I had feared worse.
Nor could I help seeing that, for all his studied self-command, the pale-faced secretary shared in my satisfaction.
What was less of a relief to me was the fact, soon communicated, that Mr. Gryce and his subordinates had left the premises immediately upon the delivery of the verdict.
Mr. Gryce was not the man to forsake an affair like this while anything of importance connected with it remained unexplained.
Could it be he meditated any decisive action?
Somewhat alarmed, I was about to hurry from the house for the purpose of learning what his intentions were, when a sudden movement in the front lower window of the house on the opposite side of the way arrested my attention, and, looking closer, I detected the face of Mr. Fobbs peering out from behind the curtain.
The sight assured me I was not wrong in my estimate of Mr. Gryce; and, struck with pity for the desolate girl left to meet the exigencies of a fate to which this watch upon her movements was but the evident precursor, I stepped back and sent her a note, in which, as Mr. Veeley’s representative, I proffered my services in case of any sudden emergency, saying I was always to be found in my rooms between the hours of six and eight.
This done, I proceeded to the house in Thirty-seventh Street where I had left Miss Mary Leavenworth the day before.
Ushered into the long and narrow drawing-room which of late years has been so fashionable in our uptown houses, I found myself almost immediately in the presence of Miss Leavenworth.
“Oh,” she cried, with an eloquent gesture of welcome, “I had begun to think I was forsaken!” and advancing impulsively, she held out her hand.
“What is the news from home?” “A verdict of murder, Miss Leavenworth.”
Her eyes did not lose their question.
“Perpetrated by party or parties unknown.”
A look of relief broke softly across her features.
“And they are all gone?” she exclaimed.
“I found no one in the house who did not belong there.”
“Oh! then we can breathe easily again.”
I glanced hastily up and down the room.
“There is no one here,” said she.
And still I hesitated. At length, in an awkward way enough, I turned towards her and said:
“I do not wish either to offend or alarm you, but I must say that I consider it your duty to return to your own home to-night.”
“Why?” she stammered. “Is there any particular reason for my doing so?
Have you not perceived the impossibility of my remaining in the same house with Eleanore?”
“Miss Leavenworth, I cannot recognize any so-called impossibility of this nature.
Eleanore is your cousin; has been brought up to regard you as a sister; it is not worthy of you to desert her at the time of her necessity.
You will see this as I do, if you will allow yourself a moment’s dispassionate thought.”
“Dispassionate thought is hardly possible under the circumstances,” she returned, with a smile of bitter irony.
But before I could reply to this, she softened, and asked if I was very anxious to have her return; and when I replied,
“More than I can say,” she trembled and looked for a moment as if she were half inclined to yield; but suddenly broke into tears, crying it was impossible, and that I was cruel to ask it.
I drew back, baffled and sore.
“Pardon me,” said I, “I have indeed transgressed the bounds allotted to me.
I will not do so again; you have doubtless many friends; let some of them advise you.”
She turned upon me all fire.
“The friends you speak of are flatterers.
You alone have the courage to command me to do what is right.”
“Excuse me, I do not command; I only entreat.”
She made no reply, but began pacing the room, her eyes fixed, her hands working convulsively.
“You little know what you ask,” said she. “I feel as though the very atmosphere of that house would destroy me; but—why cannot Eleanore come here?” she impulsively inquired. “I know Mrs. Gilbert will be quite willing, and I could keep my room, and we need not meet.”
“You forget that there is another call at home, besides the one I have already mentioned.
To-morrow afternoon your uncle is to be buried.”
“O yes; poor, poor uncle!”
“You are the head of the household,” I now ventured, “and the proper one to attend to the final offices towards one who has done so much for you.”
There was something strange in the look which she gave me.
“It is true,” she assented. Then, with a grand turn of her body, and a quick air of determination: “I am desirous of being worthy of your good opinion.
I will go back to my cousin, Mr. Raymond.”
I felt my spirits rise a little; I took her by the hand.
“May that cousin have no need of the comfort which I am now sure you will be ready to give her.”
Her hand dropped from mine.
“I mean to do my duty,” was her cold response.
As I descended the stoop, I met a certain thin and fashionably dressed young man, who gave me a very sharp look as he passed.