However, out of the incomprehensible jumble of words and scraps of sentences, Charlotte began at last to construct a meaning—very vague and unsatisfying, to be sure, and exciting an almost unbearable curiosity to know more; but still a meaning. The three names seemed to be mingled in her mother's distraught mind, intimately interwoven with some nameless horror; and the poor shattered intellect was struggling beneath an obsession that a dire calamity threatened General Westbrook.
And also, as she listened, there came presently to her a most peculiar fancy—woven of such stuff as dreams are made of, but sufficiently tangible to cause her to wonder; a fancy that caused her to murmur incredulously, "Mamma and General Westbrook!" and to contrast the woman as she now was with a certain portrait of Elinor Clay which graced the daughter's chamber; to picture the General as he appeared when a young man. A great feeling of newly born pity for her helpless mother stirred in her bosom. How incredible that this querulous, and in many ways childish, invalid could have retained such a secret so many years. Indeed, what a strange coupling of names! What tragedy of starved romance lay hidden here!
But what threatened General Westbrook?
Charlotte was destined never to hear from her mother. When the clamorous little clock told her that dawn was near, Mrs. Fairchild began to grow quieter, and at last to doze; and from that sleep she can scarcely be said to have awakened, unless to be deprived of the least volition of every member, to be unable to utter an articulate sound, to be more helpless and dependent than a babe newly born, is to be counted among the quick instead of the dead.
CHAPTER II
MISS CHARLOTTE ENTERTAINS A CALLER
It will be remembered that when Mr. Converse's last tête-à-tête with Mr. Follett was interrupted by the summons to appear at headquarters, he had just terminated a long period of reflection with the announcement that he at last knew the means of finding young Mr. Fairchild. Despite the night's turbulent events, when he left the Westbrook home in charge of McCaleb and another plain-clothes man detailed from headquarters, it was in pursuance of a plan that had been incubating in his mind during the hours when other matters were apparently occupying his exclusive attention. Immediately after his unsatisfactory interview with Joyce and her brother, he went as directly to the Fairchild cottage as the street cars would carry him.
The humble abode of the Fairchilds nestled snugly in a covering of climbing roses, honeysuckle, and feathery-fronded cypress. Flowers bloomed everywhere; for upon her garden Charlotte lavished a love otherwise denied expression, and Mr. Converse's eyes kindled when they caught this riot of blossom. Should a human analyst attempt a dissection of this man's character, he would be very much astonished to find an inborn love for beautiful flowers among its other unusual traits.
A certain aged fragment of the old family ménage, known familiarly as Polly Ann, ushered the Captain into the tiny entrance-hall; and when Miss Charlotte appeared he seemed somewhat startled. He had never seen her, that he knew of, and from the account the man Adams had given of his experience on the night of the De Sanchez affair, while trying to find Clay, he had come prepared to deal with a sour, crabbed female of uncertain age and an uncompromising manner. The quiet entrance of this handsome, graceful woman left him disconcerted for an instant. A woman with such an air, with such remarkable eyes, was no ordinary woman, and she could not be dealt with in an ordinary way. One might as well try to move a mountain as to intimidate a person who regarded one so fearlessly; who met the sharp, compelling glance with a look of polite inquiry which clearly indicated that it knew not how to falter.
Converse's plans to find the young man suddenly evaporated; but another idea, vastly farther reaching, arose in his mind instead.