Chapter IV: Book I: A Village Mystery (3)

Yet for all the assurance manifested by this speech, it was some time before Frank could see his way clearly to what he desired. A dozen plans were made and dismissed as futile before he finally determined to seek the assistance of a fellow-lawyer whose name he had seen in the window of the one brick building in the principal street. "Through him," thought he, "I may light upon some business which will enable me to request with propriety an interview with Miss Cavanagh." Yet his heart failed him as he went up the steps of Mr. Hamilton's office, and if that gentleman, upon presenting himself, had been a young man, Frank would certainly have made some excuse for his intrusion, and retired. But he was old and white-haired and benignant, and so Frank was lured into introducing himself as a young lawyer from New York, engaged in finding the whereabouts of one Harriet Smith, a former resident of Marston.

Mr. Hamilton, who could not fail to be impressed by Etheridge's sterling appearance, met him with cordiality.

"I have heard of you," said he, "but I fear your errand here is bound to be fruitless. No Harriet Smith, so far as I know, ever came to reside in this town. And I was born and bred in this street. Have you actual knowledge that one by that name ever lived here, and can you give me the date?"

The answers Frank made were profuse but hurried; he had not expected to gain news of Harriet Smith; he had only used the topic as a means of introducing conversation. But when he came to the point in which he was more nearly interested, he found his courage fail him. He could not speak the name of Miss Cavanagh, even in the most casual fashion, and so the interview ended without any further result than the making on his part of a pleasant acquaintance. Subdued by his failure, Frank quitted the office, and walked slowly down the street. If he had not boasted of his intentions to Edgar, he would have left the town without further effort; but now his pride was involved, and he made that an excuse to his love. Should he proceed boldly to her house, use the knocker, and ask to see Miss Cavanagh? Yes, he might do that, but afterwards? With what words should he greet her, or win that confidence which the situation so peculiarly demanded? He was not an acknowledged friend, or the friend of an acknowledged friend, unless Edgar---- But no, Edgar was not their friend; it would be folly to speak his name to them. What then? Must he give up his hopes till time had paved the way to their realization? He feared it must be so, yet he recoiled from the delay. In this mood he re-entered Edgar's office.

A woman in hat and cloak met him.

"Are you the stranger lawyer that has come to town?" she asked.

He bowed, wondering if he was about to hear news of Harriet Smith.

"Then this note is for you," she declared, handing him a little three-cornered billet.

His heart gave a great leap, and he turned towards the window as he opened the note. Who could be writing letters to him of such dainty appearance as this? Not she, of course, and yet---- He tore open the sheet, and read these words:

"If not asking too great a favor, may I request that you will
call at my house, in your capacity of lawyer.

"As I do not leave my own home, you will pardon this informal
method of requesting your services. The lawyer here cannot do my
work.

"Yours respectfully,
"HERMIONE CAVANAGH."

He was too much struck with amazement and delight to answer the messenger at once. When he did so, his voice was very business-like.

"Will Miss Cavanagh be at liberty this morning?" he asked. "I shall be obliged to return to the city after dinner."

"She told me to say that any time would be convenient to her," was the answer.

"Then say to her that I will be at her door in half an hour."

The woman nodded, and turned.

"She lives on the road to the depot, where the two rows of poplars are," she suddenly declared, as she paused at the door.

"I know," he began, and blushed, for the woman had given him a quick glance of surprise. "I noticed the poplars," he explained.

She smiled as she passed out, and that made him crimson still more.

"Do I wear my heart on my sleeve?" he murmured to himself, in secret vexation. "If so, I must wrap it about with a decent cloak of reserve before I go into the presence of one who has such power to move it." And he was glad Edgar was not at home to mark his excitement.

The half hour wore away, and he stood on the rose-embowered porch. Would she come to the door herself, or would it be the sad-eyed sister he should see first? It mattered little. It was Hermione who had sent for him, and it was with Hermione he should talk. Was it his heart that was beating so loudly? He had scarcely answered the question, when the door opened, and the woman who had served as a messenger from Miss Cavanagh stood before him.

"Ah!" said she, "come in." And in another moment he was in the enchanted house.

A door stood open at his left, and into the room thus disclosed he was ceremoniously ushered.

"Miss Cavanagh will be down in a moment," said the woman, as she slowly walked away, with more than one lingering backward look.

He did not note this look, for his eyes were on the quaint old furniture and shadowy recesses of the staid best room, in which he stood an uneasy guest. For somehow he had imagined he would see the woman of his dreams in a place of cheer and sunshine; at a window, perhaps, where the roses looked in, or at least in a spot enlivened by some evidences of womanly handiwork and taste. But here all was stiff as at a funeral. The high black mantel-shelf was without clock or vase, and the only attempt at ornament to be seen within the four grim walls was an uncouth wreath, made of shells, on a background of dismal black, which hung between the windows. It was enough to rob any moment of its romance. And yet, if she should look fair here, what might he not expect of her beauty in more harmonious surroundings.

As he was adjusting his ideas to this thought, there came the sound of a step on the stair, and the next moment Hermione Cavanagh entered his presence.

VIII.

A SEARCH AND ITS RESULTS.

Hermione Cavanagh, without the scar, would have been one of the handsomest of women. She was of the grand type, with height and a nobility of presence to which the extreme loveliness of her perfect features lent a harmonizing grace. Of a dazzling complexion, the hair which lay above her straight fine brows shone ebon-like in its lustre, while her eyes, strangely and softly blue, filled the gazer at first with surprise and then with delight as the varying emotions of her quick mind deepened them into a more perfect consonance with her hair, or softened them into something like the dewy freshness of heaven-born flowers. Her mouth was mobile, but the passions it expressed were not of the gentlest, whatever might be the language of her eyes, and so it was that her face was in a way a contradiction of itself, which made it a fascinating study to one who cared to watch it, or possessed sufficient understanding to read its subtle language. She was oddly dressed in a black, straight garment, eminently in keeping with the room; but there was taste displayed in the arrangement of her hair, and nothing could make her face anything but a revelation of beauty, unless it was the scar, and that Frank Etheridge did not see.

"Are you--" she began and paused, looking at him with such surprise that he felt his cheeks flush--"the lawyer who was in town a few days ago on some pressing inquiry?"

"I am," returned Frank, making her the low bow her embarrassment seemed to demand.

"Then you must excuse me," said she; "I thought you were an elderly man, like our own Mr. Hamilton. I should not have sent for you if----"

"If you had known I had no more experience," he suggested, with a smile, seeing her pause in some embarrassment.

She bowed; yet he knew that was not the way she would have ended the sentence if she had spoken her thought.

"Then I am to understand," said he, with a gentleness born of his great wish to be of service to her, "that you would prefer that I should send you an older adviser. I can do it, Miss Cavanagh."

"Thank you," she said, and stood hesitating, the slight flush on her cheek showing that she was engaged in some secret struggle. "I will tell you my difficulty," she pursued at last, raising her eyes with a frank look to his face. "Will you be seated?"

Charmed with the graciousness of her manner when once relieved from embarrassment, he waited for her to sit and then took a chair himself.

"It is a wearisome affair," she declared, "but one which a New York lawyer can solve without much trouble." And with the clearness of a highly cultivated mind, she gave him the facts of a case in which she and her sister had become involved through the negligence of her man of business.

"Can you help me?" she asked.

"Very easily," he replied. "You have but to go to New York and swear to these facts before a magistrate, and the matter will be settled without difficulty."

"But I cannot go to New York."

"No? Not on a matter of this importance?"

"On no matter. I do not travel, Mr. Etheridge."

The pride and finality with which this was uttered, gave him his first glimpse of the hard streak which there was undoubtedly in her character. Though he longed to press the question he judged that he had better not, so suggested carelessly:

"Your sister, then?"

But she met this suggestion, as he had expected her to, with equal calmness and pride.

"My sister does not travel either."

He looked the astonishment he did not feel and remarked gravely:

"I fear, then, that the matter cannot be so easily adjusted." And he began to point out the difficulties in the way, to all of which she listened with a slightly absent air, as if the affair was in reality of no great importance to her.

Suddenly she waved her hand with a quick gesture.

"You can do as you please," said she. "If you can save us from loss, do so; if not, let the matter go; I shall not allow it to worry me further." Then she looked up at him with a total change of expression, and for the first time the hint of a smile softened the almost severe outline of her mouth. "You are searching, I hear, for a woman named Harriet Smith; have you found her, sir?"

Delighted at this evidence on her part of a wish to indulge in general conversation, he answered with alacrity:

"Not yet. She was not, as it seems, a well-known inhabitant of this town as I had been led to believe. I even begin to fear she never has lived here at all. The name is a new one to you, I presume."

"Smith. Can the name of Smith ever be said to be new?" she laughed with something like an appearance of gayety.

"But Harriet," he explained, "Harriet Smith, once Harriet Huckins."

"I never knew any Harriet Smith," she averred. "Would it have obliged you very much if I had?"

He smiled, somewhat baffled by her manner, but charmed by her voice, which was very rich and sweet in its tones.

"It certainly would have saved me much labor and suspense," he replied.

"Then the matter is serious?"

"Is not all law-business serious?"

"You have just proved it so," she remarked.

He could not understand her; she seemed to wish to talk and yet hesitated with the words on her lips. After waiting for her to speak further and waiting in vain, he changed the subject back to the one which had at first occupied them.

"I shall be in Marston again," said he; "if you will allow me I will then call again and tell you exactly what I can do for your interest."

"If you will be so kind," she replied, and seemed to breathe easier.

"I have one intimate friend in town," pursued Frank, as he rose to take his departure, "Dr. Sellick. If you know him----"

Why did he pause? She had not moved and yet something, he could not say what, had made an entire change in her attitude and expression. It was as if a chill had passed over her, stiffening her limbs and paling her face, yet her eyes did not fall from his face, and she tried to speak as usual.

"Dr. Sellick?"

"Yes, he has returned to Marston after a year of absence. Have not the gossips told you that?"

"No; that is, I have seen no one--I used to know Dr. Sellick," she added with a vain attempt to be natural. "Is that my sister I hear?" And she turned sharply about.

Up to this moment she had uniformly kept the uninjured side of her face towards him, and he had noticed the fact and been profoundly touched by her seeming sensitiveness. But he was more touched now by the emotion which made her forget herself, for it argued badly for his hopes, and assured him that for all Sellick's assumed indifference, there had been some link of feeling between these two which he found himself illy prepared to accept.

"May I not have the honor," he requested, "of an introduction to your sister?"

"She is not coming; I was mistaken," was her sole reply, and her beautiful face turned once more towards him, with a deepening of its usual tragic expression which lent to it a severity which would have appalled most men. But he loved every change in that enigmatical countenance, there was so much character in its grave lines. So with the consideration that was a part of his nature he made a great effort to subdue his jealous curiosity, and saying, "Then we will reserve that pleasure till another time," bowed like a man at his ease, and passed quickly out of the door.

Yet his heart was heavy and his thoughts in wildest turmoil; for he loved this woman and she had paled and showed the intensest emotion at the mention of a man whom he had heard decry her. He might have felt worse could he have seen the look of misery which settled upon her face as the door closed upon him, or noted how long she sat with fixed eyes and paling lips in that dreary old parlor where he had left her. As it was, he felt sufficiently disturbed and for a long time hesitated whether or not he should confront Edgar with an accusation of knowing Miss Cavanagh better than he acknowledged. But Sellick's reserve was one that imposed silence, and Frank dared not break through it lest he should lose the one opportunity he now had of visiting Marston freely. So he composed himself with the thought that he had at least gained a footing in the house, and if the rest did not follow he had only himself to blame. And in this spirit he again left Marston.

He found plenty of work awaiting him in his office. Foremost in interest was an invitation to be present at the search which was to be instituted that afternoon in the premises of the Widow Wakeham. The will of which he had been made Executor, having been admitted to probate, it had been considered advisable to have an inventory made of the personal effects of the deceased, and this day had been set apart for the purpose. To meet this appointment he hurried all the rest, and at the hour set, he found himself before the broken gate and gardens of the ruinous old house in Flatbush. There was a crowd already gathered there, and as he made his appearance he was greeted by a loud murmur which amply proved that his errand was known. At the door he was met by the two Appraisers appointed by the Surrogate, and within he found one or two workmen hob-nobbing with a detective from police headquarters.

The house looked barer and more desolate than ever. It was a sunshiny day, and the windows having been opened, the pitiless rays streamed in showing all the defects which time and misuse had created in the once stately mansion. Not a crack in plastering or woodwork but stood forth in bold relief that day, nor were the gaping holes in the flooring of hall and parlor able to hide themselves any longer under the strips of carpet with which Huckins had endeavored to conceal them.

"Shall we begin with the lower floor?" asked one of the workmen, poising the axe he had brought with him.

The Appraisers bowed, and the work of demolition began. As the first sound of splitting boards rang through the empty house, a quick cry as of a creature in pain burst from the staircase without, and they saw, crouching there with trembling hands held out in protest, the meagre form of Huckins.

"Oh, don't! don't!" he began; but before they could answer, he had bounded down the stairs to where they stood and was looking with eager, staring eyes into the hole which the workmen had made.

"Have you found anything?" he asked. "It is to be all mine, you know, and the more you find the richer I'll be. Let's see--let's see, she may have hidden something here, there is no knowing." And falling on his knees he thrust his long arm into the aperture before him, just as Mr. Dickey had seen him do in a similar case on the night of the old woman's death.

But as his interference was not desired, he was drawn quietly back, and was simply allowed to stand there and watch while the others proceeded in their work. This he did with an excitement which showed itself in alternate starts and sudden breathless gasps, which, taken with the sickly smiles with which he endeavored to hide the frowns caused by his natural indignation, made a great impression upon Frank, who had come to regard him as a unique specimen in nature, something between a hyena and a fox.

As the men held up a little packet which had at last come to light very near the fireplace, he gave a shriek and stretched out two clutching hands.

"Let me have it!" he cried. "I know what that is; it disappeared from my sister's desk five years ago, and I could never get her to tell where she had put it. Let me have it, and I will open it here before you all. Indeed I will, sirs--though it is all mine, as I have said before."

But Etheridge, quietly taking it, placed it in his pocket, and Huckins sank back with a groan.

The next place to be examined was the room upstairs. Here the poor woman had spent most of her time till she was seized with her last sickness, and here the box had been found by Huckins, and here they expected to find the rest of her treasures. But beyond a small casket of almost worthless jewelry, nothing new was discovered, and they proceeded at Frank's suggestion to inspect the room where she had died, and where the clock still stood towards which she had lifted her dying hand, while saying, "There! there!"

As they approached this place, Huckins was seen to tremble. Catching Frank by the arm, he whispered:

"Can they be trusted? Are they honest men? She had greenbacks, piles of greenbacks; I have caught her counting them. If they find them, will they save them all for me?"

"They will save them all for the heir," retorted Frank, severely. "Why do you say they are for you, when you know you will only get them in default of other heirs being found."

"Why? why? Because I feel that they are mine. Heirs or no heirs, they will come into my grasp yet, and you of the law cannot help it. Do I look like a man who will die poor? No, no; but I don't want to be cheated. I don't want these men to rob me of anything which will rightfully be mine some day."

"You need not fret about that," said Frank. "No one will rob _you_," and he drew disdainfully aside.

The Appraisers had now surveyed the room awful with hideous memories to the young lawyer. Pointing to the bed, they said:

"Search that," and the search was made.

A bundle of letters came to light and were handed over to Frank.

"Why did she hide those away?" screamed Huckins. "They ain't money."

Nobody answered him.

The lintels of the windows and doors were now looked into, and the fireplace dismantled and searched. But nothing was found in these places, nor in the staring cupboards or beneath the loosened boards. Finally they came to the clock.

"Oh, let me," cried Huckins, "let me be the first to stop that clock. It has been running ever since I was a little boy. My mother used to wind it with her own hands. I cannot bear a stranger's hand to touch it. My--my sister would not have liked it."

But they disregarded even this appeal; and he was forced to stand in the background and see the old piece taken down and laid at length upon the floor with its face to the boards. There was nothing in its interior but the works which belonged there, but the frame at its back seemed unusually heavy, and Etheridge consequently had this taken off, when, to the astonishment of all and to the frantic delight of Huckins, there appeared at the very first view, snugly laid between the true and false backing, layers of bills and piles of sealed and unsealed papers.

"A fortune! A fortune!" cried this would-be possessor of his sister's hoarded savings. "I knew we should find it at last. I knew it wasn't all in that box. She tried to make me think it was, and made a great secret of where she had put it, and how it was all to be for me if I only let it alone. But the fortune was here in this old clock I have stared at a thousand times. Here, here, and I never knew it, never suspected it till----"

He felt the lawyer's eyes fall on him, and became suddenly silent.

"Let's count it!" he greedily cried, at last.

But the Appraisers, maintaining their composure, motioned the almost frenzied man aside, and summoning Frank to assist them, made out a list of the papers, which were most of them valuable, and then proceeded to count the loose bills. The result was to make Huckins' eyes gleam with joy and satisfaction. As the last number left their lips, he threw up his arms in unrestrained glee, and cried:

"I will make you all rich some day. Yes, sirs; I have not the greed of my poor dead sister; I intend to spend what is mine, and have a good time while I live. I don't intend any one to dance over my grave when I am dead."

His attitude was one so suggestive of this very same expression of delight, that more than one who saw him and heard these words shuddered as they turned from him; but he did not care for cold shoulders now, or for any expression of disdain or disapproval. He had seen the fortune of his sister with his own eyes, and for that moment it was enough.

IX.

THE TWO SISTERS.

When Frank returned again to Marston he did not hesitate to tell Edgar that "he had business relations with Miss Cavanagh." This astonished the doctor, who was of a more conservative nature, but he did not mingle his astonishment with any appearance of chagrin, so Frank took heart, and began to dream that he had been mistaken in the tokens which Miss Cavanagh had given of being moved by the news of Dr. Sellick's return.

He went to see her as soon as he had supped with his friend, and this time he was introduced into a less formal apartment. Both sisters were present, and in the moment which followed the younger's introduction, he had leisure to note the similarity and dissimilarity between them, which made them such a delightful study to an interested observer.

Emma was the name of the younger, and as she had the more ordinary and less poetic name, so at first view she had the more ordinary and less poetic nature. Yet as the eye lingered on her touching face, with its unmistakable lines of sadness, the slow assurance gained upon the mind that beneath her quiet smile and gentle self-contained air lay the same force of will which spoke at once in the firm lip and steady gaze of the older woman. But her will was beneficent, and her character noble, while Hermione bore the evidences of being under a cloud, whose shadow was darkened by something less easily understood than sorrow.

Yet Hermione, and not Emma, moved his heart, and if he acknowledged to himself that a two-edged sword lay beneath the forced composure of her manner, it was with the same feelings with which he acknowledged the scar which offended all eyes but his own. They were both dressed in white, and Emma wore a cluster of snowy pinks in her belt, but Hermione was without ornament. The beauty of the latter was but faintly shadowed in her younger sister's face, yet had Emma been alone she would have stood in his mind as a sweet picture of melancholy young womanhood.

Hermione was evidently glad to see him. Fresh and dainty as this, their living room, looked, with its delicate white curtains blowing in the twilight breeze, there were hours, no doubt, when it seemed no more than a prison-house to these two passionate young hearts. To-night cheer and an emanation from the large outside world had come into it with their young visitor, and both girls seemed sensible of it, and brightened visibly. The talk was, of course, upon business, and while he noticed that Hermione led the conversation, he also noticed that when Emma did speak it was with the same clear grasp of the subject which he had admired in the other. "Two keen minds," thought he, and became more deeply interested than ever in the mystery of their retirement, and evident renouncement of the world.

He had to tell them he could do nothing for them unless one or both of them would consent to go to New York.

"The magistrate whom I saw," said he, "asked if you were well, and when I was forced to say yes, answered that for no other reason than illness could he excuse you from appearing before him. So if you will not comply with his rules, I fear your cause must go, and with it whatever it involves."

Emma, whose face showed the greater anxiety of the two, started as he said this, and glanced eagerly at her sister. But Hermione did not answer that glance. She was, perhaps, too much engaged in maintaining her own self-control, for the lines deepened in her face, and she all at once assumed that air of wild yet subdued suffering which had made him feel at the time of his first stolen glimpse of her face that it was the most tragic countenance he had ever beheld.

"We cannot go," came forth sharply from her lips, after a short but painful pause. "The case must be dropped." And she rose, as if she could not bear the weight of her thoughts, and moved slowly to the window, where she leaned for a moment, her face turned blankly on the street without.

Emma sighed, and her eyes fell with a strange pathos upon Frank's almost equally troubled face.

"There is no use," her gentle looks seemed to say. "Do not urge her; it will be only one grief the more."

But Frank was not one to heed such an appeal in sight of the noble drooping figure and set white face of the woman upon whose happiness he had fixed his own, though neither of these two knew it as yet. So, with a deprecating look at Emma, he crossed to Hermione's side, and with a slow, respectful voice exclaimed:

"Do not make me feel as if I had been the cause of loss to you. An older man might have done better. Let me send an older man to you, then, or pray that you reconsider a decision which will always fill me with regret."

But Hermione, turning slowly, fixed him with her eyes, whose meaning he was farther than ever from understanding, and saying gently, "The matter is at end, Mr. Etheridge," came back to the seat she had vacated, and motioned to him to return to the one he had just left. "Let as talk of other things," said she, and forced her lips to smile.

He obeyed, and at once opened a general conversation. Both sisters joined in it, and such was his influence and the impulse of their own youth that gradually the depth of shadow departed from their faces and a certain grave sort of pleasure appeared there, giving him many a thrill of joy, and making the otherwise dismal hour one to be happily remembered by him through many a weary day and night.

When he came to leave he asked Emma, who strangely enough had now become the most talkative of the two, whether there was not something he could do for her in New York or elsewhere before he came again.

She shook her head, but in another moment, Hermione having stepped aside, she whispered:

"Make my sister smile again as she did a minute ago, and you will give me all the happiness I seek."

The words made him joyous, and the look he bestowed upon her in return had a promise in it which made the young girl's dreams lighter that night, for all the new cause of anxiety which had come into her secluded life.

X.

DORIS.

Frank Etheridge walked musingly towards town. When half-way there he heard his name pronounced behind him in tremulous accents, and turning, saw hastening in his wake the woman who had brought him the message which first took him to Miss Cavanagh's house. She was panting with the haste she had made, and evidently wished to speak to him. He of course stopped, being only too anxious to know what the good woman had to say. She flushed as she came near to him.

"Oh, sir," she cried with an odd mixture of eagerness and restraint, "I have been wanting to talk to you, and if you would be so good as to let me say what is on my mind, it would be a great satisfaction to me, please, and make me feel a deal easier."

"I should be very glad to hear whatever you may have to tell me," was his natural response. "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?"

"Oh, it is not that," she answered, looking about to see if any curious persons were peering at them through the neighboring window-blinds, "though I have my troubles, of course, as who hasn't in this hard, rough world; it is not of myself I want to speak, but of the young ladies. You take an interest in them, sir?"

It was naturally put, yet it made his cheek glow.

"I am their lawyer," he murmured.

"I thought so," she went on as if she had not seen the evidences of emotion on his part, or if she had seen them had failed to interpret them. "Mr. Hamilton is a very good man but he is not of much use, sir; but you look different, as if you could influence them, and make them do as other people do, and enjoy the world, and go out to church, and see the neighbors, and be natural in short."

"And they do not?"

"Never, sir; haven't you heard? They never either of them set foot beyond the garden gate. Miss Emma enjoys the flower-beds and spends most of her time working at them or walking up and down between the poplars, but Miss Hermione keeps to the house and grows white and thin, studying and reading, and making herself wise--for what? No one comes to see them--that is, not often, sir, and when they do, they are stiff and formal, as if the air of the house was chilly with something nobody understood. It isn't right, and it's going against God's laws, for they are both well and able to go about the world as others do. Why, then, don't they do it? That is what I want to know."

"And that is what everybody wants to know," returned Frank, smiling; "but as long as the young ladies do not care to explain themselves I do not see how you or any one else can criticise their conduct. They must have good reasons for their seclusion or they would never deny themselves all the pleasures natural to youth."

"Reasons? What reasons can they have for actions so extraordinary? I don't know of any reason on God's earth which would keep me tied to the house, if my feet were able to travel and my eyes to see."

"Do you live with them?"

"Yes; or how could they get the necessaries of life? I do their marketing, go for the doctor when they are sick, pay their bills, and buy their dresses. That's why their frocks are no prettier," she explained.

Frank felt his wonder increase.

"It is certainly a great mystery," he acknowledged. "I have heard of elderly women showing their eccentricity in this way, but young girls!"

"And such beautiful girls! Do you not think them beautiful?" she asked.

He started and looked at the woman more closely. There was a tone in her voice when she put this question that for the first time made him think that she was less simple than her manner would seem to indicate.

"What is your name?" he asked her abruptly.

"Doris, sir."

"And what is it you want of me?"

"Oh, sir, I thought I told you; to talk to the young ladies and show them how wicked it is to slight the good gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon them. They may listen to you, sir; seeing that you are from out of town and have the ways of the big city about you."

She was very humble now and had dropped her eyes in some confusion at his altered manner, so that she did not see how keenly his glance rested upon her nervous nostril, weak mouth, and obstinate chin. But she evidently felt his sudden distrust, for her hands clutched each other in embarrassment and she no longer spoke with the assurance with which she had commenced the conversation.

"I like the young ladies," she now explained, "and it is for their own good I want them to do differently."

"Have they never been talked to on the subject? Have not their friends or relatives tried to make them break their seclusion?"

"Oh, sir, the times the minister has been to that house! And the doctor telling them they would lose their health if they kept on in the way they were going! But it was all waste breath; they only said they had their reasons, and left people to draw what conclusions they would."

Frank Etheridge, who had a gentleman's instincts, and yet who was too much of a lawyer not to avail himself of the garrulity of another on a question he had so much at heart, stopped, and weighed the matter a moment with himself before he put the one or two questions which her revelations suggested. Should he dismiss the woman with a rebuke for her forwardness, or should he humor her love for talk and learn the few things further which he was in reality burning to hear. His love and interest naturally gained the victory over his pride, and he allowed himself to ask:

"How long have they kept themselves shut up? Is it a year, do you think?"

"Oh, a full year, sir; six months at least before their father died. We did not notice it at first, because they never said anything about it, but at last it became very evident, and then we calculated and found they had not stepped out of the house since the day of the great ball at Hartford."

"The great ball!"

"Yes, sir, a grand party that every one went to. But they did not go, though they had talked about it, and Miss Hermione had her dress ready. And they never went out again, not even to their father's funeral. Think of that, sir, not even to their father's funeral."

"It is very strange," said he, determined at whatever cost to ask Edgar about that ball, and if he went to it.

"And that is not all," continued his now thoroughly reassured companion. "They were never the same girls again after that time. Before then Miss Hermione was the admiration and pride of the whole town, notwithstanding that dreadful scar, while Miss Emma was the life of the house and of every gathering she went into. But afterwards--well, you can see for yourself what they are now; and it was just so before their father died."

Frank longed to ask some questions about this father, but reason bade him desist. He was already humiliating himself enough in thus discussing the daughters with the servant who waited upon them; others must tell him about the old gentleman.

"The house is just like a haunted house," Doris now remarked. Then as she saw him cast her a quick look of renewed interest, she glanced nervously down the street and asked eagerly: "Would you mind turning off into this lane, sir, where there are not so many persons to pry and peer at us? It is still early enough for people to see, and as everybody knows me and everybody by this time must know you, they may wonder to see us talking together, and I do so long to ease my whole conscience now I am about it."

For reply, he took the road she had pointed out. When they were comfortably out of sight from the main street, he stopped again and said:

"What do you mean by haunted?"

"Oh, sir," she began, "not by ghosts; I don't believe in any such nonsense as ghosts; but by memories sir, memories of something which has happened within those four walls and which are now locked up in the hearts of those two girls, making them live like spectres. I am not a fanciful person myself, nor given to imaginings, but that house, especially on nights when the wind blows, seems to be full of something not in nature; and though I do not hear anything or see anything, I feel strange terrors and almost expect the walls to speak or the floors to give up their secrets, but they never do; and that is why I quake in my bed and lie awake so many nights."

"Yet you are not fanciful, nor given to imaginings," smiled Frank.

"No, for there is ground for my secret fears. I see it in the girls' pale looks, I hear it in the girls' restless tread as they pace hour after hour through those lonesome rooms."

"They walk for exercise; they do not use the streets, so they make a promenade of their own floors."

"Do people walk for exercise at night?"

"At _night_?"

"Late at night; at one, two, sometimes three, in the morning? Oh, sir, it is uncanny, I tell you."

"They are not well; lack of change affects their nerves and they cannot sleep, so they walk."

"Very likely, _but they do not walk together_. Sometimes it's one, and sometimes it's the other. I know their different steps, and I never hear them both at the same time."

Frank felt a cold shiver thrill his blood.

"I have been in the house," she resumed, after a minute's pause, "for five years; ever since Mrs. Cavanagh died, and I cannot tell you what its secret is. But it has one, I am certain, and I often go about the halls and into the different rooms and ask low to myself, 'Was it here that it happened, or was it there?' There is a little staircase on the second floor which takes a quick turn towards a big empty room where nobody ever sleeps, and though I have no reason for shuddering at that place, I always do, perhaps because it is in that big room the young ladies walk so much. Can you understand my feeling this way, and I no more than a servant to them?"

A month ago he would have uttered a loud disclaimer, but he had changed much in some regards, so he answered: "Yes, if you really care for them."

The look she gave him proved that she did, beyond all doubt.

"If I did not care for them do you think I would stay in such a gloomy house? I love them both better than anything else in the whole world, and I would not leave them, not for all the money any one could offer me."

She was evidently sincere, and Frank felt a vague relief.

"I am glad," said he, "that they have so good a friend in their own house; as for your fears you will have to bear them, for I doubt if the young ladies will ever take any one into their confidence."

"Not--not their lawyer?"

"No," said he, "not even their lawyer."

She looked disappointed and suddenly very ill at ease.

"I thought you might be masterful," she murmured, "and find out. Perhaps you will some day, and then everything will be different. Miss Emma is the most amiable," said she, "and would not long remain a prisoner if Miss Hermione would consent to leave the house."

"Miss Emma is the younger?"

"Yes, yes, in everything."

"And the sadder!"

"I am not so sure about that, but she shows her feelings plainer, perhaps because her spirits used to be so high."

Frank now felt they had talked long enough, interesting as was the topic on which they were engaged. So turning his face towards the town, he remarked:

"I am going back to New York to-night, but I shall probably be in Marston again soon. Watch well over the young ladies, but do not think of repeating this interview unless something of great importance should occur. It would not please them if they knew you were in the habit of talking them over to me, and it is your duty to act just as they would wish you to."

"I know it, sir, but when it is for their good----"

"I understand; but let us not repeat it, Doris." And he bade her a kind but significant good-by.

It was now quite dusk, and as he walked towards Dr. Sellick's office, he remembered with some satisfaction that Edgar was usually at home during the early evening. He wanted to talk to him about Hermione's father, and his mood was too impatient for a long delay. He found him as he expected, seated before his desk, and with his wonted precipitancy dashed at once into his subject.

"Edgar, you told me once that you were acquainted with Miss Cavanagh's father; that you were accustomed to visit him. What kind of a man was he? A hard one?"

Edgar, taken somewhat by surprise, faltered for a moment, but only for a moment.

"I never have attempted to criticise him," said he; "but let me see; he was a straightforward man and a persistent one, never let go when he once entered upon a thing. He could be severe, but I should never have called him hard. He was like--well he was like Raynor, that professor of ours, who understood everything about beetles and butterflies and such small fry, and knew very little about men or their ways and tastes when they did not coincide with his own. Mr. Cavanagh's hobby was not in the line of natural history, but of chemistry, and that is why I visited him so much; we used to experiment together."

"Was it his pastime or his profession? The house does not look as if it had been the abode of a rich man."

"He was not rich, but he was well enough off to indulge his whims. I think he inherited the few thousands, upon the income of which he supported himself and family."

"And he could be severe?"

"Very, if he were interrupted in his work; at other times he was simply amiable and absent-minded. He only seemed to live when he had a retort before him."

"Of what did he die?"

"Apoplexy, I think; I was not here, so do not know the particulars."

"Was he--" Frank turned and looked squarely at his friend, as he always did when he had a venturesome question to put--"was he fond of his daughters?"

Edgar had probably been expecting some such turn in the conversation as this, yet he frowned and answered quite hastily, though with evident conscientiousness:

"I could not make out; I do not know as I ever tried to; the matter did not interest me."

But Frank was bound to have a definite reply.

"I think you will be able to tell me if you will only give your mind to it for a few moments. A father cannot help but show some gleam of affection for two motherless girls."

"Oh, he was proud of them," Edgar hurriedly asserted, "and liked to have them ready to hand him his coffee when his experiments were over; but fond of them in the way you mean, I think not. I imagine they often missed their mother."

"Did you know _her_?"

"No, only as a child. She died when I was a youngster."

"You do not help me much," sighed Frank.

"Help you?"

"To solve the mystery of those girls' lives."

"Oh!" was Edgar's short exclamation.

"I thought I might get at it by learning about the father, but nothing seems to give me any clue."

Edgar rose with a restless air.

"Why not do as I do--let the matter alone?"

"Because," cried Frank, hotly, "my affections are engaged. I love Hermione Cavanagh, and I cannot leave a matter alone that concerns her so nearly."

"I see," quoth Edgar, and became very silent.

When Frank returned to New York it was with the resolution to win the heart of Hermione and then ask her to tell him her secret. He was so sure that whatever it was, it was not one which would stand in the way of his happiness.

XI.

LOVE.

Frank's next business was to read the packet of letters which had been found in old Mrs. Wakeham's bed. The box abstracted by Huckins had been examined during his absence and found to contain securities, which, together with the ready money and papers taken from the clock, amounted to so many thousands that it had become quite a serious matter to find the heir. Huckins still clung to the house, but he gave no trouble. He was satisfied, he said, to abide by the second will, being convinced that if he were patient he would yet inherit through it. His sister Harriet was without doubt dead, and he professed great willingness to give any aid possible in verifying the fact. But as he could adduce no proofs nor suggest any clue to the discovery of this sister's whereabouts if living, or of her grave if dead, his offers were disregarded, and he was allowed to hermitize in the old house undisturbed.

Meantime, false clues came in and false claims were raised by various needy adventurers. To follow up these clues and sift these claims took much of Frank Etheridge's time, and when he was not engaged upon this active work he employed himself in reading those letters to which I have already alluded.

They were of old date and were from various sources. But they conveyed little that was likely to be of assistance to him. Of the twenty he finally read, only one was signed Harriet, and while that was very interesting to him, as giving some glimpses into the early history of this woman, it did not give him any facts upon which either he or the police could work. I will transcribe the letter here:

"MY DEAR CYNTHIA:

"You are the only one of the family to whom I dare write. I
have displeased father too much to ever hope for his
forgiveness, while mother will never go against his wishes, even
if the grief of it should make me die. I am very unhappy, I can
tell you that, more unhappy than even they could wish, but they
must never know it, never. I have still enough pride to wish to
keep my misery to myself, and it would be just the one thing
that would make my burden unbearable, to have them know I
regretted the marriage on account of which I have been turned
away from their hearts and home forever. But I do regret it,
Cynthia, from the bottom of my heart. He is not kind, and he is
not a gentleman, and I made a terrible mistake, as you can see.
But I do not think I was to blame. He seemed so devoted, and
used to make me such beautiful speeches that I never thought to
ask if he were a good man; and when father and mother opposed
him so bitterly that we had to meet by stealth, he was always so
considerate, and yet so determined, that he seemed to me like an
angel till we were married, and then it was too late to do
anything but accept my fate. I think he expected father to
forgive us and take us home, and when he found these
expectations false he became both ugly and sullen, and so my
life is nothing but a burden to me, and I almost wish I was
dead. But I am very strong, and so is he, and so we are likely
to live on, pulling away at the chain that binds us, till both
are old and gray.

"Pretty talk for a young girl's reading, is it not? But it
relieves me to pour out my heart to some one that loves me, and
I know that you do. But I shall never talk like this to you
again or ever write you another letter. You are my father's
darling, and I want you to remain so, and if you think too much
of me, or spend your time in writing to me, he will find it out,
and that will help neither of us. So good-by, little Cynthia,
and do not be angry that I put a false address at the top of the
page, or refuse to tell you where I live, or where I am going.
From this hour Harriet is dead to you, and nothing shall ever
induce me to break the silence which should remain between us
but my meeting you in another world, where all the follies of
this will be forgotten in the love that has survived both life
and death.

"Your sorrowing but true sister,
"HARRIET."

The date was forty years back, and the address was New York City--an address which she acknowledged to be false. The letter was without envelope.

The only other allusion to this sister found in the letters was in a short note written by a person called Mary, and it ran thus:

"Do you know whom I have seen? Your sister Harriet. It was in
the depot at New Haven. She was getting off the train and I was
getting on, but I knew her at once for all the change which ten
years make in the most of us, and catching her by the arm, I
cried, 'Harriet, Harriet, where are you living?' How she blushed
and what a start she gave! but as soon as she saw who it was she
answered readily enough, 'In Marston,' and disappeared in the
crowd before I could say another word. Wasn't it a happy chance,
and isn't it a relief to know she is alive and well. As for her
looks, they were quite lively, and she wore nice clothing like
one in very good circumstances. So you see her marriage did not
turn out as badly as some thought."