"He burst forth with the story of his wrongs, of course, then. He could not keep it in any longer. Things had gone wrong with him in every way before this had happened, he said, and he had longed so for just one hour in which Dolly could comfort him and try to help him to pluck up spirits again, and she had written to him a tender little letter, and promised to give him that hour, and he had been so full of impatience and love, and he had gone to the very gates and waited like a beggar outside, lest he should miss her by any chance, and the end of his waiting had been that he had caught a glimpse of the bright, warm room, and the piano, and Dolly with Gowan bending over her as if she had no other lover in the world. He told it all in a burst, clenching his hand and scarcely stopping for breath; but when he ended he dashed the letter down, pushed his chair round, and dropped his head on his folded arms on the table, with a wild, tearing sob.
"It is no fault of hers," he cried, "and it was only the first sting that made me reproach her. I shall never do it again. She is only in the right, and that fellow is in the right when he tells himself that he can take better care of her and make her happier than I can. I will be a coward no longer,--not an hour longer. I will give her up to-night. She will learn to love him--he is a gentleman at least--if I were in his place I should never fear that she would not learn in time, and forget--and forget the poor, selfish beggar who would have died for her, and yet was not man enough to control the jealous rage that tortured her. I "ll give her up. I"ll give it all up--but, oh! my G.o.d! Dolly, the--the little house, and--and the dreams I have had about it!"
Aimee was almost in despair. This was not one of his ordinary moods; this was the culminating point,--the culmination of all his old sufferings and pangs. He had been working slowly toward this through all the old unhappiness and self-reproach. The constant droppings of the bygone years had worn away the stone at last, and he could not bear much more. Aimee was frightened now. Her habit of forethought showed her all this in a very few seconds. His nervous, highly strung, impa.s.sioned temperament had broken down at last. Another blow would be too much for him. If she could not manage to set him right now and calm him, and if things went wrong again, she was secretly conscious of feeling that the consequences could not be foreseen. There was nothing wild and rash and wretched he might not do.
She got up and went to him, and leaned upon the table, clasping her cool, firm little hand upon his hot, desperate one. A woman of fifty could not have had the power over him that this slight, inexperienced little creature had. Her childish face caught color and life and strength in her determination to do her best for these two whom she loved so well. Her small-boned, fragile figure deceived people into undervaluing her reserve forces; but there was mature feeling and purpose enough in her to have put many a woman three times her age to shame. The light, cool touch of her" hand soothed and controlled Griffith from the first, and when she put forth all her powers of reasoning, and set his trouble before him in a more practical and less headlong way, not a word was lost upon him. She pictured Dolly to him just as she had found her holding his letter in her hand, and she pictured her too as she had really been the night he watched her through the window,--not staying because she cared for Gowan, but because circ.u.mstances had forced her to remain when she was longing in her own impetuous pretty way to fly to him, and give him the comfort he needed.
And she gave Dolly"s story in Dolly"s own words, with the little sobs between, and the usual plentiful sprinkling of sweet, foolish, loving epithets, and--with innocent artfulness--made her seem so charming and affectionate, a little centre-figure in the picture she drew, that no man with a heart in his breast could have resisted her, and by the time Aimee had finished, Grif was so far moved that it seemed a sheer impossibility to speak again of relinquis.h.i.+ng his claims.
But he could not regain his spirits sufficiently to feel able to say very much. He quieted down, but he was still down at heart and crushed in feeling, and could do little else but listen in a hopeless sort of way.
"I will tell you what you shall do," Aimee said at last. "You shall see Dolly yourself,--not on the street, but just as you used to see her when she was at home. She shall come home some afternoon. I know Miss MacDowlas will let her,--and you shall sit in the parlor together, Grif, and make everything straight, and begin afresh."
He could not help being roused somewhat by such a prospect. The cloud was lifted for one instant, even if it fell upon him again the next.
"I shall have to wait a week," he said. "Old Flynn has asked me to go to Dartmouth, to attend to some business for him, and I leave here to-morrow morning."
"Very well!" she answered. "If we must wait a week, we must; but you can write to Dolly in the interval, and settle upon the day, and then she can speak to Miss MacDowlas."
He agreed to the plan at once, and promised to write to Dolly that very night. So the young peacemaker"s mind was set at rest upon this subject, at least, and after giving him a trifle more advice, and favoring him with a few more sage axioms, she prepared to take her departure.
"You may put on your hat and take me to the door; but you had better not come in if you are going to finish your letter before the post closes,"
she said; "but the short walk will do you good, and the night-air will cool you."
She bade him good-night at the gate when they reached Bloomsbury Place, and she entered the house with her thoughts turning to Mollie. Mollie had been out, too, it seemed. When she went up-stairs to their bedroom, she found her there, standing before the dressing-table, still with her hat on, and looking in evident preoccupation at something she held in her hand. Hearing Aimee, she started and turned round, dropping her hand at her side, but not in time to hide a suspicious glitter which caught her sister"s eye. Here was a worse state of affairs than ever. She had something to hide, and she had made up her mind to hide it. She stood up as Aimee approached, looking excited and guilty, but still half-defiant, her lovely head tossed back a little and an obstinate curve on her red lips. But the oracle was not to be daunted. She confronted her with quite a stern little air.
"Mollie," she began at once, without the least hesitation,--"Mollie, you have just this minute hidden something from me, and I should n"t have thought you could do it."
Mollie put her closed hand behind her.
"_If_ I am hiding something," she answered, "I am not hiding it without reason."
"No," returned Dame Prudence, severely, "you are not. You have a very good reason, I am afraid. You are ashamed of yourself, and you know you are doing wrong. You have got a secret, which you are keeping from _me_, Mollie," bridling a little in the prettiest way. "I didn"t think you would keep a secret from _me_."
Mollie, very naturally, was overpowered. She looked a trifle ashamed of herself, and the tears came into her eyes. She drew her hand from behind her back, and held it out with a half-pettish, half-timid gesture.
"There!" she said; "if you must see it."
And there, on her pink palm, lay a s.h.i.+ning opal ring.
"And," said Aimee, looking at it without offering to touch it, and then looking at her,--"and Mr. Gerald Chandos gave it to you?"
"Yes, Mr. Gerald Chandos did," trying to brave it out, but still appearing the reverse of comfortable. "And you think it proper,"
proceeded her inquisitor, "to accept such presents from a gentleman who cares nothing for you?"
Care nothing for her! Mollie drew herself upright, with the air of a Zen.o.bia. She had had too few real love affairs not to take arms at once at such an imputation cast upon her prowess.
"He cares enough for me to want me to marry him," she said, and then stopped and looked as if she could have bitten her tongue off for betraying her.
Aimee sat down in the nearest chair and stared at her, as if she doubted the evidence of her senses.
"To do what?" she demanded.
There was no use in trying to conceal the truth any longer. Mollie saw that much; and besides this, her feelings were becoming too strong for her from various causes. The afternoon had been an exciting one to her, too. So, all at once, so suddenly that Aimee was altogether unprepared for the outbreak, she gave way. The ring fell unheeded on to the carpet, slipped from her hand and rolled away, and the next instant she went down upon her knees, hiding her face on her arms on Aimee"s lap, and began to cry hysterically.
"It--it is to be quite a secret," she sobbed. "I would not tell anybody but you, and I dare not tell you quite all, but he _has_ asked me to marry him, Aimee, and I have--I have said yes." And then she cried more than ever, and caught Aimee"s hand, and clung to it with a desperate, childish grasp, as if she was frightened.
It was very evident that she was frightened, too. All the newly a.s.sumed womanliness was gone. It was the handsome, inexperienced, ignorant child Mollie she had known all her life who was clinging to her, Aimee felt,--the pretty, simple, thoughtless Mollie they had all admired and laughed at, and teased and been fond of. She seemed to have become a child again all at once, and she was in trouble and desperate, it was plain.
"But the very idea!" exclaimed Aimee, inwardly; "the bare idea of her having the courage to engage herself to him!"
"I never heard such a thing in my life," she said, aloud. "Oh, Mollie!
Mollie! what induced you to give him such a mad answer? You don"t care for him."
"He--he would not take any other answer, and he is as nice as any one else," shamefacedly. "He is nicer than Brown and the others, and--I do like him--a little," but a tiny shudder crept over her, and she held her listener"s hand more tightly.
"As nice as any one else!" echoed Aimee, indignantly. "Nicer than Brown!
You ought to be in leading-strings!" with pathetic hopelessness. "That was n"t your only reason, Mollie."
The hat with the short crimson feather had been unceremoniously pushed off, and hung by its elastic upon Mollie"s neck; the pretty curly hair was all crushed into a heap, and the flushed, tear-wet face was hidden in the folds of Aimee"s dress. There was a charming, foolish, fanciful side to Mollie"s desperation, as there was to all her moods.
"That was not your only reason," repeated Aimee.
One impetuous, unhappy little sob, and the poor simple child confessed against her will.
"n.o.body--n.o.body else cared for me!" she cried.
"n.o.body?" said Aimee; and then, making up her mind to go to the point at once, she said, "Does "n.o.body" mean that Ralph Gowan did not, Mollie?"
The clinging hand was s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and the child quite writhed.
"I hate Ralph Gowan!" she cried. "I detest him! I wish--I wish--I _wish_ I had never seen him! Why could n"t he stay away among his own people?
n.o.body wanted him. Dolly doesn"t care for him, and Grif hates him. Why could n"t he stay where he was?"
There was no need to doubt after this, of course. Her love for Ralph Gowan had rendered her restless and despairing, and so she had worked out this innocent romance, intending to defend herself against him. The heroines of her favorite novels married for money when they could not marry for love, and why should not she? Remember, she was only seventeen, and had been brought up in Vagabondia among people who did not often regard consequences. Mr. Gerald Chandos was rich, made violent love to her, and was ready to promise anything, it appeared,--not that she demanded much; the Lord Burleighs of her experience invariably showered jewels and equipages and fine raiment upon their brides without being asked. She would have thought it positive bliss to be tied to Ralph Gowan for six or seven years without any earthly prospect of ever being married; to have belonged to him as Dolly belonged to Grif, to sit in the parlor and listen to him while he made love to her as Grif made love to Dolly, would have been quite enough steady-going rapture for her; but since that was out of the question, Mr. Gerald Chandos and diamonds and a carriage would have to fill up the blank.
But, of course, she did not say this to Aimee. In fact, after her first burst of excitement subsided, Aimee could not gain much from her. She cried a little more, and then seemed vexed with herself, and tried to cool down, and at last so far succeeded that she sat up and pushed her tangled hair from her wet, hot face, and began to search for the ring.
"It has got a diamond in the centre," she said, trying to speak indifferently. "I don"t believe you looked at it. The opals are splendid, too."
"Are you going to wear it?" asked Aimee.
She colored up to her forehead. "No, I am not," she answered. "I should have worn it before if I had intended to let people see it. I told you it was a secret. I have had this ring three or four days."
"Why is it a secret?" demanded Dame Prudence. "I don"t believe in secrets,--particularly in secret engagements. Is n"t Phil to know?"
She turned away to put the ring into its case.
"Not yet," she replied, pettishly. "Time enough when it can"t be helped.