OLD SWEETHEARTS.
Ruth Adrian had only gathered from what Gertie had told her that
Marston was in danger of being betrayed by his companions. The child
had heard but a portion of the conversation, and even all of that she
could not remember.
Ruth concluded that Marston had been mixed up in something that was,
she feared, discreditable, and that he was to be made a scapegoat.
If this was so, the sooner he was warned the better. But how was she to
warn him? She did not even know where he lived, and before she could
find out it might be too late.
He might be living under an assumed name; a hundred reasons might
prompt him to conceal his identity. What was she to do?
At breakfast she was pale and absent-minded. Her mother noticed it, and
taxed her with wilfully destroying her health by worrying about a pack
of vagabonds.
Poor Gertie was the ‘pack of vagabonds.’ Fortunately the child had been
relegated to the kitchen by Mrs. Adrian’s express command, and did not
hear the good lady’s opinion of her. This did not decrease Ruth’s
perplexities. She foresaw a constant source of dispute in poor Gertie’s
presence. Her mother’s heart was large, but her tongue was bitter; and
although doubtless she really heartily sympathised with the child’s
friendless and forlorn condition, she would none the less make her a
constant target for her arrows.
She determined, therefore, to find, if possible, some nice respectable
person with whom Gertie could be placed for a while, and taught to make
herself useful. Ruth would pay what she could out of her pocket-money,
and she was sure her papa would help her, though Gertie was not a
Patagonian nor a South Sea Islander, but only a poor little English
outcast.
‘What do you intend to do with this white elephant of yours, Ruth?’
said her mother presently.
Ruth looked up vacantly.
‘White elephant, mother? What white elephant?’
‘This child.’
Mr. Adrian laughed.
‘Rather a baby white elephant, Ruth, isn’t she?’ he said. ‘And she
comes without her trunk.’
‘John, don’t make foolish remarks. It’s no laughing matter,’ exclaimed
the mistress of the house. ‘I’m not going to have this turned into a
Reformatory or a Home for Lost Dogs for anybody. It isn’t respectable.’
‘I’m sure the child’s respectable enough, or Ruth wouldn’t have
anything to do with her.’
‘Well, she has more clothes on than your favourite people wear, I
confess, and I dare say she won’t want to eat the housemaid or to
worship the kitchen fire,’ exclaimed Mrs. Adrian; ‘but, according to
the way I was brought up, she belongs to a class of people with which
all conversation is best avoided. Her friends, I dare say, are burglars
and murderers of the worst description.’
‘But mother——’ began Ruth.
‘Don’t argue, my dear. It’s no use. I dare say Miss—Miss what’s her
name—_Miss_ Heckett is a little angel of purity and virtue—a paragon
reared in the Dials; but as your mother I respectfully decline to have
her under my roof. You must send her away.’
‘I will, mother,’ answered Ruth, a shade of annoyance in her tone.
‘I’ll find a home for the poor child to-day.’
‘There are plenty of refuges and reformatories, I’m sure, where they’d
be glad to take her. There are places advertised in the paper every
day.’
‘You shan’t be troubled with her long, mother.’
Ruth took up the paper as she spoke, and began to read the
advertisement-sheet.
She had a dim idea that she might find some place advertised which
would afford her little _protégée_ a temporary asylum.
Glancing listlessly over the advertisements, she suddenly gave, a
little cry, and her face flushed crimson.
‘Whatever’s the matter now, Ruth?’ asked Mrs. Adrian, pouring tea into
the slop-basin instead of her cup in her astonishment.
‘Nothing!’ stammered Ruth; ‘nothing at all!’
She endeavoured to hide her confusion, and kept her face behind the
paper, reading one paragraph over and over again:
‘Lost, a pocket-book containing a cheque. Anyone bringing the same to
Mr. Edward Marston, Eden Villa, Camden Road, will be handsomely
rewarded.’
Could it be the same Edward Marston?
Ruth firmly believed that it was. It seemed as though Providence had
shaped events so that she might read the paper, and thus find at once a
means of communication with the man she wished to save.
Perhaps, after all, the conversation Gertie had heard was connected
with this very chcque. It might have been stolen from him by Heckett
and his companions.
She went downstairs and questioned Gertie, who with Lion at her feet,
sat in a Windsor chair, timidly regarding the two servants, who eyed
her in return with ill-concealed suspicion. Gertie assured Ruth that
she had heard a plan for getting the gentleman out of the way
discussed, and that one of the men had said, ‘We must make London too
hot to hold him.’
Ruth easily allowed herself to be convinced that Marston was in real
danger.
She determined to put her scruples on one side, and act at once.
She could trust no one with her secret. She would go herself. What harm
could come of it? None. And the good that might result was
incalculable.
Between ten and eleven Ruth, deeply veiled, rang the visitors’ bell at
Eden Villa.
When the servant came to the door and asked her her business, she
trembled, and felt inclined to run away.
Mustering all her courage, and speaking quickly, lest the girl should
detect her agitation, she asked if Mr. Marston was within.
‘I’ll see, ma’am,’ answered the girl cautiously. ‘What name?’
‘Say Miss Adrian, on important business.’
The girl asked Ruth inside the hall, closed the door, and went in
search of her master.
Ruth went hot and cold, and trembled violently. A sudden revulsion of
feeling came on her, and she seized the handle of the door to open it
and fly.
At that moment the girl returned and requested Ruth to follow her.
Hardly knowing how she walked across the hall, Ruth obeyed, and was
shown into an empty room.
A minute afterwards Marston entered.
‘Miss Adrian,’ he said, bowing, ‘to what fortunate circumstance am I
indebted for this visit?’
He spoke in an easy tone of every-day politeness. His expressive
features belied the indifference he endeavoured to assume.
‘I beg your pardon,’ gasped Ruth, ‘but——’ Then her brave spirit gave
way. Distressed, terrified at the position in which she found herself,
a thousand old memories of the times past rushed upon her, and,
bursting into tears, she buried her face in her hands.
In a moment Marston was by her side.
‘Ruth! dear Ruth!’ he exclaimed, ‘for Heaven’s sake what does this
mean? Dare I hope that——’
Ruth drew away the hand he had seized.
‘Mr. Marston,’ she exclaimed passionately, ‘it means that I was wrong
to come here. I came to warn you of a deadly peril; hear me, and let me
go.’
‘Ruth, if you have come to tell me of the deadliest peril I shall ever
be in on this side of the grave, I will welcome it since it has brought
us face to face once more.’
Was he acting, this man, or were the impassioned accents in which he
spoke the honest reflex of his feelings?
‘Hush!’ exclaimed Ruth; ‘you must not speak to me like that. We are
strangers.’
‘We have been; but need we be any longer? I am not the man I was, Ruth.
Ten years ago I left England, an adventurer, a schemer, a villain, if
you will. I return to it to-day with a fortune acquired by honest
industry, with a home which I can offer without a blush to the woman I
would make my wife, with a heart cleansed from the old corruption. Oh,
Ruth, with God’s help and yours I could do so much!’
Ruth stopped him ere he could say another word.
‘Listen to what I have to say, and let me go,’ she said, her voice
trembling and her face deadly pale. ‘I have come here to tell you that
there is a plot against you. A man named Heckett——’
Marston started. He remembered that it was at Heckett’s he had first
seen Ruth after his return.
‘What do you know of Heckett?’ he said, assuming a careless tone.
‘Nothing,’ answered Ruth; ‘except that he and some associates of his
wish you no good. There is some scheme afloat with regard to a cheque
and your going to a bank. Mr. Marston, if you are linked with these men
in any scheme, they will betray you. For your own sake, beware of
them!’
‘Good gracious, Ruth! what do you mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ exclaimed Ruth, feeling hot and confused. ‘I’m sorry I
came. It was wicked and foolish of me. But’—her voice faltered—‘for the
sake of old times, believing you were in danger, I tried to save you.
You know best, perhaps, what you have to fear.’
Ruth turned to go. Marston put out his hand.
‘Ruth, from the bottom of my heart I thank you. But I am in no danger.
It is most probable these rascals have obtained possession of a cheque
which was in a pocket-book I lost, and your informant, whoever it may
be, has overheard their conversation about that.’
Ruth flushed scarlet, and a sense of shame camc suddenly upon her. She
saw it all now. Marston was right, and Gertie had mistaken what she had
heard. Ruth had placed herself in a false position.
She walked towards the door, and would have gone out at once, but
Marston detained her.
Ruth, is there no hope for me? I have never ceased to love you, and I
have bitterly atoned for the past. If I prove to you and to the world
that I am free from reproach, that I am worthy your love, may I not see
you again?’
Ruth shook her head.
‘That dream is over,’ she said softly. ‘Our paths in life are
henceforward separate as the poles.
Marston seized her hand and held it, in spite of her struggle to free
herself.
‘Listen, Ruth Adrian,’ he exclaimed with well-assumed earnestness.
‘Once before, when my fate trembled in the balance, you cast me off.
You might have been my salvation ten years ago. Now listen to me. Once
again I am in the old country, free, independent, and ambitious. On
you, and you alone, depends my future. Cast me off now, and I shall
have no hope, no anchor. I am in your hands to make or mar. Think well
of it, Ruth Adrian, and give me your answer when we meet again. Till
then, God bless you!’
He stooped down and pressed his lips to hers almost fiercely. She tore
herself free, and her bosom heaving with indignation, her cheeks
crimson with shame, she rushed from the room and from the house.
When the door was closed behind her, Marston’s manner altered
instantly. A smile passed across his face—a smile of extreme
self-congratulation.
‘I think I shall win her over yet,’ he said softly. ‘Poor Ruth! There
are a few sparks of the old love left, even in my cold heart. I want a
wife, too, and she must be a lady. A bachelor can’t get the right set
of people round him. Poor Ruth! how capitally she wears.’
He paced the room for a minute or two, and then he looked at his watch.
‘I must go and warn Heckett,’ he said, ‘that there’s a traitor in the
camp somewhere. That girl has heard him say something, and has told
Ruth. That link must be broken, at any rate.’
Marston did not attach any serious importance to what Ruth had told
him. He gave a shrewd guess at the source of her information and what
it was worth.
Still, as he had further need of Heckett’s services, and as that
worthy’s house was, for the present, the centre of some rather
important operations, he thought it just as well to investigate the
matter at once. If Miss Gertie was in the habit of listening to
conversations and reporting them to customers, the sooner Miss Gertie
had a little change of air and scene the better.