Tracy Park: A Novel

by Mary Jane Holmes

'What shall I say to Arthur, and how shall I tell him,' he was wondering to himself, when Mr. St. Claire roused him by saying:

'You seem greatly unstrung by what has happened. I never saw you look so ill.'

'Yes, I feel as if I had murdered her by not sending John to the station,' Frank stammered, glad to offer this as an excuse for his manner, which he knew must seem strange and unnatural.

'You are too sensitive altogether. John might not have seen her, she hurried off so fast, and you have no particular reason to think she was coming here,' Mr. St. Claire said, adding: 'We'd better leave her now. We can do nothing more until the coroner comes, which will hardly be to-day. I hear the roads are all blocked and impassable. Let everything remain in the trunk where he can see them.'

Mechanically Mrs. Tracy, who was present, put the different articles into the trunk, leaving the Bible on the top, and then followed her husband from the room. She knew there was more affecting him than the fact that a dead woman was in the house, or that he had not sent John to the station. But what it was she could not guess, unless, and she, too, felt faint and giddy for a moment, as a new idea entered her mind.

'Frank,' she said to him when they were alone for a few moments, 'Arthur had a fancy that Gretchen was coming last night. You do not think this woman is she?'

'Gretchen? No. Don't be a fool, Dolly. Gretchen is fair and young, and the woman is old and black as the ace of spades. Gretchen! No, indeed!'

He did not show her the picture he had secreted; he knew she would not approve of the act, and if she had no suspicion with regard to the woman and the child he did not care to share his with her, particularly as it was only a suspicion, and so far as he could judge in his perturbed state of mind, nothing he could do would ever make things sure. His wife seemed to have forgotten the child at the cottage, and he would not bring it to her mind until it was necessary to do so. Just then Charles came to the room and said that his master was very much excited and wished to know the reason for so much commotion in the house, and why so many people were coming and going down and up the avenue.

'I thought it better that you should tell him,' Charles added, and with a sinking heart Frank started for his brother's room.

He had not seen him before that day, and now as he looked at him it seemed to him that he had grown older since the previous night, for there were lines about his mouth, and his face was very thin and pale. But his eyes were unusually bright, and his voice rang out clear as a bell as he said: