PINES***


E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team



THE HOUSE OF THE WHISPERING PINES

By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

1910

Author of

"The Leavenworth Case," "That Affair Next Door," "One of My Sons," etc.







"Mazes intricate,
Eccentric, interwov'd, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem".

_Milton_




CONTENTS


BOOK I

SMOKE

     I.--THE HESITATING STEP

    II.--IT WAS SHE--SHE INDEED!

   III.--"OPEN!"

    IV.--THE ODD CANDLESTICK

     V.--A SCRAP OF PAPER

    VI.--COMMENTS AND REFLECTIONS

   VII.--CLIFTON ACCEPTS MY CASE

  VIII.--A CHANCE! I TAKE IT


BOOK II

SWEETWATER TO THE FRONT

    IX.--"WE KNOW OF No SUCH LETTER"

     X.--"I CAN HELP YOU"

    XI.--IN THE COACH HOUSE

   XII.--"LILA--LILA!"

  XIII.--"WHAT WE WANT IS HERE"

   XIV.--THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE

    XV.--HELEN SURPRISES SWEETWATER

   XVI.--62 CUTHBERT ROAD

  XVII.--"MUST I TELL THESE THINGS?"

 XVIII.--ON IT WAS WRITTEN--

   XIX.--"IT'S NOT WHAT YOU WILL FIND"


BOOK III

HIDDEN SURPRISES

    XX.---"HE OR YOU! THERE IS NO THIRD"

   XXI.--CARMEL AWAKES

  XXII.---"BREAK IN THE GLASS!"

 XXIII.--AT TEN INSTEAD OF TWELVE

  XXIV.--ALL THIS STOOD

   XXV.--"I AM INNOCENT"

  XXVI.--THE SYLLABLE OF DOOM

 XXVII.--EXPECTANCY

XXVIII.--"WHERE Is MY BROTHER?"


BOOK IV

WHAT THE PINES WHISPERED

  XXIX.--"I REMEMBERED THE ROOM"

   XXX.--"CHOOSE"

  XXXI.--"WERE HER HANDS CROSSED THEN?"

 XXXII.--AND I HAD SAID NOTHING!

XXXIII.--THE ARROW OF DEATH

 XXXIV.--"STEADY!"

  XXXV.--"As IF IT WERE A MECCA"

 XXXVI.--THE SURCHARGED MOMENT




BOOK ONE

SMOKE



I

THE HESITATING STEP

To have reared a towering scheme
Of happiness, and to behold it razed,
Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes
Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew;
But--

_A Blot in the 'Scutcheon._


The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it--clouds
heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly,
desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the desire of my
life, the one precious treasure which I coveted with my whole
undisciplined heart, and not being what you call a man of
self-restraint, I was chafed by my defeat far beyond the bounds I have
usually set for myself.

The moon--with the wild skurry of clouds hastening to blot it out of
sight--seemed to mirror the chaos threatening my better impulses; and,
idly keeping it in view, I rode on, hardly conscious of my course till
the rapid recurrence of several well-known landmarks warned me that I
had taken the longest route home, and that in another moment I should be
skirting the grounds of The Whispering Pines, our country clubhouse. _I_
had taken? Let me rather say, my horse; for he and I had traversed this
road many times together, and he had no means of knowing that the season
was over and the club-house closed. I did not think of it myself at the
moment, and was recklessly questioning whether I should not drive in and
end my disappointment in a wild carouse, when, the great stack of
chimneys coming suddenly into view against the broad disk of the still
unclouded moon, I perceived a thin trail of smoke soaring up from their
midst and realised, with a shock, that there should be no such sign of
life in a house I myself had closed, locked, and barred that very day.

I was the president of the club and felt responsible. Pausing only long
enough to make sure that I had yielded to no delusion, and that fire of
some kind was burning on one of the club-house's deserted hearths, I
turned in at the lower gateway. For reasons which I need not now state,
there were no bells attached to my cutter and consequently my approach
was noiseless. I was careful that it should be so, also careful to stop
short of the front door and leave my horse and sleigh in the black depths
of the pine-grove pressing up to the walls on either side. I was sure
that all was not as it should be inside these walls, but, as God lives, I
had no idea what was amiss or how deeply my own destiny was involved in
the step I was about to take.

Our club-house stands, as it may be necessary to remind you, on a knoll
thickly wooded with the ancient trees I have mentioned. These trees--all
pines and of a growth unusual and of an aspect well-nigh hoary--extend
only to the rear end of the house, where a wide stretch of gently
undulating ground opens at once upon the eye, suggesting to all lovers of
golf the admirable use to which it is put from early spring to latest
fall. Now, links, as well as parterres and driveways, are lying under an
even blanket of winter snow, and even the building, with its picturesque
gables and rows of be-diamonded windows, is well-nigh indistinguishable
in the shadows cast by the heavy pines, which soar above it and twist
their limbs over its roof and about its forsaken corners, with a moan and
a whisper always desolate to the sensitive ear, but from this night on,
simply appalling.

No other building stood within a half-mile in any direction. It was
veritably a country club, gay and full of life in the season, but
isolated and lonesome beyond description after winter had set in and
buried flower and leaf under a wide waste of untrodden snow.

I felt this isolation as I stepped from the edge of the trees and
prepared to cross the few feet of open space leading to the main door.
The sudden darkness instantly enveloping me, as the clouds, whose
advancing mass I had been watching, made their final rush upon the moon,
added its physical shock to this inner sense of desolation, and, in some
moods, I should have paused and thought twice before attempting the door,
behind which lurked the unknown with its naturally accompanying
suggestion of peril. But rage and disappointment, working hotly within
me, had left no space for fear. Rather rejoicing in the doubtfulness of
the adventure, I pushed my way over the snow until my feet struck the
steps. Here, instinct caused me to stop and glance quickly up and down
the building either way. Not a gleam of light met my eye from the
smallest scintillating pane. Was the house as soundless as it was dark?

I listened but heard nothing. I listened again and still heard nothing.
Then I proceeded boldly up the steps and laid my hand on the door.

It was unlatched and yielded to my touch. Light or no light, sound or no
sound there was some one within. The fire which had sent its attenuated
streak of smoke up into the moonlit air, was burning yet on one of the
many hearths within, and before it I should presently see--

Whom?

What?

The question scarcely interested me.

Nevertheless I proceeded to enter and close the door carefully behind me.
As I did so, I cast an involuntary glance without. The sky was inky and a
few wandering flakes of the now rapidly advancing storm