CHAPTER XII.

Few passengers turned to look at the little figure that entered the car at the way-side station at so early an hour of the morning, and Ida May cowered quickly down into the first seat. The clothes under the long, dark cloak were saturated, but no one could see that, nor notice how damp and matted were the curling rings of dark hair which the hood of the cloak but half concealed. The hours crept on as the express whirled over the rails; but Ida May paid no heed to time.

But hunger at last began to tell upon her, and she[48] eagerly hailed a boy who passed through the train with a basket of sandwiches on his arm.

She looked at the coins she still held loosely in her hand, and found to her dismay that, with the exception of two pieces of silver, she held a handful of gold dollars.

"His pocket-pieces," she sobbed. "Oh, if I had known that, I would have refused to take them; but—but I will work and earn money, and—and pay him back double their value. Poor fellow—poor fellow!" and she laid her face on the window-sill, sobbing as though her heart would break.

Suddenly she heard a voice in the seat back of her say:

"You seem very much distressed, poor girl. Is there any way in which I can serve you?"

The deep, musical voice was so kind, so humane, so sympathetic, that Ida May turned around with a start to see who it was who had asked the question.

She saw directly back of her a fair, handsome young man who had evidently just entered the car, and who was depositing his grip-sack and umbrella in the rack above his head.

At the first glance a faint shriek broke from her lips. She was just about to cry out, "Royal Ainsley—great Heaven!—do we meet again?" when she saw her error in time. Although bearing a certain resemblance to the lover who had so cruelly betrayed her, a second glance told her it was not him.

It was a moment ere she recovered herself sufficiently to answer, then she faltered, piteously:

"I am in sorrow, sir, so great that I do not think[49] any young girl but me could ever pass through it—and live."

"I do not wish to pry into your private affairs," said the young man, courteously, "but I wish to repeat, if you will tell me what troubles you, and I can be of service to you, I shall be only too pleased. Although a stranger, you will find me worthy of your confidence, my poor child!"

There was something about the handsome, kindly, blue-eyed young man that caused Ida May's heart to go out to him at once. His was a face that women always trusted, and no one had ever had cause to regret it.

"I am going to New York in search of work," faltered the girl, clasping her little hands closely together.

"That is certainly reason enough to weep," he replied earnestly. "May I ask if you have friends there to whom you are going until you can find employment?"

Ida May shook her head, her breast heaved, her white lips quivered, while great tears welled up to the great dark eyes, so like purple velvet pansies drowned in rain.

"I have no friends—no one. I am all alone in the world, sir," she sobbed. "My mother is dead—dead. I have just left her grave. She and I were all in all to each other; now she is gone, and I—Oh, only the angels know that no sorrow is so bleak, so pitiful, so awful, as to be all alone in the world."

"I can understand the situation perfectly," he answered in a low voice, "and I can pity you. Although not quite alone in the world myself, I am almost as badly off. But to return to yourself: I may be able[50] to serve you. What kind of employment were you intending to search for? In some store, or dress-making or millinery establishment?" he queried.

She looked blankly up into his fair, handsome, earnest face.

"I do not know how to do anything of that kind," she answered, simply. "I thought perhaps I might find employment in some telegraph office."

"Why, yes, indeed. I wonder that that idea did not occur to me before. A friend of mine is superintendent of a large branch of the Western union, up Broadway. I will give you a note to him, and I have no doubt he will do all in his power to aid you, providing he has a vacancy."

"Oh, thank you a thousand times, sir," cried Ida May, thankfully; "I shall be so grateful—oh, so very grateful!"

"Mind, it is not a certainty, you know," admonished the stranger earnestly; "I can only write the letter. But that is not assuring you of a situation—we can only hope for it."

He tore out a leaf from his memorandum, and taking a gold pencil from his vest pocket, hastily jotted down a few lines upon it.

"I am sorry I am not going through to New York; otherwise I would take you there myself," he said, courteously, as he folded up the note and handed it to her.

At that moment his station was reached. He had barely time to touch his hat to her, gather up his parcels, and alight, ere the train moved out again. The young man looked after it and the sweet, tearful young[51] face pressed against one of the windows until it was out of sight.

"By all that is wonderful!" he ejaculated in a very troubled voice, "I am almost positive that I forgot to sign my name to that note, and it was written so badly on that jolting car, Ernscourt won't be able to make it out or know whose writing it is. Poor little girl! I hope she will find a position there. What a terrible thing it is to be young and desolate in the great wicked city of New York! She is so young, guileless and innocent, I hope no ill will befall her. I must remember to look up my friend Ernscourt to learn if he gave her a position or not. I declare, if it were not that I am betrothed to the sweetest girl in all the world, I am afraid I should commit the desperate folly of falling in love with that beautiful, dark-eyed little stranger. Now that I think of it, it did not occur to me to even ask her name or where she was from."

His reverie was somewhat rudely interrupted by a hearty slap on the shoulder and a hearty voice calling out gayly:

"Why, Royal, how are you, old fellow? What, in the name of all that's amazing, brings you to Yonkers?"

"Why, Hal, is this you?" cried the other, in astonishment and delight. "This is an additional pleasure, meeting my old college chum fully a thousand miles from where I would never have imagined finding him. But a word in your ear, my dear boy: It's two years since you and I parted at college, old fellow, and a great deal has happened in that time. We will walk up the street while I inform you."

"With the greatest of pleasure, Royal," returned his companion.

[52]

"Tut! tut! Don't call me Royal—Royal Ainsley. I'm that no longer, you know—no, I suppose you don't know; but that's exactly what I want to talk to you about."

"I am too astonished for utterance," declared his friend.

"Why, the explanation is certainly simple enough," declared the other, with a good-natured, mellow little laugh; adding: "Why, you, my college chum, knew what many another friend of mine does not know, namely, that there are two Royal Ainsleys, or, rather, there was up to the present year. It's a bit of secret family history; but I am obliged to take you into my confidence, in order that you may fully understand my most peculiar position. Two brothers, who were almost enemies born, married about the same time, and to each of the gentlemen—namely, my uncle and my father, was born a son—my cousin and myself.

"These gentlemen had an eccentric elder brother who had money to burn, as the saying is, and what should each of these younger brothers do but name their sons after the wealthy old Royal Ainsley, if you please, each hoping that his son would be the old uncle's heir.

"A pretty mess these two belligerent gentlemen made of the affair, I assure you. Two Royal Ainsleys, each resembling the other to an unpleasantly startling degree, of almost the same age, being born scarcely a week apart.

"We were constantly getting into all manner of scrapes, a case of being continually taken for the fellow that looks like me, as the song goes. Each disputed with the other the right to bear the name, and neither would put a handle to it or do anything to cause it to[53] differ in any way from the cognomen of the famous old uncle, who was certainly quite as bewildered as any one else.

"As we two lads grew older, I took to books, my cousin to sports and the pretty faces of girls. When his folks died and he was left to follow the bent of his own inclination, in spite of my earnest admonition and my uncle's combined, he jumped the traces of home restraint altogether, and started out to see life on his own hook. The last I heard of him he was with some distant relative, clerking in a New York importing house.

"Now for my side of the story. From the hour he defied uncle and shook off his restraint, old Royal Ainsley's hatred of him grew so bitter we dared not mention my wayward cousin, Royal Ainsley, in his presence. My uncle actually forced me to change my name through legislative enactment to make it legal. He insisted upon naming me Eugene Mallard, declaring that my cousin would be sure to disgrace the name of Royal Ainsley through the length and breadth of the land before he stopped in his mad downward career.

"Well, to make a long story short, my uncle sent me to Europe on business for him, and his sudden death brought me hurriedly home this week, to find that he has left me his entire fortune, with the proviso that not one dollar shall ever go to my cousin, who, in all probability, does not yet know of his sad plight.

"Now, last but by no means least, on the steamer coming back from London I met a beautiful young girl, Miss Hildegarde Cramer. It was a case of love at first sight between us. You know I'm a very impulsive fellow. I proposed, and she accepted me on the[54] spot; but mind, she knows me as Eugene Mallard, and so she shall know me to the end of her sweet life, bless her.

"Now you know the whole story. Mind, I'm not Royal Ainsley, but, instead, Eugene Mallard, at your service.

"Hildegarde is visiting in Yonkers, so I ran up to see my sweetheart. Sounds like a romance or a comedy, doesn't it?"

"I hope there will be no tinge of tragedy in it," laughed his friend, thoughtlessly.