Dark Hollow
Green, Anna Katharine, 1846-1935
English
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Below is a summary of Dark Hollow
DARK HOLLOW
By ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
Author of "The House of the Whispering Pines," "Initials Only,"
"That Affair Next Door," Etc.
With Four Illustrations By THOMAS FOGARTY
BOOK I
THE WOMAN IN PURPLE
I
WHERE IS BELA?
A high and narrow gate of carefully joined boards, standing ajar
in a fence of the same construction! What is there in this to
rouse a whole neighbourhood and collect before it a group of
eager, anxious, hesitating people?
I will tell you.
This fence is no ordinary fence, and this gate no ordinary gate;
nor is the fact of the latter standing a trifle open, one to be
lightly regarded or taken an inconsiderate advantage of. For this
is Judge Ostrander's place, and any one who knows Shelby or the
gossip of its suburbs, knows that this house of his has not opened
its doors to any outsider, man or woman, for over a dozen years;
nor have his gates--in saying which, I include the great one in
front--been seen in all that time to gape at any one's instance or
to stand unclosed to public intrusion, no, not for a moment. The
seclusion sought was absolute. The men and women who passed and
repassed this corner many times a day were as ignorant as the
townspeople in general of what lay behind the grey, monotonous
exterior of the weather-beaten boards they so frequently brushed
against. The house was there, of course,--they all knew the house,
or did once--but there were rumours (no one ever knew how they
originated) of another fence, a second barrier, standing a few
feet inside the first and similar to it in all respects, even to
the gates which corresponded exactly with these outer and visible
ones and probably were just as fully provided with bolts and bars.
To be sure, these were reports rather than acknowledged facts, but
the possibility of their truth roused endless wonder and gave to
the eccentricities of this well-known man a mysterious
significance which lost little or nothing in the slow passage of
years.
And now! in the freshness of this summer morning, without warning
or any seeming reason for the change, the strict habit of years
has been broken into and this gate of gates is not only standing
unlocked before their eyes, but a woman--a stranger to the town as
her very act shows--has been seen to enter there!--to enter, but
not come out; which means that she must still be inside, and
possibly in the very presence of the judge.
Where is Bela? Why does he allow his errands--But it was Bela, or
so they have been told, who left this gate ajar ... he, the awe
and terror of the town, the enormous, redoubtable, close-mouthed
negro, trusted as man is seldom trusted, and faithful to his
trust, yes, up to this very hour, as all must acknowledge, in
spite of every temptation (and they had been many and alluring) to
disclose the secret of this home of which he was not the least
interesting factor. What has made him thus suddenly careless, he
who has never been careless before? Money? A bribe from the woman
who had entered there?
Impossible to believe, his virtue has always been so impeccable,
his devotion to his strange and dominating master so sturdy and so
seemingly unaffected by time and chance!
Yet, what else was there to believe? There stood the gate with the
pebble holding it away from the post; and here stood half the
neighbourhood, staring at that pebble and at the all but invisible
crack it made where an opening had never been seen before, in a
fascination which had for its motif, not so much the knowledge
that these forbidden precincts had been invaded by a stranger, as
that they were open to any intruding foot--that they, themselves,
if they had courage enough, might go in, just as this woman had
gone in, and see--why, what she is seeing now--the unknown,
unguessed reason for all these mysteries;--the hidden treasure or
the hidden sorrow which would explain why he, their first citizen,
the respected, even revered judge of their highest court, should
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