From Now On

by Frank L. Packard

“Dead!” Dago George drew back, and stared again, but in a curiously bewildered way now. “Dead!” he repeated. “You say that Nicolo Capriano is—dead?”

“Yes,” she said, and turned her face away from his gaze—only to raise her eyes again, and watch the man covertly, narrowly, as he now began to walk rapidly up and down the room with quick, nervous strides. Her hands tightened a little on the arms of her chair. Here was the end of that long race across the continent, the goal of those fearsome, harried days of haste in San Francisco while her father lay dead. Was she first or last in that frantic race? What did Dago George know? A thousand times she had pictured this scene, and planned for it every word and act that was to be hers—but it was actuality now, and the room for an instant seemed to swirl around her. She remembered Dago George—as one of the most crafty, callous and unscrupulous of the lawless band over whom the man who had been her father had reigned as king. The letter! Had Dago George received it—yes or no? Had Dave Henderson reached here before her? Was he already in danger; or did it require but just a simple bit of acting on her part to undo the treachery of which her father had been guilty—a simple story, for instance, that she was on her way to her father's people in Italy, which would enable her to stay here in this place unsuspected until Dave Henderson came, and she could intercept him, and warn him before any harm was done? Which was it? She dared not ask. If Dago George knew nothing, he must at all costs continue to know nothing. A hint, and Dago George, if he were the Dago George of old, would be like a bloodhound on the scent, and, exactly as though Dago George had actually received her father's letter, Dave Henderson would be the quarry. But if, on the other hand, the letter had already been delivered, well, then—then there was another rôle to play. She dared not ask; not until Dago George had shown his hand, not until she was sure of her own ground. She turned her head away again; Dago George had halted abruptly in front of her chair.

“Dead!” he said uneasily. “You say that Nicolo Capriano, that your father, is dead?”

Teresa nodded without looking up.

Dago George, as abruptly as he had halted, turned and paced the length of the room and back again, and abruptly halted once more in front of her. He leaned toward her, one hand now laid over his heart.

“I am unpardonable!” he said softly. “I say nothing to you of your so-great grief. I do not sympathize. I am heartless! But you will forgive! It is the shock of my own grief for the loss of my friend from which I have not recovered. I bleed for you in your deep sorrow. My poor little bambino! But you understand—yes—do you not?”

Teresa's hands, in her lap now, toyed with one of her gloves which she had taken off. She did not look up.

“Yes, yes,” murmured Dago George. “You understand! But we will speak no more of that now—it is but to depress us both. There are other things—that you have come all this way from San Francisco, and that you have come immediately to me, for you have but just arrived in New York to-night, is it not so?”

“Yes,” Teresa answered. “The train was very late. I came here at once from the station.”

“Then, thanks to your train being late,” said Dago George, with a significant lowering of his voice, “I think I can tell you why you came. If you had been an hour earlier, it would have been you who would have had to tell me. Eh? Is it not so? There was a letter—eh? A letter which you wrote for Nicolo Capriano, for your father—is it not so?”