A Modern Madonna. Caroline Abbot Stanley

A Modern Madonna - Caroline Abbot Stanley


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It did not look as if a reconciliation had taken place, to say the least. He must find out first of all where Victor was.

      The office of De Jarnette and De Jarnette, Loans and Mortgages, was in the third story of the Conococheague Building on F Street, one of the finest in Washington at that time. They consisted of a large corner room, a smaller room at the side of this communicating with it, which was Victor's private office, and a still smaller one beyond this which he had had fitted up as a lavatory. All three opened upon the corridor—Victor's room being nearest the stairway, which was alongside of the elevators. These offices were furnished in the most luxurious fashion and after Victor De Jarnette's faultless taste. The workroom of the firm was Richard's private office across the hall. In Victor's absence his rooms had been unused and untouched except by the man who did the cleaning.

      Richard De Jarnette had returned to the building with the intention of going directly to Victor's room, but when he opened his own door a letter left by the postman attracted his attention and he waited to read it. In the midst of the reading he was startled by the sound of a pistol. He threw the letter down and started for the hall. It had seemed to come from Victor's room. He rushed across to his door. It was locked. In a moment he had made his way through the front office into the back room.

      An appalling sight met his eyes. Victor lay on the floor near his desk, the blood trickling over the carpet from a hidden wound. And over him, with a revolver in her hand—the one he had seen on her desk—stood Margaret.

      As Richard's face appeared in the doorway she turned a ghastly, terror-stricken face upon him.

      "What is it? Who did it?" she gasped. "I—I picked this up."

      "Put it down," he said sternly, and pushed past her. In the hall hurrying steps were heard, and a confusion of voices. People were trying the door.

      Richard De Jarnette knelt beside a dying man, but there was a flash of recognition in the dimming eyes.

      "Victor! in God's name, what is this?"

      The wounded man's lips moved. His head was on his brother's arm and Richard's ear was close enough to catch the gasping whisper:

      "She's killed me, Dick."

      "What does he say?" cried Margaret. The words had been too faint to reach her, but she saw a look of horror come into Richard De Jarnette's face. "Who did it? How did it happen?"

      The room was filling with men. Dr. Semple, whose office was across the hall, was examining the wound.

      In every man there is a divine spark of manliness. It is not always apparent. Sometimes it would seem to have burned itself out with the fierce fires of passion—sometimes to have been quenched by the slow drippings that come from the fount called selfishness—oftener, perhaps, it is smothered under a sodden blanket of sensuality and low desires—but it is a spark of the divine fire, and when the right wind strikes it it leaps into flame.

      At the sound of Margaret's voice Victor De Jarnette struggled to rise.

      "Raise me up," he panted. "There is something—I—must say."

      "Say it quickly," said the doctor, holding a handkerchief to stanch the blood. "There is no time to lose." To Richard and the men back of them he added, impressively, "This is a dying statement." And they gave close heed.

      His head supported by Richard's arm, Victor gathered his strength for one supreme effort, and said so distinctly that all in the room heard it,

      "It was accidental. I did it myself. I was—cleaning—my revolver." Men's eyes sought his desk where lay a handkerchief which had evidently been used for the purpose. "It—went off—in—my hand."

      He sank back on a pillow taken hastily from the couch. It was one that Margaret had made for him before they were married—in the Harvard colors. It looked ghastly put to such a use.

      "Can't you do something?" asked Richard De Jarnette hoarsely of the doctor.

      "No, Richard," he said gently, "he is almost gone."

      The dying man opened his eyes.

      "Dick—" his voice was very faint.

      "Yes, Victor."

      "—take care of m—"

      Then, as if some sudden thought or recollection had come to him, he struggled again to rise, whispering wildly,

      "The will! … Richard! the will! Don't let—"

      His head dropped back against the crimson letters. That which it was in his heart to say would be forever unsaid.

       "DUST TO DUST"

       Table of Contents

      At the coroner's inquest Margaret was the first one questioned.

      When Victor De Jarnette breathed his last, Dr. Semple had taken her by the hand and led her, apparently almost stupefied, into Richard's room, there to await the summons to appear before the coroner, who was immediately notified of the death. When she came in she was entirely collected, though very pale. Her appearance indicated more horror at what had occurred than grief, which was but natural under the circumstances, as more than one man thought, recalling the past year.

      When questioned, she stated that her husband had been with her through the afternoon, that he had left her home about four o'clock, and that she had come down to the office an hour or so later. She had gone directly to the door of the main office, and just before reaching it had heard the pistol shot. She ran through the front office into Mr. De Jarnette's private room, feeling sure that the sound had come from there. She had found him on the floor, and near him a revolver which she recognized as one that he had had in his possession for several years.

      Here, suddenly recalling Mr. De Jarnette's peremptory command to her to put the pistol down, she hesitated, and looked at him. His face was averted.

      She went on, saying nothing about having had the pistol in her hand, nor about its being one of a pair that her husband owned, though this fact came to her suddenly. She had not had time to question him, she said, nor even to go to him before Mr. De Jarnette came in.

      Had she heard any sound at the other door?

      No, she had heard nothing, or rather she had been so horror-stricken to come upon her husband in this condition that she had not noticed anything.

      Richard De Jarnette stated that he had heard the shot while he was in his own room across the hall and had hurried at once to the outside door of his brother's room. Finding it locked he had run around through the main office and found things just as Mrs. De Jarnette had testified. The door was locked, but it was a night latch, he got up to show. One might have gone out that way.

      "Without encountering you?" the coroner asked. And Mr. De Jarnette, hesitating, and weighing his words, thought it hardly probable, though possible.

      Margaret interrupted timidly here to say that since he spoke of the door she recollected hearing something just as she came in that sounded like the closing of a door. Mr. De Jarnette turned toward her, and with his hard eyes upon her, Margaret faltered that perhaps it was the outer door of the lavatory. Investigation proved that that door was bolted on the inside.

      "I cannot see the pertinence of this line of inquiry," said Mr. De Jarnette, at length, almost roughly, "in the face of his dying statement that it was accidental." And his eyes as if by chance turned upon his sister-in-law.

      The elevator boy was questioned as to whether any suspicious person had gone down about that time. He could not remember. It seemed to him, upon further thought, that a fat old lady had got on going down at the time of the pistol shot, but so many people went up and down all the time he couldn't be sure that it was not on the floor below.

      Dr. Semple was examined as to the wound.

      "I have made no careful examination," he said slowly, "beyond assuring myself that


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