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A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her skirt.
A young girl sitting on a low stool by the window mending a rent in her skirt.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PART I.—A WOMAN OF MYSTERY CHAPTER I.-- A Bride of Five Hours CHAPTER II.-- The Lady in Number Three CHAPTER III.-- "He Knows the Word" CHAPTER IV.-- Mr. Ransom Waits CHAPTER V.-- In Corridor and in Room CHAPTER VI.-- The Lawyer CHAPTER VII.-- Rain CHAPTER VIII.-- Elimination CHAPTER IX.-- Hunter's Inn PART II.—THE CALL OF THE WATERFALL CHAPTER X.-- Two Doors CHAPTER XI.-- Half-Past One in the Morning CHAPTER XII.-- "Georgian" CHAPTER XIII.-- Where the Mill Stream Runs Fier
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A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS
A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS
"What's up?" This from the manager of the Hotel —— to his chief clerk. "Something wrong in Room 81?" "Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet; very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try. Am I right, sir?" "Of course, if—" "Oh! it's nothing criminal. The lady's missing, that's all; the lady whose name you see here." The register lay open between them; the clerk's finge
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THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE
THE LADY IN NUMBER THREE
The boy was soon found and proved to be more observing in matters of dress than Mr. Ransom. He described with apparent accuracy both the color and cut of the garments worn by the lady who had flitted away so mysteriously. The former was brown, all brown; and the latter was of the tailor-made variety, very natty and becoming. "What you would call 'swell,'" was the comment, "if her walk hadn't spoiled the hang of it. How she did walk! Her shoes must have hurt her most uncommon. I never did see any
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"HE KNOWS THE WORD"
"HE KNOWS THE WORD"
The next moment the doubt natural to the occasion asserted itself. "How do you know all this? You state the impossible. Explain yourself." Gerridge was only too willing to do so. "I have just come from Mr. Fulton's house," said he. "Inquiries there elicited the facts which have so startled you. Neither Mr. Fulton nor his wife meant to deceive you. They knew nothing, suspected nothing of what took place, and you have no cause to blame them. It was all a plot between the two women." "But how—why—"
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MR. RANSOM WAITS
MR. RANSOM WAITS
Gerridge rose early, primed, as he said to himself, for business. But to his great disappointment he found Mr. Ransom in a frame of mind which precluded action. Indeed, that gentleman looked greatly changed. He not only gave evidence of a sleepless night but showed none of the spirit of the previous evening, and hesitated quite painfully when Gerridge asked him if he did not intend to go ahead with the interview they had promised themselves. "That's as it may be," was the hesitating reply. "I ha
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IN CORRIDOR AND IN ROOM
IN CORRIDOR AND IN ROOM
Three quarters of an hour later Mr. Ransom and Gerridge stood in close conference before the last mentioned hotel. The former was peremptory in what he had to say. "I haven't a particle of confidence in this newspaper story," he declared. "I haven't much confidence in her letter. It is this man who is working us. He has a hold on her and has given her this cock and bull story to tell. A sister! A twin sister come to light after fifteen years of supposed burial! I find the circumstance entirely t
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THE LAWYER
THE LAWYER
The answer was an unexpectedly sensible one. "Hunt up her man of business and see what he can do for you. She cannot get along without money; nor could that statement of hers have got into the papers without somebody's assistance. Since she did not get it from the fellow we have just left, she must have had it from the only other person she would dare confide in." Ransom answered by immediately hailing a down-town car. The interview which followed was certainly a remarkable one. At first Mr. Har
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RAIN
RAIN
Mr. Ransom had never heard of Sitford, but upon inquiry learned that it was a small manufacturing town some ten miles from the direct route of travel, to which it was only connected by a stage-coach running once a day, late in the afternoon. What a spot for a meeting of this kind! Why chosen by her? Why submitted to by this busy New York lawyer? Was this another mystery; or had he misinterpreted Mr. Harper's purpose in passing over to him the address of this small town? He preferred to think the
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ELIMINATION
ELIMINATION
At about three o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Ransom left his room. He had been careful almost from his first arrival to sit with his door ajar. He had, therefore, only to give it a slight push and walk out when he heard the bustle of preparation going on in the two rooms in whose future occupancy he was so vitally interested. A maid stood in the hall. A man within was pushing about furniture. The landlady was giving orders. His course down-stairs did not lead him so far as those rooms, so he call
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HUNTER'S INN
HUNTER'S INN
When Mr. Ransom re-entered the hotel, which he did under a swoop of wind which turned his umbrella inside out and drenched him through in an instant, it was to find the house in renewed turmoil, happily explained by the landlady, whom he ran across on the stairs. "Oh, Mr. Johnston!" she cried as she edged by him with a pile of bed-linen on her arm. "Please excuse all this fuss. Another guest is coming—I have just got a telegram. A famous lawyer from New York. Our house will be full to-night." "W
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TWO DOORS
TWO DOORS
The enthusiasm, the expectation in Mrs. Deo's voice were unmistakable. This good woman believed in this rescued waif of turbulent caprices and gipsy ways, and from this moment he began to believe in her too, and consequently to share some of the excitement which had now become prevalent all through the house. His suspense was destined to be short. While he was straining his eyes to see what might be going on down the road, a small crowd of people came round the corner of the house. In their mids
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HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING
HALF-PAST ONE IN THE MORNING
Nothing now held Mr. Ransom to his room. The two women in whose fate he was so nearly concerned, his sister-in-law and his wife, had both retired and there was no other eye he feared. Indeed, he courted an interview with the lawyer, if only it could be naturally obtained; and he had little reason to think it could not. So he went down-stairs. In a moment he seemed to have passed from the realm of dreams to that of reality. Here was no mystery. Here was life as he knew it. Walking boldly into the
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"GEORGIAN!"
"GEORGIAN!"
Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself, expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that the maid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of the corridor. "Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in his blind terror. "This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knocking loudly on Anitra's door. There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound of a hand fumbling with the lock
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WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST
WHERE THE MILL STREAM RUNS FIERCEST
Two o'clock. Three o'clock. Two men were talking below their breaths in the otherwise empty office. "That 'ere mill stream never gives up anything it has once caught," muttered one into the ear of the other. "It's swift as fate and in certain places deep as hell. Dutch Jan's body was five months at the bottom of it, before it came up at Clark's pool." The man beside him shivered and his hand roamed nervously towards his breast. "Did Jan, the Dutchman you speak of, fall in by accident, or did he—
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A DETECTIVE'S WORK
A DETECTIVE'S WORK
Morning. The living household was about its tasks for all the horror of the night before, and the still unrelieved suspense as to the fate of one of its members. The maid, who had sat on watch in the upper hall for so many hours the evening before, was again at her post, but this time with her eye fixed only on one door, the door behind which slept the exhausted Anitra. Ransom's room was empty; he was in the sitting-room below, closeted with the lawyer. Some one had been there before them. The t
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ANITRA
ANITRA
A few minutes later they were discussing this amazing possibility. "I have no reason for this conclusion,—this hope," admitted Mr. Ransom. "It is instinct with me, an intuition, and not the result of my judgment. It came to me when she first addressed me down by the mill-stream. If you consider me either wrong or misled, I confess that I shall not be able to combat your decision with any argument plausible enough to hold your attention for a moment." "But I don't consider you either wrong or mis
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"LOVE!"
"LOVE!"
She lay in the abandonment of profound slumber, one hand under her cheek, the other hidden by the white spread Mrs. Deo had been careful to draw closely about her. Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Ransom regretted this fact, for each instinctively felt that in her hands, if not in her sleeping face, they should be able to read the story of her life. If that life had been a hard one, such as must have befallen the waif, Anitra, her hands should show it. But her hands were covered. And so, or nearly so, wa
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"I DON'T HEAR"
"I DON'T HEAR"
The afternoon passed without further developments. Mr. Harper, who had his own imperative engagements, left on the evening train for New York, promising to return the next day in case his presence seemed indispensable to his client. That client's final word to him had been an injunction to keep an eye on Georgian's so-called brother and to report how he had been affected by the news from Sitford; and when, in the lull following the lawyer's departure, Mr. Ransom sat down in his room to look his
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GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S
GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S
The pencil and pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girl who had made this astonishing statement, and his brain whirled. As for her, she simply stooped and picked up the pad. "You feel badly about that," said she. "You want me to read. I'll learn. That will make me more like sister. But I know some things now. I know what you are thinking about. You are curious about my life, what it has been and what kind of a girl I am. I'll tell you. I can talk if I cannot hear. I heard up to tw
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IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
IN MRS. DEO'S ROOM
A prey to fresh agitation, he stepped back to Anitra's side. Surely she must understand that it was Georgian and not herself about whom he was most anxious to hear. But she did not seem to. The smile with which she greeted him suggested nothing of the past. It spoke only of the future. "I will learn to be like sister," she impulsively cried out, rising and beaming brightly upon him. "I will forget the old gipsy ways and Mother Duda's ways, and try to be nice and pretty like my sister. And you sh
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BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES
BETWEEN THE ELDERBERRY BUSHES
"No." The word came from Ransom. He had reached the end of his patience and was determined to have it out with this man on the spot. "Come into my room," said he. "If you doubt her, you doubt me; and in the present stress of my affairs this demands an immediate explanation." "I have no time to enter your room, and I cannot linger here any longer talking on a subject which at the present moment is not clear to either of us," was the resolute if not quite affable reply. "Later, when my conclusions
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ON THE CARS
ON THE CARS
This episode, which to Ransom's mind would bear but one interpretation, gave him ample food for thought. He decided to be more circumspect in the future and to keep an eye out for inquisitive strangers. Not that he had any thing to conceal, but no man enjoys having his proceedings watched, especially where a woman is concerned. That Hazen was antagonistic to him he had always known; but that he was regarded by him with suspicion he had not realized till now. Hazen suspicious of him ! that meant
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A SUSPICIOUS TEST
A SUSPICIOUS TEST
"Let him make his experiment. It will do no harm, and if it rids us of him, well and good." Such was Mr. Harper's decision after hearing all that Mr. Ransom had to tell him of the present situation. "His disappointment when he learns that he has nothing to hope for from his sister's generosity calls for some consideration from us," proceeded the lawyer. "Go and have your little talk with the landlady or take whatever other means suggest themselves for luring this girl from her room. I will summo
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A STARTLING DECISION
A STARTLING DECISION
Before Mr. Ransom and the lawyer had recovered from their astonishment, Hazen had slipped from the room. As Mr. Harper started to follow, he saw the other's head disappearing down the staircase leading to the office. He called to him, but Hazen declined to turn. "No time," he shouted back. "I shall have to make use of somebody's automobile now, to get to the Ferry in time." The lawyer did not persist, not at that moment; he went back to his client and they had a few hurried words; then Mr. Harpe
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THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON
THE DEVIL'S CAULDRON
The solemnity of Hazen's whole manner impressed Mr. Harper strongly. As soon as the opportunity offered he cornered the young man in the office where he had taken refuge, and giving him to understand that further explanations must pass between them before either slept, he drew him apart and put the straight question to him: "Who is Josiah Auchincloss?" The answer was abrupt, almost menacing in its emphasis and tone. "A trunk-maker in St. Louis. A man she was indebted to." "How indebted to—a trun
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DEATH EDDY
DEATH EDDY
It was a gray day, chill and ominous. As the three most interested in the event came together on the road facing the point from which Hazen had decided to make his desperate plunge, the dreariness of the scene was reflected in the troubled eye of the lawyer and that of the still more profoundly affected Ransom. Only Hazen gazed unmoved. Perhaps because the spot was no new one to him, perhaps because an unsympathetic sky, a stretch of rock, the swirl of churning waters without any of the lightnes
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HAZEN
HAZEN
"An unfathomable man," grumbled Mr. Harper, entering Mr. Ransom's room in marked disorder. "They say that he has not spoken yet; but the coroner is with him and we shall hear something from him soon. I expect—" here the lawyer's voice changed and his manner took on meaning—"that his report will be final." "Final? You mean—" "What his fainting face showed. For all its pallor and the exhaustion it expressed, there was triumph in its every feature. The little bag was not all he saw in that pit of h
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SHE SPEAKS
SHE SPEAKS
Hazen's face was frightful to see; the more so that physical weakness contended with the outsweep of passion, so great and overwhelming in its power and destructive force that to the two onlookers it seemed to spring from deeper sources than ordinary life and death, and have its birth, as well as its culmination, in the unknown and all that is most terrible in the human mind and human experience. Anitra's eye was spellbound by it. As it dilated upon this vision of unspeakable wrath and almost su
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FIFTEEN MINUTES
FIFTEEN MINUTES
"There have never been but one of us since I came into this house." Monstrous assertion! or so it seemed to Ransom as the whirl of his thoughts settled and reason resumed its sway. Only one! But he had himself seen two; so had Mrs. Deo and the maids; he could even relate the differences between them on that first night. Yet had he ever seen them together, or even the shadow of one at the same moment he saw the person of the other? No, and with such an actress as she had shown herself to be these
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"THERE IS ONE WAY"
"THERE IS ONE WAY"
"Have you done?" Hazen was on his feet and, rigid still, but oscillating from side to side, as though his strength did not suffice to hold him quite erect, was surveying them with eyes sunk so deeply in his head that they looked like dying sparks reanimated for an instant by some passing breath. The half-fainting woman he addressed did not answer. She was looking up at Ransom for the sympathy and pardon he was as yet too dazed to show. Hazen made a move. It was that of physical suffering sternly
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NOT YET
NOT YET
They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way, was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and laid her hand upon the door. "Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way—let us find it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have you guessed that way?" "No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts. I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your brother's threats
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Works by Anna Katharine Green
Works by Anna Katharine Green
THE LEAVENWORTH CASE. A Lawyer's Story. "She has worked up a cause célèbre with a fertility of device and ingenuity of treatment hardly second to Wilkie Collins or Edgar Allan Poe."— Christian Union . A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE "A most ingenious and absorbingly interesting story. The readers are held spellbound until the last page."— Cincinnati Commercial . THE SWORD OF DAMOCLES. A Story of New York Life. "'The Sword of Damocles' is a book of great power, which far surpasses either of its predecess
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