The girl, pouring out his coffee, helplessly shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s all been so confused. My father’s gone down to see Mrs. Satterlee, I believe, and Mr. Cummings is outside somewhere, too. He seemed to feel it as much as any one. He really looked very badly, and hardly touched his breakfast at all. And Cousin Jack—I don’t know where he’s gone. I suppose he minded more than anybody; he was always around so much with Tom in the old days out here. He acted so queerly, too; and looked at everybody so—oh, I don’t know how to describe it—stern and fierce, as if somehow he thought we all had something to do with Tom’s being killed. And all the time father kept saying things, like that in the midst of life we were in death, and that no man could tell the hour—oh, it was all ghastly. It was awful.”
Vaughan, nibbling gingerly at the cold toast, and struggling to swallow the luke-warm coffee, nodded understandingly. Every instinct, every bit of good sense that he possessed, told him to drop the subject, and still, for the life of him he could not check the words that rose to his lips. “Did you—did you see him?” he asked.
The girl shuddered. “Not close to,” she answered, “only when they brought him by the house. I didn’t know—I looked—once. I wish I hadn’t. Oh, his face—”
Abruptly, a little dizzily, Vaughan rose from the table, last night’s ugly vision again seeming to pass before his swimming eyes. On the instant the girl, all penitence, rose also, coming swiftly around to his side. “Forgive me, dear,” she cried, “I didn’t mean to shock you. I should have thought. Excuse me, please.”
He hastened to take her hand. “No, no,” he cried, “there’s nothing to forgive. It’s not your fault. Let’s get outside in the air. It’s close in here. I feel a little faint.”
A moment later they stood on the broad piazza, in all the glory of the warm June sunshine. Up in the top of a swaying elm an oriole flooded the air with song; out over the lawn, against the green of the shrubbery, a big golden butterfly floated softly along; in and out of the vines above their heads a tiny humming-bird—a living gem—darted here and there, his crimson throat flashing like flame in the sunlight—then quick as thought with a whir of his swiftly moving wings, was gone. Life—life—life—in every tone and call of nature’s voice,—and out there, in the hushed quiet of the stable, a man lay dead.
Vaughan rested a hand on the girl’s arm. “Look,” he whispered, “down by the road.”
The girl raised her eyes. There, dimly to be seen through the screen of the shrubbery, up and down, up and down, a figure paced, with eyes fixed on the ground, with one hand tugging fiercely at his mustache, to and fro—to and fro. “Cousin Jack,” she said.
Silently Vaughan nodded. Well enough, from the uncertain tumult going on in his own mind, he could guess the bitter struggle that was being waged in Carleton’s. In an hour the medical examiner would come; all would in turn be examined on oath. Henry Carleton, doubtless, would be the first called upon to testify; then Jack; then, he supposed, Cummings and himself. And what should he do? The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—the words seemed aimlessly to sing themselves over and over in his brain. And then, with a shake of his head, he roused himself. One thing was plain. Before the examiner came, there must be some plan of concerted action between Jack Carleton and himself—some knowledge of what each was going to say when called on to face that grim ordeal. And it might be that there was little time to spare. He turned quickly to Rose. “I’m going to speak to him,” he said.
She made a protesting movement. “Oh, must you?” she cried, “I so hate to be left alone, just now,” but for once her lover was firm. “I must, dear,” he said, “I won’t be long. You stay right here, and don’t worry or think about it at all. I’ve got to see him for a minute, anyway; I won’t be long,” and as she released her detaining hold on his arm, he walked swiftly down the steps and across the lawn.