The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katherine Green Page A

never
questioned the wisdom of silence in its regard.
    Yet this silence had undone me. I had been seen fingering my dead
betrothed's throat, and nothing I could now say or do would ever convince
people that she was dead before my hands touched her, strangled by
another's clutch. One person only in the whole world would know and feel
how false this accusation was. And yesterday that one's trust in my
guiltlessness would have thrown a ray of light upon the deepest infamy
which could befall me. But to-day there had settled over that once
innocent spirit, a cloud of too impenetrable a nature for any light to
struggle to and fro between us.
    I could not contemplate that cloud. I could not dwell upon her misery, or
upon the revulsion of feeling which follows such impetuous acts. And it
had been an impetuous act—the result of one of her rages. I had been
told of these rages. I had even seen her in one. When they passed she was
her lovable self once more and very penitent and very downcast. If all I
feared were true, she was suffering acutely now. But I gave no thought to
this. I could dream of but one thing—how to save her from the penalty of
crime, a penalty I might be forced to suffer myself and would prefer to
suffer rather than see it fall upon one so young and so angelically
beautiful.
    Turning to the officer next me, I put the question which had been burning
in my mind for hours:
    "Tell me, how you came to know there was trouble here? What brought you
to this house? There can be nothing wrong in telling me that."
    "Well, if you don't know—" he began.
    "I do not," I broke in.
    "I guess you'd better wait till the chief has had a word with you."
    I suppressed all tokens of my disappointment, and by a not unnatural
reaction, perhaps, began to take in, and busy myself with, the very
considerations I had hitherto shunned. Where was Carmel, and how was she
enduring these awful hours? Had repentance come, and with it a desire to
own her guilt? Did she think of me and the effect this unlooked-for death
would have upon my feelings? That I should suffer arrest for her crime
could not have entered her mind. I had seen her, but she had not seen me,
in the dark hall which I must now traverse as a prisoner and a suspect.
No intimation of my dubious position or its inevitable consequences had
reached her yet. When it did, what would she do? I did not know her well
enough to tell. The attraction she had felt for me had not been strong
enough to lead her to accommodate herself to my wishes and marry me
off-hand, but it had been strong enough to nerve her arm in whatever
altercation she may have had with her jealous-minded sister. It was the
temper and not the strength of the love which would tell in a strait like
this. Would it prove of a generous kind? Should I have to combat her
desire to take upon herself the full blame of her deed, with all its
shames and penalties? Or should I have the still deeper misery of finding
her callous to my position and welcoming any chance which diverted
suspicion from herself? Either supposition might be possible, according
to my judgment in this evil hour. All communication between us, in spite
of our ardent and ungovernable passion, had been so casual and so slight.
Looks, a whispered word or so, one furtive clasp in which our hands
seemed to grow together, were all I had to go upon as tests of her
feeling towards me. Her character I had judged from her face, which was
lovely. But faces deceive, and the loveliness of youth is not like the
loveliness of age—an absolute mirror of the soul within. Was not Medusa
captivating, for all her snaky locks? Hide those locks and one might have
thought her a Daphne.
    What would relieve my doubts? As Hexford drew near me again on our way to
the head of the staircase, I summoned up courage to ask:
    "Have you heard anything from the Hill? Has the news of this tragedy been
communicated to Miss Cumberland's family, and if so, how are they bearing
this affliction?"
    His