CHAPTER XX.

MR. GARDNER PROMISES HELP.

It was the day succeeding the night of Mrs. Murray’s complete reconciliation with Italy Vale. The storm of the previous night had died down into the gloom of a raw, sunless day. The sky was leaden, the air was cold and frosty, with now and then some hurrying flecks of hail or snow; the sea, still rough and angry, boomed sullenly upon the shore.

After breakfast the two ladies were sitting alone in a warm, bright little parlor, Mrs. Murray’s favorite retreat in chilly weather. It opened by a glass door into the conservatory with its wealth of bloom and fragrance, and was always cozy and cheerful.

A servant entered quietly, placed the morning’s mail on a table by Mrs. Murray, and withdrew.

Mrs. Murray began to open her letters and Italy took up one of the morning papers, a leading daily.

Each began to read, and for some little time unbroken silence reigned. Suddenly a sharp, gasping cry came from Italy’s lips, the paper rustled in her hands and slipped down upon the floor, her head fell back inertly against the chair, her face looking like ivory against the rich-hued silken draperies.

Mrs. Murray sprang toward her with a cry of alarm, thinking from the inert pose and closed eyes that she had fainted. But as she touched the cold little hand she perceived that it was trembling, and then Italy moaned almost inaudibly:

“Oh, this is terrible! terrible!”

“What is it, my dear? Speak! You frighten me!” cried Mrs. Murray, pressing her hand eagerly. “Are you ill?”

“No, no,” and the heavy eyes unclosed, and Italy feebly lifted her head.

Her glance fell on the paper, and she murmured:

“It is there!”

“Something that you read, my child?” and Mrs. Murray picked up the paper and ran her eyes over the columns.

She did not have to seek long. There it was in black headlines and blasting words:

“At Last!--The Mystery of Ronald Vale’s Murder Solved at Last!--A Well-remembered Criminal Case Recalled to the Public Mind--Mrs. Vale Nobly Vindicated After a Martyrdom of Almost Fifteen Years--Confession of the Murderer, a Man Whose Life was Believed to be Spotless--He Lived Among us Fifteen Years, and Enjoyed the Confidence and Esteem of All.

“This paper is the first, as always, to print the first statement regarding the new developments in a case that had in it all the elements of mystery, tragedy, and crime. One of our clever reporters, while strolling through the great, wicked city last night, gathered from the lips of a half-intoxicated sailor in a low saloon a startling story, whose truth he vouched for in the strongest terms.”

There followed substantially the same story the sailor had told Mrs. Murray, with the addition that the sailor knew the contents of the letter, having heard it dictated to the surgeon by the dying lips of the murderer. Francis Murray was here held up to the execration of all, and the highly colored, sensational article expatiated glibly on the whole affair, and closed by tendering its sincerest sympathies to the shade of the departed Mrs. Vale, who was believed to have died abroad of a broken heart, leaving her young daughter to the guardianship of the wicked kinsman, in whom she had placed the most implicit faith.

Oh, the agony of the mother’s heart as she read those words and realized that her beloved son, her idol, was thus held up to the execration of the whole world!

“Let us bear it together!” moaned Italy, creeping into her arms with a desolate sob, and their tears mingled.

The first passion of grief exhausted, Italy lifted her head, her eyes gleaming through tears like purple-dark pansies wet with rain, and cried indignantly:

“Let us go at once to the editor of that paper--let us make him deny it all to-morrow!”

The two fond, foolish creatures went at once into Boston on this mission. But if there is one thing under heaven that the editor of a great daily paper abhors, it is to own himself in the wrong--to publish one day a startling, sensational story, and to announce on the next that it was all a mistake, that he had been victimized.

And to do this special editor justice, it could not be said that he was mistaken, for Mrs. Murray, on his rigid cross-examination, could deny nothing, the sailor’s visit, nor the written confession, signed in Francis Murray’s hand. She could only assert, with passionate vehemence, her disbelief of the whole story, declaring it a plot to ruin her son.

The editor blandly promised to give publicity to her opinion to-morrow, and expressed himself as sorry that the sailor’s story had gotten into print, since there were grave doubts as to its credibility. Since Miss Vale herself, and here he bowed admiringly to the beautiful, dark-eyed girl, took Mr. Murray’s part, of course the sailor’s statements could not be reliable.

They returned sadly enough to Winthrop, and waited eagerly for the next day’s paper with its promised vindication of their beloved one. But it was very disappointing.

The wary editor was not going to spoil his sensation or weaken its effect by casting doubts on the sailor’s credibility. It was quite in the light of another sensation that it chronicled interviews with the mother and ward of Francis Murray. Naturally, it said, Mrs. Murray was unwilling to believe in her son’s guilt, and Miss Vale, who had been, it was said, his affianced, also believed he was innocent. It was quite true that the blameless life of the accused went a long way toward proving him guiltless, yet Mrs. Vale’s life had been fair, too--so fair that the jury had pronounced her not guilty, although the world had held quite a different opinion.

Well, both were dead now--Ronald Vale’s wife and kinsman--and the world would have to decide which was guilty, the woman who had denied it, or--the man who had confessed it with his dying lips.

And so the clever editor, pretending to keep his promise to the two women, only got in another sensational article, and managed to leave on the public mind his own conviction that Mrs. Murray and Italy were very weak and silly, and that there could not be any reasonable doubt of Francis Murray’s guilt.

The morning’s mail brought to Mrs. Murray letters from Ralph Allen and his sweetheart, Alexie, both breathing profoundest sympathy and undying belief in her son’s innocence.

“And I wanted to come to you yesterday as soon as I read that dreadful piece in the paper,” went on Alexie. “But Aunt Ione would not let me. Oh, I am dreadfully afraid she believes that sailor, she and Alys both, but I am going to steal away soon and get Ralph to bring me over to Winthrop to see you and Italy. Keep up heart, my dear friend, for I believe Mr. Murray may be yet alive, and that he will return to you some day and prove all those charges false.”

While they were yet lingering over those kindly letters a card was brought in for Italy. It bore Mr. Gardner’s name.

She went to him at once where he was waiting in the library, and he rose with a face full of sympathy.

“I read the papers yesterday and to-day,” he said. “Ah, Italy, it is noble in you, this loyal faith in Francis Murray.”

She looked him keenly in the face.

“And you?”--she asked. “Is your confidence unchanged?”

“My God, yes, my trust is shaken,” he answered, with an agitated face. “Look, Italy, what if it be true? Remember he was the man that told me the story defaming your mother! What if he invented it himself to throw suspicion on her? What if he was the sole author of the slander?”

He was wildly agitated, his nerves shaken, his suspicions awakened against the man he had once believed so noble. But her eyes flashed indignantly at his words.

“You are wrong, all wrong! You shall not lay that sin on Francis Murray! He is not here to defend himself, so I must speak for him! And listen, Mr. Gardner; I hurl back in your teeth the suspicion of his guilt! How dare you be so untrue to him?” she panted angrily.

He gazed at her with kindling admiration, and answered earnestly:

“I thought you would be glad to have your mother proved innocent!”

“Glad! Why, I would give my life!” she answered in a voice of heart-piercing eagerness, and again he thought, admiringly, that her loyal faith in Francis Murray was admirable. Before he could reply she spoke again, impulsively:

“I tell you now, Mr. Gardner, as I told you before, that there is a hidden foe behind all this. The sailor was a hired agent, the confession was a forgery. Come, you have pretended to be Francis Murray’s friend. Lend yourself to the task of clearing his name. You know the best detectives in the city. Employ the best one. Set him on the track of this unknown sailor, and, perhaps, we may at last unearth the most cunning and deep-dyed criminal the world ever knew! Ah, help me, help me,” and she held out her white, helpless little hands to him with an imploring sob.

He could not resist her prayer. He took the outstretched hands and clasped them with fatherly tenderness.

“I will do what I can, Italy,” he answered, and she thanked him with a burst of grateful tears.

“Heaven has begun to take pity on me at last!” she cried, and implored him not to lose faith in Francis Murray.

“Above all, do not let his mother know that you have had your faith shaken for an instant,” she added, and he promised that he would not.

He left her and she returned to Mrs. Murray with the glad tidings that the most eminent lawyer in Boston was going to help them to unearth the cunning criminal who had broken so many hearts.

The slow days freighted with sorrow came and went drearily until ten days had passed, but nothing else happened to disturb the dreary tenor of life at The Lodge. Alexie Audenreid came with Ralph for the promised visit, and made a flitting gleam of brightness in the gloom, but Ralph gave Italy the sad news that little Mabel Severn, the baby she had named, had died the day before, fading out of life like the frailest summer flower. The young mother, he said, was almost frantic with grief.

Italy’s heart ached for the mother’s grief, yet she could feel no regret for the little one removed so early from life’s troublous scene.

“For what if little Mabel had lived like me to pledge her life to tracking down her father’s murderer? what heartache and sorrow must have been hers!” she thought.

She longed to go to the unhappy young widow and condole with her in her sorrow, but there was an awful barrier between her and Isabel Severn that held her back. The sight of that pale, suffering face always brought back that night of horror when the false husband had met his doom, and she shuddered at the thought of how she had fallen fainting in that pool of the traitor’s blood.