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Page 101

Not all the windows of the suite opened on the street. Jimmy's
windows--and Peter's--opened toward the back of the house, where
in a brick-paved courtyard the wife of the Portier hung her
washing, and where the Portier himself kept a hutch of rabbits. A
wild and reckless desire to see at least the light from the
child's room possessed Harmony. Even the light would be
something; to go like this, to carry with her only the memory of
a dark looming house without cheer was unthinkable. The gate was
never locked. If she but went into the garden and round by the
spruce tree to the back of the house, it would be something.

She knew the garden quite well. Even the darkness had no horror
for her. Little Scatchy had had a habit of leaving various
articles on her window-sill and of instigating searches for them
at untimely hours of night. Once they had found her hairbrush in
the rabbit hutch! So Harmony, ashamed but unalarmed, made her way
by the big spruce to the corner of the old lodge and thus to the
courtyard.

Ah, this was better! Lights all along the apartment floor and
moving shadows; on Jimmy's window-sill a jar of milk. And
voices--some one was singing.

Peter was singing, droning softly, as one who puts a drowsy child
to sleep. Slower and slower, softer and softer, over and over,
the little song Harmony had been wont to sing:--

"Ah well! For us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes.
And in the--hereafter--angels may
Roll--the--stone--from--its--grave--away."

Slower and slower, softer and softer, until it died away
altogether. Peter, in his old dressing-gown, came to the window
and turned down the gaslight beside it to a blue point. Harmony
did not breathe. For a minute, two minutes, he stood there
looking out. Far off the twin clocks of the Votivkirche struck
the hour. All about lay the lights of the old city, so very old,
so wise, so cunning, so cold.

Peter stood looking out, as he had each night since Harmony went
away. Each night he sang the boy to sleep, turned down the light
and stood by the window. And each night he whispered to the city
that sheltered Harmony somewhere, what he had whispered to the
little sweater coat the night before he went away:--

"Good-night, dear. Good-night, Harmony."

The rabbits stirred uneasily in the hutch; a passing gust shook
the great tree overhead and sent down a sharp shower on to the
bricks below. Peter struck a match and lit his pipe; the
flickering light illuminated his face, his rough hair, his steady
eyes.

"Good-night, Peter," whispered Harmony. "Good-night, dear."

CHAPTER XXIV

Walter Stewart had made an uncomplicated recovery, helped along
by relief at the turn events had taken. In a few days he was
going about again, weak naturally, rather handsomer than before
because a little less florid. But the week's confinement had
given him an opportunity to think over many things. Peter had set
him thinking, on the day when he had packed up the last of
Marie's small belongings and sent them down to Vienna.

Stewart, lying in bed, had watched him. "Just how much talk do
you suppose this has made, Byrne?" he asked.

"Haven't an idea. Some probably. The people in the Russian villa
saw it, you know."

Stewart's brows contracted.

"Damnation! Then the hotel has it, of course!"

"Probably."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Sun 28th Dec 2025, 9:18

The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart