She glided into the low cabin like a shadow, hugging the side of the open door. She would have stumbled over the dead man’s feet if she had not stepped so cautiously. The embers were burning so low that they gave but a faint glow in the sinister cabin with its obscure corners, its black, hanging cobwebs and the dead man lying twisted as he had fallen with his face on his arm.
Once in the cabin the woman crept toward the body on her hands and knees. She was looking for something in the dusky light; something she could not find. Crawling toward the fire over the uneven, creaking boards, she stirred the embers the least bit with a burnt stick that had fallen to one side. She dared not make a blaze. Then she dragged herself once more toward the lifeless body. She pictured how the knife had been thrust in; how it had fallen from Gabriel’s hand; how the man had come down like a felled ox. Yes, the knife could not be far off, but she could not discover a trace of it. She slipped her fingers beneath the body and felt all along. The knife lay up under his arm pit. Her hand scraped his chin as she withdrew it. She did not mind. She was exultant at getting the knife. She felt like some other being, possessed by Satan. Some fiend in human shape, some spirit of murder. A cricket began to sing on the hearth.
Tante Elodie noticed the golden gleam of the murdered man’s watch chain, and a sudden thought invaded her. With deft, though unsteady fingers, she unhooked the watch and chain. There was money in his pockets. She emptied them, turning the pockets inside out. It was difficult to reach his left-hand pockets, but she did so. The money, a few bank notes and some silver coins, together with the watch and knife she tied in her handkerchief. Then she hurried away, taking a long stride across the man’s body in order to reach the door.
The stars were like shining pieces of gold upon dark velvet. So Tante Elodie thought as she looked up at them an instant.
There was the sound of disorderly voices away off in the negro shanties. Clasping the parcel close to her breast she began to run. She ran, ran, as fast as some fleet four-footed creature, ran, panting. She never stopped till she reached the gate that let her in under the live-oaks. The most intent listener could not have heard her as she mounted the stairs; as she let herself in at the door; as she bolted it. Once in the room she began to totter. She was sick to her stomach and her head swam. Instinctively she reached out toward the bed, and fell fainting upon it, face downward.
The gray light of dawn was coming in at her windows. The lamp on the table had burned out. Tante Elodie groaned as she tried to move. And again she groaned with mental anguish, this time as the events of the past night came back to her, one by one, in all their horrifying details. Her labor of love, begun the night before, was not yet ended. The parcel containing the watch and money were there beneath her, pressing into her bosom. When she managed to regain her feet the first thing which she did was to rekindle the fire with splinters of pine and pieces of hickory that were at hand in her wood box. When the fire was burning briskly, Tante Elodie took the paper money from the little bundle and burned it. She did not notice the denomination of the bills, there were five or six, she thrust them into the blaze with the poker and watched them burn. The few loose pieces of silver she put in her purse, apart from her own money; there was sixty-five cents in small coin. The watch she placed between her mattresses; then, seized with misgiving, took it out. She gazed around the room, seeking a safe hiding place and finally put the watch into a large, strong stocking which she pinned securely around her waist beneath her clothing. The knife she washed carefully, drying it with pieces of newspaper which she burned. The water in which she had washed it she also threw in a corner of the large fire place upon a heap of ashes. Then she put the knife into the pocket of one of Gabriel’s coats which she had cleaned and mended for him; it was hanging in her closet.
She did all this slowly and with great effort, for she felt very sick. When the unpleasant work was over it was all she could do to undress and get beneath the covers of her bed.
She knew that when she did not appear at breakfast Madame Nicolas would send to investigate the cause of her absence. She took her meals with the young widow around the corner of the gallery. Tante Elodie was not rich. She received a small income from the remains of what had once been a magnificent plantation adjoining the lands which Justin Lucaze owned and cultivated. But she lived frugally, with a hundred small cares and economies and rarely felt the want of extra money except when the generosity of her nature prompted her to help an afflicted neighbor, or to bestow a gift upon some one of whom she was fond. It often seemed to Tante Elodie that all the affection of her heart was centered upon her young protege, Gabriel; that what she felt for others was simply an emanation—rays, as it were, from this central sun of love that shone for him alone.
In the midst of twinges, of nervous tremors, her thoughts were with him. It was impossible for her to think of anything else. She was filled with unspeakable dread that he might betray himself. She wondered what he had done after he left her: what he was doing at that moment? She wanted to see him again alone, to insist anew upon the necessity of his self-assertion of innocence.
As she expected, Mrs. Wm. Nicolas came around at the breakfast hour to see what was the matter. She was an active woman, very pretty and fresh looking, with willing, deft hands and the kindest voice and eyes. She was distressed at the spectacle of poor Tante Elodie extended in bed with her head tied up, and looking pale and suffering.
“Ah! I suspected it!” she exclaimed, “coming out in the cold on the gallery last night to get morphine for Gabriel; ma foi! as if he could not go to the drug store for his morphine! Where have you pain? Have you any fever, Tante Elodie?”
“It is nothing, chérie. I believe I am only tired and want to rest for a day in bed.”
“Then you must rest as long as you want. I will look after your fire and see that you have what you need. I will bring your coffee at once. It is a beautiful day; like spring. When the sun gets very warm I will open the window.”
Five
ALL DAY LONG Gabriel did not appear, and she dared not make inquiries about him. Several persons came in to see her, learning that she was sick. The midnight murder in the Nigger-Luke Cabin seemed to be the favorite subject of conversation among her visitors. They were not greatly excited over it as they might have been were the man other than a comparative stranger. But the subject seemed full of interest, enhanced by the mystery surrounding it. Madame Nicolas did not risk to speak of it.
“That is not a fit conversation for a sick-room. Any doctor—anybody with sense will tell you. For Mercy’s sake! change the subject.”
But Fifine Delonce could not be silenced.
“And now it appears,” she went on with renewed animation, “it appears he was playing cards down at Symund’s store. That shows how they pass their time—those boys! It’s a scandal! But nobody can remember when he left. Some say at nine, some say it was past eleven. He sort of went away like he didn’t want them to notice.”
“Well, we didn’t know the man. My patience! there are murders every day. If we had to keep up with them, ma foi! Who is going to Lucie’s card party to-morrow? I hear she did not invite her cousin Claire. They have fallen out again it seems.” And Madame Nicolas, after speaking, went to give Tante Elodie a drink of tisane. 219
“Mr. Ben’s got about twenty darkeys from Niggerville, holding them on suspicion,” continued Fifine, dancing on the edge of her chair. “Without doubt the man was enticed to the cabin and murdered and robbed there. Not a picayune left in his pockets! only his pistol—that they didn’t take, all loaded, in his back pocket, that he might have used, and his watch gone! Mr. Ben thinks his brother in Conshotta, that’s very well off, is going to offer a big reward.”
“What relation was the man to you, Fifine?” asked Madame Nicolas, sarcastically.
“He was a human being, Amelia; you have no heart, no feeling. If it makes a woman that hard to associate with a doctor, then thank God—well—as I was saying, if they can catch those two s
trange section hands that left town last night—but you better bet they’re not such fools to keep that watch. But old Uncle Marte said he saw little foot prints like a woman‘s, early this morning, but no one wanted to listen to him or pay any attention, and the crowd tramped them out in little or no time. None of the boys want to let on; they don’t want us to know which ones were playing cards at Symund’s. Was Gabriel at Symund’s, Tante Elodie?”
Tante Elodie coughed painfully and looked blankly as though she had only heard her name and had been inattentive to what was said.
“For pity sake leave Tante Elodie out of this! it’s bad enough she has to listen, suffering as she is. Gabriel spent the evening here, on Tante Elodie’s sofa, very sick with cramps. You will have to pursue your detective work in some other quarter, my dear.”
A little girl came in with a huge bunch of blossoms. There was some bustle attending the arrangement of the flowers in vases, and in the midst of it, two or three ladies took their leave.
“I wonder if they’re going to send the body off to-night, or if they’re going to keep it for the morning train,” Fifine was heard to speculate, before the door closed upon her.
Tante Elodie could not sleep that night. The following day she had some fever and Madame Nicolas insisted upon her seeing the doctor. He gave her a sleeping draught and some fever drops and said she would be all right in a few days; for he could find nothing alarming in her condition.
By a supreme effort of the will she got up on the third day hoping in the accustomed routine of her daily life to get rid, in part, of the uneasiness and unhappiness that possessed her.
The sun shone warm in the afternoon and she went and stood on the gallery watching for Gabriel to pass. He had not been near her. She was wounded, alarmed, miserable at his silence and absence; but determined to see him. He came down the street, presently, never looking up, with his hat drawn over his eyes.
“Gabriel!” she called. He gave a start and glanced around.
“Come up; I want to see you a moment.”
“I haven’t time now, Tante Elodie.”
“Come in!” she said sharply.
“All right, you’ll have to fix it up with Morrison,” and he opened the gate and went in. She was back in her room by the time he reached it, and in her chair, trembling a little and feeling sick again.
“Gabriel, if you ‘ave no heart, it seems to me you would ’ave some intelligence; a moment’s reflection would show you the folly of altering your ’abits so suddenly. Did you not know I was sick? did you not guess my uneasiness?”
“I haven’t guessed anything or known anything but a taste of hell,” he said, not looking at her. Her heart bled afresh for him and went out to him in full forgiveness. “You were right,” he went on, “it would have been horrible to saying anything. There is no suspicion. I’ll never say anything unless some one should be falsely accused.”
“There will be no possible evidence to accuse anyone,” she assured him. “Forget it, forget it. Keep on as though it was something you had dreamed. Not only for the outside, but within yourself. Do not accuse yourself of that act, but the actions, the conduct, the ungovernable temper that made it possible. Promise me it will be a lesson to you, Gabriel; and God, who reads men’s hearts, will not call it a crime, but an accident which your unbridled nature invited. I will forget it. You must forget it. ’Ave you been to the office?”
“To-day; not yesterday. I don’t know what I did yesterday, but look for the knife—after they—I couldn’t go while he was there—and I thought every minute some one was coming to accuse me. And when I realized they weren’t—I don’t know—I drank too much, I think. Reading law! I might as well have been reading Hebrew. If Morrison thinks—See here Tante Elodie, are there any spots on this coat? Can you see anything here in the light?”
“There are no spots anywhere. Stop thinking of it, I implore you.” But he pulled off the coat and flung it across a chair. He went to the closet to get his other coat which he knew hung there. Tante Elodie, still feeble and suffering, in the depths of her chair, was not quick enough, could think of no way to prevent it. She had at first put the knife in his pocket with the intention of returning it to him. But now she dreaded to have him find it, and thus discover the part she had played in the sickening dream.
He buttoned up his coat briskly and started away.
“Please burn it,” he said, looking at the garment on the chair, “I never want to see it again.”
Six
WHEN IT BECAME distinctly evident that no slightest suspicion would be attached to him for the killing of Everson; when he plainly realized that there was no one upon whom the guilt could be fastened, Gabriel thought he would regain his lost equilibrium. If in no other way, he fancied he could reason himself back into it. He was suffering, but he some way had no fear that his present condition of mind would last. He thought it would pass away like a malignant fever. It would have to pass away or it would have to kill him.
From Tante Elodie’s he went over to Morrison’s office where he was reading law. Morrison and his partner were out of town and he had the office to himself. He had been there all morning. There was nothing for him to do now but to see anyone who called on business, and to go on with his reading. He seated himself and spread his book before him, but he looked into the street through the open door. Then he got up and shut the door. He again fastened his eyes upon the pages before him, but his mind was traveling other ways. For the hundredth time he was going over every detail of the fatal night, and trying to justify himself in his own heart.
If it had been an open and fair fight there would have been no trouble in squaring himself with his conscience; if the man had shown the slightest disposition to do him bodily harm, but he had not. On the other hand, he asked himself, what constituted a murder? Why, there was Morrison himself who had once fired at Judge Filips on that very street. His ball had gone wide of the mark, and subsequently he and Filips had adjusted their difficulties and become friends. Was Morrison any less a murderer because his weapon had missed?
Suppose the knife had swerved, had penetrated the arm, had inflicted a harmless scratch or flesh wound, would he be sitting there now, calling himself names? But he would try to think it all out later. He could not bear to be there alone, he never liked to be alone, and now he could not endure it. He closed the book without the slightest recollection of a line his eyes had followed. He went and gazed up and down the street, then he locked the office and walked away.
The fact of Everson having been robbed was very puzzling to Gabriel. He thought about it as he walked along the street.
The complete change that had taken place in his emotions, his sentiments, did not astonish him in the least: we accept such phenomena without question. A week ago—not so long as that—he was in love with the fair-haired girl up at the Normal. He was undeniably in love with her. He knew the symptoms. He wanted to marry her and meant to ask her whenever his position justified him in doing so.
Now, where had that love gone? He thought of her with indifference. Still, he was seeking her at that moment, through habit, without any special motive. He had no positive desire to see her; to see any one; and yet he could not endure to be alone. He had no desire to see Tante Elodie. She wanted him to forget and her presence made him remember.
The girl was walking under the beautiful trees, and she stood and waited for him, when she saw him mounting the hill. As he looked at her, his fondness for her and his intentions toward her, appeared now, like child’s play. Life was something terrible of which she had no conception. She seemed to him as harmless, as innocent, as insignificant as a little bird.
“Oh! Gabriel,” she exclaimed. “I had just written you a note. Why haven’t you been here? It was foolish to get offended. I wanted to explain: I couldn’t get out of it the other night, at Tante Elodie‘s, when he asked me. You know I couldn’t, and that I would rather have come with you.” Was it possible he would have taken this seriously a
week ago?
“Delonce is a good fellow; he’s a decent fellow. I don’t blame you. That’s all right.” She was hurt at his easy complaisance. She did not wish to offend him, and here she was grieved because he was not offended.
“Will you come indoors to the fire?” she asked.
“No; I just strolled up for a minute.” He leaned against a tree and looked bored, or rather, preoccupied with other things than herself. It was not a week ago that he wanted to see her every day; when he said the hours were like minutes that he passed beside her. “I just strolled up to tell you that I am going away.”
“Oh! going away?” and the pink deepened in her cheeks, and she tried to look indifferent and to clasp her glove tighter. He had not the slightest intention of going away when he mounted the hill. It came to him like an inspiration.
“Where are you going?”
“Going to look for work in the city.”
“And what about your law studies?”
“I have no talent for the law; it’s about time I acknowledged it. I want to get into something that will make me hustle. I wouldn’t mind—I’d like to get something to do on a railroad that would go tearing through the country night and day. What’s the matter?” he asked, perceiving the tears that she could not conceal.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she answered with dignity, and a sense of seeming proud.
He took her word for it and, instead of seeking to console her, went rambling on about the various occupations in which he should like to engage for a while.
“When are you going?”
“Just as soon as I can.”
“Shall I see you again?”
“Of course. Good-by. Don’t stay out here too long; you might take cold.” He listlessly shook hands with her and descended the hill with long rapid strides.
He would not intentionally have hurt her. He did not realize that he was wounding her. It would have been as difficult for him to revive his passion for her as to bring Everson back to life. Gabriel knew there could be fresh horror added to the situation. Discovery would have added to it; a false accusation would have deepened it. But he never dreamed of the new horror coming as it did, through Tante Elodie, when he found the knife in his pocket. It took a long time to realize what it meant; and then he felt as if he never wanted to see her again. In his mind, her action identified itself with his crime, and made itself a hateful, hideous part of it, which he could not endure to think of, and of which he could not help thinking.