Part 35 (1/2)
”Never! G.o.d forbid. Love him? No!”
”Yet you think he will look you up again. Why? To get help in this lawsuit?”
”You do not know him. He knows that all his hope in this lawsuit was gone long ago. He's not a fool. But he is going to hunt me up some day. He's going to find me; and then--he's going to kill me. He's killed Delphine, and he's going to kill me.”
The two white hands, trembling now as though with a palsy, fell on the table in front of her. Her eyes, not seeing Eddring, gazed staring straight in front of her. The horror of her soul was written upon her face. Remorse, repentance, fear for the atonement--these had their way with her who was lately known as Alice Ellison, woman of fortune, and now served ill by fortune's hand.
All at once she broke from her half-stupor, her overstrung nerves giving way. A cry of terror burst from her lips. ”You!” she cried, ”you will not love me, you will not save me! Oh, Lady, girl--oh, is there no one, is there no one in all the world?”
John Eddring took her firmly by the shoulders, and after a time half- quieted her.
”Wine,” she sobbed; ”brandy--give me something.”
Eddring threw open the door. ”Jack,” he cried; ”Jack, come here. Run across the street for me. When you come back order a carriage. This lady is ill.”
She sat for a time, trembling. Eddring, himself agitated, completed his hurried writing. She signed. He called a notary, and she made oath with a hand that shook as she uplifted it.
John Eddring, possessed at length of the last thread of his mystery, helped down the stairs the trembling and terror-stricken woman who had been the final agent of a justice long deferred. ”Madam,” he said, as he a.s.sisted her into the carriage, ”I thank you for Miss Lady. If you ever have any need, address me; and meantime, keep careful watch. Take care of yourself, and be sure this knowledge will never be used against you. We shall not see you want.”
She seemed not to hear him. Her eyes still stared straight in front of her. ”He's coming,” she whispered. ”It will be the end!”
CHAPTER XX
THE LID OF THE GRAVE
In a little room of a poor hotel situated on a back street of the city of New Orleans, a man bent over an old trunk which had that day been unearthed from a long-time hiding-place. It had for years been left unopened. It was like opening a grave now to raise its cover.
The man almost shuddered as he bent over and looked in, curious as though these things had never before met his gaze. There was a dull odor of dead flowers long boxed up. A faint rustling as of intangible things became half audible, as though spirits pa.s.sed out at this contact with the outer air.
”Twelve years ago--and this is the sort of luggage I carried then,”
he mused. ”What taste! What a foolish boy! Dear me. Well--what?” His bravado failed him. He started, fearing something. Yet presently he peered in.
It was like a grave, yet one where some beneficent or some cruel process of nature had resisted the way of death and change. ”Foolish boy!” he muttered, as he peered in and saw Life as it had been for him when he had shut down the lid. ”G.o.d! it's strange. There ought to be a picture or so near the top.” He touched the tray, and the dead flowers and dry papers rustled again until he started back. His face, tired, dissipated, deeply lined, went all the paler, but presently he delved in again.
”Pictures of myself, eh? the first thing. I was always first thing to myself. Nice, clean boy, wasn't I? Wouldn't have known it was myself.
Might have been a parson, almost. Here's another. Militia uniform, all that. Might have been a major, almost. Uh-hum! High school diploma here--very important. Eighteen--great G.o.d, was it so long ago as that? University diploma--Latin. Can't read it now. Might have been a professor, mightn't I? Diploma of law school; also Latin.
Certificate of admission to the bar of--. Might have been a lawyer. Might have been a judge, mightn't I? Might have a home now; white, green blinds, brick walk up to the door, paling fence--that kind of thing. Might have had a home--wife and babies--eh! Baby?
Children? What? Well, I couldn't call this much of a home, could I, now?”
He unfolded some old newspapers and periodicals of a departed period, bearing proof of certain of his own handicraft. ”Might have been a writer--poet--that sort of thing!” He smiled quizzically. ”Not so bad. Not so bad. I couldn't do as well to-day, I'm afraid. Seem to have lost it--let go somewhere. I never could depend on myself--never could depend--ah, what's this? Yes, here are the ladies, G.o.d bless them--la-ladies--G.o.d bless 'em!”
The lower tray was filled with pictures of girls or women of all types, some of them beautiful, some of them coa.r.s.e, most of them attractive from a certain point of view. ”G.o.d! what a lot!” he murmured. ”How did I do it? By asking, I reckon. Six--six--six of one--six of another. Women and men alike, eh? Well, I don't know. Ask 'em, you win. Or, don't ask 'em, you win.”
His hand fell upon the frame of a little mirror laid away in the old trunk. He picked it up and gazed steadily at what it revealed.
”Changed,” he said, ”changed a lot. Must have gone a pace, eh?
Lawyer. Judge. Writer-man. Poet. I thought these beat all of that,”-- and he looked down again at the smiling faces. He picked them up one at a time and laid them on the bed beside him. ”Alice, Nora, Clara, Kate, Margaret--I'll guess at the names, and guess at some of the faces now. It's the same, all alike, the hunting of love: the hunting--the hunt--ing--of--love! Great thing. But of course we never do find it, do we? Ladies, good night.” This he said in half- mocking solemnity.