CHAPTER XXVI.THE TRAGEDY.
Elithe was in her room at the rear of the cottage trying to bring up arrearages in her Bible reading. Since entering society she had fallen sadly behind with her five chapters on Sunday and three on every week day. Fishing parties and clam bakes and lawn tennis and the skating rink did not leave much leisure for other duties, and she found to her dismay that she was twenty-five chapters behind,—long chapters, too,—and she felt tired as she thought of them. Still they must be done, and she had set apart thisafternoon in which to do them. Her singing in the morning had been a great success, and many had shaken hands with and congratulated her when service was over. She, with others, had wondered at Paul’s absence, which was the more singular on account of his solo. There was no one to sing it until Mr. Turner, the rector, attempted it and broke down. It was too bad of Paul to disappoint them, the people said, while Elithe felt a little aggrieved inasmuch as he had expressed himself so proud of her singing and so desirous for others to hear it. At the offertory when she stood alone she had found herself looking over the congregation in the hope that at the last he might come in. He wasn’t there, but near the door, close up in a corner, some one was sitting, whose face she could not see distinctly and who, when she was through singing, rose up as if to leave, but resumed his seat, and she thought no more about him until church was out. Then, with others she heard of the trouble at the hotel and that Jack had had the effrontery to come to church, sitting by the door and behaving in a very nervous, restless manner, the sexton said in speaking of him.
“Brought his satchel with him and acted as if he couldn’t keep still, and once he did get up to go, but I shook my head at him and he sat down again. He put a dollar in the box, any way.”
This was the sexton’s story, to which his hearers listened eagerly, and none more so than Elithe. She had heard a good deal of Jack Percy, and nothing that was very favorable, and now that he had knocked Paul down he must be a monster. She did not doubt that the man in the corner by the door whom she had seen rise from his seat was he, and was sorry that she had not a better view of him. During her dinner with her aunt she had discussed him andPaul’s absence, regretting that the latter was not there, as he would have told her truly how she sang.
“I was there. I can tell you,” Miss Hansford said so quickly that Elithe nearly fell out of her chair in her surprise.
“You there! Oh, auntie. I’m so glad,” she exclaimed, and her aunt replied, “Yes, I was there. Nobody asked me, but I wanted to see if you made a fizzle.”
“And did I?” Elithe asked.
“No, you did first rate,—only flatted a little when you struck that high G, made a dive at it as if you were afraid you would miss it,” was Miss Hansford’s response, and not all the praises she had received pleased Elithe half as much as her aunt’s commendation and the fact that she had left her own church on purpose to hear her sing.
After this they spoke of Jack Percy, Miss Hansford narrating a good many incidents of his boyhood which she had treasured against him. Elithe had heard some of them before, but now, with his presence in the town and his abuse of Paul, they assumed a new interest, and while struggling with the plagues of Egypt later in her room thoughts of Jack Percy kept recurring to her mind with great persistence, and he became frightfully mixed with Moses and Aaron and other actors in that far-off drama. If she succeeded in driving Jack from her mind other distracting thoughts crept in. Sails on the water, skating in the rink, games in the tennis court, and, worst of all, that waltz by moonlight when Paul Ralston’s arm was around her. That bothered her the most.
“It’s the evil one himself tempting me,” she thought, and said aloud with a jerk of her shoulder, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”
But he kept himself in the foreground until she hadnearly waded through the plagues. Then she heard Paul speaking to the young men on the steps, and, glancing from her window, saw him as he passed under it.
“Ahem,” she said involuntarily, and, looking up, Paul saw her and touched his hat. “You weren’t in church to hear me sing. Auntie was there, and says I flatted on high G. I told you I couldn’t strike it square.”
Paul was not in a mood for joking, but he could not resist the bright face confronting him, and he answered laughingly, “I don’t believe you flatted. Your auntie is a little deaf. I’m sure you sang beautifully. Am sorry I could not hear you.”
“So am I, but more sorry for the trouble which kept you away. We are all so indignant. It was too bad about your solo. Ever so many were there to hear it. Poor old Mr. Turner took it and quavered and floundered and finally broke down. It was too funny for anything. Mr. Percy was there, too, they say. Couldn’t have liked my solo very well. Got up to go out, but the sexton frowned him back. I had just a glimpse of the wretch.”
She might have talked longer if Paul had not cut her short by saying, “Heisa wretch, and I am looking for him, so excuse me if I do not stop any longer. I don’t believe you flatted on that G.”
He laughed, touched his hat again and hurried on, while Elithe resumed her reading. It was very close and warm in her room, and when she had Pharaoh and his 600 chosen chariots ready to pursue after the children of Israel she let down her window from the top and leaned far out to get a breath of fresh air. It was light enough to see objects distinctly, and at a distance of a dozen rods or more she saw Paul Ralston standing with his face turned partly from her and towards a thick clump of shrubbery which lay inthe shadow. What was he doing there, and why had he come back so soon? she wondered, and was about to call and ask him if he had found Jack, when she saw him take something from his side pocket and examine it. What it was she could not tell, except that it was bright like silver. Just then there was a stir in the undergrowth of shrubbery, and a sound like some animal running. Before she had time for further thought the object in Paul’s hand was lowered to nearly a level with the ground. There was a flash, a report, and a loud cry of pain from the clump of oaks, which were violently agitated as if shaken by some one in mortal agony; then all was still. For a moment Elithe stood frozen with horror, and saw Paul throw the weapon from him and hurry into the woods.
“Oh, Auntie! Mr. Ralston has shot some one!” she cried, running down the stairs and out to where the group, which had been sitting on the steps, were now standing upon the grass and looking to see where the shot came from.
“Mr. Ralston? How do you know it was Mr. Ralston? And where is he?” Miss Hansford asked, and Elithe replied, “I saw him. He threw the revolver away and went into the woods. Come quick; I am sure somebody is hurt. I heard a groan. There, it comes again.”
She was leading the way to the clump of thick bushes, or stunted trees, where, when a boy, Jack Percy had waited while Paul carried the melon to Miss Hansford and had dreamed that he was dead. Here he was lying now, his hand grasping his valise, his face turned on one side, and the blood trickling from a bullet hole above his temple. Several of the cottagers had heard the report and were out to ascertain its cause, so that it was quite a little crowd of people which met around the spot, Miss Hansford the mostexcited of them all. Pushing Elithe back so violently that she nearly fell to the ground, she stooped over the prostrate man and said in a choking voice, “It’s Jack Percy; but he is not dead; he must not die. Take him to my cottage.”
As the men stood for a moment paralyzed and did not offer to touch him, she lifted his head herself and with her handkerchief tried to stanch the blood which gushed from the wound and saturated his hair.
“Somebody go for a doctor—quick,” she said. “Tell him it’s a case of life and death.”
Elithe heard and started like a deer across the field to the nearest doctor, whom she found just leaving his house for a walk.
“Quick! Quick!” she said, seizing him by the arm. “Mr. Ralston has shot Mr. Percy. He is in auntie’s cottage. Run!”
“Bless my soul! Shot Jack Percy! I didn’t think it would come to that. What won’t young blood do?” the doctor exclaimed, trying to keep up with Elithe, whom he questioned as to what she saw, and which she told him readily, with no thought of the consequences.
She was too frightened and too excited to think of anything but the dying man, whose face she had not seen as it lay in the deep shadow of the trees. They had put him upon the lounge in Miss Hansford’s front room, where he was breathing heavily and moaning occasionally as if in pain.
“Jack! Jack! Mr. Percy!” Miss Hansford kept saying, trying to rouse him to consciousness, but she might as well have talked to a block of wood.
The news had spread like wild fire, bringing a crowd of people asking who it was and how it was, but receiving no satisfactory answer. A second doctor, who chanced to bepassing, had been summoned, and with the first one was examining the patient. Outside the cottage was the murmur of eager, subdued voices and inside terrible excitement as one after another tried to get a sight of the sufferer. Miss Hansford was now calm and resolute, issuing her orders like a general and ministering to Jack as tenderly as if he had not always been her detestation.
“Stand back, can’t you, and give him air, and for heaven’s sake don’t let any more in,” she was saying, when the crowd parted to let Paul Ralston pass.
“Who is it?” he asked, making his way to the couch.
Laying her hand upon his shoulder and looking steadily into his eyes, Miss Hansford said very low, “It’s Jack. Didn’t you know it?”
“Jack! Oh my God!” Paul exclaimed, throwing up his hands and staggering backward. “Who did it? Was it suicide?”
At this moment Elithe, who had been sent for another lamp, entered the room, and, seeing Paul, said to him: “Oh, Mr. Ralston! How did it happen? Didn’t you know he was there?”
Before Paul could reply Miss Hansford sent Elithe from the room again and followed her. Closing the door and drawing the girl to the farthest corner of the kitchen, she said in a whisper, “Can’t you hold your yawp? Do you want to put a halter round Paul’s neck, telling everybody what you saw?”
In her fright Elithe had never thought of implicating Paul by what she said, but now as her aunt’s meaning dawned upon her she seemed to see in a flash the terrible drama in which she was to play so prominent a part. With a cry she dropped into a chair and said faintly, “Isaw him, but it was a mistake; he never meant to shoot him. Oh, what can I do?”
“Hold your tongue and stay where you are,” was Miss Hansford’s reply, as she went back to the room where the doctors were still at work, with Paul assisting them and occasionally making suggestions.
“If he would only go away,” she thought; then, as a sudden inspiration came to her, she asked if any one had told Clarice.
“No,” Paul said. “I’ll go for her myself. She ought to be here,” and to Miss Hansford’s relief he left the house.
In a short time he came back with Clarice, who threw herself upon her knees beside her brother and called upon him frantically to speak to her, or give some sign that he knew her. The sight of his white, bloodstained face had roused all the affection she ever felt for him, and made her regret the harshness with which she had treated him. She did not ask how it happened. She assumed it was suicide, and wondered why he did it.
Gradually the crowd disappeared to talk the matter over in the street and at their own houses. The lodgers, too, had gone to their rooms after offering to stay if they were needed. Miss Hansford declined their offers peremptorily. She wanted to be alone, and when all were gone except the doctors, Clarice and Paul, she went up stairs to Elithe, whom she found upon the floor, with her head upon the window sill, sobbing convulsively.
“Elithe,” she began. “You saw him throw the revolver away. Tell me just where he stood,—which way he threw it, and about how far.”
“He stood by the stump where some nasturtiums are growing,” Elithe replied. “His face was away from me,—tothe west. He threw with his right hand. Oh, Auntie, he didn’t mean it. What will they do with him?”
“The Lord only knows;—hang him, perhaps! If you had held your tongue nobody would have connected him with it,” was Miss Hansford’s reply, as she left Elithe writhing on the floor in an agony of remorse and fear.
The moon had gone down and clouds, which threatened rain, were scudding across the sky, adding to the darkness of the underbrush, where a woman was moving cautiously, feeling every inch of ground, every stone and clump of grass, and whispering to herself, “I must find it,—I must.” Her hands were cut with briars,—her dress was draggled and wet, when she at last abandoned the search and returned to the house, where the doctors, with Clarice and Paul, were keeping their anxious watch.