“In which case, he would have returned, as the body remained undiscovered all night.”
“It may be so. I am dizzy with thinking it over and over.”
“Try and not think any more, dear sir,” I said, gently. “You are feverish and ill now. I am going, this afternoon, with the friends to the city, and I will put the police on the watch for the money. We will get the number of the large bill, if possible, from the bank, and I will have investigations made as to the passengers of Wednesday on the train with James. Have you said any thing to him about your loss?”
“I have not seen him since I made the discovery. You may tell him if you see him first; and do what you can, Richard, for I feel as weak as a child.”
CHAPTER V.
MR. BURTON, THE DETECTIVE.
When I came out of the office, I encountered James on the steps, for the first time that day. I could not stop to make known the robbery to him, and telling him that his uncle wished to see him a few minutes, I hurried to my boarding-house, where I had barely time to take some lunch in my room, while packing a small bag to be sent to the cars, before hurrying back to Mr. Argyll’s to attend the funeral escort to the train. James and I were two of the eight pall-bearers, yet neither of us could summon fortitude to enter the parlor where the body lay; I believe that James had not yet looked upon the corpse. We stood outside, on the steps of the piazza, only taking our share of the burden after the coffin was brought out into the yard. While we stood there, among many others, waiting, I chanced to observe his paleness and restlessness; he tore his black gloves in putting them on; I saw his fingers trembling. As for me, my whole being seemed to pause, as a single, prolonged shriek rung out of the darkened mansion and floated off on the sunshine up to the ear of God. They were taking the lover away from his bride. The next moment the coffin appeared; I took my place by its side, and we moved away toward the depot, passing over the very spot where the corpse was found. James was a step in advance of me, and as we came to the place, some strong inward recoil made him pause, then step aside and walk around the ill-starred spot. I noticed it, not only for the momentary confusion into which it threw the line, but because I had never supposed him susceptible to superstitious or imaginative influences.
A private car had been arranged for. James and I occupied one seat; the swift motion of the train was opposed to the idea of death; it had an exhilarating effect upon my companion, whose paleness passed away, and who began to experience a reäction after his depression of feeling. He talked to me incessantly upon trifling subjects which I do not now recall, and in that low, yet sharp voice which is most easily distinguished through the clatter of a moving train. The necessity for attending to him—for making answers to irrelevant questions, when my mind was preoccupied, annoyed me. My thoughts centered about the coffin, and its inmate, taking his last ride under circumstances so different from those under which he had set out, only two days ago, to meet her whom his heart adored; whose hand he never clasped—whose lips he never touched—the fruition of whose hopes was cut off utterly—whose fate, henceforth, was among the mysterious paths of the great eternity.
I could not, for an instant, feel the least lightness of heart. My nature was too sympathetic; the currents of my young blood flowed too warmly, for me to feel otherwise than deeply affected by the catastrophe. My eyes shed inward tears at the sight of the parents, sitting in advance of us, their heads bowed beneath the stroke; and, oh! my heart shed tears of blood at thought of Eleanor, left behind us to the utter darkness of a night which had fallen while it was yet morning.
Musing upon her, I wondered that her cousin James could throw off the troubles of others as he did, interesting himself in passing trifles. I have said that I never liked him much; but in this I was an exception to the general rule. He was an almost universal favorite. At least, he seldom failed to please and win those for whom he exerted himself to be agreeable. His voice was soft and well modulated—such a voice as, should one hear it from another apartment, would make him wish to see the speaker; his manner was gracious and flattering. I had often wondered why his evident passion for Eleanor had not secured her interest in return, before she knew Henry Moreland, and had answered myself that it was one of two reasons: either their cousinly intercourse had invested him, to her, with the feelings of a brother or relative, or her fine perceptions, being the superior woman which she was, had unconsciously led her to a true estimate of his qualities. This day I felt less affinity for him than ever before, as I gazed at his dark, thin features, and met the light of eyes brilliant, unsteady and cold. That intense selfishness which I had secretly attributed to him, was now, to my perhaps too acute apprehension, painfully apparent. In my secret heart, as I listened to his light remarks, and perceived the rise of spirits which he hardly endeavored to check, I accused him of gladness that a rival was out of the way, and that the chances were again open for the hand of his beautiful and wealthy cousin. At first he had been shocked, as we all were; but now that he had time to view the occurrence with an eye to the future, I believed that he was already calculating the results with regard to his own hopes and wishes. I turned from him with a feeling of aversion.
After neglecting to reply to him until he was obliged to drop the one-sided conversation, I recollected that I had not yet spoken to him in regard to his uncle’s loss; so I said to him quite suddenly,