One of the first to get out of the carriages was Harrington Winthrop. A
high stock held his chin well tilted in the air, his gray trousers were
immaculate, and his coat fitted about his slender waist as trimly as any
lady's. He wore a high gray beaver hat and carried a shiny new
portmanteau. Altogether, he looked quite a dandy, and the eyes of his
waiting wife filled with a light of pride even while her heart quaked.
Only an instant she paused to watch him. He was making straight for the
Van Rensselaer carriage, which stood not far away, and which he supposed
had been sent to bring him to the house. He walked with an importance
and pride that any one might see. He did not take note of any one on
the platform, though he was conscious that many were watching him.
Then, suddenly, the woman with the two little children clinging to her
skirts, stepped in his way. The little girl looked up into his face
with bold blue eyes, and cried out: "It's my pa! It's my pa! Oh,
doesn't he look pretty?"
The two men standing close together under the apple-tree were near
enough to hear the child's cry, and many bystanders turned and looked at
the fine gentleman beset by the poor-looking woman and children.
Harrington Winthrop turned his elegant self about with a start and found
himself face to face with the worn shadow of the woman who for a time
had been his plaything, and whom he had tossed aside as easily and as
carelessly as if she had been a doll.
The start, the pallor, the quick, furtive side-glance, all told their
tale to the watchers, without other need of words. Then anger surged
into young Winthrop's face, and he cried out:
"Stand back, you vagabonds! What have I to do with you? Get out of my
way, woman! There is a carriage waiting for me."
But the woman stood her ground, with grim determination, great red waves
of restrained anger marking her face and forehead, as if he had struck
her with his words. She looked up at him. She had planned it all for
so many hours, and now she was calm in this terrible crisis. It would
not do to make a public disturbance. Neither for his sake nor for her
own, did she wish to have people see or hear, if it could be avoided, so
she had schooled herself to be self-controlled.
"Harrington," she said, speaking low and rapidly, "I'm your wife, and
you know it. I've come to keep you from an awful sin, and I will do it.
You can't forgit me an' the children, and marry a rich girl. It would
be wicked. But I've fixed it so you can't do it, any way. If you'll
come off quiet with me now, I won't say a word to disgrace you here
where I s'pose folks knows you; but if you try to git away from me, I'll
tell the whole world who I be, an' prove it too!"
Now, if the young man had known that there were those watching who knew
his story he would have been more careful, but his casual glance about
the platform had given him no hint of any but the villagers, few of whom
he knew even slightly. Yet his wife's face and voice were such that he
thought it the part of wisdom to temporize; so he dropped his angry
manner and spoke in a low tone. But it happened that the two witnesses
under the apple-tree had also, by common consent, moved toward him. With
William McCord in their rear, they came and stood quite close to
Harrington, and though he did not see them, every word that he spoke was
audible.
"Look here, Alberta, what in the name of common sense are you doing up
here? Isn't it hard enough for me to have to work and scrape and do all
in my power to get my business going again, so that I can come home to
you and the children and keep you in the way you ought to be kept,
without having you come traipsing around here in such clothes as that?
Don't you know you'd ruin my business if anybody thought you belonged to
me? Everybody thinks I'm a successful business man, and they must think
so or I'm lost and shall never come back to you. Here, take this money.
A man just paid me a bill that he has been owing me for two years, and I
needed the money to help me in a new deal, but as you are here you'll
have to have it to get home with. Now, run along back, and take good
care of the children till I come home a rich man. Then we'll live like
folks. And what is all this nonsense you are talking about my marrying
a rich girl? How ever could you get such an idea? Why, I couldn't
marry anybody as long as you are my wife. You must have heard some
foolish gossip. Take it quick and run along, or people will be looking
and talking, and I shall be ruined."
The thin hand of the wife went out to the money he offered her, but
instead of taking it, she struck it into the air, and it fell scattering
in every direction. Suddenly the young man became aware of the nearness
of others, and, looking up, he saw in quick succession his father, Mr.
Van Rensselaer, and William McCord!
He knew at once that they had heard every word he had spoken to his
wife, even before their condemning eyes had searched his soul. The
presence of William McCord made it plain to him that they had known the
story before his arrival, and he realized instantly that he had given
the final testimony against himself.
It was too late to turn back and deny knowledge of the woman. There
stood his father's former farm manager, who had lived in the Western
town where Harrington had married his wife. That McCord would ever come
East again and bring back tales against him had not occurred to the
careless young scapegrace. McCord was a quiet, silent man, who went
about his own business, and seldom, if ever, wrote letters. Young
Winthrop had never given an uneasy thought to him, but now he stood and
looked at him in growing dismay.
Turning, Harrington met his father's passionate, loving reproach, his
wife's bitter hopelessness, and the scorn of the man he had hoped soon
to call his father-in-law.
The voice of Mr. Winthrop broke out in bitterness: "Oh, my son, my son!"
and the father's kind face was turned away. He was weeping.
This kind of reproach had ever angered Harrington Winthrop beyond all
endurance. It seethed over his frightened, fretted spirit now like acid
in a wound. The voice of the trainman cried out, "All aboard!" the
trumpet sounded, and the wheels moved. The fireman jumped on, board.
Then Harrington Winthrop grasped his portmanteau, pushed aside his
frightened children, who were eagerly gathering up the scattered money,
and sprang into a vacant carriage. His game was up and he knew it.
With a wild cry, the wife caught up her little boy, and, dragging her
little girl, rushed after him. A couple of men standing by pushed her
up into the carriage with her husband, which happened to be occupied by
no one else. Before he had time to turn about and notice what had
happened, the train was going rapidly on its way, and the reunited
family had ample opportunity to discuss their situation. Harrington
Winthrop had completed the last link in the chain of evidence against
him: he had fled.
Mr. Van Rensselaer stood looking after the vanishing train with
satisfaction. He had watched the changing expressions on the face of
the young man who had expected to become the husband of his only
daughter: the cruelty, the craven fear, the hate, and the utter
selfishness of the man! Suppose his daughter had stood where that poor
wife had stood, and begged of him to come home to her and care for her!
What an escape!
The daughter who had been the object of so little of his thought or care
had suddenly become dear to him. Mary's daughter, the child of his real
love! He saw how utterly selfish and unfatherly had been his whole
action with regard to her; how almost criminal in his self-absorption.
There had come, too, a revelation from the sight of that poor,
hollow-eyed, deserted wife, a revelation of what his treatment of his
own wife, Mary, had been. He was stung with a remorse such as he had
not known before.
As William McCord watched the departing train, he might have been said
fairly to glow with contentment over the way things had come out. Not
that he felt that matters would be materially improved for the poor
broken-hearted woman who was making her last frantic effort to get back
what she had lost. But he was justified, fully justified, in the eyes
of his benefactor. He could now with a clear conscience take his way
back to his claim in western Mississippi, and feel that he had done his
duty.
As for Mr. Winthrop, he was filled with horror. His son's face had been
a revelation to him. Until now it had been impossible for him to
conceive that Harrington had done this wrong. Underneath all his
conviction of the truth of William McCord's story, there had still been
a lingering hope that in some way the beloved son would explain things
satisfactorily.
Mr. Winthrop now realized that he had never really known his boy at all.
The old father gazed after the train in the dim distance, saw it round a
curve and vanish from his sight, then turned and walked with bowed head
away from them all. He felt that such sorrow was too heavy for him.