His niece did not answer. By the light from the doorway he saw that she was gazing at him with a strange expression. She looked as if she was about to ask another question. He waited, but she did not ask it.

"Well," he said, rising, "we won't talk any more just now. Annie's soup's gettin' cold, and she'll be in our wool if we don't have dinner.

Afterwards we can have another session. Come, Caroline."

She also rose, but hesitated. "Uncle Elisha," she said, "will you excuse me if I don't talk any more to-night? And, if you don't mind, I won't dine with you. I'm not hungry and--and my head aches. I'll go to my room, I think."

"Yes, yes," he said, hastily, "of course. I'm afraid I've talked too much as 'tis. You go up and lie down, and Annie can fetch you some toast and tea or somethin' by and by. But do just answer me this, Caroline, if you can: When you told Jim marryin' was out of the question for you, did he take that as final? Was he contented with that? Didn't he say he was willin' to wait for you, or anything?"

"Yes, he said he would wait, always. But I told him he must not. And I told him he must go and not see me again. I couldn't see him as I have been doing; Uncle, I couldn't!"

"I know, dearie, I know. But didn't you say anything more? Didn't you give him _any_ hope?"

"I said," she hesitated, and added in a whisper, "I said if I should ever need him or--or change my mind, I would send for him. I shouldn't have said it. It was weak and wicked of me, but I said it. Please let me go now, Uncle dear. Good night."

She kissed him and hurried away. He ate his lonely dinner absent-mindedly and with little appet.i.te. After it was finished he sat in the living room, the lamp still unlighted, smoking and thinking.

And in her chamber Caroline, too, sat thinking--not altogether of the man she loved and who loved her. She thought of him, of course; but there was something else, an idea, a suspicion, which over and over again she dismissed as an utter impossibility, but which returned as often.

The Stock Exchange seat had been a part of her father's estate, a part of her own and Steve's inheritance. Sylvester had told her so, distinctly. And such a seat was valuable; she remembered her brother reading in the paper that one had recently sold for ninety thousand dollars. How could Captain Warren have retained such a costly part of the forfeited estate in his possession? For it was in his possession; he was going to give it to her brother when the latter left college. But how could he have obtained it? Not by purchase; for, as she knew, he was not worth half of ninety thousand dollars. Surely the creditor, the man who had, as was his right, seized all Rodgers Warren's effects, would not have left that and taken the rest. Not unless he was a curiously philanthropic and eccentric person. Who was he? Who was this mysterious man her father had defrauded? She had never wished to know before; now she did. And the more she pondered, the more plausible her suspicion became. It was almost incredible, it seemed preposterous; but, as she went back, in memory, over the events since her father's death and the disclosure of his astonishing will, little bits of evidence, little happenings and details came to light, trifles in themselves, but all fitting in together, like pieces of an inscription in mosaic, to spell the truth.

CHAPTER XXII

November weather on Cape Cod is what Captain Elisha described as "considerable chancey." "The feller that can guess it two days ahead of time," he declared, "is wastin' his talents; he could make a livin'

prophesyin' most anything, even the market price of cranberries." When Caroline, Sylvester, and the captain reached South Denboro after what seemed, to the two unused to the leisurely winter schedule of the railroad, an interminable journey from Fall River, the girl thought she had never seen a more gloomy sky or a more forbidding scene.

Gray clouds, gray sea, brown bare fields; the village of white or gray-shingled houses set, for the most part, along the winding main street; the elms and silver-leaf poplars waving bare branches in the cutting wind; a picture of the f.a.g end of loneliness and desolation, so it looked to her. She remembered Mr. Graves's opinion of the place, as jokingly reported by Sylvester, and she sympathized with the dignified junior partner.

But she kept her feelings hidden on her uncle's account. The captain was probably the happiest individual in the state of Ma.s.sachusetts that morning. He hailed the train's approach to Sandwich as the entrance to Ostable County, the promised land, and, from that station on, excitedly pointed out familiar landmarks and bits of scenery and buildings with the gusto and enthusiasm of a school boy.

"That's Ostable court-house," he cried, pointing. "And see--see that red-roofed house right over there, just past that white church? That's where Judge Baxter lives; a mighty good friend of mine, the Judge is. I stopped to his house to dinner the night Graves came."

A little further on he added, "'Twas about here that I spoke to Graves fust. I noticed him sittin' right across the aisle from me, with a face on him sour as a sa.s.ser of green tamarind preserves, and I thought I'd be sociable. 'Tough night,' I says. 'Umph,' says he. 'Twa'n't a remark cal'lated to encourage conversation, so I didn't try again--not till his umbrella turned inside out on the Denboro platform. Ho! ho! I wish you'd have seen his face _then_."

At Denboro he pointed out Pete Shattuck's livery stable, where the horse and buggy came from which had been the means of transporting Graves and himself to South Denboro.

"See!" he cried. "See that feller holdin' up the corner of the depot with his back! the one that's so broad in the beam he has to draw in his breath afore he can b.u.t.ton his coat. That's Pete. You'd think he was too sleepy to care whether 'twas to-day or next week, wouldn't you? Well, if you was a summer boarder and wanted to hire a team, you'd find Pete was awake and got up early. If a ten-cent piece fell off the shelf in the middle of the night he'd hear it, though I've known him to sleep while the minister's barn burned down. The parson had been preachin' against horse-tradin'; maybe that sermon was responsible for some of the morphine influence."

Sylvester was enjoying himself hugely. Captain Elisha's exuberant comments were great fun for him. "This is what I came for," he confided to Caroline. "I don't care if it rains or snows. I could sit and listen to your uncle for a year and never tire. He's a wonder. And I'm crazy to see that housekeeper of his. If she lives up to her reputation there'll be no disappointment in my Thanksgiving celebration."

Dan, the captain's hired man, met them with the carriage at the station, and Miss Baker met them at the door of the Warren home. The exterior of the big, old-fashioned, rambling house was inviting and homelike, in spite of the gloomy weather, and Caroline cheered up a bit when they turned in at the gate. Five minutes of Miss Abigail's society, and all gloom disappeared. One could not be gloomy where Miss Abbie was. Her smile of welcome was so broad that, as her employer said, "it took in all outdoor and some of Punkhorn Neck," a place which, he hastened to add, "was forgot durin' creation and has sort of happened of itself since."

Abbie conducted Caroline to her room--old-fashioned, like the rest of the house, but cozy, warm, and cheery--and, after helping in the removal of her wraps, seized her by both hands and took a long look at her face.

"You'll excuse my bein' so familiar on short acquaintance, dearie," she said, "but I've heard so much about you that I feel's if I knew you like own folks. And you are own folks, ain't you? Course you are! Everyone of 'Lisha's letters have had four pages of you to one of anything else. I begun to think New York was nothin' but you and a whole lot of ten-story houses. He thinks so much of you that I'd be jealous, if I had that kind of disposition and the time to spare. So I must have a good look at you.... I declare! you're almost prettier than he said. May I kiss you?

I'd like to."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I declare! you're almost prettier than he said. May I kiss you?'"]

She did, and they were friends at once.

The rest of that day and evening were busy times. Captain Elisha showed his visitors about the place, the barn, the cows, the pigpen--the pig himself had gone to fulfill the unhappy destiny of pigs, but they would meet him by sections later on, so the captain a.s.sured them. The house and buildings were spotless in paint and whitewash; the yard was raked clean of every dead leaf and twig; the whole establishment was so neat that Caroline remarked upon it.

"It looks as if it had been scoured," she said.

"Um-hm," observed her uncle, with a gratified nod; "that's Abbie. She hates dirt worse than she does laziness, and that ain't sayin' a little.

I tell her she'd sand-soap the weather vane if she could climb up to it; as 'tis, she stays below and superintends Dan while he does it. If G.o.dliness wants to stay next to cleanliness when she's around it has to keep on the jump. I always buy shirts two degrees heavier'n I need, 'cause I know she'll have 'em scrubbed thin in a fortni't. When it comes to _real_ Domestic Science, Caroline, Abbie ain't in the back row of the primer cla.s.s, now I tell you."

Miss Baker had planned that her young guest should sit in state, with folded hands, in the parlor. She seemed to consider that the proper conduct for a former member of New York's best society. She was shocked when the girl volunteered to help her about the house.

"Course I sha'n't let you," she said. "The idea--and you company! Got more help than I know what to do with, as 'tis. 'Lisha was determined that I should hire a girl to wash dishes and things while you was here.

Nothin' would do but that. So I got Annabel Haven's daughter, Etta G.

There's fourteen in that family, and the land knows 'twas an act of charity takin' one appet.i.te out of the house. Pay her fifty cents a day, I do, and she's out in the kitchen makin' believe wash windows. They don't need washin', but she was lookin' out of 'em most of the time, so I thought she might as well combine business with pleasure."

But Caroline refused to sit in the parlor and be "company." She insisted upon helping. Miss Baker protested and declared there was nothing on earth to be done; but her guest insisted that, if there was not, she herself must sit. As Abbie would have as soon thought of attending church without wearing her jet earrings as she would of sitting down before dinner, she gave in, after a while, and permitted Caroline to help in arranging the table.

"Why, you do fust-rate!" she exclaimed, in surprise. "You know where everything ought to go, just as if you'd been settin' table all your life. And you ain't, because 'Lisha wrote you used to keep hired help, two or three of 'em, all the time."

Caroline laughed.

"I've been studying housekeeping for almost a year," she said.

"Studyin' it! Why, yes, now I remember 'Lisha wrote you'd been studyin'

some kind of science at college. 'Twa'n't settin' table science, I guess, though. Ha! ha!"

"That was part of it." She explained the course briefly. Abigail listened in amazement.

"And they teach that--at school?" she demanded. "And take money for it?

And call it _science_? My land! I guess I was brought up in a scientific household, then. I was the only girl in the family, and mother died when I was ten years old."

After dinner she consented to sit for a time, though not until she had donned her Sunday best, earrings and all. Captain Elisha and Sylvester sat with them, and the big fireplace in the sitting room blazed and roared as it had not since its owner left for his long sojourn in the city. In the evening callers came, the Congregational minister and his wife, and some of the neighbors. The latter were pleasant country people, another retired sea captain among them, and they all seemed to have great respect and liking for Captain Elisha and to be very glad to welcome him home. The two captains spun salt water yarns, and the lawyer again decided that he was getting just what he had come for. They left a little after nine, and Caroline said good night and went to her room.

She was tired, mentally and physically.

But she did not fall asleep at once. Her mind was still busy with the suspicion which her uncle's words concerning his future plans for Steve had aroused. She had thought of little else since she heard them. The captain did not mention the subject again; possibly, on reflection, he decided that he had already said too much. And she asked no more questions. She determined not to question him--yet. She must think first, and then ask someone else--Sylvester. He knew the truth and, if taken by surprise, might be driven into confession, if there should be anything to confess. She was waiting for an opportunity to be alone with him, and that opportunity had not yet presented itself.

The captain would have spoken further with her concerning James Pearson.

He was eager to do that. But her mind was made up; she had sent her lover away, and it was best for both. She must forget him, if she could.

So, when her uncle would have spoken on that subject, she begged him not to; and he, respecting her feelings and believing that to urge would be bad policy, refrained.

But to forget, she found, was an impossibility. In the excitement of the journey and the arrival amid new surroundings, she had managed to keep up a show of good spirits, but now alone once more, with the wind singing mournfully about the gables and rattling the windows, she was sad and so lonely. She thought what her life had once promised to be and what it had become. She did not regret the old life, that life she had known before her father died; she had been happy in it while he lived, but miserable after his death. As for happiness, she had been happy that summer, happy with her uncle and with--him. And with him now, even though they would be poor, as she was used to reckoning poverty, she knew she could be very happy. She wondered what he was doing then; if he was thinking of her. She ought to hope that he was not, because it was useless; but she wished that he might be, nevertheless. Then she told herself that all this was wicked; she had made up her mind; she must be true to the task she had set, duty to her brother and uncle.

Her uncle! why had her uncle done all this for her? And why had her father made him their guardian? These were old questions, but now she asked them with a new significance. If that strange suspicion of hers was true it would explain so much; it would explain almost everything.

But it could not be true; if it was, why had he not told her when the discovery of her father's dishonesty and of the note forfeiting the estate was made? Why had he not told her then? That was what troubled her most. It did not seem like him to do such a thing--not like his character at all. Therefore, it could not be true. Yet she must know.

She resolved to question Sylvester the next day, if possible. And, so resolving, she at last fell asleep.

Her opportunity came the following morning, the day before Thanksgiving.

After breakfast Captain Elisha went downtown to call on some acquaintances. He invited Caroline and the lawyer to accompany him, but they refused, the latter because he judged his, a stranger's, presence during the calls would be something of a hindrance to good fellowship and the discussion of town affairs which the captain was counting on, and Caroline because she saw her chance for the interview she so much desired.