Book + 

III + 

Hannah + 

I had a client in R⁠⸺ by the name of Monell; and it was from him I had planned to learn the best way of approaching Mrs. Belden. When, therefore, I was so fortunate as to meet him, almost on my arrival, driving on the long road behind his famous trotter Alfred, I regarded the encounter as a most auspicious beginning of a very doubtful enterprise. + 

“Well, and how goes the day?” was his exclamation as, the first greetings passed, we drove rapidly into town. + 

“Your part in it goes pretty smoothly,” I returned; and thinking I could never hope to win his attention to my own affairs till I had satisfied him in regard to his, I told him all I could concerning the lawsuit then pending; a subject so prolific of question and answer, that we had driven twice round the town before he remembered he had a letter to post. As it was an important one, admitting of no delay, we hasted at once to the post-office, where he went in, leaving me outside to watch the rather meagre stream of goers and comers who at that time of day make the post-office of a country town their place of rendezvous. Among these, for some reason, I especially noted one middle-aged woman; why, I cannot say; her appearance was anything but remarkable. And yet when she came out, with two letters in her hand, one in a large and one in a small envelope, and meeting my eye hastily drew them under her shawl, I found myself wondering what was in her letters and who she could be, that the casual glance of a stranger should unconsciously move her to an action so suspicious. But Mr. Monell’s reappearance at the same moment, diverted my attention, and in the interest of the conversation that followed, I soon forgot both the woman and her letters. For determined that he should have no opportunity to revert to that endless topic, a law case, I exclaimed with the first crack of the whip⁠—“There, I knew there was something I wanted to ask you. It is this: Are you acquainted with anyone is this town by the name of Belden?” + 

“There is a widow Belden in town; I don’t know of any other.” + 

“Is her first name Amy?” + 

“Yes, Mrs. Amy Belden.” + 

“That is the one,” said I. “Who is she, what is she, and what is the extent of your acquaintance with her?” + 

“Well,” said he, “I cannot conceive why you should be interested in such an antiquated piece of commonplace goodness as she is, but seeing you ask, I have no objection to telling you that she is the very respectable relict of a deceased cabinetmaker of this town; that she lives in a little house down the street there, and that if you have any forlorn old tramp to be lodged over night, or any destitute family of little ones to be looked after, she is the one to go to. As to knowing her, I know her as I do a dozen other members of our church there up over the hill. When I see her I speak to her, and that is all.” + 

“A respectable widow, you say. Any family?” + 

“No; lives alone, has a little income, I believe; must have, to put the money on the plate she always does; but spends her time in plain sewing and such deeds of charity, as one with small means but willing heart can find the opportunity of doing in a town like this. But why in the name of wonders do you ask?” + 

“Business,” said I, “business. Mrs. Belden⁠—don’t mention it by the way⁠—has got mixed up in a case of mine, and I felt it due to my curiosity if not to my purse, to find out something about her. And I am not satisfied yet. The fact is I would give something, Monell, for the opportunity of studying this woman’s character. Now couldn’t you manage to get me introduced into her house in some way that would make it possible and proper for me to converse with her at my leisure? Business would thank you if you could.” + 

“Well, I don’t know; I suppose it could be done. She used to take lodgers in the summer when the hotel was full, and might be induced to give a bed to a friend of mine who is very anxious to be near the post-office on account of a business telegram he is expecting, and which when it comes will demand his immediate attention.” And Mr. Monell gave me a sly wink of his eye, little imagining how near the mark he had struck. + 

“You need not say that. Tell her I have a peculiar dislike to sleeping in a public house, and that you know of no one better fitted to accommodate me, for the short time I desire to be in town, than herself.” + 

“And what will be said of my hospitality in allowing you under these circumstances to remain in any other house than my own?” + 

“I don’t know; very hard things, no doubt; but I guess your hospitality can stand it.” + 

“Well, if you persist, we will see what can be done.” And driving up to a neat white cottage of homely, but sufficiently attractive appearance, he stopped. + 

“This is her house,” said he, jumping to the ground; “let’s go in and see what we can do.” + 

Glancing up at the windows, which were all closed save the two on the veranda overlooking the street, I thought to myself, “If she has anybody in hiding here, whose presence in the house she desires to keep secret, it is folly to hope she will take me in, however well recommended I may come.” But, yielding to the example of my friend, I alighted in my turn and followed him up the short, grass-bordered walk to the front door. + 

“As she has no servant, she will come to the door herself, so be ready,” he remarked as he knocked. + 

I had barely time to observe that the curtains to the window at my left suddenly dropped, when a hasty step made itself heard within, and a quick hand drew open the door; and I saw before me the woman whom I had observed at the post-office, and whose action with the letters had struck me as peculiar. I recognized her at first glance, though she was differently dressed, and had evidently passed through some worry or excitement that had altered the expression of her countenance, and made her manner what it was not at that time, strained and a trifle uncertain. But I saw no reason for thinking she remembered me. On the contrary, the look she directed towards me had nothing but inquiry in it, and when Mr. Monell pushed me forward with the remark, “A friend of mine; in fact my lawyer from New York,” she dropped a hurried old-fashioned curtsey whose only expression was a manifest desire to appear sensible of the honor conferred upon her, through the mist of a certain trouble that confused everything about her. + 

“We have come to ask a favor, Mrs. Belden; but may we not come in?” said my client in a round, hearty voice well calculated to recall a person’s thoughts into their proper channel. “I have heard many times of your cosy home, and am glad of this opportunity of seeing it.” And with a blind disregard to the look of surprised resistance with which she met his advance, he stepped gallantly into the little room whose cheery red carpet and bright picture-hung walls showed invitingly through the half-open door at our left. + 

Finding her premises thus invaded by a sort of French coup d’etat, Mrs. Belden made the best of the situation, and pressing me to enter also, devoted herself to hospitality. As for Mr. Monell, he quite blossomed out in his endeavors to make himself agreeable; so much so, that I shortly found myself laughing at his sallies, though my heart was full of anxiety lest, after all, our efforts should fail of the success they certainly merited. Meanwhile, Mrs. Belden softened more and more, joining in the conversation with an ease hardly to be expected from one in her humble circumstances. Indeed, I soon saw she was no common woman. There was a refinement in her speech and manner, which, combined with her motherly presence and gentle air, was very pleasing. The last woman in the world to suspect of any underhanded proceeding, if she had not shown a peculiar hesitation when Mr. Monell broached the subject of my entertainment there. + 

“I don’t know, sir; I would be glad, but,” and she turned a very scrutinizing look upon me, “the fact is, I have not taken lodgers of late, and I have got out of the way of the whole thing, and am afraid I cannot make him comfortable. In short, you will have to excuse me.” + 

“But we can’t,” returned Mr. Monell. “What, entice a fellow into a room like this”⁠—and he cast a hearty admiring glance round the apartment which, for all its simplicity, both its warm coloring and general air of cosiness amply merited, “and then turn a cold shoulder upon him when he humbly entreats the honor of staying a single night in the enjoyment of its attractions? No, no, Mrs. Belden; I know you too well for that. Lazarus himself couldn’t come to your door and be turned away; much less a good-hearted, clever-headed young gentleman like my friend here.” + 

“You are very good,” she began, an almost weak love of praise showing itself for a moment in her eyes; “but I have no room prepared. I have been housecleaning, and everything is topsy-turvy. Mrs. Wright, now, over the way⁠—” + 

“My young friend is going to stop here,” Mr. Monell broke in, with frank positiveness. “If I cannot have him at my own house⁠—and for certain reasons it is not advisable⁠—I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing he is in the charge of the best housekeeper in R⁠⸺.” + 

“Yes,” I put in, but without too great a show of interest; “I should be sorry, once introduced here, to be obliged to go elsewhere.” + 

The troubled eye wavered away from us to the door. + 

“I was never called inhospitable,” she commenced; “but everything in such disorder. What time would you like to come?” + 

“I was in hopes I might remain now,” I replied; “I have some letters to write, and ask nothing better than for leave to sit here and write them.” + 

At the word letters I saw her hand go to her pocket in a movement which must have been involuntary, for her countenance did not change, and she made the quick reply: + 

“Well, you may. If you can put up with such poor accommodations as I can offer, it shall not be said I refused you what Mr. Monell is pleased to call a favor.” + 

And, complete in her reception as she had been in her resistance, she gave us a pleasant smile, and, ignoring my thanks, bustled out with Mr. Monell to the buggy, where she received my bag and what was, doubtless, more to her taste, the compliments he was now more than ever ready to bestow upon her. + 

“I will see that a room is got ready for you in a very short space of time,” she said, upon reentering. “Meanwhile, make yourself at home here; and if you wish to write, why I think you will find everything for the purpose in these drawers.” And wheeling up a table to the easy chair in which I sat, she pointed to the small compartments beneath, with an air of such manifest desire to have me make use of anything and everything she had, that I found myself wondering over my position with a sort of startled embarrassment that was not remote from shame. + 

“Thank you; I have materials of my own,” said I, and hastened to open my bag and bring out the writing-case, which I always carried with me. + 

“Then I will leave you,” said she; and with a quick bend and a short, hurried look out of the window, she hastily quitted the room. + 

I could hear her steps cross the hall, go up two or three stairs, pause, go up the rest of the flight, pause again, and then pass on. I was left on the first floor alone. + 

The first thing I did was to inspect with greater care the room in which I sat. + 

It was a pleasant apartment, as I have already said; square, sunny, and well furnished. On the floor was a crimson carpet, on the walls several pictures, at the windows, cheerful curtains of white, tastefully ornamented with ferns and autumn leaves; in one corner an old melodeon, and in the centre of the room a table draped with a bright cloth, on which were various little knickknacks which, without being rich or expensive, were both pretty and, to a certain extent, ornamental. But it was not these things, which I had seen repeated in many other country homes, that especially attracted my attention, or drew me forward in the slow march which I now undertook around the room. It was the something underlying all these, the evidences which I found, or sought to find, not only in the general aspect of the room, but in each trivial object I encountered, of the character, disposition, and history of the woman with whom I now had to deal. It was for this reason I studied the daguerreotypes on the mantelpiece, the books on the shelf, and the music on the rack; for this and the still further purpose of noting if any indications were to be found of there being in the house any such person as Hannah. + 

First then, for the little library, which I was pleased to see occupied one corner of the room. Composed of a few well-chosen books, poetical, historical, and narrative, it was of itself sufficient to account for the evidences of latent culture observable in Mrs. Belden’s conversation. Taking out a well-worn copy of Byron, I opened it. There were many passages marked, and replacing the book with a mental comment upon her evident impressibility to the softer emotions, I turned towards the melodeon fronting me from the opposite wall. It was closed, but on its neatly-covered top lay one or two hymnbooks, a basket of russet apples, and a piece of half-completed knitting work. + 

I took up the latter, but was forced to lay it down again without a notion for what it was intended. Proceeding, I next stopped before a window opening upon the small yard that ran about the house, and separated it from the one adjoining. The scene without failed to attract me, but the window itself drew my attention, for, written with a diamond point on one of the panes, I perceived a row of letters which, as nearly as I could make out, were meant for some word or words, but which utterly failed in sense or apparent connection. Passing it by as the work of some schoolgirl, I glanced down at the workbasket standing on a table at my side. It was full of various kinds of work, among which I spied a pair of stockings, which were much too small, as well as in too great a state of disrepair, to belong to Mrs. Belden; and drawing them carefully out, I examined them for any name on them. Do not start when I say I saw the letter H plainly marked upon them. Thrusting them back, I drew a deep breath of relief, gazing, as I did so, out of the window, when those letters again attracted my attention. + 

What could they mean? Idly I began to read them backward, when⁠—But try for yourself, reader, and judge of my surprise! Elate at the discovery thus made, I sat down to write my letters. I had barely finished them, when Mrs. Belden came in with the announcement that supper was ready. “As for your room,” said she, “I have prepared my own room for your use, thinking you would like to remain on the first floor.” And, throwing open a door at my side, she displayed a small, but comfortable room, in which I could dimly see a bed, an immense bureau, and a shadowy looking-glass in a dark, old-fashioned frame. + 

“I live in very primitive fashion,” she resumed, leading the way into the dining-room; “but I mean to be comfortable and make others so.” + 

“I should say you amply succeeded,” I rejoined, with an appreciative glance at her well-spread board. + 

She smiled, and I felt I had paved the way to her good graces in a way that would yet redound to my advantage. + 

Shall I ever forget that supper! its dainties, its pleasant freedom, its mysterious, pervading atmosphere of unreality, and the constant sense which every bountiful dish she pressed upon me brought of the shame of eating this woman’s food with such feelings of suspicion in my heart! Shall I ever forget the emotion I experienced when I first perceived she had something on her mind, which she longed, yet hesitated, to give utterance to! Or how she started when a cat jumped from the sloping roof of the kitchen on to the grass-plot at the back of the house; or how my heart throbbed when I heard, or thought I heard, a board creak overhead! We were in a long and narrow room which seemed, curiously enough, to run crosswise of the house, opening on one side into the parlor, and on the other into the small bedroom, which had been allotted to my use. + 

“You live in this house alone, without fear?” I asked, as Mrs. Belden, contrary to my desire, put another bit of cold chicken on my plate. “Have you no marauders in this town: no tramps, of whom a solitary woman like you might reasonably be afraid?” + 

“No one will hurt me,” said she; “and no one ever came here for food or shelter but got it.” + 

“I should think, then, that living as you do, upon a railroad, you would be constantly overrun with worthless beings whose only trade is to take all they can get without giving a return.” + 

“I cannot turn them away. It is the only luxury I have: to feed the poor.” + 

“But the idle, restless ones, who neither will work, nor let others work⁠—” + 

“Are still the poor.” + 

Mentally remarking, here is the woman to shield an unfortunate who has somehow become entangled in the meshes of a great crime, I drew back from the table. As I did so, the thought crossed me that, in case there was any such person in the house as Hannah, she would take the opportunity of going upstairs with something for her to eat; and that she might not feel hampered by my presence, I stepped out on the veranda with my cigar. + 

While smoking it, I looked about for Q. I felt that the least token of his presence in town would be very encouraging at this time. But it seemed I was not to be afforded even that small satisfaction. If Q was anywhere near, he was lying very low. + 

Once again seated with Mrs. Belden (who I know came downstairs with an empty plate, for going into the kitchen for a drink, I caught her in the act of setting it down on the table), I made up my mind to wait a reasonable length of time for what she had to say; and then, if she did not speak, make an endeavor on my own part to surprise her secret. + 

But her avowal was nearer and of a different nature from what I expected, and brought its own train of consequences with it. + 

“You are a lawyer, I believe,” she began, taking down her knitting work, with a forced display of industry. + 

“Yes,” I said; “that is my profession.” + 

She remained for a moment silent, creating great havoc in her work I am sure, from the glance of surprise and vexation she afterwards threw it. Then, in a hesitating voice, remarked: + 

“Perhaps you may be willing, then, to give me some advice. The truth is, I am in a very curious predicament; one from which I don’t know how to escape, and yet which demands immediate action. I should like to tell you about it; may I?” + 

“You may; I shall be only too happy to give you any advice in my power.” + 

She drew in her breath with a sort of vague relief, though her forehead did not lose its frown. + 

“It can all be said in a few words. I have in my possession a package of papers which were entrusted to me by two ladies, with the understanding that I should neither return nor destroy them without the full cognizance and expressed desire of both parties, given in person or writing. That they were to remain in my hands till then, and that nothing or nobody should extort them from me.” + 

“That is easily understood,” said I; for she stopped. + 

“But, now comes word from one of the ladies, the one, too, most interested in the matter, that, for certain reasons, the immediate destruction of those papers is necessary to her peace and safety.” + 

“And do you want to know what your duty is in this case?” + 

“Yes,” she tremulously replied. + 

I rose. I could not help it: a flood of conjectures rushing in tumult over me. + 

“It is to hold on to the papers like grim death till released from your guardianship by the combined wish of both parties.” + 

“Is that your opinion as a lawyer?” + 

“Yes, and as a man. Once pledged in that way, you have no choice. It would be a betrayal of trust to yield to the solicitations of one party what you have undertaken to return to both. The fact that grief or loss might follow your retention of these papers does not release you from your bond. You have nothing to do with that; besides, you are by no means sure that the representations of the so-called interested party are true. You might be doing a greater wrong, by destroying in this way, what is manifestly considered of value to them both, than by preserving the papers intact, according to compact.” + 

“But the circumstances? Circumstances alter cases; and in short, it seems to me that the wishes of the one most interested ought to be regarded, especially as there is an estrangement between these ladies which may hinder the other’s consent from ever being obtained.” + 

“No,” said I; “two wrongs never make a right; nor are we at liberty to do an act of justice at the expense of an injustice. The papers must be preserved, Mrs. Belden.” + 

Her head sank very despondingly; evidently it had been her wish to please the interested party. “Law is very hard,” she said; “very hard.” + 

“This is not only law, but plain duty,” I remarked. “Suppose a case different; suppose the honor and happiness of the other party depended upon the preservation of the papers; where would your duty be then?” + 

“But⁠—” + 

“A contract is a contract,” said I, “and cannot be tampered with. Having accepted the trust and given your word, you are obliged to fulfil, to the letter, all its conditions. It would be a breach of trust for you to return or destroy the papers without the mutual consent necessary.” + 

An expression of great gloom settled slowly over her features. “I suppose you are right,” said she, and became silent. + 

Watching her, I thought to myself, “If I were Mr. Gryce, or even Q, I would never leave this seat till I had probed this matter to the bottom, learned the names of the parties concerned, and where those precious papers are hidden, which she declares to be of so much importance.” But being neither, I could only keep her talking upon the subject until she should let fall some word that might serve as a guide to my further enlightenment; I therefore turned, with the intention of asking her some question, when my attention was attracted by the figure of a woman coming out of the backdoor of the neighboring house, who, for general dilapidation and uncouthness of bearing, was a perfect type of the style of tramp of whom we had been talking at the supper table. Gnawing a crust which she threw away as she reached the street, she trudged down the path, her scanty dress, piteous in its rags and soil, flapping in the keen spring wind, and revealing ragged shoes red with the mud of the highway. + 

“There is a customer that may interest you,” said I. + 

Mrs. Belden seemed to awake from a trance. Rising slowly, she looked out, and with a rapidly softening gaze surveyed the forlorn creature before her. + 

“Poor thing!” she muttered; “but I cannot do much for her tonight. A good supper is all I can give her.” + 

And, going to the front door, she bade her step round the house to the kitchen, where, in another moment, I heard the rough creature’s voice rise in one long “Bless you!” that could only have been produced by the setting before her of the good things with which Mrs. Belden’s larder seemed teeming. + 

But supper was not all she wanted. After a decent length of time, employed as I should judge in mastication, I heard her voice rise once more in a plea for shelter. + 

“The barn, ma’am, or the wood-house. Any place where I can lie out of the wind.” And she commenced a long tale of want and disease, so piteous to hear that I was not at all surprised when Mrs. Belden told me, upon reentering, that she had consented, notwithstanding her previous determination, to allow the woman to lie before the kitchen fire for the night. + 

“She has such an honest eye,” said she; “and charity is my only luxury.” + 

The interruption of this incident effectually broke up our conversation. Mrs. Belden went upstairs, and for some time I was left alone to ponder over what I had heard, and determine upon my future course of action. I had just reached the conclusion that she would be fully as liable to be carried away by her feelings to the destruction of the papers in her charge, as to be governed by the rules of equity I had laid down to her, when I heard her stealthily descend the stairs and go out by the front door. Distrustful of her intentions, I took up my hat and hastily followed her. She was on her way down the main street, and my first thought was, that she was bound for some neighbor’s house or perhaps for the hotel itself; but the settled swing into which she soon altered her restless pace satisfied me that she had some distant goal in prospect; and before long I found myself passing the hotel with its appurtenances, even the little schoolhouse, that was the last building at this end of the village, and stepping out into the country beyond. What could it mean? + 

But still her fluttering figure hasted on, the outlines of her form, with its close shawl and neat bonnet, growing fainter and fainter in the now settled darkness of an April night; and still I followed, walking on the turf at the side of the road lest she should hear my footsteps and look round. At last we reached a bridge. Over this I could hear her pass, and then every sound ceased. She had paused, and was evidently listening. It would not do for me to pause too, so gathering myself into as awkward a shape as possible, I sauntered by her down the road, but arrived at a certain point, stopped, and began retracing my steps with a sharp lookout for her advancing figure, till I had arrived once more at the bridge. She was not there. + 

Convinced now that she had discovered my motive for being in her house and, by leading me from it, had undertaken to supply Hannah with an opportunity for escape, I was about to hasten back to the charge I had so incautiously left, when a strange sound heard at my left arrested me. It came from the banks of the puny stream which ran under the bridge, and was like the creaking of an old door on worn-out hinges. + 

Leaping the fence, I made my way as best I could down the sloping field in the direction from which the sound came. It was quite dark, and my progress was slow; so much so, that I began to fear I had ventured upon a wild-goose chase, when an unexpected streak of lightning shot across the sky, and by its glare I saw before me what seemed, in the momentary glimpse I had of it, an old barn. From the rush of waters near at hand, I judged it to be somewhere on the edge of the stream, and consequently hesitated to advance, when I heard the sound of heavy breathing near me, followed by a stir as of someone feeling his way over a pile of loose boards; and presently, while I stood there, a faint blue light flashed up from the interior of the barn, and I saw, through the tumbled-down door that faced me, the form of Mrs. Belden standing with a lighted match in her hand, gazing round on the four walls that encompassed her. Hardly daring to breathe, lest I should alarm her, I watched her while she turned and peered at the roof above her, which was so old as to be more than half open to the sky, at the flooring beneath, which was in a state of equal dilapidation, and finally at a small tin box which she drew from under her shawl and laid on the ground at her feet. The sight of that box at once satisfied me as to the nature of her errand. She was going to hide what she dared not destroy; and, relieved upon this point, I was about to take a step forward when the match went out in her hand. While she was engaged in lighting another, I considered that perhaps it would be better for me not to arouse her apprehensions by accosting her at this time, and thus endanger the success of my main scheme; but to wait till she was gone, before I endeavored to secure the box. Accordingly I edged my way up to the side of the barn and waited till she should leave it, knowing that if I attempted to peer in at the door, I ran great risk of being seen, owing to the frequent streaks of lightning which now flashed about us on every side. Minute after minute went by, with its weird alternations of heavy darkness and sudden glare; and still she did not come. At last, just as I was about to start impatiently from my hiding-place, she reappeared, and began to withdraw with faltering steps toward the bridge. When I thought her quite out of hearing, I stole from my retreat and entered the barn. It was of course as dark as Erebus, but thanks to being a smoker I was as well provided with matches as she had been, and having struck one, I held it up; but the light it gave was very feeble, and as I did not know just where to look, it went out before I had obtained more than a cursory glimpse of the spot where I was. I thereupon lit another; but though I confined my attention to one place, namely, the floor at my feet, it too went out before I could conjecture by means of any sign seen there where she had hidden the box. I now for the first time realized the difficulty before me. She had probably made up her mind, before she left home, in just what portion of this old barn she would conceal her treasure; but I had nothing to guide me: I could only waste matches. And I did waste them. A dozen had been lit and extinguished before I was so much as sure the box was not under a pile of debris that lay in one corner, and I had taken the last in my hand before I became aware that one of the broken boards of the floor was pushed a little out of its proper position. One match! and that board was to be raised, the space beneath examined, and the box, if there, lifted safely out. I concluded not to waste my resources, so kneeling down in the darkness, I groped for the board, tried it, and found it to be loose. Wrenching at it with all my strength, I tore it free and cast it aside; then lighting my match looked into the hole thus made. Something, I could not tell what, stone or box, met my eye, but while I reached for it, the match flew out of my hand. Deploring my carelessness, but determined at all hazards to secure what I had seen, I dived down deep into the hole, and in another moment had the object of my curiosity in my hands. It was the box! + 

Satisfied at this result of my efforts, I turned to depart, my one wish now being to arrive home before Mrs. Belden. Was this possible? She had several minutes the start of me; I would have to pass her on the road, and in so doing might be recognized. Was the end worth the risk? I decided that it was. + 

Regaining the highway, I started at a brisk pace. For some little distance I kept it up, neither overtaking nor meeting anyone. But suddenly, at a turn in the road, I came unexpectedly upon Mrs. Belden, standing in the middle of the path, looking back. Somewhat disconcerted, I hastened swiftly by her, expecting her to make some effort to stop me. But she let me pass without a word. Indeed, I doubt now if she even saw or heard me. Astonished at this treatment, and still more surprised that she made no attempt to follow me, I looked back, when I saw what enchained her to the spot, and made her so unmindful of my presence. The barn behind us was on fire! + 

Instantly I realized it was the work of my hands; I had dropped a half-extinguished match, and it had fallen upon some inflammable substance. + 

Aghast at the sight, I paused in my turn, and stood staring. Higher and higher the red flames mounted, brighter and brighter glowed the clouds above, the stream beneath; and in the fascination of watching it all, I forgot Mrs. Belden. But a short, agitated gasp in my vicinity soon recalled her presence to my mind, and drawing nearer, I heard her exclaim like a person speaking in a dream, “Well, I didn’t mean to do it”; then lower, and with a certain satisfaction in her tone, “But it’s all right, anyway; the thing is lost now for good, and Mary will be satisfied without anyone being to blame.” + 

I did not linger to hear more; if this was the conclusion she had come to, she would not wait there long, especially as the sound of distant shouts and running feet announced that a crowd of village boys was on its way to the scene of the conflagration. + 

The first thing I did, upon my arrival at the house, was to assure myself that no evil effects had followed my inconsiderate desertion of it to the mercies of the tramp she had taken in; the next to retire to my room, and take a peep at the box. I found it to be a neat tin coffer, fastened with a lock. Satisfied from its weight that it contained nothing heavier than the papers of which Mrs. Belden had spoken, I hid it under the bed and returned to the sitting-room. I had barely taken a seat and lifted a book when Mrs. Belden came in. + 

“Well!” cried she, taking off her bonnet and revealing a face much flushed with exercise, but greatly relieved in expression; “this is a night! It lightens, and there is a fire somewhere down street, and altogether it is perfectly dreadful out. I hope you have not been lonesome,” she continued, with a keen searching of my face which I bore in the best way I could. “I had an errand to attend to, but didn’t expect to stay so long.” + 

I returned some nonchalant reply, and she hastened from the room to fasten up the house. + 

I waited, but she did not come back; fearful, perhaps, of betraying herself, she had retired to her own apartment, leaving me to take care of myself as best I might. I own that I was rather relieved at this. The fact is, I did not feel equal to any more excitement that night, and was glad to put off further action until the next day. As soon, then, as the storm was over, I myself went to bed, and, after several ineffectual efforts, succeeded in getting asleep. + 

“Mr. Raymond!” + 

The voice was low and searching; it reached me in my dreams, waked me, and caused me to look up. Morning had begun to break, and by its light I saw, standing in the open door leading into the dining-room, the forlorn figure of the tramp who had been admitted into the house the night before. Angry and perplexed, I was about to bid her be gone, when, to my great surprise, she pulled out a red handkerchief from her pocket, and I recognized Q. + 

“Read that,” said he, hastily advancing and putting a slip of paper into my hand. And, without another word or look, left the room, closing the door behind him. + 

Rising in considerable agitation, I took it to the window, and by the rapidly increasing light, succeeded in making out the rudely scrawled lines as follows: + 

“She is here; I have seen her; in the room marked with a cross in the accompanying plan. Wait till eight o’clock, then go up. I will contrive some means of getting Mrs. B⁠⸺ out of the house.” + 

Sketched below this was the following plan of the upper floor: + 

Hannah, then, was in the small back room over the dining-room, and I had not been deceived in thinking I had heard steps overhead, the evening before. Greatly relieved, and yet at the same time much moved at the near prospect of being brought face to face with one who we had every reason to believe was acquainted with the dreadful secret involved in the Leavenworth murder, I lay down once more, and endeavored to catch another hour’s rest. But I soon gave up the effort in despair, and contented myself with listening to the sounds of awakening life which now began to make themselves heard in the house and neighborhood. + 

As Q had closed the door after him, I could only faintly hear Mrs. Belden when she came downstairs. But the short, surprised exclamation which she uttered upon reaching the kitchen and finding the tramp gone and the backdoor wide open, came plainly enough to my ears, and for a moment I was not sure but that Q had made a mistake in thus leaving so unceremoniously. But he had not studied Mrs. Belden’s character in vain. As she came, in the course of her preparations for breakfast, into the room adjoining mine, I could hear her murmur to herself: + 

“Poor thing! She has lived so long in the fields and at the roadside, she finds it unnatural to be cooped up in the house all night.” + 

The trial of that breakfast! The effort to eat and appear unconcerned, to chat and make no mistake⁠—May I never be called upon to go through such another! But at last it was over, and I was left free to await in my own room the time for the dreaded though much-to-be-desired interview. Slowly the minutes passed; eight o’clock struck, when, just as the last vibration ceased, there came a loud knock at the backdoor, and a little boy burst into the kitchen, crying at the top of his voice: “Papa’s got a fit! Oh, Mrs. Belden! papa’s got a fit; do come!” + 

Rising, as was natural, I hastened towards the kitchen, meeting Mrs. Belden’s anxious face in the doorway. + 

“A poor woodchopper down the street has fallen in a fit,” she said. “Will you please watch over the house while I see what I can do for him? I won’t be absent any longer than I can help.” + 

And almost without waiting for my reply, she caught up a shawl, threw it over her head, and followed the urchin, who was in a state of great excitement, out into the street. + 

Instantly the silence of death seemed to fill the house, and a dread the greatest I had ever experienced settled upon me. To leave the kitchen, go up those stairs, and confront that girl seemed for the moment beyond my power; but, once on the stair, I found myself relieved from the especial dread which had overwhelmed me, and possessed, instead, of a sort of combative curiosity that led me to throw open the door which I saw at the top with a certain fierceness new to my nature, and not altogether suitable, perhaps, to the occasion. + 

I found myself in a large bedroom, evidently the one occupied by Mrs. Belden the night before. Barely stopping to note certain evidences of her having passed a restless night, I passed on to the door leading into the room marked with a cross in the plan drawn for me by Q. It was a rough affair, made of pine boards rudely painted. Pausing before it, I listened. All was still. Raising the latch, I endeavored to enter. The door was locked. Pausing again, I bent my ear to the keyhole. Not a sound came from within; the grave itself could not have been stiller. Awestruck and irresolute, I looked about me and questioned what I had best do. Suddenly I remembered that, in the plan Q had given me, I had seen intimation of another door leading into this same room from the one on the opposite side of the hall. Going hastily around to it, I tried it with my hand. But it was as fast as the other. Convinced at last that nothing was left me but force, I spoke for the first time, and, calling the girl by name, commanded her to open the door. Receiving no response, I said aloud with an accent of severity: + 

“Hannah Chester, you are discovered; if you do not open the door, we shall be obliged to break it down; save us the trouble, then, and open immediately.” + 

Still no reply. + 

Going back a step, I threw my whole weight against the door. It creaked ominously, but still resisted. + 

Stopping only long enough to be sure no movement had taken place within, I pressed against it once more, this time with all my strength, when it flew from its hinges, and I fell forward into a room so stifling, chill, and dark that I paused for a moment to collect my scattered senses before venturing to look around me. It was well I did so. In another moment, the pallor and fixity of the pretty Irish face staring upon me from amidst the tumbled clothes of a bed, drawn up against the wall at my side, struck me with so deathlike a chill that, had it not been for that one instant of preparation, I should have been seriously dismayed. As it was, I could not prevent a feeling of sickly apprehension from seizing me as I turned towards the silent figure stretched so near, and observed with what marble-like repose it lay beneath the patchwork quilt drawn across it, asking myself if sleep could be indeed so like death in its appearance. For that it was a sleeping woman I beheld, I did not seriously doubt. There were too many evidences of careless life in the room for any other inference. The clothes, left just as she had stepped from them in a circle on the floor; the liberal plate of food placed in waiting for her on the chair by the door⁠—food amongst which I recognized, even in this casual glance, the same dish which we had had for breakfast⁠—all and everything in the room spoke of robust life and reckless belief in the morrow. + 

And yet so white was the brow turned up to the bare beams of the unfinished wall above her, so glassy the look of the half-opened eyes, so motionless the arm lying half under, half over, the edge of the coverlid that it was impossible not to shrink from contact with a creature so sunk in unconsciousness. But contact seemed to be necessary; any cry which I could raise at that moment would be ineffectual enough to pierce those dull ears. Nerving myself, therefore, I stooped and lifted the hand which lay with its telltale scar mockingly uppermost, intending to speak, call, do something, anything, to arouse her. But at the first touch of her hand on mine an unspeakable horror thrilled me. It was not only icy cold, but stiff. Dropping it in my agitation, I started back and again surveyed the face. Great God! when did life ever look like that? What sleep ever wore such pallid hues, such accusing fixedness? Bending once more I listened at the lips. Not a breath, nor a stir. Shocked to the core of my being, I made one final effort. Tearing down the clothes, I laid my hand upon her heart. It was pulseless as stone. + 

I do not think I called immediately for help. The awful shock of this discovery, coming as it did at the very moment life and hope were strongest within me; the sudden downfall which it brought of all the plans based upon this woman’s expected testimony; and, worst of all, the dread coincidence between this sudden death and the exigency in which the guilty party, whoever it was, was supposed to be at that hour were much too appalling for instant action. I could only stand and stare at the quiet face before me, smiling in its peaceful rest as if death were pleasanter than we think, and marvel over the providence which had brought us renewed fear instead of relief, complication instead of enlightenment, disappointment instead of realization. For eloquent as is death, even on the faces of those unknown and unloved by us, the causes and consequences of this one were much too important to allow the mind to dwell upon the pathos of the scene itself. Hannah, the girl, was lost in Hannah the witness. + 

But gradually, as I gazed, the look of expectation which I perceived hovering about the wistful mouth and half-open lids attracted me, and I bent above her with a more personal interest, asking myself if she were quite dead, and whether or not immediate medical assistance would be of any avail. But the more closely I looked, the more certain I became that she had been dead for some hours; and the dismay occasioned by this thought, taken with the regrets which I must ever feel, that I had not adopted the bold course the evening before, and, by forcing my way to the hiding-place of this poor creature, interrupted, if not prevented the consummation of her fate, startled me into a realization of my present situation; and, leaving her side, I went into the next room, threw up the window, and fastened to the blind the red handkerchief which I had taken the precaution to bring with me. + 

Instantly a young man, whom I was fain to believe Q, though he bore not the least resemblance, either in dress or facial expression to any renderings of that youth which I had yet seen, emerged from the tinsmith’s house, and approached the one I was in. + 

Observing him cast a hurried glance in my direction, I crossed the floor, and stood awaiting him at the head of the stairs. + 

“Well?” he whispered, upon entering the house and meeting my glance from below; “have you seen her?” + 

“Yes,” I returned bitterly, “I have seen her!” + 

He hurriedly mounted to my side. “And she has confessed?” + 

“No; I have had no talk with her.” Then, as I perceived him growing alarmed at my voice and manner, I drew him into Mrs. Belden’s room and hastily inquired: “What did you mean this morning when you informed me you had seen this girl? that she was in a certain room where I might find her?” + 

“What I said.” + 

“You have, then, been to her room?” + 

“No; I have only been on the outside of it. Seeing a light, I crawled up on to the ledge of the slanting roof last night while both you and Mrs. Belden were out, and, looking through the window, saw her moving round the room.” He must have observed my countenance change, for he stopped. “What is to pay?” he cried. + 

I could restrain myself no longer. “Come,” I said, “and see for yourself!” And, leading him to the little room I had just left, I pointed to the silent form lying within. “You told me I should find Hannah here; but you did not tell me I should find her in this condition.” + 

“Great heaven!” he cried with a start: “not dead?” + 

“Yes,” I said, “dead.” + 

It seemed as if he could not realize it. “But it is impossible!” he returned. “She is in a heavy sleep, has taken a narcotic⁠—” + 

“It is not sleep,” I said, “or if it is, she will never wake. Look!” And, taking the hand once more in mine, I let it fall in its stone weight upon the bed. + 

The sight seemed to convince him. Calming down, he stood gazing at her with a very strange expression upon his face. Suddenly he moved and began quietly turning over the clothes that were lying on the floor. + 

“What are you doing?” I asked. “What are you looking for?” + 

“I am looking for the bit of paper from which I saw her take what I supposed to be a dose of medicine last night. Oh, here it is!” he cried, lifting a morsel of paper that, lying on the floor under the edge of the bed, had hitherto escaped his notice. + 

“Let me see!” I anxiously exclaimed. + 

He handed me the paper, on the inner surface of which I could dimly discern the traces of an impalpable white powder. + 

“This is important,” I declared, carefully folding the paper together. “If there is enough of this powder remaining to show that the contents of this paper were poisonous, the manner and means of the girl’s death are accounted for, and a case of deliberate suicide made evident.” + 

“I am not so sure of that,” he retorted. “If I am any judge of countenances, and I rather flatter myself I am, this girl had no more idea she was taking poison than I had. She looked not only bright but gay; and when she tipped up the paper, a smile of almost silly triumph crossed her face. If Mrs. Belden gave her that dose to take, telling her it was medicine⁠—” + 

“That is something which yet remains to be learned; also whether the dose, as you call it, was poisonous or not. It may be she died of heart disease.” + 

He simply shrugged his shoulders, and pointed first at the plate of breakfast left on the chair, and secondly at the broken-down door. + 

“Yes,” I said, answering his look, “Mrs. Belden has been in here this morning, and Mrs. Belden locked the door when she went out; but that proves nothing beyond her belief in the girl’s hearty condition.” + 

“A belief which that white face on its tumbled pillow did not seem to shake?” + 

“Perhaps in her haste she may not have looked at the girl, but have set the dishes down without more than a casual glance in her direction?” + 

“I don’t want to suspect anything wrong, but it is such a coincidence!” + 

This was touching me on a sore point, and I stepped back. “Well,” said I, “there is no use in our standing here busying ourselves with conjectures. There is too much to be done. Come!” and I moved hurriedly towards the door. + 

“What are you going to do?” he asked. “Have you forgotten this is but an episode in the one great mystery we are sent here to unravel? If this girl has come to her death by some foul play, it is our business to find it out.” + 

“That must be left for the coroner. It has now passed out of our hands.” + 

“I know; but we can at least take full note of the room and everything in it before throwing the affair into the hands of strangers. Mr. Gryce will expect that much of us, I am sure.” + 

“I have looked at the room. The whole is photographed on my mind. I am only afraid I can never forget it.” + 

“And the body? Have you noticed its position? the lay of the bedclothes around it? the lack there is of all signs of struggle or fear? the repose of the countenance? the easy fall of the hands?” + 

“Yes, yes; don’t make me look at it any more.” + 

“Then the clothes hanging on the wall?”⁠—rapidly pointing out each object as he spoke. “Do you see? a calico dress, a shawl⁠—not the one in which she was believed to have run away, but an old black one, probably belonging to Mrs. Belden. Then this chest,”⁠—opening it⁠—“containing a few underclothes marked⁠—let us see, ah, with the name of the lady of the house, but smaller than any she ever wore; made for Hannah, you observe, and marked with her own name to prevent suspicion. And then these other clothes lying on the floor, all new, all marked in the same way. Then this⁠—Halloo! look here!” he suddenly cried. + 

Going over to where he stood I stooped down, when a washbowl half full of burned paper met my eye. + 

“I saw her bending over something in this corner, and could not think what it was. Can it be she is a suicide after all? She has evidently destroyed something here which she didn’t wish anyone to see.” + 

“I do not know,” I said. “I could almost hope so.” + 

“Not a scrap, not a morsel left to show what it was; how unfortunate!” + 

“Mrs. Belden must solve this riddle,” I cried. + 

“Mrs. Belden must solve the whole riddle,” he replied; “the secret of the Leavenworth murder hangs upon it.” Then, with a lingering look towards the mass of burned paper, “Who knows but what that was a confession?” + 

The conjecture seemed only too probable. + 

“Whatever it was,” said I, “it is now ashes, and we have got to accept the fact and make the best of it.” + 

“Yes,” said he with a deep sigh; “that’s so; but Mr. Gryce will never forgive me for it, never. He will say I ought to have known it was a suspicious circumstance for her to take a dose of medicine at the very moment detection stood at her back.” + 

“But she did not know that; she did not see you.” + 

“We don’t know what she saw, nor what Mrs. Belden saw. Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted.” + 

“Well, well,” I said, “the end has not come yet; who knows what a talk with Mrs. Belden will bring out? And, by the way, she will be coming back soon, and I must be ready to meet her. Everything depends upon finding out, if I can, whether she is aware of this tragedy or not. It is just possible she knows nothing about it.” + 

And, hurrying him from the room, I pulled the door to behind me, and led the way downstairs. + 

“Now,” said I, “there is one thing you must attend to at once. A telegram must be sent Mr. Gryce acquainting him with this unlooked-for occurrence.” + 

“All right, sir,” and Q started for the door. + 

“Wait one moment,” said I. “I may not have another opportunity to mention it. Mrs. Belden received two letters from the postmaster yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find out where they were postmarked⁠—” + 

Q put his hand in his pocket. “I think I will not have to go far to find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!” And before I knew it, he had returned upstairs. + 

That moment I heard the gate click. + 

“It was all a hoax; nobody was ill; I have been imposed upon, meanly imposed upon!” And Mrs. Belden, flushed and panting, entered the room where I was, and proceeded to take off her bonnet; but whilst doing so paused, and suddenly exclaimed: “What is the matter? How you look at me! Has anything happened?” + 

“Something very serious has occurred,” I replied; “you have been gone but a little while, but in that time a discovery has been made⁠—” I purposely paused here that the suspense might elicit from her some betrayal; but, though she turned pale, she manifested less emotion than I expected, and I went on⁠—“which is likely to produce very important consequences.” + 

To my surprise she burst violently into tears. “I knew it, I knew it!” she murmured. “I always said it would be impossible to keep it secret if I let anybody into the house; she is so restless. But I forget,” she suddenly said, with a frightened look; “you haven’t told me what the discovery was. Perhaps it isn’t what I thought; perhaps⁠—” + 

I did not hesitate to interrupt her. “Mrs. Belden,” I said, “I shall not try to mitigate the blow. A woman who, in the face of the most urgent call from law and justice, can receive into her house and harbor there a witness of such importance as Hannah, cannot stand in need of any great preparation for hearing that her efforts have been too successful, that she has accomplished her design of suppressing valuable testimony, that law and justice are outraged, and that the innocent woman whom this girl’s evidence might have saved stands forever compromised in the eyes of the world, if not in those of the officers of the law.” + 

Her eyes, which had never left me during this address, flashed wide with dismay. + 

“What do you mean?” she cried. “I have intended no wrong; I have only tried to save people. I⁠—I⁠—But who are you? What have you got to do with all this? What is it to you what I do or don’t do? You said you were a lawyer. Can it be you are come from Mary Leavenworth to see how I am fulfilling her commands, and⁠—” + 

“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “it is of small importance now as to who I am, or for what purpose I am here. But that my words may have the more effect, I will say, that whereas I have not deceived you, either as to my name or position, it is true that I am the friend of the Misses Leavenworth, and that anything which is likely to affect them, is of interest to me. When, therefore, I say that Eleanore Leavenworth is irretrievably injured by this girl’s death⁠—” + 

“Death? What do you mean? Death!” + 

The burst was too natural, the tone too horror-stricken for me to doubt for another moment as to this woman’s ignorance of the true state of affairs. + 

“Yes,” I repeated, “the girl you have been hiding so long and so well is now beyond your control. Only her dead body remains, Mrs. Belden.” + 

I shall never lose from my ears the shriek which she uttered, nor the wild, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” with which she dashed from the room and rushed upstairs. + 

Nor that after-scene when, in the presence of the dead, she stood wringing her hands and protesting, amid sobs of the sincerest grief and terror, that she knew nothing of it; that she had left the girl in the best of spirits the night before; that it was true she had locked her in, but this she always did when anyone was in the house; and that if she died of any sudden attack, it must have been quietly, for she had heard no stir all night, though she had listened more than once, being naturally anxious lest the girl should make some disturbance that would arouse me. + 

“But you were in here this morning?” said I. + 

“Yes; but I didn’t notice. I was in a hurry, and thought she was asleep; so I set the things down where she could get them and came right away, locking the door as usual.” + 

“It is strange she should have died this night of all others. Was she ill yesterday?” + 

“No, sir; she was even brighter than common; more lively. I never thought of her being sick then or ever. If I had⁠—” + 

“You never thought of her being sick?” a voice here interrupted. “Why, then, did you take such pains to give her a dose of medicine last night?” And Q entered from the room beyond. + 

“I didn’t!” she protested, evidently under the supposition it was I who had spoken. “Did I, Hannah, did I, poor girl?” stroking the hand that lay in hers with what appeared to be genuine sorrow and regret. + 

“How came she by it, then? Where she did she get it if you didn’t give it to her?” + 

This time she seemed to be aware that someone besides myself was talking to her, for, hurriedly rising, she looked at the man with a wondering stare, before replying. + 

“I don’t know who you are, sir; but I can tell you this, the girl had no medicine⁠—took no dose; she wasn’t sick last night that I know of.” + 

“Yet I saw her swallow a powder.” + 

“Saw her!⁠—the world is crazy, or I am⁠—saw her swallow a powder! How could you see her do that or anything else? Hasn’t she been shut up in this room for twenty-four hours?” + 

“Yes; but with a window like that in the roof, it isn’t so very difficult to see into the room, madam.” + 

“Oh,” she cried, shrinking, “I have a spy in the house, have I? But I deserve it; I kept her imprisoned in four close walls, and never came to look at her once all night. I don’t complain; but what was it you say you saw her take? medicine? poison?” + 

“I didn’t say poison.” + 

“But you meant it. You think she has poisoned herself, and that I had a hand in it!” + 

“No,” I hastened to remark, “he does not think you had a hand in it. He says he saw the girl herself swallow something which he believes to have been the occasion of her death, and only asks you now where she obtained it.” + 

“How can I tell? I never gave her anything; didn’t know she had anything.” + 

Somehow, I believed her, and so felt unwilling to prolong the present interview, especially as each moment delayed the action which I felt it incumbent upon us to take. So, motioning Q to depart upon his errand, I took Mrs. Belden by the hand and endeavored to lead her from the room. But she resisted, sitting down by the side of the bed with the expression, “I will not leave her again; do not ask it; here is my place, and here I will stay,” while Q, obdurate for the first time, stood staring severely upon us both, and would not move, though I urged him again to make haste, saying that the morning was slipping away, and that the telegram to Mr. Gryce ought to be sent. + 

“Till that woman leaves the room, I don’t; and unless you promise to take my place in watching her, I don’t quit the house.” + 

Astonished, I left her side and crossed to him. + 

“You carry your suspicions too far,” I whispered, “and I think you are too rude. We have seen nothing, I am sure, to warrant us in any such action; besides, she can do no harm here; though, as for watching her, I promise to do that much if it will relieve your mind.” + 

“I don’t want her watched here; take her below. I cannot leave while she remains.” + 

“Are you not assuming a trifle the master?” + 

“Perhaps; I don’t know. If I am, it is because I have something in my possession which excuses my conduct.” + 

“What is that? the letter?” + 

“Yes.” + 

Agitated now in my turn, I held out my hand. “Let me see,” I said. + 

“Not while that woman remains in the room.” + 

Seeing him implacable, I returned to Mrs. Belden. + 

“I must entreat you to come with me,” said I. “This is not a common death; we shall be obliged to have the coroner here and others. You had better leave the room and go below.” + 

“I don’t mind the coroner; he is a neighbor of mine; his coming won’t prevent my watching over the poor girl until he arrives.” + 

“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “your position as the only one conscious of the presence of this girl in your house makes it wiser for you not to invite suspicion by lingering any longer than is necessary in the room where her dead body lies.” + 

“As if my neglect of her now were the best surety of my good intentions towards her in time past!” + 

“It will not be neglect for you to go below with me at my earnest request. You can do no good here by staying; will, in fact, be doing harm. So listen to me or I shall be obliged to leave you in charge of this man and go myself to inform the authorities.” + 

This last argument seemed to affect her, for with one look of shuddering abhorrence at Q she rose, saying, “You have me in your power,” and then, without another word, threw her handkerchief over the girl’s face and left the room. In two minutes more I had the letter of which Q had spoken in my hands. + 

“It is the only one I could find, sir. It was in the pocket of the dress Mrs. Belden had on last night. The other must be lying around somewhere, but I haven’t had time to find it. This will do, though, I think. You will not ask for the other.” + 

Scarcely noticing at the time with what deep significance he spoke, I opened the letter. It was the smaller of the two I had seen her draw under her shawl the day before at the post-office, and read as follows: + 

“Dear, Dear Friend: + 

“I am in awful trouble. You who love me must know it. I cannot explain, I can only make one prayer. Destroy what you have, today, instantly, without question or hesitation. The consent of anyone else has nothing to do with it. You must obey. I am lost if you refuse. Do then what I ask, and save + 

It was addressed to Mrs. Belden; there was no signature or date, only the postmark New York; but I knew the handwriting. It was Mary Leavenworth’s. + 

“A damning letter!” came in the dry tones which Q seemed to think fit to adopt on this occasion. “And a damning bit of evidence against the one who wrote it, and the woman who received it!” + 

“A terrible piece of evidence, indeed,” said I, “if I did not happen to know that this letter refers to the destruction of something radically different from what you suspect. It alludes to some papers in Mrs. Belden’s charge; nothing else.” + 

“Are you sure, sir?” + 

“Quite; but we will talk of this hereafter. It is time you sent your telegram, and went for the coroner.” + 

“Very well, sir.” And with this we parted; he to perform his role and I mine. + 

I found Mrs. Belden walking the floor below, bewailing her situation, and uttering wild sentences as to what the neighbors would say of her; what the minister would think; what Clara, whoever that was, would do, and how she wished she had died before ever she had meddled with the affair. + 

Succeeding in calming her after a while, I induced her to sit down and listen to what I had to say. “You will only injure yourself by this display of feeling,” I remarked, “besides unfitting yourself for what you will presently be called upon to go through.” And, laying myself out to comfort the unhappy woman, I first explained the necessities of the case, and next inquired if she had no friend upon whom she could call in this emergency. + 

To my great surprise she replied no; that while she had kind neighbors and good friends, there was no one upon whom she could call in a case like this, either for assistance or sympathy, and that, unless I would take pity on her, she would have to meet it alone⁠—“As I have met everything,” she said, “from Mr. Belden’s death to the loss of most of my little savings in a town fire last year.” + 

I was touched by this⁠—that she who, in spite of her weakness and inconsistencies of character, possessed at least the one virtue of sympathy with her kind, should feel any lack of friends. Unhesitatingly, I offered to do what I could for her, providing she would treat me with the perfect frankness which the case demanded. To my great relief, she expressed not only her willingness, but her strong desire, to tell all she knew. “I have had enough secrecy for my whole life,” she said. And indeed I do believe she was so thoroughly frightened, that if a police-officer had come into the house and asked her to reveal secrets compromising the good name of her own son, she would have done so without cavil or question. “I feel as if I wanted to take my stand out on the common, and, in the face of the whole world, declare what I have done for Mary Leavenworth. But first,” she whispered, “tell me, for God’s sake, how those girls are situated. I have not dared to ask or write. The papers say a good deal about Eleanore, but nothing about Mary; and yet Mary writes of her own peril only, and of the danger she would be in if certain facts were known. What is the truth? I don’t want to injure them, only to take care of myself.” + 

“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “Eleanore Leavenworth has got into her present difficulty by not telling all that was required of her. Mary Leavenworth⁠—but I cannot speak of her till I know what you have to divulge. Her position, as well as that of her cousin, is too anomalous for either you or me to discuss. What we want to learn from you is, how you became connected with this affair, and what it was that Hannah knew which caused her to leave New York and take refuge here.” + 

But Mrs. Belden, clasping and unclasping her hands, met my gaze with one full of the most apprehensive doubt. “You will never believe me,” she cried; “but I don’t know what Hannah knew. I am in utter ignorance of what she saw or heard on that fatal night; she never told, and I never asked. She merely said that Miss Leavenworth wished me to secrete her for a short time; and I, because I loved Mary Leavenworth and admired her beyond anyone I ever saw, weakly consented, and⁠—” + 

“Do you mean to say,” I interrupted, “that after you knew of the murder, you, at the mere expression of Miss Leavenworth’s wishes, continued to keep this girl concealed without asking her any questions or demanding any explanations?” + 

“Yes, sir; you will never believe me, but it is so. I thought that, since Mary had sent her here, she must have her reasons; and⁠—and⁠—I cannot explain it now; it all looks so differently; but I did do as I have said.” + 

“But that was very strange conduct. You must have had strong reason for obeying Mary Leavenworth so blindly.” + 

“Oh, sir,” she gasped, “I thought I understood it all; that Mary, the bright young creature, who had stooped from her lofty position to make use of me and to love me, was in some way linked to the criminal, and that it would be better for me to remain in ignorance, do as I was bid, and trust all would come right. I did not reason about it; I only followed my impulse. I couldn’t do otherwise; it isn’t my nature. When I am requested to do anything for a person I love, I cannot refuse.” + 

“And you love Mary Leavenworth; a woman whom you yourself seem to consider capable of a great crime?” + 

“Oh, I didn’t say that; I don’t know as I thought that. She might be in some way connected with it, without being the actual perpetrator. She could never be that; she is too dainty.” + 

“Mrs. Belden,” I said, “what do you know of Mary Leavenworth which makes even that supposition possible?” + 

The white face of the woman before me flushed. “I scarcely know what to reply,” she cried. “It is a long story, and⁠—” + 

“Never mind the long story,” I interrupted. “Let me hear the one vital reason.” + 

“Well,” said she, “it is this; that Mary was in an emergency from which nothing but her uncle’s death could release her.” + 

“Ah, how’s that?” + 

But here we were interrupted by the sound of steps on the porch, and, looking out, I saw Q entering the house alone. Leaving Mrs. Belden where she was, I stepped into the hall. + 

“Well,” said I, “what is the matter? Haven’t you found the coroner? Isn’t he at home?” + 

“No, gone away; off in a buggy to look after a man that was found some ten miles from here, lying in a ditch beside a yoke of oxen.” Then, as he saw my look of relief, for I was glad of this temporary delay, said, with an expressive wink: “It would take a fellow a long time to go to him⁠—if he wasn’t in a hurry⁠—hours, I think.” + 

“Indeed!” I returned, amused at his manner. “Rough road?” + 

“Very; no horse I could get could travel it faster than a walk.” + 

“Well,” said I, “so much the better for us. Mrs. Belden has a long story to tell, and⁠—” + 

“Doesn’t wish to be interrupted. I understand.” + 

I nodded and he turned towards the door. + 

“Have you telegraphed Mr. Gryce?” I asked. + 

“Yes, sir.” + 

“Do you think he will come?” + 

“Yes, sir; if he has to hobble on two sticks.” + 

“At what time do you look for him?” + 

“You will look for him as early as three o’clock. I shall be among the mountains, ruefully eying my broken-down team.” And leisurely donning his hat he strolled away down the street like one who has the whole day on his hands and does not know what to do with it. + 

An opportunity being thus given for Mrs. Belden’s story, she at once composed herself to the task, with the following result. + 

It will be a year next July since I first saw Mary Leavenworth. I was living at that time a most monotonous existence. Loving what was beautiful, hating what was sordid, drawn by nature towards all that was romantic and uncommon, but doomed by my straitened position and the loneliness of my widowhood to spend my days in the weary round of plain sewing, I had begun to think that the shadow of a humdrum old age was settling down upon me, when one morning, in the full tide of my dissatisfaction, Mary Leavenworth stepped across the threshold of my door and, with one smile, changed the whole tenor of my life. + 

This may seem exaggeration to you, especially when I say that her errand was simply one of business, she having heard I was handy with my needle; but if you could have seen her as she appeared that day, marked the look with which she approached me, and the smile with which she left, you would pardon the folly of a romantic old woman, who beheld a fairy queen in this lovely young lady. The fact is, I was dazzled by her beauty and her charms. And when, a few days after, she came again, and crouching down on the stool at my feet, said she was so tired of the gossip and tumult down at the hotel, that it was a relief to run away and hide with someone who would let her act like the child she was, I experienced for the moment, I believe, the truest happiness of my life. Meeting her advances with all the warmth her manner invited, I found her ere long listening eagerly while I told her, almost without my own volition, the story of my past life, in the form of an amusing allegory. + 

The next day saw her in the same place; and the next; always with the eager, laughing eyes, and the fluttering, uneasy hands, that grasped everything they touched, and broke everything they grasped. + 

But the fourth day she was not there, nor the fifth, nor the sixth, and I was beginning to feel the old shadow settling back upon me, when one night, just as the dusk of twilight was merging into evening gloom, she came stealing in at the front door, and, creeping up to my side, put her hands over my eyes with such a low, ringing laugh, that I started. + 

“You don’t know what to make of me!” she cried, throwing aside her cloak, and revealing herself in the full splendor of evening attire. “I don’t know what to make of myself. Though it seems folly, I felt that I must run away and tell someone that a certain pair of eyes have been looking into mine, and that for the first time in my life I feel myself a woman as well as a queen.” And with a glance in which coyness struggled with pride, she gathered up her cloak around her, and laughingly cried: + 

“Have you had a visit from a flying sprite? Has one little ray of moonlight found its way into your prison for a wee moment, with Mary’s laugh and Mary’s snowy silk and flashing diamonds? Say!” and she patted my cheek, and smiled so bewilderingly, that even now, with all the dull horror of these after-events crowding upon me, I cannot but feel something like tears spring to my eyes at the thought of it. + 

“And so the Prince has come for you?” I whispered, alluding to a story I had told her the last time she had visited me; a story in which a girl, who had waited all her life in rags and degradation for the lordly knight who was to raise her from a hovel to a throne, died just as her one lover, an honest peasant-lad whom she had discarded in her pride, arrived at her door with the fortune he had spent all his days in amassing for her sake. + 

But at this she flushed, and drew back towards the door. “I don’t know; I am afraid not. I⁠—I don’t think anything about that. Princes are not so easily won,” she murmured. + 

“What! are you going?” I said, “and alone? Let me accompany you.” + 

But she only shook her fairy head, and replied: “No, no; that would be spoiling the romance, indeed. I have come upon you like a sprite, and like a sprite I will go.” And, flashing like the moonbeam she was, she glided out into the night, and floated away down the street. + 

When she next came, I observed a feverish excitement in her manner, which assured me, even plainer than the coy sweetness displayed in our last interview, that her heart had been touched by her lover’s attentions. Indeed, she hinted as much before she left, saying in a melancholy tone, when I had ended my story in the usual happy way, with kisses and marriage, “I shall never marry!” finishing the exclamation with a long-drawn sigh, that somehow emboldened me to say, perhaps because I knew she had no mother: + 

“And why? What reason can there be for such rosy lips saying their possessor will never marry?” + 

She gave me one quick look, and then dropped her eyes. I feared I had offended her, and was feeling very humble, when she suddenly replied, in an even but low tone, “I said I should never marry, because the one man who pleases me can never be my husband.” + 

All the hidden romance in my nature started at once into life. “Why not? What do you mean? Tell me.” + 

“There is nothing to tell,” said she; “only I have been so weak as to”⁠—she would not say, fall in love, she was a proud woman⁠—“admire a man whom my uncle will never allow me to marry.” + 

And she rose as if to go; but I drew her back. “Whom your uncle will not allow you to marry!” I repeated. “Why? because he is poor?” + 

“No; uncle loves money, but not to such an extent as that. Besides, Mr. Clavering is not poor. He is the owner of a beautiful place in his own country⁠—” + 

“Own country?” I interrupted. “Is he not an American?” + 

“No,” she returned; “he is an Englishman.” + 

I did not see why she need say that in just the way she did, but, supposing she was aggravated by some secret memory, went on to inquire: “Then what difficulty can there be? Isn’t he⁠—” I was going to say steady, but refrained. + 

“He is an Englishman,” she emphasized in the same bitter tone as before. “In saying that, I say it all. Uncle will never let me marry an Englishman.” + 

I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had never entered my mind. + 

“He has an absolute mania on the subject,” resumed she. “I might as well ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman.” + 

A woman of truer judgment than myself would have said: “Then, if that is so, why not discard from your breast all thought of him? Why dance with him, and talk to him, and let your admiration develop into love?” But I was all romance then, and, angry at a prejudice I could neither understand nor appreciate, I said: + 

“But that is mere tyranny! Why should he hate the English so? And why, if he does, should you feel yourself obliged to gratify him in a whim so unreasonable?” + 

“Why? Shall I tell you, auntie?” she said, flushing and looking away. + 

“Yes,” I returned; “tell me everything.” + 

“Well, then, if you want to know the worst of me, as you already know the best, I hate to incur my uncle’s displeasure, because⁠—because⁠—I have always been brought up to regard myself as his heiress, and I know that if I were to marry contrary to his wishes, he would instantly change his mind, and leave me penniless.” + 

“But,” I cried, my romance a little dampened by this admission, “you tell me Mr. Clavering has enough to live upon, so you would not want; and if you love⁠—” + 

Her violet eyes fairly flashed in her amazement. + 

“You don’t understand,” she said; “Mr. Clavering is not poor; but uncle is rich. I shall be a queen⁠—” There she paused, trembling, and falling on my breast. “Oh, it sounds mercenary, I know, but it is the fault of my bringing up. I have been taught to worship money. I would be utterly lost without it. And yet”⁠—her whole face softening with the light of another emotion, “I cannot say to Henry Clavering, ‘Go! my prospects are dearer to me than you!’ I cannot, oh, I cannot!” + 

“You love him, then?” said I, determined to get at the truth of the matter if possible. + 

She rose restlessly. “Isn’t that a proof of love? If you knew me, you would say it was.” And, turning, she took her stand before a picture that hung on the wall of my sitting-room. + 

“That looks like me,” she said. + 

It was one of a pair of good photographs I possessed. + 

“Yes,” I remarked, “that is why I prize it.” + 

She did not seem to hear me; she was absorbed in gazing at the exquisite face before her. “That is a winning face,” I heard her say. “Sweeter than mine. I wonder if she would ever hesitate between love and money. I do not believe she would,” her own countenance growing gloomy and sad as she said so; “she would think only of the happiness she would confer; she is not hard like me. Eleanore herself would love this girl.” + 

I think she had forgotten my presence, for at the mention of her cousin’s name she turned quickly round with a half suspicious look, saying lightly: + 

“My dear old Mamma Hubbard looks horrified. She did not know she had such a very unromantic little wretch for a listener, when she was telling all those wonderful stories of Love slaying dragons, and living in caves, and walking over burning ploughshares as if they were tufts of spring grass?” + 

“No,” I said, taking her with an irresistible impulse of admiring affection into my arms; “but if I had, it would have made no difference. I should still have talked about love, and of all it can do to make this weary workaday world sweet and delightful.” + 

“Would you? Then you do not think me such a wretch?” + 

What could I say? I thought her the winsomest being in the world, and frankly told her so. Instantly she brightened into her very gayest self. Not that I thought then, much less do I think now, she partially cared for my good opinion; but her nature demanded admiration, and unconsciously blossomed under it, as a flower under the sunshine. + 

“And you will still let me come and tell you how bad I am⁠—that is, if I go on being bad, as I doubtless shall to the end of the chapter? You will not turn me off?” + 

“I will never turn you off.” + 

“Not if I should do a dreadful thing? Not if I should run away with my lover some fine night, and leave uncle to discover how his affectionate partiality had been requited?” + 

It was lightly said, and lightly meant, for she did not even wait for my reply. But its seed sank deep into our two hearts for all that. And for the next few days I spent my time in planning how I should manage, if it should ever fall to my lot to conduct to a successful issue so enthralling a piece of business as an elopement. You may imagine, then, how delighted I was, when one evening Hannah, this unhappy girl who is now lying dead under my roof, and who was occupying the position of lady’s maid to Miss Mary Leavenworth at that time, came to my door with a note from her mistress, running thus: + 

“Have the loveliest story of the season ready for me tomorrow; and let the prince be as handsome as⁠—as someone you have heard of, and the princess as foolish as your little yielding pet, + 

Which short note could only mean that she was engaged. But the next day did not bring me my Mary, nor the next, nor the next; and beyond hearing that Mr. Leavenworth had returned from his trip I received neither word nor token. Two more days dragged by, when, just as twilight set in, she came. It had been a week since I had seen her, but it might have been a year from the change I observed in her countenance and expression. I could scarcely greet her with any show of pleasure, she was so unlike her former self. + 

“You are disappointed, are you not?” said she, looking at me. “You expected revelations, whispered hopes, and all manner of sweet confidences; and you see, instead, a cold, bitter woman, who for the first time in your presence feels inclined to be reserved and uncommunicative.” + 

“That is because you have had more to trouble than encourage you in your love,” I returned, though not without a certain shrinking, caused more by her manner than words. + 

She did not reply to this, but rose and paced the floor, coldly at first, but afterwards with a certain degree of excitement that proved to be the prelude to a change in her manner; for, suddenly pausing, she turned to me and said: “Mr. Clavering has left R⁠⸺, Mrs. Belden.” + 

“Left!” + 

“Yes, my uncle commanded me to dismiss him, and I obeyed.” + 

The work dropped from my hands, in my heartfelt disappointment. “Ah! then he knows of your engagement to Mr. Clavering?” + 

“Yes; he had not been in the house five minutes before Eleanore told him.” + 

“Then she knew?” + 

“Yes,” with a half sigh. “She could hardly help it. I was foolish enough to give her the cue in my first moment of joy and weakness. I did not think of the consequences; but I might have known. She is so conscientious.” + 

“I do not call it conscientiousness to tell another’s secrets,” I returned. + 

“That is because you are not Eleanore.” + 

Not having a reply for this, I said, “And so your uncle did not regard your engagement with favor?” + 

“Favor! Did I not tell you he would never allow me to marry an Englishman? He said he would sooner see me buried.” + 

“And you yielded? Made no struggle? Let the hard, cruel man have his way?” + 

She was walking off to look again at that picture which had attracted her attention the time before, but at this word gave me one little sidelong look that was inexpressibly suggestive. + 

“I obeyed him when he commanded, if that is what you mean.” + 

“And dismissed Mr. Clavering after having given him your word of honor to be his wife?” + 

“Why not, when I found I could not keep my word.” + 

“Then you have decided not to marry him?” + 

She did not reply at once, but lifted her face mechanically to the picture. + 

“My uncle would tell you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!” she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness. + 

Greatly disappointed, I burst into tears. “Oh, Mary!” I cried, “Oh, Mary!” and instantly blushed, startled that I had called her by her first name. + 

But she did not appear to notice. + 

“Have you any complaint to make?” she asked. “Is it not my manifest duty to be governed by my uncle’s wishes? Has he not brought me up from childhood? lavished every luxury upon me? made me all I am, even to the love of riches which he has instilled into my soul with every gift he has thrown into my lap, every word he has dropped into my ear, since I was old enough to know what riches meant? Is it for me now to turn my back upon fostering care so wise, beneficent, and free, just because a man whom I have known some two weeks chances to offer me in exchange what he pleases to call his love?” + 

“But,” I feebly essayed, convinced perhaps by the tone of sarcasm in which this was uttered that she was not far from my way of thinking after all, “if in two weeks you have learned to love this man more than everything else, even the riches which make your uncle’s favor a thing of such moment⁠—” + 

“Well,” said she, “what then?” + 

“Why, then I would say, secure your happiness with the man of your choice, if you have to marry him in secret, trusting to your influence over your uncle to win the forgiveness he never can persistently deny.” + 

You should have seen the arch expression which stole across her face at that. “Would it not be better,” she asked, creeping to my arms, and laying her head on my shoulder, “would it not be better for me to make sure of that uncle’s favor first, before undertaking the hazardous experiment of running away with a too ardent lover?” + 

Struck by her manner, I lifted her face and looked at it. It was one amused smile. + 

“Oh, my darling,” said I, “you have not, then dismissed Mr. Clavering?” + 

“I have sent him away,” she whispered demurely. + 

“But not without hope?” + 

She burst into a ringing laugh. + 

“Oh, you dear old Mamma Hubbard; what a matchmaker you are, to be sure! You appear as much interested as if you were the lover yourself.” + 

“But tell me,” I urged. + 

In a moment her serious mood returned. “He will wait for me,” said she. + 

The next day I submitted to her the plan I had formed for her clandestine intercourse with Mr. Clavering. It was for them both to assume names, she taking mine, as one less liable to provoke conjecture than a strange name, and he that of LeRoy Robbins. The plan pleased her, and with the slight modification of a secret sign being used on the envelope, to distinguish her letters from mine, was at once adopted. + 

And so it was I took the fatal step that has involved me in all this trouble. With the gift of my name to this young girl to use as she would and sign what she would, I seemed to part with what was left me of judgment and discretion. Henceforth, I was only her scheming, planning, devoted slave; now copying the letters which she brought me, and enclosing them to the false name we had agreed upon, and now busying myself in devising ways to forward to her those which I received from him, without risk of discovery. Hannah was the medium we employed, as Mary felt it would not be wise for her to come too often to my house. To this girl’s charge, then, I gave such notes as I could not forward in any other way, secure in the reticence of her nature, as well as in her inability to read, that these letters addressed to Mrs. Amy Belden would arrive at their proper destination without mishap. And I believe they always did. At all events, no difficulty that I ever heard of arose out of the use of this girl as a go-between. + 

But a change was at hand. Mr. Clavering, who had left an invalid mother in England, was suddenly summoned home. He prepared to go, but, flushed with love, distracted by doubts, smitten with the fear that, once withdrawn from the neighborhood of a woman so universally courted as Mary, he would stand small chance of retaining his position in her regard, he wrote to her, telling his fears and asking her to marry him before he went. + 

“Make me your husband, and I will follow your wishes in all things,” he wrote. “The certainty that you are mine will make parting possible; without it, I cannot go; no, not if my mother should die without the comfort of saying goodbye to her only child.” + 

By some chance she was in my house when I brought this letter from the post-office, and I shall never forget how she started when she read it. But, from looking as if she had received an insult, she speedily settled down into a calm consideration of the subject, writing and delivering into my charge for copying a few lines in which she promised to accede to his request, if he would agree to leave the public declaration of the marriage to her discretion, and consent to bid her farewell at the door of the church or wherever the ceremony of marriage should take place, never to come into her presence again till such declaration had been made. Of course this brought in a couple of days the sure response: “Anything, so you will be mine.” + 

And Amy Belden’s wits and powers of planning were all summoned into requisition for the second time, to devise how this matter could be arranged without subjecting the parties to the chance of detection. I found the thing very difficult. In the first place, it was essential that the marriage should come off within three days, Mr. Clavering having, upon the receipt of her letter, secured his passage upon a steamer that sailed on the following Saturday; and, next, both he and Miss Leavenworth were too conspicuous in their personal appearance to make it at all possible for them to be secretly married anywhere within gossiping distance of this place. And yet it was desirable that the scene of the ceremony should not be too far away, or the time occupied in effecting the journey to and from the place would necessitate an absence from the hotel on the part of Miss Leavenworth long enough to arouse the suspicions of Eleanore; something which Mary felt it wiser to avoid. Her uncle, I have forgotten to say, was not here⁠—having gone away again shortly after the apparent dismissal of Mr. Clavering. F⁠⸺, then, was the only town I could think of which combined the two advantages of distance and accessibility. Although upon the railroad, it was an insignificant place, and had, what was better yet, a very obscure man for its clergyman, living, which was best of all, not ten rods from the depot. If they could meet there? Making inquiries, I found that it could be done, and, all alive to the romance of the occasion, proceeded to plan the details. + 

And now I am coming to what might have caused the overthrow of the whole scheme: I allude to the detection on the part of Eleanore of the correspondence between Mary and Mr. Clavering. It happened thus. Hannah, who, in her frequent visits to my house, had grown very fond of my society, had come in to sit with me for a while one evening. She had not been in the house, however, more than ten minutes, before there came a knock at the front door; and going to it I saw Mary, as I supposed, from the long cloak she wore, standing before me. Thinking she had come with a letter for Mr. Clavering, I grasped her arm and drew her into the hall, saying, “Have you got it? I must post it tonight, or he will not receive it in time.” + 

There I paused, for, the panting creature I had by the arm turning upon me, I saw myself confronted by a stranger. + 

“You have made a mistake,” she cried. “I am Eleanore Leavenworth, and I have come for my girl Hannah. Is she here?” + 

I could only raise my hand in apprehension, and point to the girl sitting in the corner of the room before her. Miss Leavenworth immediately turned back. + 

“Hannah, I want you,” said she, and would have left the house without another word, but I caught her by the arm. + 

“Oh, miss⁠—” I began, but she gave me such a look, I dropped her arm. + 

“I have nothing to say to you!” she cried in a low, thrilling voice. “Do not detain me.” And, with a glance to see if Hannah were following her, she went out. + 

For an hour I sat crouched on the stair just where she had left me. Then I went to bed, but I did not sleep a wink that night. You can imagine, then, my wonder when, with the first glow of the early morning light, Mary, looking more beautiful than ever, came running up the steps and into the room where I was, with the letter for Mr. Clavering trembling in her hand. + 

“Oh!” I cried in my joy and relief, “didn’t she understand me, then?” + 

The gay look on Mary’s face turned to one of reckless scorn. “If you mean Eleanore, yes. She is duly initiated, Mamma Hubbard. Knows that I love Mr. Clavering and write to him. I couldn’t keep it secret after the mistake you made last evening; so I did the next best thing, told her the truth.” + 

“Not that you were about to be married?” + 

“Certainly not. I don’t believe in unnecessary communications.” + 

“And you did not find her as angry as you expected?” + 

“I will not say that; she was angry enough. And yet,” continued Mary, with a burst of self-scornful penitence, “I will not call Eleanore’s lofty indignation anger. She was grieved, Mamma Hubbard, grieved.” And with a laugh which I believe was rather the result of her own relief than of any wish to reflect on her cousin, she threw her head on one side and eyed me with a look which seemed to say, “Do I plague you so very much, you dear old Mamma Hubbard?” + 

She did plague me, and I could not conceal it. “And will she not tell her uncle?” I gasped. + 

The naive expression on Mary’s face quickly changed. “No,” said she. + 

I felt a heavy hand, hot with fever, lifted from my heart. “And we can still go on?” + 

She held out the letter for reply. + 

The plan agreed upon between us for the carrying out of our intentions was this. At the time appointed, Mary was to excuse herself to her cousin upon the plea that she had promised to take me to see a friend in the next town. She was then to enter a buggy previously ordered, and drive here, where I was to join her. We were then to proceed immediately to the minister’s house in F⁠⸺, where we had reason to believe we should find everything prepared for us. But in this plan, simple as it was, one thing was forgotten, and that was the character of Eleanore’s love for her cousin. That her suspicions would be aroused we did not doubt; but that she would actually follow Mary up and demand an explanation of her conduct, was what neither she, who knew her so well, nor I, who knew her so little, ever imagined possible. And yet that was just what occurred. But let me explain. Mary, who had followed out the programme to the point of leaving a little note of excuse on Eleanore’s dressing-table, had come to my house, and was just taking off her long cloak to show me her dress, when there came a commanding knock at the front door. Hastily pulling her cloak about her I ran to open it, intending, you may be sure, to dismiss my visitor with short ceremony, when I heard a voice behind me say, “Good heavens, it is Eleanore!” and, glancing back, saw Mary looking through the window-blind upon the porch without. + 

“What shall we do?” I cried, in very natural dismay. + 

“Do? why, open the door and let her in; I am not afraid of Eleanore.” + 

I immediately did so, and Eleanore Leavenworth, very pale, but with a resolute countenance, walked into the house and into this room, confronting Mary in very nearly the same spot where you are now sitting. “I have come,” said she, lifting a face whose expression of mingled sweetness and power I could not but admire, even in that moment of apprehension, “to ask you without any excuse for my request, if you will allow me to accompany you upon your drive this morning?” + 

Mary, who had drawn herself up to meet some word of accusation or appeal, turned carelessly away to the glass. “I am very sorry,” she said, “but the buggy holds only two, and I shall be obliged to refuse.” + 

“I will order a carriage.” + 

“But I do not wish your company, Eleanore. We are off on a pleasure trip, and desire to have our fun by ourselves.” + 

“And you will not allow me to accompany you?” + 

“I cannot prevent your going in another carriage.” + 

Eleanore’s face grew yet more earnest in its expression. “Mary,” said she, “we have been brought up together. I am your sister in affection if not in blood, and I cannot see you start upon this adventure with no other companion than this woman. Then tell me, shall I go with you, as a sister, or on the road behind you as the enforced guardian of your honor against your will?” + 

“My honor?” + 

“You are going to meet Mr. Clavering.” + 

“Well?” + 

“Twenty miles from home.” + 

“Well?” + 

“Now is it discreet or honorable in you to do this?” + 

Mary’s haughty lip took an ominous curve. “The same hand that raised you has raised me,” she cried bitterly. + 

“This is no time to speak of that,” returned Eleanore. + 

Mary’s countenance flushed. All the antagonism of her nature was aroused. She looked absolutely Juno-like in her wrath and reckless menace. “Eleanore,” she cried, “I am going to F⁠⸺ to marry Mr. Clavering! Now do you wish to accompany me?” + 

“I do.” + 

Mary’s whole manner changed. Leaping forward, she grasped her cousin’s arm and shook it. “For what reason?” she cried. “What do you intend to do?” + 

“To witness the marriage, if it be a true one; to step between you and shame if any element of falsehood should come in to affect its legality.” + 

Mary’s hand fell from her cousin’s arm. “I do not understand you,” said she. “I thought you never gave countenance to what you considered wrong.” + 

“Nor do I. Anyone who knows me will understand that I do not give my approval to this marriage just because I attend its ceremonial in the capacity of an unwilling witness.” + 

“Then why go?” + 

“Because I value your honor above my own peace. Because I love our common benefactor, and know that he would never pardon me if I let his darling be married, however contrary her union might be to his wishes, without lending the support of my presence to make the transaction at least a respectable one.” + 

“But in so doing you will be involved in a world of deception⁠—which you hate.” + 

“Any more so than now?” + 

“Mr. Clavering does not return with me, Eleanore.” + 

“No, I supposed not.” + 

“I leave him immediately after the ceremony.” + 

Eleanore bowed her head. + 

“He goes to Europe.” A pause. + 

“And I return home.” + 

“There to wait for what, Mary?” + 

Mary’s face crimsoned, and she turned slowly away. + 

“What every other girl does under such circumstances, I suppose. The development of more reasonable feelings in an obdurate parent’s heart.” + 

Eleanore sighed, and a short silence ensued, broken by Eleanore’s suddenly falling upon her knees, and clasping her cousin’s hand. “Oh, Mary,” she sobbed, her haughtiness all disappearing in a gush of wild entreaty, “consider what you are doing! Think, before it is too late, of the consequences which must follow such an act as this. Marriage founded upon deception can never lead to happiness. Love⁠—but it is not that. Love would have led you either to have dismissed Mr. Clavering at once, or to have openly accepted the fate which a union with him would bring. Only passion stoops to subterfuge like this. And you,” she continued, rising and turning toward me in a sort of forlorn hope very touching to see, “can you see this young motherless girl, driven by caprice, and acknowledging no moral restraint, enter upon the dark and crooked path she is planning for herself, without uttering one word of warning and appeal? Tell me, mother of children dead and buried, what excuse you will have for your own part in this day’s work, when she, with her face marred by the sorrows which must follow this deception, comes to you⁠—” + 

“The same excuse, probably,” Mary’s voice broke in, chill and strained, “which you will have when uncle inquires how you came to allow such an act of disobedience to be perpetrated in his absence: that she could not help herself, that Mary would gang her ain gait, and everyone around must accommodate themselves to it.” + 

It was like a draught of icy air suddenly poured into a room heated up to fever point. Eleanore stiffened immediately, and drawing back, pale and composed, turned upon her cousin with the remark: + 

“Then nothing can move you?” + 

The curling of Mary’s lips was her only reply. + 

Mr. Raymond, I do not wish to weary you with my feelings, but the first great distrust I ever felt of my wisdom in pushing this matter so far came with that curl of Mary’s lip. More plainly than Eleanore’s words it showed me the temper with which she was entering upon this undertaking; and, struck with momentary dismay, I advanced to speak when Mary stopped me. + 

“There, now, Mamma Hubbard, don’t you go and acknowledge that you are frightened, for I won’t hear it. I have promised to marry Henry Clavering today, and I am going to keep my word⁠—if I don’t love him,” she added with bitter emphasis. Then, smiling upon me in a way which caused me to forget everything save the fact that she was going to her bridal, she handed me her veil to fasten. As I was doing this, with very trembling fingers, she said, looking straight at Eleanore: + 

“You have shown yourself more interested in my fate than I had any reason to expect. Will you continue to display this concern all the way to F⁠⸺, or may I hope for a few moments of peace in which to dream upon the step which, according to you, is about to hurl upon me such dreadful consequences?” + 

“If I go with you to F⁠⸺,” Eleanore returned, “it is as a witness, no more. My sisterly duty is done.” + 

“Very well, then,” Mary said, dimpling with sudden gayety; “I suppose I shall have to accept the situation. Mamma Hubbard, I am so sorry to disappoint you, but the buggy won’t hold three. If you are good you shall be the first to congratulate me when I come home tonight.” And, almost before I knew it, the two had taken their seats in the buggy that was waiting at the door. “Goodbye,” cried Mary, waving her hand from the back; “wish me much joy⁠—of my ride.” + 

I tried to do so, but the words wouldn’t come. I could only wave my hand in response, and rush sobbing into the house. + 

Of that day, and its long hours of alternate remorse and anxiety, I cannot trust myself to speak. Let me come at once to the time when, seated alone in my lamp-lighted room, I waited and watched for the token of their return which Mary had promised me. It came in the shape of Mary herself, who, wrapped in her long cloak, and with her beautiful face aglow with blushes, came stealing into the house just as I was beginning to despair. + 

A strain of wild music from the hotel porch, where they were having a dance, entered with her, producing such a weird effect upon my fancy that I was not at all surprised when, in flinging off her cloak, she displayed garments of bridal white and a head crowned with snowy roses. + 

“Oh, Mary!” I cried, bursting into tears; “you are then⁠—” + 

“Mrs. Henry Clavering, at your service. I’m a bride, Auntie.” + 

“Without a bridal,” I murmured, taking her passionately into my embrace. + 

She was not insensible to my emotion. Nestling close to me, she gave herself up for one wild moment to a genuine burst of tears, saying between her sobs all manner of tender things; telling me how she loved me, and how I was the only one in all the world to whom she dared come on this, her wedding night, for comfort or congratulation, and of how frightened she felt now it was all over, as if with her name she had parted with something of inestimable value. + 

“And does not the thought of having made someone the proudest of men solace you?” I asked, more than dismayed at this failure of mine to make these lovers happy. + 

“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “What satisfaction can it be for him to feel himself tied for life to a girl who, sooner than lose a prospective fortune, subjected him to such a parting?” + 

“Tell me about it,” said I. + 

But she was not in the mood at that moment. The excitement of the day had been too much for her. A thousand fears seemed to beset her mind. Crouching down on the stool at my feet, she sat with her hands folded and a glare on her face that lent an aspect of strange unreality to her brilliant attire. “How shall I keep it secret! The thought haunts me every moment; how can I keep it secret!” + 

“Why, is there any danger of its being known?” I inquired. “Were you seen or followed?” + 

“No,” she murmured. “It all went off well, but⁠—” + 

“Where is the danger, then?” + 

“I cannot say; but some deeds are like ghosts. They will not be laid; they reappear; they gibber; they make themselves known whether we will or not. I did not think of this before. I was mad, reckless, what you will. But ever since the night has come, I have felt it crushing upon me like a pall that smothers life and youth and love out of my heart. While the sunlight remained I could endure it; but now⁠—oh, Auntie, I have done something that will keep me in constant fear. I have allied myself to a living apprehension. I have destroyed my happiness.” + 

I was too aghast to speak. + 

“For two hours I have played at being gay. Dressed in my bridal white, and crowned with roses, I have greeted my friends as if they were wedding-guests, and made believe to myself that all the compliments bestowed upon me⁠—and they are only too numerous⁠—were just so many congratulations upon my marriage. But it was no use; Eleanore knew it was no use. She has gone to her room to pray, while I⁠—I have come here for the first time, perhaps for the last, to fall at someone’s feet and cry⁠—‘God have mercy upon me!’ ” + 

I looked at her in uncontrollable emotion. “Oh, Mary, have I only succeeded, then, in making you miserable?” + 

She did not answer; she was engaged in picking up the crown of roses which had fallen from her hair to the floor. + 

“If I had not been taught to love money so!” she said at length. “If, like Eleanore, I could look upon the splendor which has been ours from childhood as a mere accessory of life, easy to be dropped at the call of duty or affection! If prestige, adulation, and elegant belongings were not so much to me; or love, friendship, and domestic happiness more! If only I could walk a step without dragging the chain of a thousand luxurious longings after me. Eleanore can. Imperious as she often is in her beautiful womanhood, haughty as she can be when the delicate quick of her personality is touched too rudely, I have known her to sit by the hour in a low, chilly, ill-lighted and ill-smelling garret, cradling a dirty child on her knee, and feeding with her own hand an impatient old woman whom no one else would consent to touch. Oh, oh! they talk about repentance and a change of heart! If someone or something would only change mine! But there is no hope of that! no hope of my ever being anything else than what I am: a selfish, wilful, mercenary girl.” + 

Nor was this mood a mere transitory one. That same night she made a discovery which increased her apprehension almost to terror. This was nothing less than the fact that Eleanore had been keeping a diary of the last few weeks. “Oh,” she cried in relating this to me the next day, “what security shall I ever feel as long as this diary of hers remains to confront me every time I go into her room? And she will not consent to destroy it, though I have done my best to show her that it is a betrayal of the trust I reposed in her. She says it is all she has to show in the way of defence, if uncle should ever accuse her of treachery to him and his happiness. She promises to keep it locked up; but what good will that do! A thousand accidents might happen, any of them sufficient to throw it into uncle’s hands. I shall never feel safe for a moment while it exists.” + 

I endeavored to calm her by saying that if Eleanore was without malice, such fears were groundless. But she would not be comforted, and seeing her so wrought up, I suggested that Eleanore should be asked to trust it into my keeping till such time as she should feel the necessity of using it. The idea struck Mary favorably. “O yes,” she cried; “and I will put my certificate with it, and so get rid of all my care at once.” And before the afternoon was over, she had seen Eleanore and made her request. + 

It was acceded to with this proviso, that I was neither to destroy nor give up all or any of the papers except upon their united demand. A small tin box was accordingly procured, into which were put all the proofs of Mary’s marriage then existing, viz.: the certificate, Mr. Clavering’s letters, and such leaves from Eleanore’s diary as referred to this matter. It was then handed over to me with the stipulation I have already mentioned, and I stowed it away in a certain closet upstairs, where it has lain undisturbed till last night. + 

Here Mrs. Belden paused, and, blushing painfully, raised her eyes to mine with a look in which anxiety and entreaty were curiously blended. + 

“I don’t know what you will say,” she began, “but, led away by my fears, I took that box out of its hiding-place last evening and, notwithstanding your advice, carried it from the house, and it is now⁠—” + 

“In my possession,” I quietly finished. + 

I don’t think I ever saw her look more astounded, not even when I told her of Hannah’s death. “Impossible!” she exclaimed. “I left it last night in the old barn that was burned down. I merely meant to hide it for the present, and could think of no better place in my hurry; for the barn is said to be haunted⁠—a man hung himself there once⁠—and no one ever goes there. I⁠—I⁠—you cannot have it!” she cried, “unless⁠—” + 

“Unless I found and brought it away before the barn was destroyed,” I suggested. + 

Her face flushed deeper. “Then you followed me?” + 

“Yes,” said I. Then, as I felt my own countenance redden, hastened to add: “We have been playing strange and unaccustomed parts, you and I. Some time, when all these dreadful events shall be a mere dream of the past, we will ask each other’s pardon. But never mind all this now. The box is safe, and I am anxious to hear the rest of your story.” + 

This seemed to compose her, and after a minute she continued: + 

Mary seemed more like herself after this. And though, on account of Mr. Leavenworth’s return and their subsequent preparations for departure, I saw but little more of her, what I did see was enough to make me fear that, with the locking up of the proofs of her marriage, she was indulging the idea that the marriage itself had become void. But I may have wronged her in this. + 

The story of those few weeks is almost finished. On the eve of the day before she left, Mary came to my house to bid me goodbye. She had a present in her hand the value of which I will not state, as I did not take it, though she coaxed me with all her prettiest wiles. But she said something that night that I have never been able to forget. It was this. I had been speaking of my hope that before two months had elapsed she would find herself in a position to send for Mr. Clavering, and that when that day came I should wish to be advised of it; when she suddenly interrupted me by saying: + 

“Uncle will never be won upon, as you call it, while he lives. If I was convinced of it before, I am sure of it now. Nothing but his death will ever make it possible for me to send for Mr. Clavering.” Then, seeing me look aghast at the long period of separation which this seemed to betoken, blushed a little and whispered: “The prospect looks somewhat dubious, doesn’t it? But if Mr. Clavering loves me, he can wait.” + 

“But,” said I, “your uncle is only little past the prime of life and appears to be in robust health; it will be years of waiting, Mary.” + 

“I don’t know,” she muttered, “I think not. Uncle is not as strong as he looks and⁠—” She did not say any more, horrified perhaps at the turn the conversation was taking. But there was an expression on her countenance that set me thinking at the time, and has kept me thinking ever since. + 

Not that any actual dread of such an occurrence as has since happened came to oppress my solitude during the long months which now intervened. I was as yet too much under the spell of her charm to allow anything calculated to throw a shadow over her image to remain long in my thoughts. But when, some time in the fall, a letter came to me personally from Mr. Clavering, filled with a vivid appeal to tell him something of the woman who, in spite of her vows, doomed him to a suspense so cruel, and when, on the evening of the same day, a friend of mine who had just returned from New York spoke of meeting Mary Leavenworth at some gathering, surrounded by manifest admirers, I began to realize the alarming features of the affair, and, sitting down, I wrote her a letter. Not in the strain in which I had been accustomed to talk to her⁠—I had not her pleading eyes and trembling, caressing hands ever before me to beguile my judgment from its proper exercise⁠—but honestly and earnestly, telling her how Mr. Clavering felt, and what a risk she ran in keeping so ardent a lover from his rights. The reply she sent rather startled me. + 

“I have put Mr. Robbins out of my calculations for the present, and advise you to do the same. As for the gentleman himself, I have told him that when I could receive him I would be careful to notify him. That day has not yet come. + 

“But do not let him be discouraged,” she added in a postscript. “When he does receive his happiness, it will be a satisfying one.” + 

When, I thought. Ah, it is that when which is likely to ruin all! But, intent only upon fulfilling her will, I sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. Clavering, in which I stated what she had said, and begged him to have patience, adding that I would surely let him know if any change took place in Mary or her circumstances. And, having despatched it to his address in London, awaited the development of events. + 

They were not slow in transpiring. In two weeks I heard of the sudden death of Mr. Stebbins, the minister who had married them; and while yet laboring under the agitation produced by this shock, was further startled by seeing in a New York paper the name of Mr. Clavering among the list of arrivals at the Hoffman House; showing that my letter to him had failed in its intended effect, and that the patience Mary had calculated upon so blindly was verging to its end. I was consequently far from being surprised when, in a couple of weeks or so afterwards, a letter came from him to my address, which, owing to the careless omission of the private mark upon the envelope, I opened, and read enough to learn that, driven to desperation by the constant failures which he had experienced in all his endeavors to gain access to her in public or private, a failure which he was not backward in ascribing to her indisposition to see him, he had made up his mind to risk everything, even her displeasure; and, by making an appeal to her uncle, end the suspense under which he was laboring, definitely and at once. “I want you,” he wrote; “dowered or dowerless, it makes little difference to me. If you will not come of yourself, then I must follow the example of the brave knights, my ancestors; storm the castle that holds you, and carry you off by force of arms.” + 

Neither can I say I was much surprised, knowing Mary as I did, when, in a few days from this, she forwarded to me for copying, this reply: “If Mr. Robbins ever expects to be happy with Amy Belden, let him reconsider the determination of which he speaks. Not only would he by such an action succeed in destroying the happiness of her he professes to love, but run the greater risk of effectually annulling the affection which makes the tie between them endurable.” + 

To this there was neither date nor signature. It was the cry of warning which a spirited, self-contained creature gives when brought to bay. It made even me recoil, though I had known from the first that her pretty wilfulness was but the tossing foam floating above the soundless depths of cold resolve and most deliberate purpose. + 

What its real effect was upon him and her fate I can only conjecture. All I know is that in two weeks thereafter Mr. Leavenworth was found murdered in his room, and Hannah Chester, coming direct to my door from the scene of violence, begged me to take her in and secrete her from public inquiry, as I loved and desired to serve Mary Leavenworth. + 

Mrs. Belden paused, lost in the sombre shadow which these words were calculated to evoke, and a short silence fell upon the room. It was broken by my asking for some account of the occurrence she had just mentioned, it being considered a mystery how Hannah could have found entrance into her house without the knowledge of the neighbors. + 

“Well,” said she, “it was a chilly night, and I had gone to bed early (I was sleeping then in the room off this) when, at about a quarter to one⁠—the last train goes through R⁠⸺ at 12:50⁠—there came a low knock on the windowpane at the head of my bed. Thinking that some of the neighbors were sick, I hurriedly rose on my elbow and asked who was there. The answer came in low, muffled tones, ‘Hannah, Miss Leavenworth’s girl! Please let me in at the kitchen door.’ Startled at hearing the well-known voice, and fearing I knew not what, I caught up a lamp and hurried round to the door. ‘Is anyone with you?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Then come in.’ But no sooner had she done so than my strength failed me, and I had to sit down, for I saw she looked very pale and strange, was without baggage, and altogether had the appearance of some wandering spirit. ‘Hannah!’ I gasped, ‘what is it? what has happened? what brings you here in this condition and at this time of night?’ ‘Miss Leavenworth has sent me,’ she replied, in the low, monotonous tone of one repeating a lesson by rote. ‘She told me to come here; said you would keep me. I am not to go out of the house, and no one is to know I am here.’ ‘But why?’ I asked, trembling with a thousand undefined fears; ‘what has occurred?’ ‘I dare not say,’ she whispered; ‘I am forbid; I am just to stay here, and keep quiet.’ ‘But,’ I began, helping her to take off her shawl⁠—the dingy blanket advertised for in the papers⁠—‘you must tell me. She surely did not forbid you to tell me?’ ‘Yes she did; everyone,’ the girl replied, growing white in her persistence, ‘and I never break my word; fire couldn’t draw it out of me.’ She looked so determined, so utterly unlike herself, as I remembered her in the meek, unobtrusive days of our old acquaintance, that I could do nothing but stare at her. ‘You will keep me,’ she said; ‘you will not turn me away?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I will not turn you away.’ ‘And tell no one?’ she went on. ‘And tell no one,’ I repeated. + 

“This seemed to relieve her. Thanking me, she quietly followed me upstairs. I put her into the room in which you found her, because it was the most secret one in the house; and there she has remained ever since, satisfied and contented, as far as I could see, till this very same horrible day.” + 

“And is that all?” I asked. “Did you have no explanation with her afterwards? Did she never give you any information in regard to the transactions which led to her flight?” + 

“No, sir. She kept a most persistent silence. Neither then nor when, upon the next day, I confronted her with the papers in my hand, and the awful question upon my lips as to whether her flight had been occasioned by the murder which had taken place in Mr. Leavenworth’s household, did she do more than acknowledge she had run away on this account. Someone or something had sealed her lips, and, as she said, ‘Fire and torture should never make her speak.’ ” + 

Another short pause followed this; then, with my mind still hovering about the one point of intensest interest to me, I said: + 

“This story, then, this account which you have just given me of Mary Leavenworth’s secret marriage and the great strait it put her into⁠—a strait from which nothing but her uncle’s death could relieve her⁠—together with this acknowledgment of Hannah’s that she had left home and taken refuge here on the insistence of Mary Leavenworth, is the groundwork you have for the suspicions you have mentioned?” + 

“Yes, sir; that and the proof of her interest in the matter which is given by the letter I received from her yesterday, and which you say you have now in your possession.” + 

Oh, that letter! + 

“I know,” Mrs. Belden went on in a broken voice, “that it is wrong, in a serious case like this, to draw hasty conclusions; but, oh, sir, how can I help it, knowing what I do?” + 

I did not answer; I was revolving in my mind the old question: was it possible, in face of all these later developments, still to believe Mary Leavenworth’s own hand guiltless of her uncle’s blood? + 

“It is dreadful to come to such conclusions,” proceeded Mrs. Belden, “and nothing but her own words written in her own hand would ever have driven me to them, but⁠—” + 

“Pardon me,” I interrupted; “but you said in the beginning of this interview that you did not believe Mary herself had any direct hand in her uncle’s murder. Are you ready to repeat that assertion?” + 

“Yes, yes, indeed. Whatever I may think of her influence in inducing it, I never could imagine her as having anything to do with its actual performance. Oh, no! oh, no! whatever was done on that dreadful night, Mary Leavenworth never put hand to pistol or ball, or even stood by while they were used; that you may be sure of. Only the man who loved her, longed for her, and felt the impossibility of obtaining her by any other means, could have found nerve for an act so horrible.” + 

“Then you think⁠—” + 

“Mr. Clavering is the man? I do: and oh, sir, when you consider that he is her husband, is it not dreadful enough?” + 

“It is, indeed,” said I, rising to conceal how much I was affected by this conclusion of hers. + 

Something in my tone or appearance seemed to startle her. “I hope and trust I have not been indiscreet,” she cried, eying me with something like an incipient distrust. “With this dead girl lying in my house, I ought to be very careful, I know, but⁠—” + 

“You have said nothing,” was my earnest assurance as I edged towards the door in my anxiety to escape, if but for a moment, from an atmosphere that was stifling me. “No one can blame you for anything you have either said or done today. But”⁠—and here I paused and walked hurriedly back⁠—“I wish to ask one question more. Have you any reason, beyond that of natural repugnance to believing a young and beautiful woman guilty of a great crime, for saying what you have of Henry Clavering, a gentleman who has hitherto been mentioned by you with respect?” + 

“No,” she whispered, with a touch of her old agitation. + 

I felt the reason insufficient, and turned away with something of the same sense of suffocation with which I had heard that the missing key had been found in Eleanore Leavenworth’s possession. “You must excuse me,” I said; “I want to be a moment by myself, in order to ponder over the facts which I have just heard; I will soon return”; and without further ceremony, hurried from the room. + 

By some indefinable impulse, I went immediately upstairs, and took my stand at the western window of the large room directly over Mrs. Belden. The blinds were closed; the room was shrouded in funereal gloom, but its sombreness and horror were for the moment unfelt; I was engaged in a fearful debate with myself. Was Mary Leavenworth the principal, or merely the accessory, in this crime? Did the determined prejudice of Mr. Gryce, the convictions of Eleanore, the circumstantial evidence even of such facts as had come to our knowledge, preclude the possibility that Mrs. Belden’s conclusions were correct? That all the detectives interested in the affair would regard the question as settled, I did not doubt; but need it be? Was it utterly impossible to find evidence yet that Henry Clavering was, after all, the assassin of Mr. Leavenworth? + 

Filled with the thought, I looked across the room to the closet where lay the body of the girl who, according to all probability, had known the truth of the matter, and a great longing seized me. Oh, why could not the dead be made to speak? Why should she lie there so silent, so pulseless, so inert, when a word from her were enough to decide the awful question? Was there no power to compel those pallid lips to move? + 

Carried away by the fervor of the moment, I made my way to her side. Ah, God, how still! With what a mockery the closed lips and lids confronted my demanding gaze! A stone could not have been more unresponsive. + 

With a feeling that was almost like anger, I stood there, when⁠—what was it I saw protruding from beneath her shoulders where they crushed against the bed? An envelope? a letter? Yes. + 

Dizzy with the sudden surprise, overcome with the wild hopes this discovery awakened, I stooped in great agitation and drew the letter out. It was sealed but not directed. Breaking it hastily open, I took a glance at its contents. Good heavens! it was the work of the girl herself!⁠—its very appearance was enough to make that evident! Feeling as if a miracle had happened, I hastened with it into the other room, and set myself to decipher the awkward scrawl. + 

This is what I saw, rudely printed in lead pencil on the inside of a sheet of common writing-paper: + 

“I am a wicked girl. I have knone things all the time which I had ought to have told but I didn’t dare to he said he would kill me if I did I mene the tall splendud looking gentulman with the black mustash who I met coming out of Mister Levenworth’s room with a key in his hand the night Mr. Levenworth was murdered. He was so scared he gave me money and made me go away and come here and keep everything secret but I can’t do so no longer. I seem to see Miss Elenor all the time crying and asking me if I want her sent to prisun. God knows I’d rathur die. And this is the truth and my last words and I pray everybody’s forgivness and hope nobody will blame me and that they wont bother Miss Elenor any more but go and look after the handsome gentulman with the black mushtash.” + 