forbidding. However I had not come upon an errand of pleasure, so I did not spend much time in contemplating my surroundings, but beckoning to the conductor of the street-car on which I was riding, I asked him if he knew Mrs. Wakeham's house, and when he nodded, asked him to set me down before it. I thought he gave me a queer look, but as his attention was at that moment diverted, I could not be sure of it, and before he came my way again the car had stopped and he was motioning to me to alight.
"'That is the house,' said he, pointing to two huge gate-posts glimmering whitely in the light of a street-lamp opposite, and I was on the sidewalk and in front of the two posts before I remembered that a man on the rear platform of the car had muttered as I stepped by him: 'A visitor for Widow Wakeham, eh; she must be sick, then!'
"The house stood back a short distance from the street, and as I entered the gate, which by the way looked as if it would tumble down if I touched it, I could see nothing but a gray mass with one twinkling light in it. But as I drew nearer I became aware that it was not a well-kept and hospitable mansion towards which I was tending, however imposing might be its size and general structure. If only from the tangled growth of the shrubbery about me and the long dank stalks of the weeds that lay as if undisturbed by mortal feet upon the walk, I could gather that whatever fortune Mrs. Wakeham might have to leave she had not expended much in the keeping of her home. But it was upon reaching the house I experienced the greatest surprise. There were walls before me, no doubt, and a huge portico, but the latter was hanging as it were by faith to supports so dilapidated that even the darkness of that late hour could not hide their ruin or the impending fall of the whole structure. So old, so uncared-for, and so utterly out of keeping with the errand upon which I had come looked the whole place that I instinctively drew back, assured that the conductor had made some mistake in directing me thither. But no sooner had I turned my back upon the house, than a window was thrown up over my head and I heard the strangely eager voice of a man say:
"'This is the place, sir. Wait, and I will open the door for you.'
"I did as he bade me, though not without some reluctance. The voice, for all its tone of anxiety, sounded at once false and harsh, and I instinctively associated with it a harsh and false face. The house, too, did not improve in appearance upon approach. The steps shook under my tread, and I could not but notice by the faint light sifting through the bushes from the lamp on the other side of the way, that the balustrades had been pulled from their places, leaving only gaping holes to mark where they had once been. The door was intact, but in running my hand over it I discovered that the mouldings had been stripped from its face, and that the knocker, hanging as it did by one nail, was ready to fall at the first provocation. If Cynthia Wakeham lived here, it would be interesting to know the extent of her wealth. As there seemed to be some delay in the opening of the door, I had time to note that the grounds (all of these houses have grounds about them) were of some extent, but, as I have said, in a manifest condition of overgrowth and neglect. As I mused upon the contrast they must afford in the bright daylight to the wide and well-kept lawns of the more ambitious owners on either side, a footstep sounded on the loose boards which had evidently been flung down at one side of the house as a sort of protection to the foot from the darkness and mud of the neglected path, and a woman's form swung dimly into view, laden with a great pile of what looked to me like brushwood. As she passed she seemed to become conscious of my presence, and, looking up, she let the huge bundle slip slowly from her shoulders till it lay in the darkness at her feet.
"'Are you,' she whispered, coming close to the foot of the steps, 'going in there?'
"'Yes,' I returned, struck by the mingled surprise and incredulity in her tone.
"She stood still a minute, then came up a step.
"'Are you a minister?' she asked.
"'No,' I laughed; 'why?'
"She seemed to reason with herself before saying: 'No one ever goes into that house; I thought perhaps you did not know. They won't have any one. Would you mind telling me,' she went on, in a hungry whisper almost thrilling to hear, coming as it did through the silence and darkness of the night, 'what you find in the house? I will be at the gate, sir, and – '
"She paused, probably awed by the force of my exclamation, and picking up her bundle of wet boughs, slunk away, but not without turning more than once before she reached the gate. Scarcely had she disappeared into the street when a window went up in a neighboring house. At the same moment, some one, I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman, came up the path as far as the first trees and there paused, while a shrill voice called out:
"'They never unlocks that door; visitors ain't wanted.'
"Evidently, if I were not admitted soon I should have the whole neighborhood about me.
"I lifted the knocker, but it came off in my hand. Angry at the mischance, and perhaps a little moved by the excitement of my position, I raised the broken piece of iron and gave a thundering knock on the rotten panels before me. Instantly the door opened, creaking ominously as it did so, and a man stood in the gap with a wretched old kerosene lamp in his hand. The apologetic leer on his evil countenance did not for a moment deceive me.
"'I beg your pardon,' he hurriedly exclaimed, and his voice showed he was a man of education, notwithstanding his forlorn and wretched appearance, 'but the old woman had a turn just as you came, and I could not leave her.'
"I looked at him, and instinct told me to quit the spot and not enter a house so vilely guarded. For the man was not only uncouth to the last degree in dress and aspect, but sinister in expression and servilely eager in bearing.
"'Won't you come in?' he urged. 'The old woman is past talking, but she can make signs; perhaps an hour from now she will not be able to do even that.'
"'Do you allude to the woman who wishes to make her will?' I asked.
"'Yes,' he answered, greedily, 'Cynthia Wakeham, my sister.' And he gently pushed the door in a way that forced me to enter or show myself a coward.
"I took heart and went in. What poverty I beheld before me in the light of that solitary smoking lamp! If the exterior of the house bore the marks of devastation, what shall I say of the barren halls and denuded rooms which now opened before me? Not a chair greeted my eyes, though a toppling stool here and there showed that people sat in this place. Nor did I see a table, though somewhere in some remote region beyond the staircase I heard the clatter of plates, as if eating were also known in this home of almost ostentatious penury. Staircase I say, but I should have said steps, for the balustrades were missing here just as they had been missing without, and not even a rail remained to speak of old-time comfort and prosperity.
"'I am very poor,' humbly remarked the man, answering my look of perplexity. 'It is my sister who has the money.' And moving towards the stairs, he motioned me to ascend.
"Even then I recoiled, not knowing what to make of this adventure; but hearing a hollow groan from above, uttered in tones unmistakably feminine, I remembered my errand and went up, followed so closely by the man, that his breath, mingled with the smell of that vile lamp, seemed to pant on my shoulder. I shall never smell kerosene again without recalling the sensations of that moment.
"Arriving at the top of the stair, up which my distorted shadow had gone before me, I saw an open door and went in. A woman was lying in one corner on a hard and uncomfortable bed, a woman whose eyes drew me to her side before a word had been spoken.
"She was old and in the last gasp of some fatal disease. But it was not this which impressed me most. It was the searching look with which she greeted me, – a piteous, hunted look, like that of some wild animal driven to bay and turning upon her conqueror for some signs of relenting or pity. It made the haggard face eloquent; it assured me without a word that some great wrong had been done or was about to be done, and
