XXVIII
A LIGHT AT MIDNIGHT
"There's something—but I don't know what it is. But there's something; now Jessie, do sit up straight, and breathe deep—you know you promised me you'd breathe deep. Yes, there's something wrong with Harvey."
If Jessie was not breathing very deep she was breathing very fast. Even Grey felt a nameless agitation in the domestic atmosphere, looking up with cat-like gravity into Miss Farringall's troubled face. He had noticed, doubtless, that the mercurial spectacle, had been ascending and descending from nose to brow and from brow to nose with significant rapidity. Grey did not look at Jessie—except casually. She not been sufficiently long in the house—and belonged to one of the oldest and best-bred of feline families.
Still Jessie did not speak. But her hostess, dear soul, was ever equal to double duty. Like most maiden ladies, Miss Farringall had the dialogue gift abundantly developed; nor was it liable to perish through disuse.
"Yes," she went on as cheerfully as her perplexity would allow, "he's been so different lately. He comes home at such strange hours, for him. And sometimes he waits a long time at the door, as if he didn't know whether to come in or not. Of course," she added reassuringly, "no one else knows but me; Barlow never hears anything, for he's dead all night—he never resurrects till half-past seven," a timid smile lighting her face a moment. "But Harvey's different every way; all his fun and merriment are gone—and he seems so depressed and discouraged, as if he was being beaten in some fight his life depended on. I don't know what to make of it at all."
Jessie's face showed white in the gaslight; and her voice was far from steady. "Has this all been since—since mother died?" she asked, with eyes downcast and dim.
"Not altogether. No, not at all. I noticed it first, a while after he went on the Argus. He was so proud about getting on the staff—he got hold of a life of Horace Greeley in the library, and he used to joke about it and say some day he'd stand there too. But it began one morning—the change, I mean—and he's never been the same since. And one night, just before he went out, he brought me an envelope and asked me to keep it till he came back. I'm not very sure, but I think there was money in it—and it was just at the end of the month too," she added significantly.
"Doesn't he like newspaper life?" enquired Jessie.
"Oh, yes; I think he's crazy about it. You see, with his education and his gifts—he's a born writer—there isn't any kind of business could suit him better. I think he has his own times with Mr. Crothers—he's the city editor, a kind of manager. He's a strange man, blusters and swears a good deal, I think—but he's got a good heart, from what I can hear."