Tales of Trail and Town Part 9

"For what?"

"Until"--hesitated Helen smilingly.

"Until? I am afraid I don't understand," said Sir James stiffly, coloring with a slight suspicion.

"Until you have APOLOGIZED."

"Of course," said Sir James, with a half-hysteric laugh. "I do. You understand I only repeated a story that was told me, and had no idea of connecting YOU with it. I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I er--er--in fact,"

he added suddenly, the embarra.s.sed smile fading from his face as he looked at her fixedly, "I remember now it must have been the concierge of the house, or the opposite one, who told me. He said it was a Russian who carried off that young girl. Of course it was some made-up story."

"I left Paris with the d.u.c.h.ess," said Helen quietly, "before the war."

"Of course. And she knows all about your friends.h.i.+p with this man."

"I don't think she does. I haven't told her. Why should I?" returned Helen, raising her clear eyes to his.

"Really, I don't know," stammered Sir James. "But here she is. Of course if you prefer it, I won't say anything of this to her."

Helen gave him her first glance of genuine emotion; it happened, however, to be scorn.

"How odd!" she said, as the d.u.c.h.ess leisurely approached them, her gla.s.s still in her eye. "Sir James, quite unconsciously, has just been showing me a sketch of my dear old mansarde in Paris. Look! That little window was my room. And, only think of it, Sir James bought it of an old friend of mine, who painted it from the opposite attic, where he lived. And quite unconsciously, too."

"How very singular!" said the d.u.c.h.ess; "indeed, quite romantic!"

"Very!" said Sir James.

"Very!" said Helen.

The tone of their voices was so different that the d.u.c.h.ess looked from one to the other.

"But that isn't all," said Helen with a smile, "Sir James actually fancied"--

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" said Sir James, interrupting, and turning hastily to the d.u.c.h.ess with a forced smile and a somewhat heightened color. "I had forgotten that I had promised Lady Harriet to drive you over to Deep Hill after luncheon to meet that South American who has taken such a fancy to your place, and I must send to the stables."

As Sir James disappeared, the d.u.c.h.ess turned to Helen. "I see what has happened, dear; don't mind me, for I frankly confess I shall now eat my luncheon less guiltily than I feared. But tell me, HOW did you refuse him?"

"I didn't refuse him," said Helen. "I only prevented his asking me."

"How?"

Then Helen told her all,--everything except her first meeting with Ostrander at the restaurant. A true woman respects the pride of those she loves more even than her own, and while Helen felt that although that incident might somewhat condone her subsequent romantic pa.s.sion in the d.u.c.h.ess's eyes, she could not tell it.

The d.u.c.h.ess listened in silence.

"Then you two incompetents have never seen each other since?" she asked.

"No."

"But you hope to?"

"I cannot speak for HIM," said Helen.

"And you have never written to him, and don't know whether he is alive or dead?"

"No."

"Then I have been nursing in my bosom for three years at one and the same time a brave, independent, matter-of-fact young person and the most idiotic, sentimental heroine that ever figured in a romantic opera or a country ballad." Helen did not reply. "Well, my dear," said the d.u.c.h.ess after a pause, "I see that you are condemned to pa.s.s your days with me in some cheap hotel on the continent." Helen looked up wonderingly.

"Yes," she continued, "I suppose I must now make up my mind to sell my place to this gilded South American, who has taken a fancy to it. But I am not going to spoil my day by seeing him NOW. No; we will excuse ourselves from going to Deep Hill to-day, and we will go back home quietly after luncheon. It will be a mercy to Sir James."

"But," said Helen earnestly, "I can go back to my old life, and earn my own living."

"Not if I can help it," said the d.u.c.h.ess grimly. "Your independence has made you a charming companion to me, I admit; but I shall see that it does not again spoil your chances of marrying. Here comes Sir James.

Really, my dear, I don't know which one of you looks the more relieved."

On their way back through the park Helen again urged the d.u.c.h.ess to give up the idea of selling Hamley Court, and to consent to her taking up her old freedom and independence once more. "I shall never, never forget your loving kindness and protection," continued the young girl, tenderly. "You will let me come to you always when you want me; but you will let me also shape my life anew, and work for my living." The d.u.c.h.ess turned her grave, half humorous face towards her. "That means you have determined to seek HIM. Well! Perhaps if you give up your other absurd idea of independence, I may a.s.sist you. And now I really believe, dear, that there is that dreadful South American," pointing to a figure that was crossing the lawn at Hamley Court, "hovering round like a vulture. Well, I can't see him to-day if he calls, but YOU may. By the way, they say he is not bad-looking, was a famous general in the South American War, and is rolling in money, and comes here on a secret mission from his government. But I forget--the rest of our life is to be devoted to seeking ANOTHER. And I begin to think I am not a good matchmaker."

Helen was in no mood for an interview with the stranger, whom, like the d.u.c.h.ess, she was inclined to regard as a portent of fate and sacrifice.

She knew her friend's straitened circ.u.mstances, which might make such a sacrifice necessary to insure a competency for her old age, and, as Helen feared also, a provision for herself. She knew the strange tenderness of this masculine woman, which had survived a husband's infidelities and a son's forgetfulness, to be given to her, and her heart sank at the prospect of separation, even while her pride demanded that she should return to her old life again. Then she wondered if the d.u.c.h.ess was right; did she still cherish the hope of meeting Ostrander again? The tears she had kept back all that day a.s.serted themselves as she flung open the library door and ran across the garden into the myrtle walk. "In hospital!" The words had been ringing in her ears though Sir James's complacent speech, through the oddly constrained luncheon, through the half-tender, half-masculine reasoning of her companion. He HAD loved her--he had suffered and perhaps thought her false. Suddenly she stopped. At the further end of the walk the ominous stranger whom she wished to avoid was standing looking towards the house.

How provoking! She glanced again; he was leaning against a tree and was obviously as preoccupied as she was herself. He was actually sketching the ivy-covered gable of the library. What presumption! And he was sketching with his left hand. A sudden thrill of superst.i.tion came over her. She moved eagerly forward for a better view of him. No! he had two arms!

But his quick eye had already caught sight of her, and before she could retreat she could see that he had thrown away his sketch-book and was hastening eagerly toward her. Amazed and confounded she would have flown, but her limbs suddenly refused their office, and as he at last came near her with the cry of "Helen!" upon his lips, she felt herself staggering, and was caught in his arms.

"Thank G.o.d," he said. "Then she HAS let you come to me!"

She disengaged herself slowly and dazedly from him and stood looking at him with wondering eyes. He was bronzed and worn; there was the second arm: but still it was HE. And with the love, which she now knew he had felt, looking from his honest eyes!

"SHE has let me come!" she repeated vacantly. "Whom do you mean?"

"The d.u.c.h.ess."

"The d.u.c.h.ess?"

"Yes." He stopped suddenly, gazing at her blank face, while his own grew ashy white. "Helen! For G.o.d's sake tell me! You have not accepted him?"

"I have accepted no one," she stammered, with a faint color rising to her cheeks. "I do not understand you."

A look of relief came over him. "But," he said amazedly, "has not the d.u.c.h.ess told you how I happen to be here? How, when you disappeared from Paris long ago--with my ambition crushed, and nothing left to me but my old trade of the fighter--I joined a secret expedition to help the Chilian revolutionists? How I, who might have starved as a painter, gained distinction as a partisan general, and was rewarded with an envoys.h.i.+p in Europe? How I came to Paris to seek you? How I found that even the picture--your picture, Helen--had been sold. How, in tracing it here, I met the d.u.c.h.ess at Deep Hill, and learning you were with her, in a moment of impulse told her my whole story. How she told me that though she was your best friend, you had never spoken of me, and how she begged me not to spoil your chance of a good match by revealing myself, and so awakening a past--which she believed you had forgotten. How she implored me at least to let her make a fair test of your affections and your memory, and until then to keep away from you--and to spare you, Helen; and for your sake, I consented. Surely she has told this, NOW!"

"Not a word," said Helen blankly.

"Then you mean to say that if I had not haunted the park to-day, in the hope of seeing you, believing that as you would not recognize me with this artificial arm, I should not break my promise to her,--you would not have known I was even living."

"No!--yes!--stay!" A smile broke over her pale face and left it rosy. "I see it all now. Oh, Philip, don't you understand? She wanted only to try us!"

There was a silence in the lonely wood, broken only by the trills of a frightened bird whose retreat was invaded.

"Not now! Please! Wait! Come with me!"