Holding in leash the painful emotions that struggled for utterance, Beryl was unconscious of the lapse of time, and when her averted eyes returned reluctantly to her grandfather's face, he was slowly tearing into shreds the tear-stained letter, freighted with passionate prayers for pardon, and for succor. Rolling the strips into a ball, he threw it into the waste-paper basket under the table; then filled a glass with sherry, drank it, and dropped his head wearily on his hand. Five leaden minutes crawled away, and a long, heavy sigh quivered through Gen'l Darrington's gaunt frame. Seizing the decanter, he poured the contents into two glasses, and as he raised one to his lips, held the other toward his visitor.
"You must be weary from your journey; let me insist that you drink some sherry."
"Thank you, I neither wish nor require it."
"I find your name is Beryl. Sit down here, and answer a few questions." He drew a chair near his own.
She shook her head:
"If you will excuse me, I prefer to stand."
In turning, so as to confront her fully, his elbow struck from the table, a bronze paper-weight which rolled just beyond his reach. Instinctively she stooped to pick it up, and in restoring it, her fingers touched his. Leaning suddenly forward he grasped her wrists ere she was aware of his intention, and drew her in front of him.
"Pardon me; but I want a good look at you."
His keen merciless eyes searched every feature, and he deliberately lifted and examined the exquisitely shaped strong, white hands, the dainty nails, and delicately rounded wrists with their violet tracery of veins. It cost her an effort, to abstain from wrenching herself free; but her mother's caution: "So much depends on the impression you make upon father," girded her to submit to his critical inspection.
A grim smile crossed his face, as he watched her.
"Blood often doubles, like a fox; sometimes 'crops back,' but never lies. You can't play out your role of pauper; and you don't look a probable outcome of destitution and hard work. Your hands would fit much better in a metope of the Elgin Marbles, than in a wash-tub, or a bake-oven."
Drawing away quickly, she put them behind her, and felt her palms tingle.
"It is expected I should believe that for some time past, you have provided for your own, and your mother's wants. In what way?"
"By coloring photographs; by furnishing designs for Christmas and Easter cards, and occasionally (not often), by selling drawings used for decorating china, and wallpaper. At one time, I had regular pay for singing in a choir, but diphtheria injured my throat, and when I partly recovered my voice, the situation had been given to another person."
"I am informed also that before long, you intend to astonish the world with a wonderful picture, which shall distance such laggards as Troyon, Dore, and Ary Scheffer?"
She was looking, not at him, but out through the glass door, at the glowing western sky, where distant pine trees printed their silhouettes. Now her gaze came back to his face, and he noted a faint quiver in her full throat.
"If God will mercifully spare my mother to me, my loftiest and holiest ambition shall be to distance the wolfish cares and woes that have hunted her, ever since she became a widow. Any and all honest labor that can contribute to her comfort, will be welcome and sweet to me."
"The laws of heredity must be occult and complex. The offspring of a rebellious and disobedient child, is certainly entitled to no filial instincts; and some day the strain will tell, and you will overwhelm your mother with ingratitude, black as that which she showed me."
"When I do, may God eternally forsake me!"
A brief silence ensued, and the old man drummed on the table, with the fingers of his right hand.
"Who educated you?"
"My dear father."
"It seems there are two of you. Where is your brother?"
"At present, I do not know exactly where he is, but I think in the far West; possibly in Montana—probably in Canada."
"How does he earn his bread? By daubing, or fiddling?"
"Since he earns it honestly, that is his own affair. We have not heard from him for some months."
"I thought so! He inherits the worthless vagabond strain of—"
"He is his mother's idol, and she glories in his resemblance to you, sir; and to your father; hence his name—Robert L. Darrington."
"Then she must have one handsome child! I am not surprised that he is the favorite."
"Bertie certainly is her darling, and he is very handsome; not in the very least degree like me."
For the first time, their eyes met in a friendly glance, and a covert smile stirred the General's lips; but as he put out his hand toward her, she moved a step beyond his reach.
"Beryl, you consider me a dreadful, cruel old tyrant?"
She made no reply.
"Answer me."
"You are my mother's father; and that word—father, means so much to me, that it shall shield even you, from the shadow of disrespect."
"Oh! very dutiful indeed, but dead as the days when daughters obeyed, and honored their fathers! Beggarly foreign professors wiped all that out of the minds of wealthy girls at boarding schools—just as they changed their backwoods pronunciation of French and Italian. Don't evade my question."
"I did not come here, sir, to bandy words; and I ended my mission by delivering the letter intrusted to me."
"You regard me as a vindictive old bear?"
"I had heard much of the Darringtons; I imagined a great deal more; but now, like the Queen of Sheba, I must testify—'Behold, the half was not told me.'"
He threw back his lion-like head, and laughed.
"That will do. Shake hands, child."
"No, thank you."
"And you will not sit down?"
"Frankly, I prefer not. I long to get away."
"You shall certainly be gratified, but there are a few things which I intend you shall hear. Of course you know that your mother was my only child, and an heiress; but you are ignorant probably of the fact that when she returned to boarding school for the last session, she was engaged in marriage to the son of my best friend—a man in every respect desirable, and thoroughly acceptable to me."
"So my mother told me."
"Indeed? She should blush to remember it. While she wore his engagement ring, she forgot her promise to him, her duty to me, her lineage, her birth, her position—and was inveigled by a low adventurer who—"
"Who was my own precious father—poor, but noble, and worthy of any princess! Unless you can refer to him respectfully, name him not at all, in his child's presence."
She suddenly towered over him, like some threatening fate, and her uplifted arm trembled from the intensity of her indignation.
"At least—you are loyal to your tribe!"
"I am, to my heart's core. You could pay me no higher compliment."
"Ellice wrote that she had bestowed her affections on—on—the 'exiled scion of a noble house,' who paid his board bill by teaching languages and music in the school; and who very naturally preferred to marry a rich fool, who would pay them for him. I answered her letter, which was addressed to her own mother—then quite ill at home—and I told her precisely what she might expect, if she persisted in her insane folly. As soon as my wife convalesced sufficiently to render my departure advisable, I started to bring my daughter home; but she ran away, a few hours before my arrival, and while, hoping to rescue Ellice, I was in pursuit of the precious pair, my wife relapsed and died—the victim of excitement brought on by her child's disgrace. I came back here to a desolate, silent house;—bereft of wife and daughter; and in the grave of her mother, I buried every atom of love and tenderness I ever entertained for Ellice. When the sun is suddenly blotted out at noon, and the world turns black—black, we grope to and fro aimlessly; but after awhile, we accommodate ourselves to the darkness;—and so, I became a different man—very hard, and I dare say very bitter. The world soon learned that I would tolerate no illusion to my disgrace, and people respected my family cancer, and prudently refrained from offering me nostrums to cure it. My wife had a handsome estate of her own right, and every cent of her fortune I collected, and sent with her jewelry to Ellice. Did you know this?"
"I have heard only of the jewels."
"As I supposed, the money was squandered before you could recollect."
"I know that we were reduced to poverty, by the failure of some banking house in Paris. I was old enough when it occurred, to remember ever afterward, the dismay and distress it caused. My father no doubt placed my mother's money there for safety."
"I wrote one long, final letter when I sent the checks for the money, and I told Ellice I wished never to see, never to hear from her again. I told her also, I had only one wish concerning her, and that was, that I might be able to forget her so completely, that if we should meet in the Last Judgment, I could not possibly know her. I assured her she need expect nothing at my death; as I had taken good care that my estate should not fall into the clutches of—her—'exiled scion of a noble house.' Now do you consider that she has any claim on me?"
"You must not ask me to sit in judgment on my parents."
"You shall decide a question of business facts. I provided liberally for her once; can you expect me to do so again? Has she any right to demand it?"
"Having defied your parental wishes, she may have forfeited a daughter's claim; but as a heart-broken sufferer, you cannot deny her the melancholy privilege of praying for your help, on her death-bed."
The proud clear voice trembled, and Beryl covered her face with her hands.
"Then we will ignore outraged ties of blood, and treat on the ground of mere humanity? Let me conclude, for it is sickening and loathsome to a man of my age, to see his long silent household graves yawn, and give up uncalled—their sheeted dead. For some years the money sent, was a quietus, and I was left in peace. I was lonely; it was, hard work to forget, because I could never forgive; and the more desolate the gray ruin, the more nature yearns to cover it close with vines and flowers; so after a time, I married a gentle, pure hearted woman, who made the best of what was left of me. We had no children, but she had one son of a former marriage, who proved a noble trustworthy boy; and by degrees he crept into my heart, and raked together the cinders of my dead affections, and kindled a feeble flame that warmed my shivering old age. When I felt assured that I was not thawing another serpent to sting me for my pains, I adopted Thorton Prince, and with the aid of a Legislative enactment, changed his name to Prince Darrington. Only a few months elapsed, before his mother, of whom I was very fond, died of consumption and my boy and I comforted each other. Then I made my second and last will, and took every possible precaution to secure my estate of every description to him. He is my sole heir, and I intend that at my death he shall receive every cent I possess. Did you know this?"
"I did, because your last endorsement on a letter of my mother's returned unopened to her, informed her of the fact."
"Why? Because in violation of my wishes she had persisted in writing, and soon began to importune me for money. Then I made her understand that even at my death, she would receive no aid; and since that endorsement, I have returned or destroyed her letters unread. My Will is so strong—has been drawn so carefully—that no contest can touch it; and it will stand forever between your mother and my property."
As he uttered these words, he elevated his voice, which had a ring of savage triumph in its harsh excited tones. Just then, a muffled sound attracted his attention, and seizing his gold-headed cane, he limped with evident pain to the threshold of the adjoining room.
"Bedney."
Receiving no reply, he closed the door with a violence that jarred the whole room; and came slowly back to the table, where he stood leaning heavily on his stick.
"At least we will have no eavesdropping at this resurrection of my dead. That Ellice is now a miserable woman, I have no doubt; for truly: 'Quien se casa por amores, ha de vivir con dolores.' Of course you understand Spanish?"
"No, sir; but no matter; I take it for granted that you intend some thrust at my mother, and I have heard quite enough."
"Don't know Spanish? Why I fancied your—your 'exiled scion of a noble house'—taught all the languages under the sun; including that used by the serpent in beguiling Eve! Well, the wise old adage means: 'Who marries for love, lives with sorrow.' Ellice made her choice, and she shall abide by it; and you—being unluckily her daughter—will share the punishment. If 'fathers WILL eat sour grapes, the children's teeth MUST be set on edge.' I repudiate all claims on my parental treasury, save such as I have given to my son Prince. To every other draft I am bankrupt; but merely as a gentleman, I will now for the last time, respond to the petition of a sick woman, whose child is so loyal as to arouse my compassion. Ellice has asked for one hundred dollars. You shall have it. But first, tell me why she did not go to the hospital, and submit to the operation which she says will cure her?"
"Because I could not be with her there, and I will never be separated from her. The aneurism has grown so alarmingly, that I became desperate, and having no one to aid us, I reluctantly obeyed my mother's requirement that I should come here. I could not summon my brother, because I have no idea where a letter would reach him; and with no friend—but the God of the friendless—I am before you. There is one thing I ought to tell you; I have terrible forebodings of the result of the operation, from which the Doctor encourages her to hope so much. She will not be able to take anesthetics, at least not chloroform, because she has a weak heart, and—"
"Yes—a very weak heart! It was never strong enough to hold her to her duty."
"If you could see her now, I think even your vindictive hatred would be sufficiently gratified. So wasted, so broken!—and with such a ceaseless craving for a kind word from you. One night last week pain made her restless, and I heard her sob. When I tried to relieve the suffering, she cried bitterly: 'It is not my poor body alone—it is the gnawing hunger to see father once more. He loved me so fondly once and if I could crawl to his feet, and clasp his knees in my arms, I could at least die in peace. I am starving for just one sight of him—one touch.' My poor darling mother! My beautiful, bruised, broken flower."
Through the glittering mist of unshed tears, her eyes shone, like silver lamps; and for a moment Gen'l Darrington covered his face with one hand.
"If you could realize how bitterly galling to my own pride and self respect is this appeal to a man who hates and spurns all whom I love, I think, sir, that even you would pity me so heartily, that your hardened heart would melt into one last farewell message of forgiveness to your unfortunate daughter. I would rather carry her one word of love than all your fortune."
"No—I come of a flinty race. We never forgive insults; never condone wrongs; and expecting loyalty in our own blood, we cannot live long enough to pardon its treachery. Once, I made an idol of my beautiful, graceful, high-bred girl; but she stabbed my pride, dragged my name through the gutters, broke her doting mother's heart; and now, I tell you, she is as dead to me as if she had lain twenty-three years in her grave. I have only one message. Tell her she is reaping the tares her own hand sowed. I know her no more as child of mine, and my son fills her place so completely, I do not even miss her. That is the best I can say. No doubt I am hard, but at least I am honest; and I will not feign what I cannot feel."
He limped across the floor, to a recess on one side of the chimney, where a square vault with an iron door had been built into the wall. Leaning on his cane, he took from his pocket a bunch of keys, fitted one into the lock, and pushing the bolt, the door slid back into a groove, instead of opening on hinges. He lifted a black tin box from the depths of the vault, carried it to the table, sat down, and opened it. Near the top, were numerous papers tied into packages with red tape, and two large envelopes carefully sealed with dark-green wax. In removing the bundles, to find something beneath them, these envelopes were laid on the table; and as one was either accidentally or intentionally turned, Beryl saw the endorsement written in bold black letters, and heavily underscored in red ink: "Last Will and Testament of Robert Luke Darrington." Untying a small chamois bag, the owner counted out five twenty-dollar gold pieces, closed the bag, and replaced it in the box.
"Hold out your hand. Your mother asked fur one hundred dollars. Here is the exact amount. Henceforth, leave me in peace. I am an old man, and I advise you to 'let sleeping dogs lie.'"
If he had laid a red-hot iron on her palm, it would scarcely have been more scorching than the touch of his gold, and only the vision of a wan and woeful face in that far off cheerless attic room, restrained her impulse to throw it at his feet.
An almost intolerable humiliation dyed her pale cheeks a deep purplish crimson, and she proudly drew herself to her utmost height.
"Because I cannot now help myself, I accept the money—not as a gift, but as a loan for my mother's benefit; and so help me God! I will not owe it to you one moment longer than by hard labor I can earn and return it. Goodbye, Gen'l Darrington."
She turned toward the closed door leading to the library, but raising his cane, he held it out, to intercept her.
"Wait a moment. There is one thing more."
He took from the tin box an oblong package, wrapped in letter paper, yellowed by age, and carefully sealed with red wax. As he held it up, she read thereon: "My last folly." He tore off the paper, lifted an old fashioned morocco case, and attempted to open it, but the catch was obstinate, or rusty, and several ineffectual efforts were made, ere he succeeded in moving the spring. The once white velvet cushion, had darkened and turned very yellow, but time had robbed in no degree, the lustre of the magnificent sapphires coiled there; and the blue fires leaped out, as if rejoicing in the privilege of displaying their splendor. "This set of stones was intended as a gift to your mother, when she was graduated at boarding-school. The time fixed for the close of the session was only one month later than the day on which she eloped with that foreign fraud, who should never have been allowed in the school. My wife had promised that if your mother won the honor of valedictorian, she should have the handsomest present ever worn at a commencement. These costly sapphires were my poor wife's choice. Poor Helena! how often she admired them!" His voice faltered, and he bit his under lip to still its quiver.
Was there some necromancy in the azure flames, that suddenly revealed the beloved face of the wife of his youth, and the lovely vision of their only child? His eagle eyes were dim with tears, and his hand shook; but, as if ashamed of the weakness, he closed the jewel case with a snap, and held it out.
"Here—take them. I had intended to give them as a bridal present to my son's wife, when he marries to suit me—as he certainly will; but somehow, such a disposal seems hard on my dear Helena's wishes, and for her sake, I don't feel quite easy about leaving them to Prince's bride. Your mother never saw them, never knew of their existence. They are very valuable, and the amount they will bring must relieve all present necessities. Tell Ellice the sight of the case disturbs me, like a thorn in the flesh, so I send them away, to rid myself of an annoyance. She must not thank me; they come from her—dead mother."
"A knowledge of their history would give her infinitely more pain than the proceeds of their sale could bring comfort. I would not stab her aching heart for twenty times the value of the jewels."
"Then sell them, or do as you like. It matters not what becomes of them, if I am spared in future all reminders of the past. Put them in your pocket. What? The case is too large? Where is your trunk—your baggage?"
"I have none, except my basket and shawl."
She picked them up from the carpet near the library door, and dropped the case into her basket.
"You are a brave, and a loyal woman, and you appear to deserve far better parents than fell to your lot. Before you go, let me offer you a glass of wine, and a biscuit."
"Thank you—no. I could not possibly accept it."
"Well, we shall never meet again. Good-bye. Shake hands."
"I will very gladly do so if you will only give me just one gentle, forgiving kind word to comfort mother."
He set his teeth, and shook his head.
"Good-bye, Gen'l Darrington. When you lie down to die, I hope God will be more merciful to your poor soul, than you have shown yourself to your suffering child."
He bowed profoundly.
Her hand was on the knob of the door, when he pointed to the western veranda.
"You are going back to town? Then, if you please, be so good as to pass out through that rear entrance, and close the glass door after you. A side path leads to the lawn; and I prefer that you should not meet the servants, who pry and tattle."
When she stood on the veranda, and turned to close the wide arched glass door, whence the inside red silk curtain had been looped back, her last view of the gaunt, tall figure within, showed him leaning on his stick, with the tin box held in his left hand, and the dying sunlight shining on his silver hair and furrowed face.
Along the serpentine path which was bordered with masses of brilliant chrysanthemums, Beryl walked rapidly, feeling almost stifled by the pressure of contending emotions. Recollecting that these spice censers of Autumn were her mother's favorite flowers, she stooped and broke several lovely clusters of orange and garnet color, hoping that a lingering breath of perfume from the home of her girlhood, might afford at least a melancholy pleasure to the distant invalid.
Advancing into the elm avenue, she heard a voice calling, and looking back, saw the old negro man, Bedney, waving his white apron and running toward her; but at that moment his steps were arrested by the sudden, loud and rapid ringing of a bell. He paused, listened, wavered; then threw up his hands, and hurried back to the house, whence issued the impatient summons.
The sun had gone down in the green sea of far-off pine tops, but the western sky glowed like some vast altar of topaz, whereon zodiacal fires had kindled the rays of vivid rose, that sprang into the zenith and cooled their flush in the pale blue of the upper air. Under the elms, swift southern twilight was already filling the arches with purple gloom, and when the heavy iron gate closed with a sullen clang behind her, Beryl drew a long deep breath of relief. On the sultry atmosphere broke the gurgling andante music of the "branch," as it eddied among the nodding ferns, and darted under the bridge; and the weary, thirsty woman knelt on the mossy margin, dipped up the amber water in her palms, drank, and bathed her burning face which still tingled painfully.
Having learned from the station agent, who had already sold her a return ticket, that the north bound railway train, by which she desired to travel home, would not depart until 7.15, she was beguiled by the brilliance of the sky into the belief that she had ample time, to comply with her mother's farewell request. Mrs. Brentano had tied with a scrap of ribbon the bouquet of flowers, bought by her daughter on the afternoon of her journey south, and asked her to lay them on her mother's grave.
Anxious to accomplish this sacred mission Beryl took the faded blossoms from her basket, added a cluster of chrysanthemums, a frond of fern from the "branch" border, and hurried on to the cemetery. When she reached the entrance, the gate was locked, but unwilling to return without having gratified her mother's wish, she climbed into a spreading cedar close by the low brick wall, and swung herself easily down inside the enclosure.
Some time was lost in finding the Darrington lot, but at last she stood before a tall iron railing, that bristled with lance-like points, between the dust, of her ancestors and herself. In one corner rose a beautiful monument, bearing on its front, in gilt letters, the inscription "Helena Tracy, wife of R. L. Darrington."
Thrusting her hand through a space in the railing, Beryl dropped her mother's withered Arkja tribute on the marble slab. Her dress was caught by a sharp point of iron, and while endeavoring to disengage it, she heard the shrill whistle of the R. R. engine. Tearing the skirt away, she ran to the wall, climbed over, after some delay, and finding herself once more in the open road, darted on as fast as possible through the dusk, heedless of appearances, fearful only of missing the train. How the houses multiplied, and what interminable lengths the squares seemed, as she neared the brick warehouse and office of the station! The lamps at the street corners beckoned her on, and when panting for breath she rushed around the side of the tall building that fronted the railway, there was no train in sight.
Two or three coal cars stood on a siding, near a detached engine, where one man was lighting the lamp before the reflector of the headlight, and another, who whistled merrily, burnished the brass and copper platings. In the door of the ticket office the agent lounged, puffed his cigar, and fanned himself with his hat.
"What time is it?" cried Beryl.
"Seven-forty-five."
"Oh! do not tell me I have missed the train."
"You certainly have. I told you it left at 7:15 sharp. It was ten minutes behind time on account of hot boxes, but rolled out just twenty minutes ago. Did you get lost hunting 'Elm Bluff,' and miss your train on that account?"
"No, I had no difficulty in finding the place, but having no watch, I was forced to guess at the time. Only twenty minutes too late!"
"Did you see the old war-horse?"
Beryl did not answer, and after a moment the agent added:
"That is Gen'l Darrington's nick-name all over this section."
"When will the next train leave here?"
"Not until 3:05 A.M."
Beryl sat down on the edge of a baggage truck, and pondered the situation. She knew that her mother, who had carefully studied the railway schedule, was with feverish anxiety expecting her return by the train, now many miles away; and she feared that any unexplained detention would have an injurious effect on the sick woman's shattered nerves.
Although she could ill afford the expense, she resolved to allay all apprehension, by the costly sedative of a telegram.
Only a wall separated the ticket office from that of the "telegraph," and approaching the operator, Beryl asked for a blank form, on which she wrote her mother's address, and the following message:
"Complete success required delay. All will be satisfactory. Expect me Saturday. B. B."
When she had paid the operator, there remained in her purse, exclusive of the gold coins received that afternoon, only thirty-eight cents. Where could she spend the next seven hours? Interpreting the perplexed expression of her face, the agent, who had curiously noted her movements, said courteously:
"There is a hotel a few blocks off, where you can rest until train time."
"I prefer to remain here."
"We generally lock up this office about half-past eight, and re-open at half-past two, which gives passengers ample accommodation for the 3:05 train."
"Would you violate regulations by leaving the waiting-room open to-night?"
"Not exactly; as of course we are obliged to keep open for delayed trains; but it will be lonesome waiting, for no one stays here, except the Night Train Despatcher, and the switch watchman. Still if it will oblige you, miss, I will not lock up, and you can doze away the time by spreading your shawl on two chairs. I am going to supper now, and shall turn down the lights. One burner will be sufficient."
"Thank you very much. Where can I find some water?"
"In the cooler in the ladies' dressing-room. It is most unaccountably hot tonight, and I never knew anything like it in October. There must be a cyclone brewing somewhere not far off."
He lifted his hat, as he passed her, and disappeared; and the tired girl seated herself near a window and stirred the dense, impure air by fanning herself with her straw hat. Gradually the few stragglers loitering about the station wandered away; the engineer stepped upon the locomotive; a piercing whistle broke suddenly on the silence settling down over the whilom busy precincts, and as the rhythmic measure of the engine bell rang farewell chimes, a pyramid of sparks leaped high, and the mighty mechanism fled down the track, hunting its own echoes. The man in charge of the express office came out, looked up and down the street; yawned, lighted his pipe, and after locking the office, wended his way homeward.
From the adjoining room came the slow monotonous clicking of the telegraph wires, as messages passed to other stations, and only the switch watchman was visible, sitting on an inverted tub, and playing snatches from "Mascotte" and "Olivette" upon a harmonicon.
Heat seemed radiating from the brick pavement outside, from the inner walls of the waiting-room; and Beryl, finding the atmosphere almost stifling, went out under the stars. Up and down she paced, until weary of the dusty thoroughfare, she turned into the street which, earlier in the day, had conducted her toward the suburbs. She knew that a full moon had climbed above the horizon, and some malign Morgana lured her on, with visions of cool pine glades paved with silver mosaics, and balmy with breath of balsam; where through vast forest naves echoed the melodious monody chanted by the reddish gold wavelets of the "branch." In the eastern sky the florid face of a hunter's moon looked down, from the level line of a leaden cloud, which striped the star emblazoned shield of night, like a bar sinister; and the white lustre of her rays was dimmed to a lurid dulness solemn and presageful.
As Beryl crossed the common near the station, and entered the pillared aisles of the pines, the air was less oppressive, but a dun haze seemed on every side to curtain the horizon, and the stars looked bleared and tired in the breathless vault above her. A man driving two cows toward town, stared at her; then a wagon drawn by four horses rattled along, bearing homeward a gay picnic party of young people, who made the woods ring with the echoes of "Hold the Fort." The grandeur of towering pines, the mysterious dimness of illimitable arcades, and the peculiar resinous odor that stole like lingering ghosts of myrrh, frankincense and onycha through the vaulted solitude of a deserted hoary sanctuary, all these phases of primeval Southern forests combined to weave a spell that the stranger could not resist.
After a while, fearful of straying too far, the weary woman threw her shawl on the brown straw, and sat down quite near the road. She leaned her bare head against the trunk of a pine, listened to the katydids gossiping in a distant oak that shaded the "branch," to the quavering strident song of a locust; and she intended, after resting for a few moments, to return to the station-house; but unexpected drowsiness overpowered her. Suddenly aroused from a sound sleep, she heard the clatter of galloping hoofs, and as she sprang up, the horse, startled by her movement, shied and reared within a few feet of the spot where she stood. The moon shone full on the glossy black animal, and upon his powerful rider, and Beryl recognized the massive head, swarthy face and keen eyes of the attorney, Lennox Dunbar. He leaned forward and said, as he patted the erect ears of his horse:
"Madam, you seem a stranger. Have you lost your way?"
"No, sir."
"Pardon me; but having seen you this afternoon at 'Elm Bluff,' I thought it possible you had missed the road."
Standing so straight and tall, with the sheen of the moon on her faultless features, he thought she looked the incarnation of some prescient Norn, fit for the well of Urda.
She made no reply; and he touched his hat, and rode rapidly away in the direction of the town, carrying an indelible impression of the mysterious picture under the pines.
The sky had changed; the face of the moon had cleared, but tatters and scuds of smoke-colored cloud fled northward, as if scourged by a stormy current too high to stir the sultry stagnation of the lower atmospheric stratum. From its vaporous lair somewhere in the cypress and palm jungles of the Mexican Gulf borders, the tempest had risen, and before its breath the shreds of cloud flew like avant couriers of disaster. Already the lurid glare of incessant sheet lightning fought with the moon for supremacy, and from a leaden wall along the southeastern sky, came the long reverberating growl of thunder, that told where the electric batteries had opened fire. A vague foreboding, which for several days had haunted Beryl's mind, now pressed so heavily upon her, that she hurried back to the station, which was near the edge of the town; and more than once she started nervously at sight of grotesque shadows cast by the trees across the sandy road.
The streets were deserted, and lights gleamed only in upper windows of apartments, where sick sufferers tossed, or tender mothers sang soft lullabys to restless babies crooning in their cribs. Now and then a sudden gust of wind shook the yellow berries from the china trees, that bordered the pavements, and very soon the moonshine faded, then flashed fitfully, and finally vanished, as the blackening cloud swept over the face of earth and sky. The watchman dozed on his post of observation; a porter slept on a baggage truck under the awning, and as Beryl peeped into the telegraph office, she heard the snoring of the operator, whose head rested upon the table close to the silent instrument. She listened to the ticking of a clock in the ticket office, but could not see its face; wondered how late it was, and how long she had been absent. Feeling very lonely and restless she closed the door, and sat down in the deserted waiting-room, glad of the companionship of a tortoise-shell cat which was curled up on a chair next her own.
Gradually the storm approached, and she thought that an hour had elapsed, when the dust-tainted smell of rain came with the rush of cold air. There was no steady gale, but the tempest broke in frantic spasmodic gusts, as though it had lost its reckoning, and simultaneously assaulted all the points of the compass; while the lightning glared almost continuously, and the roar of the thunder was uninterrupted. Now and then a vivid zig-zag flash gored the intense darkness with its baleful blue death-light, followed by a crash, appalling as if the battlements of heaven had been shattered. Once the whole air seemed ablaze, and the simultaneous shock of the detonation was so violent, that Beryl involuntarily sank on her knees, and hid her eyes on a chair. The rain fell in torrents, that added a solemn sullen swell to the diapason of the thunder fugue, and by degrees a delicious coolness crept into the cisterns of the night.
When the cloud had wept away its fury, and electric fires burned low in the far west, a gentle shower droned on the roof, and lulled by its cadence Beryl fell asleep, still kneeling on the floor, with her head resting on the chair where the cat lay coiled.
In dreams, she wandered with her father and brother upon a Tuscan hillside draped with purple fruited grape vines, and Bertie was crushing a luscious cluster against her thirsty lips, when some noise startled her. Wide awake, she sprang to her feet, and listened.
"There ain't no train till daylight, 'cepting it be the through freight."
"When is that due?"
"Pretty soon; it's mighty nigh time now, but it don't stop here; it goes on to the water tank, whar it blows for the railroad bridge."
"How far is the bridge?"
"Only a short piece down the track, after you pass the tank."
Beryl had rushed to the window, and looked out, but no one was visible. She could scarcely mistake that peculiar voice, and was so assured of its identity, that she ran out under the awning and looked up and down the platform in front of the station buildings. The rain had ceased, but drops still pattered from the tin roof, and a few stars peeped over the ragged ravelled edge of slowly drifting clouds. By the light of a gas lamp, she saw an old negro man limping away, who held a stick over his shoulder, on which was slung a bundle wrapped in a red handkerchief; and while she stood watching, he vanished in some cul de sac. With her basket in her hand, and her shawl on her arm, she sped down the track, looking to right and left.
"Bertie! Bertie!"
Once she fancied she discerned a form flying ahead of her, leaping from cross tie to cross tie to avoid the water, but when she called vehemently, only the sound of her own voice broke the silence.
Was it merely an illusion born of her vivid dream of her brother; and while scarcely awake, had she confounded the tones of a stranger, with those so long familiar? She could not shake off the conviction that Bertie had really spoken only a few yards from her, and while she stood irresolute, puzzling over the problem, the through freight train dashed by the station and left a trail of sparks and cinders. To avoid it she sprang on a pile of cross ties beside the track, and when the fiery serpent wound out of sight, she reluctantly retraced her steps. How long the night seemed! Would day never dawn again? She heard the telegraph operator whistling at his work, and as she re-entered the waiting-room, she saw the ticket agent standing in his office.
"What time is it?"
"Half-past two o'clock. I might as well have locked up as usual, for after all, you did not stay here."
"Yes I did."
He eyed her suspiciously.
"I came back from supper, and brought a pitcher of cold tea, thinking you might relish it, but you were not here. I waited nearly an hour; then I went home."
"It was so hot, I walked about outside. What a frightful storm."
"Yes, perfectly awful. Were you exposed to the worst of it?"
"No, I was here."
He shook his head, smiled, and went into the next room, knowing that when he returned to unlock his office she was not in the building, and that he had seen her coming up the railway track. The bustle of preparation soon began; the baggage wagons thundered up to the platform, porters called to one another; passengers collected in the waiting-room, carriages and omnibuses dashed about; then at 2:50 the long train of north bound cars swept in. With her shawl and basket in one hand, and the odorous bunches of chrysanthemums clasped in the other, Beryl stepped upon the platform. She found a seat at an open window, and made herself comfortable; placing her feet upon the basket which contained the jewels that constituted her sole earthly fortune. The bell rang, the train glided on, and as it passed the office door, she saw the agent watching her, with a strangely suspicious expression.
The cars wound around a curve, and she sank back and shut her eyes, rejoicing in the belief that her mission to "Elm Bluff," and its keen humiliation, were forever ended.
"I concede that point. Your lover is amply endowed with brains, and moreover has a vast amount of shrewdness, all that is requisite to secure success and eminence in his profession; but to-day, it seems as much a matter of astonishment to me—as it certainly was six months ago, when first you told me of your engagement—that you, Leo Gordon, could ever fancy just such a man as Lennox Dunbar."
"I am very sorry, Aunt Patty, that he finds no favor in your eyes, and I think he is aware of the fact that he is not in your good graces. You both look so vaguely uncomfortable when thrown into each other's presence; but for my sake you must try to like Lennox."
Miss Gordon bent her pretty head over a square of ruby velvet, whereon she was embroidering a wreath of pansies, and the delicate flush on her fair face, deepened to a vivid carnation.
"My likes or dislikes are a matter of moonshine, in comparison with your happiness. Because you are an orphan, I feel a sort of responsibility; and sometimes I am not exactly easy over the account of my stewardship I must render to my poor dead Marcia. The more I see of your lover, the more I dread your marriage. A man who makes no profession of religious belief, is an unsafe guardian of any woman's peace of mind. You who have been reared almost in the shadow of the altar, accustomed to hearing grace at your meals, to family prayers, to strict observance of our ritual, will feel isolated indeed, when transplanted to the home of a godless man, who rarely darkens the door of the sanctuary. 'Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.'"
Miss Patty Dent took off her spectacles, wiped them with the string of her white muslin cap, and adjusting them firmly on her nose, plucked nervously at the fluted lace ruffles around her wrists.
"Auntie, you are scarcely warranted in using such strong language. Because a man refrains from the public avowal of faith, incident to church membership, he is not necessarily godless; nor inevitably devoid of true religious feeling. Mr. Dunbar has a strong, reticent nature, habituated to repression of all evidences of emotion, but of the depth and earnestness of his real feeling, I entertain no doubt."
"I fear your line and plummet will never sound his depth. You often speak of his strength; but, Leo, hardness is not always strength; and he is hard, hard. I never saw a man with a chin like his, who was not tyrannical, and idolatrous of his own will. My dear, such men are as uncomfortable to live in the same house with, as a smoky chimney, or a woman with shattered nerves, or creaking doors, or draughty windows. They are a sort of everlasting east wind that never veers, blowing always to the one point, attainment of their own ends, mildewing all else. Ugh!"
Miss Patty shivered, and her companion smiled.
"What a grewsome picture, Auntie dear! Fortunately human taste is as diverse and catholic as the variety of human countenances. For example: Clara Morse raves over Mr. Dunbar's 'clear-cut features, so immensely classical'; and she pronounces his offending 'chin simply perfect! fit for a Greek God!'"
"A very thin and gauzy partition divides Clara Morse's brains from idiocy. In my day, all such feeble watery minds as hers were regarded as semi-imbecile, pitied as intellectual cripples, and wisely kept in the background of society; but, bless me! in this generation they skip and prance to the very edge of the front, pose in indecent garments without starch, or crinoline, or even the protection of pleats and gathers; and insult good, sound, wholesome common sense with the sickening affectations they are pleased to call 'aesthetics.' Don't waste your time, and dilute your own mind by quoting the silly twaddle of a poor girl who was turned loose too early on society, who falls on her knees in ecstasies before a hideous broken-nose tea-pot from some filthy hovel in Japan; and who would not dare to admire the loveliest bit of Oiron pottery, or precious old Chelsea claret-colored china in Kensington Museum, until she had turned it upside down, and hunted the potter's mark with a microscope. I say Mr. Dunbar has a domineering and tyrannical chin, and five years hence, if you do not agree with me, it will be because 'Ephraim is joined to his idols'—clay feet and all."
"Then follow the Bible injunction to 'let him alone.' I see Lennox through neither Clara's rosy lenses, nor your jaundiced glasses; and these circular discussions are as fruitless as they are unpleasant. Let us select some more agreeable topic. I gave you Leighton's letter. What think you of his scheme?"
"That it is admirable, worthy of the brain that conceived it. What a wonderful man he is, considering his age? Such a devout and fervent spirit, and withal such a marvel of executive ability. Ah! happy the woman who can command his wise guardianship, and renew her aspirations after holiness, in his spiritual society. I honor, even more than I love, Leighton Douglass."
"So do I, Aunt Patty. He is quite my ideal pastor, and when he marries, I hope his wife will be worthy of him in every respect. Only a very noble woman would suit my cousin."
A bright spot burned on Miss Dent's wrinkled cheek, and she knitted her brows, and shook her head.
"He is so absorbed in his holy work that he has no leisure for such trifles as love-making; but if he should ever honor a woman by the offer of his consecrated hand, it must be one of large fortune, who will dedicate herself and her money to the accomplishment of his ecclesiastical schemes."
The corners of Miss Gordon's mouth twitched mutinously, but she contrived to throw much innocent surprise and questioning into the handsome brown eyes, which she lifted from her gold-hearted pansies, to her Aunt's face.
"Could you possibly associate mercenary motives with any step which he might take? Such a supposition would be totally incompatible with my estimate of his character."
"When a man dedicates himself to a solemn mission, he is lifted far above the ordinary plane, can dispense with sentimental conventionalities, and must learn to regard all human relations as merely means to an end. Want of money has palsied many an arm lifted to advance the good of the Church; and zeal without funds, accomplishes as little as rusty machinery stiff from lack of oil. If Dr. Douglass could only control even a hundred thousand dollars, what shining monuments he would leave to immortalize him! Indeed, it passes my comprehension how persons who could so easily help him, deliberately turn a deaf ear to the 'cry from Macedonia'."
"There is far more eclat in trips to Macedonia, but the God of recompense does not forget the steady, tireless help and sympathy extended to the needy, who dwell within sight of our own doors. Organized society work is good, but individual self-sacrifice and labor are much better; and if every unit did full duty, co-operative systems would not be so necessary; still, Leighton's scheme commends itself to every woman's heart, and when I answered his letter, I expressed cordially my approbation."
"Did you prove your faith by your works, and send him a large check?"
"Auntie, dear, do you expect me to stultify all your training, both your example and precept—for lo! these many years—by setting my left hand to gossip about my right? I am very sure."
"Well, Andrew, what is it?"
"A boy from Mr. Dunbar's office has just galloped up, and says I am to tell you he can't ride to the Falls to-day, as he expected, because of some pressing business; and he wants to know if the Judge will come into town right away? Mr. Dunbar will explain when he comes late this evening."
"Very well. Tell Daniel I shall not want 'Rebel' saddled; and say to the messenger that my Uncle is not at home. Aunt Patty, do you know where he has gone?"
"Doubtless to his office; where else should he be? He said he had a pile of tiresome papers to examine to-day."
Miss Gordon folded up her work, laid it away in a dainty basket lined with blue satin and flounced with lace; and after pausing a moment to pet her Aunt's white Maltese cat which lay dozing In the sunshine, walked away toward a Small hot-house, built quite near the dining-room, and connected with it by an arcade, covered in summer by vines, in winter by glass.
Twenty-four years before that day, when a proud, fond young mother puffed and tucked the marvel of lace and linen cambric, which was intended as a christening robe for her baby, and laid it away with spicery of rose leaves and sachet of lavender and deer tongue, to wait until a "furlough" allowed the child's father to be present at the baptism, she had supposed that its delicate folds would one day adorn a dimpled rosy-faced infant, for whom the name Aurelia Gordon had long been selected. Fate cruelly vetoed all the details of the programme, carefully arranged by maternal affection; and the lurid sun that set in clouds of smoke on one of the most desperate battles of the Confederacy, saw Colonel Gordon's brave, patriotic soul released on that long "furlough" which glory granted her heroes; saw his devoted wife a wailing widow. The red burial of battle had precluded the solemnization of baptismal rites at the sacred marble font; and when four days after Colonel Gordon's death, his frail young wife welcomed the summons to an everlasting re-union, she laid her cold hands on her baby's golden head, and died, as she whispered:
"Name her Leo, for her father."
So it came to pass, that the clergyman who read the burial service beside the mother's coffin, lifted the cooing infant in the midst of a weeping funeral throng, and with a faltering voice baptized her, in the presence of the dead, Leo Gordon.
To the care of her sister Patty, and of her widowed brother, Judge Dent, Mrs. Gordon had consigned her child; and transplanted so early to her uncle's house, the orphan knew no other home.
When the problem of vast numerical preponderance had solved itself in accordance with the rules of avoirdupois, and history—fond like all garrulous old crones of repeating even her inglorious episodes—had triumphantly inscribed on her bloody tablets, that once more the Few were throttled and trampled by the Many, then the fabled "Ragnarok" of the Sagas described only approximately the doom of the devastated South. In the financial and social chaos that followed the invasion by "loyal" hordes, rushing under "sealed orders" on the mission of "Reconstruction," and eminently successful in "reconstructing" their individual fortunes, an anomaly presented itself for the consideration of political economists. The wealthy classes of ante bellum days were the most destitute paupers that the newly-risen Union sun shone upon.
The French Revolution and its subsequent eruptions of Communism failed to destroy the value of land; and the emancipation of Russian serfs may have stimulated agricultural activity, but that political and social Communism which the Pandora of "reconstruction" let loose throughout the conquered States of the South, accomplished all that the victors could have desired.
Abandoned by the laborers God had fitted to endure toil under climatic conditions peculiar to the soil, vast silent fields of weeds stared blankly, and the richer a man found himself in ancestral acres, the more hopelessly was he manacled by taxes. "Reconstructionists" most thoroughly inoculated with "Loyal" rabies, held in lofty disdain the claims of widows and orphans, and the right of minors was as dead as that of secession. In the general maelstrom, Colonel Gordon's large estate went to pieces; but after a time, Judge Dent took lessons from his new political masters in the science of wrecking, and by degrees, as fragments and shreds stranded, he collected and secreted them. Certain mining interests were protected, and some valuable plantations in distant sugar belts, were secured. As guardian of his sister's daughter, he changed, or renewed investments in stocks which rapidly increased in value, until an unusually large fortune had accumulated: and verifying figures justified his boast, that his niece and ward was the wealthiest heiress in the State.
Reared in a household which consisted of an elderly uncle and aunt, and a middle-aged governess, Leo Gordon had never known intimate association with younger people; and while her nature was gentle and tranquil, she gradually imbibed the grave and rather prim ideas which were in vogue when Miss Patty was the reigning belle of her county. Although petted and indulged, she had not been spoiled, and remained singularly free from the selfishness usually developed in the character of an only child, nurtured in the midst of mature relatives. When eighteen years old, Leo, accompanied by her governess, Mrs. Eldridge, had been sent to New York and Boston for educational advantages, which it was supposed that her own section of the country could not supply; and subsequently the two went abroad, gleaning knowledge in the great centres of European Art. During their sojourn in Munich, Mrs. Eldridge died after a very brief illness; and returning to her southern home, Leo found herself the object of social homage.
Thoroughly well-bred, accomplished, graceful and pretty, she commanded universal admiration; yet her manner was marked by a quiet, grave dignity, and a peculiar reticence, at variance with the prevailing type of young ladyhood, now alas! too dominant; whose premature emancipation from home rule, and old-fashioned canons of decorum renders "American girlhood" synonymous with flippant pertness. Moulded by two women who were imbued with the spirit of Richter's admonition: "Girls like the priestesses of old, should be educated only in sacred places, and never hear, much less see, what is rude, immoral or violent"; the pate tendre of Leo's character showed unmistakably the potter's marks.
She shrewdly surmised that the knowledge of her unusual wealth contributed to swell the number of her suitors, and she was twenty-four years old when Lennox Dunbar, for whom she had long secretly cherished a partiality, succeeded in placing his ring on her fair, slender hand. In character they differed widely, and the deep and tender love that filled her heart, found only a faint echo in his cold and more selfish nature, which had carefully calculated all the advantages derivable from this alliance.
He cordially admired and esteemed his brown-eyed fair-haired fiancee, considered her the personification of feminine refinement and delicacy; and congratulated himself warmly on his great good fortune in winning her affection; but tender emotions found little scope for exercise in his intensely practical, busy life, which was devoted to the attainment of eminence in his profession; and the merely dynamic apparatus which did duty as his heart, had never been disturbed by any feeling sufficiently deep to quicken his calm, steady pulse.
There were times, when Leo wondered whether all accepted lovers were as undemonstrative as her own, and she would have been happier had he occasionally forgotten professional aspirations, in the charm of her presence; but her confidence in the purity and fidelity of his affection was unshaken, even by the dismal predictions of Miss Patty, who found it impossible to reconcile herself to the failure of her darling scheme, that Leo should marry her second cousin, Leighton Douglass, D.D., and devote her fortune to the advancement of his church.
To-day, as she sought pleasant work in arranging the ferns and carnations of her conservatory, her thoughts reverted to the previous evening, which Mr. Dunbar had spent with her; and she could not avoid indulging regret, that he should have allowed business affairs to interfere with their engagement for horseback riding, but her reverie was speedily interrupted by the excited tones of her aunt's voice.
"Leo! Leo! Where do you hide yourself?"
"Here, Auntie, in the conservatory."
"Oh! my child, such dreadful news! Such a frightful tragedy!"
Pale and panting, Miss Patty ran down the arcade, and stumbled over a barricade of potted plants on the threshold of the door.
"What is the matter? Is it my Uncle, or—or Lennox?"
Leo sprang to her feet, and caught her aunt's arm.
"Horrible! horrible! General Darrington was robbed, and then most brutally murdered last night!"
"Murdered! Can it be possible? Murdered—by whom?"
"How should I know? The whole town is wild about it. My brother is at Elm Bluff, with the body, and I shall take the carriage and drive over there at once. Dear me; I am so nervous I can't stand still, and my teeth chatter like a pair of castanets."
"Perhaps there may be some mistake. How did you hear it?"
"Your Uncle Mitchell sent a boy to tell me why he was detained. There has been a coroner's inquest, and of course, as an old and intimate friend of General Darrington's, Mitchell feels he must do all he can. Poor old gentleman! So proud and aristocratic! To be murdered in his own house, like any common pauper! Positively it makes me sick. May the Lord have mercy on his soul."
"Amen!" murmured Leo.
"Will you go with me to Elm Bluff?"
"Oh, no! Not for worlds. Why should I? Women will only be in the way; and who could desire to contemplate so horrible a spectacle? It will merely harrow your feelings, Aunt Patty, and you can do no good."
"It is my Christian duty as a neighbor; and I was always very fond of the first Mrs. Darrington, Helena Tracey. What is this wicked world coming to? Robbery and murder stalking bare-faced through the land. It will be a dreadful blow to Mitchell, because he and Luke Darrington have been intimate all their lives. I see the carriage coming round, so I must get my bonnet and wrap."
"I presume Mr. Dunbar is engaged in the same melancholy details which occupy my uncle."
"Doubtless he is, because his father was General Darrington's attorney until his health failed; and Lennox is now his lawyer and business agent. It is a thousand pities that Prince is away in Europe."
Two hours after the carriage had disappeared on the road leading to Elm Bluff, Leo crossed the grassy lawn, and sat down near the gate, on a rustic bench under a cluster of tall lilacs, which gave their name to her uncle's home.
A keen north wind whistling through neighboring walnut tree tops, drove the dying leaves like frightened flocks before it, and ever and anon the ripened nuts pattered down, hiding themselves under the drift of yellow foliage, that had sheltered them in cool greenery during summer heats. Overhead a red squirrel barked and frisked, and across the pale-blue sky, feathered nomads, teal or mallard, moved swiftly en echelon, their quivering pinions flashing like silver, as they fled southward. On a distant hillside cattle browsed, and sheep wandered; and the drowsy tinkle of bells, as the herd wended homeward, seemed a nocturne of rest, for the closing day.
How serene, harmonious and holy all nature appeared; and yet a few miles distant, into what a fierce seething whirlpool of conflicting passions, of hatred and bloodthirsty vengeance, had human crime plunged an entire community. We plume ourselves upon nineteenth century civilization, upon ethical advancement, upon Christian progress; we adorn our cathedrals, build temples for art treasures, and museums for science, and listen to preludes of the "music of the future;" and we shudder at the mention of vice, as at the remembrance of the tortures of Regulus, but will the Cain type ever become extinct, like the dodo, or the ichthyosaurus? When will the laws of heredity, and the by-laws of agnation result in an altruism, where human bloodshed is an unknown horror?
The apostles of Evolution tell us, that in the genealogical ages during which man has struggled upward, from the lower stages of vertebrate and mammal to the genus of catarrhine apes, he has gradually thrown off bestial instincts, and that the tiger taint will ultimately be totally eliminated; that "original sin is neither more nor less than the brute inheritance which every man carries with him, and that Evolution is an advance toward true salvation." Meanwhile what becomes of the "Survival of the Fittest", which is only a euphemism for the strangling of the feeble by the strong? We can understand how perfection, or permanence of type, individual and national, demands carnage, and entails all the dire catalogue of human woes, but wherein is altruism evolved? How many aeons shall we wait, to behold the leopard and the lamb pasturing together in peace?
Pondering this problem, as he rode along the public road outside the boundary of Judge Dent's lawn, Mr. Dunbar caught a glimpse of his betrothed, sitting behind the hedge of lilacs, and he lifted his hat, hoping that she would meet him at the entrance; but although she bowed in recognition, he was forced to open the gate and admit himself. Throwing the bridle rein over one of the iron spikes of the fence, and taking off his gloves, he approached the bench.
"Dare I flatter myself, that my queen deigns to meet me half way?"
He took her outstretched hand, and kissed it softly, while his glance noted every detail of her handsome fawn-colored dress, with its jabot of creamy lace, and the cluster of crimson carnations in her belt. The touch of his lips on her fingers, deepened the flush in her cheeks, and, making room for him beside her, she replied:
"Sit down, and tell me if this dreadful news about General Darrington be indeed true? I have hoped there might be some mistake, some exaggeration."
"Some horrors exceed the possibility of verbal exaggeration, and last night's tragedy is one of that class. General Darrington was most brutally murdered."
"Poor old gentleman! How incredible it seems that such awful crimes can be committed in our quiet neighborhood? who could have been so guilty; and what motive could have prompted such a fiendish act?"
"The one all-powerful evil passion of mankind—greed of gold; lust of filthy lucre. He was first robbed, then murdered by the thief, to avoid detection and punishment. There is unmistakable evidence that the General was chloroformed while asleep; but he must have awakened in time to discover the robber, with whom he struggled desperately, and by whom he was struck down. The coroner's inquest developed some startling facts."
"Has any clue been discovered which would indicate the murderer?"
"A handful of clues."
"Then you have a theory concerning the person who perpetrated this awful crime?"
"My dear Leo, not a theory, but a conviction; I might almost say an absolute knowledge."
"Would it be pardonable for me to ask whom you suspect; would it be a violation of professional etiquette for you to tell me?"
"Certainly, my dearest, you can ask me anything, only—" he paused a moment; and she put her hand quickly on his arm.
"I see. Do not tell me mere suspicions; they might cruelly wrong an innocent person; and I ought not to have asked the question."
"My hesitation arose from a totally different source, and I was merely wondering whether you, my sweet saint, could believe that a woman committed the bloody deed."
"Oh, Mr. Dunbar, impossible! A woman guilty of taking that old man's life? The supposition is as horrible as the crime itself."
Passing his hand lightly over her crimped fair hair, and looking down into her eyes, as brown as the back of a thrush, her lover replied:
"I find that the nobler and purer a woman's heart is, the less she credits the existence of vice and the possibility of crime among her own sex. You doubtless consider the Brinvilliers, Fredegonds, Fulvias and Faustinas, quite as fabulous as Centaurs, Sirens and Were-wolves; and I feel as reluctant to shake your fair faith in womanhood, as to dash the dew from a rose-bud, or rudely brush the bloom a cluster of tempting grapes; but the grim truth must be told, that our old friend was robbed and murdered by a woman."
"One of his servants? They all seemed devotedly attached to him."
"No, by his granddaughter, a young and very beautiful woman; Beryl Brentano, the child of General Darrington's daughter Ellice, whom he had disowned on account of her wretched marriage with a foreigner, who taught her music and the languages. Of course you have heard from your aunt and uncle all the details of that family episode. Yesterday this girl Beryl suddenly presented herself at Elm Bluff, and demanded money from her grandfather; alleging that her mother's life was in danger for want of it. I learn there was a stormy interview, part of the conversation having been overheard by two persons; and the General, who was as vindictive as a Modoc, or a Cossack, drove the young lady through a door leading down to the rosery. This occurred in the afternoon, immediately after I left Elm Bluff, where I went to obtain his signature to a deed to some lands recently sold in Texas. I saw the girl sitting on the front steps, and when she rose and looked at me, her superb physique impressed me powerfully. She is as beautiful and stately as some goddess stepping out of the Norse 'Edda', and altogether a remarkable looking person. It will appear in evidence, that the General harshly refused her pleadings, and made a point of assuring her that his will, already prepared, would forever debar her mother and herself from any inheritance at his death; as he had bequeathed his entire estate to his adopted son Prince. Unfortunately, she learned where the will was kept, as during the interview, persons in the next room distinctly heard the peculiar noise made by the sliding door of the iron vault, where General Darrington kept all his valuable papers. She disappeared from Elm Bluff about sunset, going toward town; and last night at ten o'clock, when I left you and rode home, I saw her lurking in the pine woods not very far from the bridge over the branch, near the park gate. She was evidently hiding, as she sat on the ground half screened by a tree; but my horse shied and plunged badly, and when she rose, the full moon showed her face and figure distinctly. There was something so mysterious in her movements, that I asked her if she had lost her way; to which she curtly replied that she had not. I learn from Burk, the station agent, that her actions aroused his suspicion, and that instead of leaving town, as she said she intended, by the 7:15 train, she hung about the station, and finally took the 3:05 express this morning. He said she had begged permission to stay in the waiting-room, but that at 2:30 A.M., when he went back to open the ticket office, she was nowhere to be found; and that later, he saw her coming down the railroad track. She must have gone back to Elm Bluff after I passed her on the road, and effected an entrance through the window on the front piazza, as it was found open; and the awful work of robbery and murder was accomplished during the storm, which you know was so frightful that it drowned all minor sounds. This morning when the General did not ring for his hot water at the usual time, it was supposed that he was sleeping late, but finally old Bedney knocked. Unable to arouse his master, he opened the door, and found our old friend lying on the floor, near the fireplace. He had been dead for hours, and close to his head was a heavy brass andiron, which evidently had been snatched from the hearth by the murderess, who must have dealt the fatal blow with it, as there was a dark spot on his temple, and also on the left side near the heart. The room was in disorder, and two glass vases on the mantel were shivered, as though some missile had struck them—probably a heavy ledger which was found on the floor."
"How horrible! But no woman could have overpowered a man like General Darrington."
"Physically, his granddaughter was more than a match for him, especially since his last illness; and I assure you she looks like some daughter of the Vikings. She certainly is a woman of grand proportions, and wonderfully symmetrical."
"What is her age?"
"About eighteen, I should think; though her size and a certain majestic bearing might convey the impression that she was older."
"How can you connect so dreadful a crime with a young and beautiful woman, of whom you know absolutely nothing?"
"My theory is, that she intended merely to get possession of the will, the contents of which had been made known to her—and of the money, that she knew or surmised was kept in the vault. When the effect of the chloroform wore off, and the General waked to find her at the vault; a struggle evidently took place, and in desperation at the thought of being detected, she killed him. You do not understand all the bearings of even slight circumstances in a case like this, but we who make a study of such sad matters, know the significance of the disappearance of the will; the destruction of which could benefit only her mother and herself. The vault was open; the gold, silver, some valuable jewelry, and the will are missing from the tin box. All the other papers were left, even a package of bonds, amounting to thousands of dollars. She seemed to know that the bonds might lead to detection, hence she did not take them. On the floor, and in the bottom of the tin box were found two twenty-dollar gold pieces. We are collecting all the evidence, and it constitutes a powerful array of proof."
"We? Do you mean that you are hunting down a woman?"
Miss Gordon withdrew her hand from her lover's, and instinctively moved farther from him.
"I am most diligently hunting down the author of a foul and awful crime; and it is my duty to my friend and client to use every possible exertion, in discovering and bringing to punishment the person who robbed and murdered him—be it man, woman or child. Feminine youth and beauty are no aegis against the barbed javelins of justice and the District Solicitor (Mr. Churchill) and I, have no doubt of the guilt of the woman, who will soon be put on trial here for her monstrous and unnatural crime."