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_ CHAPTER XI
Gordon smiled at James. "God bless you, boy!" he said.
"What possible difference do you think that could make?" demanded James
hotly. "Could that poor little girl help it?"
"Of course she could not, but some men might object, and with reason, to
marrying a girl who came of such stock on her father's side."
"I am not one of those men."
"No, I don't think you are, but it is only my duty to put the case
plainly before you. That man who was buried this afternoon was simply
unspeakable. He was a monstrosity of perverted morality. I cannot even
bring myself to tell you what I know of him. I cannot even bring myself
to give you the least hint of what my poor young sister, Clemency's
mother, suffered in her brief life with him. You may fear heredity--"
"Heredity, nothing! Don't I know Clemency?"
"I myself really think that you have nothing whatever to fear. Clemency
is her mother's living and breathing image as far as looks go, and as
far as I can judge in the innermost workings of her mind. I have not
seen in her the slightest taint from her evil father, though God knows I
have watched for it with horror as the years have passed. After she was
born I smuggled her away by night, and gave out word that the child had
died at the same time with the mother. There was a private funeral, and
the casket was closed. I had hard work to carry it through successfully,
for I was young in those days, and broken-hearted at losing my sister,
but carry it through I did, and no one knew except a nurse. I trusted
her, I was obliged to do so, and I fear that she has betrayed me. I
established a practice in another town in another State, and there I met
Clara. She has told me that she informed you of the fact that she was my
wife, but not of our reasons for concealing it. Just before we were
married I became practically certain that Clemency's father had gained
in some way information that led him to suspect, if not to be absolutely
certain, that his child had not died with his wife. I had a widowed
sister, Mrs. Ewing, who lived in Iowa with her only daughter just about
Clemency's age. Just before our marriage she decided to remove to
England to live with some relatives of her deceased husband. They had
considerable property, and she had very little. I begged her to go
secretly, or rather to hint that she was going East to live with me,
which she did. Nobody in the little Iowa village, so far as I knew, was
aware of the fact that my sister and daughter had gone to England, and
not East to live with me. Clara and I were married privately in an
obscure little Western hamlet, and came East at once. We have lived in
various localities, being driven from one to another by the danger of
Clemency's father ascertaining the truth; and my wife has always been
known as Mrs. Ewing, and Clemency as her daughter. It has been a life of
constant watchfulness and deception, and I have been bound hand and
foot. Even had Clemency's father not been so exceedingly careful that it
would have been difficult to reach him by legal methods, there was the
poor child to be considered, and the ignominy which would come upon her
at the exposure of her father. I have done what I could. I am naturally
a man who hates deception, and wishes above all things to lead a life
with its windows open and shades up, but I have been forced into the
very reverse. My life has been as closely shuttered and curtained as my
house. I have been obliged to force my own wife to live after the same
fashion. Now the cause for this secrecy is removed, but as far as she is
concerned, the truth must still be concealed for Clemency's sake. It
must not be known that that dead man was her father, and the very
instant we let go one thread of the mystery the whole fabric will
unravel. Poor Clara can never be acknowledged openly as my wife, the
best and most patient wife a man ever had, and under a heavier sentence
of death this moment than the utmost ingenuity of man could contrive."
Gordon groaned, and let his head sink upon his hands.
"She told me some time ago that she was ill," James said pityingly.
"Ill? She has been upon the executioner's block for years. It is not
illness; that is too tame a word for it. It is torture, prolonged as
only the evil forces of Nature herself can prolong it."
Gordon rose and shook himself angrily. "I am keeping her now almost
constantly under morphine," he said. "She has suffered more lately. The
attacks have been more frequent. There has never been the slightest
possibility of a surgical operation. From the very first it was utterly
hopeless, and if it had been the dog there, I should have put a bullet
through his head and considered myself a friend." Gordon gazed with
miserable reflection at the dog. "I am glad that the _direct_ cause of
that man's death was not what it might have been," he said.
He shook himself again as a dog shakes off water. He laughed a miserable
laugh. "Well," he said, "Clemency is free now. She can go her ways as
she will. You see she resembled her mother so closely that I had to
guard her from even the sight of her father. He would have known the
truth at once. Clemency is free, but I have paid an awful price for her
freedom and for your life. If I had not done what you doubtless know I
did that night, you would have been shot, and it would have been a
struggle between myself and her father, with the very good chance of my
being killed, and Clara and the girl left defenseless. His revolver
carried six deaths in it. It would all have depended upon the quickness
of the dog, and I should have left too much hanging upon that."
"I don't see what else you could do," James said in a low voice. He was
pale himself. He did not blame Gordon. He felt that he himself, in
Gordon's place, would have done as he had done, and yet he felt as if
faced close to a horror of murder and death, and he knew from the look
upon the other man's countenance that it was the same with him.
"I saw no other way," Gordon said in a broken voice, "but--but I don't
know whether I am a murderer or an executioner, and I never shall know.
God help me! Well," he added with a sigh, "what is done, is done. Let us
go to bed."
James said when they parted at his room door that he hoped Mrs. Ewing
would have a comfortable night.
"Yes, she will," replied Gordon quietly. Then he gave the young man's
hand a warm clasp. "God bless you!" he whispered. "If this had turned
you against the child, it would have driven me madder than I am now. I
love her as if she were my own. You and your loyalty are all I have to
hold to."
"You can hold to that to the end," James returned with warmth, and he
looked at Gordon as he might have looked at his own father.
Late as it was, he wrote that night to his own father and mother,
telling them of his engagement to Clemency. There now can be no possible
need for secrecy with regard to it. James, in spite of his vague sense
of horror, felt an exhilaration at the thought that now all could be
above board, that the shutters could be flung open. He felt as if an
incubus had rolled from his mental consciousness. Clemency herself
experienced something of the same feeling. She appeared at the
breakfast-table the next morning with her hat. "Uncle says I may go with
you on your rounds," she said to James. She beamed, and yet there was a
troubled and puzzled expression on her pretty face. When she and James
had started, and were moving swiftly along the country road, she said
suddenly, "Will you tell me something?"
James hesitated.
"Will you?" she repeated.
"I can't promise, dear," he said.
"Why not?" she asked pettishly.
"Because it might be something which I ought not to tell you."
"You ought to tell me everything if--if--" she hesitated, and blushed.
"If what?" asked James tenderly.
She nestled up to him. "If you--feel toward me as you say you do."
"If. Oh, Clemency!"
"Then you ought to tell me. No, you needn't kiss me. I want you to tell
me something. I don't want to be kissed."
"Well, what is that you want to know, dear?"
"Will you promise to tell me?"
"No, dear, I can't promise, but I will tell you if I am able without
doing you harm."
"Who was that man who was buried yesterday, who had been hunting me so
long, and frightening me and Uncle Tom, and why have I been compelled to
stay housed as if I were a prisoner so much of my life?"
"Because you were in danger, dear, from the man."
"You are answering me in a circle." Clemency sat upright and looked at
James, and the blue fire in her eyes glowed. "Who was the man?" she
asked peremptorily.
"I can't tell you, dear."
"But you know."
"Yes."
"Why can't you tell me then?"
"Because it is not best."
Clemency shrugged her shoulders. "Why did he hunt me so?"
"I can't tell you, dear."
"But you know."
"I am not sure."
"But you think you know."
"Yes."
"Then tell me."
"I can't, dear."
"When will you tell me?"
"Never!"
Clemency looked at him, and again she blushed. "You will tell me
after--we are--married. You will have to tell me everything then," she
whispered.
James shook his head.
"Won't you then?"
"No, dear, I shall never tell you while I live."
Clemency made a sudden grasp at the reins. "Then I will never marry
you," she said. "I will never marry you, if you keep things from me."
"I will never keep things from you that you ought to know, dear."
"I ought to know this!"
James remained silent. Clemency had brought the horse to a full stop.
"Won't you ever tell me?" she asked.
"No, never! dear."
"Then let me get out. This is Annie Lipton's street. I am going to see
her. I have not seen her for a long time. I will walk home. It is safe
enough now. You can tell me that much?"
"Yes, it is, but Clemency, dear."
"I am not Clemency, dear. I am not going to marry you. You say you wrote
your father and mother last night that we were going to get married.
Well, you can just write again and tell them we are not. No, you need
not try to stop me. I will get out. Good-by! I shall not be home to
luncheon. I shall stay with Annie. I like her very much better than I
like you."
With that Clemency had slipped out of the buggy and hurried up a street
without looking back. James drove on. He felt disturbed, but not
seriously so. It was impossible to take Clemency's anger as a real
thing. It was so whimsical and childish. He had counted upon his long
morning with her, but he went on with a little smile on his face.
He was half inclined to think, so slightly did he estimate Clemency's
anger, that she would not keep her word, and would be home for luncheon.
But when he returned she was not there, and she had not come when the
bell rang.
"Why, where is Clemency?" Gordon said, when they entered the
dining-room.
"She insisted upon stopping to see her friend Miss Lipton," said James.
"She said that she might not be home to lunch." Emma gave one of her
sharp, baffled glances at him, then, having served the two men, she
tossed her head and went out. Nobody knew how much she wished to listen
at the kitchen door, but she was above such a course.
"Clemency and I had a bit of a tiff," James explained to Gordon. "She
seemed vexed because I would not tell her what you told me last night.
She is curious to know more about--that man."
"She must not know," Gordon said quickly. "Never mind if she does seem a
little vexed. She will get over it. I know Clemency. She is like her
mother. The power of sustained indignation against one she loves is not
in the child, and she must not know. It would be a dreadful thing for
her to know. I myself cannot have it. It is enough of a horror as it is,
but to have that child look at me, and think--" Gordon broke off
abruptly.
"She will never know through me," James said, "and I think with you that
her resentment will not last."
"She will be home this afternoon," said Gordon, "and the walk will do
her good."
But the two returned from their afternoon calls, and still Clemency had
not returned. Emma met them at the door. "Mrs. Ewing says she is worried
about Miss Clemency," she said. Gordon ran upstairs. When he came down
he joined James in the office. "I have pacified Clara," he said, "but
suppose you jump into the buggy, Aaron has not unharnessed yet, and
drive over to Annie Lipton's for her. It is growing colder, and Clemency
has not been outdoors much lately, and she has rather a delicate throat.
It is time now that she was home."
James smiled. "Suppose she will not come with me?" he suggested.
"Nonsense," said Gordon. "She will be only too glad if you meet her
half-way. She will come. Tell her I said that she must."
"All right," replied James.
He went out, got into the buggy, and drove along rapidly. He had the
team, and the horses were still quite fresh, as they had not been long
distances that day. There was a vague fear in the young man's mind,
although he tried to dispel it by the force of argument. "What has the
girl to fear now?" his reason kept dinning in his ears, but, in spite
of himself, something else, which seemed to him unreason, made him
anxious. When he reached Annie Lipton's home, a fine old house, overhung
with a delicate tracery of withered vines, he saw Annie's pretty head at
a front window. She opened the door before he had time to ring the bell,
and she looked with alarmed questioning at him.
"I have come for Miss Ewing, her uncle--" James began, but Annie
interrupted him, her face paling perceptibly. "Clemency," she said;
"why, she left here directly after lunch. She said she must go. She felt
anxious about her mother, and did not want to leave her any longer.
Hasn't she come home yet?"
"No," said James.
"And you didn't meet her? You must have met her."
"No."
The two stood staring at each other. A delicate old face peeped out of
the door at the right of the halls. It was like Annie's, only dimmed by
age, and shaded by two leaf-like folds of gray hair as smooth as silver.
"Oh, mother, Clemency has not got home!" Annie cried. "Dr. Elliot, this
is my mother. Mother, Clemency has not got home. What do you think has
happened?"
The lady came out in the hall. She had a quiet serenity of manner, but
her soft eyes looked anxious. "Could she have stopped anywhere, dear?"
she said.
"You know, mother, there is not a single house between here and her own
where Clemency ever stops," said Annie. She was trembling all over.
James made a movement to go. "What are you going to do?" cried Annie.
"Stop at every house between here and Doctor Gordon's, and ask if the
people have seen her," replied James.
Then he ran back to the buggy, and heard as he went a little nervous
call from Annie, "Oh, let us know if--"
"I will let you know when I find her, Miss Lipton," he called back as he
gathered up the lines. He kept his word. He did stop at every house, and
at every one all knowledge of the girl was disclaimed. There were not
many houses, the road being a lonely one. He was met mostly by women who
seemed at once to share his anxiety. One woman especially asked very
carefully for a description of Clemency, and he gave a minute one. "You
say her mother is ill, too," said the woman. She was elderly, but still
pretty. She had kept her tints of youth as some withered flowers do,
and there seemed still to cling to her the atmosphere of youth, as
fragrance clings to dry rose leaves. She was dressed in rather a
superior fashion to most of the countrywomen, in soft lavender cashmere
which fitted her slight, tall figure admirably. James had a glimpse
behind her of a pretty interior: a room with windows full of blooming
plants, of easy-chairs and many cushioned sofas, beside book-cases. The
woman looked, so he thought, like one who had some private anxiety of
her own. She kept peering up and down the road, as they talked, as
though she, too, were on the watch for some one. She promised James to
keep a lookout for the missing girl. "Poor little thing," she murmured.
There was something in her face as she said that, a slight phase of
amusement, which caused James to stare keenly at her, but it had passed,
and her whole face denoted the utmost candor and concern.
When James reached home he had a forlorn hope that he should find
Clemency there; that from a spirit of mischief she had taken some cross
track over the fields to elude him. But when Aaron met him in the drive,
and he saw the man's frightened stare, he knew that she had not come.
It was unnecessary to ask, but ask he did. "She has not come?"
"No, Doctor Elliot," replied Aaron. He did not even chew. He tied the
horses, and followed James into the office, with his jaws stiff. Gordon
stood up when James entered, and looked past him for Clemency. "She was
not there?" he almost shouted.
"She left the Liptons at two o'clock, and I have stopped at every house
on my way, and no one has seen her."
"Oh, my God!" said Gordon, with a dazed look at James.
"What do you think?" asked James.
"I don't know what to think. I am utterly at a loss now. I supposed she
was entirely safe. There are almost no tramps at this season, and in
broad daylight. At two, you said? It is almost six. I don't know what to
do. What will come next? I must tell Clara something before I do
anything else."
Gordon rushed out of the office, and they heard his heavy tread on the
stairs. Aaron stared at James, and still he did not chew.
"It's almost dark," he said with a low drawl.
"Yes."
"We've got to take lanterns, and hunt along the road and fields."
"Yes, we have."
The dog, which had been asleep, got up, and came over to James, and laid
his white head on his knee. "We can take him," Aaron said. "Sometimes
dogs have more sense than us."
"That is so," said James. He felt himself in an agony of helplessness.
He simply did not know what to do. He had sunk into a chair and his head
fairly rung. It seemed to him incredible that the girl had disappeared a
second time. A queer sense of unreality made him feel faint.
Gordon reentered the room. "I have told Clara that you have come back,
and that Clemency is to stay all night with Annie Lipton," he said. Then
he, too, stood staring helplessly. Emma had come into the room, and now
she spoke angrily to the three dazed men. "Git the lanterns lit, for
goodness' sake," said she, "and hunt and do something. I'm goin' to git
her supper, and I'll keep her pacified." Emma gave a jerk with a sharp
elbow toward Mrs. Ewing's room. "For goodness' sake, if you don't know
yet where she has went, why don't you do somethin'?" she demanded. The
men went before her sharp command like dust before her broom. "Keep as
still as you can," ordered Emma as they went out. "_She_ mustn't, git to
worryin' before she comes home."
[Illustration: "Saw a little dark figure running toward him." Page 239.]
For the next two hours Gordon, James, and Aaron searched. They walked,
each going his separate way into the fields and woods on the road,
having agreed upon a signal when the girl should be found. The signal
was to be a pistol shot. James went first to the wood, where he had
found Clemency on her former disappearance. He searched in every shadow,
throwing the gleam of his lantern into little dark nests of last year's
ferns, and hollows where last year's leaves had swirled together to die,
but no Clemency. At last, wearied and heart-sick, he came out on the
road. The moon was just up, a full moon, and the road lay stretched
before him like a silver ribbon covered with the hoar-frost. He gazed
down it hopelessly, and saw a little dark figure running toward him. He
was incredulous, but he called, "Clemency!"
A glad little cry answered him. He himself ran forward, and the girl was
in his arms, sobbing and trembling as if her heart would break.
"What has happened? What has happened, darling?" James cried in an
agony. "Are you hurt? What has happened?"
"Something very strange has happened, but I am not hurt," sobbed
Clemency. James remembered the signal. "Wait a second, dear," he said;
"your uncle and Aaron are searching, and I promised to fire the pistol
if I found you." James fired his pistol in the air six times. Then he
returned to Clemency, who was leaning against a tree. "How I wish we had
driven here!" James said tenderly.
"I can walk, if you help me," Clemency sobbed, leaning against him. "Oh,
I am so sorry I acted so this morning. I got punished for it. I haven't
been hurt, nobody has been anything but kind to me, but I have been
dreadfully frightened."
Gordon and Aaron came running up. "Where have you been, Clemency?"
Gordon demanded in a harsh voice. "Another time you must do as you are
told. You are too old to behave like a child, and put us all in such a
fright."
Clemency left James, and ran to her uncle, and clung to him sobbing
hysterically. "Oh, Uncle Tom, don't scold me," she whimpered.
"Are you hurt? What has happened?"
"I am not hurt a bit," sobbed Clemency.
Gordon put his arm around her. "Well," he said, "as long as you are safe
keep your story until we get home. Elliot, take her other arm. She is
almost too used up to walk. Now stop crying, Clemency."
When they were home, in the office, Clemency told her story, which was a
strange one. She had been on her way home from Annie Lipton's, and had
reached a certain house, when the door opened and a woman stood there
calling her. She described the woman and the house, and James gave a
start. "That must be the same woman whom I saw," he exclaimed.
"She was a woman I had never seen," said Clemency. "I think she had only
lived there a very short time."
Gordon nodded gloomily. "I know who she is, I fear," he said. "Strange
that I did not suspect."
"She looked very kind and pleasant," said Clemency, "and I thought she
wanted something and there was no harm, but when I reached her the first
thing I knew she had hold of me, and her hands were like iron clamps.
She put one over my mouth, and held me with the other, and pulled me
into the house and locked the door. Then she made me go into a little
dark room in the middle of the house and she locked me in. She told me
if I screamed nobody would hear me, but she did speak kindly. She was
very kind. Once she even kissed me, although I did not want her to. She
brought a lamp in, and made me lie down on a couch in the room and drink
a glass of wine. She told me not to be afraid, nobody would hurt me. She
seemed to me to be always listening, and every now and then she went
out, but she always locked the door behind her. When she came back she
would look terribly worried. About half an hour ago she went out, and
when she came back brought a tray with tea and bread and cold chicken
for me. I told her I would starve before I ate anything while she kept
me there. She did not seem to pay much attention, she looked so
dreadfully worried. She sat down and looked at me. Finally, she said, as
if she were afraid to hear her own voice, 'Has any accident happened
near here lately that you have heard of?' I told her about the man that
fell down in our drive and died of erysipelas. I did not tell her
anything else. All at once she almost fell in a faint. Then she stood
up, and she looked as if she were dead. She told me to stay where I was
just fifteen minutes, then I might go, but I must not stir before. Then
she kissed me again, and her lips were like ice. She went out, and I
knew the door was not locked, but I was afraid to stir. I could hear her
running about. Then I heard the outer door slam, and I looked at my
watch, and it was fifteen minutes. Then I ran out and up the road as
fast as I could. Just before I saw Doctor Elliot the New York train
passed. I heard it. I think she was hurrying to catch that."
Gordon nodded.
"Oh, Uncle Tom, who was she, and why did she lock me up?" asked
Clemency.
"Clemency," said Gordon, in a sterner voice than Clemency had ever heard
him use toward her, "never speak, never think, of that woman or that man
again. Now go out and eat your dinner." _
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