He was looking very fit and comfortable, lying at full length in a
Gloucester hammock with cushions beneath his head, a book in his hand,
and a package of cigarettes within reach.
"Sylvia!" he cried, springing up and advancing toward her with
outstretched hand. "Sylvia! What a brick you are to come!"
Angry as she was, when face to face with him she could not resist the
contagion of his smile.
"I'm glad to see you so well," she said. "This is Mr. Horatio Fuller of
Alton City."
Horatio looked Heath up and down and then stepped forward and gripped
his hand with unmistakable cordiality.
"Mighty glad to know you, sir," was his greeting. "You seem to have got
yourself into a jam. If there is anything I can do--any way I can be of
service--"
"Horatio, you forget we are not here to make a social call," interrupted
Sylvia, who had by this time regained her routed chilliness and
indignation. "On the contrary, Mr. Heath, we have come on a very painful
errand. We are returning this check to you."
She extended it toward him, gingerly holding its corner in the tips of
her fingers as if it were too foul a thing to touch. "It was outrageous
of you, insulting to leave a thing of this sort for Marcia--to attempt
to pay in cash--kindness such as hers."
"I'm--sorry," Heath stammered.
"Sorry! You couldn't have been very sorry, or you would have sensed such
an act would hurt her terribly."
Horatio Fuller fumbled nervously with his tie.
"You deserve," swept on young Sylvia with rising spirit, "to be
thrashed. Hortie and I both think so--don't we, Hortie?"
Horatio Junior turned crimson.
"Oh, I say, Sylvia, go easy!" he protested. "Don't drag me into this. I
don't know one darn thing about it."
"But I've explained everything to you."
"You've tried to. Nevertheless, the whole affair is beyond me. I can't
make head or tail out of it," shrugged Horatio. "Suppose I just step
inside and listen to the news flashes while you and Mr. Heath transact
your business. It will be less awkward all round. If you want me you can
speak."
Nodding courteously in Heath's direction, Horatio Junior disappeared.
"Your Mr. Fuller is a man of nice feeling," Stanley Heath declared
looking after him. "I congratulate you."
"Thank you."
"Everything is settled then?"
She nodded.
"I hope you will be very happy."
She did not reply at once. When she did, it was to say with a humility
new and appealing:
"I shall be. I never appreciated Hortie until now. I was too silly."
"Perhaps you were merely young."
"It wasn't that. I was vain--feather-headed. I have realized it since
knowing Marcia."
"We all want to be different after we have seen Marcia," Stanley Heath
said gently.
"We don't just want to be--we set about it," was the girl's grave reply.
"Sit down, Sylvia, and let us talk of Marcia," ventured Heath after a
pause. "I am deeply sorry if I have wounded her--indeed I am."
The girl searched his face.
"I cannot understand you, Mr. Heath," she said. "What has Marcia done
that you should have left her as you did? Hasn't she believed in you
through thick and thin? Stood up for you against everybody--going it
blind at that? Few women would have had such faith in a stranger."
"I realize that. You do not need to tell me," he answered. "It is
precisely because she has gone so far I believed her capable of going
farther yet--the whole way."
"What do you mean by the whole way?"
"To the end."
"Well, hasn't she?"
He shook his head.
"No. She has fallen short--disappointed me cruelly. When it came to
the final test, her affection collapsed. Oh, she has been wonderful,"
he added quickly. "Do not think I fail to appreciate that. She has far
out-distanced every other woman I ever have known. I simply expected too
much of her, doubtless the impossible. Human nature is frail--a woman's
heart the frailest thing of all. I have always said so."
"You wrong Marcia," cried Sylvia hotly. "Her heart is not frail. Neither
is she the weak sort of person you have pictured. In all the world you
could not match her loyalty or the depth of her affection. I owe Marcia
a great debt. I could tell you things she has done that would make you
thoroughly ashamed of your superficial rating of her. But why go into
that? If after the experience we three have lived through together you
have not discovered what she is, it is futile for me to attempt to show
you.
"You came into our lives like a meteor--entirely detached from
everything. We knew nothing about you and in the face of damaging
evidence you offered neither Marcia nor me one word of explanation.
Marcia asked none. Without rhyme or reason she believed in you. I had
not her faith. I freely confess I thought you guilty. Oh, I liked you
sufficiently well to be ready to help you save your skin. But Marcia
cared enough for you to want you to save your soul.
"There is a difference in that sort of caring, Mr. Heath--a big
difference. When you were taken ill, we both nursed you--I willingly,
she devotedly. Here lay another difference had you been able to detect
it. What happened as a result of this enforced intimacy? You know--know
far better than I."
"I fell in love with Marcia," replied the man without an instant's
hesitation.
"You fell in love!" Sylvia repeated, her lip curling. "You call it
love--the poor thing you offered her! Why, Marcia would have gone to the
world's end with you, Stanley Heath, had she the right. She would have
faced any humiliation for your sake. If prison doors closed upon you,
she would have remained faithful until they swung open and afterward
followed you to any corner of the earth in which you chose to begin a
new life."
"That's where you're wrong, Sylvia," contradicted Heath. "Marcia was
not ready to do that. I tried her out and she refused. When I told her
I should return to her, and asked her in so many words whether she was
willing to face shame and public scorn for my sake she turned her back
on me. She could not go to that length."
"Are you sure she understood?" asked Sylvia, stepping nearer and looking
fearlessly into his eyes. "There is a shame Marcia never in this world
would face for any man; but it is not the shame you have just described.
"It is the shame of wronging another woman; destroying a home. I
know that sounds old-fashioned in days like these. Perhaps Marcia is
old-fashioned. Perhaps I am. In the villages where we have been brought
up, we do not go in for the new standards sponsored by more up-to-date
communities. We believe in marriage as a sacred, enduring sacrament--not
a bond to be lightly broken. When you offered Marcia less than that--"
"I never offered Marcia any such shameful position, Sylvia," cried
Stanley Heath. "I would not so far insult her."
"But you are married."
"That is a lie. Who told you so?"
"The--the wire to Mrs. Stanley Heath--the telephone message. I heard you
call her Joan."
"But, Sylvia, Mrs. Stanley Heath is not my wife. She is my young
step-mother, my father's widow. I always have called her Joan."
"Oh! I beg your pardon."
"I see it all now," the man exclaimed. "You have entirely misunderstood
the situation. I'm a Junior. Since my father's death, however, people
have got out of the way of using the term. Sometimes I myself am
careless about it. So Marcia thought--"
"Of course she did. We both did. So did Elisha Winslow and Eleazer
Crocker. So did lots of other people in Wilton."
"Heavens!"
"Well, how were we to know?" Sylvia demanded.
"How, indeed? If an innocent citizen cannot visit a town without being
arrested as a criminal within a week of his arrival, why shouldn't he be
married without his knowledge? Circumstantial evidence can, apparently,
work wonders."
Then suddenly he threw back his head and laughed.
"Bless you, little Sylvia--bless you for setting me right. I told you
you were a brick and you've proved it. Thanks to you, everything is now
straightened out."
"Not quite everything, I am afraid," the girl protested.
"Everything that is of importance," he amended. "The rest will untangle
itself in time. I am not worrying about it. Here, give me your hand. How
am I to thank you for what you have done? I only hope that young Horatio
Fuller of yours realizes what a treasure he is getting."
"He does, Mr. Heath--he does," observed that gentleman, strolling at the
same instant through the door and encircling his tiny bride-to-be with
his arm. "Haven't I traveled half way across this big country of ours to
marry her?"
"Oh, we're not going to be married yet, Hortie," demurred the girl
trying to wrench herself free of the big fellow's hold.
"Certainly we are, my dear. Didn't you know that? I'm surprised how many
things there are that you don't know," he went on teasingly. "I thought
I explained exactly what brought me East. Didn't I tell you this morning
I came to get married? I was perfectly serious. Dad gave me two months
vacation with that understanding. I must either produce a wife when
I get home or lose my job. He'll never give me another furlough if I
don't."
"Looks to me as if you had Mr. Fuller's future prosperity in your hands,
Sylvia," Heath said.
"She has. She can make or break me. A big responsibility, eh, little
Sylvia?"
"I know it, Hortie," retorted the girl seriously.
"She is equal to it, Fuller--never fear," Stanley Heath asserted.
"I'm not doing any worrying," smiled Horatio. "I--"
The sentence was cut short by the radio's loudspeaker:
_The much sought Long Island gem thief was captured this morning at his
lodgings in Jersey City. Harris Chalmers, alias Jimmie O'Hara, a paroled
prisoner, was taken by the police at his room on K-- Street. A quantity
of loot, together with firearms and the missing jewels were found
concealed in the apartment. The man readily admitted the theft. He has a
long prison record._
For a second nobody spoke.
Then as if prompted by common impulse, the three on the piazza rushed
indoors.
Elisha was sitting limply before the radio.
"Did you hear that?" he gasped.
"Well, rather!" Horatio Fuller shouted with a triumphant wave of his
hand.
"Ain't it the beateree?" exploded the astonished sheriff. "That sends
the whole case up in the air. All that's needed now to make me out the
darndest fool on God's earth is for Eleazer's young nephew-lawyer in New
York, who's checking up Heath's story, to wire everything there is O.K.
If he does, I'll go bury my head. There goes the telephone! That's him!
That's Eleazer--I'll bet a hat."
"_Hello!--Yes, I heard it.--You ain't surprised? Wal, I am. I'm took
off my feet.--Oh, your nephew wired, did he, an' everything's O.K.?
That bein' the case, I reckon there's no more to be said. I feel like a
shrimp. How do you feel?_----"
Elisha hung up the receiver.
"Wal, Mr. Heath, the story you told Eleazer an' me is straight as a
string in every particular," he announced. "You're free! There ain't
nothin' I can say. To tell you I'm sorry ain't in no way adequate.
I shan't offer you my hand neither, 'cause I know you wouldn't take
it--leastways I wouldn't, was I in your place. There's some insults
nothin' can wipe out an' this blunder of mine is one of 'em. You'll
just have to set me down as one of them puddin'-headed idiots that was
over-ambitious to do his duty. I ain't got no other explanation or
excuse to make."
"I shall not let it go at that, Mr. Winslow," Stanley Heath acclaimed,
stepping to the old man's side and seizing his palm in a strong grip.
"We all make errors. Forget it. I'm going to. Besides, you have treated
me like a prince since I've been your guest."
"You are the prince, sir. Livin' with you has shown me that. Had I
knowed you 'fore I arrested you as well as I do now the thing wouldn't
'a' happened. Wal, anyhow, all ain't been lost. At least I've met a
thoroughbred an' that ain't none too frequent an occurrence in these
days."
"What I can't understand, Mr. Winslow, is why you didn't recognize he
was a thoroughbred from the beginning," Horatio Fuller remarked.
"You've a right to berate me, young man--a perfect right. I ain't goin'
to put up no defense. 'Twas the circumstances that blinded me. Besides,
I had only a single glimpse of Mr. Heath. Remember that. After he was
took sick I never saw him again. Had we got acquainted, as we have now,
everything would 'a' been different. Findin' them jewels--"
"Great hat, man! I had a diamond ring in my pocket when I came to
Wilton, but that didn't prove I'd stolen it."
"I know! I know!" acquiesced the sheriff. "Eleazer an' me lost our
bearin's entirely. We got completely turned round."
"A thief with a Phi Beta Kappa key!" jeered Horatio. "Godfrey!" Then
turning to Sylvia, he added in an undertone: "Well, so far as I can see
the only person who has kept her head through this affair is our Aunt
Marcia."
Elisha overheard the final clause.
"That's right!" he agreed with cordiality. "You're 'xactly right, Mr.
Fuller. The Widder's head-piece can always be relied upon to stay
steady."
"Whose head-piece?" inquired Stanley Heath, puzzled by the term.
"Marcia's. Here in town we call her The Widder."
"Well, you'll not have the opportunity to call her that much longer,"
Heath laughed.
"You don't tell me!" Elisha regarded him, open-mouthed. "Humph! So
that's how the wind blows, is it? Wal, I can see this mix-up would
'a' ended my chances anyway. Marcia'd never have had me after this.
Disappointed as I am, though, there's a sight of comfort in knowin'
she won't have Eleazer neither. He don't come out of the shindy a whit
better'n me. That's somethin'. In fact it's a heap!"