_ PART IV. THE MAN OF MYSTERY
CHAPTER XXX. NOT YET
They had laid him on the bed and Mr. Harper, in his usual practical way, was hastening to rouse the house, when Georgian stepped before him and laid her hand upon the door.
"Not yet," said she with authority. "He said there was a way--let us find it before we give up our secret and our possible safety. Mr. Harper, have you guessed that way?"
"No, except the usual one of protection through the law which he scouts. I do not believe, Mrs. Ransom, in any other being necessary. Your brother's threats answered a very good purpose while he was alive, but now that he is dead they need not trouble you. I'm not even sure that I believe in the organization. It was mostly in your brother's brain, Mrs. Ransom; there's no such band, or if there is, its powers are not so unlimited as he would make you believe."
She simply pointed to the motionless form and the distorted face which were slowly assuming an expression of great majesty.
"There is my answer," said she. "Men of his strong attributes do not kill themselves from fancy. He knew what he did."
"And you think--"
"That I will not live a week if I pass that door under the name of Georgian Ransom. Mr. Harper, I am sure of it; Roger, I beg you to believe what I say. It may not come here--but it will come. The mark has been set against my name. Death only will obliterate this mark. But the name--that is already a dead one--shall it not stay so?--It is the one way--the way he meant."
"Georgian!"
It was a cry of infinite protest. Such a cry as one might expect from the long-suffering Ransom. It drew her from the door; it brought her to his side. As their eyes and hands met, Harper stepped back to the bedside, and remembering the sensitiveness of the man before him, softly covered his poor face. When he turned back, Mrs. Ransom was slowly shaking her head under her husband's prolonged look and saying softly:
"No, not Georgian, Anitra. Henceforth Anitra, always Anitra. Can you endure the ordeal for the sake of the safety and peace of mind it will bring?"
"I endure it! Can you? Remember the deafness that marks Anitra."
"That can be cured." Her smile turned almost arch. "We will travel; there are great physicians abroad."
"A sister--not a wife?"
"Your wife in time--Ah, it will mean a new courtship and--Anitra is a different woman from Georgian--she has suffered--you will love her better."
"O God! Harper, are we living, awake, sane? Help me at this crisis. I do not know where I am or what this is she really asks."
"She asks the impossible. She asks what you can, perhaps, give, but not what I can. You forget that this deception calls for connivance on my part, and whatever you may think of me or my profession, deception is foreign to my nature and very repugnant to me."
"And you refuse?"
"Mrs. Ransom, I must."
The hope which had held her up, the life which had returned to body and spirit since this prospect of a possible future had dawned upon her, faded from glance and smile.
"Then good-by, Roger, we shall never have those happy days together of which we have often dreamt. I may stay with you a week, a month, a year, but the horror of a great fear will be over us, and never, never can we know joy."
She threw herself into her husband's arms; she clung to him.
"One moment," she cried, "one moment of perfect happiness before the shadow falls. Oh, how I must love you, Roger, to say such words, to think such thoughts, with the body of the brother I loved so deeply once, lying there dead before us, killed by his own hand."
Ransom softly drew her aside where her eyes could not fall upon the bed.
Harper stopped still where he was, the picture of gloom and uncertainty.
"It must be settled now," said Ransom. "As we leave this room, our relations must remain."
"I cannot but think your fears all folly," muttered Harper. "Yet the responsibility you force upon me is terrible. If it were not for that will! How can I present it to the Surrogate when I know the testator is still alive?"
"You need not. I will do that," said Ransom.
"And the property! Given to a man we none of us know. Property that is not legally his."
"I will make it so," cried Georgian with a burst of new and uncontrollable hope as she saw, as she thought, this conscientious lawyer yielding. "There is paper here; draw up a deed of gift. I will sign it and you shall hold it so that whether I live or die, Auchincloss' title to his money shall be absolute. Thus much I wish to do, that Alfred's life should not have been sacrificed for nothing."
"Let me think."
Harper was wavering.
* * * * *
A half-hour later the door of Ransom's room was flung hurriedly open, and loud cries for Mrs. Deo and the office clerk rang through the house. And when they and others came running at the call, it was to find Mr. Ransom and the lawyer hanging over the recumbent figure of the dead Hazen, and the deaf girl Anitra pointing at the group, with wild and inarticulate cries.
[THE END]
Anna Katharine Green's Novel: Chief Legatee
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