CHAPTER XII.
FOR EVA’S SAKE.
“Just to go home again and see gran’ther, and have him say he believed in me and loved me once more, I’d be willing to lay down my life the next moment!” little Eva sobbed to herself in the long, wakeful hours of the night before she ran away from the asylum.
With the first dawning of reason and memory had come a pathetic yearning for home—that strange malady, nostalgia, that sometimes breaks the heart.
Mixed with her pleasure in the daily offerings of her unknown lover, was the longing for the old home and gran’ther, and all the simple pleasures of the farm.
There had been drawbacks, it is true, in the spinster’s waspish temper, and the spiteful envy of her cousins, but gran’ther’s love atoned for it all. In his quiet way he had tried to make it up to his little pet.
That night a terrible yearning seized upon her, a longing for the old man that she could not overcome. In her own mind Eva was sure he must have forgiven her before now, even if not convinced of her innocence, for he had a gusty temper, that soon became sunny again; and she had never known him to bear malice toward any but the Ludingtons, who had wronged him by unjust accusations during the war.
“If I could just get back to him again—if I could lay my face on his old gray head and twine my arms around his neck and say, ‘I love you still, dear; you did not mean to be so cruel,’ I know he would say, ‘Little Eva, come home; I have missed you, and I am not angry any more!’” she sobbed to her lonely pillow, that was wet with the tears that had fallen from her lovely eyes.
She could not sleep, she could not rest; she seemed to hear gran’ther calling her through the darkness of the night, stretching yearning arms to his little pet. She moaned feverishly:
“He wants me as bad as I do him! I will go back to gran’ther! I will run away!”
All her love for the new friends she had made at the asylum, among the doctors and attendants, seemed to fade away before this mighty yearning for the old home and love.
She feared to ask leave to go home lest she meet with a refusal. She supposed she had to stay at the asylum all her life, little dreaming that Doctor St. Clair had said she would soon be well enough to get her discharge.
“I will run away!” she decided, for she knew that some others of the patients had done the same thing since she came there. Some had been detected and brought back, but others had never returned.
“Gran’ther will never let them take me back, for I don’t think I am much crazy now,” she thought meekly, and before daylight she had stealthily madeup a bundle of all she wanted to take with her—the books and verses from her unknown lover, that had contributed so largely to the restoration of her reason.
That morning she was missing. She had craftily effected her escape and gotten away on a train before her flight was discovered.
She reached the station just as the train was pulling out, and swung herself up desperately to the platform, reeling forward with the motion into the car, where she stumbled and fell.
The conductor assisted her up and into a seat, saying kindly:
“You should not have jumped on the train after it started. You might have fallen under the wheels and got killed.”
“I—I don’t care!” she sobbed desperately, in the nervous tension of her mind, and huddled down in her seat with great frightened eyes, like a startled fawn’s, dreading the moment when he should come back and demand her ticket.
She had none, nor any money to pay her fare. But she had decided on a way to manage that, though she feared he might be a little vexed at her asking for credit.
He went out into another car, and she tried to divert her mind by looking at the few passengers.
Two men in the seat just in front of her engaged her attention by their animated discussion of the oil business. They seemed to be business men, both richand prosperous, but strangers met for the first time. One was in reality a West Virginia oil king, bragging of his luck, and giving points to the other, a New Yorker, come out, he said, to see about some investments he had made in the State years ago, and almost forgotten until the present oil boom had recalled them to his mind.
“It is almost nineteen years since I was in West Virginia before,” he said. “Then I was on a hunting trip, and just for speculation I took several leases on oil lands, and afterward I lent an old farmer money and took a mortgage on his rocky farm. It has never been paid, and I wonder if he has forgotten it, as I almost did, till lately?”
“Whereabouts is it situated?”
“In Harrison county, not many miles from Clarksburg.”
“Like as not the old farmer has struck oil and got rich. It’s in one of the richest oil fields. Do you remember his name?”
After a moment’s hesitancy the New Yorker answered that it had slipped his memory. He would have to apply to the county court where the mortgage was recorded.
Then he seemed to relapse into thoughtfulness, and Eva mechanically studied his face.
It was blond and handsome, with whitening hair and mustache, and deep lines of care that told a story of sadness her unskilled eyes could not read. Hemust be approaching fifty, and was tall and well-dressed, with a decidedly aristocratic air.
Suddenly the conductor returned, taking up the tickets, and Eva looked out of the window with reddening cheeks and a fearful thumping of the heart, at the flying landscape.
It seemed to her that he was scarcely a moment taking up the dozen or so tickets in the car before he stood by her side, saying, brusquely:
“Ticket!”
“I—I haven’t any!” she murmured faintly.
“How far are you going?”
“To—to Clarksburg.”
“Oh, then you can just pay your fare. It is only a small sum.”
Little Eva gasped once or twice before she found voice to murmur, with scarlet cheeks and down-dropped eyes:
“But I haven’t any money either.”
By this time every eye in the car was attracted to the pair, for the conductor began to harangue her indignantly.
Then Eva’s big dark eyes fairly scorched him as she answered angrily:
“You are no gentleman, accusing me of dishonesty, before you give me time to explain. I didn’t mean to cheat the railroad company. I was only traveling on credit, and my grandfather, that I am going to see,will send to the station at Clarksburg and pay you to-morrow.”
Everybody in the car tittered audibly at her ignorance—all but the New Yorker, who turned in his seat with a sympathetic glance at the lovely crimson face and flashing dark eyes.
“But—but really, miss, it’s not the company’s rule to give credit on fares. Pay as you go is our motto. And really, now, you see, I don’t know your grandfather from Adam!” sputtered the annoyed conductor.
“You don’t? Why, everybody in Harrison county knows old Mr. Groves, of Stony Ledge, and would trust him, too, to pay any debts. Please don’t put me off, sir, but let me go on to dear gran’ther, and he will be sure to send you the money to-morrow,” pleaded Eva humbly, fearing that her little flash of anger might have damaged her cause.
While the conductor hesitated, the New Yorker furtively slipped him a banknote.
“All right, miss,” began the railroad man with alacrity, but her quick eyes had caught the little byplay, and she turned her dark eyes gratefully on the stranger.
“You paid my fare; I saw you slip it to him so quietly,” she cried. “Oh, I thank you very, very much, for I’m afraid the conductor would have put me off at the first station. Please tell me your name, so I can send you the money as soon as I get home.”
The conductor went on, and the New Yorker smiled and said easily:
“If I tell you my name, you must tell me yours, little girl.”
“I—I’d rather not! I don’t want you to know it!” she cried, fearfully in dread of being recognized and taken back to the asylum.
“Just your first name,” he coaxed with so winning an air that she felt strangely drawn toward him, and answered softly:
“It is Eva.”
“Eva Groves!” he laughed gayly, adding, at her startled look: “You see, I can put two and two together. You told the conductor your grandfather’s name was Groves, so I guess yours must be the same.”
“Now tell me yours,” she answered non-committally.
“It isn’t necessary. I’ll call on your grandfather for the money when I come into Harrison County next week,” he answered, unfolding a newspaper and dropping the conversation.
He had no intention of doing so, but his mind was in a tumult.
Eva Somerville and her unknown father had crossed each other’s paths without the slightest recognition.
He knew not that his dead wife had borne him a daughter, but he was familiar with the fact of the only son’s death in Kansas, and the adoption of the orphans by their grandfather. He said to himself:
“This beautiful little Eva is my dead wife’s niece, and so like her that it gave me quite a turn when I looked into her face. Why should I go into HarrisonCounty at all to harrow up my mind with old memories? Why should I trouble that old man that hates me? I am rich enough already. Let the mortgage go for the sake of little Eva’s beautiful eyes!” and he sighed.