Eleven Possible Cases

Accordingly, the next day I called upon Mrs. Walworth. She lived, as I already knew, in a small and unpretentious house just on the verge of our most fashionable quarter. But there was great taste displayed in the furnishing of that house, and I was not at all surprised to see evidences here and there of a poverty which the general effect tended to make you forget. I was fortunate enough to find her in, and still more fortunate to find her alone, but my courage fell as I confronted her, for she has one of those appealing faces that equally interest and baffle you, making you feel that unless your errand be one of peace and comfort, you had better not confront so tremulous a mouth and so tender a hazel eye. But I had steeled myself against too much sympathy when I entered her presence, so barely pausing to make my most ingratiating bow, I took her by the hand, and gently forcing her to stand for a moment where the light from the one window fell full upon her face, I said:

"You must pardon my intrusion upon you at a time when you are naturally busy, but there is something you can do for me that will rid me of a great anxiety. You remember being in – Hotel one morning last month?"

She was looking quietly up at me, her lips parted, her eyes smiling and expectant, but at the mention of that hotel I thought – and yet I may have been mistaken – that a slight change took place in her expression, if it was only that the glance grew more gentle and the smile more marked.

But her voice when she answered was the same as that with which she had uttered her greeting.

"I do not remember," she replied, "yet I may have been there; I go to so many places. Why do you ask?" she inquired.

"Because if you were there on that morning – and I have been told you were – you may be able to solve a question that is greatly perplexing me."

Still the same gentle inquiring look on her face, only now there was a little furrow of wonder or interest between the eyes.

"I had business in that hotel on that morning," I continued. "I had left a letter for a young friend of mine in the Bible that lies on the small table of the inner parlor, and as she never received it, I have been driven into making all kinds of inquiries, in hope of finding some explanation of the fact. As you were there at the time, you may have seen something that would aid me. Is it not possible, Mrs. Walworth?"

Her smile, which had faded, reappeared on the lips which Taylor so much admired, a little pout became visible and she looked quite enchanting.

"I do not even remember being at that hotel at all," she protested. "Did Mr. Taylor say I was there?" she inquired, with just that added look of exquisite naïveté which the utterance of a lover's name should call up on the face of a prospective bride.

"No," I answered gravely, "Mr. Taylor, unhappily, was not with you that morning."

She looked startled.

"Unhappily," she repeated. "What do you mean by that word?" And she drew back looking very much displeased.

I had expected this and so was not thrown off my guard.

"I mean," I proceeded calmly, "that if you had had such a companion with you on that morning I should now be able to put my question to him, instead of taking up your time and interrupting your affairs by my importunities."

She lost her look of anger and acquired one of doubt. Did she survey me so closely because she was anxious to know if I had compromised her in the eyes of her intended husband? Or was her expression merely that natural to innocence equally startled and perplexed? I could not determine.

"You will tell me just what you mean?" said she earnestly.

I was equally emphatic in my reply. "That is only just. You ought to know why I trouble you with this matter. It is because this letter of which I speak was taken from its hiding place by some one who went into the hotel parlor between the hours of half past ten and twelve, and to my certain knowledge only three persons crossed its threshold on that especial morning at that especial time. I naturally appeal to each of them in turn for an answer to the problem that is troubling me. You know Miss N. Seeing by accident a letter addressed to her lying in a Bible in a strange hotel, you might think it your duty to take it out and carry it to her. If you did and if you lost it – "

"But I didn't," she interrupted warmly. "I know nothing about any such letter, and if you had not declared so positively that I was in that hotel on that especial day, I should be tempted to deny that, too, for I have no recollection of going there last month."

"Not for the purpose of rearranging a veil that had been blown off?"

"Oh!" she said, but as one who recalls a forgotten fact, not as one who is tripped up in an evasion.

I began to think her innocent and lost some of the gloom which had been oppressing me.

"You remember now," said I.

"Oh, yes, I remember that."

Her manner so completely declared that her acknowledgments stopped there, I saw it would be useless to venture further. If she were innocent she could not tell more, if she were guilty she would not; so feeling that the inclination of my belief was in favor of the former hypothesis, I again took her hand and said:

"I see that you can give me no help. I am sorry, for the whole happiness of a man, and perhaps that of a woman also, depends upon the discovery as to who took the letter from out the Bible where I had hidden it on that unfortunate morning." And making her another low bow, I was about to take my departure when she grasped me impulsively by the arm.

"What man?" she whispered, and in a lower tone still, "What woman?"

I turned and looked at her. "Great heaven!" thought I, "can such a face hide a selfish and intriguing heart?" and in a flash I summoned up in comparison before me the plain, honest, and reliable countenance of Mrs. Couldock and that of the comely and unpretending Miss Dawes, and knew not what to think.

"You do not mean yourself?" she continued as she met my look of distress.

"No," I returned; "happily for me, my welfare is not bound up in the honor of any woman," and leaving that shaft to work its way into her heart if that heart was vulnerable, I took my leave, more troubled and less decided than when I entered.

For her manner had been absolutely that of a woman surprised by insinuations she was too innocent to rate at their real importance; and yet if she did not take away that letter who did? Mrs. Couldock? Impossible. Miss Dawes? The thought was untenable even for an instant. I waited in great depression of spirits for the call which I knew Taylor would not fail to make me that evening.

When he came I saw what the result of my revelations was likely to be as plainly as I see it now. He had conversed frankly with Mrs. Couldock and with Miss Dawes and was perfectly convinced as to the utter ignorance of them both in regard to the whole affair. In consequence, Mrs. Walworth was guilty in his estimation, and being held guilty could be no wife for him, much as he had loved her and urgent as may have been the causes for her act.

"But," said I, in some horror of the consequences of an interference for which I was almost ready to blame myself now, "Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes could have done no more than deny all knowledge of this letter. Now Mrs. Walworth does that, and – "

"You have seen her? You have asked her – "

"Yes, I have seen her and I have asked her, and not an eyelash drooped as she affirmed a complete ignorance of the whole affair."

Taylor's head fell.

"I told you how that would be," he murmured at last. "I cannot feel that it is any proof of her innocence. Or rather," he added, "I should always have my doubts."

"And Mrs. Couldock and Miss Dawes?"

"Ah!" he cried, rising and turning away. "There is no question of marriage between either of them and myself."

I was therefore not astonished when the week went by and no announcement of his wedding appeared. But I was troubled and I am troubled still, for if mistakes are made in criminal courts and the innocent sometimes through the sheer force of circumstantial evidence are made to suffer for the guilty, might it not be that in this letter question of morals, Mrs. Walworth has been wronged, and that when I played the part of arbitrator in her fate, I only succeeded in separating two hearts whose right it was to be made happy? It is impossible to tell. Nor is time likely to solve the riddle. Must I then forever blame myself, or did I only do in this matter what any honest man would have done in my place? Answer me, some one, for I do not find my lonely bachelor life in any wise brightened by the doubt, and would be grateful to any one who would relieve me of it.

THE END