The Terms of Surrender Part 19

"Whither thou goest----" she said, and her eyes fell.

Thus did they thrust dull care into the limbo of forgetfulness, and if there was standing at the gates of their Eden a frowning angel with a drawn sword, their vision was clouded, and they could not see him.

America rises early, even in holiday-making Newport; so Mr. Francis Willard did not breakfast in solitary state. When he entered the dining-room at half-past eight next morning he cast a quick glance around the well-filled tables, and ascertained instantly that the one man whom he did not wish to see was absent.

Toward the close of the meal he beckoned the head waiter.

"Where does Mr. Power sit usually?" he inquired.

"Over there, sir, with Mr. Dacre, the English gentleman, at the small table near the second window."

Following directions, Willard noted a good-looking man, apparently about forty years old, who was studying the menu intently. As a matter of fact, Dacre had seen the newcomer's signal, and guessed what it portended.

"Oh, indeed! Mr. Dacre a friend of his?" went on Willard.

"They are often together, sir."

"And where is Mr. Power this morning?"

"He left by the first train, sir."

For some reason this news was displeasing; though Power's departure made plausible any inquiries concerning him.

"That's a nuisance," said Willard. "I--wanted to meet him. I came here last night for that purpose. Do you happen to know where he has gone, and for how long?"

The head waiter was not in the habit of answering questions about his patrons indiscriminately.

"I can't say, I'm sure, sir," he replied; "but if you were to ask Mr.

Dacre he might know."

Willard weighed the point. In one respect, he was candid with himself.

He had come to Newport to spy on Nancy, and, if necessary, to put a prompt and effectual end to any threatened renewal of her friends.h.i.+p with Power. The intuition of sheer hatred had half warned him that the man whom he regarded as his worst enemy might possibly visit Rhode Island; but some newspaper paragraph about the purchase of horses bred in the state of New York had lulled his suspicions until he chanced to meet Benson at lunch in the Brown Palace Hotel. Marten's secretary was worried. He had replied to Nancy's letter the previous day; but was not quite sure that he had taken the right line, and he seized the opportunity now to consult her father. Of course, he did not reveal his employer's business, and Willard was the last person with whom he could discuss the mortgage transaction fully; but he saw no harm in alluding casually to Mrs. Marten's curious inquiry, and was relieved to find that her father agreed with the answer he had given.

The actual truth was that Willard felt too stunned by the disclosure to trust his own speech. He was well aware already that Marten had used him as a cat's-paw in bringing about the marriage; but that phase of the affair had long ceased to trouble him. The real shock of Benson's guarded statement lay in Nancy's pointblank question. Why had she put it? What influence was at work that such serious thought should be given to his financial straits of nearly four years ago?

In the upshot, he left Denver by that night's mail; though the letter in which he spoke tentatively of a visit to Newport, and of which Nancy had availed herself in talk with her friends at the Casino, had been only a day in the post, and, in the ordinary course of events, demanded a reply before he undertook a journey of two thousand miles.

And now he was vaguely uneasy. Though he hated the sight of Power, he wished heartily that the interloper who had s.n.a.t.c.hed from him the bonanza of the Dolores Ranch had remained in Newport during this one day, at least. Yes, he would speak to Power's British acquaintance, and glean some news of the man to whom he had done a mortal wrong and therefore hated with an intensity bordering on mania.

Dacre saw him coming; so it was with the correct air of polite indifference that he heard himself addressed by an elderly stranger.

"I'm sorry to disturb you," said Willard, "but the head waiter tells me that your friend, Mr. Power, has left Newport. As I am anxious to have a word with him, I thought that, perhaps, you wouldn't mind telling me his whereabouts. My name is Willard, and I arrived here from Denver at a late hour yesterday; at midnight, in fact, my train having been delayed by an accident."

Nancy's father was well spoken. He owned a certain distinction of manner and bearing. Like the majority of undersized men, he was self-a.s.sertive by nature; but education and fifty years of experience had rounded the angles of his character, and, in a matter of this sort, he carried himself with agreeable ease.

Dacre was all smiles instantly. "What! Mrs. Marten's father?" he cried.

"Delighted to meet you! Sit down, Mr. Willard. Let us become better known to each other!"

Willard was hardly prepared for this cordial recognition; but he shook hands affably, and seated himself in Power's chair, as it chanced.

"You have heard of me from my daughter, I suppose?" he began.

"Yes. She was telling Mrs. Van Ralten and several others, including myself--let me see, was it last night at the Casino?--that you were thinking of coming East; but I gathered she did not expect you till a few days later. I was mistaken, evidently."

"No. I am giving her a surprise. I managed to get away sooner than I expected, and the prospect of Newport's Atlantic breezes was so enticing that I just made a rush for the next train."

"Well, you are here, and the long journey is ended, a pleasant achievement in itself. Was the train accident a serious one?"

Willard supplied details, and his sympathetic hearer swapped reminiscences of a similar mishap on the Paris, Lyon et Mediterranee Railway. Incidentally, he wasted quarter of an hour before Willard could bring him back to the topic of the missing Power.

"Ah, yes--as to Power," nodded Dacre, seemingly recalling his questioner's errand. "Too bad you didn't turn up yesterday. Power is off to New York--made up his mind on the spur of the moment--and I rather fancy he will not be in Newport again this year. Indeed, I may go so far as to say I am sure he won't, because he has invited me to his place at Bison--somewhere near Denver, isn't it?--and I am to keep him posted as to my own movements, so that we can arrange things to our mutual convenience."

Willard laughed, intending merely to convey his sense of the absurdity of two men playing hide and seek across a continent; but Dacre's allusion to Bison brought a snarl into his mirth.

"You will write to the ranch, I suppose?" he inquired casually.

"Yes," said Dacre, knowing full well that he was being egged on to reveal any more immediate address he might have been given.

"Then I can only apologize for troubling you, and----"

"Not at all! What's your hurry? Let's adjourn to the veranda and smoke."

"I must go and see my daughter."

"Oh, fie, Mr. Willard! You, an old married man, proposing to break in on a lady's toilet at this hour!"

"My girl is up and dressed hours ago."

"Well, now that I come to think of it, you are right. Most mornings while Power was here he joined Mrs. Marten and others for a scamper across the island, and they were in the saddle by seven-thirty--never later."

In such conditions, being essentially a weak man, Willard was as a lump of modeler's clay in the hands of a skilled sculptor. He could not resist the notion of a cigar, he said; of course, it was easy to induce Dacre to gossip anent the lively doings of the Casino set. Ultimately, he entered a carriage at ten o'clock, whereat the Briton, watching his departure, smiled complacently.

"Heaven forgive me for aiding and abetting any man in running away with another man's wife," he communed. "But I know Derry and Nancy and Marten, and now I know Willard, and being a confirmed idiot, anyhow, I am mighty glad I was able to secure those young people a pretty useful hour and a quarter of uninterrupted travel. As we say in Newport, it should help some."

It had an effect which no one could have foreseen. It rendered Willard's arrival at "The Breakers" a possible thing had he reached Newport that morning, and thus, by idle chance, closed the mouth of scandal; for he positively reeled under the shock of the butler's open-mouthed statement that Mrs. Marten had left the town by the first train.

The man did not known him; but, being a well-trained servant, he made, as he thought, a shrewd guess at the truth.

"Surely you are not Mr. Willard, sir?" he said respectfully.

"Yes, I am." Simple words enough; yet their utterance demanded a tremendous effort.

"Ah, there has been some mistake, sir," came the ready theory. "Mrs.

Marten meant to meet you in New York, and had arranged to travel by the nine o'clock train this morning; but Mr. Power made an early call--you know Mr. Power, sir?"

"Yes--yes."