Produced by Jeffrey Kraus-yao




The House of a Thousand Candles


Meredith Nicholson



The House of a Thousand Candles

By
Meredith Nicholson
Author of The Main Chance
Zelda Dameron, Etc.

With Illustrations by
Howard Chandler Christy

“So on the morn there fell new tidings and other adventures”
Malory



1905


November



To Margaret My Sister



CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I The Will of John Marshall Glenarm
II A Face at Sherry’s
III The House of a Thousand Candles
IV A Voice From the Lake
V A Red Tam-O’-Shanter
VI The Girl and the Canoe
VII The Man on the Wall
VIII A String of Gold Beads
IX The Girl and the Rabbit
X An Affair With the Caretaker
XI I Receive a Caller
XII I Explore a Passage
XIII A Pair of Eavesdroppers
XIV The Girl in Gray
XV I Make an Engagement
XVI The Passing of Olivia
XVII Sister Theresa
XVIII Golden Butterflies
XIX I Meet an Old Friend
XX A Triple Alliance
XXI Pickering Serves Notice
XXII The Return of Marian Devereux
XXIII The Door of Bewilderment
XXIV A Prowler of The Night
XXV Besieged
XXVI The Fight in the Library
XXVII Changes and Chances
XXVIII Shorter Vistas
XXIX And So the Light Led Me



The House of a Thousand Candles



CHAPTER I

THE WILL OF JOHN MARSHALL GLENARM


Pickering’s letter bringing news of my grandfather’s
death found me at Naples early in October. John
Marshall Glenarm had died in June. He had left a
will which gave me his property conditionally, Pickering
wrote, and it was necessary for me to return immediately
to qualify as legatee. It was the merest luck
that the letter came to my hands at all, for it had been
sent to Constantinople, in care of the consul-general
instead of my banker there. It was not Pickering’s
fault that the consul was a friend of mine who kept
track of my wanderings and was able to hurry the
executor’s letter after me to Italy, where I had gone to
meet an English financier who had, I was advised, unlimited
money to spend on African railways. I am an
engineer, a graduate of an American institution familiarly
known as “Tech,” and as my funds were running
low, I naturally turned to my profession for employment.

But this letter changed my plans, and the following
day I cabled Pickering of my departure and was outward
bound on a steamer for New York. Fourteen
days later I sat in Pickering’s office in the Alexis Building
and listened intently while he read, with much
ponderous emphasis, the provisions of my grandfather’s
will. When he concluded, I laughed. Pickering was a
serious man, and I was glad to see that my levity pained
him. I had, for that matter, always been a source of
annoyance to him, and his look of distrust and rebuke
did not trouble me in the least.

I reached across the table for the paper, and he gave
the sealed and beribboned copy of John Marshall Glenarm’s
will into my hands. I read it through for myself,
feeling conscious meanwhile that Pickering’s cool gaze
was bent inquiringly upon me. These are the paragraphs
that interested me most:

I give and bequeath unto my said grandson, John Glenarm,
sometime a resident of the City and State of New
York, and later a vagabond of parts unknown, a certain
property known as Glenarm House, with the land thereunto
pertaining and hereinafter more particularly described,
and all personal property of whatsoever kind
thereunto belonging and attached thereto,—the said realty
lying in the County of Wabana in the State of Indiana,—
upon this condition, faithfully and honestly performed:

That said John Glenarm shall remain for the period
of one year an occupant of said Glenarm House and my
lands attached thereto, demeaning himself meanwhile in
an orderly and temperate manner. Should he fail at any
time during said year to comply with this provision, said
property shall revert to my general estate and become,
without reservation, and without necessity for any process
of law, the property, absolutely, of Marian Devereux, of
the County and State of New York.


“Well,” he demanded, striking his hands upon the
arms of his chair, “what do you think of it?”

For the life of me I could not help laughing again.
There was, in the first place, a delicious irony in the
fact that I should learn through him of my grandfather’s
wishes with respect to myself. Pickering and
I had grown up in the same town in Vermont; we had
attended the same preparatory school, but there had
been from boyhood a certain antagonism between us.
He had always succeeded where I had failed, which is to
say, I must admit, that he had succeeded pretty frequently.
When I refused to settle down to my profession,
but chose to see something of the world first,
Pickering gave himself seriously to the law, and there
was, I knew from the beginning, no manner of chance
that he would fail.

I am not more or less than human, and I remembered
with joy that once I had thrashed him soundly
at the prep school for bullying a smaller boy; but our
score from school-days was not without tallies on his
side. He was easily the better scholar—I grant him
that; and he was shrewd and plausible. You never
quite knew the extent of his powers and resources, and
he had, I always maintained, the most amazing good
luck,—as witness the fact that John Marshall Glenarm
had taken a friendly interest in him. It was wholly
like my grandfather, who was a man of many whims,
to give his affairs into Pickering’s keeping; and I could
not complain, for I had missed my own chance with
him. It was, I knew readily enough, part of my punishment
for having succeeded so signally in incurring
my grandfather’s displeasure that he had made it necessary
for me to treat with Arthur Pickering in this
matter of the will; and Pickering was enjoying the
situation to the full. He sank back in his chair with
an air of complacency that had always been insufferable
in him. I was quite willing to be patronized by a man
of years and experience; but Pickering was my own
age, and his experience of life seemed to me preposterously
inadequate. To find him settled in New York,
where he had been established through my grandfather’s
generosity, and the executor of my grandfather’s estate,
was hard to bear.

But there was something not wholly honest in my
mirth, for my conduct during the three preceding years
had been reprehensible. I had used my grandfather
shabbily. My parents died when I was a child, and he
had cared for me as far back as my memory ran. He
had suffered me to spend without restraint the fortune
left by my father; he had expected much of me, and I
had grievously disappointed him. It was his hope that
I should devote myself to architecture, a profession for
which he had the greatest admiration, whereas I had
insisted on engineering.

I am not writing an apology for my life, and I shall
not attempt to extenuate my conduct in going abroad
at the end of my course at Tech and, when I made
Laurance Donovan’s acquaintance, in setting off with
him on a career of adventure. I do not regret, though
possibly it would be more to my credit if I did, the
months spent leisurely following the Danube east of
the Iron Gate—Laurance Donovan always with me,
while we urged the villagers and inn-loafers to all manner
of sedition, acquitting ourselves so well that, when
we came out into the Black Sea for further pleasure,
Russia did us the honor to keep a spy at our heels. I
should like, for my own satisfaction, at least, to set
down an account of certain affairs in which we were
concerned at Belgrad, but without Larry’s consent I
am not at liberty to do so. Nor shall I take time here
to describe our travels in Africa, though our study of
the Atlas Mountain dwarfs won us honorable mention
by the British Ethnological Society.

These were my yesterdays; but to-day I sat in Arthur
Pickering’s office in the towering Alexis Building, conscious
of the muffled roar of Broadway, discussing the
terms of my Grandfather Glenarm’s will with a man
whom I disliked as heartily as it is safe for one man to
dislike another. Pickering had asked me a question,
and I was suddenly aware that his eyes were fixed upon
me and that he awaited my answer.

“What do I think of it?” I repeated. “I don’t know
that it makes any difference what I think, but I’ll tell
you, if you want to know, that I call it infamous, outrageous,
that a man should leave a ridiculous will of
that sort behind him. All the old money-bags who pile
up fortunes magnify the importance of their money.
They imagine that every kindness, every ordinary courtesy
shown them, is merely a bid for a slice of the cake.
I’m disappointed in my grandfather. He was a splendid
old man, though God knows he had his queer ways.
I’ll bet a thousand dollars, if I have so much money in
the world, that this scheme is yours, Pickering, and not
his. It smacks of your ancient vindictiveness, and John
Marshall Glenarm had none of that in his blood. That
stipulation about my residence out there is fantastic.
I don’t have to be a lawyer to know that; and no doubt
I could break the will; I’ve a good notion to try it,
anyhow.”

“To be sure. You can tie up the estate for half
a dozen years if you like,” he replied coolly. He did
not look upon me as likely to become a formidable
litigant. My staying qualities had been proved weak
long ago, as Pickering knew well enough.

“No doubt you would like that,” I answered. “But
I’m not going to give you the pleasure. I abide by the
terms of the will. My grandfather was a fine old gentleman.
I shan’t drag his name through the courts,
not even to please you, Arthur Pickering,” I declared
hotly.

“The sentiment is worthy of a good man, Glenarm,”
he rejoined.

“But this woman who is to succeed to my rights,—I
don’t seem to remember her.”

“It is not surprising that you never heard of her.”

“Then she’s not a connection of the family,—no long-lost
cousin whom I ought to remember?”

“No; she was a late acquaintance of your grandfather’s.
He met her through an old friend of his,—
Miss Evans, known as Sister Theresa. Miss Devereux
is Sister Theresa’s niece.”

I whistled. I had a dim recollection that during my
grandfather’s long widowerhood there were occasional
reports that he was about to marry. The name of Miss
Evans had been mentioned in this connection. I had
heard it spoken of in my family, and not, I remembered,
with much kindness. Later, I heard of her joining a
Sisterhood, and opening a school somewhere in the
West.

“And Miss Devereux,—is she an elderly nun, too?”

“I don’t know how elderly she is, but she isn’t a nun
at present. Still, she’s almost alone in the world, and
she and Sister Theresa are very intimate.”

“Pass the will again, Pickering, while I make sure
I grasp these diverting ideas. Sister Theresa isn’t the
one I mustn’t marry, is she? It’s the other ecclesiastical
embroidery artist,—the one with the x in her
name, suggesting the algebra of my vanishing youth.”

I read aloud this paragraph:

Provided, further, that in the event of the marriage of
said John Glenarm to the said Marian Devereux, or in
the event of any promise or contract of marriage between
said persons within five years from the date of said John
Glenarm’s acceptance of the provisions of this will, the
whole estate shall become the property absolutely of St.
Agatha’s School, at Annandale, Wabana County, Indiana,
a corporation under the laws of said state.


“For a touch of comedy commend me to my grandfather!
Pickering, you always were a well-meaning
fellow,—I’ll turn over to you all my right, interest and
title in and to these angelic Sisters. Marry! I like the
idea! I suppose some one will try to marry me for my
money. Marriage, Pickering, is not embraced in my
scheme of life!”

“I should hardly call you a marrying man,” he observed.

“Perfectly right, my friend! Sister Theresa was considered
a possible match for my grandfather in my
youth. She and I are hardly contemporaries. And the
other lady with the fascinating algebraic climax to her
name,—she, too, is impossible; it seems that I can’t get
the money by marrying her. I’d better let her take it.
She’s as poor as the devil, I dare say.”

“I imagine not. The Evanses are a wealthy family,
in spots, and she ought to have some money of her own
if her aunt doesn’t coax it out of her for educational
schemes.”

“And where on the map are these lovely creatures to
be found?”

“Sister Theresa’s school adjoins your preserve; Miss
Devereux has I think some of your own weakness for
travel. Sister Theresa is her nearest relative, and she
occasionally visits St. Agatha’s—that’s the school.”

“I suppose they embroider altar-cloths together and
otherwise labor valiantly to bring confusion upon Satan
and his cohorts. Just the people to pull the wool over
the eyes of my grandfather!”

Pickering smiled at my resentment.

“You’d better give them a wide berth; they might
catch you in their net. Sister Theresa is said to have
quite a winning way. She certainly plucked your grandfather.”

“Nuns in spectacles, the gentle educators of youth
and that sort of thing, with a good-natured old man for
their prey. None of them for me!”

“I rather thought so,” remarked Pickering,—and he
pulled his watch from his pocket and turned the stem
with his heavy fingers. He was short, thick-set and
sleek, with a square jaw, hair already thin and a close-clipped
mustache. Age, I reflected, was not improving
him.

I had no intention of allowing him to see that I was
irritated. I drew out my cigarette case and passed it
across the table,

“After you! They’re made quite specially for me in
Madrid.”

“You forget that I never use tobacco in any form.”

“You always did miss a good deal of the joy of living,”
I observed, throwing my smoking match into his
waste-paper basket, to his obvious annoyance. “Well,
I’m the bad boy of the story-books; but I’m really sorry
my inheritance has a string tied to it. I’m about out
of money. I suppose you wouldn’t advance me a few
thousands on my expectations—”

“Not a cent,” he declared, with quite unnecessary
vigor; and I laughed again, remembering that in my
old appraisement of him, generosity had not been represented
in large figures. “It’s not in keeping with
your grandfather’s wishes that I should do so. You
must have spent a good bit of money in your tiger-hunting
exploits,” he added.

“I have spent all I had,” I replied amiably. “Thank
God I’m not a clam! I’ve seen the world and paid for
it. I don’t want anything from you. You undoubtedly
share my grandfather’s idea of me that I’m a wild man
who can’t sit still or lead an orderly, decent life; but
I’m going to give you a terrible disappointment. What’s
the size of the estate?”

Pickering eyed me—uneasily, I thought—and began
playing with a pencil. I never liked Pickering’s hands;
they were thick and white and better kept than I like
to see a man’s hands.

“I fear it’s going to be disappointing. In his trust-company
boxes here I have been able to find only about
ten thousand dollars’ worth of securities. Possibly—
quite possibly—we were all deceived in the amount of
his fortune. Sister Theresa wheedled large sums out of
him, and he spent, as you will see, a small fortune on
the house at Annandale without finishing it. It wasn’t
a cheap proposition, and in its unfinished condition it is
practically valueless. You must know that Mr. Glenarm
gave away a great deal of money in his lifetime. Moreover,
he established your father. You know what he
left,—it was not a small fortune as those things are
reckoned.”

I was restless under this recital. My father’s estate
had been of respectable size, and I had dissipated the
whole of it. My conscience pricked me as I recalled an
item of forty thousand dollars that I had spent—somewhat
grandly—on an expedition that I led, with considerable
satisfaction to myself, at least, through the
Sudan. But Pickering’s words amazed me.

“Let me understand you,” I said, bending toward
him. “My grandfather was supposed to be rich, and
yet you tell me you find little property. Sister Theresa
got money from him to help build a school. How much
was that?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. It was an open account.
His books show the advances, but he took no notes.”

“And that claim is worth—?”

“It is good as against her individually. But she contends—”

“Yes, go on!”

I had struck the right note. He was annoyed at my
persistence and his apparent discomfort pleased me.

“She refuses to pay. She says Mr. Glenarm made her
a gift of the money.”

“That’s possible, isn’t it? He was for ever making
gifts to churches. Schools and theological seminaries
were a sort of weakness with him.”

“That is quite true, but this account is among the
assets of the estate. It’s my business as executor to collect
it.”

“We’ll pass that. If you get this money, the estate is
worth sixty thousand dollars, plus the value of the land
out there at Annandale, and Glenarm House is worth—”

“There you have me!”

It was the first lightness he had shown, and it put me
on guard.

“I should like an idea of its value. Even an unfinished
house is worth something.”

“Land out there is worth from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty dollars an acre. There’s an even
hundred acres. I’ll be glad to have your appraisement
of the house when you get there.”

“Humph! You flatter my judgment, Pickering. The
loose stuff there is worth how much?”

“It’s all in the library. Your grandfather’s weakness
was architecture—”

“So I remember!” I interposed, recalling my stormy
interviews with John Marshall Glenarm over my choice
of a profession.

“In his last years he turned more and more to his
books. He placed out there what is, I suppose, the
finest collection of books relating to architecture to be
found in this country. That was his chief hobby, after
church affairs, as you may remember, and he rode it
hard. But he derived a great deal of satisfaction from
his studies.”

I laughed again; it was better to laugh than to cry
over the situation.

“I suppose he wanted me to sit down there, surrounded
by works on architecture, with the idea that
a study of the subject would be my only resource. The
scheme is eminently Glenarmian! And all I get is a
worthless house, a hundred acres of land, ten thousand
dollars, and a doubtful claim against a Protestant nun
who hoodwinked my grandfather into setting up a
school for her. Bless your heart, man, so far as my inheritance
is concerned it would have been money in my
pocket to have stayed in Africa.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“But the personal property is all mine,—anything
that’s loose on the place. Perhaps my grandfather
planted old plate and government bonds just to pique
the curiosity of his heirs, successors and assigns. It
would be in keeping!”

I had walked to the window and looked out across
the city. As I turned suddenly I found Pickering’s
eyes bent upon me with curious intentness. I had never
liked his eyes; they were too steady. When a man always
meets your gaze tranquilly and readily, it is just
as well to be wary of him.

“Yes; no doubt you will find the place literally
packed with treasure,” he said, and laughed. “When
you find anything you might wire me.”

He smiled; the idea seemed to give him pleasure.

“Are you sure there’s nothing else?” I asked. “No
substitute,—no codicil?”

“If you know of anything of the kind it’s your duty
to produce it. We have exhausted the possibilities. I’ll
admit that the provisions of the will are unusual; your
grandfather was a peculiar man in many respects; but
he was thoroughly sane and his faculties were all sound
to the last.”

“He treated me a lot better than I deserved,” I said,
with a heartache that I had not known often in my
irresponsible life; but I could not afford to show feeling
before Arthur Pickering.

I picked up the copy of the will and examined it.
It was undoubtedly authentic; it bore the certificate of
the clerk of Wabana County, Indiana. The witnesses
were Thomas Bates and Arthur Pickering.

“Who is Bates?” I asked, pointing to the man’s signature.

“One of your grandfather’s discoveries. He’s in
charge of the house out there, and a trustworthy fellow.
He’s a fair cook, among other things. I don’t know
where Mr. Glenarm got Bates, but he had every confidence
in him. The man was with him at the end.”

A picture of my grandfather dying, alone with a
servant, while I, his only kinsman, wandered in strange
lands, was not one that I could contemplate with much
satisfaction. My grandfather had been an odd little
figure of a man, who always wore a long black coat and a
silk hat, and carried a curious silver-headed staff, and
said puzzling things at which everybody was afraid either
to laugh or to cry. He refused to be thanked for favors,
though he was generous and helpful and constantly
performing kind deeds. His whimsical philanthropies
were often described in the newspapers. He had once
given a considerable sum of money to a fashionable
church in Boston with the express stipulation, which
he safeguarded legally, that if the congregation ever
intrusted its spiritual welfare to a minister named
Reginald, Harold or Claude, an amount equal to his
gift, with interest, should be paid to the Massachusetts
Humane Society.

The thought of him touched me now. I was glad to
feel that his money had never been a lure to me; it did
not matter whether his estate was great or small, I
could, at least, ease my conscience by obeying the behest
of the old man whose name I bore, and whose interest in
the finer things of life and art had given him an undeniable
distinction.

“I should like to know something of Mr. Glenarm’s
last days,” I said abruptly.

“He wished to visit the village where he was born,
and Bates, his companion and servant, went to Vermont
with him. He died quite suddenly, and was buried beside
his father in the old village cemetery. I saw him
last early in the summer. I was away from home and
did not know of his death until it was all over. Bates
came to report it to me, and to sign the necessary papers
in probating the will. It had to be done in the place of
the decedent’s residence, and we went together to Wabana,
the seat of the county in which Annandale lies.”

I was silent after this, looking out toward the sea
that had lured me since my earliest dreams of the world
that lay beyond it.

“It’s a poor stake, Glenarm,” remarked Pickering
consolingly, and I wheeled upon him.

“I suppose you think it a poor stake! I suppose you
can’t see anything in that old man’s life beyond his
money; but I don’t care a curse what my inheritance is!
I never obeyed any of my grandfather’s wishes in his
lifetime, but now that he’s dead his last wish is mandatory.
I’m going out there to spend a year if I die
for it. Do you get my idea?”

“Humph! You always were a stormy petrel,” he
sneered. “I fancy it will be safer to keep our most
agreeable acquaintance on a strictly business basis. If
you accept the terms of the will—”

“Of course I accept them! Do you think I am going
to make a row, refuse to fulfil that old man’s last wish!
I gave him enough trouble in his life without disappointing
him in his grave. I suppose you’d like to have
me fight the will; but I’m going to disappoint you.”

He said nothing, but played with his pencil. I had
never disliked him so heartily; he was so smug and
comfortable. His office breathed the very spirit of prosperity.
I wished to finish my business and get away.

“I suppose the region out there has a high death-rate.
How’s the malaria?”

“Not alarmingly prevalent, I understand. There’s a
summer resort over on one side of Lake Annandale.
The place is really supposed to be wholesome. I don’t
believe your grandfather had homicide in mind in sending
you there.”

“No, he probably thought the rustication would make
a man of me. Must I do my own victualing? I suppose
I’ll be allowed to eat.”

“Bates can cook for you. He’ll supply the necessities.
I’ll instruct him to obey your orders. I assume
you’ll not have many guests,—in fact,”—he studied the
back of his hand intently,—“while that isn’t stipulated,
I doubt whether it was your grandfather’s intention
that you should surround yourself—”

“With boisterous companions!” I supplied the words
in my cheerfullest tone. “No; my conduct shall be exemplary,
Mr. Pickering,” I added, with affable irony.

He picked up a single sheet of thin type-written
paper and passed it across the table. It was a formal
acquiescence in the provisions of the will. Pickering
had prepared it in advance of my coming, and this assumption
that I would accept the terms irritated me.
Assumptions as to what I should do under given conditions
had always irritated me, and accounted, in a
large measure, for my proneness to surprise and disappoint
people. Pickering summoned a clerk to witness
my signature.

“How soon shall you take possession?” he asked. “I
have to make a record of that.”

“I shall start for Indiana to-morrow,” I answered.

“You are prompt,” he replied, deliberately folding in
quarters the paper I had just signed. “I hoped you
might dine with me before going out; but I fancy New
York is pretty tame after the cafés and bazaars of the
East.”

His reference to my wanderings angered me again;
for here was the point at which I was most sensitive.
I was twenty-seven and had spent my patrimony; I had
tasted the bread of many lands, and I was doomed to
spend a year qualifying myself for my grandfather’s
legacy by settling down on an abandoned and lonely
Indiana farm that I had never seen and had no interest
in whatever.

As I rose to go Pickering said:

“It will be sufficient if you drop me a line, say once
a month, to let me know you are there. The post-office
is Annandale.”

“I suppose I might file a supply of postal cards in the
village and arrange for the mailing of one every
month.”

“It might be done that way,” be answered evenly.

“We may perhaps meet again, if I don’t die of starvation
or ennui. Good-by.”

We shook hands stiffly and I left him, going down in
an elevator filled with eager-eyed, anxious men. I, at
least, had no cares of business. It made no difference
to me whether the market rose or fell. Something of
the spirit of adventure that had been my curse quickened
in my heart as I walked through crowded Broadway
past Trinity Church to a bank and drew the balance
remaining on my letter of credit. I received in
currency slightly less than one thousand dollars.

As I turned from the teller’s window I ran into the
arms of the last man in the world I expected to see.

This, let it be remembered, was in October of the
year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and one.



CHAPTER II

A FACE AT SHERRY’S


“Don’t mention my name an thou lovest me!” said
Laurance Donovan, and he drew me aside, ignored my
hand and otherwise threw into our meeting a casual
quality that was somewhat amazing in view of the fact
that we had met last at Cairo.

“Allah il Allah!”

It was undoubtedly Larry. I felt the heat of the
desert and heard the camel-drivers cursing and our
Sudanese guides plotting mischief under a window far
away.

“Well!” we both exclaimed interrogatively.

He rocked gently back and forth, with his hands in
his pockets, on the tile floor of the banking-house. I
had seen him stand thus once on a time when we had
eaten nothing in four days—it was in Abyssinia, and
our guides had lost us in the worst possible place—with
the same untroubled look in his eyes.

“Please don’t appear surprised, or scared or anything,
Jack,” he said, with his delicious intonation. “I
saw a fellow looking for me an hour or so ago. He’s
been at it for several months; hence my presence on
these shores of the brave and the free. He’s probably
still looking, as he’s a persistent devil. I’m here, as
we may say, quite incog. Staying at an East-side lodging-house,
where I shan’t invite you to call on me.
But I must see you.”

“Dine with me to-night, at Sherry’s—”

“Too big, too many people—”

“Therein lies security, if you’re in trouble. I’m about
to go into exile, and I want to eat one more civilized
dinner before I go.”

“Perhaps it’s just as well. Where are you off for,—
not Africa again?”

“No. Just Indiana,—one of the sovereign American
states, as you ought to know.”

“Indians?”

“No; warranted all dead.”

“Pack-train—balloon—automobile—camels,—how do
you get there?”

“Varnished ears. It’s easy. It’s not the getting there;
it’s the not dying of ennui after you’re on the spot.”

“Humph! What hour did you say for the dinner?”

“Seven o’clock. Meet me at the entrance.”

“If I’m at large! Allow me to precede you through
the door, and don’t follow me on the street please!”

He walked away, his gloved hands clasped lazily behind
him, lounged out upon Broadway and turned
toward the Battery. I waited until he disappeared, then
took an up-town car.

My first meeting with Laurance Donovan was in Constantinople,
at a café where I was dining. He got into
a row with an Englishman and knocked him down. It
was not my affair, but I liked the ease and definiteness
with which Larry put his foe out of commission. I
learned later that it was a way he had. The Englishman
meant well enough, but he could not, of course,
know the intensity of Larry’s feeling about the unhappy
lot of Ireland. In the beginning of my own acquaintance
with Donovan I sometimes argued with him, but I
soon learned better manners. He quite converted me to
his own notion of Irish affairs, and I was as hot an
advocate as he of head-smashing as a means of restoring
Ireland’s lost prestige.

My friend, the American consul-general at Constantinople,
was not without a sense of humor, and I
easily enlisted him in Larry’s behalf. The Englishman
thirsted for vengeance and invoked all the powers. He
insisted, with reason, that Larry was a British subject
and that the American consul had no right to give him
asylum,—a point that was, I understand, thoroughly
well-grounded in law and fact. Larry maintained, on
the other hand, that he was not English but Irish, and
that, as his country maintained no representative in
Turkey, it was his privilege to find refuge wherever it
was offered. Larry was always the most plausible of
human beings, and between us,—he, the American consul
and I,—we made an impression, and got him off.

I did not realize until later that the real joke lay in
the fact that Larry was English-born, and that his devotion
to Ireland was purely sentimental and quixotic.
His family had, to be sure, come out of Ireland some
time in the dim past, and settled in England; but when
Larry reached years of knowledge, if not of discretion,
he cut Oxford and insisted on taking his degree at
Dublin. He even believed,—or thought he believed,—
in banshees. He allied himself during his university
days with the most radical and turbulent advocates of
a separate national existence for Ireland, and occasionally
spent a month in jail for rioting. But Larry’s
instincts were scholarly; he made a brilliant record at
the University; then, at twenty-two, he came forth to
look at the world, and liked it exceedingly well. His
father was a busy man, and he had other sons; he
granted Larry an allowance and told him to keep away
from home until he got ready to be respectable. So,
from Constantinople, after a tour of Europe, we together
crossed the Mediterranean in search of the flesh-pots
of lost kingdoms, spending three years in the pursuit.
We parted at Cairo on excellent terms. He returned
to England and later to his beloved Ireland, for
he had blithely sung the wildest Gaelic songs in the
darkest days of our adventures, and never lost his love
for The Sod, as he apostrophized—and capitalized—his
adopted country.

Larry had the habit of immaculateness. He emerged
from his East-side lodging-house that night clothed
properly, and wearing the gentlemanly air of peace and
reserve that is so wholly incompatible with his disposition
to breed discord and indulge in riot. When we
sat down for a leisurely dinner at Sherry’s we were not,
I modestly maintain, a forbidding pair. We—if I may
drag myself into the matter—are both a trifle under
the average height, sinewy, nervous, and, just then,
trained fine. Our lean, clean-shaven faces were well-browned
—mine wearing a fresh coat from my days on
the steamer’s deck.

Larry had never been in America before, and the
scene had for both of us the charm of a gay and novel
spectacle. I have always maintained, in talking to
Larry of nations and races, that the Americans are the
handsomest and best put-up people in the world, and I
believe he was persuaded of it that night as we gazed
with eyes long unaccustomed to splendor upon the great
company assembled in the restaurant. The lights, the
music, the variety and richness of the costumes of the
women, the many unmistakably foreign faces, wrought
a welcome spell on senses inured to hardship in the
waste and dreary places of earth.

“Now tell me the story,” I said. “Have you done
murder? Is the offense treasonable?”

“It was a tenants’ row in Galway, and I smashed a
constable. I smashed him pretty hard, I dare say, from
the row they kicked up in the newspapers. I lay low
for a couple of weeks, caught a boat to Queenstown, and
here I am, waiting for a chance to get back to The Sod
without going in irons.”

“You were certainly born to be hanged, Larry. You’d
better stay in America. There’s more room here than
anywhere else, and it’s not easy to kidnap a man in
America and carry him off.”

“Possibly not; and yet the situation isn’t wholly tranquil,”
he said, transfixing a bit of pompano with his
fork. “Kindly note the florid gentleman at your right
—at the table with four—he’s next the lady in pink.
It may interest you to know that he’s the British
consul.”

“Interesting, but not important. You don’t for a
moment suppose—”

“That he’s looking for me? Not at all. But he undoubtedly
has my name on his tablets. The detective
that’s here following me around is pretty dull. He lost
me this morning while I was talking to you in the
bank. Later on I had the pleasure of trailing him for
an hour or so until he finally brought up at the British
consul’s office. Thanks; no more of the fish. Let us
banish care. I wasn’t born to be hanged; and as I’m a
political offender, I doubt whether I can be deported if
they lay hands on me.”

He watched the bubbles in his glass dreamily, holding
it up in his slim well-kept fingers.

“Tell me something of your own immediate present
and future,” he said.

I made the story of my Grandfather Glenarm’s legacy
as brief as possible, for brevity was a definite law of our
intercourse.

“A year, you say, with nothing to do but fold your
hands and wait. It doesn’t sound awfully attractive to
me. I’d rather do without the money.”

“But I intend to do some work. I owe it to my grandfather’s
memory to make good, if there’s any good in
me.”

“The sentiment is worthy of you, Glenarm,” he said
mockingly. “What do you see—a ghost?”

I must have started slightly at espying suddenly
Arthur Pickering not twenty feet away. A party of
half a dozen or more had risen, and Pickering and a
girl were detached from the others for a moment.

She was young,—quite the youngest in the group
about Pickering’s table. A certain girlishness of height
and outline may have been emphasized by her juxtaposition
to Pickering’s heavy figure. She was in black,
with white showing at neck and wrists,—a somber contrast
to the other women of the party, who were arrayed
with a degree of splendor. She had dropped her fan,
and Pickering stooped to pick it up. In the second that
she waited she turned carelessly toward me, and our
eyes met for an instant. Very likely she was Pickering’s
sister, and I tried to reconstruct his family, which I had
known in my youth; but I could not place her. As she
walked out before him my eyes followed her,—the erect
figure, free and graceful, but with a charming dignity
and poise, and the gold of her fair hair glinting under
her black toque.

Her eyes, as she turned them full upon me, were the
saddest, loveliest eyes I had ever seen, and even in that
brilliant, crowded room I felt their spell. They were
fixed in my memory indelibly,—mournful, dreamy and
wistful. In my absorption I forgot Larry.

“You’re taking unfair advantage,” he observed quietly.
“Friends of yours?”

“The big chap in the lead is my friend Pickering,”
I answered; and Larry turned his head slightly.

“Yes, I supposed you weren’t looking at the women,”
he observed dryly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t see the object
of your interest. Bah! these men!”

I laughed carelessly enough, but I was already summoning
from my memory the grave face of the girl in
black,—her mournful eyes, the glint of gold in her hair.
Pickering was certainly finding the pleasant places in
this vale of tears, and I felt my heart hot against him.
It hurts, this seeing a man you have never liked succeeding
where you have failed!

“Why didn’t you present me? I’d like to make the
acquaintance of a few representative Americans,—I
may need them to go bail for me.”

“Pickering didn’t see me, for one thing; and for
another he wouldn’t go bail for you or me if he did.
He isn’t built that way.”

Larry smiled quizzically.

“You needn’t explain further. The sight of the lady
has shaken you. She reminds me of Tennyson:

 “ ‘The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes—’

and the rest of it ought to be a solemn warning to you,
—many ‘drew swords and died,’ and calamity followed
in her train. Bah! these women! I thought you were
past all that!”

[Illustration: She turned carelessly toward me, and our eyes met for an instant.]

“I don’t know why a man should be past it at twenty-seven!
Besides, Pickering’s friends are strangers to me.
But what became of that Irish colleen you used to
moon over? Her distinguishing feature, as I remember
her photograph, was a short upper lip. You used
to force her upon me frequently when we were in
Africa.”

“Humph! When I got back to Dublin I found that
she had married a brewer’s son,—think of it!”

“Put not your faith in a short upper lip! Her face
never inspired any confidence in me.”

“That will do, thank you. I’ll have a bit more of that
mayonnaise if the waiter isn’t dead. I think you said
your grandfather died in June. A letter advising you
of the fact reached you at Naples in October. Has it
occurred to you that there was quite an interim there?
What, may I ask, was the executor doing all that time?
You may be sure he was taking advantage of the opportunity
to look for the red, red gold. I suppose you
didn’t give him a sound drubbing for not keeping the
cables hot with inquiries for you?”

He eyed me in that disdain for my stupidity which
I have never suffered from any other man.

“Well, no; to tell the truth, I was thinking of other
things during the interview.”

“Your grandfather should have provided a guardian
for you, lad. You oughtn’t to be trusted with money.
Is that bottle empty? Well, if that person with the fat
neck was your friend Pickering, I’d have a care of
what’s coming to me. I’d be quite sure that Mr. Pickering
hadn’t made away with the old gentleman’s
boodle, or that it didn’t get lost on the way from him
to me.”

“The time’s running now, and I’m in for the year.
My grandfather was a fine old gentleman, and I treated
him like a dog. I’m going to do what he directs in that
will no matter what the size of the reward may be.”

“Certainly; that’s the eminently proper thing for
you to do. But,—but keep your wits about you. If a
fellow with that neck can’t find money where money
has been known to exist, it must be buried pretty deep.
Your grandfather was a trifle eccentric, I judge, but
not a fool by any manner of means. The situation appeals
to my imagination, Jack. I like the idea of it,—
the lost treasure and the whole business. Lord, what a
salad that is! Cheer up, comrade! You’re as grim as
an owl!”

Whereupon we fell to talking of people and places we
had known in other lands.

We spent the next day together, and in the evening,
at my hotel, he criticized my effects while I packed, in
his usual ironical vein.

“You’re not going to take those things with you, I
hope!” He indicated the rifles and several revolvers
which I brought from the closet and threw upon the
bed. “They make me homesick for the jungle.”

He drew from its cover the heavy rifle I had used
last on a leopard hunt and tested its weight.

“Precious little use you’ll have for this! Better let
me take it back to The Sod to use on the landlords.
I say, Jack, are we never to seek our fortunes together
again? We hit it off pretty well, old man, come to think
of it,—I don’t like to lose you.”

He bent over the straps of the rifle-case with unnecessary
care, but there was a quaver in his voice that was
not like Larry Donovan.

“Come with me now!” I exclaimed, wheeling upon
him.

“I’d rather be with you than with any other living
man, Jack Glenarm, but I can’t think of it. I have my
own troubles; and, moreover, you’ve got to stick it out
there alone. It’s part of the game the old gentleman
set up for you, as I understand it. Go ahead, collect
your fortune, and then, if I haven’t been hanged in the
meantime, we’ll join forces later. There’s no chap anywhere
with a pleasanter knack at spending money than
your old friend L. D.”

He grinned, and I smiled ruefully, knowing that we
must soon part again, for Larry was one of the few
men I had ever called friend, and this meeting had only
quickened my old affection for him.

“I suppose,” he continued, “you accept as gospel
truth what that fellow tells you about the estate. I
should be a little wary if I were you. Now, I’ve been
kicking around here for a couple of weeks, dodging the
detectives, and incidentally reading the newspapers.
Perhaps you don’t understand that this estate of John
Marshall Glenarm has been talked about a good bit.”

“I didn’t know it,” I admitted lamely. Larry had
always been able to instruct me about most matters; it
was wholly possible that he could speak wisely about my
inheritance.

“You couldn’t know, when you were coming from
the Mediterranean on a steamer. But the house out
there and the mysterious disappearance of the property
have been duly discussed. You’re evidently an object
of some public interest,”—and he drew from his pocket
a newspaper cutting. “Here’s a sample item.” He read:

“John Glenarm, the grandson of John Marshall Glenarm,
the eccentric millionaire who died suddenly in Vermont
last summer, arrived on the Maxinkuckee from Naples
yesterday. Under the terms of his grandfather’s
will, Glenarm is required to reside for a year at a curious
house established by John Marshall Glenarm near Lake
Annandale, Indiana.

This provision was made, according to friends of the
family, to test young Glenarm’s staying qualities, as he
has, since his graduation from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology five years ago, distributed a considerable
fortune left him by his father in contemplating the
wonders of the old world. It is reported—”

“That will do! Signs and wonders I have certainly
beheld, and if I spent the money I submit that I got
my money back.”

I paid my bill and took a hansom for the ferry,—
Larry with me, chaffing away drolly with his old zest.
He crossed with me, and as the boat drew out into the
river a silence fell upon us,—the silence that is possible
only between old friends. As I looked back at the lights
of the city, something beyond the sorrow at parting
from a comrade touched me. A sense of foreboding, of
coming danger, crept into my heart. But I was going
upon the tamest possible excursion; for the first time
in my life I was submitting to the direction of another,
—albeit one who lay in the grave. How like my grandfather
it was, to die leaving this compulsion upon me!
My mood changed suddenly, and as the boat bumped at
the pier I laughed.

“Bah! these men!” ejaculated Larry.

“What men?” I demanded, giving my bags to a
porter.

“These men who are in love,” he said. “I know the
signs,—mooning, silence, sudden inexplicable laughter!
I hope I’ll not be in jail when you’re married.”

“You’ll be in a long time if they hold you for that.
Here’s my train.”

We talked of old times, and of future meetings, during
the few minutes that remained.

“You can write me at my place of rustication,” I
said, scribbling “Annandale, Wabana County, Indiana,”
on a card. “Now if you need me at any time I’ll come
to you wherever you are. You understand that, old man.
Good-by.”

“Write me, care of my father—he’ll have my address,
though this last row of mine made him pretty hot.”

I passed through the gate and down the long train
to my sleeper. Turning, with my foot on the step, I
waved a farewell to Larry, who stood outside watching
me.

In a moment the heavy train was moving slowly out
into the night upon its westward journey.



CHAPTER III

THE HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CANDLES


Annandale derives its chief importance from the fact
that two railway lines intersect there. The Chicago
Express paused only for a moment while the porter deposited
my things beside me on the platform. Light
streamed from the open door of the station; a few
idlers paced the platform, staring into the windows of
the cars; the village hackman languidly solicited my
business. Suddenly out of the shadows came a tall,
curious figure of a man clad in a long ulster. As I
write, it is with a quickening of the sensation I received
on the occasion of my first meeting with Bates. His
lank gloomy figure rises before me now, and I hear his
deep melancholy voice, as, touching his hat respectfully,
be said:

“Beg pardon, sir; is this Mr. Glenarm? I am Bates
from Glenarm House. Mr. Pickering wired me to meet
you, sir.”

“Yes; to be sure,” I said.

The hackman was already gathering up my traps,
and I gave him my trunk-checks.

“How far is it?” I asked, my eyes resting, a little regretfully,
I must confess, on the rear lights of the vanishing
train.

“Two miles, sir,” Bates replied. “There’s no way
over but the hack in winter. In summer the steamer
comes right into our dock.”

“My legs need stretching; I’ll walk,” I suggested,
drawing the cool air into my lungs. It was a still, starry
October night, and its freshness was grateful after the
hot sleeper. Bates accepted the suggestion without
comment. We walked to the end of the platform, where
the hackman was already tumbling my trunks about,
and after we had seen them piled upon his nondescript
wagon, I followed Bates down through the broad quiet
street of the village. There was more of Annandale
than I had imagined, and several tall smoke-stacks
loomed here and there in the thin starlight.

“Brick-yards, sir,” said Bates, waving his hand at
the stacks. “It’s a considerable center for that kind of
business.”

“Bricks without straw?” I asked, as we passed a
radiant saloon that blazed upon the board walk.

“Beg pardon, sir, but such places are the ruin of
men,”—on which remark I based a mental note that
Bates wished to impress me with his own rectitude.

He swung along beside me, answering questions with
dogged brevity. Clearly, here was a man who had reduced
human intercourse to a basis of necessity. I was
to be shut up with him for a year, and he was not likely
to prove a cheerful jailer. My feet struck upon a graveled
highway at the end of the village street, and I
heard suddenly the lapping of water.

“It’s the lake, sir. This road leads right out to the
house,” Bates explained.

I was doomed to meditate pretty steadily, I imagined,
on the beauty of the landscape in these parts, and I
was rejoiced to know that it was not all cheerless prairie
or gloomy woodland. The wind freshened cud blew
sharply upon us off the water.

“The fishing’s quite good in season. Mr. Glenarm
used to take great pleasure in it. Bass,—yes, sir. Mr.
Glenarm held there was nothing quite equal to a black
bass.”

I liked the way the fellow spoke of my grandfather.
He was evidently a loyal retainer. No doubt he could
summon from the past many pictures of my grandfather,
and I determined to encourage his confidence.

Any resentment I felt on first hearing the terms of
my grandfather’s will had passed. He had treated me
as well as I deserved, and the least I could do was to
accept the penalty he had laid upon me in a sane and
amiable spirit. This train of thought occupied me as
we tramped along the highway. The road now led away
from the lake and through a heavy wood. Presently, on
the right loomed a dark barrier, and I put out my hand
and touched a wall of rough stone that rose to a height
of about eight feet.

“What is this, Bates?” I asked.

“This is Glenarm land, sir. The wall was one of
your grandfather’s ideas. It’s a quarter of a mile long
and cost him a pretty penny, I warrant you. The road
turns off from the lake now, but the Glenarm property
is all lake front.”

So there was a wall about my prison house! I grinned
cheerfully to myself. When, a few moments later, my
guide paused at an arched gateway in the long wall,
drew from his overcoat a bunch of keys and fumbled at
the lock of an iron gate, I felt the spirit of adventure
quicken within me.

The gate clicked behind us and Bates found a lantern
and lighted it with the ease of custom.

“I use this gate because it’s nearer. The regular entrance
is farther down the road. Keep close, sir, as the
timber isn’t much cleared.”

The undergrowth was indeed heavy, and I followed
the lantern of my guide with difficulty. In the darkness
the place seemed as wild and rough as a tropical wilderness.

“Only a little farther,” rose Bates’ voice ahead of
me; and then: “There’s the light, sir,”—and, lifting
my eyes, as I stumbled over the roots of a great tree, I
saw for the first time the dark outlines of Glenarm
House.

“Here we are, sir!” exclaimed Bates, stamping his
feet upon a walk. I followed him to what I assumed to
be the front door of the house, where a lamp shone
brightly at either side of a massive entrance. Bates
flung it open without ado, and I stepped quickly into
a great hall that was lighted dimly by candles fastened
into brackets on the walls.

“I hope you’ve not expected too much, Mr. Glenarm,”
said Bates, with a tone of mild apology. “It’s very incomplete
for living purposes.”

“Well, we’ve got to make the best of it,” I answered,
though without much cheer. The sound of our steps
reverberated and echoed in the well of a great staircase.
There was not, as far as I could see, a single article of
furniture in the place.

“Here’s something you’ll like better, sir,”—and Bates
paused far down the hall and opened a door.

A single candle made a little pool of light in what I
felt to be a large room. I was prepared for a disclosure
of barren ugliness, and waited, in heartsick foreboding,
for the silent guide to reveal a dreary prison.

“Please sit here, sir,” said Bates, “while I make a
better light.”

He moved through the dark room with perfect ease,
struck a match, lighted a taper and went swiftly and
softly about. He touched the taper to one candle after
another,—they seemed to be everywhere,—and won
from the dark a faint twilight, that yielded slowly to a
growing mellow splendor of light. I have often watched
the acolytes in dim cathedrals of the Old World set
countless candles ablaze on magnificent altars,—always
with awe for the beauty of the spectacle; but in this
unknown house the austere serving-man summoned
from the shadows a lovelier and more bewildering enchantment.
Youth alone, of beautiful things, is lovelier
than light.

The lines of the walls receded as the light increased,
and the raftered ceiling drew away, luring the eyes upward.
I rose with a smothered exclamation on my lips
and stared about, snatching off my hat in reverence as
the spirit of the place wove its spell about me. Everywhere
there were books; they covered the walls to the
ceiling, with only long French windows and an enormous
fireplace breaking the line. Above the fireplace a
massive dark oak chimney-breast further emphasized
the grand scale of the room. From every conceivable
place—from shelves built for the purpose, from brackets
that thrust out long arms among the books, from a
great crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling, and
from the breast of the chimney—innumerable candles
blazed with dazzling brilliancy. I exclaimed in wonder
and pleasure as Bates paused, his sorcerer’s wand in
hand.

“Mr. Glenarm was very fond of candle-light; he
liked to gather up candlesticks, and his collection is
very fine. He called his place ‘The House of a Thousand
Candles.’ There’s only about a hundred here;
but it was one of his conceits that when the house was
finished there would be a thousand lights, he had quite
a joking way, your grandfather. It suited his humor
to call it a thousand. He enjoyed his own pleasantries,
sir.”

“I fancy he did,” I replied, staring in bewilderment.

“Oil lamps might be more suited to your own taste,
sir. But your grandfather would not have them. Old
brass and copper were specialties with him, and he had
a particular taste, Mr. Glenarm had, in glass candlesticks.
He held that the crystal was most effective of
all. I’ll go and let in the baggageman and then serve
you some supper.”

He went somberly out and I examined the room with
amazed and delighted eyes. It was fifty feet long and
half as wide. The hard-wood floor was covered with
handsome rugs; every piece of furniture was quaint or
interesting. Carved in the heavy oak paneling above
the fireplace, in large Old English letters, was the inscription:

        The Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord

and on either side great candelabra sent long arms
across the hearth. All the books seemed related to architecture;
German and French works stood side by side
among those by English and American authorities. I
found archaeology represented in a division where all
the titles were Latin or Italian. I opened several cabinets
that contained sketches and drawings, all in careful
order; and in another I found an elaborate card
catalogue, evidently the work of a practised hand. The
minute examination was too much for me; I threw
myself into a great chair that might have been spoil
from a cathedral, satisfied to enjoy the general effect.
To find an apartment so handsome and so marked by
good taste in the midst of an Indiana wood, staggered
me. To be sure, in approaching the house I had seen
only a dark bulk that conveyed no sense of its character
or proportions; and certainly the entrance hall
had not prepared me for the beauty of this room. I was
so lost in contemplation that I did not hear a door open
behind me. The respectful, mournful voice of Bates
announced:

“There’s a bite ready for you, sir.”

I followed him through the hall to a small high-wainscoted
room where a table was simply set.

“This is what Mr. Glenarm called the refectory. The
dining-room, on the other side of the house, is unfinished.
He took his own meals here. The library was the
main thing with him. He never lived to finish the house,
—more’s the pity, sir. He would have made something
very handsome of it if he’d had a few years more. But
he hoped, sir, that you’d see it completed. It was his
wish, sir.”

“Yes, to be sure,” I replied.

He brought cold fowl and a salad, and produced a
bit of Stilton of unmistakable authenticity.

“I trust the ale is cooled to your liking. It’s your
grandfather’s favorite, if I may say it, sir.”

I liked the fellow’s humility. He served me with a
grave deference and an accustomed hand. Candles in
crystal holders shed an agreeable light upon the table;
the room was snug and comfortable, and hickory logs
in a small fireplace crackled cheerily. If my grandfather
had designed to punish me, with loneliness as
his weapon, his shade, if it lurked near, must have
been grievously disappointed. I had long been inured
to my own society. I had often eaten my bread alone,
and I found a pleasure in the quiet of the strange unknown
house. There stole over me, too, the satisfaction
that I was at last obeying a wish of my grandfather’s,
that I was doing something he would have me do. I
was touched by the traces everywhere of his interest
in what was to him the art of arts; there was something
quite fine in his devotion to it. The little refectory
had its air of distinction, though it was without
decoration. There had been, we always said in the
family, something whimsical or even morbid in my
grandsire’s devotion to architecture; but I felt that it
had really appealed to something dignified and noble
in his own mind and character, and a gentler mood
than I had known in years possessed my heart. He had
asked little of me, and I determined that in that little
I would not fail.

Bates gave me my coffee, put matches within reach
and left the room. I drew out my cigarette case and
was holding it half-opened, when the glass in the window
back of me cracked sharply, a bullet whistled over
my head, struck the opposite wall and fell, flattened
and marred, on the table under my hand.



CHAPTER IV

A VOICE FROM THE LAKE


I ran to the window and peered out into the night.
The wood through which we had approached the house
seemed to encompass it. The branches of a great tree
brushed the panes. I was tugging at the fastening of
the window when I became aware of Bates at my elbow.

“Did something happen, sir?”

His unbroken calm angered me. Some one had fired
at me through a window and I had narrowly escaped
being shot. I resented the unconcern with which this
servant accepted the situation.

“Nothing worth mentioning. Somebody tried to assassinate
me, that’s all,” I said, in a voice that failed
to be calmly ironical. I was still fumbling at the catch
of the window.

“Allow me, sir,”—and he threw up the sash with an
ease that increased my irritation.

I leaned out and tried to find some clue to my assailant.
Bates opened another window and surveyed the
dark landscape with me.

“It was a shot from without, was it, sir?”

“Of course it was; you didn’t suppose I shot at myself,
did you?”

He examined the broken pane and picked up the bullet
from the table.

“It’s a rifle-ball, I should say.”

The bullet was half-flattened by its contact with the
wall. It was a cartridge ball of large caliber and might
have been fired from either rifle or pistol.

“It’s very unusual, sir!” I wheeled upon him angrily
and found him fumbling with the bit of metal, a
troubled look in his face. He at once continued, as
though anxious to allay my fears. “Quite accidental,
most likely. Probably boys on the lake are shooting at
ducks.”

I laughed out so suddenly that Bates started back in
alarm.

“You idiot!” I roared, seizing him by the collar with
both hands and shaking him fiercely. “You fool! Do the
people around here shoot ducks at night? Do they
shoot water-fowl with elephant guns and fire at people
through windows just for fun?”

I threw him back against the table so that it leaped
away from him, and he fell prone on the floor.

“Get up!” I commanded, “and fetch a lantern.”

He said nothing, but did as I bade him. We traversed
the long cheerless hall to the front door, and I sent him
before me into the woodland. My notions of the geography
of the region were the vaguest, but I wished to
examine for myself the premises that evidently contained
a dangerous prowler. I was very angry and my
rage increased as I followed Bates, who had suddenly
retired within himself. We stood soon beneath the
lights of the refectory window.

The ground was covered with leaves which broke
crisply under our feet.

“What lies beyond here?” I demanded.

“About a quarter of mile of woods, sir, and then the
lake.”

“Go ahead,” I ordered, “straight to the lake.”

I was soon stumbling through rough underbrush similar
to that through which we had approached the house.
Bates swung along confidently enough ahead of me,
pausing occasionally to hold back the branches. I began
to feel, as my rage abated, that I had set out on a foolish
undertaking. I was utterly at sea as to the character of
the grounds; I was following a man whom I had not
seen until two hours before, and whom I began to suspect
of all manner of designs upon me. It was wholly
unlikely that the person who had fired into the windows
would lurk about, and, moreover, the light of the lantern,
the crack of the leaves and the breaking of the
boughs advertised our approach loudly. I am, however,
a person given to steadfastness in error, if nothing else,
and I plunged along behind my guide with a grim determination
to reach the margin of the lake, if for no
other reason than to exercise my authority over the
custodian of this strange estate.

A bush slapped me sharply and I stopped to rub the
sting from my face.

“Are you hurt, sir?” asked Bates solicitously, turning
with the lantern.

“Of course not,” I snapped. “I’m having the time
of my life. Are there no paths in this jungle?”

“Not through here, sir. It was Mr. Glenarm’s idea
not to disturb the wood at all. He was very fond of
walking through the timber.”

“Not at night, I hope! Where are we now?”

“Quite near the lake, sir.”

“Then go on.”

I was out of patience with Bates, with the pathless
woodland, and, I must confess, with the spirit of John
Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather.

We came out presently upon a gravelly beach, and
Bates stamped suddenly on planking.

“This is the Glenarm dock, sir; and that’s the boat-house.”

He waved his lantern toward a low structure that rose
dark beside us. As we stood silent, peering out into the
starlight, I heard distinctly the dip of a paddle and the
soft gliding motion of a canoe.

“It’s a boat, sir,” whispered Bates, hiding the lantern
under his coat.

I brushed past him and crept to the end of the dock.
The paddle dipped on silently and evenly in the still
water, but the sound grew fainter. A canoe is the most
graceful, the most sensitive, the most inexplicable contrivance
of man. With its paddle you may dip up stars
along quiet shores or steal into the very harbor of
dreams. I knew that furtive splash instantly, and knew
that a trained hand wielded the paddle. My boyhood
summers in the Maine woods were not, I frequently
find, wholly wasted.

The owner of the canoe had evidently stolen close to
the Glenarm dock, and had made off when alarmed by
the noise of our approach through the wood.

“Have you a boat here?”

“The boat-house is locked and I haven’t the key with
me, sir,” he replied without excitement.

“Of course you haven’t it,” I snapped, full of anger
at his tone of irreproachable respect, and at my own
helplessness. I had not even seen the place by daylight,
and the woodland behind me and the lake at my feet
were things of shadow and mystery. In my rage I
stamped my foot.

“Lead the way back,” I roared.

I had turned toward the woodland when suddenly
there stole across the water a voice,—a woman’s voice,
deep, musical and deliberate.

“Really, I shouldn’t be so angry if I were you!” it
said, with a lingering note on the word angry.

“Who are you? What are you doing there?” I bawled.

“Just enjoying a little tranquil thought!” was the
drawling, mocking reply.

Far out upon the water I heard the dip and glide of
the canoe, and saw faintly its outline for a moment;
then it was gone. The lake, the surrounding wood, were
an unknown world,—the canoe, a boat of dreams. Then
again came the voice:

“Good night, merry gentlemen!”

“It was a lady, sir,” remarked Bates, after we had
waited silently for a full minute.

“How clever you are!” I sneered. “I suppose ladies
prowl about here at night, shooting ducks or into people’s
houses.”

“It would seem quite likely, sir.”

I should have liked to cast him into the lake, but be
was already moving away, the lantern swinging at his
side. I followed him, back through the woodland to the
house.

My spirits quickly responded to the cheering influence
of the great library. I stirred the fire on the
hearth into life and sat down before it, tired from my
tramp. I was mystified and perplexed by the incident
that had already marked my coming. It was possible,
to be sure, that the bullet which narrowly missed my
head in the little dining-room had been a wild shot that
carried no evil intent. I dismissed at once the idea that
it might have been fired from the lake; it had crashed
through the glass with too much force to have come so
far; and, moreover, I could hardly imagine even a rifle-ball’s
finding an unimpeded right of way through so
dense a strip of wood. I found it difficult to get rid of
the idea that some one had taken a pot-shot at me.

The woman’s mocking voice from the lake added to
my perplexity. It was not, I reflected, such a voice as
one might expect to hear from a country girl; nor could
I imagine any errand that would excuse a woman’s
presence abroad on an October night whose cool air inspired
first confidences with fire and lamp. There was
something haunting in that last cry across the water;
it kept repeating itself over and over in my ears. It
was a voice of quality, of breeding and charm.

“Good night, merry gentlemen!”

In Indiana, I reflected, rustics, young or old, men or
women, were probably not greatly given to salutations
of just this temper.

Bates now appeared.

“Beg pardon, sir; but your room’s ready whenever
you wish to retire.”

I looked about in search of a clock.

“There are no timepieces in the house, Mr. Glenarm.
Your grandfather was quite opposed to them. He had
a theory, sir, that they were conducive, as he said, to
idleness. He considered that a man should work by his
conscience, sir, and not by the clock,—the one being
more exacting than the other.”

I smiled as I drew out my watch,—as much at Bates’
solemn tones and grim lean visage as at his quotation
from my grandsire. But the fellow puzzled and annoyed
me. His unobtrusive black clothes, his smoothly-brushed
hair, his shaven face, awakened an antagonism
in me.

“Bates, if you didn’t fire that shot through the window,
who did—will you answer me that?”

“Yes, sir; if I didn’t do it, it’s quite a large question
who did. I’ll grant you that, sir.”

I stared at him. He met my gaze directly without
flinching; nor was there anything insolent in his tone
or attitude. He continued:

“I didn’t do it, sir. I was in the pantry when I heard
the crash in the refectory window. The bullet came
from out of doors, as I should judge, sir.”

The facts and conclusions were undoubtedly with
Bates, and I felt that I had not acquitted myself creditably
in my effort to fix the crime on him. My abuse of
him had been tactless, to say the least, and I now tried
another line of attack.

“Of course, Bates, I was merely joking. What’s your
own theory of the matter?”

“I have no theory, sir. Mr. Glenarm always warned
me against theories. He said—if you will pardon me—
there was great danger in the speculative mind.”

The man spoke with a slight Irish accent, which in
itself puzzled me. I have always been attentive to the
peculiarities of speech, and his was not the brogue of
the Irish servant class. Larry Donovan, who was English-born,
used on occasions an exaggerated Irish dialect
that was wholly different from the smooth liquid tones of
Bates. But more things than his speech were to puzzle
me in this man.

“The person in the canoe? How do you account for
her?” I asked.

“I haven’t accounted for her, sir. There’s no women
on these grounds, or any sort of person except ourselves.”

“But there are neighbors,—farmers, people of some
kind must live along the lake.”

“A few, sir; and then there’s the school quite a bit
beyond your own west wall.”

His slight reference to my proprietorship, my own
wall, as he put it, pleased me.

“Oh, yes; there is a school—girls?—yes; Mr. Pickering
mentioned it. But the girls hardly paddle on the
lake at night, at this season—hunting ducks—should
you say, Bates?”

“I don’t believe they do any shooting, Mr. Glenarm.
It’s a pretty strict school, I judge, sir, from all accounts.”

“And the teachers—they are all women?”

“They’re the Sisters of St. Agatha, I believe they call
them. I sometimes see them walking abroad. They’re
very quiet neighbors, and they go away in the summer
usually, except Sister Theresa. The school’s her regular
home, sir. And there’s the little chapel quite near the
wall; the young minister lives there; and the gardener’s
the only other man on the grounds.”

So my immediate neighbors were Protestant nuns
and school-girls, with a chaplain and gardener thrown
in for variety. Still, the chaplain might be a social resource.
There was nothing in the terms of my grandfather’s
will to prevent my cultivating the acquaintance
of a clergyman. It even occurred to me that this might
be a part of the game: my soul was to be watched over
by a rural priest, while, there being nothing else to do,
I was to give my attention to the study of architecture.
Bates, my guard and housekeeper, was brushing the
hearth with deliberate care.

“Show me my cell,” I said, rising, “and I’ll go to
bed.”

He brought from somewhere a great brass candelabrum
that held a dozen lights, and explained:

“This was Mr. Glenarm’s habit. He always used this
one to go to bed with. I’m sure he’d wish you to have
it, sir.”

I thought I detected something like a quaver in the
man’s voice. My grandfather’s memory was dear to him.
I reflected, and I was moved to compassion for him.

“How long were you with Mr. Glenarm, Bates?” I
inquired, as I followed him into the hall.

“Five years, sir. He employed me the year you went
abroad. I remember very well his speaking of it. He
greatly admired you, sir.”

He led the way, holding the cluster of lights high for
my guidance up the broad stairway.

The hall above shared the generous lines of the whole
house, but the walls were white and hard to the eye.
Rough planks had been laid down for a floor, and beyond
the light of the candles lay a dark region that gave
out ghostly echoes as the loose boards rattled under our
feet.

“I hope you’ll not be too much disappointed, sir,”
said Bates, pausing a moment before opening a door.
“It’s all quite unfinished, but comfortable, I should say,
quite comfortable.”

“Open the door!”

He was not my host and I did not relish his apology.
I walked past him into a small sitting-room that was,
in a way, a miniature of the great library below. Open
shelves filled with books lined the apartment to the
ceiling on every hand, save where a small fireplace, a
cabinet and table were built into the walls. In the
center of the room was a long table with writing materials
set in nice order. I opened a handsome case and
found that it contained a set of draftsman’s instruments.

I groaned aloud.

“Mr. Glenarm preferred this room for working. The
tools were his very own, sir.”

“The devil they were!” I exclaimed irascibly. I
snatched a book from the nearest shelf and threw it
open on the table. It was The Tower: Its Early Use
for Purposes of Defense. London: 1816.

I closed it with a slam.

“The sleeping-room is beyond, sir. I hope—”

“Don’t you hope any more!” I growled; “and it
doesn’t make any difference whether I’m disappointed
or not.”

“Certainly not, sir!” he replied in a tone that made
me ashamed of myself.

The adjoining bedroom was small and meagerly furnished.
The walls were untinted and were relieved only
by prints of English cathedrals, French chateaux, and
like suggestions of the best things known to architecture.
The bed was the commonest iron type; and the
other articles of furniture were chosen with a strict regard
for utility. My trunks and bags had been carried
in, and Bates asked from the door for my commands.

“Mr. Glenarm always breakfasted at seven-thirty, sir,
as near as he could hit it without a timepiece, and he
was quite punctual. His ways were a little odd, sir. He
used to prowl about at night a good deal, and there was
no following him.”

“I fancy I shan’t do much prowling,” I declared.
“And my grandfather’s breakfast hour will suit me exactly,
Bates.”

“If there’s nothing further, sir—”

“That’s all;—and Bates—”

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Of course you understand that I didn’t really mean
to imply that you had fired that shot at me?”

“I beg you not to mention it, Mr. Glenarm.”

“But it was a little queer. If you should gain any
light on the subject, let me know.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“But I believe, Bates, that we’d better keep the shades
down at night. These duck hunters hereabouts are apparently
reckless. And you might attend to these now,
—and every evening hereafter.”

I wound my watch as he obeyed. I admit that in my
heart I still half-suspected the fellow of complicity with
the person who had fired at me through the dining-room
window. It was rather odd, I reflected, that the shades
should have been open, though I might account for this
by the fact that this curious unfinished establishment
was not subject to the usual laws governing orderly
housekeeping. Bates was evidently aware of my suspicions,
and he remarked, drawing down the last of the
plain green shades:

“Mr. Glenarm never drew them, sir. It was a saying
of his, if I may repeat his words, that he liked the open.
These are eastern windows, and he took a quiet pleasure
in letting the light waken him. It was one of his oddities,
sir.”

“To be sure. That’s all, Bates.”

He gravely bade me good night, and I followed him
to the outer door and watched his departing figure,
lighted by a single candle that he had produced from
his pocket.

I stood for several minutes listening to his step, tracing
it through the hall below—as far as my knowledge
of the house would permit. Then, in unknown regions,
I could hear the closing of doors and drawing of bolts.
Verily, my jailer was a person of painstaking habits.

I opened my traveling-case and distributed its contents
on the dressing-table. I had carried through all
my adventures a folding leather photograph-holder, containing
portraits of my father and mother and of John
Marshall Glenarm, my grandfather, and this I set up
on the mantel in the little sitting-room. I felt to-night
as never before how alone I was in the world, and a
need for companionship and sympathy stirred in me.
It was with a new and curious interest that I peered
into my grandfather’s shrewd old eyes. He used to come
and go fitfully at my father’s house; but my father had
displeased him in various ways that I need not recite,
and my father’s death had left me with an estrangement
which I had widened by my own acts.

Now that I had reached Glenarm, my mind reverted
to Pickering’s estimate of the value of my grandfather’s
estate. Although John Marshall Glenarm was an eccentric
man, he had been able to accumulate a large fortune;
and yet I had allowed the executor to tell me that
he had died comparatively poor. In so readily accepting
the terms of the will and burying myself in a region of
which I knew nothing, I had cut myself off from the
usual channels of counsel. If I left the place to return
to New York I should simply disinherit myself. At
Glenarm I was, and there I must remain to the end of
the year; I grew bitter against Pickering as I reflected
upon the ease with which he had got rid of me. I had
always satisfied myself that my wits were as keen as his,
but I wondered now whether I had not stupidly put myself
in his power.



CHAPTER V

A RED TAM-O’-SHANTER


I looked out on the bright October morning with a
renewed sense of isolation. Trees crowded about my
windows, many of them still wearing their festal colors,
scarlet and brown and gold, with the bright green of
some sulking companion standing out here and there
with startling vividness. I put on an old corduroy outing
suit and heavy shoes, ready for a tramp abroad, and
went below.

The great library seemed larger than ever when I beheld
it in the morning light. I opened one of the
French windows and stepped out on a stone terrace,
where I gained a fair view of the exterior of the house,
which proved to be a modified Tudor, with battlements
and two towers. One of the latter was only half-finished,
and to it and to other parts of the house the workmen’s
scaffolding still clung. Heaps of stone and piles of lumber
were scattered about in great disorder. The house
extended partly along the edge of a ravine, through
which a slender creek ran toward the lake. The terrace
became a broad balcony immediately outside the library,
and beneath it the water bubbled pleasantly around
heavy stone pillars. Two pretty rustic bridges spanned
the ravine, one near the front entrance, the other at the
rear. My grandfather had begun his house on a generous
plan, but, buried as it was among the trees, it suffered
from lack of perspective. However, on one side toward
the lake was a fair meadow, broken by a water-tower,
and just beyond the west dividing wall I saw a little
chapel; and still farther, in the same direction, the outlines
of the buildings of St. Agatha’s were vaguely perceptible
in another strip of woodland.

The thought of gentle nuns and school-girls as neighbors
amused me. All I asked was that they should keep
to their own side of the wall.

I heard behind me the careful step of Bates.

“Good morning, Mr. Glenarm. I trust you rested
quite well, sir.”

His figure was as austere, his tone as respectful and
colorless as by night. The morning light gave him a
pallid cast. He suffered my examination coolly enough;
his eyes were, indeed, the best thing about him.

“This is what Mr. Glenarm called the platform. I
believe it’s in Hamlet, sir.”

I laughed aloud. “Elsinore: A Platform Before the
Castle.”

“It was one of Mr. Glenarm’s little fancies, you might
call it, sir.”

“And the ghost,—where does the murdered majesty of
Denmark lie by day?”

“I fear it wasn’t provided, sir! As you see, Mr. Glenarm,
the house is quite incomplete. My late master had
not carried out all his plans.”

Bates did not smile. I fancied he never smiled, and
I wondered whether John Marshall Glenarm had played
upon the man’s lack of humor. My grandfather had
been possessed of a certain grim, ironical gift at jesting,
and quite likely he had amused himself by experimenting
upon his serving man.

“You may breakfast when you like, sir,”—and thus
admonished I went into the refectory.

A newspaper lay at my plate; it was the morning’s
issue of a Chicago daily. I was, then, not wholly out of
the world, I reflected, scanning the head-lines.

“Your grandfather rarely examined the paper. Mr.
Glenarm was more particularly interested in the old
times. He wasn’t what you might call up to date,—if
you will pardon the expression, sir.”

“You are quite right about that, Bates. He was a
medievalist in his sympathies.”

“Thank you for that word, sir; I’ve frequently heard
him apply it to himself. The plain omelette was a great
favorite with your grandfather. I hope it is to your liking,
sir.”

“It’s excellent, Bates. And your coffee is beyond
praise.”

“Thank you, Mr. Glenarm. One does what one can,
sir.”

He had placed me so that I faced the windows, an
attention to my comfort and safety which I appreciated.
The broken pane told the tale of the shot that had so
narrowly missed me the night before.

“I’ll repair that to-day, sir,” Bates remarked, seeing
my eyes upon the window.

“You know that I’m to spend a year on this place;
I assume that you understand the circumstances,” I
said, feeling it wise that we should understand each
other.

“Quite so, Mr. Glenarm.”

“I’m a student, you know, and all I want is to be left
alone.”

This I threw in to reassure myself rather than for
his information. It was just as well, I reflected, to assert
a little authority, even though the fellow undoubtedly
represented Pickering and received orders from
him.

“In a day or two, or as soon as I have got used to the
place, I shall settle down to work in the library. You
may give me breakfast at seven-thirty; luncheon at one-thirty
and dinner at seven.”

“Those were my late master’s hours, sir.”

“Very good. And I’ll eat anything you please, except
mutton broth, meat pie and canned strawberries.
Strawberries in tins, Bates, are not well calculated to
lift the spirit of man.”

“I quite agree with you, sir, if you will pardon my
opinion.”

“And the bills—”

“They are provided for by Mr. Pickering. He sends
me an allowance for the household expenses.”

“So you are to report to him, are you, as heretofore?”

I blew out a match with which I had lighted a cigar
and watched the smoking end intently.

“I believe that’s the idea, sir.”

It is not pleasant to be under compulsion,—to feel
your freedom curtailed, to be conscious of espionage. I
rose without a word and went into the hall.

“You may like to have the keys,” said Bates, following
me. “There’s two for the gates in the outer wall
and one for the St. Agatha’s gate; they’re marked, as
you see. And here’s the hall-door key and the boat-house
key that you asked for last night.”

After an hour spent in unpacking I went out into the
grounds. I had thought it well to wire Pickering of
my arrival, and I set out for Annandale to send him a
telegram. My spirit lightened under the influences of
the crisp air and cheering sunshine. What had seemed
strange and shadowy at night was clear enough by
day.

I found the gate through which we had entered the
grounds the night before without difficulty. The stone
wall was assuredly no flimsy thing. It was built in a
thoroughly workmanlike manner, and I mentally computed
its probable cost with amazement. There were,
I reflected, much more satisfactory ways of spending
money than in building walls around Indiana forests.
But the place was mine, or as good as mine, and there
was no manner of use in quarreling with the whims of
my dead grandfather. At the expiration of a year I
could tear down the wall if I pleased; and as to the incomplete
house, that I should sell or remodel to my
liking.

On the whole, I settled into an amiable state of mind;
my perplexity over the shot of the night before was passing
away under the benign influences of blue sky and
warm sunshine. A few farm-folk passed me in the
highway and gave me good morning in the fashion of
the country, inspecting my knickerbockers at the same
time with frank disapproval. I reached the lake and
gazed out upon its quiet waters with satisfaction. At
the foot of Annandale’s main street was a dock where
several small steam-craft and a number of catboats were
being dismantled for the winter. As I passed, a man
approached the dock in a skiff, landed and tied his boat.
He started toward the village at a quick pace, but turned
and eyed me with rustic directness.

“Good morning!” I said. “Any ducks about?”

He paused, nodded and fell into step with me.

“No,—not enough to pay for the trouble.”

“I’m sorry for that. I’d hoped to pick up a few.”

“I guess you’re a stranger in these parts,” he remarked,
eying me again,—my knickerbockers no doubt
marking me as an alien.

“Quite so. My name is Glenarm, and I’ve just come.”

“I thought you might be him. We’ve rather been expecting
you here in the village. I’m John Morgan, caretaker
of the resorters’ houses up the lake.”

“I suppose you all knew my grandfather hereabouts.”

“Well, yes; you might say as we did, or you might
say as we didn’t. He wasn’t just the sort that you got
next to in a hurry. He kept pretty much to himself.
He built a wall there to keep us out, but he needn’t have
troubled himself. We’re not the kind around here to
meddle, and you may be sure the summer people never
bothered him.”

There was a tone of resentment in his voice, and I
hastened to say:

“I’m sure you’re mistaken about the purposes of that
wall. My grandfather was a student of architecture. It
was a hobby of his. The house and wall were in the line
of his experiments, and to please his whims. I hope the
people of the village won’t hold any hard feelings
against his memory or against me. Why, the labor there
must have been a good thing for the people hereabouts.”

“It ought to have been,” said the man gruffly; “but
that’s where the trouble comes in. He brought a lot of
queer fellows here under contract to work for him,
Italians, or Greeks, or some sort of foreigners. They
built the wall, and he had them at work inside for half
a year. He didn’t even let them out for air; and when
they finished his job he loaded ’em on to a train one
day and hauled ’em away.”

“That was quite like him, I’m sure,” I said, remembering
with amusement my grandfather’s secretive
ways.

“I guess he was a crank all right,” said the man conclusively.

It was evident that he did not care to establish friendly
relations with the resident of Glenarm. He was about
forty, light, with a yellow beard and pale blue eyes. He
was dressed roughly and wore a shabby soft hat.

“Well, I suppose I’ll have to assume responsibility
for him and his acts,” I remarked, piqued by the fellow’s
surliness.

We had reached the center of the village, and he left
me abruptly, crossing the street to one of the shops. I
continued on to the railway station, where I wrote and
paid for my message. The station-master inspected me
carefully as I searched my pockets for change.

“You want your telegrams delivered at the house?”
he asked.

“Yes, please,” I answered, and he turned away to
his desk of clicking instruments without looking at me
again.

It seemed wise to establish relations with the post-office,
so I made myself known to the girl who stood at
the delivery window.

“You already have a box,” she advised me. “There’s
a boy carries the mail to your house; Mr. Bates hires
him.”

Bates had himself given me this information, but the
girl seemed to find pleasure in imparting it with a certain
severity. I then bought a cake of soap at the principal
drug store and purchased a package of smoking-tobacco,
which I did not need, at a grocery.

News of my arrival had evidently reached the villagers;
I was conceited enough to imagine that my presence
was probably of interest to them; but the station-master,
the girl at the post-office and the clerks in the
shops treated me with an unmistakable cold reserve.
There was a certain evenness of the chill which they
visited upon me, as though a particular degree of frigidity
had been determined in advance.

I shrugged my shoulders and turned toward Glenarm.
My grandfather had left me a cheerful legacy of
distrust among my neighbors, the result, probably, of
importing foreign labor to work on his house. The surly
Morgan had intimated as much; but it did not greatly
matter. I had not come to Glenarm to cultivate the
rustics, but to fulfil certain obligations laid down in
my grandfather’s will. I was, so to speak, on duty, and
I much preferred that the villagers should let me alone.
Comforting myself with these reflections I reached the
wharf, where I saw Morgan sitting with his feet dangling
over the water, smoking a pipe.

I nodded in his direction, but he feigned not to see
me. A moment later he jumped into his boat and rowed
out into the lake.

When I returned to the house Bates was at work in
the kitchen. This was a large square room with heavy
timbers showing in the walls and low ceiling. There
was a great fireplace having an enormous chimney and
fitted with a crane and bobs, but for practical purposes
a small range was provided.

Bates received me placidly.

“Yes; it’s an unusual kitchen, sir. Mr. Glenarm
copied it from an old kitchen in England. He took
quite a pride in it. It’s a pleasant place to sit in the
evening, sir.”

He showed me the way below, where I found that the
cellar extended under every part of the house, and was
divided into large chambers. The door of one of them
was of heavy oak, bound in iron, with a barred opening
at the top. A great iron hasp with a heavy padlock and
grilled area windows gave further the impression of a
cell, and I fear that at this, as at many other things in
the curious house, I swore—if I did not laugh—thinking
of the money my grandfather had expended in realizing
his whims. The room was used, I noted with pleasure,
as a depository for potatoes. I asked Bates whether
he knew my grandfather’s purpose in providing a cell in
his house.

“That, sir, was another of the dead master’s ideas.
He remarked to me once that it was just as well to have
a dungeon in a well-appointed house,—his humor again,
sir! And it comes in quite handy for the potatoes.”

In another room I found a curious collection of lanterns
of every conceivable description, grouped on
shelves, and next door to this was a store-room filled
with brass candlesticks of many odd designs. I shall not
undertake to describe my sensations as, peering about
with a candle in my hand, the vagaries of John Marshall
Glenarm’s mind were further disclosed to me. It was
almost beyond belief that any man with such whims
should ever have had the money to gratify them.

I returned to the main floor and studied the titles of
the books in the library, finally smoking a pipe over a
very tedious chapter in an exceedingly dull work on
Norman Revivals and Influences. Then I went out, assuring
myself that I should get steadily to work in a day
or two. It was not yet eleven o’clock, and time was sure
to move deliberately within the stone walls of my
prison. The long winter lay before me in which I must
study perforce, and just now it was pleasant to view the
landscape in all its autumn splendor.

Bates was soberly chopping wood at a rough pile of
timber at the rear of the house. His industry had already
impressed me. He had the quiet ways of an ideal
serving man.

“Well, Bates, you don’t intend to let me freeze to
death, do you? There must be enough in the pile there
to last all winter.”

“Yes, sir; I am just cutting a little more of the hickory,
sir. Mr. Glenarm always preferred it to beech or
maple. We only take out the old timber. The summer
storms eat into the wood pretty bad, sir.”

“Oh, hickory, to be sure! I’ve heard it’s the best firewood.
That’s very thoughtful of you.”

I turned next to the unfinished tower in the meadow,
from which a windmill pumped water to the house. The
iron frame was not wholly covered with stone, but material
for the remainder of the work lay scattered at the
base. I went on through the wood to the lake and inspected
the boat-house. It was far more pretentious
than I had imagined from my visit in the dark. It was
of two stories, the upper half being a cozy lounging-room,
with wide windows and a fine outlook over the
water. The unplastered walls were hung with Indian
blankets; lounging-chairs and a broad seat under the
windows, colored matting on the floor and a few prints
pinned upon the Navajoes gave further color to the
place.

I followed the pebbly shore to the stone wall where
it marked the line of the school-grounds. The wall, I
observed, was of the same solid character here as along
the road. I tramped beside it, reflecting that my grandfather’s
estate, in the heart of the Republic, would some
day give the lie to foreign complaints that we have no
ruins in America.

I had assumed that there was no opening in the wall,
but half-way to the road I found an iron gate, fastened
with chain and padlock, by means of which I climbed
to the top. The pillars at either side of the gate were of
huge dimensions and were higher than I could reach.
An intelligent forester had cleared the wood in the
school-grounds, which were of the same general character
as the Glenarm estate. The little Gothic church
near at hand was built of stone similar to that used in
Glenarm House. As I surveyed the scene a number of
young women came from one of the school-buildings
and, forming in twos and fours, walked back and forth
in a rough path that led to the chapel. A Sister clad in a
brown habit lingered near or walked first with one and
then another of the students. It was all very pretty and
interesting and not at all the ugly school for paupers I
had expected to find. The students were not the charity
children I had carelessly pictured; they were not so
young, for one thing, and they seemed to be appareled
decently enough.

I smiled to find myself adjusting my scarf and
straightening my collar as I beheld my neighbors for
the first time.

As I sat thus on the wall I heard the sound of angry
voices back of me on the Glenarm side, and a crash of
underbrush marked a flight and pursuit. I crouched
down on the wall and waited. In a moment a man
plunged through the wood and stumbled over a low-hanging
vine and fell, not ten yards from where I lay.
To my great surprise it was Morgan, my acquaintance
of the morning. He rose, cursed his ill luck and, hugging
the wall close, ran toward the lake. Instantly the
pursuer broke into view. It was Bates, evidently much
excited and with an ugly cut across his forehead. He
carried a heavy club, and, after listening for a moment
for sounds of the enemy, he hurried after the caretaker.

It was not my row, though I must say it quickened
my curiosity. I straightened myself out, threw my legs
over the school side of the wall and lighted a cigar,
feeling cheered by the opportunity the stone barricade
offered for observing the world.

As I looked off toward the little church I found two
other actors appearing on the scene. A girl stood in a
little opening of the wood, talking to a man. Her hands
were thrust into the pockets of her covert coat; she wore
a red tam-o’-shanter, that made a bright bit of color in
the wood. They were not more than twenty feet away,
but a wild growth of young maples lay between us,
screening the wall. Their profiles were toward me, and
the tones of the girl’s voice reached me clearly, as she
addressed her companion. He wore a clergyman’s high
waistcoat, and I assumed that he was the chaplain whom
Bates had mentioned. I am not by nature an eavesdropper,
but the girl was clearly making a plea of some
kind, and the chaplain’s stalwart figure awoke in me an
antagonism that held me to the wall.

“If he comes here I shall go away, so you may as well
understand it and tell him. I shan’t see him under any
circumstances, and I’m not going to Florida or California
or anywhere else in a private car, no matter who
chaperones it.”

“Certainly not, unless you want to—certainly not,”
said the chaplain. “You understand that I’m only giving
you his message. He thought it best—”

“Not to write to me or to Sister Theresa!” interrupted
the girl contemptuously. “What a clever man
he is!”

“And how unclever I am!” said the clergyman, laughing.
“Well, I thank you for giving me the opportunity
to present his message.”

She smiled, nodded and turned swiftly toward the
school. The chaplain looked after her for a few moments,
then walked away soberly toward the lake. He
was a young fellow, clean-shaven and dark, and with a
pair of shoulders that gave me a twinge of envy. I could
not guess how great a factor that vigorous figure was to
be in my own affairs. As I swung down from the wall
and walked toward Glenarm House, my thoughts were
not with the athletic chaplain, but with the girl, whose
youth was, I reflected, marked by her short skirt, the unconcern
with which her hands were thrust into the
pockets of her coat, and the irresponsible tilt of the tam-o’-shanter.
There is something jaunty, a suggestion of
spirit and independence in a tam-o’-shanter, particularly
a red one. If the red tam-o’-shanter expressed, so to
speak, the key-note of St. Agatha’s, the proximity of the
school was not so bad a thing after all.

In high good-humor and with a sharp appetite I went
in to luncheon.



CHAPTER VI

THE GIRL AND THE CANOE

“The persimmons are off the place, sir. Mr. Glenarm
was very fond of the fruit.”

I had never seen a persimmon before, but I was in a
mood for experiment. The frost-broken rind was certainly
forbidding, but the rich pulp brought a surprise
of joy to my palate. Bates watched me with respectful
satisfaction. His gravity was in no degree diminished
by the presence of a neat strip of flesh-colored court-plaster
over his right eye. A faint suggestion of arnica
hung in the air.

“This is a quiet life,” I remarked, wishing to give
him an opportunity to explain his encounter of the
morning.

“You are quite right, sir. As your grandfather used
to say, it’s a place of peace.”

“When nobody shoots at you through a window,” I
suggested.

“Such a thing is likely to happen to any gentleman,”
he replied, “but not likely to happen more than once, if
you’ll allow the philosophy.”

He did not refer to his encounter with the caretaker,
and I resolved to keep my knowledge of it to myself. I
always prefer to let a rascal hang himself, and here was
a case, I reasoned, where, if Bates were disloyal to the
duties Pickering had imposed upon him, the fact of his
perfidy was bound to disclose itself eventually. Glancing
around at him when he was off guard I surprised
a look of utter dejection upon his face as he stood with
folded arms behind my chair.

He flushed and started, then put his hand to his forehead.

“I met with a slight accident this morning, sir. The
hickory’s very tough, sir. A piece of wood flew up and
struck me.”

“Too bad!” I said with sympathy. “You’d better
rest a bit this afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir; but it’s a small matter,—only, you
might think it a trifle disfiguring.”

He struck a match for my cigarette, and I left without
looking at him again. But as I crossed the threshold
of the library I formulated this note: “Bates is a
liar, for one thing, and a person with active enemies for
another; watch him.”

All things considered, the day was passing well
enough. I picked up a book, and threw myself on a comfortable
divan to smoke and reflect before continuing my
explorations. As I lay there, Bates brought me a telegram,
a reply to my message to Pickering. It read:

“Yours announcing arrival received and filed.”

It was certainly a queer business, my errand to Glenarm.
I lay for a couple of hours dreaming, and counted
the candles in the great crystal chandelier until my eyes
ached. Then I rose, took my cap, and was soon tramping
off toward the lake.

There were several small boats and a naphtha launch
in the boat-house. I dropped a canoe into the water and
paddled off toward the summer colony, whose gables and
chimneys were plainly visible from the Glenarm shore.

I landed and roamed idly over leaf-strewn walks past
nearly a hundred cottages, to whose windows and verandas
the winter blinds gave a dreary and inhospitable
air. There was, at one point, a casino, whose broad veranda
hung over the edge of the lake, while beneath, on
the water-side, was a boat-house. I had from this point
a fine view of the lake, and I took advantage of it to
fix in my mind the topography of the region. I could
see the bold outlines of Glenarm House and its red-tile
roofs; and the gray tower of the little chapel beyond
the wall rose above the wood with a placid dignity.
Above the trees everywhere hung the shadowy smoke of
autumn.

I walked back to the wharf, where I had left my
canoe, and was about to step into it when I saw, rocking
at a similar landing-place near-by, another slight
craft of the same type as my own, but painted dark
maroon. I was sure the canoe had not been there when
I landed. Possibly it belonged to Morgan, the caretaker.
I walked over and examined it. I even lifted it
slightly in the water to test its weight. The paddle lay
on the dock beside me and it, too, I weighed critically,
deciding that it was a trifle light for my own taste.

“Please—if you don’t mind—”

I turned to stand face to face with the girl in the red
tam-o’-shanter.

“I beg your pardon,” I said, stepping away from the
canoe.

She did not wear the covert coat of the morning, but
a red knit jacket, buttoned tight about her. She was
young with every emphasis of youth. A pair of dark
blue eyes examined me with good-humored curiosity.
She was on good terms with the sun—I rejoiced in the
brown of her cheeks, so eloquent of companionship with
the outdoor world—a certificate indeed of the favor of
Heaven. Show me, in October, a girl with a face of
tan, whose hands have plied a paddle or driven a golf-ball
or cast a fly beneath the blue arches of summer,
and I will suffer her scorn in joy. She may vote me
dull and refute my wisest word with laughter, for hers
are the privileges of the sisterhood of Diana; and that
soft bronze, those daring fugitive freckles beneath her
eyes, link her to times when Pan whistled upon his reed
and all the days were long.

She had approached silently and was enjoying, I felt
sure, my discomfiture at being taken unawares.

I had snatched off my cap and stood waiting beside
the canoe, feeling, I must admit, a trifle guilty at being
caught in the unwarrantable inspection of another person’s
property—particularly a person so wholly pleasing
to the eye.

“Really, if you don’t need that paddle any more—”

I looked down and found to my annoyance that I held
it in my hand,—was in fact leaning upon it with a cool
air of proprietorship.

“Again, I beg your pardon,” I said. “I hadn’t expected—”

She eyed me calmly with the stare of the child that
arrives at a drawing-room door by mistake and scrutinizes
the guests without awe. I didn’t know what I had
expected or had not expected, and she manifested no
intention of helping me to explain. Her short skirt
suggested fifteen or sixteen—not more—and such being
the case there was no reason why I should not be master
of the situation. As I fumbled my pipe the hot coals
of tobacco burned my hand and I cast the thing from
me.

She laughed a little and watched the pipe bound from
the dock into the water.

“Too bad!” she said, her eyes upon it; “but if you
hurry you may get it before it floats away.”

“Thank you for the suggestion,” I said. But I did
not relish the idea of kneeling on the dock to fish for a
pipe before a strange school-girl who was, I felt sure,
anxious to laugh at me.

She took a step toward the line by which her boat was
fastened.

“Allow me.”

“If you think you can,—safely,” she said; and the
laughter that lurked in her eyes annoyed me.

“The feminine knot is designed for the confusion of
man,” I observed, twitching vainly at the rope, which
was tied securely in unfamiliar loops.

She was singularly unresponsive. The thought that
she was probably laughing at my clumsiness did not
make my fingers more nimble.

“The nautical instructor at St. Agatha’s is undoubtedly
a woman. This knot must come in the post-graduate
course. But my gallantry is equal, I trust, to your
patience.”

The maid in the red tam-o’-shanter continued silent.
The wet rope was obdurate, the knot more and more
hopeless, and my efforts to make light of the situation
awakened no response in the girl. I tugged away at the
rope, attacking its tangle on various theories.

“A case for surgery, I’m afraid. A truly Gordian knot,
but I haven’t my knife.”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t!” she exclaimed. “I think I
can manage.”

She bent down—I was aware that the sleeve of her
jacket brushed my shoulder—seized an end that I had
ignored, gave it a sharp tug with a slim brown hand and
pulled the knot free.

“There!” she exclaimed with a little laugh; “I might
have saved you all the bother.”

“How dull of me! But I didn’t have the combination,”
I said, steadying the canoe carefully to mitigate the
ignominy of my failure.

She scorned the hand I extended, but embarked with
light confident step and took the paddle. It was growing
late. The shadows in the wood were deepening; a
chill crept over the water, and, beyond the tower of the
chapel, the sky was bright with the splendor of sunset.

With a few skilful strokes she brought her little craft
beside my pipe, picked it up and tossed it to the wharf.

“Perhaps you can pipe a tune upon it,” she said, dipping
the paddle tentatively.

“You put me under great obligations,” I declared.
“Are all the girls at St. Agatha’s as amiable?”

“I should say not! I’m a great exception,—and—I
really shouldn’t be talking to you at all! It’s against
the rules! And we don’t encourage smoking.”

“The chaplain doesn’t smoke, I suppose.”

“Not in chapel; I believe it isn’t done! And we
rarely see him elsewhere.”

She had idled with the paddle so far, but now lifted
her eyes and drew back the blade for a long stroke.

“But in the wood—this morning—by the wall!”

I hate myself to this day for having so startled her.
The poised blade dropped into the water with a splash;
she brought the canoe a trifle nearer to the wharf with
an almost imperceptible stroke, and turned toward me
with wonder and dismay in her eyes.

“So you are an eavesdropper and detective, are you?
I beg that you will give your master my compliments!
I really owe you an apology; I thought you were a gentleman!”
she exclaimed with withering emphasis, and
dipped her blade deep in flight.

I called, stammering incoherently, after her, but her
light argosy skimmed the water steadily. The paddle
rose and fell with trained precision, making scarcely a
ripple as she stole softly away toward the fairy towers
of the sunset. I stood looking after her, goaded with
self-contempt. A glory of yellow and red filled the west.
Suddenly the wind moaned in the wood behind the line
of cottages, swept over me and rippled the surface of the
lake. I watched its flight until it caught her canoe and
I marked the flimsy craft’s quick response, as the shaken
waters bore her alert figure upward on the swell, her
blade still maintaining its regular dip, until she disappeared
behind a little peninsula that made a harbor near
the school grounds.

The red tam-o’-shanter seemed at last to merge in the
red sky, and I turned to my canoe and paddled cheerlessly
home.



CHAPTER VII

THE MAN ON THE WALL


I was so thoroughly angry with myself that after
idling along the shores for an hour I lost my way in the
dark wood when I landed and brought up at the rear
door used by Bates for communication with the villagers
who supplied us with provender. I readily found
my way to the kitchen and to a flight of stairs beyond,
which connected the first and second floors. The house
was dark, and my good spirits were not increased as I
stumbled up the unfamiliar way in the dark, with, I
fear, a malediction upon my grandfather, who had built
and left incomplete a house so utterly preposterous. My
unpardonable fling at the girl still rankled; and I was
cold from the quick descent of the night chill on the
water and anxious to get into more comfortable clothes.
Once on the second floor I felt that I knew the way to
my room, and I was feeling my way toward it over the
rough floor when I heard low voices rising apparently
from my sitting-room.

It was pitch dark in the hall. I stopped short and
listened. The door of my room was open and a faint
light flashed once into the hall and disappeared. I heard
now a sound as of a hammer tapping upon wood-work.

Then it ceased, and a voice whispered:

“He’ll kill me if he finds me here. I’ll try again to-morrow.
I swear to God I’ll help you, but no more
now—”

Then the sound of a scuffle and again the tapping of
the hammer. After several minutes more of this there
was a whispered dialogue which I could not hear.

Whatever was occurring, two or three points struck
me on the instant. One of the conspirators was an unwilling
party to an act as yet unknown; second, they
had been unsuccessful and must wait for another opportunity;
and third, the business, whatever it was, was
clearly of some importance to myself, as my own apartments
in my grandfather’s strange house had been
chosen for the investigation.

Clearly, I was not prepared to close the incident, but
the idea of frightening my visitors appealed to my sense
of humor. I tiptoed to the front stairway, ran lightly
down, found the front door, and, from the inside,
opened and slammed it. I heard instantly a hurried
scamper above, and the heavy fall of one who had stumbled
in the dark. I grinned with real pleasure at the
sound of this mishap, hurried into the great library,
which was as dark as a well, and, opening one of the long
windows, stepped out on the balcony. At once from the
rear of the house came the sound of a stealthy step,
which increased to a run at the ravine bridge. I listened
to the flight of the fugitive through the wood until the
sounds died away toward the lake.

Then, turning to the library windows, I saw Bates,
with a candle held above his head, peering about.

“Hello, Bates,” I called cheerfully. “I just got home
and stepped out to see if the moon had risen. I don’t
believe I know where to look for it in this country.”

He began lighting the tapers with his usual deliberation.

“It’s a trifle early, I think, sir. About seven o’clock,
I should say, was the hour, Mr. Glenarm.”

There was, of course, no doubt whatever that Bates
had been one of the men I heard in my room. It was
wholly possible that he had been compelled to assist in
some lawless act against his will; but why, if he had
been forced into aiding a criminal, should he not invoke
my own aid to protect himself? I kicked the logs in the
fireplace impatiently in my uncertainty. The man slowly
lighted the many candles in the great apartment.
He was certainly a deep one, and his case grew more
puzzling as I studied it in relation to the rifle-shot of
the night before, his collision with Morgan in the wood,
which I had witnessed; and now the house itself had
been invaded by some one with his connivance. The
shot through the refectory window might have been innocent
enough; but these other matters in connection
with it could hardly be brushed aside.

Bates lighted me to the stairway, and said as I passed
him:

“There’s a baked ham for dinner. I should call it extra
delicate, Mr. Glenarm. I suppose there’s no change
in the dinner hour, sir?”

“Certainly not,” I said with asperity; for I am not a
person to inaugurate a dinner hour one day and change
it the next. Bates wished to make conversation,—the
sure sign of a guilty conscience in a servant,—and I was
not disposed to encourage him.

I closed the doors carefully and began a thorough
examination of both the sitting-room and the little bed-chamber.
I was quite sure that my own effects could
not have attracted the two men who had taken advantage
of my absence to visit my quarters. Bates had
helped unpack my trunk and undoubtedly knew every
item of my simple wardrobe. I threw open the doors
of the three closets in the rooms and found them all in
the good order established by Bates. He had carried my
trunks and bags to a store-room, so that everything I
owned must have passed under his eye. My money even,
the remnant of my fortune that I had drawn from the
New York bank, I had placed carelessly enough in the
drawer of a chiffonnier otherwise piled with collars. It
took but a moment to satisfy myself that this had not
been touched. And, to be sure, a hammer was not necessary
to open a drawer that had, from its appearance,
never been locked. The game was deeper than I had
imagined; I had scratched the crust without result, and
my wits were busy with speculations as I changed my
clothes, pausing frequently to examine the furniture,
even the bricks on the hearth.

One thing only I found—the slight scar of a hammer-head
on the oak paneling that ran around the bedroom.
The wood had been struck near the base and at the top
of every panel, for though the mark was not perceptible
on all, a test had evidently been made systematically.
With this as a beginning, I found a moment later a spot
of tallow under a heavy table in one corner. Evidently
the furniture had been moved to permit of the closest
scrutiny of the paneling. Even behind the bed I found
the same impress of the hammer-head; the test had undoubtedly
been thorough, for a pretty smart tap on oak
is necessary to leave an impression. My visitors had
undoubtedly been making soundings in search of a recess
of some kind in the wall, and as they had failed of
their purpose they were likely, I assumed, to pursue
their researches further.

I pondered these things with a thoroughly-awakened
interest in life. Glenarm House really promised to prove
exciting. I took from a drawer a small revolver, filled
its chambers with cartridges and thrust it into my hip
pocket, whistling meanwhile Larry Donovan’s favorite
air, the Marche Funèbre d’une Marionnette. My heart
went out to Larry as I scented adventure, and I wished
him with me; but speculations as to Larry’s whereabouts
were always profitless, and quite likely he was in jail
somewhere.

The ham of whose excellence Bates had hinted was no
disappointment. There is, I have always held, nothing
better in this world than a baked ham, and the specimen
Bates placed before me was a delight to the eye,—so
adorned was it with spices, so crisply brown its outer
coat; and a taste—that first tentative taste, before the
sauce was added—was like a dream of Lucullus come
true. I could forgive a good deal in a cook with that
touch,—anything short of arson and assassination!

“Bates,” I said, as he stood forth where I could see
him, “you cook amazingly well. Where did you learn
the business?”

“Your grandfather grew very captious, Mr. Glenarm.
I had to learn to satisfy him, and I believe I did it, sir,
if you’ll pardon the conceit.”

“He didn’t die of gout, did he? I can readily imagine
it.”

“No, Mr. Glenarm. It was his heart. He had his
warning of it.”

“Ah, yes; to be sure. The heart or the stomach,—one
may as well fail as the other. I believe I prefer to keep
my digestion going as long as possible. Those grilled
sweet potatoes again, if you please, Bates.”

The game that he and I were playing appealed to me
strongly. It was altogether worth while, and as I ate
guava jelly with cheese and toasted crackers, and then
lighted one of my own cigars over a cup of Bates’ unfailing
coffee, my spirit was livelier than at any time
since a certain evening on which Larry and I had
escaped from Tangier with our lives and the curses of
the police. It is a melancholy commentary on life that
contentment comes more easily through the stomach
than along any other avenue. In the great library, with
its rich store of books and its eternal candles, I sprawled
upon a divan before the fire and smoked and indulged
in pleasant speculations. The day had offered much
material for fireside reflection, and I reviewed its history
calmly.

There was, however, one incident that I found unpleasant
in the retrospect. I had been guilty of most
unchivalrous conduct toward one of the girls of St.
Agatha’s. It had certainly been unbecoming in me to
sit on the wall, however unwillingly, and listen to the
words—few though they were—that passed between her
and the chaplain. I forgot the shot through the window;
I forgot Bates and the interest my room possessed for
him and his unknown accomplice; but the sudden distrust
and contempt I had awakened in the girl by my
clownish behavior annoyed me increasingly.

I rose presently, found my cap in a closet under the
stairs, and went out into the moon-flooded wood toward
the lake. The tangle was not so great when you knew
the way, and there was indeed, as I had found, the faint
suggestion of a path. The moon glorified a broad highway
across the water; the air was sharp and still. The
houses in the summer colony were vaguely defined, but
the sight of them gave me no cheer. The tilt of her
tam-o’-shanter as she paddled away into the sunset had
conveyed an impression of spirit and dignity that I could
not adjust to any imaginable expiation.

These reflections carried me to the borders of St.
Agatha’s, and I followed the wall to the gate, climbed
up, and sat down in the shadow of the pillar farthest
from the lake. Lights shone scatteringly in the buildings
of St. Agatha’s, but the place was wholly silent.
I drew out a cigarette and was about to light it when
I heard a sound as of a tread on stone. There was, I
knew, no stone pavement at hand, but peering toward
the lake I saw a man walking boldly along the top of the
wall toward me. The moonlight threw his figure into
clear relief. Several times he paused, bent down and
rapped upon the wall with an object he carried in his
hand.

Only a few hours before I had heard a similar sound
rising from the wainscoting of my own room in Glenarm
House. Evidently the stone wall, too, was under
suspicion!

Tap, tap, tap! The man with the hammer was examining
the farther side of the gate, and very likely he
would carry his investigations beyond it. I drew up my
legs and crouched in the shadow of the pillar, revolver
in hand. I was not anxious for an encounter; I much
preferred to wait for a disclosure of the purpose that lay
behind this mysterious tapping upon walls on my grandfather’s
estate.

But the matter was taken out of my own hands before
I had a chance to debate it. The man dropped to the
ground, sounded the stone base under the gate, likewise
the pillars, evidently without results, struck a spiteful
crack upon the iron bars, then stood up abruptly and
looked me straight in the eyes. It was Morgan, the
caretaker of the summer colony.

“Good evening, Mr. Morgan,” I said, settling the revolver
into my hand.

There was no doubt about his surprise; he fell back,
staring at me hard, and instinctively drawing the hammer
over his shoulder as though to fling it at me.

“Just stay where you are a moment, Morgan,” I said
pleasantly, and dropped to a sitting position on the wall
for greater ease in talking to him.

He stood sullenly, the hammer dangling at arm’s
length, while my revolver covered his head.

“Now, if you please, I’d like to know what you mean
by prowling about here and rummaging my house!”

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Glenarm? Well, you certainly
gave me a bad scare.”

His air was one of relief and his teeth showed pleasantly
through his beard.

“It certainly is I. But you haven’t answered my question.
What were you doing in my house to-day?”

He smiled again, shaking his head.

“You’re really fooling, Mr. Glenarm. I wasn’t in
your house to-day; I never was in it in my life!”

His white teeth gleamed in his light beard; his hat
was pushed back from his forehead so that I saw his
eyes, and he wore unmistakably the air of a man whose
conscience is perfectly clear. I was confident that he
lied, but without appealing to Bates I was not prepared
to prove it.

“But you can’t deny that you’re on my grounds now,
can you?” I had dropped the revolver to my knee, but
I raised it again.

“Certainly not, Mr. Glenarm. If you’ll allow me to
explain—”

“That’s precisely what I want you to do.”

“Well, it may seem strange,”—he laughed, and I felt
the least bit foolish to be pointing a pistol at the head
of a fellow of so amiable a spirit.

“Hurry,” I commanded.

“Well, as I was saying, it may seem strange; but I
was just examining the wall to determine the character
of the work. One of the cottagers on the lake left me
with the job of building a fence on his place, and I’ve
been expecting to come over to look at this all fall.
You see, Mr. Glenarm, your honored grandfather was
a master in such matters, as you may know, and I didn’t
see any harm in getting the benefit—to put it so—of his
experience.”

I laughed. He had denied having entered the house
with so much assurance that I had been prepared for
some really plausible explanation of his interest in the
wall.

“Morgan—you said it was Morgan, didn’t you?—you
are undoubtedly a scoundrel of the first water. I make
the remark with pleasure.”

“Men have been killed for saying less,” he said.

“And for doing less than firing through windows at a
man’s head. It wasn’t friendly of you.”

“I don’t see why you center all your suspicions on
me. You exaggerate my importance, Mr. Glenarm. I’m
only the man-of-all-work at a summer resort.”

“I wouldn’t believe you, Morgan, if you swore on a
stack of Bibles as high as this wall.”

“Thanks!” he ejaculated mockingly.

Like a flash he swung the hammer over his head and
drove it at me, and at the same moment I fired. The
hammer-head struck the pillar near the outer edge and
in such a manner that the handle flew around and
smote me smartly in the face. By the time I reached
the ground the man was already running rapidly
through the park, darting in and out among the trees,
and I made after him at hot speed.

[Illustration: Like a flash he swung the hammer, and at the same moment I fired.]

The hammer-handle had struck slantingly across my
forehead, and my head ached from the blow. I abused
myself roundly for managing the encounter so stupidly,
and in my rage fired twice with no aim whatever after
the flying figure of the caretaker. He clearly had the
advantage of familiarity with the wood, striking off
boldly into the heart of it, and quickly widening the
distance between us; but I kept on, even after I ceased
to hear him threshing through the undergrowth, and
came out presently at the margin of the lake about fifty
feet from the boat-house. I waited in the shadow for
some time, expecting to see the fellow again, but he did
not appear.

I found the wall with difficulty and followed it back
to the gate. It would be just as well, I thought, to
possess myself of the hammer; and I dropped down on
the St. Agatha side of the wall and groped about among
the leaves until I found it.

Then I walked home, went into the library, alight
with its many candles just as I had left it, and sat
down before the fire to meditate. I had been absent
from the house only forty-five minutes.



CHAPTER VIII

A STRING OF GOLD BEADS


A moment later Bates entered with a fresh supply of
wood. I watched him narrowly for some sign of perturbation,
but he was not to be caught off guard. Possibly
he had not heard the shots in the wood; at any
rate, he tended the fire with his usual gravity, and after
brushing the hearth paused respectfully.

“Is there anything further, sir?”

“I believe not, Bates. Oh! here’s a hammer I picked
up out in the grounds a bit ago. I wish you’d see if it
belongs to the house.”

He examined the implement with care and shook his
head.

“It doesn’t belong here, I think, sir. But we sometimes
find tools left by the carpenters that worked on
the house. Shall I put this in the tool-chest, sir?”

“Never mind. I need such a thing now and then and
I’ll keep it handy.”

“Very good, Mr. Glenarm. It’s a bit sharper to-night,
but we’re likely to have sudden changes at this season.”

“I dare say.”

We were not getting anywhere; the fellow was certainly
an incomparable actor.

“You must find it pretty lonely here, Bates. Don’t
hesitate to go to the village when you like.”

“I thank you, Mr. Glenarm; but I am not much for
idling. I keep a few books by me for the evenings. Annandale
is not what you would exactly call a diverting
village.”

“I fancy not. But the caretaker over at the summer
resort has even a lonelier time, I suppose. That’s what
I’d call a pretty cheerless job,—watching summer cottages
in the winter.”

“That’s Morgan, sir. I meet him occasionally when
I go to the village; a very worthy person, I should call
him, on slight acquaintance.”

“No doubt of it, Bates. Any time through the winter
you want to have him in for a social glass, it’s all
right with me.”

He met my gaze without flinching, and lighted me
to the stair with our established ceremony. I voted him
an interesting knave and really admired the cool way
in which he carried off difficult situations. I had no
intention of being killed, and now that I had due warning
of danger, I resolved to protect myself from foes
without and within. Both Bates and Morgan, the caretaker,
were liars of high attainment. Morgan was,
moreover, a cheerful scoundrel, and experience taught
me long ago that a knave with humor is doubly dangerous.

Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to Larry
Donovan, giving him a full account of my arrival at
Glenarm House. The thought of Larry always cheered
me, and as the pages slipped from my pen I could feel
his sympathy and hear him chuckling over the lively beginning
of my year at Glenarm. The idea of being fired
upon by an unseen foe would, I knew, give Larry a real
lift of the spirit.

The next morning I walked into the village, mailed
my letter, visited the railway station with true rustic
instinct and watched the cutting out of a freight car for
Annandale with a pleasure I had not before taken in
that proceeding. The villagers stared at me blankly as
on my first visit. A group of idle laborers stopped talking
to watch me; and when I was a few yards past them
they laughed at a remark by one of the number which
I could not overhear. But I am not a particularly sensitive
person; I did not care what my Hoosier neighbors
said of me; all I asked was that they should refrain
from shooting at the back of my head through the windows
of my own house.

On this day I really began to work. I mapped out
a course of reading, set up a draftsman’s table I found
put away in a closet, and convinced myself that I was
beginning a year of devotion to architecture. Such was,
I felt, the only honest course. I should work every day
from eight until one, and my leisure I should give to
recreation and a search for the motives that lay behind
the crafts and assaults of my enemies.

When I plunged into the wood in the middle of the
afternoon it was with the definite purpose of returning
to the upper end of the lake for an interview with Morgan,
who had, so Bates informed me, a small house back
of the cottages.

I took the canoe I had chosen for my own use from
the boat-house and paddled up the lake. The air was
still warm, but the wind that blew out of the south
tasted of rain. I scanned the water and the borders of
the lake for signs of life,—more particularly, I may as
well admit, for a certain maroon-colored canoe and a
girl in a red tam-o’-shanter, but lake and summer cottages
were mine alone. I landed and began at once my
search for Morgan. There were many paths through
the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several
futilely before I at last found a small house snugly
bid away in a thicket of young maples.

The man I was looking for came to the door quickly
in response to my knock.

“Good afternoon, Morgan.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Glenarm,” he said, taking the
pipe from his mouth the better to grin at me. He
showed no sign of surprise, and I was nettled by his cool
reception. There was, perhaps, a certain element of
recklessness in my visit to the house of a man who had
shown so singular an interest in my affairs, and his cool
greeting vexed me.

“Morgan—” I began.

“Won’t you come in and rest yourself, Mr. Glenarm?”
he interrupted. “I reckon you’re tired from your trip
over—”

“Thank you, no,” I snapped.

“Suit yourself, Mr. Glenarm.” He seemed to like my
name and gave it a disagreeable drawling emphasis.

“Morgan, you are an infernal blackguard. You have
tried twice to kill me—”

“We’ll call it that, if you like,”—and he grinned.
“But you’d better cut off one for this.”

He lifted the gray fedora hat from his head, and
poked his finger through a hole in the top.

“You’re a pretty fair shot, Mr. Glenarm. The fact
about me is,”—and he winked,—”the honest truth is,
I’m all out of practice. Why, sir, when I saw you paddling
out on the lake this afternoon I sighted you from
the casino half a dozen times with my gun, but I was
afraid to risk it.” He seemed to be shaken with inner
mirth. “If I’d missed, I wasn’t sure you’d be scared to
death!”

For a novel diversion I heartily recommend a meeting
with the assassin who has, only a few days or hours
before, tried to murder you. I know of nothing in the
way of social adventure that is quite equal to it. Morgan
was a fellow of intelligence and, whatever lay back
of his designs against me, he was clearly a foe to reckon
with. He stood in the doorway calmly awaiting my
next move. I struck a match on my box and lighted a
cigarette.

“Morgan, I hope you understand that I am not responsible
for any injury my grandfather may have inflicted
on you. I hadn’t seen him for several years before
he died. I was never at Glenarm before in my
life, so it’s a little rough for you to visit your displeasure
on me.”

He smiled tolerantly as I spoke. I knew—and he
knew that I did—that no ill feeling against my grandfather
lay back of his interest in my affairs.

“You’re not quite the man your grandfather was, Mr.
Glenarm. You’ll excuse my bluntness, but I take it
that you’re a frank man. He was a very keen person,
and, I’m afraid,”—he chuckled with evident satisfaction
to himself,—”I’m really afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that
you’re not!”

“There you have it, Morgan! I fully agree with you!
I’m as dull as an oyster; that’s the reason I’ve called on
you for enlightenment. Consider that I’m here under a
flag of truce, and let’s see if we can’t come to an agreement.”

“It’s too late, Mr. Glenarm; too late. There was a
time when we might have done some business; but that’s
past now. You seem like a pretty decent fellow, too,
and I’m sorry I didn’t see you sooner; but better luck
next time.”

He stroked his yellow beard reflectively and shook his
head a little sadly. He was not a bad-looking fellow;
and he expressed himself well enough with a broad western
accent.

“Well,” I said, seeing that I should only make myself
ridiculous by trying to learn anything from him, “I
hope our little spats through windows and on walls won’t
interfere with our pleasant social relations. And I don’t
hesitate to tell you,”—I was exerting myself to keep
down my anger,—”that if I catch you on my grounds
again I’ll fill you with lead and sink you in the lake.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, with so perfect an imitation
of Bates’ voice and manner that I smiled in spite
of myself.

“And now, if you’ll promise not to fire into my back
I’ll wish you good day. Otherwise—”

He snatched off his hat and bowed profoundly. “It’ll
suit me much better to continue handling the case on
your grounds,” he said, as though he referred to a
business matter. “Killing a man on your own property
requires some explaining—you may have noticed it?”

“Yes; I commit most of my murders away from
home,” I said. “I formed the habit early in life. Good
day, Morgan.”

As I turned away he closed his door with a slam,—a
delicate way of assuring me that he was acting in good
faith, and not preparing to puncture my back with a
rifle-ball. I regained the lake-shore, feeling no great
discouragement over the lean results of my interview,
but rather a fresh zest for the game, whatever the
game might be. Morgan was not an enemy to trifle
with; he was, on the other hand, a clever and daring
foe; and the promptness with which he began war on
me the night of my arrival at Glenarm House, indicated
that there was method in his hostility.

The sun was going his ruddy way beyond St. Agatha’s
as I drove my canoe into a little cove near which the
girl in the tam-o’-shanter had disappeared the day before.
The shore was high here and at the crest was a
long curved bench of stone reached by half a dozen
steps, from which one might enjoy a wide view of the
country, both across the lake and directly inland. The
bench was a pretty bit of work, boldly reminiscential of
Alma Tadema, and as clearly the creation of John
Marshall Glenarm as though his name had been carved
upon it.

It was assuredly a spot for a pipe and a mood, and
as the shadows crept through the wood before me and
the water, stirred by the rising wind, began to beat below,
I invoked the one and yielded to the other. Something
in the withered grass at my feet caught my eye.
I bent and picked up a string of gold beads, dropped
there, no doubt, by some girl from the school or a careless
member of the summer colony. I counted the separate
beads—they were round and there were fifty of
them. The proper length for one turn about a girl’s
throat, perhaps; not more than that! I lifted my eyes
and looked off toward St. Agatha’s.

“Child of the red tam-o’-shanter, I’m very sorry I
was rude to you yesterday, for I liked your steady stroke
with the paddle; and I admired, even more, the way you
spurned me when you saw that among all the cads in
the world I am number one in Class A. And these
golden bubbles (O girl of the red tam-o’-shanter!), if
they are not yours you shall help me find the owner, for
we are neighbors, you and I, and there must be peace
between our houses.”

With this foolishness I rose, thrust the beads into my
pocket, and paddled home in the waning glory of the
sunset.

That night, as I was going quite late to bed, bearing
a candle to light me through the dark hall to my room,
I heard a curious sound, as of some one walking stealthily
through the house. At first I thought Bates was still
abroad, but I waited, listening for several minutes, without
being able to mark the exact direction of the sound
or to identify it with him. I went on to the door of my
room, and still a muffled step seemed to follow me,—first
it had come from below, then it was much like some one
going up stairs,—but where? In my own room I still
heard steps, light, slow, but distinct. Again there was a
stumble and a hurried recovery,—ghosts, I reflected, do
not fall down stairs!

The sound died away, seemingly in some remote part
of the house, and though I prowled about for an hour
it did not recur that night.



CHAPTER IX

THE GIRL AND THE RABBIT


Wind and rain rioted in the wood, and occasionally
both fell upon the library windows with a howl and a
splash. The tempest had wakened me; it seemed that
every chimney in the house held a screaming demon.
We were now well-launched upon December, and I was
growing used to my surroundings. I had offered myself
frequently as a target by land and water; I had sat
on the wall and tempted fate; and I had roamed the
house constantly expecting to surprise Bates in some act
of treachery; but the days were passing monotonously.
I saw nothing of Morgan—he had gone to Chicago on
some errand, so Bates reported—but I continued to walk
abroad every day, and often at night, alert for a reopening
of hostilities. Twice I had seen the red tam-o’-shanter
far through the wood, and once I had passed my
young acquaintance with another girl, a dark, laughing
youngster, walking in the highway, and she had bowed
to me coldly. Even the ghost in the wall proved inconstant,
but I had twice heard the steps without being able
to account for them.

Memory kept plucking my sleeve with reminders of
my grandfather. I was touched at finding constantly
his marginal notes in the books he had collected with so
much intelligence and loving care. It occurred to me
that some memorial, a tablet attached to the outer wall,
or perhaps, more properly placed in the chapel, would
be fitting; and I experimented with designs for it, covering
many sheets of drawing-paper in an effort to set
forth in a few words some hint of his character. On this
gray morning I produced this:

                       1835
         The life of John Marshall Glenarm
                was a testimony to the virtue of
         generosity, forbearance and gentleness
            The Beautiful things he loved
          were not nobler than his own days
          His grandson (who served him ill)
                  writes this of him
                       1901

I had drawn these words on a piece of cardboard and
was studying them critically when Bates came in with
wood.

“Those are unmistakable snowflakes, sir,” said Bates
from the window. “We’re in for winter now.”

It was undeniably snow; great lazy flakes of it were
crowding down upon the wood.

Bates had not mentioned Morgan or referred even remotely
to the pistol-shot of my first night, and he had
certainly conducted himself as a model servant. The
man-of-all-work at St. Agatha’s, a Scotchman named
Ferguson, had visited him several times, and I had surprised
them once innocently enjoying their pipes and
whisky and water in the kitchen.

“They are having trouble at the school, sir,” said
Bates from the hearth.

“The young ladies running a little wild, eh?”

“Sister Theresa’s ill, sir. Ferguson told me last
night!”

“No doubt Ferguson knows,” I declared, moving the
papers about on my desk, conscious, and not ashamed of
it, that I enjoyed these dialogues with Bates. I occasionally
entertained the idea that he would some day
brain me as I sat dining upon the viands which he prepared
with so much skill; or perhaps he would poison
me, that being rather more in his line of business and
perfectly easy of accomplishment; but the house was
bare and lonely and he was a resource.

“So Sister Theresa’s ill!” I began, seeing that Bates
had nearly finished, and glancing with something akin
to terror upon the open pages of a dreary work on English
cathedrals that had put me to sleep the day before.

“She’s been quite uncomfortable, sir; but they hope
to see her out in a few days!”

“That’s good; I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yes, sir. I think we naturally feel interested, being
neighbors. And Ferguson says that Miss Devereux’s devotion
to her aunt is quite touching.”

I stood up straight and stared at Bates’ back—he was
trying to stop the rattle which the wind had set up in
one of the windows.

“Miss Devereux!” I laughed outright.

“That’s the name, sir,—rather odd, I should call it.”

“Yes, it is rather odd,” I said, composed again, but
not referring to the name. My mind was busy with a
certain paragraph in my grandfather’s will:

Should he fail to comply with this provision, said property
shall revert to my general estate, and become, without
reservation, and without necessity for any process of
law, the property, absolutely, of Marian Devereux, of the
County and State of New York.

“Your grandfather was very fond of her, sir. She
and Sister Theresa were abroad at the time he died. It
was my sorrowful duty to tell them the sad news in New
York, sir, when they landed.”

“The devil it was!” It irritated me to remember that
Bates probably knew exactly the nature of my grandfather’s
will; and the terms of it were not in the least
creditable to me. Sister Theresa and her niece were
doubtless calmly awaiting my failure to remain at
Glenarm House during the disciplinary year,—Sister
Theresa, a Protestant nun, and the niece who probably
taught drawing in the school for her keep! I was sure
it was drawing; nothing else would, I felt, have brought
the woman within the pale of my grandfather’s beneficence.

I had given no thought to Sister Theresa since coming
to Glenarm. She had derived her knowledge of me
from my grandfather, and, such being the case, she
would naturally look upon me as a blackguard and a
menace to the peace of the neighborhood. I had, therefore,
kept rigidly to my own side of the stone wall. A
suspicion crossed my mind, marshaling a host of doubts
and questions that had lurked there since my first night
at Glenarm.

“Bates!”

He was moving toward the door with his characteristic
slow step.

“If your friend Morgan, or any one else, should shoot
me, or if I should tumble into the lake, or otherwise end
my earthly career—Bates!”

His eyes had slipped from mine to the window and I
spoke his name sharply.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Then Sister Theresa’s niece would get this property
and everything else that belonged to Mr. Glenarm.”

“That’s my understanding of the matter, sir.”

“Morgan, the caretaker, has tried to kill me twice
since I came here. He fired at me through the window
the night I came,—Bates!”

I waited for his eyes to meet mine again. His hands
opened and shut several times, and alarm and fear convulsed
his face for a moment.

“Bates, I’m trying my best to think well of you; but
I want you to understand”—I smote the table with my
clenched hand—“that if these women, or your employer,
Mr. Pickering, or that damned hound, Morgan, or you—
damn you, I don’t know who or what you are!—think
you can scare me away from here, you’ve waked up the
wrong man, and I’ll tell you another thing,—and you
may repeat it to your school-teachers and to Mr. Pickering,
who pays you, and to Morgan, whom somebody has
hired to kill me,—that I’m going to keep faith with my
dead grandfather, and that when I’ve spent my year
here and done what that old man wished me to do, I’ll
give them this house and every acre of ground and every
damned dollar the estate carries with it. And now one
other thing! I suppose there’s a sheriff or some kind of
a constable with jurisdiction over this place, and I could
have the whole lot of you put into jail for conspiracy,
but I’m going to stand out against you alone,—do you
understand me, you hypocrite, you stupid, slinking spy?
Answer me, quick, before I throw you out of the room!”

I had worked myself into a great passion and fairly
roared my challenge, pounding the table in my rage.

“Yes, sir; I quite understand you, sir. But I’m
afraid, sir—”

“Of course you’re afraid!” I shouted, enraged anew
by his halting speech. “You have every reason in the
world to be afraid. You’ve probably heard that I’m a
bad lot and a worthless adventurer; but you can tell
Sister Theresa or Pickering or anybody you please that
I’m ten times as bad as I’ve ever been painted. Now
clear out of here!”

He left the room without looking at me again. During
the morning I strolled through the house several
times to make sure he had not left it to communicate
with some of his fellow plotters, but I was, I admit, disappointed
to find him in every instance busy at some
wholly proper task. Once, indeed, I found him cleaning
my storm boots! To find him thus humbly devoted
to my service after the raking I had given him dulled
the edge of my anger. I went back to the library and
planned a cathedral in seven styles of architecture, all
unrelated and impossible, and when this began to bore
me I designed a crypt in which the wicked should be
buried standing on their heads and only the very good
might lie and sleep in peace. These diversions and several
black cigars won me to a more amiable mood. I
felt better, on the whole, for having announced myself
to the delectable Bates, who gave me for luncheon a
brace of quails, done in a manner that stripped criticism
of all weapons.

We did not exchange a word, and after knocking
about in the library for several hours I went out for a
tramp. Winter had indeed come and possessed the
earth, and it had given me a new landscape. The snow
continued to fall in great, heavy flakes, and the ground
was whitening fast.

A rabbit’s track caught my eye and I followed it,
hardly conscious that I did so. Then the clear print of
two small shoes mingled with the rabbit’s trail. A few
moments later I picked up an overshoe, evidently lost
in the chase by one of Sister Theresa’s girls, I reflected.
I remembered that while at Tech I had collected diverse
memorabilia from school-girl acquaintances, and here I
was beginning a new series with a string of beads and an
overshoe!

A rabbit is always an attractive quarry. Few things
besides riches are so elusive, and the little fellows have,
I am sure, a shrewd humor peculiar to themselves. I
rather envied the school-girl who had ventured forth for
a run in the first snow-storm of the season. I recalled
Aldrich’s turn on Gautier’s lines as I followed the
double trail:

        “Howe’er you tread, a tiny mould
          Betrays that light foot all the same;
         Upon this glistening, snowy fold
          At every step it signs your name.”


A pretty autograph, indeed! The snow fell steadily
and I tramped on over the joint signature of the girl
and the rabbit. Near the lake they parted company, the
rabbit leading off at a tangent, on a line parallel with
the lake, while his pursuer’s steps pointed toward the
boat-house.

There was, so far as I knew, only one student of adventurous
blood at St. Agatha’s, and I was not in the
least surprised to see, on the little sheltered balcony of
the boat-house, the red tam-o’-shanter. She wore, too,
the covert coat I remembered from the day I saw her
first from the wall. Her back was toward me as I drew
near; her hands were thrust into her pockets. She was
evidently enjoying the soft mingling of the snow with
the still, blue waters of the lake, and a girl and a snow-storm
are, if you ask my opinion, a pretty combination.
The fact of a girl’s facing a winter storm argues
mightily in her favor,—testifies, if you will allow me,
to a serene and dauntless spirit, for one thing, and a
sound constitution, for another.

I ran up the steps, my cap in one hand, her overshoe
in the other. She drew back a trifle, just enough to
bring my conscience to its knees.

“I didn’t mean to listen that day. I just happened
to be on the wall and it was a thoroughly underbred
trick—my twitting you about it—and I should have told
you before if I’d known how to see you—”

“May I trouble you for that shoe?” she said with a
great deal of dignity.

They taught that cold disdain of man, I supposed, as
a required study at St. Agatha’s.

“Oh, certainly! Won’t you allow me?”

“Thank you, no!”

I was relieved, to tell the truth, for I had been out of
the world for most of that period in which a youngster
perfects himself in such graces as the putting on of a
girl’s overshoes. She took the damp bit of rubber—a
wet overshoe, even if small and hallowed by associations,
isn’t pretty—as Venus might have received a soft-shell
crab from the hand of a fresh young merman. I was
between her and the steps to which her eyes turned longingly.

“Of course, if you won’t accept my apology I can’t
do anything about it; but I hope you understand that
I’m sincere and humble, and anxious to be forgiven.”

“You seem to be making a good deal of a small matter—”

“I wasn’t referring to the overshoe!” I said.

She did not relent.

“If you’ll only go away—”

She rested one hand against the corner of the boat-house
while she put on the overshoe. She wore, I noticed,
brown gloves with cuffs.

“How can I go away! You children are always leaving
things about for me to pick up. I’m perfectly worn
out carrying some girl’s beads about with me; and I
spoiled a good glove on your overshoe.”

“I’ll relieve you of the beads, too, if you please.”
And her tone measurably reduced my stature.

She thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat and
shook the tam-o’-shanter slightly, to establish it in a
more comfortable spot on her head. The beads had been
in my corduroy coat since I found them. I drew them
out and gave them to her.

“Thank you; thank you very much.”

“Of course they are yours, Miss—”

She thrust them into her pocket.

“Of course they’re mine,” she said indignantly, and
turned to go.

“We’ll waive proof of property and that sort of thing,”
I remarked, with, I fear, the hope of detaining her.
“I’m sorry not to establish a more neighborly feeling
with St. Agatha’s. The stone wall may seem formidable,
but it’s not of my building. I must open the gate.
That wall’s a trifle steep for climbing.”

I was amusing myself with the idea that my identity
was a dark mystery to her. I had read English novels
in which the young lord of the manor is always mistaken
for the game-keeper’s son by the pretty daughter
of the curate who has come home from school to be the
belle of the county. But my lady of the red tam-o’-shanter
was not a creature of illusions.

“It serves a very good purpose—the wall, I mean—
Mr. Glenarm.”

She was walking down the steps and I followed. I
am not a man to suffer a lost school-girl to cross my
lands unattended in a snow-storm; and the piazza of a
boat-house is not, I submit, a pleasant loafing-place on
a winter day. She marched before me, her hands in her
pockets—I liked her particularly that way—with an
easy swing and a light and certain step. Her remark
about the wall did not encourage further conversation
and I fell back upon the poets.

           “Stone walls do not a prison make,
           Nor iron bars a cage,”

I quoted. Quoting poetry in a snow-storm while you
stumble through a woodland behind a girl who shows
no interest in either your prose or your rhymes has its
embarrassments, particularly when you are breathing a
trifle hard from the swift pace your auditor is leading
you.

“I have heard that before,” she said, half-turning her
face, then laughing as she hastened on.

Her brilliant cheeks were a delight to the eye. The
snow swirled about her, whitened the crown of her red
cap and clung to her shoulders. Have you ever seen
snow-crystals gleam, break, dissolve in fair, soft, storm-blown
hair? Do you know how a man will pledge his
soul that a particular flake will never fade, never cease
to rest upon a certain flying strand over a girlish temple?
And he loses—his heart and his wager—in a
breath! If you fail to understand these things, and are
furthermore unfamiliar with the fact that the color in
the cheeks of a girl who walks abroad in a driving snow-storm
marks the favor of Heaven itself, then I waste
time, and you will do well to rap at the door of another
inn.

“I’d rather missed you,” I said; “and, really, I should
have been over to apologize if I hadn’t been afraid.”

“Sister Theresa is rather fierce,” she declared. “And
we’re not allowed to receive gentlemen callers,—it says
so in the catalogue.”

“So I imagined. I trust Sister Theresa is improving.”

[Illustration: She marched before me, her hands in her pockets.]

“Yes; thank you.”

“And Miss Devereux,—she is quite well, I hope?”

She turned her head as though to listen more carefully,
and her step slackened for a moment; then she
hurried blithely forward.

“Oh, she’s always well, I believe.”

“You know her, of course.”

“Oh, rather! She gives us music lessons.”

“So Miss Devereux is the music-teacher, is she?
Should you call her a popular teacher?”

“The girls call her”—she seemed moved to mirth by
the recollection—“Miss Prim and Prosy.”

“Ugh!” I exclaimed sympathetically. “Tall and hungry-looking,
with long talons that pound the keys with
grim delight. I know the sort.”

“She’s a sight!“—and my guide laughed approvingly.
“But we have to take her; she’s part of the treatment.”

“You speak of St. Agatha’s as though it were a sanatorium.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad! I’ve seen worse.”

“Where do most of the students come from,—all what
you call Hoosiers?”

“Oh, no! They’re from all over—Cincinnati, Chicago,
Cleveland, Indianapolis.”

“What the magazines call the Middle West.”

“I believe that is so. The bishop addressed us once
as the flower of the Middle West, and made us really
wish he’d come again.”

We were approaching the gate. Her indifference to
the storm delighted me. Here, I thought in my admiration,
is a real product of the western world. I felt that
we had made strides toward such a comradeship as it is
proper should exist between a school-girl in her teens
and a male neighbor of twenty-seven. I was—going
back to English fiction—the young squire walking home
with the curate’s pretty young daughter and conversing
with fine condescension.

“We girls all wish we could come over and help hunt
the lost treasure. It must be simply splendid to live in
a house where there’s a mystery,—secret passages and
chests of doubloons and all that sort of thing! My!
Squire Glenarm, I suppose you spend all your nights exploring
secret passages.”

This free expression of opinion startled me, though
she seemed wholly innocent of impertinence.

“Who says there’s any secret about the house?” I demanded.

“Oh, Ferguson, the gardener, and all the girls!”

“I fear Ferguson is drawing on his imagination.”

“Well, all the people in the village think so. I’ve
heard the candy-shop woman speak of it often.”

“She’d better attend to her taffy,” I retorted.

“Oh, you mustn’t be sensitive about it! All us girls
think it ever so romantic, and we call you sometimes the
lord of the realm, and when we see you walking through
the darkling wood at evenfall we say, ‘My lord is brooding
upon the treasure chests.’ ”

This, delivered in the stilted tone of one who is half-quoting
and half-improvising, was irresistibly funny,
and I laughed with good will.

“I hope you’ve forgiven me—” I began, kicking the
gate to knock off the snow, and taking the key from my
pocket.

“But I haven’t, Mr. Glenarm. Your assumption is,
to say the least, unwarranted,—I got that from a book!”

“It isn’t fair for you to know my name and for me not
to know yours,” I said leadingly.

“You are perfectly right. You are Mr. John Glenarm
—the gardener told me—and I am just Olivia.
They don’t allow me to be called Miss yet. I’m very
young, sir!”

“You’ve only told me half,”—and I kept my hand on
the closed gate. The snow still fell steadily and the
short afternoon was nearing its close. I did not like to
lose her,—the life, the youth, the mirth for which she
stood. The thought of Glenarm House amid the snow-hung
wood and of the long winter evening that I must
spend alone moved me to delay. Lights already gleamed
in the school-buildings straight before us and the sight
of them smote me with loneliness.

“Olivia Gladys Armstrong,” she said, laughing,
brushed past me through the gate and ran lightly over
the snow toward St. Agatha’s.



CHAPTER X

AN AFFAIR WITH THE CARETAKER


I read in the library until late, hearing the howl of
the wind outside with satisfaction in the warmth and
comfort of the great room. Bates brought in some sandwiches
and a bottle of ale at midnight.

“If there’s nothing more, sir—”

“That is all, Bates.” And he went off sedately to his
own quarters.

I was restless and in no mood for bed and mourned
the lack of variety in my grandfather’s library. I moved
about from shelf to shelf, taking down one book after
another, and while thus engaged came upon a series of
large volumes extra-illustrated in water-colors of unusual
beauty. They occupied a lower shelf, and I
sprawled on the floor, like a boy with a new picture-book,
in my absorption, piling the great volumes about me.
They were on related subjects pertaining to the French
chateaux.

In the last volume I found a sheet of white note-paper
no larger than my hand, a forgotten book-mark,
I assumed, and half-crumpled it in my fingers before I
noticed the lines of a pencil sketch on one side of it. I
carried it to the table and spread it out.

It was not the bit of idle penciling it had appeared
to be at first sight. A scale had evidently been followed
and the lines drawn with a ruler. With such trifles my
grandfather had no doubt amused himself. There was
a long corridor indicated, but of this I could make nothing.
I studied it for several minutes, thinking it might
have been a tentative sketch of some part of the house.
In turning it about under the candelabrum I saw that
in several places the glaze had been rubbed from the
paper by an eraser, and this piqued my curiosity. I
brought a magnifying glass to bear upon the sketch.
The drawing had been made with a hard pencil and the
eraser had removed the lead, but a well-defined imprint
remained.

I was able to make out the letters N. W. 3/4 to C.—
a reference clearly enough to points of the compass and
a distance. The word ravine was scrawled over a rough
outline of a doorway or opening of some sort, and then
the phrase:

            THE DOOR OF BEWILDERMENT


Now I am rather an imaginative person; that is why
engineering captured my fancy. It was through his trying
to make an architect (a person who quarrels with
women about their kitchen sinks!) of a boy who wanted
to be an engineer that my grandfather and I failed to hit
it off. From boyhood I have never seen a great bridge or
watched a locomotive climb a difficult hillside without
a thrill; and a lighthouse still seems to me quite the
finest monument a man can build for himself. My
grandfather’s devotion to old churches and medieval
houses always struck me as trifling and unworthy of a
grown man. And fate was busy with my affairs that
night, for, instead of lighting my pipe with the little
sketch, I was strangely impelled to study it seriously.

I drew for myself rough outlines of the interior of
Glenarm House as it had appeared to me, and then I
tried to reconcile the little sketch with every part of
it.

“The Door of Bewilderment” was the charm that held
me. The phrase was in itself a lure. The man who had
built a preposterous house in the woods of Indiana and
called it “The House of a Thousand Candles” was quite
capable of other whims; and as I bent over this scrap of
paper in the candle-lighted library it occurred to me
that possibly I had not done justice to my grandfather’s
genius. My curiosity was thoroughly aroused as to the
hidden corners of the queer old house, round which the
wind shrieked tormentingly.

I went to my room, put on my corduroy coat for its
greater warmth in going through the cold halls, took a
candle and went below. One o’clock in the morning is
not the most cheering hour for exploring the dark recesses
of a strange house, but I had resolved to have a
look at the ravine-opening and determine, if possible,
whether it bore any relation to “The Door of Bewilderment.”

All was quiet in the great cellar; only here and there
an area window rattled dolorously. I carried a tape-line
with me and made measurements of the length and
depth of the corridor and of the chambers that were set
off from it. These figures I entered in my note-book for
further use, and sat down on an empty nail-keg to reflect.
The place was certainly substantial; the candle
at my feet burned steadily with no hint of a draft; but
I saw no solution of my problem. All the doors along
the corridor were open, or yielded readily to my hand.
I was losing sleep for nothing; my grandfather’s sketch
was meaningless, and I rose and picked up my candle,
yawning.

Then a curious thing happened. The candle, whose
thin flame had risen unwaveringly, sputtered and went
out as a sudden gust swept the corridor.

I had left nothing open behind me, and the outer
doors of the house were always locked and barred. But
some one had gained ingress to the cellar by an opening
of which I knew nothing.

I faced the stairway that led up to the back hall of the
house, when to my astonishment, steps sounded behind
me and, turning, I saw, coming toward me, a man carrying
a lantern. I marked his careless step; he was undoubtedly
on familiar ground. As I watched him he
paused, lifted the lantern to a level with his eyes and
began sounding the wall with a hammer.

Here, undoubtedly, was my friend Morgan,—again!
There was the same periodicity in the beat on the wall
that I had heard in my own rooms. He began at the
top and went methodically to the floor. I leaned
against the wall where I stood and watched the lantern
slowly coming toward me. The small revolver with
which I had fired at his flying figure in the wood was in
my pocket. It was just as well to have it out with the
fellow now. My chances were as good as his, though I
confess I did not relish the thought of being found dead
the next morning in the cellar of my own house. It
pleased my humor to let him approach in this way, unconscious
that he was watched, until I should thrust my
pistol into his face.

His arms grew tired when he was about ten feet from
me and he dropped the lantern and hammer to his side,
and swore under his breath impatiently.

Then he began again, with greater zeal. As he came
nearer I studied his face in the lantern’s light with interest.
His hat was thrust back, and I could see his jaw
hard-set under his blond beard.

He took a step nearer, ran his eyes over the wall and
resumed his tapping. The ceiling was something less
than eight feet, and he began at the top. In settling
himself for the new series of strokes he swayed toward
me slightly, and I could hear his hard breathing. I was
deliberating how best to throw myself upon him, but as
I wavered he stepped back, swore at his ill-luck and
flung the hammer to the ground.

“Thanks!” I shouted, leaping forward and snatching
the lantern. “Stand just where you are!”

With the revolver in my right hand and the lantern
held high in my left, I enjoyed his utter consternation,
as my voice roared in the corridor.

“It’s too bad we meet under such strange circumstances,
Morgan,” I said. “I’d begun to miss you; but
I suppose you’ve been sleeping in the daytime to gather
strength for your night prowling.”

“You’re a fool,” he growled. He was recovering from
his fright,—I knew it by the gleam of his teeth in his
yellow beard. His eyes, too, were moving restlessly
about. He undoubtedly knew the house better than I
did, and was considering the best means of escape. I
did not know what to do with him now that I had him
at the point of a pistol; and in my ignorance of his motives
and my vague surmise as to the agency back of
him, I was filled with uncertainty.

“You needn’t hold that thing quite so near,” he said,
staring at me coolly.

“I’m glad it annoys you, Morgan,” I said. “It may
help you to answer some questions I’m going to put to
you.”

“So you want information, do you, Mr. Glenarm? I
should think it would be beneath the dignity of a great
man like you to ask a poor devil like me for help.”

“We’re not talking of dignity,” I said. “I want you
to tell me how you got in here.”

He laughed.

“You’re a very shrewd one, Mr. Glenarm. I came in
by the kitchen window, if you must know. I got in before
your solemn jack-of-all-trades locked up, and I
walked down to the end of the passage there”—he indicated
the direction with a slight jerk of his head—
“and slept until it was time to go to work. You can
see how easy it was!”

I laughed now at the sheer assurance of the fellow.

“If you can’t lie better than that you needn’t try
again. Face about now, and march!”

I put new energy into my tone, and he turned and
walked before me down the corridor in the direction
from which he had come. We were, I dare say, a pretty
pair,—he tramping doggedly before me, I following at
his heels with his lantern and my pistol. The situation
had played prettily into my hands, and I had every intention
of wresting from him the reason for his interest
in Glenarm House and my affairs.

“Not so fast,” I admonished sharply.

“Excuse me,” he replied mockingly.

He was no common rogue; I felt the quality in him
with a certain admiration for his scoundrelly talents—
a fellow, I reflected, who was best studied at the point
of a pistol.

I continued at his heels, and poked the muzzle of the
revolver against his back from time to time to keep him
assured of my presence,—a device that I was to regret a
second later.

We were about ten yards from the end of the corridor
when he flung himself backward upon me, threw his
arms over his head and seized me about the neck, turning
himself lithely until his fingers clasped my throat.

I fired blindly once, and felt the smoke of the revolver
hot in my own nostrils. The lantern fell from
my hand, and one or the other of us smashed it with our
feet.

A wrestling match in that dark hole was not to my
liking. I still held on to the revolver, waiting for a
chance to use it, and meanwhile he tried to throw me,
forcing me back against one side and then the other of
the passage.

With a quick rush he flung me away, and in the same
second I fired. The roar of the shot in the narrow corridor
seemed interminable. I flung myself on the floor,
expecting a return shot, and quickly enough a flash broke
upon the darkness dead ahead, and I rose to my feet,
fired again and leaped to the opposite side of the corridor
and crouched there. We had adopted the same tactics,
firing and dodging to avoid the target made by the flash
of our pistols, and watching and listening after the roar
of the explosions. It was a very pretty game, but destined
not to last long. He was slowly retreating toward
the end of the passage, where there was, I remembered,
a dead wall. His only chance was to crawl through an
area window I knew to be there, and this would, I felt
sure, give him into my hands.

After five shots apiece there was a truce. The pungent
smoke of the powder caused me to cough, and he
laughed.

“Have you swallowed a bullet, Mr. Glenarm?” he
called.

I could hear his feet scraping on the cement floor;
he was moving away from me, doubtless intending to
fire when he reached the area window and escape before
I could reach him. I crept warily after him, ready to
fire on the instant, but not wishing to throw away my
last cartridge. That I resolved to keep for close quarters
at the window.

He was now very near the end of the corridor; I
heard his feet strike some boards that I remembered
lay on the floor there, and I was nerved for a shot and
a hand-to-hand struggle, if it came to that.

I was sure that he sought the window; I heard his
hands on the wall as he felt for it. Then a breath of
cold air swept the passage, and I knew he must be
drawing himself up to the opening. I fired and dropped
to the floor. With the roar of the explosion I heard
him yell, but the expected return shot did not follow.

The pounding of my heart seemed to mark the passing
of hours. I feared that my foe was playing some
trick, creeping toward me, perhaps, to fire at close
range, or to grapple with me in the dark. The cold air
still whistled into the corridor, and I began to feel the
chill of it. Being fired upon is disagreeable enough,
but waiting in the dark for the shot is worse.

I rose and walked toward the end of the passage.

Then his revolver flashed and roared directly ahead,
the flame of it so near that it blinded me. I fell forward
confused and stunned, but shook myself together
in a moment and got upon my feet. The draft of air
no longer blew into the passage. Morgan had taken
himself off through the window and closed it after him.
I made sure of this by going to the window and feeling
of it with my hands.

I went back and groped about for my candle, which
I found without difficulty and lighted. I then returned
to the window to examine the catch. To my utter astonishment
it was fastened with staples, driven deep
into the sash, in such way that it could not possibly
have been opened without the aid of tools. I tried it
at every point. Not only was it securely fastened, but
it could not possibly be opened without an expenditure
of time and labor.

There was no doubt whatever that Morgan knew
more about Glenarm House than I did. It was possible,
but not likely, that he had crept past me in the corridor
and gone out through the house, or by some other
cellar window. My eyes were smarting from the smoke
of the last shot, and my cheek stung where the burnt
powder had struck my face. I was alive, but in my vexation
and perplexity not, I fear, grateful for my safety.
It was, however, some consolation to feel sure I had
winged the enemy.

I gathered up the fragments of Morgan’s lantern and
went back to the library. The lights in half the candlesticks
had sputtered out. I extinguished the remainder
and started to my room.

Then, in the great dark hall, I heard a muffled tread
as of some one following me,—not on the great staircase,
nor in any place I could identify,—yet unmistakably
on steps of some sort beneath or above me. My
nerves were already keyed to a breaking pitch, and the
ghost-like tread in the hall angered me—Morgan, or his
ally, Bates, I reflected, at some new trick. I ran into my
room, found a heavy walking-stick and set off for Bates’
room on the third floor. It was always easy to attribute
any sort of mischief to the fellow, and undoubtedly he
was crawling through the house somewhere on an errand
that boded no good to me.

It was now past two o’clock and he should have been
asleep and out of the way long ago. I crept to his room
and threw open the door without, I must say, the slightest
idea of finding him there. But Bates, the enigma,
Bates, the incomparable cook, the perfect servant, sat at
a table, the light of several candles falling on a book
over which he was bent with that maddening gravity
he had never yet in my presence thrown off.

He rose at once, stood at attention, inclining his head
slightly.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Yes, the devil!” I roared at him, astonished at
finding him,—sorry, I must say, that he was there. The
stick fell from my hands. I did not doubt he knew
perfectly well that I had some purpose in breaking in
upon him. I was baffled and in my rage floundered
for words to explain myself.

“I thought I heard some one in the house. I don’t
want you prowling about in the night, do you hear?”

“Certainly not, sir,” he replied in a grieved tone.

I glanced at the book he had been reading. It was a
volume of Shakespeare’s comedies, open at the first
scene of the last act of The Winter’s Tale.

“Quite a pretty bit of work that, I should say,” he
remarked. “It was one of my late master’s favorites.”

“Go to the devil!” I bawled at him, and went down
to my room and slammed the door in rage and chagrin.



CHAPTER XI

I RECEIVE A CALLER


Going to bed at three o’clock on a winter morning in
a house whose ways are disquieting, after a duel in
which you escaped whole only by sheer good luck, does
not fit one for sleep. When I finally drew the covers
over me it was to lie and speculate upon the events of
the night in connection with the history of the few
weeks I had spent at Glenarm. Larry had suggested
in New York that Pickering was playing some deep
game, and I, myself, could not accept Pickering’s statement
that my grandfather’s large fortune had proved
to be a myth. If Pickering had not stolen or dissipated
it, where was it concealed? Morgan was undoubtedly
looking for something of value or he would not risk
his life in the business; and it was quite possible that he
was employed by Pickering to search for hidden property.
This idea took strong hold of me, the more readily,
I fear, since I had always been anxious to see evil
in Pickering. There was, to be sure, the unknown alternative
heir, but neither she nor Sister Theresa was,
I imagined, a person capable of hiring an assassin to
kill me.

On reflection I dismissed the idea of appealing to
the county authorities, and I never regretted that resolution.
The seat of Wabana County was twenty miles
away, the processes of law were unfamiliar, and I
wished to avoid publicity. Morgan might, of course,
have been easily disposed of by an appeal to the Annandale
constable, but now that I suspected Pickering of
treachery the caretaker’s importance dwindled. I had
waited all my life for a chance at Arthur Pickering,
and in this affair I hoped to draw him into the open
and settle with him.

I slept presently, but woke at my usual hour, and
after a tub felt ready for another day. Bates served
me, as usual, a breakfast that gave a fair aspect to the
morning. I was alert for any sign of perturbation in
him; but I had already decided that I might as well
look for emotion in a stone wall as in this placid, colorless
serving man. I had no reason to suspect him of
complicity in the night’s affair, but I had no faith in
him, and merely waited until he should throw himself
more boldly into the game.

By my plate next morning I found this note, written
in a clear, bold, woman’s hand:

The Sisters of St. Agatha trust that the intrusion upon
his grounds by Miss Armstrong, one of their students, has
caused Mr. Glenarm no annoyance. The Sisters beg that
this infraction of their discipline will be overlooked, and
they assure Mr. Glenarm that it will not recur.


An unnecessary apology! The note-paper was of the
best quality. At the head of the page “St. Agatha’s,
Annandale” was embossed in purple. It was the first
note I had received from a woman for a long time, and
it gave me a pleasant emotion. One of the Sisters I had
seen beyond the wall undoubtedly wrote it—possibly
Sister Theresa herself. A clever woman, that! Thoroughly
capable of plucking money from guileless old
gentlemen! Poor Olivia! born for freedom, but doomed
to a pent-up existence with a lot of nuns! I resolved to
send her a box of candy sometime, just to annoy her
grim guardians. Then my own affairs claimed attention.

“Bates,” I asked, “do you know what Mr. Glenarm
did with the plans for the house?”

He started slightly. I should not have noticed it if
I had not been keen for his answer.

“No, sir. I can’t put my hand upon them, sir.”

“That’s all very well, Bates, but you didn’t answer
my question. Do you know where they are? I’ll put
my hand on them if you will kindly tell me where
they’re kept.”

“Mr. Glenarm, I fear very much that they have been
destroyed. I tried to find them before you came, to tell
you the whole truth, sir; but they must have been made
’way with.”

“That’s very interesting, Bates. Will you kindly
tell me whom you suspect of destroying them? The
toast again, please.”

His hand shook as he passed the plate.

“I hardly like to say, sir, when it’s only a suspicion.”

“Of course I shouldn’t ask you to incriminate yourself,
but I’ll have to insist on my question. It may
have occurred to you, Bates, that I’m in a sense—in a
sense, mind you—the master here.”

“Well, I should say, if you press me, that I fear
Mr. Glenarm, your grandfather, burned the plans when
he left here the last time. I hope you will pardon me,
sir, for seeming to reflect upon him.”

“Reflect upon the devil! What was his idea, do you
suppose?”

“I think, sir, if you will pardon—”

“Don’t be so fussy!” I snapped. “Damn your pardon,
and go on!”

“He wanted you to study out the place for yourself,
sir. It was dear to his heart, this house. He set his
heart upon having you enjoy it—”

“I like the word—go ahead.”

“And I suppose there are things about it that he
wished you to learn for yourself.”

“You know them, of course, and are watching me to
see when I’m hot or cold, like kids playing hide the
handkerchief.”

The fellow turned and faced me across the table.

“Mr. Glenarm, as I hope God may be merciful to me
in the last judgment, I don’t know any more than you
do.”

“You were here with Mr. Glenarm all the time he was
building the house, but you never saw walls built that
weren’t what they appeared to be, or doors made that
didn’t lead anywhere.”

I summoned all my irony and contempt for this arraignment.
He lifted his hand, as though making
oath.

“As God sees me, that is all true. I was here to care
for the dead master’s comfort and not to spy on him.”

“And Morgan, your friend, what about him?”

“I wish I knew, sir.”

“I wish to the devil you did,” I said, and flung out
of the room and into the library.

At eleven o’clock I heard a pounding at the great
front door and Bates came to announce a caller, who
was now audibly knocking the snow from his shoes in
the outer hall.

“The Reverend Paul Stoddard, sir.”

The chaplain of St. Agatha’s was a big fellow, as I
had remarked on the occasion of his interview with
Olivia Gladys Armstrong by the wall. His light brown
hair was close-cut; his smooth-shaven face was bright
with the freshness of youth. Here was a sturdy young
apostle without frills, but with a vigorous grip that left
my hand tingling. His voice was deep and musical,—a
voice that suggested sincerity and inspired confidence.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been neighborly, Mr. Glenarm.
I was called away from home a few days after I heard
of your arrival, and I have just got back. I blew in
yesterday with the snow-storm.”

He folded his arms easily and looked at me with
cheerful directness, as though politely interested in what
manner of man I might be.

“It was a fine storm; I got a great day out of it,” I
said. “An Indiana snow-storm is something I have
never experienced before.”

“This is my second winter. I came out here because
I wished to do some reading, and thought I’d rather do
it alone than in a university.”

“Studious habits are rather forced on one out here,
I should say. In my own case my course of reading
is all cut out for me.”

He ran his eyes over the room.

“The Glenarm collection is famous,—the best in the
country, easily. Mr. Glenarm, your grandfather, was
certainly an enthusiast. I met him several times; he
was a trifle hard to meet,”—and the clergyman smiled.

I felt rather uncomfortable, assuming that he probably
knew I was undergoing discipline, and why my
grandfather had so ordained it. The Reverend Paul
Stoddard was so simple, unaffected and manly a fellow
that I shrank from the thought that I must appear to
him an ungrateful blackguard whom my grandfather
had marked with obloquy.

“My grandfather had his whims; but he was a fine,
generous-hearted old gentleman,” I said.

“Yes; in my few interviews with him he surprised
me by the range of his knowledge. He was quite able
to instruct me in certain curious branches of church
history that had appealed to him.”

“You were here when he built the house, I suppose?”

My visitor laughed cheerfully.

“I was on my side of the barricade for a part of the
time. You know there was a great deal of mystery
about the building of this house. The country-folk
hereabouts can’t quite get over it. They have a superstition
that there’s treasure buried somewhere on the
place. You see, Mr. Glenarm wouldn’t employ any local
labor. The work was done by men he brought from
afar,—none of them, the villagers say, could speak English.
They were all Greeks or Italians.”

“I have heard something of the kind,” I remarked,
feeling that here was a man who with a little cultivating
might help me to solve some of my riddles.

“You haven’t been on our side of the wall yet? Well,
I promise not to molest your hidden treasure if you’ll
be neighborly.”

“I fear there’s a big joke involved in the hidden
treasure,” I replied. “I’m so busy staying at home to
guard it that I have no time for social recreation.”

He looked at me quickly to see whether I was joking.
His eyes were steady and earnest. The Reverend Paul
Stoddard impressed me more and more agreeably.
There was a suggestion of a quiet strength about him
that drew me to him.

“I suppose every one around here thinks of nothing
but that I’m at Glenarm to earn my inheritance. My
residence here must look pretty sordid from the outside.”

“Mr. Glenarm’s will is a matter of record in the
county, of course. But you are too hard on yourself.
It’s nobody’s business if your grandfather wished to
visit his whims on you. I should say, in my own case,
that I don’t consider it any of my business what you
are here for. I didn’t come over to annoy you or to
pry into your affairs. I get lonely now and then, and
thought I’d like to establish neighborly relations.”

“Thank you; I appreciate your coming very much,”
—and my heart warmed under the manifest kindness
of the man.

“And I hope”—he spoke for the first time with restraint
—“I hope nothing may prevent your knowing
Sister Theresa and Miss Devereux. They are interesting
and charming—the only women about here of your
own social status.”

My liking for him abated slightly. He might be a
detective, representing the alternative heir, for all I
knew, and possibly Sister Theresa was a party to the
conspiracy.

“In time, no doubt, in time, I shall know them,” I
answered evasively.

“Oh, quite as you like!”—and he changed the subject.
We talked of many things,—of outdoor sports,
with which he showed great familiarity, of universities,
of travel and adventure. He was a Columbia man and
had spent two years at Oxford.

“Well,” he exclaimed, “this has been very pleasant,
but I must run. I have just been over to see Morgan,
the caretaker at the resort village. The poor fellow accidentally
shot himself yesterday, cleaning his gun or
something of that sort, and he has an ugly hole in his
arm that will shut him in for a month or worse. He
gave me an errand to do for him. He’s a conscientious
fellow and wished me to wire for him to Mr. Pickering
that he’d been hurt, but was attending to his duties.
Pickering owns a cottage over there, and Morgan has
charge of it. You know Pickering, of course?”

I looked my clerical neighbor straight in the eye, a
trifle coldly perhaps. I was wondering why Morgan,
with whom I had enjoyed a duel in my own cellar only
a few hours before, should be reporting his injury to
Arthur Pickering.

“I think I have seen Morgan about here,” I said.

“Oh, yes! He’s a woodsman and a hunter—our Nimrod
of the lake.”

“A good sort, very likely!”

“I dare say. He has sometimes brought me ducks
during the season.”

“To be sure! They shoot ducks at night,—these
Hoosier hunters,—so I hear!”

He laughed as he shook himself into his greatcoat.

“That’s possible, though unsportsmanlike. But we
don’t have to look a gift mallard in the eye.”

We laughed together. I found that it was easy to
laugh with him.

“By the way, I forgot to get Pickering’s address from
Morgan. If you happen to have it—”

“With pleasure,” I said. “Alexis Building, Broadway,
New York.”

“Good! That’s easy to remember,” he said, smiling
and turning up his coat collar. “Don’t forget me;
I’m quartered in a hermit’s cell back of the chapel, and
I believe we can find many matters of interest to talk
about.”

“I’m confident of it,” I said, glad of the sympathy
and cheer that seemed to emanate from his stalwart
figure.

I threw on my overcoat and walked to the gate with
him, and saw him hurry toward the village with long
strides.



CHAPTER XII

I EXPLORE A PASSAGE


“Bates!”—I found him busy replenishing the candlesticks
in the library,—it seemed to me that he was always
poking about with an armful of candles,—“there
are a good many queer things in this world, but I guess
you’re one of the queerest. I don’t mind telling you
that there are times when I think you a thoroughly bad
lot, and then again I question my judgment and don’t
give you credit for being much more than a doddering
fool.”

He was standing on a ladder beneath the great crystal
chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling,
and looked down upon me with that patient injury
that is so appealing in a dog—in, say, the eyes of an
Irish setter, when you accidentally step on his tail.
That look is heartbreaking in a setter, but, seen in a
man, it arouses the direst homicidal feelings of which
I am capable.

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm,” he replied humbly.

“Now, I want you to grasp this idea that I’m going
to dig into this old shell top and bottom; I’m going
to blow it up with dynamite, if I please; and if I catch
you spying on me or reporting my doings to my enemies,
or engaging in any questionable performances
whatever, I’ll hang you between the posts out there in
the school-wall—do you understand?—so that the sweet
Sisters of St. Agatha and the dear little school-girls
and the chaplain and all the rest will shudder through
all their lives at the very thought of you.”

“Certainly, Mr. Glenarm,”—and his tone was the
same he would have used if I had asked him to pass
me the matches, and under my breath I consigned him
to the harshest tortures of the fiery pit.

“Now, as to Morgan—”

“Yes, sir.”

“What possible business do you suppose he has with
Mr. Pickering?” I demanded.

“Why, sir, that’s clear enough. Mr. Pickering owns
a house up the lake,—he got it through your grandfather.
Morgan has the care of it, sir.”

“Very plausible, indeed!”—and I sent him off to his
work.

After luncheon I went below and directly to the end
of the corridor, and began to sound the walls. To the
eye they were all alike, being of cement, and substantial
enough. Through the area window I saw the solid earth
and snow; surely there was little here to base hope upon,
and my wonder grew at the ease with which Morgan
had vanished through a barred window and into frozen
ground.

The walls at the end of the passage were as solid as
rock, and they responded dully to the stroke of the
hammer. I sounded them on both sides, retracing my
steps to the stairway, becoming more and more impatient
at my ill-luck or stupidity. There was every reason
why I should know my own house, and yet a stranger
and an outlaw ran through it with amazing daring.

After an hour’s idle search I returned to the end of
the corridor, repeated all my previous soundings, and,
I fear, indulged in language unbecoming a gentleman.
Then, in my blind anger, I found what patient search
had not disclosed.

I threw the hammer from me in a fit of temper; it
struck upon a large square in the cement floor which
gave forth a hollow sound. I was on my knees in an
instant, my fingers searching the cracks, and drawing
down close I could feel a current of air, slight but unmistakable,
against my face.

The cement square, though exactly like the others in
the cellar floor, was evidently only a wooden imitation,
covering an opening beneath.

The block was fitted into its place with a nicety that
certified to the skill of the hand that had adjusted it.
I broke a blade of my pocket-knife trying to pry it
up, but in a moment I succeeded, and found it to be
in reality a trap-door, hinged to the substantial part
of the floor.

A current of cool fresh air, the same that had surprised
me in the night, struck my face as I lay flat and
peered into the opening. The lower passage was as black
as pitch, and I lighted a lantern I had brought with me,
found that wooden steps gave safe conduct below and
went down.

I stood erect in the passage and had several inches
to spare. It extended both ways, running back under
the foundations of the house. This lower passage cut
squarely under the park before the house and toward
the school wall. No wonder my grandfather had
brought foreign laborers who could speak no English
to work on his house! There was something delightful
in the largeness of his scheme, and I hurried through
the tunnel with a hundred questions tormenting my
brain.

The air grew steadily fresher, until, after I had gone
about two hundred yards, I reached a point where the
wind seemed to beat down on me from above. I put
up my hands and found two openings about two yards
apart, through which the air sucked steadily. I moved
out of the current with a chuckle in my throat and a
grin on my face. I had passed under the gate in the
school-wall, and I knew now why the piers that held it
had been built so high,—they were hollow and were the
means of sending fresh air into the tunnel.

I had traversed about twenty yards more when I felt
a slight vibration accompanied by a muffled roar, and
almost immediately came to a short wooden stair that
marked the end of the passage. I had no means of
judging directions, but I assumed I was somewhere near
the chapel in the school-grounds.

I climbed the steps, noting still the vibration, and
found a door that yielded readily to pressure. In a
moment I stood blinking, lantern in hand, in a well-lighted,
floored room. Overhead the tumult and thunder
of an organ explained the tremor and roar I had heard
below. I was in the crypt of St. Agatha’s chapel. The
inside of the door by which I had entered was a part of
the wainscoting of the room, and the opening was wholly
covered with a map of the Holy Land.

In my absorption I had lost the sense of time, and I
was amazed to find that it was five o’clock, but I resolved
to go into the chapel before going home.

The way up was clear enough, and I was soon in the
vestibule. I opened the door, expecting to find a service
in progress; but the little church was empty save where,
at the right of the chancel, an organist was filling the
church with the notes of a triumphant march. Cap in
hand I stole forward and sank down in one of the
pews.

A lamp over the organ keyboard gave the only light
in the chapel, and made an aureole about her head,—
about the uncovered head of Olivia Gladys Armstrong!
I smiled as I recognized her and smiled, too, as I remembered
her name. But the joy she brought to the
music, the happiness in her face as she raised it in the
minor harmonies, her isolation, marked by the little isle
of light against the dark background of the choir,—
these things touched and moved me, and I bent forward,
my arms upon the pew in front of me, watching and
listening with a kind of awed wonder. Here was a
refuge of peace and lulling harmony after the disturbed
life at Glenarm, and I yielded myself to its solace with
an inclination my life had rarely known.

There was no pause in the outpouring of the melody.
She changed stops and manuals with swift fingers and
passed from one composition to another; now it was an
august hymn, now a theme from Wagner, and finally
Mendelssohn’s Spring Song leaped forth exultant in the
dark chapel.

She ceased suddenly with a little sigh and struck
her hands together, for the place was cold. As she
reached up to put out the lights I stepped forward to
the chancel steps.

“Please allow me to do that for you?”

She turned toward me, gathering a cape about her.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” she asked, looking about quickly.
“I don’t remember—I don’t seem to remember—that
you were invited.”

“I didn’t know I was coming myself,” I remarked
truthfully, lifting my hand to the lamp.

“That is my opinion of you,—that you’re a rather unexpected
person. But thank you, very much.”

She showed no disposition to prolong the interview,
but hurried toward the door, and reached the vestibule
before I came up with her.

“You can’t go any further, Mr. Glenarm,” she said,
and waited as though to make sure I understood.
Straight before us through the wood and beyond the
school-buildings the sunset faded sullenly. The night
was following fast upon the gray twilight and already
the bolder planets were aflame in the sky. The path
led straight ahead beneath the black boughs.

“I might perhaps walk to the dormitory, or whatever
you call it,” I said.

“Thank you, no! I’m late and haven’t time to
bother with you. It’s against the rules, you know, for
us to receive visitors.”

She stepped out into the path.

“But I’m not a caller. I’m just a neighbor. And I
owe you several calls, anyhow.”

She laughed, but did not pause, and I followed a
pace behind her.

“I hope you don’t think for a minute that I chased
a rabbit on your side of the fence just to meet you; do
you, Mr. Glenarm?”

“Be it far from me! I’m glad I came, though, for I
liked your music immensely. I’m in earnest; I think
it quite wonderful, Miss Armstrong.”

She paid no heed to me.

“And I hope I may promise myself the pleasure of
hearing you often.”

“You are positively flattering, Mr. Glenarm; but as
I’m going away—”

I felt my heart sink at the thought of her going
away. She was the only amusing person I had met at
Glenarm, and the idea of losing her gave a darker note
to the bleak landscape.

“That’s really too bad! And just when we were getting
acquainted! And I was coming to church every
Sunday to hear you play and to pray for snow, so you’d
come over often to chase rabbits!”

This, I thought, softened her heart. At any rate her
tone changed.

“I don’t play for services; they’re afraid to let me
for fear I’d run comic-opera tunes into the Te Deum!”

“How shocking!”

“Do you know, Mr. Glenarm,”—her tone became confidential
and her pace slackened,—“we call you the
squire, at St. Agatha’s, and the lord of the manor, and
names like that! All the girls are perfectly crazy about
you. They’d be wild if they thought I talked with you,
clandestinely,—is that the way you pronounce it?”

“Anything you say and any way you say it satisfies
me,” I replied.

“That’s ever so nice of you,” she said, mockingly
again.

I felt foolish and guilty. She would probably get
roundly scolded if the grave Sisters learned of her talks
with me, and very likely I should win their hearty contempt.
But I did not turn back.

“I hope the reason you’re leaving isn’t—” I hesitated.

“Ill conduct? Oh, yes; I’m terribly wicked, Squire
Glenarm! They’re sending me off.”

“But I suppose they’re awfully strict, the Sisters.”

“They’re hideous,—perfectly hideous.”

“Where is your home?” I demanded. “Chicago, Indianapolis,
Cincinnati, perhaps?”

“Humph, you are dull! You ought to know from my
accent that I’m not from Chicago. And I hope I haven’t
a Kentucky girl’s air of waiting to be flattered to death.
And no Indianapolis girl would talk to a strange man at
the edge of a deep wood in the gray twilight of a winter
day,—that’s from a book; and the Cincinnati girl is
without my élan, esprit,—whatever you please to call it.
She has more Teutonic repose,—more of Gretchen-of-the-Rhine-Valley
about her. Don’t you adore French,
Squire Glenarm?” she concluded breathlessly, and with
no pause in her quick step.

“I adore yours, Miss Armstrong,” I asserted, yielding
myself further to the joy of idiocy, and delighting in
the mockery and changing moods of her talk. I did
not make her out; indeed, I preferred not to! I was
not then,—and I am not now, thank God,—of an analytical
turn of mind. And as I grow older I prefer,
even after many a blow, to take my fellow human beings
a good deal as I find them. And as for women, old
or young, I envy no man his gift of resolving them into
elements. As well carry a spray of arbutus to the laboratory
or subject the enchantment of moonlight upon
running water to the flame and blow-pipe as try to
analyze the heart of a girl,—particularly a girl who
paddles a canoe with a sure stroke and puts up a good
race with a rabbit.

A lamp shone ahead of us at the entrance of one of
the houses, and lights appeared in all the buildings.

“If I knew your window I should certainly sing under
it,—except that you’re going home! You didn’t tell
me why they were deporting you.”

“I’m really ashamed to! You would never—”

“Oh, yes, I would; I’m really an old friend!” I insisted,
feeling more like an idiot every minute.

“Well, don’t tell! But they caught me flirting—with
the grocery boy! Now aren’t you disgusted?”

“Thoroughly! I can’t believe it! Why, you’d a lot
better flirt with me,” I suggested boldly.

“Well, I’m to be sent away for good at Christmas. I
may come back then if I can square myself. My!
That’s slang,—isn’t it horrid?”

“The Sisters don’t like slang, I suppose?”

“They loathe it! Miss Devereux—you know who she
is!—she spies on us and tells.”

“You don’t say so; but I’m not surprised at her. I’ve
heard about her!” I declared bitterly.

We had reached the door, and I expected her to fly;
but she lingered a moment.

“Oh, if you know her! Perhaps you’re a spy, too!
It’s just as well we should never meet again, Mr. Glenarm,”
she declared haughtily.

“The memory of these few meetings will always linger
with me, Miss Armstrong,” I returned in an imitation
of her own tone.

“I shall scorn to remember you!”—and she folded
her arms under the cloak tragically.

“Our meetings have been all too few, Miss Armstrong.
Three, exactly, I believe!”

“I see you prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw
you,” she said, her hand on the door.

“Out there in your canoe? Never! And you’ve forgiven
me for overhearing you and the chaplain on the
wall—please!”

She grasped the knob of the door and paused an instant
as though pondering.

“I make it four times, not counting once in the road
and other times when you didn’t know, Squire Glenarm!
I’m a foolish little girl to have remembered the first. I
see now how b-l-i-n-d I have been.”

She opened and closed the door softly, and I heard
her running up the steps within.

I ran back to the chapel, roundly abusing myself for
having neglected my more serious affairs for a bit of
silly talk with a school-girl, fearful lest the openings
I had left at both ends of the passage should have been
discovered. The tunnel added a new and puzzling factor
to the problem already before me, and I was eager
for an opportunity to sit down in peace and comfort to
study the situation.

[Illustration: “I shall scorn to remember you!”—and she folded her arms under
the cloak tragically.]

At the chapel I narrowly escaped running into Stoddard,
but I slipped past him, pulled the hidden door
into place, traversed the tunnel without incident, and
soon climbed through the hatchway and slammed the
false block securely into the opening.



CHAPTER XIII

A PAIR OF EAVESDROPPERS


When I came down after dressing for dinner, Bates
called my attention to a belated mail. I pounced eagerly
upon a letter in Laurance Donovan’s well-known
hand, bearing, to my surprise, an American stamp and
postmarked New Orleans. It was dated, however, at
Vera Cruz, Mexico, December fifteenth, 1901.

DEAR OLD MAN: I have had a merry time since I saw you
in New York. Couldn’t get away for a European port
as I hoped when I left you, as the authorities seemed to
be taking my case seriously, and I was lucky to get off
as a deck-hand on a south-bound boat. I expected to get a
slice of English prodigal veal at Christmas, but as things
stand now, I am grateful to be loose even in this God-forsaken
hole. The British bulldog is eager to insert its
teeth in my trousers, and I was flattered to see my picture
bulletined in a conspicuous place the day I struck Vera
Cruz. You see, they’re badgering the Government at
home because I’m not apprehended, and they’ve got to
catch and hang me to show that they’ve really got their
hands on the Irish situation. I am not afraid of the
Greasers—no people who gorge themselves with bananas
and red peppers can be dangerous—but the British consul
here has a bad eye and even as I write I am dimly conscious
that a sleek person, who is ostensibly engaged in
literary work at the next table, is really killing time while
he waits for me to finish this screed.

No doubt you are peacefully settled on your ancestral
estate with only a few months and a little patience between
you and your grandfather’s shier. You always were
a lucky brute. People die just to leave you money, whereas
I’ll have to die to get out of jail.

I hope to land under the Stars and Stripes within a few
days, either across country through El Paso or via New
Orleans—preferably the former, as a man’s social position
is rated high in Texas in proportion to the amount of reward
that’s out for him. They’d probably give me the
freedom of the state if they knew my crimes had been the
subject of debate in the House of Commons.

But the man across the table is casually looking over
here for a glimpse of my signature, so I must give him
a good one just for fun. With best wishes always,
                     Faithfully yours,
                             GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH.

P. S—I shan’t mail this here, but give it to a red-haired
Irishman on a steamer that sails north to-night. Pleasant,
I must say, this eternal dodging! Wish I could share your
rural paradise for the length of a pipe and a bottle! Have
forgotten whether you said Indian Territory or Indiana,
but will take chances on the latter as more remotely suggesting
the aborigines.

Bates gave me my coffee in the library, as I wished
to settle down to an evening of reflection without delay.
Larry’s report of himself was not reassuring. I knew
that if he had any idea of trying to reach me he would
not mention it in a letter which might fall into the
hands of the authorities, and the hope that he might
join me grew. I was not, perhaps, entitled to a companion
at Glenarm under the terms of my exile, but as
a matter of protection in the existing condition of affairs
there could be no legal or moral reason why I
should not defend myself against my foes, and Larry
was an ally worth having.

In all my hours of questioning and anxiety at Glenarm
I never doubted the amiable intentions of my
grandfather. His device for compelling my residence
at his absurd house was in keeping with his character,
and it was all equitable enough. But his dead hand had
no control over the strange issue, and I felt justified in
interpreting the will in the light of my experiences. I
certainly did not intend to appeal to the local police authorities,
at least not until the animus of the attack on
me was determined.

My neighbor, the chaplain, had inadvertently given
me a bit of important news; and my mind kept reverting
to the fact that Morgan was reporting his injury to
the executor of my grandfather’s estate in New York.
Everything else that had happened was tame and unimportant
compared with this. Why had John Marshall
Glenarm made Arthur Pickering the executor of his
estate? He knew that I detested him, that Pickering’s
noble aims and high ambitions had been praised by my
family until his very name sickened me; and yet my
own grandfather had thought it wise to intrust his fortune
and my future to the man of all men who was
most repugnant to me. I rose and paced the floor in
anger.

Instead of accepting Pickering’s word for it that the
will was all straight, I should have employed counsel
and taken legal advice before suffering myself to be
rushed away into a part of the world I had never visited
before, and cooped up in a dreary house under the eye
of a somber scoundrel who might poison me any day, if
he did not prefer to shoot me in my sleep. My rage
must fasten upon some one, and Bates was the nearest
target for it. I went to the kitchen, where he usually
spent his evenings, to vent my feelings upon him, only
to find him gone. I climbed to his room and found it
empty. Very likely he was off condoling with his friend
and fellow conspirator, the caretaker, and I fumed with
rage and disappointment. I was thoroughly tired, as
tired as on days when I had beaten my way through
tropical jungles without food or water; but I wished,
in my impotent anger against I knew not what agencies,
to punish myself, to induce an utter weariness that
would drag me exhausted to bed.

The snow in the highway was well beaten down and
I swung off countryward past St. Agatha’s. A gray
mist hung over the fields in whirling clouds, breaking
away occasionally and showing the throbbing winter
stars. The walk, and my interest in the alternation of
star-lighted and mist-wrapped landscape won me to a
better state of mind, and after tramping a couple of
miles, I set out for home. Several times on my tramp
I had caught myself whistling the air of a majestic
old hymn, and smiled, remembering my young friend
Olivia, and her playing in the chapel. She was an
amusing child; the thought of her further lifted my
spirit; and I turned into the school park as I passed
the outer gate with a half-recognized wish to pass near
the barracks where she spent her days.

At the school-gate the lamps of a carriage suddenly
blurred in the mist. Carriages were not common in this
region, and I was not surprised to find that this was the
familiar village hack that met trains day and night at
Glenarm station. Some parent, I conjectured, paying a
visit to St. Agatha’s; perhaps the father of Miss Olivia
Gladys Armstrong had come to carry her home for a
stricter discipline than Sister Theresa’s school afforded.

The driver sat asleep on his box, and I passed him
and went on into the grounds. A whim seized me to
visit the crypt of the chapel and examine the opening
to the tunnel. As I passed the little group of school-buildings
a man came hurriedly from one of them and
turned toward the chapel.

I first thought it was Stoddard, but I could not make
him out in the mist and I waited for him to put twenty
paces between us before I followed along the path that
led from the school to the chapel.

He strode into the chapel porch with an air of assurance,
and I heard him address some one who had been
waiting. The mist was now so heavy that I could not
see my hand before my face, and I stole forward until
I could hear the voices of the two men distinctly.

“Bates!”

“Yes, sir.”

I heard feet scraping on the stone floor of the porch.

“This is a devil of a place to talk in but it’s the best
we can do. Did the young man know I sent for you?”

“No, sir. He was quite busy with his books and papers.”

“Humph! We can never be sure of him.”

“I suppose that is correct, sir.”

“Well, you and Morgan are a fine pair, I must say!
I thought he had some sense, and that you’d see to it
that he didn’t make a mess of this thing. He’s in bed
now with a hole in his arm and you’ve got to go on
alone.”

“I’ll do my best, Mr. Pickering.”

“Don’t call me by name, you idiot. We’re not advertising
our business from the housetops.”

“Certainly not,” replied Bates humbly.

The blood was roaring through my head, and my
hands were clenched as I stood there listening to this
colloquy.

Pickering’s voice was—and is—unmistakable. There
was always a purring softness in it. He used to remind
me at school of a sleek, complacent cat, and I hate cats
with particular loathing.

“Is Morgan lying or not when he says he shot himself
accidentally?” demanded Pickering petulantly.

“I only know what I heard from the gardener here at
the school. You’ll understand, I hope, that I can’t be
seen going to Morgan’s house.”

“Of course not. But he says you haven’t played fair
with him, that you even attacked him a few days after
Glenarm came.”

“Yes, and he hit me over the head with a club. It
was his indiscretion, sir. He wanted to go through the
library in broad daylight, and it wasn’t any use, anyhow.
There’s nothing there.”

“But I don’t like the looks of this shooting. Morgan’s
sick and out of his head. But a fellow like Morgan
isn’t likely to shoot himself accidentally, and now
that it’s done the work’s stopped and the time is running
on. What do you think Glenarm suspects?”

“I can’t tell, sir, but mighty little, I should say. The
shot through the window the first night he was here
seemed to shake him a trifle, but he’s quite settled down
now, I should say, sir.”

“He probably doesn’t spend much time on this side
of the fence—doesn’t haunt the chapel, I fancy?”

“Lord, no, sir! I hardly suspect the young gentleman
of being a praying man.”

“You haven’t seen him prowling about analyzing the
architecture—”

“Not a bit of it, sir. He hasn’t, I should say, what
his revered grandfather called the analytical mind.”

Hearing yourself discussed in this frank fashion by
your own servant is, I suppose, a wholesome thing for
the spirit. The man who stands behind your chair may
acquire, in time, some special knowledge of your mental
processes by a diligent study of the back of your
head. But I was not half so angry with these conspirators
as with myself, for ever having entertained a single
generous thought toward Bates. It was, however, consoling
to know that Morgan was lying to Pickering, and
that my own exploits in the house were unknown to the
executor.

Pickering stamped his feet upon the paved porch
floor in a way that I remembered of old. It marked a
conclusion, and preluded serious statements.

“Now, Bates,” he said, with a ring of authority and
speaking in a louder key than he had yet used, “it’s
your duty under all the circumstances to help discover
the hidden assets of the estate. We’ve got to pluck the
mystery from that architectural monster over there, and
the time for doing it is short enough. Mr. Glenarm was
a rich man. To my own knowledge he had a couple of
millions, and he couldn’t have spent it all on that house.
He reduced his bank account to a few thousand dollars
and swept out his safety-vault boxes with a broom before
his last trip into Vermont. He didn’t die with the
stuff in his clothes, did he?”

“Lord bless me, no, sir! There was little enough
cash to bury him, with you out of the country and me
alone with him.”

“He was a crank and I suppose he got a lot of satisfaction
out of concealing his money. But this hunt for it
isn’t funny. I supposed, of course, we’d dig it up before
Glenarm got here or I shouldn’t have been in such
a hurry to send for him. But it’s over there somewhere,
or in the grounds. There must he a plan of the house
that would help. I’ll give you a thousand dollars the
day you wire me you have found any sort of clue.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I don’t want thanks, I want the money or securities
or whatever it is. I’ve got to go back to my car now,
and you’d better skip home. You needn’t tell your
young master that I’ve been here.”

I was trying hard to believe, as I stood there with
clenched hands outside the chapel porch, that Arthur
Pickering’s name was written in the list of directors of
one of the greatest trust companies in America, and
that he belonged to the most exclusive clubs in New
York. I had run out for a walk with only an inverness
over my dinner-jacket, and I was thoroughly chilled by
the cold mist. I was experiencing, too, an inner cold as
I reflected upon the greed and perfidy of man.

“Keep an eye on Morgan,” said Pickering.

“Certainly, sir.”

“And be careful what you write or wire.”

“I’ll mind those points, sir. But I’d suggest, if you
please, sir—”

“Well?” demanded Pickering impatiently.

“That you should call at the house. It would look
rather strange to the young gentleman if you’d come
here and not see him.”

“I haven’t the slightest errand with him. And besides,
I haven’t time. If he learns that I’ve been here
you may say that my business was with Sister Theresa
and that I regretted very much not having an opportunity
to call on him.”

The irony of this was not lost on Bates, who chuckled
softly. He came out into the open and turned away toward
the Glenarm gate. Pickering passed me, so near
that I might have put out my hand and touched him,
and in a moment I heard the carriage drive off rapidly
toward the village.

I heard Bates running home over the snow and listened
to the clatter of the village hack as it bore Pickering
back to Annandale.

Then out of the depths of the chapel porch—out of
the depths of time and space, it seemed, so dazed I stood
—some one came swiftly toward me, some one, light of
foot like a woman, ran down the walk a little way into
the fog and paused.

An exclamation broke from me.

“Eavesdropping for two!”—it was the voice of Olivia.
“I’d take pretty good care of myself if I were you,
Squire Glenarm. Good night!”

“Good-by!” I faltered, as she sped away into the mist
toward the school.



CHAPTER XIV

THE GIRL IN GRAY

My first thought was to find the crypt door and return
through the tunnel before Bates reached the house.
The chapel was open, and by lighting matches I found
my way to the map and panel. I slipped through and
closed the opening; then ran through the passage with
gratitude for the generous builder who had given it a
clear floor and an ample roof. In my haste I miscalculated
its length and pitched into the steps under the
trap at a speed that sent me sprawling. In a moment
more I had jammed the trap into place and was running
up the cellar steps, breathless, with my cap
smashed down over my eyes.

I heard Bates at the rear of the house and knew I had
won the race by a scratch. There was but a moment in
which to throw my coat and cap under the divan, slap
the dust from my clothes and seat myself at the great
table, where the candles blazed tranquilly.

Bates’ step was as steady as ever—there was not the
slightest hint of excitement in it—as he came and stood
within the door.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Glenarm, did you wish anything,
sir?”

“Oh, no, thank you, Bates.”

“I had stepped down to the village, sir, to speak to
the grocer. The eggs he sent this morning were not
quite up to the mark. I have warned him not to send
any of the storage article to this house.”

“That’s right, Bates.” I folded my arms to hide my
hands, which were black from contact with the passage,
and faced my man servant. My respect for his rascally
powers had increased immensely since he gave me my
coffee. A contest with so clever a rogue was worth
while.

“I’m grateful for your good care of me, Bates. I had
expected to perish of discomfort out here, but you are
treating me like a lord.”

“Thank you, Mr. Glenarm. I do what I can, sir.”

He brought fresh candles for the table candelabra,
going about with his accustomed noiseless step. I felt
a cold chill creep down my spine as he passed behind
me on these errands. His transition from the rôle of
conspirator to that of my flawless servant was almost
too abrupt.

I dismissed him as quickly as possible, and listened
to his step through the halls as he went about locking
the doors. This was a regular incident, but I was aware
to-night that he exercised what seemed to me a particular
care in settling the bolts. The locking-up process
had rather bored me before; to-night the snapping of
bolts was particularly trying.

When I heard Bates climbing to his own quarters I
quietly went the rounds on my own account and found
everything as tight as a drum.

In the cellar I took occasion to roll some barrels of
cement into the end of the corridor, to cover and block
the trap door. Bates had no manner of business in that
part of the house, as the heating apparatus was under
the kitchen and accessible by an independent stairway.
I had no immediate use for the hidden passage to the
chapel—and I did not intend that my enemies should
avail themselves of it. Morgan, at least, knew of it and,
while he was not likely to trouble me at once, I had resolved
to guard every point in our pleasant game.

I was tired enough to sleep when I went to my room,
and after an eventless night, woke to a clear day and
keener air.

“I’m going to take a little run into the village, Bates,”
I remarked at breakfast.

“Very good, sir. The weather’s quite cleared.”

“If any one should call I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned his impenetrable face toward me as I rose.
There was, of course, no chance whatever that any one
would call to see me; the Reverend Paul Stoddard was
the only human being, except Bates, Morgan and the
man who brought up my baggage, who had crossed the
threshold since my arrival.

I really had an errand in the village. I wished to
visit the hardware store and buy some cartridges, but
Pickering’s presence in the community was a disturbing
factor in my mind. I wished to get sight of him,—
to meet him, if possible, and see how a man, whose
schemes were so deep, looked in the light of day.

As I left the grounds and gained the highway Stoddard
fell in with me.

“Well, Mr. Glenarm, I’m glad to see you abroad so
early. With that library of yours the temptation must
be strong to stay within doors. But a man’s got to subject
himself to the sun and wind. Even a good wetting
now and then is salutary.”

“I try to get out every day,” I answered. “But I’ve
chiefly limited myself to the grounds.”

“Well, it’s a fine estate. The lake is altogether
charming in summer. I quite envy you your fortune.”

He walked with a long swinging stride, his hands
thrust deep into his overcoat pockets. It was difficult
to accept the idea of so much physical strength being
wasted in the mere business of saying prayers in a girls’
school. Here was a fellow who should have been captain
of a ship or a soldier, a leader of forlorn hopes. I
felt sure there must be a weakness of some sort in him.
Quite possibly it would prove to be a mild estheticism
that delighted in the savor of incense and the mournful
cadence of choral vespers. He declined a cigar and this
rather increased my suspicions.

The village hack, filled with young women, passed at
a gallop, bound for the station, and we took off our hats.

“Christmas holidays,” explained the chaplain. “Practically
all the students go home.”

“Lucky kids, to have a Christmas to go home to!”

“I suppose Mr. Pickering got away last night?” he
observed, and my pulse quickened at the name.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” I answered guardedly.

“Then of course he hasn’t gone!” and these words,
uttered in the big clergyman’s deep tones, seemed wholly
plausible. There was, to be sure, nothing so unlikely as
that Arthur Pickering, executor of my grandfather’s
estate, would come to Glenarm without seeing me.

“Sister Theresa told me this morning he was here.
He called on her and Miss Devereux last night. I
haven’t seen him myself. I thought possibly I might
run into him in the village. His car’s very likely on the
station switch.”

“No doubt we shall find him there,” I answered easily.

The Annandale station presented an appearance of
unusual gaiety when we reached the main street of the
village. There, to be sure, lay a private car on the
siding, and on the platform was a group of twenty or
more girls, with several of the brown-habited Sisters of
St. Agatha. There was something a little foreign in
the picture; the girls in their bright colors talking
gaily, the Sisters in their somber garb hovering about,
suggesting France or Italy rather than Indiana.

“I came here with the idea that St. Agatha’s was a
charity school,” I remarked to the chaplain.

“Not a bit of it! Sister Theresa is really a swell, you
know, and her school is hard to get into.”

“I’m glad you warned me in time. I had thought of
sending over a sack of flour occasionally, or a few bolts
of calico to help on the good work. You’ve saved my
life.”

“I probably have. I might mention your good intentions
to Sister Theresa.”

“Pray don’t. If there’s any danger of meeting her
on that platform—”

“No; she isn’t coming down, I’m sure. But you
ought to know her,—if you will pardon me. And Miss
Devereux is charming,—but really I don’t mean to be
annoying.”

“Not in the least. But under the circumstances,—
the will and my probationary year,—you can understand—”

“Certainly. A man’s affairs are his own, Mr. Glenarm.”

We stepped upon the platform. The private car was
on the opposite side of the station and had been
switched into a siding of the east and west road. Pickering
was certainly getting on. The private car, even
more than the yacht, is the symbol of plutocracy, and
gaping rustics were evidently impressed by its grandeur.
As I lounged across the platform with Stoddard, Pickering
came out into the vestibule of his car, followed by
two ladies and an elderly gentleman. They all descended
and began a promenade of the plank walk.

Pickering saw me an instant later and came up hurriedly,
with outstretched hand.

“This is indeed good fortune! We dropped off here
last night rather unexpectedly to rest a hot-box and
should have been picked up by the midnight express for
Chicago; but there was a miscarriage of orders somewhere
and we now have to wait for the nine o’clock, and
it’s late. If I’d known how much behind it was I
should have run out to see you. How are things going?”

“As smooth as a whistle! It really isn’t so bad when
you face it. And the fact is I’m actually at work.”

“That’s splendid. The year will go fast enough,
never fear. I suppose you pine for a little human society
now and then. A man can never strike the right
medium in such things. In New York we are all rushed
to death. I sometimes feel that I’d like a little rustication
myself. I get nervous, and working for corporations
is wearing. The old gentleman there is Taylor,
president of the Interstate and Western. The ladies
are his wife and her sister. I’d like to introduce
you.” He ran his eyes over my corduroys and leggings
amiably. He had not in years addressed me so pleasantly.

Stoddard had left me to go to the other end of the
platform to speak to some of the students. I followed
Pickering rather loathly to where the companions of
his travels were pacing to and fro in the crisp morning
air.

I laugh still whenever I remember that morning at
Annandale station. As soon as Pickering had got me
well under way in conversation with Taylor, he excused
himself hurriedly and went off, as I assumed, to be sure
the station agent had received orders for attaching the
private car to the Chicago express. Taylor proved to be
a supercilious person,—I believe they call him Chilly
Billy at the Metropolitan Club,—and our efforts to converse
were pathetically unfruitful. He asked me the
value of land in my county, and as my ignorance on this
subject was vast and illimitable, I could see that he was
forming a low opinion of my character and intelligence.
The two ladies stood by, making no concealment of their
impatience. Their eyes were upon the girls from St.
Agatha’s on the other platform, whom they could see
beyond me. I had jumped the conversation from Indiana
farm-lands to the recent disorders in Bulgaria,
which interested me more, when Mrs. Taylor spoke
abruptly to her sister.

“That’s she—the one in the gray coat, talking to the
clergyman. She came a moment ago in the carriage.”

“The one with the umbrella? I thought you said—”

Mrs. Taylor glanced at her sister warningly, and
they both looked at me. Then they sought to detach
themselves and moved away. There was some one on
the farther side of the platform whom they wished to see,
and Taylor, not understanding their manoeuver—he was
really anxious, I think, not to be left alone with me—
started down the platform after them, I following. Mrs.
Taylor and her sister walked to the end of the platform
and looked across, a biscuit-toss away, to where Stoddard
stood talking to the girl I had already heard described
as wearing a gray coat and carrying an umbrella.

The girl in gray crossed the track quickly and addressed
the two women cordially. Taylor’s back was to
her and he was growing eloquent in a mild well-bred
way over the dullness of our statesmen in not seeing the
advantages that would accrue to the United States in
fostering our shipping industry. His wife, her sister
and the girl in gray were so near that I could hear
plainly what they were saying. They were referring
apparently to the girl’s refusal of an invitation to accompany
them to California.

“So you can’t go—it’s too bad! We had hoped that
when you really saw us on the way you would relent,”
said Mrs. Taylor.

“But there are many reasons; and above all Sister
Theresa needs me.”

It was the voice of Olivia, a little lower, a little more
restrained than I had known it.

“But think of the rose gardens that are waiting for
us out there!” said the other lady. They were showing
her the deference that elderly women always have for
pretty girls.

“Alas, and again alas!” exclaimed Olivia. “Please
don’t make it harder for me than necessary. But I gave
my promise a year ago to spend these holidays in Cincinnati.”

She ignored me wholly, and after shaking hands with
the ladies returned to the other platform. I wondered
whether she was overlooking Taylor on purpose to cut
me.

Taylor was still at his lecture on the needs of our
American merchant marine when Pickering passed hurriedly,
crossed the track and began speaking earnestly
to the girl in gray.

“The American flag should command the seas. What
we need is not more battle-ships but more freight carriers—”
Taylor was saying.

But I was watching Olivia Gladys Armstrong. In a
long skirt, with her hair caught up under a gray toque
that matched her coat perfectly, she was not my Olivia
of the tam-o’-shanter, who had pursued the rabbit; nor
yet the unsophisticated school-girl, who had suffered my
idiotic babble; nor, again, the dreamy rapt organist of
the chapel. She was a grown woman with at least
twenty summers to her credit, and there was about her
an air of knowing the world, and of not being at all a
person one would make foolish speeches to. She spoke
to Pickering gravely. Once she smiled dolefully and
shook her head, and I vaguely strove to remember where
I had seen that look in her eyes before. Her gold beads,
which I had once carried in my pocket, were clasped
tight about the close collar of her dress; and I was glad,
very glad, that I had ever touched anything that belonged
to her.

“As the years go by we are going to dominate trade
more and more. Our manufactures already lead the
world, and what we make we’ve got to sell, haven’t we?”
demanded Taylor.

“Certainly, sir,” I answered warmly.

Who was Olivia Gladys Armstrong and what was
Arthur Pickering’s business with her? And what was
it she had said to me that evening when I had found her
playing on the chapel organ? So much happened that
day that I had almost forgotten, and, indeed, I had
tried to forget I had made a fool of myself for the edification
of an amusing little school-girl. “I see you
prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw you,” she had
said; but if I had thought of this at all it had been
with righteous self-contempt. Or, I may have flattered
my vanity with the reflection that she had eyed me—
her hero, perhaps—with wistful admiration across the
wall.

Meanwhile the Chicago express roared into Annandale
and the private car was attached. Taylor watched
the trainmen with the cool interest of a man for whom
the proceeding had no novelty, while he continued to
dilate upon the nation’s commercial opportunities. I
turned perforce, and walked with him back toward the
station, where Mrs. Taylor and her sister were talking
to the conductor.

Pickering came running across the platform with several
telegrams in his hand. The express had picked up
the car and was ready to continue its westward journey.

“I’m awfully sorry, Glenarm, that our stop’s so
short,”—and Pickering’s face wore a worried look as he
addressed me, his eyes on the conductor.

“How far do you go?” I asked.

“California. We have interests out there and I have
to attend some stock-holders’ meetings in Colorado in
January.”

“Ah, you business men! You business men!” I said
reproachfully. I wished to call him a blackguard then
and there, and it was on my tongue to do so, but I concluded
that to wait until he had shown his hand fully
was the better game.

The ladies entered the car and I shook hands with
Taylor, who threatened to send me his pamphlet on
The Needs of American Shipping, when he got back to
New York.

“It’s too bad she wouldn’t go with us. Poor girl!
this must be a dreary hole for her; she deserves wider
horizons,” he said to Pickering, who helped him upon
the platform of the car with what seemed to be unnecessary
precipitation.

“You little know us,” I declared, for Pickering’s
benefit. “Life at Annandale is nothing if not exciting.
The people here are indifferent marksmen or there’d be
murders galore.”

“Mr. Glenarm is a good deal of a wag,” explained
Pickering dryly, swinging himself aboard as the train
started.

“Yes; it’s my humor that keeps me alive,” I responded,
and taking off my hat, I saluted Arthur Pickering
with my broadest salaam.



CHAPTER XV

I MAKE AN ENGAGEMENT


The south-bound train had not arrived and as I
turned away the station-agent again changed its time
on the bulletin board. It was now due in ten minutes.
A few students had boarded the Chicago train, but a
greater number still waited on the farther platform.
The girl in gray was surrounded by half a dozen students,
all talking animatedly. As I walked toward them
I could not justify my stupidity in mistaking a grown
woman for a school-girl of fifteen or sixteen; but it was
the tam-o’-shanter, the short skirt, the youthful joy in
the outdoor world that had disguised her as effectually
as Rosalind to the eyes of Orlando in the forest of Arden.
She was probably a teacher,—quite likely the
teacher of music, I argued, who had amused herself
at my expense.

It had seemed the easiest thing in the world to approach
her with an apology or a farewell, but those few
inches added to her skirt and that pretty gray toque
substituted for the tam-o’-shanter set up a barrier that
did not yield at all as I drew nearer. At the last moment,
as I crossed the track and stepped upon the other
platform, it occurred to me that while I might have
some claim upon the attention of Olivia Gladys Armstrong,
a wayward school-girl of athletic tastes, I had
none whatever upon a person whom it was proper to
address as Miss Armstrong,—who was, I felt sure, quite
capable of snubbing me if snubbing fell in with her
mood.

She glanced toward me and bowed instantly. Her
young companions withdrew to a conservative distance;
and I will say this for the St. Agatha girls: their manners
are beyond criticism, and an affable discretion is
one of their most admirable traits.

“I didn’t know they ever grew up so fast,—in a day
and a night!”

I was glad I remembered the number of beads in her
chain; the item seemed at once to become important.

“It’s the air, I suppose. It’s praised by excellent
critics, as you may learn from the catalogue.”

“But you are going to an ampler ether, a diviner air.
You have attained the beatific state and at once take
flight. If they confer perfection like an academic degree
at St. Agatha’s, then—”

I had never felt so stupidly helpless in my life.
There were a thousand things I wished to say to her;
there were countless questions I wished to ask; but her
calmness and poise were disconcerting. She had not,
apparently, the slightest curiosity about me; and there
was no reason why she should have—I knew that well
enough! Her eyes met mine easily; their azure depths
puzzled me. She was almost, but not quite, some one I
had seen before, and it was not my woodland Olivia.
Her eyes, the soft curve of her cheek, the light in
her hair,—but the memory of another time, another
place, another girl, lured only to baffle me.

She laughed,—a little murmuring laugh.

“I’ll never tell if you won’t,” she said.

“But I don’t see how that helps me with you?”

“It certainly does not! That is a much more serious
matter, Mr. Glenarm.”

“And the worst of it is that I haven’t a single thing
to say for myself. It wasn’t the not knowing that was
so utterly stupid—”

“Certainly not! It was talking that ridiculous twaddle.
It was trying to flirt with a silly school-girl. What
will do for fifteen is somewhat vacuous for—”

She paused abruptly, colored and laughed.

“I am twenty-seven!”

“And I am just the usual age,” she said.

“Ages don’t count, but time is important. There are
many things I wish you’d tell me,—you who hold the
key of the gate of mystery.”

“Then you’ll have to pick the lock!”

She laughed lightly. The somber Sisters patrolling
the platform with their charges heeded us little.

“I had no idea you knew Arthur Pickering—when
you were just Olivia in the tam-o’-shanter.”

“Maybe you think he wouldn’t have cared for my
acquaintance—as Olivia in the tam-o’-shanter. Men
are very queer!”

“But Arthur Pickering is an old friend of mine.”

“So he told me.”

“We were neighbors in our youth.”

“I believe I have heard him mention it.”

“And we did our prep school together, and then
parted!”

“You tell exactly the same story, so it must be true.
He went to college and you went to Tech.”

“And you knew him—?” I began, my curiosity thoroughly
aroused.

“Not at college, any more than I knew you at Tech.”

“The train’s coming,” I said earnestly, “and I wish
you would tell me—when I shall see you again!”

“Before we part for ever?” There was a mischievous
hint of the Olivia in short skirts in her tone.

“Please don’t suggest it! Our times have been
strange and few. There was that first night, when you
called to me from the lake.”

“How impertinent! How dare you—remember that?”

“And there was that other encounter at the chapel
porch. Neither you nor I had the slightest business
there. I admit my own culpability.”

She colored again.

“But you spoke as though you understood what you
must have heard there. It is important for me to know.
I have a right to know just what you meant by that
warning.”

Real distress showed in her face for an instant. The
agent and his helpers rushed the last baggage down the
platform, and the rails hummed their warning of the
approaching train.

“I was eavesdropping on my own account,” she said
hurriedly and with a note of finality. “I was there by
intention, and”—there was another hint of the tam-o’-shanter
in the mirth that seemed to bubble for a moment
in her throat—“it’s too bad you didn’t see me, for
I had on my prettiest gown, and the fog wasn’t good for
it. But you know as much of what was said there as I
do. You are a man, and I have heard that you have had
some experience in taking care of yourself, Mr. Glenarm.”

“To be sure; but there are times—”

“Yes, there are times when the odds seem rather
heavy. I have noticed that myself.”

She smiled, but for an instant the sad look came into
her eyes,—a look that vaguely but insistently suggested
another time and place.

“I want you to come back,” I said boldly, for the
train was very near, and I felt that the eyes of the Sisters
were upon us. “You can not go away where I shall
not find you!”

I did not know who this girl was, her home, or her
relation to the school, but I knew that her life and
mine had touched strangely; that her eyes were blue,
and that her voice had called to me twice through the
dark, in mockery once and in warning another time,
and that the sense of having known her before, of having
looked into her eyes, haunted me. The youth in
her was so luring; she was at once so frank and so
guarded,—breeding and the taste and training of an
ampler world than that of Annandale were so evidenced
in the witchery of her voice, in the grace and ease that
marked her every motion, in the soft gray tone of hat,
dress and gloves, that a new mood, a new hope and
faith sang in my pulses. There, on that platform, I felt
again the sweet heartache I had known as a boy, when
spring first warmed the Vermont hillsides and the
mountains sent the last snows singing in joy of their
release down through the brook-beds and into the wakened
heart of youth.

She met my eyes steadily.

“If I thought there was the slightest chance of my
ever seeing you again I shouldn’t be talking to you
here. But I thought, I thought it would be good fun
to see how you really talked to a grown-up. So I am
risking the displeasure of these good Sisters just to test
your conversational powers, Mr. Glenarm. You see how
perfectly frank I am.”

“But you forget that I can follow you; I don’t intend
to sit down in this hole and dream about you. You
can’t go anywhere but I shall follow and find you.”

“That is finely spoken, Squire Glenarm! But I imagine
you are hardly likely to go far from Glenarm
very soon. It isn’t, of course, any of my affair; and yet
I don’t hesitate to say that I feel perfectly safe from
pursuit!”—and she laughed her little low laugh that
was delicious in its mockery.

I felt the blood mounting to my cheek. She knew,
then, that I was virtually a prisoner at Glenarm, and
for once in my life, at least, I was ashamed of my folly
that had caused my grandfather to hold and check me
from the grave, as he had never been able to control me
in his life. The whole countryside knew why I was at
Glenarm, and that did not matter; but my heart rebelled
at the thought that this girl knew and mocked me with
her knowledge.

“I shall see you Christmas Eve,” I said, “wherever
you may be.”

“In three days? Then you will come to my Christmas
Eve party. I shall be delighted to see you,—and
flattered! Just think of throwing away a fortune to
satisfy one’s curiosity! I’m surprised at you, but gratified,
on the whole, Mr. Glenarm!”

“I shall give more than a fortune, I shall give the
honor I have pledged to my grandfather’s memory to
hear your voice again.”

“That is a great deal,—for so small a voice; but
money, fortune! A man will risk his honor readily
enough, but his fortune is a more serious matter. I’m
sorry we shall not meet again. It would be pleasant to
discuss the subject further. It interests me particularly.”

“In three days I shall see you,” I said.

She was instantly grave.

“No! Please do not try. It would be a great mistake.
And, anyhow, you can hardly come to my party
without being invited.”

“That matter is closed. Wherever you are on Christmas
Eve I shall find you,” I said, and felt my heart
leap, knowing that I meant what I said.

“Good-by,” she said, turning away. “I’m sorry I
shan’t ever chase rabbits at Glenarm any more.”

“Or paddle a canoe, or play wonderful celestial music
on the organ.”

“Or be an eavesdropper or hear pleasant words from
the master of Glenarm—”

“But I don’t know where you are going—you haven’t
told me anything—you are slipping out into the
world—”

She did not hear or would not answer. She turned
away, and was at once surrounded by a laughing throng
that crowded about the train. Two brown-robed Sisters
stood like sentinels, one at either side, as she stepped
into the car. I was conscious of a feeling that from the
depths of their hoods they regarded me with un-Christian
disdain. Through the windows I could see the
students fluttering to seats, and the girl in gray seemed
to be marshaling them. The gray hat appeared at a
window for an instant, and a smiling face gladdened, I
am sure, the guardians of the peace at St. Agatha’s, for
whom it was intended.

The last trunk crashed into the baggage car, every
window framed for a moment a girl’s face, and the
train was gone.



CHAPTER XVI

THE PASSING OF OLIVIA


Bates brought a great log and rolled it upon exactly
the right spot on the andirons, and a great constellation
of sparks thronged up the chimney. The old relic of a
house—I called the establishment by many names, but
this was, I think, my favorite—could be heated in all
its habitable parts, as Bates had demonstrated. The
halls were of glacial temperature these cold days, but
my room above, the dining-room and the great library
were comfortable enough. I threw down a book and
knocked the ashes from my pipe.

“Bates!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I think my spiritual welfare is in jeopardy. I need
counsel,—a spiritual adviser.”

“I’m afraid that’s beyond me, sir.”

“I’d like to invite Mr. Stoddard to dinner so I may
discuss my soul’s health with him at leisure.”

“Certainly, Mr. Glenarm.”

“But it occurs to me that probably the terms of Mr.
Glenarm’s will point to my complete sequestration here.
In other words, I may forfeit my rights by asking a
guest to dinner.”

He pondered the matter for a moment, then replied:

“I should think, sir,—as you ask my opinion,—that
in the case of a gentleman in holy orders there would
be no impropriety. Mr. Stoddard is a fine gentleman;
I heard your late grandfather speak of him very
highly.”

“That, I imagine, is hardly conclusive in the matter.
There is the executor—”

“To be sure; I hadn’t considered him.”

“Well, you’d better consider him. He’s the court of
last resort, isn’t he?”

“Well, of course, that’s one way of looking at it,
sir.

“I suppose there’s no chance of Mr. Pickering’s dropping
in on us now and then.”

He gazed at me steadily, unblinkingly and with entire
respect.

“He’s a good deal of a traveler, Mr. Pickering is. He
passed through only this morning, so the mail-boy told
me. You may have met him at the station.”

“Oh, yes; to be sure; so I did I” I replied. I was not
as good a liar as Bates; and there was nothing to be
gained by denying that I had met the executor in the
village. “I had a very pleasant talk with him. He was
on the way to California with several friends.”

“That is quite his way, I understand,—private cars
and long journeys about the country. A very successful
man is Mr. Pickering. Your grandfather had great
confidence in him, did Mr. Glenarm.”

“Ah, yes! A fine judge of character my grandfather
was! I guess John Marshall Glenarm could spot a rascal
about as far as any man in his day.”

I felt like letting myself go before this masked scoundrel.
The density of his mask was an increasing wonder
to me. Bates was the most incomprehensible human
being I had ever known. I had been torn with a
thousand conflicting emotions since I overheard him discussing
the state of affairs at Glenarm House with
Pickering in the chapel porch; and Pickering’s acquaintance
with the girl in gray brought new elements
into the affair that added to my uneasiness. But here
was a treasonable dog on whom the stress of conspiracy
had no outward effect whatever.

It was an amazing situation, but it called for calmness
and eternal vigilance. With every hour my resolution
grew to stand fast and fight it out on my own account
without outside help. A thousand times during
the afternoon I had heard the voice of the girl in gray
saying to me: “You are a man, and I have heard that
you have had some experience in taking care of yourself,
Mr. Glenarm.”

It was both a warning and a challenge, and the memory
of the words was at once sobering and cheering.

Bates waited. Of him, certainly, I should ask no
questions touching Olivia Armstrong. To discuss her
with a blackguard servant even to gain answers to baffling
questions about her was not to my liking. And,
thank God! I taught myself one thing, if nothing
more, in those days at Glenarm House: I learned to
bide my time.

“I’ll give you a note to Mr. Stoddard in the morning.
You may go now.”

“Yes, sir.”

The note was written and despatched. The chaplain
was not at his lodgings, and Bates reported that he had
left the message. The answer came presently by the
hand of the Scotch gardener, Ferguson, a short, wiry,
raw-boned specimen. I happened to open the door myself,
and brought him into the library until I could read
Stoddard’s reply. Ferguson had, I thought, an uneasy
eye, and his hair, of an ugly carrot color, annoyed me.

Mr. Paul Stoddard presented his compliments and
would be delighted to dine with me. He wrote a large
even hand, as frank and open as himself.

“That is all, Ferguson.” And the gardener took himself
off.

Thus it came about that Stoddard and I faced each
other across the table in the refectory that same evening
under the lights of a great candelabrum which
Bates had produced from the store-room below. And
I may say here, that while there was a slight hitch sometimes
in the delivery of supplies from the village;
while the fish which Bates caused to be shipped from
Chicago for delivery every Friday morning failed once
or twice, and while the grape-fruit for breakfast
was not always what it should have been,—the supply
of candles seemed inexhaustible. They were produced
in every shade and size. There were enormous
ones, such as I had never seen outside of a Russian
church,—and one of the rooms in the cellar was filled
with boxes of them. The House of a Thousand Candles
deserved and proved its name.

Bates had certainly risen to the occasion. Silver and
crystal of which I had not known before glistened on
the table, and on the sideboard two huge candelabra
added to the festival air of the little room.

Stoddard laughed as he glanced about.

“Here I have been feeling sorry for you, and yet you
are living like a prince. I didn’t know there was so
much splendor in all Wabana County.”

“I’m a trifle dazzled myself. Bates has tapped a new
cellar somewhere. I’m afraid I’m not a good housekeeper,
to speak truthfully. There are times when I
hate the house; when it seems wholly ridiculous, the
whim of an eccentric old man; and then again I’m actually
afraid that I like its seclusion.”

“Your seclusion is better than mine. You know my
little two-room affair behind the chapel,—only a few
books and a punching bag. That chapel also is one of
your grandfather’s whims. He provided that all the
offices of the church must be said there daily or the
endowment is stopped. Mr. Glenarm lived in the past,
or liked to think he did. I suppose you know—or maybe
you don’t know—how I came to have this appointment?”

“Indeed, I should like to know.”

We had reached the soup, and Bates was changing
our plates with his accustomed light hand.

“It was my name that did the business,—Paul. A
bishop had recommended a man whose given name was
Ethelbert,—a decent enough name and one that you
might imagine would appeal to Mr. Glenarm; but he
rejected him because the name might too easily be cut
down to Ethel, a name which, he said, was very distasteful
to him.”

“That is characteristic. The dear old gentleman!” I
exclaimed with real feeling.

“But he reckoned without his host,” Stoddard continued.
“The young ladies, I have lately learned, call
me Pauline, as a mark of regard or otherwise,—probably
otherwise. I give two lectures a week on church
history, and I fear my course isn’t popular.”

“But it is something, on the other hand, to be in touch
with such an institution. They are a very sightly company,
those girls. I enjoy watching them across the
garden wall. And I had a closer view of them at the
station this morning, when you ran off and deserted
me.”

He laughed,—his big wholesome cheering laugh.

“I take good care not to see much of them socially.”

“Afraid of the eternal feminine?”

“Yes, I suppose I am. I’m preparing to go into a
Brotherhood, as you probably don’t know. And girls
are distracting.”

I glanced at my companion with a new inquiry and
interest.

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“Yes; I’m spending my year in studies that I may
never have a chance for hereafter. I’m going into an
order whose members work hard.”

He spoke as though he were planning a summer outing.
I had not sat at meat with a clergyman since the
death of my parents broke up our old home in Vermont,
and my attitude toward the cloth was, I fear, one of
antagonism dating from those days.

“Well, I saw Pickering after all,” I remarked.

“Yes, I saw him, too. What is it in his case, genius
or good luck?”

“I’m not a competent witness,” I answered. “I’ll be
frank with you: I don’t like him; I don’t believe in
him.”

“Oh! I beg your pardon. I didn’t know, of course.”

“The subject is not painful to me,” I hastened to
add, “though he was always rather thrust before me as
an ideal back in my youth, and you know how fatal that
is. And then the gods of success have opened all the
gates for him.”

“Yes,—and yet—”

“And yet—” I repeated. Stoddard lifted a glass of
sherry to the light and studied it for a moment. He did
not drink wine, but was not, I found, afraid to look
at it.

“And yet,” he said, putting down the glass and speaking
slowly, “when the gates of good fortune open too
readily and smoothly, they may close sometimes rather
too quickly and snap a man’s coat-tails. Please don’t
think I’m going to afflict you with shavings of wisdom
from the shop-floor, but life wasn’t intended to be too
easy. The spirit of man needs arresting and chastening.
It doesn’t flourish under too much fostering or
too much of what we call good luck. I’m disposed to
be afraid of good luck.”

“I’ve never tried it,” I said laughingly.

“I am not looking for it,” and he spoke soberly.

I could not talk of Pickering with Bates—the masked
beggar!—in the room, so I changed the subject.

“I suppose you impose penances, prescribe discipline
for the girls at St. Agatha’s,—an agreeable exercise of
the priestly office, I should say!”

His laugh was pleasant and rang true. I was liking
him better the more I saw of him.

“Bless you, no! I am not venerable enough. The
Sisters attend to all that,—and a fine company of
women they are!”

“But there must be obstinate cases. One of the
young ladies confided to me—I tell you this in cloistral
confidence—that she was being deported for insubordination.”

“Ah, that must be Olivia! Well, her case is different.
She is not one girl,—she is many kinds of a girl
in one. I fear Sister Theresa lost her patience and
hardened her heart.”

“I should like to intercede for Miss Armstrong,” I
declared.

The surprise showed in his face, and I added:

“Pray don’t misunderstand me. We met under
rather curious circumstances, Miss Armstrong and I.”

“She is usually met under rather unconventional circumstances,
I believe,” he remarked dryly. “My introduction
to her came through the kitten she smuggled
into the alms box of the chapel. It took me two days
to find it.”

He smiled ruefully at the recollection.

“She’s a young woman of spirit,” I declared defensively.
“She simply must find an outlet for the joy of
youth,—paddling a canoe, chasing rabbits through the
snow, placing kittens in durance vile. But she’s demure
enough when she pleases,—and a satisfaction to
the eye.”

My heart warmed at the memory of Olivia. Verily
the chaplain was right—she was many girls in one!

Stoddard dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee.

“Miss Devereux begged hard for her, but Sister Theresa
couldn’t afford to keep her. Her influence on the
other girls was bad.”

“That’s to Miss Devereux’s credit,” I replied. “You
needn’t wait, Bates.”

“Olivia was too popular. All the other girls indulged
her. And I’ll concede that she’s pretty. That gipsy
face of hers bodes ill to the hearts of men—if she ever
grows up.”

“I shouldn’t exactly call it a gipsy face; and how
much more should you expect her to grow? At twenty
a woman’s grown, isn’t she?”

He looked at me quizzically.

“Fifteen, you mean! Olivia Armstrong—that little
witch—the kid that has kept the school in turmoil all
the fall?”

There was decided emphasis in his interrogations.

“I’m glad your glasses are full, or I should say—”

There was, I think, a little heat for a moment on both
sides.

“The wires are evidently crossed somewhere,” he said
calmly. “My Olivia Armstrong is a droll child from
Cincinnati, whose escapades caused her to be sent home
for discipline to-day. She’s a little mite who just about
comes to the lapel of your coat, her eyes are as black
as midnight—”

“Then she didn’t talk to Pickering and his friends
at the station this morning—the prettiest girl in the
world—gray hat, gray coat, blue eyes? You can have
your Olivia; but who, will you tell me, is mine?”

I pounded with my clenched hand on the table until
the candles rattled and sputtered.

Stoddard stared at me for a moment as though he
thought I had lost my wits. Then he lay back in his
chair and roared. I rose, bending across the table toward
him in my eagerness. A suspicion had leaped into
my mind, and my heart was pounding as it roused a
thousand questions.

“The blue-eyed young woman in gray? Bless your
heart, man, Olivia is a child; I talked to her myself on
the platform. You were talking to Miss Devereux.
She isn’t Olivia, she’s Marian!”

“Then, who is Marian Devereux—where does she
live—what is she doing here—?”

“Well,” he laughed, “to answer your questions in order,
she’s a young woman; her home is New York;
she has no near kinfolk except Sister Theresa, so she
spends some of her time here.”

“Teaches—music—”

“Not that I ever heard of! She does a lot of things
well,—takes cups in golf tournaments and is the nimblest
hand at tennis you ever saw. Also, she’s a fine
musician and plays the organ tremendously.”

“Well, she told me she was Olivia!” I said.

“I should think she would, when you refused to meet
her; when you had ignored her and Sister Theresa,—
both of them among your grandfather’s best friends,
and your nearest neighbors here!”

“My grandfather be hanged! Of course I couldn’t
know her! We can’t live on the same earth. I’m in
her way, hanging on to this property here just to defeat
her, when she’s the finest girl alive!”

He nodded gravely, his eyes bent upon me with sympathy
and kindness. The past events at Glenarm
swept through my mind in kinetoscopic flashes, but the
girl in gray talking to Arthur Pickering and his
friends at the Annandale station, the girl in gray who
had been an eavesdropper at the chapel,—the girl in
gray with the eyes of blue! It seemed that a year passed
before I broke the silence.

“Where has she gone?” I demanded.

He smiled, and I was cheered by the mirth that
showed in his face.

“Why, she’s gone to Cincinnati, with Olivia Gladys
Armstrong,” he said. “They’re great chums, you
know!”



CHAPTER XVII

SISTER THERESA


There was further information I wished to obtain,
and I did not blush to pluck it from Stoddard before
I let him go that night. Olivia Gladys Armstrong lived
in Cincinnati; her father was a wealthy physician at
Walnut Hills. Stoddard knew the family, and I asked
questions about them, their antecedents and place of
residence that were not perhaps impertinent in view of
the fact that I had never consciously set eyes on their
daughter in my life. As I look back upon it now my
information secured at that time, touching the history
and social position of the Armstrongs of Walnut Hills,
Cincinnati, seems excessive, but the curiosity which the
Reverend Paul Stoddard satisfied with so little trouble
to himself was of immediate interest and importance.
As to the girl in gray I found him far more difficult.
She was Marian Devereux; she was a niece of Sister
Theresa; her home was in New York, with another
aunt, her parents being dead; and she was a frequent
visitor at St. Agatha’s.

The wayward Olivia and she were on excellent terms,
and when it seemed wisest for that vivacious youngster
to retire from school at the mid-year recess Miss Devereux
had accompanied her home, ostensibly for a visit,
but really to break the force of the blow. It was a pretty
story, and enhanced my already high opinion of Miss
Devereux, while at the same time I admired the unknown
Olivia Gladys none the less.

When Stoddard left me I dug out of a drawer my
copy of John Marshall Glenarm’s will and re-read it for
the first time since Pickering gave it to me in New
York. There was one provision to which I had not
given a single thought, and when I had smoothed the
thin type-written sheets upon the table in my room I
read it over and over again, construing it in a new light
with every reading.

Provided, further, that in the event of the marriage of
said John Glenarm to the said Marian Devereux, or in the
event of any promise or contract of marriage between said
persons within five years from the date of said John Glenarm’s
acceptance of the provisions of this will, the whole
estate shall become the property absolutely of St. Agatha’s
School at Annandale, Wabana County, Indiana, a corporation
under the laws of said state.

“Bully for the old boy!” I muttered finally, folding
the copy with something akin to reverence for my
grandfather’s shrewdness in closing so many doors upon
his heirs. It required no lawyer to interpret this
paragraph. If I could not secure his estate by settling
at Glenarm for a year I was not to gain it by marrying
the alternative heir. Here, clearly, was not one of those
situations so often contrived by novelists, in which the
luckless heir presumptive, cut off without a cent, weds
the pretty cousin who gets the fortune and they live
happily together ever afterward. John Marshall Glenarm
had explicitly provided against any such frustration
of his plans.

“Bully for you, John Marshall Glenarm!” I rose
and bowed low to his photograph.

On top of my mail next morning lay a small envelope,
unstamped, and addressed to me in a free running hand.

“Ferguson left it,” explained Bates.

I opened and read:

If convenient will Mr. Glenarm kindly look in at St.
Agatha’s some day this week at four o’clock. Sister Theresa
wishes to see him.

I whistled softly. My feelings toward Sister Theresa
had been those of utter repugnance and antagonism. I
had been avoiding her studiously and was not a little
surprised that she should seek an interview with me.
Quite possibly she wished to inquire how soon I expected
to abandon Glenarm House; or perhaps she wished to
admonish me as to the perils of my soul. In any event
I liked the quality of her note, and I was curious to
know why she sent for me; moreover, Marian Devereux
was her niece and that was wholly in the Sister’s favor.

At four o’clock I passed into St. Agatha territory
and rang the bell at the door of the building where I
had left Olivia the evening I found her in the chapel.
A Sister admitted me, led the way to a small reception-room
where, I imagined, the visiting parent was received,
and left me. I felt a good deal like a school-boy
who has been summoned before a severe master for
discipline. I was idly beating my hat with my gloves
when a quick step sounded in the hall and instantly a
brown-clad figure appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Glenarm?”

It was a deep, rich voice, a voice of assurance, a
voice, may I say? of the world,—a voice, too, may I
add? of a woman who is likely to say what she means
without ado. The white band at her forehead brought
into relief two wonderful gray eyes that were alight
with kindliness. She surveyed me a moment, then her
lips parted in a smile.

“This room is rather forbidding; if you will come
with me—”

She turned with an air of authority that was a part
of her undeniable distinction, and I was seated a moment
later in a pretty sitting-room, whose windows
gave a view of the dark wood and frozen lake beyond.

“I’m afraid, Mr. Glenarm, that you are not disposed
to be neighborly, and you must pardon me if I seem to
be pursuing you.”

Her smile, her voice, her manner were charming. I
had pictured her a sour old woman, who had hidden
away from a world that had offered her no pleasure.

“The apologies must all be on my side, Sister Theresa.
I have been greatly occupied since coming here,—
distressed and perplexed even.”

“Our young ladies treasure the illusion that there
are ghosts at your house” she said, with a smile that
disposed of the matter.

She folded her slim white hands on her knees and
spoke with a simple directness.

“Mr. Glenarm, there is something I wish to say to
you, but I can say it only if we are to be friends. I
have feared you might look upon us here as enemies.”

“That is a strong word,” I replied evasively.

“Let me say to you that I hope very much that nothing
will prevent your inheriting all that Mr. Glenarm
wished you to have from him.”

“Thank you; that is both kind and generous,” I said
with no little surprise.

“Not in the least. I should be disloyal to your grandfather,
who was my friend and the friend of my family,
if I did not feel kindly toward you and wish you well.
And I must say for my niece—”

“Miss Devereux.” I found a certain pleasure in pronouncing
her name.

“Miss Devereux is very greatly disturbed over the
good intentions of your grandfather in placing her name
in his will. You can doubtless understand how uncomfortable
a person of any sensibility would be under the
circumstances. I’m sorry you have never met her. She
is a very charming young woman whose happiness does
not, I may say, depend on other people’s money.”

She had never told, then! I smiled at the recollection
of our interviews.

“I am sure that is true, Sister Theresa.”

“Now I wish to speak to you about a matter of some
delicacy. It is, I understand perfectly, no business of
mine how much of a fortune Mr. Glenarm left. But
this matter has been brought to my attention in a disagreeable
way. Your grandfather established this
school; he gave most of the money for these buildings.
I had other friends who offered to contribute, but he insisted
on doing it all. But now Mr. Pickering insists
that the money—or part of it at least—was only a loan.”

“Yes; I understand.”

“Mr. Pickering tells me that he has no alternative in
the matter; that the law requires him to collect this
money as a debt due the estate.”

“That is undoubtedly true, as a general proposition.
He told me in New York that he had a claim against
you for fifty thousand dollars.”

“Yes; that is the amount. I wish to say to you, Mr.
Glenarm, that if it is necessary I can pay that amount.”

“Pray do not trouble about it, Sister Theresa. There
are a good many things about my grandfather’s affairs
that I don’t understand, but I’m not going to see an
old friend of his swindled. There’s more in all this
than appears. My grandfather seems to have mislaid
or lost most of his assets before he died. And yet he
had the reputation of being a pretty cautious business
man.”

“The impression is abroad, as you must know, that
your grandfather concealed his fortune before his
death. The people hereabouts believe so; and Mr. Pickering,
the executor, has been unable to trace it.”

“Yes, I believe Mr. Pickering has not been able to
solve the problem,” I said and laughed.

“But, of course, you and he will coöperate in an effort
to find the lost property.”

She bent forward slightly; her eyes, as they met
mine, examined me with a keen interest.

“Why shouldn’t I be frank with you, Sister Theresa?
I have every reason for believing Arthur Pickering a
scoundrel. He does not care to coöperate with me in
searching for this money. The fact is that he very
much wishes to eliminate me as a factor in the settlement
of the estate. I speak carefully; I know exactly
what I am saying.”

She bowed her head slightly and was silent for a moment.
The silence was the more marked from the fact
that the hood of her habit concealed her face.

“What you say is very serious.”

“Yes, and his offense is equally serious. It may
seem odd for me to be saying this to you when I am a
stranger; when you may be pardoned for having no
very high opinion of me.”

She turned her face to me,—it was singularly gentle
and refined,—not a face to associate with an idea of
self-seeking or duplicity.

“I sent for you, Mr. Glenarm, because I had a very
good opinion of you; because, for one reason, you are
the grandson of your grandfather,”—and the friendly
light in her gray eyes drove away any lingering doubt
I may have had as to her sincerity. “I wished to warn
you to have a care for your own safety. I don’t warn
you against Arthur Pickering alone, but against the
countryside. The idea of a hidden fortune is alluring;
a mysterious house and a lost treasure make a very enticing
combination. I fancy Mr. Glenarm did not realize
that he was creating dangers for the people he
wished to help.”

She was silent again, her eyes bent meditatively upon
me; then she spoke abruptly.

“Mr. Pickering wishes to marry my niece.”

“Ah! I have been waiting to hear that. I am exceedingly
glad to know that he has so noble an ambition.
But Miss Devereux isn’t encouraging him, as near as
I can make out. She refused to go to California with
his party—I happen to know that.”

“That whole California episode would have been
amusing if it had not been ridiculous. Marian never
had the slightest idea of going with him; but she is
sometimes a little—shall I say perverse?—”

“Please do! I like the word—and the quality!”

“—and Mr. Pickering’s rather elaborate methods of
wooing—”

“He’s as heavy as lead!” I declared.

“—amuse Marian up to a certain point; then they annoy
her. He has implied pretty strongly that the claim
against me could be easily adjusted if Marian marries
him. But she will never marry him, whether she benefits
by your grandfather’s will or however that may be!”

“I should say not,” I declared with a warmth that
caused Sister Theresa to sweep me warily with those
wonderful gray eyes. “But first he expects to find this
fortune and endow Miss Devereux with it. That is a
part of the scheme. And my own interest in the estate
must be eliminated before he can bring that condition
about. But, Sister Theresa, I am not so easily got rid
of as Arthur Pickering imagines. My staying qualities,
which were always weak in the eyes of my family, have
been braced up a trifle.”

“Yes.” I thought pleasure and hope were expressed
in the monosyllable, and my heart warmed to her.

“Sister Theresa, you and I are understanding each
other much better than I imagined we should,”—and
we both laughed, feeling a real sympathy growing between
us.

“Yes; I believe we are,”—and the smile lighted her
face again.

“So I can tell you two things. The first is that Arthur
Pickering will never find my grandfather’s lost
fortune, assuming that any exists. The second is that
in no event will he marry your niece.”

“You speak with a good deal of confidence,” she said,
and laughed a low murmuring laugh. I thought there
was relief in it. “But I didn’t suppose Marian’s affairs
interested you.”

“They don’t, Sister Theresa. Her affairs are not of
the slightest importance,—but she is!”

There was frank inquiry in her eyes now.

“But you don’t know her,—you have missed your
opportunity.”

“To be sure, I don’t know her; but I know Olivia
Gladys Armstrong. She’s a particular friend of mine,
—we have chased rabbits together, and she told me a
great deal. I have formed a very good opinion of Miss
Devereux in that way. Oh, that note you wrote about
Olivia’s intrusions beyond the wall! I should thank
you for it,—but I really didn’t mind.”

“A note? I never wrote you a note until to-day!”

“Well, some one did!” I said; then she smiled.

“Oh, that must have been Marian. She was always
Olivia’s loyal friend!”

“I should say so!”

Sister Theresa laughed merrily.

“But you shouldn’t have known Olivia,—it is unpardonable!
If she played tricks upon you, you should not
have taken advantage of them to make her acquaintance.
That wasn’t fair to me!”

“I suppose not! But I protest against this deportation.
The landscape hereabouts is only so much sky,
snow and lumber without her.”

“We miss her, too,” replied Sister Theresa. “We have
less to do!”

“And still I protest!” I declared, rising. “Sister
Theresa, I thank you with all my heart for what you
have said to me,—for the disposition to say it! And
this debt to the estate is something, I promise you, that
shall not trouble you.”

“Then there’s a truce between us! We are not enemies
at all now, are we?”

“No; for Olivia’s sake, at least, we shall be friends.”

I went home and studied the time-table.



CHAPTER XVIII

GOLDEN BUTTERFLIES


If you are one of those captious people who must
verify by the calendar every new moon you read of in
a book, and if you are pained to discover the historian
lifting anchor and spreading sail contrary to the reckonings
of the nautical almanac, I beg to call your attention
to these items from the time-table of the Mid-Western
and Southern Railway for December, 1901.

The south-bound express passed Annandale at exactly
fifty-three minutes after four P. M. It was scheduled
to reach Cincinnati at eleven o’clock sharp. These
items are, I trust, sufficiently explicit.

To the student of morals and motives I will say a
further word. I had resolved to practise deception in
running away from Glenarm House to keep my promise
to Marian Devereux. By leaving I should forfeit
my right to any part of my grandfather’s estate; I
knew that and accepted the issue without regret; but I
had no intention of surrendering Glenarm House to
Arthur Pickering, particularly now that I realized how
completely I had placed myself in his trap. I felt,
moreover, a duty to my dead grandfather; and—not
least—the attacks of Morgan and the strange ways of
Bates had stirred whatever fighting blood there was in
me. Pickering and I were engaged in a sharp contest,
and I was beginning to enjoy it to the full, but I did not
falter in my determination to visit Cincinnati, hoping
to return without my absence being discovered; so the
next afternoon I began preparing for my journey.

“Bates, I fear that I’m taking a severe cold and I’m
going to dose myself with whisky and quinine and go
to bed. I shan’t want any dinner,—nothing until you
see me again.”

I yawned and stretched myself with a groan.

“I’m very sorry, sir. Shan’t I call a doctor?”

“Not a bit of it. I’ll sleep it off and be as lively as
a cricket in the morning.”

At four o’clock I told him to carry some hot water
and lemons to my room; bade him an emphatic good
night and locked the door as he left. Then I packed
my evening clothes in a suit-case. I threw the bag and
a heavy ulster from a window, swung myself out upon
the limb of a big maple and let it bend under me to its
sharpest curve and then dropped lightly to the ground.

I passed the gate and struck off toward the village
with a joyful sense of freedom. When I reached the
station I sought at once the south-bound platform, not
wishing to be seen buying a ticket. A few other passengers
were assembling, but I saw no one I recognized.
Number six, I heard the agent say, was on time; and
in a few minutes it came roaring up. I bought a seat
in the Washington sleeper and went into the dining-car
for supper. The train was full of people hurrying to
various ports for the holidays, but they had, I reflected,
no advantage over me. I, too, was bound on a definite
errand, though my journey was, I imagined, less commonplace
in its character than the homing flight of
most of my fellow travelers.

I made myself comfortable and dozed and dreamed as
the train plunged through the dark. There was a wait,
with much shifting of cars, where we crossed the Wabash,
then we sped on. It grew warmer as we drew
southward, and the conductor was confident we should
reach Cincinnati on time. The through passengers about
me went to bed, and I was left sprawled out in my open
section, lurking on the shadowy frontier between the
known world and dreamland.

“We’re running into Cincinnati—ten minutes late,”
said the porter’s voice; and in a moment I was in the
vestibule and out, hurrying to a hotel. At the St.
Botolph I ordered a carriage and broke all records
changing my clothes. The time-table informed me that
the Northern express left at half-past one. There was
no reason why I should not be safe at Glenarm House
by my usual breakfast hour if all went well. To avoid
loss of time in returning to the station I paid the hotel
charge and carried my bag away with me.

“Doctor Armstrong’s residence? Yes, sir; I’ve already
taken one load there”

The carriage was soon climbing what seemed to be a
mountain to the heights above Cincinnati. To this day
I associate Ohio’s most interesting city with a lonely
carriage ride that seemed to be chiefly uphill, through
a region that was as strange to me as a trackless jungle
in the wilds of Africa. And my heart began to perform
strange tattoos on my ribs I was going to the house
of a gentleman who did not know of my existence, to
see a girl who was his guest, to whom I had never, as
the conventions go, been presented. It did not seem
half so easy, now that I was well launched upon the adventure.

I stopped the cabman just as he was about to enter
an iron gateway whose posts bore two great lamps.

“That is all right, sir. I can drive right in.”

“But you needn’t,” I said, jumping out. “Wait here.”

Doctor Armstrong’s residence was brilliantly lighted,
and the strains of a waltz stole across the lawn cheerily.
Several carriages swept past me as I followed the walk.
I was arriving at a fashionable hour—it was nearly
twelve—and just how to effect an entrance without being
thrown out as an interloper was a formidable problem,
now that I had reached the house. I must catch
my train home, and this left no margin for explanation
to an outraged host whose first impulse would very
likely be to turn me over to the police.

I made a detour and studied the house, seeking a
door by which I could enter without passing the unfriendly
Gibraltar of a host and hostess on guard to
welcome belated guests.

A long conservatory filled with tropical plants gave
me my opportunity. Promenaders went idly through
and out into another part of the house by an exit I
could not see. A handsome, spectacled gentleman
opened a glass door within a yard of where I stood,
sniffed the air, and said to his companion, as he turned
back with a shrug into the conservatory:

“There’s no sign of snow. It isn’t Christmas weather
at all.”

He strolled away through the palms, and I instantly
threw off my ulster and hat, cast them behind some
bushes, and boldly opened the door and entered.

The ball-room was on the third floor, but the guests
were straggling down to supper, and I took my stand
at the foot of the broad stairway and glanced up carelessly,
as though waiting for some one. It was a large
and brilliant company and many a lovely face passed
me as I stood waiting. The very size of the gathering
gave me security, and I smoothed my gloves complacently.

The spectacled gentleman whose breath of night air
had given me a valued hint of the open conservatory
door came now and stood beside me. He even put his
hand on my arm with intimate friendliness.

There was a sound of mirth and scampering feet in
the hall above and then down the steps, between the
lines of guests arrested in their descent, came a dark
laughing girl in the garb of Little Red Riding Hood,
amid general applause and laughter.

“It’s Olivia! She’s won the wager!” exclaimed the
spectacled gentleman, and the girl, whose dark curls
were shaken about her face, ran up to us and threw
her arms about him and kissed him. It was a charming
picture,—the figures on the stairway, the pretty graceful
child, the eager, happy faces all about. I was too
much interested by this scene of the comedy to be uncomfortable.

Then, at the top of the stair, her height accented by
her gown of white, stood Marian Devereux, hesitating
an instant, as a bird pauses before taking wing, and then
laughingly running between the lines to where Olivia
faced her in mock abjection. To the charm of the girl
in the woodland was added now the dignity of beautiful
womanhood, and my heart leaped at the thought
that I had ever spoken to her, that I was there because
she had taunted me with the risk of coming.

[Illustration: At the top of the stair, her height accented by her gown of white,
stood Marian Devereux.]

Above, on the stair landing, a deep-toned clock began
to strike midnight and every one cried “Merry Christmas!”
and “Olivia’s won!” and there was more hand-clapping,
in which I joined with good will.

Some one behind me was explaining what had just
occurred. Olivia, the youngest daughter of the house,
had been denied a glimpse of the ball; Miss Devereux
had made a wager with her host that Olivia would appear
before midnight; and Olivia had defeated the plot
against her, and gained the main hall at the stroke of
Christmas.

“Good night! Good night!” called Olivia—the real
Olivia—in derision to the company, and turned and ran
back through the applauding, laughing throng.

The spectacled gentleman was Olivia’s father, and he
mockingly rebuked Marian Devereux for having encouraged
an infraction of parental discipline, while she
was twitting him upon the loss of his wager. Then her
eyes rested upon me for the first time. She smiled
slightly, but continued talking placidly to her host.
The situation did not please me; I had not traveled so
far and burglariously entered Doctor Armstrong’s house
in quest of a girl with blue eyes merely to stand by while
she talked to another man.

I drew nearer, impatiently; and was conscious that
four other young men in white waistcoats and gloves
quite as irreproachable as my own stood ready to claim
her the instant she was free. I did not propose to be
thwarted by the beaux of Cincinnati, so I stepped toward
Doctor Armstrong.

“I beg your pardon, Doctor—,” I said with an assurance
for which I blush to this hour.

“All right, my boy; I, too, have been in Arcady!” he
exclaimed in cheerful apology, and she put her hand
on my arm and I led her away.

“He called me ‘my boy,’ so I must be passing muster,”
I remarked, not daring to look at her.

“He’s afraid not to recognize you. His inability to
remember faces is a town joke.”

We reached a quiet corner of the great hall and I
found a seat for her.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me,—you knew I
would come. I should have come across the world for
this,—for just this.”

Her eyes were grave at once.

“Why did you come? I did not think you were so
foolish. This is all—so wretched,—so unfortunate. You
didn’t know that Mr. Pickering—Mr. Pickering—”

She was greatly distressed and this name came from
her chokingly.

“Yes; what of him?” I laughed. “He is well on his
way to California,—and without you!”

She spoke hurriedly, eagerly, bending toward me.

“No—you don’t know—you don’t understand—he’s
here; he abandoned his California trip at Chicago; he
telegraphed me to expect him—here—to-night! You
must go at once,—at once!”

“Ah, but you can’t frighten me,” I said, trying to
realize just what a meeting with Pickering in that house
might mean.

“No,”—she looked anxiously about,—”they were to
arrive late, he and the Taylors; they know the Armstrongs
quite well. They may come at any moment
now. Please go!”

“But I have only a few minutes myself,—you
wouldn’t have me sit them out in the station down
town? There are some things I have come to say, and
Arthur Pickering and I are not afraid of each other!”

“But you must not meet him here! Think what that
would mean to me! You are very foolhardy, Mr. Glenarm.
I had no idea you would come—”

“But you wished to try me,—you challenged me.”

“That wasn’t me,—it was Olivia,” she laughed, more
at ease, “I thought—”

“Yes, what did you think?” I asked. “That I was
tied hand and foot by a dead man’s money?”

“No, it wasn’t that wretched fortune; but I enjoyed
playing the child before you—I really love Olivia—and
it seemed that the fairies were protecting me and that
I could play being a child to the very end of the chapter
without any real mischief coming of it. I wish
I were Olivia!” she declared, her eyes away from me.

“That’s rather idle. I’m not really sure yet what
your name is, and I don’t care. Let’s imagine that we
haven’t any names,—I’m sure my name isn’t of any
use, and I’ll be glad to go nameless all my days if
only—”

“If only—” she repeated idly, opening and closing
her fan. It was a frail blue trifle, painted in golden
butterflies.

“There are so many ‘if onlies’ that I hesitate to
choose; but I will venture one. If only you will come
back to St. Agatha’s! Not to-morrow, or the next day,
but, say, with the first bluebirds. I believe they are
the harbingers up there.”

Her very ease was a balm to my spirit; she was now
a veritable daughter of repose. One arm in its long
white sheath lay quiet in her lap; her right hand held
the golden butterflies against the soft curve of her cheek.
A collar of pearls clasped her throat and accented the
clear girlish lines of her profile. I felt the appeal of
her youth and purity. It was like a cry in my heart,
and I forgot the dreary house by the lake, and Pickering
and the weeks within the stone walls of my prison.

“The friends who know me best never expect me to
promise to be anywhere at a given time. I can’t tell;
perhaps I shall follow the bluebirds to Indiana; but
why should I, when I can’t play being Olivia any
more?”

“No! I am very dull. That note of apology you
wrote from the school really fooled me. But I have
seen the real Olivia now. I don’t want you to go too
far—not where I can’t follow—this flight I shall hardly
dare repeat.”

Her lips closed—like a rose that had gone back to be
a bud again—and she pondered a moment, slowly freeing
and imprisoning the golden butterflies.

“You have risked a fortune, Mr. Glenarm, very, very
foolishly,—and more—if you are found here. Why,
Olivia must have recognized you! She must have seen
you often across the wall.”

“But I don’t care—I’m not staying at that ruin up
there for money. My grandfather meant more to me
than that—”

“Yes; I believe that is so. He was a dear old gentleman;
and he liked me because I thought his jokes adorable.
My father and he had known each other. But
there was—no expectation—no wish to profit by his
friendship. My name in his will is a great embarrassment,
a source of real annoyance. The newspapers
have printed dreadful pictures of me. That is why I
say to you, quite frankly, that I wouldn’t accept a cent
of Mr. Glenarm’s money if it were offered me; and
that is why,”—and her smile was a flash of spring,—“I
want you to obey the terms of the will and earn your
fortune.”

She closed the fan sharply and lifted her eyes to mine.

“But there isn’t any fortune! It’s all a myth, a joke,”
I declared.

“Mr. Pickering doesn’t seem to think so. He had
every reason for believing that Mr. Glenarm was a very
rich man. The property can’t be found in the usual
places,—banks, safety vaults, and the like. Then where
do you think it is,—or better, where do you think
Mr. Pickering thinks it is?”

“But assuming that it’s buried up there by the lake
like a pirate’s treasure, it isn’t Pickering’s if he finds
it. There are laws to protect even the dead from robbery!”
I concluded hotly.

“How difficult you are! Suppose you should fall
from a boat, or be shot—accidentally—then I might
have to take the fortune after all; and Mr. Pickering
might think of an easier way of getting it than by—”

“Stealing it! Yes, but you wouldn’t—!”

Half-past twelve struck on the stairway and I started
to my feet.

“You wouldn’t—” I repeated.

“I might, you know!”

“I must go,—but not with that, not with any hint of
that,—please!”

“If you let him defeat you, if you fail to spend your
year there,—we’ll overlook this one lapse,”—she looked
me steadily in the eyes, wholly guiltless of coquetry but
infinitely kind,—“then,—”

She paused, opened the fan, held it up to the light
and studied the golden butterflies.

“Yes—”

“Then—let me see—oh, I shall never chase another
rabbit as long as I live! Now go—quickly—quickly!”

“But you haven’t told me when and where it was we
met the first time. Please!”

She laughed, but urged me away with her eyes.

“I shan’t do it! It isn’t proper for me to remember,
if your memory is so poor. I wonder how it would seem
for us to meet just once—and be introduced! Good
night! You really came. You are a gentleman of your
word, Squire Glenarm!”

She gave me the tips of her fingers without looking
at me.

A servant came in hurriedly.

“Miss Devereux, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and Mr. Pickering
are in the drawing-room.”

“Yes; very well; I will come at once.”

Then to me:

“They must not see you—there, that way!” and she
stood in the door, facing me, her hands lightly touching
the frame as though to secure my way.

I turned for a last look and saw her waiting—her
eyes bent gravely upon me, her arms still half-raised,
barring the door; then she turned swiftly away into the
hall.

Outside I found my hat and coat, and wakened my
sleeping driver. He drove like mad into the city, and
I swung upon the north-bound sleeper just as it was
drawing out of the station.



CHAPTER XIX

I MEET AN OLD FRIEND

When I reached the house I found, to my astonishment,
that the window I had left open as I scrambled
out the night before was closed. I dropped my bag and
crept to the front door, thinking that if Bates had discovered
my absence it was useless to attempt any further
deception. I was amazed to find the great doors
of the main entrance flung wide, and in real alarm I
ran through the hall and back to the library.

The nearest door stood open, and, as I peered in, a
curious scene disclosed itself. A few of the large cathedral
candles still burned brightly in several places,
their flame rising strangely in the gray morning light.
Books had been taken from the shelves and scattered
everywhere, and sharp implements had cut ugly gashes
in the shelving. The drawers containing sketches and
photographs had been pulled out and their contents
thrown about and trampled under foot.

The house was as silent as a tomb, but as I stood on
the threshold trying to realize what had happened, something
stirred by the fireplace and I crept forward, listening,
until I stood by the long table beneath the great
chandelier. Again I heard a sound as of some animal
waking and stretching, followed by a moan that was
undoubtedly human. Then the hands of a man clutched
the farther edge of the table, and slowly and evidently
with infinite difficulty a figure rose and the dark face
of Bates, with eyes blurred and staring strangely, confronted
me.

He drew his body to its height, and leaned heavily
upon the table. I snatched a candle and bent toward
him to make sure my eyes were not tricking me.

“Mr. Glenarm! Mr. Glenarm!” he exclaimed in
broken whispers. “It is Bates, sir.”

“What have you done; what has happened?” I demanded.

He put his hand to his head uncertainly and gaped
as though trying to gather his wits.

He was evidently dazed by whatever had occurred,
and I sprang around and helped him to a couch. He
would not lie down but sat up, staring and passing his
hand over his head. It was rapidly growing lighter,
and I saw a purple and black streak across his temple
where a bludgeon of some sort had struck him.

“What does this mean, Bates? Who has been in the
house?”

“I can’t tell you, Mr. Glenarm.”

“Can’t tell me! You will tell me or go to jail!
There’s been mischief done here and I don’t intend to
have any nonsense about it from you. Well—?”

He was clearly suffering, but in my anger at the sight
of the wreck of the room I grasped his shoulder and
shook him roughly.

“It was early this morning,” he faltered, “about two
o’clock, I heard noises in the lower part of the house.
I came down thinking likely it was you, and remembering
that you had been sick yesterday—”

“Yes, go on.”

The thought of my truancy was no balm to my conscience
just then.

“As I came into the hall, I saw lights in the library.
As you weren’t down last night the room hadn’t been
lighted at all. I heard steps, and some one tapping with
a hammer—”

“Yes; a hammer. Go on!”

It was, then, the same old story! The war had been
carried openly into the house, but Bates,—just why
should any one connected with the conspiracy injure
Bates, who stood so near to Pickering, its leader? The
fellow was undoubtedly hurt,—there was no mistaking
the lump on his head. He spoke with a painful difficulty
that was not assumed, I felt increasingly sure, as
he went on.

“I saw a man pulling out the books and tapping the
inside of the shelves. He was working very fast. And
the next thing I knew he let in another man through
one of the terrace doors,—the one there that still stands
a little open.”

He flinched as be turned slightly to indicate it, and
his face twitched with pain.

“Never mind that; tell the rest of your story.”

“Then I ran in, grabbed one of the big candelabra
from the table, and went for the nearest man. They
were about to begin on the chimney-breast there,—it
was Mr. Glenarm’s pride in all the house,—and that
accounts for my being there in front of the fireplace.
They rather got the best of me, sir.

“Clearly; I see they did. You had a hand-to-hand
fight with them, and being two to one—”

“No; there were two of us,—don’t you understand,
two of us! There was another man who came running
in from somewhere, and he took sides with me. I
thought at first it was you. The robbers thought so,
too, for one of them yelled, ‘Great God; it’s Glenarm!’
just like that. But it wasn’t you, but quite another person.”

“That’s a good story so far; and then what happened?”

“I don’t remember much more, except that some one
soused me with water that helped my head considerably,
and the next thing I knew I was staring across the table
there at you.”

“Who were these men, Bates? Speak up quickly!”

My tone was peremptory. Here was, I felt, a crucial
moment in our relations.

“Well,” he began deliberately, “I dislike to make
charges against a fellow man, but I strongly suspect one
of the men of being—”

“Yes! Tell the whole truth or it will be the worse
for you.”

“I very much fear one of them was Ferguson, the
gardener over the way. I’m disappointed in him,
sir.”

“Very good; and now for the other one.”

“I didn’t get my eyes on him. I had closed with
Ferguson and we were having quite a lively time of it
when the other one came in; then the man who came to
my help mixed us all up,—he was a very lively person,—
and what became of Ferguson and the rest of it I don’t
know.”

There was food for thought in what he said. He had
taken punishment in defense of my property—the crack
on his head was undeniable—and I could not abuse
him or question his veracity with any grace; not, at
least, without time for investigation and study. However,
I ventured to ask him one question.

“If you were guessing, shouldn’t you think it quite
likely that Morgan was the other man?”

He met my gaze squarely.

“I think it wholly possible, Mr. Glenarm.”

“And the man who helped you—who in the devil was
he?”

“Bless me, I don’t know. He disappeared. I’d like
mightily to see him again.”

“Humph! Now you’d better do something for your
head. I’ll summon the village doctor if you say so.”

“No; thank you, sir. I’ll take care of it myself.”

“And now we’ll keep quiet about this. Don’t mention
it or discuss it with any one.”

“Certainly not, sir.”

He rose, and staggered a little, but crossed to the
broad mantel-shelf in the great chimney-breast, rested
his arm upon it for a moment, passed his hand over the
dark wood with a sort of caress, then bent his eyes upon
the floor littered with books and drawings and papers
torn from the cabinets and all splashed with tallow and
wax from the candles. The daylight had increased until
the havoc wrought by the night’s visitors was fully apparent.
The marauders had made a sorry mess of the
room, and I thought Bates’ lip quivered as he saw the
wreck.

“It would have been a blow to Mr. Glenarm; the room
was his pride,—his pride, sir.”

He went out toward the kitchen, and I ran up stairs
to my own room. I cursed the folly that had led me to
leave my window open, for undoubtedly Morgan and
his new ally, St. Agatha’s gardener, had taken advantage
of it to enter the house. Quite likely, too, they had
observed my absence, and this would undoubtedly be
communicated to Pickering. I threw open my door
and started back with an exclamation of amazement.

Standing at my chiffonnier, between two windows,
was a man, clad in a bath-gown—my own, I saw with
fury—his back to me, the razor at his face, placidly
shaving himself.

Without turning he addressed me, quite coolly and
casually, as though his being there was the most natural
thing in the world.

“Good morning, Mr. Glenarm! Rather damaging
evidence, that costume. I suppose it’s the custom of the
country for gentlemen in evening clothes to go out by
the window and return by the door. You might think
the other way round preferable.”

“Larry!” I shouted.

“Jack!”

“Kick that door shut and lock it,” he commanded, in
a sharp, severe tone that I remembered well—and just
now welcomed—in him.

“How, why and when—?”

“Never mind about me. I’m here—thrown the enemy
off for a few days; and you give me lessons in current
history first, while I climb into my armor. Pray pardon
the informality—”

He seized a broom and began work upon a pair of
trousers to which mud and briers clung tenaciously.
His coat and hat lay on a chair, they, too, much the
worse for rough wear.

There was never any use in refusing to obey Larry’s
orders, and as he got into his clothes I gave him in as
few words as possible the chief incidents that had
marked my stay at Glenarm House. He continued dressing
with care, helping himself to a shirt and collar from
my chiffonnier and choosing with unfailing eye the
best tie in my collection. Now and then he asked a
question tersely, or, again, he laughed or swore direly in
Gaelic. When I had concluded the story of Pickering’s
visit, and of the conversation I overheard between the
executor and Bates in the church porch, Larry wheeled
round with the scarf half-tied in his fingers and surveyed
me commiseratingly.

“And you didn’t rush them both on the spot and have
it out?”

“No. I was too much taken aback, for one thing—”

“I dare say you were!”

“And for another I didn’t think the time ripe. I’m
going to beat that fellow, Larry, but I want him to
show his hand fully before we come to a smash-up. I
know as much about the house and its secrets as he does,
—that’s one consolation. Sometimes I don’t believe
there’s a shilling here, and again I’m sure there’s a big
stake in it. The fact that Pickering is risking so much
to find what’s supposed to be hidden here is pretty fair
evidence that something’s buried on the place.”

“Possibly, but they’re giving you a lively boycott.
Now where in the devil have you been?”

“Well,—” I began and hesitated. I had not mentioned
Marian Devereux and this did not seem the time
for confidences of that sort.

He took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it.

“Bah, these women! Under the terms of your revered
grandfather’s will you have thrown away all your rights.
It looks to me, as a member of the Irish bar in bad
standing, as though you had delivered yourself up to
the enemy, so far as the legal situation is concerned.
How does it strike you?”

“Of course I’ve forfeited my rights. But I don’t
mean that any one shall know it yet a while.”

“My lad, don’t deceive yourself. Everybody round
here will know it before night. You ran off, left your
window open invitingly, and two gentlemen who meditated
breaking in found that they needn’t take the trouble.
One came in through your own room, noting, of
course, your absence, let in his friend below, and tore
up the place regrettably.”

“Yes, but how did you get here?—if you don’t mind
telling.”

“It’s a short story. That little chap from Scotland
Yard, who annoyed me so much in New York and drove
me to Mexico—for which may he dwell for ever in fiery
torment—has never given up. I shook him off, though,
at Indianapolis three days ago. I bought a ticket for
Pittsburg with him at my elbow. I suppose he thought
the chase was growing tame, and that the farther east
he could arrest me the nearer I should be to a British
consul and tide-water. I went ahead of him into the
station and out to the Pittsburg sleeper. I dropped my
bag into my section—if that’s what they call it in your
atrocious American language—looked out and saw him
coming along the platform. Just then the car began to
move,—they were shunting it about to attach a sleeper
that had been brought in from Louisville and my carriage,
or whatever you call it, went skimming out of
the sheds into a yard where everything seemed to be
most noisy and complex. I dropped off in the dark
just before they began to haul the carriage back. A
long train of empty goods wagons was just pulling
out and I threw my bag into a wagon and climbed after
it. We kept going for an hour or so until I was thoroughly
lost, then I took advantage of a stop at a place
that seemed to be the end of terrestrial things, got out
and started across country. I expressed my bag to you
the other day from a town that rejoiced in the cheering
name of Kokomo, just to get rid of it. I walked into
Annandale about midnight, found this medieval marvel
through the kindness of the station-master and was reconnoitering
with my usual caution when I saw a gentleman
romantically entering through an open window.”

Larry paused to light a fresh cigarette.

“You always did have a way of arriving opportunely.
Go on!”

“It pleased my fancy to follow him; and by the time
I had studied your diggings here a trifle, things began
to happen below. It sounded like a St. Patrick’s
Day celebration in an Irish village, and I went down at
a gallop to see if there was any chance of breaking in.
Have you seen the room? Well,”—he gave several
turns to his right wrist, as though to test it,—“we all
had a jolly time there by the fireplace. Another chap
had got in somewhere, so there were two of them. Your
man—I suppose it’s your man—was defending himself
gallantly with a large thing of brass that looked like
the pipes of a grand organ—and I sailed in with a chair.
My presence seemed to surprise the attacking party,
who evidently thought I was you,—flattering, I must
say, to me!”

“You undoubtedly saved Bates’ life and prevented the
rifling of the house. And after you had poured water
on Bates,—he’s the servant,—you came up here—”

“That’s the way of it.”

“You’re a brick, Larry Donovan. There’s only one of
you; and now—”

“And now, John Glenarm, we’ve got to get down to
business,—or you must. As for me, after a few hours
of your enlivening society—”

“You don’t go a step until we go together,—no, by
the beard of the prophet! I’ve a fight on here and I’m
going to win if I die in the struggle, and you’ve got to
stay with me to the end.”

“But under the will you dare not take a boarder.”

“Of course I dare! That will’s as though it had
never been as far as I’m concerned. My grandfather
never expected me to sit here alone and be murdered.
John Marshall Glenarm wasn’t a fool exactly!”

“No, but a trifle queer, I should say. I don’t have
to tell you, old man, that this situation appeals to me.
It’s my kind of a job. If it weren’t that the hounds are
at my heels I’d like to stay with you, but you have
enough trouble on hands without opening the house to
an attack by my enemies.”

“Stop talking about it. I don’t propose to be deserted
by the only friend I have in the world when I’m up
to my eyes in trouble. Let’s go down and get some
coffee.”

We found Bates trying to remove the evidences of the
night’s struggle. He had fastened a cold pack about his
head and limped slightly; otherwise he was the same—
silent and inexplicable.

Daylight had not improved the appearance of the
room. Several hundred books lay scattered over the
floor, and the shelves which had held them were hacked
and broken.

“Bates, if you can give us some coffee—? Let the
room go for the present.”

‘‘Yes, sir.”

“And Bates—”

He paused and Larry’s keen eyes were bent sharply
upon him.

“Mr. Donovan is a friend who will be with me for
some time. We’ll fix up his room later in the day”

He limped out, Larry’s eyes following him.

“What do you think of that fellow?” I asked.

Larry’s face wore a puzzled look.

“What do you call him,—Bates? He’s a plucky fellow.”

Larry picked up from the hearth the big candelabrum
with which Bates had defended himself. It
was badly bent and twisted, and Larry grinned.

“The fellow who went out through the front door
probably isn’t feeling very well to-day. Your man was
swinging this thing like a windmill.”

“I can’t understand it,” I muttered. “I can’t, for
the life of me, see why he should have given battle to
the enemy. They all belong to Pickering, and Bates is
the biggest rascal of the bunch.”

“Humph! we’ll consider that later. And would you
mind telling me what kind of a tallow foundry this is?
I never saw so many candlesticks in my life. I seem
to taste tallow. I had no letters from you, and I supposed
you were loafing quietly in a grim farm-house,
dying of ennui, and here you are in an establishment
that ought to be the imperial residence of an Eskimo
chief. Possibly you have crude petroleum for soup and
whipped salad-oil for dessert. I declare, a man living
here ought to attain a high candle-power of luminosity.
It’s perfectly immense.” He stared and laughed. “And
hidden treasure, and night attacks, and young virgins
in the middle distance,—yes, I’d really like to stay a
while.”

As we ate breakfast I filled in gaps I had left in my
hurried narrative, with relief that I can not describe filling
my heart as I leaned again upon the sympathy of
an old and trusted friend.

As Bates came and went I marked Larry’s scrutiny of
the man. I dismissed him as soon as possible that we
might talk freely.

“Take it up and down and all around, what do you
think of all this?” I asked.

Larry was silent for a moment; he was not given to
careless speech in personal matters.

“There’s more to it than frightening you off or getting
your grandfather’s money. It’s my guess that
there’s something in this house that somebody—Pickering
supposedly—is very anxious to find.”

“Yes; I begin to think so. He could come in here
legally if it were merely a matter of searching for lost
assets.”

“Yes; and whatever it is it must be well hidden. As
I remember, your grandfather died in June. You got
a letter calling you home in October.”

“It was sent out blindly, with not one chance in a
hundred that it would ever reach me.”

“To be sure. You were a wanderer on the face of the
earth, and there was nobody in America to look after
your interests. You may be sure that the place was
thoroughly ransacked while you were sailing home. I’ll
wager you the best dinner you ever ate that there’s more
at stake than your grandfather’s money. The situation
is inspiring. I grow interested. I’m almost persuaded
to linger.”



CHAPTER XX

A TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Larry refused to share my quarters and chose a room
for himself, which Bates fitted up out of the house
stores. I did not know what Bates might surmise about
Larry, but he accepted my friend in good part, as a
guest who would remain indefinitely. He seemed to interest
Larry, whose eyes followed the man inquiringly.
When we went into Bates’ room on our tour of the
house, Larry scanned the books on a little shelf with
something more than a casual eye. There were exactly
four volumes,—Shakespeare’s Comedies, The Faerie
Queen, Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and Yeats’ Land
of Heart’s Desire.

“A queer customer, Larry. Nobody but my grandfather
could ever have discovered him—he found him
up in Vermont.”

“I suppose his being a bloomin’ Yankee naturally accounts
for this,” remarked Larry, taking from under the
pillow of the narrow iron bed a copy of the Dublin
Freeman’s Journal.

“It is a little odd,” I said. “But if you found a Yiddish
newspaper or an Egyptian papyrus under his pillow
I should not be surprised.”

“Nor I,” said Larry. “I’ll wager that not another
shelf in this part of the world contains exactly that collection
of books, and nothing else. You will notice that
there was once a book-plate in each of these volumes and
that it’s been scratched out with care.”

On a small table were pen and ink and a curious
much-worn portfolio.

“He always gets the mail first, doesn’t he?” asked
Larry.

“Yes, I believe he does.”

“I thought so; and I’ll swear he never got a letter
from Vermont in his life.”

When we went down Bates was limping about the
library, endeavoring to restore order.

“Bates,” I said to him, “you are a very curious person.
I have had a thousand and one opinions about you
since I came here, and I still don’t make you out.”

He turned from the shelves, a defaced volume in his
hands.

“Yes, sir. It was a good deal that way with your lamented
grandfather. He always said I puzzled him.”

Larry, safe behind the fellow’s back, made no attempt
to conceal a smile.

“I want to thank you for your heroic efforts to protect
the house last night. You acted nobly, and I must
confess, Bates, that I didn’t think it was in you. You’ve
got the right stuff in you; I’m only sorry that there are
black pages in your record that I can’t reconcile with
your manly conduct of last night. But we’ve got to
come to an understanding.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The most outrageous attacks have been made on me
since I came here. You know what I mean well enough.
Mr. Glenarm never intended that I should sit down in
his house and be killed or robbed. He was the gentlest
being that ever lived, and I’m going to fight for his
memory and to protect his property from the scoundrels
who have plotted against me. I hope you follow me.”

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.” He was regarding me attentively.
His lips quavered, perhaps from weakness, for
he certainly looked ill.

“Now I offer you your choice,—either to stand loyally
by me and my grandfather’s house or to join these
scoundrels Arthur Pickering has hired to drive me out.
I’m not going to bribe you,—I don’t offer you a cent for
standing by me, but I won’t have a traitor in the house,
and if you don’t like me or my terms I want you to go
and go now.”

He straightened quickly,—his eyes lighted and the
color crept into his face. I had never before seen him
appear so like a human being.

“Mr. Glenarm, you have been hard on me; there have
been times when you have been very unjust—”

“Unjust,—my God, what do you expect me to
take from you! Haven’t I known that you were in
league with Pickering? I’m not as dull as I look, and
after your interview with Pickering in the chapel porch
you can’t convince me that you were faithful to my interests
at that time.”

He started and gazed at me wonderingly. I had had
no intention of using the chapel porch interview at this
time, but it leaped out of me uncontrollably.

“I suppose, sir,” he began brokenly, “that I can hardly
persuade you that I meant no wrong on that occasion.”

“You certainly can not,—and it’s safer for you not
to try. But I’m willing to let all that go as a reward
for your work last night. Make your choice now; stay
here and stop your spying or clear out of Annandale
within an hour.”

He took a step toward me; the table was between us
and he drew quite near but stood clear of it, erect until
there was something almost soldierly and commanding
in his figure.

“By God, I will stand by you, John Glenarm!” he
said, and struck the table smartly with his clenched
hand.

He flushed instantly, and I felt the blood mounting
into my own face as we gazed at each other,—he, Bates,
the servant, and I, his master! He had always addressed
me so punctiliously with the “sir” of respect that his
declaration of fealty, spoken with so sincere and vigorous
an air of independence, and with the bold emphasis
of the oath, held me spellbound, staring at him. The
silence was broken by Larry, who sprang forward and
grasped Bates’ hand.

“I, too, Bates,” I said, feeling my heart leap with
liking, even with admiration for the real manhood that
seemed to transfigure this hireling,—this fellow whom I
had charged with most infamous treachery, this servant
who had cared for my needs in so humble a spirit of
subjection.

The knocker on the front door sounded peremptorily,
and Bates turned away without another word, and admitted
Stoddard, who came in hurriedly.

“Merry Christmas!” in his big hearty tones was
hardly consonant with the troubled look on his face. I
introduced him to Larry and asked him to sit down.

“Pray excuse our disorder,—we didn’t do it for fun;
it was one of Santa Claus’ tricks.”

He stared about wonderingly.

“So you caught it, too, did you?”

“To be sure. You don’t mean to say that they raided
the chapel?”

“That’s exactly what I mean to say. When I went
into the church for my early service I found that some
one had ripped off the wainscoting in a half a dozen
places and even pried up the altar. It’s the most outrageous
thing I ever knew. You’ve heard of the proverbial
poverty of the church mouse,—what do you suppose
anybody could want to raid a simple little country
chapel for? And more curious yet, the church plate
was untouched, though the closet where it’s kept was
upset, as though the miscreants had been looking for
something they didn’t find.”

Stoddard was greatly disturbed, and gazed about the
topsy-turvy library with growing indignation.

We drew together for a council of war. Here was an
opportunity to enlist a new recruit on my side. I already
felt stronger by reason of Larry’s accession; as to
Bates, my mind was still numb and bewildered.

“Larry, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t join forces
with Mr. Stoddard, as he seems to be affected by this
struggle. We owe it to him and the school to put him
on guard, particularly since we know that Ferguson’s
with the enemy.”

“Yes, certainly,” said Larry.

He always liked or disliked new people unequivocally,
and I was glad to see that he surveyed the big clergyman
with approval.

“I’ll begin at the beginning,” I said, “and tell you
the whole story.”

He listened quietly to the end while I told him of my
experience with Morgan, of the tunnel into the chapel
crypt, and finally of the affair in the night and our interview
with Bates.

“I feel like rubbing my eyes and accusing you of
reading penny-horrors,” he said. “That doesn’t sound
like the twentieth century in Indiana.”

“But Ferguson,—you’d better have a care in his direction.
Sister Theresa—”

“Bless your heart! Ferguson’s gone—without notice.
He got his traps and skipped without saying a word to
any one.”

“We’ll hear from him again, no doubt. Now, gentlemen,
I believe we understand one another. I don’t like
to draw you, either one of you, into my private affairs—”

The big chaplain laughed.

“Glenarm,”—prefixes went out of commission quickly
that morning,—”if you hadn’t let me in on this I
should never have got over it. Why, this is a page out
of the good old times! Bless me! I never appreciated
your grandfather! I must run—I have another service.
But I hope you gentlemen will call on me, day or night,
for anything I can do to help you. Please don’t forget
me. I had the record once for putting the shot.”

“Why not give our friend escort through the tunnel?”
asked Larry. “I’ll not hesitate to say that I’m dying
to see it.”

“To be sure!” We went down into the cellar, and
poked over the lantern and candlestick collections, and
I pointed out the exact spot where Morgan and I had
indulged in our revolver duel. It was fortunate that
the plastered walls of the cellar showed clearly the cuts
and scars of the pistol-balls or I fear my story would
have fallen on incredulous ears.

The debris I had piled upon the false block of stone
in the cellar lay as I had left it, but the three of us
quickly freed the trap. The humor of the thing took
strong hold of my new allies, and while I was getting a
lantern to light us through the passage Larry sat on the
edge of the trap and howled a few bars of a wild Irish
jig. We set forth at once and found the passage unchanged.
When the cold air blew in upon us I paused.

“Have you gentlemen the slightest idea of where
you are?”

“We must be under the school-grounds, I should say,”
replied Stoddard.

“We’re exactly under the stone wall. Those tall posts
at the gate are a scheme for keeping fresh air in the
passage.”

“You certainly have all the modern improvements,”
observed Larry, and I heard him chuckling all the way
to the crypt door.

When I pushed the panel open and we stepped out
into the crypt Stoddard whistled and Larry swore
softly.

“It must be for something!” exclaimed the chaplain.
“You don’t suppose Mr. Glenarm built a secret passage
just for the fun of it, do you? He must have had some
purpose. Why, I sleep out here within forty yards of
where we stand and I never had the slightest idea of
this.”

“But other people seem to know of it,” observed
Larry.

“To be sure; the curiosity of the whole countryside
was undoubtedly piqued by the building of Glenarm
House. The fact that workmen were brought from a
distance was in itself enough to arouse interest. Morgan
seems to have discovered the passage without any
trouble.”

“More likely it was Ferguson. He was the sexton of
the church and had a chance to investigate,” said Stoddard.
“And now, gentlemen, I must go to my service.
I’ll see you again before the day is over.”

“And we make no confidences!” I admonished.

“‘Sdeath!—I believe that is the proper expression under
all the circumstances.” And the Reverend Paul
Stoddard laughed, clasped my hand and went up into
the chapel vestry.

I closed the door in the wainscoting and hung the
map back in place.

We went up into the little chapel and found a small
company of worshipers assembled,—a few people from
the surrounding farms, half a dozen Sisters sitting somberly
near the chancel and the school servants.

Stoddard came out into the chancel, lighted the altar
tapers and began the Anglican communion office. I had
forgotten what a church service was like; and Larry, I
felt sure, had not attended church since the last time
his family had dragged him to choral vespers.

It was comforting to know that here was, at least, one
place of peace within reach of Glenarm House. But I
may be forgiven, I hope, if my mind wandered that
morning, and my thoughts played hide-and-seek with
memory. For it was here, in the winter twilight, that
Marian Devereux had poured out her girl’s heart in a
great flood of melody. I was glad that the organ was
closed; it would have wrung my heart to hear a note
from it that her hands did not evoke.

When we came out upon the church porch and I stood
on the steps to allow Larry to study the grounds, one of
the brown-robed Sisterhood spoke my name.

It was Sister Theresa.

“Can you come in for a moment?” she asked.

“I will follow at once,” I said.

She met me in the reception-room where I had seen
her before.

“I’m sorry to trouble you on Christmas Day with my
affairs, but I have had a letter from Mr. Pickering, saying
that he will he obliged to bring suit for settlement
of my account with Mr. Glenarm’s estate. I needn’t
say that this troubles me greatly. In my position a lawsuit
is uncomfortable; it would do a real harm to the
school. Mr. Pickering implies in a very disagreeable
way that I exercised an undue influence over Mr. Glenarm.
You can readily understand that that is not a
pleasant accusation.”

“He is going pretty far,” I said.

“He gives me credit for a degree of power over others
that I regret to say I do not possess. He thinks, for instance,
that I am responsible for Miss Devereux’s attitude
toward him,—something that I have had nothing
whatever to do with.”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m glad you have no harsh feeling toward her. It
was unfortunate that Mr. Glenarm saw fit to mention
her in his will. It has given her a great deal of notoriety,
and has doubtless strengthened the impression in
some minds that she and I really plotted to get as much
as possible of your grandfather’s estate.”

“No one would regret all this more than my grandfather,
—I am sure of that. There are many inexplicable
things about his affairs. It seems hardly possible
that a man so shrewd as he, and so thoughtful of the
feelings of others, should have left so many loose ends
behind him. But I assure you I am giving my whole
attention to these matters, and I am wholly at your
service in anything I can do to help you.”

“I sincerely hope that nothing may interfere to prevent
your meeting Mr. Glenarm’s wish that you remain
through the year. That was a curious and whimsical
provision, but it is not, I imagine, so difficult.”

She spoke in a kindly tone of encouragement that
made me feel uneasy and almost ashamed for having
already forfeited my claim under the will. Her beautiful
gray eyes disconcerted me; I had not the heart to
deceive her.

“I have already made it impossible for me to inherit
under the will,” I said.

The disappointment in her face rebuked me sharply.

“I am sorry, very sorry, indeed,” she said coldly.
“But how, may I ask?”

“I ran away, last night. I went to Cincinnati to see
Miss Devereux.”

She rose, staring in dumb astonishment, and after a
full minute in which I tried vainly to think of something
to say, I left the house.

There is nothing in the world so tiresome as explanations,
and I have never in my life tried to make them
without floundering into seas of trouble.



CHAPTER XXI

PICKERING SERVES NOTICE


The next morning Bates placed a letter postmarked
Cincinnati at my plate. I opened and read it aloud to
Larry:
                   On Board the Heloise

                                  December 25, 1901.
John Glenarm, Esq.,
     Glenarm House,
            Annandale, Wabana Co., Indiana:
 DEAR SIR—I have just learned from what I believe to
be a trustworthy source that you have already violated
the terms of the agreement under which you entered into
residence on the property near Annandale, known as
Glenarm House. The provisions of the will of John Marshall
Glenarm are plain and unequivocal, as you undoubtedly
understood when you accepted them, and your absence,
not only from the estate itself, but from Wabana
County, violates beyond question your right to inherit.
 I, as executor, therefore demand that you at once vacate
said property, leaving it in as good condition as when
received by you.         Very truly yours,
                                 Arthur Pickering,
     Executor of the Estate of John Marshall Glenarm.

“Very truly the devil’s,” growled Larry, snapping
his cigarette case viciously.

“How did he find out?” I asked lamely, but my heart
sank like lead. Had Marian Devereux told him! How
else could he know?

“Probably from the stars,—the whole universe undoubtedly
saw you skipping off to meet your lady-love.
Bah, these women!”

“Tut! They don’t all marry the sons of brewers,”
I retorted. “You assured me once, while your affair
with that Irish girl was on, that the short upper lip
made Heaven seem possible, but unnecessary; then the
next thing I knew she had shaken you for the bloated
masher. Take that for your impertinence. But perhaps
it was Bates?”

I did not wait for an answer. I was not in a mood
for reflection or nice distinctions. The man came in
just then with a fresh plate of toast.

“Bates, Mr. Pickering has learned that I was away
from the house on the night of the attack, and I’m ordered
off for having broken my agreement to stay here.
How do you suppose he heard of it so promptly?”

“From Morgan, quite possibly. I have a letter from
Mr. Pickering myself this morning. Just a moment,
sir.”

He placed before me a note bearing the same date as
my own. It was a sharp rebuke of Bates for his failure
to report my absence, and he was ordered to prepare to
leave on the first of February. “Close your accounts at
the shopkeepers’ and I will audit your bills on my arrival.”

The tone was peremptory and contemptuous. Bates
had failed to satisfy Pickering and was flung off like a
smoked-out cigar.

“How much had he allowed you for expenses, Bates?”

He met my gaze imperturbably.

“He paid me fifty dollars a month as wages, sir, and
I was allowed seventy-five for other expenses.”

“But you didn’t buy English pheasants and champagne
on that allowance!”

He was carrying away the coffee tray and his eyes
wandered to the windows.

“Not quite, sir. You see—”

“But I don’t see!”

“It had occurred to me that as Mr. Pickering’s allowance
wasn’t what you might call generous it was better
to augment it—Well, sir, I took the liberty of advancing
a trifle, as you might say, to the estate. Your
grandfather would not have had you starve, sir.”

He left hurriedly, as though to escape from the consequences
of his words, and when I came to myself
Larry was gloomily invoking his strange Irish gods.

“Larry Donovan, I’ve been tempted to kill that fellow
a dozen times! This thing is too damned complicated
for me. I wish my lamented grandfather had left
me something easy. To think of it—that fellow, after
my treatment of him—my cursing and abusing him
since I came here! Great Scott, man, I’ve been enjoying
his bounty, I’ve been living on his money! And
all the time he’s been trusting in me, just because of
his dog-like devotion to my grandfather’s memory.
Lord, I can’t face the fellow again!”

“As I have said before, you’re rather lacking at times
in perspicacity. Your intelligence is marred by large
opaque spots. Now that there’s a woman in the case
you’re less sane than ever. Bah, these women! And
now we’ve got to go to work.”

Bah, these women! My own heart caught the words.
I was enraged and bitter. No wonder she had been
anxious for me to avoid Pickering after daring me to
follow her!

We called a council of war for that night that we
might view matters in the light of Pickering’s letter.
His assuredness in ordering me to leave made prompt
and decisive action necessary on my part. I summoned
Stoddard to our conference, feeling confident of his
friendliness.

“Of course,” said the broad-shouldered chaplain, “if
you could show that your absence was on business of
very grave importance, the courts might construe in
that you had not really violated the will.”

Larry looked at the ceiling and blew rings of smoke
languidly. I had not disclosed to either of them the
cause of my absence. On such a matter I knew I should
get precious little sympathy from Larry, and I had,
moreover, a feeling that I could not discuss Marian
Devereux with any one; I even shrank from mentioning
her name, though it rang like the call of bugles in
my blood.

She was always before me,—the charmed spirit of
youth, linked to every foot of the earth, every gleam of
the sun upon the ice-bound lake, every glory of the winter
sunset. All the good impulses I had ever stifled
were quickened to life by the thought of her. Amid the
day’s perplexities I started sometimes, thinking I heard
her voice, her girlish laughter, or saw her again coming
toward me down the stairs, or holding against the light
her fan with its golden butterflies. I really knew so
little of her; I could associate her with no home, only
with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake, the
snow-driven woodland, that twilight hour at the organ
in the chapel, those stolen moments at the Armstrongs’.
I resented the pressure of the hour’s affairs, and chafed
at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the
good friends who were there to help. I wished to be
alone, to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her
brought me. The doubt that crept through my mind
as to any possibility of connivance between her and
Pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a
swallow’s wing on a sunny meadow.

“You don’t intend fighting the fact of your absence,
do you?” demanded Larry, after a long silence.

“Of course not!” I replied quietly. “Pickering was
right on my heels, and my absence was known to his
men here. And it would not be square to my grandfather,
—who never harmed a flea, may his soul rest in
blessed peace!—to lie about it. They might nail me for
perjury besides.”

“Then the quicker we get ready for a siege the better.
As I understand your attitude, you don’t propose to
move out until you’ve found where the siller’s hidden.
Being a gallant gentleman and of a forgiving nature,
you want to be sure that the lady who is now entitled to
it gets all there is coming to her, and as you don’t trust
the executor, any further than a true Irishman trusts a
British prime minister’s promise, you’re going to stand
by to watch the boodle counted. Is that a correct analysis
of your intentions?”

“That’s as near one of my ideas as you’re likely to
get, Larry Donovan!”

“And if he comes with the authorities,—the sheriff
and that sort of thing,—we must prepare for such an
emergency,” interposed the chaplain.

“So much the worse for the sheriff and the rest of
them!” I declared.

“Spoken like a man of spirit. And now we’d better
stock up at once, in case we should be shut off from our
source of supplies. This is a lonely place here; even
the school is a remote neighbor. Better let Bates raid
the village shops to-morrow. I’ve tried being hungry,
and I don’t care to repeat the experience.”

And Larry reached for the tobacco jar.

“I can’t imagine, I really can’t believe,” began the
chaplain, “that Miss Devereux will want to be brought
into this estate matter in any way. In fact, I have heard
Sister Theresa say as much. I suppose there’s no way
of preventing a man from leaving his property to a
young woman, who has no claim on him,—who doesn’t
want anything from him.”

“Bah, these women! People don’t throw legacies to
the birds these days. Of course she’ll take it.”

Then his eyes widened and met mine in a gaze that
reflected the mystification and wonder that struck both
of us. Stoddard turned from the fire suddenly:

“What’s that? There’s some one up stairs!”

Larry was already running toward the hall, and I
heard him springing up the steps like a cat, while Stoddard
and I followed.

“Where’s Bates?” demanded the chaplain.

“I’ll thank you for the answer,” I replied.

Larry stood at the top of the staircase, holding a
candle at arm’s length in front of him, staring about.

We could hear quite distinctly some one walking
on a stairway; the sounds were unmistakable, just as
I had heard them on several previous occasions, without
ever being able to trace their source.

The noise ceased suddenly, leaving us with no hint of
its whereabouts.

I went directly to the rear of the house and found
Bates putting the dishes away in the pantry.

“Where have you been?” I demanded.

“Here, sir; I have been clearing up the dinner things,
Mr. Glenarm. Is there anything the matter, sir?”

“Nothing.”

I joined the others in the library.

“Why didn’t you tell me this feudal imitation was
haunted?” asked Larry, in a grieved tone. “All it needed
was a cheerful ghost, and now I believe it lacks absolutely
nothing. I’m increasingly glad I came. How
often does it walk?”

“It’s not on a schedule. Just now it’s the wind in
the tower probably; the wind plays queer pranks up
there sometimes.”

“You’ll have to do better than that, Glenarm,” said
Stoddard. “It’s as still outside as a country graveyard.”

“Only the slaugh sidhe, the people of the faery hills,
the cheerfulest ghosts in the world,” said Larry. “You
literal Saxons can’t grasp the idea, of course.”

But there was substance enough in our dangers without
pursuing shadows. Certain things were planned
that night. We determined to exercise every precaution
to prevent a surprise from without, and we resolved
upon a new and systematic sounding of walls and floors,
taking our clue from the efforts made by Morgan and
his ally to find hiding-places by this process. Pickering
would undoubtedly arrive shortly, and we wished to
anticipate his movements as far as possible.

We resolved, too, upon a day patrol of the grounds
and a night guard. The suggestion came, I believe,
from Stoddard, whose interest in my affairs was only
equaled by the fertility of his suggestions. One of us
should remain abroad at night, ready to sound the alarm
in case of attack. Bates should take his turn with the
rest—Stoddard insisted on it.

Within two days we were, as Larry expressed it, on a
war footing. We added a couple of shot-guns and several
revolvers to my own arsenal, and piled the library
table with cartridge boxes. Bates, acting as quarter-master,
brought a couple of wagon-loads of provisions.
Stoddard assembled a remarkable collection of heavy
sticks; he had more confidence in them, he said, than in
gunpowder, and, moreover, he explained, a priest might
not with propriety bear arms.

It was a cheerful company of conspirators that now
gathered around the big hearth. Larry, always restless,
preferred to stand at one side, an elbow on the
mantel-shelf, pipe in mouth; and Stoddard sought the
biggest chair,—and filled it. He and Larry understood
each other at once, and Larry’s stories, ranging in subject
from undergraduate experiences at Dublin to adventures
in Africa and always including endless conflicts
with the Irish constabulary, delighted the big boyish
clergyman.

Often, at some one’s suggestion of a new idea, we ran
off to explore the house again in search of the key to the
Glenarm riddle, and always we came back to the library
with that riddle still unsolved.



CHAPTER XXII

THE RETURN OF MARIAN DEVEREUX


“Sister Theresa has left, sir.”

Bates had been into Annandale to mail some letters,
and I was staring out upon the park from the library
windows when he entered. Stoddard, having kept watch
the night before, was at home asleep, and Larry was off
somewhere in the house, treasure-hunting. I was feeling
decidedly discouraged over our failure to make any
progress with our investigations, and Bates’ news did
not interest me.

“Well, what of it?” I demanded, without turning
round.

“Nothing, sir; but Miss Devereux has come back!”

“The devil!”

I turned and took a step toward the door.

“I said Miss Devereux,” he repeated in dignified rebuke.
“She came up this morning, and the Sister left
at once for Chicago. Sister Theresa depends particularly
upon Miss Devereux,—so I’ve heard, sir. Miss
Devereux quite takes charge when the Sister goes away.
A few of the students are staying in school through the
holidays.”

“You seem full of information,” I remarked, taking
another step toward my hat and coat.

“And I’ve learned something else, sir.”

“Well?”

“They all came together, sir.”

“Who came; if you please, Bates?”

“Why, the people who’ve been traveling with Mr.
Pickering came back with him, and Miss Devereux came
with them from Cincinnati. That’s what I learned in
the village. And Mr. Pickering is going to stay—”

“Pickering stay!”

“At his cottage on the lake for a while. The reason
is that he’s worn out with his work, and wishes quiet.
The other people went back to New York in the car.”

“He’s opened a summer cottage in mid-winter, has
he?”

I had been blue enough without this news. Marian
Devereux had come back to Annandale with Arthur
Pickering; my faith in her snapped like a reed at this
astounding news. She was now entitled to my grandfather’s
property and she had lost no time in returning
as soon as she and Pickering had discussed together at
the Armstrongs’ my flight from Annandale. Her return
could have no other meaning than that there was a
strong tie between them, and he was now to stay on the
ground until I should be dispossessed and her rights
established. She had led me to follow her, and my forfeiture
had been sealed by that stolen interview at the
Armstrongs’. It was a black record, and the thought of
it angered me against myself and the world.

“Tell Mr. Donovan that I’ve gone to St. Agatha’s,”
I said, and I was soon striding toward the school.

A Sister admitted me. I heard the sound of a piano,
somewhere in the building, and I consigned the inventor
of pianos to hideous torment as scales were
pursued endlessly up and down the keys. Two girls
passing through the hall made a pretext of looking for
a book and came in and exclaimed over their inability
to find it with much suppressed giggling.

The piano-pounding continued and I waited for what
seemed an interminable time. It was growing dark and
a maid lighted the oil lamps. I took a book from the
table. It was The Life of Benvenuto Cellini and “Marian
Devereux” was written on the fly leaf, by unmistakably
the same hand that penned the apology for
Olivia’s performances. I saw in the clear flowing lines
of the signature, in their lack of superfluity, her own
ease, grace and charm; and, in the deeper stroke with
which the x was crossed, I felt a challenge, a readiness
to abide by consequences once her word was given.
Then my own inclination to think well of her angered
me. It was only a pretty bit of chirography, and I
dropped the book impatiently when I heard her step
on the threshold.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Glenarm.
But this is my busy hour.”

“I shall not detain you long. I came,”—I hesitated,
not knowing why I had come.

She took a chair near the open door and bent forward
with an air of attention that was disquieting. She
wore black—perhaps to fit her the better into the house
of a somber Sisterhood. I seemed suddenly to remember
her from a time long gone, and the effort of memory
threw me off guard. Stoddard had said there were
several Olivia Armstrongs; there were certainly many
Marian Devereuxs. The silence grew intolerable; she
was waiting for me to speak, and I blurted:

“I suppose you have come to take charge of the property.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“And you came back with the executor to facilitate
matters. I’m glad to see that you lose no time.”

“Oh!” she said lingeringly, as though she were finding
with difficulty the note in which I wished to pitch
the conversation. Her calmness was maddening.

“I suppose you thought it unwise to wait for the
bluebird when you had beguiled me into breaking a
promise, when I was trapped, defeated,—”

Her elbow on the arm of the chair, her hand resting
against her check, the light rippling goldenly in her
hair, her eyes bent upon me inquiringly, mournfully,—
mournfully, as I had seen them—where?—once before!
My heart leaped in that moment, with that thought.

“I remember now the first time!” I exclaimed, more
angry than I had ever been before in my life.

“That is quite remarkable,” she said, and nodded her
head ironically.

“It was at Sherry’s; you were with Pickering—you
dropped your fan and he picked it up, and you turned
toward me for a moment. You were in black that
night; it was the unhappiness in your face, in your
eyes, that made me remember.”

I was intent upon the recollection, eager to fix and
establish it.

“You are quite right. It was at Sherry’s. I was
wearing black then; many things made me unhappy
that night.”

Her forehead contracted slightly and she pressed her
lips together.

“I suppose that even then the conspiracy was thoroughly
arranged,” I said tauntingly, laughing a little
perhaps, and wishing to wound her, to take vengeance
upon her.

She rose and stood by her chair, one hand resting
upon it. I faced her; her eyes were like violet seas.
She spoke very quietly.

“Mr. Glenarm, has it occurred to you that when I
talked to you there in the park, when I risked unpleasant
gossip in receiving you in a house where you had
no possible right to be, that I was counting upon something,
—foolishly and stupidly,—yet counting upon it?”

“You probably thought I was a fool,” I retorted.

“No;”—she smiled slightly—“I thought—I believe
I have said this to you before!—you were a gentleman.
I really did, Mr. Glenarm. I must say it to justify
myself. I relied upon your chivalry; I even thought,
when I played being Olivia, that you had a sense of
honor. But you are not the one and you haven’t the
other. I even went so far, after you knew perfectly
well who I was, as to try to help you—to give you another
chance to prove yourself the man your grandfather
wished you to be. And now you come to me in a shocking
bad humor,—I really think you would like to be
insulting, Mr. Glenarm, if you could.”

“But Pickering,—you came back with him; he is
here and he’s going to stay! And now that the property
belongs to you, there is not the slightest reason why
we should make any pretense of anything but enmity.
When you and Arthur Pickering stand together I take
the other side of the barricade! I suppose chivalry
would require me to vacate, so that you may enjoy at
once the spoils of war.”

“I fancy it would not be very difficult to eliminate
you as a factor in the situation,” she remarked icily.

“And I suppose, after the unsuccessful efforts of Mr.
Pickering’s allies to assassinate me, as a mild form of
elimination, one would naturally expect me to sit calmly
down and wait to be shot in the back. But you may tell
Mr. Pickering that I throw myself upon your mercy.
I have no other home than this shell over the way, and
I beg to be allowed to remain until—at least—the bluebirds
come. I hope it will not embarrass you to deliver
the message.”

“I quite sympathize with your reluctance to deliver
it yourself,” she said. “Is this all you came to say?”

“I came to tell you that you could have the house,
and everything in its hideous walls,” I snapped; “to
tell you that my chivalry is enough for some situations
and that I don’t intend to fight a woman. I had accepted
your own renouncement of the legacy in good
part, but now, please believe me, it shall be yours to-morrow.
I’ll yield possession to you whenever you ask
it,—but never to Arthur Pickering! As against him
and his treasure-hunters and assassins I will hold out
for a dozen years!”

“Nobly spoken, Mr. Glenarm! Yours is really an
admirable, though somewhat complex character.”

“My character is my own, whatever it is,” I blurted.

“I shouldn’t call that a debatable proposition,” she
replied, and I was angry to find how the mirth I had
loved in her could suddenly become so hateful. She
half-turned away so that I might not see her face. The
thought that she should countenance Pickering in any
way tore me with jealous rage.

“Mr. Glenarm, you are what I have heard called a
quitter, defined in common Americanese as one who
quits! Your blustering here this afternoon can hardly
conceal the fact of your failure,—your inability to keep
a promise. I had hoped you would really be of some
help to Sister Theresa; you quite deceived her,—she
told me as she left to-day that she thought well of you,
—she really felt that her fortunes were safe in your
hands. But, of course, that is all a matter of past history
now.”

Her tone, changing from cold indifference to the
most severe disdain, stung me into self-pity for my stupidity
in having sought her. My anger was not against
her, but against Pickering, who had, I persuaded myself,
always blocked my path. She went on.

“You really amuse me exceedingly. Mr. Pickering
is decidedly more than a match for you, Mr. Glenarm,
—even in humor.”

She left me so quickly, so softly, that I stood staring
like a fool at the spot where she had been, and then I
went gloomily back to Glenarm House, angry, ashamed
and crestfallen.

While we were waiting for dinner I made a clean
breast of my acquaintance with her to Larry, omitting
nothing,—rejoicing even to paint my own conduct as
black as possible.

“You may remember her,” I concluded, “she was the
girl we saw at Sherry’s that night we dined there. She
was with Pickering, and you noticed her,—spoke of her,
as she went out.”

“That little girl who seemed so bored, or tired? Bless
me! Why her eyes haunted me for days. Lord man,
do you mean to say—”

A look of utter scorn came into his face, and he eyed
me contemptuously.

“Of course I mean it!” I thundered at him.

He took the pipe from his mouth, pressed the tobacco
viciously into the bowl, and swore steadily in Gaelic
until I was ready to choke him.

“Stop!” I bawled. “Do you think that’s helping me?
And to have you curse in your blackguardly Irish dialect!
I wanted a little Anglo-Saxon sympathy, you
fool! I didn’t mean for you to invoke your infamous
gods against the girl!”

“Don’t be violent, lad. Violence is reprehensible,”
he admonished with maddening sweetness and patience.
“What I was trying to inculcate was rather the fact,
borne in upon me through years of acquaintance, that
you are,—to he bold, my lad, to be bold,—a good deal
of a damned fool.”

The trilling of his r’s was like the whirring rise of
a flock of quails.

“Dinner is served,” announced Bates, and Larry led
the way, mockingly chanting an Irish love-song.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE DOOR OF BEWILDERMENT


We had established the practice of barring all the
gates and doors at nightfall. There was no way of
guarding against an attack from the lake, whose frozen
surface increased the danger from without; but we
counted on our night patrol to prevent a surprise from
that quarter. I was well aware that I must prepare to
resist the militant arm of the law, which Pickering
would no doubt invoke to aid him, but I intended to
exhaust the possibilities in searching for the lost treasure
before I yielded. Pickering might, if he would,
transfer the estate of John Marshall Glenarm to Marian
Devereux and make the most he could of that service,
but he should not drive me forth until I had satisfied
myself of the exact character of my grandfather’s fortune.
If it had vanished, if Pickering had stolen it
and outwitted me in making off with it, that was another
matter.

The phrase, “The Door of Bewilderment,” had never
ceased to reiterate itself in my mind. We discussed a
thousand explanations of it as we pondered over the
scrap of paper I had found in the library, and every
book in the house was examined in the search for further
clues.

The passage between the house and the chapel seemed
to fascinate Larry. He held that it must have some
particular use and he devoted his time to exploring it.

He came up at noon—it was the twenty-ninth of
December—with grimy face and hands and a grin on his
face. I had spent my morning in the towers, where it
was beastly cold, to no purpose and was not in a mood
for the ready acceptance of new theories.

“I’ve found something,” he said, filling his pipe.

“Not soap, evidently!”

“No, but I’m going to say the last word on the tunnel,
and within an hour. Give me a glass of beer and a
piece of bread, and we’ll go back and see whether we’re
sold again or not.”

“Let us explore the idea and be done with it. Wait
till I tell Stoddard where we’re going.”

The chaplain was trying the second-floor walls, and
I asked him to eat some luncheon and stand guard while
Larry and I went to the tunnel.

We took with us an iron bar, an ax and a couple of
hammers. Larry went ahead with a lantern.

“You see,” he explained, as we dropped through the
trap into the passage, “I’ve tried a compass on this
tunnel and find that we’ve been working on the wrong
theory. The passage itself runs a straight line from
the house under the gate to the crypt; the ravine is a
rough crescent-shape and for a short distance the tunnel
touches it. How deep does that ravine average—about
thirty feet?”

“Yes; it’s shallowest where the house stands. it
drops sharply from there on to the lake.”

“Very good; but the ravine is all on the Glenarm side
of the wall, isn’t it? Now when we get under the wall
I’ll show you something.”

“Here we are,” said Larry, as the cold air blew in
through the hollow posts. “Now we’re pretty near that
sharp curve of the ravine that dips away from the wall.
Take the lantern while I get out the compass. What
do you think that C on the piece of paper means? Why,
chapel, of course. I have measured the distance from
the house, the point of departure, we may assume, to
the chapel, and three-fourths of it brings us under those
beautiful posts. The directions are as plain as daylight.
The passage itself is your N. W., as the compass
proves, and the ravine cuts close in here; therefore, our
business is to explore the wall on the ravine side.”

“Good! but this is just wall here—earth with a layer
of brick and a thin coat of cement. A nice job it must
have been to do the work,—and it cost the price of a
tiger hunt,” I grumbled.

“Take heart, lad, and listen,”—and Larry began
pounding the wall with a hammer, exactly under the
north gate-post. We had sounded everything in and
about the house until the process bored me.

“Hurry up and get through with it,” I jerked impatiently,
holding the lantern at the level of his head. It
was sharply cold under the posts and I was anxious to
prove the worthlessness of his idea and be done.

Thump! thump!

“There’s a place here that sounds a trifle off the key.
You try it.”

I snatched the hammer and repeated his soundings.

Thump! thump!

There was a space about four feet square in the wall
that certainly gave forth a hollow sound.

“Stand back!” exclaimed Larry eagerly. “Here goes
with the ax.”

He struck into the wall sharply and the cement
chipped off in rough pieces, disclosing the brick beneath.
Larry paused when he had uncovered a foot of
the inner layer, and examined the surface.

“They’re loose—these bricks are loose, and there’s
something besides earth behind them!”

I snatched the hammer and drove hard at the wall.
The bricks were set up without mortar, and I plucked
them out and rapped with my knuckles on a wooden
surface.

Even Larry grew excited as we flung out the bricks.

“Ah, lad,” he said, “the old gentleman had a way
with him—he had a way with him!” A brick dropped
on his foot and he howled in pain.

“Bless the old gentleman’s heart! He made it as
easy for us as he could. Now, for the Glenarm millions,
—red money all piled up for the ease of counting it,—
a thousand pounds in every pile.”

“Don’t be a fool, Larry,” I coughed at him, for the
brick dust and the smoke of Larry’s pipe made breathing
difficult.

“That’s all the loose brick,—bring the lantern closer,”
—and we peered through the aperture upon a wooden
door, in which strips of iron were deep-set. It was fastened
with a padlock and Larry reached down for the ax.

“Wait!” I called, drawing closer with the lantern.
“What’s this?”

The wood of the door was fresh and white, but burned
deep on the surface, in this order, were the words:

                         THE DOOR
                            OF
                 BEWILDERMENT

“There are dead men inside, I dare say! Here, my
lad, it’s not for me to turn loose the family skeletons,”
—and Larry stood aside while I swung the ax and
brought it down with a crash on the padlock. It was
of no flimsy stuff and the remaining bricks cramped me,
but half a dozen blows broke it off.

“The house of a thousand ghosts,” chanted the irrepressible
Larry, as I pushed the door open and crawled
through.

Whatever the place was it had a floor and I set my
feet firmly upon it and turned to take the lantern.

“Hold a bit,” he exclaimed. “Some one’s coming,”
—and bending toward the opening I heard the sound
of steps down the corridor. In a moment Bates ran up,
calling my name with more spirit than I imagined possible
in him.

“What is it?” I demanded, crawling out into the
tunnel.

“It’s Mr. Pickering. The sheriff has come with him,
sir.”

As he spoke his glance fell upon the broken wall and
open door. The light of Larry’s lantern struck full
upon him. Amazement, and, I thought, a certain satisfaction,
were marked upon his countenance.

“Run along, Jack,—I’ll be up a little later,” said
Larry. “If the fellow has come in daylight with the
sheriff, he isn’t dangerous. It’s his friends that shoot
in the dark that give us the trouble.”

I crawled out and stood upright. Bates, staring at
the opening, seemed reluctant to leave the spot.

“You seem to have found it, sir,” he said,—I thought
a little chokingly. His interest in the matter nettled
me; for my first business was to go above for an interview
with the executor, and the value of our discovery
was secondary.

“Of course we have found it!” I ejaculated, brushing
the dust from my clothes. “Is Mr. Stoddard in the
library?”

“Oh, yes, sir; I left him entertaining the gentlemen.”

“Their visit is certainly most inopportune,” said
Larry. “Give them my compliments and tell them I’ll
be up as soon as I’ve articulated the bones of my friend’s
ancestors.”

Bates strode on ahead of me with his lantern, and I
left Larry crawling through the new-found door as I
hurried toward the house. I knew him well enough to
be sure he would not leave the spot until he had found
what lay behind the Door of Bewilderment.

“You didn’t tell the callers where you expected to
find me, did you?” I asked Bates, as he brushed me off
in the kitchen.

“No, sir. Mr. Stoddard received the gentlemen. He
rang the bell for me and when I went into the library
he was saying, ‘Mr. Glenarm is at his studies. Bates,’—
he says—‘kindly tell Mr. Glenarm that I’m sorry to interrupt
him, but won’t he please come down?’ I thought
it rather neat, sir, considering his clerical office. I
knew you were below somewhere, sir; the trap-door was
open and I found you easily enough.”

Bates’ eyes were brighter than I had ever seen them.
A certain buoyant note gave an entirely new tone to
his voice. He walked ahead of me to the library door,
threw it open and stood aside.

“Here you are, Glenarm,” said Stoddard. Pickering
and a stranger stood near the fireplace in their overcoats.

Pickering advanced and offered his hand, but I
turned away from him without taking it. His companion,
a burly countryman, stood staring, a paper in his
hand.

“The sheriff,” Pickering explained, “and our business
is rather personal—”

He glanced at Stoddard, who looked at me.

“Mr. Stoddard will do me the kindness to remain,”
I said and took my stand beside the chaplain.

“Oh!” Pickering ejaculated scornfully. “I didn’t
understand that you had established relations with the
neighboring clergy. Your taste is improving, Glenarm.”

“Mr. Glenarm is a friend of mine,” remarked Stoddard
quietly. “A very particular friend,” he added.

“I congratulate you—both.”

I laughed. Pickering was surveying the room as he
spoke,—and Stoddard suddenly stepped toward him,
merely, I think, to draw up a chair for the sheriff; but
Pickering, not hearing Stoddard’s step on the soft rug
until the clergyman was close beside him, started perceptibly
and reddened.

It was certainly ludicrous, and when Stoddard faced
me again he was biting his lip.

“Pardon me!” he murmured.

“Now, gentlemen, will you kindly state your business?
My own affairs press me.”

Pickering was studying the cartridge boxes on the
library table. The sheriff, too, was viewing these effects
with interest not, I think, unmixed with awe.

“Glenarm, I don’t like to invoke the law to eject you
from this property, but I am left with no alternative.
I can’t stay out here indefinitely, and I want to know
what I’m to expect.”

“That is a fair question,” I replied. “If it were
merely a matter of following the terms of the will I
should not hesitate or be here now. But it isn’t the will,
or my grandfather, that keeps me, it’s the determination
to give you all the annoyance possible,—to make it
hard and mighty hard for you to get hold of this house
until I have found why you are so much interested
in it.”

“You always had a grand way in money matters. As
I told you before you came out here, it’s a poor stake.
The assets consist wholly of this land and this house,
whose quality you have had an excellent opportunity
to test. You have doubtless heard that the country
people believe there is money concealed here,—but I
dare say you have exhausted the possibilities. This is
not the first time a rich man has died leaving precious
little behind him.”

“You seem very anxious to get possession of a property
that you call a poor stake,” I said. “A few acres
of land, a half-finished house and an uncertain claim
upon a school-teacher!”

“I had no idea you would understand it,” he replied.
“The fact that a man may be under oath to perform
the solemn duties imposed upon him by the law would
hardly appeal to you. But I haven’t come here to debate
this question. When are you going to leave?”

“Not till I’m ready,—thanks!”

“Mr. Sheriff, will you serve your writ?” he said, and
I looked to Stoddard for any hint from him as to what
I should do.

“I believe Mr. Glenarm is quite willing to hear whatever
the sheriff has to say to him,” said Stoddard. He
stepped nearer to me, as though to emphasize the fact
that he belonged to my side of the controversy, and the
sheriff read an order of the Wabana County Circuit
Court directing me, immediately, to deliver the house
and grounds into the keeping of the executor of the
will of the estate of John Marshall Glenarm.

The sheriff rather enjoyed holding the center of the
stage, and I listened quietly to the unfamiliar phraseology.
Before he had quite finished I heard a step in
the hall and Larry appeared at the door, pipe in mouth.
Pickering turned toward him frowning, but Larry paid
not the slightest attention to the executor, leaning
against the door with his usual tranquil unconcern.

“I advise you not to trifle with the law, Glenarm,”
said Pickering angrily. “You have absolutely no right
whatever to be here. And these other gentlemen—your
guests, I suppose—are equally trespassers under the
law.”

He stared at Larry, who crossed his legs for greater
ease in adjusting his lean frame to the door.

“Well, Mr. Pickering, what is the next step?” asked
the sheriff, with an importance that had been increased
by the legal phrases he had been reading.

“Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, straightening up and
taking the pipe from his mouth, “I’m Mr. Glenarm’s
counsel. If you will do me the kindness to ask the
sheriff to retire for a moment I should like to say a
few words to you that you might prefer to keep between
ourselves.”

I had usually found it wise to take any cue Larry
threw me, and I said:

“Pickering, this is Mr. Donovan, who has every authority
to act for me in the matter.”

Pickering looked impatiently from one to the other
of us.

“You seem to have the guns, the ammunition and the
numbers on your side,” he observed dryly.

“The sheriff may wait within call,” said Larry, and
at a word from Pickering the man left the room.

“Now, Mr. Pickering,”—Larry spoke slowly,—“as
my friend has explained the case to me, the assets of
his grandfather’s estate are all accounted for,—the land
hereabouts, this house, the ten thousand dollars in securities
and a somewhat vague claim against a lady
known as Sister Theresa, who conducts St. Agatha’s
School. Is that correct?”

“I don’t ask you to take my word for it, sir,” rejoined
Pickering hotly. “I have filed an inventory of the
estate, so far as found, with the proper authorities.”

“Certainly. But I merely wish to be sure of my facts
for the purpose of this interview, to save me the trouble
of going to the records. And, moreover, I am somewhat
unfamiliar with your procedure in this country. I am
a member, sir, of the Irish Bar. Pardon me, but I repeat
my question.”

“I have made oath—that, I trust, is sufficient even
for a member of the Irish Bar.”

“Quite so, Mr. Pickering,” said Larry, nodding his
head gravely.

He was not, to be sure, a presentable member of any
bar, for a smudge detracted considerably from the appearance
of one side of his face, his clothes were rumpled
and covered with black dust, and his hands were
black. But I had rarely seen him so calm. He recrossed
his legs, peered into the bowl of his pipe for a moment,
then asked, as quietly as though he were soliciting an
opinion of the weather:

“Will you tell me, Mr. Pickering, whether you yourself
are a debtor of John Marshall Glenarm’s estate?”

Pickering’s face grew white and his eyes stared, and
when he tried suddenly to speak his jaw twitched. The
room was so still that the breaking of a blazing log on
the andirons was a pleasant relief. We stood, the three
of us, with our eyes on Pickering, and in my own case
I must say that my heart was pounding my ribs at an
uncomfortable speed, for I knew Larry was not sparring
for time.

The blood rushed into Pickering’s face and he turned
toward Larry stormily.

“This is unwarrantable and infamous! My relations
with Mr. Glenarm are none of your business. When
you remember that after being deserted by his own flesh
and blood he appealed to me, going so far as to intrust
all his affairs to my care at his death, your reflection
is an outrageous insult. I am not accountable to you
or any one else!”

“Really, there’s a good deal in all that,” said Larry.
“We don’t pretend to any judicial functions. We are
perfectly willing to submit the whole business and all
my client’s acts to the authorities.”

(I would give much if I could reproduce some hint
of the beauty of that word authorities as it rolled from
Larry’s tongue!)

“Then, in God’s name, do it, you blackguards!”
roared Pickering.

Stoddard, sitting on a table, knocked his heels together
gently. Larry recrossed his legs and blew a
cloud of smoke. Then, after a quarter of a minute in
which he gazed at the ceiling with his quiet blue eyes,
he said:

“Yes; certainly, there are always the authorities. And
as I have a tremendous respect for your American institutions
I shall at once act on your suggestion. Mr.
Pickering, the estate is richer than you thought it was.
It holds, or will hold, your notes given to the decedent
for three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

He drew from his pocket a brown envelope, walked
to where I stood and placed it in my hands.

At the same time Stoddard’s big figure grew active,
and before I realized that Pickering had leaped toward
the packet, the executor was sitting in a chair, where the
chaplain had thrown him. He rallied promptly, stuffing
his necktie into his waistcoat; he even laughed a little.

“So much old paper! You gentlemen are perfectly
welcome to it.”

“Thank you!” jerked Larry.

“Mr. Glenarm and I had many transactions together,
and he must have forgotten to destroy those papers.”

“Quite likely,” I remarked. “It is interesting to
know that Sister Theresa wasn’t his only debtor.”

Pickering stepped to the door and called the sheriff.

“I shall give you until to-morrow morning at nine
o’clock to vacate the premises. The court understands
this situation perfectly. These claims are utterly worthless,
as I am ready to prove.”

“Perfectly, perfectly,” repeated the sheriff.

“I believe that is all,” said Larry, pointing to the
door with his pipe.

The sheriff was regarding him with particular attention.

“What did I understand your name to be?” he demanded.

“Laurance Donovan,” Larry replied coolly.

Pickering seemed to notice the name now and his eyes
lighted disagreeably.

“I think I have heard of your friend before,” he said,
turning to me. “I congratulate you on the international
reputation of your counsel. He’s esteemed so highly in
Ireland that they offer a large reward for his return.
Sheriff, I think we have finished our business for
to-day.”

He seemed anxious to get the man away, and we gave
them escort to the outer gate where a horse and buggy
were waiting.

“Now, I’m in for it,” said Larry, as I locked the gate.
“We’ve spiked one of his guns, but I’ve given him a new
one to use against myself. But come, and I will show
you the Door of Bewilderment before I skip.”



CHAPTER XXIV

A PROWLER OF THE NIGHT


Down we plunged into the cellar, through the trap
and to the Door of Bewilderment.

“Don’t expect too much,” admonished Larry; “I
can’t promise you a single Spanish coin.”

“Perish the ambition! We have blocked Pickering’s
game, and nothing else matters,” I said.

We crawled through the hole in the wall and lighted
candles. The room was about seven feet square. At
the farther end was an oblong wooden door, close to the
ceiling, and Larry tugged at the fastening until it came
down, bringing with it a mass of snow and leaves.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “we are at the edge of the
ravine. Do you see the blue sky? And yonder, if you
will twist your necks a bit, is the boat-house.”

“Well, let the scenic effects go and show us where
you found those papers,” I urged.

“Speaking of mysteries, that is where I throw up my
hands, lads. It’s quickly told. Here is a table, and here
is a tin despatch box, which lies just where I found it.
It was closed and the key was in the lock. I took out
that packet—it wasn’t even sealed—saw the character
of the contents, and couldn’t resist the temptation to
try the effect of an announcement of its discovery on
your friend Pickering. Now that is nearly all. I found
this piece of paper under the tape with which the envelope
was tied, and I don’t hesitate to say that when
I read it I laughed until I thought I should shake
down the cellar. Read it, John Glenarm!”

He handed me a sheet of legal-cap paper on which
was written these words:

         HE LAUGHS BEST WHO LAUGHS LAST

“What do you think is so funny in this?” I demanded.

“Who wrote it, do you think?” asked Stoddard.

“Who wrote it, do you ask? Why, your grandfather
wrote it! John Marshall Glenarm, the cleverest, grandest
old man that ever lived, wrote it!” declaimed Larry,
his voice booming loudly in the room. “It’s all a great
big game, fixed up to try you and Pickering,—but principally
you, you blockhead! Oh, it’s grand, perfectly,
deliciously grand,—and to think it should be my good
luck to share in it!”

“Humph! I’m glad you’re amused, but it doesn’t
strike me as being so awfully funny. Suppose those
papers had fallen into Pickering’s hands; then where
would the joke have been, I should like to know!”

“On you, my lad, to be sure! The old gentleman
wanted you to study architecture; he wanted you to
study his house; he even left a little pointer in an old
book! Oh, it’s too good to be true!”

“That’s all clear enough,” observed Stoddard, knocking
upon the despatch box with his knuckles. “But why
do you suppose he dug this hole here with its outlet on
the ravine?”

“Oh, it was the way of him!” explained Larry. “He
liked the idea of queer corners and underground passages.
This is a bully hiding-place for man or treasure,
and that outlet into the ravine makes it possible to get
out of the house with nobody the wiser. It’s in keeping
with the rest of his scheme. Be gay, comrades! To-morrow
will likely find us with plenty of business on
our hands. At present we hold the fort, and let us have
a care lest we lose it.”

We closed the ravine door, restored the brick as best
we could, and returned to the library. We made a list
of the Pickering notes and spent an hour discussing this
new feature of the situation.

“That’s a large amount of money to lend one man,”
said Stoddard.

“True; and from that we may argue that Mr. Glenarm
didn’t give Pickering all he had. There’s more
somewhere. If only I didn’t have to run—” and Larry’s
face fell as he remembered his own plight.

“I’m a selfish pig, old man! I’ve been thinking only
of my own affairs. But I never relied on you as much
as now!”

“Those fellows will sound the alarm against Donovan,
without a doubt, on general principles and to land
a blow on you,” remarked Stoddard thoughtfully.

“But you can get away, Larry. We’ll help you off
to-night. I don’t intend to stand between you and liberty.
This extradition business is no joke,—if they
ever get you back in Ireland it will be no fun getting
you off. You’d better run for it before Pickering and
his sheriff spring their trap.”

“Yes; that’s the wise course. Glenarm and I can
hold the fort here. His is a moral issue, really, and I’m
in for a siege of a thousand years,” said the clergyman
earnestly, “if it’s necessary to beat Pickering. I may
go to jail in the end, too, I suppose.”

“I want you both to leave. It’s unfair to mix you
up in this ugly business of mine. Your stake’s bigger
than mine, Larry. And yours, too, Stoddard; why, your
whole future—your professional standing and prospects
would be ruined if we got into a fight here with the authorities.”

“Thank you for mentioning my prospects! I’ve
never had them referred to before,” laughed Stoddard.
“No; your grandfather was a friend of the Church and
I can’t desert his memory. I’m a believer in a vigorous
Church militant and I’m enlisted for the whole war.
But Donovan ought to go, if he will allow me to advise
him.”

Larry filled his pipe at the fireplace.

“Lads,” he said, his hands behind him, rocking gently
as was his way, “let us talk of art and letters,—I’m going
to stay. It hasn’t often happened in my life that
the whole setting of the stage has pleased me as much
as this. Lost treasure; secret passages; a gentleman
rogue storming the citadel; a private chaplain on the
premises; a young squire followed by a limelight; sheriff,
school-girls and a Sisterhood distributed through
the landscape,—and me, with Scotland Yard looming
duskily in the distance. Glenarm, I’m going to stay.”

There was no shaking him, and the spirits of all of
us rose after this new pledge of loyalty. Stoddard
stayed for dinner, and afterward we began again our
eternal quest for the treasure, our hopes high from
Larry’s lucky strike of the afternoon, and with a new
eagerness born of the knowledge that the morrow would
certainly bring us face to face with the real crisis. We
ranged the house from tower to cellar; we overhauled
the tunnel, for, it seemed to me, the hundredth time.

It was my watch, and at midnight, after Stoddard and
Larry had reconnoitered the grounds and Bates and I
had made sure of all the interior fastenings, I sent
them off to bed and made myself comfortable with a
pipe in the library.

I was glad of the respite, glad to be alone,—to consider
my talk with Marian Devereux at St. Agatha’s,
and her return with Pickering. Why could she not always
have been Olivia, roaming the woodland, or the
girl in gray, or that woman, so sweet in her dignity,
who came down the stairs at the Armstrongs’? Her
own attitude toward me was so full of contradictions;
she had appeared to me in so many moods and guises,
that my spirit ranged the whole gamut of feeling as I
thought of her. But it was the recollection of Pickering’s
infamous conduct that colored all my doubts of
her. Pickering had always been in my way, and here,
but for the chance by which Larry had found the notes,
I should have had no weapon to use against him.

The wind rose and drove shrilly around the house.
A bit of scaffolding on the outer walls rattled loose
somewhere and crashed down on the terrace. I grew
restless, my mind intent upon the many chances of the
morrow, and running forward to the future. Even if
I won in my strife with Pickering I had yet my way
to make in the world. His notes were probably worthless,
—I did not doubt that. I might use them to procure
his removal as executor, but I did not look forward
with any pleasure to a legal fight over a property that
had brought me only trouble.

Something impelled me to go below, and, taking a
lantern, I tramped somberly through the cellar, glanced
at the heating apparatus, and, remembering that the
chapel entrance to the tunnel was unguarded, followed
the corridor to the trap, and opened it. The cold air
blew up sharply and I thrust my head down to listen.

A sound at once arrested me. I thought at first it
must be the suction of the air, but Glenarm House was
no place for conjectures, and I put the lantern aside and
jumped down into the tunnel. A gleam of light showed
for an instant, then the darkness and silence were complete.

I ran rapidly over the smooth floor, which I had traversed
so often that I knew its every line. My only
weapon was one of Stoddard’s clubs. Near the Door
of Bewilderment I paused and listened. The tunnel
was perfectly quiet. I took a step forward and stumbled
over a brick, fumbled on the wall for the opening
which we had closed carefully that afternoon, and at
the instant I found it a lantern flashed blindingly in
my face and I drew back, crouching involuntarily, and
clenching the club ready to strike.

“Good evening, Mr. Glenarm!”

Marian Devereux’s voice broke the silence, and Marian
Devereux’s face, with the full light of the lantern
upon it, was bent gravely upon me. Her voice, as I
heard it there,—her face, as I saw it there,—are the
things that I shall remember last when my hour comes
to go hence from this world. The slim fingers, as they
clasped the wire screen of the lantern, held my gaze for
a second. The red tam-o’-shanter that I had associated
with her youth and beauty was tilted rakishly on one
side of her pretty head. To find her here, seeking, like
a thief in the night, for some means of helping Arthur
Pickering, was the bitterest drop in the cup. I felt as
though I had been struck with a bludgeon.

“I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed. “There
doesn’t seem to be anything to say, does there? Well,
we do certainly meet under the most unusual, not to say
unconventional, circumstances, Squire Glenarm. Please
go away or turn your back. I want to get out of this
donjon keep.”

She took my hand coolly enough and stepped down
into the passage. Then I broke upon her stormily.

“You don’t seem to understand the gravity of what
you are doing! Don’t you know that you are risking
your life in crawling through this house at midnight?
—that even to serve Arthur Pickering, a life is a pretty
big thing to throw away? Your infatuation for that
blackguard seems to carry you far, Miss Devereux.”

She swung the lantern at arm’s length back and forth
so that its rays at every forward motion struck my face
like a blow.

“It isn’t exactly pleasant in this cavern. Unless you
wish to turn me over to the lord high executioner, I will
bid you good night.”

“But the infamy of this—of coming in here to spy
upon me—to help my enemy—the man who is seeking
plunder—doesn’t seem to trouble you.”

“No, not a particle!” she replied quietly, and then,
with an impudent fling, “Oh, no!” She held up the lantern
to look at the wick. “I’m really disappointed to
find that you were a little ahead of me, Squire Glenarm.
I didn’t give you credit for so much—perseverance.
But if you have the notes—”

“The notes! He told you there were notes, did he?
The coward sent you here to find them, after his other
tools failed him?”

She laughed that low laugh of hers that was like the
bubble of a spring.

[Illustration: “I beg your pardon!” she said, and laughed.]

“Of course no one would dare deny what the great
Squire Glenarm says,” she said witheringly.

“You can’t know what your perfidy means to me,” I
said. “That night, at the Armstrongs’, I thrilled at
the sight of you. As you came down the stairway I
thought of you as my good angel, and I belonged to you,
—all my life, the better future that I wished to make
for your sake.”

“Please don’t!” And I felt that my words had
touched her; that there were regret and repentance in
her tone and in the gesture with which she turned from
me.

She hurried down the passage swinging the lantern
at her side, and I followed, so mystified, so angered by
her composure, that I scarcely knew what I did. She
even turned, with pretty courtesy, to hold the light for
me at the crypt steps,—a service that I accepted perforce
and with joyless acquiescence in the irony of it.
I knew that I did not believe in her; her conduct as to
Pickering was utterly indefensible,—I could not forget
that; but the light of her eyes, her tranquil brow, the
sensitive lips, whose mockery stung and pleased in a
breath,—by such testimony my doubts were alternately
reinforced and disarmed. Swept by these changing
moods I followed her out into the crypt.

“You seem to know a good deal about this place, and
I suppose I can’t object to your familiarizing yourself
with your own property. And the notes—I’ll give myself
the pleasure of handing them to you to-morrow.
You can cancel them and give them to Mr. Pickering,—
a pretty pledge between you!”

I thrust my hands into my pockets to give an impression
of ease I did not feel.

“Yes,” she remarked in a practical tone, “three hundred
and twenty thousand dollars is no mean sum of
money. Mr. Pickering will undoubtedly be delighted
to have his debts canceled—”

“In exchange for a life of devotion,” I sneered. “So
you knew the sum—the exact amount of these notes.
He hasn’t served you well; he should have told you that
we found them to-day.”

“You are not nice, are you, Squire Glenarm, when you
are cross?”

She was like Olivia now. I felt the utter futility of
attempting to reason with a woman who could become
a child at will. She walked up the steps and out into
the church vestibule. Then before the outer door she
spoke with decision.

“We part here, if you please! And—I have not the
slightest intention of trying to explain my errand into
that passage. You have jumped to your own conclusion,
which will have to serve you. I advise you not
to think very much about it,—to the exclusion of more
important business,—Squire Glenarm!”

She lifted the lantern to turn out its light, and it
made a glory of her face, but she paused and held it
toward me.

“Pardon me! You will need this to light you home.”

“But you must not cross the park alone!”

“Good night! Please be sure to close the door to the
passage when you go down. You are a dreadfully heedless
person, Squire Glenarm.”

She flung open the outer chapel-door, and ran along
the path toward St. Agatha’s. I watched her in the
starlight until a bend in the path hid her swift-moving
figure.

Down through the passage I hastened, her lantern
lighting my way. At the Door of Bewilderment I closed
the opening, setting up the line of wall as we had left
it in the afternoon, and then I went back to the library,
freshened the fire and brooded before it until Bates came
to relieve me at dawn.



CHAPTER XXV

BESIEGED


It was nine o’clock. A thermometer on the terrace
showed the mercury clinging stubbornly to a point above
zero; but the still air was keen and stimulating, and
the sun argued for good cheer in a cloudless sky. We
had swallowed some breakfast, though I believe no one
had manifested an appetite, and we were cheering ourselves
with the idlest talk possible. Stoddard, who had
been to the chapel for his usual seven o’clock service, was
deep in the pocket Greek testament he always carried.

Bates ran in to report a summons at the outer wall,
and Larry and I went together to answer it, sending
Bates to keep watch toward the lake.

Our friend the sheriff, with a deputy, was outside
in a buggy. He stood up and talked to us over the wall.

“You gents understand that I’m only doing my duty.
It’s an unpleasant business, but the court orders me to
eject all trespassers on the premises, and I’ve got to
do it.”

“The law is being used by an infamous scoundrel to
protect himself. I don’t intend to give in. We can
hold out here for three months, if necessary, and I advise
you to keep away and not be made a tool for a man
like Pickering.”

The sheriff listened respectfully, resting his arms on
top of the wall.

“You ought to understand, Mr. Glenarm, that I ain’t
the court; I’m the sheriff, and it’s not for me to pass
on these questions. I’ve got my orders and I’ve got to
enforce ’em, and I hope you will not make it necessary
for me to use violence. The judge said to me, ‘We deplore
violence in such cases.’ Those were his Honor’s
very words.”

“You may give his Honor my compliments and tell
him that we are sorry not to see things his way, but
there are points involved in this business that he doesn’t
know anything about, and we, unfortunately, have no
time to lay them before him.”

The sheriff’s seeming satisfaction with his position
on the wall and his disposition to parley had begun to
arouse my suspicions, and Larry several times exclaimed
impatiently at the absurdity of discussing my
affairs with a person whom he insisted on calling a constable,
to the sheriff’s evident annoyance. The officer
now turned upon him.

“You, sir,—we’ve got our eye on you, and you’d better
come along peaceable. Laurance Donovan—the description
fits you to a ‘t’.”

“You could buy a nice farm with that reward,
couldn’t you—” began Larry, but at that moment Bates
ran toward us calling loudly.

“They’re coming across the lake, sir,” he reported,
and instantly the sheriff’s head disappeared, and as we
ran toward the house we heard his horse pounding down
the road toward St. Agatha’s.

“The law be damned. They don’t intend to come in
here by the front door as a matter of law,” said Larry.
“Pickering’s merely using the sheriff to give respectability
to his manoeuvers for those notes and the rest
of it.”

It was no time for a discussion of motives. We ran
across the meadow past the water tower and through the
wood down to the boat-house. Far out on the lake we
saw half a dozen men approaching the Glenarm grounds.
They advanced steadily over the light snow that lay upon
the ice, one man slightly in advance and evidently the
leader.

“It’s Morgan!” exclaimed Bates. “And there’s Ferguson.”

Larry chuckled and slapped his thigh.

“Observe that stocky little devil just behind the leader?
He’s my friend from Scotland Yard. Lads! this
is really an international affair.”

“Bates, go back to the house and call at any sign of
attack,” I ordered. “The sheriff’s loose somewhere.”

“And Pickering is directing his forces from afar,”
remarked Stoddard.

“I count ten men in Morgan’s line,” said Larry, “and
the sheriff and his deputy make two more. That’s
twelve, not counting Pickering, that we know of on the
other side.”

“Warn them away before they get much nearer,” suggested
Stoddard. “We don’t want to hurt people if
we can help it,”—and at this I went to the end of the
pier. Morgan and his men were now quite near, and
there was no mistaking their intentions. Most of them
carried guns, the others revolvers and long ice-hooks.

“Morgan,” I called, holding up my hands for a truce,
“we wish you no harm, but if you enter these grounds
you do so at your peril.”

“We’re all sworn deputy sheriffs,” called the caretaker
smoothly. “We’ve got the law behind us.”

“That must be why you’re coming in the back way,”
I replied.

The thick-set man whom Larry had identified as the
English detective now came closer and addressed me in
a high key.

“You’re harboring a bad man, Mr. Glenarm. You’d
better give him up. The American law supports me,
and you’ll get yourself in trouble if you protect that
man. You may not understand, sir, that he’s a very
dangerous character.”

“Thanks, Davidson!” called Larry. “You’d better
keep out of this. You know I’m a bad man with the
shillalah!”

“That you are, you blackguard!” yelled the officer,
so spitefully that we all laughed.

I drew back to the boat-house.

“They are not going to kill anybody if they can help
it,” remarked Stoddard, “any more than we are. Even
deputy sheriffs are not turned loose to do murder, and
the Wabana County Court wouldn’t, if it hadn’t been
imposed on by Pickering, lend itself to a game like
this.”

“Now we’re in for it,” yelled Larry, and the twelve
men, in close order, came running across the ice toward
the shore.

“Open order, and fall back slowly toward the house,”
I commanded. And we deployed from the boat-house,
while the attacking party still clung together,—a strategic
error, as Larry assured us.

“Stay together, lads. Don’t separate; you’ll get lost
if you do,” he yelled.

Stoddard bade him keep still, and we soon had our
hands full with a preliminary skirmish. Morgan’s line
advanced warily. Davidson, the detective, seemed disgusted
at Morgan’s tactics, openly abused the caretaker,
and ran ahead of his column, revolver in hand,
bearing down upon Larry, who held our center.

The Englishman’s haste was his undoing. The light
fall of snow a few days before had gathered in the little
hollows of the wood deceptively. The detective plunged
into one of these and fell sprawling on all fours,—a
calamity that caused his comrades to pause uneasily.
Larry was upon his enemy in a flash, wrenched his pistol
away and pulled the man to his feet.

“Ah, Davidson! There’s many a slip! Move, if you
dare and I’ll plug you with your own gun.” And he
stood behind the man, using him as a shield while Morgan
and the rest of the army hung near the boat-house
uncertainly.

“It’s the strategic intellect we’ve captured, General,”
observed Larry to me. “You see the American invaders
were depending on British brains.”

Morgan now acted on the hint we had furnished him
and sent his men out as skirmishers. The loss of the
detective had undoubtedly staggered the caretaker, and
we were slowly retreating toward the house, Larry with
one hand on the collar of his prisoner and the other
grasping the revolver with which he poked the man
frequently in the ribs. We slowly continued our retreat,
fearing a rush, which would have disposed of us
easily enough if Morgan’s company had shown more of
a fighting spirit. Stoddard’s presence rather amazed
them, I think, and I saw that the invaders kept away
from his end of the line. We were far apart, stumbling
over the snow-covered earth and calling to one another
now and then that we might not become too widely separated.
Davidson did not relish his capture by the man
he had followed across the ocean, and he attempted once
to roar a command to Morgan.

“Try it again,” I heard Larry admonish him, “try
that once more, and The Sod, God bless it! will never
feel the delicate imprint of your web-feet again.”

He turned the man about and rushed him toward the
house, the revolver still serving as a prod. His speed
gave heart to the wary invaders immediately behind him
and two fellows urged and led by Morgan charged our
line at a smart pace.

“Bolt for the front door,” I called to Larry, and Stoddard
and I closed in after him to guard his retreat.

“They’re not shooting,” called Stoddard. “You may
be sure they’ve had their orders to capture the house
with as little row as possible.”

We were now nearing the edge of the wood, with the
open meadow and water-tower at our backs, while Larry
was making good time toward the house.

“Let’s meet them here,” shouted Stoddard.

Morgan was coming up with a club in his hand, making
directly for me, two men at his heels, and the rest
veering off toward the wall of St. Agatha’s.

“Watch the house,” I yelled to the chaplain; and
then, on the edge of the wood Morgan came at me furiously,
swinging his club over his head, and in a moment
we were fencing away at a merry rate. We both had
revolvers strapped to our waists, but I had no intention
of drawing mine unless in extremity. At my right
Stoddard was busy keeping off Morgan’s personal
guard, who seemed reluctant to close with the clergyman.

I have been, in my day, something of a fencer, and
my knowledge of the foils stood me in good stead now.
With a tremendous thwack I knocked Morgan’s club
flying over the snow, and, as we grappled, Bates yelled
from the house. I quickly found that Morgan’s wounded
arm was still tender. He flinched at the first grapple,
and his anger got the better of his judgment. We
kicked up the snow at a great rate as we feinted and
dragged each other about. He caught hold of my belt
with one hand and with a great wrench nearly dragged
me from my feet, but I pinioned his arms and bent
him backward, then, by a trick Larry had taught me,
flung him upon his side. It is not, I confess, a pretty
business, matching your brute strength against that of
a fellow man, and as I cast myself upon him and felt
his hard-blown breath on my face, I hated myself more
than I hated him for engaging in so ignoble a contest.

Bates continued to call from the house.

“Come on at any cost,” shouted Stoddard, putting
himself between me and the men who were flying to
Morgan’s aid.

I sprang away from my adversary, snatching his revolver,
and ran toward the house, Stoddard close behind,
but keeping himself well between me and the men who
were now after us in full cry.

“Shoot, you fools, shoot!” howled Morgan, and as we
reached the open meadow and ran for the house a shot-gun
roared back of us and buckshot snapped and rattled
on the stone of the water tower.

“There’s the sheriff,” called Stoddard behind me.

The officer of the law and his deputy ran into the
park from the gate of St. Agatha’s, while the rest of
Morgan’s party were skirting the wall to join them.

“Stop or I’ll shoot,” yelled Morgan, and I felt Stoddard
pause in his gigantic stride to throw himself between
me and the pursuers.

“Sprint for it hot,” he called very coolly, as though
he were coaching me in a contest of the most amiable
sort imaginable.

“Get away from those guns,” I panted, angered by
the very generosity of his defense.

“Feint for the front entrance and then run for the
terrace and the library-door,” he commanded, as we
crossed the little ravine bridge. “They’ve got us headed
off.”

Twice the guns boomed behind us, and twice I saw
shot cut into the snow about me.

“I’m all right,” called Stoddard reassuringly, still
at my back. “They’re not a bit anxious to kill me.”

I was at the top of my speed now, but the clergyman
kept close at my heels. I was blowing hard, but he
made equal time with perfect ease.

The sheriff was bawling orders to his forces, who
awaited us before the front door. Bates and Larry were
not visible, but I had every confidence that the Irishman
would reappear in the fight at the earliest moment
possible. Bates, too, was to be reckoned with, and the
final struggle, if it came in the house itself, might not
be so unequal, providing we knew the full strength
of the enemy.

“Now for the sheriff—here we go!” cried Stoddard—
beside me—and we were close to the fringe of trees that
shielded the entrance. Then off we veered suddenly to
the left, close upon the terrace, where one of the French
windows was thrown open and Larry and Bates stepped
out, urging us on with lusty cries.

They caught us by the arms and dragged us over
where the balustrade was lowest, and we crowded
through the door and slammed it. As Bates snapped
the bolts Morgan’s party discharged its combined artillery
and the sheriff began a great clatter at the front
door.

“Gentlemen, we’re in a state of siege,” observed
Larry, filling his pipe.

Shot pattered on the wails and several panes of glass
cracked in the French windows.

“All’s tight below, sir,” reported Bates. “I thought
it best to leave the tunnel trap open for our own use.
Those fellows won’t come in that way,—it’s too much
like a blind alley.”

“Where’s your prisoner, Larry?”

“Potato cellar, quite comfortable, thanks!”

It was ten o’clock and the besiegers suddenly withdrew
a short distance for parley among themselves. Outside
the sun shone brightly; and the sky was never bluer.
In this moment of respite, while we made ready for
what further the day might bring forth, I climbed up
to the finished tower to make sure we knew the enemy’s
full strength. I could see over the tree-tops, beyond the
chapel tower, the roofs of St. Agatha’s. There, at least,
was peace. And in that moment, looking over the black
wood, with the snow lying upon the ice of the lake white
and gleaming under the sun, I felt unutterably lonely
and heart-sick, and tired of strife. It seemed a thousand
years ago that I had walked and talked with the
child Olivia; and ten thousand years more since the
girl in gray at the Annandale station had wakened in
me a higher aim, and quickened a better impulse than I
had ever known.

Larry roared my name through the lower floors. I
went down with no wish in my heart but to even matters
with Pickering and be done with my grandfather’s
legacy for ever.

“The sheriff and Morgan have gone back toward the
lake,” reported Larry.

“They’ve gone to consult their chief,” I said. “I
wish Pickering would lead his own battalions. It would
give social prestige to the fight.”

“Bah, these women!” And Larry tore the corner
from a cartridge box.

Stoddard, with a pile of clubs within reach, lay on
his back on the long leather couch, placidly reading his
Greek testament. Bates, for the first time since my arrival,
seemed really nervous and anxious. He pulled a
silver watch from his pocket several times, something I
had never seen him do before. He leaned against the
table, looking strangely tired and worn, and I saw him
start nervously as he felt Larry’s eyes on him.

“I think, sir, I’d better take another look at the outer
gates,” he remarked to me quite respectfully.

His disturbed air aroused my old antagonism. Was
he playing double in the matter? Did he seek now an
excuse for conveying some message to the enemy?

“You’ll stay where you are,” I said sharply, and I
found myself restlessly fingering my revolver.

“Very good, sir,”—and the hurt look in his eyes
touched me.

“Bates is all right,” Larry declared, with an emphasis
that was meant to rebuke me.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE FIGHT IN THE LIBRARY


“They’re coming faster this time,” remarked Stoddard.

“Certainly. Their general has been cursing them
right heartily for retreating without the loot. He wants
his three-hundred-thousand-dollar autograph collection,”
observed Larry.

“Why doesn’t he come for it himself, like a man?” I
demanded.

“Like a man, do you say!” ejaculated Larry. “Faith
and you flatter that fat-head!”

It was nearly eleven o’clock when the attacking party
returned after a parley on the ice beyond the boat-house.
The four of us were on the terrace ready for them.
They came smartly through the wood, the sheriff and
Morgan slightly in advance of the others. I expected
them to slacken their pace when they came to the open
meadow, but they broke into a quick trot at the water-tower
and came toward the house as steady as veteran
campaigners.

“Shall we try gunpowder?” asked Larry.

“We’ll let them fire the first volley,” I said.

“They’ve already tried to murder you and Stoddard,
—I’m in for letting loose with the elephant guns,” protested
the Irishman.

“Stand to your clubs,” admonished Stoddard, whose
own weapon was comparable to the Scriptural weaver’s
beam. “Possession is nine points of the fight, and we’ve
got the house.”

“Also a prisoner of war,” said Larry, grinning.

The English detective had smashed the glass in the
barred window of the potato cellar and we could hear
him howling and cursing below.

“Looks like business this time!” exclaimed Larry.
“Spread out now and the first head that sticks over the
balustrade gets a dose of hickory.”

When twenty-five yards from the terrace the advancing
party divided, half halting between us and the
water-tower and the remainder swinging around the
house toward the front entrance.

“Ah, look at that!” yelled Larry. “It’s a battering-ram
they have. O man of peace! have I your Majesty’s
consent to try the elephant guns now?”

Morgan and the sheriff carried between them a stick
of timber from which the branches had been cut, and,
with a third man to help, they ran it up the steps and
against the door with a crash that came booming back
through the house.

Bates was already bounding up the front stairway, a
revolver in his hand and a look of supreme rage on his
face. Leaving Stoddard and Larry to watch the library
windows, I was after him, and we clattered over the loose
boards in the upper hall and into a great unfinished
chamber immediately over the entrance. Bates had the
window up when I reached him and was well out upon
the coping, yelling a warning to the men below.

He had his revolver up to shoot, and when I caught
his arm he turned to me with a look of anger and indignation
I had never expected to see on his colorless, mask-like
face.

“My God, sir! That door was his pride, sir,—it came
from a famous house in England, and they’re wrecking
it, sir, as though it were common pine.”

He tore himself free of my grasp as the besiegers
again launched their battering-ram against the door
with a frightful crash, and his revolver cracked smartly
thrice, as he bent far out with one hand clinging to
the window frame.

His shots were a signal for a sharp reply from one of
the men below, and I felt Bates start, and pulled him
in, the blood streaming from his face.

“It’s all right, sir,—all right,—only a cut across my
cheek, sir,”—and another bullet smashed through the
glass, spurting plaster dust from the wall. A fierce
onslaught below caused a tremendous crash to echo
through the house, and I heard firing on the opposite
side, where the enemy’s reserve was waiting.

Bates, with a handkerchief to his face, protested that
he was unhurt.

“Come below; there’s nothing to be gained here,”—.
and I ran down to the hall, where Stoddard stood, leaning
upon his club like a Hercules and coolly watching
the door as it leaped and shook under the repeated blows
of the besiegers.

A gun roared again at the side of the house, and I ran
to the library, where Larry had pushed furniture against
all the long windows save one, which he held open. He
stepped out upon the terrace and emptied a revolver at
the men who were now creeping along the edge of the
ravine beneath us. One of them stopped and discharged
a rifle at us with deliberate aim. The ball snapped snow
from the balustrade and screamed away harmlessly.

“Bah, such monkeys!” he muttered. “I believe I’ve
hit that chap!” One man had fallen and lay howling
in the ravine, his hand to his thigh, while his comrades
paused, demoralized.

“Serves you right, you blackguard!” Larry muttered.

I pulled him in and we jammed a cabinet against the
door.

Meanwhile the blows at the front continued with increasing
violence. Stoddard still stood where I had left
him. Bates was not in sight, but the barking of a revolver
above showed that he had returned to the window
to take vengeance on his enemies.

Stoddard shook his head in deprecation.

“They fired first,—we can’t do less than get back at
them,” I said, between the blows of the battering-ram.

A panel of the great oak door now splintered in, but
in their fear that we might use the opening as a
loophole, they scampered out into range of Bates’ revolver.
In return we heard a rain of small shot on the
upper windows, and a few seconds later Larry shouted
that the flanking party was again at the terrace.

This movement evidently heartened the sheriff, for,
under a fire from Bates, his men rushed up and the log
crashed again into the door, shaking it free of the upper
hinges. The lower fastenings were wrenched loose an
instant later, and the men came tumbling into the hall,
—the sheriff, Morgan and four others I had never seen
before. Simultaneously the flanking party reached the
terrace and were smashing the small panes of the French
windows. We could hear the glass crack and tinkle
above the confusion at the door.

In the hall he was certainly a lucky man who held to
his weapon a moment after the door tumbled in. I
blazed at the sheriff with my revolver as he stumbled
and half-fell at the threshold, so that the ball passed
over him, but he gripped me by the legs and had me
prone and half-dazed by the rap of my head on the floor.

I suppose I was two or three minutes, at least, getting
my wits. I was first conscious of Bates grappling the
sheriff, who sat upon me, and as they struggled with each
other I got the full benefit of their combined, swerving,
tossing weight. Morgan and Larry were trying for a
chance at each other with revolvers, while Morgan
backed the Irishman slowly toward the library. Stoddard
had seized one of the unknown deputies with both
hands by the collar and gave his captive a tremendous
swing, jerking him high in the air and driving him
against another invader with a blow that knocked both
fellows spinning into a corner.

“Come on to the library!” shouted Larry, and Bates,
who had got me to my feet, dragged me down the hall
toward the open library-door.

Bates presented at this moment an extraordinary appearance,
with the blood from the scratch on his face
coursing down his cheek and upon his shoulder. His
coat and shirt had been torn away and the blood was
smeared over his breast. The fury and indignation in
his face was something I hope not to see again in a human
countenance.

“My God, this room—this beautiful room!” I heard
him cry, as he pushed me before him into the library.
“It was Mr. Glenarm’s pride,” he muttered, and sprang
upon a burly fellow who had came in through one of
the library doors and was climbing over the long table
we had set up as a barricade.

We were now between two fires. The sheriff’s party
had fought valiantly to keep us out of the library, and
now that we were within, Stoddard’s big shoulders held
the door half-closed against the combined strength of
the men in the ball. This pause was fortunate, for it
gave us an opportunity to deal singly with the fellows
who were climbing in from the terrace. Bates had laid
one of them low with a club and Larry disposed of another,
who had made a murderous effort to stick a knife
into him. I was with Stoddard against the door, where
the sheriff’s men were slowly gaining upon us.

“Let go on the jump when I say three,” said
Stoddard, and at his word we sprang away from the
door and into the room. Larry yelled with joy as the
sheriff and his men pitched forward and sprawled upon
the floor, and we were at it again in a hand-to-hand conflict
to clear the room.

“Hold that position, sir,” yelled Bates.

Morgan had directed the attack against me and I was
driven upon the hearth before the great fireplace. The
sheriff, Morgan and Ferguson hemmed me in. It was
evident that I was the chief culprit, and they wished to
eliminate me from the contest. Across the room, Larry,
Stoddard and Bates were engaged in a lively rough and
tumble with the rest of the besiegers, and Stoddard, seeing
my plight, leaped the overturned table, broke past
the trio and stood at my side, swinging a chair.

At that moment my eyes, sweeping the outer doors,
saw the face of Pickering. He had come to see that his
orders were obeyed, and I remember yet my satisfaction,
as, hemmed in by the men he had hired to kill me
or drive me out, I felt, rather than saw, the cowardly
horror depicted upon his face.

Then the trio pressed in upon me. As I threw down
my club and drew my revolver, some one across the
room fired several shots, whose roar through the room
seemed to arrest the fight for an instant, and then, while
Stoddard stood at my side swinging his chair defensively,
the great chandelier, loosened or broken by the shots,
fell with a mighty crash of its crystal pendants. The
sheriff, leaping away from Stoddard’s club, was struck
on the head and borne down by the heavy glass.

Smoke from the firing floated in clouds across the
room, and there was a moment’s silence save for the
sheriff, who was groaning and cursing under the debris
of the chandelier. At the door Pickering’s face appeared
again anxious and frightened. I think the scene
in the room and the slow progress his men were making
against us had half-paralyzed him.

We were all getting our second wind for a renewal
of the fight, with Morgan in command of the enemy.
One or two of his men, who had gone down early in the
struggle, were now crawling back for revenge. I think
I must have raised my hand and pointed at Pickering,
for Bates wheeled like a flash and before I realized what
happened he had dragged the executor into the room.

“You scoundrel—you ingrate!” howled the servant.

The blood on his face and bare chest and the hatred
in his eves made him a hideous object; but in that lull
of the storm while we waited, watching for an advantage,
I heard off somewhere, above or below, that same
sound of footsteps that I had remarked before. Larry
and Stoddard heard it; Bates heard it, and his eyes fixed
upon Pickering with a glare of malicious delight.

“There comes our old friend, the ghost,” yelled Larry.

“I think you are quite right, sir,” said Bates. He
threw down the revolver he held in his hand and leaned
upon the edge of the long table that lay on its side, his
gaze still bent on Pickering, who stood with his overcoat
buttoned close, his derby hat on the floor beside him,
where it had fallen as Bates hauled him into the room.

The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,
of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I even
remarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.

We were all so intent on those steps in the wall that
we were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larry
and Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn a
revolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up to
fire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying through
the air.

“Only a moment now, gentlemen,” said Bates, an odd
smile on his face. He was looking past me toward the
right end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in the
air a feeling of something impending. Even Morgan
and his men, half-crouching ready for a rush at me, hesitated;
and Pickering glanced nervously from one to the
other of us. It was the calm before the storm; in a moment
we should be at each other’s throats for the final
struggle, and yet we waited. In the wall I heard still
the sound of steps. They were clear to all of us now.
We stood there for what seemed an eternity—I suppose
the time was really not more than thirty seconds—inert,
waiting, while I felt that something must happen; the
silence, the waiting, were intolerable. I grasped my pistol
and bent low for a spring at Morgan, with the overturned
table and wreckage of the chandelier between me
and Pickering; and every man in the room was instantly
on the alert.

All but Bates. He remained rigid—that curious
smile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes bent toward the
end of the great fireplace back of me.

That look on his face held, arrested, numbed me; I
followed it. I forgot Morgan; a tacit truce held us all
again. I stepped back till my eyes fastened on the
broad paneled chimney-breast at the right of the hearth,
and it was there now that the sound of footsteps in the
wall was heard again; then it ceased utterly, the long
panel opened slowly, creaking slightly upon its hinges,
then down into the room stepped Marian Devereux.
She wore the dark gown in which I had seen her last,
and a cloak was drawn over her shoulders.

She laughed as her eyes swept the room.

“Ah, gentlemen,” she said, shaking her head, as she
viewed our disorder, “what wretched housekeepers you
are!”

Steps were again heard in the wall, and she turned to
the panel, held it open with one hand and put out the
other, waiting for some one who followed her.

Then down into the room stepped my grandfather,
John Marshall Glenarm! His staff, his cloak, the silk
hat above his shrewd face, and his sharp black eyes were
unmistakable. He drew a silk handkerchief from the
skirts of his frock coat, with a characteristic flourish
that I remembered well, and brushed a bit of dust from
his cloak before looking at any of us. Then his eyes
fell upon me.

“Good morning, Jack,” he said; and his gaze swept
the room.

“God help us!”

It was Morgan, I think, who screamed these words as
he bolted for the broken door, but Stoddard caught and
held him.

“Thank God, you’re here, sir!” boomed forth in Bates’
sepulchral voice.

It seemed to me that I saw all that happened with a
weird, unnatural distinctness, as one sees, before a
storm, vivid outlines of far headlands that the usual
light of day scarce discloses.

I was myself dazed and spellbound; but I do not like
to think, even now, of the effect of my grandfather’s
appearance on Arthur Pickering; of the shock that
seemed verily to break him in two, so that he staggered,
then collapsed, his head falling as though to strike his
knees. Larry caught him by the collar and dragged him
to a seat, where he huddled, his twitching hands at his
throat.

“Gentlemen,” said my grandfather, “you seem to have
been enjoying yourselves. Who is this person?”

He pointed with his stick to the sheriff, who was endeavoring
to crawl out from under the mass of broken
crystals.

“That, sir, is the sheriff,” answered Bates.

“A very disorderly man, I must say. Jack, what
have you been doing to cause the sheriff so much inconvenience?
Didn’t you know that that chandelier was
likely to kill him? That thing cost a thousand dollars,
gentlemen. You are expensive visitors. Ah, Morgan,—
and Ferguson, too! Well, well! I thought better of both
of you. Good morning, Stoddard! A little work for
the Church militant! And this gentleman?”—he indicated
Larry, who was, for once in his life, without anything
to say.

“Mr. Donovan,—a friend of the house,” explained
Bates.

“Pleased, I’m sure,” said the old gentleman. “Glad
the house had a friend. It seems to have had enemies
enough,” he added dolefully; and he eyed the wreck of
the room ruefully. The good humor in his face reassured
me; but still I stood in tongue-tied wonder, staring
at him.

“And Pickering!” John Marshall Glenarm’s voice
broke with a quiet mirth that I remembered as the preface
usually of something unpleasant. “Well, Arthur,
I’m glad to find you on guard, defending the interests
of my estate. At the risk of your life, too! Bates!”

“Yes, Mr. Glenarm.”

“You ought to have called me earlier. I really prized
that chandelier immensely. And this furniture wasn’t
so bad!”

His tone changed abruptly. He pointed to the
sheriff’s deputies one after the other with his stick.
There was, I remembered, always something insinuating,
disagreeable and final about my grandfather’s staff.

“Clear out!” he commanded. “Bates, see these fellows
through the wall. Mr. Sheriff, if I were you I’d
be very careful, indeed, what I said of this affair. I’m
a dead man come to life again, and I know a great deal
that I didn’t know before I died. Nothing, gentlemen,
fits a man for life like a temporary absence from this
cheerful and pleasant world. I recommend you to try
it.”

He walked about the room with the quick eager step
that was peculiarly his own, while Stoddard, Larry and
I stared at him. Bates was helping the dazed sheriff
to his feet. Morgan and the rest of the foe were crawling
and staggering away, muttering, as though imploring
the air of heaven against an evil spirit.

Pickering sat silent, not sure whether he saw a ghost
or real flesh and blood, and Larry kept close to him, cutting
off his retreat. I think we all experienced that bewildered
feeling of children who are caught in mischief
by a sudden parental visitation. My grandfather went
about peering at the books, with a tranquil air that was
disquieting.

He paused suddenly before the design for the memorial
tablet, which I had made early in my stay at
Glenarm House. I had sketched the lettering with some
care, and pinned it against a shelf for my more leisurely
study of its phrases. The old gentlemen pulled out his
glasses and stood with his hands behind his back, reading.
When he finished he walked to where I stood.

“Jack!” he said, “Jack, my boy!” His voice shook
and his hands trembled as he laid them on my shoulders.
“Marian,”—he turned, seeking her, but the girl had
vanished. “Just as well,” he said. “This room is hardly
an edifying sight for a woman.” I heard, for an instant,
a light hurried step in the wall.

Pickering, too, heard that faint, fugitive sound, and
our eyes met at the instant it ceased. The thought of
her tore my heart, and I felt that Pickering saw and
knew and was glad.

“They have all gone, sir,” reported Bates, returning
to the room.

“Now, gentlemen,” began my grandfather, seating
himself, “I owe you an apology; this little secret of mine
was shared by only two persons. One of these was Bates,”
—he paused as an exclamation broke from all of us; and
he went on, enjoying our amazement,—“and the other
was Marian Devereux. I had often observed that at a
man’s death his property gets into the wrong hands, or
becomes a bone of contention among lawyers. Sometimes,”
and the old gentleman laughed, “an executor
proves incompetent or dishonest. I was thoroughly
fooled in you, Pickering. The money you owe me is a
large sum; and you were so delighted to hear of my
death that you didn’t even make sure I was really out of
the way. You were perfectly willing to accept Bates’
word for it; and I must say that Bates carried it off
splendidly.”

Pickering rose, the blood surging again in his face,
and screamed at Bates, pointing a shaking finger at the
man.

“You impostor,—you perjurer! The law will deal
with your case.”

“To be sure,” resumed my grandfather calmly;
“Bates did make false affidavits about my death; but
possibly—”

“It was in a Pickwickian sense, sir,” said Bates
gravely.

“And in a righteous cause,” declared my grandfather.
“I assure you, Pickering, that I have every intention of
taking care of Bates. His weekly letters giving an account
of the curious manifestations of your devotion to
Jack’s security and peace were alone worth a goodly
sum. But, Bates—”

The old gentleman was enjoying himself hugely. He
chuckled now, and placed his hand on my shoulder.

“Bates, it was too bad I got those missives of yours
all in a bunch. I was in a dahabiyeh on the Nile and
they don’t have rural free delivery in Egypt. Your
cablegram called me home before I got the letters. But
thank God, Jack, you’re alive!”

There was real feeling in these last words, and I
think we were all touched by them.

“Amen to that!” cried Bates.

“And now, Pickering, before you go I want to show
you something. It’s about this mysterious treasure, that
has given you—and I hear, the whole countryside—so
much concern. I’m disappointed in you, Jack, that you
couldn’t find the hiding-place. I designed that as a part
of your architectural education. Bates, give me a
chair.”

The man gravely drew a chair out of the wreckage
and placed it upon the hearth. My grandfather stepped
upon it, seized one of the bronze sconces above the mantel
and gave it a sharp turn. At the same moment,
Bates, upon another chair, grasped the companion
bronze and wrenched it sharply. Instantly some mechanism
creaked in the great oak chimney-breast and the
long oak panels swung open, disclosing a steel door with
a combination knob.

“Gentlemen,”—and my grandfather turned with a
quaint touch of humor, and a merry twinkle in his
bright old eyes—“gentlemen, behold the treasury! It
has proved a better hiding-place than I ever imagined
it would. There’s not much here, Jack, but enough to
keep you going for a while.”

We were all staring, and the old gentleman was unfeignedly
enjoying our mystification. It was an hour
on which he had evidently counted much; it was the
triumph of his resurrection and home-coming, and he
chuckled as he twirled the knob in the steel door. Then
Bates stepped forward and helped him pull the door
open, disclosing a narrow steel chest, upright and held
in place by heavy bolts clamped in the stone of the chimney.
It was filled with packets of papers placed on
shelves, and tied neatly with tape.

“Jack,” said my grandfather, shaking his head, “you
wouldn’t be an architect, and you’re not much of an
engineer either, or you’d have seen that that paneling
was heavier than was necessary. There’s two hundred
thousand dollars in first-rate securities—I vouch for
them! Bates and I put them there just before I went
to Vermont to die.”

“I’ve sounded those panels a dozen times,” I protested.

“Of course you have,” said my grandfather, “but
solid steel behind wood is safe. I tested it carefully before
I left.”

He laughed and clapped his knees, and I laughed with
him.

“But you found the Door of Bewilderment and Pickering’s
notes, and that’s something.”

“No; I didn’t even find that. Donovan deserves the
credit. But how did you ever come to build that tunnel,
if you don’t mind telling me?”

He laughed gleefully.

“That was originally a trench for natural-gas pipes.
There was once a large pumping-station on the site of
this house, with a big trunk main running off across
country to supply the towns west of here. The gas was
exhausted, and the pipes were taken up before I began
to build. I should never have thought of that tunnel in
the world if the trench hadn’t suggested it. I merely
deepened and widened it a little and plastered it with
cheap cement as far as the chapel, and that little room
there where I put Pickering’s notes had once been the
cellar of a house built for the superintendent of the gas
plant. I had never any idea that I should use that passage
as a means of getting into my own house, but Marian
met me at the station, told me that there was trouble
here, and came with me through the chapel into the
cellar, and through the hidden stairway that winds
around the chimney from that room where we keep the
candlesticks.”

“But who was the ghost?” I demanded, “if you were
really alive and in Egypt?”

Bates laughed now.

“Oh, I was the ghost! I went through there occasionally
to stimulate your curiosity about the house.
And you nearly caught me once!”

“One thing more, if we’re not wearing you out—I’d
like to know whether Sister Theresa owes you any
money.”

My grandfather turned upon Pickering with blazing
eyes.

“You scoundrel, you infernal scoundrel, Sister
Theresa never borrowed a cent of me in her life! And
you have made war on that woman—”

His rage choked him.

He told Bates to close the door of the steel chest, and
then turned to me.

“Where are those notes of Pickering’s?” he demanded;
and I brought the packet.

“Gentlemen, Mr. Pickering has gone to ugly lengths
in this affair. How many murders have you gentlemen
committed?”

“We were about to begin actual killing when you arrived,”
replied Larry, grinning.

“The sheriff got all his men off the premises more or
less alive, sir,” said Bates.

“That is good. It was all a great mistake,—a very
great mistake,”—and my grandfather turned to Pickering.

“Pickering, what a contemptible scoundrel you are!
I lent you that three hundred thousand dollars to buy
securities to give you better standing in your railroad
enterprises, and the last time I saw you, you got me to
release the collateral so you could raise money to buy
more shares. Then, after I died”—he chuckled—“you
thought you’d find and destroy the notes and that would
end the transaction; and if you had been smart enough
to find them you might have had them and welcome.
But as it is, they go to Jack. If he shows any mercy
on you in collecting them he’s not the boy I think he is.”

Pickering rose, seized his hat and turned toward the
shattered library-door. He paused for one moment, his
face livid with rage.

“You old fool!” he screamed at my grandfather.
“You old lunatic, I wish to God I had never seen you!
No wonder you came back to life! You’re a tricky old
devil and too mean to die!”

He turned toward me with some similar complaint
ready at his tongue’s end; but Stoddard caught him by
the shoulders and thrust him out upon the terrace.

A moment later we saw him cross the meadow and
hurry toward St. Agatha’s.



CHAPTER XXVII

CHANGES AND CHANCES


John Marshall Glenarm had probably never been so
happy in his life as on that day of his amazing home-coming.
He laughed at us and he laughed with us, and
as he went about the house explaining his plans for its
completion, he chaffed us all with his shrewd humor
that had been the terror of my boyhood.

“Ah, if you had had the plans of course you would
have been saved a lot of trouble; but that little sketch
of the Door of Bewilderment was the only thing I left,
—and you found it, Jack,—you really opened these good
books of mine.”

He sent us all away to remove the marks of battle, and
we gave Bates a hand in cleaning up the wreckage,—
Bates, the keeper of secrets; Bates, the inscrutable and
mysterious; Bates, the real hero of the affair at Glenarm.

He led us through the narrow stairway by which he
had entered, which had been built between false walls,
and we played ghost for one another, to show just how
the tread of a human being around the chimney sounded.
There was much to explain, and my grandfather’s
contrition for having placed me in so hazardous a predicament
was so sincere, and his wish to make amends
so evident, that my heart warmed to him. He made me
describe in detail all the incidents of my stay at the
house, listening with boyish delight to my adventures.

“Bless my soul!” he exclaimed over and over again.
And as I brought my two friends into the story his delight
knew no bounds, and he kept chuckling to himself;
and insisted half a dozen times on shaking hands with
Larry and Stoddard, who were, he declared, his friends
as well as mine.

The prisoner in the potato cellar received our due attention;
and my grandfather’s joy in the fact that an
agent of the British government was held captive in
Glenarm House was cheering to see. But the man’s detention
was a grave matter, as we all realized, and made
imperative the immediate consideration of Larry’s future.

“I must go—and go at once!” declared Larry.

“Mr. Donovan, I should feel honored to have you remain,”
said my grandfather. “I hope to hold Jack
here, and I wish you would share the house with us.”

“The sheriff and those fellows won’t squeal very hard
about their performances here,” said Stoddard. “And
they won’t try to rescue the prisoner, even for a reward,
from a house where the dead come back to life.”

“No; but you can’t hold a British prisoner in an
American private house for ever. Too many people
know he has been in this part of the country; and you
may be sure that the fight here and the return of Mr.
Glenarm will not fail of large advertisement. All I can
ask of you, Mr. Glenarm, is that you hold the fellow a
few hours after I leave, to give me a start.”

“Certainly. But when this trouble of yours blows
over, I hope you will come back and help Jack to live
a decent and orderly life.”

My grandfather spoke of my remaining with a
warmth that was grateful to my heart; but the place and
its associations had grown unbearable. I had not mentioned
Marian Devereux to him, I had not told him of
my Christmas flight to Cincinnati; for the fact that I
had run away and forfeited my right made no difference
now, and I waited for an opportunity when we should
be alone to talk of my own affairs.

At luncheon, delayed until mid-afternoon, Bates produced
champagne, and the three of us, worn with excitement
and stress of battle, drank a toast, standing, to the
health of John Marshall Glenarm.

“My friends,”—the old gentleman rose and we all
stood, our eyes bent upon him in, I think, real affection,
—“I am an old and foolish man. Ever since I was
able to do so I have indulged my whims. This house
is one of them. I had wished to make it a thing of
beauty and dignity, and I had hoped that Jack would
care for it and be willing to complete it and settle here.
The means I employed to test him were not, I admit,
worthy of a man who intends well toward his own flesh
and blood. Those African adventures of yours scared
me, Jack; but to think”—and he laughed—“that I
placed you here in this peaceful place amid greater dangers
probably than you ever met in tiger-hunting! But
you have put me to shame. Here’s health and peace to
you!”

“So say we all!” cried the others.

“One thing more,” my grandfather continued, “I don’t
want you to think, Jack, that you would really have
been cut off under any circumstances if I had died while
I was hiding in Egypt. What I wanted, boy, was to
get you home! I made another will in England, where
I deposited the bulk of my property before I died, and
did not forget you. That will was to protect you in case
I really died!”—and he laughed cheerily.

The others left us—Stoddard to help Larry get his
things together—and my grandfather and I talked for
an hour at the table.

“I have thought that many things might happen
here,” I said, watching his fine, slim fingers, as he polished
his eye-glasses, then rested his elbows on the table
and smiled at me. “I thought for a while that I should
certainly be shot; then at times I was afraid I might
not be; but your return in the flesh was something I
never considered among the possibilities. Bates fooled
me. That talk I overheard between him and Pickering
in the church porch that foggy night was the thing that
seemed to settle his case; then the next thing I knew he
was defending the house at the serious risk of his life;
and I was more puzzled than ever.”

“Yes, a wonderful man, Bates. He always disliked
Pickering, and he rejoiced in tricking him.”

“Where did you pick Bates up? He told me he was
a Yankee, but he doesn’t act or talk it.”

My grandfather laughed. “Of course not! He’s an
Irishman and a man of education—but that’s all I know
about him, except that he is a marvelously efficient servant.”

My mind was not on Bates. I was thinking now of
Marian Devereux. I could not go on further with my
grandfather without telling him how I had run away
and broken faith with him, but he gave me no chance.

“You will stay on here,—you will help me to finish
the house?” he asked with an unmistakable eagerness
of look and tone.

It seemed harsh and ungenerous to tell him that I
wished to go; that the great world lay beyond the confines
of Glenarm for me to conquer; that I had lost as
well as gained by those few months at Glenarm House,
and wished to go away. It was not the mystery, now
fathomed, nor the struggle, now ended, that was uppermost
in my mind and heart, but memories of a girl
who had mocked me with delicious girlish laughter,—
who had led me away that I might see her transformed
into another, more charming, being. It was a comfort
to know that Pickering, trapped and defeated, was not
to benefit by the bold trick she had helped him play upon
me. His loss was hers as well, and I was glad in my
bitterness that I had found her in the passage, seeking
for plunder at the behest of the same master whom Morgan,
Ferguson and the rest of them served.

The fight was over and there was nothing more for me
to do in the house by the lake. After a week or so I
should go forth and try to win a place for myself. I
had my profession; I was an engineer, and I did not
question that I should be able to find employment. As
for my grandfather, Bates would care for him, and I
should visit him often. I was resolved not to give him
any further cause for anxiety on account of my adventurous
and roving ways. He knew well enough that his
old hope of making an architect of me was lost beyond
redemption—I had told him that—and now I wished to
depart in peace and go to some new part of the world,
where there were lines to run, tracks to lay and bridges
to build.

These thoughts so filled my mind that I forgot he
was patiently waiting for my answer.

“I should like to do anything you ask; I should like
to stay here always, but I can’t. Don’t misunderstand
me. I have no intention of going back to my old ways.
I squandered enough money in my wanderings, and I
had my joy of that kind of thing. I shall find employment
somewhere and go to work.”

“But, Jack,”—he bent toward me kindly,—“Jack, you
mustn’t be led away by any mere quixotism into laying
the foundation of your own fortune. What I have is
yours, boy. What is in the box in the chimney is yours
now—to-day.”

“I wish you wouldn’t! You were always too kind,
and I deserve nothing, absolutely nothing.”

“I’m not trying to pay you, Jack. I want to ease my
own conscience, that’s all.”

“But money can do nothing for mine,” I replied, trying
to smile. “I’ve been dependent all my days, and
now I’m going to work. If you were infirm and needed
me, I should not hesitate, but the world will have its
eyes on me now.”

“Jack, that will of mine did you a great wrong; it
put a mark upon you, and that’s what hurts me, that’s
what I want to make amends for! Don’t you see? Now
don’t punish me, boy. Come! Let us be friends!”

He rose and put out his hands.

“I didn’t mean that! I don’t care about that! It
was nothing more than I deserved. These months here
have changed me. Haven’t you heard me say I was going
to work?”

And I tried to laugh away further discussion of my
future.

“It will be more cheerful here in the spring,” he said,
as though seeking an inducement for me to remain.
“When the resort colony down here comes to life the
lake is really gay.”

I shook my head. The lake, that pretty cupful of
water, the dip and glide of a certain canoe, the remembrance
of a red tam-o’-shanter merging afar off in an
October sunset—my purpose to leave the place strengthened
as I thought of these things. My nerves were
keyed to a breaking pitch and I turned upon him stormily.

“So Miss Devereux was the other person who shared
your confidence! Do you understand,—do you appreciate
the fact that she was Pickering’s ally?”

“I certainly do not,” he replied coldly. “I’m surprised
to hear you speak so of a woman whom you can
scarcely know—”

“Yes, I know her; my God, I have reason to know her!
But even when I found her out I did not dream that
the plot was as deep as it is. She knew that it was a
scheme to test me, and she played me into Pickering’s
hands. I saw her only a few nights ago down there in
the tunnel acting as his spy, looking for the lost notes
that she might gain grace in his eyes by turning them
over to him. You know I always hated Pickering,—he
was too smooth, too smug, and you and everybody else
were for ever praising him to me. He was always held
up to me as a model; and the first time I saw Marian
Devereux she was with him—it was at Sherry’s the night
before I came here. I suppose she reached St. Agatha’s
only a few hours ahead of me.”

“Yes. Sister Theresa was her guardian. Her father
was a dear friend, and I knew her from her early childhood.
You are mistaken, Jack. Her knowing Pickering
means nothing,—they both lived in New York and
moved in the same circle.”

“But it doesn’t explain her efforts to help him, does
it?” I blazed. “He wished to marry her,—Sister
Theresa told me that,—and I failed, I failed miserably
to keep my obligation here—I ran away to follow her!”

“Ah, to be sure! You were away Christmas Eve,
when those vandals broke in. Bates merely mentioned
it in the last report I got as I came through New York.
That was all right. I assumed, of course, that you had
gone off somewhere to get a little Christmas cheer; I
don’t care anything about it.”

“But I had followed her—I went to Cincinnati to see
her. She dared me to come—it was a trick, a part of
the conspiracy to steal your property.”

The old gentleman smiled. It was a familiar way of
his, to grow calm as other people waxed angry.

“She dared you to come, did she! That is quite like
Marian; but you didn’t have to go, did you, Jack?”

“Of course not; of course I didn’t have to go, but—”

I stammered, faltered and ceased. Memory threw
open her portals with a challenge. I saw her on the
stairway at the Armstrongs’; I heard her low, soft
laughter, I felt the mockery of her voice and eyes! I
knew again the exquisite delight of being near her. My
heart told me well enough why I had followed her.

“Jack, I’m glad I’m not buried up there in that Vermont
graveyard with nobody to exercise the right of
guardianship over you. I’ve had my misgivings about
you; I used to think you were a born tramp; and you disappointed
me in turning your back on architecture,—the
noblest of all professions; but this performance of yours
really beats them all. Don’t you know that a girl like
Marian Devereux isn’t likely to become the agent of any
rascal? Do you really believe for a minute that she
tempted you to follow her, so you might forfeit your
rights to my property?”

“But why was she trying to find those notes of his?
Why did she come back from Cincinnati with his party?
If you could answer me those things, maybe I’d admit
that I’m a fool. Pickering, I imagine, is a pretty plausible
fellow where women are concerned.”

“For God’s sake, Jack, don’t speak of that girl as
women! I put her in that will of mine to pique your
curiosity, knowing that if there was a penalty on your
marrying her you would be wholly likely to do it,—for
that’s the way human beings are made. But you’ve
mixed it all up now, and insulted her in the grossest
way possible for a fellow who is really a gentleman. And
I don’t want to lose you; I want you here with me,
Jack! This is a beautiful country, this Indiana!
And what I want to do is to found an estate, to
build a house that shall be really beautiful,—something
these people hereabouts can be proud of,—
and I want you to have it with me, Jack, to
link our name to these woods and that pretty lake. I’d
rather have that for my neighbor than any lake in Scotland.
These rich Americans, who go to England to live,
don’t appreciate the beauty of their own country. This
landscape is worthy of the best that man can do. And
I didn’t undertake to build a crazy house so much as
one that should have some dignity and character. That
passage around the chimney is an indulgence, Jack,—
I’ll admit it’s a little bizarre,—you see that chimney
isn’t so big outside as it is in!”—and he laughed and
rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands,—“and my
bringing foreign laborers here wasn’t really to make it
easier to get things done my way. Wait till you have
seen the May-apples blossom and heard the robins sing
in the summer twilight,—help me to finish the house,—
then if you want to leave I’ll bid you God-speed.”

The feeling in his tone, the display of sentiment so
at variance with my old notion of him, touched me in
spite of myself. There was a characteristic nobility and
dignity in his plan; it was worthy of him. And I had
never loved him as now, when he finished this appeal,
and turned away to the window, gazing out upon the
somber woodland.

“Mr. Donovan is ready to go, sir,” announced Bates
at the door, and we went into the library, where Larry
and Stoddard were waiting.



CHAPTER XXVIII

SHORTER VISTAS


Larry had assembled his effects in the library, and to
my surprise, Stoddard appeared with his own hand-bag.

“I’m going to see Donovan well on his way,” said the
clergyman.

“It’s a pity our party must break up,” exclaimed my
grandfather. “My obligations to Mr. Donovan are very
great—and to you, too, Stoddard. Jack’s friends are
mine hereafter, and when we get new doors for Glenarm
House you shall honor me by accepting duplicate
keys.”

“Where’s Bates?” asked Larry, and the man came in,
respectfully, inperturbably as always, and began gathering
up the bags.

“Stop—one moment! Mr. Glenarm,” said Larry.
“Before I go I want to congratulate you on the splendid
courage of this man who has served you and your house
with so much faithfulness and tact. And I want to tell
you something else, that you probably would never learn
from him—”

“Donovan!” There was a sharp cry in Bates’ voice,
and he sprang forward with his hands outstretched entreatingly.
But Larry did not heed him.

“The moment I set eyes on this man I recognized
him. It’s not fair to you or to him that you should not
know him for what he is. Let me introduce an old
friend, Walter Creighton; he was a student at Dublin
when I was there,—I remember him as one of the best
fellows in the world.”

“For God’s sake—no!” pleaded Bates. He was deeply
moved and turned his face away from us.

“But, like me,” Larry went on, “he mixed in politics.
One night in a riot at Dublin a constable was killed.
No one knew who was guilty, but a youngster was suspected,
—the son of one of the richest and best-known
men in Ireland, who happened to get mixed in the row.
To draw attention from the boy, Creighton let suspicion
attach to his own name, and, to help the boy’s case
further, ran away. I had not heard from or of him until
the night I came here and found him the defender of
this house. By God! that was no servant’s trick,—it was
the act of a royal gentleman.”

They clasped hands; and with a new light in his face,
with a new manner, as though he resumed, as a familiar
garment, an old disused personality, Bates stood transfigured
in the twilight, a man and a gentleman. I think
we were all drawn to him; I know that a sob clutched
my throat and tears filled my eyes as I grasped his hand.

“But what in the devil did you do it for?” blurted
my grandfather, excitedly twirling his glasses.

Bates (I still call him Bates,—he insists on it)
laughed. For the first time he thrust his hands into his
pockets and stood at his ease, one of us.

“Larry, you remember I showed a fondness for the
stage in our university days. When I got to America I
had little money and found it necessary to find employment
without delay. I saw Mr. Glenarm’s advertisement
for a valet. Just as a lark I answered it to see
what an American gentleman seeking a valet looked
like. I fell in love with Mr. Glenarm at sight—”

“It was mutual!” declared my grandfather. “I never
believed your story at all,—you were too perfect in the
part!”

“Well, I didn’t greatly mind the valet business; it
helped to hide my identity; and I did like the humor
and whims of Mr. Glenarm. The housekeeping, after
we came out here, wasn’t so pleasant”—he looked at his
hands ruefully—“but this joke of Mr. Glenarm’s making
a will and then going to Egypt to see what would
happen,—that was too good to miss. And when the
heir arrived I found new opportunities of practising
amateur theatricals; and Pickering’s efforts to enlist
me in his scheme for finding the money and making me
rich gave me still greater opportunities. There were
times when I was strongly tempted to blurt the whole
thing; I got tired of being suspected, and of playing
ghost in the wall; and if Mr. Glenarm hadn’t got here
just as he did I should have stopped the fight and
proclaimed the truth. I hope,” he said, turning to
me, “you have no hard feelings, sir.” And he threw
into the “sir” just a touch of irony that made us all
roar.

“I’m certainly glad I’m not dead,” declared my grandfather,
staring at Bates. “Life is more fun than I ever
thought possible. Bless my soul!” he said, “if it isn’t a
shame that Bates can never cook another omelette for
me!”

We sent Bates back with my grandfather from the
boat-house, and Stoddard, Larry and I started across the
ice; the light coating of snow made walking comparatively
easy. We strode on silently, Stoddard leading.
Their plan was to take an accommodation train at the
first station beyond Annandale, leave it at a town forty
miles away, and then hurry east to an obscure place in
the mountains of Virginia, where a religious order
maintained a house. There Stoddard promised Larry
asylum and no questions asked.

We left the lake and struck inland over a rough country
road to the station, where Stoddard purchased tickets
only a few minutes before the train whistled.

We stood on the lonely platform, hands joined to
hands, and I know not what thoughts in our minds and
hearts.

“We’ve met and we’ve said good-by in many odd corners
of this strange old world,” said Larry, “and God
knows when we shall meet again.”

“But you must stay in America—there must be no
sea between us!” I declared.

“Donovan’s sins don’t seem heinous to me! It’s simply
that they’ve got to find a scapegoat,”—and Stoddard’s
voice was all sympathy and kindness. “It will
blow over in time, and Donovan will become an enlightened
and peaceable American citizen.”

There was a constraint upon us all at this moment of
parting—so many things had happened that day—and
when men have shared danger together they are bound
by ties that death only can break. Larry’s effort at
cheer struck a little hollowly upon us.

“Beware, lad, of women!” he importuned me.

“Humph! You still despise the sex on account of
that affair with the colleen of the short upper lip.”

“Verily. And the eyes of that little lady, who guided
your grandfather back from the other world, reminded
me strongly of her! Bah, these women!”

“Precious little you know about them!” I retorted.

“The devil I don’t!”

“No,” said Stoddard, “invoke the angels, not the
devil!”

“Hear him! Hear him! A priest with no knowledge
of the world.”

“Alas, my cloth! And you fling it at me after I have
gone through battle, murder and sudden death with you
gentlemen!”

“We thank you, sir, for that last word,” said Larry
mockingly. “I am reminded of the late Lord Alfred:

     “I waited for the train at Coventry;
      I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
      To watch the three tall spires,—’ ”

he quoted, looking off through the twilight toward St.
Agatha’s. “I can’t see a blooming spire!”

The train was now roaring down upon us and we
clung to this light mood for our last words. Between
men, gratitude is a thing best understood in silence;
and these good friends, I knew, felt what I could not
say.

“Before the year is out we shall all meet again,” cried
Stoddard hopefully, seizing the bags.

“Ah, if we could only be sure of that!” I replied. And
in a moment they were both waving their hands to me
from the rear platform, and I strode back homeward
over the lake.

A mood of depression was upon me; I had lost much
that day, and what I had gained—my restoration to the
regard of the kindly old man of my own blood, who had
appealed for my companionship in terms hard to deny—
seemed trifling as I tramped over the ice. Perhaps
Pickering, after all, was the real gainer by the day’s
event. My grandfather had said nothing to allay my
doubts as to Marion Devereux’s strange conduct, and
yet his confidence in her was apparently unshaken.

I tramped on, and leaving the lake, half-unconsciously
struck into the wood beyond the dividing wall, where
snow-covered leaves and twigs rattled and broke under
my tread. I came out into an open space beyond St.
Agatha’s, found the walk and turned toward home.

As I neared the main entrance to the school the door
opened and a woman came out under the overhanging
lamp. She carried a lantern, and turned with a hand
outstretched to some one who followed her with careful
steps.

“Ah, Marian,” cried my grandfather, “it’s ever the
task of youth to light the way of age.”



CHAPTER XXIX

AND SO THE LIGHT LED ME


He had been to see Sister Theresa, and Marian was
walking with him to the gate. I saw her quite plainly
in the light that fell from the lamp overhead. A long
cloak covered her, and a fur toque capped her graceful
head. My grandfather and his guide were apparently
in high spirits. Their laughter smote harshly upon me.
It seemed to shut me out,—to lift a barrier against me.
The world lay there within the radius of that swaying
light, and I hung aloof, hearing her voice and jealous of
the very companionship and sympathy between them.

But the light led me. I remembered with bitterness
that I had always followed her,—whether as Olivia,
trailing in her girlish race across the snow, or as the
girl in gray, whom I had followed, wondering, on that
night journey at Christmas Eve; and I followed now.
The distrust, my shattered faith, my utter loneliness,
could not weigh against the joy of hearing that laugh
of hers breaking mellowly on the night.

I paused to allow the two figures to widen the distance
between us as they traversed the path that curved
away toward the chapel. I could still hear their voices,
and see the lantern flash and disappear. I felt an impulse
to turn back, or plunge into the woodland; but I
was carried on uncontrollably. The light glimmered,
and her voice still floated back to me. It stole through
the keen winter dark like a memory of spring; and so
her voice and the light led me.

Then I heard an exclamation of dismay followed by
laughter in which my grandfather joined merrily.

“Oh, never mind; we’re not afraid,” she exclaimed.

I had rounded the curve in the path where I should
have seen the light; but the darkness was unbroken.
There was silence for a moment, in which I drew quite
near to them.

Then my grandfather’s voice broke out cheerily.

“Now I must go back with you! A fine person you
are to guide an old man! A foolish virgin, indeed, with
no oil in her lamp!”

“Please do not! Of course I’m going to see you quite
to your own door! I don’t intend to put my hand to
the lantern and then turn back!”

“This walk isn’t what it should be,” said my grandfather,
“we’ll have to provide something better in the
spring.”

They were still silent and I heard him futilely striking
a match. Then the lantern fell, its wires rattling
as it struck the ground, and the two exclaimed with renewed
merriment upon their misfortune.

“If you will allow me!” I called out, my hand fumbling
in my pocket for my own match-box.

I have sometimes thought that there is really some
sort of decent courtesy in me. An old man caught in
a rough path that was none too good at best! And a
girl, even though my enemy! These were, I fancy, the
thoughts that crossed my mind.

“Ah, it’s Jack!” exclaimed my grandfather. “Marian
was showing me the way to the gate and our light went
out.”

“Miss Devereux,” I murmured. I have, I hope, an
icy tone for persons who have incurred my displeasure,
and I employed it then and there, with, no doubt, its
fullest value.

She and my grandfather were groping in the dark for
the lost lantern, and I, putting out my hand, touched
her fingers.

“I beg your pardon,” she murmured frostily.

Then I found and grasped the lantern.

“One moment,” I said, “and I’ll see what’s the trouble.”

I thought my grandfather took it, but the flame of
my wax match showed her fingers, clasping the wires of
the lantern. The cloak slipped away, showing her arm’s
soft curve, the blue and white of her bodice, the purple
blur of violets; and for a second I saw her face, with a
smile quivering about her lips. My grandfather was
beating impatiently with his stick, urging us to leave the
lantern and go on.

“Let it alone,” he said. “I’ll go down through the
chapel; there’s a lantern in there somewhere.”

“I’m awfully sorry,” she remarked; “but I recently
lost my best lantern!”

To be sure she had! I was angry that she should so
brazenly recall the night I found her looking for Pickering’s
notes in the passage at the Door of Bewilderment!

She had lifted the lantern now, and I was striving to
touch the wax taper to the wick, with imminent danger
to my bare fingers.

“They don’t really light well when the oil’s out,” she
observed, with an exasperating air of wisdom.

I took it from her hand and shook it close to my ear.

“Yes; of course, it’s empty,” I muttered disdainfully.

“Oh, Mr. Glenarm!” she cried, turning away toward
my grandfather.

I heard his stick beating the rough path several yards
away. He was hastening toward Glenarm House.

“I think Mr. Glenarm has gone home.”

“Oh, that is too bad!” she exclaimed.

“Thank you! He’s probably at the chapel by this
time. If you will permit me—”

“Not at all!”

A man well advanced in the sixties should not tax his
arteries too severely. I was quite sure that my grandfather
ran up the chapel steps; I could hear his stick
beating hurriedly on the stone.

“If you wish to go farther”—I began.

I was indignant at my grandfather’s conduct; he had
deliberately run off, leaving me alone with a young
woman whom I particularly wished to avoid.

“Thank you; I shall go back now. I was merely walking
to the gate with Mr. Glenarm. It is so fine to have
him back again, so unbelievable!”

It was just such a polite murmur as one might employ
in speaking to an old foe at a friend’s table.

She listened a moment for his step; then, apparently
satisfied, turned back toward St. Agatha’s. I followed,
uncertain, hesitating, marking her definite onward
flight. From the folds of the cloak stole the faint perfume
of violets. The sight of her, the sound of her
voice, combined to create—and to destroy!—a mood
with every step.

I was seeking some colorless thing to say when she
spoke over her shoulder:

“You are very kind, but I am not in the least afraid,
Mr. Glenarm.”

“But there is something I wish to say to you. I
should like—”

She slackened her step.

“Yes.”

“I am going away.”

“Yes; of course; you are going away.”

Her tone implied that this was something that had
been ordained from the beginning of time, and did not
matter.

“And I wish to say a word about Mr. Pickering.”

She paused and faced me abruptly. We were at the
edge of the wood, and the school lay quite near. She
caught the cloak closer about her and gave her head a
little toss I remembered well, as a trick compelled by the
vagaries of woman’s head-dress.

“I can’t talk to you here, Mr. Glenarm; I had no intention
of ever seeing you again; but I must say this—”

“Those notes of Pickering’s—I shall ask Mr. Glenarm
to give them to you—as a mark of esteem from me.”

She stepped backward as though I had struck her.

“You risked much for them—for him”—I went on.

“Mr. Glenarm, I have no intention of discussing that,
or any other matter with you—”

“It is better so—”

“But your accusations, the things you imply, are unjust,
infamous!”

The quaver in her voice shook my resolution to deal
harshly with her.

“If I had not myself been a witness—” I began.

“Yes; you have the conceit of your own wisdom, I
dare say.”

“But that challenge to follow you, to break my pledge;
my running away, only to find that Pickering was close
at my heels; your visit to the tunnel in search of those
notes,—don’t you know that those things were a blow
that hurt? You had been the spirit of this woodland to
me. Through all these months, from the hour I watched
you paddle off into the sunset in your canoe, the thought
of you made the days brighter, steadied and cheered me,
and wakened ambitions that I had forgotten—abandoned
—long ago. And this hideous struggle here,—it seems
so idle, so worse than useless now! But I’m glad I followed
you,—I’m glad that neither fortune nor duty kept
me back. And now I want you to know that Arthur
Pickering shall not suffer for anything that has happened.
I shall make no effort to punish him; for your
sake he shall go free.”

A sigh so deep that it was like a sob broke from her.
She thrust forth her hand entreatingly.

“Why don’t you go to him with your generosity?
You are so ready to believe ill of me! And I shall not
defend myself; but I will say these things to you, Mr.
Glenarm: I had no idea, no thought of seeing him at
the Armstrongs’ that night. It was a surprise to me,
and to them, when he telegraphed he was coming. And
when I went into the tunnel there under the wall that
night, I had a purpose—a purpose—”

“Yes?” she paused and I bent forward, earnestly
waiting for her words, knowing that here lay her great
offending.

“I was afraid,—I was afraid that Mr. Glenarm might
not come in time; that you might be dispossessed,—lose
the fight, and I came back with Mr. Pickering because
I thought some dreadful thing might happen here—to
you—”

She turned and ran from me with the speed of the
wind, the cloak fluttering out darkly about her. At the
door, under the light of the lamp, I was close upon her.
Her hand was on the vestibule latch.

“But how should I have known?” I cried. “And you
had taunted me with my imprisonment at Glenarm;
you had dared me to follow you, when you knew that
my grandfather was living and watching to see whether
I kept faith with him. If you can tell me,—if there
an answer to that—”

“I shall never tell you anything—more! You were so
eager to think ill of me—to accuse me!”

“It was because I love you; it was my jealousy of that
man, my boyhood enemy, that made me catch at any
doubt. You are so beautiful,—you are so much a part
of the peace, the charm of all this! I had hoped for
spring—for you and the spring together!”

“Oh, please—!”

Her flight had shaken the toque to an unwonted angle;
her breath came quick and hard as she tugged at
the latch eagerly. The light from overhead was full
upon us, but I could not go with hope and belief struggling
unsatisfied in my heart. I seized her hands and
sought to look into her eyes.

“But you challenged me,—to follow you! I want to
know why you did that!”

She drew away, struggling to free herself

“Why was it, Marian?”

“Because I wanted—”

“Yes.”

“I wanted you to come, Squire Glenarm!”


Thrice spring has wakened the sap in the Glenarm
wood since that night. Yesterday I tore March from
the calendar. April in Indiana! She is an impudent
tomboy who whistles at the window, points to the sunshine
and, when you go hopefully forth, summons the
clouds and pelts you with snow. The austere old woodland,
wise from long acquaintance, finds no joy in her.
The walnut and the hickory have a higher respect for
the stormier qualities of December. April in Indiana!
She was just there by the wall, where now the bluebird
pauses dismayed, and waits again the flash of her golden
sandals. She bent there at the lakeside the splash of
a raindrop ago and tentatively poked the thin, brittle
ice with the pink tips of her little fingers. April in the
heart! It brings back the sweet wonder and awe of those
days, three years ago, when Marian and I, waiting for
June to come, knew a joy that thrilled our hearts like
the tumult of the first robin’s song. The marvel of it
all steals over me again as I hear the riot of melody in
meadow and wood, and catch through the window the
flash of eager wings.

My history of the affair at Glenarm has overrun the
bounds I had set for it, and these, I submit, are not
days for the desk and pen. Marian is turning over the
sheets of manuscript that lie at my left elbow, and demanding
that I drop work for a walk abroad. My
grandfather is pacing the terrace outside, planning, no
doubt, those changes in the grounds that are his constant
delight.

Of some of the persons concerned in this winter’s
tale let me say a word more. The prisoner whom Larry
left behind we discharged, after several days, with all
the honors of war, and (I may add without breach of
confidence) a comfortable indemnity. Larry has made
a reputation by his book on Russia—a searching study
into the conditions of the Czar’s empire, and, having
squeezed that lemon, he is now in Tibet. His father
has secured from the British government a promise of
immunity for Larry, so long as that amiable adventurer
keeps away from Ireland. My friend’s latest letters to
me contain, I note, no reference to The Sod.

Bates is in California conducting a fruit ranch, and
when he visited us last Christmas he bore all the marks
of a gentleman whom the world uses well. Stoddard’s
life has known many changes in these years, but they
must wait for another day, and, perhaps, another historian.
Suffice it to say that it was he who married us
—Marian and me—in the little chapel by the wall, and
that when he comes now and then to visit us, we renew
our impression of him as a man large of body and of
soul. Sister Theresa continues at the head of St. Agatha’s,
and she and the other Sisters of her brown-clad
company are delightful neighbors. Pickering’s failure
and subsequent disappearance were described sufficiently
in the newspapers and his name is never mentioned at
Glenarm.

As for myself—Marian is tapping the floor restlessly
with her boot and I must hasten—I may say that I am
no idler. It was I who carried on the work of finishing
Glenarm House, and I manage the farms which my
grandfather has lately acquired in this neighborhood.
But better still, from my own point of view, I maintain
in Chicago an office as consulting engineer and I have
already had several important commissions.

Glenarm House is now what my grandfather had
wished to make it, a beautiful and dignified mansion.
He insisted on filling up the tunnel, so that the Door of
Bewilderment is no more. The passage in the wall and
the strong box in the paneling of the chimney-breast
remain, though the latter we use now as a hiding-place
for certain prized bottles of rare whisky which John
Marshall Glenarm ordains shall be taken down only on
Christmas Eves, to drink the health of Olivia Gladys
Armstrong. That young woman, I may add, is now a
belle in her own city, and of the scores of youngsters all
the way from Pittsburg to New Orleans who lay siege
to her heart, my word is, may the best man win!

And now, at the end, it may seem idle vanity for a
man still young to write at so great length of his own
affairs; but it must have been clear that mine is the
humblest figure in this narrative. I wished to set forth
an honest account of my grandfather’s experiment in
looking into this world from another, and he has himself
urged me to write down these various incidents
while they are still fresh in my memory.

Marian—the most patient of women—is walking toward
the door, eager for the sunshine, the free airs of
spring, the blue vistas lakeward, and at last I am ready
to go.