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Page 32
The look of amazement which had at first overspread Gwen's face at
the mention of this precipitate departure gave place to one of
modest concern, as she said softly to Maitland: "Is it necessary
that you should encounter the dangers of such a journey, to say
nothing, of the time and inconvenience it will cost?" He looked
down at her quickly, and then said reassuringly: "Do you know one
is, by actual statistics, safer in an English railway carriage than
when walking the crowded streets of London? I am daily subjecting
myself to laboratory dangers which, I believe, are graver than any
I am likely to meet between here and Bombay, or, for that matter,
even at Bombay in the presence of our recent acquaintance Ragobah."
"I deeply appreciate," she replied, "the generous sacrifice you
would make in my interests--but Bombay is such a long way--and--"
"If suspicion directed me to the North Pole," he interrupted, "I
should start with equal alacrity," and he held out his hand to her
to bid her farewell. She took it in a way that bespoke a world of
gratitude, if nothing more. He retained the small hand, while he
said: "Have you forgotten, my friend, your promise to your father?
Do you not see in what terrible relations it may place you? How
important, then, that no effort should be spared to prevent you
from becoming indebted to one unmanly enough to take advantage of
your position. I shall use every means within my power to myself
discover your father's murderer, and you may comfort yourself with
the assurance that, if successful, I shall make no demand of any
kind whatsoever upon your gratitude. I think you understand me."
As he said this Gwen looked him full in the face. A little nervous
tremor seized the corners of her mouth, and the tears sprang to her
eyes. "Good-bye" was all she could say before she was compelled
to turn aside to conceal her emotion.
Maitland, observing her agitation, said to her tenderly: "Your
gratitude for the little that I have already done is reward, more
than ample, for all I shall ever be able to do. Good-bye," and he
left the room.
Oh, man with your microscope! How is it that you find the smallest
speck of dust, yet miss the mountain? Does the time seem too short?
It would not if you realised that events, not clocks, were the real
measure thereof.
THE EPISODE OF RAMA RAGOBAH
CHAPTER I
Life is but a poor accountant when it leaves the Future to
balance its entries long years after the parties to the
transactions are but a handful of insolvent dust. When, in such
wise, the chiefest item of one side of the sheet fails to explain
itself to the other, the tragic is attained.
On the day following Maitland's departure for New York, Mr. Darrow
was buried. The Osborne theory seemed to be universally accepted,
and many women who had never seen Mr. Darrow during his life attended
his funeral, curious to see what sort of a person this suicide might
be. Gwen bore the ordeal with a fortitude which spoke volumes for
her strength of character, and I took good care, when it was all
over, that she should not be left alone. In compliance with
Maitland's request, whose will, since her promise to him, was law to
her, she prepared to close the house and take up her abode with us.
It was on the night of the funeral, just after the lamps were
lighted, that an event occurred which made a deep impression upon
Gwen, though neither she nor I fully appreciated its significance
till weeks afterward.
Gwen, who was to close the house on the morrow, was going from room
to room collecting such little things as she wished to take with her.
The servants had been dismissed and she was entirely alone in the
house. She had gathered the things she had collected in a little
heap upon the sitting-room table, preparatory to doing them up. She
could think of but one thing more which she must take--a cabinet
photograph of her father. This was upon the top of the piano in the
room where he had met his death. She knew its exact location and
could have put her hand right upon it had it been perfectly dark,
which it was not. She arose, therefore, and, without taking a
light with her, went into the parlour. A faint afterglow illumined
the windows and suffused the room with an uncertain, dim, ghostly
light which lent to all its objects that vague flatness from which
the imagination carves what shapes it lists. As Gwen reached for
the picture, a sudden conviction possessed her that her father
stood just behind her in the exact spot where he had met his death,
--that if she turned she would see him again with his hand clutching
his throat and his eyes starting from their sockets with that
never-to-be-forgotten look of frenzied helplessness.
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