He stepped across the room and flung wide the door leading to his study, as he termed it—the boys called it “The Place of Horrors,” because they were always thrashed there with peculiar malevolence and ingenuity, and generally unjustly—they seldom got punished when they deserved it. There he waved me in. But grave and stern, Alfred’s voice came: “Father—father! Carrie is but a child—she is here alone, and she is a visitor!”
“Visitor or no visitor!” was the answer, “I will not permit this stranger, this mere nobody, to have knowledge of my daughter that is unknown to me!”
With wistful voice I meekly asked Mrs. Hyler: “Please ma’am, may I have the handkerchief?” and she sharply answered: “No—no! you shall have no handkerchief” (Alfred quickly left the room a moment) “until you have confessed every word that ever passed between you and Linda!”
Here Alfred came in again and, leaning over, placed in my hand the little gift, and kissing me, gently said: “There, Carrie, it was Linda’s own!” Then as he passed his mother, he laid his hand on her shoulder and said: “Dear mother, it was not yours to withhold—we must all honor sister’s wishes.”
Mr. Hyler fairly shouted: “Take your seat and be silent, sir! As for you,” (turning to me) “into that room! I will know what conduct my daughter was guilty of that she should be grateful for the shelter of your ‘golden silence’!”
The four eldest boys sprang furiously to their feet, but the cry that rang the wildest in that room, that might have been the cry of a woman-grown, came from my lips. I stood gasping a moment, and all I thought was: “Miss Linda, oh my Miss Linda—he insulted you—he—he, whom you always spared!” And then I began to grow cold—bodily, mentally! My shamefacedness, my fear, all fell away from me. I must have gone very white, for No. 5, a rather timid, gentle boy, said lowly: “Oh, mother, will Carrie faint? She won’t die too, will she?”
I lifted my eyes to the Rev. Hyler, and I felt a great contempt for him; while down deep in my heart there was growing a bitter anger that merged, at last, into a vindictive longing to see him suffer. I threw up my head and marched into “The Place of Horrors,” and turning, waited for him to follow me. He paused and looked at me with the same gleam in his eyes that shone there the day he wished “I might know hunger again.” Then, with petty triumph, he exclaimed: “When you leave this room I shall understand this thing!”
But he was only partially right, for when I left that room he understood several things. He banged the door shut, and then seated himself at his writing table, leaving me to stand at his opposite side, as a culprit stands before a judge. I looked at him and saw all the narrow, gray man’s meanness, his eager curiosity that was like that of a scandal-monger’s. Yet, I gave him one chance, for when he demanded: “Well, now, Miss?” I said: “Mr. Hyler, you must know, there is nothing wrong about dear Miss Linda’s kind message to me—she simply—” “Stop, where you are!” he cried. “I’ll have no prevarication! Where there is secrecy there is shame! No one ever conceals what is right! I’ll have the truth, now, and the meaning of this message!”
And I answered: “Yes, sir, you shall have the truth!” and I told him briefly of Miss Linda’s silent singing, and of her undying sorrow for her lost lover. As I spoke, utter amazement grew upon his face—he stammered out: “Why—why—what are you saying? She never spoke of him! Why—nearly three years had passed—since—since—the—r—the break—and ’er—you don’t know what you are talking about—she did not grieve!”
“Oh, yes, she did!” I tranquilly replied. “That was why she would never have a light in her room at night for fear the picture might be seen. She slept with it beneath her cheek, and washed it with her tears, and dried it with her kisses. Oh, yes, she grieved!”