“Mr. Trohm,” said I, “you have the kindest heart and the closest lips, but have you ever thought that Deacon Spear—”
He stopped me with a really horrified look. “Deacon Spear’s house was thoroughly examined yesterday,” said he, “as mine will be today. Don’t insinuate anything against him! Leave that for foolish William.” Then with the most charming return to his old manner, for I felt myself in a measure rebuked, he lifted his hat and urged his horse forward. But, having withdrawn himself a step or two, he paused and with the slightest gesture toward the little hut he was facing, added in a much lower tone than any he had yet used: “Besides, Deacon Spear is much too far away from Mother Jane’s cottage. Don’t you remember that I told you she never could be got to go more than forty rods from her own doorstep?” And, breaking into a quick canter, he rode away.
I was left to think over his words and the impossibility of my picking up any other clue than that given me by Mr. Gryce.
I was turning toward the house when I heard a slight noise at my feet. Looking down, I encountered the eyes of Saracen. He was crouching at my side, and as I turned toward him, his tail actually wagged. It was a sight to call the color up to my cheek; not that I blushed at this sign of goodwill, astonishing as it was, considering my feeling toward dogs, but at his being there at all without my knowing it. So palpable a proof that no woman—I make no exceptions—can listen more than one minute to the expressions of a man’s sincere admiration without losing a little of her watchfulness, was not to be disregarded by one as inexorable to her own mistakes as to those of others. I saw myself the victim of vanity, and while somewhat abashed by the discovery, I could not but realize that this solitary proof of feminine weakness was not really to be deplored in one who has not yet passed the line beyond which any such display is ridiculous.
Lucetta met me at the door just as I had expected her to. Giving me a short look, she spoke eagerly but with a latent anxiety, for which I was more or less prepared.
“I am glad to see you looking so bright this morning,” she declared. “We are all feeling better now that the incubus of secrecy is removed. But”—here she hesitated—“I would not like to think you told Mr. Trohm what happened to us yesterday.”
“Lucetta,” said I, “there may be women of my age who delight in gossiping about family affairs with comparative strangers, but I am not that kind of woman. Mr. Trohm, friendly as he has proved himself and worthy as he undoubtedly is of your confidence and trust, will have to learn from some other person than myself anything which you may wish to have withheld from him.”
For reply she gave me an impulsive kiss. “I thought I could trust you,” she cried. Then, with a dubious look, half daring, half shrinking, she added:
“When you come to know and like us better, you will not care so much to talk to neighbors. They never can understand us or do us justice, Mr. Trohm, especially.”
This was a remark I could not let pass.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why do you think Mr. Trohm cherishes such animosity towards you? Has he ever—”
But Lucetta could exercise a repellent dignity when she chose. I did not finish my sentence, though I must have looked the inquiry I thought better not to put into words.
“Mr. Trohm is a man of blameless reputation,” she avowed. “If he has allowed himself to cherish suspicions in our regard, he has doubtless had his reasons for it.”
And with these quiet words she left me to my thoughts, and I must say to my doubts, which were all the more painful that I saw no immediate opportunity for clearing them up.
Late in the afternoon William burst in with news from the other end of the lane.
“Such a lark!” he cried. “The investigation at Deacon Spear’s house was a mere farce, and I just made them repeat it with a few frills. They had dug up my cellar, and I was determined they should dig up his. Oh, the fun it was! The old fellow kicked, but I had my way. They couldn’t refuse me, you know; I hadn’t refused them. So that man’s cellar-bottom has had a stir up. They didn’t find anything, but it did me a lot of good, and that’s something. I do hate Deacon Spear—couldn’t hate him worse if he’d killed and buried ten men under his hearthstone.”
“There is no harm in Deacon Spear,” said Lucetta, quickly.
“Did they submit Mr. Trohm’s house to a search also?” asked Loreen, ashamed of William’s heat and anxious to avert any further display of it.
“Yes, they went through that too. I was with them. Glad I was too. I say, girls, I could have laughed to see all the comforts that old bachelor has about him. Never saw such fixings. Why, that house is as neat and pretty from top to bottom as any old maid’s. It’s silly, of course, for a man, and I’d rather live in an old rookery like this, where I can walk from room to room in muddy boots if I want to, and train my dogs and live in freedom like the man I am. Yet I couldn’t help thinking it mighty comfortable, too, for an old fellow like him who likes such things and don’t have chick or child to meddle. Why, he had pincushions on all his bureaus, and they had pins in them.”
The laugh with which he delivered this last sentence might have been heard a quarter of a mile away.
