The Greatest Works of Anna Katharine Green. Анна Грин

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СКАЧАТЬ 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. As he wore his clothes a little too conspicuously for the perfect gentleman, and as I had some remembrance of having seen him at the inquest, I set him down for a man in Mr. Gryce’s employ, and hasted on towards the avenue; when what was my surprise to find on the corner another person, who, while pretending to be on the look out for a car, cast upon me, as I approached, a furtive glance of intense inquiry. As this latter was, without question, a gentleman, I felt some annoyance, and, walking quietly up to him, asked if he found my countenance familiar, that he scrutinized it so closely.

      “I find it a very agreeable one,” was his unexpected reply, as he turned from me and walked down the avenue.

      Nettled, and in no small degree mortified, at the disadvantage in which his courtesy had placed me, I stood watching him as he disappeared, asking myself who and what he was. For he was not only a gentleman, but a marked one; possessing features of unusual symmetry as well as a form of peculiar elegance. Not so very young—he might well be forty—there were yet evident on his face the impress of youth’s strongest emotions, not a curve of his chin nor a glance of his eye betraying in any way the slightest leaning towards ennui, though face and figure were of that type which seems most to invite and cherish it.

      “He can have no connection with the police force,” thought I; “nor is it by any means certain that he knows me, or is interested in my affairs; but I shall not soon forget him, for all that.”

      The summons from Eleanore Leavenworth came about eight o’clock in the evening. It was brought by Thomas, and read as follows:

      “Come, Oh, come! I—” there breaking off in a tremble, as if the pen had fallen from a nerveless hand.

      It did not take me long to find my way to her home.

Chapter XII.

       Eleanore

       Table of Contents

      “Constant you are—

       … And for secrecy

       No lady closer.”

      Henry IV.

       “No, ‘t is slander,

       Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue

       Outvenoms all the worms of Nile.”

      Cymbeline.

      The door was opened by Molly. “You will find Miss Eleanore in the drawing-room, sir,” she said, ushering me in.

      Fearing I knew not what, I hurried to the room thus indicated, feeling as never before the sumptuousness of the magnificent hall with its antique flooring, carved woods, and bronze ornamentations:—the mockery of things for the first time forcing itself upon me. Laying my hand on the drawing-room door, I listened. All was silent. Slowly pulling it open, I lifted the heavy satin curtains hanging before me to the floor, and looked within. What a picture met my eyes!

      Sitting in the light of a solitary gas jet, whose faint glimmering just served to make visible the glancing satin and stainless marble of the gorgeous apartment, I beheld Eleanore Leavenworth. Pale as the sculptured image of the Psyche that towered above her from the mellow dusk of the bow-window near which she sat, beautiful as it, and almost as immobile, she crouched with rigid hands frozen in forgotten entreaty before her, apparently insensible to sound, movement, or touch; a silent figure of despair in presence of an implacable fate.

      Impressed by the scene, I stood with my hand upon the curtain, hesitating if to advance or retreat, when suddenly a sharp tremble shook her impassive frame, the rigid hands unlocked, the stony eyes softened, and, springing to her feet, she uttered a cry of satisfaction, and advanced towards me.

      “Miss Leavenworth!” I exclaimed, starting at the sound of my own voice.

      She paused, and pressed her hands to her face, as if the world and all she had forgotten had rushed back upon her at this simple utterance of her name.

      “What is it?” I asked.

      Her hands fell heavily. “Do you not know? They—they are beginning to say that I—” she paused, and clutched her throat. “Read!” she gasped, pointing to a newspaper lying on the floor at her feet.

      I stooped and lifted what showed itself at first glance to be the Evening Telegram. It needed but a single look to inform me to what she referred. There, in startling characters, I beheld:

      THE LEAVENWORTH MURDER

       LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MYSTERIOUS CASE

       A MEMBER OF THE MURDERED MAN’S OWN FAMILY

       STRONGLY SUSPECTED OF THE CRIME

       THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN NEW YORK UNDER A CLOUD

       PAST HISTORY OF MISS ELEANORE LEAVENWORTH

      I was prepared for it; had schooled myself for this very thing, you might say; and yet I could not help recoiling. Dropping the paper from my hand, I stood before her, longing and yet dreading to look into her face.

      “What does it mean?” she panted; “what, what does it mean? Is the world mad?” and her eyes, fixed and glassy, stared into mine as if she found it impossible to grasp the sense of this outrage.

      I shook my head. I could not reply.

      “To accuse me” she murmured; “me, me!” striking her breast with her clenched hand, “who loved the very ground he trod upon; who would have cast my own body between him and the deadly bullet if I had only known his danger. Oh!” she cried, “it is not a slander they utter, but a dagger which they thrust into my heart!”

      Overcome by her misery, but determined not to show my compassion until more thoroughly convinced of her complete innocence, I replied, after a pause:

      “This seems to strike you with great surprise, Miss Leavenworth; СКАЧАТЬ