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Updated: May 15, 2025
Number Five study attended, with its usual air of bland patronage. At last McTurk, of the lanthorn jaws, delivered himself: "You jabber and jaw and burble, and that's about all you can do. What's the good of it? King's house'll only gloat because they've drawn you, and King will gloat, too. Besides, that resolution of Orrin's is chock-full of bad grammar, and King'll gloat over that."
"I'm sure we shall enjoy them," she declared. "Where is the bog, Ellis? Is it very wet there?" "'Tain't wet at all this year. This has been such a dry season. It's down back of Cap'n Orrin's barn." "Oh, is that the place?" Molly was peeping over her aunt's shoulder. "I've always longed to go there but I was afraid it was all sloppy and marshy; some one said it was."
We were all there and the minister had said the words, and Orrin's body had been lowered to its final rest, when suddenly, as they were about to move Juliet, a tumult was observed in the outskirts of the crowd, and the Colonel towering in his rage and appalling in his just indignation, fought his way through the recoiling masses till he stood in our very midst.
Colonel Schuyler has come and, I hear, is storming angrily over the mishaps that have delayed the progress of his new dwelling. He says he will not go away again till it is completed, and has been riding all the morning in every direction, engaging new men to aid the dilatory workmen already employed. Does Orrin know this? I will go down to his house and see. And now I know Orrin's secret.
It was early the next morning that a young lady, very much perturbed, called on us at our hotel, scarcely waiting even the introduction of her plainly engraved card bearing the name, Miss Norma Sanford. "Perhaps you know of my sister, Asta Sanford, Mrs. Orrin Everson," she began, speaking very rapidly as if under stress. "We're down here on Asta's honeymoon in Orrin's yacht, the Belle Aventure."
I have sometimes thought no, and I have oftener thought yes. At all events she trembles when she speaks of him, and shows emotion of no slight order when a letter of his is suddenly put in her hand. I wish I could read her pretty, changeful face more readily. It would be a comfort for me to know that she saw her own way clearly, and was not disturbed by Orrin's comings and goings.
As I did so, I took another look at the house and saw with a strange pang at the heart that the plastering was on the walls and the windows ready for glazing. "I was wrong," said I to myself; "it is Orrin's house which will be finished first." And what if it is? Will she turn her back upon the Colonel's lofty structure and take refuge in this cottage remote from the world?
It was a fire that we saw, and the flames, which had now got furious headway, rose up like pillars to the sky, illuminating all the country round, and showing me, both by their position and the glare of the stream beneath them, that it was Orrin's house which was burning, and Orrin's hopes which were being destroyed before our eyes.
I do not know whether Orrin succeeded or not in his attempts to shame the Colonel from intruding upon his interviews with Juliet. I am only sure that Orrin's countenance smoothed itself after this day, and that I heard no more complaints of Juliet's wavering fidelity. I myself do not believe she has ever wavered.
Of one thing only have I been made sure; that it was the Colonel who lit the brand which fired Orrin's cottage. I am a young physician of limited practice and great ambition.
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