Bloomsbury Place! A sudden pang shot through Dolly"s heart. She recollected then for the first time that at Bloomsbury Place Griffith was waiting for her, and that it might be a couple of hours before she could see him and explain. She got into the cab and leaned back in one corner, with the anxious tears forcing themselves into her eyes. It seemed as if fate itself was against her.
"What will he think?" she exclaimed, unconsciously. "Oh, what will he think?" Then, seeing that Gowan had heard her, she looked at him piteously.
"I did not mean to speak aloud," she said. "I had forgotten in my trouble that Grif will be waiting for me all this time. He has gone to the house to meet me, and--I am not there."
Perhaps he felt a slight pang, too. For some time he had been slowly awakening, to the fact that this otherwise unfortunate Grif was all in all to her, and shut out the rest of the world completely. He had no chance against him, and no other man would have any. Still, even in the face of this knowledge, the evident keenness of her disappointment cut him a little.
"You must not let that trouble you," he said, generously. "Donne will easily understand your absence when you tell him where you have been.
In the meantime, I have a few suggestions to make before we reach the hotel."
It was Mollie he was thinking of. He was wondrously tender of her in his man"s pity for her childish folly and simplicity. If possible, they must keep her secret to themselves. If she had left no explanation behind her, she must have given some reason for leaving the house, and if they found her at the hotel it would not be a difficult matter to carry her back home without exciting suspicion, and thus she would be saved the embarra.s.sment and comment her position would otherwise call down upon her. Griffith might be told in confidence, but the rest of them might be left to imagine that nothing remarkable had occurred.
These were his suggestions.
Dolly agreed to adopt them at once, it is hardly necessary to say. The idea that it would be possible to adopt them made the case look less formidable. She had been terribly troubled at first by the thought of the excitement the explanation of the escapade would cause at Bloomsbury Place. Phil would have been simply furious,--not so much against Mollie as against Chandos. His good-natured indifference to circ.u.mstances would not have been proof against the base betrayal of confidence involved in the affair. And then even in the after-time, when the worst was over and forgotten, the innumerable jokes and thoughtless sarcasms she would have had to encounter would have been Mollie"s severest punishment. When the remembrance of her past danger had faded out of the family mind, and the whimsical side of the matter presented itself, they would have teased her, and Dolly felt that such a course would be far from safe. So she caught at Ralph Gowan"s plan eagerly.
Still she felt an excited thrill when the cab drew up before the door of the hotel. Suppose they should not find her? Suppose Chandos had taken precautions against their being followed?
But Gowan did not seem to share her misgivings, though the expression upon his face was a decidedly disturbed one as he descended from the vehicle.
"You must remain seated until I come back," he said. "I shall not be many minutes, I am sure. I am convinced they are here." And then he closed the cab door and left her.
She drew out her watch and sat looking at it to steady herself. Her mind was not very clear as to how she intended to confront Mr. Gerald Chandos and convince Mollie. The convincing of Mollie would not be difficult, she was almost sure, but the confronting of Gerald Chandos was not a pleasant thing to think of.
She was just turning over in her mind a stirring, scathing speech, when the cab door opened again, and Gowan stood before her. He had not been absent five minutes.
"It is as I said it would be," he said. "They are here,--at least Mollie is here. Chandos has gone out, and she is alone in the private parlor he has engaged for her. They have evidently missed their train. They intended to leave by the first in the morning. I have managed to give the impression that we are expected, and so we shall be shown on to the scene at once without any trouble."
And so they were. A waiter met them at the entrance and led them up-stairs without the slightest hesitation.
"It is not necessary to announce us," said Gowan. And the man threw open the door of No. 2 with a bow.
They crossed the threshold together without speaking, and when the door closed behind them they turned and looked at each other with a simultaneous but half-smothered exclamation.
It was a pretty room, bright with a delicate gay-hued carpet and thick white rugs, numerous mirrors and upholstering of silver-gray and blue.
There was a clear-burning fire in the highly polished steel-grate, and one of the blue and silver-gray sofas had been drawn up to it, and there, upon this sofa, lay Mollie with her hand under her cheek, sleeping like a baby.
They were both touched to the heart by the mere sight of her. There was something in the perfect repose of her posture and expression that was childish and restful. It was a difficult matter to realize that she was sleeping on the brink of ruin and desolation. Something bright gathered on Dolly"s lashes and slipped down her cheek as she looked at her.
"Thank G.o.d, we have found her!" she said. "Just to think that she should be sleeping like that,--as if she was at home. If she was two years old she might wear just such a look."
Gowan hardly liked to stand by as she went toward the sofa. The girl"s face, under the coquettish hat, seemed to grow womanly, her whole figure seemed to soften as she knelt down upon the carpet by the couch and laid her hand upon Mollie"s shoulder, speaking to her gently.
"Mollie," she said, "dear, waken."
Just that, and Mollie started up with a faint cry, dazzled by the light, and rubbing her eyes and her soft, flushed cheeks, just as she had done the night Gowan surprised her asleep in the parlor.
"Dolly," she cried out, when she saw who was with her,--"Dolly," in a half-frightened voice, "why did you come here?"
"I came to take you home," answered Dolly, tremulously, but firmly.
"Thank G.o.d! I am not too late! Oh, Mollie, Mollie, how could you?"
Mollie sat up among her blue and gray cus.h.i.+ons and stared at her for a moment, as if she was not wide enough awake to realize what she meant.
But the next instant she caught sight of Ralph Gowan, and that roused her fully, and she flushed scarlet.
"I don"t know what you mean," she said. "I don"t know what you mean by coming here in this way. And I don"t know what Mr. Gowan means by bringing you,--for I feel sure he has brought you. I am not a baby, to be followed as if I could not take care of myself. I am going to be married to Mr. Gerald Chandos to-morrow, and we are going on the Continent for our wedding tour."
She was in a high state of rebellion. It was Gowan"s presence she was resenting, not Dolly"s. To tell the truth, she was rather glad to see Dolly. She had begun to feel the loneliness of her position, and it had half intimidated her. But the sight of Gowan roused her spirit. What right had he to come and interfere with her, since he did not care for her and thought she was nothing but a child? It made her feel like a child. She turned her back to him openly as she spoke to Dolly.
"I am going to be married in the morning," she repeated; "and we are going to Brussels."
Then, in her indignation against Mr. Gerald Chandos, Dolly fired a little herself.
"And has it never occurred to you," she said, "that it is rather a humiliating thing this running away, as if you knew you were doing something disgraceful? May I ask what reason Mr. Gerald Chan-dos gives for asking you to submit to such an insult, for it is an insult?"
"He has very good reasons," answered Mollie, beginning to falter all at once, as the matter was presented to her in this new and trying light.
"He has very good reasons,--something about business and--and his family, and he does not intend to insult me. He is very fond of me and very proud of me, and he is going to try to make me very happy. He--he has bought me a beautiful trousseau--" And then, seeing the two exchange indignant yet pitying glances, she broke off suddenly and burst forth as if she was trying to hide in anger the subtle, mysterious fear which was beginning to creep upon her. "How dare you look at each other so!" she cried. "How dare you look at me so! I have done nothing wrong. He says many other people do the same thing and--and I won"t be looked at so. I shall not tell you another word. You--you look as if I was going to do something wicked and dreadful." And she flung herself face downward upon the sofa cus.h.i.+ons and broke into a pa.s.sionate, excited sob.
Then Dolly could control herself no longer. She flashed out into a storm of wrath and scorn against this cool, systematic scoundrel, who would have wrought such harm-against such simple ignorance of the world.
What had they not saved her from, poor, foolish child? She clenched her little, gloved hand and struck it against the sofa arm, the hot color flaming up on her cheeks and the fire lighting in her eyes.
"Mollie!" she exclaimed, "that is what is true! You are going to do something that is dreadful to think of, though you do not think so because you do not know the truth. And we have come to tell you the truth and save you. That man is a villain,--he is the worst of villains.
He does not intend to marry you,--he cannot marry you, and, knowing he cannot, he has been laying traps for months to drag you down into a horrible pit of shame. Yes, of the bitterest grief and shame,--poor, simple child as you are,--for I must tell you the whole dreadful truth, though I would far rather hide it from you, if I could. There are some wicked, wicked men in the world, Mollie, and Gerald Chandos is one of the worst, for he has got a wife already."
It did not seem to be Mollie who sprang up from her cus.h.i.+ons and confronted them with wide-opened eyes. Every bit of color had died out of her cheeks and lips, and she turned from one to the other with a wild, appealing look.
"It is n"t true," she insisted, desperately; but her voice was broken, and she sobbed out her words in her fright. "It is n"t true! It is n"t true! You want to frighten me." And all at once she ran to Ralph Gowan like a child, and caught hold of his arm with her pretty, shaking hands. "Mr. Gowan," she said, "you know, don"t you? and you won"t--you won"t--Oh, where is Aimee? I want Aimee! Aimee is n"t like the rest of you! _She_ would have made me go home without being so cruel as this."
And the next minute she turned so white and staggered so, that Dolly ran to her, and Gowan was obliged to take her in his arms.
"Tell her that what I have said is true," said Dolly, crying. "She will begin to understand then."
And so, while he held her, panting and sobbing and clinging to him, Gowan told her all that he had learned. He was as brief as possible and as tender as a woman. His heart so warmed toward the pretty, lovable, pa.s.sionately frightened creature, that his voice was far from steady as he told his story.
She did not rebel an instant longer, then. Her terror, under the shock, rendered her only helpless and hysterical. She had so far lost control over herself that she would have believed anything they had chosen to tell her.
"Take me away," she cried, whitening and s.h.i.+vering, all her bright, pretty color gone, all her wilful petulance struck down at a blow. "Take me home,--take me home to Aimee. I want to go away from here before he comes. I want to go home and die."
How they got her down-stairs and into the carriage, Dolly scarcely knows. It was enough that they got her there and knew she was safe. Upon the table in the room above they had left a note directed to Mr. Gerald Chandos,--Dolly had directed it and Dolly had written it.
"Is there pen and ink here?" she had asked Gowan; and when he had produced the articles, she had bent over the table and dashed a few lines off with an unsteady yet determined hand.
"There!" she had said, when she closed the envelope. "Mr. Chandos will go to Brussels, I think, and he will understand why he goes alone, and, for my part, I incline to the belief that he will not trouble us again."
And in five minutes more they were driving toward Bloomsbury Place.
But now the first excitement was over, Dolly"s nerve began to fail her.
Now that Mollie was safe, she began to think of Griffith. It seemed a cruel trick of fortune"s to try his patience so sharply just at this very point. She knew so well what effect his hours of waiting would have upon him. But it was useless to rebel now; so she must bear it as well as she could, and trust to the result of her explanation. Yet despite her hope, every minute of the long drive seemed an age, and she grew feverish and restless and wretched. What if he had not waited, and was not there to listen to what she had to say? Then there would be all the old trouble to face again,--perhaps something worse.
"It is nine o"clock," she said, desperately, as they pa.s.sed a lighted church tower. "It is nine o"clock." And she leaned back in her corner again, with her heart beating strongly. Her disappointment was so keen that she could have burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. Her happy evening was gone, and her dream of simple pleasure had fled with its sacrificed hours. She could not help remembering this, and being quite conquered by the thought, even though Mollie was safe.