FAITH AND UNFAITH.
"At last we meet!" cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy. "How
_are_ you, dear Miss Newell?" Clara greeted him coldly. Her face had an
abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for
weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the
world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was
something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it
all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her
sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard
Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed
upon her that this man--Roxdal's boon companion--must know far more than
he had told to the police. She remembered how Everard had spoken of him,
with what affection and confidence! Was it likely he was utterly
ignorant of Everard's movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out
her hand. It might be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly
the clue to the mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly,
and was smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no
offer to put his pipe out.
"You have not heard from Everard?" he asked. She flushed. "Do you think
I'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried.
"No, no," he said soothingly. "Pardon me, I was thinking he might have
written--giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to
write thus to women. But, of course, he knows you too well--you would
have put the police on his track."
"Certainly," she exclaimed, indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he must
face the charge."
"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"
"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids
drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"
"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with
emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt.
Oh, this wicked curse of money--tempting the noblest and the best
of us."
[Illustration: "SHE DID NOT REPULSE HIM."]
The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of
Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From
the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no
reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were
too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of
Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings
so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible
to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him.
It is only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father
thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy
affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to his
house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner
had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn merchant. With Tom the
old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well informed and
cultured as his whilom friend, Tom knew how to impart his superior
knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the
superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return.
Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most
resentful of other people sharing their consciousness Moreover, Tom's
_bonhomie_ was far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied
politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made more of a
conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless, Clara was by
no means unresponsive to Tom's affection, and when, after one of his
visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of the
happy turn things had taken, and how, for the second time in their
lives, things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart
swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell
sobbing into her father's arms.
[Illustration: "WITH TOM THE OLD MAN GOT ON MUCH BETTER."]
Tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional
journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had
inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the
marriage. It was fixed for May-day, and the honeymoon was to be spent
in Italy.