is of course very different from Tom, but I am satisfied with him, and I
do hope he will come to-night and father, too. I think they will. I am
keeping supper back a little in case they do, as they are always hungry.
What is it, Nero?” she added, as the dog sprang up in a listening
attitude, and then darted off through the brush towards the highway. “I
believe he heard them. Yes, he did,” Inez cried, as a peculiar whistle,
loud and clear, sounded in the direction Nero had taken. “That is Tom!
He always whistles to let me know he is coming. I hope father is with
him. There they are! Hallo, father! Hallo, Tom!” and she was off like
the wind to meet the two men coming up the steep path from the road.
One was tall and walked as if he were tired, with his head a little
bent. The other was short and slight and walked with a quick, springing
step, as if he never knew what fatigue was. He was dressed differently
from what he had been in the stage and there was a jaunty air about him
generally, but Fanny would have had no trouble in recognizing him as the
hero of the hold-up. Inez threw her arms around her father’s neck,
kissing him many times; then, with a glance backward to see if Fanny
were looking on she put up her lips for Tom to kiss, and holding a hand
of each of the men came toward the house, swinging her arms and theirs
back and forth like some happy child, while Nero bounded in front and
barked his approval.
“Father, this is Miss Prescott, my friend I have told you so much about.
She is spending the day with me,” she said, as Fanny came forward to
meet them.
“My daughter’s friend is very welcome,” Mr. Rayborne replied, his voice
so pleasant and the expression of his face so kind that Fanny was both
surprised and fascinated.
She had not expected a guide to appear just as he did, and she let her
hand rest in his a moment, while she looked into his eyes, which held
her with their peculiar expression. When she first met Inez she had
experienced a feeling as of looking at herself in a different guise, and
the sensation returned to her in the presence of Inez’s father. Over
him, too, there came a strange feeling of interest as he looked at her.
She was not at all like Inez. She belonged to an entirely different
world, of which he was once a part, years and years ago, it seemed, but
which came back to him very vividly with Fanny Prescott standing beside
him. He was always gentlemanly, but he seemed to gain a new access of
dignity, which both Tom and Inez noticed, as with a few more words of
greeting and a bow he left her and walked into the house. It was Tom’s
turn now, and Fanny did not wait to be introduced to him.
“I know you already,” she said, “and I am so glad to see you again here,
with——”
She glanced at Inez, who blushed and said, “She means here with me. I’ve
told her about us. You don’t care!”
“Of course not; why should I?” Tom said, throwing his arm around her.
Disengaging herself from him, Inez said she must see about their supper
and left him alone with Fanny. He was very friendly and talkative; asked
when she came to the cottage and how she liked the valley and when she
expected to leave. Then with a few commonplace remarks he, too, left her
and she saw no more of him or Mr. Rayborne until supper was announced.
When that was over they all repaired to the piazza, which a full moon
was flooding with light. Nothing had as yet been said of Tom’s exploit
in Fanny’s presence, but when alone with him in the kitchen Inez had
caught his hand and said to him, “You don’t know how proud I was when I
heard of your bravery. How did you dare do it? They say it was Long
John,—almost twice your size. Wer’n’t you frightened?”
“A little, at first,” Tom replied, releasing himself from her and going
out to a bench near the kitchen door where Mr. Rayborne was sitting and
where he, too, sat down and began to talk in a low tone.
“He is so modest he does not wish to hear about the hold-up,” Inez
thought, and was rather surprised when, after they were seated upon the
piazza, Tom said to Fanny, “What of your diamonds? Are they still in the
bows of ribbon in your hat?”
“Yes,” Fanny answered, “and I have sewed them in more securely, so I
know they cannot drop out, and I don’t believe anyone would think to
look for them there. Do you?”
“Hardly,” Tom said. “It’s a unique hiding place; and you leave us
to-morrow?”
“Yes,” Fanny answered, “but not in the Milton coach. We are going to
Clark’s to stop a few days and visit the big trees. You don’t suppose
those dreadful robbers will waylay us on the route, do you? Long John,
and little Dick! I shudder when I hear them mentioned. I wish you were
going with us.”
“Can’t you go?” Inez asked, as the conversation progressed and Fanny
became more and more nervous.
“I would willingly,” Tom replied, “if I had not an engagement, and
besides I might not be of any use a second time. My hands would probably
go up with the rest and stay up.”
“Nonsense, Tom! You know better. You would tear at them like mad. I wish
you’d go. Your engagement will keep.”
“I’m afraid not, and thousands of dollars are involved in it,” Tom
replied.
“Oh-h! So much money?” Inez gasped, thinking of the pretty house in
Stockton, which Tom would soon be able to buy, if he were getting rich
so fast.
“I do not think Miss Prescott need to feel any alarm,” Tom continued.
“The road to Clark’s is perfectly safe. There are not as many rocks and
trees to hide behind, and then the country is being thoroughly scoured
to find the marauders. There is a larger sum offered for their arrest
than ever before.”
“I hope they will be caught and hung,” Inez said energetically. “Some
people think they live right around us, and know every foot of ground. I
never told you, did I, that Mrs. Smithson said one of them was seen in
the woods back of our cottage last summer. You and father were gone, and
I was awfully scared. Do you believe they live here in the valley? Just
think of talking with them and not knowing it!”
“I shouldn’t wonder if you had seen them hundreds of times,” Tom said
laughingly, while Mr. Rayborne arose and went into the house saying it
was getting chilly and he was tired.
He had taken but little part in the conversation beyond assuring Fanny
that she had nothing to fear. The most of the time he had sat apart from
the young people, with a look on his face which troubled Inez, who
wondered why he was so silent.
“Are you ill, father dear?” she said, following him to the kitchen and
putting her hand on his head.
“No, daughter,” he answered; “there’s nothing the matter;—a little
tired, that’s all. Go back to your friend.”
“Isn’t she lovely?” Inez asked, still smoothing his hair. “I wish you
could see her mother, she is so grand and handsome and proud looking.
She wanted you for a guide, and because she could not have you she
didn’t go on a single trail. She had heard you were a gentleman and
preferred you to some of the rough guides in the valley. I wish you had
been here.”
Mr. Rayborne was not particularly interested in Mrs. Prescott. He was
more anxious for Inez to leave him and was glad when, with a goodnight
kiss, she went back to the piazza and he was alone with his thoughts. He
could not account for the feeling which had come upon him, bringing
memories of people and events which had but little in common with what
he was now. Through the open door came a breath of wind laden with the
perfume of flowers from Anita’s grave, and as he inhaled it he thought
of the dead leaves of a rose he had gathered long ago and been foolish
enough to keep through all the years of change which had come and gone
since he hid them away in the first stage of his youthful passion.
Leaving the house he went to Anita’s grave and standing there alone with
the dark woods in the background and the moonlight falling around him he
talked, sometimes to himself and sometimes to the dead at his feet.
“Little Anita,” he whispered, “I wish I were lying beside you with all
the past blotted out. And there is more of that past than you ever
suspected. I loved you, Anita, and when your dying eyes looked at me I
knew what they said and swore I would do your bidding. But a stronger
will than mine has controlled me until now when I am trying to break the
bands of steel. What is there in that girl’s face and voice and gestures
which makes me struggle to be free. Is there a God, and would he help me
if I were to ask him? I used to pray in the old church, miles and miles
and miles away across a continent, but I fear it was only a form. God
wouldn’t have let me fall so far if he ever had my hand in his. If I
were to stretch it out now would he take it and help me?”
He put it out as if appealing to someone for aid; then dropped it
hopelessly and said, “No, I’ve sinned too deeply for that. If I am
helped at all I must do it myself, and I swear it here by Anita’s grave
that not a hair of that girl’s head shall be harmed if I can prevent it,
and I think I can. It says somewhere, ‘Resist the devil and he will flee
from you,’ but I guess the one who said it didn’t know Tom Hardy!”
It was late when he re-entered the house. Inez and Fanny had gone to
their room and were asleep, but Tom still sat on the piazza, with his
feet on the railing and his hands clasped behind his head.
“I knew he’d wait for me,” Mr. Rayborne said, “but I’ve sworn, and I’ll
keep my vow, so help me God.”
He did not know that he had prayed and that God was helping him as he
went to that midnight interview with Tom Hardy. There was an earnest
discussion carried on in low tones lest the sleeping girls should be
wakened. Then the discussion became more spirited, and angry words
passed on Mr. Rayborne’s side. Tom always kept his temper, but was in
deadly earnest and nothing could move him. He had no sentimental
feelings, he said, with regard to a white faced, blue eyed girl, whom
neither of them had either seen or heard of before, and did not propose
to let a fortune slip through his fingers on her account. He had made
inquiries and there had seldom been a richer party leaving the valley
than was to leave on the morrow. If Mr. Rayborne did not choose to join
him he would go alone.
“And if you do,” Mr. Rayborne replied, “by the old Harry I’ll circumvent
you if I can, and if I can’t and you succeed I’ll give both of us up to
justice and end this accursed life into which I allowed you to lead me.”
Tom laughed and replied, “I have no fear of that. You like your good
name and your liberty too well to be willing to spend the rest of your
days behind prison walls, an object of greater contempt because you have
stood so high in the community, trusted and respected by everyone; and
then there is Inez. Would you voluntarily ruin her life with a knowledge
of her father’s shame?”
Tom knew what cords to touch to make the man like clay in his hands. For
once, however, he had gone too far. The white faced, blue eyed girl, as
Tom designated Fanny, was completing the work which Mr. Rayborne had for
some time been agitating. She was Inez’s friend. She had been his guest.
She trusted him, and she should not be harmed. But how to hinder it was
a question which he revolved over and over again in his mind as, after
leaving Tom, he sat by his window, suffering all the horrors of remorse,
and once burying his face in his hands he cried, “God help me. He heard
the thief on the cross; maybe he will hear me who am worse than that
thief.”
The early morning was breaking in the east and on the mountains there
was a glow of sunrise. Tom was up and Inez, too, busy with breakfast as
the stage for Clark’s passed at a comparatively early hour. Mr. Rayborne
had not been in bed at all and looked white and tired as he went out to
the bench where he made his ablutions. Tom was there, trying to force
down a feeling which was warning him of danger. Still he had no idea of
giving up his enterprise. It had been planned for days in every
particular, and he would not abandon it now. He would rather have Mr.
Rayborne with him, if he could, although he was getting a little clumsy
and sometimes handicapped his more agile companion with his
deliberation. If he would not go, then Tom would go alone,—he was
resolved on that,—and said so to Mr. Rayborne when they met by the rude
washstand.
He had no fear of being circumvented by his colleague, and bidding him
good-bye, kissed Inez, who came to the door just as his conversation
with her father ended, and went down the hill whistling “The girl I left
behind me,” while Mr. Rayborne looked after him with a feeling of pain
and apprehension.
“I have sown the wind and am reaping the whirlwind, and I wish I were
dead,” he thought. Then he repeated a name which only the winds heard.
“What would _he_ say, and he trusted me so fully. I am glad he don’t
know. It would kill him. Nobody knows, but God and Tom. I am glad God
knows; it seems as if he would show me some way to stop it.”
Just then Inez came to tell him that breakfast was ready, and bathing
his hot face and eyes again in the cold water which trickled in a little
stream down from the hills, he put on as cheerful a face as possible and
went in to meet Fanny just coming downstairs with something in her smile
which made him think again of the withered rose leaves and a summer he
would have given much to recall.
“Where is Mr. Hardy?” Fanny asked, as she missed him from the breakfast
table.
“He was obliged to go away very early on account of that appointment he
told us about. He left a good-bye for you and bade me tell you he might
perhaps meet you on the road,” Inez said.
“Oh, I hope he will. I grow more and more nervous about the journey,”
Fanny replied, glancing at Mr. Rayborne, who was silent and preoccupied.
His head ached, he said, and finishing his coffee he left the table and
the girls were alone.
“He is not himself this morning. He never is when he has one of his hard
headaches, and this I guess is worse than usual,” Inez said
apologetically. “Tom wanted him to go with him, and I think they had
some words about it, for just before he left I heard Tom say ‘I believe
you are a coward.’ Queer for father and Tom to quarrel.”
Fanny did not reply except to lament that Tom’s engagement must keep him
from going with her.
“Perhaps father will go,” Inez suggested, and going out to the bench
where he sat with his head down she said, “Can’t you go with Miss
Prescott as far as Clark’s? The ride will do you good.”
Inez could not see how white he grew as he answered, “_I_ go! _I_,—and
meet Tom on the road?”
She did not know what he meant, and looked at him in wonder. Suddenly
starting and brightening up he exclaimed, “It has come to me at last.
_You_ shall go to Clark’s and return on the late stage. If there is not
room for you inside you can go on the box with the driver. That’s the
best place for you. Keep your eyes out everywhere, and if a bandit
attacks you, don’t throw up your hands, but scream in your natural
voice.”
Inez could not understand why he was giving her so many directions. She
only knew she was delighted to go.
“I cannot be of use like Tom, if anything happened,” she said to Fanny,
“but father has told me what to do, and I’m not afraid.”
She hurried through her morning’s work, her father’s dinner was planned,
and she was ready some time before the stage was seen in the distance a
quarter of a mile away. Mr. Rayborne went with the girls to the road and
waited until it drew up. Every inside seat was taken except the one
reserved for Fanny. Mrs. Prescott who always looked out for herself, had
appropriated a corner seat in the rear of the stage, where she could
lean back against the cushion. She had a headache, as usual, and with
her veil over her face she looked up enough to greet her daughter, who
said, “Inez is going to Clark’s with us. There is not room for her
inside, and I am going outside with her.”
Immediately a young man arose and offered his seat to Inez, whose father
said in a low tone, “Stick to the box.”
“And I shall stick, too,” Fanny said. “The view is much finer outside,
and Inez can tell me the places.”
The two girls were soon seated and the driver was about to start when
with a roar Nero came down the hill, jumping at the horses’ heads and
then at Inez.
“Here, Nero, here,” Mr. Rayborne called while Inez pleaded for him to
go.
“I can bring him back to-night, and he never has a chance to go
anywhere,” she said, but her father was firm and the dog followed him
rather reluctantly to the house and disappeared in the direction of his
kennel, which Tom had built for him.
“Nero is the last one to be there if anything happens. He is so
affectionate and demonstrative and sure to mix in the melee that
recognition would be inevitable, and I would spare Inez that, if
possible,” Mr. Rayborne thought, as he sat down in his silent room,
which had never seemed so lonely before. Nor had the past ever crowded
upon him so thickly as it did now, filling him with remorse as real as
it was bitter. Every leaf in his life was turned with its dark record
from which he recoiled with horror. Away back in another world it seemed
to him there were bright spots and he saw himself, looked up to and
respected and happy, leading what looked to him an ideal life compared
to what he was leading now.
“Oh, for those days. Oh, to be young again and innocent,” he said aloud,
and his voice sounded so strange that he half started from his chair and
looked around to see where it came from. “I don’t like being alone,” he
said. “Nero is better than no company. I’ll call him.”
He went to the rear door, and called two or three times, “Nero! Nero!”
then whistled, with the same result. Nero neither answered, nor came. He
had gone to his kennel and lain down at first, then, as no one was
about, he struck off into the woods, looking back occasionally to see if
he were watched. Once in the woods and out of sight of the house he
started rapidly in the direction of the road, keeping out of it until he
saw the stage in the distance. Then he took the road, and in a few
minutes was barking his delight at the horses and at Inez on the box. He
had often tried to follow his master and Tom, of whom he was very fond,
but had always been ordered back. Now, he had succeeded in eluding them,
and was out for a holiday, which he enjoyed hugely, sometimes keeping
near the stage and again making a detour into the woods and disappearing
altogether for a time. When he did not return to the cottage Mr.
Rayborne knew where he had gone. There might no harm come of it, and
perhaps the dog’s presence would do good, he thought, and as the hours
crept on he waited in feverish impatience for the news which he knew
would travel fast if there were any news to travel.
CHAPTER VII.
ON THE ROAD TO CLARK’S.
It was a good road and a pleasant road and Fanny and Inez enjoyed
themselves immensely. There was a halt at Inspiration Point for the
grand view and a last look at the beautiful valley. Then the stage
lumbered on slowly for it was full and the horses not the fleetest in
the world. It had been cloudy for an hour or so, and after a time rain
began to fall in a soft, misty shower. This roused Mrs. Prescott, who
said Fanny must come inside, while the young man who had at first
offered his seat to Inez insisted again that she should take it, while
he went outside. The exchange was made and the young girls were riding
side by side with their backs to the horses and Inez next to the wheels.
The shower lasted but a few minutes before the sun came out so brightly
that Inez, whose eyes were not strong, tied over her hat a thick, blue
veil which concealed her face entirely. There was no thought of fear
among the passengers. The road to Clark’s was considered safe and more
than half the distance had been gone over. Mrs. Prescott was asleep in
her corner; Fanny and Inez were chatting together as girls will chatter;
Nero, tired of jumping at the horses and Inez, was off in the woods
chasing a rabbit, and the driver had ceased to be on the watch for any
trouble.
“We are gettin’ through all safe,” he said to his companion beside him.
“It’s about time for them rascals to show up again, and I didn’t know
what might happen.” They were nearing a sharp turn with a ledge of rocks
beside it and he was gathering up the reins the better to manage his
horses round the curve, when suddenly the word “Halt!” rang out on the
air, and a man wearing a mask came from some quarter no one could tell
where, he moved so rapidly and with so much assurance. Stepping to the
horses’ heads he stopped them and pointing a revolver at the driver,
bade him make no effort to go on.
“Little Dick!” was whispered among the terrified passengers, who never
thought of disobeying his command, “Hands up, every one of you!”
They all went up, except those of Inez, close to whom the bandit was
standing. At the sound of his voice she started violently, and clutched
at the veil upon her hat trying to tear it off.
“I am very sorry, my good people, to disturb you, and I assure you none
of you will be harmed, nor shall I detain you long if you at once give
up whatever valuables you may have on you persons,—money, watches and
jewelry. Perhaps I’d better search you myself, as it is not convenient
for you to use your hands while you are holding them up. Step out
quietly and it will soon be over. These two young ladies first, please.
Shall I help you?”
He bowed toward Inez and Fanny, extending one hand to them and with the
other covering them with his revolver. Fanny was paralyzed with fear,
and half sliding from her seat, tried to hide behind Inez, to whom she
said, “Oh, what shall we do?”
Inez made no reply. She had succeeded in tearing the veil from her face,
which was white as a corpse, while in her eyes was a look of horror, but
not of fear. Turning toward the man inviting her so politely to descend
she gave a shriek more appalling than the word “Halt!” had been, and
bounding from the stage in front of him, struck his arm so heavy a blow
with her fist that his revolver was thrown at a little distance from him
and lay upon the ground. Both started for it, but Inez reached it first.
Snatching it up she looked steadily into his eyes, which the mask did
not conceal.
“Go,” she said, “or I will shoot you like a dog. I always said I would
kill any one I found doing this dirty work, and I have found _you_!”
Then, to the passengers, who, in their fright, were still holding up
their hands, she continued: “Drop your hands! Cowards! to fear this one
man! You see I am not afraid of him.”
The man stood as if turned into stone, until she said to him again, “Go,
I tell you, before I fire, or Nero sees you. He is here.”
This last was spoken so low that only the brigand heard it, looking
round quickly and then back at Inez. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes
were blazing, and her white teeth showed between her parted lips as she
advanced toward him like some enraged animal, with the revolver aimed at
his head. It seemed as if he wanted to speak, but she gave him no
chance, and at her second imperative “Go,” and mention of the dog, he
went, not very rapidly at first, but walking like one whose strength had
left him.
At this point Nero, who had given up his rabbit, came panting back,
surprised, if dogs can be surprised, at what he saw. The passengers had
all alighted and were surrounding Inez with warm encomiums for her
bravery, Nero seemed to know she was the central figure in the group and
gave her a loud, approving bark, which was heard by the bandit, who half
turned his head and then quickened his steps to a run. But Nero, who had
caught sight of him, was after him with yelps and cries and barks, which
the passengers thought meant mischief. Inez knew better, and fierce as
was her anger she would, if possible, prevent a recognition which would
involve so much.
“Nero,” she tried to call, but her tongue refused to move, and she could
only give a low cry of alarm as the dog bounded upon the back of the
man, with such force that he was thrown down and his mask fell off.
In a moment he was on his feet, keeping his back to the passengers and
beating Nero off, while Inez, who had found her voice, called to him
peremptorily to come back, saying to those around her, “We do not wish
to see him torn to pieces before our eyes.”
Very unwillingly Nero obeyed and came back just as the bandit
disappeared among the trees. Up to this time Inez had stood rigid like
one in catalepsy,—the revolver in her hand and her eyes strained to
their utmost as she watched the receding figure. Her heart was beating
wildly in her throat. There was the roaring sound of “Halt!” in her
ears, shutting out every other sound so that she scarcely heard the
words of commendation from those around her.
“Inez,” Fanny said, “don’t look so terribly! It is over now. He has
gone. Sit down, before you faint.”
“Yes, that is best,” Inez gasped, while many hands were stretched out to
keep her from falling, as her eyes closed and her body began to sway.
They put her down upon the grass and Fanny took her head in her lap,
while every bag in the coach, which had a restorative in it, was opened,
and its contents brought out. Brandy, whisky, camphor, cologne, bay rum,
lavender water, witch hazel and hartshorn were tried by turns with no
effect. She still lay in a death like faint and they could see the rapid
beating of her heart as it rose and fell irregularly.
“Loosen her dress,” some one suggested. They loosened it and she
breathed easier, but did not recover and her face was growing purple
when the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard and Tom Hardy came leisurely
galloping round the curve in the road on the bay mare Inez had driven
the previous day.
“What is this? Another hold up?” he said, dismounting quickly and
joining the excited group, each one of which began to narrate the
particulars in his and her own way.
To those nearest to her Fanny said in a low tone, “He is her lover, and
the man who saved the other coach as she has saved us.”
It scarcely took an instant for this to become known to all, and Tom was
at once nearly as much an object of interest as Inez, and a way was made
for him to go to her.
“Why, it is Inez! How came she here?” he asked in a perfectly steady
voice, but his face was white and his hands shook as he knelt by the
still unconscious girl, calling her name and rubbing her cold face.
At the sound of his voice she opened her eyes and looked at him with an
expression of loathing and despair.
“Oh, Tom, Tom,” she cried, and the anguish in her voice haunted Tom to
his dying day.
“I am here, Inez,” he said, very tenderly. “What can I do for you?”
She made no reply, but looked up at Fanny as if asking what she knew or
suspected. Fanny suspected nothing, and her tears fell fast and hot upon
Inez’s face, which she kissed again and again until a faint color came
back to it; the heart beats were less rapid, and she tried to get up.
Every one was ready to help her, Tom with the rest, but she motioned
them all aside, and standing erect said with an effort to smile, “I have
made quite a scene. My strength gave out at last. I am all right now.
What became of my hat?”
Three or four hurried to bring it to her, while Tom said to Fanny,
“Where is yours?”
It had fallen off in her excitement and lay at some distance from her
where it had been stepped on two or three times and badly crushed. Tom
picked it up, brushed it very carefully, straightened it as well as he
could and then put it on Fanny’s head, saying, as he did so, “I think it
is all right.”
He seemed much more cheerful than at first, and patted Nero on the head,
saying, “You here, too? I wonder you did not go after the ruffian.”
“He did,” Fanny explained, “and knocked him down and would have torn him
to pieces if Inez had not called him off.”
“Why did she do that? She might have let him hold the villain till he
was captured. There are surely enough men here to have secured him,” Tom
said, speaking so low that Inez did not hear him.
She was leaning against a tree, with Nero at her side. He had seemed
suspicious of Tom and declining his advances had gone to Inez, looking
at her inquiringly as if asking the cause of the commotion.
“I wish he had held him,” Fanny said, vehemently, “but I wish still more
that you had met us earlier and this would not have happened. You ought
to have seen Inez when she sprang over the wheel and confronted the
robber. She was grand and her eyes were terrible as she marched straight
up to him as if she were not a bit afraid. I think she would have fired
if he had not turned and ran.”
Tom made no reply except to say, “I wish I had come earlier,” then,
addressing Inez he asked if she would go on to Clark’s, or go home.
“I must go home,” she answered quickly. “It is the best place.”
Fanny at once offered to go with her, but Inez declined.
“No, no,” she said. “I want to be alone.”
“How will you go? You cannot walk so far,” someone asked, and Tom
replied, “She will take my horse and I shall walk.”
By this time the driver was getting anxious to be off. and the
passengers gathered around Inez, bidding her good bye, telling her they
should never forget her bravery, and calling her the heroine of the
valley, as Tom was the hero.
“Don’t, don’t,” Inez said, putting up both her hands. “Don’t thank me. I
didn’t think of saving anybody. I was wild. I was desperate. I—I am not
a heroine. Don’t talk about me. Don’t let them put me in the papers. I
can’t bear it.”
There was a hard look on her face which softened when Fanny came up to
say good bye. Drawing her closely to her Inez sobbed like a child.
“It was so bright yesterday, and this morning I was so happy. It is so
dark now, and will be always. Good bye, and God bless you. I don’t
believe I shall ever see you again.”
“Yes, you will,” Fanny answered. “We are to spend a few days at Clark’s,
and if you do not come there I shall drive over and call on you, and
then there is New York in the future.”
Inez shook her head. She knew there was no glad future for her and her
tears fell like rain as she watched Fanny getting into the stage, helped
by Tom, who lifted his hat very politely as the stage drove off, the
passengers looking back and waving hands and handkerchiefs to Inez until
the turn in the road hid her from view. Nothing was talked of the rest
of the way but the attempt at robbery and Inez’s wonderful courage and
presence of mind.
“We ought to do something to show our appreciation; make up a purse,
perhaps, if she is poor,” some one suggested, and Fanny quickly
interposed, “They are not poor in that way. Money would be out of place.
Make her a present which she can always keep.”
This met with general approval, and it was decided that as soon as Fanny
returned to San Francisco she should purchase a handsome watch, with
Inez’s name and the date of the attempted robbery on the case. The money
was to be contributed at Clark’s, where the stage arrived nearly an hour
behind its usual time. All the passengers were to continue their journey
that day except Fanny and her mother. The latter was in a state of utter
prostration and went at once to her room and to bed. During the scene on
the road she had sat half fainting in the coach, alighting once when all
the rest did and then, seeing she could be of no use, creeping back to
her corner and feeling that she was doing her duty when she passed out
her golden stoppered salts as her contribution to the many restoratives
offered to Inez. Her trip to the Yosemite had not been very pleasant,
and she was glad she was so far on her way back to the city which suited
her better.
“I shall always feel grateful to that girl,” she said to Fanny, as she
was getting into bed. “She saved us from a great unpleasantness. Think
of being ordered out of the stage and searched by a masked blackguard
with a revolver in your face. He would have found nothing of value about
me except a few dollars. The diamonds were safe in your hat. I watched
it all the time until it rolled off into the mud. Mr. Hardy picked it
up. I did not see him very closely, but thought he seemed a very
gentlemanly fellow, who had seen more of the world than that girl he is
to marry. I think he could do better.”
Fanny did not hear the last of her mother’s remarks. In her fright and
excitement over the robber and Inez she had not given the diamonds a
thought until her mother brought them to her mind. Her hat was still on
her head and snatching it off she passed her hand over the bows of
ribbon in quest of the little linen bag. IT WAS GONE! The strong thread
with which it had been sewed to the hat had been wrenched apart from the
ribbon and it had slipped out, when or where no one could tell. The
diamonds were lost, and the hotel was soon in a state of nearly as great
excitement as there had been on the road. Many suggestions were offered,
one of which was that when the hat was stepped on by the heavy boots of
some of the party, as it evidently had been, the stitches had given way
and the bag fallen out. This seemed feasible, and with a gentleman and a
guide from the hotel Fanny went back to the scene of the adventure,
looking all along the road and going over every inch of ground near the
spot where the stage had been stopped. There were footprints of the
people and Tom Hardy’s horse and a spot in the spongy soil where Nero
had stretched himself at full length, but the diamonds were not there.
Very unwillingly Fanny broke the news to her mother, who at once went
into hysterics so violent that a physician was called, and all that
night Fanny and Celine were kept busy attending to her. It was not the
value of the diamonds she deplored so much, she said, although that was
great, as the fact that the ear-rings had been in the family so long and
were to have been Fanny’s on her wedding day. Fanny, too, was very sorry
for her loss, but thought less of it than of Inez, whose face haunted
her as she last saw it, so white and drawn, with an expression which
puzzled her. She would like to have driven over in the early morning to
inquire for her, but her mother was too weak and nervous to be left and
she was obliged to wait for the daily stage which she hoped would bring
her some news.
CHAPTER VIII.
MARK HILTON.
When the stage disappeared from her sight Inez was standing as
motionless as a statue, with a look in her eyes which made Tom half
afraid to go near her.
“Inez,” he said, at last, as she did not move. “Inez, shall we go now?”
“Bring up the mare,” was her answer.
He brought her, and pointing to the stump of a tree near by Inez
continued, “Take her there.”
He took her there, and held out his hand to help Inez mount. She
motioned him aside and seated herself in the saddle, which did not
inconvenience her at all, as she was accustomed to it. She was shaking
like a leaf, but did not know it or feel any fatigue as she started on
the road, followed by Tom and Nero. The latter alone seemed to have any
life in him. He was glad to go home and showed his gladness by barking
and jumping alternately at Inez and the mare. At last, as no attention
was paid to him, it seemed to occur to his canine sagacity that
something was wrong and had been all the time, and he, too, subsided
into silence and trotted demurely by Inez’s side. Once when a feeling of
dizziness came over her, making her sway in the saddle, Tom, whose eyes
were constantly upon her, put his arm upon her waist to steady her.
Recoiling from him as from a viper she said, “Don’t touch me, Tom Hardy,
nor speak to me until this mood is past. Your revolver is in my pocket.
Father says there is murder in my blood, and I might kill you.”
Tom fell back behind her, while she straightened herself and sat erect
as an Indian, but made no effort to guide the horse, who took her own
gait, a rather slow one, with which Tom could easily keep pace. What his
thoughts were during that long walk it were difficult to guess. His
hands were in his pockets and his head was down, hiding his face from
Inez, who glanced at him once as the mare stopped a moment under the
shade of a tree and he passed on in advance. If, as her father had said,
there was murder in her blood, it was boiling now and had been since she
bounded from the coach.
“I could rid the world of him so easily,” she thought, and her hand went
into her pocket, but with a sob which seemed to rend her heart in two,
she drew it back, and whispered, “I have loved him so much. I cannot
harm him now.”
They had reached a point from which the cottage could be seen, with her
father on the piazza looking in their direction. At sight of him Tom
turned to Inez and said, “You are not to despise your father as you do
me. I led him into it. I am to blame.”
Inez made no answer, but her face softened a little; then hardened again
when, as she drew near the cottage, she saw her father coming to meet
her. He had felt all the morning that the crisis he had so long expected
was close at hand. The net of sin he had woven was closing round him
and, but for his daughter, who believed in him so fully, he did not care
how soon it enfolded him and he stood unmasked before the world which
now respected him so highly.
The reader has, of course, long suspected that Mr. Rayborne and Long
John and Mark Hilton were one. How he came to be what he was he could
scarcely tell. He had loved Helen Tracy devotedly. He sometimes thought
he loved her still in spite of the bitterness which had sprung up
between them, he hardly knew how or why, as he looked back upon it. She
had thought herself safe with him because he knew the worst there was of
her. But because he knew it he was, after the first few months of
feverish adoration were over, more on the alert, perhaps, than he should
have been. He did not trust her and she knew it and grew restive under
his watchful surveillance. He had no right to distrust her,—no right to
be jealous,—no right to criticise her actions, and because he did, she,
in a spirit of retaliation, taunted him with his birth and position and
poverty, until he could endure it no longer and left her, half
resolving, before a week was passed, to go back, for his little baby
daughter had, if possible, a stronger hold upon him than her mother.
Then his pride came up and he said, “I’ll stay away till she sends for
me. She knows where I am.” But she did not send, and from some source he
heard she was getting a divorce. This hurt him more than all the hard
words she had ever said to him, as it cut him off from her forever. But
there was still the baby. “For her sake I’ll be a man and some day I’ll
go to her and tell her I am her father,” he thought.
Alas for the mistakes which change the current of one’s whole life.
Chancing upon a Chicago paper in which were comments upon the recent
divorce of “the beautiful Mrs. Hilton, so well known in fashionable
circles,” there was mention made of her recent bereavement in the death
of her little girl. Mark could not remember when he had cried before,
but he did so now. Everything was swept from him,—his wife, his home,
and his infant daughter.
“God has turned against me, if there is a God,” he said, “and I care
nothing what becomes of me how.”
For days he was in a most despondent mood, scarcely eating or sleeping,
and paying but little attention to anything passing around him. Jeff,
who had come with him from Chicago, roused him at last by suggesting
that they go to the mines of Montana. Although so young, Jeff was
beginning to have a great influence over Mark, who felt so discouraged
and hopeless that it was pleasant to lean upon some one even if it were
a boy. They went to Montana and into the mines, but on the day of the
accident both were away at some distance from the scene of the disaster,
prospecting for themselves. When the news reached them and Mark heard
that he was supposed to be dead and that Jeff was missing, it was the
latter who said, “Let’s _stay_ dead and missing, and take another name,
and go on further west or south, and begin new with the world. I think
it will be fun.”
The boy’s advice was followed, and John Rayborne and Tom Hardy went to
California, where Anita Raffael came in Mark’s way. She was an
orphan,—alone in the world,—with no home but the convent in which her
father had placed her at school before he died. With Mark it was at
first only pastime to talk to the little half Spanish, half Mexican,
when he chanced to meet her. Then something in her lovely face and soft,
dark eyes began to appeal to him, and he accidentally discovered how
much he was to her, and how forlorn she was in her convent home, where
she was like an imprisoned bird beating its wings against the bars of
its cage in its efforts to escape. No one was unkind to her; no one
could be, she was so gentle and sweet. She was unhappy because she
wanted freedom, and when Mark asked her to be his wife, she took him
gladly, and was so loving, and happy and gay, that he never repented the
act. She was not like Helen, nor was he like the Mark Hilton who had won
the famous beauty. He was John Rayborne, and Anita was his wife, and
their home was in the Yosemite, where she persuaded him to go, for she
loved the wild, mountain scenery and made their cottage a bower of
beauty, with her skillful hands and perfect taste. When she heard of a
stage robbery she would get furious and stamp her little feet and
denounce the robbers in her broken English, while Mark laughed at her
excitement and asked, “What would you do if I were to take to the road
some day?”
“Kill you first, and then die myself,” she answered, with no more
thought that such a thing could be than Mark himself had then.
For a time he drove the stage in the summer between Milton and the
valley, and was once or twice stopped on the road when Jeff was with him
on the box. Thus, both “knew the ropes,” as Jeff said, criticising the
manner of the attack and pointing out a better way, while Mark laughed
at him, and without meaning what he said, suggested that he try it.
Giving up stage-coaching, he became a guide, and then——. There was a
deep, dark gulf after the then, and he always shuddered when he recalled
the day when he joined Jeff in what he called a mere lark. Jeff had
tried it alone, and, unknown to Mr. Hilton, to see if he could do it. He
had profited by what he had seen on the road and laid his plans
carefully as to what he would do in certain circumstances. As a boy he
had picked pockets for fun, and he stopped the coach on the same
principle, finding that the gymnastic performances of his youth were a
help to him in the rapidity with which he could do his work and
disappear. The stage which was the object of his first attempt was
chosen because there was only one passenger in it, a clergyman, who had
prayed aloud while he was being searched.
“The old cove’s watch was silver, and he had only twenty-five dollars in
his purse, and I gave them back to him. I never meant to take a blessed
thing, and my revolver wasn’t loaded,” he said to Mark to whom he
related his adventure.
The boy, who had horrified Uncle Zacheus by saying he’d like to be a
robber and had astonished Alice by offering to pick her pocket, had
developed into a man with a will so strong and a manner so enticing that
Mark was like clay in his hands. It was, however, some time before he
was persuaded to try what he could do at a hold-up. He found he could do
a great deal. The excitement and danger were exhilarating, especially
when Jeff was with him and by his wonderful activity bewildered the
passengers until they could have sworn there were half a dozen men
instead of one demanding their money. It was exhilarating, too, to help
search for the brigands and hear all that was said of them and make
suggestions as to the best means of capturing them. The downward grade
once entered upon, it was comparatively easy to continue it until he was
steeped in crime so deep that to go back seemed impossible. Sometimes
when Anita’s arms were around his neck he would put her from him quickly
with a feeling that he was not worthy to touch one so pure and innocent
and who trusted him so implicitly. It would kill her if she knew the
truth, but she never should know it, he thought, and for her sake and
his daughter’s he was deciding to quit his mode of life when her sudden
death paralyzed for a time every faculty of his mind and left him
without the ballast he needed.
Returning home late one night after an absence of two or three days he
had been talking with Jeff of a recent robbery and the necessity there
was to keep quiet for some time to come, the country was so thoroughly
aroused and so large a price was offered for the capture of the men. A
slight sound, more like the cry of a wounded animal than of a human
being, attracted his attention, and hurrying into the next room he found
Anita senseless upon the floor. She had been sitting up after Inez was
in bed hoping he might come home and had fallen asleep so that she did
not hear him when he came in; neither did he see her, or suspect that
she was in the next room. His voice must have awakened her, but what she
heard he never knew. That it was enough to kill her he was sure.
Everything which he could do for her he did, but although she recovered
her consciousness she never spoke again except with her eyes which
followed him constantly and were full of the horror she could not
express. After she died he remained at home the entire summer, but when
the next season came round Tom persuaded him to take up the old life,
which would give him excitement if not peace of mind. Many were the
ruses resorted to to throw people off the track should they ever chance
upon it. The attack of Mark upon a stage and Tom’s defence was one of
them, planned by Tom, who was ringleader in everything. No one suspected
them and their popularity hurt Mark nearly as much as suspicion would
have done. But nothing touched him like Inez’s faith in him. She was his
idol, on whom he lavished all the love he had ever given to Helen and
Anita. Of her engagement he secretly disapproved. That Tom would leave
nothing undone to make her happy he knew, but that his beautiful young
daughter should marry a man for whose capture thousands of dollars were
offered was terrible. But he was powerless. To betray Tom was to condemn
himself, and either would kill Inez as her mother was killed.
And so matters were drifting when chance threw Fanny Prescott in his way
and something about her reminded him of the days when he had walked with
Helen Tracy through the woods and pastures of Ridgefield, and when Uncle
Zacheus had believed in him implicitly, disclaiming all taint of
heredity which might have come to him from ’Tina. He had no thought that
Fanny was his daughter, but she was like the people he used to
know,—like Helen and Alice and Craig, and she sent his thoughts back to
them with a vividness which almost made him feel that he was like them
again. He would not harm her, nor have her harmed.
“It’s no use talking,” he said, when Tom unfolded his plan of stopping
the coach in which she was to leave the valley. “I’m tired of it all,
and would give half the remainder of my life if the scroll could be
unrolled and all the black writing erased.”
To this resolution he stood firm, wondering what he could do to prevent
the catastrophe. It came to him like an inspiration to send Inez with
the driver, knowing that with her tall figure she would be readily seen
from the point where Tom would probably stand concealed and make his
observations. That something might happen he feared when he found that
Nero had gone after the coach. He would recognize Tom and springing upon
him in his delight, as he had a habit of doing, he might unmask him and
the secret be revealed. To threaten to do this himself was one thing,
and to have it done was another, and he was waiting impatiently for the
result when he at last saw Inez coming up the path on the bay mare. Her
face was pallid as a corpse and her eyes so unnaturally large and black
that he could see their blackness in the distance and felt himself
shrinking from meeting them. Tom was near her, with his head bent down
and his feet dragging heavily as if walking were difficult for him.
“I must face it,” Mark said to himself, and hurrying to meet them he
asked what had happened.
“Don’t ask _me_, and don’t touch me,” Inez answered, motioning him away.
“Tom, your colleague, will tell you.”
She sprang from the horse and went into the house without looking at her
father, who turned to Tom for an explanation.
CHAPTER IX.
MARK AND TOM.
The explanation was given concisely and fully, with nothing added or
withheld. As he listened Mark felt that he had neither strength, nor
muscle, nor nerve left. His sin had found him out, and the iron grip of
the law could not have hurt him as he was hurt with the knowledge that
Inez despised him.
“You think she knows everything?” he asked in a strange voice, for his
tongue felt thick and heavy.
“Everything. The game is up, and I wish I had died before I began it;
died in the old hogshead where I slept when you found me,” Tom replied.
He was shaking with cold, notwithstanding that drops of sweat were on
his face and hands, and his hair was wet as if drenched with water.
“It is an accursed business,” he went on rapidly, “and I am sorry I
dragged you into it. I was never so bad as some might think and I did it
less for gain than for the excitement of seeing half a dozen men cower
before a little fellow like me and a pistol which half the time was not
loaded. That was the case to-day with the revolver Inez picked up and
held at my head before she pocketed it. You should have seen her when
she bade me go before she shot me like a dog. I never loved her as I did
at that moment when I knew I had lost her. Once on the road when she
seemed about to fall from the saddle and I tried to help her she
threatened to shoot me again, reminding me that my revolver was in her
pocket. Do you remember how I used to stand on my head when anything
sudden pleased me? Well, I felt like trying it again when I imagined
Inez’s surprise to find the chambers empty if she tried to kill me. She
said you had told her there was murder in her blood. Do you think that
Dalton woman’s fingers were tingling to shoot me?”
Tom was talking at random, scarcely knowing what he was saying. But it
did not matter. Mark was not listening to him. He had heard all he cared
to know and was wondering how he could meet Inez and what she would say
to him. He knew she had gone to her room, but could hear no sound of her
moving. Once the thought came to him, “Is she dead? Has the shock killed
her as it did her mother?” and he started to go to her. Then as he heard
the opening of a window he resumed his seat. Outside, the bay mare had
been patiently standing waiting to be cared for, and at last, as the
care did not come, neighing loudly and pawing on the ground. Mark heard
her and rising mechanically went out to her, glad of something to do,
which would for a few moments divert his mind from himself. Over the
mare’s stall a halter was hanging, and Mark looked at it attentively and
tested its strength and wondered if it would hold him and how he would
look dangling there, and if his feet would not touch the floor and so
defeat his purpose. Satan was tempting him terribly and might have won
the victory if there had not come to him a second time that day thoughts
of Ridgefield and the old man who had loved and trusted him, and who, he
had no doubt, had prayed for him when he supposed him still alive. The
north piazza of the Prospect House, with Craig and Alice and Helen and
the pleasant hours spent there came up before him and brought the tears
to his hot eyes, cooling and healing and driving the tempter away.
“’Tina’s great-grandson must not hang himself. That would be heredity
with a vengeance,” he said, laughing an unnatural laugh. “Only Inez
knows it, and my whole life shall be devoted to convincing her of my
repentance,” he thought, as he left the stable.
There was a grain of comfort in this, and the future did not look quite
so dark as he went back to the house and sat down with Tom, who neither
moved nor looked up at him as he came in. He, too, was thinking of the
future and the past; of Ridgefield and his happy boyhood there; of Mrs.
Taylor’s teachings, which, although occasionally emphasized with a box,
had lodged in his memory, and were repeating themselves over and over in
his brain. But beyond all this was a thought of Alice, who had been so
kind to him,—who had defended him against Mrs. Tracy, saying there was
no harm in him and she would trust him anywhere.
“What would she think of me now, all smirched and stained as I am? Would
she speak to me as she did that morning when we gathered the pond lilies
and she smoothed my hair?” he thought, and his hand went up to his head
to the spot where Alice’s hand had rested so long ago. “I can feel it
yet,” he said to himself. “It kept me then from mischief; it shall help
me now.”
Then he thought of Inez. She was lost to him so far as the life he had
hoped for was concerned. He might in time learn to live without her, but
he could not live and see her cold and hard towards him as she had been
that morning.
“I would rather die,” he thought, “than know she would never again look
upon me except with hatred and distrust.”
Had he been in the stable and seen the halter which had suggested
suicidal thoughts to Mark there might have been a tragedy added to that
day’s doings. But the halter was out of sight and Tom wrestled with his
remorse, which, to do him justice, did not arise alone from the fact
that Inez knew and despised him. He was genuinely sorry and could not
understand how he had become what he was. In his nature there was enough
of hopefulness for a rebound from the depths of despair if he saw a ray
of light, and after sitting for more than an hour in perfect silence he
arose and going up to Mr. Hilton said, “If we were in a boat that was
sinking, we’d get out of it, if we could. Let’s do so now. We have been
on the down track and touched the bottom. Let’s try the upward slope.
Let us _be_ what the world thinks we are,—honorable, upright men. I have
helped to pull you down. I will try to help you up, and maybe——I don’t
think I ought to take His name on my lips, but you know whom I mean, and
He, perhaps, will help us. I used to learn a lot about Him in the Sunday
School in Ridgefield, and it is coming back to me now. What do you say?
Shall we strike hands on a new deal? No one knows but ourselves and
Inez. She will not tell. We shall carry the burden of our secret always,
but maybe it will grow lighter in time.”
He offered his hand to Mr. Hilton, who took and held it a moment, but
said nothing. He was still shifting the blame to some extent upon Tom’s
shoulders and cursing himself for having been so weak as to be led by
him. Releasing Mark’s hand, Tom began walking across the piazza with his
hands in his pockets, when he touched something hard and started as if a
serpent had stung him.
“By George, I had forgotten this in my excitement,” he said, taking out
a small linen bag and laying it upon the table which stood upon the
piazza. “See,” he continued, taking out the diamonds Fanny had guarded
so carefully.
In an instant Mr. Hilton was on his feet and facing Tom threateningly.
“Tom, you villain!” he exclaimed, “you robbed her after all, and have
been prating to me of a new life and Sunday School lessons learned in
Ridgefield. You hypocrite, I could strike you dead, if it were not for
adding murder to my other crimes! Why did you do it, and how?”
Tom could not resent Mark’s anger, and could scarcely speak aloud as he
replied. “I don’t know why I did it. When I picked up her hat and
straightened it and felt the stones something I could not resist made me
take them. My fingers tingled as they used to do in Ridgefield when I
picked pockets for fun. A legion of devils were urging me on and all the
while I was saying to myself ‘I shall get them back to her somehow,’ and
I will. They must be very valuable.”
He held up the ear-rings which glowed and sparkled in the sunlight,
emitting sparks of color which played upon Mark’s face, which was
ghastly now with a cold sweat standing upon it and a look of terror in
his eyes. Surely he had seen those jewels before,—so large, so white, so
clear, and pear shaped, with the old fashioned setting which Helen would
never have changed. He could not be mistaken. He had seen them too often
and clasped them in Helen’s ears too many times not to know them now.
“Tom,” he said in a whisper, for his throat seemed closing up. “Tom,
these are the Tracy diamonds,—my wife’s diamonds. Don’t you remember
them?”
Tom had been too young when he left Mrs. Hilton to know much about her
jewelry. It came back to him now, however, that her ear-rings were very
large and of a peculiar shape. These might be the same, and if so how
came Fanny Prescott by them? He put the question to Mark, who did not
answer. The conviction that he had Helen Tracy’s diamonds was
strengthening every moment, and if so _who_ was Fanny Prescott?
Something like half the truth began to dawn upon him, making him so
faint that the ear-rings dropped from his hands and he sat down gasping
for breath. That Helen had married again and that Fanny was her daughter
he suspected, but not that she was his. That little child was dead. He
saw it in the paper. This girl was Helen’s. Helen had been near him,—in
the valley,—past his house,—and he had not known it. He did not care for
her, he thought, but he did care for her daughter, if the girl were her
daughter.
“Inez may know something. I must see her,” he said, starting for her
room.
Once on the stairs he stopped, afraid to meet her. Then, knowing it must
be he went on and knocked at her door.
CHAPTER X.
INEZ AND HER FATHER.
When Inez heard Tom’s voice and saw him standing near her she knew him
at once and felt for a moment as if her heart stopped beating; then
there was a sensation as if it were turning over rapidly, as she had
seen a wheel turn in machinery, and swelling as it turned, until her
throat was full and she could not breathe. Of what happened next she had
only a confused recollection. Somebody shrieked, but whether it was
herself, or Fanny she did not know. Somebody leaped from the stage and
confronted Tom with a revolver. That was herself. She was clear on that
point. She had threatened to shoot him and knew there was a feeling in
her heart which would have let her do it, if he had not gone as she bade
him go. Then Nero came, and with him a reaction of feeling and her
thought was to save Tom from recognition, for he was still the man whom
she loved, and she called the dog back and watched Tom till he
disappeared from sight, straining her eyes while he was visible among
the trees as if she would hold him as long as possible, for never again
could he be to her what he had been. Then a great darkness came over her
and she felt Fanny’s tears upon her face and heard the sound of many
voices talking of her, and among them at last Tom’s; Tom, himself, in
the clothes he had worn away that morning, when he kissed her good-bye,
as he would never kiss her again. The impulse to kill him was gone. She
must save him now from suspicion, for more than he was involved in the
terrible thing which had happened.
Rallying all her strength she saw the stage depart leaving her alone
with a despair which made her cover her mouth with her hands lest she
should cry out and bring her friends back to her. With a feeling of
disgust she drew away from Tom’s touch when he would have helped her and
felt again a disposition to kill him if he came near her. All her
Spanish and Mexican blood was at fever heat, nor did it abate at the
sight of her father who was equally guilty with Tom. Ignoring his offer
of help she went at once to her room and threw herself upon the bed in
an agony of despair. Everything had been swept away, leaving a darkness
so profound that she could see no light in the past or future. She loved
Tom. She worshipped her father, and had been so proud of both, and both
were brigands. She said the word to herself, pressing her hands first
upon her temples, which throbbed with pain and then clasping them over
her heart which burned like fire and beat so loudly that she could hear
every beat and thought it sounded like a muffled drum.
“Brigands!” she repeated, while from every corner of the room the word
came back to her till the air was filled with it.
She understood everything, for her mind had gone rapidly over the past,
gathering up proof here and there until all was plain to her,—the double
lives of the two men, who were all she had to love, and the knowledge
gave her nearly as much shame as pain that she should have been so
deceived. She knew now why her mother died so suddenly, with that awful
look on her face as her palsied tongue tried in vain to speak. She had
discovered the truth and it had killed her.
“Happy mother, to die!” she moaned. “I wish I could die too. Oh, father,
I thought you a king among men, and Tom, too. I was so happy yesterday
and this morning, with no thought that I was a brigand’s daughter,—that
the men I wished could be caught and hung were father and Tom! Oh, I
cannot bear it. I feel like a debased creature, whom no one would speak
to, if he knew, and I loved Fanny so much, and she liked me some. But
that is all over now. Tom meant to rob _her_, the only girl friend I
ever had—Oh-h! I cannot bear it.”
Her agony was intense as the horror grew upon her and she was burning
with excitement and fever. There was a feeling in her as if she could
not breathe, and every heart beat was like a heavy blow. She had opened
a window and she tried to rise again and go to it for air, but could
not, and she fell back upon her pillow with her eyes staring at the
pointed ceiling of her room. It was a pretty room, furnished with many
articles her father had bought for her and which she knew were
expensive. Fanny had liked it and her presence there had lent a halo to
everything. But Inez loathed it all now, knowing where the money came
from which had bought these luxuries which a poor mountaineer’s daughter
ought never to have.
“I can’t stay here. I must go away and earn my living somewhere,” she
was thinking, when she heard her father’s knock upon the door.
He was coming to explain, she thought, and she did not want an
explanation. Nothing could change the shameful facts, and she did not
look at him as he came in and sat down beside her. Her hand was lying
near him and she drew it away quickly as if afraid he might take it. He
saw the motion and interpreted it aright.
“Inez,” he began, “have no fear that I will touch you. I am not worthy
to sit in the same room with you, and I am not here to make excuses; I
want to ask what you know about Fanny Prescott. Who is she? I mean, who
was her mother?”
Inez was too stupified and bewildered to wonder at her father’s question
and replied, “Her mother was a Miss Helen Tracy, of New York. Judge
Prescott was her step-father, whose name she took when her mother
married him. Her own father was a Mr. Hilton, who was killed in the
mines of Montana when Fanny was a baby—Father, father, what is it? What
is the matter?” she exclaimed, as her father fell forward upon the bed.
Everything was for the time forgotten in her anxiety for him as he lay
like one dead.
“Tom, come quickly,” she cried, “Father is dying.”
But life was strong within him, and he soon recovered, but tore his
cravat from his neck and unbuttoned his vest to help his breathing,
which was nearly as labored as Inez’s had been.
“Tell me again who she is! Tell all you know!” he said, while Tom looked
inquiringly at him and at Inez, who repeated what she had said of Fanny
Prescott.
Tom, who was standing up, dropped into a chair as if he had been shot,
while Mr. Hilton exclaimed, “Oh, Inez, Fanny is my daughter and your
sister! For I am Mark Hilton—married first to Helen Tracy and divorced
when our baby was a few months old, I thought she was dead. I heard so.
Oh, my daughter, my daughter!” he cried in alarm at the look on Inez’s
face as she listened to him. He had told everything with no thought of
the effect it might have upon her. She had borne all she could bear, and
with this fresh blow she lay for hours, not fainting, but dying it
seemed to those who cared for her so tenderly,—the wretched father, the
remorseful Tom, the kind neighbors who had been called in, and the
doctor summoned from a hotel. The news of her bravery in confronting the
robber had spread rapidly and the shock it must have given her was the
cause assigned by the physician for the state in which he found her.
There was also heart difficulty inherited from her mother, aggravated by
the strain upon her nerves, he said. She was young. She might pull
through, but the utmost care must be taken not to excite her in any way.
All night a light shone from the window of the room where she lay with
no sign of life except a feeble fluttering of the pulse and a low moan
when her father spoke to her. Once when an allusion was made by some one
to the adventure on the road and the belief expressed that the robbers
would be captured if the whole state rose up to do it, she opened her
eyes and looked at Tom, who was sitting at the foot of her bed. Her lips
moved with a sound her watchers construed into “Do,” but which Tom, with
his senses quickened and on the alert, knew was “Go,” and meant that he
should fly before he was captured. But he was not that kind and would
not have gone with Inez dying if he had known that all the police in San
Francisco were on their way to take him.
Just as day was breaking there was a change for the better, and the
women, who had cared for Inez during the night, left with a promise of
returning as soon as possible. When no one was in the room but her
father Inez whispered, “I want Fanny.”
“Yes, daughter,” Mark answered, feeling himself a strong desire to see
her.
Then he remembered that if he would secure the daughter he must meet her
mother,—once his wife. Could he do it, stained with sin as he was, and
to find whom every foot in the valley had been gone over. There were
placards out now he was sure in San Francisco and Stockton, offering
thousands of dollars for his capture and that of his confederate. He had
seen them before, and with Tom had stopped and read them, but never with
a feeling that it was really himself that was meant. It had always been
somebody else. Now it _was_ himself,—Mark Hilton,—who was wanted, and he
could not meet Helen face to face. It was true she would not know the
depths to which he had fallen. She would only be surprised to find him
alive and very low down in the scale from what he was when she called
him her husband. He could bear her look of proud disdain after her first
fright was over, but, knowing himself as he did, he feared he could not
meet her without betraying himself in some way. Tom could do it, and Tom
must go. But Tom refused outright, and Mark was nearly beside himself.
As the morning wore on Inez grew more and more restless, asking for
Fanny and if she had come and if they had sent for her. About noon the
doctor came and found her fever so high that he said to Mr. Hilton, “If
that young lady can come she may save your daughter’s life.”
Mark could hesitate no longer. “I am going for Fanny,” he said to Inez,
“and will certainly bring her back.”
He found the hotel full of excited people, all talking of the hold up of
the previous day and all inquiring for Inez, of whose serious illness
they had heard when the morning stage from the valley came in. He was
told that Mrs. Prescott was in her room, but Fanny had gone with a party
to visit the big trees.
“I am not a card man now,” he thought, as he said to a servant, “Tell
Mrs. Prescott that Mr. Rayborne wishes to see her,” and then sat down to
try to quiet his nerves which tingled as if red hot lead was pouring
through them.
It was years since he parted from Helen in bitter anger, but he was not
thinking of that time now. His thoughts were back in Ridgefield and the
summer morning when he saw her on the north piazza and fell under the
spell of her wonderful eyes. He could see the mischief in them now as
they had looked when she said to Uncle Zach “Which is Mark and which is
Craig? You did not tell me.” He could see Craig dropping his straw into
his tumbler of lemonade as he sprang up to meet her and himself knocking
his head against Craig’s as each seized the same chair for her. He
remembered, too, the rose in her ribbons and knew that somewhere among
his belongings the faded leaves and dried calyx were hidden away. It was
strange how every detail of that morning came back to him as he sat
waiting the return of the servant, who, when he came, said to him, “The
lady will see you. Second floor, No. —, to the right.”
CHAPTER XI.
MARK AND HELEN.
Mrs. Prescott had nearly recovered from the fright of the previous day,
but had not felt equal to joining the party to the Big Trees. She seldom
joined any party. Her room was comfortable and she preferred to stay in
it, and when Mark’s message was brought to her she was sitting by her
window watching some people who had just arrived.
“Mr. Rayborne?” she repeated. “Who is he? I know no such man.”
“He is the father of the young lady who saved the coach yesterday,” the
servant replied.
“Oh, yes, I remember now. Show him up,” Mrs. Prescott said, with a
feeling of annoyance that she was to be bothered with so commonplace a
man as Mr. Rayborne must be.
As she had been in her room all the morning she had not heard of Inez’s
illness and really had not thought much about her, as the loss of her
diamonds was uppermost in her mind. Of course she was grateful to her
for what she had done and by and by when she felt equal to it she meant
to write her a note and tell her so. She had contributed generously
towards the watch to be bought for her and should make her some present
on her own account. This she thought quite sufficient without a call
from the father. Then it occurred to her that he might have come with
some news of the diamonds, or at least he could be of use in finding
them, and she was more willing to see him.
“I wonder what kind of man he is,” she thought. “Rough, of course,
though they said he was well educated and very gentlemanly for a guide,”
and immediately her old nature began to assert itself.
There was enough of coquetry left in her to wish to look her best before
any man. Going to the glass she pulled down her frizzes a little more in
order to cover some rather deep lines in her forehead,—straightened her
collar, pinched her cheeks to bring more color to them,—threw a fleecy
white shawl over her shoulders and sat down with her back to the door.
The carriage was now driving away and she was still watching it, when a
voice she had never forgotten and which made her start from her chair,
said to her “Helen.”
For a few moments Mark had been standing in the open door looking at her
to see if she had greatly changed.
“A little faded, but very handsome still and proud as ever,” he thought,
as he saw her profile and the pose of her head and shoulders.
He had loved her with all the strength of his youth, and though there
was a gulf between them which could never be crossed, something of the
old feeling prompted by memories of the summer days in Ridgefield
stirred within him as he watched her. She had expected Mr. Rayborne to
knock, and at the sound of her name she sprang up and turning looked for
a moment steadily at the intruder, while her face grew white as her
shawl.
“Who are you?” she asked, taking a step towards him.
“Have I changed past recognition? I should have known you anywhere,” he
replied, with a smile she could not mistake.
“Mark,” she whispered, for she could not speak out loud, “How came you
here, when you have been dead so many years?”
“To you, yes,” he said, coming nearer to her. “To you, yes; but very
much alive to myself and others. That notice of my death was a mistake.
I was not in or near the mine, but I let it pass. I preferred to be dead
to you and my old life. With Jeff I came to Southern California, taking
another name and marrying a little Spanish girl, Anita——”
“Marrying, when you knew I was alive! Oh, Mark!” Helen interrupted him,
while the hot blood stained her cheeks and the fire which leaped into
her eyes made her like the Helen Tracy of his Chicago home when she was
roused.
Mark smiled at this flash of jealousy and replied, “You forget the
divorce which made me free to marry. It was kind in you to see that I
had that privilege. You sent me a copy of the decree you know. And then
you married again. Why shouldn’t I? Anita was very lovely and sweet. She
is dead.”
“I thought you dead, too,” Helen replied, angry with him, angry with
poor little Anita, and angry at herself for showing her anger. “Where
did you come from, and why are you here?” she asked, glancing at the
door in fear lest Fanny should come in.
“Didn’t the servant tell you Mr. Rayborne wished to see you?” Mark said.
“Mr. Rayborne, yes; but not Mr. Hilton. Are you Mr. Rayborne? Is that
the name you took?” she asked, and he replied, “Yes, I am Mr. Rayborne,
and I am here at Inez’s request. She is very ill,—dying, we fear,—the
shock was so great. She wishes to see her sister.”
For an instant Mark’s eyes, which usually moved rapidly from one object
to another, were still and held the woman as if a spell were thrown over
her. With a sensation of numbness in every limb Helen gasped, “Inez,
your daughter! and sister to my Fanny! How do you know that?”
She was almost prepared to deny Fanny’s paternity, but Mark’s reply
prevented it.
“Fanny told Inez that her own father, Mark Hilton, whom she could not
remember, was killed in the mines of Montana and that she took Judge
Prescott’s name when her mother married him. Do I want more proof than
that? I suppose you changed her name from Frances to Fanny, which was
natural enough. Sit down. You don’t look able to stand.”
He brought her a chair and put her in it with his old-time courtesy of
manner, while Helen began to cry. To find Mark alive was not so bad.
Indeed, she was glad, for his supposed death in the mines had always
weighed upon her as something for which she was in part responsible. But
to find him a guide, a mountaineer, was galling to her pride. Her Apollo
had fallen from his pedestal, not only in position, but in looks. He was
still fine looking, but there were signs of age about him which her
quick eye detected. His hair was tinged with grey, and he was not as
erect as when he carried her through the rain. He had grown old and
Helen found herself feeling sorry for it and sorry that he had lost the
jaunty, city air he had when she last saw him. All this, however, was
nothing to the fact that he had another daughter, who was Fanny’s sister
and whom Fanny would claim at once if she knew of the relationship. She
must not know, and Helen was about to speak, when Mark said to her, “You
remember that the divorce was mentioned at some length in the gossiping
papers, and in one of them sympathy was extended to you for the loss of
your little daughter.”
“Yes,” Helen answered. “She was very ill and said to be dead by one of
the nurses. The reporters were very busy and seized upon every item,
whether true or false. The story was contradicted in the next day’s
issue.”
“Just so. I saw the first, and not the last, and thought her dead. With
her gone and you lost to me, as you were, and with no home or friends,
it is not strange that I wanted to get away and be forgotten,” Mark
said. “In California it is comparatively easy to do this. For a long
time I would not look in a New York or Chicago paper if one came in my
way, and so I missed seeing the announcement of your marriage with Judge
Prescott and supposed you were still Mrs. Tracy, if living. I believe
you dropped my name when you dropped me.”
Helen assented, and he went on: “There is no look in Fanny’s face like
you, or like me, but she interested me strangely when I saw her, and
sent my thoughts back to Ridgefield and to you, and the long ago, which
I could wish blotted out, if it were not for Fanny and the love she and
Inez bear each other. I have never heard a word of you since I came to
California and did not know whether you were dead or alive. I have
avoided eastern people lest I should stumble upon some one who knew me.
I have acted as guide unwillingly, for fear of meeting an old
acquaintance. Fortunately I never have. I had no suspicion that Fanny
was my daughter until yesterday, when Inez came home, more dead than
alive and I asked particularly about her friend. Inez’s mother died with
heart trouble, which she inherits. I have always known this and tried to
guard her from strong excitement. The fright yesterday was too much for
her and she does not rally from it.”
“Does she know of—of—the relationship?” Helen asked falteringly, as if
the word hurt her pride.
“I told her when I learned who Fanny was; she is very anxious to see her
sister. Can she go?” Mark said.
“No, oh no,” Helen cried, wringing her hands. “She must not go. It would
all be known,—the relationship, I mean. She thinks you dead. Let her
think so. She knows all about you—way back.”
“To ’Tina?” Mark asked, and Helen answered him, “Yes, to ’Tina. I told
her everything when Judge Prescott died. I had to, she was so persistent
after she knew a little. She is to marry Roy Mason, son of Alice and
Craig. You remember them?”
It was a strange question to ask, and Mark laughed as he answered it.
“I have reason to remember Craig, as he has me. I suppose you have met
him often. I should like to have seen the first meeting.”
“It was nothing to see,” Helen answered. “He was Alice’s husband and any
love he ever had for me was dead, as it should be.”
“And you didn’t try to see if you still had power to move him?” Mark
said ironically, while Helen’s eyes flashed with anger.
“What do you take me for? I had been divorced and widowed as I supposed.
I was Judge Prescott’s wife, and we met almost as strangers. I would as
soon think of moving the Sphinx, as I used to call him, as of moving
Craig Mason. Are you satisfied?”
Mark bowed and asked, “What has Fanny’s engagement with Craig’s son to
do with her going to Inez?”
“Much,” Helen replied. “The Masons are very proud, and I don’t know what
the result would be if they knew of your change of name and of a
daughter who would claim relationship with Roy. Leave Fanny alone, I
beg, and go your way.”
She was standing before him with tears in her eyes which looked just as
beautiful as they had looked twenty years ago, and he might have yielded
had there been no one but himself to consider. When he remembered Inez
he was firm as a rock.
“We will let Fanny decide. I will wait for her,” he said, and turned to
leave the room.
Helen called him back. She knew the result if the matter were left to
Fanny. Nothing could keep her from Inez.
“Mark,” she said again, going close to him and putting her hand on his
arm.
He felt it through his coat sleeve and wanted to take it and wanted to
shake it off. He did neither and said to her, “Well, what is it?”
“You are a man of honor,” she replied.
He knew he wasn’t, but rejoined, “Well?”
“And you are a gentleman,” she continued.
Mark thought of the many times she had told him he was not a gentleman,
but he merely repeated the word “Well?” while she went on: “If I let
Fanny go, promise not to tell her who you are. There’s no knowing what
she would do, and I could not bear to have everything come out as it
would with Fanny calling you father and all that. I did many wrong
things when we lived together, but I never meant half as bad as I
talked, and when I thought you were killed in that dreadful way I was
very, very sorry. I was going to stop in Montana on my way home to see
if I could find any one who knew you. I am telling you this to show you
that I am not as bad as you think. Let the past be dead and buried, and
don’t let Fanny know. Will you, Mark?”
She had both hands on his arm now and was looking at him with an
expression he could not resist.
“I promise that neither Inez nor I will tell her,” he said, “but do you
know how hard it will be for me to see her and not tell her I am her
father?”
“Yes, I know; but it is better so. You must see that it is.”
He did see it when he remembered what he was,—a man from whom Fanny
would shrink, if the veil were lifted as it had been from Inez.
“Fanny shall not know from me,” he said, and with this fear gone Helen
began to speak of what all the time had been in her mind,—her diamonds.
Had Mark heard that they were lost from Fanny’s hat and could not be
found? “My ear-rings were with them. You remember them? I was going to
give them to Fanny on her wedding day.”
Every word she said cut like a knife, but Mark managed to answer
naturally that he had heard that the diamonds were lost and to assure
her that he would do whatever he could to find them and so would Mr.
Hardy.
“Oh, yes,—Mr. Hardy,—your daughter’s _fiancé_,” Helen rejoined,—“the
young man who saved a coach from being robbed as your daughter saved
ours. Fanny thinks highly of him.”
Mark responded with a bow, and something in his face made Helen ask
quickly, “Mark, is Tom Hardy _Jeff_?”
“Yes, but let him stay Tom Hardy until he chooses to declare his
identity himself. He will try to trace your diamonds,” Mark said, in a
constrained voice.
Helen bowed her acquiescence, but looked puzzled. Everything was
puzzling,—everything annoying,—and her brain was in a whirl, making her
wish to be alone.
“Good bye,” she said to Mark, bowing him from the room. “It is too late
for Fanny to go to the cottage to-night, but you will see her to-morrow.
Remember your promise.”
She was trembling so she could scarcely stand, and when he was gone she
threw herself upon the couch and sobbed hysterically for the trouble
which had come upon her so unexpectedly. In the heyday of her youth and
beauty, when her path was strewn with bruised hearts she had asked
ironically if there were not a passage in the Bible which said
“‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” When Mark deserted
her and she went through the notoriety of a divorce, she had felt that
she was being paid, but that was nothing to this last instalment of the
payment, and the proud woman writhed under the chastisement, indignant
at Mark,—she scarcely knew for what, unless it was for having married
Anita, and indignant at Inez for being Fanny’s half sister. It was some
time before Fanny came, and when she did she found her mother in bed in
a chill, with cramped hands, blue lips and cold feet, and Celine
attending to her with hot drinks and hot water bags and shawls. It was
some time before Mrs. Prescott was sufficiently quiet to tell her of Mr.
Rayborne’s visit and Inez’s serious illness.
“I dare say he exaggerated the case and probably the girl is better by
this time,” she said. “I promised you should go and see her to-morrow,
but if I feel as I do now, I cannot allow it.”
Fanny, who had heard of Inez’s illness before she came up to her mother,
made no reply, but in her little wilful heart she said “I shall go,” and
she did. She knew her mother’s nervous condition, which she could not
understand, would not last long, and that Celine would do all that was
necessary. Probably she should not stay more than the day. It would
depend upon how she found Inez, she said to her mother, at whose bedside
she stood just as it was growing light. It was a long drive to the
cottage, and as she wished for as much time as possible with Inez she
had stipulated with the landlord to have a conveyance ready for her at a
very early hour.
“Good bye, mother,” she said, “I am going now. You look a great deal
better than you did last night. Celine will take good care of you till I
come back. Good bye.”
She stooped and kissed her and then hurried away, while Helen began to
cry, not so much because Fanny had gone, as from a growing conviction
that the truth would come out, and then, what might not Fanny do?
Acknowledge her father, of course, and probably insist upon taking Inez
to New York and introducing her as her sister. The thought brought on a
nervous headache which kept her in bed all day, bemoaning her fate and
wishing she had never come to California. Mark would keep his word, she
was sure, but she distrusted Jeff, whom she had never liked. And he was
Tom Hardy, and Mark was Mr. Rayborne. The change of names affected her
unpleasantly and when at last she fell asleep they kept repeating
themselves over and over in her troubled brain,—Mr. Rayborne and Tom
Hardy.
CHAPTER XII.
FANNY AND INEZ.
Inez, who had passed a restless night, had been told the conditions on
which Fanny was permitted to come to her, and this detracted somewhat
from her anticipated pleasure in having her there. But her father had
given his word, and it was sacred to her. All night Mark had staid by
her, while Tom sat outside, trying to devise some means of returning the
diamonds without exciting suspicion. He could hear Inez every time she
moved or spoke, and that was some comfort. Once, during an interval when
the pain in her heart was not so great, she said to her father, “Tell me
how it happened, and when? The other marriage, I mean, and tell me about
Tom,—when he was somebody else.”
Mark, who shrank from this ordeal which he had feared might come, said
to her, “You are not strong enough, daughter. Wait awhile.”
“No,” she answered. “There is no waiting for me. I want to know now how
you came to marry that proud lady. Were you like her? Like her people, I
mean? and was Tom with you?”
Very briefly Mark told as much of his story as he thought necessary,
omitting ’Tina and the finding of Tom in Boston where he rescued him
from the street. Everything was softened and the life at Ridgefield
dwelt upon at length, while Inez listened as to an interesting romance.
It did not seem quite real to her that her father was once in a position
so different from that which he now occupied. The change of names
troubled her and twice she repeated “Mark Hilton,—Jefferson Wilkes,” as
if accustoming herself to the sound. Once when her father made an
allusion to the present as if to explain, she said, “No, no. I can’t
bear that, now or ever. There is no excuse. You are my father, and I
must love you always,—and Tom, who is not Tom at all!”
Tom was on his feet and in the room in a moment, standing where she
could not see him, as she went on very slowly, for her breathing was
difficult.
“It seems odd, but I am glad you were once a gentleman like those at the
hotel, and lived in a grand house like Fanny’s, but I like better to
hear of the woods and river and meadows and ponds in—what was the
place?—Where Tom gathered the lilies.”
“Ridgefield,” Mark replied, trying to stop her as he saw how exhausted
she seemed.
“Let me talk while I can,” she said. “I can’t speak of the past when
Fanny comes if she is not to know you are her father. No one need to
know it or the change of names. You are Mr. Rayborne, and Tom is Tom. I
cannot think of him as Jeff, or you as Mr. Hilton. You are father and he
is Tom till I die.”
“She does care for me a little. Thank God for that,” Tom thought, as he
crept back to his post on the stairs.
It was beginning to get light, and not long after sunrise a buggy driven
by an employee from Clark’s stopped at the foot of the hill leading to
the cottage. Mark saw Fanny as she ran up the path, and went to meet
her. In her flushed, eager face there was a look which he had seen often
in his own face when he was a boy, and this it was which made him call
her “My child” as he led her into the house and told her how low Inez
was and how necessary that she should be kept quiet and not excited in
any way.
“Her mother died of heart trouble. Inez may go the same way if we are
not careful,” he said.
“I will be very careful,” Fanny answered, as she followed him to Inez’s
room.
The curtains were drawn over the windows, but it was light enough for
Fanny to see the great change in Inez. Her eyes were sunken, but
unnaturally bright. There was a drawn look about her mouth and her
cheeks had lost much of their roundness, but were red with fever spots,
which contrasted sharply with the pallor of her lips.
“Fanny, oh Fanny! I am so glad you have come,” she said, trying to rise
and opening and shutting her fingers rapidly. Then exerting all her
strength she threw her arms around Fanny’s neck and burst into tears
while her father tried to quiet her. “Don’t stop me,” she said. “I must
cry or my heart will burst, and my head, too,—it aches so hard. Fanny,
Fanny! You don’t know all your coming to me means. Now put me back on my
pillow and sit where I can see you without turning my eyes. I am tired
all over.”
Her arms fell helpless on the bed and she scarcely seemed to breathe.
“I don’t understand it,” Fanny said in a low tone to Mr. Hilton.
Inez heard her and before her father could reply she whispered, “Don’t
try to understand, or speak of it. Just sit by me.”
All day Fanny sat by her, knowing that whenever Inez’s eyes were open,
they were fixed on her with a look which began to make her
uncomfortable.
“What is it, Inez? Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked at
last.
Inez did not answer at once, but her hand moved slowly towards Fanny’s,
which chanced to be lying on the bed near her. For a time she regarded
it intently, evidently contrasting its whiteness and softness with her
own larger brown hands.
“We are not much alike, but you love me and are not ashamed of me,” she
said.
“Ashamed of you!” Fanny repeated. “Why should I be?”
“And you will stay with me? It can’t be long,” Inez continued.
“Yes, I will stay,” Fanny answered involuntarily.
Then she remembered her mother, who was expecting her back that night,
or the next day, at the farthest. What would she say?
“I’ll stay a week any way. Inez must be better by that time,” she
thought, and wrote to her mother to that effect, suggesting that if she
were not comfortable at Clark’s she go on to San Francisco, where she
would join her later.
Mrs. Prescott was greatly agitated when she received this note, and
insisted that Celine should go to the cottage and bring Fanny away. She
would have gone herself, but for the dread of meeting Mark again and
being compelled to see Inez and possibly Tom. She could not go, but
Celine must. Celine, who had been in the family since Helen was a young
lady, understood her perfectly, and understood Fanny too. If the latter
had made up her mind to stay with Inez, she would stay, and after a
little she succeeded in making her mistress see that it was better to
let her daughter alone.
“But I shall not go to San Francisco and leave her behind. I am very
comfortable here and shall stay till she joins me,” Mrs. Prescott said,
adding after a moment’s thought, “I don’t know what the surroundings are
at that cottage. Plain, of course, and not what Fanny is accustomed to.
She will be worn out with the watching and the change. I think you’d
better go and see to her.”
This was a great concession and Fanny felt it as such when she received
her mother’s letter offering Celine.
“It is kind in you, mamma,” she wrote in reply, “but Celine is not
necessary. There is a woman in the kitchen and I don’t know what I
should do with a maid. I am waited on now by everybody as if I were a
princess, and Inez couldn’t see strangers. Keep Celine for yourself, and
don’t worry about me.”
After the receipt of this note Mrs. Prescott settled down to wait
Fanny’s pleasure and fret at the prolonged delay. Inez did not improve,
except that her voice was a little stronger and Fanny could talk with
her longer at a time and not tire her. One day after the stage had
passed Tom brought a small package sent from San Francisco to Inez in
care of her father. It was the watch which a lady had been commissioned
to buy as a testimonial of the gratitude of the passengers who had been
in the stage on the day of the hold up. Fanny had hoped to select it
herself, but when she saw it she felt that she could not have chosen
better. It was a little diamond jeweled stem winder, with Inez’s name on
the inside lid and the date of the hold up.
“Something for you from San Francisco,” Fanny said as she put the box on
the bed before Inez, whose eyes grew very bright and questioning when
she saw what it contained.
“A watch! the thing I have always wanted. How did it come to me? I don’t
understand,” she said.
Fanny explained why it was sent and how glad the passengers were to send
it. It was the first time any allusion had been made to the attempted
robbery. Mr. Hilton had warned Fanny not to speak of it and she had been
careful not to do so. Now she said as little as possible and was glad
that Inez did not seem greatly excited.
“I’ll keep it under my pillow,” she said, and several times that day
Fanny saw her looking at it, particularly at her name and the date. “I
wish ‘July —’ wasn’t there. It brings the dreadful day back to me, and I
see him and hear him and hear my scream, which must have filled the
valley,” she said.
“You will get over that when you are stronger,” Fanny suggested.
“Maybe,” Inez replied, and Fanny noticed that after that the watch lay a
little away from her instead of under her pillow.
The next morning Inez handed it to her, saying, “Will you think me
foolish if I ask you to take it away. Doesn’t it tick very loudly?”
Fanny did not think so, and Inez continued: “I had father put it on the
bureau and the table and at last in the drawer last night, but I could
hear it saying ‘_halt, halt_,’ just as _he_ said it. I am sorry, but I
can’t bear it. Take it away.”
With a feeling of disappointment Fanny took it from her and said, “Shall
I give it to Mr. Hardy to keep for you until you are better?”
“No, no; oh no, not to Tom; anything but that,” Inez exclaimed, and
greatly puzzled Fanny put the watch in her travelling bag down stairs
where she was sure the fancied _halt_ could not be heard.