EDITH REVEALS HER SECRET TO HER FATHER AND HE GOES TO NEW YORK.
Refreshing sleep, though late in coming, restored Edith's composure. She
came down to breakfast temperamentally disposed to enter into
negotiations with her father toward the combating of any plot laid by
Monroe and his friends to entice John Winthrope into questionable
dealings.
Like a wronged woman, through an excess of virtuous actions, she felt it
peculiarly incumbent upon herself to frustrate the plotters--not that it
would save John alone; but that it would, as well, be consistently in
line with her ideas of just dealings between man and man. During the
hour which she consumed in making her toilet, she revolved the whole
matter, as related to her by Star, over and over in her now becalmed and
determined little head; and the more she revolved it, the brighter
became the sparkle in her strong blue eyes, and fiercer grew the
militant spirit in her nature. The fatigue that had put her into a
nervous state the night before had been routed by that blind force that
comes upon depression through a quick series of changes attendant upon a
wrong done, to be displaced only through wearying fortitude.
Edith, being primarily one of those strong natures that survives by
shock of incident, went boldly to her conceived duty, as though it were
given her to be ever strong when the crucial moment arrived. She now
knew that her father's good nature was being imposed on by that man of
unconscienceable principles. Before she fell ill the year before, the
actions of Monroe, two or three times, excited her suspicion, and she
had then thought of a plan to forestall him; but by reason of the fatal
auto ride, her movements were delayed; and as well did it delay the
schemers in their dark and dastardly plotting. It seemed a formidable
undertaking for one so frail as Edith, just coming out of a spell of
mental derangement; not in its simpleness of action was it so big, but
in the momentousness of its results on her enervated system. She would
brook no importunate pleading of her friend, Star, to stay her in her
course, and leaped into it, as if she were a veritable Goliath of
strength.
When she arrived in the dining room that morning with re-enforced
courage, she greeted her father and mother, both waiting her arrival,
with a kiss, and sat down next to them. Several times she was on the
point of bringing up the subject, but lest it should disturb her mother,
she calmly awaited a more convenient time for the rehearsal she expected
to have with him. Breakfast was usually a quiet affair with the Jarneys,
so little was thought of the reserve with which each held speech. After
breakfast, Edith took her father's arm and guided him to a quiet nook in
the drawing room, and seated him in his favorite seat on one side of a
long plate-glass window that opened on his private grounds in front of
the mansion.
"Papa, I want a word or two with you this morning before you leave,"
said Edith, drawing a chair up and sitting down by his side.
"This is unusual, Edith; now, what can my little girl want?" he said,
endearingly, taking one of her hands. "You are not going to give me a
secret, are you?"
"Too true, papa," replied Edith, and Mr. Jarney expected something else
just then than what he heard.
"I am not going to lose my little girl, I hope?" he said, patting her
hand.
"Not yet, papa; now, you must sit real quiet, and be not so inquisitive,
nor so suspecting till you have heard me," she said, fondly.
"Why, Edith, I had suspected some dark and mysterious deed you had
committed; but, with your assurance that I am not to lose you yet. I am
listening," he replied.
Then she related all that Star had unfolded to her the night previous;
and even how Monroe had acted.
"From whom did Star get the information?" he asked, meditatively, after
Edith had finished.
"From her step-father, Peter Dieman."
"Humph! Peter Dieman! and he married Kate Jarney at last--to her
betterment," he said, in a ruminating mood. "Well, after all, I am
satisfied. Had she heeded me, she would not have gone through all these
years of misery that her profligate husband brought upon her. Once I
offered to assist her; but she was too proud in her lowliness to respond
to my proffered aid. It is better, perhaps; it is better. It seems that
the scheme of things is wrong, sometimes; but in the end it is
righted."
"Now, what is to be done, dear papa?" asked Edith, seeing that he had
taken a discursive course in response to her irrefutable facts.
"I shall act at once," said he, gazing out the window, abstractedly, as
if he had been wounded by an aspersion cast upon his magnanimity.
"Ingrate! Ingrate! all of them!" he mused, drumming on the arm of the
chair with his fingers, deep in study over some plan of action. "Edith,
what would you do?" he asked, as he turned his head and looked at her
trustfully. "I have trusted him in his department all these years, and
he has given such satisfaction that no one mistrusted his motives, or
questioned his integrity. I can hardly believe it, Edith. What would you
do?"
"Do you leave it to me?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with suppressed
fire.
"I do," he answered, half seriously; half in jest.
"Then eliminate him, and his dupes, at once," she answered, with great
seriousness.
"It is hard for me to do that of my own volition," he replied. "He is so
fortified with friends on the board of directorate that they must all be
taken into consideration."
"Will they not see the necessity of his removal, when apprised of the
facts?" she asked.
"They may; but he is so strongly entrenched that his removal would be
almost disastrous to me."
"How, papa? How?" she asked, now quickly perceiving a new gleam of the
entangling meshes of business associates.
"By turning them against me, if the story should turn out to be false,"
he answered, reflectively. "But I shall lay it before them at once and
investigate."
"In the event that you should remove him, would you bring Mr. Winthrope
to your office?" asked Edith, and a tiny flush suffused her cheeks.
"No; Mr. Winthrope must remain in New York," unthinking of the effect
his answer might have on his daughter.
Edith turned a little pale at this response, and her hand trembled in
his.
"Why, Edith, are you so much interested in him that you want him to be
ever present?" asked the father, noting the tremor of her hand.
"Oh, no, papa--not that much--yes--what am I saying, papa--I don't
know," she replied, excitedly, turning her head at the sound of her
mother approaching, which seemed to have been prearranged at that
moment; but, of course, was not. Mrs. Jarney left, after seeing the
interview was private.
"It appears to me, Edith, that you are acting strangely about this
matter," said her father, beginning to be enlightened.
"Papa, I--I--love him," she whispered in his ear, as she put her cheek
up to his to hide the blushes in her face, and to conceal his own
countenance which she expected to see turn into a frown upon her at this
unexpected answer. "Papa, you will forgive me, won't you?--yes, you
will. It is my heart, dear papa--I cannot help it--do forgive me?" she
went on, with her eyes filled with tears of happiness and weakness and
misery over her uncontrollable feelings.
"Let me see your face, Edith?" said her father, making an effort to turn
his head, which she held pressed to her own.
"No, no; I won't papa, till you say you will forgive me," she answered,
kissing him.
"To keep peace, Edith, I will forgive you; let me see your face?"
"There!" she exclaimed, suddenly releasing him, and standing off, with
tear stains marking through her flushes, and her hair tousled by the
performance.
"I believe you," he said, beholding her in a state of mixed emotions;
"but I am not yet ready to approve of your selection."
Her heart sank at this answer, and she sank to the floor by his side.
Throwing one arm over his knee, and her head upon her arm, she burst
into a fit of passionate grief that shook her frame.
"My dear Edith," said he, placing his hand on her head, grieved himself
by her outburst of new affliction, "you cause me grief. I would not hurt
your dear little heart for anything. Now, come, explain to me fully what
that heart of yours tells you?"
She arose, half laughing, half crying, almost hysterically discomposed,
rubbing her tears away, as she smiled through them rolling down her
face.
"I feel ashamed, papa, for being so weak; but I cannot help it," she
said, sitting down on his knee, and throwing her head upon his shoulder
and one arm around his neck.
"Well! Edith. I am in sympathy with you," said he; "but you gave me a
severe shock being so plainly spoken about such an affair of the heart.
Does he suspect it of you?"
"I do not think so, papa--but, papa, he told Star that he loved me, and
told her not to tell--and, goosey that she is, she told me, and caused
me more--because he said he could not expect to ever meet me on the same
level; and that is all I have against him--"
"Well! Of all things I ever heard of," said the father. "I had not been
inclined to interfere with you, Edith, in such affairs; but I--" he
hesitated. "You make your choice, but be careful, child; be careful."
"Don't you think he is good, papa?" she asked.
"Very good--fine--perfect, Edith! I should not disfavor him; but he must
love you for your own dear self before I shall ever give my consent."
"He may never find it out, papa," she said, drearily; "and if he does
not, I shall never let him know, and shall go through the world alone."
"That is noble in you, Edith," said her father, kissing her. "It is time
for me to go," he said, as she released him.
* * * * *
On arriving at his office, Mr. Jarney was informed that Mr. Monroe had
quietly taken himself off that morning for New York. He was further
informed that Mr. Monroe had been requested to make the trip by certain
members of the Board of Directors; and further, that he was entrusted
with a large sum of money, in the form of drafts, made payable to the
order of the treasurer of the company at the Broadway office. When this
news was flashed upon Mr. Jarney, there seemed to penetrate his
tractable mind, like a thunderbolt, the concatenating links of a plot,
too realistic to be waived aside; which he was prone to do, when Edith
gave him her story that morning.
Side by side with the facts concerning Monroe's leave-taking and
purpose, he also learned that the genteel ghost had taken with him
certain office books and papers, to be used in checking over accounts
while auditing the books of the branch office. This was not in
accordance with precedence, and proved another corroborative
circumstance in the duplicity of the culpable Monroe.
Putting all these correlated facts together, Mr. Jarney, after due
deliberation, and after duely weighing them all as incriminating
integral parts, and after combining them with the main story of the
plot, arrived at the inevitable conclusion that Monroe was up to some
deviltry that should be probed to the bottom. He, therefore, called a
meeting of the Board of Directors, and put the whole question, in all
its phases, before that body. It was almost noon when the board met.
They must act without going through the circumlocution of formal
discussion and the entanglements of red tape, he told them. Some of the
members were for postponing the meeting till the next day, to await a
telegram from New York, so great was their faith in Monroe's honor.
Monroe, they said, would be in the metropolis on the morrow. The
procrastinating members prevailed in their vote on the question, and
adjournment was had till the next day.
But Mr. Jarney was not disconcerted, nor did he allow himself to be
wholly blocked in his plan of action. So as soon as the board had
arrived at the decision to go slow, he took it upon himself, knowing the
shrewdness of John Winthrope, to send him a private wire, addressed
personally, briefly saying:
"Beware of Monroe; I will be there tomorrow afternoon, if possible."
Dispatching this message, Mr. Jarney returned home, related to Edith
what he had discovered as confirmatory evidence against Monroe, got
ready, and left on the next train for the seat of trouble.
Edith, from the morning of her conversation with her father to the time
she received a wire from him, went through a siege of terrible mental
conflicts. She confided in no one, at first, not even Star, the cause of
her father's sudden call to New York. She was in a highly nervous fright
throughout the hours that seemed never to pass between his going and the
receipt of the telegram. Her flights of fancy went to unreasonable
complications for the doomed young man in the New York office. She
thought she must rescue him at all odds to her health. Had she been in a
condition physically able to bear the journey, she would have gone
alone, if need be; or with her father, if permitted; but as it was, she
remained in her prison like an unwilling subject in a sanitorium. Thus
exhibiting an excitable demeanor in her actions, her mother and Star
made futile attempts to draw from her the cause of her fervid agitation.
Still strung to a high tension of determination, still overcome with an
uncommon fear, still anxious and studiously meditating over the
eventualities that might come to pass before her father should reach his
destination, she wandered about the house in uncontrollable
perturbation, sticking tenaciously to her secret.
"Edith," said Star, approaching her in one of her rounds of walking the
floor, "come, tell me what is agitating you so today, that I might be of
help."
Placing her arm around Star's waist, without a word, she drew Star along
in her walk, looking dreamily, and seeing nothing, save what the
illusive eye might see in the distance. Star returned the friendly
embrace of Edith, and with their arms around each other, the two walked
and walked, both silent. Edith silent over what she was pondering on,
Star silent over what she feared was an unnatural mental balance.
"Are you ill today, Edith?" asked Star.
"Oh, no, Star; I am feeling very well today," replied Edith.
"But you are so quiet and unresponsive that I can't quite make you out,"
said Star.
Then leading Star to the window where she sat with her father the day
before, Edith asked her to sit down that she might have a word with her.
"Star," she said, seriously, relenting in her purpose to keep her secret
longer, "what you told me two nights ago I have discovered to be too
true--at least in a circumstantial way," said Edith.
"Why, then, haven't you told me, Edith, so that I could have a
fellow-feeling for you?" asked Star.
"Papa requested me to keep it a secret till he returns; which I should
do. But, deary, you know I am like you, it is hard to keep a secret,"
said Edith, still uncertain whether to proceed farther.
"Now, my dear Edith! I never tell anybody any secrets but you, and you
tell them to nobody else, and you never tell any to me, so that is as
far as yours ever get."
"Star. I must refreshen your memory a little," said Edith, playfully. "I
am not scolding you, you know; but just reminding you a little. Now,
didn't you tell Mr. Winthrope something?"
"Well, wasn't he entitled to it?" said Star, laughing.
"Then you won't, in this instance, tell anybody?"
"No--o--hope'm'die," returned Star, crossing her breast.
"Papa has gone to New York to intercept Monroe."
"Has he?" said Star, with wide eyes. "Monroe, then, has gone?"
"Went yesterday morning before papa reached his office. Papa learned
some things that substantiated what Mr. Dieman told you, and, putting
everything together, he became convinced of the truthfulness of the
stratagem of that man Monroe to bring Mr. Winthrope into disrepute.
Star, had Monroe succeeded in his designs before I had learned the true
status of affairs, I should not have believed anything against him; but
now that I have been forewarned, I shall never lose faith in his honor
and integrity. Star, I told papa of my love for him, which papa did not
accept pleasantly at first, thinking I was in fun, or doing it as a lark
to tease him; but when he realized I was never more serious, he called
him a fine, perfect young man, and was pleased. There, Star, I have told
you what has been on my mind since yesterday. Am I a goosey still?"
"You are a little dove, Edith," said Star, sweetly.
"Star, I should like to see Mr. Dieman," said Edith, changing the
subject. "Can you have him come here?"
"I may; but it is doubtful."
"I would go to him, if I could."
"He has a young man named Eli Jerey, who transacts business matters for
him. He might be summoned. Mr. Dieman places implicit confidence in him.
Everything now must be conveyed through him to Mr. Dieman, I am told. I
have seen Mr. Jerey; and I can have him called here to see you for
whatever you might want to impose upon Mr. Dieman."
"Is Mr. Dieman so exclusive as that?" asked Edith.
"He is, indeed, Edith. Since his marriage to mother, he has set up in
great state, and does nothing but look after his family affairs
personally, and transacts other affairs by the way of Mr. Jerey."
"You will vouch for his trustworthiness? at least you can promise that
much through what Mr. Dieman represents him to be?"
"Oh, yes; whatever Mr. Dieman says can be relied on."
"Then you may have Mr. Jerey call here at eight o'clock this evening, if
he can come."
"Shall I call him now?" asked Star, rising to go to the phone to have a
talk with that gentleman.
"Yes. Papa must be in New York by this time; I should know soon, by
wire, what Monroe has accomplished," said Edith, as Star was leaving
her.