Anne Part 65

"I would rather not show it."

"There is determined concealment here somewhere, Anne, and I am much troubled; I fear you stand very near great danger. Remember that this is a serious matter, and ordinary rules should be set aside, ordinary feelings sacrificed. You will do well to show me that letter, and, in short, to tell me the whole truth plainly. Do you think you have any friend more steadfast than myself?"

"You are kind. But--you are prejudiced."

"Against Heathcote, do you mean?" said Dexter, a sudden flash coming for an instant into his gray eyes. "Is it possible that _you_, you too, are interested in that man?"

But at this touch upon her heart the girl controlled herself again. She resumed her seat, with her face turned toward the window. "I do not believe that he did it, and you do," she answered, quietly. "That makes a wide separation between us."

But for the moment the man who sat opposite had forgotten the present, to ask himself, with the same old inward wonder and anger, why it was that this other man, who had never done anything or been anything in his life, who had never denied himself, never worked, never accomplished anything--why it was that such a man as this had led captive Helen, Rachel, and now perhaps Anne. If it had been a case of great personal beauty, he could have partially accounted for it, and--scorned it. But it was not. Many a face was more regularly handsome than Heathcote's; he knew that he himself would be p.r.o.nounced by the majority a handsomer, although of course older, man. But when he realized that he was going over this same old bitter ground, by a strong effort of will he stopped himself and returned to reality. Heathcote's power, whatever it was, and angry as it made him, was nevertheless a fact, and Dexter never contradicted facts. With his accurate memory, he now went back and took up Anne's last answer. "You say I believe it. It is true," he said, turning toward her (he had been sitting with his eyes cast down during this whirl of feeling); "but my belief is not founded upon prejudice, as you seem to think. It rests upon the evidence. Let us go over the evidence together: women are sometimes intuitively right, even against reason."

"I can not go over it."

But he persisted. "It would be better," he said, determined to draw the whole truth from her, if not in one way, then in another. For he realized how important it was that she should have an adviser.

She looked up and met his eyes; they were kind but unyielding. "Very well," she said, making an effort to do even this. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands: people could endure, then, more than they knew.

Dexter, not giving her a moment's delay, began immediately: his object was to rouse her and draw her out. "We will take at first simply the testimony," he said. "I have the main points here in my note-book. We will even suppose that we do not know the persons concerned, but think of them as strangers." He went over the evidence clearly and briefly.

Then the theories. "Note," he said, "the difference. On one side we have a series of facts, testified to by a number of persons. On the other, a series of possibilities, testified to by no one save the prisoner himself. The defense is a theory built to fit the case, without one proof, no matter how small, as a foundation."

Anne had not stirred. Her eyes were turned away, gazing into the darkness of the garden. Dexter closed his note-book, and returned it to his pocket.

"They have advanced no further in the real trial," he said; "but you and I will now drop our role of strangers, and go on. We know him; we knew her. Can we think of any cause which would account for such an act? Was there any reason why Ward Heathcote would have been relieved by the death of his wife?"

Anne remained silent.

"The common idea that he wished to have sole control of her wealth will hardly, I think, be received by those who have personally known him,"

continued Dexter. "He never cared for money. He was, in my opinion, ostentatiously indifferent to it." Here he paused to control the tone of his voice, which was growing bitter. "I repeat--can you imagine any other reason?" he said. Still she did not answer.

"Why do you not answer? I shall begin to suspect that you do."

At this she stirred a little, and he was satisfied. He had moved her from her rigidity. Not wishing to alarm her, he went on, tentatively: "My theory of the motive you are not willing to allow; still, I consider it a possible and even probable one. For they were not happy: _he_ was not happy. Beautiful as she was, rich as she was, I was told, when I first came eastward in the spring, soon after their marriage, that had it not been for that accident and the dangerous illness that followed, Helen Lorrington would never have been Ward Heathcote's wife."

"Who told you this?" said Anne, turning toward him.

"I did not hear it from her, but it came from her--Rachel Bannert."

"She is a traitorous woman."

"Yes; but traitors betray--the truth."

He was watching her closely; she felt it, and turned toward the window again, so that he should not see her eyes.

"Suppose that he did not love her, but had married her under the influence of pity, when her life hung by a thread; suppose that she loved him--you say she did. Can you not imagine that there might have been moments when she tormented him beyond endurance concerning his past life--who knows but his present also? She was jealous; and she had wonderful ingenuity. But I doubt if you comprehend what I mean: a woman never knows a woman as a man knows her. And Heathcote was not patient.

He is a self-indulgent man--a man who has been completely spoiled."

Again he paused. Then he could not resist bringing forward something else, under any circ.u.mstances, to show her that she was of no consequence in the case compared with another person. "It is whispered, I hear, that the maid will testify that there was a motive, and a strong one, namely, a rival; that there was another woman whom Heathcote really loved, and that Helen knew this, and used the knowledge."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE ROSE, AND TOOK HER COLD HANDS IN HIS."]

The formless dread which accompanied Anne began now to a.s.sume definite outline and draw nearer. She gazed at her inquisitor with eyes full of dumb distress.

He rose, and took her cold hands in his. "Child," he said, earnestly, "I beseech you tell me all. It will be so much better for you, so much safer. You are suffering intensely. I have seen it all the evening. Can you not trust me?"

She still looked at him in silence, while the tears rose, welled over, and rolled slowly down.

"Can you not trust me?" he repeated.

She shook her head.

"But as you have told me something, why not tell me all?"

"I am afraid to tell all," she whispered.

"For yourself?"

"No."

"For him, then?"

"Yes."

He clinched his hand involuntarily as he heard this answer. Her pale face and agitation were all for him, then--for Ward Heathcote!

"You are really shaken by fear," he said. "I know its signs, or rather those of dread. It is pure dread which has possession of you now. How unlike you, Anne! How unlike yourself you are at this moment!"

But she cared nothing for herself, nothing for the scorn in his voice (the jealous are often loftily scornful), and he saw that she did not.

"Whom do you fear? The maid?"

"Yes."

"What can she say?"

"I do not know; and yet--"

"Is it possible--can it be possible, Anne, that _you_ are the person implicated, the so-called rival?"

"I do not know; and it is because I do not know that I am so much afraid," she answered, still in the same low whisper.

"But why should you take this possibility upon yourself? Ward Heathcote is no Sir Galahad, Heaven knows. Probably at this moment twenty women are trembling as you are trembling, fearing lest they be called by name, and forced forward before the world."

He spoke with anger. Anne did not contradict him, but she leaned her head upon her hand weariedly, and closed her eyes.

"How can I leave you?" he said, breaking into his old kindness again. "I ought to go, but it is like leaving a girl in the hands of torturers. If there were only some one to be with you here until all this is over!"

"There is no one. I want no one."