“I must see her. I came as soon as I could. Left Warner to fill my place on the platform, and it is the night of nights, too. Why, what’s the matter?”
He had caught me staring over his shoulder at the form drawn up in the doorway.
“Nothing; I thought you had come alone.”
“No, Mr. Steele is with me. He joined me at noon, just after I had telegraphed home. He has come back to finish the work I assigned him. He has at last discovered—or thinks he has—the real author of those libels. You have something special to say to me?” he whispered, as I followed him upstairs.
“Yes, and I think, if I were you, that I should say nothing to Mrs. Packard about Mr. Steele’s having returned.” And I rapidly detailed the occurrence of the afternoon, ending with Mrs. Packard’s explanation to her servants.
The mayor showed impatience. “Oh, I can not bother with such nonsense as that,” he declared; “the situation is too serious.”
I thought so, too, when in another moment his wife’s door opened and she stepped out upon the landing to meet him. Her eyes fell on Mr. Steele, standing at the foot of the stairs, before they encountered her husband; and though she uttered no cry and hardly paused in her approach toward the mayor, I saw the heart within her die as suddenly and surely as the flame goes out in a gust of wind.
“You!” There was hysteria in the cry. Pray God that the wild note in it was not that of incipient insanity! “How good of you to give up making your great speech to-night, just to see how I have borne this last outrage! You do see, don’t you?” Here she drew her form to its full height. “My husband believes in me, and it gives me courage to face the whole world. Ah! is that Mr. Steele I see below there? Pardon me, Mr. Steele, if I show surprise. We heard a false report of your illness this afternoon. Henry, hadn’t Mr. Steele better come up-stairs? I presume you are here to talk over this last dreadful paragraph with me.”
“It is not necessary for Mr. Steele to join us if you do not wish him to,” I heard the mayor whisper in his wife’s ear.
“Oh, I do not mind,” she returned with an indifference whose reality I probably gauged more accurately than he did.