CHAPTER XXI

AS she passed through the gate at the end of the lawn, Margaret looked back and saw the child and its father seated together.

“Yes, he is the one,” she mused. “He of all men! And yet I might have known it; he has adored the child since the moment he first saw it there on the lawn.”

Dora saw her coming from her easel near the window of her studio, and stood in the hall awaiting her. Her face was aglow with expectation.

Without any word of greeting Margaret simply ran to her and threw her arms about her neck. “Oh, you are so good, so noble!” she cried. “I see it all now, and I have been wofully wrong. Oh, Dora, I could not have treated you as I have all these miserable years if I had not thought—I actually thought—”

“I know now what you thought,” Dora broke in, a pained expression clutching her lips, as she drew Margaret into the studio. “I don’t know why I did not think of it sooner, but I didn’t. Away back when my trouble was blackest I heard that Fred’s name had been coupled with mine. I denied it then, and thought that was the end of it. After that, you see,” she went on, with a shudder of repugnance to the topic, “I buried myself here so completely that no outside gossip reached my ears. I had to guard my own secret, and I was afraid that even the slightest agitation of the matter might disclose the truth. I—I would have died rather than have had it known—all of it, I mean.”

“And yet you sent me this letter?” Margaret laid it on a table and stood staring gratefully into the beautiful face. “You sent it, although you knew that it might—at least—lead me to—to wonder who—”

“Yes, I had to do it,” the young artist interrupted, her glance averted. “I could not bear to have you think Fred was anything but noble and true and good. Margaret, I cried for joy over the fine news in his letter. I couldn’t believe you had snubbed the poor boy in New York for nothing. I was puzzled for a while, and then the horrible truth dawned on me. I hope he will never learn that he was so terribly misjudged. It would hurt him more than all else that has happened to him. They said he was bad, Margaret—wild, and a gambler, and all that; but to me he was like a sweet, thoughtful brother. If I’d only listened to his advice, I’d never have been situated like this; but I didn’t. I thought I was very wise then. I have Lionel now, of course. He seemed to come to me like an angel of light out of a black sky of infinite pain. But if God will only show me a way to save him from future trouble, I—I—”

“There, I have made you cry!” Margaret exclaimed, regretfully. “I am so sorry!”

“I don’t give way often.” Dora brushed the tears from her eyes. “It is only when I think of what may come to my little darling. Perhaps we shall get to Paris before he is old enough to understand, and then all this will fade from his childish memory.”

“Yes, yes, you must go to Paris,” Margaret said. “I have more money than I need. Dora, surely you would not refuse to let me—”

“Oh, no, no, no!” Dora cried out. “I couldn’t think of it. What is done must be done by me, by my brain, and by my hands. God will surely let me atone in that way for my mistake. It is what I have prayed for night and day all these years, and the reward surely can’t be far off.” She forced a wan smile to her rigid face, and added: “Then, like the Arabs, some night we’ll fold our tents and silently steal away from old Stafford. Only the grocer-boy and the postman will know, at first, and then the last chapter of our life here will be written. It seems sad, doesn’t it?—but it is sweet, so very, very sweet and soothing.”

Margaret was crying. Without a word, she kissed Dora and went out. But she did not return home at once. She kept on down the little street on which the cottage stood till she came to another which led to the square.

She passed the stores, bowing to an acquaintance in a doorway or in a passing carriage, and went on to Walton’s bank.

“Is Mr. Walton in?” she asked Toby Lassiter, at the cashier’s window in the green wire grating.

“He has just this minute stepped out,” Toby answered. “He will be right in. Won’t you go to his office and wait?”

“Thank you, yes,” she answered, and went back to the musty little room, taking a chair near the old man’s desk.

Without a moment’s delay, Toby grabbed his hat and went out in the street. He found the banker lounging around Pete Longley’s grocery store, where he had an attentive audience. Toby knew better than to interrupt the old man when he was talking, so he waited for Walton to finish his remarks, which, judging by the steady gleam of the banker’s eye, had some underlying motive; and, considering the fact that Pete was a noted gossip, Toby decided that his employer was simply and deliberately setting afloat certain reports that would be on every lip before nightfall.

“Oh yes,” Toby heard him saying, “I never was a man to let my right hand know what my left was doing in any deal whatsoever, and so, all this time, I have kept my own counsel in regard to where Fred was at, and why—why I sent him out there. He invested some of the scads that is coming to him in that big boom town and turned his money over as fast as a dog can trot. Boys, I’m actually ashamed to tell you fellows how rich he really is. I reckon you’d get an idea of how he’s fixed if I was to say he has made more since he left here than I’ve raked and scraped together all my life.”

“You don’t say!” Pete Longley exclaimed. “Well, that certainly is fine. I reckon he did it through his popularity. I never knew a chap that had as many friends.”

“Well, he’ll be back to shake hands with you all very soon now,” Walton said, gratified at the way his fuse had ignited. “I’ve been out to see him a time or two, but he has always been too busy to come this way; but he’ll get here—he’ll lay everything down and head this way some day before long.”

Just then Walton caught sight of the breathless Toby at his elbow; he stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk, and bent down to hear what his clerk had to say.

“She’s waiting for you in your office, Mr. Walton,” Toby panted.

“Who?—not—”

“Yes, sir; I told her to sit down and I’d fetch you in.”

“Oh, Lord, I reckon I’ll get it in the neck, Toby!” Walton’s face was a veritable mask of gravity and concern. “I reckon she’s come to give the boy his walking-papers. I have thought it over till my head swims. No woman of her station and pride would ever let a man come back to her while a thing like that is hanging over him. If the woman and the child was dead and under ground, it might be different. She’s come too quick to bear good news—a woman would tussle over a thing like that for a good month, and then ask for more time. No, the jig is up! I deserve it for the string of lies I was wrapping round that gang to make my case as good as possible.”

He moved slowly into the bank, hung up his hat in the little hallway deliberately, and quite after the manner in which he went to meet business proposals, with his rough face grimly set against rejections and compromises. She was going to cast him down, but he’d show her that he was game. She had practically closed the matter during his interview with her, and had only delayed longer at his earnest request. No, she shouldn’t chuckle over his defeat. He didn’t know but what he’d throw out a hint that Fred wasn’t really so very “rampageous” in the matter, after all.

“Oh, how do you do?” he said, as he went in. She started to hold out her hand, but, not looking for such a movement, he failed to see it, and lunged toward his desk, where he sat and took up a pen.

“Well, I reckon,” he began, awkwardly, “you’ve’ come to see me about—to say whether or not—that is, you remember, I said if you finally decided—”

“I have decided, Mr. Walton.” She rose and came and stood over him. Her voice was quivering; there was a blaze of burning joy in her face and eyes, but he did not see it.

“Oh, you have! Well, it’s for you to say whether you thought best or not. I reckon I went just a little mite beyond my authority up there, in my effort to conduct Fred’s affairs for him, without, you understand—without his free consent. I only thought, maybe, if you would signify your willingness to overlook certain rather shady things, Fred might take it as a sort o’—sort o’ all-round sign from this end—a sort of index of public opinion bearing on his particular case, and—”

“Yes, I have decided, Mr. Walton,” Margaret broke in. “I have come to ask you to write to him. Tell him, please, that I’d like to see him. I feel sure that when he gets home he and I will fully understand each other.”

“Good gracious, Miss Margaret, you don’t mean—” Simon stood up to his full height, his old eyes blinking in astonishment.

“Yes, I do, Mr. Walton. I want to see him and talk to him. I don’t know how to say it to you, but I am sure Fred will understand. Tell him that I—that I kissed you for his sake, there!”

And before Simon could avoid it she had thrown her arms around his neck and actually pressed her lips to his grizzled cheek. To add to his confusion, Toby hastily entered the room just as she was releasing her dumfounded captive.

“Oh!” Toby gasped, his face ablaze with embarrassment, “I didn’t mean to; but the General is at the door in his carriage, and asked if you were in here. Of course, Miss Margaret, I hadn’t the least idea but—”

“Well, don’t let it get out, for all you do, Toby,” Margaret laughed, merrily. “Don’t forget, Mr. Walton; by to-night’s mail, sure!”

And the next instant she had floated out of the room, leaving the red-face banker under the perplexed stare of his apologetic clerk.

“She oughtn’t to have done that!” Walton growled, as he brushed the shoulders of his coat where her gloved hands had rested and stroked his tingling cheek. “She had no business going as far as that. Women are such dad-dratted galoots when they get wound up in any matter. She seems willing for him to come. I’m not able to understand it, and I don’t intend to try. They won’t be long getting hitched if she goes at him in a whirlwind like that. Good Lord, I wouldn’t have my wife know what she done just now for any man’s pile! She’d make a scandal out of it, or break her neck trying.”

“Well, it’s safe in my hands, Mr. Walton,” Toby said, with unconscious humor. “I’ll never tell it.”

“You’ll never tell it? Who the devil asked you to hide it?” Walton stormed. “But I reckon she meant it to sort o’ seal what she’d made up her mind to agree to, and she really is swallowing a pill, Toby, from any point of view. But it will make the boy powerful happy, and he will be on the wing as soon as he gets my report. Huh! I see his old stepdaddy’s face now. He may try to keep him; but, shucks! I’ve got the old duck where the feathers are short. I’ve started a bang-up report in the boy’s favor, Toby, and you can sort o’ kick the ball along whenever it comes your way. We needn’t mention that nasty business to him, neither; if Margaret can let bygones be bygones, surely the rest of us can.”