“I am going to follow him,” I confided to Arthur. “Look for me again to-night; or, at least, expect a message. If fortune favours us, as I now expect, we two shall sleep to-night as we have not slept for months.” And waiting for no answer, not even to see if he comprehended my meaning, I made a run for the gate, and soon came up with Sweetwater.
“To the cemetery?” I asked.
“Yes, to the cemetery.”
And there we found him, in the same place where we had seen him before, but not in the same position. He was sunken now to the ground; but his face was pressed against the rails, and in his stiff, cold hand was clutched a letter which afterwards we read.
Let it be read by you here. It will explain the mystery which came near destroying the lives of more than Adelaide.
No more unhappy wretch than I goes to his account. I killed her who had shown me only goodness, and will be the death of others if I do not confess my dreadful, my unsuspected secret. This is how it happened. I cannot give reasons; I cannot even ask for pardon.
That night, just as I was preparing to leave the stable to join the other servants on their ride to Tibbitt’s Hall, the telephone rang and I heard Miss Cumberland’s voice. “Zadok,” she said—and at first I could hardly understand her,—“I am in trouble; I want help, and you are the only one who can aid me. Answer; do you hear me and are you quite alone in the stable?” I told her yes, and that I was listening to all she said. I suspected her trouble, and was ready to stand by her, if a man like me could do anything.
I had been with her many years, and I loved her as well as I could love anybody; though you won’t think it when I tell you my whole story. What she wanted was this: I was to go to the ball just as if nothing had happened, but I was not to stay there. As soon as I could, I was to slip out, get a carriage from some near-by stable, and hurry back up the road to meet her and take her where she would tell me; or, if I did not meet her, to wait two houses below hers, till she came along. She would not want me long, and very soon I could go back and have as good a time as I pleased. But she would like me to be secret, for her errand was not one for gossip, even among her own servants.
It was the first time she had ever asked me to do anything for her which any one else might not have done, and I was proud of her confidence, and happy to do just what she asked. I even tried to do better, and be even more secret about it than she expected. Instead of going to a stable, I took one of the rigs which I found fastened up in the big shed alongside the hall; and being so fortunate as not to attract anybody’s attention by this business, I was out on the road and half way to The Whispering Pines, before Helen and Maggie could wonder why I had not asked them to dance.