Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty. Her courage warmed his heart. Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to a.s.sert her independence. She turned to him at every point. He guided her past the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had already made.
But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful exhilaration. Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she did answer him spoke less spontaneously. She asked for neither help nor encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able. Her skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell. Geoffrey made her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she stopped of herself.
"Have we done half yet?" she asked.
"Just about," he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her.
But he saw at once that he had failed,--that she had had a hope that they were nearer their destination--that she began to doubt her own powers. Presently she moved forward again in silence.
He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she had, she would use to the end. No hysterical despair would exhaust her beforehand. She would not fail through lack of determination. Whether or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes, and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of the snow.
Presently he held out his hand in silence, and she as silently took it.
This was to Geoffrey the explanation of his whole life. This was what men were made for.
Once as they stood resting the wind, which fortunately had been at their backs the entire trip, hurled her against him, where she remained an instant, too weak to move. It was he who set her gently on her feet again.
The latter part of the journey she made almost wholly by his help, and when they stood before the piazza, she could not have managed the little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like a child.
The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug and was soon asleep also.
IV
It was after two o"clock in the afternoon when he awoke. He must have slept three hours. He looked at the sofa and saw the girl still sleeping peacefully. He almost wished that she would never awake to all the dreadful surprises that the house held for her. Her eye-lashes curved long and dark on her cheek. Geoffrey turned away quickly.
He had awakened with a sudden disagreeable conviction that people have been known to smother to death in closets. He stole quietly from the library and ran up stairs with not a little anxiety. Indeed so great was his dread that he would have been really relieved to see the closet door standing open as an immediate proof that it did not hide a corpse. It was, however, locked as he had left it. But as he hastened to undo it, a voice from within rea.s.sured him:
[Ill.u.s.tration: HE LET MCVAY OUT OF THE CLOSET]
"Well, where have you been all this time?"
"You may be thankful I"m back at all. It did not look like it, at one time."
"Where is Cecilia?"
"Down stairs asleep."
McVay gave a little giggle. "Ah," he said, "I bet you have had the devil of a time. I bet you wished once or twice that you had let me be the one to go."
"It wasn"t child"s play."
"Child"s play! I rather think not. These things are all well enough among men, but women!" he waved his hand; "so sensitive, so cloistered!"
"Your sister behaved n.o.bly," said Geoffrey severely.
"Bound to, Holland, bound to. Still it must have been a shock."
"It was a hard trip for any woman."
McVay looked up. "Oh," he said, "I wasn"t speaking of the trip. I meant about me. What did she say?"
"She did not say anything. She went to sleep."
"She did not say anything when you told her I was booked for the penitentiary?"
"Oh," said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause. Then he added: "Why should I tell her what she must know."
"I tell you she knows nothing about my--profession."
"Your _profession_!"
"Hasn"t a notion of it."
"What, with my sister"s coat on her back, and the Innes" bag in her hand"?"
"No!" McVay drew a step nearer. "You see I told her that I had found a second-hand store where I could get things for nothing." He chuckled, and Geoffrey withdrew with a look of repulsion that evidently disappointed the other.
"That was a good idea, wasn"t it?" he asked with a faint appeal in his voice. "She thought it was likely, anyhow."
"She must be very gullable," said Geoffrey brutally.
"Or else," said McVay with a conscious smile, "I must be a pretty good dissembler."
At this acute instance of fatuity Geoffrey, if he had followed his impulse, would have flung McVay back in the closet and locked the door.
Instead, he said:
"Come down stairs. I want to look up something to eat."
"Thank you," said the burglar, "it would be a good idea."
"You need not thank me," said Geoffrey. "I don"t take you with me for the pleasure of your company, but because I don"t dare let you out of my sight."
McVay, as was his habit when anything unpleasant was said, chose to ignore this speech.
"You know," he said, as they went down stairs, "I suppose that most men shut up in a closet for all those hours would take it as a hardship, but, to me it was a positive rest. I really in a way enjoyed it. It is one of my theories that every one ought to have resources within. Now I dare say you were quite anxious about me."
"I never thought of you at all," said Geoffrey. "After I got in I went to sleep for three hours."
McVay looked at him once or twice, in surprise. Then he said with dignity: "Asleep? Well, really, Holland, I don"t think that was very considerate."
"Don"t talk so loud," said Geoffrey, "you"ll wake your sister."
Geoffrey had always been in the habit of going on shooting trips at short notice, and so it was his rule to keep a supply of canned eatables in the house to be ready whenever the whim took him. On these he now depended, and was not a little annoyed to find the kitchen store room where they were kept securely locked.
This difficulty, however, McVay made light of. He asked for his tools and on being given them set to work on the door.
"Have you ever noticed," he said, "the heavy handed way in which some men use tools? Look at my touch,--so light, yet so accurate. I take no credit to myself. I was born so. It"s a very fortunate thing to be naturally dexterous."