Hand and Ring

XXIV.

A TRUE BILL

THE town of Sibley was in a state of excitement. About the court-house especially the crowd was great and the interest manifested intense. The Grand Jury was in session, and the case of the Widow Clemmens was before it.

As all the proceedings of this body are private, the suspense of those interested in the issue was naturally very great. The name of the man lastly suspected of the crime had transpired, and both Hildreth and Mansell had their partisans, though the mystery surrounding the latter made his friends less forward in asserting his innocence than those of the more thoroughly understood Hildreth. Indeed, the ignorance felt on all sides as to the express reasons for associating the name of Mrs. Clemmens' nephew with his aunt's murder added much to the significance of the hour. Conjectures were plenty and the wonder great, but the causes why this man, or any other, should lie under a suspicion equal to that raised against Hildreth at the inquest was a mystery that none could solve.

But what is the curiosity of the rabble to us? Our interest is in a little room far removed from this scene of excitement, where the young daughter of Professor Darling kneels by the side of Imogene Dare, striving by caress and entreaty to win a word from her lips or a glance from her heavy eyes.

"Imogene," she pleaded, – "Imogene, what is this terrible grief? Why did you have to go to the court-house this morning with papa, and why have you been almost dead with terror and misery ever since you got back? Tell me, or I shall perish of mere fright. For weeks now, ever since you were so good as to help me with my wedding-clothes, I have seen that something dreadful was weighing upon your mind, but this which you are suffering now is awful; this I cannot bear. Cannot you speak dear? Words will do you good."

"Words!"

Oh, the despair, the bitterness of that single exclamation! Miss Darling drew back in dismay. As if released, Imogene rose to her feet and surveyed the sweet and ingenuous countenance uplifted to her own, with a look of faint recognition of the womanly sympathy it conveyed.

"Helen," she resumed, "you are happy. Don't stay here with me, but go where there are cheerfulness and hope."

"But I cannot while you suffer so. I love you, Imogene. Would you drive me away from your side when you are so unhappy? You don't care for me as I do for you or you could not do it."

"Helen!" The deep tone made the sympathetic little bride-elect quiver. "Helen, some griefs are best borne alone. Only a few hours now and I shall know the worst. Leave me."

But the gentle little creature was not to be driven away. She only clung the closer and pleaded the more earnestly:

"Tell me, tell me!"

The reiteration of this request was too much for the pallid woman before her. Laying her two hands on the shoulders of this child, she drew back and looked her earnestly in the face.

"Helen," she cried, "what do you know of earthly anguish? A petted child, the favorite of happy fortune, you have been kept from evil as from a blight. None of the annoyances of life have been allowed to enter your path, much less its griefs and sins. Terror with you is but a name, remorse an unknown sensation. Even your love has no depths in it such as suffering gives. Yet, since you do love, and love well, perhaps you can understand something of what a human soul can endure who sees its only hope and only love tottering above a gulf too horrible for words to describe – a gulf, too, which her own hand – But no, I cannot tell you. I overrated my strength. I – "

She sank back, but the next moment started again to her feet: a servant had opened the door.

"What is it!" she exclaimed; "speak, tell me."

"Only a gentleman to see you, miss."

"Only a – " But she stopped in that vain repetition of the girl's simple words, and looked at her as if she would force from her lips the name she had not the courage to demand; but, failing to obtain it, turned away to the glass, where she quietly smoothed her hair and adjusted the lace at her throat, and then catching sight of the tear-stained face of Helen, stooped and gave her a kiss, after which she moved mechanically to the door and went down those broad flights, one after one, till she came to the parlor, when she went in and encountered – Mr. Orcutt.

A glance at his face told her all she wanted to know.

"Ah!" she gasped, "it is then – "

"Mansell!"

It was five minutes later. Imogene leaned against the window where she had withdrawn herself at the utterance of that one word. Mr. Orcutt stood a couple of paces behind her.

"Imogene," said he, "there is a question I would like to have you answer."

The feverish agitation expressed in his tone made her look around.

"Put it," she mechanically replied.

But he did not find it easy to do this, while her eyes rested upon him in such despair. He felt, however, that the doubt in his mind must be satisfied at all hazards; so choking down an emotion that was almost as boundless as her own, he ventured to ask:

"Is it among the possibilities that you could ever again contemplate giving yourself in marriage to Craik Mansell, no matter what the issue of the coming trial may be?"

A shudder quick and powerful as that which follows the withdrawal of a dart from an agonizing wound shook her whole frame for a moment, but she answered, steadily:

"No; how can you ask, Mr. Orcutt?"

A gleam of relief shot across his somewhat haggard features.

"Then," said he, "it will be no treason in me to assure you that never has my love been greater for you than to-day. That to save you from the pain which you are suffering, I would sacrifice every thing, even my pride. If, therefore, there is any kindness I can show you, any deed I can perform for your sake, I am ready to attempt it, Imogene.

"Would you – " she hesitated, but gathered courage as she met his eye – "would you be willing to go to him with a message from me?"

His glance fell and his lips took a line that startled Imogene, but his answer, though given with bitterness was encouraging.

"Yes," he returned; "even that."

"Then," she cried, "tell him that to save the innocent, I had to betray the guilty, but in doing this I did not spare myself; that whatever his doom may be, I shall share it, even though it be that of death."

"Imogene!"

"Will you tell him?" she asked.

But he would not have been a man, much less a lover, if he could answer that question now. Seizing her by the arm, he looked her wildly in the face.

"Do you mean to kill yourself?" he demanded.

"I feel I shall not live," she gasped, while her hand went involuntarily to her heart.

He gazed at her in horror.

"And if he is cleared?" he hoarsely ejaculated.

"I – I shall try to endure my fate."

He gave her another long, long look.

"So this is the alternative you give me?" he bitterly exclaimed. "I must either save this man or see you perish. Well," he declared, after a few minutes' further contemplation of her face, "I will save this man – that is, if he will allow me to do so."

A flash of joy such as he had not perceived on her countenance for weeks transformed its marble-like severity into something of its pristine beauty.

"And you will take him my message also?" she cried.

But to this he shook his head.

"If I am to approach him as a lawyer willing to undertake his cause, don't you see I can give him no such message as that?"

"Ah, yes, yes. But you can tell him Imogene Dare has risked her own life and happiness to save the innocent."

"I will tell him whatever I can to show your pity and your misery."

And she had to content herself with this. In the light of the new hope that was thus unexpectedly held out to her, it did not seem so difficult. Giving Mr. Orcutt her hand, she endeavored to thank him, but the reaction from her long suspense was too much, and, for the first time in her brave young life, Imogene lost consciousness and fainted quite away.

XXV.

AMONG TELESCOPES AND CHARTS

Tarry a little – there is something else. – Merchant of Venice.

GOUVERNEUR HILDRETH was discharged and Craik Mansell committed to prison to await his trial.

Horace Byrd, who no longer had any motive for remaining in Sibley, had completed all his preparations to return to New York. His valise was packed, his adieus made, and nothing was left for him to do but to step around to the station, when he bethought him of a certain question he had not put to Hickory.

Seeking him out, he propounded it.

"Hickory," said he, "have you ever discovered in the course of your inquiries where Miss Dare was on the morning of the murder?"

The stalwart detective, who was in a very contented frame of mind, answered up with great cheeriness:

"Haven't I, though! It was one of the very first things I made sure of. She was at Professor Darling's house on Summer Avenue."

"At Professor Darling's house?" Mr. Byrd felt a sensation of dismay. Professor Darling's house was, as you remember, in almost direct communication with Mrs. Clemmens' cottage by means of a path through the woods. As Mr. Byrd recalled his first experience in threading those woods, and remembered with what suddenness he had emerged from them only to find himself in full view of the West Side and Professor Darling's spacious villa, he stared uneasily at his colleague and said:

"It is train time, Hickory, but I cannot help that. Before I leave this town I must know just what she was doing on that morning, and whom she was with. Can you find out?"

"Can I find out?"

The hardy detective was out of the door before the last word of this scornful repetition had left his lips.

He was gone an hour. When he returned he looked very much excited.

"Well!" he ejaculated, breathlessly, "I have had an experience."

Mr. Byrd gave him a look, saw something he did not like in his face, and moved uneasily in his chair.

"You have?" he retorted. "What is it? Speak."

"Do you know," the other resumed, "that the hardest thing I ever had to do was to keep my head down in the hut the other day, and deny myself a look at the woman who could bear herself so bravely in the midst of a scene so terrible. Well," he went on, "I have to-day been rewarded for my self-control. I have seen Miss Dare."

Horace Byrd could scarcely restrain his impatience.

"Where?" he demanded. "How? Tell a fellow, can't you?"

"I am going to," protested Hickory. "Cannot you wait a minute? I had to wait forty. Well," he continued more pleasantly as he saw the other frown, "I went to Professor Darling's. There is a girl there I have talked to before, and I had no difficulty in seeing her or getting a five minutes' chat with her at the back-gate. Odd how such girls will talk! She told me in three minutes all I wanted to know. Not that it was so much, only – "

"Do get on," interrupted Mr. Byrd. "When did Miss Dare come to the house on the morning Mrs. Clemmens was murdered, and what did she do while there?"

"She came early; by ten o'clock or so, I believe, and she sat, if she did sit, in an observatory they have at the top of the house: a place where she often used to go, I am told, to study astronomy with Professor Darling's oldest daughter."

"And was Miss Darling with her that morning? Did they study together all the time she was in the house?"

"No; that is, the girl said no one went up to the observatory with Miss Dare; that Miss Darling did not happen to be at home that day, and Miss Dare had to study alone. Hearing this," pursued Hickory, answering the look of impatience in the other's face, "I had a curiosity to interview the observatory, and being – well, not a clumsy fellow at softsoaping a girl – I at last succeeded in prevailing upon her to take me up. Byrd, will you believe me when I tell you that we did it without going into the house?"

"What?"

"I mean," corrected the other, "without entering the main part of the building. The professor's house has a tower, you know, at the upper angle toward the woods, and it is in the top of that tower he keeps his telescopes and all that kind of thing. The tower has a special staircase of its own. It is a spiral one, and opens on a door below that connects directly with the garden. We went up these stairs."

"You dared to?"

"Yes; the girl assured me every one was out of the house but the servants, and I believed her. We went up the stairs, entered the observatory – "

"It is not kept locked, then?"

"It was not locked to-day – saw the room, which is a curious one – glanced out over the view, which is well worth seeing, and then – "

"Well, what?"

"I believe I stood still and asked the girl a question or two more. I inquired," he went on, deprecating the other's impatience by a wave of his nervous hand, "when Miss Dare came down from this place on the morning you remember. She answered that she couldn't quite tell; that she wouldn't have remembered any thing about it at all, only that Miss Tremaine came to the house that morning, and wanting to see Miss Dare, ordered her to go up to the observatory and tell that lady to come down, and that she went, but to her surprise did not find Miss Dare there, though she was sure she had not gone home, or, at least, hadn't taken any of the cars that start from the front of the house, for she had looked at them every one as they went by the basement window where she was at work."

"The girl said this?"

"Yes, standing in the door of this small room, and looking me straight in the eye."

"And did you ask her nothing more? Say nothing about the time, Hickory, or – or inquire where she supposed Miss Dare to have gone?"

"Yes, I asked her all this. I am not without curiosity any more than you are, Mr. Byrd."

"And she replied?"

"Oh, as to the time, that it was somewhere before noon. Her reason for being sure of this was that Miss Tremaine declined to wait till another effort had been made to find Miss Dare, saying she had an engagement at twelve which she did not wish to break."

"And the girl's notions about where Miss Dare had gone?"

"Such as you expect, Byrd. She said she did not know any thing about it, but that Miss Dare often went strolling in the garden, or even in the woods when she came to Professor Darling's house, and that she supposed she had gone off on some such walk at this time, for, at one o'clock or thereabouts, she saw her pass in the horse-car on her way back to the town."

"Hickory, I wish you had not told me this just as I am going back to the city."

"Wish I had not told it, or wish I had not gone to Professor Darling's house as you requested?"

"Wish you had not told it. I dare not wish the other. But you spoke of seeing Miss Dare; how was that? Where did you run across her?"

"Do you want to hear?"

"Of course, of course."

"But I thought – "

"Oh, never mind, old boy; tell me the whole now, as long as you have told me any. Was she in the house?"

"I will tell you. I had asked the girl all these questions, as I have said, and was about to leave the observatory and go below when I thought I would cast another glance around the curious old place, and in doing so caught a glimpse of a huge portfolio of charts, as I supposed, standing upright in a rack that stretched across the further portion of the room. Somehow my heart misgave me when I saw this rack, and, scarcely conscious what it was I feared, I crossed the floor and looked behind the portfolio. Byrd, there was a woman crouched there – a woman whose pallid cheeks and burning eyes lifted to meet my own, told me only too plainly that it was Miss Dare. I have had many experiences," Hickory allowed, after a moment, "and some of them any thing but pleasant to myself, but I don't think I ever felt just as I did at that instant. I believe I attempted a bow – I don't remember; or, at least, tried to murmur some excuse, but the look that came into her face paralyzed me, and I stopped before I had gotten very far, and waited to hear what she would say. But she did not say much; she merely rose, and, turning toward me, exclaimed: 'No apologies; you are a detective, I suppose?' And when I nodded, or made some other token that she had guessed correctly, she merely remarked, flashing upon me, however, in a way I do not yet understand: 'Well, you have got what you desired, and now can go.' And I went, Byrd, went; and I felt puzzled, I don't know why, and a little bit sore about the heart, too, as if – Well, I can't even tell what I mean by that if. The only thing I am sure of is, that Mansell's cause hasn't been helped by this day's job, and that if this lady is asked on the witness stand where she was during the hour every one believed her to be safely shut up with the telescopes and charts, we shall hear – "

"What?"

"Well, that she was shut up with them, most likely. Women like her are not to be easily disconcerted even on the witness stand."

XXVI.

"HE SHALL HEAR ME!"

THE time is midnight, the day the same as that which saw this irruption of Hickory into Professor Darling's observatory; the scene that of Miss Dare's own room in the northeast tower. She is standing before a table with a letter in her hand and a look upon her face that, if seen, would have added much to the puzzlement of the detectives.

The letter was from Mr. Orcutt and ran thus:

I have seen Mr. Mansell, and have engaged myself to undertake his defence. When I tell you that out of the hundreds of cases I have tried in my still short life, I have lost but a small percentage, you will understand what this means.

In pursuance to your wishes, I mentioned your name to the prisoner with an intimation that I had a message from you to deliver. But he stopped me before I could utter a word. "I receive no communication from Miss Dare!" he declared, and, anxious as I really was to do your bidding, I was compelled to refrain; for his tone was one of hatred and his look that of ineffable scorn.

This was all, but it was enough. Imogene had read these words over three times, and now was ready to plunge the letter into the flame of a candle to destroy it. As it burned, her grief and indignation took words:

"He is alienated, completely alienated," she gasped; "and I do not wonder. But," and here the full majesty of her nature broke forth in one grand gesture, "he shall hear me yet! As there is a God above, he shall hear me yet, even if it has to be in the open court and in the presence of judge and jury!"

BOOK III.

THE SCALES OF JUSTICE