"Wife! You are to be Bertram Henshaw"s wife!" he exclaimed. There was no mistaking the amazed incredulity on his face.
Billy caught her breath. The righteous indignation in her eyes fled, and a terrified appeal took its place.
"You don"t mean that you _didn"t--know?_" she faltered.
There was a moment"s silence. A power quite outside herself kept Billy"s eyes on Arkwright"s face, and forced her to watch the change there from unbelief to belief, and from belief to set misery.
"No, I did not know," said the man then, dully, as he turned, rested his arm on the mantel behind him, and half shielded his face with his hand.
Billy sank into a low chair. Her fingers fluttered nervously to her throat. Her piteous, beseeching eyes were on the broad back and bent head of the man before her.
"But I--I don"t see how you could have helped--knowing," she stammered at last. "I don"t see how such a thing could have happened that you shouldn"t know!"
"I"ve been trying to think, myself," returned the man, still in a dull, emotionless voice.
"It"s been so--so much a matter of course. I supposed everybody knew it," maintained Billy.
"Perhaps that"s just it--that it was--so much a matter of course,"
rejoined the man. "You see, I know very few of your friends, anyway--who would be apt to mention it to me."
"But the announcements--oh, you weren"t here then," moaned Billy. "But you must have known that--that he came here a good deal--that we were together so much!"
"To a certain extent, yes," sighed Arkwright. "But I took your friendship with him and his brothers as--as a matter of course. _That_ was _my_ "matter of course," you see," he went on bitterly. "I knew you were Mr. William Henshaw"s namesake, and Calderwell had told me the story of your coming to them when you were left alone in the world.
Calderwell had said, too, that--" Arkwright paused, then hurried on a little constrainedly--"well, he said something that led me to think Mr.
Bertram Henshaw was not a marrying man, anyway."
Billy winced and changed color. She had noticed the pause, and she knew very well what it was that Calderwell had said to occasion that pause.
Must _always_ she be reminded that no one expected Bertram Henshaw to love any girl--except to paint?
"But--but Mr. Calderwell must know about the engagement--now," she stammered.
"Very likely, but I have not happened to hear from him since my arrival in Boston. We do not correspond."
There was a long silence, then Arkwright spoke again.
"I think I understand now--many things. I wonder I did not see them before; but I never thought of Bertram Henshaw"s being--If Calderwell hadn"t said--" Again Arkwright stopped with his sentence half complete, and again Billy winced. "I"ve been a blind fool. I was so intent on my own--I"ve been a blind fool; that"s all," repeated Arkwright, with a break in his voice.
Billy tried to speak, but instead of words, there came only a choking sob.
Arkwright turned sharply.
"Miss Neilson, don"t--please," he begged. "There is no need that you should suffer--too."
"But I am so ashamed that such a thing _could_ happen," she faltered.
"I"m sure, some way, I must be to blame. But I never thought. I was blind, too. I was wrapped up in my own affairs. I never suspected. I never even _thought_ to suspect! I thought of course you knew. It was just the music that brought us together, I supposed; and you were just like one of the family, anyway. I always thought of you as Aunt Hannah"s--" She stopped with a vivid blush.
"As Aunt Hannah"s niece, Mary Jane, of course," supplied Arkwright, bitterly, turning back to his old position. "And that was my own fault, too. My name, Miss Neilson, is Michael Jeremiah," he went on wearily, after a moment"s hesitation, his voice showing his utter abandonment to despair. "When a boy at school I got heartily sick of the "Mike" and the "Jerry" and the even worse "Tom and Jerry" that my young friends delighted in; so as soon as possible I sought obscurity and peace in "M.
J." Much to my surprise and annoyance the initials proved to be little better, for they became at once the biggest sort of whet to people"s curiosity. Naturally, the more determined persistent inquirers were to know the name, the more determined I became that they shouldn"t. All very silly and very foolish, of course. Certainly it seems so now," he finished.
Billy was silent. She was trying to find something, _anything_, to say, when Arkwright began speaking again, still in that dull, hopeless voice that Billy thought would break her heart.
"As for the "Mary Jane"--that was another foolishness, of course. My small brothers and sisters originated it; others followed, on occasion, even Calderwell. Perhaps you did not know, but he was the friend who, by his laughing question, "Why don"t you, Mary Jane?" put into my head the crazy scheme of writing to Aunt Hannah and letting her think I was a real Mary Jane. You see what I stooped to do, Miss Neilson, for the chance of meeting and knowing you."
Billy gave a low cry. She had suddenly remembered the beginning of Arkwright"s story. For the first time she realized that he had been talking then about herself, not Alice Greggory.
"But you don"t mean that you--cared--that I was the--" She could not finish.
Arkwright turned from the mantel with a gesture of utter despair.
"Yes, I cared then. I had heard of you. I had sung your songs. I was determined to meet you. So I came--and met you. After that I was more determined than ever to win you. Perhaps you see, now, why I was so blind to--to any other possibility. But it doesn"t do any good--to talk like this. I understand now. Only, please, don"t blame yourself," he begged as he saw her eyes fill with tears. The next moment he was gone.
Billy had turned away and was crying softly, so she did not see him go.
CHAPTER XXVII. THE THING THAT WAS THE TRUTH
Bertram called that evening. Billy had no story now to tell--nothing of the interrupted romance between Alice Greggory and Arkwright. Billy carefully, indeed, avoided mentioning Arkwright"s name.
Ever since the man"s departure that afternoon, Billy had been frantically trying to a.s.sure herself that she was not to blame; that she would not be supposed to know he cared for her; that it had all been as he said it was--his foolish blindness. But even when she had partially comforted herself by these a.s.sertions, she could not by any means escape the haunting vision of the man"s stern-set, suffering face as she had seen it that afternoon; nor could she keep from weeping at the memory of the words he had said, and at the thought that never again could their pleasant friendship be quite the same--if, indeed, there could be any friendship at all between them.
But if Billy expected that her red eyes, pale cheeks, and generally troubled appearance and unquiet manner were to be pa.s.sed unnoticed by her lover"s keen eyes that evening, she found herself much mistaken.
"Sweetheart, what _is_ the matter?" demanded Bertram resolutely, at last, when his more indirect questions had been evasively turned aside.
"You can"t make me think there isn"t something the trouble, because I know there is!"
"Well, then, there is, dear," smiled Billy, tearfully; "but please just don"t let us talk of it. I--I want to forget it. Truly I do."
"But I want to know so _I_ can forget it," persisted Bertram. "What is it? Maybe I could help."
She shook her head with a little frightened cry.
"No, no--you can"t help--really."
"But, sweetheart, you don"t know. Perhaps I could. Won"t you _tell_ me about it?"
Billy looked distressed.
"I can"t, dear--truly. You see, it isn"t quite mine--to tell."
"Not yours!"
"Not--entirely."
"But it makes you feel bad?"
"Yes--very."