*The Papal and Constitutional parties in Italy are often differentiated thus briefly.
*The Papal and Constitutional parties in Italy are often differentiated thus briefly.
“He is a suitor for the hand of a young lady whose welfare I have at heart.”
“Not Nancy?”
“Yes.”
“The devil he is!” and Dacre expressed his sentiments freely. “Why, I’d prefer she married our local road-mender; because then, at least, she would have a decent, clean-minded husband. Marten must be losing grip. Confound it! Why doesn’t he go to Paris or Naples, and find out this fellow’s antecedents? I feel it’s absurd to doubt you, but can you really trust your informant?”
“I have it from Nancy’s own lips.”
“Oh, dash it all! Can nothing be done to stop it?”
“Much, I hope. Tell Howard what you know, and he will start for the Continent at once to verify it. Meanwhile, may I invite a friend to come here tomorrow?”
“Need you ask? We can put up six more at a pinch. But I can’t get over Montecastello’s infernal impertinence. Yet, it’s fully in accordance with Italian standards of right and wrong. Your young count or princeling can live like a pig until matrimony crops up. Then he becomes mighty particular. The bride must bring not only her dowry, but an unblemished record as well. I suppose, in the long run, it is a wise thing. Were it not for some such proviso, half the aristocracy of Europe would disappear in two generations.”
Power passed no comment; but he sent the following letter by the night post:
“Dear Mr. Lindsay.—Miss Nancy Marten, who is staying at Valescure Castle, near this house, has honored meby asking my advice and help in a matter that concerns herself and you. She has done this because I am her friend, and was her mother’s friend years ago in Colorado. Can you get leave from your regiment for a few days, and come here? I believe you army men can plead urgent private affairs, and there is little doubt as to the urgency and privacy of this request. I make one stipulation. You are not to communicate with Miss Nancy Marten until you have seen me.“Sincerely yours,“John Darien Power.”
“Dear Mr. Lindsay.—Miss Nancy Marten, who is staying at Valescure Castle, near this house, has honored meby asking my advice and help in a matter that concerns herself and you. She has done this because I am her friend, and was her mother’s friend years ago in Colorado. Can you get leave from your regiment for a few days, and come here? I believe you army men can plead urgent private affairs, and there is little doubt as to the urgency and privacy of this request. I make one stipulation. You are not to communicate with Miss Nancy Marten until you have seen me.
“Sincerely yours,“John Darien Power.”
He passed a troubled and sleepless night. Dacre’s careless if heated words had sunk deep. They chimed in oddly with a thought that was not to be stilled, a thought that had its genesis in a faded letter written twenty years ago.
When Howard went to London next day he took with him a cablegram, part in code and part in plain English. It’s text was of a peculiarity that forbade the use of a village postoffice; for it ran, when decoded:
“MacGonigal, Bison, Colorado.—Break open the locked upper right-hand drawer of the Japanese cabinet in sitting-room, Dolores, and send immediately by registered mail the long sealed envelop marked ‘To be burnt, unopened, by my executors,’ and signed by me.”
“MacGonigal, Bison, Colorado.—Break open the locked upper right-hand drawer of the Japanese cabinet in sitting-room, Dolores, and send immediately by registered mail the long sealed envelop marked ‘To be burnt, unopened, by my executors,’ and signed by me.”
Then followed Power’s code signature and his address.
A telegram arrived early. It read:
“Will be with you 4.30 today.Lindsay.”
So the witches’ caldron was a-boil, and none might tell what strange brew it would produce.
Lindsay came. Nancy had described him aptly. The British army seems to turn out a certain type of tall, straight, clean-limbed, and clear-eyed young officer as though he were cast in a mold. Power appraised him rightly at the first glance—a gentleman, who held honor dear and life cheap, a man of high lineage and honest mind, a Scot with a fox-hunting strain in him, a youngster who would put his horse at a shire fence or lead his company in a forlorn hope with equal nonchalance and determination—not, perhaps, markedly intellectual, but a direct descendant of a long line of cavaliers whose all-sufficing motto was, “God, and the King.”
The two had a protracted discussion. Power felt that he must win this somewhat reserved wooer’s confidence before he broached the astounding project he had formed.
“I take it,” he said, at last, seeing that Lindsay was convinced he meant well to Nancy, “I take it Lord Colonsay cannot supplement the small allowance he now makes you?”
“No. It’s not to be thought of. Scottish estates grow poorer every decade. Even now Dad makes no pretense of supporting a title. He lives very quietly, and is hard put to it to give me a couple of hundred a year.”
“Then I can’t see how you can expect to marry the daughter of a very rich man like Hugh Marten.”
“Heaven help me, neither do I!”
“Yet you have contrived to fall in love with her?”
“That was beyond my control. She has told you what happened. I fought hard against what the world calls a piece of folly. I—avoided her. There is, there can be, no sort of engagement between us, unless——”
“Unless what?”
“Oh, it is a stupid thing to say, but you American millionaires do occasionally get hipped by the other fellow. If Marten came a cropper, I’d have my chance.”
Power laughed quietly. “You are a true Briton,” he said. “You think there is no security for money except in trustee stocks. Well, I won’t disturb your faith. Now, I want you to call on Mr. Marten tomorrow and ask him formally for his daughter’s hand.”
“Then the fatwillbe in the fire.” Evidently, Philip and Nancy were well mated.
“Possibly; but it is the proper thing to do.”
“But, Mr. Power, you can’t have considered your suggestion fully. Suppose Mr. Marten even condescends to listen? His first question floors me. I have my pay and two hundred a year. I don’t know a great deal about the cost of ladies’ clothes, but I rather imagine my little lot would about buy Nancy’s hats.”
“In this changeable climate she would certainly catch a severe cold. But you are going to tell Mr. Marten that the day you and Nancy sign a marriage contract your father will settle half a million sterling on you, and half a million on Nancy. So the fat spilled in the fire should cause a really fine flare-up.”
Military training confers calmness and self-control in an emergency; but the Honorable Philip Lindsay obviously thought that his new friend had suddenly gone mad.
“I really thought you understood the position,” he began again laboriously. “I haven’t gone into the calculation, but I should say, offhand, that our place in Scotland wouldn’t yield half a million potatoes.”
“To speak plainly, then, I mean to give you the money; but it must come through the Earl of Colonsay. Further, if Marten hums and haws about the amount, ascertain what sum will satisfy him. A million between you, in hard cash, ought to suffice, because Marten has many millions of his own.”
Lindsay could not choose but believe; for Power had an extra measure of the faculty of convincing his fellow-men. He stammered, almost dumfounded:
“You make a most generous offer, an amazingly generous one. You almost deprive me of words. But I must ask—why?”
“Because, had life been kinder, Nancy would have been my daughter and not Marten’s. Yours is a proper question, and I have answered it; so I hope you will leave my explanation just where it stands. I mean to enlighten you more fully in one respect. Your host, Mr. Dacre, is a well-known man, and you will probably accept what he says as correct. After dinner I shall ask him to tell you that I can provide a million sterling on any given date without difficulty.”
“Mad as it sounds, Mr. Power, I believe you implicitly.”
“You must get rid of that habit where money is concerned. If you appease Mr. Marten, you will have control of a great sum, and you should learn at theoutset to take no man’s unsupported word regarding its disposal or investment.”
Lindsay went to his room with the manner of a man walking on air. Nothing that he had ever heard or read compared in any degree with the fantastic events of the last hour. He could not help accepting Power’s statement; yet every lesson of life combated its credibility. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should be nervous and distrait when he reappeared; but Dacre soon put him at ease.
“Power has been telling me how he took your breath away, Mr. Lindsay,” he said. “But that is a way he has. When you and he are better acquainted you will cease to marvel at anything he says, or does. On this one point, however, I want to speak quite emphatically. Mr. Power is certainly in a position to give you a million pounds if he chooses, and, bearing in mind the history of his early life, and the high esteem in which he held Nancy Marten’s mother, I can sympathize with and appreciate the motives which inspire his present effort to secure that young lady’s happy marriage.”
But this incident is set down here merely to show how Power tried to make smooth the way by using his wealth. He himself placed no reliance in its efficacy. Lindsay went to Valescure Castle in high feather; but came back angered and perplexed. Marten had listened politely. There was not the least semblance of annoyance in his manner. He simply dismissed the suitor with quiet civility. When Lindsay, stung to protest, raised the question of finances, the other heard him out patiently.
“In different conditions I might have been inclined to consider your claim,” he said, when Lindsay had made an end. “Allow me to congratulate you on your position, which renders you a suitablepartifor almost any alliance—except with my daughter. No, believe me, my decision is final,” for he could not know how ironical was his compliment, and took the young man’s uneasy gesture as heralding a renewal of the argument. “Miss Marten is pledged elsewhere. She will marry Prince Montecastello.”
“I have reason to know, sir, that the gentleman you have mentioned is utterly distasteful to Nancy,” broke in the other.
Marten’s face darkened; he lost some of his suave manner. “Have you been carrying on a clandestine courtship with my daughter?” he asked.
“No. A man bearing my name has no reason to shun daylight. That I have not sought your sanction earlier is due to the fact that I did not dream of marrying Nancy until a stroke of good fortune enabled me to come to you almost on an equal footing. Perhaps I have put that awkwardly, but my very anxiety clogs my tongue. Nancy and I love each other. She hates this Italian. Surely that is a good reason why you, her father, should not rule me out of court so positively.”
Marten rose and touched an electric bell. It jarred in some neighboring passage, and rang the knell of Lindsay’s hopes.
“I think we understand each other,” he said, with chilling indifference. “My answer is no, Mr. Lindsay, and I look to you, as a man of honor, not to see or write to my daughter again.”
Now, it is not in the Celtic nature to brook such an undeservedly contemptuous dismissal; but Power had counseled his protégé to keep his temper, whatever happened. Still, he could not leave Marten in the belief that his stipulation was accepted.
“I give no pledge of that sort,” he said dourly.
“Very well. It means simply that Miss Marten will be protected from you.”
“In what way?”
Marten laughed, a trifle scornfully. “You are young, Mr. Lindsay,” he said, “or you would see that you are speaking at random. I hear a footman coming. He will show you out. But, before you go, let me inform you that, so long as you remain in this part of Devonshire, Miss Marten will have less liberty of action than usual; and that will be vexing, because she is interested in some bazaar——”
Then Lindsay’s frank gaze sought and held the coldly hostile eyes of the man who was insulting him. “In that event,” he broke in, “you leave me no option but to state that I return to Aldershot by the first available train. It would appear, Mr. Marten, that I value your daughter’s happiness rather more than you do.”
He went out defeated, but every inch a cavalier. No sword clanked at his heels; yet he held his head high, though his soul was torn with despair. He saw nothing of Nancy. She had gone for a ride into the wilds of Exmoor, and had not the least notion that her lover passed through the gates of Valescure an hour before she entered them.
Power heard Lindsay’s broken story in silence. Even Marten’s callous threat of confining Nancy to the bounds of the castle left him outwardly unmoved.
“I am not altogether unprepared for your failure,” he said gently, when the disconsolate Lindsay had told him exactly what had occurred. “I compliment you on your attitude. As might be expected, you said and did just the right things. I approve of your decision to rejoin your regiment at once. The next step is to prevent Nancy from acting precipitately. I think all may be well, even yet. But you agree that it was necessary you should see Mr. Marten and declare your position?”
“It certainly seems to have settled matters once and for all,” came the depressed answer.
“By no means. It has opened the campaign. It is a declaration of war. I need hardly advise you not to have a faint heart where such a fair lady is the prize. No, no, Nancy is not yet the Princess Montecastello, nor will she ever be.Youmay not marry her, Mr. Lindsay; buthewill not. I shall clear that obstacle from your path, at all events, and, it may be, assist you materially. My offer still holds good—remember that. For the rest, be content to leave the whole affair to me during the next three weeks. Don’t write to Nancy. It will do no good. I’ll tell her you were here, why you came, and why you went. Do you trust me?”
“’Pon my soul, I do!” said Lindsay, and their hands met in a reassuring grip.
A servant entered, bringing a cablegram. It read:
“Cable received. Everything in order.Mac.”
Then Power smiled wearily; for the real struggle was postponed until that sealed envelop reached him. There followed some disturbing days. He told Nancy of her lover’s visit, and its outcome, and had to allay her fears as best he could. Then, on the day of the bazaar, when he hoped to have many hours of her company, he discovered, in the nick of time, that Marten and the whole house-party from the castle had accompanied her; so he remained away.
Next morning he received a letter:
“Dear Mr. Power.—My father, by some means, has heard that you and I have become friends. He has forbidden me ever to meet you again, or to write. I am disobeying him this once, because I cannot bring myself to cut adrift from a friendship dear to me without one word of explanation. All at once my bright world is becoming gray and threatening. I am miserable, and full of foreboding. But I remain, and shall ever be,“Your sincere friend and well-wisher,“Nancy Marten.”
“Dear Mr. Power.—My father, by some means, has heard that you and I have become friends. He has forbidden me ever to meet you again, or to write. I am disobeying him this once, because I cannot bring myself to cut adrift from a friendship dear to me without one word of explanation. All at once my bright world is becoming gray and threatening. I am miserable, and full of foreboding. But I remain, and shall ever be,
“Your sincere friend and well-wisher,“Nancy Marten.”
That same day Howard returned from the Continent. He brought a full budget. But, in a time when the world was even grayer for Power than for Nancy, one person contrived to give him a very real and pleasurable surprise. On the twelfth day after he had received MacGonigal’s cablegram a man in the uniform of a London commissionaire brought him a big linen envelop, profusely sealed. He chanced tobe out when the messenger came; so the man awaited him in the hall. He rose and saluted Power when a house-servant indicated him.
“The gentleman who sent this package from London was very particular, sir, that it should be given into your own hands,” he explained. “He also instructed me to ask for a receipt written by yourself.”
“Indeed. What is the gentleman’s name?” inquired Power, scrutinizing the envelop to see if the address would enlighten him.
“Name of MacGonigal, sir.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir, MacGonigal. A stout gentleman, sir, an American, and very dry. He made me laugh like anything. Talked about holdups, and road agents, and landslides on the railway, he did. Oh, very dry!”
MacGonigal himself cleared up the mystery:
“Dear Derry [he wrote].—I wasn’t taking any chances; so I’ve brought that little parcel myself. Time I saw London, anyhow, and here I am. A man in our consulate tells me these boys with medals and crossbars are O. K., and one of them is making the next train. I didn’t come myself, because I don’t know how you are fixed; but I’ll stand around till I hear from you. London is some size. I think I’ll like it when I learn the language.“Yours,“Mac.”
“Dear Derry [he wrote].—I wasn’t taking any chances; so I’ve brought that little parcel myself. Time I saw London, anyhow, and here I am. A man in our consulate tells me these boys with medals and crossbars are O. K., and one of them is making the next train. I didn’t come myself, because I don’t know how you are fixed; but I’ll stand around till I hear from you. London is some size. I think I’ll like it when I learn the language.
“Yours,“Mac.”
Power’s first impulse, warmly supported by Dacre, was to telegraph and bid the wanderer come straight to Devonshire, But he decided unwillingly to wait until he had won or lost the coming battle. He telegraphed, of course, and told MacGonigal to enjoy life till they met, which would be in the course of three days, at the uttermost. Then he retired, and spent many hours in writing, refusing Howard’s help, and taking a meal in his own room. It was long after midnight when his task was ended; but he appeared at the breakfast-table in the best of health and spirits.
Dacre, aware of something unusual and disturbing in his friend’s attitude of late, was glad to see this pleasant change, and talked of a long-deferred drive into the heart of Dartmoor.
“Tomorrow,” agreed Power cheerfully. “I am calling at Valescure Castle this morning, and the best hours of the day will be lost before I am at liberty.”
Dacre had the invaluable faculty of passing lightly over the gravest concerns of life. He had noticed the abrupt termination of Power’s friendship with Nancy, and guessed its cause; but he made no effort now to dissuade the other from a visit which was so pregnant of evil.
When the meal was ended Power summoned his secretary to a short conclave. Then he entered a carriage, and was driven to the castle by the roundabout road. He could have walked there in less time; but his reason for appearing in state became evident when he alighted at the main entrance, and a footman hurried to the door.
“Mr. Marten in?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he in the library?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Kindly take me to him.”
“What name, sir?”
Power gave his name, and followed close on the man’s heels, and the servant did not dare bid such a distinguished-looking visitor wait in the hall. Still, he hastened on in front, knocked at a door, and said:
“Mr. John Darien Power to see you, sir.”
“Tell Mr. Power——” came a stern voice; but too late to be effective, for Power was in the room.
“You can tell me yourself, Mr. Marten,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry to thrust myself in on you in this way; but it was necessary, as my business is important and will brook no delay.”
Marten had risen from a table littered with papers. A cold light gleamed in his eyes; but he had the sense and courage to refrain from creating a scene before the discomfited footman.
“You may go,” he said to the man, and the door closed.
“Now, Mr. Power,” he continued, “we are alone, and, whatever your business, I must inform you that your presence here is an unwelcome intrusion.”
“May I ask why?”
“I mean to make that quite clear. In the first place, I have learned, to my astonishment, that you have wormed your way into my daughter’s confidence, and thereby brought about the only approach to a quarrel that has marred our relations. Secondly—but the one reason should suffice. I do not desire to have any communication with you or hear anything you have to say, or explain. Is that definite enough?”
Power turned suddenly, locked the door, and put the key in his pocket.
“How dare you?” Marten almost shouted.
“I had to answer, and I chose the most effective method,” was the calm reply. “Your long experience of life should have taught you that there are times and seasons when closing the ears is ineffectual. The wise man listens, even to his worst enemy. Then he weighs. Ultimately, he decides. That is what you are going to do now. Won’t you be seated? And may I sit down? Promise me we shall not be interrupted till I have finished, and I’ll unlock the door.”
Marten had not spoken to Power, nor, to his knowledge, seen him, for twenty-three years. The young and enthusiastic engineer he had sent to the Sacramento placer mine had developed into a man whose appearance and words would sway any gathering, no matter how eminent or noteworthy its component members. For some reason, utterly hidden from the financier’s ken,—for he was not one likely to recognize the magnetic aura which seemed to emanate from Power in his contact with men generally,—he was momentarily cowed. He sank back into the chair he had just quitted, but said, truculently enough:
“It would certainly be less melodramatic if my servants could enter the room should I be summoned in haste.”
Power unlocked the door, and drew up a chair facing his unwilling host.
“I am here,” he began, “to urge on you the vital necessity of dismissing the Principe del Montecastello from your house, and of permitting the announcementof Nancy’s forthcoming marriage with the Honorable Philip Lindsay, son of the Earl of Colonsay——”
“I guessed as much,” broke in Marten wrathfully. “Colonsay is as poor as a church mouse. It wasyourmoney which that young prig paraded before my astonished eyes.”
“I thought it advisable to state the motive of my visit frankly,” said Power. “I take it you are not inclined to discuss the matter in an amicable way; though I am at a loss to understand why—before I have reached any of the points I want you to consider—you are so markedly hostile both to me and to my purpose.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” and Marten took a letter from a portfolio on the table. “It appears that my late father-in-law, Francis Willard, had taken your measure more accurately than I. I remember treating you as a trustworthy subordinate; but your conduct during my temporary absence from America at a certain period led him to regard you as unprincipled and knavish. He has been dead several years; but he still lives to watch you. He left funds with a firm of lawyers in New York to carry out his instructions, which were that, if ever you were found hanging about any place where I or any member of my family was residing, I should be warned against you, because, owing to his action, and that alone, my dear wife was saved from something worse than a mere indiscretion in which you were the prime factor. A dead hand can reach far sometimes. On this occasion it has stretched across the Atlantic. The communication I received a few days ago is quite explicit.These lawyers have, at times, been much troubled to discover your whereabouts; but, on this occasion, their English agents have kept their eyes open.”
“‘Can vengeance be pursued farther than death?’” murmured Power, shocked by this revelation of Willard’s undying hatred.
The other did not recognize the quotation.
“Yes, and what is more,” he snarled, “they go on to say that Willard has intrusted a document to their care which will scare you effectually if this present remonstrance is unavailing. In that event, they will act on their own initiative, and not through me. I wonder what the precious scandal is?”
“I am here to make it known, known beyond reach of doubt or dispute.”
Marten moved uneasily. He tossed the letter back into the portfolio, and glared at Power in silence for a few seconds.
“I neither care to hear your secrets nor mean to attach any significance to them when heard,” he said, at last. “My only anxiety is to prevent you from sapping my daughter’s affections from me. Damn you, you have caused the one cloud that has come between us!”
“I, too, have Nancy’s welfare at heart.”
“I don’t see what good purpose you serve by alluding to my daughter in that impertinently familiar way.”
“Now we are close to the heart of the mystery. Nancy is not your daughter! She is my daughter!”
Marten leaned back in his chair, and glowered at the self-possessed man who had uttered these extraordinary words so calmly. His voice was tinged with sadness, it is true, but otherwise wholly devoid of emotion.
“Do you realize what you are saying?” demanded the older man, and the words came thickly, as though he spoke with difficulty.
“Yes.”
“But such raving is not argument. I thought you remarked that you were here to convince me of the error of my ways.”
Power produced an envelop, and extracted some papers. “Read!” he said, leaning forward and thrusting the folded sheets before Marten. “The letters quoted there are not in original, of course. I have left those in safe-keeping, and they will be burnt on the day I know for certain that my daughter is married to the man she loves. Read! Note the dates! I need not say another word. I have supplied such brief explanatory passages as are required. I was not aware that Mowlem & Son had tendered other evidence. Though slight, it is helpful.”
And Marten read, and his face, dark and lowering as he began, soon faded to the tint of old ivory. For his hawk’s eyes were perusing the story of his own and Willard’s perfidy, and of his wife’s revolt, and love, and final surrender. It was soon told. Nancy’s pitiful scrawl, left in the hut by the lake, Willard’s letter to Mrs. Power, the two cablegrams, and Nancy’s two letters from London—these, with Power’s notes, giving chapter and verse for his arrival at Newport, his flight with Nancy into the Adirondacks, and her departure with Willard, made up a document hardto disbelieve, almost impossible to gainsay. Some dry and faded strands of white heather had fallen from among the papers to the table, and Marten gave no heed to them at first. Now he knew he was gazing at the remnants of Nancy’s bridal bouquet.
The husband whom she loathed and had deserted, who was so detestable in her sight that she died rather than remain his wife, did not attempt to deny the truth of that overwhelming indictment. Indeed, its opening passages, laying bare his own scheming, must have convinced him of the accuracy of the remainder. With the painstaking care of one to whom the written word was all-important, he read and reread each letter, particularly Nancy’s pathetic farewell. Then, darting one wolfish glance at Power, he thrust his right hand suddenly toward a drawer. Power was prepared for some such movement, and leaped with a lightning spring born of many a critical adventure in wild lands, when a fraction of a second of delay meant all the difference between life and death. Marten was not a weakling; but he was no match for the younger man’s well-trained muscles. After a brief struggle the automatic pistol he had taken from its hiding-place was wrested from his grasp.
“You may shoot, if you like, when I have finished with you, but not before,” said Power, when his breathless adversary seemed to be in a fit condition to follow what he was saying. “I am prepared to die, and by your hand if you think fit to be my executioner; but first you must know the penalty. If I do not return to my friend’s house before a fixed hour, an exact copy of all that you have read will be sent to the fatherand uncle of that detestable blackguard you have chosen to marry my daughter. It seems that Italians are blessed with fine-drawn scruples in such matters, and the revelation of a blot in Nancy’s parentage will be fatal to your precious project. Copies will also be given to Nancy herself, and to Philip Lindsay. If I know anything of men, I fancy that he, at any rate, will not flout her because of her mother’s sin. In the event of my death, she becomes my heiress; so she will be quite independent of your bounty, and, after the first shock and horror of comprehension has passed, I think she has enough of her mother’s spirit, and of my fairly strong will, to defy any legal rights you may try to enforce as her reputed father. I am talking with brutal plainness, Marten, because you’ve got to understand that you are beaten to your knees. Now I’ll repeat my terms. Dismiss an unspeakable cad from your house—not forcibly, of course, but with sufficient conviction that he cannot refuse to go—agree to Nancy’s marriage with the man of her choice—and she should wait another year, at least, whether or not Lindsay be the man—and I burn everything, copies and originals, on her wedding day. Refuse, and you know the sure outcome. There is your pistol. It should do its work well at this short range. Shoot, if you must! I am ready!”
Marten’s hand closed round the butt of the pistol, and, during a few seconds, Power thought that he was a doomed man. Even in England, a land where deeds of violence are not condoned by lawless unwritten law, he knew he was in deadly peril. If Marten shot him, there was reasonable probability that punishment might not follow the crime. His own actions would bear out the contention that Marten had killed him in self-defense. He had palpably forced his way in; the warning letter from the New York lawyers would count against him; legal ingenuity could twist in Marten’s favor the very means he was using to safeguard Nancy’s child. But he did not fear death. Rather did he look on it as the supreme atonement. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend,” and, in giving his life for an innocent girl, he was surely obeying her mother’s last request.
But Marten, still clutching the pistol—a modern weapon of fearsome effect when fired in conditions which made faulty aim impossible—seemed to be marshaling his disrupted thoughts. His eyes were veiled, his body was bent as though old age had suddenly beset him; but the ivory-white of cheeks and forehead was yielding slowly to the quickening of the arteries caused by the recent struggle.
At last he looked at Power, and may have been surprised by the discovery that his adversary, though standing within a yard of him, obviously disregarded his presence, and was, in fact, staring through a window at the far horizon of the blue Atlantic.
For the first time he was aware of an expression in Power’s face that was baffling, almost unnerving. Suffering, pity, sympathy, well-doing—these essentials had never found lodgment in his own nature, and their legible imprint on another’s features was foreign to his eyes. He was wholly self-centered, self-contained. To his material mind men and women were mere elements in the alchemy of gold-making; yet here stood one who had never sought the gross treasures which earth seemed to delight in showering on him. And he could win what Marten had never won—love. That thought rankled. Already Nancy was yielding to his influence. Unless——
He replaced the pistol in the drawer where it was kept, ever within reach—he had ruined opponents by the score, and some were vengeful. The movement awoke Power from a species of trance, and their eyes met.
“You win,” said Marten laconically.
Power sat down again. The simplicity of his self-effacement almost bewildered the other, on whom the knowledge was forced that, had he raised and pointed the death-dealing weapon, his enemy would have disregarded him.
“I want to ask you a few questions,” he continued bruskly. “I suppose you and I can afford now totell each other the naked truth. Why are you raising all this commotion after twenty years?”
“I am only fulfilling the mandate given in—in your wife’s last letter.”
“My wife. You admit, then, that shewasmy wife?”
Power did not answer, and Marten tingled with the quick suspicion that he was opening up the very line of inquiry in which he was most vulnerable.
“Anyhow, let us endeavor to forget what happened twenty years ago,” he went on, affecting a generosity of sentiment he was far from feeling. “What I wish to understand is this—how do you reconcile your regret, or repentance, or whatever you choose to call it, for bygone deeds, with your attempt now to come between me and my daughter. Yes, damn you, whatever you may say or do, you cannot rob me of the nineteen years of affection which at least one person in the world has given me!”
Power passed unheeded that sudden flame of passionate resentment.
“It is natural, in a sense, that you should misread the actual course of events,” he said. “You may not be aware that I have been a constant visitor to this part of Devonshire during many years, and that, in hiring Valescure, you were really seeking me instead of me, as you imagine, seeking you. I met Nancy by accident. We became friends. It was the impulse of a girl deprived of the one adviser in whom she should have complete trust that led her to confide in me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You, her loved and honored father, were using your authority to force her into a hated marriage.”
“I didn’t treat matters so seriously. I never heard of this young Lindsay as a candidate before last week.”
“Had you taken a tenth part of the trouble it has cost me, you would have ascertained that the Principe del Montecastello was about as suitable a mate for Nancy as a carrion crow for a linnet.”
“He was a bit wild in his youth, but would become a model husband. I know that type of man well. At fifty he would be taking the chair at rescue meetings.”
Again Power remained silent, and Marten was obliged to reopen the discussion.
“I’ll get rid of Montecastello,” he said, and his voice had the metallic rasp of a file in it. “I’ll undertake, too, that my daughter shall be free to marry Philip Lindsay, or any other man of her choice. I suppose it will be Lindsay. I’ll invite him here, and make up for my rather emphatic dismissal the other day. But if you impose terms, so do I. To avoid a scandal, to keep my daughter’s love during the remaining years of my life, I yield to you on the major point. On my side, I stipulate that not one penny of your money goes to either Lindsay or Nancy. They must owe everything to me, not to you. Further, you must undertake to go out of my daughter’s life completely. You have contrived to do that in the past; you must manage it in the future as well.”
“You mean that I am never voluntarily to see or speak to her again?”
“Yes.”
“I promise that.”
Power spoke in a low tone, but a note of unutterablesadness crept into the words. Even his bitter and resentful hearer caught some hint of anguish, of final abandonment, of a dream that was dispelled.
“Now, about these papers,” he said, striving to assume a business-like air. “I shall write to Mowlem & Son telling them that the Willard trust has attained its object. Sometime I shall endeavor personally to get them to hand over any document in their possession. They are only agents. They can be bought. As to these,” and he tapped the sheets in Power’s handwriting, “I shall keep them until you have carried out your share of the deal.”
“Better not. You may die suddenly. Then they would be found.”
“Die, may I? And what about you?”
“I shall not die until the future of Nancy’s child is assured. In any event, I have taken steps to safeguard her secret.”
Marten hesitated. Ultimately he applied a lighted match to the papers, threw them into a grate, and watched them burn and curl up in black spirals. When they were still ablaze he gathered the bits of crackling heather, and burnt them, too.
“That, then, is the end,” he said.
“The beginning of the end,” said Power, turning to leave the room. It was a very large apartment, and there were windows at each end. Through those on the landward side he saw Nancy riding toward the gates in company with a young married couple who had joined the house party recently.
“With your permission, I will wait a few minutes,” he said. “Your daughter is just crossing the park;but she will soon be out of sight. I’ll dismiss my carriage, and walk home by the cliff path.”
“Your” daughter. So he really meant to keep his word in letter and spirit! Marten thought him a strange man, a visionary. He had never met such another—undoubtedly, he was half mad!
In a little while Power walked out. Then Marten noticed, for the first time, that he moved with a slight limp; the result of some accident, no doubt. Curse him, why wasn’t he killed? Then Nancy Marten would have become a princess, with no small likelihood of occupying a throne. For that was Marten’s carefully planned scheme. A certain principality was practically in the market. It could be had for money. Money would do anything—almost anything. Today money had failed!
Power planned to take MacGonigal by surprise. He wrote with purposed vagueness as to his arrival in London, meaning to drop in on his stout friend unexpectedly. He arrived about six o’clock in the evening at the big hotel where Mac was installed, and was informed that “Mr. MacGonigal” was out, but might return at any moment. He secured a suite of rooms, and was crossing the entrance hall, with no other intent than to sit there and await Mac’s appearance, when he almost cannoned against a woman—a woman with lustrous, penetrating brown eyes. What was worse, he stood stock still, and stared at her in a way that might well evoke her indignation.
But, if she was annoyed, she masked her feelings under an amused smile.
“You don’t recall me, of course, Mr. Power,” she said; “but I remember you quite well—even after twenty years!”
“Meg!” he cried.
She reddened somewhat. Though wearing a hat and an out-of-doors costume, she was unveiled, and there was no trace of scar or disfigurement on her face.
“Marguerite Sinclair, at any rate,” she answered.
“Sent here by the gods!” he muttered.
“Your gods are false gods, Mr. Power. I, for one, don’t recognize them as guides.”
“Marguerite Sinclair!” he went on. “So you are unmarried?”
“And you?” she retorted.
“I? I am free, at last.”
“Free?”
“Yes. Come with me. We can find a seat somewhere. If you have any engagement, you must break it.”
She dropped her veil hurriedly. If there are tears in a woman’s eyes, she does not care to have the fact noticed while she is crossing the crowded foyer of a hotel. Manlike, Power attributed her action to the wrong cause.
“Why hide your face?” he said, striving hard to control an unaccountable tremolo in his voice. “What have you been doing? Praying at Lourdes?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand: “A French doctor worked this particular miracle. The chief ingredients were some months of suffering and the skin of eggs. It was not vanity on my part. I was tired of the world’s pity.”
“Then, thank Heaven, I loved you before your scientist doubled your good looks!”
They had found two chairs in a palm-shaded corner, and Marguerite raised her veil again. Then he saw why she had lowered it.
“Derry,” she said, and her lips quivered, “why were you so cruel?”
“I’ll tell you. May I?”
“Not now. I couldn’t bear it.”
“Can you bear being told that I have never ceased to love you—that you have dwelt constantly in my thoughts during all these slow years?”
She bent her head. For a long time neither spoke. Plucking at a glove, she revealed a ring on her left hand—his ring! Then Power began his confession. He did not tell her everything—that was impossible. Nor was it necessary. In the first moment of their meeting he had said what she had been waiting thirteen long years to hear.
So, as the outcome, it was MacGonigal who surprised Power. A clerk at the key office gave him the name of the gentleman who had been inquiring for him, and, although taken aback by finding Power deep in talk with a lady, Mac “butted in” joyously.
The two stood up, and Power took his friend’s hand.
“Mac,” he said, “this is Miss Marguerite Sinclair. You’ll soon be well acquainted with her. She becomes Marguerite Power at the earliest possible date.”
Now, MacGonigal had formed his own conclusions, owing to the urgency of the message for that sealed packet. Anxiety, and not a desire to see life, had drawn him from his shell in Bison. Power’s wordshad answered many unspoken questions, solved all manner of doubts. His face shone, his big eyes bulged alarmingly. He mopped a shining forehead with, alas! a red handkerchief.
“Wall, ef I ain’t dog-goned!” he vowed. “But I’m glad, mighty glad. You’ve worried me, Derry, an’ that’s a fact.” He turned to Marguerite, little guessing how well she knew him. “Bring him to the ranch, Ma’am, an’ keep him thar!” he said. “It’ll look like home when you come along. An’ that’s what he wants—a home. I don’t know whar he met you, nor when, but I kin tell you this—he’s been like a lost dog fer thirteen years, an’ it’s time he was fixed with a collar an’ chain. Anyhow, when he’s had a good look at you, he’ll not need the chain.”
“Mac,” said the woman with the shining eyes, “you’re a dear!”
And from that moment the firm of Power and MacGonigal acquired another partner.
THE END