CHAPTER XIV.

Ida May had found no difficulty whatever in securing board at the place where Frank Garrick had suggested.

Mrs. Cole, who owned the cottage, told Ida that she was a widow.

"I have a little income that keeps me comfortable," she added; "but to accommodate my friend, Mr. Garrick, I will take you in."

"He is a friend of yours?" exclaimed the girl.

"Yes; I used to be in the telegraph office before I married," she responded. "In fact, my husband and Mr. Garrick were both paying attention to me at the same time. To be candid, I liked Mr. Garrick the better; but we had a little misunderstanding, and through pique I married his rival. I lost sight of him after that until my husband died. After I became a widow he called upon me several times."

She gave the impression to Ida that she expected a proposal from her old lover some time in the near future, but the girl paid little heed to the blushing widow. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

One evening, at the end of the second week, as Ida was hurrying homeward, she was startled by a step behind her.

"You seem to be in a hurry, Miss May," a voice said; and turning quickly around, she beheld the handsome manager, Mr. Garrick.

[60]

"I am in a hurry!" she assented. "I am a little late now, and Mrs. Cole does not like me to keep supper waiting."

"Never mind what she likes," he returned, impatiently. "Let us take a little walk, I have something to say to you, pretty one."

There was something in his eyes, his voice, that somehow startled her.

"Pardon me, but I do not care to walk," she said, simply, with the haughty air of a young princess.

"Don't put on airs," he said, harshly; "you are not very wise to try to snub a manager who has the power to turn you out of your position at any moment."

Ida grew frightfully pale.

"Come, let us take a little walk," he urged. "You're a very pretty girl, and I like you."

Ida May drew back with an exclamation of alarm.

"I refuse to walk with you!" she said.

"Don't make an enemy of me, Ida May!" he hissed between his teeth.

"If such a trifle will make an enemy, I would rather make an enemy than a friend of you!" she answered.

"Are you mad, girl, to defy me like this?" he cried, setting his white teeth together, his eyes fairly blazing.

"I have no wish to defy you! I can not see why my refusing to walk with you should offend you!"

"Come, be reasonable," he urged; "let us have a little quiet talk. I have called at your boarding-house half a dozen times since you have been there, but that idiotic fool, who is half in love with me herself, would not let me see you. I might have known how it would be: I'll look for another boarding-place at once for you."

[61]

The interest he took in her alarmed her.

"I am very well satisfied where I am, Mr. Garrick," she answered, with dignity. "I beg that you will not call upon me, for I do not care to receive gentlemen callers."

Again a rage that was terrible to see flashed into his eyes.

"You must see me!" he hissed. "It is not for you to be chooser. Don't you see I have taken a fancy to you," he said, throwing off all reserve. "You must be mine! I never really knew what love meant until I saw you!"

"Stop! Stop!" panted Ida May. "I will not listen to another word. You must not talk to me of love!"

"Yes, I loved you, Ida May, from the first time I saw you. There was something about you which thrilled my heart and caused me to wish that you should be mine, cost what it would!"

"I will not listen to another word!" said Ida May.

He laughed an insolent laugh that made the blood fairly boil in her veins.

"Come, we will go into this restaurant where we can talk at our leisure."

He had caught her by the arm. With a cry of terror the girl wrenched herself free from his grasp and fairly flew down the street, and she did not stop until she reached her boarding-house.

"Why, dear me, Miss May, one would think you were flying from a cyclone!" declared Mrs. Cole, who was just passing through the hall as she came in.

Gasping for breath, and scarcely able to keep from tears, Ida May told her all, believing that the woman would sympathize with her.

[62]

"Why, you are more of a prude than I thought you were," said Mrs. Cole.

Ida May drew back with dilated eyes.

"You, a woman, to tell me this! Why, I tell you he was insulting me!" cried the girl, vehemently.

Mrs. Cole laughed cynically.

"Nonsense!" she declared. "You might do worse than accept his attentions. He's over head and heels in love with you. I could have told you that a week ago."

"He is a bold, bad man!" cried Ida May. "And yet you would counsel me to encourage him wouldn't you?"

The elder woman shrugged her shoulders.

"Any one could easily see that you are a country girl," she said, with a harsh laugh that grated on the girl who listened with amazement.

With this parting shot the woman turned on her heel and left Ida May staring after her.

To Ida's intense anxiety, her landlady was unusually cool at the tea-table. She did not come up to Ida May's room that evening to chat, but announced that she had a headache, needed quiet, and would stay in her own room. Her presence during the long evenings had done much toward making the girl forget her sorrow, and she felt her absence keenly enough on this night when she had so much need of sympathy.

Feeling too restless to commune with her own thoughts, she concluded to read a book to fill in the time that hung so heavily on her hands.

Ida May descended to the sitting-room, where, she remembered, she had left the book on the table. She went down the carpeted stairs quietly, passing Mrs.[63] Cole's door with noiseless feet, that she might not disturb her.

As she stood before the door of the sitting-room, with her hand on the knob, she was suddenly attracted by the sound of voices from within, her own name falling distinctly upon her ears. She stood still with astonishment, for the voice that uttered her name was that of Frank Garrick.

Her first impulse was to turn quickly away; but the words that she heard him utter held her spell-bound.

Mr. Garrick was talking to Mrs. Cole in a low, excited voice, and what the girl heard filled her soul with wildest terror.

For a moment she stood irresolute; then her decision was made. As soon as the morning broke, she would leave that house.

She flew back to her room, her mind in a whirl, her brain dizzy with conflicting emotions. She sat down in a chair by the open window, and leaned her hot, flushed face in the palms of her hands. She was beginning to learn the lessons of the great, wicked world. How long she sat there she never knew.

She was planning about what she should do when the morrow came. Though she starved on the street, she would not go back to the telegraph office where Frank Garrick was; nor could she remain in the house that now sheltered her, where the woman who pretended to be her friend and counselor was deliberately plotting against her.

She had purchased a dress, cloak, and hat out of the money she had found in her pocket. This expenditure had reduced the little sum considerably; but she had been obliged to present a respectable appearance.

[64]

Where should she look for work in the great big city? While she was cogitating over the matter, Mrs. Cole appeared in the door-way with a glass of lemonade in her hand.

"I have brought you something very refreshing, Ida," she said. "It took away my headache, and it will make you enjoy a good night's sleep."

"Thank you, but I do not care for the lemonade," returned the girl, coldly.

Her first impulse had been to spring to her feet, and inform her that she had accidently overheard her conversation with Frank Garrick, and upbraid her for it in the bitterest of words. Then the thought occurred to her that discretion was the better part of valor—to say nothing, and leave the house quietly in the morning.

"But I insist upon your drinking the lemonade," declared the young widow.

Ida looked at her steadily, and something in the reproachful glance of the girl's eyes made her wince. The hand that held the glass shook in spite of her efforts at composure.

"It will induce an excellent night's sleep, my dear," said Mrs. Cole, smoothly. "Stir it up; you are letting all the sugar settle at the bottom."

"I do not care for it," repeated Ida, a trifle more haughtily.

"But as it is for your good, you must drink it!" repeated her companion. "I shall not leave the room until you do so."

At that moment Katie, the little maid of all work, entered the room with towels.

[65]

Passing near the back of her chair, she managed to whisper in her ear, unobserved by Mrs. Cole:

"Promise her to drink the lemonade if she will leave it on the table; but don't touch a drop of it. I'll tell you why later."

The remark was accompanied by a warning glance from the girl's eyes. Laying down the towels, Katie retreated to the door; but the warning look that she cast back at her aroused Ida May.

"Set the glass down, and I will drink the lemonade later on," she said, quietly.

"Do you promise me that you will?" said Mrs. Cole, with unusual interest.

"Yes," said Ida, hesitatingly. "Put it down on the table."

"I will come back in ten minutes," declared Mrs. Cole, "and if you have not drunk it by that time—well, I'll make you, that's all," she added, with a forced laugh, but meaning just what she said.

Ida May sat down when she found herself alone, wondering in amazement what Katie could have meant by her strange words. At that moment the girl glided into the room.