Chapter XXIII: An Old Romance

Bab had hardly reached her room before she was summoned to the door by Stephen, looking so serious and unhappy that she felt at once something had happened.

"Bab," he said, "I am afraid you are not done with your day's work yet for the Ten Eyck family. I am about to ask you a favor, and I must confide something to you that has been a secret with us now for three generations. First, are you afraid to go with me over to the right wing? John and Mary will go, too, and you need really have nothing to fear, but the dread----" he paused and bit his lip.

"Why, no, Stephen, I am not afraid," replied Bab, "and I promise to guard faithfully any secret you want to tell me," she added, giving him her hand in token of her pledge. She suspected they were going to visit the old man she had seen wandering about the house and forest.

"I will tell you the secret as we go along," Stephen said, leading the way to the end of the hall, where they found Mary and John waiting. The four started down a long passage opening into the right wing of the building. "We are going, now," continued Stephen, "to visit a very old man who lives in the right wing. He is my great-uncle, Stephen Ten Eyck. When he was quite a young man he met with a sorrow that unhinged his mind and he--well, he committed a crime. It was never proved that he had done it, but the Ten Eyck family knew he had. However, his most intimate friend took the blame upon his shoulders."

"Why did he do that?" asked Bab.

"Because, Bab," replied Stephen, "they both loved a girl, and the girl's name was Barbara Thurston. She must have been your great-great-aunt. Did you ever hear of her?"

"If I ever did, I have forgotten," answered Bab. "You see, after father's death, we had no way to learn much about his family and mother knew very little, I suppose."

"Well, Barbara Thurston was engaged to marry my great-uncle. They were all staying at the same hotel, somewhere in the Italian lake country--Barbara and her mother and my great-uncle Stephen and his friend. One day the friend persuaded Barbara to go out rowing with him. There was a storm and the boat upset, and Barbara was drowned. It was said that the friend and the boatman swam ashore and left her, but that is hard to believe. Anyway, when my uncle got the news, something snapped in his brain and he killed the boatman with an oar. The friend made his escape and the flight proved to the authorities that he had committed the crime. The Ten Eycks all knew that Uncle Stephen had done it, but it seemed of little use, I suppose, to tell the truth, because the slayer, Uncle Stephen, had gone clean crazy, and his friend could not be found. They have never seen each other since, until----"

Stephen paused.

"Until when, Stephen?"

"Until to-night, Barbara. Can you guess who the friend is?"

"The hermit?" asked Barbara, with growing excitement.

"Yes," replied Stephen; "the poor old hermit who has lived near his friend all these years without ever letting anybody know."

"And your uncle has been living in the right wing ever since?" asked Bab.

"Yes. It was his father's wish that the right wing be absolutely his for life and that the secret be kept in the family. The old fellow has never hurt a fly since the night he killed the Italian boatman. His attendant is as old as he, almost, and sometimes Uncle Stephen gets away from him. Have you ever seen him?" Stephen looked at her curiously.

"Yes," replied Bab, "several times."

"And never mentioned it? Really Bab, you are great."

"Oh, I finally did tell the girls, only last night. I was just a little frightened. Your Uncle Stephen called me by name. But, by the way, none of you knew about the name before. How was that?"

"To tell the truth, I had never heard the girl's name in my life, and it was so long ago that Uncle Stephen had forgotten it. It was the hermit who revealed the whole thing. He took refuge here from the fire, and after you girls had gone upstairs he sent for Uncle John. It seems the hermit has been with Uncle Stephen most of the afternoon, keeping him quiet and away from the fire. The poor old fellow was scared, he said, but he is himself again and they both want to see you. But that is not the chief reason you are sent for. Uncle Stephen insists that he has something he will tell only to you. All day long he has been calling for you, and Uncle John Ten Eyck thinks it may quiet him if you will consent to see him for a few minutes."

The two had paused outside of a door at the end of the passage, to finish the conversation, while Mary and John had gone quietly inside. Presently John opened the door.

"It's all right, sir," he whispered. "You and the young lady may come in."

They entered a large room, furnished with heavy old-fashioned chairs and tables. There were bowls of flowers about and Bab heard afterwards that the poor, crazed old man loved flowers and arranged them himself. Standing near the window was the hermit. When he saw Bab his face was radiated by such a beautiful smile that tears sprang to the girl's eyes. Lying on a couch, somewhat back in the shadow, was Stephen's uncle of the same name. His attendant, also an old man, who had been with him from the beginning, was sitting beside him.

Stephen Ten Eyck the elder opened his eyes when the door closed. He also smiled, as the hermit had done, and Bab felt that she could have wept aloud for the two pathetic old men.

"My little Barbara has come back at last," Uncle Stephen said, taking her hand. "I am very happy. And my old friend Richard, too," he went on, stretching the other hand toward the hermit. "Dick," he went on, "I always loved you so. I don't know which I loved the most, you or sweet Barbara here. Heaven is good to bring me all these blessings at once. Don't cry, little girl," he added, tenderly, for the tears were rolling down Barbara's cheeks and dropping on his hand. "But I must not forget," he exclaimed suddenly. "I have something to tell you, Barbara, before it clouds over here," he tapped his brow. "Go away all of you. This is for her ears alone. It is a secret."

The others moved off to a corner of the room and the old man went on whispering mysteriously. "We were the last who saw him, you and I. He followed me that night. Do you remember? He fell. He is lying at the foot of the stairs now. There is a gash in his head and--blood!" "Press the panel in the attic----" The old man's voice died away in a gasp.

"Which panel?" asked Bab, in an agony for fear he would not finish.

"The one with the knot hole in the right hand corner," he added and fell back on the couch.

Bab tried to make him tell more, but his mind was clouded over and he had already forgotten she was there.

"Has he finished?" asked Stephen.

"Yes," replied Bab, "but come quickly. We have no time to lose. José is lying somewhere, dead or half dead, in the secret passage."

Too much excited and amazed to say good-night to the hermit, the callers rushed down the passage, followed by the two servants. At the foot of the attic stairs they waited while John brought lights, and for the second time that day Bab climbed into the vast old attic.

"Thank fortune the partition is down," exclaimed Stephen. "I suppose Uncle Stephen forgot to slide it back, he was in such a hurry to get away from José." Bab had explained the situation, to Stephen while they waited for the candles. "Which panel did he say, Bab?"

"This must be it," she answered; "the panel in the right-hand corner that has a knot hole in it. Here is the knot hole all right. We are to press it, he said."

They pressed, but nothing happened.

"Press the knot hole, why don't you?" suggested Bab.

One touch was enough. The panel opened and disclosed a long passage cut apparently through the wall. There were several branch passages leading off from the main one, marked with faded handwriting on slips of paper, one "To the Cellar," another "To the Library" and finally the last one "To the Right Wing."

"This must be the one," said Stephen, as they groped their way along single file. "Be careful," he called; "there should be a flight of steps along here somewhere."

Presently they came to the steps. Up through the dense blackness they could faintly hear a sound of moaning.

"All right, José, old fellow, we are coming to you," cried Stephen, while Bab's heart beat so loud she could not trust herself to speak.

Groping their way down the narrow stairway, they came to a landing almost on a level with the ceilings of the first floor rooms. At the far end of the passage they could hear a voice calling faintly.

"He probably fell the length of the steps, and dragged himself across," exclaimed Stephen, holding his lantern high above his head.

They found José stretched out by a narrow door opening directly into the right wing. There was a gash just above his temple which he himself had bound with his handkerchief and his leg appeared to be broken at the ankle.

"José, my poor boy," cried Stephen, "we have found you at last!"

José smiled weakly and fainted dead away.

The two men carried him back up the flight of steps, not daring to try the experiment of the passage leading to the library.

"I suppose Uncle Stephen has known these passages since he was a child," said Stephen in a low voice to Bab as they passed through the attic, "and when his attendant is asleep, no doubt he steals off and wanders about the house. I believe he has always had a mania that he was being pursued by the Italian boatman; and when José followed him, right on top of his meeting with you, it was too much for the old fellow."

"He's a dear old man," returned Bab, "and how he must have suffered all these years; that is, whenever his memory returned."

"And think of the hermit, too, who sacrificed his entire career for you, Miss, just because you never learned to swim."

Bab smiled. "If my Aunt Barbara had lived by the sea as I have, she would never have had to wait for boatmen and lovers to pull her out of the deep water. Swimming is as easy as walking to me."

"I am glad you've learned wisdom in your old age," replied Stephen as they paused at the door of the bedroom given to José.

"There is one thing I cannot believe," declared Bab, "and that is that the hermit swam off and left Aunt Barbara to drown."

"Who knows?" answered Stephen. "People lose their heads strangely sometimes."

It was Alfred, destined to be a great doctor, who set José's leg that night.