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Page 24
The words came out with such force I was startled. Leaning over
her, with the natural sympathy her condition called for, I asked
quietly but firmly:
"Whom do you mean by him? There is only one person in the hall,
and that is your butler."
"Hasn't Mr. Packard returned?"
"No, Madam."
"But I thought I saw him looking at me."
Her eyes were wild, her body shaking with irrepressible agitation.
"You were mistaken. Mayor Packard has not yet come home."
At this double assurance, she sank back satisfied, but still
trembling and very white.
"It is Mr. Packard I meant," she whispered presently. "Stay with
me and, when he comes in, tell him what will keep him from looking
in or speaking to me. Promise!" She was growing wild again.
"Promise, if you would be of any use to me."
"I do promise." At which I felt her hand grasp mine with grateful
pressure. "Don't you wish some assistance from me? Your dress--I
tried to loosen it, but failed to find the end of the cord. Shall
I try again?"
"No, no; that is, I will do it myself."
I did not see how she could, for her waist was laced up the back,
but I saw that she was too eager to have me go to remember this,
and recognizing the undesirability of irritating her afresh, I
simply asked if she wished me to remain within call.
But even this was more than she wanted.
"No. I am better now. I shall be better yet when quite alone."
Then suddenly: "Who knows of this--this folly of mine?"
"Only Nixon and myself. The girls have gone to bed."
"Nixon I can trust not to speak of it. Tell him to go. You, I
know, will remember only long enough to do for me what I have just
asked."
"Mrs. Packard, you may trust me." The earnest, confiding look,
which for a moment disturbed the melancholy of her large eyes,
touched me closely as I shut the door between us.
"Now what is the meaning of this mystery?" I asked myself after I
had seen Nixon go downstairs, shaking his head and casting every
now and then a suspicious glance behind him. "It is not as trivial
as it appears. That laugh was tragedy to her, not comedy." And
when I paused to recollect its tone I did not wonder at its effect
upon her mind, strained as it undoubtedly was by some secret sorrow
or perplexity.
And from whose lips had that laugh sprung? Not from ghostly ones.
Such an explanation I could not accept, and how could Mrs. Packard?
From whose, then? If I could settle this fact I might perhaps
determine to what extent its effect was dependent upon its source.
The butler denied having even heard it. Was this to be believed?
Did not this very denial prove that it was he and no other who
had thus shocked the proprieties of this orderly household? It
certainly seemed so; yet where all was strange, this strange and
incomprehensible denial of a self-evident fact by the vindictive
Nixon might have its source in some motive unsuggested by the
circumstances. Certainly, Nixon's mistress appeared to have a
great deal of confidence in him.
I wished that more had been told me about the handsome secretary.
I wished that fate would give me another opportunity for seeing
that gentleman and putting the same direct question to him I had
put to Nixon.
Scarcely had this thought crossed my mind before a loud ring at the
telephone disturbed the quiet below and I heard the secretary's
voice in reply. A minute after he appeared at the foot of the
stairs. His aspect was one of embarrassment, and he peered aloft
in a hesitating way, as if he hardly knew how to proceed.
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