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A Strange Disappearance

by Anna Katharine Green

January, 1998  [Etext #1167]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Strange Disappearance, by Green
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A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE
By Anna Katharine Green




 A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

 BY

 ANNA KATHARINE GREEN



 OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

 The House of the Whispering Pines   Miss Hurd. An Enigma
 Leavenworth Case                    That Affair Next Door
 Strange Disappearance               Lost Man's Lane
 Sword of Damocles                   Agatha Webb
 Hand and Ring                       One of My Sons
 The Mill Mystery                    Defence of the Bride,
 Behind Closed Doors                   and Other Poems
 Cynthia Wakeham's Money             Risifi's Daughter. A Drama
 Marked "Personal"                   The Golden Slipper
 To the Minute



 CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I       A NOVEL CASE
 CHAPTER II      A FEW POINTS
 CHAPTER III     THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER
 CHAPTER IV      THOMPSON'S STORY
 CHAPTER V       A NEW YORK BELLE
 CHAPTER VI      A BIT OF CALICO
 CHAPTER VII     THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS
 CHAPTER VIII    A WORD OVERHEARD
 CHAPTER IX      A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS
 CHAPTER X       THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO
 CHAPTER XI      LUTTRA
 CHAPTER XII     A WOMAN'S LOVE
 CHAPTER XIII    A MAN'S HEART
 CHAPTER XIV     MRS. DANIELS
 CHAPTER XV      A CONFAB
 CHAPTER XVI     THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS
 CHAPTER XVII    THE CAPTURE
 CHAPTER XVIII   LOVE AND DUTY
 CHAPTER XIX     EXPLANATIONS
 CHAPTER XX      THE BOND THAT UNITES




 A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE



CHAPTER I

A NOVEL CASE


"Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in
that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which
has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in
some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if
you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties
concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience
regarding it."

The speaker was Q, the rising young detective, universally
acknowledged by us of the force as the most astute man for mysterious
and unprecedented cases, then in the bureau, always and of course
excepting Mr. Gryce; and such a statement from him could not but
arouse our deepest curiosity. Drawing up, then, to the stove around
which we were sitting in lazy enjoyment of one of those off-hours so
dear to a detective's heart, we gave with alacrity the required
promise; and settling himself back with the satisfied air of a man
who has a good story to tell that does not entirely lack certain
points redounding to his own credit, he began:

I was one Sunday morning loitering at the ----- Precinct Station, when
the door opened and a respectable-looking middle-aged woman came in,
whose agitated air at once attracted my attention. Going up to her, I
asked her what she wanted.

"A detective," she replied, glancing cautiously about on the faces of
the various men scattered through the room. "I don't wish anything
said about it, but a girl disappeared from our house last night,
and"--she stopped here, her emotion seeming to choke her--"and I want
some one to look her up," she went on at last with the most intense
emphasis.

"A girl? what kind of a girl; and what house do you mean when you say
our house?"

She looked at me keenly before replying. "You are a young man," said
she; "isn't there some one here more responsible than yourself that I
can talk to?"

I shrugged my shoulders and beckoned to Mr. Gryce who was just then
passing. She at once seemed to put confidence in him. Drawing him
aside, she whispered a few low eager words which I could not hear. He
listened nonchalantly for a moment but suddenly made a move which I
knew indicated strong and surprised interest, though from his
face--but you know what Gryce's face is. I was about to walk off,
convinced he had got hold of something he would prefer to manage
himself, when the Superintendent came in.

"Where is Gryce?" asked he; "tell him I want him."

Mr. Gryce heard him and hastened forward. As he passed me, he
whispered, "Take a man and go with this woman; look into matters and
send me word if you want me; I will be here for two hours."

I did not need a second permission. Beckoning to Harris, I
reapproached the woman. "Where do you come from," said I, "I am to go
back with you and investigate the affair it seems."

"Did he say so?" she asked, pointing to Mr. Gryce who now stood with
his back to us busily talking with the Superintendent.

I nodded, and she at once moved towards the door. "I come from No.
---- Second Avenue:  Mr. Blake's house," she whispered, uttering a
name so well known, I at once understood Mr. Gryce's movement of
sudden interest "A girl--one who sewed for us--disappeared last night
in a way to alarm us very much. She was taken from her room--"
"Yes," she cried vehemently, seeing my look of sarcastic incredulity,
"taken from her room; she never went of her own accord; and she must
be found if I spend every dollar of the pittance I have laid up in
the bank against my old age."

Her manner was so intense, her tone so marked and her words so
vehement, I at once and naturally asked if the girl was a relative of
hers that she felt her abduction so keenly.

"No," she replied, "not a relative, but," she went on, looking every
way but in my face, "a very dear friend--a--a--protegee, I think they
call it, of mine; I--I--She must be found," she again reiterated.

We were by this time in the street.

"Nothing must be said about it," she now whispered, catching me by the
arm. "I told him so," nodding back to the building from which we had
just issued, "and he promised secrecy. It can be done without folks
knowing anything about it, can't it?"

"What?" I asked.

"Finding the girl."

"Well," said I, "we can tell you better about that when we know a few
more of the facts. What is the girl's name and what makes you think
she didn't go out of the house-door of her own accord?"

"Why, why, everything. She wasn't the person to do it; then the looks
of her room, and--They all got out of the window," she cried
suddenly, "and went away by the side gate into ------ Street."

"They? Who do you mean by they?"

"Why, whoever they were who carried her off."

I could not suppress the "bah!" that rose to my lips. Mr. Gryce might
have been able to, but I am not Gryce.

"You don't believe," said she, "that she was carried off?"

"Well, no," said I, "not in the sense you mean."

She gave another nod back to the police station now a block or so
distant. "He did'nt seem to doubt it at all."

I laughed. "Did you tell him you thought she had been taken off in
this way?"

"Yes, and he said, 'Very likely.' And well he might, for I heard the
men talking in her room, and--"

"You heard men talking in her room--when?"

"O, it must have been as late as half-past twelve. I had been asleep
and the noise they made whispering, woke me."

"Wait," I said, "tell me where her room is, hers and yours."

"Hers is the third story back, mine the front one on the same floor."

"Who are you?" I now inquired. "What position do you occupy in Mr.
Blake's house?"

"I am the housekeeper."

Mr. Blake was a bachelor.

"And you were wakened last night by hearing whispering which seemed to
come from this girl's room."

"Yes, I at first thought it was the folks next door,--we often hear
them when they are unusually noisy,--but soon I became assured it
came from her room; and more astonished than I could say,--She is a
good girl," she broke in, suddenly looking at me with hotly indignant
eyes, "a--a--as good a girl as this whole city can show; don't you
dare, any of you, to hint at anything else o--"

"Come, come," I said soothingly, a little ashamed of my too
communicative face, "I haven't said anything, we will take it for
granted she is as good as gold, go on."

The woman wiped her forehead with a hand that trembled like a leaf.
"Where was I?" said she. "O, I heard voices and was surprised and got
up and went to her door. The noise I made unlocking my own must have
startled her, for all was perfectly quiet when I got there. I waited a
moment, then I turned the knob and called her:  she did not reply and
I called again. Then she came to the door, but did not unlock it.
'What is it?' she asked. 'O,' said I, 'I thought I heard talking here
and I was frightened,' 'It must have been next door,' said she. I
begged pardon and went back to my room. There was no more noise, but
when in the morning we broke into her room and found her gone, the
window open and signs of distress and struggle around, I knew I had
not been mistaken; that there were men with her when I went to her
door, and that they had carried her off--"

This time I could not restrain myself.

"Did they drop her out of the window?" I inquired.

"O," said she, "we are building an extension, and there is a ladder
running up to the third floor, and it was by means of that they took
her."

"Indeed! she seems at least to have been a willing victim," I
remarked.

The woman clutched my arm with a grip like iron. "Don't you believe
it," gasped she, stopping me in the street where we were. "I tell you
if what I say is true, and these burglars or whatever they were, did
carry her off, it was an agony to her, an awful, awful thing that will
kill her if it has not done so already. You don't know what you are
talking about, you never saw her--"

"Was she pretty," I asked, hurrying the woman along, for more than one
passer-by had turned their heads to look at us. The question seemed
in some way to give her a shock.

"Ah, I don't know," she muttered; "some might not think so, I always
did; it depended upon the way you looked at her."

For the first time I felt a thrill of anticipation shoot through my
veins. Why, I could not say. Her tone was peculiar, and she spoke in
a sort of brooding way as though she were weighing something in her
own mind; but then her manner had been peculiar throughout. Whatever
it was that aroused my suspicion, I determined henceforth to keep a
very sharp eye upon her ladyship. Levelling a straight glance at her
face, I asked her how it was that she came to be the one to inform
the authorities of the girl's disappearance.

"Doesn't Mr. Blake know anything about it?"

The faintest shadow of a change came into her manner. "Yes," said she,
"I told him at breakfast time; but Mr. Blake doesn't take much
interest in his servants; he leaves all such matters to me."

"Then he does not know you have come for the police?"

"No, sir, and O, if you would be so good as to keep it from him. It is
not necessary he should know. I shall let you in the back way. Mr.
Blake is a man who never meddles with anything, and--"

"What did Mr. Blake say this morning when you told him that this
girl--By the way, what is her name?"

"Emily."

"That this girl, Emily, had disappeared during the night?"

"Not much of anything, sir. He was sitting at the breakfast table
reading his paper, he merely looked up, frowned a little in an
absent-minded way, and told me I must manage the servants' affairs
without troubling him."

"And you let it drop?"

"Yes sir; Mr. Blake is not a man to speak twice to."

I could easily believe that from what I had seen of him in public, for
though by no means a harsh looking man, he had a reserved air which
if maintained in private must have made him very difficult of
approach.

We were now within a half block or so of the old-fashioned mansion
regarded by this scion of New York's aristocracy as one of the most
desirable residences in the city; so motioning to the man who had
accompanied me to take his stand in a doorway near by and watch for
the signal I would give him in case I wanted Mr. Gryce, I turned to
the woman, who was now all in a flutter, and asked her how she
proposed to get me into the house without the knowledge of Mr. Blake.

"O sir, all you have got to do is to follow me right up the back
stairs; he won't notice, or if he does will not ask any questions."

And having by this time reached the basement door, she took out a key
from her pocket and inserting it in the lock, at once admitted us
into the dwelling.



CHAPTER II

A FEW POINTS


Mrs. Daniels, for that was her name, took me at once up stairs to the
third story back room. As we passed through the halls, I could not
but notice how rich, though sombre were the old fashioned walls and
heavily frescoed ceilings, so different in style and coloring from
what we see now-a-days in our secret penetrations into Fifth Avenue
mansions. Many as are the wealthy houses I have been called upon to
enter in the line of my profession, I had never crossed the threshold
of such an one as this before, and impervious as I am to any foolish
sentimentalities, I felt a certain degree of awe at the thought of
invading with police investigation, this home of ancient
Knicker-bocker respectability. But once in the room of the missing
girl, every consideration fled save that of professional pride and
curiosity. For almost at first blush, I saw that whether Mrs. Daniels
was correct or not in her surmises as to the manner of the girl's
disappearance, the fact that she had disappeared was likely to prove
an affair of some importance. For, let me state the facts in the
order in which I noticed them. The first thing that impressed me was,
that whatever Mrs. Daniels called her, this was no sewing girl's room
into which I now stepped. Plain as was the furniture in comparison
with the elaborate richness of the walls and ceiling, there were
still scattered through the room, which was large even for a thirty
foot house, articles of sufficient elegance to make the supposition
that it was the abode of an ordinary seamstress open to suspicion, if
no more.

Mrs. Daniels, seeing my look of surprise, hastened to provide some
explanation. "It is the room which has always been devoted to
sewing," said she; "and when Emily came, I thought it would be easier
to put up a bed here than to send her upstairs. She was a very nice
girl and disarranged nothing."

I glanced around on the writing-case lying open on a small table in
the centre of the room, on the vase half full of partly withered
roses, on the mantel-piece, the Shakspeare, and Macaulay's History
lying on the stand at my right, thought my own thoughts, but said
nothing.

"You found the door locked this morning?" asked I, after a moment's
scrutiny of the room in which three facts had become manifest:  first,
that the girl had not occupied the bed the night before; second, that
there had been some sort of struggle or surprise,--one of the curtains
being violently torn as if grasped by an agitated hand, to say
nothing of a chair lying upset on the floor with one of its legs
broken; third, that the departure, strange as it may seem, had been
by the window.

"Yes," returned she; "but there is a passageway leading from my room
to hers and it was by that means we entered. There was a chair placed
against the door on this side but we easily pushed it away."

I stepped to the window and looked out. Ah, it would not be so very
difficult for a man to gain the street from that spot in a dark
night, for the roof of the newly-erected extension was almost on a
level with the window."

"Well," said she anxiously, "couldn't she have been got out that way?"

"More difficult things have been done," said I; and was about to step
out upon the roof when I bethought to inquire of Mrs. Daniels if any
of the girl's clothing was missing.

She immediately flew to the closets and thence to bureau drawers which
she turned hastily over. "No, nothing is missing but a hat and cloak
and--" She paused confusedly.

"And what?" I asked.

"Nothing," returned she, hurriedly closing the bureau drawer; "only
some little knick-knacks."

"Knick-knacks!" quoth I. "If she stopped for knick-knacks, she
couldn't have gone in any very unwilling frame of mind." And somewhat
disgusted, I was about to throw up the whole affair and leave the
room. But the indecision in Mrs. Daniels' own face deterred me.

"I don't understand it," murmured she, drawing her hand across her
eyes. "I don't understand it. But," she went on with even an increase
in her old tone of heart-felt conviction, "no matter whether we
understand it or not, the case is serious; I tell you so, and she must
be found."

I resolved to know the nature of that must, used as few women in her
position would use it even under circumstances to all appearance more
aggravated than these.

Why, must?" said I. "If the girl went of her own accord as some things
seem to show, why should you, no relative as you acknowledge take the
matter so to heart as to insist she shall be followed and brought
back?"

She turned away, uneasily taking up and putting down some little
matters on the table before her. "Is it not enough that I promise to
pay for all expenses which a search will occasion, without my being
forced to declare just why I should be willing to do so? Am I bound
to tell you I love the girl? that I believe she has been taken away
by foul means, and that to her great suffering and distress? that
being fond of her and believing this, I am conscientious enough to
put every means I possess at the command of those who will recover
her?"

I was not satisfied with this but on that very account felt my
enthusiasm revive.

"But Mr. Blake? Surely he is the one to take this interest if
anybody."

"I have before said," returned she, paling however as she spoke, "that
Mr. Blake takes very little interest in his servants."

I cast another glance about the room. "How long have you been in this
house?" asked I.

"I was in the service of Mr. Blake's father and he died a year ago."

"Since when you have remained with Mr. Blake himself?"

"Yes sir."

"And this Emily, when did she come here?"

"Oh it must be eleven months or so ago."

"An Irish girl?"

"O no, American. She is not a common person, sir,"

"What do you mean by that? That she was educated, lady-like, pretty,
or what?"

"I don't know what to say. She was educated, yes, but not as you
would call a lady educated. Yet she knew a great many things the rest
of us did'nt. She liked to read, you see, and--O sir, ask the girls
about her, I never know what to say when I am questioned."

I scanned the gray-haired woman still more intently than I had yet
done. Was she the weak common-place creature she seemed, or had she
really some cause other than appeared for these her numerous breaks
and hesitations.

"Where did you get this girl?" I inquired. "Where did she live before
coming here?"

"I cannot say, I never asked her to talk about herself. She came to me
for work and I liked her and took her without recommendation."

"And she has served you well?"

"Excellently."

"Been out much? Had any visitors?"

She shook her head. "Never went out and never had any visitors."

I own I was nonplussed, "Well," said I, "no more of this at present. I
must first find out if she left this house alone or in company with
others." And without further parley I stepped out upon the roof of the
extension.

As I did so I debated with myself whether the case warranted me or not
in sending for Mr. Gryce. As yet there was nothing to show that the
girl had come to any harm. A mere elopement with or without a lover
to help her, was not such a serious matter that the whole police force
need be stirred up on the subject; and if the woman had money, as she
said, ready to give the man who should discover the whereabouts of
this girl, why need that money be divided up any more than was
necessary. Yet Gryce was not one to be dallied with. He had said,
send for him if the affair seemed to call for his judgment, and
somehow the affair did promise to be a trifle complicated. I was yet
undetermined when I reached the edge of the roof.

It was a dizzy descent, but once made, escape from the yard beneath
would be easy. A man could take that road without difficulty; but a
woman! Baffled at the idea I turned thoughtfully back, when I beheld
something on the roof before me that caused me to pause and ask myself
if this was going to turn out to be a tragedy after all. It was a
drop of congealed blood. Further on towards the window was another,
and yes, further still, another and another. I even found one upon
the very window ledge itself. Bounding into the room, I searched the
carpet for further traces. It was the worst one in the world to find
anything upon of the nature of which I was seeking, being a confused
pattern of mingled drab and red, and in my difficulty I had to stoop
very low.

"What are you looking for?" cried Mrs. Daniels.

I pointed to the drop on the window sill. "Do you see that?" I asked.

She uttered an exclamation and bent nearer. "Blood!" cried she, and
stood staring, with rapidly paling cheeks and trembling form. "They
have killed her and he will never--"

As she did not finish I looked up.

"Do you think it was her blood?" she whispered in a horrified tone.

"There is every reason to believe so," rejoined I, pointing to a spot
where I had at last discovered not only one crimson drop but many,
scattered over the scarcely redder roses under my feet.

"Ah, it is worse than I thought," murmured she. "What are you going to
do? What can we do?

"I am going to send for another detective," returned I; and stepping
to the window I telegraphed at once to the man Harris to go for Mr.
Gryce.

"The one we saw at the Station?"

I bowed assent.

Her face lost something of its drawn expression. "O I am glad; He will
do something."

Subduing my indignation at this back thrust, I employed my time in
taking note of such details as had escaped my previous attention.
They were not many. The open writing-desk--in which, however I found
no letters or written documents of any kind, only a few sheets of
paper, with pen, ink, etc.; the brush and hairpins scattered on the
bureau as though the girl had been interrupted while arranging her
hair (if she had been interrupted); and the absence of any great pile
of work such as one would expect to see in a room set apart for
sewing, were all I could discover. Not much to help us, in case this
was to prove an affair of importance as I began to suspect.

With Mr. Gryce's arrival, however, things soon assumed a better shape.
He came to the basement door, was ushered in by your humble servant,
had the whole matter as far as I had investigated it, at his
finger-ends in a moment, and was up-stairs and in that room before I,
who am called the quickest man in the force as you all know, could
have time to determine just what difference his presence would make to
me in a pecuniary way in event of Mrs. Daniels' promises amounting to
anything. He did not remain there long, but when he came down I saw
that his interest was in no wise lessened.

"What kind of a looking girl was this?" he asked, hurrying up to Mrs.
Daniels who had withdrawn into a recess in the lower hall while all
this was going on. "Describe her to me, hair, eyes, complexion, etc.;
you know."

"I--I--don't know as I can," she stammered reluctantly, turning very
red in the face. "I am a poor one for noticing. I will call one of
the girls, I--" She was gone before we realized she had not finished
her sentence.

"Humph!" broke from Mr. Gryce's lips as he thoughtfully took down a
vase that stood on a bracket near by and looked into it.

I did not venture a word.

When Mrs. Daniels came back she had with her a trim-looking girl of
prepossessing appearance.

"This is Fanny," said she; "she knows Emily well, being in the habit
of waiting on her at table; she will tell you what you want to hear.
I have explained to her," she went on, nodding towards Mr. Gryce with
a composure such as she had not before displayed; "that you are
looking for your niece who ran away from home some time ago to go
into some sort of service."

"Certainly, ma'am," quoth that gentleman, bowing with mock admiration
to the gas-fixture. Then carelessly shifting his glance to the
cleaning-cloth which Fanny held rather conspicuously in her hand, he
repeated the question he had already put to Mrs. Daniels.

The girl, tossing her head just a trifle, at once replied:

"O she was good-looking enough, if that is what you mean, for them as
likes a girl with cheeks as white as this cloth was afore I rubbed
the spoons with it. As for her eyes, they was blacker than her hair,
which was the Blackest I ever see. She had no flesh at all, and as for
her figure--" Fanny glanced down on her own well developed person,
and gave a shrug inexpressibly suggestive.

"Is this description true?" Mr. Gryce asked, seemingly of Mrs.
Daniels, though his gaze rested with curious intentness on the girl's
head which was covered with a little cap.

"Sufficiently so," returned Mrs. Daniels in a very low tone, however.
Then with a sudden display of energy, "Emily's figure is not what you
would call plump. I have seen her--" She broke off as if a little
startled at herself and motioned Fanny to go.

"Wait a moment," interposed Mr. Gryce in his soft way. "You said the
girl's hair and eyes were dark; were they darker than yours?"

"O, yes sir;" replied the girl simpering, as she settled the ribbons
on her cap.

"Let me see your hair."

She took off her cap with a smile.

"Ha, very pretty, very pretty. And the other girls? You have other
girls I suppose?"

"Two, sir;" returned Mrs. Daniels.

"How about their complexions? Are they lighter too than Emily's?"

"Yes, sir; about like Fanny's."

Mr. Gryce spread his hand over his breast in a way that assured me of
his satisfaction, and allowed the girl to go.

"We will now proceed to the yard," said he. But at that moment the
door of the front room opened and a gentleman stepped leisurely into
the hall, whom at first glance I recognized as the master of the
house. He was dressed for the street and had his hat in his hand. At
the sight we all stood silent, Mrs. Daniels flushing up to the roots
of her gray hair.

Mr. Blake is an elegant-looking man as you perhaps know; proud,
reserved, and a trifle sombre. As he turned to come towards us, the
light shining through the windows at our right, fell full upon his
face, revealing such a self-absorbed and melancholy expression, I
involuntarily drew back as if I had unwittingly intruded upon a great
man's privacy. Mr. Gryce on the contrary stepped forward.

"Mr. Blake, I believe," said he, bowing in that deferential way he
knows so well how to assume.

The gentleman, startled as it evidently seemed from a reverie, looked
hastily up. Meeting Mr. Gryce's bland smile, he returned the bow, but
haughtily, and as it appeared in an abstracted way.

"Allow me to introduce myself," proceeded my superior. "I am Mr. Gryce
from the detective bureau. We were notified this morning that a girl
in your employ had disappeared from your house last night in a
somewhat strange and unusual way, and I just stepped over with my man
here, to see if the matter is of sufficient importance to inquire
into. With many apoligies for the intrusion, I stand obedient to your
orders."

With a frown expressive of annoyance, Mr. Blake glanced around and
detecting Mrs. Daniels, said:  "Did you consider the affair so
serious as that?"

She nodded, seeming to find it difficult to speak.

He remained looking at her with an expression of some doubt. "I can
hardly think," said he, "such extreme measures were necessary; the
girl will doubtless come back, or if not--" His shoulders gave a
slight shrug and he took out his gloves.

"The difficulty seems to be," quoth Mr. Gryce eyeing those gloves with
his most intent and concentrated look, "that the girl did not go
alone, but was helped away, or forced away, by parties who had
previously broken into your house."

"That is a strange circumstance," remarked Mr. Blake, but still
without any appearance of interest, "and if you are sure of what you
say, demands, perhaps, some inquiry. I would not wish to put anything
in the way of justice succoring the injured. But--" again he gave
that slight shrug of the shoulders, indicative of doubt, if not
indifference.

Mrs. Daniels trembled, and took a step forward. I thought she was
going to speak, but instead of that she drew back again in her
strange hesitating way.

Mr. Gryce did not seem to notice.

"Perhaps sir," said he, "if you will step upstairs with me to the room
occupied by this girl, I may be able to show you certain evidences
which will convince you that our errand here is not one of
presumption."

"I am ready to concede that without troubling myself with proof,"
observed the master of the house with the faintest show of asperity.
"Yet if there is anything to see of a startling nature, perhaps I had
best yield to your wishes. Whereabouts in the house is this girl's
room, Mrs. Daniels?"

"It is--I gave her the third story back, Mr. Blake;" replied that
woman, nervously eyeing his face. "It was large and light for sewing,
and she was so nice--"

He impatiently waved his hand on which he had by this time fitted his
glove to a nicety, as if these details were an unnecessary bore to
him, and motioned her to show the way. Instantly a new feeling
appeared to seize her, that of alarm.

"I hardly think you need trouble Mr. Blake to go up-stairs," she
murmured, turning towards Mr. Gryce. "I am sure when you tell him the
Curtains were torn, and the chair upset, the window open and--"

But Mr. Gryce was already on the stairs with Mr. Blake, whom this
small opposition seemed to have at once determined.

"O my God!" she murmured to herself, "who could have foreseen this."
And ignoring my presence with all the egotism of extreme agitation,
she hurried past me to the room above, where I speedily joined her.



CHAPTER III


THE CONTENTS OF A BUREAU DRAWER

Mr. Blake was standing in the centre of the room when I entered,
carelessly following with his eyes the motion of Mr. Gryce's finger
as that gentleman pointed with unwearying assiduity to the various
little details that had struck us. His hat was still in his hand,
and he presented a very formidable and imposing appearance, or so
Mrs. Daniels appeared to think as she stood watching him from the
corner, whither she had withdrawn herself.

"A forcible departure you see," exclaimed Mr. Gryce; "she had not even
time to gather up her clothes;" and with a sudden movement he stooped
and pulled out one of the bureau drawers before the eyes of his
nonchalant listener.

Immediately a smothered exclamation struck our ears, and Mrs. Daniels
started forward.

"I pray, gentlemen," she entreated, advancing in such a way as to
place herself against the front of the bureau in a manner to preclude
the opening of any more drawers, "that you will remember that a
modest woman such as this girl was, would hardly like to have her
clothing displayed before the eyes of strangers."

Mr. Gryce instantly closed the drawer.

"You are right," said he; "pardon the rough ways of a somewhat
hardened officer of the law."

She drew up closer to the bureau, still protecting it with her meagre
but energetic form while her eyes rested with almost a savage
expression upon the master of the house as if he, and not the
detective, had been the aggressor whose advances she feared.

Mr. Blake did not return the look.

"If that is all you can show me, I think I will proceed to my
appointment," said he. "The matter does seem to be more serious than
I thought, and if you judge it necessary to take any active measures,
why, let no consideration of my great and inherent dislike to
notoriety of any kind, interfere with what you consider your duty. As
for the house, it is at your command, under Mrs. Daniels' direction.
Good morning." And returning our bows with one singularly impressive
for all its elegant carelessness, he at once withdrew.

Mrs. Daniels took one long deep breath and came from the bureau.
Instantly Mr. Gryce stooped and pulled out the drawer she had so
visibly protected. A white towel met our eyes, spread neatly out at
its full length. Lifting it, we looked beneath. A carefully folded
dress of dark blue silk, to all appearance elegantly made, confronted
our rather eager eyes. Beside it, a collar of exquisite lace--I know
enough of such matters to be a judge--pricked through by a gold
breast-pin of a strange and unique pattern. A withered bunch of what
appeared to have been a bouquet of red roses, surmounted the whole,
giving to the otherwise commonplace collection the appearance of a
relic from the tomb.

We both drew back in some amazement, involuntarily glancing up at Mrs.
Daniels.

"I have no explanation to give," said that woman, with a calmness
strangely in contrast to the agitation she had displayed while Mr.
Blake had remained in the room. "That those things rich as they are,
really belonged to the girl, I have no doubt. She brought them when
she came, and they only confirm what I have before intimated:  that
she was no ordinary sewing girl, but a woman who had seen better
days."

With a low "humph!" and another glance at the dark blue dress and
delicate collar, Mr. Gryce carefully replaced the cloth he had taken
from them, and softly closed the drawer without either of us having
laid a finger upon a single article. Five minutes later he
disappeared from the room.

I did not see him again till occasion took me below, when I beheld him
softly issue from Mr. Blake's private apartment. Meeting me, he
smiled, and I saw that whether he was conscious of betraying it or
not, he had come upon some clue or at the least fashioned for himself
some theory with which he was more or less satisfied.

"An elegant apartment, that," whispered he, nodding sideways toward
the room he had just left, "pity you haven't time to examine it."

"Are you sure that I haven't?" returned I, drawing a step nearer to
escape the eyes of Mrs. Daniels who had descended after me.

"Quite sure;" and we hastened down together into the yard.

But my curiosity once aroused in this way would not let me rest.
Taking an opportunity when Mr. Gryce was engaged in banter with the
girls below, and in this way learning more in a minute of what he
wanted to know than some men would gather in an hour by that or any
other method, I stole lightly back and entered this room.

I almost started in my surprise. Instead of the luxurious apartment I
had prepared myself to behold, a plain, scantily-furnished room
opened before me, of a nature between a library and a studio. There
was not even a carpet on the polished floor, only a rug, which strange
to say was not placed in the centre of the room or even before the
fireplace, but on one side, and directly in front of a picture that
almost at first blush had attracted my attention as being the only
article in the room worth looking at. It was the portrait of a
woman, handsome, haughty and alluring; a modern beauty, with eyes of
fire burning beneath high piled locks of jetty blackness, that were
only relieved from being too intense by the scarlet hood of an opera
cloak, that was drawn over them. "A sister," I thought to myself, "it
is too modern for his mother," and I took a step nearer to see if I
could trace any likeness in the chiselled features of this disdainful
brunette, to the more characteristic ones of the careless gentleman
who had stood but a few moments before in my presence. As I did so, I
was struck with the distance with which the picture stood out from
the wall, and thought to myself that the awkwardness of the framing
came near marring the beauty of this otherwise lovely work of art. As
for the likeness I was in search of, I found it or thought I did, in
the expression of the eyes which were of the same color as Mr. Blake's
but more full and passionate; and satisfied that I had exhausted all
the picture could tell me, I turned to make what other observations I
could, when I was startled by confronting the agitated countenance of
Mrs. Daniels who had entered behind me.

"This is Mr. Blake's room," said she with dignity; "no one ever
intrudes here but myself, not even the servants."

"I beg pardon," said I, glancing around in vain for the something
which had awakened that look of satisfaction in Mr. Gryce's eyes. "I
was attracted by the beauty of this picture visible through the half
open door and stepped in to favor myself with a nearer view. It is
very lovely. A sister of Mr. Blake?"

"No, his cousin;" and she closed the door after us with an emphasis
that proclaimed she was anything but pleased.

It was my last effort to obtain information on my own account. In a
few moments later Mr. Gryce appeared from below, and a conversation
ensued with Mrs. Daniels that absorbed my whole attention.

"You are very anxious, my man here tells me, that this girl should be
found?" remarked Mr. Gryce; "so much so that you are willing to
defray all the expenses of a search?"

She bowed. "As far as I am able sir; I have a few hundreds in the
bank, you are welcome to them. I would not keep a dollar back if I
had thousands, but I am poor, and can only promise you what I myself
possess; though--" and her cheeks grew flushed and hot with an
unnatural agitation--"I believe that thousands would not be lacking
if they were found necessary. I--I could almost swear you shall have
anything in reason which you require; only the girl must be found and
soon."

"Have you thought," proceeded Mr. Gryce, uterly ignoring the wildness
of these statements, "that the girl may come back herself if let
alone?"

"She will come back if she can," quoth Mrs. Daniels.

"Did she seem so well satisfied with her home as to warrant you in
saying that?"

"She liked her home, but she loved me," returned the woman steadily.
"She loved me so well she would never have gone as she did without
being forced. Yes," said she, "though she made no outcry and stopped
to put on her bonnet and shawl. She was not a girl to make a fuss. If
they had killed her outright, she would never have uttered a cry."

"Why do you say they?"

"Because I am confident I heard more than one man's voice in her
room."

"Humph! Would you know those voices if you heard them again?"

"No."

There was a surprise in this last negative which Mr. Gryce evidently
noticed.

"I ask," said he, "because I have been told that Mr. Blake lately kept
a body servant who has been seen to look at this girl more than once,
when she has passed him on the stairs."

Mrs. Daniels' face turned scarlet with rage and she hastily rose from
the chair. "I don't believe it," said she; "Henry was a man who knew
his place, and--I won't hear such things," she suddenly exclaimed;
"Emily was--was a lady, and--"

"Well, well," interposed Mr. Gryce soothingly, "though the cat looks
at the king, it is no sign the king looks at the cat. We have to
think of everything you know."

"You must never think of anything like that."

Mr. Gryce softly ran his thumb around the brim of the hat he held in
his hand. "Mrs. Daniels," observed he, "it would greatly facilitate
matters if you would kindly tell us why you take such an interest in
this girl. One glimpse at her real history would do more towa ds
setting us on the right track than anything else you could offer"

Her face assumed an unmistakable frown. "Have I not told you," said
she, "what is known of it? That she came to me about two years ago
for work; that I liked her, and so hired her; that she has been with
us ever since and--"

"Then you will not tell us?" exclaimed Mr. Gryce.

Her face fell and a look of hesitation crossed it.

"I doubt if we can do anything unless you do," continued he.

Her countenance settled again into a resolved expression.

"You are mistaken," said she; "if the girl had a secret--as nearly all
girls have, brought low as she has evidently been--it had nothing to
do with her disappearance, nor would a knowledge of it help you in
any way. I am confident of this and so shall hold my peace."

She was not a woman to be frightened or cajoled into making
revelations she did not think necessary, and seeing it, Mr. Gryce
refrained from urging her further.

"However, you will at least tell me this," said he, "what were the
knick-knacks she took away with her from her bureau drawer?"

"No," said she, "for they have nothing to do with her abduction. They
were articles of positive value to her, though I assure you of little
importance to any one else. All that is shown by their disappearance
is the fact that she had a moment's time allowed her in which to
collect what she most wanted."

Mr. Gryce arose. "Well," said he, "you have given us a hard sum to
work out, but I am not the man to recoil from anything hard. If I can
discover the whereabouts of this girl I will certainly do it, but you
must help me."

"I, how?"

"By inserting a personal in the Herald. You say she loves you; and
would come back if she could. Now whether you believe it or not this
is open to doubt; therefore I would advise that you take some such
means as that to inform her of the anxiety of her friends and their
desire to communicate with her."

"Impossible," she cried vehemently. "I should be afraid--"

"Well?"

"I might put it that Mrs. D---- ,anxious about Emily, desires
information of her whereabouts--"

"Put it any way you like."

"You had better add," said I, speaking for the first time, "that you
would be willing to pay for information."

Yes," said Mr Gryce, " add that."

Mrs. Daniels frowned, but made no objection, and after getting as
minute a description as possible of the clothing worn by the girl the
night before, we left the house.



CHAPTER IV

THOMPSON'S STORY


"An affair of some mystery," remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at the
corner to take a final look at the house and its environs. "Why a
girl should choose such a method of descent as that,"--and he pointed
to the ladder down which we believed her to have come-- "to leave a
house of which she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can
tell you. If it were not for those marks of blood which betray her
track, I would be disinclined to believe any such hare-brained
adventure was ever perpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would'nt I
give for her photograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin
figure! what a description whereby to find a girl in this great city
of New York. Ah!" said he with sudden gratification, "here is Mr.
Blake again; his appointment must have been a failure. Let us see if
his description will be any more definite." And hurrying towards the
advancing figure of that gentleman, he put some questions to him.

Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then
replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear:

"I am sorry, sir, if my description could have done you any good, but
I have not the remotest idea how the girl looked. I did not know
till this morning even, that there was such a person in my house as a
sewing-woman. I leave all such domestic concerns entirely with Mrs.
Daniels."

Mr. Gryce again bowed low and ventured another question. The answer
came as before, distinctly to my ears.

"O, I may have seen her, I can not say about that; I very often run
across the servants in the hall; but whether she is tall or short,
light or dark, pretty or ugly, I know no more than you do, sir." Then
with a dignified nod calculated to abash a man in Mr. Gryce's
position, inquired,

"Is that all?"

It did not seem to be, Mr. Gryce put another question.

Mr. Blake give him a surprised stare before replying, then courteously
remarked,

"I do not concern myself with servants after they have left me. Henry
was an excellent valet, but a trifle domineering, something which I
never allow in any one who approaches me. I dismissed him and that
was the end of it, I know nothing of what has become of him."

Mr. Gryce bowed and drew back, and Mr. Blake, with the haughty step
peculiar to him, passed by him and reentered his house.

"I should not like to get into that man's clutches," said I, as my
superior rejoined me; "he has a way of making one appear so small."

Mr. Gryce shot an askance look at his shadow gloomily following him
along the pavement. "Yet it may happen that you will have to run the
risk of that very experience."

I glanced towards him in amazement.

"If the girl does not turn up of her own accord, or if we do not
succeed in getting some trace of her movements, I shall be tempted to
place you where you can study into the ways of this gentleman's
household. If the affair is a mystery, it has its centre in that
house."

I stared at Mr. Gryce good and roundly. "You have come across
something which I have missed," observed I, "or you could not speak
so positively."

"I have come across nothing that was not in plain sight of any body
who had eyes to see it," he returned shortly.

I shook my head slightly mortified.

"You had it all before you," continued he, "and if you were not able
to pick up sufficient facts on which to base a conclusion, you
mustn't blame me for it."

More nettled than I would be willing to confess, I walked back with
him to the station, saying nothing then, but inwardly determined to
reestablish my reputation with Mr. Gryce before the affair was over.
Accordingly hunting up the man who had patroled the district the night
before, I inquired if he had seen any one go in or out of the side
gate of Mr. Blake's house on ----- street, between the hours of eleven
and one.

"No," said he, "but I heard Thompson tell a curious story this morning
about some one he had seen."

"What was it?"

"He said he was passing that way last night about twelve o'clock when
he remarked standing under the lamp on the corner of Second Avenue, a
group consisting of two men and a woman, who no sooner beheld him
than they separated, the men drawing back into Second Avenue and the
woman coming hastily towards him. Not understanding the move, he
stood waiting her approach, when instead of advancing to where he
was, she paused at the gate of Mr. Blake's house and lifted her hand
as if to open it, when with a wild and terrified gesture she started
back, covering her face with her hands, and before he knew it, had
actually fled in the direction from which she had come. A little
startled, Thompson advanced and looked through the gate before him to
see if possible what had alarmed her, when to his great surprise, he
beheld the pale face of the master of the house, Mr. Blake himself,
looking through the bars from the other side of the gate. He in his
turn started back and before he could recover himself, Mr. Blake had
disappeared. He says he tried the gate after that, but found it
locked."

"Thompson tells you this story, does he?"

"Yes."

"Well," said I, "it's a pretty wild kind of a tale, and all I have got
to say is, that neither you nor Thompson had better go blabbing it
around too much. Mum is the word where such men as Mr. Blake are
concerned." And I departed to hunt up Thompson.

But he had nothing to add to his statement, except that the girl
appeared to be tall and thin, and was closely wrapped about in a
shawl. My next move was to make such inquiries as I could with safety
into the private concerns of Mr. Blake and his family, and
discovered--well, such facts as these:

That Mr. Blake was a man who if he paid but little attention to
domestic affairs was yet rarely seen out of his own house, except
upon occasions of great political importance, when he was always to be
found on the platform at meetings of his constituents. Though to the
ordinary observer a man eminently calculated, from his good looks,
fine position, and solid wealth to enjoy society, he not only
manifested a distaste for it, but even went so far as to refuse to
participate in the social dinners of his most intimate friends; the
only table to which he would sit down being that of some public
caterer, where he was sure of finding none but his political
associates assembled.

To all appearance he wished to avoid the ladies, a theory borne out by
the fact that never, even in church, on the street, or at any place
of amusement, was he observed with one at his side. This fact in a
man, young--he was not far from thirty-five at that time--rich, and
marriageable, would, however, have been more noteworthy than it was
if he had not been known to belong to a family eminent for their
eccentricities. Not a man of all his race but had possessed some
marked peculiarity. His father, bibliomaniac though he was, would
never treat a man or a woman with decency, who mentioned Shakspeare
to him, nor would he acknowledge to his dying day any excellence in
that divine poet beyond a happy way of putting words together. Mr.
Blake's uncle hated all members of the legal profession, and as for
his grandfather--but you have heard what a mania of dislike he had
against that simple article of diet, fish; now his friends were
obliged to omit it from their bills of fare whenever they expected him
to dinner. If then Mr. Blake chose to have any pet antipathy--as for
women for instance--he surely had precedent enough in his own family
to back him. However, it was whispered in my ear by one gentleman, a
former political colleague of his who had been with him in
Washington, that he was known at one time to show considerable
attention to Miss Evelyn Blake, that cousin of his who has since made
such a brilliant thing of it by marrying, and straightway losing by
death, a wealthy old scapegrace of a French noble, the Count De
Mirac. But that was not a matter to be talked about, Madame the
Countess being free at present and in New York, though to all
appearance upon anything but pleasant terms with her quondam admirer.

Remembering the picture I had seen in Mr. Blake's private apartment, I
asked if this lady was a brunette, and being told she was, and of the
most pronounced type, felt for the moment I had stumbled upon
something in the shape of a clue; but upon resorting to Mr. Gryce with
my information, he shook his head with a short laugh and told me I
would have to dive deeper than that if I wanted to fish up the truth
lying at the bottom of this well.



CHAPTER V

A NEW YORK BELLE


Meanwhile all our efforts to obtain information in regard to the fate
or whereabouts of the missing girl, had so far proved utterly futile.
Even the advertisements inserted by Mrs. Daniels had produced no
effect; and frustrated in my scheme I began to despair, when the
accounts of that same Mrs. Daniel's strange and unaccountable
behavior during these days of suspense, which came to me through
Fanny, (the pretty housemaid at Mr. Blake's, whose acquaintance I had
lately taken to cultivating,) aroused once more my dormant energies
and led me to ask myself if the affair was quite as hopeless as it
seemed.

"If she was a ghost," was her final expression on the subject, "she
could'nt go peramberlating this house more than she does. It seems
as if she could'nt keep still a minute. Upstairs and down, upstairs
and down, till we're most wild. And so white as she is and so
trembling! Why her hands shake so all the time she never dares lift a
dish off the table. And then the way she hangs about Mr. Blake's door
when he's at home! She never goes in, thats the oddest part of it,
but walks up and down before it, wringing her hands and talking to
herself just like a mad woman. Why, I have seen her almost put her
hand on the knob twice in an afternoon perhaps, then draw back as if
she was afraid it would burn her; and if by any chance the door
opened and Mr. Blake came out, you ought to have seen how she run.
What it all means I don't know, but I have my imaginings, and if she
is'nt crazy, why--" etc., etc.

In face of facts like these I felt it would be pure insanity to
despair. Let there be but a mystery, though it involved a man of the
position of Mr. Blake and I was safe. My only apprehension had been
that the whole affair would dissolve itself into an ordinary
elopement or some such common-place matter.

Where, therefore, a few minutes later, Fanny announced that Mr. Blake
had ordered a carriage to take him to the Charity Ball that evening,
I determined to follow him and learn if possible what change had
taken place in himself or his circumstances, to lead him into such an
innovation upon his usual habits. Though the hour was late I had but
little difficulty in carrying out my plan, arriving at the Academy
something less than an hour after the opening dance.

The crowd was great and I circulated the floor three times before I
came upon him. When I did, I own I was slightly disappointed; for
instead of finding him as I anticipated, the centre of an admiring
circle of ladies and gentlemen, I espied him withdrawn into a corner
with a bland old politician of the Fifteenth Ward, discussing, as I
presently overheard, the merits and demerits of a certain Smith who at
that time was making some disturbance in the party.

"If that is all he has come for," thought I, "I had better have stayed
at home and made love to the pretty Fanny." And somewhat chagrined,
I took up my stand near by, and began scrutinizing the ladies.

Suddenly I felt my heart stand still, the noise of voices ceasing the
same instant behind me. A lady was passing on the arm of a
foreign-looking gentleman, whom it did not require a second glance to
identify with the subject of the portrait in Mr. Blake's house. Older
by some few years than when her picture was painted, her beauty had
assumed a certain defiant expression that sufficiently betrayed the
fact that the years had not been so wholly happy as she had probably
anticipated when she jilted handsome Holman Blake for the old French
Count. At all events so I interpreted the look of latent scorn that
burned in her dark eyes, as she slowly turned her richly bejeweled
head towards the corner where that gentleman stood, and meeting his
eyes no doubt, bowed with a sudden loss of self-possession that not
all the haughty carriage of her noble form, held doubly erect for the
next few moments, could quite conceal or make forgotten.

"She still loves him," I inwardly commented and turned to see if the
surprise had awakened any expression on his uncommunicative
countenance.

Evidently not, for the tough old politician of the Fifteenth Ward was
laughing, at one of his own jokes probably, and looking up in the
face of Mr. Blake, whose back was turned to me, in a way that
entirely precluded all thought of any tragic expression in that
quarter. Somewhat disgusted, I withdrew and followed the lady.

I could not get very near. By this time the presence of a live
countess in the assembly had become known, and I found her surrounded
by a swarm of half-fledged youths. But I cared little for this; all I
wanted to know was whether Mr. Blake would approach her or not during
the evening. Tediously the moments passed; but a detective on duty,
or on fancied duty, succumbs to no weariness. I had a woman before me
worth studying and the time could not be thrown away. I learned to
know her beauty; the poise of her head, the flush of her cheek, the
curl of her lip, the glance--yes, the glance of her eye, though that
was more difficult to understand, for she had a way of drooping her
lids at times that, while exceedingly effective upon the poor wretch
toward whom she might be directing that half-veiled shaft of light,
was anything but conducive to my purposes.

At length with a restless shrug of her haughty shoulders she turned
away from her crowd of adorers, her breast heaving under its robing
of garnet velvet, and her whole face flaring with a light that might
mean resolve and might mean simply love. I had no need to turn my
head to see who was advancing towards her; her stately attitude as
countess, her thrilling glance as woman, betrayed only too readily.

He was the more composed of the two. Bowing over her hand with a few
words I could not hear, he drew back a step and began uttering the
usual common-place sentiments of the occasion.

She did not respond. With a splendor of indifference not often seen
even in the manner of our grandest ladies, she waited, opening and
shutting her richly feathered fan, as one who would say, "I know all
this has to be gone through with, therefore I will be patient." But
as the moments passed, and his tone remained unchanged, I could
detect a slight gleam of impatience flash in the depths of her dark
eyes, and a change come into the conventional smile that had hitherto
lighted, without illuminating her countenance. Drawing still further
back from the crowd that was not to be awed from pressing upon her,
she looked around as if seeking a refuge. Her glance fell upon a
certain window, with a gleam of satisfaction. Seeing they would
straightway withdraw there, I took advantage of the moment and made
haste to conceal myself behind a curtain as near that vicinity as
possible. In another instant I heard them approaching.

"You seem to be rather overwhelmed with attention to-night," were the
first words I caught, uttered in Mr. Blake's calmest and most
courteous tones.

"Do you think so?" was the slightly sarcastic reply. "I was just
deciding to the contrary when you came up."

There was a pause. Taking out my knife, I ripped open a seam in the
curtain hanging before me, and looked through. He was eyeing her
intently, a firm look upon his face that made its reserve more marked
than common. I saw him gaze at her handsome head piled with its
midnight tresses amid which the jewels, doubtless of her dead lord,
burned with a fierce and ominous glare, at her smooth olive brow, her
partly veiled eyes where the fire passionately blazed,at her scarlet
lips trembling with an emotion her rapidly flushing cheeks would not
allow her to conceal. I saw his glances fall and embrace her whole
elegant form with its casing of ruby velvet and ornamentation of lace
and diamonds, and an expectant thrill passed through me almost as if
I already beheld the mask of his reserve falling, and the true man
flash out in response to the wooing beauty of this full-blown rose,
evidently in waiting for him. But it died away and a deeper feeling
seized me as I saw his glances return unkindled to her countenance,
and heard him say in still more measured accents than before:

"Is it possible then that the Countess De Mirac can desire the
adulation of us poor American plebeians? I had not thought it,
madame."

Slowly her dark eyes turned towards him; she stood a statue.

"But I forget," he went on, a tinge of bitterness for a moment showing
itself in his smile:  "perhaps in returning to her own country, Evelyn
Blake has so far forgotten the last two years as to find pleasure
again in the toys and foibles of her youth. Such things have been, I
hear." And he bowed almost to the ground in his half sarcastic
homage.

"Evelyn Blake! It is long since I have heard that name," she murmured.

He could not restrain the quick flush from mounting to his brow.
"Pardon me," said he, "if it brings you sadness or unwelcome
memories. I promise you I will not so transgress again."

A wan smile crossed her lips grown suddenly pallid.

"You mistake," said she; "if my name brings up a past laden with
bitter memories and shadowed by regret, it also recalls much that is
pleasant and never to be forgotten. I do not object to hearing my
girlhood's name uttered--by my nearest relative."

The answer was dignity itself. "Your name is Countess De Mirac, your
relatives must be proud to utter it."

A gleam not unlike the lightning's quick flash shot from the eyes she
drooped before him.

"Is it Holman Blake I am listening to," said she; "I do not recognize
my old friend in the cool and sarcastic man of the world now before
me."

"We often fail to recognize the work of our hands, madame, after it
has fallen from our grasp."

"What," she cried, "do you mean--would you say that--"

"I would say nothing," interrupted he calmly, stooping for the fan she
had dropped. "At an interview which is at once a meeting and a
parting, I would give utterance to nothing which would seem like
recrimination. I--"

"Wait," suddenly exclaimed she, reaching out her hand for her fan with
a gesture lofty as it was resolute. "You have spoken a word which
demands explanation; what have I ever done to you that you should
speak the word recrimination to me?"

"What? You shook my faith in womankind; you showed me that a woman who
had once told a man she loved him, could so far forget that love as
to marry one she could never respect, for the sake of titles and
jewels. You showed me--"

"Hold," said she again, this time without gesture or any movement,
save that of her lips grown pallid as marb!e[sic], "and what did you
show me?"

He started, colored profoundly, and for a moment stood before her
unmasked of his stern self- possession. "I beg your pardon," said he,
"I take back that word, recrimination."

It was now her turn to lift her head and survey him. With glance less
cool than his, but fully as deliberate, she looked at his proud head
bending before her; studying his face, line by line, from the stern
brow to the closely compressed lips on which melancholy seemed to have
set its everlasting seal, and a change passed over her countenance.
"Holman," said she, with a sudden rush of tenderness, "if in the times
gone by, we both behaved with too much worldly prudence for it now to
be any great pleasure for either of us to look back, is that any
reason why we should mar our whole future by dwelling too long upon
what we are surely still young enough to bury if not forget? I
acknowledge that I would have behaved in a more ideal fashion, if,
after I had been forsaken by you, I had turned my face from society,
and let the canker- worm of despair slowly destroy whatever life and
bloom I had left. But I was young, and society had its charms, so did
the prospect of wealth and position, however hollow they may have
proved; you who are the master of both this day, because twelve
months ago you forsook Evelyn Blake, should be the last to reproach
me with them. I do not reproach you; I only say let the past be
forgotten--"

"Impossible," exclaimed he, his whole face darkening with an
expression I could not fathom. "What was done at that time cannot be
undone. For you and me there is no future. Yes," he said turning
towards her as she made a slight fluttering move of dissent, "no
future; we can bury the past, but we can not resurrect it. I doubt if
you would wish to if we could; as we cannot, of course you will not
desire even to converse upon the subject again. Evelyn I wanted to
see you once, but I do not wish to see you again; will you pardon my
plain speaking, and release me?"

"I will pardon your plain speaking, but--" Her look said she would not
release him.

He seemed to understand it so, and smiled, but very bitterly. In
another moment he had bowed and gone, and she had returned to her
crowd of adoring sycophants.



CHAPTER VI

A BIT OF CALICO


It was about this time that I took up my residence in a sort of
lodging-house that occupied the opposite corner to that of Mr. Blake.
My room, as I took pains to have it, overlooked the avenue, and from
its windows I could easily watch the goings and comings of the
gentleman whose movements were daily becoming of more and more
interest to me. For set it down to caprice--and men are often as
capricious as women--or account for it as you will, his restlessness
at this period was truly remarkable. Not a day that he did not spend
his time in walking the streets, and that not in his usual aimless
gentlemanly fashion, but eagerly and with an intent gaze that roamed
here and there, like a bird seeking its prey. It would often be as
late as five o'clock before he came in, and if, as now frequently
happened, he did not have company to dinner, he was even known to
start out again after seven o'clock and go over the same ground as in
the morning, looking with strained gaze, that vainly endeavored to
appear unconcerned, into the faces of the women that he passed. I not
unfrequently followed him at these times as much for my own amusement
as from any hope I had of coming upon anything that should aid me in
the work before me. But when he suddenly changed his route of travel
from a promenade in the fashionable thoroughfares of Broadway and
Fourteenth Street to a walk through Chatham Square and the dark,
narrow streets of the East side, I began to scent whom the prey might
be that he was seeking, and putting every other consideration aside,
regularly set myself to dog his steps, as only I, with my innumerable
disguises, knew how to do. For three separate days I kept at his
heels wherever he went, each day growing more and more astonished if
not to say hopeful, as I found myself treading the narrowest and most
disreputable streets of the city; halting at the shops of
pawnbrokers; peering into the back-rooms of liquor shops; mixing with
the crowds that infest the corner groceries at nightfall, and even
slinking with hand on the trigger of the pistol I carried in my
pocket, up dark alleys where every door that swung noiselessly to and
fro as we passed, shut upon haunts of such villainy as only is known
to us of the police, or to those good souls that for the sake of One
whose example they follow, lay aside their fears and sensitiveness to
carry light into the dim pits of this wretched world. At first I
thought Mr. Blake might have some such reason for the peculiar course
he took. But his indifference to all crowds where only men were
collected, his silence where a word would have been well received,
convinced me it was a woman he was seeking and that with an intentness
which blinded him to the commonest needs of the hour. I even saw him
once in his hurry and abstraction, step across the body of a child
who had fallen face downward on the stones, and that with an
expression showing he was utterly unconscious of anything but an
obstacle in his path. The strangest part of it all was that he seemed
to have no fear. To be sure he took pains to leave his watch at home;
but with such a figure and carriage as he possessed, the absence of
jewelry could never deceive the eye for a moment as to the fact of his
being a man of wealth, and those he went among would do anything for
money. Perhaps, like me, he carried a pistol. At all events he
shunned no spot where either poverty lay hid or deviltry reigned, his
proud stern head bending to enter the lowest doors without a tremble
of the haughty lips that remained compressed as by an iron force;
except when some poor forlorn creature with flaunting head-gear, and
tremulous hands, attracted by his bearing would hastily brush against
him, when he would turn and look, perhaps speak, though what he said
I always failed to catch; after which he would hurry on as if
possessed by seven devils. The evenings of those three days were
notable also. Two of them he spent in the manner I have described;
the third he went to the Windsor House--where the Countess De Mirac
had taken rooms--going up to the ladies' entrance and actually
ringing the bell, only to start back and walk up and down on the
opposite side of the way, with his hands behind his back, and his
head bent, evidently deliberating as to whether he should or should
not carry out his original intention of entering. The arrival of a
carriage with the stately subject of his deliberations, who from her
elaborate costume had seemingly been to some kettledrum or private
reception, speedily put an end to his doubts. As the door opened to
admit her, I saw him cast one look at her heavily draped person, with
its snowy opera-cloak drawn tightly over the sweeping folds of her
maize colored silk, and shrink back with what sounded like a sigh of
anger or distrust, and without waiting for the closing of the door
upon her, turn toward home with a step that hesitated no longer.

The fourth day to my infinite chagrin, I was sick and could not go
with him. All I could do was to wrap myself in blankets and sit in my
window from which I had the satisfaction of viewing him start as I
supposed upon his usual course. The rest of the day was employed in a
long, dull waiting for his return, only relieved by casual glimpses
of Mrs. Daniels' troubled face as she appeared at one window or
another of the old-fashioned mansion before me. She seemed, too, to
be unusually restless, opening the windows and looking out with
forlorn cranings of her neck as if she too were watching for her
master. Indeed I have no doubt from what I afterwards learned, that
she was in a state of constant suspense during these days. Her
frequent appearance at the station house, where she in vain sought for
some news of the girl in whose fate she was so absorbed, confirmed
this. Only the day before I gave myself up to my unreserved espionage
of Mr. Blake, she had had an interview with Mr. Gryce in which she
had let fall her apprehensions that the girl was dead, and asked
whether if that were the case, the police would be likely to come into
a knowledge of the fact. Upon being assured that if she had not been
privately made way with, there was every chance in their favor, she
had grown a little calmer, but before going away had so far forgotten
herself as to intimate that if some result was not reached before
another fortnight had elapsed, she should take the matter into her
own hands and--She did not say what she would do, but her looks were
of a very menacing character. It was no wonder, then, that her
countenance bore marks of the keenest anxiety as she trod the halls
of that dim old mansion, with its dusky corners rich with bronzes and
the glimmering shine of ancient brocades, breathing suggestions of
loss and wrong; or bent her wrinkled forehead to gaze from the
windows for the coming of one whose footsteps were ever delayed. She
happened to be looking out, when after a longer stroll than usual the
master of the house returned. As he made his appearance at the corner,
I saw her hurriedly withdraw her head and hide herself behind the
curtain, from which position she watched him as with tired steps and
somewhat dejected mien, he passed up the steps and entered the house.
Not till the door closed upon him, did she venture to issue forth and
with a hurried movement shut the blinds and disappear. This anxiety
on her part redoubled mine, and thankful enough was I when on the next
day I found myself well enough to renew my operations. To ferret out
this mystery, if mystery it was,--I still found myself forced to
admit the possibility of there being none--had now become the one
ambition of my life; and all because it was not only an unusually
blind one, but of a nature that involved danger to my position as
detective, I entered upon it with a zest rare even to me who love my
work and all it involves with an undivided passion.

To equip myself, then, in a fresh disguise and to join Mr. Blake
shortly after he had left his own corner, was anything but a hardship
to me that bright winter morning, though I knew from past experience,
a long and wearisome walk was before me with nothing in all
probability at the end but reiterated disappointment. But for once
the fates had willed it otherwise. Whether Mr. Blake, discouraged at
the failure of his own attempts, whatever they were, felt less heart
to prosecute them than usual I cannot say, but we had scarcely
entered upon the lower end of the Bowery, before he suddenly turned
with a look of disgust, and gazing hurriedly about him, hailed a
Madison Avenue car that was rapidly approaching. I was at that moment
on the other side of the way, but I hurried forward too, and signaled
the same car. But just as I was on the point of entering it I
perceived Mr. Blake step hastily back and with his eyes upon a girl
that was hurrying past him with a basket on her arm, regain the
sidewalk with a swiftness that argued his desire to stop her. Of
course I let the car pass me, though I did not dare approach him too
closely after my late conspicious attempt to enter it with him. But
from my stand on the opposite curb-stone I saw him draw aside the
girl, who from her garments might have been the daughter or wife of
any one of the shiftless, drinking wretches lounging about on the
four corners within my view, and after talking earnestly with her for
a few moments, saunter at her side down Broome Street, still talking.
Reckless at this sight of the consequences which might follow his
detection of the part I was playing, I hasted after them, when I was
suddenly disconcerted by observing him hurriedly separate from the
girl and turn towards me with intention as it were to regain the
corner he had left. Weighing in an instant the probable good to be
obtained by following either party, I determined to leave Mr. Blake
for one day to himself, and turn my attention to the girl he had
addressed, especially as she was tall and thin and bore herself with
something like grace.

Barely bestowing a glance upon him, then, as he passed, in a vain
attempt to read the sombre expression of his inscrutable face grown
five years older in the last five days, I shuffled after the girl now
flitting before me down Broome Street. As I did so, I noticed her
dress to its minutest details, somewhat surprised to find how ragged
and uncouth it was. That Mr. Blake should stop a girl wherever seen,
clad in a black alpaca frock, a striped shawl and a Bowery hat
trimmed with feathers, I could easily understand; but that this
creature with her faded calico dress, dingy cape thrown carelessly
over her head, and ragged basket, should arrest his attention, was a
riddle to me. I hastened forward with intent to catch a glimpse of
her countenence if possible; but she seemed to have acquired wings to
her feet since her interview with Mr. Blake. Darting into a crowd of
hooting urchins that were rushing from Centre Street after a broken
wagon and runaway horse, she sped from my sight with such rapidity, I
soon saw that my only hope of overtaking her lay in running. I
accordingly quickened my steps when those same hooting youngsters
getting in the way of my feet, I tripped up and--well, I own I
retired from that field baffled. Not entirely so, however. Just as I
was going down, I caught sight of the girl tearing away from a box of
garbage on the curb-stone; and when order having been restored, by
which lofty statement I mean to say when your humble servant had
regained his equilibrium, I awoke to the fact that she had effectually
disappeared, I hurried to that box and succeeded in finding hanging
to it a bit of rag easily recognized as a piece of the old calico
frock of nameless color which I had been following a moment before.
Regarding it as the sole spoils of a very unsatisfactory day's work,
I put it carefully away in my pocket book, where it lay till--But with
all my zeal for compression, I must not anticipate.

When I came home that afternoon I found myself unexpectedly involved
in a matter that for the remainder of the day at least, prevented me
from further attending to the affair I had in hand. The next morning
Mr. Blake did not start out as usual, and at noon I received
intimation from Fanny that he was preparing to take a journey. Where,
she could not inform me, nor when, though she thought it probable he
would take an early train. Mrs. Daniels was feeling dreadfully, she
informed me; and the house was like a grave. Greatly excited at this
unexpected move on Mr. Blake's part, I went home and packed my valise
with something of the spirit of her who once said, under somewhat
different circumstances I allow, "Whither thou goest I will go."

The truth was, I had travelled so far and learned so little, that my
professional pride was piqued. That expression of Mr. Gryce still
rankled, and nothing could soothe my injured spirit now but success.
Accordingly when Mr. Blake stepped up to the ticket office of the
Hudson River Railroad next morning, to buy a ticket for Putney, a
small town in the northern part of Vermont, he found beside him a
spruce young drummer, or what certainly appeared such, who by some
strange coincidence, wanted a ticket for the same place. The fact did
not seem in the least to surprise him, nor did he cast me a look
beyond the ordinary glance of one stranger at another. Indeed Mr.
Blake had no appearance of being a suspicious man, nor do I think at
this time, he had the remotest idea that he was either watched or
followed; an ignorance of the truth which I took care to preserve by
taking my seat in a different car from him and not showing myself
again during the whole ride from New York to Putney.



CHAPTER VII

THE HOUSE AT THE GRANBY CROSS ROADS


Why Mr. Blake should take a journey at all at this time, and why of
all places in the world he should choose such an insignificant town
as Putney for his destination, was of course the mystery upon which I
brooded during the entire distance. But when somewhere near five in
the afternoon I stepped from the cars on to the platform at Putney
Station only to hear Mr. Blake making inquiries in regard to a certain
stage running between that town and a still smaller village further
east, I own I was not only surprised but well- nigh nonplussed.
Especially as he seemed greatly disappointed to hear that it only ran
once a day, and then for an earlier train in the morning.

"You will have to wait till to-morrow I fear," said the ticket agent,
"unless the landlord of the hotel down yonder, can harness you up a
team. There is a funeral out west to-day and--"

I did not wait to hear more but hurried down to the hotel he had
pointed out, and hunting up the landlord inquired if for love or
money he could get me any sort of a conveyance for Melville that
afternoon. He assured me it would be impossible, the livery stable as
well as his own being entirely empty.

"Such a thing don't happen here once in five years," said he to me.
"But the old codger who is dead, though a queer dick was a noted
personage in these parts, and not a man, woman or child, who could
find a horse, mule or donkey, but what availed himself of the
privilege. Even the doctor's spavined mare was pressed into service,
though she halts on one leg and stops to get her breath half a dozen
times in going up one short hill. You will have to wait for the
stage, sir."

"But I am in a hurry," said I as I saw Mr. Blake enter. "I have
business in Melville tonight, and I would pay anything in reason to
get there."

But the landlord only shook his head; and drawing back with the air of
an abused man, I took up my stand in the doorway where I could hear
the same colloquy entered into with Mr. Blake, with the same
unsatisfactory termination. He did not take it quite as calmly as I
did, though he was of too reserved a nature to display much emotion
over anything. The prospect of a long tedious evening spent in a
country hotel seemed almost unendurable to him, but he finally
succumbed to the force of circumstances, as indeed he seemed obliged
to do, and partaking of such refreshment as the rather poorly managed
hotel afforded, retired without ceremony to his room, from which he
did not emerge again till next morning. In all this he had somehow
managed not to give his name; and by means of some inquiries I
succeeded in making that evening, I found his person was unknown in
the town.

By a little management I secured the next room to his, by which
arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake
spending most of the wee sma' hours in pacing the floor of his room,
with an unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect
upon my nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting
on the back seat, and I in front with the driver. There were other
passengers, but I noticed he never spoke to any of them, nor through
all the long drive did he once look up from the corner where he had
ensconced himself. It was twelve o'clock when we reached the end of
the route, a small town of somewhat less than the usual pretensions
of mountain villages; so insignificant indeed, that I found it more
and more difficult to imagine what the wealthy ex-Congressman could
find in such a spot as this, to make amends for a journey of such
length and discomfort; when to my increasing wonder I heard him give
orders for a horse to be saddled and brought round to the inn door
directly after dinner. This was a move I had not expected and it
threw me a little aback, for although I had thus far managed to hold
myself so aloof from Mr. Blake, even while keeping him under my eye,
that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had as yet been
awakened, how could I thus for the third time follow his order with
one precisely similar, without attracting an attention that would be
fatal to my plans. Yet to let him ride off alone now, would be to
drop the trail at the very moment the scent became of importance.

The landlord, a bustling, wiry little man all nervousness and
questions, unwittingly helped me at this crisis.

"Are you going on to Perry, sir?" inquired he of that gentleman, "I
have been expecting a man along these three days bound for Perry."

"I am that man," I broke in, stepping forward with some appearance of
asperity, "and I hope you won't keep me waiting. A horse as soon as
dinner is over, do you hear? I am two days late now, and won't stand
any nonsense."

And to escape the questions sure to follow, I strode into the
dining-room with a half-fierce, half- sullen countenance, that
effectually precluded all advances. During the meal I saw Mr. Blake's
eye roam more than once towards my face; but I did not return his
gaze, or notice him in any way; hurrying through my dinner, and
mounting the first horse brought around, as if time were my only
consideration. But once on the road I took the first opportunity to
draw rein and wait, suddenly remembering that I had not heard Mr.
Blake give any intimation of the direction he intended taking. A few
minutes revealed to me his elegant form well mounted and showing to
perfection in his closely buttoned coat, slowly approaching up the
road. Taking advantage of a rise in the ground, I lingered till he was
almost upon me, when I cantered quickly on, fearing to arouse his
apprehensions if I allowed him to pass me on a road so solitary as
that which now stretched out before us:  a move provocative of much
embarassment to me, as I dared not turn my head for the same reason,
anxious as I was to keep him in sight.

The roads dividing before me, at length gave me my first opportunity
to pause and look back. He was some fifty paces behind. Waiting till
he came up, I bowed with the surly courtesy I thought in keeping with
the character I had assumed, and asked if he knew which road led
towards Perry, saying I had come off in such haste I had forgotten to
inquire my way. He returned my bow, pointed towards the left hand
road and saying, "I know this does not," calmly took it.

Now here was a dilemma. If in face of this curt response I proceeded
to follow him, my hand was revealed at once; yet the circumstances
would admit of no other course. I determined to compromise matters by
pretending to take the right hand road till he was out of sight, when
I would return and follow him swiftly upon the left. Accordingly I
reined my horse to the right, and for some fifteen minutes galloped
slowly away towards the north; but another fifteen saw me facing the
west, and riding with a force and fury of which I had not thought the
old mare they had given me capable, till I put her to the test. It was
not long before I saw my fine gentleman trotting in front of me up a
long but gentle slope that rose in the distance; and slackening my
own rein, I withdrew into the forest at the side of the road, till he
had passed its summit and disappeared, when I again galloped forward.

And thus we went on for an hour, over the most uneven country I ever
traversed, he always one hill ahead; when suddenly, by what instinct
I cannot determine, I felt myself approaching the end, and hastening
to the top of the ascent up which I was then laboring, looked down
into the shallow valley spread out before me.

What a sight met my eyes if I had been intent on anything less
practical than the movements of the solitary horseman below! Hills on
hills piled about a verdant basin in whose depths nestled a scanty
collection of houses, in number so small they could be told upon the
fingers of the right hand, but which notwithstanding lent an
indescribable aspect of comfort to this remote region of hill and
forest.

But the vision of Mr. Blake pausing half way down the slope before me,
examining, yes examining a pistol which he held in his hand, soon put
an end to all ideas of romance. Somewhat alarmed I reined back; but
his action had evidently no connection with me, for he did not once
glance behind him, but kept his eye on the road which I now observed
took a short turn towards a house of so weird and ominous an
appearance that I scarcely marvelled at his precaution.

Situated on a level track of land at the crossing of three roads, its
spacious front, rude and unpainted as it was, presented every
appearance of an inn, but from its moss-grown chimneys no smoke
arose, nor could I detect any sign of life in its shutterless windows
and closed doors, across which shivered the dark shadow of the one
gaunt and aged pine, that stood like a guard beside its tumbled-down
porch.

Mr. Blake seemed to have been struck by the same fact concerning its
loneliness, for hurriedly replacing his pistol in his breast pocket,
he rode slowly forward. I instantly conceived the plan of striking
across the belt of underbrush that separated me from this old
dwelling, and by taking my stand opposite its front, intercept a view
of Mr. Blake as he approached. Hastily dismounting, therefore, I led
my horse into the bushes and tied her to a tree, proceeding to carry
out my plan on foot. I was so far successful as to arrive at the
further edge of the wood, which was thick enough to conceal my
presence without being too dense to obstruct my vision, just as Mr.
Blake passed on his way to this solitary dwelling. He was looking
very anxious, but determined. Turning my eyes from him, I took another
glance at the house, which by this movement I had brought directly
before me. It was even more deserted-looking than I had thought; its
unpainted front with its double row of blank windows meeting your gaze
without a response, while the huge old pine with half its limbs
dismantled of foliage, rattled its old bones against its sides and
moaned in its aged fashion like the solitary retainer of a dead race.

I own I felt the cold shivers creep down my back as that creaking
sound struck my ears, though as the day was chill with an east wind I
dare say it was more the effect of my sudden cessation from exercise,
than of any superstitious awe I felt. Mr. Blake seemed to labor under
no such impressions. Riding up to the front door he knocked without
dismounting, on its dismal panels with his riding whip. No response
was heard. Knitting his brows impatiently, he tried the latch:  the
door was locked. Hastily running his eye over the face of the
building, he drew rein and proceeded to ride around the house, which
he could easily do owing to the absence of every obstruction in the
way of fence or shrubbery. Finding no means of entrance he returned
again to the front door which he shook with an impatient hand that
however produced no impression upon the trusty lock, and recognizing,
doubtless, the futility of his endeavors, he drew back, and merely
pausing to give one other look at its deserted front, turned his
horse's head, and to my great amazement, proceeded with sombre mien
and clouded brow to retake the road to Melville.

This old inn or decayed homestead was then the object of his
lengthened and tedious journey; this ancient house rotting away among
the bleak hills of Vermont, the bourne towards which his steps had
been tending for these past two days. I could not understand it.
Rapidly emerging from the spot where I had secreted myself, I in my
turn made a circuit of the house, if happily I should discover some
loophole of entrance which had escaped his attention. But every door
and window was securely barred, and I was about to follow his example
and leave the spot, when I saw two or three children advancing towards
me down the cross roads, gaily swinging their school books. I noticed
they hesitated and huddled together as they approached and saw me,
but not heeding this, I accosted them with a pleasant word or so, then
pointing over my shoulder to the house behind, asked who lived there.
Instantly their already pale faces grew paler.

"Why," cried one, a boy, "don't you know? That is where the two wicked
men lived who stole the money out of the Rutland bank. They were put
in prison, but they got away and--"

Here, the other, a little girl, plucked him by the sleeve with such
affright, that he himself took alarm and just giving me one quick
stare out of his wide eyes, grasped his companion by the hand and took
to his heels. As for myself I stood rooted to the ground in my
astonishment. This blank, sleepy old house the home of the notorious
Schoenmakers after whom half of the detectives of the country were
searching? I could scarcely credit my own ears. True I now remembered
they had come from these parts, still--

Turning round I eyed the house once more. How altered it looked to me!
What a murderous aspect it wore, and how dismally secret were the
tight shut windows and closely fastened doors, on one of which a rude
cross scrawled in red chalk met the eye with a mysterious
significance. Even the old pine had acquired the villainous air of
the uncanny repositor of secrets too dreadful to reveal, as it groaned
and murmured to itself in the keen east wind. Dark deeds and foul
wrong seemed written all over the fearful place, from the long
strings of black moss that clung to the worm-eaten eaves, to the worn
stone with its great blotch of something,--could it have been
blood?--that served as a threshold to the door. Suddenly with the
quickness of lightning the thought flashed across me, what could Mr.
Blake, the aristocratic representative of New York's oldest family,
have wanted in this nest of infamy? What errand of hope, fear,
despair, avarice or revenge, could have brought this superior
gentleman with his refined tastes and proudly reticent manners, so
many miles from home, to the forsaken den of a brace of hardy villains
whose name for two years now, had stood as the type of all that was
bold, bad and lawless, and for whom during the last six weeks the
prison had yawned, and the gallows hungered. Contemplation brought no
reply, and shocked at my own thoughts, I put the question by for
steadier brains than mine; and instead of trying further to solve it,
cast about how I was to gain entrance into this deserted building;
for to enter it I was more than ever determined, now that I had heard
to whom it had once belonged.

Examining with a glance the several roads that branched off in every
direction from where I stood, I found them all equally deserted. Even
the school children had disappeared in some one of the four or five
houses scattered in the remote distance.

If I was willing to enter upon any daring exploit, there was no one to
observe or interrupt. I resolved to make the attempt with which my
mind was full. This was to climb the old tree, and from one of the
two or three branches that brushed against the house, gain entrance at
an open garret window that stared at me from amid the pine's dark
needles. Taking off my coat with a sigh over the immaculate condition
of my new cassimere trousers, I bent my energies to the task. A
difficult one you will say for a city lad, but thanks to fortune I
was not brought up in New York, and know how to climb trees with the
best. With little more than a scratch or so, I reached the window of
which I have spoken, and after a moment spent in regaining my breath,
gave one spring and accomplished my purpose. I alighted upon a heap
of broken glass in a large bare room. An ominous chill at once struck
to my heart. Though I am anything but a sensitive man as far as
physical impressions are concerned, there was something in the hollow
echo that arose from the four blank walls about me as my feet
alighted on that rough, uncarpeted floor, that struck a vague chill
through my blood, and I actually hesitated for the moment whether to
pursue the investigations I had promised myself, or beat a hasty
retreat. A glance at the huge distorted limbs swaying across the
square of the open window decided me. It was easy to enter by means
of that unsteady support, but it would be extremely unsafe to venture
forth in that way. If I prized life and limb I must seek some other
method of egress. I at once put my apprehensions in my pocket and
entered upon my self imposed task.

A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty
garret in which I found myself. Two or three old chairs piled in one
corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying
clothing, were all that met my gaze. Taking my way, then, at once to
the ladder, whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret
floor, seemed to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I
proceeded to descend into what to my excited imagination looked like a
gulf of darkness. It proved, however, to be nothing more nor less
than an unlighted hall of small dimensions, with a stair-case at one
end and a door at the other, which, upon opening I found myself in a
large, square room whose immense four-post bedstead entirely denuded
of its usual accompaniments of bed and bolster at once struck my eye
and for a moment held it enchained. There were other articles in the
room; a disused bureau, a rocking chair, even a table, but nothing
had such a ghostly look as that antique bedstead with its curtains of
calico tied back over its naked framework, like rags draped from the
bare bones of a skeleton. Passing hurriedly by, I tried a closet door
or so, finding little, however, to reward my search; and eager to be
done with what was every moment becoming more and more drearisome, I
hastened across the floor to the front of the house where I found
another hall and a row of rooms that, while not entirely stripped of
furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to offer little encourgement
to my curiosity. One only, a small but not uncomfortable apartment,
showed any signs of having been occupied within a reasonable length of
time; and as I paused before its hastily spread bed, thrown together
as only a man would do it, and wondering why the room was so dark,
looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered by an old shawl
and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed across it, I
own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I expected to
see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all aglare
from one of the dim corners before me. Rushing to the window, I tore
down with one sweep of my arm both coat and shawl, and with a start
discovered that the window still possessed its draperies in the shape
of a pair of discolored and tattered curtains tied with ribbons that
must once have been brilliant and cheery of color.

Nor was this the only sign in the room of a bygone presence that had
possessed a taste for something beyond the mere necessities of life.
On the grim coarsely papered wall hung more than one picture; cut
from pictorial newspapers to be sure, but each and every one, if I may
be called a judge of such matters, possessing some quality of
expression to commend it to a certain order of taste. They were all
strong pictures. Vivid faces of men and women in daring positions; a
hunter holding back a jaguar from his throat; a soldier protecting
his comrade from the stroke; and most striking of all, a woman lissome
as she was powerful, starting aghast and horror stricken from--what?
I could not tell; a rough hand had stripped the remainder of the
picture from the wall.

A bit of candle and a half sheet of a newspaper lay on the floor. I
picked up the paper. It was a Rutland Herald and bore the date of two
days before. As I read I realized what I had done. If these daring
robbers were not at this very moment in the house, they had been
there, and that within two or three days. The broken panes of glass
in the garret above were now explained. I was not the first one who
had climbed that creaking pine tree this fall.

Something like a sensible dread of a very possible danger now seized
hold of me. If I had stumbled upon these strangly subtile, yet
devilishly bold creatures in their secret lair, the pistol I carried
was not going to save me. Shut in like a fox in a hole, I had little
to hope for, if they once made their appearance at the stairhead or
came upon me from any of the dim halls of the crazy old dwelling,
which I now began to find altogether too large for my comfort.
Stealing cautiously forth from the room in which I had found so much
to disconcert me, I crept towards the front staircase and listened.
All was deathly quiet. The old pine tree moaned and twisted without,
and from time to time the wind came sweeping down the chimney with an
unearthly shrieking sound that was weirdly in keeping with the place.
But within and below all was still as the tomb, and though in no ways
reassured, I determined to descend and have the suspense over at
once. I did so, pistol in hand and ears stretched to their utmost to
catch the slightest rustle, but no sound came to disturb me, nor did
I meet on this lower floor the sign of any other presence in the
house but my own. Passing hastily through what appeared to be a sort
of rude parlor, I stepped into the kitchen and tried one of the
windows. Finding I could easily lift it from the inside, I drew my
breath with ease for the first time since I had alighted among the
broken glass above, and turning back, deliberately opened the door of
the kitchen stove, and looked in. As I half expected, I found a pile
of partly charred rags, showing where the wretches had burned their
prison clothing, and proceeding further, picked up from the ashes a
ring which whether or not they were conscious of having attempted to
destroy in this way I cannot say, but which I thankfully put in my
pocket against the day it might be required as proof.

Discerning nothing more in that quarter inviting interest, I asked
myself if I had nerve to descend into the cellar. Finally concluding
that that was more than could be expected from any man in my position,
I gave one look of farewell to the damp and desolate walls about me,
then with a breath of relief jumped from the kitchen window again
into the light and air of day. As I did so I could swear I heard a
door within that old house swing on its hinges and softly close. With
a thrill I recognized the fact that it came from the cellar.

                        *      *      *      *

My thoughts on the road back to Melville were many and conflicting.
Chief above them all, however, rose the comfortable conclusion that
in the pursuit of one mysterious affair, I had stumbled, as is often
the case, upon the clue to another of yet greater importance, and by
so doing got a start that might yet redound greatly to my advantage.
For the reward offered for the recapture of the Schoenmakers was
large, and the possibility of my being the one to put the authorities
upon their track, certainly appeared after this day's developements,
open at least to a very reasonable hope. At all events I determined
not to let the grass grow under my feet till I had informed the
Superintendent of what I had seen and heard that day in the old haunt
of these two escaped convicts.

Arrived at the public house in Melville, and learning that Mr. Blake
had safely returned there an hour before, I drew the landlord to one
side and asked what he could tell me about that old house of the two
noted robbers Schoenmaker, I had passed on my way back among the
hills.

"Wa'al now," replied he, "this is curious. Here I've just been
answering the gentleman up stairs a heap of questions concerning that
self same old place, and now you come along with another batch of
them; just as if that rickety old den was the only spot of interest we
had in these parts."

"Perhaps that may be the truth," I laughed. "Just now when the papers
are full of these rogues, anything concerning them must be of
superior interest of course." And I pressed him again to give me a
history of the house and the two thieves who had inhabited it.

"Wa'al," drawled he "'taint much we know about them, yet after all it
may be a trifle too much for their necks some day. Time was when
nobody thought especial ill of them beyond a suspicion or so of their
being somewhat mean about money. That was when they kept an inn there,
but when the robbery of the Rutland bank was so clearly traced to
them, more than one man about here started up and said as how they
had always suspected them Shoenmakers of being villains, and even
hinted at something worse than robbery. But nothing beyond that one
rascality has yet been proved against them, and for that they were
sent to jail for twenty years as you know. Two months ago they
escaped, and that is the last known of them. A precious set, too,
they are; the father being only so much the greater rogue than the son
as he is years older."

"And the inn? When was that closed?"

"Just after their arrest."

"Has'nt it been opened since?"

"Only once when a brace of detectives came up from Troy to
investigate, as they called it."

"Who has the key?"

"Ah, that's more than I can tell you."

I dared not ask how my questions differed from those of Mr. Blake, nor
indeed touch upon that point in any way. I was chiefly anxious now
to return to New York without delay; so paying my bill I thanked the
landlord, and without waiting for the stage, remounted my horse and
proceeded at once to Putney where I was fortunate enough to catch the
evening train. By five o'clock next morning I was in New York where I
proceeded to carry out my programme by hastening at once to
headquarters and reporting my suspicions regarding the whereabouts of
the Schoenmakers. The information was received with interest and I
had the satisfaction of seeing two men despatched north that very day
with orders to procure the arrest of the two notable villains
wherever found.



CHAPTER VIII

A WORD OVERHEARD


That evening I had a talk with Fanny over the area gate. She came out
when she saw me approach, with her eyes staring and her whole form in
a flutter.

"O," she cried, "such things as I have heard this day!"

"Well," said I, "what? let me hear too." She put her hand on her
heart. "I never was so frightened," whispered she, "I thought I
should have fainted right away. To hear that elegant lady use such a
word as crime,--"

"What elegant lady?" interrupted I. "Don't begin in the middle of your
story, that's a good girl; I want to hear it all."

"Well," said she, calming down a little, "Mrs. Daniels had a visitor
to-day, a lady. She was dressed--"

"O, now," interrupted I for the second time, "you can leave that out.
Tell me what her name was and let the fol-de-rols go."

"Her name?" exclaimed the girl with some sharpness, "how should I know
her name; she did'nt come to see me."

"How did she look then? You saw her I suppose?"

"And was'nt that what I was telling you, when you stopped me. She
looked like a queen, that she did; as grand a lady as ever I see, in
her velvet dress sweeping over the floor, and her diamonds as big
as--"

"Was she a dark woman?" I asked.

"Her hair was black and so were her eyes, if that is what you mean."

"And was she very tall and proud looking ?"

The girl nodded. "You know her? 'whispered she.

"No," said I, "not exactly; but I think I can tell who she is. And so
she called to-day on Mrs. Daniels, did she."

"Yes, but I guess she knew master would be home before she got away."

"Come," said I, "tell me all about it; I'm getting impatient."

"And ain't I telling you?" said she. "It was about three o'clock this
afternoon, the time I go up stairs to dress, so I just hangs about in
the hall a bit, near the parlor door, and I hear her gossiping with
Mrs. Daniels almost as if she was an old friend, and Mrs. Daniels
answering her mighty stiffly and as if she was'nt glad to see her at
all. But the lady didn't seem to mind, but went on talking as sweet as
honey, and when they came out, you would have thought she loved the
old woman like a sister to see her look into her face and say
something about knowing how busy she was, but that it would give her
so much pleasure if she would come some day to see her and talk over
old times. But Mrs. Daniels was'nt pleased a bit and showed plain
enough she did'nt like the lady, fine as she was in her ways. She was
going to answer her too, but just then the front door opened and Mr.
Blake with his satchel in his hand, came into the house. And how he
did start, to be sure, when he saw them, though he tried to say
something perlite which she did'nt seem to take to at all, for after
muttering something about not expecting to see him, she put her hand
on the knob and was going right out. But he stopped her and they
went into the parlor together while Mrs. Daniels stood staring after
them like one mad, her hand held out with his bag and umbrella in it,
stiff as a statter in the Central Park. She did'nt stand so long,
though, but came running down the hall, as if she was bewitched. I
was dreadful flustered, for though I was hid behind the wall that juts
out there by the back stairs, I was afraid she would see me and shame
me before Mr. Blake. But she passed right by and never looked up.
'There is something dreadful mysterious in this,' thought I, and I
just made up my mind to stay where I was till Mr. Blake and the lady
should come out again from the parlor. I did'nt have to wait very
long. In a few minutes the door opened and they stepped out, he ahead
and she coming after. I thought this was queer, he is always so
dreadful perlite in his ways, but I thought it was a deal queerer when
I saw him go up the front stairs, she hurrying after, looking I
cannot tell you how, but awful troubled and anxious, I should say.

"They went into that room of his he calls his studio and though I knew
it might cost me my place if I was found out, I could'nt help
following and listening at the keyhole."

"And what did you hear?" I asked, for she paused to take breath.

"Well, the first thing I heard was a cry of pleasure from her, and the
words, 'You keep that always before you? You cannot dislike me, then,
as much as you pertend.' I don't know what she meant nor what he
did, but he stepped across the room and I heard her cry out this time
as if she was hurt as well as awful surprised; and he talked and
talked, and I could'nt catch a word, he spoke so low; and by and by
she sobbed just a little, and I got scared and would have run away
but she cried out with a kind of shriek, 'O, don't say any more; to
think that crime should come into our family, the proudest in the
land. How could you, Holman, how could you.' Yes," the girl went on,
flushing in her excitement till she was as red as the cherry ribbons
in her cap, "those were the very words she used:  'To think that crime
should come into our family! the proudest one in the land!' And she
called him by his first name, and asked him how he could do it."

"And what did Mr. Blake say" returned I, a little taken back myself at
this result of my efforts with Fanny.

"O, I did'nt wait to hear. I did'nt wait for anything. If folks was
going to talk about such things as that, I thought I had better be
anywhere than listening at the keyhole. I went right up stairs I can
tell you."

"And whom have you told of what you heard in the half dozen hours that
have gone by?"

"Nobody; how could you think so mean of me when I promised, and--"

It is not necessary to go any further into this portion of the
interview.

The Countess De Mirac possessed to its fullest extent the present fine
lady's taste for bric-a-brac. So much I had learned in my inquiries
concerning her. Remembering this, I took the bold resolution of
profiting by this weakness of hers to gain admission to her presence,
she being the only one sharing Mr. Blake's mysterious secret.
Borrowing a valuable antique from a friend of mine at that time in the
business, I made my appearance the very next day at her apartments,
and sending in an urgent request to see Madame, by the trim negress
who answered my summons, waited in some doubt for her reply.

It came all too soon; Madame was ill and could see no one. I was not,
however, to be baffled by one rebuff. Handing the basket I held to
the girl, I urged her to take it in and show her mistress what it
contained, saying it was a rare article which might never again come
her way.

The girl complied, though with a doubtful shake of the head which was
anything but encouraging. Her incredulity, however, must have been
speedily rebuked, for she almost immediately returned without the
basket, saying Madame would see me.

My first thoughts upon entering the grand lady's presence, was that
the girl had been mistaken, for I found the Countess walking the
floor in an abstracted way, drying a letter she had evidently but just
completed, by shaking it to and fro with an unsteady hand; the
placque I had brought, lying neglected on the table.

But at sight of my respectful form standing with bent head in the
doorway, she hurriedly thrust the letter into a book and took up the
placque. As she did so I marked her well and almost started at the
change I observed in her since that evening at the Academy. It was
not only that she was dressed in some sort of loose dishabille that
was in eminent contrast to the sweeping silks and satins in which I
had hitherto beheld her adorned; or that she was laboring under some
physical disability that robbed her dark cheek of the bloom that was
its chiefest charm. The change I observed went deeper than that; it
was more as if a light had been extinguished in her countenance. It
was the same woman I had beheld standing like a glowing column of
will and strength before the melancholy form of Mr. Blake, but with
the will and strength gone, and with them all the glow.

"She no longer hopes," thought I, and already felt repaid for my
trouble.

"This is a very pretty article you have brought me," said she with
something of the unrestrained love of art which she undoubtedly
possessed, showing itself through all her languor. "Where did it come
from, and what recommendations have you, to prove it is an honest
sale you offer me?"

"None," returned I, ignoring with a reassuring smile the first
question, "except that I should not be afraid if all the police in
New York knew I was here with this fine placque for sale."

She gave a shrug of her proud shoulder that bespoke the French
Countess and softly ran her finger round the edge of the placque.

"I don't need anything more of this kind," said she languidly;
"besides," and she set it down with a fretful air, "I am in no mood
to buy this afternoon." Then shortly, "What do you ask for it?"

I named a fabulous price.

She started and cast me a keen glance. "You had better take it to some
one else; I have no money to throw away."

With a hesitating hand I lifted the placque towards the basket. "I
would very much like to sell it to you," said I. " Perhaps--"

Just then a lady's fluttering voice rose from the room beyond
inquiring for the Countess, and hurriedly taking the placque from my
hand with an impulsive "O there's Amy," she passed into the adjoining
apartment, leaving the door open behind her.

I saw a quick interchange of greetings between her and a fashionably
dressed lady, then they withdrew to one side with the ornament I had
brought, evidently consulting in regard to its merits. Now was my
time. The book in which she had placed the letter she had been writing
lay on the table right before me, not two inches from my hand. I had
only to throw back the cover and my curiosity would be satisfied.
Taking advantage of a moment when their backs were both turned, I
pressed open the book with a careful hand, and with one eye on them
and one on the sheet before me, managed to read these words:--

    MY DEAREST CECILIA.

    I have tried in vain to match the sample you sent me at Stewart's,
    Arnold's and McCreery's. If you still insist upon making up the
    dress in the way you propose, I will see what Madame Dudevant can
    do for us, though I cannot but advise you to alter your plans and
    make the darker shade of velvet do. I went to the Cary reception
    last night and met Lulu Chittenden. She has actually grown old,
    but was as lively as ever. She created a great stir in Paris when
    she was there; but a husband who comes home two o'clock in the
    morning with bleared eyes and empty pockets, is not conducive to
    the preservation of a woman's beauty. How she manages to retain
    her spirits I cannot imagine. You ask me news of cousin Holman. I
    meet him occasionally and he looks well, but has grown into the
    most sombre man you ever saw. In regard to certain hopes of which
    you have sometimes made mention, let me assure you they are no
    longer practicable. He has done what--

Here the conversation ceased in the other room, the Countess made a
movement of advance and I closed the book with an inward groan over
my ill-luck.

"It is very pretty," said she with a weary air; "but as I remarked
before, I am not in the buying mood. If you will take half you
mention, I may consider the subject, but--"

"Pardon me, Madame," I interrupted, being in no wise anxious to leave
the placque behind me, "I have been considering the matter and I hold
to my original price. Mr. Blake of Sec ond Avenue may give it to me
if you do not."

"Mr. Blake!" She eyed me suspiciously. "Do you sell to him?"

"I sell to anyone I can," replied I; "and as he has an artist's eye
for such things--"

Her brows knitted and she turned away. "I do not want it;" said she,
"sell it to whom you please."

I took up the placque and left the room.



CHAPTER IX

A FEW GOLDEN HAIRS


When a few days from that I made my appearance before Mr. Gryce, it
was to find him looking somewhat sober. "Those Schoenmakers," said
he, "are making a deal of trouble. It seems they escaped the fellows
up north and are now somewhere in this city, but where--"

An expressive gesture finished the sentence.

"Is that so?" exclaimed I. "Then we are sure to nab them. Given time
and a pair of low, restless German thieves, I will wager anything,
our hands will be upon them before the month is over. I only hope,
when we do come across them, it will not be to find their betters too
much mixed up with their devilish practices." And I related to him
what Fanny had told me a few evenings before.

"The coil is tightening," said he. "What the end will be I don't know.
Crime, said she? I wish I knew in what blind hole of the earth that
girl we are after lies hidden.

As if in answer to this wish the door opened and one of our men came
in with a letter in his hand. "Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Gryce, after he had
perused it, "look at that."

I took the letter from his hand and read:

    The dead body of a girl such as you describe was found in the East
    river off Fiftieth Street this morning. From appearance has been
    dead some time. Have telegraphed to Police Headquarters for
    orders. Should you wish to see the body before it is removed to
    the Morgue or otherwise disturbed, please hasten to Pier 48 E. R.
                                                           GRAHAM.

"Come," said I, "let's go and see for ourselves. If it should be the
one--"

"The dinner party proposed by Mr. Blake for to-night, may have its
interruptions," he remarked.

I do not wish to make my story any longer than is necessary, but I
must say that when in an hour or so later, I stood with Mr. Gryce
before the unconscious form of that poor drowned girl I felt an
unusual degree of awe stealing over me:  there was so much mystery
connected with this affair, and the parties implicated were of such
standing and repute.

I almost dreaded to see the covering removed from her face lest I
should behold, what? I could not have told if I had tried.

"A trim made body enough," cried the official in charge as Mr. Gryce
lifted an end of the cloth that enveloped her and threw it back.
"Pity the features are not better preserved."

"No need for us to see the features," exclaimed I, pointing to the
locks of golden red hair that hung in tangled masses about her. "The
hair is enough; she is not the one." And I turned aside, asking myself
if it was relief I felt.

To my surprise Mr. Gryce did not follow.

"Tall, thin, white face, black eyes." I heard him whisper to himself.
"It is a pity the features are not better preserved."

"But," said I, taking him by the arm, "Fanny spoke particularly of her
hair being black, while this girl's--Good heavens!" I suddenly
ejaculated as I looked again at the prostrate form before me. "Yellow
hair or black, this is the girl I saw him speaking to that day in
Broome Street. I remember her clothes if nothing more." And opening
my pocketbook, I took out the morsel of cloth I had plucked that day
from the ash barrel, lifted up the discolored rags that hung about
the body and compared the two. The pattern, texture and color were
the same.

"Well," said Mr. Gryce, pointing to certain contusions, like marks
from the blow of some heavy instrument on the head and bared arms of
the girl before us; "he will have to answer me one question anyhow,
and that is, who this poor creature is who lies here the victim of
treachery or despair." And turning to the official he asked if there
were any other signs of violence on the body.

The answer came deliberately, "Yes, she has evidently been battered to
death."

Mr. Gryce's lips closed with grim decision. "A most brutal murder,"
said he and lifting up the cloth with a hand that visibly trembled,
he softly covered her face.

"Well," said I as we slowly paced back up the pier, "there is one
thing certain, she is not the one who disappeared from Mr. Blake's
house."

"I am not so sure of that."

"How !" said I. "You believed Fanny lied when she gave that
description of the missing girl upon which we have gone till now?"

Mr. Gryce smiled, and turning back, beckoned to the official behind
us. "Let me have that description," said he, "which I distributed
among the Harbor Police some days ago for the identification of a
certain corpse I was on the lookout for."

The man opened his coat and drew out a printed paper which at Mr.
Gryce's word he put into my hand. It ran as follows:

    Look out for the body of a young girl, tall, well shaped but thin,
    of fair complexion and golden hair of a peculiar bright and
    beautiful color, and when found, acquaint me at once.
                                                            G.

"I don't understand," began I.

But Mr. Gryce tapping me on the arm said in his most deliberate tones,
"Next time you examine a room in which anything of a mysterious
nature has occurred, look under the bureau and if you find a comb
there with several long golden hairs tangled in it, be very sure
before you draw any definite conclusions, that your Fannys know what
they are talking about when they declare the girl who used that comb
had black hair on her head."



CHAPTER X

THE SECRET OF MR. BLAKE'S STUDIO


"Mr. Blake is at dinner, sir, with company, but I will call him if you
say so."

"No," returned Mr. Gryce; "show us into some room where we can be
comfortable and we will wait till he has finished."

The servant bowed, and stepping forward down the hall, opened the door
of a small and cosy room heavily hung with crimson curtains. "I will
let him know that you are here," said he, and vanished towards the
dining-room.

"I doubt if Mr. Blake will enjoy the latter half of his bill of fare
as much as the first," said I, drawing up one of the luxurious
arm-chairs to the side of my principal. "I wonder if he will break
away from his guests and come in here?"

"No; if I am not mistaken we shall find Mr. Blake a man of nerve. Not
a muscle of his face will show that he is disturbed."

"Well," said I, "I dread it."

Mr. Gryce looked about on the gorgeous walls and the rich old
fashioned furniture that surrounded him, and smiled one of his
grimmest smiles.

"Well, you may," said he.

The next instant a servant stood in the doorway, bearing to our great
astonishment, a tray well set with decanter and glasses.

"Mr. Blake's compliments, gentlemen," said he, setting it down on the
table before us. "He hopes you will make yourselves at home and he
will see you as soon as possible."

The humph! of Mr. Gryce when the servant had gone would have done your
soul good, also the look he cast at the pretty Dresden Shepherdess on
the mantel-piece, as I reached out my hand towards the decanter.
Somehow it made me draw back.

"I think we had better leave his wine alone," said he.

And for half an hour we sat there, the wine untouched between us,
listening alternately to the sound of speech-making and laughter that
came from the dining-room, and the solemn ticking of the clock as it
counted out the seconds on the mantel-piece. Then the guests came in
from the table, filing before us past the open door on their way to
the parlors. They were all gentlemen of course--Mr. Blake never
invited ladies to his house--and gentlemen of well known repute. The
dinner had been given in honor of a certain celebrated statesman, and
the character of his guests was in keeping with that of the one thus
complimented.

As they went by us gaily indulging in the jokes and light banter with
which such men season a social dinner, I saw Mr. Gryce's face grow
sober by many a shade; and when in the midst of it all, we heard the
voice of Mr. Blake rise in that courteous and measured tone for which
it is distinguished, I saw him reach forward and grasp his cane with
an uneasiness I had never seen displayed by him before. But when some
time later, the guests having departed, the dignified host advanced
with some apology to where we were, I never beheld a firmer look on
Mr. Gryce's face than that with which he rose and confronted him. Mr.
Blake's own had not more character in it.

"You have called at a rather inauspicious time, Mr. Gryce," said the
latter, glancing at the card which he held in his hand. "What may
your business be? Something to do with politics, I suppose."

I surveyed the man in amazement. Was this great politician stooping to
act a part, or had he forgotten our physiognomies as completely as
appeared.

"Our business is not politics," replied Mr. Gryce; "but fully as
important. May I request the doors be closed?"

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but he immediately stepped to
the door and shut it. Then coming back, he looked at Mr. Gryce more
closely and a change took place in his manner.

"I think I have seen you before," said he.

Mr. Gryce bowed with just the suspicion of a smile. "I have had the
honor of consulting you before in this very house," observed he.

A look of full recognition passed over the dignified countenance of
the man before us.

"I remember," said he, shrugging his shoulders in the old way. " You
are interested in some servant girl or other who ran away from this
house a week or so ago. Have you found her?" This with no apparent
concern.

"We think we have," rejoined Mr. Gryce with some solemnity. "The
river gives up its prey now and then, Mr. Blake."

Still only that look of natural surprise.

"Indeed! You do not mean to say she has drowned herself? I am sorry
for that, a girl who had once lived in my house. What trouble could
she have had to drive her to such an act?"

Mr. Gryce advanced a step nearer the gentleman.

"That is what we have come here to learn," said he with a deliberation
that yet was not lacking in the respect due to a man so universally
esteemed as Mr. Blake. "You who have seen her so lately ought to be
able to throw some light upon the subject at least."

"Mr.--" he again glanced at the card, "Mr. Gryce,--excuse me--I
believe I told you when you were here before that I had no
remembrance of this girl at all. That if such a person was in my house
I did not know it, and that all questions put to me on that subject
would be so much labor thrown away."

Mr. Gryce bowed. "I remember," said he. "I was not alluding to any
connection you may have had with the girl in this house, but to the
interview you were seen to have with her on the corner of Broome
Street some days ago. You had such an interview, did you not?"

A flush, deep as it was sudden, swept over Mr. Blake's usually unmoved
cheek. "You are transgressing sir," said he and stopped. Though a man
of intense personal pride, he had but little of that quality called
temper, or perhaps if he had, thought it unwise to display it on this
occasion. "I saw and spoke to a girl on the corner of that street
some days ago," he went on more mildly, "but that she was the one who
lived here, I neither knew at the time nor feel willing to believe now
without positive proof." Then in a deep ringing tone the stateliness
of which it would be impossible to describe, he inquired, "Have the
city authorities presumed to put a spy on my movements, that the fact
of my speaking to a poor forsaken creature on the corner of the
street should be not only noted but remembered?"

"Mr. Blake," observed Mr. Gryce, and I declare I was proud of my
superior at that moment, "no man who is a true citizen and a
Christian should object to have his steps followed, when by his own
thoughtlessness, perhaps, he has incurred a suspicion which demands
it."

"And do you mean to say that I have been followed," inquired he,
clenching his hand and looking steadily, but with a blanching cheek,
first at Mr. Gryce then at me.

"It was indispensable," quoth that functionary gently.

The outraged gentleman riveted his gaze upon me. "In town and out of
town?" demanded he.

I let Mr. Gryce reply. "It is known that you have lately sought to
visit the Schoenmakers," said he.

Mr. Blake drew a deep breath, cast his eyes about the handsome
apartment in which we were, let them rest for a moment upon a
portrait that graced one side of the wall, and which was I have since
learned a picture of his father, and slowly drew forward a chair.
"Let me hear what your suspicions are," said he.

I noticed Mr. Gryce colored at this; he had evidently been met in a
different way from what he expected. "Excuse me," said he, "I do not
say I have any suspicions; my errand is simply to notify you of the
death of the girl you were seen to speak with, and to ask whether or
not you can give us any information that can aid us in the matter
before the coroner."

"You know I have not. If I have been as closely followed as you say,
you must know why I spoke to that girl and others, why I went to the
house of the Schoenmakers and--Do you know?" he suddenly inquired.

Mr. Gryce was not the man to answer such a question as that. He eyed
the rich signet ring that adorned the hand of the gentleman before
him and suavely smiled. "I am ready to listen to any explanations,"
said he.

Mr. Blake's haughty countenance became almost stern. "You consider
you have a right to demand them; let me hear why."

"Well," said Mr. Gryce with a change of tone, "you shall.
Unprofessional as it is, I will tell you why I, a member of the
police force, dare enter the house of such a man as you are, and put
him the questions I have concerning his domestic affairs. Mr. Blake,
imagine yourself in a detective's office. A woman comes in, the
housekeeper of a respected citizen, and informs us that a girl
employed by her as seamstress has disappeared in a very unaccountable
way from her master's house the night before; in fact been abducted
as she thinks from certain evidences, through the window. Her manner
is agitated, her appeal for assistance urgent, though she
acknowledges no relationship to the girl or expresses any especial
cause for her interest beyond that of common humanity. 'She must be
found,' she declares, and hints that any sum necessary will be
forthcoming, though from what source after her own pittance is
expended she does not state. When asked if her master has no
interest in the matter, she changes color and puts us off. He never
noticed his servants, left all such concerns to her, etc.; but shows
fear when a proposition is made to consult him. Next imagine yourself
with the detectives in that gentleman's house. You enter the girl's
room; what is the first thing you observe? Why that it is not only one
of the best in the house, but that it is conspicuous for its comforts
if not for its elegancies. More than that, that there are books of
poetry and history lying around, showing that the woman who inhabited
it was above her station; a fact which the housekeeper is presently
brought to acknowledge. You notice also that the wild surmise of her
abduction by means of the window, has some ground in appearance,
though the fact that she went with entire unwillingness is not made
so apparent. The housekeeper, however, insists in a way that must have
had some special knowledge of the girl's character or circumstances
to back it, that she never went without compulsion; a statement which
the torn curtains and the track of blood over the roof of the
extension, would seem to emphasize. A few other facts are made
known. First, a pen-knife is picked up from the grass plot in the
yard beneath, showing with what instrument the wound was inflicted,
whose drippings made those marks of blood alluded to. It was a
pearl-handled knife belonging to the writing desk found open on her
table, and its frail and dainty character proved indisputably, that it
was employed by the girl herself, and that against manifest enemies;
no man being likely to snatch up any such puny weapon for the purpose
either of offence or defence. That these enemies were two and were
both men, was insisted upon by Mrs. Daniels who overheard their
voices the night before.

"Mr. Blake, such facts as these arouse curiosity, especially when the
master of the house being introduced upon the scene, he fails to
manifest common human interest, while his housekeeper betrays in
every involuntary gesture and expression she makes use of, her horror
if not her fear of his presence, and her relief at his departure.
Yes," he exclaimed, unheeding the sudden look here cast him by Mr.
Blake, "and curiosity begets inquiry, and inquiry elucidated further
facts such as these, that the mysterious master of the house was in
his garden at the hour of the girl's departure, was even looking
through the bars of his gate when she, having evidently escaped from
her captors, came back with every apparent desire to reenter her
home, but seeing him, betrayed an unreasonable amount of fear and fled
back even into the very arms of the men she had endeavored to avoid.
Did you speak sir?" asked Mr. Gryce suddenly stopping, with a sly
look at his left boot tip.

Mr. Blake shook his head. "No," said he shortly, "go on." But that
last remark of Mr. Gryce had evidently made its impression.

"Inquiry revealed, also, two or three other interesting facts. First,
that this gentleman qualified though he was to shine in ladies'
society, never obtruded himself there, but employed his leisure time
instead, in walking the lower streets of the city, where he was seen
more than once conversing with certain poor girls at street corners
and in blind alleys. The last one he talked with, believed from her
characteristics to be the same one that was abducted from his
house--"

"Hold there," said Mr. Blake with some authority in his tone, "there
you are mistaken; that is impossible."

"Ah, and why?"

"The girl you allude to had bright golden hair, something which the
woman who lived in my house did not possess."

"Indeed. I thought you had never noticed the woman who sewed for you,
sir,--did not know how she looked?"

"I should have noticed her if she had had such hair as the girl you
speak of."

Mr. Gryce smiled and opened his pocketbook.

"There is a sample of her hair, sir," said he, taking out a thin
strand of brilliant hair and showing it to the gentleman before him.
"Bright you see, and golden as that of the unfortunate creature you
talked with the other night."

Mr. Blake stooped forward and lifted it with a hand that visibly
trembled. "Where did you get this?" asked he at last, clenching it to
his breast with sudden passion.

"From out of the comb which the girl had been using the night before."

The imperious man flung it hastily from him.

"We waste our time," said he, looking Mr. Gryce intently in the face.
"All that you have said does not account for your presence here nor
the tone you have used while addressing me. What are you keeping
back? I am not a man to be trifled with."

Mr. Gryce rose to his feet. "You are right," said he, and he gave a
short glance in my direction. "All that I have said would not perhaps
justify me in this intrusion, if--" he looked again towards me. "Do
you wish me to continue?" he asked.

Mr. Blake's intent look deepened. "I see no reason why you should not
utter the whole," said he. "A good story loses nothing by being told
to the end. You wish to say something about my journey to
Schoenmaker's house, I suppose."

Mr. Gryce gravely shook his head.

"What, you can let such a mystery as that go without a word?"

"I am not here to discuss mysteries that have no connection with the
sewing-girl in whose cause I am interested."

"Then," said Mr. Blake, turning for the first time upon my superior
with all the dignified composure for which he was eminent, "it is no
longer necessary for us to prolong this interview. I have allowed,
nay encouraged you to state in the plainest terms what it was you had
or imagined you had against me, knowing that my actions of late, seen
by those who did not possess the key to them, must have seemed a
little peculiar. But when you say you have no interest in any mystery
disconnected with the girl who has lived the last few months in my
house, I can with assurance say that it is time we quitted this
unprofitable conversation, as nothing which I have lately done, said
or thought here or elsewhere has in any way had even the remotest
bearing upon that individual; she having been a stranger to me while
in my house, and quite forgotten by me, after her unaccountable
departure hence."

Mr. Gryce's hand which had been stretched out towards the hitherto
untouched decanter before him, suddenly dropped. "You deny then,"
said he, "all connection between yourself and the woman, lady or
sewing-girl, who occupied that room above our heads for eleven months
previous to the Sunday morning I first had the honor to make your
acquaintance."

"I am not in the habit of repeating my assertions," said Mr. Blake
with some severity, "even when they relate to a less disagreeable
matter than the one under discussion."

Mr. Gryce bowed, and slowly reached out for his hat; I had never seen
him so disturbed. "I am sorry," he began and stopped, fingering his
hat-brim nervously. Suddenly he laid his hat back, and drew up his
form into as near a semblance of dignity as its portliness would
allow.

"Mr. Blake," said he, "I have too much respect for the man I believed
you to be when I entered this house to-night, to go with the thing
unsaid which is lying at present like a dead weight upon my lips. I
dare not leave you to the consequence of my silence; for duty will
compel me to speak some day and in some presence where you may not
have the opportunity which you can have here, to explain yourself with
satisfaction. Mr. Blake I cannot believe you when you say the girl
who lived in this house was a stranger to you."

Mr. Blake drew his proud form up in a disdain that was only held in
check by the very evident honesty of the man before him. "You are
courageous at least," said he. "I regret you are not equally
discriminating." And raising Mr. Gryce's hat he placed it in his
hand.

"Pardon me," said that gentleman, "I would like to justify myself
before I go. Not with words," he proceeded as the other folded his
arms with a sarcastic bow. "I am done with words; action accomplishes
the rest. Mr. Blake I believe you consider me an honest officer and a
reliable man. Will you accompany me to your private room for a
moment? There is something there which may convince you I was neither
playing the fool nor the bravado when I uttered the phrase I did an
instant ago."

I expected to hear the haughty master of the house refuse a request so
peculiar. But he only bowed, though in a surprised way that showed
his curiosity if no more was aroused. "My room and company are at
your disposal," said he, "but you will find nothing there to justify
you in your assertions."

"Let me at least make the effort," entreated my superior.

Mr. Blake smiling bitterly immediately led the way to the door. "The
man may come," he remarked carelessly as Mr. Gryce waved his hand in
my direction. "Your justification if not mine may need witnesses."

Rejoiced at the permission, for my curiosity was by this time raised
to fever pitch, I at once followed. Not without anxiety. The assured
poise of Mr. Blake's head seemed to argue that the confidence
betrayed by my superior might receive a shock; and I felt it would be
a serious blow to his pride to fail now. But once within the room
above, my doubts speedily fled. There was that in Mr. Gryce's face
which anyone acquainted with him could not easily mistake. Whatever
might be the mysterious something which the room contained, it was
evidently sufficient in his eyes to justify his whole conduct.

"Now sir," said Mr. Blake, turning upon my superior with his sternest
expression, "the room and its contents are before you; what have you
to say for yourself."

Mr. Gryce equally stern, if not equally composed, cast one of his
inscrutable glances round the apartment and without a word stepped
before the picture that was as I have said, the only ornamentation of
the otherwise bare and unattractive room.

I thought Mr. Blake looked surprised, but his face was not one that
lightly expressed emotion.

"A portrait of my cousin the Countess De Mirac," said he with a
certain dryness of tone hard to interpret.

Mr. Gryce bowed and for a moment stood looking with a strange lack of
interest at the proudly brilliant face of the painting before him,
then to our great amazement stepped forward and with a quick gesture
turned the picture rapidly to the wall, when--Gracious heavens! what a
vision started out before us from the reverse side of that painted
canvas! No luxurious brunette countenance now, steeped in pride and
languor, but a face--Let me see if I can describe it. But no, it was
one of those faces that are indescribable. You draw your breath as
you view it; you feel as if you had had an electric shock; but as for
knowing ten minutes later whether the eyes that so enthralled you
were blue or black, or the locks that clustered halo- like about a
forehead almost awful in its expression of weird, unfathomable power,
were brown or red, you could not nor would you pretend to say. It was
the character of the countenance itself that impressed you. You did
not even know if this woman who might have been anything wonderful or
grand you ever read of, were beautiful or not. You did not care; it
was as if you had been gazing on a tranquil evening sky and a
lightning flash had suddenly startled you. Is the lightning beautiful?
Who asks! But I know from what presently transpired, that the face
was ivory pale in complexion, the eyes deeply dark, and the hair,--
strange and uncanny combination,--of a bright and peculiar golden hue.

"You dare!" came forth in strange broken tones from Mr. Blake's lips.

I instantly turned towards him. He was gazing with a look that was
half indignant, half menacing at the silent detective who with eyes
drooped and finger directed towards the picture, seemed to be waiting
for him to finish.

"I do not understand an audacity that allows you to--to--" Was this
the haughty gentleman we had known, this hesitating troubled man with
bloodless lips and trembling hands?

"I declared my desire to justify myself," said my principal with a
respectful bow. "This is my justification. Do you note the color of
the woman's hair whose portrait hangs with its face turned to the
wall in your room? Is it like or unlike that of the strand you held
in your hand a few moments ago; a strand taken as I swear, hair by
hair from the comb of the poor creature who occupied the room above.
But that is not all," he continued as Mr. Blake fell a trifle aback;
"just observe the dress in which this woman is painted; blue silk you
see, dark and rich; a wide collar cunningly executed, you can almost
trace the pattern; a brooch; then the roses in the hand, do you see?
Now come with me upstairs."

Too much startled to speak, Mr. Blake, haughty aristocrat as he was,
turned like a little child and followed the detective who with an
assured step and unembarassed mien led the way into the deserted room
above.

"You accuse me of insulting you, when I express disbelief of your
assertion that there was no connection between you and the girl
Emily," said Mr. Gryce as he lit the gas and unlocked that famous
bureau drawer. "Will you do so any longer in face of these?" And
drawing off the towel that lay uppermost, he revealed the neatly
folded dress, wide collar, brooch and faded roses that lay beneath.
"Mrs. Daniels assures us these articles belonged to the sewing-woman
Emily; were brought here by her. Dare you say they are not the ones
reproduced in the portrait below?"

Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. "My God!
My God!" was his only reply, "what are these?" Suddenly he rose, his
whole form quivering, his eyes burning. "Where is Mrs. Daniels?" he
cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. "I must see her at
once. Send the house-keeper here," he ordered as Fanny smiling
demurely made her appearance at the door.

"Mrs. Daniels is out," returned the girl, "went out as soon as ever
you got up from dinner, sir."

"Gone out at this hour?"

"Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir."

Her master frowned. "Send her to me as soon as she returns," he
commanded, and dismissed the girl.

"I don't know what to make of this," he now said in a strange tone,
approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer
with a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be
strangely commingled. "I cannot explain the presence of these articles
in this room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to
make other matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me
to take anyone into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me
to hope any longer to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns."



CHAPTER XI

LUTTRA


"Gentlemen," said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, "you
have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the
original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the
position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will
no longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture,
strange as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife."

"Wife!" We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice
which spoke. "We were ignorant you ever had a wife."

"No doubt," continued our host smiling bitterly, "that at least has
evaded the knowledge even of the detectives." Then with a return to
his naturally courteous manner, "She was never acknowledged by me as
my wife, nor have we ever lived together, but if priestly benediction
can make a man and woman one, that woman as you see her there is my
lawful wife."

Rising, he softly turned the lovely, potent face back to the wall,
leaving us once more confronted by the dark and glowing countenance
of his cousin.

"I am not called upon," said he, "to go any further with you than
this. I have told you what no man till this hour has ever heard from
my lips, and it should serve to exonerate me from any unjust
suspicions you may have entertained. But to one of my temperament,
secret scandal and the gossip it engenders is only less painful than
open notoriety. If I leave the subject here, a thousand conjectures
will at once seize upon you, and my name if not hers will become,
before I know it, the football of gossip if not of worse and deeper
suspicion than has yet assailed me. Gentleman I take you to be honest
men; husbands, perhaps, and fathers; proud, too, in your way and
jealous of your own reputation and that of those with whom you are
connected. If I succeed in convincing you that my movements of late
have been totally disconnected with the girl whose cause you profess
solely to be interested in, may I count upon your silence as regards
those actions and the real motive that led to them?"

"You may count upon my discretion as regards all matters that do not
come under the scope of police duty," returned Mr. Gryce. "I haven't
much time for gossip."

"And your man here?"

"O, he's safe where it profits him to be."

"Very well, then, I shall count upon you."

And with the knitted brows and clinched hands of a proudly reticent
man who, perhaps for the first time in his life finds himself forced
to reveal his inner nature to the world, he began his story in these
words:

"Difficult as it is for me to introduce into a relation like this the
name of my father, I shall be obliged to do so in order to make my
conduct at a momentous crisis of my life intelligible to you. My
father, then, was a man of strong will and a few but determined
prejudices. Resolved that I should sustain the reputation of the
family for wealth and respectability, he gave me to understand from my
earliest years, that as long as I preserved my manhood from reproach,
I had only to make my wishes known, to have them immediately
gratified; while if I crossed his will either by indulging in
dissipation or engaging in pursuits unworthy of my name, I no longer
need expect the favor of his countenance or the assistance of his
purse.

"When, therefore, at a certain period of my life, I found that the
charms of my cousin Evelyn were making rather too strong an
impression upon my fancy for a secured peace of mind, I first inquired
how such a union would affect my father, and learning that it would
be in direct opposition to his views, cast about in my mind what I
should do to overcome my passion. Travel suggested itself, and I took
a trip to Europe. But the sight of new faces only awakened in me
comparisons anything but detrimental to the beauty of her who was at
that time my standard of feminine loveliness. Nature and the sports
connected with a wild life were my next resort. I went overland to
California, roamed the orange groves of Florida, and probed the
wildernesses of Canada and our Northern states. It was during these
last excursions that an event occurred which has exercised the most
material influence upon my fate, though at the time it seemed to me
no more than the matter of a day.

"I had just returned from Canada and was resting in tolerable
enjoyment of a very beautiful autumn at Lake George, when a letter
reached me from a friend then loitering in the vicinity, urging me to
join him in a certain small town in Vermont where trout streams
abounded and what is not so often the case under the circumstances,
fishers were few.

"Being in a somewhat reckless mood I at once wrote a consent, and
before another day was over, started for the remote village whence
his letter was postmarked. I found it by no means easy of access.
Situated in the midst of hills some twenty miles or so distant from
any railroad, I discovered that in order to reach it, a long ride in
a stage-coach was necessary, followed by a somewhat shorter journey on
horseback. Not being acquainted with the route, I timed my
connections wrong, so that when evening came I found myself riding
over a strange road in the darkest night I had ever known. As if this
was not enough, my horse suddenly began to limp and presently became
so lame I found it impossible to urge her beyond a slow walk. It was
therefore with no ordinary satisfaction that I presently beheld a
lighted building in the distance, which as I approached resolved
itself into an inn. Stopping in front of the house, which was closed
against the chill night air, I called out lustily for someone to take
my horse, whereupon the door opened and a man appeared on the
threshold with a lantern in his hand. I at once made my wishes known,
receiving in turn a somewhat gruff,

"'Well it is a nasty night and it will be nastier before it's over;'
an opinion instantly endorsed by a sudden swoop of wind that rushed
by at that moment, slamming the door behind him and awakening over my
head a lugubrious groaning as from the twisting boughs of some old
tree, that was almost threatening in its character.

"'You had better go in,' said he, 'the rain will come next.'

"I at once leaped from my horse and pushing open the door with main
strength, entered the house. Another man met me on the threshold who
merely pointing over his shoulder to a lighted room in his rear,
passed out without a word,to help the somewhat younger man, who had
first appeared, in putting up my horse. I at once accepted his
silent invitation and stepped into the room before me. Instantly I
found myself confronted by the rather startling vision of a young
girl of a unique and haunting style of beauty, who rising at my
approach now stood with her eyes on my face and her hands resting on
the deal table before which she had been sitting, in an attitude
expressive of mingled surprise and alarm. To see a woman in that
place was not so strange; but such a woman! Even in the first casual
glance I gave her, I at once acknowledged to myself her extraordinary
power. Not the slightness of her form, the palor of her countenance,
or the fairness of the locks of golden red hair that fell in two long
braids over her bosom, could for a moment counteract the effect of
her dark glance or the vivid almost unearthly force of her
expression. It was as if you saw a flame upstarting before you, waving
tremulously here and there, but burning and resistless in its white
heat. I took off my hat with deference.

"A shudder passed over her, but she made no effort to return my
acknowledgement. As we cast our eyes dilating with horror, down some
horrible pit upon whose verge we suddenly find ourselves, she allowed
her gaze for a moment to dwell upon my face, then with a sudden
lifting of her hand, pointed towards the door as if to bid me
depart--when it swung open with that shrill rushing of wind that
involuntarily awakes a shudder within you, and the two men entered and
came stamping up to my side. Instantly her hand sunk, not feebly as
with fear, but calmly as if at the bidding of her will, and without
waiting for them to speak, she turned away and quietly left the room.
As the door closed upon her I noticed that she wore a calico frock
and that her face did not own one perfect feature.

"'Go after Luttra and tell her to make up the bed in the northwest
room,' said the elder of the two in deep gutteral tones unmistakably
German in their accent, to the other who stood shaking the wet off his
coat into the leaping flames of a small wood fire that burned on the
hearth before us.

"'O, she'll do without my bothering,' was the sullen return. 'I'm wet
through.'

"The elder man, a large powerfully framed fellow of some fifty years
or so, frowned. It was an evil frown, and the younger one seemed to
feel it. He immediately tossed his coat onto a chair and left the
room.

"'Boys are so obstropolous now-a-days,' remarked his companion to me
with what he evidently intended for a conciliatory nod. 'In my time
they were broke in, did what they were told and asked no questions.'

"I smiled to myself at his calling the broad shouldered six-footer who
had just left us a boy, but merely remarking, 'He is your son is he
not!' seated myself before the blaze which shot up a tongue of white
flame at my approach, that irresistibly recalled to my fancy the
appearance of the girl who had gone out a moment before.

"'O, yes, he is my son, and that girl you saw here was my daughter; I
keep this inn and they help me, but it is a slow way to live, I can
tell you. Travel on these roads is slim.'

"'I should think likely,' I returned, remembering the half dozen or so
hills up which I had clambered since I took to my horse. 'How far are
we from Pentonville?'

"'O, two or three miles,' he replied, but in a hurried kind of a way.
'Not far in the daytime but a regular journey in a night like this?'

"'Yes,' said I, as the house shook under a fresh gust; 'it is
fortunate I have a place in which to put up.'

"He glanced down at my baggage which consisted of a small hand bag, an
over-coat and a fishing pole, with something like a gleam of
disappointment.

"'Going fishing?' he asked.

"'Yes,' I returned.

"'Good trout up those streams and plenty of them,' he went on. 'Going
alone?'

"I did not half like his importunity, but considering I had nothing
better to do, replied as affably as possible. 'No, I expect to meet a
friend in Pentonville who will accompany me."

"His hand went to his beard in a thoughtful attitude and he cast me
what, with my increased experience of the world, I should now
consider a sinister glance. 'Then you are expected?' said he.

"Not considering this worth reply, I stretched out my feet to the
blaze and began to warm them, for I felt chilled through.

"'Been on the road long?' he now asked, glancing at the blue flannel
suit I wore.

"'All summer,' I returned,

"I again thought he looked disappointed.

"'From Troy or New York?' he went on with a vague endeavor to appear
good naturally off hand.

"'New York.'

"'A big place that,' he continued. 'I was there once, lots of money
stored away in them big buildings down in Wall Street, eh?'

"I assented, and he drew a chair up to my side, a proceeding that was
interrupted, however, by the reentrance of his son, who without any
apology crowded into the other side of the fire-place in a way to
sandwich me between them. Not fancying this arrangement which I,
however, imputed to ignorance, I drew back and asked if my room was
ready. It seemed it was not, and unpleasantly as it promised, I felt
forced to reseat myself and join in, if not support, the conversation
that followed.

"A half hour passed away, during which the wind increased till it
almost amounted to a gale. Spurts of rain dashed against the windows
with a sharp crackling sound that suggested hail, while ever and anon
a distant roll as of rousing thunder, rumbled away among the hills in
a long and reverberating peal, that made me feel glad to be housed
even under the roof of these rude and uncongenial creatures.
Suddenly the conversation turned upon the time and time-pieces, when
in a low even tone I heard murmured behind me,

"'The gentleman's room is ready;' and turning, I saw standing in the
doorway the slight figure of the young girl whose appearance had
previously so impressed me.

"I immediately arose. 'Then I will proceed to it at once,' said I,
taking up my traps and advancing towards her.

"'Do not be alarmed if you hear creaks and cracklings all over the
house,' observed the landlord as I departed. 'The windows are loose
and the doors ill-fitting. In such a storm as this they make noise
enough to keep an army awake. The house is safe enough though and if
you don't mind noise--'

"'O I don't mind noise,' rejoined I, feeling at that moment tired
enough to fall into a doze on the staircase. 'I shall sleep, never
fear,' and without further ado followed the girl upstairs into a large
clumsily furnished room whose enormous bed draped with heavy curtains
at once attracted my attention.

"'O I cannot sleep under those things,' remarked I, with a gesture
towards the dismal draperies which to me were another name for
suffocation.

"With a single arm-sweep she threw them back. 'Is there anything more
I can do for you?' asked she, glancing hastily about the room.

"I thanked her and said 'no,' at which she at once departed with a
look of still determination upon her countenance that I found it hard
to explain.

Left alone in that large, bare and dimly lighted room, with the wind
shrieking in the chimney and the powerful limbs of some huge tree
beating against the walls without, with a heavy thud inexpressibly
mournful, I found to my surprise and something like dismay, that the
sleepiness which had hitherto oppressed me, had in some unaccountable
way entirely fled. In vain I contemplated the bed, comfortable enough
now in its appearance that the stifling curtains were withdrawn; no
temptation to invade it came to arouse me from the chair into which I
had thrown myself. It was as if I felt myself under the spell of some
invisible influence that like the eye of a basilisk, held me
enchained. I remember turning my head towards a certain quarter of
the wall as if I half expected to encounter there the bewildering
glance of a serpent. Yet far from being apprehensive of any danger, I
only wondered over the weakness of mind that made such fancies
possible.

"An extra loud swirl of the foliage without, accompanied by a quick
vibration of the house, aroused me at last. If I was to lose the
sense of this furious storm careering over my head, I must court
sleep at once. Rising, I drew off my coat, unloosened my vest and was
about to throw it off, when I bethought me of a certain wallet it
contained. Going to the door in some unconscious impulse of precaution
I suppose, I locked myself in, and then drawing out my wallet, took
from it a roll of bills which I put into a small side pocket,
returning the wallet to its old place.

"Why I did this I can scarcely say. As I have before intimated, I was
under no special apprehension. I was at that time anything but a
suspicious man, and the manner and appearance of the men below struck
me as unpleasantly disagreeable but nothing more. But I not only did
what I have related, but allowed the lamp to remain lighted, lying
down finally in my clothes; an almost unprecedented act on my part,
warranted however as I said to myself, by the fury of the gale which
at that time seemed as if it would tumble the roof over our heads.

"How long I lay listening to the creakings and groanings of the
rickety old house, I cannot say, nor how long I remained in the doze
which finally seized me as I became accustomed to the sounds around
and over me. Enough that before the storm had passed its height, I
awoke as if at the touch of a hand, and leaping with a bound out of
the bed, beheld to my incredible amazememt, the alert, nervous form of
Luttra standing before me. She had my coat in her hand, and it was
her touch that had evidently awakened me.

"'I want you to put this on,' said she in a low thrilling tone totally
new in my experience, 'and come with me. The house is unsafe for you
to remain in. Hear how it cracks and trembles. Another blast like
that and we shall be roofless.'

"She was moving toward the door, which to my amazement stood ajar, but
my hesitation stopped her.

"'Won't you come?' she whispered, turning her face towards me with a
look of such potent determination, I followed in spite of myself 'I
dare not let you stay here, your blood will be upon my head.'

"'You exaggerate,' I replied, shrinking back with a longing look at
the comfortable bed I had just left. 'These old houses are always
strong. It will take many such a gust as that you hear, to overturn
it, I assure you.'

"'I exaggerate!' she returned with a look of scorn impossible to
describe. 'Hark!' she said, 'hear that.'

"I did hear, and I must acknowledge that it seemed is if we were about
to be swept from our foundations.

"'Yes,' said I, 'but it is a fearful night to be out in.'

"'I shall go with you,' said she.

"'In that case--' I began with an ill-advised attempt at gallantry
which she cut short with a gesture.

"'Here is your hat,' remarked she, 'and here is your bag. The
fishing-pole must remain, you cannot carry it.'

"'But,--' I expostulated.

"'Hush!' said she with her ear turned towards the depths of the
staircase at the top of which we stood. 'My father and brother will
think as you do that it is folly to leave the shelter of a roof for
the uncertainties of the road on such a night as this, but you must
not heed them. I tell you shelter this night is danger, and that the
only safety to be found is on the stormy highway.'

"And without waiting for my reply, she passed rapidly down stairs,
pushed open a door at the bottom, and stepped at once into the room
we had left an hour or so before.

"What was there in that room that for the first time struck an ominous
chill as of distinct peril through my veins? Nothing at first sight,
everything at the second. The fire which had not been allowed to die
out, still burned brightly on the ruddy hearthstone, but it was not
that which awakened my apprehension. Nor was it the loud ticking
clock on the mantlepiece with its hand pointing silently to the hour
of eleven. Nor yet the heavy quiet of the scantily-furnished room with
its one lamp burning on the deal table against the side of the wall.
It was the sight of those two powerful men drawn up in grim silence,
the one against the door leading to the front hall, the other against
that opening into the kitchen.

"A glance at Luttra standing silent and undismayed at my side,
however, instantly reassured me. With that will exercised in my
favor, I could not but win through whatever it was that menaced me.
Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I made a move towards the door and
the silent figure of my host. But with a quick outreaching of her
hand, she drew me back.

"'Stand still!' said she. 'Karl,' she went on, turning her face
towards the more sullen but less intent countenance of her brother,
'open the door and let this gentleman pass. He finds the house unsafe
in such a gale and desires to leave it. At once!' she continued as
her brother settled himself more determinedly against the lock:  'I
don't often ask favors.'

"'The man is a fool that wants to go out in a night like this,' quoth
the fellow with a dogged move; 'and so are you to encourage it. I
think too much of your health to allow it.'

"She did not seem to hear. 'Will you open the door?' she went on, not
advancing a step from the fire, before which she had placed herself
and me.'

"'No, I won't,' was the brutal reply. 'Its been locked for the night
and its not me nor one like me, that will open it.'

"With a sudden whitening of her already pale face, she turned towards
her father. He was not even looking at her.

"'Some one must open the house,' said she, glancing back at her
brother. 'This gentleman purposes to leave and his whim must be
humored. Will you unlock that door or shall I?'

"An angry snarl interrupted her. Her father had bounded from the door
where he stood and was striding hastily towards her. In my
apprehension I put up my arm for a shield, for he looked ready to
murder her, but I let it drop again as l caught her glance which was
like white flame undisturbed by the least breeze of personal terror.

"'You will stop there,' said she, pointing to a spot a few feet from
where she stood. 'Another step and I let that for which I have heard
you declare you would peril your very soul, fall into the heart of the
flames.' And drawing from her breast a roll of bills, she stretched
them out above the fire before which she was standing.

"'You -----' broke from the gray-bearded lips of the old man, but he
stopped where he was, eyeing those bills as if fascinated.

"'I am not a girl of many words, as you know,' continued she in a
lofty tone inexpressibly commanding. 'You may strangle me, you may
kill me, it matters little; but this gentleman leaves the house this
night, or I destroy the money with a gesture.'

"'You -----' again broke from those quivering lips, but the old man
did not move.

"Not so the younger. With a rush he left his post and in another
instant would have had his powerful arms about her slender form, only
that I met him half way with a blow that laid him on the floor at her
feet. She said nothing, but one of the bills immediately left her hand
and fluttered into the fire where it instantly shrivelled into
nothing.

"With the yell of a mad beast wounded in his most vulnerable spot, the
old man before us stamped with his heel upon the floor.

"'Stop!' cried he; and going rapidly to the front door he opened it.
'There!' shrieked he, 'if you will be fools, go! and may the
lightning blast you. But first give me the money.'

"'Come from the door,' said she, reaching out her left hand for the
lantern hanging at the side of the fireplace, 'and let Karl light
this and keep himself out of the way.'

"It was all done. In less time than I can tell it, the old man had
stepped from the door, the younger one had lit the lantern and we
were in readiness to depart.

"'Now do you proceed,' said she to me, 'I will follow.'

"'No,' said I, 'we will go together.'

"'But the money? ' growled the heavy voice of my host over my
shoulder.

"'I will give it to you on my return,' said the girl.



CHAPTER XII

A WOMAN'S LOVE


"Shall I ever forget the blast of driving rain that struck our faces
and enveloped us in a cloud of wet, as the door swung on its hinges
and let us forth into the night; or the electric thrill that shot
through me as that slender girl grasped my hand and drew me away
through the blinding darkness. It was not that I was so much
affected by her beauty as influenced by her power and energy. The fury
of the gale seemed to bend to her will, the wind lend wings to her
feet. I began to realize what intellect was. Arrived at the roadside,
she paused and looked back. The two burly forms of the men we had left
behind us were standing in the door of the inn; in another moment
they had plunged forth and towards us. With a low cry the young girl
leaped towards a tree where to my unbounded astonishment I beheld my
horse standing ready saddled. Dragging the mare from her fastenings,
she hung the lantern, burning as it was, on the pommel of the saddle,
struck the panting creature a smart blow upon the flank, and drew back
with a leap to my side.

"The startled horse snorted, gave a plunge of dismay and started away
from us down the road.

"'We will wait,' said Luttra.

"The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her father and brother
rushed by.

"'They will follow the light,' whispered she; and seizing me again by
the hand, she hurried me away in the direction opposite to that which
the horse had taken. 'If you will trust me, I will bring you to
shelter,' she murmured, bending her slight form to the gusty wind but
relaxing not a whit of her speed.

"'You are too kind,' I murmured in return. 'Why should you expose
yourself to such an extent for a stranger?'

"Her hand tightened on mine, but she did not reply, and we hastened on
as speedily as the wind and rain would allow. After a short but
determined breasting of the storm, during which my breath had nearly
failed me, she suddenly stopped.

"'Do you know,' she exclaimed in a low impressive tone, 'that we are
on the verge of a steep and dreadful precipice? It runs along here
for a quarter of a mile and it is not an uncommon thing for a horse
and rider to be dashed over it in a night like this.'

"There was something in her manner that awakened a chill in my veins
almost as if she had pointed out some dreadful doom which I had
unwittingly escaped.

"'This is, then, a dangerous road,' I murmured.

"'Very,' was her hurried and almost incoherent reply.

"How far we travelled through the mud and tangled grasses of that
horrible road I do not know. It seemed a long distance; it was
probably not more than three quarters of a mile. At last she paused
with a short 'Here we are;' and looking up, I saw that we were in
front of a small unlighted cottage.

"No refuge ever appeared more welcome to a pair of sinking wanderers I
am sure. Wet to the skin, bedrabbled with mud, exhausted with
breasting the gale, we stood for a moment under the porch to regain
our breath, then with her characteristic energy she lifted the knocker
and struck a smart blow on the door.

"'We will find shelter here,' said she.

"She was not mistaken. In a few moments we were standing once more
before a comfortable fire hastily built by the worthy couple whose
slumbers we had thus interrupted. As I began to realize the sweetness
of conscious safety, all that this young, heroic creature had done for
me swept warmly across my mind. Looking up from the fire that was
begining to infuse its heat through my grateful system, I surveyed
her as she slowly undid her long braids and shook them dry over the
blaze, and almost started to see how young she was. Not more than
sixteen I should say, and yet what an invincible will shone from her
dark eyes and dignified her slender form; a will gentle as it was
strong, elevated as it was unbending. I bowed my head as I watched
her, in grateful thankfulness which I presently put into words.

"At once she drew herself erect. 'I did but my duty,' said she
quietly. 'I am glad I was prospered in it.' Then slowly. 'If you are
grateful, sir, will you promise to say nothing of--of what took place
at the inn?'

"Instantly I remembered a suspicion which had crossed my mind while
there, and my hand went involuntarily to my vest pocket. The roll of
bills was gone.

"She did not falter. 'I would be relieved if you would,' continued
she.

"I drew out my empty hand, looked at it, but said nothing.

"'Have you lost anything?' asked she. 'Search in your overcoat
pockets.'

"I plunged my hand into the one nearest her and drew it out with
satisfaction; the roll of bills was there. 'I give you my promise,'
said I.

"'You will find a bill missing,' she murmured; 'for what amount I do
not know; the sacrifice of something was inevitable.'

"'I can only wonder over the ingenuity you displayed, as well as
express my appreciation for your bravery,' returned I with
enthusiasm. 'You are a noble girl.'

"She put out her hand as if compliments hurt her. 'It is the first
time they have ever attempted anything like that,' cried she in a
quick low tone full of shame and suffering. 'They have shown a
disposition to--to take money sometimes, but they never threatened
life before. And they did threaten yours. They saw you take out your
money, through a hole pierced in the wall of the room you occupied,
and the sight made them mad. They were going to kill you and then
tumble you and your horse over the precipice below there. But I
overheard them talking and when they went out to saddle the horse, I
hurried up to your room to wake you. I had to take possession of the
bills; you were not safe while you held them. I took them quietly
because I hoped to save you without betraying them. But I failed in
that. You must remember they are my father and my brother.'

"'I will not betray them,' said I.

"She smiled. It was a wintry gleam but it ineffably softened her face.
I became conscious of a movement of pity towards her.

"'You have a hard lot,' remarked I. 'Your life must be a sad one.'

"She flashed upon me one glance of her dark eye. 'I was born for
hardship,' said she, 'but--' and a sudden wild shudder seized her,
'but not for crime.'

"The word fell like a drop of blood wrung from her heart.

"'Good heavens!' cried I, 'and must you--'

"'No,' rang from her lips in a clarion-like peal; 'some things cut the
very bonds of nature. I am not called upon to cleave to what will
drag me into infamy.' Then calmly, as if speaking of the most ordinary
matter in the world, 'I shall never go back to that house we have
left behind us, sir.'

"'But,' cried I, glancing at her scanty garments, 'where will you go?
What will you do? You are young--'

"'And very strong,' she interrupted. 'Do not fear for me.' And her
smile was like a burst of sudden sunshine.

"I said no more that night.

"But when in the morning I stumbled upon her sitting in the kitchen
reading a book not only above her position but beyond her years, a
sudden impulse seized me and I asked her if she would like to be
educated. The instantaneous illumining of her whole face was
sufficient reply without her low emphatic words,

"'I would be content to study on my knees to know what some women do,
whom I have seen.'

"It is not necessary for me to relate with what pleasure I caught at
the idea that here was a chance to repay in some slight measure the
inestimable favor she had done me; nor by what arguments I finally
won her to accept an education at my hands as some sort of recompense
for the life she had saved. The advantage which it would give her in
her struggle with the world she seemed duly to appreciate, but that so
great a favor could be shown her without causing me much trouble and
an unwarrantable expense, she could not at once be brought to
comprehend, and till she could, she held out with that gentle but
inflexible will of hers. The battle, however, was won at last and I
left her in that little cottage, with the understanding that as soon
as the matter could be arranged, she was to enter a certain
boarding-school in Troy with the mistress of which I was acquainted.
Meanwhile she was to go out to service at Melville and earn enough
money to provide herself with clothes.

"I was a careless fellow in those days but I kept my promise to that
girl. I not only entered her into that school for a course of three
years, but acting through its mistress who had taken a great fancy to
her, supplied her with the necessities her position required. It was
so easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was
done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any
personal sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the
labor of a thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to
the city my interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an
extent that any matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for
me.

"Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no
engagement between us. My father's determined opposition was enough
to prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped
would one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my
father. Sick as he was--he was at that time laboring under the
disease which in a couple of months later bore him to the tomb--he
kept an eye upon my movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At
last he came to a definite decision and spoke.

"His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child,
as he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to
leave me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed
disposed to commit one of those acts against which he had the most
determined prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an
unsanctified and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the
most unhappy. If I persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The
Blake estate should never descend with the seal of his approbation to
a race of probable imbeciles.

"Nor was this enough. He not only robbed me of the woman I loved, but
with a clear insight into the future, I presume, insisted upon my
marrying some one else of respectability and worth before he died.
'Anyone whose appearance will do you credit and whose virtue is beyond
reproach,' said he. 'I don't ask her to be rich or even the offspring
of one of our old families. Let her be good and pure and of no
connection to us, and I will bless her and you with my dying breath.'

"The idea had seized upon him with great force, and I soon saw he was
not to be shaken out of it. To all my objections he returned but the
one word,

"'I don't restrict your choice and I give you a month in which to make
it. If at the end of that time you cannot bring your bride to my
bedside, I must look around for an heir who will not thwart my dying
wishes.'"

"A month! I surveyed the fashionable belles that nightly thronged the
parlors of my friends and felt my heart sink within me. Take one of
them for my wife, loving another woman? Impossible. Women like
these demanded something in return for the honor they conferred upon a
man by marrying him. Wealth? they had it. Position? that was theirs
also. Consideration? ah, what consideration had I to give? I turned
from them with distaste.

"My cousin Evelyn gave me no help. She was a proud woman and loved my
money and my expectations as much as she did me.

"'If you must marry another woman to retain your wealth, marry, said
she, 'but do not marry one of my associates. I will have no rival in
my own empire; your wife must be a plainer and a less aspiring woman
than Evelyn Blake. Yet do not discredit your name, --which is mine,'
she would always add.

"Meanwhile the days flew by. If my own conscience had allowed me to
forget the fact, my father's eagerly inquiring, but sternly
unrelenting gaze as I came each evening to his bedside, would have
kept it sufficiently in my mind. I began to feel like one in the
power of some huge crushing machine whose slowly descending weight he
in vain endeavors to escape.

"How or when the thought of Luttra first crossed my mind I cannot say.
At first I recoiled at the suggestion and put it away from me in
disdain; but it ever recurred and with it so many arguments in her
favor that before long I found myself regarding it as a refuge. To be
sure she was a waif and a stray, but that seemed to be the kind of
wife demanded of me. She was allied to rogues if not villains, I
knew; but then had she not cut all connection with them, dropped away
from them, planted her feet on new ground which they would never
invade? I commenced to cherish the idea. With this friendless,
grateful, unassuming protegee of mine for a wife, I would be as
little bound as might be. She would ask nothing, and I need give
nothing, beyond a home and the common attentions required of a
gentleman and a friend. Then she was not disagreeable, nor was her
beauty of a type to suggest the charms of her I had lost. None of the
graces of the haughty patrician lady whose lightest gesture was a
command, would appear in this humble girl, to mock and constrain me.
No, I should have a fair wife and an obedient one, but no vulgarized
shadow of Evelyn, thank God, or of any of her fashionably dressed
friends.

"Advanced thus far towards the end, I went to see Luttra I had not
beheld her since the morning we parted at the door of that little
cottage in Vermont, and her presence caused me a shock. This, the
humble waif with the appealing grateful eyes I had expected to
encounter? this tall and slender creature with an aureola of golden
hair about a face that it was an education to behold! I felt a half
movement of anger as I surveyed her. I had been cheated; I had
planted a grape seed and a palm tree had sprung up in its place. I
was so taken aback, my salute lost something of the benevolent
condescension I had intended to infuse into it. She seemed to feel my
embarassment and a half smile fluttered to her lips. That smile
decided me. It was sweet but above all else it was appealing.

"How I won that woman to marry me in ten days time I care not to
state. Not by holding up my wealth and position before her.
Something restrained me from that. I was resolved, and perhaps it was
the only point of light in my conduct at that time, not to buy this
young girl. I never spoke of my expectations, I never alluded to my
present advantages yet I won her.

"We were married, there, in Troy in the quietest and most unpretending
manner. Why the fact has never transpired I cannot say. I certainly
took no especial pains to conceal it at the time, though I
acknowledge that after our separation I did resort to such measures as
I thought necessary, to suppress what had become gall and wormwood to
my pride.

"My first move after the ceremony was to bring her immediately to New
York and to this house. With perhaps a pardonable bitterness of
spirit, I had refrained from any notification of my intentions, and it
was as strangers might enter an unprepared dwelling, that we stepped
across the threshold of this house and passed immediately to my
father's room.

"'I can give you no wedding and no honeymoon,' I had told her. 'My
father is dying and demands my care. From the altar to a death-bed
may be sad for you, but it is an inevitable condition of your
marriage with me.' And she had accepted her fate with a deep
unspeakable smile it has taken me long months of loneliness and
suffering to understand.

"'Father, I bring you my bride,' were my first words to him as the
door closed behind us shutting us in with the dread, invisible
Presence that for so long a time had been relentlessly advancing upon
our home.

"I shall never forget how he roused himself in his bed, nor with what
eager eyes he read her young face and surveyed her slight form
swaying towards him in her sudden emotion like a flame in a breeze.
Nor while I live shall I lose sight of the spasm of uncontrollable
joy with which he lifted his aged arms towards her, nor the look with
which she sprang from my side and nestled, yes nestled, on the breast
that never to my remembrance had opened itself to me even in the
years of my earliest childhood. For my father was a stern man who
believed in holding love at arm's length and measured affection by the
depth of awe it inspired.

"'My daughter!' broke from his lips, and he never inquired who she was
or what; no, not even when after a moment of silence she raised her
head and with a sudden low cry of passionate longing looked in his
face and murmured,

"'I never had a father.'

"Sirs, it is impossible for me to continue without revealing depths of
pride and bitterness in my own nature, from which I now shrink with
unspeakable pain. So far from being touched by this scene, I felt
myself grow hard under it. If he had been disappointed in my choice,
queried at it or even been simply pleased at my obedience, I might
have accepted the wife I had won, and been tolerably grateful. But to
love her, admire her, glory in her when Evelyn Blake had never
succeeded in winning a glance from his eyes that was not a public
disapprobation! I could not endure it; my whole being rebelled, and a
movement like hate took possession of me.

"Bidding my wife to leave me with my father alone, I scarcely waited
for the door to close upon the poor young thing before all that had
been seething in my breast for a month, burst from me in the one cry,

"'I have brought you a daughter as you commanded me. Now give me the
blessing you promised and let me go; for I cannot live with a woman I
do not love.'

"Instantly, and before his lips could move, the door opened and the
woman I thus repudiated in the first dawning hour of her young bliss,
stood before us. My God! what a face! When I think of it now in the
night season--when from dreams that gloomy as they are, are often
elysian to the thoughts which beset me in my waking hours, I suddenly
arouse to see starting upon me from the surrounding shadows that
young fair brow with its halo of golden tresses, blotted, ay blotted
by the agony that turned her that instant into stone, I wonder I did
not take out the pistol that lay in the table near which I stood, and
shoot her lifeless on the spot as some sort of a compensation for the
misery I had caused her. I say I wonder now:  then I only thought of
braving it out.

"Straight as a dart, but with that look on her face, she came towards
us. 'Did I hear aright?' were the words that came from her lips.
'Have you married me, a woman beneath your station as I now perceive,
because you were commanded to do so? Have you not loved me? given me
that which alone makes marriage a sacrament or even a possibility?
and must you leave this house made sacred by the recumbent form of
your dying father if I remain within it?'

"I saw my father's stiff and pallid lips move silently as though he
would answer for me if he could, and summoning up what courage I
possessed, I told her that I deeply regretted she had overheard my
inconsiderate words. That I had never meant to wound her, whatever
bitterness lay in my heart towards one who had thwarted me in my
dearest and most cherished hopes. That I humbly begged her pardon and
would so far acknowledge her claim upon me as to promise that I would
not leave my home at this time, if it distressed her; my desire being
not to injure her, only to protect myself.

"O the scorn that mounted to her brow at these weak words. Not scorn
of me, thank God, worthy as I was of it that hour, but scorn of my
slight opinion of her.

"'Then I heard aright,' she murmured, and waited with a look that
would not be gainsaid.

"I could only bow my head, cursing the day I was born.

"'Holman! Holman!' came in agonized entreaty from the bed, 'you will
not rob me of my daughter now?'

"Startled, I looked up. Luttra was half way to the door.

"'What are you going to do?' cried I, bounding towards her.

"She stopped me with a look. 'The son must never forsake the father,'
said she. 'If either of us must leave the house this day, let it be
I.' Then in a softer tone, 'When you asked me to be your wife, I who
had worshipped you from the moment you entered my father's house on
the memorable night I left it, was so overcome at your condescension
that I forgot you did not preface it by the usual passionate, 'I love
you,' which more than the marriage ring binds two hearts together. In
the glamour and glow of my joy, I did not see that the smile that was
in my heart, was missing from your face. I was to be your wife and
that was enough, or so I thought then, for I loved you. Ah, and I do
now, my husband, love you so that I leave you. Were it for your
happiness I would do more than that, I would give you back your
freedom, but from what I hear, it seems that you need a wife in name
and I will be but fulfilling your desire in holding that place for
you. I will never disgrace the position high as it is above my poor
deserts. When the day comes--if the day comes--that you need or feel
you need the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart,
no power on earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your
side. Till that day arrives I remain what you have made me, a bride
who lays no claim to the name you this morning bestowed upon her.' And
with a gesture that was like a benediction, she turned, and
noiselessly, breathlessly as a dream that vanishes, left the room.

"Sirs, I believe I uttered a cry and stumbled towards her. Some one in
that room uttered a cry, but it may be that it only rose in my heart
and that the one I heard came from my father's lips. For when at the
door I turned, startled at the deathly silence, I saw he had fainted
on his pillow. I could not leave him so. Calling to Mrs. Daniels,
who was never far from my father in those days, I bade her stop the
lady--I believe I called her my wife--who was going down the stairs,
and then rushed to his side. It took minutes to revive him. When he
came to himself it was to ask for the creature who had flashed like a
beacon of light upon his darkening path. I rose as if to fetch her
but before I could advance I heard a voice say, 'She is not here,'
and looking up I saw Mrs. Daniels glide into the room.

"'Mrs. Blake has gone, sir, I could not keep her.'



CHAPTER XIII

A MAN'S HEART


"That was the last time my eyes ever I rested upon my wife. Whither
she went or what refuge she gained, I never knew. My father who had
received in this scene a great shock, began to fail so rapidly, he
demanded my constant care; and though from time to time as I
ministered to him and noted with what a yearning persistency he would
eye the door and then turn and meet my gaze with a look I could not
understand, I caught myself asking whether I had done a deed destined
to hang forever about me like a pall; it was not till after his death
that the despairing image of the bright young creature to whom I had
given my name, returned with any startling distinctness to my mind, or
that I allowed myself to ask whether the heavy gloom which I now felt
settling upon me was owing to the sense of shame that overpowered me
at the remembrance of the past, or to the possible loss I had
sustained in the departure of my young unloved bride.

"The announcement at this time of the engagement between Evelyn Blake
and the Count De Mirac may have had something to do with this. Though
I had never in the most passionate hours of my love for her, lost
sight of that side of her nature which demanded as her right the
luxury of great wealth; and though in my tacit abandonment of her and
secret marriage with another I had certainly lost the right to
complain of her actions whatever they might be, this manifest
surrendering of herself to the power of wealth and show at the price
of all that women are believed to hold dear, was an undoubted blow to
my pride and the confidence I had till now unconsciously reposed in
her inherent womanliness and affection. That she had but made on a
more conspicuous scale, the same sacrifice as myself to the god of
Wealth and Position, was in my eyes at that time, no palliation of
her conduct. I was a man none too good or exalted at the best; she, a
woman, should have been superior to the temptations that overpowered
me. That she was not, seemed to drag all womanhood a little nearer
the dust; fashionable womanhood I ought to say, for somehow even at
that early day her conduct did not seem to affect the vivid image of
Luttra standing upon my threshold, shorn of her joy but burning with
a devotion I did not comprehend, and saying,

"'I loved you. Ah, and I do yet, my husband, love you so that I leave
you. When the day comes--if the day comes--you need or feel you need
the sustainment of my presence or the devotion of my heart, no power
on earth save that of death itself, shall keep me from your side.'

"Yes, with the fading away of other faces and other forms, that face
and that form now began to usurp the chief place in my thoughts. Not
to my relief and pleasure. That could scarcely be, remembering all
that had occurred; rather to my increasing distress and passionate
resentment. I longed to forget I was held by a tie, that known to
the world would cause me the bitterest shame. For by this time the
true character of her father and brother had been revealed and I
found myself bound to the daughter of a convicted criminal.

"But I could not forget her. The look with which she had left me was
branded into my consciousness. Night and day it floated before me,
till to escape it I resolved to fasten it upon canvas, if by that
means I might succeed in eliminating it from my dreams.

"The painting you have seen this night is the result. Born with an
artist's touch and insight that under other circumstances might,
perhaps, have raised me into the cold dry atmosphere of fame, the
execution of this piece of work, presented but few difficulties to my
somewhat accustomed hand. Day by day her beauty grew beneath my
brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance
till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely
refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the
floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever
turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew
my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in
the ardent years of my first manhood.

"At last it was finished and she stood before me life-like and real in
the very garments and with almost the very aspect of that never to be
forgotten moment. Even the roses which in the secret uneasiness of my
conscience I had put in her hand on our departure from Troy, as a sort
of visible token that I regarded her as my bride, and which through
all her interview with my father she had never dropped, blossomed
before me on the canvas. Nothing that could give reality to the
likeness, was lacking; the vision of my dreams stood embodied in my
sight, and I looked for peace. Alas, that picture now became my
dream.

"Inserting it behind that of Evelyn which for two years had held its
place above my armchair, I turned its face to the wall when I rose in
the morning. But at night it beamed ever upon me, becoming as the
months passed, the one thing to hold to and muse over when the world
grew a little noisy in my ears and the never ceasing conflict of the
ages beat a trifle too loudly on heart and brain.

"Meanwhile no word of her, only of her villainous father and brother;
no token that she had escaped evil or was removed from want. If I had
loved her I could not have succored her, for I did not know where to
find her. Her countenance illumined my wall, but her fair young self
lay for all I knew sheltered within the darkness and silence of the
tomb.

"At length my morbid broodings worked out their natural result. A
dull melancholy settled upon me which nothing could break. Even the
news that my cousin who had lost her husband a month after marriage,
had returned to America with expectation to remain, scarcely caused a
ripple in my apathy. Was I sinking into a hypochrondriac? or was my
passion for the beautiful brunette dead? I determined to solve the
doubt.

"Seeking her where I knew she would be found, I gazed again upon her
beauty. It was absolutely nothing to me. A fair young face with high
thoughts in every glance floated like sunshine between us and I left
the haughty Countess, with the knowledge burned deep into my brain,
that the love I had considered slain was alive and demanding, but
that the object of it past recall, was my lost young wife.

"Once assured of this, my apathy vanished like mist before a kindled
torch. Henceforth the future held a hope, and life a purpose. I would
seek my wife throughout the world and bring her back if I found her
in prison between the men whose existence was a curse to my pride. But
where should I turn my steps? What golden thread had she left in my
hand by which to trace her through the labyrinth of this world? I
could think of but one, and that was the love which would restrain her
from going away from me too far. The Luttra of old would not leave
the city where her husband lived. If she was not changed, I ought to
be able to find her somewhere within this great Babylon of ours.
Wisdom told me to set the police upon her track, but pride bade me
try every other means first. So with the feverish energy of one
leading a forlorn hope, I began to pace the streets if haply I might
see her face shine upon me from the crowd of passers by; a foolish
fancy, unproductive of result! I not only failed to see her, but
anyone like her.

In the midst of the despair occasioned by this failure a thought
flashed across me or rather a remembrance. One night not long since,
being uncommonly restless, I had risen from my bed, dressed me and
gone out into the yard back of my house for a little air. It was an
unusual thing for me to do but I seemed to be suffocating where I
was, and nothing else would satisfy me. As you already surmise, it was
the night on which disappeared the sewing girl of which you have so
often spoken, but I knew nothing of that, my thoughts were far from
my own home and its concerns. You may judge what a state of mind I was
in when I tell you that I even thought at one moment while I paused
before the gate leading into --- Street that I saw the face of her
with whom my thoughts were ever busy, peering upon me through the
bars.

"You tell me that I did see a girl there, and that it was the one who
had lived as sewing woman in my house; it may be so, but at the time
I considered it a vision of my wife, and the remembrance of it,
coming as it did after my repeated failures to encounter her in the
street, worked a change in my plans. For regard it as weakness or
not, the recollection that the vision I had seen wore the garments of
a working- woman rather than a lady, acted upon me like a warning not
to search for her any longer among the resorts of the welldressed,
but in the regions of poverty and toil. I therefore took to
wanderings such as I have no heart to describe. Nor do I need to, if,
as you have informed me, I have been followed.

"The result was almost madness. Though deep in my heart I felt a
steadfast trust in the purity of her intentions, the fear of what she
might have been driven to by the awful poverty and despair I every day
saw seething about me, was like hot steel in brain and heart. Then
her father and her brother! To what might they not have forced her,
innocent and loving soul though she was! Drinking the dregs of a cup
such as I had never considered it possible for me to taste, I got so
far as to believe that her eyes would yet flash upon me from beneath
some of the tattered shawls I saw sullying the forms of the young
girls upon which I hourly stumbled. Yes, and even made a move to
see my cousin, if haply I could so win upon her compassion as to gain
her consent to shelter the poor creature of my dreams in case the
necessity came. But my heart failed me at the sight of her cold face
above the splendor she had bought with her charms, and I was saved a
humiliation I might never have risen above.

"At last, one day I saw a girl--no, it was not she, but her hair was
similar to hers in hue, and the impulse to follow her was
irresistible. I did more than that, I spoke to her. I asked her if she
could tell me anything of one whose locks were golden red like
hers--But I need not tell you what I said nor what she replied with a
gentle delicacy that was almost a shock to me as showing from what
heights to what depths a woman can fall. Enough that nothing passed
between us beyond what I have intimated, and that in all she said she
gave me no news of Luttra.

"Next day I started for the rambling old house in Vermont, if haply in
the spot where I first saw her, I might come upon some clue to her
present whereabouts. But the old inn was deserted, and whatever hope
I may have had in that direction, perished with the rest.

"Concerning the contents of that bureau-drawer above, I can say
nothing. If, as I scarcely dare to hope, they should prove to have
been indeed brought here by the girl who has since disappeared so
strangely, who knows but what in those folded garments a clue is given
which will lead me at last to the knowledge for which I would now
barter all I possess. My wife--But I can mention her name no more till
the question that now assails us is set at rest. Mrs. Daniels must--"

But at that moment the door opened and Mrs. Daniels came in.



CHAPTER XIV

MRS. DANIELS


She still wore her bonnet and shawl and her face was like marble.

"You want me?" said she with a hurried look towards Mr. Blake that had
as much fear as surprise in it.

"Yes," murmured that gentleman moving towards her with an effort we
could very well appreciate. "Mrs. Daniels, who was the girl you
harbored in that room above us for so long? Speak; what was her name
and where did she come from?"

The housekeeper trembling in every limb, cast us one hurried appeal.

"Speak!" reechoed Mr. Gryce; "the time for secrecy has passed."

"O," cried she, sinking into a chair from sheer inability to stand,
"it was your wife, Mr. Blake, the young creature you--"

"Ah!"

All the agony, the hopelessness, the love, the passion of those last
few months flashed up in that word. She stopped as if she had been
shot, but seeing the hand which he had hurriedly raised, fall slowly
before him, went on with a burst,

"O sir, she made me swear on my knees I would never betray her, no
matter what happened. When not two weeks after your father died she
came to the house and asking for me, told me all her story and all
her love; how she could not reconcile it with her idea of a wife's
duty to live under any other roof than that of her husband, and
lifting off the black wig which she wore, showed me how altered she
had made herself by that simple change--in her case more marked by
the fact that her eyes were in keeping with black hair, while with
her own bright locks they always gave you a shock as of something
strange and haunting--I gave up my will as if forced by a magnetic
power, and not only opened the house to her but my heart as well;
swearing to all she demanded and keeping my oath too, as I would
preserve my soul from sin and my life from the knife of the
destroyer."

"But, when she went," broke from the pallid lips of the man before
her, "when she was taken away from the house, what then?"

"Ah," returned the agitated woman. "what then! Do you not think I
suffered? To be held by my oath, an oath I was satisfied she would
wish kept even at this crisis, yet knowing all the while she was
drifting away into some evil that you, if you knew who she was, would
give your life to avert from your honor if not from her innocent
head! To see you cold, indifferent, absorbed in other things, while
she, who would have perished any day for your happiness, was losing
her life perhaps in the clutches of those horrible villains! Do not
ask me to tell you what I have suffered since she went; I can never
tell you,-- innocent, tender, noble-hearted creature that she was."

"Was?" His hand clutched his heart as if it had been seized by a
deathly spasm. "Why do you say was?"

"Because I have just come from the Morgue where she lies dead."

"No, no," came in a low shriek from his lips, "that is not she; that
is another woman, like her perhaps, but not she."

"Would to God you were right; but the long golden braids! Such hair as
hers I never saw on anyone before."

"Mr. Blake is right," I broke in, for I could not endure this scene
any longer. "The woman taken out of the East river to-day has been
both seen and spoken to by him and that not long since. He should
know if it is his wife."

"And isn't it?"

"No, a thousand times no; the girl was a perfect stranger."

The assurance seemed to lift a leaden weight from her heart. "O thank
God," she murmured dropping with an irresistible impulse on her
knees. Then with a sudden return of her old tremble, "But I was only
to reveal her secret in case of her death! What have I done, O what
have I done! Her only hope lay in my faithfulness."

Mr. Blake leaning heavily on the table before him, looked in her face.

"Mrs. Daniels," said he, "I love my wife; her hope now lies in me."

She leaped to her feet with a joyous bound. "You love her? O thank
God!" she again reiterated but this time in a low murmur to her self.
"Thank God!" and weeping with unrestrained joy, she drew back into a
corner.

Of course after that, all that remained for us to do was to lay our
heads together and consult as to the best method of renewing our
search after the unhappy girl, now rendered of double interest to us
by the facts with which we had just been made acquainted. That she
had been forced away from the roof that sheltered her by the power of
her father and brother was of course no longer open to doubt. To
discover them, therefore, meant to recover her. Do you wonder, then,
that from the moment we left Mr. Blake's house, the capture of that
brace of thieves became the leading purpose of our two lives?



CHAPTER XV

A CONFAB


Next morning Mr. Gryce and I met in serious consultation. How, and in
what direction should we extend the inquiries necessary to a
discovery of these Schoenmakers?

"I advise a thorough overhauling of the German quarter," said my
superior. "Schmidt, and Rosenthal will help us and the result ought to
be satisfactory."

But I shook my head at this. "I don't believe," said I, "that they
will hide among their own people. You must remember they are not
alone, but have with them a young woman of a somewhat distinguished
appearance, whose presence in a crowded district, like that, would be
sure to awaken gossip; something which above all else they must want
to avoid."

"That is true; the Germans are a dreadful race for gossip."

"If they dared to ill-dress her or ill-treat her, it would be
different. But she is a valuable piece of property to them you see, a
choice lot of goods which it is for their interest to preserve in
first-class condition till the day comes for its disposal. For I
presume you have no doubt that it is for the purpose of extorting
money from Mr. Blake that they have carried off his young wife."

"For that reason or one similar. He is a man of resources, they may
have hoped he would help them to escape the country."

"If they don't hide in the German quarter they certainly won't in the
Italian, French or Irish. What they want is too keep close and rouse
no questions. I think they will be found to have gone up the river
somewhere, or over to Jersey. Hoboken would'nt be a bad place to send
Schmidt to."

"You forget what it is they've got on their minds; besides no
conspicuous party such as they could live in a rural district without
attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in
the city."

"Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go?"

"Well my most matured thought on the subject," returned Mr. Gryce,
after a moment's deliberation, "is this,--you say, and I agree, that
they have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the
purpose of using her hereafter in a scheme of black-mail upon Mr.
Blake. He, then, must be the object about which their thoughts
revolve and toward which whatever operations or plans they may be
engaged upon must tend. What follows? When a company of men have made
up their minds to rob a bank, what is the first thing they do? They
hire, if possible, a house next to the especial building they intend
to enter, and for months work upon the secret passage through which
they hope to reach the safe and its contents; or they make friends
with the watchman that guards its treasures, and the janitor who opens
and shuts the doors. In short they hang about their prey before they
pounce upon it. And so will these Schoenmakers do in the somewhat
different robbery which they plan sooner or later to effect. Whatever
may keep them close at this moment, Mr. Blake and Mr. Blake's house is
the point toward which their eyes are turned, and if we had time--"

"But we have'nt," I broke in impetuously. "It is horrible to think of
that grand woman languishing away in the power of such rascals."

"If we had time," Mr. Gryce persisted, "all it would be necessary to
do would be to wait, they would come into our hands as easily and
naturally as a hawk into the snare of the fowler. But as you say we
have not, and therefore, I would recommend a little beating of the
bush directly about Mr. Blake's house; for if all my experience is
not at fault, those men are already within eye-shot of the prey they
intend to run down."

"But," said I, "I have been living myself in that very neighborhood
and know by this time the ways of every house in the vicinity. There
is not a spot up and down the Avenue for ten blocks where they could
hide away for two days much less two weeks. And as for the side
streets,--why I could tell you the names of those who live in each
house for a considerable distance. Yet if you say so I will go to
work--"

"Do, and meanwhile Schmidt and Rosenthal shall rummage the German
quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end
justifies any amount of labor that can be spent upon this matter."

"And you," I asked.

"Will do my part when you have done yours."



CHAPTER XVI

THE MARK OF THE RED CROSS


And what success did I meet? The best in the world. And by what means
did I attain it? By that of the simplest, prettiest clue I ever came
upon. But let me explain.

When after a wearisome day spent in an ineffectual search through the
neighborhood, I went home to my room, which as you remember was a
front one in a lodging-house on the opposite corner from Mr. Blake, I
was so absorbed in mind and perhaps I may say shaken in nerve, by the
strain under which I had been laboring for some time now, that I
stumbled up an extra flight of stairs, and without any suspicion of
the fact, tried the door of the room directly over mine. It is a
wonder to me now that I could have made the mistake, for the halls
were totally dissimilar, the one above being much more cut up than the
one below, besides being flanked by a greater number of doors. But the
intoxication of the mind is not far removed from that of the body, and
as I say it was not till I had tried the door and found it locked,
that I became aware of the mistake I had made.

With the foolish sense of shame that always overcomes us at the
committal of any such trivial error, I stumbled hastily back, when my
foot trod upon something that broke under my weight. I never let even
small things pass without some notice. Stooping, then, for what I had
thus inadvertently crushed, I carried it to where a single gas jet
turned down very low, made a partial light in the long hall, and
examining it, found it to be a piece of red chalk.

What was there in that simple fact to make me start and hastily recall
one or two half-forgotten incidents which, once brought to mind,
awoke a train of thought that led to the discovery and capture of
those two desperate thieves? I will tell you.

I don't remember now whether in my account of the visit I paid to the
Schoenmakers' house in Vermont, I informed you of the red cross I
noticed scrawled on the panel of one of the doors. It seemed a
trivial thing at the time and made little or no impression upon me,
the chances being that I should never have thought of it again, if I
had not come upon the article just mentioned at a moment when my mind
was full of those very Schoenmakers. But remembered now, together
with another half-forgotten fact,--that some days previous I had been
told by the woman who kept the house I was in, that the parties over
my head (two men and a woman I believe she said) were giving her some
trouble, but that they paid well and therefore she did not like to
turn them out,--it aroused a vague suspicion in my mind, and led to my
walking back to the door I had endeavored to open in my abstraction,
and carefully looking at it.

It was plain and white, rather ruder of make than those below, but
offering no inducements for prolonged scrutiny. But not so with the
one that stood at right angles to it on the left. Full in the centre
of that, I beheld distinctly scrawled, probably with the very piece
of chalk I then held, a red cross precisely similar in outline to the
one I had seen a few days before on the panel of the Schoenmakers'
door at Granby.

The discovery sent a thrill over me that almost raised my hair on end.
Was, then, this famous trio to be found in the very house in which I
had been myself living for a week or more? over my head in fact? I
could not withdraw my gaze from the mysterious looking object. I bent
near, I listened, I heard what sounded like the suppressed snore of a
powerful man, and almost had to lay hold of myself to prevent my hand
from pushing open that closed door and my feet from entering. As it
was I did finger the knob a little, but an extra loud snore from
within reminded me by its suggestion of strength that I was but a
small man and that in this case and at this hour, discretion was the
better part of valor.

I therefore withdrew, but for the whole night lay awake listening to
catch any sounds that might come from above, and going so far as to
plan what I would do if it should be proved that I was indeed upon
the trail of the men I was so anxious to encounter.

With the breaking of day I was upon my feet. A rude step had gone up
the stairs a few minutes before and I was all alert to follow. But I
presently considered that my wisest course would be to sound the
landlady and learn if possible with what sort of characters I had to
deal. Routing her out of the kitchen, where at that early hour she
was already engaged in domestic duties, I drew her into a retired
corner and put my questions. She was not backward in replying. She
had conceived an innocent liking for me in the short time I had been
with her--a display of weakness for which I was myself, perhaps, as
much to blame as she--and was only too ready to pour out her griefs
into my sympathizing ear. For those men were a grief to her,
acceptable as was the money they were careful to provide her with.
They were not only always in the house, that is one of them, smoking
his old pipe and blackening up the walls, but they looked so shabby,
and kept the girl so close, and if they did go out, came in at such
unheard of hours. It was enough to drive her crazy; yet the money,
the money--

"Yes," said I, "I know; and the money ought to make you overlook all
the small disagreeablenesses you mention. What is a landlady without
patience." And I urged her not to turn them out.

"But the girl," she went on, "so nice, so quiet, so sick-looking! I
cannot stand it to see her cooped up in that small room, always
watched over by one or both of those burly wretches. The old man says
she is his daughter and she does not deny it, but I would as soon
think of that little rosy child you see cooing in the window over the
way, belonging to the beggar going in at the gate, as of her with her
lady-like ways having any connection with him and his rough-acting
son. You ought to see her--"

"That is just what I want to do," interrupted I. "Not because you have
tempted my fancy by a recital of her charms," I hastened to add, "but
because she is, if I don't mistake, a woman for whose discovery and
rescue, a large sum of money has been offered."

And without further disguise I acquainted the startled woman before me
with the fact that I was not, as she had always considered, the clerk
out of employment whose daily business it was to sally forth in quest
of a situation, but a member of the city police.

She was duly impressed and easily persuaded to second all my
operations as far as her poor wits would allow, giving me free range
of her upper story, and above all, promising that secrecy without
which all my finely laid plans for capturing the rogues without
raising a scandal, would fall headlong to the ground.

Behold me, then, by noon of that same day domiciled in an apartment
next to the one whose door bore that scarlet sign which had aroused
within me such feverish hopes the night before. Clad in the seedy
garments of a broken down French artist whose acquaintance I had once
made, with something of his air and general appearance and with a few
of his wretched daubs hung about on the whitewashed wall, I commenced
with every prospect of success as I thought, that quiet espionage of
the hall and its inhabitants which I considered necessary to a proper
attainment of the end I had in view.

A racking cough was one of the peculiarities of my friend, and
determined to assume the character in toto, I allowed myself to
startle the silence now and then with a series of gasps and chokings
that whether agreeable or not, certainly were of a character to show
that I had no desire to conceal my presence from those I had come
among. Indeed it was my desire to acquaint them as fully and as soon
as possible with the fact of their having a neighbor:  a weak-eyed
half-alive innocent to be sure, but yet a neighbor who would keep his
door open night and day--for the warmth of the hall of course--and who
with the fretful habit of an old man who had once been a gentleman
and a beau, went rambling about through the hall speaking to those he
met and expecting a civil word in return. When he was not rambling or
coughing he made architectural monsters out of cardboard, wherewith
to tempt the pennies out of the pockets of unwary children, an
employment that kept him chained to a small table in the centre of his
room directly opposite the open door.

As I expected I had scarcely given way to three separate fits of
coughing, when the door next me opened with a jerk and a rough voice
called out,

"Who's that making all that to do about here? If you don't stop that
infernal noise in a hurry--"

A soft voice interrupted him and he drew back. "I will go see," said
those gentle tones, and Luttra Blake, for I knew it was she before
the skirt of her robe had advanced beyond the door, stepped out into
the hall.

I was yet bent over my work when she paused before me. The fact is I
did not dare look up, the moment was one of such importance to me.

"You have a dreadful cough," said she with that low ring of sympathy
in her voice that goes unconsciously to the heart. "Is there no help
for it?"

I pushed back my work, drew my hand over my eyes, (I did not need to
make it tremble) and glanced up. "No," said I with a shake of my
head, "but it is not always so bad. I beg your pardon, miss, if it
disturbs you."

She threw back the shawl which she had held drawn tightly over her
head, and advanced with an easy gliding step close to my side. "You
do not disturb me, but my father is--is, well a trifle cross
sometimes, and if he should speak up a little harsh now and then, you
must not mind. I am sorry you are so ill."

What is there in some women's look, some women's touch that more than
all beauty goes to the heart and subdues it. As she stood there
before me in her dark worsted dress and coarse shawl, with her locks
simply braided and her whole person undignified by art and ungraced by
ornament, she seemed just by the power of her expression and the
witchery of her manner, the loveliest woman I had ever beheld.

"You are veree kind, veree good," I murmured, half ashamed of my
disguise, though it was assumed for the purpose of rescuing her.
"Your sympathy goes to my heart." Then as a deep growl of impatience
rose from the room at my side, I motioned her to go and not irritate
the man who seemed to have such control over her.

"In a minute," answered she, "first tell me what you are making."

So I told her and in the course of telling, let drop such other facts
about my fancied life as I wished to have known to her and through
her to her father. She looked sweetly interested and more than once
turned upon me that dark eye, of which I had heard so much, full of
tears that were as much for me, scamp that I was, as for her own
secret trouble. But the growls becoming more and more impatient she
speedily turned to go, repeating, however, as she did so,

"Now remember what I say, you are not to be troubled if they do speak
cross to you. They make noise enough themselves sometimes, as you
will doubtless be assured of to-night."

And the lips which seemed to have grown stiff and cold with her
misery, actually softened into something like a smile.

The nod which I gave her in return had the solemity of a vow in it.

My mind thus assured as to the correctness of my suspicions, and the
way thus paved to the carrying out of my plans, I allowed some few
days to elapse without further action on my part. My motive was to
acquaint myself as fully as possible with the habits and ways of these
two desperate men, before making the attempt to capture them upon
which so many interests hung. For while I felt it would be highly
creditable to my sagacity, as well as valuable to my reputation as a
detective, to restore these escaped convicts in any way possible into
the hands of justice, my chief ambition after all was to so manage the
affair as to save the wife of Mr. Blake, not only from the
consequences of their despair, but from the publicity and scandal
attendant upon the open arrest of two heavily armed men. Strategy,
therefore, rather than force was to be employed, and strategy to be
successful must be founded upon the most thorough knowledge of the
matter with which one has to deal. Three days, then, did I give to the
acquiring of that knowledge, the result of which was the possession
of the following facts.

1. That the landlady was right when she told me the girl was never
left alone, one of the men, if not the father then the son, always
remaining with her.

2. That while thus guarded, she was not so restricted but that she had
the liberty of walking in the hall,though never for any length of
time.

3. That the cross on the door seemed to possess some secret meaning
connected with their presence in the house, it having been erased one
evening when the whole three went out on some matter or other, only
to be chalked on again when in an hour or so later, father and
daughter returned alone.

4. That it was the father and not the son who made such purchases as
were needed, while it was the son and not the father who carried on
whatever operations they had on hand; nightfall being the favorite
hour for the one and midnight for the other; though it not
infrequently happened that the latter sauntered out for a short time
also in the afternoon, probably for the drink he could not go long
without.

5. That they were men of great strength but little alertness; the
stray glimpses I had had of them, revealing a breadth of back that
was truly formidable, if it had not been joined to a heaviness of
motion that proclaimed a certain stolidity of mind that was eminently
in our favor.

How best to use these facts in the building up of a matured plan of
action, was, then, the problem. By noon of a certain day I believed
it to have been solved, and reluctant as I was to leave the spot of my
espionage even for the hour or two necessary to a visit to
headquarters, I found myself compelled to do so. Packing up in a
small basket I had for the purpose, the little articles I had been
engaged during the last few days in making, I gave way to a final fit
of coughing so hollow aud sepulchural in its tone, that it awoke a
curse from the next room deep as the growl of a wild beast, and still
continuing, finally brought Luttra to the door with that look of
compassion on her face that always called up a flush to my cheek
whether I wished it or no.

"Ah, Monsieur, I am afraid your cough is very bad to-day. O I see; you
have been getting ready to go out--"

"Come back here," broke in a heavy voice from the room she had left.
"What do you mean by running off to palaver with that old rascal
every time he opens his ----- battery of a cough?"

A smile that went through me like the cut of a knife, flashed for a
moment on her face.

"My father is in one of his impatient moods," said she, "you had
better go. I hope you will be successful," she murmured, glancing
wistfully at my basket.

"What is that?" again came thundering on our ears. "Successful? What
are you two up to?" And we heard the rough clatter of advancing
steps.

"Go," said she; "you are weak and old; and when you come back, try and
not cough." And she gave me a gentle push towards the door.

"When I come back," I began, but was forced to pause, the elder
Schoenmaker having by this time reached the open doorway where he
stood frowning in upon us in a way that made my heart stand still for
her.

"What are you two talking about?" said he; "and what have you got in
your basket there?" he continued with a stride forward that shook the
floor.

"Only some little toys that he has been making, and is now going out
to sell," was her low answer given with a quick deprecatory gesture
such as I doubt if she ever used for herself.

"Nothing more?" asked he in German with a red glare in the eye he
turned towards her.

"Nothing more," replied she in the same tongue. "You may believe me."

He gave a deep growl and turned away. "If there was," said he, "you
know what would happen." And unheeding the wild keen shudder that
seized her at the word, making her insensible for the moment to all
and everything about her, he laid one heavy hand upon her slight
shoulder and led her from the room.

I waited no longer than was necessary to carry my feeble and faltering
steps appropriately down the stairs, to reach the floor below and
gain the landlady's presence.

"Do you go up," said I, "and sit on those stairs till I come back. If
you hear the least cry of pain or sound of struggle from that young
girl's room, do you call at once for help. I will have a policeman
standing on the corner below."

The good woman nodded and proceeded at once to take up her
work-basket. "Lucky there's a window up there, so I can see," I
heard her mutter. "I've no time to throw away even on deeds of
charity."

Notwithstanding which precaution, I was in constant anxiety during my
absence; an absence necessarily prolonged as I had to stop and
explain matters to the Superintendent, as well as hunt up Mr. Gryce
and get his consent to assist me in the matter of the impending
arrest.

I found the latter in his own home and more than enthusiastic upon the
subject.

"Well," said he after I had informed him of the discoveries I had
made, "the fates seem to prosper you in this. I have not received an
inkling of light upon the matter since I parted from you at Mr.
Blake's house. By the way I saw that gentleman this morning and I
tell you we will find him a grateful man if this affair can be
resolved satisfactorily,"

'That is good," said I," gratitude is what we want." Then shortly,
"Perhaps it is no more than our duty to let him know that his wife is
safe and under my eye; though I would by no means advocate his
knowing just how near him she is, till the moment comes when he is
wanted, or we shall have a lover's impetuosity to deal with as well
as all the rest." Then with a hurried rememberance of a possible
contingency, went on to say, "But, by the way, in case we should need
the cooperation of Mrs. Blake in what we have before us, you had
better get a line written in French from Mrs. Daniels, expressive of
her belief in Mr. Blake's present affection for his wife. The latter
will not otherwise trust us, or understand that we are to be obeyed
in whatever we may demand. Let it be unsigned and without names in
case of accident; and if the housekeeper don't understand French,
tell her to get some one to help her that does, only be sure that the
handwriting employed is her own.

Mr. Gryce seemed to perceive the wisdom of this precaution and
promised to procure me such a note by a certain hour, after which I
related to him the various other details of the capture such as I had
planned it, meeting to my secret gratification an unqualified approval
that went far towards alleviating that wound to my pride which I had
received from him in the beginning of this affair.

"Let all things proceed as you have determined, and we shall
accomplish something that it will be a life-long satisfaction to
remember," said he; "but you must be prepared for some twist of the
screw which you do not anticipate. I never knew anything to go off
just as one prognosticates it must, except once," he added
thoughtfully, "and then it was with a surprise attached to it that
well nigh upset me notwithstanding all my preparations."

"You won a great success that day," remarked I. "I hope the fates will
be as propitious to me to- morrow. Failure now would break my heart."

"But you won't fail," exclaimed he. "I myself am resolved to see you
through this matter with credit."

And in this assurance I returned to my lodgings where I found the
landlady sitting where I had left her, darning her twenty-third sock.

"I have to mend for a dozen men and three boys," said she, "and the
boys are the worst by a heap sight. Look at that, will you," holding
up a darn with a bit of stocking attached. "That hole was made
playing shinny."

I uttered my condolences and asked if any sound or disturbance had
reached her ears from above.

"O no, all is right up there; I've scarcely heard a whisper since
you've been gone."

I gave her a pat on the chin scarcely consistent with my aged and
tottering mien and proceeded to shamble painfully to my room.



CHAPTER XVII

THE CAPTURE


Promptly next morning at the designated hour, came the little note
promised me by Mr. Gryce. It was put in my hand with many sly winks
by the landlady herself, who developed at this crisis quite an
adaptation for, if not absolute love of intrigue and mystery. Glancing
over it--it was unsealed--and finding it entirely unintelligible, I
took it for granted it was all right and put it by till chance, or if
that failed, strategy, should give me an opportunity to communicate
with Mrs. Blake. An hour passed; the doors of their rooms remained
unclosed. A half hour more dragged its slow minutes away, and no sound
had come from their precincts save now and then a mumbled word of
parley between the father and son, a short command to the daughter,
or a not-to-be-restrained oath of annoyance from one or both of the
heavy- limbed brutes as something was said or done to disturb them in
their indolent repose. At last my impatience was to be no longer
restrained. Rising, I took a bold resolution. If the mountain would
not come to Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain. Taking my
letter in the hand, I deliberately proceeded to the door marked with
the ominous red cross and knocked.

A surprised snarl from within, followed by a sudden shuffling of feet
as the two men leaped upright from what I presume had been a recumbent
position, warned me to be ready to face defiance if not the fury of
despair; and curbing with a determined effort the slight sinking of
heart natural to a man of my make on the threshold of a very doubtful
adventure, I awaited with as much apparent unconcern as possible, the
quick advance of that light foot which seemed to be ready to perform
all the biddings of these hardened wretches, much as it shrunk from
following in the ways of their infamy.

"Ah miss," said I, as the door opened revealing in the gap her white
face clouded with some new and sudden apprehension, "I beg your
pardon but I am an old man, and I got a letter to-day and my eyes are
so weak with the work I've been doing that I cannot read it. It is
from some one I love, and would you be so kind as to read off the
words for me and so relieve an old man from his anxiety."

The murmur of suspicion behind her, warned her to throw wide open the
door. "Certainly," said she, "if I can," taking the paper in her
hand.

"Just let me get a squint at that first," said a sullen voice behind
her; and the youngest of the two Schoenmakers stepped forward and
tore the paper out of her grasp.

"You are too suspicious," murmured she, looking after him with the
first assumption of that air of power and determination which I had
heard so eloquently described by the man who loved her. "There is
nothing in those lines which concerns us; let me have them back."

"You hold your tongue," was the brutal reply as the rough man opened
the folded paper and read or tried to read what was written within.
"Blast it! it's French," was his slow exclamation after a moment
spent in this way. "See," and he thrust it towards his father who
stood frowning heavily a few feet off.

"Of course, it's French," cried the girl. "Would you write a note in
English to father there? The man's friends are French like himself,
and must write in their own language."

"Here take it and read it out," commanded her father; "and mind you
tell us what it means. I'll have nothing going on here that I don't
understand."

"Read me the French words first, miss," said I. "It is my letter and I
want to know what my friend has to say to me."

Nodding at me with a gentle look, she cast her eyes on the paper and
began to read:

    "Calmez vous, mon amie, il vous aime et il vous cherche. Dans
    quatre heures vous serez heureuse. Allous du courage, et surtout
    soyez maitre de vous meme."

"Thanks!" I exclaimed in a calm matter-of-fact way as I perceived the
sudden tremor that seized her as she recognized the handwriting and
realized that the words were for her. "My friend says he will pay my
week's rent and bids me be at home to receive him," said I, turning
upon the two ferocious faces peering over her shoulder, with a look
of meek unsuspiciousness in my eye, that in a theatre would have
brought down the house.

"Is that what those words say, you?" asked the father, pointing over
her shoulder to the paper she held.

"I will translate for you word by word what it says," replied she,
nerving herself for the crisis till her face was like marble, though
I could see she could not prevent the gleam of secret rapture that had
visited her, from flashing fitfully across it. "Calmez vous, mon
amie. Do not be afraid, my friend. Il vous aime et il vous cherche.
He loves you and is hunting for you. Dans quatre heures vous serez
heureuse. In four hours you will be happy. Allons du courage, et
surtout soyez maitre de vous meme. Then take courage and above all
preserve your self-possession. It is the French way of expressing
one's self," observed she. "I am glad your friend is disposed to help
you," she continued, giving me back the letter with a smile. "I am
afraid you needed it."

In a sort of maze I folded up the letter, bowed my very humble thanks
to her and shuffled slowly back. The fact is I had no words; I was
utterly dumbfounded. Half way through that letter, with whose
contents you must remember I was unacquainted, I would have given my
whole chance of expected reward to have stopped her. Read out such
words as those before these men! Was she crazy? But how naturally at
the conclusion did she with a word make its language seem consistent
with the meaning I had given it. With a fresh sense of my obligation
to her, I hurried to my room, there to count out the minutes of
another long hour in anxious expectation of her making that endeavor
to communicate with me, which her new hopes and fears must force her
to feel almost necessary to her existence. At length, my confidence in
her was rewarded. Coming out into the hall, she hurried past my door,
her finger on her lip. I immediately rose and stood on the threshold
with another paper in my hand, which I had prepared against this
opportunity. As she glided back, I put it in her hand, and warning
her with a look not to speak, resumed my usual occupation. The words
I had written were as follows:

    At or as near the time as possible of your brother's going out,
    you are to come to this room wrapped in an extra skirt and with
    your shawl over your head. Leave the skirt and shawl behind you,
    and withdraw at once to the room at the head of the stairs. You
    are not to speak, and you are not to vary from the plan thus laid
    down. Your brother and father are to be arrested, whether or no;
    but if you will do as this commands, they will be arrested without
    bloodshed and without shame to one you know.

Her face while she read these lines, was a study, but I dared not
soften toward it. Dropping the paper from her hand, she gave me one
inquiring look. But I pointed determinedly to the words lying upward
on the floor, and would listen to no appeal. My resolve had its
effect. Bowing her head with a sorrowful gesture, she laid her hand
on her heart, looked up and glided from the room. I took up that
paper and tore it into bits.

And now for the first time since I had been in the house, I closed the
door of my room. I had a part to perform that rendered the dropping
of my disguise indispensable. The old French artist had finished his
work, and henceforth must merge into Q. the detective. Shortly before
two o'clock my assistants began to arrive. First, Mr. Gryce appeared
on the scene and was stowed away in a large room on the other side of
mine. Next, two of the most agile, as well as muscular men in the
force who, thanks to having taken off their shoes in the lower hall,
gained the same refuge without awakening the suspicions of those we
were anxious to surprise. Lastly, the landlady who went into the
closet to which I had bidden Mrs. Blake retire after leaving in my
room the articles I had mentioned.

All was now ready and waiting for the departure of the youngest
Schoenmaker. Would he disappoint us and remain at home that day? Had
any suspicions been awakened in the stolid breasts of these men, that
would serve to make them more watchful than usual against running
unnecessary risks? No; at or near the time for the clock to strike
two, their door opened and the tread of a lumbering foot was heard in
the hall. On it came, passing my room with a rude stamping that
gradually grew less distinct as the hardy rough went down the
corridor, brushing the wall behind which Mr. Gryce and his men lay
concealed with his thick cane, and even stopping to light his pipe in
front of the small apartment where cowered our good landlady with her
eternal basket of mending in her lap.

At length all was quiet, and throwing open my door, I withdrew into a
small closet connected with my room, to wait with indescribable
impatience, the appearance of Mrs. Blake. She came in a very few
minutes, remained for an instant, and departed, leaving behind her as
I had requested, the skirt and shawl in which she had left her
father's presence. I at once endued myself in these articles of
apparel--taking care to draw the shawl well over my head--and with a
pocket handkerchief to my face, (a proceeding made natural enough by
the sneeze which at that very moment I took care should assail me)
walked boldly back to the room from which she had just come.

The door was of course ajar, and as I swung it open with as near a
simulation of her manner as possible, the vision of her powerful
father lolling on a bench directly before me, offered anything but an
encouraging spectacle to my eyes. But doubling myself almost together
with as ladylike an atch-ee as my masculine nostrils would allow, I
succeeded in closing the door and reaching a low stool by the window
without calling from him anything worse than a fretful "I hope you are
not going to bark too."

I did not reply to this of course, but sat with my face turned towards
the street in an attitude which I hoped would awaken his attention
sufficiently to cause him to get up and come over to my side. For as
he sat face to the door it would be impossible to take him by
surprise, and that, now that I saw what a huge and muscular creature
he was, seemed to me to be the only safe method before us. But,
whether from the sullenness of his disposition or the very evident
laziness of the moment, he manifested no disposition to move, and
hearing or thinking I did, the stealthy advance of Mr. Gryce and his
companions down the hall, I allowed myself to give way to a
suppressed exclamation, and leaning forward, pressed my forehead
against the pane of glass before me as if something of absorbing
interest had just taken place in the street beneath.

His fears at once took alarm. Bounding up with a curse, he strode
towards me, muttering,

"What's up now? What's that you are looking at?" reaching my side
just as Mr. Gryce and his two men softly opened the door and with a
quick leap threw their arms about him, closing upon him with a force
he could not resist, desperate as he was and mighty in the huge
strength of an unusually developed muscular organization.

"You, you girl there, are to blame for this!" came mingled with curses
from his lips, as with one huge pant he submitted to his captors.
"Only let me get my hand well upon you once--Damn it!" he suddenly
exclaimed, dragging the whole three men forward in his effort to get
his mouth down to my ear, "go and rub that sign out on the door or
I'll--you know what I'll do well enough. Do you hear?"

Rising, still with face averted, I proceeded to do what he asked. But
in another moment seeing that he had been effectually bound and
gagged, I took out the piece of red chalk I had kept in my pocket,
and deliberately chalked it on again, after which operation I came
back and took my seat as before on the low stool by the window.

The object now was to secure the second rascal in the same way we had
the first; and for this purpose Mr. Gryce ordered the now helpless
giant to be dragged into the adjoining small room formerly occupied
by Mrs. Blake, where he and his men likewise took up their station
leaving me to confront as best I might, the surprise and
consternation of the one whose return we now awaited.

I did not shrink. With that brave woman's garments drawn about me,
something of her dauntless spirit seemed to invade my soul, and
though I expected--But let that come in its place, I am not here to
interest you in mysel or my selfish thoughts.

A half hour passed; he had never lingered away so long before, or so
it seemed, and I was beginning to wonder if we should have to keep up
this strain of nerve for hours, when the heavy tread was again heard
in the hall, and with a' blow of the fist that argued anger or a
brutal impatience, he flung open the door and came in, I did not turn
my head.

"Where's father?" he growled, stopping where he was a foot or so from
the door.

I shook my head with a slight gesture and remained looking out.

He brought his cane down on the floor with a thump. "What do you mean
by sitting there staring out of the window like mad and not answering
when I ask you a decent question?"

Still I made no reply.

Provoked beyond endurance, yet held in check by that vague sense of
danger in the air,--which while not amounting to apprehension is
often sufficient to hold back from advance the most daring foot,--he
stood glaring at me in what I felt to be a very ferocious attitude,
but made no offer to move. Instantly I rose and still looking out of
the window, made with my hand what appeared to be a signal to some one
on the opposite side of the way. The ruse was effective. With an oath
that rings in my ears yet, he lifted his heavy cane and advanced upon
me with a bound, only to meet the same fate as his father at the hands
of the watchful detectives. Not, however, before that heavy cane came
down upon my head in a way to lay me in a heap at his feet and to sow
the seeds of that blinding head-ache, which has afflicted me by spells
ever since. But this termination of the affair was no more than I had
feared from the beginning; and indeed it was as much to protect Mrs.
Blake from the wrath of these men, as from any requirements of the
situation I had assumed the disguise I then wore. I therefore did not
allow this mishap to greatly trouble me, unpleasant as it was at the
time, but, as soon as ever I could do so, rose from the floor and
throwing off my strange habiliments, proceeded to finish up to my
satisfaction, the work already so successfully begun.



CHAPTER XVIII

LOVE AND DUTY


Dismissing the men who had assisted us in the capture of these two
hardy villains, we ranged our prisoners before us.

"Now," said Mr. Gryce, "no fuss and no swearing; you are in for it,
and you might as well take it quietly as any other way."

"Give me a clutch on that girl, that's all," said her father, "Where
is she? Let me see her; every father has a right to see his own
daughter,"

"You shall see her," returned my superior, "but not till her husband
is here to protect her."

"Her husband? ah, you know about that do you?" growled the heavy voice
of the son. "A rich man they say he is and a proud one. Let him come
and look at us lying here like dogs and say how he will enjoy having
his wife's father and brother grinding away their lives in prison.

"Mr. Blake is coming," quoth Mr. Gryce, who by some preconcerted
signal from the window had drawn that gentleman across the street.
"He will tell you himself that he considers prison the best place for
you." Blast you! but he--"

"But he, what?" inquired I, as the door opened and Mr. Blake with a
pale face and agitated mien entered the room.

The wretch did not answer. Rousing from the cowering position in which
they had both lain since their capture, the father and son struggled
up in some sort of measure to their feet, and with hot, anxious eyes
surveyed the countenance of the gentleman before them, as if they felt
their fate hung upon the expression of his pallid face. The son was
the first to speak.

"How do you do, brother-in-law," were his sullen and insulting words.

Mr. Blake shuddered and cast a look around.

"My wife?" murmured he.

"She is well," was the assurance given by Mr. Gryce, "and in a room
not far from this. I will send for her if you say so."

"No, not yet," came in a sort of gasp; "let me look at these wretches
first, and understand if I can what my wife has to suffer from her
connection with them."

"Your wife," broke in the father, "what's that to do with it; the
question is how do you like it and what will you do to get us clear
of this thing."

"I will do nothing," returned Mr. Blake. "You amply merit your doom
and you shall suffer it to the end for all me."

"It will read well in the papers," exclaimed the son.

"The papers are to know nothing about it," I broke in. "All knowledge
of your connection with Mr. or Mrs. Blake is to be buried in this
spot before we or you leave it. Not a word of her or him is to cross
the lips of either of you from this hour. I have set that down as a
condition and it has got to be kept."

"You have, have you," thundered in chorus from father and son. "And
who are you to make conditions, and what do you think we are that you
expect us to keep them? Can you do anymore than put us back from
where we came from?"

For reply I took from my pocket the ring I had fished out of the ashes
of their kitchen stove on that memorable visit to their house, and
holding it up before their faces, looked them steadily in the eye.

A sudden wild glare followed by a bluish palor that robbed their
countenances of their usual semblance of daring ferocity, answered me
beyond my fondest hopes.

"I got that out of the stove where you had burned your prison
clothing," said I. "It is a cheap affair, but it will send you to the
gallows if I choose to use it against you. The pedlar--"

"Hush," exclaimed the father in a low choked tone greatly in contrast
to any he had yet used in all our dealings with him. "Throw that ring
out of the window and I promise to hold my tongue about any matter
you don't want spoke of. I'm not a fool--"

"Nor I," was my quick reply, as I restored the ring to my pocket.
"While that remains in my possession together with certain facts
concerning your habits in that old house of yours which have lately
been made known to me, your life hangs by a thread I can any minute
snip in two. Mr. Blake here, has spent some portion of a night in
your house and knows how near it lies to a certain precipice, at foot
of which--"

"Mein Gott, father, why don't you say something!" leaped in cowed
accents from the son's white lips. "If they want us to keep quiet,
let them say so and not go talking about things that--"

Now look here," interposed Mr. Gryce stepping before them with a look
that closed their mouths at once. "I will just tell you what we
propose to do. You are to go back to prison and serve your time out,
there is no help for that, but as long as you behave yourselves and
continue absolutely silent regarding your relationship to the wife of
this gentleman, you shall have paid into a certain bank that he will
name, a monthly sum that upon your dismissal from jail shall be paid
you with whatever interest it may have accumulated. You are ready to
promise that, are you not?" he inquired turning to Mr. Blake.

That gentleman bowed and named the sum, which was liberal enough, and
the bank.

"But," continued the detective, ignoring the sudden flash of eye that
passed between the father and son, "let me or any of us hear of a
word having been uttered by you, which in the remotest way shall
suggest that you have in the world such a connection as Mrs. Blake,
and the money not only stops going into the bank, but old scores
shall be raked up against you with a zeal which if it does not stop
your mouth in one way, will in another, and that with a suddenness
you will not altogether relish."

The men with a dogged air from which the bravado had however fled,
turned and looked from one to the other of us in a fearful, inquiring
way that duly confessed to the force of the impression made by these
words upon their slow but not unimaginative minds.

"Do you three promise to keep our secret if we keep yours?" muttered
the father with an uneasy glance at my pocket.

We certainly do," was our solemn return.

"Very well; call in the girl and let me just look at her, then, before
we go. We won't say nothing," continued he, seeing Mr. Blake shrink,
"only she is my daughter and if I cannot bid her good-bye--"

"Let him see his child," cried Mr. Blake turning with a shudder to the
window. "I--I wish it," added he.

Straightway with hasty foot I left the room. Going to the little
closet where I had ordered his wife to remain concealed, I knocked
and entered. She was crouched in an attitude of prayer on the floor,
her face buried in her hands, and her whole person breathing that
agony of suspense that is a torture to the sensitive soul.

"Mrs. Blake," said I, dismissing the landlady who stood in helpless
distress beside her, "the arrest has been satisfactorily made and
your father calls for you to say good-bye before going away with us.
Will you come?"

"But my--my--Mr. Blake?" exclaimed she leaping to her feet. "I am
sure I heard his footstep in the hall?"

"He is with your father and brother. It was at his command I came for
you."

A gleam hard to interpret flashed for an instant over her face. With
her eye on the door she towered in her womanly dignity, while
thoughts innumerable seemed to rush in wild succession through her
mind.

"Will you not come?" I urged.

"I--," she paused. "I will go see my father," she murmured, "but--"

Suddenly she trembled and drew back; a step was in the hall, on the
threshold, at her side; Mr. Blake had come to reclaim his bride.

"Mr. Blake!"

The word came from her in a low tone shaken with the concentrated
anguish of many a month of longing and despair, but there was no
invitation in its sound, and he who had held out his arms, stopped
and surveying her with a certain deprecatory glance in his proud eye,
said,

"You are right; I have first my acknowledgments to make and your
forgiveness to ask before I can hope--"

"No, no," she broke in, "your coming here is enough, I request no
more. If you felt unkindly toward me--"

"Unkindly?" A world of love thrilled in that word. "Luttra, I am your
husband and rejoice that I am so; it is to lay the devotion of my
heart and life at your feet that I seek your presence this hour. The
year has taught me--ah, what has not the year taught me of the worth
of her I so recklessly threw from me on my wedding day. Luttra,"--he
held out his hand--"will you crown all your other acts of devotion
with a pardon that will restore me to my manhood and that place in
your esteem which I covet above every other earthly good?"

Her face which had been raised to his with that earnest look we knew
so well, softened with an ineffable smile, but still she did not lay
her hand in his.

"And you say this to me in the very hour of my father's and brother's
arrest! With the remembrance in your mind of their bound and abject
forms lying before you guarded by police; knowing too, that they
deserve their ignominy and the long imprisonment that awaits them?"

"No, I say it on the day of the discovery and the restoration of that
wife for whom I have long searched, and to whom when found I have no
word to give but welcome, welcome, welcome."

With the same deep smile she bowed her head, "Now let come what will,
I can never again be unhappy," were the words I caught, uttered in
the lowest of undertones. But in another moment her head had
regained its steady poise and a great change had passed over her
manner.

"Mr. Blake," said she, "you are good; how good, I alone can know and
duly appreciate who have lived in your house this last year and seen
with eyes that missed nothing, just what your surroundings are and
have been from the earliest years of your proud life. But goodness
must not lead you into the committal of an act you must and will
repent to your dying day; or if it does, I who have learned my duty
in the school of adversity, must show the courage of two and forbid
what every secret instinct of my soul declares to be only provocative
of shame and sorrow. You would take me to your heart as your wife; do
you realize what that means?"

"I think I do," was his earnest reply. "Relief from heart-ache,
Luttra."

Her smooth brow wrinkled with a sudden spasm of pain but her firm lips
did not quiver.

"It means," said she, drawing nearer but not with that approach which
indicates yielding, "it means, shame to the proudest family that
lives in the land. It means silence as regards a past blotted by
suggestions of crime; and apprehension concerning a future across
which the shadow of prison walls must for so many years lie. It
means, the hushing of certain words upon beloved lips; the turning of
cherished eyes from visions where fathers and daughters ay, brothers
and sisters are seen joined together in tender companionship or
loving embrace. It means,--God help me to speak out--a home without
the sanctity of memories; a husband without the honors he has been
accustomed to enjoy; a wife with a fear gnawing like a serpent into
her breast; and children, yes, perhaps children from whose innocent
lips the sacred word of grandfather can never fall without wakening a
blush on the cheeks of their parents, which all their lovesome
prattle will be helpless to chase away."

"Luttra, your father and your brother have given their consent to go
their dark way alone and trouble you no more. The shadow you speak of
may lie on your heart, dear wife, for these men are of your own
blood, but it need never invade the hearthstone beside which I ask you
to sit. The world will never know, whether you come with me or not,
that Luttra Blake was ever Luttra Schoenmaker. Will you not then
give me the happiness of striving to make such amends for the past,
that you too, will forget you ever bore any other name than the one
you now honor so truly?"

"O do not," she began but paused with a sudden control of her emotion
that lifted her into an atmosphere almost holy in its significance.
"Mr. Blake," said she, "I am a woman and therefore weak to the voice
of love pleading in my ear. But in one thing I am strong, and that is
in my sense of what is due to the man I have sworn to honor. Eleven
months ago I left you because your pleasure and my own dignity
demanded it; to-day I put by all the joy and exaltation you offer,
because your position as a gentleman, and your happiness as a man
equally requires it."

"My happiness as a man!" he broke in. "Ah, Luttra if you love me as I
do you--"

"I might perhaps yield," she allowed with a faint smile. "But I love
you as a girl brought up amid surroundings from which her whole being
recoiled, must love the one who first brought light into her darkness
and opened up to her longing feet the way to a life of culture, purity
and honor. I were the basest of women could I consent to repay such
a boundless favor--"

"But Luttra," he again broke in, "you married me knowing what your
father and brother were capable of committing."

"Yes, yes; I was blinded by passion, a girl's passion, Mr. Blake, born
of glamour and gratitude; not the self-forgetting devotion of a woman
who has tasted the bitterness of life and so learned its lesson of
sacrifice. I may not have thought, certainly I did not realize, what
I was doing. Besides, my father and brother were not convicted
criminals at that time, however weak they had proved themselves under
temptation. And then I believed I had left them behind me on the road
of life; that we were sundered, irrevocably cut loose from all
possible connection. But such ties are not to be snapped so easily.
They found me, you see, and they will find me again--"

"Never!" exclaimed her husband. "They are as dead to you as if the
grave had swallowed them. I have taken care of that."

"But the shame! you have not taken care of that. That exists and must,
and while it does I remain where I can meet it alone. I love you;
God's sun is not dearer to my eyes; but I will never cross your
threshold as your wife till the opprobrium can be cut loose from my
skirts, and the shadow uplifted from my brow. A queen with high
thoughts in her eyes and brave hopes in her heart were not too good to
enter that door with you. Shall a girl who has lived three weeks in
an atmosphere of such crime and despair, that these rooms have often
seemed to me the gateway to hell, carry there, even in secrecy, the
effects of that atmosphere? I will cherish your goodness in my heart
but do not ask me to bury that heart in any more exalted spot, than
some humble country home, where my life may be spent in good deeds and
my love in prayers for the man I hold dear, and because I hold dear,
leave to his own high path among the straight and unshadowed courses
of the world."

And with a gesture that inexorably shut him off while it expressed the
most touching appeal, she glided by him and took her way to the room
where her father and brother awaited her presence.



CHAPTER XIX

EXPLANATIONS


"I cannot endure this," came in one burst of feeling from the lips of
Mr. Blake. "She don't know, she don't realize--Sir," cried he,
suddenly becoming conscious of my presence in the room, "will you be
good enough to see that this note," he hastily scribbled one, "is
carried across the way to my house and given to Mrs. Daniels."

I bowed assent, routed up one of the men in the next room and
despatched it at once.

"Perhaps she will listen to the voice of one of her own sex if not to
me," said he; and began pacing the floor of the narrow room in which
we were, with a wildness of impatience that showed to what depths had
sunk the hope of gaining this lovely woman for his own.

Feeling myself no longer necessary in that spot, I followed where my
wishes led and entered the room where Luttra was bidding good-bye to
her father.

"I shall never forget," I heard her say as I crossed the floor to
where Mr. Gryce stood looking out of the window, "that your blood
runs in my veins together with that of my gentle-hearted, never-to-be-
forgotten mother. Whatever my fate may be or wherever I may hide the
head you have bowed to the dust, be sure I shall always lift up my
hands in prayer for your repentance and return to an honest life. God
grant that my prayers may be heard and that I may yet receive at your
hands, a father's kindly blessing."

The only answer to this was a heavily muttered growl that gave but
little promise of any such peaceful termination to a deeply vicious
life. Hearing it, Mr. Gryce hastened to procure his men and remove
the hardened wretches from the spot. All through the preparations for
their departure, she stood and watched their sullen faces with a wild
yearning in her eye that could scarcely be denied, but when the door
finally closed upon them, and she was left standing there with no one
in the room but myself she steadied herself up as one who is
conscious that all the storms of heaven are about to break upon her;
and turning slowly to the door waited with arms crossed and a still
determination upon her brow, the coming of the feet of him whose
resolve she felt must have, as yet been only strengthened by her
resistance.

She had not long to wait. Almost with the closing of the street door
upon the detectives and their prisoners, Mr. Blake followed by Mrs.
Daniels and another lady whose thick veil and long cloak but illy
concealed the patrician features and stately form of the Countess De
Mirac, entered the room.

The surprise had its effect; Luttra was evidently for the moment
thrown off her guard.

"Mrs. Daniels!" she breathed, holding out her hands with a longing
gesture.

"My dear mistress!" returned that good woman, taking those hands in
hers but in a respectful way that proved the constraint imposed upon
her by Mr. Blake's presence. "Do I see you again and safe?"

"You must have thought I cared little for the anxiety you would be
sure to feel," said that fair young mistress, gazing with earnestness
into the glad but tearful eyes of the housekeeper. But indeed, I
have been in no position to communicate with you, nor could I do so
without risking that to protect which I so outraged my feelings as to
leave the house at all. I mean the life and welfare of its master,
Mrs. Daniels."

"Ha, what is that?" quoth Mr. Blake. "It was to save me, you consented
to follow them?"

"Yes; what else would have led me to such an action? They might have
killed me, I would not have cared, but when they began to utter
threats against you--"

"Mrs. Blake," exclaimed Mrs. Daniels, catching hold of her mistress's
uplifted hand, and pointing to a scar that slightly disfigured her
white arm a little above the wrist, "Mrs. Blake, what's that?"

A pink flush, the first I had seen on her usually pale countenance,
rose for an instant to her cheeks, and she seemed to hesitate.

"It was not there when I last saw you, Mrs. Blake."

"No," was the slow reply, "I found myself forced that night to inflict
upon myself a little wound. It is nothing, let it go."

"No, Luttra I cannot let it go," said her husband, advancing towards
her with something like gentle command. "I must hear not only about
this but all the other occurrences of that night. How came they to
find you in the refuge you had attained?"

"I think," said she in a low tone the underlying suffering of which it
would be hard to describe, "that it was not to seek me they first
invaded your house. They had heard you were a rich man, and the sight
of that ladder running up the side of the new extension was too much
for them. Indeed I know that it was for purposes of robbery they
came, for they had hired this room opposite you some days previous to
making the attempt. You see they were almost destitute of money and
though they had some buried in the cellar of the old house in
Vermont, they dared not leave the city to procure it. My brother was
obliged to do so later, however. It was a surprise to them seeing me
in your house. They had reached the roof of the extension and were
just lifting up the corner of the shade I had dropped across the open
window--I always open my window a few minutes before preparing to
retire--when I rose from the chair in which I had been brooding, and
turned up the gas. I was combing my hair at the time and so of course
they recognized me. Instantly they gave a secret signal I, alas,
remembered only too well, and crouching back, bade me put out the
light that they might enter with safety. I was at first too much
startled to realize the consequences of my action, and with some
vague idea that they had discovered my retreat and come for purposes
of advice or assistance, I did what they bid. Immediately they threw
back the shade and came in, their huge figures looming frightfully in
the faint light made by a distant gas lamp in the street below. 'What
do you want?' were my first words uttered in a voice I scarcely
recognized for my own; 'why do you steal on me like this in the night
and through an open window fifty feet from the ground? Aren't you
afraid you will be discovered and sent back to the prison from which
you have escaped?' Their reply sent a chill through my blood and
awoke me to a realization of what I had done in thus allowing two
escaped convicts to enter a house not my own. 'We want money and
we're not afraid of anything now you are here.' And without heeding
my exclamation of horror, they coolly told me that they would wait
where they were till the household was asleep, when they would expect
me to show them the way to the silver closet or what was better, the
safe or wherever it was Mr. Blake kept his money. I saw they took me
for a servant, as indeed I was, and for some minutes I managed to
preserve that position in their eyes. But when in a sudden burst of
rage at my refusal to help them, they pushed me aside and hurried to
the door with the manifest intention of going below, I forgot
prudence in my fears and uttered some wild appeal to them not to do
injury to any one in the house for it was my husband's. Of course
that disclosure had its natural effect.

"They stopped, but only to beset me with questions till the whole
truth came out. I could not have committed a worse folly than thus
taking them into my confidence. Instantly the advantages to be gained
by using my secret connection with so wealthy a man for the purpose of
cowering me and blackmailing him, seemed to strike both their minds
at once, slow as they usually are to receive impressions. The silver-
closet and money-safe sank to a comparatively insignificant position
in their eyes, and to get me out of the house, and with my happiness
at stake, treat with the honorable man who notwithstanding his
non-approval of me as a woman, still regarded me as his lawfully
wedded wife, became in their eyes a thing of such wonderful promise
they were willing to run any and every risk to test its value. But
here to their great astonishment I rebelled; astonishment because
they could not realize my desiring anything above money and the
position to which they declared I was by law entitled. In vain I
pleaded my love; in vain I threatened exposure of their plans if not
whereabouts. The mine of gold which they fondly believed they had
stumbled upon unawares, promised too richly to be easily abandoned.
'You must go with us,' said they, 'if not peaceably then by force,'
and they actually advanced upon me, upsetting a chair and tearing down
one of the curtains to which I clung. It was then I committed that
little act concerning which you questioned me. I wanted to show them
I was not to be moved by threats of that character; that I did not
even fear the shedding of my blood; and that they would only be
wasting their time in trying to sway me by hints of personal
violence. And they were a little impressed, sufficiently so at least
to turn their threats in another direction, awakening fears at last
which I could not conceal, much as I felt it would be policy to do
so. Gathering up a few articles I most prized, my wedding ring, Mr.
Blake, and a photograph of yourself that Mrs. Daniels had been kind
enough to give me, I put on my bonnet and cloak and said I would go
with them, since they persisted in requiring it. The fact is I no
longer possessed motive or strength to resist. Even your unexpected
appearance at the door, Mrs. Daniels, offered no prospect of hope.
Arouse the house? what would that do? only reveal my cherished secret
and perhaps jeopardize the life of my husband. Besides, they were my
own near kin, remember, and so had some little claim upon my
consideration, at least to the point of my not personally betraying
them unless they menaced immediate and actual harm. The escape by the
window which would have been a difficult task for most women to
perform, was easy enough for me. I was brought up to wild ways you
know, and the descent of a ladder forty feet long was a comparatively
trivial thing for me to accomplish. It was the tearing away from a
life of silent peace, the reentrance of my soul into an atmosphere of
sin and deadly plotting, that was the hard thing, the difficult
dreadful thing which hung weights to my feet, and made me well nigh
mad. And it was this which at the sight of a policeman in the street
led me to make an effort to escape. But it was not successful. Though
I was fortunate enough to free myself from the grasp of my father and
brother, I reached the gate on ----- street only to encounter the eyes
of him whose displeasure I most feared, looking sternly upon me from
the other side. The shock was too much for me in my then weak and
unnerved condition. Without considering anything but the fact that he
never had known and never must, that I had been in the same house with
him for so long, I rushed back to the corner and into the arms of the
men who awaited me. How you came to be there, Mr. Blake, or why you
did not open the gate and follow, I cannot say.

"The gate was locked," returned that gentleman. "You remember it
closes with a spring, and can only be opened by means of a key which
I did not have."

"My father had it," she murmured; "he spent a whole week in the
endeavor to get hold of it, and finally succeeded on the evening of
the very day he used it. It was left in the lock I believe."

"So much for servants," I whispered to myself.

"The next morning," continued she, "they put the case very plainly
before me. I was at liberty to return at once to my home if I would
promise to work in their interest by making certain demands upon you
as your wife. All they wanted, said they, was a snug little sum and a
lift out of the country. If I would secure them these, they would
trouble me no more. But I could not concede to anything of that
nature, of course, and the consequence was these long weeks of
imprisonment and suspense; weeks that I do not now begrudge, seeing
they have brought me the assurance of your esteem and the knowledge,
that wherever I go, your thoughts will follow me with compassion if
not with love."

And having told her story and thus answered his demands, she assumed
once more the position of lofty reserve that seemed to shut him back
from advance like a wall of invincible crystal.



CHAPTER XX

THE BOND THAT UNITES


But he was not to be discouraged. "And after all this, after all you
have suffered for my sake and your own, do you think you have a right
to deny me the one desire of my heart? How can you reconcile it with
your ideas of devotion, Luttra?"

"My ideas of devotion look beyond the present, Mr. Blake. It is to
save you from years of wearing anxiety that I consent to the
infliction upon you of a passing pang."

He took a bold step forward. "Luttra, you do not know a man's heart.
To lose you now would not merely inflict a passing pang, but sow the
seeds of a grief that would go with me to the grave.

"Do you then"--she began, but paused blushing. Mrs. Daniels took the
opportunity to approach her on the other side.

"My dear mistress," said she, "you are wrong to hold out in this
matter." And her manner betrayed something of the peculiar agitation
that had belonged to it in the former times of her secret
embarassment. "I, who have honored the family which I have so long
served, above every other in the land, tell you that you can do it no
greater good than to join it now, or inflict upon it any greater harm
than to wilfully withdraw yourself from the position in which God has
placed you."

"And I," said another voice, that of the Countess de Mirac, who up to
this time had held herself in the background, but who now came
forward and took her place with the rest, "I, who have borne the name
of Blake, and who am still the proudest of them all at heart, I, the
Countess de Mirac, cousin to your husband there, repeat what this
good woman has said, and in holding out my hand to you, ask you to
make my cousin happy and his family contented by assuming that
position in his household which the law as well as his love accords
you."

The girl looked at the daintily gloved hand held out to her, colored
faintly, and put her own within it.

"I thank you for your goodness," said she, surveying with half-sad,
half-admiring glances, the somewhat pale face of the beautiful
brunette.

"And you will yield to our united requests?" She cast her eye down at
the spot where her father and brother had cowered in their shackles,
and shook her head. "I dare not," said she.

Immediatey Mrs. Daniels, whose emotion had been increasing every
moment since she last spoke, plunged her hand into her bosom and drew
out a folded paper.

"Mrs. Blake," said she, "if you could be convinced that what I have
told you was true, and that you would be irretrievably injuring your
husband and his interests, by persisting in that desertion of him
which your purpose, would you not consent to reconsider your
determination, settled as it appears to be?"

"If I could be made to see that, most certainly," returned she in a
low voice whose broken accents betrayed at what cost she remained
true to her resolve. "But I cannot."

"Perhaps the sight of this paper will help you," said she. And turning
to Mr. Blake she exclaimed, "Your pardon for what I am called upon to
do. A duty has been laid upon me which I cannot avoid, hard as it is
for an old servant to perform. This paper--but it is no more than just
that you, sir, should see and read it first." And with a hand that
quivered with fear or some equally strong emotion, she put it in his
clasp.

The exclamation that rewarded the act made us all start forward. "My
father's handwriting!" were his words.

"Executed under my eye," observed Mrs. Daniels.

His glance ran rapidly down the sheet and rested upon the final
signature.

"Why has this been kept from me?" demanded he, turning upon Mrs.
Daniels with sternness.

"Your father so willed it," was her reply. "'For a year' was his
command, 'you shall keep this my last will and testament which I give
into your care with my dying hands, a secret from the world. At the
expiration of that time mark if my son's wife sits at the head of her
husband's table; if she does and is happy, suppress this by
deliberately giving it to the flames, but if from any reason other
than death, she is not seen there, carry it at once to my son, and
bid him as he honors my memory, to see that my wishes as there
expressed are at once carried out.'"

The paper in Mr. Blake's hand fluttered.

"You are aware what those wishes are?" said he.

"I steadied his hand while he wrote," was her sad and earnest reply.

Mr. Blake turned with a look of inexpressible deference to his wife.

"Madame," said he "when I urged you with such warmth to join your fate
to mine and honor my house by presiding over it, I thought I was
inviting you to share the advantages of wealth as well as the love of
a lonely man's heart. This paper undeceives me. Luttra, the
daughter-in-law of Abner Blake, not Holman, his son, is the one who
by the inheritance of his millions has the right to command in this
presence."

With a cry she took from him the will whose purport was thus briefly
made known. "O, how could he, how could he?" exclaimed she, running
her eye down the sheet, and then crushing it spasmodically to her
breast. "Did he not realize that he could do me no greater wrong?"
Then in one yielding up of her whole womanhood to the mighty burst of
passion that had been flooding the defenses of her heart for so long,
she exclaimed in a voice the mingled rapture and determination of
which rings in my ears even now, "And is it a thing like this with
its suggestions of mercenary interest that shall bridge the gulf that
separates you and me? Shall the giving or the gaining of a fortune
make necessary the unital of lives over which holier influences have
beamed and loftier hopes shone? No, no; by the smile with which your
dying father took me to his breast, love alone, with the hope and
confidence it gives, shall be the bond to draw us together and make
of the two separate planes on which we stand, a common ground where we
can meet and be happy."

And with one supreme gesture she tore into pieces the will which she
held, and sank all aglow with woman's divinest joy into the arms held
out to receive her.

                 *      *      *      *      *      *

I was present at the wedding-reception given them by the Countess De
Mirac in her elegant apartments at the Windsor. I never saw a happier
bride, nor a husband in whose eyes burned a deeper contentment. To
all questions as to who this extraordinary woman could be, where she
was found, and in what place and at what time she was married, the
Countess had apt replies whose art of hushing curiosity without
absolutely satisfying it, was one of the tokens she yet preserved, of
her short sway as grand lady, in the gayest and most hollow city of
the world.

As I prepared to leave a scene perhaps the most gratifying in many
respects that I had ever witnessed, I felt a slight touch on my arm.
It came from Mrs. Blake who with her husband had crossed the room to
bid me farewell.

"Will you allow me to thank you," said she, "for the risk you ran for
me one day and of which I have just heard. It was an act that merits
the gratitude of years, and as such shall be always remembered by me.
If the old French artist with the racking cough ever desires a favor
at my hands, let him feel free to ask it. The interest I experienced
in him in the days of my trouble, will suffer no abatement in these of
my joy and prosperity." And with a look that was more than words, she
gave me a flower from the bouquet she held in her hand, and smilingly
withdrew.





End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of A Strange Disappearance