Part 14 (1/2)

She handed him the slip and turned partly away; he took it, glanced at it sideways, turned it over, and suddenly his look grew concentrated, and he took the cigar from his lips.

”Well,” she said playfully, turning to him again. ”What do you think of it?”

”Think of it?” he said with a rising color. ”I think it's infamous! Who did it?”

She stared at him, then glanced quickly at the slip. ”What are you reading?” she said.

”This, of course,” he said impatiently. ”What you gave me.” But he was pointing to THE OTHER SIDE of the newspaper slip.

She took it from him impatiently and read for the first time the printing on the reverse side of the article she had treasured so long.

It was the concluding paragraph of an apparently larger editorial. ”One thing is certain, that a man in Daniel Harcourt's position cannot afford to pa.s.s over in silence accusations like the above, that affect not only his private character, but the integrity of his t.i.tle to the land that was the foundation of his fortune. When trickery, sharp practice, and even criminality in the past are more than hinted at, they cannot be met by mere pompous silence or allusions to private position, social prestige, or distinguished friends in the present.”

Mrs. Ashwood turned the slip over with scornful impatience, a pretty uplifting of her eyebrows and a slight curl of her lip. ”I suppose none of those people's beginnings can bear looking into--and they certainly should be the last ones to find fault with anybody. But, good gracious, Jack! what has this to do with you?”

”With me?” said s.h.i.+pley angrily. ”Why, I proposed to Clementina last night!”

CHAPER IX.

The wayfarers on the Tasajara turnpike, whom Mr. Daniel Harcourt pa.s.sed with his fast trotting mare and sulky, saw that their great fellow-townsman was more than usually preoccupied and curt in his acknowledgment of their salutations. Nevertheless as he drew near the creek, he partly checked his horse, and when he reached a slight acclivity of the interminable plain--which had really been the bank of the creek in bygone days--he pulled up, alighted, tied his horse to a rail fence, and clambering over the inclosure made his way along the ridge. It was covered with nettles, thistles, and a few wiry dwarf larches of native growth; dust from the adjacent highway had invaded it, with a few scattered and torn handbills, waste paper, rags, empty provision cans, and other suburban debris. Yet it was the site of 'Lige Curtis's cabin, long since erased and forgotten. The bed of the old creek had receded; the last tules had been cleared away; the channel and embarcadero were half a mile from the bank and log whereon the pioneer of Tasajara had idly sunned himself.

Mr. Harcourt walked on, occasionally turning over the scattered objects with his foot, and stopping at times to examine the ground more closely.

It had not apparently been disturbed since he himself, six years ago, had razed the wretched shanty and carried off its timbers to aid in the erection of a larger cabin further inland. He raised his eyes to the prospect before him,--to the town with its steamboats lying at the wharves, to the grain elevator, the warehouses, the railroad station with its puffing engines, the flagstaff of Harcourt House and the cl.u.s.tering roofs of the town, and beyond, the painted dome of his last creation, the Free Library. This was all HIS work, HIS planning, HIS foresight, whatever they might say of the wandering drunkard from whose tremulous fingers he had s.n.a.t.c.hed the opportunity. They could not take THAT from him, however they might follow him with envy and reviling, any more than they could wrest from him the five years of peaceful possession. It was with something of the prosperous consciousness with which he had mounted the platform on the opening of the Free Library, that he now climbed into his buggy and drove away.

Nevertheless he stopped at his Land Office as he drove into town, and gave a few orders. ”I want a strong picket fence put around the fifty-vara lot in block fifty-seven, and the ground cleared up at once.

Let me know when the men get to work, and I'll overlook them.”

Re-entering his own house in the square, where Mrs. Harcourt and Clementina--who often accompanied him in those business visits--were waiting for him with luncheon, he smiled somewhat superciliously as the servant informed him that ”Professor Grant had just arrived.” Really that man was trying to make the most of his time with Clementina!

Perhaps the rival attractions of that Boston swell s.h.i.+pley had something to do with it! He must positively talk to Clementina about this. In point of fact he himself was a little disappointed in Grant, who, since his offer to take the task of hunting down his calumniators, had really done nothing. He turned into his study, but was slightly astonished to find that Grant, instead of paying court to Clementina in the adjoining drawing-room, was sitting rather thoughtfully in his own armchair.

He rose as Harcourt entered. ”I didn't let them announce me to the ladies,” he said, ”as I have some important business with you first, and we may find it necessary that I should take the next train back to town.

You remember that a few weeks ago I offered to look into the matter of those slanders against you. I apprehended it would be a trifling matter of envy or jealousy on the part of your old a.s.sociates or neighbors which could be put straight with a little good feeling; but I must be frank with you, Harcourt, and say at the beginning that it turns out to be an infernally ugly business. Call it conspiracy if you like, or organized hostility, I'm afraid it will require a lawyer rather than an arbitrator to manage it, and the sooner the better. For the most unpleasant thing about it is, that I can't find out exactly HOW BAD it is!”

Unfortunately the weaker instinct of Harcourt's nature was first roused; the vulgar rage which confounds the bearer of ill news with the news itself filled his breast. ”And this is all that your confounded intermeddling came to?” he said brutally.

”No,” said Grant quietly, with a preoccupied ignoring of the insult that was more hopeless for Harcourt. ”I found out that it is claimed that this 'Lige Curtis was not drowned nor lost that night; but that he escaped, and for three years has convinced another man that you are wrongfully in possession of this land; that these two naturally hold you in their power, and that they are only waiting for you to be forced into legal proceedings for slander to prove all their charges. Until then, for some reason best known to themselves, Curtis remains in the background.”

”Does he deny the deed under which I hold the property?” said Harcourt savagely.

”He says it was only a security for a trifling loan, and not an actual transfer.”

”And don't those fools know that his security could be forfeited?”

”Yes, but not in the way it is recorded in the county clerk's office.

They say that the record shows that there was an interpolation in the paper he left with you--which was a forgery. Briefly, Harcourt, you are accused of that. More,--it is intimated that when he fell into the creek that night, and escaped on a raft that was floating past, that he had been first stunned by a blow from some one interested in getting rid of him.”

He paused and glanced out of the window.