Chapter Eight.

The Candid Explanation

Sometime later in the night she got up from the floor, took off her shoes and lay down on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. She was shaking with a violent chill, tormented by a racking headache.

All the events of the night had become only part of a vast nightmare. She did not care what happened now, nothing mattered except to get warm. Time had ceased to exist; there was nothing in the world but this physical misery.

After the chill came fever, and a raging thirst. She lay there, crying silently because she so craved for water and could not rise to get it. Her head ached so… The light hurt her eyes…

“What’s the matter, my dear?” asked Aunt Emma’s voice beside her.

“I want--a glass of water!” she sobbed.

Her head was raised and a glass held to her lips.

“Another!” she said.

“Swallow these two pills with it.”

She did not care what she swallowed, so long as she got the water.

A cold, wet cloth was laid on her throbbing head, the unbearable light was shaded, the tumbled covers straightened. She went to sleep.

* * *

She waked with a sigh, and stretched herself luxuriously in the cool, smooth bed. The window was open and the sweet air blew in. Turning her head she saw the sky filled with the soft, melting colors of sunset.

“Now!” said Aunt Emma. “A nice cup of broth and a piece of toast.”

She had never tasted anything better than that broth, strong and well-flavored, that hot buttered toast without crusts. She still felt weak, but marvelously comfortable now, except for a slight soreness in her jaw.

“I was afraid that last night you were in for a bad time,” said Aunt Emma. “You were delirious--quite a temperature.”

Di did not answer; but she heard, and she understood; her brain felt extraordinarily lucid. She might have been delirious at some time in the night, but at present she was perfectly clear about everything. She remembered all the things that had actually happened with an odd sort of detachment, as if she were no longer personally concerned.

“I’ll just let her go on,” she thought. “She’ll try to explain away everything by saying I was delirious. All right! Let her!”

She looked up at Aunt Emma with a glance of calm interest.

“Was I?” she asked.

“And no wonder,” said Aunt Emma. “You had--a disturbing experience.”

She sat down in a chair by the window, where the light breeze stirred her gray hair. She looked so rosy, so dignified, so solid…

“If you feel able,” she said. “I think we’d better talk this over now.”

“I feel all right,” said Di.

And so she did; she felt perfectly able to listen to any tale Aunt Emma might choose to invent and to weigh and analyze it.

“It would take a good deal of generosity,” Aunt Emma went on, “to forgive your Uncle Peter. I don’t expect you to. But I can explain his behavior--if you care to listen.”

“Yes, thank you, I should,” said Di.

So Aunt Emma was not going to pretend that that blow was part of any delirium.

“Do you object to my smoking?” asked Aunt Emma, with gentlemanly politeness. “Perhaps with the window open, it won’t bother you… No? Thanks!”

She lit a cigarette, and crossed her knees.

“We had a remarkably unpleasant evening,” she proceeded, her blue eyes following the smoke. “It’s fortunate that Coat and Purvis are such fools. They swallow everything… When you went out, I sent Miles after you, but he couldn’t find you. So he did what anyone might expect of him. He went down to the village, and procured a supply of bootleg whisky. I saw, when he got back, that he’d been drinking, but I didn’t know he’d brought more of the stuff into the house. He put it in the cellar and every now and then he’d go down and get another drink. Before long, he became very troublesome. Purvis helped me to get him upstairs and into bed. I wanted to lock him into his room, but I couldn’t find the key. I was seriously worried, for fear he would molest you. I went to your room to see if you had come in while I was busy with Miles; I knocked and when there was no answer, I opened the door and by the light of my torch I saw that you were lying fully dressed on the bed, apparently asleep. I spoke to you but you didn’t answer, and I thought it better to lock your door.”

She paused.

“An extremely unpleasant evening…” she continued. “I didn’t know where you’d been or what you’d been doing… I went downstairs again. Coats and Purvis went home in a taxi, and I found your Uncle Peter in the kitchen--almost as bad as Miles. He’d been visiting the cellar… He was half-frightened and half-beastful. He said he had caught you trying to escape! I’ll be quite candid with you. He thinks that Uncle Rufus is going to leave his money to you, and that therefore you’re too valuable to lose. I agree with him about your Uncle Rufus. And I am perfectly willing to tell you that, if you do come into his money, I hope you’ll give me some of it.”

Her candor was astounding; she denied nothing that had happened, made no attempt to disguise her motives.

“I asked you here for that purpose,” she said. “Uncle Rufus had been fond of your mother, and I hoped he’d take a fancy to you. And that gratitude, or family feeling, or sentiment, would induce you to give me enough to carry on my work.”

Di looked at her aunt in wonder, a little dazed; everything was made so clear, so matter-of-fact.

“But--Wren?” she asked, almost involuntarily.

“Wren?” her aunt repeated. “What about him? Do you know anything about that little rat? For he’s disappeared!”

“I don’t know…” said Di, with unusual caution. “I thought I heard him call me--”

“When?” asked Aunt Emma. “I’d like very much to know. And it might help the police.”

“The--_police_?”

“He went off with your Uncle Rufus’s watch and money--some six thousand dollars he was carrying in his pockets.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” cried Di.

“He can stand the loss very well--”

“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Di. “I’m sorry--for Wren.”

“You needn’t be,” said Aunt Emma, dryly.

There was a moment’s silence.

“How is Uncle Rufus?” asked Di.

“Better. He’s been asking for you. You can see him to-morrow.”

There was another silence.

“I’m not,” said Aunt Emma, “extravagant in my personal life.” She smiled faintly. “You’ve probably noticed that my housekeeping is not lavish. But I want--I need money for my work. Your Uncle Rufus is apparently recovering from this attack--but he can’t last much longer. I hope that when you see him to-morrow, you’ll be as amiable as your very youthful conscience will permit. It may mean more to you than you’re able to realize, at your age. But I’m not pretending to think wholly of your welfare. I am thinking of my work.”

She lit another cigarette.

“I’ve told you something about it. I have been making researches in regard to my theory of suggestibility. No one else has yet suspected the suggestibility of the average mind. People talk about the ‘herd instinct’! The human herd has long ceased to act instinctively. It will, in fact, act in a manner directly opposed to its instinct. They talk of ‘mob psychology.’ The only psychology of a mob is that of its leaders. No mob acts spontaneously, but only upon the suggestion of one or more superior minds. A little observation will show you how infinitely more powerful suggestion is than instinct. The instinct of a mother to protect her infant is certainly one of the strongest and most deep-rooted. Yet mothers were willing to throw their infants into the fire of Moloch when it was suggested to them. In times of war, it is suggested to a man that he loves his flag more than his own life, and he acts upon the suggestion.”

She was silent for a moment.

“I have been working for nearly six years with those two children you have seen,” she said. “In minds of that type one would suppose that mere animal instinct would enormously preponderate. I hope soon to demonstrate that it is not so. My great difficulty has been their propensity to imitate; and to differentiate between what is mere imitation and what is suggested action. They are only too ready to imitate…”

She rose, and tossed her cigarette out of the window.

“I’m afraid I’m inclined to be tedious on this subject,” she said, and for the first time Di saw on her face a smile almost appealing. “I must get along now. I have all the cooking and so on to do, now that Wren’s decamped. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time… Now, your Uncle Peter will come up and apologize.”

“Oh, no, _thanks_!” said Di, hastily. “I’d really rather he didn’t.”

“He ought to,” said Aunt Emma. “He’s waiting to do so. I advise you to let him.”

“No, thanks, really. I’d hate it.”

“Do you hate _him_?” asked Aunt Emma.

“No…” said Di. “I don’t hate him…”

“Well!” said Aunt Emma. “I’ll be back later, with some dinner for you. You mustn’t think of getting up to-day. But by to-morrow you ought to be quite yourself. And after you’ve seen your Uncle Rufus, the best thing you can do is to go back to New York. You’ve had a fairly unpleasant visit, I’m afraid. Have you friends in New York, and enough money to carry on for a while?”

“Yes, thank you, Aunt Emma.”

“I’ve brought you some books and magazines, the sort of thing I imagine would interest you. I sent Miles for them.”

Then she mounted a chair briskly, and set about fastening an extension cord to the electric light and clamped a reading-lamp to the head of the bed. She put the books and papers on the table and then took up a queer old-fashioned little knitted sack of pink wool.

“Let me put this around your shoulders,” she said. “Now!”

There was something touching to Di in these attentions, something she had liked very well in her aunt’s blunt sincerity. A sense of profound relief filled her, as if the light of day had been admitted into some dark chamber, and what had seemed horrible was not horrible at all. The shadow of death had passed, Uncle Rufus was getting better and, greatest relief of all, Aunt Emma had herself suggested that she should leave.

Aunt Emma’s motives were certainly not disinterested; Uncle Peter had shown himself capable of an astounding brutality; Uncle Rufus was not a lovable uncle. Miles was a distressing problem; Wren had turned out to be a thief; it was not a pleasant household. But she could make allowances now for all of them; she could forgive them their offenses against herself, and pity their sordid failings, because to-morrow she was leaving them and because everything here was explicable now; ugly and depressing, but not sinister, not frightening any longer.

“And Mr. Fennel,” she thought. “Something prevented his coming. I _know_ I’ll hear from him again. Probably to-morrow.”

She lay for a time, looking out at the darkening sky, and thinking of Fennel. She felt so certain that she could see him again, so certain he was her friend.

“How nice of him to have come all this way with Mrs. Frick’s letter! I wish I hadn’t lost it. It might have explained a little about him… He’s different from any other man I’ve seen. He’s…”

It occurred to her that her reverie was becoming a little ridiculous, and reaching up, she turned on the lamp, and picked up a magazine. A footstep in the hall made her glance up, and she saw Miles in the doorway.

“Diana…?” he said.

She thought she had never seen anything more pitiable than his handsome, wasted face, pallid, drawn, hollow-eyed; anything more painful than his strained smile.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Oh, fine, thanks!” she answered, with artificial brightness.

“Anything I can do for you, Diana?”

“Not a thing in the world, thanks, Miles.”

He was silent for a moment, and they did not look at each other.

“I thought…” he said. “Wouldn’t you like some ice-cream, Diana? I can run down to the village and get it…”

She could not refuse this peace-offering.

“That would be awfully nice,” she said, and was distressed by the obviously false cheerfulness of her own voice.

“All right! I’ll get it,” he said, and was gone.

His haggard, desperate face haunted her; she began to read again, in haste to forget him, for she could do nothing more for Miles.

Presently Aunt Emma appeared with a tray, upon which was a supper immeasurably better than any meal Di had yet had in this house; a broiled lamb chop, a potato baked in its jacket, a salad of lettuce and tomato, a cup of coffee and a slice of sponge cake.

“How nice!” she said, pleased.

Aunt Emma smiled.

“I never cooked before to-day in my life,” she observed. “But with Wren gone, I saw it was inevitable. So I sat down and studied the cook-book for an hour, until I’d mastered the general principles of cooking. Then I applied the theory. It’s amusing. I was tempted to do superfluous things. That sponge cake, for instance…” She looked down at it. “I believe it’s good,” she said. “It’s--Put it down, child, until you’ve eaten the chop!”

“I had to try it!” said Di. “It’s perfect!”

Aunt Emma was manifestly pleased and so was Diana; there was a charming atmosphere of homely good-will. Aunt Emma making a cake!

Before her footsteps had died away, Miles returned, with the ice-cream in a dish.

“May I come in?” he asked, and when she said yes, he entered and set the dish down on the table.

“Diana…” he said. “I’m--not going to talk any more… I’ll just try to show you… I--can’t expect you--to have any faith in me… But… but you’ll see, Diana…”

His voice was painfully unsteady and he did not look at her.

“If you want anything,” he said, “I’ll be here--all the time.”

She wanted to speak to him, but to save her life she could not think of a word that would sound natural and friendly. Halfway to the door he turned and looked at her, sitting there in the queer little old-fashioned pink jacket, with her fair hair loose. And she could not bear the look on his face. With an anxious, uncertain smile, she held out her hand; he strode back to her, knelt beside her, holding her hand over his eyes.

“Forgive me, Diana!” he whispered. “I’m sorry…”

“Of course!” she said, in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice. But she nearly wept, looking down at his dark head. From the very first she had felt for Miles this pity, this tenderness, this unreasonable indulgence, that was almost maternal.

“I’m so sorry!” he said, again. “Just give me one more chance!”

“Yes, I will. Miles! Get up! My nice dinner’s getting cold--and the ice-cream is melting.”

For she felt that if he did not go at once, she would begin to cry over him, and he would certainly misunderstand that. He sprang up, full of contrition.

“See you to-morrow!” she said, brightly, as he left the room, and he smiled at her, comforted.

She sighed profoundly and began her dinner.

“Even when I leave here,” she thought, “I shan’t be rid of Miles; I’ll have to go on seeing him, forever and ever. No one else seems to care a bit for him. And he needs someone to care, so terribly. He’s so--doomed…”

But even the doomed Miles could not make her unhappy that evening. She had a quiet, cosy evening, reading, an amiable little chat with Aunt Emma; then she turned out the light and settled herself for sleep, filled with a quiet confident happiness.

“Perhaps he lives at Mrs. Frick’s,” she thought. “Anyhow, I’ll probably hear from him to-morrow…”

And everything was explained now; everything was clear and open. To-morrow she would leave here, and begin a new phase of her life…

* * *

She waked with a start, and sat up in bed, her heart racing. She did not know what had awakened her, what had startled her, but there lay upon her the oppression of a forgotten dream.

She turned on the light and looked about the little room. All neat and tranquil here. What was it that she had forgotten…?

Then she remembered. Last night, when she had lain down on the bed, there had been blood on her hand. And now her hand was clean. There had been blood on the carpet, by the door… She got up and went to the door, and, a little giddy, stooped to examine the carpet. There was surely a faint stain there, as of something that could not be quite scrubbed clean.

If Wren had come to her door, unknown to anyone else, the stain would not be faint, like this. If anyone had washed her hand, and cleaned the carpet, then whoever had done this must know of Wren’s coming.

“Perhaps Aunt Emma just didn’t want to worry me,” she said to herself, with her old instinct to deny what was strange and unpleasant. “I’ll ask her in the morning.”

She turned out the light, lay down again, and resolutely closed her eyes; immediately she had a vision of Wren crawling along the corridor on his hands and knees, scratching at her door… “Miss! For God’s sake, let me in!…”

She turned on the light again, in haste. When she had spoken of Wren, Aunt Emma had seemed startled, had asked if she had seen him. No… It _was_ queer, it was wrong, that if she had washed the blood from the girl’s hand, she should have made no mention of it.

Well, suppose someone else had washed her hand and cleaned the floor? Who else? And if Wren had robbed Uncle Rufus and successfully escaped, what was he doing outside her door, desperately urgent to be admitted?

Everything was not clear and open. With Wren unexplained, all the rest of the explanation was worthless.

“Aunt Emma must have known,” she thought. “Nothing goes on here that she doesn’t know… I don’t believe poor little Wren’s a thief, anyhow. She’s just made that up, to explain--something… To explain what?…”

All the old dread and confusion had returned. She took up a book and tried to read, but every sound made her start. It was nearly morning when she dropped asleep.

When she opened her eyes, the sun was shining; her watch had stopped, but she felt sure it was late. She got up at once, washed in cold water, and began to dress. She was immensely relieved to find the ten-dollar bill still in the pocket of her jersey; her way of escape was still open.

“And this time,” she thought. “I’m not going to be cautious and tactful. I’m not going to be put off. I’m going to ask Aunt Emma point-blank who cleaned up the carpet.”

Her knees were still a little weak and the bruise on her jaw was still sore, but she felt very well, and very resolute.

“I’m sick and tired of all this mystery!” she thought. “I want to know what really happened to Wren.”

The lounge was empty, the dining-room was empty, but in the kitchen she found Aunt Emma washing dishes.

“Well!” said Aunt Emma. “You’re early! Did you have a good night?”

She looked so fresh and neat and pleasant, in her white overall, so innocently and beneficently employed in this humdrum task, that it was difficult to challenge her.

“Not so very,” said Di. “I--got thinking--about Wren.”

“About Wren?” Aunt Emma repeated. “Well, I hope we’ll soon see that cleared up.”

“You see,” Di went on, “he came to my door last night… I couldn’t let him in, because the door was locked… And--blood came under the door… On the carpet--on my hand…”

Even here, in the kitchen where the morning sun was shining, it was horrible to think of that.

“Ah!” said Aunt Emma. “So that’s what it was? I noticed it, naturally. But I didn’t know whether you, in your feverish condition had noticed it or not. So I thought I’d say nothing unless you asked me. Wren, was it? He must have hurt himself in some way.”

Very composed, very plausible was Aunt Emma. But Di was not satisfied.

“I don’t see--” she began.

“Wait a moment!” said Aunt Emma, and opening the back door: “Rogers!” she called.

A stout, clean-shaven man ran up the steps.

“This is Detective Rogers, from the East Hazelwood Police Station. He’s come to investigate this robbery, and Wren’s disappearance. You must tell him everything you know--while I make you some fresh coffee.”

Certainly this cleared Aunt Emma from the last suspicion. She had called in the police herself.