The next moment he was shaking hands with the entire party, coming last of all to Amy Lawrence.
"They told me of your being here," he said, looking straight into her clear, beautiful eyes; "and I thought I might find you at Mrs. Marsden"s.
She was our best friend when we were in Honolulu. They told me, too, that you desired to go by the Doric, but feared she would be crowded," he continued, turning to Mr. Prime. "There is one vacant stateroom now; its occupants have decided to stay over and visit the islands. There will be, I think, another." And drawing a letter from an inner pocket he calmly turned to Nita, now shrinking almost fearfully behind her sister. "The colonel gave this to me to hand to you, Mrs. Frost, on the chance of your being here. He will arrive by next week"s steamer, and, pardon me, it is something I think you should see at once as a change in your plans may be necessary."
It was vain for Margaret to interpose. The letter was safely lodged in her sister"s hands, and with so significant a message that it had to be opened and read without delay. Gayly excusing herself, and with a low reverence and comprehensive smile to the a.s.sembled party, she ushered her sister into the long parlor, and the curtain fell behind them. There followed a few minutes of brisk conference upon the _lanai_, the Marsdens pleading against, the father and daughter for, immediate return to the hotel, there to claim the vacated rooms aboard the steamer. In the eager discussion, pro and con, both young soldiers joined, both saying "go,"
and promising to follow by the Sedgwick. In this family council, despite the vivid interest Armstrong felt in the result, neither Amy Lawrence nor himself took any part. Side by side at the snowy railing over the breaking sea they stood almost silent listeners. Suddenly there came from the front again the sound of hoofs and wheels, loud and distinct at the start, then rapidly dying away with the increasing distance. Miss Lawrence turned and looked inquiringly into the eyes she well knew were fixed upon her. Mrs. Marsden hesitated one moment, then stepped across the _lanai_, peered into the parlor and entered. It was a minute before she returned, and in that minute the decisive vote was cast, the carriage ordered.
"Oh, I ought to have known how it would be if I left you a moment!" she cried despairingly, on her reappearance, a little folded paper in her hand. "But at least you must stay half an hour. We can telephone direct to the dock and secure the staterooms, if go you must on the Doric. Yes,"
she continued, lowering her voice, "they are not going farther until Colonel Frost comes. Mrs. Garrison explains that her sister was really too ill and too weak to come out here, but she thought the drive might do her good. She thought best to slip quietly away with her, and bids me say good-night to you all."
So, when next day the Doric sailed, four new names appeared upon the pa.s.senger list, and the last men down the stage already "trembling on the rise," were two young fellows in white uniform, who turned as they sprang to the dock and waved their jaunty caps. "Join you in ten days at "Frisco!" shouted the shorter of the two, gazing upward and backward at the quartette on the promenade deck. "Oh! beg a thousand pardons," he added hastily, as he b.u.mped against some slender object, and, wheeling about to pick up a flimsy white fan, he found himself face to face with Witchie Garrison, kerchief waving, beaming, smiling, throwing kisses innumerable to the party he had so lately left. The hot blood rushed to his forehead, an angry light to his eyes, as she nodded blithely, forbearingly, forgivingly at him. "Dear boy," she cried, in her clear, penetrating treble, "how could you be expected to see any one after leaving--her?" But Gov."s arm was linked in his at the very instant and led him glowering away, leaving her close to the edge of the crowded dock, smiling sweetness, blessing and bliss upon a silent and unresponsive group, and waving kerchief and kisses to them until, far from sh.o.r.e, the Doric headed out to sea.
They were nearing home again. Day and night for nearly a week the good ship had borne them steadily onward over a sea of deepest blue, calm and unruffled as the light that shone in Amy"s eyes. Hours of each twenty-four Armstrong had been the constant companion, at first of the trio, then of the two--for Mr. Prime had found a kindred spirit in a veteran merchant homeward bound from China--then of one alone; for Miss Prime had found another interest, and favor in the eyes of a young tourist paying his first visit to our sh.o.r.es, and so it happened that before the voyage, all too brief, was half over, Amy Lawrence and Armstrong walked the s.p.a.cious deck for hours alone or sat in sheltered nooks, gazing out upon the sea. The soft, summer breezes of the first few days had given place to keener, chillier air. The fog ahead told of the close proximity of the Farallones. Heavier wraps had replaced the soft fabrics of the Hawaiian saunterings. But warmth and gladness, coupled with a strange new shyness in his presence, were glowing in her fresh young heart. One day she had said to him: "You have not told me how you came to leave there--just now," and it was a moment before he answered.
"That was the surgeons" doing. They sent me back from the front because the wound did not properly heal, and then ordered a sea voyage until it did; but I turn back at once from San Francisco."
She was silent a few seconds. This was unlooked for and unwelcome news.
"I thought," she said, "at least Gov. heard Dr. Frank say it would be four months before you could use that arm." She plucked at the fringe of the heavy shawl he had wrapped about her as she reclined in the low steamer chair; but the white lids veiled her eyes.
"Possibly," answered Armstrong; "but you see I do not have to use it much at any time. I"m all right otherwise, and there will soon be need of me."
"More campaigning?" she anxiously inquired, her eyes one moment uplifting.
"Probably. Those fellows have no idea of quitting."
Another interval of silence. The long, lazy, rolling swell of the Pacific had changed during the day to an abrupt and tumultuous upheaval that tossed the Doric like a cork and made locomotion a problem. The rising wind and sea sent the spray whirling from her bows, and Mildred"s young man, casting about for a dry corner, had deposited his fair charge on a bench along the forward deck house and was scouting up and down for steamer chairs. Armstrong had drawn his close to that in which Miss Lawrence reclined, her knitted steamer cap pulled well forward over her brow. His feet were braced against a stanchion. His eyes were intent upon her sweet face. He had no thought for other men, even those in similar plight. His gaze, though unhampered by the high peak of his forage cap, comprehended nothing beyond the rounded outline of that soft cheek. Her eyes, well-nigh hidden by her shrouding "Tam," saw the searching son of Albion and told her his need. The best of women will find excuse for interruption at such moments when sure of the devotion of the man who sits with a fateful question quivering on his lips; and, even when she longs to hear those very words, will find means to defer them as a kitten dallies with a captured mouse or a child saves to the very last the sweetest morsel of her birthday cake. Not ten minutes before, when the Honorable Bertie Shafto had started impulsively toward the vacant chair by Armstrong"s side, a firm hand detained him, and Miss Prime had hastily interposed. "Not on any account!" said she, imperiously. "Can"t you see?"
And Mr. Shafto, adjusting his monocle, had gazed long and fixedly, and then, transferring his gaze to her, had said:
"Eh--eh--yes. It"s not ours, I suppose you mean."
But now Amy Lawrence was beckoning, and he made a rush for the rail, then worked his way aft, hand over hand. Every movable on deck was taking a sudden slant to starboard, and the sea went hissing by almost on level with the deck as next she spoke. "Surely a soldier needs both arms in battle, and you--Oh, certainly, Mr. Shafto, take that chair," she added.
Armstrong glanced up suddenly.
"Oh! that you, Shafto? Yes; take it by all means."
Anything, thought he, rather than that they should come here. The young Briton stepped easily past between them and the rail--behind there was no room--and, swinging the long, awkwardly modeled fabric to his broad shoulder, started back just as a huge wave heaved suddenly under the counter, heeled the steamer far over to port, threw him off his balance, and, his foot catching at the bottom of her chair, hurled him, load and all, straight at Amy"s reclining form. One instant, and even her uplifted hands could not have saved her face; but in that instant Armstrong had darted in, caught the stumbling Briton on one arm, and the full force of the shooting chair crashing upon the other, already pierced by Filipino lead.
When, a moment later she emerged, safe and unscratched from the confused heap of men and furniture, it was to cut off instantly the stutter and stammer of poor Shafto"s apologies, to bid him go instantly for the ship"s doctor, and, with face the color of death, to turn quickly to Armstrong. The blow had burst open the half-healed wound, and the blood was streaming to the deck.
Both liner and transport turned back without Stanley Armstrong, Doric and Sedgwick sailed unheeded, for the highest surgical authority of the Department of California had remanded him to quarters at the Palace and forbidden his return to duty with an unhealed wound. He was sitting up again, somewhat pallid and not too strong, but with every promise, said the "medico," of complete recovery within two months. But not a month would Armstrong wait. The Puebla was to start within the week, and he had made up his mind. "Go," said he, "I must."
They had been sitting about him, the night this opinion was announced, in the parlor of the suite of rooms the Primes had taken. Billy Gray had gone with his father to the club, Shafto had been hanging about in the agonies of an Englishman"s first love, Gov. disappeared a moment and came back with tickets for the Columbia, bidding Mildred get her hat and gloves at once, and whispering Shafto that he had a seat for him. As the little mantel clock struck eight Amy Lawrence, lifting up her eyes from the book she was trying hard to believe she meant to read, saw that Armstrong was rising from his easy-chair, and, springing to his side, laying her white hand on his arm, she faltered, "Oh, please! You know the stipulation was that you were not to stir."
But then her heart began to flutter uncontrollably. The blood went surging to her brows, for all of a sudden, as through impulse irresistible, her hand was seized in his--in both of his, in fact--and the deep voice that had pleaded at her behest for the cause of Billy Gray was now, in impetuous flow of words that fell upon her ears like some strain of thrilling music, pleading at last his own. Ever since that day in the radiant sunshine of the Park she had learned to look up to him as a tower of strength, a man of mark among his fellows, a man to be honored and obeyed. Ever since that night at the Palace, when she saw his glowing eyes fixed intently upon her, and knew that he was following her every move, she had begun to realize the depth of his interest in her. Ever since that day when the China slipped from her moorings, with Witchie Garrison singling him out for lavish farewell favors, she had wondered why it so annoyed and stung her. Ever since the day she read the list of killed and wounded in the first fierce battling with the "Insurrectos"
she knew it was the sight of his name, not Billy Gray"s, that made her for the moment faint and dizzy, and taught her the need of greater self-control. Ever since that moonlit night upon the Marsden"s _lanai_, when her heart leaped at the sudden sound of his voice, she had realized what his coming meant to her, and ever since that breezy day upon the broad Pacific, with the sailor"s song of "Land ho!" ringing from the bows, and he, her wounded soldier, had sprung to shield her from the crash of Shafto"s hapless stumble, and the deck was stained with the precious blood from that soldier"s reopened wound, shed for her--for her who so revered him--she had longed to hear him say the words that alone could unlock the gates of maidenly reserve and let her tell him--tell him with glad and grateful heart that the love he bore her was answered by her own. Hovering over him only one minute, her lips half parted, her eyes still veiled, her heart throbbing loud and fast, with sudden movement she threw herself upon her knees at the side of the low chair, and her burning face, ever so lightly, was buried in the dark-blue sleeve above that blessed wound.
THE END.