"Mr. Dieman told me of the whole plot, Edith," said Star, talking in a low sleepy voice; "not sparing himself for the part he played in it; for when the plot was conceived Mr. Dieman was unforgiving toward any of my mother"s people who had opposed his marriage to her before she ran away with father. But now, that he is going through a period of penitence and reconciliation with his conscience, he was not loath to tell me all."
"What is the plot, Star? Don"t keep me waiting; I am impatient to hear it."
"Mr. Winthrope," continued Star, "was sent to the New York office through the conniving of Monroe, to keep him out of your sight. His aim was to make an effort to have you marry him, get your money, and divide the spoils (that is your money) between himself and his fellow conspirators. That failing, he is to ruin Mr. Winthrope"s chances by tempting him to steal the company"s money, but stealing it himself and laying the blame on Mr. Winthrope, and then flee to Europe."
Edith lay quiet during the recital, breathing lightly.
"That failing, they will cause him to carry certain large sums of money to a certain place; then hold him up and rob him," continued Star. "They have been planning all winter, and are now about ready to bring it to a conclusion. The time set, was to be as soon as possible after you were able to be seen by Monroe. Having seen him this evening, Edith, it must be time for them to strike. We must intercede to save him, Edith, if possible."
"I cannot do anything, in my enfeebled condition; but I shall see papa early in the morning. I shall forestall Monroe, in his madness! Mr.
Winthrope shall be saved from those bad men! Star, something seemed to have told me that all was not going well for him. Bless your dear heart!" said Edith, firmly, sternly, but calmer.
Concluding her story, Star soon fell asleep. Edith, after having her fancies put to rout by the serious things that causes a more determined course to mark its way through the brain, also fell asleep; and did not awake till the morning sun, breaking through the smoke, had kissed the damp of slumber from her cheeks.
CHAPTER XXIII.
EDITH REVEALS HER SECRET TO HER FATHER AND HE GOES TO NEW YORK.
Refreshing sleep, though late in coming, restored Edith"s composure. She came down to breakfast temperamentally disposed to enter into negotiations with her father toward the combating of any plot laid by Monroe and his friends to entice John Winthrope into questionable dealings.
Like a wronged woman, through an excess of virtuous actions, she felt it peculiarly inc.u.mbent upon herself to frustrate the plotters--not that it would save John alone; but that it would, as well, be consistently in line with her ideas of just dealings between man and man. During the hour which she consumed in making her toilet, she revolved the whole matter, as related to her by Star, over and over in her now becalmed and determined little head; and the more she revolved it, the brighter became the sparkle in her strong blue eyes, and fiercer grew the militant spirit in her nature. The fatigue that had put her into a nervous state the night before had been routed by that blind force that comes upon depression through a quick series of changes attendant upon a wrong done, to be displaced only through wearying fort.i.tude.
Edith, being primarily one of those strong natures that survives by shock of incident, went boldly to her conceived duty, as though it were given her to be ever strong when the crucial moment arrived. She now knew that her father"s good nature was being imposed on by that man of unconscienceable principles. Before she fell ill the year before, the actions of Monroe, two or three times, excited her suspicion, and she had then thought of a plan to forestall him; but by reason of the fatal auto ride, her movements were delayed; and as well did it delay the schemers in their dark and dastardly plotting. It seemed a formidable undertaking for one so frail as Edith, just coming out of a spell of mental derangement; not in its simpleness of action was it so big, but in the momentousness of its results on her enervated system. She would brook no importunate pleading of her friend, Star, to stay her in her course, and leaped into it, as if she were a veritable Goliath of strength.
When she arrived in the dining room that morning with re-enforced courage, she greeted her father and mother, both waiting her arrival, with a kiss, and sat down next to them. Several times she was on the point of bringing up the subject, but lest it should disturb her mother, she calmly awaited a more convenient time for the rehearsal she expected to have with him. Breakfast was usually a quiet affair with the Jarneys, so little was thought of the reserve with which each held speech. After breakfast, Edith took her father"s arm and guided him to a quiet nook in the drawing room, and seated him in his favorite seat on one side of a long plate-gla.s.s window that opened on his private grounds in front of the mansion.
"Papa, I want a word or two with you this morning before you leave,"
said Edith, drawing a chair up and sitting down by his side.
"This is unusual, Edith; now, what can my little girl want?" he said, endearingly, taking one of her hands. "You are not going to give me a secret, are you?"
"Too true, papa," replied Edith, and Mr. Jarney expected something else just then than what he heard.
"I am not going to lose my little girl, I hope?" he said, patting her hand.
"Not yet, papa; now, you must sit real quiet, and be not so inquisitive, nor so suspecting till you have heard me," she said, fondly.
"Why, Edith, I had suspected some dark and mysterious deed you had committed; but, with your a.s.surance that I am not to lose you yet. I am listening," he replied.
Then she related all that Star had unfolded to her the night previous; and even how Monroe had acted.
"From whom did Star get the information?" he asked, meditatively, after Edith had finished.
"From her step-father, Peter Dieman."
"Humph! Peter Dieman! and he married Kate Jarney at last--to her betterment," he said, in a ruminating mood. "Well, after all, I am satisfied. Had she heeded me, she would not have gone through all these years of misery that her profligate husband brought upon her. Once I offered to a.s.sist her; but she was too proud in her lowliness to respond to my proffered aid. It is better, perhaps; it is better. It seems that the scheme of things is wrong, sometimes; but in the end it is righted."
"Now, what is to be done, dear papa?" asked Edith, seeing that he had taken a discursive course in response to her irrefutable facts.
"I shall act at once," said he, gazing out the window, abstractedly, as if he had been wounded by an aspersion cast upon his magnanimity.
"Ingrate! Ingrate! all of them!" he mused, drumming on the arm of the chair with his fingers, deep in study over some plan of action. "Edith, what would you do?" he asked, as he turned his head and looked at her trustfully. "I have trusted him in his department all these years, and he has given such satisfaction that no one mistrusted his motives, or questioned his integrity. I can hardly believe it, Edith. What would you do?"
"Do you leave it to me?" she asked, her eyes sparkling with suppressed fire.
"I do," he answered, half seriously; half in jest.
"Then eliminate him, and his dupes, at once," she answered, with great seriousness.
"It is hard for me to do that of my own volition," he replied. "He is so fortified with friends on the board of directorate that they must all be taken into consideration."
"Will they not see the necessity of his removal, when apprised of the facts?" she asked.
"They may; but he is so strongly entrenched that his removal would be almost disastrous to me."
"How, papa? How?" she asked, now quickly perceiving a new gleam of the entangling meshes of business a.s.sociates.
"By turning them against me, if the story should turn out to be false,"
he answered, reflectively. "But I shall lay it before them at once and investigate."
"In the event that you should remove him, would you bring Mr. Winthrope to your office?" asked Edith, and a tiny flush suffused her cheeks.
"No; Mr. Winthrope must remain in New York," unthinking of the effect his answer might have on his daughter.
Edith turned a little pale at this response, and her hand trembled in his.
"Why, Edith, are you so much interested in him that you want him to be ever present?" asked the father, noting the tremor of her hand.
"Oh, no, papa--not that much--yes--what am I saying, papa--I don"t know," she replied, excitedly, turning her head at the sound of her mother approaching, which seemed to have been prearranged at that moment; but, of course, was not. Mrs. Jarney left, after seeing the interview was private.
"It appears to me, Edith, that you are acting strangely about this matter," said her father, beginning to be enlightened.
"Papa, I--I--love him," she whispered in his ear, as she put her cheek up to his to hide the blushes in her face, and to conceal his own countenance which she expected to see turn into a frown upon her at this unexpected answer. "Papa, you will forgive me, won"t you?--yes, you will. It is my heart, dear papa--I cannot help it--do forgive me?" she went on, with her eyes filled with tears of happiness and weakness and misery over her uncontrollable feelings.
"Let me see your face, Edith?" said her father, making an effort to turn his head, which she held pressed to her own.
"No, no; I won"t papa, till you say you will forgive me," she answered, kissing him.
"To keep peace, Edith, I will forgive you; let me see your face?"
"There!" she exclaimed, suddenly releasing him, and standing off, with tear stains marking through her flushes, and her hair tousled by the performance.
"I believe you," he said, beholding her in a state of mixed emotions; "but I am not yet ready to approve of your selection."
Her heart sank at this answer, and she sank to the floor by his side.