“Was I right?” Thane asked, anxiously.
“Admirable!” said John, a little off the point as it seemed to Thane. He added thoughtfully: “The fate that amuses itself with our lives knew what it wanted when it tangled5 you in.”
“Seems there’s a lot as I don’t know,” said Thane, a faint edge to his voice.
“It’s hard to get at,” said John. He continued: “This place, if you know, was founded by General Woolwine, my great grandfather, whose partner was a younger man named Christopher Gib, this Enoch’s father.”
So he began, as if opening a book. Some of it was missing, parts were illegible6, yet the shape of the drama stood vividly7 forth8. When he came to the end—to where the invisible writing stopped,—it was sudden and for a moment bewildering, almost as if they had[270] forgotten who they were and had been unexpectedly let down in the middle of a story. They sat a while musing9.
“To be continued by the three of us,” said John. “I should like to know what is in that room.”
“Let’s go see,” said Thane.
He had come to the hotel only to talk to John and was returning to the mansion10. John went with him.
Enoch’s body lay where it was in the second floor bed chamber11. They passed it without stopping and went on to the third floor. On the landing was a little table with a lighted glass lamp, which John took up.
“That would be it,” he said, indicating a certain doorway12. The key fitted the lock, but to their surprise the bolt was already drawn13. John held the light. Thane went first. He had but crossed the threshold when he started back, recoiled14 rather, with a movement so sudden and involuntary that John immediately behind him was thrown off his balance, and dropped the lamp, which burst and harmlessly petered out. They were then in darkness. There was no other light on that floor.
John had matches and he divided them by a sense of touch. Each struck one and held it out.
What had startled Thane was the figure of a woman. As they saw her now in the flickering16 light of their matches she stood at the other side of the room, her back to the wall, facing them. John recognized her at once as the woman who met him in the front doorway, holding an oil light over her head, the night he[271] came seeking Agnes and encountered Enoch at the gate. She was dishevelled. Her thick black hair had fallen on one side and her face was distorted and swollen17 from weeping. Her eyes were alight with a kind of wild animal defiance18. As they approached her she began to move along the wall, sideways, her arms a little spread. In one hand she held a coil of small rope.
“Who are you?” Thane asked.
She did not speak, but continued slowly to edge along the wall, staring at them angrily. They lit fresh matches from the dying ones and pursued her in this way, asking her who she was and what she did there, and she answered only with that wild look, until with more presence of mind than they were able to summon she had worked herself to a position between them and the open door. Their matches gave out and she disappeared in the dark. They heard her go down the back stairway.
“We’ll have to get a light,” said John.
They groped their way downstairs, both absurdly unnerved, found some candles and returned to the room. Both had the same thought. From what they had glimpsed of the interior in the light of their matches by a kind of marginal vision it seemed quite empty. And so it was. There was no trace of what had been there, except dust, which on the floor showed evidence of much moving about. The only object of any kind was a key that evidently the woman had dropped. It was a duplicate of the one in Thane’s possession. They examined the room with silent curiosity.[272] The walls gave a dead, solid sound to the rap of their knuckles19. The windows were double and grated inside with iron bars.
Now they went in search of the woman, knowing nothing about her, not even her name. She was probably the housekeeper20. Agnes would know. But they hated to disturb Agnes. She was at the other side of the mansion and it was very late. Besides, they had a feeling that the sequel might be distressing21.
The woman had vanished. They could find no trace of her, nor could they raise any servants indoors, for the reason afterward22 disclosed that latterly Enoch’s ménage had consisted of three persons,—housekeeper, gardener and stable man.
“Let’s try the stable,” John suggested. “There must be somebody alive.”
On their way to the stable they stared curiously23 at a great unsightly heap of ashes, still smoking and glowing in spots, on the back terrace, as if a miscellaneous lot of things had been gathered hastily together and burned.
“Strange place for a fire,” said Thane, with an unspoken intuition that John shared.
The stable-man was sitting up, smoking, with the look of a man whose eyes have seen more than mind can grasp. He knew Thane and seemed comforted by the advent24 of human society.
“Nobody in the house. What’s the matter?” Thane asked.
“I ain’t the housekeeper,” said the stable-man. “No, thank God, I ain’t her. She’s on her way.”
[273]
“Way where?”
“Wherever,” he said, with the air of a man who for cause has newly resolved not to meddle25 with things that will be.
“What do you know about her?” John asked.
They had only to listen and piece it together. He was full of it. The woman’s name was Ann Sibthorp and she came from nobody knew where,—most likely from some place where they had ceased to speak well of her. She had been Enoch’s housekeeper for many years and at last his only house servant. She was not a woman you could get acquainted with. You wouldn’t if you could. So it wasn’t that anybody cared, but that she gave herself airs about her station, became oppressive and drove the help away. She did much that Enoch probably knew nothing about. Yet she had her way, even with him, and it got so nobody dared to cross her. For several days she had been going strange. When the old man died she seemed to lose her mind. She looked without seeing. There was no sense in her eyes. A little while before dark she began to carry things from the house and pile them out there on the terrace. He could not say exactly what they were,—some pieces of furniture, a chair, a bed no doubt; yes, and some clothes, a pair of white slippers26 and little what-not objects. When he saw her pouring oil on them he protested. She didn’t hear him. She wasn’t natural and he was afraid to do anything except to draw a lot of water in case something caught fire. Then she lighted the pile and watched it burn, fairly standing in the flames, poking27 them with a stick,[274] rubbing her hands in them, taking on like a witch. It made a God-fearing person sick to see her. After that she went in and he didn’t see her again until just now when she rushed out of the house and disappeared among the trees.
“She’s a going to do herself a damage, that woman,” he predicted, calmly. “Found this in the edge of the ashes,” he remembered, drawing from his pocket a small square brown case, badly singed28 at one corner. “Maybe you would know what it is.”
It was a daguerreotype29 in a faded leather case. Thane opened it and held it for John to see in the light of the stable lantern.
“I recognize it,” said John. Thane gave it to him.
That was all from the stable-man. And that was all that was ever known about Ann Sibthorp. She was never seen again, dead or alive.
“You know the picture?” Thane asked, as they were parting at the gate.
“It’s a portrait of my mother,” John answered.
“Esther that you just told me about?”
“Yes.”
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1
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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illegible
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| adj.难以辨认的，字迹模糊的 | |
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7
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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8
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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9
musing
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| n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式 | |
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10
mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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12
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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13
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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14
recoiled
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| v.畏缩( recoil的过去式和过去分词 )；退缩；报应；返回 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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16
flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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19
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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20
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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distressing
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| a.使人痛苦的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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meddle
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| v.干预，干涉，插手 | |
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26
slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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28
singed
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| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
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29
daguerreotype
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| n.银板照相 | |
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