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Frank Etheridge waited a long time that night for the promised communication. Darkness came, but no letter; eight o'clock struck, and still there was no sign of the dilatory Doris. Naturally impatient, he soon found this lengthy waiting intolerable. Edgar was busy in his office, or he would have talked to him. The evening paper which he had brought from New York had been read long ago, and as for his cigar, it lacked flavor and all power to soothe him. In his exasperation he went to the book-shelves, and began looking over the numberless volumes ranged in neat rows before him. He took out one, glanced at it, and put it back; he took out another, without even seeing what its title was, looked at it a moment, sighed, and put that back; he took out a third, which opened in his hand at the title-page, saw that it was one of those old-fashioned volumes, designated The Keepsake , and was about to close and replace it as he had done the others, when his attention was suddenly and forcibly attracted by a name written in fine and delicate characters on the margin at the top. It was no other than this:
Harriet Smith
Gift of her husband
October 3rd 1848
Harriet Smith! Astounded, almost aghast, he ran to Edgar's office with the volume.
"Edgar! Edgar!" he cried; "look here! See that name! And the book was in your library too. What does it mean? Who was, who is Harriet Smith, that you should have her book?"
Dr. Sellick, taken by surprise, stared at the book a minute, then jumped to his feet in almost as much excitement as Frank himself.
"I got that book from Hermione Cavanagh years ago; there was a poem in it she wanted me to read. I did not know I had the book now. I have never even thought of it from that day to this. Harriet Smith! Yes, that is the name you want, and they must be able to tell you to whom it belongs."
"I believe it; I know it; I remember now that they have always shown an interest in the matter. Hermione wanted to read the will, and—Edgar, Edgar, can they be the heirs for whom we are searching, and is that why Huckins haunts the house and is received by them in plain defiance of my entreaties?"
"If they are the heirs they would have been likely to have told you. Penniless young girls are not usually backward in claiming property which is their due."
"That is certainly true, but this property has been left under a condition. I recollect now how disappointed Hermione looked when she read the will. Give me the book; I must see her sister or herself at once about it." And without heeding the demurs of his more cautious friend, Frank plunged from the house and made his way immediately to the Cavanagh mansion.
His hasty knock brought Emma to the door. As he encountered her look and beheld the sudden and strong agitation under which she labored, he realized for the first time that he was returning to the house before reading the letter upon which so much depended.
But he was so filled with his new discovery that he gave that idea but a thought.
"Miss Cavanagh—Emma," he entreated, "grant me a moment's conversation. I have just found this book in Dr. Sellick's library—a book which he declares was once given him by your sister—and in it——"
They had entered the parlor by this time and were standing by a table upon which burned a lamp——"is a name."
She started, and was bending to look at the words upon which his finger rested, when the door opened. Hermione, alarmed and not knowing what to think of this unexpected return of her lover so soon, as she supposed, after the receipt of her letter, had come down from her room in that mood of extreme tension which is induced by an almost unendurable suspense.
Frank, who in all his experience of her had never seen her look as she did at this moment, fell back from the place where he stood and hastily shook his head.
"Don't look like that," he cried, "or you will make me feel I can never read your letter."
"And have you not read it?" she demanded, shrinking in her turn till she stood on the threshold by which she had entered. "Why then are you here? What could have brought you back so soon when you knew——"
"This," he interpolated hastily, holding up the book which he had let fall on the table at her entrance. "See! the name of Harriett Smith is written in it. Tell me, I pray, why you kept from me so persistently the fact that you knew the person to whom the property I hold in trust rightfully belongs."
The two girls with a quick glance at each other drooped their heads.
"What was the use?" murmured Emma, "since Harriet Smith is dead and her heirs can never claim the property. We are her heirs, Mr. Etheridge; Harriet Smith was our mother, married to father thirty-nine years ago after a widowhood of only three months. It was never known in this place that she had had a former husband or had borne the name of Smith. There was so much scandal and unhappiness connected with her first most miserable marriage, that she suppressed the facts concerning it as much as possible. She was father's wife and that was all that the people about here knew."
"I see," said Frank, wondering greatly at this romance in real life.
"But you might have told me," he exclaimed. "When you saw what worriment this case was causing me, you might have informed me that I was expending my efforts in vain."
"I wished to do so," answered Emma, "but Hermione dreaded the arguments and entreaties which would follow."
"I could not bear the thought of them," exclaimed the girl from the doorway where she stood, "any more than I can bear the thought now when a matter of much more importance to me demands your attention."
"I will go," cried Frank. But it was to the empty doorway he spoke; Hermione had vanished with these passionate words.
"She is nearly ill," explained Emma, following him as he made for the door. "You must excuse one who has borne so much."
"I do not excuse her," he cried, "I love her." And the look he cast up the stairs fully verified this declaration. "That is why I go with half on my lips unsaid. To-morrow we will broach the topic again, meanwhile beware of Huckins. He means you no good by being here. Had I known his connection with you, he should never have entered these doors."
"He is our uncle; our mother's brother."
"He is a scamp who means to have the property which is rightfully your due."
"And he will have it, I suppose," she returned. "Hermione has never given me a hope that she means to contend with him in this matter."
"Hermione has had no counsellor but her own will. To-morrow she will have to do with me. But shut the door on Huckins; promise me you will not see him again till after you have seen me."
"I cannot—I know too little what is in that letter."
"Oh, that letter!" he cried, and was gone from the house.
When he arrived at Dr. Sellick's again, he found Doris awaiting him, looking very flushed and anxious. She had a shawl drawn around her, and she held some bundles under that shawl.
"I hope," she said, "that you did not get impatient, waiting for me. I had some errands to do, and while doing them I lost the letter you expected and had to go back and look for it. I found it lying under the counter in Mr. Davis' store and that is why it is so soiled, but the inside is all right, and I can only beg your pardon for the delay."
Drawing the packet from under her shawl, she handed it to the frowning lawyer, her heart standing still as she saw him turn it over and over in his hand. But his looks if angry were not suspicious, and with a relieved nod she was turning to go when he observed:
"I have one word to say to you, Doris. You have told me that you have the welfare of the young ladies you serve at heart. Prove this to be so. If Mr. Huckins comes to the door to-night, or in the early morning, say that Miss Cavanagh is not well and that he had better go to the hotel. Do not admit him; do not even open the door , unless Miss Cavanagh or her sister especially command you to do so. He is not a safe friend for them, and I will take the responsibility of whatever you do."
Doris, with wide-stretched eyes and panting breath, paused to collect her faculties. A week ago she would have received this intimation regarding anybody Mr. Etheridge might choose to mention, with gratitude and a certain sense of increased importance. But ambition and the sense of being on intimate and secret terms with a man and bachelor who boasted of his thousands, had made a change in her weak and cunning heart, and she was disposed to doubt the lawyer's judgment of what was good for the young ladies and wise for her.
But she did not show her doubt to one whom she had secretly wronged so lately; on the contrary she bowed with seeming acquiescence, and saying, "Leave me alone to take good care of my young ladies," drew her shawl more closely about her and quietly slid from the house.
A man was standing in the shadow of a great elm on the corner.
As she passed, he whispered: "Don't stop, and don't expect to see me to-night. There is some one watching me, I am sure. To-morrow, if I can I will come."
She had done a wicked and dangerous thing, and she had not learned the secret.