THE MARQUIS AT NIGHT
THE MARQUIS AT NIGHT
The household of the Inn at the Red Oak soon became accustomed to the presence of their new member; indeed, he seemed to them during those bleak winter months a most welcome addition. Except for an occasional traveller who spent a night or a Sunday at the Inn, he was the only guest. He was gregarious and talkative, and would frequently keep them for an hour or so at table as he talked to them of his life in France, and of his adventures in the exciting times through which his country had passed during the last fifty years. He was the cadet, he told them, of a noble family of the Vendée, the head of which, though long faithful to the exiled Bourbons, had gone over to Napoleon upon the establishment of the Empire. But as for himself—Marie-Anne-Timélon-Armand de Boisdhyver—he still clung to the Imperial cause, and though now for many years his age and infirmities had forced him to withdraw from any part in intrigues aiming at the restoration of the Empire, his sympathies were still keen.
When he talked in this strain, of his thrilling memories of the Terror and of the extraordinary days when Bonaparte was Emperor, Dan and Tom would listen to him by the hour. But Mrs. Frost preferred to hear the Marquis's reminiscences of theancien régimeand of the old court life at Versailles. He had been a page, he said, to the unfortunate Marie Antoinette; he would cross himself piously at the mention of the magic name, and digress rapturously upon her beauty and grace, and bemoan, with tears, her unhappy fate. She liked also to hear of the court of Napoleon and of the life of thefaubourgsin the Paris of the day. On these occasions the young men were apt to slip away and leave the Marquis alone with Mrs. Frost and Nancy.
For Nancy Monsieur de Boisdhyver seemed to have a fascination. She would listen absorbed to his voluble tales, her bright eyes fixed on his fantastic countenance, her head usually resting upon her hand, and her body bent forward in an attitude of eager attention. She rarely spoke even to ask a question; indeed, her only words would be an occasional exclamation of interest, or the briefest reply.
During the day their noble guest would potter about the house or, when the weather was fine, stroll down to the shore, where he would walk up and down the strip of sandy beach in the lee of the wind hour after hour. Now and then he wandered out upon the dunes that stretched along the Neck; and once, Dan afterwards learned, he paid a call upon old Mrs. Meath who lived by herself in the lonely farmhouse on Strathsey Neck, that was known as the House of the Dunes.
After supper they were wont to gather in Mrs. Frost's parlour or in the old bar before the great hearth on which a splendid fire always blazed; and when the Marquis had had his special cup of black coffee, he would get out his violin and play to them the long evening through. He played well, with the skill of a master of the art, and with feeling. He seemed at such times to forget himself and his surroundings; his bright eyes would grow soft, a dreamy look would steal into them, and a happy little smile play about the corners of his thin pale lips. Obligingly he gave Dan lessons, and often the young man would accompany him, in the songs his mother had known and loved in her youth, when old Peter had come wooing with fiddle in hand.
But best of all were the evenings when the Marquis chose to improvise. Plaintive, tender melodies for the most part; prolonged trembling, faintly-expiring airs; and sometimes harsh, strident notes that evoked weird echoes from the bare wainscoted walls. Mrs. Frost would sit, tears of sadness and of pleasure in her eyes, the kindly homely features of her face moving with interest and delight. Nancy was usually by the table, her sharp little chin propped up on the palms of her hands, never taking her fascinated gaze from the musician. Sometimes Tom would look at her and wonder of what she could be thinking. For certainly her spirit seemed to be far away wandering in a world of dreams and of strange inexpressible emotions. For Tom the music stirred delicate thoughts bright dreams of beauty and of love; the vivid intangible dreams of awakening youth. He had not had much experience with emotion; the story of his love affairs contained no more dramatic moments than the stealing of occasional kisses from the glowing cheeks of Maria Stonywell, the beauty of the Tinterton road, as he had walked back to the old farm with her on moonlight evenings.
They would all be sorry when Monsieur pleaded weariness and bade them good-night. Sometimes his music so moved the old Frenchman that the tears would gather in his faded blue eyes and steal down his powdered cheeks; and then, like as not, he was apt to break off suddenly, drop violin and bow upon his knees, and exclaim, "Ah! la musique! mon Dieu, mon Dieu! elle me rappelle ma jeunesse. Et maintenant—et maintenant!" And then, brushing away the tears he would rise, make them a courtly bow, and hurry out of the room.
Dan alone did not fall under his spell. He and Tom would often talk of their strange guest after they were gone to bed in the great chamber over the dining-room.
"I don't know what it is," Dan said one night, "but I am sorry he ever came to the Inn; I wish he would go away."
"How absurd, old boy!" protested Tom. "He has saved our lives this frightful winter. I never knew your mother to be so cheerful and contented; Nancy seems to adore him, and you yourself are making the most of his fiddle lessons."
"I know," Dan replied, "all that is true, but it is only half the truth. Mother's cheerfulness is costing me a pretty penny, for I can't keep her from ordering the most expensive things,—wines, and the like,—that we can't afford. Maybe Nance adores him, as you say,—she is such a strange wild child; but I have never known her to be so unlike herself. We used to have good times together—Nance and I. But this winter I see nothing of her at all." For the moment Dan forgot his complaint in the tender thought of his foster-sister. "It probably is absurd," he added presently, "but I don't like it; I don't like him, Tom! He plays the fiddle well, I admit but he is so queer and shifty, nosing about, looking this way and that, never meeting your eyes. It's just as though he were waiting, biding his time, for—I don't know what."
"Nonsense, Dan; you're not an old woman."
"It may be, Tom, but I feel so anyway. The place hasn't seemed the same to me since that Frenchman came. I wish he would go away; and apparently he means to stay on forever."
"I think you would miss him, if he were to go," insisted Pembroke, "for my part I'm glad he is here. To tell the truth, Dan, he's been the life of the house."
"He has fascinated you as he has fascinated Mother and Nance," Dan replied. "But it stands to reason, boy, that he can't be quite all right. What does he want poking about in a deserted old hole like Deal?"
"What he has said a thousand times; just what he so beautifully gets—quiet and seclusion."
"Perhaps you are right and I am wrong; but all the same I shall be glad to see the last of him."
The night was one of bright moonlight at the end of February. The bedroom windows were open to the cold clear air. Tom was not sleepy, and he lay for a long time recalling the dreams and emotions that had so stirred him earlier in the evening, as he had listened to the Marquis's playing. He kept whistling softly to himself such bars of the music as he could remember. Dan's chamber faced west, and Tom's bed was so placed that he could look out, without raising his head from the pillow, over the court in the rear of the Inn and into the misty depths of Lovel's Woods beyond the offices and stables.
As he lay half-consciously musing—it must have been near midnight—his attention was suddenly riveted upon the court below. It seemed to him that he heard footsteps. He was instantly wide awake, and jumped from the bed to the window, whence he peered from behind the curtain into the courtyard. Close to the wall of the Inn, directly beneath the window, a shadow flitted on the moonlight-flooded pavement, and he could hear the crumbling of the snow. Cautiously he thrust his head out of the window. Moving rapidly along near to the house, was a little figure wrapped in a dark cloak, which looked to Tom for all the world like the Marquis de Boisdhyver.
For the moment he had the impulse to call to him by name, but the conversation he had so recently had with Dan flashed into his mind, and he decided to keep still and watch. The figure moved rapidly along the west wall of the Inn almost the entire length of the building, until it arrived at the entrance of the bowling-alley which abutted from the old northern wing. Reaching this it paused for a moment, glancing about; then inserted a key, fumbled for a moment with the latch, opened the door, and disappeared within.
Tom was perplexed. He could not be sure that it was the Marquis; but whether it were or not, he knew that there was no reason for any one entering the old portion of the Inn at midnight. His first thought was to go down alone and investigate; his second was to waken Dan.
He lowered the window gently, drew the curtains across it, and bending over his friend, shook him gently by the shoulder. "Dan, Dan, I say; wake up!"
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Dan with a start of alarm, as he sat up in bed.
"Nothing, nothing; don't make a noise. I happened to be awake, and hearing footsteps under the window, I got up and looked out. I saw some one moving along close to the wall until he got to the bowling alley. He opened the door and disappeared."
"The door's locked," exclaimed Dan. "Who was it?"
"He had a key, whoever he was then. To tell the truth, Dan, it looked like the Marquis; though I couldn't swear to him. I certainly saw some one."
"You have not been asleep and dreaming, have you?" asked his friend, rubbing his eyes.
"I should say not. I'm going down to investigate; thought you'd like to come along."
"So I shall," said Dan, jumping out of bed and beginning to dress. "If you really have seen any one, I'll wager you are right in thinking it's the old marquis. That is just the sort of thing I have imagined him being up to. What he wants though in the old part of the house is more than I can think. He has pestered me to get back there ever since I showed him over the place the day he arrived. Are you ready? Bring a candle, and some matches. Ill just take my gun along on general principles. I don't care how soon we get rid of the Marquis de Boisdhyver, but I shouldn't exactly like to shoot him out with a load of buckshot in his hide."
Tom stood waiting with his boots in hand. Dan went to his bureau and took out his father's old pistol, that had done duty in the West India trade years ago, when pirates were not romantic memories but genuine menaces.
"Sh!" whispered Dan as he opened the door. "Let's blow out the candle. It's moonlight, and we will be safer without it. Be careful as you go down stairs not to wake Mother and Nancy."
Tom blew out the candle and slipped the end into his pocket, as he tiptoed after Dan down the stairs. At every step the old boards seemed to creak as though in pain. As they paused breathless half-way down on the landing, they heard no sound save the loud ticking of the clock in the hall below and the gentle whispering of the breeze without. The moon gave light enough had they needed it, but each of them could have found his way through every nook and corner of the Inn in darkness as well as in broad day-light. They crept down the short flight from the landing, paused and listened at the doors of Mrs. Frost's and Nancy's chambers, and then slipped noiselessly into the bar where the logs still glowed on the hearth.
"Shall we," asked Tom in a low tone, "go down the corridor or around outside?"
"Best outside," Dan whispered. "If we go down the corridor we are like to frighten him if he is the Marquis, or get a bullet in our gizzards if he is not. Should he be inside, he'll have a light and we can find just where he is. I have a notion that it's the Marquis and that he'll be in the Oak Parlour. We'd better creep along the porch."
Very softly he unlocked the door, and stepped outside. Tom was close behind him. They crept stealthily along next the wall well within the shadow of the roof, pausing at every window to peer through the cracks of the shutters. But all were dark. As they turned the corner of the porch at the end of the main portion of the inn from which the north wing extended, Dan suddenly put his hand back and stopped Tom. "Wait," he breathed, "there's a light in the Oak Parlour. Stay here, while I peek in."
With gun in hand he crept up to the nearest window of the Oak Parlour. The heavy shutters were closed, but between the crack made by the warping of the wood, he could distinguish a streak of golden light. He waited a moment; and, then at the risk of alarming the intruder within, carefully tried the shutter. To his great satisfaction it yielded and swung slowly, almost noiselessly, back upon its hinges; the inside curtains were drawn; but a slight gap had been left. Peering in through this, Dan found he could get a view of a small section of the interior,—the end of the great Dorsetshire cabinet on the farther side of the room and a part of the wall. Before the cabinet, bending over its shelf, stood the familiar form of the Marquis de Boisdhyver, apparently absorbed in a minute examination of the carving. But Dan's attention was quickly diverted from the figure of the old Frenchman, for by his side, also engaged in a similar examination of the cabinet, stood Nancy. For a moment he watched them with intent interest, but as he could not discover what so absorbed them he slipped back to Tom, who was waiting at the turn of the porch.
"It's the Marquis," he whispered in his friend's ear.
"What is he up to?"
"I don't know. Apparently he is examining the old cabinet. But, Tom, Nancy is with him and as absorbed in the thing as he is. Look!" he exclaimed suddenly. "They've blown out the light."
As he spoke, he pointed to the window, now dark. "Come," he said, making an instant decision, "let's hide ourselves in the hall and see if they come back."
"But Nancy—?"
"No time for talk now. Come along."
They ran back along the porch, slipped into the bar, and thence into the hall. Dan motioned to Tom to conceal himself in a closet beneath the stairway, and he himself slipped behind the clock. Hardly were they safely hidden thus, than they heard a fumble at the latch of the door into the bar. Then the door was pushed open, and the Marquis stepped cautiously in the hall. He paused for a moment, listening intently. Then he held open the door a little wider; and another figure, quite enveloped by a long black coat, entered after him. They silently crossed the hall to the door of Nancy's chamber. This the Marquis opened; then bowed low, as his companion passed within. They were so close to him that Dan could have reached out his hand and touched them. As Nancy entered her room, Dan distinctly heard Monsieur de Boisdhyver whisper, "More success next time, mademoiselle!"
There was no reply.
The Marquis turned, stole softly up the stairs, and in a moment Dan heard the click of the latch as he closed his door. He slipped out from his hiding place, and whispered to Tom.
In a few moments they were back again in their bedroom.
"Heavens! man, what do you make of it?" asked Tom.
"Make of it!" exclaimed Dan, "I don't know what to make of it. It's incomprehensible. What the devil is that old rascal after, and how has he bewitched Nance?"
"Perhaps," suggested Tom, more for Nancy's sake than because he believed what he was saying, "it is simply that he is curious, and knowing that you don't want him in the old part of the Inn, he has persuaded Nancy to take him there at night."
"Nonsense! that couldn't possibly account for such secrecy and caution. No, Tom, he has some deviltry on foot, and we must find out what it is."
"That should be simple enough. Ask Nance."
"Ah!" exclaimed his friend, "you don't know Nance as well as I. You may be sure he has sworn her to secrecy, and Nance would never betray a promise whether she had been wise in making it or not."
"Then go to the old man himself and demand an explanation."
"He'd lie ..."
"Turn him out."
"I could do that, of course. But I think I would rather find out what he is up to. It has something to do with the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour. I'll find out the mystery of that if I have to hack the thing into a thousand pieces. What I hate, is Nance's being mixed up in it."
"We can watch again."
"Yes; we'll do that. In the meanwhile, I am going to investigate that old ark myself. There's something about, something concealed in it, that he wants to get. When I took him in there the day after he came, he couldn't keep his eyes off it. If you can get Nance out of the way tomorrow afternoon, I'll send the Marquis off with Jesse for that long-talked-of visit to Mondy Port; and I'll give Jesse instructions not to get him back before dark. And while they are away, I'll investigate the Oak Parlour myself. Can you get Nance off?"
"I might ask her to go and look over the Red Farm with me. She might like the walk through the woods. I could easily manage to be away for three or four hours."
"Good! You may think it odd, Tom, that I should seem to distrust Nance. I don't distrust her, but there has always been a mystery about her. Mother knows a good deal more than she has even been willing to tell to me, or even to Nance, I guess. I know nothing except that she is of French extraction, and I have sometimes wondered since she has been so often with the old Marquis this winter, if he didn't know something about her. It flashed over me to-night as I saw them in that deserted room. Whatever is a-foot, I am going to get at the bottom of it. We will watch again to-morrow night. I heard him whisper as he left Nance, 'More success next time!' This sort of thing may have been going on for a month."
They undressed again, and Dan put his gun away in his bureau. "We may have use for that yet, Tommy," he said. "It would do me good, after what I have seen to-night, to put a bit of lead into the Marquis de Boisdhyver as a memento of his so delightful sojourn atL'Auberge au Chene Rouge."
THE OAK PARLOUR
THE OAK PARLOUR
The two young men felt self-conscious and ill-at-ease the next morning at the breakfast table, but apparently their embarrassment was neither shared nor observed. Mrs. Frost had kept her room, but Nancy and the Marquis were in their accustomed places; the old gentleman, chattering away in a fashion that demanded few answers and no attention; Nancy, speaking only to ask necessary questions as to their wants at table and meeting the occasional glances of Dan and Tom without suspicion. Tom could scarcely realize in that bright morning light, that only seven or eight hours earlier he and his friend had spied upon their companions prowling about in the abandoned wing of the inn.
Monsieur de Boisdhyver assented readily enough when Dan proposed that Jesse should take him that day to Monday Port. He was curious to see the old town, he said, having heard much of it from his friend; much also from his celebrated compatriot, the Marquis de Lafayette.
Tom took occasion during the discussion to ask Nancy if she would walk across the woods with him after dinner, that he might pay a visit to the Red Farm and see that all was going well in the absence of his parents. He felt that the tones of his voice were charged with unwonted significance; but Nancy accepted the invitation with a simple expression of pleasure. When Mrs. Frost was informed of the plans for the day, she came near thwarting Dan's carefully laid schemes. She had counted upon Jesse to do her bidding and had, she declared, arranged that Nancy should help her put together the silken patches of the quilt upon which she was perennially engaged. Her foster-daughter's glance of displeasure at this was tinder to the old lady's temper, and Dan entered most opportunely.
"So!" she was exclaiming, "I am always the one to be sacrificed when it is a question of some one's else pleasure."
"Mother, Mother," Dan protested good-naturedly, as he bent over to kiss her good-morning, "aren't you ever willing to spend a day alone with me?"
"Danny dear," cried the old lady, as she began to smile again, "you know I'm always willing. Of course, if Tom wants Nancy to go, the quilt can wait; it has waited long enough, in all conscience. There, my dear," she added, turning to the girl, "order an early dinner, and since you are going to the Red Farm, you might as well come back by the dunes and enquire for old Mrs. Meath. We have neglected that poor woman shamefully this winter."
"Yes, Mother,—if we have time."
"Take the time, my dear," added Mrs. Frost sharply.
"Yes, Mother."
The Marquis started off with Jesse at eleven o'clock, as eager for the excursion as a boy; and by half-past twelve Nancy and Tom had set out across the woods for the Red Farm. Dan was impatient for them to be gone. As soon as he saw them disappear in the woods back of the Inn, he made excuses to his mother, and hurried to the north wing. He found the door of the bowling alley securely locked, which convinced him that either the Marquis or Nancy had taken the key from the closet of his chamber. Having satisfied himself, he went directly to the Oak Parlour.
It was cold and dark there. He opened the shutters and drew back the curtains, letting in the cheerful midday sun, which revealed all the antique, sombre beauty of the room, of the soft landscapes and the exquisite carving of the Dorsetshire cabinet. But Dan was in no mood to appreciate the old-world beauty of the Oak Parlour. In that cabinet he felt sure there was something concealed which would reveal the mystery of the Marquis's stay at the inn and possibly the nature of his influence over Nancy. Whatever had been the object of the Marquis's search, it had not been found: his parting words to Nancy the night before showed that.
Dan took a long look at the cabinet first, estimating the possibility of its containing secret drawers. Hidden compartments in old cabinets, secret chambers in old houses, subterranean passageways leading to dungeons in romantic castles, had been the material of many a tale that Dan and Tom had told each other as boys. For years their dearest possession had been a forbidden copy of "The Mysteries of Udolpho" which they read in the mow of the barn lying in the dusty hay. However unusual, the situation was real; and he felt himself confronted by as hard a problem as he had ever tried to solve in fiction. He knew something about carpentry, so that his first step, after examining the drawers and cupboards and finding them empty, was to take careful measurements of the entire cabinet, particularly of the thicknesses of its sides, back, and partitions. It proved a piece of furniture of absolutely simple and straightforward construction. After long examination and careful soundings he came to the conclusion that a secret drawer was an impossibility.
Suddenly an idea occurred to him and he returned to the sitting-room. "Mother," he said, "I have been looking over the old cabinet in the Oak Parlour, thinking perhaps that I would have it brought into the dining-room. I wonder, if by chance, there are any secret drawers in it.
"Secret drawers? What an idea!" exclaimed Mrs. Frost.
"You never knew of any did you?"
"No.... Stop, let me think. Upon my word, I think there was something of the sort, but it has been so long ago I have almost forgotten."
"Try to remember, do!" urged Dan, striving to repress his excitement.
"It was not a secret drawer, but there were little hidden cubby-holes—three or four of them. I remember, now, your father once showed me how they opened. They were little places where the Roman Catholics used to hide the pages of their mass-books and such like in the days of persecution in England."
"Yes, yes," said Dan, "that makes it awfully interesting. Did father ever find anything in them?"
"No, I think not; but, dear me, it was over thirty years ago we brought that old cabinet from England,—long before you were born, Dan."
"Can you remember how to open the secret places? I have been looking it over, but I can't see where they can be, much less how to get into them."
"There were four of them, I think; all in the carving on the front, in the eyes of the lions it seems to me, and in the lion's mouth, or in the leaves somewhere. One spring that opened them I recollect, was under the ledge of the shelf, another at the back of the cabinet and,—but no, I really can't remember where the others were."
Dan was impatient to try his luck at finding them, and hurried back to the Oak Parlour. He ran his fingers many times under the ledge of the shelf before he heard the click of a tiny spring, and, looking up, saw the lion's eyelid wink and slowly open. With an exclamation of satisfaction, he thrust his fingers into the tiny aperture, felt carefully about, and was chagrined to find it empty. "More success next time,monsieur le marquis!" he muttered.
At length he found the spring that released the eyelid on the carved lion on the other side of the panel. He glanced into the little opening and, to his delight, saw the end of a bit of paper tucked away there. He dug it out with the blade of his pocket knife and unfolded it. It was yellow and brittle with age, covered with writing in a fine clear hand. But he was annoyed to discover, as he bent closely over to read it, that it was written in French, still worse, part of the paper was missing, for one side of it was ragged as if it had been torn in two.
Remembering with relief, that Pembroke had acquired a smattering of French at Dr. Watson's school for the sons of gentlemen, he put the paper carefully away in his pocket to wait for Tom's assistance in deciphering it. Then he set to work to find the missing half.
He fumbled about at the back of the cabinet for a spring that would release another secret cubby-hole, and was rewarded at last by an unexpected click, and the seemingly solid jaws of the lion fell apart about half-an-inch. But the little aperture which they revealed was empty. Further experiment at last discovered the fourth hiding place, but this also contained nothing.
It occurred to him then that the Marquis had already discovered the other half of the paper, and like himself was searching for a missing portion. As he stood thinking over the problem, he suddenly noticed that the room was in deep shadow, and realized that the sun had set over the ridge of Lovel's Woods. The Marquis would soon be returning. Carefully closing the four openings in the carving he pushed the old cabinet back against the wall, closed the shutters and drew the curtains. Then with a last glance to see that all was as he found it, he went out and closed the door the precious bit of paper in his inside pocket.
He went directly to Mrs. Frost's parlour. "Mother," he said, "please don't tell anyone that I have been in the north wing today. I have good reasons which I will explain to you before long. Now, I shall be deeply offended if you give the slightest hint."
"Gracious! Dan, what is all this mystery about?"
"You will never know, mother, unless you trust me absolutely. Mind! not a word to Tom, Nancy or the Marquis."
"Very well, Danny. You know I am as safe with a secret as though it had been breathed into the grave."
Dan did not quite share his mother's confidence in her own discretion, but he knew he could count on her devotion to him to keep her silent even where curiosity and the love of talk would render her indiscreet. He also knew, and had often deplored it, that fond as she was of Nancy she was not inclined to take the girl into her confidence.
Having said all he dared to his mother, Dan went to his room and carefully locked up the mysterious paper. He returned to the first floor just as the Marquis and Jesse drove up in the sleigh to the door of the inn.
Monsieur de Boisdhyver was enthusiastic about all that he had seen—the headquarters of General Washington, the house in which the Marquis de Lafayette had slept, the old mill in the parade, the fort at the Narrows, the shipping, the quaint old streets.... "But, O Monsieur Frost," he exclaimed, "the weariness that is now so delightful! How soundly shall I sleep to-night!"
Dan smiled grimly as he assured his guest of his sympathy for a good night and a sound sleep; thinking to himself, however, that if the Marquis walked, he would not walk unattended. He had no intention of trusting too implicitly to that loudly proclaimed fatigue.
THE WALK THROUGH THE WOODS
THE WALK THROUGH THE WOODS
While Dan Frost was hunting for the secret places of the old cabinet, Tom and Nancy were picking their way across the snowcovered paths of Lovel's Woods to the Red Farm. These woods were a striking feature in the landscape of the open coast country around Deal. Rising somewhat precipitously almost out of the sea, three ridges extended far back into the country, with deep ravines between. They were thickly wooded, for the most part with juniper and pine. In some places the descent to the ravines was sheer and massed with rocks heaped there by a primeval glacier; in other parts they dipped more gently to the little valleys, which were threaded with many a path worn smooth by the dwellers on the eastern shore. Nearly two miles might be saved in a walk from the Inn to Squire Pembroke's Farm by going across the Woods rather than by the encircling road.
As they were used to the frozen country Tom and Nancy preferred the shorter if more difficult route. They had often found their way together through the tangled thickets of the Woods or along the shores of the Strathsey River, in season accompanied by dog and gun hunting fox and rabbit or partridge and wild duck. In Tom's company Nancy seemed to forget her shyness and would talk freely enough of her interests and her doings. He had always been fond of her, though until lately she had seemed to him hardly more than a child. This winter, as so frequently he had watched her sitting in the firelight listening to the old Marquis's playing and dreaming perhaps as he also dreamed, he realized that she was growing up. A new beauty had come into her face and slender form, her great dark eyes seemed to hold deeper interests, she was no longer in the world of childhood. The mystery enveloping her origin, which for some reason Mrs. Frost had never chosen to dispel, gave a certain piquancy to the interest and affection Tom felt for her. In the imaginative tales he had been fond of weaving for his own amusement, Nancy would frequently figure, revealed at last as the child of noble parents, as a princess doomed by some strange fate to exile. He thought of these things as from time to time he glanced back at her, holding aside some branch that crossed the path or giving her his hand to help her over a boulder in the way. The red scarf about her neck, red cap on her dark hair, flashing in and out of the tangled pathway against the background of the snow-clad woods, gave a bright note of colour to the scene.
They were obliged for the most part to walk in single file until the last ridge descended over a mass of rocks to the marshes along Beaver Pond. Then having given her his hand to help her down, he kept hold of it as they went along the free path to the open meadows. The feeling of Nancy's cool little hand in his gave Tom an odd and conscious sense of pleasure.
"You have been uncommonly silent, Nance, even for you," he said at last.
"Oh, I'm always silent, Tom," she replied. "It is because I am stupid and have nothing to say."
"Nonsense, my dear, you always have a lot to say to me. But you are forever reading, thinking ... what's it all about?"
"Oh, I think, Tom, because I have little else to do; but my thoughts aren't often worth the telling. In truth there is no one, not even you, who particularly cares to hear them. Tom," she said, "I am restless and discontented. Sometimes I wish I were far away from the Inn at the Red Oak and Deal, from all that I know,—even from you and Dan."
Pembroke suddenly realized that he could not laugh at these fancies, as he had so often done, and dismiss as if they were the vagaries of a child.
"Why are you restless and discontented, Nancy?" he asked seriously.
"Aren't you ever?" she questioned for reply. "Don't you ever get weary with the emptiness of it all, the everlasting round, the dullness? Don't you ever want to get away from Deal, and know people and see things and be somebody?"
"I do that, Nance. I mean to go as soon as I am a lawyer. I won't poke about Deal long after that, nor Monday Port either. I mean to set up in Coventry."
"Coventry!" exclaimed the girl with an accent of disdain. "That is just a provincial town like the Port, only a little more important because it is the capital of the state."
"Being the capital means a lot," protested Tom in defense of his ambitions of which for the first time he felt ashamed. "Men are sent to Congress from there. Nance, girl, ours is a wonderful country; we are making a great nation."
"Some people may be. None of us are, Tom. I wonder at you more than I do at Dan, for you have had more advantages. As for me, I am only a girl; there's nothing for girls but to sit and sew, and prepare meals for men to eat, and wait until some one comes and chooses to marry them. Then they go off and do the same thing some place else."
"But what have you to complain of, Nancy? you have the kindest brother, a good mother, a comfortable home...."
"The kindest brother, yes. But you know Mrs. Frost is not my mother. She doesn't care for me and I can't care for her as if she were. I have never loved any one but Dan."
"You can't help loving Dan," said Tom, thinking of his good friend. "But then, little girl, you love me too." And he pressed the hand in his warmly.
Nancy quickly withdrew her hand. "I am not a little girl. I have been grown up in lots of ways ever so long."
"But you love me?"
"I like you. Oh, Tom, the life we all lead is so futile. If I weren't a girl, I should go away."
They had reached the stile by now that led into the meadow which sloped down from the clump of poplars a hundred rods or so above, in the midst of which the Red Farmhouse stood. Instead of helping his companion over the steps in the wall, Tom stopped and stood with his back to them. "Let's stay here a minute, Nance, and have it out."
"Have what out?" she asked a trifle sharply.
"You haven't any queer wild plan in your head to go away, have you?"
"I don't know—sometimes I think I have. I dare say there are things somewhere a girl could find to do."
"But Mrs. Frost—?"
"Oh, Mother would not miss me long—she'd have Dan."
"But Dan would miss you."
"Yes, Dan might. I couldn't go, if Dan really needed me here. I think sometimes he doesn't. But, Tom, if you were in my position, if you didn't know who your parents were, if all your life you had been living on the charity of others—good and kind as they are, wonderful even as Dan has always been—you couldn't be happy. I'm not happy."
"But, Nance, what has come over you?"
"No—nothing in particular; I have often felt this way."
"But, dear, I couldn't let you go. I'd mind a lot, Nance."
She looked at him with a sudden smile of incredulity. "You, Tommy?"
"You can't go—you musn't go," Tom repeated, as he drew nearer to her.
Suddenly he reached out and seized her hands. "Don't you realize it?—I love you, Nance; I've always loved you!" He drew her close to him. She did not resist nor did she yield, but still with her eyes she questioned him. "Kiss me, Nancy," he whispered. She let him press his lips to hers but without responding to the pressure, as though she still were wondering of the meaning of this sudden unforeseen passion. But at last, caught up in its intensity, she gave him back his kisses. He took her face then between his hands and looked into it with a gaze that in itself was a caress. "Oh my sweetheart!" he said softly.
Slowly she disengaged herself. "Tom, Tom," she said, "this is foolishness. We musn't do this."
"Why not?" demanded Pembroke. "I tell you I love you!"
"No—not that way, not that way. I didn't mean that. Why, you foolish boy, haven't we kissed each other hundreds of times before?"
"No, Nancy, not like that—not like this," he added, as again he put his arm around her and drew her face to his. And again she yielded. "Say it—say it, Nance—you love me."
She drew back from him. "I think I must, Tom. I don't think I could let you kiss me that way if I didn't. But now come ... Tom ... dear Tom ... do come ... don't kiss me again."
"But say it," he insisted, "say you love me."
"Please help me over the stile."
He gave her his hand and she sprang lightly to the top of the steps. In a second he was by her side, both of them balancing somewhat uncertainly on the top of the stone wall. "I won't let you down till you say it."
"Please—".
"No—you love me?"
"Yes—there—I love you—now—".
"No, kiss me again."
"Tom—no." But the negative was weak and Pembroke took it so.
"Now," he said, as they began to cross the meadow, "we must tell Mrs. Frost and Dan."
"Tell them what?"
"Why, that we are in love with each other, and that you are going to marry me. What else?"
"No, no," exclaimed Nancy, "You must say nothing. I am not in love. I don't mean to marry you."
"But why not? You are. You do."
"Are—do—?"
"In love—you do mean to marry me."
"No—Tom, listen—you know your father and mother would hate it. You have at least two years before you can practice. We couldn't marry—we can't marry. Oh, there are things I must do, before I can think of that."
"Not marry me? Good Lord, what does it mean when people are in love with each other, what does it mean when a girl kisses a fellow like that?"
"I don't know! what it means—madness, I guess. Do you think I could marry as I am, not knowing who I am?"
"Oh, what do I care who your parents were! We'll find out. I swear we will. Good Lord, I love you, Nancy; I love you!"
"Please, please don't make me talk about it now."
"But soon—?"
"Yes, soon—only promise you'll say nothing to Dan or to Mother till we have talked again. I must think; it is all so queer and unexpected; I never dreamed that you cared for me except as a little girl."
"I didn't know I did. But come to think of it, Nance, it has been you as much as Dan that has brought me to the Inn at the Red Oak. Why it was you I wanted to walk and talk and play with."
"Please,—dear Tom—G—ive me time to think what it all means. Now be careful, there's the farmer. You have a lot to do, and we have been lingering too long. Mother wants us to go back by the dunes and enquire for old Mrs. Meath; so we must hurry."
The sun had set before they started on the homeward journey in one of the squire's sleighs. As they turned the bend at the beach and started across the dune road close to the sea, a great yellow moon rose over Strathsey Neck.
Tom had been so preoccupied with his own emotions and the unexpected and absorbing relation in which he found himself with Nancy, that he had altogether forgotten why he had asked her to go off with him that afternoon. As they skimmed along over the snow-packed road across the sands, Tom spied another sleigh on the Port road, the occupants of which he recognized as Jesse and the Marquis. Suddenly the memory of the night before flashed over him. He pointed with his whip in their direction. "There's the old Marquis coming back from Monday Port," he said.
Nancy looked without comment, but Tom thought the colour deepened in her cheeks.
"See here, Nance," he exclaimed impulsively; "has the Marquis anything to do with the mood you were in this afternoon? Has he said anything to make you discontented?"
He was sure that now she paled.
"What makes you ask?"
"Oh—a number of things. I've seen you with him more or less; felt he had some influence over you."—Tom was blundering now and knew it.—
She looked at him coldly. "I have been with the Marquis very little save when others have been about. He has no influence over me. I don't care to discuss such queer ideas."
"Oh, all right ... I dare say I'm mistaken ... I only thought..." He hesitated... "If you care for me, I don't mind what you think of the Marquis."
"Remember, Tom—you promised to say nothing until I gave you leave. You're not fair..."
"But you do love me?"
Nancy was silent.
"There is nothing between you and the old Frenchman—no mystery?"
There was no reply. Nancy sat with compressed lips and drawn brows, gazing fixedly at the distant House on the Dunes at the end of their road. For a long while they drove on in silence.
At the House on the Dunes they chatted for a while with old Mrs. Meath, who lived there alone with a maid-of-all-work. She was a source of much anxiety to Mrs. Frost, who sent several times each week to learn if all was going well. But Mrs. Meath was a Quaker and apparently never gave a thought to loneliness or fear.
"They will never guess," she said to Nancy and Tom as they sat in the tiled kitchen talking with her, "what I am going to do."
"Not going to leave the House on the Dunes, Mrs. Meath?"
"Deary me! no; but I am going to take a boarder."
"Really?—you are setting up to rival the Inn, eh?" said Tom.
"No", Tommy, nothing of the sort. But I am offered good pay for my front room, and as Jane Frost is always nagging me about living here alone, I thought I'd take her."
"And who pray is your new boarder?" asked Nancy.
"That is the funny part of it," replied Mrs. Meath, "I know nothing but her name—Mrs. Fountain. Everything has been arranged by a lawyer man from Coventry, and she is coming in a few days. Tell thy mother, Nancy dear, that she need worry about me no longer."
"I will, Mrs. Meath. I think it is a splendid idea, and I hope you will like the lady. Mother will be so glad that you have some one with you."
Soon they were on their way across the dunes and marshes to Tinterton road and home. Dan was preoccupied, not with the news that was so exciting to Mrs. Meath, but with the recollection of his conversation with Nancy as they had driven toward the house. Despite her implicit denial he knew there was a secret between the Marquis de Boisdhyver and herself. He could not imagine what it might be, and it was evident that she did not mean to tell him at present. But his anxieties on this or kindred subjects were not relieved by his companion during the remainder of the drive. Moreover his attempts to speak again of his newly discovered passion were received coldly—so coldly indeed that he had no heart for pleading for such proofs as she had given him earlier in the afternoon that she shared his emotion. So despite the splendid moon, the bright cold night, the merry jangle of the sleigh bells, the drive back was not the unmixed joy Tom had promised himself; and he felt his role of a declared and practically-accepted lover anything but a satisfactory one.
Finally they reached the Inn and entered the bar where they found the Marquis sitting alone before a cheerful fire. All of Tom's suspicious jealousies returned with fresh force, for Nancy rapidly crossed the room, spoke a few words to the old gentleman in an inaudible tone of voice, and passed quickly on to her own apartments.