The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katherine Green Read Free Book Online

present a nightmare from which I
should yet wake to old conditions and old struggles, bad enough, God
knows, but not like this—not like this.
    Meantime I was conscious that not a look or movement of mine had escaped
the considerate but watchful eye of the man before me.
    "You do not relish my questions," he dryly observed. "Perhaps you would
rather tell your story without interruption. If so, I beg you to be as
explicit as possible. The circumstances are serious enough for perfect
candour on your part."
    He was wrong. They were too serious for that. Perfect candour would
involve Carmel. Seeming candour was all I could indulge in. I took a
quick resolve. I would appear to throw discretion to the winds; to
confide to him what men usually hold sacred; to risk my reputation as a
gentleman, rather than incur a suspicion which might involve others
more than it did myself. Perhaps I should yet win through and save her
from an ignominy she possibly deserved but which she must never receive
at my hands.
    "I will give you an account of my evening," said I. "It will not aid you
much, but will prove my good faith. You asked me a short time ago if I
loved the lady whom I was engaged to marry and whose dead body I most
unexpectedly came upon in this house some time before midnight. I
answered yes, and you showed that you doubted me. You were justified in
your doubts. I did love her once, or thought so, but my feelings changed.
A great temptation came into my life. Carmel returned from school
and—you know her beauty, her fascination. A week in her presence, and
marriage with Adelaide became impossible. But how evade it? I only knew
the coward's way; to lure this inexperienced young girl, fresh from
school, into a runaway match. A change which now became perceptible in
Miss Cumberland's manner, only egged me on. It was not sufficiently
marked in character to call for open explanation, yet it was unmistakable
to one on the watch as I was, and betokened a day of speedy reckoning for
which I was little prepared. I know what the manly course would have
been, but I preferred to skulk. I acknowledge it now; it is the only
retribution I have to offer for a past I am ashamed of. Without losing
one particle of my intention, I governed more carefully my looks and
actions, and thought I had succeeded in blinding Adelaide to my real
feelings and purpose. Whether I did or not, I cannot say. I have no means
of knowing now. She has not been her natural self for these last few
days, but she had other causes for worry, and I have been willing enough
to think that these were the occasion of her restless ways and short,
sharp speech and the blankness with which she met all my attempts to
soothe and encourage her. This evening"—I choked at the word. The day
had been one string of extraordinary experiences, accumulating in
intensity to the one ghastly discovery which had overtopped and
overwhelmed all the rest. "This evening," I falteringly continued, "I had
set as the limit to my endurance of the intolerable situation. During a
minute of solitude preceding the dinner at Miss Cumberland's house on the
Hill, I wrote a few lines to her sister, urging her to trust me with her
fate and meet me at the station in time for the ten-thirty train. I meant
to carry her at once to P—, where I had a friend in the ministry who
would at once unite us in marriage. I was very peremptory, for my nerves
were giving way under the secret strain to which they had been subjected
for so long, and she herself was looking worn with her own silent and
uncommunicated conflict.
    "To write this note was easy, but to deliver it involved difficulties.
Miss Cumberland's eyes seemed to be more upon me than usual. Mine were
obliged to respond and Carmel seeing this, kept hers on her plate or on
the one other person seated at the table, her brother Arthur. But the
opportunity came as we all rose and passed together into the
drawing-room. Carmel fell into place at my side and I slipped the