The Heart of a Mystery

by T. W. Speight

"Neither shelter nor rest is there under this roof for such as you," replied Miss Pengarvon, in her stoniest accents. "You have disgraced the name you bear as it was never disgraced before. This is your home no longer. Go!" and without another word the great door was shut with a crash and the bolts and locks shot one by one.

As Miss Pengarvon put out her hand in the dark to find the candlestick, one short, sharp, anguished cry--the cry of a broken heart--smote her ears. She stood for some moments with a hand pressed to her bosom, listening, but the silence was not broken again. Once more the house seemed a house of the dead. Then Miss Pengarvon turned and made her way through the black entrance-hall and the blacker corridor beyond, till she reached the parlor. Going in, she shut the door and tried to re-light the candle, but her hand trembled so that for some time she could not. Her face looked strangely haggard, but the hard, cold look in her eyes never varied. She drew a knitted shawl round her shoulders and sat down by the smouldering embers. Surely Barney and his wife could not be long now! She felt a strange disinclination for going to bed till they should return, although under ordinary circumstances she would have had no hesitation about doing so. The wind was beginning to rise, and every now and again there were eerie meanings in the wide chimney, while the windows shook and rattled as though some one were trying them from without. There was only one candle alight, and the room seemed full of shadows such as she had never noticed before. The darkest corner was the corner behind her chair. It made her uncomfortable to know this, so she crossed to the opposite side of the hearth, and sat down in her sister's chair. She wished that Letitia had not gone to bed.

She never remembered having felt so nervous before, not even when a child, and she despised herself for the feeling. All this time she was conscious that she was still listening intently. Would that timorous summons at the door make itself heard again? Perhaps she half hoped that it might. She kept telling herself again and again that it was impossible for her to have acted otherwise than as she had acted, that no other course was open to her--and yet she listened for the knocking to come again. By-and-bye she opened the door a little way. This, as she told herself, was only that she might be enabled to hear Barney when he should arrive. How slowly the minutes passed! What strange noises the wind made! Those windows must be seen to in the morning and made to fit more tightly in their frames. It was evident that she would not be troubled with the knocking again. "So much the better--so much the better," she muttered under her breath--and yet she was listening all the time. Thank Heaven! here was Barney Dale at last.

She could hear him unlocking one of the back doors of which he had taken the key with him. But he did not re-lock the door, which was strange; and now he was coming at a great pace in the direction of the Green Parlor; his hobnailed shoes clumping noisily as he came along the stone corridor. He had never before missed giving a preliminary knock at the door, but this time he came in without ceremony. One glance at his affrighted face was enough to tell Miss Pengarvon the news he was bringing her. She rose from her seat as he entered the room.

"Oh! mistress, there's poor Miss Isabel lying outside in the snow, and----"

Miss Pengarvon's tall, thin form drew itself up to its fullest height. "I know it," she said in her deep, harsh tones; "I know it. Let her lie there, or let her go. There is no home for such as she."

"But, mistress, she's dying; or, mebbe, dead already--dead and cold. I lifted up her head, and it fell back like a lump o' lead. You munna leave her lying there to perish. For heaven's sake, mistress, let me and Joanna see to her!"

"Let her go. This is no home for such as she," was all that Miss Pengarvon said.

"But she canna even stand, and, long afore morning, she'll be froze to death. Besides, which----" he bent forward, and whispered a few words in Miss Pengarvon's ear.

A sort of stony horror came into her face as she listened. Then she drew back a pace and clenched her hand, and for a moment Barney thought that she was about to strike him. "It is a lie--an infamous lie!" she whispered back through her thin, dry lips.