The Hollow of Her Hand

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Hetty Castleton was standing in the middle of her room when Sara
entered. From her position, it was evident that she had stopped
short in her nervous, excited pacing of the floor. She was very
pale but there was a dogged, set expression about her mouth.

"Come in, dear," she said, in a manner that showed she had been
expecting the visit. "Have you seen him?"

Sara closed the door, and then stood with her back against it,
regarding her agitated friend with serious, compassionate eyes.

"Yes. He is terribly upset. It was a blow to him, Hetty."

"I am sorry for him, Sara. He was so dreadfully in earnest. But,
thank God, it is over!" She threw back her head and breathed deeply.
"That horrible, horrible nightmare is ended. I suppose it had to
be. But the mockery of it--think of it, Sara!--the damnable mockery
of it!"

"Poor Leslie!" sighed the other. "Poor old Leslie."

Hetty's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, I AM sorry for him. He didn't
deserve it. God in heaven, if he really knew everything! If he knew
why I could not listen to him, why I almost screamed when he held
my hands in his and begged--actually begged me to--Oh, it was
ghastly, Sara!"

She covered her face with her hands, and swayed as if about to fall.
Sara came quickly to her side. Putting an arm about the quivering
shoulders, she led the girl to the broad window seat and threw open
the blinds.

"Don't speak of it, dearest,--don't think of THAT. Sit here quietly
in the air and pull yourself together. Let me talk to you. Let me
tell you how deeply distressed I am, not only on your account, but
his."

They were silent for a long time, the girl lying still and almost
breathless against the other's shoulders. She was still wearing
the delicate blue dinner gown, but in her fingers was the exquisite
pearl necklace Sara had given her for Christmas. She had taken it
off and had forgotten to drop it in her jewel box.

"I suppose he will go up to the city early," she said monotonously.

"Leslie is a better loser than you think, my dear," said Sara,
looking out over the tops of the cedars. "He will not run away."

Hetty looked up in alarm. "You mean he will persist in--in his
attentions," she cried.

"Oh, no. I don't believe you will find him to be the bugbear you
imagine. He can take defeat like a man. He is devoted to you, he
is devoted to me. Your decision no doubt wrecks his fondest hope
in life, but it doesn't make a weakling of him."

"I don't quite understand--"

"He is sustained by the belief that he has paid you the highest
honour a man can pay to a woman. There is no reason why he should
turn his back on you, as a sulky boy might do. No, my dear, I think
you may count on him as your best, most loyal friend from this night
on. He has just said to me that his greatest pain lies in the fear
that you may not be willing to accept him as a simple, honest,
unpresuming friend since--"

"Oh, Sara, if he will only be that and nothing more!" cried the
girl wonderingly.

Sara smiled confidently. "I fancy you haven't much to fear in that
direction, my dear. It isn't in Leslie Wrandall's make-up to court
a second repulse. He is all pride. The blow it suffered to-night
can't be repeated--at least, not by the same person."

"I am so sorry it had to be Leslie," murmured Hetty.

"Be nice to him, Hetty. He deserves that much of you, to say the
least. I should miss him if he found it impossible to come here on
account of--"

"I wouldn't have that happen for the world," cried the girl
in distress. "He is your dearest friend. Send me away, Sara, if
you must. Don't let anything stand in the way of your friendship
for Leslie. You depend on him for so much, dear. I can't bear the
thought of--"

"Hush, dearest! You are first in my love. Better for me to lose
all the others and still have you."

The girl looked at her in wonder for a long time. "Oh, I know you
mean it, Sara, but--but how can it be true?"

"Put yourself in my place," was all that Sara said in reply, and
her companion had no means of translating the sentence.

She could only remain mute and wondering, her eyes fixed on that
other mystery: the cameo face in the moon that hung high above the
sombre forest.

"If it were not for the trip to Lenox," she murmured plaintively.

"The trip is off," announced Sara. She too was staring at the
cloudless sky. "There will be rain tomorrow."

"It is very clear to-night, Sara."

"Do you hear that little wail in the trees--as if a child were
whimpering out there? That is the plaint of the fairies who live
in the buds and twigs, in the flower cups and mosses. They famish,
their gods will hear. Their gods hear when ours is deaf. You will
see. There will be clouds over us to-morrow and we will breathe
the mist."

The girl shivered.

Many minutes afterward she said, as one who marvels: "I hear the
promise in the wind, Sara,--the new, cool wind."

"The gods are whispering. Soon the fairies and elves will come
forth to revel. Ah, what a wonderful thing the night is!"

"The fairies," mused the girl. "You believe in them?"

"Resolutely."

"And I too."

"We will never grow old, my dear," said Sara. "That is what the
fairies are for: to keep those who love them young."

Hetty had relaxed. Her soft young body was warm again; that ineffably
feminine charm was revived in her.

"Poor Leslie," murmured Sara, a long time afterward, a dreamy note
in her voice. "I can't put him out of my thoughts. He will never
get over it. I have never seen one so stricken and yet so brave.
He would have been more than a husband to you, Hetty. It is in him
to be a slave to the woman he loves. I know him well, poor boy."

Hetty was silent, brooding. Sara resumed her thoughtful observations.

"Why should you let what happened months ago stand in the way of--"

She got no farther than that. With an exclamation of horror, the
girl sprang away from her and glowered at her with dilated eyes.

"My God, Sara!" she whispered hoarsely. "Are you mad?"

The other sighed. "I suppose you must think it of me," she said
dismally. "We are made differently, you and I. If I cared for a man,
nothing in all this world could stand between me and him. My love
would fortify me against the enemy we are prone to call conscience.
It would justify me in slaying the thing we call conscience. In
your heart, Hetty, you have not wronged Leslie Wrandall by any act
of yours. You owe him no reparation. On the contrary, it is not far
out of the way to say that he owes you something, but of course it
is a claim for recompense and resolves itself into a sentimental
debt, so there's really no use discussing it."

Hetty was still staring. "You don't mean to say you would have me
marry Challis Wrandall's brother?" she said, in a sort of stupefaction.

Sara shook her head. "I mean this: you would be justified in
permitting Leslie to glorify that which his brother desecrated;
your womanhood, my dear."

"My God, Sara!" again fell in a hoarse whisper from the girl's
lips.

"I simply voice my point of view," explained Sara calmly. "As I
said before, we look at things differently."

"I can't believe you mean what you have said," cried Hetty.
"Why--why, if I loved him with all my heart, soul and body I could
not even think of--Oh, I shudder to think of it!"

"I love you," continued Sara, fixing her mysterious eyes on those
of the girl, "and yet you took from me something more than a brother.
I love you, knowing everything, and I am paying in full the debt
he owes to you. Leslie, knowing nothing, is no less your debtor.
All this is paradoxical, I know, my dear, but we must remember that
while other people may be indebted to us, we also owe something
to ourselves. We ought to take pay from ourselves. Please do not
conclude that I am urging or even advising you to look with favour
upon Leslie Wrandall's honourable, sincere proposal of marriage. I
am merely trying to convince you that you are entitled to all that
any man can give you in this world of ours,--we women all are, for
that matter."

"I was sure that you couldn't ask me to marry him. I couldn't
believe--"

"Forget what I have said, dearest, if it grieves you," cried Sara
warmly. She arose and drew the girl close to her. "Kiss me, Hetty."
Their lips met. The girl's eyes were closed, but Sara's were wide
open and gleaming. "It is because I love you," she said softly,
but she did not complete the sentence that burned in her brain.
To herself she repeated: "It is because I love you that I would
scourge you with Wrandalls!"

"You are very good to me, Sara," sobbed Hetty.

"You WILL be nice to Leslie?"

"Yes, yes! If he will only let me be his friend."

"He asks no more than that. Now, you must go to bed."

Suddenly, without warning, she held the girl tightly in her arms.
Her breathing was quick, as of one moved by some sharp sensation
of terror. When Hetty, in no little wonder, opened her eyes Sara's
face was turned away, and she was looking over her shoulder as if
cause for alarm had come from behind.

"What is it?" cried Hetty anxiously.

She saw the look of dread in her companion's eyes, even as it began
to fade.

"I don't know," muttered Sara. "Something, I can't tell what, came
over me. I thought some one was stealing up behind me. How silly
of me."

"Ah," said Hetty, with an odd smile, "I can understand how you
felt."

"Hetty, will you take me in with you to-night?" whispered Sara
nervously. "Let me sleep with you. I can't explain it, but I am
afraid to be alone to-night." The girl's answer was a glad smile
of acquiescence. "Come with me, then, to my bedroom while I change.
I have the queerest feeling that some one is in my room. I don't
want to be alone. Are you afraid?"

Hetty held back, her face blanching.

"No, I am not afraid," she cried at once, and started toward the
door.

"There IS some one in this room," said Sara a few moments later,
when they were in the big bedroom down the hall.

"I--I wonder," murmured Hetty.

And yet neither of them looked about in search for the intruder!

Far into the night Sara sat in the window of Hetty's dressing-room,
her chin sunk low in her hands, staring moodily into the now opaque
night, her eyes sombre and unblinking, her body as motionless as
death itself. The cooling wind caressed her and whispered warnings
into her unheeding ears, but she sat there unprotected against
its chill, her night-dress damp with the mist that crept up with
sinister stealth from the sea.

In the flats below, a vast army of frogs shrilled in ceaseless
chatter; night birds and insects responded to the bedlam challenge;
the hoarse monotonous grunts of a fog-horn came up from the Sound.
There were people out there, asleep in passage.

A cat mewed piteously somewhere in the garden. She was curiously
disturbed by this. She hated cats. There had never been one on the
place before.

CHAPTER XII

THE APPROACH OF A MAN NAMED SMITH

Mr. Redmond Wrandall, grey and gaunt and somewhat wistful, rode
slowly through the leafy lane, attended some little distance behind
by Griggs the groom, who slumped in the saddle and thought only of
the sylvan dell to curse it with poetic license. (Ever since Mr.
Wrandall had been thrown by his horse in the Park a few years
before his wife had insisted on having a groom handy in case he lost
his seat again: hence Griggs.) It sometimes got on Mr. Wrandall's
nerves, having Griggs lopping along like that, but there didn't
seem to be any way out of it, nor was there the remotest likelihood
that the groom himself might one day be spilled and broken in many
places while engaged in this obnoxious espionage.

Mr. Wrandall was grey because he was old, he was gaunt because he
was old, and he usually was somewhat wistful for the same reason.
He nourished the lament that he had grown old before his time,
despite the sixty odd years that lay behind him. He was always
a trifle annoyed with himself for not having demanded more of
his youth. Griggs, therefore, was a physical insult, any way you
looked at him: his very presence in the road behind was a blatant,
house-top sort of proclamation that he, Redmond Wrandall, was in
his dotage, and that was something Mr. Wrandall would never have
admitted if he had had anything to say about it.

To-day he was riding over to Southlook to visit his daughter-in-law
and one whom he looked upon as a prospective daughter-in-law. It
was Wednesday and the family had been in the country since Monday.
His wife and Vivian had motored over on Tuesday. They were letting
no grass grow under their feet, notwithstanding a sudden and
unexplained period of procrastination on the part of Leslie, who
had gone off for a fortnight's fishing in Maine. Moreover, so far
as they knew, he had departed without proposing to Miss Castleton:
an oversight which deprived his mother of at least two weeks of
activity along obvious lines. Naturally, it was quite impossible
to discuss the future with Miss Castleton under the circumstances,
and it was equally out of the question to discuss it with security
in the very constricted circle that Mrs. Wrandall affected in the
country. It really was too bad of Leslie! He should have known
better.

Half way to Southlook, Mr. Wrandall, turning a bend in the road,
caught sight of two people walking some distance ahead: a man and
a woman. They were several hundred yards away, and travelling in
the direction he was going. He pulled his horse down to a walk, a
circumstance that for the moment escaped the attention of Griggs,
who rode alongside before he quite realised what had happened.

"Griggs," said his master, staring at the pedestrians, "when did
my son return?"

Griggs grasped the situation at a glance--a rather vague and imperfect
glance, however. "This morning, sir," he replied promptly, although
he was as much at sea as his master.

"I understood Mrs. Wrandall to say he was not expected before
Saturday."

"Yes, sir. He came unexpected, sir."

"Well," said Mr. Wrandall, with an indulgent smile, "we will not
ride them down."

"No, indeed, sir," consented Griggs, with a wink that Mr. Wrandall
did not see.

The pleased, satisfied smile grew on Redmond Wrandall's gaunt old
face: not reminiscent, I am bound to say, yet reflective.

The tall young man and the girl far ahead apparently were not aware
of the scrutiny. They appeared to be completely absorbed in each
other. At last, coming to a footpath diverging from the macadam, they
stopped and parleyed. Then they turned into this narrow, tortuous
path over the hillside and were lost to view.

Mr. Wrandall's smile broadened as he touched his horse lightly
with the crop. Coming to the obscure little bypath, he shot a
surreptitious glance into the fastnesses of the wood, but did not
slacken his speed. No one was in sight.

"I dare say the danger is past, Griggs," he said humorously. "They
are safe."

"I believe you, sir," said Griggs, also forgetting himself so far
as to steal a look over his right shoulder.

It was Mr. Wrandall's design to ride on to Southlook and surprise
Leslie and his inamorata at the lodge gates, where he would wait
for them. Arriving there, he dismounted and turned his steed over
to Griggs, with instructions to ride on. He would join Mr. Leslie
and Miss Castleton and walk with them for the remainder of the
distance.

He sat down on the rustic bench and lighted a cigar. The lodge-keeper
saluted him from the garden below. Later the keeper's small son
came up and from the opposite side of the roadway regarded him with
the wide, curious gaze of a four-year-old. Mr. Wrandall disliked
children. He made no friendly overtures. The child stood his
ground, which was in a sense disconcerting, althought he couldn't
tell why. He felt like saying "shoo!" Presently the keeper's collie
came up and sniffed his puttees, all the while looking askance.
Mr. Wrandall said: "Away with you," and the dog retreated with some
dignity to the steps where he laid down and fixed his eyes on the
stranger.

Half-an-hour passed. Mr. Wrandall frowned as he looked at his watch.
Another quarter of an hour went by. He changed his position, and
the dog lifted his head, without wagging his tail.

"'Pon my soul," said Mr. Wrandall in some annoyance.

Just then the dog and the child deflected their common stare. He
was at first grateful, then interested. The child was beaming, the
dog's tail was thumping a merry tattoo on the wooden step. Footsteps
crunched on the gravel and he turned to look, although it was not
the direction from which he expected his son and Miss Castleton.

He came to his feet, plainly perplexed. Miss Castleton approached,
but the fellow beside her was not Leslie.

"How are you, Mr. Wrandall?" called out the young man cheerily,
crossing the road.

"Good afternoon, Brandon," said Mr. Wrandall, nonplussed. "How do
you do, Miss Castleton? Delighted to see you looking so well. Where
did you leave my son?"

"Haven't seen him," said Booth. "Is he back?"

Mr. Redmond Wrandall swallowed hard.

"I was so informed," he replied, with an effort.

"Are you not coming up to the house, Mr. Wrandall?" inquired Miss
Castleton, and he thought he detected a note of appeal in her voice.

"Certainly," he announced, taking his place beside her. To himself
he was saying: "This young blade has been annoying her, confound
him."

"Miss Castleton had a note from Leslie this morning, saying he
wouldn't start home till Friday," said Booth, puzzled. "You don't
mind my saying so, Miss Castleton?"

"Not at all. I am sure he said Friday."

"I fancy he did say Friday," said Mr. Wrandall. "I think Griggs
had been drinking."

"Griggs?" inquired the two in unison.

He volunteered no more than that. He was too busily engaged in wondering
what his son could be thinking of, to leave this delightful girl
to the tender mercies of a handsome, fascinating chap like Brandon
Booth. He didn't relish the look of things. She was agitated,
suspiciously so; and Booth wasn't what one would describe as perfectly
at ease. There was something in the air, concluded Leslie's father.

"I hear you are coming over to spend a fortnight with us, Miss
Castleton," said he pleasantly.

Hetty started. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Wrandall," she said, although
he had spoken very distinctly.

"Leslie mentioned it a--oh, some time ago, my dear. This is the
first time I have seen you, otherwise I should have added my warmest
appeal for you to come early and to stay late. Ha-ha! Hope you will
find your way to our place, Brandon. You are always a most welcome
visitor."

The girl walked on in silence, her lips set with curious firmness.
Booth looked at her and indulged in a queer little smile, to which
she responded with a painful flush.

"Vivian expects to have a few friends out at the same time--very
quietly, you know, and without much of a hurrah. Young ladies you
ought to know in New York, my dear Miss Castleton. I dare say you
will remember all of them, Brandon."

"I dare say," said Booth, without interest.

"I understand the portrait is finished," went on the old gentleman,
blissfully oblivious to the disturbance he had created. "Mrs.
Wrandall says it is wonderful, Brandon. You won't mind showing it
to me? I am very much interested."

"Glad to have you see it, sir."

"Thanks."

He slackened his pace, an uneasy frown appearing between his eyes.

"I am almost afraid to tell Sara the news we have had from town
this morning. She is so opposed to notoriety and all that sort of
thing. Poor girl, she's had enough to drive one mad, I fear, with
all that wretched business of a year ago."

Hetty stopped in her tracks. She went very white.

"What news, Mr. Wrandall?"

"They say they have stumbled upon a clew,--an absolutely indisputable
clew. Smith had me on the wire this morning. He is the chief operative,
you understand, Miss Castleton. He informs me that his original
theory is quite fully substantiated by this recent discovery. If
you remember, he gave it as his opinion a year ago that the woman
was not--er--I may say, of the class catalogued as fast. He is
coming out to-morrow to see me."

Things went suddenly black before her eyes, but in an instant she
regained control of herself.

"They have had many clews, Mr. Wrandall," she complained, shaking
her head.

"I know," he replied; "and this one may be as futile as the rest.
Smith appears to be absolutely certain this time, however."

"I understood that Mrs. Wrandall--I mean Mrs. Challis Wrandall--refused
to offer a reward," said Booth. "These big detective agencies are
not keen about--"

"There is a ten thousand dollar reward still standing, Brandon,"
said Mr. Wrandall.

Again the girl started.

"That isn't generally known, sir," observed the painter. "Leslie
told me there was no reward."

"It was privately arranged," explained Leslie's father.

They came in sight of the house at that moment, and the subject
was dropped, for Sara was approaching them in earnest conversation
with Mr. Carroll, her lawyer.

They met at the edge of the lower basin, where the waters trickled
down from an imposing Italian fountain on the level above, forming
a deep, clear pool to which the lofty sky lent unfathomable depths.
To the left of the basin there was a small tea-house, snug in the
shadow of the cypresses that lined the crest of the hill. A series
of rough stone steps wound down to the water's edge and the boathouse.

"Mr. Carroll is the bearer of startling news, Mr. Wrandall," said
Sara, after the greetings. There was a trace of the sardonic in
her voice.

"Indeed?" said Mr. Wrandall gravely.

"I was not aware, sir," said the old lawyer stiffly, and with a
positive glare, "that your detectives were such unmitigated asses
as they now appear to be."

"I fail to understand, Mr. Carroll," with considerable loftiness.

"That confounded rascal Smith called to see me this morning, sir.
He is a rogue, sir. He--"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carroll," protested Mr. Wrandall, in a far
from conciliatory manner.

"It seems, in short, that he has been working on a very intimate
clew," said Sara, staring fixedly at her father-in-law's face.

"So he informed me over the 'phone this morning," said he, rather
taken a-back. "However, he did not go into the details. I am here,
Sara, to tell you that he is coming out to-morrow. I want to ask
you to come over to my place at--"

"That is out of the question, sir," exclaimed Mr. Carroll vehemently.

"My dear Mr. Carroll--" began Wrandall angrily, but Sara interrupted
him to suggest that they talk it over in the tea-house. She would
ring for tea.

"If you will excuse me, Mrs. Wrandall, I think I will be off," said
Booth.

"Please stay, Mr. Booth," she urged. "I would like to have you
here."

She fell behind with Hetty. The girl's eyes were glassy.

"Don't be alarmed," she whispered.

Booth pressed the button for her. "Thank you. You will be surprised,
Mr. Wrandall, to hear that the new clew leads to a member of your
own family."

Mr. Wrandall was in the act of sitting down. At her words he dropped.
His eyes bulged.

"Good God!"

"It appears that Mr. Smith suspects--ME!" said she coolly.

Her father-in-law's lips moved, but no sound issued. His face was
livid.

"The stupid fool!" hissed the irate Mr. Carroll.

There was deathly silence for a moment following this outburst.
Every face was pale. In Hetty's there was an expression of utter
horror. Her lips too were moving.

"He has, it seems, put one thing and another together, as if it
were a picture puzzle," went on Sara. "His visit to Mr. Carroll
this morning was for the purpose of ascertaining how much it would
be worth to me if he dropped the case--NOW."

"The infernal blackmailer!" gasped Mr. Wrandall, finding his voice.
"I will have him kicked off the place if he comes to me with--My
dear, my dear! You cannot mean what you say."

He was in a shocking state of bewilderment.

"I'd advise you to call off your infernal blackmailer, Mr. Redmond
Wrandall," snarled Mr. Carroll, pacing back and forth.

"My dear sir," stammered the other, "I--I--do you mean to imply
that I know anything about this infamous business?"

"He is your dog, not ours," declared the lawyer, pacing the brick
floor.

"Peace, gentlemen," admonished Sara. "Let us discuss it calmly."

"Calmly?" gasped Mr. Wrandall.

"Calmly!" snapped the lawyer.

"At least deliberately. It appears, Mr. Wrandall, that Smith has
been working on the theory all along that it was I who went to the
inn with Challis. You recall the description given of the woman? She
was of my size and figure, they said at the time. Well, he has--"

"It is infamous!" shouted Mr. Wrandall, springing to his feet.
"He shall hear from me to-night. I shall have him lodged in jail
before--"

"You will do nothing of the sort," interrupted Sara firmly. "I think
you will do well to hear his side of the story. And remember, sir,
that it would be very difficult for me to establish an alibi."

"Bless me!" groaned the old man. Then his eyes brightened. "But
Miss Castleton can prove that for you, my dear. Don't forget Miss
Castleton."

"Miss Castleton did not come to me, you should remember, until after
the--the trouble. It occurred the second night after my arrival
from Europe. Mr. Smith has discovered that I was not in my rooms
at the hotel that night."

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