THE light was fading when Violet Wayne lay in a low chair by the fire in
Hester Earle's drawing-room. A bitter wind wailed dolefully outside
among the swaying trees, and the room was growing dusky, but now and
then a flickering blaze from the hearth forced up the girl's face out of
the shadow. It was, so Hester who sat opposite her fancied, curiously
weary, and there was a suggestive listlessness in her attitude. She had,
though few of those who met her would have suspected it, been living
under a constant strain during the last two or three months, and it was
a relief to feel that for the time at least she could relax her efforts
to preserve her customary serenity. Hester evidently understood this,
for she was a young woman of discernment, and the two were close
friends.
"I am glad you have asked the Cochrane girls to stay with you, Violet,"
she said. "I think you need stirring up, and though there is not a great
deal in Lily Cochrane or her sister, nobody could accuse them of undue
quietness. They are coming?"
"I believe so, but Lily seemed uncertain whether she could get away, and
was to telegraph us to-night. Still, I almost fancy I would rather be
without them. There are times when one scarcely feels equal to
entertaining anybody."
Hester nodded sympathetically. "Of course, but it is in just such cases
the effort is most likely to prove beneficial," she said. "Have you had
any word from Tony since he left?"
"Two or three lines written in pencil from Havana. He was going into the
country to find Mr. Appleby."
Hester gazed thoughtfully at the fire for awhile, and then suddenly
fixed her eyes upon her companion's face.
"We have been friends since the time we wore short frocks, and that
implies a good deal," she said. "Now, it is a little more difficult to
deceive me than the rest--and I have been concerned about you lately. I
wonder if I dare ask you if you have quite forgiven Tony?"
"I don't know"; and Violet's voice was a trifle strained. "I feel that I
should--but it is difficult, and I can't convince myself. It may be a
little easier by and by."
Hester made a little sympathetic gesture, though she was almost
astonished, for it was seldom that Violet Wayne revealed her feelings.
"Still, we understood that you would marry him when he came back," she
said.
Her companion sat still for almost a minute, while the flickering
firelight showed the pain in her face. Ever since the shock of Nettie
Harding's disclosure had passed she had grappled with the question
Hester had suggested, and striven to reconcile herself to the answer.
Tony had been suddenly revealed to her as he was, and the love she had
once cherished had not survived her belief in him, but there was in her
a depth of almost maternal tenderness and compassion which few
suspected, and the man's feebleness appealed to it. She knew how he
clung to her, and that if she cast him off he would inevitably sink.
There was a trace of contempt in her compassion as she realized it, and
yet she had been fond of him, and he had many lovable qualities. She had
also made him a promise, and his ring was still upon her hand, while she
reflected with a tinge of bitterness that it is not wise to expect too
much, and that men of stainless character were doubtless singularly
scarce. The joy of life had vanished, but she felt that Tony's fate was
in her hands, and the duty, at least, remained.
"Yes," she said very slowly. "If he still wishes it when he comes back."
Hester nodded gravely. "I think you are right," she said. "Tony will
wipe the blunder out when he has you to prompt him, but I think he would
go to pieces if you sent him away. Of course, it is not everybody who
would feel it--but it is--a responsibility. You can, you see, make
whatever you wish of him."
"One would esteem a man with the qualities which make that easy?" said
Violet, with a little weary smile.
"They might occasionally prove convenient in one's husband," said
Hester, with a faint twinkle in her eyes.
Her companion seemed to shiver. "I wonder what Tony is doing now," she
said. "It is, at least, hot and bright in Cuba, and if I had only known
when he was coming back we would have gone away to the Riviera." Then
she straightened herself a little. "Isn't it time your father arrived?"
Hester smiled, and wondered if Violet was already sorry that she had
unbent so far.
"He should be here at any minute unless the train is late," she said,
and, feeling that her companion would prefer it, plunged into a
discussion of Northrop affairs.
While she made the most of each triviality there was a rattle of wheels
outside, and Mr. Earle came in. He shook hands with Violet, and stood a
moment or two by the fire.
"I had expected to find your mother here," he said.
"It was a bitter afternoon, and I persuaded her to stay at home."
The man took a pink envelope out of his pocket, and handed it her.
"I passed the post-office lad walking his bicycle over a very soft piece
of road, and pulled up to ask if he had anything for me," he said. "When
I found he had only a telegram for your mother I offered to bring it on,
and he seemed quite willing to let me. The vicar hasn't turned up yet,
Hester?"
"No," said Hester. "I am expecting him."
Earle went out, and Hester proceeded with the account of a recent dance
which she had been engaged in when he came in, while Violet turned over
the telegram.
"It will be from Lily Cochrane to tell us she is coming, and I think
I'll open it," she said.
Hester nodded. "Ada Whittingham in green--there are people who really
have no sense of fitness," she said. "The effect was positively
startling."
Violet tore open the envelope, and gasped, while the words she read grew
blurred before her eyes. For a moment or two she could scarcely grasp
their meaning, and sat staring at the message, and trying vainly to read
it again. The branch of a trailer rose rapped upon the window as it
swayed in the moaning wind, and Hester ran on.
"Lottie had out her diamonds, the whole of them--somewhat defective taste
considering the character of the affair. Mrs. Pechereau was there with
Muriel in a black gown I've seen already--one would never fancy she was
that girl's mother."
Violet closed her fingers tight upon the telegram, for her companion's
prolixity was growing unendurable, and she wanted quietness to realize
what had befallen her. The firelight had died away, and, now her senses
were rallying, she could not read the message. Then a faint flicker
sprang up again, and Hester, glancing round, saw the tension in her
face.
"You're not listening," she said. "Why, what is the matter? Isn't Lily
coming?"
Violet rose up with a curious slow movement, and her face showed almost
as pallid as the white marble of the mantle she leaned against. Then a
little quiver ran through her, and the fingers of one hand trembled upon
the stone.
"I don't know," she said. "Let me be quiet for a moment, Hester!"
Hester rose, and laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. "Can't you tell
me? What has gone wrong?"
Violet let the telegram fall, and turned a cold, still face towards her.
"Tony is dead," she said, and sank back, shivering, into her chair.
"Oh," said Hester, "I am so sorry!"
The words were sincere enough, but just then the conventionality of them
appeared incongruous, and when Violet made no answer Hester picked up
the telegram and held it near the fire.
"Anthony Palliser killed in action, Santa Marta, Cuba. Particulars
personally. Sailing New York Saturday, Bernard Appleby," she read.
Then for the space of minutes there was silence in the room save for the
wail of the bitter wind outside, and Violet lay staring at the fire with
vacant eyes. Hester found it becoming unendurable, and touched her
companion gently.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" she said.
"No," said Violet, with a visible effort as she rose. "I think I will go
home. You will tell your father and the vicar, Hester. I can get my hat
and wraps myself. I don't wish you to come with me."
She straightened herself slowly and passed out of the room, while when
she entered it again dressed for the drive Mr. Earle laid his hand upon
her shoulder.
"You have our sincere sympathy, but I can't help fancying that it is not
altogether hopeless yet," he said.
The girl looked up at him with incredulity in her eyes. "You must know
it is. What do you mean?" she said.
"Well," said Earle, with a glance at the vicar, who had come in and
heard the news, "it is a little difficult to make clear. Still, you see,
my dear, that men who do not answer to the roll after a battle now and
then turn up again. A blunder may have been made in the confusion, while
we do not after all know anything very much to the credit of Mr.
Appleby. I would suggest that your mother ask lawyer Craythorne to meet
him. Men are apt to believe what they wish to now and then."
"I don't in the least understand you."
Earle appeared disconcerted. "If this distressful news were true Appleby
would be the gainer."
Once more the girl looked up with a chilling serenity that unpleasantly
affected him.
"There is no hope left," she said. "The man who sent the message made
absolutely certain or he would never have written it."
Earle glanced at the vicar, who nodded gravely.
"I wish I had not to admit it, but I feel that Violet is right," he
said. "Would you like me to drive over with you, my dear?"
"No," said the girl quietly. "I would much sooner be alone."
She passed out from among them, and Earle turned to the vicar again.
"It does not sound charitable, and I fancy you and Hester know rather
more about the affair than I do, but I can't help believing that Tony
could not have done Violet a greater kindness," he said. "I am, however,
a trifle astonished that you seem to participate in the curious belief
she evidently has in Appleby. You can't be well acquainted with him, and
he is taking a serious risk in coming here since there is still a
warrant out for him."
The vicar smiled. "I have heard a little about him, and I scarcely think
he would let the fact you mention stop him carrying out what he felt was
his duty."
The vicar's faith was warranted, for while Violet Wayne was driven home
that evening with her thoughts in a whirl, and a remorseful tenderness
which overlooked the dead man's shortcomings bringing a mist to her
eyes, Appleby sat under the electric lights in a room of a great New
York building. He felt the pulsations of a vast activity about him, for
the thick doors and maple partitions could not shut out the whir of the
elevators, tinkle of telephone bells, murmur of voices, and patter of
hasty feet, though his eyes were on the agreement bond he was attaching
his name to.
Harding, who sat opposite him, smiled as he laid down the pen.
"Now I guess that's all fixed up, and I don't think I'm going to be
sorry I took you into the business," he said. "You'll draw 'most enough
already to live out on the Hudson if it pleases you, and, so far as I
can figure, we'll roll in money once we get the sugar trade going again.
You'll go right back and straighten up when we've whipped the Spaniards
out of Cuba."
"I'm afraid I have scarcely deserved all you have offered me, sir," said
Appleby, whose fingers trembled a little as he took up the document.
"Nobody could have anticipated this result when I came across you on
board the 'Aurania.'"
Harding rose, and opening a cupboard took out a bottle and two glasses,
which he filled to the brim.
"I've no great use for this kind of thing in business hours as a rule,
but the occasion warrants it, and I believe only Austrian princes and
their ministers drink that wine," he said. "Well, here's my partner's
prosperity!"
They touched glasses, and a flush crept to Appleby's forehead, while
there was a little kindly gleam in Harding's eyes.
"I'm grateful, sir," said Appleby, and stopped abruptly.
Harding laughed. "Now, don't worry," he said. "I've no use for speeches,
and am going to get my money out of you. This is a business deal, and
there's something else to go into. You have quite fixed to sail in the
'Cunarder' on Saturday?"
"Yes. Still, I should not be much more than three weeks away."
"Well," said Harding a trifle dryly, "I don't quite know. I think Nettie
told me there was a warrant out for you, and I believe it's quite
difficult to get round the police in your country."
"I must take my chances. There is a woman in England that Tony Palliser
was to have married. He expected me to go."
Harding looked at him curiously. "Oh, yes," he said.
"Nettie told me about her. Well, I guess if you feel that way I have got
to let you go, and I don't quite know I'm sorry you have these notions.
They're a kind of warranty, and it wasn't altogether because you've got
in you the snap and grit that makes a man who can handle big affairs I
made you my partner. Still, time's getting on, and Nettie is expecting
us at Glenwood."
He summoned two clerks, who attested the agreement, and in another ten
minutes they were waiting for the elevator, while late that night
Appleby contrived to find Nettie Harding, who had been very gracious to
him, alone. She was standing by the marble hearth in the great drawing-
room where snapping logs of scented wood diffused a warmth and
brightness which would, however, scarcely have kept the frost out but
for the big furnace in the basement.
"What happened to-day has your approbation?" he said.
Nettie smiled. "Now, I think that is quite unnecessary when you know it
has," she said.
"Perhaps it is. I can't help fancying you were not greatly astonished at
your father's decision."
"Still," said the girl quietly, "I don't think I could coax Cyrus P.
Harding into making a bad bargain. Besides, if I had a finger in it, is
it more than any one would have expected?"
"I don't quite understand."
"No?" and Nettie smiled incredulously. "Well, you picked me up one night
when I might have gone out over the rail on the 'Aurania.'"
"I don't think you could have managed it had you tried."
Nettie stood silent a moment, and then a little flush crept into her
face, as she glanced down at the diamonds on her white wrists, and her
long trailing dress. It was, Appleby fancied, of as costly fabric as the
looms in Europe could produce.
"Well," she said with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, "there was
another night I met you when I wasn't got up like this, and you were
dressed in rags. Still, I knew that I could trust you. Do you believe
that I should have been here, with everything that a woman could wish
for, now, if I had not had that confidence?"
Appleby turned his eyes away, for certain fancies which had once or
twice troubled him became certainties, and he recognized that the regard
the girl had for him alone warranted the almost daring speech.
"I really don't remember very much about the night in question," he
said. "Nobody in my place could. I was wounded slightly and almost
dazed, you see."
Nettie smiled curiously. "That is, of course, just what one would have
expected from you."
Appleby showed a faint trace of embarrassment. "I have been waiting most
of the night to ask you a question," he said. "What did you say to Tony
Palliser and Miss Wayne about me in England?"
"You will never find out--unless she tells you."
"That is most unlikely."
Nettie smiled in a curious fashion, and then looked him in the eyes.
"Well," she said reflectively, "I don't quite know. You have already got
more than you ever expected, Mr. Appleby. Anyway, it is getting late,
and you will excuse me now."
She moved away, and then, turning, stood smiling at him a moment by the
door.
"Can't you tell me what you mean?" said Appleby, moving towards her with
a little flush of color in his cheeks.
"You are going to England on Saturday," said Nettie, and slipped out of
the door.