I SAY NO

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She snatched at the veil, and put it on again. The sight of her
face, momentary as it had been, reassured Emily. Her wild eyes,
made wilder still by the blurred stains of rouge below them, half
washed away--her disheveled hair, with streaks of gray showing
through the dye--presented a spectacle which would have been
grotesque under other circumstances, but which now reminded Emily
of Mr. Rook's last words; warning her not to believe what his
wife said, and even declaring his conviction that her intellect
was deranged. Emily drew back from the bed, conscious of an
overpowering sense of self-reproach. Although it was only for a
moment, she had allowed her faith in Mirabel to be shaken by a
woman who was out of her mind.

"Try to forgive me," she said. "I didn't willfully break my
promise; you frightened me."

Mrs. Rook began to cry. "I was a handsome woman in my time," she
murmured. "You would say I was handsome still, if the clumsy
fools about me had not spoiled my appearance. Oh, I do feel so
weak! Where's my medicine?"

The bottle was on the table. Emily gave her the prescribed dose,
and revived her failing strength.

"I am an extraordinary person," she resumed. "My resolution has
always been the admiration of every one who knew me. But my mind
feels--how shall I express it?--a little vacant. Have mercy on my
poor wicked soul! Help me."

"How can I help you?"

"I want to recollect. Something happened in the summer time, when
we were talking at Netherwoods. I mean when that impudent master
at the school showed his suspicions of me. (Lord! how he
frightened me, when he turned up afterward at Sir Jervis's
house.) You must have seen yourself he suspected me. How did he
show it?"

"He showed you my locket," Emily answered.

"Oh, the horrid reminder of the murder!" Mrs. Rook exclaimed.
"_I_ didn't mention it: don't blame Me. You poor innocent, I have
something dreadful to tell you."

Emily's horror of the woman forced her to speak. "Don't tell me!"
she cried. "I know more than you suppose; I know what I was
ignorant of when you saw the locket."

Mrs. Rook took offense at the interruption.

"Clever as you are, there's one thing you don't know," she said.
"You asked me, just now, who the pocketbook belonged to. It
belonged to your father. What's the matter? Are you crying?"

Emily was thinking of her father. The pocketbook was the last
present she had given to him--a present on his birthday. "Is it
lost?" she asked sadly.

"No; it's not lost. You will hear more of it directly. Dry your
eyes, and expect something interesting--I'm going to talk about
love. Love, my dear, means myself. Why shouldn't it? I'm not the
only nice-looking woman, married to an old man, who has had a
lover."

"Wretch! what has that got to do with it?"

"Everything, you rude girl! My lover was like the rest of them;
he would bet on race-horses, and he lost. He owned it to me, on
the day when your father came to our inn. He said, 'I must find
the money--or be off to America, and say good-by forever.' I was
fool enough to be fond of him. It broke my heart to hear him talk
in that way. I said, 'If I find the money, and more than the
money, will you take me with you wherever you go?' Of course, he
said Yes. I suppose you have heard of the inquest held at our old
place by the coroner and jury? Oh, what idiots! They believed I
was asleep on the night of the murder. I never closed my eyes--I
was so miserable, I was so tempted."

"Tempted? What tempted you?"

"Do you think I had any money to spare? Your father's pocketbook
tempted me. I had seen him open it, to pay his bill over-night.
It was full of bank-notes. Oh, what an overpowering thing love
is! Perhaps you have known it yourself."

Emily's indignation once more got the better of her prudence.
"Have you no feeling of decency on your death-bed!" she said.

Mrs. Rook forgot her piety; she was ready with an impudent
rejoinder. "You hot-headed little woman, your time will come,"
she answered. "But you're right--I am wandering from the point; I
am not sufficiently sensible of this solemn occasion. By-the-by,
do you notice my language? I inherit correct English from my
mother--a cultivated person, who married beneath her. My paternal
grandfather was a gentleman. Did I tell you that there came a
time, on that dreadful night, when I could stay in bed no longer?
The pocketbook--I did nothing but think of that devilish
pocketbook, full of bank-notes. My husband was fast asleep all
the time. I got a chair and stood on it. I looked into the place
where the two men were sleeping, through the glass in the top of
the door. Your father was awake; he was walking up and down the
room. What do you say? Was he agitated? I didn't notice. I don't
know whether the other man was asleep or awake. I saw nothing but
the pocketbook stuck under the pillow, half in and half out. Your
father kept on walking up and down. I thought to myself, 'I'll
wait till he gets tired, and then I'll have another look at the
pocketbook.' Where's the wine? The doctor said I might have a
glass of wine when I wanted it."

Emily found the wine and gave it to her. She shuddered as she
accidentally touched Mrs. Rook's hand.

The wine helped the sinking woman.

"I must have got up more than once," she resumed. "And more than
once my heart must have failed me. I don't clearly remember what
I did, till the gray of the morning came. I think that must have
been the last time I looked through the glass in the door."

She began to tremble. She tore the veil off her face. She cried
out piteously, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner! Come here," she
said to Emily. "Where are you? No! I daren't tell you what I saw;
I daren't tell you what I did. When you're pos sessed by the
devil, there's nothing, nothing, nothing you can't do! Where did
I find the courage to unlock the door? Where did I find the
courage to go in? Any other woman would have lost her senses,
when she found blood on her fingers after taking the
pocketbook--"

Emily's head swam; her heart beat furiously--she staggered to the
door, and opened it to escape from the room.

"I'm guilty of robbing him; but I'm innocent of his blood!" Mrs.
Rook called after her wildly. "The deed was done--the yard door
was wide open, and the man was gone--when I looked in for the
last time. Come back, come back!"

Emily looked round.

"I can't go near you," she said, faintly.

"Come near enough to see this."

She opened her bed-gown at the throat, and drew up a loop of
ribbon over her head. 'The pocketbook was attached to the ribbon.
She held it out.

"Your father's book," she said. "Won't you take your father's
book?"

For a moment, and only for a moment, Emily was repelled by the
profanation associated with her birthday gift. Then, the loving
remembrance of the dear hands that had so often touched that
relic, drew the faithful daughter back to the woman whom she
abhorred. Her eyes rested tenderly on the book. Before it had
lain in that guilty bosom, it had been _his_ book. The beloved
memory was all that was left to her now; the beloved memory
consecrated it to her hand. She took the book.

"Open it," said Mrs. Rook.

There were two five-pound bank-notes in it.

"His?" Emily asked.

"No; mine--the little I have been able to save toward restoring
what I stole."

"Oh!" Emily cried, "is there some good in this woman, after all?"

"There's no good in the woman!" Mrs. Rook answered desperately.
"There's nothing but fear--fear of hell now; fear of the
pocketbook in the past time. Twice I tried to destroy it--and
twice it came back, to remind me of the duty that I owed to my
miserable soul. I tried to throw it into the fire. It struck the
bar, and fell back into the fender at my feet. I went out, and
cast it into the well. It came back again in the first bucket of
water that was drawn up. From that moment, I began to save what I
could. Restitution! Atonement! I tell you the book found a
tongue--and those were the grand words it dinned in my ears,
morning and night." She stooped to fetch her breath--stopped, and
struck her bosom. "I hid it here, so that no person should see
it, and no person take it from me. Superstition? Oh, yes,
superstition! Shall tell you something? _You_ may find yourself
superstitious, if you are ever cut to the heart as I was. He left
me! The man I had disgraced myself for, deserted me on the day
when I gave him the stolen money. He suspected it was stolen; he
took care of his own cowardly self--and left me to the hard mercy
of the law, if the theft was found out. What do you call that, in
the way of punishment? Haven't I suffered? Haven't I made
atonement? Be a Christian--say you forgive me."

"I do forgive you."

"Say you will pray for me."

"I will."

"Ah! that comforts me! Now you can go."

Emily looked at her imploringly. "Don't send me away, knowing no
more of the murder than I knew when I came here! Is there
nothing, really nothing, you can tell me?"

Mrs. Rook pointed to the door.

"Haven't I told you already? Go downstairs, and see the wretch
who escaped in the dawn of the morning!"

"Gently, ma'am, gently! You're talking too loud," cried a mocking
voice from outside.

"It's only the doctor," said Mrs. Rook. She crossed her hands
over her bosom with a deep-drawn sigh. "I want no doctor, now. My
peace is made with my Maker. I'm ready for death; I'm fit for
Heaven. Go away! go away!"

CHAPTER LXII.

DOWNSTAIRS.

In a moment more, the doctor came in--a brisk, smiling,
self-sufficient man--smartly dressed, with a flower in his
button-hole. A stifling odor of musk filled the room, as he drew
out his handkerchief with a flourish, and wiped his forehead.

"Plenty of hard work in my line, just now," he said. "Hullo, Mrs.
Rook! somebody has been allowing you to excite yourself. I heard
you, before I opened the door. Have you been encouraging her to
talk?" he asked, turning to Emily, and shaking his finger at her
with an air of facetious remonstrance.

Incapable of answering him; forgetful of the ordinary restraints
of social intercourse--with the one doubt that preserved her
belief in Mirabel, eager for confirmation--Emily signed to this
stranger to follow her into a corner of the room, out of hearing.
She made no excuses: she took no notice of his look of surprise.
One hope was all she could feel, one word was all she could say,
after that second assertion of Mirabel's guilt. Indicating Mrs.
Rook by a glance at the bed, she whispered the word:

"Mad?"

Flippant and familiar, the doctor imitated her; he too looked at
the bed.

"No more mad than you are, miss. As I said just now, my patient
has been exciting herself; I daresay she has talked a little
wildly in consequence. _Hers_ isn't a brain to give way, I can
tell you. But there's somebody else--"

Emily had fled from the room. He had destroyed her last fragment
of belief in Mirabel's innocence. She was on the landing trying
to console herself, when the doctor joined her.

"Are you acquainted with the gentleman downstairs?" he asked.

"What gentleman?"

"I haven't heard his name; he looks like a clergyman. If you know
him--"

"I do know him. I can't answer questions! My mind--"

"Steady your mind, miss! and take your friend home as soon as you
can. _He_ hasn't got Mrs. Rook's hard brain; he's in a state of
nervous prostration, which may end badly. Do you know where he
lives?"

"He is staying with his sister--Mrs. Delvin."

"Mrs. Delvin! she's a friend and patient of mine. Say I'll look
in to-morrow morning, and see what I can do for her brother. In
the meantime, get him to bed, and to rest; and don't be afraid of
giving him brandy."

The doctor returned to the bedroom. Emily heard Mrs. Ellmother's
voice below.

"Are you up there, miss?"

"Yes."

Mrs. Ellmother ascended the stairs. "It was an evil hour," she
said, "that you insisted on going to this place. Mr. Mirabel--"
The sight of Emily's face suspended the next words on her lips.
She took the poor young mistress in her motherly arms. "Oh, my
child! what has happened to you?"

"Don't ask me now. Give me your arm--let us go downstairs."

"You won't be startled when you see Mr. Mirabel--will you, my
dear? I wouldn't let them disturb you; I said nobody should speak
to you but myself. The truth is, Mr. Mirabel has had a dreadful
fright. What are you looking for?"

"Is there a garden here? Any place where we can breathe the fresh
air?"

There was a courtyard at the back of the house. They found their
way to it. A bench was placed against one of the walls. They sat
down.

"Shall I wait till you're better before I say any more?" Mrs.
Ellmother asked. "No? You want to hear about Mr. Mirabel? My
dear, he came into the parlor where I was; and Mr. Rook came in
too---and waited, looking at him. Mr. Mirabel sat down in a
corner, in a dazed state as I thought. It wasn't for long. He
jumped up, and clapped his hand on his heart as if his heart hurt
him. 'I must and will know what's going on upstairs,' he says.
Mr. Rook pulled him back, and told him to wait till the young
lady came down. Mr. Mirabel wouldn't hear of it. 'Your wife's
frightening her,' he says; 'your wife's telling her horrible
things about me.' He was taken on a sudden with a shivering fit;
his eyes rolled, and his teeth chattered. Mr. Rook made matters
worse; he lost his temper. 'I'm damned,' he says, 'if I don't
begin to think you _are_ the man, after all; I've half a mind to
send for the police.' Mr. Mirabel dropped into his chair. His
eyes stared, his mouth fell open. I took hold of his hand.
Cold--cold as ice. What it all meant I can't say. Oh, miss, _you_
know! Let me tell you the rest of it some other time."

Emily insisted on hearing more. "The end!" she cried. "How did it
end?"

"I don't know how it might have ended, if the doctor hadn't come
in--to pay his visit, you know, upstairs. He said some learned
words. When he came to plain English, he asked if anybody had
frig htened the gentleman. I said Mr. Rook had frightened him.
The doctor says to Mr. Rook, 'Mind what you are about. If you
frighten him again, you may have his death to answer for.' That
cowed Mr. Rook. He asked what he had better do. 'Give me some
brandy for him first,' says the doctor; 'and then get him home at
once.' I found the brandy, and went away to the inn to order the
carriage. Your ears are quicker than mine, miss--do I hear it
now?"

They rose, and went to the house door. The carriage was there.

Still cowed by what the doctor had said, Mr. Rook appeared,
carefully leading Mirabel out. He had revived under the action of
the stimulant. Passing Emily he raised his eyes to
her--trembled--and looked down again. When Mr. Rook opened the
door of the carriage he paused, with one of his feet on the step.
A momentary impulse inspired him with a false courage, and
brought a flush into his ghastly face. He turned to Emily.

"May I speak to you?" he asked.

She started back from him. He looked at Mrs. Ellmother. "Tell her
I am innocent," he said. The trembling seized on him again. Mr.
Rook was obliged to lift him into the carriage.

Emily caught at Mrs. Ellmother's arm. "You go with him," she
said. "I can't."

"How are you to get back, miss?"

She turned away and spoke to the coachman. "I am not very well. I
want the fresh air--I'll sit by you."

Mrs. Ellmother remonstrated and protested, in vain. As Emily had
determined it should be, so it was.

"Has he said anything?" she asked, when they had arrived at their
journey's end.

"He has been like a man frozen up; he hasn't said a word; he
hasn't even moved."

"Take him to his sister; and tell her all that you know. Be
careful to repeat what the doctor said. I can't face Mrs. Delvin.
Be patient, my good old friend; I have no secrets from you. Only
wait till to-morrow; and leave me by myself to-night."

Alone in her room, Emily opened her writing-case. Searching among
the letters in it, she drew out a printed paper. It was the
Handbill describing the man who had escaped from the inn, and
offering a reward for the discovery of him.

At the first line of the personal description of the fugitive,
the paper dropped from her hand. Burning tears forced their way
into her eyes. Feeling for her handkerchief, she touched the
pocketbook which she had received from Mrs. Rook. After a little
hesitation she took it out. She looked at it. She opened it.

The sight of the bank-notes repelled her; she hid them in one of
the pockets of the book. There was a second pocket which she had
not yet examined. She pat her hand into it, and, touching
something, drew out a letter.

The envelope (already open) was addressed to "James Brown, Esq.,
Post Office, Zeeland. "Would it be inconsistent with her respect
for her father's memory to examine the letter? No; a glance would
decide whether she ought to read it or not.

It was without date or address; a startling letter to look
at--for it only contained three words:

"I say No."

The words were signed in initials:

"S. J."

In the instant when she read the initials, the name occurred to
her.

Sara Jethro.

CHAPTER LXIII.

THE DEFENSE OF MIRABEL.

The discovery of the letter gave a new direction to Emily's
thoughts--and so, for the time at least, relieved her mind from
the burden that weighed on it. To what question, on her father's
part, had "I say No" been Miss Jethro's brief and stern reply?
Neither letter nor envelope offered the slightest hint that might
assist inquiry; even the postmark had been so carelessly
impressed that it was illegible.

Emily was still pondering over the three mysterious words, when
she was interrupted by Mrs. Ellmother's voice at the door.

"I must ask you to let me come in, miss; though I know you wished
to be left by yourself till to-morrow. Mrs. Delvin says she must
positively see you to-night. It's my belief that she will send
for the servants, and have herself carried in here, if you refuse
to do what she asks. You needn't be afraid of seeing Mr.
Mirabel."

"Where is he?"

"His sister has given up her bedroom to him," Mrs. Ellmother
answered. "She thought of your feelings before she sent me
here--and had the curtains closed between the sitting-room and
the bedroom. I suspect my nasty temper misled me, when I took a
dislike to Mrs. Delvin. She's a good creature; I'm sorry you
didn't go to her as soon as we got back."

"Did she seem to be angry, when she sent you here?"

"Angry! She was crying when I left her."

Emily hesitated no longer.

She noticed a remarkable change in the invalid's sitting-room--so
brilliantly lighted on other occasions--the moment she entered
it. The lamps were shaded, and the candles were all extinguished.
"My eyes don't bear the light so well as usual," Mrs. Delvin
said. "Come and sit near me, Emily; I hope to quiet your mind. I
should be grieved if you left my house with a wrong impression of
me."

Knowing what she knew, suffering as she must have suffered, the
quiet kindness of her tone implied an exercise of self-restraint
which appealed irresistibly to Emily's sympathies. "Forgive me,"
she said, "for having done you an injustice. I am ashamed to
think that I shrank from seeing you when I returned from
Belford."

"I will endeavor to be worthy of your better opinion of me," Mrs.
Delvin replied. "In one respect at least, I may claim to have had
your best interests at heart--while we were still personally
strangers. I tried to prevail on my poor brother to own the
truth, when he discovered the terrible position in which he was
placed toward you. He was too conscious of the absence of any
proof which might induce you to believe him, if he attempted to
defend himself--in one word, he was too timid--to take my advice.
He has paid the penalty, and I have paid the penalty, of
deceiving you."

Emily started. "In what way have you deceived me?" she asked.

"In the way that was forced on us by our own conduct," Mrs.
Delvin said. "We have appeared to help you, without really doing
so; we calculated on inducing you to marry my brother, and then
(when he could speak with the authority of a husband) on
prevailing on you to give up all further inquiries. When you
insisted on seeing Mrs. Rook, Miles had the money in his hand to
bribe her and her husband to leave England."

"Oh, Mrs. Delvin!"

"I don't attempt to excuse myself. I don't expect you to consider
how sorely I was tempted to secure the happiness of my brother's
life, by marriage with such a woman as yourself. I don't remind
you that I knew--when I put obstacles in your way--that you were
blindly devoting yourself to the discovery of an innocent man."

Emily heard her with angry surprise. "Innocent?" she repeated.
"Mrs. Rook recognized his voice the instant she heard him speak."

Impenetrable to interruption, Mrs. Delvin went on. "But what I do
ask," she persisted, "even after our short acquaintance, is this.
Do you suspect me of deliberately scheming to make you the wife
of a murderer?"

Emily had never viewed the serious question between them in this
light. Warmly, generously, she answered the appeal that had been
made to her. "Oh, don't think that of me! I know I spoke
thoughtlessly and cruelly to you, just now--"

"You spoke impulsively," Mrs. Delvin interposed; "that was all.
My one desire before we part--how can I expect you to remain
here, after what has happened?--is to tell you the truth. I have
no interested object in view; for all hope of your marriage with
my brother is now at an end. May I ask if you have heard that he
and your father were strangers, when they met at the inn?"

"Yes; I know that."

"If there had been any conversation between them, when they
retired to rest, they might have mentioned their names. But your
father was preoccupied; and my brother, after a long day's walk,
was so tired that he fell asleep as soon as his head was on the
pillow. He only woke when the morning dawned. What he saw when he
looked toward the opposite bed might have struck with terror the
boldest man that ever lived. His first impulse was naturally to
alarm the house. When he got on his feet, he saw his own razor--a
blood-stained razor on the bed by the side of the corp se. At
that discovery, he lost all control over himself. In a panic of
terror, he snatched up his knapsack, unfastened the yard door,
and fled from the house. Knowing him, as you and I know him, can
we wonder at it? Many a man has been hanged for murder, on
circumstantial evidence less direct than the evidence against
poor Miles. His horror of his own recollections was so
overpowering that he forbade me even to mention the inn at
Zeeland in my letters, while he was abroad. 'Never tell me (he
wrote) who that wretched murdered stranger was, if I only heard
of his name, I believe it would haunt me to my dying day. I ought
not to trouble you with these details--and yet, I am surely not
without excuse. In the absence of any proof, I cannot expect you
to believe as I do in my brother's innocence. But I may at least
hope to show you that there is some reason for doubt. Will you
give him the benefit of that doubt?"

"Willingly!" Emily replied. "Am I right in supposing that you
don't despair of proving his innocence, even yet'?"

"I don't quite despair. But my hopes have grown fainter and
fainter, as the years have gone on. There is a person associated
with his escape from Zeeland; a person named Jethro--"

"You mean Miss Jethro!"

"Yes. Do you know her?"

"I know her--and my father knew her. I have found a letter,
addressed to him, which I have no doubt was written by Miss
Jethro. It is barely possible that you may understand what it
means. Pray look at it."

"I am quite unable to help you," Mrs. Delvin answered, after
reading the letter. "All I know of Miss Jethro is that, but for
her interposition, my brother might have fallen into the hands of
the police. She saved him."

"Knowing him, of course?"

"That is the remarkable part of it: they were perfect strangers
to each other."

"But she must have had some motive."

"_There_ is the foundation of my hope for Miles. Miss Jethro
declared, when I wrote and put the question to her, that the one
motive by which she was actuated was the motive of mercy. I don't
believe her. To my mind, it is in the last degree improbable that
she would consent to protect a stranger from discovery, who owned
to her (as my brother did) that he was a fugitive suspected of
murder. She knows something, I am firmly convinced, of that
dreadful event at Zeeland--and she has some reason for keeping it
secret. Have you any influence over her?"

"Tell me where I can find her."

"I can't tell you. She has removed from the address at which my
brother saw her last. He has made every possible inquiry--without
result."

As she replied in those discouraging terms, the curtains which
divided Mrs. Delvin's bedroom from her sitting-room were drawn
aside. An elderly woman-servant approached her mistress's couch.

"Mr. Mirabel is awake, ma'am. He is very low; I can hardly feel
his pulse. Shall I give him some more brandy?"

Mrs. Delvin held out her hand to Emily. "Come to me to-morrow
morning," she said--and signed to the servant to wheel her couch
into the next room. As the curtain closed over them, Emily heard
Mirabel's voice. "Where am I?" he said faintly. "Is it all a
dream?"

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