FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
After Sprague had left her, Agnes, shaken by the conflicting emotions
of the day, had gone to her room to rest and to prepare for the
interview which she meant to have with her father on the subject of her
lover and of Chatham.
Having received word that Murdock would remain in his study during the
rest of the afternoon, she had taken time to reflect upon what she
meant to say, and how she meant to say it. Her visit was not prompted
by the desire of a daughter to confide the great happiness of her
life to the loving sympathy of an affectionate parent; but Agnes was
punctilious in the performance of what she considered to be her duties,
great and small, and she counted it among those duties to obtain, or at
any rate to seek, the paternal sanction of her choice of a husband.
Her knock at the door of Murdock's study was answered in the chemist's
quiet voice:
"Come in."
As she opened the door, Murdock advanced to meet her. He seemed to come
from the direction of the extension.
Miss Murdock sniffed the air.
"Isn't there a leak of gas?" she inquired.
"Yes," replied Murdock; "I have just stopped a leak in the laboratory.
Won't you take a chair, Agnes?"
She felt his calm searching glance upon her; and, in spite of her
preparation, she grew embarrassed, as was her wont, in her father's
presence.
"Did Mr. Chatham wait to see you this afternoon?" she asked, after a
momentary silence.
Murdock observed her narrowly.
"Yes; Chatham has been here to-day. I did not know that you had seen
him."
"I could not help seeing him; for he forced his way into the parlor, in
spite of all the servants could do to prevent him."
An almost imperceptible furrow appeared between the chemist's eyes.
"Has he been annoying you with his attentions?"
The words were spoken in Murdock's usual tones; but Agnes saw
something in her father's eyes and in the firm lines of his mouth which
sent a cold shiver down her spine, and caused her pity to go out to the
unfortunate young man who had offended her.
"Perhaps he is more to be pitied than blamed," she suggested gently.
"My interview with him was certainly not pleasant; but I bear him no
malice."
"Tell me about it," said Murdock slowly.
Agnes gave her version of the visit, in which, instinctively, she
softened, as much as possible, the passion and brutality displayed by
the accountant.
Murdock listened in silence until she had quite finished. Then Agnes
noticed that his right hand was clenched upon the arm of his chair with
a force which caused the muscles to stand out in hard knots. She looked
up into his face in sudden surprise.
His features gave no indication of what his feelings might be; and his
voice, as usual, was steady and deliberate.
"I am sorry all this should have happened, Agnes. As I told you
yesterday, I hoped to save you from this man's importunities. It
cannot be helped now. But I think I made it clear to the gentleman
that his attentions are as distasteful to me as they are to you. As he
seems to have told you, he has been obliged to leave the country--I
understand that he has done something or other which makes it safer for
him to undertake a long journey. At any rate, we are well rid of him
for some time to come, and I think you need have no fear of further
molestation."
"What did he mean by saying that he had had encouragement from you?"
asked the young girl.
"I am sure I do not know. That was of course a lie out of whole cloth.
He came to me with letters of recommendation from good friends of mine,
and I therefore occasionally invited him to the house; but that is all
the encouragement he ever got from me. We live in the United States
and at the close of the nineteenth century. The selection of a husband
is no longer performed by a stern parent, but is left entirely to the
young girl herself. That is certainly my way of looking at the matter.
When you find the man of your choice, my only function will be to give
my advice, if you seek it, and my best assistance in any event."
The turn of the conversation thus suddenly brought to the surface the
topic which occupied the young girl's mind, to the exclusion of all
others; and which, for that very reason, had been kept severely in the
background up to that point.
"That reminds me," said Agnes consciously, as a charming flush suffused
her beautiful face, "that I have not yet broached the principal object
of this interview----"
Murdock observed her closely and waited for her to proceed. But Agnes
was once more laboring under a strange embarrassment and could not find
words in which to frame the confidence she was so reluctant to offer.
Perhaps the chemist divined something of the nature of what she
was struggling to find expression for. At any rate, he noticed her
embarrassment and endeavored to come to her assistance with a few
encouraging words, spoken with unusual gentleness. Agnes, engrossed
with her own thoughts, did not notice it; but there was in his manner
as near an approach to tender wistfulness as his nature was capable of.
At last the young girl seemed to gather courage, and she was about to
speak, when there was a knock upon the door.
"Plaze, sur; there do be two gintlemin in the hall."
"Who are they, Mary?"
"Shure, thin, sir, I dunno, barrin' wan uv 'em do be a polacemun."
"Did they ask to see me?"
"They did not, sur; shure they asked if Mr. Chapman was in."
"Mr. Chatham?"
"Yis, sur. And I told 'em he wuz here this afthernoon, and I wud see
wuz he here now, fur I aint seen him go yit."
"Well, Mary, you see he has gone, since he is no longer here," said
Murdock quietly. "Take the gentlemen into the parlor, and tell them I
shall be with them in a minute."
"All right, sur."
After the maid had left the room, the chemist rose from his chair and
walked toward the door leading to the library.
"If you will excuse me for a few minutes, Agnes, I shall see what these
men want. Wait for me here, if you will. I shall be back directly."
So saying, he noiselessly opened the folding-doors and passed into the
library, closing the doors carefully behind him.
Freed from the presence of her father, Agnes almost instantly regained
her composure. She had not, however, had much time to collect her
thoughts, when she was suddenly startled by a loud shrill whistle,
which brought her to her feet in alarm.
It is a well-known fact that there is, in the ring of a door bell, a
complex range of expression, which differentiates to an observant ear
the characteristics of the ringer. No one is likely to mistake the
postman's ring for that of the beggar; and no young girl is liable to
confound her father's ring with that of her lover; but, to a careful
observer, the gradations of quality, of intensity, of duration, in
a ringing door bell, are almost as great as in the voices of the
ringers themselves. Perhaps the range of expression in the whistle of
a speaking-tube is less extended; but in the whistle which reached
Agnes Murdock's ears there was something that struck a chill of terror
to her heart, like a wild despairing cry of anguish, and which caused
her to spring without hesitation to the tube, the mouthpiece of which
protruded from the wall of Murdock's study.
"Well?"
She asked the question in anxious tones, as if realizing that life and
death were in the balance. Then she placed her ear to the mouthpiece.
At first, she could not make out the words spoken by her invisible
interlocutor. Then, gradually, they fell upon her ear with terrible
distinctness; and she stood spellbound, as in a horrible nightmare,
with sudden terror in her staring eyes, and with the fearful sense of
impotence in her trembling limbs.