Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1915 — Dark Hollow [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Dark Hollow

By Anna Katharine Green

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CHAPTER XVll—Continued. An<T so with each new arrival He ■either tamed nor moved at any one'a eotranoe, bat left It to Mr. Black to do the honor* and make the best of a situation. difficult. If not Inexplicable to all of them. Nor could It be seen that any of theee men—city officials, prominent citizen* and old friends, recot nised his Hears or suspected bis Identity. Beyond a passing glance bis may. they betrayed neither curiosity nor interest, being probably sufficiently occupied In accounting for tbeir own presence In the home of tbeir ones revered and now greatly maligned oompesr. Judge Ostrander, attacked through his son. was about to say or do something which each and every one of them secretly thought had better be left unsaid or undone. Tot none showed gpy disposition to leave the place; 4 , and when, after a short, uneasy pause during which all attempts at conversation failed, they heard a slow and weighty step approaching down the hall, the suspense was such that no one but Mr. Black noticed the Quick whirl with which Oliver turned himself about, nor the look of mortal anguish with which he awaited the opening of the door and his father’s entrance among them. No one noticed. I say. until, simultaneously with the appearance of Judge Ostrander on the threshold, a loud cry swept through the room of “Don’t! don’t!" and the man they had barely noticed, flashed by them all, and fell at the judge’s feet with a smothered repetition of his appeal: “Don't, far ther. don’t!"

Then, each man knew why be had been summoned there, and knowing, gased earnestly at these two faces. Twelve years of unappeased longing, of smothered love, rising above doubts, persisting in spite of doubts, were concentrated into that one instant of mutual recognition. The eye of the far ther was upon that of the son and that of the son upon that of the father and for them, least in this first instant of reunion, the years were forgotten and sin, sorrow and on-coming doom effaced from their mutual consciousness.

Then the tide of life flowed back into the present, and the judge, motioning to his son to rise, observed very distinctly:

“Don't la an ambiguous word, my son, and on your lips, at this Juncture may mislead those whom I have called here to hear the truth from us and the truth only. You have heard what hap pened here a few days ago. How a long-guarded, long-suppressed suspicion—so guarded and so suppressed that I bad no intimation of its existence even. found vent at a moment of public indignation, and 1 heard you, you, Oliver Ostrander, accused to my face of haring in some boyish lit of iage struck down the man for whose death another has long since paid the penalty. This you have already been told.”

“Yes." The word cut sharply through the silence; but the fire with -which the young man rose And faced them all showed him at his best. “But surely, no person present believes It. No one cs" who knows you and the principles in which I have been raised. This fellow whom I beat as a boy has waited long to start this damnable report Surely he will get no hearing from unprejudiced and Intelligent men."

“The police have listened to him. Mr. Andrews, who is one of the gentlemen present has heard his story and you see that he stands here silent my.son. And that is not all. Mrs. Bcovttle. who has loved you like a mother, longs to believe in your innocence. and cannot"

A low cry from the hall. It died away unheeded. "And Mr. Black, her husband's counsel.’* continued the father, in the firm, low tones of one who for many long days « nlt nights had schooled himself for the dnty for this hour, “shares her He has tried not to; but he does. They have found evidences —you know them; proofs which might not have amounted to much had it not for the one mischievous fact which has undermined public confidence and given point to these attacks. I refer to the life we have led and the barriers we have ourselves raised upfas our mutual intercourse. These have undone us. To ‘he question. ‘Why these barriers T I can And no answer but the one which ends this struggle.

Succumbing myself, I ask you to do no .to Out of the past comes a voice—the voice of Algernon Etheridge, demanding vengeance for his untimely end. It will not be. gainsaid. Not satisfied with the toll we have both paid to these years of suffering and repres-sion-unmindful of the hermit’s life I have led and of the heart disappointments you have borne, its cry for punishment remains insistent. Gentlemen —hush! Oliver, it is for me to cry ‘Don’t’ now —John Scoville was a guilty man—a murderer ana a thief — hat be did not wield the stick which killed Algernon Etheridge. Another band raised that. No. do net look at

look here!" And with one awful gesture. he stood still —while horror rose like a wave and engulfed the room — choking back breath and speech from every living soul there, and making a silence more awful than any sound — or so they all felt, till bis voice rose again and they heard: “You have trusted to appearances; you must trust now to my word. 1 am the guilty man. not ScovtUe, and not Oliver, though Oliver may have been II the ravine that night and even handled the bludgeon I found at my feet in the recesses of Dark Jollow.” Then consternation spoke, and muttered cries were heard of ’’Madness! I; Is not we who are needed here but a physician!” and dominating all. the ringing shout: ~ ——— —— “Ton cannot save me so, father. I hated Etheridge and I slew him. Gentlemen.” he prayed in his agony, coming close into their midst, “do not be misled for a moment by a father’s devotion.”

His lifted head, his flashing eye, drew every look. Honor con fronted them in a countenance from which all reserve had melted away. No guilt showed there; he stood among them, a heroic figure.

81owIy, and with a dread which no man might measure, the glances which had just devoured his young but virile countenance passed to that of the father. They did not leave it again. “Son?” With what tenderness he spoke, but with what a ring of desolation. “I understand your effort and appreciate it; but it is a useless one. You cannot deceive these friends of our* —men who have known my life. If you were in the ravine that night, so was I, If you handled John Scoville’s stick, so did I, and after you! Let us not struggle for the execration of mankind; let it fall where it rightfully belongs. It can bring no sting keener than that to which my breast has long been subject. Or —” and here his tones sank, in a last recognition of all he was losing forever, “If there is suffering in a once proud man flinging from him the last rag of respect with which he sought to cover the hideous nakedness of an unsuspected crime, it is lost in the Joy of doing justice to the son who would take advantage of circumstances to assume his father’s guilt.”

But Oliver, with a fire which nothing could damp, spoke up again: “Gentlemen, will you see my father so degrade himself?. He has dwelt

so continually upon the knowledge which separated us a dozen years ago that he no longer can discriminate between the guilty and the innocent. Would he have sat In court; would he have uttered sentences; would he have kept his seat upon the bench for all these years, if he had borne within his breast this secret of personal guilt? No. It is not In human nature to play such a part I was guilty—and I lied. Let the act speak for itaelf. The respect cue my father must not be taken'from him.” Confusion and counter-confusion! What were they to think! Aianaon Black, aghast at this dread dilemma, ran over in his mind all that had led him to accept Oliver’s guilt as proved, and then, in immediate opposition to it, the details of that old trial and the judge’s consequent life; and, voicing the helpless confusion of the others, observed with forced firmness: “We have heard much of Oliver’s wanderings in the ravine on that fatal night, but nothing of yours, Judge Ostrander. It is not enough far you to say that you were there; you must prove it" “The proof Is in my succumbing to . . - I * Allwmv,* I

sedated with this crime. Rad he beeh guilty —had our separation come through bis crime and not through my own, I should have been prepared for such a contingency, and hot overwhelmed by It” “And were you not prepared?" “No, before Orll ’ The gesture accompanying this oath was a grand one, convincing in its fervor, its najesty and power. But facts are stubborn things, sad while most of those present were still thrilling under the effect of this oath, the dry voice of District Attorney Andrews was beard for the first time, in these words: “Why, then, did you. on the night of Bela’s death, stop on your way across the bridge to look back upo» Dark Hollow and cry in the bitterest tones which escape human lips, ‘Oliver! Oliver!’ You were beard to speak this name, Judge Ostrander.” he hastily put it, as the miserable father raised his hand in ineffctual protest. “A man was lurking in the darkness behind you, who both saw and heard you. He may not he the most prepossessing of witness, but we cannot discredit his ntory.” >

“Mr. Andrews, you have no children. To the man who has, I make my last appeal. Mr. Renfrew, you know the human heart both —j a father and a pastor. Do you find anything unnatural in a guilty soul bemoaning its loss rather than Its sin, in the spot which recalled both to his overburdened spirit r “No.”

The word came sharply, and it sounded decisive; but the ones which followed from Mr Andrews were no less so.

“That is not enough. We want evidence, actual evidence, that you are not playing the part your son ascribes to you.”

The judge’s eyes glared, then suddenly and incomprehenslvely softened till the quick fear that his mind as well as bis memory had gone astray, vanished in a feeling none of them could have characterized, but which gave to them all an expression of awe. “I have such evidence.” announced the Judge. “Come.”

Turning, he stepped into the balk Oliver, with bended head and a discouraged mien, quickly followed. Alanson Black and the others, casting startled and inquiring looks at each other, brought up the rear. Deborah Scovllle was nowhere to be seen. At the door of his own room, the judge paused, and with his hand on the curtain, remarked with unexpected composure: “You have all wondered, and others with you, why for the last ten years I have kept the gates of my house shut against every comer. I am going to show you.” And with no further word or look, scarcely even giving attention to Oliver’s anguished presence, he led them into the study and from there on to that inner door known and talked of through the town as the door of mystery. This he slowly opened with the key he took from his pocket; then, pausing with the knob in his hand, he said:

“In the years which are past, but two persons beside myself have crossed this threshold, and these only under my eye. Its secret was for my own breast. Judge what my remorse has been; judge the power of my own secret self-condemnation, by what you see here.”

And, entering, he reached up, and pulled aside the carpet he had strung up over one end of the room, disclosing amid a number of loosened boards, the barred cell of a condemned convict \ “This was my bed, gentlemen, till a stranger coming into my home, made such an acknowledgment of my sin impossible!’’

CHAPTER XVIII. Dark Hollow. Later, when the boards he had loosened In anticipation of this hoar were all removed, they came upon a packet of closely written words hidden in the framework of the bed. It read as follows: Whosoever lays hands on this MS. will already be acquainted with my crime. If he would also know its cause and the full story of my hypocrisy, let him read these lines written, as it were, with my heart’s blood.

I loved Algernon Etheridge; I shall never have a dearer friend. His odd ways, his lank, possibly ungainly, figure crowned by a head of scholarly refinement, his amiability when pleased, his irascibility when crossed, formed a character attractive to me from its very contradictions; and after my wife’s death and before my son Oliver reached a companionable age, it was in my Intercourse with this man I found my most solid satisfaction. Yet we often quarreled. His dogmatism frequently ran counter to my views, and, being myself a man of quick and violenf temper, hard words sometimes passed between ua, to be forgotten the next minute in a handshake, or some other token of mutual esteem. These dissensions —if such they could be called —never took place except in the privacy of his study or mine. We thought too much of each other to display our differences of opinion abroad or even in the presence of Oliver; and however heated our arguments or whatever our topic we invariably parted friends, till one fateful night. O God! that years of repentance, self-hatred and secret-immolation can never undo the deed of an infuriated moment. Eternity may console, but it can never make me Innocent of the hlopd of .my heart’s brother. We had had our usual wordy disagreement over some petty subject in which he was no nearer wrong nor I

any nearer right than sre had been many times before; but for some rear son I found it harder to pardon him. For the first time in our long acquaintance, I let Algernon Etheridge leave me. without any attempt at conciliation. If only I had halted there! If. at sight of my empty study. I had not conceived the mad notion of waylaying him at the bridge for the hand-shake I missed. I might have been a happy man now, and Oliver —But why dwell upon these might-have-beens! What happened was this:

Disturbed in mind, and finding myself alone in the house, Oliver having evidently gone out while we two were disputing, I decided to follow out the impulse I have mentioned. Leaving by the rear, I went down the lane to the path which serves as a short cut to the bridge.

That I did this unseen by anybody is not so strange when you consider the hour, and how the only person then living in the lane was, in all probability, in her kitchen. It would have been better for me, little as I might have recognized it at the time, had she been where she could have witnessed both my going and coming and faced me with the fact. John Scoville, in his statement, says that after giving up his search for his little girl he wandered up the ravine before taking the path back which led him through Dark Hollow. This was false, as well as the story he told of leaving his stick by the chestnut tree in the gully at foot of Ostrander lane. For I was on the spot, and I know the route by which he reached Dark Hollow and also through whose agency the stick came to be there. Read and learn with what tricks the devil beguiles us men.

I was descending this path, heavily shadowed, as you know, by a skirting of closely growing trees and bushes, when Just where it dips into the Hollow, I heard the sound of a hasty foot come crashing up through the underbrush from the ravine and cross the path ahead of me. A turn in the path prevented me from seeing the man himself, but as you will perceive and as I perceived later when circumstances recalled it to my mind, I had no need to see him to know who it was or with what Intent he took this method of escape from the ravine into the fields leading to the highway. Scoville’s stick spoke for him. the stick which I presently tripped over and mechanically picked up, without a thought of the desperate use to which I was destined to put It.

Etheridge was coming. I could hear his whistle on Factory road. There was no mistaking it. It was unusually shrill one and had always been a cause of irritation to me, but at this moment it was more; it roused every antagonistic impulse within me. He whistling like a galliard, after a parting which had dissatisfied me to such an extent that I had come all this distance to ask his pardon and see his old smile again! Afterward, long afterward. I was able to give another interpretation to his show of apparent self-satisfaction, but then I saw nothing but the contrast it offered to my own tender regrets, and my blood began to boll and my temper rise to such a point that recrimination took the place of apology when in another moment we came together in the open space between the end of the bridge and Dark Hollow. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Gentlemen, Will You S[?]e My Father So Degrade Himself?”