CHAPTER XVIII.
The two fair young girls stepped into the elegant equipage, and as it rolled down the glitteringboulevard in the glorious sunshine, they were the cynosure of all eyes.
Jessie Stirling began excitedly:
“And so you have never heard a word from West Virginia since the night you left so suddenly! Then I have much to tell you. But first, have you not heard from Chester Olyphant in all this time?”
There was an anxious tone in her voice, but Leola did not heed it, she answered so spiritedly:
“That is a strange question, Jessie. I have not heard, or ever wished to hear, from him.”
Jessie’s little tinkling laugh rang out in shallow ripples on the air, as she exclaimed:
“Still angry! But, poor dear, I do not blame you. It was hard for me to forgive him for trifling with your tender heart. It was his illness and suffering that melted my heart.”
Leola listened in blank silence. She would not have asked one word about Chester Olyphant if Jessie had said that he was dead.
“You care nothing for him now—that is plain to be seen. I am glad you have gotten so bravely over it,” said Jessie, smiling at the fair, proud face, with the somber dark eyes gazing straight ahead, though seeing nothing of the gay streets with throngs of happy people going up and down as they drove on behind the liveried coachmen.
Then she added:
“You remember, we thought that Chester Olyphant had run away after I betrayed him? That was wrong.”
She knew that Leola was listening, though she did not answer a word.
“To tell the truth, I may have been a little to blame, Leola, for, in anger at Chester’s duplicity, I ran to Uncle Hermann with my story, and he was angry—fearfully angry—at the wrong done to me and to you. At first he swore he would horse-whip him, but mamma begged him not to create a public sensation, for she said it was best to let it blow over. Uncle Hermann did not say yea or nay, and we thought he was pacified.”
She drew a long breath, and continued:
“Well, you remember how everything happened that night—the wedding, your father’s return to take you away, and everything? When the Bennetts were gone, also you and your father, Uncle Hermann was desperate. We sat up late talking over matters, holding, as it were, a council of war; for, though your father had mercifully permitted him a life-time use of Wheatlands, he was so involved in debt that he could not see a dollar in sight anywhere.”
Leola made no comment, and the speaker went on:
“Uncle Hermann wanted to borrow of mamma, saying he was prosecuting an experiment that must, if it succeeded, make him fabulously rich, and revolutionize the whole world. But chemical ingredients were costly, and he could not go on a week longer without money. He had borrowed, begged, got all he could, and was desperate for more funds. He said he could almost steal, if he knew where to lay his hands on the money, for the sake of his great experiment. He even went on his knees to mamma, but alas! it was ‘like going to the goat’s house for wool.’ Mamma had pawned her diamonds long before to keep afloat in society, and was desperate for means herself. So she could not help him at all, and she said she would go home next day so as not to bother him any longer in his trouble. We retired, and at breakfast next morning he said he and Joslyn would be busy in the laboratory until afternoon; that he had a few chemicals to work on yet; and that, before we left, we might have to congratulate him on the success of his experiment.”
Leola began to look more interested. She could not help being sorry for Wizard Hermann and the failure of his pet hobbies—the ambitions of a toilsome lifetime.
Jessie Stirling continued:
“Mamma and I went upstairs and packed our trunks, and telephoned to town for a man to take them down to the station. When they were gone we walked out to the arbor, waiting for luncheon, and to bid good-bye to my uncle, when—oh, Leola, with a shock!—suddenly there was the sound of a terrific explosion from the tower, and we fell back almost stunned in our seats. It almost seemed as if the world were coming to an end, for one loud report followed another, and the tower was blown away, with all of the chimneys. Then suddenly all grew still, and fire shot out of the windows and doors, caused by an explosion of gasoline Uncle Hermann had been using in his experiments.”
“Oh, how terrible!” cried Leola, finding voice at last.
“Yes, was it not?” cried Jessie, growing excited at the memory, and adding: “For not only was the house burned to the ground, but Joslyn, uncle’s servant, was killed; while as for himself, he fought his way bravely from the burning building, saving his life at the expense of all that made it worth living—his eyesight destroyed, his arms burned off to the elbows.”
“Oh, how horrible! how horrible!” groaned Leola, and her lovely face went deathly white with the shock of the story.
“I knew you would be shocked,” exclaimed Jessie. “Oh, wasn’t it fortunate for us that we had gotten out of the house just before! And saved our trunks, too! The cook was out in the garden getting peas for dinner, luckily for her! Joslyn was burned in the house; and as for Uncle Hermann, we thought he must die, too. Indeed, he thought so himself, for he was in horrible agony, so he sent for a priest—he was a Catholic, you know—and confessed his sins.”
“And he lived, after all? What became of him? Who took care of the poor man?” cried Leola, with tears in her eyes, forgetting her own wrongs in exquisite sympathy.
“Why, the Bennetts took him to their house and cared for him till he recovered; and he lives there yet, having a man attend to him all the time. I must say Mrs. Bennett acted beautifully to Uncle Hermann, and has befriended him all this time in spite of the fact that he hadn’t been as good as he might to her when she was a lone old maid.”
“It was just like dear Miss Tuttle to return good for evil! She had a noble heart!” cried Leola. “Dear soul, she was too good for Giles Bennett!”
“Mamma says she has made a better man of him, and he has become really fond of the kind soul. You see, mamma made a trip there this spring as Mrs. Bennett’s guest, while I came over to Europe with a friend,” added Jessie, who would have bitten her tongue off before she would have owned to Leola that, having exhausted all their means and failed to catch a rich husband, she had been forced to become the paid companion of a rich woman, while her mother eked out an existence “visiting around.”
She would fool Leola, and keep her and Chester Olyphant apart as long as she could; but she had an unerring conviction that Fate in the long run would bring them together.
After a moment’s hesitation she began again:
“I told you that Uncle Hermann confessed his sins the day he thought he was going to die, but you do not seem curious over it, so I’ll tell you all about it anyway. Uncle Hermann was so furious over Chester Olyphant’s trifling with you and me that on the day when you lay unconscious upstairs he met Chester in the hall and struck him on the head with a blunt iron instrument, so that he fell like one dead.”
“Dead!” cried Leola, and she shook with emotion.
“Uncle Hermann did not mean to kill him, but he and Joslyn, who happened along at the moment, both thought he was dead, and, to hide the crime, they dragged him into the library, took up the flooring, and dropped him down into an underground passage the family had used in Indian times. So on his disappearance we naturally concluded he had run away to avoid my reproaches, don’t you see?”
Leola could only gasp, without speaking, so great was her emotion; and Jessie, enjoying the sensation she was creating, again took up the thread of her story:
“So that was what Uncle Hermann had to confess when he thought he was dying. It was the only really wicked thing he ever did, and he wanted to get God’s forgiveness before he died;likewise, he wanted Chester Olyphant to have a Christian burial. Poor Leola, you are faint! All this has been too much for you.”
Leola faltered, through stiff, white lips:
“No, no; go on, if there is any more to tell.”
Jessie laughed, and resumed:
“I have kept the best for the last. Just as the men were going to hunt for Chester’s body in the underground passage, Doctor Barnes came along and told them that some little boys had found him alive in the cave, as they called it, and they had taken him to Mrs. Gray’s cottage. Well, to make a long story short, Chester had an awful wound on his head, and a piece of the skull pressed on the brain, and he never recovered health or consciousness till he was taken North for an operation that made him all right again. Mrs. Gray was like a mother to him through it all, and, next to mamma and me, I suppose he considers her his dearest friend. Now, as to our love affair, we made it all up some time ago, and are to be married in July; but I suppose there’s no use asking you to be my bridesmaid, dear Leola?”
“No,” the girl answered, curtly, adding:
“Jessie, I promised papa to meet him at luncheon, and I shall hardly get back in time if we do not return now. May I invite you to join us?”
“Not to-day, thank you, Leola, but I will call on you soon, for I am anxious to see you again, and also to meet your papa. Now if you will be so kind as to drive by Lady De Vere’s, where I am staying with my New York friend, I will be very grateful.”
Leola assented, and presently Jessie was set down at the place she wished, and blew Leola a deceitful kiss from her finger tips as she went in, muttering to herself as she watched her drive away:
“It was a gratuitous fib I told her about marrying Chester Olyphant, but I couldn’t resist stabbing her once more to see the light grow dim in the beautiful eyes that stole his heart from me. All my maneuvering has failed to win him back, and her turn will soon come, for he is here in Paris, although she does not know it, and at any minute they may meet, and everything be explained. Oh, how I wish hate could kill!”