"Come in," said Laurel, faintly, in answer to the sharp rap at the door.
The cheap, plain funeral was over, and the orphan sat alone in the
deepening twilight in the shabby little room, now invested with a
somber dignity all its own since the presence of death had so lately
been there.
Laurel's head was bowed upon her hands, and tears coursed slowly, each
one a scalding drop of woe, down her white cheeks.
The door opened, and the woman from whom Mr. Vane had rented the two
shabby little rooms entered abruptly. She was a coarse, hard-featured
creature, devoid of sympathy or sensibility. She looked coldly at the
weeping girl.
"The rent's due to-day, Miss Vane," she said, roughly. "Have you got
the money to pay it?"
Laurel silently counted over the contents of her slim purse.
"Here is the money, Mrs. Groves, and it is the last cent I have on
earth," she said, drearily, as she placed the silver in the woman's
greedy outstretched hand.
"Is that so? Then of course you'll not be wanting the rooms any longer.
I will trouble you to move out early in the morning, so's I may rent
them to somebody else," exclaimed Mrs. Groves.
Laurel sprung to her feet in dismay, a terrified look on her fair young
face.
"Oh, madam, I have nowhere to go--so soon!" she cried out pleadingly.
"Perhaps you will let me keep the one little room until I can find
work. I will be sure to pay you!"
"I can't depend on no such uncertain prospects," declared Mrs. Groves,
unfeelingly. "I've got to be pretty certain where my money's coming
from before I rent my rooms. So out you go in the morning, and if you
don't leave quietly I'll have your trunk hoisted out on the sidewalk in
a jiffy, so there!"
With this emphatic threat the rude landlady banged herself out of the
room, and Laurel sunk down with a low moan of terror upon the floor.
She was no coward, reader, this forlorn little heroine of ours, but she
knew scarcely more of the wide world outside her cheap lodging-house
than a baby. She had lived in one poor place or another with her
erratic father all her life, keeping their poor little rooms with
untaught skill, meagerly supported by his neglected talent, and with
not an idea of how to earn her own living. Mr. Vane had educated her
after his own desultory fashion, but not in a practical way that she
could utilize now in her need. She wondered with a shudder of dread
what she should do, and where she should go to-morrow when she was
turned out into the streets, of which she felt horribly afraid, and
which her father had seldom permitted her to traverse alone.
She pushed open the casement and looked out. Night had fallen, and
under the glare of the gaslight Laurel saw wicked men and ribald women
tramping the streets. To-morrow night she would be out on the horrible
pavements among them, with nowhere to go, and not a friend in all the
wide, wicked city. Perhaps they would murder her, these wolves of the
street, when she was cast out like a helpless white lamb astray from
the fold.
Shivering, she recalled some verses she had somewhere read. They seemed
to fit her own forlorn strait.
"Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement,
From garret to basement,
She stood with amazement,
Houseless by night."
"Oh, what shall I do?" she moaned, tremblingly. "It were a thousand
times better, papa, if I had died with you."
The room door opened suddenly and without warning, and Mrs. Groves
reappeared.
"Here's a young man asking for you, Miss Vane. P'r'aps he'll tell you
how to make a honest living now your pa's dead," she said, with a
coarse, significant chuckle.
She hustled the visitor across the threshold, and, closing the door,
stumped loudly down the passage, but returned in a moment on tip-toe,
to play the eavesdropper.
The room was all in darkness save for the gaslight that streamed
through the open window. Laurel turned quickly to light her little
lamp, wondering who her visitor might be.
To her amazement she saw the rather good-looking and bold-eyed clerk
she had met at the publishing-house that morning.
"Good evening, Miss Vane," he said, insinuatingly. "I ventured to call,
thinking that you might need a friend."
The quick instinct of purity took alarm in Laurel's breast. She drew
back coldly as he offered her his smooth, white hand.
"I needed a friend this morning, but you did not seem to remember it
then," she said, scathingly.
"I--ah--oh, I was taken by surprise, then. I had not my wits about me,"
he stammered, disconcerted. "Pray pardon my forgetfulness. I have been
thinking about you all day, and wishing I could help you. Here is my
card. Pray command my services."
Laurel took the bit of gilt-edged pasteboard, and read the name written
on it in smooth copper-plate. It was
"ROSS POWELL."
The young man had seated himself, meanwhile, with the coolest
self-possession. Laurel looked at him with her great, wistful, dark
eyes.
"Do you really mean what you say?" she inquired, a faint ring of hope
in her dejected voice.
"Yes. I infer that your father has left you without means of support,
and I wish to offer you a good situation," Mr. Powell replied, suavely,
with a sparkle in his bold gray eyes.
The girl clasped her little hands impulsively together. Hope and fear
struggled together on her fair young face.
"But I don't know how to do anything," she cried, ingenuously. "I have
never been to school like other girls. I've always kept papa's rooms
and mended his clothes, and made my own dresses, but I couldn't do
anything like that well enough for any one else."
Ross Powell's gray eyes sparkled wickedly. He kept the lids drooped
over them, that Laurel might not see their evil gleam.
"Oh, yes, you could!" he exclaimed. "I know some one who wants a little
housekeeper just like you, to keep two beautiful rooms in order as you
did for your father. Will you come, Laurel?"
"Who is the person?" she inquired, flushing sensitively at his familiar
utterance of her name.
Ross Powell moved his chair to Laurel's side, and gazed deep into her
beautiful, wondering dark eyes.
"The person is myself," he replied, in low, lover-like tones. "I have
fallen in love with you, my beautiful little Laurel, and I want you to
come and be my little fairy housekeeper. I will love and cherish you as
the darling of my heart."
Laurel regarded him a moment in blank silence. There was a look of
genuine perplexity on her innocent face.
She spoke at length in a low, doubtful tone.
"Are you asking me to be your wife, sir?" was her _naïve_ question.
He flushed and looked rather abashed at the innocent question.
"Why, no, my dear, not exactly," he answered, regaining his
self-possession in a moment. "I don't wish to saddle myself with a
wife yet; but it would be about the same thing. I would worship you, my
beautiful Laurel, and you should have fine dresses and jewels, visit
the theaters and operas, live in beautiful rooms; while I, your adoring
slave--"
"Stop, Ross Powell!"
She had stood like one turned to stone, gazing and listening for a
moment; but now her young voice rang like a clarion through the room:
"Stop, Ross Powell!"
He sprung from his seat, and moving to her side attempted to take her
hand. She tore it from him and struck him an ignominious slap in the
face with that small white member. Her eyes blazed, her cheeks burned.
She crossed to the door, and threw it open so suddenly that Mrs. Groves
was disclosed in the act of listening, but Laurel paid no heed to her
as she shuffled away, crestfallen, and for once ashamed of herself.
The flashing eyes of the girl seemed to wither the villain where he
stood gazing sullenly upon her, with the red mark of that frantic blow
upon his face.
"Go, Ross Powell," she said, pointing a disdainful finger at him. "Go,
and may the good God in heaven punish you doubly and trebly for this
dastardly outrage on an unprotected girl!"
He slunk across the threshold like the base, evil-hearted coward that
he was, but out in the narrow passage he turned and looked back at her
with a malevolent glare on his crimson-marked face.
"You have made an enemy, Laurel Vane," he hissed. "I would have given
you love and protection, but you have chosen my hatred instead. I shall
not forget you. I shall always remember that blow in my face, and I
shall have my revenge for it. Look well to your future, my beautiful
fury!"
Laurel slammed and locked the door in the face of the angry wretch, and
fell upon the floor again, giving vent to her outraged feelings in a
storm of passionate tears.
But it seemed as though she were not destined to have any peace or
quiet that evening. Again a rap sounded on the door.
She brushed away her falling tears and opened it in fear and trembling.
A smart, pretty girl was her visitor this time.
"I am Miss Gordon's maid," said the newcomer, and she slipped a
perfumed little envelope into Laurel's hand.
Laurel opened it and read, with bewildered eyes:
"MY DEAR LITTLE LAUREL,--I wish to see you very much, but there are
reasons why I cannot come to you, so I have sent my maid, Clarice,
to bring you to me. I have been thinking of you all day, and of your
sweet promise to do anything on earth for me. I believe that we can
mutually help each other. Come quickly, dear. Have no fear but that
Clarice will guide you safely to me.
"Your friend,
"BEATRIX GORDON."
"Will you come, Miss Vane?" asked the pretty maid intelligently.
"Yes," Laurel answered, hopefully, and so went forth to her future.