Ida May had found no difficulty whatever in securing board at the place
where Frank Garrick had suggested.
Mrs. Cole, who owned the cottage, told Ida that she was a widow.
"I have a little income that keeps me comfortable," she added; "but to
accommodate my friend, Mr. Garrick, I will take you in."
"He is a friend of yours?" exclaimed the girl.
"Yes; I used to be in the telegraph office before I married," she
responded. "In fact, my husband and Mr. Garrick were both paying
attention to me at the same time. To be candid, I liked Mr. Garrick
the better; but we had a little misunderstanding, and through pique
I married his rival. I lost sight of him after that until my husband
died. After I became a widow he called upon me several times."
She gave the impression to Ida that she expected a proposal from her
old lover some time in the near future, but the girl paid little heed
to the blushing widow. Her thoughts were elsewhere.
One evening, at the end of the second week, as Ida was hurrying
homeward, she was startled by a step behind her.
"You seem to be in a hurry, Miss May," a voice said; and turning
quickly around, she beheld the handsome manager, Mr. Garrick.
"I _am_ in a hurry!" she assented. "I am a little late now, and Mrs.
Cole does not like me to keep supper waiting."
"Never mind what she likes," he returned, impatiently. "Let us take a
little walk, I have something to say to you, pretty one."
There was something in his eyes, his voice, that somehow startled her.
"Pardon me, but I do not care to walk," she said, simply, with the
haughty air of a young princess.
"Don't put on airs," he said, harshly; "you are not very wise to try to
snub a manager who has the power to turn you out of your position at
any moment."
Ida grew frightfully pale.
"Come, let us take a little walk," he urged. "You're a very pretty
girl, and I like you."
Ida May drew back with an exclamation of alarm.
"I refuse to walk with you!" she said.
"Don't make an enemy of me, Ida May!" he hissed between his teeth.
"If such a trifle will make an enemy, I would rather make an enemy than
a friend of you!" she answered.
"Are you mad, girl, to defy me like this?" he cried, setting his white
teeth together, his eyes fairly blazing.
"I have no wish to defy you! I can not see why my refusing to walk with
you should offend you!"
"Come, be reasonable," he urged; "let us have a little quiet talk. I
have called at your boarding-house half a dozen times since you have
been there, but that idiotic fool, who is half in love with me herself,
would not let me see you. I might have known how it would be: I'll look
for another boarding-place at once for you."
The interest he took in her alarmed her.
"I am very well satisfied where I am, Mr. Garrick," she answered, with
dignity. "I beg that you will not call upon me, for I do not care to
receive gentlemen callers."
Again a rage that was terrible to see flashed into his eyes.
"You _must_ see me!" he hissed. "It is not for you to be chooser.
Don't you see I have taken a fancy to you," he said, throwing off all
reserve. "You must be mine! I never really knew what love meant until I
saw you!"
"Stop! Stop!" panted Ida May. "I will not listen to another word. You
must not talk to me of love!"
"Yes, I loved you, Ida May, from the first time I saw you. There was
something about you which thrilled my heart and caused me to wish that
you should be mine, cost what it would!"
"I will not listen to another word!" said Ida May.
He laughed an insolent laugh that made the blood fairly boil in her
veins.
"Come, we will go into this restaurant where we can talk at our
leisure."
He had caught her by the arm. With a cry of terror the girl wrenched
herself free from his grasp and fairly flew down the street, and she
did not stop until she reached her boarding-house.
"Why, dear me, Miss May, one would think you were flying from a
cyclone!" declared Mrs. Cole, who was just passing through the hall as
she came in.
Gasping for breath, and scarcely able to keep from tears, Ida May told
her all, believing that the woman would sympathize with her.
"Why, you are more of a prude than I thought you were," said Mrs. Cole.
Ida May drew back with dilated eyes.
"You, a woman, to tell me this! Why, I tell you he was insulting me!"
cried the girl, vehemently.
Mrs. Cole laughed cynically.
"Nonsense!" she declared. "You might do worse than accept his
attentions. He's over head and heels in love with you. I could have
told you that a week ago."
"He is a bold, bad man!" cried Ida May. "And yet you would counsel me
to encourage him wouldn't you?"
The elder woman shrugged her shoulders.
"Any one could easily see that you are a country girl," she said, with
a harsh laugh that grated on the girl who listened with amazement.
With this parting shot the woman turned on her heel and left Ida May
staring after her.
To Ida's intense anxiety, her landlady was unusually cool at the
tea-table. She did not come up to Ida May's room that evening to chat,
but announced that she had a headache, needed quiet, and would stay
in her own room. Her presence during the long evenings had done much
toward making the girl forget her sorrow, and she felt her absence
keenly enough on this night when she had so much need of sympathy.
Feeling too restless to commune with her own thoughts, she concluded to
read a book to fill in the time that hung so heavily on her hands.
Ida May descended to the sitting-room, where, she remembered, she had
left the book on the table. She went down the carpeted stairs quietly,
passing Mrs. Cole's door with noiseless feet, that she might not
disturb her.
As she stood before the door of the sitting-room, with her hand on the
knob, she was suddenly attracted by the sound of voices from within,
her own name falling distinctly upon her ears. She stood still with
astonishment, for the voice that uttered her name was that of Frank
Garrick.
Her first impulse was to turn quickly away; but the words that she
heard him utter held her spell-bound.
Mr. Garrick was talking to Mrs. Cole in a low, excited voice, and what
the girl heard filled her soul with wildest terror.
For a moment she stood irresolute; then her decision was made. As soon
as the morning broke, she would leave that house.
She flew back to her room, her mind in a whirl, her brain dizzy with
conflicting emotions. She sat down in a chair by the open window,
and leaned her hot, flushed face in the palms of her hands. She was
beginning to learn the lessons of the great, wicked world. How long she
sat there she never knew.
She was planning about what she should do when the morrow came. Though
she starved on the street, she would not go back to the telegraph
office where Frank Garrick was; nor could she remain in the house that
now sheltered her, where the woman who pretended to be her friend and
counselor was deliberately plotting against her.
She had purchased a dress, cloak, and hat out of the money she had
found in her pocket. This expenditure had reduced the little sum
considerably; but she had been obliged to present a respectable
appearance.
Where should she look for work in the great big city? While she was
cogitating over the matter, Mrs. Cole appeared in the door-way with a
glass of lemonade in her hand.
"I have brought you something very refreshing, Ida," she said. "It took
away _my_ headache, and it will make you enjoy a good night's sleep."
"Thank you, but I do not care for the lemonade," returned the girl,
coldly.
Her first impulse had been to spring to her feet, and inform her that
she had accidently overheard her conversation with Frank Garrick, and
upbraid her for it in the bitterest of words. Then the thought occurred
to her that discretion was the better part of valor--to say nothing,
and leave the house quietly in the morning.
"But I insist upon your drinking the lemonade," declared the young
widow.
Ida looked at her steadily, and something in the reproachful glance of
the girl's eyes made her wince. The hand that held the glass shook in
spite of her efforts at composure.
"It will induce an excellent night's sleep, my dear," said Mrs. Cole,
smoothly. "Stir it up; you are letting all the sugar settle at the
bottom."
"I do not care for it," repeated Ida, a trifle more haughtily.
"But as it is for your good, you _must_ drink it!" repeated her
companion. "I shall not leave the room until you do so."
At that moment Katie, the little maid of all work, entered the room
with towels.
Passing near the back of her chair, she managed to whisper in her ear,
unobserved by Mrs. Cole:
"Promise her to drink the lemonade if she will leave it on the table;
but don't touch a drop of it. I'll tell you why later."
The remark was accompanied by a warning glance from the girl's eyes.
Laying down the towels, Katie retreated to the door; but the warning
look that she cast back at her aroused Ida May.
"Set the glass down, and I will drink the lemonade later on," she said,
quietly.
"Do you promise me that you will?" said Mrs. Cole, with unusual
interest.
"Yes," said Ida, hesitatingly. "Put it down on the table."
"I will come back in ten minutes," declared Mrs. Cole, "and if you have
not drunk it by that time--well, I'll make you, that's all," she added,
with a forced laugh, but meaning just what she said.
Ida May sat down when she found herself alone, wondering in amazement
what Katie could have meant by her strange words. At that moment the
girl glided into the room.