Anna Katharine Green

“ If so, no such recognition came. George's fine face showed anger and anger only; Leighton's, a cold impassibility which might have passed for the stolidity of an utterly unfeeling man if his hands had not betrayed his inner restlessness and torment; while Alfred's flashing eye and set lips made plain the fact that his emotions clung to his own position rather than to hers—as was natural, perhaps, with that slip of paper going the rounds of the jury, and calling up from that respectable body startled, uneasy, or menacing looks, according to the nature of the man examining it. ”

“ To love one who has never sought your affection may cause the cheek to burn and the heart to recoil upon itself; but to have given [238] all one's youth and the most cherished impulses of the heart to a man who is no more than a whited sepulchre of deceit and revolting crime—that would be to sap life at its spring and tear up the heart by its roots. Oh, Mr. Outhwaite, forgetting all womanly delicacy, forgetting everything but your forbearance and the confidence with which you inspire me, I have poured out my soul before you. ”

“ By the grace of God or through some coincidence equally providential, the gas at this momentous instant was relit in the hall, and I perceived, amid the old shadows thus called out upon the wall, a new one—that of a hand holding a bottle, which, projecting itself beyond the straight line cast by the screen, was now stealing slowly but surely in the direction of the table on which stood my glass of medicine. I did not gasp or cry. Thought, feeling, consciousness even of my own unfathomable misery seemed lost in the one instinct—to watch that hand. ”

“ Not a single name rose in my mind till, by an association of ideas not entirely illogical, I remembered the habits of certain members of the Salvation Army, and how easy it would be for one of them to enter such a vile haunt as Mother Merry's and interview the depraved beings to be found there without attracting the notice of the police or rousing the least suspicion as to their intentions. But could I reach such a man, and, if I could, would I find him willing to undertake such an errand without understanding its full purport and just what use was to be made of the knowledge thus obtained? ”

“ May I tell you why this was everything to me? Why, the happiness of having received her last sigh is so great, that I have no room for resentment against you for this intrusion, and hardly feel the shame of being found in this place, with my dead darling lying in her miserable rags on this hideous pallet!"
"You may tell us," assented Mr. Gryce, replacing the coverlet over the face upon which was fast settling that look of peace which is Death's last gift to the living. [289]
Mr. Gillespie's tone grew deeper; it could hardly have grown more tender or more solemn. ”

“ I think I know George, yet I dare not say he has a heart incapable of crime. I think I know Alfred and I think I know Leighton; but what certainty can this imaginary knowledge give me of the integrity of men who hide their best impulses under wild ways or cloud them with plausible hypocrisies? There is not an open soul among the three; and unless one of them consents to confess his crime, we can never feel sure of the two true men who are guiltless. ”

“ As it was, I kept my post in silence, watching for the girl who I had every reason to believe had given the bottle of prussic acid to Leighton Gillespie. Would she prove to be the wild, unkempt woman whose beautiful look he had endeavoured to describe to the Salvation Army Captain? I hoped not; why, I hardly knew.
Suddenly there broke upon my eyes a sight I have never forgotten. A woman came in—a woman, not a girl—and while her look was not beautiful—far from it—she had that about her which no man could see for the first time without emotion. ”

“ The night, the storm, the uncongenial place, our more than uncongenial errand, were having their effect, lending to that dark entrance into one of the worst corners of our great city a sense of mysterious awe which has caused it to remain in my memory as something quite out of the ordinary experiences of life. It was not a long alley, and we soon reached the light I have mentioned. We could hear voices now, loud voices raised one moment in contention, the next in drunken cheer; and, thrilling through it all, a woman's tones singing some bewildering melody. It was not the voice of Mille-fleurs. ”

“ She fell into her father's arms and was crushed, nay, strained against that father's breast. Never had a child's naughtiness brought a more perfect joy; while from floor to ceiling of the great room, cries and shouts of relief went up from the surcharged hearts of the spectators which for once the coroner failed to rebuke. [145]
Possibly he was as much touched as anyone. There was so much natural impulse, so much spontaneity in the child's words and actions, that no one could doubt her candour or the fact that this outburst had been prompted by her own contrition. ”

“ The next minute I was conscious of having said a word too much. Her look, which you all know and love, changed, and, while she submitted to my caresses and even warmly returned them, it was with an appearance of doubt which I almost cursed myself for having roused in that innocent breast.
"Why one true heart?" she repeated. "Are there not others in this house? George and Alfred love you devotedly; and little Claire—what child could show more fondness for a grandfather than she?"
Why had she not included Leighton? ”

“ He depraved? he a buyer of poison?—no, no, no, not he, but the evil spirit that sometimes possesses him. Leighton Gillespie in his true hours is a man to confide in, to regard with honour, to—to—to——"
I no longer made an effort at listening. She was not addressing me, but her own soul, with which for the moment she stood apart in the great loneliness which an overwhelming catastrophe creates. She did not even remember my presence, and I did not dare recall it to her. I simply let her lose herself in her own grief, while I fought my own battle, and, as I hope, won my own victory. ”

“ George, Leighton, and Alfred:
I may not have been a good father, but I have at least been a just one. Though each and all of you since coming to man's estate have given me great cause for complaint, I have never been harsh towards you, nor have I ever denied you anything from mere caprice or from an egotistic desire to save myself trouble. Yet to one of you my life is of so little value that he is willing to resort to crime to rid himself of me. Does this shock you, Leighton, George, Alfred? ”

“ I have had the thought before; it has come when that bewildering look of mad uneasiness has crossed his face and he has left us to be gone days, sometimes weeks, without notice or explanation. It is a strange idea, a secret, almost an uncanny, one; but it is the only [235] one that can explain a crime for which one and all of my cousins seem to lack the inherent baseness. Dare I breathe it to you? It may be the saving of Leighton, if true; God knows it is my only excuse for clinging to him still. ”

“ The sight of a half-dozen frightened faces in the hall restored my self-possession. The servants had come up from below and stood crowding and jostling each other just as they had done three weeks before. At the sight of Hewson's cowering figure they began to moan and cry.
"Be quiet there!" exhorted Sweetwater, advancing upon them with the courage born of his triumphant success. "The old man whom you have doubtless thought the best-hearted and most reliable of you all has just confessed to the crime which has desolated this house and all but ruined the three young gentlemen, your masters. ”

“ Had George bet once too often on that mare which will be his ruin, or Leighton found his religion an insufficient cloak for indiscretions which ever shunned the light of day; or Alfred—the child of my heart, he whom his dying mother placed as a last trust in my arms—confounded the ennui of inaction with that weariness of life which is the bane of rich men's sons? I know the despairs that come in youth, and I quaked where I lay; but it was not upon self-destruction that this man at the cupboard was bent. ”

“ Or was it that a recognition of the latent sweetness underlying her wild nature had caused a feeling of rebellion against the degradation into which a creature of such amazing possibilities had fallen?
Whatever it was, I was conscious of a haunting sense of regret such as had followed few experiences in my life, and began to look upon the man who could make use of such a ruin of womanhood for the obtaining of a deadly drug, with something deeper and more active than mere distrust.
Leighton Gillespie was a man of the world. ”

“ As a result, George struck me as being the most candid, Leighton the most intellectual, and Alfred the most turbulent and ungovernable in his loves and animosities. All were under the same mental tension and in all I beheld evidence of deep humiliation and distrust, but this similarity of feeling did not draw them together even outwardly, but rather seemed to provoke a self-concentration which kept them widely apart. As I looked longer, Leighton impressed himself upon me as an interesting study—possibly because he was difficult to understand; Alfred as a good lover but dangerous hater ”

“ He was the man who flung himself upon the foot-rail of that plunging engine. He acknowledged it to me just now, and acknowledged, also, that he knew that those cars contained dynamite. A great and wonderful act for a man who had had no experience outside the club-room and the gymnasium."
"I respect heroism wherever I meet it," said I, slightly lifting my hat.
"And I," echoed the doctor; then as we turned down the street; "I do not comprehend Leighton or what has led him into this course of duplicity if not crime. A hero at one period of his life; a scamp, if not worse, at another! ”

“ George and Leighton were on the point of asserting not, and Alfred had just begun to swagger with an air of injured pride, when Miss Meredith, recovering herself, laid her hand upon her bosom in repetition of her former action, and slowly drew forth a letter, the appearance of which evidently produced a new and still greater shock in the breasts of the three young men.
"I shall not try to vindicate myself," said she. "I have lived like a sister in this house, and you would have a right to reproach me if it were not for what I hold here. ”

“ The drug was in the wine handed him by Leighton; we must accept that fact whatever it may cost us."
Her calmness amazed me. For the last few minutes she seemed upborne by some secret thought I could neither fathom nor understand.
But suddenly her old horror returned with the recurrence of some old memory. "Then it was his hand that stole towards my uncle's glass in the dark!" she cried; "that murderous, creeping hand, the vision of which has haunted me night and day since I heard of it. Oh, horrible! horrible! What a curse to fall upon a man! It is the work of the arch-fiend. Poor Leighton! ”

“ Gillespie's three sons she had fixed her affections and lavished the warm emotions of her passionate young life. Why had I not guessed it? Why had I let George's handsome figure and Alfred's lazy graces blind me to the fact that woman chooses through her imagination; and that if out of a half-dozen suitors she encounters one she does not thoroughly understand, he is sure to be the one to strike her untutored fancy. ”

“ Necks were stretched, heads were craned, and a general sigh swept from end to end of the room as the coroner wrenched the cover from the box, lifted out the pencil, raised it to his nose, and then passed it down to the jury. Only one person in sight failed to follow these significant movements with looks of curious interest; and that was the unhappy man who thus saw the finger of suspicion, which had been simply wavering in his direction, settle into immobility and point inexorably towards him. A white face and a sinking heart were shown by Alfred Gillespie at that moment ”

“ That you have failed to effect all you hoped for is not your fault. As a lawyer you will rate the matter at its worth, and as a man of heart excuse the exaggerated effect it has to all appearance produced upon those about you."
It was a palpable dismissal, and I took it for such, or would have if Miss Meredith, whose attention the word lawyer had seemingly caught, had not honoured me with a look which held me rooted to the spot.
"Wait!" she cried, "I want to speak to that young man. Do not let him go yet." And advancing, she stood before me in an attitude at once womanly and confiding. ”

“ Like the rest of the world I prefer to await developments before committing myself on so delicate a matter. Why, Outhwaite, prejudice is as bad as the hangman! If I had settled positively in my own mind which of the three had emptied that phial of poison into the old gentleman's evening glass, I would not impart my convictions. ”

“ He has neither the social qualities of George nor the luxurious tastes of Alfred. Nor is he like his father. I, who knew his mother well, have no difficulty in attributing to their correct source the religious tendencies which form so distinct a part of his character. But the melancholy which pervades his life is not an inheritance, but the result of nervous shock incident upon an extreme grief in early life, and while I do not profess to understand him or the many peculiarities to which his father rightfully raised objection, I am positive that he will never be found guilty of a depraved act. ”

“ With nothing to go upon but an accusation which, while involving all three of Mr. Gillespie's sons, specifies none, how can any official action be taken beyond that very ordinary one of submitting the whole household to a continual surveillance? Unless fresh evidence comes in, or conscience drives the guilty to confession, weeks, months, nay, years will go by, and the hand which hesitates to move now will hesitate still; justice needing something more definite to go upon than a suspicion equally divided amongst three men. ”

“ But Claire is a child; the slip of paper to which he attached such importance was unsealed and he dreaded its falling into wrong hands. Miss Meredith already knew his secret, but for him to proclaim openly that his death was due to the hatred [332] or cupidity of one of his children would not be the act of a father who already, at the cost of so much misery to himself,—nay, as it proved, at the cost of his life,—had kept back from every ear save that of the one confidant of his misery, a knowledge of the fact that a previous attempt had been made upon his life. ”