FOSTER TOWNSEND was, ordinarily, a sound sleeper. Possessed of a good digestion, he seldom lay awake and seldom dreamed. In the small hours of the morning following his return from the “Pinafore” performance his sleep was disturbed. Just what had disturbed it he was not sure, but he lay with half-opened eyes awaiting the repetition of the sound, if sound there had actually been. He did not have to wait long. “Clang! Clang! Clang!” There was no doubt of the reality now. Some one was turning the handle of the spring bell on the front door of the mansion.
He scratched a match and looked at his watch on the table by the bed. The time was after two o’clock. Who in the world would ring that bell at that hour? And why?
He did not waste moments in speculation. Rising hurriedly he lit the lamp, pulled on his trousers and thrust his bare feet into slippers. Then, lamp in hand, he opened the door leading to the upper hall. The bell had clanged twice during his hasty dressing. He had not been the only one to hear it. There was a light in Esther’s room, and its gleam shone beneath her door. From behind that door she spoke.
“Uncle Foster!” she called. “Uncle Foster, is that you? What is it? What is the matter?”
Before he could reply Nabby Gifford’s shrill voice sounded from the far end of the passageway leading to the rooms in the ell.
“Is that you, Cap’n Foster?” quavered Nabby, tremulously. “Are you awake, too?”
Townsend, half-way down the stairs, grunted impatiently, “Do you think I’m walking in my sleep?” he growled. “Don’t be frightened, Esther,” he added. “I guess likely it’s Seymour ringing the bell. He must have forgotten his key.”
He opened the heavy front door and, holding the lamp aloft, peered out. At first the darkness and the lamplight in his eyes made it impossible to distinguish the identity of the person standing upon the step. Then the person spoke and he recognized the voice. It was Bob Griffin, white-faced and very grave.
“Captain Townsend—” began Bob.
The captain interrupted.
“Eh? You!” he exclaimed. “Why, what in thunder—?”
Bob did not let him finish. “Seymour Covell is out there in the carriage,” he explained, quickly. “He is hurt. Badly hurt, I am afraid.”
“Eh? Hurt?... What do you mean?”
“I mean he is unconscious. One of the—one of your horses kicked him in the head. If some one can help me carry him into the house—”
Townsend waited to hear no more. He put the lamp upon the table and darted to the stairs.
“Varunas!” he roared. “Varunas! Turn out and lend a hand here. Lively!”
Heedless of the scantiness of his apparel he ran down the walk to the carriage. On the rear cushions of the “two-seater” lay Seymour Covell, white and senseless, his head bound with a blood-stained handkerchief.
“Good Lord A’mighty!” groaned Townsend. “Here, you and I can manage him, Griffin, I guess. You take his feet.... Varunas! Where in thunder is Varunas?”
Varunas came tumbling down the steps at that moment. His attire was even more sketchy than that of his employer. He and the captain and Bob lifted the limp figure from the seat and bore it up the walk. At the door Esther met them. Nabby was in the hall. Mrs. Gifford, in a calico wrapper and curl papers, would have been a sight to behold, if any one had thought of looking at her.
They carried Covell up the stairs to his own room and laid him on the bed.
“Get his clothes off, somebody,” ordered Townsend. “You, Nabby—that’s your job. Varunas, you go and get the doctor. Hurry!”
Bob caught the bewildered Gifford before he could leave the room.
“I called for the doctor on my way,” he said. “He told me to bring Covell here and he would be around in five minutes. Is there anything else I can do—now?”
Townsend shook his head. “I guess not,” he said. “Good Lord! Good Lord! What will his father say to me for letting this happen?... And it was one of my horses that kicked him, you say? I never knew them to do such a thing before. When did it happen? Where did it happen?”
Bob’s answer was a little vague, although no one seemed to notice the vagueness—then.
“Down below here along the road,” he said. “When I picked him up he was lying almost under their feet.... Oh, here is the doctor!”
The physician came panting into the room. His appearance shifted the center of interest from Griffin and the latter was, to say the least, relieved. He remained long enough to hear the result of the hasty examination. Covell’s injuries were grave, although by no means necessarily fatal. There was concussion of the brain, how serious could not yet be determined.
Bob, after asking once more if there was any way in which he might be useful and receiving but the briefest and most absent replies, left the room. “I think I may as well go now,” he told Esther. “I shall only be in the way.”
She had followed him to the hall. Now she put her hand upon his arm and descended the stairs in his company.
“No one has thanked you for bringing him home, Bob,” she said. “We are all grateful, you know that. And, of course, you understand—”
“Yes,” hurriedly. “Yes, certainly. Good-night.”
“Just a minute, please. Bob, how did this happen? Where was he? And where were you—so late? How did you happen to find him?”
These were the very questions he had begun to hope he might escape, for that night at least. That they would have to be answered somehow, and at some time, he realized only too well, but what his answers should be he had not yet decided. And he must have time in which to consider. In spite of the shock to his nerves, in spite of the difficulty of thinking of anything except the terrible thing which had happened, he had thought sufficiently to realize a little of the problems confronting him. If he could only get away from that house without being subjected to cross-examination then—well, then he might be able to make up his mind as to how much of the truth should be told. So far as he was concerned he had nothing to hide; but there were others—so many others.
And now here was one of these others—the very one whose name must be kept out of this miserable mess—must be—regarding him anxiously and repeating the questions he dreaded.
“Bob,” she urged, “why don’t you tell me? Where did it happen? Why were you the one to find him?”
He answered without looking at her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, hurriedly. “It just happened, I guess. I will tell your uncle all about it by and by, of course. You mustn’t wait now. They may need you upstairs. Good-night.”
“But, Bob, where had you been? Where were you?”
“Oh, I had been down to the shanty—to the studio. I had something there to attend to. My own horse is at the livery stable and I was walking toward the stable when I saw the span standing by the side of the road. I went over and looked.”
“Beside what road? The stable is at the corner of the lower road, and your studio is on that road. If you were coming—Bob, were the span and—and Seymour on that road? Was that where it happened?”
“I mustn’t stay. They need you, I know. Good-night.”
“But, Bob, how could he have been away down on the lower road? With Uncle Foster’s horses? Why—Bob!”
But he was hurrying to the gate. She stood for a moment, looking after him. Then she closed the door and hastened up the stairs.
At Harniss breakfast tables that morning the performance of “Pinafore” at the town hall was the topic of discussion. By dinner time, however, “Pinafore” was forgotten entirely, for a new sensation had pushed it to the background and taken its place in the limelight. Seymour Covell, the rich young fellow from Chicago, Foster Townsend’s guest, the one to whom so many people were referring as “Esther Townsend’s new beau,” had met with an accident. One of the Townsend horses, one of the famous span, had kicked him in the head, or the ribs, or somewhere—had kicked him, anyhow—and he was dead, or dying, or sure to die before long. And Captain Foster had said— No, it was Varunas Gifford who said it— Or Nabby— Well, at any rate—and so on.
Before the day ended all the guessing and surmising had simmered down to a few unquestioned facts. Seymour Covell had been kicked by a Townsend horse, he was unconscious, had remained so ever since it happened, and Doctor Bailey, and the other doctors who had been summoned by telegraph from Boston, were very much worried about him and were considering taking him to a big Boston hospital where they might have to perform an operation. Oh, yes! and it was Bob Griffin, Elisha Cook’s grandson from Denboro, who had found him dying by the side of the road, had lifted him, “all alone by himself, just think of it!” into the two-seater and driven him home to the mansion.
So much was sure and certain, but there was so much that was uncertain—and curious. No one seemed to know just where the accident happened. Covell had been almost the last to leave the town hall. The very last, except Asa Bloomer, the janitor, so it was said. And that was just before midnight. Now some one had been told by some one, who had been told by Captain Ben Snow, who got it from Foster Townsend himself, that Bob did not bring Seymour Covell home until after two in the morning. Where had Covell been all this time? It was scarcely possible that he had lain unconscious beside the main road for two hours, without either the span or the two-seater or himself having been seen by any one. “Why, Asa Bloomer never left that hall until after one and then he walked right straight up the main road. He never saw nothing out of the way, says so himself, he does.”
And it was particularly strange that Bob Griffin should have been the one to find the injured man. Several people had seen Bob at the rear of the hall during the opera. Where had he been from eleven until almost two? Queer enough that he and Covell could drop out of sight so completely. Griffin—witness the testimony of the livery stable keeper—had left the Cook horse and buggy at the stable; they were there at twelve-thirty when the stableman went to bed, leaving the door unlocked as was his custom. In the morning they were gone, so Griffin must have come for them some time or other.
Another day and there were new rumors, queerer still. Bob was located and interviewed. “He was down there, in that shanty of Tobe Eldridge’s, paintin’ those picture things of his just as if nothin’ had happened.” At least a dozen Harniss citizens had dropped in to ask questions. They were given little satisfaction. Griffin told them only the barest details. He furnished the answer to the puzzle concerning his whereabouts between the hours of eleven and one-thirty by saying that he had spent them in that very studio. He happened to remember something he had left there; he was rather vague about this. Walking to the village he had noticed the Townsend equipage by the roadside. “Where?” “Oh, up by the corner.” He had found Covell lying stunned and bleeding, and had taken him home. Then he went back to the stable and drove his own horse to Denboro.
“Why did you lift him into that carriage all by yourself?” asked one persistent visitor. “Should have thought you’d have run somewhere for help or somethin’.” Bob replied that he guessed he had not thought of it. The interviewers departed not entirely satisfied. “He ain’t told the whole story. Holdin’ somethin’ back, that young feller is,” was the consensus of opinion.
One of the callers at that studio the second day after the accident was Foster Townsend himself. Bob was not surprised to see him there. He knew that Seymour Covell’s host would not be satisfied with hearsay particulars, but would, sooner or later, seek first-hand information and that he—Bob—must be ready to supply it.
He had had time to consider his problem and to reach certain definite conclusions. When, on that fateful night, or morning, he had dragged Seymour Covell from beneath the horses’ hoofs, his first impulse was to run to the nearest house for help. But the nearest house, the only house in that immediate vicinity, was that belonging to Henry Campton. Covell had, but a little while before, come from that house. A dim light was burning even yet in one of its upper windows. If Covell were taken there, if people learned that it was opposite that house the span had been left standing—well, the whole story, or a story, exaggerated and maliciously twisted, would spread from one end of the town to the other. Bob knew Carrie Campton slightly, knew her to be something of a rattle-head and very much of a flirt, but to risk subjecting her name and reputation to the innuendoes and wicked sneers of the gossip of Harniss seemed to him too mean to consider, if there was another alternative.
And even then, as he stood there, with Covell lying senseless and bleeding at his feet, there was forced upon him the realization that far more than this must be considered. There were other names—his own, of course, but he was in it and must go through with it somehow. He was bound to be talked about. But Esther Townsend must not be. No one knew of the accident yet—no one save himself—and Covell, if the latter should ever know anything again in this world. No one else knew where it happened, nor of the quarrel leading up to it. They must not know. He was quite aware of the local sensation which his frequent calls at the Townsend house had caused. And since those calls ceased and Esther was seen so much in Seymour Covell’s company, sly hints had been dropped in his presence to the effect that the visitor from Chicago had “cut him out.” If he should tell the whole truth, of the meeting with his reputed rival and their quarrel—why— No, the truth must not be told, nor must any one discover it. So he had dismissed all idea of seeking help, had lifted the unconscious man to the carriage seat and driven carefully and quietly away. It was not until he turned the corner and was safe upon the main road that he began to hope the secret—the dangerous portion of it—might remain undiscovered.
The story he intended telling Foster Townsend was to be a combination of truth and what he considered justifiable falsehood. The truth dealt with his decision to go to the studio, his stay there and his leaving just before two. And this he did tell without hesitation.
“But what in the world brought you down to this forsaken roost in the middle of the night?” asked the captain.
“Oh, I don’t know. I had a few things to see to here. And—well, I didn’t feel like going home, right away. It does sound ridiculous, I admit, but it is true.”
Foster Townsend rubbed his beard. He had learned of Griffin’s presence at the hall and he could imagine what the young man’s feelings must have been during the performance. He had long since made up his mind that Bob and Esther had quarreled that evening after he and Seymour Covell left them together in the library and, because it had broken off the highly undesirable friendship between the two, he was glad. It was sure to happen some time. His niece was a Townsend, and therefore possessed of the Townsend quota of common sense, and he had never really believed she could feel any sincere affection for a “Cook.” The break was inevitable and it had providentially come in time to cancel the necessity for the “plain talk” he had intended having with her had the intimacy continued. And, because Griffin was no longer a pestiferous nuisance to be reckoned with, so far as Esther and his plans for her were concerned, he was inclined to be tolerant with the young fellow—yes, even a little sorry for him.
“Um-hum,” he said, reflectively. “I see. You came down here to be alone and—well, sort of think things out. Is that it?”
Bob glanced at him in surprise. “Why—yes,” he admitted. “That was just it.”
“Did you think ’em out?”
“I don’t know.... Yes, I suppose I did.”
“When are you going over across?”
“Oh, pretty soon. In a week or two, probably.”
“I see.... Well, I am glad to have you tell me that. Glad you are going to be so sensible.”
It was this short speech which changed the entire complexion of the interview. It was the wrong thing to say just then. In the Townsend tone there was—or so Bob fancied—a note of quiet satisfaction, the serene contentment of the player who has won the game just as he intended and expected to win it. Griffin had meant to be very diplomatic and tactful with his meddlesome visitor. He would tell his carefully constructed story tersely and end the conversation as quickly as possible. Now he forgot all this. The temptation to let this triumphant, condescending trickster know that he had seen through his trickery from the beginning got the better of his judgment. He spoke the thought that was in his mind.
“Yes!” he muttered, with sarcastic emphasis. “I have no doubt you are.”
“Eh? What’s that?... Why, yes, of course I am. It is what you ought to do.”
Still the condescension and the note of triumph. The last atom of Bob’s restraint vanished.
“It is what you want me to do, I know that,” he said, sharply. “It is what you planned to have me do all along.”
Foster Townsend leaned back in the chair. His keen eyes narrowed.
“Humph!” he grunted. “Now what do you think you mean by that?”
“You know what I mean. Oh,” with bitter contempt, “what is the use of pretending you don’t?”
There was a moment of silence. Townsend threw one knee over the other.
“Look here, young man,” he said, sternly and deliberately. “As long as you’ve said so much, maybe we might as well have a clear understanding. If you mean that I am just as well satisfied to have you and my niece three or four thousand miles away from each other—if that is what you mean, then you are right. I am. Nothing but trouble for both of you could ever have come of your—well, getting too friendly. That is just as sure as that we are here in this shanty this minute.”
Bob would have retorted hotly. He had much to say and now he meant to say it. But his visitor lifted a hand.
“Wait,” he ordered. “When you say that I planned to separate you, you are right there too, dead right. And you can believe this or not—I made those plans not altogether on account of Esther. I was thinking of you. Not quite as much, maybe, but some.... Here, here! now hold a minute more. Let me tell you what I mean. I haven’t got anything against you in particular. You’re a decent enough boy, I guess. You are a Cook and I have had all the dealings with Cooks that I care to in this life, but there was more than that. If you weren’t any relation to your grandfather I should still put my foot down on you and Esther getting to think too much of each other. She is my niece, just the same as my daughter, and when she marries—as I presume likely she will some day—she will marry a man who is good enough for her, who amounts to something already and will amount to a whole lot more.”
Bob broke in.
“Some one like Seymour Covell, I suppose,” he suggested, with a sneer.
For an instant Townsend’s eyes flashed. Then he smiled grimly and shook his head.
“I don’t recollect that I mentioned that name,” he said. “I am not mentioning any names yet. There is time enough; Esther’s young. I didn’t come here to talk about my private affairs either, but, as we are talking, I’ll say my say. You never were the man for her, and you never will be. The thing for you to do is to forget her, go to Paris or wherever you want to, and make yourself into as good a picture painter as you can. And—this was what I started to tell you in the beginning—I don’t know that I may not be willing to help you do it. I don’t know any one in Paris, as it happens, but I have some good friends who do, who know some influential people over there. If I say the word they will give you letters of introduction. There may come a time when you’ll need help—even a little extra money maybe. Well—there you are.”
Bob was staring at him incredulously.
“Do you mean you would lend me money?” he gasped.
“I said perhaps those letters would fix it so you could get money if you needed it.”
“And—and you think I would take money from you?”
“Money is a handy thing to have, no matter where it comes from. There, there! keep your feet on the ground. Keep cool.”
Bob’s face was crimson. He forgot that he was addressing the great Foster Townsend, the big mogul of Harniss, forgot diplomacy, the difference in their ages, everything.
“Why—why, confound you!” he sputtered. “What are you trying to do; buy me off? Did you think I would—”
“Ssh! I have no idea of buying you off. I don’t need to, so far as that goes. I was trying to do you a good turn, that’s all.”
“Good turn! Look here, Captain Townsend! I’ll tell you something now. It isn’t your smart scheming and underhand planning and all the rest of it, that is sending me to Europe. That hasn’t influenced me in the least. No, nor it wasn’t Esther’s telling me I ought to go, either. I knew perfectly well where I ought to be and that was right here where I could block the little game you and—and—that other fellow were playing. If she—if I hadn’t found out from her—and from no one else—that—that—”
He paused. He was saying far more than he should and he realized it.
“Oh, well!” he ended, scornfully. “What is the use? I don’t want your letters or money or any other favors. I am going away. Let that satisfy you. It ought to.”
He turned his back upon the caller. Foster Townsend rose to his feet.
“All right, Griffin,” he said. “Your business isn’t mine, of course. Now, then, there is something which is my business, in a way, and before you put me off on the other tack we were talking about it. I’d like to have you tell me just where it was you found Seymour the other night. We are going to take him up to the Boston hospital in a day or so—to-morrow maybe—and his father will meet us there. He will want particulars. Where was he when you found him?”
Here was where Bob’s story was to have begun its deviation from the truth. He had intended saying that he came upon the span, and Covell, at a point on the main road just beyond the livery stable. Now there was no such idea in his head. Why should he lie to this man? He would not.
“What difference does it make where I found him?” he said. “I did find him and I brought him home. That is all I care to tell about it.”
Townsend rubbed his beard. “Humph!” he observed. “So that’s all, eh? Why?”
“Because—well, because I choose to make it so.”
“That’s kind of funny, seems to me. Griffin, there is a lot of whispering going about; did you know it? From what I hear you haven’t told any one the whole story. Don’t you think you had better tell it to me?”
“No.”
“Well, if you won’t I don’t see how I can make you.”
“You can’t.”
“Humph! What is it you are so anxious to hide? If you shut up this way I shall think you are hiding something, of course. And so will everybody else.”
“Let them think what they please. There is nothing I am ashamed of in it. I will say that much.”
“Um-hum. Then there is something shameful for somebody; eh?”
“Captain Townsend, I have told you all I shall ever tell any one. And,” earnestly, “if you take my advice you will be satisfied and do your best to keep the town satisfied with that much. One of your horses kicked Covell in the head. It was an accident and no one in particular was to blame for it. There! that is the last word I shall say now, or any other time. Good day.”
Foster Townsend’s hat was in his hand, but he did not go. He was obviously perplexed and troubled.
“Griffin,” he said, after a momentary pause, “there was a queer yarn going around town this morning. A mighty queer one. I didn’t take any stock in it, and I wasn’t going to mention it to you because I thought it was too foolish to bother with. But now, since you won’t answer a question, won’t tell a thing, and from the hints you’ve dropped—I—well, I don’t know.”
“Hints! I haven’t dropped any hints.”
“Oh, yes, you have. You dropped one or two, without meaning it, I guess—to Esther the morning when you brought Seymour home. She was worried and told me about them. She couldn’t make out why, if, as you said, you were going to get your horse at the livery stable, you went by that stable and up along the main road and found Seymour and the span there. She says when she asked you that you didn’t answer. It made her believe that you didn’t find him by the main road at all, but somewhere down along this road—the lower road. Well, to be honest with you, I shouldn’t wonder if she was right. I don’t believe that span and two-seater could have stood alongside the main road very long, in plain sight, without somebody seeing them. It was after one when Asa Bloomer walked right along that road beyond the stable and he didn’t see them.”
He waited for an answer. Bob was silent.
“Well,” continued Townsend, “what I should like to know is why Seymour was on this road. I can see why you were here, of course. Where was it you did find him? Come!”
Bob stubbornly shook his head. “I have told you—” he began, but the captain interrupted.
“You’ve told me nothing,” he snapped, impatiently. “And you won’t tell more; eh?”
“No.”
“Well, you are foolish. This story that is going around is queer. I don’t know where it comes from, nobody seems to know, but there is talk that you and Seymour were seen down here on this very road that night, long after the show was over, and that you and he were—well, next door to fighting. Having some sort of a row, anyway. Have you heard anything like that?... Humph! No, I guess you haven’t, by the way you look.”
Bob’s face was white. The thing that he had dreaded, had feared might possibly happen, had happened. Ever since that fateful morning, amid his imaginings and forebodings had loomed large the figure of the man, whoever he might be, who had passed along that lower road and interrupted the quarrel between Covell and himself. If that man had recognized them—Bob tried to hope he had not done so. In fact, by this time he had begun to believe that the darkness had prevented recognition on both sides of the road. Now—
He fought to regain composure, even attempted a laugh, but it was a poor attempt.
“Nonsense!” he cried. “Why—what—who says such a fool thing as that?”
“I don’t know who said it first.... There is nothing in it, then?”
“It is silly! It is ridiculous.”
“Um-hum. All right. I’m glad to hear you think so. I shall try to pin the yarn down, of course, and when I locate the liar I’ll shut him—or her—up.... Well, haven’t changed your mind? You won’t tell me any more?”
“No.”
“Sorry. Good-by.”
He put on his hat and left the building. Bob stared after him for one miserable moment. Then he sat down in the chair his inquisitor had vacated and, with his head in his hands, tried again to look the situation in the face. It had been sufficiently complex before. Now it was quite hopeless. Why—oh, why, had he lost his temper? Why had he not told the story he had meant to tell and then stuck to it, through thick and thin? His word would have been as good as any one else’s. Now he had let Foster Townsend see that he was hiding something. Townsend would not be satisfied until he learned the whole truth. Lies, no matter how stubbornly persistent, would not help now. This other story was already in circulation. This man—and who was he?—had recognized him and Covell. He must have heard a part, at least, of their quarrel.
And Esther—had Townsend intimated that her name had been mentioned? He could not remember that he had, but it made little difference. All Harniss would assume they were fighting over her. And if, by any chance, the name of the Campton girl was dragged into the affair, that would only make matters worse. They would say that he—Griffin—had followed Covell to the Campton house, had played the spy, hoping thereby to injure his rival in Esther’s eyes, and—and—what wouldn’t they say? Why, they might even go so far as to disbelieve the entire story of the accident, to say that it was not an accident at all, but that he, Bob Griffin, had inflicted the injury upon Seymour Covell. They might. And if Covell never regained consciousness, if he died without speaking, who could prove that the accusation was not true? Even Esther, herself, might believe it.
His imagination formed a picture of the court room at Ostable, himself in the prisoner’s dock, Esther in the witness stand and a sharp lawyer cross-examining her, dragging forth every detail of their relations with each other; asking—
No, she should not be subjected to that. It made little difference what they thought of him. And the reputation of the Campton girl no longer counted. If Esther Townsend’s name could be left out, he would tell the whole truth and face the music. But to tell that whole truth was unthinkable. She had been the cause of the quarrel.
He thought and thought, pacing the floor, racking his brains for a satisfactory solution and finding none. The sole ray of light in the darkness centered upon his going away, going far away where he could not be questioned. The problem as to whether or not he should go abroad was settled then and there. He would go at once, on the very next ship, if possible. They would talk about him, of course, but no matter for that. They could only guess and, after a time, they might get tired of guessing. Or Covell might recover and tell whatever he pleased. The chances were that he, too, would leave Esther’s name unmentioned.
Bob drove back to Denboro with his mind made up. He and his grandfather had a protracted and stormy session that evening. In spite of charges of ingratitude and selfishness in being in such a hurry to leave “the only relation you’ve got on earth”; in spite of a guilty conscience which partially confirmed those accusations, Bob’s determination was not shaken. At last Elisha Cook ordered him to go and be hanged. “Though why you are in such a tearin’ rush all at once I’ll be blessed if I can see,” he added. “What is the matter? Come now! why not tell me?”
Bob shook his head. “I can’t now, grandfather,” he said. “I will tell you, or write you, some day. You will just have to take my word that I have a reason and—well, don’t feel too hard against me, that is all.”
The story, or rumor of a story, to which Foster Townsend had referred, sprang from no one seemed to know just where. Tobias Eldridge appeared to be the first to have heard it, but Tobias refused any information. “It just dropped my way by accident,” he said, “and ’twan’t any more than a hint, as you might say. I don’t know any particulars and, to be real honest, I don’t want to know any. I shan’t say another word. Wished I hadn’t said nothin’. It’s ’most likely all lies anyhow; and I ain’t hankerin’ to be sued for libel. No sir-ee! I don’t know nothin’ and the next feller that asks me will find I’ve forgot even that.”
But the whispering continued and the next forenoon when Esther returned from an errand downtown she called her uncle into the library. Young Covell was to be taken to the Boston hospital on the afternoon train. His condition was no worse, in fact it was a trifle more encouraging. During the previous night he had momentarily regained consciousness, had muttered a word or two. Doctor Bailey was less pessimistic than at first, but insisted that the sooner his patient reached the hospital when, if necessary, an operation could be performed, the better. The doctor was to accompany him, so also was the nurse and Captain Townsend. The latter was busy and disinclined to talk, but his niece persisted.
“I won’t keep you but a minute, Uncle Foster,” she pleaded; “but I do want to ask a question. When you went to see Bob yesterday there at his studio, what did he say to you?”
Her uncle was fidgeting by the door. “I told you what he said,” he replied. “You don’t want to hear it all over again.”
“You didn’t tell me much of anything. You didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“Eh?... Oh, well, there wasn’t anything to talk about.... Good Lord!” irritably, “what are you so particular about that fellow for? Haven’t you had enough of him? Look at the mess he’s got us all into.”
She looked at him. “Why, Uncle Foster!” she cried indignantly. “How can you say such a thing as that? It was he who brought Seymour home that night. If it had not been for him—Uncle Foster, what do you mean? Have you heard anything more—anything new about the accident? Tell me, have you?”
The tone in which the question was asked caused him to glance at her. Her eyes were fixed upon his face and he noticed that her clasped hands were trembling.
“No-o,” he replied, with a shake of the head. “Nothing that you need to worry about, anyway.”
“Have you heard anything?”
He pulled his beard. “I’ve heard enough silly talk to make a sailing breeze for a thousand-ton ship,” he grumbled. “I didn’t pay any attention to it and you mustn’t either.”
“Have you—has any one said anything to you about—oh, about Seymour and—and Bob Griffin having been seen that night somewhere down on the lower road together?”
He frowned. “So it has got around to you, has it?” he observed, impatiently. “Yes, yes; I’ve heard that lie. There is nothing to it. Nobody knows where it comes from and no one can find out. When I get time I’ll run it into the ground and stamp on the snake that started it. But it is just one more fool yarn. Forget it, Esther... Now don’t bother me any more. I’ve got a hundred things to do between now and train time.”
She realized the truth behind this exaggerated statement, but she was far from satisfied. There was so much more she would have liked to ask.
“Then he—Bob, I mean—didn’t say anything to you about— He didn’t tell you any more particulars at all?”
“No.”
“What did you talk about? You were there such a long time. I was waiting for you to come back and—”
These persistent inquiries angered him. Apparently she had not entirely lost interest in this Griffin, after all.
“He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already,” he declared, brusquely. “And I told him a few things myself. Now you behave like a sensible girl and put him out of your mind. That is what I want you to do, and it is what I expect of you. If you want to think of somebody, think of poor Seymour. God knows he is entitled to your thinking, just now.”
She asked no more questions and, for the next few hours, she did try to think of Seymour Covell. But after the stretcher, with its white and still occupant, had been brought carefully downstairs, after it had been just as carefully placed aboard the wagon which was to carry it to the railway station, after the commotion attending upon the departure was over and she was left alone—then her thoughts returned to the forbidden subject and remained there.
Foster Townsend had been absent-minded and distrait ever since his return from his call at the Griffin studio the previous afternoon. It was obvious that he did not care to talk of his interview with Bob. And to-day, when she again questioned him, he had been just as non-committal. That there was something mysterious about this accident to Seymour Covell she had been almost sure from the beginning. Bob’s behavior that fateful night was strange. He, too, had avoided her questions; had run away from them. She had guessed and surmised and dreaded—and now, this very forenoon, when she stopped in at the millinery shop to chat with her Aunt Reliance, whom she had not seen for a week, this new and frightening rumor had been whispered in her ear.
It was Abbie Makepeace who had whispered it. Reliance Clark was out, delivering a hat at the home of a customer. Millard was not in evidence. Abbie had a clear ten minutes; she knew it, and she could say a great deal in that time. Whatever fabric of fact there might have been in the strange story was well covered with fictional embroidery when it reached Miss Makepeace, and she handed it on without the loss of a thread.
“So there ’tis,” she said, in conclusion. “For the land sakes don’t say I said there was any truth in it. Who the person was that saw ’em there—if anybody did see ’em—I’m sure I don’t know and neither does anybody except that one—if there was such a one, as I said before. And just as likely there wasn’t. It’s all over town anyhow. Your Aunt Reliance heard it, of course, and she declares up and down she doesn’t believe a word of it. She gets real mad if I so much as mention it in this shop. Thought she’d take my head off this very mornin’, I did. ‘Well,’ says I, ‘you needn’t lay me out. I wasn’t on the lower road at two o’clock in the mornin’. I was in my bed and asleep, where I belonged. And, even if it is all a lie, I don’t see why you need fly up in the air so. I declare, I—’”
And so on. The mill was still going when Esther hurried from the shop. She went home, thinking of what she had just heard. She was thinking of it now, as she sat there in the library. And the longer she thought the more certain she became that she must know the truth. She must.
She rose at last with her mind made up. She ran to her room, put on her hat, came down and, after telling Nabby Gifford that she was going for a walk, left the house. She took the path across the fields and another “short cut” which brought her to the beach a little way beyond the Tobias Eldridge property. It was after four o’clock, the day was cloudy and a light fog was drifting in from sea. She was thankful for the semidarkness and the fog, for they might shield her from observation, from recognition at least. But had the afternoon been brilliant with sunshine she would not have hesitated. She was on her way to see Bob Griffin. She did not know, of course, that he was there, in his studio; it was just as likely that he was not. But if he were not there, even if he were at his grandfather’s home in Denboro, she would seek him out. She must see him. She must know.
She rapped on the weather-beaten door of the shanty. A moment later and Bob himself opened that door.