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Page 69
"Was that it?"
"Didn't I tell you that I would not say whether it was or not? I only
say suppose that was the case. Doctor Gordon has a married sister by the
name of Ewing living in foreign parts. You can see for yourself how easy
it might have been."
"What about the girl?" asked Goodman in a dry voice.
James flushed angrily. "That is nobody's business," said he. "She is
Doctor Gordon's niece."
Goodman was unabashed. "How does it happen her name is Ewing?" he asked.
"Couldn't it possibly have happened that two sisters of Doctor Gordon's
married two brothers?" James cried. He elbowed his way out. When he was
in the buggy driving home, he began to realize how the fairy tale which
he had related in the store would not in the least impose upon Clemency,
how she would almost inevitably hear of the statements in the papers. He
wondered more and more that Gordon should have divulged a secret which
he had kept so fiercely for so long.
When he reached home he went at once into the office, and gave Gordon
his mail and the New York paper. Gordon glanced at it, then at James.
"Have you seen this?" he asked.
James nodded.
"I suppose you think me most inconsistent," said Gordon gloomily, "but
the truth is I kept the secret while Clara was alive, though I found I
could not, oh, God, I could not after she was dead and gone! I had not
realized what that would mean: to never acknowledge her as my wife, dead
or alive. I found that when it came to the death certificate, and the
notice in the paper, and the erection of a stone to her memory, that I
could not keep up the deception, no matter what the consequence. My God,
Elliot, I cannot commit sacrilege against the dead! Dead, she must have
her due. I anticipated this. There was something last night in the
_Stanbridge Record_, and yesterday, while you were out three reporters
from New York came. I told them that I had done what I had for good and
sufficient reasons, which were not dishonorable to myself or to others,
and beyond that I would say nothing. I suppose the poor fellows had to
tax their imaginations to fill their columns. I don't know what the
result will be with regard to Clemency, but I could not help it." There
was something painfully appealing in Gordon's look and manner. He seemed
so broken that James was alarmed. He said everything that he was able to
say to soothe him, commended the course which he had taken, and told him
what he had said at the store, without repeating the insinuations which
had led him to fabricate such a tale. Gordon smiled bitterly. "All your
fellowmen want of you is food for their animal appetites or their
mental," he said. "They must have meat and drink for their stomachs, as
well as for their curiosity and malice. I have lived here all these
years, and labored for them for mighty poor recompense, and sometimes
for none at all, and I'll warrant that to-day I am more in their minds
than I have ever been before, because they have found out my secret,
which has been the torture of my life. I wonder if Clemency has heard
anything about it."
"I will go and see," replied James.
The minute he saw Clemency, who was in the parlor, he knew that she
knew. By her side on the floor was the _Stanbridge Record_. She looked
at James and pointed to it without a word. Her face was white as death.
James took up the paper. That merely announced the fact of Mrs. Gordon's
death, dwelt upon her many beautiful qualities of mind and body, her
great suffering, and stated briefly the astonishment with which the news
was received that she was Doctor Gordon's wife, and not his sister, as
people had been led to suppose. "Little Annie Codman just brought it
over," said Clemency. "She said her mother sent it. It is just like her
mother. Mr. Codman never would have done such a thing."
Mr. Codman was the minister.
James, for a second, did not know what to say. He thought of the absurd
story which he had told, or rather suggested, at the store, and realized
that such a fabrication would not answer here.
Immediately Clemency fired a point-blank question at him. "Who am I?"
she asked.
"You are Doctor Gordon's niece, dear."
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