People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1893 — ALITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ALITTLE COMEDY OF ERRORS

By SSMORTON.

lished by special arrangement] CHAPTER XVIII Macd.Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ’Tis hard to reconcile. —Macbeth. It was early in the afternoon of election day that Allan North returned to X—.. As he went up the steps of the Clement house, speculating with considerable anxiety as to what awkward complications might have arisen there during his brief absence, he was hailed by ■Col. Payton with a jovial: “I say, Mr. North, you do beat all for stealing a march on people! It isn’t •ten minutes since Warner was around here with a telegram from you, saying that we were to expect you on the 4:20 drain; and here you are, walking In on us at three o’clock as if you had just dropped from the clpuds! How did you manage it, anyway, man alive?” he added, with a blank look. “This three o’clock train comes from due south, and you telegraphed from up Vermontway!” North laughed as he hurried on to his room. “I could reconcile that for you, colonel, if I had time,” he said, “but just now I cannot stop. Be patient, and it will soon be explained.” Waiting only to make a careful toilet, North repaired to No. 83 Delaplaine street, anxious to get through with his coming interview with Mrs. Maynard before Ollin, whose telegram had preceded him but a brief time, should appear upon the scene. Allan North was in better spirits than he had been at any time since he began this investigation. Success had attended his efforts to trace and identify the long-missing heiress; and, though an undoubted source of anxiety yet remained, he believed that, with this accomplished, the danger that menaced the good name of the family could be averted. Further than this he scarcely dared allow himself to hope; and yet there was a hope down deep in his heart, so closely akin to despair that it sent the color from his face as swiftly as a summer cloud obscures the sunlight, when he entered Mrs. Maynard’s drawing-room and found himself in Myra Hilary’s presence. His entrance was unexpected and unannounced, and he had advanced half way across the room before the two ladies, who were conversing together in low, earnest tones over their needlework became aware that he was there. Then, with a noticeable lack of cordiality, they both greeted him, and Mrs. Maynard coldly invited him to be seated. North was sufficiently annoyed by this reception to be quite thrown out of his usual suavity for the moment. “I fear that I am interrupting an agreeable tete-a-tete, Mrs. Maynard,” he said stiffly, “but I shall ask your in-

diligence long enough to communicate to you the results of my recent trip to ■Charleston. The fact that your own interests are so closely involved therein is my sole justification for intruding the matter upon you now.” “You have secured my eager attention in advance, Mr. North,” said Mrs. Maynary, with quiet sarcasm, as she leaned back idly in her chair and folded her hands with an air of expectancy. “I ■cannot be indifferent to a communication that affects my own selfish interests. Pray allow me to ask, is it the mystery of Annie Dupont that you are about to clear away?” “That is, indeed, the purpose that I have in mind,” returned North, with an involuntary glance toward Miss Hilary. It was the merest idle glance, yet she fancied that it had a purpose, and she rose at once to withdraw from the room. Mrs. Maynard hastily interposed: “Please remain, Miss Hilary,” she said. “You are sufficiently familiar with the matter that I have mentioned to feel an interest in this promised solution of the mystery. Indeed,” she added, lit a significant tone, turning toward North with cold inquiry, “it is possible

that J9QT forthcoming revelation* will Pto ve to have a deeper personal interest for Miss Hilary than for,myself. How Is this, Mr. North?” North looked at her sharply for a moment, while a faintly Derceptible shade of amusement blended with the grave, annoyed expression on his face; then he said, with furtive satire: “Tour discernment astonishes me, Mrs. Maynard! But indeed, I had no intention of excluding Miss Hilary from this interview. I have every reason to believe that she will find the story of Annie Dupont interesting, and that she will rejoice as earnestly at the good fortune of that young lady as I do myself, or as you will, Mrs. Maynard, after a time.” „ “You are quite convinced then, Mr. North,” said Mrs. Maynard, as she trifled nervously with her dainty lace handkerchief without looking at North, “that there is such a person as Annie Dupont, and that she is truly Mrs. Dunkirk's niece?” “I am quite convinced of it, Mrs. Maynard. Just as sure as I am that you are in this room; just as sure as I am of my own presence here; just as sure as I am of any other established verity. Annie Dupont is no mere creation of fancy or rumor; she is a fact, an unqualified fact, and an established fact. And facts, yon know, are stubborn things!” “Of course,” Mrs. Maynard resumed, in the same cold, constrained tone, “you have taken the precaution of satisfying yourself with indisputable proofs of her identity, before accepting her as the heiress?”

“Oh, most assuredly, I have taken every precaution of that nature. Within the last thirty-six hours the papers that establish her identity have all been in my possession.” “Do you know where she is at the present time?” “I think I may confidently assert that I do.” He smiled as he spoke, looking keenly at Mrs. Maynard, who, however, was unconscious of the glance. * „ . “Have you brought those papers with you, Mr. North—the documentary evidence of which you spoke?” •‘I have not brdught them with me. They are not now in my possession.” “Indeed! May I inquire where they are?” “They are probably now in the hands of Mrs. Dunkirk’s attorneys and executors, Messrs. Hunter and Ketchum, of New York.” “Hunter and Ketchum?” She repeated the words involuntarily. She was for the moment startled out of her cold composure; she looked up at him with perplexed speculation. “It’s a perfectly regular proceeding, Mrs. Maynard, as you will presently understand,” added North, answering the mute inquiry in her glance. “But we are losing valuable time. Allow me to proceed without further delay to the brief narrative of fact.” He drew out his watch as he spoke and laid it open on the small table at his elbow. He had the air of a man determined to accomplish a set task within a given time. The ladies waited, each composed in outward mien, for his recital. “It was in Baltimore, you recollect, Mrs. Maynard,” he began, addressing himself directly to that lady, “that Hamilton D upont’s death occurred. He was a perfect stranger in that city, having gone thither in searck of employment, leaving his wife and child in Charleston. This latter fact; by the way, corrects a mistaken impression of mine. I had always supposed that Mrs. Dupont also died in Baltimore, and that in order to discover Any trace of Annie the search must commence in that city. This same idea was doubtless what baffled Mrs. Dunkirk’s detectives. They persistently sought in Baltimore for the child, following up one false clew after another, on the theory that if she were living at all that was the place to find her. As a matter of fact, neither Mrs. Dupont nor the child was in Baltimore at the time of Hamilton Dupont’s death, although the published accounts of the affair gave the impression that they were there.

“As you yourself told me, Mrs. Maynard, the poor young wife died soon after of a broken heart; and little Annie, thus cast upon the cold charities of the world, found refuge and loving care in an orphan asylum in that city. She was received and registered there in her own name, as I discovered a few days since on searching the secords of the institution. The date of this registry —I do not recall it at the moment, but I have a memorandum of it somewhere —corresponds exactly with the date furnished me through another source; and thus it affords a most satisfactory corroboration of my chief documentary evidence. “Now, before the child had been in the asylum three weeks, a lady who was then a transient visitor in Charleston presented herself at the institution, inquiring for Annie Dupont. She soon became convinced that the child who was entered by that name upon the books was the Annie Dupont whom she was seeking; and, that question settled, she proceeded to declare her reasons for making this inquiry. She had known Hamilton Dupont and his wife intimately, and was greatly attached to them both; and for their sakes she felt an unusual interest in their infant daughter, who was, I am told, at that time a remarkably beautiful child —which I can very easily believe, having seen for myself what a charming woman she has become.” As he spoke these last words with the same air of simple good faith that had characterized all his previous statements, Mr. Maynard glanced involuntarily at Miss Hilary, as if putting his verdict to the critical test of her own dispassionate judgment. Miss Hilary, with eyes i|pwncast, was Unconscious of the swift scrutiny, Smiling a little as he observed it, North continued: “This lady furthermore stated that she was slightly acquainted with Mrs. Dunkirk, Hamilton Dupont’s sister. ‘Now’—this is in effect what she said to the authorities at the asylum—‘Mrs, Dunkirk is a wealthy widow, and Annie, as her only living relative, has a claim upon her which no one

can dispute. But Mrs. Dunkirk is a cold, stern woman, utterly unfit to be the guardian of a tender child like Annie. Let me adopt this little one and rear her lovingly for her own and her parents’ sakes. Lest Mrs Dunkirk should discover her and try to take her from me, I will conceal her real name and call her by my own; not even the child herself shall ever know that I am not her own true mother until I shall deem that the proper time has come to disclose the secret* I will have all necessary proofs of her identity at hand, so that if her aunt should die leaving her fortune to the next of kin, Annie’s claim can easily be established. All this I promise and will fulfill; only let me have the child to care for and love as my own.’ “Well, to be brief about it, the lady carried her point. The adoption papers were duly made out, and before another day had elapsed Annie Dupont had left the,orphan asylum, never to enter it again. She was taken to the home of her new mother and given the name of that lady—the name by which she was ever after called; and she has never known to this day, though I shall marvel very greatly if she doesn’t begin to suspect it soon, that she ever was Annie Dupont.” f Again Mrs. Maynard’s glance sought Miss Hilary, this time to encounter Myra’s eyes, full of eager speculation. If each had spoken the thought in h.r

own mind in that instant, the denouement of North’s story would have been materially hastened. But they both held their peace and waited for him to unfold the mystery in his own way. “Beyond this point,” he went on, catching up the narrative again after a meditative little pause, “I cannot in this necessarily brief outline follow her history step by step for the next fifteen or twenty years. It is essential, however, to note that the lady soon after embarked for Europe, where her husband held some official position under our government—consul in Borne remote foreign part I may as well add in this connection that he died a year later, and his widow, now more than ever devoted to her adopted daughter and dreading a separation from her more than anything in the world, remained abroad for several years, drifting from one point of interest to another; thus Annie was nearly grown to womanhood before she revisited her native land. Owing to this fact, as well as to the entire lack of any definite information to work on, and the multiplicity of false clews that were given from time to time, the detectives whom Mrs. Dunkirk at different periods engaged in her search for her niece were baffled in all their attempts to find her. Swallowed up in another name and identity, Annie Dupont had practically ceased to exist.

“And now I must digress just for a moment in order to bring to your notice yet another person who plays an important part in the sequel. This person is at present living in Evansburg, a small place about ten miles from X -, and it was from her that I succeeded in obtaining my chief evidence in this case. Her name is of no consequence: or rather, it is of so much consequence that I shall withhold it for the present. Taken at an early age from a wretched tenement house in New York, and transferred to the different atmosphere of a wealthy lady’s home, where for the first time in her life she was treated as a human being, where her hands were trained to deftness in all household duties, where she was given a sound rudimentary education and was fitted by kind and painstaking instruction for the humble walk in life for which nature and circumstances had evidently designed her, this girl knew no better than to misinterpret the intentions of her kind benefactress (who was, as you may have already shrewdly surmised, none other than Annie Dupont’s adoptive mother), and upon this misinterpretation to build the most absurd and extravagant expectations. It may have been the girl’s own preposterous vanity that conceived the notion, or it is possible that the thought was suggested to her by some older person. Be this as it may, she began to cherish the hope that she would some day receive a liberal share of the lady’s small fortune, to which, as she knew, there were no immediate heirs. It was only when Annie Dupont was legaUy adopted that this absurd bubble burst. Learning accidentally at this time of the foolish expectation that the girl had been indulging, the lady told her to dismiss the idea at once. ‘I should never have dreamed of making you heir, in any event,’ she said, ‘and now everything that I possess will go to Annie, my adopted daughter.’ “Instead of acquiescing in this decision without a murmur—which calm philosophy, by the way, would have prevented this story of mine from being told to my present select audience—the girl was angry, and she visited all her resentment upon the child who had innocently overthrown her ambitious airoccupy. Anxious, however, that her daughter’s education should be as broad and deep as possible, the lady decided to give her the advantage of a thorough collegiate training; and a few

weeks after their return to America found Annie Dupont at Vassar." Mrs. Maynard’s attention now appeared to be whOlly'WHhdrawn from Miss Hilary and concentrated upon North’s story. Her hands, clasped together closely, lay motionless in her lap; her eyes were fixed upon North’s face; she listened with almost breathless attention to every word that he spoke. As if influenced by this change in her, North’s manner altered; its lightness vanished and his tones grew earnest and sympathetic as he proceeded. “For a few months all went welL Annie was happy In her college life, winning friends and popularity, and little dreaming of the blow that was soon to fall suddenly upon her. When at last, summoned by the telegram which, likte a thunderbolt from a clear sky, had startled her out of the routine of her busy school life, she reached her home on the Hudson, she was too late to receive the loving farewell of the one who had been her dearest earthly friend.

“The end had come almost without warning, hut it seems that the lady had felt a presentiment of her impending fate, and had sent for her lawyer in order to make every provision for Annie’s future. Unfortunately he was absent from home and could not respond to the summons in time to receive from her lips her last instructions. The only person who was with the lady at her death was the girl whom I have already mentioned. This girl, who had been with Annie and he* mother during all their long wanderings in Europe, was the only one of the present household who knew the history of the adopted child; it was she who received the final directions of her mistress concerning Annie’s welfare. How these instructions were treated, the sequel will show. “With the full knowledge that it was the last message she should ever send her darling, the lady wrote a long letter to Annie, giving her a full history of her past, her parents’ death, her brief sojourn in the orphan asylum, her subsequent adoption and every little incident relating thereto. Then, having told where all the papers containing the proofs of her identity were to be found, the writer closed with a most touching and affectionate farewell. Before the ‘ink was dry on the paper the hand that had penned these loving lines was cold in death. “Had Annie Dupont received this letter it would have changed the whole current of her life; but she was not destined thus to learn her romantic history. It chanced that the first person who approached the desk where the letter lay was this servant, now the housekeeper and a woman of thirty years. She read the letter and it increased her animosity toward Annie, castles. I have thus represented to you, Mrs. Maynard, the peculiar attitude of this person toward Annie Dupont, that you may the more readily perceive a motive for the line of action that she subsequently pursued. “After a lapse of several years, spent very happily abroad, the lady’s health began to fail seriously, and she was warned by her attending physician that the insidious disease which had been developing for months, unsuspected by herself, might at any time prove fatal. The dread of dying in a foreign land and leaving Annie once more among strangers, alone, and unprotected, induced the lady to return at once to her American home, a beautiful little villa on the Hudson, where for a few months her health seemed to be materially improved. Encouraged by this favorable change, she decided to wait a little longer before making known to her adopted daughter the secret of her true parentage, seeming to shrink with an instinctive dread from making the disclosure.

“Annie was now sixteen, and very finely accomplished, having been since the age of five years under the care of governesses and tutors who had taken great pride in fitting their pupil for the social position that she was destined to She determined that her rival, as she still absurdly considered the girl, should never be known as Annie Dupont, never inherit her aunt’s wealth; and she also determined, if possible, to prevent her from inheriting the smaller estate of her adoptive mother. In that desk, jealously guarded for years, were all tho documents on which Annie Dupont’s fortunes depended; the papers that declared her identity as Hamilton Dupont’s daughter and Mrs. Dunkirk’s niece; the adoption papers that made her the legal heir of her kind benefactress; the will of that lady in which everything of which she died possessed was bequeathed to her adopted daughter—all these precious papers lay within reach, and only one living person knew of their existence. And that one person, because she hated Annie Dupont and regarded her good fortune with a jealousy as implacable as it was unreasonable —that one person, unawed by the presence of death, and too ignorant to fear the legal consequences should her deed’ be discovered, took possession of those papers, and also the letter to Annie, and hid them away, exulting in the belief that she was thus avenging her own wrong and disappointment [TO BE CONTINUED.J

HIS ENTRANCE WAS UNEXPECTED.

SHE LISTENED WITH ALMOST BREATHLESS ATTENTION.