I fell on my knees and held out my arms to her, with the drowning tears falling over my cheeks. I could not speak, but only moan like a child for cheer and comfort. And she smiled on me—the angel smiled on me, as Dolly, sweet and loving, had smiled of old. Oh, God! Oh, God! Thus to permit her to come from over the desolate waste for solace of my torment!
Was all this only figurative of the warring clash of passion and conscience? The presence was to me actual and divine. It led me, or seemed to lead, from the mouthing death—across the room—out by the open door, that none had ever shut; and then it was no longer and I stood alone in the gusty passage.
I stood alone and cured forever of the terror of that mad and gloomy place, whose influence had held me so long enthralled. Henceforth I was quit of its deadly malice. I knew it as certainly as that I was forgiven for my share in a most bitter tragedy that had littered the shore of many lives with wreckage. For me, at least, now, the question was answered—answered by the dear ghost of one whose little failings had been washed pure in the bountiful spring of life.
Presently, moved by the sense of sacred security in my heart, I passed once more into the room of silence—not with bravado, but strong in the good armor of self-reliance. I closed and locked the door of the cupboard and walked forth again, feeling no least tremor of the nerves—conscious of nothing to cause it. Thence I went out to the platform, and, levering up the sluice, heard the water discharge itself afresh into the hollow-booming channel that held the secret of the wheel.
And now, indeed, that my thoughts were capable of some order of progression, that very secret rose and usurped the throne of my mind, deposing all other claimants.
What weird mystery attached to the portrait nailed to the axle? That it was placed there by my father I had little doubt; but for what reason and of whom was it?
I recalled his wild command to me to never make reference to aught my eyes might chance to light upon, other than the treasure I had gone to seek. In that direction, then, nothing but silence must meet me.
Of whom was the portrait, and what the mystery?
On the thought, the attenuated voice of old Peggy came from the kitchen hard by in a cracked and melancholy stave of her favorite song:
“I washed my penknife in the stream—