Itwasirrational—this she realized even in her state of feverish excitement. The vindictive wish which had crossed her brain would never have gone beyond it and resolved itself into action. She would not even—she knew this now—have been a passive factor in Paul's death; she would have been the first to go to his aid, had she seen him suffering. No selfish remembrance of her own gain would have stopped her. And yet—and yet—with all her reasoning, her mind always returned to the same point. She had wished for his death, and her wishes had been fulfilled, too late for her own advantage, only as it seemed, to add to her punishment.
The idea occurred to her all at once that she must go and look at his dead body. It presented itself, in some irrational way, in the light of an atonement. The fever in her blood, the beginning of an illness, made the strained, hysterical thought seem natural and almost inevitable. She was not conscious of doing anything unusual. Hastily, she dressed herself, choosing instinctively a black gown and tying a black veil over her face, and went out into the street, where the cold air, which she had not faced for a week, blew refreshingly on her burning cheeks. She walked all the way, rapidly, choosing unfrequented avenues, and looking neither to the right nor the left, her mind intent on the one object,yet with a strange relief in motion and the intense cold. She reached Carnegie Hall in a surprisingly short time, but here she encountered unexpected difficulties.
"Take you up to Mr. Halleck's studio?" said the elevator-man, looking with surprise and suspicion at this veiled young woman, who made such an extraordinary request. "I can't take you up. The police has charge, and there ain't a soul allowed to go in but Mr. D'Hauteville."
Elizabeth was not in a mood to be gainsaid. She placed a coin in the man's hand. "I must see him," she said, in a hoarse whisper. "If you won't take me up, I'll walk. I am his wife," she went on, as he still stared at her, wondering. "I have a right to see him."
"Well, it's the police that settles that," he rejoined, gruffly, but still he took her up, reflecting that, after all, it was no business of his. He brought the elevator to a stand-still, with a shake of the head and an anxious look towards the fatal studio, but Elizabeth moved towards it as if she had no doubt whatever of entering. And at the same moment, Mr. D'Hauteville opened the door of his rooms on the same landing, and came face to face with her.
"Miss Van Vorst!" he exclaimed, staring at her; then, in a lower voice: "For Heaven's sake, don't come here. Halleck is dead. Haven't you heard?"
"Yes, I—I have heard." She looked pleadingly at him. "Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, "take me in to see him. I—I must see him. It was such ashock. I am his wife, you know," she added. The disclosure, which she had once so dreaded, fell from her lips indifferently, as if it were a thing of small importance, compared with the gaining of her purpose.
"His wife!" D'Hauteville fell back and stared at her incredulously. Then his mind quickly grasped the explanation of facts which had puzzled him. He looked at her and saw that she was suffering from terrible distress and excitement. "Do you really wish to see him?" he said. "It would be painful."
"Yes, I—I must see him." Elizabeth raised confidingly her troubled eyes, and D'Hauteville apparently could not resist their appeal. Slowly and reluctantly he unlocked the studio door and allowed Elizabeth to enter. The hall was empty, but from behind the portière at the end came the sound of voices. D'Hauteville cast an anxious glance towards them, but he opened quickly another door, and led the way into the bedroom, which was still and dark, and close with a strange, oppressive atmosphere. D'Hauteville, treading softly, drew up the shade. Then he fell back and turned his eyes away.
Elizabeth felt no fear, though her only recollection of death was connected with a horrible moment in her childhood, when they had led her in trembling to look at her father in his coffin. But now she felt indifferent to any trivial terrors. She stood by the bedside looking down at the dead man, and put out her hand and touched the curls which clustered about his forehead. He was not muchchanged; the greatest difference which death had made was in a certain look of dignity, which his face had never worn in life. It was impossible, standing there, to think of his faults, or of any harm that he had wrought in her life. She only remembered that he had been her first lover—nothing more.
A few moments passed, and then D'Hauteville pulled down the shades and drew her gently from the room. The tears were falling fast behind her veil, and the hand that rested against his was icy cold.
"I had better see you home," he said anxiously, but she shook her head.
"No, no, thank you. You have been very kind, but I—I would rather not. Mr. D'Hauteville," she said, raising piteous eyes to his "who—who could have done it?"
"God only knows!" said D'Hauteville, with a sigh. "No one else, I believe, ever will."
He had rung the bell, and they stood waiting for the elevator, when she turned to him. "It was not I," she said, "don't ever think that it was I." And at that moment the elevator stopped and she was borne away, before there was time for further words. But D'Hauteville stood paralyzed.
"For Heaven's sake," he asked himself, "why did she say that? Who accused her?"
Elizabeth, as she went her way, was quite unconscious of the impression her words had produced. Her head felt confused, and after she left Carnegie there followed a blank interval, during which she wandered aimlessly, but found herself atlast, as if led by some involuntary instinct, in the Park beside the lake, into which a few weeks before she had thrown her wedding ring. Now, as before, it was nearly covered with a thin coating of ice, yet there was a strip of water visible, and upon this her eyes fastened with a thrill of terrified fascination. She pictured it involuntarily, closing over her, dragging her down, blotting out all thoughts, all feelings.... A moment of agony, perhaps, and then? Rest, oblivion, an end of all struggle, no more to-morrows to be faced, no more regrets.... The thought of death, the one way out, the only remedy, swift and sure, appealed to her with a force almost irresistible.
If only the water were not so cold!—In an instant there swept over her, quite as inevitably, the natural, healthy reaction; the revulsion against the icy pond, and all the weird, uncanny, frightful, unpleasant associations that it conjured up. Ah, she had not the courage!—not then, at least. She closed her eyes, shutting out the strange fascination of the water gleaming in the pale chill sunlight, and promising its sure and terrible relief—she closed her eyes and turned resolutely away. A horror seized upon her of herself and of loneliness, of the bleak desolation on every side. She hastened, breathing heavily, towards the entrance of the Park, her hurried foot-steps on the crisp, hard path sounding unnaturally loud in the wintry silence.
Severalweeks later the Halleck poisoning case was still, so far as the general public was concerned, an impenetrable mystery. For a day or two various clues were investigated, with a great appearance of zeal; and then a lull fell upon the efforts of the police. Their final investigations, if they made any, were conducted behind closed doors. But no result appeared from their labors; the coroner's inquest was postponed from week to week for lack of sufficient evidence. The public grew impatient, and clamored that some one should be arrested;—it did not seem greatly to matter whom. And then there began to be strange rumors of influence exerted to conceal the truth, of suspicion which pointed in such high quarters, that the police were afraid to continue their search.
These rumors were still comparatively new when Eleanor Van Antwerp took up one day a scandalous society journal—(one of those papers which no one reads, but whose remarks, in some mysterious way, every one hears about)—and came across a paragraph, which seemed to her at once insulting and inexplicable.
"They say"—it began with this conventional formula—"that certain highly dramatic developmentsare to be expected soon in the famous poisoning case. The evidence that the District Attorney has collected is now said to be complete and to inculpate rather seriously a well-known beauty. The lady is related, though on the father's side only, to one of our old Dutch houses, and was introduced to society, where she was before entirely unknown, by the representative of another old Knickerbocker family. Under such circumstances her success was certain. Not content with taking the town by storm, she made special capture of a certain prominent society man and eligible parti, to whom her engagement was announced. This gentleman has, however, according to latest reports, left the forlorn beauty and fled to parts unknown."
What did it mean? The hot, indignant color rushed to Mrs. Bobby's cheek, and then, retreating, left her deadly pale. She took the paper to her husband, and pointing out the offending paragraph, she stood beside him as he read it, her dark eyes fixed intently upon his face, and seeing there, to her dismay, more indignation than surprise.
"Well," she said, as he looked up at the end. "Tell me—what does it mean?"
"It—the editor of that infernal thing ought to be horsewhipped," he said, fiercely.
She put the remark aside as irrelevant. "Why, that should have been done long ago. But what does it mean?" she persisted, holding to the main point.
He put the paper down with a sigh. "It means what it says, Eleanor, I'm afraid," he said.
She stared at him, a shade paler, while the dread in her eyes grew more pronounced. "Means what it says?" she repeated. "Then it isn't merely a wild concoction of the kind they're always inventing?"
"It's more than that, I'm afraid." Bobby rose and began to pace up and down. "They do say nasty things," he said, apparently addressing the walls, or anything rather than his wife.
Her eyes followed him with an intense anxiety, as her white lips barely framed the question: "At the clubs?"
He nodded. "Yes, there, and—at other places besides. At the District Attorney's, for instance"—
"You don't mean?"—she began incredulously.
"That they suspect her? Yes."
Mrs. Bobby sat down as if her strength suddenly had failed her. "But that's absurd—impossible!" she said, after a moment.
"Perhaps; but—it's the impossible that some times happens." Mrs. Bobby was silent in incredulous horror; and he went on, after a pause: "You see, she's in a confoundedly unpleasant position. There are all kinds of queer stories going the round. They say now that she was secretly married to Halleck; that he had some kind of power over her, at least; and then having every motive to get rid of him, being engaged to Gerard"—
"Bobby," said his wife, in a horrified tone "how can you repeat such disgusting gossip?"
"I'm only telling you what they say," said Bobby, apologetically.
"I don't wish to know it." Bobby held his peace. "Why should she have any motive?" said his wife, after a moment's reflection "when her engagement was broken?"
"They say—but I thought you didn't wish to know."
"I don't, but I suppose, I must know. What do they—these disgusting people—say?"
"They think that Gerard found out something which made him break the engagement. As for the poison, that was sent before, you know"—
"Bobby," said his wife, with a little cry, "you don't mean to suggest that she—that Elizabeth Van Vorst"—She paused as if at a loss for words, and Bobby concluded the sentence.
"Sent the poison?" he said, quietly. "No, I don't suggest it—not for a second; I don'tbelieveit, even," he cried, with sudden emphasis, "but there are other people who—who do both."
"Then they must be fools." Bobby made no reply. "Where," she said, in a moment, "do they suppose she got it—the poison?"
"That they don't know—as yet; but they know—or they think they do—where she got the flask. There's a shop in Brooklyn where they sell others like it"—he stopped.
"Well," she said, "what of it? I daresay there are a good many shops where they sell them."
"The man who keeps this particular shop, said, I believe, that he sold one on the twenty-third of December to a young woman thickly veiled, rather tall and with wavy red hair."
"Her hair isn't red," said Mrs. Bobby, quickly.
"Some people call it so, you know," said Bobby. She was silent.
"Hundreds of women have that sort of hair," she said, presently. "Half the actresses in town"—
"He said it seemed to him natural."
"How should he know?" said Mrs. Bobby, contemptuously. "And why on earth should she choose a place like Brooklyn? I don't think she ever went there in her life."
"She seems," said Bobby, gently, "to have done a great many things that you—didn't think of, Eleanor." And again his wife fell silent.
"Have they any other evidence?" she asked, after thinking a moment, "or what they call evidence? I might as well know the worst."
"They have her letters, which were found among Halleck's papers—she told him to burn them, but he didn't. They were signed 'E. V. V.' One of them was about her engagement to Gerard—it seemed he had threatened her, and she offered him money to keep him quiet; the other was just a line, asking him to meet her in the Park. It's evident that she was afraid of him and had to keep him supplied with funds. She sold all her jewelry, they say, to do it."
"Ah—her jewelry!" Mrs. Bobby drew a long breath. "That is what she did with it, then," she remarked, involuntarily.
Bobby turned to her sharply. "You noticed, then," he said, "that she didn't have it?"
"Of course. There were her pearls, which she never wore last summer; the watch I gave her, too—I used to feel hurt that she never carried it, but I never suspected—Oh, what a fool I was—what a fool! And I who thought myself so clever in bringing about a match between her and Julian!" She stopped and suddenly burst into tears. "I made a nice failure of it all, didn't I?" she said. Then in a moment, her mood changed, and she turned upon Bobby indignantly. "Why didn't you tell me all this before?"
"I didn't want to tell you," said Bobby, slowly, "a moment sooner than was necessary. Personally, I don't see the use of having all this exploited—as a matter of fact, I'd pay a good deal to have it kept quiet; partly for your sake, and partly because—well, I like Elizabeth. She may not have behaved well, but I don't think she deserves to be made conspicuous in this way. I don't mind confessing that I've done what I could to arrest the zeal of the police, but I'm sorry to say, without success."
"You don't mean," she said incredulously, "that they refused money?"
"Well, the new District Attorney is very zealous," Bobby explained, "and, between ourselves, I think he wants the éclat of a sensational case. To put a young society woman in prison, against the efforts of all her friends, shows Roman stoicism,—or so he thinks."
"But you don't believe," said his wife, piteously, "you don't think it could come to that, Bobby?"
"To prison?" he said. "I don't know, Eleanor—upon my word I don't know." And he began again thoughtfully to pace up and down.
"What did Gerard say," he asked presently, "when he wrote to you before he sailed?"
"It was just a hurried note, hard to make out. He said the engagement was broken by her."
"Of course he'dsaythat. What did she tell you?"
"That it was his wish, but he was not to blame, and she would tell me more some other time. She looked so unutterably wretched that I couldn't ask any questions just then."
"Ah," said Bobby, softly. "I don't believe, poor child! that it was her doing, Eleanor."
"If it was Julian's," she said, "he must have had some good reason." And with that they both fell into thoughtful silence.
"I don't see," was her next objection, uttered musingly, "I don't see how they ever thought of Elizabeth in the first place. It seems such a wildly improbable idea."
"It certainly does," Bobby agreed. "Then Elizabeth, poor child, as it happens, rather put the idea into their heads herself. It seems that she went to the studio the day after the poisoning and insisted upon seeing him. She said she was his wife. D'Hauteville saw her, I believe, but he said nothing about it. It was the elevator man who told the story—he took her up and he heard D'Hauteville call her by her name. He says that D'Hauteville took her into the studio, and when she came outshe was crying. And the man vows he heard her say 'I didn't do it, don't think I did it,' or something of the kind."
"Why, I never," broke in Mrs. Bobby, "heard anything so extraordinary. The man must have been drinking. It's impossible that Elizabeth could have done such a thing. Why, it was that day—that day"—she paused and thought—"that day after the murder," she continued, triumphantly, "I remember distinctly going to see her in the afternoon, and she was ill in bed with grippe, and her temperature very high."
"I can believe that," said Bobby, rather grimly, "after what she went through in the morning. For I'm afraid there's not much doubt, Eleanor, that it's true. One of the detectives, too, saw her pass through the hall, and I don't think that D'Hauteville denies it. They want him to testify at the inquest, but so far, they can't get him to say one thing or another."
"He would deny it, of course, if it were false," said Mrs. Bobby, in a low voice. Her husband bent his head. "Well," she said, rallying, "after all, I don't see anything in that. It would be pretty stupid, if she were really guilty, to defend herself before she was accused. No one but a fool would have done that, and the person who sent that poison couldn't have been a fool. And she wouldn't have gone near the studio; that's the last thing the real culprit would have done."
"That's what I say," said Bobby. "It doesn't seem on the face of it the act of a guilty woman.But they have some theory of hysterical remorse, and there is other evidence I haven't heard which fits into that. They say that when she heard that it had really happened she lost her head completely. There have been such cases, you know. Oh, and then another thing. They're comparing the handwriting on the package with the letters"—
"The letters?" broke in Mrs. Bobby, anxiously.
"Yes, that I told you of, you remember—written to him—they've got experts examining them now."
"Ah, well, if the experts have got hold of the case," said Mrs. Bobby, resignedly, "we might as well give up hope. They'd swear away any person's life to prove a theory."
"Well, at least," said Bobby, "it's the life of a young and beautiful girl. That really seemed to me, when I heard all this, the only hope. Even handwriting experts are human." But his wife only sighed despairingly.
"I think," she said, after awhile, "I must go to Elizabeth. I haven't seen her for several days, and she mustn't think that her friends are giving her up."
"You won't—tell her anything?" asked Bobby, anxiously.
"Do you think she doesn't know?"
"She would be the last person, in the natural order of events, to hear of it."
"Then I shall say nothing," said his wife, after a moment's reflection. "You wouldn't, would you?" she added, as she caught an odd look in her husband's eyes.
"I—I don't know." Bobby seemed to reflect. "If—if she were to go abroad just now," he said, doubtfully, "it might not be a bad plan."
"Bobby!" Mr. Van Antwerp's wife faced him indignantly. "You wouldn't have her—run away from all this? You wouldn't have her frightened by anything those people can threaten?" Eleanor Van Antwerp's dark eyes sparkled, she held her head proudly. Her husband looked at her half in doubt, half in admiration.
"You would face it?"
"Yes, if it cost me my life."
The look of admiration on Bobby's face brightened and then faded to despondency. "Ah, well, you are right—theoretically, of course, but—would Elizabeth, do you think, have the same courage? Or, if she had, could you, knowing what you do, take the responsibility of allowing her to face it?"
This was the doubt—the horrible doubt, which troubled Mrs. Bobby as she drove to Elizabeth's home, and at the thought of it her heart failed her. Her husband had judged her rightly—she could be braver for herself than for others. Would it not be better, after all, to suggest to the Misses Van Vorst the desirability of a trip abroad? She looked thoughtfully out of the carriage window. It was a bleak February day, and people in the street had their coat-collars turned up against the chill east wind. The climate of New York at this time is detestable; a change would do any one good. She would go herself to the Riviera and take Elizabeth with her.
Mrs. Bobby had hardly reached this conclusion before the carriage stopped in front of the quiet apartment house in Irving Place where the Van Vorsts were spending the winter. It was an old-fashioned house with an air of sober respectability, that seemed to make such wild thoughts as filled Mrs. Bobby's brain peculiarly strained and improbable, like the hallucinations of a fevered brain. It was a shock, keyed up as she was to the tragic point, to enter the peaceful little drawing-room with its bright coal fire and general air of comfort, and to find Elizabeth prosaically engaged in looking over visiting-cards and invitations. And yet Mrs. Bobby was shocked by the change in her appearance, which every day made more apparent. Her face was haggard, there was a deep purple flush in her cheeks; her lips were dry and feverish, there was an odd, strained look in her eyes. The hand she held out to her visitor burned like fire.
"I'm so glad you came in," she said, with a wan smile. "I've been looking over these stupid things and my head aches. You see, I've neglected my social duties shamefully—not sending cards, or even, I'm afraid, answering some of my invitations. People must think me horribly rude."
"Oh, they know you've been ill," Mrs. Bobby answered vaguely. She sat down, all the wind taken out of her sails, and stared wonderingly at Elizabeth. How could she—how could she look over visiting-cards and talk about invitations, with this terrible danger hanging over her head? Was it possible that she had no suspicions? And yet—didnot her eyes betray her? But Mrs. Bobby could not think of any way of introducing the subject of which her mind and heart were full, and there was silence till Elizabeth spoke again.
"It's odd, isn't it," she said languidly, "that Mrs. Lansdowne hasn't asked me to her ball. Have you cards for it?"
"I—I believe so."
"Well, she has left me out," said Elizabeth. Mrs. Bobby started and looked at her with some interest. "I suppose she thinks," Elizabeth went on, "I—I'm not much of an addition just now. I certainly am not, to look at." She laughed a little, in a feeble way. "Of course I shouldn't go," she added, "but it isn't nice to be—left out."
"Perhaps it's a mistake," suggested Mrs. Bobby, not very impressively. She was quite convinced to the contrary.
"Perhaps," Elizabeth acquiesced, "but if so, several other people have done the same thing. The Van Aldens never asked me to their dance, and I haven't had an invitation to a dinner for weeks. People forget one quickly in New York, don't they?" And she made another painful attempt at a laugh.
"I suppose," said Mrs. Bobby, "they think you don't want to go."
"I don't," said Elizabeth, "but they might at least give me the opportunity of refusing." And then there was a pause, in the midst of which Miss Joanna entered.
"Oh, Mrs. Van Antwerp," she said, "how glad Iam to see you! Do tell Elizabeth that she ought to be in bed. You can see for yourself she has fever. It is the grippe, of course—she has never really got over it."
"Yes," said Mrs. Bobby, looking doubtfully at Elizabeth, "it is the grippe, of course."
"The grippe is a convenient disease," said Elizabeth, in a low tone, "it means—so many things." She took up a sheet of paper and began to write hastily. "It does me good," she said "to employ myself. And I can't stay in bed—it drives me wild." Miss Joanna, as if weary of expostulation, moved to the window.
"Yes, I declare," she announced, in the tone of one who makes a not unexpected discovery, "there are those men again. Every time I look out, one or other of them seems to be watching the house."
"Watching the house?" repeated Mrs. Bobby, startled.
"Yes, that's what it looks like, at least. And the other day, when I went out, one of them stared at me so—most impertinent. I declare, if it goes on, we shall have to make a complaint. And one of them followed Elizabeth—didn't he, my dear?"
"I thought he did," said Elizabeth, indifferently, "but I didn't notice much. I have thought several times lately that there were people following me. Perhaps it is because my head feels so queer."
"What do the men look like?" asked Mrs. Bobby.
"Oh, quite respectable," said Miss Joanna."They don't look like beggars, certainly. Cornelia thought they looked rather like detectives—she said they made her feel nervous; but that, of course, is quite ridiculous."
"Quite ridiculous," echoed Mrs. Bobby. To herself she was saying, "Ah, that trip abroad!"
"Eleanor has an invitation for Mrs. Lansdowne's ball, auntie," said Elizabeth, suddenly changing the subject, which did not seem to interest her, by the introduction of one that evidently rankled in her mind. "She thinks it is odd I wasn't asked. I told you," she went on, with a bitter smile, "that people are giving me up since my engagement was broken off."
"But that is nonsense," remonstrated Miss Joanna, in distress. "Tell her," she said, turning pleadingly to Mrs. Bobby, "that that isn't so."
Mrs. Bobby started up and took Elizabeth's hand. "I don't know," she said, speaking with strange earnestness, "who gives you up, Elizabeth dear, and I don't care. I never will. Remember that, dear child. I will stand by you whatever happens." And then, as if conscious of having said too much, or fearful perhaps of saying more, Mrs. Bobby swept hastily from the room, leaving her hearers petrified.
Miss Joanna was the first to speak. "How very strange she was!" she said, in a low voice. "What—what do you think she meant?"
Elizabeth was staring vacantly at the door, but at her aunt's words she turned.
"I don't know," she said, "what she meant, but one thing I understand—that my social career is ended." With a little pale smile, she swept aside the cards of invitation, locked them into a drawer and left the room.
Mrs.Bobby regained her carriage, and consulting her engagement book, she ordered her coachman to drive her to the house of one of her friends, whose "day at home" it was. It was a sudden resolution. She had gone about very little that winter, since she had no longer the incentive of chaperoning Elizabeth, and had not paid a visit for weeks, on the plea of mourning for an uncle. But now she set her teeth and said to herself that she must mingle with the world to find out, if possible, what the world was saying.
Was it fancy, or did she distinguish, as she stood in the hall of Mrs. Van Alden's house leaving cards, amidst the hum of voices in the drawing-room, words that bore upon her own fevered anxiety? "Shocking affair," and "so she is really involved in it"—surely she heard those sentences. And then the conversation ceased abruptly as the butler drew aside the portière and she stood for a moment on the threshold. Her eyes were bright, her head erect; she glanced around taking mental stock as it were of the company. Five or six women were seated about a blazing wood fire, with an air unusual at functions of this kind of having come to stay and of forming—or this again might have been herfancy—a sort of council of justice. There was Mrs. Lansdowne, to whose ball Elizabeth had not been invited; and there was Sibyl Hartington, and one or two others who knew Mrs. Bobby and did not, as it happened, love her very much. "Enemies," she thought, drawing her breath sharply, "and discussing Elizabeth and me! It's the same thing—I'm sure I feel as if it were I under suspicion." Eleanor Van Antwerp had certainly never known such a feeling before, but her bearing had never been more instinct with the nonchalant confidence of a woman who seems absolutely unconscious of her position, for the reason that it has never been questioned.
"I seem to have interrupted the conversation," she observed, lightly, after she had been rather nervously greeted and kissed by her hostess, and had taken her place in the circle. "Some one was telling a very interesting story—I caught fragments of it as I came in." She glanced her eye round the group. "It was you, Kitty, I think," she said. "Won't you—please—begin the story over again and tell it for my benefit?"
"Kitty," thus appealed to, colored and bit her lip. "Oh, the story isn't really worth repeating," she said, hastily. She had no wish to offend Mrs. Van Antwerp, and was heartily wishing that she had not spoken so loud. Sibyl Hartington helped her out by observing, with her placid smile:
"It's a story about a friend of yours, my dear Eleanor, so Kitty is afraid to tell it."
"About a friend of mine?" said Mrs. Bobby, andshe opened her eyes very wide. "Then there's all the more reason," she said, decidedly, "why I should hear it."
Her glance challenged the group, but no one spoke and at last the hostess interposed. "My dear Eleanor, I'm sorry you should have heard anything about it. We were only talking about poor Elizabeth Van Vorst, and regretting that there is all this unfortunate gossip about her. For my part, I don't believe there is a word of truth in what they say, but it is certainly—uncomfortable."
"It makes it hard to know what to do," said Mrs. Lansdowne, a woman with a deep bass voice and an air of being not so much indifferent to, as unconscious of other people's feelings. "I couldn't for instance ask Miss Van Vorst to my ball while there are these queer rumors about her. I was sorry to leave out any friend of yours, Mrs. Van Antwerp; but if a young woman gets herself talked about, no matter how or why, I can't encourage her—it's against my principles. Let the girl behave herself, I say, and keep out of the papers. I'm sure that's simple enough."
"It's not always so simple," said Mrs. Bobby, and though the indignant color had rushed into her cheeks, her tone was seraphic, "not so simple for every one as it is for your daughters, Mrs. Lansdowne." A subdued smile as she spoke went the round of the circle. Fortunately Mrs. Lansdowne was not quick in her perceptions.
"No, it's true," she admitted, "my daughters have had unusual advantages. I can't expect everyone to come up to the same standard. But one has to draw the line somewhere, and when a girl has done such queer things as Miss Van Vorst, there seems nothing for it but to drop her."
"But what—what has poor Elizabeth done?" asked Mrs. Bobby, with eyes of innocent wonder, and again there followed an awkward silence.
"Well, you know, Eleanor, they tell very queer stories," the hostess said at last, deprecatingly. "I never pay any attention to gossip, but these things are sometimes forced upon one. Haven't you seen that thing inScandal?"
"I don't," said Mrs. Bobby, unmoved, "read 'Scandal,' Mary."
"AndChit Chat," chimed in some one else. "There was a long paragraph inChit Chat. It seems that she was mixed up in some way in that dreadful poisoning case. They say that she was actually married to that young Halleck."
"At the same time that she was engaged to Julian Gerard," said Mrs. Hartington, with her calm smile. "It's no wonder that he, poor man, when he found it out, got out of the affair as best he could."
Mrs. Bobby looked steadily at the speaker. "As a friend of Mr. Gerard's, Sibyl," she said, "I can state on his authority that the engagement was broken by Miss Van Vorst."
Sibyl Hartington's calm, faintly amused smile again rippled across her face. "I never doubted, my dear Eleanor," she said, "that Mr. Gerard is a gentleman."
The entrance of another visitor at that moment was not altogether unwelcome to Mrs. Bobby, who felt that she was being worsted; but the new-comer immediately continued the same subject.
"I've just been hearing the most extraordinary news," she exclaimed, sitting on the edge of her chair, and too much excited to notice Mrs. Bobby's presence, "I heard it at luncheon. They say that Elizabeth Van Vorst"—But here the speaker suddenly caught sight of Mrs. Bobby, and stopped short.
"Well, what do they say?" said Mrs. Bobby, with rather a bitter smile. "Don't keep us in suspense, Miss Dare, and above all, don't mind my feelings. I would rather know the worst of this."
"Well, I don't believe there is any truth in it. They say that she is really seriously implicated in that dreadful poisoning case; that the police have letters she wrote to Halleck, and all sorts of unpleasant things. But of course it's impossible—a girl like that, whom we all know!"
"Do we?" said Mrs. Hartington, softly. "Do you think that we, any of us, know much about her? You didn't, Eleanor, did you?"—turning to Mrs. Bobby—"You just took her up in that charming, impulsive way of yours—didn't you?—because people in the Neighborhood didn't have much to do with her, and you felt sorry for her?"
Mrs. Bobby made a scornful little gesture. "You flatter me, Sibyl," she said. "I'm afraid I'm not so charitable as all that. I 'took up' Elizabeth Van Vorst, as you say, because I liked her, and for noother reason. It was for my own pleasure entirely that I asked her to stay with me, and I have never regretted it."
Mrs. Hartington gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. "I congratulate you," she said. "It was a rash action, some people thought at the time. A girl whom you knew so slightly, whose mother was such an impossible person—or at least, so they say. I don't of course," she went on, in her soft, drawling tones, "know much about it myself, but it does make all this gossip seem less extraordinary—doesn't it?"
"Why, yes, of course, that accounts for it," said Mrs. Lansdowne, looking relieved. "That sort of thing runs in families. A girl who has a queer mother is sure to be queer herself and get herself talked about."
"I never thought her very good style," some one who had not yet spoken now found courage to observe. "Her hair is so conspicuous. I never could understand why men seemed to admire her."
Mrs. Hartington raised her eye-brows. "Ah, the men!" she said, with serene scorn. "She is exactly the sort of girl who would appeal to men."
Mrs. Bobby felt that she had stayed as long as the limit of human endurance would permit. She rose to her feet, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brilliant, her voice rang out with crystal clearness. "It's hardly necessary for me to tell you," she said, "that Elizabeth Van Vorst is my most intimate friend. I love her very dearly and always shall. What her mother may have been is no affair ofmine. But as for the men liking her"—she turned suddenly to Mrs. Hartington—"they do like her, Sibyl, and I think they show good taste. But if you mean the inference you seem to draw from that"—she paused and drew her breath quickly—"why, it's not very flattering, I think, to either men or women."
Mrs. Hartington gave a short little laugh. "My dear, I'm not drawing inferences one way or another. I merely stated a fact—complimentary, one might think, to your protegée. But you take things so seriously!"—She drew herself up with an air of some annoyance.
Mrs. Bobby's hands were tightly locked together inside her muff, she faced the group appealingly, her dark eyes wandering from one to the other. "Certainly, I take this thing seriously," she said, and there was a thrill of earnestness in her voice which moved more than one of her hearers. "It's no light matter for me to hear my friend spoken of—like this. I had Elizabeth Van Vorst with me all last winter, I feel as if I knew her like my own sister. I believe in her implicitly, no matter what any one may say. And if—if some of you"—instinctively her eyes fastened upon one or two whom she felt she was carrying with her—"if you would try to think the best, give her the benefit of the doubt, show that women can stand by one another—sometimes"—Her voice faltered and she broke off suddenly; there were tears glistening in her eyes as she held out her hand to her hostess. "Forgive me, Mary," she said. "I don't want to makea scene. But I can't help feeling strongly, and in this case I want every one to know exactly how I feel." And with that she left the room quickly before any one could speak, yet conscious as she went of a subtle wave of sympathy, which seemed to have made itself felt since her entrance.
"But it's useless—useless," she said sadly to her husband when she got home. "You might as well try to stop the course of a torrent as fight against the world's disapproval, when it is once roused against any poor, defenceless girl. And it isn't as if she were a great personage, or even as if she were still engaged to Julian! They've nothing to gain by standing by her. Yet there were one or two, I think, even of those women this afternoon, who felt with me. And at least"—she consoled herself a little—"at least they shall see that she has friends!"
"She'll need them, poor girl. The—the inquest—I've just heard—is coming off next week." He took up a paper knife and played with it, while he stole a furtive glance at his wife. "I think you had better—prepare Elizabeth," he said.
"Prepare her?" she repeated anxiously, as he paused.
"For some confoundedly unpleasant questions! Yes. Have you the strength to tell her?" His eyes questioned her anxiously. She was white to the lips, but she met them without flinching.
"One can always find strength."
"It's confoundedly hard, I know." Bobby began to pace up and down helplessly. "You don'tknow how I hate to have you mixed up in all this, Eleanor," he said. "I'd give anything to have you out of it. Wouldn't it be better for you to go abroad for awhile?"
"And desert Elizabeth? My dear Bobby, you wouldn't have me do that?"
"Well, you can't help her, you know," he urged.
"I can show that I believe in her. And, thank Heaven! social position does count for something. It may help me to fight Elizabeth's battles."
"It doesn't count for much, unfortunately, before the law."
"Not theoretically, no," said his wife, sceptically. "But practically—it counts with every one and everywhere. By the way," she added, struck with a sudden idea, "what sort of man is the District Attorney? I might ask him to dinner." And she looked prepared to send the invitation on the spot.
"My dear Eleanor, I'm afraid it's too late for that now. The thing to do now, since matters have gone so far, is to prove Elizabeth's innocence, and for that, the first step is to prepare her, so that she won't be taken unawares. Her aunts too—they must be told, I suppose. Poor things, I believe it will kill them!"
"People don't die so easily. It would be more merciful, I sometimes think, if they did." She sat and thought for a moment. "I think I had better go there at once," she said, at last, nervously. "I couldn't sleep to-night with this hanging over my head."
And so, for the second time that day, she droveto the Van Vorsts' apartment, feeling that her unexpected appearance in itself must prepare them for some calamity. And indeed the telling proved easier than she feared. She saw Elizabeth alone, and sat holding the girl's hand, trying by many tender circumlocutions to break the force of the blow. But Elizabeth understood almost immediately.
"They think I sent the poison—is that it?" she said, going at once to the point which her friend was approaching so carefully. "Well, that isn't so strange. Sometimes I feel," she added, wearily, and putting her hand to her head, "as if I had done it myself. I think I—I might have done it."
"Elizabeth, Elizabeth, what do you mean?"
"Because I wished it, you know," Elizabeth went on to explain quite calmly. "I was married to him, and I wished that he might die, so that no one would ever know it, I didn't tell any one but Julian—I wouldn't have told him if I could have helped it. That was the reason he gave me up—because I told him that I had been secretly married all the time. He was angry because I hadn't told him before."
"But," interrupted Mrs. Bobby, with intense anxiety, "you did tell him, at last?"
"Yes, of course I told him," said Elizabeth, in surprise. "I told him New Year's Eve. Why else should he have given me up?"
"Then," cried Mrs. Bobby, rising to her feet in her excitement, "that seems to me an unanswerable argument. If you had—had expected Paul Halleck'sdeath, you certainly wouldn't have told Julian Gerard of your marriage. That's clear as daylight. Oh, Elizabeth, how fortunate that you told him!"
"Fortunate?" said Elizabeth, listlessly. "I don't see that it is very fortunate, since he has given me up and will never forgive me."
"But it may save you." Elizabeth looked at her blankly. "Oh, my dear child," cried Mrs. Bobby, "don't you understand that they suspect you of—of the murder?"
"You don't mean that they would put me in prison?"
Mrs. Bobby only answered by her silence. Elizabeth sat staring at her for a moment, then the color rushed into her white face, her eyes flashed. "How would they dare do that," she cried, "when I am innocent?"
"Of course you are," said Mrs. Bobby. "No one but a fool would think otherwise. And we will prove it, never fear. But you mustn't talk any more of this morbid nonsense about being guilty of his death and all that. I know what you mean well enough, but the general public doesn't understand such psychological subtleties. And besides, it's not true. The guilty person had no thought of doing you a service—be sure of that. Paul Halleck would have died, my dear, if you had never known him. And now keep up a brave heart, Elizabeth. Your friends will stand by you, and when all this is over—happily over, you will look back upon it as a bad dream—nothing more."
Mrs. Bobby had almost talked herself into feelingthe confidence she expressed; but Elizabeth listened languidly, with drooping head. All color had faded again from her face; it looked haggard, worn; her hands plucked nervously at some fringe on her gown. When she wiped her eyes at the last words, the smile she conjured up was piteous.
"It's a dream," she murmured, "that is lasting—a terribly long time."
Thereis an old prison well in the heart of the city, which presents a grim, mediæval front to the busy world outside. Elizabeth knew that it existed, but had never seen it. She did not know even where it was, till she found herself condemned to spend eight months within its walls.
This was after the inquest, when the evidence had gone as she had seen herself, very much against her. It was a curious feeling—this bewildered perception of a net closing round her, whose meshes she had woven herself. The verdict of the jury was hardly a surprise. And then they broke to her gently the fact that bail was refused, and they brought her across the Bridge of Sighs, the name of which gave her an odd little thrill, into the prison.
The inmates of The Tombs are mostly of the lowest class. Such a prisoner as Miss Van Vorst was disconcerting to wardens and matrons alike. The situation was unprecedented, they hardly knew how to deal with it.
Elizabeth was placed in one of the ordinary cells; no other indeed was to be had. It was small and dark, and had for furniture a cot-bed, a faucet set in the wall, and one cane chair. Light and air—what there was of either—came in through the corridor,above and below the iron grating which barred the doorway. There was no window.
Elizabeth, to whom an abundance of light and air had been one of the necessities of life, who had a passion for space and luxury, for fresh, dainty surroundings, looked about her in blank dismay. Yet she said nothing. From the first she seemed to school herself to a silent stoicism, which her friends called courage and her enemies insensibility, and which may have been a combination of both. The last two months had been crowded with so many startling events, so intense, conflicting a tumult of thought and emotion, that her capacity for acute suffering was for the moment exhausted.
Yet the mere physical horror that the cell inspired her with was very great. The first time that the key was turned upon her, and she was left entirely alone, with the twilight coming on, with no power to free herself, nothing to do but wait for the matron's return, she felt as she had felt once when for some childish offence, she had been locked into a dark closet. Now as then she threw herself against the door, trying with fierce, unreasoning efforts to force the lock, uttering hoarse cries for help. Then the door had been quickly opened, her aunts had let her out with remorseful tears, and the experiment had never been repeated. Now no help came to her, and she was left to adapt herself to the situation as best she might. The struggle left deep marks on her young face, a look in her eyes which they never afterwards lost.
There were many ways in which the prison routinewas softened in her favor. Social distinctions count, as Mrs. Bobby had said, with every one and everywhere. Money is powerful, even in The Tombs. The warden and the other officials reaped in those days a harvest of gold coins from Mrs. Bobby.
A more comfortable bed, a hand-mirror, all sorts of forbidden luxuries, found their way into Elizabeth's cell. Neither warden nor matron apparently recognized their existence. She was permitted to receive her visitors alone, to have a light in her cell after dark, to walk for an hour a day in the corridor or the court. At these times she would see those other women, her fellow-prisoners, huddled together in an abject group, and feel thankful that at least she was not obliged to mingle with them. Her meals were served to her in her cell, and she could order what she wanted. Her friends sent her constantly an abundance of fruit and flowers.
The people who came to see her, and there were many of them, used to go away wondering at her calmness. They went prepared for tragedy, and Elizabeth received them as she might in her own drawing-room. They noticed no change in her, except that her head had never been held so proudly, and she had never looked so pale. But there were no confidences, no tears, no consciousness apparently of the extraordinary state of things. Even to her aunts, even to Eleanor Van Antwerp, she maintained this attitude of proud reserve. They could only guess at the thoughts which lay beneath it. There were times, indeed, when she did not think,when her brain would seem dazed. In those days she would read eagerly all the books that people brought her; read them through from beginning to end, but she had never any idea of what they were about.
There was one form of reading which no one suggested, which she did not, apparently, think of herself. No one brought her a newspaper, and she never asked to see one. Perhaps she did not realize how much her case was discussed, perhaps she realized it only too well. Her aunts were thankful for her lack of curiosity. They could not themselves open a paper, or enter a street-car, without an agony of dread as to what they might see or hear.
For the yellow journals, of course, were exploiting the affair—it was Mrs. Bobby's opinion, indeed, that it had been started originally on their account, for the enlivenment of a dull season. This may or may not be true; but certainly they made the most of it. They published Elizabeth's picture, and long accounts of her conquests. There were pictures, too, of her grandmother, that stately beauty whose fame was traditional, and of old Van Vorsts who had held important offices, and served city and state with credit in colonial and revolutionary times. Then, by contrast, there were accounts of her mother's past and her mother's kindred through several generations of moral and social disrepute. The Neighborhood was overrun by disguised reporters who made copious notes of local items, and took photographs of the Van Vorst Homestead, of the village, of Bassett Mills and even of the church—therebycausing the Rector's wife nervous spasms in her anxiety lest any of Elizabeth's moral perversions should be laid to the account of the religious teaching that she had received. Bassett Mills was all a-flutter in its excitement over this gratuitous advertisement. But in the Neighborhood—the staid, aristocratic old Neighborhood—there was a feeling of humiliation, a presentiment that it could never recover from the disgrace of such notoriety.
And yet, in spite of all discredit, what a subject for conversation—in the Neighborhood as well as Bassett Mills! Nothing else was talked of at the various tea-parties, of which so many had never been given before. People who had guests took them over on Sunday afternoons to the Homestead, and wandered about the grounds relating the family history, while the strangers stared with interest at the old house, and the horse-shoe on the door. There was a dreary look about the place for the Misses Van Vorst were not coming back that summer, and the old gardener left in charge had not the heart under the circumstances to keep it in order. Grass grew in the gravel-walks, the flowers in the garden hung their heads, the foliage was sadly in need of clipping. A shadow seemed to brood over house and grounds, as in the day of old Madam Van Vorst.
In town, where there were more things to talk about, the great poisoning case still took precedence of all other subjects, and society was divided on account of it into warring camps. There were those—a very large number—who followed Mrs. Hartington's lead, and spoke of Elizabeth as a sort ofadventuress, who had thrust herself into circles which she had no right to enter; a party which disowned her entirely and believed implicitly in her guilt. But there was another party, smaller perhaps but not less influential, which took uncompromisingly the opposite side. The people who composed it were friends, many of them, of Mrs. Van Antwerp, and there were others who had cared for Elizabeth for her own sake, and again others to whom the romantic facts of the case appealed irresistibly, inducing them to espouse her cause regardless of reason. These all spoke of her as a suffering martyr and regarded her imprisonment as an outrage. They did not discuss the evidence, but met all doubts with the one unanswerable argument of their own intuitions.
But the first side had in point of logic, so much the best of it! This conviction intruded itself reluctantly on Eleanor Van Antwerp's mind, as she looked up from an exhaustive summary of the case for the prosecution. The article presented, in clear, remorseless details, all the links in the terrible chain of evidence—her hasty marriage, and then her repentance; her efforts to buy off her husband; the trouble she had to supply him with money; her evident fear of his betraying her to Gerard; her refusal to name her wedding day, till she had in sheer desperation decided on the murder; then when the thing was at last accomplished, her sudden remorse, her strange actions; the rumor that she had in the first excitement confessed her guilt before witnesses; the description too, of the woman who had bought theflask, and which fitted Elizabeth exactly in height, coloring and general appearance; the resemblances which the experts were said to have discovered between her letters and the handwriting on the package—never was chain more strongly forged! And what, the article further demanded, had her friends to offer in rebuttal but her social position, her youth and her beauty?
"It's not much, certainly," Mrs. Bobby's anxiety admitted. "And yet a good deal, too," her aristocratic instincts involuntarily responded; "and will have their weight with the jury," her cynicism added. But then again despair overwhelmed her, and she put the unavailing question: "Bobby, is there—do you think there is any hope?"
Bobby stared back at her, his face hardly less white than hers.
"God only knows, Eleanor! If she were just a man, or even an ordinary woman, I should say 'no;' but for a young girl, there's always a chance. Let her"—he dropped his hand on the table beside him with a deep sigh—"let her look as pretty as she can. It seems to me about the only hope."
"She won't look pretty," his wife returned, with a little sob. "She is just the shadow of her old self; if she stays in that place much longer, I believe it will kill her. Bobby," she cried, with a sudden burst of indignation, staring up at him with tragic eyes, "if that child dies—there, it will be murder! And yet you say the law is just!"
Bobby had said so much in the last few weeks in perfunctory defence of the law that he was wearyof the subject, and so he attempted no further protestations, but watched his wife sadly as she walked impatiently to and fro; a slight, childlike creature, her cheeks flushed, her eyes brilliant with impotent anger, dashing herself as it were against impenetrable barriers. Only once before in her life had Eleanor Van Antwerp been confronted with an obstacle that did not yield to her wishes. That was when the baby died, and she had resigned herself to what she believed to be Divine Providence. But this seemed mere human stupidity.
"If only men were not so logical!" she exclaimed, despairingly. "Women, if they intended to get her off, would do it, no matter what the evidence was; but men!—they are so bound hand and foot by their sense of justice, their respect for law, and Heaven knows what! that they are quite capable, even if they believe her innocent, of finding her guilty, just because the evidence was against her."
"Well that's what they're supposed to do," Bobby put in, deprecatingly, "they've got to abide by the evidence." It was the twentieth time that he had made this explanation, and for the twentieth time, she brushed it aside.
"What does it matter," she demanded, "about the evidence, when any one with common-sense mustknowthe girl is innocent? But I see how it is, Bobby," she went on, her lip quivering. "You don't really believe in her the way that I do. You have doubts—at the bottom of your heart you have doubts. Tell me the truth, and I'll try to forgive you—haven'tyou?"
She stopped before him, her dark eyes, fastened upon his, seemed to read his soul, but he answered steadily: "Eleanor, upon my honor, I believe in that child's innocence as you do. I'd give anything in the world to get her off. (Yes, and I would," he added to himself "for your sake, if she had committed twenty murders.")
She drew a long sigh of relief. "Oh, Bobby, youarenice," she said, gratefully. "You've been very good to me all this time—never once saying 'I told you so,' when the whole thing has been all my fault for not taking your advice."
"Your fault, you poor child! How do you make that out?"
"If I had never asked Elizabeth to stop with me," she said tremulously, "all this wouldn't have happened. You warned me—don't you remember?—and you were right. I've come to the conclusion, Bobby, that you generallyareright and I wrong."
Her tone of submission was as edifying as it was surprising, but Bobby with unwonted quickness cut it short. "Nonsense!" he said almost roughly. "You were right in that case, as you generally are, and I was wrong; and no harm would have come of it if Elizabeth—well, I don't want to hit people when they're down," he said, apologetically "but if she had only been frank with us from the first, all this wouldn't have happened. My dear"—this in response to a reproachful look from his wife—"I don't mean to be hard on her, but I can't hear you blame yourself for what has been poor Elizabeth'sown fault, helped out by a most extraordinary train of circumstances."
"She was to blame, certainly," faltered his wife, reluctantly, "but I can understand—I believe I should have done the same in her place."
"No, Eleanor," said Bobby, briefly and with some sternness, "you would not."
"It's true," she admitted, "I don't think I could keep a secret if I tried. But then neither apparently could Elizabeth—to the bitter end. That is one thing I can't understand," she went on, "why you don't any of you attach more importance to the fact that she told Julian herself."
"Because," said Bobby, slowly, "we have only her own word that she did so."
"But her aunts"—began Mrs. Bobby.
"They can't know what passed between them. What people think is that he discovered the marriage and charged her with it. It seems improbable that after deceiving him so long she should suddenly repent. And of course he would shield her as far as possible, so his version goes for nothing."
"All the same, I should like to hear it," said Mrs. Bobby decidedly. "If I were Mr. Fenton, I should summon him at once as witness." (Mr. Fenton was the counsel for the defence.)
"Why, Fenton thought of it," said Bobby. "He spoke about it to Elizabeth, and she cried out 'Oh, not he—not he of all people' in such a way that he—well, he thought he'd better not send for him, for fear of discovering something that would go verymuch against us. It did look badly, you know, that she should dread Gerard's evidence so."
Mrs. Bobby's reply to this was unexpected. "Is Mr. Fenton considered a clever lawyer, dear?" she asked.
"The best that money can get," said Bobby, somewhat taken aback. "But why, Eleanor?"—
"Oh, well—I hope he knows more about law than he does about women, that's all. Now I say, send for Julian at once."
"Well, you know, Eleanor, I can't help thinking that if he knew of any evidence in her favor he'd have turned up of his own accord before this. It looks badly, I think—his staying away; as if he were afraid of being questioned if he came."
Mrs. Bobby sat for a moment reflecting deeply, her brows knit. "I don't believe," she said, suddenly, "that he knows a thing about it. Where is he, do you know?"
"Some one saw him ages ago in London," said Bobby. "Goodness knows where he is now. But in all events, he must have heard."
"I doubt it. It happened, you know, while he was on the ocean, and by the time he had landed, the first excitement was over, and there was nothing about it in the papers for a long time. So that, even if he bought an American paper, he might not see anything about it, and the foreign ones of course would have nothing—you know how little interest they take in us over there. Oh, it might easily happen—strange as it seems, that he has heard nothing."
"But why is it, do you think," said Bobby, "that Elizabeth doesn't want him here?"
"My dear Bobby, how dull men are! Of course, she doesn't want to call upon him in a time like this. She's too proud. But nothing will prevent him—if I know him rightly—from coming at once, if there is anything he can do to help her."
"Well, if you think it's any good, I'll send a detective after him," said Bobby, with the composure of one to whom money is no object.