Again the temptation was a.s.sailing the architect"s mind to accept this proffered help and shift his burden to the shoulders of this little but puissant man of healing. Perhaps those tapping fingers could make him whole again. But as he faced avowal of the truth his whole soul drew back. It was impossible--the one thing he could not do. Then came another idea, perhaps a way out.
"Suppose--I do not admit it, but suppose, for the sake of your argument, that your hypothesis should be true. What then--Mildred--what about----"
Dr. Annister sprang to his feet and broke in upon the other"s stumbling words in a voice whose low-toned intensity gave his listener an uncomfortable thrill: "Nothing could make me happier than to see my child the happy wife of the man she loves, if he deserves her love.
But I"d rather see her dead than married to a man of gross and unclean life, who has made himself a slave to seasons of secret debauch!"
There was silence for a moment while Brand looked away, unwilling to meet the physician"s eyes. His face was pale and he breathed as if there were a weight upon his chest. Again he was considering open confession. But when he spoke he said:
"Dr. Annister, you are most unjust. I told you the truth about my absence. On that question there is nothing more to be said. But it is my right to know, and I insist upon knowing, whether or not you have any basis whatever for these insinuations you have been making, except your own suspicions."
Mildred"s father gazed thoughtfully at her betrothed for a moment before he replied. He was saying to himself that the man"s words were candid enough in their import, but that, somehow, the speech had not rung true. There was no spark of indignation in those brown eyes, that seemed to have some difficulty in meeting his. Nor was there any quiver of that honest resentfulness he longed to see. Beneath Brand"s habitual manner of slightly ceremonious politeness and deference he discerned uncertainty of thought and purpose.
"There"s something wrong here," the physician was thinking, "something woefully wrong. He doesn"t seem to feel the monstrosity of what I"ve almost been charging him with." Unconsciously he shook his head sadly as he began to speak aloud:
"As I told you before, Felix, with the knowledge I have spent a lifetime of hard work gaining, I don"t need any better evidence than my own eyes can give. I consider it as worthy of confidence as any information I might have from another. That and my own intelligence are the sole ground of my fears. These did have, however, some slight corroboration in the rather mysterious manner and a.s.surances of your friend, Mr. Hugh Gordon."
At the sound of that name Brand faced sharply round upon the astonished doctor, anger flaming in his face and eyes.
"That man!" he cried. "Are you taking his word against mine? He is my worst enemy, and he will stop at nothing to injure me. He is a thief, a murderer, or would be if he dared. I demand that you tell me what he has been charging me with!"
Dr. Annister stared in amazement at this flare of hostility and wrath.
"You mistake me, Felix," he said quietly, although inwardly he was wondering much as to the cause of the outburst. "I did not say he charged you with anything, nor did he. On the contrary, he seemed to me to be doing his best to execute a friendly office toward you. I thought it strange that he should be so positive you were in no danger of any sort and yet should not know where you were. He seemed sincere and straightforward and the only hypothesis upon which I could reconcile his two statements was one that strengthened what you call my suspicions."
While the doctor spoke Brand had been moving about with quick steps and sharp turns, scowling and muttering. "Oh, I know the fellow goes about making this pretense of friendship," he said sullenly, "but there"s no trust to be put in him. He is bent on my ruin. But I"ll get even with him, I"ll down him yet!"
He took another turn or two, apparently endeavoring to get himself under control again, while Dr. Annister regarded him with gray brows wrinkled thoughtfully. He began to feel, uneasily, that there was more underneath this situation than he had guessed.
"Well, Felix," he said at last, "I am sorry that our conversation has had no better result. I hoped you would clear this matter up and, if you need help, would let me give you whatever advice and aid I could.
Think the matter over more carefully and if you should see it in a different light come to me at any time and let me see what I can do for you."
"I thank you, Dr. Annister. I shall keep your kindness in mind, although I do not suppose I shall have any more occasion to make use of it in the future than I have now. But Mildred--" he hesitated as he turned an anxious countenance upon his companion. "You are not going to forbid our marriage on account of these baseless and unjust notions of yours?"
Down in his heart Dr. Annister was at that moment deciding that his daughter should never become this man"s wife unless all his apprehensions and fears were first cleared away. But he feared the effect upon Mildred, especially at this juncture, of a forced breaking of the engagement. So he temporized.
"No, I shall not forbid it, or at least, not now. But I can not consent to a marriage in the early future, as you have both begged me to do. You will have to wait a while longer, Felix, and prove yourself worthy. I don"t like these mysterious disappearances."
After Brand had gone the little doctor dropped down into his favorite arm-chair in his usual att.i.tude of profound thought. "Poor Mildred!
Poor little girl!" he was thinking. "I guess her mother had better take her abroad this summer and let us see if change and travel and absence won"t have some effect on her devotion. It would be awfully lonely for me here, Mildred would be wretchedly unhappy and Margaret would have a devil of a time. Still, the experiment will be worth trying."
CHAPTER XVI
MRS. FENLOW IS ANGRY
"Harry, dear, do please conceal the newspaper in your handbag and carry it off with you," said Isabella Marne as her sister entered the dining room. The sun shone in upon a window full of blooming plants, a bowl of daffodils glowed upon the table and the whole room looked as cheerful and buoyant, as dainty and pleasing as did the little lady in a pink and white muslin gown who was putting the last touches to the breakfast table. "Mother is coming down this morning," she went on, "and I don"t want her to see it."
"O, dear!" exclaimed Henrietta as she glanced at the head lines. "No, indeed, mother mustn"t see this. It would worry her too much. Have you read it, Bella? Was he hurt?"
"The account says Mr. Brand wasn"t hurt at all. But some of the others were--one rather badly, and Miss Andrews had her scalp cut. I hope it won"t spoil her beauty."
"It must have been a narrow escape for them all," Henrietta commented in shocked tones as she glanced down the column. "Poor Mildred! She will be wild with anxiety and jealousy! You know, Bella, she can"t bear for another woman to have a smile from him, or a little attention of any sort."
"Sh-h-h! Mother"s coming! Do hide the paper quick and please talk real fast all through breakfast, so she won"t think to ask for it until after you"re gone. Mother would never, never let me go out with him in his auto again if she knew about this accident."
"I don"t think you ought to, anyway, Bella. I wish you wouldn"t."
"What harm does it do? And it gives me a little fun--about all I ever have, you know. Delia is having another season of introspection," she went on laughingly as Mrs. Marne entered the room and all three seated themselves at the table. "It has lasted two days already and I"m trembling with anxiety as to what will happen next. She was in such a brown study this morning that she would have sugared the eggs and salted the coffee if I hadn"t been on the watch."
"Do you think she"s making up her mind again to leave us?" said Mrs.
Marne apprehensively.
"Oh, Delia"s all right, except when she gets uneasy about the scarcity of matrimonial chances in this neighborhood. She doesn"t really want to marry, at least not now, but she likes to think she could if she wanted to and she likes to see a new man once in a while, as she says, "to pa.s.s a word with." And I sympathize with her, even if I do have three letters a week from Warren."
"Bella!" exclaimed her mother, but with more amus.e.m.e.nt than reproof in her voice.
"You would, too, if you were twenty-five years younger," said Bella, leaning over to pat her mother"s arm affectionately. "Anyway, I prove my sympathy with Delia by bringing to her all the stray crumbs of comfort I can find. I haven"t told her yet--I"m waiting for her fit of introspection to reach the acute stage--but the grocer has got a new delivery boy, a nice young man, good-looking and polite. I wish somebody would be that kind to me!" she laughed, with a whimsical pout of her pretty lips. "Harry, if Mr. Brand says anything to you today about coming over here in his motor-car--" Henrietta looked up with a disapproving lift of her eyebrows and saw a sparkle of defiant mischief dancing in her sister"s blue eyes--"just tell him, please,"
Bella proceeded with a toss of her head, "that my physician has ordered me to take an auto ride today as the only means of saving my life!"
It was mid-April and the very air thrilled with the hurry and promise of the spring that was making ready to leap at a single bound--would it be tomorrow, in three days, next week?--from swelling bud and bronzing tree into full flower and leaf.a.ge. As Henrietta hastened down the street beneath budding trees busy at their yearly miracle and past little green lawns with their beds of crocuses and snowdrops and tulips, the splendid caressing sunshine bathed her in its gaiety, the smell of freshly turned earth challenged her to buoyant mood and the singing and fluttering and twittering of birds called her to equal delight in the radiant season. But all was not well with her world and she was more conscious of the anxiety in her heart than of the call of the spring that was storming at her senses.
True, she could begin to look forward now with reasonable surety, she told herself, to the last payment, in a very few months, upon their cottage with its little lawn and garden, and that would make sure, whatever might happen, a home for her mother. Bella would probably marry within a year the young physician to whom she had been engaged so long. They had waited for his graduation from the medical school of Harvard and now he wanted to be sure of a good enough practice to feel warranted in marrying. The delay had been necessary, too, on Bella"s part, for her help in the care of their mother had been indispensable.
But their improving financial prospects had acted like a magic draught upon Mrs. Marne and now, as she felt more and more a.s.sured of Henrietta"s ability and success, she was rapidly growing so much better and stronger that she would soon be able to take care of their housekeeping and leave Bella free to marry as soon as her fiance could offer her a home.
But Henrietta was so anxious about other things that these untangling perplexities gave her small comfort. Her sisterly caution told her it was not prudent for Isabella to go so frequently with Felix Brand in his automobile. Twice since Brand"s return from his last absence had she found, when she reached home at the end of the day, that Bella had just returned from a long drive, wherein Brand"s machine had apparently torn to tatters all speed laws and appeared to onlookers as a mere streak of color. After such a trip Bella"s heightened spirits, Henrietta thought, made her very lovely and bewitching, with the flush in her cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes and her merry talk.
"She"s young and gay-spirited and has so few pleasures," Henrietta thought, regardless of the fact that she herself was younger and had just as few, "that I feel awfully mean to object to anything that seems so innocent. But it is reckless of him to go so fast, and this accident last night--oh, I"m afraid it"s dangerous. And then there"s Mildred--if he was engaged to anybody else I shouldn"t think anything about that; but--well, mother thinks it"s all right and lovely of him to give Bella a little outing now and then; and if it wasn"t I suppose he wouldn"t do it."
But on this last point Henrietta was not without uneasiness. For little rifts were beginning to appear in that perfect confidence she had felt until recently in her employer. She had thought him the soul of uprightness and honor, but in his business affairs, nearly all of which pa.s.sed through her hands, she knew that he had begun to make use of the barest falsehoods and to practice evasions and tricks that made her blush with shame to be the medium by which they were transmitted to paper.
Simple, st.u.r.dy forthrightness being the backbone of Henrietta"s character, she could not help feeling as if she were an accomplice in his shiftiness and untruths when she typed and mailed his letters.
She told herself that it was none of her affair, that she was no more than a machine in the work she did for him and that to look after her own morals was all that was inc.u.mbent upon her. Nevertheless, she was a good deal disturbed about it on this bright morning.
"He seems so different from what he was a few months ago," she thought with a sigh. "I don"t understand why he should change so. I almost begin to feel like trying to find another situation. But I mustn"t think about it now, for I can"t afford yet to take any risks."
Her thoughts turned to another phase of Brand"s character upon which also she was beginning to have doubts. She did not see many people, but a few bits of talk had reached her ears which made her wonder if the man whose character she had believed to be almost ideally fine and n.o.ble were not after all a devotee of sinister pleasures. She had begun to feel conscious, after his last return, of a feeling toward him of physical repulsion and this she knew was growing upon her. As she recalled these things her thoughts flashed uneasily back to her sister. She felt wretchedly ignorant and uncertain as to what she ought to do and wished there were some one better versed in worldly knowledge than herself to whom she could go for advice.
"I can"t talk it over with mother," she thought, "because it would make her worry about it and about me, and I don"t like to go to Dr.
Annister, because he has enough troubles to listen to, with all those half-crazy patients of his, and Mrs. Annister admires Mr. Brand so much that she"d be offended by any suggestion that he isn"t all right and--well, I don"t think she"s very level-headed anyway. I wish I could see Mr. Gordon again--it seems a long time. But I ought not to tell him anything about these things even if I should see him, since there seems to be so much feeling between him and Mr. Brand.
"And I"m afraid Bella wouldn"t pay much attention to anything that was contrary to her own desires, anyway. I don"t like the kind of influence Mr. Brand seems to be having over her. I understand it, because he used to make me feel that way myself--dissatisfied and selfish and wishful of all sorts of delightful things that I couldn"t have. Well, I went through it all right, without any bad results except my own ugly feelings; and she"s so dear and sweet and so happy-natured I guess she will, too, after a little."
She reached the avenue where ran the trolley line that carried her to the ferry and saw that she had just missed a car.
"Oh, dear! Isn"t that provoking?" she muttered as she watched it rattling on its way. "And there isn"t another one in sight yet. I hope I won"t have to wait long, for I do want to get there early this morning, there"s so much to do today."
Her thoughts sped on to her office and the duties that awaited her and hovered over the familiar figure of her employer at work at his desk.