"I got a letter to-day," John went on, while Melissa stroked his fingers fondly, "about the meadows. The time for redeeming them is up this month, and if I try to do it I can"t pay anything on the debts this winter. The truth is "--
Melissa sat up suddenly.
"John!" she exclaimed.
"Why, what--what is the matter?"
She looked at him with wide open eyes, drawing in her under lip beneath her white teeth, with the air of profound meditation. Then she freed herself abruptly from his arms and went hastily to the table upon which were her writing materials. She had been at work copying when her lover came in, and her papers lay still open, with ink scarcely dry, where she had stopped to welcome him. She took one sheet up and studied it eagerly, and then turned toward him with shining eyes, her whole face aglow.
"Oh, John!" she exclaimed.
He regarded her in puzzled silence. Then in an instant the glad light faded from her eyes, and her lips lost their smile. An expression of pain and almost of terror replaced the look of joy. There had suddenly come to Melissa a sense of what she was doing. In the paper she held was written the plan of the formation of a syndicate to purchase the very range of meadows along the river in Feltonville of which those mentioned by John formed a part. At Mrs. Fenton"s direction, Melissa had gone to see Mr. Hubbard, and had by him been employed to copy these papers for use at a meeting of the proposed stockholders, which was to take place in a few days.
"Mrs. Fenton tells me," he had said, "that you are to be trusted. It is absolutely essential that you do not mention these plans to any living being. Perfect secrecy is expected from you, and it is only because Mrs. Fenton is your guarantee that I run the risk of putting them into your hands."
"I think you can trust me," she had answered; "even if," she had added, with the ghost of a smile, "there were anybody that I know who would be at all likely to be interested."
And now the temptation had come to her in a way of which she had never dreamed. She had gone on with her copying, smiling to herself at the coincidence which put into the hands of a Feltonville girl this plan for the metamorphosis of the sleepy old village into a bustling manufacturing town, but she had not considered that this scheme might have important bearing upon the fortunes of her lover. She knew that Stanton"s father had owned meadows along the river where the new factories were to lie, and she knew also that when old Mr. Stanton died these had been sold with a condition of redemption, but until this moment she had not connected the facts. She did not understand business, and had been puzzling her brain as she wrote, to understand what was meant by the statement that a certain company would sell a "six months" option at seventy thousand dollars" on a water-power for two thousand dollars. She did understand now, however, that were John in possession of the secret of the syndicate"s plans, he could redeem his father"s meadows with the money he had saved toward the payment of the debts which had forced the old man into the bankruptcy that broke his heart, and once he owned these lands lying in the midst of the desirable tract, John could command his own price for them. She held in her hand the secret which would free her lover from the heavy burden of years, and bring quickly the wedding-day for which they had both waited and longed so patiently.
The blood bounded so hotly in Melissa"s veins as she realized all this, that she could scarcely breathe; but like a lightning flash a thought followed which sent the tide surging back to her heart, and left her cold and faint. She remembered that this knowledge was a trust. That she had given her word not to betray it. With instant recoil, she leaped to the thought that advising her lover to redeem these meadows was not betraying the secret. Like a swift shuttle flew her mind between argument and defence, between temptation and resistance, between love and duty.
"Why, what is it, Milly?" John demanded, starting up and coming to her.
"What in the world makes you act so funny? Are you sick? Why don"t you speak?"
It is not easy to express the force of the struggle which went on in poor Milly"s mind. It seemed to her at that moment as if all the hopes of her life were set against her honesty. The material issues in any conflict between principle and inclination are of less importance than the desire which they represent. The few thousand dollars involved in the redemption of the Stanton meadows was little when compared to the magnificent scheme of which this would be a mere trifling accident, but the sum represented all the desires of Milly Blake"s life, while over against it stood all her faith, her honesty, and her religion.
For an instant she wavered, standing as if by some spell suddenly arrested, with arms half extended. Then she flung down the paper and threw herself upon her lover"s breast with a burst of tears.
"Why, Milly," he said, soothingly. "Milly, Milly."
He was unused to feminine vagaries. His betrothed was of the outwardly quiet order of women, and an outburst like this was incomprehensible to him. He could only hold the weeping girl in his strong embrace, soothing her in helpless masculine fashion, awkward, but exactly what she needed.
"There, John," she cried at last, giving him a tumultuous hug, and looking up into his face through her tears, "I always told you you were engaged to a fool, and this is a new proof of it."
"But what in the world," Stanton asked, looking down into her eyes with mingled fondness and bewilderment, "is it all about? What is the matter?"
"It is nothing but my foolishness," she answered, leading him back to the chair from which he had risen. "I was going to show you something in a paper I am copying, and just in time I remembered that I had particularly promised not to show it to anybody."
He regarded her curiously.
"But why," he asked, with a certain deliberateness which somehow made her uneasy, "did you want to show it to me."
"Because--because--"
She could not equivocate, and her innocent soul had had little training in the arts of evasion.
"Because what?"
Stanton leaned back in his chair, holding her by the shoulders as she sat upon his knee, and searching her face with his strong brown eyes.
Milly"s glance drooped.
"Don"t ask me, John," she responded, putting her hand against his cheek, wistfully. "Don"t you see I couldn"t tell you without letting you know what is in the paper, and that is precisely the thing I promised not to do."
There are few men in whom a woman"s open refusal to yield a point, no matter how trifling, does not arouse a tyrannous masculine impulse to compel obedience. Stanton had really no great curiosity about the secret, whatever it might be, but he instinctively felt that it was right to demand the telling because his betrothed refused to speak. His face grew more grave. The hands upon Milly"s shoulders unconsciously tightened their hold. The girl intuitively felt that a struggle was coming, although even yet the signs were hardly tangible. She grew a little paler, putting her hand beneath her lover"s bearded chin, and holding his face up so that she could look straight into his fearless, honest eyes.
"Dear John," she said, wistfully, "you know I never have a secret of my own that I keep from you in all the world."
"But why," demanded he, "can it do any harm for you to give me some reason why you ever thought of telling me this; and just at a time, too, when we were talking of business."
"Because," she answered, thoughtlessly, "it was about business."
A new light came into Stanton"s face. His lips subtly changed their expression.
"It must have been a chance to make some money," he said.
She grew deadly pale, but she did not answer him. He searched her face an instant, and then he lifted her in his strong arms, rising from the chair, and seating her in his place. He took a step forward, and stretched out his hand to take the paper she had thrown upon the table.
With a cry of terror she sprang up and caught his arm.
"John!" she exclaimed. "Oh, for pity"s sake, don"t look at it."
He turned and regarded her with a more unkind glance than she had ever seen upon his face.
"Will you tell me?" he asked.
"I can"t, I can"t!" she answered, half sobbing.
He looked at the paper, and then at his sweetheart. Then with a rough motion he shook off her fingers from his arm, and without a word went abruptly from the room.
Milly looked toward the door which had closed after him as if she could not believe that he had really gone; then she sank down to the floor, and, leaning her head upon a chair, she sobbed as if her heart were broken.
VI
THE INLY TOUCH OF LOVE.
Two Gentlemen of Verona; ii.--7.
Grant Herman looked across the breakfast table at his Italian wife thoughtfully a moment, considering, as he often did, what was likely to be the effect of something he was about to say. In six years of married life he had not learned how to adapt himself to the narrower mind and more personal views of his wife. He perhaps fell into the error, so common to strong natures, of being unable to comprehend that by far the larger part of the principles which influence broad minds do not for narrow ones exist at all. He continually tried to discover what process of reasoning led Ninitta to given results, but he was never able to appreciate the fact that often it was by no chain of logic whatever that certain conclusions had been arrived at. A mental habit of catching up opinions at haphazard, of acting simply from emotions, however transient, instead of from convictions, was wholly outside his mental experience, and equally unrealized in his comprehension.
He regarded Ninitta, whose foreign face and beautiful figure looked as much out of place behind the coffee urn as would the faun of Praxiteles at an afternoon reception, and a smothered sigh rose to his lips with the thought how utterly he was at a loss to comprehend her. It happened in the present case, as it often did, that his failure to understand arose chiefly from the fact that there was nothing in particular to understand, and, when he spoke, Ninitta received his remark quite simply.
"Mrs. Greyson is at home again," he said.
"Mrs. Greyson," she echoed, her dark eyes lighting up with genuine pleasure. "Oh, that is indeed good. Where is she? Have you seen her?"
There shot through Herman"s mind the reflection that since his wife could not know that he married her out of love not for herself but for Helen Greyson, it was absurd to have fancied that Ninitta would be jealously displeased at Helen"s return; and the inevitable twinge of conscience at his wife"s trusting ignorance followed.
"I haven"t seen her," he answered; "she only arrived yesterday. Mrs.