The surgery was sufficiently lit by the diffused light of street-lamp and moon to enable him to see his way about. He had brought with him the electric pocket lamp which he carried with him when travelling, but he did not intend to use it unless necessary. His plan was to keep as quiet as possible and wait for the anticipated visitor. If the person who had had access to the room to "salt" it were at all curious about the result of the committee's visit, he ought, logically, to come at the earliest possible moment to investigate. Burton had planned to occupy the time by writing to Rachel, and he now pulled an armchair into such a position that he could get enough of the thin moonlight from the window to see his way across his writing pad, and settled himself to the familiar task.
"My adored Rachel," he began, and then he stopped. It wasn't going to be the easiest letter in the world to write. He had been less than a day in High Ridge, yet already he had got so far away from the Putney atmosphere that he was conscious of a jolt in trying to present the situation here to Mrs. Overman. Rachel was of course the paragon of womankind. He had been a freshman at college when she married Overman, and he had accepted in perfect good faith the theory that as a consequence he was always to live the life of a Blighted Being. It had been the tacit understanding between them ever since, and he was hardly conscious that her new widowhood had put any new significance into their old relation. For years he had come and gone at her beck and call, lived on her smiles and survived her frowns with more or less equanimity, all as a bounden knight should do. It had almost become a secondary occupation. But as time went on, occasions had arisen when his account of facts had to be somewhat tempered for the adored Rachel. She was just as adorable as ever, of course, but--she didn't understand people who didn't live her kind of a life. Burton felt instinctively that the whole Underwood situation would strike her the wrong way. She would simply regard it as something that could never by any possibility have happened to any one in her class, and that would end it. If Philip were going to marry Miss Underwood--and Philip was mighty lucky to have the chance--it behooved him to tell his story warily so as not to prejudice Rachel against her future daughter-in-law. He started in again, with circumspection.
"I am writing you by the light of the fair silver moon. Does that make you think of the luny,--I mean lunar--epistles I used to write you,--the almanac-man alone remembers how many years ago! I wrote by moonlight then for romantic reasons,--now for strategical,--but that is a subject which can only be continued in my next, so please keep up your interest.
"I have seen Miss Underwood, and I wish to assure you in the first place that Philip has shown his usual good taste and discrimination by falling in love with her. She is a beautiful girl, and more. She has charm and sweetness and manner and dignity. I'll report any other qualities she may possess as I discover them. I should judge her to be somewhat older than Philip, but I am the last man in the world with a right to regard that as an obstacle.
"She has as yet given me no final answer in the matter which you commissioned me to lay before her, for the following reason:
"Her father, who is a physician, and who impresses me as a very original, attractive and honorable man, is at present under a curious shadow of popular distrust. There was a highway robbery here a short time ago, and the man robbed charges that Dr. Underwood was the robber. I am sure there is not the slightest ground for such a charge, but the people seem to have taken an attitude of distrust and suspicion toward both the doctor and his son, and you can understand Miss Underwood's natural feeling that until her father is vindicated as publicly as he has been assailed, she will not give any encouragement to Philip's suit. I have her word for it (and what is more, her radiant look for it), that this is all that keeps her from listening at this time. If you will tell Philip this, I am sure it will have the effect upon his spirits which we have both so anxiously desired. I have not the slightest doubt about the doctor's being cleared. He is a most delightful man, and his son--" Burton held his pen suspended. Henry did not lend himself to a phrase. There was something about him that ran off into the shadowy unknown. He ended his sentence lamely,--"is something of a character.
"Of course I shall stay on at High Ridge and bend every energy to clearing up this matter without delay. It can hardly prove very difficult, though there are some curious and unusual features in the case.
"It is unnecessary for me to say that the thought that he is carrying out the wishes of his adored Rachel is the chief joy in life of her
"Blighted Being."
It was the way in which he had always signed his letters to her since her marriage. He wrote the words now with the cheerful unconsciousness of habit, and folded his letter for mailing. Then after a moment he rose and walked softly to the window. Putting the curtain aside, he stood for some time looking out across the lawn. His window looked not toward Rowan, but toward the side street, a hundred and fifty feet away. The moon was clear and high, and the black and white of its light and shadow made a scene that would have appealed to any lover of the picturesque. It would delight a poet or a philosopher he thought, and that brought Henry Underwood again to his mind. He was a curious man,--a man to give one pause. There was something of the poet and something of the philosopher in him, as witness his speeches in the garden, but there was something else, also. If the moodiness which was so obvious had manifested itself in the tricks that had defied the police and scandalized the family, it went near to the line of the abnormal. It would seem that the accusation was neither admitted nor proved, but the hotel clerk had referred to it, Selby had openly charged him with it, and the doctor evidently did not wish the matter discussed. Well, it had nothing to do with the present affair, unless--unless--Oh, of course it had nothing to do with the present affair.
The figure of a man moving with a sort of stealthy swiftness among the shadows of the garden caught his eye, and instantly he was alert. The man crossed an open patch of moonlight and, with a curious feeling that it was what he had expected, Burton recognized Henry Underwood. He came directly toward the side of the house where the surgery was, and a moment later Burton heard the outer door of the back hall open, and footsteps went past his closed door.