Part 64

To O'Reilly Heron was repeating, as they walked along:

"Your wife, did you say?"

"I did say. But before I go on I've a question or so to ask. You got my wire, advising you to be careful, and hinting that some of the old lot had bobbed up along your life line?"

"Yes. We were out all the afternoon. I found the wire this evening when we got back to Hammersley-Fisher's place to dress for this show at Roger Sands'. Now will you tell me----"

"I'll tell you this, that my opinion of Mrs. Roger Sands has changed. You shall hear why presently. I rather think it will give you pleasure to change yours--when you can conscientiously. As for Sands himself, I've learned that we have both done him an injustice in regard to those papers."

"How have you learned all this?"

"From the same person who wished me to put you on your guard--made me call you up at Narragansett, and wire when I couldn't reach you by 'phone!"

"Who is this person?"

"My wife. And if you want to know who she is----"

"I most certainly do."

"I could introduce you to her in about two minutes if I weren't afraid of her giving you another shock."

"Another--shock?"

"As she did on the Sunday night at our hotel when you had your--little attack. Heron, I've married that girl; the most wonderful girl in the world."

Heron stopped short.

"That girl!--you--have--married that girl?"

"Yes," said Justin, "I married her this morning. So, if you'd been inclined to forbid the banns, you're too late."

For an instant Heron did not speak. But when words came, he seemed to fling them at his friend: "You're not joking when you say that, O'Reilly. You have a meaning. What's in your mind?"

"Perhaps--the same thing that's in yours, Heron."

"Speak out plainly."

"I'm not prepared to do that without encouragement. You and I are both of Irish blood, Heron, so you know as well as I do that imagination gets out of hand now and then with us Celtic folk. We generally flatter ourselves it's second sight, whereas it may be--just nothing at all."

"I give you leave to speak."

"Long ago, when I first knew you, while my father was still alive, and before you married Miss Moreno, you once came to stop with us. You were run down and ill. My father thought we could do you good. One day you spoke rather frankly about a certain incident in your past. Never since have we mentioned that conversation, and I never expected to do so again. Yesterday I heard the story of another incident which matched it about as perfectly as two bits of a broken coin can join together. This second incident concerned two Irish girls. The first died years ago. The second--is my wife."

"And the first was mine."

"I was wondering. You see, that collapse of yours on Sunday night wasn't like you, in the normal course of things. It had to be accounted for, and so----"

"The girl told you!"

"She told me that she'd met outside my door a tall man with red hair and beard, and extraordinary eyes that pierced her through and through. She told me that, after she'd walked on to a stone ledge from my window to yours, and climbed in there----"

"Great Heavens!"

"I mentioned that she was the most wonderful girl in the world. You'll hear the story some day. She didn't know who you were, then. When she learned your name, although she wasn't conscious of having heard it in the past, it affected her strangely. She seemed to associate it with wakeful nights in her early childhood, and the sound of a woman's sobs in the dark."