon perhaps, then draw back as if she was afraid it would burn

her; and if by any chance the door opened and Mr. Blake came out, you

ought to have seen how she run. What it all means I don’t know, but I

have my imaginings, and if she is’nt crazy, why--” etc., etc.

In face of facts like these I felt it would be pure insanity to despair.

Let there be but a mystery, though it involved a man of the position of

Mr. Blake and I was safe. My only apprehension had been that the whole

affair would dissolve itself into an ordinary elopement or some such

common-place matter.

When, therefore, a few minutes later, Fanny announced that Mr. Blake

had ordered a carriage to take him to the Charity Ball that evening,

I determined to follow him and learn if possible what change had

taken place in himself or his circumstances, to lead him into such an

innovation upon his usual habits. Though the hour was late I had but

little difficulty in carrying out my plan, arriving at the Academy

something less than an hour after the opening dance.

The crowd was great and I circulated the floor three times before I came

upon him. When I did, I own I was slightly disappointed; for instead of

finding him as I anticipated, the centre of an admiring circle of ladies

and gentlemen, I espied him withdrawn into a corner with a bland old

politician of the Fifteenth Ward, discussing, as I presently overheard,

the merits and demerits of a certain Smith who at that time was making

some disturbance in the party.

“If that is all he has come for,” thought I, “I had better have stayed

at home and made love to the pretty Fanny.” And somewhat chagrined, I

took up my stand near by, and began scrutinizing the ladies.

Suddenly I felt my heart stand still, the noise of voices ceasing

the same instant behind me. A lady was passing on the arm of a

foreign-looking gentleman, whom it did not require a second glance to

identify with the subject of the portrait in Mr. Blake’s house. Older by

some few years than when her picture was painted, her beauty had assumed

a certain defiant expression that sufficiently betrayed the fact that

the years had not been so wholly happy as she had probably anticipated

when she jilted handsome Holman Blake for the old French Count. At all

events so I interpreted the look of latent scorn that burned in her dark

eyes, as she slowly turned her richly bejeweled head towards the corner

where that gentleman stood, and meeting his eyes no doubt, bowed with a

sudden loss of self-possession that not all the haughty carriage of

her noble form, held doubly erect for the next few moments, could quite

conceal or make forgotten.

“She still loves him,” I inwardly commented and turned to see if the

surprise had awakened any expression on his uncommunicative countenance.

Evidently not, for the tough old politician of the Fifteenth Ward was

laughing, at one of his own jokes probably, and looking up in the

face of Mr. Blake, whose back was turned to me, in a way that entirely

precluded all thought of any tragic expression in that quarter. Somewhat

disgusted, I withdrew and followed the lady.

I could not get very near. By this time the presence of a live countess

in the assembly had become known, and I found her surrounded by a swarm

of half-fledged youths. But I cared little for this; all I wanted to

know was whether Mr. Blake would approach her or not during the evening.

Tediously the moments passed; but a detective on duty, or on fancied

duty, succumbs to no weariness. I had a woman before me worth studying

and the time could not be thrown away. I learned to know her beauty;

the poise of her head, the flush of her cheek, the curl of her lip, the

glance--yes, the glance of her eye, though that was more difficult to

understand, for she had a way of drooping her lids at times that, while

exceedingly effective upon the poor wretch toward whom she might be

directing that half-veiled shaft of light, was anything but conducive to

my purposes.

At length with a restless shrug of her haughty shoulders she turned away

from her crowd of adorers, her breast heaving under its robing of garnet

velvet, and her whole face flaring with a light that might mean resolve

and might mean simply love. I had no need to turn my head to see who was

advancing towards her; her stately attitude as countess, her thrilling

glance as woman, betrayed only too readily.

He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few

words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the usual

common-place sentiments of the occasion.

She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen even

in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and shutting

her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, “I know all this has to

be gone through with, therefore I will be patient.” But as the moments

passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could detect a slight gleam

of impatience flash in the depths of her dark eyes, and a change

come into the conventional smile that had hitherto lighted, without

illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further back from the crowd

that was not to be awed from pressing upon her, she looked around as if

seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a certain window, with a gleam

of satisfaction. Seeing they would straightway withdraw there, I took

advantage of the moment and made haste to conceal myself behind a

curtain as near that vicinity as possible. In another instant I heard

them approaching.

“You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention to-night,” were the

first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake’s calmest and most courteous

tones.

“Do you think so?” was the slightly sarcastic reply. “I was just

deciding to the contrary when you came up.”

There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the

curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her

intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked

than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its midnight

tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord, burned with

a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her partly veiled

eyes where the fire passionately blazed, at her scarlet lips trembling

with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not allow her to

conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole elegant form with

its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace and diamonds, and

an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if I already beheld the

mask of his reserve falling, and the true man flash out in response to

the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose, evidently in waiting for him.

But it died away and a deeper feeling seized me as I saw his glances

return unkindled to her countenance, and heard him say in still more

measured accents than before:

“Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the adulation

of us poor American plebeians? I had not thought it, madame.”

Slowly her dark eyes turned towards him; she stood a statue.

“But I forget,” he went on, a tinge of bitterness for a moment showing

itself in his smile: “perhaps in returning to her own country, Evelyn

Blake has so far forgotten the last two years as to find pleasure again

in the toys and foibles of her youth. Such things have been, I hear.”

And he bowed almost to the ground in his half sarcastic homage.

“Evelyn Blake! It is long since I have heard that name,” she murmured.

He could not restrain the quick flush from mounting to his brow. “Pardon

me,” said he, “if it brings you sadness or unwelcome memories. I promise

you I will not so transgress again.”

A wan smile crossed her lips grown suddenly pallid.

“You mistake,” said she; “if my name brings up a past laden with bitter

memories and shadowed by regret, it also recalls much that is pleasant

and never to be forgotten. I do not object to hearing my girlhood’s name

uttered--by my nearest relative.”

The answer was dignity itself. “Your name is Countess De Mirac, your

relatives must be proud to utter it.”

A gleam not unlike the lightning’s quick flash shot from the eyes she

drooped before him.

“Is it Holman Blake I am listening to,” said she; “I do not recognize my

old friend in the cool and sarcastic man of the world now before me.”

“We often fail to recognize the work of our hands, madame, after it has

fallen from our grasp.”

“What,” she cried, “do you mean--would you say that--”

“I would say nothing,” interrupted he calmly, stooping for the fan she

had dropped. “At an interview which is at once a meeting and a parting,

I would give utterance to nothing which would seem like recrimination.

I--”

“Wait,” suddenly exclaimed she, reaching out her hand for her fan with a

gesture lofty as it was resolute. “You have spoken a word which demands

explanation; what have I ever done to you that you should speak the word

recrimination to me?”

“What? You shook my faith in womankind; you showed me that a woman who

had once told a man she loved him, could so far forget that love as to

marry one she could never respect, for the sake of titles and jewels.

You showed me--”

“Hold,” said she again, this time without gesture or any movement, save

that of her lips grown pallid as marble, “and what did you show me?”

He started, colored profoundly, and for a moment stood before her

unmasked of his stern self-possession. “I beg your pardon,” said he, “I

take back that word, recrimination.”

It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less

cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head

bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern brow

to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have

set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance.

“Holman,” said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, “if in the times

gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to be

any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any reason

why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon what we are

surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I acknowledge that

I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if, after I had been

forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society, and let the

canker-worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and bloom I had

left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did the prospect

of wealth and position, however hollow they may have proved; you who

are the master of both this day, because twelve months ago you forsook

Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach me with them. I do not

reproach you; I only say let the past be forgotten--”

“Impossible,” exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an expression

I could not fathom. “What was done at that time cannot be undone. For

you and me there is no future. Yes,” he said turning towards her as she

made a slight fluttering move of dissent, “no future; we can bury the

past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if you would wish to if we

could; as we cannot, of course you will not desire even to converse upon

the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to see you once, but I do not wish to

see you again; will you pardon my plain speaking, and release me?”

“I will pardon your plain speaking, but--” Her look said she would not

release him.

He seemed to understand it so, and smiled, but very bitterly. In another

moment he had bowed and gone, and she had returned to her crowd of

adoring sycophants.

CHAPTER VI. A BIT OF CALICO

It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of

lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake.

My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from

its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the gentleman

whose movements were daily becoming of more and more interest to me.

For set it down to caprice--and men are often as capricious as women--or

account for it as you will, his restlessness at this period was truly

remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend his time in walking the

streets, and that not in his usual aimless gentlemanly fashion, but

eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed here and there, like a bird

seeking its prey. It would often be as late as five o’clock before he

came in, and if, as now frequently happened, he did not have company to

dinner, he was even known to start out again after seven o’clock and go

over the same ground as in the morning, looking with strained gaze, that

vainly endeavored to appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women

that he passed. I not unfrequently followed him at these times as much

for my own amusement as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that

should aid me in the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his

route of travel from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of

Broadway and Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the

dark, narrow streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey

might be that he was seeking, and putting every other consideration

aside, regularly set myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my

innumerable disguises, knew how to do. For three separate days I kept at

his heels wherever he went, each day growing more and more astonished

if not to say hopeful, as I found myself treading the narrowest and most

disreputable streets of the city; halting at the shops of pawnbrokers;

peering into the back-rooms of liquor shops; mixing with the crowds that

infest the corner groceries at nightfall, and even slinking with hand on

the trigger of the pistol I carried in my pocket, up dark alleys where

every door that swung noiselessly to and fro as we passed, shut upon

haunts of such villainy as only is known to us of the police, or to

those good souls that for the sake of One whose example they follow, lay

aside their fears and sensitiveness to carry light into the dim pits of

this wretched world. At first I thought Mr. Blake might have some such

reason for the peculiar course he took. But his indifference to all

crowds where only men were collected, his silence where a word would

have been well received, convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and

that with an intentness which blinded him to the commonest needs of the

hour. I even saw him once in his hurry and abstraction, step across the

body of a child who had fallen face downward on the stones, and that

with an expression showing he was utterly unconscious of anything but an

obstacle in his path. The strangest part of it all was that he seemed to

have no fear. To be sure he took pains to leave his watch at home; but

with such a figure and carriage as he possessed, the absence of jewelry

could never deceive the eye for a moment as to the fact of his being

a man of wealth, and those he went among would do anything for money.

Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol. At all events he shunned no spot

where either poverty lay hid or deviltry reigned, his proud stern head

bending to enter the lowest doors without a tremble of the haughty lips

that remained compressed as by an iron force; except when some poor

forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and tremulous hands,

attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against him, when he would

turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said I always failed to

catch; after which he would hurry on as if possessed by seven devils.

The evenings of those three days were notable also. Two of them he

spent in the manner I have described; the third he went to the Windsor

House--where the Countess De Mirac had taken rooms--going up to the

ladies’ entrance and actually ringing the bell, only to start back and

walk up and down on the opposite side of the way, with his hands behind

his back, and his head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he

should or should not carry out his original intention of entering. The

arrival of a carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations,

who from her elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or

private reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened

to admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with

its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her maize

colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of anger or

distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door upon her, turn

toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.

The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go with

him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my window

from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I supposed

upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a long,

dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses of Mrs.

Daniels’ troubled face as she appeared at one window or another of

the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to be unusually

restless, opening the windows and looking out with forlorn cranings of

her neck as if she too were watching for her master. Indeed I have

no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that she was in a state of

constant suspense during these days. Her frequent appearance at the

station house, where she in vain sought for some news of the girl in

whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed this. Only the day before I

gave myself up to my unreserved espionage of Mr. Blake, she had had an

interview with Mr. Gryce in which she had let fall her apprehensions

that the girl was dead, and asked whether if that were the case, the

police would be likely to come into a knowledge of the fact. Upon being

assured that if she had not been privately made way with, there was

every chance in their favor, she had grown a little calmer, but before

going away had so far forgotten herself as to intimate that if some

result was not reached before another fortnight had elapsed, she should

take the matter into her own hands and--She did not say what she would

do, but her looks were of a very menacing character. It was no wonder,

then, that her countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she

trod the halls of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich

with bronzes and the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing

suggestions of loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze

from the windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever

delayed. She happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than

usual the master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the

corner, I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind

the curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and

somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house.

Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and

with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety on

her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next day

I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out this

mystery, if mystery it was,--I still found myself forced to admit the

possibility of there being none--had now become the one ambition of my

life; and all because it was not only an unusually blind one, but of a

nature that involved danger to my position as detective, I entered upon

it with a zest rare even to me who love my work and all it involves with

an undivided passion.

To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake shortly

after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship to me that

bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience, a long and

wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all probability at the

end but reiterated disappointment. But for once the fates had willed

it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at the failure of his own

attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart to prosecute them than

usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely entered upon the lower end of

the Bowery, before he suddenly turned with a look of disgust, and

gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a Madison Avenue car that was rapidly

approaching. I was at that moment on the other side of the way, but I

hurried forward too, and signaled the same car. But just as I was on the

point of entering it I perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with

his eyes upon a girl that was hurrying past him with a basket on her

arm, regain the sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop

her. Of course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him

too closely after my late conspicuous attempt to enter it with him. But

from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the girl,

who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of any one

of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the four corners

within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for a few moments,

saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking. Reckless at this

sight of the consequences which might follow his detection of the part

I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was suddenly disconcerted by

observing him hurriedly separate from the girl and turn towards me with

intention as it were to regain the corner he had left. Weighing in an

instant the probable good to be obtained by following either party,

I determined to leave Mr. Blake for one day to himself, and turn my

attention to the girl he had addressed, especially as she was tall and

thin and bore herself with something like grace.

Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain

attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown

five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now

flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her dress

to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged and

uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen, clad

in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat trimmed with

feathers, I could easily understand; but that this creature with her

faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly over her head, and

ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a riddle to me. I

hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of her countenance if

possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to her feet since her

interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of hooting urchins that

were rushing from Centre Street after a broken wagon and runaway horse,

she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I soon saw that my only hope

of overtaking her lay in running. I accordingly quickened my steps when

those same hooting youngsters getting in the way of my feet, I tripped

up and--well, I own I retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so,

however. Just as I was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing

away from a box of garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having

been restored, by which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble

servant had regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had

effectually disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding

hanging to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old

calico frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment

before. Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day’s

work, I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till--But

with all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.

When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved in

a matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me from

further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning Mr.

Blake did not start out as usual, and at noon I received intimation

from Fanny that he was preparing to take a journey. Where, she could

not inform me, nor when, though she thought it probable he would take an

early train. Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she informed me; and

the house was like a grave. Greatly excited at this unexpected move on

Mr. Blake’s part, I went home and packed my valise with something of the

spirit of her who once said, under somewhat different circumstances I

allow, “Whither thou goest I will go.”

The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that

my professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still

rankled, and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success.

Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the Hudson

River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a small town

in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a spruce

young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some strange

coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did not seem

in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look beyond the

ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr. Blake had no

appearance of being a suspicious man, nor do I think at this time,

he had the remotest idea that he was either watched or followed; an

ignorance of the truth which I took care to preserve by taking my seat

in a different car from him and not showing myself again during the

whole ride from New York to Putney.

CHAPTER VII. THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS

Why Mr. Blake should take a journey at all at this time, and why of

all places in the world he should choose such an insignificant town

as Putney for his destination, was of course the mystery upon which I

brooded during the entire distance. But when somewhere near five in the

afternoon I stepped from the cars on to the platform at Putney Station

only to hear Mr. Blake making inquiries in regard to a certain stage

running between that town and a still smaller village further east, I

own I was not only surprised but well-nigh nonplussed. Especially as

he seemed greatly disappointed to hear that it only ran once a day, and

then for an earlier train in the morning.

“You will have to wait till to-morrow I fear,” said the ticket agent,

“unless the landlord of the hotel down yonder, can harness you up a

team. There is a funeral out west to-day and--”

I did not wait to hear more but hurried down to the hotel he had pointed

out, and hunting up the landlord inquired if for love or money he could

get me any sort of a conveyance for Melville that afternoon. He assured

me it would be impossible, the livery stable as well as his own being

entirely empty.

“Such a thing don’t happen here once in five years,” said he to me. “But

the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted personage in

these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could find a horse, mule

or donkey, but what availed himself of the privilege. Even the doctor’s

spavined mare was pressed into service, though she halts on one leg and

stops to get her breath half a dozen times in going up one short hill.

You will have to wait for the stage, sir.”

“But I am in a hurry,” said I as I saw Mr. Blake enter. “I have business

in Melville tonight, and I would pay anything in reason to get there.”

But the landlord only shook his head; and drawing back with the air of

an abused man, I took up my stand in the doorway where I could hear the

same colloquy entered into with Mr. Blake, with the same unsatisfactory

termination. He did not take it quite as calmly as I did, though he

was of too reserved a nature to display much emotion over anything.

The prospect of a long tedious evening spent in a country hotel seemed

almost unendurable to him, but he finally succumbed to the force of

circumstances, as indeed he seemed obliged to do, and partaking of such

refreshment as the rather poorly managed hotel afforded, retired without

ceremony to his room, from which he did not emerge again till next

morning. In all this he had somehow managed not to give his name; and by

means of some inquiries I succeeded in making that evening, I found his

person was unknown in the town.

By a little management I secured the next room to his, by which

arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake spending

most of the wee sma’ hours in pacing the floor of his room, with an

unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect upon my

nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting on the back

seat, and I in front with the driver. There were other passengers, but

I noticed he never spoke to any of them, nor through all the long drive

did he once look up from the corner where he had ensconced himself. It

was twelve o’clock when we reached the end of the route, a small town

of somewhat less than the usual pretensions of mountain villages; so

insignificant indeed, that I found it more and more difficult to imagine

what the wealthy ex-Congressman could find in such a spot as this, to

make amends for a journey of such length and discomfort; when to my

increasing wonder I heard him give orders for a horse to be saddled and

brought round to the inn door directly after dinner. This was a move I

had not expected and it threw me a little aback, for although I had thus

far managed to hold myself so aloof from Mr. Blake, even while keeping

him under my eye, that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had

as yet been awakened, how could I thus for the third time follow his

order with one precisely similar, without attracting an attention that

would be fatal to my plans. Yet to let him ride off alone now, would be

to drop the trail at the very moment the scent became of importance.

The landlord, a bustling, wiry little man all nervousness and questions,

unwittingly helped me at this crisis.

“Are you going on to Perry, sir?” inquired he of that gentleman, “I have

been expecting a man along these three days bound for Perry.”

“I am that man,” I broke in, stepping forward with some appearance of

asperity, “and I hope you won’t keep me waiting. A horse as soon as

dinner is over, do you hear? I am two days late now, and won’t stand any

nonsense.”

And to escape the questions sure to follow, I strode into the

dining-room with a half-fierce, half-sullen countenance, that

effectually precluded all advances. During the meal I saw Mr. Blake’s

eye roam more than once towards my face; but I did not return his gaze,

or notice him in any way; hurrying through my dinner, and mounting the

first horse brought around, as if time were my only consideration. But

once on the road I took the first opportunity to draw rein and wait,

suddenly remembering that I had not heard Mr. Blake give any intimation

of the direction he intended taking. A few minutes revealed to me his

elegant form well mounted and showing to perfection in his closely

buttoned coat, slowly approaching up the road. Taking advantage of

a rise in the ground, I lingered till he was almost upon me, when I

cantered quickly on, fearing to arouse his apprehensions if I allowed

him to pass me on a road so solitary as that which now stretched out

before us: a move provocative of much embarassment to me, as I dared not

turn my head for the same reason, anxious as I was to keep him in sight.

The roads dividing before me, at length gave me my first opportunity

to pause and look back. He was some fifty paces behind. Waiting till he

came up, I bowed with the surly courtesy I thought in keeping with the

character I had assumed, and asked if he knew which road led towards

Perry, saying I had come off in such haste I had forgotten to inquire my

way. He returned my bow, pointed towards the left hand road and saying,

“I know this does not,” calmly took it.

Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded to

follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances

would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by

pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when I

would return and follow him swiftly upon the left. Accordingly I reined

my horse to the right, and for some fifteen minutes galloped slowly

away towards the north; but another fifteen saw me facing the west, and

riding with a force and fury of which I had not thought the old mare

they had given me capable, till I put her to the test. It was not long

before I saw my fine gentleman trotting in front of me up a long but

gentle slope that rose in the distance; and slackening my own rein, I

withdrew into the forest at the side of the road, till he had passed its

summit and disappeared, when I again galloped forward.

And thus we went on for an hour, over the most uneven country I ever

traversed, he always one hill ahead; when suddenly, by what instinct I

cannot determine, I felt myself approaching the end, and hastening to

the top of the ascent up which I was then laboring, looked down into the

shallow valley spread out before me.

What a sight met my eyes if I had been intent on anything less practical

than the movements of the solitary horseman below! Hills on hills piled

about a verdant basin in whose depths nestled a scanty collection of

houses, in number so small they could be told upon the fingers of the

right hand, but which notwithstanding lent an indescribable aspect of

comfort to this remote region of hill and forest.

But the vision of Mr. Blake pausing half way down the slope before me,

examining, yes examining a pistol which he held in his hand, soon put

an end to all ideas of romance. Somewhat alarmed I reined back; but his

action had evidently no connection with me, for he did not once glance

behind him, but kept his eye on the road which I now observed took a

short turn towards a house of so weird and ominous an appearance that I

scarcely marvelled at his precaution.

Situated on a level track of land at the crossing of three roads, its

spacious front, rude and unpainted as it was, presented every appearance

of an inn, but from its moss-grown chimneys no smoke arose, nor could

I detect any sign of life in its shutterless windows and closed doors,

across which shivered the dark shadow of the one gaunt and aged pine,

that stood like a guard beside its tumbled-down porch.

Mr. Blake seemed to have been struck by the same fact concerning its

loneliness, for hurriedly replacing his pistol in his breast pocket, he

rode slowly forward. I instantly conceived the plan of striking across

the belt of underbrush that separated me from this old dwelling, and by

taking my stand opposite its front, intercept a view of Mr. Blake as

he approached. Hastily dismounting, therefore, I led my horse into the

bushes and tied her to a tree, proceeding to carry out my plan on foot.

I was so far successful as to arrive at the further edge of the wood,

which was thick enough to conceal my presence without being too dense to

obstruct my vision, just as Mr. Blake passed on his way to this solitary

dwelling. He was looking very anxious, but determined. Turning my eyes

from him, I took another glance at the house, which by this movement I

had brought directly before me. It was even more deserted-looking than

I had thought; its unpainted front with its double row of blank windows

meeting your gaze without a response, while the huge old pine with half

its limbs dismantled of foliage, rattled its old bones against its sides

and moaned in its aged fashion like the solitary retainer of a dead

race.

I own I felt the cold shivers creep down my back as that creaking sound

struck my ears, though as the day was chill with an east wind I dare say

it was more the effect of my sudden cessation from exercise, than of

any superstitious awe I felt. Mr. Blake seemed to labor under no such

impressions. Riding up to the front door he knocked without dismounting,

on its dismal panels with his riding whip. No response was heard.

Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch: the door was locked.

Hastily running his eye over the face of the building, he drew rein and

proceeded to ride around the house, which he could easily do owing

to the absence of every obstruction in the way of fence or shrubbery.

Finding no means of entrance he returned again to the front door which

he shook with an impatient hand that however produced no impression

upon the trusty lock, and recognizing, doubtless, the futility of his

endeavors, he drew back, and merely pausing to give one other look at

its deserted front, turned his horse’s head, and to my great amazement,

proceeded with sombre mien and clouded brow to retake the road to

Melville.

This old inn or decayed homestead was then the object of his lengthened

and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among the bleak

hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had been tending

for these past two days. I could not understand it. Rapidly emerging

from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my turn made a circuit

of the house, if happily I should discover some loophole of entrance

which had escaped his attention. But every door and window was securely

barred, and I was about to follow his example and leave the spot, when

I saw two or three children advancing towards me down the cross roads,

gaily swinging their school books. I noticed they hesitated and huddled

together as they approached and saw me, but not heeding this, I accosted

them with a pleasant word or so, then pointing over my shoulder to the

house behind, asked who lived there. Instantly their already pale faces

grew paler.

“Why,” cried one, a boy, “don’t you know? That is where the two wicked

men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank. They were put in

prison, but they got away and--”

Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such

affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick stare

out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took to his

heels. As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my astonishment.

This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious Schoenmakers

after whom half of the detectives of the country were searching? I could

scarcely credit my own ears. True I now remembered they had come from

these parts, still--

Turning round I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me!

What a murderous aspect it wore, and how dismally secret were the tight

shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude cross

scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious significance. Even

the old pine had acquired the villainous air of the uncanny repositor of

secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned and murmured to itself in

the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul wrong seemed written all over

the fearful place, from the long strings of black moss that clung to

the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn stone with its great blotch of

something,--could it have been blood?--that served as a threshold to

the door. Suddenly with the quickness of lightning the thought flashed

across me, what could Mr. Blake, the aristocratic representative of New

York’s oldest family, have wanted in this nest of infamy? What errand

of hope, fear, despair, avarice or revenge, could have brought this

superior gentleman with his refined tastes and proudly reticent manners,

so many miles from home, to the forsaken den of a brace of hardy

villains whose name for two years now, had stood as the type of all that

was bold, bad and lawless, and for whom during the last six weeks the

prison had yawned, and the gallows hungered. Contemplation brought

no reply, and shocked at my own thoughts, I put the question by for

steadier brains than mine; and instead of trying further to solve it,

cast about how I was to gain entrance into this deserted building; for

to enter it I was more than ever determined, now that I had heard to

whom it had once belonged.

Examining with a glance the several roads that branched off in every

direction from where I stood, I found them all equally deserted. Even

the school children had disappeared in some one of the four or five

houses scattered in the remote distance.

If I was willing to enter upon any daring exploit, there was no one to

observe or interrupt. I resolved to make the attempt with which my mind

was full. This was to climb the old tree, and from one of the two or

three branches that brushed against the house, gain entrance at an

open garret window that stared at me from amid the pine’s dark needles.

Taking off my coat with a sigh over the immaculate condition of my new

cassimere trousers, I bent my energies to the task. A difficult one you

will say for a city lad, but thanks to fortune I was not brought up in

New York, and know how to climb trees with the best. With little more

than a scratch or so, I reached the window of which I have spoken,

and after a moment spent in regaining my breath, gave one spring and

accomplished my purpose. I alighted upon a heap of broken glass in a

large bare room. An ominous chill at once struck to my heart. Though

I am anything but a sensitive man as far as physical impressions are

concerned, there was something in the hollow echo that arose from the

four blank walls about me as my feet alighted on that rough, uncarpeted

floor, that struck a vague chill through my blood, and I actually

hesitated for the moment whether to pursue the investigations I had

promised myself, or beat a hasty retreat. A glance at the huge distorted

limbs swaying across the square of the open window decided me. It

was easy to enter by means of that unsteady support, but it would be

extremely unsafe to venture forth in that way. If I prized life and limb

I must seek some other method of egress. I at once put my apprehensions

in my pocket and entered upon my self imposed task.

A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty

garret in which I found myself. Two or three old chairs piled in one

corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying clothing,

were all that met my gaze. Taking my way, then, at once to the ladder,

whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret floor, seemed

to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I proceeded to descend

into what to my excited imagination looked like a gulf of darkness. It

proved, however, to be nothing more nor less than an unlighted hall of

small dimensions, with a stair-case at one end and a door at the other,

which, upon opening I found myself in a large, square room whose immense

four-post bedstead entirely denuded of its usual accompaniments of bed

and bolster at once struck my eye and for a moment held it enchained.

There were other articles in the room; a disused bureau, a rocking

chair, even a table, but nothing had such a ghostly look as that antique

bedstead with its curtains of calico tied back over its naked framework,

like rags draped from the bare bones of a skeleton. Passing hurriedly

by, I tried a closet door or so, finding little, however, to reward my

search; and eager to be done with what was every moment becoming more

and more drearisome, I hastened across the floor to the front of the

house where I found another hall and a row of rooms that, while not

entirely stripped of furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to

offer little encouragement to my curiosity. One only, a small but not

uncomfortable apartment, showed any signs of having been occupied within

a reasonable length of time; and as I paused before its hastily spread

bed, thrown together as only a man would do it, and wondering why the

room was so dark, looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered

by an old shawl and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed

across it, I own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I

expected to see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all

aglare from one of the dim corners before me. Rushing to the window, I

tore down with one sweep of my arm both coat and shawl, and with a start

discovered that the window still possessed its draperies in the shape of

a pair of discolored and tattered curtains tied with ribbons that must

once have been brilliant and cheery of color.

Nor was this the only sign in the room of a bygone presence that had

possessed a taste for something beyond the mere necessities of life.

On the grim coarsely papered wall hung more than one picture; cut from

pictorial newspapers to be sure, but each and every one, if I may be

called a judge of such matters, possessing some quality of expression to

commend it to a certain order of taste. They were all strong pictures.

Vivid faces of men and women in daring positions; a hunter holding back

a jaguar from his throat; a soldier protecting his comrade from the

stroke; and most striking of all, a woman lissome as she was powerful,

starting aghast and horror stricken from--what? I could not tell; a

rough hand had stripped the remainder of the picture from the wall.

A bit of candle and a half sheet of a newspaper lay on the floor. I

picked up the paper. It was a Rutland Herald and bore the date of two

days before. As I read I realized what I had done. If these daring

robbers were not at this very moment in the house, they had been there,

and that within two or three days. The broken panes of glass in the

garret above were now explained. I was not the first one who had climbed

that creaking pine tree this fall.

Something like a sensible dread of a very possible danger now seized

hold of me. If I had stumbled upon these strangely subtile, yet

devilishly bold creatures in their secret lair, the pistol I carried was

not going to save me. Shut in like a fox in a hole, I had little to hope

for, if they once made their appearance at the stairhead or came upon me

from any of the dim halls of the crazy old dwelling, which I now began

to find altogether too large for my comfort. Stealing cautiously forth

from the room in which I had found so much to disconcert me, I crept

towards the front staircase and listened. All was deathly quiet. The

old pine tree moaned and twisted without, and from time to time the wind

came sweeping down the chimney with an unearthly shrieking sound that

was weirdly in keeping with the place. But within and below all was

still as the tomb, and though in no ways reassured, I determined to

descend and have the suspense over at once. I did so, pistol in hand

and ears stretched to their utmost to catch the slightest rustle, but no

sound came to disturb me, nor did I meet on this lower floor the sign of

any other presence in the house but my own. Passing hastily through what

appeared to be a sort of rude parlor, I stepped into the kitchen and

tried one of the windows. Finding I could easily lift it from the

inside, I drew my breath with ease for the first time since I had

alighted among the broken glass above, and turning back, deliberately

opened the door of the kitchen stove, and looked in. As I half expected,

I found a pile of partly charred rags, showing where the wretches had

burned their prison clothing, and proceeding further, picked up from

the ashes a ring which whether or not they were conscious of having

attempted to destroy in this way I cannot say, but which I thankfully

put in my pocket against the day it might be required as proof.

Discerning nothing more in that quarter inviting interest, I asked

myself if I had nerve to descend into the cellar. Finally concluding

that that was more than could be expected from any man in my position, I

gave one look of farewell to the damp and desolate walls about me, then

with a breath of relief jumped from the kitchen window again into the

light and air of day. As I did so I could swear I heard a door within

that old house swing on its hinges and softly close. With a thrill I

recognized the fact that it came from the cellar.

* * * *

My thoughts on the road back to Melville were many and conflicting.

Chief above them all, however, rose the comfortable conclusion that in

the pursuit of one mysterious affair, I had stumbled, as is often the

case, upon the clue to another of yet greater importance, and by so

doing got a start that might yet redound greatly to my advantage. For

the reward offered for the recapture of the Schoenmakers was large, and

the possibility of my being the one to put the authorities upon their

track, certainly appeared after this day’s developements, open at least

to a very reasonable hope. At all events I determined not to let the

grass grow under my feet till I had informed the Superintendent of what

I had seen and heard that day in the old haunt of these two escaped

convicts.

Arrived at the public house in Melville, and learning that Mr. Blake had

safely returned there an hour before, I drew the landlord to one side

and asked what he could tell me about that old house of the two noted

robbers Schoenmaker, I had passed on my way back among the hills.

“Wa’al now,” replied he, “this is curious. Here I’ve just been answering

the gentleman up stairs a heap of questions concerning that self same

old place, and now you come along with another batch of them; just as

if that rickety old den was the only spot of interest we had in these

parts.”

“Perhaps that may be the truth,” I laughed. “Just now when the papers

are full of these rogues, anything concerning them must be of superior

interest of course.” And I pressed him again to give me a history of the

house and the two thieves who had inhabited it.

“Wa’al,” drawled he “‘taint much we know about them, yet after all it

may be a trifle too much for their necks some day. Time was when nobody

thought especial ill of them beyond a suspicion or so of their being

somewhat mean about money. That was when they kept an inn there, but

when the robbery of the Rutland bank was so clearly traced to them,

more than one man about here started up and said as how they had

always suspected them Shoenmakers of being villains, and even hinted at

something worse than robbery. But nothing beyond that one rascality has

yet been proved against them, and for that they were sent to jail for

twenty years as you know. Two months ago they escaped, and that is the

last known of them. A precious set, too, they are; the father being only

so much the greater rogue than the son as he is years older.”

“And the inn? When was that closed?”

“Just after their arrest.”

“Has’nt it been opened since?”

“Only once when a brace of detectives came up from Troy to investigate,

as they called it.”

“Who has the key?”

“Ah, that’s more than I can tell you.”

I dared not ask how my questions differed from those of Mr. Blake, nor

indeed touch upon that point in any way. I was chiefly anxious now

to return to New York without delay; so paying my bill I thanked the

landlord, and without waiting for the stage, remounted my horse and

proceeded at once to Putney where I was fortunate enough to catch the

evening train. By five o’clock next morning I was in New York where I

proceeded to carry out my programme by hastening at once to headquarters

and reporting my suspicions regarding the whereabouts of the

Schoenmakers. The information was received with interest and I had

the satisfaction of seeing two men despatched north that very day with

orders to procure the arrest of the two notable villains wherever found.

CHAPTER VIII. A WORD OVERHEARD

That evening I had a talk with Fanny over the area gate. She came out

when she saw me approach, with her eyes staring and her whole form in a

flutter.

“O,” she cried, “such things as I have heard this day!”

“Well,” said I, “what? let me hear too.” She put her hand on her heart.

“I never was so frightened,” whispered she, “I thought I should have

fainted right away. To hear that elegant lady use such a word as

crime,--”

“What elegant lady?” interrupted I. “Don’t begin in the middle of your

story, that’s a good girl; I want to hear it all.”

“Well,” said she, calming down a little, “Mrs. Daniels had a visitor

to-day, a lady. She was dressed--”

“O, now,” interrupted I for the second time, “you can leave that out.

Tell me what her name was and let the fol-de-rols go.”

“Her name?” exclaimed the girl with some sharpness, “how should I know

her name; she did’nt come to see me.”

“How did she look then? You saw her I suppose?”

“And was’nt that what I was telling you, when you stopped me. She looked

like a queen, that she did; as grand a lady as ever I see, in her velvet

dress sweeping over the floor, and her diamonds as big as--”

“Was she a dark woman?” I asked.

“Her hair was black and so were her eyes, if that is what you mean.”

“And was she very tall and proud looking?”

The girl nodded. “You know her?” whispered she.

“No,” said I, “not exactly; but I think I can tell who she is. And so

she called to-day on Mrs. Daniels, did she.”

“Yes, but I guess she knew master would be home before she got away.”

“Come,” said I, “tell me all about it; I’m getting impatient.”

“And ain’t I telling you?” said she. “It was about three o’clock this

afternoon, the time I go up stairs to dress, so I just hangs about in

the hall a bit, near the parlor door, and I hear her gossiping with Mrs.

Daniels almost as if she was an old friend, and Mrs. Daniels answering

her mighty stiffly and as if she was’nt glad to see her at all. But the

lady didn’t seem to mind, but went on talking as sweet as honey, and

when they came out, you would have thought she loved the old woman like

a sister to see her look into her face and say something about knowing

how busy she was, but that it would give her so much pleasure if she

would come some day to see her and talk over old times. But Mrs. Daniels

was’nt pleased a bit and showed plain enough she did’nt like the lady,

fine as she was in her ways. She was going to answer her too, but just

then the front door opened and Mr. Blake with his satchel in his hand,

came into the house. And how he did start, to be sure, when he saw them,

though he tried to say something perlite which she did’nt seem to take

to at all, for after muttering something about not expecting to see him,

she put her hand on the knob and was going right out. But he stopped her

and they went into the parlor together while Mrs. Daniels stood staring

after them like one mad, her hand held out with his bag and umbrella in

it, stiff as a statter in the Central Park. She did’nt stand so long,

though, but came running down the hall, as if she was bewitched. I was

dreadful flustered, for though I was hid behind the wall that juts out

there by the back stairs, I was afraid she would see me and shame me

before Mr. Blake. But she passed right by and never looked up. ‘There is

something dreadful mysterious in this,’ thought I, and I just made up

my mind to stay where I was till Mr. Blake and the lady should come out

again from the parlor. I did’nt have to wait very long. In a few minutes

the door opened and they stepped out, he ahead and she coming after. I

thought this was queer, he is always so dreadful perlite in his ways,

but I thought it was a deal queerer when I saw him go up the front

stairs, she hurrying after, looking I cannot tell you how, but awful

troubled and anxious, I should say.

“They went into that room of his he calls his studio and though I knew

it might cost me my place if I was found out, I could’nt help following

and listening at the keyhole.”

“And what did you hear?” I asked, for she paused to take breath.

“Well, the first thing I heard was a cry of pleasure from her, and the

words, ‘You keep that always before you? You cannot dislike me, then, as

much as you pretend.’ I don’t know what she meant nor what he did, but

he stepped across the room and I heard her cry out this time as if she

was hurt as well as awful surprised; and he talked and talked, and I

could’nt catch a word, he spoke so low; and by and by she sobbed just a

little, and I got scared and would have run away but she cried out with

a kind of shriek, ‘O, don’t say any more; to think that crime should

come into our family, the proudest in the land. How could you, Holman,

how could you.’ Yes,” the girl went on, flushing in her excitement till

she was as red as the cherry ribbons in her cap, “those were the very

words she used: ‘To think that crime should come into our family! the

proudest one in the land!’ And she called him by his first name, and

asked him how he could do it.”

“And what did Mr. Blake say?” returned I, a little taken back myself at

this result of my efforts with Fanny.

“O, I did’nt wait to hear. I did’nt wait for anything. If folks was

going to talk about such things as that, I thought I had better be

anywhere than listening at the keyhole. I went right up stairs I can

tell you.”

“And whom have you told of what you heard in the half dozen hours that

have gone by?”

“Nobody; how could you think so mean of me when I promised, and--”

It is not necessary to go any further into this portion of the

interview.

The Countess De Mirac possessed to its fullest extent the present fine

lady’s taste for bric-a-brac. So much I had learned in my inquiries

concerning her. Remembering this, I took the bold resolution of

profiting by this weakness of hers to gain admission to her presence,

she being the only one sharing Mr. Blake’s mysterious secret. Borrowing

a valuable antique from a friend of mine at that time in the business,

I made my appearance the very next day at her apartments, and sending

in an urgent request to see Madame, by the trim negress who answered my

summons, waited in some doubt for her reply.

It came all too soon; Madame was ill and could see no one. I was not,

however, to be baffled by one rebuff. Handing the basket I held to the

girl, I urged her to take it in and show her mistress what it contained,

saying it was a rare article which might never again come her way.

The girl complied, though with a doubtful shake of the head which was

anything but encouraging. Her incredulity, however, must have been

speedily rebuked, for she almost immediately returned without the

basket, saying Madame would see me.

My first thoughts upon entering the grand lady’s presence, was that the

girl had been mistaken, for I found the Countess walking the floor in an

abstracted way, drying a letter she had evidently but just completed, by

shaking it to and fro with an unsteady hand; the placque I had brought,

lying neglected on the table.

But at sight of my respectful form standing with bent head in the

doorway, she hurriedly thrust the letter into a book and took up the

placque. As she did so I marked her well and almost started at the

change I observed in her since that evening at the Academy. It was not

only that she was dressed in some sort of loose dishabille that was

in eminent contrast to the sweeping silks and satins in which I had

hitherto beheld her adorned; or that she was laboring under some

physical disability that robbed her dark cheek of the bloom that was its

chiefest charm. The change I observed went deeper than that; it was more

as if a light had been extinguished in her countenance. It was the same

woman I had beheld standing like a glowing column of will and strength

before the melancholy form of Mr. Blake, but with the will and strength

gone, and with them all the glow.

“She no longer hopes,” thought I, and already felt repaid for my

trouble.

“This is a very pretty article you have brought me,” said she with

something of the unrestrained love of art which she undoubtedly

possessed, showing itself through all her languor. “Where did it come

from, and what recommendations have you, to prove it is an honest sale

you offer me?”

“None,” returned I, ignoring with a reassuring smile the first question,

“except that I should not be afraid if all the police in New York knew I

was here with this fine placque for sale.”

She gave a shrug of her proud shoulder that bespoke the French Countess

and softly ran her finger round the edge of the placque.

“I don’t need anything more of this kind,” said she languidly;

“besides,” and she set it down with a fretful air, “I am in no mood to

buy this afternoon.” Then shortly, “What do you ask for it?”

I named a fabulous price.

She started and cast me a keen glance. “You had better take it to some

one else; I have no money to throw away.”

With a hesitating hand I lifted the placque towards the basket. “I would

very much like to sell it to you,” said I. “Perhaps--”

Just then a lady’s fluttering voice rose from the room beyond inquiring

for the Countess, and hurriedly taking the placque from my hand with

an impulsive “O there’s Amy,” she passed into the adjoining apartment,

leaving the door open behind her.

I saw a quick interchange of greetings between her and a fashionably

dressed lady, then they withdrew to one side with the ornament I had

brought, evidently consulting in regard to its merits. Now was my time.

The book in which she had placed the letter she had been writing lay on

the table right before me, not two inches from my hand. I had only

to throw back the cover and my curiosity would be satisfied. Taking

advantage of a moment when their backs were both turned, I pressed open

the book with a careful hand, and with one eye on them and one on the

sheet before me, managed to read these words:--

MY DEAREST CECILIA.

I have tried in vain to match the sample you sent me at Stewart’s,

Arnold’s and McCreery’s. If you still insist upon making up the

dress in the way you propose, I will see what Madame Dudevant can

do for us, though I cannot but advise you to alter your plans and

make the darker shade of velvet do. I went to the Cary reception

last night and met Lulu Chittenden. She has actually grown old,

but was as lively as ever. She created a great stir in Paris when

she was there; but a husband who comes home two o’clock in the

morning with bleared eyes and empty pockets, is not conducive to

the preservation of a woman’s beauty. How she manages to retain

her spirits I cannot imagine. You ask me news of cousin Holman. I

meet him occasionally and he looks well, but has grown into the

most sombre man you ever saw. In regard to certain hopes of which

you have sometimes made mention, let me assure you they are no

longer practicable. He has done what--

Here the conversation ceased in the other room, the Countess made a

movement of advance and I closed the book with an inward groan over my

ill-luck.

“It is very pretty,” said she with a weary air; “but as I remarked

before, I am not in the buying mood. If you will take half you mention,

I may consider the subject, but--”

“Pardon me, Madame,” I interrupted, being in no wise anxious to leave

the placque behind me, “I have been considering the matter and I hold to

my original price. Mr. Blake of Second Avenue may give it to me if you

do not.”

“Mr. Blake!” She eyed me suspiciously. “Do you sell to him?”

“I sell to anyone I can,” replied I; “and as he has an artist’s eye for

such things--”

Her brows knitted and she turned away. “I do not want it;” said she,

“sell it to whom you please.”

I took up the placque and left the room.

CHAPTER IX. A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS

When a few days from that I made my appearance before Mr. Gryce, it was

to find him looking somewhat sober. “Those Schoenmakers,” said he, “are

making a deal of trouble. It seems they escaped the fellows up north and

are now somewhere in this city, but where--”

An expressive gesture finished the sentence.

“Is that so?” exclaimed I. “Then we are sure to nab them. Given time and

a pair of low, restless German thieves, I will wager anything, our hands

will be upon them before the month is over. I only hope, when we do come

across them, it will not be to find their betters too much mixed up with

their devilish practices.” And I related to him what Fanny had told me a

few evenings before.

“The coil is tightening,” said he. “What the end will be I don’t know.

Crime, said she? I wish I knew in what blind hole of the earth that girl

we are after lies hidden.”

As if in answer to this wish the door opened and one of our men came

in with a letter in his hand. “Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Gryce, after he had

perused it, “look at that.”

I took the letter from his hand and read:

The dead body of a girl such as you describe was found in the East

river off Fiftieth Street this morning. From appearance has been

dead some time. Have telegraphed to Police Headquarters for

orders. Should you wish to see the body before it is removed to

the Morgue or otherwise disturbed, please hasten to Pier 48 E. R.

GRAHAM.

“Come,” said I, “let’s go and see for ourselves. If it should be the

one--”

“The dinner party proposed by Mr. Blake for to-night, may have its

interruptions,” he remarked.

I do not wish to make my story any longer than is necessary, but I must

say that when in an hour or so later, I stood with Mr. Gryce before the

unconscious form of that poor drowned girl I felt an unusual degree

of awe stealing over me: there was so much mystery connected with this

affair, and the parties implicated were of such standing and repute.

I almost dreaded to see the covering removed from her face lest I should

behold, what? I could not have told if I had tried.

“A trim made body enough,” cried the official in charge as Mr. Gryce

lifted an end of the cloth that enveloped her and threw it back. “Pity

the features are not better preserved.”

“No need for us to see the features,” exclaimed I, pointing to the locks

of golden red hair that hung in tangled masses about her. “The hair is

enough; she is not the one.” And I turned aside, asking myself if it was

relief I felt.

To my surprise Mr. Gryce did not follow.

“Tall, thin, white face, black eyes.” I heard him whisper to himself.

“It is a pity the features are not better preserved.”

“But,” said I, taking him by the arm, “Fanny spoke particularly of

her hair being black, while this girl’s--Good heavens!” I suddenly

ejaculated as I looked again at the prostrate form before me. “Yellow

hair or black, this is the girl I saw him speaking to that day in

Broome Street. I remember her clothes if nothing more.” And opening my

pocketbook, I took out the morsel of cloth I had plucked that day from

the ash barrel, lifted up the discolored rags that hung about the body

and compared the two. The pattern, texture and color were the same.

“Well,” said Mr. Gryce, pointing to certain contusions, like marks from

the blow of some heavy instrument on the head and bared arms of the girl

before us; “he will have to answer me one question anyhow, and that

is, who this poor creature is who lies here the victim of treachery or

despair.” And turning to the official he asked if there were any other

signs of violence on the body.

The answer came deliberately, “Yes, she has evidently been battered to

death.”

Mr. Gryce’s lips closed with grim decision. “A most brutal murder,” said

he and lifting up the cloth with a hand that visibly trembled, he softly

covered her face.

“Well,” said I as we slowly paced back up the pier, “there is one thing

certain, she is not the one who disappeared from Mr. Blake’s house.”

“I am not so sure of that.”

“How!” said I. “You believed Fanny lied when she gave that description

of the missing girl upon which we have gone till now?”

Mr. Gryce smiled, and turning back, beckoned to the official behind us.

“Let me have that description,” said he, “which I distributed among the

Harbor Police some days ago for the identification of a certain corpse I

was on the lookout for.”

The man opened his coat and drew out a printed paper which at Mr.

Gryce’s word he put into my hand. It ran as follows:

Look out for the body of a young girl, tall, well shaped but thin,

of fair complexion and golden hair of a peculiar bright and

beautiful color, and when found, acquaint me at once.

G.

“I don’t understand,” began I.

But Mr. Gryce tapping me on the arm said in his most deliberate tones,

“Next time you examine a room in which anything of a mysterious nature

has occurred, look under the bureau and if you find a comb there with

several long golden hairs tangled in it, be very sure before you draw

any definite conclusions, that your Fannys know what they are talking

about when they declare the girl who used that comb had black hair on

her head.”

CHAPTER X. THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE’S STUDIO

“Mr. Blake is at dinner, sir, with company, but I will call him if you

say so.”

“No,” returned Mr. Gryce; “show us into some room where we can be

comfortable and we will wait till he has finished.”

The servant bowed, and stepping forward down the hall, opened the door

of a small and cosy room heavily hung with crimson curtains. “I will

let him know that you are here,” said he, and vanished towards the

dining-room.

“I doubt if Mr. Blake will enjoy the latter half of his bill of fare as

much as the first,” said I, drawing up one of the luxurious arm-chairs

to the side of my principal. “I wonder if he will break away from his

guests and come in here?”

“No; if I am not mistaken we shall find Mr. Blake a man of nerve. Not a

muscle of his face will show that he is disturbed.”

“Well,” said I, “I dread it.”

Mr. Gryce looked about on the gorgeous walls and the rich old fashioned

furniture that surrounded him, and smiled one of his grimmest smiles.

“Well, you may,” said he.

The next instant a servant stood in the doorway, bearing to our great

astonishment, a tray well set with decanter and glasses.

“Mr. Blake’s compliments, gentlemen,” said he, setting it down on the

table before us. “He hopes you will make yourselves at home and he will

see you as soon as possible.”

The humph! of Mr. Gryce when the servant had gone would have done your

soul good, also the look he cast at the pretty Dresden Shepherdess on

the mantel-piece, as I reached out my hand towards the decanter. Somehow

it made me draw back.

“I think we had better leave his wine alone,” said he.

And for half an hour we sat there, the wine untouched between us,

listening alternately to the sound of speech-making and laughter that

came from the dining-room, and the solemn ticking of the clock as it

counted out the seconds on the mantel-piece. Then the guests came in

from the table, filing before us past the open door on their way to

the parlors. They were all gentlemen of course--Mr. Blake never invited

ladies to his house--and gentlemen of well known repute. The dinner had

been given in honor of a certain celebrated statesman, and the character

of his guests was in keeping with that of the one thus complimented.

As they went by us gaily indulging in the jokes and light banter with

which such men season a social dinner, I saw Mr. Gryce’s face grow sober

by many a shade; and when in the midst of it all, we heard the voice

of Mr. Blake rise in that courteous and measured tone for which it

is distinguished, I saw him reach forward and grasp his cane with an

uneasiness I had never seen displayed by him before. But when some time

later, the guests having departed, the dignified host advanced with some

apology to where we were, I never beheld a firmer look on Mr. Gryce’s

face than that with which he rose and confronted him. Mr. Blake’s own

had not more character in it.

“You have called at a rather inauspicious time, Mr. Gryce,” said the

latter, glancing at the card which he held in his hand. “What may your

business be? Something to do with politics, I suppose.”

I surveyed the man in amazement. Was this great politician stooping

to act a part, or had he forgotten our physiognomies as completely as

appeared?

“Our business is not politics,” replied Mr. Gryce; “but fully as

important. May I request the doors be closed?”

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but he immediately stepped to the

door and shut it. Then coming back, he looked at Mr. Gryce more closely

and a change took place in his manner.

“I think I have seen you before,” said he.

Mr. Gryce bowed with just the suspicion of a smile. “I have had the

honor of consulting you before in this very house,” observed he.

A look of full recognition passed over the dignified countenance of the

man before us.

“I remember,” said he, shrugging his shoulders in the old way. “You are

interested in some servant girl or other who ran away from this house a

week or so ago. Have you found her?” This with no apparent concern.

“We think we have,” rejoined Mr. Gryce with some solemnity. “The river

gives up its prey now and then, Mr. Blake.”

Still only that look of natural surprise.

“Indeed! You do not mean to say she has drowned herself? I am sorry for

that, a girl who had once lived in my house. What trouble could she have

had to drive her to such an act?”

Mr. Gryce advanced a step nearer the gentleman.

“That is what we have come here to learn,” said he with a deliberation

that yet was not lacking in the respect due to a man so universally

esteemed as Mr. Blake. “You who have seen her so lately ought to be able

to throw some light upon the subject at least.”

“Mr.--” he again glanced at the card, “Mr. Gryce,--excuse me--I believe

I told you when you were here before that I had no remembrance of this

girl at all. That if such a person was in my house I did not know it,

and that all questions put to me on that subject would be so much labor

thrown away.”

Mr. Gryce bowed. “I remember,” said he. “I was not alluding to any

connection you may have had with the girl in this house, but to the

interview you were seen to have with her on the corner of Broome Street

some days ago. You had such an interview, did you not?”

A flush, deep as it was sudden, swept over Mr. Blake’s usually unmoved

cheek. “You are transgressing sir,” said he and stopped. Though a man of

intense personal pride, he had but little of that quality called temper,

or perhaps if he had, thought it unwise to display it on this occasion.

“I saw and spoke to a girl on the corner of that street some days ago,”

he went on more mildly, “but that she was the one who lived here,

I neither knew at the time nor feel willing to believe now without

positive proof.” Then in a deep ringing tone the stateliness of which it

would be impossible to describe, he inquired, “Have the city authorities

presumed to put a spy on my movements, that the fact of my speaking to

a poor forsaken creature on the corner of the street should be not only

noted but remembered?”

“Mr. Blake,” observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my

superior at that moment, “no man who is a true citizen and a

Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own

thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands it.”

“And do you mean to say that I have been followed,” inquired he,

clenching his hand and looking steadily, but with a blanching cheek,

first at Mr. Gryce then at me.

“It was indispensable,” quoth that functionary gently.

The outraged gentleman riveted his gaze upon me. “In town and out of

town?” demanded he.

I let Mr. Gryce reply. “It is known that you have lately sought to visit

the Schoenmakers,” said he.

Mr. Blake drew a deep breath, cast his eyes about the handsome apartment

in which we were, let them rest for a moment upon a portrait that graced

one side of the wall, and which was I have since learned a picture of

his father, and slowly drew forward a chair. “Let me hear what your

suspicions are,” said he.

I noticed Mr. Gryce colored at this; he had evidently been met in a

different way from what he expected. “Excuse me,” said he, “I do not say

I have any suspicions; my errand is simply to notify you of the death of

the girl you were seen to speak with, and to ask whether or not you

can give us any information that can aid us in the matter before the

coroner.”

“You know I have not. If I have been as closely followed as you say, you

must know why I spoke to that girl and others, why I went to the house

of the Schoenmakers and--Do you know?” he suddenly inquired.

Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question as that. He eyed the

rich signet ring that adorned the hand of the gentleman before him and

suavely smiled. “I am ready to listen to any explanations,” said he.

Mr. Blake’s haughty countenance became almost stern. “You consider you

have a right to demand them; let me hear why.”

“Well,” said Mr. Gryce with a change of tone, “you shall. Unprofessional

as it is, I will tell you why I, a member of the police force, dare

enter the house of such a man as you are, and put him the questions I

have concerning his domestic affairs. Mr. Blake, imagine yourself in

a detective’s office. A woman comes in, the housekeeper of a respected

citizen, and informs us that a girl employed by her as seamstress has

disappeared in a very unaccountable way from her master’s house

the night before; in fact been abducted as she thinks from certain

evidences, through the window. Her manner is agitated, her appeal for

assistance urgent, though she acknowledges no relationship to the girl

or expresses any especial cause for her interest beyond that of common

humanity. ‘She must be found,’ she declares, and hints that any sum

necessary will be forthcoming, though from what source after her own

pittance is expended she does not state. When asked if her master has

no interest in the matter, she changes color and puts us off. He never

noticed his servants, left all such concerns to her, etc.; but shows

fear when a proposition is made to consult him. Next imagine yourself

with the detectives in that gentleman’s house. You enter the girl’s

room; what is the first thing you observe? Why that it is not only one

of the best in the house, but that it is conspicuous for its comforts if

not for its elegancies. More than that, that there are books of poetry

and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited it was

above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently brought to

acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her abduction by

means of the window, has some ground in appearance, though the fact

that she went with entire unwillingness is not made so apparent. The

housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have had some special

knowledge of the girl’s character or circumstances to back it, that she

never went without compulsion; a statement which the torn curtains

and the track of blood over the roof of the extension, would seem to

emphasize. A few other facts are made known. First, a pen-knife is

picked up from the grass plot in the yard beneath, showing with what

instrument the wound was inflicted, whose drippings made those marks of

blood alluded to. It was a pearl-handled knife belonging to the writing

desk found open on her table, and its frail and dainty character proved

indisputably, that it was employed by the girl herself, and that against

manifest enemies; no man being likely to snatch up any such puny weapon

for the purpose either of offence or defence. That these enemies were

two and were both men, was insisted upon by Mrs. Daniels who overheard

their voices the night before.

“Mr. Blake, such facts as these arouse curiosity, especially when

the master of the house being introduced upon the scene, he fails to

manifest common human interest, while his housekeeper betrays in every

involuntary gesture and expression she makes use of, her horror if not

her fear of his presence, and her relief at his departure. Yes,” he

exclaimed, unheeding the sudden look here cast him by Mr. Blake, “and

curiosity begets inquiry, and inquiry elucidated further facts such as

these, that the mysterious master of the house was in his garden at the

hour of the girl’s departure, was even looking through the bars of his

gate when she, having evidently escaped from her captors, came back with

every apparent desire to reenter her home, but seeing him, betrayed an

unreasonable amount of fear and fled back even into the very arms of

the men she had endeavored to avoid. Did you speak sir?” asked Mr. Gryce

suddenly stopping, with a sly look at his left boot tip.

Mr. Blake shook his head. “No,” said he shortly, “go on.” But that last

remark of Mr. Gryce had evidently made its impression.

“Inquiry revealed, also, two or three other interesting facts. First,

that this gentleman qualified though he was to shine in ladies’ society,

never obtruded himself there, but employed his leisure time instead, in

walking the lower streets of the city, where he was seen more than

once conversing with certain poor girls at street corners and in blind

alleys. The last one he talked with, believed from her characteristics

to be the same one that was abducted from his house--”

“Hold there,” said Mr. Blake with some authority in his tone, “there you

are mistaken; that is impossible.”

“Ah, and why?”

“The girl you allude to had bright golden hair, something which the

woman who lived in my house did not possess.”

“Indeed. I thought you had never noticed the woman who sewed for you,

sir,--did not know how she looked?”

“I should have noticed her if she had had such hair as the girl you

speak of.”

Mr. Gryce smiled and opened his pocketbook.

“There is a sample of her hair, sir,” said he, taking out a thin strand

of brilliant hair and showing it to the gentleman before him. “Bright

you see, and golden as that of the unfortunate creature you talked with

the other night.”

Mr. Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly

trembled. “Where did you get this?” asked he at last, clenching it to

his breast with sudden passion.

“From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before.”

The imperious man flung it hastily from him.

“We waste our time,” said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face.

“All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor the

tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping back? I am

not a man to be trifled with.”

Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. “You are right,” said he, and he gave a

short glance in my direction. “All that I have said would not perhaps

justify me in this intrusion, if--” he looked again towards me. “Do you

wish me to continue?” he asked.

Mr. Blake’s intent look deepened. “I see no reason why you should not

utter the whole,” said he. “A good story loses nothing by being told

to the end. You wish to say something about my journey to Schoenmaker’s

house, I suppose.”

Mr. Gryce gravely shook his head.

“What, you can let such a mystery as that go without a word?”

“I am not here to discuss mysteries that have no connection with the

sewing-girl in whose cause I am interested.”

“Then,” said Mr. Blake, turning for the first time upon my superior with

all the dignified composure for which he was eminent, “it is no

longer necessary for us to prolong this interview. I have allowed, nay

encouraged you to state in the plainest terms what it was you had or

imagined you had against me, knowing that my actions of late, seen by

those who did not possess the key to them, must have seemed a little

peculiar. But when you say you have no interest in any mystery

disconnected with the girl who has lived the last few months in

my house, I can with assurance say that it is time we quitted this

unprofitable conversation, as nothing which I have lately done, said or

thought here or elsewhere has in any way had even the remotest bearing

upon that individual; she having been a stranger to me while in my

house, and quite forgotten by me, after her unaccountable departure

hence.”

Mr. Gryce’s hand which had been stretched out towards the hitherto

untouched decanter before him, suddenly dropped. “You deny then,” said

he, “all connection between yourself and the woman, lady or sewing-girl,

who occupied that room above our heads for eleven months previous to the

Sunday morning I first had the honor to make your acquaintance.”

“I am not in the habit of repeating my assertions,” said Mr. Blake with

some severity, “even when they relate to a less disagreeable matter than

the one under discussion.”

Mr. Gryce bowed, and slowly reached out for his hat; I had never seen

him so disturbed. “I am sorry,” he began and stopped, fingering his

hat-brim nervously. Suddenly he laid his hat back, and drew up his form

into as near a semblance of dignity as its portliness would allow.

“Mr. Blake,” said he, “I have too much respect for the man I believed

you to be when I entered this house to-night, to go with the thing

unsaid which is lying at present like a dead weight upon my lips. I dare

not leave you to the consequence of my silence; for duty will compel

me to speak some day and in some presence where you may not have

the opportunity which you can have here, to explain yourself with

satisfaction. Mr. Blake I cannot believe you when you say the girl who

lived in this house was a stranger to you.”

Mr. Blake drew his proud form up in a disdain that was only held in

check by the very evident honesty of the man before him. “You

are courageous at least,” said he. “I regret you are not equally

discriminating.” And raising Mr. Gryce’s hat he placed it in his hand.

“Pardon me,” said that gentleman, “I would like to justify myself before

I go. Not with words,” he proceeded as the other folded his arms with a

sarcastic bow. “I am done with words; action accomplishes the rest. Mr.

Blake I believe you consider me an honest officer and a reliable man.

Will you accompany me to your private room for a moment? There is

something there which may convince you I was neither playing the fool

nor the bravado when I uttered the phrase I did an instant ago.”

I expected to hear the haughty master of the house refuse a request so

peculiar. But he only bowed, though in a surprised way that showed

his curiosity if no more was aroused. “My room and company are at your

disposal,” said he, “but you will find nothing there to justify you in

your assertions.”

“Let me at least make the effort,” entreated my superior.

Mr. Blake smiling bitterly immediately led the way to the door. “The

man may come,” he remarked carelessly as Mr. Gryce waved his hand in my

direction. “Your justification if not mine may need witnesses.”

Rejoiced at the permission, for my curiosity was by this time raised to

fever pitch, I at once followed. Not without anxiety. The assured poise

of Mr. Blake’s head seemed to argue that the confidence betrayed by my

superior might receive a shock; and I felt it would be a serious blow

to his pride to fail now. But once within the room above, my doubts

speedily fled. There was that in Mr. Gryce’s face which anyone

acquainted with him could not easily mistake. Whatever might be

the mysterious something which the room contained, it was evidently

sufficient in his eyes to justify his whole conduct.

“Now sir,” said Mr. Blake, turning upon my superior with his sternest

expression, “the room and its contents are before you; what have you to

say for yourself.”

Mr. Gryce equally stern, if not equally composed, cast one of his

inscrutable glances round the apartment and without a word stepped

before the picture that was as I have said, the only ornamentation of

the otherwise bare and unattractive room.

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but his face was not one that

lightly expressed emotion.

“A portrait of my cousin the Countess De Mirac,” said he with a certain

dryness of tone hard to interpret.

Mr. Gryce bowed and for a moment stood looking with a strange lack of

interest at the proudly brilliant face of the painting before him, then

to our great amazement stepped forward and with a quick gesture turned

the picture rapidly to the wall, when--Gracious heavens! what a vision

started out before us from the reverse side of that painted canvas! No

luxurious brunette countenance now, steeped in pride and languor, but a

face--Let me see if I can describe it. But no, it was one of those faces

that are indescribable. You draw your breath as you view it; you feel as

if you had had an electric shock; but as for knowing ten minutes later

whether the eyes that so enthralled you were blue or black, or the locks

that clustered halo-like about a forehead almost awful in its expression

of weird, unfathomable power, were brown or red, you could not nor would

you pretend to say. It was the character of the countenance itself that

impressed you. You did not even know if this woman who might have been

anything wonderful or grand you ever read of, were beautiful or not. You

did not care; it was as if you had been gazing on a tranquil evening

sky and a lightning flash had suddenly startled you. Is the lightning

beautiful? Who asks! But I know from what presently transpired, that

the face was ivory pale in complexion, the eyes deeply dark, and the

hair,--strange and uncanny combination,--of a bright and peculiar golden

hue.

“You dare!” came forth in strange broken tones from Mr. Blake’s lips.

I instantly turned towards him. He was gazing with a look that was half

indignant, half menacing at the silent detective who with eyes drooped

and finger directed towards the picture, seemed to be waiting for him to

finish.

“I do not understand an audacity that allows you to--to--” Was this

the haughty gentleman we had known, this hesitating troubled man with

bloodless lips and trembling hands?

“I declared my desire to justify myself,” said my principal with a

respectful bow. “This is my justification. Do you note the color of the

woman’s hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the wall in

your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held in your hand

a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by hair from the comb

of the poor creature who occupied the room above. But that is not all,”

he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback; “just observe the dress

in which this woman is painted; blue silk you see, dark and rich; a wide

collar cunningly executed, you can almost trace the pattern; a brooch;

then the roses in the hand, do you see? Now come with me upstairs.”

Too much startled to speak, Mr. Blake, haughty aristocrat as he was,

turned like a little child and followed the detective who with an

assured step and unembarassed mien led the way into the deserted room

above.

“You accuse me of insulting you, when I express disbelief of your

assertion that there was no connection between you and the girl Emily,”

said Mr. Gryce as he lit the gas and unlocked that famous bureau drawer.

“Will you do so any longer in face of these?” And drawing off the towel

that lay uppermost, he revealed the neatly folded dress, wide collar,

brooch and faded roses that lay beneath. “Mrs. Daniels assures us these

articles belonged to the sewing-woman Emily; were brought here by her.

Dare you say they are not the ones reproduced in the portrait below?”

Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. “My God!

My God!” was his only reply, “what are these?” Suddenly he rose, his

whole form quivering, his eyes burning. “Where is Mrs. Daniels?” he

cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. “I must see her at once.

Send the house-keeper here,” he ordered as Fanny smiling demurely made

her appearance at the door.

“Mrs. Daniels is out,” returned the girl, “went out as soon as ever you

got up from dinner, sir.”

“Gone out at this hour?”

“Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir.”

Her master frowned. “Send her to me as soon as she returns,” he

commanded, and dismissed the girl.

“I don’t know what to make of this,” he now said in a strange tone,

approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer with

a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be strangely

commingled. “I cannot explain the presence of these articles in this

room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to make other

matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me to take anyone

into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me to hope any longer

to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns.”

CHAPTER XI. LUTTRA

“Gentlemen,” said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, “you

have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the

original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the

position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will no

longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture, strange

as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife.”

“Wife!” We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice which

spoke. “We were ignorant you ever had a wife.”

“No doubt,” continued our host smiling bitterly, “that at least has

evaded the knowledge even of the detectives.” Then with a return to

his naturally courteous manner, “She was never acknowledged by me as my

wife, nor have we ever lived together, but if priestly benediction can

make a man and woman one, that woman as you see her there is my lawful

wife.”

Rising, he softly turned the lovely, potent face back to the wall,

leaving us once more confronted by the dark and glowing countenance of

his cousin.

“I am not called upon,” said he, “to go any further with you than this.

I have told you what no man till this hour has ever heard from my lips,

and it should serve to exonerate me from any unjust suspicions you may

have entertained. But to one of my temperament, secret scandal and the

gossip it engenders is only less painful than open notoriety. If I leave

the subject here, a thousand conjectures will at once seize upon you,

and my name if not hers will become, before I know it, the football of

gossip if not of worse and deeper suspicion than has yet assailed me.

Gentleman I take you to be honest men; husbands, perhaps, and fathers;

proud, too, in your way and jealous of your own reputation and that of

those with whom you are connected. If I succeed in convincing you that

my movements of late have been totally disconnected with the girl whose

cause you profess solely to be interested in, may I count upon your

silence as regards those actions and the real motive that led to them?”

“You may count upon my discretion as regards all matters that do not

come under the scope of police duty,” returned Mr. Gryce. “I haven’t

much time for gossip.”

“And your man here?”

“O, he’s safe where it profits him to be.”

“Very well, then, I shall count upon you.”

And with the knitted brows and clinched hands of a proudly reticent

man who, perhaps for the first time in his life finds himself forced to

reveal his inner nature to the world, he began his story in these words:

“Difficult as it is for me to introduce into a relation like this the

name of my father, I shall be obliged to do so in order to make my

conduct at a momentous crisis of my life intelligible to you. My father,

then, was a man of strong will and a few but determined prejudices.

Resolved that I should sustain the reputation of the family for wealth

and respectability, he gave me to understand from my earliest years,

that as long as I preserved my manhood from reproach, I had only to make

my wishes known, to have them immediately gratified; while if I crossed

his will either by indulging in dissipation or engaging in pursuits

unworthy of my name, I no longer need expect the favor of his

countenance or the assistance of his purse.

“When, therefore, at a certain period of my life, I found that the

charms of my cousin Evelyn were making rather too strong an impression

upon my fancy for a secured peace of mind, I first inquired how such a

union would affect my father, and learning that it would be in direct

opposition to his views, cast about in my mind what I should do to

overcome my passion. Travel suggested itself, and I took a trip to

Europe. But the sight of new faces only awakened in me comparisons

anything but detrimental to the beauty of her who was at that time my

standard of feminine loveliness. Nature and the sports connected with a

wild life were my next resort. I went overland to California, roamed the

orange groves of Florida, and probed the wildernesses of Canada and

our Northern states. It was during these last excursions that an event

occurred which has exercised the most material influence upon my fate,

though at the time it seemed to me no more than the matter of a day.

“I had just returned from Canada and was resting in tolerable enjoyment

of a very beautiful autumn at Lake George, when a letter reached me

from a friend then loitering in the vicinity, urging me to join him in

a certain small town in Vermont where trout streams abounded and what is

not so often the case under the circumstances, fishers were few.

“Being in a somewhat reckless mood I at once wrote a consent, and before

another day was over, started for the remote village whence his letter

was postmarked. I found it by no means easy of access. Situated in the

midst of hills some twenty miles or so distant from any railroad, I

discovered that in order to reach it, a long ride in a stage-coach was

necessary, followed by a somewhat shorter journey on horseback. Not

being acquainted with the route, I timed my connections wrong, so that

when evening came I found myself riding over a strange road in the

darkest night I had ever known. As if this was not enough, my horse

suddenly began to limp and presently became so lame I found it

impossible to urge her beyond a slow walk. It was therefore with no

ordinary satisfaction that I presently beheld a lighted building in the

distance, which as I approached resolved itself into an inn. Stopping

in front of the house, which was closed against the chill night air,

I called out lustily for someone to take my horse, whereupon the door

opened and a man appeared on the threshold with a lantern in his hand. I

at once made my wishes known, receiving in turn a somewhat gruff,

“‘Well it is a nasty night and it will be nastier before it’s over;’ an

opinion instantly endorsed by a sudden swoop of wind that rushed by at

that moment, slamming the door behind him and awakening over my head a

lugubrious groaning as from the twisting boughs of some old tree, that

was almost threatening in its character.

“‘You had better go in,’ said he, ‘the rain will come next.’

“I at once leaped from my horse and pushing open the door with main

strength, entered the house. Another man met me on the threshold who

merely pointing over his shoulder to a lighted room in his rear, passed

out without a word, to help the somewhat younger man, who had first

appeared, in putting up my horse. I at once accepted his silent

invitation and stepped into the room before me. Instantly I found myself

confronted by the rather startling vision of a young girl of a unique

and haunting style of beauty, who rising at my approach now stood with

her eyes on my face and her hands resting on the deal table before which

she had been sitting, in an attitude expressive of mingled surprise

and alarm. To see a woman in that place was not so strange; but such

a woman! Even in the first casual glance I gave her, I at once

acknowledged to myself her extraordinary power. Not the slightness of

her form, the palor of her countenance, or the fairness of the locks of

golden red hair that fell in two long braids over her bosom, could for

a moment counteract the effect of her dark glance or the vivid almost

unearthly force of her expression. It was as if you saw a flame

upstarting before you, waving tremulously here and there, but burning

and resistless in its white heat. I took off my hat with deference.

“A shudder passed over her, but she made no effort to return my

acknowledgement. As we cast our eyes dilating with horror, down some

horrible pit upon whose verge we suddenly find ourselves, she allowed

her gaze for a moment to dwell upon my face, then with a sudden lifting

of her hand, pointed towards the door as if to bid me depart--when it

swung open with that shrill rushing of wind that involuntarily awakes a

shudder within you, and the two men entered and came stamping up to my

side. Instantly her hand sunk, not feebly as with fear, but calmly as if

at the bidding of her will, and without waiting for them to speak, she

turned away and quietly left the room. As the door closed upon her I

noticed that she wore a calico frock and that her face did not own one

perfect feature.

“‘Go after Luttra and tell her to make up the bed in the northwest

room,’ said the elder of the two in deep gutteral tones unmistakably

German in their accent, to the other who stood shaking the wet off his

coat into the leaping flames of a small wood fire that burned on the

hearth before us.

“‘O, she’ll do without my bothering,’ was the sullen return. ‘I’m wet

through.’

“The elder man, a large powerfully framed fellow of some fifty years or

so, frowned. It was an evil frown, and the younger one seemed to feel

it. He immediately tossed his coat onto a chair and left the room.

“‘Boys are so obstropolous now-a-days,’ remarked his companion to me

with what he evidently intended for a conciliatory nod. ‘In my time they

were broke in, did what they were told and asked no questions.’

“I smiled to myself at his calling the broad shouldered six-footer who

had just left us a boy, but merely remarking, ‘He is your son is he

not!’ seated myself before the blaze which shot up a tongue of white

flame at my approach, that irresistibly recalled to my fancy the

appearance of the girl who had gone out a moment before.

“‘O, yes, he is my son, and that girl you saw here was my daughter; I

keep this inn and they help me, but it is a slow way to live, I can tell

you. Travel on these roads is slim.’

“‘I should think likely,’ I returned, remembering the half dozen or so

hills up which I had clambered since I took to my horse. ‘How far are we

from Pentonville?’

“‘O, two or three miles,’ he replied, but in a hurried kind of a way.

‘Not far in the daytime but a regular journey in a night like this?’

“‘Yes,’ said I, as the house shook under a fresh gust; ‘it is fortunate

I have a place in which to put up.’

“He glanced down at my baggage which consisted of a small hand bag,

an over-coat and a fishing pole, with something like a gleam of

disappointment.

“‘Going fishing?’ he asked.

“‘Yes,’ I returned.

“‘Good trout up those streams and plenty of them,’ he went on. ‘Going

alone?’

“I did not half like his importunity, but considering I had nothing

better to do, replied as affably as possible. ‘No, I expect to meet a

friend in Pentonville who will accompany me.”

“His hand went to his beard in a thoughtful attitude and he cast me

what, with my increased experience of the world, I should now consider a

sinister glance. ‘Then you are expected?’ said he.

“Not considering this worth reply, I stretched out my feet to the blaze

and began to warm them, for I felt chilled through.

“‘Been on the road long?’ he now asked, glancing at the blue flannel

suit I wore.

“‘All summer,’ I returned,

“I again thought he looked disappointed.

“‘From Troy or New York?’ he went on with a vague endeavor to appear

good naturally off hand.

“‘New York.’

“‘A big place that,’ he continued. ‘I was there once, lots of money

stored away in them big buildings down in Wall Street, eh?’

“I assented, and he drew a chair up to my side, a proceeding that was

interrupted, however, by the reentrance of his son, who without any

apology crowded into the other side of the fire-place in a way to

sandwich me between them. Not fancying this arrangement which I,

however, imputed to ignorance, I drew back and asked if my room was

ready. It seemed it was not, and unpleasantly as it promised, I felt

forced to reseat myself and join in, if not support, the conversation

that followed.

“A half hour passed away, during which the wind increased till it almost

amounted to a gale. Spurts of rain dashed against the windows with a

sharp crackling sound that suggested hail, while ever and anon a distant

roll as of rousing thunder, rumbled away among the hills in a long and

reverberating peal, that made me feel glad to be housed even under the

roof of these rude and uncongenial creatures. Suddenly the conversation

turned upon the time and time-pieces, when in a low even tone I heard

murmured behind me,

“‘The gentleman’s room is ready;’ and turning, I saw standing in

the doorway the slight figure of the young girl whose appearance had

previously so impressed me.

“I immediately arose. ‘Then I will proceed to it at once,’ said I,

taking up my traps and advancing towards her.

“‘Do not be alarmed if you hear creaks and cracklings all over the

house,’ observed the landlord as I departed. ‘The windows are loose and

the doors ill-fitting. In such a storm as this they make noise enough

to keep an army awake. The house is safe enough though and if you don’t

mind noise--’

“‘O I don’t mind noise,’ rejoined I, feeling at that moment tired enough

to fall into a doze on the staircase. ‘I shall sleep, never fear,’ and

without further ado followed the girl upstairs into a large clumsily

furnished room whose enormous bed draped with heavy curtains at once

attracted my attention.

“‘O I cannot sleep under those things,’ remarked I, with a gesture

towards the dismal draperies which to me were another name for

suffocation.

“With a single arm-sweep she threw them back. ‘Is there anything more I

can do for you?’ asked she, glancing hastily about the room.

“I thanked her and said ‘no,’ at which she at once departed with a look

of still determination upon her countenance that I found it hard to

explain.

“Left alone in that large, bare and dimly lighted room, with the wind

shrieking in the chimney and the powerful limbs of some huge tree

beating against the walls without, with a heavy thud inexpressibly

mournful, I found to my surprise and something like dismay, that the

sleepiness which had hitherto oppressed me, had in some unaccountable

way entirely fled. In vain I contemplated the bed, comfortable enough

now in its appearance that the stifling curtains were withdrawn; no

temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I

had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some

invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me enchained.

I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of the wall as if

I half expected to encounter there the bewildering glance of a serpent.

Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I only wondered over the

weakness of mind that made such fancies possible.

“An extra loud swirl of the foliage without, accompanied by a quick

vibration of the house, aroused me at last. If I was to lose the sense

of this furious storm careering over my head, I must court sleep at

once. Rising, I drew off my coat, unloosened my vest and was about to

throw it off, when I bethought me of a certain wallet it contained.

Going to the door in some unconscious impulse of precaution I suppose, I

locked myself in, and then drawing out my wallet, took from it a roll of

bills which I put into a small side pocket, returning the wallet to its

old place.

“Why I did this I can scarcely say. As I have before intimated, I

was under no special apprehension. I was at that time anything but a

suspicious man, and the manner and appearance of the men below struck me

as unpleasantly disagreeable but nothing more. But I not only did what I

have related, but allowed the lamp to remain lighted, lying down finally

in my clothes; an almost unprecedented act on my part, warranted however

as I said to myself, by the fury of the gale which at that time seemed

as if it would tumble the roof over our heads.

“How long I lay listening to the creakings and groanings of the rickety

old house, I cannot say, nor how long I remained in the doze which

finally seized me as I became accustomed to the sounds around and over

me. Enough that before the storm had passed its height, I awoke as if at

the touch of a hand, and leaping with a bound out of the bed, beheld

to my incredible amazement, the alert, nervous form of Luttra standing

before me. She had my coat in her hand, and it was her touch that had

evidently awakened me.

“‘I want you to put this on,’ said she in a low thrilling tone totally

new in my experience, ‘and come with me. The house is unsafe for you to

remain in. Hear how it cracks and trembles. Another blast like that and

we shall be roofless.’

“She was moving toward the door, which to my amazement stood ajar, but

my hesitation stopped her.

“‘Won’t you come?’ she whispered, turning her face towards me with a

look of such potent determination, I followed in spite of myself ‘I dare

not let you stay here, your blood will be upon my head.’

“‘You exaggerate,’ I replied, shrinking back with a longing look at the

comfortable bed I had just left. ‘These old houses are always strong.

It will take many such a gust as that you hear, to overturn it, I assure

you.’

“‘I exaggerate!’ she returned with a look of scorn impossible to

describe. ‘Hark!’ she said, ‘hear that.’

“I did hear, and I must acknowledge that it seemed is if we were about

to be swept from our foundations.

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘but it is a fearful night to be out in.’

“‘I shall go with you,’ said she.

“‘In that case--’ I began with an ill-advised attempt at gallantry which

she cut short with a gesture.

“‘Here is your hat,’ remarked she, ‘and here is your bag. The

fishing-pole must remain, you cannot carry it.’

“‘But,--’ I expostulated.

“‘Hush!’ said she with her ear turned towards the depths of the

staircase at the top of which we stood. ‘My father and brother will

think as you do that it is folly to leave the shelter of a roof for the

uncertainties of the road on such a night as this, but you must not heed

them. I tell you shelter this night is danger, and that the only safety

to be found is on the stormy highway.’

“And without waiting for my reply, she passed rapidly down stairs,

pushed open a door at the bottom, and stepped at once into the room we

had left an hour or so before.

“What was there in that room that for the first time struck an ominous

chill as of distinct peril through my veins? Nothing at first sight,

everything at the second. The fire which had not been allowed to die

out, still burned brightly on the ruddy hearthstone, but it was not that

which awakened my apprehension. Nor was it the loud ticking clock on the

mantel-piece with its hand pointing silently to the hour of eleven. Nor

yet the heavy quiet of the scantily-furnished room with its one lamp

burning on the deal table against the side of the wall. It was the sight

of those two powerful men drawn up in grim silence, the one against the

door leading to the front hall, the other against that opening into the

kitchen.

“A glance at Luttra standing silent and undismayed at my side, however,

instantly reassured me. With that will exercised in my favor, I could

not but win through whatever it was that menaced me. Slinging my bag

over my shoulder, I made a move towards the door and the silent figure

of my host. But with a quick outreaching of her hand, she drew me back.

“‘Stand still!’ said she. ‘Karl,’ she went on, turning her face towards

the more sullen but less intent countenance of her brother, ‘open the

door and let this gentleman pass. He finds the house unsafe in such a

gale and desires to leave it. At once!’ she continued as her brother

settled himself more determinedly against the lock: ‘I don’t often ask

favors.’

“‘The man is a fool that wants to go out in a night like this,’ quoth

the fellow with a dogged move; ‘and so are you to encourage it. I think

too much of your health to allow it.’

“She did not seem to hear. ‘Will you open the door?’ she went on, not

advancing a step from the fire, before which she had placed herself and

me.’

“‘No, I won’t,’ was the brutal reply. ‘Its been locked for the night and

its not me nor one like me, that will open it.’

“With a sudden whitening of her already pale face, she turned towards

her father. He was not even looking at her.

“‘Some one must open the house,’ said she, glancing back at her brother.

‘This gentleman purposes to leave and his whim must be humored. Will you

unlock that door or shall I?’

“An angry snarl interrupted her. Her father had bounded from the door

where he stood and was striding hastily towards her. In my apprehension

I put up my arm for a shield, for he looked ready to murder her, but

I let it drop again as l caught her glance which was like white flame

undisturbed by the least breeze of personal terror.

“‘You will stop there,’ said she, pointing to a spot a few feet from

where she stood. ‘Another step and I let that for which I have heard

you declare you would peril your very soul, fall into the heart of the

flames.’ And drawing from her breast a roll of bills, she stretched them

out above the fire before which she was standing.

“‘You -----’ broke from the gray-bearded lips of the old man, but he

stopped where he was, eyeing those bills as if fascinated.

“‘I am not a girl of many words, as you know,’ continued she in a lofty

tone inexpressibly commanding. ‘You may strangle me, you may kill me,

it matters little; but this gentleman leaves the house this night, or I

destroy the money with a gesture.’

“‘You -----’ again broke from those quivering lips, but the old man did

not move.

“Not so the younger. With a rush he left his post and in another instant

would have had his powerful arms about her slender form, only that I

met him half way with a blow that laid him on the floor at her feet.

She said nothing, but one of the bills immediately left her hand and

fluttered into the fire where it instantly shrivelled into nothing.

“With the yell of a mad beast wounded in his most vulnerable spot, the

old man before us stamped with his heel upon the floor.

“‘Stop!’ cried he; and going rapidly to the front door he opened it.

‘There!’ shrieked he, ‘if you will be fools, go! and may the lightning

blast you. But first give me the money.’

“‘Come from the door,’ said she, reaching out her left hand for the

lantern hanging at the side of the fireplace, ‘and let Karl light this

and keep himself out of the way.’

“It was all done. In less time than I can tell it, the old man had

stepped from the door, the younger one had lit the lantern and we were

in readiness to depart.

“‘Now do you proceed,’ said she to me, ‘I will follow.’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘we will go together.’

“‘But the money?’ growled the heavy voice of my host over my shoulder.

“‘I will give it to you on my return,’ said the girl.”

CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN’S LOVE

“Shall I ever forget the blast of driving rain that struck our faces and

enveloped us in a cloud of wet, as the door swung on its hinges and let

us forth into the night; or the electric thrill that shot through me as

that slender girl grasped my hand and drew me away through the blinding

darkness. It was not that I was so much affected by her beauty as

influenced by her power and energy. The fury of the gale seemed to bend

to her will, the wind lend wings to her feet. I began to realize what

intellect was. Arrived at the roadside, she paused and looked back. The

two burly forms of the men we had left behind us were standing in the

door of the inn; in another moment they had plunged forth and towards

us. With a low cry the young girl leaped towards a tree where to

my unbounded astonishment I beheld my horse standing ready saddled.

Dragging the mare from her fastenings, she hung the lantern, burning as

it was, on the pommel of the saddle, struck the panting creature a smart

blow upon the flank, and drew back with a leap to my side.

“The startled horse snorted, gave a plunge of dismay and started away

from us down the road.

“‘We will wait,’ said Luttra.

“The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her father and brother

rushed by.

“‘They will follow the light,’ whispered she; and seizing me again by

the hand, she hurried me away in the direction opposite to that

which the horse had taken. ‘If you will trust me, I will bring you to

shelter,’ she murmured, bending her slight form to the gusty wind but

relaxing not a whit of her speed.

“‘You are too kind,’ I murmured in return. ‘Why should you expose

yourself to such an extent for a stranger?’

“Her hand tightened on mine, but she did not reply, and we hastened

on as speedily as the wind and rain would allow. After a short but

determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly

failed me, she suddenly stopped.

“‘Do you know,’ she exclaimed in a low impressive tone, ‘that we are on

the verge of a steep and dreadful precipice? It runs along here for a

quarter of a mile and it is not an uncommon thing for a horse and rider

to be dashed over it in a night like this.’

“There was something in her manner that awakened a chill in my veins

almost as if she had pointed out some dreadful doom which I had

unwittingly escaped.

“‘This is, then, a dangerous road,’ I murmured.

“‘Very,’ was her hurried and almost incoherent reply.

“How far we travelled through the mud and tangled grasses of that

horrible road I do not know. It seemed a long distance; it was probably

not more than three quarters of a mile. At last she paused with a short

‘Here we are;’ and looking up, I saw that we were in front of a small

unlighted cottage.

“No refuge ever appeared more welcome to a pair of sinking wanderers I

am sure. Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with breasting

the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain our breath,

then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker and struck a

smart blow on the door.

“‘We will find shelter here,’ said she.

“She was not mistaken. In a few moments we were standing once more

before a comfortable fire hastily built by the worthy couple whose

slumbers we had thus interrupted. As I began to realize the sweetness of

conscious safety, all that this young, heroic creature had done for me

swept warmly across my mind. Looking up from the fire that was beginning

to infuse its heat through my grateful system, I surveyed her as she

slowly undid her long braids and shook them dry over the blaze, and

almost started to see how young she was. Not more than sixteen I should

say, and yet what an invincible will shone from her dark eyes and

dignified her slender form; a will gentle as it was strong, elevated

as it was unbending. I bowed my head as I watched her, in grateful

thankfulness which I presently put into words.

“At once she drew herself erect. ‘I did but my duty,’ said she quietly.

‘I am glad I was prospered in it.’ Then slowly. ‘If you are grateful,

sir, will you promise to say nothing of--of what took place at the inn?’

“Instantly I remembered a suspicion which had crossed my mind while

there, and my hand went involuntarily to my vest pocket. The roll of

bills was gone.

“She did not falter. ‘I would be relieved if you would,’ continued she.

“I drew out my empty hand, looked at it, but said nothing.

“‘Have you lost anything?’ asked she. ‘Search in your overcoat pockets.’

“I plunged my hand into the one nearest her and drew it out with

satisfaction; the roll of bills was there. ‘I give you my promise,’ said

I.

“‘You will find a bill missing,’ she murmured; ‘for what amount I do not

know; the sacrifice of something was inevitable.’

“‘I can only wonder over the ingenuity you displayed, as well as express

my appreciation for your bravery,’ returned I with enthusiasm. ‘You are

a noble girl.’

“She put out her hand as if compliments hurt her. ‘It is the first time

they have ever attempted anything like that,’ cried she in a quick low

tone full of shame and suffering. ‘They have shown a disposition to--to

take money sometimes, but they never threatened life before. And they

did threaten yours. They saw you take out your money, through a hole

pierced in the wall of the room you occupied, and the sight made them

mad. They were going to kill you and then tumble you and your horse over

the precipice below there. But I overheard them talking and when they

went out to saddle the horse, I hurried up to your room to wake you. I

had to take possession of the bills; you were not safe while you held

them. I took them quietly because I hoped to save you without betraying

them. But I failed in that. You must remember they are my father and my

brother.’

“‘I will not betray them,’ said I.

“She smiled. It was a wintry gleam but it ineffably softened her face. I

became conscious of a movement of pity towards her.

“‘You have a hard lot,’ remarked I. ‘Your life must be a sad one.’

“She flashed upon me one glance of her dark eye. ‘I was born for

hardship,’ said she, ‘but--’ and a sudden wild shudder seized her, ‘but

not for crime.’

“The word fell like a drop of blood wrung from her heart.

“‘Good heavens!’ cried I, ‘and must you--’

“‘No,’ rang from her lips in a clarion-like peal; ‘some things cut the

very bonds of nature. I am not called upon to cleave to what will drag

me into infamy.’ Then calmly, as if speaking of the most ordinary matter

in the world, ‘I shall never go back to that house we have left behind

us, sir.’

“‘But,’ cried I, glancing at her scanty garments, ‘where will you go?

What will you do? You are young--’

“‘And very strong,’ she interrupted. ‘Do not fear for me.’ And her smile

was like a burst of sudden sunshine.

“I said no more that night.

“But when in the morning I stumbled upon her sitting in the kitchen

reading a book not only above her position but beyond her years,

a sudden impulse seized me and I asked her if she would like to be

educated. The instantaneous illumining of her whole face was sufficient

reply without her low emphatic words,

“‘I would be content to study on my knees to know what some women do,

whom I have seen.’

“It is not necessary for me to relate with what pleasure I caught at

the idea that here was a chance to repay in some slight measure the

inestimable favor she had done me; nor by what arguments I finally won

her to accept an education at my hands as some sort of recompense for

the life she had saved. The advantage which it would give her in her

struggle with the world she seemed duly to appreciate, but that so

great a favor could be shown her without causing me much trouble and an

unwarrantable expense, she could not at once be brought to comprehend,

and till she could, she held out with that gentle but inflexible will of

hers. The battle, however, was won at last and I left her in that little

cottage, with the understanding that as soon as the matter could be

arranged, she was to enter a certain boarding-school in Troy with the

mistress of which I was acquainted. Meanwhile she was to go out to

service at Melville and earn enough money to provide herself with

clothes.

“I was a careless fellow in those days but I kept my promise to that

girl. I not only entered her into that school for a course of three

years, but acting through its mistress who had taken a great fancy to

her, supplied her with the necessities her position required. It was so

easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was

done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any personal

sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the labor of a

thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to the city my

interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an extent that any

matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for me.

“Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no

engagement between us. My father’s determined opposition was enough to

prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped would

one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my father.

Sick as he was--he was at that time laboring under the disease which in

a couple of months later bore him to the tomb--he kept an eye upon my

movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At last he came to a

definite decision and spoke.

“His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child, as

he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to leave

me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed disposed

to commit one of those acts against which he had the most determined

prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an unsanctified

and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the most unhappy. If I

persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The Blake estate should

never descend with the seal of his approbation to a race of probable

imbeciles.

“Nor was this enough. He not only robbed me of the woman I loved,

but with a clear insight into the future, I presume, insisted upon

my marrying some one else of respectability and worth before he died.

‘Anyone whose appearance will do you credit and whose virtue is beyond

reproach,’ said he. ‘I don’t ask her to be rich or even the offspring of

one of our old families. Let her be good and pure and of no connection

to us, and I will bless her and you with my dying breath.’

“The idea had seized upon him with great force, and I soon saw he was

not to be shaken out of it. To all my objections he returned but the one

word,

“‘I don’t restrict your choice and I give you a month in which to

make it. If at the end of that time you cannot bring your bride to my

bedside, I must look around for an heir who will not thwart my dying

wishes.’”

“A month! I surveyed the fashionable belles that nightly thronged the

parlors of my friends and felt my heart sink within me. Take one of them

for my wife, loving another woman? Impossible. Women like these demanded

something in return for the honor they conferred upon a man by marrying

him. Wealth? they had it. Position? that was theirs also. Consideration?

ah, what consideration had I to give? I turned from them with distaste.

“My cousin Evelyn gave me no help. She was a proud woman and loved my

money and my expectations as much as she did me.

“‘If you must marry another woman to retain your wealth, marry, said

she, ‘but do not marry one of my associates. I will have no rival in my

own empire; your wife must be a plainer and a less aspiring woman than

Evelyn Blake. Yet do not discredit your name,--which is mine,’ she would

always add.

“Meanwhile the days flew by. If my own conscience had allowed me to

forget the fact, my father’s eagerly inquiring, but sternly unrelenting

gaze as I came each evening to his bedside, would have kept it

sufficiently in my mind. I began to feel like one in the power of

some huge crushing machine whose slowly descending weight he in vain

endeavors to escape.

“How or when the thought of Luttra first crossed my mind I cannot

say. At first I recoiled at the suggestion and put it away from me in

disdain; but it ever recurred and with it so many arguments in her favor

that before long I found myself regarding it as a refuge. To be sure she

was a waif and a stray, but that seemed to be the kind of wife demanded

of me. She was allied to rogues if not villains, I knew; but then had

she not cut all connection with them, dropped away from them, planted

her feet on new ground which they would never invade? I commenced to

cherish the idea. With this friendless, grateful, unassuming protegee of

mine for a wife, I would be as little bound as might be. She would

ask nothing, and I need give nothing, beyond a home and the common

attentions required of a gentleman and a friend. Then she was not

disagreeable, nor was her beauty of a type to suggest the charms of

her I had lost. None of the graces of the haughty patrician lady whose

lightest gesture was a command, would appear in this humble girl, to

mock and constrain me. No, I should have a fair wife and an obedient

one, but no vulgarized shadow of Evelyn, thank God, or of any of her

fashionably dressed friends.

“Advanced thus far towards the end, I went to see Luttra. I had not

beheld her since the morning we parted at the door of that little

cottage in Vermont, and her presence caused me a shock. This, the humble

waif with the appealing grateful eyes I had expected to encounter? this

tall and slender creature with an aureola of golden hair about a face

that it was an education to behold! I felt a half movement of anger as I

surveyed her. I had been cheated; I had planted a grape seed and a palm

tree had sprung up in its place. I was so taken aback, my salute lost

something of the benevolent condescension I had intended to infuse into

it. She seemed to feel my embarassment and a half smile fluttered to

her lips. That smile decided me. It was sweet but above all else it was

appealing.

“How I won that woman to marry me in ten days time I care not to

state. Not by holding up my wealth and position before her. Something

restrained me from that. I was resolved, and perhaps it was the only

point of light in my conduct at that time, not to buy this young girl. I

never spoke of my expectations, I never alluded to my present advantages

yet I won her.

“We were married, there, in Troy in the quietest and most unpretending

manner. Why the fact has never transpired I cannot say. I certainly took

no especial pains to conceal it at the time, though I acknowledge

that after our separation I did resort to such measures as I thought

necessary, to suppress what had become gall and wormwood to my pride.

“My first move after the ceremony was to bring her immediately to New

York and to this house. With perhaps a pardonable bitterness of spirit,

I had refrained from any notification of my intentions, and it was as

strangers might enter an unprepared dwelling, that we stepped across the

threshold of this house and passed immediately to my father’s room.

“‘I can give you no wedding and no honeymoon,’ I had told her. ‘My

father is dying and demands my care. From the altar to a death-bed may

be sad for you, but it is an inevitable condition of your marriage with

me.’ And she had accepted her fate with a deep unspeakable smile it has

taken me long months of loneliness and suffering to understand.

“‘Father, I bring you my bride,’ were my first words to him as the door

closed behind us shutting us in with the dread, invisible Presence that

for so long a time had been relentlessly advancing upon our home.

“I shall never forget how he roused himself in his bed, nor with what

eager eyes he read her young face and surveyed her slight form swaying

towards him in her sudden emotion like a flame in a breeze. Nor while I

live shall I lose sight of the spasm of uncontrollable joy with which

he lifted his aged arms towards her, nor the look with which she sprang

from my side and nestled, yes nestled, on the breast that never to my

remembrance had opened itself to me even in the years of my earliest

childhood. For my father was a stern man who believed in holding love at

arm’s length and measured affection by the depth of awe it inspired.

“‘My daughter!’ broke from his lips, and he never inquired who she was

or what; no, not even when after a moment of silence she raised her head

and with a sudden low cry of passionate longing looked in his face and

murmured,

“‘I never had a father.’

“Sirs, it is impossible for me to continue without revealing depths

of pride and bitterness in my own nature, from which I now shrink with

unspeakable pain. So far from being touched by this scene, I felt myself

grow hard under it. If he had been disappointed in my choice, queried

at it or even been simply pleased at my obedience, I might have accepted

the wife I had won, and been tolerably grateful. But to love her, admire

her, glory in her when Evelyn Blake had never succeeded in winning a

glance from his eyes that was not a public disapprobation! I could

not endure it; my whole being rebelled, and a movement like hate took

possession of me.

“Bidding my wife to leave me with my father alone, I scarcely waited

for the door to close upon the poor young thing before all that had been

seething in my breast for a month, burst from me in the one cry,

“‘I have brought you a daughter as you commanded me. Now give me the

blessing you promised and let me go; for I cannot live with a woman I do

not love.’

“Instantly, and before his lips could move, the door opened and the

woman I thus repudiated in the first dawning hour of her young bliss,

stood before us. My God! what a face! When I think of it now in the

night season--when from dreams that gloomy as they are, are often

elysian to the thoughts which beset me in my waking hours, I suddenly

arouse to see starting upon me from the surrounding shadows that young

fair brow with its halo of golden tresses, blotted, ay blotted by the

agony that turned her that instant into stone, I wonder I did not take

out the pistol that lay in the table near which I stood, and shoot her

lifeless on the spot as some sort of a compensation for the misery I had

caused her. I say I wonder now: then I only thought of braving it out.

“Straight as a dart, but with that look on her face, she came towards

us. ‘Did I hear aright?’ were the words that came from her lips. ‘Have

you married me, a woman beneath your station as I now perceive, because

you were commanded to do so? Have you not loved me? given me that which

alone makes marriage a sacrament or even a possibility? and must you

leave this house made sacred by the recumbent form of your dying father

if I remain within it?’

“I saw my father’s stiff and pallid lips move silently as though

he would answer for me if he could, and summoning up what courage I

possessed, I told her that I deeply regretted she had overheard my

inconsiderate words. That I had never meant to wound her, whatever

bitterness lay in my heart towards one who had thwarted me in my dearest

and most cherished hopes. That I humbly begged her pardon and would so

far acknowledge her claim upon me as to promise that I would not leave

my home at this time, if it distressed her; my desire being not to

injure her, only to protect myself.

“O the scorn that mounted to her brow at these weak words. Not scorn of

me, thank God, worthy as I was of it that hour, but scorn of my slight

opinion of her.

“‘Then I heard aright,’ she murmured, and waited with a look that would

not be gainsaid.

“I could only bow my head, cursing the day I was born.

“‘Holman! Holman!’ came in agonized entreaty from the bed, ‘you will not

rob me of my daughter now?’

“Startled, I looked up. Luttra was half way to the door.

“‘What are you going to do?’ cried I, bounding towards her.

“She stopped me with a look. ‘The son must never forsake the father,’

said she. ‘If either of us must leave the house this day, let it be I.’

Then in a softer tone, ‘When you asked me to be your wife, I who had

worshipped you from the moment you entered my father’s house on the

memorable night I left it, was so overcome at your condescension that

I forgot you did not preface it by the usual passionate, ‘I love you,’

which more than the marriage ring binds two hearts together. In the

glamour and glow of my joy, I did not see that the smile that was in my

heart, was missing from your face. I was to be your wife and that was

enough, or so I thought then, for I loved you. Ah, and I do now, my

husband, love you so that I leave you. Were it for your happiness I

would do more than that, I would give you back your freedom, but from

what I hear, it seems that you need a wife in name and I will be but

fulfilling your desire in holding that place for you. I will never

disgrace the position high as it is above my poor deserts. When the day

comes--if the day comes--that you need or feel you need the sustainment

of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on earth save that

of death itself, shall keep me from your side. Till that day arrives I

remain what you have made me, a bride who lays no claim to the name

you this morning bestowed upon her.’ And with a gesture that was like a

benediction, she turned, and noiselessly, breathlessly as a dream that

vanishes, left the room.

“Sirs, I believe I uttered a cry and stumbled towards her. Some one in

that room uttered a cry, but it may be that it only rose in my heart and

that the one I heard came from my father’s lips. For when at the door

I turned, startled at the deathly silence, I saw he had fainted on his

pillow. I could not leave him so. Calling to Mrs. Daniels, who was never

far from my father in those days, I bade her stop the lady--I believe

I called her my wife--who was going down the stairs, and then rushed to

his side. It took minutes to revive him. When he came to himself it was

to ask for the creature who had flashed like a beacon of light upon his

darkening path. I rose as if to fetch her but before I could advance I

heard a voice say, ‘She is not here,’ and looking up I saw Mrs. Daniels

glide into the room.

“‘Mrs. Blake has gone, sir, I could not keep her.’”

CHAPTER XIII. A MAN’S HEART

“That was the last time my eyes ever rested upon my wife. Whither she

went or what refuge she gained, I never knew. My father who had received

in this scene a great shock, began to fail so rapidly, he demanded my

constant care; and though from time to time as I ministered to him and

noted with what a yearning persistency he would eye the door and then

turn and meet my gaze with a look I could not understand, I caught

myself asking whether I had done a deed destined to hang forever about

me like a pall; it was not till after his death that the despairing

image of the bright young creature to whom I had given my name, returned

with any startling distinctness to my mind, or that I allowed myself to

ask whether the heavy gloom which I now felt settling upon me was owing

to the sense of shame that overpowered me at the remembrance of the

past, or to the possible loss I had sustained in the departure of my

young unloved bride.

“The announcement at this time of the engagement between Evelyn Blake

and the Count De Mirac may have had something to do with this. Though I

had never in the most passionate hours of my love for her, lost sight of

that side of her nature which demanded as her right the luxury of great

wealth; and though in my tacit abandonment of her and secret marriage

with another I had certainly lost the right to complain of her actions

whatever they might be, this manifest surrendering of herself to the

power of wealth and show at the price of all that women are believed to

hold dear, was an undoubted blow to my pride and the confidence I

had till now unconsciously reposed in her inherent womanliness and

affection. That she had but made on a more conspicuous scale, the same

sacrifice as myself to the god of Wealth and Position, was in my eyes

at that time, no palliation of her conduct. I was a man none too good

or exalted at the best; she, a woman, should have been superior to the

temptations that overpowered me. That she was not, seemed to drag all

womanhood a little nearer the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to

say, for somehow even at that early day her conduct did not seem to

affect the vivid image of Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of

her joy but burning with a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,

“‘I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave

you. When the day comes--if the day comes--you need or feel you need

the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power on

earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.’

“Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face and

that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not to my

relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all that had

occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate resentment.

I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to the world would

cause me the bitterest shame. For by this time the true character of

her father and brother had been revealed and I found myself bound to the

daughter of a convicted criminal.

“But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was

branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me, till

to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that means I

might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.

“The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an

artist’s touch and insight that under other circumstances might,

perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the

execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my

somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush,

startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my

mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from

rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden

hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the

inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his

time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my

first manhood.

“At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in

the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be

forgotten moment. Even the roses which in the secret uneasiness of my

conscience I had put in her hand on our departure from Troy, as a sort

of visible token that I regarded her as my bride, and which through all

her interview with my father she had never dropped, blossomed before

me on the canvas. Nothing that could give reality to the likeness,

was lacking; the vision of my dreams stood embodied in my sight, and I

looked for peace. Alas, that picture now became my dream.

“Inserting it behind that of Evelyn which for two years had held its

place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in

the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the months

passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world grew a

little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the ages beat

a trifle too loudly on heart and brain.

“Meanwhile no word of her, only of her villainous father and brother; no

token that she had escaped evil or was removed from want. If I had loved

her I could not have succored her, for I did not know where to find her.

Her countenance illumined my wall, but her fair young self lay for all I

knew sheltered within the darkness and silence of the tomb.

“At length my morbid broodings worked out their natural result. A dull

melancholy settled upon me which nothing could break. Even the news that

my cousin who had lost her husband a month after marriage, had returned

to America with expectation to remain, scarcely caused a ripple in my

apathy. Was I sinking into a hypochrondriac? or was my passion for the

beautiful brunette dead? I determined to solve the doubt.

“Seeking her where I knew she would be found, I gazed again upon her

beauty. It was absolutely nothing to me. A fair young face with high

thoughts in every glance floated like sunshine between us and I left the

haughty Countess, with the knowledge burned deep into my brain, that the

love I had considered slain was alive and demanding, but that the object

of it past recall, was my lost young wife.

“Once assured of this, my apathy vanished like mist before a kindled

torch. Henceforth the future held a hope, and life a purpose. I would

seek my wife throughout the world and bring her back if I found her

in prison between the men whose existence was a curse to my pride. But

where should I turn my steps? What golden thread had she left in my hand

by which to trace her through the labyrinth of this world? I could think

of but one, and that was the love which would restrain her from going

away from me too far. The Luttra of old would not leave the city where

her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to be able to find

her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours. Wisdom told me to

set the police upon her track, but pride bade me try every other means

first. So with the feverish energy of one leading a forlorn hope, I

began to pace the streets if haply I might see her face shine upon me

from the crowd of passers by; a foolish fancy, unproductive of result! I

not only failed to see her, but anyone like her.

“In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought flashed

across me or rather a remembrance. One night not long since, being

uncommonly restless, I had risen from my bed, dressed me and gone out

into the yard back of my house for a little air. It was an unusual thing

for me to do but I seemed to be suffocating where I was, and nothing

else would satisfy me. As you already surmise, it was the night on which

disappeared the sewing girl of which you have so often spoken, but I

knew nothing of that, my thoughts were far from my own home and its

concerns. You may judge what a state of mind I was in when I tell you

that I even thought at one moment while I paused before the gate leading

into ---- Street that I saw the face of her with whom my thoughts were

ever busy, peering upon me through the bars.

“You tell me that I did see a girl there, and that it was the one who

had lived as sewing woman in my house; it may be so, but at the time I

considered it a vision of my wife, and the remembrance of it, coming as

it did after my repeated failures to encounter her in the street, worked

a change in my plans. For regard it as weakness or not, the recollection

that the vision I had seen wore the garments of a working-woman rather

than a lady, acted upon me like a warning not to search for her any

longer among the resorts of the well-dressed, but in the regions of

poverty and toil. I therefore took to wanderings such as I have no heart

to describe. Nor do I need to, if, as you have informed me, I have been

followed.

“The result was almost madness. Though deep in my heart I felt a

steadfast trust in the purity of her intentions, the fear of what she

might have been driven to by the awful poverty and despair I every day

saw seething about me, was like hot steel in brain and heart. Then her

father and her brother! To what might they not have forced her, innocent

and loving soul though she was! Drinking the dregs of a cup such as I

had never considered it possible for me to taste, I got so far as to

believe that her eyes would yet flash upon me from beneath some of the

tattered shawls I saw sullying the forms of the young girls upon which I

hourly stumbled. Yes, and even made a move to see my cousin, if haply I

could so win upon her compassion as to gain her consent to shelter the

poor creature of my dreams in case the necessity came. But my heart

failed me at the sight of her cold face above the splendor she had

bought with her charms, and I was saved a humiliation I might never have

risen above.

“At last, one day I saw a girl--no, it was not she, but her hair was

similar to hers in hue, and the impulse to follow her was irresistible.

I did more than that, I spoke to her. I asked her if she could tell me

anything of one whose locks were golden red like hers--But I need not

tell you what I said nor what she replied with a gentle delicacy that

was almost a shock to me as showing from what heights to what depths a

woman can fall. Enough that nothing passed between us beyond what I have

intimated, and that in all she said she gave me no news of Luttra.

“Next day I started for the rambling old house in Vermont, if haply

in the spot where I first saw her, I might come upon some clue to her

present whereabouts. But the old inn was deserted, and whatever hope I

may have had in that direction, perished with the rest.

“Concerning the contents of that bureau-drawer above, I can say nothing.

If, as I scarcely dare to hope, they should prove to have been indeed

brought here by the girl who has since disappeared so strangely, who

knows but what in those folded garments a clue is given which will lead

me at last to the knowledge for which I would now barter all I possess.

My wife--But I can mention her name no more till the question that now

assails us is set at rest. Mrs. Daniels must--”

But at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Daniels came in.

CHAPTER XIV. MRS. DANIELS

She still wore her bonnet and shawl and her face was like marble.

“You want me?” said she with a hurried look towards Mr. Blake that had

as much fear as surprise in it.

“Yes,” murmured that gentleman moving towards her with an effort we

could very well appreciate. “Mrs. Daniels, who was the girl you harbored

in that room above us for so long? Speak; what was her name and where

did she come from?”

The housekeeper trembling in every limb, cast us one hurried appeal.

“Speak!” reechoed Mr. Gryce; “the time for secrecy has passed.”

“O,” cried she, sinking into a chair from sheer inability to stand, “it

was your wife, Mr. Blake, the young creature you--”

“Ah!”

All the agony, the hopelessness, the love, the passion of those last few

months flashed up in that word. She stopped as if she had been shot, but

seeing the hand which he had hurriedly raised, fall slowly before him,

went on with a burst,

“O sir, she made me swear on my knees I would never betray her, no

matter what happened. When not two weeks after your father died she came

to the house and asking for me, told me all her story and all her love;

how she could not reconcile it with her idea of a wife’s duty to live

under any other roof than that of her husband, and lifting off the black

wig which she wore, showed me how altered she had made herself by that

simple change--in her case more marked by the fact that her eyes were

in keeping with black hair, while with her own bright locks they always

gave you a shock as of something strange and haunting--I gave up my will

as if forced by a magnetic power, and not only opened the house to her

but my heart as well; swearing to all she demanded and keeping my oath

too, as I would preserve my soul from sin and my life from the knife of

the destroyer.”

“But, when she went,” broke from the pallid lips of the man before her,

“when she was taken away from the house, what then?”

“Ah,” returned the agitated woman, “what then! Do you not think I

suffered? To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would wish

kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was drifting

away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would give your

life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent head! To see you

cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while she, who would have

perished any day for your happiness, was losing her life perhaps in the

clutches of those horrible villains! Do not ask me to tell you what I

have suffered since she went; I can never tell you,--innocent, tender,

noble-hearted creature that she was.”

“Was?” His hand clutched his heart as if it had been seized by a deathly

spasm. “Why do you say was?”

“Because I have just come from the Morgue where she lies dead.”

“No, no,” came in a low shriek from his lips, “that is not she; that is

another woman, like her perhaps, but not she.”

“Would to God you were right; but the long golden braids! Such hair as

hers I never saw on anyone before.”

“Mr. Blake is right,” I broke in, for I could not endure this scene any

longer. “The woman taken out of the East river to-day has been both seen

and spoken to by him and that not long since. He should know if it is

his wife.”

“And isn’t it?”

“No, a thousand times no; the girl was a perfect stranger.”

The assurance seemed to lift a leaden weight from her heart. “O thank

God,” she murmured dropping with an irresistible impulse on her knees.

Then with a sudden return of her old tremble, “But I was only to reveal

her secret in case of her death! What have I done, O what have I done!

Her only hope lay in my faithfulness.”

Mr. Blake leaning heavily on the table before him, looked in her face.

“Mrs. Daniels,” said he, “I love my wife; her hope now lies in me.”

She leaped to her feet with a joyous bound. “You love her? O thank God!”

she again reiterated but this time in a low murmur to her self. “Thank

God!” and weeping with unrestrained joy, she drew back into a corner.

Of course after that, all that remained for us to do was to lay our

heads together and consult as to the best method of renewing our search

after the unhappy girl, now rendered of double interest to us by the

facts with which we had just been made acquainted. That she had been

forced away from the roof that sheltered her by the power of her father

and brother was of course no longer open to doubt. To discover them,

therefore, meant to recover her. Do you wonder, then, that from the

moment we left Mr. Blake’s house, the capture of that brace of thieves

became the leading purpose of our two lives?

CHAPTER XV. A CONFAB

Next morning Mr. Gryce and I met in serious consultation. How, and in

what direction should we extend the inquiries necessary to a discovery

of these Schoenmakers?

“I advise a thorough overhauling of the German quarter,” said my

superior. “Schmidt, and Rosenthal will help us and the result ought to

be satisfactory.”

But I shook my head at this. “I don’t believe,” said I, “that they will

hide among their own people. You must remember they are not alone, but

have with them a young woman of a somewhat distinguished appearance,

whose presence in a crowded district, like that, would be sure to awaken

gossip; something which above all else they must want to avoid.”

“That is true; the Germans are a dreadful race for gossip.”

“If they dared to ill-dress her or ill-treat her, it would be different.

But she is a valuable piece of property to them you see, a choice lot

of goods which it is for their interest to preserve in first-class

condition till the day comes for its disposal. For I presume you have no

doubt that it is for the purpose of extorting money from Mr. Blake that

they have carried off his young wife.”

“For that reason or one similar. He is a man of resources, they may have

hoped he would help them to escape the country.”

“If they don’t hide in the German quarter they certainly won’t in the

Italian, French or Irish. What they want is too keep close and rouse

no questions. I think they will be found to have gone up the river

somewhere, or over to Jersey. Hoboken would’nt be a bad place to send

Schmidt to.”

“You forget what it is they’ve got on their minds; besides no

conspicuous party such as they could live in a rural district without

attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in the

city.”

“Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go?”

“Well my most matured thought on the subject,” returned Mr. Gryce, after

a moment’s deliberation, “is this,--you say, and I agree, that they

have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the purpose of

using her hereafter in a scheme of black-mail upon Mr. Blake. He, then,

must be the object about which their thoughts revolve and toward which

whatever operations or plans they may be engaged upon must tend. What

follows? When a company of men have made up their minds to rob a bank,

what is the first thing they do? They hire, if possible, a house next to

the especial building they intend to enter, and for months work upon

the secret passage through which they hope to reach the safe and

its contents; or they make friends with the watchman that guards its

treasures, and the janitor who opens and shuts the doors. In short they

hang about their prey before they pounce upon it. And so will these

Schoenmakers do in the somewhat different robbery which they plan sooner

or later to effect. Whatever may keep them close at this moment, Mr.

Blake and Mr. Blake’s house is the point toward which their eyes are

turned, and if we had time--”

“But we have’nt,” I broke in impetuously. “It is horrible to think of

that grand woman languishing away in the power of such rascals.”

“If we had time,” Mr. Gryce persisted, “all it would be necessary to do

would be to wait, they would come into our hands as easily and naturally

as a hawk into the snare of the fowler. But as you say we have not, and

therefore, I would recommend a little beating of the bush directly about

Mr. Blake’s house; for if all my experience is not at fault, those men

are already within eye-shot of the prey they intend to run down.”

“But,” said I, “I have been living myself in that very neighborhood and

know by this time the ways of every house in the vicinity. There is not

a spot up and down the Avenue for ten blocks where they could hide away

for two days much less two weeks. And as for the side streets,--why

I could tell you the names of those who live in each house for a

considerable distance. Yet if you say so I will go to work--”

“Do, and meanwhile Schmidt and Rosenthal shall rummage the German

quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies

any amount of labor that can be spent upon this matter.”

“And you,” I asked.

“Will do my part when you have done yours.”

CHAPTER XVI. THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS

And what success did I meet? The best in the world. And by what means

did I attain it? By that of the simplest, prettiest clue I ever came

upon. But let me explain.

When after a wearisome day spent in an ineffectual search through the

neighborhood, I went home to my room, which as you remember was a front

one in a lodging-house on the opposite corner from Mr. Blake, I was so

absorbed in mind and perhaps I may say shaken in nerve, by the strain

under which I had been laboring for some time now, that I stumbled up an

extra flight of stairs, and without any suspicion of the fact, tried

the door of the room directly over mine. It is a wonder to me now that I

could have made the mistake, for the halls were totally dissimilar,

the one above being much more cut up than the one below, besides being

flanked by a greater number of doors. But the intoxication of the mind

is not far removed from that of the body, and as I say it was not till

I had tried the door and found it locked, that I became aware of the

mistake I had made.

With the foolish sense of shame that always overcomes us at the

committal of any such trivial error, I stumbled hastily back, when my

foot trod upon something that broke under my weight. I never let even

small things pass without some notice. Stooping, then, for what I had

thus inadvertently crushed, I carried it to where a single gas jet

turned down very low, made a partial light in the long hall, and

examining it, found it to be a piece of red chalk.

What was there in that simple fact to make me start and hastily recall

one or two half-forgotten incidents which, once brought to mind, awoke

a train of thought that led to the discovery and capture of those two

desperate thieves? I will tell you.

I don’t remember now whether in my account of the visit I paid to

the Schoenmakers’ house in Vermont, I informed you of the red cross I

noticed scrawled on the panel of one of the doors. It seemed a trivial

thing at the time and made little or no impression upon me, the chances

being that I should never have thought of it again, if I had not come

upon the article just mentioned at a moment when my mind was full of

those very Schoenmakers. But remembered now, together with another

half-forgotten fact,--that some days previous I had been told by the

woman who kept the house I was in, that the parties over my head (two

men and a woman I believe she said) were giving her some trouble, but

that they paid well and therefore she did not like to turn them out,--it

aroused a vague suspicion in my mind, and led to my walking back to the

door I had endeavored to open in my abstraction, and carefully looking

at it.

It was plain and white, rather ruder of make than those below, but

offering no inducements for prolonged scrutiny. But not so with the

one that stood at right angles to it on the left. Full in the centre

of that, I beheld distinctly scrawled, probably with the very piece of

chalk I then held, a red cross precisely similar in outline to the one

I had seen a few days before on the panel of the Schoenmakers’ door at

Granby.

The discovery sent a thrill over me that almost raised my hair on end.

Was, then, this famous trio to be found in the very house in which I had

been myself living for a week or more? over my head in fact? I could

not withdraw my gaze from the mysterious looking object. I bent near, I

listened, I heard what sounded like the suppressed snore of a powerful

man, and almost had to lay hold of myself to prevent my hand from

pushing open that closed door and my feet from entering. As it was I did

finger the knob a little, but an extra loud snore from within reminded

me by its suggestion of strength that I was but a small man and that in

this case and at this hour, discretion was the better part of valor.

I therefore withdrew, but for the whole night lay awake listening to

catch any sounds that might come from above, and going so far as to plan

what I would do if it should be proved that I was indeed upon the trail

of the men I was so anxious to encounter.

With the breaking of day I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up

the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But

I presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the

landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to

deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she was

already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired corner and

put my questions. She was not backward in replying. She had conceived an

innocent liking for me in the short time I had been with her--a display

of weakness for which I was myself, perhaps, as much to blame as

she--and was only too ready to pour out her griefs into my sympathizing

ear. For those men were a grief to her, acceptable as was the money

they were careful to provide her with. They were not only always in the

house, that is one of them, smoking his old pipe and blackening up the

walls, but they looked so shabby, and kept the girl so close, and if

they did go out, came in at such unheard of hours. It was enough to

drive her crazy; yet the money, the money--

“Yes,” said I, “I know; and the money ought to make you overlook all

the small disagreeablenesses you mention. What is a landlady without

patience.” And I urged her not to turn them out.

“But the girl,” she went on, “so nice, so quiet, so sick-looking! I

cannot stand it to see her cooped up in that small room, always watched

over by one or both of those burly wretches. The old man says she is

his daughter and she does not deny it, but I would as soon think of that

little rosy child you see cooing in the window over the way, belonging

to the beggar going in at the gate, as of her with her lady-like ways

having any connection with him and his rough-acting son. You ought to

see her--”

“That is just what I want to do,” interrupted I. “Not because you have

tempted my fancy by a recital of her charms,” I hastened to add, “but

because she is, if I don’t mistake, a woman for whose discovery and

rescue, a large sum of money has been offered.”

And without further disguise I acquainted the startled woman before me

with the fact that I was not, as she had always considered, the clerk

out of employment whose daily business it was to sally forth in quest of

a situation, but a member of the city police.

She was duly impressed and easily persuaded to second all my operations

as far as her poor wits would allow, giving me free range of her upper

story, and above all, promising that secrecy without which all my finely

laid plans for capturing the rogues without raising a scandal, would

fall headlong to the ground.

Behold me, then, by noon of that same day domiciled in an apartment next

to the one whose door bore that scarlet sign which had aroused within

me such feverish hopes the night before. Clad in the seedy garments of

a broken down French artist whose acquaintance I had once made, with

something of his air and general appearance and with a few of his

wretched daubs hung about on the whitewashed wall, I commenced with

every prospect of success as I thought, that quiet espionage of the hall

and its inhabitants which I considered necessary to a proper attainment

of the end I had in view.

A racking cough was one of the peculiarities of my friend, and

determined to assume the character in toto, I allowed myself to startle

the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings that

whether agreeable or not, certainly were of a character to show that I

had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come among. Indeed

it was my desire to acquaint them as fully and as soon as possible with

the fact of their having a neighbor: a weak-eyed half-alive innocent

to be sure, but yet a neighbor who would keep his door open night and

day--for the warmth of the hall of course--and who with the fretful

habit of an old man who had once been a gentleman and a beau, went

rambling about through the hall speaking to those he met and expecting

a civil word in return. When he was not rambling or coughing he made

architectural monsters out of cardboard, wherewith to tempt the pennies

out of the pockets of unwary children, an employment that kept him

chained to a small table in the centre of his room directly opposite the

open door.

As I expected I had scarcely given way to three separate fits of

coughing, when the door next me opened with a jerk and a rough voice

called out,

“Who’s that making all that to do about here? If you don’t stop that

infernal noise in a hurry--”

A soft voice interrupted him and he drew back. “I will go see,” said

those gentle tones, and Luttra Blake, for I knew it was she before the

skirt of her robe had advanced beyond the door, stepped out into the

hall.

I was yet bent over my work when she paused before me. The fact is I did

not dare look up, the moment was one of such importance to me.

“You have a dreadful cough,” said she with that low ring of sympathy in

her voice that goes unconsciously to the heart. “Is there no help for

it?”

I pushed back my work, drew my hand over my eyes, (I did not need to

make it tremble) and glanced up. “No,” said I with a shake of my head,

“but it is not always so bad. I beg your pardon, miss, if it disturbs

you.”

She threw back the shawl which she had held drawn tightly over her head,

and advanced with an easy gliding step close to my side. “You do not

disturb me, but my father is--is, well a trifle cross sometimes, and if

he should speak up a little harsh now and then, you must not mind. I am

sorry you are so ill.”

What is there in some women’s look, some women’s touch that more than

all beauty goes to the heart and subdues it. As she stood there before

me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks simply

braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by

ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the

witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld.

“You are veree kind, veree good,” I murmured, half ashamed of my

disguise, though it was assumed for the purpose of rescuing her. “Your

sympathy goes to my heart.” Then as a deep growl of impatience rose from

the room at my side, I motioned her to go and not irritate the man who

seemed to have such control over her.

“In a minute,” answered she, “first tell me what you are making.”

So I told her and in the course of telling, let drop such other facts

about my fancied life as I wished to have known to her and through her

to her father. She looked sweetly interested and more than once turned

upon me that dark eye, of which I had heard so much, full of tears that

were as much for me, scamp that I was, as for her own secret trouble.

But the growls becoming more and more impatient she speedily turned to

go, repeating, however, as she did so,

“Now remember what I say, you are not to be troubled if they do speak

cross to you. They make noise enough themselves sometimes, as you will

doubtless be assured of to-night.”

And the lips which seemed to have grown stiff and cold with her misery,

actually softened into something like a smile.

The nod which I gave her in return had the solemnity of a vow in it.

My mind thus assured as to the correctness of my suspicions, and the way

thus paved to the carrying out of my plans, I allowed some few days

to elapse without further action on my part. My motive was to acquaint

myself as fully as possible with the habits and ways of these two

desperate men, before making the attempt to capture them upon which so

many interests hung. For while I felt it would be highly creditable to

my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a detective, to

restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into the hands of

justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the affair as

to save the wife of Mr. Blake, not only from the consequences of their

despair, but from the publicity and scandal attendant upon the open

arrest of two heavily armed men. Strategy, therefore, rather than force

was to be employed, and strategy to be successful must be founded upon

the most thorough knowledge of the matter with which one has to deal.

Three days, then, did I give to the acquiring of that knowledge, the

result of which was the possession of the following facts.

1. That the landlady was right when she told me the girl was never left

alone, one of the men, if not the father then the son, always remaining

with her.

2. That while thus guarded, she was not so restricted but that she had

the liberty of walking in the hall, though never for any length of time.

3. That the cross on the door seemed to possess some secret meaning

connected with their presence in the house, it having been erased one

evening when the whole three went out on some matter or other, only to

be chalked on again when in an hour or so later, father and daughter

returned alone.

4. That it was the father and not the son who made such purchases as

were needed, while it was the son and not the father who carried on

whatever operations they had on hand; nightfall being the favorite

hour for the one and midnight for the other; though it not infrequently

happened that the latter sauntered out for a short time also in the

afternoon, probably for the drink he could not go long without.

5. That they were men of great strength but little alertness; the stray

glimpses I had had of them, revealing a breadth of back that was truly

formidable, if it had not been joined to a heaviness of motion that

proclaimed a certain stolidity of mind that was eminently in our favor.

How best to use these facts in the building up of a matured plan of

action, was, then, the problem. By noon of a certain day I believed

it to have been solved, and reluctant as I was to leave the spot of my

espionage even for the hour or two necessary to a visit to headquarters,

I found myself compelled to do so. Packing up in a small basket I had

for the purpose, the little articles I had been engaged during the last

few days in making, I gave way to a final fit of coughing so hollow and

sepulchral in its tone, that it awoke a curse from the next room deep as

the growl of a wild beast, and still continuing, finally brought Luttra

to the door with that look of compassion on her face that always called

up a flush to my cheek whether I wished it or no.

“Ah, Monsieur, I am afraid your cough is very bad to-day. O I see; you

have been getting ready to go out--”

“Come back here,” broke in a heavy voice from the room she had left.

“What do you mean by running off to palaver with that old rascal every

time he opens his ----- battery of a cough?”

A smile that went through me like the cut of a knife, flashed for a

moment on her face.

“My father is in one of his impatient moods,” said she, “you had better

go. I hope you will be successful,” she murmured, glancing wistfully at

my basket.

“What is that?” again came thundering on our ears. “Successful? What are

you two up to?” And we heard the rough clatter of advancing steps.

“Go,” said she; “you are weak and old; and when you come back, try and

not cough.” And she gave me a gentle push towards the door.

“When I come back,” I began, but was forced to pause, the elder

Schoenmaker having by this time reached the open doorway where he stood

frowning in upon us in a way that made my heart stand still for her.

“What are you two talking about?” said he; “and what have you got in

your basket there?” he continued with a stride forward that shook the

floor.

“Only some little toys that he has been making, and is now going out to

sell,” was her low answer given with a quick deprecatory gesture such as

I doubt if she ever used for herself.

“Nothing more?” asked he in German with a red glare in the eye he turned

towards her.

“Nothing more,” replied she in the same tongue. “You may believe me.”

He gave a deep growl and turned away. “If there was,” said he, “you know

what would happen.” And unheeding the wild keen shudder that seized her

at the word, making her insensible for the moment to all and everything

about her, he laid one heavy hand upon her slight shoulder and led her

from the room.

I waited no longer than was necessary to carry my feeble and faltering

steps appropriately down the stairs, to reach the floor below and gain

the landlady’s presence.

“Do you go up,” said I, “and sit on those stairs till I come back. If

you hear the least cry of pain or sound of struggle from that young

girl’s room, do you call at once for help. I will have a policeman

standing on the corner below.”

The good woman nodded and proceeded at once to take up her work-basket.

“Lucky there’s a window up there, so I can see,” I heard her mutter.

“I’ve no time to throw away even on deeds of charity.”

Notwithstanding which precaution, I was in constant anxiety during my

absence; an absence necessarily prolonged as I had to stop and explain

matters to the Superintendent, as well as hunt up Mr. Gryce and get his

consent to assist me in the matter of the impending arrest.

I found the latter in his own home and more than enthusiastic upon the

subject.

“Well,” said he after I had informed him of the discoveries I had made,

“the fates seem to prosper you in this. I have not received an inkling

of light upon the matter since I parted from you at Mr. Blake’s house.

By the way I saw that gentleman this morning and I tell you we will find

him a grateful man if this affair can be resolved satisfactorily.”

“That is good,” said I,” gratitude is what we want.” Then shortly,

“Perhaps it is no more than our duty to let him know that his wife is

safe and under my eye; though I would by no means advocate his knowing

just how near him she is, till the moment comes when he is wanted, or we

shall have a lover’s impetuosity to deal with as well as all the rest.”

Then with a hurried remembrance of a possible contingency, went on to

say, “But, by the way, in case we should need the cooperation of Mrs.

Blake in what we have before us, you had better get a line written

in French from Mrs. Daniels, expressive of her belief in Mr. Blake’s

present affection for his wife. The latter will not otherwise trust us,

or understand that we are to be obeyed in whatever we may demand. Let

it be unsigned and without names in case of accident; and if the

housekeeper don’t understand French, tell her to get some one to help

her that does, only be sure that the handwriting employed is her own.”

Mr. Gryce seemed to perceive the wisdom of this precaution and promised

to procure me such a note by a certain hour, after which I related to

him the various other details of the capture such as I had planned it,

meeting to my secret gratification an unqualified approval that went far

towards alleviating that wound to my pride which I had received from him

in the beginning of this affair.

“Let all things proceed as you have determined, and we shall accomplish

something that it will be a life-long satisfaction to remember,” said

he; “but you must be prepared for some twist of the screw which you

do not anticipate. I never knew anything to go off just as one

prognosticates it must, except once,” he added thoughtfully, “and

then it was with a surprise attached to it that well nigh upset me

notwithstanding all my preparations.”

“You won a great success that day,” remarked I. “I hope the fates will

be as propitious to me to-morrow. Failure now would break my heart.”

“But you won’t fail,” exclaimed he. “I myself am resolved to see you

through this matter with credit.”

And in this assurance I returned to my lodgings where I found the

landlady sitting where I had left her, darning her twenty-third sock.

“I have to mend for a dozen men and three boys,” said she, “and the boys

are the worst by a heap sight. Look at that, will you,” holding up

a darn with a bit of stocking attached. “That hole was made playing

shinny.”

I uttered my condolences and asked if any sound or disturbance had

reached her ears from above.

“O no, all is right up there; I’ve scarcely heard a whisper since you’ve

been gone.”

I gave her a pat on the chin scarcely consistent with my aged and

tottering mien and proceeded to shamble painfully to my room.

CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE

Promptly next morning at the designated hour, came the little note

promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks by

the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an adaptation

for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing over it--it

was unsealed--and finding it entirely unintelligible, I took it for

granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if that failed,

strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate with Mrs. Blake.

An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained unclosed. A half hour

more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound had come from their

precincts save now and then a mumbled word of parley between the father

and son, a short command to the daughter, or a not-to-be-restrained oath

of annoyance from one or both of the heavy-limbed brutes as something

was said or done to disturb them in their indolent repose. At last

my impatience was to be no longer restrained. Rising, I took a bold

resolution. If the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go

to the mountain. Taking my letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded

to the door marked with the ominous red cross and knocked.

A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet

as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent

position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of

despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of

heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful

adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the

quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform

all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from

following in the ways of their infamy.

“Ah miss,” said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white

face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, “I beg your pardon

but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are so weak

with the work I’ve been doing that I cannot read it. It is from some one

I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the words for me and so

relieve an old man from his anxiety.”

The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the

door. “Certainly,” said she, “if I can,” taking the paper in her hand.

“Just let me get a squint at that first,” said a sullen voice behind

her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and tore

the paper out of her grasp.

“You are too suspicious,” murmured she, looking after him with the first

assumption of that air of power and determination which I had heard

so eloquently described by the man who loved her. “There is nothing in

those lines which concerns us; let me have them back.”

“You hold your tongue,” was the brutal reply as the rough man opened the

folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within. “Blast

it! it’s French,” was his slow exclamation after a moment spent in

this way. “See,” and he thrust it towards his father who stood frowning

heavily a few feet off.

“Of course, it’s French,” cried the girl. “Would you write a note in

English to father there? The man’s friends are French like himself, and

must write in their own language.”

“Here take it and read it out,” commanded her father; “and mind you

tell us what it means. I’ll have nothing going on here that I don’t

understand.”

“Read me the French words first, miss,” said I. “It is my letter and I

want to know what my friend has to say to me.”

Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and

began to read:

“Calmez vous, mon amie, il vous aime et il vous cherche. Dans

quatre heures vous serez heureuse. Allons du courage, et surtout

soyez maitre de vous meme.”

“Thanks!” I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the

sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and

realized that the words were for her. “My friend says he will pay my

week’s rent and bids me be at home to receive him,” said I, turning upon

the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look of meek

unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have brought down

the house.

“Is that what those words say, you?” asked the father, pointing over her

shoulder to the paper she held.

“I will translate for you word by word what it says,” replied she,

nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though

I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had

visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. “Calmez vous, mon amie.

Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche. He loves

you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez heureuse. In

four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et surtout soyez

maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all preserve your

self-possession. It is the French way of expressing one’s self,”

observed she. “I am glad your friend is disposed to help you,” she

continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. “I am afraid you

needed it.”

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks to

her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was utterly

dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose contents you

must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my whole chance of

expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such words as those before

these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at the conclusion did she

with a word make its language seem consistent with the meaning I had

given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation to her, I hurried to my

room, there to count out the minutes of another long hour in anxious

expectation of her making that endeavor to communicate with me, which

her new hopes and fears must force her to feel almost necessary to her

existence. At length, my confidence in her was rewarded. Coming out into

the hall, she hurried past my door, her finger on her lip. I immediately

rose and stood on the threshold with another paper in my hand, which I

had prepared against this opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in

her hand, and warning her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual

occupation. The words I had written were as follows:

At or as near the time as possible of your brother’s going out,

you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with

your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you,

and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You

are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid

down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no;

but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without

bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not soften

toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one inquiring

look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward on the floor,

and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its effect. Bowing her

head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand on her heart, looked up

and glided from the room. I took up that paper and tore it into bits.

And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the

door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping of

my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his work,

and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before two

o’clock my assistants began to arrive. First, Mr. Gryce appeared on the

scene and was stowed away in a large room on the other side of mine.

Next, two of the most agile, as well as muscular men in the force who,

thanks to having taken off their shoes in the lower hall, gained the

same refuge without awakening the suspicions of those we were anxious to

surprise. Lastly, the landlady who went into the closet to which I had

bidden Mrs. Blake retire after leaving in my room the articles I had

mentioned.

All was now ready and waiting for the departure of the youngest

Schoenmaker. Would he disappoint us and remain at home that day? Had any

suspicions been awakened in the stolid breasts of these men, that would

serve to make them more watchful than usual against running unnecessary

risks? No; at or near the time for the clock to strike two, their door

opened and the tread of a lumbering foot was heard in the hall. On it

came, passing my room with a rude stamping that gradually grew less

distinct as the hardy rough went down the corridor, brushing the wall

behind which Mr. Gryce and his men lay concealed with his thick cane,

and even stopping to light his pipe in front of the small apartment

where cowered our good landlady with her eternal basket of mending in

her lap.

At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into

a small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable

impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few

minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as

I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her father’s

presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of apparel--taking

care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a pocket handkerchief

to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by the sneeze which at

that very moment I took care should assail me) walked boldly back to the

room from which she had just come.

The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a

simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful

father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an

encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together

with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I

succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window

without calling from him anything worse than a fretful “I hope you are

not going to bark too.”

I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards

the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention

sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as he

sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by surprise, and

that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature he was, seemed

to me to be the only safe method before us. But, whether from the

sullenness of his disposition or the very evident laziness of the

moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and hearing or thinking I

did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his companions down the hall,

I allowed myself to give way to a suppressed exclamation, and leaning

forward, pressed my forehead against the pane of glass before me as

if something of absorbing interest had just taken place in the street

beneath.

His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode

towards me, muttering,

“What’s up now? What’s that you are looking at?” reaching my side just

as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a quick

leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force he could

not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge strength of an

unusually developed muscular organization.

“You, you girl there, are to blame for this!” came mingled with curses

from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors. “Only

let me get my hand well upon you once--Damn it!” he suddenly exclaimed,

dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get his mouth down

to my ear, “go and rub that sign out on the door or I’ll--you know what

I’ll do well enough. Do you hear?”

Rising, still with face averted, I proceeded to do what he asked. But in

another moment seeing that he had been effectually bound and gagged,

I took out the piece of red chalk I had kept in my pocket, and

deliberately chalked it on again, after which operation I came back and

took my seat as before on the low stool by the window.

The object now was to secure the second rascal in the same way we had

the first; and for this purpose Mr. Gryce ordered the now helpless giant

to be dragged into the adjoining small room formerly occupied by Mrs.

Blake, where he and his men likewise took up their station leaving me

to confront as best I might, the surprise and consternation of the one

whose return we now awaited.

I did not shrink. With that brave woman’s garments drawn about me,

something of her dauntless spirit seemed to invade my soul, and though I

expected--But let that come in its place, I am not here to interest you

in myself or my selfish thoughts.

A half hour passed; he had never lingered away so long before, or so it

seemed, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have to keep up this

strain of nerve for hours, when the heavy tread was again heard in

the hall, and with a blow of the fist that argued anger or a brutal

impatience, he flung open the door and came in, I did not turn my head.

“Where’s father?” he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from

the door.

I shook my head with a slight gesture and remained looking out.

He brought his cane down on the floor with a thump. “What do you mean by

sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering when

I ask you a decent question?”

Still I made no reply.

Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of

danger in the air,--which while not amounting to apprehension is often

sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,--he stood

glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude, but made

no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of the window,

made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one on the

opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath that

rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon me with

a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands of the

watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came down upon

my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow the seeds

of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells ever since.

But this termination of the affair was no more than I had feared from

the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs. Blake from

the wrath of these men, as from any requirements of the situation I had

assumed the disguise I then wore. I therefore did not allow this mishap

to greatly trouble me, unpleasant as it was at the time, but, as soon

as ever I could do so, rose from the floor and throwing off my strange

habiliments, proceeded to finish up to my satisfaction, the work already

so successfully begun.

CHAPTER XVIII. LOVE AND DUTY

Dismissing the men who had assisted us in the capture of these two hardy

villains, we ranged our prisoners before us.

“Now,” said Mr. Gryce, “no fuss and no swearing; you are in for it, and

you might as well take it quietly as any other way.”

“Give me a clutch on that girl, that’s all,” said her father, “Where is

she? Let me see her; every father has a right to see his own daughter,”

“You shall see her,” returned my superior, “but not till her husband is

here to protect her.”

“Her husband? ah, you know about that do you?” growled the heavy voice

of the son. “A rich man they say he is and a proud one. Let him come

and look at us lying here like dogs and say how he will enjoy having his

wife’s father and brother grinding away their lives in prison.”

“Mr. Blake is coming,” quoth Mr. Gryce, who by some preconcerted signal

from the window had drawn that gentleman across the street. “He will

tell you himself that he considers prison the best place for you. Blast

you! but he--”

“But he, what?” inquired I, as the door opened and Mr. Blake with a pale

face and agitated mien entered the room.

The wretch did not answer. Rousing from the cowering position in which

they had both lain since their capture, the father and son struggled

up in some sort of measure to their feet, and with hot, anxious eyes

surveyed the countenance of the gentleman before them, as if they felt

their fate hung upon the expression of his pallid face. The son was the

first to speak.

“How do you do, brother-in-law,” were his sullen and insulting words.

Mr. Blake shuddered and cast a look around.

“My wife?” murmured he.

“She is well,” was the assurance given by Mr. Gryce, “and in a room not

far from this. I will send for her if you say so.”

“No, not yet,” came in a sort of gasp; “let me look at these wretches

first, and understand if I can what my wife has to suffer from her

connection with them.”

“Your wife,” broke in the father, “what’s that to do with it; the

question is how do you like it and what will you do to get us clear of

this thing.”

“I will do nothing,” returned Mr. Blake. “You amply merit your doom and

you shall suffer it to the end for all time.”

“It will read well in the papers,” exclaimed the son.

“The papers are to know nothing about it,” I broke in. “All knowledge

of your connection with Mr. or Mrs. Blake is to be buried in this spot

before we or you leave it. Not a word of her or him is to cross the lips

of either of you from this hour. I have set that down as a condition and

it has got to be kept.”

“You have, have you,” thundered in chorus from father and son. “And who

are you to make conditions, and what do you think we are that you expect

us to keep them? Can you do anymore than put us back from where we came

from?”

For reply I took from my pocket the ring I had fished out of the ashes

of their kitchen stove on that memorable visit to their house, and

holding it up before their faces, looked them steadily in the eye.

A sudden wild glare followed by a bluish palor that robbed their

countenances of their usual semblance of daring ferocity, answered me

beyond my fondest hopes.

“I got that out of the stove where you had burned your prison clothing,”

said I. “It is a cheap affair, but it will send you to the gallows if I

choose to use it against you. The pedlar--”

“Hush,” exclaimed the father in a low choked tone greatly in contrast to

any he had yet used in all our dealings with him. “Throw that ring out

of the window and I promise to hold my tongue about any matter you don’t

want spoke of. I’m not a fool--”

“Nor I,” was my quick reply, as I restored the ring to my pocket. “While

that remains in my possession together with certain facts concerning

your habits in that old house of yours which have lately been made known

to me, your life hangs by a thread I can any minute snip in two. Mr.

Blake here, has spent some portion of a night in your house and knows

how near it lies to a certain precipice, at foot of which--”

“Mein Gott, father, why don’t you say something!” leaped in cowed

accents from the son’s white lips. “If they want us to keep quiet, let

them say so and not go talking about things that--”

“Now look here,” interposed Mr. Gryce stepping before them with a look

that closed their mouths at once. “I will just tell you what we propose

to do. You are to go back to prison and serve your time out, there is

no help for that, but as long as you behave yourselves and continue

absolutely silent regarding your relationship to the wife of this

gentleman, you shall have paid into a certain bank that he will name,

a monthly sum that upon your dismissal from jail shall be paid you with

whatever interest it may have accumulated. You are ready to promise

that, are you not?” he inquired turning to Mr. Blake.

That gentleman bowed and named the sum, which was liberal enough, and

the bank.

“But,” continued the detective, ignoring the sudden flash of eye that

passed between the father and son, “let me or any of us hear of a word

having been uttered by you, which in the remotest way shall suggest that

you have in the world such a connection as Mrs. Blake, and the money not

only stops going into the bank, but old scores shall be raked up against

you with a zeal which if it does not stop your mouth in one way, will in

another, and that with a suddenness you will not altogether relish.”

The men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled,

turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring

way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these

words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds.

“Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?” muttered the

father with an uneasy glance at my pocket.

“We certainly do,” was our solemn return.

“Very well; call in the girl and let me just look at her, then, before

we go. We won’t say nothing,” continued he, seeing Mr. Blake shrink,

“only she is my daughter and if I cannot bid her good-bye--”

“Let him see his child,” cried Mr. Blake turning with a shudder to the

window. “I--I wish it,” added he.

Straightway with hasty foot I left the room. Going to the little closet

where I had ordered his wife to remain concealed, I knocked and entered.

She was crouched in an attitude of prayer on the floor, her face buried

in her hands, and her whole person breathing that agony of suspense that

is a torture to the sensitive soul.

“Mrs. Blake,” said I, dismissing the landlady who stood in helpless

distress beside her, “the arrest has been satisfactorily made and your

father calls for you to say good-bye before going away with us. Will you

come?”

“But my--my--Mr. Blake?” exclaimed she leaping to her feet. “I am sure I

heard his footstep in the hall?”

“He is with your father and brother. It was at his command I came for

you.”

A gleam hard to interpret flashed for an instant over her face. With

her eye on the door she towered in her womanly dignity, while thoughts

innumerable seemed to rush in wild succession through her mind.

“Will you not come?” I urged.

“I--,” she paused. “I will go see my father,” she murmured, “but--”

Suddenly she trembled and drew back; a step was in the hall, on the

threshold, at her side; Mr. Blake had come to reclaim his bride.

“Mr. Blake!”

The word came from her in a low tone shaken with the concentrated

anguish of many a month of longing and despair, but there was no

invitation in its sound, and he who had held out his arms, stopped and

surveying her with a certain deprecatory glance in his proud eye, said,

“You are right; I have first my acknowledgments to make and your

forgiveness to ask before I can hope--”

“No, no,” she broke in, “your coming here is enough, I request no more.

If you felt unkindly toward me--”

“Unkindly?” A world of love thrilled in that word. “Luttra, I am your

husband and rejoice that I am so; it is to lay the devotion of my heart

and life at your feet that I seek your presence this hour. The year has

taught me--ah, what has not the year taught me of the worth of her I so

recklessly threw from me on my wedding day. Luttra,”--he held out his

hand--“will you crown all your other acts of devotion with a pardon

that will restore me to my manhood and that place in your esteem which I

covet above every other earthly good?”

Her face which had been raised to his with that earnest look we knew so

well, softened with an ineffable smile, but still she did not lay her

hand in his.

“And you say this to me in the very hour of my father’s and brother’s

arrest! With the remembrance in your mind of their bound and abject

forms lying before you guarded by police; knowing too, that they deserve

their ignominy and the long imprisonment that awaits them?”

“No, I say it on the day of the discovery and the restoration of that

wife for whom I have long searched, and to whom when found I have no

word to give but welcome, welcome, welcome.”

With the same deep smile she bowed her head, “Now let come what will,

I can never again be unhappy,” were the words I caught, uttered in the

lowest of undertones. But in another moment her head had regained its

steady poise and a great change had passed over her manner.

“Mr. Blake,” said she, “you are good; how good, I alone can know and

duly appreciate who have lived in your house this last year and seen

with eyes that missed nothing, just what your surroundings are and have

been from the earliest years of your proud life. But goodness must not

lead you into the committal of an act you must and will repent to your

dying day; or if it does, I who have learned my duty in the school of

adversity, must show the courage of two and forbid what every secret

instinct of my soul declares to be only provocative of shame and sorrow.

You would take me to your heart as your wife; do you realize what that

means?”

“I think I do,” was his earnest reply. “Relief from heart-ache, Luttra.”

Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips

did not quiver.

“It means,” said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which

indicates yielding, “it means, shame to the proudest family that lives

in the land. It means silence as regards a past blotted by suggestions

of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across which the shadow

of prison walls must for so many years lie. It means, the hushing of

certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of cherished eyes from

visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers and sisters are

seen joined together in tender companionship or loving embrace. It

means,--God help me to speak out--a home without the sanctity of

memories; a husband without the honors he has been accustomed to enjoy;

a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into her breast; and children,

yes, perhaps children from whose innocent lips the sacred word of

grandfather can never fall without wakening a blush on the cheeks of

their parents, which all their lovesome prattle will be helpless to

chase away.”

“Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go

their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of

may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own blood,

but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you to sit.

The world will never know, whether you come with me or not, that

Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then give me the

happiness of striving to make such amends for the past, that you too,

will forget you ever bore any other name than the one you now honor so

truly?”

“O do not,” she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion

that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance. “Mr.

Blake,” said she, “I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice of love

pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is in my

sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor. Eleven months ago

I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity demanded it; to-day

I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer, because your position as

a gentleman, and your happiness as a man equally requires it.”

“My happiness as a man!” he broke in. “Ah, Luttra if you love me as I do

you--”

“I might perhaps yield,” she allowed with a faint smile. “But I love

you as a girl brought up amid surroundings from which her whole being

recoiled, must love the one who first brought light into her darkness

and opened up to her longing feet the way to a life of culture, purity

and honor. I were the basest of women could I consent to repay such a

boundless favor--”

“But Luttra,” he again broke in, “you married me knowing what your

father and brother were capable of committing.”

“Yes, yes; I was blinded by passion, a girl’s passion, Mr. Blake, born

of glamour and gratitude; not the self-forgetting devotion of a woman

who has tasted the bitterness of life and so learned its lesson of

sacrifice. I may not have thought, certainly I did not realize, what I

was doing. Besides, my father and brother were not convicted criminals

at that time, however weak they had proved themselves under temptation.

And then I believed I had left them behind me on the road of life; that

we were sundered, irrevocably cut loose from all possible connection.

But such ties are not to be snapped so easily. They found me, you see,

and they will find me again--”

“Never!” exclaimed her husband. “They are as dead to you as if the grave

had swallowed them. I have taken care of that.”

“But the shame! you have not taken care of that. That exists and must,

and while it does I remain where I can meet it alone. I love you; God’s

sun is not dearer to my eyes; but I will never cross your threshold as

your wife till the opprobrium can be cut loose from my skirts, and the

shadow uplifted from my brow. A queen with high thoughts in her eyes and

brave hopes in her heart were not too good to enter that door with you.

Shall a girl who has lived three weeks in an atmosphere of such crime

and despair, that these rooms have often seemed to me the gateway to

hell, carry there, even in secrecy, the effects of that atmosphere? I

will cherish your goodness in my heart but do not ask me to bury that

heart in any more exalted spot, than some humble country home, where

my life may be spent in good deeds and my love in prayers for the man I

hold dear, and because I hold dear, leave to his own high path among the

straight and unshadowed courses of the world.”

And with a gesture that inexorably shut him off while it expressed the

most touching appeal, she glided by him and took her way to the room

where her father and brother awaited her presence.

CHAPTER XIX. EXPLANATIONS

“I cannot endure this,” came in one burst of feeling from the lips of

Mr. Blake. “She don’t know, she don’t realize--Sir,” cried he, suddenly

becoming conscious of my presence in the room, “will you be good enough

to see that this note,” he hastily scribbled one, “is carried across the

way to my house and given to Mrs. Daniels.”

I bowed assent, routed up one of the men in the next room and despatched

it at once.

“Perhaps she will listen to the voice of one of her own sex if not to

me,” said he; and began pacing the floor of the narrow room in which we

were, with a wildness of impatience that showed to what depths had sunk

the hope of gaining this lovely woman for his own.

Feeling myself no longer necessary in that spot, I followed where my

wishes led and entered the room where Luttra was bidding good-bye to her

father.

“I shall never forget,” I heard her say as I crossed the floor to where

Mr. Gryce stood looking out of the window, “that your blood runs in my

veins together with that of my gentle-hearted, never-to-be-forgotten

mother. Whatever my fate may be or wherever I may hide the head you have

bowed to the dust, be sure I shall always lift up my hands in prayer for

your repentance and return to an honest life. God grant that my prayers

may be heard and that I may yet receive at your hands, a father’s kindly

blessing.”

The only answer to this was a heavily muttered growl that gave but

little promise of any such peaceful termination to a deeply vicious

life. Hearing it, Mr. Gryce hastened to procure his men and remove the

hardened wretches from the spot. All through the preparations for their

departure, she stood and watched their sullen faces with a wild yearning

in her eye that could scarcely be denied, but when the door finally

closed upon them, and she was left standing there with no one in the

room but myself she steadied herself up as one who is conscious that all

the storms of heaven are about to break upon her; and turning slowly

to the door waited with arms crossed and a still determination upon her

brow, the coming of the feet of him whose resolve she felt must have, as

yet been only strengthened by her resistance.

She had not long to wait. Almost with the closing of the street door

upon the detectives and their prisoners, Mr. Blake followed by Mrs.

Daniels and another lady whose thick veil and long cloak but illy

concealed the patrician features and stately form of the Countess De

Mirac, entered the room.

The surprise had its effect; Luttra was evidently for the moment thrown

off her guard.

“Mrs. Daniels!” she breathed, holding out her hands with a longing

gesture.

“My dear mistress!” returned that good woman, taking those hands in hers

but in a respectful way that proved the constraint imposed upon her by

Mr. Blake’s presence. “Do I see you again and safe?”

“You must have thought I cared little for the anxiety you would be sure

to feel,” said that fair young mistress, gazing with earnestness into

the glad but tearful eyes of the housekeeper. “But indeed, I have

been in no position to communicate with you, nor could I do so without

risking that to protect which I so outraged my feelings as to leave the

house at all. I mean the life and welfare of its master, Mrs. Daniels.”

“Ha, what is that?” quoth Mr. Blake. “It was to save me, you consented

to follow them?”

“Yes; what else would have led me to such an action? They might have

killed me, I would not have cared, but when they began to utter threats

against you--”

“Mrs. Blake,” exclaimed Mrs. Daniels, catching hold of her mistress’s

uplifted hand, and pointing to a scar that slightly disfigured her white

arm a little above the wrist, “Mrs. Blake, what’s that?”

A pink flush, the first I had seen on her usually pale countenance, rose

for an instant to her cheeks, and she seemed to hesitate.

“It was not there when I last saw you, Mrs. Blake.”

“No,” was the slow reply, “I found myself forced that night to inflict

upon myself a little wound. It is nothing, let it go.”

“No, Luttra I cannot let it go,” said her husband, advancing towards her

with something like gentle command. “I must hear not only about this but

all the other occurrences of that night. How came they to find you in

the refuge you had attained?”

“I think,” said she in a low tone the underlying suffering of which

it would be hard to describe, “that it was not to seek me they first

invaded your house. They had heard you were a rich man, and the sight

of that ladder running up the side of the new extension was too much for

them. Indeed I know that it was for purposes of robbery they came, for

they had hired this room opposite you some days previous to making the

attempt. You see they were almost destitute of money and though they had

some buried in the cellar of the old house in Vermont, they dared not

leave the city to procure it. My brother was obliged to do so later,

however. It was a surprise to them seeing me in your house. They had

reached the roof of the extension and were just lifting up the corner of

the shade I had dropped across the open window--I always open my window

a few minutes before preparing to retire--when I rose from the chair in

which I had been brooding, and turned up the gas. I was combing my hair

at the time and so of course they recognized me. Instantly they gave

a secret signal I, alas, remembered only too well, and crouching back,

bade me put out the light that they might enter with safety. I was at

first too much startled to realize the consequences of my action, and

with some vague idea that they had discovered my retreat and come for

purposes of advice or assistance, I did what they bid. Immediately they

threw back the shade and came in, their huge figures looming frightfully

in the faint light made by a distant gas lamp in the street below.

‘What do you want?’ were my first words uttered in a voice I scarcely

recognized for my own; ‘why do you steal on me like this in the night

and through an open window fifty feet from the ground? Aren’t you afraid

you will be discovered and sent back to the prison from which you have

escaped?’ Their reply sent a chill through my blood and awoke me to a

realization of what I had done in thus allowing two escaped convicts

to enter a house not my own. ‘We want money and we’re not afraid of

anything now you are here.’ And without heeding my exclamation of

horror, they coolly told me that they would wait where they were till

the household was asleep, when they would expect me to show them the way

to the silver closet or what was better, the safe or wherever it was Mr.

Blake kept his money. I saw they took me for a servant, as indeed I was,

and for some minutes I managed to preserve that position in their eyes.

But when in a sudden burst of rage at my refusal to help them, they

pushed me aside and hurried to the door with the manifest intention of

going below, I forgot prudence in my fears and uttered some wild

appeal to them not to do injury to any one in the house for it was my

husband’s. Of course that disclosure had its natural effect.

“They stopped, but only to beset me with questions till the whole truth

came out. I could not have committed a worse folly than thus taking them

into my confidence. Instantly the advantages to be gained by using my

secret connection with so wealthy a man for the purpose of cowering me

and blackmailing him, seemed to strike both their minds at once, slow

as they usually are to receive impressions. The silver-closet and

money-safe sank to a comparatively insignificant position in their eyes,

and to get me out of the house, and with my happiness at stake, treat

with the honorable man who notwithstanding his non-approval of me as a

woman, still regarded me as his lawfully wedded wife, became in their

eyes a thing of such wonderful promise they were willing to run any and

every risk to test its value. But here to their great astonishment

I rebelled; astonishment because they could not realize my desiring

anything above money and the position to which they declared I was by

law entitled. In vain I pleaded my love; in vain I threatened exposure

of their plans if not whereabouts. The mine of gold which they fondly

believed they had stumbled upon unawares, promised too richly to be

easily abandoned. ‘You must go with us,’ said they, ‘if not peaceably

then by force,’ and they actually advanced upon me, upsetting a chair

and tearing down one of the curtains to which I clung. It was then I

committed that little act concerning which you questioned me. I wanted

to show them I was not to be moved by threats of that character; that I

did not even fear the shedding of my blood; and that they would only be

wasting their time in trying to sway me by hints of personal violence.

And they were a little impressed, sufficiently so at least to turn their

threats in another direction, awakening fears at last which I could not

conceal, much as I felt it would be policy to do so. Gathering up a few

articles I most prized, my wedding ring, Mr. Blake, and a photograph of

yourself that Mrs. Daniels had been kind enough to give me, I put on my

bonnet and cloak and said I would go with them, since they persisted in

requiring it. The fact is I no longer possessed motive or strength

to resist. Even your unexpected appearance at the door, Mrs. Daniels,

offered no prospect of hope. Arouse the house? what would that do?

only reveal my cherished secret and perhaps jeopardize the life of my

husband. Besides, they were my own near kin, remember, and so had some

little claim upon my consideration, at least to the point of my not

personally betraying them unless they menaced immediate and actual harm.

The escape by the window which would have been a difficult task for most

women to perform, was easy enough for me. I was brought up to wild

ways you know, and the descent of a ladder forty feet long was a

comparatively trivial thing for me to accomplish. It was the tearing

away from a life of silent peace, the reentrance of my soul into an

atmosphere of sin and deadly plotting, that was the hard thing, the

difficult dreadful thing which hung weights to my feet, and made me

well nigh mad. And it was this which at the sight of a policeman in the

street led me to make an effort to escape. But it was not successful.

Though I was fortunate enough to free myself from the grasp of my father

and brother, I reached the gate on ----- street only to encounter the

eyes of him whose displeasure I most feared, looking sternly upon me

from the other side. The shock was too much for me in my then weak and

unnerved condition. Without considering anything but the fact that he

never had known and never must, that I had been in the same house with

him for so long, I rushed back to the corner and into the arms of the

men who awaited me. How you came to be there, Mr. Blake, or why you did

not open the gate and follow, I cannot say.”

“The gate was locked,” returned that gentleman. “You remember it closes

with a spring, and can only be opened by means of a key which I did not

have.”

“My father had it,” she murmured; “he spent a whole week in the endeavor

to get hold of it, and finally succeeded on the evening of the very day

he used it. It was left in the lock I believe.”

“So much for servants,” I whispered to myself.

“The next morning,” continued she, “they put the case very plainly

before me. I was at liberty to return at once to my home if I would

promise to work in their interest by making certain demands upon you as

your wife. All they wanted, said they, was a snug little sum and a lift

out of the country. If I would secure them these, they would trouble me

no more. But I could not concede to anything of that nature, of course,

and the consequence was these long weeks of imprisonment and suspense;

weeks that I do not now begrudge, seeing they have brought me the

assurance of your esteem and the knowledge, that wherever I go, your

thoughts will follow me with compassion if not with love.”

And having told her story and thus answered his demands, she assumed

once more the position of lofty reserve that seemed to shut him back

from advance like a wall of invincible crystal.

CHAPTER XX. THE BOND THAT UNITES

But he was not to be discouraged. “And after all this, after all you

have suffered for my sake and your own, do you think you have a right to

deny me the one desire of my heart? How can you reconcile it with your

ideas of devotion, Luttra?”

“My ideas of devotion look beyond the present, Mr. Blake. It is to save

you from years of wearing anxiety that I consent to the infliction upon

you of a passing pang.”

He took a bold step forward. “Luttra, you do not know a man’s heart. To

lose you now would not merely inflict a passing pang, but sow the seeds

of a grief that would go with me to the grave.”

“Do you then”--she began, but paused blushing. Mrs. Daniels took the

opportunity to approach her on the other side.

“My dear mistress,” said she, “you are wrong to hold out in this

matter.” And her manner betrayed something of the peculiar agitation

that had belonged to it in the former times of her secret embarassment.

“I, who have honored the family which I have so long served, above every

other in the land, tell you that you can do it no greater good than

to join it now, or inflict upon it any greater harm than to wilfully

withdraw yourself from the position in which God has placed you.”

“And I,” said another voice, that of the Countess de Mirac, who up to

this time had held herself in the background, but who now came forward

and took her place with the rest, “I, who have borne the name of Blake,

and who am still the proudest of them all at heart, I, the Countess de

Mirac, cousin to your husband there, repeat what this good woman has

said, and in holding out my hand to you, ask you to make my cousin happy

and his family contented by assuming that position in his household

which the law as well as his love accords you.”

The girl looked at the daintily gloved hand held out to her, colored

faintly, and put her own within it.

“I thank you for your goodness,” said she, surveying with half-sad,

half-admiring glances, the somewhat pale face of the beautiful brunette.

“And you will yield to our united requests?” She cast her eye down at

the spot where her father and brother had cowered in their shackles, and

shook her head. “I dare not,” said she.

Immediately Mrs. Daniels, whose emotion had been increasing every moment

since she last spoke, plunged her hand into her bosom and drew out a

folded paper.

“Mrs. Blake,” said she, “if you could be convinced that what I have told

you was true, and that you would be irretrievably injuring your husband

and his interests, by persisting in that desertion of him which you

purpose, would you not consent to reconsider your determination, settled

as it appears to be?”

“If I could be made to see that, most certainly,” returned she in a low

voice whose broken accents betrayed at what cost she remained true to

her resolve. “But I cannot.”

“Perhaps the sight of this paper will help you,” said she. And turning

to Mr. Blake she exclaimed, “Your pardon for what I am called upon to

do. A duty has been laid upon me which I cannot avoid, hard as it is for

an old servant to perform. This paper--but it is no more than just that

you, sir, should see and read it first.” And with a hand that quivered

with fear or some equally strong emotion, she put it in his clasp.

The exclamation that rewarded the act made us all start forward. “My

father’s handwriting!” were his words.

“Executed under my eye,” observed Mrs. Daniels.

His glance ran rapidly down the sheet and rested upon the final

signature.

“Why has this been kept from me?” demanded he, turning upon Mrs. Daniels

with sternness.

“Your father so willed it,” was her reply. “‘For a year’ was his

command, ‘you shall keep this my last will and testament which I give

into your care with my dying hands, a secret from the world. At the

expiration of that time mark if my son’s wife sits at the head of her

husband’s table; if she does and is happy, suppress this by deliberately

giving it to the flames, but if from any reason other than death, she is

not seen there, carry it at once to my son, and bid him as he honors

my memory, to see that my wishes as there expressed are at once carried

out.’”

The paper in Mr. Blake’s hand fluttered.

“You are aware what those wishes are?” said he.

“I steadied his hand while he wrote,” was her sad and earnest reply.

Mr. Blake turned with a look of inexpressible deference to his wife.

“Madame,” said he “when I urged you with such warmth to join your

fate to mine and honor my house by presiding over it, I thought I was

inviting you to share the advantages of wealth as well as the love of

a lonely man’s heart. This paper undeceives me. Luttra, the

daughter-in-law of Abner Blake, not Holman, his son, is the one who

by the inheritance of his millions has the right to command in this

presence.”

With a cry she took from him the will whose purport was thus briefly

made known. “O, how could he, how could he?” exclaimed she, running her

eye down the sheet, and then crushing it spasmodically to her breast.

“Did he not realize that he could do me no greater wrong?” Then in one

yielding up of her whole womanhood to the mighty burst of passion that

had been flooding the defenses of her heart for so long, she exclaimed

in a voice the mingled rapture and determination of which rings in my

ears even now, “And is it a thing like this with its suggestions of

mercenary interest that shall bridge the gulf that separates you and me?

Shall the giving or the gaining of a fortune make necessary the unital

of lives over which holier influences have beamed and loftier hopes

shone? No, no; by the smile with which your dying father took me to his

breast, love alone, with the hope and confidence it gives, shall be the

bond to draw us together and make of the two separate planes on which we

stand, a common ground where we can meet and be happy.”

And with one supreme gesture she tore into pieces the will which she

held, and sank all aglow with woman’s divinest joy into the arms held

out to receive her.

* * * * *

I was present at the wedding-reception given them by the Countess De

Mirac in her elegant apartments at the Windsor. I never saw a happier

bride, nor a husband in whose eyes burned a deeper contentment. To all

questions as to who this extraordinary woman could be, where she was

found, and in what place and at what time she was married, the Countess

had apt replies whose art of hushing curiosity without absolutely

satisfying it, was one of the tokens she yet preserved, of her short

sway as grand lady, in the gayest and most hollow city of the world.

As I prepared to leave a scene perhaps the most gratifying in many

respects that I had ever witnessed, I felt a slight touch on my arm. It

came from Mrs. Blake who with her husband had crossed the room to bid me

farewell.

“Will you allow me to thank you,” said she, “for the risk you ran for

me one day and of which I have just heard. It was an act that merits the

gratitude of years, and as such shall be always remembered by me. If

the old French artist with the racking cough ever desires a favor at my

hands, let him feel free to ask it. The interest I experienced in him in

the days of my trouble, will suffer no abatement in these of my joy and

prosperity.” And with a look that was more than words, she gave me a

flower from the bouquet she held in her hand, and smilingly withdrew.

End of ’s A Strange Disappearance, by Anna Katharine Green