I let Miss Charity lead me away. A drawer held all these treasures. I looked and felt to a degree the pathos of the scene; but did not give special attention to what she thrust under my eyes till she gave me a little old letter to read, soiled and torn with the handling of many years and signed John Silverthorn Brainard. Then something in me woke and I stared at this signature, growing more and more excited as I realized that this was not the first time I had seen it, that somewhere and in circumstances which brought a nameless thrill I had looked upon it before and that—it was not one remembrance but many which came to me. What the spoken name had not recalled came at the sight of this written one. Bess! there was her long and continued watch over the house once entered by her on any and every pretext, but now shunned by her with a secret terror which could not disguise her longing and its secret attraction; her certificate of marriage; the name on this certificate—the very one I was now staring at—John Silverthorn Brainard! Had I struck an invaluable clue? Had I, through the weakness and doting fondness of this poor woman, come upon the one link which would yet lead us to identify this hollow-hearted, false and most vindictive man of great affairs with the wandering and worthless husband of the nondescript Bess, whose hand I had touched and whose errand I had done, little realizing its purport or the influence it would have upon our lives? I dared not believe myself so fortunate; it was much too like a fairy dream for me to rely on it for a moment; yet the possibility was enough to rouse me to renewed effort. After we had returned to Miss Thankful’s side, I asked her, with an apology for my inexhaustible curiosity, if she still felt afraid of the thread and needle woman across the way.
The answer was a little sharp.
“It is Charity who is afraid of her,” said she. She had evidently forgotten her own extravagant words to me on this subject. “Charity is timid; she thinks because this woman once hung over our brother, night and day, that she knew about this money and had persuaded herself that she has some right to it. Charity is sometimes mistaken, but she has some reason, if it is inadequate, for this notion of hers. That woman, since her dismissal after my brother’s death, has never really quit this neighborhood. She worked next door in any capacity she could, whenever any of the tenants would take her; and when they would not, sewed or served in the houses near by till finally she set up a shop directly opposite its very door. But she’ll never get these bonds; we shall pay her what is her due, but she’ll never get any more.”
“That would make her out a thief,” I cried, “or—” but I thought better of uttering what was in my mind. Instead I asked how they first came to hear of her.
Miss Charity showed some flustration at this and cast her sister an appealing look; but Miss Thankful, eying her with some severity, answered me with becoming candor:
“She was a lodger in this house. We kept a few lodgers in those days—be still, Charity! Just thank God those days are over.”
“A lodger?” I repeated. “Did she ever tell you where she came from?”
“Yes, she mentioned the place,—it was some town farther west. That was when we were in such trouble about our brother and how we should care for him. She could nurse him, she said, and indeed seemed very eager to do so, and we were glad to let her,—very glad, till my brother showed such fear of her and of what she might do if she once got hold of his wallet.”
“You possibly did her injustice,” I said. “A sick man’s fancies are not always to be relied on. What did your nephew think of her? Did he share your distrust of her?”
“John? Oh, yes, I believe so. Why do we always come back to the subject of John? I want to forget him; I mean to forget him; I mean that Charity shall forget him.”
“Let us begin then from this moment,” I smiled; then quickly: “You knew that Bess was a married woman.”
“No, we knew nothing about her.”
“Not even the name she went by?”
“Oh, that was Brown.”
“Brown,” I muttered, turning for a second time to go. “You must think me inquisitive, but if I had not been,” I added with a merry laugh, “I should never have found your bonds for you.” Pressing both their hands in mine I ran hastily out of the room.
At once I crossed the street to Bess’ little shop.
CHAPTER XXVIII. RESTITUTION
“Bess, why are you so white? What has happened to you in the last twenty-four hours? Have you heard from him?”
“No, no; I’m all right.” But her eyes, hunted and wandering, belied her words.
I drew her hands down into mine across the table lying between us.
“I want to help you,” I whispered; “I think I can. Something has happened which gives me great hope; only do me a favor first; show me, as you promised, the papers which I dug out for you.”
A smile, more bitter than any tear, made her face look very hard for an instant, then she quietly led the way into the small room at the back. When we were quite alone, she faced me again and putting her hand to her breast took out the much creased, much crumpled bit of paper which was her only link to youth, to her life, and to her love.
“This is all that will interest you,” said she, her eyes brimming in spite of herself. “It is my marriage certificate. The one thing that proves me an honest woman and the equal of—” she paused, biting back her words and saying instead—“of any one I see. My husband was a gentleman.”
It was with trembling hands I unfolded the worn sheet. Somehow the tragedy of the lives my own had touched so nearly for the last few days had become an essential part of me.
“John Silverthorn Brainard,” I read, the name identical with the one I had just seen as the early signature of the man who claimed a husband’s rights over Mrs. Packard. The date with what anxiety I looked at it!—preceded by two years that of the time he united himself to Olympia Brewster. No proof of the utter falsity of his dishonorable claim could be more complete. As I folded up the paper and handed it back, Bess noted the change which had come to me. Panting with excitement she cried:
“You look happy, happy! You know something you have not told me. What? what? I’m suffocating, mad to know; speak—speak—”
“Your husband is a man not unknown to any of us. You have seen him constantly. He is—”
“Yes, yes; did he tell you himself? Has he done me so much justice? Oh, say that his heart has softened at last; that he is ready to recognize me; that I have not got to find those bonds—but you do not know about the bonds—nobody does. I shouldn’t have spoken; he would be angry if he knew. Angry? and I have suffered so much from his anger! He is not a gentle man.”
How differently she said this from the gentleman of a few minutes back!
“But he doesn’t know that I am here,” she burst out in another instant, as I hunted for some word to say. “He would kill me if he did; he once swore that he would kill me if I ever approached him or put in any claim to him till he was ready to own me for his wife and give me the place that is due me. Don’t tell me that I have betrayed myself, I’ve been so careful; kept myself so entirely out of his eyes, even last night when I saw the doctor go in and felt that it was for him, and pictured him to myself as dying without a word from me or a look to help me bear the pain. He was ill, wasn’t he?—but he got better. I saw him come out, very feeble and uncertain. Not like himself, not like the strong and too, too handsome man who has wrung my heart in his hand of steel,—wrung it and thrown it away.”
Sobs shook her and she stopped from lack of power to utter either her terror or her grief. But she looked the questions she could no longer put, and compassionating her misery, I gently said: