And as I muse on Helen's face,Within the firelight's ruddy shine,Its beauty takes an olden graceLike hers whose fairness was divine;The dying embers leap, and lo!Troy wavers vaguely all aglow,And in the north wind leashed without,I hear the conquering Argives' shout;And Helen feeds the flames as long ago!—Edward A. U. Valentine.
In my heart I was anxious to do justice to Gillespie. Sad it is that we are all so given to passing solemn judgment on trifling testimony! I myself am not impeccable. I should at any time give to the lions a man who uses his thumb as a paper-cutter; for such a one is clearly marked for brutality. Spats I always associate with vanity and a delicate constitution. A man who does not know the art of nursing a pipe's fire, but who has constant recourse to the match-box, should be denied benefit of clergy and the consolations of religion and tobacco. A woman who is so far above the vanities of this world that she can put on her hat without the aid of the mirror is either reckless or slouchy—both unbecoming enough—or else of an humility that is neither admirable nor desirable. My prejudices rally as to a trumpet-call at the sight of a girl wearing overshoes or nibbling bonbons—the one suggestive of predatory habits and weak lungs, the other of nervous dyspepsia.
The night was fine, and after returning my horse to the stable I continued on to the Glenarm boat-house. I was strolling along, pipe in mouth, and was half-way up the boat-house steps, when a woman shrank away from the veranda rail, where she had been standing, gazing out upon the lake. There was no mistaking her. She was not even disguised to-night, and as I advanced across the little veranda she turned toward me. The lantern over the boat-house door suffused us both as I greeted her.
"Pardon, me, Miss Holbrook; I'm afraid I have disturbed your meditations," I said. "But if you don't mind—"
"You have the advantage of being on your own ground," she replied.
"I waive all my rights as tenant if you will remain."
"It is much nicer here than on St. Agatha's pier; you can see the lake and the stars better. On the whole," she laughed, "I think I shall stay a moment longer, if you will tolerate me."
I brought out some chairs and we sat down by the rail, where we could look out upon the star-sown heavens and the dark floor of stars beneath. The pier lights shone far and near like twinkling jewels, and in the tense silence sounds floated from far across the water. A canoeing party drifted idly by, with a faint, listless splash of paddles, while a deep-voiced boy sang,I rise from dreams of thee. A moment later the last bars stole softly across to us, vague and shadowy, as though from the heart of night itself.
Helen bent forward with her elbows resting on the rail, her hands clasped under her chin. The lamplight fell full upon her slightly lifted head, and upon her shoulders, over which lay a filmy veil. She hummed the boy's song dreamily for a moment while I watched her. Had she one mood for the day and another for the night? I had last seen her that afternoon after an hour of tennis, at which she was expert, and she had run away through Glenarm gate with a taunt for my defeat; but now the spirit of stars and of all earth's silent things was upon her. I looked twice and thrice at her clearly outlined profile, at the brow with its point of dark hair, at the hand whereon the emerald was clearly distinguishable, and satisfied myself that there could be no mistake about her.
"You grow bold," I said, anxious to hear her voice. "You don't mind the pickets a bit."
"No. I'm quite superior to walls and fences. You have heard of those East Indians who appear and disappear through closed doors; well, we'll assume that I had one of those fellows for an ancestor! It will save the trouble of trying to account for my exits and entrances. I will tell you in confidence, Mr. Donovan, that I don't like to be obliged to account for myself!"
She sat back in the chair and folded her arms. I had not referred in any way to her transaction with Gillespie; I had never intimated even remotely that I knew of her meeting with the infatuated young fellow on St. Agatha's pier; and I felt that those incidents were ancient history.
"It was corking hot this afternoon. I hope you didn't have too much tennis."
"No; it was pretty enough fun," she remarked, with so little enthusiasm that I laughed.
"You don't seem to recall your victory with particular pleasure. It seems to me that I am the one to be shy of the subject. How did that score stand?"
"I really forget—I honestly do," she laughed.
"That's certainly generous; but don't you remember, as we walked along toward the gate after the game, that you said—"
"Oh, I can't allow that at all! What I said yesterday or to-day is of no importance now. And particularly at night I am likely to be weak-minded, and my memory is poorer then than at any other time."
"I am fortunate in having an excellent memory."
"For example?"
"For example, you are not always the same; you were different this afternoon; and I must go back to our meeting by the seat on the bluff, for the Miss Holbrook of to-night."
"That's all in your imagination, Mr. Donovan. Now, if you wanted to prove that I'm really—"
"Helen Holbrook," I supplied, glad of a chance to speak her name.
"If you wanted to prove that I am who I am," she continued, with new animation, as though at last something interested her, "how should you go about it?"
"Please ask me something difficult! There is, there could be, only one woman as fair, as interesting, as wholly charming."
"I suppose that is the point at which you usually bow humbly and wait for applause; but I scorn to notice anything so commonplace. If you were going to prove me to be the same person you met at the Annandale station, how should you go about it?"
"Well, to be explicit, you walk like an angel."
"You are singularly favored in having seen angels walk, Mr. Donovan. There's a popular superstition that they fly. In my own ignorance I can't concede that your point is well taken. What next?"
"Your head is like an intaglio wrought when men had keener vision and nimbler fingers than now. With your hair low on your neck, as it is to-night, the picture carries back to a Venetian balcony centuries ago."
"That's rather below standard. What else, please?"
"And that widow's peak—I would risk the direst penalties of perjury in swearing to it alone."
She shrugged her shoulders. "You are an observant person. That trifling mark on a woman's forehead is usually considered a disfigurement."
"But you know well enough that I did not mention it with such a thought. You know it perfectly well."
"No; foolish one," she said mockingly, "the widow's peak can not be denied. I suppose you don't know that the peak sometimes runs in families. My mother had it, and her mother before her."
"You are not your mother or your grandmother; so I am not in danger of mistaking you."
"Well, what else, please?"
"There's the emerald. Miss Pat has the same ring, but you are not Miss Pat. Besides, I have seen you both together."
"Still, there are emeralds and emeralds!"
"And then—there are your eyes!"
"There are two of them, Mr. Donovan!"
"There need be no more to assure light in a needful world, Miss Holbrook."
"Good! You really have possibilities!"
She struck her palms together in a mockery of applause and laughed at me.
"To a man who is in love everything is possible," I dared.
"The Celtic temperament is very susceptible. You have undoubtedly likened many eyes to the glory of the heavens."
"I swear—"
"Swear not at all!"
"Then I won't!"—and we laughed and were silent while the water rippled in the reeds, the insects wove their woof of sound and ten struck musically from St. Agatha's.
"I must leave you."
"If you go you leave an empty world behind."
"Oh, that was pretty!"
"Thank you!"
"Conceited! I wasn't approving your remark, but that meteor that flashed across the sky and dropped into the woods away out yonder."
"Alas! I have fallen farther than the meteor and struck the earth harder."
"You deserved it," she said, rising and drawing the veil about her throat.
"My lack of conceit has always been my undoing; I am the humblest man alive. You are adorable," I said, "if that's the answer."
"It isn't the answer! If mere stars do this to you, what would you be in moonlight?"
As we stood facing each other I was aware of some new difference in her. Perhaps her short outing skirt of dark blue had changed her; and yet in our tramps through the woods and our excursions in the canoe she had worn the same or similar costumes. She hesitated a moment, leaning against the railing and tapping the floor with her boot; then she said gravely, half questioningly, as though to herself:
"He has gone away; you are quite sure that he has gone away?"
"Your father is probably in New York," I answered, surprised at the question. "I do not expect him back at once."
"If he should come back—" she began.
"He will undoubtedly return; there is no debating that."
"If he comes back there will be trouble, worse than anything that has happened. You can't understand what his return will mean to us—to me."
"You must not worry about that; you must trust me to take care of that when he comes. 'Sufficient unto the day' must be your watchword. I saw Gillespie to-night."
"Gillespie?" she repeated with unfeigned surprise.
"That was capitally acted!" I laughed. "I wish I knew that he meant nothing more to you than that!" I added seriously.
She colored, whether with anger or surprise at my swift change of tone, I did not know. Then she said very soberly:
"Mr. Gillespie is nothing to me whatever."
"I thank you for that!"
"Thank me for nothing, Mr. Donovan. And now good night. You are not to follow me—"
"Oh, surely to the gate!"
"Not even to the gate. My ways are very mysterious. By day I am one person; by night quite another. And if you should follow me—"
"To my own gate!" I pleaded. "It's only decent hospitality!" I urged.
"Not even to the Gate of Dreams!"
"But in trying to get back to the school you have to pass the guards; you will fail at that some time!"
"No! I whisper an incantation, and lo! they fall asleep upon their spears. And I must ask you—"
"Keep asking, for to ask you must stay!"
"—please, when I meet you in daytime do not refer to anything that we may say when we meet at night. You have proved me at every point—even to this spot of ink on my forehead," and she put her forefinger upon the peak. "I am Helen Holbrook; but as—what shall I say?—oh, yes!" she went on lightly—"as a psychological fact, I am very different at night from anything I ever am in daylight. And to-morrow morning, when you meet me with Aunt Pat in the garden, if you should refer to this meeting I shall never appear to you again, not even through the Gate of Dreams. Good night!"
"Good night!"
I clasped her hand for an instant, and she met my eyes with a laughing challenge.
"When shall I see you again—this you that is so different from the you of daylight?"
She caught her hand away and turned to go, but paused at the steps.
"When the new moon hangs, like a little feather, away out yonder, I shall be looking at it from the stone seat on the bluff; do you think you can remember?"
She vanished away into the wood toward St. Agatha's. I started to follow, but paused, remembering my promise, and sat down and yielded myself to the thought of her. Practical questions of how she managed to slip out of St. Agatha's vexed me for a moment; but in my elation of spirit I dismissed them quickly enough. I would never again entertain an evil thought of her; the money she had taken from Gillespie I would in some way return to him and make an end of any claim he might assert against her by reason of that help. And I resolved to devote myself diligently to the business of protecting her from her father. I was even impatient for him to return and resume his blackguardly practice of intimidating two helpless women, that I might deal with him in the spirit of his own despicable actions.
My heart was heavy as I thought of him, but I lighted my pipe and found at once a gentler glory in the stars. Then as I stared out upon the lake I saw a shadow gliding softly away from the little promontory where St. Agatha's pier lights shone brightly. It was a canoe, I should have known from its swift steady flight if I had not seen the paddler's arm raised once, twice, until darkness fell upon the tiny argosy like a cloak. I ran out on the pier and stared after it, but the silence of the lake was complete. Then I crossed the strip of wood to St. Agatha's, and found Ijima and the gardener faithfully patrolling the grounds.
"Has any one left the buildings to-night?"
"No one."
"Sister Margaret hasn't been out—or any one?"
"No one, sir. Did you hear anything, sir?"
"Nothing, Ijima. Good night."
I wrote a telegram to an acquaintance in New York who knows everybody, and asked him to ascertain whether Henry Holbrook, of Stamford, was in New York. This I sent to Annandale, and thereafter watched the stars from the terrace until they slipped into the dawn, fearful lest sleep might steal away my memories and dreams of the night.
We crossed the lake from the south and about nightfall came to the small island called Battle Orchard, which is so named by the American settlers from the peach, apple and other trees planted there about 1740 (so many have told me) by François Belot, a French voyageur who had crossed from the Ouabache on his way from Quebec to Post Vincennes near the Ohio, and, finding the beaver plentiful, brought there his family. And here the Indians laid siege to him; and here he valiantly defended the ford on the west side of the little isle for three days, killing many savages before they slew him.—The Relation of Captain Abel Tucker.
When I called at St. Agatha's the following morning the maid told me that Miss Pat was ill and that Miss Helen asked to be excused. I walked restlessly about the grounds until luncheon, thinking Helen might appear; and later determined to act on an impulse, with which I had trifled for several days, to seek the cottage on the Tippecanoe and satisfy myself of Holbrook's absence. A sharp shower had cooled the air, and I took the canoe for greater convenience in running into the shallow creek. I know nothing comparable to paddling as a lifter of the spirit, and with my arms and head bared and a cool breeze at my back I was soon skimming along as buoyant of heart as the responsive canoe beneath me. It was about four o'clock when I dipped my way into the farther lake, and as the water broadened before me at the little strait I saw theStilettolying quietly at anchor off the eastern shore of Battle Orchard. I drew close to observe her the better, but there were no signs of life on board, and I paddled to the western side of the island.
It had already occurred to me that Holbrook might have another hiding-place than the cottage at Red Gate, where I had talked with him, and the island seemed a likely spot for it. I ran my canoe on the pebbly beach and climbed the bank. The island was covered with a tangle of oak and maple, with a few lordly sycamores towering above all. I followed a path that led through the underbrush and was at once shut in from the lake. The trail bore upward and I soon came upon a small clearing about an acre in extent that had once been tilled, but it was now preëmpted by weeds as high as my head. Beyond lay an ancient orchard, chiefly of apple-trees, and many hoary veterans stood faithful to the brave hand that had marshaled them there. (Every orchard is linked to the Hesperides and every apple-waits for Atalanta—if not for Eve!) I stooped to pick a wild-flower and found an arrow-head lying beside it.
Fumbling the arrow-head in my fingers, I passed onto a log cabin hidden away in the orchard. It was evidently old. The mud chinking had dropped from the logs in many places, and the stone chimney was held up by a sapling. I approached warily, remembering that if this were Holbrook's camp and he had gone away he had probably left the Italian to look after the yacht, which could be seen from the cabin door. I made a circuit of the cabin without seeing any signs of habitation, and was about to enter by the front door, when I heard the swish of branches in the underbrush to the east and dropped into the grass.
In a moment the Italian appeared, carrying a pair of oars over his shoulder. He had evidently just landed, as the blades were dripping. He threw them down by the cabin door, came round to the western window, drew out the pin from an iron staple with which it was fastened, and thrust his head in. He was greeted with a howl and a loud demand of some sort, to which he replied in monosyllables, and after several minutes of this parley I caught a fragment of dialogue which seemed to be final in the subject under discussion.
"Let me out or it will be the worse for you; let me out, I say!"
"My boss he sometime come back; then you get out it, maybe."
With this deliverance, accomplished with some difficulty, the Italian turned away, going to the rear of the cabin for a pail with which he trudged off toward the lake. He had not closed the window and would undoubtedly return in a few minutes; so I waited until he was out of sight, then rose and crawled through the grass to the opening.
I looked in upon a bare room whose one door opened inward, and I did not for a moment account for the voice. Then something stirred in the farther corner, and I slowly made out the figure of a man tied hand and foot, lying on his back in a pile of grass and leaves.
"You ugly dago! you infernal pirate—" he bawled.
There was no mistaking that voice, and I now saw two legs clothed in white duck that belonged, I was sure, to Gillespie. My head and shoulders filled the window and so darkened the room that the prisoner thought his jailer had come back to torment him.
"Shut up, Gillespie," I muttered. "This is Donovan. That fellow will be back in a minute. What can I do for you?"
"What can you do for me?" he spluttered. "Oh, nothing, thanks! I wouldn't have you put yourself out for anything in the world. It's nice in here, and if that fellow kills me I'll miss a great deal of the poverty and hardship of this sinful world. But take your time, Irishman. Being tied by the legs like a calf is bully when you get used to it."
In turning over, the better to level his ironies at me, he had stirred up the dust in the straw so that he sneezed and coughed in a ridiculous fashion. As I did not move he added:
"You come in here and cut these strings and I'll tell you something nice some day."
I ran round to the front door, kicked it open and passed through a square room that contained a fireplace, a camp bed, a trunk, and a table littered with old newspapers and a few books. I found Gillespie in the adjoining room, cut his thongs and helped him to his feet.
"Where is your boat?" he demanded.
"On the west side."
"Then we're in for a scrap. That beggar goes down there for water; and he'll see that there's another man on the island. I had a gun when I came," he added mournfully.
He stamped his feet and threshed himself with his arms to restore circulation, then we went into the larger room, where he dug his own revolver from the trunk and pointed to a shot-gun in the corner.
"You'd better get that. This fellow has only a knife in his clothes. He'll be back on the run when he sees your canoe." And we heard on the instant a man running toward the hut. I opened the breech of the shotgun to see whether it was loaded.
"Well, how do you want to handle the situation?" I asked.
He had his eye on the window and threw up his revolver and let go.
"Your pistol makes a howling noise, Gillespie. Please don't do that again. The smoke is disagreeable."
"You are quite right; and shooting through glass is always unfortunate! there's bound to be a certain deflection before the bullet strikes. You see if I were not a fool I should be a philosopher."
"It isn't nice here; we'd better bolt."
"I'm as hungry as a sea-serpent," he said, watching the window. "And I am quite desperate when I miss my tea."
I stood before the open door and he watched the window. We were both talking to cover our serious deliberations. Our plight was not so much a matter for jesting as we wished to make it appear to each other. I had experienced one struggle with the Italian at the houseboat on the Tippecanoe and was not anxious to get within reach of his knife again. I did not know how he had captured Gillespie, or what mischief that amiable person had been engaged in, but inquiries touching this matter must wait.
"Are you ready? We don't want to shoot unless we have to. Now when I say go, jump for the open."
He limped a little from the cramping of his legs, but crossed over to me cheerfully enough. His white trousers were much the worse for contact with the cabin floor, and his shirt hung from his shoulders in ribbons.
"My stomach bids me haste; I'm going to eat a beefsteak two miles thick if I ever get back to New York. Are you waiting?"
We were about to spring through the outer door, when the door at the rear flew open with a bang and the sailor landed on me with one leap. I went down with a thump and a crack of my head on the floor that sickened me. The gun was under my legs, and I remember that my dazed wits tried to devise means for getting hold of it. As my senses gradually came round I was aware of a great conflict about me and over me. Gillespie was engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the sailor and the cabin shook with their strife. The table went down with a crash, and Gillespie seemed to be having the best of it; then the Italian was afoot again, and the clenched swaying figures crashed against the trunk at the farther end of the room. And there they fought in silence, save for the scraping of their feet on the puncheon floor. I felt a slight nausea from the smash my head had got, but I began crawling across the floor toward the struggling men. It was growing dark, and they were knit together against the cabin wall like a single monstrous, swaying figure.
My stomach was giving a better account of itself, and I got to my knees and then to my feet. I was within a yard of the wavering shadow and could distinguish Gillespie by his white trousers as he wrenched free and flung the Italian away from him; and in that instant of freedom I heard the dull impact of Gillespie's fist in the brute's face. As the sailor went down I threw myself full length upon him; but for the moment at least he was out of business, and before I had satisfied myself that I had firmly grasped him, Gillespie, blowing hard, was kneeling beside me, with a rope in his hands.
"I think," he panted, "I should like champignon sauce with that steak, Donovan. And I should like my potatoes lyonnaise—the pungent onion is a spurring tonic. That will do, thanks, for the arms. Get off his legs and I'll see what I can do for them. You oughtn't to have cut that rope, my boy. You might have known that we were going to need it. My father taught me in my youth never to cut a string. I want the pirate's knife for a souvenir. I kicked it out of his hand when you went bumpety-bumpety. How's your head?"
"I still have it. Let's get you outside and have a look at you. You think he didn't land with the knife?"
"Not a bit of it. He nearly squeezed the life out of me two or three times, though. What's that?"
"He gave me a jab with his sticker when he made that flying leap and I guess I'm scratched."
Gillespie opened my shirt and disclosed a scratch across my ribs downward from the left collar bone. The first jab had struck the bone, but the subsequent slash had left a nasty red line.
Gillespie swore softly in the strange phrases that he affected while he tended my injury. My head ached and the nausea came back occasionally. I sat down in the grass while Gillespie found the sailor's pail and went to fetch water. He found some towels in the hut and between his droll chaffing and his deft ministrations I soon felt fit again.
"Well, what shall we do with the dago?" he asked, rubbing his arms and legs briskly.
"We ought to give him to the village constable."
"That's the law of it, but not the common sense. The lords of justice would demand to know all the whys and wherefores, and the Italian consul at Chicago would come down and make a fuss, and the man behind the dago would lay low and no good would come."
"When will Holbrook be back?—that's the question."
"Well, the market has been very feverish and my guess is that he won't last many days. He had a weakness for Industrials, as I remember, and they've been very groggy. What he wants is his million from Miss Pat, and he has his own chivalrous notions of collecting it."
We decided finally to leave the man free, but to take away his boat. Gillespie was disposed to make light of the whole affair, now that we had got off with our lives. We searched the hut for weapons and ammunition, and having collected several knives and a belt and revolver from the trunk, we poured water on the Italian, carried him into the open and loosened the ropes with which Gillespie had tied him.
The man glared at us fiercely and muttered incoherently for a few minutes, but after Gillespie had dashed another pail of water on him he stood up and was tame enough.
"Tell him," said Gillespie, "that we shall not kill him to-day. Tell him that this being Tuesday we shall spare his life—that we never kill any one on Tuesday, but that we shall come back to-morrow and make shark meat of him. Assure him that we are terrible villains and man-hunters—"
"When will your employer return?" I asked the sailor.
He shook his head and declared that he did not know.
"How long did he hire you for?"
"For all summer." He pointed to the sloop, and I got it out of him that he had been hired in New York to come to the lake and sail it.
"In the creek up yonder," I said, pointing toward the Tippecanoe, "you tried to kill me. There was another man with you. Who was he?"
"That was my boss," he replied reluctantly, though his English was clear enough.
"What is your employer's name?" I demanded.
"Holbrook. I sail his boat, theStiletto, over there," he replied.
"But it was not he who was with you on the houseboat in the creek. Mr. Holbrook was not there. Do not lie to me. Who was the other man that wanted you to kill Holbrook?"
He appeared mystified, and Gillespie, to whom I had told nothing of my encounter at the boat-maker's, looked from one to the other of us with a puzzled expression on his face.
"All he knows is that he's hired to sail a boat and, incidentally, stick people with his knife," said Gillespie in disgust. "We can do nothing till Holbrook comes back; let's be going."
We finally gathered up the Italian's oars, and, carrying the captured arms, went to the east shore, where we put off in Gillespie's rowboat, trailing the Italian's boat astern. The sailor followed us to the shore and watched our departure in silence. We swung round to the western shore and got my canoe, and there again, the Italian sullenly watched us.
"He's not so badly marooned," said Gillespie. "He can walk out over here."
"No, he'll wait for Holbrook. He's stumped now and doesn't understand us. He has exhausted his orders and is sick and tired of his job. A salt-water sailor loses his snap when he gets as far inland as this. He'll demand his money when Holbrook turns up and clear out of this."
Gillespie took the oars himself, insisting that I must have a care for the slash across my chest, and so, towing the canoe and rowboat, we turned toward Glenarm. The Italian still watched us from the shore, standing beside a tall sycamore on a little promontory as though to follow us as far as possible.
We passed close to theStilettoto get a better look at her. She was the trimmest sailing craft in those waters, and the largest, being, I should say, thirty-seven feet on the water-line, sloop-rigged, and with a cuddy large enough to house the skipper. As we drew alongside I stood up the better to examine her, and the Italian, still watching us intently from the island, cried out warningly.
"He should fly the signal, 'Owner not on board,'" remarked Gillespie as we pushed off and continued on our way.
The sun was low in the western wood as we passed out into the larger lake. Gillespie took soundings with his oar in the connecting channel, and did not touch bottom.
"You wouldn't suppose theStilettocould get through here; it's as shallow as a sauce-pan; but there's plenty and to spare," he said, as he resumed rowing.
"But it takes a cool hand—" I began, then paused abruptly; for there, several hundred yards away, a little back from the western shore, against a strip of wood through which the sun burned redly, I saw a man and a woman slowly walking back and forth. Gillespie, laboring steadily at the oars, seemed not to see them, and I made no sign. My heart raced for a moment as I watched them pace back and forth, for there was something familiar in both figures. I knew that I had seen them before and talked with them; I would have sworn that the man was Henry Holbrook and the girl Helen; and I was aware that when they turned, once, twice, at the ends of their path, the girl made some delay; and when they went on she was toward the lake, as though shielding the man from our observation. The last sight I had of them the girl stood with her back to us, pointing into the west. Then she put up her hand to her bare head as though catching a loosened strand of hair; and the wind blew back her skirts like those of the Winged Victory. The two were etched sharply against the fringe of wood and bathed in the sun's glow. A second later the trees stood there alertly, with the golden targe of the sun shining like a giant's shield beyond; but they had gone, and my heart was numb with foreboding, or loneliness, and heavy with the weight of things I did not understand.
Gillespie tugged hard with the burden of the tow at his back. I will not deny that I was uncomfortable as I thought of his own affair with Helen Holbrook. He had, by any fair judgment, a prior claim. Her equivocal attitude toward him and her inexplicable conduct toward her aunt were, I knew, appearing less and less heinous to me as the days passed; and I was miserably conscious that my own duty to Miss Patricia lay less heavily upon me.
I was glad when we reached Glenarm pier, where we found Ijima hanging out the lamps. He gave me a telegram. It was from my New York acquaintance and read:
Holbrook left here two days ago; destination unknown.
"Come, Gillespie; you are to dine with me," I said, when he had read the telegram; and so we went up to the house together.
Sweet is every sound,Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,The moan of doves in immemorial elms,And murmuring of innumerable bees.—Tennyson.
Gillespie availed himself of my wardrobe to replace his rags, and appeared in the library clothed and in his usual state of mind on the stroke of seven.
"You should have had the doctor out, Donovan. Being stuck isn't so funny, and you will undoubtedly die of blood-poisoning. Every one does nowadays."
"I shall disappoint you. Ijima and I between us have stuck me together like a cracked plate. And it is not well to publish our troubles to the world. If I called the village doctor he would kill his horse circulating the mysterious tidings. Are you satisfied?"
"Quite so. You're a man after my own heart, Donovan."
We had reached the dining-room and stood by our chairs.
"I should like," he said, taking up his cocktail glass, "to propose a truce between us—"
"In the matter of a certain lady?"
"Even so! On the honor of a fool," he said, and touched his glass to his lips. "And may the best man win," he added, putting down the glass unemptied.
He was one of those comfortable people with whom it is possible to sit in silence; but after intervals in which we found nothing to say he would, with exaggerated gravity, make some utterly inane remark. To-night his mind was more agile than ever, his thoughts leaping nimbly from crag to crag, like a mountain goat. He had traveled widely and knew the ways of many cities; and of American political characters, whose names were but vaguely known to me, he discoursed with delightful intimacy; then his mind danced away to a tour he had once made with a company of acrobats whose baggage he had released from the grasping hands of a rural sheriff.
"What," he asked presently, "is as sad as being deceived in a person you have admired and trusted? I knew a fellow who was professor of something in a blooming college, and who was so poor that he had to coach delinquent preps in summer-time instead of getting a vacation. I had every confidence in that fellow. I thought he was all right, and so I took him up into Maine with me—just the two of us—and hired an Indian to run our camp, and everything pointed to plus. Well, I always get stung when I try to be good."
He placed his knife and fork carefully across his plate and sighed deeply.
"What was the matter? Did he bore you with philosophy?"
"No such luck. That man was weak-minded on the subject of domesticating prairie-dogs. You may shoot me if that isn't the fact. There he was, a prize-winner and a fellow of his university, and a fine scholar who edited Greek text-books, with that thing on his mind. He held that the daily example of the happy home life of the prairie-dog would tend to ennoble all mankind and brighten up our family altars. Think of being lost in the woods with a man with such an idea, and of having to sleep under the same blanket with him! It rained most of the time so we had to sit in the tent, and he never let up. He got so bad that he would wake me up in the night to talk prairie-dog."
"It must have been trying," I agreed. "What was your solution, Buttons?"
"I moved outdoors and slept with the Indian. Your salad dressing is excellent, Donovan, though personally I lean to more of the paprika. But let us go back a bit to the Holbrooks. Omitting the lady, there are certain points about which we may as well agree. I am not so great a fool but that I can see that this state of things can not last forever. Henry is broken down from drink and brooding over his troubles, and about ready for close confinement in a brick building with barred windows."
"Then I'm for capturing him and sticking him away in a safe place."
"That's the Irish of it, if you will pardon me; but it's not the Holbrook of it. A father tucked away in a private madhouse would not sound well to the daughter. I advise you not to suggest that to Helen. I generously aid your suit to that extent. We are both playing for Helen's gratitude; that's the flat of the matter."
"I was brought into this business to help Miss Pat," I declared, though a trifle lamely. Gillespie grinned sardonically.
"Be it far from me to interfere with your plans, methods or hopes. We both have the conceit of our wisdom!"
"There may be something in that."
"But it was decent of you to get me out of that Italian's clutches this afternoon. When I went over there I thought I might find Henry Holbrook and pound some sense into him; and he's about due, from that telegram. If Miss Pat won't soften her heart I'd better buy him off," he added reflectively.
We walked the long length of the hall into the library, and had just lighted our cigars when the butler sought me.
"Beg pardon, the telephone, sir."
My distrust of the telephone is so deep-seated that I had forgotten the existence of the instrument in Glenarm house, where, I now learned, it was tucked away in the butler's pantry for the convenience of the housekeeper in ordering supplies from the village. After a moment's parley a woman's voice addressed me distinctly—a voice that at once arrested and held all my thoughts. My replies were, I fear, somewhat breathless and wholly stupid.
"This is Rosalind; do you remember me?"
"Yes; I remember; I remember nothing else!" I declared. Ijima had closed the door behind me, and I was alone with the voice—a voice that spoke to me of the summer night, and of low winds murmuring across starry waters.
"I am going away. The Rosalind you remember is going a long way from the lake, and you will never see her again."
"But you have an engagement; when the new moon—"
"But the little feather of the new moon is under a cloud, and you can not see it; and Rosalind must always be Helen now."
"But this won't do, Rosalind. Ours was more than an engagement; it was a solemn compact," I insisted.
"Oh, not so very solemn!" she laughed. "And then you have the other girl that isn't just me—the girl of the daylight, that you ride and sail with and play tennis with."
"Oh, I haven't her; I don't want her—"
"Treacherous man! Volatile Irishman!"
"Marvelous, adorable Rosalind!"
"That will do, Mr. Donovan"—and then with a quick change of tone she asked abruptly:
"You are not afraid of trouble, are you?"
"I live for nothing else!"
"You are not so pledged to the Me you play tennis with that you can not serve Rosalind if she asks it?"
"No; you have only to ask. But I must see you once more—as Rosalind!"
"Stop being silly, and listen carefully." And I thought I heard a sob in the moment's silence before she spoke.
"I want you to go, at once, to the house of the boat-maker on Tippecanoe Creek; go as fast as you can!" she implored.
"To the house of the man who calls himself Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate?"
"Yes; you must see that no harm comes to him to-night."
There was no mistaking now the sobs that broke her sentences, and my mind was so a-whirl with questions that I stammered incoherently.
"Will you go—will you go?" she demanded in a voice so low and broken that I scarcely heard.
"Yes, at once," and the voice vanished, and while I still stood staring at the instrument the operator at Annandale blandly asked me what number I wanted. The thread had snapped and the spell was broken. I stared helplessly at the thing of wood and wire for half a minute; then the girl's appeal and my promise rose in my mind distinct from all else. I ordered my horse before returning to the library, where Gillespie was coolly turning over the magazines on the table. I was still dazed, and something in my appearance caused him to stare.
"Been seeing a ghost?" he asked.
"No; just hearing one," I replied.
I had yet to offer some pretext for leaving him, and as I walked the length of the room he stifled a yawn, his eyes falling upon the line of French windows. I spoke of the heat of the night, but he did not answer, and I turned to find his gaze fixed upon one of the open windows.
"What is it, man?" I demanded.
He crossed the room in a leap and was out upon the terrace, peering down upon the shrubbery beneath.
"What's the row?" I demanded.
"Didn't you see it?"
"No."
"Then it wasn't anything. I thought I saw the dago, if you must know. He'll probably be around looking for us."
"Humph, you're a little nervous, that's all. You'll stay here all night, of course?" I asked, without, I fear, much enthusiasm.
He grinned.
"Don't be so cordial! If you'll send me into town I'll be off."
I had just ordered the dog-cart when the butler appeared.
"If you please, sir. Sister Margaret wishes to use our telephone, sir. St. Agatha's is out of order."
I spoke to the Sister as she left the house, half as a matter of courtesy, half to make sure of her. The telephone at St. Agatha's had been out of order for several days, she said; and I walked with her to St. Agatha's gate, talking of the weather, the garden and the Holbrook ladies, who were, she said, quite well.
Thereafter, when I had despatched Gillespie to the village in the dog-cart, I got into my leggings, reflecting upon the odd circumstance that Helen Holbrook had been able to speak to me over the telephone a few minutes before, using an instrument that had, by Sister Margaret's testimony, been out of commission for several days. The girl had undoubtedly slipped away from St. Agatha's and spoken to me from some other house in the neighborhood; but this was a matter of little importance, now that I had undertaken her commission.
The chapel clock chimed nine as I gained the road, and I walked my horse to scan St. Agatha's windows through vistas that offered across the foliage. And there, by the open window of her aunt's sitting-room, I saw Helen Holbrook reading. A table-lamp at her side illumined her slightly bent head; and, as though aroused by my horse's quick step in the road, she rose and stood framed against the light, with the soft window draperies fluttering about her.
I spoke to my horse and galloped toward Red Gate.