The step on the stair

by Anna Katharine Green

It was a wild ride. If he had been fortunate enough to secure a taxi within a few minutes after reaching the street, he must have had at least twenty minutes the start of us. But the point was not to overtake him, but to come upon him at Mr. Miller’s before any mischief could take place. I was an invited guest, though probably not expected; and it being a house-wedding, I felt sure of being received even if I was not in a garb suited to the occasion.

There were delays made up by a few miles of speeding along the country roads, and when we finally struck the street in which Mr. Miller lived, it lacked just one hour of noon.

What should we do? It was too soon to present ourselves. The few autos standing about were business ones, with a single exception. Pointing this out to Clarke, I bade him get busy and find out if this car were a local or a New York one.

He came back very soon to the spot where we had drawn up to say that it belonged to some relative of the bride; and satisfied from this and the quiet aspect of the house itself that nothing of a disturbing character had yet occurred, I advised Clarke to hang about and learn what he could, while I waited for the appearance of Edgar whom we had probably outridden in crossing the marshes.

We had a place on the opposite side of the street, from which I could see the windows of Mr. Miller’s house. I took note of every automobile which drove up before me, but I took note also of those windows and once got a glimpse in one of the upper ones of a veiled head and a white face turned eagerly towards the street.

She was expecting him. Nothing else would account for so haggard a look on a face so young; and with a thought of Orpha and how I would rather die than see her in the grip of such despair, I nerved myself for what might come, without a hope that any weal could follow such a struggle of unknown forces as apparently threatened us.

The house in which my whole interest was centered at this moment was of somewhat pretentious size, built of brick painted brown and set back far enough from the sidewalk to allow for a square of turf, in the center of which rose a fountain dry as the grass surrounding it. From what conjunction of ideas that fountain with its image of a somewhat battered Cupid got in my way and inflicted itself upon my thoughts, I cannot say. I was watching for Edgar’s appearance, but I saw this fountain; and now when the memory of that day comes back, first and foremost before anything else rises a picture of that desolate basin and its almost headless Cupid. I was trying to escape this obsession when I saw him. He had alighted by that time and was halfway up the walk, but I entered the door almost at his heels.

He was stepping quickly, but I was close behind and was looking for an opportunity to speak to him when he took a course through the half-filled hall which led him into a portion of the house where it would have been presumptuous in me to follow.

We had been asked to go upstairs, but with a shake of the head and the air of one at home, he had pressed straight on to the rear and so out of my sight. There was nothing left for me to do but to mount the stairs in front which I did very unwillingly.

However, once at the top and while still in the shadow of a screen of palms running across this end of the hall, I heard his voice from behind these palms asking for Miss Colfax. He had come up a rear staircase.