IN THE DARK WATERS.
Senator David Alynton’s first duty on reaching the Hotel Belgravia was
to hold a private conference with the confidential friend in whose
rooms the Senator-elect had so strangely died. The body of the dead
millionaire had been removed at once to his own personal apartments
at the Hotel Plaza, where the travelers found assembled Garston’s
lawyer, his physician, with his body servant. The private secretary was
in charge, under the superintendence of a cool representative of the
International Trust Company.
It touched Alynton to the heart, this lonely death chamber; for it
seemed that “there was no one left to mourn for Logan.”
It is true that Mrs. Katharine Vreeland, in deepest black, was kneeling
silently there at the foot of the coffin, ostentatiously supported by
Mrs. Volney McMorris, whose social splendors were judiciously darkened
for the time being by bits of crepe, like the veiling of the “bright
work” on a fire engine at an old Volunteer Department funeral.
“Are there no near family relatives?” asked Alynton, in a muffled
voice, as he gazed upon the majestic frame of the man who had fought
himself up from disgrace to the Tantalus cup of triumph. It seemed a
dreary, a lonely, an unwept taking-off!
“It seems not,” guardedly answered the Trust Company’s factotum. “We
have his will in charge. The young lady kneeling there will be a large
beneficiary, and besides her, there is only one other legatee, who
it seems is a ward of Mrs. Elaine Willoughby, the great woman stock
operator.”
Senator Alynton started in surprise. “As the late Mr. Garston was only
a Senator-elect, I presume there will be no Governmental notice taken
of his decease.
“We look, therefore, to you, Senator Alynton, to Mr. Haygood Apchurch,
his old friend (in whose rooms he died) and to these two interested
young women beneficiaries, for all directions as to the funeral.”
“That is,” hastily added the Trust Company’s Cerberus, “if no swarm of
hungry relatives, no duplicate wives nor mysterious claimants turn up
when the Associated Press dispatches have been read all over America.
“Such things have happened before.”
“It seems strange,” mused Alynton, after giving a few brief directions,
“that such a man lived and died entirely unloved.”
But goaded on by self-interest, he hastened away to the “Circassia,”
after vainly telephoning all over New York for Harold Vreeland. The
“rising star” was in a dark eclipse!
At the Hotel Savoy, the suave head clerk, with a sigh, admitted that
the young banker’s habits were now very “irregular.”
“He has not been seen to-day. He went out very early,” was the clerk’s
report, and he vaguely indicated Vreeland’s principal operations with
an upward sweep of his lily-white hand.
The clerk was a purist in manner, and only beginning himself to drink
secretly. He was not yet in the dark waters!
Senator Alynton found Mrs. Elaine Willoughby strictly denied to all
visitors. It was to the clear-eyed cripple that he gravely handed his
card.
“Please say to Mrs. Willoughby that I must see her before Senator
Garston’s funeral. I am at the Waldorf, and will come at once on her
summons.”
On his way to the Belgravia, Senator Alynton read the “copious
accounts” in the leading journals. The case seemed to be a clear one.
The newspapers confirmed Mr. Haygood Apchurch’s statement that the dead
millionaire had borrowed his friend’s apartments to use a couple of
weeks in briefing up a great speech upon “the financial situation.” A
speech destined never to be delivered!
In fact, some of the drafts of the future masterpiece, and the usual
personal contents of a rich man’s pocketbook were the only papers found
in the rooms. There was not even the foundation stone of a mystery.
The checks, railway passes, club cards, etc., were not accompanied by a
single family paper.
It was “justly remarked by all that the country had sustained a great
loss in the counsels of so distinguished and successful a Western money
magnate as James Garston,” etc., in the usual vein.
Alynton glanced over the platitudes as to being “cut off in his prime,”
the usual references, _de rigueur_, to the “zenith of his powers,” and
his being a man of “an already national reputation”—the lightly tossed
journalistic wreath of immortelles!
One or two daring writers had timidly referred to the long fight which
had raised the deceased from a working Western low-grade lawyer in a
mining town to a money power in the financial centers of the East and
West.
“That no immediate family falls heir to the honorable record of the
departed is an element of sadness crowning a lonely career, embittered
by many hard struggles with fate.”
Such perfunctory phrases covered the gap between the unknown past
of the “man who had arrived” and the lonely splendor of his final
elevation.
After Alynton had satisfied himself that Mr. Haygood Apchurch knew
nothing whatever of Garston’s past, the distinguished member of the
secret syndicate drove rapidly down to Judge Hiram Endicott’s office.
His mind was now agitated with fears of the future of the sugar
speculating syndicate of a “few friends.”
In his feverish haste to make the living safe he had already forgotten
the unloved dead man. He had not disturbed the silent grief of the
repentant woman who bent over the pale silent lips now sealed in death.
The eyes were sightless now which had thrilled their unspoken messages
into her very soul.
And the stormy heart of James Garston was as cold and pulseless as the
marble wherein the tenantless shell would soon lie in the long rest.
Suddenly Katharine Vreeland threw up her arms and fell at the feet of
her woman friend, wildly sobbing—
“There lies the only heart in God’s world that ever beat for me!”
“Ah! Some one loved him after all,” mused the Trust Company’s financial
representative. “She deserves her good fortune. I wonder does she know
of the other one?” His mind was busied with curious conjectures as to
the source of the dead man’s generosity.
But the gates of the past were swung forever. The trembling heart of
the “Western heiress” held a secret that was now sealed behind the mask
of Garston’s waxen face.
For the strong man, loyal in his darling sin, was true as steel to the
last, and the hidden crime of two lives “left no dark plume as a token.”
Alynton, closeted with Judge Endicott, was now urgent in his demand
that Mrs. Elaine Willoughby should at once erase the name of the dead
Senator from the dangerous document held by her in a mysterious trust.
“That document must never see the light.” It must be destroyed at once,
and a new “round robin” signed.
“It will have to be surrendered now, and a new one made,” anxiously
said the excited millionaire.
“We owe safety to our living associates, and perfect faith to our
allied friends of the Sugar Syndicate.”
“Perhaps as Mrs. Willoughby was a close friend of Garston’s she may
know some of the details of his early life. I wish that you would have
her guide me. Go and see her. I am in practical charge of the funeral,
and so shall be very busy.”
“What can she know?” demanded the old lawyer.
“I’m told by the Trust Company’s man that he has left half of his great
fortune to a young ward of Mrs. Willoughby’s—some young girl.” There
was a tinkling sound of breakage.
Alynton gazed curiously at the old Judge as he slowly picked up the
fragments of his shattered eyeglasses.
“You are right. Do nothing till you hear from me. I will go to her, and
come to you at the Waldorf,” said the startled lawyer. “She should know
of this at once.”
“Thank God! He knows nothing of Garston’s mad pursuit of Elaine in
marriage and his schemes about her child. He even thinks them friends.
Better so. But, the girl must return at once. Death has made her way
smooth.” And Endicott went sighing on his way.
Telephoning for Hugh Conyers, the old advocate hastened to the
“Circassia” to a conference with the white-faced invalid who burst into
a storm of tears when Endicott told her the story of the strange legacy.
“Let Hugh cable at once to Stockholm. Have them come back here by
Havre, without a moment’s delay. Let him sign all three of our names,
and let him also send a separate cable to Sara that Romaine is to know
nothing of the death, and not a word as yet, of this strange legacy. I
will inform her of that myself,” she sobbed. “It is all so strange, so
ghastly,” she murmured.
The self-protective instinct of the mother brought to her a new life.
“No one knows; no one even suspects. There is not a single whisper.
Thank God!” And then she vowed on her knees, when left alone, to be
brave and true for the child’s sake.
And Hiram Endicott respected her imperial grief. When he returned from
dispatching Conyers to recall the fatherless child, he mused: “It is
better that I should know nothing more, for there is a strange tangle
here.”
And so he was not astonished when his client bade him come back to her
on the morrow to escort her to the room of Garston’s last solemn public
reception.
“I must see him again for Romaine’s sake. I must look once more upon
the face of the father of my child,” was the solemn voice of Nature
sweeping away all the meshes of the frail barrier of human hatred
which had held them apart.
“God is merciful,” she murmured. “Romaine shall never know, and only
learn to wonder over the benefaction of an unknown but generous hand.
“And now, his public name, his barren honors can never be soiled by
man’s cold sneer. It is the blessed nepenthe of the silent grave.”
Elaine Willoughby was recalled to a need of stern and instant action by
Endicott’s demand for the document, the vastly dangerous paper whose
existence now alarmed Senator Alynton. And all alert, she bade her
schoolboy servitor summon Roundsman Daly instantly.
“I must forego my full vengeance on Vreeland,” she murmured, “to save
my friends. The paper once regained, I can leave the Street forever,
but Vreeland’s silence must be first assured. It is better to steal it
from its hiding-place, and not wait to trap him there.”
She was keenly suspicious of Justine Duprez, who, hollow-eyed and
half-defiant, now demanded an absence of a few days on urgent private
affairs. The girl’s burning fever of fear for her lover was almost an
ecstasy of jealous agony. She feared a coming storm.
With a single touch of the bell, the Lady of Lakemere called in the
private detective. “Detain that woman here, even by the strongest use
of force, till Roundsman Daly comes,” she said, with flashing eyes.
“She is dangerous. Remember! force if needed. And, do not lose her from
your sight an instant.”
In ten minutes, Daly, with a strange light of battle in his eyes,
stood before Mrs. Willoughby. “It is now just the time to spring the
trap!” he said. “I have two men steadily on watch down in South Fifth
Avenue. Vreeland has been lurking around here to warn Justine to meet
him at once. He intends, I am sure, to leave the country, for I have
already arrested Helms and the letter-carrier, Mulholland. You must
act, and at once, or you will lose the bird.”
“Then,” cried Elaine Willoughby, turning ashen in her heart-sinking,
“hasten to the rooms yourself. Arrest him! Get the paper! It must come
to me alone, whatever happens—remember that. There is human life,
public honor and the happiness of innocent hearts all hanging on your
success. For God’s sake, hasten! Bring me that paper!” A ferocious joy
gleamed in Daly’s eyes.
He felt for his Colt’s police pistol and his steel handcuffs.
“Hold the Frenchwoman tightly. Lock her up by force! I will be here in
an hour, and the paper shall reach no one’s eyes but mine.
“But as to Justine, let Dobson arrest her, and handcuff her. Give her a
good frightening, but watch her that she does herself no harm.”
As Daly stole down the side stairs of the “Circassia,” there was a
muffled scream as the handcuffs closed on the plump wrists of Justine
Duprez. It was the beginning of the end, and Harold Vreeland had lost
his last friend. He was in the jaws of Fate now.
“Dobson has made sure. Now for my man, and to pay off old scores!”
cried Dan Daly, as he sprang into a carriage.
“To South Fifth Avenue!” he cried. “Drive like hell. I’ll make you
rich for a year!” he sharply commanded.
Far away, crouching in the squalid room, watching the frail door and
listening for the sound of a well-known footstep, haggard-eyed and
desperate, Harold Vreeland waited like a wolf at bay. His brain,
burning with alcohol, was now reeling with the violence of his emotions.
“Only to square her with money, to get her away to the rendezvous in
Paris, or to see her safely in hiding among the French _déclassées_
here till she can sneak away. Then I’ll remove the paper, and after
that take the first steamer and seek safety and revenge!
“I can get a steerage suite at Hoboken. There are several steamers
to-morrow morning. No one will know, and I’ve money enough left for a
whole year.” He felt for the twenty bills of a thousand dollars each
which he had held back from the check begged from Garston. A legacy of
unsuspected shame!
Tired and wearied, he returned again and again to his brandy flask. And
then his head dropped and his cigar fell from his hand as he dropped
into a half-drunken stupor.
He awoke at a slight noise and raised his head. He fixed his glazed
eyes on the door.
“She is coming!” he muttered. “I’ll get the paper out now, and all will
be ready for a start.”
With a knife, he sprang back the loose plating from the door frame.
Standing on a chair, he had already grasped the paper in his trembling
hand when the door suddenly gave way with a crash, and three burly men
leaped into the room.
He sprang to the floor, but strong arms seized him.
For the first time in his life, Harold Vreeland felt the snapping of
handcuffs. “The jig is up!” cried Daly, facing the astounded culprit.
“I arrest you, Harold Vreeland, for robbing the United States mail,”
cried a deputy marshal; but Dan Daly had already wrenched the stolen
document from the hand of the ruined trickster. He remembered the last
injunctions of the woman he served.
It was now safely hidden in his breast and lying against the picture of
the girl whom Daly had sworn to make the happiest wife in New York. The
one who would rule his little home!
“Hold on to him, boys!” cried Daly, as he stepped away into a side room
and anxiously gazed at the paper which he had recovered. Yes, it was
the same one, for he had only waited weeks to catch the scoundrel with
the document in his unlawful possession. The secret of the hiding-place
was his alone. He called the schoolboy a “shadow” no longer, for the
work was done.
“Take my carriage. Get back and tell the mistress that I have got the
paper she wants. Speak to no one else; and tell her that Vreeland
will be put in a cell alone in Ludlow Street Jail as a United States
prisoner. He’ll have no chance to talk!
“I’ll follow you up soon, see her, and then go and have him stowed
away. I will bring the paper up to her myself. Hurry now, for God’s
sake! I’ll take Helms and that French devil away later. Tell her not to
breathe a word to a living soul. I am acting outside of the law.
“Any one of the stolen letters that we found with Helms will do to
convict him with. I’ve got one here to show up,” mused Daly, “and now
the three wretches up there will all be eager to confess. It only
remains to nab that scoundrel Alberg, and to face him with the returned
Wilmot woman. It’s nearly all over. My God! What’s that?”
Dan Daly sprang back into the main room, pistol in hand, as a deafening
explosion rang out. His eyes rested on a body lying at his feet.
“How did this happen?” he yelled, as one of the detectives excitedly
knelt over Harold Vreeland lying there dying on the floor.
The last words came faintly to Vreeland’s trembling lips, flecked with
a bloody froth:
“Justine, poor girl, tell her—money—oh, God!—water!—water!”—muttered
the dying man, as his head fell back. He lay there, the man of art and
graces—the man who had played out the lone hand in Life—dead at their
feet, with the steel bands still upon his pulseless wrists. It was a
barren victory!
“It was all done quick as a flash, Dan!” whispered the disgraced
detective. “He was seemingly docile, and asked me for a drink of water
as you went out. I turned to get it. He had seen me put back my pistol.
“With his handcuffed hands he swiftly plucked it out, then one touch of
the trigger, and there he lies.”
“It is the will of God,” said Daly, gravely. “There’ll be no newspaper
scandal and public exposure now. He has gone before the higher court.
Wait here. Let no one enter. We must call it a drink suicide.”
Daly leaped away like a leopard on the chase to be the first to seal
Mrs. Willoughby’s lips forever as to this happening, and to hand over
the document which had cost the dead scoundrel his life. With grave
faces, the detectives watched the stiffening form upon the floor. The
“rising star” had set forever!
Only the silent, weeping, widowed woman at the Hotel Savoy knew the
whirlwind of baffled hate which had filled Vreeland’s wretched breast
as he staggered away from his wife’s rooms that morning.
Their quarrel had been the unveiling of an unpunished crime—a tangle of
sin and shame.
For smarting under the loss of a “financial backer” who could not
refuse him money advances, Vreeland had faced his wife with the direct
query, so long withheld, as to her separate property.
“You must now aid me with your cash, money, property or whatever else
you have. Garston’s death leaves me without a friend.”
Standing among the scattered pyramids of fashion’s evening uniforms,
Katharine Vreeland turned her bright, defiant eyes upon the half-insane
speculator. How she despised him in her guilty heart!
“I have neither money nor friends. All I had to hope for died with
James Garston. You were not man enough to demand an accounting of the
living.
“And now death pays all debts. I have absolutely nothing to show—”
Vreeland had seized his wife’s wrist.
“You were his—”
“Ward,” quietly retorted the beautiful rebel.
“And, sir, you took me as I took you, on trust! They told me that you
were rich. I find you out to be a mere coward—a fool and a weakling,
too! You have thrown away the handsome fortune which James Garston gave
you. What has become of your own money?
“And your humbug ‘business interests’ down in Wall Street. Were you,
too, only an ‘outside agent’ for Mrs. Willoughby—a mere paper screen
for her speculations? What have you to show me?”
Vreeland’s whitened face proved his silent rage. “Our paths separate
here!” bitterly said Katharine Vreeland. “If you have nothing, I have
less. Not even a husband! Do you see that door?” she cried, with
flashing eyes.
“Never cross its threshold again. Leave me to my dead friend, my dead
hopes, my dead heart—and my poverty.” She was brave to the last, even
in her abandonment.
With a last curse, lost upon the ears of the defiant woman now hidden
in her own room, Vreeland had turned away to his flight, leaving his
wife penniless, and he departed with but one last mad hope.
To bear away Justine Duprez, the only witness, to rescue the
incriminating document, and then divide with the artful Frenchwoman the
remaining twenty thousand dollars of the loan forced from Garston. For
his deserted wife he had not even a thought!
“Once safe in Paris, Justine can easily hide me there. I can easily
extort a fortune from Mrs. Willoughby and her rich associates. Justine
can marry and have her petit hôtel. The document will be a wellspring
of flowing golden treasure.”
And so in his last hours of life, the woman whom he would once have
sacrificed became his only hope, and to draw her to his presence at
their only safe trysting place he had gone to the “Circassia” for the
last time. But she could not see his furtive signals, his hovering
around. She herself was under lock and key now!
The artful schemer proved in death the truth of Mr. James Potter’s
favorite adage, for his punishment “came around, like everything
else, to the man who waited,” and he only waited in vain, for Justine
Duprez’s footfall. But, grim Death found him out red-handed in his
miserable treachery.
Judge Endicott was closeted with Mrs. Willoughby as Roundsman Dan Daly
sprang into the room and led the trembling woman to a corner.
When they were alone, Daly whispered:
“Just step into your own room and see if this is all right.
“For God’s sake, never tell a human soul how you got it back. I have
gone beyond my duty to get this into your hands. I would be cast off
the force, punished and disgraced.”
The old lawyer heard Elaine Willoughby’s cry of affright when Daly told
her that Vreeland lay dead by his own hand in the squalid trysting
place of sin.
Hugh Conyers, with a fine prescience of some coming tragedy, had held
the boy messenger under his own eye in the rooms where he sat guarding
Justine until her partner in crime should have been seized.
“Let no one know, not even him!” begged Daly. “Let the world always
think it to have been a suicide induced by drink and overspeculation. I
can cover it all up.
“Your daughter is safe now. Trust to no one but Conyers. Tell him the
whole story, for, he loves the very ground you walk on.”
There was a strange pallor on Elaine’s face as she laid her finger on
her lips.
“You have saved the happiness of three women, their future, and their
peace of heart and soul. Do not stir. I must have time to think,” she
whispered, as she glided away.
Murmuring, “Dead! dead! in all his unfinished villainy!” she walked
calmly back into the room where the old lawyer awaited her final answer
to Senator Alynton’s urgent prayers.
“Go, my friend! Go! Bring Senator Alynton here at once,” cried the
desperate woman.
“In your presence only, I will return to him the document which he
demands. And its return marks my divorce for life from the Street. I
have signed my last check for stocks, and my heart says Never Again!
“Go quickly; for when Romaine arrives I wish to be only the Lady of
Lakemere. I have stepped down and out. I abdicate! There’s no longer a
Queen of the Street.
“Noel Endicott can close up all my affairs under your directions.”
“And, Vreeland?” anxiously cried Judge Endicott. The woman’s lips
trembled. “I shall never see him again,” she faltered.
“Go now, for my strength fails, and I wish to be rid of the dangerous
trust forever—this terrible paper which is lying a weight upon my
heart.”
When the old advocate hastened away, then Elaine Willoughby turned like
a tigress at bay.
“Bring Conyers here. I must think! Think! You may yet save us all!” The
policeman darted away.
In five minutes, Daly had recounted the whole story to Hugh Conyers,
who sat holding the woman’s trembling hands.
“I must go back now. Give me your orders. The newspapers are all that I
fear! We must outwit them.”
“Is there not a French restaurant on the ground floor of this haunt
down there?” said Conyers.
“Yes, yes!” impatiently cried Daly.
“Then,” calmly answered Hugh Conyers, “the story goes as follows:
Vreeland, after a hard-drinking bout, had secretly wandered, half-mad,
upstairs and took his life in the first room found open.
“You will remove his body to the Elmleaf apartments. I will send young
Kelly down there to prepare Bagley for the last visit of his master.”
“And must I notify the Coroner when the body is there?” demanded the
Roundsman, in admiration of the plan.
“Yes, and tell your own story. Keep the deputy marshals quiet. I’ll
see that they are all well rewarded. I will telephone down to the Wall
Street office that Mr. Vreeland has died by accident. I will meet
Maitland, Wyman and Noel Endicott at the Elmleaf.
“One of them can go over and notify Vreeland’s wife, and so, the whole
thing rests safely in our hands.”
“Helms and Mulholland?” questioned Roundsman Daly.
“Let them be safely locked up in Ludlow Street Jail, separately. The
poor letter-carrier will soon confess, and he can be pardoned. He has
only been a tool. Helms can be allowed to leave the country. He will
never talk!
“And to-night, I will face Justine with Martha Wilmot, and then have
her whole confession.”
“That scoundrel, Doctor Alberg?” moodily demanded Daly, as he moved to
the door.
“He will never be heard of after the news of Vreeland’s suicide is
published. Let him slink away; that will be the easiest way to get rid
of him.”
When Daly had departed, Mrs. Willoughby clasped both Conyers’ hands in
her trembling palms. The grateful light in her eyes was shadowed with
tears.
“You would save me, Hugh?” she faltered.
“All trouble, all annoyance, all sorrow,” said the journalist, as he
rose. “I must be busy now. See no one. Speak to no one, and above all
never tell Endicott nor Alynton nor any single living soul the baseness
of the man who lies dead down there.”
“You are my saviour,” she murmured; “I will obey; I have only one
matter to close up with Senator Alynton, and then, I am free,” she said
with downcast eyes.
As Conyers went sadly away, he moodily added: “And that is to answer
‘Yes’ to his offer of his hand and fortune.”
Hugh Conyers was absent, engaged in throwing the mantle of charity
about Vreeland’s sudden death, when Senator Alynton was led into
Elaine’s presence by Judge Endicott.
It was only a matter of a few moments for the load to be lifted from
the woman’s agitated heart. “There is no receipt needed,” gravely said
Endicott.
“Of course the possession of such a paper is as dangerous to friend as
foe. I have no fears that any one will ever call on Mrs. Willoughby for
it again.”
Alynton gazed upon the troubled face of the woman whose empire over his
heart only grew more perfect day by day.
“I must come to you at another time. Can I write?” he murmured. And
Elaine Willoughby bowed her head in silence then, for his speaking eyes
told the story of a life’s hopes. He forebore, in sheer mercy, to press
his suit upon her now.
The great Senatorial millionaire gazed uneasily at Endicott. “I
heard a strange rumor down at the Waldorf from young Wiltshire, about
Vreeland’s individual failure on the Street being announced.”
“Not another word, I beg, Senator,” hurriedly said the old lawyer,
courteously taking his arm.
“My client has been too sadly shocked,” and with the promise of his own
return in the evening, Endicott led his captive away.
“Thank God! They know nothing as yet!” cried the Lady of Lakemere, as
she called Mary Kelly to her side.
It seemed to the agitated woman that the iron jaws of fate had closed
just behind her, and in her grateful heart she saw her only champion,
Hugh Conyers—strong, brave, true, silent and tender. Her loyal and
silent knight!
The words of honest Dan Daly came back to her now. A rosy blush flamed
upon her cheeks as she fled away from the tender-hearted Mary Kelly’s
watchful eyes. “Some day he shall know all, he shall know my whole
heart.”
And when the telegraph messenger, just then arriving, had departed, she
fell back in a happy swoon of delight, for she had read the words which
filled her with sweet surcease of sorrow:
“Coming Saturday; Touraine. Love from Sara and Romaine.”
It was nearly midnight when Justine Duprez’s broken sobs concluded
her last hastily constructed tissue of lies. The schoolboy guard had
inadvertently yielded up to her the news of Harold Vreeland’s death in
a moment of youthful pride. And she was scheming to free herself now of
the inconvenient steel jewelry which had so broken her spirit. It was
a _sauve qui peut_!
When faced by Conyers, with Martha Wilmot at his side, in the presence
of her sternly silent mistress, Justine caught at the last straw. She
knew all the weaknesses of her mistress’ womanly heart.
“I know why poor Monsieur Vreeland killed himself. He loved my mistress
madly, and he feared that the rich Senator Alynton was going to marry
her. He had bribed me to tell him all about Senator Alynton’s visits
and of the love-making. He was surely half-mad when he married that
heartless woman.
“Poor Vreeland! He suffered from a hopeless love! He feared that
Alynton would marry my mistress, and he feared, too, that he would
then be discharged from the Wall Street business.” Mrs. Willoughby was
trembling in a silent rage.
She dared not face a new whirlwind of gossip, and so, the sly
Frenchwoman had saved herself.
“But, you stole your mistress’ letter and gave it to him,” coldly broke
in Conyers. He realized, too, that the story of Senator Alynton’s
love-making would desperately compromise Mrs. Willoughby, and the maid
could easily poison the public mind.
“I did not!” stoutly ejaculated the lying Frenchwoman. “Vreeland bribed
the German doctor—that cowardly scoundrel Alberg—to have this very
woman here steal the love-letter, and she secretly gave it to Alberg,
and then he gave it to Vreeland. They are both liars!
“I was afraid of Vreeland. He threatened to have me discharged,” sobbed
Justine. “And I know that my mistress was very near to loving him at
one time. The whole truth will come out at my trial. I am innocent.
I shall demand the aid of the French Consul.” Conyers and Elaine
shuddered at this threat of noisy publicity.
“You met him at your rooms,” angrily broke in Conyers, who now saw
Elaine’s agony. The girl had skillfully hidden her face in her hands.
It was her last chance.
“He paid me well for my trouble. I am poor, so poor, and I was afraid
that I might be accused of stealing the letter. He himself spirited
this lying woman away. And I am to be sacrificed! The public shall be
my generous jury. I will tell the story to the whole world. You dare
not ruin me!”
Conyers’ eyes met his beloved one’s in an awkward silence. Then he
returned once more to the attack. “There were the tell-tale wires and
the criminal tapping of the telegraph and telephone.” Conyers was less
harsh in his accusations now, for even Martha Wilmot was appalled by
the Frenchwoman’s audacity. Justine Duprez felt firmer ground under her
now. Her glib answer was ready!
“Vreeland undoubtedly paid the letter-carrier and the janitor. He was
madly determined to prevent the marriage with Alynton, at any cost. He
knew that the Senator disliked him, and would soon cast him out. You
can call those two men before me here. I will face the whole world, and
tell them how the poor young man died for a love which he had been led
into. Why did my mistress pick him up? For a summer’s amusement? The
fine lady’s game. She drove poor Hathorn to madness. And, she is, of
course, a fine lady!”
Hugh Conyers was called from the room, leaving Elaine Willoughby
trembling there, with her pale cheeks tinged with a sudden flame.
There was no defense against this flood of vulgar abuse. Her soul
recoiled at the threatened publicity. The sanctity of her heart was
being violated by this brutal traitress, now alert in the defense of
her liberty. And there were the dangerous secrets of the Sugar ring to
keep! She was now paying the price of her own rashness.
Conyers soon returned, and led his beautiful charge to the end of the
room.
“Alberg has escaped!” he whispered. “He sailed from Hoboken on a
Norwegian tramp steamer to-day. Daly reports that Helms and Mulholland
have been eagerly racing to confess.
“Mulholland blames the drink curse, and says that Vreeland paid him
to help steal a rival’s love-letters, ‘only to beat the game’ of that
hated one. Helms stubbornly stands out and swears that Vreeland bribed
the electrician to tap the wires so as to overhear Mrs. Willoughby’s
lawyer talking over the impending marriage. So you see, the lying jade
will have witnesses to back up her story.”
“What must I do? Tell me, Hugh. You are my only friend,” faltered
Elaine, grasping his arm convulsively. “There is my child. Think of the
agony to her—the shame of such disclosures! My new-found darling!”
“Yes, and there are the newspaper scandals to fear—the worst feature.
We could not try these people and dare to openly prove the real facts.
Even a French maid’s gossip and babble can find believers,” sadly said
Hugh, with averted eyes. He well knew the callous gossips!
“You would only estrange Alynton, plunge your daughter into a useless
sorrow, and your whole life story would be bruited abroad. I can not
bear to see you disgraced, Elaine,” he faltered.
“I have a plan,” he said slowly. “Keep the woman Justine here. I will
pay her and ship her off to Paris. Dan Daly will see that she goes. Let
us only frighten her! She will be only too glad to escape her rightful
punishment—the lying jade! You have recovered your dangerous document.
You do not need Martha Wilmot now. Let me separate these people at once!
“Martha goes back first to England. Alberg is gone, and of course the
nurse can not be convicted. There is no direct evidence. I will have
Mulholland quietly released; Daly can answer for him. Helms we will
call quits with, on his frankly signing a full confession, naming only
himself, and I give him a passage over to Hamburg. And this will stop
Justine’s mouth forever.”
“And the disposition of Justine?” murmured the white-faced woman.
“She stays here only till Vreeland is buried, and I then will have her
properly paid off before the Consul, and see her on the French steamer
myself. I know the French Consul very well. She will never return. It
is the only way to bury the whole past in Vreeland’s grave.
“For, only in this way, Daly can quietly aid me to frighten a written
confession out of each of our other captives. And then the courts,
newspapers and the public must perforce remain out of the affair. I
have to go now and see Wyman and Endicott about the arrangements for
Vreeland’s funeral, as his widow refuses to see any human being. That
marriage was only part of some abortive scheme, ruined by Garston’s
death. I should say that you had seen enough of Wall Street now.”
“Use full power, any money; let it be as you wish,” said Elaine,
leaving the room without a word to the two women. “I trust you of all
men!” she had whispered at parting. And yet Conyers only sighed wearily.
Conyers, adroitly separating the two culprits, hastened to give his
directions to Roundsman Daly, who led away Martha Wilmot to begin
her preparations for a return voyage. He saw the cogency of Conyers’
smothering policy. “Best end for a bad job all round,” said the blunt
policeman.
It was midnight when Daly and Conyers finished the details of the plan,
which they quickly carried out.
The new deal left only Justine Duprez, a moody, self-torturing woman,
lingering along under surveillance, until she grasped at her safety by
an implicit obedience. She was now humbled and eager for departure. She
well knew that Vreeland’s grave hid her only friend.
“Thank heaven, Daly!” said Conyers. “I have ‘squared’ all the
reporters, you have done the same for the police, and I think after the
two men are buried, that a week will find them both forgotten in the
swim! So runs the modern world away!”
“I am glad of the whole ending,” said honest Daly. “For as
Mrs. Willoughby has promised to give Mary a home of her own, and she
needs her services no more, I shall soon ask you to my wedding, and, I
also hope to hear of your own.”
“You just go ahead and get married, Dan,” laughed Conyers. “I have
waited a good many years, and I am in no hurry. I belong to the great
reading public, my hydra-headed master! There is no place for love in
the study. Cupid is a poor penman.”
It was a fortunate matter that Senator Alynton was busied for a week
with the imposing obsequies of James Garston, for, the private funeral
of Harold Vreeland was passed over with little remark by the man who
had been his enemy. Alynton had been quieted by the return of the
document, and now, no troublesome heirs of Garston could ever unearth
the secret compact.
Overspeculation and the pace that kills, told the whole story of
Vreeland’s downfall, and a new golden sign, “Wyman & Endicott,” had
replaced the last public evidence of Vreeland’s meteoric rise and fall,
even before the sod rested upon the forgotten suicide.
Two black-robed women met at the side of Senator James Garston’s coffin
in a sad silence.
The face of neither was visible, and when the last solemn words of
public farewell were spoken, neither dreamed that under the two
impenetrable crape veils were hidden the woman whom he had loved most,
and the woman who had once loved him, with all the despair of a lost
soul.
There is a mercy in the freezing silence of death which often hides
that which would only rend the more hearts already strained to the
snapping of the last chord.
Only those cheerful young club men, Messrs. Wiltshire, Rutherstone and
Merriman, noted the proud eminence of Mrs. Volney McMorris as guide,
companion and friend to the widowed ward of the dead Senator. The
duenna was a skeleton key of society, fitting easily into every dead
lock, and well oiled.
“The little woman will have a great fortune,” said Merriman. “I hear
that Garston has left a half of his wealth to her. It comes in very
handy now, for, poor Vreeland was struggling in the breakers.
“She will be a great catch in due time,” was the chorus, and, when they
separated, each gilded youth had separately registered a vow to “make
up” to Mrs. McMorris, and then to go in later for the golden prize,
when that black crape had softened to lilac, and afterward in due
time bleached out into cheerful white, with here and there a touch of
returning color. And they all knew Katharine Norreys’ good points by a
personal experience of the last fleeting twelve months.
_Vae victis!_ The defeated suicide was borne away to an humble grave
by a few of the men who had shared his brief prosperity. The three
watchful club men, already secret rivals, were on hand, there to note,
with surprise, the absence of the widow, who was reported to be “broken
down by her guardian’s recent death” and “unable to appear.” And so, in
the last mournful parade the star performer was absent. It was voted a
dull affair.
No one ever knew in “society” of the secret visit made by Katharine
Vreeland, under Hugh Conyers’ escort, to take a last look at the
features of the man who had “failed along the whole line of life,”
after all. The defeated “young Napoleon!” The Lochinvar of the West!
But the peace which he had never known had settled upon Vreeland’s
pallid face.
Conyers had gravely given Mrs. Vreeland a few words of caution as to
the late “envied of all his set.”
“I thank you, sir,” calmly said the marble-faced woman. “I have buried
his past forever, and your protecting counsels are not in vain; for, I
unfortunately, knew him as he was. I shall leave New York forever, for,
penniless as I am, I will have now to earn my bitter daily bread, but
at least in some other place than here.”
Conyers gazed wonderingly at her. “Did you not know that Senator
Garston has left you half his fortune? You will be a rich woman. I
have seen a certified copy of the will.” And then the pale-faced woman
reeled at this last proof of a fidelity reaching beyond the grave.
Garston had been game to the core!
Conyers sprang to the side of the fainting woman, who murmured, with
trembling lips, “He loved me! He loved me, at the last!”
With an infinite pity in his heart, Conyers gazed at the broken-hearted
lonely widow. “Here is some strange new mystery,” he mused. “Thank God
that it is sacred from me.” And then he told her of all the cautious
actions of the Trust Company, which was now only awaiting the arrival
of Miss Romaine Garland for the proper legal notifications. And so,
the romance of a sweet sin remained sealed from all hearts but the one
throbbing in Katharine Vreeland’s guilty bosom!
And thus in a week two young women who had never met before in life
listened, with grave lawyers at their sides, to the publication of the
formal news of an equal division of Garston’s great fortune between a
now widowed ward, of whose past history the world knew nothing, and
Miss Romaine Garland, at whose side Mrs. Elaine Willoughby, Judge
Endicott and Hugh Conyers sat as a loving bodyguard. Even the “hardy
reporter” was baffled by the guarded solemnity of the Surrogate
proceedings. Scandal slept on its arms for once!
Katharine Norreys Vreeland saw that the beautiful stranger was robed
in deep mourning like herself, and she started back in surprise as
the lovely face was unveiled when Elaine Willoughby brought the two
heiresses together in a private room.
“It is only to you here that I will say,” solemnly remarked the Lady
of Lakemere, “that the settlement of the estate business will not
require you to meet again. The Trust Company will properly close up all
the details, and your personal lawyers can arrange all your affairs
separately with them.
“I know,” she slowly said, with a broken voice, “that Senator Garston
left no personal wishes, and that his trust for each of you was merely
private and a personal one. He had no near relatives to quarrel with
his final dispositions.”
“Can it be,” murmured Katharine Vreeland, “that another life secret is
buried in his pulseless heart?”
But she was soon left alone, for the mother and daughter, with a grave
inclination of their heads, had passed out of her life forever.
And, thrilled with a strange feeling of loyalty to the man who had been
loyal to her at the last—the man who had died true to the unspoken
secret which a kindly fate had so strangely guarded—Katharine Vreeland
never sought to cross the gulf of that new-made grave.
That French Pandora Justine Duprez, had reached Paris, and the reunited
mother and daughter were linked in a rapturous love at Lakemere, long
before Romaine Garland listened to a few words spoken to her by the old
advocate, who had undertaken her affairs. He had sought her out in a
lonely nook of the new paradise.
Judge Endicott, with a prophetic instinct, saw the unrest which
possessed the young girl’s heart. He had a delicate duty to perform, to
which his chivalric love for Elaine Willoughby prompted him.
“I must, my dear young lady,” he began, eyeing her face keenly, “deal
with you directly and alone, in the matter of your inheritance from the
late Senator Garston.
“Your beloved mother needs an absolute repose of mind and nerves. I
wish to lay a friendly charge upon you.
“I will relieve you of all cares as to your affairs with the Trust
Company.
“Let it be your task to make your mother’s life as bright as possible.
She will learn to live a new life in your love.”
And then, the silver-haired Judge delicately led the dark-eyed girl
along to imagine the shadow of an old family tragedy as having darkened
her mother’s early lonely womanhood.
“There are reasons why you should spare all references to—”
“My father! my father!” cried the sobbing girl, burying her face in her
hands.
Endicott gazed at her in a pitying silence.
“The story of the estrangement of two partners and your mysterious
inheritance is one not fully known to me, but you can cherish the
memory of James Garston as one faithful to the trust of a stormy past,
whose echoes I beg you never to awaken.
“Should your beloved mother marry Senator Alynton, one of America’s
noblest men, you would find his counsels wise, his honored name a
shelter, and your securely invested fortune, of course, now makes you
independent of all possible financial disaster.
“The same caution holds as to Mrs. Katharine Vreeland, who has already
left New York for a protracted sojourn abroad.
“There are sorrows which are sacred. It rests with you alone to bring
back the happiness which she craves to your mother’s sorely tried
heart.” The old gentleman paused, for the proud girl’s cheeks were
glowing.
“Shall we be allies?” he simply said. “I have served your mother, the
noblest woman whom I ever met, in loyalty for fifteen long years.” The
grateful girl smiled through her tears.
“There is my hand!” Romaine Garland cried. “I see that you would have
me understand why my mother does not openly explain to society my
different name and my clouded childhood. You require my silence as to
the past.”
“Precisely, my dear young lady,” said the gallant old lawyer, as he
fled happily away. “I have plausibly explained what I do not care to
know myself, Conyers!” remarked the Judge, next day, to the grave-faced
journalist. “But the whole thing will right itself when Senator Alynton
marries the mother. I presume after her return from their trip abroad
that Elaine Willoughby will find her final heart-rest in a good man’s
love.”
But when Endicott had finished his cogitations he was alone, for Hugh
Conyers had hastily excused himself on the plea of urgent business.
Endicott honestly believed that Garston had only held back Romaine’s
property to prevent a marriage with Alynton.
Mr. James Potter, driving down the avenue a few days later, bowed
with deep respect to Mrs. Elaine Willoughby, who was passing, with her
lovely daughter seated by her side. He turned to his wife, whose face
was averted.
“I wonder,” said he, “if that plunger Vreeland really impaired her
fortune. He was a most reckless and insinuating scoundrel, and he
diligently hunted his punishment. He, however, saved the State the
trouble of keeping him in Sing Sing for a term of years, for it would
surely have come around to him.
“One-half the energy devoted to being an honest man that he expended in
his schemes would have made him a colossal success.”
But the Lady of the Red Rose at his side only sighed in a silent
relief, for with a shudder she recalled what a permanent guarantee of
safety for herself—for her past recklessness—lay in the immovable seal
of death affixed to Harold Vreeland’s pallid lips.
And in the crowded “Street,” as well as in the glittering booths of
Vanity Fair, the light-headed men and women hurrying on in pursuit of
the iridescent bubble Pleasure, or the Fool’s Gold, soon forgot that
a stealthy-eyed man of conquering mien had ever come from the West to
dazzle them for a moment. “_Étoile qui file et disparait!_”
In the dark waters of Lethe soon was ’whelmed the memory of the man who
had so miserably perished in the “swim.”
The fleecy mantle of winter snows covered the “eligibly located” mound
in Greenwood, where a marble cenotaph was soon to proudly record the
many virtues of James Garston, and the same pallid mantle of charity
hid the lonely mound in humbler Woodlawn where Harold Vreeland slept
the sleep that knows no waking.
He was already forgotten in the bustling Street, where the new firm of
“Wyman & Endicott” was a stately and established fact. “_Le roi est
mort! Vive le roi._”
By some subtle freemasonry of the guild of Midas, the whole
stock-dealing coterie soon knew that Mrs. Elaine Willoughby had doffed
her crown as Queen of the Street.
The iron reserve of her former secret agents was never broken, and none
knew and few cared whither she had gone out of the maddening whirl and,
whether with full or empty coffers.
The social world knew, though, that the splendid apartment at the
“Circassia” was dismantled, and the various society journals announced
the impending departure of the Lady of Lakemere “for a residence abroad
of some years.” Garston’s death had proved a bombshell, scattering
several little coteries.
Only old Hiram Endicott gravely shook his head at the mysterious
movements of his social friends. The match-making prophecy seemed
clouded.
Senator Alynton was busied dealing sturdy blows in the Senate at his
party’s foes, and beyond a final conference arranging for the closing
out of all past relations of his fair client with the Sugar Syndicate,
Endicott followed neither the affairs of the giant partnership in
Gotham nor their secret allies in Washington.
He was busied with much legal detail in arranging Mrs. Willoughby’s
manifold affairs for a protracted absence. “I wish all to be in order,
Judge,” she said, “for I know not what may happen, and Romaine’s
future must be assured.” The bright-faced girl had simply stormed her
loving mother’s heart.
“There is only one way to assure it,” gravely answered the old lawyer.
“You must marry, for the child’s sake. This past life of yours has been
a lonely, a wasteful and a forced one.
“Now that you are out of stocks forever, now that you have found a new
happiness in that charming girl, it is for you alone to build a barrier
for her against the future fortune-hunter or scheming knave.
“There are more Hathorns and Vreelands in the world than those two dead
speculating lovers.”
“Whom would you have me marry?” asked Margaret Cranstoun, gazing
demurely at her chivalric friend—the man who even now possessed but
half her life secret.
Her woman’s heart was now beating wildly with a suggestion which she
dared not own.
“Why, Alynton, of course! One of America’s most brilliant men, a man
already of national reputation,” slowly rejoined the old lawyer.
He opened his eyes in a startled surprise as the beautiful woman
frankly said, with a merry laugh:
“I certainly can not consider his proposal—until he makes it!”
She fled away, however, to confer with Noel Endicott upon the final
closing accounts of the banking firm in which she was leaving a
handsome sum as “special partner.”
Both the Lady of Lakemere and the old Solon were now playing at
“hoodman blind.” And Hugh Conyers felt himself of little use now, for
the clouds had all vanished. He was no fair-weather friend.
Elaine’s heart was light when she saw how completely Endicott had
deceived himself. “Fate is still kind to me; no one knows, no one
shall ever know,” she murmured, locking up a fond woman’s secret in
her throbbing breast. It was not yet the appointed time of the final
surrender of her self-sovereignty.
There was merriment at Lakemere, where Sara Conyers watched with a
secret satisfaction the increasing intimacy of Noel Endicott with the
beautiful girl who had so strangely drifted into a loving mother’s arms.
For Noel came daily now, “on business”—the road seemed to shorten every
day with use—and the guest chamber of Lakemere which he most affected
was his real headquarters. “There was so much to arrange for the
retirement of the queen.”
“I shall let Senator Alynton know privately of Elaine’s projected
absence,” wisely decided the sagacious Judge Endicott. “He should have
a fair field,” and to this end the old lawyer counseled with Hugh
Conyers, now busy and preoccupied.
“There is a strong, able, wise man,” said Endicott. “Just the man to
make her a good husband!” The Judge was astounded at Conyers’ complete
indifference.
“I may go over to England soon on a long assignment,” shortly said
Hugh. “You might speak to my sister. These are, after all, things for
women’s advice. I am no squire of dames. I think of giving up active
journalism now.”
Endicott then reflected that Hugh Conyers’ face was rarely seen now in
the happy coterie at Lakemere. The delicate details of covering all of
the tragic past from Romaine Garland were all completed. “I wonder what
is the matter with him?” growled Endicott. “I looked for his help to
bring about this marriage.”
Hugh’s last work had been to close up the “Elmleaf” headquarters, and
to direct Bagley, now the head butler at Lakemere, in storing the
scattered effects of the unhappy suicide.
For Mrs. Katharine Norreys Vreeland had departed for Europe, and, even
the International Trust Company refused to disclose her address or
whereabouts.
Her private lawyer, Mr. Abel Hanford, of the company’s legal staff,
declined to accept the ownership of the mementoes of the dead
adventurer and guarded a grim and sullen silence.
“I am positively ordered not to disturb my client, who is in impaired
health, with any references to the late Mr. Vreeland or his affairs.
Sell the trash, and turn the money in to me. I will receipt for that!”
It was cold comfort.
And no further word would the cool young lawyer utter, even to Horton
Wyman, now anxious to legally close up all the affairs of the defunct
schemer.
“Turn the whole thing then over to the Public Administrator!” was the
counselor’s curt order. “My client will not return to America for many
years, if ever.”
In all these strange happenings Miss Sara Conyers was the only one at
Lakemere who was really unhappy at heart. She was the sole confidante
of Romaine Garland, who now poured out all her secret conclusions upon
the bosom of her faithful friend.
Romaine had seized upon Katharine Vreeland’s departure as being the
closing scene of the veiled mystery of her unknown father’s life.
But a lucky accident helped the plans of the wise old Judge. “I am
to bury the past and all reference to it. There must have been some
strange sorrow, and perhaps my co-heiress was in the past a part of
some hostile element.”
Completely deceived as to her birth, the young girl divided with Sara
Conyers a budding mystery of sweetness and light, which she dared not
as yet acknowledge upon her mother’s bosom. For the Queen of the Street
was a stately presence, and Romaine’s maidenly heart was shy and gentle.
But Noel Endicott was daily becoming to her the joy-bringer and his
“business” at Lakemere was not unseen by his astute old uncle.
“That goes on well enough!” the old lawyer chuckled, “and it will be a
noble ending to the poor girl’s homeless childhood. But my lady herself
is a mystery.” He forgot to add, “as all other women are,”—the same
changeful mystery.
“She has locked up her heart and seems to be still determined to walk
the lonely path. If Alynton would only speak!” The old Judge fretted
and fumed among his parchments.
Loyal Sara Conyers alone, knew why her brother Hugh had studiously
avoided the happy circle at Lakemere.
For old Judge Endicott’s prophetic words as to Alynton’s wooing rankled
deep in the steadfast man’s lonely heart. He waited grimly and afar off
for the advent of the conquering swain, Senator Alynton.
“She needs me no more,” he bitterly decided. “It is all over. I have
the whole world to choose from for a future home, and as she seems to
have captured Sara for life, I am now free to go my way.”
And so, when the foreign station was offered him, Conyers quietly
accepted it, and then leisurely prepared for his departure.
In daily close communion with Hugh Conyers’ sister, the Lady of
Lakemere silently wondered at his continued absence and pondered
over the gravely worded letters of polite refusal which answered her
hospitable biddings.
There was that strange, sweet womanly pride in Elaine Willoughby’s
heart, the pride of a cherished secret, which held her speechless when
the words of inquiry trembled on her lips. And it seemed as if the
witching breath of the tender spring, hinting of summer roses, had now
bewitched the whole circle. The fern seed of invisibility drifted down
on all the hidden plans slowly revolving around Lakemere. For the long
winter had worn away, and the time of the singing of birds had come
again.
Elaine Willoughby, hugging her undiscovered secret with a lingering
pleasure, ardently sighed for the days when safe beyond the reach of
all untoward accident, she could build up around her recovered daughter
the paradise of a happy home beyond the seas. Of herself, of her own
future, she dared not to think, for the sweet spring was stirring in
her throbbing pulses.
“She will learn, she must learn, in my tenderest love, to forget that
unasked question of her brooding eyes—‘My father!’ It is better that
she never knows—best for us all.” This task of induced forgetfulness
was the mother’s single ambition now.
The arrangements for departure were rapidly progressing, and as the
time of roses came nearer, Elaine could not disguise her increasing
restlessness in noting Hugh Conyers’ absence.
The saddened eyes of his sister brought a sudden alarm to Elaine’s
heart.
For a pride as strong as her own had kept them tenderly apart.
The modest household of Roundsman Dan Daly had been enriched with all
the splendors removed from the Elmleaf, and Mary Daly daily blessed the
generous hand which had given to her the home in which the very spirit
of happiness seemed to have nestled.
And only there, in that modest home, of all the circle, was there peace
and rest, for both the mother and daughter at Lakemere, in tender
deceit, guarded the heart secrets which they dared not own.
The silent resentment of Sara Conyers against the self-banishment of
her brother was now growing into a doubt of Elaine Willoughby’s womanly
gratitude.
“Between her and Hugh I have no choice,” the angered womanly champion
of an absent brother decided. “Back to our old eyrie we go together,
or else, I will share Hugh’s foreign exile.” And she marveled at her
brother’s imperative injunction of silence as to his plans.
It was when Noel Endicott was feverishly closing up the last final
“business affairs” at Lakemere, supplemented with some portentously
long “personal conferences” with that young Diana, Miss Romaine
Garland, that Judge Endicott, a grave embassador, came up to Lakemere
with news of serious moment. He was secretly Cupid’s embassador.
He was alone with the woman whose interests he had chivalrously guarded
for fifteen long years. With a sigh he returned again to the question
of the marriage—the strange dead-lock which had so baffled him.
“You sail for Europe in a month. Have you nothing to say to me, Elaine?
There is but one final seal to the happiness of your future life. Your
marriage.”
“The Senator has an ardent advocate, my dear old friend!” Elaine
answered, with beaming eyes, “but he has not yet asked for me!”
“He will,” very decidedly answered Endicott. “I have a letter, in which
he asks me to arrange an interview, to formally ask your permission to
come here.
“I now understand the delicacy which has held him back till all your
momentous business matters have been settled and you have been relieved
from all the awkwardness of your confidential relations with the two
great bands of capitalists.
“He has respected your illness, your agitation over Garston’s
mysterious death, and has given you time to arrange all your legal
affairs and settle Romaine’s inheritance.
“Remember, he deems her to be only your ward.
“They speak now of Alynton for a leading Cabinet position. His term in
the Senate is expiring; or they will give him one of the four Embassies.
“If he asks you to share his life, I would say nothing to him of the
unhappy past. Romaine is now of age. She is rich beyond need. I myself
never have questioned you.
“You have a right to hold back all that might shadow Romaine (God bless
her!) in her possible future marriage.”
Endicott’s voice was tremblingly affectionate, and yet the solicitude
was tinged with a solemn earnestness.
The old lawyer rose and kissed the fair woman’s hand. “My life-work is
nearly done. Noel, as your agent, can carry on the executive affairs,
and as you are off the ‘Street’ and out of stocks forever, you will
need no lawyer, only now and then a mere bit of office counsel, and
therefore I am turning over my practice soon to Headley, my partner and
legal disciple. He will be to you what I have been. Alynton will call
within two days.”
“You wish me to marry?” said Elaine, with softly shining eyes. “Wait,
wait! I may consider your advice and act favorably upon it.” The happy
old advocate departed, sure of his victory. It was all going on well.
Hiram Endicott was haunted by the strange smile which lit up the
thoughtful face of the woman whose life as Margaret Cranstoun was now
closed forever from a curious world by the sealed barriers of a dead
past.
“She will surely accept him,” rejoicingly muttered the happy old
advocate. “Noel will then gain Romaine’s heart, and there will be a
royal circle gathered in coming years at Lakemere, around the once
lonely fireside.” But, Love that hath us in the net was weaving, ever
weaving, in silence.
And the cross purposes of the unwitting actors were seemingly as
unsolved as before. With a sudden craving for aid in her hour of mental
indecision, that night Elaine Willoughby wrote a last appeal to the
invisible Hugh Conyers:
“I must see you, Hugh, at once on a matter involving the happiness of
my whole future life. Come to me. I have no one but you to depend upon
in this vitally important juncture.”
As the Lady of Lakemere mentioned to her now all-potent representative,
Sara Conyers, the impending visit of Senator David Alynton, she saw,
with a womanly intuition, an indignant flash of unspoken resentment in
her friend’s eyes.
Suddenly forgetting her usually affectionate “Good-night,” the startled
hostess fled away to her own room, and not daring to look at her own
face in the mirror, seized the letter directed to the recalcitrant Hugh
and tore it into little fragments.
“I understand!” she whispered with self-accusing timidity, and now
strangely fearful of her own judgment, her heart leaping up in defense
of the absent man. “It would be too cruel! I dare not, and yet how will
he ever know?” Dan Cupid, from rosy clouds, smiled roguishly upon her
slumbers that night.
The brooding peace of Lakemere was left undisturbed by the lively
heiress and Miss Sara Conyers, who had managed to have “sudden
business” in the city during the formal visit of Senator Alynton.
And so there was no one to see the proud man go forth with a man’s
saddest burden in his heart. She loved another!
No one of the obsequious attendants saw a graver shade than ordinary
settle down upon the face of the statesman when he turned his stately
head at the park gates in a last adieu to the graceful woman who stood
with her earnest eyes following his departing form.
“God bless her now and always!” the saddened suitor murmured, even in
his heart’s sorrow.
The noble simplicity of Alynton’s tender of his hand, the tribute
laid at her feet of a choice between the honors of the Cabinet and a
foreign place of splendid precedence—the manly words in which he told
her of his grave solicitude for her happiness, and the real reasons for
his past reticence, all had touched her heart with a womanly pride in
this man’s honest love.
“I could not tell him the whole truth, for the child’s sake; and, less
than the whole truth, would be an outrage to his faith and a blot upon
my womanhood.”
Judge Endicott now followed her with mute accusing eyes, for he feared
the ruin of his hopes.
It was a week before Romaine Garland’s head sought her friend’s bosom.
“Sara,” she whispered, “do you know that we sail next week? Your
brother must come and say adieu, for it is more than she can bear. I
have a secret to tell you. I need your help. I need his friendship.
Only Hugh can help me with my mother, for this parting from Noel is
almost death to me. She must know the truth, but how?”
The elder woman raised the loving girl’s glowing face to her own and
fondly kissed her trembling lips:
“Ah! this is an easy task for you! I can guess your secret, darling,”
Sara sadly said. “But, I am going away to share Hugh’s lot.
“I do not sail to Europe with you. I have not yet told your dear mother.
“For she will know it soon enough, and then over there, beyond the sea,
you will live in new scenes, with other friends to share your happy
hours. You will be soon called back—there, don’t deny it.
“And your mother—who would not love her?” The blushing girl was seized
with a sudden impulse, love’s chords were thrilling in her heart.
It was on that very afternoon that Miss Romaine Garland drove
resolutely to the station and indited a telegram which brought Hugh
Conyers promptly to the door of Lakemere, as the setting sun was
dropping behind the western hills of the Highlands. He feared the very
worst; some sudden disaster.
The mystified face of his loving sister at once undeceived the man
whose heart had been so strangely stirred by Miss Mischief’s imperative
dispatch. For, the Silent Knight had “reported for duty.” It was a
lovingly set trap.
“Nothing has really happened?” he asked, with a fear of some reserved
news of unwelcome portent.
“Nothing, sir,” said Elaine Willoughby, quietly, as she suddenly
appeared before him, bringing a quick thrill to his heart, “but that
you are now under arrest as a deserter, and so will have to stand a
formal court-martial.”
It was a second strategic movement on the part of Romaine Garland,
that summons of her lark-like voice calling Sara Conyers to some
consultation of truly feminine gravity, in the distant seclusion of her
own rooms. “Miss Mischief” was _en suprême_.
And there, side by side, Elaine Willoughby and Conyers wandered away
over to the summer-house, where the first roses were breathing out
their promise of summer’s royal richness upon the fresh crystalline
air. Neither seemed willing to break the silence of their hushed hearts.
“You sent for me, Elaine?” said the man, who hardly dared to trust the
sound of his own voice. It seemed to him so strange and hollow.
His hostess turned her splendid eyes toward him, and their hands met in
silence.
“I did not, Hugh,” she softly said. “But as I will be away for some
years, I thank God that you are here! For, I have a sacred duty to
perform.
“I know not what may happen.
“Sara has just told me that she will not go to Europe with me. All
seems so changed! Endicott is growing old. I have no other friend,
and I am solicitous about Romaine’s future. I did intend to ask you
to act for me in some very grave matters, but you have lately avoided
me—strangely, cruelly.”
The voice was broken now, and Hugh Conyers hastened to man his last
works.
He knew now how love had sealed her proud, womanly lips, for her heart
was beating with his own.
“How could I come to you? If Sara had only saved me this last sorrow!
When I heard from Endicott that you were to marry Alynton, I at once
accepted an engagement for five years to represent the _Clarion_ in
Europe.
“I sail myself in a few weeks. I only waited for your departure to have
my sister select our little household gods.
“For I have sworn to be a slave of the lamp no more, and so my spinning
is done. I shall not return to America.”
“Do not leave me, Hugh!” murmured Elaine Willoughby. “I need your
friendship; I need you more than ever, now that—”
He was already striding away, for with a last convulsive grasp of her
hands, he had swiftly passed on over the velvety turf toward the still
opened gates.
His heart was in a mad revolt, there had been some meddling folly, and
his pulses were throbbing now in a wild unrest. The agony was beyond
his surface stoicism.
But, he stood as one transfixed when a voice sweet and low set his
blood leaping madly through his veins.
“Hugh, come back!” The words were simple, but he turned to where the
woman whom he madly loved stood awaiting him with half-outstretched
arms.
“Do you not see?” she murmured. “How can I tell you what you should
have known long ago?”
“You are not to marry Alynton?” cried her lover, a light of hope
stealing into his eyes. His heart was flooded with a warmth of daring
hopes.
“The man whom I am to marry has not yet asked me to be his wife,”
faintly said Elaine.
“It was only Judge Endicott’s foolish solicitude for my future.
“He may have told you what his own hopes or wishes were, but only in
the simple faith of a prophet before his time.”
“It has been a hell on earth these long months,” was Hugh’s response;
“and I dared not to hope—I did not know—”
“How weak and fond we women wait
Behind our silken armor—”
whispered the splendid woman whose hand he had covered with burning
kisses.
“I have loved you, have worshiped you, and have served you in perfect
faith and truth since first I saw your dear face,” was Hugh Conyers’
confession of faith. She was gently paltering with her rebellious
heart. She would bring herself to the lines of a clearly defined duty
now.
“I must tell you to-night the story of a life. I must swear you to
secrecy, my Hugh,” faltered Margaret Cranstoun.
“For the child’s sake, you alone must know every throbbing of my heart!”
He bowed his head in token of that fealty of the soul which she longed
for.
“You shall be the queen to the very end, my darling!” he said. “I will
lend you Sara,” he simply said. “Take Romaine and her, and I will join
you by Lake Malar.
“I will at first report at London, and then, they can name a man to
relieve me.
“It will be the best plan, for our quiet marriage over there, will
arouse no comment here.
“The gold fish in the swim will not pause to wonder, for their own
reflections on the shallow water of the pool of Fashion fill their
delighted eyes.”
And so, they walked back, hand in hand, their hearts throbbing together
in Love’s royal bondage.
A week later, Judge Endicott stood upon the deck of the Campania,
waiting to give his last greetings to the Lady of Lakemere, whose
wonderful cheerfulness now boded some new springing impulse of her
happy heart.
The old advocate eyed Hugh Conyers and his sister with a pleading for
the confirmation of his cherished hopes. There seemed to be a happy
secret linking the three travelers in a golden bond. Was Alynton’s life
to be crowned at last?
And the silver-haired Judge, with a secret joy, observed Noel
Endicott’s tall form bending over Miss Romaine Garland, whose hands
were filled with those June roses which are the very daintiest seals of
Cupid’s pledges.
In the last moments there was vouchsafed to him the answer to the
unspoken question which was lingering on his lips, “the long-hoped-for
marriage.”
“I am to be married, as you advised, my dear and faithful friend,” was
the parting confession of the Lady of Lakemere.
“When?” demanded the delighted lawyer, as his mind reverted to the vast
advantages of Senator Alynton’s friendship for his favorite nephew.
“Whenever Hugh calls upon me,” was Elaine’s reply, as she felt her
lover’s strong grasp of an already imprisoned hand.
“Bless my soul! I have been blind!” cried the happy old advocate.
“So, have we all been too long, Judge!” Hugh Conyers gaily answered.
There was a little scene “not down on the bills” in the shady corner,
where Romaine Garland slipped a sparkling ring upon her finger, when
Noel Endicott kissed her trembling lips.
“I will tell them as soon as we are at Stockholm, and cable to you
‘Come,’” was the maiden’s pledge.
The uncle wondered at his nephew’s loyal vigil until the stately ship
was lost to sight far down the beautiful bay.
And so, Love reigned upon the darkling waters that happy night.
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note
Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained: battle-ground/battle
ground, bodyguard/body-guard, cannot/can not, clubhouse/club
house, clubman/club man, clubmen/club men, crossroads/cross-roads,
dead-lock/dead lock, faraway/far-away, Frenchwoman/French woman,
girl-wife/girl wife, half-dozen/half dozen, hiding-place/hiding
place, housewarming/house-warming, Indian-summer/Indian summer,
letter-carrier/letter carrier, master-stroke/master stroke,
overreaching/over-reaching, overshadowed/over-shadowed,
shamefaced/shame-faced, sick-room/sick room, someone/some one,
spellbound/spell-bound, summer-house/summer house, taking-off/taking
off, tiger-cat/tiger cat, wildly-beating/wildly beating,
woman-heart/woman heart.