"Why did he go to New York?" interrupted Edith, who had puzzled her brain not a little with regard to the business which had taken Richard so suddenly from home.
"As true as I live I don"t know," was Victor"s reply. "For once he"s kept dark even to me, scouring all the alleys, and lanes, and poor houses in the city, leaving me at the hotel, and taking with him some of those men with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on their coats. One day when he came back he acted as if he were crazy and I saw the great tears drop on the table over which he was leaning, then when I asked "if he"d heard bad news," he answered, "No, joyful news. I"m perfectly happy now. I"m ready to go home," and he did seem happy, until we drove up to the gate and you didn"t come to meet him.
"Where"s Edith?" he asked, and when Mrs. Matson said you were out, his forehead began to tie itself up in knots, just as it does when he is displeased. It"s my opinion, Miss Edith, that you humor him altogether too much, You are tied to him as closely as a mother to her baby."
Edith sighed, not because she felt the bonds to which Victor had alluded, but because she reproached herself for not having been there to welcome the blind man home when she knew how much he thought of these little attentions.
"I"ll make amends though, now," she said, and remembering the story of his disappointment, her heart swelled with a fresh feeling of pity for the helpless Richard, who, sitting before the blazing fire in the library, did not hear the light step coming so softly toward him.
All the way from the station, and indeed all the way from New York, he had pictured to himself Edith"s sylph-like form running down the steps to meet him; had felt her warm hands in his, heard her sweet voice welcoming him home again, and the world around him was filled with daylight, but Edith was the sun which shone upon his darkness. She was dearer to him now, if possible, than when he left Collingwood, for, during his absence he had learned that which, if she knew it, would bind her to him by cords of grat.i.tude too strong to be lightly broken. SHE owed everything to him, and he, alas, he groaned when he thought WHAT he owed to her, but he loved her all the same, and this it was which added to the keenness of his disappointment when among the many feet which hastened out to meet him, he listened for hers in vain. He knew it was very pleasant in his little library whither Victor led him; very pleasant to sit in his accustomed chair, and feel the fire- light shining on his face, but there was something missing, and the blue veins were swelling on his forehead, and the lines deepening about his mouth, when a pair of soft, white arms were wound about his neck, two soft white hands patted his bearded cheeks, and a voice, whose every tone made his heart throb and beat with ecstasy, murmured in his ear,
"Dear Mr. Richard, I am so glad you"ve come home, and so sorry I was not here to meet you. I did not expect you to-night. Forgive me, won"t you? There, let me smooth the ugly wrinkles away, they make you look so cross and old," and the little fingers he vainly tried to clasp, wandered caressingly over the knit brows, while, for the first time since people began to call her Miss Hastings, Edith"s lips touched his.
Nor was she sorry when she saw how beautiful the lovelight broke all over the dark, stern face, irradiating every feature, and giving to it an expression almost divine.
"Kiss me again, Birdie," he said. "It is not often you grant me such a treat," and he held her arms about his neck until she pressed her lips once more against his own.
Then he released her, and making her sit down beside him, rested his hand upon her shining hair, while he asked her how she had busied herself in his absence, if she had missed the old dark cloud, a bit, and if she was not sorry to have him back.
He know just what her answer would be, and when it was given, he took her face between his hands, and turning it up toward him, said, "I"d give all Collingwood, darling, just to look once into your eyes and see if---" then, apparently changing his mind, he added, "see if you are pleased with what I"ve brought you, look;"
and taking from his pocket a square box he displayed to her view an entire set of beautiful pearls. "I wanted to buy diamonds, but Victor said pearls were more appropriate for a young girl like you. Are they becoming?" and he placed some of them amid the braids of her dark hair.
Like all girls of seventeen, Edith was in raptures, nor could he make her sit still beside him until, divested of her riding habit, she had tried the effect of the delicate ornaments, bracelets, ear-rings, necklace and all.
"I am so glad you like them," he said, and he did enjoy it very much, sitting there and listening to her as she danced about the room, uttering little girlish screams of delight, and asking Victor, when at last he came in--"if she wasn"t irresistible?"
Victor FELT that she was, and in his polite French way he complimented her, until Richard bade him stop, telling him "she was already spoiled with flattery."
The pearls being laid aside and Victor gone, Edith resumed her accustomed seat upon a stool at Richard"s feet, and folding both hands upon his knee, looked into his face, saying, "Well, monsieur, why did you go off to New York so suddenly? I think you might tell me now unless it"s something I ought not to know."
He hesitated a moment as if uncertain whether to tell her or not; then said to her abruptly, "You"ve heard, I believe, of the little child whom I saved from drowning?"
"Yes," she answered. "Don"t you know I told you once how I used to worship you because you were so brave. I remember, too, of praying every night in my childish way that you might some day find the little girl."
"Edith, I have found her," and the nervous hands pressed tenderly upon the beautiful head almost resting in his lap.
"Found her!" and Edith sprang to her feet, her large eyes growing larger, but having in them no shadow of suspicion. "Where did you find her? Where is she now? What is her name? Why didn"t you bring her home?" and out of breath with her rapid questioning, Edith sat down again, while Richard laughingly replied, "Where shall I begin to answer all your queries? Shall I take them in order? I found out all about her in New York."
"That explains your scouring the alleys and lanes as Victor said you did," interrupted Edith, and Richard rejoined rather sharply, "What does HE know about it?"
"Nothing, nothing," returned Edith, anxious to shield Victor from his master"s anger. "I asked him what you did in New York, and he told me that. Go on--what is her name?"
"Eloise Temple. Her mother was a Swede, and her father an American, much older than his wife."
"Eloise--Eloise--Eloise."
Edith repealed it three times.
"Where have I heard that name before? Oh, I know. I heard Kitty Maynard telling the story to Mrs. Atherton. Where is she, did you say, and how does she look?"
"She is with the family who adopted her as their own, for her mother is dead. Eloise is an orphan, Edith," and again the broad hand touched the shining hair, pityingly this time, while the voice which spoke of the mother was sad and low.
Suddenly a strange, fanciful idea flashed on Edith"s mind, and looking into Richard"s face she asked, "How old is Eloise?"
"Seventeen, perhaps. Possibly, though, she"s older."
"And you, Mr. Harrington--how old are you, please? I"ll never tell as long as I live, if you don"t want me to."
She knew he was becoming rather sensitive with regard to his age, but she thought he would not mind HER knowing, never dreaming that SHE of all others was the one from whom he would, if possible, conceal the fact that he was thirty-eight. Still he told her unreservedly, asking her the while if she did not consider him almost her grandfather.
"Why, no," she answered; "you don"t look old a bit. You haven"t a single grey hair. _I_ think you are splendid, and so I"m sure did the mother of Eloise; didn"t she?" and the roguish black eyes looked up archly into the blind man"s face.
Remembering what Grace had said of his love affair in Europe many years since, and adding to that the evident interest he felt in little Eloise Temple, the case was clear to her as daylight. The Swedish maiden was the girl who jilted Richard Harrington, and hence his love for Eloise, for she knew he did love her from his manner when speaking of her and the pains he had taken to find her. He had not answered her last question yet, for he did not understand its drift, and when at last he spoke he said,
"Mrs. Temple esteemed me highly, I believe; and I admired her very much. She had the sweetest voice I ever heard, not even excepting yours, which is something like it."
Edith nodded to the bright face on the mirror opposite, and the bright face nodded back as much was to say, "I knew "twas so."
"Was she really handsome, this Mrs. Temple?" she asked, anxious to know how Richard Harrington"s early love had looked.
Instinctively the hands of the blind man met together round Edith"s graceful neck, as he told her how beautiful that Swedish mother was, with her glossy, raven hair, and her large, soft, l.u.s.trous eyes, and as he talked, there crept into Edith"s heart a strange, inexplicable affection for that fair young Swede, who Richard said was not as happy with her father-husband as she should have been, and who, emigrating to another land, had died of a homesick, broken heart.
"I am sorry I cursed her to-day," thought Edith, her tears falling fast to the memory of the lonely, homesick woman, the mother of Eloise.
"Had she married Richard," she thought, "he would not now be sitting here in his blindness, for SHE would be with him, and Eloise, too, or some one very much like her. I wish she were here now," and after a moment she asked why he had not brought the maiden home with him. "I should love her as much as my sister,"
she said; "and you"d be happier with two of us, wouldn"t you?"
"No," he answered; "one young girl is enough for any house. I couldn"t endure two."
"Then _I_ ought to go away," said Edith promptly, her bosom swelling with a dread lest she should eventually have to go.
"Eloise has certainly the best right here. You loved her mother, yon know, and you"d rather have her than me, wouldn"t you?"
She held both his hands now within her own. She bent her face upon them, and he felt her tears trickling through his fingers. Surely he was not to blame if, forgetting himself for the moment, he wound his arms about her and hugging her to his bosom, told her that of all the world SHE was the one he most wanted there at Collingwood, there just where she was now, her head upon his shoulder, her cheek against his own. 0nce she felt slightly startled, his words were so fraught with tender pa.s.sion, but regarding him as her father, or at least her elder brother, she could not believe he intended addressing her save as his sister or his child, and releasing herself from his embrace, she slid back upon her stool and said, "I"m glad you"re willing I should stay.
It would kill me to go from Collingwood now. I"ve been so happy here, and found in you so kind a FATHER."
She WOULD say that last word, and she did, never observing that Richard frowned slightly as if it were to him an unwelcome sound.
Presently Edith went on, "I think, though, this Eloise ought to come, too, no matter how pleasant a home she has. It is her duty to care for you who lost your sight for her. Were I in her place, I should consider no sacrifice too great to atone for the past. I would do everything in the world you asked of me, and then not half repay you."
"Every thing, Edith? Did you say every thing?" and it would seem that the blind eyes had for once torn away their veil, so lovingly and wistfully they rested upon the bowed head of the young girl, who, without looking up, answered back,
"Yes, every thing. But I"m glad I am not this Eloise."
"Why, Edith, why?" and the voice which asked the question was mournful in its tone.
"Because," returned Edith, "I should not care to be under so great obligations to any one. The burden would be oppressive. I should be all the while wondering what more I could do, while you, too, would be afraid that the little kindnesses which now are prompted in a great measure by love would be rendered from a sense of grat.i.tude and duty. Wouldn"t it be so, Mr. Richard?"
"Yes, yes," he whispered. "You are right. I should be jealous that what my heart craved as love would be only grat.i.tude. I am glad you suggested this, Edith; very, very, glad, and now let us talk no more of Eloise."
"Ah, but I must," cried Edith. "There are so many things I want to know, and you"ve really told me nothing. Had she brothers or sisters? Tell me that, please."