A Difference of Opinion

At an early hour the next morning, Sweetwater stood before the coroner’s desk, urging a plea he feared to hear refused. He wished to be present at the interview soon to be held with Mr. Brotherson, and he had no good reason to advance why such a privilege should be allotted him.

“It’s not curiosity,” said he. “There’s a question I hope to see settled. I can’t communicate it — you would laugh at me; but it’s an important one, a very important one, and I beg that you will let me sit in one of the corners and hear what he says. I won’t bother and I’ll be very still, so still that he’ll hardly notice me. Do grant me this favour, sir.”

The coroner, who had had some little experience with this man, surveyed him with a smile less forbidding than the poor fellow expected.

“You seem to lay great store by it,” said he; “if you want to sort those papers over there, you may.”

“Thank you. I don’t understand the job, but I promise you not to increase the confusion. If I do; if I rattle the leaves too loudly, it will mean, ‘Press him further on this exact point,’ but I doubt if I rattle them, sir. No such luck.”

The last three words were uttered sotto voce, but the coroner heard him, and followed his ungainly figure with a glance of some curiosity, as he settled himself at the desk on the other side of the room.

“Is the man —” he began, but at this moment the man entered, and Dr. Heath forgot the young detective, in his interest in the new arrival.

Neither dressed with the elegance known to the habitues of the Clermont, nor yet in the workman’s outfit in which he had thought best to appear before the Associated Brotherhood, the newcomer advanced, with an aspect of open respect which could not fail to make a favourable impression upon the critical eye of the official awaiting him. So favourable, indeed, was this impression that that gentleman half rose, infusing a little more consideration into his greeting than he was accustomed to show to his prospective witnesses. Such a fearless eye he had seldom encountered, nor was it often his pleasure to confront so conspicuous a specimen of physical and intellectual manhood.

“Mr. Brotherson, I believe,” said he, as he motioned his visitor to sit.

“That is my name, sir.”

“Orlando Brotherson?”

“The same, sir.”

“I’m glad we have made no mistake,” smiled the doctor. “Mr. Brotherson, I have sent for you under the supposition that you were a friend of the unhappy lady lately dead at the Hotel Clermont.”

“Miss Challoner?”

“Certainly; Miss Challoner.”

“I knew the lady. But —” here the speaker’s eye took on a look as questioning as that of his interlocutor —“but in a way so devoid of all publicity that I cannot but feel surprised that the fact should be known.”

At this, the listening Sweetwater hoped that Dr. Heath would ignore the suggestion thus conveyed and decline the explanation it apparently demanded. But the impression made by the gentleman’s good looks had been too strong for this coroner’s proverbial caution, and, handing over the slip of a note which had been found among Miss Challoner’s effects by her father, he quietly asked:

“Do you recognise the signature?”

“Yes, it is mine.”

“Then you acknowledge yourself the author of these lines?”

“Most certainly. Have I not said that this is my signature?”

“Do you remember the words of this note, Mr. Brotherson?”

“Hardly. I recollect its tenor, but not the exact words.”

“Read them.”

“Excuse me, I had rather not. I am aware that they were bitter and should be the cause of great regret. I was angry when I wrote them.”

“That is evident. But the cause of your anger is not so clear, Mr. Brotherson. Miss Challoner was a woman of lofty character, or such was the universal opinion of her friends. What could she have done to a gentleman like yourself to draw forth such a tirade?”

“You ask that?”

“I am obliged to. There is mystery surrounding her death;— the kind of mystery which demands perfect frankness on the part of all who were near her on that evening, or whose relations to her were in any way peculiar. You acknowledge that your friendship was of such a guarded nature that it surprised you greatly to hear it recognised. Yet you could write her a letter of this nature. Why?”

“Because —” the word came glibly; but the next one was long in following. “Because,” he repeated, letting the fire of some strong feeling disturb for a moment his dignified reserve, “I offered myself to Miss Challoner, and she dismissed me with great disdain.”

“Ah! and so you thought a threat was due her?”

“A threat?”

“These words contain a threat, do they not?”

“They may. I was hardly master of myself at the time. I may have expressed myself in an unfortunate manner.”

“Read the words, Mr. Brotherson. I really must insist that you do so.”

There was no hesitancy now. Rising, he leaned over the table and read the few words the other had spread out for his perusal. Then he slowly rose to his full height, as he answered, with some slight display of compunction:

“I remember it perfectly now. It is not a letter to be proud of. I hope —”

“Pray finish, Mr. Brotherson.”

“That you are not seeking to establish a connection between this letter and her violent death?”

“Letters of this sort are often very mischievous, Mr. Brotherson. The harshness with which this is written might easily rouse emotions of a most unhappy nature in the breast of a woman as sensitive as Miss Challoner.”

“Pardon me, Dr. Heath; I cannot flatter myself so far. You overrate my influence with the lady you name.”

“You believe, then, that she was sincere in her rejection of your addresses?”

A start, too slight to be noted by any one but the watchful Sweetwater, showed that this question had gone home. But the self-poise and mental control of this man were perfect, and in an instant he was facing the coroner again, with a dignity which gave no clew to the disturbance into which his thoughts had just been thrown. Nor was this disturbance apparent in his tones when he made his reply:

“I have never allowed myself to think otherwise. I have seen no reason why I should. The suggestion you would convey by such a question is hardly welcome, now. I pray you to be careful in your judgment of such a woman’s impulses. They often spring from sources not to be sounded even by her dearest friends.”

Just; but how cold! Dr. Heath, eyeing him with admiration rather than sympathy, hesitated how to proceed; while Sweetwater, peering up from his papers, sought in vain for some evidence of the bereaved lover in the impressive but wholly dispassionate figure of him who had just spoken. Had pride got the better of his heart? or had that organ always been subordinate to the will in this man of instincts so varying, that at one time he impressed you simply as a typical gentleman of leisure; at another, as no more than a fiery agitator with powers absorbed by, if not limited to the one cause he advocated; and again — and this seemed the most contradictory of all — just the ardent inventor, living in a tenement, with Science for his goddess and work always under his hand? As the young detective weighed these possibilities and marvelled over the contradictions they offered, he forgot the papers now lying quiet under his hand. He was too interested to remember his own part — something which could not often be said of Sweetwater.

Meantime, the coroner had collected his thoughts. With an apology for the extremely personal nature of his inquiry, he asked Mr. Brotherson if he would object to giving him some further details of his acquaintanceship with Miss Challoner; where he first met her and under what circumstances their friendship had developed.

“Not at all,” was the ready reply. “I have nothing to conceal in the matter. I only wish that her father were present that he might listen to the recital of my acquaintanceship with his daughter. He might possibly understand her better and regard with more leniency the presumption into which I was led by my ignorance of the pride inherent in great families.”

“Your wish can very easily be gratified,” returned the official, pressing an electric button on his desk;

“Mr. Challoner is in the adjoining room.” Then, as the door communicating with the room he had mentioned swung ajar and stood so, Dr. Heath added, without apparent consciousness of the dramatic character of this episode, “You will not need to raise your voice beyond its natural pitch. He can hear perfectly from where he sits.”

“Thank you. I am glad to speak in his presence,” came in undisturbed self-possession from this not easily surprised witness. “I shall relate the facts exactly as they occurred, adding nothing and concealing nothing. If I mistook my position, or Miss Challoner’s position, it is not for me to apologise. I never hid my business from her, nor the moderate extent of my fortune. If she knew me at all, she knew me for what I am; a man of the people who glories in work and who has risen by it to a position somewhat unique in this city. I feel no lack of equality even with such a woman as Miss Challoner.”

A most unnecessary preamble, no doubt, and of doubtful efficacy in smoothing his way to a correct understanding with the deeply bereaved father. But he looked so handsome as he thus asserted himself and made so much of his inches and the noble poise of his head — though cold of eye and always cold of manner — that those who saw, as well as heard him, forgave this display of egotism in consideration of its honesty and the dignity it imparted to his person.

“I first met Miss Challoner in the Berkshires,” he began, after a moment of quiet listening for any possible sound from the other room. “I had been on the tramp, and had stopped at one of the great hotels for a seven days’ rest. I will acknowledge that I chose this spot at the instigation of a relative who knew my tastes and how perfectly they might be gratified there. That I should mingle with the guests may not have been in his thought, any more than it was in mine at the beginning of my stay. The panorama of beauty spread out before me on every side was sufficient in itself for my enjoyment, and might have continued so to the end if my attention had not been very forcibly drawn on one memorable morning to a young lady — Miss Challoner — by the very earnest look she gave me as I was crossing the office from one verandah to another. I must insist on this look, even if it shock the delicacy of my listeners, for without the interest it awakened in me, I might not have noticed the blush with which she turned aside to join her friends on the verandah. It was an overwhelming blush which could not have sprung from any slight embarrassment, and, though I hate the pretensions of those egotists who see in a woman’s smile more than it by right conveys, I could not help being moved by this display of feeling in one so gifted with every grace and attribute of the perfect woman. With less caution than I usually display, I approached the desk where she had been standing and, meeting the eyes of the clerk, asked the young lady’s name. He gave it, and waited for me to express the surprise he expected it to evoke. But I felt none and showed none. Other feelings had seized me. I had heard of this gracious woman from many sources, in my life among the suffering masses of New York, and now that I had seen her and found her to be not only my ideal of personal loveliness but seemingly approachable and not uninterested in myself, I allowed my fancy to soar and my heart to become touched. A fact which the clerk now confided to me naturally deepened the impression. Miss Challoner had seen my name in the guest-book and asked to have me pointed out to her. Perhaps she had heard my name spoken in the same quarter where I had heard hers. We have never exchanged confidences on the subject, and I cannot say. I can only give you my reason for the interest I felt in Miss Challoner and why I forgot, in the glamour of this episode, the aims and purposes of a not unambitious life and the distance which the world and the so-called aristocratic class put between a woman of her wealth and standing and a simple worker like myself.

“I must be pardoned. She had smiled upon me once, and she smiled again. Days before we were formally presented, I caught her softened look turned my way, as we passed each other in hall or corridor. We were friends, or so it appeared to me, before ever a word passed between us, and when fortune favoured us and we were duly introduced, our minds met in a strange sympathy which made this one interview a memorable one to me. Unhappily, as I then considered it, this was my last day at the hotel, and our conversation, interrupted frequently by passing acquaintances, was never resumed. I exchanged a few words with her by way of good-bye but nothing more. I came to New York, and she remained in Lenox. A month after and she too came to New York.”

“This good-bye — do you remember it? The exact language, I mean?”

“I do; it made a great impression on me. ‘I shall hope for our further acquaintance,’ she said. ‘We have one very strong interest in common. And if ever a human face spoke eloquently, it............