BETTY, her eyes wide with fear, her face white as a lily, appeared like
a wraith at the parlor door and looked at him. It gave Reyburn a queer
sensation, as if a picture one had been looking at in a story book
should suddenly become alive and move and stare at one. As he rose and
came forward he still seemed to see like a dissolving view between them
the little huddled bride on the floor of the church. Then he suddenly
realized that she was trembling.
"Please don't be afraid of me, Miss Stanhope," he said gently. "I have
only come to help you, and if after you have talked with me you feel
that you would rather I should have nothing to do with your affairs I
will go away and no one in the world shall be the wiser for it. I give
you my word of honor."
"Oh!" said Betty, toppling into a chair near by. "I--guess--I'm not
afraid of you. I just didn't know who you might be----!" She stopped,
caught her breath and tried to laugh, but it ended sorrily, almost in a
sob.
"Well, I don't wonder," said Reyburn, trying to find something
reassuring to say. "The truth is, I was rather upset about you. I
didn't quite know who you might turn out to be, you see!"
"Oh!" Betty's hand slipped up to her throat, and her lips quivered as
she tried to smile.
"Please don't feel that way," he said, "or I'll go away at once." He was
summoning all his courage and hoping she wasn't going to break down and
cry. How little she was, and sweet! Her eyes pleaded, just as they did
in that one look in the church. How could anybody be unkind to her?
"I'm quite all right," said Betty with a forced smile, siting up very
straight.
"Perhaps I'd better introduce myself," he said, trying to speak in a
very commonplace tone. "I'm just a lawyer that your friend Miss Jane
Carson sent out to see if I could be of any service to you. It may
possibly make things a little easier for you if I explain that while I
never had heard of you before, and have no possible connection with your
family or friends, I happened to be at your wedding!"
"Oh!" said Betty with a little agonized breath.
"Do you know Mrs. Bryce Cochrane?" he asked.
Betty could not have got any whiter, but her eyes seemed to blanch a
trifle.
"A little," she said in a very small voice.
"Well, she is my cousin."
"Oh!" said Betty again.
"Her husband was unable to accompany her to the wedding, and so I went
in his place to escort Isabel. I knew nothing of your affairs either
before or after the wedding, until this announcement was brought to my
notice, and Miss Carson called on me."
Betty took the paper in her trembling fingers, and looked into her own
pictured eyes. Then everything seemed to swim before her for a moment.
She pressed her hand against her throat and set her white lips firmly,
looking up at the stranger with a sudden terror and comprehension.
"You want to get that five thousand dollars!" she said, speaking the
words in a daze of trouble. "Oh, I haven't got five thousand dollars!
Not now! But perhaps I could manage to get it if you would be good
enough to wait just a little, till I can find a way. Oh, if you knew
what it means to me!"
Warren Reyburn sprang to his feet in horror, a flame of anger leaping
into his eyes.
"Five thousand dollars be hanged!" he said fiercely. "Do I look like
that kind of a fellow? It may seem awfully queer to you for an utter
stranger to be butting into your affairs like this unless I did have
some ulterior motive, but I swear to you that I have none. I came out
here solely because I saw that you were in great likelihood of being
found by the people from whom you had evidently run away. Miss Stanhope,
I stood where I could watch your face when you came up the aisle at your
wedding, and something in your eyes just before you dropped made me wish
I could knock that bridegroom down and take care of you somehow until
you got that hurt look out of your face. I know it was rather ridiculous
for an utter stranger to presume so far, but when I saw that the sleuths
were out after you, and when the knowledge of your whereabouts was put
into my hands without the seeking, I wouldn't have been a man if I
hadn't come and offered my services. I'm not a very great lawyer, nor
even a very rising one, as your Miss Carson seems to think, but I'm a
man with a soul to protect a woman who is in danger, and if that's you,
I'm at your service. If not, you've only to say so and I'll take the
next train home and keep my mouth shut!"
He took his watch out and looked at it hastily, although he had not the
slightest idea what it registered, nor what time the next train for home
left. He looked very tall and strong and commanding as he stood in his
dignity waiting for her answer, and Betty looked up like a little child
and trusted him.
"Oh! Please forgive me!" she cried. "I've been so frightened ever since
Bob came after me. I couldn't think you had come for any good, because I
didn't know any one in the world who would want to help me."
"Certainly!" said Warren Reyburn with a lump in his throat, sitting down
quickly to hide his emotion. "Please consider me a friend, and command
me."
"Thank you," said Betty taking a deep breath and trying to crowd back
the tears. "I'm afraid there isn't any way to help me, but I'm glad to
have a friend, and I'm sorry I was so rude."
"You weren't rude, and that was a perfectly natural conclusion from my
blundering beginning," he protested, looking at the adorable waves of
hair that framed her soft cheeks. "But there is always a way to help
people when they are in trouble, and I'm here to find out what it is. Do
you think you could trust me enough to tell me what it's all about? Miss
Carson didn't seem to know much or else she didn't feel free to say."
"I didn't tell her much," said Betty, lifting her sea-blue eyes. "She
was a stranger, too, you know."
"Well, she's a mighty good friend of yours, I'll say, and she's acted
in a very wise manner. She took more precautions than an old detective
would have done. She told me only that some one was trying to make you
marry a man you did not wish to marry. Is that correct?"
Betty shivered involuntarily and a wave of color went over her white
face.
"It sounds queer," she said, "as if I hadn't any character or force
myself, but you don't understand. No one would understand unless they
knew it all, and had been through it for years. At first I didn't quite
understand it myself. I'd better tell you the story. I thought I never
could tell any one, because they were my father's family, and I know he
would shrink so from having it known, but I'm sure he wouldn't blame me
now."
"He certainly would not blame you, Miss Stanhope. I have heard that your
father was a wonderful man, with high principles. I feel sure he would
justify you in appealing to some one who was willing to advise you in a
strait like this. You know no woman need ever marry any man against her
will."
"Not if it were her father's dying wish?"
"Certainly not. Miss Stanhope, did your father love you?"
"Oh, I'm sure he did. He was the most wonderful father! I've often
thought that he would never have asked it of me if he had realized----"
"Did he ever during his lifetime seem to wish you to be unhappy?"
"Never! That was the strange part of it. But you see he didn't know how
I felt. I think I'd better tell you all about it."
"That would be the better way, if it won't be too hard for you."
Betty clasped her small hands together tightly and began:
"My own mother died when I was quite a little girl, so father and I were
a great deal to each other. He used to look after my lessons himself,
and was always very careful what kind of teachers I had. He was mother
and father both to me. When I was ten years old my governess died
suddenly while father was away on a business trip, and one of our
neighbors was very kind to me, coming in and looking after the servants
and everything and keeping me over at her house for a few days till
father got back. She had a widowed sister visiting her, a rather young
woman who was very beautiful. At least I thought she was beautiful then,
and she made a great pet of me, so that I grew fond of her, although I
had not liked her at first.
"After father came home she used to slip over every day to see me while
he was at his business, and he was grateful to her for making me happy.
Then he found out that she was in trouble, had lost her money or
something, and wanted to get a position teaching. He arranged to have
her teach me, and so she came to our house to stay.
"Somehow after that I never seemed to see so much of my father as I used
to do, for she was always there, but at first I didn't care, because she
was nice to me, and always getting up things to keep me busy and happy.
She would make my father buy expensive toys and books and games for me,
and fine clothes, and so of course I was pleased. In about a year my
father married her, and at first it seemed very beautiful to me to have
a real mother, but little by little I began to see that she preferred to
be alone with my father and did not want me around so much. It was very
hard to give up the companionship of my father, but my stepmother kept
me busy with other things, so that I really didn't think much about it
while it was first happening.
"But one day there came a letter. I remember it came while we were at
breakfast, and my father got very white and stern when he read it, and
handed it over to my mother and asked whether it was true, and then she
began to cry and sent me from the table. I found out a few days after
that that my stepmother had two sons, both older than myself, and that
she had not told my father. It was through some trouble they had got
into at school which required quite a large sum of money to cover
damages that my father discovered it, and he was terribly hurt that she
should have concealed it from him. I learned all this from the servants,
who talked when they thought I was not within hearing. There were days
and days when my father scarcely spoke at the table, and when he looked
at me it made a pain go through my heart, he looked so stern and sad. My
stepmother stayed a great deal in her room and looked as if she had been
crying. But after a few weeks things settled down a good deal as they
had been, only that my father never lost that sad troubled look. There
was some trouble about my stepmother's sons, too, for there was a great
deal of argument between her and my father, of which I only heard
snatches, and then one day they came home to stay with us. Something had
happened at the school where they were that they could not stay any
longer. I can remember distinctly the first night they ate dinner with
us. It seemed to me that it was like a terrific thunderstorm that never
quite broke. Everybody was trying to be nice and polite, but underneath
it all there was a kind of lightning of all kinds of feelings, hurt
feelings and wrong ones and right ones all mixed up.
"Only the two boys didn't seem to feel it much. They sort of took things
for granted, as if that had always been their home, and they didn't act
very polite. It seemed to trouble my father, who looked at them so
severely that it almost choked me, and I couldn't go on eating my
dinner. He didn't seem like my dear father when he looked like that. I
always used to watch my father, and he seemed to make the day for me. If
he was sad, then I was sad; and if he was glad then I was happy all
over, until one day my stepmother noticed me and said: 'See, dear little
Elizabeth is trembling. You ought not to speak that way before her,
Charles.' And then father looked at me, and all suddenly I learned to
smile when I didn't feel like it. I smiled back to him just to let him
know it didn't matter what he did, I would love him anyhow!"
During the recital Reyburn had sat with courteous averted gaze as though
he would not trouble her with more of his presence than was absolutely
necessary. Now he gave her a swift glance.
Betty's eyes were off on distance, and she was talking from the depths
of her heart, great tears welling into her eyes. All at once she
remembered the stranger:
"I beg your pardon," she said, and brushed her hand across her eyes. "I
haven't gone over it to any one ever, and I forgot you would not be
interested in details."
"Please don't mind me. I am interested in every detail you are good
enough to give me. It all makes the background of the truth, you know,
and that is what I am after," said Reyburn, deeply touched. "I think you
are wonderful to tell me all this. I shall regard it most sacredly."
Betty flashed a look of gratitude at him, and noticed the sympathy in
his face. It almost unnerved her, but she went on:
"The oldest boy was named Bessemer, and he wasn't very good-looking. He
was very tall and awkward, and always falling over things. He had little
pale eyes, and hardly any chin. His teeth projected, too, and his hair
was light and very straight and thin. His mother didn't seem to love him
very much, even when he was a little boy. She bullied him and found
fault with him continually, and quite often I felt very sorry for him,
although I wasn't naturally attracted to him. He wasn't really
unpleasant to me. We got along very nicely, although I never had much to
do with him. There wasn't much to him.
"The other brother, Herbert, was handsome like his mother, only dark,
with black curly hair, black wicked eyes, and a big, loose, cruel mouth.
His mother just idolized him, and he knew it. He could make her do
anything on earth. He used to force Bessemer into doing wrong things,
too, things that he was afraid to do himself, because he knew father
would not be so hard on Bessemer as on him. For father had taken a great
dislike to Herbert, and it was no wonder. He seemed to have no idea at
all that he was not owner of the house. He took anything he pleased for
his own use, even father's most sacred possessions, and broke them in a
fit of anger, too, sometimes, without ever saying he was sorry. He
talked very disrespectfully of father and to him, and acted so to the
servants that they gave notice and left. Every few days there would be a
terrible time over something Herbert had done. Once I remember he went
to the safe and got some money out that belonged to father and went off
and spent it in some dreadful way that made father very angry. Of course
I was still only a little girl, and I did not know all that went on.
Father was very careful that I should not know. He guarded me more than
ever, but he always looked sad when he came to kiss me good-night.
"Herbert took especial delight in tormenting me," she went on with a sad
far-away look in her eyes as if she were recalling unpleasant memories.
She did not see the set look on Reyburn's face nor notice his low
exclamation of anger. She went steadily on: "He found out that I did not
like June-bugs, and once he caught hundreds of them and locked me into a
room with them with all the lights turned on. I was almost frightened to
death, but it cured me of being afraid of June-bugs." A little smile
trembled out on Betty's lips. "Just because I wouldn't give him the
satisfaction of letting him hear me scream." She finished. "Then he
caught a snake and put it in my room, and he put a lot of burdocks in my
hat so they would get in my hair. Foolish things those were, of course,
but he was a constant nightmare to me. Sometimes he would tie a wire
across the passages in the upper hall where I had to pass to my room,
and when I fell my hands went down against a lot of slimy toads in the
dark, for he always somehow managed to have the light go out just as I
fell. There were hundreds of things like that, but I needn't multiply
them. That's the kind of boy he was. And because he discovered that my
father loved me very much, and because he knew my father disliked him,
he spent much time in trying to torment me in secret. I couldn't tell my
father, because he always looked so sad whenever there was trouble, and
there was sure to be trouble between him and my stepmother if my father
found out that Herbert had done anything wrong. One day my father came
upon us just as Herbert had caught me and was trying to cut my curls
off. I didn't care about the curls, but I knew my father did. I began to
scream. Herbert gripped me so I thought I would die with the pain,
putting his big strong fingers around my throat and choking me so I
could not make any noise."
Reyburn clenched his hands until the knuckles went white and uttered an
exclamation, but Betty did not notice:
"There was a terrible time then, and I was sent away to a school, a good
many miles from home, where I stayed for several years. Father always
came up to see me every week end, for a few hours at least, and we had
wonderful times together. Sometimes in vacation he would bring my
stepmother along and she would bring me beautiful presents and smile and
pet me, and say she missed me so much and she wished I would ask my
father to let me come back and go to school in the city. But I never
did, because I was afraid of Herbert. As I grew older I used to have an
awful horror of him. But finally one vacation father and mother both
came up and said they wanted me at home. My stepmother went to my room
with me and told me I needn't be afraid of Herbert any more, that he was
quite grown up and changed and would be good to me, and that it would
please my father to have all his family together happily again. I
believed her and I told father I would like to go. He looked very happy,
and so I went home. Herbert had been away at school himself most of the
time, and so had Bessemer, although they had been in trouble a good many
times, so the servants told me, and had to change to new schools. They
were both away when I got home. I had a very happy time for three weeks,
only that I never saw father alone once. My stepmother was always there.
But she was kind and I tried not to mind. Then all of a sudden one night
I woke up and heard voices, and I knew that the boys were back from the
camp to which they had been sent. I didn't sleep much the rest of the
night, but in the morning I made up my mind that it was only a little
while before I could go back to school, and I would be nice to the boys
and maybe they wouldn't trouble me.
"I found that it was quite true that Herbert had grown up and changed.
He didn't want to torment me any more, he wanted to make love to me,
and I was only a child yet. I wasn't quite fifteen. It filled me with
horror, and after he had caught me in the dark--he always loved to get
people in the dark--and tried to kiss me, I asked father to let me go
back to school at once. I can remember how sad he looked at me as if I
had cut him to the heart when I asked him."
During this part of the tale Reyburn sat with stern countenance, his
fingers clenched around the arms of the chair in which he sat, but he
held himself quiet and listened with compressed lips, watching every
expression that flitted across the sweet pale face.
"That was the last time I was at home with my father," she said, trying
to control her quivering lips. "He took me back to school, and he came
three times to see me, though not so often as before. The last time he
said beautiful things to me about trying to live a right life and being
kind to those about me, and he asked me to forgive him if he had ever
done anything to hurt me in any way. Of course I said he hadn't. And
then he said he hoped I wouldn't feel too hard at him for marrying again
and bringing those boys into my life. I told him it was all right, that
some day they would grow up and go away and he and I would live together
again! And he said some awful words about them under his breath. But he
asked me to forgive him again and kissed me and went away.
"He was taken very sick when he got home, and they never let me know
until he was dead. Of course I went home to the funeral, but I didn't
stay; I couldn't. I went back to school alone. My stepmother had been
very kind, but she said she knew it was my father's wish that I should
finish my school year. When vacation came she was traveling for her
health. She wrote me a beautiful letter telling me how she missed me,
and how much she needed me now in her bereavement, and how she hoped
another summer would see us together; but she stayed abroad two years
and the third year she went to California. I was sent to another school,
and because I was not asked about it and there didn't seem anything else
to do, I went. Every time I would suggest doing something else my
stepmother would write and say how sorry she was she could not give her
consent, but my father had left very explicit directions about me and
she was only trying to carry out his wishes. She knew me well enough to
be sure I would want to do anything he wished for me. And I did, of
course."
Reyburn gave her a look of sympathy and getting up began to pace the
little room.