Three or four hurried to bring it to her, while Tom said to Fanny, “Where is yours?”
It had fallen off in her excitement and lay at some distance from her where it had been stepped on two or three times and badly crushed. Tom picked it up, brushed it very carefully, straightened it as well as he could and then put it on Fanny’s head, saying, as he did so, “I think it is all right.”
He seemed much more cheerful than at first, and pattedNero on the head, saying, “You here, too? I wonder you did not go after the ruffian.”
“He did,” Fanny explained, “and knocked him down and would have torn him to pieces if Inez had not called him off.”
“Why did she do that? She might have let him hold the villain till he was captured. There are surely enough men here to have secured him,” Tom said, speaking so low that Inez did not hear him.
She was leaning against a tree, with Nero at her side. He had seemed suspicious of Tom and declining his advances had gone to Inez, looking at her inquiringly as if asking the cause of the commotion.
“I wish he had held him,” Fanny said, vehemently, “but I wish still more that you had met us earlier and this would not have happened. You ought to have seen Inez when she sprang over the wheel and confronted the robber. She was grand and her eyes were terrible as she marched straight up to him as if she were not a bit afraid. I think she would have fired if he had not turned and ran.”
Tom made no reply except to say, “I wish I had come earlier,” then, addressing Inez he asked if she would go on to Clark’s, or go home.
“I must go home,” she answered quickly. “It is the best place.”
Fanny at once offered to go with her, but Inez declined.
“No, no,” she said. “I want to be alone.”
“How will you go? You cannot walk so far,” someone asked, and Tom replied, “She will take my horse and I shall walk.”
By this time the driver was getting anxious to be off. and the passengers gathered around Inez, bidding hergood bye, telling her they should never forget her bravery, and calling her the heroine of the valley, as Tom was the hero.
“Don’t, don’t,” Inez said, putting up both her hands. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t think of saving anybody. I was wild. I was desperate. I—I am not a heroine. Don’t talk about me. Don’t let them put me in the papers. I can’t bear it.”
There was a hard look on her face which softened when Fanny came up to say good bye. Drawing her closely to her Inez sobbed like a child.
“It was so bright yesterday, and this morning I was so happy. It is so dark now, and will be always. Good bye, and God bless you. I don’t believe I shall ever see you again.”
“Yes, you will,” Fanny answered. “We are to spend a few days at Clark’s, and if you do not come there I shall drive over and call on you, and then there is New York in the future.”
Inez shook her head. She knew there was no glad future for her and her tears fell like rain as she watched Fanny getting into the stage, helped by Tom, who lifted his hat very politely as the stage drove off, the passengers looking back and waving hands and handkerchiefs to Inez until the turn in the road hid her from view. Nothing was talked of the rest of the way but the attempt at robbery and Inez’s wonderful courage and presence of mind.
“We ought to do something to show our appreciation; make up a purse, perhaps, if she is poor,” some one suggested, and Fanny quickly interposed, “They are not poor in that way. Money would be out of place. Make her a present which she can always keep.”
This met with general approval, and it was decidedthat as soon as Fanny returned to San Francisco she should purchase a handsome watch, with Inez’s name and the date of the attempted robbery on the case. The money was to be contributed at Clark’s, where the stage arrived nearly an hour behind its usual time. All the passengers were to continue their journey that day except Fanny and her mother. The latter was in a state of utter prostration and went at once to her room and to bed. During the scene on the road she had sat half fainting in the coach, alighting once when all the rest did and then, seeing she could be of no use, creeping back to her corner and feeling that she was doing her duty when she passed out her golden stoppered salts as her contribution to the many restoratives offered to Inez. Her trip to the Yosemite had not been very pleasant, and she was glad she was so far on her way back to the city which suited her better.
“I shall always feel grateful to that girl,” she said to Fanny, as she was getting into bed. “She saved us from a great unpleasantness. Think of being ordered out of the stage and searched by a masked blackguard with a revolver in your face. He would have found nothing of value about me except a few dollars. The diamonds were safe in your hat. I watched it all the time until it rolled off into the mud. Mr. Hardy picked it up. I did not see him very closely, but thought he seemed a very gentlemanly fellow, who had seen more of the world than that girl he is to marry. I think he could do better.”
Fanny did not hear the last of her mother’s remarks. In her fright and excitement over the robber and Inez she had not given the diamonds a thought until her mother brought them to her mind. Her hat was still on her head and snatching it off she passed her handover the bows of ribbon in quest of the little linen bag.IT WAS GONE!The strong thread with which it had been sewed to the hat had been wrenched apart from the ribbon and it had slipped out, when or where no one could tell. The diamonds were lost, and the hotel was soon in a state of nearly as great excitement as there had been on the road. Many suggestions were offered, one of which was that when the hat was stepped on by the heavy boots of some of the party, as it evidently had been, the stitches had given way and the bag fallen out. This seemed feasible, and with a gentleman and a guide from the hotel Fanny went back to the scene of the adventure, looking all along the road and going over every inch of ground near the spot where the stage had been stopped. There were footprints of the people and Tom Hardy’s horse and a spot in the spongy soil where Nero had stretched himself at full length, but the diamonds were not there. Very unwillingly Fanny broke the news to her mother, who at once went into hysterics so violent that a physician was called, and all that night Fanny and Celine were kept busy attending to her. It was not the value of the diamonds she deplored so much, she said, although that was great, as the fact that the ear-rings had been in the family so long and were to have been Fanny’s on her wedding day. Fanny, too, was very sorry for her loss, but thought less of it than of Inez, whose face haunted her as she last saw it, so white and drawn, with an expression which puzzled her. She would like to have driven over in the early morning to inquire for her, but her mother was too weak and nervous to be left and she was obliged to wait for the daily stage which she hoped would bring her some news.
CHAPTER VIII.MARK HILTON.
When the stage disappeared from her sight Inez was standing as motionless as a statue, with a look in her eyes which made Tom half afraid to go near her.
“Inez,” he said, at last, as she did not move. “Inez, shall we go now?”
“Bring up the mare,” was her answer.
He brought her, and pointing to the stump of a tree near by Inez continued, “Take her there.”
He took her there, and held out his hand to help Inez mount. She motioned him aside and seated herself in the saddle, which did not inconvenience her at all, as she was accustomed to it. She was shaking like a leaf, but did not know it or feel any fatigue as she started on the road, followed by Tom and Nero. The latter alone seemed to have any life in him. He was glad to go home and showed his gladness by barking and jumping alternately at Inez and the mare. At last, as no attention was paid to him, it seemed to occur to his canine sagacity that something was wrong and had been all the time, and he, too, subsided into silence and trotted demurely by Inez’s side. Once when a feeling of dizziness came over her, making her sway in the saddle, Tom, whose eyes were constantly upon her, put his arm upon her waist to steady her. Recoiling from him as from a viper she said, “Don’t touch me, Tom Hardy, nor speak to me until this mood is past. Your revolver is in my pocket. Father says there is murder in my blood, and I might kill you.”
Tom fell back behind her, while she straightened herselfand sat erect as an Indian, but made no effort to guide the horse, who took her own gait, a rather slow one, with which Tom could easily keep pace. What his thoughts were during that long walk it were difficult to guess. His hands were in his pockets and his head was down, hiding his face from Inez, who glanced at him once as the mare stopped a moment under the shade of a tree and he passed on in advance. If, as her father had said, there was murder in her blood, it was boiling now and had been since she bounded from the coach.
“I could rid the world of him so easily,” she thought, and her hand went into her pocket, but with a sob which seemed to rend her heart in two, she drew it back, and whispered, “I have loved him so much. I cannot harm him now.”
They had reached a point from which the cottage could be seen, with her father on the piazza looking in their direction. At sight of him Tom turned to Inez and said, “You are not to despise your father as you do me. I led him into it. I am to blame.”
Inez made no answer, but her face softened a little; then hardened again when, as she drew near the cottage, she saw her father coming to meet her. He had felt all the morning that the crisis he had so long expected was close at hand. The net of sin he had woven was closing round him and, but for his daughter, who believed in him so fully, he did not care how soon it enfolded him and he stood unmasked before the world which now respected him so highly.
The reader has, of course, long suspected that Mr. Rayborne and Long John and Mark Hilton were one. How he came to be what he was he could scarcely tell. He had loved Helen Tracy devotedly. He sometimes thought he loved her still in spite of the bitterness whichhad sprung up between them, he hardly knew how or why, as he looked back upon it. She had thought herself safe with him because he knew the worst there was of her. But because he knew it he was, after the first few months of feverish adoration were over, more on the alert, perhaps, than he should have been. He did not trust her and she knew it and grew restive under his watchful surveillance. He had no right to distrust her,—no right to be jealous,—no right to criticise her actions, and because he did, she, in a spirit of retaliation, taunted him with his birth and position and poverty, until he could endure it no longer and left her, half resolving, before a week was passed, to go back, for his little baby daughter had, if possible, a stronger hold upon him than her mother. Then his pride came up and he said, “I’ll stay away till she sends for me. She knows where I am.” But she did not send, and from some source he heard she was getting a divorce. This hurt him more than all the hard words she had ever said to him, as it cut him off from her forever. But there was still the baby. “For her sake I’ll be a man and some day I’ll go to her and tell her I am her father,” he thought.
Alas for the mistakes which change the current of one’s whole life. Chancing upon a Chicago paper in which were comments upon the recent divorce of “the beautiful Mrs. Hilton, so well known in fashionable circles,” there was mention made of her recent bereavement in the death of her little girl. Mark could not remember when he had cried before, but he did so now. Everything was swept from him,—his wife, his home, and his infant daughter.
“God has turned against me, if there is a God,” he said, “and I care nothing what becomes of me how.”
For days he was in a most despondent mood, scarcelyeating or sleeping, and paying but little attention to anything passing around him. Jeff, who had come with him from Chicago, roused him at last by suggesting that they go to the mines of Montana. Although so young, Jeff was beginning to have a great influence over Mark, who felt so discouraged and hopeless that it was pleasant to lean upon some one even if it were a boy. They went to Montana and into the mines, but on the day of the accident both were away at some distance from the scene of the disaster, prospecting for themselves. When the news reached them and Mark heard that he was supposed to be dead and that Jeff was missing, it was the latter who said, “Let’sstaydead and missing, and take another name, and go on further west or south, and begin new with the world. I think it will be fun.”
The boy’s advice was followed, and John Rayborne and Tom Hardy went to California, where Anita Raffael came in Mark’s way. She was an orphan,—alone in the world,—with no home but the convent in which her father had placed her at school before he died. With Mark it was at first only pastime to talk to the little half Spanish, half Mexican, when he chanced to meet her. Then something in her lovely face and soft, dark eyes began to appeal to him, and he accidentally discovered how much he was to her, and how forlorn she was in her convent home, where she was like an imprisoned bird beating its wings against the bars of its cage in its efforts to escape. No one was unkind to her; no one could be, she was so gentle and sweet. She was unhappy because she wanted freedom, and when Mark asked her to be his wife, she took him gladly, and was so loving, and happy and gay, that he never repented the act. She was not like Helen, nor was he like the Mark Hilton who had won the famous beauty. He was JohnRayborne, and Anita was his wife, and their home was in the Yosemite, where she persuaded him to go, for she loved the wild, mountain scenery and made their cottage a bower of beauty, with her skillful hands and perfect taste. When she heard of a stage robbery she would get furious and stamp her little feet and denounce the robbers in her broken English, while Mark laughed at her excitement and asked, “What would you do if I were to take to the road some day?”
“Kill you first, and then die myself,” she answered, with no more thought that such a thing could be than Mark himself had then.
For a time he drove the stage in the summer between Milton and the valley, and was once or twice stopped on the road when Jeff was with him on the box. Thus, both “knew the ropes,” as Jeff said, criticising the manner of the attack and pointing out a better way, while Mark laughed at him, and without meaning what he said, suggested that he try it.
Giving up stage-coaching, he became a guide, and then——. There was a deep, dark gulf after the then, and he always shuddered when he recalled the day when he joined Jeff in what he called a mere lark. Jeff had tried it alone, and, unknown to Mr. Hilton, to see if he could do it. He had profited by what he had seen on the road and laid his plans carefully as to what he would do in certain circumstances. As a boy he had picked pockets for fun, and he stopped the coach on the same principle, finding that the gymnastic performances of his youth were a help to him in the rapidity with which he could do his work and disappear. The stage which was the object of his first attempt was chosen because there was only one passenger in it, a clergyman, who had prayed aloud while he was being searched.
“The old cove’s watch was silver, and he had only twenty-five dollars in his purse, and I gave them back to him. I never meant to take a blessed thing, and my revolver wasn’t loaded,” he said to Mark to whom he related his adventure.
The boy, who had horrified Uncle Zacheus by saying he’d like to be a robber and had astonished Alice by offering to pick her pocket, had developed into a man with a will so strong and a manner so enticing that Mark was like clay in his hands. It was, however, some time before he was persuaded to try what he could do at a hold-up. He found he could do a great deal. The excitement and danger were exhilarating, especially when Jeff was with him and by his wonderful activity bewildered the passengers until they could have sworn there were half a dozen men instead of one demanding their money. It was exhilarating, too, to help search for the brigands and hear all that was said of them and make suggestions as to the best means of capturing them. The downward grade once entered upon, it was comparatively easy to continue it until he was steeped in crime so deep that to go back seemed impossible. Sometimes when Anita’s arms were around his neck he would put her from him quickly with a feeling that he was not worthy to touch one so pure and innocent and who trusted him so implicitly. It would kill her if she knew the truth, but she never should know it, he thought, and for her sake and his daughter’s he was deciding to quit his mode of life when her sudden death paralyzed for a time every faculty of his mind and left him without the ballast he needed.
Returning home late one night after an absence of two or three days he had been talking with Jeff of a recent robbery and the necessity there was to keep quiet forsome time to come, the country was so thoroughly aroused and so large a price was offered for the capture of the men. A slight sound, more like the cry of a wounded animal than of a human being, attracted his attention, and hurrying into the next room he found Anita senseless upon the floor. She had been sitting up after Inez was in bed hoping he might come home and had fallen asleep so that she did not hear him when he came in; neither did he see her, or suspect that she was in the next room. His voice must have awakened her, but what she heard he never knew. That it was enough to kill her he was sure. Everything which he could do for her he did, but although she recovered her consciousness she never spoke again except with her eyes which followed him constantly and were full of the horror she could not express. After she died he remained at home the entire summer, but when the next season came round Tom persuaded him to take up the old life, which would give him excitement if not peace of mind. Many were the ruses resorted to to throw people off the track should they ever chance upon it. The attack of Mark upon a stage and Tom’s defence was one of them, planned by Tom, who was ringleader in everything. No one suspected them and their popularity hurt Mark nearly as much as suspicion would have done. But nothing touched him like Inez’s faith in him. She was his idol, on whom he lavished all the love he had ever given to Helen and Anita. Of her engagement he secretly disapproved. That Tom would leave nothing undone to make her happy he knew, but that his beautiful young daughter should marry a man for whose capture thousands of dollars were offered was terrible. But he was powerless. To betray Tom was to condemn himself, and either would kill Inez as her mother was killed.
And so matters were drifting when chance threw Fanny Prescott in his way and something about her reminded him of the days when he had walked with Helen Tracy through the woods and pastures of Ridgefield, and when Uncle Zacheus had believed in him implicitly, disclaiming all taint of heredity which might have come to him from ’Tina. He had no thought that Fanny was his daughter, but she was like the people he used to know,—like Helen and Alice and Craig, and she sent his thoughts back to them with a vividness which almost made him feel that he was like them again. He would not harm her, nor have her harmed.
“It’s no use talking,” he said, when Tom unfolded his plan of stopping the coach in which she was to leave the valley. “I’m tired of it all, and would give half the remainder of my life if the scroll could be unrolled and all the black writing erased.”
To this resolution he stood firm, wondering what he could do to prevent the catastrophe. It came to him like an inspiration to send Inez with the driver, knowing that with her tall figure she would be readily seen from the point where Tom would probably stand concealed and make his observations. That something might happen he feared when he found that Nero had gone after the coach. He would recognize Tom and springing upon him in his delight, as he had a habit of doing, he might unmask him and the secret be revealed. To threaten to do this himself was one thing, and to have it done was another, and he was waiting impatiently for the result when he at last saw Inez coming up the path on the bay mare. Her face was pallid as a corpse and her eyes so unnaturally large and black that he could see their blackness in the distance and felt himself shrinking from meeting them. Tom was near her, with his head bent downand his feet dragging heavily as if walking were difficult for him.
“I must face it,” Mark said to himself, and hurrying to meet them he asked what had happened.
“Don’t askme, and don’t touch me,” Inez answered, motioning him away. “Tom, your colleague, will tell you.”
She sprang from the horse and went into the house without looking at her father, who turned to Tom for an explanation.
The explanation was given concisely and fully, with nothing added or withheld. As he listened Mark felt that he had neither strength, nor muscle, nor nerve left. His sin had found him out, and the iron grip of the law could not have hurt him as he was hurt with the knowledge that Inez despised him.
“You think she knows everything?” he asked in a strange voice, for his tongue felt thick and heavy.
“Everything. The game is up, and I wish I had died before I began it; died in the old hogshead where I slept when you found me,” Tom replied.
He was shaking with cold, notwithstanding that drops of sweat were on his face and hands, and his hair was wet as if drenched with water.
“It is an accursed business,” he went on rapidly, “and I am sorry I dragged you into it. I was never so bad as some might think and I did it less for gain than forthe excitement of seeing half a dozen men cower before a little fellow like me and a pistol which half the time was not loaded. That was the case to-day with the revolver Inez picked up and held at my head before she pocketed it. You should have seen her when she bade me go before she shot me like a dog. I never loved her as I did at that moment when I knew I had lost her. Once on the road when she seemed about to fall from the saddle and I tried to help her she threatened to shoot me again, reminding me that my revolver was in her pocket. Do you remember how I used to stand on my head when anything sudden pleased me? Well, I felt like trying it again when I imagined Inez’s surprise to find the chambers empty if she tried to kill me. She said you had told her there was murder in her blood. Do you think that Dalton woman’s fingers were tingling to shoot me?”
Tom was talking at random, scarcely knowing what he was saying. But it did not matter. Mark was not listening to him. He had heard all he cared to know and was wondering how he could meet Inez and what she would say to him. He knew she had gone to her room, but could hear no sound of her moving. Once the thought came to him, “Is she dead? Has the shock killed her as it did her mother?” and he started to go to her. Then as he heard the opening of a window he resumed his seat. Outside, the bay mare had been patiently standing waiting to be cared for, and at last, as the care did not come, neighing loudly and pawing on the ground. Mark heard her and rising mechanically went out to her, glad of something to do, which would for a few moments divert his mind from himself. Over the mare’s stall a halter was hanging, and Mark looked at it attentively and tested its strength and wondered if it would holdhim and how he would look dangling there, and if his feet would not touch the floor and so defeat his purpose. Satan was tempting him terribly and might have won the victory if there had not come to him a second time that day thoughts of Ridgefield and the old man who had loved and trusted him, and who, he had no doubt, had prayed for him when he supposed him still alive. The north piazza of the Prospect House, with Craig and Alice and Helen and the pleasant hours spent there came up before him and brought the tears to his hot eyes, cooling and healing and driving the tempter away.
“’Tina’s great-grandson must not hang himself. That would be heredity with a vengeance,” he said, laughing an unnatural laugh. “Only Inez knows it, and my whole life shall be devoted to convincing her of my repentance,” he thought, as he left the stable.
There was a grain of comfort in this, and the future did not look quite so dark as he went back to the house and sat down with Tom, who neither moved nor looked up at him as he came in. He, too, was thinking of the future and the past; of Ridgefield and his happy boyhood there; of Mrs. Taylor’s teachings, which, although occasionally emphasized with a box, had lodged in his memory, and were repeating themselves over and over in his brain. But beyond all this was a thought of Alice, who had been so kind to him,—who had defended him against Mrs. Tracy, saying there was no harm in him and she would trust him anywhere.
“What would she think of me now, all smirched and stained as I am? Would she speak to me as she did that morning when we gathered the pond lilies and she smoothed my hair?” he thought, and his hand went up to his head to the spot where Alice’s hand had restedso long ago. “I can feel it yet,” he said to himself. “It kept me then from mischief; it shall help me now.”
Then he thought of Inez. She was lost to him so far as the life he had hoped for was concerned. He might in time learn to live without her, but he could not live and see her cold and hard towards him as she had been that morning.
“I would rather die,” he thought, “than know she would never again look upon me except with hatred and distrust.”
Had he been in the stable and seen the halter which had suggested suicidal thoughts to Mark there might have been a tragedy added to that day’s doings. But the halter was out of sight and Tom wrestled with his remorse, which, to do him justice, did not arise alone from the fact that Inez knew and despised him. He was genuinely sorry and could not understand how he had become what he was. In his nature there was enough of hopefulness for a rebound from the depths of despair if he saw a ray of light, and after sitting for more than an hour in perfect silence he arose and going up to Mr. Hilton said, “If we were in a boat that was sinking, we’d get out of it, if we could. Let’s do so now. We have been on the down track and touched the bottom. Let’s try the upward slope. Let usbewhat the world thinks we are,—honorable, upright men. I have helped to pull you down. I will try to help you up, and maybe——I don’t think I ought to take His name on my lips, but you know whom I mean, and He, perhaps, will help us. I used to learn a lot about Him in the Sunday School in Ridgefield, and it is coming back to me now. What do you say? Shall we strike hands on a new deal? No one knows but ourselves and Inez. She will nottell. We shall carry the burden of our secret always, but maybe it will grow lighter in time.”
He offered his hand to Mr. Hilton, who took and held it a moment, but said nothing. He was still shifting the blame to some extent upon Tom’s shoulders and cursing himself for having been so weak as to be led by him. Releasing Mark’s hand, Tom began walking across the piazza with his hands in his pockets, when he touched something hard and started as if a serpent had stung him.
“By George, I had forgotten this in my excitement,” he said, taking out a small linen bag and laying it upon the table which stood upon the piazza. “See,” he continued, taking out the diamonds Fanny had guarded so carefully.
In an instant Mr. Hilton was on his feet and facing Tom threateningly.
“Tom, you villain!” he exclaimed, “you robbed her after all, and have been prating to me of a new life and Sunday School lessons learned in Ridgefield. You hypocrite, I could strike you dead, if it were not for adding murder to my other crimes! Why did you do it, and how?”
Tom could not resent Mark’s anger, and could scarcely speak aloud as he replied. “I don’t know why I did it. When I picked up her hat and straightened it and felt the stones something I could not resist made me take them. My fingers tingled as they used to do in Ridgefield when I picked pockets for fun. A legion of devils were urging me on and all the while I was saying to myself ‘I shall get them back to her somehow,’ and I will. They must be very valuable.”
He held up the ear-rings which glowed and sparkled in the sunlight, emitting sparks of color which playedupon Mark’s face, which was ghastly now with a cold sweat standing upon it and a look of terror in his eyes. Surely he had seen those jewels before,—so large, so white, so clear, and pear shaped, with the old fashioned setting which Helen would never have changed. He could not be mistaken. He had seen them too often and clasped them in Helen’s ears too many times not to know them now.
“Tom,” he said in a whisper, for his throat seemed closing up. “Tom, these are the Tracy diamonds,—my wife’s diamonds. Don’t you remember them?”
Tom had been too young when he left Mrs. Hilton to know much about her jewelry. It came back to him now, however, that her ear-rings were very large and of a peculiar shape. These might be the same, and if so how came Fanny Prescott by them? He put the question to Mark, who did not answer. The conviction that he had Helen Tracy’s diamonds was strengthening every moment, and if sowhowas Fanny Prescott? Something like half the truth began to dawn upon him, making him so faint that the ear-rings dropped from his hands and he sat down gasping for breath. That Helen had married again and that Fanny was her daughter he suspected, but not that she was his. That little child was dead. He saw it in the paper. This girl was Helen’s. Helen had been near him,—in the valley,—past his house,—and he had not known it. He did not care for her, he thought, but he did care for her daughter, if the girl were her daughter.
“Inez may know something. I must see her,” he said, starting for her room.
Once on the stairs he stopped, afraid to meet her. Then, knowing it must be he went on and knocked at her door.
CHAPTER X.INEZ AND HER FATHER.
When Inez heard Tom’s voice and saw him standing near her she knew him at once and felt for a moment as if her heart stopped beating; then there was a sensation as if it were turning over rapidly, as she had seen a wheel turn in machinery, and swelling as it turned, until her throat was full and she could not breathe. Of what happened next she had only a confused recollection. Somebody shrieked, but whether it was herself, or Fanny she did not know. Somebody leaped from the stage and confronted Tom with a revolver. That was herself. She was clear on that point. She had threatened to shoot him and knew there was a feeling in her heart which would have let her do it, if he had not gone as she bade him go. Then Nero came, and with him a reaction of feeling and her thought was to save Tom from recognition, for he was still the man whom she loved, and she called the dog back and watched Tom till he disappeared from sight, straining her eyes while he was visible among the trees as if she would hold him as long as possible, for never again could he be to her what he had been. Then a great darkness came over her and she felt Fanny’s tears upon her face and heard the sound of many voices talking of her, and among them at last Tom’s; Tom, himself, in the clothes he had worn away that morning, when he kissed her good-bye, as he would never kiss her again. The impulse to kill him was gone. She must save him now from suspicion, for more than he was involved in the terrible thing which had happened.
Rallying all her strength she saw the stage departleaving her alone with a despair which made her cover her mouth with her hands lest she should cry out and bring her friends back to her. With a feeling of disgust she drew away from Tom’s touch when he would have helped her and felt again a disposition to kill him if he came near her. All her Spanish and Mexican blood was at fever heat, nor did it abate at the sight of her father who was equally guilty with Tom. Ignoring his offer of help she went at once to her room and threw herself upon the bed in an agony of despair. Everything had been swept away, leaving a darkness so profound that she could see no light in the past or future. She loved Tom. She worshipped her father, and had been so proud of both, and both were brigands. She said the word to herself, pressing her hands first upon her temples, which throbbed with pain and then clasping them over her heart which burned like fire and beat so loudly that she could hear every beat and thought it sounded like a muffled drum.
“Brigands!” she repeated, while from every corner of the room the word came back to her till the air was filled with it.
She understood everything, for her mind had gone rapidly over the past, gathering up proof here and there until all was plain to her,—the double lives of the two men, who were all she had to love, and the knowledge gave her nearly as much shame as pain that she should have been so deceived. She knew now why her mother died so suddenly, with that awful look on her face as her palsied tongue tried in vain to speak. She had discovered the truth and it had killed her.
“Happy mother, to die!” she moaned. “I wish I could die too. Oh, father, I thought you a king among men, and Tom, too. I was so happy yesterday and this morning,with no thought that I was a brigand’s daughter,—that the men I wished could be caught and hung were father and Tom! Oh, I cannot bear it. I feel like a debased creature, whom no one would speak to, if he knew, and I loved Fanny so much, and she liked me some. But that is all over now. Tom meant to robher, the only girl friend I ever had—Oh-h! I cannot bear it.”
Her agony was intense as the horror grew upon her and she was burning with excitement and fever. There was a feeling in her as if she could not breathe, and every heart beat was like a heavy blow. She had opened a window and she tried to rise again and go to it for air, but could not, and she fell back upon her pillow with her eyes staring at the pointed ceiling of her room. It was a pretty room, furnished with many articles her father had bought for her and which she knew were expensive. Fanny had liked it and her presence there had lent a halo to everything. But Inez loathed it all now, knowing where the money came from which had bought these luxuries which a poor mountaineer’s daughter ought never to have.
“I can’t stay here. I must go away and earn my living somewhere,” she was thinking, when she heard her father’s knock upon the door.
He was coming to explain, she thought, and she did not want an explanation. Nothing could change the shameful facts, and she did not look at him as he came in and sat down beside her. Her hand was lying near him and she drew it away quickly as if afraid he might take it. He saw the motion and interpreted it aright.
“Inez,” he began, “have no fear that I will touch you. I am not worthy to sit in the same room with you, and I am not here to make excuses; I want to ask what youknow about Fanny Prescott. Who is she? I mean, who was her mother?”
Inez was too stupified and bewildered to wonder at her father’s question and replied, “Her mother was a Miss Helen Tracy, of New York. Judge Prescott was her step-father, whose name she took when her mother married him. Her own father was a Mr. Hilton, who was killed in the mines of Montana when Fanny was a baby—Father, father, what is it? What is the matter?” she exclaimed, as her father fell forward upon the bed. Everything was for the time forgotten in her anxiety for him as he lay like one dead.
“Tom, come quickly,” she cried, “Father is dying.”
But life was strong within him, and he soon recovered, but tore his cravat from his neck and unbuttoned his vest to help his breathing, which was nearly as labored as Inez’s had been.
“Tell me again who she is! Tell all you know!” he said, while Tom looked inquiringly at him and at Inez, who repeated what she had said of Fanny Prescott.
Tom, who was standing up, dropped into a chair as if he had been shot, while Mr. Hilton exclaimed, “Oh, Inez, Fanny is my daughter and your sister! For I am Mark Hilton—married first to Helen Tracy and divorced when our baby was a few months old, I thought she was dead. I heard so. Oh, my daughter, my daughter!” he cried in alarm at the look on Inez’s face as she listened to him. He had told everything with no thought of the effect it might have upon her. She had borne all she could bear, and with this fresh blow she lay for hours, not fainting, but dying it seemed to those who cared for her so tenderly,—the wretched father, the remorseful Tom, the kind neighbors who had been called in, and the doctorsummoned from a hotel. The news of her bravery in confronting the robber had spread rapidly and the shock it must have given her was the cause assigned by the physician for the state in which he found her. There was also heart difficulty inherited from her mother, aggravated by the strain upon her nerves, he said. She was young. She might pull through, but the utmost care must be taken not to excite her in any way. All night a light shone from the window of the room where she lay with no sign of life except a feeble fluttering of the pulse and a low moan when her father spoke to her. Once when an allusion was made by some one to the adventure on the road and the belief expressed that the robbers would be captured if the whole state rose up to do it, she opened her eyes and looked at Tom, who was sitting at the foot of her bed. Her lips moved with a sound her watchers construed into “Do,” but which Tom, with his senses quickened and on the alert, knew was “Go,” and meant that he should fly before he was captured. But he was not that kind and would not have gone with Inez dying if he had known that all the police in San Francisco were on their way to take him.
Just as day was breaking there was a change for the better, and the women, who had cared for Inez during the night, left with a promise of returning as soon as possible. When no one was in the room but her father Inez whispered, “I want Fanny.”
“Yes, daughter,” Mark answered, feeling himself a strong desire to see her.
Then he remembered that if he would secure the daughter he must meet her mother,—once his wife. Could he do it, stained with sin as he was, and to find whom every foot in the valley had been gone over. There were placards out now he was sure in San Franciscoand Stockton, offering thousands of dollars for his capture and that of his confederate. He had seen them before, and with Tom had stopped and read them, but never with a feeling that it was really himself that was meant. It had always been somebody else. Now itwashimself,—Mark Hilton,—who was wanted, and he could not meet Helen face to face. It was true she would not know the depths to which he had fallen. She would only be surprised to find him alive and very low down in the scale from what he was when she called him her husband. He could bear her look of proud disdain after her first fright was over, but, knowing himself as he did, he feared he could not meet her without betraying himself in some way. Tom could do it, and Tom must go. But Tom refused outright, and Mark was nearly beside himself.
As the morning wore on Inez grew more and more restless, asking for Fanny and if she had come and if they had sent for her. About noon the doctor came and found her fever so high that he said to Mr. Hilton, “If that young lady can come she may save your daughter’s life.”
Mark could hesitate no longer. “I am going for Fanny,” he said to Inez, “and will certainly bring her back.”
He found the hotel full of excited people, all talking of the hold up of the previous day and all inquiring for Inez, of whose serious illness they had heard when the morning stage from the valley came in. He was told that Mrs. Prescott was in her room, but Fanny had gone with a party to visit the big trees.
“I am not a card man now,” he thought, as he said to a servant, “Tell Mrs. Prescott that Mr. Rayborne wishes to see her,” and then sat down to try to quiet his nerveswhich tingled as if red hot lead was pouring through them.
It was years since he parted from Helen in bitter anger, but he was not thinking of that time now. His thoughts were back in Ridgefield and the summer morning when he saw her on the north piazza and fell under the spell of her wonderful eyes. He could see the mischief in them now as they had looked when she said to Uncle Zach “Which is Mark and which is Craig? You did not tell me.” He could see Craig dropping his straw into his tumbler of lemonade as he sprang up to meet her and himself knocking his head against Craig’s as each seized the same chair for her. He remembered, too, the rose in her ribbons and knew that somewhere among his belongings the faded leaves and dried calyx were hidden away. It was strange how every detail of that morning came back to him as he sat waiting the return of the servant, who, when he came, said to him, “The lady will see you. Second floor, No. —, to the right.”
Mrs. Prescott had nearly recovered from the fright of the previous day, but had not felt equal to joining the party to the Big Trees. She seldom joined any party. Her room was comfortable and she preferred to stay in it, and when Mark’s message was brought to her she was sitting by her window watching some people who had just arrived.
“Mr. Rayborne?” she repeated. “Who is he? I know no such man.”
“He is the father of the young lady who saved the coach yesterday,” the servant replied.
“Oh, yes, I remember now. Show him up,” Mrs. Prescott said, with a feeling of annoyance that she was to be bothered with so commonplace a man as Mr. Rayborne must be.
As she had been in her room all the morning she had not heard of Inez’s illness and really had not thought much about her, as the loss of her diamonds was uppermost in her mind. Of course she was grateful to her for what she had done and by and by when she felt equal to it she meant to write her a note and tell her so. She had contributed generously towards the watch to be bought for her and should make her some present on her own account. This she thought quite sufficient without a call from the father. Then it occurred to her that he might have come with some news of the diamonds, or at least he could be of use in finding them, and she was more willing to see him.
“I wonder what kind of man he is,” she thought. “Rough, of course, though they said he was well educated and very gentlemanly for a guide,” and immediately her old nature began to assert itself.
There was enough of coquetry left in her to wish to look her best before any man. Going to the glass she pulled down her frizzes a little more in order to cover some rather deep lines in her forehead,—straightened her collar, pinched her cheeks to bring more color to them,—threw a fleecy white shawl over her shoulders and sat down with her back to the door. The carriage was now driving away and she was still watching it, when avoice she had never forgotten and which made her start from her chair, said to her “Helen.”
For a few moments Mark had been standing in the open door looking at her to see if she had greatly changed.
“A little faded, but very handsome still and proud as ever,” he thought, as he saw her profile and the pose of her head and shoulders.
He had loved her with all the strength of his youth, and though there was a gulf between them which could never be crossed, something of the old feeling prompted by memories of the summer days in Ridgefield stirred within him as he watched her. She had expected Mr. Rayborne to knock, and at the sound of her name she sprang up and turning looked for a moment steadily at the intruder, while her face grew white as her shawl.
“Who are you?” she asked, taking a step towards him.
“Have I changed past recognition? I should have known you anywhere,” he replied, with a smile she could not mistake.
“Mark,” she whispered, for she could not speak out loud, “How came you here, when you have been dead so many years?”
“To you, yes,” he said, coming nearer to her. “To you, yes; but very much alive to myself and others. That notice of my death was a mistake. I was not in or near the mine, but I let it pass. I preferred to be dead to you and my old life. With Jeff I came to Southern California, taking another name and marrying a little Spanish girl, Anita——”
“Marrying, when you knew I was alive! Oh, Mark!” Helen interrupted him, while the hot blood stained her cheeks and the fire which leaped into her eyes made herlike the Helen Tracy of his Chicago home when she was roused.
Mark smiled at this flash of jealousy and replied, “You forget the divorce which made me free to marry. It was kind in you to see that I had that privilege. You sent me a copy of the decree you know. And then you married again. Why shouldn’t I? Anita was very lovely and sweet. She is dead.”
“I thought you dead, too,” Helen replied, angry with him, angry with poor little Anita, and angry at herself for showing her anger. “Where did you come from, and why are you here?” she asked, glancing at the door in fear lest Fanny should come in.
“Didn’t the servant tell you Mr. Rayborne wished to see you?” Mark said.
“Mr. Rayborne, yes; but not Mr. Hilton. Are you Mr. Rayborne? Is that the name you took?” she asked, and he replied, “Yes, I am Mr. Rayborne, and I am here at Inez’s request. She is very ill,—dying, we fear,—the shock was so great. She wishes to see her sister.”
For an instant Mark’s eyes, which usually moved rapidly from one object to another, were still and held the woman as if a spell were thrown over her. With a sensation of numbness in every limb Helen gasped, “Inez, your daughter! and sister to my Fanny! How do you know that?”
She was almost prepared to deny Fanny’s paternity, but Mark’s reply prevented it.
“Fanny told Inez that her own father, Mark Hilton, whom she could not remember, was killed in the mines of Montana and that she took Judge Prescott’s name when her mother married him. Do I want more proof than that? I suppose you changed her name fromFrances to Fanny, which was natural enough. Sit down. You don’t look able to stand.”
He brought her a chair and put her in it with his old-time courtesy of manner, while Helen began to cry. To find Mark alive was not so bad. Indeed, she was glad, for his supposed death in the mines had always weighed upon her as something for which she was in part responsible. But to find him a guide, a mountaineer, was galling to her pride. Her Apollo had fallen from his pedestal, not only in position, but in looks. He was still fine looking, but there were signs of age about him which her quick eye detected. His hair was tinged with grey, and he was not as erect as when he carried her through the rain. He had grown old and Helen found herself feeling sorry for it and sorry that he had lost the jaunty, city air he had when she last saw him. All this, however, was nothing to the fact that he had another daughter, who was Fanny’s sister and whom Fanny would claim at once if she knew of the relationship. She must not know, and Helen was about to speak, when Mark said to her, “You remember that the divorce was mentioned at some length in the gossiping papers, and in one of them sympathy was extended to you for the loss of your little daughter.”
“Yes,” Helen answered. “She was very ill and said to be dead by one of the nurses. The reporters were very busy and seized upon every item, whether true or false. The story was contradicted in the next day’s issue.”
“Just so. I saw the first, and not the last, and thought her dead. With her gone and you lost to me, as you were, and with no home or friends, it is not strange that I wanted to get away and be forgotten,” Mark said. “In California it is comparatively easy to do this. Fora long time I would not look in a New York or Chicago paper if one came in my way, and so I missed seeing the announcement of your marriage with Judge Prescott and supposed you were still Mrs. Tracy, if living. I believe you dropped my name when you dropped me.”
Helen assented, and he went on: “There is no look in Fanny’s face like you, or like me, but she interested me strangely when I saw her, and sent my thoughts back to Ridgefield and to you, and the long ago, which I could wish blotted out, if it were not for Fanny and the love she and Inez bear each other. I have never heard a word of you since I came to California and did not know whether you were dead or alive. I have avoided eastern people lest I should stumble upon some one who knew me. I have acted as guide unwillingly, for fear of meeting an old acquaintance. Fortunately I never have. I had no suspicion that Fanny was my daughter until yesterday, when Inez came home, more dead than alive and I asked particularly about her friend. Inez’s mother died with heart trouble, which she inherits. I have always known this and tried to guard her from strong excitement. The fright yesterday was too much for her and she does not rally from it.”
“Does she know of—of—the relationship?” Helen asked falteringly, as if the word hurt her pride.
“I told her when I learned who Fanny was; she is very anxious to see her sister. Can she go?” Mark said.
“No, oh no,” Helen cried, wringing her hands. “She must not go. It would all be known,—the relationship, I mean. She thinks you dead. Let her think so. She knows all about you—way back.”
“To ’Tina?” Mark asked, and Helen answered him, “Yes, to ’Tina. I told her everything when Judge Prescott died. I had to, she was so persistent after she knewa little. She is to marry Roy Mason, son of Alice and Craig. You remember them?”
It was a strange question to ask, and Mark laughed as he answered it.
“I have reason to remember Craig, as he has me. I suppose you have met him often. I should like to have seen the first meeting.”
“It was nothing to see,” Helen answered. “He was Alice’s husband and any love he ever had for me was dead, as it should be.”
“And you didn’t try to see if you still had power to move him?” Mark said ironically, while Helen’s eyes flashed with anger.
“What do you take me for? I had been divorced and widowed as I supposed. I was Judge Prescott’s wife, and we met almost as strangers. I would as soon think of moving the Sphinx, as I used to call him, as of moving Craig Mason. Are you satisfied?”
Mark bowed and asked, “What has Fanny’s engagement with Craig’s son to do with her going to Inez?”
“Much,” Helen replied. “The Masons are very proud, and I don’t know what the result would be if they knew of your change of name and of a daughter who would claim relationship with Roy. Leave Fanny alone, I beg, and go your way.”
She was standing before him with tears in her eyes which looked just as beautiful as they had looked twenty years ago, and he might have yielded had there been no one but himself to consider. When he remembered Inez he was firm as a rock.
“We will let Fanny decide. I will wait for her,” he said, and turned to leave the room.
Helen called him back. She knew the result if thematter were left to Fanny. Nothing could keep her from Inez.
“Mark,” she said again, going close to him and putting her hand on his arm.
He felt it through his coat sleeve and wanted to take it and wanted to shake it off. He did neither and said to her, “Well, what is it?”
“You are a man of honor,” she replied.
He knew he wasn’t, but rejoined, “Well?”
“And you are a gentleman,” she continued.
Mark thought of the many times she had told him he was not a gentleman, but he merely repeated the word “Well?” while she went on: “If I let Fanny go, promise not to tell her who you are. There’s no knowing what she would do, and I could not bear to have everything come out as it would with Fanny calling you father and all that. I did many wrong things when we lived together, but I never meant half as bad as I talked, and when I thought you were killed in that dreadful way I was very, very sorry. I was going to stop in Montana on my way home to see if I could find any one who knew you. I am telling you this to show you that I am not as bad as you think. Let the past be dead and buried, and don’t let Fanny know. Will you, Mark?”
She had both hands on his arm now and was looking at him with an expression he could not resist.
“I promise that neither Inez nor I will tell her,” he said, “but do you know how hard it will be for me to see her and not tell her I am her father?”
“Yes, I know; but it is better so. You must see that it is.”
He did see it when he remembered what he was,—a man from whom Fanny would shrink, if the veil were lifted as it had been from Inez.
“Fanny shall not know from me,” he said, and with this fear gone Helen began to speak of what all the time had been in her mind,—her diamonds.
Had Mark heard that they were lost from Fanny’s hat and could not be found? “My ear-rings were with them. You remember them? I was going to give them to Fanny on her wedding day.”
Every word she said cut like a knife, but Mark managed to answer naturally that he had heard that the diamonds were lost and to assure her that he would do whatever he could to find them and so would Mr. Hardy.
“Oh, yes,—Mr. Hardy,—your daughter’sfiancé,” Helen rejoined,—“the young man who saved a coach from being robbed as your daughter saved ours. Fanny thinks highly of him.”
Mark responded with a bow, and something in his face made Helen ask quickly, “Mark, is Tom HardyJeff?”
“Yes, but let him stay Tom Hardy until he chooses to declare his identity himself. He will try to trace your diamonds,” Mark said, in a constrained voice.
Helen bowed her acquiescence, but looked puzzled. Everything was puzzling,—everything annoying,—and her brain was in a whirl, making her wish to be alone.
“Good bye,” she said to Mark, bowing him from the room. “It is too late for Fanny to go to the cottage to-night, but you will see her to-morrow. Remember your promise.”
She was trembling so she could scarcely stand, and when he was gone she threw herself upon the couch and sobbed hysterically for the trouble which had come upon her so unexpectedly. In the heyday of her youth and beauty, when her path was strewn with bruised heartsshe had asked ironically if there were not a passage in the Bible which said “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ saith the Lord.” When Mark deserted her and she went through the notoriety of a divorce, she had felt that she was being paid, but that was nothing to this last instalment of the payment, and the proud woman writhed under the chastisement, indignant at Mark,—she scarcely knew for what, unless it was for having married Anita, and indignant at Inez for being Fanny’s half sister. It was some time before Fanny came, and when she did she found her mother in bed in a chill, with cramped hands, blue lips and cold feet, and Celine attending to her with hot drinks and hot water bags and shawls. It was some time before Mrs. Prescott was sufficiently quiet to tell her of Mr. Rayborne’s visit and Inez’s serious illness.
“I dare say he exaggerated the case and probably the girl is better by this time,” she said. “I promised you should go and see her to-morrow, but if I feel as I do now, I cannot allow it.”
Fanny, who had heard of Inez’s illness before she came up to her mother, made no reply, but in her little wilful heart she said “I shall go,” and she did. She knew her mother’s nervous condition, which she could not understand, would not last long, and that Celine would do all that was necessary. Probably she should not stay more than the day. It would depend upon how she found Inez, she said to her mother, at whose bedside she stood just as it was growing light. It was a long drive to the cottage, and as she wished for as much time as possible with Inez she had stipulated with the landlord to have a conveyance ready for her at a very early hour.
“Good bye, mother,” she said, “I am going now. You look a great deal better than you did last night. Celine will take good care of you till I come back. Good bye.”
She stooped and kissed her and then hurried away, while Helen began to cry, not so much because Fanny had gone, as from a growing conviction that the truth would come out, and then, what might not Fanny do? Acknowledge her father, of course, and probably insist upon taking Inez to New York and introducing her as her sister. The thought brought on a nervous headache which kept her in bed all day, bemoaning her fate and wishing she had never come to California. Mark would keep his word, she was sure, but she distrusted Jeff, whom she had never liked. And he was Tom Hardy, and Mark was Mr. Rayborne. The change of names affected her unpleasantly and when at last she fell asleep they kept repeating themselves over and over in her troubled brain,—Mr. Rayborne and Tom Hardy.
Inez, who had passed a restless night, had been told the conditions on which Fanny was permitted to come to her, and this detracted somewhat from her anticipated pleasure in having her there. But her father had given his word, and it was sacred to her. All night Mark had staid by her, while Tom sat outside, trying to devise some means of returning the diamonds without exciting suspicion. He could hear Inez every time she moved or spoke, and that was some comfort. Once, during an interval when the pain in her heart was not so great, she said to her father, “Tell me how it happened, andwhen? The other marriage, I mean, and tell me about Tom,—when he was somebody else.”
Mark, who shrank from this ordeal which he had feared might come, said to her, “You are not strong enough, daughter. Wait awhile.”
“No,” she answered. “There is no waiting for me. I want to know now how you came to marry that proud lady. Were you like her? Like her people, I mean? and was Tom with you?”
Very briefly Mark told as much of his story as he thought necessary, omitting ’Tina and the finding of Tom in Boston where he rescued him from the street. Everything was softened and the life at Ridgefield dwelt upon at length, while Inez listened as to an interesting romance. It did not seem quite real to her that her father was once in a position so different from that which he now occupied. The change of names troubled her and twice she repeated “Mark Hilton,—Jefferson Wilkes,” as if accustoming herself to the sound. Once when her father made an allusion to the present as if to explain, she said, “No, no. I can’t bear that, now or ever. There is no excuse. You are my father, and I must love you always,—and Tom, who is not Tom at all!”
Tom was on his feet and in the room in a moment, standing where she could not see him, as she went on very slowly, for her breathing was difficult.
“It seems odd, but I am glad you were once a gentleman like those at the hotel, and lived in a grand house like Fanny’s, but I like better to hear of the woods and river and meadows and ponds in—what was the place?—Where Tom gathered the lilies.”
“Ridgefield,” Mark replied, trying to stop her as he saw how exhausted she seemed.
“Let me talk while I can,” she said. “I can’t speak of the past when Fanny comes if she is not to know you are her father. No one need to know it or the change of names. You are Mr. Rayborne, and Tom is Tom. I cannot think of him as Jeff, or you as Mr. Hilton. You are father and he is Tom till I die.”
“She does care for me a little. Thank God for that,” Tom thought, as he crept back to his post on the stairs.
It was beginning to get light, and not long after sunrise a buggy driven by an employee from Clark’s stopped at the foot of the hill leading to the cottage. Mark saw Fanny as she ran up the path, and went to meet her. In her flushed, eager face there was a look which he had seen often in his own face when he was a boy, and this it was which made him call her “My child” as he led her into the house and told her how low Inez was and how necessary that she should be kept quiet and not excited in any way.
“Her mother died of heart trouble. Inez may go the same way if we are not careful,” he said.
“I will be very careful,” Fanny answered, as she followed him to Inez’s room.
The curtains were drawn over the windows, but it was light enough for Fanny to see the great change in Inez. Her eyes were sunken, but unnaturally bright. There was a drawn look about her mouth and her cheeks had lost much of their roundness, but were red with fever spots, which contrasted sharply with the pallor of her lips.
“Fanny, oh Fanny! I am so glad you have come,” she said, trying to rise and opening and shutting her fingers rapidly. Then exerting all her strength she threw her arms around Fanny’s neck and burst into tears while her father tried to quiet her. “Don’t stopme,” she said. “I must cry or my heart will burst, and my head, too,—it aches so hard. Fanny, Fanny! You don’t know all your coming to me means. Now put me back on my pillow and sit where I can see you without turning my eyes. I am tired all over.”
Her arms fell helpless on the bed and she scarcely seemed to breathe.
“I don’t understand it,” Fanny said in a low tone to Mr. Hilton.
Inez heard her and before her father could reply she whispered, “Don’t try to understand, or speak of it. Just sit by me.”
All day Fanny sat by her, knowing that whenever Inez’s eyes were open, they were fixed on her with a look which began to make her uncomfortable.
“What is it, Inez? Is there something you want to tell me?” she asked at last.
Inez did not answer at once, but her hand moved slowly towards Fanny’s, which chanced to be lying on the bed near her. For a time she regarded it intently, evidently contrasting its whiteness and softness with her own larger brown hands.
“We are not much alike, but you love me and are not ashamed of me,” she said.
“Ashamed of you!” Fanny repeated. “Why should I be?”
“And you will stay with me? It can’t be long,” Inez continued.
“Yes, I will stay,” Fanny answered involuntarily.
Then she remembered her mother, who was expecting her back that night, or the next day, at the farthest. What would she say?
“I’ll stay a week any way. Inez must be better by that time,” she thought, and wrote to her mother tothat effect, suggesting that if she were not comfortable at Clark’s she go on to San Francisco, where she would join her later.
Mrs. Prescott was greatly agitated when she received this note, and insisted that Celine should go to the cottage and bring Fanny away. She would have gone herself, but for the dread of meeting Mark again and being compelled to see Inez and possibly Tom. She could not go, but Celine must. Celine, who had been in the family since Helen was a young lady, understood her perfectly, and understood Fanny too. If the latter had made up her mind to stay with Inez, she would stay, and after a little she succeeded in making her mistress see that it was better to let her daughter alone.
“But I shall not go to San Francisco and leave her behind. I am very comfortable here and shall stay till she joins me,” Mrs. Prescott said, adding after a moment’s thought, “I don’t know what the surroundings are at that cottage. Plain, of course, and not what Fanny is accustomed to. She will be worn out with the watching and the change. I think you’d better go and see to her.”
This was a great concession and Fanny felt it as such when she received her mother’s letter offering Celine.
“It is kind in you, mamma,” she wrote in reply, “but Celine is not necessary. There is a woman in the kitchen and I don’t know what I should do with a maid. I am waited on now by everybody as if I were a princess, and Inez couldn’t see strangers. Keep Celine for yourself, and don’t worry about me.”
After the receipt of this note Mrs. Prescott settled down to wait Fanny’s pleasure and fret at the prolonged delay. Inez did not improve, except that her voice was a little stronger and Fanny could talk with her longerat a time and not tire her. One day after the stage had passed Tom brought a small package sent from San Francisco to Inez in care of her father. It was the watch which a lady had been commissioned to buy as a testimonial of the gratitude of the passengers who had been in the stage on the day of the hold up. Fanny had hoped to select it herself, but when she saw it she felt that she could not have chosen better. It was a little diamond jeweled stem winder, with Inez’s name on the inside lid and the date of the hold up.
“Something for you from San Francisco,” Fanny said as she put the box on the bed before Inez, whose eyes grew very bright and questioning when she saw what it contained.
“A watch! the thing I have always wanted. How did it come to me? I don’t understand,” she said.
Fanny explained why it was sent and how glad the passengers were to send it. It was the first time any allusion had been made to the attempted robbery. Mr. Hilton had warned Fanny not to speak of it and she had been careful not to do so. Now she said as little as possible and was glad that Inez did not seem greatly excited.
“I’ll keep it under my pillow,” she said, and several times that day Fanny saw her looking at it, particularly at her name and the date. “I wish ‘July —’ wasn’t there. It brings the dreadful day back to me, and I see him and hear him and hear my scream, which must have filled the valley,” she said.
“You will get over that when you are stronger,” Fanny suggested.
“Maybe,” Inez replied, and Fanny noticed that after that the watch lay a little away from her instead of under her pillow.