Belle descended from the carriage hesitantly, and then stood looking about with an air of such helpless terror that I approached—I had previously resolved to keep myself effaced during the visit—and conducted her into the Captain's private office, where Maillot was waiting. She gave me an embarrassed, beseeching glance, and murmured a barely audible "Thank you." No more was said. She faltered an instant on the threshold, then, sobbing, rushed in. I made haste to close the door and rejoin Mrs. Fluette.
This lady was slight and frail, with hair as white as snow, and about her there hung an intangible something which gave me the impression that she was a woman who had suffered much. Although I strove to speak cheerfully of the prospects of Maillot's early release, her manner was quite discouraging to all my overtures. When she spoke at all it was only in the faintest of monosyllables—usually with her eyes avoiding mine. She looked at me, when at all, shyly, started at every unusual sound, and trembled during the whole time she sat in the Captain's big easy-chair.
At the end of the allotted half-hour—I was n't very particular over the number of minutes—Mrs. Fluette's increasing nervousness and impatience moved me to rap upon the private-room door. Belle emerged, her cheeks white and her eyes swollen with weeping. The poor girl pressed my hand when I helped her into the carriage—clung to it despairingly, to be exact—and the tears again gushed to her eyes.
"This is killing me!" she moaned. "Oh, it is! it is! I can't stand it much longer."
"Courage, Miss Fluette," I undertoned assuasively. "Everything is working for the best, believe me."
Ah, but was it? I could not say the words with much assurance. They drove away, two sad, harassed women.
Touching again upon Wednesday afternoon, I was pretty sure that the Fluette carriage would meet Genevieve at the station—very likely with Belle, or possibly Mrs. Fluette. In anticipation of this contingency I had sent a note to the house with the request that she find an excuse to meet me at the earliest possible moment, for I was all impatience to hear her report.
But Genevieve had anticipated also. She arrived armed with a commission from the Ohio cousin, the performance of which would brook no delay. So I had a minute alone with her downtown. She had been thoughtful enough to record a detailed statement of her investigations; it lies before me now as I write; and I shall condense from it those portions that are essential to advancing this chronicle.
In the early '50's Clara Cooper was the belle of the village of Merton. Wooers were many, but favors were few and grudgingly bestowed; and in time all the suitors withdrew, leaving the field clear to Alfred Fluette and Felix Page.
The Coopers and the Fluettes represented the wealth and aristocracy of the community, while Felix Page was a poor, struggling young man whose only advantages and prospects for the future lay in his indomitable pluck and a resolution that was ready to ride roughshod over all opposition.