Anna Green - Hand and Ring

"What do you mean? What has this man been telling you? You say it was not the tramp. Who, then, was it?"

"That is a question we cannot answer," rejoined Mr. Ferris, astonished at her heat, while Lawyer Orcutt, moving forward, attempted once more to recall her to herself.

"Imogene," he pleaded, – "Imogene, calm yourself. This is not a matter of so much importance to you that you need agitate yourself so violently in regard to it. Come home, I beseech you, and leave the affairs of justice to the attention of those whose duty it is to look after them."

But beyond acknowledging his well-meant interference by a deprecatory glance, she stood immovable, looking from Dr. Tredwell to Mr. Ferris, and back again to Dr. Tredwell, as if she sought in their faces some confirmation of a hideous doubt or fear that had arisen in her own mind. Suddenly she felt a touch on her arm.

"Excuse me, madam, but is this yours?" inquired a smooth and careless voice over her shoulder.

As though awakening from a dream she turned; they all turned. Mr. Byrd was holding out in his open palm a ring blazing with a diamond of no mean lustre or value.

The sight of such a jewel, presented at such a moment, completed the astonishment of her friends. Pressing forward, they stared at the costly ornament and then at her, Mr. Orcutt's face especially assuming a startled expression of mingled surprise and apprehension, that soon attracted the attention of the others, and led to an interchange of looks that denoted a mutual but not unpleasant understanding.

"I found it at your feet," explained the detective, still carelessly, but with just that delicate shade of respect in his voice necessary to express a gentleman's sense of presumption in thus addressing a strange and beautiful young lady.

The tone, if not the explanation, seemed to calm her, as powerful natures are calmed in the stress of a sudden crisis.

"Thank you," she returned, not without signs of great sweetness in her look and manner. "Yes, it is mine," she added slowly, reaching out her hand and taking the ring. "I must have dropped it without knowing it." And meeting the eye of Mr. Orcutt fixed upon her with that startled look of inquiry already alluded to, she flushed, but placed the jewel nonchalantly on her finger.

This cool appropriation of something he had no reason to believe hers, startled the youthful detective immeasurably. He had not expected such a dénouement to the little drama he had prepared with such quiet assurance, and, though with the quick self-control that distinguished him he forbore to show his surprise, he none the less felt baffled and ill at ease, all the more that the two gentlemen present, who appeared to be the most disinterested in their regard for this young lady, seemed to accept this act on her part as genuine, and therefore not to be questioned.

"It is a clue that is lost," thought he. "I have made a mess of my first unassisted efforts at real detective work." And, inwardly disgusted with himself, he drew back into the other room and took up his stand at a remote window.

The slight stir he made in crossing the room seemed to break a spell and restore the minds of all present to their proper balance. Mr. Orcutt threw off the shadow that had momentarily disturbed his quiet and assured mien, and advancing once more, held out his arm with even more kindness than before, saying impressively:

"Now you will surely consent to accompany me home. You cannot mean to remain here any longer, can you, Imogene?"

But before she could reply, before her hand could lay itself on his arm, a sudden hush like that of awe passed solemnly through the room, and the physician, who had been set to watch over the dying gasps of the poor sufferer within, appeared on the threshold of the bedroom door, holding up his hand with a look that at once commanded attention and awoke the most painful expectancy in the hearts of all who beheld him:

"She stirs; she moves her lips," he announced, and again paused, listening.

Immediately there was a sound from the dimness behind him, a low sound, inarticulate at first, but presently growing loud enough and plain enough to be heard in the utmost recesses of the furthermost room on that floor.

"Hand! ring!" was the burden of the short ejaculation they heard. "Ring! hand!" till a sudden gasp cut short the fearful iteration, and all was silent again.

"Great heavens!" came in an awe-struck whisper from Mr. Ferris, as he pressed hastily toward the place from which these words had issued.

But the physician at once stopped and silenced him.

"She may speak again," he suggested. "Wait."

But, though they listened breathlessly, and with ever-growing suspense, no further break occurred in the deep silence, and soon the doctor announced:

"She has sunk back into her old state; she may rouse again, and she may not."

As though released from some painful tension, the coroner, the District Attorney, and the detective all looked up. They found Miss Dare standing by the open window, with her face turned to the landscape, and Mr. Orcutt gazing at her with an expression of perplexity that had almost the appearance of dismay. This look passed instantly from the lawyer's countenance as he met the eyes of his friends, but Mr. Byrd, who was still smarting under a sense of his late defeat, could not but wonder what that gentleman had seen in Miss Dare, during the period of their late preoccupation, to call up such an expression to his usually keen and composed face.

The clinch of her white hand on the window-sill told nothing; but when in a few moments later she turned toward them again, Mr. Byrd saw, or thought he saw, the last lingering remains of a great horror fading out of her eyes, and was not surprised when she walked up to Mr. Orcutt and said, somewhat hoarsely: "I wish to go home now. This place is a terrible one to be in."

Mr. Orcutt, who was only too glad to comply with her request, again offered her his arm. But anxious as they evidently were to quit the house, they were not allowed to do so without experiencing another shock. Just as they were passing the door of the room where the wounded woman lay, the physician in attendance again appeared before them with that silently uplifted hand.

"Hush!" said he; "she stirs again. I think she is going to speak."

And once more that terrible suspense held each and every one enthralled: once more that faint, inarticulate murmur eddied through the house, growing gradually into speech that this time took a form that curdled the blood of the listeners, and made Mr. Orcutt and the young woman at his side drop apart from each other as though a dividing sword had passed between them.

"May the vengeance of Heaven light upon the head of him who has brought me to this pass," were the words that now rose ringing and clear from that bed of death. "May the fate that has come upon me be visited upon him, measure for measure, blow for blow, death for death."

Strange and awe-inspiring words, that drew a pall over that house and made the dullest person there gasp for breath. In the silence that followed – a silence that could be felt – the white faces of lawyer and physician, coroner and detective, turned and confronted each other. But the young lady who lingered in their midst looked at no one, turned to no one. Shuddering and white, she stood gazing before her as if she already beheld that retributive hand descending upon the head of the guilty; then, as she awoke to the silence of those around her, gave a quick start and flashed forward to the door and so out into the street before Mr. Orcutt could rouse himself sufficiently from the stupor of the moment to follow her.

Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now.

"WOULD there be any indiscretion in my asking who that young lady is?" inquired Mr. Byrd of Mr. Ferris, as, after ascertaining that the stricken sufferer still breathed, they stood together in a distant corner of the dining-room.