Chapter XXIII: A Coral Bead (4)

Forcing a laugh, I whistled to that dog. The lights with which the banquet had been illuminated were out, and every servant had left the place; but the tables had not been entirely cleared; and I could well understand what had drawn this strange animal thither. I whistled then, and whistled peremptorily; but no dog answered my call. Angry, for the rules are strict at my stables in regard to wandering brutes, I strode toward the pavilion. Entering the great gap in the wall where a gate had once hung, I surveyed the dismal interior before me, with feelings I could not but consider odd in a strong man like myself. Though the wine was scarcely dry in the glass which an hour before I had raised in this very spot amid cheers and laughter, I found it a difficult matter to reënter there now, in the dead of night, alone and without light.

For this building, harmless as it had always seemed, had been, in a way, cursed. For no reason that he ever gave, my father had doomed this ancient adjunct to our home to perpetual solitude and decay. By his will he had forbidden it to be destroyed--a wish respected by my guardians and afterward by myself--and though there was nothing to hinder its being cared for and in a manner used, the dismal influence which had pervaded the place ever since his death had, under the sensations I have mentioned, deepened into horror and an unspeakable repugnance.

Yet never having had any reason to believe myself a coward, I took boldly enough the few steps necessary to carry me inside its dismal precincts; and meeting with nothing but darkness and silence, began to whistle again for the dog I had certainly seen enter here.

But no dog appeared.

Hastening out, I took my way toward the stables. As I did so I glanced back, and again, my eyes fell on that place in the wall gleaming white in the moonlight. Again I felt the chill, the horror! Again my eyes remained glued to this one spot; and again I beheld the passing of that dog, running with jaws extended and, head held low--fearsome, uncanny, supernaturally horrible; a thing to flee from, if one could only flee instead of standing stock-still on the sward, gazing with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets till it had plunged through that gap in the wall and again disappeared.

The occult and the imaginary have never appealed to me, and the moment I felt myself a man again, I hurried on to the stables to call up my man Jared.

But half-way there I paused, struck by an odd remembrance. This father of mine, Philo Ocumpaugh, had died, or so his old servants had said, under peculiar circumstances. I had forgotten them till now--such stories make poor headway with me--but if I was not mistaken, the facts were these:

He had been ailing long, and his nurses had got used to the sight of his gaunt, white figure sitting propped up, but speechless, in the great bed opposite the stretch of blank wall in the corner bedroom, where a picture of his first wife, the wife of his youth, had once hung, but which, for some years now, had been removed to where there were fewer shadows and more sunlight. He had never been a talkative man, and in all the five years of my own memory of him, I had never heard him raise his voice except in command, or when the duties of hospitality required it. Now, with the shadow of death upon him, he was absolutely speechless, and his nurses were obliged to guess at his wishes by the movement of his hands or the direction of his eyes. Yet he was not morose, and sometimes was seen to struggle with the guards holding his tongue, as though he would fain have loosed himself from their inexorable control. Yet he never succeeded in doing so, and the nurses sat by and saw no difference in him, till suddenly the candle, posed on a table near by, flickered and went out, leaving only moonlight in the room. It was moonlight so brilliant that the place seemed brighter than before, though the beams were all concentrated on one spot, a blank space in the middle of the wall upon which those two dim orbs in the bed were fixed in an expectancy none there understood, for none knew that the summons had come, and that for him the angel of death was at that moment standing in the room.

Yet as moonlight is not the natural light for a sick man's bedside, one amongst them had risen for another candle, when something--I had never stopped to hear them say what--made him pause and look back, when he saw distinctly outlined upon the white wall-space I have mentioned, the figure--the unimaginable figure of a dog, large, fierce and hungry-looking, which dashed by and--was gone. Simultaneously a cry came from the bed, the first words for months--"Aline!"--the name of his girl-wife, dead and gone for years. All sprang; some to chase the dog, one to aid and comfort the sick man. But no dog was there, nor did he need comfort more. He had died with that cry on his lips, and as they gazed at his face, sunk low now in his pillow as if he had started up and fallen back, a dead weight, they felt the terror of the moment grow upon them till they, too, were speechless. For the aged features were drawn into lines of unspeakable anguish and horror.

But as the night passed and morning came, all these lines smoothed out, and when they buried him, those who had known him well talked of the beautiful serenity which illumined the face which, since their first remembrance of him, had carried the secret of a profound and unbroken melancholy. Of the dog, nothing was said, even in whispers, till time had hallowed that grave, and the little children about, grown to be men and women. Then the garrulity of age had its way.

This story, and the images it called up, came like a shock as I halted there, and instead of going on to the stables, I turned my steps toward the house, where I summoned from his bed a certain old servant who had lived longer in the family than myself.

Bidding him bring a lantern, I waited for him on the porch, and when he came, I told him what I had seen. Instantly I knew that it was no new story to him. He turned very pale and set down the lantern, which was shaking very visibly in his hand.

"Did you look up?" he asked; "when you were in the pavilion, I mean?"

"No; why should I? The dog was on the ground. Besides--"

"Let us go down to the pavilion," he whispered. "I want to see for myself if--if--"

"If what, Jared?"

He turned his eyes on me, but did not answer. Stooping, I lifted the lantern and put it in his hand. He was quaking like a leaf, but there was a determination in his face far beyond the ordinary. What made him quake--he who knew of this dog only by hearsay--and what, in spite of this fear, gave him such resolution? I followed in his wake to see what it was.

The moon still shone clear upon the lawn, and it was with a certain renewal of my former apprehensions that I approached the spot on the wall where I had seen what I was satisfied not to see again. But though I glanced that way--what man could have avoided it?--I perceived nothing but the bare paint, and we went on and passed in without a word, Jared leading the way.

But once on the threshold of the pavilion itself, it was for him to show the coward. Turning, he made me a gesture; one I did not understand; and seeing that I did not understand it, he said, after a fearful look around:

"Do not mind the dog; that was but an appearance. Lift your eyes to the ceiling--over there--at the extreme end toward the south--do you see--_what_ do you see?"

"Nothing," I replied, amazed at what struck me as utter folly.

"Nothing?" he repeated in a relieved voice, as he lifted up his lantern. "Ah!" came in a sort of muttered shriek from his lips, as he pointed up, here and there, along the farther ceiling, over which the light now played freely and fully. "What is that spot, and that spot, and that? They were not there to-day. I was in here before the banquet, and _I_ would have seen. What is it? Master, what is it? They call it--"

"Well, well, what do they call it?" I asked impatiently.

"Blood! Do you not see that it is blood? What else is red and shiny and shows in such great drops--"

"Nonsense!" I vociferated, taking the lantern in my own hand. "Blood on the ceiling of my old pavilion? Where could it come from? There was no quarrel, no fight; only hilarity--"

"Where did the dog come from?" he whispered.

I dropped my arm, staring at him in mingled anger and a certain half-understood sympathy.

"You think these stains--" I began.

"Are as unreal as the dog? Yes, master."

Feeling as if I were in a dream, I tossed up the lantern again. The drops were still there, but no longer single or scattered. From side to side, the ceiling at this one end of the building oozed with the thick red moisture to which he had given so dreadful a name.

Stepping back for fear the stains would resolve themselves into rain and drop upon my forehead, I stared at Jared, who had now retreated toward the door.

"What makes you think it blood?" I demanded.

"Because some have smelt and tasted it. We have never talked about it, but this is not an uncommon occurrence. To-morrow all these stains will be gone. They come when the dog circles the wall. Whence, no one knows. It is our mystery. All the old servants have heard of it more than once. The new ones have never been told. Nor would I have told you if you had not seen the dog. It was a matter of honor with us."

I looked at him, saw that he believed every word he said, threw another glance at the ceiling, and led the way out. When we had reached the house again, I said:

"You are acquainted with the tradition underlying these appearances, as you call them. What is it?"

He could not tell me. He knew no more than he had already stated--gossip and old wives' tales. But later, a certain manuscript came into my possession through my lawyer, which I will append to this.

It was written by my unhappy father, some little time before his last illness, and given into the charge of the legal representative of our family, with the express injunction that its seal was to remain intact if for twenty years the apparition which had haunted him did not present itself to the eyes of any of his children. But if within that time his experience should repeat itself in theirs, this document was to be handed over to the occupant of Homewood. Nineteen out of the twenty years had elapsed, without the dog being seen or the ceiling of the pavilion dropping blood. But not the twentieth; hence, the document was mine.

You can easily conceive with what feelings I opened it. It was headed with this simple line:

MY STORY WHICH I CAN WRITE BUT COULD NEVER TELL.

I am cursed with an inability to speak when I am most deeply moved,
either by anger or tenderness. This misfortune has wrecked my life.
On the verge of old age, the sorrows and the mistakes of my early
life fill my thoughts so completely that I see but one face, hear
but one voice; yet when she was living--when _she_ could see and
hear, my tongue was silent and she never knew. Aline! my Aline!

I married her when I was thirty-five and she eighteen. All the
world knows this; but what it does not know is that I loved
her--toy, plaything that she was--a body without a mind--(or, so I
considered her)--while she had but followed the wishes of her
relatives in giving her sweet youth to a cold and reticent man who
might love, indeed, but who had no power to tell that love, or even
to show it in the ways which women like, and which she liked, as I
found out when it was too late.

I could not help but love her. It was ingrained within me; a part
of the curse of my life to love this gentle, thoughtless, alluring
thing to which I had given my name. She had a smile--it did not
come often--which tore at my heart-strings as it welled up, just
stirring the dimples in her cheeks, and died away again in a
strange and moving sweetness. Though I reckoned her at her worth;
knew that her charm was all physical; that she neither did nor
could understand a passion like mine, much less return it, it was
none the less irresistible, and I have known myself to stand before
a certain book-shelf in the turn of the stairway for many minutes
together, because I knew that she would soon be coming down, and
that, when she did, some ribbon from her gown would flutter by me,
and I should feel the soft contact and go away happy to my books.
Yet, if she stopped to look back at me, I could only return her
look with one she doubtless called harsh, for she had not eyes to
see below the surface.

I tell you all this, lest you may not understand. She was not your
mother and you may begrudge me the affection I felt for her; if so,
thrust these leaves into the fire and seek not the explanation of
what has surprised you; for there is no word written here which
does not find its meaning in the intense love I bore for her, my
young girl-wife, and the tragedy which this love has brought into
my life. She was slight in body, slight in mind and of slight
feeling. I first discovered this last on the day I put my mother's
ring on her finger. She laughed as I fitted it close and kissed the
little hand. Not from embarrassment or childish impulse; I could
have understood that; but indifferently, like one who did not know
and never could. Yet I married her, and for six months lived in a
fool's paradise. Then came that ball. It was held near here, very
near; at one of our neighbor's, in fact. I remember that we walked,
and that, coming to the driveway, I lifted her and carried her
across. Not with a smile--do not think it. More likely with a
frown, though my heart was warm and happy; for when I set her down,
she shook herself, and I thought she did it to hide a shudder, and
then I could not have spoken a word had my life depended on it.

I little knew what lay back of that shudder. Even after I had seen
her dance with him, not only once, but twice, I never dreamed that
her thoughts, light though they were, were not all with me. It took
that morsel of paper and the plain words it contained to satisfy me
of this, and then--But passion is making me incoherent. What do you
know of that scrap of paper, hidden from the whole world from the
moment I first read it till this hour of full confession? It
fluttered from some one's hand during the dance. I did not see
whose. I only saw it after it had fallen at my feet, and as it lay
there open I naturally read the words. They were written by a man
to a woman, urging flight and setting the hour and place for
meeting. I was conscious of shame in reading it, and let these last
details escape me. As I put it in my pocket I remember thinking,
"Some poor devil made miserable!" for there had been hint in it of
the husband. But I had no thought--I swear it before God--of who
that husband was till I beheld her flit back through the open
doorway, with terror in her mien and searching eyes fixed on the
floor. Then hell opened before me, and I saw my happiness go down
into gulfs I had never before sounded, even in imagination.

But even at that evil hour my countenance scarcely changed--I was
opposite a mirror, and I caught a glimpse of myself as I moved. But
there must have been some change in my voice--for when I addressed
her, she started and turned her face upon me with a wild and
pathetic look which knocked so at my heart that I wished I had
never read those words, and so could return her the paper with no
misgiving as to its contents. But having read it, I could not do
this; so, beyond a petty greeting, I said nothing and let the
moment pass, and she with it; for couples were dancing and she was
soon again in the whirl. I am not a dancing man myself, and I had
leisure to think and madden myself with contemplation of my wrecked
life and questions as to what I should do to her and to him, and to
the world where such things could happen. I had forgotten the
details of time and place, or rather had put them out of my mind,
and I would not look at the words again--could not. But as the
minutes went by, the remembrance returned, startling and
convincing, that the hour was two and the place--our old pavilion.

I walked about after that like a man in whose breast the sources of
life are frozen. I chatted--I who never chatted--with women, and
with men. I even smiled--once. That was when my little white-faced
wife asked me if it were not time to go home. Even a man under
torture might find strength to smile if the inquisitor should ask
if he were not ready to be released.

And we went home.

I did not carry her this time across the driveway; but when we
parted in the library, where I always spent an hour before
retiring, I picked out a lily from a vase of flowers standing on my
desk and held it out to her. She stared at it for a moment, quite
as white as the lily, then she slowly put out her hand and took it.
I felt no mercy after that, and bade her good-night with the remark
that I should have to write far into the morning, and that she need
not worry over my light, which I should not probably put out till
she was half through with her night's rest.

For answer, she dropped the lily. I found it next morning lying
withered and brown in the hall-way.

That light did burn far into the morning; but I was not there to
trim it. Before the fatal hour had struck, I had left the house and
made my way to the pavilion. As I crossed the sward I saw the gleam
of a lantern at the masthead of a small boat riding near our own
landing-place, and I understood where he was at this hour, and by
what route he hoped to take my darling. "A route she will never
travel," thought I, striving to keep out of my mind and conscience
the vision of another route, another travel, which that sweet young
body might take if my mood held and my purpose strengthened.

There was no moon that night, and the copse in which our pavilion
stands was like a blot against the starless heavens. As I drew near
it, my dog, the invariable companion of my walks, lifted a short,
sharp bark from the stables. But I knew whose hand had fastened
him, and I went on without giving him a thought. At the door of the
pavilion I stopped. All was dark within as without, and the silence
was something to overwhelm the heart. She was not there then, nor
was he. But he would be coming soon, and up or down between the
double hedge-rows.

I went to meet him. It was a small detail, but possibly a necessary
one. In her eyes he was probably handsome and gifted with all that
I openly lacked. But he was shallow and small for a man like me to
be concerned about. I laughed inwardly and with very conceivable
scorn as I heard the faint fall of his footsteps in the darkness.
It was nearly two and he meant to be prompt.

Our coming together in that narrow path was very much what I
expected it to be. I had put out my arms and touched the hedge on
either side, so that he could not escape me. When I heard him
drawing close, I found the voice I had not had for her, and
observed very quietly and with the cold politeness of a messenger:

"My wife finds herself indisposed since the ball, and begs to be
excused from joining you in the pleasant sail you proposed to her."

That, and no more; except that when he started and almost fell into
my arms, I found strength to add:

"The wind blows fresh to-night; you will have no difficulty in
leaving this shore. The difficulty will be to return."

I had no heart to kill him; he was young and he was frightened. I
heard the sob in his throat as I dropped my arm and he went flying
down to the river.

This was child's play; the rest--

My portion is to tell it; forty years ago it all befell, and till
now no word of it has ever left my lips.

There was no sound of her advancing tread across the lawn as I
stepped back into my own grounds to enter the pavilion. But as I
left the path and put foot inside the wall, I heard a far, faint
sound like the harsh closing of a door in timid hands, followed by
another bark from the dog, louder and sharper than the first--for
he did not recognize my Aline as mistress, though I had striven for
six months to teach him the place she held in my heart.

By this I knew she was coming, and that what preparations I had to
make must be made soon. They were not many. Entering the well-known
place, I lit the lantern I had brought with me and set it down near
the door. It cast a feeble light about the entrance, but left great
shadows in the rear. This I had calculated on, and into these
shadows I now stepped.

The pavilion, as you remember it, is not what it was then. I had
used it little, fancying more my own library up at the house, but
it was not utterly without furnishings, and to young eyes might
even look attractive, with love, or fancied love, to mellow its
harsh lines and lend romance to its solitude. At this hour and
under these circumstances it was a dismal hole to me; and as I
stood there waiting, I thought how the place fitted the deed--if
deed it was to be.

I had always thought her timid, afraid of the night and all
threatening things. But as I listened to the sound of her soft
footfall at the door, I realized that even her breast could grow
strong under the influence of a real or fancied passion. It was a
shock--but I did not cry out--only set my teeth together and turned
a little so that what light there was would fall on my form rather
than on my face.

She entered; I felt rather than heard the tremulous push she gave
to the door, and the quick drawing in of her breath as she put her
foot across the threshold. These sapped my courage. This fear, this
almost hesitation, drew me from thoughts of myself to thoughts of
her, and it was in a daze of mingled purposes and regrets that I
felt her at last at my side.

"Walter!" fell softly, doubtfully from her lips.

It was the name of him the dip of whose oars as he made for his
boat I could now faintly hear in the river below us.

Turning, I looked her in the face.

"You are late," said I. God gave me words in my extremity. "Walter
has gone." Then, as the madness of terror replaced love in her
eyes, I lifted her forcibly and carried her to the window, where I
drew aside the vines. "That is his boat's lantern you see drawing
away from the dock. I bade him God-speed. He will not come again."

Without a word she looked, then fell back on my arm. It was not
life which forsook her face, and left her whole sweet body
inert--that I could have borne, for did she not merit death who had
killed my love, killed me?--but happiness, the glow of youthful
blood, the dreams of a youthful brain. And seeing this, seeing that
the heart I thought a child's heart had gone down in this
shipwreck, I felt my anger swell and master me body and soul, and
before I knew it, I was towering over her and she was cowering at
my feet, crushed and with hands held up in defense, hands that had
been like rose-leaves in my grasp, futile hands, but raised now in
entreaty for her life to me, to me who had loved her.

Why did they not move me? Why did my muscles tighten instead of
relax? I do not know; I had never thought myself a cruel man, but
at that instant I felt that this toy of my strong manhood had done
harm far beyond its value, and that it would comfort me to break it
and toss it far aside; only I could not bear the cry which now left
her lips:

"I am so young! not yet, not yet, Philo! I am so young! Let me live
a little while."

Was it a woman's plea, conscious of the tenderness she appealed to,
or only a child's instinctive grasping after life, just life? If it
were the first, it would be easy to finish; but a child's terror, a
child's longing--that pulled hard at my manhood, and under the
possibility, my own arm fell.

Instantly her head drooped. No defense did she utter; no further
plea did she make; she simply waited.

"You have deserved death." This I managed to utter. "But if you
will swear to obey me, you shall not pay your forfeit till you have
had a further taste of life. Not in my house; there is not
sufficient freedom within its walls for you; but in the broad
world, where people dance and sing and grow old at their leisure,
without duty and without care. For three months you shall have
this, and have it to your heart's content. Then you shall come back
to me my true wife, if your heart so prompts; if not, to tell me of
your failure and quit me for ever. But--" Here I fear my voice grew
terrible, for her hands instinctively rose again. "Those three
months must be lived unstained. As you are in God's sight this
hour, I demand of you to swear that, if you forget this or
disregard it, or for any cause subject my name to dishonor, that
you will return unbidden at the first moment your reason returns to
you, to take what punishment I will. On this condition I send you
away to-night. Aline, will you promise?"

She did not answer; but her face rose. I did not understand its
look. There was pathos in it, and something else. That something
else troubled me.

"Are you dissatisfied?" I asked. "Is the time too short? Do you
want more months for dancing?"

She shook her head and the little hands rose again:

"Do not send me away," she faintly entreated; "I don't know
why--but I--had rather stay."

"With me? Impossible. Are you ready to promise, Aline?"

Then she rose and looked me in the eye with courage, almost with
resolution.

"As I live!" said she.

And I knew she would keep her word.

The next thing I remember of that night was the sight of her little
white, shivering figure looking out at me from the carriage that
was to carry her away. The night was cold, and I had tucked her in
with as much care as I might have done the evening before, when I
still worshiped her, still thought her mine, or at least as much
mine as she was any one's. When I had done this and pressed a
generous gift into her hand, I stood a minute at the carriage door,
in pity of her aspect. She looked so pinched and pale, so dazed and
hopeless. Had she been alone--but the companion with whom I had
provided her was at her side and my tongue was tied. I turned, and
the driver started up the horses.

"Philo!" I heard blown by me on the wind.

Was it she who called? No, for there was anguish in the cry, the
anguish of a woman, and she was only a frightened, disheartened
child whom I had sent away to--dance.

One month, two months went by, and I began to take up my life.
Another, and she would be home for good or ill. I thought that I
could live through that other. I had heard of her; not from
her--that I did not require; and the stories were all of the same
character. She was enjoying life in the great city to which I had
sent her; radiant at night, if a little spiritless by day. She was
at balls, at concerts and at theaters. She wore jewels and shone
with the best; I might be proud of her conquests and the sweetness
and dignity with which she bore herself. Thus her friends wrote.

But she wrote nothing; I had not required it. Once, some one--a
visitor at the house--spoke of having seen her. "She was surrounded
with admirers," he had said. "How early our American women ripen!"
was his comment. "She held her head like one who has held sway for
years; but I thought her a trifle worn; as if pleasure absorbed too
much of her sleep. You must look out for her, Judge."

And I smiled grimly enough, I own, to think just how I was looking
out for her.

Then came the thunderbolt.

"I am told that no one ever sees her in the day-time; that she is
always busy, days. But she does not look as if she took that time
for rest. What can your little wife be doing? You ought to hurry up
that important opinion of yours and go see."

He was right; what was she doing? And why shouldn't I go see? There
was no obstacle but my own will, but that is the greatest obstacle
a man can have. I remained at Homewood, but the four weeks of our
further probation looked like a year.

Meanwhile, I had my way with the pavilion. I have shown you my
heart, sometimes at its best, oftenest at its worst. I will show it
to you again in this. I had a wall built round it, close against
the thicket in which it lay embedded. This wall was painted white,
and near it I had lamps placed which were lit at nightfall. Should
a figure pass that wall I could see it from my window. No one could
enter that doorway now, without running the risk of my seeing him
from where I sat at my desk.

Did I feel easier? I do not know that I did. I merely followed an
impulse I dared not name to myself.

Two weeks of this final month went by. Then (it was in the evening)
some one came running up from the grounds, with the message that
Mrs. Ocumpaugh had ridden into the gate, but that she was not ready
to enter the house. Would I meet her at the pavilion?

I was in the library, at my desk, with my eyes on the wall, when
this was told me. I had just seen the fierce figure of that
unmanageable dog of mine run by that white surface, and my lips
were open to order him tied up, when he, and everything else in
this whole world, was forgotten in this crushing news of her
return. For the three months were not up and her presence here
could mean but one thing--she had found temptation too much for
her, and she had come back to tell me so in obedience to her
promise.

"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh," I said.

The man stared.

"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh now," I repeated, and tried to rise.

But my limbs refused; death had entered my heart, and it was some
few minutes before I found myself upon the lawn outside.

When I got there I was trembling and so uncertain of movement that
I tottered at the gate. But seeing signs of her presence within, I
straightened myself and went in.

She was standing at the extreme end of the room when I entered, in
the full light of the solitary moonbeam which shot in at the
western casement. She had thrown aside her hat and coat, and never
in all my life had I seen anything so ethereal as the worn face and
wasted form she thus disclosed. Had it not been for the haunting
and pathetic smile which by some freak of fate gave poignancy to
her otherwise infantile beauty, I should not have known the woman
who stood there with my name formed on her lips.

"Destroyed!" was my thought; and the rage which I felt that moment
against fate flushed my whole being, and my arms went up, not in
threat against her, but to an avenging Heaven, when I heard an
impetuous rush, an angry growl, and the delicate, trembling figure
went down under the leap of the monstrous animal which I had taught
to love me, but could never teach to love her.

In horror and unspeakable anguish of soul I called off the dog;
and, stooping with bitter cries, I took her in my arms.

"Hurt?" I gasped. "Hurt, Aline?" I looked at her anxiously.

"No," she whispered, "happy." And before I realized my own feelings
or the passion with which I drew her to my breast, she had nestled
her head against my heart, smiled and died.

The shock of the dog's onslaught had killed her.

I would not believe it at first, but when I was quite sure, I took
out the pistol I carried in my breast and shot the cowering brute
midway between the eyes.

When this was done, I turned back to her. There was no light but
the moon, and I needed no other. The clear beams falling on her
face made her look pure and stainless and sweet. I could almost
have loved her again as I marked the tender smile which lingered
from that passing moment on her lips. "Happy," she had said. What
did she mean by that "Happy"? As I asked myself I heard a cry. The
companion who had been with her had rushed in at the doorway, and
was gazing in sorrow and amazement at the white form lying
outstretched and senseless against that farther wall.

"Oh," she cried, in a tone that assured me she had not seen the dog
lying in his blood at my back; "dead already? dead at the first
glance? at the first word? Ah, she knew better than I, poor lamb. I
thought she would get well if she once got home. She wearied so for
you, sir, and for Homewood!"

I thought myself quite mad; past understanding aright the words
addressed to me.

"She wearied--" I began.

"With all her soul for you and Homewood," the young woman repeated.
"That is, since her illness developed."

"Her illness?"

"Yes, she has been ill ever since she went away. The cold of that
first journey was too much for her. But she kept up for several
weeks--doing what no other woman ever did before with so little
strength and so little hope. Danced at night and--"

"And--and--what by day, what?" I could hardly get the words out of
my mouth.

"Studied. Learned what she thought you would
like--French--music--politics. It was to have been a surprise. Poor
soul! it took her very life. She did not sleep--Oh, sir, what is
it?"

I was standing over her, probably a terrifying figure. Lights were
playing before my eyes, strange sounds were in my ears, everything
about me seemed resolving itself into chaos.

"What do you mean?" I finally gasped. "She studied--to please _me_?
Why did she come back, then, so soon--" I paused, choked. I had
been about to give away my secret. "I mean, why did she come thus
suddenly, without warning me of what I might expect? I would have
gone--"

"I told her so; but she was very determined to come to you
herself--to this very pavilion. She had set the time later, but
this morning the doctor told her that her symptoms were alarming,
and without consulting him or heeding the advice of any of us, she
started for home. She was buoyant on the way, and more than once I
heard her softly repeating your name. Her heart was very
loving--Oh, sir, you are ill!"

"No, no," I cried, crushing my hand against my mouth to keep down
the cry of anguish and despair which tore its way up from my heart.
"Before other hands touch her, other eyes see her, tell me when she
began--I will not say to love me, but to weary for me
and--Homewood."

"Perhaps she has told you herself. Here is the letter, sir, she
bade me give you if she did not reach here alive. She wrote it this
morning, after the doctor told her what I have said."

"Give--give--"

She put it in my hand. I glanced at it in the moonlight, read the
first few words, and felt the world reel round me. Thrusting the
letter in my breast, I bade the woman, who watched me with
fascinated eyes, to go now and rouse the house. When she was gone I
stepped back into the shadows, and catching hold of the murderous
beast, I dragged him out and about the wall to a thick clump of
bushes. Here I left him and went back to my darling. When they came
in, they found her in my arms. Her head had fallen back and I was
staring, staring, at her white throat.

That night, when all was done for her which could be done, I shut
myself into my library and again opened that precious letter. I
give it, to show how men may be mistaken when they seek to weigh
women's souls:

_My Husband_:

I love you. As I shall be dead when you read this, I may say so
without fear of rebuff. I did not love you then; I did not love
anybody; I was thoughtless and fond of pleasure, and craved
affectionate words. He saw this and worked on my folly; but when
his project failed and I saw his boat creep away, I found that what
feeling I had was for the man who had thwarted him, and I felt
myself saved.

If I had not taken cold that night I might have lived to prove
this. I know that you do not love me very much, but perhaps you
would have done so had you seen me grow a little wiser and more
like what your wife should be. I was trying when--O Philo, I can
not write--I can not think. I am coming to you--I
love--forgive--and take me back again, alive or dead. I love
you--I love--

As I finished, the light, which had been burning low, suddenly went
out. The window which opened before me was still unshuttered. Before
me, across the wide spaces of the lawn, shone the pavilion wall,
white in the moonlight As I stared in horror at it, a trembling
seized my whole body, and the hair on my head rose. The dark figure
of a running dog had passed across it--_the dog which lay dead under
the bushes_.

"God's punishment," I murmured, and laid my head down on that
pathetic letter and sobbed.

The morning found me there. It was not till later that the man sent
to bury the dog came to me with the cry, "Something is wrong with
the pavilion! When I went in to close the window I found the ceiling
at that end of the room strangely dabbled. It looks like blood. And
the spots grew as I looked."

Aghast, bruised in spirit and broken of heart, I went down, after
that sweet body was laid in its grave, to look. The stains he had
spoken of were gone. But I lived to see them reappear,--as you have.

God have mercy on our souls!

XII

BEHIND THE WALL

"A most pathetic and awesome history!" I exclaimed, after the pause which instinctively followed the completion of this tale, read as few of its kind have ever been read, by this woman of infinite resources in feeling and expression.

"Is it not? Do you wonder that a visit in the dead of night to a spot associated with such superstitious horrors should frighten me?" she added as she bundled up the scattered sheets with a reckless hand.

"I do not. I am not sure but that I am a little bit frightened myself," I smiled, following with my eye a single sheet which had escaped to the floor. "Allow me," I cried, stooping to lift it. As I did so I observed that it was the first sheet, the torn one--and that a line or so of writing was visible at the top which I was sure had not been amongst those she had read.

"What words are those?" I asked.

"I don't know, they are half gone as you can see. They have nothing to do with the story. I read you the whole of that."

Mistress as she was of her moods and expression I detected traces of some slight confusion.

"The putting up of the partition is not explained," I remarked.

"Oh, that was put up in horror of the stains which from time to time broke out on the ceiling at that end of the room."

I wished to ask her if this was her conclusion or if that line or two I have mentioned was more intelligible than she had acknowledged it to be. But I refrained from a sense of propriety.

If she appreciated my forbearance she did not show it. Rising, she thrust the papers into a cupboard, casting a scarcely perceptible glance at the clock as she did so.

I took the hint and rose. Instantly she was all smiles.

"You have forgotten something, Mr. Trevitt. Surely you do not intend to carry away with you my key to the bungalow."

"I was thinking of it," I returned lightly. "I am not quite through with that key." Then before she could recover from her surprise, I added with such suavity as I had been able to acquire in my intercourse with my more cultivated clients:

"I have to thank you, Mrs. Carew, for an hour of thrilling interest. Absorbed though I am in the present mystery, my mind has room for the old one. Possibly because there is sometimes a marked connection between old family events and new. There may be some such connection in this case. I should like the opportunity of assuring myself there is not."

She said nothing; I thought I understood why. More suavely yet, I continued, with a slight, a very slight movement toward the door: "Rarely have I had the pleasure of listening to such a tale read by such an interpreter. It will always remain in my memory, Mrs. Carew. But the episode is over and I return to my present duty and the bungalow."

"The bungalow! You are going back to the bungalow?"

"Immediately."

"What for? Didn't you see all there was to see?"

"Not quite."

"I don't know what there can be left."

"Nothing of consequence, most likely, but you can not wish me to have any doubts on the subject."

"No, no, of course not."

The carelessness of her tone did not communicate itself to her manner. Seeing that my unexpected proposition had roused her alarm, I grew wary and remarked:

"I was always overscrupulous."

With a lift of her shoulders--a dainty gesture which I congratulated myself I could see unmoved--she held out her hand in a mute appeal for the key, but seeing that I was not to be shaken in my purpose, reached for the wrap she had tossed on a chair and tied it again over her head.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Accompany you," she declared.

"Again? I thought the place frightened you."

"It does," she replied. "I had rather visit any other spot in the whole world; but if it is your intention to go back there, it is mine to go with you."

"You are very good," I replied.

But I was seriously disconcerted notwithstanding. I had reckoned, upon a quiet hour in the bungalow by myself; moreover, I did not understand her motive for never trusting me there alone. Yet as this very distrust was suggestive, I put a good face on the matter and welcomed her company with becoming alacrity. After all, I might gain more than I could possibly lose by having her under my eye for a little longer. Strong as was her self-control there were moments when the real woman showed herself, and these moments were productive.

As we were passing out she paused to extinguish a lamp which was slightly smoking,--I also thought she paused an instant to listen. At all events her ears were turned toward the stairs down which there came the murmur of two voices, one of them the little boy's.

"It is time Harry was asleep," she cried. "I promised to sing to him. You won't be long, will you?"

"You need not be very long," was my significant retort. "I can not speak for myself."

Was I playing with her curiosity or anxieties or whatever it was that affected her? I hardly knew; I spoke as impulse directed and waited in cold blood--or was it hot blood?--to see how she took it.

Carelessly enough, for she was a famous actress except when taken by surprise. Checking an evident desire of calling out some direction up stairs, she followed me to the door, remarking cheerfully, "You can not be very long either; the place is not large enough."

My excuse--or rather the one I made to myself for thus returning to a place I had seemingly exhausted, was this. In the quick turn I had made in leaving on the former occasion, my foot had struck the edge of the large rug nailed over the center of the floor, and unaccountably loosened it. To rectify this mishap, and also to see how so slight a shock could have lifted the large brass nails by which it had been held down to the floor, seemed reason enough for my action. But how to draw her attention to so insignificant a fact without incurring her ridicule I could not decide in our brief passage back to the bungalow, and consequently was greatly relieved when, upon opening the door and turning my lantern on the scene, I discovered that in our absence the rug had torn itself still farther free from the floor and now lay with one of its corners well curled over--the corner farthest from the door and nearest the divan where little Gwendolen had been lying when she was lifted and carried away--where?

Mrs. Carew saw it too and cast me a startled look which I met with a smile possibly as ambiguous as the feeling which prompted it.

"Who has been here?" she asked.

"Ourselves."

"Did we do that?"

"I did; or rather my foot struck the edge of the rug as I turned to go out with you. Shall I replace it and press back the nails?"

"If you will be so good."

Do what she would there was eagerness in her tone. Remarking this, I decided to give another and closer look at the floor and the nails. I found the latter had not been properly inserted; or rather that there were two indentations for every nail, a deep one and one quite shallow. This caused me to make some examination of the others, those which had not been drawn from the floor, and I found that one or two of them were equally insecure, but not all; only those about this one corner.

Mrs. Carew, who had paused, confused and faltering in the doorway, in her dismay at seeing me engaged in this inspection instead of in replacing the rug as I had proposed, now advanced a step, so that our glances met as I looked up with the remark:

"This rug seems to have been lately raised at this corner. Do you know if the police had it up?"

"I don't. I believe so--oh, Mr. Trevitt," she cried, as I rose to my feet with the corner of the rug in my hand, "what are you going to do?"

She had run forward impetuously and was now standing close beside me--inconveniently close.

"I am going to raise this rug," I informed her. "That is, just at this corner. Pardon me, I shall have to ask you to move."

"Certainly, of course," she stammered. "Oh, what is going to happen now?" Then as she watched me: "There is--there _is_ something under it. A door in the floor--a--a--Mrs. Ocumpaugh never told me of this."

"Do you suppose she knew it?" I inquired, looking up into her face, which was very near but not near enough to be in the full light of the lantern, which was pointed another way.

"This rug appears to have been almost soldered to the floor, everywhere but here. There! it is thrown back. Now, if you will be so very good as to hold the lantern, I will try and lift up the door."

"I can not. See, how my hands shake! What are we about to discover? Nothing, I pray, nothing. Suspense would be better than that."

"I think you will be able to hold it," I urged, pressing the lantern upon her.

"Yes; I have never been devoid of courage. But--but--don't ask me to descend with you," she prayed, as she lifted the lantern and turned it dexterously enough on that portion of the door where a ring lay outlined in the depths of its outermost plank.

"I will not; but you will come just the same; you can not help it," I hazarded, as with the point of my knife-blade I lifted the small round of wood which filled into the ring and thus made the floor level.

"Now, if this door is not locked, we will have it up," I cried, pulling at the ring with a will. The door was not locked and it came up readily enough, discovering some half-dozen steps, down which I immediately proceeded to climb.

"Oh, I can not stay here alone," she protested, and prepared to follow me in haste just as I expected her to do the moment she saw the light withdrawn.

"Step carefully," I enjoined. "If you will honor me with your hand--" But she was at my side before the words were well out.

"What is it? What kind of place do you make it out to be; and is there anything here you--do--not--want--to see?"

I flashed the light around and incidentally on her. She was not trembling now. Her cheeks were red, her eyes blazing. She was looking at me, and not at the darksome place about her. But as this was natural, it being a woman's way to look for what she desires to learn in the face of the man who for the moment is her protector, I shifted the light into the nooks and corners of the low, damp cellar in which we now found ourselves.

"Bins for wine and beer," I observed, "but nothing in them." Then as I measured the space before me with my eye, "It runs under the whole house. See, it is much larger than the room above."

"Yes," she mechanically repeated.

I lowered the lantern to the floor but quickly raised it again.

"What is that on the other side?" I queried. "I am sure there is a break in the wall over in that corner."

"I can not see," she gasped; certainly she was very much frightened. "Are you going to cross the floor?"

"Yes; and if you do not wish to follow me, sit down on these steps--"