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T >> Thomas Nelson Page >> Gordon Keith




Keith almost staggered. It was so direct and so exactly what his thought
had been just now. But he said:

"Oh, nonsense! Lois Huntington considers me old enough to be her
grandfather. Why, she--she is engaged to or in love with Dr. Locaman."

"She is not," said Mrs. Lancaster, firmly, "and she never will be. If
you go about it right she will marry you." She added calmly: "I hope she
will, with all my heart."

"Marry me! Lois Huntington! Why--"

"She considers me her grandmother, perhaps; but not you her grandfather.
She thinks you are much too young for me. She thinks you are the most
wonderful and the best and most charming man in the world."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"I do not know where she got such an idea--unless you told her so
yourself," she said, with a smile.

"I would like her to think it," said Keith, smiling; "but I have
studiously avoided divulging myself in my real and fatal character."

"Then she must have got it from the only other person who knows you in
your true character."

"And that is--?"

She looked into his eyes with so amused and so friendly a light in her
own that Keith lifted her hand to his lips.

"I do not deserve such friendship."

"Yes, you do; you taught it to me."

He sat back in his chair, trying to think. But all he could think of was
how immeasurably he was below both these women.

"Will you forgive me?" he said suddenly, almost miserably. He meant to
say more, but she rose, and at the moment he heard a step behind him. He
thought her hand touched his head for a second, and that he heard her
answer, "Yes"; but he was not sure, for just then Mrs. Rhodes spoke to
them, and they all three had to pretend that they thought nothing
unusual had been going on.

They received their mail next day, and were all busy reading letters,
when Mrs. Rhodes gave an exclamation of surprise.

"Oh, just hear this! Little Miss Huntington's old aunt is dead."

There was an exclamation from every one.

"Yes," she went on reading, with a faint little conventional tone of
sympathy in her voice; "she died ten days ago--very suddenly, of
heart-disease."

"Oh, poor little Lois! I am so sorry for her!" It was Alice Lancaster's
voice.

But Keith did not hear any more. His heart was aching, and he was back
among the shrubbery of The Lawns. All that he knew was that Rhodes and
Mrs. Rhodes were expressing sympathy, and that Mrs. Lancaster, who had
not said a word after the first exclamation, excused herself and left
the saloon. Keith made up his mind promptly. He went up on deck. Mrs.
Lancaster was sitting alone far aft in the shadow. Her back was toward
him, and her hand was to her eyes. He went up to her. She did not look
up; but Keith felt that she knew it was he.

"You must go to her," she said.

"Yes," said Keith. "I shall. I wish you would come."

"Oh, I wish I could! Poor little thing!" she sighed.

Two days after that Keith walked into the hotel at Brookford. The clerk
recognized him as he appeared, and greeted him cordially. Something in
Keith's look or manner, perhaps, recalled his former association with
the family at The Lawns, for, as Keith signed his name, he said:

"Sad thing, that, up on the hill."

"What?" said Keith, absently.

"The old lady's death and the breaking up of the old place," he said.

"Oh!--yes, it is," said Keith; and then, thinking that he could learn if
Miss Huntington were there without appearing to do so, except
casually, he said:

"Who is there now?"

"There is not any one there at all, I believe."

Keith ordered a room, and a half-hour later went out.

Instead of taking a carriage, he walked There had been a change in the
weather. The snow covered everything, and the grounds looked wintry and
deserted. The gate was unlocked, but had not been opened lately, and
Keith had hard work to open it wide enough to let himself through. He
tramped along through the snow, and turning the curve in the road, was
in front of the house. It was shut up. Every shutter was closed, as well
as the door, and a sudden chill struck him. Still he went on; climbed
the wide, unswept steps, crossed the portico, and rang the bell, and
finally knocked. The sound made him start. How lonesome it seemed! He
knocked again, but no one came. Only the snowbirds on the portico
stopped and looked at him curiously. Finally, he thought he heard some
one in the snow. He turned as a man came around the house. It was the
old coachman and factotum. He seemed glad enough to see Keith, and Keith
was, at least, glad to see him.

"It's a bad business, it is, Mr. Kathe," he said sadly.

"Yes, it is, John. Where is Miss Huntington?"

"Gone, sir," said John, with surprise in his voice that Keith should not
know.

"Gone where?"

"An' that no one knows," said John.

"What! What do you mean?"

"Just that, sir," said the old fellow. "She went away two days after the
funeral, an' not a worrd of her since."

"But she's at some relative's?" said Keith, seeking information at the
same time he gave it.

"No, sir; not a relative in the world she has, except Mr. Wentworth in
New York, and she has not been there."

Keith learned, in the conversation which followed, that Miss Abigail had
died very suddenly, and that two days after the funeral Miss Lois had
had the house shut up, and taking only a small trunk, had left by train
for New York. They had expected to hear from her, though she had said
they would not do so for some time; and when no letter had come they had
sent to New York, but had failed to find her. This all seemed natural
enough. Lois was abundantly able to take care of herself, and, no doubt,
desired for the present to be in some place of retirement. Keith
decided, therefore, that he would simply go to the city and ascertain
where she was. He thought of going to see Dr. Locaman, but something
restrained him. The snow was deep, and he was anxious to find Lois; so
he went straight down to the city that evening. The next day he
discovered that it was not quite so easy to find one who wished to be
lost. Norman knew nothing of her.

Norman and his wife were now living with old Mrs. Wentworth, and they
had all invited her to come to them; but she had declined. Keith was
much disturbed.

Lois, however, was nearer than Keith dreamed.

Her aunt's death had stricken Lois deeply. She could not bear to go to
New York. It stood to her only for hardness and isolation.

Just then a letter came from Dr. Balsam. She must come to him, he said.
He was sick, or he would come for her. An impulse seized her to go to
him. She would go back to the scenes of her childhood: the memories of
her father drew her; the memory also of her aunt in some way urged her.
Dr. Balsam appeared just then nearer to her than any one else. She could
help him. It seemed a haven of refuge to her.

Twenty-four hours later the old Doctor was sitting in his room. He
looked worn and old and dispirited. The death of an old friend had left
a void in his life.

There was a light step outside and a rap at the door.

"It's the servant," thought the Doctor, and called somewhat gruffly,
"Come in."

When the door opened it was not the servant. For a moment the old man
scarcely took in who it was. She seemed to be almost a vision. He had
never thought of Lois in black. She was so like a girl he had known
long, long ago.

Then she ran forward, and as the old man rose to his feet she threw her
arms about his neck, and the world suddenly changed for him--changed as
much as if it had been new-created.

From New York Keith went down to the old plantation to see his father.
The old gentleman was renewing his youth among his books. He was much
interested in Keith's account of his yachting-trip. While there Keith
got word of important business which required his presence in New Leeds
immediately. Ferdy Wickersham had returned, and had brought suit against
his company, claiming title to all the lands they had bought from
Adam Rawson.

On his arrival at New Leeds, Keith learned that Wickersham had been
there just long enough to institute his suit, the papers in which had
been already prepared before he came. There was much excitement in the
place. Wickersham had boasted that he had made a great deal of money in
South America.

"He claims now," said Keith's informant, Captain Turley, "that he owns
all of Squire Rawson's lands. He says you knew it was all his when you
sold it to them Englishmen, and that Mr. Rhodes, the president of the
company, knew it was his, and he has been defrauded."

"Well, we will see about that," said Keith, grimly.

"That's what old Squire Rawson said. The old man came up as soon as he
heard he was here; but Wickersham didn't stay but one night. He had
lighted out."

"What did the squire come for?" inquired Keith, moved by his old
friend's expression.

"He said he came to kill him. And he'd have done it. If Wickersham's got
any friends they'd better keep him out of his way." His face testified
his earnestness.

Keith had a curious feeling. Wickersham's return meant that he was
desperate. In some way, too, Keith felt that Lois Huntington was
concerned in his movements. He was glad to think that she was abroad.

But Lois was being drawn again into his life in a way that he little
knew.

In the seclusion and quietude of Ridgely at that season, Lois soon felt
as if she had reached, at last, a safe harbor. The care of the old
Doctor gave her employment, and her mind, after a while, began to
recover its healthy tone. She knew that the happiness of which she had
once dreamed would never be hers; but she was sustained by the
reflection that she had tried to do her duty: she had sacrificed herself
for others. She spent her time trying to help those about her. She had
made friends with Squire Rawson, and the old man found much comfort in
talking to her of Phrony.

Sometimes, in the afternoon, when she was lonely, she climbed the hill
and looked after the little plot in which lay the grave of her father.
She remembered her mother but vaguely: as a beautiful vision, blurred by
the years; but her father was clear in her memory. His smile, his
cheeriness, his devotion to her remained with her. And the memory of him
who had been her friend in her childhood came to her sometimes,
saddening her, till she would arouse herself and by an effort banish him
from her thoughts.

Often when she went up to the cemetery she would see others there: women
in black, with a fresher sorrow than hers; and sometimes the squire, who
was beginning now to grow feeble and shaky with age, would be sitting on
a bench among the shrubbery beside a grave on which he had placed
flowers. The grave was Phrony's. Once he spoke to her of Wickersham. He
had brought a suit against the old man, claiming that he had a title to
all of the latter's property. The old fellow was greatly stirred up by
it. He denounced him furiously.

"He has robbed me of her," he said "Let him beware. If he ever comes
across my path I shall kill him."

So the Winter passed, and Spring was beginning to come. Its harbingers,
in their livery of red and green, were already showing on the hillsides.
The redbud was burning on the Southern slopes; the turf was springing,
fresh and green; dandelions were dappling the grass like golden coins
sown by a prodigal; violets were beginning to peep from the shelter of
leaves caught along the fence-rows; and some favored peach-trees were
blushing into pink.

For some reason the season made Lois sad. Was it that it was Nature's
season for mating; the season for Youth to burst its restraining bonds
and blossom into love? She tried to fight the feeling, but it clung to
her. Dr Balsam, watching her with quickened eyes, grew graver, and
prescribed a tonic. Once he had spoken to her of Keith, and she had told
him that he was to marry Mrs. Lancaster. But the old man had made a
discovery. And he never spoke to her of him again.

Lois, to her surprise and indignation, received one morning a letter
from Wickersham asking her to make an appointment with him on a matter
of mutual interest. He wished, he said, to make friends with old Mr.
Rawson and she could help him. He mentioned Keith and casually spoke of
his engagement. She took no notice of this letter; but one afternoon
she was lonelier than usual, and she went up the hill to her father's
grave. Adam Rawson's horse was tied to the fence, and across the lots
she saw him among the rose-bushes at Phrony's grave. She sat down and
gave herself up to reflection. Gradually the whole of her life in New
York passed before her: its unhappiness; its promise of joy for a
moment; and then the shutting of it out, as if the windows of her soul
had been closed.

She heard the gate click, and presently heard a step behind her. As it
approached she turned and faced Ferdy Wickersham. She seemed to be
almost in a dream. He had aged somewhat, and his dark face had hardened.
Otherwise he had not changed. He was still very handsome. She felt as if
a chill blast had struck her. She caught his eye on her, and knew that
he had recognized her. As he came up the path toward her, she rose and
moved away; but he cut across to intercept her, and she heard him
speak her name.

She took no notice, but walked on.

"Miss Huntington." He stepped in front of her.

Her head went up, and she looked him in the eyes with a scorn in hers
that stung him. "Move, if you please."

His face flushed, then paled again.

"I heard you were here, and I have come to see you, to talk with you,"
he began. "I wish to be friends with you."

She waved him aside.

"Let me pass, if you please."

"Not until you have heard what I have to say. You have done me a great
injustice; but I put that by. I have been robbed by persons you know,
persons who are no friends of yours, whom I understand you have
influence with, and you can help to right matters. It will be worth your
while to do it."

She attempted to pass around him; but he stepped before her.

"You might as well listen; for I have come here to talk to you, and I
mean to do it. I can show you how important it is for you to aid me--to
advise your friends to settle. Now, will you listen?"

"No." She looked him straight in the eyes.

"Oh, I guess you will," he sneered. "It concerns your friend, Mr. Keith,
whom you thought so much of. Your friend Keith has placed himself in a
very equivocal position. I will have him behind bars before I am done.
Wait until I have shown that when he got all that money from the English
people he knew that that land was mine, and that he had run the lines
falsely on which he got the money."

"Let me pass," said Lois. With her head held high she started again to
walk by him; but he seized her by the wrist.

"This is not Central Park. You shall hear me."

"Let me go, Mr. Wickersham," she said imperiously. But he held her
firmly.

At that moment she heard an oath behind her, and a voice exclaimed:

"It is you, at last! And still troubling women!"

Wickersham's countenance suddenly changed. He released her wrist and
fell back a step, his face blanching. The next second, as she turned
quickly, old Adam Rawson's bulky figure was before her. He was hurrying
toward her: the very apotheosis of wrath. His face was purple; his eyes
blazed; his massive form was erect, and quivering with fury. His heavy
stick was gripped in his left hand, and with the other he was drawing a
pistol from his pocket.

"I have waited for you, you dog, and you have come at last!" he cried.

Wickersham, falling back before his advance, was trying, as Lois looked,
to get out a pistol. His face was as white as death. Lois had no time
for thought. It was simply instinct. Old Rawson's pistol was already
levelled. With a cry she threw herself between them; but it was
too late.

She was only conscious of a roar and blinding smoke in her eyes and of
something like a hot iron at her side; then, as she sank down, of
Squire Rawson's stepping over her. Her sacrifice was in vain, for the
old man was not to be turned from his revenge. As he had sworn, so he
performed. And the next moment Wickersham, with two bullets in his body,
had paid to him his long-piled-up debt.

When Lois came to, she was in bed, and Dr. Balsam was leaning over her
with a white, set face.

"I am all right," she said, with a faint smile. "Was he hurt?"

"Don't talk now," said the Doctor, quietly. "Thank God, you are not hurt
much."

Keith was sitting in his office in New Leeds alone that afternoon. He
had just received a telegram from Dave Dennison that Wickersham had left
New York. Dennison had learned that he was going to Ridgely to try to
make up with old Rawson. Just then the paper from Ridgely was brought
in. Keith's eye fell on the head-lines of the first column, and he
almost fell from his chair as he read the words:

DOUBLE TRAGEDY--FATAL SHOOTING

F.C. WICKERSHAM SHOOTS MISS LOIS HUNTINGTON AND IS KILLED BY
SQUIRE RAWSON

The account of the shooting was in accordance with the heading, and was
followed by the story of the Wickersham-Rawson trouble.

Keith snatched out his watch, and the next second was dashing down the
street on his way to the station. A train was to start for the east in
five minutes. He caught it as it ran out of the station, and swung
himself up to the rear platform.

Curiously enough, in his confused thoughts of Lois Huntington and what
she had meant to him was mingled the constant recollection of old Tim
Gilsey and his lumbering stage running through the pass.

It was late in the evening when he reached Ridgely; but he hastened at
once to Dr. Balsam's office. The moon was shining, and it brought back
to him the evenings on the verandah at Gates's so long ago. But it
seemed to him that it was Lois Huntington who had been there among the
pillows; that it was Lois Huntington who had always been there in his
memory. He wondered if she would be as she was then, as she lay dead.
And once or twice he wondered if he could be losing his wits; then he
gripped himself and cleared his mind.

In ten minutes he was in Dr. Balsam's office. The Doctor greeted him
with more coldness than he had ever shown him. Keith felt his suspicion.

"Where is Lois--Miss Lois Huntington? Is she--?" He could not frame the
question.

"She is doing very well."

Keith's heart gave a bound of hope. The blood surged back and forth in
his veins. Life seemed to revive for him.

"Is she alive? Will she live?" he faltered.

"Yes. Who says she will not?" demanded the Doctor, testily.

"The paper--the despatch."

"No thanks to you that she does!" He faced Keith, and suddenly flamed
out: "I want to tell you that I think you have acted like a
damned rascal!"

Keith's jaw dropped, and he actually staggered with amazement. "What!
What do you mean? I do not understand!"

"You are not a bit better than that dog that you turned her over to, who
got his deserts yesterday."

"But I do not understand!" gasped Keith, white and hot.

"Then I will tell you. You led that innocent girl to believe that you
were in love with her, and then when she was fool enough to believe you
and let herself become--interested, you left her to run, like a little
puppy, after a rich woman."

"Where did you hear this?" asked Keith, still amazed, but recovering
himself. "What have you heard? Who told you?"

"Not from her." He was blazing with wrath.

"No; but from whom?"

"Never mind. From some one who knew the facts. It is the truth."

"But it is not the truth. I have been in love with Lois Huntington since
I first met her."

"Then why in the name of heaven did you treat her so?"

"How? I did not tell her so because I heard she was in love with some
one else--and engaged to him. God knows I have suffered enough over it.
I would die for her." His expression left no room for doubt as to his
sincerity.

The old man's face gradually relaxed, and presently something that was
almost a smile came into his eyes. He held out his hand.

"I owe you an apology. You are a d----d fool!"

"Can I see her?" asked Keith.

"I don't know that you can see anything. But I could, if I were in your
place. She is on the side verandah at my hospital--where Gates's tavern
stood. She is not much hurt, though it was a close thing. The ball
struck a button and glanced around. She is sitting up. I shall bring her
home as soon as she can be moved."

Keith paused and reflected a moment, then held out his hand.

"Doctor, if I win her will you make our house your home?"

The old man's face softened, and he held out his hand again.

"You will have to come and see me sometimes."

Five minutes later Keith turned up the walk that led to the side
verandah of the building that Dr. Balsam had put up for his sanatorium
on the site of Gates's hotel. The moon was slowly sinking toward the
western mountain-tops, flooding with soft light the valley below, and
touching to silver the fleecy clouds that, shepherded by the gentle
wind, wreathed the highest peaks beyond. How well Keith remembered it
all: the old house with its long verandah; the moonlight flooding it;
the white figure reclining there; and the boy that talked of his ideal
of loveliness and love. She was there now; it seemed to him that she had
been there always, and the rest was merely a dream. He walked up on the
turf, but strode rapidly. He could not wait. As he mounted the steps, he
took off his hat.

"Good evening." He spoke as if she must expect him.

She had not heard him before. She was reclining among pillows, and her
face was turned toward the western sky. Her black dress gave him a pang.
He had never thought of her in black, except as a little girl. And such
she almost seemed to him now.

She turned toward him and gave a gasp.

"Mr. Keith!"

"Lois--I have come--" he began, and stopped.

She held out her hand and tried to sit up. Keith took her hand softly,
as if it were a rose, and closing his firmly over it, fell on one knee
beside her chair.

"Don't try to sit up," he said gently. "I went to Brookford as soon as I
heard of it--" he began, and then placed his other hand on hers,
covering it with his firm grasp.

"I thought you would," she said simply.

Keith lifted her hand and held it against his cheek. He was silent a
moment. What should he say to her? Not only all other women, but all the
rest of the world, had disappeared.

"I have come, and I shall not go away again until you go with me."

For answer she hid her face and began to cry softly. Keith knelt with
her hand to his lips, murmuring his love.

"I am so glad you have come. I don't know what to do," she said
presently.

"You do not have to know. I know. It is decided. I love you--I have
always loved you. And no one shall ever come between us. You are
mine--mine only." He went on pouring out his soul to her.

[Illustration: "Lois--I have come"--he began]

"My old Doctor--?" she began presently, and looked up at him with eyes
"like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew."

"He agrees. We will make him live with us."

"Your father-?"

"Him, too. You shall be their daughter."

She gave him her hands.

"Well, on that condition."

* * * * *

The first person Keith sought to tell of his new happiness was his
father. The old gentleman was sitting on the porch at Elphinstone in the
sun, enjoying the physical sensation of warmth that means so much to
extreme youth and extreme age. He held a copy of Virgil in his hand, but
he was not reading; he was repeating passages of it by heart. They
related to the quiet life. His son heard him saying softly:

"'O Fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint,
Agricolas!'"

His mind was possibly far back in the past.

His placid face lit up with the smile that always shone there when his
son appeared.

"Well, what's the news?" he asked. "I know it must be good."

"It is," smiled Keith. "I am engaged to be married."

The old gentleman's book fell to the floor.

"You don't say so! Ah, that's very good! Very good! I am glad of that;
every young man ought to marry. There is no happiness like it in this
world, whatever there may be in the next.

"'Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati.'

"I will come and see you," he smiled.

"Come and see me!"

"But I am not very much at home in New York," he pursued rather
wistfully; "it is too noisy for me. I am too old-fashioned for it."

"New York? But I'm not going to live in New York!"

A slight shadow swept over the General's face.

"Well, you must live where she will be happiest," he said thoughtfully.
"A gentleman owes that to his wife.--Do you think she will be willing to
live elsewhere?"

"Who do you think it is, sir!"

"Mrs. Lancaster, isn't it?"

"Why, no; it is Lois Huntington. I am engaged to her. She has promised
to marry me."

"To her!--to Lois Huntington--my little girl!" The old gentleman rose to
his feet, his face alight with absolute joy. "That is something like it!
Where is she? When is it to be? I will come and live with you."

"Of course, you must. It is on that condition that she agrees to marry
me," said Keith, smiling with new happiness at his pleasure.