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XXXIX. THE AVENGER
"Dear Mr. Challoner:
"With every apology for the intrusion, may I request a few minutes of private conversation with you this evening at seven o'clock? Let it be in your own room.
"Yours truly,
"ORLANDO BROTHERSON."
Mr. Challoner had been called upon to face many difficult andheartrending duties since the blow which had desolated his home fellupon him.
But from none of them had he shrunk as he did from the interview thusdemanded. He had supposed himself rid of this man. He had dismissed himfrom his life when he had dismissed Sweetwater. His face, accordingly,wore anything but a propitiatory look, when promptly at the hour ofseven, Orlando Brotherson entered his apartments.
His pleasure or his displeasure was, however, a matter of smallconsequence to his self-invited visitor. He had come there with a setpurpose, and nothing in heaven or earth could deter him from it now.Declining the offer of a seat, with the slightest of acknowledgments inthe way of a bow, he took a careful survey of the room before saying:
"Are we alone, Mr. Challoner, or is that man Sweetwater lurkingsomewhere within hearing?"
"Mr. Sweetwater is gone, as I had the honour of telling you yesterday,"was the somewhat stiff reply. "There are no witnesses to thisconference, if that is what you wish to know."
"Thank you, but you will pardon my insistence if I request the privilegeof closing that door." He pointed to the one communicating with thebedroom. "The information I have to give you is not such as I am willingto have shared, at least for the present."
"You may close the door," said Mr. Challoner coldly. "But is itnecessary for you to give me the information you mention, to-night?If it is of such a nature that you cannot accord me the privilege ofsharing it, as yet, with others, why not spare me till you can? I havegone through much, Mr. Brotherson."
"You have," came in steady assent as the man thus addressed stepped tothe door he had indicated and quietly closed it. "But," he continued, ashe crossed back to his former position, "would it be easier for you togo through the night now in anticipation of what I have to reveal thanto hear it at once from my lips while I am in the mood to speak?"
The answer was slow in coming. The courage which had upheld this rapidlyaging man through so many trying interviews, seemed inadequate for thetest put so cruelly upon it. He faltered and sank heavily into a chair,while the stern man watching him, gave no signs of responsive sympathyor even interest, only a patient and icy-tempered resolve.
"I cannot live in uncertainty;" such were finally Mr. Challoner'swords. "What you have to say concerns Edith?" The pause he made wasinfinitesimal in length, but it was long enough for a quick disclaimer.But no such disclaimer came. "I will hear it," came in reluctant finish.
Mr. Brotherson took a step forward. His manner was as cold as the heartwhich lay like a stone in his bosom.
"Will you pardon me if I ask you to rise?" said he. "I have myweaknesses too." (He gave no sign of them.) "I cannot speak down fromsuch a height to the man I am bound to hurt."
As if answering to the constraint of a will quite outside his own, Mr.Challoner rose. Their heads were now more nearly on a level and Mr.Brotherson's voice remained low, as he proceeded, with quiet intensity.
"There has been a time--and it may exist yet, God knows--when youthought me in some unknown and secret way the murderer of your daughter.I do not quarrel with the suspicion; it was justified, Mr. Challoner. Idid kill your daughter, and with this hand! I can no longer deny it."
The wretched father swayed, following the gesture of the hand thus heldout; but he did not fall, nor did a sound leave his lips.
Brotherson went coldly on:
"I did it because I regarded her treatment of my suit as insolent. Ihave no mercy for any such display of intolerance on the part of therich and the fortunate. I hated her for it; I hated her class, herselfand all she stood for. To strike the dealer of such a hurt I felt to bemy right. Though a man of small beginnings and of a stock which suchas you call common, I have a pride which few of your blood can equal.I could not work, or sleep or eat with such a sting in my breast as shehad planted there. To rid myself of it, I determined to kill her, andI did. How? Oh, that was easy, though it has proved a greatstumbling-block to the detectives, as I knew it would! I shot her--butnot with an ordinary bullet. My charge was a small icicle madedeliberately for the purpose. It had strength enough to penetrate, butit left no trace behind it. 'A bullet of ice for a heart of ice,' I hadsaid in the torment of my rage. But the word was without knowledge, Mr.Challoner. I see it now; I have seen it for two whole weeks. I did notmisjudge her condemnation of me, but I misjudged its cause. It was notto the comparatively poor, the comparatively obscure man she soughtto show contempt, but to the brother of Oswald whose claims she sawinsulted. A woman I should have respected, not killed. A woman of nopride of station; a woman who loved a man not only of my own class butof my own blood--a woman, to avenge whose unmerited death I standhere before you a self-condemned criminal. That is but justice, Mr.Challoner. That is the way I look at things. Though no sentimentalist;and dead to all beliefs save the eternal truths of science, I have thatin me which will not let me profit, now that I know myself unworthy, bythe great success I have earned. Hence this confession, Mr. Challoner.It has not come easily, nor do I shut my eyes in the least to theresults which must follow. But I can not do differently. To-morrow, youmay telegraph to New York. Till then I desire to be left undisturbed. Ihave many things to dispose of in the interim."
Mr. Challoner, very white by now, pointed to the door before he sankagain into his chair. Brotherson took it for dismissal and steppedslowly back. Then their eyes met again and Mr. Challoner spoke his firstword:
"There was another--a poor woman--she died suddenly--and her wound wasnot unlike that inflicted upon Edith. Did you--"
"I did." The answer came without a tremour. "You may say and so mayothers that I was less justified in this attack than in the other; butI do not see it that way. A theory does not always work in practice.I wished to test the unusual means I contemplated, and the woman I sawbefore me across the court was hard-working and with nothing in life tolook forward to, so--"
A cry of bitter execration from Mr. Challoner cut him short. Turningwith a shrug he was about to lift his hand to the door, when he gave aviolent start and fell hastily back before a quickly entering figure ofsuch passion and fury as neither of these men had ever seen before.
It was Oswald! Oswald, the kindly! Oswald, the lover of men and theadorer of women! Oswald, with the words of the dastardly confession hehad partly overheard searing hot within his brain! Oswald, raised ina moment from the desponding invalid to a terrifying ministrant ofretributive justice.
Orlando could scarcely raise his hand before the other's was upon histhroat.
"Murderer! doubly-dyed murderer of innocent women!" was hissed in thestrong man's ears. "Not with the law but with me you must reckon, andmay God and the spirit of my mother nerve my arm!"