How Many Cards?/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LAST HAND
"AND so you are going back to the old country?" McCarty asked. "I'll miss you both sorely, for 'twas a breath of the times that are gone that you brought with you, Lady Peggy!"
It was a month later and McCarty sat beside Mrs. O'Rourke in the deep window seat of her little sitting-room.
"It's best." She spoke with a slight tightening of her lips. "America has not been unkind to us and some of the friends we found were good and true, but since John found out the truth about Mr. Waverly's crookedness through Mr. Ford exposing him in the papers for cheating at cards he's disgusted. He wants to go back and settle down and be 'the' O'Rourke once more and I—I shall be so glad!"
"You'll be happier there," said McCarty in a low tone. "Did you ever know that my grandmother was born with a caul and I've a bit of a knack at telling fortunes? People would laugh at it here but you—I believe the fairies still dance for you at the turn of the moon!"
"I wonder!" She was gazing off into space and her blue eyes had misted. "I wonder if they will come back?—But will you tell me my fortune, Mr. McCarty? I promise not to laugh but to believe you true!"
She held out her small palm and he took it very gently as though it were a fragile thing that might break in his clasp.
"There's a long life before you, Lady Peggy, a useful and happy life, and contentment of mind. You've known all the sorrow that'll ever come to you, and the way is clear now, and sunny and peaceful." He drew a deep breath and added slowly and very deliberately: "I wonder how so delicate a bit of a hand could stand the kick of a .44?"
Her eyes met his quickly and clung there, widening and darkening even as she shrank slowly from him and the blood ebbed from her lips. The shrill laughter of children playing in the park across the avenue came floating up to the open window on a breeze that was laden with the perfume of blossoming wisteria.
When she spoke at last her voice was very low, but clear and steady.
"You know, then? I'm glad, I think." Then after a little silence: "How long have you known?"
"Since the last time I came here; that Sunday night, do you remember? I'd come for a bit of a chat with himself and he brought me in here to you. You were sitting at that desk over there writing a letter and as I stepped up to you to shake hands I looked down; I don't know what made me for I hadn't a thought of the truth." He paused. "The words you had written stared up at me as though they were in letters of flame and I knew the writing; I'd been looking for it ever since a certain note came into my hands with seven words at the bottom of it. "I accept. Expect me half-past twelve.'
"Of course I'd known from the minute I stood beside that supper table in the other house that a woman and not a man had been there; the remains of that supper showed that it had been light and fancy, not at all the sort of stuff for the hearty appetites of two men, and I thought I could guess what had happened but I wasn't sure. When I knew who the woman was I couldn't think at first why she had done it. There was some one who I thought could tell me, but—but I got no hint from his lips. I think the whole story of it is clear to me now."
"I wonder if it is?" she said slowly. "You know the old, reckless, gambling strain in the blood of both John and me, Mr. McCarty."
"The fine old sporting strain!" he exclaimed. "Tell me why you did it, Lady Peggy; why you killed him!"
"I am trying to do so," she replied. "We're as poor as church mice, you know. The rents at home were getting lower and lower and the dear old castle tumbling about our ears. John had a wild idea about coming to America and getting rich as quickly as some millionaires do here, and so we came and got in with Mr. Cutter and all that set. I loved the cards, too; the gambling fever was strong in me as well as in him. Soon I was deep in debt and I couldn't bear to tell him, for he had lost, also, and the disgrace of it stared me in the face, sleeping and waking!
"The man who—who died in his study that night had been very kind. I did not realize that it was all part of a game, a horrible, vile game which none of my sort had ever played. He knew the position I was in, he offered to lend me money and I was weak enough to accept it. I gave him notes, of course, and I always hoped to win back enough to pay him, but I lost instead; he saw to that! When I was in too deep to extricate myself he put on the screws and I was desperate! I knew that John would never forgive me if he knew and there was no one to whom I could turn. He—that man—demanded that I come and have supper with him; he said he had a proposition to make whereby I could repay him, and he was so plausible that I half believed him, yet I was afraid, for all that.
"He said if I came that I should have my notes back; that he would trust to my word, and at last I consented. He sent a peremptory message summoning me and I went, but I took the pistol with me; it was one that a servant of ours had carried in the war and left here when he went West.
"I stole like a thief out of my own house and down the Avenue to his, and made a pretense of eating the supper which was laid out. I even tried to smoke a cigarette but the amber holder broke in my fingers. It was after supper, in the study, that he laid his cards on the table and I had no choice. I was alone there with him, and it meant his life against what was more to me than my own. You understand now, don't you, Mr. McCarty?"
"Yes." He nodded very gravely. "All but about that nine of diamonds."
"That card! You found it?" She glanced quickly at him and then away. "It was a lucky card, a mascot which Mr. Waverly had given me. I knew its history; once before, the words 'no quarter' had been written across the face of it and I took it with me to show that man, if his intentions toward me were really as black as I feared, that I, too, would give no quarter! I did show it to him, but he countered by showing me my promissory notes and telling me that in the morning they would be in my husband's hands if I did not surrender. The card fell to the floor, and afterwards—afterwards when he, too, lay at my feet I looked down and saw it. I picked it up without thinking what I was doing and it was stained with his blood! A sort of horror seized me then and I thrust it under something, I don't know what. I took my notes, laid the pistol beside his hand and stumbled out of the house. I don't know how I got home; I don't remember anything until I found myself in my own room, and all that had passed since I left—it seemed like a frightful dream."
"And that's all it is, Lady Peggy. A dream that you'll wake up from and forget when you're back in the old country again," McCarty said softly.
"Oh, what a friend you are!" Her eyes were shining as she turned them to his once more. "But why didn't you denounce me? Why didn't you speak when you knew? It was your duty, you were an officer of the law!"
"The law that man has made, maybe, but there's a higher law than that, and by it you were justified." He paused and added whimsically: "Would I go back on my own? You're Irish, too, Lady Peggy!"
THE END