The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

When Inez heard Tom’s voice and saw him standing near her she knew him at once and felt for a moment as if her heart stopped beating; then there was a sensation as if it were turning over rapidly, as she had seen a wheel turn in machinery, and swelling as it turned, until her throat was full and she could not breathe. Of what happened next she had only a confused recollection. Somebody shrieked, but whether it was herself, or Fanny she did not know. Somebody leaped from the stage and confronted Tom with a revolver. That was herself. She was clear on that point. She had threatened to shoot him and knew there was a feeling in her heart which would have let her do it, if he had not gone as she bade him go. Then Nero came, and with him a reaction of feeling and her thought was to save Tom from recognition, for he was still the man whom she loved, and she called the dog back and watched Tom till he disappeared from sight, straining her eyes while he was visible among the trees as if she would hold him as long as possible, for never again could he be to her what he had been. Then a great darkness came over her and she felt Fanny’s tears upon her face and heard the sound of many voices talking of her, and among them at last Tom’s; Tom, himself, in the clothes he had worn away that morning, when he kissed her good-bye, as he would never kiss her again. The impulse to kill him was gone. She must save him now from suspicion, for more than he was involved in the terrible thing which had happened.

Rallying all her strength she saw the stage depart leaving her alone with a despair which made her cover her mouth with her hands lest she should cry out and bring her friends back to her. With a feeling of disgust she drew away from Tom’s touch when he would have helped her and felt again a disposition to kill him if he came near her. All her Spanish and Mexican blood was at fever heat, nor did it abate at the sight of her father who was equally guilty with Tom. Ignoring his offer of help she went at once to her room and threw herself upon the bed in an agony of despair. Everything had been swept away, leaving a darkness so profound that she could see no light in the past or future. She loved Tom. She worshipped her father, and had been so proud of both, and both were brigands. She said the word to herself, pressing her hands first upon her temples, which throbbed with pain and then clasping them over her heart which burned like fire and beat so loudly that she could hear every beat and thought it sounded like a muffled drum.

“Brigands!” she repeated, while from every corner of the room the word came back to her till the air was filled with it.

She understood everything, for her mind had gone rapidly over the past, gathering up proof here and there until all was plain to her,—the double lives of the two men, who were all she had to love, and the knowledge gave her nearly as much shame as pain that she should have been so deceived. She knew now why her mother died so suddenly, with that awful look on her face as her palsied tongue tried in vain to speak. She had discovered the truth and it had killed her.

“Happy mother, to die!” she moaned. “I wish I could die too. Oh, father, I thought you a king among men, and Tom, too. I was so happy yesterday and this morning, with no thought that I was a brigand’s daughter,—that the men I wished could be caught and hung were father and Tom! Oh, I cannot bear it. I feel like a debased creature, whom no one would speak to, if he knew, and I loved Fanny so much, and she liked me some. But that is all over now. Tom meant to rob her, the only girl friend I ever had—Oh-h! I cannot bear it.”

Her agony was intense as the horror grew upon her and she was burning with excitement and fever. There was a feeling in her as if she could not breathe, and every heart beat was like a heavy blow. She had opened a window and she tried to rise again and go to it for air, but could not, and she fell back upon her pillow with her eyes staring at the pointed ceiling of her room. It was a pretty room, furnished with many articles her father had bought for her and which she knew were expensive. Fanny had liked it and her presence there had lent a halo to everything. But Inez loathed it all now, knowing where the money came from which had bought these luxuries which a poor mountaineer’s daughter ought never to have.

“I can’t stay here. I must go away and earn my living somewhere,” she was thinking, when she heard her father’s knock upon the door.

He was coming to explain, she thought, and she did not want an explanation. Nothing could change the shameful facts, and she did not look at him as he came in and sat down beside her. Her hand was lying near him and she drew it away quickly as if afraid he might take it. He saw the motion and interpreted it aright.

“Inez,” he began, “have no fear that I will touch you. I am not worthy to sit in the same room with you, and I am not here to make excuses; I want to ask what you know about Fanny Prescott. Who is she? I mean, who was her mother?”

Inez was too stupified and bewildered to wonder at her father’s question and replied, “Her mother was a Miss Helen Tracy, of New York. Judge Prescott was her step-father, whose name she took when her mother married him. Her own father was a Mr. Hilton, who was killed in the mines of Montana when Fanny was a baby—Father, father, what is it? What is the matter?” she exclaimed, as her father fell forward upon the bed. Everything was for the time forgotten in her anxiety for him as he lay like one dead.