|AS she passed through the gate at the end of the lawn, Margaret looked
back and saw the child and its father seated together.
“Yes, he is the one,” she mused. “He of all men! And yet I might have
known it; he has adored the child since the moment he first saw it there
on the lawn.”
Dora saw her coming from her easel near the window of her studio, and
stood in the hall awaiting her. Her face was aglow with expectation.
Without any word of greeting Margaret simply ran to her and threw her
arms about her neck. “Oh, you are _so_ good, _so_ noble!” she cried.
“I see it all now, and I have been wofully wrong. Oh, Dora, I could
not have treated you as I have all these miserable years if I had not
thought--I actually thought--”
“I know now what you thought,” Dora broke in, a pained expression
clutching her lips, as she drew Margaret into the studio. “I don't
know why I did not think of it sooner, but I didn't. Away back when
my trouble was blackest I heard that Fred's name had been coupled with
mine. I denied it then, and thought that was the end of it. After that,
you see,” she went on, with a shudder of repugnance to the topic, “I
buried myself here so completely that no outside gossip reached my ears.
I had to guard my own secret, and I was afraid that even the slightest
agitation of the matter might disclose the truth. I--I would have died
rather than have had it known--all of it, I mean.”
“And yet you sent me this letter?” Margaret laid it on a table and stood
staring gratefully into the beautiful face. “You sent it, although you
knew that it might--at least--lead me to--to wonder who--”
“Yes, I had to do it,” the young artist interrupted, her glance averted.
“I could not bear to have you think Fred was anything but noble and true
and good. Margaret, I cried for joy over the fine news in his letter. I
couldn't believe you had snubbed the poor boy in New York for nothing.
I was puzzled for a while, and then the horrible truth dawned on me.
I hope he will never learn that he was so terribly misjudged. It would
hurt him more than all else that has happened to him. They said he was
bad, Margaret--wild, and a gambler, and all that; but to me he was like
a sweet, thoughtful brother. If I'd only listened to his advice, I'd
never have been situated like this; but I didn't. I thought I was very
wise then. I have Lionel now, of course. He seemed to come to me like an
angel of light out of a black sky of infinite pain. But if God will only
show me a way to save him from future trouble, I--I--”
“There, I have made you cry!” Margaret exclaimed, regretfully. “I am so
sorry!”
“I don't give way often.” Dora brushed the tears from her eyes. “It
is only when I think of what may come to my little darling. Perhaps we
shall get to Paris before he is old enough to understand, and then all
this will fade from his childish memory.”
“Yes, yes, you must go to Paris,” Margaret said. “I have more money than
I need. Dora, surely you would not refuse to let me--”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Dora cried out. “I couldn't think of it. What is done
must be done by _me_, by _my_ brain, and by _my_ hands. God will surely
let me atone in that way for my mistake. It is what I have prayed for
night and day all these years, and the reward surely can't be far off.”
She forced a wan smile to her rigid face, and added: “Then, like the
Arabs, some night we'll fold our tents and silently steal away from old
Stafford. Only the grocer-boy and the postman will know, at first, and
then the last chapter of our life here will be written. It seems sad,
doesn't it?--but it is sweet, so very, very sweet and soothing.”
Margaret was crying. Without a word, she kissed Dora and went out. But
she did not return home at once. She kept on down the little street
on which the cottage stood till she came to another which led to the
square.
She passed the stores, bowing to an acquaintance in a doorway or in a
passing carriage, and went on to Walton's bank.
“Is Mr. Walton in?” she asked Toby Lassiter, at the cashier's window in
the green wire grating.
“He has just this minute stepped out,” Toby answered. “He will be right
in. Won't you go to his office and wait?”
“Thank you, yes,” she answered, and went back to the musty little room,
taking a chair near the old man's desk.
Without a moment's delay, Toby grabbed his hat and went out in the
street. He found the banker lounging around Pete Longley's grocery
store, where he had an attentive audience. Toby knew better than to
interrupt the old man when he was talking, so he waited for Walton to
finish his remarks, which, judging by the steady gleam of the banker's
eye, had some underlying motive; and, considering the fact that Pete
was a noted gossip, Toby decided that his employer was simply and
deliberately setting afloat certain reports that would be on every lip
before nightfall.
“Oh yes,” Toby heard him saying, “I never was a man to let my right hand
know what my left was doing in any deal whatsoever, and so, all this
time, I have kept my own counsel in regard to where Fred was at, and
why--why I sent him out there. He invested some of the scads that is
coming to him in that big boom town and turned his money over as fast as
a dog can trot. Boys, I'm actually ashamed to tell you fellows how rich
he really is. I reckon you'd get an idea of how he's fixed if I was
to say he has made more since he left here than I've raked and scraped
together all my life.”
“You don't say!” Pete Longley exclaimed. “Well, that certainly is fine.
I reckon he did it through his popularity. I never knew a chap that had
as many friends.”
“Well, he'll be back to shake hands with you all very soon now,” Walton
said, gratified at the way his fuse had ignited. “I've been out to see
him a time or two, but he has always been too busy to come this way;
but he'll get here--he'll lay everything down and head this way some day
before long.”
Just then Walton caught sight of the breathless Toby at his elbow; he
stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk, and bent down to hear what his
clerk had to say.
“She's waiting for you in your office, Mr. Walton,” Toby panted.
“Who?--not--”
“Yes, sir; I told her to sit down and I'd fetch you in.”
“Oh, Lord, I reckon I'll get it in the neck, Toby!” Walton's face was a
veritable mask of gravity and concern. “I reckon she's come to give the
boy his walking-papers. I have thought it over till my head swims. No
woman of her station and pride would ever let a man come back to her
while a thing like that is hanging over him. If the woman and the child
was dead and under ground, it might be different. She's come too quick
to bear good news--a woman would tussle over a thing like that for a
good month, and then ask for more time. No, the jig is up! I deserve it
for the string of lies I was wrapping round that gang to make my case as
good as possible.”
He moved slowly into the bank, hung up his hat in the little hallway
deliberately, and quite after the manner in which he went to meet
business proposals, with his rough face grimly set against rejections
and compromises. She was going to cast him down, but he'd show her that
he was game. She had practically closed the matter during his interview
with her, and had only delayed longer at his earnest request. No, she
shouldn't chuckle over his defeat. He didn't know but what he'd throw
out a hint that Fred wasn't really so very “rampageous” in the matter,
after all.
“Oh, how do you do?” he said, as he went in. She started to hold out
her hand, but, not looking for such a movement, he failed to see it, and
lunged toward his desk, where he sat and took up a pen.
“Well, I reckon,” he began, awkwardly, “you've' come to see me about--to
say whether or not--that is, you remember, I said if you finally
decided--”
“I _have_ decided, Mr. Walton.” She rose and came and stood over him.
Her voice was quivering; there was a blaze of burning joy in her face
and eyes, but he did not see it.
“Oh, you _have!_ Well, it's for you to say whether you thought best or
not. I reckon I went just a _little_ mite beyond my authority up
there, in my effort to conduct Fred's affairs for him, without, you
understand--without his _free_ consent. I only thought, maybe, if you
would signify your willingness to overlook certain rather shady things,
Fred might take it as a sort o'--sort o' all-round sign from _this_
end--a sort of index of public opinion bearing on his particular case,
and--”
“Yes, I have decided, Mr. Walton,” Margaret broke in. “I have come to
ask you to write to him. Tell him, please, that I'd like to see him.
I feel sure that when he gets home he and I will fully understand each
other.”
“Good gracious, Miss Margaret, you don't mean--” Simon stood up to his
full height, his old eyes blinking in astonishment.
“Yes, I do, Mr. Walton. I want to see him and talk to him. I don't know
how to say it to _you_, but I am sure Fred will understand. Tell him
that I--that I kissed you for his sake, there!”
And before Simon could avoid it she had thrown her arms around his
neck and actually pressed her lips to his grizzled cheek. To add to his
confusion, Toby hastily entered the room just as she was releasing her
dumfounded captive.
“Oh!” Toby gasped, his face ablaze with embarrassment, “I didn't mean
to; but the General is at the door in his carriage, and asked if you
were in here. Of course, Miss Margaret, I hadn't the least idea but--”
“Well, don't let it get out, for all you do, Toby,” Margaret laughed,
merrily. “Don't forget, Mr. Walton; by to-night's mail, sure!”
And the next instant she had floated out of the room, leaving the
red-face banker under the perplexed stare of his apologetic clerk.
“She oughtn't to have done that!” Walton growled, as he brushed the
shoulders of his coat where her gloved hands had rested and stroked his
tingling cheek. “She had no business going as far as that. Women are
such dad-dratted galoots when they get wound up in any matter. She seems
willing for him to come. I'm not able to understand it, and I don't
intend to try. They won't be long getting hitched if she goes at him in
a whirlwind like that. Good Lord, I wouldn't have my wife know what she
done just now for any man's pile! She'd make a scandal out of it, or
break her neck trying.”
“Well, it's safe in my hands, Mr. Walton,” Toby said, with unconscious
humor. “_I'll_ never tell it.”
“_You'll_ never tell it? Who the devil asked you to hide it?” Walton
stormed. “But I reckon she meant it to sort o' seal what she'd made up
her mind to agree to, and she really is swallowing a pill, Toby, from
any point of view. But it will make the boy powerful happy, and he
will be on the wing as soon as he gets my report. Huh! I see his old
stepdaddy's face now. He may try to keep him; but, shucks! I've got the
old duck where the feathers are short. I've started a bang-up report in
the boy's favor, Toby, and you can sort o' kick the ball along whenever
it comes your way. We needn't mention that nasty business to him,
neither; if Margaret can let bygones be bygones, surely the rest of us
can.”