Dark Hollow Read online

  Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading TeamHtml version by Chuck Greif

  IMAGE OF THE BOOK'S COVER]

  ON THE INSTANT HE RECOGNIZED THAT NO COMMON INTERVIEW LAYBEFORE HIM (Page 61)]

  DARK HOLLOW

  By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

  Author of "The House of the Whispering Pines," "Initials Only," "ThatAffair Next Door," Etc.

  With Four Illustrations By THOMAS FOGARTY

  COLOPHON]

  NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

  1914

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I

  THE WOMAN IN PURPLE

  I WHERE IS BELA? II WAS HE LIVING--WAS HE DEAD? III BELA THE REDOUBTABLE IV "AND WHERE WAS I WHEN ALL THIS HAPPENED?" V "SHE WORE PURPLE" VI ACROSS THE BRIDGE VII WITH HER VEIL DOWN VIII WITH HER VEIL LIFTED IX EXCERPTS X THE SHADOW XI "I WILL THINK ABOUT IT" XII SOUNDS IN THE NIGHT

  BOOK II

  THE HOUSE AND THE ROOM

  XIII A BIT OF STEEL XIV ALL IS CLEAR XV THE PICTURE XVI "DON'T! DON'T!" XVII UNWELCOME TRUTHS XVIII REFLECTIONS XIX ALANSON BLACK XX WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE? XXI IN THE COURT ROOM XXII BEFORE THE GATES XXIII THE MISFORTUNES OF MY HOUSE XXIV ONE SECRET LESS XXV "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM NOW?" XXVI THE TELEGRAM

  BOOK III

  THE DOOR OF MYSTERY

  XXVII HE MUST BE FOUND XXVIII THE FIRST EFFORT XXIX "THERE IS BUT ONE THING TO DO" XXX TEMPEST LODGE XXXI ESCAPE XXXII THE VIGIL XXXIII THE CURTAIN LIFTED XXXIV DARK HOLLOW XXXV SUNSET

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  On the instant he recognised that no common interview lay before him

  After one look he assumed some show of his old commanding presence andadvanced bravely down the steps

  Silence! Not even Heaven spoke

  "Tell me what this means," said he, but he did not turn his head as hemade this request

  BOOK I

  THE WOMAN IN PURPLE

  I

  WHERE IS BELA?

  A high and narrow gate of carefully joined boards, standing ajar in afence of the same construction! What is there in this to rouse a wholeneighbourhood and collect before it a group of eager, anxious,hesitating people?

  I will tell you.

  This fence is no ordinary fence, and this gate no ordinary gate; nor isthe fact of the latter standing a trifle open, one to be lightlyregarded or taken an inconsiderate advantage of. For this is JudgeOstrander's place, and any one who knows Shelby or the gossip of itssuburbs, knows that this house of his has not opened its doors to anyoutsider, man or woman, for over a dozen years; nor have his gates--insaying which, I include the great one in front--been seen in all thattime to gape at any one's instance or to stand unclosed to publicintrusion, no, not for a moment. The seclusion sought was absolute. Themen and women who passed and repassed this corner many times a day wereas ignorant as the townspeople in general of what lay behind the grey,monotonous exterior of the weather-beaten boards they so frequentlybrushed against. The house was there, of course,--they all knew thehouse, or did once--but there were rumours (no one ever knew how theyoriginated) of another fence, a second barrier, standing a few feetinside the first and similar to it in all respects, even to the gateswhich corresponded exactly with these outer and visible ones andprobably were just as fully provided with bolts and bars.

  To be sure, these were reports rather than acknowledged facts, but thepossibility of their truth roused endless wonder and gave to theeccentricities of this well-known man a mysterious significance whichlost little or nothing in the slow passage of years.

  And now! in the freshness of this summer morning, without warning or anyseeming reason for the change, the strict habit of years has been brokeninto and this gate of gates is not only standing unlocked before theireyes, but a woman--a stranger to the town as her very act shows--hasbeen seen to enter there!--to enter, but not come out; which means thatshe must still be inside, and possibly in the very presence of thejudge.

  Where is Bela? Why does he allow his errands--But it was Bela, or sothey have been told, who left this gate ajar ... he, the awe and terrorof the town, the enormous, redoubtable, close-mouthed negro, trusted asman is seldom trusted, and faithful to his trust, yes, up to this veryhour, as all must acknowledge, in spite of every temptation (and theyhad been many and alluring) to disclose the secret of this home of whichhe was not the least interesting factor. What has made him thus suddenlycareless, he who has never been careless before? Money? A bribe from thewoman who had entered there?

  Impossible to believe, his virtue has always been so impeccable, hisdevotion to his strange and dominating master so sturdy and so seeminglyunaffected by time and chance!

  Yet, what else was there to believe? There stood the gate with thepebble holding it away from the post; and here stood half theneighbourhood, staring at that pebble and at the all but invisible crackit made where an opening had never been seen before, in a fascinationwhich had for its motif, not so much the knowledge that these forbiddenprecincts had been invaded by a stranger, as that they were open to anyintruding foot--that they, themselves, if they had courage enough, mightgo in, just as this woman had gone in, and see--why, what she is seeingnow--the unknown, unguessed reason for all these mysteries;--the hiddentreasure or the hidden sorrow which would explain why he, their firstcitizen, the respected, even revered judge of their highest court,should make use of such precautions and show such unvaryingdetermination to bar out all comers from the place he called his home.

  It had not always been so. Within the memory of many there it had beenan abode of cheer and good fellowship. Not a few of the men and womennow hesitating before its portals could boast of meals taken at thejudge's ample board, and of evenings spent in animated conversation inthe great room where he kept his books and did his writing.

  But that was before his son left him in so unaccountable a manner;before--yes, all were agreed on this point--before that other bitterordeal of his middle age, the trial and condemnation of the man who hadwaylaid and murdered his best friend.

  Though the effect of these combined sorrows had not seemed to beimmediate (one month had seen both); though a half-year had elapsedbefore all sociability was lost in extreme self-absorption, and a fullone before he took down the picket-fence which had hitherto beenconsidered a sufficient protection to his simple grounds, and put upthese boards which had so completely isolated him from the rest of theworld, it was evident enough to the friends who recalled his look andstep as he walked the streets with Algernon Etheridge on one side andhis brilliant, ever-successful son on the other, that the change nowobservable in him was due to the violent sundering of these two ties.Affections so centred wreck the lives from which they are torn; andTime, which reconciles most men to their losses, had failed to reconcilehim to his. Grief slowly settled into confirmed melancholy, andmelancholy into the eccentricities of which I have spoken and upon whichI must now enlarge a trifle further, in order that the curiosity andsubsequent action of the small group of people in whom we are interestedmay be fully understood and, possibly, in some degree pardoned.

  Judge Ostrander was, as I have certainly made you see, a recluse of themost uncompromising type; but he was such for only half his time. Fromten in the morning till five in the afternoon, he came and went like anyother citizen, fulfilling his judicial duties with the same scrupulouscare as formerly and with more affability. Indeed, he showed at times,and often when it was least expected, a mellowness of temper quiteforeign to him in his early days. The admiration awakened by his fineappearance on the bench was never marred now by those quick and raspingtones of an easily disturbed temper which had gi
ven edge to hisinvective when he stood as pleader in the very court where he nowpresided as judge. But away from the bench, once quit of the courthouseand the town, the man who attempted to accost him on his way to hiscarriage or sought to waylay him at his own gate, had need of all hiscourage to sustain the rebuff his presumption incurred.

  One more detail and I will proceed with my story.

  The son, a man of great ability who was making his way as a journalistin another city, had no explanation to give of his father'speculiarities. Though he never came to Shelby--the rupture between thetwo, if rupture it were, seeming to be complete--there were many who hadvisited him in his own place of business and put such questionsconcerning the judge and his eccentric manner of living as must haveprovoked response had the young man had any response to give. But heappeared to have none. Either he was as ignorant as themselves of thecauses which had led to his father's habit of extreme isolation, or heshowed powers of dissimulation hardly in accordance with the othertraits of his admirable character.

  All of which closed inquiry in this direction, but left the maw ofcuriosity unsatisfied.

  And unsatisfied it had remained up to this hour, when throughaccident--or was it treachery--the barrier to knowledge was down and thequestion of years seemed at last upon the point of being answered.