Early as it was, Mr. Beresford was at his office. He had an important suit pending in the court which involved much thought and research, and he was hunting up certain points bearing upon it when Pierre came in, and with a simple “Bon jour, monsieur,” laid the package upon the table and departed in the direction of Grandma Ferguson’s. Mr. Beresford recognized Queenie’s handwriting, and thinking she had probably sent him some business papers of her father’s, which she had overlooked, he laid it aside for a time and went on with his own matters, so that it was an hour or more, and the one-horse sleigh which Grandma Ferguson had hired to carry her to Hetherton Place had driven rapidly past the door before he took the package in his hand and opened it. The three yellow, time-worn letters which Queenie had inclosed first met his eye, and he examined them curiously, noting that they were dated in Marseilles many years ago; but as they were written in French it would take him some time to decipher them, so he put them down and took up Queenie’s letter, which he read through rapidly, feeling when it was finished so benumbed and bewildered that he walked several times across the floor of his office, and then went out into the open air to shake off the nightmare which oppressed his faculties and made his brain so dizzy. Then, returning to the letter, he read it again, weighing carefully every word, and jumping at conclusions, rejecting this statement as improbable, and that as impossible and saying to himself as Pierre had done, “I do not believe it.” He had long ago suspected that Queenie and Margery might be sisters, but not in this way. Anon, however, a doubt stole into his mind that it might be true, and this doubt was succeeded by another, and another, until there were great drops of sweat upon the lawyer’s face, and an intense pity in his heart as he thought of Queenie and all she would have to suffer.
“Poor little Queenie; so proud and so high-spirited; she cannot bear it, and I shall do all I can to prove the story false,” he said; and then suddenly there swept over him another thought which made him reel in his chair, while the sweat-drops on his forehead and about his lips grew larger and thicker. “If the tale were true, then Margery was the daughter of the house; Margery was Miss Hetherton, of Hetherton Place, and——”
He did not allow himself to think any further, but, throwing out his hands, with a fierce gesture, he exclaimed, “Get thee gone, Satan! Is this a time to indulge in low, mean, selfish feelings? Were Margery a thousand times a Hetherton, she would be no sweeter or lovelier than she has seemed to me as Margery La Rue, nor will Queenie be one whit the worse for this stain upon her birth, if stain there be, which I doubt; at all events I will leave no stone unturned to prove the truth or falsity of this Bodine woman’s statement. If I could only read her letters I might find something on which to base a conclusion.”
Taking up the letter which bore date the furthest back, he began to decipher it slowly and carefully, succeeding better than he had anticipated, and when it was finished he possessed a pretty accurate knowledge of its contents. Then he took the second and the third, and went through with them both, while the conviction deepened in his mind that there was something in the story which would bear investigation.
“I must see Queenie at once,” he said, “and Mrs. La Rue also, and hear from her if she has any other proof to offer, than her mere statement and these letters, which she may or may not have written.”
Ordering his horse and giving some directions to his clerk in case clients called, he was soon riding rapidly toward Hetherton Place where Grandma Ferguson had been for more than an hour. Pierre had found the good woman seated at her breakfast-table, arrayed in her usual morning costume, a short, wine-colored stuff skirt, and a loose woolen sacque, with no collar on her neck or cap on her head. But her white hair was combed smoothly back and twisted into a little knot, and her face shone with content and satisfaction as she drank her coffee from her saucer or soaked her fried cake in it.
With his usual polite bow, Pierre handed the package to her, and then, departed without a word.
“Mrs. John Ferguson, Present,” grandma read aloud. “What did Rennet want to put present on for, I wonder, and how finefied she writes. I don’t believe I can make it out at all, the letters are so small and Frenchy,” and tearing off the envelope she tried in vain to decipher the contents of the letter.
Queenie had written it under great excitement, and her handwriting, always puzzling to grandma, was more illegible than usual.
“Here, Axie, read it for me; ’tain’t likely there’s any secret,” grandma said, and taking the paper in her hands, Axie began to read what Queenie had written.