The Dead Letter

[Page 183.]

THE PORTRAIT.

THE

DEAD LETTER:

AN AMERICAN ROMANCE.

BY SEELEY REGESTER.

NEW YORK:

BEADLE AND COMPANY,

118 WILLIAM STREET.

1867.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by

BEADLE AND COMPANY.

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the

Southern District of New York.

CONTENTS—PART I.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE DEAD LETTER.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.
THE LETTER.

I paused suddenly in my work. Over a year’s experience in the Dead Letter office had given a mechanical rapidity to my movements in opening, noting and classifying the contents of the bundles before me; and, so far from there being any thing exciting to the curiosity, or interesting to the mind, in the employment, it was of the most monotonous character.

Young ladies whose love letters have gone astray, evil men whose plans have been confided in writing to their confederates, may feel but little apprehension of the prying eyes of the Department; nothing attracts it but objects of material value—sentiment is below par; it gives attention only to such tangible interests as are represented by bank-bills, gold-pieces, checks, jewelry, miniatures, et cetera. Occasionally a grave clerk smiles sardonically at the ridiculous character of some of the articles which come to light; sometimes, perhaps, looks thoughtfully at a withered rosebud, or bunch of pressed violets, a homely little pin-cushion, or a book-mark, wishing it had reached its proper destination. I can not answer for other employees, who may not have even this amount of heart and imagination to invest in the dull business of a Government office; but when I was in the Department I was guilty, at intervals, of such folly—yet I passed for the coldest, most cynical man of them all.

The letter which I held in my paralyzed fingers when they so abruptly ceased their dexterous movements, was contained in a closely-sealed envelope, yellowed by time, and directed in a peculiar hand to “John Owen, Peekskill, New York,” and the date on the stamp was “October 18th, 1857”—making the letter two years old. I know not what magnetism passed from it, putting me, as the spiritualists say, en rapport with it; I had not yet cut the lappet; and the only thing I could fix upon as the cause of my attraction was, that at the date indicated on the envelope, I had been a resident of Blankville, twenty miles from Peekskill—and something about that date!

Yet this was no excuse for my agitation; I was not of an inquisitive disposition; nor did “John Owen” belong to the circle of my acquaintance. I sat there with such a strange expression upon my face, that one of my fellows, remarking my mood, exclaimed jestingly:

“What is it, Redfield? A check for a hundred thousand?”

“I am sure I don’t know; I haven’t opened it,” I answered, at random; and with this I cut the wrapper, impelled by some strongly-defined, irresistible influence to read the time-stained sheet inclosed. It ran in this wise:

“Dear Sir—It’s too bad to disappoint you. Could not execute your order, as everybody concerned will discover. What a charming day!—good for taking a picture. That old friend I introduced you to won’t tell tales, and you had not better bother yourself to visit him. The next time you find yourself in his arms, don’t feel in his left-hand pocket for the broken tooth-pick which I lent him. He is welcome to it. If you’re at the place of payment, I shan’t be there, not having fulfilled the order, and having given up my emigration project, much against my will; so, govern yourself accordingly. Sorry your prospects are so poor, and believe me, with the greatest possible esteem,

“Your disappointed Negotiator.”

To explain why this brief epistle, neither lucid nor interesting in itself, should affect me as it did, I must go back to the time at which it was written.

CHAPTER II.
EVENTS OF A NIGHT.

It was late in the afternoon of a cloudy, windy autumn day, that I left the office of John Argyll, Esq., in his company, to take tea and spend the evening in his family. I was a law-student in the office, and was favored with more than ordinary kindness by him, on account of a friendship that had existed between him and my deceased father. When young men, they had started out in life together, in equal circumstances; one had died early, just as fortune began to smile; the other lived to continue in well-earned prosperity. Mr. Argyll had never ceased to take an interest in the orphan son of his friend. He had aided my mother in giving me a collegiate education, and had taken me into his office to complete my law studies. Although I did not board at his house, I was almost like a member of the family. There was always a place for me at his table, with liberty to come and go when I pleased. This being Saturday, I was expected to go home with him, and stay over Sunday if I liked.

We quickened our steps as a few large drops were sprinkled over us out of the darkening clouds.

“It will be a rainy night,” said Mr. Argyll.

“It may clear away yet,” I said, looking toward a rift in the west, through which the declining sun was pouring a silver stream. He shook his head doubtfully, and we hurried up the steps into the house, to escape the threatened drenching.

Entering the parlors, we found no one but James, a nephew of Mr. Argyll, a young man of about my own age, lounging upon a sofa.

“Where are the girls?”

“They haven’t descended from the heavenly regions yet, uncle.”

“Dressing themselves to death, I expect—it’s Saturday evening, I remember,” smiled the indulgent father, passing on into the library.

I sat down by the west window, and looked out at the coming storm. I did not like James Argyll much, nor he me; so that, as much as we were thrown together, our intercourse continued constrained. On this occasion, however, he seemed in excellent spirits, persisting in talking on all kinds of indifferent subjects despite of my brief replies. I was wondering when Eleanor would make her appearance.

At last she came. I heard her silk dress rustle down the stairs, and my eyes were upon her when she entered the room. She was dressed with unusual care, and her face wore a brilliant, expectant smile. The smile was for neither of us. Perhaps James thought of it; I am sure I did, with secret suffering—with a sharp pang which I was ashamed of, and fought inwardly to conquer.

She spoke pleasantly to both of us, but with a preoccupied air not flattering to our vanity. Too restless to sit, she paced up and down the length of the parlors, seeming to radiate light as she walked, like some superb jewel—so lustrous was her countenance and so fine her costume. Little smiles would sparkle about her lips, little trills of song break forth, as if she were unconscious of observers. She had a right to be glad; she appeared to exult in her own beauty and happiness.

Presently she came to the window, and as she stood by my side, a burst of glory streamed through the fast-closing clouds, enveloping her in a golden atmosphere, tinting her black hair with purple, flushing her clear cheeks and the pearls about her throat. The fragrance of the rose she wore on her breast mingled with the light; for a moment I was thrilled and overpowered; but the dark-blue eyes were not looking on me—they were regarding the weather.

“How provoking that it should rain to-night,” she said, and as the slight cloud of vexation swept over her face, the blackness of night closed over the gleam of sunset, so suddenly that we could hardly discern each other.

“The rain will not keep Moreland away,” I answered.

“Of course not—but I don’t want him to get wet walking up from the depot; and Billy has put up the carriage in view of the storm.”

At that moment a wild gust of wind smote the house so that it shook, and the rain came down with a roar that was deafening. Eleanor rung for lights.

“Tell cook to be sure and have chocolate for supper—and cream for the peaches,” she said to the servant who came in to light the gas.

The girl smiled; she knew, in common with her mistress, who it was preferred chocolate and liked cream with peaches; the love of a woman, however sublime in some of its qualities, never fails in the tender domestic instincts which delight in promoting the comfort and personal tastes of its object.

“We need not have troubled ourselves to wear our new dresses,” pouted Mary, the younger sister, who had followed Eleanor down stairs “there will be nobody here to-night.”

Both James and myself objected to being dubbed nobody. The willful young beauty said all the gay things she pleased, telling us she certainly should not have worn her blue silks, nor puffed her hair for us—

“—Nor for Henry Moreland either—he never looks at me after the first minute. Engaged people are so stupid! I wish he and Eleanor would make an end of it. If I’m ever going to be bridemaid, I want to be—”

“And a clear field afterward, Miss Molly,” jested her cousin. “Come! play that new polka for me.”

“You couldn’t hear it if I did. The rain is playing a polka this evening, and the wind is dancing to it.”

He laughed loudly—more loudly than the idle fancy warranted. “Let us see if we can not make more noise than the storm,” he said, going to the piano and thumping out the most thunderous piece that he could recall. I was not a musician, but it seemed to me there were more discords than the law of harmony allowed; and Mary put her hands over her ears, and ran away to the end of the room.

For the next half-hour the rain came down in wide sheets, flapping against the windows, as the wind blew it hither and thither. James continued at the piano, and Eleanor moved restlessly about, stealing glances, now and then, at her tiny watch.

All at once there occurred one of those pauses which precede the fresh outbreaking of a storm; as if startled by the sudden lull, James Argyll paused in his playing; just then the shrill whistle of the locomotive pierced the silence with more than usual power, as the evening train swept around the curve of the hill not a quarter of a mile away, and rushed on into the depot in the lower part of the village.

There is something unearthly in the scream of the “steam-eagle,” especially when heard at night. He seems like a sentient thing, with a will of his own, unbending and irresistible; and his cry is threatening and defiant. This night it rose upon the storm prolonged and doleful.

I know not how it sounded to the others, but to me, whose imagination was already wrought upon by the tempest and by the presence of the woman I hopelessly loved, it came with an effect perfectly overwhelming; it filled the air, even the perfumed, lighted air of the parlor, full of a dismal wail. It threatened—I know not what. It warned against some strange, unseen disaster. Then it sunk into a hopeless cry, so full of mortal anguish, that I involuntarily put my fingers to my ears. Perhaps James felt something of the same thing, for he started from the piano-stool, walked twice or thrice across the floor, then flung himself again upon the sofa, and for a long time sat with his eyes shaded, neither speaking nor stirring.

Eleanor, with maiden artifice, took up a book, and composed herself to pretend to read; she would not have her lover to know that she had been so restless while awaiting his coming. Only Mary fluttered about like a humming-bird, diving into the sweets of things, the music, the flowers, whatever had honey in it; and teasing me in the intervals.

I have said that I loved Eleanor. I did, secretly, in silence and regret, against my judgment and will, and because I could not help it. I was quite certain that James loved her also, and I felt sorry for him; sympathy was taught me by my own sufferings, though I had never felt attracted toward his character. He seemed to me to be rather sullen in temper, as well as selfish; and then again I reproached myself for uncharitableness; it might have been his circumstances which rendered him morose—he was dependent upon his uncle—and his unhappiness which made him appear unamiable.

I loved, without a particle of hope. Eleanor was engaged to a young gentleman in every way worthy of her: of fine demeanor, high social position, and unblemished moral character. As much as her many admirers may have envied Henry Moreland, they could not dislike him. To see the young couple together was to feel that theirs would be one of those “matches made in heaven”—in age, character, worldly circumstances, beauty and cultivation, there was a rare correspondence.

Mr. Moreland was engaged with his father in a banking business in the city of New York. They owned a summer villa in Blankville, and it had been during his week of summer idleness here that he had made the acquaintance of Eleanor Argyll.

At this season of the year his business kept him in the city; but he was in the habit of coming out every Saturday afternoon and spending Sabbath at the house of Mr. Argyll, the marriage which was to terminate a betrothal of nearly two years being now not very far away. On her nineteenth birthday, which came in December, Eleanor was to be married.

Another half-hour passed away and the expected guest did not arrive. He usually reached the house in fifteen minutes after the arrival of the train; I could see that his betrothed was playing nervously with her watch-chain, though she kept her eyes fixed upon her book.

“Come, let us have tea; I am hungry,” said Mr. Argyll, coming out of the library. “I had a long ride after dinner. No use waiting, Eleanor—he won’t be here to-night”—he pinched her cheek to express his sympathy for her disappointment—“a little shower didn’t use to keep beaux away when I was a boy.”

“A little rain, papa! I never heard such a torrent before; besides, it was not the storm, of course, for he would have already taken the cars before it commenced.”

“To be sure! to be sure! defend your sweetheart, Ella—that’s right! But it may have been raining down there half the day—the storm comes from that direction. James, are you asleep?”

“I’ll soon see,” cried Mary, pulling away the hand from her cousin’s face—“why, James, what is the matter?”

Her question caused us all to look at him; his face was of an ashy paleness; his eyes burning like coals of fire.

“Nothing is the matter! I’ve been half asleep,” he answered, laughing, and springing to his feet. “Molly, shall I have the honor?”—she took his offered arm, and we went in to tea.

The sight of the well-ordered table, at the head of which Eleanor presided, the silver, the lights, the odor of the chocolate overpowering the fainter fragrance of the tea, was enough to banish thoughts of the tempest raging without, saving just enough consciousness of it to enhance the enjoyment of the luxury within.

Even Eleanor could not be cold to the warmth and comfort of the hour; the tears, which at first she could hardly keep out of her proud blue eyes, went back to their sources; she made an effort to be gay, and succeeded in being very charming. I think she still hoped he had been delayed at the village; and that there would be a note for her at the post-office, explaining his absence.

For once, the usually kind, considerate girl was selfish. Severe as was the storm, she insisted upon sending a servant to the office; she could not be kept in suspense until Monday.

She would hardly believe his statement, upon his return, that the mail had been changed, and there was really no message whatever.

We went back to the parlor and passed a merry evening.

A touch of chagrin, a fear that we should suspect how deeply she was disappointed, caused Eleanor to appear in unusually high spirits. She sung whatever I asked of her; she played some delicious music; she parried the wit of others with keener and brighter repartee; the roses bloomed on her cheeks, the stars rose in her eyes. It was not an altogether happy excitement; I knew that pride and loneliness were at the bottom of it; but it made her brilliantly beautiful. I wondered what Moreland would feel to see her so lovely—I almost regretted that he was not there.

James, too, was in an exultant mood.

It was late when we retired. I was in a state of mental activity which kept me awake for hours after. I never heard it rain as it did that night—the water seemed to come down in solid masses—and, occasionally, the wind shook the strong mansion as if it were a child. I could not sleep. There was something awful in the storm. If I had had a touch of superstition about me, I should have said that spirits were abroad.

A healthy man, of a somewhat vivid imagination, but without nervousness, unknowing bodily fear, I was still affected strangely. I shuddered in my soft bed; the wild shriek of the locomotive lingered in my ears; something besides rain seemed beating at the windows. Ah, my God! I knew afterward what it was. It was a human soul, disembodied, lingering about the place on earth most dear to it. The rest of the household slept well, so far as I could judge, by its silence and deep repose.

Toward morning I fell asleep; when I awoke the rain was over; the sun shone brightly; the ground was covered with gay autumn leaves shaken down by the wind and rain; the day promised well. I shook off the impressions of the darkness, dressed myself quickly, for the breakfast-bell rung, and descending, joined the family of my host at the table. In the midst of our cheerful repast, the door-bell rung. Eleanor started; the thought that her lover might have stayed at the hotel adjoining the depot on account of the rain, must have crossed her mind, for a rapid blush rose to her cheeks, and she involuntarily put up a hand to the dark braids of her hair as if to give them a more graceful touch. The servant came in, saying that a man at the door wished to speak with Mr. Argyll and Mr. Redfield.

“He says it’s important, and can’t wait, sir.”

We arose and went out into the hall, closing the door of the breakfast-room behind us.

“I’m very sorry—I’ve got bad news—I hope you won’t”—stammered the messenger, a servant from the hotel.

“What is it?” demanded Mr. Argyll.

“The young gentleman that comes here—Moreland’s his name, I believe—was found dead on the road this morning.”

“Dead!”

“They want you to come down to the inquest. They’ve got him in a room of our house. They think it’s a fit—there’s no marks of any thing.”

The father and I looked at each other; the lips of both were quivering; we both thought of Eleanor.

“What shall I do?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Argyll. I haven’t had time to think.”

“I can not—I can not—”

“Nor I—not just yet. Sarah, tell the young ladies we have gone out a short time on business—and don’t you breathe what you have heard. Don’t let any one in until we return—don’t allow any one to see Miss Eleanor. Be prudent.”

Her frightened face did not promise much for her discretion.

Hastening to the hotel, already surrounded by many people, we found the distressing message too true. Upon a lounge, in a private sitting-room, lay the body of Henry Moreland! The coroner and a couple of physicians had already arrived. It was their opinion that he had died from natural causes, as there was not the least evidence of violence to be seen. The face was as pleasant as in slumber; we could hardly believe him dead until we touched the icy forehead, about which the thick ringlets of brown hair clung, saturated with rain.

“What’s this?” exclaimed one, as we began to relieve the corpse of its wet garments, for the purpose of a further examination. It was a stab in the back. Not a drop of blood—only a small triangular hole in the cloak, through the other clothing, into the body. The investigation soon revealed the nature of the death-wound; it had been given by a fine, sharp dirk or stiletto. So firm and forcible had been the blow that it had pierced the lung and struck the rib with sufficient force to break the blade of the weapon, about three-quarters of an inch of the point of which was found in the wound. Death must have been instantaneous. The victim had fallen forward upon his face, bleeding inwardly, which accounted for no blood having been at first perceived; and as he had fallen, so he had lain through all the drenching storm of that miserable night. When discovered by the first passer-by, after daylight, he was lying on the path, by the side of the street, which led up in the direction of Mr. Argyll’s, his traveling-bag by his side, his face to the ground. The bag was not touched, neither the watch and money on his person, making it evident that robbery was not the object of the murderer.

A stab in the back, in the double darkness of night and storm! What enemy had Henry Moreland, to do this deed upon him?

It is useless now to repeat all the varying conjectures rising in our minds, or which continued to engross the entire community for weeks thereafter. It became at once the favorite theory of many that young Moreland had perished by a stroke intended for some other person. In the mean time, the news swept through the village like a whirlwind, destroying the calmness of that Sabbath morning, tossing the minds of people more fearfully than the material tempest had tossed the frail leaves. Murder! and such a murder in such a place!—not twenty rods from the busiest haunts of men, on a peaceful street—sudden, sure, unprovoked! People looked behind them as they walked, hearing the assassin’s step in every rustle of the breeze. Murder!—the far-away, frightful idea had suddenly assumed a real shape—it seemed to have stalked through the town, entering each dwelling, standing by every hearth-stone.

While the inquest was proceeding, Mr. Argyll and myself were thinking more of Eleanor than of her murdered lover.

“This is wretched business, Richard,” said the father. “I am so unnerved I can do nothing. Will you telegraph to his parents for me?”

His parents—here was more misery. I had not thought of them. I wrote out the dreadful message which it ought to have melted the wires with pity to carry.

“And now you must go to Eleanor. She must not hear it from strangers; and I can not—Richard!—you will tell her, will you not? I will follow you home immediately; as soon as I have made arrangements to have poor Henry brought to our house when the inquest is over.”

He wrung my hand, looking at me so beseechingly, that, loth as I was, I had no thought of refusing. I felt like one walking with frozen feet as I passed out of the chamber of horror into the peaceful sunlight, along the very path he had last trodden, and over the spot where he had fallen and had lain so many hours undiscovered, around which a crowd was pressing, disturbed, excited, but not noisy. The sandy soil had already filtered the rain, so as to be nearly dry; there was nothing to give a clue to the murderer’s footsteps, whither he went or whence he came—what impress they might have made in the hard, gravelly walk had been washed out by the storm. A few persons were searching carefully for the weapon which had been the instrument of death, and which had been broken in the wound, thinking it might have been cast away in the vicinity.

CHAPTER III.
THE FIGURE BENEATH THE TREES.

As I came near the old Argyll mansion, it seemed to me never to have looked so fair before. The place was the embodiment of calm prosperity. Stately and spacious it rose from the lawn in the midst of great old oaks whose trunks must have hardened through a century of growth, and whose red leaves, slowly dropping, now flamed in the sunshine. Although the growing village had stretched up to and encircled the grounds, it had still the air of a country place, for the lawn was roomy and the gardens were extensive. The house was built of stone, in a massive yet graceful style; with such sunshiny windows and pleasant porticoes that it had nothing of a somber look.

It is strange what opposite emotions will group themselves in the soul at the same moment. The sight of those lordly trees called up the exquisite picture of Tennyson’s “Talking Oak”:

“Oh, muffle round thy knees with fern,

And shadow Sumner-chace!

Long may thy topmost branch discern

The roofs of Sumner-place!”

I wondered if Henry had not repeated them, as he walked with Eleanor amid the golden light and flickering shadows beneath the branches of these trees. I recalled how I once, in my madness, before I knew that she was betrothed to another, had apostrophized the monarch of them all, in the passionate words of Walter. Now, looking at this ancient tree, I perceived with my eyes, though hardly with my mind, that it had some fresh excoriations upon the bark. If I thought any thing at all about it, I thought it the work of the storm, for numerous branches had been torn from the trees throughout the grove, and the ground was carpeted with fresh-fallen leaves.

Passing up the walk, I caught a glimpse of Eleanor at an upper window, and heard her singing a hymn, softly to herself, as she moved about her chamber. I stopped as if struck a blow. How could I force myself to drop the pall over this glorious morning? Alas! of all the homes in that village, perhaps this was the only one on which the shadow had not yet fallen—this, over which it was to settle, to be lifted nevermore.

Of all the hearts as yet unstartled by the tragic event was that most certain to be withered—that young heart, this moment so full of love and bliss, caroling hymns out of the fullness of its gratitude to God for its own delicious happiness.

Oh, I must—I must! I went in at an open window, from a portico into the library. James was there, dressed for church, his prayer-book and handkerchief on the table, and he looking over the last evening’s paper. The sight of him gave me a slight relief; his uncle and myself had forgotten him in the midst of our distress. It was bad enough to have to tell any one such news, but any delay in meeting Eleanor was eagerly welcomed. He looked at me inquiringly—my manner was enough to denote that something had gone wrong.

“What is it, Richard?”

“Horrible—most horrible!”

“For heaven’s sake, what is the matter?”

“Moreland has been murdered.”

“Moreland! What? Where? Whom do they suspect?”

“And her father wishes me to tell Eleanor. You are her cousin, James; will you not be the fittest person?” the hope crossing me that he would undertake the delivery of the message.

“I!” he exclaimed, leaning against the case of books beside him. “I! oh, no, not I. I’d be the last person! I’d look well telling her about it, wouldn’t I?” and he half laughed, though trembling from head to foot.

If I thought his manner strange, I did not wonder at it—the dreadful nature of the shock had unnerved all of us.

“Where is Mary?” I asked; “we had better tell her first, and have her present. Indeed, I wish—”

I had turned toward the door, which opened into the hall, to search for the younger sister, as I spoke; the words died on my lips. Eleanor was standing there. She had been coming in to get a book, and had evidently heard what had passed. She was as white as the morning dress she wore.

“Where is he?” Her voice sounded almost natural.

“At the Eagle Hotel,” I answered, without reflection, glad that she showed such self-command, and, since she did, glad also that the terrible communication was over.

She turned and ran through the hall, down the avenue toward the gate. In her thin slippers, her hair uncovered, fleet as a vision of the wind, she fled. I sprung after her. It would not do to allow her to shock herself with that sudden, awful sight. As she rushed out upon the street I caught her by the arm.

“Let me go! I must go to him! Don’t you see, he will need me?”

She made an effort to break away, looking down the street with strained eyes. Poor child! as if, he being dead, she could do him any good! Her stunned heart had as yet gone no further than that if Henry was hurt, was murdered, he would need her by his side. She must go to him and comfort him in his calamity. It was yet to teach her that this world and the things of this world—even she, herself, were no more to him.

“Come back, Eleanor; they will bring him to you before long.”

I had to lift her in my arms and carry her back to the house.

In the hall we met Mary, who had heard the story from James, and who burst into tears and sobs as she saw her sister.

“They are keeping me away from him,” said Eleanor, pitifully, looking at her. I felt her form relax in my arms, saw that she had fainted; James and I carried her to a sofa, while Mary ran distractedly for the housekeeper.

There was noisy wailing now in the mansion; the servants all admired and liked the young gentleman to whom their mistress was to be married; and, as usual, they gave full scope to their powers of expressing terror and sympathy. In the midst of cries and tears, the insensible girl was conveyed to her chamber.

James and myself paced the long halls and porticoes, waiting to hear tidings of her recovery. After a time the housekeeper came down, informing us that Miss Argyll had come to her senses; leastwise, enough to open her eyes and look about; but she wouldn’t speak, and she looked dreadful.

Just then Mr. Argyll came in. After being informed of what had occurred, he went up to his daughter’s room. With uttermost tenderness he gave her the details of the murder, as they were known; his eyes overrunning with tears to see that not a drop of moisture softened her fixed, unnatural look.

Friends came in and went out with no notice from her.

“I wish they would all leave me but you, Mary,” she said, after a time. “Father, you will let me know when—”

“Yes—yes.” He kissed her, and she was left with her sister for a watcher.

Hours passed. Some of us went into the dining-room and drank of the strong tea which the housekeeper had prepared, for we felt weak and unnerved. The parents were expected in the evening train, there being but one train running on Sunday. The shadow deepened over the house from hour to hour.

It was late in the afternoon before the body could be removed from the hotel where the coroner’s inquest was held. I asked James to go with me and attend upon its conveyance to Mr. Argyll’s. He declined, upon the plea of being too much unstrung to go out.

As the sad procession reached the garden in front of the mansion with its burden, I observed, in the midst of several who had gathered about, a woman, whose face, even in that time of preoccupation, arrested my attention. It was that of a girl, young and handsome, though now thin and deadly pale, with a wild look in her black eyes, which were fixed upon the shrouded burden with more than awe and curiosity.

I know not yet why I remarked her so particularly; why her strange face made such an impression on me. Once she started toward us, and then shrunk back again. By her dress and general appearance she might have been a shop-girl. I had never seen her before.

“That girl,” said a gentleman by my side, “acts queerly. And, come to think, she was on the train from New York yesterday afternoon. Not the one poor Moreland came in; the one before. I was on board myself, and noticed her particularly, as she sat facing me. She seemed to have some trouble on her mind.”

I seldom forget faces; and I never forgot hers.

“I will trace her out,” was my mental resolve.

We passed on into the house, and deposited our charge in the back parlor. I thought of Eleanor, as she had walked this room just twenty-four hours ago, a brilliant vision of love and triumphant beauty. Ay! twenty-four hours ago this clay before me was as resplendent with life, as eager, as glowing with the hope of the soul within it! Now, all the hours of time would never restore the tenant to his tenement. Who had dared to take upon himself the responsibility of unlawfully and with violence, ejecting this human soul from its house?

I shuddered as I asked myself the question. Somewhere must be lurking a guilty creature, with a heart on fire from the flames of hell, with which it had put itself in contact.

Then my heart stood still within me—all but the family had been banished from the apartment—her father was leading in Eleanor. With a slow step, clinging to his arm, she entered; but as her eyes fixed themselves upon the rigid outlines lying there beneath the funeral pall, she sprung forward, casting herself upon her lover’s corpse. Before, she had been silent; now began a murmur of woe so heart-rending that we who listened wished ourselves deaf before our ears had heard tones and sentences which could never be forgotten. It would be useless for me, a man, with a man’s language and thoughts, to attempt to repeat what this broken-hearted woman said to her dead lover.

It was not her words so much as it was her pathetic tones.

She talked to him as if he were alive and could hear her. She was resolved to make him hear and feel her love through the dark death which was between them.

“Ah, Henry,” she said, in a low, caressing tone, pressing back the curls from his forehead with her hand, “your hair is wet still. To think that you should lie out there all night—all night—on the ground, in the rain, and I not know of it! I, to be sleeping in my warm bed—actually sleeping, and you lying out in the storm, dead. That is the strangest thing! that makes me wonder—to think I could! Tell me that you forgive me for that, darling—for sleeping, you know, when you were out there. I was thinking of you when I took the rose out of my dress at night. I dreamed of you all night, but if I had known where you were, I would have gone out barefooted, I would have stayed by you and kept the rain from your face, from your dear, dear hair that I like so much and hardly ever dare to touch. It was cruel of me to sleep so. Would you guess, I was vexed at you last evening because you didn’t come? It was that made me so gay—not because I was happy. Vexed at you for not coming, when you could not come because you were dead!” and she laughed.

As that soft, dreadful laughter thrilled through the room, with a groan Mr. Argyll arose and went out; he could bear no more. Disturbed with a fear that her reason was shaken, I spoke with Mary, and we two tried to lift her up, and persuade her out of the room.

“Oh, don’t try to get me away from him again,” she pleaded, with a quivering smile, which made us sick. “Don’t be troubled, Henry. I’m not going—I’m not! They are going to put my hand in yours and bury me with you. It’s so curious I should have been playing the piano and wearing my new dress, and never guessing it! that you were so near me—dead—murdered!”

The kisses; the light, gentle touches of his hands and forehead, as if she might hurt him with the caresses which she could not withhold; the intent look which continually watched him as if expecting an answer; the miserable smile upon her white face—these were things which haunted those who saw them through many a future slumber.

“You will not say you forgive me for singing last night. You don’t say a word to me—because you are dead—that’s it—because you are dead—murdered!”

The echo of her own last word recalled her wandering reason.

“My God! murdered!” she exclaimed, suddenly rising to her full hight, with an awful air; “who do you suppose did it?”

Her cousin was standing near; her eyes fell upon him as she asked the question. The look, the manner, were too much for his already overwrought sensibility; he shrunk away, caught my arm, and sunk down, insensible. I did not wonder. We all of us felt as if we could endure no more.

Going to the family physician, who waited in another apartment, I begged of him to use some influence to withdraw Miss Argyll from the room, and quiet her feelings and memory, before her brain yielded to the strain upon it. After giving us some directions what to do with James, he went and talked with her, with so much wisdom and tact, that the danger to her reason seemed passing; persuading her also into taking the powder which he himself administered; but no argument could induce her to leave the mute, unanswering clay.

The arrival of the relatives was the last scene in the tragedy of that day. Unable to bear more of it, I went out in the darkness and walked upon the lawn. My head was hot; the cool air felt grateful to me; I leaned long upon the trunk of an oak, whose dark shadow shut out the starlight from about me; thought was busy with recent events. Who was the murderer? The question revolved in my brain, coming uppermost every other moment, as certainly as the turning of a wheel brings a certain point again and again to the top. My training, as a student of the law, helped my mind to fix upon every slightest circumstance which might hold a suspicion.

“Could that woman?”—but no, the hand of a woman could scarcely have given that sure and powerful blow. It looked like the work of a practiced hand—or, if not, at least it had been deliberately given, with malice aforethought. The assassin had premeditated the deed; had watched his victim and awaited the hour. Thus far, there was absolutely no clue whatever to the guilty party; bold as was the act, committed in the early evening, in the haunts of a busy community, it had been most fatally successful; and the doer had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up. No one, as yet, could form any plausible conjecture, even as to the motive.

In the name of Eleanor Argyll—in the name of her whom I loved, whose happiness I had that day seen in ruins, I vowed to use every endeavor to discover and bring to punishment the murderer. I know not why this purpose took such firm hold of me. The conviction of the guilty would not restore the life which had been taken; the bloom to a heart prematurely withered; it would afford no consolation to the bereaved. Yet, if to discover, had been to call back Henry Moreland to the world from which he had been so ruthlessly dismissed, I could hardly have been more determined in the pursuit. In action only could I feel relief from the oppression which weighed upon me. It could not give life to the dead—but the voice of Justice called aloud, never to permit this deed to sink into oblivion, until she had executed the divine vengeance of the law upon the doer.

As I stood there in silence and darkness, pondering the matter, I heard a light rustle of the dry leaves upon the ground, and felt, rather than saw, a figure pass me. I might have thought it one of the servants were it not for the evident caution of its movements. Presently, where the shadows of the trees were less thick, I detected a person stealing toward the house. As she crossed an open space, the starlight revealed the form and garments of a female; the next moment she passed into the obscurity of shadows again, where she remained some time, unsuspicious of my proximity, like myself leaning against a tree, and watching the mansion. Apparently satisfied that no one was about—the hour now verging toward midnight—she approached with hovering steps, now pausing, now drawing back, the west side of the mansion, from one of the windows of which the solemn light of the death-candles shone. Under this window she crouched down. I could not tell if her attitude were a kneeling one. It must have been more than an hour that she remained motionless in this place; I, equally quiet, watching the dark spot where she was. For the instant that she had stood between me and the window, her form was outlined against the light, when I saw that this must be the young woman whose strange conduct at the gate had attracted my attention. Of course I did not see her face; but the tall, slender figure, the dark bonnet, and nervous movement, were the same. I perplexed myself with vain conjectures.

I could not help connecting her with the murder, or with the victim, in some manner, however vague.

At last she arose, lingered, went away, passing near me with that soft, rustling step again. I was impelled to stretch out my hand and seize her; her conduct was suspicious; she ought to be arrested and examined, if only to clear herself of these circumstances. The idea that, by following her, I might trace her to some haunt, where proofs were secreted, or accomplices hidden, withheld my grasp.

Cautiously timing my step with hers, that the murmur of the leaves might not betray me, I followed. As she passed out the gate, I stood behind a tree, lest she should look back and discern me; then I passed through, following along in the shadow of the fence.

She hurried on in the direction of the spot at which the murder had been committed; but when nearly there, perceiving that some persons, though long past midnight, still hovered about the fatal place, she turned, and passed me. As soon as I dared, without alarming her, I also turned, pursuing her through the long, quiet street, until it brought her to a more crowded and poorer part of the village, where she went down a side street, and disappeared in a tenement-house, the entrance-hall to which was open. I ought to have gone at once for officers, and searched the place; but I unwisely concluded to wait for daylight.

As I came up the walk on my return, I met James Argyll in the avenue, near the front portico.

“Oh, is it you?” he exclaimed, after I had spoken to him. “I thought it was—was—”

“You are not superstitious, James?” for his hollow voice betrayed that he was frightened.

“You did give me a confounded uneasy sensation as you came up,” he answered with a laugh.—How can people laugh under such circumstances?—“Where have you been at this hour, Richard?”

“Walking in the cool air. The house smothered me.”

“So it did me. I could not rest. I have just come out to get a breath of air.”

“It is almost morning,” I said, and passed on into my chamber.

I knew who watched, without food, without rest, in the chamber of death, by whose door my footsteps led; but ache as my heart might, I had no words of comfort for sorrow like hers—so I passed on.

CHAPTER IV.
MORELAND VILLA.

Several minor circumstances prevented my going in search of the woman who had excited my suspicions on the previous day, until about nine o’clock of the morning, when I engaged an officer, and we two went quietly, without communicating our plans to any one else, to the tenement-house before spoken of.

Although Blankville was not a large village, there was in it, as in nearly every town blessed with a railroad depot, a shabby quarter where the rougher portion of its working people lived. The house stood in this quarter—it was a three-story frame building, occupied by half a dozen families, mostly those of Irish laborers, who found work in the vicinity of the depot. I had seen the strange girl ascend to the second floor, in the dim light of the previous night, so we went up and knocked at the first door we came upon. It was opened by a decent-appearing middle-aged woman, who held the knob in her hand while she waited for us to make known our errand; we both stepped into her apartment, before we spoke. A rapid glance revealed an innocent-looking room with the ordinary furniture of such a place—a cooking-stove, bed, table, etc.; but no other inmate. There was a cupboard, the door of which stood open, showing its humble array of dishes and eatables—there were no pantries, nor other places of concealment. I was certain that I had seen the girl enter this room at the head of the stairs, so I ventured:

“Is your daughter at home, ma’am?”

“Is it my niece you mean?”

I detected an Irish accent, though the woman spoke with but little “brogue,” and was evidently an old resident of our country—in a manner Americanized.

“Oh, she is your niece? I suppose so—a tall girl with dark eyes and hair.”

“That’s Leesy, herself. Was you wanting any work done?”

“Yes,” answered the officer, quickly, taking the matter out of my hands. “I wanted to get a set of shirts made up—six, with fine, stitched bosoms.” He had noticed a cheap sewing-machine standing near the window, and a bundle of coarse muslin in a basket near by.

“It’s sorry I am to disappoint you; but Leesy’s not with me now, and I hardly venture on the fine work. I make the shirts for the hands about the railroad that hasn’t wives of their own to do it—but for the fine bussums”—doubtfully—“though, to be sure, the machine does the stitches up beautiful—if it wasn’t for the button-holes!”

“Where is Leesy? Doesn’t she stop with you?”

“It’s her I have here always when she’s out of a place. She’s an orphan, poor girl, and it’s not in the blood of a Sullivan to turn off their own. I’ve brought her up from a little thing of five years old—given her the education, too. She can read and write like the ladies of the land.”

“You didn’t say where she was, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“She’s making the fine things in a fancy-store in New York—caps and collars and sleeves and the beautiful tucked waists—she’s such taste, and the work is not so hard as plain-sewing—four dollars a week she gets, and boarded for two and a half, in a nice, genteel place. She expects to be illivated to the forewoman’s place, at seven dollars the week, before many months. She was here to stay over the Sunday with me—she often does that; and she’s gone back by the six o’clock train this mornin’—and she’ll be surely late at that by an hour. I tried to coax her to stay the day, she seemed so poorly. She’s not been herself this long time—she seems goin’ in a decline like—it’s the stooping over the needle, I think. She’s so nervous-like, the news of the murder yesterday almost killed her. ’Twas an awful deed that, wasn’t it, gintlemen? I couldn’t sleep a wink last night for thinkin’ of that poor young man and the sweet lady he was to have married. Such a fine, generous, polite young gintleman!”

“Did you know him?”

“Know him! as well as my own son if I had one!—not that ever I spoke to him, but he’s passed here often on his way to his father’s house, and to Mr. Argyll’s; and Leesy sewed in their family these two summers when they’ve been here, and was always twice paid. When she’d go away he’d say, laughing in his beautiful way, ‘And how much have you earned a day, Miss Sullivan, sitting there all these long, hot hours?’ and she’d answer, ‘Fifty cents a day, and thanks to your mother for the good pay;’ and he’d put his hand in his pocket and pull out a ten-dollar gold-piece and say, ‘Women aren’t half paid for their work! it’s a shame! if you hain’t earned a dollar a day, Miss Sullivan, you hain’t earned a cent. So don’t be afraid to take it—it’s your due.’ And that’s what made Leesy think so much of him—he was so thoughtful of the poor—God bless him! How could anybody have the heart to do it!”

I looked at the officer and found his eyes reading my face. One thought had evidently flashed over both of us; but it was a suspicion which wronged the immaculate memory of Henry Moreland, and I, for my part, banished it as soon as it entered my mind. It was like him to pay generously the labors of a sickly sewing-girl; it was not like him to take any advantage of her ignorance or gratitude, which might result in her taking such desperate revenge for her wrongs. The thought was an insult to him and to the noble woman who was to have been his wife. I blushed at the intrusive, unwelcome fancy; but the officer, not knowing the deceased as I knew him, and, perhaps, having no such exalted idea of manhood as mine, seemed to feel as if here might be a thread to follow.

“Leesy thought much of him, you think, Mrs. Sullivan,” taking a chair unbidden, and putting on a friendly, gossiping air. “Everybody speaks well of him. So she sewed in the family?”

“Six weeks every summer. They was always satisfied with her sewing—she’s the quickest and neatest hand with the needle! She’d make them shirts of yours beautiful, if she was to home, sir.”

“When did she go to New York to live?”

“Last winter, early. It’s nearly a year now. There was something come across her—she appeared homesick like, and strange. When she said she meant to go to the city and get work, I was minded to let her go, for I thought the change mebbe would do her good. But she’s quite ailing and coughs dreadful o’ nights. I’m afraid she catched cold in that rain-storm night afore last; she came up all the way from the depot in it. She was wet to the skin when she got here and as white as a sheet. She was so weak-like that when the neighbors came in with the news yesterday, she gave a scream and dropped right down. I didn’t wonder she was took aback. I ain’t got done trembling yet myself.”

I remembered the gentleman who had first spoken to me about the girl said that she had come in on the morning train Saturday; I could not reconcile this with her coming up from the depot at dark; yet I wished to put my question in such a way as not to arouse suspicion of my motive.

“If she came in the six o’clock train she must have been on the same train with Mr. Moreland.”

“I believe she was in the seven o’clock cars—yes, she was. ’Twas half-past seven when she got in—the rain was pouring down awful. She didn’t see him, for I asked her yesterday.”

“In whose shop in New York is she employed?” inquired the officer.

“She’s at No 3—Broadway,” naming a store somewhere between Wall street and Canal.

“Are you wanting her for any thing?” she asked, suddenly, looking up sharply as if it just occurred to her that our inquiries were rather pointed.

“Oh, no,” replied my companion, rising; “I was a bit tired, and thought I’d rest my feet before starting out again. I’ll thank you for a glass of water, Mrs. Sullivan. So you won’t undertake the shirts?”

“If I thought I could do the button-holes—”

“Perhaps your niece could do them on her next visit, if you wanted the job,” I suggested.

“Why, so she could! and would be glad to do something for her old aunt. It’s bright you are to put me in mind of it. Shall I come for the work, sir?”

“I’ll send it round when I get it ready. I suppose your niece intends to visit you next Saturday?”

“Well, ra’ly, I can’t say. It’s too expensive her coming every week; but, she’ll sure be here afore the whole six is complate. Good-mornin’, gintlemen—and they’s heard nothin’ of the murderer, I’ll warrant?”

We responded that nothing had been learned, and descending to the street, it was arranged, as we walked along, that the officer should go to New York and put some detective there on the track of Leesy Sullivan. I informed my companion of the discrepancy between her actual arrival in town and her appearance at her aunt’s. Either the woman had purposely deceived us, or her niece had not gone home for a good many hours after landing at Blankville. I went with him to the depot, where we made a few inquiries which convinced us that she had arrived on Saturday morning, and sat an hour or two in the ladies’ room, and then gone away up town.

There was sufficient to justify our looking further. I took from my own pocket means to defray the expenses of the officer as well as to interest the New York detective, adding that liberal rewards were about to be offered, and waited until I saw him depart on his errand.

Then, turning to go to the office, my heart so sickened at the idea of business and the ordinary routine of living in the midst of such misery, that my footsteps shrunk away from their familiar paths! I could do nothing, just then, for the aid or comfort of the afflicted. The body was to be taken that afternoon to the city for interment, the next day, in the family inclosure at Greenwood; until the hour for its removal, there was nothing more that friendship could perform in the service of the mourners. My usual prescription for mental ailments was a long and vigorous walk; to-day I felt as if I could breathe only in the wide sunshine, so cramped and chilled were my spirits.

The summer residence of the Morelands lay about a mile beyond the Argyll mansion, out of the village proper, on a hillside, which sloped down to the river. It was surrounded by fine grounds, and commanded one of the loveliest views of the Hudson.

“A spirit in my feet

Led me, who knows how?”

in the direction of this now vacant and solitary place—solitary, I believed, with the exception of the gardener and his wife, who lived in a cottage back of the gardens, and who remained the year round, he to attend to out-door matters, and she to give housekeeper’s care to the closed mansion.

The place had never looked more beautiful to me, not even in the bloom of its June foliage and flowers, than it did as I approached it on this occasion. The frosts had turned to every gorgeous color the tops of the trees which stood out here and there; back of the house, and extending down toward the southern gate, by which I entered, a grove of maples and elms glowed in the autumn sunshine; the lawn in front sloped down to the water’s edge, which flowed by in a blue and lordly stream, bearing on its broad bosom picturesque white ships. In the garden, through which I was now walking, many brilliant flowers still lingered: asters, gold, pink and purple; chrysanthemums; some dahlias which had been covered from the frost; pansies lurking under their broad leaves. It had been the intention of the young couple to make this their permanent home after their marriage, going to the city only for a couple of the winter months. The very next week, I had heard, Eleanor expected to go down to help Henry in his selection of new furniture.

Here the mansion lay, bathed in the rich sunshine; the garden sparkled with flowers as the river with ripples, so full, as it were, of conscious, joyous life, while the master of all lay in a darkened room awaiting his narrow coffin. Never had the uncertainty of human purposes so impressed me as when I looked abroad over that stately residence and thought of the prosperous future which had come to so awful a standstill. I gathered a handful of pansies—they were Eleanor’s favorites. As I approached the house by the garden, I came nearly upon the portico which extended across its western front before I perceived that it was occupied. Sitting on its outer edge, with one arm half wound around one of its pillars, and her bonnet in the grass at her feet, I beheld the sewing-girl after whom I had dispatched an officer to New York. She did not perceive me, and I had an opportunity of studying the face of the woman who had fallen under my suspicion, when she was unaware that my eye was upon it, and when her soul looked out of it, unvailed, in the security of solitude. The impression which she made upon me was that of despair. It was written on attitude and expression. It was neither grief nor remorse—it was blank despair. It must have been half an hour that I remained quiet, watching her. In all that time she never stirred hand nor eyelid; her glance was upon the greensward at her feet. When I turn to that page of my memory, I see her, photographed, as it were, upon it—every fold of the dark dress, which was some worsted substance, frayed, but neat; the black shawl, bordered, drawn close about the slender shoulders, which had the slight, habitual stoop of those who ply the needle for a living; the jetty hair pushed back from her forehead, the marble whiteness and rigidity of the face and mouth.

It was a face made to express passion. And, although the only passion expressed now was that of despair, so intense that it grew like apathy, I could easily see how the rounded chin and full lips could melt into softer moods. The forehead was rather low, but fair, consorting with the oval of the cheek and chin; the brows dark and rather heavy. I remembered the wild black eyes which I had seen the previous day, and could guess at their hidden fires.

This was a girl to attract interest at any time, and I mutely wondered what had entangled the threads of her fate in the glittering web of a higher fortune, which was now suddenly interwoven with the pall of death. All her movements had been such as to confirm my desire to ascertain her connection, if any, with the tragedy. It seemed to me that if I could see her eyes, before she was conscious of observance, I could tell whether there was guilt, or only sorrow, in her heart; therefore I remained quiet, waiting. But I had mistaken my powers, or the eyes overbore them. When she did lift them, as a steamer came puffing around the base of the mountain which ran down into the river at the east, and they suddenly encountered mine, where I stood not ten feet from her, I saw only black, unfathomable depths, pouring out a trouble so intense, that my own gaze dropped beneath their power.

She did not start, upon observing me, which, as I thought, a guilty person, buried in self-accusing reveries, would have done—it seemed only slowly to penetrate her consciousness that a stranger was confronting her; when I raised my eyes, which had sunk beneath the intensity of hers, she was moving rapidly away toward the western gate.

“Miss Sullivan, you have forgotten your bonnet.”

With a woman’s instinct she put up her hand to smooth her disordered hair, came slowly back and took the bonnet which I extended toward her, without speaking. I hesitated what move to make next. I wished to address her—she was here, in my grasp, and I ought to satisfy myself, as far as possible, about the suspicions which I had conceived. I might do her an irreparable injury by making my feelings public, if she were innocent of any aid or instigation of the crime which had been committed, yet there were circumstances which could hardly pass unchallenged. That unaccountable absence of hers on Saturday, from three o’clock until an hour after the murder was committed; the statement of her aunt that she was in the city, and my finding her in this spot, in connection with the midnight visit to the window, and the other things which I had observed, were sufficient to justify inquiry. Yet, if I alarmed her prematurely I should have the less chance of coming upon proofs, and her accomplices, if she had any, would be led to take steps for greater safety. Anyhow, I would make her speak, and find what there was in her voice.

“Your aunt told me that you had gone to New York,” I said, stepping along beside her, as she turned away.

“She thought so. Did you come here to see me, sir?” stopping short in her walk, and looking at me as if she expected me to tell my business.

This again did not look like the trepidation of guilt.

“No. I came out for a walk. I suppose our thoughts have led us both in the same direction. This place will have an interest to many, hereafter.”

“Interest! the interest of vulgar curiosity! It will give them something to talk about. I hate it!” She spoke more to herself than to me, while a ray of fire darted from those black orbs; the next instant her face subsided into that passionate stillness again.

Her speech was not that of her station; I recalled what her aunt had said about the education she had bestowed on her, and decided that the girl’s mind was one of those which reach out beyond their circumstances—aspiring—ambitious—and that this aspiring nature may have led her into her present unhappiness. That she was unhappy, if not sinful, it took but a glance to assure me.

“So do I hate it. I do not like to have the grief of my friends subjected to cold and curious eyes.”

“Yet, it is a privilege to have the right to mourn. I tell you the sorrow of that beautiful lady he was to have married is light compared with trouble that some feel. There are those who envy her.”

It was not her words, as much as her wild, half-choked voice, which gave effect to them; she spoke, and grew silent, as if conscious that the truth had been wrung from her in the ear of a stranger. We had reached the gate, and she seemed anxious to escape through it; but I held it in my hand, looking hard at her, as I said—“It may have been the hand of envy which dashed the cup of fruition from her lips. Her young life is withered never to bloom again. I can imagine but one wretchedness in this world greater than hers—and that is the wretchedness of the guilty person who has murder written on his or her soul.”

A spasm contracted her face; she pushed at the gate which I still held.

“Ah, don’t,” she said; “let me pass.”

I opened it and she darted through, fleeing along the road which led out around the backward slope of the hill, like Io pursued by the stinging fly. Her path was away from the village, so that I hardly expected to see her again that day.

Within two minutes the gardener’s wife came up the road to the gate. She had been down to visit the corpse of her young master; her eyes were red with weeping.

“How do you do, Mr. Redfield? These be miserable times, ain’t they? My very heart is sore in my breast; but I couldn’t cry a tear in the room where he was, a-lying there like life, for Miss Eleanor sot by him like a statue. It made me cold all over to see her—I couldn’t speak to save me. The father and mother are just broke down, too.”

“How is Miss Eleanor, this morning?”

“The Lord knows! She doesn’t do any thing but sit there, as quiet as can be. It’s a bad symptom, to my thinking. ‘Still waters run deep.’ They’re a-dreading the hour when they’ll have to remove the body from the house—they’re afraid her mind ’ll go.”

“No, no,” I answered, inwardly shuddering; “Eleanor’s reason is too fine and powerful to be unstrung, even by a blow like this.”

“Who was that went out the gate as I came around the bend? Was it that girl, again?”

“Do you mean Leesy Sullivan?”

“Yes, sir. Do you know her? She acts mighty queer, to my thinkin’. She was out here Saturday, sittin’ in the summer-house, all alone, ’till the rain began to fall—I guess she got a good soaking going home. I didn’t think much about her; it was Saturday, and I thought likely she was taking a holiday, and there’s many people like to come here, it’s so pleasant. But what’s brought her here again to-day is more’n I can guess. Do you know, sir?”

“I do not. I found her sitting on the portico looking at the river. Maybe she comes out for a walk and stops here to rest. She probably feels somewhat at home, she has sewed so much in the family. I don’t know her at all, myself; I never spoke to her until just now. Did you get much acquainted with her, when she was in the house?”

“I never spoke to her above a dozen times. I wasn’t at the house much, and she was always at work. She seemed fast with her needle, and a girl who minded her own business. I thought she was rather proud, for a seamstress—she was handsome, and I reckon she knew it. She’s getting thinner; she had red spots on her cheeks, Saturday, that I didn’t like—looked consumptive.”

“Did the family treat her with particular kindness?” It was as near as I cared to put into words what I was thinking of.

“You know it’s in the whole Moreland race to be generous and kind to those under them. I’ve known Henry more than once, when the family was going out for a drive, to insist upon Miss Sullivan’s taking a seat in the carriage—but never when he was going alone. I heard him tell his mother that the poor girl looked tired, as if she needed a breath of air and a bit of freedom, and the kind-hearted lady would laugh at her son, but do as he said. It was just like him. But I’d stake my everlasting futur’ that he never took any advantage of her feelings, if it’s that you’re thinking of, Mr. Redfield.”

“So would I, Mrs. Scott. There is no one can have a higher respect for the character of that noble young gentleman, than I. I would resent an insult to his memory more quickly than if he had been my brother. But, as you say, there is something queer in the actions of Miss Sullivan. I know that I can trust your discretion, Mrs. Scott, for I have heard it well spoken of; do not say any thing to others, not even to your husband, but keep a watch on that person if she should come here any more. Report to me what she does, and what spot she frequents.”

“I will do so, sir. But I don’t think any harm of her. She may have been unfortunate enough to think too much of the kindness with which he treated her. If so, I pity her—she could hardly help it, poor thing. Henry Moreland was a young gentleman a good many people loved.”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes in a fresh burst of tears. Wishing her good-morning, I turned toward the village, hardly caring what I should do next. Mrs. Scott was an American woman, and one to be trusted; I felt that she would be the best detective I could place at that spot.

When I reached the office, on my homeward route, I went in. Mr. Argyll was there alone, his head leaning on his hand, his face anxious and worn, his brow contracted in deep thought. As soon as I came in, he sprung up, closed the outer door, and said to me, in a low voice,

“Richard, another strange thing has occurred.”

I stared at him, afraid to ask what.

“I have been robbed of two thousand dollars.”

“When and how?”

“That is what I do not know. Four days ago I drew that amount in bills from the Park Bank. I placed it, in a roll, just as I received it, in my library desk, at home. I locked the desk, and have carried the key in my pocket. The desk has been locked, as usual, every time that I have gone to it. How long the money has been gone, I can not say; I never looked after it, since placing it there, until about an hour ago. I wanted some cash for expenses this afternoon, and going for it, the roll was gone.”

“Haven’t you mislaid it?”

“No. I have one drawer for my cash, and I placed it there. I remember it plainly enough. It has been stolen”—and he sat down in his chair with a heavy sigh. “That money was for my poor Eleanor. She was to complete her wedding outfit this week, and the two thousand dollars was for refurnishing the place out at the Grove. I don’t care for the loss so much—she doesn’t need it now—but it’s singular—at this time!”

He looked up at me, vague suspicions which he could not shape floating in his brain.

“Who knew of your having the money?”

“No one, that I am aware of, except my nephew. He drew it for me when he went down to the city last Wednesday.”

“Could you identify the money?”

“Not all of it. I only remember that there was one five hundred dollar bill in the package, a fresh issue of the Park Bank, of which, possibly, they may have the number. The rest was city money of various denominations and banks. I can think of but one thing which seems probable. James must have been followed from the city by some professional thief, who saw him obtain the money, and kept an eye upon it, waiting for a suitable opportunity, until it was deposited in the desk. The key is a common one, which could be easily duplicated, and we are so careless in this quiet community that a thief might enter at almost any hour of the night. Perhaps the same villain dogged poor Henry in hopes of another harvest.”

“You forget that there was no attempt to rob Henry.”

“True—true. Yet the murderer may have been frightened away before he had secured his prize.”

“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,

“Mr. Argyll has been robbed of a sum of money.”

An inexplicable expression flashed into his face and passed off; it went as soon as it came.

“So he informed me, just before we started. He says that you will put the police on the track of it—that possibly the five-hundred dollar bill will be identified. It was taken from his desk, it appears.”

“Yes; I wonder what will happen next.”

“Ay! I wonder what will.”

“Who knows what a narrow escape you may have had,” said I. “It is well that you came here in broad daylight; else, like poor Henry, you might have fallen a victim to a blow in the dark. Mr. Argyll thinks you must have been followed from the city by some professional burglar.”

“He thinks so?” he asked, while the shadow of a smile just showed a second in the mirror of his eyes; it was as if there was a smile in his heart, and a reflection from its invisible self fell athwart his eyes; but he turned them away immediately.

“It’s queer,” he resumed; “horribly queer; don’t you think so? I saw that money in the desk Friday evening. Uncle asked me to hold the lamp a moment, while he found some papers, and I noticed the roll of bills lying in his cash-drawer, just as I had given them to him. It must have been abstracted Saturday or Sunday—it’s queer—confoundedly so! There must be some great villain lurking in our midst!”—this last sentence he uttered with an emphasis, looking me through with his black eyes.

There was suspicion in his gaze, and my own fell before it. Innocence itself will blush if obliged to confront the insult of accusation. I had had many wild, and doubtless many wrong and suspicious thoughts about various persons, since the discovery of the murder; and this was turning the tables on me rather suddenly. It never occurred to me that among the dozens upon whom vague and flying suspicions might alight, might be myself.

“There is an awful mystery somewhere,” I stammered.

“Humph! yes, there is. My uncle Argyll is just the man to be wronged by some one of his many friends and dependents. He is too confiding, too unsuspecting of others—as I have told him. He has been duped often—but this—this is too bad!”

I looked up again, and sharply, to see what he meant. If he intended covertly to insinuate that I was open to imputation as one of the “friends or dependents” who could wrong a benefactor, I wished to understand him. A friend, I knew, Mr. Argyll was to me; a friend to be grateful for; but I was no dependent upon his bounty, as his nephew was, and the hot blood rushed to my face, the fire to my eye, as I answered back the cool gaze of James with a haughty stare.

“There is no love lost between us, Richard,” he said, presently, “which is principally your fault; but I am friendly to you; and as a friend, I would suggest that you do not make yourself conspicuous in this affair. If you should put yourself forward at all, being so young, and having, apparently, so small an interest in the matter, you may bring unpleasant remark upon yourself. Let us stand back and allow our elders to do the work. As to that money, whether it has or has not any connection with the—the other affair, time will perhaps show. Let the police do what they can with it—my advice to you is to keep in the background.”

“Your course may be prudent, James,” was my reply; “I do not ask your approbation of mine. But to one thing I have made up my mind. So long as I live, and the murderer of Henry Moreland is undiscovered, I will never rest. In Eleanor’s name, I consecrate myself to this calling. I can face the whole world in her behalf, and fear nothing.”

He turned away with a sneer, busying himself with the prospect from the window. During the rest of the ride we said little; his words had given me a curious sensation; I had sustained so many shocks to my feelings within the last forty-eight hours, that this new one of finding myself under the eye of suspicion, mingled in with the perplexing whirl of the whole, until I almost began to doubt my own identity and that of others. A vision of Leesy Sullivan, whose wild footsteps might still be tracking hills and fields, hovered before me—and out of all this distraction, my thoughts settled upon Eleanor. I prayed God earnestly to be with her in this hour; either to strengthen her heart and brain to bear her affliction without falling to ruins beneath the weight, or to take her at once to Himself, where Henry awaited her in the mansions of their eternal home.

The arrival of the train at Thirtieth street recalled me to my present duties. Carriages were in waiting to convey the coffin and its escort to the house of the parents, the funeral being arranged for the following day. I saw the officer who had gone down from Blankville in the morning, waiting in the depot to speak to me; but I did not need to be told that he had not found the sewing-girl at her place of business. I made an appointment to meet him in the evening at the Metropolitan, and took my place in the sad procession to the house of the Morelands.

I was anxious to give notice of the robbery at the bank, and to ascertain if they could identify any of the money, especially the large bill, which, being new, I hoped they would have on record. Banking hours were over, however, for the day, and it was only by intruding the matter upon the notice of Mr. Moreland that I could get any thing accomplished. This I decided to do; when he told me that, by going directly to the bank, he thought I could gain access to the cashier; and if not, he gave me his address, so that I might seek him at his residence. Mr. Moreland also advised me to take with me some competent detective, who should be witness to the statement of the cashier with regard to the money paid to James Argyll, on his uncle’s draft, and be employed to put the rest of the force on the lookout for it, or any portion of it which was identifiable. He gave me the name of an officer with whom he had a chance acquaintance, and of whose abilities he had a high opinion; telling me to make free use of his name and influence, if he had any, with him, and the police.

“And please, Mr. Redfield—or James here, if you should be too busy—make out an advertisement for the morning papers, offering a reward of five thousand dollars for the detection and conviction of the—the—murderer.”

James was standing by us during the conversation; and I almost withdrew my verdict upon his selfishness, as I marked how he shrunk when the eye of the bereaved father rested upon him, and how vainly he endeavored to appear calm at the affecting spectacle of the gray-haired gentleman forcing his quivering lips to utter the word—“murderer.” He trembled much more than myself, as each of us wrung Mr. Moreland’s hand, and departed down the steps.

“It unmanned him,” he said, stopping a moment on the pavement to wipe the perspiration from his brow, though the day was not at all warm. “I believe,” he added, as he walked along, “that if the person who resolves to commit a crime would reflect on all the consequences of that act, it would remain undone for ever. But he does not. He sees an object in the way of his wishes, and he thrusts it aside, reckless of the ruin which will overwhelm surrounding things, until he sees the wreck about him. Then it is too late for remorse—to the devil with it. But I needn’t philosophize before you, Richard, who have precociously earned that privilege of wisdom”—with that disagreeable half-laugh of his—“only I was thinking how the guilty party must have felt could he have seen Henry’s father as we saw him just now,” and again I felt his eye upon me. Certainly, there seemed no prospect of our friendship increasing. I would rather have dispensed with his company, while I put my full energies into the business before me; but it was quite natural that he should expect to accompany me on an errand in which he must have as deep an interest as myself. Coming out of the avenue upon Broadway we took a stage, riding down as far as Grand street, when we got out and walked to the office of the detective-police.