Christmas had come and gone; New Years was here, and passing, and Edith still lay upon her bed. Her face was thin and wan and spiritless. Her form had wasted away till she was almost as a skeleton. Her little hands were fleshless and cold, and her eyes were dull. The malady was in her brain yet, refusing to lift its anchorage, although she saw and recognized everybody permitted in her sight.
John came and went every day, in the late afternoons; and every day he came with the same perplexed feelings. The "good byes" rang in his ears, growing weaker and weaker in their timbreling, from morning unto night—following him everywhere, till he was near crazed himself, in his helplessness, for the sweet one that breathed the "good byes" in his ears. He went up and down and in and out the pathways of his small world, and got no comfort in anything, save what consolation there was in his work, which was meagre now in the sadness of his love-making.
As he would sit by the bed holding her hand in his, tears would roll down his cheeks. She would lie so still, so beautifully transcendent in her weakness, looking at him, and speak so low and so trembling that he could scarce make out her words. Oftentimes he would kneel down and pray for her deliverance from the scourge that lay upon her. Sometimes the sun would break through the clouds and smoke, in its setting, and throw its transient rays upon her face, and he would take it as a good omen; but most often the days were dark, and the light was sombre, like his spirits. Sometimes he would sit by the window, while she slept, watching the snow driving by in its purity, and his mind would revert to the sleeper, whose purity was whiter than the snow. Day after day, he would come full of hope, and depart full of fear; for she was growing worse; and all the inmates of that mansion were in despair. Would she die before she waked? they all would question in their looks, looking at her in her sleep. Would she ever reach the crisis again that once before had given joy? or would she linger on, and finally pass away, without a murmur, like a child?
No one could tell—no one could tell! Still she lingered on, bravely refusing to give up her fluttering spirit.
Sometimes she would brighten up, and talk with Star on her only theme—John—and then relapse into comatose. Often she would ask for him, when he was away, as if he were gone forever, and when he would come would only look, with a faint smile of satisfaction in her face. Sometimes she would raise her hand, and lay it on his, as if she wished to express her love, but could not. "I am so weak—so weak," was her constant plaint, as if weary of the fight she was making. Whenever John was ready to depart, she roused herself to the saying of "Good bye, good bye," and then sleep.
O, what are the pains one must endure, in this life, to keep it going!
Through the days and through the weeks this continued, without an indication that there was any chance. Through the weeks and through the months, the Reaper, with his Scythe, sat outside her chamber door—waiting, waiting; and the angels appeared to hover over her—waiting, waiting—to transport her to their own abode, where she seemed more fittingly to belong.
But he, nor they, never entered that chamber door. For the coming of the birds and the budding of the trees was the magic cure. Her eyes opened up, like a startled violet, in the springtime, as if she had slept, like the violet, through the winter season. The wild rose lodged its colors in her cheeks, after playing with the April winds, and the spirit of the new life overwhelmed her. The little skeleton that she had been for months was transformed into a vitalized being. As she once was, she was again, only more lovely, with the effects of a lingering illness still in its subduing tones.
Sitting by the window, when the birds were singing in the park about her home, she was dreaming of the new world that was opened to her view. It was not the singing birds alone, nor the budding trees, nor the greening grass, nor the blooming cowslips or jonquils that she saw outside rejoicing at the turn of the season, that made her heart rejoice; neither was it returning health alone that brought the glint of the diamond in her eyes, the pulsing flush upon her cheeks, the happier smile to her lips, the sweeter tone to her voice. It was—it was—it was that Love that lights the Soul, and causes even smoke and grime to be dancing gems and pearls.
Sitting by the window, she was dreaming of him, who had gone, and who had said he would return—some day—some day. Oh, that some day is what makes the heart so sore, at the parting; for it is an indefinite time of chance, but still a solace to the craving heart. Edith was dreaming of the last words that John had said before he went away, "May I come to see you some day, now that you are getting well." They kept ringing in her ears as a pleading hope, as "good bye, good bye," still was ringing in his. She was thinking of what she had said, as he was going, "You may come, you may come—yes—yes, you may come," as she still was lying on her bed. And now, in this time of her day-dreaming, she hoped that he had not gone. In dreaming back over the oblivious days, she remembered faintly that he came to her somewhere. Was it in this world that she saw him all the time? or had it been in some other that she saw him? or was it a mere illusion, after all? and he had come at last only to say farewell, as a duty. No; she saw him every day through the long silence of her sleep. It was he; it must have been; and did he know, or think, or believe, that she loved him? He must have known it, she kept dreaming, if that were he that she saw every day. And would he return to meet her love in that Some Day. He would, she kept dreaming; he would.
Sitting by the window, on this the first day of her convalescing period, she saw the smoke and fog roll by; she saw the sun warming everything into life, as the time was stirring her into a loving being again. Star was sitting by her side holding one hand in hers, with faith and hope in her own dear heart.
"You are getting well so fast, dear Edith," said Star, patting her delicate hand.
"I feel new all over, dear Star," said Edith, smiling down upon her dearest friend. "Everything is so bright and so charming outside today, it seems it was made just for me in my recovery. How I wish I could go out upon the lawn and pluck the flowers, and listen to the birds, and even sing myself."
"You may go some day, dear Edith; you may go, and I will be the first to go and lead you the way," replied the constant Star.
"Oh, Star! that some day, some day, always keeps ringing in my ears—I hope it will come," said Edith, with a tear of regret coming down her brightening cheek.
"Do not be despondent, dear," said Star, brushing away Edith's tears.
"I am not despondent, dear," said Edith; "I am happy."
"I thought tears were shed in sorrow, Edith," responded Star, in her innocence.
"I have had no sorrow, dear. My life has been one of happiness; and when I am most happy, I shed tears, sometimes," said Edith.
"Oh, Edith, I know," said Star, with a mischievous look.
"Does he know?" asked Edith, putting her arm around the neck of her friend.
"He must know," answered Star, seriously.
"Tell me all about it, Star—all?" said Edith.
"Since you first took ill?" asked Star.
"Everything—I want to know," said Edith.
"My, Edith! he did so many things, that it might make you blush, did I tell you," said Star, laughing.
"Why! what did he do?" asked Edith, with an inkling that she had not been dreaming all the time.
"Do? Why, Edith! the first thing he did, was to put his arm around you in the cab coming home that night," began Star.
"Why, my faithful Star! Did you permit him to do that?" asked Edith, appearing to be repellent in her tone.
"He couldn't help it, dear; you was as limp as a rag, and he had to hold you up. When we got home, he picked you up, and carried you into this very room, and laid you on your bed."
"My! oh, my, Star! he didn't do that, did he?" exclaimed Edith. "How dreadful!"
"It couldn't be helped," replied the sympathetic Star, as her only explanation.
"Now, I am real mad at you, Star, for permitting such a thing. I would have been real mad at him, too—I would not have permitted it, had I been in my senses," said Edith, affecting anger.
"That is the reason he did it, Edith; you couldn't help yourself; you were not in your senses," said the compromising Star.
"Go on, Star," said Edith, seeing that Star was hesitating about telling her more.
"You called for him every day for a week, Edith, till—"
"—I am a little goose, Star; I always knew I was; now I know it. Did he come?"
"He came; and brought you back to your senses, dear."
"I do now remember seeing him somewhere—sometime—I can't think, Star—where it was—what else?" said Edith, growing nervous.
"He came every day, Edith—every day, after that, and sat by your bed for an hour, and held your hand—"
"—now I know I am a goose for allowing such conduct—no, I am not mad, Star. Did he do that?"
"—and he knelt down and prayed for you, every day, almost, Edith."
"God bless him!" said Edith, as the tears came to her eyes.
"—and you talked to him, Edith, sometimes, and always asked him to come again—"
"—I must have been out of my head."
"Don't you remember it, Edith—any of it, at all?"
"I have a faint recollection of something, which I cannot clearly make out—I know—I know, Star. It has possessed me ever since I saw him—I am not provoked at anything he did, Star."
"But, Edith; Edith, listen," said Star, in an admonishing tone; "he came as a matter of duty, believing it was an hallucination of yours."
"He will forgive me, then," returned Edith, with calm resignation, "if I did or said anything unbecoming a lady, who—who—oh, Star, I cannot believe that I did anything wrong, do you? If he never knows, I will keep my secret, and you will help me in my troubled heart, will you not, dear?"
"He loves you, Edith."
"Dear Star," said Edith, as she threw both arms around her friend's neck; "does he? Does he? Are you sure?"
"I am sure, Edith," said Star, kissing Edith. "He told me as much."
"That was not kind in him; he should tell me first," said Edith, pensively.
"But he told me not to tell," replied Star, regretfully; "and he said he never expected to claim your hand—"
"Why? My riches will not be in the way," she said, as she began to cry.
"That is why, Edith," said Star, consolingly. "He said he could not hope to meet you on the same level—"
"Money!" exclaimed Edith.
"Money," replied Star, very low; "he hasn't any."
"That is why I love him, Star; and because he is better than any man I have ever seen, except, perhaps, my father. This is one of the greatest troubles the daughters of the rich have—the finding of a good young man among them; and the good young men who are poor are too self-conscious to seek us."
"But he has asked to come again, Edith," said Star, hopefully.
"Some day—some day," sighed Edith, looking out the window. Then: "I wish I had never seen—no, no; that is not what I mean. Had I never seen him, I would not have this pain, the pain of uncertainty, in my heart. Awhile ago I was very happy; but now I feel like lying down in the bed again, and remaining there till—oh, I wish he would come, and I—no, I could not do that; he must find it out, if he is ever to know. I will get well first, Star, and then we will take up the work, Star, I had planned before I became ill; and work to do some good in the world. I am feeling very weak, Star. This has been too much for me; will you assist me to my bed. Oh, Star, I am sorry—sorry for it all. You do not know, dear Star. You will not know till some good man comes along and strikes a responsive chord in your heart—you will not know, Star, till then. Help me to bed, and let me rest."
Sitting by her bedside, Star heard, for the first time, the story that Edith promised to tell her that day when she first came into Edith's life. After lying down, Edith was more calm, and was still in the mood to continue her confidential talk with Star.
"Star, do you know that you are my cousin?" asked Edith.
"Cousin!" exclaimed Star, as if she did not understand.
"Yes, Star; cousin! Your mother is a first cousin to my father; but I never knew it till about the time I sent for you."
Star leant over and kissed Edith, and drew her face up till their cheeks touched.
"Edith," whispered Star, "you are an angel," and then released her, and assumed a kneeling position, while Edith continued:
"I saw you one day, Star, when I was with my father on a mission of mercy in the poor districts of the South Side. When first I saw you, you were on your knees scrubbing the floor—at that place where you worked. I saw your face, and fell in love with you as soon as I saw you, for I knew that you were good. I told papa that it was a pity for a beautiful girl like you to be doing that kind of drudgery, when he said that we could, perhaps, get you a better place. We asked you your name, if you remember—"
"I remember," said Star.
"—and when you said it was Star Barton, papa gave such a turn to his countenance that I thought it meant something that he had concealed from us at home. So when we came home I asked him what he meant, and he told me then who you were; and he told me who your father and mother were; and how they, when young, ran away from home and were married. I sent my maid, Sarah Devore, to search you out, telling her who you were, and have you come to this place in search of a position as a domestic, for fear that if I told you the truth you would be too proud to work for your rich relations. You came, as you know how, and when I saw you again, I fell in love with you. First, I wanted you to be my maid; but my pride of you was too great to make you anything but my equal in this house. So you see, instead of being my maid, you have been my faithful companion—and nurse. Dear Star, I love you, and if you will always remain with me, I shall be the happiest person on earth."
"Dear Edith," said Star, with tears of gratitude in her eyes, "I knew you were good when first I beheld you; but I never knew that such goodness could be in any kinsman of mine. I never told you of the life I lived; I never told you how we lived at home; I never told you of my father or my mother. For it always gave me grief to think of it. Poor father is dead!"
"Dead!" said Edith.
"Yes; died last December; and my mother has married Peter Dieman, who courted her—"
"Dieman!"
"Yes; the junkman. They live in one of the finest places in the East End. I am sorry, very sorry, that my father died, as he was the only father I shall ever know; but I am glad that my mother has married again. When you get well, I shall take you out to see her, and you can see how she now lives. I never was ashamed of my parents, Edith, never. I did all I could for them, in my simple way, and would do it again, if called upon to do it. After you took ill, I carried out your wish, and, with Mr. Winthrope, went to our home and fitted it out decently for my mother and the children. My mother was always sad and brooded over her troubles, and had no heart for anything. Poor mother! I am glad that she has married again."
Star cried in remembrance of it all; for her heart was good. Even dear Edith could not help but shed a tear. And they sobbed on each other's breast over sorrows that had passed.
Then, brushing away their tears, and laughing over their tender-heartedness, they resumed their talk.
"Edith," said Star, "I must confess that I marveled at your actions. I could not resist you, though. I cannot see how anybody can. It seemed strange to me that any one so good and rich as you should light upon me, and make me your companion. Yes, I marveled at it. Now, I know it is not strange. I love you, dear Edith, and shall never leave you, unless—"
"Unless what?" asked Edith, smiling.
"—he should come to claim you."
"He shall never know from me, dear Star; that would not be womanly—why, yes, you dear, you had to go and tell him. But will he ever see the true light burning—burning for him?"
"He shall, if I ever see him again; or I shall write," said Star, teasingly, still with her eyes red from crying over recollections.
"You must not, Star; I could not forgive you—oh, yes, Star, I would forgive you anything—but not that," said Edith, concealing and revealing her true feelings at the same time. "What do you think papa would say, if he knew my love for him?" asked Edith. "Oh, I dread the time he hears of it! And my mamma? but she will be with me, I know, for she has told me that she likes him."
"She suspects something of the kind, Edith," said Star. "She asked you once just after Mr. Winthrope was here the first time; but she did not pursue the question. She believes it now."
"Star, I shall get well; that is my first duty, now that I am this far on toward recovery. I shall get well, Star, and you and I shall go—go—go—"
"Where. Edith?" asked Star, seeing her hesitancy in saying what she wanted to reveal.
"—to do missionary work among the poor."
True love comes but once in life to the pure in heart. Were we all as pure in heart as Edith, mankind's tribulations might be less irksome.
Peter Dieman sat in his high-backed leather-cushioned chair smoking a black cigar, surrounded with all the ease and sumptuousness of a successfully domesticated gentleman. As he smoked his favorite weed, the circumambient gray was as a smudge in the midst of a fruiting orange grove. And above it all, he smelled like one who had been soused in aromatic oils.
A pair of satin-embroidered slippers encased his broad flat feet; a red skull-cap, with a maroon tassel on top of it, bore down upon his rufous head of hair; a purple-flowered mandarin-like robe enfolded his pudgy body. The hairsuite appendage that had gone neglected for years, had been unceremoniously removed from his chin; a yellow stubby moustache, closely cropped, hung above his lips like clipped porcupine quills, and a new set of hand-made teeth filled his sprawling mouth. The rubicundity of his face might have been taken as a danger sign on a dark night, with his green-gray eyes lighted up as a companion signal. A masseur had rubbed the scowl of years and the hate of time out of his face, till its rotundity was equaled only by the full moon recovering from a case of the dumps. So, all that were necessary to complete his personification of Old King Cole were the long-stemmed pipe and the serrated crown. While the latter would not have been essential to the enhancement of his kingly appearance, it might have been a fitting part toward the completion of his princely makeup.
Thus he sat and thus he looked in his spectacular pomp of power—a sub-king of the grafters—since he went into the soul-quieting business of matrimony. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was let into his presence. Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Jacob Cobb, the ring-master, was ushered in—one following the other.
Would the visitors smoke? asked His Majesty. Yes, the visitors would smoke, as a favor to this potentate. And they smoked, and they smoked till they filled the air so full of toxic fumes that the fair king was almost obscured by the baleful haze.
"Before we get down to business, gentlemen," said Peter, in all his suavity of new refinement, as he slapped his fat right leg with his heavy right hand, and scratched his head behind the ear with his left, "I must escort you through my palace. I've got a place—" waving now his right hand above his head in indication of the building that enclosed him—"good as any man's; and I want you two old friends to see it before we get down to business. Pleasure first, gentlemen, you know; pleasure first, to me, now."
"I'll be glorified to see it," said the ghost.
"I'll be sanctified to see it," said the ring-master.
Peter arose with kingly mien, shaking the rheumatism out of his joints and the gout out of his toes, and then swelling out his breast to a boa constrictor size after swallowing a goat, wheezing like a horse with the heaves. He led the way, with his robe dragging on the carpet, to circumnavigate the building, the ghost and the ring-master following, respectively, with the sanctimonious bearing of laymen following a high-priest.
"The kiddies are out this evening attending a party, and I have all this great house to myself—" waving his right hand around like a preacher of the Word. "We will go up the stairs first."
Up the stairs Peter went, the ghost next after him, looking ahead and considering fearfully what he would feel like should the king lose his balance, in mounting the steps, which he seemed likely to do constantly as he elevated himself lift after lift, so clumsily did Peter climb; and the circus-master took his time, a safe distance behind, with a sweet air of passivity in his patience over Peter's laughable pomposity.
Peter led the way through brilliant halls and brilliant rooms, without a dark corner in any of them, nor even a blind closet in which to conceal the proverbial family ghost; which shadowy being, however, was not likely to seek a place of concealment in this home, since, as it happens, he had evaded all these pure pleasures of domesticity for so many years; so it would be an hazardous presumption to expect the stalker of family trouble to abide with him.
"Where're you going to keep the family ghost?" asked the real ghost.
"You old batch! Do you think I'd tolerate him round here?" said Peter, with connubial pride. "Cobb has a cinch on them all; eh, Cobb?" with a refreshened squint towards Cobb.
"Don't be so rude, Peter, as to bring me into your argumentations with Monroe here, whose own reputation needs a little stringing up," responded Cobb.
"Never mind your moralizing—show us your house," replied the ghost, without being the least irritated.
When they came to the bath room, they all stepped within; and the visitors were charmed. Peter took on a new halo of beamingness as he saw how delighted his patrons were over this dream of modern bathery, with its shining fixtures and alabastine walls.
"Do you bathe, Peter?" asked the ghost.
"I guess, yes—every morning at eight," answered Peter, with a swell.
"Humph!" responded the ghost; "and you didn't catch cold the first time?" with no attempt to be facetious.
"Alcohol is a great preventative," answered Peter.
"Within, or without?" asked the ghost.
"Without; you mummy," retorted Peter.
"You surprise me, Peter," said Cobb, as he was testing one of the faucets; "the last time I saw you, you looked as if you hadn't touched water in years."
"Once a year then; once a day now; three hundred and sixty-five days in the year," said Peter, grinning.
"I always believed you had some redeeming qualities," said Cobb; "but how does it come you have clean water?" he asked, holding up a glassful between his eyes and the light.
"Private filter," answered the king.
"That's infernal water to turn into the public trough," remarked Cobb. "I mean this, before it was filtered," pointing to the glassful still in his hand.
"It's all they deserve," said the king, snapping his eyes.
"When ought we to work them for a new system?" asked Cobb, emptying the glass. "Pretty decent water, this—when filtered," he observed, washing his hands.
"We'll talk about water systems when we get back to business," answered the king.
"Do you wash your feet in water or alcohol?" asked the ghost.
"Don't get too fresh, Monroe, or I'll loosen up your face with some soap and water," with a hearty chuckle.
"Oh, sometimes I forget, Peter, seeing you heretofore as a bear," as a mollifier to his allusions.
"You're a corrugated donkey, Monroe," said the king, with a louder chuckle than before, rubbing his hands, this time with a towel between them.
"You're a convoluted mule," returned the ghost, tapping the enameled wall with his knuckle, as a clincher to his assertion.
"Here, here! You fellows are getting too personal," said Cobb, stepping forward, as if he expected trouble, so as to be ready as a queller of what he thought might lead to a melee.
"Hah, ha, ha!" roared Peter, strutting out like a gallinaceous cock. "Cobb, you must pay no attention to Monroe's foolishness," as he swept theatrically along the hallway to the stairs; but still presenting the incongruous habits of a waddling duck.
Monroe followed languidly, puckering his mouth into a low whistle, that might have meant more than the blowing out of good humor. With most men, whistling means the venting of a superfluity of joy; but with Monroe, it might have meant a cooling drop in his cup of anger. Cobb came lolling after them, in his usual undisturbed forbearance.
Debouching into the parlor, with the stellar lights trailing, the king touched a button; presto! starlight, moonlight, sunlight, all together, in one grand aurora borealis, flashed mute darkness into palpitating day.
"This is my universe," cried the king, throwing up both hands, as if he were beginning the Sermon on the Mount.
"Grand!" whispered the ghost.
"Grand!" said the ring-master.
"Grand" cried back The Moses, The Napoleon, The Wellington, The Washington, The Roosevelt, The Pathfinder, The Man With the Hoe, The Babes in the Woods, The Doves, The Dieman, on the walls.
"Grand!" echoed Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Shakespeare, Milton, Poe, Irving, Longfellow, Emerson, standing about in corners and alcoves in their statuary dumbness.
"Grand!" pealed the Giant Grand resting on four legs, like an exhibition slab of mahogany, in a corner.
"Grand!" laughed the settees, the tete-a-tetes, the rockers, the cushions, the chairs, as if they were ready to jump up and slap the visitors on the back and seat them down.
"Grand!" shouted the king. "Well, I should eat a bedbug, if you can surpass it in this old town for dazzle." And everything hung its head in mortification.
"Grand!" they all said, as the king entered the dining room, with its glitter and its glimmer and its splendor and its grandeur. "Here is where I eat," he remarked, after seeing his friends dumfounded and speechless.
Dumfounded? Why, of course!
Speechless? Why, to be sure!
Shucks! Who said the average man isn't a pompous idiot?
"To business, now, gentlemen; to business," said Peter, waving his hand toward his private den, where first he was greeted in his royal robes by the genteel ghost and the ring-master.
"Well?" said Peter, after seating himself in his chair of state, directing his question to Cobb.
"Let Monroe speak," said Cobb.
"Let Cobb speak," said Monroe.
"Gentlemen, my proposition is the proposed new water system," said Cobb, venturing forth. "What about it?"
"Well, what about it?" asked Peter.
"Can we pull it off?" asked Cobb.
"How much is there in it?" asked the generous Peter.
"Couple hundred thousand," said Cobb.
"Pull her off, then," decided Peter.
"How much do I get out of it?" asked Monroe.
"Aren't you working your little stunt for bigger game, Monroe?" asked Peter.
"What new stunt you up to now?" asked Cobb, suspiciously.
"That's a private matter," replied Monroe.
"What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb. Then to Monroe: "Not scheming behind my back, Monroe?"
"No such intention," answered Monroe.
"What is it, Peter?" asked Cobb, feelingly.
"Monroe, I told you to keep no secrets from Cobb," said Peter.
"What is it. Peter?" asked Cobb.
"Shall I tell, Monroe?" said Peter.
"Dogged if I care," said the unimpressionable Monroe.
"He's after Jarney's daughter and her money," said Peter, rubbing his hands on his legs, and pulling hard on a freshly lighted cigar.
"Ho, that's why young Winthrope was sent to the New York office, was it?" said Cobb, carelessly.
"Yes; it looked too serious seeing him going to her home every day," replied Monroe. "While I also went, sometimes, I never got a squint at her."
Cobb became serious at this piece of intelligence. He thought of young Jasper Cobb, his son, as being entitled to a share of the spoils that might be obtained by an alliance with the Jarneys. He thought all plans had been laid for this catch, and all that were needed was to draw in the net and sort the fishes. He thought that, as a matter of course, there could be no failure. He never thought that his son was unfit for a young lady of the graces of Miss Jarney. He never thought children had a right to be heard in making their choice of a life partner. He never thought that Jarney should be consulted. Men of Cobb's stripe never think of the ethical side of a question. They never think of anything but money—how to get it, and how to spend it. They never think of anything, aside from getting money, but of the voluptuous side of life. And this astounding statement of Peter's, relative to Monroe's plotting, came as a cross-complaint to him. Baseless wretch is Mr. Monroe!
"What're your prospects, Monroe?" asked Cobb, leaning his head far back in his chair, and blowing smoke upwards, indolently meditating over something that did not go down very well.
"Good," said Monroe.
"Explain?" said Cobb.
"Oh; why, that's a private matter, Mr. Cobb," said Monroe, looking more uncommunicable than ever.
"I must know," insisted Cobb, fidgeting in his chair, with a fine interrogative smile of assertive power.
"Tell him, Monroe; tell him," said Peter, rubbing his hands, and blowing smoke like a whale spouting water.
"There's nothing tangible yet," said the yielding Monroe.
"Tell it, Monroe!" commanded Peter.
"What is it?" asked Cobb, sarcastically.
"Well; here goes. First, I am working into the good graces of the father first," said he. "When I accomplish that feat, having Winthrope out of my way, I shall press my suit for the young lady's hand. I have been to the Jarney home a great many times for dinner this winter"—he looked as if he wanted to keep the matter a secret—"and I have always found young Winthrope there. He was permitted to see her, as Mr. Jarney explained, as the result of an hallucination caused by an auto accident, and her illness following it. I never got an opportunity to see her. Of course—" he seemed to be unconcerned about her illness, so listlessly did he talk—"it would have been a delicate matter for me to have attempted to have seen her while ill; so I concluded to abide my time. Getting him away was my first scheme. This accomplished, and, she recovering as I am told, I shall take the first opportunity presented to ask her."
During the recital of the above. Monroe acted more like an automatic talking machine, than a human, so inanimate was his facial expression.
"Would she throw herself away on you?" asked Cobb, drawing one eyelid down as an accompaniment to a mental sneer.
"Am I not as worthy as anybody else, especially Winthrope, who is poor, and has no ancestry?" said Monroe, without a rising or falling inflection in his voice.
"Bully, Monroe; well said!" roared Peter, rubbing and smoking. "But you fellows forget that a woman is usually made a party to such little affairs of the heart. I've had experience, gentlemen; experience; and look at this grand house," waving his hand, with a flourish, around the maroon tassel.
"That's true," assented Monroe, without a tremor.
Cobb assented too, as it suited him to assent. Peter assented to his own theory, looking through his own mirror of experience. They all assented, and reassented, acquiesced, agreed, yielded—to this assertion, time after time.
"Still, I have a fighting chance, like all dogs," soliloquized Monroe.
"Ah, you must win," said Peter, not yet discouraged, like Monroe appeared to be; "I never lost hope."
"But what did you get, Peter?" said Monroe, without a glint that would indicate that he meant a jest; "a woman and ten kids!"
"That's all I wanted," replied Peter, grinning. "Why, you old poltroon, I don't pretend to have ancestry; but I do pretend to have money and gratitude."
"Don't get personal, Peter," said the admonitory Monroe.
"Don't, don't get personal," said the pacifying Cobb.
"Oh, no, Cobb; I do not mean to be personal; but how is the money coming from the dives?" answered Peter, rubbing his hands first, then scratching his ear, then pulling an extra pull on his pipe, then spitting, then squinting, then sneezing as if to give three cheers for his observations on the various subjects up for discussion, in all of which he seemed to have the best of the results.
"Fine!" exclaimed Cobb, with his eyes lighting up. "The police are just rolling it into our coffers."
"I need ten thousand more for Jim Dalls," said Peter, looking gloomy, and ceasing to rub his hands.
"It would be cheaper to send a man over there to kill him," answered Cobb.
"Maybe it would; maybe it wouldn't," said Peter; "but he will be back, if he don't get it."
"Well, send it, then," said Cobb, relenting of his grim suggestion as to the best means of disposing of Dalls.
The door bell rang. A servant answered it. Into the house filed ten children, in all stages of wildness, accompanied by the mother. Seeing them rushing in like an invading army of young Turks, the visitors retreated with as little loss to their dignity as they could spare. And Peter was happy again in the bosom of his family—a Prince at home; a King at the office of Graft.
Mrs. Dieman was now the acme of reincarnation. The jaundice of a sorrowed life had been burned out of her face by the new brand of cosmetics, and she now stood before the world a justly deserving woman. But such is the passage of poverty when embellished by a little of the olive oil of good treatment, fairer living, and a chance. Instead of the downcast woman, with a heart laden with lead, as she once was, she was now an upcast personage, with a heart that was a jardiniere of roses, doing her duty, and bearing her old sorrows silently as the mistress of a mansion. Chance was all that were needed. But still she loved Billy Barton, the drunkard. And this is the way of woman, sometimes.
Hiram Jarney sat in his lounging chair, in evening clothes, reading the daily newspapers, and smoking a Santa Clara cigar. His feet were encased in a pair of patent-leather slippers. A diamond sparkled on his spotless bosom front. His right leg hung comfortably crossed over his left. His clear cut features denoted his strength, and his active blue eyes his power; both combining to produce a wholesome pride of peace. There was not a smutch to mar his impeccability. He was immaculate from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. His closely cropped hair revealed a head that might be taken as a perfect model by a phrenologist to show the parts of a well-balanced man. With a broad high forehead, high arched brows, fine nose, and a pink complexion, his completeness as a man of parts was unequaled.
As he read the news, turning his paper over and over, as he glanced at the head lines, or waded through the matter of some article that interested him most, an almost invisible vapor lazily ascended from his cigar—a man at ease in the bosom of his family.
Thus he sat and thus he looked, when Miram Monroe, the genteel ghost, was ushered in for a chat and to take dinner. When he saw who his visitor was, Mr. Jarney laid down his paper, crossed his left leg over his right, and leaned back in his chair, in such a resigned state of studied equanimity (always his pose in the presence of Monroe) that Monroe felt he must let loose one of his evanescent smiles.
"Have a seat," said Mr. Jarney, in his familiar way of greeting Monroe; "dinner will be ready soon."
"Thank you," said Monroe, as he stiffly bent himself into the capacious depths of an arm chair, sitting near.
Monroe was faultlessly groomed. He wore an evening suit, and had a diamond in a shirt front that looked no more starched than his frosted face.
"My daughter will be down tonight for the first time to take dinner with the family," said Mr. Jarney, in a conversational mood. "She is improving rapidly, Mr. Monroe; rapidly; and you don't know, being a bachelor, how much I am relieved of worry since she began to mend."
"I imagine how one would feel," said the feeling Monroe, now inwardly cogitating over how to approach the subject that brought him there on this occasion.
Having no hint of Mr. Monroe's intentions, Mr. Jarney proceeded:
"Yes; she has improved so rapidly lately that I feel, myself, like coming out of a long illness. My daughter and I are planning a trip, Monroe, just as soon as she is quite able."
"A trip!" said Monroe, without expressing his surprise in his visage.
"We had thought of going to Europe," pursued Mr. Jarney; "but my business affairs are such that I cannot leave here this summer."
"Where then?" asked Monroe, as if it were any of his affair where they went.
"We may go to the mountains for a few months, so that she can recuperate, and later in the summer we may go to Europe," answered Mr. Jarney.
"Mr. Jarney," said the ghost, in a muffled voice, as if he would burst with his secret, and as if his tongue were tied, "Mr. Jarney, what—what—do you—think of me—as a suitor for your—daughter's—hand?" And then he looked as if he were made of translucent glass, or polished marble, or anything that was hard and white and had a polished surface, with sterile spots on top of it.
This was a stunner to the placid Mr. Jarney. The irrepressible Monroe looked stony enough that he might be taken for a real stone god of the Stares, as Mr. Jarney pierced him through with his piercingly keen eyes.
"You don't mean it, Monroe?" he finally said, after looking at him a long time, with a smile of the ridiculous mould.
"I am in earnest, Mr. Jarney—never more in earnest," responded Monroe.
"Have you asked the young lady yet?" asked Mr. Jarney, still unable to believe the man was in earnest.
"Not yet; but I want your opinion first, Mr. Jarney," answered Monroe, fingering his watch fob.
"You are very amusing, Mr. Monroe; very amusing," said Mr. Jarney, facetiously.
"Then you don't look upon me with favor?" asked Monroe.
"Mr. Monroe, I am afraid you lack experience—at least in this respect," said Mr. Jarney.
"I have money—I have ancestry," said the imperturbable Monroe.
"Oh, fudge, Monroe! fudge on your money, and your ancestry!" said Mr. Jarney. "You need a little schooling in the art of love-making," he said, smiling at the audacity of the ghost. "Do you suppose I would put my daughter up to be sold to the highest bidder, and knocked down to any old money bag that should come along? Do you? Do you? Answer me that?"
No answer.
"Do you think, or presume to think," he continued, "that I would allow a child of mine to be bandied about in this mercenary manner? She is my daughter—my only child; she has a mind of her own; she is independent; so when she makes up her mind to that end, I shall consider it. She will first counsel with me before her intended suitor does. Mr. Monroe, it is very unbecoming, ungentlemanly, ungracious in you to come here this evening, and speak as you have spoken, not having seen her in months, or talked with her at all on the subject. I would do well, Mr. Monroe," continued Mr. Jarney, in the same equinimity of temper, "to dismiss you from my house, and from my service; don't you think so?"
"Beg your pardon, Mr. Jarney; beg your pardon, if I have given offense," said the ghost, with frozen affability. "I have given these thoughts considerable consideration, and I thought it only proper and meet in me to ask your opinion—it was only your opinion I asked, Mr. Jarney; so I beg your pardon. May I ask the young lady, then?"
"You may do as you like about that," said Mr. Jarney, knowing, in his kind fatherly heart, the finality of such a procedure.
"Mr. Winthrope has been permitted to see—" pursued Monroe; but Mr. Jarney broke him off by saying: "Don't mention Mr. Winthrope's name in this connection as an excuse for your imbecility."
Mr. Monroe sat through this grilling, unmoved as a donkey might. After cogitating again for a moment, he said: "I thought I was as good as anyone else, when I broached the subject."
"You have lost the point of view, Mr. Monroe; lost it entirely," answered Mr. Jarney. "Lest you fall into brambles, you would better brush yourself up a little on the subject of courting. You will find a book of rules, perhaps in a ten cent store; get one, and brush up a little, Mr. Monroe."
Dinner was announced. Monroe, unabashed and stiffly congruous, descended upon the dining table with such great gravity that he was likely to break in two before his hunger could be appeased. Opposite him sat Edith and Star. Edith, in her pale blue evening gown, was the essence of delicacy. Her face was fulling into health again, though showing the toning wounds of long illness. Her eyes sparkled almost as the diamonds that were set in ring and brooch. Star was like a fresh young sun on a bright summer day. Mrs. Jarney was as bouncing as ever in her sprightliness. Monroe was cold, as marble-like, as statue-like, as ever. The dinner was very formal, very cheerless, very unappetizing to every one, save Monroe, who ate with relish everything set before him.
The cause of all this coldness may be laid to the front door of Mr. Monroe. He had cast a shade of the grouch over them all. Somehow, the mother was calmed by the sense of some pervading evil thing, inexpressibly unaccountable. Somehow, the two young ladies felt the chilly presence of a tentacled fish out of water, that was wholly inexplicable. Somehow, the father (unknown to the rest) could not raise himself out of the coolness, into which the ghost had plunged him.
The two young ladies had greeted Monroe very gracefully and profusely, when they first came down stairs; but they momentarily lapsed into mediocre silence by the all pervading something they could not fathom. The mother started out to be very gleeful over her daughter's recovering health: but instinctively having a premonition of a mysterious caul overhanging her, she slumped into an unbearable quietude. So dinner was eaten with a sort of wingless spirit in them all, proving a discomforting failure in its pleasureableness.
Monroe, in his impenetrability, did not see anything unusual. Had he seen, had he noticed, had he heeded, he would have departed at the most opportune time. But no; he loitered in the parlor, after dinner, and sought to engage Edith in quiet conversation. And he succeeded. Edith was sitting on a settee, with a silk mantle thrown over her shoulders. Star was drumming on the piano, on which she was now taking lessons, the father and mother being out. Monroe sat down by Edith. After foolishly gazing about the room, as if in an indecisive state of mind about how to entertain himself, he said, icily:
"Miss Jarney, may I have the pleasure of calling on you sometimes?"
Edith was startled at this unheard of piece of rashness participated in by the ghost. She trembled through the inward fear she had of this man of unapproachable demeanor. But summoning up what little of her former courage she had left after the blighting effect of her long illness, she replied.
"Oh, Mr. Monroe, I have no objections to your coming here sometimes as a guest of my papa; but as for calling on me, for the purpose you intimate, that is impossible."
"Why do you object to me, Miss Jarney?" he asked, undeterred by repulses that would have sent any self-respecting man into hiding.
"Why, you are as old as Adam himself," replied Edith, feigning to be gay, but still frightened.
Seeing Edith's dainty hand, with a diamond shining on it, he caught it up, as if he would touch his vile lips to it. Edith withdrew her hand quickly, without a word, arose and walked toward the piano, leaving the ghost sitting alone like a confused statue when hit with a snow ball. Thereupon, Monroe came to his senses, and forthwith departed, leaving a cloud of mystification behind, over his actions.
In a huff (inwardly), he sought his companions, and escorted them to the Bottomless Pit, there to celebrate his great victory, as he called it.
"Well, what luck?" asked Welty Morne, as soon as a bottle had been uncorked, and he held a glass of its contents before his admiring eyes.
"Aye, what luck?" chimed in Bate Yenger.
"Bully good luck," said the ghost, like an owl.
"All right with the old man, I suppose?" said Welty, swallowing down his glassful.
"All right—the old duffer," said Monroe, draining his glass.
"How about the girl?" they asked.
"She fell right into my arms, and accepted," responded the ghost, seemingly without the glint of a frown.
"Whew! Quick work, old boy; quick work! When is it to come off?" asked Welty, speaking loudly.
"Sometime in the future," answered Monroe, mysteriously.
"Drink! and the devil have done for the rest!" shouted Welty, and he imbibed another glass as an additional stimulant to his joy.
"Bully good people, boys; bully good people," said Monroe, pulling another cork.
"How soon you going to drop the pole set up to impale Winthrope?" asked Welty, unrestrained now in his enthusiasm, which he gave vent to occasionally, by whistling and humming a doggerel, alternately.
"The dog," growled Monroe, changing his tone. "Not yet, boys; not yet. It goes up as if nothing had happened."
"When will you transfix him?" asked Welty.
"I am going to New York tomorrow to complete plans," said the invincible ghost.
"Up goes the flag of destruction!" shouted Welty, with Bate repeating the words after him, both raising glasses and emptying them.
Thus they talked and thus they drank, till the potent power of wine laid them low in a delirious sense of delirium in Monroe's downy bed.
After Monroe had left the Jarney home, Edith and Star ascended to the former's chamber for that rest which night should bring to the pure in heart.
Divesting themselves of their day clothing, they invested themselves in their night robes, and laid down together, side by side, in the bed where Edith had lain so long as an invalid. When the lights were out and the coverlets were drawn up over them, Edith heaved a sigh, like one does who lies down in exhaustion to find that peace that darkness and a soft bed fetches on. Star fell asleep directly, and lay in that peaceful calm which comes to one in good health and having no intangible fancies in the mind.
But to Edith, repose was as difficult as the quietness sought by the brook in seeking an eddying pool after long racing down a roughened mountain bed. She turned first on one side, and then on the other, dozing many times almost to the slumberous point, where the transport to the land of dreams is imminent; then awakening with a start, as if the nightmare were treading her down to death, only to see the little imaginary beings that the half-closed eyes see in the illusory light-disks that whirl through impenetrable darkness. She tried to recollect some few of the nights through which she had passed, lying here, as if they were transitory dreams, remembering indistinctly how long and dreary some were, with flitting spirits and hurrying beings filling up the surroundings; she tried to recall the forms of hopes and doubts that seemed always to possess her, and wondered how intangible creative mind is in its wandering; she tried to conjure up the scenes of the tall, handsome figure in black that called every day and knelt by her bedside, but all that she could see was the form kneeling there, and never losing sight of the face, as if it were a part of her existence; she tried to recall the last day that he was there, when he said farewell, but all that she could remember was, "May I come, some day—some day;" she tried to recall whether she had said yes, or no, so uncertain was she now in her remembrance. She did, however, recall very distinctly what the unconfiding Star had told her—a secret given by John—and she was happy. And still there lurked before her the white marble face of a man, whom she had repulsed that evening. She saw it, when she closed her eyes, like a menacing statue in every corner of her brain; she saw it, when she opened her eyes, like a statue in every corner of the room, grimly and remorselessly pursuing her. And she shuddered. Finding sleep impossible under the wild riding of her thoughts, she placed a hand on Star's shoulder, and shook her into drowsy wakefulness.
"Star, Star," she whispered. "Are you awake?"
"Yes," said Star, yawning.
"Star, I cannot sleep; will you talk to me?" she asked.
"Yes, deary," responded Star, in a semi-conscious tone.
"Well, talk then; I cannot sleep," pleaded Edith, to arouse her companion from her natural stupor.
"Yes; I will talk, deary; go on," answered Star, not yet being willing to comply with Edith's request.
"Star, are you awake?" asked Edith, shaking the sleeper.
"I am awake," answered Star, rising full upright in bed. "Can't you sleep, Edith? Lie down and count the sheep jumping over the fence."
"Now, do not be cross, Star," said Edith, sighing; "I am very nervous tonight."
"Poor dear; this day has been too much for you," said Star, leaning over and kissing Edith.
"Talk awhile, Star; then maybe I can sleep," said Edith.
"Shall I tell you about the wolf that comes to poor people's doors?" asked Star, jocularly.
"Oh, no; not so hideous a story as that, Star; I am nervous enough now," replied Edith.
"Then about the mouse that moved the mountain?"
"That is a fable, Star; something real!"
"Then about the man as old as Adam, who asked a maid of twenty-two to marry him?"
"He did not ask me, Star. Do you believe he was in earnest?"
"I think he is a sham, Edith," replied Star; "and I think he was in earnest. Now, Edith, if I tell you what was pledged to me in secrecy, will you not tell where it came from? Yes, you will. When I was home today, Mr. Dieman told me that Mr. Monroe is going to New York for the purpose of causing Mr. Winthrope trouble before he should ever get home to see you again. I should have told you this, Edith, before now; but seeing how nervous you were all evening, I thought it well to put it off till tomorrow; or till you get better."
Star ceased, yawned, and became quiet.
"Did he tell you any more?" asked Edith, sitting up herself in bed.
"Yes, Edith; it is too awful for me to tell you tonight."
"I cannot sleep till you finish, Star," said Edith, lying down again, with Star following her actions.
"Mr. Dieman told me of the whole plot, Edith," said Star, talking in a low sleepy voice; "not sparing himself for the part he played in it; for when the plot was conceived Mr. Dieman was unforgiving toward any of my mother's people who had opposed his marriage to her before she ran away with father. But now, that he is going through a period of penitence and reconciliation with his conscience, he was not loath to tell me all."
"What is the plot, Star? Don't keep me waiting; I am impatient to hear it."
"Mr. Winthrope," continued Star, "was sent to the New York office through the conniving of Monroe, to keep him out of your sight. His aim was to make an effort to have you marry him, get your money, and divide the spoils (that is your money) between himself and his fellow conspirators. That failing, he is to ruin Mr. Winthrope's chances by tempting him to steal the company's money, but stealing it himself and laying the blame on Mr. Winthrope, and then flee to Europe."
Edith lay quiet during the recital, breathing lightly.
"That failing, they will cause him to carry certain large sums of money to a certain place; then hold him up and rob him," continued Star. "They have been planning all winter, and are now about ready to bring it to a conclusion. The time set, was to be as soon as possible after you were able to be seen by Monroe. Having seen him this evening, Edith, it must be time for them to strike. We must intercede to save him, Edith, if possible."
"I cannot do anything, in my enfeebled condition; but I shall see papa early in the morning. I shall forestall Monroe, in his madness! Mr. Winthrope shall be saved from those bad men! Star, something seemed to have told me that all was not going well for him. Bless your dear heart!" said Edith, firmly, sternly, but calmer.
Concluding her story, Star soon fell asleep. Edith, after having her fancies put to rout by the serious things that causes a more determined course to mark its way through the brain, also fell asleep; and did not awake till the morning sun, breaking through the smoke, had kissed the damp of slumber from her cheeks.
Refreshing sleep, though late in coming, restored Edith's composure. She came down to breakfast temperamentally disposed to enter into negotiations with her father toward the combating of any plot laid by Monroe and his friends to entice John Winthrope into questionable dealings.
Like a wronged woman, through an excess of virtuous actions, she felt it peculiarly incumbent upon herself to frustrate the plotters—not that it would save John alone; but that it would, as well, be consistently in line with her ideas of just dealings between man and man. During the hour which she consumed in making her toilet, she revolved the whole matter, as related to her by Star, over and over in her now becalmed and determined little head; and the more she revolved it, the brighter became the sparkle in her strong blue eyes, and fiercer grew the militant spirit in her nature. The fatigue that had put her into a nervous state the night before had been routed by that blind force that comes upon depression through a quick series of changes attendant upon a wrong done, to be displaced only through wearying fortitude.
Edith, being primarily one of those strong natures that survives by shock of incident, went boldly to her conceived duty, as though it were given her to be ever strong when the crucial moment arrived. She now knew that her father's good nature was being imposed on by that man of unconscienceable principles. Before she fell ill the year before, the actions of Monroe, two or three times, excited her suspicion, and she had then thought of a plan to forestall him; but by reason of the fatal auto ride, her movements were delayed; and as well did it delay the schemers in their dark and dastardly plotting. It seemed a formidable undertaking for one so frail as Edith, just coming out of a spell of mental derangement; not in its simpleness of action was it so big, but in the momentousness of its results on her enervated system. She would brook no importunate pleading of her friend, Star, to stay her in her course, and leaped into it, as if she were a veritable Goliath of strength.
When she arrived in the dining room that morning with re-enforced courage, she greeted her father and mother, both waiting her arrival, with a kiss, and sat down next to them. Several times she was on the point of bringing up the subject, but lest it should disturb her mother, she calmly awaited a more convenient time for the rehearsal she expected to have with him. Breakfast was usually a quiet affair with the Jarneys, so little was thought of the reserve with which each held speech. After breakfast, Edith took her father's arm and guided him to a quiet nook in the drawing room, and seated him in his favorite seat on one side of a long plate-glass window that opened on his private grounds in front of the mansion.
"Papa, I want a word or two with you this morning before you leave," said Edith, drawing a chair up and sitting down by his side.
"This is unusual, Edith; now, what can my little girl want?" he said, endearingly, taking one of her hands. "You are not going to give me a secret, are you?"
"Too true, papa," replied Edith, and Mr. Jarney expected something else just then than what he heard.
"I am not going to lose my little girl, I hope?" he said, patting her hand.
"Not yet, papa; now, you must sit real quiet, and be not so inquisitive, nor so suspecting till you have heard me," she said, fondly.
"Why, Edith, I had suspected some dark and mysterious deed you had committed; but, with your assurance that I am not to lose you yet. I am listening," he replied.
Then she related all that Star had unfolded to her the night previous; and even how Monroe had acted.
"From whom did Star get the information?" he asked, meditatively, after Edith had finished.
"From her step-father, Peter Dieman."
"Humph! Peter Dieman! and he married Kate Jarney at last—to her betterment," he said, in a ruminating mood. "Well, after all, I am satisfied. Had she heeded me, she would not have gone through all these years of misery that her profligate husband brought upon her. Once I offered to assist her; but she was too proud in her lowliness to respond to my proffered aid. It is better, perhaps; it is better. It seems that the scheme of things is wrong, sometimes; but in the end it is righted."
"Now, what is to be done, dear papa?" asked Edith, seeing that he had taken a discursive course in response to her irrefutable facts.
"I shall act at once," said he, gazing out the window, abstractedly, as if he had been wounded by an aspersion cast upon his magnanimity. "Ingrate! Ingrate! all of them!" he mused, drumming on the arm of the chair with his fingers, deep in study over some plan of action. "Edith, what would you do?" he asked, as he turned his head and looked at her trustfully. "I have trusted him in his department all these years, and he has given such satisfaction that no one mistrusted his motives, or questioned his integrity. I can hardly believe it, Edith. What would you do?"
"Do you leave it to me?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with suppressed fire.
"I do," he answered, half seriously; half in jest.
"Then eliminate him, and his dupes, at once," she answered, with great seriousness.
"It is hard for me to do that of my own volition," he replied. "He is so fortified with friends on the board of directorate that they must all be taken into consideration."
"Will they not see the necessity of his removal, when apprised of the facts?" she asked.
"They may; but he is so strongly entrenched that his removal would be almost disastrous to me."
"How, papa? How?" she asked, now quickly perceiving a new gleam of the entangling meshes of business associates.
"By turning them against me, if the story should turn out to be false," he answered, reflectively. "But I shall lay it before them at once and investigate."
"In the event that you should remove him, would you bring Mr. Winthrope to your office?" asked Edith, and a tiny flush suffused her cheeks.
"No; Mr. Winthrope must remain in New York," unthinking of the effect his answer might have on his daughter.
Edith turned a little pale at this response, and her hand trembled in his.
"Why, Edith, are you so much interested in him that you want him to be ever present?" asked the father, noting the tremor of her hand.
"Oh, no, papa—not that much—yes—what am I saying, papa—I don't know," she replied, excitedly, turning her head at the sound of her mother approaching, which seemed to have been prearranged at that moment; but, of course, was not. Mrs. Jarney left, after seeing the interview was private.
"It appears to me, Edith, that you are acting strangely about this matter," said her father, beginning to be enlightened.
"Papa, I—I—love him," she whispered in his ear, as she put her cheek up to his to hide the blushes in her face, and to conceal his own countenance which she expected to see turn into a frown upon her at this unexpected answer. "Papa, you will forgive me, won't you?—yes, you will. It is my heart, dear papa—I cannot help it—do forgive me?" she went on, with her eyes filled with tears of happiness and weakness and misery over her uncontrollable feelings.
"Let me see your face, Edith?" said her father, making an effort to turn his head, which she held pressed to her own.
"No, no; I won't papa, till you say you will forgive me," she answered, kissing him.
"To keep peace, Edith, I will forgive you; let me see your face?"
"There!" she exclaimed, suddenly releasing him, and standing off, with tear stains marking through her flushes, and her hair tousled by the performance.
"I believe you," he said, beholding her in a state of mixed emotions; "but I am not yet ready to approve of your selection."
Her heart sank at this answer, and she sank to the floor by his side. Throwing one arm over his knee, and her head upon her arm, she burst into a fit of passionate grief that shook her frame.
"My dear Edith," said he, placing his hand on her head, grieved himself by her outburst of new affliction, "you cause me grief. I would not hurt your dear little heart for anything. Now, come, explain to me fully what that heart of yours tells you?"
She arose, half laughing, half crying, almost hysterically discomposed, rubbing her tears away, as she smiled through them rolling down her face.
"I feel ashamed, papa, for being so weak; but I cannot help it," she said, sitting down on his knee, and throwing her head upon his shoulder and one arm around his neck.
"Well! Edith. I am in sympathy with you," said he; "but you gave me a severe shock being so plainly spoken about such an affair of the heart. Does he suspect it of you?"
"I do not think so, papa—but, papa, he told Star that he loved me, and told her not to tell—and, goosey that she is, she told me, and caused me more—because he said he could not expect to ever meet me on the same level; and that is all I have against him—"
"Well! Of all things I ever heard of," said the father. "I had not been inclined to interfere with you, Edith, in such affairs; but I—" he hesitated. "You make your choice, but be careful, child; be careful."
"Don't you think he is good, papa?" she asked.
"Very good—fine—perfect, Edith! I should not disfavor him; but he must love you for your own dear self before I shall ever give my consent."
"He may never find it out, papa," she said, drearily; "and if he does not, I shall never let him know, and shall go through the world alone."
"That is noble in you, Edith," said her father, kissing her. "It is time for me to go," he said, as she released him.
On arriving at his office, Mr. Jarney was informed that Mr. Monroe had quietly taken himself off that morning for New York. He was further informed that Mr. Monroe had been requested to make the trip by certain members of the Board of Directors; and further, that he was entrusted with a large sum of money, in the form of drafts, made payable to the order of the treasurer of the company at the Broadway office. When this news was flashed upon Mr. Jarney, there seemed to penetrate his tractable mind, like a thunderbolt, the concatenating links of a plot, too realistic to be waived aside; which he was prone to do, when Edith gave him her story that morning.
Side by side with the facts concerning Monroe's leave-taking and purpose, he also learned that the genteel ghost had taken with him certain office books and papers, to be used in checking over accounts while auditing the books of the branch office. This was not in accordance with precedence, and proved another corroborative circumstance in the duplicity of the culpable Monroe.
Putting all these correlated facts together, Mr. Jarney, after due deliberation, and after duely weighing them all as incriminating integral parts, and after combining them with the main story of the plot, arrived at the inevitable conclusion that Monroe was up to some deviltry that should be probed to the bottom. He, therefore, called a meeting of the Board of Directors, and put the whole question, in all its phases, before that body. It was almost noon when the board met. They must act without going through the circumlocution of formal discussion and the entanglements of red tape, he told them. Some of the members were for postponing the meeting till the next day, to await a telegram from New York, so great was their faith in Monroe's honor. Monroe, they said, would be in the metropolis on the morrow. The procrastinating members prevailed in their vote on the question, and adjournment was had till the next day.
But Mr. Jarney was not disconcerted, nor did he allow himself to be wholly blocked in his plan of action. So as soon as the board had arrived at the decision to go slow, he took it upon himself, knowing the shrewdness of John Winthrope, to send him a private wire, addressed personally, briefly saying:
"Beware of Monroe; I will be there tomorrow afternoon, if possible."
Dispatching this message, Mr. Jarney returned home, related to Edith what he had discovered as confirmatory evidence against Monroe, got ready, and left on the next train for the seat of trouble.
Edith, from the morning of her conversation with her father to the time she received a wire from him, went through a siege of terrible mental conflicts. She confided in no one, at first, not even Star, the cause of her father's sudden call to New York. She was in a highly nervous fright throughout the hours that seemed never to pass between his going and the receipt of the telegram. Her flights of fancy went to unreasonable complications for the doomed young man in the New York office. She thought she must rescue him at all odds to her health. Had she been in a condition physically able to bear the journey, she would have gone alone, if need be; or with her father, if permitted; but as it was, she remained in her prison like an unwilling subject in a sanitorium. Thus exhibiting an excitable demeanor in her actions, her mother and Star made futile attempts to draw from her the cause of her fervid agitation. Still strung to a high tension of determination, still overcome with an uncommon fear, still anxious and studiously meditating over the eventualities that might come to pass before her father should reach his destination, she wandered about the house in uncontrollable perturbation, sticking tenaciously to her secret.