The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин
lover was the last. Mr. Gryce, could that hand have belonged to Mr. Ostrander?”
I was intensely excited; so much so that Mr. Gryce made me a warning gesture.
“Hush!” he whispered; “you are attracting attention. That hand was the hand of Mr. Ostrander; and the reason why I did not accept William Knollys’ suggestion to search the Deacon’s barn-loft was because I knew it had been chosen as a place of refuge by this missing lover of Lucetta.”
Chapter XXXVIII.
A Few Words
Never have keener or more conflicting emotions been awakened in my breast than by these simple words. But alive to the necessity of hiding my feelings from those about me, I gave no token of my surprise, but rather turned a stonier face than common upon the man who had caused it.
“Refuge?” I repeated. “He is there, then, of his own free will—or yours?” I sarcastically added, not being able to quite keep down this reproach as I remembered the deception practised upon Lucetta.
“Mr. Ostrander, madam, has been spending the week with Deacon Spear—they are old friends, you know. That he should spend it quietly and, to a degree, in hiding, was as much his plan as mine. For while he found it impossible to leave Lucetta in the doubtful position in which she and her family at present stand, he did not wish to aggravate her misery by the thought that he was thus jeopardizing the position on which all his hopes of future advancement depended. He preferred to watch and wait in secret, seeing which, I did what I could to further his wishes. His usual lodging was with the family, but when the search was instituted, I suggested that he should remove himself to that eyrie back of the hay where you were sharp enough to detect him to-day.”
“Don’t attempt any of your flatteries upon me,” I protested. “They will not make me forget that I have not been treated fairly. And Lucetta—oh! may I not tell Lucetta——”
“And spoil our entire prospect of solving this mystery? No, madam, you may not tell Lucetta. When Fate has put such a card into our hands as I played with that telegram to-day, we would be flying in the face of Providence not to profit by it. Lucetta’s despair makes her bold; upon that boldness we depend to discover and bring to justice a great criminal.”
I felt myself turn pale; for that very reason, perhaps, I assumed a still sterner air, and composedly said:
“If Mr. Ostrander is in hiding at the Deacon’s, and he and his host are both in your confidence, then the only man whom you can designate in your thoughts by this dreadful title must be Mr. Trohm.”
I had perhaps hoped he would recoil at this or give some other evidence of his amazement at an assumption which to me seemed preposterous. But he did not, and I saw, with what feelings may be imagined, that this conclusion, which was half bravado with me, had been accepted by him long enough for no emotion to follow its utterance.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, “how can you reconcile such a suspicion with the attitude you have always preserved towards Mr. Trohm?”
“Madam,” said he, “do not criticise my attitude without taking into account existing appearances. They are undoubtedly in Mr. Trohm’s favor.”
“I am glad to hear you say so,” said I, “I am glad to hear you say so. Why, it was in response to his appeal that you came to X. at all.”
Mr. Gryce’s smile conveyed a reproach which I could not but acknowledge I amply merited. Had he spent evening after evening at my house, entertaining me with tales of the devices and the many inconsistencies of criminals, to be met now by such a puerile disclaimer as this? But beyond that smile he said nothing; on the contrary, he continued as if I had not spoken at all.
“But appearances,” he declared, “will not stand before the insight of a girl like Lucetta. She has marked the man as guilty, and we will give her the opportunity of proving the correctness of her instinct.”
“But Mr. Trohm’s house has been searched, and you have found nothing—nothing,” I argued somewhat feebly.
“That is the reason we find ourselves forced to yield our judgment to Lucetta’s intuitions,” was his quick reply. And smiling upon me with his blandest air, he obligingly added: “Miss Butterworth is a woman of too much character not to abide the event with all her accustomed composure.” And with this final suggestion, I was as yet too crushed to resent, he dismissed me to an afternoon of unparalleled suspense and many contradictory emotions.
Chapter XXXIX.
Under a Crimson Sky
When, in the course of events, the current of my thoughts receive a decided check and I find myself forced to change former conclusions or habituate myself to new ideas and a fresh standpoint, I do it, as I do everything else, with determination and a total disregard of my own previous predilections. Before the afternoon was well over I was ready for any revelations which might follow Lucetta’s contemplated action, merely reserving a vague hope that my judgment would yet be found superior to her instinct.
At five o’clock the diggers began to go home. Nothing had been found under the soil of Mother Jane’s garden, and the excitement of search which had animated them early in the day had given place to a dull resentment mainly directed towards the Knollys family, if one could judge of these men’s feelings by the heavy scowls and significant gestures with which they passed our broken-down gateway.
By six the last man had filed by, leaving Mr. Gryce free for the work which lay before him.
I had retired long before this to my room, where I awaited the hour set by Lucetta with a feverish impatience quite new to me. As none of us could eat, the supper table had not been laid, and though I had no means of knowing what was in store for us, the sombre silence and oppression under which the whole house lay seemed a portent that was by no means encouraging.
Suddenly I heard a knock at my door. Rising hastily, I opened it. Loreen stood before me, with parted lips and terror in all her looks.
“Come!” she cried. “Come and see what I have found in Lucetta’s room.”
“Then she’s gone?” I cried.
“Yes, she’s gone, but come and see what she has left behind her.”
Hastening after Loreen, who was by this time half-way down the hall, I soon found myself on the threshold of the room I knew to be Lucetta’s.
“She made me promise,” cried Loreen, halting to look back at me, “that I would let her go alone, and that I would not enter the highway till an hour after her departure. But with these evidences of the extent of her dread before us, how can we stay in this house?” And dragging me to a table, she showed me lying on its top a folded paper and two letters. The folded paper was Lucetta’s Will, and the letters were directed severally to Loreen and to myself with the injunction that they were not to be read till she had been gone six hours.
“She has prepared herself for death!” I exclaimed, shocked to my heart’s core, but determinedly hiding it. “But you need not fear any such event. Is she not accompanied by Mr. Gryce?”
“I do not know; I do not think so. How could she accomplish her task if not alone? Miss Butterworth, Miss Butterworth, she has gone to brave Mr. Trohm, our mother’s persecutor and our life-long enemy, thinking, hoping, believing that in so doing she will rouse his criminal instincts, if he has them, and so lead to the discovery of his crimes and the means by which he has been enabled to carry them out so long undetected. It is noble, it is heroic, it is martyr-like, but—oh! Miss Butterworth, I have never broken a promise to any one before in all my life, but I am going to break