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28 chapters
CHAPTER I. A SPY’S DUTY
CHAPTER I. A SPY’S DUTY
I am not without self-control, yet when Miss Davies entered the room with that air of importance she invariably assumes when she has an unusually fine position to offer, I could not hide all traces of my anxiety. I needed a position, needed it badly, while the others— But her eyes are on our faces, she is scanning us all with that close and calculating gaze which lets nothing escape. She has passed me by—my heart goes down, down—when suddenly her look returns and she singles me out. “Miss Saunde
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CHAPTER II. QUESTIONS
CHAPTER II. QUESTIONS
I knew all the current gossip about Mrs. Packard before I had parted with Miss Davies. Her story was a simple one. Bred in the West, she had come, immediately after her mother’s death, to live with that mother’s brother in Detroit. In doing this she had walked into a fortune. Her uncle was a rich man and when he died, which was about a year after her marriage with Mr. Packard and removal to C—, she found herself the recipient of an enormous legacy. She was therefore a woman of independent means,
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CHAPTER III. IN THE GABLE WINDOW
CHAPTER III. IN THE GABLE WINDOW
A few minutes later I was tripping up-stairs in the wake of a smart young maid whom Mayor Packard had addressed as Ellen. I liked this girl at first sight and, as I followed her up first one flight, then another, to the room which had been chosen for me, the hurried glimpses I had of her bright and candid face suggested that in this especial member of the household I might hope to find a friend and helper in case friendship and help were needed in the blind task to which I stood committed. But I
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CHAPTER IV. LIGHTS—SOUNDS
CHAPTER IV. LIGHTS—SOUNDS
I am by nature a thoroughly practical woman. If I had not been, the many misfortunes of my life would have made me so. Yet, when the library door closed behind the mayor and I found myself again alone in a spot where I had not felt comfortable from the first, I experienced an odd sensation not unlike fear. It left me almost immediately and my full reasoning powers reasserted themselves; but the experience had been mine and I could not smile it away. The result was a conviction, which even reason
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CHAPTER V. THE STRANGE NEIGHBORS NEXT DOOR
CHAPTER V. THE STRANGE NEIGHBORS NEXT DOOR
When I joined Mrs. Packard I found her cheerful and in all respects quite unlike the brooding woman she had seemed when I first met her. From the toys scattered about her feet I judged that the child had been with her, and certainly the light in her eyes had the beaming quality we associate with the happy mother. She was beautiful thus and my hopes of her restoration to happiness rose. “I have had a good night,” were her first words as she welcomed me to a seat in her own little nook. “I’m feeli
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CHAPTER VI. AT THE STAIR-HEAD
CHAPTER VI. AT THE STAIR-HEAD
I spent the evening alone. Mrs. Packard went to the theater with friends and Mayor Packard attended a conference of politicians. I felt my loneliness, but busied myself trying to sift the impressions made upon me by the different members of the household. It consisted, as far as my present observation went, of seven persons, the three principals and four servants. Of the servants I had seen three, the old butler, the nurse, and the housemaid, Ellen. I now liked Ellen; she appeared equally alive
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CHAPTER VII. A MOVING SHADOW
CHAPTER VII. A MOVING SHADOW
I bent to lift the prostrate form of the unhappy woman who had been placed in my care. As I did so I heard something like a snarl over my shoulder, and, turning, saw Nixon stretching eager arms toward his mistress, whose fall he had doubtless heard. “Let me! let me!” he cried, his old form trembling almost to the point of incapacity. “We will lift her together,” I rejoined; and though his eyes sparkled irefully, he accepted my help and together we carried her into her own room and laid her on a
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CHAPTER VIII. THE PARAGRAPH
CHAPTER VIII. THE PARAGRAPH
I was up betimes. Would Mrs. Packard appear at breakfast? I hardly thought so. Yet who knows? Such women have great recuperative powers, and from one so mysteriously affected anything might be expected. Ready at eight, I hastened down to the second floor to find the lady, concerning whom I had had these doubts, awaiting me on the threshold of her room. She was carefully dressed and looked pale enough to have been up for hours. An envelope was in her hand, and the smile which hailed my approach w
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CHAPTER IX. SCRAPS
CHAPTER IX. SCRAPS
We did not laugh; we did not even question her sanity; at least I did not; there was too much meaning in her manner. “A specter,” her husband repeated with a suggestive glance at the brilliant sunshine in which we all stood. “Yes.” The tone was one of utter conviction. “I had never believed in such things—never thought about them, but—it was a week ago—in the library—I have not seen a happy moment since—” “My darling!” “Yes, yes, I know; but imagine! I was sitting reading. I had just come from t
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CHAPTER X. A GLIMMER OF THE TRUTH
CHAPTER X. A GLIMMER OF THE TRUTH
This was a sentiment I could thoroughly indorse. Mrs. Packard was certainly an enigma to me. Leaving Ellen to finish her work, I went upstairs to my own room, and, taking out the scraps of paper I had so carefully collected, spread them out before me on the lid of the desk. They were absolutely unintelligible to me—marks and nothing more. Useless to waste time over such unmeaning scrawls when I had other and more tangible subjects to consider. But I should not destroy them. There might come a ti
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CHAPTER XI. BESS
CHAPTER XI. BESS
On my way back I took the opposite side of the street from that I usually approached. When I reached the little shop I paused. First glancing at the various petty articles exposed in the window, I quietly stepped in. A contracted and very low room met my eyes, faintly lighted by a row of panes in the upper half of the door and not at all by the window, which was hung on the inside with a heavy curtain. Against two sides of this room were arranged shelves filled with boxes labeled in the usual wa
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CHAPTER XII. SEARCHINGS
CHAPTER XII. SEARCHINGS
I seemed bound to be the prey of a divided duty. As I crossed the street, I asked myself which of the two experiments I had in mind should occupy my attention first. Should I proceed at once with that close study and detailed examination of the house, which I contemplated in my eagerness to establish my theory of a secret passage between it and the one now inhabited by the Misses Quinlan, or should I wait to do this until I had recovered the box, which might hold still greater secrets? I could n
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CHAPTER XIII. A DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XIII. A DISCOVERY
Mrs. Packard came in very soon after this. She was accompanied by two friends and I could hear them talking and laughing in her room upstairs all the afternoon. It gave me leisure, but leisure was not what I stood in need of, just now. I desired much more an opportunity to pursue my inquiries, for I knew why she had brought these friends home with her and lent herself to a merriment that was not natural to her. She wished to forestall thought; to keep down dread; to fill the house so full of che
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CHAPTER XIV. I SEEK HELP
CHAPTER XIV. I SEEK HELP
A bad night, a very bad night, but for all that I was down early the next morning. Bess must have her box and I a breath of fresh air before breakfast, to freshen me up a bit and clear my mind for the decisive act, since my broken rest had failed to refresh me. As I reached the parlor floor Nixon came out of the reception-room. “Oh, Miss!” he exclaimed, “going out?” surprised, doubtless, to see me in my hat and jacket. “A few steps,” I answered, and then stopped, not a little disturbed; for in m
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CHAPTER XV. HARDLY A COINCIDENCE
CHAPTER XV. HARDLY A COINCIDENCE
The old lady’s eyes met ours without purpose or intelligence. It was plain that she did not see us; also plain that she was held back in her advance by some doubt in her beclouded brain. We could see her hover, as it were, at her end of the dark passage, while I held my breath and Mr. Steele panted audibly. Then gradually she drew back and disappeared behind the door, which she forgot to shut, as we could tell from the gradually receding light and the faint fall of her footsteps after the last d
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CHAPTER XVI. IN THE LIBRARY
CHAPTER XVI. IN THE LIBRARY
I was still in Mrs. Packard’s room, brooding over the enigma offered by the similarity between the account I had just read and the explanation she had given of the mysterious event which had thrown such a cloud over her life, when, moved by some unaccountable influence, I glanced up and saw Nixon standing in the open doorway, gazing at me with an uneasy curiosity I was sorry enough to have inspired. “Mrs. Packard wants you,” he declared with short ceremony. “She’s in the library.” And, turning o
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CHAPTER XVII. THE TWO WEIRD SISTERS
CHAPTER XVII. THE TWO WEIRD SISTERS
Ellen seemed to understand my anxiety about Mrs. Packard and to sympathize with it. That afternoon as I passed her in the hall she whispered softly: “I have just been unpacking that bag and putting everything back into place. She told me she had packed it in readiness to go with Mr. Packard if he desired it at the last minute.” I doubted this final statement, but the fact that the bag had been unpacked gave me great relief. I began to look forward with much pleasure to a night of unbroken rest.
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CHAPTER XVIII. THE MORNING NEWS
CHAPTER XVIII. THE MORNING NEWS
That evening I was made a heroine of by Mrs. Packard and all the other members of the household. Even Nixon thawed and showed me his genial side. I had to repeat my story above stairs—and below, and relate just what the old ladies had done and said, and how they bore their joy, and whatever I thought they would do with their money now they had it. When I at last reached my room, my first act was to pull aside my shade and take a peep at the old attic window. Miss Charity’s face was there, but so
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CHAPTER XIX. THE CRY FROM THE STAIRS
CHAPTER XIX. THE CRY FROM THE STAIRS
I was alone in the library when Nixon returned. He must have seen Mrs. Packard go up before he left, for he passed by without stopping, and the next moment I heard his foot on the stairs. Some impulse made me step into the hall and cast a glance at his ascending figure. I could see only his back, but there was something which I did not like in the curve of that back and the slide of his hand as it moved along the stair-rail. His was not an open nature at the best. I almost forgot the importance
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CHAPTER XX. EXPLANATION
CHAPTER XX. EXPLANATION
Determined to know the cause of Mrs. Packard’s anguish, if not of Nixon’s unprovoked anger against myself, I caught him back as he was passing me and peremptorily demanded: “What message did you carry to Mrs. Packard to throw her into such a state as this? Answer! I am in this house to protect her against all such disturbances. What did you tell her?” “Nothing.” Sullenness itself in the tone. “Nothing? and you were sent on an errand? Didn’t you fulfil it?” “Yes.” “And didn’t tell her what you le
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CHAPTER XXI. THE CIPHER
CHAPTER XXI. THE CIPHER
Hitherto I had mainly admired Mrs. Packard’s person and the extreme charm of manner which never deserted her, no matter how she felt. Now I found myself compelled to admire the force and quality of her mind, her readiness to meet emergencies and the tact with which she had availed herself of the superstition latent in the Irish temperament. For I had no more faith in the explanation she had seen fit to give these ignorant girls than I had in the apparition itself. Emotion such as she had shown c
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CHAPTER XXII. MERCY
CHAPTER XXII. MERCY
“Where is my wife?” “Sleeping, sir, after a day of exhausting emotion.” “She didn’t wire me?” “No, sir.” “Perhaps she wasn’t able?” “She was not, Mayor Packard.” “I must see her. I came as soon as I could. Left Warner to fill my place on the platform, and it is the night of nights, too. Why, what’s the matter?” He had caught me staring over his shoulder at the form drawn up in the doorway. “Nothing; I thought you had come alone.” “No, Mr. Steele is with me. He joined me at noon, just after I had
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CHAPTER XXIII. THE WIFE’S TALE
CHAPTER XXIII. THE WIFE’S TALE
Ten minutes later this woman was pleading her cause. She had left the side of the man who had just assumed the greatest of all rights over her and was standing in a frenzy of appeal before him she loved so deeply and yet had apparently wronged. Mayor Packard was sitting with his head in his hands in the chair into which he had dropped when the blow fell which laid waste his home, his life, the future of his child and possibly the career which was as much, perhaps more, to him than all these. He
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CHAPTER XXIV. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
CHAPTER XXIV. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
The suspense which had held us tense and speechless was for the moment relieved and Mr. Steele allowed himself the following explanation: “My hand trembled and the bullet penetrated an inch too high.” Then he relapsed again into silence. Mrs. Packard shuddered and went on: “It may seem incredible to you, it seems incredible now to myself, but I completed my journey, entered my uncle’s house, was made welcome there and started upon my new life without letting my eyes fall for one instant on the c
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CHAPTER XXV. THE FINGER ON THE WALL.
CHAPTER XXV. THE FINGER ON THE WALL.
At this appeal the mayor rose and faced his secretary and the spectacle was afforded me of seeing two strong men drawn up in conflict over a woman both had cherished above all else. And it was characteristic of the forceful men, as well as the extreme nature of the conflict, that both were quiet in manner and speech—perhaps the mayor the more so, as he began the struggle by saying: “Is what Mrs. Packard says of your playing with her fears during these two weeks true, Mr. Steele?” Without a droop
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CHAPTER XXVI. “BITTER AS THE GRAVE”
CHAPTER XXVI. “BITTER AS THE GRAVE”
But Nixon was wrong. Mr. Steele did not die—not this time. Cared for by the physician who had been hastily summoned, he slowly but surely revived and by midnight was able to leave the house. As he passed the mayor on his way out, I heard Mr. Packard say: “I shall leave the house myself in a few minutes. I do not mean that your disaffection shall ruin my campaign any more than I mean to leave a stone unturned to substantiate my accusation that you had no right to marry and possess legal claims ov
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CHAPTER XXVII. A CHILD’S PLAYTHINGS
CHAPTER XXVII. A CHILD’S PLAYTHINGS
I was too much overwhelmed by all these events to close my eyes that night. The revelation of Mr. Steele’s further duplicity, coming so immediately upon the first, roused fresh surmises and awakened thoughts which soon set my wits working in a direction as new as it was unexpected. I had believed my work over in this house, but as I recalled all the occurrences of the evening and turned the situation, as it now confronted me, over and over in my mind, I felt that it had just begun. There must be
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CHAPTER XXVIII. RESTITUTION
CHAPTER XXVIII. RESTITUTION
“Bess, why are you so white? What has happened to you in the last twenty-four hours? Have you heard from him?” “No, no; I’m all right.” But her eyes, hunted and wandering, belied her words. I drew her hands down into mine across the table lying between us. “I want to help you,” I whispered; “I think I can. Something has happened which gives me great hope; only do me a favor first; show me, as you promised, the papers which I dug out for you.” A smile, more bitter than any tear, made her face loo
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