FAITH AND UNFAITH.
"At last we meet!" cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy.
"How _are_ you, dear Miss Newell?" Clara greeted him coldly. Her face
had an abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated
her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone
of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that
there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish
mystery behind it all. And yet that damning letter from the anonymous
lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly.
When she heard Peters's voice accosting her all her old repugnance
resurged. It flashed upon her that this man--Roxdal's boon
companion--must know far more than he had told to the police. She
remembered how Everard had spoken of him, with what affection and
confidence! Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everard's
movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. It might
be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly the clue to the
mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly, and was
smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no offer to
put his pipe out.
"You have not heard from Everard?" he asked. She flushed. "Do you
think I'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried.
"No, no," he said soothingly. "Pardon me, I was thinking he might have
written--giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to
write thus to women. But, of course, he knows you too well--you would
have put the police on his track."
"Certainly," she exclaimed indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he
must face the charge."
"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"
"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids
drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"
"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with
emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for
doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money--tempting the noblest and the
best of us."
The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more
of Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive.
From the talks they had together, she began to see that there was
really no reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his
faithlessness, were too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her
early mistrust of Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately
ripened into feelings so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the
love that had been visible to Clara from the first, she did not
repulse him.
[Illustration: "SHE DID NOT REPULSE HIM."]
It is only in books that love lives for ever. Clara, so her father
thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy
affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to
his house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious
manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn factor. With
Tom the old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well
informed and cultured as his whilom friend, Tom knew how to impart his
superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the
superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in
return. Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are
most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness. Moreover,
Tom's _bonhomie_ was far more to the old fellow's liking than the
studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made
more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless,
Clara was by no means unresponsive to Tom's affection, and when,
after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly
and spoke of the happy turn things had taken, and how, for the second
time in their lives, things had mended when they seemed at their
blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and
tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms.
[Illustration: "WITH TOM THE OLD MAN GOT ON MUCH BETTER."]
Tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional
journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he
had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for
delaying the marriage. It was fixed for May-day, and the honeymoon was
to be spent in Italy.