An interrupted night
Date: 2025-01-10T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Bildungsromans; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Women authors -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Deception -- Fiction

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Title: An interrupted night

Author: Pansy

Editor: Grace Livingston Hill

Release date: January 10, 2025 [eBook #75076]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1929

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT ***

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT (from inside flap of dust jacket)

By ISABELLA M. ALDEN (PANSY)

Author of "Ester Ried," "Wise and Otherwise," etc.

In her preface Grace Livingston Hill, a niece of Pansy's, explains that this tale is based on actual facts told by the woman impersonated in the story by Mrs. Dunlap. Pansy, now eighty-seven years old and bed-ridden, found herself unable to complete the preparation of her story and entrusted the task of putting it into shape to Mrs. Hill, herself an author of great prominence. In spite of Pansy's advanced years she still shows the same sparkle and sincerity and understanding of youth that gave such interest and charm to "Ester Ried" and "Four Girls at Chautauqua." This story tells of how a young girl comes up against one of life's most terrible experiences and with the help of her new-found friend, Mrs. Dunlap, fights her way through a maze of trickery and deceit to a fuller understanding of life—and romance in all its beauty.

AN

INTERRUPTED

NIGHT

By

ISABELLA M. ALDEN

("Pansy")

Author of

"The Fortunate Calamity,"

"Esther Reid," "Wise and Otherwise,"

"Three People," "Four Girls at Chautauqua," etc.

With a Foreword by

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

1 9 2 9

Copyright, 1929, by J. B. Lippincott Company

Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD

AS LONG ago as I can remember there was always a radiant being who was next to my mother and father in my heart, and who seemed to me to be a sort of a combination of fairy godmother, heroine, and saint. I thought her the most beautiful, wise, and wonderful person in my world, outside of my home. I treasured her smiles, copied her ways, and listened breathlessly to all she had to say, sitting at her feet worshipfully whenever she was near; ready to run any errand for her, no matter how far.

I measured other people by her principles and opinions, and always felt that her word was final. I am afraid I even corrected my beloved parents sometimes when they failed to state some principle or opinion as she had done.

When she came on a visit the house seemed glorified because of her presence; while she remained, life was one long holiday; when she went away it seemed as if a blight had fallen.

Her eyes were dark and had interesting twinkles in them that children loved; her hair was long and dark and very heavy, dressed in two wide braids that were wound round and round her lovely head in smooth coils, fitting close like a cap, but when it was unbraided and brushed out, it fell far below her knees and was like a garment folding her about. How I adored that hair and longed to have hair just like it! How I even used in secret to tie an old brown veil about my head and let it fall down my back, and try to see how it would feel to have hair like that.

She had delicate features and a wonderful smile. Nobody else in the world looked just as lovely as did she. But once I found a picture of Longfellow's Evangeline in a photograph album, in exquisite classic profile, and thought it was her likeness. She was like that—if you have that old faded photograph somewhere in an old album with quaint clasps. She was wonderful!

And she was young, gracious, and very good to be with.

This radiant creature was known to me by the name of "Auntie Belle," though my mother and my grandmother, called her "Isabella!" Just like that! Even sharply sometimes when they disagreed with her—"Isabella!" I wondered that they dared. I sometimes resented it.

Later I found that other people had still other names for her. To the congregation of which her husband was pastor she was known as "Mrs. Alden." It seemed to me too grownup a name for her and made her appear more stately and sedate than she really was. I remember resenting it that these strange people should seem to have rights in her. She was mine. What were they?

But when a little later my world grew larger, and knowledge increased, I found that this precious aunt of mine did not belong entirely to us as I had supposed. She had another world in which she moved and had her being when she went from us from time to time; or when at certain hours in the day she shut herself within a room that was sacredly known as a "study," and wrote for a long time, while we all tried to keep still; and in this other world of hers she was known as "Pansy." It was a world that loved and honored her, a world that gave her homage and flowers, and wrote her letters by the hundreds each week.

It was not long, too, before I had learned to preen myself like a young peacock because I "belonged" to her, and I am afraid I felt a superior pity and contempt for the thousands of other children who read her paper called "The Pansy" which she edited, but who did not "belong" to her. They could only write letters to her, while I could often be with her every day, sometimes for weeks, and could talk with her all I pleased.

As I grew still older and learned to read I devoured her stories chapter by chapter. Even sometimes page by page as they came hot from the typewriter; occasionally stealing in for an instant when she left the study, to snatch the latest page and see what happened next; or to accost her as her morning's work was done, with: "Oh, have you finished another chapter?"

And often the whole family would crowd around, leaving their work when the word went around that the last chapter was finished and it was going to be read aloud. And now we listened, breathless, as she read, and made her characters live before us. They were real people to us, as real as if they lived and breathed before us.

She was at the height of her popularity just then, and the letters that poured in at every mail were overwhelming. Asking for her autograph and her photograph, begging for pieces of her best dress to sew into patchwork; begging for advice how to become a great author; begging for advice on every possible subject, from how to get the right kind of a husband, to how to stop biting one's nails.

And she answered them all!

It was a Herculean task. Sometimes she let us help her when she was very much rushed, but usually she kept her touch on every letter that went out—and they were thousands.

Then there was the editorship of "The Pansy," a young people's paper which was responsible for more thousands of letters from the children who had joined the Pansy Society, and who wrote to her about their faults and how to give them up, "For Jesus' Sake," which was their motto.

Sometimes I look back on her long and busy life and marvel what she has accomplished.

She was a marvelous housekeeper, knowing every dainty detail of her home to perfection; able to cook anything in the world just a little better than anybody else—except my mother and her—; able to set fine stitches in patches and darning that were works of art; able to make even dishwashing fun!

Sometimes when we were all together for a season, visiting, or during the winters we spent in Florida and lived together, it fell to her part and mine to do the dinner dishes together every night, and we raced, she washing, I wiping and putting away; making a record each night and trying to beat it the next. And such good, good times as we had together, my beloved aunt and I, as we worked with a will and left the kitchen immaculate for the next morning. Oh, she was a wonderful housekeeper!

Yes, and a marvelous pastor's wife! She took the whole parish into her life and gave herself to the work. She was not a modern minister's wife, who only goes to teas and receptions, and plays bridge and attends to the social end of life, never bothering about the church. She was the real old-fashioned kind, who made calls on all the parishioners with her husband, knew every member intimately, cared for the sick, gathered the young people into her home making both a social and religious center for them with herself as leader and adviser; grew intimate with each one personally and led them to Christ; became their confidante; and loved them all as if they had been her brothers and sisters. She taught the Primary class—and incidentally the mothers of the Primary class. She quietly and unobtrusively managed the Missionary Society and the Ladies' Aid, not always as its executive officer, often keeping quite in the background. She became the dear friend of every woman in the church without making any of them jealous. She was beloved, almost adored of them all.

She was a tender, vigilant, wonderful mother, such a mother as few are privileged to have, giving without stint of her time and her strength and her love and her companionship.

Even while she was quite young, when I was a small child she began to go out into the world, to speak in public, to read her stories, to lead Primary Sunday School Conferences, and, as I grew older and developed a delight in drawing, she sometimes took me along to do her blackboard work for her, at which privilege I swelled with pride. She was much in demand in those days, and I remember the awe with which I regarded her as one of the great ones of the earth, who was paid large sums to tell other people the best ways of teaching, and to read her fascinating stories. How I loved her and hung upon her every word and smile. How proud I was to belong to her! And am still.

All these things she did, and yet wrote books! Stories out of real life, that struck home and showed us to ourselves as God saw us; that sent us to our knees to talk with Him.

With marvelous skill she searched hearts, especially of the easy-going Christian, whether minister or layman, young and old, and brought them awake and alive to their inconsistencies. She wove her stories around their common, everyday life, till all her characters became alive and real to those who read. They still live within our memories like people we have known intimately and dwelt among. Ester Reid and Julia Reid, the Four Girls at Chautauqua, Mrs. Solomon Smith. I almost expect to meet some of them in Heaven.

Perhaps she wrote more and better because she was doing so eagerly in every direction. Her public, her church, her family, her home.

I wish I might paint you a picture of that home as I knew it; of my home, its counterpart; of the years the two families spent much time together as one family. The days were one long dream. Hard work? Yes, but good fellowship. Everybody working together with a common aim, and joy in the work and the fellowship!

And the evenings! Oh, those evenings, the crown of the days, the time to which we all looked forward as to a goal when our work was done! Those evenings are bright spots in my youth. Especially the evenings of the years we all spent together in Florida, when the sun went down sharply and the light went velvet black at evening, until the great tropical moon came out. Those long evenings when the soft dense darkness shut us in to a cheerful supper table, and, after we had hustled through the dishes, we all gathered in the big sitting-room around the open fire for family worship. Yes, we were as old-fashioned as that! We had family worship both morning and evening. And I am not of those modern ones who tell such things to scoff at them and say how sick they got of religion because of it, and lay to that their present indifference to God and the Bible. I look back to those times as the most precious, the most beautiful, the most powerful influence that came into my life. I thank God for a family that worshipped Him morning and evening and gave me an early knowledge and love for the Bible and the things of the Kingdom. Either my uncle or my father would conduct the little service, and often the one or the other of them would say to my dear aunt: "You read the chapter to-night, Belle," just because she was such a beautiful reader and we all loved to listen to her. At other times, we would recite verses, all around, a verse apiece, and then kneel in a circle for the prayer.

Oh, those prayers of the years that made my life inevitably acquainted with God, and the Lord Jesus, so that I never could be troubled by the doubts of to-day, because I know Him, "whom to know is life eternal." I cannot be thankful enough for those prayers, and that sacred time of worship every day that brought me into His very Presence.

And then the evening that followed!

We would all get our work, sewing or drawing, painting or knitting, or embroidery. My father, and my uncle would each take his particular chair in a shaded corner, and a book would be brought out. It was always a book that had been selected with great care, usually a story, now and again a great missionary book but more often a good novel. And this aunt would usually do the reading. Sometimes my aunt and my mother took turns reading. They both were remarkable readers, and knit close in spirit since early childhood. For two, sometimes three beautiful hours we reveled in the book. Reluctantly, when the word went forth that it was time to stop, we folded up our work and went to bed—sometimes pleading for just another chapter—now and then actually staying up breathless till all hours to finish some great climax. We always went off to rest with a bright eagerness for the morrow and the evening, and the story again—or a new one if we had finished one.

So we read the works of George Macdonald—we loved the Scotch, and our readers knew how to put the burr of the dialect upon their tongues—Ian Maclaren, Barrie—much of Dickens, some of Scott, Björnson, William Dean Howells, Jean Ingelow's few matchless novels, Frank Stockton, with his charming absurdities and a host of other writers whose stories seem to have become submerged and forgotten in this day of modern literature. But I look back to those stories as my meeting time with the great of the earth. How real the Bonnie Brier Bush and all its quaint true people were! How tender and strong was the Marquis of Lossie and Sir Gibbie! How I thrilled over the "Men of the Moss Hags," "Ben Hur," "The Virginian," "Jane Eyre." I mention them at random. It is my ambition to some day possess in a special set of shelves, every one of those wonderful stories that thrilled me so when I was young. Oh, don't try to tell me I would not care for them now! I do. They were real books, books that do not change because they told of human life as it is really lived in hearts. They may need to be furnished with a few electric lights and radios and airplanes and automobiles to make them up-to-date, but otherwise you will not find them out of tune with life as it is to-day, except that they are perhaps too clean and wholesome to be natural to-day.

There were frequent times when this beloved aunt, around whom we all seemed in those days to center, was called away to deliver an address, or to conduct a conference, or to furnish an evening's entertainment in some distant place; but when she returned from one of these trips we all gathered around to hear her tell her experiences, for we were always sure of stories. She saw everything, and she knew how to tell with glowing words about the days she had been away so that she lived them over again for us. It was almost better than if we had been along because she knew how to bring out the touch of pathos or beauty or fun, and her characters were all portraits. It listened like a book.

It was on one of these occasions that she told on her return from a trip, the story of this book. I remember it as if it were but yesterday, though the whole thing happened many years ago, for modern as this story is, the main part of it happened, really happened, to her personal knowledge, over thirty-five years ago.

It was told to her by a woman who was so well-known all over our country at that time that if I were to name her you could not help but remember how active she was in Woman's Suffrage and W. C. T. U. work, besides several other notable reforms and organizations. She was a brilliant public speaker, much in demand, and a great worker for young girls. She recounted this story to my aunt as a recent personal experience, and gave her permission to use it in a story (after a suitable interval of time of course, and without the original names.)

The story was written in brief form and appeared several years after its happening in a periodical as a short serial; but it is now appearing in book form for the first time. The dear author, after an interval of several years, during which on account of ill health and a feeling that her work was done, has taken up her pen once more. But at what odds! She is now eighty-seven years old and confined to her bed, the result of a fall and a broken hip. In the intervals of pain she has been elaborating and preparing this story for book form.

And now, because the manuscript was to have been in the hands of the publisher long ago, and because pain has held her in its grip for an unusually long period of weeks lately, leaving her unfit for work for the present, she has trusted me with the task of putting it into final shape. This story seems to me peculiarly fitting as a message for this present time.

I approach the work with a kind of awe upon me that I should be working on her story!

If, long ago in my childhood, it had been told me that I should ever be counted worthy to do this, I would not have believed it. Before her I shall always feel like the little worshipful child I used to be.

I recall a Christmas long ago when I was just beginning to write scraps of stories myself, with no thought of ever amounting to anything as a writer. Her gift to me that year was a thousand sheets of typewriter paper; and in a sweet little note that accompanied it she wished me success and bade me turn those thousand sheets of paper into as many dollars.

It was my first real encouragement. The first hint that anybody thought I ever could write, and I laughed aloud at the utter impossibility of its ever coming true. But I feel that my first inspiration for story-telling came from her, and from reading her books in which as a child I fairly steeped myself.

So I beg the leniency of her readers of to-day as I approach the task that is set before me. I know I shall have hers. My one hope is that I shall not in any way mar the message of this true and thrilling tale, that certainly is needed in this day and generation. I trust that she may soon be well enough to write once more, herself, another tale as good if not better.

Let me tell you a secret. I happen to know that this wonderful little brave aunt of mine is at work on the story of her younger years. She calls it "Yesterdays." I have had the pleasure of reading a few of the earlier chapters where she tells of her childhood and her young womanhood; the quaint things that happened to her; the dear home in which she lived; the great people of other days whom she knew intimately and with whom she grew up.

I pray she may be spared with strength to finish her story of her "Yesterdays," and many more beside.

GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT

CHAPTER I

THE train had limped along all the afternoon with engine trouble, and now at evening the passengers learned that they were two hours behind schedule and still losing time.

Mrs. Dunlap put away her writing materials and sat up with a sigh to look about her. It began to look as if she might be going to miss her connections unless relief from this state of things came soon.

She had just finished correcting the last galley of her new book which was to come out that fall; she had gone over the notes for her new addresses she was on her way to make at several appointed places; she had finished reading her magazine from cover to cover; she had even written a couple of letters to friends; and here she was with time on her hands! An almost unheard of thing for this busy woman. Not many hours of leisure came her way, and when one did, it filled her almost with dismay at the enforced waste of time.

Off in the west a thread of crimson still lingered on the horizon, but it soon faded into a line of pale amber and then disappeared. The lights of the train blared out and shut the travelers into the narrow confines of the car, and Mary Dunlap leaned back in her seat and fell to studying her fellow passengers.

The usual mother with many children who had been the usual noisy nuisance all the afternoon, had subsided into quiet for the time being; the mother and the littlest baby being asleep, the rest occupied with a picture book some thoughtful traveler had donated.

The personnel of the car had changed somewhat during the afternoon. Several people had got out at the stations along the way and others had come in. Among the latter were the two people who occupied the seat directly in front of Mary Dunlap, and before she realized it, she was thoroughly absorbed in studying them, her interest caught by the singularly pure and lovely outline of the young woman's face, in profile.

They were apparently a young married couple, though the man was not so young as the girl, who looked entirely too young to be married yet. As she studied them she could not help wondering over the girl's choice of a husband. They did not seem at all well mated. The girl was the far more attractive of the two.

Mary Dunlap decided that they were newly wed. The man had an air of proprietorship which she thought could only be explained by that relation. To the girl everything seemed to be strange and new, but she did not wear a happy face.

"Poor child!" thought the watcher. "She has just said goodbye to her mother, I suppose."

Then for a moment, memory carried her swiftly back to the day when she had been called upon to bid one dear girl the long goodbye.

Still, she reflected, on this girl's face there was unrest—real anxiety. There were even moments when she fancied that there was actual fear! What could be the explanation?

The husband had been most attentive, almost oppressively so. Could he be urging her to some course she did not approve?

"The man looks like a gentleman tyrant!" she told herself. "He will be certain to have his own way in the end. That poor child might as well yield first as last."

The call for dinner in the dining car took her away from their vicinity for a little while, and before she returned they had followed her to the diner. But later in the evening when they came back to their seats, she could not help seeing that they were having some kind of a heated argument, and that the girl was deeply distressed, almost on the verge of tears, the man alternately vexed and cajoling.

Mary Dunlap was a woman of wide interests and keen insight into character. She could not help siding with the young wife, and feeling that the man was in the wrong. He looked like a man who would have his own way at all costs.

In vain did she tell herself that she was probably all wrong. The girl might be a spoiled darling who was childishly insisting on some extravagance which the man, older and wiser, was trying to reason her out of. But try as she would, she could not make it seem that way. The man had a selfish sophistication about him that made her distrust him.

Both the young people were well dressed, with that regard to quiet elegance that showed they had plenty of money, and belonged to what is known as the higher social class. The trouble could not be about money.

Mary Dunlap turned her eyes away from them at last, resolved to wonder no more about these strangers who had caught her passing interest. It was none of her business anyway, what troubled these two. They would have to settle their own affairs. There was obviously no way in which she could help them; and perhaps even this kindly observation was a species of eavesdropping. She would think no more about them.

With her eyes on the dark landscape outside the window, she began to think about those two hours that the train had lost and to wonder what she could possibly do about it in case she missed her connection at the junction. Being a methodical woman, and a careful planner she was not used to missing her appointments, and it was most annoying to have the train crawl along this way, and then stop for unexplainable periods. Nevertheless, there was a certain resignation about her annoyance. She believed fully that design, not mere chance or Fate determines our ways, and reorders our plannings sometimes, in accordance with All-seeing wisdom; and she could not help wondering why her plans had been put in jeopardy.

For a long time she watched the lights of the little villages go flying by, for now the train seemed to have taken up a steady, dogged trot, and rolled along without stopping as if it had made up its mind to get home sometime.

But when she finally turned her gaze back to the car again she could see that the two in front of her had not settled their argument yet. They were not talking much now, but each face was eloquent of disagreement. The girl's eyes held unshed tears, and her look was openly anxious. Now and then she cast a pleading look at her companion, and said a little wistful word, ending in a sigh. The man was still stubbornly positive, his lips curving in a superior smile of amusement at the girl's reiterated objections. Again Mary Dunlap began to realize that her own interest in the affair was unwarrantably eager. She must stop thinking about these two people or they would pretty soon turn around suddenly and see her staring at them.

But just at that instant there occurred a happy interruption. The brakeman came eagerly through the train as one bearing welcome news, shouting the name of the Junction at last.

Mrs. Dunlap sat up briskly and looked at her watch. Ten minutes past midnight! Would the other train have waited?

Capably and quickly she straightened her hat, put on her gloves, buttoned her coat, gathered her hand bag, brief case, and suit case, and was ready at the door of the car when the train came to a halt.

But a glance at the track on the other side of the station showed that the train had not waited! The station looked deserted and dirty in the dim midnight, and her heart sank. Now, why had this had to happen?

Mrs. Dunlap paused for a moment in the doorway of the station as the disappointed crowds surged from the belated train. They had all more or less of a discouraged look and she sympathized with them. It was a new experience to her to be stranded unexpectedly at midnight in a strange place. Her delay would undoubtedly disappoint many people; but it certainly was not her fault. She had planned carefully as usual, and now must send telegrams in various directions to explain her non-appearance; her first disappointment as a platform speaker after years of service. She could not possibly reach her first appointment now in time and the whole schedule would be thrown out. Too bad, but she must make the best of it.

As she made her way to the telegraph office the man, who had for several hours occupied the seat in front of her, brushed past her. He too had probably missed connections and must telegraph. She wondered where he had left his young wife and wished she might have had a chance to show her some little kindness. She felt strangely drawn to the girl, who looked too young to be a wife and seemed so utterly troubled.

"I wonder if they are as much disappointed as I am over the upset of plans, and if they are disappointing as many people as I am?" she said to herself, and again a question came to her mind; "I wonder why it was allowed to happen? I certainly thought I was needed at that meeting to-morrow morning! They have been planning for it so long! It is so embarrassing to have to disappoint them this way!"

It very soon became necessary however to give undivided attention to the question of where she was to spend the remainder of the night. The Kennard House to which she had been recommended by the ticket agent proved to be crowded and the gentlemanly and sympathetic clerk could give her no encouragement.

He shook his head in response to her question: "The Albemarle? No, they are as badly off as we are. A car just drove away from here with people who had tried the Albemarle first. It is certainly an unfortunate night for that express train to be late! The city is overcrowded on account of the Convention. You are alone, madam? I hardly know what to suggest to you. We let our very last room go, about three minutes before you came in, to a couple who were your fellow passengers."

Was that a courteous hint that if she hadn't been so slow in her movements she might have had their room? Was the fortunate couple the two who had held her thoughts for hours? If so, she was glad she had been late; that sad-eyed little wife needed a quiet room for getting her nerves under control.

Then came another hotel official to exchange a few words in undertone with the one who was trying to serve her. A moment, then her sympathetic friend turned to her again.

"Madam, I have just heard that the man who engaged No. 38 for the night, has changed his mind, and is staying with friends in town. If you cared to wait in the reception room for a few minutes we could have it ready for you."

Grateful thanks were of course the only reply to make to this.

As she took up the pen to register Mrs. Dunlap remarked: "It seems almost foolish to register for the few hours there are left of the night." But she said it with a genial smile and the friendly air that made clerks and porters and all who served her, glad to offer a helping hand.

The name just preceding her own held her attention as probably the one that belonged to the couple who had so continually interested her that evening. "R. H. Keller and wife." They were booked for Room 537. That must be four floors above her own. She wished they had been nearer, then she might have opportunity to exchange courtesies with that frightened little bride; if she could only mother her a little, she would be glad.

The parlor in which she waited looked vast and gloomy in its midnight dimness and solitude. No not quite solitude, there were other occupants, a man and woman, probably waiting like herself for a room to be made ready. Her first impulse was to choose a corner as far removed from them as space would permit. Instead, she took possession of one of the couches quite near where they were standing for she suddenly recognized them as her traveling companions, and her interest in the girl flamed anew as she caught sight of her face.

What could be troubling that girl! The more she saw of the man's face the more she distrusted him. Perhaps she imagined it, but it seemed as though he had recognized her close proximity with a frown! Nevertheless, she determined not to retreat. What if there should be a chance just to speak a cheery word to the girl? She tucked herself among the cushions, drew her coat closely about her, and seemed to sleep, but she had never felt wider awake. Her nervousness was taking the form of a premonition.

The man had turned toward his wife. "We may as well be comfortable while we wait," he said. "It is beastly luck to have to wait at all. These second class towns never have proper hotel accommodations. Let us go over to that couch at the other end of the room where the pillows look less stinted."

The girl looked over at the distant couch then glanced back to the one where Mrs. Dunlap rested.

"Oh, no," she said, moving nearer to the fireplace. "I am chilly; I would rather stay here. Suppose you push a couple of those large rocking chairs up this way?"

"I can make you much more comfortable on the couch," he said, his tone indicating annoyance. "That fire will not keep you warm, there is nothing left of it but charred old stumps. Do let me snug you up among the cushions."

He essayed to pass an arm about her as he spoke, but she drew away from him with a wan smile as she said:

"I would rather stay here; it seems less lonely to be near a woman. Why did we trouble about rooms? I think I would just as soon stay where I am?"

"Standing?" he asked in a tone which to the woman on the couch sounded sullen.

"No," answered the girl with that pitiful attempt at a smile, "I would be willing to sit if you would bring up chairs. There cannot be much longer to wait, I should think. What time did you say we could get a train?"

When he told her, the response was almost a wail.

"Oh, Rufus! That was not what you said before? Why, that is not until another day!"

The woman on the couch held herself motionless by a strong effort of will. This was not the tone of a happy wife! She was certain now that something was wrong besides a few hours of delay. This was more like the outbreak of a woman half afraid of the man who was supposed to be caring for her.

"It is beastly luck," the man said again. "Something is always the matter on this confounded branch road! If you hadn't been staying in such an out of the way place, we should have been saved all this. Still, I don't understand why we should make it any more uncomfortable than it is. You ought to be resting quietly, instead—"

Her voice interrupted him, louder than it had been before. "I cannot rest: I cannot! I can only think of my mother's utter dismay and—and terror when she hears—"

"H-sh!" The man's sibilant whisper was sudden and fierce!

No wonder the girl started, and cried out in fright: "Oh, what is it!"

He bent over her and spoke lower.

"It is nothing at all, my dear, except that you are utterly tired out and your nerves are on edge. But you must be careful what you say. That confounded eavesdropper has planted herself as close to us as she could, and may get the idea from your words that I am a fiend of some kind. Thank goodness, though, she has gone to sleep, at last! I must say they are taking an unaccountable time to get that room ready."

"That room!" repeated the still frightened voice. "There are two rooms, of course?"

"Of course," he repeated hastily, "but I could wait for mine, you know."

"I don't like it," the girl said, quite as if she had not heard him, "I don't like anything about it! I wish—Oh, Rufus, can't we go on to-night? Or go somewhere and talk things over and make other plans. I don't want any room!"

He spoke kindly but with great firmness.

"That is impossible, dear, as you will realize when you think a moment. All the arrangements are made, and my friend is waiting and will be there for the next train. There is no other train until morning that will do us any good. Why can you not be the sensible girl you have been all the afternoon and let me do the extra planning that this detention has made necessary? I assure you I can take care of you." As he spoke, he tried to draw her nearer.

She made a despairing movement away from him and said:

"Oh, I cannot make you understand! I know how strange it seems to you, but if you could think for a moment of my side of it! Can't you realize how different it will all be to me when I have the right to be with you anywhere and always? As it is, I cannot help feeling strangely alone and—and almost disgraced! I do, Rufus, I cannot help it. Mother has always been so particular about me; and she would think this that we are doing was terrible! I know now that she would. Can't we go somewhere on the cars, and talk it all over? I don't feel so perfectly strange when we are moving. Hark! Was that one o'clock? And we were to have been there long before twelve! And you were to telegraph to mother early in the morning! Oh, this is dreadful!"

He bent toward her and spoke gently. "Daisy, listen, you are making yourself ill over troubles that do not exist. Everything is all right; we shall be in by noon, and my friend will meet the train. Meantime in the early morning I will wire your mother, as we planned; and—"

She interrupted him. "But we don't get in until noon! And what you were going to say won't be true!"

"Oh, nonsense! Why, my dear, if you were not so tired as to be beyond reasoning, I could convince you in a very few minutes of the folly of that! I shall only be anticipating the truth by a very few hours in order to relieve her anxiety."

"Rufus, I cannot help it. I cannot have our life together begin with falsehood! It is bad enough as it is. I cannot help being sorry that we did not wait until mother had a chance to know you better. She is not a hard or unreasonable woman."

"I see plainly that you do not trust me." He spoke with such bitterness and sharpness that the listener on the couch who could catch only portions of the girl's words, felt as though she would like to spring up that minute and defend her. But the voice rose clearer just then.

"Rufus! How can you say that to me? If I had not trusted you utterly, would I be here to-night? If you had a mother, you would understand how perfectly dreadful it is to—"

As she hesitated for words, a hotel official came towards them.

"Are you Mr. R. H. Keller, sir? If so, you are wanted at the office telephone."

"Confound the fellow!" muttered Keller. Then, in a gentler tone, "Don't let that frighten you, Daisy. It is a business call that I have been expecting; but it comes at an inopportune time, of course. I shall be back in a very few minutes."

Left to herself, the girl walked back and forth in front of the fire, seeming to catch her breath in convulsive little sobs. She was so near the couch that Mrs. Dunlap could have put out her hand and touched her. When that good woman saw a pair of small hands clenched and heard a low moan, she came suddenly to a sitting posture and in a moment more was speaking in a low tone.

"Will you forgive me, dear? I am the mother of a precious girl who was about your age when God called her home. And I miss her so! I cannot help seeing that you are in trouble. May I not play mother to you for a little while and try to comfort you?"

But the girl's face at that moment expressed such abject terror, that she made haste to add:

"There is nothing to be frightened over, dear; this is a quiet, entirely respectable house, and your husband will be back in a few moments." It was the probing word that this student of human nature had resolved should open her way, and it succeeded.

"He is not my husband!" the girl exclaimed. "Not yet," she added quickly. "We were to have been married as soon as the train reached our destination; but the train was delayed; we could not go on; and there were no rooms to be had without this awful waiting! I wish now that we had not—" She stopped abruptly, then began again.

"I know I must appear very silly indeed to a stranger. But I cannot seem to help it. And I cannot explain, either, why it should suddenly seem so perfectly dreadful to me, but it does! I am so used to traveling with my mother; I cannot get away from the thought of how perfectly awful it would seem to her if she knew that I—"

The tremulous voice stopped again; and at that moment Mrs. Dunlap felt that she could almost enjoy shooting the man who had deliberately planned such a state of things for this frightened child. She passed a protecting arm about the trembling form and spoke low and tenderly.

"My child, will you trust me and tell me all about it? You remind me of my own dear daughter; I am sure that you have a precious mother. Does she know that you expected to be married to-night?"

"No, oh, no! She doesn't dream of such a thing! We couldn't tell her because she—she is prejudiced against Mr. Keller; he has enemies, we think, who are trying to injure him because he is a more successful man than they are, and she—Why, she wasn't even willing to have me walk out with him, alone! But I thought—I mean I think that when we are married, and everything is settled forever, we shall be able to make her understand. It really isn't as though I were a child; I am of age."

At this, the child-woman drew herself up with such a pitiful attempt at womanhood that Mrs. Dunlap, under happier circumstances, felt sure she would have asked how many hours it was since the child had attained to that dignity!

The tremulous voice continued:

"Still, I could not live without my mother; and I do not need to, of course. As soon as she discovers how truly good and noble Mr. Keller is, and what a devoted son he is ready to be to her, it will be all right. Mother has always wanted a son."

A note of appeal had crept into her voice as though she longed to hear from even this stranger an assurance that all would be well. Mrs. Dunlap's mother-heart bled for her, and a throb of thankfulness for the absolute safety of her own daughter thrilled through her. With it came the determination to do what she could to help this girl, even at the cost of a possible mistake.

"My child," she said, "I feel that I must tell you something that I think you ought to know. You are registered at this hotel as 'R. H. Keller and wife!' And one room—not two—is being made ready for you."

CHAPTER II

FOR a moment Mrs. Dunlap regretted her words. The terror in the girl's eyes transformed her face; and the low cry she gave was almost like that of a wounded animal! But she rallied rapidly and said with eagerness: "Oh, you are mistaken! It is some other person whose name you have mistaken for his. He would not—why, Rufus could not do such a thing!"

"My dear child, I am not mistaken." The very quietness of the woman's voice and manner carried conviction. "The name is R. H. Keller and the man who is with you here to-night is the one who sat before me with you yesterday afternoon, and wrote his name as I have told you, just before I did on the register."

Suddenly the poor girl broke into bitter weeping. "What shall I do!" she wailed. "Oh, what shall I do! Oh, mother! If I had never gone away from you! I have killed her! I have killed my mother!"

"No, you haven't!" Mrs. Dunlap's voice had never been quieter, nor firmer. "You are going home to her this morning, as soon as the train goes. In a few hours she will have her arms about you. And when you are really being married, she will stand very near you, and be the first to kiss you, and call you her darling. You wouldn't disappoint her for anything! Come with me to my room and wait until train time. There ought to be one very early in the morning, and I will see you safely to it."

The girl seized the little hand bag she had dropped, and spoke hurriedly.

"Where is the room? Oh, quick! Take me to it, will you? That was what I wanted; a place to be alone and think. I don't know what I can do, but I must decide; and I must do it before Mr. Keller comes back, because—oh, will you let me go into your room and lock the door?"

They both turned hurriedly at the sound of footsteps.

It was a porter to say that No. 37 was ready; and never were fleeter steps than those that followed his lead.

"Oh, hurry!" the girl said breathlessly as they reached the room, and it was she who turned the key in the lock after the retreating porter. Then she dropped a limp heap into the nearest chair and cried.

Mrs. Dunlap left her quite to herself and thanked God for the tears.

"What shall I do if he comes and demands to be let in?" the girl asked suddenly, looking up at her deliverer. "He is so—so masterful; and he does not look at things as I do. He thinks that a few hours cannot make any difference. I know how he argued it out with himself that he could not leave me alone, and that he would shield my name by giving me his in advance, but I cannot do it, I cannot! And if he comes and insists upon talking to me, I don't know what will become of me. I don't seem to be able to make him understand."

"I know, dear; you will be a good girl and go back to your mother. Of course you cannot do what he wants. This is my room; he will hardly come to it without my permission. If you think it is necessary to explain your absence, I will go down to him, if you will let me, and explain what is necessary."

"Oh, if you will! I mean if you can! He is very determined; and he is used to having his own way; I cannot think that he will let me—"

She was trembling so violently that she could scarcely speak.

Mrs. Dunlap passed an arm about her and spoke as she might have done to a frightened child.

"Don't think about that part of it any more; I am not in the least afraid of him; and I will take care of you! Have you a kimono in this bag? Let me help you take off your dress, just as your mother would, and slip the kimono on for a little while. I have been looking at the time table. You can have almost three hours of quiet; then I will take you to the train. We can plan all the details afterwards."

"Oh, you are so kind!" murmured the girl.

"I am going downstairs now," the woman said when the girl had submitted to her ministrations, resisting the suggestion about the bed, but allowing herself to be propped among pillows in an easy chair. "I will come back in a little while; or would you rather have this room quite to yourself? I can be comfortable down on one of the couches, and I will come for you in ample time for the train."

"No! Oh, no!" the girl said, the look of fear coming into her eyes again. "Please don't leave me! And yet you must! Would you mind locking the door and taking the key with you? I cannot help a feeling that—"

"She is afraid of him!" was Mrs. Dunlap's mental comment as she sped down the hall with the key in her pocket.

On the whole she decided she was rather glad of an opportunity to tell that man what she thought of him.

She had little time to collect her thoughts, for the subject of them hurried in soon after she entered the parlor.

There was an ugly frown on his face. Evidently the interview from which he had just come had irritated him.

He strode to the corner where he had left his companion and stared about him perplexedly; then turned an angry questioning look upon Mrs. Dunlap.

"Are you looking for the lady who was here when you left the room?" She asked pleasantly, determined to be courteous if possible. "She has gone to my room to get some rest, and asked me to say to you that she is all right and quite comfortable for the night."

He strode toward her with a glare in his eyes that would have frightened a less courageous spirit, and spoke in an angry voice: "Who are you that you presume to interfere in the lady's affairs?" he said haughtily. "I have a room for her to rest in, and you will oblige me by telling her that I am waiting for her, and then by minding your own business."

Mrs. Dunlap had the advantage of this angry man; she was perfectly cool and calm.

"You are mistaken," she said. "I have the right to interfere, because the lady has claimed my protection and I am abundantly able and willing to give it."

"Protection from what!" he thundered.

"From Mr. Keller, I fancy. I supposed, of course, that the lady in question was your wife, as I had seen you together during the day, and noticed how you registered. Since she has informed me that she is not; and, furthermore, that she does not wish to see you again to-night, I have aided her in carrying out her wishes and must insist on her not being disturbed."

"Must you indeed! How do you expect to accomplish the task of keeping me away from the lady who is under my protection, and for whom I alone am responsible?"

There was menace in his tone and in the glare of his eyes. Mrs. Dunlap lifted her eyebrows with a gesture of contempt, but she spoke quietly.

"This is absurd, Mr. Keller. I have no wish to make matters more uncomfortable than is necessary; but of course you are aware that this is a respectable house. You are here in company with a young woman whom you registered as your wife; and you ordered a room for yourself and her; but she says that she is not your wife, and that she does not wish to see you again to-night. I do not need to remind you how promptly the proprietor of this house, as well as its guests, would come to her aid if necessary; nor that policemen and lockups are conveniences within call. If you compel me to resort to such measures, you will have yourself to thank."

There was something about Mary Dunlap when she chose to assert herself that commanded respect. Keller looked into the clear stern eyes of this woman and realized that he must not go too far. He glared at her, baffled for an instant, and when she still continued to look steadily at him, he wheeled and took a few steps away from her. Then, after a moment, with a sound that was evidently an attempt at a laugh but was more like a sneer, he turned and came toward her again, trying to speak lightly:

"You women are too much for me! I may as well take you into my confidence, as the lady has evidently seen fit to do. It is true that the formal ceremony which was to have made us man and wife in the eyes of a curious world has not yet taken place, but the mere formality is all that is lacking. If it were not for a wrecked engine and this infernal delay, Mrs. Grundy, whom you are personifying, would have been able to sleep peacefully. I registered as I had expected to do after I had reached the station where the clergyman was waiting for us, because I did not wish to leave the lady alone, in her wearied, and nervous state, but desired to minister to her comfort, as I would assuredly have been able to do, had we not been interfered with in this extraordinary manner. I did not consider it necessary to explain to the lady that I had anticipated the ceremony by a few hours, in writing her name as mine, and thus securing a quiet room for her to rest in.

"I may further say that business complications in which a good deal of money was involved, have made it necessary for me to move with caution in this entire matter, and for this reason I brought her away with me quietly, before the outward forms had been complied with; but she came without coercion of any sort as she will be ready to inform you, if you explain that you suspect me of being at least an accomplice in a case of kidnapping! She will tell you also that she is of age, and that nobody living has a right to object to her taking a journey at any hour of the day or night with her chosen husband.

"Now, having, I am sure, satisfied the utmost demands of your curiosity, if you will tell me where to find the lady, I will escort her to her private sitting-room; and you need not delay your own sleep any longer. If it will comfort you to know it, I assure you that three minutes' conversation with my lady, will be sufficient to allay any fears that you may have succeeded in working up."

This biting sarcasm, partially veiled at times by mock courtesy, was concluded with what was intended to be a bow of dismissal.

But Mrs. Dunlap was never more quietly determined in her course of action. Every word that the man had spoken increased her distrust of him.

"We need not argue," she said. "You have told me nothing that I did not know before. Let me remind you that the mere formality which is still lacking to give you the legal right to take care of this woman is one that decent people still carefully adhere to, and without it your action to-night has been contrary to law and respectability. For this reason, no matter what your motive is, or how many private sitting-rooms you have been able to secure in this overcrowded house, I can and will protect the young woman from occupying one of them. I suppose it is hardly necessary to add that if you make the slightest attempt to see her to-night, or to interfere with her wishes in any way, I shall not hesitate to take the hotel officials and the police into my confidence. If you force me to action, you will find that I am a woman who is very well-known."

During these words the man's face was a study. Fierce indignation, doubt, perplexity, intense disgust, each struggled for the ascendancy. But Mrs. Dunlap was about to leave the room. The necessity for propitiating her in some way forced itself upon him.

"Wait!" he said imperatively. "You do not understand. Is it possible to make you understand the conditions? Sit down and let me explain just what has happened, and what I am trying to do."

His manner became suddenly courteous, and he began to talk volubly, explaining, in more minute detail than the occasion seemed to call for, the devious ways by which he had reached this point; enlarging upon his deep affection for the lady of his choice, and his desire to free her from the narrow and cramped life in which he found her. Her mother was a commonplace, narrow-minded, exceedingly prejudiced person who entirely dominated her daughter's life; so that she was in danger of having no individuality, he said.

Among other proofs of the mother's folly, she had conceived a violent dislike to himself; and carried her tyranny to such an extent that the girl was not even allowed to receive a call from him, unless the mother was present! Matters were in this state, and he was at an utter loss how to further the daughter's interests, when his good angel, came to his rescue. The girl went to spend a month with a very intimate friend, who had married and removed to a town a hundred miles from her home. Then, quite unexpectedly to himself, business connected with his firm sent him to that very town. All the rest had followed, almost, he might say, because of the necessities of the case. He had discovered that the young lady's affections were as deeply involved as his own, and that she despaired, as deeply as he did himself, of ever winning her narrow-minded mother to take their view of things.

Mrs. Dunlap was called upon to assent to the statement that common people were apt to have violent prejudices for which they could not account, and were the hardest persons on earth to move. Still, he would admit that in carrying out the program that followed he had acted upon sudden impulse rather than premeditated plans.

When the time came for the lady to return home, Providence seemed to make a way for them to be happy. He need not explain that he had used no coercion in the matter; the lady realized only too certainly that her mother stood in the way of her happiness, and that if she had her way, the daughter would be entirely and forever separated from him. This, she felt that she could not endure, and they both believed that, when the irrevocable step was taken, the mother would have a return to common sense. So, in a moment, one might say, it was all arranged; indeed it almost arranged itself. He had a friend in the ministry at a town which was an important junction of the railroad, and to him, he sent a message planning all the necessary details; but for the horrible delay because of that disabled engine, everything would have been complete.

But the delay and confusion and the necessity for their stopping overnight at a strange hotel had bewildered and frightened the girl, unused as she was to being alone, or to thinking and planning for herself. It was the knowledge of that, which had led him to make the mistake of registering as he did; he could now see that it was a mistake. He knew there was but one room to be had, and his only thought had been to secure privacy for her and the right to minister to her comfort. At the moment there seemed no other way; but he would admit that it had a bad look to others, who did not understand the situation. For himself these outward conventions never seemed of paramount importance so long as one understood one's self. He had not meant to tell the girl about it, because she, as a matter of course having such a mother, was terribly trammeled by conventions of all sorts and could not be made to understand that what was true IN SPIRIT was the same as truth.

But, he had been foolish; he was ready to admit it. He was even grateful for her interference, when he came to think carefully, although he would confess that at first it seemed unpardonable. He had been a law to himself for so many years, that he knew he did not attach the same importance to convention that others did, but he must learn to do so now, for the girl's sake. Of course everything should be as she wished. He would not for the world go contrary to the lady's real desires, but it would be necessary for him to see her and rearrange their program. After he had learned just what she wanted him to do, he would spend the remainder of the night in long distance communications, because of course there were explanations that must be made. Having interested herself in his charge, would she be so kind as to tell her that he was waiting for her, and must confer with her at once in order to send his dispatches? He would detain her but a very short time, and then she could return to the room that had been so kindly placed at her disposal.

Throughout this elaborate explanation Mrs. Dunlap had sat silent; her eyes fixed upon the speaker, and her thoughts busy with this new specimen of human nature.

Not for a single moment did he deceive her into thinking that he was, in the main, a true man who, because of his love for a pretty girl and the sudden temptation of opportunity, had been led headlong into a foolish and dangerous experiment. Not for an instant did she waver in her determination to keep those two apart, if possible, until the girl's mother could make a third in their deliberations.

Yet she made no attempt to interrupt the flow of words, and grew interested in the skill with which he was explaining the unexplainable.

When he paused, with an evident air of having mastered a difficult situation, she said:

"You are very kind to give me details, although they do not of course alter the present situation. It is a relief to know that you consider your course wrong, but I cannot agree with your way of trying to right it. I have given my word to the lady that she shall not be disturbed to-night and that she shall take the home-bound train in the morning. After she is safe at home with her mother and has had time to rally from the shock that this has evidently been to her, you may be able to make such plans as neither of you will be ashamed to look back upon; but she is in no condition to be consulted to-night; and it may help you to realize, what I feel quite sure of, that she has had her lesson, and that any future plans you may care to make must take her mother into full consideration. You will pardon the suggestion that you must have had many more years than she, in which to learn wisdom; she is but eighteen I believe, while you—"

She paused significantly, but the man whom she judged to be not less than thirty-five at least, was speechless with amazement and dismay. He had staked much and expected to win.

She turned and left him before he could think of any excuse to detain her longer.

CHAPTER III

THE remainder of the night was as unique in its way as its earlier hours had been. On Mary Dunlap's return to her room she found the girl was more composed, and able to talk quietly.

"I have had time to think it all out," she said, when Mrs. Dunlap had told what she meant to tell. "Mr. Keller does not understand; his mother died when he was a child and he brought himself up, in a way. He has been a law to himself and to others for so long that he just goes ahead and does what seems best to him. I am sure he meant right. Even that strange part about registering," her face flushed as she spoke, "I can see it was done for my sake. I am so lacking in self-reliance and had been so nervous all day that he felt he could not trust me alone, and took that way of caring for me. But it is no wonder that I am nervous, for I have been doing wrong all day! I did not know it; I thought because I was of age I had a right to decide for myself but I realize that there is a higher law than just a legal one, and I am going home to mother! I am afraid she will feel that she can never trust me out of her sight again, and I do not deserve to be trusted.

"It is all very plain to me now, what I ought to do. I shall write to Mr. Keller and tell him that we must wait, and give my mother time to know him, and to learn what a truly noble man he is. Then we must try by all honorable means to win her consent to our marriage. I will not cannot be married till my mother feels right about it."

"I think that sounds like a very wise decision," said Mary Dunlap with relief in her voice. "That is what mothers were given for, to help in grave decisions. They seem to have a sort of God-given intuition about the great critical things of life. Remember that if you do not succeed in winning her over, such a mother, as a girl like you must have, surely must have wise reasons for objecting—"

"Oh, I'm sure we will succeed," interrupted the girl's voice anxiously. "My mother wants nothing in this world so much as my happiness. But if we cannot, after a reasonable time, convince her that he is worthy of her trust, why then we must just be married, without her consent. I have my own life to live—" she drew herself up proudly with a pitiful assumption of dignity—"I cannot afford to spoil my life and his for the sake of a cruel prejudice."

This last was so manifestly an echo from Mr. Keller's philosophy that the listener said not a word, in response, and the eager voice went on.

"But we must do it honestly; there shall be no slipping away as though we were ashamed! I cannot understand how I could have done such a thing! Doesn't it seem strange that I should know now just what to do, when this morning I did not at all! And so, dear friend—you will be my friend always, will you not? And mother will never know how to thank you enough for what you have done for me to-night! If you will put me on the train in the morning, as you said, I will go directly home; no matter how many broken engines hinder."

Mrs. Dunlap tried by all conceivable devices to induce her charge to get some sleep. She rang for a porter and made careful arrangements for the early train; planning the minutest details with a view to convincing the girl that she might be trusted. But there was no sleep to be had for either of them. Her charge was docile enough; she lay down obediently and closed her eyes; but she started at every sound, and imagined sounds that were not; frequently, after a few minutes of silence, she would break into eager explanations of some of Mr. Keller's movements, with a view to placing him in the best possible light.

"What is his business?" Mrs. Dunlap asked; deciding, after fruitless effort that to humor the child's restlessness was perhaps the better way.

"He is—I—don't know—!"

The sentence began eagerly, then a pause, and the half bewildered conclusion.

"He has to travel a great deal," she added; "belongs to a firm, you know; but I find that I do not know what the firm is; it seems strange that I never thought to ask him!"

"Is his home in the West?"

"Yes—no, he is there winters; summers he is East somewhere. I don't remember which city he calls 'home'; he is in New York a great deal. He really hasn't much home I presume; an unmarried man, whose parents are dead; it must be very dreary."

"Poor innocent child!" was Mrs. Dunlap's mental comment. "She really knows no more about the man than I do; I'm afraid not so much! For all that she could prove, he might be an adventurer of the sort that is careful not to have a settled home."

But all that she put into words was an earnest admonition to the girl to try to rest. For herself, she did not mean to sleep; every nerve was on the alert for a possible invasion. Who could be sure of what that defeated plotter might attempt?

But the night passed without further incident and early morning found the two at the telegraph office, from which presently two messages sped on their way. One read:

"Delayed by disabled engine. Coming on No. 2. All safe. Daisy."

It had taken nearly half an hour to compose this message satisfactorily. The other read:

"Must fail you for Wednesday. Will give you Thursday instead, if desired. Wire me at Winfield. Mary Dunlap."

Mrs. Dunlap had decided that the personal deposit of this young girl at her mother's door was more important than any other "woman's work" that she could do that day although she did not know that the man she had foiled was already seated in the smoker of the early train, waiting for her to disappear. She utterly distrusted him, and felt instinctively that he would watch his opportunity.

It was to the girl's great astonishment that, having established her charge in comfort, Mrs. Dunlap prepared to seat herself in the opposite chair.

"Oh, are you really going this way?" said the unsuspecting child. "What made me think that you were going farther West? How far do you go? To Winfield? Why, that is just beyond my station! How lovely! You will stop and see mother and let her thank you herself, won't you?"

But Mrs. Dunlap had decided that she would not. If the man were only a fool, and not a confirmed villain, and the child's heart was bound up in him, it were better for all concerned that her prejudices, as well as her knowledge of that tragic night, should never reach the mother's ears.

When the journey was over and they drove to the girl's home, she waited only to clasp hands with the sweet-faced, low-voiced, grateful woman, into whose eager arms Daisy flung herself, and to decline the pressing invitation to the home that wanted to shower kindnesses upon her; then sped on to Winfield. Arrived in Winfield, Mary Dunlap's sole errand was to read a telegram she found awaiting her, send another, and take the first train back West.

On the fourth morning following, she opened her eyes in a beautiful room in one of the elegant homes of a New York city suburb. It was still early, and she lay quiet for a few minutes, feasting her beauty-loving eyes on the evidences of abundant means and highly cultured taste spread lavishly about her. She had been too weary the night before to take in any details, except a bed. Mrs. Dunlap was accustomed to the position of honored guest in all sorts of homes. She could accommodate herself to the furnishings of the plainest home with a grace that was one of her charms; but she confessed to her very intimate friends that when "the lines fell to her in pleasant places," it always stirred an extra note of thanksgiving in her heart. There was certainly nothing lacking here; nothing to offend the most fastidious taste, or for the most exacting to desire.

The days and nights just past had been strenuous ones to this always industrious woman. There had been first the rapid journey involving another failure in appointment, for this woman who prided herself on never failing; an equally rapid return to the East, reaching her next engagement just in time; then two hours by rail to her evening appointment; and here she was taking breath in a lovely room with a whole day of rest before she had to start again!

She was in no haste to move. Her thoughtful hostess had urged her not to hasten down in the morning. "We do not breakfast until nine, and not always then if the head of the house is absent; as he is now I am sorry to say. I have always wanted him to meet you. Dear Mrs. Dunlap, I may as well confess that I am awfully proud of my husband!" The sentence had closed with an apologetic laugh.

What a transparent little lady her hostess was! She ought to be very happy, with a husband of whom she was "awfully" proud, a beautiful home crowded with all the luxuries that wealth could produce, and probably not a care in the world!

Mary Dunlap could not resist a little sigh of pity for herself; she was a lonely woman. Her husband and home and child all gone from her. She, too, had been "proud" of her husband with abundant reason; and her beautiful girl. But her girl was safe. The terrors of this awful world could not touch her.

She thought of "Daisy," and shuddered for the narrowness of her escape. Had she escaped? Would that wretch try to find her again? Perhaps she had not done her whole duty. She ought to have warned the mother. What were mothers about, to be so careless? But for that disabled engine, the child would have gone straight on her dangerous way!

Very slowly at last she went about the business of dressing, enjoying luxuries of the toilet not found ordinarily in hotels or boarding houses, and reveling in costly trifles lavishly furnished. Even in the halls she came upon treasures of art to study over, and as she lingered before them, she told herself with a half wistful smile that she must have a care lest she become envious of Mrs. Oliver.

Then she fell to moralizing. Was it probable that her hostess had her heart's desire in all things? It looked so.

There were two daughters, she had heard, who were their mother's joy and pride also. Certainly the outward appearance of the home left nothing to wish for. In such an atmosphere it was hardly possible to avoid thinking of sharply contrasted lives. Not her own, though the contrast there was marked enough. Still, she lived a busy and, she believed, a useful life, and was happy in her work. But she knew women—many of them—to whom the word "happy" could not be applied; women with warped, stunted, yes—wrecked lives!

Instantly with that word, her thoughts flew again to "Daisy," the acquaintance of a day, who had been so close to wreckage and who had made a permanent place for herself in this mother-heart. That awful man! Would she ever meet him again? If so, what would happen! What if she should meet him under circumstances that would compel her acknowledgement of him as an acquaintance? For instance, what if he should, after all, become Daisy's husband! She recoiled from the thought as she might have done from a blow; yet one could not be sure; the child had given herself unreservedly to him, unworthy of her as he seemed. Perhaps her love would redeem his life! Ought she not to hope so? Yet her very soul revolted from it!

Next, she was in the lower hall looking over the morning mail, gathering from it letters and telegrams for herself; and her hostess was coming forward to meet her, in the most charming of house gowns, with a face as bright as the morning. She was voluble in her hope that the night had been restful, and that her guest could give them the entire day.

"It is so delightful that Mr. Oliver is at home to enjoy you; I had no hope of such a thing. He came home unexpectedly on a later train than yours. He had started on a very long business trip, expecting to be gone for several months. Then, one of those unaccountable business changes came up—I never pretend to understand business—and he came back. The children and I held a jubilee over his arrival. You can't think what a trial it is to have him away so much! Fully half his time is spent in the West, or the South, or somewhere!"

At that moment the dining-room door opened, and the voluble voice flowed on. "Oh, Ralph, are you down already? Mrs. Dunlap, let me present my husband, Mr. Oliver."

And Mary Dunlap was face to face with the man she knew as "R. H. Keller"!

How they got through with that awful breakfast hour Mrs. Dunlap was never afterwards quite certain. She knew she had a sudden frightened feeling that she must not wreck that poor woman's home not yet, at least. She must take time and think what to do. She must keep up some form of appearances; she must seem to receive the man as her host; she must not say anything about the Kennard House or the interrupted journey, or the disabled engine. What could she say? She knew that she did not address him, directly, and that his wife did more than her full share of the talking, for which she mentally blessed her.

Once the wife said: "Why, Ralph, what on earth is the matter? You are as white as a ghost! Don't you feel well? I don't think you ought to start again to-night; I don't really."

He put her off with a pleasantry of some sort; asked if the girls had gone to school already, and gave careful attention to serving the guest.

Somehow the ordeal was lived through.

As they arose from the table Mrs. Oliver issued her directions.

"Now, Ralph, I want you to take Mrs. Dunlap to the library and entertain her for the next half hour. I have a tiresome committee meeting of the utmost importance that demands my personal attention; but I am going to dismiss it in half an hour, and then we'll make plans for the day. It is delightful to be able to have you both for all day!"

There was no attempt on the part of either to reply. Silently the host threw open the door of his well-equipped library, which under other circumstances Mrs. Dunlap would have found pleasure in exploring, and silently motioned her to a seat. While she sank among the cushions of a luxurious chair, he carefully closed the door; then, crossing to the doors leading to the music room, he closed them also. He seated himself but a few feet from her and spoke in the tone he had used when he asked her why she had presumed to interfere with him.

"Well. I am at your mercy! What do you propose to do?" That was what he said.

She looked steadily at him, but was speechless.

After waiting a moment he added: "I did not interfere with what you saw fit to do, by word or glance, although you must know that I could have done so had I seen fit. Why you have been silent thus far and have chosen to accept my wife's hospitality, I am at a loss to understand; unless it is in the interests of a still greater sensation. Is it your intention to tell me how you mean to proceed in the blasting of my home, or do you still prefer to work in the dark?"

The man was actually arraigning her! Or was this merely a game of bluff? What kind of woman did he take her to be! The indignant blood surged in her veins; she got out of the comfortable chair and took an uncompromising straight-backed one directly opposite his.

"Are you so accustomed to 'working in the dark' that you fancy others are doing it also?" she said, fixing him with her clear gaze. "Did you suppose that I had the slightest idea of meeting you when I came to this house and accepted its hospitality?"

His face changed suddenly and he bent forward as if to lessen the distance between them, speaking eagerly.

"Have I been mistaken in you? Mrs. Dunlap, on your honor as a woman, did you not find out my name somewhere and follow me, to this house with my discomfiture in view?"

"I certainly did not!" she answered indignantly. "Do you think I would have slept under your roof knowingly? I have not yet awakened from the daze of horror into which the sight of you threw me."

"Then I beg your pardon," he said with evident relief. "I have wronged you. Now I will literally and gratefully, if you will permit the word, throw myself on your mercy. You see what my home is, and my family I have children. You have been given some idea of what they think of me, and what I am in the main; an attentive husband and father, doing his utmost for the comfort of his home. You happen to have seen me under damning conditions, and without understanding the—the temptations. And now you have it in your power to ruin this home and blast the future of young and trusting lives; as well as break a woman's heart! Or, you have it in your power to save us all! You are a merciful woman, a philanthropist, my wife tells me, I believe you will save us. You see I am not asking justice, but pleading for mercy."

He had not moved her by a hair's breadth unless it were to increase her indignation. Her voice was steady and cold.

"Did you not have it in your power to ruin two homes, one of them widowed and fatherless, and did you spare them? You dare to talk to me of 'mercy' and 'philanthropy' when you were not willing to shelter even your own fireside!"

He dropped his eyes from her face and worked nervously with the paper cutter he held.

"You do not understand," he said. "It will be difficult to make you understand! You are one who makes no allowance for a man's temptations."

She flashed a look of scorn at him, but he did not look at her, and went on more quickly.

"I don't know what devil possessed me to do as I did that night. I did not plan it, deliberately. I did not plan any of it, it just happened. A fellow, whom we called 'the parson' in college, because he always took those parts in the plays, had just written me about a mock wedding at which he had officiated, and he was within easy reach. The truth is the girl tempted me!"

He caught the flash in her eyes just then, and heard and understood her words:

"Oh, of course; 'The woman beguiled me'!"

He pulled himself together. "I simply mean that she was—was—very bewildering, and I—" He was finding it hard to explain. He wished that the woman would look at the floor; or at something, instead of at him!

"I am going to be entirely frank with you," he said at last, with a sudden assumption of friendliness. "My wife is—we are—not congenial, not well mated; our marriage was a sort of mockery, from the first, one of convenience, one may say, on my part. I thought I ought to marry her because she cared for me, and because well, for family reasons. I never really loved with my whole soul any woman until I met Daisy; after I knew her, what seemed really wrong to me, was to continue the travesty of home life when I knew that home, to me, meant her. I intended, I fully intended, as soon as the necessary preliminaries could be managed to set myself free, in order to possess her.

"But I did not plan to injure her reputation in any way, nor indeed anyone's reputation. Divorces are common enough I am sure. The idea of running away with Daisy for a few weeks came upon me, as I said, suddenly. I was going West, very far West, and she was returning home, when I met her on the train. It was impossible for me not to see how easily we could enjoy a delightful season together, at some pleasant resort where neither of us was known—merely as good friends you understand. The marriage ceremony was to be a temporary convenience to quiet her nervousness, to be explained afterwards as a good joke. On my honor I meant nothing else."

He came to a sudden pause, for Mary Dunlap had risen, her face white with righteous indignation.

"I must interrupt you," she said. "I fail to see why you should disgrace yourself and me by exposing such details, or attempting to gloss over your sin. If you think to win sympathy thereby, you must have a strange idea of women! You to defile that sacred word 'love' in such connection! Why even a wild beast knows that love means protection, means sacrifice of self for the sake of the object loved! But you loved this child only enough to practice upon her the most cruel deception a man can offer to a woman, to blight her future, and bring despair to her family, for the sake of gratifying for a few weeks, your passion for her society!

"It is folly to suppose that you did not know what you were doing! You are neither a fool, nor a lunatic. Why do you want to grovel before me by exposing that whole vile plot? It seems amazing that you can have so soon forgotten what you said to me that night at the hotel; and how awfully your words and your position contradict those statements! Before I saw you in this house this morning, as the husband of another woman, I supposed you were a half-way decent villain, who had tried to run away with and marry the girl he fancied he loved."

He too had risen. He trembled visibly and he was white to his lips, but he tried to speak with dignity.

"I have made a mistake," he said. "I see I cannot make you understand. But I am ready to grovel still, and beg your mercy. I have not ruined her; she is free from me forever; and I am asking you to have pity on my wife and children. And since no harm can come to anyone by your silence, to spare my family. I am ready to give you my word of honor that I will never see the girl again, never attempt to communicate with her in any way."

Mrs. Dunlap's immediate response to this, brought a scarlet flush over his face and set the blood humming in his ears: "Your word of honor!"

But he was in real terror now; he had neither cowed nor deceived this woman. No sentimental twaddle about uncongenial marriages and soul-love, had done other than deepen her disgust.

He was also realizing something of the power that such a woman would have, once she exerted it, against him; and she was his wife's friend! Yet he had an instinct that he could trust her. He must beg.

"I deserve that," he said, after a breathless moment. "Well then, I will swear by all that you hold sacred never to see or try to hear from that girl again. Will you keep my secret?"

For a full minute, which must have seemed an hour to the waiting man, there was silence in that room. Then Mary Dunlap spoke.

"With conditions, yes; but you must do more than that. There are other girls in the world. I do not ask you to give me your pledged word because—" There was a single expressive gesture of her hand that consigned any "pledged" word of his to the lowest level of contempt, and she left it to complete the sentence.

"But you have chosen to speak of me as a philanthropist. Perhaps you are aware that my life is given to the protection of young innocent girls who are in danger because of such men as you; and you may possibly understand what mighty forces I can call to my aid anywhere in the civilized world, if occasion requires. In view of this, for the sake of your wife and daughters, so long as you keep your life steadily within the law that governs respectable men, and hold yourself from insulting, by your attentions, not only the girl you tried to ruin, but every other girl and woman on God's earth, I will agree to keep silence to all but the one whose affections you have stolen, and her mother! These two shall know all that I do; the girl, that she may learn to turn from the thought of you with loathing, and the mother that she may guard her child with jealous care from men like you.

"Then, I must remind you that the same forces for righteousness that stand ready to help me, are as able to keep me informed as to how steadily you adhere to the terms I have made. On these grounds do you wish mercy from me?"

The man was looking steadily at her now. Man of the world as he was, hypocrite as the life he lived had trained him to be, accustomed to sneering at women, to flirting with women, to boasting within himself that he could lead them captive at his will, he looked at this woman whose hair was silvering, and felt that she could, and would, keep her word! For a long minute, he gazed at her, as one compelled to consider her, then bowed silently, and dropped his gaze to the floor.

There were quick steps in the hall, an eager hand on the door-knob, and Mrs. Oliver fluttered in.

"It was a long half hour, wasn't it?" she began. "Those women would talk! I thought I should never get away from them. Goodness! What is the matter with you two? You look as though you were posing for high tragedy. You haven't quarreled, have you?"

Mary Dunlap arose to the occasion.

"My dear Mrs. Oliver, I have decided that I shall have to change my plans, and start for Albany by the noon train to-day. There is a matter I have concluded must have my immediate attention."

Mrs. Oliver was voluble with regrets. Such a disappointment! She had been planning for this one day for so long! And Mr. Oliver was unexpectedly here to enjoy it with them! So sorry especially to have her miss seeing their new Y. W. building that had been planned "in exact accordance with your own ideas, dear Mrs. Dunlap, and it is simply perfect. Do, Ralph, tell her how sorry you are not to be able to show her through it."

Thus urged, Mr. Oliver succeeded in finding voice to say: "Mrs. Dunlap understands, I am sure, better than I could tell her, how ready I am to do her bidding."

Mrs. Dunlap got away by the noon train and took the night-express for the West, canceling all her engagements for the week; she had more important work to look after. Not telegrams, nor long distance telephones, nor even carefully written letters could serve her now. She must go in person to try to explain, as best she might, to that dear girl who was waiting at home to hear from one to whom she had given her trust, to prove him to her mother as "good and noble!"

As she sped westward that afternoon the good woman prayed that she might be able to help save that sweet, periled life.

CHAPTER IV

MRS. SHELDON and her daughter Daisy were occupying easy chairs in their pleasant living-room, surrounded by all possible evidences of home comforts, and luxuries. But even a passing glance at the two faces would have suggested unrest. The mother's face looked worn, and her eyes were anxious; while the daughter's eyes were tense with excitement.

"Daisy dear," began Mrs. Sheldon, and was interrupted:

"Please, Mother, won't you call me 'Marguerite'?"

A look of pain flushed the mother's face but she spoke quietly.

"Why, daughter, you know I nearly always say 'Daisy.'"

"I know you do; but I—I don't like it to-night; I—Mother, I just can't bear the sound of it! That's the only explanation I can give."

Unshed tears were in the mother's eyes. "I will try to remember," she said, her voice low and tremulous. "But you are my 'Daisy' you know; all I have left in this world; and your father loved that name."

Daisy with a sudden movement flung herself on the arm of the great easy chair and hid her face in her mother's neck; when she tried to talk her voice choked with sobs.

"Oh, Mother, do please try to understand; you know what Father was to me, and you surely know that I love you with all my soul. If I hadn't, I—"

But the convulsive sobs came again, and she once more hid her face, while the mother's arms clasped her tenderly. A few minutes passed, then the girl sat erect and tried again.

"Mother dear, forgive me." As she spoke, she slipped to the footstool beside her mother's chair. "I didn't mean to worry you. I don't often go to pieces in this way, do I? But—you can't understand what I am going through! It seems so strange not to hear a word after almost five days! I thought I should certainly get a telegram, at least! Mamma, I didn't mean that about my name; at least not in the way it must have sounded. I shall get over that feeling, of course; but you see he did not know me by any other name; and when you used it, for a second it almost seemed as though I could hear his voice, and oh, Mother, I couldn't bear it! I spoke right out, before I thought.

"Mother, it seems as though you must understand what I mean! Don't you know you told me about how you loved Father so very much even right at the first? That is the way I feel about Rufus. Mother, I love him with all my soul, and I always shall! I never before knew what love meant, that kind of love, I mean and I can't tell you how it almost kills me to think that you don't believe in him!

"But you know you have hardly seen him. You have just let yourself be prejudiced by those horrid women who gossiped about him; just because he, was polite and helpful to those little flappers who were traveling alone; he showed them the same attention that any gentleman would. But I don't blame you, Mother dear; I suppose it is natural for mothers to feel so; when you never have had a chance to find out for yourself what a wonderful man he is. Besides, think how I helped it along!

"Why, mother, when I think of the way I let that awful Mrs. Dunlap, a perfect stranger, manage me so that I almost insulted him, it makes me feel as though I were going insane! Oh, I hope I shall never see or hear of her again! How could I let her make me treat him so! I don't see how he can ever forgive me! O, Mother! How can I live any longer! I wish I could die to-night!"

It was just then that the sound of the door bell pealed through the quiet house. The sound had instant effect on the nerves of the half insane girl. She sprang up quickly, evidently making a supreme effort at self-control, and spoke in a more natural tone.

"I'm afraid that's Nelson! I entirely forgot that he was to come to-night if he got back in time, to tell me how the vote went; as if I cared how they voted!"

With this last word, her voice had returned to bitter sarcasm; but after a moment she continued more quietly.

"Will you see him, Mother, and tell him tell him anything you like? I simply cannot talk with him to-night; nor with anybody else. Oh, Mother, kiss me and let me run away!"

By this time the poor mother had no words to offer about anything. She put her arms around her daughter, kissed her tenderly and opened the door for her to escape by way of the back hall, just as the maid appeared at the sitting-room doorway, card tray in hand.

"For Miss Daisy, ma'am. Has she gone upstairs? Shall I take it up to her room?"

"No," said the weary, faithful mother. "Daisy does not feel able to see callers to-night; I'll attend to it."

She held out her hand for the card and read on it:

"Mrs. J. C. Dunlap, Albany."

"Dunlap!" Over that name the face of the mother flushed, then paled.

That was the name of the woman who had watched over her darling with such wise and patient care, and brought her safely home! Could it possibly be the same woman who was waiting in the parlor! If so, how could she talk with her just now? She felt completely exhausted. Still, Daisy certainly must not be called. She reminded herself that the name Dunlap was common enough, even though she did not happen to recall it among her acquaintances. It really was not at all probable that a woman who lived hundreds of miles away should suddenly appear late in the evening to make a call!

At last she crossed the hall and opened the living-room door. One glance sufficed; the woman who arose at her entrance was the same one who had kissed Daisy goodbye with unmistakable tenderness only a few days before!

"I'm afraid I have startled you," said Mary Dunlap moving forward; for Daisy's mother had paused suddenly the moment she caught sight of her caller, and her pale face was expressive of pain. "Of course you did not expect to see me so soon again, but I—it became my duty to return West sooner than I had planned. I hope I may see your daughter for a few minutes? There is a—I have heard of—something connected with our journey together, that she, perhaps, ought to be told."

It was a very hesitating sentence; the speaker's tone and manner suggested embarrassing uncertainty as to just what she should do next. Something helped the mother to self-control and decision. Whatever that woman thought she ought to tell Daisy ought to be told! She believed in her! She might be mistaken in judgment, of course; unduly alarmed about a small matter; all people were liable to mistakes, occasionally. But she was sincere! Of that, Mrs. Sheldon felt absolutely sure; and what she had to say might help to clear away some anxieties. She held out her hand and spoke cordially.

"I am glad to see you again, Mrs. Dunlap, but I am afraid that my daughter will not be able to do so, this evening; she has had a somewhat trying day and is feeling to-night as though she could not talk with anybody. She seems nervously unstrung with her recent experiences. She has retired, I think, but perhaps you will trust me with a message?"

Mrs. Dunlap reached a quick decision. "Perhaps I had better tell you all about it," she said, speaking as an intimate friend might have done. "I have taken a room at the Delport House, and shall not leave until sometime to-morrow afternoon I think. If Daisy is feeling better, I could see her in the morning. I hope you will pardon my interest in your daughter and my familiar use of her name. She and I grew quite intimate during that one day you know."

The mother's quick thought was, "What would she think if she knew that I had just been told to say 'Marguerite!'"

Mary Dunlap, noting the troubled glance of the mother hurried on:

"I had a precious little girl of my own, once, about your daughter's age, Mrs. Sheldon. She was my only child. That night when your daughter stayed with me in my room was the first time I had ever been able to say with my whole heart, 'Thank God my Margaret is forever safe in the Everlasting arms!'

"That is my apology for intruding on you again. And now, perhaps it would be wiser for me to have my talk with you, leaving you to repeat as much or as little as you see fit, to your daughter."

Mrs. Sheldon answered quickly, excitedly: "Oh, I wish you would!" she said, "I have so longed to see you and ask you a lot of questions. Won't you sit down? And please, tell me first, about that night at the hotel. I know so very little about it, and I want to understand exactly what happened. Daisy is very vague in her story, and is so excitable that I dare not question her in her present state. All that I now know positively is that because of crowded conditions at the hotel, you kindly permitted her to share your room for the night."

"Is it possible that you have not been told the whole story!" exclaimed Mary Dunlap in amazement. It seemed incredible that such a girl as the one she had protected had kept her mother in ignorance of the whole of that night's happenings.

"Oh, tell me quickly!" said the mother, with instant premonition, dropping down on the edge of the couch where the caller had seated herself. "Tell me all, please. I have been utterly at a loss to understand Daisy's unstrung state of mind."

Mary Dunlap wondered wildly where she should begin and then plunged into her subject.

"First, may I ask, please, about this Mr. Keller whom I met that night with your daughter? Of course I knew nothing of him whatever. Is he a personal acquaintance of yours? A—friend?"

There was an instant flash of indignation in the mother's eyes.

"Certainly not!" she replied with almost haughtiness in her voice. "I have met him but once and I have never liked anything that I have heard about him. He is a sort of a traveling agent I believe for some New York firm, and business seems to call him to this particular town more frequently than I could wish. My daughter thinks that I am prejudiced against him because of certain stories we have heard about him, which she thinks have no foundation except in malicious gossip. But frankly, he is a source of much anxiety to me.

"For the past few months he has been quite attentive to Daisy, that is, as attentive as circumstances would allow, and I—do not trust him. I do not know why. But I don't! I am utterly at a loss to account for the influence he seems to have acquired over her in the few brief meetings they have had. She thinks me hard and cruel because I well, I can scarcely bear the sound of his name! And yet I have to confess that I have no good reason to offer for such a feeling. It appears that he really asked her to marry him. The idea is so obnoxious to me that I can scarcely bear to utter the words!"

"And this trip they were taking together," ventured the troubled questioner; "you knew about it of course?"

"Trip!" exclaimed the mother indignantly. "They were not traveling together! Why, I sent her away on this visit to get her out of his vicinity because I heard that he was intending to remain in this town several weeks! They simply met on the train. Daisy thinks it was a coincidence I suppose from what she says, but of course, he followed her. I am positive of that. To put it plainly, he seems to be infatuated with her. And she, poor child, has admitted to me this very afternoon that she loves him with all her heart! Oh, it seems so terrible for me to be telling this to you, a stranger, burdening you with my anxiety."

Mrs. Sheldon wiped the tears away from her eyes, and struggled to keep more from falling. "But you have been so kind to me and to Daisy, and there has been no one to whom I could go for advice."

Mary Dunlap slipped an arm around the shoulders of the mother with strong reassurance.

"My dear!" she said in her warm comforting strong voice, "Just you cry if you want to, and don't worry about telling me. I'm used to helping mothers and girls. It is my job in life. And don't you worry. I'm going to help you, and I thank God I can. I'm glad too that you have told me this, for now I can speak frankly and tell you all I know. It is going to make things a lot easier to set right. And now, I've got to tell you the whole story."

CHAPTER V

THE voice was low and tender in which she began her story of the afternoon on the train. She made it plain that she had been so busy with her writing that she scarcely noticed who got on the train until toward evening when her work was done. She had been barely conscious of the two who took the seat in front of her, had given them but a swift glance and decided that they were bride and groom; until her work was done and she had leisure to look around. And then almost at once she was fascinated by the lovely face of the girl in front of her.

Mary Dunlap was quick to note the pleased relaxing of the troubled face as she said this, and the instant sympathy as she gave her own first impression of the man who was sitting beside the girl.

But as the tale progressed showing how late the train was, with inevitable missed connections, the mother's eye kindled with gratitude.

"Oh!" she interrupted, "I'm so glad you were there! What would Daisy have done if you had not been. She is so unused to traveling alone!"

Mary Dunlap went on to tell of the apparent argument between the two in front of her, the discomfort on the face of the girl, and her own continued wonder that such a girl should apparently be married to a man so much older, and of such a type. The mother gave a little gasp of dismay as she realized that this fine Christian woman had actually thought her daughter was married to that man! But it was only the dismay she had felt before at the horrible thought of him, and the old resentment at the idea of his presuming to be intimate with her girl.

Not until the story progressed to the point where Mrs. Dunlap stood before the hotel desk writing her own name in the registry and noted the names on the line just above her own, "R. H. Keller and wife," did the mother grasp the full meaning of it all. Then she leaned forward with a quick little motion and caught at both the firm capable hands of her visitor, crying:

"Oh, Mrs. Dunlap! You don't mean it! You can't mean that he dared do a thing like that! The wretch! The—the—beast!"

Her eyes were full of tears again. She could not seem to be able to get words strong enough to express her horror and disgust.

"But of course my Daisy didn't know that!" she said lifting up her head with a gleam of hope, though there was a sob in the end of her voice.

"Not until I told her, some time afterwards," said Mary Dunlap.

"You told her! She knows! And yet she could tell me to-day that she loves him! Oh! What shall I do?"

"Wait, dear Mrs. Sheldon," said Mrs. Dunlap putting a detaining hand on the drooping shoulder. "Love is a strange thing. It throws illusions over the object that turn it into something entirely different. You must remember that. Don't blame Daisy too much. She explained to me at once after her first startled look, that of course he had done that to protect her reputation, since they had been delayed and all their plans upset. She said that they had expected to reach San Fergus at midnight, and that a minister friend of Mr. Keller's was to have met the train and performed the marriage ceremony. She said that Mr. Keller had telegraphed ahead for the bridal suite to be reserved for them in the San Fergus hotel."

"My Daisy told you that!"

It was years before Mrs. Dunlap forgot the tone, and the look on that mother's face when she said those words. It was as if some one had suddenly taken from her everything that was worth while in life, as if she felt that all the years of tender rearing, and care of precious love and companionship between her and her child were suddenly wiped out in one great awful act of disloyalty and broken faith with her mother. Oh, there would be a reaction by and by when the mother would excuse, and forgive, and bleed over her darling; but this first blow was like the very severing of the life bond between them, and it was terrible to witness.

Mary Dunlap felt that it was a pity that the girl had not had to suffer that look herself with full understanding of all that it meant to her wonderful little mother.

"My dear! I feel like a surgeon performing an operation, but you must know it all," said Mary Dunlap tenderly.

"Oh, yes, yes," breathed the mother sorrowfully. "If there is more, go on. It seems as if nothing mattered if Daisy, my Daisy, would go to such lengths. Actually running away to get married!"

"My dear friend, you must remember that she thinks she is very much in love, and that she feels that you have been deceived about her loved one. They were planning to send you a telegram immediately as soon as the ceremony was performed, and were counting confidently on your immediate change of feeling so soon as the inevitable step was taken. You must remember also that your daughter was greatly troubled even then, at the momentary deception.

"As the time drew near, and the delay became inevitable, she began to see the whole thing in more nearly its true light, and it caused her deep distress. So much so that when Mr. Keller left her for a few moments in the hotel parlor where we both were waiting for our rooms to be prepared, she utterly forgot my presence, and began walking up and down the room, and actually giving a little moan of distress. It was then that I dared to interfere and offer my sympathy and any help I could give."

"Oh, how can I ever thank you! How can I thank God enough for having sent you there!" moaned the stricken mother.

"I think He did plan that I should be there," said Mary Dunlap reverently. "I was scheduled to be far from there at that time, had important speaking engagements to fill, and could not understand why all my plans were frustrated, but it seems that the Father had need of a servant right there, and perhaps this was more important than any meeting I could have addressed. I began to feel so as soon as your Daisy turned to me so readily, so even eagerly, like the little flower-faced child that she is.

"I had no difficulty in getting her to tell me her trouble. She trusted me at once, and when I offered my room as a refuge for the night she accepted most eagerly. Even when I told her how she was booked in the registry, she did not turn from me, as I feared she might. Instead she seemed aghast for a moment; then her loyalty to her lover made her at once attempt to excuse him. However, that did not prevent her from begging me to take her to the room immediately, before he returned from his telegraphing. She seemed to actually fear his influence upon her and to know that her only safe course was to go while he was gone."

"Oh, my poor child!" moaned the mother.

"She made it very plain that Mr. Keller had overpersuaded her to this marriage, and that while she could not bear to refuse him, she yet longed to wait until your consent could be obtained. Of course I advised her strongly that this was the only possible right course, and she seemed to agree with me."

"Yes, Daisy is very conscientious that is she was, before this came. But she seems to be infatuated with that man! She has at this moment more faith in him than in anyone else, I believe."

"Well, she was glad to get to my room then, at least," said the other woman. "She even wanted the door locked, and when I started to go down and tell Mr. Keller that she was safe and comfortable for the night with a woman, she begged me to lock the door and take the key with me!"

"And yet she can say she loves him, when she cannot trust him! And at such a time! Oh, my little girl!"

"Dear friend, the human heart is a curious thing, and the devil has many illusions wherewith to deceive, you know."

"And did you actually go down and talk to that man? What a wonderful heaven-sent friend you proved to be!"

"I did. I'm afraid I rather enjoyed the commission. You must remember I had been watching him in the train for several hours, and while he was most courteous and assiduous in caring for her, and did nothing that I could really put my finger on with which to find fault, I had acquired the same feeling toward him that you seem to have. I just could not see how that little flower of a girl could have married him. And of course when I talked with your daughter, finding out they were not married after having seen how he registered, my feelings were anything but lenient toward him."

"I should think so! But oh, my little girl! What would her father have said if he could have known she was to pass through a thing like this!"

"Courage, dear sister. I am sure God means something lovely to come out of all this."

"How could that possibly be!" moaned the mother, "Oh, if she could have been spared any contact with a creature like that! It is so terrible to see her pass through such an experience. My little Daisy!"

"Yes, but Mrs. Sheldon, think, if she did not have you in this trying time!"

Suddenly there occurred an interruption. The two women became aware that the maid had answered a ring at the door, and had let in someone who was standing in the doorway of the room where they were sitting.

Mrs. Sheldon got up quickly, with a hasty dab at her wet eyelashes and went toward him.

Mary Dunlap looked up to see a tall young man standing in the doorway with his hat in his hand, a grave questioning look upon his face. He had keen gray eyes, a crop of nicely groomed reddish curls, and he looked strong and young and dependable.

"Oh, Nelson!" exclaimed Mrs. Sheldon, a kind of dazed relief in her voice, "You came to see Daisy about that committee meeting, didn't you? Why—she—she wasn't feeling very well to-night, Nelson. She has retired. She had a headache. She asked me to excuse her."

The grave eyes took on a look of anxiety.

"Daisy not well?" he said as if that were an unheard of thing.

"I should have telephoned you not to come," apologized Mrs. Sheldon, "but this friend of hers—this friend of mine—arrived just then, from out of town, and it slipped my mind. Let me introduce you to Mrs. Dunlap, Nelson. Mrs. Dunlap, Mr. Whitney."

"A friend of Daisy's?" said the young man his grave eyes lighting pleasantly, and he stepped forward and grasped Mrs. Dunlap's hand, giving her a swift searching glance.

"I certainly am!" said Mary Dunlap with a hearty handclasp.

He lingered only a minute or two to leave a message for the daughter about what had happened at the committee meeting, but he gave another keen parting glance accompanied by a warming smile as he left, that made the stranger feel that he approved of her, and that he understood that she was in no wise the cause of the tears that he had seen on Daisy's mother's face.

After he was gone, Mrs. Sheldon came back to her caller.

"Why couldn't it have been that young man?" asked Mary Dunlap with a sigh!

"Oh, if it only could have been!" sighed the mother. "He is the dearest boy! My husband trusted him so. He has been Daisy's schoolmate and companion for years, and yet she could think she has fallen in love with that other creature!"

"There, there, dear friend. I tell you the human heart is a mystery. And a girl at Daisy's age gets queer ideas sometimes. She will come out of it and be fine and beautiful. You see!"

"Oh! I don't know!" sighed the mother. "She is so strange! Not even willing to see Nelson. She thought it was Nelson when you came, and rushed away telling me she would not see him nor anyone else to-night! I could not tell him that of course. He has been so kind and so devoted. And I can see that he is terribly worried about this Keller. He looks as if he would like to fight every time Daisy mentions his name. But tell me, what did the fellow do when you told him Daisy was going to remain with you for the night?"

"Do? He was fairly insolent. He was furious. He told me to mind my own business. He strode around that parlor like a madman, till I told him Daisy had appealed to me for protection, and had told me she was not yet married to him; but that I had seen how he registered in the hotel. Then he calmed down a little and began to try to smooth things over. He tried to explain that he had done that merely to protect the girl, and that he intended to make everything right for her. He even came to the point, before we were done, of saying that perhaps he had been wrong in doing it, but he had followed an impulse when he wrote. Oh, you know how a man like that could lie himself out of anything! He even said that of course if Daisy preferred to be with me, it was all right, but he really must see her before she slept and arrange about his telegrams. Of course I saw through that. He knew his influence over her!

"So I told him she had asked not to be disturbed, and that she did not wish to see him again until she was at home with her mother and her mother knew all. Then he began to rave at me of course but I let him understand that I should not hesitate to call for assistance if he made further trouble, and I fancy he did not care for publicity, so he withdrew with what grace he could."

"And then?"

"Well, strange to say we had no further trouble with him. I had looked up trains and found there was a very early one. Perhaps he was asleep, although I was taking no chances. I decided to stay by till I placed her safely in her mother's care."

"You have been wonderful!" said the mother. "I can never thank you. And I'm glad too, that you came and told me all to-night. It has been very hard to hear, but it was right that I should know. Only, my dear new strong friend, I don't know what I am going to do. I am terrified at what may yet develop. I am sure that man will not be easily shaken off. He is probably only waiting till Daisy gets all strained up with anxiety, as she is now, when he knows she will be wax in his hands. I cannot believe he will give up so easily. He will know that you cannot linger around to protect always, and unfortunately, he is not afraid of me."

"My dear, wait until you have heard the rest of the story."

"Oh, is there more?" The mother's face showed a new terror.

She sat up tense and anxious clasping her frail hands in one another till the knuckles showed white.

"No, dear Mrs. Sheldon, don't be frightened," went on Mary Dunlap. "I will try to be as brief as possible, but I am sure you should know everything."

"Oh, yes!" implored the white lipped mother.

Mary Dunlap's heart ached for her as she went on with the story:

"After I left Daisy with you that morning I went directly to New York where I was to be entertained by a Mrs. Oliver whom I had met a number of times in connection with my public work. She had often invited me to be her guest and talk over various matters with her, but I had never been able to arrange a definite date before. I arrived at midnight, and was taken almost at once to my room, seeing none of the family that night except my hostess.

"But the next morning at breakfast I was introduced to her two lovely daughters, and a moment later to her husband who had arrived a few moments before on an early train from the West. Perhaps you can imagine my horror when I looked up to greet him, and found that the man to whom Mrs. Oliver was introducing me, calling him 'her husband Mr. Oliver,' was the Mr. Keller from whom your daughter had been rescued a few nights before!"

Mary Dunlap had told the end of her story rapidly, conscious that her listener was under a heavy strain, and now she looked up with relief that all was told.

But the poor mother had borne all she could. She suddenly drooped and would have fallen if the caller had not put strong arms about her and laid her gently on the couch.

"My dear!" she said as she stooped over the poor sufferer and patted her gently. "My dear! Don't feel so terribly about it. I am sure this part of the story should be a relief, for it certainly puts that man in a position where he dare not touch your daughter again!"

"But oh, to have my Daisy, my baby, mixed up with a man like that!" wailed the utterly crushed little mother, "It seems as though I never can lift my head again!"

"Oh, my dear! That is a very small part of the whole matter. The main thing is that no harm shall come to the child. No one here knows, of course, and he has promised!"

But a new voice broke in the room, clear and ringing and cold like a young Nemesis. "What are you doing to my mother? Have you come here to make more trouble for us? Who are you, anyway?"

CHAPTER VI

THE girl stood in the doorway, her eyes flashing like blue flames, her delicate profile outlined against the rich portier, chin lifted, in scorn, the light catching the glint of the waves in her pretty hair and turning them into gold, the delicate blue of her silk kimono bringing out the pearly tint of her skin, a haughty little patrician, insolent in her loveliness.

Mary Dunlap looked at her in pity, and admiration, and a rising wonder. Was this the girl who had melted to tears in her arms but a few nights before, and implored her to protect her? How lovely she was even in her frenzy. She made a picture as she stood there in her rightful background. Poor, misguided infant! What a hard road she had set her feet to travel, and how soon she must come to humiliation.

But the mother was shocked into severity. "Marguerite!" she said, sitting bolt upright and looking at her daughter sternly, as she had not looked at nor spoken to her since she was a very little girl, "Marguerite! You forget yourself! You are beside yourself. Apologize at once to Mrs. Dunlap. You do not know what you are doing! Mrs. Dunlap is the best friend you have in this world. She has gone to great inconvenience and expense and trouble to save you from an awful calamity!"

The Marguerite of a few days ago would have been crushed to earth by such words from her beloved mother. Not so the girl of that night. She did not even wince. Instead she drew herself up to her full height and looked her mother steadily in the eyes, as if their ages had been reversed, and spoke with a certain air of authority that was almost startling.

"No, I am not beside myself, Mother! It is you who do not know what you are doing. You have allowed yourself to be blinded by an utter stranger. You have swallowed whole the lies she has handed out to you. Mother, I understand it all now. This woman is a rank imposter, employed by others to ruin the reputation of a prominent and successful business man, in order to extort money from him. Oh, I have heard a lot that she has been saying! Don't try to stop me. Isn't this kind of thing being done every day now? The daily papers are full of it. Why, even novels are just full of plots like that.

"Didn't that horrid woman whose latest book is being lauded in every column of reviews make one of her characters boast of being a daughter of Eve to some purpose because she had told some successful lies about one of her victims? I tell you, Mother, you don't know the world. Times have changed since you were a girl. You think every woman is good, simply because she is a woman and dresses respectably. That is why you are willing to believe all these terrible things about Rufus, and why you want me to believe them. Just because a woman has told you. Just ask her how much she is to be paid to bring about his ruin. Ask her that! Do you suppose she is to be paid whether she succeeds or not? It must be she isn't; that is why she is so persistent, sneaking in to tell tales to you when I'm not by, and get you on her side. She evidently is afraid she is going to lose her money!"

"Marguerite! Oh, my poor child!" exclaimed the mother in horror, beginning to cry. "Oh, Mrs. Dunlap, I beg you will forgive her. She doesn't know what she is saying."

"That is perfectly all right, Mrs. Sheldon, don't think of it for a moment. I understand."

But the girl's voice broke in scornfully:

"I certainly do know what I am saying. I understand it all perfectly. I can see the plot clearly now. I remember how this woman sat behind us in the cars, doubtless of purpose, listening to us. She was writing all the afternoon. I suppose she took down our private conversation. She probably carries on such business constantly, and chooses her victims among those who look as if they would care about their reputations and have plenty of money to hush up such tales. That is called blackmail, Mother, and I've read quite a lot about it in the papers. But they are not going to frighten us. Rufus and I will search this thing out to the foundations and make it impossible for this woman ever to get in her deadly work on any other good Christian man. It would be even worth sacrificing ourselves if we could do that. It is because people are afraid that they succumb to such things as this. We are not afraid! This woman listened to our plans and discussions, and knew just where to get us, that is all. If I hadn't been such a fool, I would have understood at the time, and I shouldn't have yielded to the spell she cast over me. She must be a hypnotist. She somehow succeeded in making everything look different from what it really is. But she can't do it again. I've got my eyes open!"

These are a few of the indignant sarcasms that the two long-suffering women had to listen to as the evening passed on. Mrs. Sheldon, mortified to the extreme of agony over the way her daughter was raving out against the wonderful woman who had saved her from a life of humiliation; alarmed beyond measure for the sanity of the one who was dearer to her than life, roused from her own weakness and tried every possible means to bring the girl to reason, all to no purpose.

At last Mary Dunlap who had stood by helpless, trying to think of something she might say which would bring the girl to her senses, leaned over toward the mother and said in a low tone:

"Suppose I just go away for the night now. She is excited and the sight of me only irritates her. If she could get some sleep she might be more reasonable in the morning. No, don't get up. I can find my own way to the door. You can telephone if you need me. I shall stay close to my room till I hear from you. And I will pray! Don't despair, dear sister! God is strong! Now—I will just slip away!"

The keen ears of the excited girl caught the last sentence.

"Yes, slip away by all means! I should have thought it might have occurred to you to do so before!" she flung after the stranger.

And then, as the door closed after Mary Dunlap, Marguerite Sheldon began to pace the floor, the very personification of indignant fury.

After she had exhausted herself with wild words, she suddenly flung herself down before her mother with her head in her mother's lap and began to sob:

"Oh, Mother, Mother, that dreadful woman has made me almost crazy!" she sobbed. "Some of the time I don't seem to know what I am saying. But I know this, and I mean it. I know that Rufus is true to me, and not only to me, but to God. He is very religious, Mother, he really is! You ought to hear him talk. And Mother, I know I love him, love him, with my whole soul! And I shall, forever and ever! No matter how many fiends from the underworld combine to try and make me false to him!"

At the word "love" her sobbing suddenly ceased and she sprang to her feet and began pacing up and down the room again; her voice rising to almost a shriek.

Of what use to attempt any further words with one who was surely not responsible for what she said or did? The mother slipped to her knees and began to pray.

A voice of power spoke to her soul, while she was still on her knees, seeking help. It almost seemed to her that she had heard the spoken words:

"'I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them; and crooked things straight.'"

Oh, the wonderful words! Could there be a human being any blinder than her Daisy? And, how terribly she needed new "paths!"

It was because of this amazing voice that she was able to get through that night, and the early part of the next day and finally to persuade her daughter to receive Mrs. Dunlap in the evening, and hear from her lips what she had to tell.

This was in accordance with that lady's earnest request made over the telephone, she having decided that the mother was physically unable to endure further strain. But that Christian worker had certainly occasion to look back upon the hour spent with Daisy Sheldon as one of the hardest in her by no means easy life. Not that Daisy did not try, at least at first, to treat her in accordance with all the rules of propriety.

But as the story progressed, there was all the time in the narrator's mind the question, "How shall I convince this girl that I am speaking only truth!" She who was used to being trusted implicitly, and quoted as unquestioned authority on all points connected with the work to which she had given her life!

Yet this girl listened in outward calm to the story that had caused her mother's lapse into almost unconsciousness, with a half smile on her lips, that deepened into a sneer when she finally spoke:

"That is a very strange story, Mrs. Dunlap! Being as well acquainted with Mr. Keller as I am, I don't quite understand how I could be expected to credit it! I should really like to see a photograph of this mysterious person, to help me in conceiving how a woman of your discernment could have been so deceived! Although I should remember that your acquaintance with Mr. Keller covered a very brief space of time; while he is, of course, my closest friend."

Could this be the girl who had so very recently clung to her, weeping, and begging to be shielded from even the sight of the man who was her "closest friend!" How could Mrs. Dunlap help giving a second's thought to such a question? But she turned swiftly from it and tried again.

"Wait, please," she said patiently, "I must tell you the rest. I have had a longer acquaintance with the man than you have heard as yet. After breakfast Mrs. Oliver asked him to take me into the library and show me some prints while she attended to other duties, and when he had closed and locked the doors, he threw himself on my mercy and begged me not to wreck his household by telling his wife and children what I knew about him. He did not attempt to deny that he was of course the same Mr. Keller with whom I had held a long conversation two nights before.

"In fact, he frankly owned that you had been what he called a 'temptation' to him, but that the marriage ceremony which he professed at that time to be about to enter into, had been only a joke, of course, intended to relieve your anxieties for being away from your mother longer than you had planned. I would not like to tear your heart nor soil my lips by repeating the words that he used to describe your wonderful mother and her ignorant prejudice as he called it.

"He also told me that his friend who posed as a minister for the time being was an amateur play actor who had successfully impersonated a clergyman while they were in college, which gave him the idea of a mock marriage to quiet your protests.

"And now, I will show you a paper written and signed by this man, in which he pledges never to write or telegraph or telephone you, or visit you again. It is a paper that I went back to secure, after I had started on this western trip, and the man knows that his keeping this agreement both in letter and spirit is the price of my silence toward his wife and children. His wife is a charming and beautiful woman, and his two daughters are as sweet and charming as yourself. It seemed terrible to wreck that home, but I would not keep silence unless I felt sure you would be safe forever from him."

Marguerite Sheldon tilted her patrician chin haughtily, a little smile of scorn on her lovely lips.

"Mrs. Dunlap," she said, "you certainly are mistress of your profession. You have worked out your evil plot to the last detail, I see. You must have gone to great pains to counterfeit Mr. Keller's hand writing. Perhaps stolen some of his own letters from my handbag to copy while I slept. It is certainly cleverly done. And of course this remarkable interview is a part of the whole scheme. One wonders whether you were cunning enough to concoct it on the spur of the moment, or whether you had it all prepared in reserve, if you found I did not fall for your story at once? Of course I know the daily papers are full of such tales of blackmail and the like. Perhaps if my tastes lay in that direction and I had posted myself better on the ways of such people as you, I might have been saved even the first humiliation of giving way before you and yielding to your influence which I now thoroughly believe to have been hypnotic.

"Of course I might have saved your time by saying all this before I heard you, but my mother was so anxious that I should let you speak that I have listened to your remarkable tale with what patience I could summon. But now I think we have had enough of this farce. I wish to distinctly state just now that I believe in Mr. Keller's honor and integrity as entirely as I did before this insane plot was planned; and until I hear from his own lips that he did not intend to marry me that night, and that he is not Mr. Rufus Keller, and never was, I shall not believe one word of this story; and I shall remain as I am now, his promised wife until he comes to claim me."

Before this outburst the baffled woman sat silent, dumbfounded. Such beautiful faith in such a worthless man had never come her way. She was not troubled over the insults that had been flung at her. The situation had become too grave to be thinking of self. The question that fairly appalled her was, how was it possible to save this poor blind child from her own folly? Suddenly she resolved to try one more thing. It seemed the last resort.

"Miss Sheldon," she said, speaking earnestly and looking straight into the flashing eyes of the angry girl, "will you put this thing to the test? Will you accompany me on the midnight Express to New York where I will take you to call on Mr. Ralph Oliver in his private office, Number — Fifth Avenue, that he may tell you himself that he is the Mr. Keller whom you know so well? I happen to know that he is to be in his office to-morrow morning. Will you go?"

What would the girl reply to this challenge?

What she did was to rise in utter silence and move swiftly across the room to the door, which she opened, and closed after her with a distinct slam!

CHAPTER VII

MARY DUNLAP, left alone in the big beautiful room with the echo of the scornful young words, and the echo of that slammed door hurting into her soul, suddenly rested her elbow on the arm of the chair in which she sat, and dropped her tired head upon her hand. With closed eyes she prayed, her soul crying out from the depth of her failure. She had done her best for this little sister and she had utterly failed. Now she called upon her Father for sustaining strength, for light, for guidance, for calmness in the midst of despair; for the headstrong blinded girl, and for the worn despairing mother.

Then out of her despair came peace, and suddenly a knowledge that the Father cared more than she did, even more than the stricken mother.

She became aware of the entrance of that mother, quietly, like a little sad wraith.

Lifting her head she tried to smile but failed.

"It was no use!" she said sadly, "She would not believe a word that I said."

"Oh, my dear strong friend!" breathed the little mother, "What should I do without you? I have been praying while you were down here. I cannot think my little girl is to be allowed to go to destruction, or lose her mind, or anything. She is a child of the covenant. Her father and I dedicated her to the Lord when she was born. He cannot desert us! You don't think He would let her go like this, do you? She is—a church-member—of course—and has always seemed—a Christian. Haven't I a right to claim His promises for my child?"

"You certainly have," said the strong hearty voice. "Come let us kneel down now and claim that promise, 'Where two of you shall agree as touching anything that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father.'"

So the two women knelt hand in hand beside the couch and poured out their hearts in prayer for the foolish girl, till it seemed that their yearning words must be already spread before the mercy seat, and perhaps the swift answer on its way; and new strength and courage came into the mother's heart.

Upstairs there were hurrying footsteps for a few minutes, and then silence, but if the two petitioners heard them it was only to be thankful that they were not the regular measured frantic tread that had been going back and forth all day. Perhaps she was resting at last.

They rose with a peace upon their faces.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap, "it is time you went to bed and to sleep. We have put the whole matter in the Father's hands and we cannot do anything else till He shows us. Suppose you run upstairs and see if she is all right, and then, if she is resting, I will go back to the hotel and let you get to bed, for I'm sure I won't be needed any more to-night."

"You have been so wonderful!" murmured Mrs. Sheldon. "What should I have done without you? Why not stay here to-night? Our guest room is always ready, and then we can talk things over in the morning."

"No," said Mary Dunlap decidedly. "It is better for me to be out of the house. The child resents my presence just now, and will come to herself twice as quickly if she is alone with her mother. Get a good night's rest, and perhaps she will see things differently in the morning. Sleep does a great deal toward bringing sane vision."

"Oh, I do hope she is asleep! She never even lay down last night, just walked the floor and talked in that wild frantic way and then cried! I never saw anybody cry like that, so despairingly, so resentfully! It frightened me! But really, I cannot let you go back to the hotel at this time of night. It must be very late indeed. I'm sure I heard the midnight train go down quite a few minutes ago. It isn't safe for a woman to be out alone so late."

"Nonsense!" laughed Mary Dunlap. "My dear, nobody would touch me. I've been out at all hours in all kinds of places, and shall often be if I live. It doesn't bother me a bit. Come, run up and see if the child is all right and then I'll go. You mustn't lose any more sleep. Can't I just stand here at the foot of the stairs and you wave to me if all is well? Is the night latch on the door? And does that light turn out from above? Then I'll shut the door after me, and you needn't come down again to-night. Good night, dear, brave, little mother. I'll call you up in the morning and see how the Father is answering our prayer."

Mrs. Sheldon pressed the other woman's hand, and then tiptoed upstairs softly. Her footfalls were muffled in the heavy texture of costly rugs, and Mary Dunlap waited below, looking up for her signal, yawning wearily and suddenly realizing that she felt very old and tired.

But the footsteps did not return at once as she had expected. It seemed a long time before she suddenly heard Mrs. Sheldon almost running across the floor above, rushing through the hall and down the stairs a fluttering paper in her hand. Her face was chalk white in the subdued light of the hall chandelier and her eyes burned dark with fright.

"She is gone!" she cried, her voice catching in a sob. "She is not there at all. She has gone to New York!"

She thrust a paper into Mrs. Dunlap's hand and dropped down upon the lowest step of the stair in a little crushed heap, her face in her hands.

Mrs. Dunlap was reading the letter that had been given her:

Dear Mother: (it read)

There is only one thing left for me to do, and that is to go to number — Fifth Avenue New York and Prove that there is no Mr. Ralph Oliver. After I have done that, I shall go and find Rufus and we will be married at once! It is my duty to save Rufus from this terrible plot against his character. After that, we will take care of you. Don't worry. I will let you hear from me.

Lovingly,

DAISY.

Mary Dunlap read the letter over twice, while Mrs. Sheldon cried softly. Then the elder woman spoke:

"I know what you are thinking. You think the Lord has not heard your prayer. But you must not think that. I heard a great preacher from England once say that we must learn to 'trust Him where we could not trace Him,' and I think that if God has been preparing this thing while we were praying and claiming His promise, that in some way it is to answer our prayer. Come, let us trust Him, and tell him so."

Right there by the stairs Mary Dunlap prayed, talking to the Lord as if He stood where she could see Him, asking directions for what they should do next.

When the brief prayer was over the mother lifted her head and stood up.

"Daisy is not used to traveling alone! Especially out in the night this way, and to a great city!" She spoke in a tone of deep anguish.

"She is not alone!" said Mary Dunlap solemnly, "God is with her!"

Then after an instant she added:

"And there is no reason why we should not follow, is there? Wouldn't that be what the Lord would want? When is the next train?"

"Not until five o'clock in the morning," sighed the mother.

"Even so," said the steady traveler, "we shall not be so far behind her, and perhaps this was the only way to convince her, to let her see that it is all true. Sister, we've got to trust our Father! There just isn't anything else to do!"

Daisy's mother looked up with a weak little trembling smile and with lips that quivered as she spoke the words, said:

"All right!"

"You good little sport!" said Mary Dunlap, and stooped down and kissed her.

"Now," she said, "sit down a minute while we plan. I'll go back to the hotel and pack my grip. It takes just five minutes, I've done it in a hurry so many times. Then I'll get all the information needed about the train, and order a taxi to come for us, and I'll come back here. That ought not to take me more than three quarters of an hour. Let me see. It's now quarter of one. I'll be back here at half past. In the mean time, are you strong enough to get together what few things you'll need on the way while I'm gone? And can't you call your maid and give her directions about leaving the house for a few days? You can telegraph her afterward of course if you forget anything. Is she trustworthy?"

"She's been with us fifteen years," said Mrs. Sheldon. "She simply takes care of us."

"That's good then. Let's go. Work fast, and be done when I get back so we can get a few winks of sleep. Oh, yes, you've got to sleep or you would be sick and that wouldn't do. But you don't need to bother about breakfast. We'll get that on the train. Now, I'm off!"

Mary Dunlap was as good as her word, did all she had promised to do with a few minor details thrown in. She was efficiency itself when it came to any kind of a crisis. She was back three minutes ahead of her schedule and standing over the poor bewildered mother, whose eyes kept blurring with tears as she tried to go about and gather up the things she would need.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap looking down at the open suitcase, only half packed, "what have you got in here? Night dress and toilet things? A couple of other dresses, one for daytime and one for evening. Yes, you can't tell what we may run into on this jaunt! Always look out for any emergency, and two extra dresses will generally do it. Now, a warm kimono, slippers and another pair of shoes, a change of underwear that's about all. You'll want to take your pen perhaps and a few extra handkerchiefs. I've done this so much it is second nature. Sometimes I almost have to live on the cars."

"It seems as if I just couldn't think."

"Well, don't try, I'll do it for you. How about Daisy, did she take anything with her? She certainly didn't have much time. It must have been after eleven o'clock when she went upstairs and she wrote that note before she left."

"Yes, her suit case is gone. I don't really know how much is missing. Perhaps she hadn't fully unpacked it since she came home."

"Did she have money?"

"I don't know how much. She has her own bank account, and probably has her check book. They know her at the station of course and would cash her check. That makes me think, I wonder how much money I have in the house? Perhaps Daisy has taken it. She is always free to go to my drawer when she runs out of money."

"Don't worry about money. I always carry a few traveler's checks and I had the hotel order tickets and chairs for us. They will come with the taxi in the morning. Now, where do you keep your hat and coat and gloves? Is your hand bag ready? I want you to lie down this minute and get some sleep. No, don't lie and think about Daisy. Just rest back on the Father's promise and relax. Everything is going to be all right!"

So Mrs. Sheldon, ready for her journey all but her dress, wrapped her kimono about her and was tucked up by Mary Dunlap. Surprisingly she went to sleep, worn out with her two nights of vigil.

Mary Dunlap slept too, little cat naps with a keen squint at her wristwatch with the aid of her ever ready flashlight stowed under her pillow.

It was she who slipped down to the strange kitchen at daybreak and made some good strong coffee. It was she who carried it up and made Mrs. Sheldon drink it. It was she who inspected the suit case at the last minute, snapped it shut and carried it down to the door, while Mrs. Sheldon was giving a few last directions to the sleepy maid who had loyally stumbled down to say goodbye just as the taxi drew up at the door.

They had been seated in the train for perhaps an hour when Mrs. Sheldon said with a troubled look:

"I almost wish I had asked Nelson to come with us. He is so dependable where Daisy is concerned, and it doesn't seem quite fair to him to run away without a word. He is so—so—loyal and patient."

"H'm!" mused Mary Dunlap. "Was there—any way you could have asked him? Would Daisy have resented your telling him?"

"I suppose she would. No, I don't suppose there was," said the perplexed mother reversing the order of the questions, "but somehow it seems all wrong not to have him along when we are in trouble."

"Well," said Mary Dunlap thoughtfully, "if the Lord needs him, He'll know how to send him. Don't you fret."

Fortunately both women were dead with sleep, and were able to get some real refreshing rest in their chairs while the miles raced along beneath the wheels, and Daisy drew nearer to New York.

What would Daisy do when she got to New York? Her mother could not keep the question out of her mind, and yet she could not answer it. Oh, what awful experience might she not have if she went to that office and met her old lover! A creature as hardened as he would perhaps think nothing of spiriting her away somewhere, so that her mother might never see her again. If she came early alone to his office and found him by himself, he might tell her any lie, and in her present state of mind, she would believe it.

On the other hand, what if that Mrs. Oliver or her daughters should happen to be there when Daisy arrived, and she should say something to her lover which showed what her relation had been to him, would she and Daisy ever be able to live after such humiliation?

The poor mother could not fathom the answer to her painful thoughts and could only pray over and over again in her heart,—

"Oh Father, keep her, keep my child from falling."

And then like soothing balm there came to her familiar words,—

"Able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the throne—without spot or wrinkle or any such thing."

Oh, how blessedly the old verses learned in childhood came trooping to her groping thoughts, as if the Father were speaking them to her heart, while the train carried her on her way.

The long day was accomplished at last, a day during which both the women slept a good deal and talked a little, finding out common points of contact, common interests between one another, speaking of Daisy now and then; of Nelson Whitney occasionally; of Daisy's wonderful father; and Mrs. Sheldon's girlhood. As the night drew on and the lights began to appear, the two women began to feel as if they had known each other for years, and were bound by ties closer even than sisters might have been. Then there was the long night, to be waked through, thinking of the possibilities of the morrow.

"Now," said Mary Dunlap looking at her wristwatch the next morning after they had had breakfast, and come back to their section, in the sleeper, "it's quarter of nine. We shall be in, in three quarters of an hour, and take a taxi straight to Fifth Avenue if there isn't time to go to a hotel. Nothing opens in New York much before ten o'clock. Daisy got in last night, but all offices were closed. She couldn't have done anything till this morning, and she can't get there much ahead of us. At least if she does, she won't see him, for I'm sure he never comes down to the office before ten, and sometimes later. Take heart, sister, and trust the Father. He is managing this business, and I fancy He could have taken care of Daisy even if we hadn't come along. You know He manages a lot of things without us!"

Mrs. Sheldon blinked back the tears and smiled.

"I know," she said. "I'll try to rest on Him."

And then they began to draw near to the great city, and the two women put on hats and coats, and sat up ready for action. Who knew what the day had in store for them?

CHAPTER VIII

NELSON WHITNEY rang the bell of the Sheldon House at exactly quarter past eight the next morning. It was as early as he felt it would be at all courteous to disturb the household, especially as one of the members had not been feeling well the night before.

Mary, the trusted servant of the years, opened the door to him.

"Good morning, Mary," he said familiarly, for he had been almost as much at home in the Sheldon house since childhood as in his own home. "Is Marguerite up yet? I don't like to disturb her, but she was to have some measurements written out for the things she wanted me to get for the Hospital Fair, and I rather think she is expecting me to see to it this morning."

"Miss Marguerite is away, Mr. Nelson," said Mary with disapproval in her voice.

Mary had been with the family too long not to know every time one of the beloved family winked an eye or shed a tear, and Mary felt that things were all wrong just now; the idol of her heart crying and carrying on all day and then running away on the midnight train, and her mother going at daybreak! It certainly was not right.

"Away?" said Nelson. "Why, she was here yesterday, wasn't she? Her mother told me she was lying down with a headache last evening when I telephoned."

"Sure she was here last evening," said Mary, glad to get someone to share her troubles. "I don't know whatever her mother was thinking about to let her go, and her having headaches and crying and all yesterday. But young folks, seems to do about as they please nowadays."

Whitney cast her a pleasant grin, but his eyes showed that he was troubled.

"Well, I guess then I'll have to see Mrs. Sheldon. If she isn't about just ask her, please, if Marguerite left any word with her. Or, if she's asleep yet or anything, just look on Marguerite's desk and see if you find a paper with my name on it. She's likely written it out and left it there."

"M's Sheldon's gone too," burst forth Mary. "She left on the five o'clock with some woman was here all evening and come back and stayed all night, what there was left of it when they got packed."

Whitney looked up startled.

"Mrs. Sheldon has gone too? And she didn't go with Marguerite? That is strange. There wasn't a death in the family or anything near relatives in New York perhaps? I believe they have relatives there, haven't they? Perhaps they telegraphed for Marguerite."

"No, it couldn't a been that, all the Sheldons and Hamptons in New York went to Europe a month ago—went for a year."

"Well, it's none of my business of course," said Whitney with a grave smile that ended with a sigh, "but what in sixty am I going to do about that committee? They'll be in my hair if I don't get those things for to-night, and they told me Marguerite had the list. She probably forgot to say anything to you about it, Mary, going in such a hurry. Suppose you go up and look around her room and see if you see anything that looks like a list, whether it has my name on it or not."

"Come on in, then," said Mary graciously, and opened the door wider.

Whitney stepped in and stood in the hall, his glance searching toward the open doorway where he had stood two nights before, talking to Mrs. Sheldon. Who was that other woman? Was she connected with this sudden exodus? He had liked her. She seemed a strong true friend. He remembered the twinkle in her eyes, though they had looked grave, even sorrowful as if she was full of sympathy.

He sighed again as he remembered how strange it was to have the family go off this way without telling him. Heretofore he had always been told of every change from day to day. His life had been so closely twined with theirs that they never even changed a piece of furniture from one room to another without asking him gaily how he liked it in its new place, always joyously consulting him about any action. When they were going away, it was always he who got their reservations, checked their baggage, and took them to the station in his car, that is, since he had been old enough to have a car. Before that he attended them in a hired taxi.

But now, the last few months, there had been growing a change. Mrs. Sheldon was just the same, but Marguerite had a certain reserve, as if he didn't matter any more. It was all since that night when the Farr girl brought that Keller fellow with her to their literary club, and introduced him to Marguerite. Whitney had heard him calling her "Daisy" the very first night; "Daisy," the name that belonged exclusively to her mother—and himself—up to that night!

After that, he studiously called her Marguerite. He wanted no name for his girl that he had to share with that man! He was a villain, that's what he was, a middle-aged man coming in and presuming to monopolize a girl almost young enough to be his daughter! What was he anyway, and what did they know about him? He meant to make it his business pretty soon to find out, if he persisted in coming around as he had been doing.

Then Mary's voice sailed down the stairway.

"Was it a list of flower seeds and bulbs, you meant, Mr. Nelson?"

Whitney walked over to the foot of the stairs and looked up.

"No, Mary, it would be lumber, and canvas, and curtain material for the stage setting for the Cantata."

"Oh," said Mary, "this ain't it, then, I'll look again."

Mary went back into the girl's room, and the young man stood there waiting. He moved his position impatiently and drew another sigh, and something crackled under his foot. A paper! Probably that was the list. Marguerite had left it on the hall table and it had blown across the floor when the door was opened.

He stooped and picked it up. Yes, it was Marguerite's writing. Probably some directions about color and fabrics. Maybe a bit of a word of apology for going so hurriedly, or even a friendly goodbye. His heart was lifted at the thought. His eyes plunged into the midst of the words in the dim light of the hall, and grasped, searching for that personal word which he so longed to read. So before he was aware that he was reading a note addressed to someone else, he had gathered the whole unhappy truth.

For an instant he stood with the paper quivering in his hand, a sense of mortification upon him for having read something he shouldn't, yet a great sinking within his soul for the facts that had been revealed in that brief note.

So then Daisy Marguerite had gone away without her mother's knowledge! Marguerite to have done a thing like that! She would never have done that a year ago! Something terrible must have happened to get her wrought up to the degree that she would worry her much-loved mother by doing that.

And of course that explained the mother's hasty leave by the next train. Mrs. Sheldon would never allow that quietly without doing something about it. But why, oh, why hadn't she telephoned to him? That is what she would have done even a few weeks ago! Oh, and what was that other awful thing the note had said? When she had accomplished her strange mission, whatever it was, trying to prove that somebody did not exist, she was going to hunt up that unspeakable villain Keller and marry him! Could any calamity loom greater than that to Nelson Whitney in the whole bright world that had suddenly gone black?

At that instant, while he was turning over those awful facts and trying to make something out of them, he heard Mary's brisk footsteps coming down the stairs. Instantly he crushed the paper he held and drove his hand deep into his overcoat pocket.

"I can't find it nowheres, Mr. Nelson," she said, "would you like to go up and look? You might recognize it when I wouldn't."

Nelson sprang up the steps hastily.

"I'll just take a look about," he said.

But it was not for the list he wanted to go up. He had a feeling that he must look about the apartment where she had last been as if its very walls must cry out and give him a clue to go by, some hope for his anguished soul that was all wrapped up in the little girl he had loved since childhood, the little girl about to step off into danger! What could he do about it?

But the room was in perfect order, as Marguerite's room always was, nothing about to tell any tales, save her little blue sweater, lying on the bed in a heap as if it had suddenly been cast aside. He stood for an instant in the doorway, looking around, walked to her desk and her bureau with a keen swift glance, went back toward the door. Pausing suddenly beside the bed, he picked up the soft little wool garment and laid it to his cheek, just an instant, like a caress, and dropping it, went out of the room and ran swiftly down the stairs.

"D'ya find it?" asked Mary noting triumphantly that he had no list in his hand.

"No, Mary, it wasn't there," he said. "Thank you. She must have forgotten it. I'll have to get along the best way I can without it."

"Well, if it turns up when I go to sweep, I'll phone you to the office, Mr. Nelson."

"Thank you, Mary, and by the way, they didn't say when they were returning, did they? Or give you an address? I might get her on Long Distance you know."

"No, they didn't say. M's Sheldon she did say that ef they decided to stay mor'na day ur so, she'd write and tell me what hotel they put up at. Ef she does, I'll phone ya, Mr. Nelson."

"All right, Mary. Thank you!" said Nelson Whitney, and closing the door behind him, went out into the street.

As he got into his car and threw in the clutch, it suddenly came to him what he must do. His people were off alone, in possible trouble, and he must be at hand ready if they needed him! He must go to New York and find them.

But how could he find them since each detachment of them had the start of him, and might be lost in New York long before he could get there?

He began to calculate distance and time. Marguerite a whole night ahead of him, and her mother several hours' start! When he reached New York, they might have already left it. Marguerite might already be married. And even if he were there, unless he got there ahead and met their trains, how would he know where they had gone?

Stay! Hadn't that note told a place where Marguerite was going? He pulled out the crumpled paper and smoothed it, getting the number fixed in his mind. — Fifth Avenue! Well, at least, he knew one place where she intended to go, if there was such a place. Her note seemed to imply that she doubted it. But there would at least be the number whether the person whose existence she was seeking to disprove, was there or not.

Yes, with only that little clue, and no chance at all of getting there on time, he meant to go after her! For what could her mother do? True she might have more information of her whereabouts than was contained in that note, but even so, she was a woman of another day and generation, a woman used to being cared for, and not accustomed to traveling by herself. That other woman had looked capable, of course, as if she might go around the world by herself, and have no trouble whatever, but who knew whether that other woman—Dunlap her name was, wasn't it—who knew, whether she was going all the way to New York or not?

Yes, he must go! And there was only one way to get there in time to be of use. Could he do it?

He drove hard down to his office, a very new office with a new secretary and office boy, new desks and chairs and typewriter, and new clientele. This was a busy day, too, but that couldn't be helped either. His boss in Chicago was not a hard master, and anyway his secretary was efficient if she was rather old and homely.

He plunged into his morning mail. That must be got out of the way first. Matilda Herrick, the shell-rimmed secretary, had it all in neat order for him; the new orders, the old customers, the complaints, the letter from the head office in Chicago. He went through the piles rapidly, giving a word of direction now and then.

"Get these letters ready for me as soon as you can," he said. "I may have to go to New York to-day. Call up Bainbridge and find out if he is ready to talk business yet. Get Hetherington on the phone and see if he has heard from that order he took yesterday, and send the boy up to my home to get my suit case. He had better go as soon as he has those envelopes addressed. There'll be time."

When Matilda Herrick had taken her gaunt ability out of his private office, he locked his door and went down on his knees beside his desk. He was a young man who traveled under Guidance and went nowhere without orders.

When he got up from his knees there was a look of purpose on his face that had not been there before. He reached for his telephone and called a number.

A hearty voice answered it promptly.

Whitney's face lighted with relief.

"Hello, Bert, is that you?"

"Sure is! Hello, Nell. Glad to hear your voice! How's crops?"

"Oh, growing, growing fast. Say, Bert, flying anywhere to-day?"

"Sure thing. Want to go?"

"If you're going in the right direction. What's your chart?"

"Wherever you say. You never thought you could spare the time to go with me before."

"Happen to be going anywhere within a hundred miles of New York?"

"Flying right to Fifth Avenue, this afternoon, if you'll accompany me. Got a bit of engine trouble to make right, it'll take a couple of hours to fix, then I'm ready. How soon can you start?"

"I could make it any time after one if things go well here."

"Make it snappy and we'll paint New York red to-night."

"I'd prefer white, if you don't mind, Bert."

"O. K. with me Nellie, just so's you go along. Meet me at the field at two o'clock."

Whitney hung up with an awed look in his face.

"It seems to be in the plan," he said to himself reverently, and began to work at several matters of business that he knew must be set right before he could honorably leave his own city.

It seemed beautiful to him the way everything worked out, no hindrances, not a single hitch in the things that must be finished before he left. Every man he called on the telephone was in, every report of sales was such that he could give the important directions concerning them before he went away.

"It's just as if somebody else was working with me to smooth the way," he thought.

The hours of the morning sped. Matilda Herrick had the letters ready for signing in plenty of time. Everything went smoothly.

Nelson Whitney telephoned his mother to pack his suit case for a quick trip, and the office boy did all the rest, including accompanying his chief to the flying field, and driving the car back to the garage again. At two-thirty exactly they were off, through the clear blue ether, Nelson Whitney's first experience in flying.

For a few minutes the thrill of the new sensation occupied every sense, but after he was accustomed to the thought of sailing with the clouds, and looking down upon earth, he began to think of what was before him in New York. Was this a wild-goose chase he was going on? Wouldn't anybody, just anybody think he was a fool to start off with as little warrant as he had had? Wasn't there danger of making his lady everlastingly angry chasing her this way, even if he did find her? Wouldn't even her mother have a right to resent it?

And what, pray, was he to do when he arrived in New York, beyond the mere meeting the trains at the station, and getting in touch with the people he was trying to help? How could he do that? Just walk up smiling and say he knew they were expected so he met them? He hadn't really any warrant for that. Of course he could say that Mary told him what train they had taken, but he would feel like a fool saying that to Mrs. Sheldon. Her keen eyes would see that there was something behind it all, and perhaps she might resent his intrusion into her affairs, though she had always acted, hitherto, as if he belonged to her scheme of life.

And what could he do before her train arrived to keep Marguerite in sight? If he met her train, she would be likely to be indignant. He could not tell her he had found her note on the floor, and read it, though it was addressed to her mother, and that he was here to protect her from whatever evil, real or fancied, threatened her. Assuredly he would meet her train and try to appear as casual as possible, but he shrank inexpressibly from the look of scorn her dear eyes would cast at him.

There was no question but that Marguerite would resent his entrance onto the stage at this point in her career. She had been most haughty and independent of late, and it stung him even to remember her careless indifference.

And failing to get suitable touch with his girl at the train, if he should go to hunt up that number of Fifth Avenue, and should find it there, what would he do? And what if it were not there? And where lived this Keller man who was apparently making all this trouble? Why! He ought to have telephoned somebody and found that out before he left! Here he was thinking he had done everything up in fine shape and he had left out one of the strategic points in the whole matter. Of course he could telephone back when he got to New York, but a lot of time might be lost.

However, was he not traveling under guidance? Could not He who had smoothed the way thus far manage it so that he would go to the right place, do the right thing? Would not the way open as he advanced? He had put himself under the guidance of the greatest Leader in the universe, and there he must trust and not be afraid.

The silver wings that bore him above the earth flew straight on, over wide stretches of the map. Sometimes he looked down wondering, when he saw a railroad train creeping along like a small worm on the earth, if perhaps he might be looking at the very train in which those he went to protect were traveling.

The strange thing about it all was that though he was positive they needed protection, he was not in the least sure from what he was protecting them. Only in the case of the girl, if it should come about that she tried to carry out her threat of marrying that man Keller, he knew he must prevent it. He felt that it could be nothing short of a calamity for her, to say nothing of her mother and himself, if that should ever come to pass. He felt, too, that God was on his side, for had he not put himself and his plans in the hands of God, willing to be guided, willing to have all plans overturned if they were not the right thing? And the way had been smoothed before him. Nothing had been hindered of the least detail to stop him from going through the air.

So the silver wings flew on, and in due time Nelson Whitney arrived in New York.

He did not help his friend in painting the town red. Instead he went directly to the Pennsylvania station and got full details of all trains arriving from the West. He found that Marguerite's train was due to arrive late that evening. He begged off from going with his friend longer than to dinner, and went straight back to the station where he made himself well acquainted with the various exits of the train, and found the best place to watch and await her.

It had not been hard to discover just where the train would come in, and he had established himself behind the great iron bars just above the train floor, where he could look down upon the disembarking passengers without being seen by them unless they deliberately turned around and looked up, but near enough to the train gate to get to her at once if he should see she was in any need of a friend, or was at all hesitant which way to turn.

During the long day, he had had full opportunity to plan what he would say when he met her. He would tell how he had called at the house for her list, and Mary had said she had gone to New York on the midnight train. So when he was invited to fly with his friend to the same city, he thought he would meet her train and ask her about the list, in case he went back the next day. That was a perfectly reasonable story as well as being absolutely true, for his friend had many times invited him to fly, and had told him to call him when he could go.

Nevertheless he wished to reconnoiter before he approached her. It was even conceivable that that Keller person might have somehow got in touch with her, and be traveling with her. His blood boiled at the thought, and he stood for twenty long minutes till the train arrived, thinking over what he should do if that were the case. He decided that he would in any event go to the gate and speak to Marguerite. It might even be that a face from home might influence her, hinder her, from any foolish thing she might be going to do. At least he would ask where she was staying, and perhaps let her know that her mother was on the way, just casually, as if of course she knew it.

He would be able to judge a great deal from the way she took what he said.

In the mean time, while he mused, in not a little anxiety, forgetting for the moment his Guide, the train came in. The stream of people like ants, came filing up the iron stairs to the gateways, and not one of them escaped the anxious eye of Nelson Whitney, as he stood in his sheltered nook behind a bunch of train flags and gate signs and waited.

But Marguerite did not appear.

She did not even come up in the elevator, which was in full view from his position. He was sure he had not missed her, yet a frenzy of anxiety seized him. Perhaps she had seen him and had evaded him while he was looking the other way!

Where was Marguerite?

CHAPTER IX

WHAT had happened to Marguerite was this.

She had never been to New York before, although she had traveled with her father and mother now and then in other directions. She knew nothing, of course, about the city save what she had gleaned from occasional references to it in novels. When the porter of the Pullman asked her before they reached Manhattan Transfer whether she was going uptown or downtown she looked at him bewildered for an instant. Then reasoning that an office building would likely be downtown, and she wanted to be near to the place where she intended going the first thing in the morning, she answered after that instant's hesitation,—

"Oh, yes, downtown. I'm going downtown."

"Then you get out at Manhattan Transfer, lady," said the porter eyeing her a bit questioningly, she thought, because she had said downtown at that time of night.

Manhattan Transfer looked wide and desolate and empty. There were few passengers so late and there seemed to be no official in charge. Marguerite stood aimlessly for a few minutes, looking this way and that, wandering up, and then down, looking off at the dim distance of stars and weird lights. Was this the great New York about which she had heard so much?

But at last a train came. A brakeman on the step, swinging a lantern, and yelling some unintelligible thing condescended to listen to her plea.

"Where you wantta go, lady? Uptown or downtown?" The same mystical question, and it must have been all wrong the way she answered it before.

"Oh, I don't know which," she cried, almost in tears, for she was suddenly realizing her lonely situation at this late hour. "I want to go to a good respectable hotel."

"You go uptown lady, then. You get on the next train that comes by, over that side of the platform; be 'long in five minutes now. Take you to the Pennsylvania Station, good hotel right across the street. All Aboard!"

And he swung away, leaving her more desolate than ever, for now the wind-swept platform was empty of the few travelers who had been waiting for this train, and Marguerite dared not go in search of any official who might be inside the shelters lest she miss her train. Thus it was that she arrived at the great station almost an hour later than the train by which she should have come. Emerging into the gloom, and climbing the midnight stairs into the wide upper area, she felt smaller and more alone even than when she had stood on the high barren sweep of Manhattan Transfer.

There was noise and light here, a blare of it, and a strange midnight clatter that frightened her.

If it had not been for a kindly agent of the Traveller's Aid who happened by just as she emerged from the iron gate, and said, noting her hesitancy, "Can I help you?" she might have stood there all night perhaps, afraid to venture into that vast empty floor like a little vessel setting sail to an unknown port.

But the friendly Traveller's Aid soon had the weary girl safely established in the great hotel across the way, and possessed of all the information she needed to get herself to the desired number on Fifth Avenue in the morning.

Mind and body cannot continue forever in a state of violent emotion without some rest, and Marguerite, finding herself at last in a quiet room with a luxurious bed, and nothing she could possibly do until morning, succumbed to her weariness and fell into a deep sleep.

She intended quite fully to waken about seven o'clock, get herself in readiness for her errand, and then try to get in touch with Rufus Keller. She thought she had a pretty good idea where to telegraph him, and felt that if she did so, it would only be a matter of a few hours before she had word that he was coming to her at once.

She was not well enough versed in the ways of travelers to leave an order at the hotel desk to have them call her at seven, and if she had been, she would have been too confident that it was unnecessary. She had prided herself for years on her ability to set herself to waken any time at all, and never fail to waken on the minute. However that was, it turned out that she slept on straight past seven, past eight, past nine, past ten, past eleven, and never wakened till quarter to twelve o'clock, dazed and vague as to where she was or why she was there.

Meantime at ten o'clock Mary Dunlap and Mrs. Sheldon arrived in the city, and took their way briskly, attended by a porter carrying their luggage, straight through the tiled tunnel and into the Pennsylvania Hotel, where they were given a room one floor below where Marguerite slept her exhausted sleep.

"We had better not wait for anything," said Marguerite's mother anxiously, giving a push and a pat to the straggling locks about her temples and walking nervously toward the door.

"My dear, you are going to have a cup of coffee before we stir a step," said Mary Dunlap firmly. "I told the boy as we came up in the elevator to have it sent up at once and it's not going to take three minutes to drink it. I tell you nothing is doing in New York until ten, and she can't get away right at once. There is no use running risks. You are going on your nerve, and that might give out at the wrong time and spoil everything. There, he is knocking now. Sit down and drink it. Then we'll call a taxi and be there in no time! It is quite early yet and I'm positive Mr. Oliver—I mean Keller—never goes down to his office before half past ten at the earliest."

But Nelson Whitney had not been able to sleep. He had laid himself properly in bed of course and closed his eyes. He had committed himself and his wishes and his girl to the care of One who was infinitely powerful, infinitely able, infinitely willing to bring order out of confusion, and he was resting on that; but he lay there staring into the night and facing a thing that might be coming to him on the morrow. Supposing he should find that Marguerite had already gone to that other man, and that, unworthy though he believed him to be, she was now irrevocably committed to him, for better, for worse. Could he give up his will in the matter, his joy, his very life, and give up his girl to a sorrow he felt was inevitable if she married Keller?

Whitney did not oversleep. He arose far earlier than he had set himself to be about. He tried to eat some breakfast, but it was as dust and ashes in his mouth. He went out to walk, but the exercise was merely mechanical. He did not see the buildings he passed, nor notice anybody on the street. He was going over the probable program for the morning, trying to decide which thing he should do first.

If he went to the train to meet Mrs. Sheldon, he would be late in getting to Fifth Avenue when Marguerite would be likely to be arriving. If he went to Fifth Avenue first, he would be too late to meet the train. He finally decided that it was more important to find Marguerite than her mother, for the mother would communicate with Mary at home as soon as she located in a hotel and if he found Marguerite, he could telephone to Mary and have little trouble in locating Mrs. Sheldon afterward. Marguerite was of course the first consideration.

He had no trouble in finding the number on the avenue that had been indicated in Marguerite's note, and was somewhat reassured, but also not a little troubled to find the name, "R. H. Oliver, Manager," in gold letters on the rich glass of the heavy mahogany door. Just what effect would it have upon the girl who had taken this wild midnight journey to prove there was no such person? He pondered this as he sought out the janitor and asked a few questions about the usual hour of opening the offices in that building.

He was still pondering it as he set out to walk a regular beat, up the avenue, across the street, down the avenue, across and back again, varying it occasionally by a quick detour into one of the side streets where he turned about and returned the other way. He did not care to be noticed, as he kept his anxious vigil. As the minutes passed into an hour and then dropped into long minutes again, his heart sank with the fear lest after all somehow he had missed her. Perhaps she had come down to the office building ahead of him, or perhaps she had looked up the name in the city directory, discovered that it really was there, and had changed her course. Why had he not thought of that before? Yet what else could he have done than he had done? He had no clue but this, and must follow it to its reasonable end.

There were not many people on that part of the avenue so early, and he had no difficulty in getting a good look at each one. He felt reasonably certain that she could not have got by since he had arrived, so he tramped back and forth like a lion in a cage, not daring to go beyond the bounds he had set himself lest somehow she escape him. The thought that was aching into his heart now was what possible connection could there be between this man Oliver and the fellow Keller whom his girl had declared her intention of marrying after she had proved that there was no such person as Oliver?

A dim possibility was stealing through his mental turbulence, but he rejected such an explanation of the situation, as unworthy of a decent man to think about another, even about one whom he distrusted. Yet again and again it recurred. Had someone been trying to make his little girl see that the man with whom she seemed to be infatuated was unworthy of her? Had she set out to disprove what they had told her? It must be something of that sort of course, but what?

By the time that he had tramped nearly two hours away in anxious watching, he was in a mood to wish he could get his hands on this Keller man and give him a good thrashing. He felt more and more confident that he deserved it, even though he might be none of the unworthy kinds of villain that his imagination had been conjuring.

It was still five minutes to the hour the janitor had mentioned as opening time for offices when he finally tramped back to the building and entered the elevator. He had considered staying outside in the street till he saw Marguerite arrive, but rejected the idea as futile. She would be very likely to see him if he came too near, and perhaps evade him, for it was most likely that she wanted none of her friends with her on this expedition, else she would surely have confided in her mother.

He had considered also secreting himself somewhere in the hallway, at a good vantage point to watch for her, if there were such a hiding place, but rejected that idea also, because if anything was going to happen, he wanted to be there to see what it was. He felt that it was his right to understand the case, seeing he was going to try to help Marguerite. How else could he know whether or not he might be intruding where even angels should not tread? No, he must be in the office, and well placed where she would not notice him, or he might never find out whether he even had a right to try to help her. He must fathom this mystery himself. It was not anything Marguerite's mother could tell him, else he felt sure she would have called for him in the middle of the night even, to accompany her and help her in her trouble. That it was a terrible trouble to the mother he had no doubt.

He had a bad half minute when several young women came hurriedly into the hall and rushed for the elevator. Perhaps she was among them, and this would be by no means the place he had planned to meet Marguerite, in the elevator!

But the young women were none of them the girl he sought; they were obviously secretaries hastening to their various jobs, and he drew an involuntary breath of relief as the elevator shot up to the floor to which he was going. The young women all got out at different stops by the way.

He was glad that he was the only one in the elevator when it stopped at the ninth floor, and he could get off and take his bearings once more without observation. Then he noticed that the door of R. H. Oliver's office was standing ajar, and with quickened pulse he hurried down the hall.

CHAPTER X

NELSON WHITNEY pushed the door of R. H. Oliver's office open quickly and stepped within with an air of stealthy triumph. He looked around furtively with keen eyes, half fearful at what he might see.

But there was no one there but an elderly girl taking off her hat and coat at the back of the room. She hung them on a couple of pegs in a shadowy corner, patted her hair into prim shape before a small mirror, and put a last dab of powder on a thin angular nose. He paused and watched her uncertainly.

"Is Mr. Oliver in yet?" he asked as she turned inquiringly and came toward him, her folded gloves and a large flat purse in her hand.

"Oh, no!" she said with a tang of amusement in her voice that set him down for a country ninny. She glanced at the clock. "He never gets down before half past if he does then."

Whitney cast a quick searching gaze around the room once more, as if perchance the girl he sought might be hiding somewhere in the shadows.

"Mind if I wait here?" he asked, ignoring the contempt in the girl's voice.

"Help yourself," said the girl in a chilly tone.

She unlocked the desk, and slung a typewriter out into the open from some hidden recess, laid her pocketbook and gloves in a drawer, took out a dust cloth and proceeded to polish her desk and clean her typewriter. She had the appearance of not even remembering that the young man existed. Presently she began to hum a jazzy little radio tune to further shut him out of her immediate circle.

This just suited Whitney. He deliberately took in every corner of the room, the beautiful furniture and the rich Oriental rug, and selected a shadowy alcove behind the main door, facing toward the windows on the other side of the room. It was a dark little corner, gloomy in fact, the alcove being formed by the ground glass partition of an inner office that ran out from the main wall ten feet and then down to the back of the room. The angle of these walls would partly hide him, even from the girl at her desk which stood well out in the middle of the room. The gloom of the corner would not call attention to his presence.

He drew a carved walnut chair into the right position to give him a view of the room and yet not bring him into notice and sat down. After a calm minute or two, he unfurled a morning paper which he could not possibly have read to advantage in the dim light, and prepared to hide behind it at the approach of footsteps. Surely he ought to be able to remain incognito here, for a while at least till matters developed, seeing that none of the people who were likely to have a part in the little drama about to be played had the slightest idea that he was in that part of the country. They would scarcely recognize his shoes and trousers, nor his hands, and that was all that the paper and the gloom would reveal. He would just sit quietly here and see what happened.

The secretary finished her morning cleaning and began typing some letters. The minutes ticked slowly by on the magnificent mahogany grandfather clock that stood six feet against the opposite wall between the two high windows. Nelson Whitney began to tell himself that he was a fool, and had come on a fool's errand. Probably nobody would come at all that he expected. Probably the morning would go by, and the man Oliver would arrive and he wouldn't even know him from any other man, let alone knowing what to say to him.

For the next five minutes he busied himself planning what errand he might possibly have for visiting an unknown man in his office. A perusal of the ground glass door into the hall did not help him. It bore over Oliver's name the legend "Ransom, Oliver, Bates and Company" nothing more. He did not know whether they sold bonds or automobiles or insurance. They might be almost anything. There wasn't a scratch of anything in the room that he could see that would give the slightest clue. There was nothing on the wall within his vision but a framed etching of old New York.

What should he do? Should he say he was waiting for friends who were to meet him there? Should he tell the man when he arrived that he must have come to the wrong address? It seemed that he would appear a fool in almost anything he might say, yet he held his ground and sat behind his paper trying to frame a reasonable excuse for his presence. He decided that he might perhaps ask if the man wanted to employ a helper. There was Jack Rector at home who was crazy to get a job in New York. Yet what kind of a job would this be? Something that could be sold? Jack would make a keen young salesman.

The minutes dragged on. The secretary typed incessantly and paid no more attention to him than if he had been an empty chair. The room was as still as an empty cell, sealed from the roar and rumble of the city noises.

Nelson Whitney was still pondering possibilities when there came at last the clang of an elevator, and steps, leisurely steps, outside the door. His heart stood still and then leaped forward in great bounds for it was a woman's step. Had the moment arrived at last? And if his girl should see him, how would she take it? Would she think he, too, was in league against her and be angry? He withdrew still further into the depths of his paper, and the door swung open and admitted a lady.

The secretary jumped up, all smiles.

"Oh, good morning Mrs. Oliver! Aren't you downtown early? Didn't Mr. Oliver come with you? I thought he was expecting to be in the office this morning. There are some checks for him to sign."

Whitney lowered his paper and saw a woman about forty years old, a sweet-faced woman with a lovely smile, and faultlessly dressed.

"Good morning, Miss Flinch," she said pleasantly. "Why, no, Mr. Oliver and Katharine came down earlier. Hasn't he come yet? He said he would surely be here by this time. I expected to find him in his office hard at work, or else ready to chide me for being ten minutes later than I promised. I was waiting for Gloria. She was to drive back with the car and get me, but she telephoned that they had a flat tire, and she would meet me here. Hasn't she come yet either?"

"No, Mrs. Oliver. But I guess they'll be here presently," assured the secretary.

"Of course," said the lady. "Well, I'll just step into Mr. Oliver's office and write a note. I was afraid I wouldn't have time to write it at home, but it really ought to go."

The secretary smiled and the lady retreated through the ground glass door of the inner office. The typewriter clicked on.

The clang of the elevator was becoming more frequent now, and there were more and more footsteps going down the marble corridor. Whitney scarcely realized that the hall door had opened again until he heard a woman's clear voice speaking to the secretary.

"Has Mr. Oliver come in yet?"

"No," said the secretary severely.

"How soon do you expect him?"

"Almost any time now," said his keeper ungraciously. "Did you have an appointment?"

"No," said the woman, "but he knows me well."

"He's very busy this morning," interrupted the secretary. "He's been away for three weeks and there are a lot of things for him to attend to. I don't know if he'll have time to see anybody," and she cast a belligerent look toward the newspaper and the legs over in the gloomy alcove.

"Don't worry," said the dominant voice of Mrs. Dunlap pleasantly, "I shall not keep him a second. I merely want him to endorse a check for me. I'm a personal friend. I'll just wait till he comes."

The secretary looked as if she thought that was a doubtful statement, but she assented silently and went on typing.

Whitney wondered what there was about that voice that reminded him of something recent? He lowered his paper and shot a glance at the woman and then he saw there was another with her, a quiet, shrinking woman with gray hair, and a sweet profile that he had known all his life. And the other one was the woman that had been calling on Mrs. Sheldon when he went to see Marguerite!

Well, at least he would not have to search for them. They were here. Now, what should he do? Reveal himself to them at once and try to make some plan? But no—there were more footsteps coming that way, and the clang of the elevator continually now. It would not do to be caught saying good morning to them if Marguerite should walk in. And besides—just what should he say how explain his presence there? Should he confess that he had read a letter that was not intended for his eyes? Strange he had not remembered to think that all out and have some plan. He had had all night to plan it and he had not done it.

The two women had stood hesitating a moment by the desk, but Mrs. Dunlap went into action as Whitney stole a glance over his paper.

"Let's sit over here by the window," she said in a tone as if she were quite at home.

She went to the corner she had indicated and whirled the chairs about so that they would face away from the room, and put their occupants with their backs toward anyone entering. But Mrs. Sheldon did not follow immediately. She lingered hesitantly by the desk an instant longer, a worried wistful look in her sweet eyes.

"My—daughter—hasn't come in yet, has she?" she hazarded. "She was to—that is, she was expecting—I mean we expected to meet her here."

She glanced apologetically toward her companion, and then back wistfully to the secretary.

"Nobody been in this morning but that man," said the secretary still ungraciously, indicating with a sweep of her capable white hand the legs in the alcove surmounted by the newspaper.

Daisy's mother gave a quick frightened glance toward the alcove without realizing that those legs had often been a familiar sight in her house. She retreated half frightened to the chair Mrs. Dunlap smilingly offered, and the two women sank down quietly with two magazines that Mrs. Dunlap produced from the window seat. Again the click of the typewriter was the only sound that was heard.

The postman came in presently and left a great stack of mail which gave the secretary a rest from her typing while she went resolutely through the letters, sorting them into piles.

There were many footsteps going down the corridor now, and the three whose hearts were listening for a certain step, could not be certain at all. The mother started nervously whenever any one approached the door.

The elevator was clanging incessantly. Presently a nervous step came down the corridor, almost breathlessly, as if the owner had hurried, then hesitated a moment in front of the door. The knob turned, slowly, almost timidly.

Somehow Whitney knew that step—knew in his heart that she had come at last, and felt the horror that would be in her white face as she discovered the name she had come to disprove shining golden in the noonday light. The paper in his hand trembled and he dared to peer around it at the little white frightened, almost belligerent face of the girl he loved.

She stood in the doorway for an instant and swept the room with her glance, not carefully for she was too nervous, and she was not looking for people from home. Whitney was at one side, almost behind her now, for she was standing in the middle of the room wide-eyed, and she had scarcely noticed the backs of the two women shrinking into their chairs in the window corner earnestly reading magazines.

She went straight up to the desk and her voice trembled a little as she asked her questions.

"Is this Mr. R. H. Oliver's office?"

Miss Flinch surveyed her impersonally before she nodded.

"May I see him at once?" asked Marguerite, growing more certain of herself now, and speaking excitedly.

"He isn't here yet."

"Not here?" the little catch in Marguerite's voice could be heard around the room. "How soon will he be in? I've got to catch a Western train and there's only three quarters of an hour."

"I can't say when he'll be in," said the secretary regarding her indifferently. "It might be in five minutes, it might be half an hour."

"But you're sure he is coming? This morning?"

"Positive," said the laconic secretary. "His wife's in the private office waiting for him now. There's all these people waiting to see him, and he's awfully busy besides. He's got to sign a lot of letters and meet two men at one o'clock, and he's taking his wife and children off for a holiday. If that isn't a full day, I don't know where you come in. But you can sit down and wait if you think there's any chance for you."

"Oh, I won't keep him but an instant. If I can just see him!"

The secretary waved her to a chair.

"You'll have to take your turn," she warned her.

Marguerite cast a swift appraising glance around the room, at the two huddled figures in the chairs by the window, two oldish backs upon whom her glance scarcely rested and a pair of gentlemanly legs surmounted by a newspaper. Strangers in a land that was strange to her, what could they mean to her but hindrances to her completed race? It was hours later than she had meant to be, and she ought to get out of New York, and away to seek her beloved.

She knew that her mother would presently stir up something. She was not a woman to lie idly by and see her only daughter lost in the world, with an undesirable marriage in the offing. She would presently set something going somehow to hinder. Her mother was never balked when the welfare of one beloved was concerned. She simply must get a train right away as soon as she had seen this man. Of course he would not be the right one. Of course that lying Mrs. Dunlap had merely given the name of some one she knew as a bluff to gain her point. And as soon as she laid eyes on the man and saw he was not anyone she had ever seen before, she would apologize pleasantly, say she must have the wrong address, and depart.

While she was dressing she had remembered a way to find Rufus. She would get that minister friend of his that was to have married them, on the long distance telephone, and find out how best to reach him. The rest would be easy of course. Then she would get away from New York as fast as possible, somewhere, anywhere, it didn't matter much, just a little way, so she could not be traced, and then get off and telephone Rufus. She would plan to meet him wherever he said and be married at once. Perhaps she might even suggest this to the minister friend of his when she found the address, just say they were going to be married at once, that all difficulties had been cleared away or something like that.

How fortunate it was that she remembered the name and address of that minister so well. She had watched Rufus writing out the telegram as he argued, and he had written Rev. Lee Spencer, D.D. so beautifully. He had a wonderful, bold way of writing that thrilled her to watch, it seemed so masterful!

All these thoughts went racing through Marguerite's mind as she dropped into a chair near the desk facing the entrance, her eyes glued to the door that she might get the first glimpse of the man as he entered.

Mrs. Dunlap half leaned over toward Mrs. Sheldon to whisper, and then thought better of it. They exchanged lifted eyebrows, and a question stood in their eyes for an instant. Then suddenly a quick eager young step came rushing down the corridor. The door opened with a rush and closed with a bang as a slim pretty girl entered panting as if she had run up several flights of stairs.

"Oh, Miss Flinch," she gasped, "has Daddy come yet? I've simply ruined myself running up all the stairs. I couldn't wait for the elevator. I was afraid Dad and Mother wouldn't wait for me. Oh hasn't he come yet? Oh, I'm glad! But Muth is here isn't she? I thought she would be. I telephoned her I had a flat tire, and I had to leave the tiresome old car in a garage away uptown, and walk three blocks to get a bus, and then it didn't come forever and an age. The bus service in this town is the limit isn't it? Did you say Muth was here?"

"Yes, Miss Gloria, she came half an hour ago. She's in your father's office writing a letter."

"Oh, I know. She said it simply had to go or she couldn't go with us. You know, Miss Flinch, it's her birthday, and Daddy came home especially for it. We're going off on a spree. Daddy won't tell us where, but we're going in the new car, and it's to be a surprise party for us all. Muth doesn't even know which way we are taking.

"But I can't think what's keeping Daddy and Katharine. You know, Miss Flinch," Gloria lowered her voice with a glance toward the ground glass partition, "they've gone to get her present. She doesn't know a thing about it of course. Katharine picked it out weeks ago and she and I had it put away till Daddy would get back. We knew he'd love it for her, and I know it's just what she wants. It's a platinum wristwatch and bracelet with diamonds and sapphires all set around the edge. Oh, it's perfectly darling. She'll show it to you of course. But I'm just dying to see what she says when he gives it to her. Oh, dear! Why don't they come? I do hope there isn't some stupid old mistake. Perhaps some dumbbell of a salesman has sold it to someone else. Wouldn't that simply be unbearable? Perhaps they've had to hunt around for another. But I never saw any as precious as this one."

"I wouldn't worry, Miss Gloria," said the secretary fondly. "They've likely been delayed in traffic. There! There's the elevator! Maybe they're coming now. Yes, I think that's Mr. Oliver's step."

"Oh, it is, it is! The day is saved," cried Gloria tragically.

The door opened and another very pretty girl scarcely older than the first entered, and behind her a gentleman.

"There! Daddy! You're late yourself. I've won the bet and you've got to pay up! A five-pound box of chocolates! Remember! You promised! And a new pair of slippers for the party! Muth and I've been here a long time—and I had a flat tire, too, and a lot of trouble."

The gentleman stepped in and closed the door, gave a quick glance at the legs and the newspaper in the alcove, another toward the window where huddled the two women, and then faced toward the desk where for the instant his two daughters had so grouped themselves as to completely hide the white-faced girl from his vision.

Gloria boomed forth again:

"Now, Daddy, you've simply got to come into the office and show it to her at once. I can't wait another second. I'm dying to see what she thinks of it. Come on in now before Miss Flinch gets you into a lot of tiresome checks and letters you have to sign. Come on, Daddy it won't take long, and then Muth can enjoy it while she waits."

Gloria caught his hands and pulled him toward the door of the inner office, and Katharine moved to follow, when suddenly the man saw the white-faced girl. She had risen from her seat, and exclaimed eagerly, pleadingly, as if somehow the sight of her eyes, the hearing of her ears had deceived her, and this was some horrible dream which would presently be explained:

"Rufus! Oh Rufus—I've come—!"

The man turned ashen color, and looked as if he were going to drop. He stopped where he stood, apparently unable to move further, feebly drawing his hands away from the eager girls who kept trying to draw him on.

"Go! Go!" he said to them in a voice that sounded more like a croak. "Go to your mother! I'll come in a moment!"

There was something in his voice that made the girls obey, though reluctantly.

"What is the matter now?" murmured Gloria, impatiently. "Didn't you get it? Didn't he like it, Kath?"

"Yes, and he's crazy about it. I'm sure I don't know what's the matter. Some tiresome old business probably. It's always that way."

As the inner door closed on them, Gloria's perplexed voice asked:

"What did that girl mean 'Rufus'?"

CHAPTER XI

IT WAS Mrs. Dunlap who took command of the situation, stepping into the picture at exactly the most awful moment of revelation when several lives seemed about to fall into chaos.

"Oh, Mr. Oliver," she said in her pleasant, commanding tone coming forward with a fountain pen and a bit of blue paper in her hand, until she stood exactly before the shrinking girl, and the ghastly man, "Good morning! I won't detain you but an instant. I just stepped in to ask if you would kindly endorse this check for me so that I can cash it. I found myself suddenly out of money, and near your office, and I knew you would help me out."

She held out the check and pen, and the desperate man reached for them as a drowning man would reach for a rope flung out to him. He even tried to summon a smile of graciousness to his stiff lips, and naturalness to his voice as he assented:

"Why, certainly, Mrs. Dunlap—I'm—delighted to be able to do anything for you."

There was a high-strained quality to his voice and his attempt at a laugh was a decided failure. His hand was shaking, as he wrote his name, Ralph H. Oliver across the back of the check. It was an old blank one which Mrs. Dunlap had carried with her in her purse for several months in case of emergency. That morning she had made it out to herself, signed with her maiden name and endorsed it. But the man who endorsed it again was not even noticing whether it was a check or not. He was only bestirring his clever brain to get him out of this situation, and by the time the name was written, he had made his decision. He would ignore this girl, and get himself out of the room at once, and out of the building, even if he was obliged to emerge through the tenth-story window to the street. Anything no matter how ghastly, was better than what would probably happen if he remained.

He swung himself around to face Mrs. Dunlap, and put Marguerite out of range, as he handed over the check with a hand that was shaking visibly.

Again the stiffening lips wrinkled themselves into a ghastly semblance of a smile as he spoke, his manner an attempt at the debonair:

"Mrs. Dunlap, I think my wife is in my private office, and she will never forgive me if I do not call her. She will want to see you if only for a moment. Let me go and call her."

"Oh, I'll call her, Mr. Oliver!" said the secretary eagerly, half rising from her desk.

"No, no, Miss Flinch. I'll call her myself. I want you to get those letters out before the next mail please. It is very imperative. I'll just call her."

"Indeed, Mr. Oliver, I cannot possibly wait a moment," interrupted Mrs. Dunlap. "Tell Mrs. Oliver for me that I am returning this way in a week or two and I will call her up and make an appointment to see her. But now I really must hasten away. I have friends here with me who are in haste. By the way, of course you know them." She stepped back and turned toward Mrs. Sheldon who had risen and come forward, her eyes stern, her face full of indignation and dislike. "My friend Mrs. Sheldon. I think you have already met in her home town and Miss Sheldon, her daughter? And now we mustn't keep you an instant."

Nelson Whitney had long ago discarded the enveloping newspaper and was on his feet, standing in the shadow of the alcove, with eyes only for the white-faced girl. When the others stepped before her and hid his vision, he came forward into the light, forgetting that he did not intend to reveal his identity just now, forgetting everything but that the beloved eyes were filled with sudden awful comprehension, and agony, the beloved lips were trembling visibly, and his darling looked like a white lily stricken and about to fall.

Sudden revelation had made him, too, wise as to the situation; for when Mr. Ralph Oliver turned to hand Mrs. Dunlap the endorsed check, the light from the windows fell full upon his ashen face, and Whitney recognized him at once as Rufus Keller, and the whole dastardly truth burst upon him. For an instant his desire to take the scoundrel by the collar and thrash him, or fling him from the room almost overcame him, as he took another step forward; and then suddenly a new element entered the scene in the appearance of the two girls and their mother from the inner office!

A wave of utter fear that passed over the face of Oliver, gave Whitney quick comprehension once more, and he saw suddenly what sorrow it would mean to these other innocent ones, as well as to his dear girl, if further revelations were made at that moment. Not for a second would he have hesitated for the sake of the villain, for he deserved every inch of punishment that was coming to him; but even in this crisis, it came to Nelson Whitney like a flash that there was one who had said, "Vengeance is Mine!"

Who was he to judge this cringing soul, and bring sorrow to these trusting other ones? Therefore he stopped where he stood, just behind the man who had done his best to shatter the joy of at least four lives, and waited. He was not even aware that he had come out of his hiding, or that his presence would presently need explanation. He just stood there as if he had been called to place by some higher power than himself, ready for the moment when he would be needed.

Oliver was a clever man, a cunning actor, else he could not so long have deceived those who loved him. He was quick to clutch again at the slender rope thrown out to him. With a suave distant manner, not too gracious, he acknowledged the introduction, standing where he was, and giving them but a polite lifting of the eyelids that swept them both in a cold distant glance:

"I believe we have met before—Winfield, was it? Or one of those little towns out that way? I am traveling so much and meeting so many—"

Nelson Whitney marveled at the colossal assurance that could speak such words so coolly, and then his attention was suddenly drawn to Mrs. Sheldon. She had drawn her sweet patrician dignity up about her as a garment, and seemed to stand fully two inches taller than her usual height, as she looked straight into the eyes of the man who had tried to deceive her only daughter. There was an instant's pause, as if her eyes could say to him all that her lips had been forbidden for the sake of others to do, and then her voice broke into clear contempt as she said:

"And our friend Mr. Whitney, Nelson Whitney of Wellsburgh! I think you have met him also, Mr.—Oliver?"

It was a masterly stroke, and conveyed to the wretched man all that a woman of Mrs. Sheldon's birth and breeding could never have said in words.

Oliver wheeled and faced Whitney, a look of genuine fright in his eyes. Just a flash, and then he turned quickly back and waved toward the three who were advancing eagerly from the office door:

"Here comes my wife now, and my daughters. I knew they would be delighted to see you. Mrs. Dunlap, will you do the honors and excuse me just a moment? There is a telegram I must send at once!" he glanced at his watch. "I had forgotten it."

He turned furtively, and Nelson Whitney was reminded of his dog at home who when he was reproved was in the habit of stealing from the room, half crouched, his tail between his legs, and stealthily looking back as he slithered out of the room.

So Ralph Oliver slunk from the room into his inner office, and locked the door. The keen ears of Mrs. Dunlap heard the grate of the key.

Yet before he had fairly turned away from them, the room was thrilled with a clear voice:

"We really ought all to go at once. Nelson and I have been planning to see Grant's Tomb and the Museum. Will you take me there now, Nelson?"

It was Marguerite, the old sweet challenge of her friendly voice startling him into life once more. It was more than an appeal. It was as if she went back ten years to their childhood days when they had planned to see all the wonders of the world together. It had been a long time since she had appealed to him for anything, and his heart leaped high with joy. Take her to the Museum? Yes, take her to the world's end if she chose!

He took two good steps and was beside her, drawing her arm within his, and so together they acknowledged the introduction to a scoundrel's lovely wife and daughters, with which Mrs. Dunlap noisily and skillfully covered the retreat of the enemy, the victory completely in her own hands. There was even a lilt in her voice as she told Mrs. Oliver what a dear woman Mrs. Sheldon was; although her heart was aching with mother love as she saw the brave white anguish which the victim was showing as she held up her head and stood her ground, her knees were shaking under her.

Mrs. Sheldon took the hand of the other mother, and said with a warmth of feeling strangely keen for a mere acquaintance.

"I have wanted to meet you. I have heard such beautiful things about you, and now I see that they are all justified."

Nelson Whitney saw that the little gloved hand on his arm was fluttering as if in ague, and tenderly he laid a strong hand possessively over it, and took the burden of the conversation as the introduction came their way, leaving nothing for his dear girl to do but try to smile.

That she did it bravely and well, and that the strangers did not suspect her state of mind was shown by the comments of Gloria later, when, the telegrams all sent, the letters dictated, and the checks signed, they started in the new car on their delayed holiday, several hours late by the new watch flashing on Mrs. Oliver's beautiful wrist.

"Wasn't that girl perfectly darling!" she said to her sister. "She has a face like Muth's cameo pin, and the way she looked at her sweetheart was just too dear!"

"How do you know he was her sweetheart? She may have a dozen others," said the wiser Katharine.

"No, I'm positive. Didn't you see how he put his hand over hers right there in the office before us? And she let him. She isn't the kind of girl that lets a man do things like that unless she's engaged to him. My! But his eyes were handsome. He looked down at her as if he just could eat her. Well, I don't blame him. She is sweet. She's precious! I wish she lived where we could know her. I've got a crush on her myself, and I think he's a humdinger. I'd like to be bridesmaid at the wedding!"

Said R. H. Oliver suddenly as he yanked his car out of swift collision with a truck:

"Gloria, I wish you wouldn't talk any more if you've got to converse like a fool! For heaven's sake stop it!"

Just what heaven had to do with her guileless chatter Gloria didn't understand, but she knew when her father spoke in that tone it was time to cease, so Gloria sat back and dreamed of a day when a knight similar to Nelson Whitney would come riding her way, and hold her own fluttering hand, and look into her thrilled eyes, and carry her off into a world of loveliness.

Nelson Whitney led his beloved out of that office just as soon as the law of politeness allowed.

Just an instant, he had paused beside Mrs. Sheldon as he passed her.

"Is there any special time when you would like to have us meet you at the hotel?" he asked in an undertone.

But it was Mrs. Dunlap who heard and who handed him a card upon which she had been scribbling.

"Any time you like," she said in a tone for his ears alone. "Mrs. Sheldon needs to rest, and I'll see that she does. Just ring up the room when you get back and let us know the program. I'll stay till you get back at least."

He glanced at the card. On it was written the name of the hotel and the number of their room. A fleeting smile went over his face. Here those two good ladies had come straight to the same hotel where he was. He had had no need to worry at all with such a Guide. Why hadn't he remembered that God was able to work out things without his interference, able to make the crooked places straight, and the dark things plain in His own good time!

CHAPTER XII

WHEN Mrs. Sheldon had turned from speaking with Mrs. Oliver and her two charming daughters, she looked around the office in dismay.

"Why, where is Marguerite?" she asked with instant worry in her eyes. "She hasn't gone away?" and there was in her voice that quality of desperation which had made Mrs. Dunlap fear for her health more than once in the hours they had spent together.

She hastened to assure her.

"It's all right, Mrs. Sheldon. She's with Nelson Whitney. They've gone off together to do some sight seeing I think."

"But they don't know where we are that is they won't know how to find us. Nelson didn't—that is Marguerite won't—" She stopped in confusion, realizing that this would seem very strange talk to the onlooking Olivers about people who were supposed to be of the same party.

But Mrs. Dunlap was equal to the occasion.

"It's all right, my dear. I told them where we were going, wrote it down for them so they wouldn't make a mistake."

With relief, the weary mother relaxed the drawn look of her face and turned to the Olivers graciously.

"I'm so glad to have met you," she said, and smiled sincerely.

When they were gone Gloria turned to her mother.

"I didn't like the way she spoke to you, Mums dear!" she said. "It was almost as if she felt sorry for you somehow."

"What a queer idea!" laughed her mother. "I think she is a very charming woman. In fact anybody Mrs. Dunlap sponsors usually is."

"Yourself included, Mums!" laughed Gloria. "Come on Muth, lets rout out Dad and get started. We're two hours behind schedule now. Kath, you ought to have run things better than this!" And laughing they went off to find the beloved husband and father.

They found him standing by the window with the sash thrown up, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead, though the day was keen and clear.

"What's the matter, dear? Is there any trouble about your business?" asked Mrs. Oliver solicitously.

"I wasn't feeling very well there for a minute!" said the valiant husband, mopping his cold brow once more. "I felt a little dizzy! I guess I've been going it a little too hard lately. I suppose I'm getting old."

He paused for his loving family to refute this statement, but they only laughed as if it were a good joke.

"I think I'll have to cut out some of this traveling," he said slowly, taking deep breaths between his words. He still wore a sort of whipped look except to his family's eyes.

But at that they all shouted a joyous assent, "Yes, Dad, that would be great! Then you'd be all ours and not belong to the world at large any more," added Gloria as the hurrah subsided.

"Come on, let's go!" said Oliver turning away from them quickly to hide a look of something like shame that stole over his scared white face.

"But we haven't given Muth her presents yet," reminded Gloria who never by any chance forgot anything.

It was with relief that Oliver took the little white box containing the watch from his pocket. The attention all focused upon it, instead of himself, he was able even to make a pleasant little flowery speech in presentation.

Nevertheless the occasion had ceased to be the joyous celebration that he had anticipated. Half of his mind was necessarily occupied with wondering what on earth that Dunlap woman meant to do next? Did she intend to keep that miserable affair of Daisy hanging over his head like a Damoclean sword the rest of his natural life? If so, there would be no peace anywhere.

He would never know when they might walk in and bring him to shame among his friends. Well, he had been a fool of course. It was hard to admit it. Perhaps he had merely bungled things. But—yes, he felt a good deal of a fool. After all, what was that girl but a pretty pink and white thing—just a passing fancy. Home was best. He would stay at home—unless that obnoxious Mrs. Dunlap was going to haunt his steps.

Perhaps it would be as well to go abroad for a year. The business was in pretty good shape now, and the girls would love it. Yes, they would go abroad. He would broach the subject that very day and hurry up arrangements to get away as soon as possible. He couldn't stand any more shocks like this one!

Thus reasoning, he grew calm, and the family went down to the new car and their interrupted holiday.

Down on the street Mrs. Sheldon looked about her in a dazed way and put her hand to her head. Her companion caught the gesture and slipped an arm around her.

"My dear, you are going straight back to the hotel and take a good long sleep," she said, and raised her other hand to summon a passing taxi.

"Oh, I'm all right," murmured the little white-faced mother, "Everything is all right now at least I hope it is, for a while. Only—what shall I do with Daisy? Her life is broken! My poor little flower of a girl!"

"Don't you believe it!" said the strong woman who knew life. "God doesn't let even a flower get broken as easily as that. Here, let's get in this taxi, and then we can talk."

She gave the order to the driver, and then laid her hand on the stricken woman's arm.

"My dear! You should be singing, shouting hallelujah, not mourning. Can't you trust the Father who has brought about this revelation to show your girl that life isn't all gone just because she made a mistake about one wolf in sheep's clothing? This all came to your girl perhaps to teach her, and prepare her for a fuller, wider life than she could have otherwise been prepared for."

"Oh!" moaned the little mother, "I wish I could feel that way, but it seems to me we have lost our self-respect. It seems as if Daisy has lost all the fine dignity and judgment she had, and that she can never lift up her head again."

"She has only lost her cock-suredness, my dear. She hasn't lost a bit of self-respect. She has made a mistake, yes, and a bad one, but she will learn to be more careful now, not to trust herself implicitly. She will learn to pray her way through the difficulties, perhaps, instead of insisting she knows best and demanding her own way. She will pay more heed to her mother's advice to her mother's intuition, and not consider that her own discernment of character is final. You know we all have to have sharp lessons to teach us to find our guidance in the Lord and our own utter helplessness without Him."

"But I'm so afraid Daisy won't look at it that way. She is such an intense child, so proud and excitable, and enthusiastic, and so prone to go to the depths when the heights have failed her. I am afraid—Mrs. Dunlap, forgive me, but I'm afraid she may lose her mind! You were not with her that last night before she went away. You don't realize."

"I realize that underneath are the Everlasting Arms, my dear," said Mary Dunlap solemnly, "and that the God who has just now performed the seemingly impossible for you in convincing your daughter of the unworthiness of the man whom she was determined to marry, in time and before it was forever too late to save her from the public shame of her own actions, can perform like wonders in other ways. Now, dear sister, suppose you just trust in Him. He has said, 'Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass.' Couldn't you just rest on that this morning and let Him give you a good rest? I'm sure everything will be made plain for you. Now, here we are at the hotel."

Mary Dunlap helped her friend up to her room for she looked as frail as a lily by this time; and had a nice little lunch sent up of which she literally forced her companion to partake.

When she found the troubled mother did not wish to talk of other matters she just went over the morning's experience with her, bringing out at every turn, the wonders that the Lord had worked. She spoke of the young man, Whitney.

"Tell me about him!" she said as she poured a second cup of coffee. "I'm wonderfully taken with that young man. He looks like true blue to me."

"Oh, he is!" said Marguerite's mother.

And she began to tell of the days the years when her girl and this fine boy were growing up together, till gradually the care lifted from the mother's face.

But the tale came to a sudden bitter end with the plaint that was almost a sob:

"She had all that devotion in a fine young man her own age, and yet she could think she cared for that old slippery beast!"

Mary Dunlap gave an almost girlish giggle.

"He is that, isn't he? I keep thinking of his poor dear wife and daughters who think he is the salt of the earth. Oh, poor dears! I do hope they don't ever have to find it out this side—or at least not till the Lord has made him over. But my dear, don't you think that perhaps your child hadn't just waked up to realities yet? Wasn't she more in love with being in love, than with the man himself? She was under a strong delusion as the Bible says, but I'm sure it has been swept away, and in full time.

"My dear, I'll tell you something. Her hand was on the boy's arm confidingly as if she trusted him, and his strong hand was over it, tenderly, comfortingly, as if she were dearer to him than life. I couldn't help seeing the look on his face as he bent to speak to her from his fine height—she is such a little girl, so sweet and small—and my dear, I suppose I ought not to have seen it, and maybe ought to keep it to myself now I have, but it seems to me you have a right to know she smiled up into his face, such a sweet trustful smile, that I couldn't help feeling that her heart will fly back to him as a refuge now in her trouble. I saw that. Yes, I saw it while you were talking to Mrs. Oliver. I'm sure you have a right to know. And the Lord has let that young man be an instrument of rescue for your girl. I'm sure."

"Oh!" said the mother with a wistful sigh, "If that could only be, I would ask nothing better of life."

"Don't set your limits, my dear! The Lord may have that and even greater blessings yet in store. Now, you are going to sleep, and I'm going to sit here at the desk and get some of my correspondence out of the way or I'll be swamped."

CHAPTER XIII

DOWN in the street Marguerite almost gave way.

A glance at her face showed Nelson that she was almost at the limit of her strength. He summoned a taxi and put her in.

"Would you like to go to the hotel and lie down a while?" he asked tenderly.

"Oh, no," she said shrinking toward him, "I don't want to be alone now. I can't bear it. I must have someone who belongs. Let's go to some quiet place where we can sit down a little while, or walk where there won't be so many people."

She sank back in the seat and closed her eyes, and Whitney gave the order, "Drive to the Park, and drive around till I tell you to stop."

He got into the taxi, pulled down the shades, and drew her head gently over till it rested on his shoulder.

"Now," said he, "just rest there a few minutes and get calm."

There were hot tears running down her white cheeks.

"That's all right, dear," he said as if he were talking to a little child. "Cry as hard as you can. It'll do you good!"

There was a lilt in his voice. He was thinking how she had said she wanted to be with somebody who "belonged." Then in her soul she felt that he belonged after all.

Marguerite let the tears have their way for a minute or two, and then she sobbed out softly:

"But you don't know what it's all about. I—ought—to—explain."

"Explain, nothing!" said Nelson comfortingly. "I know all about it."

"Oh! How did you know?" she asked with a perplexed frown, "Did mother tell you?"

"Never a word," said the young man taking out a big white handkerchief that smelled of clover in summer, and unfolding it. "Can't you give me credit for having eyes? When you love somebody, you understand."

He lifted the girl's hot tear-wet face and gently wiped it with the cool handkerchief.

She felt as if she were a little girl being comforted.

"Oh, Nelson, you've always been wonderful! And—I—But you won't feel that way about me any more when you know everything. I've been—so—silly—! And wicked, Nelson! I've been terribly wicked. Oh—" she shuddered,—"to think that I—should have got into an awful mess like that! Oh, I can't ever stand myself again! How can I live? To think—"

"See here, Marguerite, you're not to think anything about it now. You are just to rest, and get over the shock. And by and bye when you are rested, we'll talk it all out."

"But I want to get it over with first," said Marguerite sitting up and trying to stop the tears with the big handkerchief. "Indeed I can't rest till you know what a fool I've been."

"All right," said Nelson, "you've been a fool, have you? Well, I love you anyway. Have you had any breakfast? No, I thought not. Well, neither have I. What if we stop somewhere and get some?"

"But I can't go anywhere with my eyes all red," objected the girl, dabbing away at them and looking as pretty as a picture even with a red nose, and her lashes all wet.

"That's all right," said the young man easily, "we're going to get out pretty soon and walk around the park a little. I think we'll find a fountain or a spring or a lake or something wet, and we'll mop up and get cooled off and then we'll go and get fed."

Marguerite giggled hysterically.

"You are always so good," she murmured, and then refinished it, "so—dear!"

He stooped over and kissed her gravely on the forehead.

"Thank you for that, little one. Now, are you ready to get out and find that fountain?"

"Wait," said the girl sitting up, her face clouded with trouble again. "Wait, Nelson, we can't go on like this. We can't even be friends again till I tell you everything. It—chokes me!"

"Out with it, then!" said the young man calmly, "but make it snappy. Make a clean breast of it in three sentences."

"Oh, Nelson, I fell in love with that man—a married man!" She lifted her shamed face and looked at him through her tears.

"That's number one," said Nelson, unperturbed.

"I started to run away with him and get married, without telling Mother," she burst forth with a fresh rush of tears.

"Number two," counted Nelson.

"And—and—I've been awful to Mother, and to that Mrs. Dunlap—" she choked out, "and—and—to God! I almost lost my senses!"

"I inferred as much. Now, is that all, little sweetheart? And shall we get out and doll up for breakfast?"

She buried her face in the folds of the wet handkerchief once more, and from its depths murmured: "Oh, Nelson, you always did take the ache out of things!"

"That's what I'm for," grinned Nelson delightedly, "and I always intend to keep on doing it. You know you're mine, little girl, have been ever since we were children, and I don't intend anything to hurt you any more than I can possibly help. Of course, if you get sick—" he smiled, "mentally sick, or physically sick, or spiritually sick, I'll just have to stand by and help till you get well again, but you're mine, little girl. I want that distinctly understood. Now, shall we get out and walk a little?"

"But Nelson—you mustn't. I'm not worthy of a devotion like that—I couldn't let you—"

"We're getting out, driver," Nelson tapped on the glass.

He helped her out and paid the fare, and while Marguerite stood still in the bright sunshine at the entrance to a Park pathway, the cool breeze blowing on her hot cheeks and forehead, her face a little turned away lest the cabman should see that she had been crying, suddenly a great burden seemed to roll from her.

She had expected to find herself desperate, agonized, unable to live longer, when she got away from that terrible office where she had undergone such awful revelations; but suddenly it seemed to her a great relief. The fearful responsibilities of life that a day ago had lain upon her heart with deathlike heaviness, were gone. Life had been settled for her, and her path diverted from a dark and perilous way, into brightness and sunshine again.

The only thing that hung about and troubled her was her own shame. Her part in the terrible drama that had just been played to the finish. Her foolishness and gullibility, her readiness to fall for the handsome eyes of a man of the world, whose flattery had been merely used for his own passing amusement. She, Marguerite Sheldon, with a long line of respectable and noble ancestors, with a heritage of Christian training and tradition, with a mother such as hers had been, and a father whose memory was enshrined forever in her heart! To think that she had been so easy to deceive!

She started suddenly at the thought of how her heart was arraigning the man who had been her lover—almost her husband, but a few brief days ago! Three hours ago she would have sworn to anyone who asked that she loved him with her whole soul; that life would be worthless without him; that she would cling to him with her last breath though she were separated from him for years; that she would love him and believe him, yes and even forgive him no matter what others said, no matter what he had done.

And now in a few short minutes, the cloak of illusion had been torn from him, and left his shame naked to her view; left him without a charm or virtue; shown his love to be a mere worthless pretense, for how could he possibly love her when he had so deceived her? How could he dare bring her a love so dishonored by his own broken, worse than broken vows? For she was not one of those girls who feel it a fine feather to have won for herself a man who belongs to another.

She shivered as she remembered the way he had said: "My wife," and, "my daughters," in that accustomed married way. If she had heard nothing else but that it would have convinced her. And sharply to her memory came her own words to Mrs. Dunlap, "Unless I can hear him say with his own lips—"

Well, she had heard him! How terrible it had been! Hot irons had seared her heart, and she would never, never forget!

As she turned toward Nelson, she glanced down, and there in the path behind him she caught the gleam of a bit of metal, gold or silver shining in the sun. It proved to be only a bit of foil wrapping from candy or gum that someone had flung down carelessly in passing. But with the unexplained whimsicality of such little inanimate things, it took for the moment the form of a tiny trinket in likeness to a gold and platinum charm that the one-time Rufus Keller had worn on his watch chain. During those intimate days she had more than once toyed with it lovingly, pleased to think such was her privilege. She had even worn it about her neck on a little gold chain for a few days, till alarmed lest her mother should see it, she had given it back for the time.

Suddenly it came to her that he had worn it that very morning. She had noticed its gleam as he turned away with that guilty look, that look that she never would forget. The look that had torn from her heart the last shred of respect, and what she had once thought was love for this man. And the little gleaming trinket had twinkled wickedly at her as he went, and stabbed her with the things that she once had held so dear. Stabbed her as when a thorn that has bruised the bleeding flesh is torn away and can hurt no more.

She caught her breath in a sob as Nelson came up with her and slipped his hand within her arm steadying her.

"Oh, how can I ever live? How can I ever, ever stand it?" she gasped.

"Poor child!" said Nelson sadly, "Do you love him as much as that?"

"Oh, no! No! Not now!" she cried. "That is all gone! But my self-respect is gone too! How can one live without self-respect?"

"That will come back again!" said Nelson Whitney with a ring in his voice. Oh, it was good to hear her say she no longer cared!

She was quiet for several minutes, and he watched her as they walked along deeper into the park. Then she lifted her face like a rain-drenched flower.

"Nelson, you are wonderful!" she said. "I don't—know—what I should do—without you!"

"Well, you don't have to do without me, thank God!" said Nelson. "I suppose this is why He sent me down here."

She looked up with quick inquiry.

"How did you come, Nelson? Was it just chance?"

"Nothing in this world is chance, is it, Daisy? But this certainly wasn't, anyway. Why, you see I went to the house to get that list you promised—"

"Oh!" said the girl. "I never thought of it again."

"Well, it's of no consequence now," he grinned, "I made up one instead and ordered the things. You'll have to use what there is, or get more. However, when Mary and I started to look for the list there was your note to your mother right on the floor by the stairs in the lower hall. How it got there I don't know, but as Mary was upstairs and I hadn't much time, and the note was in your handwriting, I picked it up and read it. Of course I hadn't gone far before I discovered it wasn't the list, but I couldn't let it go then for I had caught a word or two that showed me you were in danger, and that your mother must be somewhere in sorrow hunting for you, so I put it in my pocket as Mary came down stairs and took it away with me. If you ask me I think the Lord left that note there for me to read. I thought you belonged enough to me to give me the right to read it."

Marguerite with reddening cheeks and shamed eyes was trying to recall what she had said in that mad hasty note she had left for her mother when she hurried to the midnight train.

"The rest was a cinch of course," went on Nelson. "I had the address to which you were going in your own handwriting. I had only to meet you at the train in New York as it came in, if I could get there ahead of you. Or, failing in that, as I did, I had the second chance of catching you at the office before you went off to marry that villain."

Marguerite's shamed face did not lift, but a little quiver went through her slight frame.

"But—how did you get here in time?" she asked. "Why, that must have been rather late in the morning when you found that note. Of course I knew there was an early morning train and that Mother would probably take that, but I had hoped to have everything straightened out before she came. But the only other train after you found out is a local, and you couldn't possibly have got here even yet unless you flew. Are you a mystery man?"

"That's exactly what I did. I flew here," said Nelson.

"What do you mean?" she asked lifting wondering eyes that seemed to have forgotten their trouble for the moment. "Don't tease me, please. I'm so tired!" And she drooped upon his arm.

"Poor little girl! I'm forgetting all you've gone through. We'll find that water, and then go for something to eat. If I remember, it was down this path. I came here once three years ago, and thought how some day I would perhaps bring you."

A quick turn brought them to a spring gurgling in a granite basin, and Marguerite dashed the water in her face and dried it on another big clean handkerchief that Nelson brought forth from a capacious pocket.

"Do you have an unlimited supply of these?" she asked as she emerged from its fragrant folds gratefully, refreshed in spite of herself.

"Very nearly!" he smiled. "Now come, and we will go and find something to eat."

"But you haven't told me what you mean by saying you flew here." He noticed that her voice was almost cheerful again.

"Just that," he said laughing, "I flew. It's the first time in my life, but I would have enjoyed it if I hadn't been so worried about you."

Then as her eyes looked still mystified, he explained.

"I have a friend who has been coaxing me to fly with him for months and I never seemed to have time. He had oodles of money, and no end of time, and so I just made good a promise I had given him once, and called him up. He was game all right, said of course he was going to New York in a couple of hours, and so we came. We got here sometime before your train came in. By the way, why didn't you come on it?"

"I did," she said sadly, "but I got off at the wrong station, something they called Manhattan Transfer. I had to wait ages before another came along."

"Manhattan Transfer! And you were knocking around that desolate place alone at that time of night? Well, I'll say your angels must have had their hands full taking care of you yesterday. They must be all worn out. I guess that's why I have the job for a little while now. Come, here's a taxi!"

She flashed him a faint little flicker of a smile and he helped her into the cab with a lighter heart. At least the days of reticence and distance were over between them. No more reservations, no more holding aloof. She was confiding in him as she used to do. One couldn't expect more than that, so soon.

They went to a quiet tea room. Nelson seemed to know just how to manage everything, seemed to know without asking his way anywhere. He put her in a seat where she was sheltered, and he ordered the things he knew from long years of association that she liked. Deftly, unobtrusively, he drew her attention away from herself, and the tragic happenings of the last few days, tempted her to eat, provoked her to laugh. He described his first sensations of flying, telling little anecdotes of his friend the aviator when they were both together in France, telling a joke he had heard the day before, calling her attention to a beautiful white kitten that came purring in to be stroked and fed tidbits.

It was nearly three o'clock when they had finished the meal. The color was stealing faintly back to the girl's lips and cheeks, and the terror fading out of her eyes.

"Now," said Nelson consulting his watch, "it's three minutes to three. What do you want to do? Shall we make good our word and go to the Tomb and the Museum, or shall we save that for another day and go back to the hotel and let you get a good rest?"

"Oh," said Marguerite, shrinking suddenly, the color receding from her lips, the terror coming back to her eyes. "Oh, I can't go back—yet! But don't let me detain you—I'll—I'll just wander around a little—I'll go—shopping!" she ended with an attempt at briskness in her voice. "You've been awfully good."

"Now, look here, Marguerite, haven't I known you too long and loved you too well, for you to get off any bunk like that on me?" he asked laughing. "I'm here to take care of you, and what you want to do is what I want to do. What I meant is, are you too tired to take on sight seeing or are you really interested? It occurred to me that we weren't either of us in a state to get much intellectual good out of either a tomb or a museum, but perhaps I'm mistaken. If you want to, we'll go. But if you are not particular which day we go tombing, suppose we take a lighter expedition. I'll tell you what would just suit me. I'd like to take you down to Tiffany's and buy you the prettiest diamond ring we can find."

Marguerite started back in her chair.

"Oh, Nelson! What do you mean?"

Her face was a curious study of tenderness and fear.

"I mean just that, Daisy. I think it's high time you had some kind of a safeguard to wear. I've loved you too long and known you too well, to let you drift around the world unprotected any longer."

"But—Nelson—"

"Yes, I know—you want to tell me that you don't love me—that you couldn't possibly love one man when you've just got over caring for another, and all that—but I'm going to do this anyway. The chances are that you may some day find out you do care a little and then everything will be all right. But if you don't, why, there are such things as broken engagements.

"You don't have to marry me if you find out I'm a villain, or that you love somebody else better. But you do have to wear my ring for a while anyway. You're not going back home without it, I'll tell the world. Nobody is going to have a chance, not that dirty crook of a Keller anyway, to say that he threw you over. You're going home engaged to me, Marguerite Sheldon, whatever you do with me afterward, you may as well understand that I have the upper hand now, and you're going to have a ring, right now!

"You can take it for all the love I have in the world, if you're willing, or you can take it for just a means of protection for the time being if that suits you any better, but somehow I'm going to put my tag on my property. Until you've told me that you out and out can't love me ever, I'm out to see that you're known as belonging to me."

There was such quiet strength and tenderness in the way he said these words, so low that they could not possibly reach other ears than her own, so full of real feeling and earnestness, that she could not turn away from, nor laugh it off. It choked her to think how great and tender he was to her.

"Nelson, you're sorry for me and you're dear, but you don't need to go to such lengths," she began helplessly.

"Marguerite," he rebuked her, "that's beneath you. You know I never lie! You know I would not say it if it were not the dearest wish of my heart. You know I've loved you ever since I can remember."

She was still a long time, the sweet color coming into her cheeks; lifting she eyes at last she said:

"Nelson, forgive me I shouldn't have said that. I know what you've always been. But I didn't know till to-day quite how wonderful you were. I believe you, and I think it's the greatest thing in the world you have done for me. Your love is the greatest thing the world can ever give me, and I'm sure I don't know what I would ever be without you. I would tell you that I love you too, only I've been so many kinds of a fool the last year and a half that I don't even trust myself to say it. It seems cowardly of me to creep into the refuge you offer me, when I have so little to give. A threadbare love that was thrown away on an old married man with grown daughters!"

His face grew strangely tender.

"That's all right, little girl, I understand what you've been through. It's no wonder you distrust yourself, but I trust you, when you get rid of the mists and get back to yourself. We'll strike square with each other and you can trust me. I won't ask you to marry me till you're ready, and not then if you don't love me enough to be happy with me, better than any other man on earth—but I do ask you to wear my ring home and let it be a shelter to you, in any complex circumstances that this situation may happen to bring about."

She was still a long time, drawing little patterns with the tip of her spoon on the table cloth. At last she lifted hesitating eyes half shamed.

"Nelson—have you thought what Mother will think if I do this? Off with the old love and on with the new? Won't Mother be more horrified than ever at me? Won't she think I'm utterly false at heart?"

"Your mother will simply jump for joy," said Nelson Whitney solemnly. "Take it from me. It would be the happiest moment of her life if she could see my ring on your hand and know you wanted it there."

"So soon—after—"

"The sooner the quicker!" said Nelson, wrinkling his face into his nicest smile. "Come! Let's go!"

She followed him in a tumult of joy and doubt. Could it be right for her to be happy like this, when only a few hours ago she had been—

But Nelson was summoning another taxi, and in a few whirls they were entering the great Fifth Avenue store.

When she came out again a little while later, after going the beautiful rounds among priceless jewels and fragile glass that looked like the breath of a frozen flower, she was wearing his ring on her hand, and a soft depth of joy in her eyes that was good to see.

"And now," said Nelson, as he summoned another taxi, "I think we had better go and find Mother, and tell her all about it, don't you? It seems to me she has suffered about long enough."

CHAPTER XIV

IT WAS late that evening before mother and daughter were alone at last.

Mrs. Dunlap had responded to a telegram and left on the seven o'clock train for Boston to meet in conference with an important committee on some international work for young women.

Nelson Whitney had attended to all her wants as the son of the family might have waited on a powerful ally who had pulled them all out of distress.

He took Mrs. Sheldon and her daughter to a wonderful symphony orchestra concert with a soloist of world reputation, and then brought them back to the hotel refusing to remain for even a few minutes because they needed to rest. He attended them up to the door of their room, kissed Marguerite reverently, and then half shyly kissed her mother and said: "Good night, Mother!" with an accent in his tone that spoke volumes.

He left both mother and daughter tingling with joy and pride in him, and then at last the door was closed on the outer world, shutting them in alone together.

The girl hurried into the closet to hang up her coat and hat, feeling a sudden shyness before her mother, realizing all at once that there were some things that must be made clear between them before she could feel that all was right.

The mother removed her street things slowly, a light of almost other-worldly joy in her face. She was thinking of what her new friend had said to her that afternoon, and of the Bible verse she had quoted to her. And how wonderfully, and swiftly the promise had been made good to her. Why, she had scarcely waked from that refreshing sleep into which she had fallen pillowed on that promise, when the fulfillment had knocked at her door in the person of Nelson and Marguerite come to show her the ring.

Marguerite had been shy and lovely, but almost silent and they had not pressed her to talk much. She had been most humble and loving toward her mother and Mrs. Dunlap, thanking that great-hearted woman in no uncertain words, although they were few, and clasping her in a close penitent embrace when she left.

But to her mother Marguerite had as yet said not one word about the happenings of the last few days. She had let her lover do all the talking, and had sat with downcast lashes, and a childlike contentment in her face that yet spoke volumes of reassurance to the two who had waited through the long hours to know how it fared with her.

But now the time had come, and Marguerite knew it, to have it out with her mother.

She stayed in the closet several minutes arranging her things, being most careful about how her hat was placed on the shelf, and searching in her coat pocket for a handkerchief she was not sure was there. But at last she came out.

Mrs. Sheldon was taking down her hair for the night, and it fell in lovely silver waves to her waist, with soft little tendrils, and a curl or two at the ends. It seemed to glorify her delicate face and set her off as if it had been a halo.

The girl watched her lovely mother for a moment, wistfully, wishing she would begin, and then suddenly she burst forth with tears:

"I don't see how I could have done it to you!" she said in a cry of sorrow. "You are so dear and lovely, and here I've led you through all this horrible mess! I don't see how you can ever love me again!"

With one swift movement, as if she had been young again, the mother turned and folded her child in her arms.

"My darling!" she said. "Oh, my darling!" And held her so close she could hardly breathe.

It was a long time they stood so, Marguerite's face hidden in her mother's neck, the mother's lips against her child's hot forehead, touching her hair with caresses that could not be measured nor counted nor described because it would be a desecration.

No words passed between them, nor was there any need. It was as if their thoughts were as open to one another as if they had been one, so close their hearts seemed to come.

At last the girl lifted her hot, shamed, forgiven face to her mother. There was one more thing that had to be spoken:

"Mother, you must think I'm an awful fool. You must think awful things of me that I let Nelson—that he—that I—so soon after—" She hid her shamed face once more on her mother's shoulder, and the mother arms clasped her close again.

"No, dear, I don't think awful things. I think my girl has been through a bewildering experience and didn't know her own mind, was not capable of judging, but I think you have come back to your senses again, and I thank God that you have such a wonderful friend as Nelson who has been willing after all the suffering you have given him through these months, to put the protection of his love about you. He could not be a greater comfort to me, and to you if he were my own son."

The girl was still a long time, and then she said timidly:

"Yes, Mother, he is wonderful! More wonderful even than I have told you yet or you have seen. But Mother, you think I let him get that ring just to protect me from gossips, just to let others see that I had not been a fool! But I didn't, Mother. I truly didn't! I couldn't have done that not even to protect you from all the shame and disgrace of having people find out just what really did happen. I couldn't have unless I had loved him. You think perhaps it couldn't be true love so soon after I thought I was dying for that other man, but it is, it is. It seems as if I had never really known love before.

"Why, Mother, when Nelson began to tell me how he felt toward me, and what I was to him, it opened a whole new world to me. I hadn't known what love was before. I hadn't dreamed what it could be. It seemed as if the other had just been a cheap imitation of it. It showed up the other experience. I began to see in contrast how selfish Rufus—I mean Mr. Oliver—had been, how all he talked about was a good time, something to amuse—how he did not seem to care about whether I was pleased or not, only to bend me to his will. It hadn't seemed that way at all before. But Mother, I've been thinking about it all the evening, trying to see how I could make you understand, and I believe I was just proud to think a man as wise and experienced as I thought he was, had stooped to notice me, and I was frantic when I thought I had lost him.

"But Mother, I didn't know the deep sweet joy I feel now in Nelson. I didn't know there was such joy. Truly, Mother and you know it isn't as if I had just met Nelson—he's been dear always—always—since I was just a little girl, only he never opened this door to his soul before and let me see how he had put me in his heart on a throne. And it has just carried me into heaven, Mother, but I know you think I haven't any right—not a bit of right to it—since—since—"

"Yes, you have, my dear. I do think you have. I have watched your face. You are a different girl. You have met the real thing at last and recognized it. I couldn't have hoped it would come to you so soon. I was fearful what might happen to you in the interval, till our new friend showed me that I might trust you with my heavenly Father. And somehow, my precious child, I believe He let this come to you so soon just to show us both how He can heal, and how He will lead and save and bless those who trust Him entirely with their lives."

Said the girl, laying her hot cheek against her mother's soft one:

"Oh, Mother! You are the most wonderful woman in the world! And Mrs. Dunlap is next. What should we have done without her? Suppose I had gone on and had my own way! Suppose—suppose—I had lost Nelson! Just think! Even if the other man hadn't been what he was—suppose I had missed knowing Nelson's love! Oh, Mother! You don't know how wonderful Nelson is! I can never make you understand. He is—different! He is—wonderful!"

"I believe it!" said the mother fervently. "And now let us kneel down and thank God for the wonderful way in which he has led us."

A little later, while her mother was preparing for the night, Marguerite took out her little Bible that always traveled with her when she went anywhere because it was a part of the fittings of the bag which her mother had given her the Christmas before. Opening it, she paused with startled eyes. At last she said:

"Mother, listen to this. I opened right to it, Isaiah 42.16, 'I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.' Mother, that was what He did for me. I was blind!"

THE END

The Inimitable "Pansy"

Eighty-seven years old, a pain-wracked invalid—yet the author of "Ester Reid," "Four Girls At Chautauqua," "Mrs. Solomon Smith," has lost none of her earlier power and spontaneity. The problems of yesterday are the problems of to-day, though they may be furnished with electric lights, airplanes and automobiles to make them up-to-date. And Pansy knows life—her stories are real—they strike to the very heart of the girl and boy, the man and woman—they show us ourselves as God sees us—the real person beneath the sham and mockery of society. She weaves her stories around the common everyday lives of the people she knows—till her characters become alive and real to those who read.

A marvelous housekeeper; an ideal pastor's wife who took the whole parish into her life, who knew them and loved them, who cared for the sick and gathered the young people around her for a good time; a woman much in demand in public life as director of religious conferences and as a lecturer and, above all, an author beloved by thousands.

Many years ago she edited a small paper, "The Pansy," a Herculean task, for it brought her thousands of letters from the children who had joined the Pansy Society and wrote her about their faults and how to correct them. And other letters poured in, too, from all over the globe, asking for her autograph and photograph, for advice on how to become a great author, on how to get the right kind of a husband, and on every other question under the sun. And Pansy answered every letter, usually by her own hand.

Hers has been a busy life and a happy one—and an inspiration to thousands who have known her or her books. And to-day, bereft of husband and children, a cripple, she fights bravely on, writing the story of her life: "Yesterdays"—the beautiful record of a happy and consecrated life.

———————————————————————————

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Table of Contents

- AN INTERRUPTED NIGHT
- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- CHAPTER IV
- CHAPTER V
- CHAPTER VI
- CHAPTER VII
- CHAPTER VIII
- CHAPTER IX
- CHAPTER X
- CHAPTER XI
- CHAPTER XII
- CHAPTER XIII
- CHAPTER XIV
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE