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

when I did I knew—not," I hastily
corrected, as I caught his quick concentrated glance, "what had happened
or whom I should find there, but that this was the spot where the
intruder had been, possibly was now, and I determined to grapple with
him. What—what have I said?" I asked in anguish, as I caught a look on
the coroner's face of irrepressible repulsion and disgust, slight and
soon gone but unmistakable so long as it lasted.
    "Nothing," he replied, "go on."
    But his tone, considerate as it had been from the first, did not deceive
me. I knew that I had been detected in some slip or prevarication. As I
had omitted all mention of the most serious part of my adventure—had
said nothing of my vision of Carmel or the terrible conclusions which her
presence there had awakened—my conscience was in a state of perturbation
which added greatly to my confusion. For a moment I did not know where I
stood, and I am afraid I betrayed a sense of my position. He had to
recall me to myself by an unimportant question or two before I could go
on. When I did proceed, it was with less connection of ideas and a haste
in speaking which was not due altogether to the harrowing nature of the
tale itself.
    "I had matches in my pocket and I struck one," I began. "Afterwards I lit
the candle. The emptiness of the room did not alarm me. I experienced the
sense of tragedy. Seeing the pillows heaped high and too regularly for
chance along a lounge ordinarily holding only two, I tore them off. I saw
a foot, a hand, a tress of bright hair. Even then I did not think of
her
. Why should I? Not till I uncovered the face did I know the terrors
of my discovery, and then, the confusion of it all unmanned me and I fell
on my knees—"
    "Go on! Go on!"
    The impetuosity, the suspense in the words astounded me. I stared at the
coroner and lost the thread of my story—What had I to say more? How
account for what must be ever unaccountable to him, to the world, to my
own self, if in obedience to the demands of the situation I subdued my
own memory and blotted out all I had seen but that which it was safe to
confess to?
    "There is no more to say," I murmured. "The horror of that moment made a
chaos in my mind. I looked at the dead body of her who lay there as I
have looked at everything since; as I looked at the police when they
came—as I look at you now. But I know nothing. It is all a
phantasmagoria to me—with no more meaning than a nightmare. She is
dead—I know that—but beyond that, all is doubt—confusion—what the
world and all its passing show is to a blind man. I can neither
understand nor explain."

VI - Comments and Reflections
*
    There is no agony and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment, no more
    Prometheus Unbound
    The coroner's intent look which had more or less sustained me through
this ordeal, remained fixed upon my face as though he were still anxious
to see me exonerate myself. How much did he know? That was the question.
How much did he know
?
    Having no means of telling, I was forced to keep silent. I had revealed
all I dared to. As I came to this conclusion, his eyes fell and I knew
that the favorable minute had passed.
    The question he now asked proved it.
    "You say that you were not blind to surrounding objects, even if they
conveyed but little meaning to you. You must have seen, then, that the
room where Miss Cumberland lay contained two small cordial glasses, both
still moist with some liqueur."
    "I noticed that, yes."
    "Some one must have drunk with her?"
    "I cannot contradict you."
    "Was Miss Cumberland fond of that sort of thing?"
    "She detested liquor of all kinds. She never drank I never saw a woman
so averse to wine." I spoke before I thought. I might better have been
less emphatic, but the mystery of those glasses had affected me from the
first. Neither she nor Carmel ever allowed themselves so much as a social
glass, yet those glasses had been drained. "Perhaps the cold—"
    "There was a third glass. We