through her spectacles, then, as if she guessed the question in his
mind, she added: "If Bab got that message Bab will come."
Varick did not venture to reply. He knew the circumstances, he thought.
Bab, almost a Beeston now, would stick to Beeston's bargain.
"She'll come," said Mrs. Tilney doggedly.
She turned toward the stairs, her shoulders drooping, her slippered
feet slipslopping a muffled tattoo along the thinly carpeted hall. Just
as she reached the stairhead she turned.
"If John Mapleson wants me," said Mrs. Tilney, "send down to the
kitchen, Mr. Varick. I'm going down there to wait. If she comes I mean
to be on hand to let her in."
Jessup was the next to climb the stairs. At Varick's behest the
bookkeeper had gone to the drugstore near by on the Avenue for the
things the nurse had wanted. Jessup, as he handed the package through
the door, beckoned Varick into the hall.
"What do you think, Mr. Varick?" With a jerk of his thumb he indicated
the street outside. "They're back again, those two fellows," he said;
"they're watching from a doorway across the street."
Varick frowned. It was the detectives whom Jessup meant, he knew. Why
Beeston should send them now to watch John Mapleson, Varick could not
guess. Was Mapleson, after all, to be sent to prison? Varick smiled. If
so, Beeston came too late. He said this to Jessup.
"Yes, that's right," the latter assented. "Any news from her yet?" he
asked then.
"No news."
Jessup's only response was a grunt He had his own opinion of the
affair. Mr. Mapleson, having risked everything for Bab, must bear now
the brunt of it, dying dishonored and alone. Naturally Bab would not
come. She was a Beeston now.
Time after that passed on laggard feet with Varick. Midnight had
struck, and under the coverlid the small figure of Mr. Mapleson lay
very still. Since that moment when he'd lived over once more his life
in prison he had not spoken. Varick had remained with him. After Jessup
went he stood beside the bed, looking down at the little man who lay
upon it. The small, peaked face looked somehow peaceful. It seemed as
if Mr. Mapleson had already suffered himself to rest.
"He's going very fast," said the young nurse quietly. "He must have
been wasting away a long while now."
Varick did not respond. A quick change, as fleeting as the blur
of breath on a mirror, had crept all at once into Mr. Mapleson's
expression. He strove as if to raise his head. Then Varick saw his
lips faintly flutter. He bent over him. Manifestly the little man had
something to say.
"What is it, Mr. Mapleson?" he asked.
The sick man's eyes still lay closed, but again the lips fluttered. His
face was rapt.
"Spell _cat_--c-a-t," said Mr. Mapleson; and then: "Diamonds and
pearls, Babbie! If you're going to be a lady Mr. Mapy must teach you to
spell!" He smiled weakly.
The nurse looked at Varick inquiringly. Varick laid a finger on his
lips.
"Oh, see the ox!" continued Mr. Mapleson. "Do you see the ox?"
Just then the door opened and Varick's heart leaped, filled in an
instant to brimming with a passionate thankfulness and relief. Bab
stood there. One instant she gazed at the picture before her. The next
she was on her knees beside the bed. Varick signaled silently to the
nurse to follow him into the hall.
* * * * *
It was daylight when the lamp burned out. As the pink dawn of that
bright June morning came lifting over the city roofs John Mapleson's
soul was led from its cell, and for his crimes and misdemeanors was
arraigned before that higher court--the final judgment seat. No need
for him to plead "Guilty, my Lord!" for his crimes and misdemeanors
were already known. And who can doubt that it was a lenient Judge he
faced.
The light was rising, and the shrill sparrows under the eaves had begun
to twitter volubly with the day when Bab came out into the hall and
closed the door behind her. She had just crossed Mr. Mapy's pipelike
arms upon his breast, but she did not weep. Instead, a smile like the
morning hovered dreamily on her face. Her hand on the knob, she stood
for a moment, then opened the door again.
"Good-by, dear!" she whispered. That was her parting with Mr. Mapleson.
Seeing Varick waiting in the hall, she went toward him unfaltering.
"Bayard!" she said. "Oh, Bayard!"
The next instant, his conscience dumb, all his good resolutions
forgotten, Varick had her in his arms--was holding her to him.
"Bab, dearest!" he said.
Her eyes, through the mist that dimmed them, shone up at him like stars.
"You thought I'd come, didn't you?" she said. "You knew, didn't you,
I'd never marry for money?"
Varick tried to reassure her.
"No, no, I want you to hear!" she said. "Don't you understand? I had to
come!"
"Yes, I know," he murmured. "I knew you'd come if they'd let you."
"Oh, but you don't understand!" Bab protested. "That isn't it! I got
to thinking of it all. I thought of you, and I knew what you'd think
of me. I couldn't stand it any more. I had to see you and tell you,
Bayard. I didn't know Mr. Mapy was dying and I was coming to get him.
Then he and I were going away."
The cloud of wonder in Varick's eyes gave way to a sudden light.
"You mean you've given up David then? That you're not going to marry
him?"
"Why, no!" said Bab. "That's why I ran away."
It was Lena, the waitress, disheveled and unkempt, who brought the
situation to a climax.
"Oh, excuse me!" she exclaimed in conscious confusion at the tableau
before her.
"What is it?" asked Varick.
"There'll be a couple of gentlemen in the parlor, sir," answered the
blushing Lena. "They're asking for you."
At once Varick guessed who those callers were. He signaled Lena to
silence and, opening the door of his room, gently pushed Bab inside.
When he had closed the door again he turned to the astonished waitress.
"Who are they, Lena?" he asked, and Lena told him.
The men waiting downstairs were Beeston and David Lloyd.
XXVI
"You've come too late, Mr. Beeston," said Varick grimly as he closed
the parlor door behind him. "John Mapleson is dead."
Facing him on the chair across the room Beeston sat with both his
gnarled, knotted hands gripping the handle of his stick. His face was a
mask, but from under his shaggy brows his eyes glinted like balefires.
Varick could see, too, his jaws work dryly together. David stood beside
him. Propped up on his crutches, he bent forward to peer at Varick, and
never had he looked more frail, more sensitive. Varick's speech he had
not seemed to hear. If he had he did not heed it.
"Bab--is she here?" he demanded eagerly.
She was upstairs, Varick told him; and at this statement he saw David
gasp. Then David and his grandfather exchanged glances. A growl escaped
Beeston.
"Well, I might have known!" he rumbled. "Trust to a woman to make a
fool of herself! You go up and tell her we're ready now to go home."
"Wait!" said David sharply. Varick, however, had had no intention of
departing. He knew Bab never would return to that house down there
on Long Island, but he was hardly prepared for what followed. "Don't
call her--not yet," continued David thickly. Then he turned to his
grandfather, smiling wearily. "That's all over," he said. "You know
already what I've told you."
Another growl escaped Beeston's lips.
"Then the more fool you, that's all!" he grunted.
"Perhaps," David answered. He was still smiling as again he turned to
Varick.
"We didn't come to get Bab, Bayard; I just came to make sure she was
safe. She left no word when she went away last night from Eastbourne;
but something told me she'd come here. I was too worried to wait. They
wouldn't let me go at first, then I persuaded them. Grandfather said
he'd come with me."
"Yes," said Beeston, and his lip curled; "I meant she should go back
with us. She'd have gone, too, if I'd have had my way!"
One could not doubt it. His face told that. David laid a hand upon the
old man's arm.
"You mustn't speak of that," said he. "It was a cruel thing you did to
her. It was cruel not to let me know too."
Varick guessed what he meant. He turned to look at Beeston; but
Beeston, even at David's speech, had not flinched.
"Bayard," said David, "when I came here it was as I said--not to get
Bab but to give her up. I'd begun to see things right. She didn't love
me; I realize now she never did. It was her pity first, and because of
that pity she was going to marry me. And then love, real love, got the
better of her. It was only my grandfather's threat that made her stick
to the bargain. She didn't want me; she didn't want me even with all my
money. She couldn't help herself; that was what it was! She wanted the
man she loved!"
Varick waited in silence, not knowing what to say. Beeston, his face a
mask, sat opposite him with his eyes still fixed on Varick. He was not
the kind to show emotion; but what his feelings must have been as he
sat there hearkening to David's outpoured, frank admissions, one might
well understand. David's eyes had sought the floor. Presently he raised
them, and with an attempt at a laugh he shrugged his shoulders. "Well,"
he said, "I suppose I should have learned by now to take what's coming
to me. I can't have things like other men--that's all there is to it.
I'll just have to grin and bear it." In earnest of that he smiled now
rather wistfully. "I'm just what I am, you know," he concluded.
Varick, as he listened to his friend, forgot that the old man who sat
opposite him, his lips curled now into a sneer, was his enemy. Beeston,
it was evident, was a good hater. He was equally a softhearted,
valorous partisan. It must have hurt him indeed to sit there and hear
one of his blood cry peace. All this Varick realized. "Davy, don't!" he
cried, and held out his hand to him. "I'm so sorry!" He stood there,
one hand on the cripple's shoulder, the other clasping his hand. "Can't
we still be friends?" he asked.
"Why, always," David answered; "why not?" He turned then to Beeston.
"Come, grandfather," he said. "It's time we were going."
Settling his crutches under his arms, he smiled at Varick, then plied
his way out into the hall. Upstairs, with a premonition of what was
happening below, Bab opened her door. She heard the murmur of their
voices, and in them detected a familiar tone. She went swiftly to the
stair. A moment later down the hall she heard the familiar thump!
thump! of David's crutches. The sound grew fainter and finally died
away as the door closed downstairs. Out of her hearing and out of her
life David Lloyd had gone, thumping on his way alone.
A few minutes later Varick found her in her room, her head buried in
her arms.
"Bab," he said, "look up at me." Obediently she raised her face. "It
isn't the best man who's got you, dear; but I love you. I always have!"
She did not speak, but she raised her two hands and drew his face down
to hers.
* * * * * *
Transcriber's note:
--Obvious errors were corrected.
--A Table of Contents was not in the original work; one has been
produced and added by Transcriber.