CHAPTER X

THE two friends had been in New York five days, and in the continual round of theatres, and in sight-seeing, with occasional call at some establishment with which Whipple had dealings, they spent the time very pleasantly. The pain caused by Fred’s secret visit to his old home was, in a measure, assuaged by his constant effort to be cheerful for the sake of his benefactor’s enjoyment. He felt that he was succeeding, and the realization of the fact buoyed him up to further activity in self-obliteration. On occasion, Whipple acted like a college boy off on a lark. He passed funny criticisms on the persons they saw on the streets and in the cars, and at the table of the café where they got their meals he purposely blundered over the French words on the menu, to the great mystification of the polite waiter, who found it impossible to reconcile actual ignorance with the costly clothing Whipple wore and his extravagant tips and liberal orders.

On the sixth morning of their stay in the metropolis they went down to pay a promised visit to Lewis Marston, the importer of teas and coffees from whom Whipple had received many a shipment and had met once or twice in New Orleans.

“So this is the Mr. Spencer you’ve written me about so often?” Marston smiled cordially as he was introduced to Fred, and begged them to take seats in the spacious office of which he was the only occupant. “Young man, as we used to say in the South, your ears ought to burn, for your boss has written me lots of good things about you. I remember he wrote last winter that his business was growing out of all bounds, owing to the fresh blood and modern ideas you had put into it.”

Fred flushed modestly as he released the hand of the portly, pink-faced, side-whiskered old merchant.

“Mr. Whipple is noted for his generosity,” he said, lamely.

“Well, you are the only one of his force he has mentioned to me, at any rate,” the importer said, persistently, “and I know he means it, for a man who has ability and can be thoroughly trusted is hard to find these days.”

The three sat and chatted for an hour, Marston being interrupted now and then by a telegram or a question asked by some clerk who came from an adjoining room, where there was a din of clicking typewriting machines.

“Now we’ll have to go,” Whipple said, as he arose. “Fred has got some letters of instructions to write home, and I’m due in Wall Street at this very minute.”

“To write letters!” Marston cried. “Well, he needn’t go away to do that. Do you see that desk at the window? It is for the sole use of our customers. There is plenty of stationery. Sit down, Mr. Spencer. I’ll have to leave soon myself. My wife is coming to get me to help her select some Persian rugs, and you’ll have the whole office to yourself.”

“A good plan, Fred,” Whipple exclaimed; “then we could meet at the Astor House and take lunch together at one o’clock. I want to see what the old place is like. My daddy stopped there once before the war.”

“That’s the idea!” the importer chimed in. “Make yourself thoroughly at home, Mr. Spencer. If you need anything, just tap that bell and the boy will attend to you.”

When his employer had left, Fred sat down at the desk and began to write.

“Oh, I forgot,” Marston said, apologetically, as he looked up from the letter he was writing. “I will call a stenographer, if you’d like to dictate your correspondence.”

“Oh, thank you,” Fred answered, “it won’t be necessary; I have only a few lines to write.”

He had completed the task before him, and was waiting for an opportunity to leave without interrupting the merchant, who was busily writing at his desk, when an office-boy came and spoke to Marston in an undertone.

“Oh, she’s not alone, then!” the merchant said aloud, as he pushed back his chair. “Send them up. I am not quite ready yet, and they will have to wait.”

A moment later a cheery feminine voice—evidently Mrs. Marston’s—sounded in the corridor outside, where her husband stood waiting for her.

“Well, I’m glad you came along, too, Miss Margaret,” Fred heard the old man saying. “You must sit down in my dusty office for a moment.” He made an effort at lowering his voice, but it was still audible. “There is only one man there, but he is young and decidedly good-looking. By-the-way, he is that Mr. Spencer, the phenomenal young business man I told you about. Come in, and I’ll let you entertain him till I can get away. I’ve got to run down to the main salesroom.”

“And I’ve got to telephone the cook.” It was evidently Mrs. Marston’s voice again. “We are going back to lunch. The General has promised to meet us there. Where is the booth?”

“At the end of the corridor,” Marston was heard directing her. “Now, come on, young lady. By George, that is a stunning gown! The new railroad helped pay for that, eh?”

The thin canvas door was pushed open. Fred stood up; his eyes dilated; his blood ran cold. It was Margaret Dearing to whom the voluble merchant was casually introducing him.

Margaret started and paled.

“Mr. Spencer!” she echoed, then quickly averted her face from the inattentive glance of her host.

Walton’s eyes went down as he bowed, white and quivering. He could say nothing.

“Now, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Marston said, quite unconscious that anything unusual had happened, and, gathering up some sheets of paper from his desk, he hastened away.

“Margaret!” Walton gasped, when they were alone in the awful silence of the room.

“Mr. Spencer?—Spencer?” the young lady groped, as she gazed on him in helpless wonder.

“God forgive me, I had to change my name!” he panted, as he stood white as death could have made him under her timid, almost frightened stare. “I had no other reason than that I wanted to live down my disgrace, and it looked like it would be impossible otherwise. I was a drowning man, Margaret, grasping at a straw; a new life opened out to me, and I entered it with the hope that—”

“I understand!” the girl gasped, and she drew herself up in pained haughtiness and twisted her gloved hands tightly in front of her. “But need we—talk about it?”

“No, I haven’t even that right,” Walton declared, as he looked at the woman, grown infinitely more beautiful and graceful than even her girlhood had foreshadowed. “I promised Wynn the night I left that I’d never insult you by coming in contact with you again, or even addressing a line to you. I knew we had to part—that I could best serve you by going away never to return. Your brother was right. He acted only as any honorable man should in talking to me as he did. I was insane to aspire to your friendship with that thing hanging over me; but it was the insanity of love, Margaret—a love that never can die. I ought not to say it now, but what does it matter? I am not fit for you to wipe your feet on. I am still a fugitive from justice—a criminal living under an assumed name.”

He paused, for she had collapsed limply into Marston’s chair, and was resting her white brow on her bloodless hand.

“Oh, don’t—it is—is killing me!” she cried. “I had thought we might never meet again. I was beginning to hope that, in time, the memory of—of it all would be less painful, but it is revived again. Oh, it is unbearable!” He took a deep, trembling breath, and moved a step nearer to her.

“But even you will grant that, by continued effort, I may purge my soul of it—at least, in the eyes of God,” he said. “I don’t mean that I could ever ask you to receive me openly as an equal after what has happened, but you will, at least, be glad that I am honestly striving to lead a better life.”

“Yes, yes,” she said—“oh yes!”

“And I am not wholly living under false colors,” he went on, anxiously. “I have confessed the worst to my employer, and he is doing all he can to help me. He trusts me. I don’t like to say these things in my own behalf, and yet surely you will forgive me for saying that I am, at least, not living as I used to live.”

“You intend to make—make reparation?” she said, raising an awful glance to his face.

“Of course. I have sent back all my savings so far—every dollar I could get together; and before another year is past I hope to send enough, at least, to—”

“Money!” she cried, almost in a tone of disgust—and as she spoke she had a picture of a golden-haired child with a sunny face playing on the lawn at her home—“money! As if that would count in a matter like—like that!”

“It is all I can do now, Margaret!” he exclaimed, as he shrank under the unexpected severity of her words.

“I presume so,” she answered, coldly, even sternly, and she fixed an unreadable stare on his blighted face; “and yet if you could be back at home, and see what I have seen, perhaps you’d realize that there are things mere money cannot restore. I can’t blame you wholly—to save my life, I can’t! The temptation was deliberately put in your track; you were not born with the power to resist, and so you fell like many another man has fallen, but you ought to have stayed on at Stafford and done your duty—your full duty!”

“I couldn’t! I assure you, I couldn’t, Margaret!” he went on, almost piteously, his lips quivering under stress of the vast emotion let loose within him. “My father would have punished me by law—would have deprived me of every chance to atone in the way that I am now trying to atone. But I have no right to talk to you this way. I am breaking my promise to Wynn. By my own act, I have banished myself from you forever.”

“Yes, forever!” she admitted, as her proud head went down. “There is nothing either of us can do. We must try not to meet again, even by accident. I must join Mrs. Marston now. I hear her in the corridor. You are very pale, and she might wonder and imagine all sorts of things. I’d have to introduce you, and I can’t even remember your—your new name. I will tell no one at home that I have seen you. You may trust that to me. Your secret is safe. I can’t recall the name of the place you live in. I sha’n’t try. I never have believed it was all your fault—that is, not all. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” he repeated, huskily; and he saw her rise, and, without extending her hand, or giving him another glance, she moved unsteadily toward the door.

When she was gone he sat down at the desk and took up his pen, and with an inanimate hand began to address one of his letters, wondering dumbly that such mere details as a street and number and a man’s initials could rise to his memory at such a moment.

That evening, in the big drawing-room at the Marstons’, General Sylvester sat down by his niece.

“You look tired,” he said. “I think you show it more than usual; being on one’s feet all day is no little tax on the energy. By-the-way, we are invited to a big reception for next Wednesday evening at the Langleys’. It is given to some foreign statesman or other. I have the card somewhere. You must look your prettiest and wear the dandy gown I selected.”

“Why, it isn’t for evening wear.” Margaret smiled faintly. “Besides, do you think we ought to stay as—long as that?”

“As long as that?” he exclaimed. “Are you really thinking of going home? Of course, it lies with you, dear. As far as I am personally concerned, it doesn’t matter one way or the other. Say, little girl, are you really homesick?”

“I think I am, Uncle Tom.” She avoided his eyes, which were so solicitously bearing down on her from beneath their heavy brows. “I presume the novelty of this sort of thing soon wears off, and our home is so soothing and restful.”

“Ah, I smell a rat!” the General said, teasingly. “I forgot about that lonely bachelor neighbor of ours. We were to look after him, weren’t we? Well, we’ll go back, and you’ll encourage him a little more, won’t you?”

The girl shuddered, an irrepressible sob struggled up within her, and her head sank to her tightly clasped hands.

“Oh, how can you say such a thing?” she asked, under her breath. “I don’t love him. I know I can never do so now, and to think of what you want is—horrible!” To the old man’s utter bewilderment she rose, placed her handkerchief to her lips, and left the room.