“Is there anything strange in my being interested in a murder perpetrated on a person whose name I have frequently heard mentioned in this house?”
“No,” he murmured, “no; but what led you to her home? It was not a spot for a young lady to be in, and any other woman would have shrunk from so immediate a contact with crime.”
Imogene’s hand was on the door, but she turned back.
“I am not like other women,” she declared. “When I hear of anything strange or mysterious, I want to understand it. I did not stop to ask what people would think of my conduct.”
“But your grief and terror, Imogene? They are real, and not to be disguised. Look in the glass over there, and you will yourself see what an effect all this has had upon you. If Mrs. Clemmens is a stranger to you; if you know no more of her than you have always led me to suppose, why should you have been so unnaturally impressed by today’s tragedy?”
It was a searching question, and her eye fell slightly, but her steady demeanor did not fail her.
“Still,” said she, “because I am not like other women. I cannot forget such horrors in a moment.” And she advanced again to the door, upon which she laid her hand.
Unconsciously his eye followed the movement, and rested somewhat inquiringly upon that hand. It was gloved, but to all appearance was without the ring which he had seen her put on at the widow’s house.
She seemed to comprehend his look. Meeting his eye with unshaken firmness, she resumed, in a low and constrained voice:
“You are wondering about the ring that formed a portion of the scene we are discussing. Mr. Orcutt, I told the gentleman who handed it to me today that it was mine. That should be enough for the man who professes sufficient confidence in me to wish to make me his wife. But since your looks confess a curiosity in regard to this diamond, I will say that I was as much astonished as anybody to see it picked up from the floor at my feet. The last time I had seen it was when I dropped it, somewhat recklessly, into a pocket. How or when it fell out, I cannot say. As for the ring itself,” she haughtily added, “young ladies frequently possess articles of whose existence their friends are unconscious.”
Here was an attempt at an explanation which, though meagre and far from satisfactory, had at least a basis in possibility. But Mr. Orcutt, as I have before said, was certain that the ring was lying on the floor of the room where it was picked up, before Imogene had made her appearance there, and was therefore struck with dismay at this conclusive evidence of her falsehood.
Yet, as he said to himself, she might have some association with the ring, might even have an owner’s claim upon it, incredible as this appeared, without being in the possession of such knowledge as definitely connected it with this crime. And led by this hope he laid his hand on hers as it was softly turning the knob of the door, and said, with emotion:
“Imogene, one moment. This is a subject which I am as anxious to drop as you are. In your condition it is almost cruelty to urge it upon you, but of one thing I must be assured before you leave my presence, and that is, that whatever secrets you may hide in your soul, or whatever motive may have governed your treatment of me and my suit tonight, they do not spring from any real or supposed interest in this crime, which ought from its nature to separate you and me. I ask,” he quickly added, as he saw her give a start of injured pride or irrepressible dismay, “not because I have any doubts on the subject myself, but because some of the persons who have unfortunately been witness to your strange and excited conduct today, have presumed to hint that nothing short of a secret knowledge of the crime or criminal could explain your action upon the scene of tragedy.”
And with a look which, if she had observed it, might have roused her to a sense of the critical position in which she stood, he paused and held his breath for her reply.
It did not come.
“Imogene?”
“I hear.”
Cold and hard the words sounded—his hand went like lightning to his heart.
“Are you going to answer?” he asked, at last.
“Yes.”
“What is that answer to be, Yes or No?”
She turned upon him her large gray eyes. There was misery in their depths, but there was a haughtiness, also, which only truth could impart.
“My answer is No!” said she.
And, without another word, she glided from the room.
Next morning, Mr. Byrd found three notes awaiting his perusal. The first was a notification from the coroner to the effect that the Widow Clemmens had quietly breathed her last at midnight. The second, a hurried line from Mr. Ferris, advising him to make use of the day in concluding a certain matter of theirs in the next town; and the third, a letter from Mr. Orcutt, couched in the following terms:
Mr. Byrd: Dear Sir—I have seen the person named between us, and I here state, upon my honor, that she is in possession of no facts which it concerns the authorities to know.
V
Horace Byrd
But now, I am cabin’d, cribbed, confin’d, bound in,
Macbeth
To saucy doubts and fears.
Horace Byrd was by birth and education a gentleman. He was the son of a man of small means but great expectations, and had been reared to look forward to the day when he should be the possessor of a large income. But his father dying, both means and expectations vanished into thin air, and at the age of twenty, young Horace found himself thrown upon the world without income,
