The Chief Legatee

  CHAPTER XII

  "GEORGIAN!"

  Mr. Ransom was the first one in the hall. He had not undressed himself,expecting a totally sleepless night. It was his figure, then, that themaid encountered as she came running from her post at the end of thecorridor.

  "Which room? which?" he gasped out, ignoring every precaution in hisblind terror.

  "This one. I am sure it came from this one," she declared, knockingloudly on Anitra's door.

  There was a rustle within, a cry which was half a sob, then the sound ofa hand fumbling with the lock. Meanwhile, Mr. Ransom had bent his ear tohis wife's door.

  "All still in here," he cried. "Not a sound. Something dreadful hashappened--"

  Just then Anitra's door fell back and a wild image confronted him andsuch others as had by this time collected in the passageway. With only ashawl covering her nightdress, the gipsy-like creature stood clawing theair and answering the looks that appealed to her, with wild gurgles, tillsuddenly her hot glances fell on Roger Ransom, when she instantly becamerigid and stammered out:

  "She's gone! I saw her black figure go by my window. She called out thatthe waterfall drew her. She went by the little balcony and the roof. Theroof was slippery with the rain and she fell. That's why I screamed. Butshe got up again. What is she going to do at the waterfall? Stop her!stop her! She hasn't steady feet like me, and I wasn't really angry. Iliked her; I liked her."

  Sobs choked the rest. Her terror was infectious. Mr. Ransom reeled, thenflung himself at Georgian's door. It resisted but the silence within toldhim that she was not there. Neither was she in Anitra's room. They couldall look in and see it bare to the window.

  "You saw her climbing past there?" he cried, forgetting she was deaf.

  "Yes, yes," she chattered, catching his meaning from his pointing finger."There's a balcony. She must have jumped on it from her own window. Shedidn't come in here. See! the door is locked on her side."

  This was true.

  "I woke and saw her. My eyes are like lynx's. I got out of bed to watch.She fell--"

  The noise of a breaking lock snapped her words in two. One of the menpresent had flung himself against this communicating door. Immediatelythey all crowded into the adjoining room. It was empty and bitterly coldand wet. An open window explained why, and possibly the letter lying onthe bureau inscribed with her husband's name would explain the rest. Buthe stopped to read no letters now.

  "Show me the way to those falls," he cried, pocketing the letter as herushed by the disheveled Anitra into the open hall. "I'm her husband,Roger Ransom. Who goes with me? He who does is my friend for life."

  The clerk and one or two others rushed for their coats and lanterns. Hewaited for nothing. The roar of the waterfall had told him too many talesthat day. And the will! Her will just signed!

  "Georgian!"

  They could hear his cry.

  "Georgian! Georgian! Wait! wait! hear what I have to say!" thrilled backthrough the mist as he stumbled on, followed by the men waving theirlanterns and shouting words of warning he probably never heard. Then hiscry further off and fainter. "Georgian! Georgian!" Then silence and theslow drizzle of rain on the soggy walk and soaked roofs, with the far-offboom of the waterfall which Mrs. Deo and the trembling maids gazing atthe wide-eyed Anitra shivering in the center of her deserted room, triedto shut out by closing window and blind, forgetting that she was deaf andonly heard such echoes as were thundering in her own mind.