when burton parted from ralston at the latter's office, the day was beginning to break. he went to his hotel, where only a surprised and solitary watchman saw him enter. he walked up to the second floor instead of taking the elevator, and went at once to his room. to his surprise, the door was slightly ajar. he pushed it open,--and faced mrs. bussey.
"how did you get into my room?" he demanded in his first surprise.
she did not answer that,--but no other answer than the ring of chambermaid's keys in her hand was necessary. she cowered away from him in the blinking timidity that she had always shown, and then she suddenly bristled up like a wrathful squirrel.
"what have you done with ben?"
"did you come here to look for him?"
"he should be home before this! have they found him out? have they found him out?"
"yes, they have found him out. they have taken him to the police station." he spoke as gently as possible. nothing could make the facts less than tragic to her, poor thing.
she wrung her hands. "i wish you had never come here! it would have been all right if you had never come!"
burton could not blame her for her point of view, since wiser philosophers than she had held before this that right and wrong are merely a way of looking at things. instead, he asked abruptly:
"what made you take that letter out of my room?"
she stopped her whimpering cry, and with a look of terror darted suddenly past burton, who did not try to check her, and so out of the room.
so that matter was also explained. she it was who had brought him that note of threat, and afterwards had abstracted it from his room. she probably helped the maids at times, and so had the pass-keys to the rooms, and she was a sufficiently familiar figure to excite no comment by her comings and goings. the whole thing had been a combination of cunning and chance, and mrs. bussey's low mentality and ben's insane shrewdness might have kept the whole town in hot water for years longer if burton had not come upon the scene. the police had been too committed to the henry underwood theory to see anything else, until it was actually forced upon them.
a soldier forgets his personal wound in the heat of battle, but when the excitement is past, the smart comes again to his consciousness. as burton's mind calmed from the excitement of the night, he grew more and more vividly conscious of the exceedingly disagreeable task yet before him,--to give miss underwood an account of mrs. overman's visit yesterday. it was so inexpressibly irksome a commission that he was almost tempted to repeat mrs. bussey's wail. why had he ever come? now that the condition which she had set had been fulfilled, she would of course expect a certain urgency on his part for her promise. to tell her that his principal had reconsidered the matter and would not ask anything further at her hands was so near an insult, under all the circumstances, that in his perplexity as to how he was to manage the matter he almost forgot to be angry.
as he stood by the window waiting and trying to collect his thoughts, he saw mr. hadley walking down the street, producing, quite by himself, all the effect of a procession. the man was funny, but he wasn't half a bad sort! burton hated to think he should never see him again. he glanced over at the hadley house, and had a glimpse of miss hadley--no, of mrs. henry underwood, to be sure!--running down the stairs and past a window. the haste was explained when he saw henry himself crossing the street diagonally toward the house. she had seen him from an upper window! burton turned from his own window, with a throb of interest so keen that it surprised him. he wanted tremendously to know how that experiment was going to work out. henry was a babe in the wood,--and the featherheaded minnie! it would be mighty interesting to see how they "found" themselves. and the doctor--and leslie-- he whistled softly and picked up his hat. one might as well have the thing over.
the doctor was waiting at the door to receive him, and leaned on his arm as they walked to the surgery with a weight that burton felt was more affection than need of support.
"i should have to read up in oriental literature to get a vocabulary to properly express my feelings," he said. "you are the roof-tree of my house and the door-sill of my granary, the protector of the poor and the defender of the right. all of which means, in plain english, that i don't know how to say what i want to."
"i am only too glad that i had a chance to have a hand in the matter," said burton, "but the chances are that the mystery would soon have been solved, in any event. ben was getting too confident, and therefore reckless."
"it was the check you gave him that made him reckless. of course he is insane. such a long, brooding course of revenge for a boyish quarrel is clear proof of insanity. but the insanity might have remained latent for years if he had not been crossed. no, you can't get out of it. you will have to reconcile yourself to being regarded as a benefactor."
"well, perhaps i can stand it, mixed in with some other memories i shall have to take away with me," said burton grimly. leslie had not appeared, and he knew what was yet before him. "i had a bad time getting away from you yesterday when you wanted to make me stay and tell you what i was doing. i wasn't sure i was doing anything! i felt like a boy who is speculating whether the fourth-of-july mud can which he is watching is really dead or only sleeping. if my mud can should go off, i could see that the effect would be wholly satisfying. on the other hand, it might be a mud can, only that and nothing more, and nothing could be more humiliating than to be sedulously watching a mud can which might safely be given to children who cry for it."
the doctor laughed. "the explosion was fully up to the claims of the prospectus."
"there's another matter that i am still somewhat in doubt about," said burton seriously. "that's selby's death. i said to miss underwood yesterday that i hoped henry wouldn't shoot selby when he heard of his engagement to miss hadley. i am fairly certain that mrs. bussey heard me and repeated the remark to ben. also, it seems that i precipitated a quarrel between ben and selby about the price of his work. taking these things together, how far am i responsible for selby's death?"
the doctor turned to look at him questioningly. "don't blame yourself for things you only touch at that distance," he said abruptly. "if the little gods use us as instruments to carry out their plans, we have to take that lot with the rest. perhaps there is justice in their schemes. we all have to take our chances in this skirmishing that we call life,--and death isn't the worst that might happen."
"no," said burton, with a sigh.
the doctor continued to observe him scrutinizingly, but he spoke lightly. "henry gave me a bad quarter of an hour last night," he said, wrinkling his face in his old, funny grimace. "when i found he had disappeared i thought for a while that my worst nightmares of these past years had come true. that brilliant watch of watson's didn't even know he was gone. the boy may be--well, a problem, but no one ever suggested he didn't have spirit enough to climb a tree."
"he will be all right after this. he has been worried by the surrounding atmosphere of suspicion into appearing as a problem, that's all. if that little fool--i beg a thousand pardons. that isn't what i was going to talk about. i intended to say that if your new daughter-in-law, who is a very beautiful girl with a sweet nature, will only praise him enough,--and i think that is likely to be her role,--he will probably be not only happy but good. the poor boy needs coddling."
the doctor listened with the glimmer of a smile under his seriousness.
"we all do. it is the great human need." he twisted his face up inscrutably as he added: "i hope you will get your share."
"thank you," said burton. his heart sank suddenly. he hadn't wanted to be reminded of his own needs. "am i to see miss underwood this morning?" he asked, facing the inevitable.
"she wishes to see you," said the doctor, somewhat hesitatingly, and a troubled look crossed his face. "she asked me to keep you; i'll tell her you are here." he rose, polishing his glasses painstakingly. he adjusted them carefully on his nose, and then looked over them at burton. "you saw--i understand that mrs. overman was in town yesterday," he said.
"yes," said burton uncomfortably. "she was here between trains only. there was no time--"
the doctor raised his hand deprecatingly. "you can tell leslie about it," he said. at the door he paused. "when the little gods take a hand in any game, there is no use for any of us to borrow responsibility," he said enigmatically, and hastily departed, leaving burton feeling far from at ease.
he looked about the familiar room with a silent farewell. here it was that he had seen leslie fired with generous anger at the attack on her father. by this curtain she had hidden herself away on the evening when that absurd committee came to "investigate," and he had thought of her as a jewel whose beauty could never be concealed. here he had stood when the sound of her music came to him--
there was a faint sound behind him, and he turned swiftly to face her. she had entered so softly that he had not heard her, and she stood by the door looking at him with a shrinking dread that gave him a pang. she was very pale, and if the dark circles about her eyes did not mean tears, he was at a loss to interpret them.
"what is it? what troubles you?" he asked quickly.
"i am not--" she began. then she interrupted herself. "yes, i am troubled and unhappy and wretched and ashamed,--oh, so ashamed! you will despise me!"
"you are wrong there, at least. can you tell me--?"
"yes. i told father i wanted to see you alone. oh, you mustn't think i am not grateful for what you have done, and thankful beyond words to have henry cleared and all the truth of things made known. i am. i am so thankful that i shall go softly all my days to remember it. that only makes it worse!"
"makes what worse?"
"my--defaulting! you did it all because of--of a promise i made you. and i can't keep that promise. i can't. i thought while it was far off that i could, and i didn't let myself think much about it, because i was so anxious to have your help, and nothing, nothing, would be too much to pay for it,--and it wouldn't be, only--i simply can't!"
"do you mean your promise to philip?" asked burton, a light that made him giddy coming over him.
"yes. i--can't!"
"why can't you?" he asked.
she caught her breath, and something flashed into her face that went to his head. it was gone in an instant, but in that instant all the wavering lights and shadows and uncertainties through which he had been groping were crystallized into white light.
"then you don't love philip?" he said tyrannously.
"no!"
"didn't you ever love him?"
"no."
"in that case, of course you can't marry him," he smiled.
"i--don't--want--to marry him!"
"then how about me? do you love me?"
the crimson tide flooded her face, and she flashed on him a look of surprised reproach, but she did not leave the room with the haughty air that would have been the proper sequel to such a look, for the simple but sufficient reason that by this time he was holding both her hands.
"is there any least possibility of your caring for me? i have been fathoms deep in love with you for--for ages! i don't know when it began! it has always been! oh, if you have hated the idea of marrying philip half as much as i have hated the idea that you would! leslie!" the way in which he spoke her name really left nothing more to be said.
somewhat later they came back into the story. she drew a little away to look into burton's face with dismay on her own.
"but poor philip! how can we ever tell him?"
"leave that to me," said burton, with a queer laugh.
