บทที่ บทที่ 20 · TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!

. TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN! TRUEMAN!

“Often do the spirits

Of great events stride on before the events,

And in to-day already walks to-morrow.”

Coleridge.

Instantly a great dread seized me. What revelations might not this

man be going to make! But I subdued the feeling; and, greeting

him with what cordiality I could, settled myself to listen to his

explanations.

But Trueman Harwell had no explanations to give, or so it seemed;

on the contrary, he had come to apologize for the very violent

words he had used the evening before; words which, whatever their

effect upon me, he now felt bound to declare had been used without

sufficient basis in fact to make their utterance of the least

importance.

“But you must have thought you had grounds for so tremendous an

accusation, or your act was that of a madman.”

His brow wrinkled heavily, and his eyes assumed a very gloomy

expression. “It does not follow,” he returned. “Under the pressure

of surprise, I have known men utter convictions no better founded

than mine without running the risk of being called mad.”

“Surprise? Mr. Clavering’s face or form must, then, have been

known to you. The mere fact of seeing a strange gentleman in the

hall would have been insufficient to cause you astonishment, Mr.

Harwell.”

He uneasily fingered the back of the chair before which he stood,

but made no reply.

“Sit down,” I again urged, this time with a touch of command in my

voice. “This is a serious matter, and I intend to deal with it as

it deserves. You once said that if you knew anything which might

serve to exonerate Eleanore Leavenworth from the suspicion under

which she stands, you would be ready to impart it.”

“Pardon me. I said that if I had ever known anything calculated to

release her from her unhappy position, I would have spoken,” he

coldly corrected.

“Do not quibble. You know, and I know, that you are keeping

something back; and I ask you, in her behalf, and in the cause of

justice, to tell me what it is.”

“You are mistaken,” was his dogged reply. “I have reasons, perhaps,

for certain conclusions I may have drawn; but my conscience will

not allow me in cold blood to give utterance to suspicions which

may not only damage the reputation of an honest man, but place

me in the unpleasant position of an accuser without substantial

foundation for my accusations.”

“You occupy that position already,” I retorted, with equal

coldness. “Nothing can make me forget that in my presence you have

denounced Henry Clavering as the murderer of Mr. Leavenworth. You

had better explain yourself, Mr. Harwell.”

He gave me a short look, but moved around and took the chair. “You

have me at a disadvantage,” he said, in a lighter tone. “If you

choose to profit by your position, and press me to disclose the

little I know, I can only regret the necessity under which I lie,

and speak.”

“Then you are deterred by conscientious scruples alone?”

“Yes, and by the meagreness of the facts at my command.”

“I will judge of the facts when I have heard them.”

He raised his eyes to mine, and I was astonished to observe a

strange eagerness in their depths; evidently his convictions were

stronger than his scruples. “Mr. Raymond,” he began, “you are a

lawyer, and undoubtedly a practical man; but you may know what it

is to scent danger before you see it, to feel influences working

in the air over and about you, and yet be in ignorance of what it

is that affects you so powerfully, till chance reveals that an

enemy has been at your side, or a friend passed your window, or the

shadow of death crossed your book as you read, or mingled with your

breath as you slept?”

I shook my head, fascinated by the intensity of his gaze into some

sort of response.

“Then you cannot understand me, or what I have suffered these last

three weeks.” And he drew back with an icy reserve that seemed to

promise but little to my now thoroughly awakened curiosity.

“I beg your pardon,” I hastened to say; “but the fact of my

never having experienced such sensations does not hinder me from

comprehending the emotions of others more affected by spiritual

influences than myself.”

He drew himself slowly forward. “Then you will not ridicule me if I

say that upon the eve of Mr. Leavenworth’s murder I experienced in

a dream all that afterwards occurred; saw him murdered, saw”--and

he clasped his hands before him, in an attitude inexpressibly

convincing, while his voice sank to a horrified whisper, “saw the

face of his murderer!”

I started, looked at him in amazement, a thrill as at a ghostly

presence running through me.

“And was that----” I began.

“My reason for denouncing the man I beheld before me in the hall of

Miss Leavenworth’s house last night? It was.” And, taking out his

handkerchief, he wiped his forehead, on which the perspiration was

standing in large drops.

“You would then intimate that the face you saw in your dream and

the face you saw in the hall last night were the same?”

He gravely nodded his head.

I drew my chair nearer to his. “Tell me your dream,” said I.

“It was the night before Mr. Leavenworth’s murder. I had gone to

bed feeling especially contented with myself and the world at

large; for, though my life is anything but a happy one,” and he

heaved a short sigh, “some pleasant words had been said to me

that day, and I was revelling in the happiness they conferred,

when suddenly a chill struck my heart, and the darkness which a

moment before had appeared to me as the abode of peace thrilled to

the sound of a supernatural cry, and I heard my name, ‘Trueman,

Trueman, Trueman,’ repeated three times in a voice I did not

recognize, and starting from my pillow beheld at my bedside a

woman. Her face was strange to me,” he solemnly proceeded, “but I

can give you each and every detail of it, as, bending above me, she

stared into my eyes with a growing terror that seemed to implore

help, though her lips were quiet, and only the memory of that cry

echoed in my ears.”

“Describe the face,” I interposed.

“It was a round, fair, lady’s face. Very lovely in contour, but

devoid of coloring; not beautiful, but winning from its childlike

look of trust. The hair, banded upon the low, broad forehead,

was brown; the eyes, which were very far apart, gray; the mouth,

which was its most charming feature, delicate of make and very

expressive. There was a dimple in the chin, but none in the cheeks.

It was a face to be remembered.”

“Go on,” said I.

“Meeting the gaze of those imploring eyes, I started up. Instantly

the face and all vanished, and I became conscious, as we sometimes

do in dreams, of a certain movement in the hall below, and the

next instant the gliding figure of a man of imposing size entered

the library. I remember experiencing a certain thrill at this,

half terror, half curiosity, though I seemed to know, as if by

intuition, what he was going to do. Strange to say, I now seemed to

change my personality, and to be no longer a third party watching

these proceedings, but Mr. Leavenworth himself, sitting at his

library table and feeling his doom crawling upon him without

capacity for speech or power of movement to avert it. Though my

back was towards the man, I could feel his stealthy form traverse

the passage, enter the room beyond, pass to that stand where the

pistol was, try the drawer, find it locked, turn the key, procure

the pistol, weigh it in an accustomed hand, and advance again. I

could feel each footstep he took as though his feet were in truth

upon my heart, and I remember staring at the table before me as if

I expected every moment to see it run with my own blood. I can see

now how the letters I had been writing danced upon the paper before

me, appearing to my eyes to take the phantom shapes of persons and

things long ago forgotten; crowding my last moments with regrets

and dead shames, wild longings, and unspeakable agonies, through

all of which that face, the face of my former dream, mingled, pale,

sweet, and searching, while closer and closer behind me crept that

noiseless foot till I could feel the glaring of the assassin’s

eyes across the narrow threshold separating me from death and hear

the click of his teeth as he set his lips for the final act. Ah!”

and the secretary’s livid face showed the touch of awful horror,

“what words can describe such an experience as that? In one moment,

all the agonies of hell in the heart and brain, the next a blank

through which I seemed to see afar, and as if suddenly removed from

all this, a crouching figure looking at its work with starting eyes

and pallid back-drawn lips; and seeing, recognize no face that I

had ever known, but one so handsome, so remarkable, so unique in

its formation and character, that it would be as easy for me to

mistake the countenance of my father as the look and figure of the

man revealed to me in my dream.”

“And this face?” said I, in a voice I failed to recognize as my own.

“Was that of him whom we saw leave Mary Leavenworth’s presence last

night and go down the hall to the front door.”