Agatha Webb Read Free Page A

ill-naturedly, "it's a morbid
curiosity that brings you here. Better drop it, girl; it won't do
you any good in the eyes of sensible people."
    "Thank you," was her demure reply, her lips dimpling at the
corners in a way to shock the sensitive Mr. Sutherland.
    Glancing from her to the still outlines of the noble figure on the
couch, he remarked with an air of mild reproof:
    "I do not understand you, Miss Page. If this solemn sight has no
power to stop your coquetries, nothing can. As for your curiosity,
it is both ill-timed and unwomanly. Let me see you leave this
house at once, Miss Page; and if in the few hours which must
elapse before breakfast you can find time to pack your trunks, you
will still farther oblige me."
    "Oh, don't send me away, I entreat you."
    It was a cry from her inner heart, which she probably regretted,
for she instantly sought to cover up her inadvertent self-betrayal
by a submissive bend of the head and a step backward. Neither Mr.
Fenton nor Mr. Sutherland seemed to hear the one or see the other,
their attention having returned to the more serious matter in
hand.
    "The dress which our poor friend wears shows her to have been
struck before retiring," commented Mr. Sutherland, after another
short survey of Mrs. Webb's figure. "If Philemon—"
    "Excuse me, sir," interrupted the voice of the young man who had
been left in the hall, "the lady is listening to what you say. She
is still at the head of the stairs."
    "She is, is she!" cried Fenton, sharply, his admiration for the
fascinating stranger having oozed out at his companion's rebuff.
"I will soon show her—" But the words melted into thin air as he
reached the door. The young girl had disappeared, and only a faint
perfume remained in the place where she had stood.
    "A most extraordinary person," grumbled the constable, turning
back, but stopping again as a faint murmur came up from below.
    "The gentleman is waking," called up a voice whose lack of music
was quite perceptible at a distance.
    With a bound Mr. Fenton descended the stairs, followed by Mr.
Sutherland.
    Miss Page stood before the door of the room in which sat Philemon
Webb. As they reached her side, she made a little bow that was
half mocking, half deprecatory, and slipped from the house. An
almost unbearable sensation of incongruity vanished with her, and
Mr. Sutherland, for one, breathed like a man relieved.
    "I wish the doctor would come," Fenton said, as they watched the
slow lifting of Philemon Webb's head. "Our fastest rider has gone
for him, but he's out Portchester way, and it may be an hour yet
before he can get here."
    "Philemon!"
    Mr. Sutherland had advanced and was standing by his old friend's
side.
    "Philemon, what has become of your guests? You've waited for them
here until morning."
    The old man with a dazed look surveyed the two plates set on
either side of him and shook his head.
    "James and John are getting proud," said he, "or they forget, they
forget."
    James and John. He must mean the Zabels, yet there were many
others answering to these names in town. Mr. Sutherland made
another effort.
    "Philemon, where is your wife? I do not see any place set here for
her!"
    "Agatha's sick, Agatha's cross; she don't care for a poor old man
like me."
    "Agatha's dead and you know it," thundered back the constable,
with ill-judged severity. "Who killed her? tell me that. Who
killed her?"
    A sudden quenching of the last spark of intelligence in the old
man's eye was the dreadful effect of these words. Laughing with
that strange gurgle which proclaims an utterly irresponsible mind,
he cried:
    "The pussy cat! It was the pussy cat. Who's killed? I'm not
killed. Let's go to Jericho."
    Mr. Sutherland took him by the arm and led him up-stairs. Perhaps
the sight of his dead wife would restore him. But he looked at her
with the same indifference he showed to everything else.
    "I don't like her calico dresses," said he. "She might have worn
silk, but she wouldn't. Agatha, will you wear silk to