He reasoned in this way: That as Alice Murray was to impersonate Jennie Brice, and Jennie Brice hiding from her husband, she would naturally discard her name. The name "Bellows" had been hers by a previous marriage and she might easily resume it. Thus, to establish his innocence, he had not only the evidence of Howell and Bronson that the whole thing was a gigantic hoax; he had the evidence of Howell that he had started Jennie Brice to Horner that Monday morning, that she had reached Horner, had there assumed an incognito, as Mr. Pitman would say, and had later disappeared from there, maliciously concealing herself to work his undoing.
In all probability he would have gone free, the richer by a hundred dollars for each week of his imprisonment, but for two things: the flood, which had brought opportunity to his door, had brought Mr Holcombe to feed Peter, the dog. And the same flood, which should have carried the headless body as far as Cairo, or even farther on down the Mississippi, had rejected it in an eddy below a clay bluff at Sewickley, with its pitiful covering washed from the scar.
Well, it is all over now. Mr Ladley is dead, and Alice Murray, and even Peter lies in the yard. Mr Reynolds made a small wooden cross over Peter's grave, and carved "Till we meet again" on it. I dare say the next flood will find it in Molly Maguire's kitchen.
Mr Howell and Lida are married. Mr Howell inherited some money, I believe, and what with that and Lida declaring she would either marry him in a church or run off to Steubenville, Ohio, Alma had to consent. I went to the wedding and stood near the door, while Alma swept in, in lavender chiffon and rose point lace. She has not improved with age, has Alma. But Lida? Lida, under my mother's wedding veil, with her eyes like stars, seeing no one in the church in all that throng but the boy who waited at the end of the long church aisle-I wanted to run out and claim her, my own blood, my more than child.
I sat down and covered my face. And from the pew behind me some one leaned over and patted my shoulder.
"Miss Bess!" old Isaac said gently. "Don't take on, Miss Bess!"
He came the next day and brought me some lilies from the bride's bouquet, that she had sent me, and a bottle of champagne from the wedding supper. I had not tasted champagne for twenty years!
That is all of the story. On summer afternoons sometimes, when the house is hot, I go to the park and sit. I used to take Peter, but now he is dead. I like to see Lida's little boy; the nurse knows me by sight, and lets me talk to the child. He can say "Peter" quite plainly. But he does not call Alma "Grandmother." The nurse says she does not like it. He calls her "Nana."
Lida does not forget me. Especially at flood-times, she always comes to see if I am comfortable. The other day she brought me, with apologies, the chiffon gown her mother had worn at her wedding. Alma had never worn it but once, and now she was too stout for it. I took it; I am not proud, and I should like Molly Maguire to see it.
Mr. Holcombe asked me last night to marry him. He says he needs me, and that I need him.