An interrupted night

By Pansy

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Title: An interrupted night

Author: Isabella M. Alden

Contributor: Grace Livingston Hill

Release date: January 10, 2025 [eBook #75076]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1929


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.



AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT (from inside flap of dust jacket)

By ISABELLA M. ALDEN (PANSY)

Author of "Ester Ried," "Wise and Otherwise," etc.

In her preface Grace Livingston Hill, a niece of Pansy's, explains
that this tale is based on actual facts told by the woman impersonated
in the story by Mrs. Dunlap. Pansy, now eighty-seven years old and
bed-ridden, found herself unable to complete the preparation of her
story and entrusted the task of putting it into shape to Mrs. Hill,
herself an author of great prominence. In spite of Pansy's advanced
years she still shows the same sparkle and sincerity and understanding
of youth that gave such interest and charm to "Ester Ried" and "Four
Girls at Chautauqua." This story tells of how a young girl comes up
against one of life's most terrible experiences and with the help of
her new-found friend, Mrs. Dunlap, fights her way through a maze of
trickery and deceit to a fuller understanding of life—and romance in
all its beauty.



                              AN

                         INTERRUPTED

                            NIGHT


                             By

                      ISABELLA M. ALDEN
                          ("Pansy")

                         _Author of_

                 _"The Fortunate Calamity,"_
             _"Esther Reid," "Wise and Otherwise,"_
        _"Three People," "Four Girls at Chautauqua," etc._



                    _With a Foreword by_

                   GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL


                      [Illustration]



                 J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

                  PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

                          1 9 2 9



                      [Illustration]



         Copyright, 1929, by J. B. Lippincott Company

           Printed in the United States of America



                         FOREWORD

AS LONG ago as I can remember there was always a radiant being who was
next to my mother and father in my heart, and who seemed to me to be a
sort of a combination of fairy godmother, heroine, and saint. I thought
her the most beautiful, wise, and wonderful person in my world, outside
of my home. I treasured her smiles, copied her ways, and listened
breathlessly to all she had to say, sitting at her feet worshipfully
whenever she was near; ready to run any errand for her, no matter how
far.

I measured other people by her principles and opinions, and always
felt that her word was final. I am afraid I even corrected my beloved
parents sometimes when they failed to state some principle or opinion
as she had done.

When she came on a visit the house seemed glorified because of her
presence; while she remained, life was one long holiday; when she went
away it seemed as if a blight had fallen.

Her eyes were dark and had interesting twinkles in them that children
loved; her hair was long and dark and very heavy, dressed in two wide
braids that were wound round and round her lovely head in smooth coils,
fitting close like a cap, but when it was unbraided and brushed out,
it fell far below her knees and was like a garment folding her about.
How I adored that hair and longed to have hair just like it! How I even
used in secret to tie an old brown veil about my head and let it fall
down my back, and try to see how it would feel to have hair like that.

She had delicate features and a wonderful smile. Nobody else in the
world looked just as lovely as did she. But once I found a picture of
Longfellow's Evangeline in a photograph album, in exquisite classic
profile, and thought it was her likeness. She was like that—if you have
that old faded photograph somewhere in an old album with quaint clasps.
She was wonderful!

And she was young, gracious, and very good to be with.

This radiant creature was known to me by the name of "Auntie Belle,"
though my mother and my grandmother, called her "Isabella!" Just like
that! Even sharply sometimes when they disagreed with her—"Isabella!" I
wondered that they dared. I sometimes resented it.

Later I found that other people had still other names for her. To the
congregation of which her husband was pastor she was known as "Mrs.
Alden." It seemed to me too grownup a name for her and made her appear
more stately and sedate than she really was. I remember resenting it
that these strange people should seem to have rights in her. She was
mine. What were they?

But when a little later my world grew larger, and knowledge increased,
I found that this precious aunt of mine did not belong entirely to us
as I had supposed. She had another world in which she moved and had
her being when she went from us from time to time; or when at certain
hours in the day she shut herself within a room that was sacredly known
as a "study," and wrote for a long time, while we all tried to keep
still; and in this other world of hers she was known as "Pansy." It was
a world that loved and honored her, a world that gave her homage and
flowers, and wrote her letters by the hundreds each week.

It was not long, too, before I had learned to preen myself like a young
peacock because I "belonged" to her, and I am afraid I felt a superior
pity and contempt for the thousands of other children who read her
paper called "The Pansy" which she edited, but who did not "belong"
to her. They could only write letters to her, while I could often be
with her every day, sometimes for weeks, and could talk with her all I
pleased.

As I grew still older and learned to read I devoured her stories
chapter by chapter. Even sometimes page by page as they came hot from
the typewriter; occasionally stealing in for an instant when she left
the study, to snatch the latest page and see what happened next; or to
accost her as her morning's work was done, with: "Oh, have you finished
another chapter?"

And often the whole family would crowd around, leaving their work when
the word went around that the last chapter was finished and it was
going to be read aloud. And now we listened, breathless, as she read,
and made her characters live before us. They were real people to us, as
real as if they lived and breathed before us.

She was at the height of her popularity just then, and the letters that
poured in at every mail were overwhelming. Asking for her autograph
and her photograph, begging for pieces of her best dress to sew into
patchwork; begging for advice how to become a great author; begging for
advice on every possible subject, from how to get the right kind of a
husband, to how to stop biting one's nails.

And she answered them all!

It was a Herculean task. Sometimes she let us help her when she was
very much rushed, but usually she kept her touch on every letter that
went out—and they were thousands.

Then there was the editorship of "The Pansy," a young people's paper
which was responsible for more thousands of letters from the children
who had joined the Pansy Society, and who wrote to her about their
faults and how to give them up, "For Jesus' Sake," which was their
motto.

Sometimes I look back on her long and busy life and marvel what she has
accomplished.

She was a marvelous housekeeper, knowing every dainty detail of her
home to perfection; able to cook anything in the world just a little
better than anybody else—except my mother and her—; able to set fine
stitches in patches and darning that were works of art; able to make
even dishwashing fun!

Sometimes when we were all together for a season, visiting, or during
the winters we spent in Florida and lived together, it fell to her
part and mine to do the dinner dishes together every night, and we
raced, she washing, I wiping and putting away; making a record each
night and trying to beat it the next. And such good, good times as we
had together, my beloved aunt and I, as we worked with a will and left
the kitchen immaculate for the next morning. Oh, she was a wonderful
housekeeper!

Yes, and a marvelous pastor's wife! She took the whole parish into her
life and gave herself to the work. She was not a modern minister's
wife, who only goes to teas and receptions, and plays bridge and
attends to the social end of life, never bothering about the church.
She was the real old-fashioned kind, who made calls on all the
parishioners with her husband, knew every member intimately, cared for
the sick, gathered the young people into her home making both a social
and religious center for them with herself as leader and adviser; grew
intimate with each one personally and led them to Christ; became their
confidante; and loved them all as if they had been her brothers and
sisters. She taught the Primary class—and incidentally the mothers of
the Primary class. She quietly and unobtrusively managed the Missionary
Society and the Ladies' Aid, not always as its executive officer,
often keeping quite in the background. She became the dear friend of
every woman in the church without making any of them jealous. She was
beloved, almost adored of them all.

She was a tender, vigilant, wonderful mother, such a mother as few are
privileged to have, giving without stint of her time and her strength
and her love and her companionship.

Even while she was quite young, when I was a small child she began to
go out into the world, to speak in public, to read her stories, to lead
Primary Sunday School Conferences, and, as I grew older and developed
a delight in drawing, she sometimes took me along to do her blackboard
work for her, at which privilege I swelled with pride. She was much in
demand in those days, and I remember the awe with which I regarded her
as one of the great ones of the earth, who was paid large sums to tell
other people the best ways of teaching, and to read her fascinating
stories. How I loved her and hung upon her every word and smile. How
proud I was to belong to her! And am still.

All these things she did, and yet wrote books! Stories out of real
life, that struck home and showed us to ourselves as God saw us; that
sent us to our knees to talk with Him.

With marvelous skill she searched hearts, especially of the easy-going
Christian, whether minister or layman, young and old, and brought them
awake and alive to their inconsistencies. She wove her stories around
their common, everyday life, till all her characters became alive and
real to those who read. They still live within our memories like people
we have known intimately and dwelt among. Ester Reid and Julia Reid,
the Four Girls at Chautauqua, Mrs. Solomon Smith. I almost expect to
meet some of them in Heaven.

Perhaps she wrote more and better because she was doing so eagerly in
every direction. Her public, her church, her family, her home.

I wish I might paint you a picture of that home as I knew it; of my
home, its counterpart; of the years the two families spent much time
together as one family. The days were one long dream. Hard work? Yes,
but good fellowship. Everybody working together with a common aim, and
joy in the work and the fellowship!

And the evenings! Oh, those evenings, the crown of the days, the time
to which we all looked forward as to a goal when our work was done!
Those evenings are bright spots in my youth. Especially the evenings
of the years we all spent together in Florida, when the sun went
down sharply and the light went velvet black at evening, until the
great tropical moon came out. Those long evenings when the soft dense
darkness shut us in to a cheerful supper table, and, after we had
hustled through the dishes, we all gathered in the big sitting-room
around the open fire for family worship. Yes, we were as old-fashioned
as that! We had family worship both morning and evening. And I am not
of those modern ones who tell such things to scoff at them and say how
sick they got of religion because of it, and lay to that their present
indifference to God and the Bible. I look back to those times as the
most precious, the most beautiful, the most powerful influence that
came into my life. I thank God for a family that worshipped Him morning
and evening and gave me an early knowledge and love for the Bible and
the things of the Kingdom. Either my uncle or my father would conduct
the little service, and often the one or the other of them would say to
my dear aunt: "You read the chapter to-night, Belle," just because she
was such a beautiful reader and we all loved to listen to her. At other
times, we would recite verses, all around, a verse apiece, and then
kneel in a circle for the prayer.

Oh, those prayers of the years that made my life inevitably acquainted
with God, and the Lord Jesus, so that I never could be troubled by the
doubts of to-day, because I know Him, "whom to know is life eternal."
I cannot be thankful enough for those prayers, and that sacred time of
worship every day that brought me into His very Presence.

And then the evening that followed!

We would all get our work, sewing or drawing, painting or knitting,
or embroidery. My father, and my uncle would each take his particular
chair in a shaded corner, and a book would be brought out. It was
always a book that had been selected with great care, usually a story,
now and again a great missionary book but more often a good novel.
And this aunt would usually do the reading. Sometimes my aunt and my
mother took turns reading. They both were remarkable readers, and
knit close in spirit since early childhood. For two, sometimes three
beautiful hours we reveled in the book. Reluctantly, when the word
went forth that it was time to stop, we folded up our work and went to
bed—sometimes pleading for just another chapter—now and then actually
staying up breathless till all hours to finish some great climax. We
always went off to rest with a bright eagerness for the morrow and the
evening, and the story again—or a new one if we had finished one.

So we read the works of George Macdonald—we loved the Scotch, and our
readers knew how to put the burr of the dialect upon their tongues—Ian
Maclaren, Barrie—much of Dickens, some of Scott, Björnson, William Dean
Howells, Jean Ingelow's few matchless novels, Frank Stockton, with his
charming absurdities and a host of other writers whose stories seem to
have become submerged and forgotten in this day of modern literature.
But I look back to those stories as my meeting time with the great
of the earth. How real the Bonnie Brier Bush and all its quaint true
people were! How tender and strong was the Marquis of Lossie and Sir
Gibbie! How I thrilled over the "Men of the Moss Hags," "Ben Hur," "The
Virginian," "Jane Eyre." I mention them at random. It is my ambition
to some day possess in a special set of shelves, every one of those
wonderful stories that thrilled me so when I was young. Oh, don't
try to tell me I would not care for them now! I do. They were real
books, books that do not change because they told of human life as it
is really lived in hearts. They may need to be furnished with a few
electric lights and radios and airplanes and automobiles to make them
up-to-date, but otherwise you will not find them out of tune with life
as it is to-day, except that they are perhaps too clean and wholesome
to be natural to-day.

There were frequent times when this beloved aunt, around whom we all
seemed in those days to center, was called away to deliver an address,
or to conduct a conference, or to furnish an evening's entertainment
in some distant place; but when she returned from one of these trips
we all gathered around to hear her tell her experiences, for we were
always sure of stories. She saw everything, and she knew how to tell
with glowing words about the days she had been away so that she lived
them over again for us. It was almost better than if we had been along
because she knew how to bring out the touch of pathos or beauty or fun,
and her characters were all portraits. It listened like a book.

It was on one of these occasions that she told on her return from
a trip, the story of this book. I remember it as if it were but
yesterday, though the whole thing happened many years ago, for modern
as this story is, the main part of it happened, really happened, to her
personal knowledge, over thirty-five years ago.

It was told to her by a woman who was so well-known all over our
country at that time that if I were to name her you could not help
but remember how active she was in Woman's Suffrage and W. C. T. U.
work, besides several other notable reforms and organizations. She was
a brilliant public speaker, much in demand, and a great worker for
young girls. She recounted this story to my aunt as a recent personal
experience, and gave her permission to use it in a story (after a
suitable interval of time of course, and without the original names.)

The story was written in brief form and appeared several years after
its happening in a periodical as a short serial; but it is now
appearing in book form for the first time. The dear author, after an
interval of several years, during which on account of ill health and a
feeling that her work was done, has taken up her pen once more. But at
what odds! She is now eighty-seven years old and confined to her bed,
the result of a fall and a broken hip. In the intervals of pain she has
been elaborating and preparing this story for book form.

And now, because the manuscript was to have been in the hands of the
publisher long ago, and because pain has held her in its grip for an
unusually long period of weeks lately, leaving her unfit for work for
the present, she has trusted me with the task of putting it into final
shape. This story seems to me peculiarly fitting as a message for this
present time.

I approach the work with a kind of awe upon me that I should be working
on her story!

If, long ago in my childhood, it had been told me that I should ever be
counted worthy to do this, I would not have believed it. Before her I
shall always feel like the little worshipful child I used to be.

I recall a Christmas long ago when I was just beginning to write scraps
of stories myself, with no thought of ever amounting to anything as a
writer. Her gift to me that year was a thousand sheets of typewriter
paper; and in a sweet little note that accompanied it she wished me
success and bade me turn those thousand sheets of paper into as many
dollars.

It was my first real encouragement. The first hint that anybody thought
I ever could write, and I laughed aloud at the utter impossibility
of its ever coming true. But I feel that my first inspiration for
story-telling came from her, and from reading her books in which as a
child I fairly steeped myself.

So I beg the leniency of her readers of to-day as I approach the task
that is set before me. I know I shall have hers. My one hope is that I
shall not in any way mar the message of this true and thrilling tale,
that certainly is needed in this day and generation. I trust that she
may soon be well enough to write once more, herself, another tale as
good if not better.

Let me tell you a secret. I happen to know that this wonderful little
brave aunt of mine is at work on the story of her younger years. She
calls it "Yesterdays." I have had the pleasure of reading a few of
the earlier chapters where she tells of her childhood and her young
womanhood; the quaint things that happened to her; the dear home
in which she lived; the great people of other days whom she knew
intimately and with whom she grew up.

I pray she may be spared with strength to finish her story of her
"Yesterdays," and many more beside.

                                       GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL



                               CONTENTS

   CHAPTER I

   CHAPTER II

   CHAPTER III

   CHAPTER IV

   CHAPTER V

   CHAPTER VI

   CHAPTER VII

   CHAPTER VIII

   CHAPTER IX

   CHAPTER X

   CHAPTER XI

   CHAPTER XII

   CHAPTER XIII

   CHAPTER XIV



                       AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT

CHAPTER I

THE train had limped along all the afternoon with engine trouble, and
now at evening the passengers learned that they were two hours behind
schedule and still losing time.

Mrs. Dunlap put away her writing materials and sat up with a sigh to
look about her. It began to look as if she might be going to miss her
connections unless relief from this state of things came soon.

She had just finished correcting the last galley of her new book which
was to come out that fall; she had gone over the notes for her new
addresses she was on her way to make at several appointed places; she
had finished reading her magazine from cover to cover; she had even
written a couple of letters to friends; and here she was with time on
her hands! An almost unheard of thing for this busy woman. Not many
hours of leisure came her way, and when one did, it filled her almost
with dismay at the enforced waste of time.

Off in the west a thread of crimson still lingered on the horizon,
but it soon faded into a line of pale amber and then disappeared. The
lights of the train blared out and shut the travelers into the narrow
confines of the car, and Mary Dunlap leaned back in her seat and fell
to studying her fellow passengers.

The usual mother with many children who had been the usual noisy
nuisance all the afternoon, had subsided into quiet for the time being;
the mother and the littlest baby being asleep, the rest occupied with a
picture book some thoughtful traveler had donated.

The personnel of the car had changed somewhat during the afternoon.
Several people had got out at the stations along the way and others
had come in. Among the latter were the two people who occupied the
seat directly in front of Mary Dunlap, and before she realized it,
she was thoroughly absorbed in studying them, her interest caught by
the singularly pure and lovely outline of the young woman's face, in
profile.

They were apparently a young married couple, though the man was not so
young as the girl, who looked entirely too young to be married yet. As
she studied them she could not help wondering over the girl's choice of
a husband. They did not seem at all well mated. The girl was the far
more attractive of the two.

Mary Dunlap decided that they were newly wed. The man had an air of
proprietorship which she thought could only be explained by that
relation. To the girl everything seemed to be strange and new, but she
did not wear a happy face.

"Poor child!" thought the watcher. "She has just said goodbye to her
mother, I suppose."

Then for a moment, memory carried her swiftly back to the day when she
had been called upon to bid one dear girl the long goodbye.

Still, she reflected, on this girl's face there was unrest—real
anxiety. There were even moments when she fancied that there was actual
fear! What could be the explanation?

The husband had been most attentive, almost oppressively so. Could he
be urging her to some course she did not approve?

"The man looks like a gentleman tyrant!" she told herself. "He will be
certain to have his own way in the end. That poor child might as well
yield first as last."

The call for dinner in the dining car took her away from their vicinity
for a little while, and before she returned they had followed her to
the diner. But later in the evening when they came back to their seats,
she could not help seeing that they were having some kind of a heated
argument, and that the girl was deeply distressed, almost on the verge
of tears, the man alternately vexed and cajoling.

Mary Dunlap was a woman of wide interests and keen insight into
character. She could not help siding with the young wife, and feeling
that the man was in the wrong. He looked like a man who would have his
own way at all costs.

In vain did she tell herself that she was probably all wrong. The
girl might be a spoiled darling who was childishly insisting on some
extravagance which the man, older and wiser, was trying to reason her
out of. But try as she would, she could not make it seem that way. The
man had a selfish sophistication about him that made her distrust him.

Both the young people were well dressed, with that regard to quiet
elegance that showed they had plenty of money, and belonged to what is
known as the higher social class. The trouble could not be about money.

Mary Dunlap turned her eyes away from them at last, resolved to wonder
no more about these strangers who had caught her passing interest. It
was none of her business anyway, what troubled these two. They would
have to settle their own affairs. There was obviously no way in which
she could help them; and perhaps even this kindly observation was a
species of eavesdropping. She would think no more about them.

With her eyes on the dark landscape outside the window, she began to
think about those two hours that the train had lost and to wonder what
she could possibly do about it in case she missed her connection at the
junction. Being a methodical woman, and a careful planner she was not
used to missing her appointments, and it was most annoying to have the
train crawl along this way, and then stop for unexplainable periods.
Nevertheless, there was a certain resignation about her annoyance.
She believed fully that design, not mere chance or Fate determines
our ways, and reorders our plannings sometimes, in accordance with
All-seeing wisdom; and she could not help wondering why her plans had
been put in jeopardy.

For a long time she watched the lights of the little villages go flying
by, for now the train seemed to have taken up a steady, dogged trot,
and rolled along without stopping as if it had made up its mind to get
home sometime.

But when she finally turned her gaze back to the car again she could
see that the two in front of her had not settled their argument
yet. They were not talking much now, but each face was eloquent of
disagreement. The girl's eyes held unshed tears, and her look was
openly anxious. Now and then she cast a pleading look at her companion,
and said a little wistful word, ending in a sigh. The man was still
stubbornly positive, his lips curving in a superior smile of amusement
at the girl's reiterated objections. Again Mary Dunlap began to realize
that her own interest in the affair was unwarrantably eager. She must
stop thinking about these two people or they would pretty soon turn
around suddenly and see her staring at them.

But just at that instant there occurred a happy interruption. The
brakeman came eagerly through the train as one bearing welcome news,
shouting the name of the Junction at last.

Mrs. Dunlap sat up briskly and looked at her watch. Ten minutes past
midnight! Would the other train have waited?

Capably and quickly she straightened her hat, put on her gloves,
buttoned her coat, gathered her hand bag, brief case, and suit case,
and was ready at the door of the car when the train came to a halt.

But a glance at the track on the other side of the station showed that
the train had not waited! The station looked deserted and dirty in the
dim midnight, and her heart sank. Now, why had this had to happen?

Mrs. Dunlap paused for a moment in the doorway of the station as the
disappointed crowds surged from the belated train. They had all more
or less of a discouraged look and she sympathized with them. It was
a new experience to her to be stranded unexpectedly at midnight in a
strange place. Her delay would undoubtedly disappoint many people; but
it certainly was not her fault. She had planned carefully as usual,
and now must send telegrams in various directions to explain her
non-appearance; her first disappointment as a platform speaker after
years of service. She could not possibly reach her first appointment
now in time and the whole schedule would be thrown out. Too bad, but
she must make the best of it.

As she made her way to the telegraph office the man, who had for
several hours occupied the seat in front of her, brushed past her. He
too had probably missed connections and must telegraph. She wondered
where he had left his young wife and wished she might have had a chance
to show her some little kindness. She felt strangely drawn to the girl,
who looked too young to be a wife and seemed so utterly troubled.

"I wonder if they are as much disappointed as I am over the upset of
plans, and if they are disappointing as many people as I am?" she said
to herself, and again a question came to her mind; "I wonder why it was
allowed to happen? I certainly thought I was needed at that meeting
to-morrow morning! They have been planning for it so long! It is so
embarrassing to have to disappoint them this way!"

It very soon became necessary however to give undivided attention to
the question of where she was to spend the remainder of the night. The
Kennard House to which she had been recommended by the ticket agent
proved to be crowded and the gentlemanly and sympathetic clerk could
give her no encouragement.

He shook his head in response to her question: "The Albemarle? No, they
are as badly off as we are. A car just drove away from here with people
who had tried the Albemarle first. It is certainly an unfortunate night
for that express train to be late! The city is overcrowded on account
of the Convention. You are alone, madam? I hardly know what to suggest
to you. We let our very last room go, about three minutes before you
came in, to a couple who were your fellow passengers."

Was that a courteous hint that if she hadn't been so slow in her
movements she might have had their room? Was the fortunate couple the
two who had held her thoughts for hours? If so, she was glad she had
been late; that sad-eyed little wife needed a quiet room for getting
her nerves under control.

Then came another hotel official to exchange a few words in undertone
with the one who was trying to serve her. A moment, then her
sympathetic friend turned to her again.

"Madam, I have just heard that the man who engaged No. 38 for the
night, has changed his mind, and is staying with friends in town. If
you cared to wait in the reception room for a few minutes we could have
it ready for you."

Grateful thanks were of course the only reply to make to this.

As she took up the pen to register Mrs. Dunlap remarked: "It seems
almost foolish to register for the few hours there are left of the
night." But she said it with a genial smile and the friendly air that
made clerks and porters and all who served her, glad to offer a helping
hand.

The name just preceding her own held her attention as probably the one
that belonged to the couple who had so continually interested her that
evening. "R. H. Keller and wife." They were booked for Room 537. That
must be four floors above her own. She wished they had been nearer,
then she might have opportunity to exchange courtesies with that
frightened little bride; if she could only mother her a little, she
would be glad.

The parlor in which she waited looked vast and gloomy in its midnight
dimness and solitude. No not quite solitude, there were other
occupants, a man and woman, probably waiting like herself for a room to
be made ready. Her first impulse was to choose a corner as far removed
from them as space would permit. Instead, she took possession of one
of the couches quite near where they were standing for she suddenly
recognized them as her traveling companions, and her interest in the
girl flamed anew as she caught sight of her face.

What could be troubling that girl! The more she saw of the man's
face the more she distrusted him. Perhaps she imagined it, but it
seemed as though he had recognized her close proximity with a frown!
Nevertheless, she determined not to retreat. What if there should be
a chance just to speak a cheery word to the girl? She tucked herself
among the cushions, drew her coat closely about her, and seemed to
sleep, but she had never felt wider awake. Her nervousness was taking
the form of a premonition.

The man had turned toward his wife. "We may as well be comfortable
while we wait," he said. "It is beastly luck to have to wait at all.
These second class towns never have proper hotel accommodations. Let us
go over to that couch at the other end of the room where the pillows
look less stinted."

The girl looked over at the distant couch then glanced back to the one
where Mrs. Dunlap rested.

"Oh, no," she said, moving nearer to the fireplace. "I am chilly;
I would rather stay here. Suppose you push a couple of those large
rocking chairs up this way?"

"I can make you much more comfortable on the couch," he said, his tone
indicating annoyance. "That fire will not keep you warm, there is
nothing left of it but charred old stumps. Do let me snug you up among
the cushions."

He essayed to pass an arm about her as he spoke, but she drew away from
him with a wan smile as she said:

"I would rather stay here; it seems less lonely to be near a woman. Why
did we trouble about rooms? I think I would just as soon stay where I
am?"

"Standing?" he asked in a tone which to the woman on the couch sounded
sullen.

"No," answered the girl with that pitiful attempt at a smile, "I would
be willing to sit if you would bring up chairs. There cannot be much
longer to wait, I should think. What time did you say we could get a
train?"

When he told her, the response was almost a wail.

"Oh, Rufus! That was not what you said before? Why, that is not until
another day!"

The woman on the couch held herself motionless by a strong effort of
will. This was not the tone of a happy wife! She was certain now that
something was wrong besides a few hours of delay. This was more like
the outbreak of a woman half afraid of the man who was supposed to be
caring for her.

"It is beastly luck," the man said again. "Something is always the
matter on this confounded branch road! If you hadn't been staying in
such an out of the way place, we should have been saved all this.
Still, I don't understand why we should make it any more uncomfortable
than it is. You ought to be resting quietly, instead—"

Her voice interrupted him, louder than it had been before. "I cannot
rest: I cannot! I can only think of my mother's utter dismay and—and
terror when she hears—"

"H-sh!" The man's sibilant whisper was sudden and fierce!

No wonder the girl started, and cried out in fright: "Oh, what is it!"

He bent over her and spoke lower.

"It is nothing at all, my dear, except that you are utterly tired out
and your nerves are on edge. But you must be careful what you say.
That confounded eavesdropper has planted herself as close to us as she
could, and may get the idea from your words that I am a fiend of some
kind. Thank goodness, though, she has gone to sleep, at last! I must
say they are taking an unaccountable time to get that room ready."

"That room!" repeated the still frightened voice. "There are two rooms,
of course?"

"Of course," he repeated hastily, "but I could wait for mine, you know."

"I don't like it," the girl said, quite as if she had not heard him,
"I don't like anything about it! I wish—Oh, Rufus, can't we go on
to-night? Or go somewhere and talk things over and make other plans. I
don't want any room!"

He spoke kindly but with great firmness.

"That is impossible, dear, as you will realize when you think a moment.
All the arrangements are made, and my friend is waiting and will be
there for the next train. There is no other train until morning that
will do us any good. Why can you not be the sensible girl you have been
all the afternoon and let me do the extra planning that this detention
has made necessary? I assure you I can take care of you." As he spoke,
he tried to draw her nearer.

She made a despairing movement away from him and said:

"Oh, I cannot make you understand! I know how strange it seems to you,
but if you could think for a moment of my side of it! Can't you realize
how different it will all be to me when I have the right to be with
you anywhere and always? As it is, I cannot help feeling strangely
alone and—and almost disgraced! I do, Rufus, I cannot help it. Mother
has always been so particular about me; and she would think this that
we are doing was terrible! I know now that she would. Can't we go
somewhere on the cars, and talk it all over? I don't feel so perfectly
strange when we are moving. Hark! Was that one o'clock? And we were to
have been there long before twelve! And you were to telegraph to mother
early in the morning! Oh, this is dreadful!"

He bent toward her and spoke gently. "Daisy, listen, you are making
yourself ill over troubles that do not exist. Everything is all right;
we shall be in by noon, and my friend will meet the train. Meantime in
the early morning I will wire your mother, as we planned; and—"

She interrupted him. "But we don't get in until noon! And what you were
going to say won't be true!"

"Oh, nonsense! Why, my dear, if you were not so tired as to be beyond
reasoning, I could convince you in a very few minutes of the folly of
that! I shall only be anticipating the truth by a very few hours in
order to relieve her anxiety."

"Rufus, I cannot help it. I cannot have our life together begin with
falsehood! It is bad enough as it is. I cannot help being sorry that we
did not wait until mother had a chance to know you better. She is not a
hard or unreasonable woman."

"I see plainly that you do not trust me." He spoke with such bitterness
and sharpness that the listener on the couch who could catch only
portions of the girl's words, felt as though she would like to spring
up that minute and defend her. But the voice rose clearer just then.

"Rufus! How can you say that to me? If I had not trusted you utterly,
would I be here to-night? If you had a mother, you would understand how
perfectly dreadful it is to—"

As she hesitated for words, a hotel official came towards them.

"Are you Mr. R. H. Keller, sir? If so, you are wanted at the office
telephone."

"Confound the fellow!" muttered Keller. Then, in a gentler tone, "Don't
let that frighten you, Daisy. It is a business call that I have been
expecting; but it comes at an inopportune time, of course. I shall be
back in a very few minutes."

Left to herself, the girl walked back and forth in front of the fire,
seeming to catch her breath in convulsive little sobs. She was so near
the couch that Mrs. Dunlap could have put out her hand and touched her.
When that good woman saw a pair of small hands clenched and heard a low
moan, she came suddenly to a sitting posture and in a moment more was
speaking in a low tone.

"Will you forgive me, dear? I am the mother of a precious girl who was
about your age when God called her home. And I miss her so! I cannot
help seeing that you are in trouble. May I not play mother to you for a
little while and try to comfort you?"

But the girl's face at that moment expressed such abject terror, that
she made haste to add:

"There is nothing to be frightened over, dear; this is a quiet,
entirely respectable house, and your husband will be back in a few
moments." It was the probing word that this student of human nature had
resolved should open her way, and it succeeded.

"He is not my husband!" the girl exclaimed. "Not yet," she added
quickly. "We were to have been married as soon as the train reached our
destination; but the train was delayed; we could not go on; and there
were no rooms to be had without this awful waiting! I wish now that we
had not—" She stopped abruptly, then began again.

"I know I must appear very silly indeed to a stranger. But I cannot
seem to help it. And I cannot explain, either, why it should suddenly
seem so perfectly dreadful to me, but it does! I am so used to
traveling with my mother; I cannot get away from the thought of how
perfectly awful it would seem to her if she knew that I—"

The tremulous voice stopped again; and at that moment Mrs. Dunlap felt
that she could almost enjoy shooting the man who had deliberately
planned such a state of things for this frightened child. She passed a
protecting arm about the trembling form and spoke low and tenderly.

"My child, will you trust me and tell me all about it? You remind me of
my own dear daughter; I am sure that you have a precious mother. Does
she know that you expected to be married to-night?"

"No, oh, no! She doesn't dream of such a thing! We couldn't tell her
because she—she is prejudiced against Mr. Keller; he has enemies, we
think, who are trying to injure him because he is a more successful man
than they are, and she—Why, she wasn't even willing to have me walk
out with him, alone! But I thought—I mean I think that when we are
married, and everything is settled forever, we shall be able to make
her understand. It really isn't as though I were a child; I am of age."

At this, the child-woman drew herself up with such a pitiful attempt at
womanhood that Mrs. Dunlap, under happier circumstances, felt sure she
would have asked how many hours it was since the child had attained to
that dignity!

The tremulous voice continued:

"Still, I could not live without my mother; and I do not need to, of
course. As soon as she discovers how truly good and noble Mr. Keller
is, and what a devoted son he is ready to be to her, it will be all
right. Mother has always wanted a son."

A note of appeal had crept into her voice as though she longed to hear
from even this stranger an assurance that all would be well. Mrs.
Dunlap's mother-heart bled for her, and a throb of thankfulness for the
absolute safety of her own daughter thrilled through her. With it came
the determination to do what she could to help this girl, even at the
cost of a possible mistake.

"My child," she said, "I feel that I must tell you something that I
think you ought to know. You are registered at this hotel as 'R. H.
Keller and wife!' And one room—not two—is being made ready for you."



CHAPTER II

FOR a moment Mrs. Dunlap regretted her words. The terror in the
girl's eyes transformed her face; and the low cry she gave was almost
like that of a wounded animal! But she rallied rapidly and said with
eagerness: "Oh, you are mistaken! It is some other person whose name
you have mistaken for his. He would not—why, Rufus could not do such a
thing!"

"My dear child, I am not mistaken." The very quietness of the woman's
voice and manner carried conviction. "The name is R. H. Keller and the
man who is with you here to-night is the one who sat before me with you
yesterday afternoon, and wrote his name as I have told you, just before
I did on the register."

Suddenly the poor girl broke into bitter weeping. "What shall I do!"
she wailed. "Oh, what shall I do! Oh, mother! If I had never gone away
from you! I have killed her! I have killed my mother!"

"No, you haven't!" Mrs. Dunlap's voice had never been quieter, nor
firmer. "You are going home to her this morning, as soon as the train
goes. In a few hours she will have her arms about you. And when you are
really being married, she will stand very near you, and be the first
to kiss you, and call you her darling. You wouldn't disappoint her for
anything! Come with me to my room and wait until train time. There
ought to be one very early in the morning, and I will see you safely to
it."

The girl seized the little hand bag she had dropped, and spoke
hurriedly.

"Where is the room? Oh, quick! Take me to it, will you? That was what
I wanted; a place to be alone and think. I don't know what I can do,
but I must decide; and I must do it before Mr. Keller comes back,
because—oh, will you let me go into your room and lock the door?"

They both turned hurriedly at the sound of footsteps.

It was a porter to say that No. 37 was ready; and never were fleeter
steps than those that followed his lead.

"Oh, hurry!" the girl said breathlessly as they reached the room, and
it was she who turned the key in the lock after the retreating porter.
Then she dropped a limp heap into the nearest chair and cried.

Mrs. Dunlap left her quite to herself and thanked God for the tears.

"What shall I do if he comes and demands to be let in?" the girl asked
suddenly, looking up at her deliverer. "He is so—so masterful; and he
does not look at things as I do. He thinks that a few hours cannot make
any difference. I know how he argued it out with himself that he could
not leave me alone, and that he would shield my name by giving me his
in advance, but I cannot do it, I cannot! And if he comes and insists
upon talking to me, I don't know what will become of me. I don't seem
to be able to make him understand."

"I know, dear; you will be a good girl and go back to your mother. Of
course you cannot do what he wants. This is my room; he will hardly
come to it without my permission. If you think it is necessary to
explain your absence, I will go down to him, if you will let me, and
explain what is necessary."

"Oh, if you will! I mean if you can! He is very determined; and he is
used to having his own way; I cannot think that he will let me—"

She was trembling so violently that she could scarcely speak.

Mrs. Dunlap passed an arm about her and spoke as she might have done to
a frightened child.

"Don't think about that part of it any more; I am not in the least
afraid of him; and I will take care of you! Have you a kimono in this
bag? Let me help you take off your dress, just as your mother would,
and slip the kimono on for a little while. I have been looking at the
time table. You can have almost three hours of quiet; then I will take
you to the train. We can plan all the details afterwards."

"Oh, you are so kind!" murmured the girl.

"I am going downstairs now," the woman said when the girl had submitted
to her ministrations, resisting the suggestion about the bed, but
allowing herself to be propped among pillows in an easy chair. "I will
come back in a little while; or would you rather have this room quite
to yourself? I can be comfortable down on one of the couches, and I
will come for you in ample time for the train."

"No! Oh, no!" the girl said, the look of fear coming into her eyes
again. "Please don't leave me! And yet you must! Would you mind locking
the door and taking the key with you? I cannot help a feeling that—"

"She is afraid of him!" was Mrs. Dunlap's mental comment as she sped
down the hall with the key in her pocket.

On the whole she decided she was rather glad of an opportunity to tell
that man what she thought of him.

She had little time to collect her thoughts, for the subject of them
hurried in soon after she entered the parlor.

There was an ugly frown on his face. Evidently the interview from which
he had just come had irritated him.

He strode to the corner where he had left his companion and stared
about him perplexedly; then turned an angry questioning look upon Mrs.
Dunlap.

"Are you looking for the lady who was here when you left the room?" She
asked pleasantly, determined to be courteous if possible. "She has gone
to my room to get some rest, and asked me to say to you that she is all
right and quite comfortable for the night."

He strode toward her with a glare in his eyes that would have
frightened a less courageous spirit, and spoke in an angry voice: "Who
are you that you presume to interfere in the lady's affairs?" he said
haughtily. "I have a room for her to rest in, and you will oblige me
by telling her that I am waiting for her, and then by minding your own
business."

Mrs. Dunlap had the advantage of this angry man; she was perfectly cool
and calm.

"You are mistaken," she said. "I have the right to interfere, because
the lady has claimed my protection and I am abundantly able and willing
to give it."

"Protection from what!" he thundered.

"From Mr. Keller, I fancy. I supposed, of course, that the lady in
question was your wife, as I had seen you together during the day, and
noticed how you registered. Since she has informed me that she is not;
and, furthermore, that she does not wish to see you again to-night, I
have aided her in carrying out her wishes and must insist on her not
being disturbed."

"Must you indeed! How do you expect to accomplish the task of keeping
me away from the lady who is under my protection, and for whom I alone
am responsible?"

There was menace in his tone and in the glare of his eyes. Mrs. Dunlap
lifted her eyebrows with a gesture of contempt, but she spoke quietly.

"This is absurd, Mr. Keller. I have no wish to make matters more
uncomfortable than is necessary; but of course you are aware that this
is a respectable house. You are here in company with a young woman whom
you registered as your wife; and you ordered a room for yourself and
her; but she says that she is not your wife, and that she does not wish
to see you again to-night. I do not need to remind you how promptly
the proprietor of this house, as well as its guests, would come to
her aid if necessary; nor that policemen and lockups are conveniences
within call. If you compel me to resort to such measures, you will have
yourself to thank."

There was something about Mary Dunlap when she chose to assert herself
that commanded respect. Keller looked into the clear stern eyes of
this woman and realized that he must not go too far. He glared at her,
baffled for an instant, and when she still continued to look steadily
at him, he wheeled and took a few steps away from her. Then, after a
moment, with a sound that was evidently an attempt at a laugh but was
more like a sneer, he turned and came toward her again, trying to speak
lightly:

"You women are too much for me! I may as well take you into my
confidence, as the lady has evidently seen fit to do. It is true that
the formal ceremony which was to have made us man and wife in the eyes
of a curious world has not yet taken place, but the mere formality
is all that is lacking. If it were not for a wrecked engine and this
infernal delay, Mrs. Grundy, whom you are personifying, would have
been able to sleep peacefully. I registered as I had expected to do
after I had reached the station where the clergyman was waiting for
us, because I did not wish to leave the lady alone, in her wearied,
and nervous state, but desired to minister to her comfort, as I would
assuredly have been able to do, had we not been interfered with in this
extraordinary manner. I did not consider it necessary to explain to the
lady that I had anticipated the ceremony by a few hours, in writing her
name as mine, and thus securing a quiet room for her to rest in.

"I may further say that business complications in which a good deal of
money was involved, have made it necessary for me to move with caution
in this entire matter, and for this reason I brought her away with me
quietly, before the outward forms had been complied with; but she came
without coercion of any sort as she will be ready to inform you, if
you explain that you suspect me of being at least an accomplice in a
case of kidnapping! She will tell you also that she is of age, and that
nobody living has a right to object to her taking a journey at any hour
of the day or night with her chosen husband.

"Now, having, I am sure, satisfied the utmost demands of your
curiosity, if you will tell me where to find the lady, I will escort
her to her private sitting-room; and you need not delay your own sleep
any longer. If it will comfort you to know it, I assure you that three
minutes' conversation with my lady, will be sufficient to allay any
fears that you may have succeeded in working up."

This biting sarcasm, partially veiled at times by mock courtesy, was
concluded with what was intended to be a bow of dismissal.

But Mrs. Dunlap was never more quietly determined in her course of
action. Every word that the man had spoken increased her distrust of
him.

"We need not argue," she said. "You have told me nothing that I did
not know before. Let me remind you that the mere formality which is
still lacking to give you the legal right to take care of this woman
is one that decent people still carefully adhere to, and without it
your action to-night has been contrary to law and respectability.
For this reason, no matter what your motive is, or how many private
sitting-rooms you have been able to secure in this overcrowded house,
I can and will protect the young woman from occupying one of them. I
suppose it is hardly necessary to add that if you make the slightest
attempt to see her to-night, or to interfere with her wishes in any
way, I shall not hesitate to take the hotel officials and the police
into my confidence. If you force me to action, you will find that I am
a woman who is very well-known."

During these words the man's face was a study. Fierce indignation,
doubt, perplexity, intense disgust, each struggled for the ascendancy.
But Mrs. Dunlap was about to leave the room. The necessity for
propitiating her in some way forced itself upon him.

"Wait!" he said imperatively. "You do not understand. Is it possible to
make you understand the conditions? Sit down and let me explain just
what has happened, and what I am trying to do."

His manner became suddenly courteous, and he began to talk volubly,
explaining, in more minute detail than the occasion seemed to call for,
the devious ways by which he had reached this point; enlarging upon
his deep affection for the lady of his choice, and his desire to free
her from the narrow and cramped life in which he found her. Her mother
was a commonplace, narrow-minded, exceedingly prejudiced person who
entirely dominated her daughter's life; so that she was in danger of
having no individuality, he said.

Among other proofs of the mother's folly, she had conceived a violent
dislike to himself; and carried her tyranny to such an extent that the
girl was not even allowed to receive a call from him, unless the mother
was present! Matters were in this state, and he was at an utter loss
how to further the daughter's interests, when his good angel, came to
his rescue. The girl went to spend a month with a very intimate friend,
who had married and removed to a town a hundred miles from her home.
Then, quite unexpectedly to himself, business connected with his firm
sent him to that very town. All the rest had followed, almost, he might
say, because of the necessities of the case. He had discovered that
the young lady's affections were as deeply involved as his own, and
that she despaired, as deeply as he did himself, of ever winning her
narrow-minded mother to take their view of things.

Mrs. Dunlap was called upon to assent to the statement that common
people were apt to have violent prejudices for which they could not
account, and were the hardest persons on earth to move. Still, he would
admit that in carrying out the program that followed he had acted upon
sudden impulse rather than premeditated plans.

When the time came for the lady to return home, Providence seemed to
make a way for them to be happy. He need not explain that he had used
no coercion in the matter; the lady realized only too certainly that
her mother stood in the way of her happiness, and that if she had her
way, the daughter would be entirely and forever separated from him.
This, she felt that she could not endure, and they both believed that,
when the irrevocable step was taken, the mother would have a return
to common sense. So, in a moment, one might say, it was all arranged;
indeed it almost arranged itself. He had a friend in the ministry at a
town which was an important junction of the railroad, and to him, he
sent a message planning all the necessary details; but for the horrible
delay because of that disabled engine, everything would have been
complete.

But the delay and confusion and the necessity for their stopping
overnight at a strange hotel had bewildered and frightened the girl,
unused as she was to being alone, or to thinking and planning for
herself. It was the knowledge of that, which had led him to make the
mistake of registering as he did; he could now see that it was a
mistake. He knew there was but one room to be had, and his only thought
had been to secure privacy for her and the right to minister to her
comfort. At the moment there seemed no other way; but he would admit
that it had a bad look to others, who did not understand the situation.
For himself these outward conventions never seemed of paramount
importance so long as one understood one's self. He had not meant to
tell the girl about it, because she, as a matter of course having such
a mother, was terribly trammeled by conventions of all sorts and could
not be made to understand that what was true IN SPIRIT was the same as
truth.

But, he had been foolish; he was ready to admit it. He was even
grateful for her interference, when he came to think carefully,
although he would confess that at first it seemed unpardonable. He had
been a law to himself for so many years, that he knew he did not attach
the same importance to convention that others did, but he must learn
to do so now, for the girl's sake. Of course everything should be as
she wished. He would not for the world go contrary to the lady's real
desires, but it would be necessary for him to see her and rearrange
their program. After he had learned just what she wanted him to do, he
would spend the remainder of the night in long distance communications,
because of course there were explanations that must be made. Having
interested herself in his charge, would she be so kind as to tell her
that he was waiting for her, and must confer with her at once in order
to send his dispatches? He would detain her but a very short time, and
then she could return to the room that had been so kindly placed at her
disposal.

Throughout this elaborate explanation Mrs. Dunlap had sat silent;
her eyes fixed upon the speaker, and her thoughts busy with this new
specimen of human nature.

Not for a single moment did he deceive her into thinking that he was,
in the main, a true man who, because of his love for a pretty girl
and the sudden temptation of opportunity, had been led headlong into
a foolish and dangerous experiment. Not for an instant did she waver
in her determination to keep those two apart, if possible, until the
girl's mother could make a third in their deliberations.

Yet she made no attempt to interrupt the flow of words, and grew
interested in the skill with which he was explaining the unexplainable.

When he paused, with an evident air of having mastered a difficult
situation, she said:

"You are very kind to give me details, although they do not of course
alter the present situation. It is a relief to know that you consider
your course wrong, but I cannot agree with your way of trying to right
it. I have given my word to the lady that she shall not be disturbed
to-night and that she shall take the home-bound train in the morning.
After she is safe at home with her mother and has had time to rally
from the shock that this has evidently been to her, you may be able to
make such plans as neither of you will be ashamed to look back upon;
but she is in no condition to be consulted to-night; and it may help
you to realize, what I feel quite sure of, that she has had her lesson,
and that any future plans you may care to make must take her mother
into full consideration. You will pardon the suggestion that you must
have had many more years than she, in which to learn wisdom; she is but
eighteen I believe, while you—"

She paused significantly, but the man whom she judged to be not less
than thirty-five at least, was speechless with amazement and dismay. He
had staked much and expected to win.

She turned and left him before he could think of any excuse to detain
her longer.



CHAPTER III

THE remainder of the night was as unique in its way as its earlier
hours had been. On Mary Dunlap's return to her room she found the girl
was more composed, and able to talk quietly.

"I have had time to think it all out," she said, when Mrs. Dunlap had
told what she meant to tell. "Mr. Keller does not understand; his
mother died when he was a child and he brought himself up, in a way. He
has been a law to himself and to others for so long that he just goes
ahead and does what seems best to him. I am sure he meant right. Even
that strange part about registering," her face flushed as she spoke,
"I can see it was done for my sake. I am so lacking in self-reliance
and had been so nervous all day that he felt he could not trust me
alone, and took that way of caring for me. But it is no wonder that I
am nervous, for I have been doing wrong all day! I did not know it; I
thought because I was of age I had a right to decide for myself but
I realize that there is a higher law than just a legal one, and I am
going home to mother! I am afraid she will feel that she can never
trust me out of her sight again, and I do not deserve to be trusted.

"It is all very plain to me now, what I ought to do. I shall write to
Mr. Keller and tell him that we must wait, and give my mother time to
know him, and to learn what a truly noble man he is. Then we must try
by all honorable means to win her consent to our marriage. I will not
cannot be married till my mother feels right about it."

"I think that sounds like a very wise decision," said Mary Dunlap with
relief in her voice. "That is what mothers were given for, to help in
grave decisions. They seem to have a sort of God-given intuition about
the great critical things of life. Remember that if you do not succeed
in winning her over, such a mother, as a girl like you must have,
surely must have wise reasons for objecting—"

"Oh, I'm sure we will succeed," interrupted the girl's voice anxiously.
"My mother wants nothing in this world so much as my happiness. But if
we cannot, after a reasonable time, convince her that he is worthy of
her trust, why then we must just be married, without her consent. I
have my own life to live—" she drew herself up proudly with a pitiful
assumption of dignity—"I cannot afford to spoil my life and his for the
sake of a cruel prejudice."

This last was so manifestly an echo from Mr. Keller's philosophy that
the listener said not a word, in response, and the eager voice went on.

"But we must do it honestly; there shall be no slipping away as though
we were ashamed! I cannot understand how I could have done such a
thing! Doesn't it seem strange that I should know now just what to do,
when this morning I did not at all! And so, dear friend—you will be my
friend always, will you not? And mother will never know how to thank
you enough for what you have done for me to-night! If you will put me
on the train in the morning, as you said, I will go directly home; no
matter how many broken engines hinder."

Mrs. Dunlap tried by all conceivable devices to induce her charge to
get some sleep. She rang for a porter and made careful arrangements
for the early train; planning the minutest details with a view to
convincing the girl that she might be trusted. But there was no sleep
to be had for either of them. Her charge was docile enough; she lay
down obediently and closed her eyes; but she started at every sound,
and imagined sounds that were not; frequently, after a few minutes
of silence, she would break into eager explanations of some of Mr.
Keller's movements, with a view to placing him in the best possible
light.

"What is his business?" Mrs. Dunlap asked; deciding, after fruitless
effort that to humor the child's restlessness was perhaps the better
way.

"He is—I—don't know—!"

The sentence began eagerly, then a pause, and the half bewildered
conclusion.

"He has to travel a great deal," she added; "belongs to a firm, you
know; but I find that I do not know what the firm is; it seems strange
that I never thought to ask him!"

"Is his home in the West?"

"Yes—no, he is there winters; summers he is East somewhere. I don't
remember which city he calls 'home'; he is in New York a great deal. He
really hasn't much home I presume; an unmarried man, whose parents are
dead; it must be very dreary."

"Poor innocent child!" was Mrs. Dunlap's mental comment. "She really
knows no more about the man than I do; I'm afraid not so much! For all
that she could prove, he might be an adventurer of the sort that is
careful not to have a settled home."

But all that she put into words was an earnest admonition to the girl
to try to rest. For herself, she did not mean to sleep; every nerve was
on the alert for a possible invasion. Who could be sure of what that
defeated plotter might attempt?

But the night passed without further incident and early morning found
the two at the telegraph office, from which presently two messages sped
on their way. One read:

   "Delayed by disabled engine. Coming on No. 2. All safe. Daisy."

It had taken nearly half an hour to compose this message
satisfactorily. The other read:

   "Must fail you for Wednesday. Will give you Thursday instead,
   if desired. Wire me at Winfield. Mary Dunlap."

Mrs. Dunlap had decided that the personal deposit of this young girl at
her mother's door was more important than any other "woman's work" that
she could do that day although she did not know that the man she had
foiled was already seated in the smoker of the early train, waiting for
her to disappear. She utterly distrusted him, and felt instinctively
that he would watch his opportunity.

It was to the girl's great astonishment that, having established her
charge in comfort, Mrs. Dunlap prepared to seat herself in the opposite
chair.

"Oh, are you really going this way?" said the unsuspecting child. "What
made me think that you were going farther West? How far do you go? To
Winfield? Why, that is just beyond my station! How lovely! You will
stop and see mother and let her thank you herself, won't you?"

But Mrs. Dunlap had decided that she would not. If the man were only a
fool, and not a confirmed villain, and the child's heart was bound up
in him, it were better for all concerned that her prejudices, as well
as her knowledge of that tragic night, should never reach the mother's
ears.

When the journey was over and they drove to the girl's home, she waited
only to clasp hands with the sweet-faced, low-voiced, grateful woman,
into whose eager arms Daisy flung herself, and to decline the pressing
invitation to the home that wanted to shower kindnesses upon her; then
sped on to Winfield. Arrived in Winfield, Mary Dunlap's sole errand was
to read a telegram she found awaiting her, send another, and take the
first train back West.

On the fourth morning following, she opened her eyes in a beautiful
room in one of the elegant homes of a New York city suburb. It was
still early, and she lay quiet for a few minutes, feasting her
beauty-loving eyes on the evidences of abundant means and highly
cultured taste spread lavishly about her. She had been too weary the
night before to take in any details, except a bed. Mrs. Dunlap was
accustomed to the position of honored guest in all sorts of homes.
She could accommodate herself to the furnishings of the plainest home
with a grace that was one of her charms; but she confessed to her very
intimate friends that when "the lines fell to her in pleasant places,"
it always stirred an extra note of thanksgiving in her heart. There was
certainly nothing lacking here; nothing to offend the most fastidious
taste, or for the most exacting to desire.

The days and nights just past had been strenuous ones to this always
industrious woman. There had been first the rapid journey involving
another failure in appointment, for this woman who prided herself
on never failing; an equally rapid return to the East, reaching her
next engagement just in time; then two hours by rail to her evening
appointment; and here she was taking breath in a lovely room with a
whole day of rest before she had to start again!

She was in no haste to move. Her thoughtful hostess had urged her not
to hasten down in the morning. "We do not breakfast until nine, and not
always then if the head of the house is absent; as he is now I am sorry
to say. I have always wanted him to meet you. Dear Mrs. Dunlap, I may
as well confess that I am awfully proud of my husband!" The sentence
had closed with an apologetic laugh.

What a transparent little lady her hostess was! She ought to be very
happy, with a husband of whom she was "awfully" proud, a beautiful home
crowded with all the luxuries that wealth could produce, and probably
not a care in the world!

Mary Dunlap could not resist a little sigh of pity for herself; she
was a lonely woman. Her husband and home and child all gone from her.
She, too, had been "proud" of her husband with abundant reason; and her
beautiful girl. But her girl was safe. The terrors of this awful world
could not touch her.

She thought of "Daisy," and shuddered for the narrowness of her escape.
Had she escaped? Would that wretch try to find her again? Perhaps she
had not done her whole duty. She ought to have warned the mother. What
were mothers about, to be so careless? But for that disabled engine,
the child would have gone straight on her dangerous way!

Very slowly at last she went about the business of dressing, enjoying
luxuries of the toilet not found ordinarily in hotels or boarding
houses, and reveling in costly trifles lavishly furnished. Even in the
halls she came upon treasures of art to study over, and as she lingered
before them, she told herself with a half wistful smile that she must
have a care lest she become envious of Mrs. Oliver.

Then she fell to moralizing. Was it probable that her hostess had her
heart's desire in all things? It looked so.

There were two daughters, she had heard, who were their mother's joy
and pride also. Certainly the outward appearance of the home left
nothing to wish for. In such an atmosphere it was hardly possible
to avoid thinking of sharply contrasted lives. Not her own, though
the contrast there was marked enough. Still, she lived a busy and,
she believed, a useful life, and was happy in her work. But she knew
women—many of them—to whom the word "happy" could not be applied; women
with warped, stunted, yes—wrecked lives!

Instantly with that word, her thoughts flew again to "Daisy," the
acquaintance of a day, who had been so close to wreckage and who
had made a permanent place for herself in this mother-heart. That
awful man! Would she ever meet him again? If so, what would happen!
What if she should meet him under circumstances that would compel
her acknowledgement of him as an acquaintance? For instance, what if
he should, after all, become Daisy's husband! She recoiled from the
thought as she might have done from a blow; yet one could not be sure;
the child had given herself unreservedly to him, unworthy of her as he
seemed. Perhaps her love would redeem his life! Ought she not to hope
so? Yet her very soul revolted from it!

Next, she was in the lower hall looking over the morning mail,
gathering from it letters and telegrams for herself; and her hostess
was coming forward to meet her, in the most charming of house gowns,
with a face as bright as the morning. She was voluble in her hope that
the night had been restful, and that her guest could give them the
entire day.

"It is so delightful that Mr. Oliver is at home to enjoy you; I had
no hope of such a thing. He came home unexpectedly on a later train
than yours. He had started on a very long business trip, expecting to
be gone for several months. Then, one of those unaccountable business
changes came up—I never pretend to understand business—and he came
back. The children and I held a jubilee over his arrival. You can't
think what a trial it is to have him away so much! Fully half his time
is spent in the West, or the South, or somewhere!"

At that moment the dining-room door opened, and the voluble voice
flowed on. "Oh, Ralph, are you down already? Mrs. Dunlap, let me
present my husband, Mr. Oliver."

And Mary Dunlap was face to face with the man she knew as "R. H.
Keller"!

How they got through with that awful breakfast hour Mrs. Dunlap was
never afterwards quite certain. She knew she had a sudden frightened
feeling that she must not wreck that poor woman's home not yet, at
least. She must take time and think what to do. She must keep up some
form of appearances; she must seem to receive the man as her host;
she must not say anything about the Kennard House or the interrupted
journey, or the disabled engine. What could she say? She knew that she
did not address him, directly, and that his wife did more than her full
share of the talking, for which she mentally blessed her.

Once the wife said: "Why, Ralph, what on earth is the matter? You are
as white as a ghost! Don't you feel well? I don't think you ought to
start again to-night; I don't really."

He put her off with a pleasantry of some sort; asked if the girls had
gone to school already, and gave careful attention to serving the guest.

Somehow the ordeal was lived through.

As they arose from the table Mrs. Oliver issued her directions.

"Now, Ralph, I want you to take Mrs. Dunlap to the library and
entertain her for the next half hour. I have a tiresome committee
meeting of the utmost importance that demands my personal attention;
but I am going to dismiss it in half an hour, and then we'll make plans
for the day. It is delightful to be able to have you both for all day!"

There was no attempt on the part of either to reply. Silently the host
threw open the door of his well-equipped library, which under other
circumstances Mrs. Dunlap would have found pleasure in exploring, and
silently motioned her to a seat. While she sank among the cushions of
a luxurious chair, he carefully closed the door; then, crossing to the
doors leading to the music room, he closed them also. He seated himself
but a few feet from her and spoke in the tone he had used when he asked
her why she had presumed to interfere with him.

"Well. I am at your mercy! What do you propose to do?" That was what he
said.

She looked steadily at him, but was speechless.

After waiting a moment he added: "I did not interfere with what you
saw fit to do, by word or glance, although you must know that I could
have done so had I seen fit. Why you have been silent thus far and have
chosen to accept my wife's hospitality, I am at a loss to understand;
unless it is in the interests of a still greater sensation. Is it your
intention to tell me how you mean to proceed in the blasting of my
home, or do you still prefer to work in the dark?"

The man was actually arraigning her! Or was this merely a game of
bluff? What kind of woman did he take her to be! The indignant blood
surged in her veins; she got out of the comfortable chair and took an
uncompromising straight-backed one directly opposite his.

"Are you so accustomed to 'working in the dark' that you fancy others
are doing it also?" she said, fixing him with her clear gaze. "Did you
suppose that I had the slightest idea of meeting you when I came to
this house and accepted its hospitality?"

His face changed suddenly and he bent forward as if to lessen the
distance between them, speaking eagerly.

"Have I been mistaken in you? Mrs. Dunlap, on your honor as a woman,
did you not find out my name somewhere and follow me, to this house
with my discomfiture in view?"

"I certainly did not!" she answered indignantly. "Do you think I would
have slept under your roof knowingly? I have not yet awakened from the
daze of horror into which the sight of you threw me."

"Then I beg your pardon," he said with evident relief. "I have wronged
you. Now I will literally and gratefully, if you will permit the word,
throw myself on your mercy. You see what my home is, and my family I
have children. You have been given some idea of what they think of me,
and what I am in the main; an attentive husband and father, doing his
utmost for the comfort of his home. You happen to have seen me under
damning conditions, and without understanding the—the temptations. And
now you have it in your power to ruin this home and blast the future
of young and trusting lives; as well as break a woman's heart! Or,
you have it in your power to save us all! You are a merciful woman, a
philanthropist, my wife tells me, I believe you will save us. You see I
am not asking justice, but pleading for mercy."

He had not moved her by a hair's breadth unless it were to increase her
indignation. Her voice was steady and cold.

"Did you not have it in your power to ruin two homes, one of them
widowed and fatherless, and did you spare them? You dare to talk to me
of 'mercy' and 'philanthropy' when you were not willing to shelter even
your own fireside!"

He dropped his eyes from her face and worked nervously with the paper
cutter he held.

"You do not understand," he said. "It will be difficult to make you
understand! You are one who makes no allowance for a man's temptations."

She flashed a look of scorn at him, but he did not look at her, and
went on more quickly.

"I don't know what devil possessed me to do as I did that night. I did
not plan it, deliberately. I did not plan any of it, it just happened.
A fellow, whom we called 'the parson' in college, because he always
took those parts in the plays, had just written me about a mock wedding
at which he had officiated, and he was within easy reach. The truth is
the girl tempted me!"

He caught the flash in her eyes just then, and heard and understood her
words:

"Oh, of course; 'The woman beguiled me'!"

He pulled himself together. "I simply mean that she was—was—very
bewildering, and I—" He was finding it hard to explain. He wished that
the woman would look at the floor; or at something, instead of at him!

"I am going to be entirely frank with you," he said at last, with a
sudden assumption of friendliness. "My wife is—we are—not congenial,
not well mated; our marriage was a sort of mockery, from the first, one
of convenience, one may say, on my part. I thought I ought to marry her
because she cared for me, and because well, for family reasons. I never
really loved with my whole soul any woman until I met Daisy; after I
knew her, what seemed really wrong to me, was to continue the travesty
of home life when I knew that home, to me, meant her. I intended, I
fully intended, as soon as the necessary preliminaries could be managed
to set myself free, in order to possess her.

"But I did not plan to injure her reputation in any way, nor indeed
anyone's reputation. Divorces are common enough I am sure. The idea
of running away with Daisy for a few weeks came upon me, as I said,
suddenly. I was going West, very far West, and she was returning home,
when I met her on the train. It was impossible for me not to see how
easily we could enjoy a delightful season together, at some pleasant
resort where neither of us was known—merely as good friends you
understand. The marriage ceremony was to be a temporary convenience to
quiet her nervousness, to be explained afterwards as a good joke. On my
honor I meant nothing else."

He came to a sudden pause, for Mary Dunlap had risen, her face white
with righteous indignation.

"I must interrupt you," she said. "I fail to see why you should
disgrace yourself and me by exposing such details, or attempting to
gloss over your sin. If you think to win sympathy thereby, you must
have a strange idea of women! You to defile that sacred word 'love'
in such connection! Why even a wild beast knows that love means
protection, means sacrifice of self for the sake of the object loved!
But you loved this child only enough to practice upon her the most
cruel deception a man can offer to a woman, to blight her future, and
bring despair to her family, for the sake of gratifying for a few
weeks, your passion for her society!

"It is folly to suppose that you did not know what you were doing! You
are neither a fool, nor a lunatic. Why do you want to grovel before me
by exposing that whole vile plot? It seems amazing that you can have
so soon forgotten what you said to me that night at the hotel; and
how awfully your words and your position contradict those statements!
Before I saw you in this house this morning, as the husband of another
woman, I supposed you were a half-way decent villain, who had tried to
run away with and marry the girl he fancied he loved."

He too had risen. He trembled visibly and he was white to his lips, but
he tried to speak with dignity.

"I have made a mistake," he said. "I see I cannot make you understand.
But I am ready to grovel still, and beg your mercy. I have not ruined
her; she is free from me forever; and I am asking you to have pity on
my wife and children. And since no harm can come to anyone by your
silence, to spare my family. I am ready to give you my word of honor
that I will never see the girl again, never attempt to communicate with
her in any way."

Mrs. Dunlap's immediate response to this, brought a scarlet flush over
his face and set the blood humming in his ears: "Your word of honor!"

But he was in real terror now; he had neither cowed nor deceived
this woman. No sentimental twaddle about uncongenial marriages and
soul-love, had done other than deepen her disgust.

He was also realizing something of the power that such a woman would
have, once she exerted it, against him; and she was his wife's friend!
Yet he had an instinct that he could trust her. He must beg.

"I deserve that," he said, after a breathless moment. "Well then, I
will swear by all that you hold sacred never to see or try to hear from
that girl again. Will you keep my secret?"

For a full minute, which must have seemed an hour to the waiting man,
there was silence in that room. Then Mary Dunlap spoke.

"With conditions, yes; but you must do more than that. There are
other girls in the world. I do not ask you to give me your pledged
word because—" There was a single expressive gesture of her hand that
consigned any "pledged" word of his to the lowest level of contempt,
and she left it to complete the sentence.

"But you have chosen to speak of me as a philanthropist. Perhaps you
are aware that my life is given to the protection of young innocent
girls who are in danger because of such men as you; and you may
possibly understand what mighty forces I can call to my aid anywhere
in the civilized world, if occasion requires. In view of this, for the
sake of your wife and daughters, so long as you keep your life steadily
within the law that governs respectable men, and hold yourself from
insulting, by your attentions, not only the girl you tried to ruin, but
every other girl and woman on God's earth, I will agree to keep silence
to all but the one whose affections you have stolen, and her mother!
These two shall know all that I do; the girl, that she may learn to
turn from the thought of you with loathing, and the mother that she may
guard her child with jealous care from men like you.

"Then, I must remind you that the same forces for righteousness that
stand ready to help me, are as able to keep me informed as to how
steadily you adhere to the terms I have made. On these grounds do you
wish mercy from me?"

The man was looking steadily at her now. Man of the world as he was,
hypocrite as the life he lived had trained him to be, accustomed to
sneering at women, to flirting with women, to boasting within himself
that he could lead them captive at his will, he looked at this woman
whose hair was silvering, and felt that she could, and would, keep her
word! For a long minute, he gazed at her, as one compelled to consider
her, then bowed silently, and dropped his gaze to the floor.

There were quick steps in the hall, an eager hand on the door-knob, and
Mrs. Oliver fluttered in.

"It was a long half hour, wasn't it?" she began. "Those women would
talk! I thought I should never get away from them. Goodness! What is
the matter with you two? You look as though you were posing for high
tragedy. You haven't quarreled, have you?"

Mary Dunlap arose to the occasion.

"My dear Mrs. Oliver, I have decided that I shall have to change my
plans, and start for Albany by the noon train to-day. There is a matter
I have concluded must have my immediate attention."

Mrs. Oliver was voluble with regrets. Such a disappointment! She
had been planning for this one day for so long! And Mr. Oliver was
unexpectedly here to enjoy it with them! So sorry especially to have
her miss seeing their new Y. W. building that had been planned "in
exact accordance with your own ideas, dear Mrs. Dunlap, and it is
simply perfect. Do, Ralph, tell her how sorry you are not to be able to
show her through it."

Thus urged, Mr. Oliver succeeded in finding voice to say: "Mrs. Dunlap
understands, I am sure, better than I could tell her, how ready I am to
do her bidding."

Mrs. Dunlap got away by the noon train and took the night-express
for the West, canceling all her engagements for the week; she had
more important work to look after. Not telegrams, nor long distance
telephones, nor even carefully written letters could serve her now. She
must go in person to try to explain, as best she might, to that dear
girl who was waiting at home to hear from one to whom she had given her
trust, to prove him to her mother as "good and noble!"

As she sped westward that afternoon the good woman prayed that she
might be able to help save that sweet, periled life.



CHAPTER IV

MRS. SHELDON and her daughter Daisy were occupying easy chairs in their
pleasant living-room, surrounded by all possible evidences of home
comforts, and luxuries. But even a passing glance at the two faces
would have suggested unrest. The mother's face looked worn, and her
eyes were anxious; while the daughter's eyes were tense with excitement.

"Daisy dear," began Mrs. Sheldon, and was interrupted:

"Please, Mother, won't you call me 'Marguerite'?"

A look of pain flushed the mother's face but she spoke quietly.

"Why, daughter, you know I nearly always say 'Daisy.'"

"I know you do; but I—I don't like it to-night; I—Mother, I just can't
bear the sound of it! That's the only explanation I can give."

Unshed tears were in the mother's eyes. "I will try to remember," she
said, her voice low and tremulous. "But you are my 'Daisy' you know;
all I have left in this world; and your father loved that name."

Daisy with a sudden movement flung herself on the arm of the great easy
chair and hid her face in her mother's neck; when she tried to talk her
voice choked with sobs.

"Oh, Mother, do please try to understand; you know what Father was to
me, and you surely know that I love you with all my soul. If I hadn't,
I—"

But the convulsive sobs came again, and she once more hid her face,
while the mother's arms clasped her tenderly. A few minutes passed,
then the girl sat erect and tried again.

"Mother dear, forgive me." As she spoke, she slipped to the footstool
beside her mother's chair. "I didn't mean to worry you. I don't often
go to pieces in this way, do I? But—you can't understand what I am
going through! It seems so strange not to hear a word after almost five
days! I thought I should certainly get a telegram, at least! Mamma, I
didn't mean that about my name; at least not in the way it must have
sounded. I shall get over that feeling, of course; but you see he did
not know me by any other name; and when you used it, for a second it
almost seemed as though I could hear his voice, and oh, Mother, I
couldn't bear it! I spoke right out, before I thought.

"Mother, it seems as though you must understand what I mean! Don't you
know you told me about how you loved Father so very much even right at
the first? That is the way I feel about Rufus. Mother, I love him with
all my soul, and I always shall! I never before knew what love meant,
that kind of love, I mean and I can't tell you how it almost kills me
to think that you don't believe in him!

"But you know you have hardly seen him. You have just let yourself be
prejudiced by those horrid women who gossiped about him; just because
he, was polite and helpful to those little flappers who were traveling
alone; he showed them the same attention that any gentleman would. But
I don't blame you, Mother dear; I suppose it is natural for mothers to
feel so; when you never have had a chance to find out for yourself what
a wonderful man he is. Besides, think how I helped it along!

"Why, mother, when I think of the way I let that awful Mrs. Dunlap, a
perfect stranger, manage me so that I almost insulted him, it makes me
feel as though I were going insane! Oh, I hope I shall never see or
hear of her again! How could I let her make me treat him so! I don't
see how he can ever forgive me! O, Mother! How can I live any longer! I
wish I could die to-night!"

It was just then that the sound of the door bell pealed through the
quiet house. The sound had instant effect on the nerves of the half
insane girl. She sprang up quickly, evidently making a supreme effort
at self-control, and spoke in a more natural tone.

"I'm afraid that's Nelson! I entirely forgot that he was to come
to-night if he got back in time, to tell me how the vote went; as if I
cared how they voted!"

With this last word, her voice had returned to bitter sarcasm; but
after a moment she continued more quietly.

"Will you see him, Mother, and tell him tell him anything you like?
I simply cannot talk with him to-night; nor with anybody else. Oh,
Mother, kiss me and let me run away!"

By this time the poor mother had no words to offer about anything.
She put her arms around her daughter, kissed her tenderly and opened
the door for her to escape by way of the back hall, just as the maid
appeared at the sitting-room doorway, card tray in hand.

"For Miss Daisy, ma'am. Has she gone upstairs? Shall I take it up to
her room?"

"No," said the weary, faithful mother. "Daisy does not feel able to see
callers to-night; I'll attend to it."

She held out her hand for the card and read on it:

   "Mrs. J. C. Dunlap, Albany."

"Dunlap!" Over that name the face of the mother flushed, then paled.

That was the name of the woman who had watched over her darling with
such wise and patient care, and brought her safely home! Could it
possibly be the same woman who was waiting in the parlor! If so, how
could she talk with her just now? She felt completely exhausted. Still,
Daisy certainly must not be called. She reminded herself that the name
Dunlap was common enough, even though she did not happen to recall it
among her acquaintances. It really was not at all probable that a woman
who lived hundreds of miles away should suddenly appear late in the
evening to make a call!

At last she crossed the hall and opened the living-room door. One
glance sufficed; the woman who arose at her entrance was the same one
who had kissed Daisy goodbye with unmistakable tenderness only a few
days before!

"I'm afraid I have startled you," said Mary Dunlap moving forward; for
Daisy's mother had paused suddenly the moment she caught sight of her
caller, and her pale face was expressive of pain. "Of course you did
not expect to see me so soon again, but I—it became my duty to return
West sooner than I had planned. I hope I may see your daughter for a
few minutes? There is a—I have heard of—something connected with our
journey together, that she, perhaps, ought to be told."

It was a very hesitating sentence; the speaker's tone and manner
suggested embarrassing uncertainty as to just what she should do next.
Something helped the mother to self-control and decision. Whatever that
woman thought she ought to tell Daisy ought to be told! She believed in
her! She might be mistaken in judgment, of course; unduly alarmed about
a small matter; all people were liable to mistakes, occasionally. But
she was sincere! Of that, Mrs. Sheldon felt absolutely sure; and what
she had to say might help to clear away some anxieties. She held out
her hand and spoke cordially.

"I am glad to see you again, Mrs. Dunlap, but I am afraid that my
daughter will not be able to do so, this evening; she has had a
somewhat trying day and is feeling to-night as though she could not
talk with anybody. She seems nervously unstrung with her recent
experiences. She has retired, I think, but perhaps you will trust me
with a message?"

Mrs. Dunlap reached a quick decision. "Perhaps I had better tell you
all about it," she said, speaking as an intimate friend might have
done. "I have taken a room at the Delport House, and shall not leave
until sometime to-morrow afternoon I think. If Daisy is feeling better,
I could see her in the morning. I hope you will pardon my interest in
your daughter and my familiar use of her name. She and I grew quite
intimate during that one day you know."

The mother's quick thought was, "What would she think if she knew that
I had just been told to say 'Marguerite!'"

Mary Dunlap, noting the troubled glance of the mother hurried on:

"I had a precious little girl of my own, once, about your daughter's
age, Mrs. Sheldon. She was my only child. That night when your daughter
stayed with me in my room was the first time I had ever been able to
say with my whole heart, 'Thank God my Margaret is forever safe in the
Everlasting arms!'

"That is my apology for intruding on you again. And now, perhaps it
would be wiser for me to have my talk with you, leaving you to repeat
as much or as little as you see fit, to your daughter."

Mrs. Sheldon answered quickly, excitedly: "Oh, I wish you would!" she
said, "I have so longed to see you and ask you a lot of questions.
Won't you sit down? And please, tell me first, about that night at the
hotel. I know so very little about it, and I want to understand exactly
what happened. Daisy is very vague in her story, and is so excitable
that I dare not question her in her present state. All that I now know
positively is that because of crowded conditions at the hotel, you
kindly permitted her to share your room for the night."

"Is it possible that you have not been told the whole story!" exclaimed
Mary Dunlap in amazement. It seemed incredible that such a girl as the
one she had protected had kept her mother in ignorance of the whole of
that night's happenings.

"Oh, tell me quickly!" said the mother, with instant premonition,
dropping down on the edge of the couch where the caller had seated
herself. "Tell me all, please. I have been utterly at a loss to
understand Daisy's unstrung state of mind."

Mary Dunlap wondered wildly where she should begin and then plunged
into her subject.

"First, may I ask, please, about this Mr. Keller whom I met that night
with your daughter? Of course I knew nothing of him whatever. Is he a
personal acquaintance of yours? A—friend?"

There was an instant flash of indignation in the mother's eyes.

"Certainly not!" she replied with almost haughtiness in her voice. "I
have met him but once and I have never liked anything that I have heard
about him. He is a sort of a traveling agent I believe for some New
York firm, and business seems to call him to this particular town more
frequently than I could wish. My daughter thinks that I am prejudiced
against him because of certain stories we have heard about him, which
she thinks have no foundation except in malicious gossip. But frankly,
he is a source of much anxiety to me.

"For the past few months he has been quite attentive to Daisy, that
is, as attentive as circumstances would allow, and I—do not trust him.
I do not know why. But I don't! I am utterly at a loss to account for
the influence he seems to have acquired over her in the few brief
meetings they have had. She thinks me hard and cruel because I well, I
can scarcely bear the sound of his name! And yet I have to confess that
I have no good reason to offer for such a feeling. It appears that he
really asked her to marry him. The idea is so obnoxious to me that I
can scarcely bear to utter the words!"

"And this trip they were taking together," ventured the troubled
questioner; "you knew about it of course?"

"Trip!" exclaimed the mother indignantly. "They were not traveling
together! Why, I sent her away on this visit to get her out of his
vicinity because I heard that he was intending to remain in this
town several weeks! They simply met on the train. Daisy thinks it
was a coincidence I suppose from what she says, but of course, he
followed her. I am positive of that. To put it plainly, he seems to
be infatuated with her. And she, poor child, has admitted to me this
very afternoon that she loves him with all her heart! Oh, it seems so
terrible for me to be telling this to you, a stranger, burdening you
with my anxiety."

Mrs. Sheldon wiped the tears away from her eyes, and struggled to keep
more from falling. "But you have been so kind to me and to Daisy, and
there has been no one to whom I could go for advice."

Mary Dunlap slipped an arm around the shoulders of the mother with
strong reassurance.

"My dear!" she said in her warm comforting strong voice, "Just you cry
if you want to, and don't worry about telling me. I'm used to helping
mothers and girls. It is my job in life. And don't you worry. I'm going
to help you, and I thank God I can. I'm glad too that you have told me
this, for now I can speak frankly and tell you all I know. It is going
to make things a lot easier to set right. And now, I've got to tell you
the whole story."



CHAPTER V

THE voice was low and tender in which she began her story of the
afternoon on the train. She made it plain that she had been so busy
with her writing that she scarcely noticed who got on the train until
toward evening when her work was done. She had been barely conscious of
the two who took the seat in front of her, had given them but a swift
glance and decided that they were bride and groom; until her work was
done and she had leisure to look around. And then almost at once she
was fascinated by the lovely face of the girl in front of her.

Mary Dunlap was quick to note the pleased relaxing of the troubled face
as she said this, and the instant sympathy as she gave her own first
impression of the man who was sitting beside the girl.

But as the tale progressed showing how late the train was, with
inevitable missed connections, the mother's eye kindled with gratitude.

"Oh!" she interrupted, "I'm so glad you were there! What would Daisy
have done if you had not been. She is so unused to traveling alone!"

Mary Dunlap went on to tell of the apparent argument between the two
in front of her, the discomfort on the face of the girl, and her own
continued wonder that such a girl should apparently be married to a
man so much older, and of such a type. The mother gave a little gasp
of dismay as she realized that this fine Christian woman had actually
thought her daughter was married to that man! But it was only the
dismay she had felt before at the horrible thought of him, and the old
resentment at the idea of his presuming to be intimate with her girl.

Not until the story progressed to the point where Mrs. Dunlap stood
before the hotel desk writing her own name in the registry and noted
the names on the line just above her own, "R. H. Keller and wife," did
the mother grasp the full meaning of it all. Then she leaned forward
with a quick little motion and caught at both the firm capable hands of
her visitor, crying:

"Oh, Mrs. Dunlap! You don't mean it! You can't mean that he dared do a
thing like that! The wretch! The—the—beast!"

Her eyes were full of tears again. She could not seem to be able to get
words strong enough to express her horror and disgust.

"But of course my Daisy didn't know that!" she said lifting up her head
with a gleam of hope, though there was a sob in the end of her voice.

"Not until I told her, some time afterwards," said Mary Dunlap.

"You told her! She knows! And yet she could tell me to-day that she
loves him! Oh! What shall I do?"

"Wait, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Mrs. Dunlap putting a detaining hand on
the drooping shoulder. "Love is a strange thing. It throws illusions
over the object that turn it into something entirely different. You
must remember that. Don't blame Daisy too much. She explained to me at
once after her first startled look, that of course he had done that to
protect her reputation, since they had been delayed and all their plans
upset. She said that they had expected to reach San Fergus at midnight,
and that a minister friend of Mr. Keller's was to have met the train
and performed the marriage ceremony. She said that Mr. Keller had
telegraphed ahead for the bridal suite to be reserved for them in the
San Fergus hotel."

"My Daisy told you that!"

It was years before Mrs. Dunlap forgot the tone, and the look on that
mother's face when she said those words. It was as if some one had
suddenly taken from her everything that was worth while in life, as if
she felt that all the years of tender rearing, and care of precious
love and companionship between her and her child were suddenly wiped
out in one great awful act of disloyalty and broken faith with her
mother. Oh, there would be a reaction by and by when the mother would
excuse, and forgive, and bleed over her darling; but this first blow
was like the very severing of the life bond between them, and it was
terrible to witness.

Mary Dunlap felt that it was a pity that the girl had not had to suffer
that look herself with full understanding of all that it meant to her
wonderful little mother.

"My dear! I feel like a surgeon performing an operation, but you must
know it all," said Mary Dunlap tenderly.

"Oh, yes, yes," breathed the mother sorrowfully. "If there is more, go
on. It seems as if nothing mattered if Daisy, my Daisy, would go to
such lengths. Actually running away to get married!"

"My dear friend, you must remember that she thinks she is very much in
love, and that she feels that you have been deceived about her loved
one. They were planning to send you a telegram immediately as soon
as the ceremony was performed, and were counting confidently on your
immediate change of feeling so soon as the inevitable step was taken.
You must remember also that your daughter was greatly troubled even
then, at the momentary deception.

"As the time drew near, and the delay became inevitable, she began
to see the whole thing in more nearly its true light, and it caused
her deep distress. So much so that when Mr. Keller left her for a few
moments in the hotel parlor where we both were waiting for our rooms
to be prepared, she utterly forgot my presence, and began walking up
and down the room, and actually giving a little moan of distress. It
was then that I dared to interfere and offer my sympathy and any help I
could give."

"Oh, how can I ever thank you! How can I thank God enough for having
sent you there!" moaned the stricken mother.

"I think He did plan that I should be there," said Mary Dunlap
reverently. "I was scheduled to be far from there at that time, had
important speaking engagements to fill, and could not understand why
all my plans were frustrated, but it seems that the Father had need
of a servant right there, and perhaps this was more important than
any meeting I could have addressed. I began to feel so as soon as
your Daisy turned to me so readily, so even eagerly, like the little
flower-faced child that she is.

"I had no difficulty in getting her to tell me her trouble. She trusted
me at once, and when I offered my room as a refuge for the night she
accepted most eagerly. Even when I told her how she was booked in the
registry, she did not turn from me, as I feared she might. Instead she
seemed aghast for a moment; then her loyalty to her lover made her at
once attempt to excuse him. However, that did not prevent her from
begging me to take her to the room immediately, before he returned from
his telegraphing. She seemed to actually fear his influence upon her
and to know that her only safe course was to go while he was gone."

"Oh, my poor child!" moaned the mother.

"She made it very plain that Mr. Keller had overpersuaded her to
this marriage, and that while she could not bear to refuse him, she
yet longed to wait until your consent could be obtained. Of course I
advised her strongly that this was the only possible right course, and
she seemed to agree with me."

"Yes, Daisy is very conscientious that is she was, before this came.
But she seems to be infatuated with that man! She has at this moment
more faith in him than in anyone else, I believe."

"Well, she was glad to get to my room then, at least," said the other
woman. "She even wanted the door locked, and when I started to go down
and tell Mr. Keller that she was safe and comfortable for the night
with a woman, she begged me to lock the door and take the key with me!"

"And yet she can say she loves him, when she cannot trust him! And at
such a time! Oh, my little girl!"

"Dear friend, the human heart is a curious thing, and the devil has
many illusions wherewith to deceive, you know."

"And did you actually go down and talk to that man? What a wonderful
heaven-sent friend you proved to be!"

"I did. I'm afraid I rather enjoyed the commission. You must remember I
had been watching him in the train for several hours, and while he was
most courteous and assiduous in caring for her, and did nothing that I
could really put my finger on with which to find fault, I had acquired
the same feeling toward him that you seem to have. I just could not see
how that little flower of a girl could have married him. And of course
when I talked with your daughter, finding out they were not married
after having seen how he registered, my feelings were anything but
lenient toward him."

"I should think so! But oh, my little girl! What would her father have
said if he could have known she was to pass through a thing like this!"

"Courage, dear sister. I am sure God means something lovely to come out
of all this."

"How could that possibly be!" moaned the mother, "Oh, if she could have
been spared any contact with a creature like that! It is so terrible to
see her pass through such an experience. My little Daisy!"

"Yes, but Mrs. Sheldon, think, if she did not have you in this trying
time!"

Suddenly there occurred an interruption. The two women became aware
that the maid had answered a ring at the door, and had let in someone
who was standing in the doorway of the room where they were sitting.

Mrs. Sheldon got up quickly, with a hasty dab at her wet eyelashes and
went toward him.

Mary Dunlap looked up to see a tall young man standing in the doorway
with his hat in his hand, a grave questioning look upon his face. He
had keen gray eyes, a crop of nicely groomed reddish curls, and he
looked strong and young and dependable.

"Oh, Nelson!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon, a kind of dazed relief in her
voice, "You came to see Daisy about that committee meeting, didn't you?
Why—she—she wasn't feeling very well to-night, Nelson. She has retired.
She had a headache. She asked me to excuse her."

The grave eyes took on a look of anxiety.

"Daisy not well?" he said as if that were an unheard of thing.

"I should have telephoned you not to come," apologized Mrs. Sheldon,
"but this friend of hers—this friend of mine—arrived just then, from
out of town, and it slipped my mind. Let me introduce you to Mrs.
Dunlap, Nelson. Mrs. Dunlap, Mr. Whitney."

"A friend of Daisy's?" said the young man his grave eyes lighting
pleasantly, and he stepped forward and grasped Mrs. Dunlap's hand,
giving her a swift searching glance.

"I certainly am!" said Mary Dunlap with a hearty handclasp.

He lingered only a minute or two to leave a message for the daughter
about what had happened at the committee meeting, but he gave another
keen parting glance accompanied by a warming smile as he left, that
made the stranger feel that he approved of her, and that he understood
that she was in no wise the cause of the tears that he had seen on
Daisy's mother's face.

After he was gone, Mrs. Sheldon came back to her caller.

"Why couldn't it have been that young man?" asked Mary Dunlap with a
sigh!

"Oh, if it only could have been!" sighed the mother. "He is the dearest
boy! My husband trusted him so. He has been Daisy's schoolmate and
companion for years, and yet she could think she has fallen in love
with that other creature!"

"There, there, dear friend. I tell you the human heart is a mystery.
And a girl at Daisy's age gets queer ideas sometimes. She will come out
of it and be fine and beautiful. You see!"

"Oh! I don't know!" sighed the mother. "She is so strange! Not even
willing to see Nelson. She thought it was Nelson when you came, and
rushed away telling me she would not see him nor anyone else to-night!
I could not tell him that of course. He has been so kind and so
devoted. And I can see that he is terribly worried about this Keller.
He looks as if he would like to fight every time Daisy mentions his
name. But tell me, what did the fellow do when you told him Daisy was
going to remain with you for the night?"

"Do? He was fairly insolent. He was furious. He told me to mind my
own business. He strode around that parlor like a madman, till I told
him Daisy had appealed to me for protection, and had told me she was
not yet married to him; but that I had seen how he registered in the
hotel. Then he calmed down a little and began to try to smooth things
over. He tried to explain that he had done that merely to protect the
girl, and that he intended to make everything right for her. He even
came to the point, before we were done, of saying that perhaps he had
been wrong in doing it, but he had followed an impulse when he wrote.
Oh, you know how a man like that could lie himself out of anything! He
even said that of course if Daisy preferred to be with me, it was all
right, but he really must see her before she slept and arrange about
his telegrams. Of course I saw through that. He knew his influence over
her!

"So I told him she had asked not to be disturbed, and that she did not
wish to see him again until she was at home with her mother and her
mother knew all. Then he began to rave at me of course but I let him
understand that I should not hesitate to call for assistance if he
made further trouble, and I fancy he did not care for publicity, so he
withdrew with what grace he could."

"And then?"

"Well, strange to say we had no further trouble with him. I had looked
up trains and found there was a very early one. Perhaps he was asleep,
although I was taking no chances. I decided to stay by till I placed
her safely in her mother's care."

"You have been wonderful!" said the mother. "I can never thank you.
And I'm glad too, that you came and told me all to-night. It has been
very hard to hear, but it was right that I should know. Only, my dear
new strong friend, I don't know what I am going to do. I am terrified
at what may yet develop. I am sure that man will not be easily shaken
off. He is probably only waiting till Daisy gets all strained up with
anxiety, as she is now, when he knows she will be wax in his hands. I
cannot believe he will give up so easily. He will know that you cannot
linger around to protect always, and unfortunately, he is not afraid of
me."

"My dear, wait until you have heard the rest of the story."

"Oh, is there more?" The mother's face showed a new terror.

She sat up tense and anxious clasping her frail hands in one another
till the knuckles showed white.

"No, dear Mrs. Sheldon, don't be frightened," went on Mary Dunlap. "I
will try to be as brief as possible, but I am sure you should know
everything."

"Oh, yes!" implored the white lipped mother.

Mary Dunlap's heart ached for her as she went on with the story:

"After I left Daisy with you that morning I went directly to New York
where I was to be entertained by a Mrs. Oliver whom I had met a number
of times in connection with my public work. She had often invited me to
be her guest and talk over various matters with her, but I had never
been able to arrange a definite date before. I arrived at midnight, and
was taken almost at once to my room, seeing none of the family that
night except my hostess.

"But the next morning at breakfast I was introduced to her two lovely
daughters, and a moment later to her husband who had arrived a few
moments before on an early train from the West. Perhaps you can imagine
my horror when I looked up to greet him, and found that the man to whom
Mrs. Oliver was introducing me, calling him 'her husband Mr. Oliver,'
was the Mr. Keller from whom your daughter had been rescued a few
nights before!"

Mary Dunlap had told the end of her story rapidly, conscious that her
listener was under a heavy strain, and now she looked up with relief
that all was told.

But the poor mother had borne all she could. She suddenly drooped and
would have fallen if the caller had not put strong arms about her and
laid her gently on the couch.

"My dear!" she said as she stooped over the poor sufferer and patted
her gently. "My dear! Don't feel so terribly about it. I am sure this
part of the story should be a relief, for it certainly puts that man in
a position where he dare not touch your daughter again!"

"But oh, to have my Daisy, my baby, mixed up with a man like that!"
wailed the utterly crushed little mother, "It seems as though I never
can lift my head again!"

"Oh, my dear! That is a very small part of the whole matter. The main
thing is that no harm shall come to the child. No one here knows, of
course, and he has promised!"

But a new voice broke in the room, clear and ringing and cold like a
young Nemesis. "What are you doing to my mother? Have you come here to
make more trouble for us? Who are you, anyway?"



CHAPTER VI

THE girl stood in the doorway, her eyes flashing like blue flames, her
delicate profile outlined against the rich portier, chin lifted, in
scorn, the light catching the glint of the waves in her pretty hair and
turning them into gold, the delicate blue of her silk kimono bringing
out the pearly tint of her skin, a haughty little patrician, insolent
in her loveliness.

Mary Dunlap looked at her in pity, and admiration, and a rising wonder.
Was this the girl who had melted to tears in her arms but a few nights
before, and implored her to protect her? How lovely she was even in
her frenzy. She made a picture as she stood there in her rightful
background. Poor, misguided infant! What a hard road she had set her
feet to travel, and how soon she must come to humiliation.

But the mother was shocked into severity. "Marguerite!" she said,
sitting bolt upright and looking at her daughter sternly, as she had
not looked at nor spoken to her since she was a very little girl,
"Marguerite! You forget yourself! You are beside yourself. Apologize
at once to Mrs. Dunlap. You do not know what you are doing! Mrs.
Dunlap is the best friend you have in this world. She has gone to
great inconvenience and expense and trouble to save you from an awful
calamity!"

The Marguerite of a few days ago would have been crushed to earth by
such words from her beloved mother. Not so the girl of that night. She
did not even wince. Instead she drew herself up to her full height
and looked her mother steadily in the eyes, as if their ages had been
reversed, and spoke with a certain air of authority that was almost
startling.

"No, I am not beside myself, Mother! It is you who do not know what
you are doing. You have allowed yourself to be blinded by an utter
stranger. You have swallowed whole the lies she has handed out to
you. Mother, I understand it all now. This woman is a rank imposter,
employed by others to ruin the reputation of a prominent and successful
business man, in order to extort money from him. Oh, I have heard a
lot that she has been saying! Don't try to stop me. Isn't this kind of
thing being done every day now? The daily papers are full of it. Why,
even novels are just full of plots like that.

"Didn't that horrid woman whose latest book is being lauded in every
column of reviews make one of her characters boast of being a daughter
of Eve to some purpose because she had told some successful lies about
one of her victims? I tell you, Mother, you don't know the world. Times
have changed since you were a girl. You think every woman is good,
simply because she is a woman and dresses respectably. That is why you
are willing to believe all these terrible things about Rufus, and why
you want me to believe them. Just because a woman has told you. Just
ask her how much she is to be paid to bring about his ruin. Ask her
that! Do you suppose she is to be paid whether she succeeds or not?
It must be she isn't; that is why she is so persistent, sneaking in
to tell tales to you when I'm not by, and get you on her side. She
evidently is afraid she is going to lose her money!"

"Marguerite! Oh, my poor child!" exclaimed the mother in horror,
beginning to cry. "Oh, Mrs. Dunlap, I beg you will forgive her. She
doesn't know what she is saying."

"That is perfectly all right, Mrs. Sheldon, don't think of it for a
moment. I understand."

But the girl's voice broke in scornfully:

"I certainly do know what I am saying. I understand it all perfectly. I
can see the plot clearly now. I remember how this woman sat behind us
in the cars, doubtless of purpose, listening to us. She was writing all
the afternoon. I suppose she took down our private conversation. She
probably carries on such business constantly, and chooses her victims
among those who look as if they would care about their reputations and
have plenty of money to hush up such tales. That is called blackmail,
Mother, and I've read quite a lot about it in the papers. But they
are not going to frighten us. Rufus and I will search this thing out
to the foundations and make it impossible for this woman ever to get
in her deadly work on any other good Christian man. It would be even
worth sacrificing ourselves if we could do that. It is because people
are afraid that they succumb to such things as this. We are not afraid!
This woman listened to our plans and discussions, and knew just where
to get us, that is all. If I hadn't been such a fool, I would have
understood at the time, and I shouldn't have yielded to the spell she
cast over me. She must be a hypnotist. She somehow succeeded in making
everything look different from what it really is. But she can't do it
again. I've got my eyes open!"

These are a few of the indignant sarcasms that the two long-suffering
women had to listen to as the evening passed on. Mrs. Sheldon,
mortified to the extreme of agony over the way her daughter was raving
out against the wonderful woman who had saved her from a life of
humiliation; alarmed beyond measure for the sanity of the one who was
dearer to her than life, roused from her own weakness and tried every
possible means to bring the girl to reason, all to no purpose.

At last Mary Dunlap who had stood by helpless, trying to think of
something she might say which would bring the girl to her senses,
leaned over toward the mother and said in a low tone:

"Suppose I just go away for the night now. She is excited and the sight
of me only irritates her. If she could get some sleep she might be more
reasonable in the morning. No, don't get up. I can find my own way to
the door. You can telephone if you need me. I shall stay close to my
room till I hear from you. And I will pray! Don't despair, dear sister!
God is strong! Now—I will just slip away!"

The keen ears of the excited girl caught the last sentence.

"Yes, slip away by all means! I should have thought it might have
occurred to you to do so before!" she flung after the stranger.

And then, as the door closed after Mary Dunlap, Marguerite Sheldon
began to pace the floor, the very personification of indignant fury.

After she had exhausted herself with wild words, she suddenly flung
herself down before her mother with her head in her mother's lap and
began to sob:

"Oh, Mother, Mother, that dreadful woman has made me almost crazy!" she
sobbed. "Some of the time I don't seem to know what I am saying. But
I know this, and I mean it. I know that Rufus is true to me, and not
only to me, but to God. He is very religious, Mother, he really is! You
ought to hear him talk. And Mother, I know I love him, love him, with
my whole soul! And I shall, forever and ever! No matter how many fiends
from the underworld combine to try and make me false to him!"

At the word "love" her sobbing suddenly ceased and she sprang to her
feet and began pacing up and down the room again; her voice rising to
almost a shriek.

Of what use to attempt any further words with one who was surely not
responsible for what she said or did? The mother slipped to her knees
and began to pray.

A voice of power spoke to her soul, while she was still on her knees,
seeking help. It almost seemed to her that she had heard the spoken
words:

"'I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them
in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them; and crooked things straight.'"

Oh, the wonderful words! Could there be a human being any blinder than
her Daisy? And, how terribly she needed new "paths!"

It was because of this amazing voice that she was able to get through
that night, and the early part of the next day and finally to persuade
her daughter to receive Mrs. Dunlap in the evening, and hear from her
lips what she had to tell.

This was in accordance with that lady's earnest request made over the
telephone, she having decided that the mother was physically unable
to endure further strain. But that Christian worker had certainly
occasion to look back upon the hour spent with Daisy Sheldon as one of
the hardest in her by no means easy life. Not that Daisy did not try,
at least at first, to treat her in accordance with all the rules of
propriety.

But as the story progressed, there was all the time in the narrator's
mind the question, "How shall I convince this girl that I am speaking
only truth!" She who was used to being trusted implicitly, and quoted
as unquestioned authority on all points connected with the work to
which she had given her life!

Yet this girl listened in outward calm to the story that had caused her
mother's lapse into almost unconsciousness, with a half smile on her
lips, that deepened into a sneer when she finally spoke:

"That is a very strange story, Mrs. Dunlap! Being as well acquainted
with Mr. Keller as I am, I don't quite understand how I could be
expected to credit it! I should really like to see a photograph of
this mysterious person, to help me in conceiving how a woman of your
discernment could have been so deceived! Although I should remember
that your acquaintance with Mr. Keller covered a very brief space of
time; while he is, of course, my closest friend."

Could this be the girl who had so very recently clung to her, weeping,
and begging to be shielded from even the sight of the man who was her
"closest friend!" How could Mrs. Dunlap help giving a second's thought
to such a question? But she turned swiftly from it and tried again.

"Wait, please," she said patiently, "I must tell you the rest. I have
had a longer acquaintance with the man than you have heard as yet.
After breakfast Mrs. Oliver asked him to take me into the library and
show me some prints while she attended to other duties, and when he had
closed and locked the doors, he threw himself on my mercy and begged me
not to wreck his household by telling his wife and children what I knew
about him. He did not attempt to deny that he was of course the same
Mr. Keller with whom I had held a long conversation two nights before.

"In fact, he frankly owned that you had been what he called a
'temptation' to him, but that the marriage ceremony which he professed
at that time to be about to enter into, had been only a joke, of
course, intended to relieve your anxieties for being away from your
mother longer than you had planned. I would not like to tear your heart
nor soil my lips by repeating the words that he used to describe your
wonderful mother and her ignorant prejudice as he called it.

"He also told me that his friend who posed as a minister for the time
being was an amateur play actor who had successfully impersonated a
clergyman while they were in college, which gave him the idea of a mock
marriage to quiet your protests.

"And now, I will show you a paper written and signed by this man, in
which he pledges never to write or telegraph or telephone you, or
visit you again. It is a paper that I went back to secure, after I had
started on this western trip, and the man knows that his keeping this
agreement both in letter and spirit is the price of my silence toward
his wife and children. His wife is a charming and beautiful woman, and
his two daughters are as sweet and charming as yourself. It seemed
terrible to wreck that home, but I would not keep silence unless I felt
sure you would be safe forever from him."

Marguerite Sheldon tilted her patrician chin haughtily, a little smile
of scorn on her lovely lips.

"Mrs. Dunlap," she said, "you certainly are mistress of your
profession. You have worked out your evil plot to the last detail, I
see. You must have gone to great pains to counterfeit Mr. Keller's hand
writing. Perhaps stolen some of his own letters from my handbag to
copy while I slept. It is certainly cleverly done. And of course this
remarkable interview is a part of the whole scheme. One wonders whether
you were cunning enough to concoct it on the spur of the moment, or
whether you had it all prepared in reserve, if you found I did not fall
for your story at once? Of course I know the daily papers are full of
such tales of blackmail and the like. Perhaps if my tastes lay in that
direction and I had posted myself better on the ways of such people
as you, I might have been saved even the first humiliation of giving
way before you and yielding to your influence which I now thoroughly
believe to have been hypnotic.

"Of course I might have saved your time by saying all this before I
heard you, but my mother was so anxious that I should let you speak
that I have listened to your remarkable tale with what patience I could
summon. But now I think we have had enough of this farce. I wish to
distinctly state just now that I believe in Mr. Keller's honor and
integrity as entirely as I did before this insane plot was planned; and
until I hear from his own lips that he did not intend to marry me that
night, and that he is not Mr. Rufus Keller, and never was, I shall not
believe one word of this story; and I shall remain as I am now, his
promised wife until he comes to claim me."

Before this outburst the baffled woman sat silent, dumbfounded. Such
beautiful faith in such a worthless man had never come her way. She was
not troubled over the insults that had been flung at her. The situation
had become too grave to be thinking of self. The question that fairly
appalled her was, how was it possible to save this poor blind child
from her own folly? Suddenly she resolved to try one more thing. It
seemed the last resort.

"Miss Sheldon," she said, speaking earnestly and looking straight into
the flashing eyes of the angry girl, "will you put this thing to the
test? Will you accompany me on the midnight Express to New York where I
will take you to call on Mr. Ralph Oliver in his private office, Number
— Fifth Avenue, that he may tell you himself that he is the Mr. Keller
whom you know so well? I happen to know that he is to be in his office
to-morrow morning. Will you go?"

What would the girl reply to this challenge?

What she did was to rise in utter silence and move swiftly across
the room to the door, which she opened, and closed after her with a
distinct slam!



CHAPTER VII

MARY DUNLAP, left alone in the big beautiful room with the echo of the
scornful young words, and the echo of that slammed door hurting into
her soul, suddenly rested her elbow on the arm of the chair in which
she sat, and dropped her tired head upon her hand. With closed eyes
she prayed, her soul crying out from the depth of her failure. She had
done her best for this little sister and she had utterly failed. Now
she called upon her Father for sustaining strength, for light, for
guidance, for calmness in the midst of despair; for the headstrong
blinded girl, and for the worn despairing mother.

Then out of her despair came peace, and suddenly a knowledge that the
Father cared more than she did, even more than the stricken mother.

She became aware of the entrance of that mother, quietly, like a little
sad wraith.

Lifting her head she tried to smile but failed.

"It was no use!" she said sadly, "She would not believe a word that I
said."

"Oh, my dear strong friend!" breathed the little mother, "What should
I do without you? I have been praying while you were down here. I
cannot think my little girl is to be allowed to go to destruction, or
lose her mind, or anything. She is a child of the covenant. Her father
and I dedicated her to the Lord when she was born. He cannot desert
us! You don't think He would let her go like this, do you? She is—a
church-member—of course—and has always seemed—a Christian. Haven't I a
right to claim His promises for my child?"

"You certainly have," said the strong hearty voice. "Come let us kneel
down now and claim that promise, 'Where two of you shall agree as
touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my
Father.'"

So the two women knelt hand in hand beside the couch and poured out
their hearts in prayer for the foolish girl, till it seemed that their
yearning words must be already spread before the mercy seat, and
perhaps the swift answer on its way; and new strength and courage came
into the mother's heart.

Upstairs there were hurrying footsteps for a few minutes, and then
silence, but if the two petitioners heard them it was only to be
thankful that they were not the regular measured frantic tread that had
been going back and forth all day. Perhaps she was resting at last.

They rose with a peace upon their faces.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap, "it is time you went to bed and to sleep.
We have put the whole matter in the Father's hands and we cannot do
anything else till He shows us. Suppose you run upstairs and see if
she is all right, and then, if she is resting, I will go back to the
hotel and let you get to bed, for I'm sure I won't be needed any more
to-night."

"You have been so wonderful!" murmured Mrs. Sheldon. "What should I
have done without you? Why not stay here to-night? Our guest room is
always ready, and then we can talk things over in the morning."

"No," said Mary Dunlap decidedly. "It is better for me to be out of the
house. The child resents my presence just now, and will come to herself
twice as quickly if she is alone with her mother. Get a good night's
rest, and perhaps she will see things differently in the morning. Sleep
does a great deal toward bringing sane vision."

"Oh, I do hope she is asleep! She never even lay down last night, just
walked the floor and talked in that wild frantic way and then cried! I
never saw anybody cry like that, so despairingly, so resentfully! It
frightened me! But really, I cannot let you go back to the hotel at
this time of night. It must be very late indeed. I'm sure I heard the
midnight train go down quite a few minutes ago. It isn't safe for a
woman to be out alone so late."

"Nonsense!" laughed Mary Dunlap. "My dear, nobody would touch me. I've
been out at all hours in all kinds of places, and shall often be if I
live. It doesn't bother me a bit. Come, run up and see if the child
is all right and then I'll go. You mustn't lose any more sleep. Can't
I just stand here at the foot of the stairs and you wave to me if all
is well? Is the night latch on the door? And does that light turn out
from above? Then I'll shut the door after me, and you needn't come down
again to-night. Good night, dear, brave, little mother. I'll call you
up in the morning and see how the Father is answering our prayer."

Mrs. Sheldon pressed the other woman's hand, and then tiptoed upstairs
softly. Her footfalls were muffled in the heavy texture of costly
rugs, and Mary Dunlap waited below, looking up for her signal, yawning
wearily and suddenly realizing that she felt very old and tired.

But the footsteps did not return at once as she had expected. It seemed
a long time before she suddenly heard Mrs. Sheldon almost running
across the floor above, rushing through the hall and down the stairs a
fluttering paper in her hand. Her face was chalk white in the subdued
light of the hall chandelier and her eyes burned dark with fright.

"She is gone!" she cried, her voice catching in a sob. "She is not
there at all. She has gone to New York!"

She thrust a paper into Mrs. Dunlap's hand and dropped down upon the
lowest step of the stair in a little crushed heap, her face in her
hands.

Mrs. Dunlap was reading the letter that had been given her:

   Dear Mother: (it read)

   There is only one thing left for me to do, and that is to go to number
— Fifth Avenue New York and Prove that there is no Mr. Ralph Oliver.
After I have done that, I shall go and find Rufus and we will be
married at once! It is my duty to save Rufus from this terrible plot
against his character. After that, we will take care of you. Don't
worry. I will let you hear from me.

                       Lovingly,

                             DAISY.

Mary Dunlap read the letter over twice, while Mrs. Sheldon cried
softly. Then the elder woman spoke:

"I know what you are thinking. You think the Lord has not heard your
prayer. But you must not think that. I heard a great preacher from
England once say that we must learn to 'trust Him where we could not
trace Him,' and I think that if God has been preparing this thing while
we were praying and claiming His promise, that in some way it is to
answer our prayer. Come, let us trust Him, and tell him so."

Right there by the stairs Mary Dunlap prayed, talking to the Lord as
if He stood where she could see Him, asking directions for what they
should do next.

When the brief prayer was over the mother lifted her head and stood up.

"Daisy is not used to traveling alone! Especially out in the night this
way, and to a great city!" She spoke in a tone of deep anguish.

"She is not alone!" said Mary Dunlap solemnly, "God is with her!"

Then after an instant she added:

"And there is no reason why we should not follow, is there? Wouldn't
that be what the Lord would want? When is the next train?"

"Not until five o'clock in the morning," sighed the mother.

"Even so," said the steady traveler, "we shall not be so far behind
her, and perhaps this was the only way to convince her, to let her see
that it is all true. Sister, we've got to trust our Father! There just
isn't anything else to do!"

Daisy's mother looked up with a weak little trembling smile and with
lips that quivered as she spoke the words, said:

"All right!"

"You good little sport!" said Mary Dunlap, and stooped down and kissed
her.

"Now," she said, "sit down a minute while we plan. I'll go back to the
hotel and pack my grip. It takes just five minutes, I've done it in a
hurry so many times. Then I'll get all the information needed about the
train, and order a taxi to come for us, and I'll come back here. That
ought not to take me more than three quarters of an hour. Let me see.
It's now quarter of one. I'll be back here at half past. In the mean
time, are you strong enough to get together what few things you'll need
on the way while I'm gone? And can't you call your maid and give her
directions about leaving the house for a few days? You can telegraph
her afterward of course if you forget anything. Is she trustworthy?"

"She's been with us fifteen years," said Mrs. Sheldon. "She simply
takes care of us."

"That's good then. Let's go. Work fast, and be done when I get back so
we can get a few winks of sleep. Oh, yes, you've got to sleep or you
would be sick and that wouldn't do. But you don't need to bother about
breakfast. We'll get that on the train. Now, I'm off!"

Mary Dunlap was as good as her word, did all she had promised to do
with a few minor details thrown in. She was efficiency itself when it
came to any kind of a crisis. She was back three minutes ahead of her
schedule and standing over the poor bewildered mother, whose eyes kept
blurring with tears as she tried to go about and gather up the things
she would need.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap looking down at the open suitcase, only half
packed, "what have you got in here? Night dress and toilet things? A
couple of other dresses, one for daytime and one for evening. Yes,
you can't tell what we may run into on this jaunt! Always look out
for any emergency, and two extra dresses will generally do it. Now, a
warm kimono, slippers and another pair of shoes, a change of underwear
that's about all. You'll want to take your pen perhaps and a few extra
handkerchiefs. I've done this so much it is second nature. Sometimes I
almost have to live on the cars."

"It seems as if I just couldn't think."

"Well, don't try, I'll do it for you. How about Daisy, did she take
anything with her? She certainly didn't have much time. It must have
been after eleven o'clock when she went upstairs and she wrote that
note before she left."

"Yes, her suit case is gone. I don't really know how much is missing.
Perhaps she hadn't fully unpacked it since she came home."

"Did she have money?"

"I don't know how much. She has her own bank account, and probably
has her check book. They know her at the station of course and would
cash her check. That makes me think, I wonder how much money I have in
the house? Perhaps Daisy has taken it. She is always free to go to my
drawer when she runs out of money."

"Don't worry about money. I always carry a few traveler's checks and
I had the hotel order tickets and chairs for us. They will come with
the taxi in the morning. Now, where do you keep your hat and coat and
gloves? Is your hand bag ready? I want you to lie down this minute and
get some sleep. No, don't lie and think about Daisy. Just rest back on
the Father's promise and relax. Everything is going to be all right!"

So Mrs. Sheldon, ready for her journey all but her dress, wrapped her
kimono about her and was tucked up by Mary Dunlap. Surprisingly she
went to sleep, worn out with her two nights of vigil.

Mary Dunlap slept too, little cat naps with a keen squint at her
wristwatch with the aid of her ever ready flashlight stowed under her
pillow.

It was she who slipped down to the strange kitchen at daybreak and made
some good strong coffee. It was she who carried it up and made Mrs.
Sheldon drink it. It was she who inspected the suit case at the last
minute, snapped it shut and carried it down to the door, while Mrs.
Sheldon was giving a few last directions to the sleepy maid who had
loyally stumbled down to say goodbye just as the taxi drew up at the
door.

They had been seated in the train for perhaps an hour when Mrs. Sheldon
said with a troubled look:

"I almost wish I had asked Nelson to come with us. He is so dependable
where Daisy is concerned, and it doesn't seem quite fair to him to run
away without a word. He is so—so—loyal and patient."

"H'm!" mused Mary Dunlap. "Was there—any way you could have asked him?
Would Daisy have resented your telling him?"

"I suppose she would. No, I don't suppose there was," said the
perplexed mother reversing the order of the questions, "but somehow it
seems all wrong not to have him along when we are in trouble."

"Well," said Mary Dunlap thoughtfully, "if the Lord needs him, He'll
know how to send him. Don't you fret."

Fortunately both women were dead with sleep, and were able to get
some real refreshing rest in their chairs while the miles raced along
beneath the wheels, and Daisy drew nearer to New York.

What would Daisy do when she got to New York? Her mother could not keep
the question out of her mind, and yet she could not answer it. Oh, what
awful experience might she not have if she went to that office and met
her old lover! A creature as hardened as he would perhaps think nothing
of spiriting her away somewhere, so that her mother might never see her
again. If she came early alone to his office and found him by himself,
he might tell her any lie, and in her present state of mind, she would
believe it.

On the other hand, what if that Mrs. Oliver or her daughters should
happen to be there when Daisy arrived, and she should say something to
her lover which showed what her relation had been to him, would she and
Daisy ever be able to live after such humiliation?

The poor mother could not fathom the answer to her painful thoughts and
could only pray over and over again in her heart,—

   "Oh Father, keep her, keep my child from falling."

And then like soothing balm there came to her familiar words,—

   "Able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before
the throne—without spot or wrinkle or any such thing."

Oh, how blessedly the old verses learned in childhood came trooping to
her groping thoughts, as if the Father were speaking them to her heart,
while the train carried her on her way.


The long day was accomplished at last, a day during which both the
women slept a good deal and talked a little, finding out common points
of contact, common interests between one another, speaking of Daisy now
and then; of Nelson Whitney occasionally; of Daisy's wonderful father;
and Mrs. Sheldon's girlhood. As the night drew on and the lights began
to appear, the two women began to feel as if they had known each other
for years, and were bound by ties closer even than sisters might have
been. Then there was the long night, to be waked through, thinking of
the possibilities of the morrow.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap looking at her wristwatch the next morning
after they had had breakfast, and come back to their section, in the
sleeper, "it's quarter of nine. We shall be in, in three quarters of an
hour, and take a taxi straight to Fifth Avenue if there isn't time to
go to a hotel. Nothing opens in New York much before ten o'clock. Daisy
got in last night, but all offices were closed. She couldn't have done
anything till this morning, and she can't get there much ahead of us.
At least if she does, she won't see him, for I'm sure he never comes
down to the office before ten, and sometimes later. Take heart, sister,
and trust the Father. He is managing this business, and I fancy He
could have taken care of Daisy even if we hadn't come along. You know
He manages a lot of things without us!"

Mrs. Sheldon blinked back the tears and smiled.

"I know," she said. "I'll try to rest on Him."

And then they began to draw near to the great city, and the two women
put on hats and coats, and sat up ready for action. Who knew what the
day had in store for them?



CHAPTER VIII

NELSON WHITNEY rang the bell of the Sheldon House at exactly quarter
past eight the next morning. It was as early as he felt it would be
at all courteous to disturb the household, especially as one of the
members had not been feeling well the night before.

Mary, the trusted servant of the years, opened the door to him.

"Good morning, Mary," he said familiarly, for he had been almost as
much at home in the Sheldon house since childhood as in his own home.
"Is Marguerite up yet? I don't like to disturb her, but she was to have
some measurements written out for the things she wanted me to get for
the Hospital Fair, and I rather think she is expecting me to see to it
this morning."

"Miss Marguerite is away, Mr. Nelson," said Mary with disapproval in
her voice.

Mary had been with the family too long not to know every time one of
the beloved family winked an eye or shed a tear, and Mary felt that
things were all wrong just now; the idol of her heart crying and
carrying on all day and then running away on the midnight train, and
her mother going at daybreak! It certainly was not right.

"Away?" said Nelson. "Why, she was here yesterday, wasn't she? Her
mother told me she was lying down with a headache last evening when I
telephoned."

"Sure she was here last evening," said Mary, glad to get someone to
share her troubles. "I don't know whatever her mother was thinking
about to let her go, and her having headaches and crying and all
yesterday. But young folks, seems to do about as they please nowadays."

Whitney cast her a pleasant grin, but his eyes showed that he was
troubled.

"Well, I guess then I'll have to see Mrs. Sheldon. If she isn't about
just ask her, please, if Marguerite left any word with her. Or, if
she's asleep yet or anything, just look on Marguerite's desk and see if
you find a paper with my name on it. She's likely written it out and
left it there."

"M's Sheldon's gone too," burst forth Mary. "She left on the five
o'clock with some woman was here all evening and come back and stayed
all night, what there was left of it when they got packed."

Whitney looked up startled.

"Mrs. Sheldon has gone too? And she didn't go with Marguerite? That is
strange. There wasn't a death in the family or anything near relatives
in New York perhaps? I believe they have relatives there, haven't they?
Perhaps they telegraphed for Marguerite."

"No, it couldn't a been that, all the Sheldons and Hamptons in New York
went to Europe a month ago—went for a year."

"Well, it's none of my business of course," said Whitney with a grave
smile that ended with a sigh, "but what in sixty am I going to do about
that committee? They'll be in my hair if I don't get those things for
to-night, and they told me Marguerite had the list. She probably forgot
to say anything to you about it, Mary, going in such a hurry. Suppose
you go up and look around her room and see if you see anything that
looks like a list, whether it has my name on it or not."

"Come on in, then," said Mary graciously, and opened the door wider.

Whitney stepped in and stood in the hall, his glance searching toward
the open doorway where he had stood two nights before, talking to
Mrs. Sheldon. Who was that other woman? Was she connected with this
sudden exodus? He had liked her. She seemed a strong true friend. He
remembered the twinkle in her eyes, though they had looked grave, even
sorrowful as if she was full of sympathy.

He sighed again as he remembered how strange it was to have the family
go off this way without telling him. Heretofore he had always been told
of every change from day to day. His life had been so closely twined
with theirs that they never even changed a piece of furniture from one
room to another without asking him gaily how he liked it in its new
place, always joyously consulting him about any action. When they were
going away, it was always he who got their reservations, checked their
baggage, and took them to the station in his car, that is, since he had
been old enough to have a car. Before that he attended them in a hired
taxi.

But now, the last few months, there had been growing a change. Mrs.
Sheldon was just the same, but Marguerite had a certain reserve, as if
he didn't matter any more. It was all since that night when the Farr
girl brought that Keller fellow with her to their literary club, and
introduced him to Marguerite. Whitney had heard him calling her "Daisy"
the very first night; "Daisy," the name that belonged exclusively to
her mother—and himself—up to that night!

After that, he studiously called her Marguerite. He wanted no name for
his girl that he had to share with that man! He was a villain, that's
what he was, a middle-aged man coming in and presuming to monopolize a
girl almost young enough to be his daughter! What was he anyway, and
what did they know about him? He meant to make it his business pretty
soon to find out, if he persisted in coming around as he had been doing.

Then Mary's voice sailed down the stairway.

"Was it a list of flower seeds and bulbs, you meant, Mr. Nelson?"

Whitney walked over to the foot of the stairs and looked up.

"No, Mary, it would be lumber, and canvas, and curtain material for the
stage setting for the Cantata."

"Oh," said Mary, "this ain't it, then, I'll look again."

Mary went back into the girl's room, and the young man stood there
waiting. He moved his position impatiently and drew another sigh, and
something crackled under his foot. A paper! Probably that was the list.
Marguerite had left it on the hall table and it had blown across the
floor when the door was opened.

He stooped and picked it up. Yes, it was Marguerite's writing. Probably
some directions about color and fabrics. Maybe a bit of a word of
apology for going so hurriedly, or even a friendly goodbye. His heart
was lifted at the thought. His eyes plunged into the midst of the words
in the dim light of the hall, and grasped, searching for that personal
word which he so longed to read. So before he was aware that he was
reading a note addressed to someone else, he had gathered the whole
unhappy truth.

For an instant he stood with the paper quivering in his hand, a sense
of mortification upon him for having read something he shouldn't, yet a
great sinking within his soul for the facts that had been revealed in
that brief note.

So then Daisy Marguerite had gone away without her mother's knowledge!
Marguerite to have done a thing like that! She would never have done
that a year ago! Something terrible must have happened to get her
wrought up to the degree that she would worry her much-loved mother by
doing that.

And of course that explained the mother's hasty leave by the next
train. Mrs. Sheldon would never allow that quietly without doing
something about it. But why, oh, why hadn't she telephoned to him? That
is what she would have done even a few weeks ago! Oh, and what was that
other awful thing the note had said? When she had accomplished her
strange mission, whatever it was, trying to prove that somebody did not
exist, she was going to hunt up that unspeakable villain Keller and
marry him! Could any calamity loom greater than that to Nelson Whitney
in the whole bright world that had suddenly gone black?

At that instant, while he was turning over those awful facts and trying
to make something out of them, he heard Mary's brisk footsteps coming
down the stairs. Instantly he crushed the paper he held and drove his
hand deep into his overcoat pocket.

"I can't find it nowheres, Mr. Nelson," she said, "would you like to go
up and look? You might recognize it when I wouldn't."

Nelson sprang up the steps hastily.

"I'll just take a look about," he said.

But it was not for the list he wanted to go up. He had a feeling that
he must look about the apartment where she had last been as if its very
walls must cry out and give him a clue to go by, some hope for his
anguished soul that was all wrapped up in the little girl he had loved
since childhood, the little girl about to step off into danger! What
could he do about it?

But the room was in perfect order, as Marguerite's room always was,
nothing about to tell any tales, save her little blue sweater, lying
on the bed in a heap as if it had suddenly been cast aside. He stood
for an instant in the doorway, looking around, walked to her desk and
her bureau with a keen swift glance, went back toward the door. Pausing
suddenly beside the bed, he picked up the soft little wool garment and
laid it to his cheek, just an instant, like a caress, and dropping it,
went out of the room and ran swiftly down the stairs.

"D'ya find it?" asked Mary noting triumphantly that he had no list in
his hand.

"No, Mary, it wasn't there," he said. "Thank you. She must have
forgotten it. I'll have to get along the best way I can without it."

"Well, if it turns up when I go to sweep, I'll phone you to the office,
Mr. Nelson."

"Thank you, Mary, and by the way, they didn't say when they were
returning, did they? Or give you an address? I might get her on Long
Distance you know."

"No, they didn't say. M's Sheldon she did say that ef they decided to
stay mor'na day ur so, she'd write and tell me what hotel they put up
at. Ef she does, I'll phone ya, Mr. Nelson."

"All right, Mary. Thank you!" said Nelson Whitney, and closing the door
behind him, went out into the street.

As he got into his car and threw in the clutch, it suddenly came to him
what he must do. His people were off alone, in possible trouble, and he
must be at hand ready if they needed him! He must go to New York and
find them.

But how could he find them since each detachment of them had the start
of him, and might be lost in New York long before he could get there?

He began to calculate distance and time. Marguerite a whole night ahead
of him, and her mother several hours' start! When he reached New York,
they might have already left it. Marguerite might already be married.
And even if he were there, unless he got there ahead and met their
trains, how would he know where they had gone?

Stay! Hadn't that note told a place where Marguerite was going? He
pulled out the crumpled paper and smoothed it, getting the number fixed
in his mind. — Fifth Avenue! Well, at least, he knew one place where
she intended to go, if there was such a place. Her note seemed to imply
that she doubted it. But there would at least be the number whether the
person whose existence she was seeking to disprove, was there or not.

Yes, with only that little clue, and no chance at all of getting
there on time, he meant to go after her! For what could her mother
do? True she might have more information of her whereabouts than was
contained in that note, but even so, she was a woman of another day
and generation, a woman used to being cared for, and not accustomed to
traveling by herself. That other woman had looked capable, of course,
as if she might go around the world by herself, and have no trouble
whatever, but who knew whether that other woman—Dunlap her name was,
wasn't it—who knew, whether she was going all the way to New York or
not?

Yes, he must go! And there was only one way to get there in time to be
of use. Could he do it?

He drove hard down to his office, a very new office with a new
secretary and office boy, new desks and chairs and typewriter, and
new clientele. This was a busy day, too, but that couldn't be helped
either. His boss in Chicago was not a hard master, and anyway his
secretary was efficient if she was rather old and homely.

He plunged into his morning mail. That must be got out of the way
first. Matilda Herrick, the shell-rimmed secretary, had it all in neat
order for him; the new orders, the old customers, the complaints, the
letter from the head office in Chicago. He went through the piles
rapidly, giving a word of direction now and then.

"Get these letters ready for me as soon as you can," he said. "I may
have to go to New York to-day. Call up Bainbridge and find out if he is
ready to talk business yet. Get Hetherington on the phone and see if
he has heard from that order he took yesterday, and send the boy up to
my home to get my suit case. He had better go as soon as he has those
envelopes addressed. There 'll be time."

When Matilda Herrick had taken her gaunt ability out of his private
office, he locked his door and went down on his knees beside his desk.
He was a young man who traveled under Guidance and went nowhere without
orders.

When he got up from his knees there was a look of purpose on his face
that had not been there before. He reached for his telephone and called
a number.

A hearty voice answered it promptly.

Whitney's face lighted with relief.

"Hello, Bert, is that you?"

"Sure is! Hello, Nell. Glad to hear your voice! How's crops?"

"Oh, growing, growing fast. Say, Bert, flying anywhere to-day?"

"Sure thing. Want to go?"

"If you're going in the right direction. What's your chart?"

"Wherever you say. You never thought you could spare the time to go
with me before."

"Happen to be going anywhere within a hundred miles of New York?"

"Flying right to Fifth Avenue, this afternoon, if you'll accompany me.
Got a bit of engine trouble to make right, it'll take a couple of hours
to fix, then I'm ready. How soon can you start?"

"I could make it any time after one if things go well here."

"Make it snappy and we'll paint New York red to-night."

"I'd prefer white, if you don't mind, Bert."

"O. K. with me Nellie, just so's you go along. Meet me at the field at
two o'clock."

Whitney hung up with an awed look in his face.

"It seems to be in the plan," he said to himself reverently, and began
to work at several matters of business that he knew must be set right
before he could honorably leave his own city.

It seemed beautiful to him the way everything worked out, no
hindrances, not a single hitch in the things that must be finished
before he left. Every man he called on the telephone was in, every
report of sales was such that he could give the important directions
concerning them before he went away.

"It's just as if somebody else was working with me to smooth the way,"
he thought.

The hours of the morning sped. Matilda Herrick had the letters ready
for signing in plenty of time. Everything went smoothly.

Nelson Whitney telephoned his mother to pack his suit case for a quick
trip, and the office boy did all the rest, including accompanying his
chief to the flying field, and driving the car back to the garage
again. At two-thirty exactly they were off, through the clear blue
ether, Nelson Whitney's first experience in flying.

For a few minutes the thrill of the new sensation occupied every
sense, but after he was accustomed to the thought of sailing with the
clouds, and looking down upon earth, he began to think of what was
before him in New York. Was this a wild-goose chase he was going on?
Wouldn't anybody, just anybody think he was a fool to start off with as
little warrant as he had had? Wasn't there danger of making his lady
everlastingly angry chasing her this way, even if he did find her?
Wouldn't even her mother have a right to resent it?

And what, pray, was he to do when he arrived in New York, beyond the
mere meeting the trains at the station, and getting in touch with
the people he was trying to help? How could he do that? Just walk up
smiling and say he knew they were expected so he met them? He hadn't
really any warrant for that. Of course he could say that Mary told him
what train they had taken, but he would feel like a fool saying that to
Mrs. Sheldon. Her keen eyes would see that there was something behind
it all, and perhaps she might resent his intrusion into her affairs,
though she had always acted, hitherto, as if he belonged to her scheme
of life.

And what could he do before her train arrived to keep Marguerite in
sight? If he met her train, she would be likely to be indignant. He
could not tell her he had found her note on the floor, and read it,
though it was addressed to her mother, and that he was here to protect
her from whatever evil, real or fancied, threatened her. Assuredly he
would meet her train and try to appear as casual as possible, but he
shrank inexpressibly from the look of scorn her dear eyes would cast at
him.

There was no question but that Marguerite would resent his entrance
onto the stage at this point in her career. She had been most haughty
and independent of late, and it stung him even to remember her careless
indifference.

And failing to get suitable touch with his girl at the train, if he
should go to hunt up that number of Fifth Avenue, and should find it
there, what would he do? And what if it were not there? And where lived
this Keller man who was apparently making all this trouble? Why! He
ought to have telephoned somebody and found that out before he left!
Here he was thinking he had done everything up in fine shape and he had
left out one of the strategic points in the whole matter. Of course he
could telephone back when he got to New York, but a lot of time might
be lost.

However, was he not traveling under guidance? Could not He who had
smoothed the way thus far manage it so that he would go to the right
place, do the right thing? Would not the way open as he advanced?
He had put himself under the guidance of the greatest Leader in the
universe, and there he must trust and not be afraid.

The silver wings that bore him above the earth flew straight on, over
wide stretches of the map. Sometimes he looked down wondering, when he
saw a railroad train creeping along like a small worm on the earth, if
perhaps he might be looking at the very train in which those he went to
protect were traveling.

The strange thing about it all was that though he was positive they
needed protection, he was not in the least sure from what he was
protecting them. Only in the case of the girl, if it should come about
that she tried to carry out her threat of marrying that man Keller,
he knew he must prevent it. He felt that it could be nothing short of
a calamity for her, to say nothing of her mother and himself, if that
should ever come to pass. He felt, too, that God was on his side, for
had he not put himself and his plans in the hands of God, willing to
be guided, willing to have all plans overturned if they were not the
right thing? And the way had been smoothed before him. Nothing had been
hindered of the least detail to stop him from going through the air.

So the silver wings flew on, and in due time Nelson Whitney arrived in
New York.

He did not help his friend in painting the town red. Instead he went
directly to the Pennsylvania station and got full details of all trains
arriving from the West. He found that Marguerite's train was due to
arrive late that evening. He begged off from going with his friend
longer than to dinner, and went straight back to the station where he
made himself well acquainted with the various exits of the train, and
found the best place to watch and await her.

It had not been hard to discover just where the train would come
in, and he had established himself behind the great iron bars just
above the train floor, where he could look down upon the disembarking
passengers without being seen by them unless they deliberately turned
around and looked up, but near enough to the train gate to get to her
at once if he should see she was in any need of a friend, or was at all
hesitant which way to turn.

During the long day, he had had full opportunity to plan what he would
say when he met her. He would tell how he had called at the house for
her list, and Mary had said she had gone to New York on the midnight
train. So when he was invited to fly with his friend to the same city,
he thought he would meet her train and ask her about the list, in case
he went back the next day. That was a perfectly reasonable story as
well as being absolutely true, for his friend had many times invited
him to fly, and had told him to call him when he could go.

Nevertheless he wished to reconnoiter before he approached her. It
was even conceivable that that Keller person might have somehow got
in touch with her, and be traveling with her. His blood boiled at the
thought, and he stood for twenty long minutes till the train arrived,
thinking over what he should do if that were the case. He decided that
he would in any event go to the gate and speak to Marguerite. It might
even be that a face from home might influence her, hinder her, from any
foolish thing she might be going to do. At least he would ask where she
was staying, and perhaps let her know that her mother was on the way,
just casually, as if of course she knew it.

He would be able to judge a great deal from the way she took what he
said.

In the mean time, while he mused, in not a little anxiety, forgetting
for the moment his Guide, the train came in. The stream of people like
ants, came filing up the iron stairs to the gateways, and not one of
them escaped the anxious eye of Nelson Whitney, as he stood in his
sheltered nook behind a bunch of train flags and gate signs and waited.

But Marguerite did not appear.

She did not even come up in the elevator, which was in full view from
his position. He was sure he had not missed her, yet a frenzy of
anxiety seized him. Perhaps she had seen him and had evaded him while
he was looking the other way!

Where was Marguerite?



CHAPTER IX

WHAT had happened to Marguerite was this.

She had never been to New York before, although she had traveled with
her father and mother now and then in other directions. She knew
nothing, of course, about the city save what she had gleaned from
occasional references to it in novels. When the porter of the Pullman
asked her before they reached Manhattan Transfer whether she was going
uptown or downtown she looked at him bewildered for an instant. Then
reasoning that an office building would likely be downtown, and she
wanted to be near to the place where she intended going the first thing
in the morning, she answered after that instant's hesitation,—

"Oh, yes, downtown. I'm going downtown."

"Then you get out at Manhattan Transfer, lady," said the porter eyeing
her a bit questioningly, she thought, because she had said downtown at
that time of night.

Manhattan Transfer looked wide and desolate and empty. There were
few passengers so late and there seemed to be no official in charge.
Marguerite stood aimlessly for a few minutes, looking this way and
that, wandering up, and then down, looking off at the dim distance of
stars and weird lights. Was this the great New York about which she had
heard so much?

But at last a train came. A brakeman on the step, swinging a lantern,
and yelling some unintelligible thing condescended to listen to her
plea.

"Where you wantta go, lady? Uptown or downtown?" The same mystical
question, and it must have been all wrong the way she answered it
before.

"Oh, I don't know which," she cried, almost in tears, for she was
suddenly realizing her lonely situation at this late hour. "I want to
go to a good respectable hotel."

"You go uptown lady, then. You get on the next train that comes by,
over that side of the platform; be 'long in five minutes now. Take you
to the Pennsylvania Station, good hotel right across the street. All
Aboard!"

And he swung away, leaving her more desolate than ever, for now the
wind-swept platform was empty of the few travelers who had been waiting
for this train, and Marguerite dared not go in search of any official
who might be inside the shelters lest she miss her train. Thus it was
that she arrived at the great station almost an hour later than the
train by which she should have come. Emerging into the gloom, and
climbing the midnight stairs into the wide upper area, she felt smaller
and more alone even than when she had stood on the high barren sweep of
Manhattan Transfer.

There was noise and light here, a blare of it, and a strange midnight
clatter that frightened her.

If it had not been for a kindly agent of the Traveller's Aid who
happened by just as she emerged from the iron gate, and said, noting
her hesitancy, "Can I help you?" she might have stood there all night
perhaps, afraid to venture into that vast empty floor like a little
vessel setting sail to an unknown port.

But the friendly Traveller's Aid soon had the weary girl safely
established in the great hotel across the way, and possessed of all the
information she needed to get herself to the desired number on Fifth
Avenue in the morning.

Mind and body cannot continue forever in a state of violent emotion
without some rest, and Marguerite, finding herself at last in a quiet
room with a luxurious bed, and nothing she could possibly do until
morning, succumbed to her weariness and fell into a deep sleep.

She intended quite fully to waken about seven o'clock, get herself
in readiness for her errand, and then try to get in touch with Rufus
Keller. She thought she had a pretty good idea where to telegraph him,
and felt that if she did so, it would only be a matter of a few hours
before she had word that he was coming to her at once.

She was not well enough versed in the ways of travelers to leave an
order at the hotel desk to have them call her at seven, and if she had
been, she would have been too confident that it was unnecessary. She
had prided herself for years on her ability to set herself to waken any
time at all, and never fail to waken on the minute. However that was,
it turned out that she slept on straight past seven, past eight, past
nine, past ten, past eleven, and never wakened till quarter to twelve
o'clock, dazed and vague as to where she was or why she was there.

Meantime at ten o'clock Mary Dunlap and Mrs. Sheldon arrived in the
city, and took their way briskly, attended by a porter carrying their
luggage, straight through the tiled tunnel and into the Pennsylvania
Hotel, where they were given a room one floor below where Marguerite
slept her exhausted sleep.

"We had better not wait for anything," said Marguerite's mother
anxiously, giving a push and a pat to the straggling locks about her
temples and walking nervously toward the door.

"My dear, you are going to have a cup of coffee before we stir a step,"
said Mary Dunlap firmly. "I told the boy as we came up in the elevator
to have it sent up at once and it's not going to take three minutes
to drink it. I tell you nothing is doing in New York until ten, and
she can't get away right at once. There is no use running risks. You
are going on your nerve, and that might give out at the wrong time and
spoil everything. There, he is knocking now. Sit down and drink it.
Then we'll call a taxi and be there in no time! It is quite early yet
and I'm positive Mr. Oliver—I mean Keller—never goes down to his office
before half past ten at the earliest."

But Nelson Whitney had not been able to sleep. He had laid himself
properly in bed of course and closed his eyes. He had committed himself
and his wishes and his girl to the care of One who was infinitely
powerful, infinitely able, infinitely willing to bring order out of
confusion, and he was resting on that; but he lay there staring into
the night and facing a thing that might be coming to him on the morrow.
Supposing he should find that Marguerite had already gone to that other
man, and that, unworthy though he believed him to be, she was now
irrevocably committed to him, for better, for worse. Could he give up
his will in the matter, his joy, his very life, and give up his girl to
a sorrow he felt was inevitable if she married Keller?

Whitney did not oversleep. He arose far earlier than he had set himself
to be about. He tried to eat some breakfast, but it was as dust and
ashes in his mouth. He went out to walk, but the exercise was merely
mechanical. He did not see the buildings he passed, nor notice anybody
on the street. He was going over the probable program for the morning,
trying to decide which thing he should do first.

If he went to the train to meet Mrs. Sheldon, he would be late in
getting to Fifth Avenue when Marguerite would be likely to be arriving.
If he went to Fifth Avenue first, he would be too late to meet the
train. He finally decided that it was more important to find Marguerite
than her mother, for the mother would communicate with Mary at home as
soon as she located in a hotel and if he found Marguerite, he could
telephone to Mary and have little trouble in locating Mrs. Sheldon
afterward. Marguerite was of course the first consideration.

He had no trouble in finding the number on the avenue that had been
indicated in Marguerite's note, and was somewhat reassured, but also
not a little troubled to find the name, "R. H. Oliver, Manager," in
gold letters on the rich glass of the heavy mahogany door. Just what
effect would it have upon the girl who had taken this wild midnight
journey to prove there was no such person? He pondered this as he
sought out the janitor and asked a few questions about the usual hour
of opening the offices in that building.

He was still pondering it as he set out to walk a regular beat, up the
avenue, across the street, down the avenue, across and back again,
varying it occasionally by a quick detour into one of the side streets
where he turned about and returned the other way. He did not care to
be noticed, as he kept his anxious vigil. As the minutes passed into
an hour and then dropped into long minutes again, his heart sank with
the fear lest after all somehow he had missed her. Perhaps she had come
down to the office building ahead of him, or perhaps she had looked up
the name in the city directory, discovered that it really was there,
and had changed her course. Why had he not thought of that before? Yet
what else could he have done than he had done? He had no clue but this,
and must follow it to its reasonable end.

There were not many people on that part of the avenue so early, and
he had no difficulty in getting a good look at each one. He felt
reasonably certain that she could not have got by since he had arrived,
so he tramped back and forth like a lion in a cage, not daring to go
beyond the bounds he had set himself lest somehow she escape him. The
thought that was aching into his heart now was what possible connection
could there be between this man Oliver and the fellow Keller whom his
girl had declared her intention of marrying after she had proved that
there was no such person as Oliver?

A dim possibility was stealing through his mental turbulence, but
he rejected such an explanation of the situation, as unworthy of a
decent man to think about another, even about one whom he distrusted.
Yet again and again it recurred. Had someone been trying to make his
little girl see that the man with whom she seemed to be infatuated was
unworthy of her? Had she set out to disprove what they had told her? It
must be something of that sort of course, but what?

By the time that he had tramped nearly two hours away in anxious
watching, he was in a mood to wish he could get his hands on this
Keller man and give him a good thrashing. He felt more and more
confident that he deserved it, even though he might be none of the
unworthy kinds of villain that his imagination had been conjuring.

It was still five minutes to the hour the janitor had mentioned as
opening time for offices when he finally tramped back to the building
and entered the elevator. He had considered staying outside in the
street till he saw Marguerite arrive, but rejected the idea as futile.
She would be very likely to see him if he came too near, and perhaps
evade him, for it was most likely that she wanted none of her friends
with her on this expedition, else she would surely have confided in her
mother.

He had considered also secreting himself somewhere in the hallway, at a
good vantage point to watch for her, if there were such a hiding place,
but rejected that idea also, because if anything was going to happen,
he wanted to be there to see what it was. He felt that it was his right
to understand the case, seeing he was going to try to help Marguerite.
How else could he know whether or not he might be intruding where even
angels should not tread? No, he must be in the office, and well placed
where she would not notice him, or he might never find out whether
he even had a right to try to help her. He must fathom this mystery
himself. It was not anything Marguerite's mother could tell him, else
he felt sure she would have called for him in the middle of the night
even, to accompany her and help her in her trouble. That it was a
terrible trouble to the mother he had no doubt.

He had a bad half minute when several young women came hurriedly into
the hall and rushed for the elevator. Perhaps she was among them, and
this would be by no means the place he had planned to meet Marguerite,
in the elevator!

But the young women were none of them the girl he sought; they were
obviously secretaries hastening to their various jobs, and he drew an
involuntary breath of relief as the elevator shot up to the floor to
which he was going. The young women all got out at different stops by
the way.

He was glad that he was the only one in the elevator when it stopped at
the ninth floor, and he could get off and take his bearings once more
without observation. Then he noticed that the door of R. H. Oliver's
office was standing ajar, and with quickened pulse he hurried down the
hall.



CHAPTER X

NELSON WHITNEY pushed the door of R. H. Oliver's office open quickly
and stepped within with an air of stealthy triumph. He looked around
furtively with keen eyes, half fearful at what he might see.

But there was no one there but an elderly girl taking off her hat and
coat at the back of the room. She hung them on a couple of pegs in a
shadowy corner, patted her hair into prim shape before a small mirror,
and put a last dab of powder on a thin angular nose. He paused and
watched her uncertainly.

"Is Mr. Oliver in yet?" he asked as she turned inquiringly and came
toward him, her folded gloves and a large flat purse in her hand.

"Oh, no!" she said with a tang of amusement in her voice that set him
down for a country ninny. She glanced at the clock. "He never gets down
before half past if he does then."

Whitney cast a quick searching gaze around the room once more, as if
perchance the girl he sought might be hiding somewhere in the shadows.

"Mind if I wait here?" he asked, ignoring the contempt in the girl's
voice.

"Help yourself," said the girl in a chilly tone.

She unlocked the desk, and slung a typewriter out into the open from
some hidden recess, laid her pocketbook and gloves in a drawer, took
out a dust cloth and proceeded to polish her desk and clean her
typewriter. She had the appearance of not even remembering that the
young man existed. Presently she began to hum a jazzy little radio tune
to further shut him out of her immediate circle.

This just suited Whitney. He deliberately took in every corner of the
room, the beautiful furniture and the rich Oriental rug, and selected
a shadowy alcove behind the main door, facing toward the windows on
the other side of the room. It was a dark little corner, gloomy in
fact, the alcove being formed by the ground glass partition of an inner
office that ran out from the main wall ten feet and then down to the
back of the room. The angle of these walls would partly hide him, even
from the girl at her desk which stood well out in the middle of the
room. The gloom of the corner would not call attention to his presence.

He drew a carved walnut chair into the right position to give him a
view of the room and yet not bring him into notice and sat down. After
a calm minute or two, he unfurled a morning paper which he could not
possibly have read to advantage in the dim light, and prepared to hide
behind it at the approach of footsteps. Surely he ought to be able to
remain incognito here, for a while at least till matters developed,
seeing that none of the people who were likely to have a part in the
little drama about to be played had the slightest idea that he was in
that part of the country. They would scarcely recognize his shoes and
trousers, nor his hands, and that was all that the paper and the gloom
would reveal. He would just sit quietly here and see what happened.

The secretary finished her morning cleaning and began typing some
letters. The minutes ticked slowly by on the magnificent mahogany
grandfather clock that stood six feet against the opposite wall between
the two high windows. Nelson Whitney began to tell himself that he was
a fool, and had come on a fool's errand. Probably nobody would come at
all that he expected. Probably the morning would go by, and the man
Oliver would arrive and he wouldn't even know him from any other man,
let alone knowing what to say to him.

For the next five minutes he busied himself planning what errand he
might possibly have for visiting an unknown man in his office. A
perusal of the ground glass door into the hall did not help him. It
bore over Oliver's name the legend "Ransom, Oliver, Bates and Company"
nothing more. He did not know whether they sold bonds or automobiles
or insurance. They might be almost anything. There wasn't a scratch of
anything in the room that he could see that would give the slightest
clue. There was nothing on the wall within his vision but a framed
etching of old New York.

What should he do? Should he say he was waiting for friends who were
to meet him there? Should he tell the man when he arrived that he must
have come to the wrong address? It seemed that he would appear a fool
in almost anything he might say, yet he held his ground and sat behind
his paper trying to frame a reasonable excuse for his presence. He
decided that he might perhaps ask if the man wanted to employ a helper.
There was Jack Rector at home who was crazy to get a job in New York.
Yet what kind of a job would this be? Something that could be sold?
Jack would make a keen young salesman.

The minutes dragged on. The secretary typed incessantly and paid no
more attention to him than if he had been an empty chair. The room was
as still as an empty cell, sealed from the roar and rumble of the city
noises.

Nelson Whitney was still pondering possibilities when there came at
last the clang of an elevator, and steps, leisurely steps, outside the
door. His heart stood still and then leaped forward in great bounds for
it was a woman's step. Had the moment arrived at last? And if his girl
should see him, how would she take it? Would she think he, too, was in
league against her and be angry? He withdrew still further into the
depths of his paper, and the door swung open and admitted a lady.

The secretary jumped up, all smiles.

"Oh, good morning Mrs. Oliver! Aren't you downtown early? Didn't Mr.
Oliver come with you? I thought he was expecting to be in the office
this morning. There are some checks for him to sign."

Whitney lowered his paper and saw a woman about forty years old, a
sweet-faced woman with a lovely smile, and faultlessly dressed.

"Good morning, Miss Flinch," she said pleasantly. "Why, no, Mr. Oliver
and Katharine came down earlier. Hasn't he come yet? He said he would
surely be here by this time. I expected to find him in his office hard
at work, or else ready to chide me for being ten minutes later than I
promised. I was waiting for Gloria. She was to drive back with the car
and get me, but she telephoned that they had a flat tire, and she would
meet me here. Hasn't she come yet either?"

"No, Mrs. Oliver. But I guess they'll be here presently," assured the
secretary.

"Of course," said the lady. "Well, I'll just step into Mr. Oliver's
office and write a note. I was afraid I wouldn't have time to write it
at home, but it really ought to go."

The secretary smiled and the lady retreated through the ground glass
door of the inner office. The typewriter clicked on.

The clang of the elevator was becoming more frequent now, and there
were more and more footsteps going down the marble corridor. Whitney
scarcely realized that the hall door had opened again until he heard a
woman's clear voice speaking to the secretary.

"Has Mr. Oliver come in yet?"

"No," said the secretary severely.

"How soon do you expect him?"

"Almost any time now," said his keeper ungraciously. "Did you have an
appointment?"

"No," said the woman, "but he knows me well."

"He's very busy this morning," interrupted the secretary. "He's been
away for three weeks and there are a lot of things for him to attend
to. I don't know if he'll have time to see anybody," and she cast a
belligerent look toward the newspaper and the legs over in the gloomy
alcove.

"Don't worry," said the dominant voice of Mrs. Dunlap pleasantly, "I
shall not keep him a second. I merely want him to endorse a check for
me. I'm a personal friend. I'll just wait till he comes."

The secretary looked as if she thought that was a doubtful statement,
but she assented silently and went on typing.

Whitney wondered what there was about that voice that reminded him of
something recent? He lowered his paper and shot a glance at the woman
and then he saw there was another with her, a quiet, shrinking woman
with gray hair, and a sweet profile that he had known all his life. And
the other one was the woman that had been calling on Mrs. Sheldon when
he went to see Marguerite!

Well, at least he would not have to search for them. They were here.
Now, what should he do? Reveal himself to them at once and try to
make some plan? But no—there were more footsteps coming that way,
and the clang of the elevator continually now. It would not do to be
caught saying good morning to them if Marguerite should walk in. And
besides—just what should he say how explain his presence there? Should
he confess that he had read a letter that was not intended for his
eyes? Strange he had not remembered to think that all out and have some
plan. He had had all night to plan it and he had not done it.

The two women had stood hesitating a moment by the desk, but Mrs.
Dunlap went into action as Whitney stole a glance over his paper.

"Let's sit over here by the window," she said in a tone as if she were
quite at home.

She went to the corner she had indicated and whirled the chairs about
so that they would face away from the room, and put their occupants
with their backs toward anyone entering. But Mrs. Sheldon did not
follow immediately. She lingered hesitantly by the desk an instant
longer, a worried wistful look in her sweet eyes.

"My—daughter—hasn't come in yet, has she?" she hazarded. "She was
to—that is, she was expecting—I mean we expected to meet her here."

She glanced apologetically toward her companion, and then back
wistfully to the secretary.

"Nobody been in this morning but that man," said the secretary still
ungraciously, indicating with a sweep of her capable white hand the
legs in the alcove surmounted by the newspaper.

Daisy's mother gave a quick frightened glance toward the alcove without
realizing that those legs had often been a familiar sight in her house.
She retreated half frightened to the chair Mrs. Dunlap smilingly
offered, and the two women sank down quietly with two magazines that
Mrs. Dunlap produced from the window seat. Again the click of the
typewriter was the only sound that was heard.

The postman came in presently and left a great stack of mail which gave
the secretary a rest from her typing while she went resolutely through
the letters, sorting them into piles.

There were many footsteps going down the corridor now, and the three
whose hearts were listening for a certain step, could not be certain at
all. The mother started nervously whenever any one approached the door.

The elevator was clanging incessantly. Presently a nervous step came
down the corridor, almost breathlessly, as if the owner had hurried,
then hesitated a moment in front of the door. The knob turned, slowly,
almost timidly.

Somehow Whitney knew that step—knew in his heart that she had come
at last, and felt the horror that would be in her white face as she
discovered the name she had come to disprove shining golden in the
noonday light. The paper in his hand trembled and he dared to peer
around it at the little white frightened, almost belligerent face of
the girl he loved.

She stood in the doorway for an instant and swept the room with her
glance, not carefully for she was too nervous, and she was not looking
for people from home. Whitney was at one side, almost behind her now,
for she was standing in the middle of the room wide-eyed, and she had
scarcely noticed the backs of the two women shrinking into their chairs
in the window corner earnestly reading magazines.

She went straight up to the desk and her voice trembled a little as she
asked her questions.

"Is this Mr. R. H. Oliver's office?"

Miss Flinch surveyed her impersonally before she nodded.

"May I see him at once?" asked Marguerite, growing more certain of
herself now, and speaking excitedly.

"He isn't here yet."

"Not here?" the little catch in Marguerite's voice could be heard
around the room. "How soon will he be in? I've got to catch a Western
train and there's only three quarters of an hour."

"I can't say when he'll be in," said the secretary regarding her
indifferently. "It might be in five minutes, it might be half an hour."

"But you're sure he is coming? This morning?"

"Positive," said the laconic secretary. "His wife's in the private
office waiting for him now. There's all these people waiting to see
him, and he's awfully busy besides. He's got to sign a lot of letters
and meet two men at one o'clock, and he's taking his wife and children
off for a holiday. If that isn't a full day, I don't know where you
come in. But you can sit down and wait if you think there's any chance
for you."

"Oh, I won't keep him but an instant. If I can just see him!"

The secretary waved her to a chair.

"You'll have to take your turn," she warned her.

Marguerite cast a swift appraising glance around the room, at the two
huddled figures in the chairs by the window, two oldish backs upon whom
her glance scarcely rested and a pair of gentlemanly legs surmounted by
a newspaper. Strangers in a land that was strange to her, what could
they mean to her but hindrances to her completed race? It was hours
later than she had meant to be, and she ought to get out of New York,
and away to seek her beloved.

She knew that her mother would presently stir up something. She was not
a woman to lie idly by and see her only daughter lost in the world,
with an undesirable marriage in the offing. She would presently set
something going somehow to hinder. Her mother was never balked when
the welfare of one beloved was concerned. She simply must get a train
right away as soon as she had seen this man. Of course he would not be
the right one. Of course that lying Mrs. Dunlap had merely given the
name of some one she knew as a bluff to gain her point. And as soon as
she laid eyes on the man and saw he was not anyone she had ever seen
before, she would apologize pleasantly, say she must have the wrong
address, and depart.

While she was dressing she had remembered a way to find Rufus. She
would get that minister friend of his that was to have married them, on
the long distance telephone, and find out how best to reach him. The
rest would be easy of course. Then she would get away from New York as
fast as possible, somewhere, anywhere, it didn't matter much, just a
little way, so she could not be traced, and then get off and telephone
Rufus. She would plan to meet him wherever he said and be married at
once. Perhaps she might even suggest this to the minister friend of
his when she found the address, just say they were going to be married
at once, that all difficulties had been cleared away or something like
that.

How fortunate it was that she remembered the name and address of that
minister so well. She had watched Rufus writing out the telegram as he
argued, and he had written Rev. Lee Spencer, D.D. so beautifully. He
had a wonderful, bold way of writing that thrilled her to watch, it
seemed so masterful!

All these thoughts went racing through Marguerite's mind as she dropped
into a chair near the desk facing the entrance, her eyes glued to the
door that she might get the first glimpse of the man as he entered.

Mrs. Dunlap half leaned over toward Mrs. Sheldon to whisper, and then
thought better of it. They exchanged lifted eyebrows, and a question
stood in their eyes for an instant. Then suddenly a quick eager young
step came rushing down the corridor. The door opened with a rush and
closed with a bang as a slim pretty girl entered panting as if she had
run up several flights of stairs.

"Oh, Miss Flinch," she gasped, "has Daddy come yet? I've simply ruined
myself running up all the stairs. I couldn't wait for the elevator. I
was afraid Dad and Mother wouldn't wait for me. Oh hasn't he come yet?
Oh, I'm glad! But Muth is here isn't she? I thought she would be. I
telephoned her I had a flat tire, and I had to leave the tiresome old
car in a garage away uptown, and walk three blocks to get a bus, and
then it didn't come forever and an age. The bus service in this town is
the limit isn't it? Did you say Muth was here?"

"Yes, Miss Gloria, she came half an hour ago. She's in your father's
office writing a letter."

"Oh, I know. She said it simply had to go or she couldn't go with
us. You know, Miss Flinch, it's her birthday, and Daddy came home
especially for it. We're going off on a spree. Daddy won't tell us
where, but we're going in the new car, and it's to be a surprise party
for us all. Muth doesn't even know which way we are taking.

"But I can't think what's keeping Daddy and Katharine. You know, Miss
Flinch," Gloria lowered her voice with a glance toward the ground glass
partition, "they've gone to get her present. She doesn't know a thing
about it of course. Katharine picked it out weeks ago and she and I
had it put away till Daddy would get back. We knew he'd love it for
her, and I know it's just what she wants. It's a platinum wristwatch
and bracelet with diamonds and sapphires all set around the edge. Oh,
it's perfectly darling. She'll show it to you of course. But I'm just
dying to see what she says when he gives it to her. Oh, dear! Why don't
they come? I do hope there isn't some stupid old mistake. Perhaps some
dumbbell of a salesman has sold it to someone else. Wouldn't that
simply be unbearable? Perhaps they've had to hunt around for another.
But I never saw any as precious as this one."

"I wouldn't worry, Miss Gloria," said the secretary fondly. "They've
likely been delayed in traffic. There! There's the elevator! Maybe
they're coming now. Yes, I think that's Mr. Oliver's step."

"Oh, it is, it is! The day is saved," cried Gloria tragically.

The door opened and another very pretty girl scarcely older than the
first entered, and behind her a gentleman.

"There! Daddy! You're late yourself. I've won the bet and you've got
to pay up! A five-pound box of chocolates! Remember! You promised! And
a new pair of slippers for the party! Muth and I've been here a long
time—and I had a flat tire, too, and a lot of trouble."

The gentleman stepped in and closed the door, gave a quick glance at
the legs and the newspaper in the alcove, another toward the window
where huddled the two women, and then faced toward the desk where
for the instant his two daughters had so grouped themselves as to
completely hide the white-faced girl from his vision.

Gloria boomed forth again:

"Now, Daddy, you've simply got to come into the office and show it to
her at once. I can't wait another second. I'm dying to see what she
thinks of it. Come on in now before Miss Flinch gets you into a lot of
tiresome checks and letters you have to sign. Come on, Daddy it won't
take long, and then Muth can enjoy it while she waits."

Gloria caught his hands and pulled him toward the door of the inner
office, and Katharine moved to follow, when suddenly the man saw the
white-faced girl. She had risen from her seat, and exclaimed eagerly,
pleadingly, as if somehow the sight of her eyes, the hearing of her
ears had deceived her, and this was some horrible dream which would
presently be explained:

"Rufus! Oh Rufus—I've come—!"

The man turned ashen color, and looked as if he were going to drop.
He stopped where he stood, apparently unable to move further, feebly
drawing his hands away from the eager girls who kept trying to draw him
on.

"Go! Go!" he said to them in a voice that sounded more like a croak.
"Go to your mother! I'll come in a moment!"

There was something in his voice that made the girls obey, though
reluctantly.

"What is the matter now?" murmured Gloria, impatiently. "Didn't you get
it? Didn't he like it, Kath?"

"Yes, and he's crazy about it. I'm sure I don't know what's the matter.
Some tiresome old business probably. It's always that way."

As the inner door closed on them, Gloria's perplexed voice asked:

"What did that girl mean 'Rufus'?"



CHAPTER XI

IT WAS Mrs. Dunlap who took command of the situation, stepping into the
picture at exactly the most awful moment of revelation when several
lives seemed about to fall into chaos.

"Oh, Mr. Oliver," she said in her pleasant, commanding tone coming
forward with a fountain pen and a bit of blue paper in her hand, until
she stood exactly before the shrinking girl, and the ghastly man, "Good
morning! I won't detain you but an instant. I just stepped in to ask
if you would kindly endorse this check for me so that I can cash it. I
found myself suddenly out of money, and near your office, and I knew
you would help me out."

She held out the check and pen, and the desperate man reached for
them as a drowning man would reach for a rope flung out to him. He
even tried to summon a smile of graciousness to his stiff lips, and
naturalness to his voice as he assented:

"Why, certainly, Mrs. Dunlap—I'm—delighted to be able to do anything
for you."

There was a high-strained quality to his voice and his attempt at a
laugh was a decided failure. His hand was shaking, as he wrote his
name, Ralph H. Oliver across the back of the check. It was an old
blank one which Mrs. Dunlap had carried with her in her purse for
several months in case of emergency. That morning she had made it out
to herself, signed with her maiden name and endorsed it. But the man
who endorsed it again was not even noticing whether it was a check
or not. He was only bestirring his clever brain to get him out of
this situation, and by the time the name was written, he had made his
decision. He would ignore this girl, and get himself out of the room at
once, and out of the building, even if he was obliged to emerge through
the tenth-story window to the street. Anything no matter how ghastly,
was better than what would probably happen if he remained.

He swung himself around to face Mrs. Dunlap, and put Marguerite out of
range, as he handed over the check with a hand that was shaking visibly.

Again the stiffening lips wrinkled themselves into a ghastly semblance
of a smile as he spoke, his manner an attempt at the debonair:

"Mrs. Dunlap, I think my wife is in my private office, and she will
never forgive me if I do not call her. She will want to see you if only
for a moment. Let me go and call her."

"Oh, I'll call her, Mr. Oliver!" said the secretary eagerly, half
rising from her desk.

"No, no, Miss Flinch. I'll call her myself. I want you to get those
letters out before the next mail please. It is very imperative. I'll
just call her."

"Indeed, Mr. Oliver, I cannot possibly wait a moment," interrupted
Mrs. Dunlap. "Tell Mrs. Oliver for me that I am returning this way in
a week or two and I will call her up and make an appointment to see
her. But now I really must hasten away. I have friends here with me
who are in haste. By the way, of course you know them." She stepped
back and turned toward Mrs. Sheldon who had risen and come forward,
her eyes stern, her face full of indignation and dislike. "My friend
Mrs. Sheldon. I think you have already met in her home town and Miss
Sheldon, her daughter? And now we mustn't keep you an instant."

Nelson Whitney had long ago discarded the enveloping newspaper and
was on his feet, standing in the shadow of the alcove, with eyes only
for the white-faced girl. When the others stepped before her and hid
his vision, he came forward into the light, forgetting that he did
not intend to reveal his identity just now, forgetting everything but
that the beloved eyes were filled with sudden awful comprehension, and
agony, the beloved lips were trembling visibly, and his darling looked
like a white lily stricken and about to fall.

Sudden revelation had made him, too, wise as to the situation; for
when Mr. Ralph Oliver turned to hand Mrs. Dunlap the endorsed check,
the light from the windows fell full upon his ashen face, and Whitney
recognized him at once as Rufus Keller, and the whole dastardly truth
burst upon him. For an instant his desire to take the scoundrel by
the collar and thrash him, or fling him from the room almost overcame
him, as he took another step forward; and then suddenly a new element
entered the scene in the appearance of the two girls and their mother
from the inner office!

A wave of utter fear that passed over the face of Oliver, gave Whitney
quick comprehension once more, and he saw suddenly what sorrow it would
mean to these other innocent ones, as well as to his dear girl, if
further revelations were made at that moment. Not for a second would
he have hesitated for the sake of the villain, for he deserved every
inch of punishment that was coming to him; but even in this crisis, it
came to Nelson Whitney like a flash that there was one who had said,
"Vengeance is Mine!"

Who was he to judge this cringing soul, and bring sorrow to these
trusting other ones? Therefore he stopped where he stood, just behind
the man who had done his best to shatter the joy of at least four
lives, and waited. He was not even aware that he had come out of his
hiding, or that his presence would presently need explanation. He just
stood there as if he had been called to place by some higher power than
himself, ready for the moment when he would be needed.

Oliver was a clever man, a cunning actor, else he could not so long
have deceived those who loved him. He was quick to clutch again at the
slender rope thrown out to him. With a suave distant manner, not too
gracious, he acknowledged the introduction, standing where he was, and
giving them but a polite lifting of the eyelids that swept them both in
a cold distant glance:

"I believe we have met before—Winfield, was it? Or one of those little
towns out that way? I am traveling so much and meeting so many—"

Nelson Whitney marveled at the colossal assurance that could speak such
words so coolly, and then his attention was suddenly drawn to Mrs.
Sheldon. She had drawn her sweet patrician dignity up about her as a
garment, and seemed to stand fully two inches taller than her usual
height, as she looked straight into the eyes of the man who had tried
to deceive her only daughter. There was an instant's pause, as if her
eyes could say to him all that her lips had been forbidden for the sake
of others to do, and then her voice broke into clear contempt as she
said:

"And our friend Mr. Whitney, Nelson Whitney of Wellsburgh! I think you
have met him also, Mr.—Oliver?"

It was a masterly stroke, and conveyed to the wretched man all that a
woman of Mrs. Sheldon's birth and breeding could never have said in
words.

Oliver wheeled and faced Whitney, a look of genuine fright in his eyes.
Just a flash, and then he turned quickly back and waved toward the
three who were advancing eagerly from the office door:

"Here comes my wife now, and my daughters. I knew they would be
delighted to see you. Mrs. Dunlap, will you do the honors and excuse me
just a moment? There is a telegram I must send at once!" he glanced at
his watch. "I had forgotten it."

He turned furtively, and Nelson Whitney was reminded of his dog at home
who when he was reproved was in the habit of stealing from the room,
half crouched, his tail between his legs, and stealthily looking back
as he slithered out of the room.

So Ralph Oliver slunk from the room into his inner office, and locked
the door. The keen ears of Mrs. Dunlap heard the grate of the key.

Yet before he had fairly turned away from them, the room was thrilled
with a clear voice:

"We really ought all to go at once. Nelson and I have been planning to
see Grant's Tomb and the Museum. Will you take me there now, Nelson?"

It was Marguerite, the old sweet challenge of her friendly voice
startling him into life once more. It was more than an appeal. It was
as if she went back ten years to their childhood days when they had
planned to see all the wonders of the world together. It had been a
long time since she had appealed to him for anything, and his heart
leaped high with joy. Take her to the Museum? Yes, take her to the
world's end if she chose!

He took two good steps and was beside her, drawing her arm within his,
and so together they acknowledged the introduction to a scoundrel's
lovely wife and daughters, with which Mrs. Dunlap noisily and
skillfully covered the retreat of the enemy, the victory completely
in her own hands. There was even a lilt in her voice as she told Mrs.
Oliver what a dear woman Mrs. Sheldon was; although her heart was
aching with mother love as she saw the brave white anguish which the
victim was showing as she held up her head and stood her ground, her
knees were shaking under her.

Mrs. Sheldon took the hand of the other mother, and said with a warmth
of feeling strangely keen for a mere acquaintance.

"I have wanted to meet you. I have heard such beautiful things about
you, and now I see that they are all justified."

Nelson Whitney saw that the little gloved hand on his arm was
fluttering as if in ague, and tenderly he laid a strong hand
possessively over it, and took the burden of the conversation as the
introduction came their way, leaving nothing for his dear girl to do
but try to smile.

That she did it bravely and well, and that the strangers did not
suspect her state of mind was shown by the comments of Gloria later,
when, the telegrams all sent, the letters dictated, and the checks
signed, they started in the new car on their delayed holiday, several
hours late by the new watch flashing on Mrs. Oliver's beautiful wrist.

"Wasn't that girl perfectly darling!" she said to her sister. "She has
a face like Muth's cameo pin, and the way she looked at her sweetheart
was just too dear!"

"How do you know he was her sweetheart? She may have a dozen others,"
said the wiser Katharine.

"No, I'm positive. Didn't you see how he put his hand over hers right
there in the office before us? And she let him. She isn't the kind of
girl that lets a man do things like that unless she's engaged to him.
My! But his eyes were handsome. He looked down at her as if he just
could eat her. Well, I don't blame him. She is sweet. She's precious! I
wish she lived where we could know her. I've got a crush on her myself,
and I think he's a humdinger. I'd like to be bridesmaid at the wedding!"

Said R. H. Oliver suddenly as he yanked his car out of swift collision
with a truck:

"Gloria, I wish you wouldn't talk any more if you've got to converse
like a fool! For heaven's sake stop it!"

Just what heaven had to do with her guileless chatter Gloria didn't
understand, but she knew when her father spoke in that tone it was
time to cease, so Gloria sat back and dreamed of a day when a knight
similar to Nelson Whitney would come riding her way, and hold her own
fluttering hand, and look into her thrilled eyes, and carry her off
into a world of loveliness.

Nelson Whitney led his beloved out of that office just as soon as the
law of politeness allowed.

Just an instant, he had paused beside Mrs. Sheldon as he passed her.

"Is there any special time when you would like to have us meet you at
the hotel?" he asked in an undertone.

But it was Mrs. Dunlap who heard and who handed him a card upon which
she had been scribbling.

"Any time you like," she said in a tone for his ears alone. "Mrs.
Sheldon needs to rest, and I'll see that she does. Just ring up the
room when you get back and let us know the program. I'll stay till you
get back at least."

He glanced at the card. On it was written the name of the hotel and
the number of their room. A fleeting smile went over his face. Here
those two good ladies had come straight to the same hotel where
he was. He had had no need to worry at all with such a Guide. Why
hadn't he remembered that God was able to work out things without his
interference, able to make the crooked places straight, and the dark
things plain in His own good time!



CHAPTER XII

WHEN Mrs. Sheldon had turned from speaking with Mrs. Oliver and her two
charming daughters, she looked around the office in dismay.

"Why, where is Marguerite?" she asked with instant worry in her eyes.
"She hasn't gone away?" and there was in her voice that quality of
desperation which had made Mrs. Dunlap fear for her health more than
once in the hours they had spent together.

She hastened to assure her.

"It's all right, Mrs. Sheldon. She's with Nelson Whitney. They've gone
off together to do some sight seeing I think."

"But they don't know where we are that is they won't know how to find
us. Nelson didn't—that is Marguerite won't—" She stopped in confusion,
realizing that this would seem very strange talk to the onlooking
Olivers about people who were supposed to be of the same party.

But Mrs. Dunlap was equal to the occasion.

"It's all right, my dear. I told them where we were going, wrote it
down for them so they wouldn't make a mistake."

With relief, the weary mother relaxed the drawn look of her face and
turned to the Olivers graciously.

"I'm so glad to have met you," she said, and smiled sincerely.

When they were gone Gloria turned to her mother.

"I didn't like the way she spoke to you, Mums dear!" she said. "It was
almost as if she felt sorry for you somehow."

"What a queer idea!" laughed her mother. "I think she is a very
charming woman. In fact anybody Mrs. Dunlap sponsors usually is."

"Yourself included, Mums!" laughed Gloria. "Come on Muth, lets rout out
Dad and get started. We're two hours behind schedule now. Kath, you
ought to have run things better than this!" And laughing they went off
to find the beloved husband and father.

They found him standing by the window with the sash thrown up, wiping
beads of perspiration from his forehead, though the day was keen and
clear.

"What's the matter, dear? Is there any trouble about your business?"
asked Mrs. Oliver solicitously.

"I wasn't feeling very well there for a minute!" said the valiant
husband, mopping his cold brow once more. "I felt a little dizzy!
I guess I've been going it a little too hard lately. I suppose I'm
getting old."

He paused for his loving family to refute this statement, but they only
laughed as if it were a good joke.

"I think I'll have to cut out some of this traveling," he said slowly,
taking deep breaths between his words. He still wore a sort of whipped
look except to his family's eyes.

But at that they all shouted a joyous assent, "Yes, Dad, that would be
great! Then you'd be all ours and not belong to the world at large any
more," added Gloria as the hurrah subsided.

"Come on, let's go!" said Oliver turning away from them quickly to hide
a look of something like shame that stole over his scared white face.

"But we haven't given Muth her presents yet," reminded Gloria who never
by any chance forgot anything.

It was with relief that Oliver took the little white box containing the
watch from his pocket. The attention all focused upon it, instead of
himself, he was able even to make a pleasant little flowery speech in
presentation.

Nevertheless the occasion had ceased to be the joyous celebration that
he had anticipated. Half of his mind was necessarily occupied with
wondering what on earth that Dunlap woman meant to do next? Did she
intend to keep that miserable affair of Daisy hanging over his head
like a Damoclean sword the rest of his natural life? If so, there would
be no peace anywhere.

He would never know when they might walk in and bring him to shame
among his friends. Well, he had been a fool of course. It was hard to
admit it. Perhaps he had merely bungled things. But—yes, he felt a
good deal of a fool. After all, what was that girl but a pretty pink
and white thing—just a passing fancy. Home was best. He would stay at
home—unless that obnoxious Mrs. Dunlap was going to haunt his steps.

Perhaps it would be as well to go abroad for a year. The business
was in pretty good shape now, and the girls would love it. Yes, they
would go abroad. He would broach the subject that very day and hurry
up arrangements to get away as soon as possible. He couldn't stand any
more shocks like this one!

Thus reasoning, he grew calm, and the family went down to the new car
and their interrupted holiday.


Down on the street Mrs. Sheldon looked about her in a dazed way and put
her hand to her head. Her companion caught the gesture and slipped an
arm around her.

"My dear, you are going straight back to the hotel and take a good long
sleep," she said, and raised her other hand to summon a passing taxi.

"Oh, I'm all right," murmured the little white-faced mother,
"Everything is all right now at least I hope it is, for a while.
Only—what shall I do with Daisy? Her life is broken! My poor little
flower of a girl!"

"Don't you believe it!" said the strong woman who knew life. "God
doesn't let even a flower get broken as easily as that. Here, let's get
in this taxi, and then we can talk."

She gave the order to the driver, and then laid her hand on the
stricken woman's arm.

"My dear! You should be singing, shouting hallelujah, not mourning.
Can't you trust the Father who has brought about this revelation to
show your girl that life isn't all gone just because she made a mistake
about one wolf in sheep's clothing? This all came to your girl perhaps
to teach her, and prepare her for a fuller, wider life than she could
have otherwise been prepared for."

"Oh!" moaned the little mother, "I wish I could feel that way, but it
seems to me we have lost our self-respect. It seems as if Daisy has
lost all the fine dignity and judgment she had, and that she can never
lift up her head again."

"She has only lost her cock-suredness, my dear. She hasn't lost a bit
of self-respect. She has made a mistake, yes, and a bad one, but she
will learn to be more careful now, not to trust herself implicitly. She
will learn to pray her way through the difficulties, perhaps, instead
of insisting she knows best and demanding her own way. She will pay
more heed to her mother's advice to her mother's intuition, and not
consider that her own discernment of character is final. You know we
all have to have sharp lessons to teach us to find our guidance in the
Lord and our own utter helplessness without Him."

"But I'm so afraid Daisy won't look at it that way. She is such an
intense child, so proud and excitable, and enthusiastic, and so prone
to go to the depths when the heights have failed her. I am afraid—Mrs.
Dunlap, forgive me, but I'm afraid she may lose her mind! You were not
with her that last night before she went away. You don't realize."

"I realize that underneath are the Everlasting Arms, my dear," said
Mary Dunlap solemnly, "and that the God who has just now performed
the seemingly impossible for you in convincing your daughter of the
unworthiness of the man whom she was determined to marry, in time and
before it was forever too late to save her from the public shame of her
own actions, can perform like wonders in other ways. Now, dear sister,
suppose you just trust in Him. He has said, 'Commit thy way unto the
Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass.' Couldn't you
just rest on that this morning and let Him give you a good rest? I'm
sure everything will be made plain for you. Now, here we are at the
hotel."

Mary Dunlap helped her friend up to her room for she looked as frail as
a lily by this time; and had a nice little lunch sent up of which she
literally forced her companion to partake.

When she found the troubled mother did not wish to talk of other
matters she just went over the morning's experience with her, bringing
out at every turn, the wonders that the Lord had worked. She spoke of
the young man, Whitney.

"Tell me about him!" she said as she poured a second cup of coffee.
"I'm wonderfully taken with that young man. He looks like true blue to
me."

"Oh, he is!" said Marguerite's mother.

And she began to tell of the days the years when her girl and this fine
boy were growing up together, till gradually the care lifted from the
mother's face.

But the tale came to a sudden bitter end with the plaint that was
almost a sob:

"She had all that devotion in a fine young man her own age, and yet she
could think she cared for that old slippery beast!"

Mary Dunlap gave an almost girlish giggle.

"He is that, isn't he? I keep thinking of his poor dear wife and
daughters who think he is the salt of the earth. Oh, poor dears! I do
hope they don't ever have to find it out this side—or at least not till
the Lord has made him over. But my dear, don't you think that perhaps
your child hadn't just waked up to realities yet? Wasn't she more in
love with being in love, than with the man himself? She was under a
strong delusion as the Bible says, but I'm sure it has been swept away,
and in full time.

"My dear, I'll tell you something. Her hand was on the boy's arm
confidingly as if she trusted him, and his strong hand was over it,
tenderly, comfortingly, as if she were dearer to him than life. I
couldn't help seeing the look on his face as he bent to speak to her
from his fine height—she is such a little girl, so sweet and small—and
my dear, I suppose I ought not to have seen it, and maybe ought to
keep it to myself now I have, but it seems to me you have a right to
know she smiled up into his face, such a sweet trustful smile, that I
couldn't help feeling that her heart will fly back to him as a refuge
now in her trouble. I saw that. Yes, I saw it while you were talking to
Mrs. Oliver. I'm sure you have a right to know. And the Lord has let
that young man be an instrument of rescue for your girl. I'm sure."

"Oh!" said the mother with a wistful sigh, "If that could only be, I
would ask nothing better of life."

"Don't set your limits, my dear! The Lord may have that and even
greater blessings yet in store. Now, you are going to sleep, and I'm
going to sit here at the desk and get some of my correspondence out of
the way or I'll be swamped."



CHAPTER XIII

DOWN in the street Marguerite almost gave way.

A glance at her face showed Nelson that she was almost at the limit of
her strength. He summoned a taxi and put her in.

"Would you like to go to the hotel and lie down a while?" he asked
tenderly.

"Oh, no," she said shrinking toward him, "I don't want to be alone now.
I can't bear it. I must have someone who belongs. Let's go to some
quiet place where we can sit down a little while, or walk where there
won't be so many people."

She sank back in the seat and closed her eyes, and Whitney gave the
order, "Drive to the Park, and drive around till I tell you to stop."

He got into the taxi, pulled down the shades, and drew her head gently
over till it rested on his shoulder.

"Now," said he, "just rest there a few minutes and get calm."

There were hot tears running down her white cheeks.

"That's all right, dear," he said as if he were talking to a little
child. "Cry as hard as you can. It'll do you good!"

There was a lilt in his voice. He was thinking how she had said she
wanted to be with somebody who "belonged." Then in her soul she felt
that he belonged after all.

Marguerite let the tears have their way for a minute or two, and then
she sobbed out softly:

"But you don't know what it's all about. I—ought—to—explain."

"Explain, nothing!" said Nelson comfortingly. "I know all about it."

"Oh! How did you know?" she asked with a perplexed frown, "Did mother
tell you?"

"Never a word," said the young man taking out a big white handkerchief
that smelled of clover in summer, and unfolding it. "Can't you give me
credit for having eyes? When you love somebody, you understand."

He lifted the girl's hot tear-wet face and gently wiped it with the
cool handkerchief.

She felt as if she were a little girl being comforted.

"Oh, Nelson, you've always been wonderful! And—I—But you won't
feel that way about me any more when you know everything. I've
been—so—silly—! And wicked, Nelson! I've been terribly wicked. Oh—" she
shuddered,—"to think that I—should have got into an awful mess like
that! Oh, I can't ever stand myself again! How can I live? To think—"

"See here, Marguerite, you're not to think anything about it now. You
are just to rest, and get over the shock. And by and bye when you are
rested, we'll talk it all out."

"But I want to get it over with first," said Marguerite sitting up and
trying to stop the tears with the big handkerchief. "Indeed I can't
rest till you know what a fool I've been."

"All right," said Nelson, "you've been a fool, have you? Well, I love
you anyway. Have you had any breakfast? No, I thought not. Well,
neither have I. What if we stop somewhere and get some?"

"But I can't go anywhere with my eyes all red," objected the girl,
dabbing away at them and looking as pretty as a picture even with a red
nose, and her lashes all wet.

"That's all right," said the young man easily, "we're going to get out
pretty soon and walk around the park a little. I think we'll find a
fountain or a spring or a lake or something wet, and we'll mop up and
get cooled off and then we'll go and get fed."

Marguerite giggled hysterically.

"You are always so good," she murmured, and then refinished it,
"so—dear!"

He stooped over and kissed her gravely on the forehead.

"Thank you for that, little one. Now, are you ready to get out and find
that fountain?"

"Wait," said the girl sitting up, her face clouded with trouble again.
"Wait, Nelson, we can't go on like this. We can't even be friends again
till I tell you everything. It—chokes me!"

"Out with it, then!" said the young man calmly, "but make it snappy.
Make a clean breast of it in three sentences."

"Oh, Nelson, I fell in love with that man—a married man!" She lifted
her shamed face and looked at him through her tears.

"That's number one," said Nelson, unperturbed.

"I started to run away with him and get married, without telling
Mother," she burst forth with a fresh rush of tears.

"Number two," counted Nelson.

"And—and—I've been awful to Mother, and to that Mrs. Dunlap—" she
choked out, "and—and—to God! I almost lost my senses!"

"I inferred as much. Now, is that all, little sweetheart? And shall we
get out and doll up for breakfast?"

She buried her face in the folds of the wet handkerchief once more, and
from its depths murmured: "Oh, Nelson, you always did take the ache out
of things!"

"That's what I'm for," grinned Nelson delightedly, "and I always intend
to keep on doing it. You know you're mine, little girl, have been ever
since we were children, and I don't intend anything to hurt you any
more than I can possibly help. Of course, if you get sick—" he smiled,
"mentally sick, or physically sick, or spiritually sick, I'll just have
to stand by and help till you get well again, but you're mine, little
girl. I want that distinctly understood. Now, shall we get out and walk
a little?"

"But Nelson—you mustn't. I'm not worthy of a devotion like that—I
couldn't let you—"

"We're getting out, driver," Nelson tapped on the glass.

He helped her out and paid the fare, and while Marguerite stood still
in the bright sunshine at the entrance to a Park pathway, the cool
breeze blowing on her hot cheeks and forehead, her face a little turned
away lest the cabman should see that she had been crying, suddenly a
great burden seemed to roll from her.

She had expected to find herself desperate, agonized, unable to live
longer, when she got away from that terrible office where she had
undergone such awful revelations; but suddenly it seemed to her a
great relief. The fearful responsibilities of life that a day ago had
lain upon her heart with deathlike heaviness, were gone. Life had been
settled for her, and her path diverted from a dark and perilous way,
into brightness and sunshine again.

The only thing that hung about and troubled her was her own shame. Her
part in the terrible drama that had just been played to the finish. Her
foolishness and gullibility, her readiness to fall for the handsome
eyes of a man of the world, whose flattery had been merely used for his
own passing amusement. She, Marguerite Sheldon, with a long line of
respectable and noble ancestors, with a heritage of Christian training
and tradition, with a mother such as hers had been, and a father whose
memory was enshrined forever in her heart! To think that she had been
so easy to deceive!

She started suddenly at the thought of how her heart was arraigning the
man who had been her lover—almost her husband, but a few brief days
ago! Three hours ago she would have sworn to anyone who asked that she
loved him with her whole soul; that life would be worthless without
him; that she would cling to him with her last breath though she were
separated from him for years; that she would love him and believe him,
yes and even forgive him no matter what others said, no matter what he
had done.

And now in a few short minutes, the cloak of illusion had been torn
from him, and left his shame naked to her view; left him without a
charm or virtue; shown his love to be a mere worthless pretense, for
how could he possibly love her when he had so deceived her? How could
he dare bring her a love so dishonored by his own broken, worse than
broken vows? For she was not one of those girls who feel it a fine
feather to have won for herself a man who belongs to another.

She shivered as she remembered the way he had said: "My wife," and, "my
daughters," in that accustomed married way. If she had heard nothing
else but that it would have convinced her. And sharply to her memory
came her own words to Mrs. Dunlap, "Unless I can hear him say with his
own lips—"

Well, she had heard him! How terrible it had been! Hot irons had seared
her heart, and she would never, never forget!

As she turned toward Nelson, she glanced down, and there in the path
behind him she caught the gleam of a bit of metal, gold or silver
shining in the sun. It proved to be only a bit of foil wrapping from
candy or gum that someone had flung down carelessly in passing. But
with the unexplained whimsicality of such little inanimate things, it
took for the moment the form of a tiny trinket in likeness to a gold
and platinum charm that the one-time Rufus Keller had worn on his watch
chain. During those intimate days she had more than once toyed with it
lovingly, pleased to think such was her privilege. She had even worn it
about her neck on a little gold chain for a few days, till alarmed lest
her mother should see it, she had given it back for the time.

Suddenly it came to her that he had worn it that very morning. She had
noticed its gleam as he turned away with that guilty look, that look
that she never would forget. The look that had torn from her heart the
last shred of respect, and what she had once thought was love for this
man. And the little gleaming trinket had twinkled wickedly at her as he
went, and stabbed her with the things that she once had held so dear.
Stabbed her as when a thorn that has bruised the bleeding flesh is torn
away and can hurt no more.

She caught her breath in a sob as Nelson came up with her and slipped
his hand within her arm steadying her.

"Oh, how can I ever live? How can I ever, ever stand it?" she gasped.

"Poor child!" said Nelson sadly, "Do you love him as much as that?"

"Oh, no! No! Not now!" she cried. "That is all gone! But my
self-respect is gone too! How can one live without self-respect?"

"That will come back again!" said Nelson Whitney with a ring in his
voice. Oh, it was good to hear her say she no longer cared!

She was quiet for several minutes, and he watched her as they
walked along deeper into the park. Then she lifted her face like a
rain-drenched flower.

"Nelson, you are wonderful!" she said. "I don't—know—what I should
do—without you!"

"Well, you don't have to do without me, thank God!" said Nelson. "I
suppose this is why He sent me down here."

She looked up with quick inquiry.

"How did you come, Nelson? Was it just chance?"

"Nothing in this world is chance, is it, Daisy? But this certainly
wasn't, anyway. Why, you see I went to the house to get that list you
promised—"

"Oh!" said the girl. "I never thought of it again."

"Well, it's of no consequence now," he grinned, "I made up one instead
and ordered the things. You'll have to use what there is, or get more.
However, when Mary and I started to look for the list there was your
note to your mother right on the floor by the stairs in the lower hall.
How it got there I don't know, but as Mary was upstairs and I hadn't
much time, and the note was in your handwriting, I picked it up and
read it. Of course I hadn't gone far before I discovered it wasn't the
list, but I couldn't let it go then for I had caught a word or two that
showed me you were in danger, and that your mother must be somewhere
in sorrow hunting for you, so I put it in my pocket as Mary came down
stairs and took it away with me. If you ask me I think the Lord left
that note there for me to read. I thought you belonged enough to me to
give me the right to read it."

Marguerite with reddening cheeks and shamed eyes was trying to recall
what she had said in that mad hasty note she had left for her mother
when she hurried to the midnight train.

"The rest was a cinch of course," went on Nelson. "I had the address to
which you were going in your own handwriting. I had only to meet you at
the train in New York as it came in, if I could get there ahead of you.
Or, failing in that, as I did, I had the second chance of catching you
at the office before you went off to marry that villain."

Marguerite's shamed face did not lift, but a little quiver went through
her slight frame.

"But—how did you get here in time?" she asked. "Why, that must have
been rather late in the morning when you found that note. Of course I
knew there was an early morning train and that Mother would probably
take that, but I had hoped to have everything straightened out before
she came. But the only other train after you found out is a local, and
you couldn't possibly have got here even yet unless you flew. Are you a
mystery man?"

"That's exactly what I did. I flew here," said Nelson.

"What do you mean?" she asked lifting wondering eyes that seemed to
have forgotten their trouble for the moment. "Don't tease me, please.
I'm so tired!" And she drooped upon his arm.

"Poor little girl! I'm forgetting all you've gone through. We'll find
that water, and then go for something to eat. If I remember, it was
down this path. I came here once three years ago, and thought how some
day I would perhaps bring you."

A quick turn brought them to a spring gurgling in a granite basin, and
Marguerite dashed the water in her face and dried it on another big
clean handkerchief that Nelson brought forth from a capacious pocket.

"Do you have an unlimited supply of these?" she asked as she emerged
from its fragrant folds gratefully, refreshed in spite of herself.

"Very nearly!" he smiled. "Now come, and we will go and find something
to eat."

"But you haven't told me what you mean by saying you flew here." He
noticed that her voice was almost cheerful again.

"Just that," he said laughing, "I flew. It's the first time in my life,
but I would have enjoyed it if I hadn't been so worried about you."

Then as her eyes looked still mystified, he explained.

"I have a friend who has been coaxing me to fly with him for months
and I never seemed to have time. He had oodles of money, and no end
of time, and so I just made good a promise I had given him once, and
called him up. He was game all right, said of course he was going to
New York in a couple of hours, and so we came. We got here sometime
before your train came in. By the way, why didn't you come on it?"

"I did," she said sadly, "but I got off at the wrong station, something
they called Manhattan Transfer. I had to wait ages before another came
along."

"Manhattan Transfer! And you were knocking around that desolate place
alone at that time of night? Well, I'll say your angels must have had
their hands full taking care of you yesterday. They must be all worn
out. I guess that's why I have the job for a little while now. Come,
here's a taxi!"

She flashed him a faint little flicker of a smile and he helped her
into the cab with a lighter heart. At least the days of reticence and
distance were over between them. No more reservations, no more holding
aloof. She was confiding in him as she used to do. One couldn't expect
more than that, so soon.

They went to a quiet tea room. Nelson seemed to know just how to manage
everything, seemed to know without asking his way anywhere. He put her
in a seat where she was sheltered, and he ordered the things he knew
from long years of association that she liked. Deftly, unobtrusively,
he drew her attention away from herself, and the tragic happenings
of the last few days, tempted her to eat, provoked her to laugh. He
described his first sensations of flying, telling little anecdotes
of his friend the aviator when they were both together in France,
telling a joke he had heard the day before, calling her attention to
a beautiful white kitten that came purring in to be stroked and fed
tidbits.

It was nearly three o'clock when they had finished the meal. The color
was stealing faintly back to the girl's lips and cheeks, and the terror
fading out of her eyes.

"Now," said Nelson consulting his watch, "it's three minutes to three.
What do you want to do? Shall we make good our word and go to the Tomb
and the Museum, or shall we save that for another day and go back to
the hotel and let you get a good rest?"

"Oh," said Marguerite, shrinking suddenly, the color receding from her
lips, the terror coming back to her eyes. "Oh, I can't go back—yet!
But don't let me detain you—I'll—I'll just wander around a little—I'll
go—shopping!" she ended with an attempt at briskness in her voice.
"You've been awfully good."

"Now, look here, Marguerite, haven't I known you too long and loved
you too well, for you to get off any bunk like that on me?" he asked
laughing. "I'm here to take care of you, and what you want to do is
what I want to do. What I meant is, are you too tired to take on sight
seeing or are you really interested? It occurred to me that we weren't
either of us in a state to get much intellectual good out of either a
tomb or a museum, but perhaps I'm mistaken. If you want to, we'll go.
But if you are not particular which day we go tombing, suppose we take
a lighter expedition. I'll tell you what would just suit me. I'd like
to take you down to Tiffany's and buy you the prettiest diamond ring we
can find."

Marguerite started back in her chair.

"Oh, Nelson! What do you mean?"

Her face was a curious study of tenderness and fear.

"I mean just that, Daisy. I think it's high time you had some kind of a
safeguard to wear. I've loved you too long and known you too well, to
let you drift around the world unprotected any longer."

"But—Nelson—"

"Yes, I know—you want to tell me that you don't love me—that you
couldn't possibly love one man when you've just got over caring for
another, and all that—but I'm going to do this anyway. The chances are
that you may some day find out you do care a little and then everything
will be all right. But if you don't, why, there are such things as
broken engagements.

"You don't have to marry me if you find out I'm a villain, or that you
love somebody else better. But you do have to wear my ring for a while
anyway. You're not going back home without it, I'll tell the world.
Nobody is going to have a chance, not that dirty crook of a Keller
anyway, to say that he threw you over. You're going home engaged to me,
Marguerite Sheldon, whatever you do with me afterward, you may as well
understand that I have the upper hand now, and you're going to have a
ring, right now!

"You can take it for all the love I have in the world, if you're
willing, or you can take it for just a means of protection for the time
being if that suits you any better, but somehow I'm going to put my tag
on my property. Until you've told me that you out and out can't love me
ever, I'm out to see that you're known as belonging to me."

There was such quiet strength and tenderness in the way he said these
words, so low that they could not possibly reach other ears than her
own, so full of real feeling and earnestness, that she could not turn
away from, nor laugh it off. It choked her to think how great and
tender he was to her.

"Nelson, you're sorry for me and you're dear, but you don't need to go
to such lengths," she began helplessly.

"Marguerite," he rebuked her, "that's beneath you. You know I never
lie! You know I would not say it if it were not the dearest wish of my
heart. You know I've loved you ever since I can remember."

She was still a long time, the sweet color coming into her cheeks;
lifting she eyes at last she said:

"Nelson, forgive me I shouldn't have said that. I know what you've
always been. But I didn't know till to-day quite how wonderful you
were. I believe you, and I think it's the greatest thing in the world
you have done for me. Your love is the greatest thing the world can
ever give me, and I'm sure I don't know what I would ever be without
you. I would tell you that I love you too, only I've been so many kinds
of a fool the last year and a half that I don't even trust myself to
say it. It seems cowardly of me to creep into the refuge you offer me,
when I have so little to give. A threadbare love that was thrown away
on an old married man with grown daughters!"

His face grew strangely tender.

"That's all right, little girl, I understand what you've been through.
It's no wonder you distrust yourself, but I trust you, when you get rid
of the mists and get back to yourself. We'll strike square with each
other and you can trust me. I won't ask you to marry me till you're
ready, and not then if you don't love me enough to be happy with me,
better than any other man on earth—but I do ask you to wear my ring
home and let it be a shelter to you, in any complex circumstances that
this situation may happen to bring about."

She was still a long time, drawing little patterns with the tip of
her spoon on the table cloth. At last she lifted hesitating eyes half
shamed.

"Nelson—have you thought what Mother will think if I do this? Off with
the old love and on with the new? Won't Mother be more horrified than
ever at me? Won't she think I'm utterly false at heart?"

"Your mother will simply jump for joy," said Nelson Whitney solemnly.
"Take it from me. It would be the happiest moment of her life if she
could see my ring on your hand and know you wanted it there."

"So soon—after—"

"The sooner the quicker!" said Nelson, wrinkling his face into his
nicest smile. "Come! Let's go!"

She followed him in a tumult of joy and doubt. Could it be right for
her to be happy like this, when only a few hours ago she had been—

But Nelson was summoning another taxi, and in a few whirls they were
entering the great Fifth Avenue store.

When she came out again a little while later, after going the beautiful
rounds among priceless jewels and fragile glass that looked like the
breath of a frozen flower, she was wearing his ring on her hand, and a
soft depth of joy in her eyes that was good to see.

"And now," said Nelson, as he summoned another taxi, "I think we had
better go and find Mother, and tell her all about it, don't you? It
seems to me she has suffered about long enough."



CHAPTER XIV

IT WAS late that evening before mother and daughter were alone at last.

Mrs. Dunlap had responded to a telegram and left on the seven o'clock
train for Boston to meet in conference with an important committee on
some international work for young women.

Nelson Whitney had attended to all her wants as the son of the family
might have waited on a powerful ally who had pulled them all out of
distress.

He took Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter to a wonderful symphony orchestra
concert with a soloist of world reputation, and then brought them back
to the hotel refusing to remain for even a few minutes because they
needed to rest. He attended them up to the door of their room, kissed
Marguerite reverently, and then half shyly kissed her mother and said:
"Good night, Mother!" with an accent in his tone that spoke volumes.

He left both mother and daughter tingling with joy and pride in him,
and then at last the door was closed on the outer world, shutting them
in alone together.

The girl hurried into the closet to hang up her coat and hat, feeling a
sudden shyness before her mother, realizing all at once that there were
some things that must be made clear between them before she could feel
that all was right.

The mother removed her street things slowly, a light of almost
other-worldly joy in her face. She was thinking of what her new friend
had said to her that afternoon, and of the Bible verse she had quoted
to her. And how wonderfully, and swiftly the promise had been made good
to her. Why, she had scarcely waked from that refreshing sleep into
which she had fallen pillowed on that promise, when the fulfillment had
knocked at her door in the person of Nelson and Marguerite come to show
her the ring.

Marguerite had been shy and lovely, but almost silent and they had not
pressed her to talk much. She had been most humble and loving toward
her mother and Mrs. Dunlap, thanking that great-hearted woman in no
uncertain words, although they were few, and clasping her in a close
penitent embrace when she left.

But to her mother Marguerite had as yet said not one word about the
happenings of the last few days. She had let her lover do all the
talking, and had sat with downcast lashes, and a childlike contentment
in her face that yet spoke volumes of reassurance to the two who had
waited through the long hours to know how it fared with her.

But now the time had come, and Marguerite knew it, to have it out with
her mother.

She stayed in the closet several minutes arranging her things, being
most careful about how her hat was placed on the shelf, and searching
in her coat pocket for a handkerchief she was not sure was there. But
at last she came out.

Mrs. Sheldon was taking down her hair for the night, and it fell in
lovely silver waves to her waist, with soft little tendrils, and a curl
or two at the ends. It seemed to glorify her delicate face and set her
off as if it had been a halo.

The girl watched her lovely mother for a moment, wistfully, wishing she
would begin, and then suddenly she burst forth with tears:

"I don't see how I could have done it to you!" she said in a cry of
sorrow. "You are so dear and lovely, and here I've led you through all
this horrible mess! I don't see how you can ever love me again!"

With one swift movement, as if she had been young again, the mother
turned and folded her child in her arms.

"My darling!" she said. "Oh, my darling!" And held her so close she
could hardly breathe.

It was a long time they stood so, Marguerite's face hidden in her
mother's neck, the mother's lips against her child's hot forehead,
touching her hair with caresses that could not be measured nor counted
nor described because it would be a desecration.

No words passed between them, nor was there any need. It was as if
their thoughts were as open to one another as if they had been one, so
close their hearts seemed to come.

At last the girl lifted her hot, shamed, forgiven face to her mother.
There was one more thing that had to be spoken:

"Mother, you must think I'm an awful fool. You must think awful things
of me that I let Nelson—that he—that I—so soon after—" She hid her
shamed face once more on her mother's shoulder, and the mother arms
clasped her close again.

"No, dear, I don't think awful things. I think my girl has been through
a bewildering experience and didn't know her own mind, was not capable
of judging, but I think you have come back to your senses again, and
I thank God that you have such a wonderful friend as Nelson who has
been willing after all the suffering you have given him through these
months, to put the protection of his love about you. He could not be a
greater comfort to me, and to you if he were my own son."

The girl was still a long time, and then she said timidly:

"Yes, Mother, he is wonderful! More wonderful even than I have told you
yet or you have seen. But Mother, you think I let him get that ring
just to protect me from gossips, just to let others see that I had not
been a fool! But I didn't, Mother. I truly didn't! I couldn't have done
that not even to protect you from all the shame and disgrace of having
people find out just what really did happen. I couldn't have unless I
had loved him. You think perhaps it couldn't be true love so soon after
I thought I was dying for that other man, but it is, it is. It seems as
if I had never really known love before.

"Why, Mother, when Nelson began to tell me how he felt toward me, and
what I was to him, it opened a whole new world to me. I hadn't known
what love was before. I hadn't dreamed what it could be. It seemed as
if the other had just been a cheap imitation of it. It showed up the
other experience. I began to see in contrast how selfish Rufus—I mean
Mr. Oliver—had been, how all he talked about was a good time, something
to amuse—how he did not seem to care about whether I was pleased or
not, only to bend me to his will. It hadn't seemed that way at all
before. But Mother, I've been thinking about it all the evening, trying
to see how I could make you understand, and I believe I was just proud
to think a man as wise and experienced as I thought he was, had stooped
to notice me, and I was frantic when I thought I had lost him.

"But Mother, I didn't know the deep sweet joy I feel now in Nelson. I
didn't know there was such joy. Truly, Mother and you know it isn't
as if I had just met Nelson—he's been dear always—always—since I was
just a little girl, only he never opened this door to his soul before
and let me see how he had put me in his heart on a throne. And it has
just carried me into heaven, Mother, but I know you think I haven't any
right—not a bit of right to it—since—since—"

"Yes, you have, my dear. I do think you have. I have watched your
face. You are a different girl. You have met the real thing at last
and recognized it. I couldn't have hoped it would come to you so soon.
I was fearful what might happen to you in the interval, till our new
friend showed me that I might trust you with my heavenly Father. And
somehow, my precious child, I believe He let this come to you so soon
just to show us both how He can heal, and how He will lead and save and
bless those who trust Him entirely with their lives."

Said the girl, laying her hot cheek against her mother's soft one:

"Oh, Mother! You are the most wonderful woman in the world! And Mrs.
Dunlap is next. What should we have done without her? Suppose I had
gone on and had my own way! Suppose—suppose—I had lost Nelson! Just
think! Even if the other man hadn't been what he was—suppose I had
missed knowing Nelson's love! Oh, Mother! You don't know how wonderful
Nelson is! I can never make you understand. He is—different! He
is—wonderful!"

"I believe it!" said the mother fervently. "And now let us kneel down
and thank God for the wonderful way in which he has led us."

A little later, while her mother was preparing for the night,
Marguerite took out her little Bible that always traveled with her when
she went anywhere because it was a part of the fittings of the bag
which her mother had given her the Christmas before. Opening it, she
paused with startled eyes. At last she said:

"Mother, listen to this. I opened right to it, Isaiah 42.16, 'I will
bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths
that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them,
and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not
forsake them.' Mother, that was what He did for me. I was blind!"


                              THE END



                       The Inimitable "Pansy"


                           [Illustration]


Eighty-seven years old, a pain-wracked invalid—yet the author of "Ester
Reid," "Four Girls At Chautauqua," "Mrs. Solomon Smith," has lost none
of her earlier power and spontaneity. The problems of yesterday are the
problems of to-day, though they may be furnished with electric lights,
airplanes and automobiles to make them up-to-date. And Pansy knows
life—her stories are real—they strike to the very heart of the girl and
boy, the man and woman—they show us ourselves as God sees us—the real
person beneath the sham and mockery of society. She weaves her stories
around the common everyday lives of the people she knows—till her
characters become alive and real to those who read.

A marvelous housekeeper; an ideal pastor's wife who took the whole
parish into her life, who knew them and loved them, who cared for the
sick and gathered the young people around her for a good time; a woman
much in demand in public life as director of religious conferences and
as a lecturer and, above all, an author beloved by thousands.

Many years ago she edited a small paper, "The Pansy," a Herculean
task, for it brought her thousands of letters from the children who
had joined the Pansy Society and wrote her about their faults and how
to correct them. And other letters poured in, too, from all over the
globe, asking for her autograph and photograph, for advice on how to
become a great author, on how to get the right kind of a husband, and
on every other question under the sun. And Pansy answered every letter,
usually by her own hand.

Hers has been a busy life and a happy one—and an inspiration to
thousands who have known her or her books. And to-day, bereft of
husband and children, a cripple, she fights bravely on, writing the
story of her life: "Yesterdays"—the beautiful record of a happy and
consecrated life.



                     ———————————————————————————
                      J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY








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