CHAPTER IIIHarrington Winthrop kept his promise about the sweets. Five times during the winter that followed his first visit with Mr. Van Rensselaer, he invented some excuse to visit Dawn.The first time he came, he found her in the maple grove behind the pasture, with a group of other girls, all decked in autumn leaves and playing out some story that Dawn had read.He persuaded her to walk a little way into the woods with him; and when he came to take his leave asked for a kiss, but Dawn sprang away from him in sudden panic:"No," she said sharply; "I have never kissed anybody but my mother." Then, fearing she had been impolite in view of his gift, she added:"We don't kiss people here at this school. It isn't the custom."And she knew so little of the customs of the world that the incident passed without further apprehension on her part, or understanding of the young man's meaning."That's all right, my dear," he said pleasantly. "But don't forget about the house. I'm going to tell you all about it next time I come. You still want a home of your very own, don't you?""Why, of course," said Dawn; "but I can't see how you can know anything about it, or care. What have you to do with it?" And then with sudden alarm, "Has my father been talking to you about any such thing?""No, indeed! Your father does not even know I am interested in you. I care for my own sake. Didn't I tell you that I liked you the minute I saw you? And I'm just as interested in this future home of yours as you are.""I'm sure I can't see why," said Dawn, perplexed, yet trying to be polite."Suppose you think about it hard, dear, and see if you can find out why I care. Just think it all over, everything I have said, and then if you are still in doubt go and look in the looking-glass and keep on thinking, and I'm sure you'll find out by the time I come back. I'm coming soon again, and I want you to be watching for me every day. I'll bring you something nice next time, besides another box of sweets."Dawn tried to smile, but felt uncomfortable. She murmured her thanks again, and turned uneasily toward the woods and her companions, and he deemed it prudent to leave her without further ado.Back in the woods, the girls were making merry with her confections, and had nothing but praise for the handsome stranger who had brought them; but all through the eager questions and merry jibes Dawn was silent and thoughtful."Where are your thoughts, Dawn?" said Desire Hathaway. "Has the stranger stolen them away to pay for his goodies?""She looks as if he had asked her to marry him, and she didn't know whether to say yes or to wait for somebody else," laughed Matilda Hale, a new-comer among them, and older than the rest."I guess he kissed her good-by," chimed in silly Polly Phelps, who aspired to be Matilda's shadow. "I peeked through the bushes and saw him bending over her."Amid the thoughtless laugh that rose, Dawn stood defiant, the crimson leaping into her cheeks, the steel into her eyes. For an instant she looked as if she would turn upon the offending Matilda and tear her to pieces. Then a sudden revelation came to her: this, this was what the handsome stranger had meant!Instantly the light of anger died out of her face, and a gentle dignity took its place. Her little clenched hands relaxed, the tenseness of the graceful body softened, and she turned toward the offender with a haughty condescension:"Matilda, we don't talk in that way here," she said, and the laughter died out of the faces of her companions and left instead amazement and admiration. They had seen Dawn angry before, and had not expected the affair to end so amicably. They felt it showed a marvellous self-control, and left her mistress of the situation. Matilda bit her lip in a vexed way and tossed her head. She felt she had lost prestige by the little incident, and Dawn was still the recognized leader of the school. It was not a pleasant thought to the older girl.Dawn turned and walked slowly away from them all, out of the woods, down through the meadow, where grazed her quiet friends, the sheep. She still carried her gentle dignity, and none of the girls spoke until she was out of sight behind the group of chestnuts at the corner of the meadow.Then Desire Hathaway voiced the general feeling:"Isn't she just like a queen?""Oh, if you want to look at it that way!" sneered Matilda, with another toss of her head. "There are a good many kinds of queens, you know. I must say, I thought she looked like a pretty wicked one for a minute or two. She would have enjoyed tearing my eyes out if she had dared.""Dared!" cried Desire. "You don't know her. She will dare anything that she thinks is worth while. I thought it was just splendid, the way she controlled herself.""Oh, well, just as you think, of course," shrugged Matilda. "Come on, Polly; let's go finish our sewing."Dawn stumbled on blindly in the pasture, trying to take in the appalling thought thatperhapsthe young man wanted to marry her!Tears of indignation welled into her eyes, but she brushed them angrily aside. Why was life so dreadful, she wondered. Why did men exist to break women's hearts?—for she never doubted that the married state was one of heart-break. Such had been the lesson burned deep into her soul by suffering. A home of her own had been a sweet thought, but the serpent had entered her Eden, and she cared no more to stay there.The next time Winthrop came it was openly, with a message from her father. All through the interview, which lasted for an hour, and was prolonged over the noonday meal, Dawn sat stiffly on the other side of Friend Ruth, watching the fishy eyes of the stranger and listening to his fulsome flatteries of the place, her small hands folded decorously, but her young heart beating painfully under the sheer folds of the 'kerchief.On his fourth visit he bore a private letter from her father to Friend Ruth, and wore an air of assurance which made the girl's heart sink with nameless foreboding. Not even the praises of the girls for her handsome lover, their open envy of her future lot, or their merry taunts, could rouse her from a gravity which had begun to settle upon her.This time Friend Ruth seemed to look upon the visitor in a different light. Not only was Dawn allowed to talk with him alone, but she was sent out with him for a walk in the woods.Reluctantly she obeyed, frightened, she knew not why.Harrington Winthrop had a winning way with him, and he was determined to win this proud, beautiful girl. Also, he was wise in the ways of the world, he did not force any undue attention upon her, but confined his conversation to telling her about the beautiful home he had seen. Rightly guessing that there was still much of the child about her, he went on to picture the house in detail, not hesitating to embellish it at will where his memory failed.There was a garden with a fountain, and there should be flowers, all in profusion. There were clipped hedges, gravel paths, an arbor in a shady place, where she might bring her book or sewing, and where the sunshine would peer through the branches just enough to scatter gold about the leafy way.In spite of her prejudices, she was interested. She could not help it. The longing for a real home of her own was great.Then came the most difficult part of his task, which was to reconcile her to himself.Skilfully he led the conversation about till he himself was the subject—his life since he had become a man and gone out into the world. Pathetically he talked of his own loneliness, until he touched the maternal chord in her nature and made her feel sorry for him. He opened up for her gaze depths of sympathy, tenderness, and pathos, which were purely imaginary and wholly impossible to his own nature. He launched into details of his own feelings which were the inspiration of the moment, because he saw they touched her. He told her how he had often been lonely almost to desperation, and how he had many and many a time pictured a home of his own, with a lovely wife at its head. The girl winced at the name "wife," but he went steadily on trying to take the strangeness out of the word, trying to touch her heart and fire her tenderness; for he rightly read the possibilities of love in the beautiful face, and it put him on his mettle to make it bloom for him.He succeeded so far as to make her conscience sharply reprove her for the dislike she had for him. Of course if he had been lonely, too, and had had a care for her loneliness, it was a different matter. Perhaps, after all, they had something in common, and he would not be such a dreadful addition to the home she had longed for. At least, she had no right to shut him out of a dream that he held in common with her, and she tried to put aside her own feelings and look at him fairly.So they walked the deeper into the woods, and while she did not say much in reply to his eloquent words, she did not seem actively opposed. He let his voice grow more and more tender, though he did not trouble her with words of love. He let a care for her become apparent: as they walked over the rough growth in the woods, he held the branches aside for her, and helped her over a log, and once across the stones of a little brook, touching her hand and arm deferentially. It did not appeal to Dawn in the way he hoped that it would, nor awaken any tenderness for him, but she let him lead her along a path which, had she been alone, she would have cleared at a bound, and counted an easy thing.When he parted from her that evening to take the night boat, he gave her shrinking fingers a slight pressure in token of the understanding between them, and Dawn understood it as the sealing of a kind of unspoken contract.After that Dawn was not surprised to receive a letter from her father in which he spoke of the young man's desire to make her his wife, and formally gave his consent. It never seemed to occur to him that the girl might have any question about the matter. A dull kind of rebellion rose in her breast and smouldered there as she read her father's letter; yet she accepted his arrangements for her life, because it seemed the only way out from a home that could never be a happy one for her; and because it offered a spot that might be called her own, and a possible opportunity to live out some of her childish dreams.When Harrington Winthrop came again, she no longer yielded to her inward shrinking from him, but took him as she took hard tasks that she did not like but that were inevitable; and he, finding her unresisting, was careful not to do anything to mar the pleasant understanding between them. Meantime, he congratulated himself constantly upon the ease with which he had possessed himself of a promised wife whose private fortune would be no small one.CHAPTER IVDawn settled into a gravity that was premature. She counted every day of her precious school year, as if it had been a priceless treasure that was slipping from her.There were times when she roused to her old self again, and plunged madly into fun, leading her companions into wild amusements that they would never have originated by themselves. Then again she would sober down, and they could get her to say very little. It began to be whispered about that she was to be married when she had finished school, and the girls all looked at her with a kind of envying awe.Thus the winter passed and the spring came on, the spring that was to be her last at school. The first few days of warm weather she spent exploring old haunts, watching for the spring blossoms, and reverently touching the green moss, hunting anemones, hepaticas, and violets. Then, as if she could stand her own thoughts no longer, she suddenly proposed the acting of another play. It was the first since that time in the autumn when Harrington Winthrop broke in upon them, and they had never been able to induce her to finish it. Now she selected another one that seemed to her to have the very heart of spring and life bound up in it. She got it out of an old book which had been her mother's—"Tales of William Shakespeare," by name. It was not used as a text-book in the excellent school of Friend Ruth and Friend Isaac, and the child had always kept it safely hidden.The play she had selected had many elves and sprites of the air in it. Dawn drilled her willing subjects, and rehearsed them, until at last she felt they were ready for the final presentation.The scene of the play was to be on the sloping hillside just above the meadow, where the maples on the hill were flanked by a thicket of elderberry bushes that did double duty of background, and screen for the dressing-rooms.The audience of girls was seated in breathless silence, augmented by a group of kindly cows and stupid sheep, who stood in patient rows and waited mildly for any tender bites or chance blossoms of cowslips the girls might put between the bars of the fence. Now and then, as the play went on, they lifted calm eyes of bewilderment over the turbulent scenes in the mimic play-house, or out of their placid world of monotonous duty, wondered whatever the children could be at now.It chanced that day that Harrington Winthrop was passing, and, most unexpectedly, he had with him his younger brother, who was on his way back to Harvard College, after a brief visit home to see his mother, who had been ill.Charles Winthrop had met his elder brother in the coach, and had boyishly insisted on accompanying him when he stopped on what he professed was a friendly errand at this school. Charles had long been separated from his brother, and wanted to talk over old days and ask many questions, for Harrington had been away from home most of the time for nearly ten years and had travelled in the West and the South a great deal, which seemed a charmed country to the younger man.Now Harrington had not been anxious for company on this visit, but he could not well shake his brother off without arousing suspicions, therefore as they neared the school he told him that he was about to visit the girl whom he expected in a few months to make his wife.Charles in his hearty boyish way congratulated him and expressed a desire to see the girl who was his brother's choice.They were told at the house that Dawn was out with the other girls in the meadows, and so went in search of her. They arrived on the scene just as the closing act was about to begin.The little company of players stood out bravely in costumes designed entirely by Dawn. The outfit of the school was far too sombre to play any part in the gaiety of the occasion. An occasional patchwork quilt had been pressed into service, and one or two gray or scarlet blankets, but most of the players were dressed in white literally covered with flowers or green leaves.The two young men skirted the foot of the hill and came upon the scene just when Dawn, as queen of the air, attended by her sprites and nymphs, came into view with a gentle, gliding run learned surely from the birds, for nowhere else could such grace be found. She was clad in white drapery of homespun linen, one of her own mother's finest sheets. It was drawn about her slender form, over her shoulders, in a fashion all her own, though graceful as any Greek goddess. Her white throat and round white arms were bare, the long, dark curls had been set free, and about her brow was a wreath of exquisite crab-apple blossoms, whose delicate tinting matched the rose of her cheeks. About her throat, arms, wrists, and ankles—for her feet were bare—were close-fitting chains of the same blossoms. Here and there the white drapery of her garment, which fell half way from the knee to the ankle, was fastened with a spray of blossoms. It was a daring costume for a Quaker-reared maiden to don, and she knew it, but she expected no eyes to look upon her save her companions and the friendly cattle. She stood poised on the green slope, holding in her hands and high above her head a soft scarf of white—an old curtain which she had saved from the rag-bag and wet and stretched in the sun till it was soft and pliable. She had mended it, and fastened the darns with blossoms, and edged it also with blossoms plucked close from the stem and sewed down in a fine flat border.Behind her came her maidens, their garments sewed over with maple leaves, tender and green and fluttering. They were crowned and wreathed also with maple leaves, and made a beautiful setting for Dawn's delicate beauty.Then down the hillside they came, the maidens with festoons of leaves fastened together by their stems, which they held aloft as their leader held her scarf. They sang a strange, sweet song that had in it the wildness of the thrush's song, the sweetness of the robin's.It was Dawn who had composed the melody, and taught it to them. She had learned it from the birds, and interpreted old Shakespeare's words. They sang it as the zephyrs sing.The little audience sat with bated breath; the old cows chewed their cud thoughtfully, one with soft eyes heaved a long, clover-scented sigh, marvelling on the ways of the world. The two strangers stood entranced and astonished; but the heart of one of them thrilled with a strange new joy.Charles Winthrop saw only the beautiful face of Dawn Van Rensselaer. All the rest were but a setting for her. He seemed to know instantly as he looked that there was no other girl in the world like this. He knew not who she might be, but he looked at her as if his spirit were calling to hers across the meadow-land that separated them. Then suddenly, half poised as she was, in the very midst of her song, Dawn became aware of his presence and stopped. She met his gaze, and, without her own volition, it seemed, her eyes were shining and smiling to meet his smile. It was just a fleeting instant that they gazed thus, and then the joy went out of the girl's face, and a frightened look took its place. She had seen the other man standing beside him, and he was frowning.Harrington Winthrop had caught the look on his brother's face, and its answer in the face of the girl upon whom he had set his seal of possession, and an unreasoning anger had taken possession of him. This girl had looked at Charles as Harrington had never been able to make her look at him, not even since she had in a tacit way consented to marry him."This is foolish child's play!" he said in a vexed tone to his brother. "Let us go back to the house and wait until she has returned.""Oh, no, let us stay!" said Charles. "This is beautiful! Exquisite! At least, if you must go, let me stay. I wish to see the finish.""I wish you to go," said Harrington, and there was something in his brother's voice that reminded Charles of the days when he used to be ordered back from following on a fishing or swimming expedition. He looked at his brother's angry face, and then back to the beautiful girl on the hillside. But the light had gone out of her eyes. The song had died on her lips. There was no sparkling smile now. Instead, there was an angry, steel-like flash in the eyes. She held the fluttering scarf in front of her now, in long loose folds covering her feet and ankles, and as the two men turned and gazed at her her head went up proudly, even as the queen of the air might have raised her head. One hand went up in quick command, pointing straight at the two young men, and in quite the phrase of the play she had been acting she spoke:"Hence, strange spirits!" she cried. "Hence! Begone! Ye have no right amongst us, being unbidden. 'Go, I tell ye! Go, or I, the queen of the air, will bring evil upon ye! Go, ye have angered me!"Dawn had made Shakespeare so much her constant companion that the language came easily to her. She picked up phrases here and there and strung them together without hesitation. Her anger helped her on, and her splendid command of herself had a strange effect upon her audience.The other girls listened in open-mouthed wonder that Dawn should dare to speak before these strangers and not be covered with confusion. Almost they thought it was part of the play. But the two to whom she spoke turned and obeyed her command, the one because he was angry and wished to get his brother away, the other because there had been a certain appeal in her lovely eyes which had reached his soul and made him bow in reverence to her command. Then all at once, as he turned away, he knew that she was the girl whom his brother intended to make his wife, and a great sadness and sense of a loss came over him.There was mutiny in her eyes as Dawn came back to the house a little later, and greeted her lover with a haughty manner. He had managed it that Charles should sit alone in the gray parlor and wait while he met the girl out in the entrance to the orchard and walked away with her to a sheltered place overlooking the river. There was no hint of the queen of the air in her demure dress, the well-sheathed curls, the small prunella slippers that peered from under the deep hem of her gray gown, but her bearing was queenly as she waited for him to speak. He saw that he was treading on dangerous ground."Do you really like such childish play?" he asked a trifle contemptuously."You had no right to come there!" she flashed. "If you did not like it, you should have gone away."He was disconcerted. He did not wish to anger her, for he had come for another purpose."Well, never mind. If you enjoyed yourself, I suppose it does not matter whether I liked it or not. Let us talk of something else. Your play-days are almost over. You will soon begin to live real life."She looked at him and felt that she came near to hating him. A sudden, unspeakable terror seized her. She let him talk on about the house they were to have, and tried to remember that he was lonesome and wanted a home as badly as she did, but somehow she felt nothing but fear and dislike. So, though she walked by his side, she heard little of what he said, only saying when he asked if she wished this or that: "I suppose so. I suppose it will be as you like."As they came back to the house again, she asked him suddenly:"Who was the young man with you?"The frown came into his face again."Why do you ask?" he asked sharply."He did not feel the way you did about us out there on the hill.""How do you know?" He watched her keenly, but her face told him nothing."I saw it in his eyes," she said quietly, and without more words went into the house and up to her room.Dawn stood at the little window of her room and watched the two men go down the path from the door. Through the small panes her eyes followed them until they were out of sight, and her heart swelled with thoughts strange and new and fearful. How could she go and live with this man who had frowned at her innocent happiness? Would he not be worse than the woman who had taken her dear mother's place? And how could he be so cruel as to look at her in that way? It was the look she remembered on her father's face the day he sent her mother away. It was the cruelty of men. Perhaps they could not help it. Perhaps God made them so. But that other one had been different. He had understood and smiled. Her heart leaped out toward him as she remembered his look.Was it because he was young, she wondered, that he had understood? He had seemed far younger than his companion, yet there had been something fine and manly in his face, in the broadness of his shoulders, and the set of his head, as he walked down the path, away from the house. Perhaps when he was older he would grow that way to, and not understand any more.She sighed and dropped her face against the glass, and, now that they were out of sight, the haughty look melted into tears.CHAPTER VThe day that Dawn left school to go back to her home was one long agony to her.All the other girls were happy in the thought of home-going, some of them looking forward to returning for another year, others to entering into a bright girlhood filled with gaieties. But to Dawn it meant going into the gray of a looming fate where never again would she be happy, never again free.Ever since the day of the play when she had seen her future husband frown, she had looked forward to her marriage with terror.He had not come after that, but instead wrote her long letters full of plans about the house,their house, that they were to occupytogether. The letters impressed that thought most deeply and made the whole hateful to her. It grew to seem that it washishouse, and she would be his prisoner in it. Yet somehow he had succeeded in impressing her with the feeling that she was pledged to him in sacred honor, and that it would be a dreadful thing to break a tie like that. This was made stronger by her father's letters, which now grew more frequent, as if he sought to atone to his motherless child for the wrong he had done her.Just the day before her home-going there came one of these letters, in which he told her that everything had been prepared for her marriage to take place within a week after her arrival. He told her of the trousseau which his wife had prepared for her, which was as elaborate and complete as such an outfit could be for one of her station in life. He also spoke about the dignity of her origin, and with unwonted elaboration commended her judgment in selecting so old and so fine a family as that of the house of Winthrop with which to ally herself. He added that it would have pleased her mother's family, and that Mr. Winthrop was one of his oldest and most valued friends.Somehow that letter seemed to Dawn to put the seal of finality upon her fate. There was no turning back now. Just as her father used to compel her to go upstairs alone when he discovered that she was afraid of the dark, so she felt that if he once discovered her dislike for her future husband he would but hasten the marriage, and be in league with her husband against her always.When the time came to leave the school, she clung with such fervor about the neck of the impassive Friend Ruth that the astonished lady almost lost her breath, and a strange wild thrill went through her unmotherly bosom, as of something that might have been and was lost. She looked earnestly down into the beautiful face of the girl who had so often defied her rules, and saw an appeal in those lovely eyes to which she would most certainly have responded had she understood, for she was a good woman and always sought to do her best.But the boat left at once, and clinging arms had perforce to be removed. Once on the deck with the others, Dawn looked back at Friend Ruth as impassively as always, though the usually calm face of the woman searched her out with troubled glance, still wondering what had come over her wild young pupil. Somehow, as she watched the steamer plough away until Dawn was a mere blur with the others, Friend Ruth could not help being glad that the beautiful dark curls had never been cut.The day was perfect, and the scenery along the Palisades had never looked more beautiful, yet Dawn saw nothing of it. She sat by the rail looking gloomily down into the water, and a curious fancy seized her that she would like to float out there on the water forever and get away from life. Then she began to consider the possibility of running away.It was not the first time this thought had entered her mind. The week before she left the school, she had thought of it seriously, and even planned the route, but always at night there had come that fearful dream of her future husband following her, and bringing her home to a life-long punishment.She had almost got her courage up to the point of deciding to disappear in the crowd at Albany, and so elude the people with whom she was expected to journey to her home, when, to her dismay, she looked down at the landing-place where they were stopping, a few miles below Albany, and saw her father coming on board the boat. He had not expected to be able to meet her and had written that she was to come with acquaintances of his. Her heart stood still in panic, and for a moment she looked wildly at the rail of the steamer, as if she might climb over and escape. Then in a moment her father had seen her and stood beside her. He stooped and kissed her forehead coldly, almost shyly. This startled her, too, for he had not kissed her since the days before her mother was sent away, and a strange, sharp pain went through her heart, a pang of things that might have been. She looked up in wonder. She did not know how like her dead mother she had grown.But the stern face was cold as ever, and his voice conveyed no smallest part of the emotion he felt at sight of her lovely face.He talked to her gravely of her school life, and then he went on to speak of the Winthrop family, and to tell her in detail bits of its history calculated to make her understand its importance.Dawn listened with growing alarm at the thought of all that would be expected of her. Yet not a breath of her trouble did she allow her father to see. It might have made a difference if she could have known how her father's heart was aching with the anguish of his great mistake, and perhaps if the father could have known the breaking of the young heart it might have melted the coldness of his reserve and brought some sympathy to the surface. But they could not see, and the agony went on.Dawn walked sadly, reluctantly, into the unloved, unloving home. As the days dragged by, she grew to have a haunted look, and the rose flush on her sweet round cheek faded to a marble white, while under her eyes were dark circles.Her father saw the look, but knew not what it meant. Yet it pierced his soul, for it was the same look that her mother had worn in her coffin, and he was the readier to have the marriage hastened, both for her sake and his own, for he realized she was not happy here in the home where there was so much to remind her of what had passed. He felt she never would forgive him, and that her only hope was to be happily married. Winthrop had so represented her feelings to him that he had taken it for granted she was only too eager to go to a home of her own.The house had been bought—at least, the father supposed so—not knowing that but a small payment had been made, with a promise to pay the balance soon after the marriage. The young man had laid his plans nicely, and meant to profess that some investment of his had failed, making it impossible for him to make the final payments, and that he had disliked to postpone the marriage or to tell of his predicament, feeling sure that he would have the money by the time the payment was due. Naturally, his wife's fortune would suffice to pay for the house, which of course she would not let go then. If the house was not exactly what he had described to the little school-girl, certainly it was large enough and showy enough to make up for the lack of some of the things which had seemed important to her; and he had taken care that it should be so far from the home of her father that the latter could keep no eye on his son-in-law's business affairs. If all went well, he intended to have his wife's fortune in his own hands before their first year of married life should have passed. After that it would not matter to him whether the girl was pleased with her home or not. She could no longer help herself.But of all this the father suspected nothing.Dawn took no interest in her clothes. The step-mother was chagrined that after all her efforts Dawn was not pleased."I should think you might show a little gratitude, after all the trouble I've taken," Mrs. Van Rensselaer snapped angrily.Dawn turned wide eyes of astonishment upon her."For what?" she asked. "I didn't want the things. I supposed you did it to please father.""Didn't want them!" exclaimed her step-mother. "And how would you expect to get married without them?""I don't want to be married!" said Dawn desperately, and then closed her lips tightly, with a frightened look toward the door. She had not meant to let any one know that. The words had come of themselves out of her weary heart."Well, upon my word! You're the queerest girl! Any other girl in the world would be in high feather over your chances; but you always were the stubbornest, most contrary creature that ever drew breath. Whatever did you say you'd get married for if you didn't want to?""I don't think I ever did," said the girl sadly. "It just came in spite of me.""That's all foolishness. Don't talk such things to me. No girl has to be married unless she chooses, and I'll warrant you had your hand in it from the start. Besides, it's too late to talk of such things now. It wouldn't be honorable to draw back now, after he's got the house bought and all.""I know it," said Dawn miserably, and stood looking out the window blindly, swallowing hard to keep back the tears. She felt that she must have reached the limit of her endurance when she would let her step-mother see her state of mind.Mrs. Van Rensselaer eyed her keenly, suspiciously. At last she ventured another question."Have you got any other beau in your head, Jemima?" she said. "Because if you have, you'd better put him out pretty suddenly. If your father should find it out, he would—I don't know what he would do. He would certainly punish you well, big girl as you are. Is that what's the matter? Answer me! Have you got another beau?"Dawn looked up with great angry, flashing eyes, horror changing into contempt."I have never even thought of such a dreadful thing!" she said, with a withering look, and swept haughtily from the room. But on the way upstairs the color crept slowly into her cheeks, and her eyes drooped half-ashamed. Was there? Yes, there was some one else enshrined within her heart, some one whose face had smiled in sympathy just once, and toward whom she felt as she had never felt to any human being save her mother. Of course he was nothing to her but the vision of a moment, and never, never, could he be called by the hateful word her stepmother had used, that detestable word "beau." It seemed to the poor, tried child as if she could almost kill any one who used that word.After that, Dawn endured her misery in secret, speaking not at all, unless spoken to. The older woman looked at her curiously, almost nervously, sometimes, as if the girl were half uncanny. She was glad in her heart that the day of the wedding was close at hand, for if she knew anything about signs, that girl was on the verge of throwing over a fine marriage, and then they would have her on their hands for years, perhaps. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had suffered not a little for her share in the tragedy of these lives with which she had bound up her own, and was not willing to endure more. She shut her thin lips and determined to watch the girl carefully and prevent if possible any slip between cup and lip.Meantime, with ever-growing dread, Dawn counted the hours, and watched sleepless through the long nights, now calling on her dead mother for help, now praying to be saved in some way from the nameless fear which, try as she would, she could not shake off. The family relatives on both sides were gathering and starting, some on long journeys, to attend the wedding.CHAPTER VICharles Winthrop had written his family that matters which he wished to complete would detain him at the college for a few weeks, and begged his father to make his excuses at the wedding. He had an instinctive feeling that Harrington would not care, as well as an inexplicable aversion to being a witness at the wedding ceremony of his elder brother and the girl who had burst upon his vision that afternoon and seemed to open a new world to him.He had long ago put by the strange, sweet sense of having discovered in her a familiar friend—one who fitted into his longings and his ideals as though he had always been waiting for her. He called the thought a foolish sentimentality, and, in view of the relation in which she was soon to be placed to him, he tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible with regard to her. He sent several pleasant brotherly messages—which never reached her—through the medium of Harrington. He tried to accept the thought of a new sister as a delightful thing, and always he regarded her beauty and grace with the utmost reverence. The father, while feeling that Charles's absence was almost a discourtesy to his brother, nevertheless gave reluctant consent.Then, a few days before the wedding, there came over Charles an overwhelming feeling that he must go. All his former arguments in favor of remaining away seemed as water. He felt as if the eyes and the smile of the girl he had seen upon the hillside called him imperatively. Try as he would to tell himself that with his present feelings it was foolish, even dangerous, for him to go near her, and that his brother was already a little jealous owing to the look that had passed between them, it made no difference; he felt that he must go, and go he did. Without waiting to do more than throw a few necessities into a valise, he took the first stage-coach that started from Boston. All through the long journey his heart beat wildly with the thought that he was to meet her. He was ashamed of the feeling. Yet in vain he told himself that it was wrong; that he ought to go back. Once he flung himself out of the coach at a station where they were taking on fresh horses, determined to return to Boston, and then madly climbed up to the seat with the driver just as the coach started again. After that he grimly faced the matter, asking himself if it were not better to go on after all, meet his new sister-in-law on a common, every-day basis, and get this nonsense out of his head forever. Then he tried to sleep and forget, but her face and her smile haunted him, and there seemed to be an appeal in her eyes that called him to her aid.When he presented himself at his father's door in the early morning of the day before the wedding, his face was gray with combat, yet in his eyes was the light of a noble resolve. In spite of all his reasoning, he could not help the feeling that he had come because he was needed, but he was here, and there was a duty connected with it which he felt strong to do. It was therefore not a surprise to him when his father met him with eager welcome and a grave face."My son, you have come just when I needed you most," he said as he drew the young man inside the library door. And then Charles noticed that his father seemed suddenly aged and heavy with sorrow. He knew it was nothing connected with the immediate family of the household, for they had all welcomed him with eager clamor and delight."Sit down, Charles."His father was fastening the door against intrusion, and the young man's heart stood still with apprehension.Mr. Winthrop turned and looked in his son's face with feverishly bright eyes that showed their lack of sleep. Then he seated himself in the arm-chair before the desk, drawing Charles's chair close, that he might speak in lowered tones."Something terrible has occurred, Charles. Your mother does not know yet. The blow has fallen so suddenly that I find myself unable to believe it is true. I am dazed. I can scarcely think. Charles, your only brother, my son——" The old man paused, and with a sudden contraction of his heart Charles noticed that there were tears coursing down his father's wrinkled cheeks. The voice quavered and went on:"Our first-born has been guilty of a great wrong. It is best to face the truth, my boy. Harrington has committed a crime. I don't see how it can be thought otherwise by any honest person. I am trying to look at the facts, but even as I speak the words I cannot realize that they are true of one of our family."Charles waited, his eyes fixed upon the old man's face, and a great indignation growing within him toward the brother who could dare bring dishonor upon such a father!Mr. Winthrop bowed his head upon his hand for a moment, as though he could not bear to reveal the whole truth. Then he roused himself as one who has need of haste."Charles, your brother already has a wife and two little children, yet he was proposing to wed another woman. He has dared to court and win an innocent young girl, and to hoodwink her honorable father. And the worst of it is that he meant to carry it out and marry her! Oh the shame of it! We are disgraced, Charles! We are all disgraced!" With a low groan the father buried his face in his hands and bowed himself upon the desk.The heart of the young man grew hot. A great desire for vengeance was surging over him. He arose excitedly from his chair."Harrington has done this, father!"The words burst from his lips more like a judgment pronounced than like a question or a statement of fact. It was as if the acknowledgment of his brother's sin were a kind of climax in his thought of that brother, whom he had been all these years attempting to idealize, as a boy so often idealizes an elder brother. The words bore with them, too, the recognition of all the pain and disappointment and perplexity of many things throughout the years. Charles's finer nature suddenly revolted in disgust from all that he saw his brother to be.He stood splendidly indignant, above the bowed head of his father, a picture of fine, strong manhood, ready to avenge the rights of insulted womanhood. There before him arose a vision obscuring the walls of the book-lined library—the vision of a girl, fresh, fair, lovely, with eyes alight, cheeks aglow, floating hair, and fluttering white drapery, garlanded in pink and white blossoms that filled the air with the breath of a spring morning. It blazed upon him with clearness and beauty, and veiled by no hindering sense of wrong. With a great heart throb of joy, he recognized that she no longer belonged to his brother.The thought had scarcely thrilled his senses before he was ashamed of it. How could he think of joy or anything else in the midst of the shame and trouble that had fallen upon them all? And most of all upon the beautiful girl, who would bear the heaviest burden.True, there was another side to the matter, a side in which she might be thankful that Harrington's true character had been discovered before things had gone further; but there was mortification, and disgrace inevitable. Then, it was to be presumed that she had loved Harrington, or why should she be about to marry him? Poor child! His heart stood still in pity as he realized what the sin of his brother would mean to her.These thoughts went swiftly through his mind as he stood beside his father. It seemed to him that in the instant of the elder man's silence he reviewed the whole catastrophe in its various phases and lived through years of experience and knowledge. Then his father's trembling voice took up the story again:"Yes, Harrington did that!" They were Charles's own words, but somehow, on his father's tongue, they spoke a new pathos, and again the young man saw another side to the whole terrible matter. Harrington was the oldest son, adored of his mother. Though he had been gone from home for years, he had yet remained her idol until it had seemed his every virtue had grown to perfection, while all his faults were utterly forgotten. During his visits, which had been few and far between, the whole family had put itself out of its routine, and hung upon his wishes. His stories had been listened to with the deference due to one older and wiser than any of them could ever hope to be. His wishes had been law, his opinions gospel truth. Charles recalled how his mother had always called together the entire family to listen to the reading to one of Harrington's rare epistles, demanding a solemnity and attention second only to that required at family worship. These letters always ended with a description of some new enterprise in which he was deeply involved, and which required large sums of money. His father and mother had always managed to send him something to "help out" at such times, and made no secret of it, rather rejoicing that they were able to do so.Charles knew that his father owned large and valuable tracts of land, and was well off; yet it had not always been convenient to send Harrington large sums of money, and often the family luxuries and pleasures had been somewhat curtailed in consequence. All such sacrifices had been cheerfully made for the family idol, by himself as well as by his three sisters, his maiden aunt, and his father and mother.At this critical moment it occurred to Charles to wonder if his father had ever received any interest from these many sums of money which he from time to time had put into Harrington's business schemes.Then his father's voice drowned all other thoughts:"I do not know how to tell your poor mother!" The trembling tones were almost unrecognizable to the son. "She ought to know at once. We must plan what to do. The Van Rensselaers must be told."He bowed his head with another groan.The son sat down and endeavored to get a better grasp of the situation."Since when have you known this, Father?" he asked keenly."Last night. Mother had gone to bed, and I did not disturb her. I felt I must think it all out—what to do—before I told them; but I cannot see my way any clearer. It is a most infamous thing to have happened in a respectable family. Charles, I'm sorry to have to say it, but I'm afraid your brother is a—a—a—scoundrel!"The old gentleman's face was red and excited as he brought forth the awful utterance. It was the thought which had been growing in his mind all through the long night watch, but he had not been willing to acknowledge it. He arose now and began to pace the room."He certainly is, if this is true, Father," said the son. frowning. "But are you quite sure it is not some miserable blackmailing scheme? Such stories are often trumped up at the last minute to get money out of respectable people. I've heard of it in Boston. It is rare, of course, but it could happen. I cannot think Harrington would do such an awful thing.""Son, it is all too true," said the old man sadly. "Do you remember William McCord? You know he was my trusted farm-hand for years, and I have kept in touch with him by letter ever since he went out West to take up a claim on gold land. Well, it was he that brought me the terrible news. He came last evening, after mother and the girls had gone upstairs. He did not want to see them and have them question him till he had told me all. He brought letters and proofs from Harrington's wife and the minister who married them, and, moreover, he was an eye-witness to the fact that Harrington lived in the West with his wife and two children. You yourself know that William McCord could not tell a lie.""No," assented Charles; "never.""Harrington's wife is a good, respectable woman, though not very well educated. She is the daughter of a Virginia man who went out there to hunt for gold. He died a couple of years ago, and now the daughter and her children have no one to look after them. It seems Harrington has neglected them for the past three years, only coming home once in six months, and giving them very little money. He has told them a story of hard luck."The wife is desperate now. She has been ill, and needs many things for herself and the children. At last she learned of Harrington's intended marriage through William, whose sister had written him the home news."She sold what few possessions she had and brought the proceeds to William, begging him to come on here and find out if the story was true. William refused to take her money, but started at once, at his own expense, and came straight to me with the story. Just think of it, Charles! Our grandchildren actually cold and hungry and almost naked—our own flesh and blood! Your nephew and niece, Charles."The younger man frowned. He had very little sympathy at present to expend upon any possible nephews and nieces. He was thinking of a lovely girl with eyes like stars. What were cold and hunger compared to her plight?"Where is my brother?" The boy looked older than he had ever seemed to his father as he asked the question."I do not know. He has always told us to write to an address in New York, but often he has not answered our letters for weeks. I am afraid there is still more to be told than we know. McCord tells me he was under some sort of a cloud financially out there—some trouble about shares in a gold mine. I'm afraid he has been speculating. He has borrowed a great deal of money from me at one time and another, but he has always told me that he was doing nicely and that some day I should have a handsome return for all I had put in. But if that is the case, why should he have dared to involve a sweet and innocent young girl in it all? Why should he dare do so dreadful a thing!—unless he is under the impression that his first wife is dead. I cannot think that my boy would do this thing!"The father's head dropped upon his breast, but the brother stood erect with flashing eyes."I see it all clearly, Father. He is marrying this girl for her money. He needs money for some of his schemes, and he is afraid to ask you for any more, lest you suspect something. He told me once that she was very rich. I think you are right: my brother is a scoundrel!"The father groaned aloud."But, Father, what are you going to do about it? Have you sent word to Mr. Van Rensselaer? The wedding is set for to-morrow morning. There will be scarcely time to stop the guests from coming."Outside the window, wheels could be heard on the gravel, as the old coachman drove the family carriage up to the front steps. Pompey, the stable boy, followed, driving the mare in the carryall.Almost simultaneously came the hurry of ladies' feet down the staircase, and the swish of silken skirts. Betty and Cordelia and Madeleine rushed through the hall and climbed into the carryall, with soft excitement and gentle laughter. This wedding journey was a great event, and they had talked of nothing else for weeks."Come, Charles. Come, Father, aren't you ready?" called Betty. "It is high time we started. Mother is all dressed, and Aunt Martha is just tying her bonnet. Charles, Mother wants you to ride in the carriage with her this morning; but you are to change off with us by-and-by, so we'll all have a good look at you."The father caught his breath and looked helplessly at his son. "I did not realize it was getting so late," he murmured. "Of course the journey must be stopped.""Of course, Father," agreed Charles decidedly. "Go quickly and tell Mother all about it. I will tell the girls and Aunt Martha," he added.With a look as though he were going to his death, the older man hurried up the stairs to his wife, and Charles went out to the piazza. The two servants stood grinning happily, feeling the overflow of the festive occasion. Charles could not reveal his secret there."Come into the house, a minute, girls. I've something to tell you.""Indeed, no, Charles!" said Cordelia emphatically. "I will not climb out over the wheels again. I nearly ruined my pelisse getting in. It is very dusty. And I have covered myself all nicely for the journey. Won't it keep?""Cordelia, you must come," said the young man imperiously, and stalked into the house, uncertain whether they would follow him.In a moment Betty appeared roguishly in the parlor door, whither Charles had gone."They won't come, Charles," she said. "It's no use. If you had news of an earthquake or a new railroad, they wouldn't stir. Nothing weighs against one's wedding garments, and Cordelia has taken special pains."But Charles did not respond to Betty's nonsense in his usual merry way."Betty, listen," he said gravely. "An awful thing has happened.""Is Harrington dead?" asked Betty, with wide, frightened eyes and blanched face."No, but he might better be, Betty. He has a wife and two little children out West, and he has deserted them to marry again."Betty did not scream nor exclaim, "How dreadful!" Instead, she sat down quickly in the first chair at hand.After an instant's silence, she said in her matter-of-fact way:"Then there won't be any wedding, of course! And what will that poor girl do? Has anybody thought about her? Somehow, I'm not surprised. I've always secretly thought Harrington was selfish. It's like him never to think how he would make other people suffer. His letters always put Father and Mother in hot water. Have they told her yet, Charles? Oh, I wish I could go and help comfort her! I can't think of anything more mortifying for her.""Betty, it is good that she will be saved from anything worse. It is good to have it found out beforehand.""Oh, yes, of course; but she won't think of that. With all the wedding guests coming, how can she have time to be thankful that she is saved from marrying a selfish, bad man? Charles, it is a shame! Somebody ought to be at hand to step in and take Harrington's place. If I were a man, I'd throw myself at her feet and offer to marry her. Say, Charles, why don't you do it yourself?" declared Betty romantically.The heart of the young man leaped up with a great bound, and a flood of color went over his face and neck. But the parlor was darkened, and, moreover, the girls in the carryall were diligently calling; so Betty vanished to impart the news, and Charles was alone for the moment, with a new thought, which almost took his breath from him.Then down the oaken staircase, with soft, lady-like, but decided rustle, came Madam Winthrop.Behind her, nervous, protesting, came her husband's anxious footsteps."But, Mother, really, it won't do. We couldn't go, you know, under the circumstances.""Don't say another word, Mr. Winthrop," Charles heard his mother's most majestic voice. "I intend to go, and there is no need of further talk. Depend upon it, Harrington will be able fully to explain all this impossible story when he arrives, and it is not for his family to lose faith in him.""But, Mother, you don't understand," protested her husband, still hastening after her and putting out a detaining hand."Indeed, I do understand," said the woman's voice coldly. "I understand that my boy is being persecuted. It is you, apparently, who do not understand. I am his mother, and I intend to stand by him, and not let a breath of this wretched scandal touch him. The wedding will go on as planned, of course, and what would the world think if his family were not present? How could you possibly explain your absence except by bringing out these most unfatherly suspicions? No, Mr. Winthrop, there is all the more need of haste, that we may forestall any of these wicked rumors. Let us start at once.""But, Janet——""No! You needn't 'But Janet' me. I don't wish to hear another word. I'm going, no matter what you say, and so are Martha and the girls. You can stay at home if you like, I suppose. You are a man, and, of course, will do as you please. I will explain your absence the best way I can. But I'm going! Come, Martha; we will get into the back seat!"Charles stepped out of the darkened parlor and intercepted his mother."Mother, really, you're making a mistake. You have not stopped to think what you are going into. It won't do for you and the girls to go. I will go with father——"But the imperious lady shook her son's hand from her arm as though it had been a viper."Charles, you forget yourself!" she said. "It is not for you to tell your mother she is making a mistake. You must not think that because you have been to college you can therefore teach your mother how to conduct her affairs. Stand out of my way, and then follow me to the carriage. You are displeasing me greatly. It would have been better for you to remain in Boston than to come here to talk to your mother in this way."The majestic lady marched on her way to the carriage, followed by her frightened sister-in-law, who scuttled after her tearfully, not knowing which to dread the most, her sister-in-law's tyranny, the wrath of her brother, or the scorn of her nephew. The habit of her life had been always to follow the stronger nature. In this case it was Madam Winthrop.Father and son stood looking on helplessly. Then the father called:"Well, Janet, if you must go, leave the girls at home with Martha."The aunt drew back timidly from the carriage-step she was approaching."Get in at once, Martha!" commanded Madam Winthrop, already established in the back seat of the coach. "We have no time to waste. Girls, you may drive on ahead until we reach the cross-roads. Elizabeth, your conduct is unseemly for such a joyous occasion. What will the neighbors think to see your flushed, excited face? Wipe your eyes and pull down your veil. Drive on, Cordelia, and see that Elizabeth's conduct is more decorous."She waved the carryall on, and Cordelia and Madeleine, awed and half-frightened, obeyed, while excitable Betty strove to put by the signs of her perturbation until she was out of her mother's sight. In brief whispers she had succeeded in conveying to her sisters a slight knowledge of what had occurred.The old coachman and the stable boy stood wondering by and marvelled that the wedding had gone to Madam's head. They had seen her in these imperious moods, but had not thought this an occasion for one. Some one must have displeased her very much, for her to get in a towering rage on the day before her eldest son's wedding."Now, Mr. Winthrop, we are ready, if you and Charles will take your seats."Father and son looked at each other in dismay."I guess there's nothing for it but to get in, Father. Perhaps you can bring her to her senses on the way, and I can drive back with her, or they can stop at an inn, while we go on. It really won't do to delay, for we have a duty to the Van Rensselaers.""You are right, Charles. We must go. Perhaps, as you say, we can persuade Mother on the way. I am dubious, however. She is very set in her way.""Mr. Winthrop, you will need only to get your hat," called his wife from the coach. "I have had your portmanteau and Charles's fastened on behind. Your things are all here. Your hat is lying on the hall table."With a sigh of submission, the strong man obediently got his hat and took his place on the front seat of the coach, while Charles indignantly swung himself up beside his father. Then the family started for the wedding that was not to be.
CHAPTER III
Harrington Winthrop kept his promise about the sweets. Five times during the winter that followed his first visit with Mr. Van Rensselaer, he invented some excuse to visit Dawn.
The first time he came, he found her in the maple grove behind the pasture, with a group of other girls, all decked in autumn leaves and playing out some story that Dawn had read.
He persuaded her to walk a little way into the woods with him; and when he came to take his leave asked for a kiss, but Dawn sprang away from him in sudden panic:
"No," she said sharply; "I have never kissed anybody but my mother." Then, fearing she had been impolite in view of his gift, she added:
"We don't kiss people here at this school. It isn't the custom."
And she knew so little of the customs of the world that the incident passed without further apprehension on her part, or understanding of the young man's meaning.
"That's all right, my dear," he said pleasantly. "But don't forget about the house. I'm going to tell you all about it next time I come. You still want a home of your very own, don't you?"
"Why, of course," said Dawn; "but I can't see how you can know anything about it, or care. What have you to do with it?" And then with sudden alarm, "Has my father been talking to you about any such thing?"
"No, indeed! Your father does not even know I am interested in you. I care for my own sake. Didn't I tell you that I liked you the minute I saw you? And I'm just as interested in this future home of yours as you are."
"I'm sure I can't see why," said Dawn, perplexed, yet trying to be polite.
"Suppose you think about it hard, dear, and see if you can find out why I care. Just think it all over, everything I have said, and then if you are still in doubt go and look in the looking-glass and keep on thinking, and I'm sure you'll find out by the time I come back. I'm coming soon again, and I want you to be watching for me every day. I'll bring you something nice next time, besides another box of sweets."
Dawn tried to smile, but felt uncomfortable. She murmured her thanks again, and turned uneasily toward the woods and her companions, and he deemed it prudent to leave her without further ado.
Back in the woods, the girls were making merry with her confections, and had nothing but praise for the handsome stranger who had brought them; but all through the eager questions and merry jibes Dawn was silent and thoughtful.
"Where are your thoughts, Dawn?" said Desire Hathaway. "Has the stranger stolen them away to pay for his goodies?"
"She looks as if he had asked her to marry him, and she didn't know whether to say yes or to wait for somebody else," laughed Matilda Hale, a new-comer among them, and older than the rest.
"I guess he kissed her good-by," chimed in silly Polly Phelps, who aspired to be Matilda's shadow. "I peeked through the bushes and saw him bending over her."
Amid the thoughtless laugh that rose, Dawn stood defiant, the crimson leaping into her cheeks, the steel into her eyes. For an instant she looked as if she would turn upon the offending Matilda and tear her to pieces. Then a sudden revelation came to her: this, this was what the handsome stranger had meant!
Instantly the light of anger died out of her face, and a gentle dignity took its place. Her little clenched hands relaxed, the tenseness of the graceful body softened, and she turned toward the offender with a haughty condescension:
"Matilda, we don't talk in that way here," she said, and the laughter died out of the faces of her companions and left instead amazement and admiration. They had seen Dawn angry before, and had not expected the affair to end so amicably. They felt it showed a marvellous self-control, and left her mistress of the situation. Matilda bit her lip in a vexed way and tossed her head. She felt she had lost prestige by the little incident, and Dawn was still the recognized leader of the school. It was not a pleasant thought to the older girl.
Dawn turned and walked slowly away from them all, out of the woods, down through the meadow, where grazed her quiet friends, the sheep. She still carried her gentle dignity, and none of the girls spoke until she was out of sight behind the group of chestnuts at the corner of the meadow.
Then Desire Hathaway voiced the general feeling:
"Isn't she just like a queen?"
"Oh, if you want to look at it that way!" sneered Matilda, with another toss of her head. "There are a good many kinds of queens, you know. I must say, I thought she looked like a pretty wicked one for a minute or two. She would have enjoyed tearing my eyes out if she had dared."
"Dared!" cried Desire. "You don't know her. She will dare anything that she thinks is worth while. I thought it was just splendid, the way she controlled herself."
"Oh, well, just as you think, of course," shrugged Matilda. "Come on, Polly; let's go finish our sewing."
Dawn stumbled on blindly in the pasture, trying to take in the appalling thought thatperhapsthe young man wanted to marry her!
Tears of indignation welled into her eyes, but she brushed them angrily aside. Why was life so dreadful, she wondered. Why did men exist to break women's hearts?—for she never doubted that the married state was one of heart-break. Such had been the lesson burned deep into her soul by suffering. A home of her own had been a sweet thought, but the serpent had entered her Eden, and she cared no more to stay there.
The next time Winthrop came it was openly, with a message from her father. All through the interview, which lasted for an hour, and was prolonged over the noonday meal, Dawn sat stiffly on the other side of Friend Ruth, watching the fishy eyes of the stranger and listening to his fulsome flatteries of the place, her small hands folded decorously, but her young heart beating painfully under the sheer folds of the 'kerchief.
On his fourth visit he bore a private letter from her father to Friend Ruth, and wore an air of assurance which made the girl's heart sink with nameless foreboding. Not even the praises of the girls for her handsome lover, their open envy of her future lot, or their merry taunts, could rouse her from a gravity which had begun to settle upon her.
This time Friend Ruth seemed to look upon the visitor in a different light. Not only was Dawn allowed to talk with him alone, but she was sent out with him for a walk in the woods.
Reluctantly she obeyed, frightened, she knew not why.
Harrington Winthrop had a winning way with him, and he was determined to win this proud, beautiful girl. Also, he was wise in the ways of the world, he did not force any undue attention upon her, but confined his conversation to telling her about the beautiful home he had seen. Rightly guessing that there was still much of the child about her, he went on to picture the house in detail, not hesitating to embellish it at will where his memory failed.
There was a garden with a fountain, and there should be flowers, all in profusion. There were clipped hedges, gravel paths, an arbor in a shady place, where she might bring her book or sewing, and where the sunshine would peer through the branches just enough to scatter gold about the leafy way.
In spite of her prejudices, she was interested. She could not help it. The longing for a real home of her own was great.
Then came the most difficult part of his task, which was to reconcile her to himself.
Skilfully he led the conversation about till he himself was the subject—his life since he had become a man and gone out into the world. Pathetically he talked of his own loneliness, until he touched the maternal chord in her nature and made her feel sorry for him. He opened up for her gaze depths of sympathy, tenderness, and pathos, which were purely imaginary and wholly impossible to his own nature. He launched into details of his own feelings which were the inspiration of the moment, because he saw they touched her. He told her how he had often been lonely almost to desperation, and how he had many and many a time pictured a home of his own, with a lovely wife at its head. The girl winced at the name "wife," but he went steadily on trying to take the strangeness out of the word, trying to touch her heart and fire her tenderness; for he rightly read the possibilities of love in the beautiful face, and it put him on his mettle to make it bloom for him.
He succeeded so far as to make her conscience sharply reprove her for the dislike she had for him. Of course if he had been lonely, too, and had had a care for her loneliness, it was a different matter. Perhaps, after all, they had something in common, and he would not be such a dreadful addition to the home she had longed for. At least, she had no right to shut him out of a dream that he held in common with her, and she tried to put aside her own feelings and look at him fairly.
So they walked the deeper into the woods, and while she did not say much in reply to his eloquent words, she did not seem actively opposed. He let his voice grow more and more tender, though he did not trouble her with words of love. He let a care for her become apparent: as they walked over the rough growth in the woods, he held the branches aside for her, and helped her over a log, and once across the stones of a little brook, touching her hand and arm deferentially. It did not appeal to Dawn in the way he hoped that it would, nor awaken any tenderness for him, but she let him lead her along a path which, had she been alone, she would have cleared at a bound, and counted an easy thing.
When he parted from her that evening to take the night boat, he gave her shrinking fingers a slight pressure in token of the understanding between them, and Dawn understood it as the sealing of a kind of unspoken contract.
After that Dawn was not surprised to receive a letter from her father in which he spoke of the young man's desire to make her his wife, and formally gave his consent. It never seemed to occur to him that the girl might have any question about the matter. A dull kind of rebellion rose in her breast and smouldered there as she read her father's letter; yet she accepted his arrangements for her life, because it seemed the only way out from a home that could never be a happy one for her; and because it offered a spot that might be called her own, and a possible opportunity to live out some of her childish dreams.
When Harrington Winthrop came again, she no longer yielded to her inward shrinking from him, but took him as she took hard tasks that she did not like but that were inevitable; and he, finding her unresisting, was careful not to do anything to mar the pleasant understanding between them. Meantime, he congratulated himself constantly upon the ease with which he had possessed himself of a promised wife whose private fortune would be no small one.
CHAPTER IV
Dawn settled into a gravity that was premature. She counted every day of her precious school year, as if it had been a priceless treasure that was slipping from her.
There were times when she roused to her old self again, and plunged madly into fun, leading her companions into wild amusements that they would never have originated by themselves. Then again she would sober down, and they could get her to say very little. It began to be whispered about that she was to be married when she had finished school, and the girls all looked at her with a kind of envying awe.
Thus the winter passed and the spring came on, the spring that was to be her last at school. The first few days of warm weather she spent exploring old haunts, watching for the spring blossoms, and reverently touching the green moss, hunting anemones, hepaticas, and violets. Then, as if she could stand her own thoughts no longer, she suddenly proposed the acting of another play. It was the first since that time in the autumn when Harrington Winthrop broke in upon them, and they had never been able to induce her to finish it. Now she selected another one that seemed to her to have the very heart of spring and life bound up in it. She got it out of an old book which had been her mother's—"Tales of William Shakespeare," by name. It was not used as a text-book in the excellent school of Friend Ruth and Friend Isaac, and the child had always kept it safely hidden.
The play she had selected had many elves and sprites of the air in it. Dawn drilled her willing subjects, and rehearsed them, until at last she felt they were ready for the final presentation.
The scene of the play was to be on the sloping hillside just above the meadow, where the maples on the hill were flanked by a thicket of elderberry bushes that did double duty of background, and screen for the dressing-rooms.
The audience of girls was seated in breathless silence, augmented by a group of kindly cows and stupid sheep, who stood in patient rows and waited mildly for any tender bites or chance blossoms of cowslips the girls might put between the bars of the fence. Now and then, as the play went on, they lifted calm eyes of bewilderment over the turbulent scenes in the mimic play-house, or out of their placid world of monotonous duty, wondered whatever the children could be at now.
It chanced that day that Harrington Winthrop was passing, and, most unexpectedly, he had with him his younger brother, who was on his way back to Harvard College, after a brief visit home to see his mother, who had been ill.
Charles Winthrop had met his elder brother in the coach, and had boyishly insisted on accompanying him when he stopped on what he professed was a friendly errand at this school. Charles had long been separated from his brother, and wanted to talk over old days and ask many questions, for Harrington had been away from home most of the time for nearly ten years and had travelled in the West and the South a great deal, which seemed a charmed country to the younger man.
Now Harrington had not been anxious for company on this visit, but he could not well shake his brother off without arousing suspicions, therefore as they neared the school he told him that he was about to visit the girl whom he expected in a few months to make his wife.
Charles in his hearty boyish way congratulated him and expressed a desire to see the girl who was his brother's choice.
They were told at the house that Dawn was out with the other girls in the meadows, and so went in search of her. They arrived on the scene just as the closing act was about to begin.
The little company of players stood out bravely in costumes designed entirely by Dawn. The outfit of the school was far too sombre to play any part in the gaiety of the occasion. An occasional patchwork quilt had been pressed into service, and one or two gray or scarlet blankets, but most of the players were dressed in white literally covered with flowers or green leaves.
The two young men skirted the foot of the hill and came upon the scene just when Dawn, as queen of the air, attended by her sprites and nymphs, came into view with a gentle, gliding run learned surely from the birds, for nowhere else could such grace be found. She was clad in white drapery of homespun linen, one of her own mother's finest sheets. It was drawn about her slender form, over her shoulders, in a fashion all her own, though graceful as any Greek goddess. Her white throat and round white arms were bare, the long, dark curls had been set free, and about her brow was a wreath of exquisite crab-apple blossoms, whose delicate tinting matched the rose of her cheeks. About her throat, arms, wrists, and ankles—for her feet were bare—were close-fitting chains of the same blossoms. Here and there the white drapery of her garment, which fell half way from the knee to the ankle, was fastened with a spray of blossoms. It was a daring costume for a Quaker-reared maiden to don, and she knew it, but she expected no eyes to look upon her save her companions and the friendly cattle. She stood poised on the green slope, holding in her hands and high above her head a soft scarf of white—an old curtain which she had saved from the rag-bag and wet and stretched in the sun till it was soft and pliable. She had mended it, and fastened the darns with blossoms, and edged it also with blossoms plucked close from the stem and sewed down in a fine flat border.
Behind her came her maidens, their garments sewed over with maple leaves, tender and green and fluttering. They were crowned and wreathed also with maple leaves, and made a beautiful setting for Dawn's delicate beauty.
Then down the hillside they came, the maidens with festoons of leaves fastened together by their stems, which they held aloft as their leader held her scarf. They sang a strange, sweet song that had in it the wildness of the thrush's song, the sweetness of the robin's.
It was Dawn who had composed the melody, and taught it to them. She had learned it from the birds, and interpreted old Shakespeare's words. They sang it as the zephyrs sing.
The little audience sat with bated breath; the old cows chewed their cud thoughtfully, one with soft eyes heaved a long, clover-scented sigh, marvelling on the ways of the world. The two strangers stood entranced and astonished; but the heart of one of them thrilled with a strange new joy.
Charles Winthrop saw only the beautiful face of Dawn Van Rensselaer. All the rest were but a setting for her. He seemed to know instantly as he looked that there was no other girl in the world like this. He knew not who she might be, but he looked at her as if his spirit were calling to hers across the meadow-land that separated them. Then suddenly, half poised as she was, in the very midst of her song, Dawn became aware of his presence and stopped. She met his gaze, and, without her own volition, it seemed, her eyes were shining and smiling to meet his smile. It was just a fleeting instant that they gazed thus, and then the joy went out of the girl's face, and a frightened look took its place. She had seen the other man standing beside him, and he was frowning.
Harrington Winthrop had caught the look on his brother's face, and its answer in the face of the girl upon whom he had set his seal of possession, and an unreasoning anger had taken possession of him. This girl had looked at Charles as Harrington had never been able to make her look at him, not even since she had in a tacit way consented to marry him.
"This is foolish child's play!" he said in a vexed tone to his brother. "Let us go back to the house and wait until she has returned."
"Oh, no, let us stay!" said Charles. "This is beautiful! Exquisite! At least, if you must go, let me stay. I wish to see the finish."
"I wish you to go," said Harrington, and there was something in his brother's voice that reminded Charles of the days when he used to be ordered back from following on a fishing or swimming expedition. He looked at his brother's angry face, and then back to the beautiful girl on the hillside. But the light had gone out of her eyes. The song had died on her lips. There was no sparkling smile now. Instead, there was an angry, steel-like flash in the eyes. She held the fluttering scarf in front of her now, in long loose folds covering her feet and ankles, and as the two men turned and gazed at her her head went up proudly, even as the queen of the air might have raised her head. One hand went up in quick command, pointing straight at the two young men, and in quite the phrase of the play she had been acting she spoke:
"Hence, strange spirits!" she cried. "Hence! Begone! Ye have no right amongst us, being unbidden. 'Go, I tell ye! Go, or I, the queen of the air, will bring evil upon ye! Go, ye have angered me!"
Dawn had made Shakespeare so much her constant companion that the language came easily to her. She picked up phrases here and there and strung them together without hesitation. Her anger helped her on, and her splendid command of herself had a strange effect upon her audience.
The other girls listened in open-mouthed wonder that Dawn should dare to speak before these strangers and not be covered with confusion. Almost they thought it was part of the play. But the two to whom she spoke turned and obeyed her command, the one because he was angry and wished to get his brother away, the other because there had been a certain appeal in her lovely eyes which had reached his soul and made him bow in reverence to her command. Then all at once, as he turned away, he knew that she was the girl whom his brother intended to make his wife, and a great sadness and sense of a loss came over him.
There was mutiny in her eyes as Dawn came back to the house a little later, and greeted her lover with a haughty manner. He had managed it that Charles should sit alone in the gray parlor and wait while he met the girl out in the entrance to the orchard and walked away with her to a sheltered place overlooking the river. There was no hint of the queen of the air in her demure dress, the well-sheathed curls, the small prunella slippers that peered from under the deep hem of her gray gown, but her bearing was queenly as she waited for him to speak. He saw that he was treading on dangerous ground.
"Do you really like such childish play?" he asked a trifle contemptuously.
"You had no right to come there!" she flashed. "If you did not like it, you should have gone away."
He was disconcerted. He did not wish to anger her, for he had come for another purpose.
"Well, never mind. If you enjoyed yourself, I suppose it does not matter whether I liked it or not. Let us talk of something else. Your play-days are almost over. You will soon begin to live real life."
She looked at him and felt that she came near to hating him. A sudden, unspeakable terror seized her. She let him talk on about the house they were to have, and tried to remember that he was lonesome and wanted a home as badly as she did, but somehow she felt nothing but fear and dislike. So, though she walked by his side, she heard little of what he said, only saying when he asked if she wished this or that: "I suppose so. I suppose it will be as you like."
As they came back to the house again, she asked him suddenly:
"Who was the young man with you?"
The frown came into his face again.
"Why do you ask?" he asked sharply.
"He did not feel the way you did about us out there on the hill."
"How do you know?" He watched her keenly, but her face told him nothing.
"I saw it in his eyes," she said quietly, and without more words went into the house and up to her room.
Dawn stood at the little window of her room and watched the two men go down the path from the door. Through the small panes her eyes followed them until they were out of sight, and her heart swelled with thoughts strange and new and fearful. How could she go and live with this man who had frowned at her innocent happiness? Would he not be worse than the woman who had taken her dear mother's place? And how could he be so cruel as to look at her in that way? It was the look she remembered on her father's face the day he sent her mother away. It was the cruelty of men. Perhaps they could not help it. Perhaps God made them so. But that other one had been different. He had understood and smiled. Her heart leaped out toward him as she remembered his look.
Was it because he was young, she wondered, that he had understood? He had seemed far younger than his companion, yet there had been something fine and manly in his face, in the broadness of his shoulders, and the set of his head, as he walked down the path, away from the house. Perhaps when he was older he would grow that way to, and not understand any more.
She sighed and dropped her face against the glass, and, now that they were out of sight, the haughty look melted into tears.
CHAPTER V
The day that Dawn left school to go back to her home was one long agony to her.
All the other girls were happy in the thought of home-going, some of them looking forward to returning for another year, others to entering into a bright girlhood filled with gaieties. But to Dawn it meant going into the gray of a looming fate where never again would she be happy, never again free.
Ever since the day of the play when she had seen her future husband frown, she had looked forward to her marriage with terror.
He had not come after that, but instead wrote her long letters full of plans about the house,their house, that they were to occupytogether. The letters impressed that thought most deeply and made the whole hateful to her. It grew to seem that it washishouse, and she would be his prisoner in it. Yet somehow he had succeeded in impressing her with the feeling that she was pledged to him in sacred honor, and that it would be a dreadful thing to break a tie like that. This was made stronger by her father's letters, which now grew more frequent, as if he sought to atone to his motherless child for the wrong he had done her.
Just the day before her home-going there came one of these letters, in which he told her that everything had been prepared for her marriage to take place within a week after her arrival. He told her of the trousseau which his wife had prepared for her, which was as elaborate and complete as such an outfit could be for one of her station in life. He also spoke about the dignity of her origin, and with unwonted elaboration commended her judgment in selecting so old and so fine a family as that of the house of Winthrop with which to ally herself. He added that it would have pleased her mother's family, and that Mr. Winthrop was one of his oldest and most valued friends.
Somehow that letter seemed to Dawn to put the seal of finality upon her fate. There was no turning back now. Just as her father used to compel her to go upstairs alone when he discovered that she was afraid of the dark, so she felt that if he once discovered her dislike for her future husband he would but hasten the marriage, and be in league with her husband against her always.
When the time came to leave the school, she clung with such fervor about the neck of the impassive Friend Ruth that the astonished lady almost lost her breath, and a strange wild thrill went through her unmotherly bosom, as of something that might have been and was lost. She looked earnestly down into the beautiful face of the girl who had so often defied her rules, and saw an appeal in those lovely eyes to which she would most certainly have responded had she understood, for she was a good woman and always sought to do her best.
But the boat left at once, and clinging arms had perforce to be removed. Once on the deck with the others, Dawn looked back at Friend Ruth as impassively as always, though the usually calm face of the woman searched her out with troubled glance, still wondering what had come over her wild young pupil. Somehow, as she watched the steamer plough away until Dawn was a mere blur with the others, Friend Ruth could not help being glad that the beautiful dark curls had never been cut.
The day was perfect, and the scenery along the Palisades had never looked more beautiful, yet Dawn saw nothing of it. She sat by the rail looking gloomily down into the water, and a curious fancy seized her that she would like to float out there on the water forever and get away from life. Then she began to consider the possibility of running away.
It was not the first time this thought had entered her mind. The week before she left the school, she had thought of it seriously, and even planned the route, but always at night there had come that fearful dream of her future husband following her, and bringing her home to a life-long punishment.
She had almost got her courage up to the point of deciding to disappear in the crowd at Albany, and so elude the people with whom she was expected to journey to her home, when, to her dismay, she looked down at the landing-place where they were stopping, a few miles below Albany, and saw her father coming on board the boat. He had not expected to be able to meet her and had written that she was to come with acquaintances of his. Her heart stood still in panic, and for a moment she looked wildly at the rail of the steamer, as if she might climb over and escape. Then in a moment her father had seen her and stood beside her. He stooped and kissed her forehead coldly, almost shyly. This startled her, too, for he had not kissed her since the days before her mother was sent away, and a strange, sharp pain went through her heart, a pang of things that might have been. She looked up in wonder. She did not know how like her dead mother she had grown.
But the stern face was cold as ever, and his voice conveyed no smallest part of the emotion he felt at sight of her lovely face.
He talked to her gravely of her school life, and then he went on to speak of the Winthrop family, and to tell her in detail bits of its history calculated to make her understand its importance.
Dawn listened with growing alarm at the thought of all that would be expected of her. Yet not a breath of her trouble did she allow her father to see. It might have made a difference if she could have known how her father's heart was aching with the anguish of his great mistake, and perhaps if the father could have known the breaking of the young heart it might have melted the coldness of his reserve and brought some sympathy to the surface. But they could not see, and the agony went on.
Dawn walked sadly, reluctantly, into the unloved, unloving home. As the days dragged by, she grew to have a haunted look, and the rose flush on her sweet round cheek faded to a marble white, while under her eyes were dark circles.
Her father saw the look, but knew not what it meant. Yet it pierced his soul, for it was the same look that her mother had worn in her coffin, and he was the readier to have the marriage hastened, both for her sake and his own, for he realized she was not happy here in the home where there was so much to remind her of what had passed. He felt she never would forgive him, and that her only hope was to be happily married. Winthrop had so represented her feelings to him that he had taken it for granted she was only too eager to go to a home of her own.
The house had been bought—at least, the father supposed so—not knowing that but a small payment had been made, with a promise to pay the balance soon after the marriage. The young man had laid his plans nicely, and meant to profess that some investment of his had failed, making it impossible for him to make the final payments, and that he had disliked to postpone the marriage or to tell of his predicament, feeling sure that he would have the money by the time the payment was due. Naturally, his wife's fortune would suffice to pay for the house, which of course she would not let go then. If the house was not exactly what he had described to the little school-girl, certainly it was large enough and showy enough to make up for the lack of some of the things which had seemed important to her; and he had taken care that it should be so far from the home of her father that the latter could keep no eye on his son-in-law's business affairs. If all went well, he intended to have his wife's fortune in his own hands before their first year of married life should have passed. After that it would not matter to him whether the girl was pleased with her home or not. She could no longer help herself.
But of all this the father suspected nothing.
Dawn took no interest in her clothes. The step-mother was chagrined that after all her efforts Dawn was not pleased.
"I should think you might show a little gratitude, after all the trouble I've taken," Mrs. Van Rensselaer snapped angrily.
Dawn turned wide eyes of astonishment upon her.
"For what?" she asked. "I didn't want the things. I supposed you did it to please father."
"Didn't want them!" exclaimed her step-mother. "And how would you expect to get married without them?"
"I don't want to be married!" said Dawn desperately, and then closed her lips tightly, with a frightened look toward the door. She had not meant to let any one know that. The words had come of themselves out of her weary heart.
"Well, upon my word! You're the queerest girl! Any other girl in the world would be in high feather over your chances; but you always were the stubbornest, most contrary creature that ever drew breath. Whatever did you say you'd get married for if you didn't want to?"
"I don't think I ever did," said the girl sadly. "It just came in spite of me."
"That's all foolishness. Don't talk such things to me. No girl has to be married unless she chooses, and I'll warrant you had your hand in it from the start. Besides, it's too late to talk of such things now. It wouldn't be honorable to draw back now, after he's got the house bought and all."
"I know it," said Dawn miserably, and stood looking out the window blindly, swallowing hard to keep back the tears. She felt that she must have reached the limit of her endurance when she would let her step-mother see her state of mind.
Mrs. Van Rensselaer eyed her keenly, suspiciously. At last she ventured another question.
"Have you got any other beau in your head, Jemima?" she said. "Because if you have, you'd better put him out pretty suddenly. If your father should find it out, he would—I don't know what he would do. He would certainly punish you well, big girl as you are. Is that what's the matter? Answer me! Have you got another beau?"
Dawn looked up with great angry, flashing eyes, horror changing into contempt.
"I have never even thought of such a dreadful thing!" she said, with a withering look, and swept haughtily from the room. But on the way upstairs the color crept slowly into her cheeks, and her eyes drooped half-ashamed. Was there? Yes, there was some one else enshrined within her heart, some one whose face had smiled in sympathy just once, and toward whom she felt as she had never felt to any human being save her mother. Of course he was nothing to her but the vision of a moment, and never, never, could he be called by the hateful word her stepmother had used, that detestable word "beau." It seemed to the poor, tried child as if she could almost kill any one who used that word.
After that, Dawn endured her misery in secret, speaking not at all, unless spoken to. The older woman looked at her curiously, almost nervously, sometimes, as if the girl were half uncanny. She was glad in her heart that the day of the wedding was close at hand, for if she knew anything about signs, that girl was on the verge of throwing over a fine marriage, and then they would have her on their hands for years, perhaps. Mrs. Van Rensselaer had suffered not a little for her share in the tragedy of these lives with which she had bound up her own, and was not willing to endure more. She shut her thin lips and determined to watch the girl carefully and prevent if possible any slip between cup and lip.
Meantime, with ever-growing dread, Dawn counted the hours, and watched sleepless through the long nights, now calling on her dead mother for help, now praying to be saved in some way from the nameless fear which, try as she would, she could not shake off. The family relatives on both sides were gathering and starting, some on long journeys, to attend the wedding.
CHAPTER VI
Charles Winthrop had written his family that matters which he wished to complete would detain him at the college for a few weeks, and begged his father to make his excuses at the wedding. He had an instinctive feeling that Harrington would not care, as well as an inexplicable aversion to being a witness at the wedding ceremony of his elder brother and the girl who had burst upon his vision that afternoon and seemed to open a new world to him.
He had long ago put by the strange, sweet sense of having discovered in her a familiar friend—one who fitted into his longings and his ideals as though he had always been waiting for her. He called the thought a foolish sentimentality, and, in view of the relation in which she was soon to be placed to him, he tried to be as matter-of-fact as possible with regard to her. He sent several pleasant brotherly messages—which never reached her—through the medium of Harrington. He tried to accept the thought of a new sister as a delightful thing, and always he regarded her beauty and grace with the utmost reverence. The father, while feeling that Charles's absence was almost a discourtesy to his brother, nevertheless gave reluctant consent.
Then, a few days before the wedding, there came over Charles an overwhelming feeling that he must go. All his former arguments in favor of remaining away seemed as water. He felt as if the eyes and the smile of the girl he had seen upon the hillside called him imperatively. Try as he would to tell himself that with his present feelings it was foolish, even dangerous, for him to go near her, and that his brother was already a little jealous owing to the look that had passed between them, it made no difference; he felt that he must go, and go he did. Without waiting to do more than throw a few necessities into a valise, he took the first stage-coach that started from Boston. All through the long journey his heart beat wildly with the thought that he was to meet her. He was ashamed of the feeling. Yet in vain he told himself that it was wrong; that he ought to go back. Once he flung himself out of the coach at a station where they were taking on fresh horses, determined to return to Boston, and then madly climbed up to the seat with the driver just as the coach started again. After that he grimly faced the matter, asking himself if it were not better to go on after all, meet his new sister-in-law on a common, every-day basis, and get this nonsense out of his head forever. Then he tried to sleep and forget, but her face and her smile haunted him, and there seemed to be an appeal in her eyes that called him to her aid.
When he presented himself at his father's door in the early morning of the day before the wedding, his face was gray with combat, yet in his eyes was the light of a noble resolve. In spite of all his reasoning, he could not help the feeling that he had come because he was needed, but he was here, and there was a duty connected with it which he felt strong to do. It was therefore not a surprise to him when his father met him with eager welcome and a grave face.
"My son, you have come just when I needed you most," he said as he drew the young man inside the library door. And then Charles noticed that his father seemed suddenly aged and heavy with sorrow. He knew it was nothing connected with the immediate family of the household, for they had all welcomed him with eager clamor and delight.
"Sit down, Charles."
His father was fastening the door against intrusion, and the young man's heart stood still with apprehension.
Mr. Winthrop turned and looked in his son's face with feverishly bright eyes that showed their lack of sleep. Then he seated himself in the arm-chair before the desk, drawing Charles's chair close, that he might speak in lowered tones.
"Something terrible has occurred, Charles. Your mother does not know yet. The blow has fallen so suddenly that I find myself unable to believe it is true. I am dazed. I can scarcely think. Charles, your only brother, my son——" The old man paused, and with a sudden contraction of his heart Charles noticed that there were tears coursing down his father's wrinkled cheeks. The voice quavered and went on:
"Our first-born has been guilty of a great wrong. It is best to face the truth, my boy. Harrington has committed a crime. I don't see how it can be thought otherwise by any honest person. I am trying to look at the facts, but even as I speak the words I cannot realize that they are true of one of our family."
Charles waited, his eyes fixed upon the old man's face, and a great indignation growing within him toward the brother who could dare bring dishonor upon such a father!
Mr. Winthrop bowed his head upon his hand for a moment, as though he could not bear to reveal the whole truth. Then he roused himself as one who has need of haste.
"Charles, your brother already has a wife and two little children, yet he was proposing to wed another woman. He has dared to court and win an innocent young girl, and to hoodwink her honorable father. And the worst of it is that he meant to carry it out and marry her! Oh the shame of it! We are disgraced, Charles! We are all disgraced!" With a low groan the father buried his face in his hands and bowed himself upon the desk.
The heart of the young man grew hot. A great desire for vengeance was surging over him. He arose excitedly from his chair.
"Harrington has done this, father!"
The words burst from his lips more like a judgment pronounced than like a question or a statement of fact. It was as if the acknowledgment of his brother's sin were a kind of climax in his thought of that brother, whom he had been all these years attempting to idealize, as a boy so often idealizes an elder brother. The words bore with them, too, the recognition of all the pain and disappointment and perplexity of many things throughout the years. Charles's finer nature suddenly revolted in disgust from all that he saw his brother to be.
He stood splendidly indignant, above the bowed head of his father, a picture of fine, strong manhood, ready to avenge the rights of insulted womanhood. There before him arose a vision obscuring the walls of the book-lined library—the vision of a girl, fresh, fair, lovely, with eyes alight, cheeks aglow, floating hair, and fluttering white drapery, garlanded in pink and white blossoms that filled the air with the breath of a spring morning. It blazed upon him with clearness and beauty, and veiled by no hindering sense of wrong. With a great heart throb of joy, he recognized that she no longer belonged to his brother.
The thought had scarcely thrilled his senses before he was ashamed of it. How could he think of joy or anything else in the midst of the shame and trouble that had fallen upon them all? And most of all upon the beautiful girl, who would bear the heaviest burden.
True, there was another side to the matter, a side in which she might be thankful that Harrington's true character had been discovered before things had gone further; but there was mortification, and disgrace inevitable. Then, it was to be presumed that she had loved Harrington, or why should she be about to marry him? Poor child! His heart stood still in pity as he realized what the sin of his brother would mean to her.
These thoughts went swiftly through his mind as he stood beside his father. It seemed to him that in the instant of the elder man's silence he reviewed the whole catastrophe in its various phases and lived through years of experience and knowledge. Then his father's trembling voice took up the story again:
"Yes, Harrington did that!" They were Charles's own words, but somehow, on his father's tongue, they spoke a new pathos, and again the young man saw another side to the whole terrible matter. Harrington was the oldest son, adored of his mother. Though he had been gone from home for years, he had yet remained her idol until it had seemed his every virtue had grown to perfection, while all his faults were utterly forgotten. During his visits, which had been few and far between, the whole family had put itself out of its routine, and hung upon his wishes. His stories had been listened to with the deference due to one older and wiser than any of them could ever hope to be. His wishes had been law, his opinions gospel truth. Charles recalled how his mother had always called together the entire family to listen to the reading to one of Harrington's rare epistles, demanding a solemnity and attention second only to that required at family worship. These letters always ended with a description of some new enterprise in which he was deeply involved, and which required large sums of money. His father and mother had always managed to send him something to "help out" at such times, and made no secret of it, rather rejoicing that they were able to do so.
Charles knew that his father owned large and valuable tracts of land, and was well off; yet it had not always been convenient to send Harrington large sums of money, and often the family luxuries and pleasures had been somewhat curtailed in consequence. All such sacrifices had been cheerfully made for the family idol, by himself as well as by his three sisters, his maiden aunt, and his father and mother.
At this critical moment it occurred to Charles to wonder if his father had ever received any interest from these many sums of money which he from time to time had put into Harrington's business schemes.
Then his father's voice drowned all other thoughts:
"I do not know how to tell your poor mother!" The trembling tones were almost unrecognizable to the son. "She ought to know at once. We must plan what to do. The Van Rensselaers must be told."
He bowed his head with another groan.
The son sat down and endeavored to get a better grasp of the situation.
"Since when have you known this, Father?" he asked keenly.
"Last night. Mother had gone to bed, and I did not disturb her. I felt I must think it all out—what to do—before I told them; but I cannot see my way any clearer. It is a most infamous thing to have happened in a respectable family. Charles, I'm sorry to have to say it, but I'm afraid your brother is a—a—a—scoundrel!"
The old gentleman's face was red and excited as he brought forth the awful utterance. It was the thought which had been growing in his mind all through the long night watch, but he had not been willing to acknowledge it. He arose now and began to pace the room.
"He certainly is, if this is true, Father," said the son. frowning. "But are you quite sure it is not some miserable blackmailing scheme? Such stories are often trumped up at the last minute to get money out of respectable people. I've heard of it in Boston. It is rare, of course, but it could happen. I cannot think Harrington would do such an awful thing."
"Son, it is all too true," said the old man sadly. "Do you remember William McCord? You know he was my trusted farm-hand for years, and I have kept in touch with him by letter ever since he went out West to take up a claim on gold land. Well, it was he that brought me the terrible news. He came last evening, after mother and the girls had gone upstairs. He did not want to see them and have them question him till he had told me all. He brought letters and proofs from Harrington's wife and the minister who married them, and, moreover, he was an eye-witness to the fact that Harrington lived in the West with his wife and two children. You yourself know that William McCord could not tell a lie."
"No," assented Charles; "never."
"Harrington's wife is a good, respectable woman, though not very well educated. She is the daughter of a Virginia man who went out there to hunt for gold. He died a couple of years ago, and now the daughter and her children have no one to look after them. It seems Harrington has neglected them for the past three years, only coming home once in six months, and giving them very little money. He has told them a story of hard luck.
"The wife is desperate now. She has been ill, and needs many things for herself and the children. At last she learned of Harrington's intended marriage through William, whose sister had written him the home news.
"She sold what few possessions she had and brought the proceeds to William, begging him to come on here and find out if the story was true. William refused to take her money, but started at once, at his own expense, and came straight to me with the story. Just think of it, Charles! Our grandchildren actually cold and hungry and almost naked—our own flesh and blood! Your nephew and niece, Charles."
The younger man frowned. He had very little sympathy at present to expend upon any possible nephews and nieces. He was thinking of a lovely girl with eyes like stars. What were cold and hunger compared to her plight?
"Where is my brother?" The boy looked older than he had ever seemed to his father as he asked the question.
"I do not know. He has always told us to write to an address in New York, but often he has not answered our letters for weeks. I am afraid there is still more to be told than we know. McCord tells me he was under some sort of a cloud financially out there—some trouble about shares in a gold mine. I'm afraid he has been speculating. He has borrowed a great deal of money from me at one time and another, but he has always told me that he was doing nicely and that some day I should have a handsome return for all I had put in. But if that is the case, why should he have dared to involve a sweet and innocent young girl in it all? Why should he dare do so dreadful a thing!—unless he is under the impression that his first wife is dead. I cannot think that my boy would do this thing!"
The father's head dropped upon his breast, but the brother stood erect with flashing eyes.
"I see it all clearly, Father. He is marrying this girl for her money. He needs money for some of his schemes, and he is afraid to ask you for any more, lest you suspect something. He told me once that she was very rich. I think you are right: my brother is a scoundrel!"
The father groaned aloud.
"But, Father, what are you going to do about it? Have you sent word to Mr. Van Rensselaer? The wedding is set for to-morrow morning. There will be scarcely time to stop the guests from coming."
Outside the window, wheels could be heard on the gravel, as the old coachman drove the family carriage up to the front steps. Pompey, the stable boy, followed, driving the mare in the carryall.
Almost simultaneously came the hurry of ladies' feet down the staircase, and the swish of silken skirts. Betty and Cordelia and Madeleine rushed through the hall and climbed into the carryall, with soft excitement and gentle laughter. This wedding journey was a great event, and they had talked of nothing else for weeks.
"Come, Charles. Come, Father, aren't you ready?" called Betty. "It is high time we started. Mother is all dressed, and Aunt Martha is just tying her bonnet. Charles, Mother wants you to ride in the carriage with her this morning; but you are to change off with us by-and-by, so we'll all have a good look at you."
The father caught his breath and looked helplessly at his son. "I did not realize it was getting so late," he murmured. "Of course the journey must be stopped."
"Of course, Father," agreed Charles decidedly. "Go quickly and tell Mother all about it. I will tell the girls and Aunt Martha," he added.
With a look as though he were going to his death, the older man hurried up the stairs to his wife, and Charles went out to the piazza. The two servants stood grinning happily, feeling the overflow of the festive occasion. Charles could not reveal his secret there.
"Come into the house, a minute, girls. I've something to tell you."
"Indeed, no, Charles!" said Cordelia emphatically. "I will not climb out over the wheels again. I nearly ruined my pelisse getting in. It is very dusty. And I have covered myself all nicely for the journey. Won't it keep?"
"Cordelia, you must come," said the young man imperiously, and stalked into the house, uncertain whether they would follow him.
In a moment Betty appeared roguishly in the parlor door, whither Charles had gone.
"They won't come, Charles," she said. "It's no use. If you had news of an earthquake or a new railroad, they wouldn't stir. Nothing weighs against one's wedding garments, and Cordelia has taken special pains."
But Charles did not respond to Betty's nonsense in his usual merry way.
"Betty, listen," he said gravely. "An awful thing has happened."
"Is Harrington dead?" asked Betty, with wide, frightened eyes and blanched face.
"No, but he might better be, Betty. He has a wife and two little children out West, and he has deserted them to marry again."
Betty did not scream nor exclaim, "How dreadful!" Instead, she sat down quickly in the first chair at hand.
After an instant's silence, she said in her matter-of-fact way:
"Then there won't be any wedding, of course! And what will that poor girl do? Has anybody thought about her? Somehow, I'm not surprised. I've always secretly thought Harrington was selfish. It's like him never to think how he would make other people suffer. His letters always put Father and Mother in hot water. Have they told her yet, Charles? Oh, I wish I could go and help comfort her! I can't think of anything more mortifying for her."
"Betty, it is good that she will be saved from anything worse. It is good to have it found out beforehand."
"Oh, yes, of course; but she won't think of that. With all the wedding guests coming, how can she have time to be thankful that she is saved from marrying a selfish, bad man? Charles, it is a shame! Somebody ought to be at hand to step in and take Harrington's place. If I were a man, I'd throw myself at her feet and offer to marry her. Say, Charles, why don't you do it yourself?" declared Betty romantically.
The heart of the young man leaped up with a great bound, and a flood of color went over his face and neck. But the parlor was darkened, and, moreover, the girls in the carryall were diligently calling; so Betty vanished to impart the news, and Charles was alone for the moment, with a new thought, which almost took his breath from him.
Then down the oaken staircase, with soft, lady-like, but decided rustle, came Madam Winthrop.
Behind her, nervous, protesting, came her husband's anxious footsteps.
"But, Mother, really, it won't do. We couldn't go, you know, under the circumstances."
"Don't say another word, Mr. Winthrop," Charles heard his mother's most majestic voice. "I intend to go, and there is no need of further talk. Depend upon it, Harrington will be able fully to explain all this impossible story when he arrives, and it is not for his family to lose faith in him."
"But, Mother, you don't understand," protested her husband, still hastening after her and putting out a detaining hand.
"Indeed, I do understand," said the woman's voice coldly. "I understand that my boy is being persecuted. It is you, apparently, who do not understand. I am his mother, and I intend to stand by him, and not let a breath of this wretched scandal touch him. The wedding will go on as planned, of course, and what would the world think if his family were not present? How could you possibly explain your absence except by bringing out these most unfatherly suspicions? No, Mr. Winthrop, there is all the more need of haste, that we may forestall any of these wicked rumors. Let us start at once."
"But, Janet——"
"No! You needn't 'But Janet' me. I don't wish to hear another word. I'm going, no matter what you say, and so are Martha and the girls. You can stay at home if you like, I suppose. You are a man, and, of course, will do as you please. I will explain your absence the best way I can. But I'm going! Come, Martha; we will get into the back seat!"
Charles stepped out of the darkened parlor and intercepted his mother.
"Mother, really, you're making a mistake. You have not stopped to think what you are going into. It won't do for you and the girls to go. I will go with father——"
But the imperious lady shook her son's hand from her arm as though it had been a viper.
"Charles, you forget yourself!" she said. "It is not for you to tell your mother she is making a mistake. You must not think that because you have been to college you can therefore teach your mother how to conduct her affairs. Stand out of my way, and then follow me to the carriage. You are displeasing me greatly. It would have been better for you to remain in Boston than to come here to talk to your mother in this way."
The majestic lady marched on her way to the carriage, followed by her frightened sister-in-law, who scuttled after her tearfully, not knowing which to dread the most, her sister-in-law's tyranny, the wrath of her brother, or the scorn of her nephew. The habit of her life had been always to follow the stronger nature. In this case it was Madam Winthrop.
Father and son stood looking on helplessly. Then the father called:
"Well, Janet, if you must go, leave the girls at home with Martha."
The aunt drew back timidly from the carriage-step she was approaching.
"Get in at once, Martha!" commanded Madam Winthrop, already established in the back seat of the coach. "We have no time to waste. Girls, you may drive on ahead until we reach the cross-roads. Elizabeth, your conduct is unseemly for such a joyous occasion. What will the neighbors think to see your flushed, excited face? Wipe your eyes and pull down your veil. Drive on, Cordelia, and see that Elizabeth's conduct is more decorous."
She waved the carryall on, and Cordelia and Madeleine, awed and half-frightened, obeyed, while excitable Betty strove to put by the signs of her perturbation until she was out of her mother's sight. In brief whispers she had succeeded in conveying to her sisters a slight knowledge of what had occurred.
The old coachman and the stable boy stood wondering by and marvelled that the wedding had gone to Madam's head. They had seen her in these imperious moods, but had not thought this an occasion for one. Some one must have displeased her very much, for her to get in a towering rage on the day before her eldest son's wedding.
"Now, Mr. Winthrop, we are ready, if you and Charles will take your seats."
Father and son looked at each other in dismay.
"I guess there's nothing for it but to get in, Father. Perhaps you can bring her to her senses on the way, and I can drive back with her, or they can stop at an inn, while we go on. It really won't do to delay, for we have a duty to the Van Rensselaers."
"You are right, Charles. We must go. Perhaps, as you say, we can persuade Mother on the way. I am dubious, however. She is very set in her way."
"Mr. Winthrop, you will need only to get your hat," called his wife from the coach. "I have had your portmanteau and Charles's fastened on behind. Your things are all here. Your hat is lying on the hall table."
With a sigh of submission, the strong man obediently got his hat and took his place on the front seat of the coach, while Charles indignantly swung himself up beside his father. Then the family started for the wedding that was not to be.