THE remainder of the night was as unique in its way as its earlier
hours had been. On Mary Dunlap's return to her room she found the girl
was more composed, and able to talk quietly.
"I have had time to think it all out," she said, when Mrs. Dunlap had
told what she meant to tell. "Mr. Keller does not understand; his
mother died when he was a child and he brought himself up, in a way. He
has been a law to himself and to others for so long that he just goes
ahead and does what seems best to him. I am sure he meant right. Even
that strange part about registering," her face flushed as she spoke,
"I can see it was done for my sake. I am so lacking in self-reliance
and had been so nervous all day that he felt he could not trust me
alone, and took that way of caring for me. But it is no wonder that I
am nervous, for I have been doing wrong all day! I did not know it; I
thought because I was of age I had a right to decide for myself but
I realize that there is a higher law than just a legal one, and I am
going home to mother! I am afraid she will feel that she can never
trust me out of her sight again, and I do not deserve to be trusted.
"It is all very plain to me now, what I ought to do. I shall write to
Mr. Keller and tell him that we must wait, and give my mother time to
know him, and to learn what a truly noble man he is. Then we must try
by all honorable means to win her consent to our marriage. I will not
cannot be married till my mother feels right about it."
"I think that sounds like a very wise decision," said Mary Dunlap with
relief in her voice. "That is what mothers were given for, to help in
grave decisions. They seem to have a sort of God-given intuition about
the great critical things of life. Remember that if you do not succeed
in winning her over, such a mother, as a girl like you must have,
surely must have wise reasons for objecting—"
"Oh, I'm sure we will succeed," interrupted the girl's voice anxiously.
"My mother wants nothing in this world so much as my happiness. But if
we cannot, after a reasonable time, convince her that he is worthy of
her trust, why then we must just be married, without her consent. I
have my own life to live—" she drew herself up proudly with a pitiful
assumption of dignity—"I cannot afford to spoil my life and his for the
sake of a cruel prejudice."
This last was so manifestly an echo from Mr. Keller's philosophy that
the listener said not a word, in response, and the eager voice went on.
"But we must do it honestly; there shall be no slipping away as though
we were ashamed! I cannot understand how I could have done such a
thing! Doesn't it seem strange that I should know now just what to do,
when this morning I did not at all! And so, dear friend—you will be my
friend always, will you not? And mother will never know how to thank
you enough for what you have done for me to-night! If you will put me
on the train in the morning, as you said, I will go directly home; no
matter how many broken engines hinder."
Mrs. Dunlap tried by all conceivable devices to induce her charge to
get some sleep. She rang for a porter and made careful arrangements
for the early train; planning the minutest details with a view to
convincing the girl that she might be trusted. But there was no sleep
to be had for either of them. Her charge was docile enough; she lay
down obediently and closed her eyes; but she started at every sound,
and imagined sounds that were not; frequently, after a few minutes
of silence, she would break into eager explanations of some of Mr.
Keller's movements, with a view to placing him in the best possible
light.
"What is his business?" Mrs. Dunlap asked; deciding, after fruitless
effort that to humor the child's restlessness was perhaps the better
way.
"He is—I—don't know—!"
The sentence began eagerly, then a pause, and the half bewildered
conclusion.
"He has to travel a great deal," she added; "belongs to a firm, you
know; but I find that I do not know what the firm is; it seems strange
that I never thought to ask him!"
"Is his home in the West?"
"Yes—no, he is there winters; summers he is East somewhere. I don't
remember which city he calls 'home'; he is in New York a great deal. He
really hasn't much home I presume; an unmarried man, whose parents are
dead; it must be very dreary."
"Poor innocent child!" was Mrs. Dunlap's mental comment. "She really
knows no more about the man than I do; I'm afraid not so much! For all
that she could prove, he might be an adventurer of the sort that is
careful not to have a settled home."
But all that she put into words was an earnest admonition to the girl
to try to rest. For herself, she did not mean to sleep; every nerve was
on the alert for a possible invasion. Who could be sure of what that
defeated plotter might attempt?
But the night passed without further incident and early morning found
the two at the telegraph office, from which presently two messages sped
on their way. One read:
"Delayed by disabled engine. Coming on No. 2. All safe. Daisy."
It had taken nearly half an hour to compose this message
satisfactorily. The other read:
"Must fail you for Wednesday. Will give you Thursday instead,
if desired. Wire me at Winfield. Mary Dunlap."
Mrs. Dunlap had decided that the personal deposit of this young girl at
her mother's door was more important than any other "woman's work" that
she could do that day although she did not know that the man she had
foiled was already seated in the smoker of the early train, waiting for
her to disappear. She utterly distrusted him, and felt instinctively
that he would watch his opportunity.
It was to the girl's great astonishment that, having established her
charge in comfort, Mrs. Dunlap prepared to seat herself in the opposite
chair.
"Oh, are you really going this way?" said the unsuspecting child. "What
made me think that you were going farther West? How far do you go? To
Winfield? Why, that is just beyond my station! How lovely! You will
stop and see mother and let her thank you herself, won't you?"
But Mrs. Dunlap had decided that she would not. If the man were only a
fool, and not a confirmed villain, and the child's heart was bound up
in him, it were better for all concerned that her prejudices, as well
as her knowledge of that tragic night, should never reach the mother's
ears.
When the journey was over and they drove to the girl's home, she waited
only to clasp hands with the sweet-faced, low-voiced, grateful woman,
into whose eager arms Daisy flung herself, and to decline the pressing
invitation to the home that wanted to shower kindnesses upon her; then
sped on to Winfield. Arrived in Winfield, Mary Dunlap's sole errand was
to read a telegram she found awaiting her, send another, and take the
first train back West.
On the fourth morning following, she opened her eyes in a beautiful
room in one of the elegant homes of a New York city suburb. It was
still early, and she lay quiet for a few minutes, feasting her
beauty-loving eyes on the evidences of abundant means and highly
cultured taste spread lavishly about her. She had been too weary the
night before to take in any details, except a bed. Mrs. Dunlap was
accustomed to the position of honored guest in all sorts of homes.
She could accommodate herself to the furnishings of the plainest home
with a grace that was one of her charms; but she confessed to her very
intimate friends that when "the lines fell to her in pleasant places,"
it always stirred an extra note of thanksgiving in her heart. There was
certainly nothing lacking here; nothing to offend the most fastidious
taste, or for the most exacting to desire.
The days and nights just past had been strenuous ones to this always
industrious woman. There had been first the rapid journey involving
another failure in appointment, for this woman who prided herself
on never failing; an equally rapid return to the East, reaching her
next engagement just in time; then two hours by rail to her evening
appointment; and here she was taking breath in a lovely room with a
whole day of rest before she had to start again!
She was in no haste to move. Her thoughtful hostess had urged her not
to hasten down in the morning. "We do not breakfast until nine, and not
always then if the head of the house is absent; as he is now I am sorry
to say. I have always wanted him to meet you. Dear Mrs. Dunlap, I may
as well confess that I am awfully proud of my husband!" The sentence
had closed with an apologetic laugh.
What a transparent little lady her hostess was! She ought to be very
happy, with a husband of whom she was "awfully" proud, a beautiful home
crowded with all the luxuries that wealth could produce, and probably
not a care in the world!
Mary Dunlap could not resist a little sigh of pity for herself; she
was a lonely woman. Her husband and home and child all gone from her.
She, too, had been "proud" of her husband with abundant reason; and her
beautiful girl. But her girl was safe. The terrors of this awful world
could not touch her.
She thought of "Daisy," and shuddered for the narrowness of her escape.
Had she escaped? Would that wretch try to find her again? Perhaps she
had not done her whole duty. She ought to have warned the mother. What
were mothers about, to be so careless? But for that disabled engine,
the child would have gone straight on her dangerous way!
Very slowly at last she went about the business of dressing, enjoying
luxuries of the toilet not found ordinarily in hotels or boarding
houses, and reveling in costly trifles lavishly furnished. Even in the
halls she came upon treasures of art to study over, and as she lingered
before them, she told herself with a half wistful smile that she must
have a care lest she become envious of Mrs. Oliver.
Then she fell to moralizing. Was it probable that her hostess had her
heart's desire in all things? It looked so.
There were two daughters, she had heard, who were their mother's joy
and pride also. Certainly the outward appearance of the home left
nothing to wish for. In such an atmosphere it was hardly possible
to avoid thinking of sharply contrasted lives. Not her own, though
the contrast there was marked enough. Still, she lived a busy and,
she believed, a useful life, and was happy in her work. But she knew
women—many of them—to whom the word "happy" could not be applied; women
with warped, stunted, yes—wrecked lives!
Instantly with that word, her thoughts flew again to "Daisy," the
acquaintance of a day, who had been so close to wreckage and who
had made a permanent place for herself in this mother-heart. That
awful man! Would she ever meet him again? If so, what would happen!
What if she should meet him under circumstances that would compel
her acknowledgement of him as an acquaintance? For instance, what if
he should, after all, become Daisy's husband! She recoiled from the
thought as she might have done from a blow; yet one could not be sure;
the child had given herself unreservedly to him, unworthy of her as he
seemed. Perhaps her love would redeem his life! Ought she not to hope
so? Yet her very soul revolted from it!
Next, she was in the lower hall looking over the morning mail,
gathering from it letters and telegrams for herself; and her hostess
was coming forward to meet her, in the most charming of house gowns,
with a face as bright as the morning. She was voluble in her hope that
the night had been restful, and that her guest could give them the
entire day.
"It is so delightful that Mr. Oliver is at home to enjoy you; I had
no hope of such a thing. He came home unexpectedly on a later train
than yours. He had started on a very long business trip, expecting to
be gone for several months. Then, one of those unaccountable business
changes came up—I never pretend to understand business—and he came
back. The children and I held a jubilee over his arrival. You can't
think what a trial it is to have him away so much! Fully half his time
is spent in the West, or the South, or somewhere!"
At that moment the dining-room door opened, and the voluble voice
flowed on. "Oh, Ralph, are you down already? Mrs. Dunlap, let me
present my husband, Mr. Oliver."
And Mary Dunlap was face to face with the man she knew as "R. H.
Keller"!
How they got through with that awful breakfast hour Mrs. Dunlap was
never afterwards quite certain. She knew she had a sudden frightened
feeling that she must not wreck that poor woman's home not yet, at
least. She must take time and think what to do. She must keep up some
form of appearances; she must seem to receive the man as her host;
she must not say anything about the Kennard House or the interrupted
journey, or the disabled engine. What could she say? She knew that she
did not address him, directly, and that his wife did more than her full
share of the talking, for which she mentally blessed her.
Once the wife said: "Why, Ralph, what on earth is the matter? You are
as white as a ghost! Don't you feel well? I don't think you ought to
start again to-night; I don't really."
He put her off with a pleasantry of some sort; asked if the girls had
gone to school already, and gave careful attention to serving the guest.
Somehow the ordeal was lived through.
As they arose from the table Mrs. Oliver issued her directions.
"Now, Ralph, I want you to take Mrs. Dunlap to the library and
entertain her for the next half hour. I have a tiresome committee
meeting of the utmost importance that demands my personal attention;
but I am going to dismiss it in half an hour, and then we'll make plans
for the day. It is delightful to be able to have you both for all day!"
There was no attempt on the part of either to reply. Silently the host
threw open the door of his well-equipped library, which under other
circumstances Mrs. Dunlap would have found pleasure in exploring, and
silently motioned her to a seat. While she sank among the cushions of
a luxurious chair, he carefully closed the door; then, crossing to the
doors leading to the music room, he closed them also. He seated himself
but a few feet from her and spoke in the tone he had used when he asked
her why she had presumed to interfere with him.
"Well. I am at your mercy! What do you propose to do?" That was what he
said.
She looked steadily at him, but was speechless.
After waiting a moment he added: "I did not interfere with what you
saw fit to do, by word or glance, although you must know that I could
have done so had I seen fit. Why you have been silent thus far and have
chosen to accept my wife's hospitality, I am at a loss to understand;
unless it is in the interests of a still greater sensation. Is it your
intention to tell me how you mean to proceed in the blasting of my
home, or do you still prefer to work in the dark?"
The man was actually arraigning her! Or was this merely a game of
bluff? What kind of woman did he take her to be! The indignant blood
surged in her veins; she got out of the comfortable chair and took an
uncompromising straight-backed one directly opposite his.
"Are you so accustomed to 'working in the dark' that you fancy others
are doing it also?" she said, fixing him with her clear gaze. "Did you
suppose that I had the slightest idea of meeting you when I came to
this house and accepted its hospitality?"
His face changed suddenly and he bent forward as if to lessen the
distance between them, speaking eagerly.
"Have I been mistaken in you? Mrs. Dunlap, on your honor as a woman,
did you not find out my name somewhere and follow me, to this house
with my discomfiture in view?"
"I certainly did not!" she answered indignantly. "Do you think I would
have slept under your roof knowingly? I have not yet awakened from the
daze of horror into which the sight of you threw me."
"Then I beg your pardon," he said with evident relief. "I have wronged
you. Now I will literally and gratefully, if you will permit the word,
throw myself on your mercy. You see what my home is, and my family I
have children. You have been given some idea of what they think of me,
and what I am in the main; an attentive husband and father, doing his
utmost for the comfort of his home. You happen to have seen me under
damning conditions, and without understanding the—the temptations. And
now you have it in your power to ruin this home and blast the future
of young and trusting lives; as well as break a woman's heart! Or,
you have it in your power to save us all! You are a merciful woman, a
philanthropist, my wife tells me, I believe you will save us. You see I
am not asking justice, but pleading for mercy."
He had not moved her by a hair's breadth unless it were to increase her
indignation. Her voice was steady and cold.
"Did you not have it in your power to ruin two homes, one of them
widowed and fatherless, and did you spare them? You dare to talk to me
of 'mercy' and 'philanthropy' when you were not willing to shelter even
your own fireside!"
He dropped his eyes from her face and worked nervously with the paper
cutter he held.
"You do not understand," he said. "It will be difficult to make you
understand! You are one who makes no allowance for a man's temptations."
She flashed a look of scorn at him, but he did not look at her, and
went on more quickly.
"I don't know what devil possessed me to do as I did that night. I did
not plan it, deliberately. I did not plan any of it, it just happened.
A fellow, whom we called 'the parson' in college, because he always
took those parts in the plays, had just written me about a mock wedding
at which he had officiated, and he was within easy reach. The truth is
the girl tempted me!"
He caught the flash in her eyes just then, and heard and understood her
words:
"Oh, of course; 'The woman beguiled me'!"
He pulled himself together. "I simply mean that she was—was—very
bewildering, and I—" He was finding it hard to explain. He wished that
the woman would look at the floor; or at something, instead of at him!
"I am going to be entirely frank with you," he said at last, with a
sudden assumption of friendliness. "My wife is—we are—not congenial,
not well mated; our marriage was a sort of mockery, from the first, one
of convenience, one may say, on my part. I thought I ought to marry her
because she cared for me, and because well, for family reasons. I never
really loved with my whole soul any woman until I met Daisy; after I
knew her, what seemed really wrong to me, was to continue the travesty
of home life when I knew that home, to me, meant her. I intended, I
fully intended, as soon as the necessary preliminaries could be managed
to set myself free, in order to possess her.
"But I did not plan to injure her reputation in any way, nor indeed
anyone's reputation. Divorces are common enough I am sure. The idea
of running away with Daisy for a few weeks came upon me, as I said,
suddenly. I was going West, very far West, and she was returning home,
when I met her on the train. It was impossible for me not to see how
easily we could enjoy a delightful season together, at some pleasant
resort where neither of us was known—merely as good friends you
understand. The marriage ceremony was to be a temporary convenience to
quiet her nervousness, to be explained afterwards as a good joke. On my
honor I meant nothing else."
He came to a sudden pause, for Mary Dunlap had risen, her face white
with righteous indignation.
"I must interrupt you," she said. "I fail to see why you should
disgrace yourself and me by exposing such details, or attempting to
gloss over your sin. If you think to win sympathy thereby, you must
have a strange idea of women! You to defile that sacred word 'love'
in such connection! Why even a wild beast knows that love means
protection, means sacrifice of self for the sake of the object loved!
But you loved this child only enough to practice upon her the most
cruel deception a man can offer to a woman, to blight her future, and
bring despair to her family, for the sake of gratifying for a few
weeks, your passion for her society!
"It is folly to suppose that you did not know what you were doing! You
are neither a fool, nor a lunatic. Why do you want to grovel before me
by exposing that whole vile plot? It seems amazing that you can have
so soon forgotten what you said to me that night at the hotel; and
how awfully your words and your position contradict those statements!
Before I saw you in this house this morning, as the husband of another
woman, I supposed you were a half-way decent villain, who had tried to
run away with and marry the girl he fancied he loved."
He too had risen. He trembled visibly and he was white to his lips, but
he tried to speak with dignity.
"I have made a mistake," he said. "I see I cannot make you understand.
But I am ready to grovel still, and beg your mercy. I have not ruined
her; she is free from me forever; and I am asking you to have pity on
my wife and children. And since no harm can come to anyone by your
silence, to spare my family. I am ready to give you my word of honor
that I will never see the girl again, never attempt to communicate with
her in any way."
Mrs. Dunlap's immediate response to this, brought a scarlet flush over
his face and set the blood humming in his ears: "Your word of honor!"
But he was in real terror now; he had neither cowed nor deceived
this woman. No sentimental twaddle about uncongenial marriages and
soul-love, had done other than deepen her disgust.
He was also realizing something of the power that such a woman would
have, once she exerted it, against him; and she was his wife's friend!
Yet he had an instinct that he could trust her. He must beg.
"I deserve that," he said, after a breathless moment. "Well then, I
will swear by all that you hold sacred never to see or try to hear from
that girl again. Will you keep my secret?"
For a full minute, which must have seemed an hour to the waiting man,
there was silence in that room. Then Mary Dunlap spoke.
"With conditions, yes; but you must do more than that. There are
other girls in the world. I do not ask you to give me your pledged
word because—" There was a single expressive gesture of her hand that
consigned any "pledged" word of his to the lowest level of contempt,
and she left it to complete the sentence.
"But you have chosen to speak of me as a philanthropist. Perhaps you
are aware that my life is given to the protection of young innocent
girls who are in danger because of such men as you; and you may
possibly understand what mighty forces I can call to my aid anywhere
in the civilized world, if occasion requires. In view of this, for the
sake of your wife and daughters, so long as you keep your life steadily
within the law that governs respectable men, and hold yourself from
insulting, by your attentions, not only the girl you tried to ruin, but
every other girl and woman on God's earth, I will agree to keep silence
to all but the one whose affections you have stolen, and her mother!
These two shall know all that I do; the girl, that she may learn to
turn from the thought of you with loathing, and the mother that she may
guard her child with jealous care from men like you.
"Then, I must remind you that the same forces for righteousness that
stand ready to help me, are as able to keep me informed as to how
steadily you adhere to the terms I have made. On these grounds do you
wish mercy from me?"
The man was looking steadily at her now. Man of the world as he was,
hypocrite as the life he lived had trained him to be, accustomed to
sneering at women, to flirting with women, to boasting within himself
that he could lead them captive at his will, he looked at this woman
whose hair was silvering, and felt that she could, and would, keep her
word! For a long minute, he gazed at her, as one compelled to consider
her, then bowed silently, and dropped his gaze to the floor.
There were quick steps in the hall, an eager hand on the door-knob, and
Mrs. Oliver fluttered in.
"It was a long half hour, wasn't it?" she began. "Those women would
talk! I thought I should never get away from them. Goodness! What is
the matter with you two? You look as though you were posing for high
tragedy. You haven't quarreled, have you?"
Mary Dunlap arose to the occasion.
"My dear Mrs. Oliver, I have decided that I shall have to change my
plans, and start for Albany by the noon train to-day. There is a matter
I have concluded must have my immediate attention."
Mrs. Oliver was voluble with regrets. Such a disappointment! She
had been planning for this one day for so long! And Mr. Oliver was
unexpectedly here to enjoy it with them! So sorry especially to have
her miss seeing their new Y. W. building that had been planned "in
exact accordance with your own ideas, dear Mrs. Dunlap, and it is
simply perfect. Do, Ralph, tell her how sorry you are not to be able to
show her through it."
Thus urged, Mr. Oliver succeeded in finding voice to say: "Mrs. Dunlap
understands, I am sure, better than I could tell her, how ready I am to
do her bidding."
Mrs. Dunlap got away by the noon train and took the night-express
for the West, canceling all her engagements for the week; she had
more important work to look after. Not telegrams, nor long distance
telephones, nor even carefully written letters could serve her now. She
must go in person to try to explain, as best she might, to that dear
girl who was waiting at home to hear from one to whom she had given her
trust, to prove him to her mother as "good and noble!"
As she sped westward that afternoon the good woman prayed that she
might be able to help save that sweet, periled life.