The Chief Legatee Part 16

"Hardly; she was much too excited. But I had no suspicion of what she was cherishing in her mind. I thought her intentions whimsical, and endeavored to edge in a little advice, but she was in no mood to receive it. Her mind was too full of what she intended to do.

"Here's where she ate her supper," he added, picking up a morsel of crust from a table set against the wall. "And so this door was found fastened on this side?" he proceeded, laying his hand on the broken lock.

"It had to be burst open, you see."

"And the window?"

"Was up. The carpet, as you can tell by look and feeling, is still wet with the soaking it got."

Mr. Harper's air changed to one of reluctant conviction.

"The evidence seems conclusive of your wife having left this room and the house in the remarkable manner stated by Miss Hazen. Yet--"

This _yet_ showed that he was not as thoroughly convinced as the first phrase would show. But he added nothing to it; only stood listening, apparently to the even breathing of the sleeper on the other side of this loosely hanging door.

As he did so, his eye encountered the hot, dry gaze of Mr. Ransom, fixed upon him in a suspense too cruel to prolong, and with a sudden change of manner he moved from the door, saying significantly as he led the way out:

"Let us have a word or two in your own room. It is a principle of mine not to trust even the ears of the deaf with what it is desirable to keep secret."

Had the glance with which he said this lingered a moment longer on his companion's face, he would undoubtedly have been startled at the effect of his own words. But being at heart a compa.s.sionate man, or possibly understanding his new client much better than that client supposed, he had turned quite away in crossing the threshold, and so missed the conscious flash which for a moment replaced the somber and feverish expression that had already aged by ten years the formerly open features of this deeply grieved man.

Once in the hall, it was too dark to note further niceties of expression, and by the time Mr. Ransom's room was reached, purpose and purpose only remained visible in either face.

As they were crossing the threshold, the lawyer wheeled about and cast a quick look behind him.

"I observe," said he, "that you have a full and un.o.bstructed view from here of the whole hall and of the two doors where our interest is centered. I presume you kept a strict watch on both last night. You let nothing escape you?"

"Nothing that one could see from this room."

With a thoughtful air, the lawyer swung to the door behind them. As it latched, the face of Mr. Ransom sharpened. He even put out a hand and rested it on a table standing near, as if to support himself in antic.i.p.ation of what the lawyer would say now that they were again closeted together.

Mr. Harper was not without his reasons for a corresponding agitation, but he naturally controlled himself better, and it was with almost a judicial air that he made this long-expected but long-deferred suggestion:

"You had better tell me now, and as explicitly as possible, just what is in your mind. It will prevent all misunderstanding between us, as well as any injudicious move on my part."

Mr. Ransom hesitated, leaning hard on the table; then, with a sudden burst, he exclaimed:

"It sounds like folly, and you may think that my troubles have driven me mad. But I have a feeling here--a feeling without any reason or proof to back it--that the woman now sleeping off her exhaustion in Anitra's room is the woman I courted and married--Georgian Hazen, now Georgian Ransom, my wife."

"Good! I have made no mistake. That is my thought, too," responded the lawyer.

CHAPTER XV

ANITRA

A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility.

"I have no reason for this conclusion,--this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom.

"It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment.

It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your attention for a moment."

"But I don't consider you either wrong or misled," protested the other.

"That is," he warily added, "I am ready to accept the correctness of the possibility you mention and afterwards to note where the supposition will lead us. Of course, your first sensation is that of relief."

"It will be when I am no longer the prey of doubts."

"Notwithstanding the mystery?"

"Notwithstanding the mystery. The one thing I have found it impossible to contemplate is her death;--the extinction of all hope which death alone can bring. She has become so blended with my every thought since the hour she vanished from my eyes and consequently from my protection, that I should lose the better part of my self in losing her. Anything but that, Mr. Harper."

"Even possible shame?"

"How, shame?"

"Some reason very strong and very vital must underlie her conduct if what we suspect is true, and she has not only been willing to subject you and herself to a seeming separation by death, but to burden herself with the additional misery of being obliged to a.s.sume a personality c.u.mbered by such a drawback to happiness and even common social intercourse as this of the supposed Anitra."

"You mean her deafness?"

"I mean that, yes. What could Mrs. Ransom's motive be (if the woman sleeping yonder is Mrs. Ransom) for so tremendous a sacrifice as this you ascribe to her? The rescue of her sister from some impending calamity?

That would argue a love of long standing and of superhuman force; one far transcending even her natural affection for the husband to whom she has just given her hand. Such a love under such circ.u.mstances is not possible. She has known this long lost sister for a few days only. Her sense of duty towards her, even her compa.s.sion for one so unfortunate, might lead her to risk much, but not so much as that. You must look for some other explanation; one more reasonable and much more personal."

"Where? where? I'm all at sea; blinded, dazed, almost at my wits' end. I can see no reason for anything she has done. I neither understand her nor understand myself. I ought to shrink from the poor creature there, sleeping off--I don't know what. But I don't. I feel drawn to her, instead, irresistibly drawn, as if my place were at her bedside to comfort and protect."

At this impulsive a.s.sertion springing from a depth of feeling for which the staid lawyer had no measure, a perplexed frown chased all the urbanity from his face. Some thought, not altogether welcome, had come to disturb him. He eyed Mr. Ransom closely from under his clouded brows. He could do this now with impunity, for Mr. Ransom's glances were turned whither his thoughts and inclinations had wandered.

"I would advise you," came in slow comment from the watchful lawyer, "not to be too certain of your conclusions till doubt becomes an absolute impossibility. Instinct is a good thing but it must never be regarded as infallible. It may be proved that it is your wife who has fled, after all. In which case it would be a great mistake to put any faith in this gipsy girl, Anitra."

Mr. Ransom's face hardened; his eyes did not leave the direction in which they were set.

"I will remember," said he.

His companion did not appear satisfied, and continued emphatically:

"Whether the woman now here is Mrs. Ransom or her wild and irresponsible sister, she is a person of dangerous will and one not to be lightly regarded nor carelessly dealt with. Pray consider this, Mr. Ransom, and do not allow impulse to supersede judgment. If you will take my advice--"

"Speak."

"I should treat her as if she were the woman she calls herself, or, at least, as if you thought her so. Nothing--" this word he repeated as he noted the incredulity with which the other listened--"would be so likely to make her betray herself as that."

"Let us go back and listen again at her door," was Mr. Ransom's emphatic but inconsequent reply.

The lawyer desisted from further advice, but sighed as he followed his new client into the hall. At the turn of the staircase they were stopped by the sound of wrangling voices in the office below. Mr. Harper heard his name mentioned and hastened to interfere. a.s.suring Mr. Ransom of his speedy return, he stepped down-stairs, and in a few minutes reappeared with a middle-aged man of characteristic appearance, whom he introduced to Mr. Ransom as Mr. Goodenough. The sight of the uncouth head of their youthful acquaintance of the morning peering up after him from the foot of the stairs was warranty sufficient that this was the man who had met the strange young lady on the highway early that morning.

At sight of him Mr. Ransom felt that inner recoil which we all experience at the prospect of an immediate and definite termination of a long brooding doubt. In another instant and with one word this uncultured and hitherto unknown man would settle for him the greatest question of his life. And he did not feel prepared for it. He had an impulse almost of flight, as if in this way he could escape a certainty he feared. What certainty? Perhaps he could not have answered had he been asked. His mind was in a turmoil. He had feelings--instincts; that was all.