The Golden Key; Or, A Heart's Silent Worship
by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon · English · Gutenberg #50909 · 377,296 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Golden Key; Or, A Heart's Silent Worship
Author: Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
Release date: January 13, 2016 [eBook #50909]
Most recently updated: October 22, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN KEY; OR, A HEART'S SILENT WORSHIP ***
The Golden Key
OR
A HEART’S SILENT WORSHIP
_By_ MRS. GEORGIE SHELDON
AUTHOR OF
“Thrice Wedded,” “Little Miss Whirlwind,”
“The Magic Cameo,” “A Hoiden’s
Conquest,” “Mona,” etc.
[Illustration]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
POPULAR BOOKS
By MRS. GEORGIE SHELDON
In Handsome Cloth Binding
Price per Volume, 60 Cents
Audrey’s Recompense
Brownie’s Triumph
Churchyard Betrothal, The
Dorothy Arnold’s Escape
Dorothy’s Jewels
Earl Wayne’s Nobility
Edrie’s Legacy
Esther, the Fright
Faithful Shirley
False and The True, The
For Love and Honor
Sequel to Geoffrey’s Victory
Forsaken Bride, The
Geoffrey’s Victory
Girl in a Thousand, A
Golden Key, The
Grazia’s Mistake
Heatherford Fortune, The
Sequel to The Magic Cameo
He Loves Me For Myself
Sequel to the Lily of Mordaunt
Helen’s Victory
Her Faith Rewarded
Sequel to Faithful Shirley
Her Heart’s Victory
Sequel to Max
Heritage of Love, A
Sequel to The Golden Key
His Heart’s Queen
Hoiden’s Conquest, A
How Will It End
Sequel to Marguerite’s Heritage
Lily of Mordaunt, The
Little Marplot, The
Little Miss Whirlwind
Lost, A Pearle
Love’s Conquest
Sequel to Helen’s Victory
Love Victorious, A
Magic Cameo, The
Marguerite’s Heritage
Masked Bridal, The
Max, A Cradle Mystery
Mona
Mysterious Wedding Ring, A
Nameless Dell
Nora
Queen Bess
Ruby’s Reward
Shadowed Happiness, A
Sequel to Wild Oats
Sibyl’s Influence
Stella Roosevelt
That Dowdy
Thorn Among Roses, A
Sequel to a Girl in a Thousand
Threads Gathered Up
Sequel to Virgie’s Inheritance
Thrice Wedded
Tina
Trixy
True Aristocrat, A
True Love Endures
Sequel to Dorothy Arnold’s Escape
True Love’s Reward
Sequel to Mona
True to Herself
Sequel to Witch Hazel
Two Keys
Virgie’s Inheritance
Wedded By Fate
Welfleet Mystery, The
Wild Oats
Winifred’s Sacrifice
Witch Hazel
With Heart so True
Sequel to His Heart’s Queen
Woman’s Faith, A
Sequel to Nameless Dell
For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price
A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
52 Duane Street New York
Copyright 1896, 1897, 1905
BY STREET & SMITH
THE GOLDEN KEY
THE GOLDEN KEY.
PROLOGUE.
A RESPONSIVE HEART.
“Nannie, I cannot bear it!”
“Hush, Alice; you must not give way to such wild grief--the
excitement will be very bad for you.”
“But what will Adam say? It will be a terrible blow; his heart was
so set upon the fulfilment of his hopes, and now----”
A heart-broken wail completed the sentence as the pale, beautiful
woman, resting upon the snowy pillows of an old-fashioned canopied
bed, covered her face with her delicate hands and fell to sobbing
with a wild sorrow which shook her slight frame from head to foot.
“Alice! Alice! don’t! Adam will come home to find that he has lost
both wife and child if you do not try to control yourself.”
The latter speaker, a tall, muscular woman, with a kindly but
resolute face, which bespoke a strong character as well as a
tender heart, knelt beside the bed, and laid her cheek against
the colorless one upon the pillow with motherly tenderness and
sympathy. But her appealing words only seemed to increase the
violence of the invalid’s grief, and, with a look of anxiety
sweeping over her countenance, the woman arose, after a moment,
when, pouring a few drops from a bottle into a spoon, she briefly
informed her charge that it was time for her medicine.
The younger woman meekly swallowed the potion, although her bosom
continued to heave with sobs, and tears still rained over her
hueless cheeks.
Her companion sat down near her, an expression of patient endurance
on her face, and in the course of fifteen or twenty minutes she was
rewarded by seeing the invalid fall into a profound slumber.
“Thank Heaven!” she muttered at last, with a sigh of relief, “there
will be an interval of rest, but I dread the awakening.”
Miss Nancy Porter was a spinster, upward of forty, and one of those
stanch, reliable women who always seem like a bulwark of strength,
and equal to any emergency.
She was, by profession, a trained nurse, having, many years
previous, served her time in the Massachusetts General Hospital,
of Boston, after which her experience was wide and varied, winning
for herself encomiums from both surgeons and physicians, and the
unbounded confidence of those who were fortunate enough to secure
her services in the sick-room.
She had her own home in one of the suburban towns of Boston, where
she lived with her one trusty maid in a quiet, restful way, when
her services were not in demand elsewhere.
It was into this peaceful home that her only sister had come,
about a month previous, to remain until the return of her husband,
who had been called abroad upon urgent business.
Adam Brewster was a wealthy banker of New York City.
He was several years older than sweet Alice Porter, whom he had met
and fallen in love with some two years previous, and who had been
his idolized wife for little more than twelve months.
It had been a great trial that he could not take his dear one to
Europe with him; but her physician utterly prohibited such a trip
for the young wife, and thus she had gone to spend the interval
of her husband’s absence with her sister, in the home of her
childhood, and where a tiny little girl was born into the world,
only to breathe faintly for a few moments, and them slip away into
the great unknown.
For hours after the birth and death of her little one, Alice
Brewster had lain in a state of unconsciousness, which caused the
heart of her faithful nurse and sister to quake with fear.
But, when consciousness returned, and the youthful mother called
for her little one, and she was obliged to tell her that she was
childless, her heart almost failed her again, in view of the bitter
disappointment and violent sorrow which once more threatened to
snap the slender thread of life.
She could only temporarily quell these outbursts of grief by
administering powerful narcotics to induce sleep and oblivion, with
the hope that calmness and resignation would come with returning
strength.
On the afternoon of the third day the storm, which had prevented
the sending of a doctor, cleared, and about five o’clock Miss
Porter went down-stairs into the kitchen, where her servant was
quietly engaged with her domestic duties.
“Sarah, I’m going to town to see Doctor Bowman,” she remarked, in
grave, subdued tones, an anxious expression in her mild, gray eyes.
“Mrs. Brewster is sleeping, but I want you to go up and sit by her
until I return, which won’t be very long, and if she wakes, give
her two teaspoonfuls of the medicine in the glass that is on the
mantel.”
“Yes, marm,” responded Sarah, as she changed her calico apron for a
white one, preparatory to going up-stairs.
“And--if any one comes in,” pursued Miss Porter thoughtfully,
“tell them nothing! you can simply say I am out, and Mrs. Brewster
is lying down. I don’t want any gossip started. I’ll tell my own
story.”
“Yes, marm,” said Sarah again, and her mistress hurried away.
She was just in time to catch the five-twenty express for town,
where she arrived just on the stroke of six, when she proceeded
directly to the waiting-room to leave her waterproof and umbrella
with the woman in charge, while she made a visit to her physician.
She did not find her in the outer room, and so went on into the
ladies’ private siting-room, which she found to be empty, quite an
unusual occurrence, although doubtless the recent tempest was the
reason why so few people were abroad.
At least Miss Porter thought the place was empty, until a faint
sound greeted her ear, when she started forward and peeped around
a corner, to find only an animated bundle wrapped in a gray shawl
lying upon the great square table standing there.
“It’s a baby!” muttered Miss Porter in astonishment, “but where on
earth is the mother?”
Prompted by both curiosity and interest, she went to the child,
and, parting the shawl, which was closely wrapped about it,
discovered an infant, which her practised eye told her could not be
over a week old, if, indeed, it had seen as many days as that.
Her first thought was that the mother, or whoever had the child in
charge, had left it just for the moment sleeping upon the table;
then, suddenly, a terrible shock, which set every nerve in her body
quivering with a painful thrill, went through her as she caught
sight of a note that had been pinned to the fine flannel blanket
that was wrapped about the infant under the shawl.
“Good heavens! it is an abandoned baby!” she breathed, as she
mechanically but tenderly gathered it into her strong arms and
tried to hush it upon her breast.
Evidently, the child had been drugged, for it dropped off to sleep
almost immediately, and then Miss Porter, with trembling fingers
and two scarlet spots upon her cheeks, denoting great mental
excitement, detached the note from the blanket, and, opening it,
read:
“Will some kind woman take this child, or see that it finds
a good home where it will be well reared? Nothing but direst
necessity compels her abandonment. She is well and honorably
born, and yet relentless fate makes her an outcast from her own
kindred. A peculiar-shaped golden key, in the form of a pin, is
fastened to her clothing--it is her only heritage. Will whoever
responds to this appeal insert in an early issue of the Boston
_Transcript_ under the head of personals, the following: ‘X. Y.
Z.--The golden key has unlocked a responsive heart,’ and relieve
the writer of this of a heavy burden?”
“H’m!” ejaculated Miss Porter, as she refolded the note, and began
to look for the golden key.
She found it pinned to the yoke of the child’s dainty dress--an
oddly fashioned trinket, the thumb-piece ornamented with a small
pansy, in the heart of which there flashed a tiny but flawless
diamond.
“Well! for once I have had a genuine adventure in my plodding,
practical life!” the woman muttered to herself. “Everything about
this child shows that she was born of a wealthy mother--some rich
girl, maybe, whose good name was more to her than the life and
welfare of her own flesh and blood. Oh, dear, what a world it is!
Those who yearn for these little ones are deprived of them, while
there is no place, no love for others. It is a beautiful babe,
too,” she continued, bending over the little sleeper and noting
the soft, curling rings of glossy brown hair on the small head,
the delicate, regular features of the little face, and the dainty,
perfect hands that were folded on the gently heaving breast. “Poor
little waif! what shall I do with you?” she concluded, with a
long-drawn, regretful sigh.
Then she sat suddenly erect, her face becoming almost as rigid as
that of a statue, while she scarcely seemed to breathe, so absorbed
had she become in her own startled reflections.
“Nancy Porter, I wonder if you could manage it?--I wonder if you
dare do it?” she breathed at last, with lips in which there was not
an atom of color. “Alice would never survive another such tax upon
her delicate constitution; Adam Brewster would never be content
without an heir to his great fortune. Well, I’m going to try it,
and save her heart from breaking.”
With a resolute gleam in her gray eyes, a settled purpose in every
line of her strong, honest face, she began to wrap the child in
the soft, warm shawl which she had partially removed, paying no
attention to the woman in charge--who at that moment came into the
room and began to busily brandish a great feather duster--although
she was uncomfortably conscious that she was being regarded with a
curious, questioning glance.
But Miss Nancy Porter had run many a difficult gauntlet, and faced
many emergencies, during her checkered life, and her stanch heart
and brave front did not fail her now.
Having arranged everything about her charge to her satisfaction,
she arose and deliberately walked from the room, passed out of the
nearest door of the one beyond, and, joining the hurrying crowd
that surging toward the outward-bound trains, without giving
another thought to the errand which had brought her to town, found
herself just in season to board a return local.
She did not see in the car a person whom she knew; yet, knowing
that there might be acquaintances on the train, she decided to
leave it at a station two miles below her own town, and about a
mile and a half from her home, which was located between the two
villages.
It was dark when she alighted, and it was with a deep sigh of
satisfaction that she slipped away in the gloom.
She did not meet a single person on the way--it was a lonely road,
with only a few scattered farmhouses to be passed--and arrived
at her own door just as the old-fashioned clock of a previous
generation standing in the hall solemnly tolled off the hour of
eight.
A glance in at the kitchen window as she passed had told her that
Sarah was still upstairs with her patient, and, passing softly
around to the front door, which she noiselessly opened with a
latchkey, she walked through the “best room” to the “parlor
bedroom,” where she laid her charge upon the bed, thankful for the
potency of the drug which still held its senses locked in slumber,
and glad to have her aching arms relieved of their burden.
Then, closing both doors after her, she passed up-stairs to the
sick-room, removing her bonnet and wrap as she went, when she
dismissed Sarah to her interrupted work in the kitchen below, and
then sat down to rest and await the awakening of the frail sleeper
upon the bed.
An hour later, Miss Porter suddenly appeared in her bright,
cheerful kitchen, bearing a beautiful babe in her arms, while a
tender expression seemed to have softened and illumined her usually
grave, almost austere face.
“Goodness sakes, alive!” exclaimed Sarah, springing to her feet,
with a startled air, her wild eyes fastened upon the infant.
“Hush!” said Miss Porter authoritatively. “Has any one been here
since I left home?”
“Not a soul,” said the girl, but with still gaping eyes and mouth.
“Good!” returned the mistress in a satisfied tone; “and now, Sarah,
you are to remember that a baby girl was born here on Monday night,
October 2. No one save you and I and Mrs. Brewster know of the fact
as yet; but I shall have it recorded to-morrow morning, when a
letter will also be mailed to Mr. Brewster, announcing that he has
a fine little daughter.”
“But----” began Sarah, looking dazed and troubled.
“There are no ‘buts,’ Sarah,” curtly interposed Miss Porter;
“the last forty-eight hours must become a blank; you are to know
nothing, except that on the second of this month my sister gave
birth to a beautiful little girl, and that both mother and child
are doing well. I am sure I can trust you,” concluded the woman,
looking the girl squarely in the eyes.
“Yes, marm,” was the meek response, and Miss Porter knew that
torture would never elicit the wilful betrayal of her secret after
that promise was given.
“That is right,” she said briskly, the stern lines of her face
relaxing again; “and now you may take the baby while I prepare some
milk for her.”
The next day but one there appeared in the Boston _Transcript_ the
following paragraph:
“X. Y. Z.--The golden key has unlocked a responsive heart.”
Three weeks later a fair, sweet woman might have been seen driving
through the street of F---- in an elegant carriage, which, with
coachman and footman, had been ordered from New York, while by her
side there sat a buxom, good-natured nurse, with a thriving baby on
her lap.
“What a lovely child!” was the tribute of every one who saw the
dainty, blue-eyed little girl, who now bore the name of Allison
Porter Brewster, and then wondered to see the grave, yearning look
that involuntarily came into the young mother’s eyes, even while
her lips smiled at the praise bestowed upon her darling.
Meantime, messages of love and gratitude, together with costly
gifts, had come across the ocean from the happy father, who was all
impatience to return to his treasures.
Another month passed, and the Brewsters were once more settled in
their elegant city home, where each succeeding week only served to
develop the charms of the little heiress and to endear her to the
hearts of her parents.
Early the following spring Miss Nancy Porter’s faithful Sarah was
stricken with fever, which proved to be a long and tedious illness,
during which she raved continually about stolen children and some
dreadful secret which oppressed her.
Miss Porter was unremitting in her care of the trusty girl; she
allowed no one to share her care of her, and when she died, in
spite of the best of nursing and medical attendance, the woman shed
sincere, regretful tears over her.
“I suppose it had to be,” she said sorrowfully, on her return to
her lonely home after the burial. “Sarah was a good girl, and I’m
sorry to lose her; but”--with suddenly whitening lips--“there’s one
less in the world who knows that secret.”
The number was again reduced when, a few months later, Nancy Porter
herself was laid to rest in the “Porter lot,” and the wife of Adam
Brewster was left to bear her burden alone.
That it was an insupportable burden was revealed some three years
afterward, when, following a gradual decline, she laid it down,
after having written out a full confession of the deception of
which she had been guilty, and humbly begged her husband’s pardon
for having yielded to a temptation that had proved stronger than
her principles.
This revelation Adam Brewster did not find until after she had
been in her grave many weeks, when he finally gathered courage to
examine a box which she had told him, with almost her last breath,
contained something of great importance.
It came upon him with the force of a thunderbolt--he was almost
paralyzed with grief and dismay when he read his wife’s letter,
and found the proof of its contents in the articles of infant’s
clothing which she had preserved--in the note which she had pinned
upon the dress of the abandoned child, and the golden key, which
was her only heritage.
It was a terrible blow! His darling--his idol, in whom all his
fondest hopes were centered--not his own child! It could not be
possible, for no father could so worship the offspring of another.
The struggle between love, grief, disappointment, and indignation
was long and bitter; but love finally triumphed over all.
“No one need ever know it,” he told himself, but with a twinge of
keenest pain in view of his own knowledge. “She is mine--I claim
her as my very own by the love I bear her; no one shall ever
suspect the truth--she shall never learn it, and thus I shall never
be in danger of losing her. I will destroy every evidence of the
fact, and then the secret will be buried in my own heart. And, ah,
me! forgive my dear lost wife for her deception I must, in view of
that other secret which I have withheld from her.”
The man fully intended to destroy all evidence that Allison Porter
was not his own child, but, thinking that he might wish to examine
the contents of the box more carefully in a few days--after he had
recovered somewhat from the shock he had received--he put it away,
with some jewels belonging to his wife, in a secret compartment in
the vault in his bank, where, amid the press of business and of
many cares, it was forgotten; or, if not forgotten, neglected for
many years.
CHAPTER I.
SIXTEEN YEARS AFTER.
“Papa! papa! Where is my father?”
The speaker was a charming young girl, of about sixteen years, who
came one morning tripping into the cool, private office of Adam
Brewster.
Without, the day was hot and sultry, but Miss Allison Brewster
might have just emerged from some shady sylvan retreat, to judge
from her fresh, dainty appearance as she paused in an exquisite
pose, upon the threshold of the doorway, which made her seem, for
the moment, a beautiful picture painted by a master hand.
She was clad in a fine, crisp lawn, sprigged with forget-me-nots,
and trimmed with delicate lace and fetching knots of blue ribbon,
all of which was just suited to her flawless pink-and-white
complexion, her sapphire eyes, and the gleaming gold of her
abundant hair. Her pretty head was crowned with a broad-brimmed
hat of white chip, whereon nodded and swayed, with every graceful
movement of the little lady, three costly white ostrich-plumes,
which were fastened in place by the same number of pale, pink roses
and a broad band of rich satin ribbon.
But Adam Brewster was not in. The only occupant of the place was
the office boy--Gerald Winchester--who was seated behind a tall
desk, engaged in copying some letters for his employer.
He was, perhaps, nineteen years of age, and rather boyish in
appearance, but with a face “to swear by,” with its clear,
steadfast, honest eyes, its clean-cut features, its frank, genial
smile, and yet possessing certain lines and characteristics which
bespoke high moral principles and great strength of purpose.
He sprang to his feet at the sound of that eager voice calling
“papa,” a quick flush leaping into his cheeks, an intense, peculiar
light into his eyes, and, approaching the young girl, with a
courteous bow, observed in a quiet tone of respect:
“Mr. Brewster went out a few moments ago. Can I do anything for
you, Al--Miss Brewster?”
A look of astonishment swept over the fair maiden’s face, and for
an instant she made no reply. Then her ruby lips parted and a peal
of silvery laughter rang through the room, while her vivacious face
dimpled and gleamed with irrepressible merriment.
“‘Miss Brewster!’” she repeated, with a saucy toss of her head,
that set every spotless plume upon her hat nodding a playful
reproof at her companion for his unprecedented formality; for they
had known each other for years, and, hitherto, had always addressed
each other by their Christian names. “Why, Gerald; how formal!
Since when have you become so strictly ceremonious?”
“Since Mr. Brewster announced a day or two ago, when some one spoke
of you by your given name, that hereafter you were to be addressed
as Miss Brewster,” the young man responded, flushing slightly,
although a smile of sympathetic amusement curled his own expressive
lips.
“Did papa say that?” questioned Allison, with a shrug of her
graceful shoulders. “What nonsense! Why, I have been running in and
out of the bank ever since I was able to walk, and it seems absurd
putting on such airs, when everybody knows me so well.”
“Still, you are a young lady now, and it does seem a trifle
familiar to address you as if you were only a child,” Gerald
thoughtfully observed.
Allison stood considering the matter for a moment; then she gravely
remarked:
“I say, Gerald, I shall not mind the change very much from the
others; but,” with an independent toss of her pretty head, “I won’t
be ‘Miss Brewster’ to you.”
Gerald shot a quick, bright glance at the speaker.
“Thank you--I am sure I appreciate this mark of your esteem,” he
said, in tones that were a trifle tremulous, “but,” a roguish
twinkle in his fine, dark eyes, “how about obeying orders from
one’s chief?”
“Well, perhaps you’ll have to do as papa wishes, when you are
here with the other clerks; but, Gerald”--appealingly, yet
half-defiantly--“when--when we are by ourselves, I--just won’t
stand it; it will spoil all our nice times, and make us too stiff
and prim for anything. Do you want me to call you Mr. Winchester?”
“I am sure I do not,” he answered, laughing at her injured air.
“Well, but I shall--if you go to playing at formality with
me”--this with a charming little pout as she threw herself into a
chair, seized a fan from the desk near her, and began to sway it
back and forth with piquant grace, while her companion watched her
with admiring interest.
“I am sorry papa is out,” she resumed, after a minute, and
apparently regarding the other topic as settled, “for I want some
money. I suppose I can have everything charged, but I do so enjoy
having a lot of nice, fresh, crisp bills in my own hands to pay for
what I buy. Will he be in soon, do you think?”
“I am sure I cannot tell,” replied the young man, glancing at the
clock, then back, with an expression of yearning tenderness, to the
graceful figure in the chair opposite him.
His color came and went, and his heart was beating heavily with an
emotion which he was striving to conceal, for he feared that it
would never do to betray to his proud employer’s daughter that he
had dared to love her with all the strength of his intensely strong
nature.
At least, he would not presume to betray his secret for a long
while yet; perhaps, if fortune’s wheel should some time turn in
his favor, he might dare to confess his affection for the lovely
heiress, provided she remained the sweet and unaffected girl she
had always hitherto been.
Gerald Winchester was no ordinary young man.
Confided to the care of an aunt, Miss Honor Winchester--almost from
the hour of his birth, shortly after which his mother had died--he
had been reared in very limited circumstances, although Miss
Winchester was a well-educated and cultivated woman, and had given
him careful training, both morally and intellectually.
She had a small annuity, which, as the boy grew older, she found
insufficient for their mutual needs, and, desirous of doing her
utmost for her charge, she resolved to leave the small town in
Rhode Island, which for many years had been her home, and go to
New York, where she hoped to get something to do to increase her
slender income.
The move was made, and Miss Winchester, being an attractive,
sensible woman, found plenty of work as seamstress in wealthy
families; thus she was enabled to send Gerald to school until he
was fourteen years of age, and had entered the second year of the
high-school course.
But, one morning, the lad had found his best, and almost only
friend, lying cold and still in her bed. She had died of
heart-disease during the night, and thus he was left alone and
destitute in the world, for the woman’s annuity ceased with her
life.
The boy broke up their home, where they had been so quietly happy
and comfortable for several years, selling off all their furniture,
with the exception of an old-fashioned cricket, which his aunt had,
upon one or two occasions, charged him never to part with, since it
was a precious heirloom, having been brought from England during
the reign of Queen Elizabeth by a remote ancestor.
It was a queer-looking, rather clumsy affair, of solid mahogany,
having claw feet tipped with brass, its surface upholstered with
some bright, silk patchwork, which Miss Winchester had made to
replace a former defaced covering.
Gerald had almost a mind to let the thing go with the other
household goods, in spite of his aunt’s wish, for he felt that it
would never be anything but a burden to him; but he finally stowed
it away in the bottom of a trunk, which contained all he possessed
in the world, and removing to a small, cheap room, started forth to
seek a situation where he could earn his own living.
At first he was cash-boy in one of the large stores of the city;
later he was office boy for an eminent physician, and finally
drifted into Adam Brewster’s banking-house, where he had remained
until now, working slowly and steadily upward, gaining his
employer’s confidence and favor, until he had proved himself so
capable, trustworthy, and faithful that the man regarded him almost
in the light of a confidential clerk.
From time to time the banker, pitying his homeless and friendless
condition, had invited him to his own home, where he had spent many
a delightful hour with Allison, who, from the first, had conceived
a strong friendship for the handsome, manly fellow.
For a long time Mr. Brewster did not once think that any serious
result would be likely to follow this “boy-and-girl acquaintance.”
Allison, his idolized daughter, was happy to have Gerald come to
tea; to drive with her in the park on Saturday afternoons or
holidays; to have him to dinner with them now and then on Sundays,
and he was ever indulgent to her lightest wish.
But of late--during the last five or six months--he had suddenly
awakened to the fear that there might be danger ahead if these
relations were continued.
He had become very fond of Gerald--he knew him to be a noble,
whole-hearted, high-principled fellow; but he was not to be
considered, for a moment, as a possible son-in-law. No struggling,
plodding clerk who had his fortune to make by his own unaided
efforts would be a suitable mate for the banker’s heiress, whose
million, or more, in prospect, must be matched by at least an equal
amount and a position as enviable and secure as her own.
So, during the last half-year, Gerald had received no invitations
to the banker’s princely home--there was always some excuse of
extra office work or special and important errands whenever Allison
proposed his coming, and thus she saw him only when, occasionally,
she slipped into the bank upon some pretense. This was the first
time for months that they had been alone in each other’s presence,
and Allison, making the most of her opportunity, gave herself up to
the pleasure of the moment, and chatted, girllike, of anything and
everything that came into her pretty head.
Gerald, also, thawing out beneath her sunny influence, dropped the
formality which he had assumed upon her entrance, and, during the
half-hour that followed, feasted his heart upon her beauty and the
charm of her companionship.
Into this little banquet of love there suddenly intruded a man of
perhaps thirty-five years--a tall, gaunt figure, with a slight
stoop in his shoulders, but faultlessly attired. His face was thin,
and absolutely colorless, save for the faint tinge of red in his
lips and the cold blue of his eyes, which contrasted strangely with
the intense black of his hair and mustache.
His eyes lighted with sudden fire as they fell upon the dainty
figure and bright beauty of Allison Brewster.
“Ah, good morning, Miss Allison,” he remarked, in bland, oily
tones, his thin lips relaxing into a smile that revealed a ghastly
row of dead-white teeth beneath the black mustache. “This is an
unexpected pleasure. I do not need to inquire if you are well--your
blooming appearance speaks for itself.”
“Yes, thank you, I am well,” the girl quietly replied, but without
bestowing a second glance upon him.
The man then turned to Gerald, a vicious smile just curling the
corners of his mouth.
“Ahem! Winchester, here is a message that must go immediately to
the Second National Bank.”
“Is it imperative?” Gerald questioned.
“Yes; it must go at once.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Hubbard, but Mr. Brewster is out, and, as you
know, I am not allowed to leave the office during his absence,” the
young man replied.
Mr. Hubbard frowned, and then his gaze wandered again to Allison,
with an eager look.
“Yes, I know that is the rule,” he said, “but you will have
to break it for once. The bank closes at twelve to-day, being
Saturday, and the message must be delivered before that. Miss
Brewster will doubtless excuse you,” he added, with the suspicion
of a sneer, “and I will entertain her during your absence, or until
Mr. Brewster returns.”
Gerald glanced at the clock, and a troubled expression flitted over
his face, but after another moment of thought, he said quietly but
firmly:
“I would like to oblige you, Mr. Hubbard, but Mr. Brewster’s orders
to me are imperative. I can, under no circumstances, leave the
office during his absence.”
“But I tell you this is an unusual case,” said the man impatiently;
“there is no messenger in just now--we are very busy to-day, and
you will have to go.”
“It is impossible--I cannot leave my post without orders direct
from Mr. Brewster,” Gerald responded, an unmistakable note of
determination in his tones; “you will have to ask one of the clerks
in the other room to take the message.”
John Hubbard turned sharply upon his heel, muttering something
under his breath, and abruptly left the room.
Allison suddenly threw down her fan and shrugged her shapely
shoulders.
“Ugh!” she said, shivering slightly. “I don’t need that any
more--I always get a chill whenever that man comes near me.”
Gerald smiled, yet he looked somewhat disconcerted, for, of late,
he had been conscious of a growing barrier between himself and this
strangely clever man, who was an expert accountant, a talented
lawyer, a director of the bank, and one at whose touch everything
seemed to turn into gold.
“But Mr. Hubbard is very valuable to Mr. Brewster and the bank,”
he said, in reply to Allison’s remark; “he inspects all accounts,
manages all law business, and has recently been made one of the
directors of the bank.”
“Is that so?” queried the young girl, with some surprise.
“Yes; he owns quite a good deal of stock.”
But Allison Brewster was not much interested to know who owned
stock in the bank; business had little attraction for her beyond
its results, which, of course, were a necessary factor in her life,
while John Hubbard and his affairs were of no moment whatever to
her.
“Gerald!” she exclaimed, after a moment, and abruptly changing the
subject, “I almost forgot a part of my errand here. Papa is going
to let me give a lawn-party before we go to Newport--and I am going
to send out my invitations for two weeks from to-day--I set it for
Saturday because you are at liberty so much earlier on that day.
Will you come?”
Gerald’s eyes glowed, and the color mounted to his temples at this
evidence of her thought for him. His voice thrilled with repressed
emotion as he replied:
“That was certainly very kind of you, Al--Miss----”
“Take care, Gerald!” suddenly interposed the fair girl, as she
raised a finger menacingly at him. “I will not be ‘missed’ by
you--at least”--with a gleam of roguishness in her dancing
eyes--“until I am gone for the summer, and then you may miss me as
much as you like. See?”
And, detaching one of the three beautiful pink rosebuds from her
corsage, she playfully tossed it at him, and with such unerring aim
that it brushed his cheek with its fragrant petals, and then lodged
upon his shoulder. Gerald captured it with a hand that tingled in
every nerve.
“Yes, Allison, I see,” he said, smiling into the piquant face.
“Thanks for this souvenir--I never saw anything more lovely.”
But he was not looking at the rose as he spoke--he was gazing
straight into the blue eyes of beautiful Allison Brewster.
“Now will you promise to come to my party?” she asked, rising to go.
“Yes, if----”
“‘If!’” she repeated sharply, a quick flush mantling her face.
“If there is no extra work to be done and I can get off,” he
explained.
“Of course you can get off on Saturday afternoon,” said the
girl impatiently; then added appealingly: “Gerald, you must
come--it will just spoil the whole thing for me if you do not.
Now, good-by--tell papa I could not wait any longer. I have an
appointment with my dressmaker at one, and I have a lot of shopping
to do before that.”
And nodding a smiling adieu to Gerald, she tripped away, while
the young man turned to a window and watched her out of sight, a
tremulous smile upon his lips, a tender gleam in his handsome brown
eyes.
CHAPTER II.
“WHATEVER STANDS IN MY PATH!”
“Did she really mean it, I wonder? Would it spoil her party for
her if I should not go?” mused Gerald Winchester, as the daintily
ruffled skirts of Allison Brewster disappeared around a corner and
his glance shifted to the lovely rosebud which he still held, “or
is it just her sweet, impulsive way of saying pleasant things to
make one feel comfortable and happy?”
As he concluded this soliloquy, he raised the bud to his lips and
bestowed a light caress upon it.
At the same instant a step behind him caused him to turn suddenly,
to find himself again confronted by the sneering face of Mr. John
Hubbard.
“Very pretty! very interesting, truly; but rather a dangerous
sentiment, and presumptuous, as well, for a boy to indulge in, with
only fifteen dollars a week,” the man sarcastically observed.
Then without giving Gerald time to reply, had he been so disposed,
he added sharply:
“Have you copied those papers relating to the Wynn estate?”
“Yes, I have just finished them,” the young man returned, as he
took a package from his desk and passed it to his companion, who
observed that his hand was trembling and that he had grown very
white about the mouth, while there was a gleam of fire in his eyes
which betrayed that he was not lacking in spirit, although he was
able to hold it under perfect control.
As John Hubbard took the papers he managed to brush to the floor
the rosebud which Gerald had laid upon the desk.
“Take care, please,” said the young man, and stooping eagerly to
recover his treasure.
But he was not quick enough, for the other ruthlessly set his foot
upon it, crushing it flat and destroying all its beauty.
For a minute the boy and the man stood looking straight into each
other’s eyes, their faces as colorless as the collars about their
necks.
“That is typical of what happens to everything that stands in my
way; so beware! young beggar, that you do not covet what is beyond
your reach,” said John Hubbard menacingly.
Gerald Winchester’s hands were clenched so fiercely that the nail
of every finger turned purple; but his bearing was that of a hero
who could face a cannon’s mouth and never flinch.
Presently he drew in a long, deep breath, his hands relaxed; then
he said, as quietly as if he were making the most commonplace
observation imaginable:
“Nothing is unattainable, Mr. Hubbard, to him who is determined to
win.”
“Aha! say you so? You speak with the impulse and inexperience of
youth; but, look there, and--be warned,” sneered his companion, as,
lifting his foot he made a gesture indicating the mutilated bud.
Then turning abruptly, he left the office, while Gerald, with a
ghastly face and trembling hands, stooped to recover the ruined
flower.
He tenderly gathered up every discolored leaf and petal, arranging
them neatly upon a sheet of blank paper, which he carefully folded
and placed within an envelope.
“It shall be my mascot,” he muttered, with a determined gleam in
his eyes, as he put it in an inside pocket of his vest, “and as
sure as I live, Mr. John Hubbard, you will find me no mean rival. I
will yet stand where I can ask for what I want and not be accused
of being a fortune-hunter, either.”
Mr. Brewster came in, a few minutes later, and Gerald’s thoughts
were turned into other channels, although throughout the day he was
never for a moment unconscious of that bruised and discolored bud
which lay so near his heart.
Two weeks slipped rapidly by, and the day set for Allison
Brewster’s lawn-party dawned clear and beautiful.
Gerald had, meantime, received by mail a formal card of invitation
with the words “Come early” delicately penciled in one corner, and
he had been looking eagerly forward to the occasion, although he
said nothing to any one of his intention to be present.
In his heart he knew that Mr. Brewster, in spite of his own
fondness for him, would not approve of the existence of any
tender relations between him and his peerless daughter, and he
greatly feared, should he intimate that he had been bidden to the
approaching festival, that some extra work would be forthcoming to
keep him away.
While he would not wilfully betray the confidence of his employer,
he, at the same time, believed that he had a perfect right to love
Allison, since, morally and intellectually, he was her equal, if
not her superior; while he felt sure, so sanguine is youth, that
he would eventually work his way up to a position no less enviable
than hers--both socially and financially.
“I will take no unfair advantage,” he said to himself, “but I will
make the most of my opportunities; and, if by and by, Allison
should respond to my affection, I will claim her right to act for
herself, and my right to abide by her choice, and”--with a flash of
fire in his dark eyes--“I am no fragile bud to be crushed by the
heel of any man’s boot.”
Having settled matters thus in his own mind, Gerald looked eagerly
forward to the fulfilment of his promise to Allison.
On Saturday morning, however, John Hubbard presented himself before
Mr. Brewster--Gerald being out on some errand--and stated that a
matter of importance in Jersey City needed prompt attention, and it
would be necessary to despatch some trustworthy person to deliver
certain valuable documents into the hands of the party whom they
most concerned.
“I would go myself,” said the wily expert and confidential lawyer,
“but I have to prepare for that case that is coming off on Monday,
and I cannot attend to both matters.”
“Very well, send whom you like to Jersey,” said the banker briefly.
“I think perhaps that Winchester might go--that is, if you can
spare him; he is reliable and as prompt as the clock,” said the
crafty schemer, who, for two weeks, had borne this thing in mind
for the very purpose of keeping Gerald from the lawn-party.
“Yes, I can spare him,” replied Mr. Brewster, “and you are
right--Gerald is as true as steel, and can be trusted with any
commission.”
John Hubbard’s white teeth gleamed for a moment beneath his
mustache in a sinister smile at this high tribute to the young man;
then remarking that he would make up the package, he disappeared
from the room, chuckling to himself as he went.
A half hour later he took the parcel to Gerald, who with difficulty
concealed his disappointment when he was told what was required of
him, for he knew that it would be utterly impossible for him to go
to Jersey City to perform his errand and return in season to keep
his promise to Allison; at least, it would be evening before he
could reach Yonkers, where Mr. Brewster’s country home was located,
and the party would be over by that time.
He felt very sure from the mocking gleam in his eye as he handed
the paper to him, that John Hubbard had cunningly contrived this
strategy for the express purpose of making him miss the pleasure he
was anticipating. But he must obey orders, and he departed upon his
mission without a word of protest.
He first made his way to a florist’s, however, to order a dainty
basket of forget-me-nots sent by express to Allison, inserting in
the box with them a card upon which he hastily wrote the following:
“New York, 11 A. M.--I am at this moment unexpectedly sent out
of town upon important business, and so cannot go to Y., as I
promised. Am very sorry, but my offering will prove that I am not
unmindful of the occasion. G. W.”
Having seen his tribute despatched, Gerald went on his way with
what grace he could muster, although a feeling of bitterness
against the marplot of his pleasure rankled sorely in his heart.
“What can it matter to him whether I am fond of Allison or not?” he
mused, as he boarded a car for the ferry. “He is a man twice her
age, and he cannot be so deluded as to think that she would ever
marry him. It would be monstrous,” and a mocking laugh broke from
him at the thought and the remembrance of what Allison had said
about “getting a chill,” whenever John Hubbard came near her.
Nevertheless, at that very moment John Hubbard was seated in the
private office of Adam Brewster, making a formal proposal for the
hand of the banker’s daughter.
“You know I am a man of few words,” he remarked, coming to the
point at once, as he took the chair his employer indicated, “and
so I am here to confess to you, Mr. Brewster, that I love your
daughter and to ask your permission to win her for my wife.”
The banker regarded the man in speechless astonishment as he
paused, after making the above startling declaration. It was a full
minute before he could recover himself sufficiently to reply.
“You want to marry _my_ daughter!” he at last burst forth, with
unconscious emphasis upon the pronoun. “Good Heaven! she is only a
child!”
“I know that she is very young, sir, and, of course, I do not
expect your sanction to a union under two or three years,” John
Hubbard returned, shooting a searching look at his companion
from his crafty eyes. “I simply want your consent to such an
arrangement, and your influence in my favor with Miss Allison----”
“But----” began Mr. Brewster, with white lips and an evident effort
at self-control.
“Believe me,” interposed his companion. “I appreciate your
affectionate desires for her, and realize that you aspire to an
assured position for her; but I believe I can realize even your
most extravagant wishes for her in that respect. You know something
of my circumstances, Mr. Brewster, but I have to tell you that
my interest in this bank, my estates in New Jersey and Virginia
are but a small part of my wealth. Let me ask you to examine this
memoranda, and then possibly you will realize that my offer is not
one to be despised,” said John Hubbard, as he took a small book
from his pocket and passed it to his companion.
Mr. Brewster took it mechanically and silently examined the pages
for several minutes, his face growing strangely grave and rigid as
he did so.
Finally he lifted his glance to the expert’s face.
“John, I had no idea you were so rich a man,” he observed.
“Will I do for a son-in-law?” queried the man flippantly, and with
a little smile of triumph.
“That is a difficult question to answer,” said Mr. Brewster,
flushing a deep crimson with the effort he made to restrain his
impulse to kick the man from his presence for his vulgarity and
presumption, for, clever as he had become as a business man, he was
possessed of no natural refinement, and the banker would far rather
have seen Allison immured in a convent than the wife of such a man,
useful as he was in certain ways.
“Why is it a difficult question?” sharply demanded the would-be
suitor.
“Well, first and foremost, Allison is far too young to have any
matrimonial ideas instilled into her mind; she has two years yet to
go to school----”
“I told you I would wait--I expected to wait,” interposed John
Hubbard impatiently, and with a fiery gleam in his eyes. “I have
already waited and toiled years, with this one hope in view--for
I have loved the child ever since she was a little girl--strange
as it may seem--and a few years more will not matter so very much,
provided I have your consent and influence to back me. Meantime,
I shall be growing richer,” he concluded, as if that were the one
inducement to be considered.
“But Allison’s wishes must be considered,” said the banker, a
trifle nervously. He could not bind himself to sell his darling,
and yet he knew that this man would make a dangerous foe; there
were certain reasons why he did not wish to excite his enmity. “At
least,” he added, “I cannot force her affections--she must choose
her own husband.”
“Ah! do you intend to allow her to do that? Suppose she should love
and choose a poor man--a common clerk, for instance, with a mere
pittance?” and the expert’s eyes gleamed maliciously.
“Humph! Ah! well--I don’t think I could quite agree to that,”
coldly responded the banker. “The man who marries Allison must at
least be able to match her fortune dollar for dollar.”
“I can very nearly do that now.”
“I see you can, John, and I own that you have been very clever--far
more clever than I gave you credit for being. I cannot quite
understand it. I am greatly surprised and--and, of course,
am--ahem!--honored by your proposal----”
“Then be kind enough to give me some definite answer,” bluntly
interposed Mr. Hubbard.
“Really, John, you must give me time--this has come upon me so
unexpectedly, I am wholly unprepared to pledge myself to anything,”
Mr. Brewster replied thoughtfully, and beginning to recover
something of his habitual dignity.
“Very well, take time; but, meantime, give me a chance. By the way,
I believe you have a lawn-party, or something of the kind, out at
Lakeview to-day, do you not?”
Again Adam Brewster flushed, and he longed to show his companion
the door and tell him never to come into his presence again; but,
as previously intimated, there were reasons why he dared not offend
him.
So, restraining his anger, he called a smile to his lips and
blandly responded:
“Yes, my daughter is going to entertain some of her friends this
afternoon; it will be rather a juvenile affair; but perhaps you
would enjoy seeing the young folks amuse themselves; if so, come
home with me and look on for a while.”
“Thank you, I shall be happy to do so,” promptly returned John
Hubbard, with a vicious gleam of his ghastly teeth.
And thus it happened that just as Allison Brewster came downstairs
to receive her first guests she was confronted by “the man who
always gave her a chill,” and who now drove all the brightness from
her face, and made her feel that her party was doubly spoiled by
his presence and Gerald’s absence.
“Why couldn’t papa have sent him, instead of Gerald, on that errand
rather than bring him here, where he isn’t wanted?” she said to
herself, with a feeling of resentment.
But she was a well-bred little lady, and, bowing courteously to
her self-invited guest, she thanked him politely for the bouquet
of magnificent roses with which he presented her, but which she
quietly handed to a servant, charging her to put them in water,
and--never thought of them again.
But upon her breast--nestling among the cascade of filmy lace that
trimmed her spotless dress of India lawn--there was a lovely
cluster of forget-me-nots, which, with a thrill of delight--in
spite of her disappointment at his enforced absence--she had culled
from Gerald’s dainty basket, which was now standing upon the
dressing-case in her room, to gladden no eyes but her own.
Almost unconsciously her hand fluttered caressingly among the
delicate blossoms, even while she stood talking with John Hubbard;
then, all at once, glancing out upon the lawn, she gave a little
cry of joyous surprise and sprang forward to meet--Gerald himself!
CHAPTER III.
LOVE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.
The fair girl was as unaffected and as ingenuous as nature itself.
She was heartily glad to see Gerald, she knew of no reason why
she should not give free expression to her joy, and the flush of
delighted surprise that overspread her lovely face, the welcoming
light which shone in her beautiful eyes, sent a thrill of ecstasy
through Gerald’s heart, while they at the same time caused a frown
of annoyance and hate to settle upon John Hubbard’s brow.
Mr. Brewster was also an interested observer of Allison’s greeting
of his young clerk, and he congratulated himself that they were
so soon going to Newport, where the gaieties of the season, the
mingling with companions in her own sphere of life, would crowd
this “handsome young beggar” out of her mind.
“I am so glad that you could manage to come, after all,” Allison
said, with earnest sincerity. “I was so disappointed when I
received your note saying you had to go out of town. And now I want
you to act as captain of the swanboat on the lake; you understand
it perfectly, and I shall feel safer with you at the helm than with
any one else.”
But before Gerald could reply, John Hubbard stepped forward and
inquired, in a sharp, curt tone:
“How is this, young man? You surely have not had time to attend to
the business upon which you were sent, and it was far too important
to be entrusted to a common messenger.”
Gerald flushed hotly, more at the man’s tone and insolent bearing
than at his words, but he had learned to hold himself well in hand.
“I was about to explain to Mr. Brewster,” he quietly remarked,
as he turned to that gentleman without replying to the expert’s
inquiry. “The package is perfectly safe, sir,” he continued,
addressing his employer; “I delivered it into Mr. Bartlett’s own
hands, according to your instructions. I had just reached the ferry
when I met him coming off the boat, and so was not obliged to cross
to Jersey City. Here is a message, acknowledging the safe delivery
of the papers.”
As he concluded, he passed to Mr. Brewster a slip of paper, which
was evidently a leaf that had been torn from a note-book, and upon
which there had been penciled a few lines.
“It is all right, Gerald,” Mr. Brewster responded, as he read them,
“and you were fortunate to meet Mr. Bartlett. If you had gone to
Jersey City, you would have missed him and might have had to wait
many hours before you could have obeyed the charge to deliver the
papers into his own hands. And now I think, as Al--Miss Brewster
suggests, you will be just the one to manage the boat for the
company,” the banker concluded, in a tone that brought a quick
flush to the young man’s cheek; for it seemed to imply that he was
not regarded as an invited guest, but, rather, as a part of the
machinery necessary to contribute to the pleasure of the company in
general.
John Hubbard’s lips curled in an aggravating sneer, showing that he
thoroughly appreciated the situation, and this did not tend to make
Gerald’s mortification any the easier to bear.
But Allison came bravely to the rescue, and her blue eyes flashed
angry defiance upon both gentlemen, while she tossed back her
golden head with an independent air that spoke volumes.
“But, Gerald,” she said eagerly, as she moved nearer to him, “the
boat is not to be used at present, there is to be an archery
contest first, and the guests are already getting ready to dance
under the pavilion. Here is my card. I want you to put your name
down for the waltz-galop, and the military schottische; yes, and
the minuet, too--you always do them so nicely with me. That’s
it. Now, come, I want to introduce you to Annie, Cousin Charlie
Manning’s wife, who is here to matronize the affair, and she has
just the dearest little girl you ever saw--one of those Dresden
china children that sets everybody wild. Good-by,” she added
carelessly, and nodding over her shoulder at the two gentlemen as
she slipped her hand within Gerald’s arm to lead him away. “I hope
you will enjoy looking on at the fun.”
And with that she hurried her companion forward to a tall,
graceful lady, who stood under a neighboring tree, and to whom she
introduced him with as much ceremony as if he had been the son of
a millionaire.
“Humph! your daughter appears to be exceedingly fond of your office
boy, and vice versa,” John Hubbard observed, with an ugly frown, as
he glowered after the youthful pair; “it might be wise for you to
nip such a tendency in the bud.”
“Pooh! it is only a boy-and-girl fancy that doesn’t amount to
anything,” the banker responded lightly, but with an uneasy gleam
in his eyes.
“These boy-and-girl fancies sometimes prove to be the most lasting
and dangerous,” his companion retorted, with a sullen air, as he
turned to a rustic seat, where he could command a view of all that
was occurring upon the lawn.
Meantime Allison was trying to obliterate the remembrance of the
wound which her lover had received from her father.
“Oh, Gerald! I was so disappointed when your note came,” she
exclaimed, with a heartiness which betrayed her sincerity, “but it
was just lovely of you to send these,” with a shy glance at the
bouquet pinned to her corsage, “and, you see, since I thought I
could not have you here, I tried to console myself by wearing your
flowers.”
“You honor me, Allison,” said the young man, his tones thrilling
with emotion.
“Ah! but there was an element of selfishness about it,” she
replied, with a saucy smile, “for I am very, very fond of these
dear little forget-me-nots.”
“Yes, I know you are,” said her companion, looking fondly into the
lovely, uplifted eyes, and wondering which were the bluer--they or
the flowers.
“How fortunate it was that you met that Mr. Bartlett,” Allison
continued, in a satisfied tone; “you were in luck, and now we will
have just as good a time as we can. Oh, dear, I wish we were not
going to Newport on Monday,” she concluded, with a regretful sigh.
“Why! I have always supposed that you have very gay times at
Newport,” Gerald observed, with surprise.
“Yes, we do--too gay, and that is just the reason I don’t like it.
Everything is so forced--everybody trying to outdo everybody else,
just to gratify their vanity and be conspicuous. There isn’t any
heart in it--it is all a sort of ‘Vanity Fair’ parade; no matter
where you go, you are scrutinized to see if your sleeves are of
the latest cut; if your skirts have the right number of gores and
measure the correct number of yards; if the crown of your hat is
too high or too low, or if you carry the same parasols you had
last year. I do like new and pretty things, but I don’t like to be
measured and dissected wherever I go, and the probable condition of
Adam Brewster’s finances judged accordingly.”
Gerald laughed.
“I think it must be only women who are so well versed in such
analytical processes. I am sure the other sex are always impressed
by the general effect--the tout ensemble,” he said, as he ran an
admiring eye over the dainty figure beside him, and thinking he had
never seen Allison more lovely than she appeared at that moment.
She was clad in the finest of India lawn, trimmed with yards
and yards of beautiful Valenciennes lace. A rich, white, satin
ribbon girdled her waist and floated to the hem of her dress, and
costly white kid boots incased her small, shapely feet. The only
dash of color about her was the gleaming gold of her hair and the
forget-me-nots upon her bosom.
“I reckon you are right, Gerald,” she gravely replied, “the men
are more kind and sensible in their judgment. If one is tastefully
dressed, and looks pretty, the cost and style do not matter so
much. Ah! here is Gladys,” she interposed, as a lovely child came
running to meet her. “Now, isn’t she sweet?”
Gerald paused to talk to the little one for a few moments, and then
the young couple hurried away to the pavilion, where they were soon
whirling among the gay dancers and conscious only of the joy of
being in each other’s presence.
It was an ideal afternoon to them both, although it meant a great
deal more to Gerald than to Allison, for she was just at an age to
enjoy a good time for the good time’s sake; she was standing where
“The brook and river meet,”
and had not yet awakened to the fact of a line of demarcation.
She was conscious of being very fond of her young friend, of
realizing that he was more congenial to her than other gentlemen of
her acquaintance, but had never paused to ask the reason why. The
sacred depths of her woman’s nature had never yet been sounded, as
her ingenuous manner betrayed.
The two men who watched the girl from a distance, noting her every
look and gesture, realized that it would need but a word or a
breath to arouse the latent fire of a deep and absorbing love, and
settle her fate for all time.
Both saw the danger and secretly vowed that it must and should
be avoided in the future. Adam Brewster told himself that, after
to-day, Allison and Gerald should not meet again, at least, until
the former was the promised wife of another; while John Hubbard
swore far more radical measures--swore that Gerald Winchester
should be crushed--ruined; that he should be so compromised as
to character and reputation that he would never dare to declare
his love for Allison Brewster, or that, in the event of such a
betrayal, she would spurn him from her with contempt.
The lawn-party appeared to be a grand success. Everybody seemed to
enter into the spirit of the occasion with a zest and heartiness
that bespoke real enjoyment. Allison had taken pains to introduce
Gerald very generally to her friends, to whom he was so attentive
and kind that he soon became an acknowledged favorite, a coveted
partner and cavalier, and the fair little hostess was secretly very
proud of him.
After a bounteous repast had been served in another pavilion,
erected for that purpose, a party was formed for a row upon the
lake, Gerald heading the company as “captain.”
The boat was a handsome and commodious affair shaped like a swan,
and gaily canopied with red-and-white bunting. A couple of men had
been hired to do the rowing, while Gerald managed the rudder.
Everything went well until the last party were returning. A short
way out in the lake an artificial island had been made. Upon this
there was a charming little grotto and fountain, and an arched
rustic bridge spanned the water between this pretty spot and the
mainland.
Just as the boat, with its merry company, was about to pass beneath
the bridge, a sweet little voice from above called out gaily:
“Hurrah! Allison, hurrah! See! I’ve got a pretty flag!”
Allison, who was seated in the stern of the boat, beside Gerald,
glanced up at the sound, to see little Gladys Manning leaning far
out through one of the spaces of the bridge above. For once she had
escaped the watchful eyes of her mother, and had run out upon the
bridge “to see the pretty bird swim on the water.” Some one had
given her a little silken flag, and this she was now waving merrily
at Allison.
“Take care, Gladys! Back! back!” cried Allison, almost breathless
from fear as the boat shot under the arch, and the child leaned out
farther to watch it.
But she spoke too late, for already the little one had lost her
balance, and, with a shriek of fear, fell headlong into the water
and disappeared from sight.
Cries and screams now filled the air, and for a moment a panic in
the boat seemed inevitable.
“Sit still, everybody, and be quiet!” cried Gerald, in ringing,
authoritative tones, while at the same moment he whisked off his
coat and vest and slipped off his shoes. The next instant he sprang
upon the seat, then dived out of sight.
Allison sat still in her place, her hands convulsively clasped upon
her breast, her face as white as her dress. She scarcely seemed to
breathe, and her agonized glance was fastened upon the spot where
Gerald had disappeared.
The child had not risen to the surface, and it seemed an age before
the young man reappeared.
But a great sigh, that seemed like a single moan, went up from
every heart when he at length came up alone, gasping for breath.
The next moment he went down again, and, after what seemed an
interminable age, although barely two minutes had elapsed, he came
up, and now the limp form of little Gladys was seen in his arms.
The child’s clothing had caught upon a spike in one of the supports
of the bridge, and thus she had been held at the bottom of the lake.
Gerald made straight for the boat with his lifeless burden.
“Can you help me, Allison?” he questioned, as he laid hold upon the
stern.
She put forth her arms, grasped the child, and with his help soon
had her in her lap.
“Now, you----” she gasped, looking anxiously into his white face.
“No--row! row with all your might,” Gerald shouted to the men,
“never mind me, but the child must have help.”
They needed no second bidding, and two minutes later they were at
the landing, where willing hands were extended to take Allison’s
lifeless burden from her.
“Stop!” cried Gerald, as they were about to bear her away to the
house.
He seized the child, laid her upon the greensward, fell upon his
knees, and began to work upon her as he had once seen a physician
try to resuscitate a man who had nearly drowned.
“Go for a doctor, somebody, and then bring blankets,” he continued,
without suspending his efforts.
For fifteen minutes or more he worked for dear life, assisted by
others; then a physician appearing upon the scene, he was only too
glad to relinquish his patient to him, for suspense and excitement,
together with the strength he had expended in the water, had nearly
exhausted him, and he willingly obeyed Mr. Brewster, who ordered
him to “come to his rooms, have a bath, and get into dry clothing.”
The child soon recovered under the physician’s treatment, and
appeared as bright and well as ever.
Gerald, who was about the size of Mr. Manning, was provided with
necessary apparel from that gentleman’s wardrobe, and ere long
reappeared among the company, looking a trifle pale, perhaps, but
very handsome and attractive after his act of heroism.
Allison also came down in a fresh toilet in season to receive the
adieus of her friends, who declared they had had a delightful time
in spite of their recent fright.
No one would acquiesce in Gerald’s going back to the city that
night. Mr. Brewster, with an unusual thrill of feeling in his
voice, told him to “stay and make himself at home.”
An hour later the gentleman left his niece, Mrs. Manning, with
Allison and Gerald, sitting upon the broad balcony overlooking the
lake, where a glorious full moon shed its silver light all around
them, and went to the library.
Fifteen minutes afterward Gladys called “mama” from above, and Mrs.
Manning went up to see what was wanted, when, finding the child
restless and nervous, she lay down beside her, where they both soon
fell asleep.
Allison and Gerald, thus left alone, had a long, cozy chat
together, until the great clock in the hall struck ten, when the
former sprang to her feet.
“That means bedtime for me,” she said, laughing, “and papa is so
ridiculously particular about it I suppose I must say good night.
What a day this has been!” she added, with a deep sigh; “it is a
long, long while since I have had such a lovely time. But for the
accident there would have been nothing to mar it--at least after
you came.”
Gerald’s pulses leaped at those last words, but he dared not betray
how they had moved him, and so he replied with what composure he
could:
“But that--the accident--only interrupted things for a little
while.”
“Yes, thanks to you,” said Allison, as she laid her hand upon the
back of his chair, and bent to look into his upturned face. “Oh,
Gerald! what should we have done if you had not been there? I shall
never forget how you seemed to know just what to do--never! You
dear, brave, splendid hero!”
Actuated by the impulse of the moment, and the gratitude of her
tender heart, she leaned forward and lightly touched his brow with
her sweet, red lips.
Then, frightened at what she had done, she would have fled, but
Gerald, every nerve in his body thrilling with ecstasy from that
soft caress, sprang to his feet, seized her hands, and drew her
gently toward him, looking eagerly down into her blushing face.
“Allison! Allison!” he whispered, all the mighty love within him
breaking every barrier down and asserting its God-given right to
speak for itself.
There was no mistaking the emotion that vibrated through every
syllable of that tenderly uttered name, and, like a flash,
it revealed to the beautiful girl what she was to Gerald
Winchester--what he was to her, and would be for all time. She
lifted one startled, comprehending look to him.
“Gerald!” she breathed softly; then their lips met in a mute caress.
The next instant the young lover found himself alone.
CHAPTER IV.
“I WOULD STAKE MY FORTUNE.”
When Gerald and Allison met at the breakfast-table the next morning
the fond glances of the one and the shy blushes of the other
warned Mr. Brewster that Cupid was surely in ambush, and it would
behoove him to be keenly on the alert. It was his custom to attend
church every Sabbath morning, and Allison always accompanied him;
accordingly, this morning, notwithstanding the excitement of the
previous day, was no exception to his rule.
He courteously invited Gerald to accompany him, but the young man
excused himself, as he wished to get back to the city by the next
train.
Mr. Brewster offered to drop him at the station, as it lay on their
way to church, and he experienced a sense of intense relief when
the young man sprang from the carriage, just in season to board the
train.
Not that he was not fond of Gerald for his faithfulness to him and
his many noble qualities, while his heroism of the previous day had
aroused his deepest gratitude, and increased his admiration for
him a hundredfold. Had he been his own son, he would have gloried
in him, or had he been the son of a man in his own sphere of life,
he would have eagerly welcomed him as a suitor for his daughter’s
hand. But pride, that relentless tyrant of the human heart, would
never swerve out of the beaten track for a struggling clerk, even
though he were of irreproachable morals or noblest aspirations.
One day, shortly after the departure of his family for Newport, Mr.
Brewster, on entering his office, laid a tiny package upon Gerald’s
desk.
“Something that Mrs. Manning commissioned me to hand to you,” he
remarked.
It proved to be a small box, which, upon opening, Gerald found to
contain a modest--as to size--but flawless diamond, in the form of
a stud.
On an accompanying card were written these words:
“With grateful remembrance and kindest regards.
“CHARLES AND ANNIE MANNING.”
Gerald was deeply touched by the testimonial, and greatly delighted
with the beautiful gift.
He did not once see or hear from Allison throughout the summer,
although, for years, he had never failed to receive an invitation
to spend a day or two at Newport with the family, but the memory
of those few last moments on that never-to-be-forgotten night at
Lakeview--that lingering, betraying caress, and the trustful,
loving look in the sweet, startled eyes uplifted to his, was a
source of never-failing joy to him.
“I will yet be worthy to claim her, morally, intellectually,
and--financially,” he often said to himself, with that same look of
determination with which he had once told John Hubbard that nothing
was unattainable to him who is bound to win.
The Brewsters remained at the fashionable watering-place until the
middle of September, when Mr. and Mrs. Manning went abroad for an
extended tour. Allison returned to Smith College, at Northampton,
where she had two years more of study before her, and the banker
settled himself in his winter home on Madison Avenue.
Thus another twelve months passed. John Hubbard still continued,
apparently, to prosper in his worldly affairs, while he seemed to
have utterly forgotten his enmity against Gerald.
But from time to time Gerald observed that his employer seemed
preoccupied, and wore an anxious look. He was often taciturn, and
occasionally harshly impatient, while, upon two or three occasions,
he made strenuous efforts to tide over the meeting of certain
obligations, which both surprised and troubled his confidential
clerk.
Then there came a day, just after the close of Allison’s school
year, that carried dismay to the hearts of all of the banker’s
friends. He dropped senseless in his office just before the closing
of the bank, and was borne to his home paralyzed and speechless.
Eminent physicians were summoned, and every known remedy employed
for his relief. His debility was purely physical, however--his
mental faculties appearing to be as keen as ever.
Meantime, John Hubbard assumed the control of affairs at the bank,
though, of course, under the authority of Mr. Brewster, and now
Gerald began to realize that the tentacles of this human octopus
were beginning to close around both himself and his employer.
From time to time the expert would call his attention to the fact
that there were mistakes in his work. He could never account for
these errors--he could have sworn that his work had been correctly
done; but upon reviewing it, he was forced to confess that
appearances were against him.
“You’ll have to be more careful, Winchester,” Mr. Hubbard sternly
remarked to him one day in December, when, for the third time, he
pointed out to him some discrepancies; “this kind of thing has been
going on too long altogether; I have been looking back over some
of Mr. Brewster’s private accounts, and I find numerous errors
covering more than a year. If the man were well, I should disclose
the fact to him and have you instantly discharged.”
Gerald flushed crimson. He could have taken his oath that he had
never made an error in his work--at least, an uncorrected one.
“Mr. Brewster has never complained,” he began, when his companion
curtly interrupted him with the trite remark:
“Figures don’t lie, young man.”
“Figures have been made to lie,” was on the tip of Gerald’s tongue
as he darted a suspicious look at his companion; but he resolutely
closed his lips and made no response.
But a little later, while John Hubbard was at luncheon and he was
left alone in the office, he proceeded to examine some of these
criticized accounts, and was almost paralyzed upon discovering how
his books appeared to compromise him.
There were evidences that some one had been critically examining
them, for there were frequent marginal notes, while the balance
seemed to show that he had been cleverly and systematically robbing
his employer for a long time.
With a very white face and sternly compressed lips, Gerald took a
powerful magnifying-glass and brought it to bear along the various
columns of figures.
“I thought so!” he hoarsely muttered, at last, “they have been
tampered with! Some of my threes and sixes have been changed to
eights; my ones, in numberless instances, have been made into twos,
fours, and sevens, but so skilfully that no one would believe me
if I should assert it--I could never prove that he did it. Great
Heaven! and it has been going on for many months. This was what he
had in mind when he crushed my rose and warned me to beware of a
similar fate.”
Gerald was sick at heart as he realized that he was standing
upon the brink of a fearful precipice and was powerless to help
himself--how he had become entangled in a skilfully contrived net
from which there seemed to be no possible way of escape.
If Mr. Brewster had been well he would have appealed at once to
him, stated his suspicions, and tried to point out the changes he
had discovered in the figures, but in the man’s present precarious
condition he dared not trouble him with the matter, even if he were
allowed an interview with him.
A week passed, and then, to his great joy, he received a note from
Mr. Brewster asking him to call upon him at a certain hour the
following Saturday, as he had a special commission for him.
He presented himself at the Brewster mansion promptly at the hour
mentioned in the note, and was at once conducted to his employer’s
presence.
He was greatly shocked at the change in the man--not having seen
him since his attack--for he had grown very thin, and seemed to
have aged many years. Mr. Brewster greeted him very kindly, and
seemed heartily glad to see him, but almost immediately broached
the business concerning which he had desired to see him.
“Gerald, I have a secret commission with which I wish to entrust
you,” he began, a grave look settling over his face. “I know that
I can trust you absolutely, and that is why I have chosen you in
preference to any one else.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gerald replied, with a glowing face, his sorely
wounded heart greatly comforted by this assurance.
“You have been inside the bank vault?”
“Yes, sir, often; you have frequently sent me to the drawer which
contains your private documents.”
“Yes--yes, I know, and ---- But before I go on I want you to give
me your word of honor that no one shall ever learn from you the
secret I am about to commit to you,” said the banker.
“Certainly, sir, I will promise that I will never betray any
confidence that you repose in me,” Gerald responded.
“That is enough,” he said. “Now, behind that drawer, which contains
those private papers, there is a small, secret vault, which I had
built there to store certain valuables during my absence from town.
No one save the man who made it, and I, know that it is there; no
one would suspect it, for, on removing the drawer, there seems to
be nothing but the brick wall behind it. On the contrary, there
is an iron plate, or panel, painted to resemble bricks. At the
bottom of this panel there is a small slot. You will insert in this
a tiny key which I shall give you; turn it half-around, and the
panel will spring outward. You can then swing it upward, when you
will discover behind it two boxes, take them out, being careful to
relock the panel, and bring them to me.”
“Yes, sir; I shall be very glad to do as you wish,” Gerald
remarked. “But how will I be able to get into the vault and remove
the boxes without the knowledge of others?”
“I have keys that will admit you to it, and you must go to the bank
when no one else is there,” said the banker, with a slight frown,
as if he did not exactly relish this part of the commission.
“To-morrow will be Sunday, and you had best go as soon after you
have had your breakfast as you can; then come directly to me. Be
careful not to excite the suspicion of any one whom you may meet,
for one of the boxes contains valuable jewels that belonged to
Mrs. Brewster. I want them for Allison; the other holds nothing of
special value to any one except myself.”
Mr. Brewster had become very white during this last statement, and
Gerald feared he was talking too much for his strength.
“Here are my keys,” he continued, after a moment, and, taking a
bunch from a drawer in the table beside him, “this one unlocks the
outer door, this the inner; the brass one opens the gate of the
iron fence; the heavy one will admit you to the vault; this unlocks
my private drawer, and the little, flat one the panel that conceals
the secret vault. Quite a lesson to learn, isn’t it?” he added,
with a slight smile; “but I think you will have no difficulty in
remembering how to use them.”
“No, sir; four of them I know already, so that leaves only those
belonging to your drawer and the secret vault to be distinguished,
and that is easily done,” Gerald replied, as he examined each key
attentively.
“Very well, then, I shall look for you here again some time
to-morrow forenoon. I want to get those boxes into my possession
as soon as possible,” Mr. Brewster observed, with a faint but
impatient sigh.
“I will try to be here some time between ten and eleven o’clock,”
Gerald returned, then added, losing some of his color: “And now,
Mr. Brewster, if you are not too tired, I have something to tell
you about my work.”
“I am not too tired, go ahead,” said the man; whereupon Gerald gave
him a brief account of the conversation that had recently passed
between himself and John Hubbard, and what he had discovered
afterward in connection with his work.
Mr. Brewster listened to him with growing astonishment, never once
removing his eyes from the young man’s face during his recital.
“These are very strange statements, Gerald--very grave statements,”
he remarked, with some sternness, as he concluded.
“They are, indeed, sir, and they involve my honor, my reputation,
and, unless my past dealings with you and my assurance are
sufficient guarantee to you of my integrity, the evidence is there
to prove that I have been doing very crooked business in your
office. The balances are all right, apparently, but the entries, if
examined, would seem to be conclusive testimony that I have been
systematically robbing you. Mr. Brewster, I firmly believe that
those figures have been skilfully changed for the sole purpose of
ruining me.”
“By whom?”
“That, of course, I cannot say positively, but I have long known
that Mr. Hubbard dislikes me,” was the somewhat reluctant reply.
“Do you mean to imply that John Hubbard would doctor the accounts
to injure you?” exclaimed Mr. Brewster, with a start.
“I have no right to assert that he would, for I cannot prove
it; but some one has done it, and he is the only one who, to my
knowledge, has had access to the books. I can only say I know he
hates me, and--I also say, Mr. Brewster”--and the honest fellow
here straightened himself with conscious integrity, and lifted an
unfaltering look to his employer--“that I have never made a false
entry upon one of your books.”
Neither was conscious of the presence of a third person in the room
as the banker heartily responded:
“I am sure you have not, Gerald; I would stake my fortune upon your
integrity and upon your unswerving faithfulness to my interests. I
will look into this matter just as soon as I am able. Ah! Allison,
I did not hear you come in. What is it, dear?” he concluded,
turning, as he caught the sound of her step behind him.
She came forward, blushing and smiling a welcome to Gerald.
“It is time for your beef broth, papa,” she said, as she placed a
small salver containing a cup before him.
Then she turned to our hero with outstretched hand.
“What an age it is since I saw you last, Gerald,” she remarked, and
then flushed again as she recalled her last interview with him.
He returned her greeting with what warmth he dared in Mr.
Brewster’s presence, but with a hand-clasp that spoke volumes.
CHAPTER V.
THE BANK ON SUNDAY MORNING.
Allison had come into the room where Gerald and her father were
conversing so earnestly just in season to catch the words of
commendation uttered by the latter.
“I am sure you have not, Gerald,” he had said; “I would stake my
fortune upon your integrity and upon your unswerving faithfulness
to my interests.”
She had noted, with the keen perception of a loving heart, the
troubled look in Gerald’s eyes, the anxious expression upon his
brow, and she instantly knew that something had gone amiss with
him, in spite of the fact that he seemed in perfect health, and was
handsomer and more manly than ever.
But in the excitement of greeting him--when she saw his face light
up with joy in her presence, when she felt the warm, lingering
clasp of his hand, and detected the old-time thrill in his
voice--she forgot all about it, for the time, and thought only of
the pleasures of this unexpected meeting.
When Gerald finally left the house it was with a very much lighter
heart than when he entered. His employer’s hearty and unqualified
assurance of confidence was like balm to his wounded spirit; while
his little interview with Allison had set all his pulses vibrating
afresh with his deep and abiding love for her.
He had not seen her for many months, and she seemed to have grown a
hundredfold more lovely than when he had bidden her adieu on that
bright Sunday morning so long ago.
He wondered if she had forgotten the evening previous--their
interview upon the veranda, where, with the moonlight streaming
upon them in its soft effulgence, they had been conscious only of
each other’s presence and the happiness that had thrilled every
fiber of their being. Did she remember their parting when the
clock struck ten? That blissful moment when their lips met in
that involuntary caress? That look into each other’s eyes, that
low-breathed “Allison!” “Gerald!” which had expressed so much?
She seemed a trifle more mature; she had acquired a little air of
dignity which, on the whole, he decided only added to her charms,
although at first it had chilled him slightly--at least, until he
found himself looking down into the expressive eyes.
He hoped he should see her again on the morrow, when he returned
with the boxes which Mr. Brewster had commissioned him to get from
the secret vault.
He smiled and uttered a sigh of content, as he passed his hand over
the pocket which held the keys the banker had given to him, and
realized that he never would have been entrusted with them if he
had not possessed the entire confidence of the man.
He hurried back to his lodging, where, in this happy frame of mind,
he settled down to the preparation of some lessons which were to be
recited that evening to a certain professor with whom he had been
studying for three years.
As we know, Gerald, at the time of his aunt’s death, had been in
the second year of the high school, but for a time after that his
studies were interrupted, as he found that his daily duties taxed
his strength to the utmost.
But as he became accustomed to his work, he began to get hungry for
his books again, and for a while attended evening school, although
his progress was thus necessarily slow.
Then he made the acquaintance of a professor by the name of
Emerson, who, becoming interested in the bright, ambitious lad,
offered to help him perfect his education and arranged for Gerald
to recite three times a week to him.
He was now in his twenty-first year, and expected by the coming
June to complete the studies of the second year of a regular
college course.
After partaking of a light supper, he repaired to the house of
his friend, Professor Emerson, where he acquitted himself most
creditably in his recitations.
The gentleman had become quite fond of his enterprising pupil, and
it was a great delight to him to teach one who was so eager for
knowledge and so quick to comprehend.
“By the way, Gerald, what do you intend to make of yourself when
you get through with your course?” he inquired to-night, as he
closed his book after the last recitation, and bent an inquiring
look on the handsome face before him.
“I think--since I am so well started in the banking business, I
shall stick to it, learn it thoroughly, and, if fortune favors
me, perhaps become a banker myself, by and by,” he replied, but
with a smile at his egotism in aspiring to a position such as Adam
Brewster occupied.
Professor Emerson eyed him curiously for a moment, then remarked:
“You’ll achieve it, if you undertake it, and, rightly conducted,
banking is a good business; still, I wish you might go a little
higher, intellectually--you would make a fine lawyer, your mental
grasp is so keen and accurate.”
“Thank you,” said Gerald, flushing at the compliment, “but it would
take me several years to prepare for the bar, after completing my
college course, and, since I have my own canoe to paddle, I think
I will adhere to what I have begun. I wish, though,” he added
gravely, as his mind suddenly reverted to John Hubbard, “I have
time to become thoroughly posted in law, and could combine the two,
for then I should always be sure of the faithfulness of my legal
adviser.”
“Why, Winchester! I did not suppose you possessed so suspicious a
nature!” said his friend, smiling, but with a note of surprise in
his tones. “If every one was governed by such distrust I fear the
lawyers would fare hard.”
“I am not naturally suspicious,” replied Gerald, reddening, “and
my remark must seem narrow and intolerant to you; it was prompted
by the fact that one lawyer whom I know is anything but an honest
and conscientious man.”
“But, ‘one swallow does not make a summer,’ my boy,” retorted his
friend, laughing.
“I know it, sir, and I have no business to be suspicious of all men
because of one man’s failings. I will try to be more charitable
toward lawyers in the future,” said the young man, as he rose to
leave.
He felt half-ashamed of having allowed himself to be so swayed by
his antipathy against John Hubbard, but all the way back to his
lodgings he was haunted by the face of the man and the malignant
scowl which had distorted it when he accused him of unfaithfulness
and dishonesty in his work.
Even in his sleep during the night he could not divest himself of
the consciousness of his vicious individuality--he seemed to be
continually pursuing and persecuting him until his visions became
so real that they finally drove him from his bed long before his
usual hour for rising on Sunday morning.
It was not yet dawn when he arose on Sunday morning, and, upon
looking from his window, Gerald saw that it was snowing.
He dressed himself with unusual care, for he hoped to see Allison
again, and, loverlike, desired to make as good an appearance in
her sight as possible. Then he hurried out for his morning meal,
after which he wended his way to the bank, where he arrived about
half-past eight.
The steps leading up to the door were covered with snow, and,
strangely enough, as he mounted them, leaving a footprint upon
every one, an uncomfortable sensation which was akin to guilt,
began to creep over him, causing his errand to become suddenly
repulsive to him, and making him long to go back to his room and
remain there.
But, throwing back his head with an air of conscious rectitude--for
was he not there at his employer’s command?--he quickly let himself
into the building, removing the key and relocking the door on the
inside to make sure that no one would follow him.
Passing through the inner door, he carefully wiped his feet upon
the mat, and removed his overshoes lest they should leave tracks
upon the floor--that same uncanny feeling which he had experienced
outside still pursuing him.
The bank was so still every footfall echoed noisily through it, and
sent a nervous shiver creeping down his spine.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, with an impatient shrug of his
shoulders, “I am no thief stealing in here to rob the place! Why on
earth should I feel like one? It is positively absurd!”
Proceeding directly to the vault, he drew the heavy bolts, unlocked
and swung open the massive iron-plated door. The place was cold
and gloomy, and again Gerald shivered with a nervous chill as he
stepped within those solid walls which so securely guarded their
hoarded treasure.
Proceeding directly to Mr. Brewster’s private drawer, the number of
which he had long known, he unlocked and drew it out, setting it
upon the floor.
It contained several packages of papers. But these held no interest
for him; he merely gave them a passing glance, then began to look
for the slot in the iron panel at the back of the aperture.
It required close searching to find it, but his efforts were
finally rewarded, whereupon he inserted the last of his keys,
turned it half-around, when the panel sprang outward, as Mr.
Brewster had described.
It appeared to be swung upon hinges, and, lifting it up, Gerald
could distinguish within the little vault thus disclosed a box of
some description.
He drew it from its place of concealment.
It proved to be a beautiful Japanese affair, inlaid with gold and
mother-of-pearl in an intricate pattern. There was a tiny key in
its lock, and for fear that it might drop out and be lost, Gerald
removed it and transferred it to a pocket in his vest, without once
thinking that he had it in his power to inspect the contents of the
casket, if he chose to do so.
Putting it carefully down upon the floor, he looked for the
other. He found it shoved away back in the secret vault. It was
much larger than the other--a common, though strong, wooden
receptacle--and it was also locked, while there was no key with it.
Gerald felt quite sure that the Japanese casket must contain the
jewels of which Mr. Brewster had spoken, and which were to be given
to Allison. Doubtless they were very valuable, and would be doubly
precious to her because they had once belonged to and been worn by
her mother.
He would probably see them upon her person some day; but, strange
to say, he did not feel half so curious about them as he did
regarding the contents of the larger box, for he had been
impressed by Mr. Brewster’s manner and expression when he had said
that it contained “nothing of special value to any one--except
myself.”
However, he felt that it was no business of his what either held;
his duty lay simply in conveying them safely to his employer.
Putting the drawer back in its place, he relocked it, when,
gathering the boxes from the floor, he turned to leave the vault.
At that instant a shadow obscured the light admitted by the open
door.
Gerald started forward with a sudden and terrible heart-throb.
His face flushed hotly, then paled to the hue of marble as he was
confronted by John Hubbard, who was standing upon the threshold, a
sardonic grin distorting his sinister countenance.
“Aha! my young burglar,” the man exclaimed, in a tone of fiendish
triumph, “is this the way you are in the habit of spending your
Sundays?”
The sound of the expert’s voice at once restored Gerald’s
composure, although every nerve in his body was tingling with anger
at his manner of addressing him.
“I am no burglar, Mr. Hubbard, and you know it,” he coldly
returned. “I am not in the habit of coming here--I have never been
in the bank on Sunday before this; but----”
“What have you there?” sternly interposed his companion, and
indicating by a gesture the boxes in Gerald’s hands.
“Some things belonging to Mr. Brewster.”
“So I judged. How came you here?”
“By his orders,” the young man briefly replied, and then wondered
at the almost satanic leer which swept over the features of the man
before him.
“Indeed! but how did you pass all these barriers?” with a nod
backward over his shoulder.
“Why, by means of these keys, which Mr. Brewster himself gave to
me, when he asked me to perform this errand for him,” the young
man responded, as he held up the bunch by the ring, and which Mr.
Hubbard instantly recognized as belonging to the banker.
“When did you see Mr. Brewster?” he questioned, a look of
perplexity flashing over his face.
“Yesterday afternoon--he sent for me to go to him,” Gerald
explained.
“H’m!” ejaculated the expert, with a frown. Then, after a moment of
thought, he added: “What is in those boxes?”
Again Gerald flushed. Then he threw back his handsome head
haughtily.
“Excuse me,” he said freezingly, “but that is a question which Mr.
Brewster alone is qualified to answer.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed his companion, but with so weird a note in the
sound, which echoed and re-echoed mockingly through the vault, that
Gerald’s blood almost seemed to congeal in his veins. “You are very
non-committal, my fine fellow,” he continued, with a snarl, “but do
you dare to tell me that you don’t know what either of those boxes
contains?”
“I must decline to discuss the matter with you, Mr. Hubbard,” was
the terse reply.
“Indeed!” sneered his companion. Then he observed, served,
authoritatively, as he went a step nearer Gerald. “Very well, we
won’t discuss it; but since I am Mr. Brewster’s attorney, I will
relieve you of all further care of them. Give them to me.”
“No, sir!” said Gerald resolutely, and retreating from him.
“Give them to me, I tell you!” commanded the man angrily.
“I cannot do that, Mr. Hubbard,” Gerald calmly returned. “Mr.
Brewster requested me to come here for them, and then bring them
directly to him. I shall deliver them to no other hands.”
Once more that strange laugh echoed through the dismal vault.
“You will have to go a long journey to do that, young man,” said
John Hubbard, showing his white teeth in a horrible grin.
“How so?” queried Gerald, in surprise, but with a strange numbness
stealing over him, “I--I do not understand you.”
“Adam Brewster is dead!” said John Hubbard.
CHAPTER VI.
GERALD SUFFERS AN INDIGNITY.
There was a dead silence in that gloomy place for the space of a
full minute after John Hubbard’s terrible announcement.
“It cannot be possible!” Gerald finally gasped, as he staggered
back against the side of the vault, almost paralyzed from horror.
As he did so, the topmost box in his hands slipped from his grasp,
and fell with a crash to the floor.
The lock was either broken or forced from its socket by the
concussion, and the lid flew back, thus disclosing to the curious
eyes of John Hubbard various articles of valuable jewelry.
“Aha! diamonds! pearls! rubies and emeralds!” he exclaimed, as
he stooped to examine them more closely. “Truly, young man, you
were taking time by the forelock to feather your nest before an
inventory could be taken of your employer’s effects.”
“What do you mean, sir?” he exclaimed, starting forward, a
dangerous gleam in his eyes. “Do you dare assert that I knew that
Mr. Brewster was not living, and stole here to rob him?”
“I am forced to admit that it looks very much like it,” was the
deliberate and cruel response.
A terrible shock went quivering through Gerald at these words, for
he realized but too well that the man would do his utmost to injure
him by putting the worst possible construction upon the situation.
“You know better!” he cried, hot indignation and resentment flaming
up within him; “you know I would not touch a penny that did not
belong to me.”
“Ahem! that all sounds very well, my would-be paragon of honor,”
sneered the expert, “but you will have to prove it, you know.”
“Prove it! Why, of course, I can prove it,” replied Gerald, a
little smile of scorn for his recent fear curling his lips, and a
consciousness of rectitude and security supplanting it, “I have Mr.
Brewster’s note of yesterday, asking me to come to him, as he had a
special commission for me, and then the very fact of my having his
keys proves that I am here under orders,” and again he held them up
to his companion’s view.
“H’m! so he wrote you to come to him, did he?” queried John Hubbard
thoughtfully. “Where is the note? I should like to see it.”
Gerald put his hand into his coat-pocket; then suddenly remembered
that he had put on his best suit that morning.
“Ah!” he said, “it is in the pocket of my other coat.”
John Hubbard’s eyes gleamed with a cunning light at this
information.
“Well, you will doubtless need all the proof you can bring to
get you out of this scrape,” he gruffly observed. “Maybe you can
produce such a note, but I doubt it. Did any one see Mr. Brewster
give you those keys?”
Gerald’s heart sank at the question, as he remembered that he and
his employer had been utterly alone throughout their interview,
except for the few minutes that Allison was in the room, and he was
sure she had heard nothing that would prove the truth of what he
had asserted. At least he knew she was not there when the keys were
given to him.
“You have no right to question me like this, or to doubt my word,
and I will have no further conversation with you about the matter,”
he responded, after a moment of thought.
But he was deathly pale as he stooped to recover the box that had
fallen. He found that it was not broken; the lock had only been
forced by the fall. He carefully arranged the jewels which had been
somewhat displaced, although, fortunately, none had been spilled;
then, shutting the box, he relocked it with the key which he took
from his vest-pocket.
John Hubbard watched him warily while he was thus engaged. “I will
take charge of those things,” he sternly observed, as Gerald was
about to replace the key in his pocket.
“Excuse me; but I do not think you will,” the young man coldly
returned.
“I am Mr. Brewster’s attorney, and it will be my duty to settle his
estate; consequently all his property will pass through my hands.
Give me those boxes!” the man concluded authoritatively.
“No, sir. Mr. Brewster authorized me to take them to his house; I
shall do as he ordered, and since you say he is no longer living,
give them to Miss Brewster; he stated that he wanted the jewels for
her.”
And he started to leave the vault as he concluded.
“You will do no such thing, you young upstart!” snarled John
Hubbard, at the same time making an agile spring backward out of
the vault, when he swung to the ponderous door almost before Gerald
comprehended his intention.
“Now, you beggarly upstart, I have you just where I want you,”
he cried, in a cruel, exultant tone, and putting his lips to the
keyhole, “I once gave you an object-lesson regarding your fate if
you continued to stand in my way.”
Gerald did not deign to reply to these taunts and presently he
knew, by the closing of the outer door of the bank, that he was
alone.
His heart was very heavy, for he began to realize that his case was
desperate. Fate and his evil-minded foe had conspired to so involve
him in a network of compromising circumstances, it seemed likely
that he was destined to be proved a graceless scamp and a daring
robber.
His employer, the only one who had it in his power to exonerate him
from blame and prove his innocence, was dead.
He felt almost sure that John Hubbard intended to bring an officer
there to arrest him, with the evidences of his guilt around him.
With this thought there came the temptation to restore those boxes
to the secret vault from which he had taken them.
Mr. Brewster had said that no one, save himself and the man who
constructed it, knew of its existence. If he should conceal those
jewels and the other box, there would be no evidence, beyond John
Hubbard’s word, to prove that he had attempted to take them from
the bank. His word would be just as good as that of his enemy, upon
whom the burden of proving his own accusations would have to rest.
“But I should have to deny all knowledge of them. I should be
obliged to lie, and that I will not do, even to save my--myself
from prison,” he said to himself, with an air of proud resolution.
“No, I will tell the truth and take my chance; I have Mr.
Brewster’s note telling me to come to him; I have also his keys,
and the two taken together ought to be strong points in my defense.”
Nevertheless, these arguments were small consolation in view of his
unfortunate situation.
Then his thoughts reverted to Mr. Brewster, and hot tears rushed
into his eyes as he realized that the man was lying still in
death, and they would never meet in this life again. He was still
weak from the shock he had experienced upon learning the fact so
suddenly, and he wondered what could have caused the unlooked-for
attack.
He had appeared to be very comfortable, and hopeful of soon getting
out again, when he had seen him the previous day, and it seemed
awful to him that he should have been so ruthlessly cut down, just
in the prime of life, and in the height of prosperity.
He was wild with impatience to learn the particulars, and chafed
restively against his confinement in that tomb-like place.
“Poor Allison! It will be a terrible blow to her,” he mused; “she
will be all alone in the world now; but she is fortunate to be left
an heiress, and thus shielded from the hardships of life.”
Alas! he little thought that the fortune which would fall to the
girl was destined to bring upon her dangers and trials from which
he would have shrunk appalled could he have foreseen them.
He sprang to his feet and began to pace the vault restlessly,
for a feeling of faintness and sickness came over him; he also
experienced a difficulty in breathing, as the air in the place
began to be vitiated.
Suppose John Hubbard should not return in season to release him
before suffocation overtook him, he thought, a nervous chill
creeping over him; but he discarded it with a bitter smile.
He well knew that the man would not dare to let him die there--that
he was planning for him a worse fate than death, out of a cruel
spirit of revenge, because he had dared to love the girl whom he,
for some strange reason, coveted. He believed that he meant to so
crush and humiliate him that he would never want to seek Allison
Brewster again, or meet the gaze of her pure, clear eyes.
“He shall not do it! by Heaven! he shall not succeed in his
atrocious designs!” he cried out, in a sudden anguish, as those
torturing thoughts flitted through his brain. “I am an honest man,
and I swear I will yet prove it to the world, in spite of the worst
that he can do.”
A little later he heard the outer door of the bank open and close
again, then the sound of steps and voices drawing near him, until
presently, the bolt which fastened the door of the vault was shot
back, and the next moment John Hubbard, accompanied by a policeman,
stood in his presence.
“Here, Mr. Officer, is your prisoner, and that,” pointing to the
two boxes upon the floor, “is the booty with which he was about to
make off when I caught him,” the man explained, as he shot a look
of malignant triumph at his victim.
“Humph!” ejaculated the officer, as he darted a comprehensive
glance around the place, and at the same time taking the measure of
Gerald.
“It is very fortunate that I happen here just as I did,” Mr.
Hubbard went on. “I seldom come to the bank on Sunday, but there
were some papers here which I was obliged to have to-day, and thus
I came upon him in the midst of his depredations.”
“H’m! you look rather young and green to be a bank-robber,” the
policeman remarked, not unkindly, as he searched the pale, handsome
face of his prisoner; “you don’t seem like the sort, either, that
would be up to such business.”
“I am no bank-robber,” said Gerald, with quiet dignity, and meeting
the man’s searching look unflinchingly, “I am here under orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“My employer’s, Mr. Brewster’s,” and Gerald proceeded to give him
a brief account of the facts of the case, though he said nothing
about the secret vault.
“That sounds all straight and right,” said the policeman, as he
gravely turned to Mr. Hubbard.
“Yes; he tells a very plausible story,” was the sneering response,
“but it is perfectly absurd, when you come to think of it, that
Mr. Brewster should intrust such a commission to a mere boy, when
I have been his attorney, and have conducted his affairs for
years; and on Sunday, with so much secrecy, too! That was not Adam
Brewster’s way of doing business; it is far more likely that he
would have sent for what he wanted, openly and aboveboard, and on
some day during regular banking hours. No, sir; he can’t pull the
wool over my eyes; and as I feel bound to protect the interests of
my late client, I shall expect you to do your duty, and take the
fellow in charge,” he concluded authoritatively.
“Well, I suppose I must,” the man responded, with evident
reluctance, adding, as he drew from a capacious pocket a pair of
steel bracelets, “hold out your hands, my young man.”
Gerald shrank back a step.
“Oh! not that!” he said, with pale lips; “I beg you will not
handcuff me. I will go with you peaceably.”
“Well, maybe you would. I’m inclined to believe you; but it’s my
rule to make sure of my birds, and I don’t make any exceptions,”
said the man, as he dexterously slipped the shackles upon the
wrists of his prisoner; but with an air that betrayed he did not
very much relish the business in hand.
“The keys, Mr. Officer; I must have the keys,” John Hubbard
interposed, as they were about to leave the vault.
“Where are they, youngster?” demanded the man. “Hand them over.”
“They are in the left pocket of my coat,” said Gerald, with
difficulty repressing a groan over his ignominious and utter
failure to execute his employer’s commission.
He was impressed that the larger box contained some secret which
Mr. Brewster would not, on any account, have made known to the
world, and he could not bear the thought that John Hubbard would
now learn it, and perhaps put it to an ignoble use.
The expert plunged his hand into the pocket designated, and drew
forth the keys, after which he stooped to secure the boxes, and
left the vault, followed by the officer and his prisoner.
“Now you may go and cage your bird,” he remarked to the former. “I
will let you out of the bank, but I have some business here, and
shall remain a while longer.”
He unlocked the outer door, and the two men passed out into the
storm. John Hubbard stood looking after them for a few moments, a
fiendish expression on his thin face.
“Gad! what luck!” he muttered. “If ever I made a shrewd move, it
was in coming here this morning to get those papers.”
He returned to the vault, which he securely locked, also the gate
to the iron inclosure.
Then, taking the two boxes, he went inside the banker’s private
office, and deposited them upon the table there.
“Humph!” he observed, as he fastened a keen, curious glance upon
the larger, “there is no key to that, but I’m going to know what it
contains, all the same.”
Whereupon he sat down, drew it to him, and deliberately began to
pick the lock.
CHAPTER VII.
MR. BREWSTER’S WILL.
After Gerald left Mr. Brewster, on Saturday afternoon, the
banker--Allison also having retired--sat for a long time in deep
thought, an anxious look on his thin face, a stern expression in
his shrewd, gray eyes.
“It certainly looks bad,” he muttered; “somebody has evidently been
meddling with my private accounts; but Gerald is not the rogue--he
is true to the core. I never knew any one possessing a finer sense
of honor. If I thought that Hubbard was up to any rascality--and I
am sometimes inclined to think he is too sharp--I’d cut him loose
without ceremony; and yet”--with a scowl of annoyance--“that might
not be so easily done, for some of our transactions have become
strangely mixed. Somehow, I have never had quite so much confidence
in him since that day when he proposed for Allison. I--I really
would like to break away from him before she gets through school
next summer, for, of course, she will never want to marry him, and
I am very sure I do not want him for a son-in-law.”
Again he dropped into profound thought, which was finally
interrupted by the entrance of his attendant, with the light repast
which constituted his supper.
A little later, Allison came again, to read the evening paper to
him, after which they chatted socially for a while, when the
banker said he felt weary, and would retire.
His attendant was assisting him to prepare for bed when he suddenly
put his hand to his head and made an exclamation as if he were in
pain.
“It is nothing,” he said, as the nurse glanced at him in surprise,
“merely a neuralgic twinge in my head; but--what is this?” he added
thickly, and beginning to rub his face, which was twitching and had
a strangely drawn look.
The next moment he fell forward upon the bed, unconscious.
A physician was summoned, and everything done that medical skill
could suggest; but the man never rallied; he remained in a stupor
throughout the night, until an early hour of the morning, when he
sank away like the sudden going out of a candle.
Knowing that John Hubbard was her father’s attorney, and otherwise
connected with him in business, and having no relatives upon whom
to call in this emergency, Allison had sent for the lawyer, when it
was found that the banker could not live, and he had remained at
the house until the end.
He assumed the care of everything, made all arrangements for the
burial, subject, of course, to Allison’s wishes and preferences,
and when these duties were over, he repaired immediately to the
bank, as there were certain papers which he wished to secure, and
certain accounts to be balanced, before Mr. Brewster’s death should
become known to the employees of the institution.
It required some time for Hubbard to pick the lock of the box, for
it was strangely constructed, and, not having been disturbed for
many years, the lock was considerably rusted.
But patience and perseverance at length accomplished his purpose,
when, throwing open the cover, an exclamation of disappointment and
disgust escaped him when he found within only a few neatly folded
articles of infant’s clothing.
Upon the garment uppermost there was a small pin, in the form of a
key, with a tiny diamond in the thumb-piece, which attracted his
interest for a moment.
“Pshaw!” the man impatiently ejaculated. “I might have saved my
time and trouble; this trumpery doesn’t amount to anything. The
things are doubtless some of Allison’s baby-clothes, which her
mother wished to preserve for her. Bah!”
He was upon the point of closing the box, when a second thought
prompted him to turn it upside down, whereupon, as the clothing
slipped out, two sealed envelopes rattled out upon the table.
“Aha! this begins to be more interesting!” exclaimed the man
eagerly, a curious look leaping into his shrewd eyes. He tore open
the envelopes, one of which contained quite a bulky enclosure; the
other but a single half-sheet of paper, with some careless writing
on one side.
This latter John Hubbard read first, and a look of astonishment
overspread his face while doing so.
“Well! well! here is romance worth reading!” he muttered, in a
wondering tone, as he dropped the paper and took up the closely
written sheets of the other missive and began to puruse them.
He seemed turned to stone as he read.
“My Dear Husband,” the communication began, “I have a confession
to make to you, and I am wondering if you will ever forgive
me when you learn the nature of it. I am dying, or I fear
that I should not have the courage to make it even now; but I
dare not go out of the world weighed down with this, the only
secret I have ever kept from you, and with a living lie upon my
conscience. It is an awful secret, Adam, and you will be shocked
to your soul when you read it. Allison is not our own child, my
husband; I do not even know whose child she is. There the truth
is out at last, and, oh! my dear, my dear, I am trying to imagine
how you will receive this dreadful revelation. Why did I deceive
you so? How does it happen that our darling is not our very own?
you will ask. Ah! it is a long, sad story, but you shall have
every detail, and then judge me as you will. You remember that
when you sailed for Europe, before our own little one came, I
went to F---- to remain with my sister Nannie. Adam, that little
one died at its birth; but no one knew it save Nannie, Sarah--her
servant--and I. I had no physician, for baby came unexpectedly
in the midst of a terrible tempest, and Nannie took care of me;
but, oh! I was heartbroken when my darling died, and I grieved so
knowing how terribly you also would be disappointed, my sister
feared that you would lose me also. And now I will tell you how
strangely Allison was sent to take the place of the child we
lost. How dreadful it seems that hearts who so yearn for these
darlings are ruthlessly deprived of them, while other children
are remorselessly deserted, and left to the doubtful charity of a
cold world.”
Then there followed a full account of the incidents which have
already been related in the prologue to our story, and which it
would be wearisome to the reader to have repeated here.
Nothing was withheld, neither was the deception defended; a
concise, simple statement of facts was made; but when the story was
all told the fond, yet timid, wife and mother poured out a wealth
of love for the child of her adoption, and pleaded with a pathetic
earnestness that would melt the coldest heart that her sin might
not be visited upon the innocent little daughter whom they both
so dearly loved, but that her husband, even though he had been
secretly wronged and deceived, would still continue to tenderly
cherish her and never allow her to know the story of her desertion,
or that she was not their own flesh and blood.
“Humph! My wealthy and aristocratic banker, you were smart in
certain directions, but you were inclined to neglect the burning of
your bridges behind you,” sneered Hubbard, as he finished reading.
“Doubtless that was what he meant to do, and that was why he sent
Winchester here to get the things to-day? Gad! but it is a queer
complication of circumstances--his dying so suddenly just at this
time, these papers falling into my hands, and the sweeping of that
young upstart from my path--that has conspired to throw the power
for which I have been scheming for so many years directly into my
hands in a way I least expected.”
He sat for a long time absorbed in thought, his sinister face
changing in expression with the working of his mind, and plainly
betraying that he was plotting some deep and villainous scheme.
“If she can be persuaded to marry me as soon as she finishes her
education everything can be quietly settled just to my liking; and
then, John Hubbard, you may play the high-toned gentleman to your
heart’s content for the remainder of your life. But if she should
be obstinate and refuse me----”
An ugly scowl contracted his brow as he abruptly paused at this
point, while his eyes fastened themselves with an ugly glitter
in their depths upon the box whose sacred secrets he had just
fathomed. Then once more he fell into a fit of musing, which lasted
a long while.
Finally he arose, and, making his way again to the vault--which he
reopened with Mr. Brewster’s key--he sought the banker’s private
drawer, removing it, and taking it, with its contents, back to the
office, when he reseated himself and began to examine the papers
within it.
He finally found what he was in search of--a legal document,
which he drew from its envelope, unfolded, and began to study
attentively. After he had read it through he went back to the
first page, which he deliberately detached from the others; then,
procuring another sheet of paper exactly like it, he proceeded to
copy it, with a fountain-pen, which he always carried with him in a
hand which showed that the entire document had been written by him,
but making certain changes in the phraseology to suit himself.
“There!” he observed, with an air of satisfaction as he finished
his work; “that will fix things just as I want them--for the
present.”
He then refolded the paper, inclosed it in a fresh envelope, sealed
it with red wax, and wrote across the top of it in a bold, clear
hand, “Last will and testament of Adam Brewster.”
This he replaced in the drawer, which he carried back to its place
in the vault; then, making everything secure inside the bank, he
left the building, taking with him the two boxes which he had
previously wrapped in strong brown paper.
Three days later all that was mortal of Adam Brewster was laid away
in the family vault in Greenwood Cemetery.
In the foremost carriage of the many which followed him to his last
resting-place sat Allison, the once petted and idolized daughter,
but now a lonely orphan, clad in deepest mourning, her fair face
pale and tear-stained from heart-breaking grief and much weeping.
The faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Polard, who had been in the family
for years, occupied the seat beside her, and John Hubbard the one
opposite. He seemed in deep thought, and he scarcely took his eyes
from the bereaved girl during the melancholy drive.
Immediately upon the return from this last tribute of respect to
the late banker a few persons gathered in the elegant library,
which would henceforth know his presence no more, to listen to the
reading of his last will and testament.
Mr. Hubbard broke the seals in the presence of the gentleman’s
pastor, two of the older officers of the bank, Allison and Mrs.
Pollard.
The document was rather brief, considering the magnitude of the
testator’s fortune, and to the point, and was dated some eight
years previous.
It bequeathed all that he might die possessed of to his only and
beloved child, Allison Porter Brewster, excepting certain bequests.
“And I hereby appoint John L. Hubbard, my trusted attorney, to be
her sole guardian--if he be living at the time of my demise--until
she shall attain her twenty-fifth year, when she shall come into
the unrestricted possession of her whole fortune,” read the will.
Allison listened attentively to the reading of the will, although
she had flushed hotly upon learning that she was to be under the
guardianship of John Hubbard during the next six or seven years.
She had never liked her father’s attorney, although he had always
treated her with the utmost kindness and respect. But she knew that
her father had long trusted him in business, and therefore, she
tried to think that he must have considered him the most competent
and trustworthy person to manage her property, or he would not have
given him so much power.
Still, she would have preferred almost any one else; she felt that
he might, at least, have consulted her, since she had grown old
enough to think for herself, and not condemned her to such a long
and wearisome bondage to one who was so uncongenial to her in every
way.
Of course, she did not once dream that her father’s will had been
tampered with since his death.
After the reading of the will, those who had been invited to be
present during that formality took their leave, and Allison found
herself alone with the man to whom, for the next six or seven
years, she was to look for the management of her affairs.
He now remained with her for a half-hour or more, consulting her
wishes with a gentle deference which disarmed her, and made her
feel that perhaps, after all, he might be a very agreeable sort of
person to have for a guardian.
He came again the next day and every day throughout the
week--always upon some business which he contrived to make so
interesting that Allison really began to look forward to his coming
and to greet him with a growing cordiality and frankness that
made the man’s heart burn with eager hope and the belief that he
was destined to win the great stakes which for years he had been
playing.
One morning, after an unusually entertaining call he arose to
leave, remarking, in a laughing way:
“Well, Allison, I begin to think you would make quite a business
woman with the right coaching; you have been quite an apt pupil
during the last few days.”
She glanced up at him with a smile, and then a sob burst
involuntarily from her.
The man started, and bent a tender look upon her.
“Dear child, what is it?” he questioned, earnestly.
“Oh, I am so alone!” she moaned, tears raining over her face.
“This great house seems so desolate, so empty! I feel as if I could
not live here another day,” she concluded, glancing around the
spacious, elegant room, and shivering nervously.
“I know you must be lonely, dear,” he said, trembling himself, as
he leaned eagerly toward her, “and it pains me deeply to see you so
sorrowful. I would that I might shield you from every pang, from
every ill in life. Allison, may I?”
His voice was husky from mingled emotion and tenderness; he was
very pale from the intensity of passion that throbbed in every
pulse of his being; and Allison, looking up at him with a sudden
shock, read in his burning eyes the story that he was yearning to
tell her.
A hot flush instantly suffused her own face; then she shrank from
him with a gesture of unmistakable repugnance.
But he had no intention of losing the vantage-ground that he had
gained, and, bending still nearer her, he captured one of her hands.
“I perceive that you have fathomed my secret, my darling,” he said,
in a tremulous tone. “Yes, I love you, sweet. I have loved you ever
since you were a little girl, and have lived for years with the one
hope in view of some day winning your love in return. Now let me
become your guardian in more senses than one, Allison. Become my
wife and give me the right to smooth every rough place in life for
you; let me shield you from every rude wind and storm----”
“Oh, don’t! don’t!” suddenly interposed the girl, and snatching her
hand from his grasp. “Oh, why do you say such things to me? You
have no right to take advantage of my sorrow and loneliness. I will
not listen to you!”
“Hush, my child!” said her companion gently, but growing very white
about the mouth. “My declaration may seem somewhat premature, but
I have waited many years for the time to come when I might tell
you that all the hopes of my life were centered in you. I can wait
still longer, Allison--I can even be as patient as Jacob of old if
you will give me a crumb of comfort--if you will tell me that I may
hope to win you at last----”
“No! no! I never could marry you,” Alison cried wildly, and with
such significant emphasis there was no mistaking her attitude
toward her would-be lover, and which stung him like a lash.
CHAPTER VIII.
EVIDENCE BY MR. PLUM.
“Very well; we will drop the subject for the present,” John Hubbard
remarked, with compressed lips, and making a visible effort for
self-control, “but I want you to think over what I have said, and
be prepared to give me a different answer later on.”
Allison started, and something in his tone stirred her anger and
instantly restored all her self-possession.
“No,” she said decidedly, as she lifted her beautiful eyes, and
steadily met his, “I do not need to think it over, and I could
not give you any different answer later on. I know now that I do
not love you well enough to marry you, and never shall; so, Mr.
Hubbard, please never speak of this again to me.”
Her manner was so resolute, her tone so calmly authoritative he
knew that she meant every word she uttered, and a terrible though
silent rage took possession of him.
But he had far too much at stake to betray it, and thus incur
her enmity. He meant to move heaven and earth to win her and her
magnificent fortune. He meant to have both, if he could; but if she
proved obstinate, and would not marry him, he had other plans--he
would ruthlessly crush her, and so eventually win her money. Still,
a young and pretty wife was worth temporizing for; and so, with a
forced smile, he said:
“My child, I love you far too well to bring even a cloud to your
dear face, so we will drop the subject for the present, and some
time, perhaps, you will realize the value of a true and faithful
heart.”
When he went away, Alison, with a troubled face, watched him from a
window, as he passed down the street.
“Ugh!” she cried, shrugging her shoulders impatiently. “I could
never marry him--never! Why, he is years and years older than I!
Then he has such horrid eyes, and, when he smiles, his teeth look
just like those of an ugly dog through that mustache of his, and
make my flesh creep. I don’t believe that any man so repulsive can
be really good, and I wonder how papa could have trusted him as he
seemed to. I suppose, though, he must be a good business man; but
marry him! I’d rather go into a convent and live out the rest of my
life as a nun,” she concluded, with a shiver of disgust.
Then, suddenly, her thoughts reverted to Gerald, and a little color
came back to her pale cheeks.
“I wonder where he can be,” she mused. “I think it is so strange
that he has not been here--that he did not come to papa’s funeral,
and has not even sent me a note to tell me that he is sorry for my
trouble--he might, at least, have done as much as that.”
Her lips quivered, and hot tears rushed to her eyes, in view of
this seeming neglect.
Many times during those days of loneliness and sorrow she had
thought that if she could see Gerald, if only for a few minutes,
his presence would be an inexpressible comfort to her; but she had
told herself that it was his duty to either come to her, or send
her a note of condolence, and she had been too proud to write and
ask him to come.
But now, after her disagreeable interview with her guardian, the
longing for him became so intense that, after struggling for a few
moments with her emotions, she bowed her face upon her hands, and
burst into violent weeping.
But poor Gerald was still a prisoner, awaiting his trial, which,
for some inexplicable reason, had been deferred, from day to day,
until he was now very impatient and miserable.
On Monday, after his arrest, he had sent a note to Professor
Emerson, who, after listening to the young man’s story, looked
grave and perplexed. The case seemed difficult, and he at once
procured a lawyer, Mr. Arnold, for the prisoner. The latter at
Gerald’s request, went to his room to procure the note that Mr.
Brewster had written to him, but it was nowhere to be found.
The landlady was interviewed to ascertain, if possible, if any one
outside the house had been in his room during his absence; but both
she and the chambermaid asserted that there had not.
It was, nevertheless, a fact that John Hubbard had himself been
there. As it happened, he knew another lodger in the same house,
and on Monday evening following Gerald’s arrest, he called upon
him, making a plausible errand of some kind. In this way he
learned that Gerald’s room was located upon the same floor, and
upon taking his leave, he shyly slipped into our hero’s apartment,
and in less than two minutes reappeared with Mr. Brewster’s note in
his possession, thus depriving his victim of an important piece of
evidence.
Gerald, in laying his case before his lawyer, did not mention
Allison, or the fact that she had been present in the room during
any portion of his interview with her father.
He really believed that she had not entered in season to overhear
anything that had been said about the “doctored” accounts, and
even if he had known that such was the case, it is doubtful if
he could have brought himself to call upon her as a witness for
him. The thought of dragging her into a criminal court, to have
her name bandied about by newspaper reporters, was very repugnant
to him. Besides, she had not shown the slightest interest in him,
or sympathy for him in his trouble. He reasoned that she could
not fail to know of it, since it had been widely chronicled in
the papers, and her apparent indifference cut him to the quick,
wounding his pride as well as his love, and thus a certain
obstinacy took possession of him, and made him secretly vow that he
would not appeal to her, even if he knew that her evidence would
save him from serving a sentence in State prison.
The real facts of the case were, that during the first few days
after her father’s death, Allison had been so prostrated with grief
that it had been comparatively easy for John Hubbard to keep all
newspapers from her, which he had taken special pains to do, as he
did not care to have her know anything of Gerald’s trouble until
it was too late for her to interest herself for him. He believed
that he had played his cards so cleverly that his conviction was
inevitable, and, once behind prison-bars, he believed the fair girl
would never give him another thought.
The case was finally called on the Tuesday following Mr. Brewster’s
burial. John Hubbard appeared against Gerald armed and equipped
with the falsified books, the casket of jewels, and the other box,
which had been carefully relocked, for the wily plotter had no
intention of having its secrets disclosed at present--those he was
reserving for later schemes in connection with Allison.
The evidence for the prosecution was presented, with all the
eloquence and cunning of which the expert was master, and to every
listener in the room the fate of Gerald appeared settled before he
concluded.
There were very few witnesses for the prisoner. The servant who
had admitted him to the Brewster mansion on the Saturday previous
to his master’s death, swore to the fact, thus proving that he
had been there, and Professor Emerson, on taking the stand, spoke
eloquently and in the highest terms of his pupil, and emphatically
asserted that he believed him to be above doing a mean or dishonest
act. But, of course, all this proved nothing.
Gerald was then allowed to go upon the stand, and tell his own
story, and the moment that he turned his frank, handsome face
to the audience, when he met those critical, searching glances
with his clear, honest eyes, and manly bearing, it was evident
that he made a favorable impression upon every person in the
room--excepting his sworn enemy. When he finally concluded, Hubbard
demanded the production of the note from Mr. Brewster relating to
“a special commission.”
“It cannot be found,” Mr. Arnold gravely responded. “Mr. Winchester
left it in a pocket of his business-suit on Sunday, when he went
to the bank to execute his employer’s commission. He has not been
in his room since; but when I was authorized to go to his room to
secure this note, it had mysteriously disappeared. Nevertheless,
the fact that he went to Mr. Brewster’s residence on the date
stated, and was admitted to the man’s presence, proves conclusively
that he was sent for.”
“Not at all,” retorted the prosecuting-attorney, “any one might
have called at the banker’s residence, requested an audience, and
been admitted to his presence without a previous appointment. We
are not asking opinions, your honor, we want evidence. You assert,”
he added, turning to Gerald, “that Mr. Brewster gave you the keys
to the bank and his private drawer in the vault. Will you state
where he took them from before handing them to you?”
“From a drawer in the table beside him.”
“Exactly. Where any one could easily have secured them in the
event of Mr. Brewster’s back being turned for a moment,” retorted
the expert laconically. “Now, with reference to these falsified
accounts,” said Hubbard, touching the books before him, his white
teeth gleaming viciously for a moment beneath his mustache, “you
claim, I believe, that they are none of your work--that some
one else has changed your figures. We would like to have your
statements proven, young man.”
“I never knowingly made a false entry in my life,” Gerald proudly
returned, but flushing hotly beneath the man’s insolent manner; “my
own figures were all correct when entered, but my ‘ones’ have been
made over into fours, nines, sevens, zeros, and so forth----”
“But the proof, young man--the proof!” interposed his tormentor.
“If any one will add the columns, calling such figures as I should
point out, ‘ones,’ the balance would be found correct in every
instance,” Gerald replied.
“Possibly, but we want evidence to prove that those ‘ones’ have
been changed.”
“You can have it, sir,” said Mr. Arnold, in a brisk, businesslike
tone, that made John Hubbard prick up his ears, and, at a signal,
another witness now came forward.
He was a small, olive-complexioned man, with straight black hair,
small, sharp features, with a pair of keen, black eyes, which were
shaded by steel-bowed spectacles.
His manner was abrupt, and there was a decisive air about him which
indicated strong personality, while he rejoiced in the sobriquet of
Plum--Mr. Thomas Plum.
“Mr. Plum,” courteously observed Mr. Arnold, “will you tell the
court what you have discovered with reference to those ‘doctored
accounts’?”
“Yes, sir, yes, sir,” responded the brisk little man, taking out
some tablets, “I find no less than eighty instances where the
figure ‘one’ has been skilfully changed to some other figure,
in those accounts, and covering a period of from sixteen, to
eighteen months. If the figures were added as ones, which they
were originally, the balance would, in every instance, be correct;
but, according to the changes made, there seems to be a deficit of
several hundreds of dollars.”
John Hubbard suddenly sat erect, an alert spark glittering in his
cold, gray eyes.
“So you assert, under oath, Mr. Plum, that those figures have
all been changed since the original balances were made up?” he
observed, in a metallic tone.
“Yes, sir,” briefly but positively.
“You are willing to swear that the work was all square and right
when the clerk left it under the dates there recorded?”
“Exactly, sir.”
“Prove it, if you please.”
“That I am prepared to do,” said the expert cheerfully, but
flashing a look at his questioner which sent a sudden chill through
him. “In the first place, Mr. Winchester’s figures were all entered
with the same ink, and with a fine-pointed steel pen. The figures
that have been tampered with show a different ink, and were
evidently changed with a gold, and, probably, a fountain-pen.”
“How can you detect between the work of a gold and a steel pen?”
queried Hubbard, with a skeptical smile.
An answering smile curved the lips of Mr. Plum.
“With the utmost ease, sir, as you would soon discover were you
to study the subject with the aid of a powerful microscope. The
ink flows very differently from a gold and from a steel pen. My
examination has proved to me that Mr. Winchester was not guilty of
any of the changes referred to--his figures all being very decided,
especially in their angles, while the work of the real culprit,
although very cleverly done, shows a certain individuality of
roundness about the angles that appears nowhere in Mr. Winchester’s
figures. Your honor will observe by the aid of this powerful glass
the peculiarities of which I have spoken,” Mr. Plum concluded,
as he passed a small case up to the judge, who, after making a
careful examination of certain figures, pointed out to him, gravely
observed:
“I do so observe; it is evident that the changes were not made by
the prisoner.”
Gerald’s face lighted with pleasure at this remark, but his joy was
short-lived, for the matter of the doctored accounts was dropped
then and the charge of theft taken up.
There followed a long, sharp contest, during which his counsel
fought nobly every inch of ground for him; but the burden of proof
was all against him, and when the case was finally summed up the
outlook was certainly very discouraging.
The judge had been strongly attracted toward Gerald by his frank,
honest face, his manly bearing, and his straightforward story;
but he was reluctantly compelled to admit that the evidence was
decidedly against the prisoner, and he rose to address the jury
and summarize the testimony, but before he could utter a word the
door of the court-room was thrown open, and a slender, black-robed
figure darted inside, and walked, with a quick, firm tread directly
toward him.
The intruder was Allison Brewster.
CHAPTER IX.
AN IMPORTANT WITNESS.
The fair girl looked wan, thin, and sad, her recent bereavement
having worn heavily upon her. But there was a spot of scarlet upon
each cheek, called there by the excitement of the moment, while
there was also a gleam of mingled indignation and determination in
her beautiful blue eyes, which bespoke some high purpose in view.
Gerald half-started from his seat as he saw her enter the
court-room, then a swift, hot flush mounted to his forehead, and
he sank back with averted face and painfully compressed lips. As
Allison went swiftly across the room her eyes met those of John
Hubbard, who sprang to his feet, repressing an oath, and hurried
forward to meet her, while the judge paused in surprise at the
strange interruption.
“Are you Gerald’s counsel?” Allison questioned excitedly, as her
guardian came to her side.
“No,” he said briefly, then added, in a tone of displeasure, “but
why are you here? This is no place for you.”
“Who is his lawyer, then?” she demanded, without heeding his
objection to her presence.
“No one whom you know; but the case is almost concluded--the judge
is about to address the jury. Come, let me take you out.”
“Will Gerald be acquitted?” queried Allison, anxiously.
“I--I cannot say,” the man faltered, his glance wavering before
her. “But, come now.”
“No, not until I know how this case is going,” said Allison
sharply. “Oh, why did you not tell me about it? I never knew a word
of it until an hour ago, when I went to the bank to get something
that belonged to papa, which I wanted very much, and Mr. Whipple
told me what was going on here.”
The truth was that Allison so yearned to see Gerald that she had
made an errand to the bank for that very purpose, when, upon
inquiring for him, she had learned the truth, and then, nearly wild
with grief, hastened to the courthouse with the hope of being able
to help him in some way.
“Order!” some one now called out, for the judge was still waiting
for the prosecuting-attorney to return to his seat.
“Who brought this charge against Gerald?” Allison questioned
eagerly, but lowering her voice.
“I did,” returned her companion, now white with anger, as he
realized that she would not yield to him, and had some definite
purpose in view.
“You? Why did you do it?” Allison demanded, with blazing eyes.
“Because I caught him in the act of stealing from the vault of the
bank.”
“Never! Gerald could not be guilty of theft,” whispered the girl
hoarsely.
“Unfortunately, his guilt has been proven. Now will you come?” And
the man laid an authoritative hand upon her arm.
She drew herself haughtily away from him, and, turning, bent her
gaze upon Gerald, who was responding to some question just put to
him by his counsel.
“Order!” again called the voice; but Allison, all unmindful of the
fact that she was becoming conspicuous, glided straight to the side
of Albert Arnold.
“Are you Mr. Winchester’s lawyer?” she inquired, at the same time
bestowing a tremulous smile upon Gerald.
“Yes,” he replied, smiling encouragement upon her, for he began to
see a gleam of hope for his client, as Gerald had just told him who
she was.
“Then I have something to tell you,” she said, eagerly; “I would
have come before, but I did not know anything about this--this
trouble until within an hour. Am I too late to help Gerald?”
“I hope not, my dear young lady, although, to use a slang
expression, it is a pretty close shave. Your honor,” turning to the
judge, with fresh energy, “this young lady is Miss Brewster, and
she informs me that she has some evidence to give in favor of my
client.”
“Do you know the nature of it?” inquired his honor.
“I do not; had I known that she was qualified to testify, I should
have called her as a witness long before this.”
“She may take the stand,” said the judge, resuming his seat with a
feeling of secret satisfaction.
“I object, your honor,” John Hubbard here interposed. “Miss
Brewster is my ward--she can know nothing of the affair, and this
is no place for her. The case is almost concluded--the evidence has
been submitted, and----”
“Mr. Hubbard, the young lady has voluntarily come here to give
evidence for the prisoner, and her testimony will be received,”
interposed the judge, with considerable sternness, adding,
peremptorily: “Officer, swear the witness.”
After Allison was sworn, he courteously remarked:
“Now, Miss Brewster, you may proceed.”
“I am told,” the fair witness began, but now very pale, “that Mr.
Winchester is being tried for the crime of robbery. I know that he
is guiltless, for I have heard my father say, many times, that he
was the most trustworthy young man he ever met. I have heard him
say that he was ‘almost morbidly honest.’ I have learned today that
this supposed robbery was committed on Sunday, the--the morning
after my father died.” Allison’s voice wavered slightly here. “But
I am sure there was no theft--no intent to steal; I believe that he
was sent to the bank to get the articles found in his possession.
I know he came to see papa on Saturday--the day before--for I went
into the room while he was there. I am sure, too, that he must have
come by appointment, for my father denied himself to all visitors,
and seldom saw any one outside the family except on necessary
business. If Mr. Winchester says that he gave him the keys to the
bank to enable him to perform this errand, I know he must have done
so, for he is incapable of falsehood.”
The court-room might have been empty, it was so still. There was
not a sound save that sweet, young voice, which was like music
to at least one pair of eager ears, as it bravely rehearsed the
sterling qualities of her persecuted lover.
The audience listened spellbound--even the judge betrayed, by his
eager attitude, how intensely interested he was, while John Hubbard
was as white as the handkerchief with which, from time to time, he
wiped the moisture from his forehead.
“Neither my father nor Mr. Winchester was aware of my presence in
the room until a minute or two after I entered,” Allison resumed,
after a momentary pause, “and as I stepped inside the portiéres I
heard Gerald say, ‘I have never made a false entry in one of your
books.’ ‘I am sure you have not, Gerald,’ papa replied. ‘I would
stake my fortune upon your integrity, and your faithfulness to my
interests. I will look into this matter as soon as I am able.’ Then
I made it known that I was in the room, and, a few minutes later,
Mr. Winchester went away.”
Allison heaved a sigh of relief as she concluded, although she
would have been willing to talk on indefinitely if she could have
given conclusive proof of Gerald’s innocence. But the little
that she had told tallied so exactly with his own account of his
conversation with Mr. Brewster that it proved a great deal for him.
“Do you think it would have been possible for Mr. Winchester to get
possession of your father’s keys without his knowledge?” Gerald’s
counsel inquired, a ring of triumph in his tones.
“Certainly not,” Allison replied confidently; “papa always kept
them in a small drawer of a table in his room. He was sitting close
beside it when I entered the room, and Mr. Winchester was on the
opposite side of the table, and there is no drawer on that side.”
There was a little burst of applause at this latter statement,
which plainly betrayed the sympathy of those who had listened to
the evidence.
Mr. Arnold said he had no further questions to ask, and John
Hubbard refusing, with frigid dignity, to catechise his ward,
Allison was allowed to leave the stand.
The judge then remarked that, in view of the evidence just given,
the aspect of the whole case was reversed, and it was self-evident
that the prisoner was innocent of all wrong. The jury announced a
verdict of acquittal without leaving their seats.
The moment the court was adjourned, and before her guardian could
intercept her, she darted to Gerald’s side and cordially shook
hands with him, after which he formally introduced her to his
lawyer, who commended her most heartily for the step she had taken,
and the timely aid she had given his client.
“Gerald,” she asked, with a look of reproach, “why didn’t you call
upon me as a witness?”
He flushed at the question.
“I could not,” he replied, with evident embarrassment; “I could
not endure the thought of your coming to such a place, and,
besides, I did not know how much or how little you had heard of my
conversation with Mr. Brewster.”
“But, at least, you might have let me know that you were in
trouble,” Allison returned, with a flash of resentment, while hot
tears of wounded feeling rushed to her eyes.
“I supposed, of course, you knew,” he faltered, flushing
sensitively, “the newspapers were full of the affair.”
“But I didn’t see the papers.” Then, with a searching look into his
face, she added: “If you believed I was aware of your trouble, you
must have thought me very--very unfriendly and indifferent--not to
send you some word of sympathy, nor come near you.”
Again Gerald flushed.
“I am afraid I haven’t been quite just to you,” he confessed.
“Well?” questioned the girl, somewhat sharply, as a hand was at
that moment laid upon her arm, and she turned to find her guardian
at her side.
“I have come to take you home,” he briefly remarked.
“Thank you, Mr. Hubbard,” she coldly returned, “but I am not going
home at present, and I will not detain you. The carriage is waiting
for me, and I have several errands to attend to before dinner.”
“Very well, then, I will escort you to your carriage before I go,”
the man responded, white in his lips with inward rage over his
defeat.
She gave her head a little independent toss, but she did not quite
dare to defy him further, for his tone had been authoritative, and
she knew she must go. But first she turned to Gerald and extended
her hand.
“Good-by, Gerald,” she said. “I am so glad that all has ended well
for you.” Then she added, in a hurried whisper, “Come and tell me
about it--come to-morrow afternoon.”
Gerald thanked her, and telegraphed his assent to her request by a
nod and a significant pressure of the hand he held.
Then, after bidding Mr. Arnold good-by, she signified to Mr.
Hubbard her readiness to go, and so passed out of the court-room
with him, but with a frigid manner and haughty bearing which warned
him that it might not be to his advantage to presume too much
upon his office as guardian of this spirited young lady; that the
employment of tact might be more effectual.
Upon reaching the carriage, Allison sprang in, before he could put
forth a hand to assist her, and she did not even offer to take him
along, and drop him at the bank on her way up-town.
She was inwardly boiling with rage and resentment toward him,
because he had been instrumental in bringing Gerald into such
trouble and disgrace, and she told herself that she should hate him
for it as long as she lived.
He was secretly chafed by her attitude, and yet there was something
of amusement and admiration, as well as of anger, in the look with
which he regarded her, as he closed the door of the vehicle.
She was very pretty--“deucedly pretty,” as he mentally expressed
it--with that spirited air, that defiant flash in her beautiful
eyes, and the angry scarlet in her cheeks.
He had never seen her in such a mood before, but it only added to
her charms, and he thought he rather liked it--unless it should
become too emphatic--unless she should defy all curbing by “taking
the bit in those dainty white teeth of hers.”
He bent forward through the open window and intercepted her glance
with a smiling, indulgent look.
“I seem to have incurred your displeasure in some way, Miss
Allison,” he remarked, in a friendly tone. “Don’t you think you
are a trifle unjust to me? I am certainly ignorant of any wilful
offense against you.”
“But you said you caused Gerald’s arrest,” Allison began, excitedly.
“And so I did,” he quietly interposed.
“How could you? how could you?” she burst forth angrily; “it was an
outrage, for there isn’t a more honest fellow living than Gerald
Winchester, and papa----”
“Softly, Allison, softly!” her companion interrupted, a cruel
spark leaping into his eyes. “Don’t allow your personal regard for
the young man to run away with your judgment. My fidelity to my
employer’s interests demands that if I find a burglar in the act of
robbing his bank I must guard them to the extent of the law, even
though its clutch falls upon a confidential clerk.”
“But you might have given Gerald the benefit of the doubt, when he
had the keys--when you knew he had never been guilty of a mean or
dishonorable act since he came into papa’s employ,” the fair girl
persisted, adding tremulously. “Oh, it would have been too dreadful
if I had not found out about it!”
“Yes, doubtless Winchester would have had a three years’ sentence
to serve,” John Hubbard returned, indifferently. “But,” he added,
assuming a blandness he was far from feeling, “I will not keep you
here discussing the matter further, even though I should be glad to
convince you of my fidelity to your father, and to assure you that
I shall continue to labor as faithfully for your interests.”
Allison gave a little shrug of impatience at this latter remark,
thus plainly indicating that it would have pleased her better if
she could have had some one more congenial to guard her interests.
The lawyer’s white teeth gleamed at her for an instant from beneath
his mustache; then he remarked, in a matter-of-fact tone:
“By the way, you said you had some errands to attend to. Have you
plenty of money for your purpose?”
“I have my check-book, thank you, and do not need any money,”
Allison coldly returned, drawing her coat more closely about her as
a hint that she did not care to be detained longer.
The man looked a trifle surprised at her reply.
“Very well, good-day,” he said, as he lifted his hat and stepped
back, whereupon Allison was driven away.
CHAPTER X.
A THRILLING ADVENTURE.
“Humph! So the little minx has her check-book!” mused John Hubbard,
as he bent his steps toward the bank after Allison’s departure, an
ugly gleam in his cold blue eyes. “That old dotard, her father,
must have had considerable confidence in her financial ability to
trust her to that extent! However, the game is pretty well in my
hands, and I haven’t much anxiety about the result. I’ll win her if
I can; I’ll drive her if need be--but I’ll crush her if she defies
me!”
Musing thus, the wily schemer proceeded on his way; but, always
intolerant of opposition, he was in no amiable frame of mind when
he finally reached his office, and settled down to a pile of
accumulated work that had been neglected for the outside demands
upon his time during the week just passed.
As he sat down to his desk he opened one of the books which he had
produced in court to show that Gerald had been guilty of falsifying
his accounts, and began to study it intently.
“Humph!” he ejaculated. “I could have sworn that there is not a
man living who could detect any change in those figures! That glass
must have been wonderfully powerful, and that expert a keen hand at
his business. He has made a study of chirography to some purpose! I
wonder where they found him? I never heard of him before, although
Judge Haight seemed to recognize him. A man needs to have his wits
about him nowadays, if he intends to do crooked work.” With which
sage reflection Mr. Hubbard closed the book with an impatient bang,
and, turning to his papers, was soon absorbed in his work.
An hour later Gerald walked into the bank, when he was most
cordially greeted and congratulated by his fellow clerks, with whom
he had worked so long. He then went directly to Mr. Brewster’s
private office, where he found John Hubbard occupying the late
banker’s chair and desk.
The man looked up with a scowl as he entered.
“Well,” he remarked frigidly, “did you think you could come back to
your old place?”
“Certainly not, Mr. Hubbard. There is no Mr. Brewster to require a
confidential clerk,” Gerald gravely returned. “I have simply come
to take away what few things belong to me.”
“Very well; be as expeditious as possible about it,” was the
caustic rejoinder, as the man turned his back upon him.
Gerald quietly gathered up his personal belongings and made them
into a neat package, put the desk where he had labored so long in
perfect order, then left the room and the bank, nodding a friendly
adieu to the other clerks as he went, but with a very heavy heart,
for without a position and with no influential friends to back him,
the outlook was very dark for him.
That evening he called upon Professor Emerson, with whom he had a
long talk relative to his prospects.
“There is nothing like a good education to begin life with,” he
said. “You are still young, and two years at Harvard are just what
you need. Have you anything ahead, Gerald?”
“Yes, sir; I have managed to save five or six hundred dollars since
I have been with Mr. Brewster.”
“Have you? Well, that is pretty well for a young man in your
position,” said his friend, in a gratified tone; “and now I’m sure
I do not see what is to hinder you from going to Harvard.”
“Why to Harvard? Why not to Yale?” questioned Gerald, who would
have preferred the latter college, because he would be nearer to
New York and Allison.
“Well, Yale is all right; but I have a friend who has a Harvard
scholarship to give away, and I am very sure I could get it for
you.”
“You are very kind, sir,” the young man replied, flushing with
emotion, “and I want a thorough education more than I can tell you;
but, really, I do not feel as if I could spare the time to spend
two years in college, and then study for a profession afterward. I
would like to be working myself up in some business, and keep on
with you as I have been doing.”
“I take it that you are ambitious to get rich, my young friend,”
said Professor Emerson, with a smile.
“Yes, sir, I am,” Gerald frankly admitted, flushing consciously as
he realized why he was so eager to acquire a competence.
“Well, of course, you must judge for yourself; but I should be
sorry to have you let so fine an opportunity slip away from you. I
advise you to take a little time to think it over before deciding
definitely,” said his friend earnestly.
“I will--thank you,” Gerald responded; adding heartily: “But I
trust, whether I accept your offer or not, you will feel that I am
truly grateful for all your kindness and interest--both past and
present.”
It was after ten o’clock when he left the house, and there were
indications of a storm. Gerald buttoned his coat close up to his
chin, and started briskly on his way.
After passing three or four blocks he turned into a small park, and
observed, as he did so, a gentleman some distance in advance of
him. He paid no especial attention to the individual until he was
on the point of passing out at the opposite gate, when he caught
sight of another figure shadowing the first by skulking behind the
trunks of trees to keep out of sight.
Gerald felt sure that this latter person had some malicious design
against the other, and he quickened his own steps that he might be
on hand if assistance was needed; but both had passed out of the
gate before he had half-crossed the park.
As he drew near the exit he heard voices in angry conversation,
and, peering around a post, he saw the two in conversation, and,
peering around a post, he saw the two men standing not a dozen
paces away. One was a tall, fine-looking man, handsomely clad. The
other was a disreputable-appearing fellow, wearing a rough ulster
and a slouch-hat, and Gerald also observed that there was not
another person in sight.
“I have told you never to appeal to me again,” Gerald heard the
gentleman remark, in sternly resolute tones, “and I shall give you
no more money to spend upon drink and gambling.”
“Oh, come, now don’t be hard on a fellow,” pleaded his companion,
as he moved a step or two nearer, while Gerald saw him slip his
right hand into the pocket of his ulster. “You’re just rolling in
wealth, and I am starving. Give me a ‘V.’”
“Not a dime, you rascal! You have played no end of tricks upon me,
and I am done with you forever,” was the reply.
“But I’m hungry, I tell you. I haven’t had a decent meal for a
week,” persisted the beggar; and now Gerald saw him cautiously
withdraw his hand from his pocket with an object in it that made
his heart leap into his throat.
“Heavens! It is a sand-bag!” he breathed.
“Well, if you are hungry, go to the nearest station-house, where
you will get a night’s lodging, with a supper and breakfast, and
to-morrow morning you can work to pay for it,” said the gentleman.
“Work!” snarled the tramp. “Do you think I am going to dig ice from
the gutters? Not if I know myself!”
“Very well, then, you may go hungry,” replied his companion, as he
turned to proceed on his way.
With an angry oath the tramp raised his arm aloft, and, in a moment
more, would have accomplished his deadly work had not Gerald, quick
as a flash, sprung from his place of concealment, dashed upon the
would-be murderer, and, wrenched the weapon from his grasp.
The wretch was so taken aback that he was utterly unable to
defend himself from this rear attack, and an instant later he lay
sprawling and stunned upon the pavement, Gerald having dexterously
tripped him.
“Now, sir, lend a hand, if you please,” he said, glancing over his
shoulder at the astonished man whom he had probably saved from a
violent death.
“Certainly, certainly,” he replied, quickly recovering himself,
and, darting forward, he planted a powerful knee upon the breast
of his fallen assailant. “I am sure I had not a suspicion that
he would dare do me any violence,” he added. “What was he up to,
anyway?”
For answer Gerald held the sand-bag up before him.
“Good heavens! what a wretch!” said the gentleman, in a startled
tone. “He is a distant relative--a worthless fellow--and has been
a leech upon me for years. But I reckon this business will settle
his fate for a while. Now, if you will go to the corner and call a
policeman I will manage him while you are gone. Take care, there!”
he added sternly, as the prostrate villain began to squirm and
struggle, and he enforced his command by a powerful grip upon his
throat.
Gerald darted away, and five minutes later came hurrying back with
a guardian of the peace, who immediately took the highwayman into
custody.
Then he learned that the name of the man whose life he had
doubtless saved was Richard Morgan Lyttleton, a noted lawyer, of
New York.
The officer demanded his name and address also, telling him that
his presence would be required in court on the morrow to testify
against the culprit.
Gerald smiled to himself as he thought of appearing so soon again
in a criminal-court, and he observed, when he gave his name, that
Mr. Lyttleton started slightly, and glanced keenly at him.
Then the policeman marched his prisoner off, when Mr. Lyttleton
turned to our hero and cordially extended his hand.
“My young friend, you have rendered me an inestimable service
to-night, and I am deeply grateful to you,” he said earnestly;
then added: “But, more of this when I see you again, as we shall
doubtless meet to-morrow. As it is late and cold, I will not keep
you longer. Good night.”
Gerald responded to his adieu, and they separated, each going his
own way.
Early the next morning Gerald received a summons to appear at the
court-house at eleven o’clock, and, upon arriving at the place, he
found his acquaintance of the previous night awaiting him, and who
regarded him with curious intentness as he greeted him.
“Can it be possible that you are the Gerald Winchester whose case
was before the court yesterday?” he asked.
“Yes, I am sorry to be obliged to confess that I am,” he replied
flushing, and a look of pain clouding his fine eyes.
“It was rather a peculiar affair--I was quite interested in it,”
said the lawyer.
“Indeed!” Gerald briefly observed.
“Yes, it was really romantic, and you came off with flying colors,”
said his companion, smiling. “As I told you last night, I am a
lawyer myself, and I confess, up to the moment of the appearance
of that young lady upon the scene, I did not see a vestige of hope
for you. Young man, you are to be congratulated upon having had so
stanch a friend in the charming Miss Brewster. If I am not greatly
mistaken, that John Hubbard is a scamp.”
Gerald lifted a glance of surprise to the gentleman’s face.
“What makes you think that?” he questioned.
“Well, I am something of a physiognomist, and, to me, he shows
treachery in every glance of his shifty eyes.” Mr. Lyttleton’s
expression plainly indicated a decided repugnance to the man under
discussion.
“Lyttleton versus Ruggles,” was here shouted by the court-crier,
and the conversation of the two gentlemen was interrupted. It did
not take very long to settle the case, however, for, in the light
of the indisputable evidence brought to bear upon it, the prisoner
was found guilty of assault with intent to kill, and sentenced
to seven years at Sing Sing. As soon as they were released, Mr.
Lyttleton turned to Gerald.
“Come,” he said; “you must come and have lunch with me; I want to
talk more with you.”
In a neighboring restaurant they took a secluded table, and over
the coffee Mr. Lyttleton astonished Gerald by remarking:
“Mr. Winchester, I happen, just at this time, to be very much in
need of a private-secretary. The poor fellow who has served me for
five years died last week, and I have, as yet, found no one to fill
his place. How would you like the position?”
Gerald lifted a look of bland surprise at the speaker.
“You think I am rather premature in making such a proposal to you
upon so short an acquaintance,” Mr. Lyttleton observed, smiling;
“but I have told you that I am pretty well versed in character
reading, and so, if you are willing to take the place on trial, I
am ready to give it to you. I like your looks--your manner; while
that girl’s testimony yesterday proved that Adam Brewster had the
most implicit confidence in you. That, of itself, is recommendation
enough for me. A week from to-morrow, I sail for Europe, to
investigate a complicated case which involves a large estate,
and which I hope to bring to trial within a couple of months. My
partner will manage the business here during my absence, which will
probably be six months or more, as I intend to combine pleasure
with duty, and see something of the old world before my return.
Your salary will be eight hundred and all expenses, for the first
year; more after that if we find ourselves mutually congenial.
There, you have my proposition--what do you say to it?” the lawyer
concluded, as he sat back in his chair and watched the expressive
face opposite him.
CHAPTER XI.
“I DID NOT MEAN TO BETRAY MYSELF.”
Gerald’s breath was almost taken away by this unexpected proposal.
He had heard of the firm of “Lyttleton & Rand,” both members of
which were registered as eminent lawyers in New York. He instantly
recognized the fact that it would be a great thing for him to
become associated with them, while eight hundred dollars, over and
above all living expenses, would be quite a leap beyond fifteen
dollars a week, and finding himself. Then, too, the prospect of
travel and sightseeing was very alluring.
He was dazzled, almost paralyzed, for a moment, by such unexpected
good fortune, coming to him just at this time, when he had seemed
to be under such a cloud; but he managed to inquire with a good
degree of outward composure:
“What will my duties be?”
“Well, I should say something like what they were with Mr.
Brewster,” Mr. Lyttleton responded; “the writing of letters, both
confidential and ordinary; the keeping of my private accounts;
in fact, whatever of a clerical nature would naturally fall to a
lawyer’s secretary, and--perfect loyalty and integrity. I warn you,
also, that I shall have plenty of work for you to do.”
“I do not mind work,” said Gerald eagerly. “In fact, I like to
be a little crowded. I think it keeps up one’s enthusiasm. The
position is very tempting, Mr. Lyttleton, but----”
“But what?” demanded the gentleman, eying him sharply.
“I am wondering if it would be quite honest in me to accept it when
you really know nothing of me or my qualifications; and going out
of the country, too, it might be quite awkward for you if I should
not fill the bill.”
Mr. Lyttleton gave vent to a little laugh.
“Now I begin to understand what Adam Brewster meant when he said
you were ‘morbidly honest,’” he replied. “But, in case you do not
fill the bill, as you express it, I suppose I could ship you back
home again. However, if you are willing to come with me, upon so
short an acquaintance, I will assume the responsibility of your
ability, and we’ll settle the matter here and now. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes, sir, and thank you very much,” Gerald heartily replied.
“Oh, you needn’t feel under any obligation, for I am going to
make you earn your money,” retorted his companion, with a roguish
twinkle in his eyes, but in a very satisfied tone. “Will you have a
glass of wine with your dessert?”
“Thank you--no; I never take wine--just a cup of coffee, if you
please.”
“Coffee for two,” briefly ordered the lawyer; but the look which he
bestowed upon his new clerk was one of unqualified approbation.
“Do you disapprove of wines?” he questioned, as the waiter
disappeared.
“I disapprove of the abuse of them,” said Gerald, flushing; “and if
one does not use them at all one can never be guilty of excess.”
“That is a self-evident fact, surely,” said his companion. “How
about smoking?”
“I do not smoke.”
“H’m! you are what might be termed a ‘model young man,’” his
employer dryly observed.
“I am nothing of the kind, if, by that, you mean to imply that I
assume to have no faults,” Gerald retorted, with a little flash in
his eyes, for he began to suspect that he was being quizzed; “but I
have always claimed that I would never become a slave to any habit.”
“And you are right, Winchester--I wish there were more young men
in the world who possessed just that spirit of independence,” said
Mr. Lyttleton, in a friendly tone. “Wines and liquors I shun, but
I smoke--my cigar I cannot do without; I wish I could. Now,” he
added, as he pushed back his chair, “I have an engagement, and
must hurry away; but I would like to have you come to my office
to-morrow morning at nine, sharp, when I shall want to talk with
you further about your duties.”
“Very well, sir. I will be on time,” Gerald returned, and then the
two shook hands cordially, and separated.
It was a little after two when they left the restaurant, and Gerald
thought he might as well go directly up-town to call upon Allison,
and inform her of his flattering prospects.
But he sighed when he remembered that the ocean would soon roll
between them, and it would be many months before he could see her
again.
A servant admitted him, and conducted him to the drawing-room, and
a few moments later, Allison came running down-stairs, with an
eager elasticity in her steps that set her lover’s pulses leaping
with secret joy.
As she entered the room, she sprang to meet him with outstretched
hands and smiling lips, although the brilliant flush upon her
cheeks and the shy drooping of her golden-fringed lids betrayed
that she was not quite at ease.
“I am glad to see you, Gerald,” she said, cordially; “it is so long
since you were here; and, oh! I can hardly realize all that has
happened since that day,” she went on, with starting tears. “It
breaks my heart, too, to think how you have been shut up in that
dreadful place. Why didn’t you send me word, you bad, bad boy?”
“I did not like to trouble you, Allison--I thought you had enough
to bear without adding to your burdens.”
“But it would have helped me to bear mine--it would have given me
something else to think of,” said the fair girl; “and then I could
have told what I knew, and you would have been set free.”
“No, that could not have been accomplished, for there was no
one who would become my bondsman, and the affair had to come to
trial; and, besides, Allison, I really did not think that you had
overheard anything of importance that would make your testimony of
any value,” Gerald explained.
“Well, you might at least have allowed me to prove my friendship
for you, and show a little sympathy. I think it was just dreadful,
Gerald, and I nearly cried my eyes out yesterday after I came home
and had time to realize what you must have suffered. Now do tell
me all about it, for I only heard a brief account of the case when
I went to the bank. Mr. Phillips said that you were arrested for
being found in the vault, with some valuables belonging to papa,
and some jewels that were mama’s, besides doing something that I do
not understand to some books. He said you were then on trial, and
so I hurried away--remembering what I had heard papa say about your
honesty--to see if I couldn’t help you.”
“You saved me, Allison--I should have had to serve a term in
State’s prison but for you,” said the young man tremulously.
“Well, I want you to begin at the beginning and tell me all,”
Allison commanded, as she seated herself upon the sofa beside her
guest, and prepared to listen to his story.
Gerald began with the note which he had received from Mr. Brewster,
and related all that had occurred in connection with his trouble,
up to the time of the trial, while Allison hung almost breathless
upon his words.
“And John Hubbard was the one who found you in the vault, and had
you arrested, in spite of the fact that you had papa’s keys, and
told him that he had sent you there to perform an errand for him?”
she exclaimed excitedly, when he concluded.
“Yes.”
“Why, he must have known that you had been sent there?”
“He did know it, Allison; but he asserted, as you know, that I
stole the keys from the drawer in the table, while I was here that
Saturday afternoon.”
“But I proved that you did not,” cried Allison exultantly, “and he
didn’t seem to be very well pleased about it, either.”
“No,” said Gerald gravely; “he had reasons of his own for wanting
to ruin my reputation.”
“What reasons?”
“He has long hated me--he has been scheming for nearly two years
to get me discharged from the bank, and I am confident that it was
he who tampered with the books, to make them show that I had been
dishonest, although, of course, I cannot prove this.”
“It was a bright idea of getting that expert,” said Allison.
“Yes, that was Professor Emerson’s idea, and it worked well. The
professor returned from Washington only two days before the trial,
and, upon learning the charges, immediately said he knew a man who,
he thought, would help me. He looked him up, then the two demanded
the books for examination, and it did not take Mr. Plum very long
to decide that some very crooked work had been done by somebody
whose name was not Winchester,” Gerald explained. “I watched
Hubbard while he was making his statements,” he added, “and I knew
by the look in his eyes that he had been balked in a game which he
had felt pretty sure of winning.”
“And yet papa trusted him,” said Allison musingly.
“Surely, Allison, you do not think I doctored those books? You
cannot believe that I would be guilty of defrauding your father
after all his kindness to me?” he cried, in a wounded tone.
“Oh, no! I did not mean to imply that, Gerald,” she returned
earnestly. “I would not have hurt you like that for all the world!
No, indeed, Gerald, if all the world said you were guilty, I would
never have believed it.”
“Could you have trusted me to such an extent, Allison?” he
breathed, bending to look into her eyes, his face lighting with
sudden joy.
“You know I could--nothing could ever make me lose faith in you.
What I did mean, when I said that papa trusted Mr. Hubbard, was, it
seemed strange to me that so shrewd a business man as my father was
should have been so deceived in any one.”
“Allison, I do not believe that he was deceived; I imagine he knew
he was not to be trusted implicitly,” said Gerald thoughtfully. “I
used to fear, sometimes, that John Hubbard had managed to draw Mr.
Brewster into some transactions that were beginning to complicate
his business, and so made it necessary for him to retain the man.”
“Oh, I hate him with all my heart!” Allison suddenly burst forth,
with startling vehemence; “and, Gerald, I am going to tell you
something--I must tell somebody: that man asked me the other day
to--don’t look at me so, please,” she interposed, averting her
scarlet face--“he asked me to marry him.”
“Allison!” exclaimed Gerald, in breathless astonishment, and
turning deathly pale; “has he dared--has he presumed upon the
position he occupies toward you to do such a thing? Oh, he is a
bigger rascal than I thought him. Allison, you will not let him
either coax or force you to ruin your life in that way.”
“Why, of course not--I told him I couldn’t marry him; you know I
could not, Gerald,” the ingenuous girl replied, and involuntarily
moving a little nearer his companion, with a confiding air that
thrilled him with joy, and yet what she had told him made him very
uneasy.
“I cannot understand why papa should have given him authority over
me for so many years,” she said.
“I cannot, either--it seems very strange to me,” Gerald observed
thoughtfully. He then told her of Mr. Lyttleton’s proposition, and
his contemplated tour abroad; but before he was through Allison
dropped her face upon her hands and burst into tears.
“Oh, Gerald, don’t go!--I cannot spare you!” she sobbed.
A shock of joy went quivering through the young man at her words,
although his own heart was almost rent in twain in view of the
approaching separation. Yet he felt that he had no right to betray
the great love he entertained for her. She was young--she was alone
in the world, and he felt that it would not be quite honorable to
take advantage of either her youth or loneliness to make her commit
herself. But, oh! he longed, mightily, to gather her in his arms,
tell her all, and ask her to wait until he could win a position
worthy of her acceptance, when he would lay himself and all he
possessed at her feet.
He was silent so long, thinking of this, and trying to control his
yearning, that she finally lifted a wondering glance to him, and
thus caught him unawares--reading all that was in his heart through
the loving eyes which but too plainly told its story.
The next moment her golden head lay upon his breast, and his
trembling arms enfolded her.
“My darling! my darling! I did not mean to betray myself; but you
caught me napping,” he breathed, laying his cheek against her
shining hair.
Allison lifted her head and flashed him a roguish look through her
tears.
“You betrayed yourself a long time ago,” she whispered, a happy
smile wreathing her red lips; “have you forgotten that night at
Lakeview?”
“No, dear, but I half-hoped that you had, and I have had many a
guilty twinge since, recalling it. I really had no right to betray
my love for you, nor abuse the confidence and hospitality of your
father in any such way; but it was done before I was hardly aware
of it. But, Allison, now that the veil has been entirely rent
asunder, I must tell you that I began to love you when I first came
to your father, and every year has only served to strengthen my
affection. But I am not going to ask you to bind yourself to me by
any promise, even now. I feel it would not be fair to you. You are
not yet through school, and after you graduate you will want to see
something of the world; so I am going to leave you free to choose
for yourself, in case you should ever meet any one else whom you
might love more than you love me; I could better bear to lose you
than to have you make a lifelong mistake.”
Allison here sat up and looked her lover full in the eye.
“Gerald, do you think it could be possible that you have made a
mistake in what you have just told me?” she questioned.
“No, I am sure it would not be possible for me ever to love any one
but you,” he earnestly returned.
“And do you think man capable of greater fidelity than woman?”
“N-o, perhaps not; still I will not exact any promise from you
at present, Allison,” he gravely replied; “by and by, when you
have completed your studies--when you have been out in society a
while--when I have won my spurs, as the knights of old used to
say--if you are then free, and of the same mind, I shall feel that
I have a right to ask you to give yourself to me.”
“Oh, what a complicated and indefinite proposition!” said Allison,
laughing, but with an impatient shrug of her graceful shoulders;
“but what do you mean by ‘when you have won your spurs?’”
“Why, when I have made money enough to raise me above the suspicion
of being a fortune-hunter,” was the smiling response.
“But suppose you do not achieve success by the time you have
indicated?” queried Allison demurely.
“Then I suppose I must wait until I do,” with a sigh.
“Ah! I thought so,” she retorted saucily; “you are far too proud,
my Gerald. Perhaps I am lacking in that quality, and I am very sure
that I am not ‘morbidly conscientious,’ so I am going to make you
promise me something, here and now.”
He smiled fondly down at her. She was so sweet and lovable, so
charmingly frank, to let him see how dear he was to her, and yet
not in the least unmaidenly about it.
“Very well; I will promise anything you ask,” he said tenderly;
“but first, since I have confessed so much, let me hear you say
that you love me.”
She leaned toward him with parted lips and gleaming eyes; she
clasped her small, white hands, and laid them upon his breast.
“Gerald,” she breathed softly, “you know that I love you with all
my heart.”
Again he folded her close, his face luminous with happiness.
“Bless you, my darling!” he said, with passionate earnestness.
“Now you may ask me whatever you will.”
CHAPTER XII.
ALLISON AND HER GUARDIAN.
“Well, then, Gerald,” said Allison, regarding her lover earnestly,
“you know, of course, that papa left me a lot of money.”
“Yes, I know that Mr. Brewster was supposed to be a very rich man,”
the young man responded, with a regretful sigh.
“And one little body, like me, couldn’t begin to spend it
all--especially when she is cooped up in a boarding school, and
has an ogre of a guardian to hold her in check,” the young girl
continued, with a mock, injured air.
“Well?” said Gerald, smiling at her mood, yet not suspecting toward
what it was tending.
“You say that you--love me very much, Gerald?”
“Ah, my darling, I have no words to tell you all there is in my
heart.”
“And you know that I--I am every bit as fond of you?” This with a
shy look and blush that were almost bewildering.
“I trust so, dearest.”
“Then nothing should ever be allowed to come between us as a
barrier.”
“No, indeed! Nothing ever shall come between us--at least, if I can
prevent it,” rashly asserted this unsuspicious wooer.
A happy little laugh rippled over Allison’s scarlet lips at this
assurance, and, laying her hands upon his shoulders, she looked
straight into his eyes, while a gleam of triumph shone in her own.
“There!” she said, drawing a long breath; “now I have you just
where I want you, and you must promise me that, when I have
completed my studies, and you get back from Europe and are nicely
established in your position--whether you have made a lot of money
or not--you will take me just as I am. I shall have plenty, and
there will be no reason why we should not share it together.”
“But, Allison----” Gerald began, looking flushed and embarrassed
as, at least, he comprehended her meaning.
She playfully laid her slender fingers upon his lips; but he
captured her hand, though with a very tender look into the lovely
eyes upraised to his.
“You must let me finish what I was going to say, dear,” he said
resolutely. “You must know that no man could respect himself to ask
a woman to marry him if he could not give her a comfortable home
and feel that he was, in every sense of the word, her protector. I
never could be dependent upon your fortune, Allison,” he concluded,
with an air of pride and decision which convinced her that there
would be no use in discussing that point further.
She secretly admired him for the stand he had taken; but,
womanlike, she wanted the last word.
“You said you would promise me anything I asked,” she said, with a
pretty pout.
“But I did not think you would be guilty of taking such an unfair
advantage of me,” Gerald retorted, laughing. “I cannot swear away
my self-respect, to please even you,” and bending, he softly kissed
the white brow that was resting against his shoulder.
“Well, but what has passed between us to-day makes you belong to
me, does it not?” Allison questioned.
“Forever.”
“I don’t see, then, but that you have sworn yourself away,” she
retorted slyly.
“Yes, I believe I have. What a lawyer you would have made,
sweetheart!” Gerald responded, laughing again.
“Very well; it is a poor rule that will not work both ways,”
Allison gravely observed; “I will not receive more than I am
willing to give, and so, Gerald, our mutual watchword shall be
‘forever.’”
“My darling!” whispered the young lover, tears of emotion springing
to his eyes, “surely such a spirit of loyalty should nerve my heart
to any endeavor.”
“How can I let you go away across the ocean!” Allison broke forth,
after a moment of silence, and in a voice of keen regret.
“Yes, it does seem a little hard that I must go,” Gerald returned;
“but I am hoping a great deal from this coming year of experience
with Mr. Lyttleton--I am impressed that it will be a stepping-stone
toward the goal I wish to reach. Besides, I should not see much of
you during the next six months, as, of course, you will soon return
to school.”
“Yes; I am to go back on Saturday; but we will write to each other
often.”
“Yes, I am sure there is no reason why we should not,” Gerald
assented; “but, perhaps, it will be just as well that Mr. Hubbard
should not know of our correspondence.”
“He will never learn of it from me,” said Allison spiritedly, and
adding, with a sigh:
“Oh, I wish papa had not made him my guardian.”
“I can echo that wish most heartily,” her companion responded
fervently; “and I cannot understand his doing so--allowing him
such unlimited power over you, and making him sole executor of his
will also; it does not seem at all like Mr. Brewster’s habitual
shrewdness. By the way, has he given you your jewels, and the other
box?”
“What other box? I have mama’s jewels--at least, they are in the
safe in the library; Mr. Hubbard brought them directly here after
the trial; but I know nothing about any other box.”
“Well, there were two boxes which I was to bring to your father;
but possibly one of them contained things which do not concern you,
papers, perhaps, relating to Mr. Brewster’s business. Still, I am
impressed that he did not wish any one to know anything of it or
its contents, and that was why he enjoined me to secrecy regarding
my errand that Sunday.”
“I will ask Mr. Hubbard about it,” said Allison thoughtfully.
“Yes, I think I would,” her lover replied, “although I do not
believe you will get any satisfaction from him; but it will at
least let him know that you are aware of its existence and have
some curiosity regarding the matter. But I must go now, dear,” he
added, rising. “I have a good many things to do for myself during
the week, and doubtless Mr. Lyttleton will require me at his office
some of the time.”
“But you will come often between now and Saturday?” Allison
pleaded, as she clasped both hands about his arms, as if loath to
let him go.
“I will come as often as you like,” he answered, smiling.
“Then I shall look for you every evening; only I hope that Mr.
Hubbard will not pop in upon us, and spoil everything.”
“Then every evening I will come,” Gerald replied, as he took a fond
farewell of her, and went away with a very happy heart.
The remaining few days passed very swiftly to these young lovers,
who spent their evenings together, without exciting the suspicions
of John Hubbard, who, however, made some errand to call upon
Allison almost every day.
Upon one occasion she questioned him about the box of which Gerald
had spoken, asking what it contained.
“It is locked, and, as yet, I have found no key to it,” the man
told her evasively, but with a quickly averted glance, which did
not escape the fair girl’s watchful eyes. “Indeed, I have been too
busy to think much about it,” he added; “but I imagine there is
nothing in it but business papers.”
So Allison was none the wiser, as Gerald had prophesied, and on
Saturday returned to her school, where, becoming absorbed in her
studies, she soon forgot all about it for the time.
Gerald sailed for Europe the following Monday, and John Hubbard,
upon learning of the fact, experienced a feeling of intense relief.
“Good riddance to him,” he muttered. “Now I need have no fear, for
I shall have a clear field to myself.”
After Allison’s departure, Mr. Hubbard decided that it would
be useless expense to keep the Brewster establishment running;
consequently, he advertised it for rental, furnished, and it was
taken almost immediately by a Philadelphia family, who, bringing
their own servants with them, did not require any of the help who
had served there so long; and thus, all the servants, with Mrs.
Pollard, who had become exceedingly fond of Allison, and who felt
that she was being driven from her home, were obliged to find
situations elsewhere.
The house at Yonkers was disposed of in the same way; consequently,
at the end of six months, when Allison had completed her education,
she found herself practically homeless, until she could arrange to
go to Newport for the summer, and so was obliged to take up her
residence with her guardian, whose family consisted of only himself
and his mother, with their servants.
They were not to go to Newport until the middle of July, as Mr.
Hubbard had been so busy he had been unable to attend to the
opening of the cottage; but he managed to make his own home so
pleasant, and Allison so heartily welcome, while she found Mrs.
Hubbard such a dear old lady, she was wholly content to remain with
them.
He did not once refer to his previous proposal of marriage; he
continued her the same liberal allowance which her father had made
her, and gratified her every wish, making himself so agreeable and
entertaining that all would probably have gone well but for an
incident that occurred during the second week after her return.
Gerald returned about that time, and, feeling that Mr. Hubbard
would not favor his calling upon her, she arranged to meet him
at a certain point on Broadway, one day, when they were to go to
Delmonico’s for lunch, and to talk over their experiences of the
last half-year.
They had hardly met and greeted each other when, they were suddenly
confronted by John Hubbard.
“Well, Allison, whither are you bound?” he inquired, stepping
directly in her path, but without deigning Gerald even a glance of
recognition.
The young girl paused aghast and flushed with mingled embarrassment
and astonishment.
Then, recovering herself, her beautiful eyes began to blaze with
indignation at the slight in her companion.
“Mr. Hubbard,” she said, glancing from him to Gerald, “do you not
recognize Mr. Winchester?”
“I have no acquaintance with Mr. Winchester,” the man frigidly, but
very unwisely, responded. “I was, however, just on my way home to
get you to go with me to see that new painting at the Academy of
Design.”
“I thank you, Mr. Hubbard,” Allison retorted, just as icily, “but
I was on my way to lunch at Delmonico’s with Mr. Winchester. Come,
Gerald.”
Whereupon Miss Brewster haughtily passed her guardian, and
proceeded on her way, attended by her lover, who, although he bowed
coldly to the man, found it difficult to restrain his anger at his
insolence.
“But, Allison----” authoritatively began John Hubbard, looking back
after the graceful, but proudly erect figure of his ward.
He might as well have addressed the paving-stones, for the
independent little lady paid not the slightest heed to him.
“Gerald, I could almost strangle him for being so rude to you,” she
remarked, when they were beyond hearing of the man.
“Never mind me, dear,” he replied, smiling, but regarding her with
an admiring look. “I believe it would be worth while being snubbed
occasionally for the sake of seeing you look so pretty in your
righteous indignation over it.”
“He has been very good to me of late, and I had begun to like
them--almost,” Allison explained; “but I believe this has made
him more hateful to me than ever. However,” tossing her shining
head defiantly, “I am not going to let it spoil our little visit
together.”
They had their lunch, and a quietly jolly time over it, and then
Allison insisted that Gerald himself should take her to see the
painting of which Mr. Hubbard had spoken. They passed a couple of
hours thus very pleasant, and then reluctantly separated.
But they decided that, in future, they would have to be more
wary about their meetings; and, as Gerald was very busy, it was
doubtful about their seeing much of each other before Allison went
to Newport, and now the fair girl began to chafe sorely over the
fact that her fate was so closely allied with the man who was so
obnoxious to her.
When she reached home on this afternoon, she found John Hubbard
there before her, and wearing a very injured air.
But she paid very little attention to him until, galled by her
coolness toward him, he opened fire upon her.
“I was very sorry to meet you with that disreputable fellow today,”
he began, when the indignant girl whirled around upon him like a
small tornado.
“Mr. John Hubbard, you will be kind enough never to speak of my
friend, Mr. Winchester, in that way again,” she cried, with flaming
cheeks and blazing eyes; “and I will further say that I regard your
rudeness to him to-day as a personal insult to me, also.”
The man gazed at her in astonishment. He was dumfounded by such
an exhibition of temper. Her manner was usually characterized by
a sweetness and quietness that gave one the impression that she
could not be aroused to an exhibition of passion, although the
determination and obstinacy which she had shown at Gerald’s trial
had betrayed a strong will.
“Really, Allison,” he began, after a moment, and realizing that it
would not be wise to antagonize her still further, “I meant no
disrespect to you--you know that I have only the tenderest regard
for you; but I was so taken aback upon seeing you upon the street
with that--with young Winchester, I was hardly responsible for what
I did or said. I have never changed my opinion regarding the young
man, however, and it hurt me deeply to meet you with him.”
Allison opened her lips as if about to retort sharply to him again;
but she suddenly checked herself, and turning from him, left the
room without deigning him any reply.
But the man’s suspicions having been aroused, he resolved to watch
his ward closely.
The result of his prying was the discovery of Gerald’s photograph,
which he found in a box in one of Allison’s bureau-drawers, and
with it his last letter from Europe, together with a couple of
recent notes which told him a great deal regarding their relations
to each other--enough to drive him into a white heat of rage, and
arouse all his native villainy and cunning.
He had observed that Gerald had improved greatly during his absence
abroad; he had grown more manly, while there was a prosperous look
about him which betokened success and progression.
This was true, for Gerald had proved himself so congenial to his
employer, and so thoroughly in earnest and determined to do his
very best, that the two had at once become the best of friends, and
at the end of three months Mr. Lyttleton raised his salary to a
thousand a year. More than this, he had found his mental grasp so
keen and forceful, that he had persuaded him to begin the study of
law, under his supervision, and thus the young man found himself
working out the very plan which his friend, Professor Emerson, had
once suggested to him.
John Hubbard congratulated himself that he was so soon to get
Allison away from New York, and he hurried his own work in order to
prevent any delay in his plans.
But the afternoon previous to her departure the lovers had an
enjoyable drive in Central Park, and on her return from this
excursion, Allison met with an adventure which, although, at the
time, it seemed unimportant in itself, was destined to result in
great things later on.
As she had a few errands to attend to before going home, Gerald
left her at one of the large stores on Broadway, after bidding her
a reluctant farewell. She had completed her purchase, and had just
left a fashionable millinery establishment, where she had bought “a
love of a hat,” that was destined to do duty at the seaside, and
was standing upon the curbing, waiting for an uptown car, when she
observed a young girl, about fourteen years of age, leaning against
a lamp-post, and crying bitterly.
She was poorly clad, was very pale, and wore a dejected, suffering
air, which at once appealed to the tender heart of the young
heiress, who also observed that a heavy bundle lay upon the
sidewalk at her feet.
Stepping quietly to her side, Allison gently laid her hand upon her
arm to attract her attention.
“Why are you crying?” she questioned in an earnest tone; “has
anything happened to you?”
The girl turned her tear-stained face upon the speaker, and Allison
saw that it was almost convulsed with pain.
With her right hand she pointed to her left arm, which, her
companion now saw, hung limp and useless--broken--by her side.
The next moment the sufferer dropped senseless at her feet.
CHAPTER XIII.
“BREAD CAST UPON THE WATERS.”
Allison’s first impulse was to scream for help. But she quickly
conquered it, for she had a horror of becoming the center of a
curious, gaping crowd upon a public thoroughfare.
Almost at the same moment she espied a policeman across the street,
and beckoned him to come to her assistance; then, stooping over
the senseless girl at her feet, tried to move her into a more
comfortable position.
“What has happened?” queried the officer, as he appeared upon the
spot. “A drunk, I reckon--eh?”
“No,” said Allison, flushing with indignation at his indifferent
tone; “the girl’s arm is broken, and she has fainted.”
“Humph! then it’s a case for the hospital. I’ll ring up an
ambulance,” was the perfunctory response.
Allison caught her breath sharply, for, like many others who are
ignorant regarding such institutions, she had a perfect horror of a
hospital.
“No,” she said quickly and decidedly, while she glanced up at a
sign over a window in the next block, “Doctor Ashmore’s office is
quite near--take her there.”
“She doesn’t look as if she could afford to pay a swell surgeon
like Doctor Ashmore--she’s a better subject for the hospital,
miss,” said the man slightingly.
“Well, but I am not going to allow her to be put into an ambulance
and driven a long way over these rough pavements to any hospital,”
Allison asserted decidedly. “I know Doctor Ashmore--he is a
first-class surgeon, and I will be responsible for his charge.
Now, pray do as I ask you, and do not let this poor thing lie here
upon the hard sidewalk a moment longer” she concluded, somewhat
impatiently, for people were beginning to gather about them.
“All right, miss; if you choose to look out for her, it’s no affair
of mine,” said the policeman, and, calling another man to his aid,
the two lifted the still unconscious girl and bore her into the
noted surgeon’s office, Allison swiftly leading the way thither.
“I have brought you a patient, Doctor Ashmore,” she observed, as he
entered, and the gentleman came forward to greet her, whereupon he
ordered the men to deposit their burden upon a couch, and at once
proceeded to make an examination of the case.
“The arm is broken above the elbow,” he observed, after ripping up
the sleeve of the girl’s dress. “Who is this protégée of yours,
Miss Brewster?”
“I do not know,” Allison replied; “I found her leaning against a
lamp-post crying, and asked her what the trouble was, when she
merely pointed to her arm, and then fainted away.”
“Well, we will soon have her comfortably fixed. Perhaps you would
like to go into another room while I set the bone,” said Doctor
Ashmore, after calling his assistant, and ordering him to bring
splints, bandages, and other necessary appliances.
“No, thank you; the poor thing will perhaps feel better if she
comes to herself and finds me here, and I will try not to mind the
operation,” replied Allison, in a spirit of true self-abnegation,
yet not feeling nearly so brave as her words had sounded.
Nothing more was said, and the surgeon proceeded at once about
his task, without attempting to revive his patient, who was still
unconscious.
But as his skilful fingers put the fractured bone into position, a
low, shuddering moan plainly told that the shock and pain of the
setting had resulted in restoring suspended animation.
But the girl made no other sound, no resistance; she lay white
and motionless while the splints were adjusted, and the bandages
arranged, and when all was over she raised herself to a sitting
posture, and looked curiously about her.
“Where am I?” she inquired of Allison, as another patient entered,
and claimed the surgeon’s attention.
“In the office of Doctor Ashmore. I asked a policeman to bring
you here, so that your injury could be attended to immediately,”
Allison explained; “and,” she added, smiling encouragi
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