She started back, dropping his hands as she did so. With quick intuition she saw that he must be left to himself if he were to meet this blow without succ.u.mbing. The body must have freedom if the spirit would not go mad. Conscious, or perhaps not conscious, of his release from her restraining hand, albeit profiting by it, he staggered to his feet, murmuring that word of doom: "Wound! wound! my darling died of a wound!

What kind of a wound?" he suddenly thundered out. "I cannot understand what you mean by wound. Make it clear to me. Make it clear to me at once. If I must bear this grief, let me know its whole depth. Leave nothing to my imagination or I cannot answer for myself. Tell it all, Doris."

And Doris told him:

"She was on the mezzanine floor of the hotel where she lives. She was seemingly happy and had been writing a letter--a letter to me which they never forwarded. There was no one else by but some strangers--good people whom one must believe. She was crossing the floor when suddenly she threw up her hands and fell. A thin, narrow paper-cutter was in her grasp; and it flew into the lobby. Some say she struck herself with that cutter; for when they picked her up they found a wound in her breast which that cutter might have made."

"Edith? never!"

The words were chokingly said; he was swaying, almost falling, but he steadied himself.

"Who says that?" he asked.

"It was the coroner's verdict."

"And she died that way--died?"

"Immediately."

"After writing to you?"

"Yes."

"What was in that letter?"

"Nothing of threat, they say. Only just cheer and expressions of hope.

Just like the others, Mr. Brotherson."

"And they accuse her of taking her own life? Their verdict is a lie.

They did not know her."

Then, after some moments of wild and confused feeling, he declared, with a desperate effort at self-control: "You said that some believe this.

Then there must be others who do not. What do they say?"

"Nothing. They simply feel as you do. They see no reason for the act and no evidence of her having meditated it. Her father and her friend insist besides, that she was incapable of such a horror. The mystery of it is killing us all; me above others, for I've had to show you a cheerful face, with my brain reeling and my heart like lead in my bosom."

She held out her hands. She tried to draw his attention to herself; not from any sentiment of egotism, but to break, if she could, the strain of these insupportable horrors where so short a time before Hope sang and Life revelled in re-awakened joys.

Perhaps some faint realisation of this reached him, for presently he caught her by the hands and bowed his head upon her shoulder and finally let her seat him again, before he said:

"Do they know of--of my interest in this?"

"Yes; they know about the two O. B.s."

"The two--" He was on his feet again, but only for a moment; his weakness was greater than his will power.

"Orlando and Oswald Brotherson," she explained, in answer to his broken appeal. "Your brother wrote letters to her as well as you, and signed them just as you did, with his initials only. These letters were found in her desk, and he was supposed, for a time, to have been the author of all that were so signed. But they found out the difference after awhile.

Yours were easily recognised after they learned there was another O. B.

who loved her."

The words were plain enough, but the stricken listener did not take them in. They carried no meaning to him. How should they? The very idea she sought to impress upon him by this seemingly careless allusion was an incredible one. She found it her dreadful task to tell him the hard, bare truth.

"Your brother," said she, "was devoted to Miss Challoner, too. He even wanted to marry her. I cannot keep back this fact. It is known everywhere, and by everybody but you."

"Orlando?" His lips took an ironical curve, as he uttered the word. This was a young girl's imaginative fancy to him. "Why Orlando never knew her, never saw her, never--"

"He met her at Lenox."

The name produced its effect. He stared, made an effort to think, repeated Lenox over to himself; then suddenly lost his hold upon the idea which that word suggested, struggled again for it, seized it in an instant of madness and shouted out:

"Yes, yes, I remember. I sent him there--" and paused, his mind blank again.

Poor Doris, frightened to her very soul, looked blindly about for help; but she did not quit his side; she did not dare to, for his lips had reopened; the continuity of his thoughts had returned; he was going to speak.

"I sent him there." The words came in a sort of shout. "I was so hungry to hear of her and I thought he might mention her in his letter. Insane!

Insane! He saw her and--What's that you said about his loving her? He couldn't have loved her; he's not of the loving sort. They've deceived you with strange tales. They've deceived the whole world with fancies and mad dreams. He may have admired her, but loved her,--no! or if he had, he would have respected my claims."

"He did not know them."

A laugh; a laugh which paled Doris' cheek; then his tones grew even again, memory came back and he muttered faintly:

"That is true. I said nothing to him. He had the right to court her--and he did, you say; wrote to her; imposed himself upon her, drove her mad with importunities she was forced to rebuke; and--and what else? There is something else. Tell me; I will know it all."

He was standing now, his feebleness all gone, pa.s.sion in every lineament and his eye alive and feverish, with emotion. "Tell me," he repeated, with unrestrained vehemence. "Tell me all. Kill me with sorrow but save me from being unjust."

"He wrote her a letter; it frightened her. He followed it up by a visit--"

Doris paused; the sentence hung suspended. She had heard a step--a hand on the door.

Orlando had entered the room.

x.x.xIII. ALONE

Oswald had heard nothing, seen nothing. But he took note of Doris'

silence, and turning towards her in frenzy saw what had happened, and so was in a measure prepared for the stern, short sentence which now rang through the room:

"Wait, Miss Scott! you tell the story badly. Let him listen to me. From my mouth only shall he hear the stern and seemingly unnatural part I played in this family tragedy."

The face of Oswald hardened. Those pliant features--beloved for their gracious kindliness--set themselves in lines which altered them almost beyond recognition; but his voice was not without some of its natural sweetness, as, after a long and hollow look at the other's composed countenance, he abruptly exclaimed:

"Speak! I am bound to listen; you are my brother."

Orlando turned towards Doris. She was slipping away.

"Don't go," said he.