Rosalind at Red Gate Part 26

"Certainly! Certainly! I devoutly hope she will give it to you; you need fear no interference from me. The sooner you get it and fling it away the better. Patricia has been animated by the best motives in withholding it; she regarded it as a sacred trust to administer for your own good, but now I want you to have your money."

"If I can have my share, if you will persuade her to give it, I will pay you all I owe you--" Henry began eagerly.

"What you owe me--what you _owe_ me!" and Arthur bent toward his brother and laughed--a laugh that was not good to hear. "You would give me money--money--you would pay me _money_ for priceless things!"

He broke off suddenly, dropping his arms at his sides helplessly.

"There is no use in trying to talk to you; we use a different vocabulary, Henry."

"But that trouble with Gillespie--if Patricia knew--"

"Yes; if she knew the truth! And you never understood, you are incapable of understanding, that it meant something to me to lose my sister out of my life. When Helen died"--and his voice fell and he paused for a moment, as a priest falters sometimes, gripped by some phrase in the office that touches hidden depths in his own experience, "then when Helen died there was still Patricia, the n.o.blest sister men ever had; but you robbed me of her--you robbed me of her!"

He was deeply moved and, as he controlled himself, he walked to the little table and fingered the ribbons of the work-basket.

"I haven't those notes, if that's what you're after--I never had them,"

he said. "Gillespie kept tight hold of them."

"Yes; the vindictive old devil!"

"Men who have been swindled are usually vindictive," replied Arthur grimly. "Gillespie is dead. I suppose the executor of his estate has those papers; and the executor is his son."

"The fool. I've never been able to get anything out of him."

"If he's a fool it ought to be all the easier to get your pretty playthings away from him. Old Gillespie really acted pretty decently about the whole business. Your daughter may be able to get them away from the boy; he's infatuated with her; he wants to marry her, it seems."

"My daughter is not in this matter," said Henry coldly, and then anger mastered him again. "I don't believe he has them; you have them, and that's why I have followed you here. I'm going to Patricia to throw myself on her mercy, and that ghost must not rise up against me. I want them; I have come to get those notes."

I was aroused by a shadow-like touch on my arm, and I knew without seeing who it was that stood beside me. A faint hint as of violets stole upon the air; her breath touched my cheek as she bent close to the little window, and she sighed deeply as in relief at beholding a scene of peace. Arthur Holbrook still stood with bowed head by the table, his back to his brother, and I felt suddenly the girl's hand clutch my wrist. She with her fresher eyes upon the scene saw, before I grasped it, what now occurred. Henry Holbrook had drawn a revolver from his pocket and pointed it full at his brother's back. We two at the window saw the weapon flash menacingly; but suddenly Arthur Holbrook flung round as his brother cried:

"I think you are lying to me, and I want those notes--I want those notes, I want them now! You must have them, and I can't go to Patricia until I know they're safe."

He advanced several steps and his manner grew confident as he saw that he held the situation in his own grasp. I would have rushed in upon them but the girl held me back.

"Wait! Wait!" she whispered.

Arthur thrust his hands into the side pockets of his flannel jacket and nodded his head once or twice.

"Why don't you shoot, Henry?"

"I want those notes," said Henry Holbrook. "You lied to me about them.

They were to have been destroyed. I want them now, to-night."

"If you shoot me you will undoubtedly get them much easier," said Arthur; and he lounged away toward the wall, half turning his back, while the point of the pistol followed him. "But the fact is, I never had them; Gillespie kept them."

Threats cool quickly, and I really had not much fear that Henry Holbrook meant to kill his brother; and Arthur's indifference to his danger was having its disconcerting effect on Henry. The pistol-barrel wavered; but Henry steadied himself and his clutch tightened on the b.u.t.t. I again turned toward the door, but the girl's hand held me back.

"Wait," she whispered again. "That man is a coward. He will not shoot."

The canoe-maker had been calmly talking, discussing the disagreeable consequences of murder in a tone of half-banter, and he now stood directly under the foils. Then in a flash he s.n.a.t.c.hed one of them, flung it up with an accustomed hand, and snapped it across his brother's knuckles. At the window we heard the slim steel hiss through the air, followed by the rattle of the revolver as it struck the ground. The canoe-maker's foot was on it instantly; he still held the foil.

"Henry," he said in the tone of one rebuking a child, "you are bad enough, but I do not intend that you shall be a murderer. And now I want you to go; I will not treat with you; I want nothing more to do with you! I repeat that I haven't got the notes."

He pointed to the door with the foil. The blood surged angrily in his face; but his voice was in complete control as he went on.

"Your visit has awakened me to a sense of neglected duty, Henry. I have allowed you to persecute our sister without raising a hand; I have no other business now but to protect her. Go back to your stupid sailor and tell him that if I catch him in any mischief on the lake or here I shall certainly kill him."

I lost any further words that pa.s.sed between them, as Henry, crazily threatening, walked out upon the deck to his boat; then from the creek came the thres.h.i.+ng of oars that died away in a moment. When I gazed into the room again Arthur Holbrook was blowing out the lights.

"I am grateful; I am so grateful," faltered the girl's voice; "but you must not be seen here. Please go now!" I had taken her hands, feeling that I was about to lose her; but she freed them and stood away from me in the shadow.

"We are going away--we must leave here! I can never see you again,"

she whispered.

In the starlight she was Helen, by every test my senses could make; but by something deeper I knew that she was not the girl I had seen in the window at St. Agatha's. She was more dependent, less confident and poised; she stifled a sob and came close. Through the window I saw Arthur Holbrook climbing up to blow out the last light.

"I could have watched myself, but I was afraid that sailor might come; and it was he that fired at you in the road. He had gone to Glenarm to watch you and keep you away from here. Uncle Henry came back to-day and sent word that he wanted to see my father, and I asked you to come to help us."

"I thank you for that."

"And there was another man--a stranger, back there near the road; I could not make him out, but you will be careful,--please! You must think very ill of me for bringing you into all this danger and trouble."

"I am grateful to you. Please turn all your troubles over to me."

"You did what I asked you to do," she said, "when I had no right to ask, but I was afraid of what might happen here. It is all right now and we are going away; we must leave this place."

"But I shall see you again."

"No! You have--you have--Helen. You don't know me at all! You will find your mistake to-morrow."

She was urging me toward the steps that led up to the house. The sob was still in her throat, but she was laughing, a little hysterically, in her relief that her father had come off unscathed.

"Then you must let me find it out to-morrow; I will come to-morrow before you go."

"No! No! This is good-by," she said. "You would not be so unkind as to stay, when I am so troubled, and there is so much to do!"

We were at the foot of the stairway, and I heard the shop door snap shut.

"Good night, Rosalind!"

"Good-by; and thank you!" she whispered.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW THE NIGHT ENDED