The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 46

"Then who-what is buried in his grave at Hedgerow House?"

"Nothing," said Alexander Blair.

"A mock funeral!"

"My dear," said the man-he seemed to have grown suddenly old under the unspoken arraignment-"I could not tell you what I thought the truth. I thought then that Wilfrid had encountered Mr. Sedgwick, and that-that there had been a fight in which he was killed. Rather than face the scandal of a murder trial, a scandal in which the family name would have been dragged through the mire of the public prints again, I chose the part of deceit. I'd have bribed a hundred officers of the law rather than have had you dragged to the witness-stand, and have been compelled to give testimony myself. There has been enough of public shame in my life."

"But you made me believe that Mr. Sedgwick killed Wilfrid!" she accused.

"I believed it myself," he retorted.

"But what basis had _you_ for suspecting me of the crime?" cried Sedgwick, turning to Marjorie Blair. "You didn't know of his visit to me in women's clothes. You knew nothing of the quarrel, it seems, until just now. For what possible reason, in your belief, should I have killed him?"

She flushed to her temples. "I-I-thought," she murmured, "that he might have known of our acquaintance, and have misconstrued: that he might have gone to find you, and attacked you, and that you killed him. In self-defense, I mean."

"Thank you for that last, at least," said Sedgwick rather bitterly.

Then, as he saw her wince, "Forgive me!" he added in a low tone. "But, to be suspected by you, even though you were misled-" He stopped, catching Kent's frowning glance.

"Who discovered that the burial was a false one?" she asked, after a pause.

"Professor Kent," said Blair. "He and Mr. Sedgwick exhumed the coffin."

"That was the night-" her eyes questioned Sedgwick.

"That I found you at Hedgerow House. Yes," he said gently.

"And that my father-in-law charged you with being my husband's murderer."

"My dear Mrs. Blair!" said Kent uncomfortably. "Remember what justification he thought he had."

She considered a moment. "You are right," she said with an effort. "I don't mean to be unjust." Her head dropped in thought. "Whatever Wilfrid may have been," she continued, after a moment's silence, "he was my husband. I bear his name. And to leave him in a nameless grave is to dishonor not him alone, but myself."

"You would claim the body?" cried Alexander Blair.

"What else is there for us to do?" she countered.

"And bring down upon us unavoidably the publicity which we have escaped at so bitter a price?" cried the elder Blair. "Have we not suffered enough from the scandal of his life, that we should be further involved in the scandal of his death?"

"He's right, miss. It won't do," said the sheriff kindly.

"Silence is best," said Sedgwick.

"What the papers would do with this," opined Preston Jax, "would be a plenty."

"My advice is to let be," proffered Lawyer Bain.

"Yeh," grunted the half-breed.

"Oh, are you all against me?" she cried. "Mr. Kent, you, too? Do you think me wrong?"

"No," said Kent.

"Will you drag our name, hers as well as mine, in the mud?" cried the head of the house of Blair.

"No," said Kent again.

"But how, then-tell me what you intend-"

"No," said Kent, and with such absolute flat finality that the others looked at him in blank silence.

The silence was broken by a tremendous sigh. All eyes turned to Preston Jax, who had risen and was leaning against the wall, his chin jerking galvanically.

"Well?" said Kent.

"What about me?" asked the Star-master miserably.

Kent's fingers twitched at his ear lobe. "Well, what about you?" he repeated.

"What are you going to do with me?"

"You? Oh! You go back to Irene," said Kent, with his half smile. "That's your sentence, if Mrs. Blair approves."

The astrologer drew a quick breath. The light of a great relief softened his hard little eyes. A startled look widened them as Marjorie Blair, her own trouble forgotten for the moment, rose and went over to him, the reflection of another's happiness shining in her face and making it doubly lovely. A ring glinted in her outstretched hand.

"Take this," she said softly, "for your Irene. May you be very, very happy together!"

For the s.p.a.ce of five seconds Preston Jax's chin was motionless. Then a minor cataclysm convulsed it. Speech emerged from that facial quake, in a half-stutter, half-blubber, wholly absurd and laughter-provoking and heart-moving.

"Wh-wh-whut'll I say? Whut'll I do, to thank you, ma'am? I-I-I'll just tell you this. It's me for the straight-and-narrow from now on. And if ever you or Professor Kent or any of you want an A-1, special charted, extra-celestial star-reading for self or friends, you-you-you c-c-c-come-" He made a rush for the hallway, and the door banged a period to his emotion.

"I think," said Chester Kent gravely, "that lesson will last."

As Marjorie Blair stood smiling, soft-eyed, at the door whence the overcome Star-master had disappeared, Sedgwick started to pa.s.s. With quick and unexpected tact, Alexander Blair drew the sheriff and the lawyer aside, giving to the young people their moment. She looked up at Sedgwick with lifted eyebrows.

"Are you not going to speak to me?" she said sorrowfully.

"What is there to say, except one thing-and that I may not say now."

"No, no!" she whispered, in affright. "But say you forgive me."

"You! For what?"

"For having believed, even for an instant, what Father Blair said, that you were the murderer."

Sedgwick smiled bravely. "That is all past."

"And you'll think of me at least kindly?"