At One-Thirty by Isabel Ostrander (best book series to read .txt) 📖

DAMON GAUNT lay back in his library chair inert, exhausted mentally and spiritually with the battle which he had waged with himself and his conscience for two long hours. Now, it was ended, the victory was won, and over his spirit had crept the sacred peace of renunciation.

In the pale, ghastly glow from the green-shaded lamp, his thin face seemed older than it had ever looked before, the lines more sharply drawn, the cheek-bones more prominent, the closed eyes more sunken. But a smile, which was almost ethereal, wreathed his smooth-shaven, finely chiseled lips, and about his brow was that same expression of serenity which had rested upon young Mrs. Appleton’s that afternoon, when she had so calmly confessed the murder of her husband.

How long he remained motionless in his chair before the empty hearth, Gaunt never knew. He became aware gradually of a deferential, but insistent knocking on the locked door. With an effort he roused himself from his reverie, and called wearily:

“What is it?”

“Mr. Force, sir. Says he will see you, sir—he won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. I told him I had orders not to disturb you—”

“Never mind. Bring him up, Jenkins.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a long sigh of relief, audible even through the door, and Jenkins hurried off. He had been a worried man, had Jenkins, since his master returned that afternoon. The door locked upon him, Miss Barnes dismissed for the day, dinner sent away untasted, and gruiF orders issued that he was on no account to be disturbed! This was a new Damon Gaunt to him. The like had never happened before in all the faithful years of his service. He was more thankful than he could have expressed to Mr. Force; for his advent, volcanic as it was, had broken the spell.

Gaunt felt for the electric button in the wall, switched on the lights, and, striding over to the door, unlocked it.

There was a quick, firm tread down the hall, and Randolph Force fairly burst into the room. “What does it mean?” he cried hoarsely, waiving any more conventional salutation. “Before Goji, Gaunt, what does it mean?”

“If you’ll tell me what you mean, my dear fellow, I may be able to help you,” the detective returned, quietly.

“It’s Barbara! I’ve just come from her. She— she’s broken our engagement! She won’t give me any reason; but she says her decision is irrevocable, and she means it! She doesn’t deny that she loves me; but merely says any thought of marriage between us would be impossible!”

“Why have you come to me, Mr. Force?” asked Gaunt. “I know nothing of Miss Ellerslie’s private affairs.”

“I’ve come to you because I know her decision has something to do with this cursed affair—with the murder of Garret Appleton! She has changed since this morning, when I telephoned her—changed since you talked with her sister this afternoon! Gaunt, for God’s sake, tell me what it means!”

“I do not know. Until I have seen Miss Ellerslie myself and talked with her, I can tell you nothing.” The detective’s tone was kindly, but decisive.

“Oh, you’ll see her, fast enough. She’s coming here tonight to see you. She told me so. She may be here at any moment, and I must be off before she comes. She has learned, somehow, that the foreign post of which I told you is still open to me. Should I accept it, I must sail a week from next Wednesday, on the sixth of November. She insists that I do accept it, and sail—alone. She says that, if I love her—and I do, God knows— I must prove my love by obeying her command, and that I must not relinquish it and return, no matter what I hear. What can she mean? If I obeyed her, and took this post which has been offered me, what is it that I might hear, which would cause me to rush back to her side? What is it?” There was no query in the man’s tones, only an agony, an entreaty, which was but thinly veiled. Gaunt approa>ched the young man, and placed a hand upon his shoulder.

“I know no more than you, Mr. Force,” he replied, with a significant intensity in his voice, which was like a bracing dash of icy water on the other’s frenzied mind. “She is coming here tonight you say. She may be here at any moment. After my interview with her, I may be able to help you—may be in a position to tell you more. If you will accept my advice, you will go to your rooms at once, and remain there until you hear from me—or from her.”

“From her?” Randolph Force cried out, in trembling tones. “From her? Oh, Gaunt, you don’t mean that you—”

“I mean,” interrupted Damon Gaunt, in stern haste, “that within two hours you will hear from me, or from her…. Is that a motor that I hear below? You’d better go, Mr. Force.”

Speechlessly, the young man seized his hand, and wrung it convulsively. Then, with an inarticulate sob, he dashed from the room.

Gaunt flung himself again in his chair. There had been no purring of a motor car outside. He had wanted to get Randolph Force out of the way before that young man’s lack of self-control led him to commit himself in speech, in a way he would perhaps forever regret. And, too, he must have time to think, to reflect, to prepare himself for the hour at hand—the hour that would be the most difficult one of all his life.

All too soon, he heard her car approach swiftly, and stop with a grinding of brakes at the curb, and Jenkins was not half-way to the library door to announce her coming, when his master called him to ask the lady to come in.

She came slowly, and hesitated on the threshold.

“Mr. Gaunt,” her sweet, low voice was steady; but there was a haunting sadness in its cadence, which struck at his heart, “my sister has told me of your interview with her this afternoon, of everything that was said. I have come to you to thank you, if I can, for your great kindness, your forbearance, in offering to delay the—final formalities, until she is better able to endure them. But I have come, also, for another purpose; to beg you, to implore you on my knees, if I must, to grant me an extraordinary—a supreme—favor. You have offered to put matters off” for