CHAPTER XXIXTHE FINAL DILEMMAI do not suppose Mr. Crockett desired to be unnecessarily cruel. Doubtless he would have preferred to break his devastating news more gently. But he was himself in a state of nervous exhaustion from fatigue, worry, and perhaps remorse, and the circle of anxious faces had proved too much for his self-control.Realising too late the brutal bluntness of his announcement, he broke into a hurried flow of words:"We took him from the hotel this morning to St. John's Hospital. We thought he would be just as well off there--even better off. Dr. Hobart thought he was nearly well anyway. But the ride and the effort of listening to Hobart's explanations apparently fatigued him. By the time they got to the hospital he was very sick again. His bronchitis--if it ever was bronchitis--turned into pneumonia--double acute pneumonia. He got worse and worse all day. Dr. Hobart and the physicians and nurses at the hospital did everything possible for him. But it was no use. He died at nine o'clock."All eyes turned suddenly to Aunt Mary, who had risen, holding on to the back of her chair.Father Murray was at her side in an instant, and Alicia hurried to her."No," said Aunt Mary, brokenly, "I'm not going--to faint--or anything. But I want--to be alone."Rockwell sprang to his feet. "My bedroom," he said, and led the way to the door of his chamber, which opened off the sitting room.In a moment Aunt Mary, walking between Father Murray and Alicia, had passed into the bedroom.Mr. Wayward's voice broke the stillness."Poor fellow!" he said.For a minute or two they all paid the tribute of silence to the dead. But it was impossible to be really very sorry for George Norman. He had had an easy, pleasure-filled life--wealth, luxury, fame, and a good time, according to his own conception of a good time, up to the very beginning of his brief illness. That his last few, largely unconscious hours had been passed in a hospital away from his friends had certainly been almost no grief to him. The only sorrow genuinely possible was over the common folly, and the universal final tragedy, of humankind. In a few moments the thoughts of the entire group that remained in Rockwell's sitting room were irresistibly drawn back to the strange and somewhat dangerous situation in which the unexpected death had left them.Presently Rockwell spoke:"Technically, Mr. Crockett, I suppose it is not Senator Norman but Mr. Merriam who died at St. John's Hospital."(Merriam was somewhat startled at this turn of thought; this phase of the matter had not yet occurred to him.)"You have made no announcement?" Rockwell asked."No," said Crockett. "I have done nothing. When Hobart telephoned me that--what had happened, I rushed out to the hospital again--I don't know why. I couldn't believe it. Then I telephoned from the hospital to the De Soto and got Mrs. Norman, and she told me you were all here, so I came here. I have done nothing."While he was speaking Alicia and Father Murray returned from the bedroom."She is all right," said Alicia. "She asked us to leave her alone for a few minutes. Did you tell Mrs. Norman?" she added, addressing Crockett."What had happened? Yes," said Crockett.Merriam's thoughts flew to Mollie June, alone in the vast, heartless hotel with the news of her husband's death."Ought not some one to go to her?" he asked."Presently," said Rockwell. "We must first consider the situation a little--hers as well as ours."Mayor Black spoke up:"It will be pretty awkward for her--aside from natural grief and all that--that her husband should have died in a hospital under another name without her being present, while the man to whom the other name belongs was impersonating him in public. And awkward for Miss Norman. For the rest of us, too. Damned awkward!""It is a hard thing to have to close the career of George Norman with such a story," said Mr. Wayward."It must never happen!" said a voice behind them.They all turned. Aunt Mary was standing in the door of the bedroom. She already looked more like herself. She was one of those souls who may sink under passive anxiety and suspense but find themselves again immediately when a call for action comes. She had scarcely been left alone, apparently, when the same thought which the Mayor and Mr. Wayward had expressed had occurred to her--the peril to the name of Norman, which was perhaps even more dear to her than her brother himself had been. And instantly, by some powerful effort of will, she had put grief behind her and turned to face this new danger."It must never happen," she repeated, advancing into the room, where Alicia, and the men too, unmindful of the etiquette which should have brought them to their feet, sat staring at her. "The secret must be kept. It is more important now than ever. With George alive, it would not have mattered so much. He would have lived it down triumphantly. Only the rest of us would have suffered--not he, nor the Name. But now--it must be kept!""But howcanit be kept?" said Crockett, in a tone of desperation.For a moment no one spoke.Then Rockwell, looking from face to face, drew a deep breath."There is just one way," he said. "It was John Merriam who died. Senator Norman is alive." He waved his hand at Merriam. "He must go on living!""But that is impossible," said Mayor Black and Merriam together."Face the alternative first," said Rockwell. "George--the real George--was admitted to the hospital about nine o'clock this morning. At that same hour Senator Norman was making a speech at Cairo before an audience representing the entire county. That is known all over the State. He took the next train back to Chicago. But that train did not reach Chicago until after--after the death.""We could have the hour of the death changed on the records," proposed Mr. Wayward. "It is already announced all over the State that Senator Norman is ill again. He could be rushed from the train to the hospital and die there during the night.""Then we should have two deaths on our hands," said Rockwell, "and only one body. Unless we bring Merriam to life again. How are we to do that? It is pretty hard to get hospital authorities to falsify their records. And dozens of people must know the supposed facts--nurses, doctors, clerks at the hospital. We could never keep them all from talking. The reporters would get hold of it within twenty-four hours. No, Senator Norman cannot have died at the hospital. He is alive. He must go on living!""Can't he die at the hotel--to-night or to-morrow?" said Merriam."Then what becomes of you?" asked Rockwell."Why, I should go back to Riceville.""You can't. You're dead! And how can Senator Norman die at the hotel when we should not be able to produce his body there?""We could get the body," said Mr. Wayward, speaking in a lowered tone. "As Mr. Merriam's friends we would take his body away from the hospital to be buried and bring it to the hotel.""We shall have to send for the real Merriam's friends," said Rockwell. "From Riceville and--wherever your people live." He looked at Merriam. "We should have no body to show them. We could bury a loaded casket. But why should we, who must be strangers to him from their point of view, have been in such a hurry when they could get here in a few hours? Probably they would want to take his body elsewhere for burial. Very likely they would have the coffin we had buried raised and opened. And how could we get a dead body into the Hotel De Soto? Up a fire escape?"In the earnestness of his argument Rockwell evidently did not realise the gruesomeness of his language.Aunt Mary shuddered."No!" she said. "I will not have George's body smuggled about the city."She paused, looking strangely at Merriam. None of the others, not even Rockwell, ventured to speak."Alicia told me, I believe, that you have no near relatives?" she said presently."None nearer than cousins," Merriam replied.For a long minute more Aunt Mary stared at him. She closed her eyes, opened them, and looked again. Then her lips shut tight for a moment in an expression of momentous decision. She leaned forward."You have the Norman blood in you," she said to Merriam, "on your mother's side. You are fine stuff. We have all seen that. We will make a Norman of you, if you will. You shall take George's place--to save his name!""But----" Merriam began.But Rockwell cut in:"It's absolutely the only way," he cried. "The only other alternative is to let the whole story come out.""Then that's what we have to do," said Mr. Wayward. "Make a clean breast of it.""No!" said Aunt Mary."No!" echoed Rockwell. "Think what that means--to George's memory, first of all. That in his last hours his relatives and friends were conspiring against him, with the help of a stranger double, to force him to abandon the kind of life he was leading and the disreputable interests with which he was associated.--I beg your pardon, Mr. Crockett!"Crockett waved a feeble hand to indicate forgiveness or indifference."And then to Mollie June," Rockwell continued. "That she had connived at the impersonation of her husband during his last illness by another man. How far did that other man take her husband's place, will be the question every man and woman in the State will ask. And all the rest of us. Aunt Mary. And Mr. Merriam, who will lose his job and his professional standing. And the Mayor and myself, who will be ruined politically and every other way. Even you, Mr. Wayward, would find yourself in an exceedingly unpleasant situation. And Mr. Crockett, on the other side, would be no better off. For the story of the kidnapping must come out."The wilted financier uttered a sort of groan."But can the other thing be done?" asked the Mayor, the perspiration of mental anguish showing on his forehead."Certainly it can," said, Rockwell eagerly. "Senator Norman has come back to Chicago. Here he is. Presently he will arrive at the hotel. He will be pretty sick. You and I"--he looked at Mr. Wayward--"will support him to the elevator and to his rooms. He will be ill for several days. We must get hold of Hobart again to attend him. Then we will announce that he is threatened with tuberculosis and is to retire from public life. He must resign his seat in the Senate. We daren't go ahead with that. It would be too dangerous--and too serious a fraud besides." (Evidently there was some limit to a Reformer's unscrupulousness.) "He will go to his ranch in Colorado to recuperate. You will actually go." He was addressing Merriam now. "You must live there for a year or so. During that time only a few of Norman's private friends will visit you. We will coach you up on these a few at a time. If any of them notice any slight changes in you, they will lay it to your illness. You will easily take your place in the whole circle of his private life.""But the property," said Mr. Wayward. "The Norman fortune.""Reverts to me and Mollie June," said Aunt Mary, who was evidently heart and soul with Rockwell. "If we are satisfied----"She stopped. The mention of Mollie June had recalled a phase of the situation which Rockwell and the Mayor and even Mr. Wayward had apparently forgotten--so little are men accustomed to consider their women folk when the real game of business or politics is on. Merriam and Alicia had not forgotten it, but had not been able so far to get a word in. As for Aunt Mary I cannot say--she was so near to being a man herself."Mollie June!" repeated Rockwell aghast."Exactly," said Merriam, somewhat bitterly. Him, too, Rockwell had been treating pretty much as a lifeless pawn in the game.But Aunt Mary, when roused, was equal to anything."We shall manage that," she said. "I will go to Colorado with Mr. Merriam. Mollie June can return to her father for a time. We can arrange a separation--or----"Even Aunt Mary hesitated. But Alicia took the cue."Or they can be married--or remarried," she said, fixing her bright eyes, with a gleam of mischievous understanding in them, on Merriam.The argument had come to a full stop. The whole roomful sat looking at Merriam, who tried to think and found he could not, except that he realised that all the rest had tacitly accepted Rockwell's plan."Come!" said Alicia vivaciously. "It isn't so bad, is it? The Norman fortune and--Mollie June!"Bad! The prospect was so dazzling to Merriam that he could not take his mind off it in order to think calmly. To die to his old self--to his poverty and loneliness, to his teaching with which he had long been bored,--and to step as if by magic into a new life with wealth, leisure--and Mollie June! For surely she loved him, and she had not loved George Norman. She would marry him--after an interval, of course."I must think," he said, weakly, in response to Alicia's exhortation."Of course you must," said Rockwell. "You must accustom your mind to it. But it will all be perfectly easy. You were brought up on a farm, weren't you? You will take to the ranch life like anything. It's mostly stock-raising. You can go in for scientific farming. After a few months it would probably be a good thing for you to travel, perhaps for a year or two--especially if you and Mollie June should marry. Get out of the country, so as to leave Norman's old life entirely behind you for a while. You might take a trip around the world."Merriam's youthful heart bounded in spite of himself. A trip around the world with Mollie June!"As to your old self," Rockwell continued, "that's quite simple, too. Norman was entered at the hospital under your name. A death certificate must have been given by now." He looked at Crockett."I don't know," said Crockett. "Hobart may have held off on that.""At any rate it can be. In fact, it will have to be. Hobart shall telegraph to Riceville and to your cousins, wherever they are. He was the house physician at the De Soto where you took sick. That was how he came to be attending you. When you got bad he took you to the hospital. Nothing more natural. The rest of us will not need to appear at all.""Aunt Mary will have to appear," said Alicia. "She will want to attend the funeral.""She became acquainted with you at the hotel, then," said Rockwell. "Took an interest in a young man who was alone and ill. When your relatives and friends come Hobart will have the body already laid out in a casket. He can advise immediate burial here in the city. Aunt Mary can offer a lot in the Norman plot at Lakewood. Would your cousins probably consent to that?""Very likely," said Merriam, rather in a daze. It was confusing to be discussing the details of one's own interment."Then everything will follow in regular course," said Rockwell, speaking as if all difficulties were solved. "George will be buried with his family, and you can start for Colorado."For a second time the talk came to a full stop. The new plan was outlined in full. It remained only to decide upon it or to reject it and face the alternative of a public confession. All of them except Merriam had already accepted the scheme, apparently, gruesome and bizarre as it was. It was for all the rest so much the easiest way and the most advantageous. But it did not require any of them to die--to die to his own self, his friends, his very name. On the other hand it did not offer them any such positive rewards as were proffered to Merriam--a fortune and love. We can hardly wonder that he was somewhat stupefied by the alternatives that beat upon his mind. The loss of all that up to this point in his life had been his identity versus Mollie June--that was the essence of the struggle within him.He sat beside Rockwell's table, staring at the now silent percolator, trying to think but able only to feel. The others were looking uneasily at him and at one another. Aunt Mary's eyes and Alicia's demanded of Rockwell, who had always managed everything, that he should manage this too. Once he started to speak, but gave it up and looked appealingly at Alicia instead. Indeed he might justifiably feel that this was Alicia's job. She acknowledged as much in her own mind and was trying to decide what to do or say, when the one person present who had not spoken throughout the entire scene came to the rescue.Through all their long discussion Simpson had stood unobtrusive and unnoticed in the background, but he had followed every word. For his fortunes too, humble, indeed, but sufficiently important to him, were bound up in this decision. If the deception was to be continued, his assistance, in the matter of silence at least, would be necessary, and he could expect a large--honorarium; if it came to a public confession, he could still expect something, but probably a good deal less; and to win and hold Jennie he needed a considerable sum of money.So now he advanced a step and spoke:"Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Merriam, to take you to the hotel?""Of course!" cried Alicia, jumping up. "You must go and see Mollie June. It all depends now upon her."The others too stirred and expressed more or less audible acquiescence, and Simpson had his reward in the shape of approving glances from Rockwell and Mr. Wayward.Merriam got to his feet with the other men because Alicia had risen. He was not so obtuse nor so much dazed that he did not see what they were doing. They were trying to rush him. They calculated that though Mollie June in the abstract might contend indecisively with other abstract considerations, Mollie June in the flesh would decide him in the twinkling of an eye. He saw that plainly enough. Nevertheless, for his part it did now depend altogether upon Mollie June. If he was to do this thing--to abandon his old self and enter upon what must be in some degree a lifelong career of deception,--it would be for her sake--not only in order to win her sooner, years sooner, than he could otherwise have the slightest hope of doing, but to save her from scandal, and because she loved him and wanted him too at once (comparatively speaking) as he wanted her.So his decision was made almost as soon as he was on his feet. He looked with some dignity from one waiting face to another about the circle."Yes," he said quietly, "it does depend on her. You may call a taxi, Simpson."CHAPTER XXXMOLLIE JUNEAlmost before Merriam's brief sentence was out of his mouth Simpson had started for the telephone. But Mayor Black spoke up:"My car and chauffeur are below. We came up from the hotel in it. You can use it.""You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell, again taking command. "You see her first," he continued. "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in 'Mr. Wilson's' room. When you have explained the general situation you can call him in and leave them together and--give him his chance."Even at this moment it was a slight shock to Merriam to realise that the state of feeling between himself and Mollie June, which they had supposed completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by the others--or at least, he thought swiftly, by Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia. He smiled a little cynically to himself as he understood that they had been willing to use this interest of his as a motive in securing his easy acquiescence in their previous schemes. Evidently they were counting on it in Mollie June too. That gave him a thrill of hope which made him forget his cynicism.Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about her, and Rockwell had got Merriam's hat and his own.Merriam found Alicia by his side. She held out her hand, and when he took it she squeezed his fingers in the way she had and said significantly, with all of a woman's interest in a romance:"Good luck!""Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering smile was again a little cynical.Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and waved his hand to the others, with some amusement at the anxious looks with which they were regarding him. Even Simpson's countenance was perturbed!Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street with them and put them in the limousine. The Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the hotel and then to return for himself and the others. Rockwell spoke to Aunt Mary:"You put the essential facts before her and then leave them--leave Mr. Merriam to do the rest!"And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement that is commonly supposed to belong to the middle-aged and old but is really most characteristic of those who are under thirty.Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give him too a parting exhortation, but hesitated, checked perhaps by the younger man's expression, and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"They had started, and Merriam tried to think. His whole life turned in a very peculiar sense on the events of the next hour--whether he should continue to be himself or take up the life of another man. He got that far. But what he should say to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted to say to her--he could not get on with it. The mood of youthful cynicism was by no means the right mood for the business in hand.And then--too soon for him now--they were at the hotel.So little had he been able to think clearly that it was not until he was helping Aunt Mary out of the machine that he realised that in entering the hotel with her again this way, in the character of the dead Senator, he was already in effect consenting to Rockwell's plan and binding its consequences upon himself and Mollie June.He had a wild idea of getting back into the limousine and driving away and later entering the hotel via the fire escape again. But Aunt Mary was already on the pavement.As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about to see whether he was noticed and recognised as the Senator. He was. At least three men whom he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and one of them took a step forward as if to approach them. But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam asked for the key, explaining casually that "Mr. Wilson" was a friend.In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt Mary to the door of her sitting room--Senator Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.His first act there was to call up the hotel florist--as he had done once before on this same telephone. But this time Merriam's order was for roses, to be sent up at once.He hung up the receiver and walked nervously about the room.Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June? Aunt Mary was being terribly long about her explanation. Had Mollie June broken down under her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely from anxiety and conflicting emotions? Was she refusing to see him? Was she ill?He jumped up and walked back and forth in his nervousness, watching the door to the other bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt Mary's summons.A knock at last! But it was at the wrong door, the hall door. In a sort of hesitating amazement he went to answer it. It was the boy with the roses. He had forgotten ordering them.He signed for the flowers and brought them into the room and took them out of their box and tissue paper. They were lovely--the most exquisite colour, between pink and red, that has no name but that of the flower itself--pink and red harmonised in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie June's flowers without a doubt.But had he done well in ordering them? Was this a time for lover-like gifts? Should he not have got white roses, such as one sends to a funeral?And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt Mary's knock at the bedroom door.He started as if caught in a guilty action and thrust the flowers back into their box before he went to open to her."How is she?"But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he led her to a chair.Then, "How is she?" he repeated. He could not wait."She is very quiet.""You told her the--the plan?""Yes.""She understood it?""I think so.""Am I to go to her?""I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh. "Mr. Rockwell said----" She stopped.Merriam showed her the roses."Should I take these to her?"Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers."I think perhaps you might," she said, and then sat staring out across the fire escape.She looked so very miserable that Merriam impulsively patted her shoulder. She glanced up quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the window again. He could not read her look, but he was not sorry he had betrayed his affectionate sympathy. If he was to be her brother for the rest of their lives----After a moment more of hesitation he picked up the flowers and passed through the former sick room to the sitting room.Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed chair by the window, looking out. But Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw nothing. She had merely turned automatically towards the light, as all but the old or the self-conscious tend to do. As Aunt Mary had said she was very quiet. Her back was of course towards the room and Merriam.He waited for a moment just inside the door, looking at her, forgetting the flowers in his hands. He was sorry for her and very uncertain what he ought to do. Then he became a little frightened, because she sat so still. She gave no sign of having heard him.With conscious effort, because he must do something, he crossed the room till he stood beside her. Still she did not turn her eyes from the window.He stood looking down at her. She was a pathetic figure as she sat there--the more pathetic, to the eyes of youth at least, because she was so lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little pale and heavy-eyed. He saw dark shadows under her eyes which must have come from tears.The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his hesitations in pitying love. He dropped on his knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand on the back of her chair."Mollie June!" he said.She did not start. Evidently she had known he was there. She looked first at the flowers on the floor and then at his face."I am so sorry," he cried."Are you sorry or glad?" she asked."I am terribly sorry for you," he answered. Her hands lay together in her lap, and he attempted to take one of them.But she moved them slightly."Don't," she said."Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June," he cried."How can I help it?" she answered. "I am strange to myself too. You see, I am glad! I am sorry for George," she went on quickly. "It is terrible to me that he is dead. But I am so glad I do not have to be his wife any more!"Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim notion came to Merriam of what it must mean to a girl to be connubially in the power of a man she does not love. He pitied and loved her greatly. Also he marvelled. How had she come through it all so fresh and unchanged? The answer, of course, was youth. But youth could not know the answer."I am glad too," he said.Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested on the roses on the floor, came back to his face."You are glad I have to marry you.""But you don't!""You know I do."Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put the thing fairly before her. In Aunt Mary's mind it was settled. The course of action which promised to save the precious Norman name from scandal was the only possible course of action. She had so represented it to Mollie June."No, no!" Merriam cried. "You shall not be forced into this. You shall never be forced in anything again if I can help it. I will not be forced myself--even to marry you.""What else can we do?" asked Mollie June, searching his face."It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly. "Not easy, but simple. I will write a brief, plain account of the whole affair--the impersonation--from beginning to end, and send for a reporter and give it to him. That will end everything. I will sit down now at that desk and write it and call for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me not to.""Would you do that?""Indeed I will!"He rose to his feet. He meant it, and she saw that he meant it. To be forced in this thing was, in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than to hers.Standing, he saw the roses at his feet. He stooped and picked them up and handed them to her."You'll let me give you these?" he said, his manner more determined than lover-like. "I saw them from the elevator as I was coming up here with Aunt Mary. They were so like you that I could not help buying them and bringing them to you."She accepted them passively, looking up at him. Perhaps she liked him determined rather than lover-like."I am not giving you up," he went on gravely. "But you will go away somewhere with Aunt Mary, and I will go back to Riceville. I have my contract for the rest of this year at least. And if you will wait a few years--you will want to wait and rest a while,--I will come back and win you in my own right."She did not answer but looked up at him, still searching his face.For a moment he stood regarding her. That image of her as she sat there with the flowers in her lap and her uplifted face and questioning eyes, more lovely than ever in their intense gravity in spite of their trace of tears, remained one of the permanent treasures of his memory.He turned away and walked over to the writing table and sat down. It was a moment or two before he could think why he was there. Then he remembered and drew towards him several sheets of the hotel stationery and took up a pen. He realised that he was in a very poor frame of mind for literary composition, but he mastered his attention and wrote:Statement by John Merriam regarding HisImpersonation of Senator NormanHe underlined those words and resisted an impulse to turn and look at Mollie June. He wanted to know whether she was looking at him or looking out at the window again. He wanted, too, merely to see her. But he would not look. With a heroic effort he brought his mind back to the paper before him. How to begin? Where to begin? It was a long story, he realised. He must make it as brief as possible. He could omit much. But he must introduce himself. The public did not know him from Adam. He seized at this straw."My name is John Merriam," he wrote. "I am the principal of the high school at Riceville, Illinois. On my mother's side I am related to----"He stopped abruptly. It was the fragrance of roses that interrupted him. Mollie June had risen and come over beside him. His effort of concentration had been so great that he had not heard her. She carried the flowers pressed against the bosom of her dress. The action was probably mechanical; she was too much engrossed to think to put them down. She did not look at him but over his shoulder at his writing. She read it.Apparently his opening statement caught her attention. She looked at him and smiled slightly, more with her mouth than her eyes, which were still grave."You wouldn't like to change your name, would you?" she said."Mollie June!" He was on his feet.She backed away from him, pressing her flowers tight."Would you?" she demanded."It's not that," he said, not daring to advance towards her lest she should retreat farther."A woman always has to change her name when she marries. Why shouldn't a man do it for once?"He started forward now and caught her arm and led her back to her chair and dropped on his knees again beside her."Dearest Mollie June," he said, "I'll change my name to yours so gladly, if you will let me. So as to have you sooner than I could the other way. But not unless you want me to!" he added fiercely. "For yourself!"She looked at him, shyly now."I would rather have it the other way myself," she said, tears standing in her eyes at last, "and wait and change my name to yours. But I think we ought to do it this way for George.""For George!""Yes, and Aunt Mary. She has been very good to me. George was good to me too in his way. And he was my husband, and he's dead. If we can save his name and save her--this way,--don't you think we ought to?"Then of course he put his arms about her."I won't call you George, though!" she said presently, very emphatically."What will you call me, dearest?"She smiled at him through her tears and with a gesture that ravished him lifted his hand and kissed it."Mr. John!" she whispered.He would have kissed her again, but she hurried on."We'll pretend to people that it's a nickname left over from some game or play.""Itisleft over from a sort of--play," he answered, and then she was ready for another kiss.THE END*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKMOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND***
CHAPTER XXIX
THE FINAL DILEMMA
I do not suppose Mr. Crockett desired to be unnecessarily cruel. Doubtless he would have preferred to break his devastating news more gently. But he was himself in a state of nervous exhaustion from fatigue, worry, and perhaps remorse, and the circle of anxious faces had proved too much for his self-control.
Realising too late the brutal bluntness of his announcement, he broke into a hurried flow of words:
"We took him from the hotel this morning to St. John's Hospital. We thought he would be just as well off there--even better off. Dr. Hobart thought he was nearly well anyway. But the ride and the effort of listening to Hobart's explanations apparently fatigued him. By the time they got to the hospital he was very sick again. His bronchitis--if it ever was bronchitis--turned into pneumonia--double acute pneumonia. He got worse and worse all day. Dr. Hobart and the physicians and nurses at the hospital did everything possible for him. But it was no use. He died at nine o'clock."
All eyes turned suddenly to Aunt Mary, who had risen, holding on to the back of her chair.
Father Murray was at her side in an instant, and Alicia hurried to her.
"No," said Aunt Mary, brokenly, "I'm not going--to faint--or anything. But I want--to be alone."
Rockwell sprang to his feet. "My bedroom," he said, and led the way to the door of his chamber, which opened off the sitting room.
In a moment Aunt Mary, walking between Father Murray and Alicia, had passed into the bedroom.
Mr. Wayward's voice broke the stillness.
"Poor fellow!" he said.
For a minute or two they all paid the tribute of silence to the dead. But it was impossible to be really very sorry for George Norman. He had had an easy, pleasure-filled life--wealth, luxury, fame, and a good time, according to his own conception of a good time, up to the very beginning of his brief illness. That his last few, largely unconscious hours had been passed in a hospital away from his friends had certainly been almost no grief to him. The only sorrow genuinely possible was over the common folly, and the universal final tragedy, of humankind. In a few moments the thoughts of the entire group that remained in Rockwell's sitting room were irresistibly drawn back to the strange and somewhat dangerous situation in which the unexpected death had left them.
Presently Rockwell spoke:
"Technically, Mr. Crockett, I suppose it is not Senator Norman but Mr. Merriam who died at St. John's Hospital."
(Merriam was somewhat startled at this turn of thought; this phase of the matter had not yet occurred to him.)
"You have made no announcement?" Rockwell asked.
"No," said Crockett. "I have done nothing. When Hobart telephoned me that--what had happened, I rushed out to the hospital again--I don't know why. I couldn't believe it. Then I telephoned from the hospital to the De Soto and got Mrs. Norman, and she told me you were all here, so I came here. I have done nothing."
While he was speaking Alicia and Father Murray returned from the bedroom.
"She is all right," said Alicia. "She asked us to leave her alone for a few minutes. Did you tell Mrs. Norman?" she added, addressing Crockett.
"What had happened? Yes," said Crockett.
Merriam's thoughts flew to Mollie June, alone in the vast, heartless hotel with the news of her husband's death.
"Ought not some one to go to her?" he asked.
"Presently," said Rockwell. "We must first consider the situation a little--hers as well as ours."
Mayor Black spoke up:
"It will be pretty awkward for her--aside from natural grief and all that--that her husband should have died in a hospital under another name without her being present, while the man to whom the other name belongs was impersonating him in public. And awkward for Miss Norman. For the rest of us, too. Damned awkward!"
"It is a hard thing to have to close the career of George Norman with such a story," said Mr. Wayward.
"It must never happen!" said a voice behind them.
They all turned. Aunt Mary was standing in the door of the bedroom. She already looked more like herself. She was one of those souls who may sink under passive anxiety and suspense but find themselves again immediately when a call for action comes. She had scarcely been left alone, apparently, when the same thought which the Mayor and Mr. Wayward had expressed had occurred to her--the peril to the name of Norman, which was perhaps even more dear to her than her brother himself had been. And instantly, by some powerful effort of will, she had put grief behind her and turned to face this new danger.
"It must never happen," she repeated, advancing into the room, where Alicia, and the men too, unmindful of the etiquette which should have brought them to their feet, sat staring at her. "The secret must be kept. It is more important now than ever. With George alive, it would not have mattered so much. He would have lived it down triumphantly. Only the rest of us would have suffered--not he, nor the Name. But now--it must be kept!"
"But howcanit be kept?" said Crockett, in a tone of desperation.
For a moment no one spoke.
Then Rockwell, looking from face to face, drew a deep breath.
"There is just one way," he said. "It was John Merriam who died. Senator Norman is alive." He waved his hand at Merriam. "He must go on living!"
"But that is impossible," said Mayor Black and Merriam together.
"Face the alternative first," said Rockwell. "George--the real George--was admitted to the hospital about nine o'clock this morning. At that same hour Senator Norman was making a speech at Cairo before an audience representing the entire county. That is known all over the State. He took the next train back to Chicago. But that train did not reach Chicago until after--after the death."
"We could have the hour of the death changed on the records," proposed Mr. Wayward. "It is already announced all over the State that Senator Norman is ill again. He could be rushed from the train to the hospital and die there during the night."
"Then we should have two deaths on our hands," said Rockwell, "and only one body. Unless we bring Merriam to life again. How are we to do that? It is pretty hard to get hospital authorities to falsify their records. And dozens of people must know the supposed facts--nurses, doctors, clerks at the hospital. We could never keep them all from talking. The reporters would get hold of it within twenty-four hours. No, Senator Norman cannot have died at the hospital. He is alive. He must go on living!"
"Can't he die at the hotel--to-night or to-morrow?" said Merriam.
"Then what becomes of you?" asked Rockwell.
"Why, I should go back to Riceville."
"You can't. You're dead! And how can Senator Norman die at the hotel when we should not be able to produce his body there?"
"We could get the body," said Mr. Wayward, speaking in a lowered tone. "As Mr. Merriam's friends we would take his body away from the hospital to be buried and bring it to the hotel."
"We shall have to send for the real Merriam's friends," said Rockwell. "From Riceville and--wherever your people live." He looked at Merriam. "We should have no body to show them. We could bury a loaded casket. But why should we, who must be strangers to him from their point of view, have been in such a hurry when they could get here in a few hours? Probably they would want to take his body elsewhere for burial. Very likely they would have the coffin we had buried raised and opened. And how could we get a dead body into the Hotel De Soto? Up a fire escape?"
In the earnestness of his argument Rockwell evidently did not realise the gruesomeness of his language.
Aunt Mary shuddered.
"No!" she said. "I will not have George's body smuggled about the city."
She paused, looking strangely at Merriam. None of the others, not even Rockwell, ventured to speak.
"Alicia told me, I believe, that you have no near relatives?" she said presently.
"None nearer than cousins," Merriam replied.
For a long minute more Aunt Mary stared at him. She closed her eyes, opened them, and looked again. Then her lips shut tight for a moment in an expression of momentous decision. She leaned forward.
"You have the Norman blood in you," she said to Merriam, "on your mother's side. You are fine stuff. We have all seen that. We will make a Norman of you, if you will. You shall take George's place--to save his name!"
"But----" Merriam began.
But Rockwell cut in:
"It's absolutely the only way," he cried. "The only other alternative is to let the whole story come out."
"Then that's what we have to do," said Mr. Wayward. "Make a clean breast of it."
"No!" said Aunt Mary.
"No!" echoed Rockwell. "Think what that means--to George's memory, first of all. That in his last hours his relatives and friends were conspiring against him, with the help of a stranger double, to force him to abandon the kind of life he was leading and the disreputable interests with which he was associated.--I beg your pardon, Mr. Crockett!"
Crockett waved a feeble hand to indicate forgiveness or indifference.
"And then to Mollie June," Rockwell continued. "That she had connived at the impersonation of her husband during his last illness by another man. How far did that other man take her husband's place, will be the question every man and woman in the State will ask. And all the rest of us. Aunt Mary. And Mr. Merriam, who will lose his job and his professional standing. And the Mayor and myself, who will be ruined politically and every other way. Even you, Mr. Wayward, would find yourself in an exceedingly unpleasant situation. And Mr. Crockett, on the other side, would be no better off. For the story of the kidnapping must come out."
The wilted financier uttered a sort of groan.
"But can the other thing be done?" asked the Mayor, the perspiration of mental anguish showing on his forehead.
"Certainly it can," said, Rockwell eagerly. "Senator Norman has come back to Chicago. Here he is. Presently he will arrive at the hotel. He will be pretty sick. You and I"--he looked at Mr. Wayward--"will support him to the elevator and to his rooms. He will be ill for several days. We must get hold of Hobart again to attend him. Then we will announce that he is threatened with tuberculosis and is to retire from public life. He must resign his seat in the Senate. We daren't go ahead with that. It would be too dangerous--and too serious a fraud besides." (Evidently there was some limit to a Reformer's unscrupulousness.) "He will go to his ranch in Colorado to recuperate. You will actually go." He was addressing Merriam now. "You must live there for a year or so. During that time only a few of Norman's private friends will visit you. We will coach you up on these a few at a time. If any of them notice any slight changes in you, they will lay it to your illness. You will easily take your place in the whole circle of his private life."
"But the property," said Mr. Wayward. "The Norman fortune."
"Reverts to me and Mollie June," said Aunt Mary, who was evidently heart and soul with Rockwell. "If we are satisfied----"
She stopped. The mention of Mollie June had recalled a phase of the situation which Rockwell and the Mayor and even Mr. Wayward had apparently forgotten--so little are men accustomed to consider their women folk when the real game of business or politics is on. Merriam and Alicia had not forgotten it, but had not been able so far to get a word in. As for Aunt Mary I cannot say--she was so near to being a man herself.
"Mollie June!" repeated Rockwell aghast.
"Exactly," said Merriam, somewhat bitterly. Him, too, Rockwell had been treating pretty much as a lifeless pawn in the game.
But Aunt Mary, when roused, was equal to anything.
"We shall manage that," she said. "I will go to Colorado with Mr. Merriam. Mollie June can return to her father for a time. We can arrange a separation--or----"
Even Aunt Mary hesitated. But Alicia took the cue.
"Or they can be married--or remarried," she said, fixing her bright eyes, with a gleam of mischievous understanding in them, on Merriam.
The argument had come to a full stop. The whole roomful sat looking at Merriam, who tried to think and found he could not, except that he realised that all the rest had tacitly accepted Rockwell's plan.
"Come!" said Alicia vivaciously. "It isn't so bad, is it? The Norman fortune and--Mollie June!"
Bad! The prospect was so dazzling to Merriam that he could not take his mind off it in order to think calmly. To die to his old self--to his poverty and loneliness, to his teaching with which he had long been bored,--and to step as if by magic into a new life with wealth, leisure--and Mollie June! For surely she loved him, and she had not loved George Norman. She would marry him--after an interval, of course.
"I must think," he said, weakly, in response to Alicia's exhortation.
"Of course you must," said Rockwell. "You must accustom your mind to it. But it will all be perfectly easy. You were brought up on a farm, weren't you? You will take to the ranch life like anything. It's mostly stock-raising. You can go in for scientific farming. After a few months it would probably be a good thing for you to travel, perhaps for a year or two--especially if you and Mollie June should marry. Get out of the country, so as to leave Norman's old life entirely behind you for a while. You might take a trip around the world."
Merriam's youthful heart bounded in spite of himself. A trip around the world with Mollie June!
"As to your old self," Rockwell continued, "that's quite simple, too. Norman was entered at the hospital under your name. A death certificate must have been given by now." He looked at Crockett.
"I don't know," said Crockett. "Hobart may have held off on that."
"At any rate it can be. In fact, it will have to be. Hobart shall telegraph to Riceville and to your cousins, wherever they are. He was the house physician at the De Soto where you took sick. That was how he came to be attending you. When you got bad he took you to the hospital. Nothing more natural. The rest of us will not need to appear at all."
"Aunt Mary will have to appear," said Alicia. "She will want to attend the funeral."
"She became acquainted with you at the hotel, then," said Rockwell. "Took an interest in a young man who was alone and ill. When your relatives and friends come Hobart will have the body already laid out in a casket. He can advise immediate burial here in the city. Aunt Mary can offer a lot in the Norman plot at Lakewood. Would your cousins probably consent to that?"
"Very likely," said Merriam, rather in a daze. It was confusing to be discussing the details of one's own interment.
"Then everything will follow in regular course," said Rockwell, speaking as if all difficulties were solved. "George will be buried with his family, and you can start for Colorado."
For a second time the talk came to a full stop. The new plan was outlined in full. It remained only to decide upon it or to reject it and face the alternative of a public confession. All of them except Merriam had already accepted the scheme, apparently, gruesome and bizarre as it was. It was for all the rest so much the easiest way and the most advantageous. But it did not require any of them to die--to die to his own self, his friends, his very name. On the other hand it did not offer them any such positive rewards as were proffered to Merriam--a fortune and love. We can hardly wonder that he was somewhat stupefied by the alternatives that beat upon his mind. The loss of all that up to this point in his life had been his identity versus Mollie June--that was the essence of the struggle within him.
He sat beside Rockwell's table, staring at the now silent percolator, trying to think but able only to feel. The others were looking uneasily at him and at one another. Aunt Mary's eyes and Alicia's demanded of Rockwell, who had always managed everything, that he should manage this too. Once he started to speak, but gave it up and looked appealingly at Alicia instead. Indeed he might justifiably feel that this was Alicia's job. She acknowledged as much in her own mind and was trying to decide what to do or say, when the one person present who had not spoken throughout the entire scene came to the rescue.
Through all their long discussion Simpson had stood unobtrusive and unnoticed in the background, but he had followed every word. For his fortunes too, humble, indeed, but sufficiently important to him, were bound up in this decision. If the deception was to be continued, his assistance, in the matter of silence at least, would be necessary, and he could expect a large--honorarium; if it came to a public confession, he could still expect something, but probably a good deal less; and to win and hold Jennie he needed a considerable sum of money.
So now he advanced a step and spoke:
"Shall I call a taxi for you, Mr. Merriam, to take you to the hotel?"
"Of course!" cried Alicia, jumping up. "You must go and see Mollie June. It all depends now upon her."
The others too stirred and expressed more or less audible acquiescence, and Simpson had his reward in the shape of approving glances from Rockwell and Mr. Wayward.
Merriam got to his feet with the other men because Alicia had risen. He was not so obtuse nor so much dazed that he did not see what they were doing. They were trying to rush him. They calculated that though Mollie June in the abstract might contend indecisively with other abstract considerations, Mollie June in the flesh would decide him in the twinkling of an eye. He saw that plainly enough. Nevertheless, for his part it did now depend altogether upon Mollie June. If he was to do this thing--to abandon his old self and enter upon what must be in some degree a lifelong career of deception,--it would be for her sake--not only in order to win her sooner, years sooner, than he could otherwise have the slightest hope of doing, but to save her from scandal, and because she loved him and wanted him too at once (comparatively speaking) as he wanted her.
So his decision was made almost as soon as he was on his feet. He looked with some dignity from one waiting face to another about the circle.
"Yes," he said quietly, "it does depend on her. You may call a taxi, Simpson."
CHAPTER XXX
MOLLIE JUNE
Almost before Merriam's brief sentence was out of his mouth Simpson had started for the telephone. But Mayor Black spoke up:
"My car and chauffeur are below. We came up from the hotel in it. You can use it."
"You go with him, Aunt Mary," said Rockwell, again taking command. "You see her first," he continued. "Mr. Merriam can wait somewhere--in 'Mr. Wilson's' room. When you have explained the general situation you can call him in and leave them together and--give him his chance."
Even at this moment it was a slight shock to Merriam to realise that the state of feeling between himself and Mollie June, which they had supposed completely hidden, had been clearly perceived by the others--or at least, he thought swiftly, by Rockwell and Aunt Mary and Alicia. He smiled a little cynically to himself as he understood that they had been willing to use this interest of his as a motive in securing his easy acquiescence in their previous schemes. Evidently they were counting on it in Mollie June too. That gave him a thrill of hope which made him forget his cynicism.
Father Murray had put Aunt Mary's wrap about her, and Rockwell had got Merriam's hat and his own.
Merriam found Alicia by his side. She held out her hand, and when he took it she squeezed his fingers in the way she had and said significantly, with all of a woman's interest in a romance:
"Good luck!"
"Thank you," said Merriam, but his answering smile was again a little cynical.
Then he opened the door for Aunt Mary and waved his hand to the others, with some amusement at the anxious looks with which they were regarding him. Even Simpson's countenance was perturbed!
Rockwell and the Mayor went down to the street with them and put them in the limousine. The Mayor directed the chauffeur to drive them to the hotel and then to return for himself and the others. Rockwell spoke to Aunt Mary:
"You put the essential facts before her and then leave them--leave Mr. Merriam to do the rest!"
And again Merriam smiled with an acid amusement that is commonly supposed to belong to the middle-aged and old but is really most characteristic of those who are under thirty.
Rockwell glanced at Merriam as if about to give him too a parting exhortation, but hesitated, checked perhaps by the younger man's expression, and spoke to the driver instead: "All right!"
They had started, and Merriam tried to think. His whole life turned in a very peculiar sense on the events of the next hour--whether he should continue to be himself or take up the life of another man. He got that far. But what he should say to Mollie June--even what it was he wanted to say to her--he could not get on with it. The mood of youthful cynicism was by no means the right mood for the business in hand.
And then--too soon for him now--they were at the hotel.
So little had he been able to think clearly that it was not until he was helping Aunt Mary out of the machine that he realised that in entering the hotel with her again this way, in the character of the dead Senator, he was already in effect consenting to Rockwell's plan and binding its consequences upon himself and Mollie June.
He had a wild idea of getting back into the limousine and driving away and later entering the hotel via the fire escape again. But Aunt Mary was already on the pavement.
As they entered the lobby Merriam glanced about to see whether he was noticed and recognised as the Senator. He was. At least three men whom he did not know bowed and raised their hats, and one of them took a step forward as if to approach them. But Merriam looked away and guided Aunt Mary as rapidly as possible to the elevators.
When they emerged on Floor Three, Merriam asked for the key, explaining casually that "Mr. Wilson" was a friend.
In a couple of minutes he had escorted Aunt Mary to the door of her sitting room--Senator Norman's no longer--or was it still to be Senator Norman's?--and had himself entered "Mr. Wilson's" room.
His first act there was to call up the hotel florist--as he had done once before on this same telephone. But this time Merriam's order was for roses, to be sent up at once.
He hung up the receiver and walked nervously about the room.
Was it not time for him to go to Mollie June? Aunt Mary was being terribly long about her explanation. Had Mollie June broken down under her grief--grief for George Norman?--or merely from anxiety and conflicting emotions? Was she refusing to see him? Was she ill?
He jumped up and walked back and forth in his nervousness, watching the door to the other bedroom, at which he might expect to receive Aunt Mary's summons.
A knock at last! But it was at the wrong door, the hall door. In a sort of hesitating amazement he went to answer it. It was the boy with the roses. He had forgotten ordering them.
He signed for the flowers and brought them into the room and took them out of their box and tissue paper. They were lovely--the most exquisite colour, between pink and red, that has no name but that of the flower itself--pink and red harmonised in soft coolness and fragrance--Mollie June's flowers without a doubt.
But had he done well in ordering them? Was this a time for lover-like gifts? Should he not have got white roses, such as one sends to a funeral?
And then, as he stood in this anxiety, came Aunt Mary's knock at the bedroom door.
He started as if caught in a guilty action and thrust the flowers back into their box before he went to open to her.
"How is she?"
But Aunt Mary herself looked so broken that he led her to a chair.
Then, "How is she?" he repeated. He could not wait.
"She is very quiet."
"You told her the--the plan?"
"Yes."
"She understood it?"
"I think so."
"Am I to go to her?"
"I suppose so," said Aunt Mary with a sigh. "Mr. Rockwell said----" She stopped.
Merriam showed her the roses.
"Should I take these to her?"
Aunt Mary looked at him and at the flowers.
"I think perhaps you might," she said, and then sat staring out across the fire escape.
She looked so very miserable that Merriam impulsively patted her shoulder. She glanced up quickly at that, then turned her eyes to the window again. He could not read her look, but he was not sorry he had betrayed his affectionate sympathy. If he was to be her brother for the rest of their lives----
After a moment more of hesitation he picked up the flowers and passed through the former sick room to the sitting room.
Mollie June was sitting in a small straight-backed chair by the window, looking out. But Merriam was sure at the first glance that she saw nothing. She had merely turned automatically towards the light, as all but the old or the self-conscious tend to do. As Aunt Mary had said she was very quiet. Her back was of course towards the room and Merriam.
He waited for a moment just inside the door, looking at her, forgetting the flowers in his hands. He was sorry for her and very uncertain what he ought to do. Then he became a little frightened, because she sat so still. She gave no sign of having heard him.
With conscious effort, because he must do something, he crossed the room till he stood beside her. Still she did not turn her eyes from the window.
He stood looking down at her. She was a pathetic figure as she sat there--the more pathetic, to the eyes of youth at least, because she was so lovely, so young and fresh really, although a little pale and heavy-eyed. He saw dark shadows under her eyes which must have come from tears.
The sight of these unlocked him, drowned all his hesitations in pitying love. He dropped on his knees beside her chair, laying the long-stemmed roses regardlessly on the floor and putting one hand on the back of her chair.
"Mollie June!" he said.
She did not start. Evidently she had known he was there. She looked first at the flowers on the floor and then at his face.
"I am so sorry," he cried.
"Are you sorry or glad?" she asked.
"I am terribly sorry for you," he answered. Her hands lay together in her lap, and he attempted to take one of them.
But she moved them slightly.
"Don't," she said.
"Don't make me strange to you, Mollie June," he cried.
"How can I help it?" she answered. "I am strange to myself too. You see, I am glad! I am sorry for George," she went on quickly. "It is terrible to me that he is dead. But I am so glad I do not have to be his wife any more!"
Once more, as on a former occasion, some dim notion came to Merriam of what it must mean to a girl to be connubially in the power of a man she does not love. He pitied and loved her greatly. Also he marvelled. How had she come through it all so fresh and unchanged? The answer, of course, was youth. But youth could not know the answer.
"I am glad too," he said.
Her eyes, which as she dropped them had rested on the roses on the floor, came back to his face.
"You are glad I have to marry you."
"But you don't!"
"You know I do."
Instantly he saw that Aunt Mary had not put the thing fairly before her. In Aunt Mary's mind it was settled. The course of action which promised to save the precious Norman name from scandal was the only possible course of action. She had so represented it to Mollie June.
"No, no!" Merriam cried. "You shall not be forced into this. You shall never be forced in anything again if I can help it. I will not be forced myself--even to marry you."
"What else can we do?" asked Mollie June, searching his face.
"It's fairly simple," he said, a little bitterly. "Not easy, but simple. I will write a brief, plain account of the whole affair--the impersonation--from beginning to end, and send for a reporter and give it to him. That will end everything. I will sit down now at that desk and write it and call for a man and give it to him while Aunt Mary thinks we are still talking--unless you tell me not to."
"Would you do that?"
"Indeed I will!"
He rose to his feet. He meant it, and she saw that he meant it. To be forced in this thing was, in fact, even less to his liking perhaps than to hers.
Standing, he saw the roses at his feet. He stooped and picked them up and handed them to her.
"You'll let me give you these?" he said, his manner more determined than lover-like. "I saw them from the elevator as I was coming up here with Aunt Mary. They were so like you that I could not help buying them and bringing them to you."
She accepted them passively, looking up at him. Perhaps she liked him determined rather than lover-like.
"I am not giving you up," he went on gravely. "But you will go away somewhere with Aunt Mary, and I will go back to Riceville. I have my contract for the rest of this year at least. And if you will wait a few years--you will want to wait and rest a while,--I will come back and win you in my own right."
She did not answer but looked up at him, still searching his face.
For a moment he stood regarding her. That image of her as she sat there with the flowers in her lap and her uplifted face and questioning eyes, more lovely than ever in their intense gravity in spite of their trace of tears, remained one of the permanent treasures of his memory.
He turned away and walked over to the writing table and sat down. It was a moment or two before he could think why he was there. Then he remembered and drew towards him several sheets of the hotel stationery and took up a pen. He realised that he was in a very poor frame of mind for literary composition, but he mastered his attention and wrote:
Statement by John Merriam regarding HisImpersonation of Senator Norman
He underlined those words and resisted an impulse to turn and look at Mollie June. He wanted to know whether she was looking at him or looking out at the window again. He wanted, too, merely to see her. But he would not look. With a heroic effort he brought his mind back to the paper before him. How to begin? Where to begin? It was a long story, he realised. He must make it as brief as possible. He could omit much. But he must introduce himself. The public did not know him from Adam. He seized at this straw.
"My name is John Merriam," he wrote. "I am the principal of the high school at Riceville, Illinois. On my mother's side I am related to----"
He stopped abruptly. It was the fragrance of roses that interrupted him. Mollie June had risen and come over beside him. His effort of concentration had been so great that he had not heard her. She carried the flowers pressed against the bosom of her dress. The action was probably mechanical; she was too much engrossed to think to put them down. She did not look at him but over his shoulder at his writing. She read it.
Apparently his opening statement caught her attention. She looked at him and smiled slightly, more with her mouth than her eyes, which were still grave.
"You wouldn't like to change your name, would you?" she said.
"Mollie June!" He was on his feet.
She backed away from him, pressing her flowers tight.
"Would you?" she demanded.
"It's not that," he said, not daring to advance towards her lest she should retreat farther.
"A woman always has to change her name when she marries. Why shouldn't a man do it for once?"
He started forward now and caught her arm and led her back to her chair and dropped on his knees again beside her.
"Dearest Mollie June," he said, "I'll change my name to yours so gladly, if you will let me. So as to have you sooner than I could the other way. But not unless you want me to!" he added fiercely. "For yourself!"
She looked at him, shyly now.
"I would rather have it the other way myself," she said, tears standing in her eyes at last, "and wait and change my name to yours. But I think we ought to do it this way for George."
"For George!"
"Yes, and Aunt Mary. She has been very good to me. George was good to me too in his way. And he was my husband, and he's dead. If we can save his name and save her--this way,--don't you think we ought to?"
Then of course he put his arms about her.
"I won't call you George, though!" she said presently, very emphatically.
"What will you call me, dearest?"
She smiled at him through her tears and with a gesture that ravished him lifted his hand and kissed it.
"Mr. John!" she whispered.
He would have kissed her again, but she hurried on.
"We'll pretend to people that it's a nickname left over from some game or play."
"Itisleft over from a sort of--play," he answered, and then she was ready for another kiss.
THE END
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKMOLLIE'S SUBSTITUTE HUSBAND***