An hour later, Alys was driving through Elsinore, her mind a trifle less personal, as it dwelt upon her brief interview with the superintendent of the hospital. Mrs. Dissosway, who was devoted to her niece and believed her to be as exceptional as Miss Crumley in her most aspiring moments could have wished, had confided that she was sure poor dear Anna knew something about that awful crime, for in her delirious moments she kept uttering Enid Balfame's name in very odd tones indeed. She had assured and reassured the patient that there was no clue to the murderer; and if she kept on and asked to see Mrs. Balfame,—which, significantly, she had not done,—they of course would tell her that the friend who should have hastened to her bedside had suffered a nervous breakdown or sprained her ankle. It was a blessing that she was in no condition to testify against her idol, for it would kill her, just as it might be fatal now if she knew that Enid was in the County Jail.
After some delicate insistence, Mrs. Dissosway had admitted that Dr. Anna must convince any one who listened attentively to her mutterings that her belief in her friend's guilt was positive, whether she had exact knowledge or not.
"'Oh, Enid! Oh, Enid!' she kept repeating in such a tone of anguish and reproach, and then muttered: 'Poor child! What a life!' She also once said something about a pistol in a tone of dismay, but the other words I couldn't make out.
"The nurses on her case," Mrs. Dissosway had concluded, "will pay no attention. They are too accustomed to fever patients to listen to ravings, and the two she will have are from other parts of the State, anyhow. They never heard of Mrs. Balfame before. But I have been in and out all day, and I know she is worrying in her poor hot mind both over her friend's crime and her danger—"
"Then you believe Mrs. Balfame did it?" Miss Crumley had interrupted.
"Yes, I do—now, anyhow; and I never was daffy about her. She barely remembers I am alive, living out here for the last fifteen years as I have done, and I am your mother's sister. I don't call her a snob; it's just that she don't seem to take any interest in people that ain't in her own set. But the Lord knows I'd never tell on her if I had the proof in my hand, for I don't want any of our grand old families disgraced, and she's been good to your mother. No, she can go free, and welcome, but I wish poor Anna could have been spared the knowledge of her crime, for it's going to be all the harder to nurse her well, and she has a bad case. If she has to go, she shall go in peace. I'll see to that. But when Enid Balfame is out, I'll take good care to let her know that she has another crime to carry on her conscience—if she's got one."
Alys had not asked to see the patient, knowing that it would be useless, but Mrs. Dissosway had walked out to the cart with her, and pointing to a window on the first floor of the wing devoted to paying patients, remarked: "That's where she is, poor dear." Alys had wondered if she should fall low enough before this accursed case were finished to describe the position of that room to Broderick and insinuate what he might find there if he chose to hide in the little balcony and enter the room when the night nurse had gone out for the midnight supper. He was quite capable of it.
But not if she could win Rush from the case, nor unless, Mrs. Balfame discharged, he were arrested and committed for the crime. She wished now that he had been arrested instead of Mrs. Balfame, for then she could have saved him from both punishment and the other woman without this awful sense of sliding slowly down-hill to choke in a poisonous slime. She might have been obliged to exercise a certain amount of sophistry even then, but she could have stood it.
She was driving slowly down Atlantic Avenue when she heard her name called in accents of mystery and excitement. Her modest rig was passing the imposing mansion of Elisha Battle, bank president, and like all the newer homes of Elsinore the grounds were unconfined and the shallow lawn ended at the pavement. From one of the drawing-room windows Lottie Gifning slanted, and as she met Miss Crumley's eye, she beckoned peremptorily. The desire for solitude was still strong upon Alys, but as she had no excuse to advance, she wound the lines round the whip and went slowly up the brick walk.
Mrs. Gifning opened the front door and swept her into the drawing-room, where six or seven other women with tense excited faces sat on the expensive furniture. Mrs. Battle, herself upholstered in shining black-and-white satin, and further clad in invisible armour, occupied a stately and upright chair. This throne had been made to order; consequently her small feet in their high-heeled pumps touched the floor. The large room, upon which much money had been spent, was not tasteless; it merely had no individuality whatever. Like many another in Elsinore, it set Miss Crumley's teeth on edge, but compensated her to-day as ever by inspiring her with a sense of remote superiority.