Edwin Balmer

“ Then tell me! I don't know, of course; paternity's not like maternity; but his mother— Do you know who she was? Agnes here!" Suddenly he dropped Ethel and gestured horridly with both hands. "Your father and your father's friend—Agnes!"
"Oh! Oh! God!" Ethel cried.
Her grandfather said not another word; he stood for only a moment more, looking at her; then, satisfied, he pulled on his hat and stalked to the door. He had not known whether Ethel had learned enough to have already come to believe that Agnes had been the mother of Barney Loutrelle; and the success of Lucas's scheme swung on that. ”

“ Barney continued then, without encouragement, "he acted with your knowledge. You were with him as accessory to murder as you were when you sent Quinlan from Galilee with his torch for Henry Laylor."
Lucas's cigar dropped from his mouth; the impact of his pulses rat-tatted in his brain, in the bend of his elbows, in his fingers and down to his toes. He remained mute, continuing to stare, not because of choice; he could not have spoken now.
"But I do not mean yet to ask a warrant for you," this young fellow called Loutrelle went on. "You can always be found; but Kincheloe is different. ”

“ Wain held back and Barney advanced alone, he was not conscious of ever having seen the woman who lay on her side with her profile plain against the pillow. Yet a fluttering of awe—of more than awe—came over him as he halted silently beside the bed.
Not because of the evidence of the imminence of Death; Barney was far too familiar with the hoverings of Death to have that fact alone so tremendously affect him. This emotion which possessed him was amazingly more tumultuous than any like passion of his life. ”

“ Lucas muttered to himself. Galilee!
But J. Q was dead; Kincheloe had put his body in the lake. Who, then, knew about Galilee and could associate it with a flaming torch? No one else in all the world but Lucas himself! Yet Ethel and that Loutrelle and Bennet had found out. How? From him?
"By telepathy," Lucas murmured to himself. "By transference of thought." So he sought to explain away the incident as Bennet had tried to do. But the explanation brought neither conviction nor reassurance. ”

“ All but Miss Platt's husband were at the door as the sled drew up before the porch; and Ethel felt a rush of love as she saw her grandmother. She was a little woman, thin and shrunken now but erect, with spirit unbroken by her many years; far more than her husband, she made Ethel think of life in the timberlands when her husband and she were young. ”

“ ETHEL held the door open, after Barney had gone, until he had passed the corner and turned; and then, for many minutes, she could not leave the room where they had been. But at last a servant, timidly making the rounds to see to the lights, reminded her of the hour, and she went to her room and undressed; and there, in her nightdress, she sat upon her bed, part of the time gazing at his picture on the bed beside her, part of the time leaning back, clasping her knees, with eyes half closed, re-feeling his arms about her, his lips on hers, her body crushed to his breast. ”

“ Verification of the existence of a James Quinlan and of a Robert on the other side of the veil had restored Ethel's confidence in her convictions of what had happened at St. Florentin; yet she realized that since she had once lost courage here in the gay hotel dining room overlooking the lighted, thronged boulevard, she might weaken again; so she plunged into facts, not at all as she had planned, but so as to commit her to the telling through to the end.
"Killed a man?" her cousin was repeating in a whisper, looking about swiftly and then bending further across the table. ”

“ They went to the landing on the south of the rock, climbed the steps and entered the great room, now warm and streaming with sunlight, where Barney's mother was waiting,—a strange, physically weakened cousin Agnes but whose touch seemed more vital than ever before as her lips kissed Ethel; whose hands, though thin, clasped with a confident pressure; whose eyes looked at Ethel steadily as ever, with some new sadness in them but with new joy, too, and with that haunting shadow quite gone. ”

“ Speculation and wonder in the neighborhood soon took weird and fantastic forms; the mansion had not been built for the living but for the dead; the windows, as seen from the shore in the moonlight, seemed to show lights of their own. Poor, pious people ceased to approach.
At first, old Lucas Cullen laughed at the stories; but as time went on, they began to affect him. He offered himself, once, as escort for the farmer who had the keys; and after going through the empty house, Lucas journeyed to Chicago where he visited and peremptorily challenged Marcellus Clarke. ”

“ The last vestige of ice long ago had dissolved into the lake which lay this afternoon almost motionless, rippling light green and deep blue in wide, shifting bands as the white clouds high in the sky let through or obscured the brightness of the declining sun. Several great steamers were in sight, thrusting southward, deep laden with ore from Duluth for Gary or South Chicago; there were passenger vessels, inward and outward bound; a package freighter or two, and ore boats and grain carriers in ballast, bound back to the Straits and the Soo which now had been ice-free for many weeks. ”

“ But she faced him silently, not conscious of what processes were controlling her, until she found herself shaking in a spasm of revulsion from him. Perhaps it was his voice or his manner, imitating his invitation of yesterday when he had made her detail to him the affairs which he already knew and pretended that he did not; with this came cumulated recollections of acts for which responsible men had accused him; there came to her, too, Asa Redbird's recent charge. Altogether she suddenly knew that she had nothing to tell her grandfather, and that he knew all that she did and far more. ”

“ Barney saw him sit back irritably; he saw Jaccard, suddenly remembering his client, glance about sharply. Then Barney gazed at the forward row at the darkened end of the room where he believed his mother to be. But either he was mistaken in supposing her there, or this demand was not the one to draw her from concealment. No one moved, and no one spoke but the Voice which announced:
"All the while a spirit has been beside you; a man; a fine-looking man, middle-aged, with dark hair and brows; strong, blue eyes; looking down, not at you, but beside you on the right. ”

“ She could see that he was holding his rifle ready but lowered; and her muscles went taut all through her. If he raised his rifle to fire, she would rush down upon him. But he did not; he only moved from one window to another, looking out; and then he came toward the stairs.
She regained her room without alarming him; and he went back to his room. On the Rock, the light had gone out. And being unable now to see anything but the stars and the snow and bare branches of the trees swaying slightly in the wind, Ethel opened her window to listen better. ”

“ Her grandfather was grabbing at her, saying something; and Miss Platt was addressing her; but Ethel heeded neither of them. She recognized that they were demanding, in their different ways, that she apologize and demean herself and ask forgiveness of them, and of Kincheloe, and of God, for her reckless accusations. But she could not think about them; besides, nothing about them had changed. Barney Loutrelle was alive; yet—yet everything else was the same. They had done what they had done; but not to her friend. ”

“ She made Ethel think of him, at moments, not as her grandfather but impersonally as the old, dominating, wilful, violent and sly man who to many millions of people was the embodiment of disregard of others. Lucas Cullen that morning had thought of Ethel impersonally; she had put herself against him, accusing him; therefore she was to be crushed in the way he thought best. Barney Loutrelle too was to be crushed, if what had been done last night was not enough to eliminate him from Lucas Cullen's schemes. ”

“ Bennet Cullen had recognized it and dropped down into his seat, astounded; his mother knew the voice; and Jaccard; most certainly of all, Lucas Cullen continued in the conviction that one dead was speaking. He knew why Agnes Cullen, though dead, should break all bonds to speak; he knew that the one who had just called for her was her son; and at this moment if the dead could possibly return, she would. And whatever any one dead could do, he credited Agnes Cullen, dead, with power to perform. ”

“ The Rock rose so abruptly from the lake bottom that the water was twenty or thirty feet deep.
"Who chopped that hole bigger, do you suppose, Asa?" she appealed at last of the Indian who had not joined her in her vain walking about, but who was standing, looking away over the ice.
Redbird refused to commit himself.
"Would Mr. Loutrelle have made it larger?" she asked.
"Why?" Asa returned.
"Yes; that's it; why? Why, Asa?" she cried, suddenly losing control of herself. "Why should any one want that hole bigger?" ”

“ Flashes of blood alternated with paleness in her thin cheeks and on her forehead, and her trembling and her frightened eyes appealed to him piteously. He was not conscious of purpose other than reaction to the stifling sensation of inaction when he moved away and into the next room where was the picture of Mrs. Oliver Cullen before which he halted and stared. The housekeeper did not follow him but turned around in her chair and watched him. ”

“ After a woman and man have met and known the wonder of mutual attraction and have separated, there is likely to be a dangerous process of idealization in progress of which one may become suddenly aware just before the moment of rejoining the other. Ethel was suffering this experience; she had reached the lower hall beside the lighted room where Barney was and, halting again with a catch at her heart, she felt fright at her own memories. ”

“ Lucas laughed as he liked to laugh when planning a shrewd and clever coup. "Hale Sir Horace Clebourne into court, of course, to swear for us that Oliver's wife is dead! He's high enough, ain't he? And from what I make out, the judge of the case—or do they call him My Lord High Justice in London—well, he'll just be coming out of a séance. The jury—every man of 'em—will all have spook messages of their own that they believe in; my local London counsel—what do they call him there, Luke?" ”

“ Ethel did not argue herself out of belief that her grandfather had instigated Kincheloe to take some action against Barney Loutrelle,—to frighten him off, perhaps, as Bagley seemed to have been frightened.
She regained the shore and put on her skis. The woods were empty and silent. Approaching St. Florentin, everything seemed as usual on a winter morning. At some distance she could hear the exhaust of the gasoline engine pumping water and charging the batteries for the day; she could hear an axe at leisurely intervals, and she knew that Sam Green Sky was comfortably employed in the wood-shed. ”

“ Whenever Ethel had thought about him before, she had considered him contented as long as he obtained enough from his wife to buy himself good—too good and too youthful—clothes and to indulge in his occasional "business trips", drinking and gambling a little perhaps or "flirting" with younger girls. Ethel did not permit herself to dwell concretely upon men's dissipations. But now she knew that Miss Platt's husband either never was just such a man as that or else recently he had developed more ambitious appetites. ”

“ When the door was opened and the dogs ran in, she thought that they rushed into the salon because she was there; but Lad only brushed against her on his way to the further end of the great room where he thrust his head down and smelled of the floor, whimpering and scrambling about in a circle. Lass blundered about near him so excitedly that Ethel followed to see what was there, only to find a space of bare, varnished floor. But her interest stirred Lad to leap upon her and dash to the door on the south which communicated with the outside steps down the Rock to the summer landing. ”

“ Ethel said. "Yes; I suppose you may say I've done that."
Her grandfather slowly drew his leg back from the drawer; suddenly he kicked the drawer shut and with his hands upon the desk, he pushed himself up to his feet. He was still a towering man in spite of the slight stoop which took more than an inch from the stature which had distinguished the days of his great vigor; he had never taken on flesh, and now his muscles were so firm that in limb he might have been twenty years younger than he was; and his big hand was steady as he raised it and brandished it at his granddaughter. ”

“ The cause was not to be inquired about in Chicago, Ethel understood. But at home in Wyoming, she used to ask her father about it all.
"Why, we couldn't get along together, dearie; so we stopped trying," was all he ever would say. "But you mustn't have trouble with your mother's people, whom you love and who love you."
Ethel recognized this for an evasion; and she believed that when she was older, he would tell her more. But if he had intended to, he did not; and Ethel found herself accustomed to accept the strange situation. ”

“ The sun failed to quite dissolve the snow, succeeding only in making it fluid enough to refreeze as ice on the bottom of the twigs and mantle the boughs more closely.
It was quite comfortable pushing along on skis; indeed, Ethel felt warm and loosened her coat collar. They had passed no one; and except for scars on the drifts here and there which probably marked Asa Redbird's trail to Quesnel, they saw no mark of human presence. Bird tracks patterned a powdery drift; a dog—probably the property of one of Asa's neighbors back in the woods—had crossed the road. ”

“ Bennet returned to his own room, rather miserably, and conscious that affairs in his family, which had seemed so serene only a few hours ago, had suddenly taken a turn for the perilous; with the bitter perverseness of youth suddenly disturbed in the unthreatened enjoyment of ease and advantage, he blamed not the cause of the danger but its discoverer. Indignantly he assailed Ethel, his dearest cousin. ”

“ For no one knew better than Lucas the weaknesses of Miss Platt's husband and the unlikelihood of his thinking clearly and sanely in an emergency. Suppose this fellow, who called himself Loutrelle, and his attorneys, or whoever else now acted with him got hold of Kincheloe and told him all they knew about Lucas Cullen, Kincheloe undoubtedly would blow up; he would not be capable of discriminating between what they could and could not prove. Kincheloe—lacking any reliable tradition of fidelity to his partner in wrong-doing—was too apt to turn State's evidence to save himself. ”

“ They kept the watch on the Rock; they bought the Rock and built the house and kept it there for you—and then, when my father was dead, he found you, it seems, and sent you there; and some one sent Quinlan; but my grandfather had Quinlan killed—we really got quite a lot to-night, didn't we, Barney?"
"I've got," Barney said, his hands still clenched behind him, "more than I ever had in all life before."
He moved a little nearer her. "I don't mean from the medium; I mean from you—Miss—Ethel Carew. You're a strange girl; the finest and noblest in all the world," he added quickly. ”

“ Whether the Indian was telling me of my mother? Yes, I did, Miss Carew."
"Who could the Indian be? Noah Jo?"
"I suppose so."
"I wonder why he couldn't give his name?"
"They often find it hard to; that's all the Adleys were able to say," Barney replied. "They can communicate other words—even difficult ones, like some we got to-night—better than names. It wasn't so surprising, when you come to think of it, that she could understand Chippewa words," Barney admitted, considering with himself quite as much as arguing with Ethel. ”

“ Redbird stared at her for an instant; and she was aware that the action of the dogs in the house had banished from him the fright of the supernatural which had seized him.
"For drink, maybe," he suggested.
"You think that?"
Asa for answer thrust a foot forward and with his heel broke the young ice. "You drink, Lad? Lass?" he invited.
Lass did not move, and Lad thrust his nose down only to sniff unsatisfactorily, and lift his head again. "They want no drink," Redbird said. "What you think?"
She stood up, but she could not speak to the Indian the words for what she thought. ”

“ There are attitudes taken by very old persons which may suddenly shear years from them in spite of wrinkled skin and whiteness of hair and dullness of eye; for when an old man forgets for the moment that he is aged, a throwback in his mind causes him to follow a physical habit discarded decades earlier. Lucas Cullen was following such a habit now, resting his foot upon the drawer, hunching his big shoulders toward his granddaughter and with one of his large, bony hands half clenched upon his desk. ”

“ In the north, people were ready to hear anything strange about the Rock; but here,—Ethel looked out at the motor cars passing on Michigan Avenue, at the long lines of the boulevard lights, at the many, matter-of-fact, self-absorbed people about; and she remained silent. The letter which had been awaiting her on Scott Street was as strange as the rest; but she decided to start with that.
"Do you know any one named Quinlan?" she asked.
"Old Jim Quinlan? Surely."
"James was the name," Ethel said, trying not to betray a start. "Who is he?"
"Funny old codger," Bennet informed. ”

“ It's always been between her and him," the housekeeper iterated incoherently, "between her and him—"
"Her and—God?" Barney asked, bewildered.
"God?" the housekeeper repeated and laughed. "The Devil on earth himself; Mr. Lucas Cullen, Senior! Don't you see? She's fought him since she was a child, a little girl, sir, and he downed her; he disgraced her and—and she lost you! Then she came here and beat him—beat him—beat him and his family; all of them; she beat them all. But she couldn't find you and she couldn't—" the housekeeper stopped. "Listen!" she appealed again, steadying herself. ”

“ She recognized vaguely that at one time—and perhaps even at this time—Miss Platt could have made money by telling muckrakers about the Cullen private affairs. But Miss Platt did not; she always had been trustworthy. One could not think of her husband as trustworthy. Ethel never imagined that Kincheloe "knew" what Miss Platt must know; and the fact that Ethel had caught him listening at a door to overhear what her grandfather was dictating to Miss Platt proved that she did not confide in her husband. Why? Because he might use his knowledge to betray things for money? Betray what things? ”