Sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
—Tennyson.
Gillespie availed himself of my wardrobe to replace his rags, and appeared in the library clothed and in his usual state of mind on the stroke of seven.
"You should have had the doctor out, Donovan. Being stuck isn't so funny, and you will undoubtedly die of blood-poisoning. Every one does nowadays."
"I shall disappoint you. Ijima and I between us have stuck me together like a cracked plate. And it is not well to publish our troubles to the world. If I called the village doctor he would kill his horse circulating the mysterious tidings. Are you satisfied?"
"Quite so. You're a man after my own heart, Donovan."
We had reached the dining-room and stood by our chairs.
"I should like," he said, taking up his cocktail glass, "to propose a truce between us—"
"In the matter of a certain lady?"
"Even so! On the honor of a fool," he said, and touched his glass to his lips. "And may the best man win," he added, putting down the glass unemptied.
He was one of those comfortable people with whom it is possible to sit in silence; but after intervals in which we found nothing to say he would, with exaggerated gravity, make some utterly inane remark. To-night his mind was more agile than ever, his thoughts leaping nimbly from crag to crag, like a mountain goat. He had traveled widely and knew the ways of many cities; and of American political characters, whose names were but vaguely known to me, he discoursed with delightful intimacy; then his mind danced away to a tour he had once made with a company of acrobats whose baggage he had released from the grasping hands of a rural sheriff.
"What," he asked presently, "is as sad as being deceived in a person you have admired and trusted? I knew a fellow who was professor of something in a blooming college, and who was so poor that he had to coach delinquent preps in summer-time instead of getting a vacation. I had every confidence in that fellow. I thought he was all right, and so I took him up into Maine with me—just the two of us—and hired an Indian to run our camp, and everything pointed to plus. Well, I always get stung when I try to be good."
He placed his knife and fork carefully across his plate and sighed deeply.
"What was the matter? Did he bore you with philosophy?"
"No such luck. That man was weak-minded on the subject of domesticating prairie-dogs. You may shoot me if that isn't the fact. There he was, a prize-winner and a fellow of his university, and a fine scholar who edited Greek text-books, with that thing on his mind. He held that the daily example of the happy home life of the prairie-dog would tend to ennoble all mankind and brighten up our family altars. Think of being lost in the woods with a man with such an idea, and of having to sleep under the same blanket with him! It rained most of the time so we had to sit in the tent, and he never let up. He got so bad that he would wake me up in the night to talk prairie-dog."
"It must have been trying," I agreed. "What was your solution, Buttons?"
"I moved outdoors and slept with the Indian. Your salad dressing is excellent, Donovan, though personally I lean to more of the paprika. But let us go back a bit to the Holbrooks. Omitting the lady, there are certain points about which we may as well agree. I am not so great a fool but that I can see that this state of things can not last forever. Henry is broken down from drink and brooding over his troubles, and about ready for close confinement in a brick building with barred windows."
"Then I'm for capturing him and sticking him away in a safe place."
"That's the Irish of it, if you will pardon me; but it's not the Holbrook of it. A father tucked away in a private madhouse would not sound well to the daughter. I advise you not to suggest that to Helen. I generously aid your suit to that extent. We are both playing for Helen's gratitude; that's the flat of the matter."
"I was brought into this business to help Miss Pat," I declared, though a trifle lamely. Gillespie grinned sardonically.
"Be it far from me to interfere with your plans, methods or hopes. We both have the conceit of our wisdom!"
"There may be something in that."
"But it was decent of you to get me out of that Italian's clutches this afternoon. When I went over there I thought I might find Henry Holbrook and pound some sense into him; and he's about due, from that telegram. If Miss Pat won't soften her heart I'd better buy him off," he added reflectively.
We walked the long length of the hall into the library, and had just lighted our cigars when the butler sought me.
"Beg pardon, the telephone, sir."
My distrust of the telephone is so deep-seated that I had forgotten the existence of the instrument in Glenarm house, where, I now learned, it was tucked away in the butler's pantry for the convenience of the housekeeper in ordering supplies from the village. After a moment's parley a woman's voice addressed me distinctly—a voice that at once arrested and held all my thoughts. My replies were, I fear, somewhat breathless and wholly stupid.
"This is Rosalind; do you remember me?"
"Yes; I remember; I remember nothing else!" I declared. Ijima had closed the door behind me, and I was alone with the voice—a voice that spoke to me of the summer night, and of low winds murmuring across starry waters.
"I am going away. The Rosalind you remember is going a long way from the lake, and you will never see her again."
"But you have an engagement; when the new moon—"
"But the little feather of the new moon is under a cloud, and you can not see it; and Rosalind must always be Helen now."
"But this won't do, Rosalind. Ours was more than an engagement; it was a solemn compact," I insisted.
"Oh, not so very solemn!" she laughed. "And then you have the other girl that isn't just me—the girl of the daylight, that you ride and sail with and play tennis with."
"Oh, I haven't her; I don't want her—"
"Treacherous man! Volatile Irishman!"
"Marvelous, adorable Rosalind!"
"That will do, Mr. Donovan"—and then with a quick change of tone she asked abruptly:
"You are not afraid of trouble, are you?"
"I live for nothing else!"
"You are not so pledged to the Me you play tennis with that you can not serve Rosalind if she asks it?"
"No; you have only to ask. But I must see you once more—as Rosalind!"
"Stop being silly, and listen carefully." And I thought I heard a sob in the moment's silence before she spoke.
"I want you to go, at once, to the house of the boat-maker on Tippecanoe Creek; go as fast as you can!" she implored.
"To the house of the man who calls himself Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate?"
"Yes; you must see that no harm comes to him to-night."
There was no mistaking now the sobs that broke her sentences, and my mind was so a-whirl with questions that I stammered incoherently.
"Will you go—will you go?" she demanded in a voice so low and broken that I scarcely heard.
"Yes, at once," and the voice vanished, and while I still stood staring at the instrument the operator at Annandale blandly asked me what number I wanted. The thread had snapped and the spell was broken. I stared helplessly at the thing of wood and wire for half a minute; then the girl's appeal and my promise rose in my mind distinct from all else. I ordered my horse before returning to the library, where Gillespie was coolly turning over the magazines on the table. I was still dazed, and something in my appearance caused him to stare.
"Been seeing a ghost?" he asked.
"No; just hearing one," I replied.
I had yet to offer some pretext for leaving him, and as I walked the length of the room he stifled a yawn, his eyes falling upon the line of French windows. I spoke of the heat of the night, but he did not answer, and I turned to find his gaze fixed upon one of the open windows.
"What is it, man?" I demanded.
He crossed the room in a leap and was out upon the terrace, peering down upon the shrubbery beneath.
"What's the row?" I demanded.
"Didn't you see it?"
"No."
"Then it wasn't anything. I thought I saw the dago, if you must know. He'll probably be around looking for us."
"Humph, you're a little nervous, that's all. You'll stay here all night, of course?" I asked, without, I fear, much enthusiasm.
He grinned.
"Don't be so cordial! If you'll send me into town I'll be off."
I had just ordered the dog-cart when the butler appeared.
"If you please, sir. Sister Margaret wishes to use our telephone, sir. St. Agatha's is out of order."
I spoke to the Sister as she left the house, half as a matter of courtesy, half to make sure of her. The telephone at St. Agatha's had been out of order for several days, she said; and I walked with her to St. Agatha's gate, talking of the weather, the garden and the Holbrook ladies, who were, she said, quite well.
Thereafter, when I had despatched Gillespie to the village in the dog-cart, I got into my leggings, reflecting upon the odd circumstance that Helen Holbrook had been able to speak to me over the telephone a few minutes before, using an instrument that had, by Sister Margaret's testimony, been out of commission for several days. The girl had undoubtedly slipped away from St. Agatha's and spoken to me from some other house in the neighborhood; but this was a matter of little importance, now that I had undertaken her commission.
The chapel clock chimed nine as I gained the road, and I walked my horse to scan St. Agatha's windows through vistas that offered across the foliage. And there, by the open window of her aunt's sitting-room, I saw Helen Holbrook reading. A table-lamp at her side illumined her slightly bent head; and, as though aroused by my horse's quick step in the road, she rose and stood framed against the light, with the soft window draperies fluttering about her.
I spoke to my horse and galloped toward Red Gate.