I had gone a little past here, running just as softly as I
could, when I turned right into the woods, and ran back. Then I lay
right down in the underbrush and kept still. I heard him run past. Then
I heard him come back. He came into the woods. I expected every minute
he would step on me, but I kept still. Finally I heard him go away, but
I have not dared to stir since! I made up my mind I would keep still
until I heard a team pass. It did seem to me one must pass, and one
would have at any other time, but it has been hours I have been lying
there. Then I heard your whistle. I was almost afraid to speak then.
Don't speak above a whisper now. Did you come on foot?"
"I had the gray mare, and she balked about half a mile from here. You
are sure you are not hurt?"
"No, only I am trying hard not to faint. Let us walk on very fast, but
step softly, and don't talk."
James put his arm around the girl and half carried her. She continued
to draw short, panting breaths, which she tried to subdue. They reached
the place where the gray mare loomed faintly out of the gloom with the
dark mass of the buggy behind her.
"Let us get in," whispered Clemency. "Quick!"
"I am afraid she won't budge."
"Yes, she will for me. She has a tender mouth, that is why she balks.
You must have pulled too hard on the lines. Sometimes I have made her go
when even Uncle Tom couldn't."
Clemency ran around to the gray's head and patted her, and James untied
her. Then the girl got into the buggy and took the reins, and James
followed. He was almost jostled out, the mare started with such impetus.
They made the distance home almost on a run.
"Oh, I am so glad," panted Clemency. "You see I can seem to feel her
mouth when I hold the lines, and she knows. Was poor mother worried?"
"A little."
"I know she was almost crazy."
"She will be all right when she sees you safe," said James.
"Is Uncle Tom home yet? No, of course I know he isn't, or he would have
come instead of you. Oh, dear, I know he will scold me. I shall have to
tell him, but I mustn't tell mother about the man. What shall I tell
her? It is dreadful to have to lie, but sometimes one would rather run
the risk of fire and brimstone for one's self than have anybody else
hurt. If I tell mother she will have one of her dreadful nervous
attacks. I can't tell her. What shall I tell her, Doctor Elliot?"
"I think the simplest thing will be to say that Miss Lipton persuaded
you to stay to supper, and so you were late, and I overtook you," said
James.
"Mother will never believe that I stayed so long as that," said
Clemency. "I shall have to lie more than that. I don't know exactly what
to say. I could have Charlie Horton come in to play whist, and be taking
me home in his buggy. He always drives, and you could meet me on the
road."
"Yes, you could do that."
"It is a very complicated lie," said Clemency, "but I don't know that a
complicated lie is any worse than a simple one. I think I shall have to
lie the complicated one. You need not say anything, you know. You can
take the mare to the stable, and I will run in and get the lie all told
before you come. You won't lie, will you?"
James could not help laughing. "No, I don't see any need of it," he
replied.
"It is rather awful for you to have to live with people who have to lie
so," remarked Clemency, "but I don't see how it can be helped. If you
had seen my mother in one of her nervous attacks once, you would never
want to see her again. There is only one thing, I do feel very weak
still, and I am afraid I shall look pale. Hold the lines a minute. Don't
pull on them at all. Let them lie on your knees."
"What are you doing?" asked James when he had complied.
"Doing? I am pinching my cheeks almost black and blue, so mother won't
notice. I don't talk scared now, do I?"
"Not very."
"Well, I think I can manage that. I think I can manage my voice. I am
all over being faint. Oh, I will tell you what I will do. You haven't
got your medicine-case with you, have you?"
"No, I started so hurriedly."
"Well, I will go in the office way. I know where Uncle Tom keeps
brandy, and I will be so chilled that I'll have to take a little before
mother sees me. That will make me all right. I wouldn't take it for
myself, but I will for her."
"And you are chilled, all right," said James.
"Yes, I think I am," said Clemency. "I did not think of it, but I guess
it was cold there in the woods keeping still so long." Indeed, the girl
was shaking from head to foot, both with cold and nervous terror. "It
was awful," she said in a little whisper.
James felt the girl shaking from head to foot. Suddenly a great
tenderness for the poor, little hunted thing came over him. He put his
arm around her. "Poor little soul," he said. "It must have been terrible
for you lying out there in the cold and dark and not knowing--"
Clemency shrank into his embrace as a hurt child might have done. "It
was perfectly terrible," she said, with a little sob. "I didn't know but
he might come back any minute and find me."
"It is all over now," James said soothingly.
"Yes, for the time," Clemency replied with a little note of despair in
her voice, "but there is something about it all that I don't understand.
Only think how long I have had to stay in the house, and he must have
been on the watch. I don't know when it is ever going to end."
"I think that I will end it to-morrow," said James with fierce
resolution.
"You? How?"
"I am going to put a stop to this. If an innocent girl can't step out of
the house for weeks at a time without being hounded this way, it is high
time something was done. I am going to get a posse of men and scour the
country for the scoundrel."
"Oh, will you do that?"
"Yes, I will. It is high time somebody did something."
"You saw him. You know just how he looks?"
"I could tell him from a thousand."
Clemency drew a long breath. "Well," she said doubtfully, "if you can,
but--"
"But what?"
"Nothing, only somehow I doubt if Uncle Tom will think it advisable.
There must be some mystery about all this or Uncle Tom himself would
have done that very thing at first. I don't understand it. But I don't
believe Uncle Tom will consent to your hunting for the man. I think for
some reason he wants it kept secret." Suddenly, Clemency gave a
passionate little outcry. "Oh, how I do hate secrets!" she said. "How I
have always hated them! I want everything right out, and here I seem to
be in a perfect snarl of secrets! I wonder how long I shall have to stay
in the house."
"Perhaps you are wrong, and your uncle will take measures now this has
happened for the second time," said James.
"No, he won't," replied the girl hopelessly. "I am almost sure that he
will not."
Clemency was right. After she had made her entry and told her little lie
successfully, and explained that she had taken some brandy because she
was chilled, and Mrs. Ewing had gently scolded her for staying so late,
and kissed and embraced her, and gotten back her own composure, Doctor
Gordon arrived, and James, who had waited for him in the study, told him
the story in whispers. "Now I think you had better let me get a posse of
men and scour the country to-morrow," he concluded. "It seems to me
that this thing has gone far enough."
Doctor Gordon sat huddled up before him in an arm-chair. He had not even
taken off his overcoat, which was white with snow. The storm had begun.
"It will be easy to track him on account of the snow," added James.
"Tracking is not necessary," replied Gordon, with his haggard face fixed
upon James. "I know exactly where the man is, and have known from the
first."
"Then--" began James.
"You don't know what you are talking about," Gordon said gloomily. "I
would have that fiend arrested to-morrow. I would have him hung from the
nearest tree if I had my way, but I can do absolutely nothing."
"Nothing?"
"No, I can do nothing, except what I have been doing, so far in vain, it
seems, to try to tire him out. I traded too much on his impatience, it
seemed. I did not think he would have held out so long."
"You mean you will have to keep that poor little thing shut up the way
you have been doing?"
"I see no other way. God knows I have tried to think of another, day and
night."
"I don't see why you or I could not take her out sometimes when we
visit patients anyway," said James in a bewildered fashion.
"You don't understand," replied Doctor Gordon irritably. "The main point
is: the girl must not be even seen by that man. That is the trouble.
Driving, she might be perfectly safe; in fact, in one way she is safe
anyhow. She is not in any danger of bodily harm, as you may think, but I
don't want her seen."
"Why not let me take her out sometimes of an evening then?" said James,
more and more mystified. "If she wore a veil, and went out driving in
the evening, I can't see how anybody could get a glimpse of her."
"You don't understand that we have to deal with a very devil incarnate,"
said Doctor Gordon wearily. "He will be on the watch for just that very
manoeuvre. However, perhaps we may be able to manage that; I will see."
"She will be ill if she remains in the house so closely," said James,
"especially a girl like her, who has been accustomed to lead such an
outdoor life. In fact, I don't think she does look very well now. It is
telling on her."
"Yes, I think it is," agreed Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but again, I say,
I see no other way out of it. However, perhaps you or I can take her out
sometimes of an evening. I suppose it had better be you, on some
accounts. I will see. Well, I will take off my coat and get something to
eat. I suppose Clara and Clemency have gone to bed."
"They went hours ago," replied James. It was, in fact, two in the
morning. James followed the doctor, haggard and weary, into the kitchen,
where, according to custom at such times, some dinner had been left to
keep warm on the range. "I'll sit down here," said Doctor Gordon. "It is
warmer than in the dining-room, and I am chilled through. If you don't
mind, Elliot, I wish you would get me a bottle of apple-jack from the
dining-room. I must have something to hearten me up, or I shall go by
the board, and I don't know what will become of her--of them."
James sat and waited while the doctor ate and drank. When he had
finished he looked a little less haggard. He stretched himself before
the warm glow from the range and laughed. "Now I feel my fighting blood
is up again," he said. "After all, if there is anything in the Good
Book, the wicked shall not always triumph, and I may win out. I shall
do my best anyhow. But I confess you took the wind out of me with what
you told me when I came in. I am glad Clara does not know. Poor little
Clemency having to pave her way with lies, but it would kill Clara. Oh,
God, it does seem as if I had enough before. Take my advice, young man,
and try to think more of yourself than anybody else in the world. Don't
let your heart go out to anybody. Just as sure as you do, the door of
the worst torture-chamber in creation swings open. The minute you become
vulnerable through love, you haven't a strong place in your whole
armor."
"What a doctrine!" observed James.
"I know it, but I have taken a fancy to you, boy; and hang it if I want
you to suffer as I have to."
"But a man would not be a man at all if he did not think enough of
somebody to suffer," said James, and now he was thinking of poor little
Clemency, and how she had nestled up to him for protection.
"Maybe," said Doctor Gordon gloomily, "but sometimes I wonder whether it
pays in the long run to be what you call a man. Sometimes I wish that I
were a rock or a tree. I do to-night."
"You will feel better after you have had a little sleep," James said,
as the two men rose.
Suddenly one of Doctor Gordon's inexplicable changes of mood came over
him. He laughed. "If it were not so late we would go down to Georgie
K.'s," said he. "I never felt more awake. Well, I guess it's too late.
You must be dead tired yourself. I have not thanked you at all for your
rescue of the girl. She would have been down with a serious illness if
you had not gone, for she would have lain in that place being snowed
over until somebody came."
"She was mighty clever to do what she did," said James.
"Yes, she is clever," returned Doctor Gordon. "She is a good girl, and
it stings me to the very heart that she has to suffer such persecution.
Well, 'all's well that ends well.' Did it ever occur to you that God
made up to mankind for the horrors of creation, by stating that there
would be an end to it some day? Good God, if this terrible world had to
roll on to all eternity!" Doctor Gordon laughed again his unnatural
laugh. "Fancy if you were awakened to-night by the last trump," he said.
"How small everything would seem. Hang it, though, if I wouldn't try to
have a hand at that man's finish before the angel of the Lord got his
flaming sword at work."
James looked at him with terror.
"Don't mind me, boy," said Gordon. "I don't mean to blaspheme; but Job
is not in it with me just now. You cannot imagine what I had to contend
with before this melodramatic villain appeared on the stage. Sometimes I
think this is the finish," Gordon's mouth contracted. He looked savage.
James continued to stare at him. Gordon laid his hand on James's
shoulder. "Thank the Lord for one thing," he said almost tenderly, "that
he sent you here. Between us we will take care of poor little Clemency
anyhow. Now go to bed, and go to sleep."
James obeyed as to the one, but he could not as to the other. He became,
as the hours wore on, so nervous that he was half-inclined to take a
sleeping powder. The room seemed full of flashes of lightning. He heard
sounds which made him cold with horror. He was highly strung nervously,
and was really in a state bordering upon hysteria. The mystery which
surrounded him was the main cause. He was never himself before an
unknown quantity. He had too much imagination. He made all sorts of
surmises as to the stranger who was haunting Clemency. Starting with two
known quantities, he might have accomplished something, but here he had
only one: Clemency herself. He had a good head for algebra, but a man
cannot work out a problem easily with only one known quantity. He began
to wonder if the poor girl herself were sleeping. He realized a sort of
protective tenderness for her, and indignation on her behalf. It did not
occur to him as being love. Still the image of her wonderful mother
dominated him. But his mind dwelt upon the girl. He thought of a piazza
whose roof opened as he knew upon Clemency's room. He wondered if a man
like that would stick at anything. Then he recalled what Doctor Gordon
had said about Clemency's not being in any bodily danger, and again he
speculated. The room began to grow pale with the late winter dawn.
Familiar objects began to gain clearness of outline. There were two
windows in James's room. They gave upon the piazza. Suddenly James made
a leap from his bed. He sprang to one of the windows. Flattened against
it was the face of the man. But the face was so destitute of
consciousness of him, that James doubted if he saw rightly. The wide
eyes seemed to gaze upon him without seeing him, the mouth smiled as if
at something within. The next moment James was sure that the face was
not there. He drew on his trousers, thrust his feet into his shoes, and
was out of his room and the house, and on the piazza. It was still
snowing, but the dawn was overcoming the storm. The whole world was lit
with dead white pallor like the face of a corpse. James rushed the
length of the piazza. He looked at the walk leading to it. He thought he
could distinguish footprints. He looked on the piazza, but the wind,
being on the other side of the house, there was not enough snow there to
make footprints visible. The snow on the walk was drifted. He looked at
it closely, and made sure of deep marks. He stood for a moment undecided
what to do. He disliked to arouse Doctor Gordon. He was afraid of
awakening Mrs. Ewing, if he ventured into the upper part of the house.
Then he thought of the man Aaron who slept in a room over the stable. He
reëntered the house, locked the front door, went softly into the
doctor's study, and out of the door which was near the stable. Then he
made a hard snowball, and threw it at Aaron's window. The window opened
directly, and Aaron's head appeared. James could see, even in the dim
light, and presumably just awakened from sleep, the rotary motion of his
jaws. He was probably not chewing anything, simply moving his mouth from
force of habit. "Hullo!" said Aaron, "that you Doctor Gordon?"
"No, it is I," replied James. "Put on something as quick as you can, and
come down here. Something is wrong."
Aaron's head disappeared. In an incredibly short space of time the
stable door was unlocked and slid cautiously back, and Aaron stood
there, huddled into his clothes. "What's up?" he asked.
"I don't know. Have you got a lantern in the stable?"
"Yep."
"Light it quick, then, and come along with me."
Aaron obeyed. "Anybody sick," he asked, coming alongside with the
flashing lantern. He threw a cloth over it so as to prevent the rays
shining into the house windows. "I don't want to frighten her," he said,
and James knew that he meant Mrs. Ewing. "She's awful nervous," said
Aaron. Then he said again, "What's up?"
"I saw a man's face looking into one of my windows," replied James.
Aaron gave a low whistle. "Somebody wanted the doc?" he inquired.
"No," replied James shortly, "it was not."
"Must have been."
"No, it was not."
"Must have been," repeated Aaron, chewing.
"I tell you it was not. I knew--" James stopped. He suddenly wondered
how much he ought to tell the man, how much Doctor Gordon had told him.
Aaron chewed imperturbably, but a sly look came into his face. "I have
eyes, and they see, and ears, and they hear," he said, after an odd
Scriptural fashion, "but don't you tell me nothin', Doctor Elliot.
Either I take what I get from the fountain-head, or I makes my own
conclusions that I can't help. Don't you tell me nothin'. S'pose we look
an' see ef there's footprints that show anythin'."
Aaron flashed the lantern, all the time carefully shading it from the
house windows, over the walk which led to the front door and the piazza.
James followed him. "Well," said Aaron, "there's been somebody here,
but, with snow like this, it might have been a monkey or a rhinoceros
or an alligator. You can't make nothin' of them tracks. But they do go
out to the road, and turn toward Stanbridge."
"Suppose we--" began James. He was about to suggest following the
prints, when he remembered Doctor Gordon's injunction to the contrary.
However, Aaron anticipated him. "Might as well leave the devil alone,"
said he. "It might have been the old one himself, for all we can tell by
them tracks. You had better go back to bed, Doctor Elliot. You ain't got
much on. It ain't near breakfast time yet. Better go back to bed."
And James thought such a course the wiser one himself. He went back to
bed, but not to sleep. He kept his eyes fixed upon the windows. He was
prepared at any instant, should the man reappear, to spring out. He felt
almost murderous. "It has come to a pretty pass," he thought, "if that
scoundrel, whoever he may be, is lurking around the house at night."
The daylight came slowly on account of the storm. When it did come, it
was an opaque white daylight. James began to smell coffee and frying
ham. He rose and dressed himself, and looked out of the window. It was
like looking into a blurred mirror. He began to wonder if he could have
been mistaken, if possibly that face had been simply a vision which had
come from his overwrought brain. He wondered if he should tell Doctor
Gordon, if it might not disturb him unnecessarily. He wondered if he
should have enforced secrecy upon Aaron. He was still undecided when the
Japanese gong sounded, and he went out to breakfast. Clemency was
looking worn and ill. Somehow the sight of her piteous little face
decided James. He thought how easily an athletic man could climb up one
of those piazza posts, which was, moreover, encircled by a strong old
vine which might almost serve as ladder. He made up his mind to tell
Doctor Gordon, and he did tell him when they were out upon their rounds,
tilting and sliding along the drifted country roads in an old sleigh. "I
don't think I can be mistaken," he said when he had finished.
Doctor Gordon looked at him intently. "You are sure," he said. "You are
a nervous subject for a man, and you had not slept, and you had this man
very much on your mind, and there must have been some snow on the
window which could produce an illusion. Be very sure, because this is
serious."
James thought again of Clemency's little white face. "Yes," he said, "I
am sure."
"You have no doubt at all?"
"None. The man had his face staring into the room. He did not seem to
see me, but looked past me at the bed."
"He might easily have thought that room, being on the ground floor and
accessible to night-calls, was mine," said Doctor Gordon, as if to
himself.
"I thought how easily he could have climbed up one of the piazza posts
to her room," said James.
The Doctor started. "Yes, that is so," he said. "He might have had two
motives. That is so."
The next call was at a patient's who had a slight attack of grippe.
Doctor Gordon left James there, saying that he would make another call
and be back for him directly. James noticed how he urged the horses out
of the drive at almost a run. He was back soon, and James having made up
his prescription, went out and got into the sleigh. Doctor Gordon looked
at him gloomily. "He is no longer where he has been staying," he said,
and his face settled into a stern melancholy. That evening, although the
storm continued, he suggested a visit to Georgie K.'s; and at supper
time he insisted upon Clemency's occupying another room that night. "The
wind is on your side of the house," he said, "and I am afraid you will
take more cold." Clemency stared and pouted, then said, "All right,
Uncle Tom!"