"Well, Gerald, I must confess this is rather tough on you!" Monsieur Correlli remarked, in a voice of undisguised astonishment, as soon as the lawyer disappeared. "I call it downright shabby of Anna to have left you so in the lurch."
"It does not matter," returned the elder man, but somewhat coldly; for, despite his feeling of relief over the disposition of her property, he experienced a twinge of jealousy toward the more fortunate heir, whose pity was excessively galling to him under the circumstances.
Although the two men had quarreled just before Monsieur Correlli's departure for New York, all ill-feeling had been ignored in view of their common loss and sorrow, and each had conducted himself with a courteous bearing toward the other during the last few days.
"What in the world do you suppose possessed her to make such a will?" the young man inquired, while he searched his companion's face with keen scrutiny. "And how strange that she should have imagined all[243] of a sudden that she was going to die, and so put her affairs in order!"
Mr. Goddard saw that he had no suspicion of the real state of things, and he had no intention of betraying any secrets if he could avoid doing so.
No one—not even her own brother—should ever know that Anna had not been his wife. He would do what he could to shield her memory from every reproach, and no one should ever dream that—he could not divest himself of the suspicion—she had died willfully.
Therefore, he replied with apparent frankness:
"I think I can explain why she did so. On the day of our return from Wyoming, Anna and I had a more serious quarrel than usual; I never saw her so angry as she was at that time; she even went so far as to tell me that she hated me; and so, I presume, in the heat of her anger, she resolved to cut me off with the proverbial shilling to be revenged upon me."
"Well, she has done so with a vengeance," muttered his brother-in-law.
"I went to her afterward and tried to make it up," his companion resumed, "but she would have nothing to say to me. She was looking very ill, also; and when the next morning she sent me word that she was not able to join me at breakfast, I went again to her door and begged her to allow me to send for Dr. Hunt, but she would not even admit me."
"What was this quarrel about?"
"Oh, almost all our quarrels have been about a certain document which has long been a bone of contention between us, and this one was an outgrowth from the same subject."
"Was that document a certificate of marriage?" craftily inquired Emil Correlli.
"Yes."
"Gerald, were you ever really married to Anna?" demanded the young man, bending toward him with an eager look.
His companion flushed hotly at the question, and yet it assured him that he did not really know just[244] what relations his sister had sustained toward him.
"Isn't that a very singular question, Emil?" he inquired, with a cool dignity that was very effective. "What led you to ask it?"
"Something that Anna herself once said to me suggested the thought," Emil replied. "I know, of course, the circumstances of your early attachment—that for her you left another woman whom you had taken to Rome. I once asked Anna the same question, but she would not answer me directly—she evaded it in a way to confirm my suspicions rather than to allay them. And now this will—it seems very strange that she should have made it if—"
"Pray, Emil, do not distress yourself over anything so absurd," coldly interposed Gerald Goddard, but with almost hueless lips. "However, if you continue to entertain doubts upon the subject, you have but to go to the Church of the —— the next time you visit Rome, ask to see the records for the year 18—, and you will find the marriage of your sister duly recorded there."
"I beg your pardon," apologized the doubter, now fully reassured by the above shrewdly fashioned answer, "but Anna was always so infernally jealous of you, and made herself so wretched over the fear of losing your affection, that I could think of no other reason for her foolishness. Now, about this will," he added, hastily changing the subject and referring to the document. "I don't feel quite right to have all Anna's fortune, in addition to my own, and no doubt the poor girl would have repented of her rash act if she could have lived long enough to get over her anger and realize what she was doing. I don't need the money, and, Gerald, I am willing to make over something to you, especially as I happen to know that you have sunk the most of your money in unfortunate speculations," the young man concluded, Mr. Goddard's sad, white face appealing to his generosity in spite of their recent difference.
"Thank you, Emil," he quietly replied; "but I cannot accept your very kind offer. Since it was Anna's[245] wish that you should have her property, I prefer that the will should stand exactly as she made it. I cannot take a dollar of the money—not even what 'the law would allow' in view of our relations to each other."
Those last words were uttered in a tone of peculiar bitterness that caused Monsieur Correlli to regard him curiously.
"Pray do not take it to heart like that, old boy," he said, kindly, after a moment, "and let me persuade you to accept at least a few thousands."
"Thank you, but I cannot. Please do not press the matter, for my decision is unalterable."
"But how the deuce are you going to get along?" questioned the young man.
"I shall manage very well," was the grave rejoinder. "I have a few hundreds which will suffice for my present needs, and, if my hands have not lost their cunning, I can abundantly provide for my future by means of my profession. By the way, what are your own plans?—if I may inquire," he concluded, to change the subject.
The young man paled at the question, and an angry frown settled upon his brow.
"I am going to return immediately to New York—I am bound to find that girl," he said, with an air of sullen resolution.
"Then you were not successful in your search?" Mr. Goddard remarked, dropping his lids to hide the flash of satisfaction that leaped into his eyes at the words.
"No, and yes. I found out that she arrived safely in New York, where she was met by a young lawyer—Royal Bryant by name—who immediately spirited her away to some place after dodging the policeman I had set on her track. I surmise that he has put her in the care of some of his own friends. I went to him and demanded that he tell me where she was, but I might just as well have tried to extract information from a stone as from that astute disciple of the law—blast him! He finally intimated that my room would[246] be better than my company, and that I might hear from him later on."
"Ah! he has doubtless taken her case in hand—she has chosen him as her attorney," said Mr. Goddard.
"It looks like it," snapped the young man; "but he will not find it an easy matter to free her from me; the marriage was too public and too shrewdly managed to be successfully contested."
"It was the most shameful and dastardly piece of villainy that I ever heard of," exclaimed Gerald Goddard, indignantly, "and—"
"And you evidently intend to take the girl's part against me," sneered his companion, his anger blazing forth hotly. "If I remember rightly, you rather admired her yourself."
"I certainly did; she was one of the purest and sweetest girls I ever met," was the dignified reply. "Emil, you have not a ghost of a chance of supporting your claim if the matter comes to trial, and I beg that you will quietly relinquish it without litigation," he concluded, appealingly.
"Not if I know myself," was the defiant retort.
"But that farce was no marriage."
"All the requirements of the law were fulfilled, and I fancy that any one who attempts to prove to the contrary will find himself in deeper water than will be comfortable, in spite of your assertion that I 'have not a ghost of a chance.'"
"Possibly, but I doubt it. All the same, I warn you, here and now, Correlli, that I shall use what influence I have toward freeing that beautiful girl from your power," Mr. Goddard affirmed, with an air of determination not to be mistaken.
"Do you mean it—you will publicly appear against me if the matter goes into court?"
"I do."
The young man appeared to be in a white rage for a moment; then, snapping his fingers defiantly in his companion's face, he cried:
"Do your worst! I do not fear you; you can prove nothing."[247]
"No, I have no absolute proof, but I can at least give the court the benefit of my suspicions and opinion."
"What! and compromise your dead wife before a scandal-loving public?"
"Emil, if Anna could speak at this moment, I believe she would tell the truth herself, and save that innocent and lovely child from a fate which to her must seem worse than death," Mr. Goddard solemnly asserted.
"Thank you—you are, to say the least, not very flattering to me in your comparisons," angrily retorted Monsieur Correlli, as he sprang from his chair and moved toward the door.
He stopped as he laid his hand upon the silver knob and turned a white, vindictive face upon the other.
"Well, then," he said, between his white, set teeth, "since you have determined to take this stand against me, it will not be agreeable for us to meet as heretofore, and I feel compelled to ask you to vacate these premises at your earliest convenience."
"Very well! I shall, of course, immediately comply with your request. A few hours will suffice me to make the move you suggest," frigidly responded Gerald Goddard; but he had grown ghastly white with wounded pride and anger at being thus ignominiously turned out of the house where for so many years he had reigned supreme.
Emil Correlli bowed as he concluded, and left the room without a word in reply.
As the door closed after him Mr. Goddard sank back in his chair with a heavy sigh, as he realized fully, for the first time, how entirely alone in the world he was, and what a desolate future lay before him, shorn, as he was, of home and friends and all the wealth which for so long had paved a shining way for him through the world.
His head sank heavily upon his breast, and he sat thus for several minutes absorbed in painful reflections.[248]
He was finally aroused by the shutting of the street door, when, looking up, he saw the new master of the house pass the window, and he knew that henceforth he would be his bitter enemy.
He glanced wistfully around the beautiful room—the dearest in the house to him; at the elegant cases of valuable books, every one of which he himself had chosen and caused to be uniformly bound; at the choice paintings in their costly frames upon the walls, and many of which had been painted by his own hands; at the numerous pieces of statuary and rare curios which he knew would never assume their familiar aspect in any other place.
How could he ever make up his mind to dismantle that home-like spot and bury his treasures in a close and gloomy storage warehouse?
"Homeless, penniless, and alone?" he murmured, crushing back into his breast a sob that arose to his throat.
Then suddenly his glance fell upon the table beside him and rested upon the letter that Mr. Clayton had given to him, and which, in the exciting occurrences of the last hour, he had entirely forgotten.
He took it up and sighed heavily again as the faint odor of Anna's favorite perfume was wafted to his nostrils.
"How changed is everything since she wrote this!—what a complete revolution in one's life a few hours can make!" he mused.
He broke the seal with some curiosity, but with something of awe as well, for it seemed to him almost like a message from the other world, and drew forth two sheets of closely-written paper.
The missive was not addressed to any one; the writer had simply begun what she had to say and told her story through to the end, and then signed her name in full in a clear, bold hand.
The man had not read half the first page before his manner betrayed that its contents were of the most vital importance.
On and on he read, his face expressing various emo[249]tions until by the time he reached the end there was an eagerness in his manner, a gleam of animation in his eyes which told that the communication had been of a nature to entirely change the current of his thoughts and distract them from everything of an unpleasant character regarding himself.
He folded and returned the letter to its envelope with trembling hands.
"Oh, Anna! Anna!" he murmured, "why could you not have been always governed by your better impulses, instead of yielding so weakly to the evil in your nature? This makes my way plain at least—now I am ready to bid farewell to this home and all that is behind me, and try to fathom what the future holds for me."
He carefully put the letter away into an inner pocket, then sat down to his desk and began to look over his private papers.
When that task was completed he ordered the butler to have some boxes and packing cases, that were stored in the cellar, brought up to the library, when he carefully packed away such books, pictures and other things as he wished to take away with him.
It was not an easy task, and he could almost as readily have committed them to the flames as to have despoiled that beautiful home of what, for so long, had made it so dear and attractive to him.
When his work was completed he went out, slipped over into Boylston street, where he knew there were plenty of rooms to be rented, and where he soon engaged a suite that would answer his purpose for the present.
This done, he secured a man and team to move his possessions, and before the shades of night had fallen he had stored everything he owned away in his new quarters and bidden farewell forever to the aristocratic dwelling on Commonwealth avenue, where he had lived so luxuriously and entertained so elaborately the crême de la crême of Boston society.
Three days later he had disappeared from the city—"gone abroad" the papers said, "for a change of[250] scene and to recuperate from the effects of the shock caused by his wife's sudden death."