“We must find Veath,” went on Hugh rapidly. “Is he in Manila?”
“He is in the Government Building, sir,” answered the clerk. Already Hugh was edging toward the door, holding Lady Tennys by the arm. “Is Mr. Veath a relative?”
“No; he’s more than that. He’s a friend. We were on the Tempest Queen together when she went down.”
“You were—on—the—what did you say, sir?” gasped the clerk.
“He doesn’t know who we are, Hugh.”
“That’s so. Add two more names to the list of saved and scratch ’em off the other. Put down Lady Huntingford and Hugh Ridge.”
The clerk’s eyes bulged. Every man in the office came forward in amazement.
“It’s the truth,” volunteered the Winnetka’s captain. “I picked them up last week.”
“Where’s the cable office? I must send a message to Miss Ridge. When did she sail for the United States?”
“She hasn’t sailed, sir. Her name is Vernon, and she’s been waiting in Manila for news of you ever since. Get some water there, Cleary! He’s going to faint.” Ridgeway collapsed against the counter, his face going deadly pale. Lady Tennys sank into her chair, huddling limply as if to withstand a shock, while from her stricken face two wide blue eyes centred themselves hopelessly on her lover.
“Needn’t mind the water. I’m all right,” stammered Hugh, moving away with legs as stiff as rods. “Where is she now?”
“At the home of her uncle, Mr. Coleman. There were seven of them saved, after being buffeted about by the sea for three days in the boat in which they left the wreck. When they were picked up by the Sea Gull, they were almost dead with hunger, thirst and madness. It seems Miss Vernon had written her uncle before sailing; and the letter, coming by way of San Francisco, got here two or three weeks before she was expected. Afterward, Mr. Coleman got the government to send ships out to find the wreck. It was many weeks before Miss Vernon was fully recovered.”
“Thank you,” muttered he. “Come, Lady Huntingford, we will go to a hotel.” She arose and silently followed him to the door. The men in the office glanced at each other, completely mystified, Captain Hildebrand as much so as any one.
For a long time the occupants of a certain carriage looked straight before them as if bereft of the power of speech or comprehension. A great abyss of thought confronted them; they were apparently struggling on the edge, utterly unable to grasp a single inspiration or idea.
“She’s been waiting a year, Tennys. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes, Hugh; I know too well. She has prayed and hoped and loved, and now you are come to her. It means that she will be happy—oh, so happy!” murmured his white-lipped companion, cold as ice.
“But I can’t go to her and tell her what we know. It would kill her. I can’t go to her—it is impossible! I’d die if she looked at me,” he groaned.
“You must go to her,” she said intensely. “She will know you have been rescued. She will thank God and wait for you to come to her. Think of that poor girl waiting, waiting, waiting for you, filled with a joy that we can never know. Oh, I will not have you break her heart. You shall go to her!”
“I cannot, I tell you! I cannot tell her that I love you! That would be worse than any cruelty I can imagine.”
“You are not to tell her that you love me. I release you, Hugh. You were hers first; you are hers now. I would kill myself rather than lake you from her. Go to her—go to her at once. You must!” She was nervous, half-crazed, yet true nobility shone above all like a gem of purest ray.
“Don’t force me to go, Tennys,” he pleaded, as she left him to go to her room.
“Go now, Hugh—go if you love me,” she said, turning her miserable face from him.
“But what is to become of you—of me?” he protested.
“We must think only of her. Go! and bring her to see me here! I want to tell her how happy I am that she has found you again;” and then she was gone.
The dominant impulse was to rush after her, grasp her and carry her back to the waves from which he had unwittingly saved her. Then the strong influence that she had exerted over him, together with the spark of fair-mindedness that remained, forced him to obey the dictates of honor. He slowly, determinedly, dejectedly re-entered the carriage and started toward the end.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
Ridgeway had been directed to the home of Mr. Henry Coleman. He was never able to describe his emotions as he drove through the streets toward that most important place in all the world at that hour. The cab drew up in front of the rather pretentious home and he stepped forth, dazed and uncertain, his knees stiff, his eyes set. Had some one shouted “Run!” he would have fled with his resolution.
Every window in the home seemed to present Grace Vernon’s glad face to his misty eyes; she was in there somewhere, he knew, waiting as she had been waiting for a whole year.
Slowly he mounted the steps and stood before the screen door. After what seemed an hour of deliberation, during which he sought to resurrect the courage that had died, he timidly tapped on the casement with his knuckles. The sound could not have been heard ten feet, yet to him it was loud enough to wake people blocks away. There was no response and his heart, in its cowardice, took a hopeful bound. No one at home! He turned to leave the place, fearing that some one might appear to admit him before he could retreat. At the top of the steps he paused, reasoning that if no one was at home he could at least rap again. His conscience would be easier for the extra effort. He rapped once more, quite boldly. A man appeared in the doorway so suddenly that he caught his breath and put out his hand to steady himself.
The screen flew open and Henry Veath grasped him by the arms, fairly dragging him into the hallway.
“Hugh! Hugh! Is it really you?” For a moment he stood like one suddenly gone mad.
“Henry, I can’t believe it!” gasped Ridgeway. Both of them stood looking at one another for more than a full minute. “What a wonderful escape!” fell hazily from the newcomer’s stiff lips.
“How did you escape?” cried the other in the same breath. Pale as ghosts they wrung each other’s hands spasmodically, dazed and bewildered.
“Where is Grace?” demanded Hugh.
“She is out just at present,” said the other slowly and with an effort. “Come in and sit down. She will be here presently.” He staggered as he drew back.
“Has—has my sister given up all hope of ever seeing me again?” said Ridgeway. Their hands were still clasped.
“Miss Vernon feared that you were lost, Hugh,” said Veath. A cold perspiration was showing itself on his brow. “She has told me all. How ill and white you look. Sit down here and I’ll get you some wine.”
“Never mind, old man. I’m well enough. When will she return? Great heaven, man, I can’t wait!” He sank limply into a chair. His companion’s heart was freezing.
“Be calm, old friend. She shall be sent for at once.”
“Break it to her gently, Veath, break it to her gently,” murmured Hugh.
Veath excused himself and left the room. In the hall, out of Hugh’s sight, he stopped, clenched his hands, closed his eyes and shivered as if his blood had turned to ice. Presently he returned to the room, having gone no farther than the hall.
“I have sent for her,” he said in a strange voice.
Grace was coming down stairs when Veath admitted Hugh. Startled and almost completely prostrated, she fell back, where Veath found her when he went to announce the news. Finally, with throbbing heart, she crept to the curtain that hung in the door between the parlors and peered through at the two men. Ridgeway was standing in the centre of the room, nervously handling a book that lay on the table. His face was white and haggard; his tall, straight figure was stooped and lifeless. Veath stood on the opposite side of the table, just as pale and just as discomposed.
“Does she often speak of me?” she heard Hugh ask hoarsely. The other did not answe
r at once.
“Frequently, Hugh, of course,” he said finally.
“And—do—you—think she—she loves me as much as ever?” There was fear in his voice; but poor Grace could only distinguish pathetic eagerness. Veath was silent, his hands clasped behind his back, his throat closed as by a vise. “Why don’t you answer? Does she still love me?”
Grace glanced at the drawn face of Henry Veath and saw there the struggle that was going on in his mind. With a cry she tore aside the curtains and rushed into the room, confronting the questioner and the questioned.
“Grace!” gasped the former, staggering back as if from the effect of a mighty blow. Through his dizzy brain an instant later shot the necessity for action of some kind. There stood Grace, swaying before him, ready to fall. She loved him! He must clasp her to his heart as if he loved her. This feeble impulse forced him forward, his arms extended. “Don’t be afraid, dear. I am not a ghost!”
Veath dropped into a chair near the window, and closed his eyes, his ears, his heart.
“Oh, Hugh, Hugh,” the girl moaned, putting her hands over her face, even as he clasped her awkwardly, half-heartedly in his arms. He was saying distressedly to himself: “She loves me! I cannot break her heart!”
Neither moved for a full minute, and then Hugh drew her hands from her eyes, his heart full of pity.
“Grace, look at me,” he said. “Are you happy?”
Their eyes met and there was no immediate answer. What each saw in the eyes of the other was strange and puzzling. She saw something like hopeless dread, struggling to suppress itself beneath a glassy film; he saw pitiful fear, sorrow, shame, everything but the glad lovelight he had expected. If their hearts had been cold before, they were freezing now.
“Happy?” she managed to articulate. “Happy?”
“Yes, happy,” he repeated as witlessly.
“Don’t look at me, Hugh. Don’t! I cannot bear it,” she wailed frantically, again placing her hands over her eyes. His arms dropped from their unwilling position and he gasped in amazement.
“What is it, Grace? What is the matter? What is it, Veath?” he gasped. She sank to her knees on the floor and sobbed.
“Oh, Hugh! I am not worthy to be loved by you.” He tried to lift her to her feet, absolutely dumb with amazement. “Don’t! Don’t! Let me lie here till you are gone. I can’t bear to have you see my face again.
“Grace!” he cried blankly.
“Oh, if I had been drowned this could have been avoided. Why don’t you say something, Henry? I cannot tell him.” Veath could only shake his head in response to Ridgeway’s look of amazed inquiry.
“Is she mad?” groaned the returned lover.
“Mad? No, I am not mad,” she cried shrilly, desperately. “Hugh, I know I will break your heart, but I must tell you. I cannot deceive you. I cannot be as I once was to you.”
“Cannot be—deceived me—once was—” murmured he, bewildered.
“While I mourned for you as dead I learned to love another. Forgive me, forgive me!” It was more than a minute before he could grasp the full extent of her confession and he could not believe his ears.
Gradually his mind emerged from its oblivion and the joy that rushed to his heart passed into every vein in his body. At his feet the unhappy girl; at the window the rigid form of the man to whom he knew her love had turned; in the centre of this tableau he stood, his head erect, his lungs full, his face aglow.
“Say you will forgive me, Hugh. You would not want me, knowing what you do.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Hugh,” began Veath; but the words choked him.
“So you love another,” said Hugh slowly, and cleverly concealing his elation at the unexpected change in the situation. He was not without a sense of humor, and forgetting, for the moment, the seriousness of her revelation, he could not resist the temptation to play the martyr.
“My dear girl,” he went on with mock gravity, “I would sacrifice my life to see you happy! Whoever he may be, I give you to him. Be happy, Grace;” and with decided histrionic ability concluded heart-brokenly: “Forget Hugh Ridgeway!”
A portrait of a buxom lady hanging on the wall received the full benefit of his dejected glance; and she could have told the unhappy lovers that the wretched man had winked at her most audaciously.
“When are you to be married?” he resumed solemnly.
“Tonight,” she choked out, then added quickly:
“But I won’t, Hugh—I won’t marry him if you say—”
“Not for the world! You must marry him, Grace, and I’ll bless you,” he interrupted quickly, even eagerly. Then there came a new thought: “Tell me truly, do you love him better than you loved me?”
“I love him better than the world!”
“Thank God!” exclaimed the discarded lover devoutly. “Give me your hand, Henry, old man—there is no one in all the world whom I’d rather see get her than you. You saved her and you deserve her. Take her and be good to her, that’s all I ask; and think of me once in a while, won’t you? Good-by.”
Without waiting for an answer he broke away, as if starting for the hall.
“Please don’t go away like that!”
The cry of anguish came from Grace, and she threw herself sobbing on Veath’s breast.
Hugh turned like a flash. Contrition and the certainty of his power to dispel her grief showed plainly in his face.
“Don’t cry, Grace dear,” he begged, going over to them. “I was only fooling, dear. I’m not a bit unhappy.” Grace looked up wonderingly at him through her tears. “You must take me for a brute,” he stumbled on penitently. “You see—you see—er—the fact is, I’m in love myself.” He did not know he could be so embarrassed. Veath actually staggered, and the girl’s tear-stained face and blinking eyes were suddenly lifted from the broad breast, to be turned, in mute surprise, upon the speaker.
“What did you say?” she gasped.
“I’m in love—the very worst way,” he hurried on, fingering his cap.
“And not with me?” she cried, as if it were beyond belief.
“Well, you see, I—I thought you were drowned—couldn’t blame me for that, could you? So—I—she was awfully good and sweet and—by George! I’d like to know how a fellow could help it! You don’t know how happy I am that you are in love with Veath, and you don’t know how happy it will make her. We were to have been married a week ago but—” he gulped and could not go on.
Grace’s eyes were sparkling, her voice was trembling with joy as she cried, running to his side:
“Is it really true—really true? Oh, how happy I am! I was afraid you would—”
“And I was equally afraid that you might—Whoop!” exploded Hugh, unable to restrain his riotous glee a second longer. Clasping her in his arms, he kissed her fervently; and all three joining hands, danced about the room like children, each so full of delight that there was no possible means of expressing it, except by the craziest of antics.
“But who is she?” broke out Grace excitedly, as soon as she could catch her breath.
“And where is she—can’t we see her?” put in Veath, slapping Hugh insanely on the back.
“She’s a goddess!” burst out Hugh, grabbing his cap and running out of the room, shouting hilariously: “Follow on, both of you, to the hotel, and see me worship at her shrine!”
CHAPTER XXXV
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF
Hugh lost no time on the way back to the hotel. The lazy driver awoke his lazy horse and, to the intense amazement of both, the vehicle held together during the return trip. At least a dozen rattling bumps over rough places in the street caused the driver to glance apprehensively over his shoulder in the unusual fear that his fare and the cab had parted company. For the first time in ten years he was sufficiently interested to be surprised. It astonished him to find that the vehicle stuck together as a whole.
On the way back, Hugh suddenly bethought himself of his financial condition. He was attired in a
suit of clothes belonging to Mr. Carruthers and the garments fitted him well. In one of the pockets rested his small leather purse. When he plunged into the sea on that memorable night a year ago it contained a half dozen small American coins and some English money, amounting in all to eleven dollars and thirty cents. Carefully he had treasured this wealth on the island and he had come away with the principal untouched. Now, as he jogged along in the cab, he emptied the contents of the purse upon the seat.
“Eleven thirty,” he mused. “A splendid dowry. Not enough to buy the ring. No flowers, no wine—nothing but pins. My letter of credit is at the bottom of the sea. Borrowed clothes on my back and home-made clothes on hers. I have a watch, a knife, and a scarf pin. She has diamond rings and rubies, but she has no hat. By Jove, it looks as though I’ll have to borrow money of Veath, after all.”
Lady Tennys was in her room, strangely calm and resigned. She was wondering whether he would ever come back to her, whether she was ever to see him again. Her tired, hopeless brain was beginning to look forward to the dismal future, the return to England, the desolate life in the society she now despised, the endless regret of losing that which she had never hoped to possess—a man’s love in exchange for her own. She kept to her room, avoiding the curious stare of people, denying herself to the reporters and correspondents, craving only the loneliness that made the hour dark for her. It seemed to her that she had lived a lifetime since he went forth to find the girl who had waited so long for him.
Then came the rush of footsteps in the hall. They were not those of the slow-moving servants, they were not—a vigorous thumping on the door was followed by the cry of a strong, manly, vigorous voice. Her head swam, her heart stood still, her lips grew white and she could utter no sound in response.
He was coming at last to commit her to everlasting misery.
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack: 25 Classic Novels and Stories Page 188