Rosalind at Red Gate

by Meredith Nicholson

"You lie, you lie!" roared the other, leaping to his feet. "You can not insinuate that my daughter is not acting honorably toward Patricia."

My mind had slowly begun to grasp the situation and to identify the men before me. It was as though I looked upon a miniature stage in a darkened theater, and, without a bill of the play, was slowly finding names for the players. Holbrook, alias Hartridge, the boat-maker of the Tippecanoe, was not Henry Holbrook, but Henry's brother, Arthur! and I sought at once to recollect what I knew of him. An instant before I had half turned to go, ashamed of eavesdropping upon matters that did not concern me; but the Voice that had sent me held me to the window. It was some such meeting as this that Helen must have feared when she sent me to the houses-boat, and everything else must await the issue of this meeting.

"You had better sit down, Henry," said Arthur Holbrook quietly. "And I suggest that you make less noise. This is a lonely place, but there are human beings within a hundred miles."

Henry Holbrook paced the floor a moment and then flung himself into a chair again, but he bent forward angrily, nervously beating his hands together. Arthur went on speaking, his voice shaking with passion.

"I want to say to you that you have deteriorated until you are a common damned blackguard, Henry Holbrook! You are a blackguard and a gambler. And you have made murderous attempts on the life of your sister; you drove her from Stamford and you tried to smash her boat out here in the lake. I saw the whole transaction that afternoon, and understood it all—how you hung off there in the Stiletto and sent that beast to do your dirty work."

"I didn't follow her here; I didn't follow her here!" raged the other.

"No; but you watched and waited until you traced me here. You were not satisfied with what I had done for you. You wanted to kill me before I could tell Pat the truth; and if it hadn't been for that man Donovan your assassin would have stabbed me at my door." Arthur Holbrook rose and flung down his pipe so that the coals leaped from it. "But it's all over now—this long exile of mine, this pursuit of Pat, this hideous use of your daughter to pluck your chestnuts from the fire. By God, you've got to quit—you've got to go!"

"But I want my money—I want my money!" roared Henry, as though insisting upon a right; but Arthur ignored him, and went on.

"You were the one who was strong; and great things were expected of you, to add to the traditions of family honor; but our name is only mentioned with a sneer where men remember it at all. You were spoiled and pampered; you have never from your early boyhood had a thought that was not for yourself alone. You were always envious and jealous of anybody that came near you, and not least of me; and when I saved you, when I gave you your chance to become a man at last, to regain the respect you had flung away so shamefully, you did not realize it, you could not realize it; you took it as a matter of course, as though I had handed you a cigar. I ask you now, here in this place, where I am known and respected—I ask you here, where I have toiled with my hands, whether you forget why I am here?"

Henry Holbrook tugged at his scarf nervously and his eyes wandered about uneasily. He did not answer his brother. Arthur stood over him, with folded arms, his back to me so that I could not see his face; but his tone had in it the gathered passion and contempt of years. Then he was at once himself, standing away a little, like a lawyer after a round with a refractory witness.