"The last determined me. The situation was too intense for me to leave without first learning who the woman was who in terror and shrinking dared to drag her half resisting feet through these empty halls and into a place cursed with such unwholesome memories. I did not think of Veronica. No one looks for a b.u.t.terfly in the depths of a dungeon. But I did think of Miss Tuttle--that woman of resolute will. Without attempting to imaging the reason for her presence, I stood my ground and harkened till the heavy mahogany door at the other end of the room began to swing in by jerks under the faint and tremulous push of a terrified hand. Then there came silence--a long silence--followed by a moan so agonized that I realized that whatever was the cause of this panting woman"s presence here, it was due to no mere errand of curiosity. This whetted my purpose. Anything done in this house was in a way done to me; so I remained quiet and watched. But the sounds which now and then came from the remote corner upon which my attention was concentrated were very eloquent.
"I heard sighs and bitter groans, with now and then a murmured prayer, broken by a low wailing, in which I caught the name of Francis. And still, possibly on account of the utterance of this name, I thought the woman near me to be Miss Tuttle, and even went so far as to imagine the cause of her suffering if not the nature of her retribution. Words succeeded cries and I caught phrases expressive of fear and some sort of agonized hesitation. Once these broken e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns were interrupted by a dull sound.
Something had dropped to the bare floor. We shall never know what it was, but I have no doubt that it was the pistol, and that the marks of dust to be found on the connecting ribbon were made by her own fingers in taking it again in her hand. (You will remember that these same fingers had but a few minutes previous groped their way along the walls.) For her voice soon took a different tone, and such unintelligible phrases as these could be heard issuing from her partly paralyzed lips:
""I must!--I can never meet his eye again alive. He would despise-- Brave enough to--to--another"s blood--coward--when--own.
Oh, G.o.d! forgive!" Then another silence during which I almost made up my mind to interfere, then a loud report and a flash so startling and unexpected that I recoiled, during which the room leaped into sudden view--she too--Veronica--with baby face drawn and set like a woman"s--then darkness again and a heavy fall which shook the floor, if not my hard old heart. The flash and that fall enlightened me. I had just witnessed the suicide of the last Moore saving myself; a suicide for which I was totally unprepared and one which I do not yet understand."
I did not go over to her. She was as dead when she fell as she ever would be. In the flash which lit everything, I had seen where her pistol was pointed. Why disturb her then? Nor did I return upstairs. I had small interest now in anything but my own escape from a situation more or less compromising.
"Do you blame me for this? I was her heir and I was where I had no legal right to be. Do you think that I was called upon to publish my shame and tell how I lingered there while my own niece shot herself before my eyes? That shot made me a millionaire. This certainly was excitement enough for one day--besides, I did not leave her there neglected. I notified you later--after I had got my breath and had found some excuse. That wasn"t enough? Ah, I see that you are all models of courage and magnanimity. You would have laid yourselves open to every reproach rather than let a little necessary perjury pa.s.s your lips. But I am no model. I am simply an old man who has been too hardly dealt with for seventy long years to possess every virtue. I made a mistake--I see it now--trusted a dog when I shouldn"t--but if Rudge had not seen ghosts--well, what now?"
We had, one and all, with an involuntary impulse, turned our backs upon him.
"What are you doing?" he hotly demanded.
"Only what all Washington will do to-morrow, and afterwards the whole world," gravely returned the major. Then, as an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n escaped the astonished millionaire, he impressively added: "A perjury which allows an innocent man and woman to remain under the suspicion of murder for five weeks is one which not only the law has a right to punish, but which all society will condemn.
Henceforth you will find yourself under a ban, Mr. Moore."[1]
My story ends here. The matter never came before the grand jury.
Suicide had been proved, and there the affair rested. Of myself it is enough to add that I sometimes call in Durbin to help me in a big case.
[1] Time amply verified this prophecy. Mr. Moore is living in great style in the Moore house, and drives horses which are conspicuous even in Washington. But no one accepts his invitations, and he is as much of a recluse in his present mansion as he ever was in the humble cottage in which his days of penury were spent.
XXVII
"YOU HAVE COME! YOU HAVE SOUGHT ME!"
These are some words from a letter written a few months after the foregoing by one Mrs. Edward Truscott to a friend in New York:
"Edinburgh, May 7th, 1900.
"Dear Louisa:--You have always accused me of seeing more and hearing more than any other person of your acquaintance. Perhaps I am fortunate in that respect. Certainly I have been favored today with an adventure of some interest which I make haste to relate to you.
"Being anxious to take home with me some sketches of the exquisite ornamentation in the Rosslyn chapel about which I wrote you so enthusiastically the other day, I took advantage of Edward"s absence this morning to visit the place again and this time alone.
The sky was clear and the air balmy, and as I approached the spot from the near-by station I was not surprised to see another woman straying quietly about the exterior of the chapel gazing at walls which, interesting as they are, are but a rough sh.e.l.l hiding the incomparable beauties within. I noticed this lady; I could not help it. She was one to attract any eye. Seldom have I seen such grace, such beauty, and both infused by such melancholy. Her sadness added wonderfully to her charm, and I found it hard enough to pa.s.s her with the single glance allowable to a stranger, especially as she gave evidence of being one of my own countrywomen:
"However, I saw no alternative, and once within the charmed edifice, forgot everything in the congenial task I had set for myself. For some reason the chapel was deserted at this moment by all but me.
As the special scroll-work I wanted was in a crypt down a short flight of steps at the right of the altar, I was completely hidden from view to any one entering above and was enjoying both my seclusion and the opportunity it gave me of carrying out my purpose unwatched when I heard a light step above and realized that the exquisite beauty which had so awakened my admiration had at last found its perfect setting. Such a face amid such exquisite surroundings was a rare sight, and interested as I always am in artistic effects I was about to pocket pencil and pad and make my way up to where she moved among the carved pillars when I heard a soft sigh above and caught the rustle of her dress as she sat down upon a bench at the head of the steps near which I stood. Somehow that sigh deterred me. I hesitated to break in upon a melancholy so invincible that even the sight of all this loveliness could not charm it away, and in that moment of hesitation something occurred above which fixed me to my place in irrepressible curiosity.
"Another step had entered the open door of the chapel--a man"s step--eager and with a purpose in it eloquent of something deeper than a mere tourist"s interest in this loveliest of interiors. The cry which escaped her lips, the tone in which he breathed her name in his hurried advance, convinced me that this was a meeting of two lovers after a long heart-break and that I should mar the supreme moment of their lives by intruding into it the unwelcome presence of a stranger. So I lingered where I was and thus heard what pa.s.sed between them at this moment of all moments ire their lives.
"It was she who spoke first.
"Francis, you have come! You have sought me!"
"To which he replied in choked accents which yet could not conceal the inexpressible elation of his heart:
""Yes I have come, I have sought you. Why did you fly? Did you not see that my whole soul was turning to you as it never turned even to--to her in the best days of our unshaken love; and that I could never rest till I found you and told you how the eyes which have once been blind enjoy a pa.s.sion of seeing unknown to others--a pa.s.sion which makes the object seem so dear--so dear--"
"He paused, perhaps to look at her, perhaps to recover his own self-possession, and I caught the echo of a sigh of such utter content and triumph from her lips that I was surprised when in another moment she exclaimed in a tone so thrilling that I am sure no common circ.u.mstances had separated this pair:
""Have we a right to happiness while she-- Oh, Francis, I can not!
She loved you. It was her love for you which drove her--"
""Cora!" came with a sort of loving authority, "we have buried our erring one and pa.s.sionately as I loved her, she is no more mine, but G.o.d"s. Let her woeful spirit rest. You who suffered, supported--who sacrificed all that woman holds dear to save what, in the nature of things, could not be saved--have more than right to happiness if it is in my power to give it to you; I, who have failed in so much, but never in anything more than in not seeing where true worth and real beauty lay. Cora, there is but one hand which can lift the shadow from my life. That hand I am holding now--do not draw it away--it is my anchor, my hope. I dare not confront life without the promise it holds out. I should be a wreck--"
"His emotion stopped him and there was silence; then I heard him utter solemnly, as befitted the place: "Thank G.o.d!" and I knew that she had turned her wonderful eyes upon him or nestled her hand in his clasp as only a loving woman may.
"The next moment I heard them draw away and leave the place.
"Do you wonder that I long to know who they are and what their story is and whom they meant by "the erring one?""