And somehow I feel a little foolish about it to-night.’
And to think that it was this trip that was in her mind.
I suppose she had a premonition that all would not work out as she had planned.
And to think he struck my little girl, she who never could harm anything, not even a fly.”
And here, in spite of herself, and with the saddened Titus in the background, she began to cry silently.
But from the Griffiths and other members of this local social world, complete and almost unbreakable silence.
For in so far as Samuel Griffiths was concerned, it was impossible for him at first either to grasp or believe that Clyde could be capable of such a deed.
What!
That bland and rather timid and decidedly gentlemanly youth, as he saw him, charged with murder?
Being rather far from Lycurgus at the time — Upper Saranac — where he was reached with difficulty by Gilbert — he was almost unprepared to think, let alone act.
Why, how impossible!
There must be some mistake here.
They must have confused Clyde with some one else.
Nevertheless, Gilbert proceeding to explain that it was unquestionably true, since the girl had worked in the factory under Clyde, and the district attorney at Bridgeburg with whom he had already been in communication had assured him that he was in possession of letters which the dead girl had written to Clyde and that Clyde did not attempt to deny them.
“Very well, then,” countered Samuel.
“Don’t act hastily, and above all, don’t talk to anyone outside of Smillie or Gotboy until I see you.
Where’s Brookhart?”— referring to Darrah Brookhart, of counsel for Griffiths & Company.
“He’s in Boston to-day,” returned his son.
“I think he told me last Friday that he wouldn’t be back here until Monday or Tuesday.”
“Well, wire him that I want him to return at once.
Incidentally, have Smillie see if he can arrange with the editors of The Star and Beacon down there to suspend any comment until I get back.
I’ll be down in the morning.
Also tell him to get in the car and run up there” (Bridgeburg) “to-day if he can.
I must know from first hand all there is to know.
Have him see Clyde if he can, also this district attorney, and bring down any news that he can get.
And all the newspapers.
I want to see for myself what has been published.”
And at approximately the same time, in the home of the Finchleys on Fourth Lake, Sondra herself, after forty-eight hours of most macerating thoughts spent brooding on the astounding climax which had put a period to all her girlish fancies in regard to Clyde, deciding at last to confess all to her father, to whom she was more drawn than to her mother.
And accordingly approaching him in the library, where usually he sat after dinner, reading or considering his various affairs.
But having come within earshot of him, beginning to sob, for truly she was stricken in the matter of her love for Clyde, as well as her various vanities and illusions in regard to her own high position, the scandal that was about to fall on her and her family.
Oh, what would her mother say now, after all her warnings?
And her father?
And Gilbert Griffiths and his affianced bride?
And the Cranstons, who except for her influence over Bertine, would never have been drawn into this intimacy with Clyde?
Her sobs arresting her father’s attention, he at once paused to look up, the meaning of this quite beyond him.
Yet instantly sensing something very dreadful, gathering her up in his arms, and consolingly murmuring:
“There, there!
For heaven’s sake, what’s happened to my little girl now?
Who’s done what and why?”
And then, with a decidedly amazed and shaken expression, listening to a complete confession of all that had occurred thus far — the first meeting with Clyde, her interest in him, the attitude of the Griffiths, her letters, her love, and then this — this awful accusation and arrest.
And if it were true!
And her name were used, and her daddy’s!
And once more she fell to weeping as though her heart would break, yet knowing full well that in the end she would have her father’s sympathy and forgiveness, whatever his subsequent suffering and mood.
And at once Finchley, accustomed to peace and order and tact and sense in his own home, looking at his daughter in an astounded and critical and yet not uncharitable way, and exclaiming:
“Well, well, of all things!
Well, I’ll be damned!
I am amazed, my dear!
I am astounded!
This is a little too much, I must say.
Accused of murder!