"Yes; and you thought it was SHE, didn't you? Well, and you're caught!
I didn't believe it; I wouldn't believe it when they said it. I
determined to find it out myself. And I have; and it's true."
Unable to determine whether she was serious or jesting, and conscious
only of his delight at seeing her again, he advanced impulsively. But
her expression instantly changed: she became at once stiff and
school-girlishly formal, and stepped back towards the door.
"Don't come near me, or I'll go," she said quickly, with her hand upon
the lock.
"But not before you tell me what you mean," he said half laughingly
half earnestly. "Who is SHE? and what wouldn't you have believed? For
upon my honor, Miss Brooks, I don't know what you are talking about."
His evident frankness and truthful manner appeared to puzzle her. "You
mean to say you were expecting no one?" she said sharply.
"I assure you I was not."
"And--and no woman was ever here--at that door?"
He hesitated. "Not to-night--not for a long time; not since you
returned from Oakland."
"Then there WAS one?"
"I believe so."
"You BELIEVE--you don't KNOW?"
"I believed it was a woman from her voice; for the door was locked, and
the key was downstairs. When I fetched it and opened the door, she--or
whoever it was--was gone."
"And that's why you said so imploringly, just now, 'Please don't go
away yet'? You see I've caught you. Ah! I don't wonder you blush!"
If he had, his cheeks had caught fire from her brilliant eyes and the
extravagantly affected sternness--as of a school-girl monitor--in her
animated face. Certainly he had never seen such a transformation.
"Yes; but, you see, I wanted to know who the intruder was," he said,
smiling at his own embarrassment.
"You did--well, perhaps THAT will tell you? It was found under your
door before I went away." She suddenly produced from her pocket a
folded paper and handed it to him. It was a misspelt scrawl, and ran
as follows:--
"Why are you so cruel? Why do you keep me dansing on the stepps before
them gurls at the windows? Was it that stuckup Saint, Miss Brooks,
that you were afraid of, my deer? Oh, you faithless trater! Wait till
I ketch you! I'll tear your eyes out and hern!"
It did not require great penetration for Herbert to be instantly
convinced that the writer of this vulgar epistle and the owner of the
unknown voice were two very different individuals. The note was
evidently a trick. A suspicion of its perpetrators flashed upon him.
"Whoever the woman was, it was not she who wrote the note," he said
positively. "Somebody must have seen her at the door. I remember now
that those girls--your neighbors--were watching me from their window
when I came out. Depend upon it, that letter comes from them."
Cherry's eyes opened widely with a sudden childlike perception, and
then shyly dropped. "Yes," she said slowly; "they DID watch you. They
know it, for it was they who made it the talk of the neighborhood, and
that's how it came to mother's ears." She stopped, and, with a
frightened look, stepped back towards the door again.
"Then THAT was why your mother"--
"Oh yes," interrupted Cherry quickly. "That was why I went over to
Oakland, and why mother forbade my walking with you again, and why she
had a talk with friends about your conduct, and why she came near
telling Mr. Carstone all about it until I stopped her." She checked
herself--he could hardly believe his eyes--the pale, nun-like girl was
absolutely blushing.
"I thank you, Miss Brooks," he said gravely, "for your thoughtfulness,
although I hope I could have still proven my innocence to Mr. Carstone,
even if some unknown woman tried my door by mistake, and was seen doing
it. But I am pained to think that YOU could have believed me capable
of so wanton and absurd an impropriety--and such a gross disrespect to
your mother's house."
"But," said Cherry with childlike naivete, "you know YOU don't think
anything of such things, and that's what I told mother."
"You told your mother THAT?"
"Oh yes--I told her Tappington says it's quite common with young men.
Please don't laugh--for it's very dreadful. Tappington didn't laugh
when he told it to me as a warning. He was shocked."
"But, my dear Miss Brooks"--
"There--now you're angry--and that's as bad. Are you sure you didn't
know that woman?"
"Positive!"
"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you
opened the door."
"That was perfectly natural."
"I don't think it was natural at all."
"But--according to Tappington"--
"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him."
"I assure you I have no such intention. But what more can I say? I
give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was. No doubt
she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had mistaken the house,
and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at my voice as I was at
hers. Can I say more? Is it necessary for me to swear that since I
have been here no woman has ever entered that door--but"--
"But who?"
"Yourself."
"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened
look, gliding to the outer door. "It's shameful what I've done. But I
only did it because--because I had faith in you, and didn't believe
what they said was true." She had already turned the lock. There were
tears in her pretty eyes.
"Stop," said Herbert gently. He walked slowly towards her, and within
reach of her frightened figure stopped with the timid respect of a
mature and genuine passion. "You must not be seen going out of that
door," he said gravely. "You must let me go first, and, when I am
gone, lock the door again and go through the hall to your own room. No
one must know that I was in the house when you came in at that door.
Good-night."
Without offering his hand he lifted his eyes to her face. The dimples
were all there--and something else. He bowed and passed out.
Ten minutes later he ostentatiously returned to the house by the front
door, and proceeded up the stairs to his own room. As he cast a glance
around he saw that the music-stool had been moved before the fire,
evidently with the view of attracting his attention. Lying upon it,
carefully folded, was the veil that she had worn. There could be no
doubt that it was left there purposely. With a smile at this strange
girl's last characteristic act of timid but compromising recklessness,
after all his precautions, he raised it tenderly to his lips, and then
hastened to hide it from the reach of vulgar eyes. But had Cherry
known that its temporary resting-place that night was under his pillow
she might have doubted his superior caution.
When he returned from the bank the next afternoon, Cherry rapped
ostentatiously at his door. "Mother wishes me to ask you," she began
with a certain prim formality, which nevertheless did not preclude
dimples, "if you would give us the pleasure of your company at our
Church Festival to-night? There will be a concert and a collation.
You could accompany us there if you cared. Our friends and
Tappington's would be so glad to see you, and Dr. Stout would be
delighted to make your acquaintance."
"Certainly!" said Herbert, delighted and yet astounded. "Then," he
added in a lower voice, "your mother no longer believes me so
dreadfully culpable?"
"Oh no," said Cherry in a hurried whisper, glancing up and down the
passage; "I've been talking to her about it, and she is satisfied that
it is all a jealous trick and slander of these neighbors. Why, I told
her that they had even said that I was that mysterious woman; that I
came that way to you because she had forbidden my seeing you openly."
"What! You dared say that?"
"Yes don't you see? Suppose they said they HAD seen me coming in last
night--THAT answers it," she said triumphantly.
"Oh, it does?" he said vacantly.
"Perfectly. So you see she's convinced that she ought to put you on
the same footing as Tappington, before everybody; and then there won't
be any trouble. You'll come, won't you? It won't be so VERY good.
And then, I've told mother that as there have been so many
street-fights, and so much talk about the Vigilance Committee lately, I
ought to have somebody for an escort when I am coming home. And if
you're known, you see, as one of US, there'll be no harm in your
meeting me."
"Thank you," he said, extending his hand gratefully.
Her fingers rested a moment in his. "Where did you put it?" she said
demurely.
"It? Oh! IT'S all safe," he said quickly, but somewhat vaguely.
"But I don't call the upper drawer of your bureau safe," she returned
poutingly, "where EVERYBODY can go. So you'll find it NOW inside the
harmonium, on the keyboard."
"Oh, thank you."
"It's quite natural to have left it there ACCIDENTALLY--isn't it?" she
said imploringly, assisted by all her dimples. Alas! she had forgotten
that he was still holding her hand. Consequently, she had not time to
snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little cry, before it had
been pressed two or three times to his lips. A little ashamed of his
own boldness, Herbert remained for a few moments in the doorway
listening, and looking uneasily down the dark passage. Presently a
slight sound came over the fanlight of Cherry's room. Could he believe
his ears? The saint-like Cherry--no doubt tutored, for example's sake,
by the perfect Tappington--was softly whistling.
In this simple fashion the first pages of this little idyl were quietly
turned. The book might have been closed or laid aside even then. But
it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet; and presently it
actually became a prudential necessity for her to have a masculine
escort when she walked out. For a growing state of lawlessness and
crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the Vigilance Committee,
and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men, reverting to the first
principles of social safety, sprang to arms, assembled at their
quarters, or patrolled the streets. In another hour the city of San
Francisco was in the hands of a mob--the most peaceful, orderly, well
organized, and temperate the world had ever known, and yet in
conception as lawless, autocratic, and imperious as the conditions it
opposed.