“Better!” she repeated. “But you were late! I needed it—I needed it!”
“Come, now!” he said indulgently. “The faintness has passed. Now you must go up to your room and rest a little before tea.”
She rose, and to Lexy’s surprise her movements showed no trace of weakness. Then, turning her head, she caught sight of the girl, and her face lighted with pleasure.
“Miss Moran!” she cried. “How very nice to—”
“Miss Moran will wait, I’m sure,” the doctor interrupted. “You must rest for half an hour, Muriel.”
Taking her by the arm, he led her down the room. In the doorway she looked back and smiled at her visitor; and if anything had been needed to steel Lexy’s heart against the doctor, that smile on his wife’s face would have done it—that poor, plaintive little smile.
Standing there by Mrs. Quelton’s empty chair, she waited for him to return, a cold and terrible anger rising in her. She heard his step in the hall, heavy and deliberate,[Pg 347]and presently he reëntered the room and came toward her, his blank, dull eyes fixed upon nothing. She was quite certain that he wanted to put her out of his way, and that he had no scruple whatever as to methods; yet for all her youth and inexperience, her utter loneliness, she felt that she was a match for him.
“So you’ve come back to us, Miss Moran,” he said in his lifeless voice. “I was afraid you might not.”
“Oh, but why not?” Lexy inquired in a brisk and cheerful tone. “I like to come here!”
A curious thrill of exultation ran through her, for she saw on the doctor’s face the faintest shadow of a frown. He was perplexed! She baffled him, and he didn’t know whether she understood what had happened.
“It is a great pleasure to Mrs. Quelton and myself,” he said politely. Then he raised his eyes and looked directly at her. “Perhaps,” he went on, “you would be kind enough to spend a week here with us some time? Although I’m afraid you might find it very dull.”
“Oh, no!” Lexy assured him. “I’d love to come—whenever it’s convenient for you.”
They were still looking directly into each other’s eyes.
“Suppose we say to-morrow?” suggested Dr. Quelton.
“Thank you!” said Lexy. “I’ll come to-morrow!”
Captain Grey was enchanted with the idea of Lexy’s spending a week with his sister. He was going, too. Indeed, Lexy felt sure that Mrs. Quelton had wanted him to go there some time ago, and that he had refused simply on her own account. He didn’t like to leave her alone at Mrs. Royce’s, and after her nervous breakdown that afternoon nothing could have induced him to do so. He was anxious about her. He tried, with what he believed was great tact, to find out her plans for the future. He was genuinely troubled by the loneliness and uncertainty of her life.
Lexy appreciated all this, and she liked the young man very much—perhaps as much as he liked her; but the sympathetic understanding which had promised to develop on the night when they talked together in the firelight had never developed. Something had checked it. They were the best of friends, but Captain Grey never again referred to what Lexy had told him about Caroline Enderby, and about her reason for coming to Wyngate; and Lexy said nothing, either. Evidently he thought that it had been a far-fetched, romantic notion of hers, and hoped that she had forgotten all about it.
Lexy did not try to undeceive him. Her story would be too fantastic for him to believe. Nobody would believe it, except a person with absolute faith not only in her honesty but in her intelligence and clear-sightedness; and there was no such person. She was not resentful or grieved over this. She accepted it quietly, and prepared to go forward alone.
It had occurred to her lately that perhaps Mr. Houseman had been right, and that Caroline had gone away of her own free will; but she meant toknow. She had seen the missing girl in Dr. Quelton’s house. Whatever the doctor might say about the false evidence of the senses, Lexy’s confidence in her own clear gray eyes was not in the least shaken. She had seen Caroline once, and she was going to see her again. That was why she was going to the Tower.
“It’ll do Muriel no end of good,” said Captain Grey, when they were in the taxi. “She’s—to tell you the truth, Miss Moran, I don’t feel altogether easy about her.”
“Why?” asked Lexy, very curious to know what he thought.
“Well,” he said, “it’s hard to put it into words; but that’s not a wholesome sort of life for a young woman, shut away like that. The doctor says her health’s not good, but it’s my opinion that if she got about more—saw more people, you know—”
Lexy felt a great pity for him. Apparently he did not even suspect what she was now sure of—that the unfortunate Muriel was hopelessly addicted to some drug, which her husband himself gave to her.
“And I hope he’ll go back to India before he does find out,” she thought. “It’s too horrible—he worships her so!”
“I’ve tried, you know,” he went on. “I wanted to take her into the city, to a concert. Seems confoundedly queer, doesn’t it, the way she’s lost interest in her music? She didn’t want to go. Then about the emerald—”
“Oh!” said Lexy, who had forgotten about the emerald.[Pg 348]
“Chap I know designed a setting for it. It’s unset now, you know, and I thought I’d like to do that for her while I was here; but she doesn’t seem interested. I can’t even get her to let me see the thing. I’ve asked her two or three times, but she always puts me off. Do you think it bores her?”
“Perhaps it does,” replied Lexy.
“Well,” said the young man, “when a woman’s bored by a jewel like that, she’s in a bad way. I wish you could see it!”
“I wish I could,” said Lexy, and added to herself: “But I don’t think I ever shall. Probably her husband’s got it.”
They had now reached the Tower. The parlor maid opened the door for them, and at once conducted Lexy upstairs to her room.
It was a big room, with four windows, and very comfortably furnished; but even a fire burning in the grate and two or three shaded electric lamps could not give it a homelike air. There was a musty smell about it, and there was an amazing amount of dust. It was neat, but it wasn’t clean. Dust rose from the carpet when she walked, and from the chair cushions when she sat down. She saw fluff under the bed and under the bureau.
“Not much of a housekeeper, poor soul!” thought Lexy. “It’s a pity. One could do almost anything with a house like this, and all this beautiful old furniture!”
But this, after all, was a minor matter. She took off her hat, washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
“The house is strange to me,” she said to herself, with a grin. “I shouldn’t wonder if I turned the wrong way, and got lost!”
That was what she intended to do. She did not expect to make any sensational discoveries, for Dr. Quelton did not seem to be the sort of person who would leave clews lying about for her to pick up; but she did hope that she might see or hear something—Heaven knows what—that might bring her nearer to Caroline.
So, instead of walking toward the stairs, she turned in the opposite direction, along a hall lined with doors, all of them shut. At the end there was a grimy window, through which the sun shone in upon the dusty carpet and the faded wall paper. There was a forlorn and neglected air about the place, a stillness which made it impossible for her to believe that there was any living creature behind those closed doors.
“I wish I had cheek enough to open some of them,” she thought; “but I’m afraid I haven’t. I shouldn’t know what to say if there was some one in the room. After all, I’m supposed to be a guest. I’ve got to be a little discreet about my prying.”
She went softly along the hall to the window, to see what was out there. When she reached it, she was surprised to see that the last door was a little ajar. She looked through the crack. It wasn’t a room in there, but another hall, only a few feet long, ending at a narrow staircase.
“That must be the way to the cupola,” she thought. “I suppose a guest might go up there, to see the view.”
So she pushed the door open and went on tiptoe to the stairs; and then she heard a voice which she had no trouble in recognizing. It was Dr. Quelton’s.
“My dear young man,” he was saying. “I am not a psychologist. It has always seemed to me the greatest folly to devote serious study to the workings of so erratic and incalculable a machine as the human brain. It is a study in which there are, practically speaking, no general rules, no trustworthy data. It is, in my opinion, not a science at all, but a philosophy; and philosophy makes no appeal to me. I frankly admit that I am entirely materialistic. I care little for causes, but much for effects. Consequently, I have devoted myself to medicine, in which I can produce certain effects according to established rules.”
“But I meant more particularly the effect of—of things on the mind—the brain, you know,” said Captain Grey’s voice.
Again Lexy felt a great pity for him. He sounded very, very young in contrast to the doctor—so young and earnest, and so helpless!
“Exactly!” said the doctor. “You were, I believe, trying to lead to a suggestion that psychology might be of help to Muriel. Am I right?”
There was a moment’s pause, during which Lexy very cautiously went halfway up the stairs.
“I did think of that,” said the young man valiantly. “It seems to me she’s a bit—well, morbid, you know; and I’ve heard about those chaps—those psychoanalysts, you know. Simply occurred to me that one of them—merely a suggestion, you know. I’m not trying to be officious.[Pg 349]”
“A psychoanalyst,” said Dr. Quelton, “is a man who analyzes the psyche, who solemnly and expensively analyzes something of whose existence he has no proof whatever.”
There was another silence.
By this time Lexy had reached the head of the stairs. Beside her was an open door, through which she could look, while she herself was hidden from view. Beyond it was, as she had thought, the cupola—a small octagonal room with windows on every side, through which the sun poured in a dazzling flood. There was nothing in the room except a white enamel table, a stool, a porcelain sink, and an open cabinet, upon the shelves of which stood rows and rows of bottles, each one labeled. Facing this cabinet, and with their backs toward the door, stood the two men—the doctor with his shoulders hunched and his hands clasped behind him, and Captain Grey, tall, slender, straight as a wand.
“Materia medica—that is my art,” said the doctor. “I have devoted my life to it, and I have learned—a little. I have made experiments. A psychologist will offer to tell you why a man has murdered his grandmother. I can’t pretend to do that, but I can give that man a tablet which will make it practically certain that hewillkill his grandmother if they are left alone together for ten minutes.”
“But, I say!” protested Captain Grey.
“I can assure you that I have never made the experiment,” said Dr. Quelton, with a laugh; “but I could do it. I have learned that certain states of mind can be produced by certain drugs.”
Captain Grey turned his head, so that Lexy could see his handsome, sensitive face in profile.
“That seems to me a pretty risky thing to do,” he said, with a trace of sternness. “I hope, sir, that you don’t—”
“Don’t give Muriel drugs that make her disposed to murder her grandmother?” interrupted the doctor, with another laugh; but he must have noticed that his companion was unresponsive, for he at once changed his tone. “No,” he said gravely. “I have made a particular study of Muriel’s case. She seriously overtaxed herself in her musical studies. Don’t be alarmed, my dear fellow—there is no permanent injury. It is simply a profound mental and nervous lassitude—obviously a case where artificial stimulation is required, until the tone of the lethargic brain is restored. I am able to do for her what, I feel certain, no one else now living could do. In this bottle”—he tapped one of them with his forefinger—“I have a preparation which would make my fortune, if I had the least ambition in that direction. Five drops of that, in a glass of water, and her depression and apathy are immediately dispelled. There is an instantaneous improvement in—”
Lexy waited to hear no more. She slipped down the stairs as quietly as she had come up, hurried along the hall, and went into her own room again. Her knees gave way and she collapsed into a chair, staring ahead of her with the most singular expression on her face.
She was, in fact, looking at a new idea, and it was not a welcome one.
“No!” she said to herself. “It’s out of the question. It’s too dangerous. I can’t do it!”
But the idea remained solidly before her; and the more she contemplated it, the more was her honest heart obliged to admit the possibilities in it.
“It can’t do any real harm,” she said; “and it might do good—so much good! All right, I’m going to do it!”
Half an hour before dinner she went down into the library, a polite and quiet young guest, even a little subdued. Dr. Quelton took Captain Grey out for a stroll on the beach. He asked Lexy to go with them, but she said she would prefer to stay with Mrs. Quelton.
It was very peaceful and pleasant there in the library. The late afternoon sun shone in through the long window, touching with a benign light the shabby and graceful old furniture, picking out a glitter of gold on the binding of a book, a dull gleam of silver or copper in a corner. A mild breeze blew in, fluttering the curtains and bringing a wholesome breath of the salt air.
Mrs. Quelton was at her best. To be sure, she was not very interesting. She talked about rather banal things—about the weather, about a kitten that had run away, about the flowers in the conservatory; but Lexy, as she watched her and listened to her, could understand better than ever before what it was in Captain Grey’s sister that had so seized upon his heart. Languid and aloof as she was, there was nevertheless an undeniable charm about her, something sweet and kindly and lovable. She said, more than once, how[Pg 350]very glad she was to have Lexy with her, and Lexy believed she meant it.
The two men had strolled out of sight.
“I must have left my handkerchief upstairs,” said Lexy. “Excuse me just a minute, please!”
But she was gone more than a minute, and when she returned her face was curiously white.
The clock struck eleven. Lexy glanced up from her book, in the vain hope that somebody would speak, would stir, would make some move to end this intolerable evening; but nobody did.
Dr. Quelton and Captain Grey were playing chess. They sat facing each other at a small table, in a haze of tobacco smoke, silent and intent, as if they had been gods deciding human destinies. Mrs. Quelton lay on herchaise longue, doing nothing at all. If Lexy spoke to her, she answered in a low tone, but cheerfully enough; but she so obviously preferred not to talk that Lexy had taken up a book and vainly attempted to read.
It was the most wearisome and depressing evening she had ever spent. Her lively and restless spirit had often enough found it dull at the Enderbys’, and at other times and places; but this was different, and infinitely worse.
To begin with, a sense of guilt lay like lead upon her heart. She hoped and believed that what she had done was right, but she was afraid, terribly afraid, of what might result. She could not keep her eyes off Mrs. Quelton’s face. She watched the doctor’s wife with a dread and anxiety which she felt was ill concealed; and she had a chill suspicion that the doctor was watching her, in turn.
“Of course, he’s bound to find out some time,” she said to herself. “I wasn’t such a fool as to expect more than a day or two, at the very most; but I did hope there’d be time just to see—”
Again she glanced at Mrs. Quelton. Was it imagination, or was there already a faint and indefinable change?
“No, that’s nonsense,” she thought. “There couldn’t be, so soon—although I don’t know how often he gives her that priceless tonic.”
Suddenly she wanted to laugh. She had a very vivid memory of Dr. Quelton tapping that bottle with his finger, and saying to Captain Grey that he had a preparation in there which would make his fortune, if he chose.
“It wouldn’t now,” she thought, struggling with suppressed laughter.
There was nothing in that bottle now but water. Just before dinner she had run up to the cupola, emptied its contents into the sink, and filled it from the tap.
The idea had come to her when she overheard the two men talking. It had seemed to her then a plain and obvious duty to destroy the drug that so horribly affected Mrs. Quelton. Fate had allowed her to see which bottle it was. Fate gave her an undisturbed half hour when the doctor and Captain Grey were out; and, to make her plan quite perfect, the liquid in the bottle was colorless and almost without odor.
She had thought it possible that the doctor would not notice the substitution until his unhappy wife had had at least a chance to return to a normal condition. Lexy had meant to wait and to watch, and, when the moment came, to speak to Mrs. Quelton. She had thought that she could warn the doctor’s wife, and implore her not to submit to that hideous domination.
She had scarcely thought of the risk to herself, and it had not occurred to her that there might be serious risk to Mrs. Quelton. She knew almost nothing about drugs and their effects. Her one idea had been to destroy the thing that was destroying Mrs. Quelton. Only now, when it was done, did she realize the mad audacity of her act. A man like Dr. Quelton couldn’t be tricked by such a childish device. He would know what had happened, and who had done it. Very likely he had plenty more of the drug somewhere else. If he hadn’t—
“He’d feel like killing me,” thought Lexy. “I suppose he could, easily enough. He must know all sorts of nice, quiet little ways for getting rid of obnoxious people. Perhaps there was something in my dinner to-night!”
She dared not think of such a possibility.
“No!” she said to herself. “He asked me here just to show me how little I mattered. He knew I’d seen Caroline here, and he asked me to come, because he was so sure I couldn’t do anything. I’m too insignificant for him to bother with. He knows that nobody would believe what I said. He’d only have to say that I was hysterical, and Captain Grey and Mrs.[Pg 351]Royce would be obliged to bear him out. He won’t trouble himself about me!”
She stole a glance at him, and, to her profound uneasiness, she found him staring intently at her. A shiver ran down her spine, and she turned back to her book with a very pale face. If only it had been an interesting book, so that she might have forgotten herself for a little while!
The clock struck half past eleven.
“After all, I don’t see why I have to sit here,” she thought. “I shouldn’t exactly break up the party if I went to bed.”
And she was just about to close her book when Mrs. Quelton spoke.
“I’m so tired!” she said in a high, wailing voice. “I’m so tired—so tired—so tired!”
Dr. Quelton hastily rose and came over to her chair.
“Then you must go to bed,” he said. “Come!”
He helped her to rise, and she stood, supported by his arm, her face drawn and ghastly.
“I’m so tired!” she moaned.
Captain Grey came toward her, making a very poor attempt to smile.
“Good night, Muriel!” he said, holding out his hand.
She did not answer, or even look at him. Leaning on the doctor’s arm, she went out of the room, into the hall, and up the stairs. Her wailing voice floated back to them:
“I’m so tired—so tired!”
For a moment Captain Grey and Lexy were silent. Then—
“Good God!” he cried suddenly. “I can’t stand this! I—”
Lexy came nearer to him.
“Don’t stand it!” she whispered. “Take her away! Can’t yousee? Take her away!”
“How can I? Her husband—she doesn’t want to go.”
“Make her! Oh, can’t you see? He’s giving her some horrible drug!”
“You mustn’t be alarmed,” said Dr. Quelton’s voice from the hall. They both looked at him with a guilty start, but his blank eyes were staring past them, at nothing. “It is unfortunate,” he said. “The little excitement of this visit—”
He walked past them into the room and over to the table, where his pipe lay among the chessmen. He lit it deliberately and stood smoking it, with one arm resting on the mantelpiece.
“In her present highly nervous condition,” he went on, “the little excitement of this visit has proved too much for her. I shall drive over to the hospital and fetch a nurse—”
“A nurse!” cried the young man. “Then she’s—”
“There is absolutely no occasion for alarm, as I told you before. A few days’ rest and quiet—”
“Look here, sir!” said Captain Grey. “It seems to me—I’ve no wish to be offensive, or anything of that sort, but it seems right to me”—he paused for a moment—“to get a second opinion.”
“I shouldn’t advise it,” replied the doctor blandly.
“Possibly not, sir; but perhaps you would be willing to oblige me to that extent. I don’t want to insist—”
“I wouldn’t, if I were you.”
There was a faint flush on the young man’s dark face.
“Nevertheless—” he began, but again the doctor interrupted him.
“My dear young man,” he said, “you oblige me to be frank. I should have preferred a discreet silence; but as you are obviously determined to make the matter as difficult as possible, you must hear the truth. For some years your sister has been addicted to the use of certain drugs. When I discovered this, I set about trying to cure the addiction. You probably have no idea what that means. I venture to say that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—more difficult in the entire field of medicine. I have been working on the case for more than a year, and I have made distinct progress; but it will be some time before the cure is completed, and I can assure you that it never will be unless I am left undisturbed. There is no other man now living who can do what I am doing.”
He spoke gravely and coldly, and his blank eyes were fixed upon Captain Grey with a sort of sternness; but Lexy had a curious impression—more than an impression, a certainty—that within himself Dr. Quelton was laughing.
“If you care to take another doctor into your confidence,” he went on, “I can scarcely refuse permission; but you will regret it.”
The young man said nothing. He turned away and stood by the open window, looking out into the dark garden. Lexy waited for a moment. Then, with a subdued[Pg 352]“Good night,” she went out of the room, up the stairs, and into her own room.
“It’s a lie!” she said to herself.
“Then you’re not going to do anything?” asked Lexy.
“My dear Miss Moran, what in the world can I do?” returned Captain Grey, with a sort of despair.
They were sitting together on the veranda in the warm morning sunshine. They had had breakfast in the dining room, with the doctor—an excellent breakfast. The doctor had been at his best—courteous, affable, very attentive to his guests. Everything in his manner tended to reassure the young soldier.
Everything in the world seemed to tend in that direction, Lexy thought. A Sunday tranquillity lay over the country. Church bells were ringing somewhere in the far distance. The windows of the library stood open, and the parlor maid was visible in there, flitting about with broom and duster. Everything was peaceful and ordinary, and Captain Grey had come out on the veranda and attempted to begin a peaceful and ordinary conversation.
But Lexy had no intention of allowing him to enjoy such a thing. She felt pretty sure that her time in this house would not be long. She had caused Dr. Quelton an anxiety that he could not conceal. She had got in his way. She could not tell whether he had discovered her trick yet, but the effects were manifest; and if he didn’t know now, he would very soon, and then—
Captain Grey must carry on when she was gone.
“You’re properly satisfied—with everything?” she went on mercilessly. “You’re not allowed even to see your sister. No one can see her. You’re not allowed to call in another doctor.”
“Even if I’m not properly satisfied,” he answered, “what can I do? In her husband’s house, you know—I can’t make a row.”
“Why can’t you?”
He looked at her, startled and uneasy. Her question was ridiculous. Why couldn’t he make a row? Simply because he couldn’t; because he wasn’t that sort; because it wasn’t done; because almost anything was preferable to making a row.
“Of course, if you have a blind faith in Dr. Quelton—” she persisted.
“Well, I haven’t,” he admitted; “but—”
“Then let’s go upstairs and see her. The doctor has gone out.”
“But the nurse—”
“Put on your best commanding officer’s air,” said Lexy. “You can be awfully impressive when you like. If I were you, there’s nothing I’d stop at.”
“Yes, but look here—what can I say to Quelton when he hears about it?”
“Laugh it off,” said Lexy.
The idea of Captain Grey trying to laugh off anything made her grin from ear to ear.
“Not much of a joke, though, is it?” he said rather stiffly. “Suppose he hoofs us out of the house?”
“Oh, dear!” cried Lexy. “You’re not a bit resourceful! Let’s try it, anyhow. It’s horrible to think of her shut up like that. Perhaps she’s longing to see you.”
He rose.
“Right-o!” he said. “Let’s try it!”
Together they went up the stairs and down the hall of the other wing, opposite that in which Lexy’s room was. Captain Grey knocked on a door, and a quiet, middle-aged little nurse came out.
“I’ll just pop in to see how my sister’s getting on,” said the young man, and Lexy silently applauded his toploftical manner.
“I’m sorry,” said the little nurse, “but Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—”
“Er—yes, quite so!” he interrupted suavely. “I shan’t stop a minute.”
He came nearer, but the nurse drew back and stood with her back against the door.
“Dr. Quelton has given strict orders—” she repeated.
“No more of that, please!” he said with a frown. “I’m going to see Mrs. Quelton for a moment. Stand aside, please!”
He did not raise his voice, but the quality of it was oddly changed. Lexy felt a thrill of pleasure in its cool assurance and authority. Perhaps he objected very much to “making a row,” but what a glorious row he could make if he chose! If he would only once face Dr. Quelton like this!
“Stand aside, if you please!” he repeated, and the poor little nurse, very much flustered, did so.
“I’m afraid Dr. Quelton will be—” she began, but Captain Grey had already entered the room.
The nurse followed him, closing the door after her. Lexy opened it at once and went in after them. She caught a glimpse of the young man and the nurse vanishing[Pg 353]through one of the long windows that led out to the balcony. For a moment she hesitated, looking about her at the big, dim room. The dark shades were pulled down, and not a trace of the spring’s brightness entered here.
Then she heard Captain Grey’s voice speaking.
“My dear, my dear!” he said. “Can I do anything in the world for you? My dear!”
There was no answer. Lexy crossed the room to the window and looked out. The balcony, too, was dim, with Venetian blinds drawn down on every side, and on a narrow cot lay Muriel Quelton. There was a bandage over her forehead and covering her hair, and under it her face had a mystic and terrible beauty. She was as white as a ghost, with great dark circles beneath her eyes; and she was so still—so utterly still—that Lexy was stricken with terror.
Captain Grey was sitting beside her in a low chair, holding one of her lifeless hands, and Lexy saw on his face such anguish as she had never looked upon before.
“My dear!” he said again.
Her weary eyes opened and looked up at him. Then the shadow of a smile crossed her face.
“Stay!” she whispered.
Lexy drew nearer. Tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to read the nurse’s face, but she could not.
“How is—she—getting on?” she asked, speaking very low.
“Lexy!” came a voice from the cot, almost inaudible. “Take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”
“But do you mean—I don’t understand!” cried Lexy.
“Hush, please!” said the nurse severely. “Mrs. Quelton is not to be excited.”
Lexy was silent for a moment. Then, just as she was about to speak, her quick ear caught a very unwelcome sound—the sound of a horse’s trot. She turned away and went back through the window into the room. Dr. Quelton was coming home. She couldn’t wait to find out what Muriel Quelton had meant. Once more she was compelled to do the best she could amid a fog of misunderstanding.
“Lexy—take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”
That was what she thought Mrs. Quelton had said, and she acted upon that premise. She crossed the room to the bureau, and opened the top drawer. In the dim light that filled the shuttered room she could not see very clearly; but, as far as she could ascertain, there was nothing in the drawer except some neatly folded silk stockings, a satin glove case, some little odds and ends of ribbons, and a pile of handkerchiefs. She looked into the glove case—nothing there but gloves. There was nothing hidden away among the stockings, nothing among the ribbons.
She heard the front door close and a step begin to mount the stairs, deliberate and heavy, in the quiet house. In haste she went at the pile of handkerchiefs. There were dozens of them, all of fine white linen, all with a “2” embroidered in one corner—very uninteresting handkerchiefs, Lexy thought; but halfway through the pile she came upon one that she had seen before.
It was so familiar to her that at first she was not startled or even surprised. It was a handkerchief that she had embroidered for Caroline Enderby.
She took it up and looked at it with a frown. Then she heard Dr. Quelton’s step in the hall outside. She tucked the handkerchief in her belt, and tried to close the drawer, but it stuck. Her heart was beating wildly, her knees felt weak. He would find her there, like a thief!
But the footsteps went on past the door. She waited for a moment, and then went noiselessly across to the door, opened it, looked up and down the empty corridor, and ran, like a hare, back to her own room.
Caroline’s handkerchief! Was that what Mrs. Quelton had meant her to find? Or had she discovered it by accident? Did it mean that Mrs. Quelton was at heart her ally? Or was this little square of linen all that was left of Caroline?
Lexy took it out of her belt and looked at it again, and her tears fell on it. Whatever else it might imply, it told her clearly enough that her friendhad been there. Poor Caroline—the helpless little captive who had left her prison to be lost in the strange world outside—had come here, and she had brought with her the handkerchief that Lexy had embroidered for her. It had come now into Lexy’s hand, a mute and pitiful emissary, whose message she could not understand.
“What shall I do?” she thought. “Oh, what must I do? Perhaps it’s time for the police. Perhaps, if I show this to Captain[Pg 354]Grey, he’ll believe me. There must be some one, somewhere, who’ll believe me and help me!”
There was a knock at the door.
“Yes?” she said.
“Open the door!” ordered Dr. Quelton’s voice.
“No!” Lexy promptly replied.
She put the handkerchief inside her blouse and stood facing the closed door, with her hands clenched. Now he knew!
She heard him laugh quietly.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “It is better, perhaps, for us not to meet again. Even making every allowance for your hysterical, unbalanced mind, I find it difficult to excuse this latest manifestation which I have just this moment discovered. It was you, of course, who filled that bottle with water?”
She did not answer.
“Why you did it, I don’t know,” he went on, “and probably you don’t know yourself. It was the wanton mischief of an irresponsible child, but the consequences in this instance are serious—very serious. Mrs. Quelton will suffer for them. I doubt if she will recover. No, Miss Moran, you are too troublesome a guest. You had better go—at once!”
“All right!” said Lexy, in a defiant but trembling voice.
“At once!” he repeated. “I shall send your bag this afternoon.”
“I don’t care!” said Lexy to herself, “I’ll come back!”
She did not wish to have her bag sent after her. She packed it in great haste, put on her hat and coat, and, opening the door of her room, stepped out cautiously and looked up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight, so she picked up her bag and set forth.
She was running away—worse than that, she was being driven away; but just at the moment she could see no other course open to her. She could not appeal to Captain Grey while he was in such distracting anxiety about his sister. It would be cruel, and it would be useless. What could he do? If Dr. Quelton did not want her in his house, certainly his brother-in-law could not insist upon her staying.
“No!” she reflected. “He would only think it was his duty as a gentleman to leave with me, and he would be miserable, not knowing what became of his sister. I’ve got to go, that’s all; but, by jiminy, I’ll come back! And then we’ll see how much more wanton mischief this irresponsible child can manage!”
There was in her heart a steady flame of anger. Hatred was not natural to her, but her feeling for Dr. Quelton came dangerously near to it. For Caroline’s disappearance, for Mrs. Quelton’s pitiful state, for her own humiliation and suffering, she held him responsible; and she meant to settle that score.
She met no one on her way through the house. She went down the stairs, opened the door, and stepped out into the dazzling sunshine. It was a warm day, her bag was very heavy, and the three-mile walk to Mrs. Royce’s was not inviting. It had to be done, however, and off she started.
The lane was thick with dust, and it was hard walking with that heavy bag, but she went on at a smart pace as long as she thought any one could possibly see her from the cupola. Then she set down the bag and rested for a moment.
“There’s a certain way to carry things without strain,” she thought. “I read about it in a magazine. You use the muscles of your back, or your shoulders, or something.”
But she couldn’t remember how this was to be done; so, picking up the bag in her usual way, went on again. Obviously her way was a very wrong way, for by the time she had reached the end of the lane her fingers were cramped and painful, and her arms ached; and there was the highway, stretching endlessly before her under the hot noonday sun—two miles of it or more. There was no reasonable chance of a taxi, and she knew no one in the neighborhood who might come driving by. There was nothing in sight but a man walking along the road toward her, and that didn’t interest her.
She went on as far as she could, and then stopped under a tree, to rub her stiffening arms.
“I wonder,” she thought, “if I could hide this darned old bag somewhere, and send Joe for it later!”
But her nicest clothes were in it, and the risk was too great. With a resentful sigh she lifted it and stepped out again. The man coming along the road was quite close to her now. She stopped short, and so did he.[Pg 355]
“Lexy!” he shouted, and came toward her on a run, with a wide grin on his sunburned face.
She dropped the bag with a thump, and stood waiting for him. He held out both hands, and she took them.
“Oh, golly!” she cried. “I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr. Houseman!”
“So am I!” he said. “Ever since I got that last letter from you—”
“Last! I only wrote one.”
“Well, I got two,” he told her. “The second one came yesterday, about this doctor, and the roses, you know.”
“Mrs. Royce must have posted it!” said Lexy. “I wrote it, but I didn’t mean it to be sent to you unless something happened to me.”
“Enough has happened to you already!”
“More things are going to happen,” said she. “Lots more!”
It suddenly occurred to her that the proper moment had come for withdrawing her hands from Mr. Houseman’s firm grasp. Indeed, she thought the proper moment might already have passed, and a warm color came into her cheeks.
The young man flushed a little himself.
“I didn’t mean to call you that,” he said; “but Caroline used to write a lot about you, and she always called you ‘Lexy,’ so I got into the way of thinking of you—like that.”
“I don’t mind,” Lexy conceded.
There was a moment’s silence.
“Charles is my name,” he observed.
Another silence.
“Queer, isn’t it?” he said seriously. “Here we’ve only seen each other once, and yet somehow it seems to me as if I’d known you for years!”
“Well, the circumstances are rather unusual,” said Lexy.
“You’re right! But look here—we’ve got to talk about all this. Where were you going?”
“Back to Mrs. Royce’s.”
“Let’s go!” he said cheerfully, and picked up the bag as if it were nothing at all.
“But where wereyougoing?” asked Lexy.
“To find you. You see, we ran into some awfully bad weather, and the engines broke down, and we came back for repairs; so I got your letters. I explained to the old man that I’d have to have leave, for some very important business, and off I came to Wyngate. Your Mrs. Royce told me you’d gone out to the Queltons’. I didn’t like that. Why did you go there, after what had happened?”
“I’ll tell you all about that later,” said Lexy; “but now you’ve got to tell me things. How did you ever meet Caroline? How in the world did she manage to write to you?”
“Well, you see, I met her about a year ago, on board the Ormond. She and her parents were coming back from France, and I was third officer, you know. Her mother and father were seasick most of the time, so we had a chance to—to talk to each other; and, you see—”
“Yes, I see!” said Lexy gently.
“One of the servants—a girl called Annie—used to post Caroline’s letters for her, and I used to write to her in care of Annie’s mother. We never had a chance to meet again, after that trip. I wanted to come to the house and see her people, but she said it wasn’t any use; and from what I saw of them on the Ormond I dare say she was right. I wouldn’t have suited them. I haven’t any money, you know—nothing but my pay; but it was enough for us to live on. Other fellows manage!”
He was silent for a moment.
“After all,” he said, “I’m not a beggar. I can hold my own pretty well in the world, and I could look after a wife.”
“I know it!” cried Lexy, with vehemence. She felt curiously touched by his words, and quite indignant against the Enderbys and any one else who did not appreciate him.
“I asked Caroline to marry me,” he went on. “I told her I couldn’t give her much, but we could have had a jolly sort of life. Look here! Are you crying?”
“A little bit,” Lexy admitted; “but don’t pay any attention to it. Go on!”
“That’s about all there is. She said she would meet me here in Wyngate, because that’s the nearest station of the main line to some little place where a nurse or a governess of hers lived.”
“Miss Craigie!”
“Never heard the name. Anyhow, she wanted to go there after we got married, and—I wish you wouldn’t look like that!”
“But I’m soawfullysorry for you!”
“It was pretty hard, at first,” he said; “but—well, you see, I’ve thought a bit about it, and after all I’m glad we didn’t get married.[Pg 356]”
“Oh!” cried Lexy, profoundly shocked. “But that’s—”
“Because I—you see, she didn’t—well, I don’t think she really liked me very much.”
Lexy was astounded.
“Fact!” said he. “What she wanted was romance, and all that sort of thing. She wanted to get away from home, and I was the only chance she had; so there you are!”
“That wasn’t very fair to you!”
“I don’t blame her,” he said thoughtfully. “We were both—but what’s the sense of talking about all that? The thing is to find her!”
Lexy agreed to that promptly.
“Now I’ll tell you everything that’s happened,” she said.
He listened to her with alert attention. He interrupted her often to ask questions, but they were always questions that she could answer. He wanted all the facts, and what Lexy told him he unquestioningly accepted as fact. When she said she had seen Caroline at the doctor’s house, he believed her. He didn’t suggest that her eyes might have deceived her. He trusted her—not only her good intentions, but her good sense.
At last she came to the part of her story about which she was most doubtful—the episode of the emptied bottle. She told it with reluctance.
“I don’t know now,” she said. “Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps that really was wanton mischief. I did so hate that horrible drug that changed her so! When I did it, it seemed right; but now—”
“It was right,” said he. “Any one’s better off dead than being drugged. Everything you’ve done was right and splendid. You’re the pluckiest girl I ever heard of—the best and most loyal little pal to poor Caroline! There’s no one like you!”
After Mrs. Enderby’s cold and skeptical smile, after Dr. Quelton’s parting sneer, after Captain Grey’s doubts and uncertainties, this speech rather went to Lexy’s head. The world seemed a different place. She glanced at the young man, and he happened at that moment to be looking at her. They both looked away hastily.
“This fellow—this Captain Grey,” said Charles. “He seems to me to be rather a chump!”
“Oh, he’s not!” protested Lexy. “He’s as nice as can be!”
Charles Houseman, who had believed everything that Lexy had said, did not appear convinced of this; and for some inexplicable reason Lexy was not greatly displeased by his lack of belief.
Mrs. Royce was very much pleased to see her pet, Miss Moran, return. She was well disposed toward Mr. Houseman, too, and willingly agreed to put him up for a few days. She set to work at once to cook a good lunch for them, but she did not hum under her breath, as was her usual habit. In fact, she was greatly perplexed and worried.
When her guests were seated at the table, she retired, leaving them alone; but she did not go very far. She remained close to the door, so that she could look through the crack. She observed that Miss Moran seemed very lively and cheerful with this newcomer—though she had been quite as lively and cheerful with Captain Grey.
“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Royce to herself, with a sigh. “It beatsme!”
For the question which so troubled her was—which young man wastheyoung man?
“Both of ’em as nice, polite young fellers as you’d want to see,” she repeated. “T’ other one’s handsomer, but he’s kind of foreignlike and gloomy. This one’s got more gumption. The way he walked in here, smart as a whip, and asked for Miss Moran, an’ when I says she’s gone to visit the Queltons, why, off he went, after her! I like a man with gumption!”
So did Miss Moran. Charles Houseman seemed to her the only living, vigorous creature in a world of ghosts, the only one whom she could really understand. There were no shadowy corners about him. He was altogether honest, direct, and uncomplicated. He had no tact and no caution. He had come now, in the midst of this wretched tangle, and she completely believed that he would cut the Gordian knot.
He had suggested that they should let the subject drop for a time.
“I think I’ve got the facts straight,” he said; “and now I want to think them over a bit. Let’s take a walk, and talk about something else.”
Lexy agreed to the entire program. If she was tired, she either didn’t know it, or she forgot it in the joy of this beautifully[Pg 357]careless companionship. She could say exactly what came into her head to Charles Houseman. He understood her. He was interested in every word she spoke, and, what is more, she was aware of the profound admiration that underlay his interest. He thought she was wonderful, and that made her strangely happy.
“Do you know,” he said, “the first time I saw you, there in the park, I—I liked the way you talked to me!”
“How?” asked Lexy, with great interest. “I thought I must have seemed awfully irritating and mysterious.”
He grinned.
“You were awfully mad when I spoke to you,” he said; “but I liked that. I don’t know—somehow you made me think of Joan of Arc.”
“Me?” cried Lexy. “With freckles, and such a temper? You couldn’t imagine me listening to angels, could you?”
“Yes,” he said, “I could.”
She glanced at him to see if he was laughing, but he was not. His eyes met hers with a quiet and steady look.
“I didn’t need to imagine much,” he said. “You’ve told me what you’ve been through, and I can see for myself what you are. I don’t think there ever was another girl like you!”
“Nonsense!” said Lexy, looking away. “I’m just pig-headed—that’s all.”
They had wandered across the fields until they came to a little river, running clear and swift under the elm trees. By tacit consent they sat down on the bank. They didn’t talk much. Houseman skipped stones with skill and earnest attention, and Lexy watched the minnows flitting past through the limpid water. The sky was an unclouded blue. The sunlight came through the branches, where the leaves were scarcely unfolded, and made little golden sparkles on the hurrying current. It was all so quiet—and yet it wasn’t peaceful. The world seemed too young, too warmly and joyously alive, for peace. The spring was waiting in eagerness for the summer. This still, fresh, sunlit day was only an interlude.
Casually, Houseman told her a good deal about himself.
“From Baltimore,” he said. “My people wanted me to go into the navy. My father and grandfather were both navy, but I couldn’t see it. Too cut and dried! I’m on a cargo steamer now, and I like it.”
And this information—with the additional facts that he was twenty-six, that he had two brothers in the navy and three married sisters, and that both of his parents were living—was all that he had to give about himself. Lexy was satisfied. There he was, and any one with eyes to see and ears to listen could understand him. Honest, blunt, and careless, fearing nothing, shirking nothing, and facing life with cheerful unconcern, he was, she thought, a comrade and an ally without an equal.
The sun was setting when they turned homeward. The sky was swimming in soft, pale colors, and a little breeze blew, stirring the new leaves. It was a poetic and even a melancholy hour; but Houseman found nothing better to say than that he was hungry.
“So am I!” said Lexy.
They looked at each other as if they had discovered still another bond between them. They were happy—so happy!
Mrs. Royce saw them from the kitchen window. They were strolling along leisurely, side by side. They were quite composed and matter-of-fact, and their desultory conversation was upon the subject of shellfish. The young Baltimorean was an authority on oysters, but Lexy, as a New Englander, had something to say on the subject of clam chowder.
Mrs. Royce was suddenly enlightened.
“He’sthe one!” she said to herself. “Well, I’m real glad, I’m sure!”
So glad was she that she at once began to make a superb chocolate cake, and she hummed a song about a young man on Springfield Mountain, who killed a “pesky sarpent.”
George Grey heard her. He was in the sitting room, smoking, and apparently reading a book; but he never turned a page. He lit one cigarette after another, and his hand was steady. He looked as he always looked—fastidiously neat, self-possessed, and a little haughty; but in spirit he was suffering horribly.
Lexy knew that as soon as she saw him, because she knew him and liked him so well. She held out her hand to him, not even pretending to smile, but searching his face with an anxious and friendly glance.
“Here’s Mr. Houseman, Caroline Enderby’sfiancé,” she said. “I’ve told him the whole thing, so if there’s anything new—”
Captain Grey stiffened perceptibly. He couldn’t see what possible connection[Pg 358]anybody’sfiancécould have with his affairs. He shook hands with Houseman, but not very nicely; and Houseman was not excessively cordial.
Lexy took no notice of this nonsense. Her mood of happy confidence had passed now, and the dark and mysterious shadow had come back. There was something of greater importance to think about than her personal affairs.
“Captain Grey,” she said, with a sort of directness, “I didn’t tell you before, but I’m going to tell you now. I saw Caroline in that house, and this morning I found—this.”
He looked at the handkerchief, and then at Lexy.
“But—” he began.
“It means that she’s been there, or that she’s there now,” Lexy went on. “It’s time we found out. Of course, I know how you feel about Dr. Quelton. He’s your sister’s husband, and you didn’t want—”
“It doesn’t make much difference now,” he said. “If you’ll wait a day or so, she—”
He turned away abruptly, and took out his cigarette case.
“What do you mean?” cried Lexy.
“It won’t be long,” he said quietly. “She—my sister—he says it won’t be more than twenty-four hours, at the most.”
“Oh, no! It can’t be! Captain Grey, don’t believe him!”
“I tried not to,” he said. “I—well, we had a bit of a row, and I made him let me bring in another doctor from the village here. He said the same thing.”
“What did the doctor say it was?” asked Houseman.
“Pernicious anæmia. There’s nothing to be done.”
Captain Grey seemed to find some difficulty in lighting his cigarette; but when he had done so, and had drawn in a deep breath, he turned back toward Lexy with a smile that startled her. She had never imagined he could look like that. It was a wolfish kind of smile, lighting his dark face with a sort of savage mirth.
“When it’s over,” he said, “I’ll be very pleased to help you to hang him, if you can; or I’ll wring his neck myself.”
The other two stared at him in silence for a moment.
“You think he’s—” Houseman began.
“I don’t know whether he has actually murdered her or not,” said Captain Grey; “but he has destroyed her—utterly wasted and ruined her life. He taught her to take that damned drug; and when Miss Moran broke the bottle—”
“Oh! Did he tell you?”
“He did. He says you’ve killed her. There was some rare drug in it that he can’t get for a fortnight or so, and she can’t live without it.”
“Captain Grey!” she cried, white to the lips. “I didn’t—”
“I know,” he said gently. “You meant to help, and I’m glad you did it. She’s better dead. This afternoon, for a little while, she was—herself. She talked to me. She was very weak, but she was herself. She asked me to help her not to take it again. She thought she was getting better. Then that”—he paused—“that damned brute brought in a lawyer, so that she could make her will. She couldn’t believe it. She looked up at me. ‘Oh, I’m not going todie, am I?’ she said. Before I could answer her, he told her she must be prepared. Then I—”
Again he turned away.
“And you let him alone?” inquired Houseman.
“It’s not time to settle with him—yet,” said the other. “That’s why I came away, because I don’t want to kill him—yet. She’s unconscious now. She will be, until it’s finished. I’m going back later, but I wanted to come here—” He ceased speaking. “To you,” his eyes said to Lexy.
She forgot everything else, then, except this tormented and suffering human being who had turned to her for comfort. She pushed him gently down into a chair, and seated herself on the arm of it. She took both his hands and patted them, while she racked her brain for the right thing to say.
“We’ll dosomething!” she said. “There’s no reason to be in despair. That young country doctor was probably entirely under the influence of Dr. Quelton. We’ll get some one else. We’ll telephone to one of the big hospitals in New York and find out who’s the very best man, and well get him out here. Mr. Houseman will ring up—”
But Mr. Houseman had disappeared. Worse still, Mrs. Royce’s telephone was out of order.
“Never mind!” said Lexy. “We’ll have a nice hot cup of tea, and then well go to the grocery store. There’s a telephone there.[Pg 359]”
She made the captain drink his tea and eat a little. Then she ran upstairs for her hat; and she was very angry at Charles Houseman for running away.
They set off together down the village street. There was no one about at that hour. All Wyngate was partaking of its Sunday night supper within doors, and one or two of the little wooden houses showed lights in the front windows; but for the most part life was concentrated in the kitchen.
The drug store was locked, but a dim light was burning inside, and a vigorous ringing of the night bell brought Mr. Binz, the owner, to open the door. He was deeply interested in their errand. He suggested St. Luke’s Hospital, for the reason that he had once been there himself, and therefore held it almost sacred.
“But,” he said, in his slow and impressive way, “if I was you, I’d ring up Doc Quelton first, and find out how things are going up there; because you may find out—”
Lexy interrupted him hastily, for she didn’t want him to say what he evidently wished to say.
“There won’t be any change in Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It would only be a waste of time.”
It was not so much for that poor woman, who she feared was beyond hope, that she wanted the New York specialist, as for Captain Grey. It would help him so much to feel that something was being done, that some one was hurrying out here!
“Might be more of a waste of time,” said Mr. Binz, “if some one was to come all the way out here after she—”
“Oh, all right!” cried Lexy impatiently. Then suddenly she remembered. “They haven’t any telephone at the doctor’s house,” she said.
“Suppose I go out there first, and see?” suggested Captain Grey.
“No!” said Lexy. “Don’t!”
But the idea impressed him as a good one, and go he would.
“I’d rather see how she is, first,” he repeated. “If there’s no change, I’ll come back.”
Lexy looked at Mr. Binz with an angry and reproachful frown, which the poor man did not understand. He had only wanted to give helpful advice.
“Come on, then!” she said to Captain Grey.
“I’ll leave you at Mrs. Royce’s,” he told her.
“No, you won’t!” she contradicted with a trace of severity. “If youwillgo, I’m going with you!”
He protested against this, but she would not listen, and so they went to the garage for Joe’s taxi; but Joe and his taxi had gone out. An interested bystander said that they could get a “rig” from the livery stable with no trouble at all. They had only to find the proprietor, and he, in turn, would find the driver, who would harness up the horse.
“No, thanks,” said Captain Grey. He turned to Lexy. “I can’t wait,” he told her. “I’m going to walk. Thank you for—”
“I can walk, too,” said Lexy. “It’s only three miles.”
“I don’t want you to, Miss Moran.”
“I’m coming anyhow,” she replied.
For that instinct in her, the thing which was beyond reason, drove her forward. She could not let him go alone. She had walked that three miles once before to-day, and she had walked farther than that with Houseman in the afternoon. She was tired, terribly tired, and filled with a queer, sick reluctance to approach that sinister house again; but she had to go. She had said to herself that morning that she was coming back, and now she was going to do so.
They did not try to talk much on the way. What had they to say? They were both filled with a dread foreboding. They hurried, yet they wished never to come to the end of the journey.
They turned down the lane, leaving the lights of the highway behind, and went forward in thick darkness, under the shadow of the trees. The sound of the sea came to them—the loneliest sound in all the world.
“There’s a light in the house, anyhow!” said Lexy suddenly.
Her own voice sounded so small, so pert, so futile, in the dark, that she felt no surprise when Captain Grey showed a faint trace of impatience in answering.
“Naturally!” he said.
Only, to her, it did not seem natural, that one little light shining out through the glass of the front door. It would be more natural, she thought, if there were only the darkness and the sound of the sea.[Pg 360]
They turned into the drive. Their footsteps sounded strangely and terribly loud on the gravel, and became as sharp as pistol shots when they mounted the veranda. The captain rang the bell, and the sound of it ran through the house like a shudder; but no one came. He rang again and again, but nothing stirred inside the house. He knocked on the glass, and they waited, looking into the bright and empty hall; but no one came.
Captain Grey turned the knob, the door opened, and they went in. The door of the library was open, showing only darkness. The stairs ran up into darkness. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Then, suddenly, a little breeze rose, and the front door slammed with a crash behind them. Lexy cried out, and caught the young man’s arm.
“Don’t be afraid!” he said; but his face was ashen. For a moment they stood where they were. “Miss Moran,” he went on, “would you rather wait here while I go upstairs?”
“No,” said Lexy. “I’ll come with you.”
He started up the stairs, and she followed him closely. At almost every step she looked behind her, and she did not know which was the more horrible to her, the brightly lit hall or the darkness before them. Suppose she saw some one in the hall behind them!
Captain Grey did not once glance behind. He went on steadily. When he reached the top of the flight, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the gas. There was the long corridor, with the row of closed doors. He turned down in the direction of Mrs. Quelton’s room, but Lexy touched him on the shoulder.
“I think you had better let me go first,” she suggested. “Perhaps she won’t be ready to see you.”
Their eyes met.
“Thank you, Lexy!” he said simply, and went on again.
He had never used her name before. He was trying to tell her that he understood what she had wished to do for him. She had offered to go first, alone, into the silent room, to see whatever might be there—to spare him something, if she could.
But he would not have it so. He stopped outside the door, and knocked twice. Then he went in.
It was dark and still in there, with the night wind blowing in through the open windows. He struck a match and lit the gas. The room was empty.
He went across to the long windows and out on the balcony. There was no gas connection there. He struck one match after another, and went from one end of the balcony to the other. There was nothing.
“Not here!” he said, in a dazed, flat voice.
Lexy could not speak at all. She had come out on the balcony, and stood beside him. The sound of the sea was loud in her ears—or was it the beating of her own heart? She held her breath and strained her eyes in the darkness.
“There’s—something—here!” she whispered tensely.
“No!” he said aloud. “I looked. Come! We’ll go through the house.”
She followed close at his heels. He went into every room, lit the gas, looked about, and found nothing. Lexy grew confused with the opening and closing of doors, the sudden flare of light in the darkness, the succession of empty rooms.
He went up into the cupola. Nothing there, nor in the servants’ rooms. Then downstairs, through the long library, the dining room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the pantry. He proceeded with a sort of merciless deliberation, opened every door, looked into every cupboard.
Finding a stable lantern in the kitchen, he lighted it and carried it with him. The door to the cellar stood open. He went through it, down the steep wooden stairs, and Lexy followed him.
To her exhausted and frightened gaze the cellar seemed enormous—as vast and august as some great ancient tomb. The lantern made a little pool of light, and outside it the shadows closed in on them thickly. She came near to him and caught him by the sleeve.
“Oh, let’s go away!” she cried. “Let’s go away! We’ve looked—”
“This is the last place,” he said gently. “After this, we’ll give it up.”
Fighting down the sick terror that had come over her, she walked beside him in the little circle of light, and tried not to look at the shadows.
“What’s that?” he exclaimed.
“Oh, what?” she cried.
He went back a few paces and set down the lantern. Then he advanced again and bent over, staring at the floor.
“Do you see?” he asked.[Pg 361]
She did see. A narrow strip of light lay along the floor.
“It comes up from below,” he said. “There must be a subcellar. Let’s see!”
He brought back the lantern and examined the floor by its light, going down on his hands and knees.
“Stand back!” he said suddenly. “It’s a trapdoor. See—here’s a ring to lift it.”
Captain Grey pulled at the ring, but nothing happened.
“I’m on the wrong side,” he said.
Moving over, he pulled again, and a square of stone lifted. A clear light came from below, showing a short ladder clamped to the floor.
“Stay there, please,” he told Lexy. “You have the lantern. I shan’t be a minute.”
But as soon as he had reached the foot of the ladder, Lexy climbed down after him; and just at the same moment, they saw—
They were standing in a tiny room with roughly mortared walls. A powerful electric torch stood on end in one corner, and at their feet lay the body of a man, face downward across a wooden chest. It was Dr. Quelton.
With a violent effort Captain Grey lifted the doctor’s heavy shoulder, while Lexy covered her eyes. She knew that he was dead. No living thing could lie so.
Her head swam, her knees gave way, and she tottered back against the wall, half fainting, when the captain’s voice rang out, with a note of agony and despair that she never forgot.