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The next morning at about nine o'clock Frank burst impetuously into Edgar's presence. They had not met for a good-night the evening before and they had taken breakfast separately.
"Edgar, what is this I hear about Hermione Cavanagh? Is it true she lives alone in that house with her sister, and that they neither of them ever go out, not even for a half-hour's stroll in the streets?"
Edgar, flushed at the other's excitement, turned and busied himself a moment with his books and papers before replying.
"Frank, you have been among the gossips."
"And what if I have! You would tell me nothing, and I knew there was a tragedy in her face; I saw it at the first glance."
"Is it a tragedy, this not going out?"
"It is the result of a tragedy; must be. They say nothing and nobody could draw from her beyond the boundary of that brick wall we rode by so carelessly. And she so young, so beautiful!"
"Frank, you exaggerate," was all the answer he received.
Frank bit his lip; the phrase he had used had been a trifle strong for the occasion. But in another moment he was ready to continue the conversation.
"Perhaps I do speak of an experiment that has never been tried; but you know what I mean. She has received some shock which has terrified her and made her afraid of the streets, and no one can subdue this fear or induce her to step through her own gate. Is not that sad and interesting enough to move a man who recognizes her beauty?"
"It is certainly very sad," quoth the other, "if it is quite true, which I doubt."
"Go talk to your neighbors then; they have not been absent like yourself for a good long year."
"I am not interested enough," the other began.
"But you ought to be," interpolated Frank. "As a physician you ought to recognize the peculiarities of such a prejudice. Why, if I had such a case——"
"But the case is not mine. I am not and never have been Miss Cavanagh's physician."
"Well, well, her friend then."
"Who told you I was her friend?"
"I don't remember; I understood from some one that you used to visit her."
"My neighbors, as you call them, have good memories."
"Frank, Frank, subdue your curiosity. If I did, I do not now. The old gentleman is dead, and it was he upon whom I was accustomed to call when I went to their house."
"The old gentleman?"
"Miss Cavanagh's father."
"And you called upon him?"
"Sometimes."
"Edgar, how short you are."
"Frank, how impatient you are."
"But I have reason."
"How's that?"
"I want to hear about her, and you mock me with the most evasive replies."
Edgar turned towards his friend; the flush had departed from his features, but his manner certainly was not natural. Yet he did not look unkindly at the ardent young lawyer. On the contrary, there was a gleam of compassion in his eye, as he remarked, with more emphasis than he had before used:
"I am sorry if I seem to be evading any question you choose to put. But the truth is you seem to know more about the young lady than I do myself. I did not know that she was the victim of any such caprice."
"Yet it has lasted a year."
"A year?"
"Just the time you have been away."
"Just——" Edgar paused in the repetition. Evidently his attention had been caught at last. But he soon recovered himself. "A strange coincidence," he laughed. "Happily it is nothing more."
Frank surveyed his friend very seriously.
"I shall believe you," said he.
"You may," was the candid rejoinder. And the young physician did not flinch, though Etheridge continued to look at him steadily and with undoubted intention. "And now what luck with Jerry?" he suddenly inquired, with a cheerful change of tone.
"None; I shall leave town at ten."
"Is there no Harriet Smith here?"
"Not if I can believe him."
"And has been none in the last twenty years?"
"Not that he can find out."
"Then your quest here is at an end?"
"No, it has taken another turn, that is all."
"You mean——"
"That I shall come back here to-morrow. I must be sure that what Jerry says is true. Besides—— But why mince the matter? I—I have become interested in that girl, Edgar, and want to know her—hear her speak. Cannot you help me to make her acquaintance? If you used to go to the house—— Why do you frown? Do you not like Miss Cavanagh? "
Edgar hastily smoothed his forehead.
"Frank, I have never thought very much about her. She was young when I visited her father, and then that scar——"
"Never mind," cried Frank. He felt as if a wound in his own breast had been touched.
Edgar was astonished. He was not accustomed to display his own feelings, and did not know what to make of a man who did. But he did not finish his sentence.
"If she does not go out," he observed instead, "she may be equally unwilling to receive visitors."
"Oh, no," the other eagerly broke in; "people visit there just the same. Only they say she never likes to hear anything about her peculiarity. She wishes it accepted without words."
It was now Edgar's turn to ask a question.
"You say she lives there alone? You mean with servants, doubtless?"
"Oh, yes, she has a servant. But I did not say she lived there alone; I said she and her sister."
Edgar was silent.
"Her sister does not go out, either, they say."
"No? What does it all mean?"
"That is what I want to know."
"Not go out? Emma!"
"Do you remember Emma ?"
"Yes, she is younger than Hermione."
"And what kind of a girl is she ?"
"Don't ask me, Frank. I have no talent for describing beautiful women."
"If her sister is, yes."
"You mean she has no scar." It was softly said, almost reverently.
"No, she has no scar."
Frank shook his head.
"The scar appeals to me, Edgar."
Edgar smiled, but it was not naturally. The constraint in his manner had increased rather than diminished, and he seemed anxious to start upon the round of calls he had purposed to make.
"You must excuse me," said he, "I shall have to be off. You are coming back to-morrow?"
"If business does not detain me."
"You will find me in my new office by that time. I have rented the small brown house you must have noticed on the main street. Come there, and if you do not mind bachelor housekeeping, stay with me while you remain in town. I shall have a good cook, you may be sure, and as for a room, the north chamber has already been set apart for you."
Frank's face softened and he grasped the doctor's hand.
"That's good of you; it looks as if you expected me to need it."
"Have you not a Harriet Smith to find?"
Frank shrugged his shoulders. "I see that you understand lawyers."
Frank rode down to the depot with Jerry. As he passed Miss Cavanagh's house he was startled to perceive a youthful figure bending over the flower-beds on the inner side of the wall. "She is not so pretty by daylight," was his first thought. But at that moment she raised her head, and with a warm thrill he recognized the fact that it was not Hermione, but the sister he was looking at.
It gave him something to think of, for this sister was not without her attractions, though they were less brilliant and also less marred than those of the sad and stately Hermione.
When he arrived at his office his first inquiry was if anything had been heard from Flatbush, and upon being told to the contrary he immediately started for that place. He found the house a scene of some tumult. Notwithstanding the fact that the poor woman still lay unburied, the parlors and lower hall were filled with people, who stared at the walls and rapped with wary but eager knuckles on the various lintels and casements. Whispers of a treasure having been found beneath the boards of the flooring had reached the ear of the public, and the greatest curiosity had been raised in the breasts of those who up to this day had looked upon the house as a worm-eaten structure fit only for the shelter of dogs.
Mr. Dickey was in a room above, and to him Frank immediately hastened.
"Well," said he, "what news?"
"Ah," cried the jovial witness, coming forward, "glad to see you. Have you found the heirs?"
"Not yet," rejoined Frank. "Have you had any trouble? I thought I saw a police-officer below."
"Yes, we had to have some one with authority here. Even Huckins agreed to that; he is afraid the house will be run away with, I think. Did you see what a crowd has assembled in the parlors? We let them in so that Huckins won't seem to be the sole object of suspicion; but he really is, you know. He gave me plenty to do that night."
"He did, did he?"
"Yes; you had scarcely gone before he began his tactics. First he led me very politely to a room where there was a bed; then he brought me a bottle of the vilest rum you ever drank; and then he sat down to be affable. While he talked I was at ease, but when he finally got up and said he would try to get a snatch of sleep I grew suspicious, and stopped drinking the rum and set myself to listening. He went directly to a room not far from me and shut himself in. He had no light, but in a few minutes I heard him strike a match, and then another and another. 'He is searching under the boards for more treasure,' thought I, and creeping into the next room I was fortunate enough to come upon a closet so old and with such big cracks in its partition that I was enabled to look through them into the place where he was. The sight that met my eye was startling. He was, as I conjectured, peering under the boards, which he had ripped up early in the evening; and as he had only the light of a match to aid him, I would catch quick glimpses of his eager, peering face and then lose the sight of it in sudden darkness till the gleam of another match came to show it up again. He crouched upon the floor and crept along the whole length of the board, thrusting in his arm to right and left, while the sweat oozed on his forehead and fell in large drops into the long, narrow hollow beneath him. At last he seemed to grow wild with repeated disappointments, and, starting up, stood looking about him at the four surrounding walls, as if demanding them to give up their secrets. Then the match went out, and I heard him stamp his foot with rage before proceeding to put back the boards and shift them into place. Then there came silence, during which I crept on tiptoe to the place I had left, judging that he would soon leave his room and return to see if I had been watching him.
"The box was on the bed, and throwing myself beside it, I grasped it with one arm and hid my face with the other, and as I lay there I soon became conscious of his presence, and I knew he was looking from me to the box, and weighing the question as to whether I was sleeping sound enough for him to risk a blow. But I did not stir, though I almost expected a sudden crash on my head, and in another moment he crept away, awed possibly by my superior strength, for I am a much bigger man than he, as you must see. When I thought him gone I dropped my arm and looked up. The room was in total darkness. Bounding to my feet I followed him through the halls and came upon him in the room of death. He had the lamp in his hand, and he was standing over his sister with an awful look on his face.
"'Where have you hidden it?' he hissed to the senseless form before him. 'That box is not all you had. Where are the bonds and the stocks, and the money I helped you to save?'
"He was so absorbed he did not see me. He stooped by the bed and ran his hand along under the mattresses; then he lifted the pillows and looked under the bed. Then he rose and trod gingerly over the floor, as if to see if any of the boards were loose, and peered into the empty closet, and felt with wary hand up and down the mantel sides. At last his eyes fell on the clock, and he was about to lift his hand to it when I said:
"'The clock is all right; you needn't set it; see, it just agrees with my watch!'
"What a face he turned to me! I tell you it is no fun to meet such eyes in an empty house at one o'clock at night; and if you hadn't told me the police would be within call I should have been sick enough of my job, I can tell you. As it was, I drew back a foot or two and hugged the box a little more tightly, while he, with a coward's bravado, stepped after me and whispered below his breath:
"'You are making yourself too much at home here. If I want to stop the clock, now that my sister is dead, what is that to you? You have no respect for a house in mourning, and I am free to tell you so.'
"To this tirade I naturally made no answer, and he turned again to the clock. But just as I was asking myself whether I should stop him or let him go on with his peerings and pokings, the bell rang loudly below. It was a welcome interruption to me, but it made him very angry. However, he went down and welcomed, as decently as he knew how, a woman who had been sent to his assistance by Miss Thompson, evidently thinking that it was time he made some effort to regain my good opinion by avoiding all further cause for suspicion.
"At all events, he gave me no more trouble that night, nor since, though the way he haunts the door of that room and the looks he casts inside at the clock are enough to make one's blood run cold. Do you think there are any papers hidden there?"
"I have no doubt of it," returned Frank. "Do you remember that the old woman's last words were, 'The clock! the clock!' As soon as I can appeal to the Surrogate I shall have that piece of furniture examined."
"I shall be mortally interested in knowing what you find there," commented Mr. Dickey. "If the property comes to much, won't Miss Thompson and I get something out of it for our trouble?"
"No doubt," said Frank.
"Then we will get married," said he, and looked so beaming, that Frank shook him cordially by the hand.
"But where is Huckins?" the lawyer now inquired. "I didn't see him down below."
"He is chewing his nails in the kitchen. He is like a dog with a bone; you cannot get him to leave the house for a moment."
"I must see him," said Frank, and went down the back stairs to the place where he had held his previous interview with this angry and disappointed man.
At first sight of the young lawyer Huckins flushed deeply, but he soon grew pale and obsequious, as if he had held bitter communing with himself through the last thirty-six hours, and had resolved to restrain his temper for the future in the presence of the man who understood him. But he could not help a covert sneer from creeping into his voice.
"Have you found the heirs?" he asked, bowing with ill-mannered grace, and pushing forward the only chair there was in the room.
"I shall find them when I need them," rejoined Frank. "Fortunes, however small, do not usually go begging."
"Then you have not found them?" the other declared, a hard glitter of triumph shining in his sinister eye.
"I have not brought them with me," acknowledged the lawyer, warily.
"Perhaps, then, you won't," suggested Huckins, while he seemed to grow instantly at least two inches in stature. "If they are not in Marston where are they? Dead! And that leaves me the undisputed heir to all my sister's savings."
"I do not believe them dead," protested Frank.
"Why?" Huckins half smiled, half snarled.
"Some token of the fact would have come to you. You are not in a strange land or in unknown parts; you are living in the old homestead where this lost sister of yours was reared. You would have heard if she had died, at least so it strikes an unprejudiced mind."
"Then let it strike yours to the contrary," snapped out his angry companion. "When she went away it was in anger and with the curse of her father ringing in her ears. Do you see that porch?" And Huckins pointed through the cracked windows to a decayed pair of steps leading from the side of the house. "It was there she ran down on her way out. I see her now, though forty years have passed, and I, a little fellow of six, neither understood nor appreciated what was happening. My father stood in the window above, and he cried out: 'Don't come back! You have chosen your way, now go in it. Let me never see you nor hear from you again.' And we never did, never! And now you tell me we would have heard if she had died. You don't know the heart of folks if you say that. Harriet cut herself adrift that day, and she knew it."
"Yet you were acquainted with the fact that she went to Marston."
The indignant light in the brother's eye settled into a look of cunning.
"Oh," he acknowledged carelessly, "we heard so at the time, when everything was fresh. But we heard nothing more, nothing."
"Nothing?" Frank repeated. "Not that she had married and had had children?"
"No," was the dogged reply. "My sister up there," and Huckins jerked his hand towards the room where poor Mrs. Wakeham lay, "surmised things, but she didn't know anything for certain. If she had she might have sent for these folks long ago. She had time enough in the last ten years we have been living in this hole together."
"But," Etheridge now ventured, determined not to be outmatched in cunning, "you say she was penurious, too penurious to live comfortably or to let you do so."
Huckins shrugged his shoulders and for a moment looked balked; then he cried: "The closest women have their whims. If she had known any such folks to have been living as you have named, she would have sent for them."
"If you had let her," suggested Frank.
Huckins turned upon him and his eye flashed. But he very soon cringed again and attempted a sickly smile, which completed the disgust the young lawyer felt for him.
"If I had let her," he repeated; "I, who pined for companionship or anything which would have put a good meal into my mouth! You do not know me, sir; you are prejudiced against me because I want my earnings, and a little comfort in my old age."
"If I am prejudiced against you, it is yourself who has made me so," returned the other. "Your conduct has not been of a nature to win my regard, since I have had the honor of your acquaintance."
"And what has yours been, worming, as you have, into my sister's confidence——"
But here Frank hushed him. "We will drop this," said he. "You know me, and I think I know you. I came to give you one last chance to play the man by helping me to find your relatives. I see you have no intention of doing so, so I will now proceed to find them without you."
"If they exist," he put in.
"Certainly, if they exist. If they do not——"
"What then?"
"I must have proofs to that effect. I must know that your sister left no heirs but yourself."
"That will take time," he grumbled. "I shall be kept weeks out of my rights."
"The Surrogate will see that you do not suffer."
He shuddered and looked like a fox driven into his hole.
"It is shameful, shameful!" he cried. "It is nothing but a conspiracy to rob me of my own. I suppose I shall not be allowed to live in my own house." And his eyes wandered greedily over the rafters above him.
"Are you sure that it is yours?"
"Yes, yes, damn you!" But the word had been hasty, and he immediately caught Frank's sleeve and cringed in contrition. "I beg your pardon," he cried, "perhaps we had better not talk any longer, for I have been too tried for patience. They will not even leave me alone in my grief," he whined, pointing towards the rooms full, as I have said, of jostling neighbors and gossips.
"It will be quiet enough after the funeral," Frank assured him.
"Oh! oh! the funeral!" he groaned.
"Is it going to be too extravagant?" Frank insinuated artfully.
Huckins gave the lawyer a look, dropped his eyes and mournfully shook his head.
"The poor woman would not have liked it," he muttered; "but one must be decent towards one's own blood."