Constance Fenimore Woolson

"I can account for nothing you women do, although I have lived among you seventy-five years."—Walter Savage Landor.

As she entered the little parlor, Dexter came forward to meet her. "You are looking very well," he said, almost reproachfully.

"I am very well," she answered. "And you?"

"Not well at all. What with the constant and harassing work I am doing, and this horrible affair concerning poor Helen, I confess that I feel worn and old. It is not often that I acknowledge either. I have been busy in the city all day, and must return to my post on the midnight train; but I had two or three hours to spare, and so I have come out to see you. Before we say anything else, however, tell me about yourself. How is it with you at present?"

Glad of a respite, she described to him, with more details than she had hitherto thought necessary, her position, her pupils, and her daily life. She talked rapidly, giving him no opportunity to speak; she hardly knew herself as she went along. At last, however, he did break through the stream of her words. "I am glad you find interest in these matters," he said, coldly. "With me it is different; I can think of nothing but poor Helen."

It was come: now for self-control. All her words failed suddenly; she could not speak.

"Are you not haunted by it?" he continued. "Do you not constantly see her lying there asleep, that pale hair unbraided, those small helpless hands bare of all their jewels—poor defenseless little hands, decked only with the mockery of that wedding ring?"

He was gazing at the wall, as though it were all pictured there. Anne made no reply, and after a pause he went on. "Helen was a fascinating woman; but she was, or could be if she chose, an intensely exasperating woman as well. I am no coward; I think I may say the reverse; but I would rather be alone with a tigress than with such a woman as she would have been, if roused to jealous fury. She would not have stirred, she would not have raised her voice, but she would have spoken words that would have stung like asps and cut like Damascus blades. No devil would have shown in that kind of torment greater ingenuity. I am a self-controlled man, yet I can imagine Helen Lorrington driving me, if she had tried, into such a state of frenzy that I should hardly know what I was doing. In such a case I should end, I think, by crushing her in my arms, and fairly strangling the low voice that taunted me. But—I could never have stabbed her in her sleep!"

Again he paused, and again Anne kept silence. But he did not notice it; he was absorbed in his own train of thought.

"It is a relief to speak of this to you," he continued, "for you knew Helen, and Heathcote also. Do you know I can imagine just how she worked upon him; how that fair face and those narrow eyes of hers wrought their deadly darts. Her very want of strength was an accessory; for if she could have risen and struck him, if she had been capable of any such strong action, the exasperation would have been less. But that a creature so helpless, one whose slight form he had been used to carry about the house in his arms, one who could not walk far unaided—that such a creature should lie there, in all her delicate beauty, and with barbed words deliberately torment him— Anne, I can imagine a rush of madness which might well end in murder and death. But not a plot. If he had killed her in a passion, and then boldly avowed the deed, giving himself up, I should have had some sympathy with him, in spite of the horror of the deed. But to arrange the method of his crime (as he evidently tried to do) so that he would not be discovered, but be enabled quietly to inherit her money—bah! I almost wish I were the hangman myself! Out on the border he would have been lynched long ago."

His listener still remained mute, but a little fold of flesh inside her lips was bitten through by her clinched teeth in the effort she made to preserve that muteness.

It seemed to have been a relief to Dexter to let out those strong words. He paused, turned toward Anne, and for the first time noted her dress. "Are you in mourning?" he asked, doubtfully, looking at the unbroken black of her attire.

"It is the same dress I have worn for several months."

He did not know enough of the details of a woman's garb to see that the change came from the absence of white at the throat and wrists. After Helen's death poor Anne had sewed black lace in her plain black gown; it was the only mourning she could allow herself.

The moment was now come when she must say something. Dexter, his outburst over, was leaning back in his chair, looking at her. "Miss Teller has gone to Multomah, I believe," she remarked, neutrally.

"Yes; singularly enough, she believes him innocent. I heard, while in the city to-day, that the Varces and Bannerts and others of that set believe it also, and are all at Multomah 'for the moral effect.' For the moral effect!" He threw back his head and laughed scornfully. "I wish I had time to run up there myself," he added, "to dwell upon the moral effect of all those fine ladies. However, the plain American people have formed their own opinion of this case, and are not likely to be moved by such influences. They understand. This very evening, on the train, I heard a mechanic say, 'If the jurymen were only fine ladies, now, that Heathcote would get off yet.'"

"How can you repeat such words?" said the girl, blazing out suddenly and uncontrollably, as a fire which has been long smothered bursts into sudden and overpowering flame at the last.

"Of course it is bad taste to jest on such a subject. I only— Why, Anne, what is the matter?" For she had risen and was standing before him, her eyes brilliant with an expression which was almost hate.

"You believe that he did it?" she said.

"I do."

"And I do not! You say that Helen taunted him, that she drove him into a frenzy; you imagine the scene, and picture its details. Know that Helen loved him with her whole heart. Whatever she may have been to you, to him she was utterly devoted, living upon his words and his smile. She esteemed herself blessed simply to be near him—in his presence; and, on that very night, she said that no wife was ever so happy, and that on her knees she had thanked her Creator for that which made her life one long joy."

Gregory Dexter's face had showed the profoundest wonder while the excited girl was speaking, but by the time she ceased he had, in his quick way, grasped something of the truth, unexpected and astonishing though it was.

"You know this?" he said. "Then she wrote to you."

"Yes."

"On the evening of her death?"

"Yes."

"Bagshot testifies that when she left the room, at nine, Mrs. Heathcote was writing. Was that this letter to you?"

"I presume it was."

"When and how was it mailed? Or rather, what is the date of the postmark?"

"The next morning."

Dexter looked at her searchingly. "This may prove to be very important," he said.

"I know it—now."

"Why have you not spoken before?"

"To whom could I speak? Besides, it has not seemed important to me until now; for no one has suggested that she did not love her husband, that she tormented him and drove him into fury, save yourself alone."

"You will see that others will suggest it also," said Dexter, unmoved by her scorn. "Are you prepared to produce this letter?"

"I have it."

"Can I see it?"

"I would rather not show it."

"There is determined concealment here somewhere, Anne, and I am much troubled; I fear you stand very near great danger. Remember that this is a serious matter, and ordinary rules should be set aside, ordinary feelings sacrificed. You will do well to show me that letter, and, in short, to tell me the whole truth plainly. Do you think you have any friend more steadfast than myself?"

"You are kind. But—you are prejudiced."

"Against Heathcote, do you mean?" said Dexter, a sudden flash coming for an instant into his gray eyes. "Is it possible that you, you too, are interested in that man?"

But at this touch upon her heart the girl controlled herself again. She resumed her seat, with her face turned toward the window. "I do not believe that he did it, and you do," she answered, quietly. "That makes a wide separation between us."

But for the moment the man who sat opposite had forgotten the present, to ask himself, with the same old inward wonder and anger, why it was that this other man, who had never done anything or been anything in his life, who had never denied himself, never worked, never accomplished anything—why it was that such a man as this had led captive Helen, Rachel, and now perhaps Anne. If it had been a case of great personal beauty, he could have partially accounted for it, and—scorned it. But it was not. Many a face was more regularly handsome than Heathcote's; he knew that he himself would be pronounced by the majority a handsomer, although of course older, man. But when he realized that he was going over this same old bitter ground, by a strong effort of will he stopped himself and returned to reality. Heathcote's power, whatever it was, and angry as it made him, was nevertheless a fact, and Dexter never contradicted facts. With his accurate memory, he now went back and took up Anne's last answer. "You say I believe it. It is true," he said, turning toward her (he had been sitting with his eyes cast down during this whirl of feeling); "but my belief is not founded upon prejudice, as you seem to think. It rests upon the evidence. Let us go over the evidence together: women are sometimes intuitively right, even against reason."

"I can not go over it."

But he persisted. "It would be better," he said, determined to draw the whole truth from her, if not in one way, then in another. For he realized how important it was that she should have an adviser.

She looked up and met his eyes; they were kind but unyielding. "Very well," she said, making an effort to do even this. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands: people could endure, then, more than they knew.

Dexter, not giving her a moment's delay, began immediately: his object was to rouse her and draw her out. "We will take at first simply the testimony," he said. "I have the main points here in my note-book. We will even suppose that we do not know the persons concerned, but think of them as strangers." He went over the evidence clearly and briefly. Then the theories. "Note," he said, "the difference. On one side we have a series of facts, testified to by a number of persons. On the other, a series of possibilities, testified to by no one save the prisoner himself. The defense is a theory built to fit the case, without one proof, no matter how small, as a foundation."

Anne had not stirred. Her eyes were turned away, gazing into the darkness of the garden. Dexter closed his note-book, and returned it to his pocket.

"They have advanced no further in the real trial," he said; "but you and I will now drop our rÔle of strangers, and go on. We know him; we knew her. Can we think of any cause which would account for such an act? Was there any reason why Ward Heathcote would have been relieved by the death of his wife?"

Anne remained silent.

"The common idea that he wished to have sole control of her wealth will hardly, I think, be received by those who have personally known him," continued Dexter. "He never cared for money. He was, in my opinion, ostentatiously indifferent to it." Here he paused to control the tone of his voice, which was growing bitter. "I repeat—can you imagine any other reason?" he said. Still she did not answer.

"Why do you not answer? I shall begin to suspect that you do."

At this she stirred a little, and he was satisfied. He had moved her from her rigidity. Not wishing to alarm her, he went on, tentatively: "My theory of the motive you are not willing to allow; still, I consider it a possible and even probable one. For they were not happy: he was not happy. Beautiful as she was, rich as she was, I was told, when I first came eastward in the spring, soon after their marriage, that had it not been for that accident and the dangerous illness that followed, Helen Lorrington would never have been Ward Heathcote's wife."

"Who told you this?" said Anne, turning toward him.

"I did not hear it from her, but it came from her—Rachel Bannert."

"She is a traitorous woman."

"Yes; but traitors betray—the truth."

He was watching her closely; she felt it, and turned toward the window again, so that he should not see her eyes.

"Suppose that he did not love her, but had married her under the influence of pity, when her life hung by a thread; suppose that she loved him—you say she did. Can you not imagine that there might have been moments when she tormented him beyond endurance concerning his past life—who knows but his present also? She was jealous; and she had wonderful ingenuity. But I doubt if you comprehend what I mean: a woman never knows a woman as a man knows her. And Heathcote was not patient. He is a self-indulgent man—a man who has been completely spoiled."

Again he paused. Then he could not resist bringing forward something else, under any circumstances, to show her that she was of no consequence in the case compared with another person. "It is whispered, I hear, that the maid will testify that there was a motive, and a strong one, namely, a rival; that there was another woman whom Heathcote really loved, and that Helen knew this, and used the knowledge."

"HE ROSE, AND TOOK HER COLD HANDS IN HIS."
"HE ROSE, AND TOOK HER COLD HANDS IN HIS."

The formless dread which accompanied Anne began now to assume definite outline and draw nearer. She gazed at her inquisitor with eyes full of dumb distress.

He rose, and took her cold hands in his. "Child," he said, earnestly, "I beseech you tell me all. It will be so much better for you, so much safer. You are suffering intensely. I have seen it all the evening. Can you not trust me?"

She still looked at him in silence, while the tears rose, welled over, and rolled slowly down.

"Can you not trust me?" he repeated.

She shook her head.

"But as you have told me something, why not tell me all?"

"I am afraid to tell all," she whispered.

"For yourself?"

"No."

"For him, then?"

"Yes."

He clinched his hand involuntarily as he heard this answer. Her pale face and agitation were all for him, then—for Ward Heathcote!

"You are really shaken by fear," he said. "I know its signs, or rather those of dread. It is pure dread which has possession of you now. How unlike you, Anne! How unlike yourself you are at this moment!"

But she cared nothing for herself, nothing for the scorn in his voice (the jealous are often loftily scornful), and he saw that she did not.

"Whom do you fear? The maid?"

"Yes."

"What can she say?"

"I do not know; and yet—"

"Is it possible—can it be possible, Anne, that you are the person implicated, the so-called rival?"

"I do not know; and it is because I do not know that I am so much afraid," she answered, still in the same low whisper.

"But why should you take this possibility upon yourself? Ward Heathcote is no Sir Galahad, Heaven knows. Probably at this moment twenty women are trembling as you are trembling, fearing lest they be called by name, and forced forward before the world."

He spoke with anger. Anne did not contradict him, but she leaned her head upon her hand weariedly, and closed her eyes.

"How can I leave you?" he said, breaking into his old kindness again. "I ought to go, but it is like leaving a girl in the hands of torturers. If there were only some one to be with you here until all this is over!"

"There is no one. I want no one."

"You puzzle me deeply," he said, walking up and down with troubled anxiety. "I can form no opinion as to whether your dread is purely imaginary or not, because you tell me nothing. If you were an ordinary woman, I should not give much thought to what you say—or rather to what you look, for you say nothing; but you are not ordinary. You are essentially brave, and you have fewer of the fantastic, irrelevant fancies of women than any girl I have ever known. There must be something, then, to fear, since you fear so intensely. I like you, Anne; I respect you. I admire you too, more than you know. You are so utterly alone in this trouble that I can not desert you. And I will not."

"Do not stay on my account."

"But I shall. That is, in the city; it is decided. Here is my address. Promise that if you should wish help or advice in any way—mark that I say, in any way—you will send me instantly a dispatch."

"I will."

"There is nothing more that I can do for you?"

"Nothing."

"And nothing that you will tell me? Think well, child."

"Nothing."

Then, as it was late, he made her renew her promise, and went away.

The next morning the package of newspapers was brought to Anne from the station at an early hour as usual. She was in her own room waiting for them. She watched the boy coming along the road, and felt a sudden thrill of anger when he stopped to throw a stone at a bird. To stop with that in his hand! Old Nora brought up the package. Anne took it, and closed the door. Then she sat down to read.

Half an hour later, Gregory Dexter received a telegraphic dispatch from Lancaster. "Come immediately. A. D."