In Jeopardy
place, the library of "Hildebrand Hundred," where I am sitting.
Something is in this room, something that is eternally menacing and
eternally patient. It may be in one year and it may be in three and
fifty years that it chooses to strike, but strike it surely will
and no art or cunning will avail to avert the blow. Yes, there is
_something_ here, the _something_ for which I myself am waiting.
But search as you will, you shall not find the Terror; you must
await its coming as I am doing. Fielding Thaneford has gone to his
own place, but his works of darkness remain behind him.
There is just one more thing that I might tell you, but I shall not
do it--you would then seek to compromise the situation, and that I
will not have. I put my own wits to work and so was able to lift
one corner of the veil; that is why I wait so confidently to-day
for that which will surely come.
And so I leave you but the one door to safety--the abandonment of
the "Hundred" to John Thaneford, the same "Black Jack" Thaneford
who once loved me and who finally cast me off. This is the last
thing I can do for him--for him whom I both hate and love to the
death. Why? Ask any woman----
The MS. had ended as abruptly as it had begun. I took the sheets from
Betty's hand, arranged them in order, and put the bundle in my pocket.
"I don't think we had better discuss this any further to-night," I said
decisively.
"Quite right," assented Warriner. "Betty looks pretty white, and you
have been traveling for two days. Let me know, at any time, if I can be
of service."
We both of us accompanied Warriner to the porch, and saw him drive away.
As we re-entered the hall the closed door of the library shone white and
ghostly at the end of the passage.
"That horrible room!" panted Betty, her hand tight clutched on my arm.
"I can never, never enter it again."
I tried to soothe her as best I could, but the poor girl's nerves had
been badly overstrained, and it was a long time before I could get the
upper hand of her hysterical mood. I positively refused to say one more
word on the general subject of the tragedy, or the particular contents
of Eunice Trevor's _ante mortem_ statement; and, after a while, Betty
gave in and was reasonable again. But both of us knew that the question
had not been settled, that it was only postponed. And to-morrow it would
return again to plague us.
Chapter XVI
_Ad Interim_
I never sent for Warriner to come and discuss Eunice Trevor's
astonishing communication. Why? Well, what would have been the use?
After all, the woman had told us little or nothing which we had not
known already; certainly, there was no definite information in her
statement upon which to base a working hypothesis. Granted that there
was a guilty secret, it lay hidden for all time in S. Saviour's
churchyard. Both Eunice Trevor and John Thaneford may have been innocent
of any actual participation in the tragedy of Francis Graeme's death,
but it was by no means clear that they could not have taken steps to
prevent it. The coroner's jury had given their verdict, the magistrate
had found no case against the one suspected person, Dave Campion, and
there was really no valid warrant for reopening the inquiry. Besides,
this was a purely family affair, and Chalmers Warriner was an outsider.
I dare say it was despicably small-minded of me, but Betty was now my
wife, and both she and Warriner ought to realize that the intimacy
between them could not be continued on the old free footing. Jealous.
Well perhaps, I was uneasily conscious of an unworthy feeling in the
matter. But I was master of "Hildebrand Hundred," and surely I had the
right to determine what friendships were desirable and what were not.
Warriner was a man of mature age, Betty was young and impulsive; it was
my bounden duty to guard her from every sidelong look, from every
whispered word. Not that I ever discussed the question with her; I
merely took my stand and it was her wifely obligation to yield to my
judgment. So far as I could tell, she never even noticed that Warriner
no longer came to the "Hundred" in the old informal way. And that was as
it should be.
But the issues raised by Eunice Trevor's statement were not to be set
aside so easily. It was annoying, but Betty persisted in taking the dead
woman's warning both literally and seriously; she actually begged me to
formally abandon the "Hundred" to John Thaneford, as the legal
next-of-kin, and perhaps leave Maryland altogether.
This I could not consent to do; I was too proud, or perhaps too
stubborn, to be frightened by the vaporings of a highly wrought and
undoubtedly neurotic imagination. There was not the shadow of a proof
that Francis Graeme's death had been due to premeditated violence, and
as for the alleged tragedies in the dim past, I neither knew nor cared
anything about them. What if five men had died, under unexplained
circumstances, in that particular room? All this was ancient history
running back over a period of sixty odd years, and there are many
coincidences in life. There is no greater tyranny than that of
superstition, and once in bondage to its shadowy overlordship orderly
existence becomes impossible.
But my decision had been finally influenced by a still stronger
consideration. As I have said a little further back, I had unconsciously
become attached to the "Hundred" by ties that I now found it impossible
to break. This was my home and the home of my fathers before me; I now
found myself an integral part of the ancestral homestead, my life had
rooted deeply into the very soil, with its sacred dust my own corporeal
remains must finally be mingled; no, I could not suffer "Hildebrand
Hundred" to pass out of my hands, and I would hold it against every
enemy visible and invisible. Even granting that something deadly and
menacing did lurk in the dim corners of that great room with its painted
windows and booklined walls, was I not man enough to grapple with the
Terror on its own chosen ground? Better to die even as my Hildebrand
forebears had died, alone and unafraid, than to drag out a coward's
existence in some wretched backwater of life. Yes, I had decided; I
would stay on at the "Hundred," _coute qui coute_.
It was not so easy to maintain my resolve in the face of Betty's quiet
but determined opposition. I could make every allowance for the
successive shocks to her delicately organized nervous system, and mere
prayers and tears I was ready to cope with. But there was an invincible
spirit in her attitude that I could not shake. "It is a part of my inner
sense," she would reiterate with gentle obstinacy, and how can one argue
rationally with feminine intuitions!
In the end we compromised--as always. It was agreed that we should
continue to live on at the "Hundred," but the library should be
permanently and effectually closed. Betty even proposed that a brick
wall should be built at the end of the passage entirely blocking the
entrance, but to this heroic measure I steadfastly refused to assent; it
was enough of a nuisance to lose the use of the best room in the house,
and to be obliged to transfer the working part of the library to the new
living room. So we compromised again by locking the door and keeping all
the keys in my immediate possession. In addition, I had to promise that
I would not enter the room unless my wife was told of my intention and
invited to accompany me. "At least we'll die together," said Betty,
trying to smile through her tears. What could I do but kiss them away,
and give the required assurance.
In October of that same year our son was born. Of course Betty insisted
that he should be christened Hugh, and while I have always thought the
name an ugly one and should have preferred Lawrence, after the first
American Hildebrand, it would have been most ungracious to have entered
any demurrer. But when Betty furthermore suggested that Chalmers
Warriner be invited to stand as godfather I made plausible objections in
favor of Doctor Marcy. I fancied that she seemed unaccountably
disappointed, but she yielded when she realized that my preference was a
decided one. However, Warriner was present at the ceremony in S.
Saviour's, and endowed the baby with a magnificent silver mug. That
particular gift should have been the prerogative of the titular
godfather, but Doctor Marcy did not seem inclined to stand upon his
rights, and I could not act the churl in so small a matter. And so this
epochal phase of my life had come to a triumphant close; possessed of
"Hildebrand Hundred," a son to inherit my name, and the best wife in the
world. What more could heart of man desire!
Chapter XVII
_The Midsummer Night's Ball_
And now I come to a certain chapter of my book of life which I would
fain leave unwritten. But I am bound to set down the full truth, no
matter how unpleasant the bare, ugly facts may be. No one can blame me
more hardly than I did myself, and assuredly I was well punished for my
misdoings. So here goes.
I had become jealous of Chalmers Warriner, bitterly, almost insanely
jealous; and this in spite of my sober judgment, my real inner
conviction of Betty's unswerving loyalty and wholehearted love. It is a
humiliating confession for a man to make, but since I did play the fool
to the top of my bent I ought to be willing to endure my penance; as it
turned out, I came within an ace of paying the ultimate price of my
folly. So much by way of _apologia pro mea culpa_.
The winter, spring and early summer had passed without incident. In June
it occurred to me that it would be well if Betty were away from the
"Hundred" for the period covered by the double tragedy of Francis
Graeme's death and Eunice Trevor's mysterious taking-off. Accordingly,
we went to the "Old White" for three weeks, returning to our home the
first day of July. Betty had certainly been benefited by the change, and
I hoped that the current of our family life was now to flow smoothly on
for an indefinite length of time.
The immediate rock upon which our matrimonial barque proceeded to wreck
itself was the Midsummer Night's ball at "Powersthorp" on August the
fourth. As Hilda Powers was Betty's most intimate friend we had motored
over early to assist in receiving the guests; half of King William
county seemed to have been invited, and the crush was tremendous.
I was standing near the receiving line of ladies when Chalmers Warriner
came up; and, in spite of my secret dislike and suspicion, I could not
help thinking how distinguished looking he was--just the sort of man
that a woman invariably favors with a second glance. And now he was
lingering for that maddening hundredth part of a second over Betty's
hand; I heard him whisper: "The supper waltz then?" and I saw Betty
start and flush and finally nod a smiling assent. Ignoble of me to be
standing there, actually spying on my own wife! I admit the justice of
your censure, dear reader, but have you ever endured even the smallest
pang of the jealous man's agony? One ought to be competent to testify in
this particular court.
I suppose I went through the ordinary motions of a man attending a ball;
I have a vague recollection of dancing at least half a dozen times; I
comforted innumerable elderly dowagers and flagons of near-claret cup,
and encouraged several flappers to venture on their first cigarette in
the friendly dusk of the pleached lime alley; I even played one rubber
of auction with the colonel, the commodore, and the judge, while they
were awaiting the arrival of the rector to make up their accustomed
coterie. But my eyes were always fixed on the big clock at the end of