Chapter XV: At the Last

Inez had been better that morning and had asked to sit in her chair near the window where she could look out upon the mountains and the valley. Fanny was brushing her hair and talking to her, when she asked, as she often did, “Where is Tom?”

“Gone to drive with Roy,” Fanny said. “I believe they were going as far as the scene of the hold-up. Roy is anxious to see the place, and look for my diamonds. But it is of no use. If Tom can’t find them, he can’t.”

“The diamonds? What diamonds?” Inez asked quickly.

Fanny had been warned not to talk to Inez of the hold up. Consequently, with the exception of the day when the watch came, she had never mentioned it until now when she spoke of it in connection with her diamonds. It was of no use for her to try and waive the subject. Inez could not be put off, and she finally explained that when she reached Clark’s the diamonds were missing. The stitches in the ribbon bow of her hat had been broken and the linen bag had slipped out somewhere on the road.

“I have given them up,” she said, “and now only care to have the robbers caught. Roy talks of sending for a famous detective from Boston, but I hardly think he will. He is a rash boy any way and would like nothing better than such an adventure as we had.”

As she talked Fanny was admiring the gloss and texture of Inez’s hair, and wondering how it would look twisted on the top of her head after the fashion then beginning to prevail.

“I am going to do your hair in the latest style, if it will not tire you too much,” she said, going for some hair pins.

There was no answer and when she came back with the pins she saw that Inez’s head was turned to one side and lay motionless against the chair. She had not heard of the loss of the diamonds until now, when in an instant she saw the whole scene again, and knew where the diamonds were. The thought of the detective Roy was to send for added to her excitement. Tom was worse than she had supposed him to be, but she could not have him arrested. His downfall would implicate her father and Fanny would be involved in the disgrace. All this went rapidly through her mind until unconsciousness came and she knew no more until she was in bed, with her father and Fanny and the nurse bending over her with restoratives.

“Was she excited in any way?” Mr. Hilton asked, and Fanny replied, “I think not. I was brushing her hair and telling her that Roy had gone with Mr. Hardy to look for the diamonds. I had forgotten that she didn’t know they were lost. It might have been that, but I think it was the fatigue of sitting up too long.”

Mr. Hilton made no reply, but he knew what caused the faint which lasted so long and left Inez with no power to move except her head and one hand which from the wrist beat the air constantly. It was still moving feebly up and down, when Roy went to her and asked what he could do for her. Fanny had come up with him and with a motion of her head Inez dismissed her; then said in a whisper, with long, painful breaths between each word, “Don’t try to find the robbers, nor send for a detective. I shall be gone, but Fanny will be here. Don’t do it for her sake. _My_ father is _her_ father. She will have the diamonds back.”

Roy looked surprised. His talk of a detective had been mostly talk, and he told Inez so, assuring her that nothing should ever be done which could hurt Fanny, or compromise her father or Tom. She knew he understood her and that she was giving away those whom she loved better than her life, but she was giving them to Roy, who loved Fanny.

“Thanks,” she said faintly. “You will keep what I have said to yourself, and never let Fanny, nor any one, know. I can trust you?”

“To the death,” he answered, taking her shaking hand, which was as cold as if the shadow stealing into the room had touched that first and turned it into ice.

“I knew Tom was a rascal all the time, and Mr. Hilton, too, but my word is pledged and I shall keep it. Think of Fanny here in a den of robbers. It can’t be long, though. The poor girl is about done for,” Roy thought, as he tried to soothe and quiet Inez.

“Go now, and send Tom,” she said at last, and, glad to escape, Roy went quickly down the stairs and delivered the message to Tom.

It was the first time she had asked for him, and he felt much as a criminal feels when going to execution. He had no idea what she wanted and was rather relieved when she said to him, “Do you love me still?”

“More than I can tell you. Oh, Inez, I am so sorry for it all, and have nothing to offer in excuse,” he replied, bending over her until his face touched the hand which was still moving very slowly, and whose fingers stirred his hair as they moved.

“Don’t try to excuse, or explain,” she said. “Bury the past in my grave, and begin a new life. Make restitution as far as possible. Give Fanny her diamonds!”

Tom started violently. “How did you know she lost them?” he asked, and Inez replied, “I do know, and it has put out the little flickering flame there was left of my life. Get them to her somehow.”

“I have intended to do this all the time, and I assure you she shall have them,” Tom said.

“And the others,” she continued; “If you know who they are and where they are, send them what belongs to them, or its equivalent. You and father, both; I cannot talk to him. I leave it with you.”

She was asking impossibilities and Tom knew it, but he promised that so far as he could he would do all she wished.

“Tom,” she whispered, after a moment’s silence, “Come closer; it is hard for me to talk; the lump in my throat chokes me so.”

Tom bent closer to her, while she went on: “I have loved you so much and thought you so good and never suspected the truth. Tom, oh, Tom, kiss me for the sake of what we have been to each other, and when I am gone, be the good man I used to think you were. Stay with father and take care of him. He needs you. Good bye. Go now. I am so tired.”

In an agony of remorse Tom kissed the face where the moisture of death was gathering fast. Then he left her, and when he saw her again she was like a beautiful piece of marble, with a smile on her lips which told of perfect peace. Mark and Fanny watched by her until the great change came, and the hand which had beaten the air constantly was stilled forever, its last stroke falling on the head of her father who knelt beside her. In his heart was anguish such as few men have ever known. Not once had she reproached him. If she had he could have borne better than he could the look in her eyes and the way she shrank from him at times. Once when Fanny was absent from the room for a moment she said to him, “Poor father, I know you are sorry, and I have loved you through it all, but I can’t bear it. I must die. It is better so, for things could never be again as they have been. I couldn’t be happy here, nor anywhere. I want to go to mother and to God. Stay with Tom; he will be kind to you. Don’t go with Fanny, if she urges it,—with her and Roy, I mean. You could not go to her mother.”

She had done what she could for all of them, and felt that her work was finished. For an hour or more she lay with her eyes closed and with no perceptible motion in her body except the slow beating of her fingers, and when they stopped she was dead. When sure she was gone Mark broke down entirely, while Fanny and Tom tried in vain to quiet him.

“Let me alone,” he said. “I must have it out by myself. Nothing can help me but time.”

Leaving the house he spent hours among the hills, walking up and down while the rain, which had begun to fall, beat upon him unnoticed. He did not think of the storm, or the darkness, and stumbled over rocks and bushes until benumbed with cold and wet with the rain he returned to the house, an old man, so broken that he would never be himself again. He let Tom and Roy and Fanny make the arrangements for the funeral, while he sat in the room with Inez, sometimes talking to her, sometimes to himself, and sometimes to Anita, by whom Inez was buried on one of the loveliest mornings of the late summer. There were few visitors in the valley, but all the people in the sparsely settled neighborhood turned out to the funeral, as they had done to her mother’s. The house was filled with the flowers they brought, some from the woods and some from the gardens which were stripped to honor the dead. Early in the morning on the day of the funeral there came from Stockton a box of exquisite roses and a pillow of flowers, with Inez’s name in the centre. The moment she heard of Inez’s death Mrs. Prescott had telegraphed for the flowers, urging haste and fearing lest her gift should not be in time. As the funeral did not take place until the third day after Inez’s death, they were in time, and neither Fanny nor Mark would have had any doubt as to the sender, if her card, “Mrs. Helen Tracy Prescott,” had not accompanied them.

“Look, father,” Fanny said. “See what mother has sent.”

She put the roses upon the table and left the room for vases in which to arrange them. When she returned one was gone, but there were so many she did not miss it, or suspect that it was between the lids of the family Bible which Mark had not opened before since he recorded Anita’s death. Helen’s thoughtfulness had touched him closely and the rose he took was for her sake and the old time when he had nearly ruined himself with the roses bought for her in Ridgefield. When the short service was over Roy, who longed to get away, suggested to Fanny that they should leave that afternoon, as her mother was anxious for her return. There was no good reason for her staying longer, except to be with her father, who, putting his own grief aside, said to her, “Much as I want you to stay I think you should go to your mother. It was kind in her to let me have you so long. Tell her so, and thank her for the flowers she sent to Inez.”

Fanny would like to have asked him to come to New York, but she knew this could not be. Her father and mother had separated themselves from each other, and the gulf between them could never be recrossed. But she could have him in her own home, when she had one, and she urged his coming to Boston and felt piqued that Roy did not second her invitation. He was busy strapping his satchel and pretended not to hear. Mark understood perfectly, and while thanking Fanny for her kindness, knew he should never trouble Roy, and knew, too, when he said good bye to Fanny that in all human probability he should never see her again. For hours after Tom, who took Roy and Fanny to Clark’s, was gone, he lay on Inez’s bed, wishing he, too, were dead and lying by the new-made grave from which a faint odor of roses occasionally reached him. It was like a breath of Helen,—a perfume from the years of long ago, and he could have shrieked as he recalled those days, remembering what he was then and what he was now. It was dark when Tom returned, and not finding Mark in the house he went to the grave where he was standing with folded arms and his frame convulsed with sobs.

“Mark,” Tom said, stretching his hand across Inez’s grave, “Mark, it is we two alone forever.”

“Yes, we two alone forever,” Mark answered, grasping Tom’s hand, and holding fast to it as a drowning man holds to a spar. “Alone forever, with our secret to keep, and here by Anita’s grave and Inez’s, both of whom I killed, let us swear that henceforth we will be honest men and try in some small measure to redeem the past.”

“I swear it! I promised Inez that whatever restitution could be made we would make,” Tom said, and for a few moments the clasped hands were held above the grave, while the heads of the two men were bowed low as if each were ratifying the solemn vow.