For Woman's Love Part 83

"Then I need not part with you here in Was.h.i.+ngton. Our routes are the same for some hundred miles. I shall travel with you as far as the North End Junction, and take leave of you there. That will be seeing the very last of you, up to the very last minute."

Just at this moment Mr. Fabian entered the parlor, and recognizing his younger brother and junior partner, approached him with a shout:

"Clarence! by all that's magical! Pray, did you rise from the earth, or fall from the skies, that I find you here?"

"How do you do, Fabian? I came in the most commonplace way you can imagine--by the night express train--and have only just now arrived,"

replied Mr. Clarence.

"And how goes on the works?" inquired Fabian Rockharrt.

"Admirably."

"Glad to hear it. And what brought you here, if it is a civil question?"

"It isn't a civil question, but I'll answer it all the same. I came to see Cora once more, to spend the last Sabbath with her and to accompany her as far on the journey to-morrow as our way runs together, which will be as far as the North End Junction."

"And you will not reach North End before Monday night! A whole day lost at the works, Clarence! Ah! it is well you have me to deal with instead of the father--Heaven rest his soul!"

"See here, Fabian," said Mr. Clarence, "for a very little more I will go with Cora all the way to Fort Farthermost, as her natural protector and helper in her missionary work. What, indeed, have I to keep me here in the East since the father left us? Nothing whatever. You have your wife and child; I have no one. Cora is nearer to me than any other being."

"Come! Come down to breakfast. You have been traveling all night without food, I feel sure; and fasting and vigils never were means of grace to a Rockharrt. Come!" said Mr. Fabian, with a laugh.

"I must get a room and go to it first. Look at me!" said Clarence.

"You do look like the ash man or blacksmith, certainly. Well, come along; we'll go to the office and get a room, and then you can get some of that dust off you. It won't take ten minutes. After that we will go to breakfast."

The brothers left the parlor together.

The next moment Violet entered it, and bade good morning to Corona, who in turn told her of the new arrival.

"Clarence! Oh, I am so glad! What an addition he will be to our party, Cora, especially after you have left us, my dear, when we shall miss you so sadly," said Violet.

Cora made no reply. She disliked to tell Violet that she, Violet, would lose the society of Clarence at the same time that she would lose that of herself, as her uncle was to leave Was.h.i.+ngton by the same train.

While they were still talking the two brothers re-entered the parlor.

When Fabian demanded whether they were ready to go down to breakfast, and received a satisfactory answer, he drew the arm of his wife within his own, and led the way down stairs. Clarence and Corona followed. When they entered the breakfast saloon, the polite waiter came forward and ushered them to a table at which Captain and Mrs. Neville were already seated. Morning greetings were exchanged, and Mr. Clarence was introduced and welcomed.

After breakfast all the party went to church.

Then Clarence and Corona spent the afternoon together at one end of the long parlor, which was so long and had so many recesses that half a dozen separate groups might have isolated themselves there, each without fear of their conversation being overheard by the others.

All the members of our party sat up late that evening to eke out the time they might spend together before parting. It was after midnight when they retired.

The travelers met at an early breakfast the next morning. Their baggage had been sent on and checked in advance. They had nothing to do but make the most of the few remaining minutes.

When the meal was over they all hastily left the table and went to their rooms to put on their traveling wraps.

Fabian and Violet were to accompany the travelers to the railway depot to see them off, so that there was to be no leave taking at the hotel except of the baby.

Corona went into the nurse's room, took the mite in her arms, held it to her bosom, caressed and kissed it tenderly, but dropped no tear on its sweet, fair face or soft white robe.

The baby received all this love with delight, leaping and dancing in Corona's arms, then gazing at her with intense eyes, and crowing and prattling in inarticulate and unintelligible language, of some happy, incommunicable news, some joyful message it would deliver if it could.

"Come, Cora. We are waiting for you, my dear," sounded the voice of Mr.

Fabian in the hall outside.

Corona kissed the baby for the last time, blessed it for the vague sweet hope it had infused into her heart, and then laid it in its nurse's arms and left the room.

"We shall barely catch the train, if we catch it at all. And the captain is as nearly in a 'stew' as an officer and a gentleman permits himself to get. We have been looking for you everywhere," said Mr. Fabian.

"I was in the nurse's room, bidding good-by to the baby," replied Cora.

"Oh!"

No more was said. Baby was excuse for any amount of delay, even though it had caused the missing of their train and the driving of the captain into a war dance.

They hurried down stairs and entered the carriages that were waiting to take them to the depot--Fabian, Violet, Clarence and Corona in one; Captain and Mrs. Neville, and Mrs. Neville's maid, in the other. And so they drove to the depot, and arrived just in time to take their tickets and rush to their seats on the train, with no further leave taking than a kiss all around, and a general, heartfelt "G.o.d bless you!"

The train was speeding away, leaving Was.h.i.+ngton City behind, when our party first began to realize that they were really "off" and to take in their surroundings.

Captain and Mrs. Neville sat together about midway in the car. Clarence and Corona sat immediately behind them. On the opposite side sat Mrs.

Neville's colored maid, Manda, and in the rear corner, on the same side, the captain's orderly--a new recruit. About half the remaining seats in the car were occupied by other travelers.

At Harper's Ferry, amid the most beautiful and sublime mountain scenery of Virginia, the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, which, in those ante-bellum days, was well served from the hotel at the depot.

After dinner, the train started off again at express speed, stopping but at few stations, until near night, when it reached North End Junction, where Mr. Clarence was to get off.

"Cora, my darling, we must part here," said Mr. Clarence, gathering up his effects, as the train slackened speed.

"Oh, Uncle Clarence! Dear Uncle Clarence! G.o.d bless you! G.o.d bless you!"

sobbed Corona.

"Keep up your heart, dear one. You may see me sooner than you dream of.

The missionary mania is sometimes contagious. You have it in its most p.r.o.nounced form. And I have been sitting by you for eight hours,"

replied Mr. Clarence, forgetting his prudent resolution to say nothing to Corona of an incipient plan in his mind.

"What do you mean, dear Uncle Clarence?" she anxiously inquired.

"I hardly know myself, Corona. But ponder my words in your heart, dear one. They may mean something. Here we are! Good-by! Good-by! G.o.d bless you!" exclaimed Mr. Clarence.

"Good-by! G.o.d bless you!" cried Corona, and they parted--Clarence jumping off the train just as it started again, at the imminent risk of his life, yet with lucky immunity from harm.

Corona, looking through the side window, saw him standing safely on the platform waiting a North End train to come up--saw him only for an instant as her train flashed onward, and "pondered his words in her heart," and wondered what they meant.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.