"I think Miss Castleton is to be congratulated that her injury is no greater than Nature made it in the beginning."

"What do you mean by 'nature'?"

"Nature gave her a father, didn't it?"

"Obviously."

"Well, why add insult to injury?"

"By Jove! Oh, I SAY, old man!"

They parted at the next corner. As Booth started to cross over to the Plaza, Leslie called out after him:

"I say, Brandy, just a second, please. Are you going to marry Miss Castleton?"

"I am."

"Then, I retract the scurvy things I said back there. I asked her to marry me three times and she refused me three times. What I said about the brambles was rotten. I'd ask her again if I thought she'd have me. There you are, old fellow. I'm a rotten cad, but I apologise to you just the same."

"You're learning, Leslie," said Booth, taking the hand the other held out to him.

While the painter was dining at his club later on in the evening, he was called to the telephone. Watson was on the wire. He said that Mrs. Wrandall would like to know if Mr. Booth could drop in on her for a few minutes after dinner, "to discuss a very important matter, if you please, sir." At nine o'clock, Booth was in Sara's library, trying to grasp a new and remarkable phase in the character of that amazing woman.

He found Hetty waiting for him when he arrived.

"I don't know what it all means, Brandon," she said hurriedly, looking over her shoulder as she spoke. "Sara says that she has come to a decision of some sort. She wants us to hear her plan before making it final. I--I don't understand her at all to-night."

"It can't be anything serious, dearest," he said, but something cold and nameless oppressed him just the same.

"She asked me if I had finally decided to--to be your wife, Brandon.

I said I had asked you for two or three days more in which to decide. It seemed to depress her. She said she didn't see how she could give me up, even to you. She wants to be near me always. It is--it is really tragic, Brandon."

He took he hands in his.

"We can fix that," said he confidently. "Sara can live with us if she feels that way about it. Our home shall be hers when she likes, and as long as she chooses. It will be open to her all the time, to come and go or to stay, just as she elects. Isn't that the way to put it?"

"I suggested something of the sort, but she wasn't very much impressed. Indeed, she appeared to be somewhat--yes, I could not have been mistaken,--somewhat harsh and terrified when I spoke of it. Afterwards she was more reasonable. She thanked me and--there were tears in her eyes at the time--and said she would think it over. All she asks is that I may be happy and free and untroubled all the rest of my life. This was before dinner. At dinner she appeared to be brooding over something. When we left the table she took me to her room and said that she had come to an important decision. Then she instructed Watson to find you if possible."

"'Gad, it's all very upsetting," he said, shaking his head.

"I think her conscience is troubling her. She hates the Wrandalls, but I--I don't know why I should feel as I do about it,--but I believe she wants them to know!"

He stared for a moment, and then his face brightened. "And so do I, Hetty, so do I! They ought to know!"

"I should feel so much easier if the whole world knew," said she earnestly.

Sara heard the girl's words as she stood in the door. She came forward with a strange,--even abashed,--smile, after closing the door behind her.

"I don't agree with you, dearest, when you say that the world should know, but I have come to the conclusion that you should be tried and acquitted by a jury made up of Challis Wrandall's own flesh and blood. The Wrandalls must know the truth."

CHAPTER XXIV

THE JURY OF FOUR

The Wrandalls sat waiting and wondering. They had been sent for and they had deigned to respond, much to their own surprise. Redmond Wrandall occupied a place at the head of the library table. At his right sat his wife. Vivian and Leslie, by direction, took seats at the side of the long table, which had been cleared of its ma.s.s of books and magazines. Lawyer Carroll was at the other end of the table, perceptibly nervous and anxious. Hetty sat a little apart from the others, a rather forlorn, detached member of the conclave.

Brandon Booth, pale-faced and alert, drew up a chair alongside Carroll, facing Sara who alone remained standing, directly opposite the four Wrandalls.

Not one of the Wrandalls knew why they, as a family, were there.

They had not the slightest premonition of what was to come.

The strong glare of an electric chandelier, seldom used in this quiet, subdued little library, threw its light down upon the group, outlining every feature with a sharpness that almost created shadows.

It was a trying light. No play of the emotions could be lost under its convicting glow. A clock struck nine. Outside the first savage storm of the winter was raging.

The Wrandalls had been routed from their comfortable fireside--for what? They were asking the question of themselves and they were waiting stonily for the answer.

"It is very stuffy in here," Vivian had said with a glance at the closed doors after Sara had successfully placed her jury in the box.

"Keep still, Viv," whispered Leslie, with a fine a.s.sumption of awe.

"It's a spiritualistic meeting. You'll scare the spooks away."

It was at this juncture that Sara rose from her chair and faced them, as calmly, as complacently as if she were about to ask them to proceed to the dining-room instead of to throw a bomb into their midst that would shatter their smug serenity for all time to come.

With a glance at Mr. Carroll she began, clearly, firmly and without a prefatory apology for what was to follow.

"I have asked you to come here to-night to be my judges. I am on trial. You are about to hear the story of my unspeakable perfidy.

I only require of you that you hear me to the end before pa.s.sing judgment."

At her words, Hetty and Booth started perceptibly; a quick glance pa.s.sed between them, as if each was inquiring whether the other had caught the extraordinary words of self-indictment. A puzzled frown appeared on Hetty's brow.

"Perfidy?" interposed Mr. Wrandall. His wife's expression changed from one of bored indifference to sharp inquiry. Leslie paused in the act of lighting a cigarette.

"It is the mildest term I can command," said Sara. "I shall be as brief as possible in stating the case, Mr. Wrandall. You will be surprised to hear that I have taken it upon myself, as the wife of Challis Wrandall and, as I regard it, the one MOST vitally concerned if not interested in the discovery and punishment of the person who took his life,--I say I have taken it upon myself to shield, protect and defend the unhappy young woman who accompanied him to Burton's Inn on that night in March. She has had my constant, my personal protection for more than twenty months."

The Wrandalls leaned forward in their chairs. The match burned Leslie's fingers, and he dropped it without appearing to notice the pain.

"What is this you are saying?" demanded Redmond Wrandall.

"When I left the inn that night, after seeing my husband's body in the little upstairs room, I said to myself that the one who took his life had unwittingly done me a service. He was my husband; I loved him, I adored him. To the end of my days I could have gone on loving him in spite of the cruel return he gave for my love and loyalty. I shall not attempt to tell you of the countless lapses of fidelity on his part. You would not believe me. But he always came back to me with the pitiful love he had for me, and I forgave him his transgressions. These things you know. He confessed many things to you, Mr. Wrandall. He humbled himself to me. Perhaps you will recall that I never complained to you of him. What rancour I had was always directed toward you, his family, who would see no wrong in your king but looked upon me as dirt beneath his feet.

There were moments when I could have slain him with my own hands, but my heart rebelled. There were times when he said to me that I ought to kill him for the things he had done. You may now understand what I mean when I say that the girl who went to Burton's Inn with him did me a service. I will not say that I considered her guiltless at the time. On the contrary, I looked upon her in quite a different way. I had no means of knowing then that she was as pure as snow and that he would have despoiled her of everything that was sweet and sacred to her. She took his life in order to save that which was dearer to her than her own life, and she was on her way to pay for her deed with her life if necessary when I came upon her and intervened."

"You--you know who she is?" said Mr. Wrandall, in a low, incredulous voice.

"I have known almost from the beginning. Presently you will hear her story, from her own lips."

Involuntarily four pairs of eyes shifted. They looked blankly at Hetty Castleton.