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Too ill and nervous for the store, and too resourceless for the house, he had worried through twelve hours as wearing as any he could recollect. He imagined himself as still the king-pin of the Marshall & Belden Company indeed, he found in that belief some consolation for his difficulty in reconciling himself to the style and title that the course of the business had finally evolved.
To-night he was the only one of their kind in a strange place -his cousin loved him, they all loved him. The expedition had the sentiment of a frolic under the severer political aspect. In the welcome to the visitors by the home committee Mr. Belden also received his part, in their surprised recognition of him, almost amounting to a discovery.
They all followed him, and after showing the mother and daughter to their seats near a window he drew his father into a corner, and in rapid undertone related the story of his first meeting with Berrie, of his trouble with young Belden, of his camping trip, minutely describing the encounter on the mountainside, and ended by saying, with manly directness: "I would be up there in the mountains in a box if Berrie had not intervened.
At all events, that was the only explanation I could find for her general industry and desire to improve herself, or for the complacent smiles I detected now and then stealing over her face when she didn't know I was looking." Not such a smile as crept over the countenance of Mr. Gryce at that moment, I warrant. "It was all this," continued Mrs. Belden, "which made her death such a shock to me.
Belden received two letters from the postmaster yesterday; one in a large and one in a small envelope; if you could find out where they were postmarked " Q put his hand in his pocket. "I think I will not have to go far to find out where one of them came from. Good George, I have lost it!" And before I knew it, he had returned up-stairs. That moment I heard the gate click. Taming of the Shrew.
Belden, though given from a different standpoint; but there is one passage in it which, if I am not mistaken, opens up the way to an explanation of this murder such as we have not had yet. Begin at the beginning; you won't find it dull." Dull! Eleanore's feelings and thoughts during that anxious time, dull!
Statira Belden had come to do the decencies; Eliza Marshall received her with the grim inexpressiveness of a granite bowlder. "My husband is resting quietly to-day," she said, in response to Mrs. Belden's inquiries. He was unconscious under chloral, after three nights of open-eyed torment. Mrs. Belden passed one of her large, smooth gloves over the other and praised the house.
Surely no blame could attach to the frank and generous girl, even though the jealous assault of Cliff Belden should throw the valley into a fever of chatter. "Furthermore, I don't believe he will be in haste to speak of his share in the play," he added. "It was too nearly criminal."
Belden," I said, "your position as the only one conscious of the presence of this girl in your house makes it wiser for you not to invite suspicion by lingering any longer than is necessary in the room where her dead body lies." "As if my neglect of her now were the best surety of my good intentions towards her in time past!"
"I'm sure you will," said Betty, heartily, and after they had arranged for the returning of Nita's pin in such a way as not to involve Miss Harrison, they started back to the Belden, Georgia to begin her packing and Betty to join the rest of the "Merry Hearts," who were spending the evening on the piazza. But after all Betty slipped past them and went on up-stairs. She was in a very serious mood.
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