Over the region of the great lakes, her favorite haunt, hung the
enchanted stillness, the misty glamour of the purple-cloaked
witch--Indian Summer; whose sorcery veiled the dazzling face of the
sun, and changed the silver lustre of Selene into the vast, solemn red
blot that stared wonderingly at its own weird image in the glassy
waters.
Wrapped in that soft, sweet haze, which like the eider down of charity
smooths all roughness, rounds all angles, the world of shore and lake
presented a magical panorama of towns and villages, herds of cattle,
flocks of sheep, spires of churches, masts of vessels,--all flashing
past the open window of the car, where Beryl sat, watching the shadows
lengthen as the long train thundered eastward, and the tree dials
marked the hour record on the golden brown stubble fields.
When the goal is in sight, do we dwell on the hazard, the strained
muscles, the blistered feet, and the fierce thirst the long race-course
cost us? Who know that they are weary and spent, while the prize
brightens, nears as they stretch panting to grasp it?
The certainty of meeting her brother, the anticipation of all that she
felt assured he would promise concerning his future, when he learned
the severity of the ordeal which she had endured in his behalf, blotted
out the costliness of the accomplishment. Like that glorious violet
haze of Indian Summer, which was drawing its opalescent drapery along
the vanishing iron railway track blackened with cinders, and softly
shrouding the grim outlines of wreck, that told where a vessel had
foundered on the lake in the early autumn gale, an overruling
Providence seemed shedding peace even upon her troubled past. In the
swift flash of the divine fire that sanctified the accepted sacrifice,
she was too dazzled to remember the moan of the slaughtered victim, the
agony of the death struggle; and now, her thoughts spanned the gulf of
time, and painted the eternal reunion of the broken and dishonored
family group.
From these comforting reflections she was aroused by a piercing cry
that made her spring forward, and scan the crowd of human faces
collected close to the rails, at a small town where the cars had halted.
On a side track in front of her window, was a train which had just
dashed in from Buffalo, and amid the surging mass of jeering
spectators, two officers stepped down from the platform, each with a
hand on the arm of a man, who was heavily handcuffed. At the sight, a
white-haired, withered woman leaning from a carriage and staring with
horror-haunted eyes, had screamed, and was falling back insensible.
"That is his mother. Poor thing, why did they let her come? He is her
only boy," said a man to his comrade, who stood near Beryl's seat.
"What is the matter?" asked a gentleman, sitting immediately in front
of her.
"Two of our officers winged a bird, who thought it was safe flying over
yonder, with the lake between him and the county jail. Canada is handy
hunting-ground, when the game happens to be runaway thieves; and we
have bagged one. He was the cashier of our Savings Bank, and not
satisfied with tampering with the books, and forcing balances, he
finally robbed the vault of a lot of gold, and flew across the line.
His wife met him at St. Catherine's, and he met the iron bracelets he
was dodging."
The train moved on, and once more Beryl heard the howling of the
wolves, that she had hoped were left forever behind; that now seemed in
full cry bearing down upon their prey. Should she return to the
"Anchorage", and advertise Bertie's danger? So vague were her ideas
relative to the limits of extradition, that she had regarded Canada as
a city of refuge; considered its protection of United States' criminal
fugitives as efficacious, as meeting a Vestal Priestess on the way to
his execution, proved in rescuing a Roman malefactor from the penalty
of violated law; but this shred of comfort had parted, when most she
required its aid.
"Yes, I understand extradition provisions have been arranged, which are
bound to have a wholesome effect; especially in this section, where it
is so easy to slip across the lakes any dark night. I am told nearly
all felonies will be embraced now--from murder to burglary--and that
Her Majesty's Secretaries are more willing to aid our officers, than
was the case a few years ago, when no end of quibbling tied up justice."
The gentlemen on the seat in front of her, moved away to the smoking
car; and the woman in gray listened to the creak and whirr of the wheel
of torturing dread, upon which some malignant fate once more bound her.
Bertie had been safe in his mountain fastness, until her ill-starred
advertisement coaxed him within reach of the police Briareus. Could she
discern the hand of merciful warning in this fortuitous meeting with a
captured culprit; which so vividly recalled the maddening incidents of
her return to X---, when the sheriff had hurried her from the car? A
sickening terror seized her, and along the expanse of pearly mist that
united earth and sky, in tke snowy fringe of ripples breaking their
teeth on the shelving beach, she seemed to read the doom of her
stratagem written in words of menace:
"Go where you may, but I give you fair warning you cannot escape me;
and the day on which you meet that guilty vagabond, you betray him to
the scouts of justice."
Far away, among the orange groves of Louisiana, would he forget his
threat, or fail to execute it? On and on darted the train; people
laughed and talked; a tired baby swayed from side to side on the
nurse's knees, crooned herself to sleep; and a canary in a cage covered
with pink net, broke suddenly into a spasm of trills and roulades.
It was almost four o'clock when the dull roar of Niagara set the air a
tremble, and the few remaining passengers left the train. The little
town was unusually quiet and deserted, the tide of summer travel having
ebbed; and not until the crystal fingers of the ice fairy had built her
wonderful Giralda out of foam and spray, would that of Winter tourists
begin to flow.
Leaving her trunk at the "baggage room" of the station, Beryl engaged a
carriage driver to take her to the Suspension Bridge. Drawing her gray
bonnet and veil as far as possible over her face, she paid the toll,
and noticed that the keeper peered curiously at her, and muttered
something in an undertone to a man wearing a uniform, who turned and
stared at her.
She hurried away along that iron mesh swinging high in air like a vast
spider web, spun from shore to shore across the swirling, snarling
caldron of hissing waters. Was the officer the wary spider watching her
movements, waiting to slip down the metal snare, and devour her hopes?
Her heart beats sounded as the heavy thuds of a drum; the rush of dire
forebodings drowned even the roar of the Falls, and the magnificence of
the spectacle vanished before the awful realization of the danger to
which she had invited Bertie.
The bridge was deserted; no human being was visible; and now and then
she glanced back over her shoulder, dreading she knew not what form of
pursuit. At last her flying feet touched British soil, but she knew
now, that neither Bezer nor yet Shechcm lay before her; and no
sign-post rose to welcome her, with the "Refuge--Refuge"--the water and
the bread appointed of old, for spent fugitives. Canada was an ambush
that, despite all caution, might betray her. Against the last rail of
the bridge she leaned, tried to steady her nerves; and put up one
passionate prayer:
"Turn not Thy face from me, O my God! in this last hour! Guide me
aright. Overrule all my mistakes, and save my repentant brother."
On the wide gallery of the "Clifton House" stood a gardener engaged in
removing the flower baskets that hung between the columns; and as he
paused in his work, to observe the quaint gray figure below, she asked,
in a voice that was strained beyond its customary sweetness:
"Please direct me to the Museum."
"Follow the street along the cliff, and you can't miss it. Behind those
trees yonder, on the right hand side. To the best of my belief, it is
shut up this week."
Turning south, she walked more leisurely, lest undue haste should
excite suspicion; and all the solemn sublimity of the scene confronted
her. The green crescent of the Horseshoe blanched to foam, as it leaped
to the stony gulf below, the wreaths of mist floating up, gilded by the
sunshine; the maddened rush of the tossing, frothing, whirling rapids
seething like melted gold as the western radiance smote the bubbling
surface; the scarlet flakes of foliage clinging to the trees on Goat
Island, and far above, on the wooded height beyond, the picturesque
outlines of the Convent, lifting its belfry against the azure sky. As
doomed swimmers lost in those rapids, swept head downward to
destruction, nearing the last wild plunge catch the glimmer of that
consecrated tower held aloft, so to Beryl's eyes it now seemed a symbol
of comfort; and faith once more girded her.
A woman wearing a blue plaid handkerchief tied over her head and
knotted under her chin, and carrying a basket of red apples on one arm,
while with the other she led a lowing cow along the dusty road, paused
at a signal, in front of the gray clad stranger.
"Which is the Museum?"
"Yonder, where the goats are huddled."
The building was closed, but in those days a garden lay to the north of
it; and a small gate that gave admittance to seats and flowers
connected with the Museum, now stood open.
The walks were strewn with pale yellow poplar leaves, and bordered with
belated pink hollyhocks, and crimson chrysanthemums blighted by frost,
shivering in their death chill; and from a neighboring willow stripped
of curtaining foliage, a lonely bird piped its plaintive threnody, for
the loss of one summer's mate. At the extremity of the little garden,
under shelter of an ancient, gnarled tree, that screened a semicircular
seat from the observation of those passing on the street, Beryl sat
down to rest; to collect her thoughts.
In the solitude, she threw back her veil, leaned her head against the
trunk of the tree where wan lichens made a pearly cushion, and shut her
eyes. The afternoon was wearing away; a keen wind shook the bare
boughs; only the ceaseless, unchanging chant of waters rose from the
vast throat of nature, invoking its God.
She heard no footsteps; but some strange current attacked her veins,
thrilled along her nerves, strung as taut as the wires of a harp, and
starting up she became aware that a man was standing on the clover
sward close to her. A dark brown overcoat, a broad brimmed, soft wool
hat, drawn as a mask down to the bridge of the nose, and a bare hand
covering the mouth, was all she saw.
Stretching out her arms, she sprang to meet him:
"O Bertie! At last! At last!"
The figure drew back slightly, lifted his hat; and where she had
expected to see her brother's golden curls, the crisp, black locks of
Mr. Dunbar met her gaze.
"You! Here?"
She staggered, and sank back on the bench; the realization of Bertie's
peril throttling the joy that leaped up in her heart, at sight of the
beloved features.
"I am here. I come as promptly to fulfil my promise as you to keep your
tryst. Do you understand me so little, that you doubted my word?"
Her bonnet had slipped back, and as all the chastened beauty of her
face framed in the dainty cap, became fully exposed, a heavy sigh
escaped him, and he set his teeth, like one nerved to endure torture.
For months he had nourished the germ of a generous purpose, had tried
to accustom himself to the idea of ultimately surrendering her; but in
her presence, a certain bitter fury swept away the wretched figment,
and he remembered only how fair, how holy, how dear she was to him.
Once more the cry of his famishing heart was: "Death may part us. I
swear no man's arms ever shall."
"Why waylay and torment me? Have I not suffered enough at your hands?
Between me and mine not even you can come."
"Take care! For your sake I am here, hoping to spare you some pangs; to
allow you at least an opportunity to see him--"
"What have you done? Don't tell me I am too late. Where is he? Oh!
where--where is he?"
She had sprung up, and her hands closed around his arm, shaking it in
the desperation of her dread; while her voice quivered under the strain
of a conjecture that Bertie had already been arrested.
"Where is your chivalrous, courageous, unselfish, devoted lover? To
ascertain exactly where he skulks, is my mission to Canada; for I
thought I had schooled myself to bear the pain of--"
"What do you mean? What have you done with my Bertie? Oh--"
She threw herself suddenly on her knees, held up her hands, and a
wailing cry broke the stillness:
"Save him, Mr. Dunbar! You will break my heart if you bring ruin upon
his dear head. He is all I have on earth, he is my own brother! My
brother! my brother!"
The blood ebbed from his face; the haughty mouth twitched in a sudden
spasm, and he put his hand over his eyes.
Could she adopt this ruse to thwart pursuit of the man whom she
idolized? For half a moment he stood, with whitened lips; then stooped,
took the face of the kneeling woman in his palms, and scanned it.
"Your brother?"
"My brother. Do you understand at last, why I must save him? Why you
must help me to screen him from ruin?"
"Great God! After all, what a blind fool I have been!"
He raised her, placed her on the bench; sat down and leaned his head on
his hand. To Beryl, the silence that followed was an excruciating
torture, beyond even her power of endurance.
"Do not keep me in suspense. Where is Bertie? Let me see him, if he is
here."
"He is not here. It was to assist you in finding him, that I enticed
you here."
"You enticed me?"
"I put the advertisement in the 'Herald', knowing that if you chanced
to see it, all the legions of Satan could not keep you away. I have
been here since Sunday, waiting and watching. I was obliged to see you,
for your own sake, as well as to satisfy my longing to look once more
into your face; and I felt assured the magnetic name of 'Bertie' would
draw you here swiftly."
"Then it was only a snare, that advertisement? Oh! you are cruel!"
"Not to you. It was to promote your peace of mind, by enabling you to
meet the man who, I supposed was your lover, that I invited you to this
place. Mark you, only to see, never to marry him."
"Where is he?"
"Exactly where, I do not yet know; but very soon you shall learn."
"Is he in peril?"
"Not from arrest at present, by human officers of retributive justice."
"He is not coming here?"
"Certainly not."
"How did you learn his name?"
"I suspected that the advertisement you published in the "Herald" after
leaving X---, was a clue that would aid me. I clung to it, for I was
sure it referred to the man whom I have hunted so persistently."
"You have something to tell me. Be merciful, and end my suspense."
"First, answer one question. Why did you conceal from me the fact that
you had a brother? Why did you allow me to suffer from a false theory,
that you knew made my life a slow torture?"
He leaned nearer, and under the blue fire of his eager eyes, the blood
mounted into her pale cheeks.
"My motive belongs to a past, with which I trust I have done forever;
and you have no right to violate its buried ashes."
"I must, and I will have all the truth, cost what it may. Between you
and me, no spectre of mystery shall longer stalk. If you had trusted
me, and confessed the facts before the trial, you would have muzzled me
effectually, and prevented the employment of detectives whom I have
hissed on your brother's track. Why did you lead me astray, and confirm
my suspicion that you were shielding a lover?"
"I was innocent; but my name, my father's honored name, was in jeopardy
of dishonor, and to protect it, I would not undeceive you. Had my
brother been convicted, the established guilt would have tarnished
forever our only legacy, all that father left to Bertie and to me--his
spotless name."
"You are quibbling. Did you shield the family name by enduring the
purgatory of seeing your own on the list of penitentiary convicts? You
deliberately fastened the odium of the crime upon your father's
daughter; and you knew, you understood perfectly, that by strengthening
my erroneous supposition, you were lashing me to a pursuit of the
person, whom you could have best protected by frankly telling me all.
If he is really your brother, what did you expect to accomplish by
fostering my belief that he was your lover?"
"Mr. Dunbar, spare me this inquisition. Release me from the rack of
suspense. Tell me why you set this snare, baited with Bertie's name?"
"I must first end my own suspense. If you wish to find the man, you
tell me is your brother, I will aid you only when you have bared your
heart to me. You had some powerful incentive unrevealed. I will know
exactly, why you made me suffer all these years, the pangs of a
devouring jealousy, keener than a vulture's talons."
With crimson cheeks, and shy, averted eyes, she sat trembling;
unconsciously locking and unlocking her fingers. Her head drooped, and
the voice was a low flutter:
"If I had told you that the handkerchief was one I gave to my brother,
because he fancied the gay border, and that the pipe belonged to my
dear father, and if you had known that for more than a year before I
went to X---no tidings from that brother had reached me, would you have
kept my secret, when you saw my life laid in the scales held by the
jury? Suppose they had condemned me to death? I expected that fate; but
knowing the truth, would you have permitted the execution of that
sentence?"
"Certainly not; and you understand why I should never have allowed it."
"I knew that in such an emergency I could not trust you."
Five minutes passed, while he silently sought to unravel the web; and
Beryl dared not meet his gaze.
"You had some stronger motive, else you would have confessed all, when
I started to Dakota. Anxiety for your brother's safety would have
unsealed your lips. What actuated you then? I mean to know everything
now."
"Miss Gordon was my friend. She showed me kindness which I could never
forget."
"Miss Gordon is a very noble woman, kinder to all the world than to
herself; but did gratitude to her involve sacrifice of me?"
"You were betrothed. I owed it to her, to keep you loyal to your vows,
as far as my power extended. I tried faithfully to guard her happiness,
while endeavoring to shield my brother."
"Knowing you had all my heart, you dared not let me learn that the
rival existed only in my imagination? loyal soul! Did you deem it a
kindness to aid in binding her to an unloving husband? Her womanly
instincts saved her from that death in life; and years ago, she set us
both free. She wears no willows, let me tell you; and those who should
know best, think that before very long she will sail for Europe as wife
of Governor Glenbeigh, the newly appointed minister to Z---, a
brilliant position, which she will nobly grace. She will be happier as
Glenbeigh's wife than I could possibly have made her; for he loves her
as she deserves to be loved. So, for Miss Gordon's sake, you immolated
me?"
Only the pathetic piping of the lonely bird made answer.
Like the premonitory thrill that creeps through forest leaves, before
the coming burst of a tempest, he seemed to tremble slightly; his tone
had a rising ring, and a dark flush stained his swarthy face, deepened
the color in his brilliant eyes.
"Oh, my white rose! A wonderful fragrance of hope steals into the air;
a light breaks upon my dreary world that makes me giddy! Can it be
possible that you--"
He paused, and she covered her face with her hands.
"Beryl, you are the only woman I have ever loved. You came suddenly
into my life, as an irresistible incarnation of some fateful witchery
that stole and fired my heart, subverted all my plans, made havoc of
lifelong hopes, dominated my will, changed my nature; overturned the
cool selfishness on the altar of my worship, and set up your own image
in a temple, swept, garnished, and sanctified forever by your
in-dwelling. You have cost me stinging humiliation, years of regret, of
bitter disappointment; and the ceaselessly gnawing pain of a jealous
dread that despite my vigilance, another man might some day possess
you. I have money, influence, professional success, gratified ambition,
and enviable social eminence; I have all but that which a man wants
most, the one woman in the great wide world whom he loves truly, loves
better than he loves himself; and who holds his heart in the hollow of
her hand. I want my beautiful, proud, pure, stately white rose. I want
my Beryl. I will have my own."
He had risen, stood before her; took the hands that veiled her
countenance, and drew her to her feet.
"You have been loyal to parents, to brother, to friends, to duty; be
loyal now to your own heart; answer me truly. What did you mean when
you once said, with a mournful pathos I cannot forget: 'We love not
always whom we should, or would, were choice permitted us?' You defied
me that day, and prayed God to bless your lover; taunted me with words
that have made days dreary, nights hideous: 'To whom I have given my
whole deep heart, you shall never know.' Did you mean--ah--will you
tell me now?"
She bent her head till it almost touched him, but no answer came.
"You will not? I swear you shall; else I shall hope, believe, know
beyond all doubt, that during these years, I have not been the only
sufferer; and that loyal as was your soul, your rebel heart is as truly
mine, as all my deathless love is surely yours."
She tried to withdraw her hands; but his hold tightened, and infinite
exultation rang in his voice.
"My darling! My darling--you dare not deny it? I shall wear my white
rose to make all the future sweet with a blessed love; but have you no
word of assurance for my hungry ears? Is my darling too proud?"
He raised her hands, laid her arms around his neck, and folded very
close to his heart, the long coveted prize.
"My Beryl, it was a stubborn battle, but Lennox Dunbar claims his own;
and will hold her safe forever. Will you be loyal to your tyrant?"
Was it a white or a crimson rose that hid its lovely petals against his
shoulder, and whispered with lips that his kiss had rouged:
"Have I ever been allowed a choice? Was I not foredoomed to be always
at the mercy of Tiberius?"
The little garden was growing dusky, the gilded mist waving its
spectral banners over the thundering cataract, had whitened as the sun
went down behind the wooded crest that barred the western sky line; and
the shimmering gold on the heaving, whirling current of the Rapids
faded to leaden tints, flecked with foam, as like a maddened suitor,
parted by Goat Island from its beloved, it rushed to plunge into the
abyss, where the silvery bridal veil shook her signal, and all the
roaring gorge filled with purple gloom.
Mr. Dunbar drew his companion's hand under his arm, and led her toward
the Clifton House.
"You and I have done with shadows. On the heights yonder, the sun still
shines. Up there waits one, who will tell you that which he refuses to
divulge to any one else. Ten days ago my agents notified me that a man
was searching for Mrs. Brentano and her daughter Beryl in New York; and
that he had gone to X---, where he spent several days in consultation
with the Catholic priest. Singleton sent me a telegram, and I reached
X---in time to accompany the stranger back to New York. To me he admits
only, that he lives in Montreal; and is the bearer of a message, the
import of which, sacred promises prevent him from revealing to any one
but Miss Brentano. He is an elderly man, and so wary, no amount of
dexterity can circumvent his caution. Very complex and inexplicable
motives brought me here; chiefly the longing to see you, to learn your
retreat, your mode of existence; and also the intention to exact one
condition, before I made it possible for you to find the object of your
search. When you had given me your promise not to marry him, it was my
purpose to allow you one final meeting; and if you forfeited your
compact, the dungeon and the gallows awaited him. Love makes women
martyrs; they are the apostles of the gospel of altruism. Love revives
in men of my stamp, the primeval and undifferentiated tiger. When I
think of all that you have endured, of how nearly I lost you, my
snowdrop, do you wonder I shall hasten to set you in the garden of my
heart, and shelter your dear head from every chill wind of adversity?"
They had passed through a gate, crossed a lawn, and reached a long,
steep flight of steps leading straight up the face of a cliff, to the
grounds attached to a villa. With her hand clasped tightly in his, Mr.
Dunbar and Beryl slowly mounted the abrupt stairway, and when they
gained the elevated terrace, a man who was walking up and down the
sward, came quickly forward.
Pressing her fingers tenderly, Mr. Dunbar released her hand.
"When your interview is ended, come to me yonder at the side gate,
where I have a carriage to take you over the bridge. Father Beckx, this
is Miss Brentano. I leave her in your care."
The sun was sending his last level shafts of light from the edge of the
sky, when a man dressed in long black vestments, a raven-haired,
raven-eyed, thin lipped and clean shaven personage, with a placid
countenance as coldly irresponsive as a stone mask, sat down on the top
step of the long stairs, beside the woman in gray, whose eager white
face was turned to meet his, in breathless and mute expectancy.
The lingering twilight held at bay slowly marching night; the sunset
glory streamed up almost to the zenith in bands of amethyst and faint
opaline green, like the far reaching plumes of an archangel's pinions
beating the still, crystal air. Later, the vivid orange of the
afterglow burned with a transient splendor, as the dying smile of a day
that had gone to its eternal grave; and all the West was one vast
evening primrose of palest gold sprinkled with star dust, when Beryl
went slowly to join the figure pacing restlessly in front of the gate.
Across the grassy lawn he came to meet her. In mute surrender she
lifted her arms, laid her proud head, with its bared wealth of
burnished bronze hair, down on his shoulder, and wept passionately.
When he had placed her in the carriage, and held her close to his
heart, with his dark cheek resting on hers, where tears still trickled,
he whispered:
"How much are you willing to tell me?"
"Only that I must start at once on a long, lonely journey to a desolate
retreat, in mountain solitudes; far away in the wilderness of the
Northwest. Bertie is there; and I must see him once more."
"How soon do you wish to start?"
"Within the next three days."
"You must wait one week. I cannot go before that time."
"You--?"
"Do you suppose I shall allow you to travel there without me? Do you
imagine I shall ever lose sight of you, till the vows are uttered that
make you my wife? You cannot see your brother's face, until you have
first looked into your husband's. In one week I can arrange to go, to
the ends of the earth if you will; but you will meet your brother only
when you are Beryl Dunbar."
"No--no! You forget, ah!--You forget. I have worn the penitentiary
homespun, and the brand of the convict seared my fair name, scarred all
my life. The wounds will heal, but time can never efface the hard lines
of the cicatrice; and I could not bear to mar the lustre of your
honored name by--"
"Hush!--hush. It is ungenerous in you to wound me so sorely. When I
remember the fiery furnace through which my wife walked unscorched,
with such sublime and patient heroism, is it possible that I should
forget whose rash hand, whose besotted idiocy consigned her to the
awful ordeal? Out of the black shadow where I thrust you, sprang the
halo that glorifies you. How often, in the silence of my sleepless
nights, have I heard the echo of your wild, despairing cry: 'You have
ruined my life!' Oh, my darling! If you withhold yourself, if you cast
me away, you will indeed ruin mine. If you could realize how I wince at
the recollection of your suffering, you would not cruelly remind me of
my own accursed work."
"If the soul of my brother be ransomed thereby, I shall thank you, even
for all that X---cost me. The world knows now, that no suspicion clings
to me; but, Mr. Dunbar, the disgrace blots forever the dear name I
tried to shield; and my vindication only blackens Bertie."
"The world will never know. Your sad secret shall be kept, and my name
shall wrap you in ermine, and my love make your future redeem the past.
Having found my darling, can I afford to run the risk of losing her?
You belong to me, and I will not trust you out of my sight, until the
law gives me a husband's claim. The mother of one of my oldest friends
is boarding here in Niagara. I will commit you to her care until
to-morrow; then some church will furnish an altar where you shall
pledge me your loyalty."
"Impossible! To-night a train will take me to Buffalo, where I can
catch the express going West. There are reasons why I must make no
delay; must hasten back to explain many things to the Matron of the
Sisterhood, where I have dwelt so safely and so peacefully since I left
X---."
"Give me the reasons. 'Impossible' ne me dites jamais ce bete de mot!'
Give me your reasons."
His arm tightened around her.
"Not now."
"Then you shall not leave me. I will endure no more mysteries."
"Mr. Dunbar, I wear the uniform of a celibate Order of Gray Sisters;
and the matron trusted me in an unusual degree, when she consented that
I should undertake this journey on a secret mission. I came to Niagara,
as I supposed, to keep an appointment with my brother, and I met you.
If I lingered one instant here, it might reflect some discredit upon
this dear gray garb, which all hold so irreproachable. Sister Ruth
trusted me. I cannot, I will not, even in the smallest iota, appear to
betray her confidence; and I must go at once, and go as I came--alone.
Bid the driver take me to the railway station, and you must remain in
the carriage. I can have no escort. Your presence would subject me to
criticism, and I will guard the 'gray' that so mercifully guarded me."
"Beryl, are you trying to elude me?"
"I am faithfully trying to keep my compact with Sister Ruth. Here is a
card bearing the exact address of the 'Anchorage'. I am going there as
quickly as possible, to make speedy arrangements for my long journey
West, to that place almost within sound of the Pacific Ocean."
"Put your hand in mine. Promise me before God, that you will not vanish
from me; that you will not leave the 'Anchorage' until I come and see
you there."
"I promise; but time presses. I must hasten to find Bertie."
"Do you know exactly where to go?"
"Yes. I have minute directions written down."
"Wait until I come. I trust you to keep your promise. Ah! after to-day,
I could not bear to lose my 'Rosa Alba.' God make me more worthy of my
loyal and beautiful darling. After all, not Alcestis, but Antigone!"