THE girl stood in the doorway, her eyes flashing like blue flames, her
delicate profile outlined against the rich portier, chin lifted, in
scorn, the light catching the glint of the waves in her pretty hair and
turning them into gold, the delicate blue of her silk kimono bringing
out the pearly tint of her skin, a haughty little patrician, insolent
in her loveliness.
Mary Dunlap looked at her in pity, and admiration, and a rising wonder.
Was this the girl who had melted to tears in her arms but a few nights
before, and implored her to protect her? How lovely she was even in
her frenzy. She made a picture as she stood there in her rightful
background. Poor, misguided infant! What a hard road she had set her
feet to travel, and how soon she must come to humiliation.
But the mother was shocked into severity. "Marguerite!" she said,
sitting bolt upright and looking at her daughter sternly, as she had
not looked at nor spoken to her since she was a very little girl,
"Marguerite! You forget yourself! You are beside yourself. Apologize
at once to Mrs. Dunlap. You do not know what you are doing! Mrs.
Dunlap is the best friend you have in this world. She has gone to
great inconvenience and expense and trouble to save you from an awful
calamity!"
The Marguerite of a few days ago would have been crushed to earth by
such words from her beloved mother. Not so the girl of that night. She
did not even wince. Instead she drew herself up to her full height
and looked her mother steadily in the eyes, as if their ages had been
reversed, and spoke with a certain air of authority that was almost
startling.
"No, I am not beside myself, Mother! It is you who do not know what
you are doing. You have allowed yourself to be blinded by an utter
stranger. You have swallowed whole the lies she has handed out to
you. Mother, I understand it all now. This woman is a rank imposter,
employed by others to ruin the reputation of a prominent and successful
business man, in order to extort money from him. Oh, I have heard a
lot that she has been saying! Don't try to stop me. Isn't this kind of
thing being done every day now? The daily papers are full of it. Why,
even novels are just full of plots like that.
"Didn't that horrid woman whose latest book is being lauded in every
column of reviews make one of her characters boast of being a daughter
of Eve to some purpose because she had told some successful lies about
one of her victims? I tell you, Mother, you don't know the world. Times
have changed since you were a girl. You think every woman is good,
simply because she is a woman and dresses respectably. That is why you
are willing to believe all these terrible things about Rufus, and why
you want me to believe them. Just because a woman has told you. Just
ask her how much she is to be paid to bring about his ruin. Ask her
that! Do you suppose she is to be paid whether she succeeds or not?
It must be she isn't; that is why she is so persistent, sneaking in
to tell tales to you when I'm not by, and get you on her side. She
evidently is afraid she is going to lose her money!"
"Marguerite! Oh, my poor child!" exclaimed the mother in horror,
beginning to cry. "Oh, Mrs. Dunlap, I beg you will forgive her. She
doesn't know what she is saying."
"That is perfectly all right, Mrs. Sheldon, don't think of it for a
moment. I understand."
But the girl's voice broke in scornfully:
"I certainly do know what I am saying. I understand it all perfectly. I
can see the plot clearly now. I remember how this woman sat behind us
in the cars, doubtless of purpose, listening to us. She was writing all
the afternoon. I suppose she took down our private conversation. She
probably carries on such business constantly, and chooses her victims
among those who look as if they would care about their reputations and
have plenty of money to hush up such tales. That is called blackmail,
Mother, and I've read quite a lot about it in the papers. But they
are not going to frighten us. Rufus and I will search this thing out
to the foundations and make it impossible for this woman ever to get
in her deadly work on any other good Christian man. It would be even
worth sacrificing ourselves if we could do that. It is because people
are afraid that they succumb to such things as this. We are not afraid!
This woman listened to our plans and discussions, and knew just where
to get us, that is all. If I hadn't been such a fool, I would have
understood at the time, and I shouldn't have yielded to the spell she
cast over me. She must be a hypnotist. She somehow succeeded in making
everything look different from what it really is. But she can't do it
again. I've got my eyes open!"
These are a few of the indignant sarcasms that the two long-suffering
women had to listen to as the evening passed on. Mrs. Sheldon,
mortified to the extreme of agony over the way her daughter was raving
out against the wonderful woman who had saved her from a life of
humiliation; alarmed beyond measure for the sanity of the one who was
dearer to her than life, roused from her own weakness and tried every
possible means to bring the girl to reason, all to no purpose.
At last Mary Dunlap who had stood by helpless, trying to think of
something she might say which would bring the girl to her senses,
leaned over toward the mother and said in a low tone:
"Suppose I just go away for the night now. She is excited and the sight
of me only irritates her. If she could get some sleep she might be more
reasonable in the morning. No, don't get up. I can find my own way to
the door. You can telephone if you need me. I shall stay close to my
room till I hear from you. And I will pray! Don't despair, dear sister!
God is strong! Now—I will just slip away!"
The keen ears of the excited girl caught the last sentence.
"Yes, slip away by all means! I should have thought it might have
occurred to you to do so before!" she flung after the stranger.
And then, as the door closed after Mary Dunlap, Marguerite Sheldon
began to pace the floor, the very personification of indignant fury.
After she had exhausted herself with wild words, she suddenly flung
herself down before her mother with her head in her mother's lap and
began to sob:
"Oh, Mother, Mother, that dreadful woman has made me almost crazy!" she
sobbed. "Some of the time I don't seem to know what I am saying. But
I know this, and I mean it. I know that Rufus is true to me, and not
only to me, but to God. He is very religious, Mother, he really is! You
ought to hear him talk. And Mother, I know I love him, love him, with
my whole soul! And I shall, forever and ever! No matter how many fiends
from the underworld combine to try and make me false to him!"
At the word "love" her sobbing suddenly ceased and she sprang to her
feet and began pacing up and down the room again; her voice rising to
almost a shriek.
Of what use to attempt any further words with one who was surely not
responsible for what she said or did? The mother slipped to her knees
and began to pray.
A voice of power spoke to her soul, while she was still on her knees,
seeking help. It almost seemed to her that she had heard the spoken
words:
"'I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them
in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them; and crooked things straight.'"
Oh, the wonderful words! Could there be a human being any blinder than
her Daisy? And, how terribly she needed new "paths!"
It was because of this amazing voice that she was able to get through
that night, and the early part of the next day and finally to persuade
her daughter to receive Mrs. Dunlap in the evening, and hear from her
lips what she had to tell.
This was in accordance with that lady's earnest request made over the
telephone, she having decided that the mother was physically unable
to endure further strain. But that Christian worker had certainly
occasion to look back upon the hour spent with Daisy Sheldon as one of
the hardest in her by no means easy life. Not that Daisy did not try,
at least at first, to treat her in accordance with all the rules of
propriety.
But as the story progressed, there was all the time in the narrator's
mind the question, "How shall I convince this girl that I am speaking
only truth!" She who was used to being trusted implicitly, and quoted
as unquestioned authority on all points connected with the work to
which she had given her life!
Yet this girl listened in outward calm to the story that had caused her
mother's lapse into almost unconsciousness, with a half smile on her
lips, that deepened into a sneer when she finally spoke:
"That is a very strange story, Mrs. Dunlap! Being as well acquainted
with Mr. Keller as I am, I don't quite understand how I could be
expected to credit it! I should really like to see a photograph of
this mysterious person, to help me in conceiving how a woman of your
discernment could have been so deceived! Although I should remember
that your acquaintance with Mr. Keller covered a very brief space of
time; while he is, of course, my closest friend."
Could this be the girl who had so very recently clung to her, weeping,
and begging to be shielded from even the sight of the man who was her
"closest friend!" How could Mrs. Dunlap help giving a second's thought
to such a question? But she turned swiftly from it and tried again.
"Wait, please," she said patiently, "I must tell you the rest. I have
had a longer acquaintance with the man than you have heard as yet.
After breakfast Mrs. Oliver asked him to take me into the library and
show me some prints while she attended to other duties, and when he had
closed and locked the doors, he threw himself on my mercy and begged me
not to wreck his household by telling his wife and children what I knew
about him. He did not attempt to deny that he was of course the same
Mr. Keller with whom I had held a long conversation two nights before.
"In fact, he frankly owned that you had been what he called a
'temptation' to him, but that the marriage ceremony which he professed
at that time to be about to enter into, had been only a joke, of
course, intended to relieve your anxieties for being away from your
mother longer than you had planned. I would not like to tear your heart
nor soil my lips by repeating the words that he used to describe your
wonderful mother and her ignorant prejudice as he called it.
"He also told me that his friend who posed as a minister for the time
being was an amateur play actor who had successfully impersonated a
clergyman while they were in college, which gave him the idea of a mock
marriage to quiet your protests.
"And now, I will show you a paper written and signed by this man, in
which he pledges never to write or telegraph or telephone you, or
visit you again. It is a paper that I went back to secure, after I had
started on this western trip, and the man knows that his keeping this
agreement both in letter and spirit is the price of my silence toward
his wife and children. His wife is a charming and beautiful woman, and
his two daughters are as sweet and charming as yourself. It seemed
terrible to wreck that home, but I would not keep silence unless I felt
sure you would be safe forever from him."
Marguerite Sheldon tilted her patrician chin haughtily, a little smile
of scorn on her lovely lips.
"Mrs. Dunlap," she said, "you certainly are mistress of your
profession. You have worked out your evil plot to the last detail, I
see. You must have gone to great pains to counterfeit Mr. Keller's hand
writing. Perhaps stolen some of his own letters from my handbag to
copy while I slept. It is certainly cleverly done. And of course this
remarkable interview is a part of the whole scheme. One wonders whether
you were cunning enough to concoct it on the spur of the moment, or
whether you had it all prepared in reserve, if you found I did not fall
for your story at once? Of course I know the daily papers are full of
such tales of blackmail and the like. Perhaps if my tastes lay in that
direction and I had posted myself better on the ways of such people
as you, I might have been saved even the first humiliation of giving
way before you and yielding to your influence which I now thoroughly
believe to have been hypnotic.
"Of course I might have saved your time by saying all this before I
heard you, but my mother was so anxious that I should let you speak
that I have listened to your remarkable tale with what patience I could
summon. But now I think we have had enough of this farce. I wish to
distinctly state just now that I believe in Mr. Keller's honor and
integrity as entirely as I did before this insane plot was planned; and
until I hear from his own lips that he did not intend to marry me that
night, and that he is not Mr. Rufus Keller, and never was, I shall not
believe one word of this story; and I shall remain as I am now, his
promised wife until he comes to claim me."
Before this outburst the baffled woman sat silent, dumbfounded. Such
beautiful faith in such a worthless man had never come her way. She was
not troubled over the insults that had been flung at her. The situation
had become too grave to be thinking of self. The question that fairly
appalled her was, how was it possible to save this poor blind child
from her own folly? Suddenly she resolved to try one more thing. It
seemed the last resort.
"Miss Sheldon," she said, speaking earnestly and looking straight into
the flashing eyes of the angry girl, "will you put this thing to the
test? Will you accompany me on the midnight Express to New York where I
will take you to call on Mr. Ralph Oliver in his private office, Number
— Fifth Avenue, that he may tell you himself that he is the Mr. Keller
whom you know so well? I happen to know that he is to be in his office
to-morrow morning. Will you go?"
What would the girl reply to this challenge?
What she did was to rise in utter silence and move swiftly across
the room to the door, which she opened, and closed after her with a
distinct slam!