heads south. Entering, wrapt in thought, he does not notice the numbers on this broad highway who make their ingress or egress. Pretty girls, peeping from cloud-like fascinators, attended by their chosen valentine, or by chaperon, evidently, by their gay trappings, bent on scoring a last dance before Lent, for this is St. Valentine"s Day, and to-morrow will be Ash Wednesday, and so good-bye for a season to the pleasures of Terpsich.o.r.e. No, he is observant of nothing, excepting the many stoppages, at which he is impatient. Even electric lighted King street is pa.s.sed through unnoticed; men thinking, on seeing his bent head and knit brows, poor fellow, probably bit by the "Central." Girls whispering, "He has missed the ring in his Shrove Tuesday pancakes this evening, getting only the b.u.t.ton. What a pity, for he would be handsome if he would only see us."
At the crossing of his turn north, the driver calling Sherbourne street, he changes cars, and in due course leaves them, to walk up Seaton street. Reaching his number, he rings the bell of a small rough-cast house. A man in his shirt sleeves, and with the smell of fresh pine about him, opens the door.
"Does a young woman, named Hill, live here?"
"Yes, sir; just step in, please," and ushering him into a sitting-room, at one end there being a new pine table nearly finished, tools and shavings about. A woman, who is nursing a baby, says: "Take this chair, sir; but I"m a"most feared Beatrice has too bad a head to see you."
"Tell her, please, that I must see her, if she is able to sit up at all," he says, decidedly.
"Very well, sir," and going to another room on same flat, he could hear half-angry words and sobs.
The woman returning, eyeing him suspiciously, said:
"No, sir; she says as how she"ll see you to-morrow."
"That won"t do. I _must_ have the information she has promised, otherwise the detectives will do the work for me at once," he said sternly.
"Detectives! oh!" she cries, quickly, in changed tones, leaving the room; when there is more parleying on the part of the woman. She now returns, saying:
"Please, step this way, sir."
Going into the girl"s room, who is evidently a vest-maker, by the pile of said articles on a table, another on the sewing-machine. She gives a sulky nod, pointing him to a chair. She has a seedy gown on, untidy hair, and no collar, looking as if she cared for naught. There is an attempt at decoration on the flowered wall-paper, in shape of business cards pinned thereon, with the inevitable bow of ribbon; three cane chairs, a trunk, a bright rag carpet, two tables, and a small lounge, furnish the room. Conspicuous among the photos lying on a table, and the only one enthroned in a scarlet plush frame, is a smiling photograph of Mr. Cobbe.
Determined on showing nothing like feeling, in her half hysterical state, he says, briefly:
"Well, what have you to tell me, as you failed in keeping your appointment? I have come to hear."
"And suppose I go back on my word, and don"t tell you?" she said, doggedly.
"Then you shall be made to speak," he says, with a brave front; though his heart is heavy at her words.
"Oh, I know what fine gentlemen"s boasts add up to," she says, crossly and defiantly, dashing away her tears; "to just nothing."
"You shall be put in the lock-up if you are caught prowling about any one"s residence after this."
"And what would you gain by that?" she says, cunningly.
While Blair, sighing for woman"s tact, wishes Mrs. Dale was with him, when a sudden thought occurs to him; rising, as if to go, he says, with a.s.sumed carelessness:
"Very well; if you won"t help yourself and me, by making a clean breast of it, things will have to take their own course, and that man,"
indicating by a gesture the photograph of Mr. Cobbe, "and that man will be lost to you, as the husband of a certain lady in the north-west end."
At this she is humble enough, her tears bursting afresh.
"Oh, no, no; I am just crazy to-night, that my Phil is with her; and I have been crying my eyes out, because I daren"t go up, because of you coming out to make me tell on him; oh, oh, oh."
"But can"t you see, girl, that this is the only way you will keep him to yourself, by telling what hold you have on him. If you don"t, as sure as you are alive, he will marry yonder lady, and spurn you like a worm under his heel," he said, with angry impatience.
"Oh, never; oh, oh, oh, me! I suppose I had best tell, then." And going to the trunk, taking out a small box, which she unlocks with a key, suspended by a ribbon around her neck, she takes therefrom a few lines written on half a sheet of paper, handing it to him. It read:
"SIMCOE ST., March 16.
"DEAREST LOVE,--Be _sure_ and be on time at the Union Depot.
It"s all nonsense your asking me to marry you before we start.
It"s not common sense of you. The other women who want me would tear your pretty eyes out. No, Betty, my petty. I will marry you when we get to Buffalo; not before; so do not make me angry, when you ought to be the happiest woman in Toronto at going away with your own
"PHILIP."
"Did he marry you?" asked Blair, placing the paper carefully in his pocket-book.
Coloring, as she hangs her head, she does not notice his act.
"What"s that to you?" she said, doggedly.
"It"s everything; speak, or take the consequences."
"He didn"t, then; but he"s not free to marry that hussy, since I have his writ promise, where is my paper? Give it me."
"Softly, softly, young woman; I want him to do right by you."
"But you"ll only rouse the devil in him, sir; and he"ll see me no more,"
she says, wringing her hands.
"Listen to reason, girl, I will borrow this paper, and on my honor; but pshaw, you won"t credit me with so scarce a commodity," he says, half aside. "Lend me the letter until this time to-morrow, and here is ten dollars; when I return it you shall have ten more."
"Not much; you bet, it shan"t leave my eye-sight for any money."
But after a weary talk she unwillingly consents; when he leaves the house.
During the next three days and nights Mr. Blair was half beside himself with anxieties, doubts and fears; for Mr. Dale, even with the letter to Beatrice Hill in his hand, could do nothing with Mr. Cobbe. As mulish as the girl Hill, he refused to release Mrs. Gower from her oath; finally, in fiery wrath declaring there would be a heavy breach of promise case, did she break faith.
The result was, that with the Dales, Pearl Villiers and Mr. Cole, at Holmnest, a busy week was spent.
Mrs. Gower telling Mr. Cobbe, since he would have it so, she would wed him sometime or other, parting with him at the foot of the altar, henceforth to meet as strangers; that but for his own acts, they would have been friends; but she could never forget all she had already suffered in nervous fear of the girl Hill.
And so, as rapidly as possible she prepares, as before arranged, to leave Holmnest for some months. Charlie Cole was to join his father at Jacksonville, Florida, the following day; Pearl Villiers and herself following. The house to be left in care of the kitchen, the Dales making it their home when in the city; but in a day or two, they would be most likely summoned to New York on peremptory business for a few days.
Mrs. Dale and Mrs. Gower were amused in a sad sort of way, for their thoughts were gravely set, on the att.i.tude taken by Mr. Cobbe. Still, it was a sort of distraction to note the manner of each toward the other; of Pearl Villiers and Charlie Cole, the latter demanding, and the former seeming to think it her duty to wait on him, humor him, go out for little sunlit walks on the veranda with him, play his favorite music, and endeavor to make up to him for her step-sister"s wicked act, in coming between them.
"It"s a rather dangerous game though, Elaine; they will trade hearts unconsciously."
"Yes, I have feared that, Ella; G.o.d spare her from that misery," she says, gravely, with hands pressed to her own aching heart.
"Pearl," said Charlie Cole, as throwing away his cane, he leans lightly on her arm, as they pace up and down the sun-warm veranda, half an hour before the hack arrives to convey him to the Union Depot, "Tell me, Pearl, dear; but for my wretched union with your wicked step-sister, would you have married me willingly, mark me, willingly?" he says, probing her.
"I would," she says, truthfully, blushing vividly; "but I don"t think it"s quite right to talk of it now, Charlie, is it? only, if we had known long ago when we have met as strangers, Margaret might have been spared this sin."
"How your eyes seemed to follow me, Pearl. Our friend, Mrs. Gower, and myself have been the foot-ball of circ.u.mstances, she used to have instantaneous photographs of Blair, and is doomed to Cobbe; same fate as mine."