CHAPTER XIX—THE SHADOW OF A DOUBT

MRS. WORTH had arrived in Boston a few days after Sallie, coming direct by rail. She was still very weak from her recent attack, and it cut her to the heart to watch Sallie write those letters faithfully, and never mail them out of deference to her wishes.

One night she drew her daughter down and kissed her.

“Sallie, dear, you don’t know how it hurts me to see you suffer this way, and write, and write these letters your lover never sees. You may send him one letter a week, I don’t care what the General says.”

There was a sob and another kiss and, Sallie was crying on her breast.

In answer to her first letter, Gaston was thrilled with a new inspiration. He sat down that night and answered it in verse. All the deep longings of his soul, his hopes and fears, his pain and dreams he set in rhythmic music. Her mother read all his letters after Sallie. And she cried with sorrow and pride over this poem.

“Sallie, I don’t blame you for being proud of such a lover. Your life is rich hallowed by the love of such a man. Your father is wrong in his position. If I were a girl and held the love of such a man, I’d cherish it as I would my soul’s salvation. Be patient and faithful.”

“Sweet mother heart!” she whispered as she smoothed the grey hair tenderly.

Allan McLeod had arrived in Boston the day before and the morning’s papers were full of an interview with him on his brilliant achievement in breaking the ranks of the Bourbon Democracy in North Carolina, and the certainty of the success of his ticket at the approaching election.

McLeod sent the paper to Mrs. Worth by a special messenger, lest she might not see it, and that evening called. He asked Sallie to accompany him to the theatre, and when she refused spent the evening.

When her mother had retired McLeod drew his seat near her and again told her in burning words his love.

“Miss ‘Sallie, I have won the battle of life at its very threshold. I shall be a United States Senator in a few months. I want to lead you, my bride, into the gallery of the Senate before I walk down its aisles to take the oath. I have loved you faithfully for years. I have your father’s consent to my suit. I asked him before leaving on this trip. Surely you will not say no?”

“Allan McLeod, I do not love you. I do love another. I hate the sight of you and the sound of your voice.”

“If you do not marry Gaston, will you give me a chance?”

“If I do not marry the man of my choice, I will never marry. Now go.”

McLeod returned to the hotel with the fury of the devil seething in his soul. He determined to return to Ham-bright, and if possible entrap Gaston in dissipation and destroy his faith in Sallie’s loyalty.

He wrote to the General that he had been rejected by his daughter who still corresponded with Gaston. When General Worth received this letter he wrote in wrath to his wife, peremptorily forbidding Sallie to write another line to Gaston and closed saying, “I had trusted this matter to you, my dear, now I take it out of your hands. I forbid another line or word to this man.”

Gaston watched and waited in vain for the letter he was to receive next week. Again his soul sank with doubt and fear. What fiend was striking him with an unseen hand? He felt he should choke with rage as he thought of the infamy of such a warfare.

His mother said to him shortly after McLeod’s arrival, “Charlie, I have some bad news for you.”

“It can’t be any worse than I have, the misery of an unexplained silence of two weeks.”

“I feel that I ought to tell you. It is the explanation of that silence, I fear.”

“What is it, Mother?” he asked soberly.

“I hear that Sallie has plunged into frivolous society, is dancing every night at the hotel at Narragansett Pier where they are stopping now, and flirting with a halfdozen young men.”

“I don’t believe it,” growled Gaston.

“I’m afraid it’s true, Charlie, and I’m furious with her for treating you like this. I thought she had more character.”

“I ’ll love and trust her to the end!” he declared as he went moodily to his office. But the poison of suspicion rankled in his thoughts. Why had she ceased to write? Was not this mask of society a habit with those who had learned to wear it? Was not habit, after all, life? Could one ever escape it? It seemed to him more than probable that the old habits should re-assert themselves in such a crisis, a thousand miles removed from him or his personal influence. He held a very exaggerated idea of the corruption of modern society. And his heart grew heavier from day to day with the feeling that she was slipping away from him.