XVIII.

SUSPENSE.

The letter which Frank sent to Edgar described his encounter with Huckins, and expressed a wish that the Doctor would employ some proper person to watch his movements and see that he did not make himself disagreeable to the Misses Cavanagh, whom he had evidently set himself to annoy.

What, then, was Etheridge's surprise to receive on the following day a reply from his friend, to the effect that Mr. Huckins had not only called upon the young ladies mentioned by him, but had made himself very much at home with them, having lunched, dined, and report even said breakfasted at their table.

This was startling news to Frank, especially after the letter he had written to Hermione, but he restrained himself from returning at once to Marston, as he was half tempted to do, and wrote her again, this time beseeching her in plain words to have nothing to do with so suspicious a person as he knew this Huckins to be, and advised her where to appeal for assistance in case this intolerable intruder was not willing to be shaken off. This letter brought the following answer:

Dear Mr. Etheridge :

Do not be concerned about us. Mr. Huckins will not trouble us unduly. Knowing his character, we are not likely to be misled by him, and it amuses us in our loneliness to have so queer and surprising a person as our guest.

Aunt Lovell is very sharp and keeps a keen eye upon him. He does not offend us except by his curiosity, but as that is excusable in an old man introduced into a household like ours, we try to make the best of it. When you come yourself we will dismiss the intruder.

Ever sincerely yours,

Hermione Cavanagh .

This letter was put very near Frank's heart, but it did not relieve him from his anxiety. On the contrary, it added to his fears, because it added to his mystification. What did Huckins want of the Misses Cavanagh, and what was the real reason for the indulgence they showed him? Was there a secret in their connection which he ought to know? He began to hasten his business and plan to leave the city again, this time for more than a single night.

Meantime, Dr. Sellick was not without his own secret doubts. Hide it as he would, he still cherished the strongest affection for the once dimpling, dainty, laughing-eyed Emma. Not a day passed but he had to combat a fervent desire to pass her gate, though when he yielded to this temptation he went by like an automaton, and never looked to right or left unless it was dark night. His was a proud soul and an exacting one. His self-esteem had been hurt, and he could not bring himself to make even the shadow of an advance towards one who had been the instrument of his humiliation. And yet he trembled when he thought of misfortune approaching her, and was almost as anxious as Frank about the presence in her house of the hypocritical and unprincipled Huckins. Had he listened only for a moment to the pleading of his better instincts, he would have gone to their door and lent his entreaties to those of Frank for a speedy dismissal of their unreliable guest; but the hour had not yet come for such a self-betrayal, and so he refrained, even while cursing himself for a pride which would not yield even at the impending danger of one so passionately beloved.

He however kept a man at watch upon the suspected stranger, a precaution which certainly did not amount to much, as the danger, if there was any, was not one which a detective stationed outside of the Misses Cavanagh's house would be able to avert.

Meanwhile Huckins, who was in his element, grew more insinuating and fatherly in his manner, day by day. To him this run of a house in which there lurked a mystery worth his penetrating, was a bliss that almost vied with that of feeling himself on the road to wealth. He pottered and poked about in the laboratory, till there was not a spot in the room or an article on the shelves which had not felt the touch of his hand; and Hermione and Emma, with what some might have thought a curious disregard of their father's belongings, let him do this, merely restricting him from approaching their own rooms. Possibly they felt as if some of the gloom of the place was lifted by the presence of even this evil-eyed old man; and possibly the shadows which were growing around them both, as Hermione labored day after day upon the history she was writing for her lover, made this and every other circumstance disconnected with the important theme they were considering, of little moment to them. However that may be, he came and went as he would, and had many sly hours in the long, dim laboratory and in the narrow twisted corridors at the back of the house, and what was worse and perhaps more disastrous still, on the stairs and in the open doorways with Doris, who had learned to toss her head and smile very curiously while busying herself in the kitchen, or taking those brief minutes of respite abroad, which the duties of the place demanded. And so the week passed, and Saturday night came.

It was seven o'clock, and train-time, and the blinds in the Cavanagh house guarding the front windows were tipped just a little. Behind one of these sat Emma, listening to the restless tread of Hermione pacing the floor in the room above. She knew that the all-important letter was done, but she could not know its contents, or what their effect would be upon the free, light-hearted man whose approach they were expecting. She thought she ought to know all that Hermione had been through in the year which had passed, yet the wild words uttered by her sister in their late memorable interview, had left a doubt in her mind which a week's meditations had only served to intensify. Yet the fears to which it had given rise were vague, and she kept saying to herself: "There cannot be anything worse than I know. Hermione exaggerated when she intimated that she had a secret bitterer than that we keep together. She has suffered so much she cannot judge. I will hope that all will go right, and that Mr. Etheridge will receive her explanations and so make her his everlasting debtor. If once she is made to feel that she owes him something, she will gradually yield up her resolve and make both him and me happy. She will see that some vows are better broken than kept, and——"

Here her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Hermione. The latter had not been able to walk off her excitement, and so had come down-stairs to bear the moments of suspense with her sister.

"I hope he will not stop," she cried. "I do not feel as if I could see him till——"

"You will have to," murmured Emma, "for here he comes." And the next moment the ardent, anxious face of the young lawyer appeared at the gate, making the whole outside world seem brighter to one pair of eyes which watched him.

"He wants to talk about our visitor," declared Hermione. "I cannot talk about anything so trivial to-day; so do you see him, and when he rises to go, say that Doris will bring a certain packet to his door to-night. I will not meet his eyes till that ordeal is passed." And with a gasp that showed what this moment was to her, she flew from the room, just as Doris' step was heard in the hall on her way to the front door.

"Where is your sister?" were the first words uttered by Frank, as he came into the room.

"Upstairs," answered Emma. "She does not feel as if she can see you again till everything is clear between you. The letter she promised is written, and you shall have it to-night. Then if you wish to come again——" her smile completed the sentence.

He took heart at this smile.

"I do not doubt," said he, "that I shall be here very early in the morning." And then he glanced all around him.

"Does Huckins still bother you?" he asked.

"Oh," she cried, with some constraint, "we allow him to come here. 'Tis the least we can do for one——"

She paused, and seemed to bite off her words.

"Do not let us talk of trivialities," she completed, "till the great question of all is settled. To-morrow, if you come, we will speak of this visitor of whom you so little approve."

"Very well," he rejoined, with some wistfulness, and turned with his usual impetuosity towards the door. "I will go to Dr. Sellick's, then, at once, that I may receive your sister's communication the sooner. Tell her every moment will be an hour till it is in my hands."

"Doris will carry it to you as soon as it is dark. Had we known you were going to stop here, she might have had it ready now. As it is, look for it as I have said, and may it bring you no deeper pain than the mystery of our seclusion has already done. Hermione has noble qualities, and if her temper had never been injured by the accident which befell her in her infancy, there might have been no call for Doris' errand to-night."

"I will remember that," said he, and left the house with the confident smile of a man who feels it impossible to doubt the woman towards whom his heart has gone out in the fullest love.

When the door was shut behind him, Hermione came stealing again down-stairs.

"Does he—is he—prepared to receive the letter?" she asked.

Emma nodded. "I promised that it should go as soon as it is dusk."

"Then send Doris to me in half an hour; and do not try to see me again to-night. I must bear its long and tedious hours alone." And for a second time Hermione disappeared from the room.

In half an hour Doris was sent upstairs. She found Hermione standing in the centre of her room with a thick packet in her hand. She was very pale and her eyes blazed strangely. As Doris advanced she held out the packet with a hand that shook notwithstanding all her efforts to render it firm.

"Take this," she said; "carry it to where Mr. Etheridge stays when here, and place it in his hands yourself, just as you did a former note I entrusted to you."

Doris, with a flush, seized the letter, her face one question, but her lips awed from speaking by the expression of her mistress' face.

"You will do what I say?" asked Hermione.

The woman nodded.

"Go then, and do not wait for an answer; there will be none to-night."

Her gesture of dismissal was imperative and Doris turned to go.

But Hermione had one word more to say. "When you come back," she added, "come to my door and tap on it three times. By that I shall know you have delivered the letter; but you need not come in."

"Very well, Miss," answered the woman, speaking for the first time. And as Hermione turned her back, she gave her young mistress one burning, inquisitive look and then slid out of the room with her eyes on the packet which she almost seemed to devour with her eyes.

As she passed the laboratory door she detected the thin weasel-like face of Huckins looking out.

"What is that?" he whispered, pointing eagerly at the packet.

"Be in the highway at Dobbins' corner, and I'll tell you," she slyly returned, going softly on her way.

And he, with a chuckle which ought to have sounded through that house like a premonition of evil, closed the laboratory door with a careful hand, and descending the twisted staircase which led to the hall below, prepared to follow out her injunction in his own smooth and sneaking way.

"I think I'll spend the evening at the prayer-meeting," he declared, looking in at Emma, as he passed the sitting-room door. "I feel the need of such comfort now and then. Is there anything I can do for either of you up street?"

Emma shook her head; she was glad to be rid of his company for this one evening; and he went out of the front door with a quiet, benevolent air which may not have imposed on her, but which certainly did on Doris, who was watching from the garden to see him go.

They met, as she had suggested, at Dobbins' corner. As it was not quite dark, they walked into a shaded and narrow lane where they supposed themselves to be free from all observation.

"Now tell me," said he, "what your errand is. That it is important I know from the way you look. What is it, good, kind Doris; anything that will help us in our plans?"

"Perhaps," said she. "It is a letter for Mr. Etheridge; see how big and thick it is. It ought to tell a deal, this letter; it ought to explain why she never leaves the house."

The woman's curious excitement, which was made up of curiosity and a real desire to know the secret of what affected her two young mistresses so closely, was quickly communicated to the scheming, eager old man. Taking the packet from her hand, he felt of it with trembling and inquisitive fingers, during which operation it would have been hard to determine upon which face the desire to break the seal was most marked.

"It may contain papers—law papers," he suggested, his thumb and forefinger twitching as they passed over the fastening.

But Doris shook her head.

"No," she declared vivaciously, "there are no law-papers in that envelope. She has been writing and writing for a week. It is her secret, I tell you—the secret of all their queer doings, and why they stay in the house so persistently."

"Then let us surprise that secret," said he. "If we want to help them and make them do like other reasonable folks, we must know with what we have to contend."

"I am sure we would be justified," she rejoined. "But I am afraid Miss Hermione will find us out. Mr. Etheridge will tell her somebody meddled with the fastening."

"Let me take the letter to the hotel, and I will make that all right. It is not the first——" But here he discreetly paused, remembering that Doris was not yet quite ready to receive the full details of his history.

"But the time? It will take an hour to open and read all there is written here, and Miss Hermione is waiting for me to tell her that I have delivered it to Mr. Etheridge."

"Tell her you had other errands. Go to the stores—the neighbors. She need never know you delivered this last."

"But if you take it I won't know what is in it, and I want to read it myself."

"I will tell you everything she writes. My memory is good, and you shall not miss a word."

"But—but——"

"It is your only chance," he insinuated; "the young ladies will never tell you themselves."

"I know it; yet it seems a mean thing to do. Can you close the letter so that neither he nor they will ever know it has been opened?"

"Trust me," he leered.

"Hurry then; I will be in front of Dr. Sellick's in an hour. Give me the letter as you go by, and when I have delivered it, meet me on my way back and tell me what she says."

He promised, and hastened with his treasure to the room he still kept at the hotel. She watched him as long as he was in sight and then went about her own improvised errands. Did she realize that she had just put in jeopardy not only her young mistresses' fortunes, but even their lives? fQSLEexvKEvwj9aRK5Mf2Gqoy28FafU/QqehF2kVlsKtA90N4sb30GHHCz18w++5

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