The Lady of North Star. Ottwell Binns
This letter suggests an intimacy beyond that of mere acquaintance or friendship.”
“You are right,” the girl answered quickly. “He was my husband.”
“Good God!”
As that expression of extreme amazement broke from him, Corporal Bracknell halted abruptly, looking at the beautiful girl by his side, with incredulous eyes.
“It is quite true,” she said. “I am Koona Dick’s wife – or widow.”
Still he did not speak, and watching him the girl saw a flash of something like horror come into his eyes.
“And you went to meet him – last night?” he said, at last, in a shaking voice.
“I have not said so,” answered the girl quickly. “You have read that note, but you must not surmise – ”
“I saw you,” broke in the corporal quickly.
“You saw me?” It was Joy Gargrave’s turn to be astonished, and as he looked at her it seemed to him that fear was shining in her eyes.
“Yes, I saw you,” he answered mechanically.
“Where?” she demanded.
“You were coming out of the path between the woods. You had a rifle in your hand. There was a strange look upon your face. I was standing with my dogs in the shadow of a spruce and you passed me without seeing me. I was about to speak to you, but the sight of your face kept me silent. It was that, and the thought of two shots which I had heard, which sent me along the path you had just left to investigate. At the end of it, I found Koona Dick!”
“Dead?” asked the girl sharply.
“He seemed so to me!” was the reply. “Indeed, I was quite sure that there was no life left in him, or I should have done my best to revive him, and not have left him lying there in the snow.”
“If he were dead, where is he now?” came the swift question.
“I do not know,” replied the corporal. “The thing is a mystery to me. When I returned to the place with Mr. Rayner last night the body had already disappeared.”
“But how could it do that, if he were really dead?” objected his companion.
“Some one must have removed – ” Corporal Bracknell stopped suddenly.
It was clear to Joy that some new thought had just occurred to him. She saw that he was looking at her thoughtfully, and she wondered what was in his mind.
“What is it?” she asked quickly. “What are you thinking?”
“Tell me,” he countered, “did you see your husband last night?”
“I did,” she answered frankly.
“And when I had said that Koona Dick was lying dead in the snow, you left the table. You went out of the room, and you did not return.”
He spoke like a man pursuing a thought which seemed to him almost incredible, but which was thrust upon him by force of circumstances, and the girl divined what that thought was.
“You do not think that I went back?” she cried. “You cannot think that I am responsible for the disappearance?”
“It is a natural thought,” he answered, “though I am loathe to believe it. You must remember that I saw your face as you came out of the path; and that the man was your husband, though apparently your friends do not know it. My cousin – your husband – ”
“Oh! but you do not understand!” cried the girl quickly. “You do not realize that I would give all I have to know that the body of the man who was my husband was still where you first saw it. It is the uncertainty of the fact which troubles and worries me, and not his death.”
“Not his death!”
“No!” was the almost appalling reply. “The certainty of that would be like a deliverance.”
For a little time Corporal Bracknell stared at her, too much amazed for speech. It was clear to him that she was in deadly earnest and that she meant every word she said. He wondered what marital tragedy was behind her attitude, and was still wondering, when she spoke again in a hard voice.
“You seem surprised,” she said; “you know your cousin fairly well?”
“Yes,” he answered, nodding his head.
“Then you cannot suppose that I loved him, even though he was my husband! No girl could love Dick Bracknell when she knew him for what he was, and any woman, married as I was, would almost rejoice to know that – that she was released.”
“You do not know what you are saying,” protested the corporal quickly. “You cannot realize what implication your words may have to any one who knows what I know. It would almost seem that you had wished for Dick Bracknell’s death, and that fact in view of the circumstances in which I found him last night might assume a terrible significance.”
“You mean that people might think I shot my husband?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “At least many people would ask that question.”
“And you?” inquired the girl. “You have asked yourself that question?”
“Naturally,” replied Bracknell. “You must remember that I saw you coming from the place where he was lying.”
“I wonder what conclusion you have reached,” said Joy, looking at him keenly.
“None,” was the prompt reply.
“You are in doubt, then?”
“I am very loath to believe what the circumstances would seem to indicate,” answered the corporal quietly. “As you must see, they are terribly against you, and your visit to the place this morning – ”
“You know of that?”
“I saw you and Miss La Farge come in whilst Mr. Rayner and I were at breakfast, and whilst you were supposed to be still in your rooms. I found your tracks in the snow.”
“And you cannot guess why I – why we went?”
“No.”
“We went to look for that note which you showed me just now. I had meant to destroy it, and missed it this morning. Then I remembered that I had put it in my pocket last night, and naturally concluded that I had lost it outside. That is the explanation of the journey this morning. No one here but Miss La Farge has any idea that Dick Bracknell is my husband, and I did not want any of them to know.”
Corporal Bracknell was conscious of a sense of relief. The explanation was so simple that he felt it to be altogether true. But there were questions that still required answering, and he proceeded to ask them.
“I can well believe, that,” he answered slowly. “I suppose Mr. Rayner was among them from whom you wished to keep this knowledge?”
“Yes,” was the reply, given frankly. “I did not wish him to know how foolish I had been.”
The corporal remembered what Rayner had hinted as to his hopes of making Joy Gargrave his wife, and the girl’s answer started fresh questions in his mind. Did she love Rayner and favour his aspirations, and knowing herself to be already a wife, had she deliberately removed the barrier which lay between them, but of which Rayner had no knowledge? He could not tell, and looking steadily at the girl he proceeded to ask his next question.
“Miss Gargrave – I mean Mrs. Brack – ”
“No! No!” interrupted the girl. “Do not give me that name. I do not want it. I hate it. Call me Gargrave.”
He bowed. “As you please, Miss Gargrave. There is a question I wish to ask you. Tell me, did you have speech with Dick Bracknell last night?”
“Not a word.”
“But you saw him?”
“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I saw him.”
“You stood in the shadow of