Men are very much alike in this respect: if one finds fortune or a path that seems to lead that way, all who suspect it will try to crowd in. The same instinct may be seen among a flock of fowl, only we do not pursue so openly. And so, when news of the unexpected and early dividend on Rockhaven stock circulated—as it was quick in doing—everybody on the island who had a few dollars laid away made haste to seek Winn, anxious to invest. The leaven worked as that shrewd swindler, Weston, knew full well it would, and had Winn's suspicions not been aroused, and he too honest to take advantage of these people, he might have sold five thousand shares, and as the sequel proved, bankrupted the island. For these hard-working people, though living in hovels and wearing clothing a tramp would almost disdain, were frugal, and each and all had something saved for a rainy day. The wisest had, from time to time, sent their savings ashore by Captain Roby to deposit in a savings bank; others kept a few dollars hid in bedticks or similarly secreted; but now, solely because Jess Hutton, the oracle of the island, was known to have invested in this stock and received such fabulous returns, all were anxious to follow his lead. A little spice of envy crept in also at his good luck, and Mrs. Moore, in chatting with a neighbor, voiced it.
"It's allus the way," she said plaintively, "when Jess bought that ledge o' stun from Gad Baker an' gin him a hundred dollars for't, 'most everybody thought he was a fool, and now 'long comes this city man and gives him two thousand for't, an' on top o' that Jess buys some o' this stock an' gets a hundred dollars profit fust go-off. Here I've been cookin' an' washin', year in an' year out, an' jist keepin' soul 'n' body together, an' the boys spendin' every cent they airned—not thet I'm complainin' on them, only if I had five hundred laid away I might put in as much as Jess did. It don't seem right, that it don't! Howsoever, it's the way o' the world, an' them as has, gits."
Little did hard-working Widow Moore realize when Dame Fortune was good to her!
But Winn was the most worried person on the island, and his burden the heavier to bear since he dared not hint his suspicions to any one. To all who came and almost begged him to take their savings in exchange for stock he made only one reply, "We have no more to sell," and had there been a stock exchange on the island, Rockhaven would have soared to twenty dollars a share, so eager were those credulous people to invest.
Then another incident of life began to interest them, and, though Winn knew it not, his attentions to Mona began to create gossip, more especially as he was the actual and present representative of a rich corporation. His walking to and from church with her, the hours he had spent in her home, and more than these, the summer evening strolls up to the old tide mill, to linger and watch the moonlight on the water, had all been noticed and commented upon. For these people, albeit they worked hard and lived poorly, intuitively knew where Cupid hid himself and how and when he shot his arrows. It was all right, of course, and though other less fortunate maids envied Mona, and many of the good mothers voiced their congratulations to Mrs. Hutton, there was no opposition to this summer idyl.
One thing Winn noticed, however, and that was the pertinent fact that when he "dropped in" at Mona's home, as he so often did, her mother usually found some excuse to absent herself and leave the young couple alone. Had he been desirous of wooing this winsome maid nothing would have pleased him better, but he hardly felt that way. It was true she interested him, for what young man could resist her sweet and tender ways, her patience with her mother's implacable dislike of her violin playing and the beautiful soul her truthful eyes bespoke? Then the hours with her in the romantic spot in which she had chosen to seek the goddess of music were more than charming. In a way this trysting place began to seem sacred to him, and the secret hours he had passed with her there a tender bond between them. All these sweet motive forces that move man's nature, like so many little hands, began to entwine themselves in his. He had no thought of marrying. He realized that he had yet to carve his way upward to independence before thinking of a home and wife, and beyond that the lesson of distrust Ethel Sherman had taught him still held sway. He was not a model of discretion; he was an unthinking young man with the germs of fine honor and sturdy honesty latent within him, and in spite of the cynicism he had imbibed from Jack Nickerson he was sure in the end to commit no folly, nor wrong man, woman, or child.
And yet, insensibly, he was doing Mona Hutton the greatest wrong in his power—almost.
Some realizing sense of this came to him after that evening beside the old tide mill, when his words had caused a single tear to fall upon the hand that helped her to arise, and yet he could not tell what he had said that hurt her so.
There is, perhaps, nothing so fascinating in this wide world to a young man as the first signs of a sweet maid's budding love for him, and it must be stated, nothing is harder to turn away from, and Winn was no exception to young men in general. And now that he was conscious of it, that fact, coupled with the business dilemma confronting him, created a double burden. He saw whither he was drifting with her and seeing, had not the heart to turn away. On the other hand, the Rockhaven Granite Company began to seem a quagmire of fraud in which he and all who had trusted in him might any day become entangled, their investments swept away, the men he had hired left without pay, and he stranded on this island. It may seem that Winn was borrowing needless worriment, and yet once the canker spot of suspicion fastens itself upon a man's mind, it grows until it turns all things green.
One thing he tried to do—avoid Mona. And yet he could not to any extent, for since she dwelt next door he must needs meet her and speak almost daily. And strange to say, now that it was in his heart to act indifferent, her appealing eyes and winsome face began to seem a reproach, and his conscience troubled him. For a week he passed each evening alone in his room trying to read one of the books he had brought with him, or else in Jess Hutton's store, listening to the gossip of the men who gathered there, interspersed with an occasional bit of quaint philosophy from the lips of Jess himself, and then a bombshell in the way of a letter to him reached the island. It was as follows:—
"Dear Winn,"Have been back to the city now for two weeks and watching the trend of the market. I was satisfied, as I wrote you, that Weston & Hill were preparing to launch a skyrocket—now I know it. What with printer's ink and that walking tombstone, Simmons, they have managed to get Rockhaven among the unlisted but active stocks, and by some chicanery, worked the price up to six dollars. Page, my broker, says it's a wildcat of the most pronounced stripe. A good many are short of it at below its present price and yet it holds firm. I've unloaded half I bought, so I am on Easy Street, and am watching out. It may go up with a whoop or down with a thud. One guess is as good as another, but what you best do is send me your stock and let Page sell it. Also if you have sold any to your friends, give them the tip. I know you believe in Weston and think, as you have said, that I am a perpetual scoffer. They may be all right, but I don't believe it, and now as you have a chance to unload and make a good thing, better do it."Yours ever,"Jack."P.S.—I forgot to mention that Ethel Sherman is still up in the mountains and the belle of all occasions. She asked a lot of questions about you and in such a way I was almost tempted to believe they were sincere. She has failed to land the golf dude, for his mother scented danger and, like a hen, led him away to safety."
"Dear Winn,
"Have been back to the city now for two weeks and watching the trend of the market. I was satisfied, as I wrote you, that Weston & Hill were preparing to launch a skyrocket—now I know it. What with printer's ink and that walking tombstone, Simmons, they have managed to get Rockhaven among the unlisted but active stocks, and by some chicanery, worked the price up to six dollars. Page, my broker, says it's a wildcat of the most pronounced stripe. A good many are short of it at below its present price and yet it holds firm. I've unloaded half I bought, so I am on Easy Street, and am watching out. It may go up with a whoop or down with a thud. One guess is as good as another, but what you best do is send me your stock and let Page sell it. Also if you have sold any to your friends, give them the tip. I know you believe in Weston and think, as you have said, that I am a perpetual scoffer. They may be all right, but I don't believe it, and now as you have a chance to unload and make a good thing, better do it.
"Yours ever,
"Jack.
"P.S.—I forgot to mention that Ethel Sherman is still up in the mountains and the belle of all occasions. She asked a lot of questions about you and in such a way I was almost tempted to believe they were sincere. She has failed to land the golf dude, for his mother scented danger and, like a hen, led him away to safety."
Winn had felt it best to keep silent regarding his suspicions of Weston & Hill, but this new development forced him to unbosom himself to some one and he went to Jess. He waited until the usual evening gathering of callers had left the store, and then he told the story of his distrust from the beginning and ended by reading a portion of Jack's letter. To his surprise Jess received it all as unmoved as a granite ledge.
"I ain't a mite s'rprised," he said, "I sorter felt all 'long that this 'ere boss o' yourn was a swindler 'n' foolin' ye, an' the only reason I took any stock was jist to help ye."
"I know it," responded Winn, "and it's that and because you have influenced others to do so, that worries me."
But Jess only smiled.
"Keep cool," he said, "an' let yer hair grow. I ain't in it so deep but I kin 'ford to lose all I've put in 'n' take keer o' the rest on 'em here. What we want to do now is ter cac'late. When the wind gets squally, the fust thing's to shorten sail. I'll 'low yer friend knows his business, 'n' we'd best send this stock to him 'n' let him sell it if he kin find fools to buy it at the price it's goin', an' then we'd best lay the men off at the quarry 'n' let 'em go fishin'. We might keep two or three on 'em goin'," he added as an afterthought, "jist to keep up 'pearances 'n' lay low till the wind shifts."
"It may be you are right," asserted Winn, "but I do not know what to do and the situation worries me."
"No sorter use 'n' worryin'," said Jess tersely, "ye'r healthy, ain't ye?"
And then Winn laughed. "Yes," he said, "I am, and no worse off than when I came here, but it disturbs me to find I've been deceived."
"You'll git used to that," replied Jess, "I hev. I cac'late in my time I hev hed more'n a hundred pounds o'wool pulled into my eyes 'n' I ain't blind yit. The only cause I've hed fer blamin' myself is 'most every time I got skinned it was 'cause I was too dum good-hearted."
"And that is just why I feel so bad," put in Winn; "you bought this stock to help me, and if you lose, it's on me."
Jess laughed heartily.
"Well, you're shakin' hands with the divil a good ways off," he said, "up to date I'm ahead o' the game a cool hundred 'n' a middlin' good chance o' gittin' more'n double my money back. I cac'late, of course, this stock ain't wuth a cuss, but if by some hocus-pocus they're sayin' it's wuth what your friend says 'tis, I stand a fair chance o' gittin' square. Better tell him he kin let it go fer a dollar 'n' not hang on fer more. I'll be satisfied if I git my hat back."
Then Jess, the big-hearted, thought of Winn. "It's none o' my bizness," he said, "but ez you've made free to trust me, how air ye fixed on this stock? Hev ye put much money into it?"
"I've put five hundred, part borrowed," answered Winn candidly, "and they made me a present of five hundred shares besides."
"Wal, that's a credit to ye, anyhow," responded Jess with an approving look, "an' ye kin feel ye come higher'n the parson." Then after a few minutes' silent meditation during which he closed his eyes and stroked his chin affectionately, he added: "As a gineral thing I'd be slow in advisin' anybody to go crooked, but when ye feel ye're in the hands o' sharpers, it's the only way. Now what I'd advise ye to do is to keep on reportin' the same pay-roll right 'long 'n' lay most o' the men off fer a week or two till ye find what yer friend's done with the stock. What they send ye extra may come handy 'fore this cat's skinned and buried. Then ye kin kinder take it easy for a spell 'n' look the island over so long's yer time 'n' wages is goin' on. Let 'em do the fiddlin' while you dance this time. They cac'late ter make ye do all the fiddlin' an' turn about is fair play."
"I'll take your advice and do just what you say," replied Winn eagerly, his spirits once more raised to their normal level by this quaint philosopher, and as it was late in the evening and the mention of fiddle recalled Jess Hutton's hobby, he added: "You have lifted a load off my mind, and now please give me a few tunes, Mr. Hutton. I feel like hearing some music."
And Jess the genial, to whom his fiddle was wife, child, friend, and companion, once more drew it forth, and as Winn lighted a fresh cigar and leaned back to enjoy it, again as before was he charmed by the old man's art.
And that spell wrought by "Money Musk," "Fisher's Hornpipe," "The Devil's Dream" and such old-time dance tunes that followed in quick succession carried Winn back to his boyhood days and out of the turmoil and strife of city life, and once more he felt himself in the old farm barn with lanterns swinging aloft and a score of country lads and lassies keeping step with him to the same lively measures. He could see their happy faces and the sparkle of their eyes as "balance and swing," "do-see-do" and "all promenade" echoed from the rafters. He could even feel the supple waist and warm handclasp of the willing maid who danced with him, and when the evening of simple but unalloyed delight was over, came the long walk home with that same farmer's daughter while the moonlight silvered the landscape and the rustling leaves in the maple lane, tinkling like tiny bells beneath their feet. Gone were all the hectic years of city life, the stab of Ethel Sherman, the distrust of Jack Nickerson, and the humiliation of the years with Weston & Hill. Gone, too, all his present dread and the fog that for weeks had obscured his course. Once more he felt full of young courage with success and riches almost within his grasp. Then as the evening waned and Jess Hutton's fingers strayed to the old sweet love songs of Scotland and "Robin Adair" and "Annie Laurie" whispered the burden of their affection, the tender eyes of Mona and the wild rock-walled gorge where he had first heard her play the same songs touched his heart. With this memory, so sweet in a way, came a heartache. When the evening was ended and he, having thanked Jess for the good cheer in words and music, betook himself to Rock Lane, he paused a moment in front of Mona's home. Not a light was visible, not a sound except the low murmur of the distant sea. Only a few seconds he stood there, looking and thinking, and then kept on to his room.
The mood of the church bells was with him still.
A man is happiest when he has most to do, and though a woman's face intrudes upon his thoughts and he feels her smiles are all for him, it is life and action and the push forward toward success that interest him most.
And so with Winn. He had come to Rockhaven to upbuild his fortune, believing himself in a fair way to do so. He had taken up his new life and care with earnestness and energy, putting his best thought into it, and not only carrying out his employer's instructions in letter and spirit, but in addition trying to make friends of those honest islanders and interest them in this new enterprise. The latter was not hard since Jess, the oracle of Rockhaven, was on his side, and, in a way, sponsor for him. Then, too, he had adopted their simple homely ways and, though not a believer, attended church each Sunday. How much of this was due to the occult influence of Mona's eyes, and how much to sympathy and interest in the spiritual life of the island, is hard to say. Most of the men considered Sunday as a day of rest, and to some extent, recreation. A few accompanied their families to the little church, but more spent the day lounging about the wharves, smoking and swapping yarns, and if a boat needed caulking, a net mending, or a new sail bending, they did not hesitate to do it. While all had sufficient reverence for the Lord's Day not to actually start out fishing, most were willing to get ready. And perhaps for good reason, for a livelihood on Rockhaven was not easy to obtain and with them, as with most hard-working people, the necessities of life displaced spiritual influences.
"It is a hard field to labor in," asserted the Rev. Jason Bush to Winn one day, "and I've grown old and gray in the work. We have a little church that has not been painted but twice since I came here forty-odd years ago, or shingled but once. We have no carpet, and the cushions in the pews are in rags. I have taught this generation almost all they know of books, and laid most of their parents away in the graveyard back of the meeting-house, and my turn will come before many years. We are poor here, and we always have been and most likely always shall be, and at times it has seemed to me the Lord was indifferent to our needs. Your coming here and this new industry has seemed to me a special providence."
And Winn, thinking of the fifty shares of stock he had given this poor old minister, and the ten dollars dividend that must have seemed a godsend, felt his heart sink, for he had by this time come to realize why he had been told to donate this stock. And perhaps that fact gave added force to the parson's words.
And when, after Jess had advised him to lay off some of the men and he had done so, a sort of gloom seemed to spread over the island. A few of the men took to their boats and fishing once more, and though Winn gave out the plausible excuse that lack of demand for granite was the cause, the rest who were out of work now seemed a constant reproach.
Then, too, since his own ambition and hope received a setback he was not content. The growing distrust was a thorn in his side, in fact it was more than that; it was almost a certainty that his mission there was nearing its end. To leave, he could not; to go ahead, he dared not, for any day he might be left in the lurch with no money to pay his men. And Friday, when he usually received his remittances, was awaited with keen anxiety. When it came and a letter, slightly fault-finding in tone because he had sold no more stock for some weeks, and insisting that he must go about it at once, Winn was not only irritated but disgusted.
"I am but a mere tool in their hands," he thought, "and they pay me to do their bidding, be it work or to rob honest people." And then Winn had a bad half-hour.
"Don't ye mind 'em," said Jess consolingly, when Winn had told him what they wrote, "but keep cheerful 'n' let 'em keep on sendin' money. It's a long lane ez hez no turns 'n' ours'll come bimeby. Better write yer friend 'n' git posted on what's doin'."
But this excellent advice had scant effect on Winn, for his ambition had been chilled, his hopes seemed like to be thwarted, his mental sun in a cloud, and the barometer of his spirits at low tide. Then the honest people here who had trusted him implicitly and who could ill afford to lose became a burden to his mind. Honest himself in every impulse, to realize that in the near future he might be cursed as a rascal only added to his gloom. He dreaded to meet them lest they read the worriment in his face, and especially the patient and hard-working Mrs. Moore, who daily prepared his meals. To her the hundred dollars she had invested was a small fortune, and then the kindly old minister whose long life of patient work for starvation pay had made him pathetic, and who had considered this gift as coming from the hand of God—to feel that he also might join the rest in sorrowing hurt Winn. He dared not say a word to any one except Jess, and what to do he knew not. At times he thought of going to them, one and all, explain the situation, and ask them to intrust him with their stock, when he would send it to the city to be sold if possible. He even confided this impulse to Jess.
"No," replied that philosopher, "it ain't my idee to cross bridges till ye come to 'em, 'n' we'd best wait till we see which way the cat's goin' to jump. If wuss comes to wuss, an' 'fore I'd see ye blamed, I'll stand the loss o' every share ye've sold here."
This was some consolation to Winn, but did not remove his gloom.
Then Mona became a factor in his perplexity. He had tried to avoid her to a certain extent, but he could not avoid his thoughts, and deep in his heart he knew that whatever bond of sympathy had come between them was due to his own seeking. He had praised her playing, passed hours in delightful exchange of poetic thoughts and recital of old-time lore, pathetic, romantic, and altogether alluring, and this thrusting his personality, as it were, into the thoughts and life of this untutored island girl could have but one ending, and full well Winn knew what that was.
The next Sunday chance threw them together, for Winn, to escape his mood, if possible, had taken a long stroll over the island and up to the north village. Returning late in the afternoon, he found her sitting by the old mill watching the tide slowly ebbing between its mussel-coated foundations. It was a spot romantic in its isolation, out of sight from any dwelling and, in addition, of somewhat ghostly interest. Winn had heard its history. It had been built a century ago and made useful for the island's needs, but finally it fell into disuse and decay, its roof gone, its timbers and floor removed, its windows but gaping openings in the stone walls and akin to the eyeless sockets and mouth of a skull. Then, too, the half-demented girl who years before had been found hanging lifeless from one of its cross beams added an uncanny touch. Winn had felt its grewsome interest and once or twice had visited it with Mona. And now, coming to it just as the lowering sun had reached the line of spruce trees fringing the western side of the harbor, he found Mona sitting where they had sat one moonlight evening, idly watching the motionless harbor stretching a mile away. She was not aware of his approach, but sat leaning against an abutting stone, looking at the setting sun's red glow on the harbor, a lonely, pathetic figure.
For a moment Winn watched her, and watching there beside this uncanny old ruin, lived the past two months over again like a momentary dream, and then drew nearer.
"Why, Mona," he said, "what are you doing here?"
"Nothing," she answered, straightening up and turning to face him, "only I did not know what else to do, and so came here." She did not disclose the impulse which brought her to this spot, for of that no man, certainly not Winn, should be told.
"Well," he continued, with assumed cheerfulness, "I'm glad to have come across you, for I too have been lonesome and trying to walk it off. I've had the blues for a week or more now," he added, feeling that some sort of apology was due her, "and am not myself."
"And why?" she asked interestedly, turning her fathomless eyes upon him; "are you getting tired of us here, and wanting to go back to the city?"
"No, little girl," he replied, assuming his usual big-brother's tone and address, "I hate the city, as I've told you many times; but business matters vex me, and as you may have heard, I've had to lay off some of my men."
"Yes, I have heard," she answered quietly, her eyes still on him, "nothing happens here that all do not know in a few hours."
And Winn, with the burden of dread that like a pall oppressed him just then, wondered how long it would take for all to hear what he or Jess could utter in five words.
"Why did you come here, Mona, if you were lonesome?" he said, anxious to change the subject. "It's the last spot on the island you should visit if lonely."
Mona colored slightly; "I always go to some lonely spot when I feel sad," she said, unwilling to admit the real reason for her coming here.
"And that is where you are wrong," put in Winn, forcing a laugh and seating himself beside her. "When I am blue I go to Jess or else take a tramp as I did to-day," he added hastily.
Mona still watched him furtively and with an intuitive feeling that he was concealing something. "I wish I knew how to play the violin," he continued, looking across the harbor to where a dory had just started toward the village, "it must be, as your uncle says, 'a heap o' comfort' when one is lonesome."
"It has been to him all his life long," she answered a little sadly, "and is now."
"And to you as well," he interposed, "it has helped you pass many a long hour, I fancy. Do you know," he continued, anxious to talk about anything except his present mood, "I've thought so many times of that day I first heard you playing in the 'Devil's Oven,' and what a strange place it was to hide yourself in. You are a queer girl, Mona, and unlike any one I ever knew. I wish I were an artist, I'd like to make a picture of you in that cave."
Mona looked pleased.
"You would make a picture," he added, smiling at her, "that the whole world would look at with interest; I'd have you holding your violin and looking out over the wide ocean with those sphinx-like eyes of yours, just as if the world and all its follies had no interest for you."
"And what is a sphinx?" asked Mona.
"A woman that no man understands," he answered carelessly. "There are a few such, and they are the only ones who interest men any length of time."
"And am I like one of them?" queried the girl.
"Oh, no," he answered, "except your eyes, and they are absolutely unreadable. Beyond them you are as easily understood as a flower that only needs the sun's smiles."
It was a bit of his poetic imagery faintly understood by Mona. "You must not mind my odd comparison," he continued, noticing her curious look, "it's only a fancy of mine, and then, you are an odd stick, as they used to say up in the country where I was born."
"And so you were not born in the city," she said with sudden interest. "What Uncle Jess has told me and what you have said has made me hate the city."
"I thought you said once you envied the city girls who came here in yachts," laughed Winn.
"I might like to dress as they do," she answered, a little confused, "but not to live where they do."
"And what has that to do with where I came from," he persisted, "and why are you glad I am country-born?"
"Because," she replied bluntly, "Uncle Jess says country-born people are usually honest and can be trusted."
Winn was silent, and as he looked at this simple island girl, so unaffected and winsome, a new admiration came for her. "Give her a chance," he thought, "and she would hold her own with Ethel Sherman even."
"That is true," he said aloud, after a pause, thinking only of his own business experience, "and the longer I remain here, the less I wish to return to the city. I feel as your worthy uncle does, and for good reasons. With the exception of an aunt, who has made a home for me, the women whom I met there were not to be trusted, nor the men either. When I left the old farm I was too young to understand people, but now that I do, I often long for the old associates of my boyhood, and if my business here becomes successful, I shall never go back to the city."
A look of gladness lit up the girl's face.
"I feel vexed over my business," continued Winn, longing to confide his troubles to Mona and looking down into the dark mussel-coated chasm left by the ebbing tide close by where they sat, "but I presume I shall come out all right."
Then, as he glanced up at the roofless wall of the old mill just back of them, its window openings showing the dark interior, he thought of the girl who, a century ago, had come there to end her heartache and whose story was fresh in his mind.
"Come, Mona," he said tenderly, as a sigh escaped him, "it's time we returned to the village, for I am going to meeting to-night with you and your mother." And all the long mile of sandy roadway that lay between the mill and Rockhaven was traversed in almost unbroken silence.
Though far apart as yet, they were nearer to one another than ever before.
There were two church bells on Rockhaven, one at each village, and every Sunday evening, year in and out, they called the piously inclined together, always at the same time. That at Northaven sounded the sweeter to Winn, since its call came over a mile of still water, like an echo to the one in Rockhaven. He had noticed them, one answering the other, many times before, each time to return in thought to the hillside home where he was born and to the same sweet sound that came on Sunday from the village two miles away. It had been to him what seemed long years since he heard them, yet now, this evening, while he waited in the little porch of Mona's home for her and her mother to join him churchward, and this call came sweetly through the still evening air, it carried a new peace to his vexed spirit, and the threatened upset of his mission to Rockhaven faded away. Once more he was a boy again, and for a time without a care.
And when Mona appeared, dressed in a simple white muslin, a white hood of knitted wool half hiding the coiled masses of her jet black hair, her eyes filled with tender light, Winn, in spite of his moroseness and the bitter lessons in love he had learned, felt it a proud privilege to walk beside her.
The usual number, mostly womankind, were emerging from the scattered houses along the way to the church, and as Winn and Mona, together with her mother and Mrs. Moore, followed the one plank walk which led to the church, the last call of the bells came at longer intervals.
When the church was reached the lamps had been lighted, but the white headstones, dotting the upward slope just back of it, still showed faintly in the twilight.
The services were simple as usual, the few dozen who gathered all joined in the same hymns of praise their ancestors had sung in the same church. What the minister said was not new or eloquent; and yet the prayer he uttered seemed to Winn to contain an unusually touching strain. It was the mood of the bells still on him, for he had never known what church believers call a change of heart; and while the devotions of the people were pathetic in their very simplicity, they seemed more like a plea for pity than an expression of thanks. When the services were ended, and all rising joined in "The Sweet By and By," never before had it voiced such a plaintive appeal as it did then in Winn's estimation.
When he and Mona, loitering behind the rest, reached her little dooryard where the scent of many blooming flowers saluted him, they paused a moment. Mrs. Moore had seated herself on the porch for a social chat with Mrs. Hutton, the faint disk of a new moon showed in the western sky, and in spite of the resolution taken weeks before, Winn could not resist the temptation of longer privacy with his companion.
"Let us walk up to the top of Norse Hill," he said, "and look out over the harbor. I feel like it to-night."
"Here is where I come to be alone," he observed when they had reached the ancient beacon and were looking down over the village. "I wonder who built this odd tower and for what use; do you know?"
"I have been told it was built by Leif Ericson," she replied, "ever so many years ago, to prove he first discovered this country. Uncle Jess says it was, and that is why this is called Norse Hill."
There was a jutting ledge around its base, and they seated themselves upon it. Winn drew out his cigar case. "You won't mind my smoking, will you, Mona?" he said in a familiar tone, as he lighted his cigar.
"Why, no," she answered, in the same tone, "I love to see you enjoy yourself."
For a time they silently scanned the peaceful picture that lay before them. The sheltered harbor across which the faint path of moonlight quivered in the undulating ground swell that reached in from the sea; the old mill sombre and solemn and barely outlined to the right; beyond it Northaven with its scattered lights, and below them the few that twinkled in Rockhaven. Not a sound reached them except the low wave-wash at the foot of the cliff just back of where they sat. They were alone with their hopes and troubles, their joys and heartaches. It was not a time or place for immediate converse, and Winn quietly contemplated the peaceful scene while Mona covertly watched him. To her he was an unsolved enigma, and yet his earnest, honest brown eyes, his open, frank way, and his half-tender, half-cynical speeches had been for many weeks her daily thought. What oppressed him now was an added mystery. She had heard that most of his men working in the quarry had been laid off, but not for worlds would she seem so inquisitive as to ask why.
And so she watched him, half hoping, half expecting, he would confide in her.
"I have been out of sorts, little girl," he said suddenly, with an intuitive feeling that she expected an explanation of his silence; "and as I told you this afternoon I took a long tramp to drive my mood away. It did not do it, but something else has, and that was your church bells."
"I am very glad," she responded with sudden interest, "I wish they would ring every evening."
"Yes," he continued, not heeding her delicate sympathy, "they have carried me back to my boyhood and the country village near where I was born. I wish I could go back to those days and feel as I did then," he added, a little sadly, "but one can't. Life and its ambitions sweep us on, and youth is forgotten or returns only in thought. If one could only feel the keen zest of youth and enjoy small pleasures as children do, all through life, it would be worth living. I should be grateful if I were as happy and care-free as you are, Mona."
"I am not very happy," she answered simply. "Did you think I was?"
"You ought to be," he asserted; "you have nothing to worry about unless it is your ambition to become a great artist, and as I have told you, you had better put that out of your thoughts. You could be, but it would bring you more heartaches than you can imagine. Put it away, Mona, and live your simple life here. To struggle out of your orbit is to court unhappiness. I was thrust out of mine by death and poverty," he added sadly, "when an awkward and green country boy, knowing absolutely nothing of city ways and manners, and placed among those who think all who come from the farms must be but half civilized and stupid. It is the shallow conceit of city-bred people always and the greatest mistake they make. My aunt sent me to a business college, and for a year my life there was a burden. The other fellows made game of my clothes, my opinions, and, worse than that, a jest of all the moral ideas in which my good mother had instructed me. Later on, when I began to get out into the world, I found the same disposition to sneer at all that is pure and good in life. The young men I became acquainted with called me a goody-good because I acted according to conscience and refused to drink or gamble. They seemed to take a pride in their ability to pour down glass after glass of fiery liquor, and when I asserted that to visit gambling dens and all other resorts of vice was to demean one's self, and positively refused to follow them, they laughed me to scorn. They seemed to take a pride in their vices in a way that was disgusting to me. Then, as if to prove what a stupid greenhorn I was, they pointed out men who stood well socially, attended church, had wives and families, and yet led lives that were a shame and disgrace in my estimation. They proved to me what they asserted in various ways, so I could not doubt it. It was all a revelation, and for a time upset all my ideas and led me to think my early training in the way I should walk a stupid waste of opportunity.
"Beyond that, and perhaps the worst of all, I was made to think that religious belief was arrant nonsense and used as a cloak for evil doings; that none except silly old women and equally silly young girls were sincere in pious professions; that belief in God was an index to shallowness, and prayer a farce.
"It began to seem to me that I really had been brought up wrong and trained in absurd ways, and that unless I threw my moral scruples to the winds, I should be a jest and a laughing-stock to all city people. We grow to feel, and think, and live like those we meet daily, and when I came here, among you whose lives and morals were so unlike city folks and so like those of the people among whom I was reared, it seemed as if I had gone back to my boyhood home.
"I think the sound of your church bells, Mona, was an influence more potent than all else to carry my thoughts and feelings home again."
He paused a moment to look out seaward and along the broadening path of moonlight as if it led into a new life and a new world, while Mona watched his half-averted face. All this was a revelation to her of his inner self, his nature and impulses. She had thought tenderly of him before; now he seemed the embodiment of all that was good and true and manly—a hero she must fain worship.
"Life is a puzzle-board, dear," he said at last, as if that sparkling roadway had been followed into a better one; "we all strive for happiness in it and know not where or how it may be found. We wish to please ourselves first, and to share it with those who seem akin to us. Few really desire to annoy others or give them pain. Then again we are selfish, and our own needs and hungers seem all important. We are a little vain ofttimes, carnal always, unthinking, and seldom generous. We forget that it is more blessed to give than to receive, that a clear conscience is as necessary to happiness as good digestion is to health, and that we cannot walk alone through life. We must depend upon others for about all the happiness we receive, and they on us. Then again we had best remain with those we understand and who know us best. They and they only can or will seem near to us. Your bells have carried me back to those with whom I am allied by nature; and among them and in the pure and simple life they live, I feel that peace and contentment may be found. With you it is the same, my dear, and it is to keep you here among those akin to you that I say what I have of the great world. Do not wish to enter it; do not imagine you will find happiness there, for you cannot. Here you are loved and understood, here are those you know and can trust, and here every cliff, and gorge, and grove, every flower, and bird, and ocean voice, contains a childish memory. Were you to leave them behind every call of the church bells at eventide would carry your heart back to these scenes again, as it has mine to those of my youth. No, dear, be warned in time and remain content."
He meant it for her good, but she thought only of a similar bit of advice he had given her once before, and one that wounded her to the heart.
For a little longer they sat and watched the moonlight scene; Winn unconscious that beside him was a girl whose ennobling ambition and sweet, patient nature was a prize any man might feel proud to win, and Mona quivering with an unaccountable heartache; and then he rose to go.
"It is getting late, dear," he said in his familiar way, "and we'd best go home. You may catch cold if we stay here longer."
And Cupid, hovering on the old stone tower, turned away in sorrow for a wasted opportunity.
But Winn held out his hand to assist Mona, and be it said to his credit, he retained hers in a warm clasp until her gate was reached.
"Good night, dear," he said then as he opened it for her to enter, "and sweet dreams."
There are genial, liberal, and companionable rascals and mean, contemptible, sneaking ones. The former attract by their apparent honesty and cordial expressions, and are the more dangerous; the latter repel by every look, act, and word. Of the first class J. Malcolm Weston was a pertinent example, while Carlos B. Hill was of the latter.
On "the street" and among his associates Weston was considered a jovial, good-natured man, liberal in small things, a pleasant associate, but lacking in morality and without principle. He paid for one of the best pews in the church Winn's aunt attended, which was always occupied by his wife and family, and by him occasionally; he contributed for charitable and missionary work in an ostentatious way, always insisting that it be known how much he gave; belonged to a club where gambling was the chief amusement and the members of which were mostly stock brokers, speculators, and fast men about town; he wore the latest and most fashionable raiment, and drove a dashing turnout. Before the firm of Weston & Hill had been established he had been the manager of what is known as a bucket shop, and when that failed (as they always do, soon or late) he began his career as a promoter. In this he was not over-successful, mainly from lack of funds to carry out his schemes; but when the conceited, shallow-minded Hill was induced to walk into his parlor, Weston began to soar. Hill was a retired manufacturer and bigoted church member who had saved a small fortune by miserly living, stealing trade marks, copying designs, making cheap imitations of other manufacturers' goods, and cutting prices. He thirsted for fame as a great financier and longed to be a power in the stock market. Weston, whose business arguments usually contained equal parts of religion and possible profit-making, in due proportion to the credulity and piety of his victims, and who could time a horse race, play a game of poker, or utter a fervid exhortation with equal facility, easily led Hill into the investment and brokerage business, and so the firm was established.
This was J. Malcolm Weston.
Of Hill, though his counterpart exists, but not in plenty, an explicit description shall be given. He was of medium size with a sharp hawklike nose, retreating forehead, deep-set fishy eyes, ears that stood out like small wings, and a handclasp as cold and lifeless as a pump-handle. His sole object of conversation was himself; he had pinched pennies, denied himself all luxuries, and lived to be hated, till he grew rich. It was one of his kind of whom the story is told that, having died rich (as usual), a stranger passing the church on the day of the funeral asked of the sexton at the door, "What complaint?" and received the reply, "None whatever; everybody satisfied."
Weston, liberal rascal that he was, was not long in learning to hate his mean-natured partner, and by the time the Rockhaven Granite Company was duly organized and well on toward success, had conceived another and perhaps more excusable swindle (if any swindle is excusable), it being not only to rob the investors in Rockhaven, but Hill as well, and then leave for a foreign clime. But the launching of Rockhaven necessitated outlay. Hill really held the purse-strings, so Weston, the plausible, shrewd schemer, bided his time. But the road to success became difficult. Each successive outlay was whined about and opposed by Hill, who, shallow in his conceit, lacked the courage of his rascality. When Winn was sent to Rockhaven, and money to pay men must follow, and each successive item and advertisement in theMarket News(both high-priced) only made him wince the more, it required all of Weston's optimistic arguments to keep him from backing out. But when returns from the sale of this absolutely worthless stock came in, Hill smiled, and when some thirty thousand shares had been sold and, by reason of Simmons' manipulation, it was quoted on 'change at six dollars per share, his eyes glittered like those of a hungry shark. No thought of the honest and confiding men and women who had contributed to swell the total, and would share in the inevitable loss, came to him. No qualms of conscience, no sense of guilt, no fear of retribution! only the miser's lust of gain and the swelling of his abnormal self-esteem. And so gratified was he in this partial success, and so eager to pocket its results, that, had Weston now proposed dividing receipts and absconding, he would have consented with alacrity.
Of those who were to be the dupes of this precious pair a word will now be said. They comprised a varied list, from poorly paid clerks who had caught the gambling fever to Winn's aunt who, since she believed in Weston, and being baited on by the deceptive dividend, had invested almost her entire fortune. There was one cashier in a bank who had "utilized" about three of the many thousands he had access to, an innocent and underpaid stenographer in Weston & Hill's office who persuaded her widowed mother to draw her all from the savings bank and buy Rockhaven, and scores of small investors, trustees for estates; and even sane business men, lured by the early and unexpected dividend and anxious to share in the rapid advance, bought, what they at heart feared was worthless. And so the bubble grew apace, and Weston and his henchman, Simmons, in the privacy of their offices, smiled and congratulated one another, and plotted and planned. They discussed the items to be paid for in theMarket News, how long it would be necessary to continue the farce of quarrying carried on by Winn, and how much stock was really being tossed back and forth among the gamblers on 'change, and how much held by honest investors. Of the quarried stone shipped by Winn, enough had been received to build the palatial residence Simmons had under way and some toward another and smaller contract, taken at a price below market rates. To these consultations Hill was seldom invited, for the best of reasons,—he was in the end to be made the dupe of all. Of this latter and final iniquity not even Simmons was informed.
There are always two parties in every stock exchange, well known as bulls and bears. Those who believe in an advance, or what is to the same end, manipulate a stock to increase its price, are said to be "bulling it"; while those who honestly think it quoted above its worth and sell it, or plot to depress its price, are said to "bear it." Like the ever varying hues of the kaleidoscope, so the opinions and actions of each individual among those men constantly change, and a bull to-day may be a bear to-morrow. Then cliques and pools take up one little joker of values, and seek by force of number and capital to toss it up or down. To this end they fill the press with columns of false reports, fictitious statements, and items of apparent news for one purpose—to deceive. When the wildcat, Rockhaven, started on its career, the bulls and bears, glad of a fresh toy, began to toss it back and forth. None believed it of any actual value, but merely one of the many dice in the speculative box. All united in asserting that it was theavant courierof a scheme; it might be pushed up to a fabulous price and it might any day go down with a crash. It was this very certainty of being an uncertainty—the fact that its future was an open gamble, a positive chance—that made it interesting. None of these astute speculators were deceived by the early dividend, even for one moment; and when Simmons, well known as Weston's mouthpiece, openly bid two dollars for five thousand shares or any part of it, and really obtained one hundred, and that the identical hundred originally given a prominent man for the use of his name, all knew that the fresh toy was on its way toward the roof or the cellar. It may seem strange after the countless schemes which have come to naught, that any remain who could be inveigled into a new one, but as a wise showman once said, "the world loves to be humbugged," and the early dividend worked its inevitable result among the real investors, while the gamblers' chance stimulated "the street"; and between the two Rockhaven was pushed upward. And theMarket News, as well as other city papers anxious to sell space, helped to swell the bubble until Rockhaven became one of the loaded dice all speculators love to play with. It started at two dollars a share, bid by Simmons, who the next day offered three for it and had two hundred more sold him by a too-confident bear who didn't own a share, and who later on bought it in at a higher price, pocketing his loss with a smile. And so it kept on, now up a point and back a half, then up two and down one, to go back again when some nervous bear sought to cover. Some who owned it at the subscription price of one dollar sold, and quadrupled their money, to see it go still higher, and catching the fever, bought it in again; while others who were short of it at three, bid it in at five, and distrustful of it as ever, went short again, and so the definite stock value in this case, as in all others, became a guess.
In the meantime Weston, the spider in his web, and Simmons, his trusty spokesman, watched the market and were not idle. They had sold some thirty thousand shares, theMarket Newskept printing items (at a cost of fifty cents per word), the street was all guessing, and Rockhaven bade fair to become a sensation "on 'change."
Then a few far-seeing bulls, believing the natural sequence of stock manipulation in this case would end in a "corner," began bidding it up, while Simmons, quick to feel the pulse of the situation and really holding the key to it, aided them by spreading a report to that effect, and when the price showed weakness, buying a few hundred. As most of "the street" asserted that the stock was valueless, his object was to create a short interest, if possible, and in time so manipulate matters as to scare the shorts, knowing full well what the result would be.
The only danger he knew lay in the action of Winn Hardy and what he might do. If that duped young man scented the game and, returning, alarmed his aunt, who had bought ten thousand shares and locked them up, the game would be balked.
"We must keep your man Hardy on the island all summer," he said to Weston, "and let him quarry stone, at whatever cost. If ever he hears what Rockhaven is quoted at and isn't a fool, he will hurry back and not only unload his thousand shares, but tell his aunt, and she will do the same."
"I doubt that he will," answered Weston; "he has few friends in the city, and those are not posted on the market, and as for his aunt, I have assured her that if she hopes to sell out her stock at the top price, she must keep her investment an absolute secret. I gave her the tip on Sunday as we were walking home from church together, and in such a way that I feel sure she will heed it. The good woman is wrapped up in church work and putting the matter in the way I did, and at that time, insures her secrecy. Some people must be handled with religious gloves," he added, smiling urbanely, "and some hit with a club." He thought of Hill in this connection.
And in the case of Winn Hardy, he reckoned without Jack Nickerson.
There are honest and honorable stock brokers, and Page, a friend of Nickerson's and acting broker for him, was one of them. He knew Simmons well, and had at one time or another come in sharp conflict with the latter in some stock deal. He had watched the bubble, Rockhaven, ever since its inception, and accustomed as he was to the endless variety of tricks resorted to by others of his class, had an intuitive conception of how the general partnership of Weston & Hill and Simmons would be carried to its culmination.
"It's a swindle, pure and simple," he said in confidence to Nickerson, "and while Weston is willing to dupe the confiding investors he has persuaded to buy the stock, the real end and aim of his scheme is to get the street short of it and, by some sort of scare, start the bears to bidding against each other, and when the right time comes Simmons will appear on the scene and unload Rockhaven at top price. How soon that time will come and how far up they will push the stock before the shorts take fright, is a guess. It is now steady at six and not much interest in it. Then again it's an open question how much stock is owned on the street and how great a short interest has been created. No one has any confidence in it, and yet many are ready to take a flyer in it for a turn. My idea is to handle it as one would a hot horseshoe. I am long a thousand or two, you are ditto for five hundred, and we hold fifteen hundred in trust for your friend Hardy and this islander, Hutton. Whether to unload now and make four points or hold for a big stake, is the question. It's a gamble either way."
And this, be it said, fairly represented the situation.
But Simmons, who really held the key to this well-set trap, knew very well that he had the street all guessing, and more than that, was just the man to keep them at it. He sold and he bought a little stock each day, just to keep it active and quoted. He could have bought every share on the street if necessary, but that was not his game. What he did want was to aid the bull pool that had been formed, for every share they bought meant one more short of that share, and when the time came, one more scared bear to bid it up. It was an unscrupulous scheme, but one continually being worked in one way or another by these legalized gamblers.
Then, as if the devil came to Simmons's aid, Rockhaven began to be quoted in the bucket shops, and the crowd there, as usual, were all bulls. It is a strange fact, but true, that every lamb who goes into one of these wool-shearing offices is always sure to buy, expecting an advance. With him, stocks are bound to advance—never go down. If they do, he feels it's only for the time being, and they must go up again, and so he foolishly puts up more margins, and still more, and the crafty thief who manages this robber's den assures him he is right; they are bound to go up, and in privacy smiles at the innocence of his victim. And so the shearing goes on.
In this case it helped the arch-plotter, Simmons, and his backer, Weston, for as the stock held firm, those who were short of it at two, three, and four, had no chance to cover. Then as it began to creep up a little, to even up their shortage they sold still more, and every few days a paid item in theMarket Newshelped matters on. What they were need not be stated. They were all to the same purpose, and that to create confidence in Rockhaven, and as usual every bear on the street discounted these statements and felt more certain that Rockhavens were without substantial value.
And they were right.
Meanwhile Weston, the great financier, as he now felt himself to be, rubbed his hands with satisfaction and concocted more news items; and Simmons hobnobbed with the street, assuring one and all of the other speculative liars what a safe investment Rockhavens were, and how sure to advance.
"We have not sold much stock and do not care to," he said, "we know a good thing when we see it, and in this quarry we have a certain money-maker. It costs us a mere nothing to quarry the stone, the market absorbs all our product at a good price, and the ledge we own is limitless. Then we have an excellent manager in whom the firm trusts implicitly."
He always used "we" in speaking of the stock, that pronoun carrying a certain assurance, as he well knew, for Simmons, who had grown old and gray on the street, was a shrewd money-maker and well known to be worth a million or more.
But while Weston was happy in his prospective success, Hill was not. He was too greedy, and, narrow-minded as he was, could not wait content until the Rockhaven plum was ripe. He wanted to grasp it at once, even to ruin its fruition entirely. He railed and groaned whenever a dollar was put out, and had from the start. In his narrow vision it was so much thrown away. Every item in the press that called for outlay, the use of the thousands held by Simmons to manipulate the market, and especially the hundred or more that each week had to be sent to the island, each and all added to Hill's misery. Weston, the liberal rascal, had for a long time felt disgusted with his partner's miserly instincts; now he positively hated him and longed for the day when he could deal him a crushing blow. Both were unscrupulous schemers and thieves at heart, but of the two Hill was the worse. Not only did Weston come to hate Hill more and more each day, but he grew tired of the sight of his pinched and hypocritical face, his sunken eyes and clammy handshake—for shake hands with him occasionally he must. Then Hill was so unlike Weston in other ways it added to the feeling of disgust; he never used tobacco or drank, and held up his hands in holy horror at any lapse from the code of morality, and worse than that, if Weston let slip any word of profanity, as he occasionally did, Hill exclaimed against it.
To have one's small vices made a daily text for short sermons is unpleasant, even to the best of us.
But while Weston's hate and disgust grew apace, no hint of it leaked out, and since he was the master spirit in the Rockhaven Granite Company and in that scheme held the reins, it moved on to culmination, unaffected by Hill's whining.
The life of suspense now forced upon Winn was not agreeable. He had too much inborn ambition and energy of character, and once he had come to feel himself his own master, as his mission to Rockhaven allowed, never again could he fill a menial position and be satisfied, and the possibility of it once more seemed degradation. Then again his present dilemma was galling. He had followed Jess Hutton's advice, but no word came from the city except the weekly remittance from his firm and letters urging him to sell stock. He would not do so now, not even if those honest people had offered any price, and what he had sold was a source of dread. But no one wanted more, for the partial cessation of work in the quarry was handwriting on the wall.
And so the summer days sped by, and Winn's longing for a better understanding with Mona grew stronger. In a way he stood in a false position toward all these people except Jess, and the longer it remained so the worse it seemed, so one evening he resolved to confide in Mona.
"Let us go over to the cave to-morrow afternoon," he said, "I've something to tell you." It was the first step toward the right, and he felt better for having taken it. When they were crossing the mile of undulating ledges separating the village from this lonely gorge, Winn, carrying the little green bag and leading Mona like a child around the rocks, experienced a strangely sweet feeling of protection and care for her, and with it came the determination to utter no more of the cutting speeches so natural to him.
"I may not be here much longer," he thought, "and it shall be a pleasant afternoon for her to recall when I am gone."
And be it said here that when a man feels that way toward a woman, love's silken cord has been knotted about his heart. When they reached the niche, at the head of the gorge, a surprise awaited Winn, for its floor was carpeted thick with freshly gathered ferns, and bunches of wild roses and clusters of red berries were thrust into each crevice.
"What good fairy has been here ahead of us?" exclaimed Winn as he looked at the charming nook. "Was it you, Mona?"
"It must have been one of your mermaids," she answered prettily, "and our coming has frightened her away."
"One who plays the violin, I imagine," he answered smiling, "and has raven tresses instead of sea-green."
But when Mona was seated and he opposite reclined on the fresh green carpet, he was in no hurry to tell his story, and for reason. The spot, with its wild grandeur of cliff wall on one side, the other gently sloping and broadening down to where the white-crested billows leaped in among the weed-draped rocks, was beyond all question the most picturesque bit of coast scenery he had ever seen. And now it seemed endowed with a newer charm. Here he was, hidden away from all the wide world and almost from himself, with Nature at her grandest and the limitless ocean voicing eternity at his feet. For a little time he watched the white-crested billows tossing the rockweed and brown kelpie aloft as they swept into the gorge with a solemn roar. Somehow, just then, it seemed to him as if he and Mona were alone with God, and the world was young, and life all before him. And at this moment he forgot all his troubles, and the price of Rockhaven stock seemed of less account than the ferns he sat upon.
"This spot makes a better man of me, Mona," he said at last, "and to-day it lifts me into the frame of mind that the church bells always do at eventide. I am not a believer such as you people here are who join the church. I am only of the world, worldly, embittered somewhat by experience and therefore rather distrustful. And yet here it all disappears, and only God seems good to me." Then he paused, looking out on the wide ocean once more while Mona watched him with wistful eyes, wondering what odd speech would fall from his lips next.
"I asked you to come here to-day, little girl," he said at last, "to tell you the story of my life and what has made me as I am. You have been kind and tender and patient with my whims, your mother has opened her door to me, your uncle has trusted me and been my friend, your minister and many others have been kind to me also, and in all ways a welcome to me and my errand here has been extended. And now I will tell my story." And tell it all he did, not even omitting Ethel Sherman. All the years he had been a menial in Weston & Hill's office, his associates the while and their influence, and then this new departure in life with all its hopes and ambitions, to end in a fog of doubt and suspense. When the recital was ended he felt better; how Mona felt her words can best indicate.
"I am glad you trust me so much," she said, "and I wish I could say a word that would help you. Uncle Jess's advice must be for the best." And then an intuition that all this meant Winn's leaving the island soon brought a shadow over her face. For a little time the two sat in silence, unconscious of the wild romance of the nook or the ceaseless monotone of the ocean just below.
"I have worked hard to make this venture a success," he said at last, in a dejected tone, "and hoped for much, but now it all seems likely to vanish, and worse than that, the good people here who have bought stock will lose by it and blame me. I cannot tell them how matters stand, or even leave here at present, and yet any day I may hear that the company has dissolved. I've lost all confidence in them now, and to protect myself am forced to act a dishonorable part and let them send money I do not need. I have a friend to whom I sent our stock, but no word comes from him, and so, little girl, you see why I am so disheartened."
But Mona scarcely understood all he had said—some of it not at all. The matter of stock values and how the present dilemma came about was quite beyond her. What she did understand was that some grave danger threatened Winn and he must leave the island. She had, impelled by a sweet girlish impulse, come to the cave early that day, bringing ferns and flowers to deck it and surprise this man whose every word and smile seemed of so much value. She had brought her violin, glad if he cared to hear her play; she had hoped the little outing, away from all others in this trysting place, would be charming to him; and in her girlish heart meant to make it so, and now the little plan had come to naught, and instead she had heard what caused a heartache. The ferns were fast wilting and the violin remained in its case.
"Come, dear," said Winn, speaking freely and seeing the cloud on her face, "let us forget this trouble and enjoy this afternoon. We may not have another one here. Please play for me now."
But her muse had fled, and she only turned away to hide the pain in her face.
"I will by and by," she said faintly; "I want to think now."
And Winn, conscious of the blow he had dealt her, felt a strange sense of guilt. He had known for many weeks that his every word and look and smile was a joy to her, and while not for one instant had she overstepped the bounds of maidenly reserve, her thoughts were of him. And then as he looked at her with face half turned away and lips tightly closed as if to keep back the tears, a sudden impulse to gather her close in his arms and whisper fond and loving words came to him. But he put it away.
"I wish you would play for me, dear," he said very gently, "and drive away my blues. Play something lively." And the boy god, ever hovering where hearts are tender, sheathed his arrow and flew away.
Many times afterward Winn thought of that moment and always with regret.
A little longer Mona waited, and then, like an obedient child, drew her violin from its case.
Our moods are our masters, and be it untutored girl or world-wise man or woman, they shadow or brighten all expression. And though Mona played at his bidding one and another of the lively airs she knew, a minor chord of sadness ran through them all.
Then, to his surprise, she began one of the late light operas he had sent for and given her weeks before. She did not play it with ease, a halt came now and then, but she played it all through and then paused.
"I am surprised," he said; "when and how did you learn that? You told me you could not read a note of music."
"I have been learning to read," she answered quietly, "and Uncle Jess has helped me."
And then Winn, wishing to encourage her in some way, or at least lead her thoughts out of their present gloom, uttered a bit of foolish advice.
"Mona, my dear," he said earnestly, "some day I hope you may have a chance to study music in the city. If you have, and I would advise it, you will win a name for yourself."
"Would you come to hear me if I did?" she answered sadly.
"Most assuredly," he said, "and shower you with choicest flowers."
When the lowering sun had left the gorge in shadow, and twilight had crept into the cave, Mona picked up her violin, and, as if to utter her own heartache, softly played the old love song Winn had first heard whispering out of that wild gorge. Watching her and listening thus to what seemed the quivering of that girl's heart, his eyes grew misty.
"Come, dear," he said, when the sad song ended, "it's time to go home."
And all the way back he held her arm and gently guided her steps among the rocks.