The House of the Whispering Pines

I came to an open door. A couch was before me, heaped with cushions. A long ray of moonlight had shot in through a communicating door, and I could see everything by it. This was where the ladies had been when I listened before, but they were not here now.

Weren't they? Why did I tremble so, then, and stare and stare at those cushions? Why did I feel I must pull them away, as I presently did? I was mad with liquor and might easily have imagined what I there saw; but I did not think of this then. I believed what I saw instantly. Miss Cumberland was dead, and I had discovered the crime. She had killed herself—no, she had been killed!

Should I yell out murder? No, no; I could be sorry without that. I would not yell—mistresses were plenty. I had liked her, but I need not yell. There was something else I could do.

She had a ring on her finger—a ring that for months I had gloated over and watched, as I had never watched and gloated over any other beautiful thing in my life. I wanted it—I had always wanted it. It was before me, for the taking now—I should be a fool to leave it there for some other wretch to pilfer. I had loved her—I would love the ring.

Reaching down, I took it. I drew it from her finger; I put it in my pocket; I—God in heaven! The eyes I had seen glassed in death were looking at me.

She was not dead—she had been witness of the theft. Without a thought of what I was doing, my hands closed round her throat. It was drink—fright—terror at the look she gave me—which made me kill her; not my real self. My real self could have shrieked when, in another instant, I saw my work.

But shrieking would not bring her back and it would quite ruin me. Miss Carmel was somewhere near. I heard her now at the telephone; in another minute she would come out and meet me. I dared not linger.

Tossing back the pillows, I stumbled from the place. Why I was not heard by my young mistress, I do not know; her ears were deaf, just as my eyes were half-blind. In a half hour I was dancing with the maids, telling them of the pretty stranger with whom I had been sitting out an hour of fun in a quiet corner. They believed me, and not a particle of suspicion has any man ever had of me since.

But others have had to suffer, and that has made hell of my nights. I restored the ring to my poor mistress; but even that brought harm to one I had no quarrel with. But he has escaped conviction; and if I thought Mr. Ranelagh would also escape, I might have courage to live out my miserable life, and seek to make amends in the way she would have me.

But I fear for him; I fear for Miss Carmel. Never could I testify in another trial which threatened her peace of mind. I see that, instead of being the selfish stealer of her sister's happiness, as I had thought, she is an angel from whom all future suffering should be kept.

This is my way of sparing her. Perhaps it will help her sister to forgive me when we meet in the world to which I am now going.

notes

1

It was the top portion, leaving the rest to read:

"Come, come my darling, my life. She will forgive when all is done. Hesitation will only undo us. To-night at 10:30. I shall never marry any one but you."

It was also evident that I had failed to add those expressions of affection linked to Carmel's name which had been in my mind and awakened my keenest apprehension.