第44章 BOOK II:AS SEEN BY DETECTIVE SWEETWATER(23)

There was a sound as of settling coal.Only at night would one expect to hear so slight a sound as that in a tenement full of noisy children.But the moment chanced to be propitious,and it not only attracted the attention of Sweetwater on his side of the wall,but it struck the ear of Brotherson also.With an ejaculation as bitter as it was impatient,he roused himself and gathered up the letters.

Sweetwater could hear the successive rustlings as he bundled them up in his hand.Then came another silence -then the lifting of a stove lid.

Sweetwater had not been wrong in his secret apprehension.His identification with his unimpressionable neighbour's mood had shown him what to expect.These letters -these innocent and precious outpourings of a rare and womanly soul -the only conceivable open sesame to the hard-locked nature he found himself pitted against,would soon be resolved into a vanishing puff of smoke.

But the lid was thrust back,and the letters remained in hand.

Mortal strength has its limits.Even Brotherson could not shut down that lid on words which might have been meant for him,harshly as he had repelled the idea.

The pause which followed told little;but when Sweetwater heard the man within move with characteristic energy to the door,turn the key and step back again to his place at the table,he knew that the danger moment had passed and that those letters were about to be read,not casually,but seriously,as indeed their contents merited.

This caused Sweetwater to feel serious himself.Upon what result might he calculate?What would happen to this hardy soul,when the fact he so scornfully repudiated,was borne in upon him,and he saw that the disdain which had antagonised him was a mere device -a cloak to hide the secret heart of love and eager womanly devotion?

Her death -little as Brotherson would believe it up till now -had been his personal loss the greatest which can befall a man.When he came to see this -when the modest fervour of her unusual nature began to dawn upon him in these self-revelations,would the result be remorse,or just the deadening and final extinction of whatever tenderness he may have retained for her memory?

Impossible to tell.The balance of probability hung even.

Sweetwater recognised this,and clung,breathless,to his loop-hole.

Fain would he have seen,as well as heard.

Mr.Brotherson read the first letter,standing.As it soon became public property,I will give it here,just as it afterwards appeared in the columns of the greedy journals:

"Beloved:

"When I sit,as I often do,in perfect quiet under the stars,and dream that you are looking at them too,not for hours as Ido,but for one full moment in which your thoughts are with me as wholly as mine are with you,I feel that the bond between us,unseen by the world,and possibly not wholly recognised by ourselves,is instinct with the same power which links together the eternities.

"It seems to have always been;to have known no beginning,only a budding,an efflorescence,the visible product of a hidden but always present reality.A month ago and I was ignorant,even,of your name.Now,you seem the best known to me,the best understood,of God's creatures.One afternoon of perfect companionship -one flash of strong emotion,with its deep,true insight into each other's soul,and the miracle was wrought.We had met,and henceforth,parting would mean separation only,and not the severing of a mutual bond.One hand,and one only,could do that now.I will not name that hand.For us there is nought ahead but life.

"Thus do I ease my heart in the silence which conditions impose upon us.Some day I shall hear your voice again,and then-"The paper dropped from the reader's hand.It was several minutes before he took up another.

This one,as it happened,antedated the other,as will appear on reading it:

"My friend:

"I said that I could not write to you -that we must wait.You were willing;but there is much to be accomplished,and the silence may be long.My father is not an easy man to please,but he desires my happiness and will listen to my plea when the right hour comes.When you have won your place -when you have shown yourself to be the man I feel you to be,then my father will recognise your worth,and the way will be cleared,despite the obstacles which now intervene.

"But meantime!Ah,you will not know it,but words will rise -the heart must find utterance.What the lip cannot utter,nor the looks reveal,these pages shall hold in sacred trust for you till the day when my father will place my hand in yours,with heart-felt approval.

"Is it a folly?A woman's weak evasion of the strong silence of man?You may say so some day;but somehow,I doubt it -I doubt it."The creaking of a chair;-the man within had seated himself.There was no other sound;a soul in turmoil wakens no echoes.Sweetwater envied the walls surrounding the unsympathetic reader.They could see.He could only listen.

A little while;then that slight rustling again of the unfolding sheet.The following was read,and then the fourth and last:

"Dearest:

"Did you think I had never seen you till that day we met in Lenox?

I am going to tell you a secret -a great,great secret -such a one as a woman hardly whispers to her own heart.

"One day,in early summer,I was sitting in St.Bartholomew's Church on Fifth Avenue,waiting for the services to begin.It was early and the congregation was assembling.While idly watching the people coming in,I saw a gentleman pass by me up the aisle,who made me forget all the others.He had not the air of a New Yorker;he was not even dressed in city style,but as I noted his face and expression,I said way down in my heart,'That is the kind of man I could love;the only man I have ever seen who could make me forget my own world and my own people.'