questions.” And he gazed at Titus earnestly and
sympathetically. “How long has it been since you last saw
your daughter?”
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“Why, she left here last Tuesday morning to go back to
Lycurgus. She works down there for the Griffiths Collar &
Shirt Company. But——?”
“Now, one moment,” insisted the district attorney
determinedly, “I’ll explain all in a moment. She was up here
over the week-end, possibly. Is that it?”
“She was up here on a vacation for about a month,”
explained Titus, slowly and meticulously. “She wasn’t
feeling so very good and she came home to rest up a bit.
But she was all right when she left. You don’t mean to tell
me, Mr. Mason, that anything has gone wrong with her, do
you?” He lifted one long, brown hand to his chin and cheek
in a gesture of nervous inquiry. “If I thought there was
anything like that——?” He ran his hand through his
thinning gray hair.
“Have you had any word from her since she left here?”
Mason went on quietly, determined to extract as much
practical information as possible before the great blow fell.
“Any information that she was going anywhere but back
there?”
“No, sir, we haven’t. She’s not hurt in any way, is she?
She’s not done anything that’s got her into trouble? But, no,
that couldn’t be. But your questions! The way you talk.” He
was now trembling slightly, the hand that sought his thin,
pale lips, visibly and aimlessly playing about his mouth. But
instead of answering, the district attorney drew from his
pocket the letter of Roberta to her mother, and displaying
only the handwriting on the envelope, asked: “Is that the
handwriting of your daughter?”
“Yes, sir, that’s her handwriting,” replied Titus, his voice
rising slightly. “But what is this, Mr. District Attorney? How
do you come to have that? What’s in there?” He clinched
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his hands in a nervous way, for in Mason’s eyes he now
clearly foresaw tragedy in some form. “What is this—this—
what has she written in that letter? You must tell me—if
anything has happened to my girl!” He began to look
excitedly about as though it were his intention to return to
the house for aid—to communicate to his wife the dread
that was coming upon him—while Mason, seeing the agony
into which he had plunged him, at once seized him firmly
and yet kindly by the arms and began:
“Mr. Alden, this is one of those dark times in the lives of
some of us when all the courage we have is most needed. I
hesitate to tell you because I am a man who has seen
something of life and I know how you will suffer.”
“She is hurt. She is dead, maybe,” exclaimed Titus, almost
shrilly, the pupils of his eyes dilating.
Orville Mason nodded.
“Roberta! My first born! My God! Our Heavenly Father!” His
body crumpled as though from a blow and he leaned to
steady himself against an adjacent tree. “But how? Where?
In the factory by a machine? Oh, dear God!” He turned as
though to go to his wife, while the strong, scar-nosed district
attorney sought to detain him.
“One moment, Mr. Alden, one moment. You must not go to
your wife yet. I know this is very hard, terrible, but let me
explain. Not in Lycurgus. Not by any machine. No! No—
drowned! In Big Bittern. She was up there on an outing on
Thursday, do you understand? Do you hear? Thursday.
She was drowned in Big Bittern on Thursday in a boat. It
over-turned.
The excited gestures and words of Titus at this point so
disturbed the district attorney that he found himself unable
to explain as calmly as he would have liked the process by
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which even an assumed accidental drowning had come
about. From the moment the word death in connection with
Roberta had been used by Mason, the mental state of
Alden was that of one not a little demented. After his first
demands he now began to vent a series of animal-like
groans as though the breath had been knocked from his
body. At the same time, he bent over, crumpled up as from
pain—then struck his hands together and threw them to his
temples.
“My Roberta dead! My daughter! Oh, no, no, Roberta! Oh,
my God! Not drowned! It can’t be. And her mother speaking
of her only an hour ago. This will be the death of her when
she hears it. It will kill me, too. Yes, it will. Oh, my poor,
dear, dear girl. My darling! I’m not strong enough to stand
anything like this, Mr. District Attorney.”
He leaned heavily and wearily upon Mason’s arms while the
latter sustained him as best he could. Then, after a
moment, he turned questioningly and erratically toward the
front door of the house at which he gazed as one might
who was wholly demented. “Who’s to tell her?” he
demanded. “How is any one to tell her?”
“But, Mr. Alden,” consoled Mason, “for your own sake, for
your wife’s sake, I must ask you now to calm yourself and
help me consider this matter as seriously as you would if it
were not your daughter. There is much more to this than I
have been able to tell you. But you must be calm. You must
allow me to explain. This is all very terrible and I sympathize
with you wholly. I know what it means. But there are some
dreadful and painful facts that you will have to know about.
Listen. Listen.”
And then, still holding Titus by the arm he proceeded to
explain as swiftly and forcefully as possible, the various
additional facts and suspicions in connection with the death
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of Roberta, finally giving him her letter to read; and winding
up with: “A crime! A crime, Mr. Alden! That’s what we think
over in Bridgeburg, or at least that’s what we’re afraid of—
plain murder, Mr. Alden, to use a hard, cold word in
connection with it.” He paused while Alden, struck by this—
the element of crime—gazed as one not quite able to
comprehend. And, as he gazed, Mason went on: “And as
much as I respect your feelings, still as the chief
representative of the law in my county, I felt it to be my
personal duty to come here to-day in order to find out
whether there is anything that you or your wife or any of
your family know about this Clifford Golden, or Carl
Graham, or whoever he is who lured your daughter to that
lonely lake up there. And while I know that the blackest of
suffering is yours right now, Mr. Alden, I maintain that it
should be your wish, as well as your duty, to do whatever
you can to help us clear up this matter. This letter here
seems to indicate that your wife at least knows something
concerning this individual—his name, anyhow.” And he
tapped the letter significantly and urgently.
The moment the suggested element of violence and wrong
against his daughter had been injected into this bitter loss,
there was sufficient animal instinct, as well as curiosity,
resentment and love of the chase inherent in Titus to cause
him to recover his balance sufficiently to give silent and
solemn ear to what the district attorney was saying. His
daughter not only drowned, but murdered, and that by
some youth who according to this letter she was intending
to marry! And he, her father, not even aware of his
existence! Strange that his wife should know and he not.
And that Roberta should not want him to know.
And at once, born for the most part of religion, convention
and a general rural suspicion of all urban life and the
mystery and involuteness of its ungodly ways, there sprang
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into his mind the thought of a city seducer and betrayer—
some youth of means, probably, whom Roberta had met
since going to Lycurgus and who had been able to seduce
her by a promise of marriage which he was not willing to
fulfill. And forthwith there flared up in his mind a terrible and
quite uncontrollable desire for revenge upon any one who
could plot so horrible a crime as this against his daughter.
The scoundrel! The raper! The murderer!
Here he and his wife had been thinking that Roberta was
quietly and earnestly and happily pursuing her hard, honest
way in Lycurgus in order to help them and herself. And from
Thursday afternoon until Friday her body had lain beneath
the waters of that lake. And they asleep in their comfortable
beds, or walking about, totally unaware of her dread state.
And now her body in a strange room or morgue
somewhere, unseen and unattended by any of all those
who loved her so—and to-morrow to be removed by cold,