One of My Sons. Green Anna Katharine
while George, conversing feverishly with Mr. Gryce, raised his voice rather than dropped it as these fatal words fell from the lips of one who certainly had the best of reasons for believing himself in the confidence of his patient.
Miss Meredith, who was listening to something besides this conversation, fateful as it was, was meanwhile schooling herself for Sweetwater's return. I could discern this by the change that passed over her face just when his steps began to be heard; and was conscious of quite a personal shock when I saw her hand fall involuntarily on her bosom as if the thing he sought was there and not in the rooms above.
Cursing myself for the infatuation which would not let my eyes leave her face, I turned with sudden impulse into the reception room opening on my right. But I speedily stepped back again. Miss Meredith, who seemed to have gained some confidence by my presence, had feebly uttered my name. It seemed that the child had been heard to cry above, and that the coroner had refused to let her go up.
I made my way to her side, and, despite Alfred's scowls, entered into conversation with her, urging her to be calm and wait patiently for the detective's return.
"The child has its father," I suggested.
But this did not seem to afford her much comfort. She wrung her hands in her anxiety, and showed no relief till her cousin, followed by the watchful detective, was again seen on the stairs.
Then she took my arm. She needed it, for life and death were in the gaze she fixed upon the latter. And he – well, I had never seen the man before that night; yet I felt as certain from the way his feet fell on the stairs he so slowly descended that he had been successful in his search, and that the piece of paper which rustled so gently in his hand was the one Mr. Gryce had declared to be of such importance, and which she – but what man can complete a thought suggestive of distrust, while the hand of its lovely object presses warmly on his arm, and the eyes whose glance he both fears and loves rest upon his in a confidence which in itself is a rebuke?
I gave up speculation and devoted myself to sustaining Miss Meredith in her present ordeal. As Sweetwater reached the last step she murmured these words:
"I tried; but fate has rebuked me. Now I see my duty."
Her eyes had not followed Leighton's figure as he joined his brothers in the library, but mine did, and it did not make my heart any lighter to see from the glance he tossed her on entering that he was prepared for some event serious enough to warrant all this emotion.
"You have found what you have sought!" she cried, intercepting the young detective in her anxiety to end the suspense it took all her strength to sustain.
His smile was dubious, but it was a smile. Meantime the paper he held had found its way into the coroner's hands.
"Call Gryce!" shouted out that functionary, with a doubtful look at the slip in his hand; "I shall need his experience in deciphering this."
The detective was at his side in an instant, and together they bent over the scrap. The suspense was great, and the moment well-nigh intolerable. Then we saw the detective's finger rest on a certain portion of the paper they were mutually consulting, and remain there. The coroner read the words thus indicated, and his face showed both strong and sudden feeling.
"Ah!" he ejaculated. "What do you make out of that?"
The detective uttered a few low words, and taking the piece which had been in the envelope he fitted it to the one held by the coroner. We could all see that they were part of the same sheet.
"I should like to see if it also fits the portion that was left in the typewriter," suggested the other, ignoring the anxious looks bent upon him from every side. Passing by us all, he laid the three pieces together on the library table with a glance at the young Gillespies which was not without its element of compassion.
"Let us see it. What's on it?" urged Alfred. "Why, this is worse than father's death."
"If Miss Meredith will tell me how this central portion came to be on the attic floor, I will presently oblige you," rejoined the coroner.
She who of all present showed no interest in the completed sheet answered instantly, and without any further attempt at subterfuge or denial:
"I carried it there. I had come upon my uncle lying dead in his study, and thinking, fearing, that he had been struck while at the typewriter, I flew to the latter, and, lifting up the carriage, consulted the letter attached to it for some indication of this, and saw – George, Leighton, Alfred," she vehemently cried, facing them with a look before which each proud and spirited head sank in turn, "I do not know upon which of your three souls the weight of this crime rests. But one of you, one, I say, lies under the ban of your father's denunciation. Read!" And her trembling finger crossed that of the detective and fell upon a line terminating the half-finished letter which they had already partially read.
This was the appearance of that letter as now presented:
James C. Taylor, Esq.,
18 State St.,
Boston, Mass.,
Dear Sir: —
In regard to the financing of the $10,000,000, mentioned in our conversation on the 12th inst., it is of the utmost importance that I am placed as soon as possible in full possession of the important facts regarding the property covered by these bonds.
First, the actual cost per mile, and if such cost covers the necessary equipment for same both for freight and passenger service; also if these bonds are the first lien one of my sons he
"Those last words were written after he felt himself sinking under the poison," rang out in instinctive emphasis from her lips. "Contradict me, George! Contradict me, Leighton! or you, Alfred, if you can! It would give me new life. It would restore me – "
She was sinking, fainting, almost at the point of death herself, but not a voice was lifted, not a hand raised. This suggestion of crime had robbed them, one and all, of breath, almost of life.
VIII
THE MAN BEHIND THE SCREEN
Suddenly one voice rang out in passionate protest. "Hope! Hope! It was not I! It was not I!" And Alfred, leaving his brothers, stood before his young cousin, with self-forgetful gestures expressing a denial which was half-prayer.
George flushed, and his fist rose; Leighton drooped his head in shame – or was it sorrow; but the next minute he had that rebellious fist in his own clutch. Miss Meredith kept her eyes turned sedulously away from them all.
"I only want one of you to speak; the man who can exonerate his brothers by confessing his own guilt. Do not touch me!"
This to Alfred, whose hand had caught hold of her dress.
With an air of pride, the first I had seen in him, the youngest son of Mr. Gillespie withdrew from her side and took up his stand on the farther side of the hall.
"You are quick with your suspicions," he flashed out. "What sort of men do you think us, that you should allow an incoherent phrase like this at the end of a letter begun in health but finished in agony, prejudice you to the death against persons of your own blood? It would take more than that to make me think evil of you, Hope."
It was a natural reproach, and it told not only upon her, but upon us all. The words which had precipitated this situation might mean much and might mean little. Had the reputation of these young men been of a more stable character, or had no attempt been made to suppress this portion of the letter, suspicion would never have followed the discovery of this incongruous addition to the half-finished business letter found in the typewriter; "one of my sons he" – was that an accusation of crime? George and Leighton were on the point of asserting not, and Alfred had just begun to swagger with an air of injured pride, when Miss Meredith, recovering herself, laid her hand upon her bosom in repetition of her former action, and slowly drew forth a letter, the appearance of which evidently produced a new and still greater shock in the breasts of the three young men.
"I shall not try to vindicate myself," said she. "I have lived like a sister in this house, and you would have a right to reproach me if it were not