Chapter VIII
Emmons stopped at the Lee house the next morning on his way to the train. Vickers, fortunately, had already left. Emmons came in reality to explain, but like so many of us, he made the mistake of thinking that his explanation would be strengthened by a little reproach.
“Well,” he said, “I came to find out whether you got home safely. I was really alarmed, Nellie, when I heard you had been at the fire after all. I don’t at all like the idea of your running about the country by yourself after nightfall.”
“I don’t think there was much danger, James.”
“You don’t? Let me tell you we are allvery much afraid something dreadful happened after the fire. Several of us heard hideous screams in the direction of Simm’s woods.”
“What did you do?”
“We went there, of course, but we could not find anything. They ceased in as mysterious a way as they began. Some of the men went out at sunrise to-day to search the woods. I have not heard whether they found anything. But you will see the folly of imagining a place safe just because you have always lived there. I have been anxious all night. I kept imagining it might be you——”
“Bob took me home,” she answered quickly.
“Well, as long as you’re safe that’s all I care about. I just stopped in,” he ended, moving slowly down the steps, but at the foot he could not resist adding:
“I suppose you saw that grandstand play of your cousin’s?”
“Yes.”
“And whatdidyou think of it?”
He looked at her insisting on an answer, and after a moment got it:
“I thought, James, that you would never have done anything so foolish.”
“I most certainly would not,” he returned; and he had walked as far as the corner before it struck him that as an answer it was not entirely satisfactory, but it seemed too late to go back.
Later in the morning she had a visit from Louisa Overton, who drove over from her own house, in her umbrella-topped phaeton with the bay cobs which her father had so carefully selected for her. She came, as she explained, to welcome her dear Nellie, but her dear Nellie noted with uneasiness the unusual promptitude of the visit. There couldnot, of course, be the smallest chance of seeing Bob at that hour, but Nellie’s heart sank as she observed how often her cousin’s name was introduced into the conversation. It seemed to grow up spontaneously like a weed, and yet Nellie was sufficiently experienced in the peculiarities of her own sex to know it was a danger-signal. She wondered if the time had come for delivering the warning against her cousin which Emmons had advocated. She felt strangely adverse to delivering it.
She tried a new mode of attack as the girl rose to go, after a final comment on Vickers’s conduct at the fire.
“Upon my word, Louisa,” she said good-temperedly, “Bob seems to have made a most flattering impression on you.”
Miss Overton smiled. “He is a charming person,” she answered. “Apropos, Mrs. Raikes says that the three best things in theworld are a good novel, a muskmelon, and a handsome cousin.”
“She has not the last, I am sure, or she would have learned to value it less highly,” Nellie returned.
Miss Overton did not immediately answer. They had walked to the front door, and as she climbed into her trap, she observed that it was warm.
Nellie put up her hand to her face. It was warm. She hoped her own heightened color had not suggested Louisa’s remark.
The heat, she could see, wore on her uncle. He looked older and frailer than ever. Even Vickers showed it after three almost sleepless nights; and Emmons’s temper, she thought, was not quite as smooth as usual. He scolded her about Overton’s manner to Bob. The great man had actually sought him out in the train and had been seen walking along the platform with a hand through his arm. Emmonsthought it a mistake to show approval of such a person as Bob.
“Really, I think you are a little too severe, James,” she answered; and all she could say for herself was that she showed less irritation than she felt. “It seems hard if, as long as Bob is behaving well, he should be denied all human companionship.”
“Oh, if you consider that Bob is entirely rehabilitated by two or three weeks without actual crime——”
Nellie turned away. She thought the heat was affecting her temper, too. Mr. Lee’s slavish devotion and Emmons’s continual criticism of her cousin alike angered her. She found herself wondering whether James were not rather a trying employer—whether he did not take it out of Bob down town. For the first time she felt a little sorry for her cousin. At least he never complained.
He did not complain, but a steady contemptfor Emmons grew in his mind—a contempt which would have been hatred, if he had really been as bound down as Emmons thought him. As it was, he still played daily with the idea of flight. Certainly, he told himself, he would wait no longer than to get the farm on its feet under a new farmer.
To make the situation more trying his friendship with Overton had not been without results. He and the great man had had several long talks over the farm and the condition of Mr. Lee’s affairs. Overton had been impressed. The morning after Louisa’s visit to Nellie, he had offered Vickers a position of some importance. The offer gave Vickers satisfaction. As the Lees’ lawyer, Mr. Overton must know all about Bob Lee’s past. Vickers felt that at last his own individuality had overcome Bob’s. Nevertheless he had declined. The position would have taken him to another city. He saw that Overton waspuzzled and not very much pleased at his refusal.
“If the difficulty is with your father,” he said gently, “I think I could arrange that for you.”
Vickers said that it was not with his father, and Overton said no more. Vickers was sorry to see that he had lost ground.
He came up by a later train than usual. He felt put out with life and with himself, and stood frowning on the station platform looking for the trap that would take him to the house, when suddenly he saw that not the coachman, but Nellie, was driving it. For an instant his heart bounded. He looked round to see if Emmons were there, too. But few people patronized the late train. He was alone on the platform when Nellie drew up beside it.
“If any one had asked me in the train,” he said, “what was the most unlikely thingin the world, I should have answered ‘that Nellie should come and meet me.’”
To his surprise she assented quite gravely. “I wanted to see you before you went home. There is a man at the house asking for you.”
“What sort of a man?”
“A very queer-looking man, Bob,—an old man. He speaks very little English, and has very dangerous-looking eyes.”
“What’s his name?” said Vickers. He had begun to be nervous about Lee’s past. He could not tell what was about to overtake him.
“He won’t give his name. He just bows, and says to tell you a gentleman. He keeps calling you Don Luis, and then correcting himself and saying Meester Bob Lee.”
“The deuce,” said Vickers. He thought for a moment that the Señor Don Papa and the lovely Rosita had found him out. “Is he old?” he asked.
“Yes,—middle-aged, or more.” Then seeinghis obvious anxiety, Nellie went on quickly: “And so I thought, Bob, if it were anything very bad—I mean if you did not want to see him, that you might go on to Mr. Overton’s, and I would tell him you had gone away.”
“Tell a lie, Nellie?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid and irritating, Bob. My uncle has not been well lately. He could not bear anything more. It is of him I am thinking. It would be too terrible, if, if——”
“If they jugged me at last. Well, I don’t think that they will.”
His light-heartedness did not entirely relieve her mind, and at their own gate she stopped again.
“Do be careful. Think before you go in, Bob,” she said; and then, seeing him smiling, she added, “Oh, I almost wish you had never come back at all!”
“What!” he cried, “am I more troublethan the two hundred dollars a month is worth?”
“Yes,” she answered crossly.
“Perhaps if you will tell that to Emmons, he will raise my salary.”
She was not at all amused. “Bob,” she said as she drew up before the door, “don’t go in. I really do not feel as if I could bear another scandal. Don’t be foolhardy. This man is terribly mysterious.”
“Why, you excite my curiosity,” he said, and gently putting her out of his path, he went into the house ahead of her and found himself confronted by Doctor Nuñez.
The ensuing conference was long. Dinner came and went; but still Vickers was shut up in the little library with his strange visitor. Mr. Lee had gone to bed, Emmons had long since arrived, but hisfiancéegave him but a strained attention. She sat listening for the opening of the library door. If the voiceswithin were raised enough to become audible, she thought that a quarrel was in progress; if they sank, the silence terrified her more.
“Now some people like a straight southerly exposure,” Emmons was saying, “but give me a southwesterly. You get the sun in——”
Nellie suddenly stood up. “What can they be doing?” she said. “That queer-looking man has been here over three hours.”
“Up to no good, the two of them, I have no doubt,” said Emmons, and added, “I hope you don’t keep much money in the house.”
She turned on him sharply. “How absurd you are, James. You can’t suppose—” but she was cut short by the opening of the library door, and the sound of the two men’s voices, as they crossed the hall.
“Do you know any Spanish, James?” she asked quickly.
Emmons shook his head.
“I speak no language but my own,” he answered proudly.
As the front door shut, Nellie left him unceremoniously, and went out to the front piazza, where Vickers was standing after having said good-by to his visitor. His head was bent and his hands were in his pockets.
Nellie came and stood silently beside him. She was conscious of being nervous. She could feel her heart beating. She felt that something important had happened. They stood like this for several seconds, and then fearing that Emmons would join them before she had heard, Nellie said:
“Bob?”
The monosyllable was plainly a question, but he did not answer it. He merely took her hand and drew it within his arm and continued to stare meditatively at the boards at his feet.
Driven to desperation by the thought of the shortness of her time, Nellie at length asked:
“Was it very serious?”
He looked at her.
“Pretty serious, Nellie.”
She felt frightened.
“I don’t want to be too curious, but you must tell me. Are you in danger?”
“I am in danger,” he answered, “of the only thing which at the moment I fear. I am in danger of having to leave you.”
She withdrew her hand quickly, and stepped back. He made no effort to detain her.
“Yes,” he said, “go back to Emmons, or we shall have him ramping out here to know what the matter is. I am going up to the Overtons’.”
Nellie turned and went into the house.
Emmons was sitting with his elbows on his knees, tapping his feet up and down so asto give a rocking motion to his whole body. He did not like being left alone.
“And where is Bob?” he asked.
“Gone out,” and Nellie added more candidly: “Gone to the Overtons’.”
“Oh, of course, naturally,” retorted Emmons. “And may I ask who his visitor was?”
“He did not tell me.”
“He has gone, I suppose, to confide it to Louisa Overton.”
Nellie looked at him quickly. She had not phrased the notion quite so clearly to herself, and yet it had been there. Bob had never mentioned Louisa Overton’s name, and yet his cousin could not be ignorant that he was at the Overtons’ house almost every day. She glanced at James. Would any one turn to James in a crisis? She thought all this before she became aware that he was saying:
“I think we shall have to inquire intothis a little more. There is something behind these constant visits to the Overtons’, if I am not very much mistaken. Why a clever man like Balby Overton allows it, is more than I can see. Is it possible that Miss Louisa can have taken a fancy to him? Is it possible that any decent girl could take a fancy to him?”
There was a long pause. Perhaps Nellie was not listening, for he had to repeat his question before he got an answer.
“Very possible, I should think.”
The answer did not please Emmons.
“Well, not so very possible,” he said contemptuously. “I am afraid the kind of man he is sticks out plainly enough. Inexperienced as she is, I fancy she can see his game—an heiress and so young. I should feel responsible if anything happened, unless I had said a word to Overton. Oh, yes, I know. Yousupposethat he knows all about Bob’s record,but in a case as serious as this we have no right to suppose. It is somebody’s duty to speak plainly, and if you won’t do it, why, I will.”
“I am the person to do it, if it must be done,” said Nellie.
“I am not so sure of that. There are very pertinent little incidents in your cousin’s past which I hope you don’t know, but which you certainly could not repeat.”
“I know quite enough, I’m afraid,” she answered, with a sigh.
“Oh, well, don’t sigh over it,” said Emmons. “If you feel so badly about it, I’ll go myself.”
“No,” she returned firmly, “I will see Mr. Overton to-morrow. I promise you I will, James.”
There was a short pause.
“Now about that bay-window,” Emmons began; but glancing at his betrothed he wassurprised to observe tears in her eyes. She rose to her feet.
“Suppose you go home, James,” she said not unkindly. “I feel tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”
“I can see that blackguard worries you,” said Emmons; but he obeyed.
Yet strangely enough after his departure she did not go to bed, but sat on in the little parlor trying to read. But her chin was often raised from her book to listen for footsteps. At eleven she went upstairs, but she was still awake when after midnight she heard Vickers return.