The Eye of Dread Part 52

He began pacing the room, and Betty sat on the edge of the narrow jail bedstead and watched him with tearful eyes. "It was true, Betty? You did not really love me?"

"Peter! Didn't you ever see the papers? Didn't you ever know all about the search for you and how he disappeared, too? Oh, Peter! And it was supposed he killed you and pushed you over the bluff and then ran away. Oh, Peter! But it was kept out of the home paper by the Elder so your mother should not know--and Peter--didn't you know Richard lived?"

"Lived? lived?" He lifted his clasped hands above his head, and they trembled. "Lived? Betty, say it again!"

"Yes, Peter. I saw him and I know--"

"Oh, G.o.d, make me know it. Make me understand." He fell on his knees beside her and hid his face in the scant jail bedding, and his frame shook with dry sobs. "I was a coward. I told you that. I--I thought myself a murderer, and all this time my terrible thought has driven me--Lived? I never killed him? G.o.d! Betty, say it again."

Betty sat still for a moment, shaken at first with a feeling of resentment that he had made them all suffer so, and Richard most of all. Then she was overwhelmed with pity for him, and with a glad tenderness. It was all over. The sorrow had been real, but it had all been needless. She placed her hand on his head, then knelt beside him and put her arm about his neck and drew his head to her bosom, motherwise, for the deep mother heart in her was awakened, and thus she told him all the story, and how Richard had come to her, broken and repentant, and what had been said between them. When they rose from their knees, it was as if they had been praying and at the same time giving thanks.

"And you thought they would find him lying there dead and know you had killed him and hunt you down for a murderer?"

"Yes."

"Poor Peter! So you pushed that great stone out of the edge of the bluff into the river to make them think you had fallen over and drowned--and threw your things down, too, to make it seem as if you both were dead."

"Yes."

"Oh, Peter! What a terrible mistake! How you must have suffered!"

"Yes, as cowards suffer."

They stood for a moment with clasped hands, looking into each other's eyes. "Then it was true what Richard told me? You did not love me, Betty?" He had grown calmer, and he spoke very tenderly. "We must have all the truth now and conceal nothing."

"Not quite--true. I--I--thought I did. You were so handsome! I was only a child then--and I thought I loved you--or that I ought to--for any girl would--I was so romantic in those days--and you had been wounded--and it was like a romance--"

"And then?"

"And then Richard came, and I knew in one instant that I had done wrong--and that I loved him--and oh, I felt myself so wicked."

"No, Betty, dear. It was all--"

"It was not fair to you. I would have been true to you, Peter; you would have never known--but after Richard came and told me he had killed you,--I felt as if I had killed you, too. I did like you, Peter. I did! I will do whatever is right."

"Then it was not in vain--that we have all suffered. We have been saved from doing each other wrong. Everything will come right now. All that is needed is for father to hear what you have told me, and he will come and take me out of here--Where is Richard?"

"No one knows."

"Not even you, Betty?"

"No; he has dropped out of the world as completely as you did."

"Well, it will be all right, anyway. Father will withdraw his charge and--did you say his bank was going to pieces? He must have help. I can help him. You can help him, Betty."

"How?"

Then Peter told Betty how he had found Richard's father in his mountain retreat and that she must write to him. "If there is any danger of the bank's going, write for me to Larry Kildene. Father never would appeal to him if he lost everything in the world, so we must do it. As soon as I am out of here we can save him." Already he felt himself a new man, and spoke hopefully and cheerfully. He little knew the struggle still before him.

"Peter, father and mother are out there in the corridor waiting. I was to call them. I made them let me come in alone."

"Oh, call them, call them!"

"I don't think they will know you as I did, with that great beard on your face. We'll see."

When Bertrand and Mary entered, they stood for a moment aghast, seeing little likeness to either of the young men in the developed and bronzed specimen of manhood before them. But they greeted him warmly, eager to find him Peter, and in their manner he missed nothing of their old-time kindliness.

"You are greatly changed, Peter Junior. You look more like Richard Kildene than you ever did before in your life," said Mary.

"Yes, but when we see Richard, we may find that a change has taken place in him also, and they will stand in their own shoes hereafter."

"Since the burden has been lifted from my soul and I know that he lives, I could sing and shout aloud here in this cell. Imprisonment--even death--means nothing to me now. All will come right before we know it."

"That is just the way Richard would act and speak. No wonder you have been taken for him!" said Bertrand.

"Yes, he was always more buoyant than I. Maybe we have both changed, but I hope he has not. I loved my friend."

As they walked home together Mary Ballard said, "Now, Peter ought to be released right away."

"Certainly he will be as soon as the Elder realizes the truth."

"How he has changed, though! His face shows the mark of sorrow. Those drooping, sensitive lines about his mouth--they were never there before, and they are the lines of suffering. They touched my heart. I wish Hester were at home. She ought to be written to. I'll do it as soon as I get home."

"Peter is handsomer than he was, in spite of the lines, and, as you say, he does look more like his cousin than he used to--because of them, I think. Richard always had a debonair way with him, but he had that little, sensitive droop to the lips--not so marked as Peter's is now--but you remember, Mary--like his mother's."

"Oh, mother, don't you think Richard could be found?" Betty's voice trailed sorrowfully over the words. She was thinking how he had suffered all this time, and wishing her heart could reach out to him and call him back to her.

"He must be, dear, if he lives."

"Oh, yes. He'll be found. It can be published that Peter Junior has returned, and that will bring him after a while. Peter's physique seems to have changed as well as his face. Did you notice that backward swing of the shoulders, so like his cousin's, when he said, 'I could sing and shout here in this cell'? And the way he lifted his head and smiled? That beard is a horrible disguise. I must send a barber to him. He must be himself again."

"Oh, yes, do. He stands so straight and steps so easily. His lameness seems to have quite gone," said Mary, joyously,--but at that, Bertrand paused in his walk and looked at her, then glancing at Betty walking slowly on before, he laid his finger to his lips and took his wife's arm, and they said no more until they reached home and Betty was in her room.

"I simply can't think it, Bertrand. I see Peter in him. It is Peter.

Of course he's like Richard. They were always alike, and that makes him all the more Peter. No other man would have that likeness, and it goes to show that he is Peter."

"My dear, unless the Elder sees him as we see him, the thing will have to be tried out in the courts."

"Unless we can find Richard. Hester ought to be here. She could set them right in a moment. Trust a mother to know her own boy. I'll write her immediately. I'll--"

"But you have no authority, Mary."

"No authority? She is my friend. I have a right to do my duty by her, and I can so put it that it will not be such a shock to her as it inevitably will be if matters go wrong, or Peter should be kept in prison for lack of evidence--or for too much evidence. She'll have to know sooner or later."

Bertrand said no more against this, for was not Mary often quite right? "I'll see to it that he has a barber, and try to persuade the Elder to see him. That may settle it without any trouble. If not, I must see that he has a good lawyer to help in his defense."

"If that savage old man remains stubborn, Hester must be here."

"If the thing goes to a trial, Betty will have to appear against him."