The Thing Beyond Reason A COMPLETE SHORT NOVEL—THE STORY OF THE STRANGE ADVENTURE THAT LED LEXY MORAN TO A HOUSE OF TRAGEDY AND MYSTERY IN THE SUBURBS OF NEW YORK (continued 3)

He did not raise his voice, but the quality of it was oddly changed. Lexy felt a thrill of pleasure in its cool assurance and authority. Perhaps he objected very much to “making a row,” but what a glorious row he could make if he chose! If he would only once face Dr. Quelton like this!

“Stand aside, if you please!” he repeated, and the poor little nurse, very much flustered, did so.

“I’m afraid Dr. Quelton will be—” she began, but Captain Grey had already entered the room.

The nurse followed him, closing the door after her. Lexy opened it at once and went in after them. She caught a glimpse of the young man and the nurse vanishing through one of the long windows that led out to the balcony. For a moment she hesitated, looking about her at the big, dim room. The dark shades were pulled down, and not a trace of the spring’s brightness entered here.

Then she heard Captain Grey’s voice speaking.

“My dear, my dear!” he said. “Can I do anything in the world for you? My dear!”

There was no answer. Lexy crossed the room to the window and looked out. The balcony, too, was dim, with Venetian blinds drawn down on every side, and on a narrow cot lay Muriel Quelton. There was a bandage over her forehead and covering her hair, and under it her face had a mystic and terrible beauty. She was as white as a ghost, with great dark circles beneath her eyes; and she was so still—so utterly still—that Lexy was stricken with terror.

Captain Grey was sitting beside her in a low chair, holding one of her lifeless hands, and Lexy saw on his face such anguish as she had never looked upon before.

“My dear!” he said again.

Her weary eyes opened and looked up at him. Then the shadow of a smile crossed her face.

“Stay!” she whispered.

Lexy drew nearer. Tears were running down her cheeks. She tried to read the nurse’s face, but she could not.

“How is—she—getting on?” she asked, speaking very low.

“Lexy!” came a voice from the cot, almost inaudible. “Take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”

“But do you mean—I don’t understand!” cried Lexy.

“Hush, please!” said the nurse severely. “Mrs. Quelton is not to be excited.”

Lexy was silent for a moment. Then, just as she was about to speak, her quick ear caught a very unwelcome sound—the sound of a horse’s trot. She turned away and went back through the window into the room. Dr. Quelton was coming home. She couldn’t wait to find out what Muriel Quelton had meant. Once more she was compelled to do the best she could amid a fog of misunderstanding.

“Lexy—take it—the top drawer—of the bureau—for you.”

That was what she thought Mrs. Quelton had said, and she acted upon that premise. She crossed the room to the bureau, and opened the top drawer. In the dim light that filled the shuttered room she could not see very clearly; but, as far as she could ascertain, there was nothing in the drawer except some neatly folded silk stockings, a satin glove case, some little odds and ends of ribbons, and a pile of handkerchiefs. She looked into the glove case—nothing there but gloves. There was nothing hidden away among the stockings, nothing among the ribbons.

She heard the front door close and a step begin to mount the stairs, deliberate and heavy, in the quiet house. In haste she went at the pile of handkerchiefs. There were dozens of them, all of fine white linen, all with a “2” embroidered in one corner—very uninteresting handkerchiefs, Lexy thought; but halfway through the pile she came upon one that she had seen before.

It was so familiar to her that at first she was not startled or even surprised. It was a handkerchief that she had embroidered for Caroline Enderby.

She took it up and looked at it with a frown. Then she heard Dr. Quelton’s step in the hall outside. She tucked the handkerchief in her belt, and tried to close the drawer, but it stuck. Her heart was beating wildly, her knees felt weak. He would find her there, like a thief!

But the footsteps went on past the door. She waited for a moment, and then went noiselessly across to the door, opened it, looked up and down the empty corridor, and ran, like a hare, back to her own room.

Caroline’s handkerchief! Was that what Mrs. Quelton had meant her to find? Or had she discovered it by accident? Did it mean that Mrs. Quelton was at heart her ally? Or was this little square of linen all that was left of Caroline?

Lexy took it out of her belt and looked at it again, and her tears fell on it. Whatever else it might imply, it told her clearly enough that her friend had been there. Poor Caroline—the helpless little captive who had left her prison to be lost in the strange world outside—had come here, and she had brought with her the handkerchief that Lexy had embroidered for her. It had come now into Lexy’s hand, a mute and pitiful emissary, whose message she could not understand.

“What shall I do?” she thought. “Oh, what must I do? Perhaps it’s time for the police. Perhaps, if I show this to Captain Grey, he’ll believe me. There must be some one, somewhere, who’ll believe me and help me!”

There was a knock at the door.

“Yes?” she said.

“Open the door!” ordered Dr. Quelton’s voice.

“No!” Lexy promptly replied.

She put the handkerchief inside her blouse and stood facing the closed door, with her hands clenched. Now he knew!

She heard him laugh quietly.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “It is better, perhaps, for us not to meet again. Even making every allowance for your hysterical, unbalanced mind, I find it difficult to excuse this latest manifestation which I have just this moment discovered. It was you, of course, who filled that bottle with water?”

She did not answer.

“Why you did it, I don’t know,” he went on, “and probably you don’t know yourself. It was the wanton mischief of an irresponsible child, but the consequences in this instance are serious—very serious. Mrs. Quelton will suffer for them. I doubt if she will recover. No, Miss Moran, you are too troublesome a guest. You had better go—at once!”

“All right!” said Lexy, in a defiant but trembling voice.

“At once!” he repeated. “I shall send your bag this afternoon.”

XX

“I don’t care!” said Lexy to herself, “I’ll come back!”

She did not wish to have her bag sent after her. She packed it in great haste, put on her hat and coat, and, opening the door of her room, stepped out cautiously and looked up and down the corridor. There was no one in sight, so she picked up her bag and set forth.

She was running away—worse than that, she was being driven away; but just at the moment she could see no other course open to her. She could not appeal to Captain Grey while he was in such distracting anxiety about his sister. It would be cruel, and it would be useless. What could he do? If Dr. Quelton did not want her in his house, certainly his brother-in-law could not insist upon her staying.

“No!” she reflected. “He would only think it was his duty as a gentleman to leave with me, and he would be miserable, not knowing what became of his sister. I’ve got to go, that’s all; but, by jiminy, I’ll come back! And then we’ll see how much more wanton mischief this irresponsible child can manage!”

There was in her heart a steady flame of anger. Hatred was not natural to her, but her feeling for Dr. Quelton came dangerously near to it. For Caroline’s disappearance, for Mrs. Quelton’s pitiful state, for her own humiliation and suffering, she held him responsible; and she meant to settle that score.

She met no one on her way through the house. She went down the stairs, opened the door, and stepped out into the dazzling sunshine. It was a warm day, her bag was very heavy, and the three-mile walk to Mrs. Royce’s was not inviting. It had to be done, however, and off she started.

The lane was thick with dust, and it was hard walking with that heavy bag, but she went on at a smart pace as long as she thought any one could possibly see her from the cupola. Then she set down the bag and rested for a moment.

“There’s a certain way to carry things without strain,” she thought. “I read about it in a magazine. You use the muscles of your back, or your shoulders, or something.”

But she couldn’t remember how this was to be done; so, picking up the bag in her usual way, went on again. Obviously her way was a very wrong way, for by the time she had reached the end of the lane her fingers were cramped and painful, and her arms ached; and there was the highway, stretching endlessly before her under the hot noonday sun—two miles of it or more. There was no reasonable chance of a taxi, and she knew no one in the neighborhood who might come driving by. There was nothing in sight but a man walking along the road toward her, and that didn’t interest her.

She went on as far as she could, and then stopped under a tree, to rub her stiffening arms.

“I wonder,” she thought, “if I could hide this darned old bag somewhere, and send Joe for it later!”

But her nicest clothes were in it, and the risk was too great. With a resentful sigh she lifted it and stepped out again. The man coming along the road was quite close to her now. She stopped short, and so did he.

“Lexy!” he shouted, and came toward her on a run, with a wide grin on his sunburned face.

She dropped the bag with a thump, and stood waiting for him. He held out both hands, and she took them.

“Oh, golly!” she cried. “I’m so glad you’ve come, Mr. Houseman!”

“So am I!” he said. “Ever since I got that last letter from you—”

“Last! I only wrote one.”

“Well, I got two,” he told her. “The second one came yesterday, about this doctor, and the roses, you know.”

“Mrs. Royce must have posted it!” said Lexy. “I wrote it, but I didn’t mean it to be sent to you unless something happened to me.”

“Enough has happened to you already!”

“More things are going to happen,” said she. “Lots more!”

It suddenly occurred to her that the proper moment had come for withdrawing her hands from Mr. Houseman’s firm grasp. Indeed, she thought the proper moment might already have passed, and a warm color came into her cheeks.

The young man flushed a little himself.

“I didn’t mean to call you that,” he said; “but Caroline used to write a lot about you, and she always called you ‘Lexy,’ so I got into the way of thinking of you—like that.”

“I don’t mind,” Lexy conceded.

There was a moment’s silence.

“Charles is my name,” he observed.

Another silence.

“Queer, isn’t it?” he said seriously. “Here we’ve only seen each other once, and yet somehow it seems to me as if I’d known you for years!”

“Well, the circumstances are rather unusual,” said Lexy.

“You’re right! But look here—we’ve got to talk about all this. Where were you going?”

“Back to Mrs. Royce’s.”

“Let’s go!” he said cheerfully, and picked up the bag as if it were nothing at all.

“But where were you going?” asked Lexy.

“To find you. You see, we ran into some awfully bad weather, and the engines broke down, and we came back for repairs; so I got your letters. I explained to the old man that I’d have to have leave, for some very important business, and off I came to Wyngate. Your Mrs. Royce told me you’d gone out to the Queltons’. I didn’t like that. Why did you go there, after what had happened?”

“I’ll tell you all about that later,” said Lexy; “but now you’ve got to tell me things. How did you ever meet Caroline? How in the world did she manage to write to you?”

“Well, you see, I met her about a year ago, on board the Ormond. She and her parents were coming back from France, and I was third officer, you know. Her mother and father were seasick most of the time, so we had a chance to—to talk to each other; and, you see—”

“Yes, I see!” said Lexy gently.

“One of the servants—a girl called Annie—used to post Caroline’s letters for her, and I used to write to her in care of Annie’s mother. We never had a chance to meet again, after that trip. I wanted to come to the house and see her people, but she said it wasn’t any use; and from what I saw of them on the Ormond I dare say she was right. I wouldn’t have suited them. I haven’t any money, you know—nothing but my pay; but it was enough for us to live on. Other fellows manage!”

He was silent for a moment.

“After all,” he said, “I’m not a beggar. I can hold my own pretty well in the world, and I could look after a wife.”

“I know it!” cried Lexy, with vehemence. She felt curiously touched by his words, and quite indignant against the Enderbys and any one else who did not appreciate him.

“I asked Caroline to marry me,” he went on. “I told her I couldn’t give her much, but we could have had a jolly sort of life. Look here! Are you crying?”

“A little bit,” Lexy admitted; “but don’t pay any attention to it. Go on!”

“That’s about all there is. She said she would meet me here in Wyngate, because that’s the nearest station of the main line to some little place where a nurse or a governess of hers lived.”

“Miss Craigie!”

“Never heard the name. Anyhow, she wanted to go there after we got married, and—I wish you wouldn’t look like that!”

“But I’m so awfully sorry for you!”

“It was pretty hard, at first,” he said; “but—well, you see, I’ve thought a bit about it, and after all I’m glad we didn’t get married.”

“Oh!” cried Lexy, profoundly shocked. “But that’s—”

“Because I—you see, she didn’t—well, I don’t think she really liked me very much.”

Lexy was astounded.

“Fact!” said he. “What she wanted was romance, and all that sort of thing. She wanted to get away from home, and I was the only chance she had; so there you are!”

“That wasn’t very fair to you!”

“I don’t blame her,” he said thoughtfully. “We were both—but what’s the sense of talking about all that? The thing is to find her!”

Lexy agreed to that promptly.

“Now I’ll tell you everything that’s happened,” she said.

He listened to her with alert attention. He interrupted her often to ask questions, but they were always questions that she could answer. He wanted all the facts, and what Lexy told him he unquestioningly accepted as fact. When she said she had seen Caroline at the doctor’s house, he believed her. He didn’t suggest that her eyes might have deceived her. He trusted her—not only her good intentions, but her good sense.

At last she came to the part of her story about which she was most doubtful—the episode of the emptied bottle. She told it with reluctance.

“I don’t know now,” she said. “Perhaps I did wrong. Perhaps that really was wanton mischief. I did so hate that horrible drug that changed her so! When I did it, it seemed right; but now—”

“It was right,” said he. “Any one’s better off dead than being drugged. Everything you’ve done was right and splendid. You’re the pluckiest girl I ever heard of—the best and most loyal little pal to poor Caroline! There’s no one like you!”

After Mrs. Enderby’s cold and skeptical smile, after Dr. Quelton’s parting sneer, after Captain Grey’s doubts and uncertainties, this speech rather went to Lexy’s head. The world seemed a different place. She glanced at the young man, and he happened at that moment to be looking at her. They both looked away hastily.

“This fellow—this Captain Grey,” said Charles. “He seems to me to be rather a chump!”

“Oh, he’s not!” protested Lexy. “He’s as nice as can be!”

Charles Houseman, who had believed everything that Lexy had said, did not appear convinced of this; and for some inexplicable reason Lexy was not greatly displeased by his lack of belief.

XXI

Mrs. Royce was very much pleased to see her pet, Miss Moran, return. She was well disposed toward Mr. Houseman, too, and willingly agreed to put him up for a few days. She set to work at once to cook a good lunch for them, but she did not hum under her breath, as was her usual habit. In fact, she was greatly perplexed and worried.

When her guests were seated at the table, she retired, leaving them alone; but she did not go very far. She remained close to the door, so that she could look through the crack. She observed that Miss Moran seemed very lively and cheerful with this newcomer—though she had been quite as lively and cheerful with Captain Grey.

“Well, I don’t know, I’m sure!” said Mrs. Royce to herself, with a sigh. “It beats me!”

For the question which so troubled her was—which young man was the young man?

“Both of ’em as nice, polite young fellers as you’d want to see,” she repeated. “T’ other one’s handsomer, but he’s kind of foreignlike and gloomy. This one’s got more gumption. The way he walked in here, smart as a whip, and asked for Miss Moran, an’ when I says she’s gone to visit the Queltons, why, off he went, after her! I like a man with gumption!”

So did Miss Moran. Charles Houseman seemed to her the only living, vigorous creature in a world of ghosts, the only one whom she could really understand. There were no shadowy corners about him. He was altogether honest, direct, and uncomplicated. He had no tact and no caution. He had come now, in the midst of this wretched tangle, and she completely believed that he would cut the Gordian knot.

He had suggested that they should let the subject drop for a time.

“I think I’ve got the facts straight,” he said; “and now I want to think them over a bit. Let’s take a walk, and talk about something else.”

Lexy agreed to the entire program. If she was tired, she either didn’t know it, or she forgot it in the joy of this beautifully careless companionship. She could say exactly what came into her head to Charles Houseman. He understood her. He was interested in every word she spoke, and, what is more, she was aware of the profound admiration that underlay his interest. He thought she was wonderful, and that made her strangely happy.

“Do you know,” he said, “the first time I saw you, there in the park, I—I liked the way you talked to me!”

“How?” asked Lexy, with great interest. “I thought I must have seemed awfully irritating and mysterious.”

He grinned.

“You were awfully mad when I spoke to you,” he said; “but I liked that. I don’t know—somehow you made me think of Joan of Arc.”

“Me?” cried Lexy. “With freckles, and such a temper? You couldn’t imagine me listening to angels, could you?”

“Yes,” he said, “I could.”

She glanced at him to see if he was laughing, but he was not. His eyes met hers with a quiet and steady look.

“I didn’t need to imagine much,” he said. “You’ve told me what you’ve been through, and I can see for myself what you are. I don’t think there ever was another girl like you!”

“Nonsense!” said Lexy, looking away. “I’m just pig-headed—that’s all.”

They had wandered across the fields until they came to a little river, running clear and swift under the elm trees. By tacit consent they sat down on the bank. They didn’t talk much. Houseman skipped stones with skill and earnest attention, and Lexy watched the minnows flitting past through the limpid water. The sky was an unclouded blue. The sunlight came through the branches, where the leaves were scarcely unfolded, and made little golden sparkles on the hurrying current. It was all so quiet—and yet it wasn’t peaceful. The world seemed too young, too warmly and joyously alive, for peace. The spring was waiting in eagerness for the summer. This still, fresh, sunlit day was only an interlude.

Casually, Houseman told her a good deal about himself.

“From Baltimore,” he said. “My people wanted me to go into the navy. My father and grandfather were both navy, but I couldn’t see it. Too cut and dried! I’m on a cargo steamer now, and I like it.”

And this information—with the additional facts that he was twenty-six, that he had two brothers in the navy and three married sisters, and that both of his parents were living—was all that he had to give about himself. Lexy was satisfied. There he was, and any one with eyes to see and ears to listen could understand him. Honest, blunt, and careless, fearing nothing, shirking nothing, and facing life with cheerful unconcern, he was, she thought, a comrade and an ally without an equal.

The sun was setting when they turned homeward. The sky was swimming in soft, pale colors, and a little breeze blew, stirring the new leaves. It was a poetic and even a melancholy hour; but Houseman found nothing better to say than that he was hungry.

“So am I!” said Lexy.

They looked at each other as if they had discovered still another bond between them. They were happy—so happy!

Mrs. Royce saw them from the kitchen window. They were strolling along leisurely, side by side. They were quite composed and matter-of-fact, and their desultory conversation was upon the subject of shellfish. The young Baltimorean was an authority on oysters, but Lexy, as a New Englander, had something to say on the subject of clam chowder.

Mrs. Royce was suddenly enlightened.

“He’s the one!” she said to herself. “Well, I’m real glad, I’m sure!”

So glad was she that she at once began to make a superb chocolate cake, and she hummed a song about a young man on Springfield Mountain, who killed a “pesky sarpent.”

George Grey heard her. He was in the sitting room, smoking, and apparently reading a book; but he never turned a page. He lit one cigarette after another, and his hand was steady. He looked as he always looked—fastidiously neat, self-possessed, and a little haughty; but in spirit he was suffering horribly.

Lexy knew that as soon as she saw him, because she knew him and liked him so well. She held out her hand to him, not even pretending to smile, but searching his face with an anxious and friendly glance.

“Here’s Mr. Houseman, Caroline Enderby’s fiancé,” she said. “I’ve told him the whole thing, so if there’s anything new—”

Captain Grey stiffened perceptibly. He couldn’t see what possible connection anybody’s fiancé could have with his affairs. He shook hands with Houseman, but not very nicely; and Houseman was not excessively cordial.

Lexy took no notice of this nonsense. Her mood of happy confidence had passed now, and the dark and mysterious shadow had come back. There was something of greater importance to think about than her personal affairs.

“Captain Grey,” she said, with a sort of directness, “I didn’t tell you before, but I’m going to tell you now. I saw Caroline in that house, and this morning I found—this.”

He looked at the handkerchief, and then at Lexy.

“But—” he began.

“It means that she’s been there, or that she’s there now,” Lexy went on. “It’s time we found out. Of course, I know how you feel about Dr. Quelton. He’s your sister’s husband, and you didn’t want—”

“It doesn’t make much difference now,” he said. “If you’ll wait a day or so, she—”

He turned away abruptly, and took out his cigarette case.

“What do you mean?” cried Lexy.

“It won’t be long,” he said quietly. “She—my sister—he says it won’t be more than twenty-four hours, at the most.”

“Oh, no! It can’t be! Captain Grey, don’t believe him!”

“I tried not to,” he said. “I—well, we had a bit of a row, and I made him let me bring in another doctor from the village here. He said the same thing.”

“What did the doctor say it was?” asked Houseman.

“Pernicious anæmia. There’s nothing to be done.”

Captain Grey seemed to find some difficulty in lighting his cigarette; but when he had done so, and had drawn in a deep breath, he turned back toward Lexy with a smile that startled her. She had never imagined he could look like that. It was a wolfish kind of smile, lighting his dark face with a sort of savage mirth.

“When it’s over,” he said, “I’ll be very pleased to help you to hang him, if you can; or I’ll wring his neck myself.”

The other two stared at him in silence for a moment.

“You think he’s—” Houseman began.

“I don’t know whether he has actually murdered her or not,” said Captain Grey; “but he has destroyed her—utterly wasted and ruined her life. He taught her to take that damned drug; and when Miss Moran broke the bottle—”

“Oh! Did he tell you?”

“He did. He says you’ve killed her. There was some rare drug in it that he can’t get for a fortnight or so, and she can’t live without it.”

“Captain Grey!” she cried, white to the lips. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” he said gently. “You meant to help, and I’m glad you did it. She’s better dead. This afternoon, for a little while, she was—herself. She talked to me. She was very weak, but she was herself. She asked me to help her not to take it again. She thought she was getting better. Then that”—he paused—“that damned brute brought in a lawyer, so that she could make her will. She couldn’t believe it. She looked up at me. ‘Oh, I’m not going to die, am I?’ she said. Before I could answer her, he told her she must be prepared. Then I—”

Again he turned away.

“And you let him alone?” inquired Houseman.

“It’s not time to settle with him—yet,” said the other. “That’s why I came away, because I don’t want to kill him—yet. She’s unconscious now. She will be, until it’s finished. I’m going back later, but I wanted to come here—” He ceased speaking. “To you,” his eyes said to Lexy.

She forgot everything else, then, except this tormented and suffering human being who had turned to her for comfort. She pushed him gently down into a chair, and seated herself on the arm of it. She took both his hands and patted them, while she racked her brain for the right thing to say.

“We’ll do something!” she said. “There’s no reason to be in despair. That young country doctor was probably entirely under the influence of Dr. Quelton. We’ll get some one else. We’ll telephone to one of the big hospitals in New York and find out who’s the very best man, and well get him out here. Mr. Houseman will ring up—”

But Mr. Houseman had disappeared. Worse still, Mrs. Royce’s telephone was out of order.

“Never mind!” said Lexy. “We’ll have a nice hot cup of tea, and then well go to the grocery store. There’s a telephone there.”

She made the captain drink his tea and eat a little. Then she ran upstairs for her hat; and she was very angry at Charles Houseman for running away.

XXII

They set off together down the village street. There was no one about at that hour. All Wyngate was partaking of its Sunday night supper within doors, and one or two of the little wooden houses showed lights in the front windows; but for the most part life was concentrated in the kitchen.

The drug store was locked, but a dim light was burning inside, and a vigorous ringing of the night bell brought Mr. Binz, the owner, to open the door. He was deeply interested in their errand. He suggested St. Luke’s Hospital, for the reason that he had once been there himself, and therefore held it almost sacred.

“But,” he said, in his slow and impressive way, “if I was you, I’d ring up Doc Quelton first, and find out how things are going up there; because you may find out—”

Lexy interrupted him hastily, for she didn’t want him to say what he evidently wished to say.

“There won’t be any change in Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It would only be a waste of time.”

It was not so much for that poor woman, who she feared was beyond hope, that she wanted the New York specialist, as for Captain Grey. It would help him so much to feel that something was being done, that some one was hurrying out here!

“Might be more of a waste of time,” said Mr. Binz, “if some one was to come all the way out here after she—”

“Oh, all right!” cried Lexy impatiently. Then suddenly she remembered. “They haven’t any telephone at the doctor’s house,” she said.

“Suppose I go out there first, and see?” suggested Captain Grey.

“No!” said Lexy. “Don’t!”

But the idea impressed him as a good one, and go he would.

“I’d rather see how she is, first,” he repeated. “If there’s no change, I’ll come back.”

Lexy looked at Mr. Binz with an angry and reproachful frown, which the poor man did not understand. He had only wanted to give helpful advice.

“Come on, then!” she said to Captain Grey.

“I’ll leave you at Mrs. Royce’s,” he told her.

“No, you won’t!” she contradicted with a trace of severity. “If you will go, I’m going with you!”

He protested against this, but she would not listen, and so they went to the garage for Joe’s taxi; but Joe and his taxi had gone out. An interested bystander said that they could get a “rig” from the livery stable with no trouble at all. They had only to find the proprietor, and he, in turn, would find the driver, who would harness up the horse.

“No, thanks,” said Captain Grey. He turned to Lexy. “I can’t wait,” he told her. “I’m going to walk. Thank you for—”

“I can walk, too,” said Lexy. “It’s only three miles.”

“I don’t want you to, Miss Moran.”

“I’m coming anyhow,” she replied.

For that instinct in her, the thing which was beyond reason, drove her forward. She could not let him go alone. She had walked that three miles once before to-day, and she had walked farther than that with Houseman in the afternoon. She was tired, terribly tired, and filled with a queer, sick reluctance to approach that sinister house again; but she had to go. She had said to herself that morning that she was coming back, and now she was going to do so.

They did not try to talk much on the way. What had they to say? They were both filled with a dread foreboding. They hurried, yet they wished never to come to the end of the journey.

They turned down the lane, leaving the lights of the highway behind, and went forward in thick darkness, under the shadow of the trees. The sound of the sea came to them—the loneliest sound in all the world.

“There’s a light in the house, anyhow!” said Lexy suddenly.

Her own voice sounded so small, so pert, so futile, in the dark, that she felt no surprise when Captain Grey showed a faint trace of impatience in answering.

“Naturally!” he said.

Only, to her, it did not seem natural, that one little light shining out through the glass of the front door. It would be more natural, she thought, if there were only the darkness and the sound of the sea.

They turned into the drive. Their footsteps sounded strangely and terribly loud on the gravel, and became as sharp as pistol shots when they mounted the veranda. The captain rang the bell, and the sound of it ran through the house like a shudder; but no one came. He rang again and again, but nothing stirred inside the house. He knocked on the glass, and they waited, looking into the bright and empty hall; but no one came.

Captain Grey turned the knob, the door opened, and they went in. The door of the library was open, showing only darkness. The stairs ran up into darkness. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. Then, suddenly, a little breeze rose, and the front door slammed with a crash behind them. Lexy cried out, and caught the young man’s arm.

“Don’t be afraid!” he said; but his face was ashen. For a moment they stood where they were. “Miss Moran,” he went on, “would you rather wait here while I go upstairs?”

“No,” said Lexy. “I’ll come with you.”

He started up the stairs, and she followed him closely. At almost every step she looked behind her, and she did not know which was the more horrible to her, the brightly lit hall or the darkness before them. Suppose she saw some one in the hall behind them!

Captain Grey did not once glance behind. He went on steadily. When he reached the top of the flight, he took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the gas. There was the long corridor, with the row of closed doors. He turned down in the direction of Mrs. Quelton’s room, but Lexy touched him on the shoulder.

“I think you had better let me go first,” she suggested. “Perhaps she won’t be ready to see you.”

Their eyes met.

“Thank you, Lexy!” he said simply, and went on again.

He had never used her name before. He was trying to tell her that he understood what she had wished to do for him. She had offered to go first, alone, into the silent room, to see whatever might be there—to spare him something, if she could.

But he would not have it so. He stopped outside the door, and knocked twice. Then he went in.

It was dark and still in there, with the night wind blowing in through the open windows. He struck a match and lit the gas. The room was empty.

He went across to the long windows and out on the balcony. There was no gas connection there. He struck one match after another, and went from one end of the balcony to the other. There was nothing.

“Not here!” he said, in a dazed, flat voice.

Lexy could not speak at all. She had come out on the balcony, and stood beside him. The sound of the sea was loud in her ears—or was it the beating of her own heart? She held her breath and strained her eyes in the darkness.

“There’s—something—here!” she whispered tensely.

“No!” he said aloud. “I looked. Come! We’ll go through the house.”

She followed close at his heels. He went into every room, lit the gas, looked about, and found nothing. Lexy grew confused with the opening and closing of doors, the sudden flare of light in the darkness, the succession of empty rooms.

He went up into the cupola. Nothing there, nor in the servants’ rooms. Then downstairs, through the long library, the dining room, the sitting room, the kitchen, the pantry. He proceeded with a sort of merciless deliberation, opened every door, looked into every cupboard.

Finding a stable lantern in the kitchen, he lighted it and carried it with him. The door to the cellar stood open. He went through it, down the steep wooden stairs, and Lexy followed him.

To her exhausted and frightened gaze the cellar seemed enormous—as vast and august as some great ancient tomb. The lantern made a little pool of light, and outside it the shadows closed in on them thickly. She came near to him and caught him by the sleeve.

“Oh, let’s go away!” she cried. “Let’s go away! We’ve looked—”

“This is the last place,” he said gently. “After this, we’ll give it up.”

Fighting down the sick terror that had come over her, she walked beside him in the little circle of light, and tried not to look at the shadows.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed.

“Oh, what?” she cried.

He went back a few paces and set down the lantern. Then he advanced again and bent over, staring at the floor.

“Do you see?” he asked.

She did see. A narrow strip of light lay along the floor.

“It comes up from below,” he said. “There must be a subcellar. Let’s see!”

He brought back the lantern and examined the floor by its light, going down on his hands and knees.

“Stand back!” he said suddenly. “It’s a trapdoor. See—here’s a ring to lift it.”

Captain Grey pulled at the ring, but nothing happened.

“I’m on the wrong side,” he said.

Moving over, he pulled again, and a square of stone lifted. A clear light came from below, showing a short ladder clamped to the floor.

“Stay there, please,” he told Lexy. “You have the lantern. I shan’t be a minute.”

But as soon as he had reached the foot of the ladder, Lexy climbed down after him; and just at the same moment, they saw—

They were standing in a tiny room with roughly mortared walls. A powerful electric torch stood on end in one corner, and at their feet lay the body of a man, face downward across a wooden chest. It was Dr. Quelton.

With a violent effort Captain Grey lifted the doctor’s heavy shoulder, while Lexy covered her eyes. She knew that he was dead. No living thing could lie so.

Her head swam, her knees gave way, and she tottered back against the wall, half fainting, when the captain’s voice rang out, with a note of agony and despair that she never forgot.

“My God! My God!” he wailed. “Oh, Muriel!”

She opened her eyes. For a moment she was too giddy to see. Then, as her vision cleared, she saw him on his knees beside the chest.

Not a chest—it was a coffin; and on it was a strange little plate glittering like gold, with an inscription:

XXIII

When she looked back upon the experiences of that dreadful night, it seemed to Lexy that both she and her companion displayed almost incredible endurance. Since morning they had lived through a very lifetime of emotion, to end now in this tragedy more horrible than anything they could have feared.

Yet, not five minutes after his cry of agony, Captain Grey had recovered his self-control. He was able to speak quietly to Lexy, and she was able to answer him no less quietly.

“We’d better go,” he said. “We can do nothing here. It’s a case for the police now.”

“I’ve got to go back to the balcony,” Lexy told him. “There was something there.”

“Very well!” he agreed, and, without another word or a backward glance, he went up the ladder.

They returned through the house. He had left the lights burning and the doors open, so that there was a monstrous air of festivity in the emptiness. They went into Mrs. Quelton’s room again, and crossed through it to the balcony. He carried the lantern with him, and by its steady yellow flame they could see into every corner. There was the couch upon which she had lain—disarranged, as if she had just risen from it. There was a little table with medicine bottles on it. All the usual things were in the usual places.

“Nothing here,” said Captain Grey.

Lexy was sure, however, that there was. She stepped to the balcony railing, to look down into the garden below, and there, on the white paint of the railing, she found something.

“Look!” she said, in a matter-of-fact voice. “What’s this?”

He came to her side.

“It’s the print of a hand,” he said. “In blood, I should imagine.”

For a moment they stared at the ghastly mark, a strange evidence of pain and violence in this quiet place.

“We’d better look in the garden,” he suggested.

They went down. The grass beneath the balcony was beaten down in one place, but there was nothing else. Some one had come and gone. They could not even guess who it had been. They knew nothing.

“Come, Lexy!” the captain said.

They both turned for one last look at the accursed house, blazing with spectral lights. Then they set off, away from it, over that weary road again.

“There’s no police station in the village, is there?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen one, but I’ve heard Mrs. Royce talk about the constable. Anyhow, she can tell us.”

“Yes,” he said, and was silent for a moment. “Rather a pity, isn’t it,” he went on, “that there has to be—all that? Because it doesn’t matter now. It’s finished. Better if the house burned down to-night!”

In her heart Lexy agreed with him. She had no curiosity left, and scarcely any interest. As he had said, it was finished. She wanted to rest, not to speak, not to think, not to remember; but it couldn’t be so. They would both have to tell what they had seen, to answer questions. It wasn’t enough that two people lay dead in that house of horror. All the world, which knew and cared nothing about them, must have a full explanation.

“I suppose we couldn’t wait till morning?” she suggested.

He took her hand and drew it through his arm.

“You’re worn out,” he told her. “It’s altogether wrong. There’s no reason why you should be troubled any more, Lexy. Slip into the house quietly, and get to bed and to sleep. Nobody need know that you went there.”

“No!” she said. “We’ll see it through together.”

The thought of Charles Houseman came to her, but she disowned it with a listless sort of resentment. She felt, somehow, that he had failed her. He had not been there when she needed him. He had not taken his part in this ghastly and unforgetable sight.

There was a light in Mrs. Royce’s front parlor. Perhaps he was in there, waiting for her, cheerful and cool, a thousand miles away from the nightmare world in which she had been moving. She did not want to see him or speak to him just now. He hadn’t seen. He wouldn’t understand.

Captain Grey opened the gate, and they went up the flagged walk. Before they had mounted the veranda steps, the front door was flung wide, and Mrs. Royce appeared.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried. “I thought you’d never come!”

Her tone and her manner were so strange that they both stopped and stared at her.

“Oh, my goodness!” she cried again. “Oh, do come in! I don’t know what to do with her, I’m sure!”

“Who?” asked Lexy.

“Poor Mis’ Quelton. There she is, lyin’ upstairs—”

“Mrs. Quelton?”

“Joe, he brought her in his taxi, jest a little while after you’d gone.”

“Brought Mrs. Quelton here?”

“Brought her here and carried her up them very stairs,” declared Mrs. Royce impressively; “right up into the east bedroom, and there she lies!”

She stood aside, and Lexy and Captain Grey entered the house. The young man turned aside into the parlor, sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. Lexy stood beside him, looking down at his bent head, her face haggard and white.

“Why did Joe do that?” she asked.

“Don’t ask me, Miss Moran!” replied Mrs. Royce. “It beats me!”

There was a silence.

“But ain’t you going upstairs to see what she wants?” inquired Mrs. Royce anxiously.

Captain Grey sprang to his feet.

“Good God!” he shouted. “What are you talking about?”

Mrs. Royce backed into a corner, regarding him with alarm.

“I jest thought you’d like to talk to her,” she faltered.

“Do you mean she’s not dead?”

“Dead? Oh, my goodness gracious me!” cried Mrs. Royce. “I never—”

“Wait here,” Lexy told the captain.

“No!” he replied. “I must—”

But, disregarding him, Lexy turned to Mrs. Royce.

“Let me see her,” she said.

Mrs. Royce led the way upstairs. She went at an unusual rate of speed, so that she was panting when she reached the top.

“Kind of vi’lent!” she whispered, pointing downstairs, where Captain Grey was.

“This room?” asked Lexy. “Shall I go in?”

“Well,” said Mrs. Royce, “seems to me I’d knock, if I was you.”

Knock on the door of the room where Mrs. Quelton lay? Knock, and expect an answer from that voice? It seemed to Lexy, for a moment, that she could not raise her hand.

But she did. She knocked, and she was answered. She turned the handle and went in. An oil lamp stood on the bureau, and outside the circle of its mellow light, in the shadow, Mrs. Quelton was sitting on the edge of the bed; and it seemed to Lexy that she had never seen such a forlorn and pitiful figure.

“Oh, my dear!” she cried impulsively, and held out her arms.

Mrs. Quelton rose. She came toward Lexy, her hands outstretched—when a sudden cry from Mrs. Royce arrested her.

“But that ain’t Mrs. Quelton!” cried the landlady.

XXIV

If Lexy had not caught the unhappy woman, she would have fallen; but those sturdy young arms held her, and, with Mrs. Royce’s help, they got her on the bed. White as a ghost, incredibly frail in her black dress, she lay there, scarcely seeming to breathe.

“It ain’t Mrs. Quelton!” repeated Mrs. Royce, in a whisper.

“I know!” said Lexy softly. “Will you get me water and a towel, please?”

Mrs. Royce went out of the room, and Lexy knelt down beside the bed. She did know now—the woman whom they had all called Muriel Quelton was really Caroline Enderby.

Lexy did not blame herself for not having known before. Looking at that face now, in its terrible stillness, she could trace the familiar features easily enough, but how changed! How worn and lined, how old! The brows, the lashes, the soft, disordered hair, were black now instead of brown; but that merely physical alteration was of no significance, compared with that other awful change. It was Caroline Enderby, the gentle and pitifully inexperienced girl of nineteen, but it was Mrs. Quelton, too, that tragic and somber figure.

Mrs. Royce came back with a basin of water, clean towels, and a precious bottle of eau de Cologne.

“Poor lamb!” she whispered. “Ain’t she pretty?”

Lexy wet a towel and passed it over that unconscious face again and again. Mrs. Royce watched, spellbound; for the dark and haggard stranger was passing away before her very eyes, and some one else was coming into life—some one quite young and—

The closed lids fluttered, and then opened.

“Lexy!” murmured the metamorphosed one.

“I’m here, Caroline!” said Lexy, with a stifled sob. “Everything’s all right, dear! Don’t worry—just rest!”

“I can’t, Lexy! I can’t!” she answered, and from her eyes, now closed again, tears came running slowly down her cheeks.

“Yes, you can!” said Lexy. “We’ll—”

“Supposing I get her some nice hot soup?” whispered Mrs. Royce, and, at a nod from Lexy, she was off again.

Caroline reached out and caught Lexy’s hand.

“Oh, Lexy, Lexy!” she said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“No!” her friend replied cheerfully. “Never! But don’t bother now. You can tell me later, when you feel better.”

“I’ll never, never feel better till I’ve told you! Oh, Lexy, I knew yesterday, and I didn’t tell you! Oh, Lexy, Lexy, I don’t understand! I want to tell you! I want you to help me!”

A flush had come into her cheeks. She was growing painfully excited. She tried to sit up, but Lexy firmly prevented that.

“Lie down, darling!” she said. “We’ll get a doctor.”

“No! No! I’m not ill—not ill, Lexy, only tired. Oh, you don’t know! You won’t let him come here, Lexy?”

“I promise you he’ll never trouble you again,” replied Lexy quietly.

She saw Captain Grey standing in the doorway, behind the head of the bed. She glanced at him, and then at Caroline again. Let him stay! Whatever had happened, he ought to know.

“I don’t understand,” said Caroline, clinging fast to Lexy’s hand. “I want to tell you—all of it. You know, Lexy, I did a horrible, wretched thing. I said I’d marry a man. I promised to meet him here in Wyngate, because it was near to dear Miss Craigie’s. I didn’t tell you, but it wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Lexy—truly it wasn’t! It was only because I knew mother would be so angry with you. I told him I’d take the train that got here at eleven o’clock that night; but after I’d left the house, I got frightened. I’d never gone out alone before. I couldn’t bear it. If I hadn’t promised him, I’d have gone home again. I wanted to go home. I was sorry I’d promised.”

“Don’t try to go on now, dear!”

“I must! So I took a taxi. I thought I’d get here as soon as the train, but when it was eleven o’clock we were still miles away. I thought perhaps Charles wouldn’t wait, and there’d be nobody in Wyngate, and I didn’t dare go home again; so I kept begging the driver to go faster. Oh, Lexy, it was all my fault! He did go—terribly fast. It was wonderful to be alone, and rushing along like that; and then I think he ran into a telegraph pole, turning a corner. There was a crash, and I didn’t know anything more for—I don’t know how long it’s been.”

“Soup!” whispered Mrs. Royce, but Caroline was too intent upon her confession to stop.

Lexy took the broth and set it on the table.

“I don’t know how long it was,” Caroline went on. “It must have been days, or perhaps weeks. Sometimes I seemed to know, in a sort of dream. Oh, it was horrible! Oh, Lexy, I can’t explain! I didn’t really know anything, only that sometimes my mind seemed to be struggling—”

“Take some of this soup,” said Lexy. “You’ve got to, Caroline, or I won’t listen.”

Obediently Caroline allowed herself to be fed. She took fully half of that excellent soup, and it did her good.

“Yesterday,” she said, “I did know. I couldn’t sleep all night. I felt so ill, I thought I was going to die; and all the time it was coming back to me. I couldn’t think why I was there in that place. I was frightened—worse than frightened. The nurse kept calling me ‘Mrs. Quelton,’ and I told her I wasn’t Mrs. Quelton—I was Caroline Enderby. She must have told him. He came, he kept looking at me, and saying, ‘You are Muriel Quelton, I tell you!’ Then he sent the nurse away, and he said: ‘If you insist that you are Caroline Enderby, you’re mad, and I’ll send you to an asylum.’ I was—oh, Lexy, I’m not brave!—I was afraid of him. When you came that morning, I didn’t dare to tell you. I hoped you’d find the handkerchief, and know; and then—”

Suddenly she turned and buried her face in the pillow.

“Then I didn’t want you to know!” she sobbed. “Captain Grey—he sat there with me. Lexy! Lexy! I didn’t know there was any one like him in the world! I wanted to stay, then. I thought, if you found out, I’d have to go away—to go home again, or to marry Charles. I’d promised to marry him, Lexy, but I can’t! Not now!”

“Hush, darling!” said Lexy hastily.

This was something Captain Grey had no right to hear, but he did hear it. He was still standing outside the door, motionless.

“He was so kind!” Caroline went on. “And his face—”

“Never mind that!” Lexy interrupted sternly. “Tell me how you got away.”

“When he came back, he found George there—I had to call him George.”

“Yes, I see. Never mind!”

“George went away, and then—he told me. He said his wife had died a few months ago, and that in her will she’d left some jewel—a ruby—”

“An emerald,” corrected Lexy.

“Yes—it was an emerald. She’d left it to her brother, and he—Dr. Quelton—had taken it long ago, and sold it, to get money for his horrible drugs. She never knew that, and he didn’t tell her lawyer that she’d died. I don’t know how he managed, or what he did, but nobody knew. Then there came a letter from her brother, to say that he was coming; and the doctor said—I’ll never forget it:

“‘Consequently, Muriel Quelton had to be here, and she was; and she’ll remain here until her purpose is served!’

“He told me what had happened. He said that as soon as he knew Captain Grey was coming, he began to look for some one to take his poor wife’s place. The captain hadn’t seen his sister since she was a baby, you know, and all he knew was that she was tall and dark. Dr. Quelton said he had arranged for some one to come from a hospital; and then he found me. He drove by just a little while after the accident, and he found the poor driver dead and me unconscious. He found a letter to mother in my purse, and he mailed it afterward. Then he heard another car coming along the road, and he started the engine and sent the taxi—with the dead driver in his seat—crashing down the hill, to run into the other car. He wanted the driver’s death to look like an accident. He didn’t care if the other man were killed. He’s—he’s not human, Lexy! He told me he had never in his life cared for any one except his wife. He told me what a beautiful, wonderful woman she was—and yet he had stolen her emerald when she was dying. Love! He couldn’t love any one!”

But Lexy remembered her last glimpse of Dr. Quelton, lying dead across the coffin of the woman he had robbed. Who would ever know, who was to judge now, what might have been in his warped and utterly solitary heart?

“He told me,” Caroline went on, “that he had never felt any great interest in me. A mediocre mind, he said I had. He told me he had never so much as touched my finger tips. He sat there, talking so calmly! He said he had kept me under the influence of some drug that made my mind suggestible—I think that’s the word. He meant that whoever took that drug would believe anything, accept anything. He had told me I was Muriel Quelton, and I believed I was. Then he told me to dye my hair, and to make up my face with things he gave me. He told me I was ill and tired and growing old, and I felt so. Lexy, he said that even without that, without making the least change in my appearance, no one would have known me, because my mind was changed. He said there was no disguise in the world like that. Was it true, Lexy? Was I old, and—and horrible to every one?”

“No,” Lexy briefly replied.

“Then he went on. He said he had no more of the drug left, and that he’d have to dispose of me. ‘You know you’re very ill,’ he said. ‘The nurse and that young fool of a doctor agree with me. I think you’re likely to grow worse—very much worse—to-night. You’re very likely to die.’ Oh, Lexy! What could I do but agree? I was shut up—so weak and ill—I knew he could so easily give me something to kill me! He said that if I would make a will and sign it as he told me, he would let me go and be—be myself again. I couldn’t help it! And his wife was dead. It couldn’t do her any harm if I signed her name. He wrote it, and I traced it on another sheet of paper. I had to, Lexy! I knew it was wrong, but what else could I possibly do?”

“Never mind, Caroline!” said Lexy. “It didn’t do any harm, dear. And then did he let you go?”

An odd smile came over Caroline’s face.

“Not exactly,” she said. “After I’d signed the will, leaving him the emerald, he sent away the nurse. Then he came out on the balcony, sat down, and began to talk to me. He was so pleasant and kindly! He made plans for my getting away unnoticed, and brought me some sandwiches and a cup of tea. He said I would have to eat a little, or I wouldn’t have strength enough to go. It was getting dark then, and he couldn’t see my face. I pretended to believe him, but I knew all the time. He kept urging me to hurry up, and to eat the sandwiches and drink the tea. I knew! I had made the will, and now, of course, I had to die. I tried to think of a way out; and at last, when he saw that I didn’t eat or drink, he spoke out plainly. He said that he had sent the servants away for the afternoon, and that we were alone in the house. He got up; he stood there and looked down at me.

“‘That tea is an easy way out—quite painless and easy,’ he said; ‘but if you won’t take it, there’s another way—not so easy!’

“He had some sort of hypodermic needle; but just then some one began pounding on the door downstairs, and he had to go. He locked the door after him, and he knew I was too weak to move. I tried. I got off the couch, but I fell on the floor beside it; and then Charles came—”

“Charles?”

“He climbed up over the balcony. It was too dark to see him, but I heard his voice, whispering, ‘Where are you?’ He found me, lifted me up, and helped me over to the railing. Then we heard Dr. Quelton coming back. There was another man, down in the garden, with a taxi. Charles called out to him, and he stood below there. I heard Dr. Quelton unlock the door, and I was so frightened that I felt strong enough to do anything to get away. Charles helped me over, and the other man caught me. Then I heard Charles shout, ‘Quick! Get her away!’ The other man pushed me into the taxi and started off across the lawn. I fainted, and I didn’t know anything more until I opened my eyes here.”

“But where is he?” cried Lexy. “What happened to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you don’t seem to care, either!” said Lexy hotly. “He saved your life, and now—”

She thought of that bloody hand print, and the grass beaten down. The young man who had no caution, no regard for the proprieties, had done the direct and simple thing which appealed to his audacious mind. Perhaps he had been killed in doing it. He would know how to face death in the same straightforward way.

Lexy would be as straightforward as he. She would find him, and she wouldn’t try to think how much she cared about finding him.

She rose.

“I’ll get Mrs. Royce to stay with you, Caroline,” she said.

“But where are you going, Lexy?”

“I’m going to find Charles.”

In the doorway she encountered Captain Grey.

“Do you think she could stand seeing me?” he asked anxiously. “I mean do you—”

But Lexy didn’t even answer.

XXV

After all, Lexy’s search for Charles Houseman was neither difficult nor heroic, except in intention. She found him in the Lymewell Hospital. Joe told her where he was, and Joe took her there.

Houseman himself was rigidly determined not to be heroic. He had refused to go to bed, and Lexy found him in a bare, whitewashed waiting room, where he sat on a bench.

“Just came in to get the hand dressed,” he said. “I’ll go back with you now.”

The doctor advised him not to, but Charles was not very susceptible to advice. He wished to be entirely casual and matter-of-fact, and Lexy tried to humor him. They stood together in the hall of the hospital while a nurse went to get him a bottle of lotion from the dispensary, and he talked in what he intended to be an offhand manner; but Lexy could see that he was in pain, and almost exhausted, and his hair was all on end.

Somehow, that was the thing she couldn’t bear—that his hair should be so ruffled. She could respect his determination to ignore the throbbing anguish of his hand, she would, if he liked, pretend that there was nothing at all tragic or unusual in the night’s adventure; but his hair—

The nurse returned with the bottle, gave him directions for its use, and told him sternly that he must come back the next morning for a dressing.

“All right!” he said impatiently. “Come on, Lexy!”

They got into Joe’s cab together, and off they went.

“What happened to your hand?” inquired Lexy, as if it didn’t much matter.

“Knife through it,” he answered. “You see, I held the old fellow, to give Mrs. Quelton a chance to get away. When I thought it was all right, I gave him a shove backward, and started to climb over the balcony; and he jabbed a knife through my hand. That’s what kept me so long—I couldn’t get it out; and after I did, I—rested for a while. Then I started for Wyngate, and I met Joe coming back to look for me. He said he’d landed Mrs. Quelton all right. So that’s all!”

Lexy was silent for a moment.

“Of course you didn’t know it wasn’t Mrs. Quelton,” she said. “It was Caroline all the time.”

“Caroline?” he cried. “What do you mean? It couldn’t have been Caroline!”

Lexy gave him a very brief, very bare account of Caroline’s narrative.

“Oh!” he said, when she had done; and again there was silence for a time. “Does she still want to go on with the thing—marrying me, I mean?” he asked finally, in a queer, flat tone.

“No,” said Lexy pleasantly. “No—she does not.”

“Oh!” he said again, with undisguised relief. “Well, then—it’s all right, then!”

“You don’t seem to be much surprised,” said Lexy. “Don’t you think it’s the most extraordinary story you ever heard?”

“Well, you see—I’m a bit tired,” he explained. “I haven’t grasped it all yet; only, if she doesn’t want to marry me now, Lexy, dear, will you?”

At last Lexy could do what she had longed to do for the last half hour—she could stroke down his ruffled hair.

And this, as far as they were concerned, was the last act and the fitting climax of the play. They were ready now for the curtain to rise upon another play; but there were other people not so young, or not so sturdy, for whom the first drama was not so readily dismissed.

There was Captain Grey, who was never to see his sister now, never to know if she had really wanted him and needed him. He did not soon forget what had happened at the Tower.

Mrs. Enderby was sent for, and arrived that morning before sunrise, with her husband. She listened to Caroline’s strange story, and made what she could of it. She had not one word of reproach for her daughter.

“We shall not cry over the spilled milk,” she said. “Let us see what is to be done, before the police come.” She had a thoroughly European point of view about the police. “If we are fortunate enough to find an officer with discretion,” she added, “even yet a scandal may be averted.”

For that was still her passionate resolve—that there should be no scandal. She thought and planned with desperate energy; she directed every one as to the part he or she should play; and in the end she succeeded. Nobody knew that Caroline had disappeared, and nobody ever would know. Nobody knew that the so-called Mrs. Quelton was Caroline, and that, too, would never be known. Only let Joe and Mrs. Royce be persuaded to hold their tongues; as for Lexy, Captain Grey, and Houseman, she could of course rely upon them.

So the police were, as they say, baffled. Mr. Houseman told them a tale. He had been alarmed about the lady whom he knew as Mrs. Quelton, and he had climbed up on the balcony, hoping to see her alone; but he had met Dr. Quelton instead, and had been hurt in trying to escape from him.

Captain Grey also had a tale. He, too, had been alarmed about the lady whom he believed to be his sister. He had gone with Miss Moran to call upon her, and they had found the doctor dead, lying across the coffin.

There was an inquest, and Mr. Houseman had a very unpleasant time of it, being the last one who had seen the doctor alive; but there was no really serious suspicion against him. The post-mortem showed that the doctor had died of some unknown poison, at least half an hour after the young man had arrived at the hospital. The verdict was suicide, although the coroner’s jury had its own opinion about the mysterious dark woman who had posed as the doctor’s wife. An autopsy revealed that Mrs. Quelton had died from a natural cause—phthisis of the lungs. In short, as far as could be discovered, there was no murder at all.

This was a disappointment to the public, but there was always the mysterious dark woman. The police instituted a search for her, and there was much about her in the newspapers, but she was never found.

Miss Enderby returned to the city from her visit to Miss Craigie, and friends of the family were interested to learn that while away she had met such a nice young man—a Captain Grey, from India. He had to return to his regiment, but, before he went, Caroline’s engagement to him was announced. Later he was to retire from the army and come back to live in New York.

There was another item of news, of minor importance. That pretty little secretary of Mrs. Enderby’s got married, and the Enderbys were wonderfully kind about it—surprisingly so. It didn’t seem at all like Mrs. Enderby to let the girl be married from her own house, and to give her a smart little car for a wedding present. What is more, Mr. Enderby found a very good position in his office for the young man.

“My dear Sophie,” said one of Mrs. Enderby’s old friends, with the peculiar candor of an old friend, “I’ve never known you to do so much for any one before!”

Mrs. Enderby was standing on the top doorstep of her house, looking after the car in which Lexy and her Charles had driven off for their honeymoon, with Joe, of Wyngate, as their chauffeur.

“So much for her?” she said. “It’s not enough—not half enough!”

And there were actually tears in her eyes as she went back into the house where Caroline was.

THE END

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

MARCH, 1926 Vol. LXXXVII NUMBER 2