£19,000

CHAPTER VII

He made shirt, clothing, and wig, and all the coal he had in his office scuttle into a parcel, and a short while after that parcel was making a hole for itself in the soft mud under London Bridge.

The disguise was disposed of—and Richard was himself again.

An aggravated, very much upset Richard. He had committed actual murder, and was not a penny the richer for it.

The heinousness of the crime did not present itself to him; he rather looked at it from the standpoint of its barren financial result.

He had so counted on a large profit in connection with his quick return.

He had food for thought, sufficient to last an ordinary man many meals.

But Mr. Richard Loide was not an ordinary man. He no longer imagined those crisp Bank of England notes to be in the steamer's strong-room.

He did not believe they were even on the ship. That towel removed and a tragic story stared him in the face.

What did it mean?

That he could not fathom. One solid fact was existent—there had been foul play.

Some one had the notes. The man in whose possession they were had a hand in the murder. And that is where Mr. Loide hoped to step in and take a part in the drama.

The hand of death had lowered the curtain on the first act, and the lawyer just hankered after getting behind the scenes.

He formed an idea of his own that, for some reason, Depew was lurking in England; had bargained with the man Loide had killed to personate him on the boat, and so destroy a clue to his existence in London.

What then did the other, the cut up body mean? Who could that have been?

He regretted now that his horror had prevented his looking at the head.

That was another puzzle, and he could not in any way solve it.

But he was bent on one thing—the finding of Mr. Depew, and the bleeding of him for all he was worth.

Being a city lawyer, and moving in city financial circles, blackmailing had not for him the horrid appearance it presented to most people.

One gets used to the atmosphere one breathes daily, and the atmosphere of London city reeks of blackmail.

Suddenly a thought came to him which sent all the blood to his heart, and caused him to start to his feet in alarm.

Suppose he had been deceived? Suppose he had not handed the money over to the real George Depew?

He broke into a cold sweat at the mere idea!

He remembered how exceedingly lax he had been because Depew had frightened him.

The American had seen through the frauds on his aunt, and practically taxed the lawyer with them. Had he chosen, he could have made him disgorge all those gains of years.

Why had he not? If the real, genuine nephew, cute and sharp as he had been in getting the full value of the estate from the sale, why had he not, with his suspicions aroused, insisted on an inspection of the back accounts?

Why had he not? And once more the sweat of fear beaded on Loide's brow.

He was poor enough as it was. What if a real George Depew appeared on the scene and demanded that which was his?

The perspiration beads grew in size.

The lawyer called to mind how meagre had been the identification. He remembered that, frightened as he had been he had accepted a certificate of birth, and some envelopes directed to Depew in America, as confirmation that he was the real man.

For that the lawyer would never forgive himself. In ordinary circumstances he would have probed much more deeply.

That fright—that was what did it—unmanned him, and made him behave like a perfect ass. He could have kicked himself for an hour and rejoiced in the resultant pain.

He told himself that he needed punishment—badly.

He thought of his own disguise; how he had so changed his own appearance that he had not known himself in the mirror.

Why should not Mr. Depew have done a similar thing?

Then another thought. Did disguise account for the different appearance of the man who was now crossing the Atlantic with a gaping wound in his throat?

No; he felt that was not so. Depew was a head shorter than the man he had killed.

He was glad he remembered that, because it removed the slightest doubt. It convinced him that Depew was in London, and it must be his—Loide's—business to find him.

Find him, and put pertinent questions to him; make him do a sum in arithmetic—two into nineteen—and hand over the quotient.

He did not fear an interview. The unexpected always happens, and the unexpectant one is generally at a disadvantage.

Loide felt that. Felt that, in the language of Depew's country, he would be "upper dog" in the interview.

And then he set his wits to work—how to discover George Depew's whereabouts.

And meanwhile, in the same compass, within the radius of the city of London, another man was thinking—thinking with the same strained look on his face, too.

He was standing looking out of the window of a room in Finsbury Circus, standing there gnawing what was left of the nails of his hand, and watching but for one man's advent—the postman.

He was not looking for the telegraph boy—he knew it was too late for that—but a letter from his brother.

It had been arranged between them that the moment Arthur reached Queenstown in safety he should despatch a wire with the two words "All serene" if things were so.

And in case he should be asleep when the boat was off Queenstown, he had asked the purser to give him a call.

No such wire reached the dentist, hence his own disturbed serenity.

He waited and waited for it till he worked himself into such a state of nervousness—he had not his brother's iron will—that he shook from head to foot.

That no one in need of dental attention visited him that day was fortunate for the man with the aching tooth.

A trembling hand is not the best kind with which to grip forceps.

As the day passed by and nothing came, the dentist became positively ill. He drank all that was left of the bottle of brandy, and for the first time in his life went home the worse for it.

His wife was surprised, amazed, shocked. That was, perhaps, as well.

In her offended dignity she stood aloof from him. It was better so.

Long before breakfast in the morning he had left the house. He wanted to be in Finsbury Circus before the postman, and he was.

The first delivery—no letter. He staggered back, fell into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. What could it mean?

It did not occur to him that a letter from Queenstown could not reach so quickly.

His brain was pregnant with but two ideas. His brother had promised to telegraph—he had not. His brother had promised to write—he had not.

And he seemed to see that one question standing out in fiery letters on the wall: "What did it mean?"

He had the notes. He had instructions what to do with them, but he dared not carry out those instructions.

Suppose his brother had been arrested—arrested with the terrible contents of those two portmanteaus in his possession!

As each edition of the evening papers came out, he sent Sawyer for copies, but he gleaned nothing from them, no arrest was reported, nothing in any way bearing on the matter.

The purchase of the papers did no good—save sending him up in the estimation of his satellite.

Sawyer imagined that "the guv'nor had been putting a bit on the four legged 'uns," and was anxious to peruse the column captioned "All the Winners."

His own sporting instincts made him look up to his employer for the first time.

And the lawyer?

Made up his mind. It was risky what he proposed doing, because, as a man innocent of any knowledge of what had occurred, he was clearly, legally wrong in doing it.

Still he had to find Mr. Depew, and there was only one way to do it.

Fraught with risk—but he risked it. Desperate diseases need desperate remedies.

He sat down and pulled a sheet of his headed office paper towards him. Then—as a lawyer—he wrote a letter.

It was to the Bank of England stopping the numbers of the nineteen notes he had obtained from that institution, and paid over to Mr. Depew.

Bold, daring, but must necessarily be successful.

CHAPTER VIII

The gongs were ringing in the engine-room before the man touched the water, but a liner traveling at the rate of twenty knots an hour has a way on her.

"Full speed astern" showed on the indicator, and then careful handling of the vessel became necessary. Almost directly she stopped.

As she stopped, the boat which had been hanging from the outspread davits with a crew in her was rapidly lowered, and once in the water, vigorously rowed in the direction pointed out by the standing coxswain.

Rescuer and rescued were promptly hauled into the boat, and carried to the waiting ship, neither of them much the worse for their ducking.

The girl was seized by her mother and nurse, and speedily carried off to their own private cabin.

The rescuer—Gerald Danvers, a second-class passenger—at his own request went down the stoke hole.

Brave enough to dive into the sea, he yet had a dreadful fear of rheumatism, to which he was subject; hence his desire for the warmth of the stoke hole.

A drink of brandy and willing hands to rub him down and the warmth of the stoke hole soon made him himself.

He had at hand only the clothes he stood upright in; the rest of his wardrobe, packed in a portmanteau, was in the hold.

The usual custom was departed from, and a man despatched to try to find his portmanteau—a brown one with his initials "G. D." on it.

"Don't bring it down here, old chap," said Danvers to the man who had volunteered to fetch it. "Here are my keys. There are only clothes in it. Just bring me underflannels and shirt, that's all. I can wait while these trousers dry."

He had thrown off coat and vest and boots before he had dived.

The things were brought him, and he sat talking to the men while his trousers dried, as they very quickly did in such an atmosphere, and before long he was on deck again.

He would probably have been made to pose as a hero—for a shipload of passengers needs something to occupy its attention—but another more startling sensation came about.

The mere saving of a life sank into insignificance before the loss of one.

The sea was not rough, and very few passengers were in their berths. Nearly all of them sat down to the meals prepared for them.

Before dinner, the steward went over his list, and found that the occupants of one of the two berthed cabins had not figured at breakfast or luncheon.

He went to the door of the cabin, and rapped with his knuckles—twice—thrice. Getting no answer, he turned the handle and pushed open the door.

One berth was empty; in the other the occupant was apparently asleep.

"Don't you feel well, sir?"

No answer. Question repeated. Same result.

Then the steward drew aside the curtains, and was transformed into the whitest faced being aboard that ship. For what he saw was a man lying there with his throat cut.

To bound out of that cabin and fetch the doctor and captain was the work of a few moments.

"Suicide."

One word the steward had let drop, and it spread all over the ship like wildfire.

But the doctor shook his head at the suggestion the moment he saw the body.

"What is it?" inquired the captain; "don't you think it suicide?"

"No," answered the doctor laconically; "murder."

"Murder!"

"Yes."

"Who occupied the other berth? Where is he? Find him. What? went ashore at Queenstown—don't know whether he came back on tender? Who received the mails? Tell him to come here."

The officer sent for came.

It was in his watch that the tender departed and returned. Had noticed a red-haired man who had come aboard at Liverpool.

"Passenger of this berth was red-haired," interjected the steward.

"Go on," said the captain; "did you see the man come back on the tender? Is he aboard?"

The officer scratched his head and replied:

"Come to think of it, sir, I don't remember that he did come back."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, yes, I am, sir. It was very early morning when we touched, and I noted that only one passenger went on the tender."

"Sure it was the occupant of this berth?"

"Must have been, sir," interrupted the steward, "because when I rapped for letters and telegrams the red-haired man asked whether he could go ashore, and how long he could stop."

"And you——?"

"Told him, sir. I didn't actually see him go, but he was already dressed."

The captain turned to the officer who had received the mails.

"Are you sure the man did not come back on the tender?"

"Yes, sir. Certain, now I come to remember."

"He has escaped, then," said the captain. Then, looking at his watch, he continued: "We are nearly twelve hours out from Queenstown. I shall not put back."

"Gives the murderer a good opportunity of escape, doesn't it?" queried the doctor.

"Yes, yes; I know. But we should be more than a dozen hours getting back with this wind, and the ship would be detained. No, I'll go on. Let the American police investigate it."

"Information ought to be furnished as promptly as possible," said the doctor dubiously.

"That's all very well for you, doctor; but what would they say to me as captain of the ship? We will draw up a full report. Just write down as detailed a description of the escaped man as you can, steward. Bryer, run up to the bridge, and tell the mate to steer for any vessel coming in, and fly a flag that we want to communicate. We'll send the description back. That's the best way out of the difficulty, doctor."

It was not the doctor's duty to dispute the captain's authority.

He may have had his own opinion as to what should be done, but he forbore from expressing it. He had his thoughts, and he had his living to get.

The latter fact often prevents a man's thoughts finding their way to his lips. This is an age of discretion—it often pays better than mere valor.

"Been dead over a dozen hours," he said, after examining the body.

"That seems to confirm the idea of murder and escape at Queenstown."

"Better leave all things as they are for the police to examine, eh?"

"Yes."

Disinfectants were put in the cabin, and the door locked.

At the suggestion of the doctor, the captain affixed seals to a piece of tape fastened to the door and its lintel. The ship steamed on.

Ocean bore a secret on her billowy bosom—it was but one added to the myriads buried in her fathomless depths.

CHAPTER IX

The crowds waiting on shore had wondered at the delay, but the first man off told the news, and it spread.

The extra editions of the newspapers sold well that evening. It is an ill wind which fails to inflate the circulation of the newspapers.

The people assembled at the pier gradually dispersed, moving away with the friends they had come to meet, until at last only the working staff of boat and shore hands were around.

The public had gone home—all save one member of it, a tall, bony, dressed in country style woman.

She had started from home with whole white cotton gloves on.

As she stood watching the boat now, there was not a whole finger left in one of the gloves—she had nibbled them off in her anxiety.

She attracted the attention of the hands discharging the cargo, and was the object, among themselves, of many humorous remarks.

"Waitin' for some one, missus?" at last one of the men inquired of her.

She was glad. She had been afraid to come forward and make inquiries. Now the spell was broken, she said:

"Yes. Have all the passengers landed?"

"There's one—or two—still aboard," the man answered, grimly.

But the grimness was lost on the woman. She gave a sigh of relief. She had yet to learn that the passengers spoken of by the man had crossed the Stygian Ferry as well as the Atlantic.

"Mebbe one of 'em's the one I've come to meet."

"I hope not."

"Why?"

The man disregarded the question. Something had occurred to him. He inquired:

"What might be the name of the person you've come to meet?"

The woman hesitated a moment, and then answered:

"Depew."

The man suppressed a whistle of astonishment, and repeated the name:

"Depew!"

"Yes; George Depew. Was he aboard, do you know?"

"Wait here a moment, missus—don't go away. I'll go and inquire for you."

He disappeared in the ship. He went to the captain's cabin, and knocked at the door.

The police officers and witnesses were there discussing the murder.

"Come in."

And he went. Touched his cap, then took it off, and spoke:

"Woman outside, sir—been waitin' long time."

"Well?"

"I spoke to her—asked who she was waitin' for."

"Yes."

"Said for Depew—George Depew."

The plain clothes officer was on his feet in a moment inquiring:

"Where is she?"

"On the pier."

"I'll go and see her; come, point her out to me."

They left the cabin. The tall, gaunt woman was standing where the sailor had left her. Thanking the man, the officer went towards her.

"They tell me," he said pleasantly, "that you are waiting for a passenger."

"Yes."

"Perhaps you did not see him land."

"I never took my eyes off the gangway."

"Then you think he is aboard."

"I understood the man to say there were one or two passengers there still."

The detective suppressed a smile at the grim humor of the sailor's remark. They were there still—very still.

"What is the name of the person you were expecting to meet?"

Again there was a slight hesitation before the woman spoke. Then she said:

"Depew."

"George?"

"Yes. Then he is aboard?"

"Well—you—see——"

Then something dawned on, some fear seized the woman. It was in a trembling voice that she inquired:

"You, you are not wearing the ship's uniform. You—you are a policeman?"

"That's so."

"My God! I see. I see why he has not landed. It's all found out—he's in custody."

The detective twiddled the ends of a moustache he had under cultivation.

The case had looked complicated—and he liked complications—indeed, got a living out of them. But this latest phase of the business looked like the envelopment of the puzzle in another one.

"Tell me," she said, "is he aboard?"

"Yes."

"Let me see him."

"Come this way."

She came.

As they went below, the detective paused a minute. He inquired:

"Are you any relation of his?"

"His wife."

The detective whistled. Then he said:

"Come in here."

"He is not here?"

"No."

"Take me to him."

"Don't be in a hurry. See here, you'd best prepare yourself for a shock."

"Shock!"

"Your husband came aboard this boat at Liverpool."

"I know that; is he here now?"

"His—his remains are."

"His—his——"

"Now brace up. Take the blow like a—like a real woman."

"G-go on."

"He's lying aboard the ship now."

"Lying!"

"Dead."

"D-dead."

"Here, hold up. There, there, pull yourself together, missus——. Here, drink that——. That's better——. We all have to die, you know, sooner or later——. That's it. Sit there a minute or two. Now, you are going along all right, aren't you?"

"Yes—yes."

"Drop more water? That's it. Now, how do you feel? Well enough to see the body? You'd like to? That's all right, then. Must be identified, you know. Just sit here a minute, and I'll arrange things for you."

He went out, leaving the woman staring stonily at the roof of the saloon. To a subordinate on duty he said:

"Open that cabin, Mace. Tuck a towel round the neck so the wound don't show. Woman's his wife. I haven't told her yet he's been murdered. Time for that after she identifies him. Stand by."

He returned to the saloon in which he had left the woman.

"Now, Mrs. Depew."

The woman started.

"Just lean on my arm, ma'am, and brace yourself up. This way. Mind the step. That's it. In here. There you are, ma'am. There's the body."

The woman moaned, braced herself up as she had been told to, and went forward.

The moment her eyes rested on the dead body she screamed:

"That!"

She flung up her arms, and burst into hysterical laughter, which ended in a wail as she sank, a nerveless heap, in the officer's arms.

"Too much for her, Mace. Here, give me a hand out with her. That's it. Take her on deck, the air will bring her to. That's it. Fetch a pillow for her head. Heart's beating, and she's breathing all right—it's only a faint. The shock was too great for her."

It was. She had expected to see in the dead man her husband.

It was an expectation she had not realized.

The face of the dead man was utterly unknown to her.

CHAPTER X

For the dead man lying in the ship's cabin was not named Depew, nor was the living woman lying on the ship's deck named that way.

It was a case of lying right through, and she thought to herself that she had in a measure given the show away.

So she lay thinking. The mantle of night fell gradually and cloaked things.

Shadows were deep. She might steal off the ship in them unseen.

A boat's lantern hung at each end of the gangway, but there appeared to be no one watching her.

There was not. It was not supposed that there was the slightest chance of her running away.

A woman overcome by emotion as she had been does not run away from the recently discovered body of her dead husband.

So the police argued—argued in the dark—in ignorance of the facts, and left her in the dark in fancied possession of them.

Should she go to that cabin with the light, brave it out there, and carry the lie on further?

Or should she steal off in the gradually growing darker night, and escape home?

Home! Her home more than fifty miles away in the village of Oakville.

She determined to do that. Many reasons prompted her to the act.

Her husband had not been on the boat. Another man bearing his name filled his berth.

There was trickery somewhere—but that was no novelty where her husband was concerned. She was unprepared for it, and had made a mistake. Best rectify it by escape.

She did. Cleared the ship without a soul noticing it.

Reached the railway station, and hid herself in a corner of the ladies' waiting room till the Oakville train started. In that train she was carried home.

Her real name? Todd—Susan Todd. Her husband? Josh Todd.

All that was left of the husband was in the cabin of the ship she had left. It had traveled in two portmanteaus.

His had been a checkered career, but at last he had handed in his checks.

How did it happen that he masqueraded before Lawyer Loide as George Depew?

Because he was the right hand of the somewhat illiterate western farmer who bore that name, or as he would himself have described it, his head cook and bottle washer.

George Depew could write his name, and his caligraphic talents ended right there. So he took for assistant Josh Todd.

Josh saw to all the correspondence, opened the letters, read and answered them. His wife, Susan, was the house help.

Between them, they were paid well, and could have put away for the rainy day. But providence was a thing unknown to Josh.

He put nothing away, except an excessive quantity of old Rye. On Saturday nights he went into Oakville, and in the saloon there sat at the table presided over by Mr. Jack Hamblin.

Jack Hamblin was generally the richer by Josh's visits.

Frequent handling of the cards had made him expert in the dealing thereof. He usually dealt.

So Josh—as he figuratively put it—had not a feather to fly with. And he did not like it.

There was farmer George Depew—provident man—putting by a little each year. Not much, but sufficient for his wife and daughter, Tessie, if he should suddenly be beckoned into the next world.

Then one day there came a letter from a London lawyer named Loide, to George Depew.

As usual Josh opened it. He cursed the luck of Depew freely, and then paused—paused to wonder whether he could not make that luck his own.

Susan had been with the Depews when they paid a visit to England many years before. So Josh took counsel with the wife of his bosom, and learned all there was to know about George.

It was a certain thing that on the other side of that wide water—which the rapidity of our ocean grayhounds has made us come to think so narrow—not a living soul could remember George Depew.

That determined Josh. And when he had determined he always went on.

His scheme was simplicity itself. But for lawyer Loide's fears he probably would not have succeeded so well.

Josh told the real George Depew that he had had a little money left him in Europe, and that his attendance the other side was necessary.

Good-hearted, honest old George congratulated him, and willingly acceded to the request for a month's holiday.

He went into New York, bought two portmanteaus, had the initials "G. D." painted on them, and to them transferred the contents of the bags with which he had left the farm.

A certificate of his employer's birth, a bundle of letters directed to him, two cables to the lawyer, a passage on the next outgoing steamer, and he had all the voyage to think of what he could do next.

A shrewd, keen man, he at once saw through the cheating of lawyer Loide—and handled that limb of the law accordingly.

Fear of detection blinded the lawyer; he failed to make the usual precautionary inquiries. Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

Susan saw her husband off from New York, and she never saw him again.

She had a cable from him saying which boat he was returning by, and that he had sent a letter to her to be called for at the New York post-office.

She went to New York on the day the home coming steamer was to arrive, and called for the letter sent by the preceding mail. It read:

Josh.

Susan did not comply with the request contained in the postscript. She had read it when she left the post-office, and thrust it into her pocket as she hurried to the pier.

There, the shock of the discovery that her husband was dead, and the double shock of relief and joy to find that the dead man was not her husband, upset her so, that she lost consciousness, and for a time the subsequent proceedings interested her no more.

She came to herself on deck with the letter still in her pocket.

If she stayed in New York there was going to be trouble. She saw that plainly. She must go home and wait for another cable from Josh.

So she went home. And the letter was still in her pocket.

CHAPTER XI

If he wanted to eat, he must earn his food by his labor. It was felt that it was best for Danvers—and best for the friends he had been living on so long.

The friends felt that strongly.

The exile jumped at the idea. He had long wanted to see America.

One of his friends had done business with Depew over certain consignments, and to Depew he wrote a letter introducing Danvers, and asking him to do what he could for the bearer.

Others of his friends purchased for him clothing and outfit generally, and saw him off—with their pockets lighter perhaps, but a strong feeling of relief.

Depew welcomed Danvers heartily.

Strangers were rarely seen in Oakville. Come from the mother country, he was doubly welcome.

Danvers felt that he had dropped on both feet.

Straightway, too, he fell in love with the farmer's daughter, and it must be admitted that his city ways found favor in the eyes of Tessie.

The farmer promised to find him work, and meanwhile put him into the position the supposed to be holiday making Josh had filled.

This was a thing which disturbed Susan.

Days went by and she was still without news from her husband, and here was a stranger—she knew now that he came over in the boat she had been on—filling the post her husband had so long occupied.

She feared, too, lest any of Josh's petty delinquencies should come to light. She knew that his books must bristle with evidence of them.

So things went on for two or three weeks, Susan working herself up to such a state of excitement that at times the blood rushed so to her head that her eyes were blinded to the work she was engaged in.

The acuteness of her agony nearly drove her mad; it arose from the silence which was imposed on her; she dared not make any inquiries.

And then one day she received such a shock that she became mad in real earnest. For she felt convinced that her husband had been murdered, and that Danvers was his murderer.

Did she not at that very moment hold in her hands unquestionable proof of his guilt?

She was standing at the wash-tub when she discovered it. It had been through her hands once before at the weekly wash.

It was simply a flannel undervest, given out with the rest of his washing by George Danvers.

But it bore her private mark, which she had with her own fingers put on to the vest of her missing husband weeks before. It had belonged to and been worn by Josh Todd!

There was no real mystery about it, and if she had opened her mouth the matter would have been made plain to Susan. But her lips were sealed to silence.

She remained with the firm conviction that her husband was dead, and that his murderer was sleeping beneath the same roof as herself.

She became filled with a fiendish desire for revenge. It was impossible for her to give any information which would convince the police and bring about the murderer's punishment, but she was none the less convinced herself.

She could not insure his sitting in the electrocution chair, but that was no reason why he should go unpunished.

But one desire filled her—she hankered for vengeance.

She sought for means of compassing it. She never closed her eyes at night for thinking about it—thinking how to get level with Danvers.

She wanted a life for a life.

The solution of the mystery? Simple enough. Gerald Danvers' things had been got together by his friends. He had only handled them in packing his portmanteau—a portmanteau which bore his initials.

When in the stoke hole on that day of the child's rescue, he had asked one of the sailors to get his portmanteau and handed the keys from his wet trousers. The man had singled out in the hold a portmanteau bearing the initials "G. D." and the key fitting it—it was the ordinary key, one of which will fit hundreds of the cheaper kind of lock—he had taken out an undervest and shirt.

That they were not an accurate fit in no way disturbed Danvers; he had not bought them himself, and he imagined that his friends had jumped at his size.

As a matter of fact, the sailor had opened one of Josh Todd's portmanteaus, which, of course, bore the initials "G. D."

It was all capable of simple explanation, but Susan Todd was not in need of simple explanation. She had a large sized thirst for revenge on just then—a thirst she determined should be quenched.

The woman was mad—absolutely mad; filled with all the cunning which madness proverbially entails.

Mere death would not satisfy her. She must make this murderer suffer. That was why she worried.

She had opportunities for killing him fifty times in a day, for she was strong, and bony, and powerful; and an axe or a chopper would have bought about all she wanted.

But the act itself would give her no pleasure. Her mind was full of the leading up to it.

She wanted the man who had killed her husband to die a slow death by torture, and she was puzzled how to devise this.

She anticipated a pleasure from watching him counting the moments to his death. Three parts of the pleasure of life lies in its anticipation.

Then there came to her an idea. There must surely have been a strain of the old Indian blood in her, for it savored so of those times when the brave was honored who invented the most devilish kind of torture.

The material for her scheme was close at hand, not a mile from the farmhouse—an old, disused water mill.

Disused for want of motor power.

It stood on the banks of what had been a swift, flowing river, but diversion of its course nearer its rise had turned the river into a little stream which could be crossed in almost all parts without water coming over shoe tops. Only in wet weather was it ever deep enough to rise to one's knees.

When it rained above, and the waters gathered, it would come down in a little rush.

Shortly prior to its final abandonment, a new wheel had been put to the mill. That accounted for the wheel being its soundest part—all else was ruin.

It had been disconnected, and the machinery of the mill removed years ago; but still the big paddle wheel rested on its axle, and every time it rained sufficiently to swell the stream above and make the water flow stronger, so assuredly, the wheel would revolve—revolve till the strong flow ceased, and the water trickled again as it was wont to do in dry weather.

How the scheme came into Susan Todd's head it is impossible to say, but it came—came to stop.

She would lure her husband's murderer to the old mill. She had no fear of an inability to do that. There she would overpower him by a blow from behind, which would stun him.

His unconscious form she would drag outside the little window, and tie it with a clothes-line to one of the blades or paddles of the wheel.

The accomplishment of the task the muscles of her brawny arms told her would be simple, and she gloated over the enjoyment she would experience in coming to the mill as often as possible to talk to the gagged and bound man.

She would discuss the weather for his benefit, and let him know whether the glass was high or low—whether rain might be expected.

And then, when the rain came, assuredly she must be there, even if it came in the dead of the night.

She must be there to watch the agony on the upturned face of a starving, thirsty man, an agony bred of a knowledge of what would happen when the water was strong enough to turn the mill wheel.

She wanted to see the mill wheel start; she had watched it before and knew how it acted, and she knew it would act just the same with its human burden.

The water moved it just a little at first, then further, then further, and all the while the bound wretch would be going slowly but surely to that pool of water through which the lower paddles of the wheel always passed.

Half drowned in that, he would be dragged up into air again for the same ghastly performance to commence again.

Oh! it would be beautiful—she hugged herself in the joy of the anticipation.

And when the wheel had ceased whirling, and the waters had gone down, what easier than to cut the bonds, and let the body drop into the pool beneath, buried from human sight forever!

What easier!

CHAPTER XII

"Gerald Danvers has been here nearly a month. He's in love with you—that's plain to be seen. There's no blame to himself for that. You are a very pretty girl."

"Dad!"

"That's so. That don't matter much; and if you are only flirting that wouldn't matter much, either. But the point is—are you? Do you feel that you love him, Tessie?"

She was playing with the seal at the end of his watch-chain, and her eyes were cast down as she answered:

"He's the nicest man round these parts, dad."

"To look at, Tessie—yes. I admit that. He's got the city polish on him. It's a question if that's good though. The bit of veneer on an article of furniture doesn't make the wood beneath any better quality."

"No, but the farm hands, dad! And then at Oakville who is there to talk to?"

"Maybe not polished people, Tessie."

"No, dad, and that's it. Don't think I'm blaming you, dear old daddie, but you see the years you sent me away to boarding-school made a change in me. The girls—I met people of a different class. One must talk, you know, dad, and there isn't a soul for miles round that has an idea beyond the crops."

"I see—I see."

"Don't think I'm finding fault, daddie—not for a moment. I am as happy as possible at the dear old farm. I was born here, and I should like to die here. But one likes to exchange ideas, dad. You might, for instance, circle ten miles round the farm and you would not meet one soul who could tell you what poetry meant."

"And this man, Danvers, he talks well?"

"He is a gentleman, dad."

"Without a dollar to call his own."

"Dad! is he any the less a gentleman for that?"

"The world thinks so, Tessie."

"Let it, dad, I don't; and I know you don't. A man's a man for all that."

"But a poor man, Tessie—in a double sense. I am really sorry to hear you say this."

"What have I said, dad?"

"Nothing, girlie, nothing. But I can read you. You like Danvers?"

She was playing with the charm on the chain again as she answered:

"I don't dislike him, dad."

The old man sighed.

"I have heard you yourself say, dad, that you liked him."

"Ah! but there's a difference in my and your liking. When a woman begins by liking a man, she generally ends up by loving him."

No answer.

"Danvers was sent out to me, Tessie, with a letter of introduction. You read it. By the next mail another letter came. I opened it myself, as I have done all letters since Josh went away. It was from the writer of the letter of introduction."

"Another, dad?"

"No. He repeated that he would be glad if I would do all I could for Danvers, but, above all, I was to make him work, and work hard. That his life up, he had never done a stroke of work, that he had always lived on his friends, that his friends had provided him with an outfit and paid his passage money, and hoped that in a new country, where he had not a single friend, he would be forced to work—work for his living."

"Poor fellow!"

"Tessie!"

"Well, dad, isn't he a poor fellow? Fancy, thousands of miles from a friend, and, as you say, without a dollar of his own. Am I wrong, dad, to sympathize with, and say of him 'poor fellow'?"

The old man stifled a groan.

He was acting badly. He felt that. He was trying to paint this man in repulsive colors, and was but exciting a tender feeling! He was putting his foot into it deeper every step he took.

It is curious how persistently parents force their children into the marriages they are so anxious not to bring about.

Bespatter her lover to a girl, and straightway the girl loves him the more. Call him everything black you can lay your tongue to, and the girl will be framing pretty speeches for future use—to make up to him for it.

"Tessie, think, my girl, you are happy now because you have everything you can reasonably want. Just picture to yourself what your life would be married to a centless man."

"But, dad, why should you think he will always be poor?"

"All his life, Tessie, he has been living on other people."

"But he may reform, dad. You said he was doing the work better than Josh had done it."

"New brooms sweep clean."

"And in a new country, dad, perhaps he has turned over a new leaf."

"Supposing he has, Tessie, what is his future? If he left here, he might get a job as a store clerk; what can he expect to be better? A store clerk with perhaps a dozen dollars a week."

"You are hard on him, dad."

"Come, Tessie, have I been? But for the fact that Josh is away on a holiday, what could I have done with him? There is not an ounce of farm work in him. They send such men out from the mother country—God knows what for—when we want only muscle, strength, and grit."

"He has been useful, dad."

"Useful! And when Josh comes back, what then? I have told him it is only a temporary job, and perhaps that is the reason."

"For what, dad?"

"His making love to you."

"Dad!"

"Oh, I know the world, Tessie, better than you do. He thinks you are a pretty girl, and that if he can make you love him, he is in for a soft thing."

"Oh, dad, you are unjust."

"I would to God he had never come here."

"Dad!"

"It is true. Marry? Of course you'll marry. It's a woman's mission in life. I can't say I have seen the man yet that I think worthy of you, but that is neither here nor there. But I did think you would fall into the hands of a man who had a bit of land of his own to walk on, and a roof of his own to cover him——"

"You are bitter, dad."

"I feel so, girlie. You are so bound up heart and soul in my heart and soul that what affects you affects me. I want to see you happy."

"I know that, dad."

"Tell me, he has not spoken to you of love yet?"

"Not—with his lips, dad—yet."

Then the old man groaned aloud. He knew it was hopeless to talk.

He prayed for the return of Josh that he might have a reasonable excuse for packing off Danvers.

And Josh—all that was left of him—after the inquest had been buried in the city cemetery.

CHAPTER XIII

"You are laughing now," he said.

"You said once you liked to hear me laugh."

"Oh, I mean you are laughing at me. Don't feel sufficient interest in me, I suppose? Please don't say it; I will take it you mean that."

"I think you are very horrid this afternoon."

"I feel so. My feelings are oozing up to the surface, I suppose. And I meant to——"

"To what?"

"Oh, it—it does not matter."

"You talk in—well, I can't understand you."

"Like a man awakening from a sleep. Wits have been wool gathering. I have been dreaming. Accept my apologies, Miss Depew."

"Miss Depew! How dreadfully formal you have grown."

"Blizzard came along, and froze me all up."

"Poor fellow!"

"I am glad you have some sort of feeling for me—if it is only pity."

"Oh, I always sympathize with—with people who are all frozen up."

"I suppose it is no use asking you for a plain answer to a plain question?"

"Why not?"

"Well—you are a woman."

"Is that a compliment for my sex, or is it marked 'personal'?"

"Tessie——"

"That's better; you are thawing."

"Tessie!"

"You have called me twice, and I am listening all the time."

"I don't know how to say what I want to say."

"How curious! You are usually so—well, never at a loss for words."

"You chill me."

"Poor fellow! Going into the Arctic regions again?"

"I am going away from the farm—to the Arctic regions, or to the devil, I don't much care where."

She started when he said he was going away, and caught her underlip between her teeth, and held it there.

It prevented its trembling. Presently she said:

"I thought you were going to stay—quite a while."

"So did I."

"Why are you going, then?"

"Driven away."

"Really."

She was herself again by now. A conscious smile played round her lips as she inquired:

"Who's the driver?"

"Tessie Depew."

It did not surprise her a bit; she had guessed what was coming. But she simply said again:

"Really!"

And he found it most aggravating. She had said "really" in that surprised tone so often that he began to hate the word.

He swished the heads of the tall grass with the stick he was carrying—the beheading operation was a relief to his feelings.

She watched him from beneath her long lashes, and there was a curve round her lips all the time—she couldn't help a smile.

"I thought at one time, Tessie——"

"Yes?"

"Thought you—well, I was a fool for thinking so, wasn't I?"

"Really can't tell what you did think," she answered demurely. "I am sure I should be a conspicuous failure as a thought reader."

"Last night I went to bed the happiest man in America."

"So?"

"Yes. I am a poor devil of a wandering sort of sheep, and a woman's kind words have come on my ears so seldom——"

"Yes."

"That they influence me when they come."

"Women," she spoke with assumed carelessness, "have been kind to you, then?"

"You were kind to me last night, Tessie."

"Really! What did I say?"

"Not so much what you said, but the way you said it. Tessie, don't drive me mad. You know—you do—now, don't you—that I love you?"

Of course she knew it, but she was not going to admit it. She looked quite surprised, as if such an idea had never occurred to her.

She was a true woman—an actress to the tips of her fingers, when the subject of the play was love. He went on:

"I led an idle sort of life, Tessie, in the old country, and I came out here to turn over a new leaf. I have turned it over, and fastened down the old one.

"I am not worth a red cent—whatever that is—now, but I have faith in myself, and I believe that presently, if hard work and persistence raise a man on the ladder, I'll be able to climb up. I never expected for a moment that you would climb with me; I would not be such a selfish brute as to ask you to. But there was something I had intended to ask you—only—only——"

"What was it?"

"Your kindness made me think of it. I told you that I went to bed last night the happiest man in all America. But I didn't tell you I slept.

"I did not. I lay thinking—thinking all the time of you. I thought I would begin that climb with such a heart, with such an eagerness, with such a will, because I would have you for an incentive."

"Well?"

"I thought that last night, because you behaved to me like a—like an angel. And I determined to ask you to-day to—to—that's why I came out to the sheds to meet you."

"What were you—what were you going to ask me?"

"To wait for me, Tessie. To wait a year or two till I was up the tree a bit with a nest I could invite you to share with me. I love you, Tessie, love you with all my heart and soul.

"I suppose I ought to have told you all this differently; then you would have liked me all the better for it. But I am not experienced in love affairs, Tessie. You are the first woman I have ever really loved—the first I have ever told so."

She did not, somehow, seem dissatisfied with his manner of telling it, and the concluding sentence was as wise a one as he could have framed.

They were walking very slowly now, and if the girl did not say much, she thought the more. Nice, pleasant, happy thoughts, and they made her sweet to the man who had inspired them.

"The plain question I wanted a plain answer to, Tessie, was: Was I a fool last night? Was I ass enough to misunderstand you? Did my vanity make me think you cared for me? Tessie, Tessie, do you love me?"