Bab Bab 13 · THE PROBLEM

. THE PROBLEM

“But who would force the soul, tilts with a straw

Against a champion cased in adamant.”

Wordsworth.

When we re-entered the parlor below, the first sight that met our

eyes was Mary, standing wrapped in her long cloak in the centre of

the room. She had arrived during our absence, and now awaited us

with lifted head and countenance fixed in its proudest expression.

Looking in her face, I realized what the embarrassment of this

meeting must be to these women, and would have retreated, but

something in the attitude of Mary Leavenworth seemed to forbid my

doing so. At the same time, determined that the opportunity should

not pass without some sort of reconcilement between them, I stepped

forward, and, bowing to Mary, said:

“Your cousin has just succeeded in convincing me of her entire

innocence, Miss Leavenworth. I am now ready to join Mr. Gryce,

heart and soul, in finding out the true culprit.”

“I should have thought one look into Eleanore Leavenworth’s face

would have been enough to satisfy you that she is incapable of

crime,” was her unexpected answer; and, lifting her head with a

proud gesture, Mary Leavenworth fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine.

I felt the blood flash to my brow, but before I could speak, her

voice rose again still more coldly than before.

“It is hard for a delicate girl, unused to aught but the most

flattering expressions of regard, to be obliged to assure the

world of her innocence in respect to the committal of a great

crime. Eleanore has my sympathy.” And sweeping her cloak from her

shoulders with a quick gesture, she turned her gaze for the first

time upon her cousin.

Instantly Eleanore advanced, as if to meet it; and I could not but

feel that, for some reason, this moment possessed an importance

for them which I was scarcely competent to measure. But if I found

myself unable to realize its significance, I at least responded to

its intensity. And indeed it was an occasion to remember. To behold

two such women, either of whom might be considered the model of her

time, face to face and drawn up in evident antagonism, was a sight

to move the dullest sensibilities. But there was something more in

this scene than that. It was the shock of all the most passionate

emotions of the human soul; the meeting of waters of whose depth

and force I could only guess by the effect. Eleanore was the first

to recover. Drawing back with the cold haughtiness which, alas, I

had almost forgotten in the display of later and softer emotions,

she exclaimed:

“There is something better than sympathy, and that is justice”; and

turned, as if to go. “I will confer with you in the reception room,

Mr. Raymond.”

But Mary, springing forward, caught her back with one powerful

hand. “No,” she cried, “you shall confer with _me_! I have

something to say to you, Eleanore Leavenworth.” And, taking her

stand in the centre of the room, she waited.

I glanced at Eleanore, saw this was no place for me, and hastily

withdrew. For ten long minutes I paced the floor of the reception

room, a prey to a thousand doubts and conjectures. What was the

secret of this home? What had given rise to the deadly mistrust

continually manifested between these cousins, fitted by nature

for the completest companionship and the most cordial friendship?

It was not a thing of to-day or yesterday. No sudden flame could

awake such concentrated heat of emotion as that of which I had just

been the unwilling witness. One must go farther back than this

murder to find the root of a mistrust so great that the struggle it

caused made itself felt even where I stood, though nothing but the

faintest murmur came to my ears through the closed doors.

Presently the drawing-room curtain was raised, and Mary’s voice was

heard in distinct articulation.

“The same roof can never shelter us both after this. To-morrow, you

or I find another home.” And, blushing and panting, she stepped

into the hall and advanced to where I stood. But at the first

sight of my face, a change came over her; all her pride seemed to

dissolve, and, flinging out her hands, as if to ward off scrutiny,

she fled from my side, and rushed weeping up-stairs.

I was yet laboring under the oppression caused by this painful

termination of the strange scene when the parlor curtain was again

lifted, and Eleanore entered the room where I was. Pale but calm,

showing no evidences of the struggle she had just been through,

unless by a little extra weariness about the eyes, she sat down

by my side, and, meeting my gaze with one unfathomable in its

courage, said after a pause: “Tell me where I stand; let me know

the worst at once; I fear that I have not indeed comprehended my

own position.”

Rejoiced to hear this acknowledgment from her lips, I hastened to

comply. I began by placing before her the whole case as it appeared

to an unprejudiced person; enlarged upon the causes of suspicion,

and pointed out in what regard some things looked dark against her,

which perhaps to her own mind were easily explainable and of small

account; tried to make her see the importance of her decision, and

finally wound up with an appeal. Would she not confide in me?

“But I thought you were satisfied?” she tremblingly remarked.

“And so I am; but I want the world to be so, too.”

“Ah; now you ask too much! The finger of suspicion never forgets

the way it has once pointed,” she sadly answered. “My name is

tainted forever.”

“And you will submit to this, when a word--”

“I am thinking that any word of mine now would make very little

difference,” she murmured.

I looked away, the vision of Mr. Fobbs, in hiding behind the

curtains of the opposite house, recurring painfully to my mind.

“If the affair looks as bad as you say it does,” she pursued,

“it is scarcely probable that Mr. Gryce will care much for any

interpretation of mine in regard to the matter.”

“Mr. Gryce would be glad to know where you procured that key, if

only to assist him in turning his inquiries in the right direction.”

She did not reply, and my spirits sank in renewed depression.

“It is worth your while to satisfy him,” I pursued; “and though it

may compromise some one you desire to shield----”

She rose impetuously. “I shall never divulge to any one how I came

in possession of that key.” And sitting again, she locked her hands

in fixed resolve before her.

I rose in my turn and paced the floor, the fang of an unreasoning

jealousy striking deep into my heart.

“Mr. Raymond, if the worst should come, and all who love me should

plead on bended knees for me to tell, I will never do it.”

“Then,” said I, determined not to disclose my secret thought,

but equally resolved to find out if possible her motive for this

silence, “you desire to defeat the cause of justice.”

She neither spoke nor moved.

“Miss Leavenworth,” I now said, “this determined shielding of

another at the expense of your own good name is no doubt generous

of you; but your friends and the lovers of truth and justice cannot

accept such a sacrifice.”

She started haughtily. “Sir!” she said.

“If you will not assist us,” I went on calmly, but determinedly,

“we must do without your aid. After the scene I have just witnessed

above; after the triumphant conviction which you have forced upon

me, not only of your innocence, but your horror of the crime and

its consequences, I should feel myself less than a man if I did not

sacrifice even your own good opinion, in urging your cause, and

clearing your character from this foul aspersion.”

Again that heavy silence.

“What do you propose to do?” she asked, at last.

Crossing the room, I stood before her. “I propose to relieve you

utterly and forever from suspicion, by finding out and revealing to

the world the true culprit.”

I expected to see her recoil, so positive had I become by this time

as to who that culprit was. But instead of that, she merely folded

her hands still more tightly and exclaimed:

“I doubt if you will be able to do that, Mr. Raymond.”

“Doubt if I will be able to put my finger upon the guilty man, or

doubt if I will be able to bring him to justice?”

“I doubt,” she said with strong effort, “if any one ever knows who

is the guilty person in this case.”

“There is one who knows,” I said with a desire to test her.

“One?”

“The girl Hannah is acquainted with the mystery of that night’s

evil doings, Miss Leavenworth. Find Hannah, and we find one who can

point out to us the assassin of your uncle.”

“That is mere supposition,” she said; but I saw the blow had told.

“Your cousin has offered a large reward for the girl, and the whole

country is on the lookout. Within a week we shall see her in our

midst.”

A change took place in her expression and bearing.

“The girl cannot help me,” she said.

Baffled by her manner, I drew back. “Is there anything or anybody

that can?”

She slowly looked away.

“Miss Leavenworth,” I continued with renewed earnestness, “you have

no brother to plead with you, you have no mother to guide you; let

me then entreat, in default of nearer and dearer friends, that you

will rely sufficiently upon me to tell me one thing.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Whether you took the paper imputed to you from the library table?”

She did not instantly respond, but sat looking earnestly before her

with an intentness which seemed to argue that she was weighing the

question as well as her reply. Finally, turning toward me, she said:

“In answering you, I speak in confidence. Mr. Raymond, I did.”

Crushing back the sigh of despair that arose to my lips, I went on.

“I will not inquire what the paper was,”--she waved her hand

deprecatingly,--“but this much more you will tell me. Is that paper

still in existence?”

She looked me steadily in the face.

“It is not.”

I could with difficulty forbear showing my disappointment. “Miss

Leavenworth,” I now said, “it may seem cruel for me to press you at

this time; nothing less than my strong realization of the peril in

which you stand would induce me to run the risk of incurring your

displeasure by asking what under other circumstances would seem

puerile and insulting questions. You have told me one thing which I

strongly desired to know; will you also inform me what it was you

heard that night while sitting in your room, between the time of

Mr. Harwell’s going up-stairs and the closing of the library door,

of which you made mention at the inquest?”

I had pushed my inquiries too far, and I saw it immediately.

“Mr. Raymond,” she returned, “influenced by my desire not to appear

utterly ungrateful to you, I have been led to reply in confidence

to one of your urgent appeals; but I can go no further. Do not ask

me to.”

Stricken to the heart by her look of reproach, I answered with some

sadness that her wishes should be respected. “Not but what I intend

to make every effort in my power to discover the true author of

this crime. That is a sacred duty which I feel myself called upon

to perform; but I will ask you no more questions, nor distress

you with further appeals. What is done shall be done without your

assistance, and with no other hope than that in the event of my

success you will acknowledge my motives to have been pure and my

action disinterested.”

“I am ready to acknowledge that now,” she began, but paused and

looked with almost agonized entreaty in my face. “Mr. Raymond,

cannot you leave things as they are? Won’t you? I don’t ask for

assistance, nor do I want it; I would rather----”

But I would not listen. “Guilt has no right to profit by the

generosity of the guiltless. The hand that struck this blow shall

not be accountable for the loss of a noble woman’s honor and

happiness as well.

“I shall do what I can, Miss Leavenworth.”

As I walked down the avenue that night, feeling like an adventurous

traveller that in a moment of desperation has set his foot upon a

plank stretching in narrow perspective over a chasm of immeasurable

depth, this problem evolved itself from the shadows before me: How,

with no other clue than the persuasion that Eleanore Leavenworth

was engaged in shielding another at the expense of her own good

name, I was to combat the prejudices of Mr. Gryce, find out the

real assassin of Mr. Leavenworth, and free an innocent woman from

the suspicion that had, not without some show of reason, fallen

upon her?

BOOK II. HENRY CLAVERING