Her eyes filled, as she watched him; never had she liked him so much as now, as he moved to open the door for her.
"I thought," he said almost wistfully, "it seemed to me that, whatever he had done, it must have been mostly against me. His leaving everything to me seemed to mean that I was the one that he had wronged, and that he was trying to make it up to me. But it isn't that; it can't be that! It is something much worse than that! ... Oh, I'm glad I haven't used much of his money! Hardly any—not more than I can give back! It wasn't the money and the house he left me that mattered; what he really left me was just this ... dishonor, shame..."
The doorbell rang, and Alan turned to the door and threw it open. In the dusk the figure of the man outside was not at all recognizable; but as he entered with heavy and deliberate steps, passing Alan without greeting and going straight to Constance, Alan saw by the light in the hall that it was Spearman.
"What's up?" Spearman asked. "They tried to get your father at the office and then me, but neither of us was there. They got me afterwards at the club. They said you'd come over here; but that must have been more than two hours ago."
His gaze went on past her to the drawn hangings of the room to the right; and he seemed to appreciate their significance; for his face whitened under its tan, and an odd hush came suddenly upon him.
"Is it Ben, Connie?" he whispered. "Ben ... come back?"
He drew the curtains partly open. The light in the library had been extinguished, and the light that came from the hall swayed about the room with the movement of the curtains and gave a momentary semblance of life to the face of the man upon the couch. Spearman drew the curtains quickly together again, still holding to them and seeming for an instant to cling to them; then he shook himself together, threw the curtains wide apart, and strode into the room. He switched on the light and went directly to the couch; Alan followed him.
"He's—dead?"
"Who is he?" Alan demanded.
Spearman seemed to satisfy himself first as to the answer to his question. "How should I know who he is?" he asked. "There used to be a wheelsman on the Martha Corvet years ago who looked like him; or looked like what this fellow may have looked like once. I can't be sure."