Chapter XXXI A FLASH OF LIGHT
The bank shelved: no one could come on the precipice unwarned. Soon they found a travelling boot, and after that, at some distance, another. They felt sure now that the fugitive had climbed one of the trees, throwing away his boots as far as possible. Looking up, they perceived the hopelessness, in that case, of their quest. The arms of the forest spread out above them thick, gnarled, and black with the heaviest foliage of the year. The flame of their torches glared only on the under side of the boughs. Light and shadow were thrown in fantastic patches into the higher canopies, where also the lurid smoke of their torches curled.
They went back to the road; the small, neat New Yorker tripping first, his torch dying, the boots of the fugitive in his other hand; the driver, in old, loose coat, striding indolently toward the horses; Durgan, lingering as he went, with sinewy arm throwing his light high and looking upward.
Alden examined the boots by the lamp in the hut. "These are New York boots," he said. Then he turned to the half-written letter on the table. "This writing I made him do is in a feigned hand." Alden's eyes were ablaze with angry excitement. "Look!" he cried. In the lining of the boots he had found a mark in ink. The initials were "J. C. B." "Can he be Beardsley, masquerading as a Southerner?"
"I begin to think he has done some years of masquerading as Beardsley."
"What do you mean?"
But Durgan went no further. His own uncertainty, Alden's obvious exhaustion, and the desire to let things sift themselves, kept him silent.
Something more alert than weary human sense was required for the vigil. Durgan went to the stable to get the terrier. He purposely took his way near the window of the sisters, anxious as to the nature of Bertha's excitement and her sister's illness.
But after passing the tranquil house, he found that Bertha had not entered it. She still stood outside the locked door of the stable in which she had chained the dogs. She leaned back against the door, looking up at the quiet light in her sister's window. Durgan lit a match, and held it in the pink lantern of his fingers until it was big enough to give them both a clear momentary view of each other. To his surprise, Bertha appeared to be in a quiet mood. The spark fell, and again only her light dress glimmered in the night. The first fine drops of gathering rain were falling.
He did not like a calm that seemed to him unnatural. He told her of the watch kept below, and of his errand.
She answered, "I am glad you have come. I don't know how to go to Hermie. Poor Hermie! How we have wronged her! But I am afraid to tell her, for it might kill her to-night. It was some cruel plan of Mr. Alden's, I know. I am afraid to go to her; but I am afraid, too, to leave her alone as ill as she is. She might die; tho I don't think she will, because she always seems to have God with her; and, do you know, I have a queer feeling to-night that God may be here. It would seem better, of course, if we could all three die to-night; but in that case, why have we lived to meet again? No; there must be some way out, because Hermie has prayed so much—prayer must make some difference, don't you think?"
"I don't like to hear you talking in this mild, reasonable way. Are you not excited? Why do you not cry?"
"I was so dreadfully excited that I thought I was going mad; and then seemed to grow all still inside, as if there was no need to be afraid. I can't explain. The reason I'm talking is that I want you to tell me what to do. I've told you the danger of telling Hermie, and the danger of not going to her; and then, too, I want to go down the hill. If I went alone, he would come to me and speak to me. He must be cold and hungry and tired. In the old days we never let a draught blow upon him. And he is so terribly thin, and has done something so dreadful with his hair, because I suppose he was afraid of being known. I ought to go to him."
"You must not stand here and go on talking like this. You must go at once into the house and nurse your sister. And you must not tell her what you are fancying or thinking about. If you do, it will make her very ill, and it will be your fault. You have wronged her terribly, as you say. Rouse yourself, and make some amends."
"Well—I will." She began to move with docility, but talked as he walked with her. "Could you not send Mr. Alden down to the Cove on some pretence? And then, you know, we could find him, and I could bring him into the kitchen, at least, and give him warm wine—he used to like warm wine—and get him to bed without Hermie knowing. Dear Mr. Durgan, couldn't you do this for Hermie's sake? You know it is what she would like."
Durgan took her by the arm. "Miss Bertha, you have, perhaps, made a mistake. It is very easy to make such mistakes under excitement such as you have passed through to-night. That excitement has almost killed your sister, and it has probably made you fanciful."
"Yes—but then, how was it he knew me?"
"He saw the dogs. He may have supposed they were brought to seize him, and so he bolted."
She replied in the same voice as before. "But then, this explains Hermie's secret. What else could? You know we said nothing could, but this does."
Durgan felt that, perhaps, her mind had become a blank, and her voice was answering with his own thoughts, which within him were holding the same dialog.
"What are you saying?" he said roughly. "How can your father be alive? And if he were, do you understand that he must have killed the other man?"
He had struck the right note. She pulled herself from him with natural recoil. "Yes, yes; and that is clear from Hermie's action, too. But you don't know what happened. There must be some excuse."
"You know, Miss Bertha, you have thought very foolish things before; you may not be right now."
She sat down on the edge of the verandah, and began to weep heartily and quietly. He was relieved: tears proved her well-being.
They had come, walking together, to that end of the house where, on the second day of their acquaintance, he had found her at dawn watching over his safety. He looked about now, and longed for the dawn, but there was nothing but glimmering darkness and the sweet smell of the gathering rain.
When Bertha had cried for a while she went in to her sister. In a minute she came tip-toeing back to Durgan.
"Hermie is sleeping quite restfully," she said. "How much softer the air feels; I think the change has done her good."
As he turned away Durgan's heart sank. The belief that Claxton was the murderer, not the murdered, and had been sheltered all these years by his own wife, forced itself upon Durgan. These innocent women might find rest in the softened air; but what rest could that woman who bore his name ever find, whose cruelty and selfishness must, in consequence of the exposure now imminent, bear the light of public shame?