Danny's Own Story Part 31

"I'm not so sure it isn't important," says the colonel, "but go on."

"Then," says Armstrong, "we had another drink together. In fact, a lot of them. We got awfully friendly. And like a fool I told him of my quarrel with Lucy."

"LIKE a fool," says Colonel Tom, nodding his head. "Go on."

"There isn't much more to tell," says the doctor, "except that I made a worse idiot of myself yet, and left McMakin about two o'clock in the afternoon, as near as I can recollect. Somewhere about ten o'clock that night I went home. Lucy was gone. I haven't seen her since."

"Dave," says Colonel Tom, "did McMakin happen to mention to you, that day, just why he was in Chicago?"

"I suppose so," says the doctor. "I don't know. Maybe not. That was twenty years ago. Why?"

"Because," says Colonel Tom, very grim and quiet, "because your first thought as to his intention when he met you in the bar was MY idea also. I thought he went to Chicago to settle with you. You see, I got to Chicago that same afternoon."

"The same day?"

"Yes. We were to have come together. But I missed the train, and he got there a day ahead of me. He was waiting at the hotel for me to join him, and then we were going to look you up together. He found you first and I never did find you."

"But I don't exactly understand," says the doctor. "You say he had the idea of shooting me."

"I don't understand everything myself," says Colonel Tom. "But I do understand that Prent McMakin must have played some sort of a two-faced game. He never said a word to me about having seen you.

"Listen," he goes on. "When you and Lucy ran away it nearly killed our grandfather. In fact, it finally did kill him. When we got Lucy's letter that told you were in Chicago I went up to bring her back home. We didn't know what we were going to do, McMakin and I, but we were both agreed that you needed killing. And he swore that he would marry Lucy anyhow, even--"

"MARRY HER!" sings out the doctor, "but we WERE married."

"Dave," Colonel Tom says very slow and steady, "you keep SAYING you were married. But it's strange--it's right STRANGE about that marriage."

And he looked at the doctor hard and close, like he would drag the truth out of him, and the doctor met his look free and open. You would of thought Colonel Tom was saying with his look: "You MUST tell me the truth." And the doctor with his was answering: "I HAVE told you the truth."

"But, Tom," says the doctor, "that letter she wrote you from Chicago must--"

"Do you know what Lucy wrote?" interrupts Colonel Tom. "I remember exactly. It was simply: 'FORGIVE ME. I LOVED HIM SO. I AM HAPPY. I KNOW IT IS WRONG, BUT I LOVE HIM SO YOU MUST FORGIVE ME.'"

"But couldn't you tell from THAT we were married?" cries out the doctor.

"She didn't mention it," says Colonel Tom.

"She supposed that her own family had enough faith in her to take it for granted," says the doctor, very scornful, his face getting red.

"But wait, Dave," says Colonel Tom, quiet and cool. "Don't bl.u.s.ter with me. There are still a lot of things to be explained. And that marriage is one of them.

"To go back a bit. You say you got to the house somewhere around ten o'clock that evening and found Lucy gone. Do you remember the day of the month?"

"It was November 14, 1888."

"Exactly," says Colonel Tom. "I got to Chicago at six o'clock of that very day. And I went at once to the address in Lucy's letter. I got there between seven and eight o'clock. She was gone. My thought was that you must have got wind of my coming and persuaded her to leave with you in order to avoid me--although I didn't see how you could know when I would get there, either, when I thought it over."

"And you have never seen her since," says Armstrong, pondering.

"I HAVE seen her since," says Colonel Tom, "and that is one thing that makes me say your story needs further explanation."

"But where--when--did you see her?" asts the doctor, mighty excited.

"I am coming to that. I went back home again. And in July of the next year I heard from her."

"Heard from her?"

"By letter. She was in Galesburg, Illinois, if you know where that is.

She was living there alone. And she was almost dest.i.tute. I wrote her to come home. She would not. But she had to live. I got rid of some of our property in Tennessee, and took enough cash up there with me to fix her, in a decent sort of way, for the rest of her life, and put it in the bank. I was with her there for ten days; then I went back home to get Aunt Lucy Davis to help me in another effort to persuade her to return.

But when I got back North with Aunt Lucy she had gone."

"Gone?"

"Yes, and when we returned without her to Tennessee there was a letter telling us not to try to find her. We thought--I thought--that she might have taken up with you once again."

"But, my G.o.d! Tom," the doctor busts out, "you were with her ten days there in Galesburg! Didn't she tell you then--couldn't you tell from the way she acted--that she had married me?"

"That's the odd thing, Dave," says the colonel, very slow and thoughtful. "That's what is so very strange about it all. I merely a.s.sumed by my att.i.tude that you were not married, and she let me a.s.sume it without a protest."

"But did you ask her?"

"Ask her? No. Can't you see that there was no reason why I should ask her? I was sure. And being sure of it, naturally I didn't talk about it to her. You can understand that I wouldn't, can't you? In fact, I never mentioned you to her. She never mentioned you to me."

"You must have mistaken her, Tom."

"I don't think it's possible, Dave," said the colonel. "You can mistake words and explanations a good deal easier than you can mistake an atmosphere. No, Dave, I tell you that there's something odd about it--married or not, Lucy didn't BELIEVE herself married the last time I saw her."

"But she MUST have known," says the doctor, as much to himself as to the colonel. "She MUST have known." Any one could of told by the way he said it that he wasn't lying. I could see that Colonel Tom believed in him, too. They was both sicking their intellects onto the job of figgering out how it was Lucy didn't know. Finally the doctor says very thoughtful:

"Whatever became of Prentiss McMakin, Tom?"

"Dead," says Colonel Tom, "quite a while ago."

"H-m," says the doctor, still thinking hard. And then looks at Colonel Tom like they was an idea in his head. Which he don't speak her out. But Colonel Tom seems to understand.

"Yes," he says, nodding his head. "I think you are on the right track now. Yes--I shouldn't wonder."

Well, they puts this and that together, and they agrees that whatever happened to make things hard to explain must of happened on that day that Prentiss McMakin met the doctor in the bar-room, and didn't shoot him, as he had made his brags he would. Must of happened between the time that afternoon when Prentiss McMakin left the doctor and the time Colonel Tom went out to see his sister and found she had went. Must of happened somehow through Prent McMakin.

We goes home with Colonel Tom that night. And the next day all three of us is on our way to Athens, Indiany, where I had seen Miss Lucy at.

CHAPTER XXIII