Chapter VI: Part 6

“You see, there are so many----” she began, noting his disappointed look.

“Then I s’pose you can’t find her fer me. You see,” he explained, gently, “I wrote her I wuz comin’ ter-morrer, an’ I came ter-night fur a surprise--a surprise,” he repeated, delightedly. “But I’m mighty disappointed not ter find her. This is the first time I ever wuz so fur east. But I hed to see Ellen--couldn’t stan’ it no longer. You see,” he continued, nervously, “I thought mebbe I could stay here three or four days, but last night I got a telegram from my pardner on the mountain sayin’ there wuz trouble among the boys an’ fur me ter come back. But I--I jest couldn’t go back without seein’ Ellen, so I came on ter-night fur a surprise, but I must start back right off, an’ I’m mighty disappointed not ter be seein’ her all this time. Hed no idea yer college wuz such a big place--thought I could walk right in an’ spot her,” he ran on meditatively--“I thought it wuz something like Miss Bellairs’s an’ Miss Tompkins’s an’ Miss Rand’s all rolled inter one. But Lord! it’s a sight bigger’n that! Well, I’m glad of it. I’ve thought fur years about Ellen’s havin’ a college eddication, an’ I’m glad to see it’s a real big college. Never hed no schoolin’ myself, but I jest set my heart on Ellen’s havin’ it. Why shouldn’t she? I’ve got ther money. Hed to work mighty hard fur it, but I’ve got it, an’ she wanted ter come to college, and I wanted her to come, so of course she came. I met another young woman,” he continued, smiling frankly at the girl before him; “she wasn’t so fine-lookin’ as you, but she was a very nice young woman, an’ she promised to send Ellen ter me, but she hasn’t done it!”

Miss Arnold felt a sudden interest in the old man.

“Perhaps,” she began, doubtfully, “if you could tell me what her class is, or in what building she has her rooms, I might find her.”

He looked at the young girl incredulously.

“Ain’t you never heard of her?” he demanded. “Why, everybody knew her at Miss Bellairs’s. But p’r’aps”--in a relieved sort of way--“p’r’aps you ain’t been here long. This is Ellen’s second year.”

Miss Arnold felt slightly aggrieved. “I am a Senior,” she replied, and then added courteously, “but I am sure the loss has been mine.”

She could not make this man out, quite--he was so evidently uncultivated, so rough and even uncouth, and yet there was a look of quiet power in his honest eyes, and he was so unaffectedly simple and kindly that she instinctively recognized the innate nobility of his character. She felt interested in him, but somewhat puzzled as to how to continue the conversation, and so she turned rather helplessly to her magazine.

But he came over and stood beside her, looking down wonderingly at the unfamiliar words and accents.

“Can you read all that?” he asked, doubtfully.

Miss Arnold said “Yes.”

“Jest like English?” he persisted.

She explained that she had had a French nurse when she was little, and afterward a French governess, and that she had always spoken French as she had English. He seemed to be immensely impressed by that and looked at her very intently and admiringly, and then he suddenly looked away, and said, in a changed tone:

“I never hed no French nurse fur Ellen. Lord! it wuz hard enough to get any kind in them days,” he said, regretfully. “But she’s been studyin’ French fur two years now--p’rhaps she speaks almost as good as you do by this time--she’s mighty smart.”

Miss Arnold looked up quickly at the honest, kindly face above her with the hopeful expression in the eyes, and some sudden impulse made her say, quite cheerfully and assuringly, “Oh, yes--of course.”

She was just going to add that she would go to the office and send someone to look for Miss Oldham, when a slender, rather pretty girl passed the library door, hesitated, peering through the half-light, and then came swiftly toward them.

With a cry of inexpressible tenderness and delight the old man sprang toward her.

“Ellen!” he said, “Ellen!”

She clung to him for a few moments and then drew off rather shyly and awkwardly, with a sort of _mauvaise honte_ which struck disagreeably on Miss Arnold, and looked inquiringly and almost defiantly from her father to the girl watching them.

“This young woman,” he said, understanding her unspoken inquiry, “has been very kind to me, Ellen--we’ve been talkin’.”

Miss Arnold came forward.

“I think we ought to be friends,” she said, graciously. “I am Clara Arnold. Your father tells me this is your Sophomore year.”

The girl met her advances coldly and stiffly. She had never met Miss Arnold before, but she had known very well who she was, and she had envied her, and had almost disliked her for her good looks and her wealth and her evident superiority. She comprehended that this girl had been born to what she had longed for in a vague, impotent way, and had never known. She wished that Miss Arnold had not witnessed the meeting with her father--that Miss Arnold had not seen her father at all. And then, with the shame at her unworthy thoughts came a rush of pity and love for the man standing there, smiling so patiently and so tenderly at her. She put one hand on his arm and drew herself closer to him.

“Father!” she said.

Miss Arnold stood looking at them, turning her clear eyes from one to the other. It interested her tremendously--the simple, kindly old man, in his rough clothes, and with his homely talk and his fatherly pride and happiness in the pretty, irresolute-looking girl beside him. It occurred to her suddenly, with a thrill of pity for herself, that she had never seen her father look at her in that way. He would have been inordinately surprised and--she felt sure--very much annoyed, if she had ever kissed his hand or laid her head on his arm as this girl was now doing. He had been an extremely kind and considerate father to her. It struck her for the first time that she had missed something--that after providing the rather pretentiously grand-looking house and grounds, and the servants and carriages and conservatories, her father had forgotten to provide something far more essential. But she was so much interested in the two before her that she did not have much time to think of herself. She concluded that she did not want to go back to the Scotch celebrity, and resolutely ignored the surprised looks of some of her friends who passed the library door and made frantic gestures for her to come forth and join them. But when they had moved away it occurred to her that she ought to leave the two together, and so she half rose to go, but the man, divining her intention, said, heartily:

“Don’t go--don’t go! Ellen’s goin’ to show me about this big college, an’ we want you to go, too.”

He was speaking to Miss Arnold, but his eyes never left the girl’s face beside him, while he gently stroked her hair as if she had been a little child.

And so they walked up and down the long library, and they showed him the Milton shield, and dragged from their recesses rare books, and pointed out the pictures and autographs of different celebrities. He seemed very much interested and very grateful to them for their trouble, and never ashamed to own how new it all was to him nor how ignorant he was, and he did not try to conceal his pride in his daughter’s education and mental superiority to himself. And when Miss Arnold realized that, she quietly effaced herself and let the younger girl do all the honors, only helping her now and then with suggestions or statistics.

“You see,” he explained, simply, after a lengthy and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, a somewhat fruitless dissertation on the splendid copy of the “Rubaiyat” lying before them--“you see I don’t know much about these things. Never hed no chance. But Ellen knows, so what’s the use of my knowin’? She can put her knowledge to use; but, Lord! I couldn’t if I hed it.

“You see it was like this,” he continued, cheerfully, turning to Miss Arnold, while the girl at his side raised her head for an instant and uttered a low exclamation of protest. “We lived out West--in a minin’ camp in Colorado--Bowlder Bluff wuz its name. Awfully lonesome place. No schools--nothin’, jest the store--my store--an’ the mines not fur off. Ellen wuz about twelve then”--he turned inquiringly to the girl, but she would not look up--“about twelve,” he continued, after a slight pause, and another gentle caress of the brown hair; “an’ I hedn’t never given a thought to wimmen’s eddication, an’ Ellen here wuz jest growin’ up not knowin’ a thing--except how I loved her an’ couldn’t bear her out of my sight” (with another caress), “when one day there came to ther camp a college chap. He wuz an English chap, an’ he wuz hard-up. But he wuz a gentleman an’ he’d been to a college--Oxford wuz the name--an’ he took a heap of notice of Ellen, an’ said she wuz mighty smart--yes, Ellen, even then we knew you wuz smart--an’ that she ought to have schoolin’ an’ not run aroun’ the camp any more. At first I didn’t pay no attention to him. But by an’ by his views did seem mighty sensible, an’ he kep’ naggin at me. He used to talk to me about it continual, an’ at night we’d sit out under the pines and talk--he with a fur-away sort of look in his eyes an’ the smoke curlin’ up from his pipe--an’ he’d tell me what eddication meant to wimmen--independence an’ happiness an’ all that, an’ he insisted fur Ellen to go to a good school. He said there wuz big colleges fur wimmen just like there wuz fur men, an’ that she ought to have a chance an’ go to one.

“An’ then he would read us a lot of stuff of evenin’s--specially poetry. Shelley in particular. And yet another chap, almost better’n Shelley. Keats wuz his name. P’rhaps you’ve read some of his poetry?” he inquired, turning politely to Miss Arnold. Something in her throat kept her from speaking, so she only lowered her head and looked away from the drawn, averted face of the girl before her. “He wuz great! All about gods an’ goddesses an’ things one don’t know much about; but then, as I take it, poetry always seems a little fur off, so it wuz kind of natural. But Shelley wuz our favorite. He used to read us somethin’ about the wind. Regularly fine--jest sturred us up, I can tell you. We knew what storms an’ dead leaves an’ ‘black rain an’ fire an’ hail’ wuz out on them lonesome mountains. An’ sometimes he’d read us other things, stories from magazines, an’ books, but it kind of made me feel lonesomer than ever.

“But Ellen here, she took to it all like a duck to water, an’ the college chap kep’ insistin’ that she ought to go to a good school, an’ that she showed ‘great natural aptitude’--them wuz his words--an’ that she might be famous some day, till at last I got regularly enthusiastic about wimmen’s eddication, an’ I jest determined not to waste any more time, an’ so I sent her to Miss Bellairs’s at Denver. She wuz all I hed, an’ Lord knows I hedn’t no particular reason to feel confidence in wimmen folks”--a sudden, curious, hard expression came into his face for a moment and then died swiftly away as he turned from Miss Arnold and looked at the girl beside him. “But I sent her, an’ she ain’t never been back to the camp, an’ she’s been all I ever hoped she’d be.”

They had passed from the faintly lighted library into the brilliant corridors, and the man, towering in rugged strength above the two girls, cast curious glances about him as they walked slowly along. Everything seemed to interest him, and when they came to the Greek recitation-rooms he insisted, with boyish eagerness, upon going in, and the big photogravures of the Acropolis and the charts of the Ægean Sea, and even a passage from the “Seven against Thebes” (copied upon the walls doubtless by some unlucky Sophomore), and which was so hopelessly unintelligible to him, seemed to fascinate him. And when they came to the physical laboratories he took a wonderful, and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, an almost pathetic interest in the spectroscopes and Ruhmkorff coils, and the batteries only half-discernable in the faintly flaring lights.

And as they strolled about he still talked of Ellen and himself and their former life, and the life that was to be--when Ellen should become famous. For little by little Miss Arnold comprehended that that was his one fixed idea. As he talked, slowly it came to her what this man was, and what his life had been--how he had centred every ambition on the girl beside him, separated her from him, at what cost only the mountain pines and the stars which had witnessed his nightly struggles with himself could tell; how he had toiled and striven for her that she might have the education he had never known. She began to understand what “going to college” had meant to this girl and this man--to this man especially. It had not meant the natural ending of a preparatory course at some school and a something to be gone through with--creditably, if possible, but also, if possible, without too great exertion and with no expectation of extraordinary results. It had had a much greater significance to them than that. It had been regarded as an event of incalculable importance, an introduction into a new world, the first distinct step upon the road to fame. It had meant to them what a titled offer means to a struggling young American beauty, or a word of approbation to an under-lieutenant from his colonel, or a successful maiden speech on the absorbing topic of the day, or any other great and wonderful happening, with greater and more wonderful possibilities hovering in the background.

She began to realize just how his hopes and his ambitions and his belief in this girl had grown and strengthened, until the present and the future held nothing for him but her happiness and advancement and success. It was a curious idea, a strange ambition for a man of his calibre to have set his whole heart upon, and as Miss Arnold looked at the girl who was to realize his hopes, a sharp misgiving arose within her and she wondered, with sudden fierce pity, why God had not given this man a son.

But Ellen seemed all he wanted. He told, in a proud, apologetic sort of way, while the girl protested with averted eyes, how she had always been “first” at “Miss Bellairs’s” and that he supposed “she stood pretty well up in her classes” at college. And Miss Arnold looked at the white, drawn face of the girl and said, quite steadily, she had no doubt but that Miss Oldham was a fine student. She was an exceptionally truthful girl, but she was proud and glad to have said that when she saw the look of happiness that kindled on the face of the man. Yet she felt some compunctions when she noted how simply and unreservedly he took her into his confidence.

And what he told her was just such a story as almost all mothers and fathers tell--of the precocious and wonderful intellect of their children and the great hopes they have of them. But with this man it was different in some way. He was so deeply in earnest and so hopeful and so tender that Miss Arnold could scarcely bear it. “Ellen” was to be a poet. Had she not written verses when she was still a girl, and had not the “college chap” and her teachers declared she had great talents? Wait--he would let Miss Arnold judge for herself. Only lately he had written to Ellen, asking her if she still remembered their lonely mountain-home, and she had sent him this. They had strolled down the corridor to one of the winding stairways at the end. He drew from his large leather purse a folded paper. The girl watched him open it with an inexpressible fear in her eyes, and when she saw what it was she started forward with a sort of gasp, and then turned away and steadied herself against the balustrade.

He spread out the paper with exaggerated care, and read, with the monotonously painful intonations of the unpractised reader:

“Ye storm-winds of Autumn!
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side
Thin sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellow arms--
Ye are bound for the mountains!
Oh! with you let me go
Where your cold, distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air--
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!”

As he read, Miss Arnold turned her eyes, burning with an unutterable indignation and scorn, upon the girl, but the mute misery and awful supplication in her face checked the words upon her lips. When he had finished reading, Miss Arnold murmured something, she hardly knew what, but he would not let her off so easily.

What did she think of it?--did she not think he ought to be proud of Ellen? and was the “gleam-lighted lake” the lake they could see from the piazza?

He ran on, taking it for granted that Miss Arnold was interested in his hopes and dreams, and almost without waiting for or expecting replies. And at last he told her the great secret. Ellen was writing a book. He spoke of it almost with awe--in a suppressed sort of fashion. She had not told him yet much about it, but he seemed wholly confident in its future success. He wondered which of the big publishing houses would want it most.

Miss Arnold gave a quick gasp of relief. There was more to this girl, then, than she had dared to hope. She glanced eagerly and expectantly toward her, and in that one look she read the whole pitiable lie. Ellen was looking straight ahead of her, and the hopeless misery and shame in her eyes Miss Arnold never forgot. All the pretty, weak curves about the mouth and chin had settled into hard lines, and a nameless fear distorted every feature. But the man seemed to notice nothing, and walked on with head uplifted and a proud, almost inspired look upon his rugged face.

“When will the book be finished, Ellen?” he asked, at length.

The girl looked up, and Miss Arnold noted with amazement her wonderful control.

“It will not be very long now, father,” she replied. She was acting her difficult part very perfectly. It occurred to Miss Arnold that for many years this girl had been so acting, and as she looked at the strong, quiet features of the man she shuddered slightly and wondered how it would be with her when he knew.

* * * * *

When the carriage which was to take him to the station for the midnight train into Boston had driven from the door, the two girls looked at each other steadily for an instant.

“Come to my study for a few moments,” said the younger one, imperiously. Miss Arnold acquiesced silently, and together they moved down the long corridor to Miss Oldham’s rooms.

“I want to explain,” she began, breathlessly, leaning against the closed door and watching with strained, wide-opened eyes Miss Arnold’s face, upon which the light from the lamp fell strong and full.

“I want to explain,” she repeated, defiantly this time. “You had no right to come between myself and my father! I wish with all my heart you had never seen him, but since you _have_ seen him I must explain. I am not entirely the hypocrite and the coward you take me for.” She stopped suddenly and gave a low cry. “Ah! what shall I say to make you understand? It began so long ago--I did not mean to deceive him. It was because I loved him and he thought me so clever. He thought because I was quick and bright, and because I was having a college education, that I was--different. In his ignorance how could he guess the great difference between a superficial aptitude and real talents? How could I tell him--how could I,” with a despairing gesture, “that I was just like thousands of other girls, and that there are hundreds right here in this college who are my superiors in every way? It would have broken his heart.” Her breath came in short gasps and the pallor of her face had changed to a dull red.

Miss Arnold leaned forward on the table.

“You have grossly deceived him,” she said, in cold, even tones.

“Deceived him?--yes--a thousand times and in a thousand ways. But I did it to make him happy. Am I really to blame? He expected so much of me--he had such hopes and such dreams of some great career for me. I _am_ a coward. I could not tell him that I was a weak, ordinary girl, that I could never realize his aspirations, that the mere knowledge that he depended and relied upon me weighed upon me and paralyzed every effort. When I loved him so could I tell him this? Could I tell him that his sacrifices were in vain, that the girl of whom he had boasted to every man in the mining camp was a complete failure?”

She went over to the table and leaned her head upon her shaking hand.

“If my mother--if I had had a brother or sister, it might have been different, but I was alone and I was all he had. And so I struggled on, half hoping that I might become something after all. But I confessed to myself what I could not to him, that I would never become a scholar, that my intellect was wholly superficial, that the verses I wrote were the veriest trash, that I was only doing what ninety-nine out of every hundred girls did, and that ninety-eight wrote better rhymes than I. There is a whole drawerful of my ‘poetry’”--she flung open a desk disdainfully--“until I could stand it no longer, and one day when he asked me to write something about the mountains, in desperation I copied those verses of Matthew Arnold’s. I knew he would never see them. After that it was easy to do so again.” She stopped and pressed her hands to her eyes.

“I am the most miserable girl that lives,” she said.

Miss Arnold looked at her coldly.

“And the book?” she said at length.

Miss Oldham lifted her head wearily.

“It was all a falsehood. He kept asking me if I were not writing a book. He thought one had only to write a book to become famous. It seemed so easy not to oppose the idea, and little by little I fell into the habit of talking about ‘the book’ as if it were really being written. I did not try to explain to myself what I was doing. I simply drifted with the current of his desires and hopes. It may seem strange to you that a man like my father should have had such ambitions, and stranger still that he should have ever dreamed I could realize them. But one _has_ strange fancies alone with one’s self out on the mountains, and the isolation and self-concentration of the life give an intensity to any desire or expectation that you, who live in an ever-changing world, cannot understand.”

Miss Arnold looked at the girl curiously. She wondered for the first time if there was any excuse for her. She had a singularly strong moral nature herself, and she could not quite understand this girl’s weakness and deceit. The fact that she loved her father so deeply only added to the mystery.

She arose. “If I were you”--she began, coldly, but Miss Oldham stopped her.

“It is all finished now,” she said. She, too, had arisen, and was standing against the door, looking down and speaking in the monotonous tone of someone reciting a lesson.

“I have decided, and I shall go to my father, and I shall say, ‘I have deceived you; I have neither courage nor honesty. There might have been an excuse for another girl--a girl who did not understand you or who did not love you, or who did not know just how much her success meant to you. For me there is none. I, who knew how strange the idea at first seemed to you of your daughter’s being an educated, accomplished girl; I, who knew how little by little the idea became a passion with you, how proud and how fond you were of her, how you worked and prayed that she might be something different and better than the rest--I, who knew all this, have still deceived you. There is but one thing I dare ask you, Will you not let me go back to the mountain with you, and serve you and be to you the daughter I have not been as yet?’”

She stopped suddenly and looked at Miss Arnold.

“That is what I must do, is it not?” she asked, dully.

Miss Arnold went over to her.

“That is what you must do,” she said, gently.

It was almost two weeks later when Miss Arnold, coming in from a long walk, found a letter lying on her table. It bore an unfamiliar postmark, and the superscription had evidently been written in great haste or agitation. She tore it open with a feeling of apprehension.

“My punishment has come upon me,” it ran. “My father is dead. I got a telegram at Denver--they met me at the foot of the mountain. I cannot say anything now. As yet I have but one thought and one comfort--he never knew! Think of me as you will--I am glad he never did!

“E. O.”

TIME AND TIDE

It was the usual scene at College theatricals. There was the inevitable six-foot tenor in a white muslin dress, abnormally long blond plaits, and a high falsetto which _would_ descend every now and then into a barytone; and there was the German bass-villain who took unpardonable liberties with the tenor-maiden, considering the latter’s muscular superiority; and there was the wicked and beautiful maid with very much blackened eyebrows and very much rouged cheeks, who forgot every now and then and winked knowingly at some particular chum in the audience; and there were the usual hitches in the curtain, and the heat and lights, and crowds of students and rapt young women from neighboring institutions of learning, who were gazing with mingled admiration and pity at the wonderfully large hands and feet of the prima-donna and soubrette.

Every now and then, chinks of daylight came in from lifted blinds, damaging the looks of the tenor’s complexion considerably, and the German villain was getting hoarse, and the ballet refused to repeat the “butterfly” dance, and the student enthusiasm was beginning to flag. At last, however, the _finale_ came. The tenor fell happily, if a trifle heavily, into the arms of the barytone, whose operatic _raison-d’être_ had up to that moment been rather obscure, the German villain gave a last gasp, and the chorus came out firm and strong on the pretty refrain, and then everybody got up and walked about, and the men introduced their friends to the young women with them, and everybody said it was a great success, if a trifle warm, and then they all went home and said it wasn’t as good as “last year’s.”

Miss Elise Ronald and her chaperon and party stood near the door, talking to several men, and waiting for the tenor, who was a particular friend and who had invited them over. It seemed to them that he was a great while making his appearance, and they were very anxious to know what he was doing. They would have been much shocked if they had known. Mr. Perry Cunningham was swearing. In his frantic hurry to get out of the extraordinary muslin dress and blond wig, and wash the paint and mongolian and pearl powder off his face, everything seemed to have gone wrong. To add to the excitement and worry his “dresser” had misplaced some of his things, and the stage-manager was trying to buttonhole him to talk business.

The chaperon, who was tired standing, said she would walk on with the rest, and that Miss Ronald would please follow the moment Mr. Cunningham arrived. So the girl said “yes” very obediently, and was left standing, talking with her brother and a youthful freshman who had asked to be presented. As time passed and no Mr. Perry Cunningham appeared, Miss Ronald delicately hinted to her brother that he had best hunt him up and tell him that she was waiting; but that amiable youth, with delightful optimism, assured his sister warmly that “Cunningham would soon be out of his fancy togs and would turn up all right,” and disappeared in the direction of Hemenway.

It was only a short while later that Mr. Cunningham did come up, breathless and profusely apologetic, and the freshman with rare discreetness, divining that his presence was not absolutely necessary, bowed and moved off.

“Awfully sorry, Miss Ronald,” gasped Cunningham, “’spect I kept you waitin’ an awful time. That--that ‘dresser’ of mine put half my things with another fellow’s and I had a time getting them straight.”

Miss Ronald said it did not matter and that the chaperon had gone on with the rest, and that they were to catch up.

“You know we must get that 5.50 train back to the College,” she explained. So they strolled up Harvard Square, and Miss Ronald assured Cunningham that his solo in the second act was the gem of the operetta, and Cunningham was saying impressively that he was glad _she_ liked it, when it occurred to both of them that the chaperon and the rest of the party had somehow disappeared.

“Did they intend getting the train in Boston or going over to Allston for it?” asked Cunningham.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Miss Ronald, helplessly. “How stupid of me--I never thought to ask!”

Cunningham said it would be rather easier, he thought, to get over to Allston, and that they had probably gone that way. So they boarded a car and got to Allston at ten minutes of six--“excellent time,” as Cunningham remarked walking inside the station to buy the tickets. He was gone so long that Miss Ronald started in after him, fearing every minute to hear the train come thundering up. When she saw him she knew by his face that something was the matter.

“The ticket-man has just told me this confounded train doesn’t stop at Allston,” he said, coming quickly toward her. “It’s an outrage--the company oughtn’t to run its trains so irregularly. It’s a beastly shame! How’s a person going to remember where a train stops and where it doesn’t?” he added excitedly, and a trifle vaguely.

Miss Ronald was very much disturbed and a little indignant. Cunningham felt very sorry for the girl and inclined to blame himself for the mistake, but Miss Ronald assured him that it was not his fault, and that what he had to do now was to think how best they could get back to the College. It was while they were standing on the platform “thinking,” that the 5.50 from Boston rushed by and they caught sight of the anxious face of the chaperon at the window.

“Nice people to go off and leave me this way,” soliloquized Miss Ronald, indignantly. Cunningham walked inside to scrutinize the time-table. When he came out his face wore so hopeful an expression that Miss Ronald brightened visibly. “I have a scheme,” he declared. “There’s a train into Boston that comes along in fifteen minutes and that will get us in there at 6.25--too late to get the 6.22 out; but we can go to the Thorndyke and have a little dinner, and catch the 7.30 which will get you to ‘the College’ at 8.17. You see it would take us at least two hours to drive over, so that by my plan we shall have our dinner and get back as soon as if we started now with a trap. And if you will wait here a minute, I’ll telegraph your chaperon that we will be out on the 7.30, so she won’t be uneasy about you.”

He was so evidently pleased and relieved with his arrangement that Miss Ronald hadn’t the heart to offer any objections. They got up to the Thorndyke and secured a delightful table by an open window, and by the time they had ordered a rather elaborate dinner, Miss Ronald’s righteous indignation at her abandonment by the chaperon had stifled any feelings of remorse at her consent to Cunningham’s “scheme.” So they ate in peace and talked about the operetta and their friends, and she was enjoying it all immensely, and had quite forgotten her anxiety to get back to College and her keen doubts about the propriety of the adventure, when her eyes happened to fall upon a bronze clock on the mantel at the other end of the room, and she gave a little cry of dismay. Cunningham followed the direction of her gaze and said “by Jove” under his breath in a very forcible sort of way. He pulled out his watch and found it tallied uncompromisingly with the clock. He beckoned sharply to the waiter.

“Is that clock _exactly_ right?” he demanded, excitedly. The waiter assured him that the clock’s record was unimpeachable.

“There is simply no use trying to make that 7.30 in three minutes, Miss Ronald,” remarked the youth, mournfully. “It’s all my fault. I was enjoying myself so much that I never noticed how late it was,” he went on, remorsefully. “Now I suppose you’ll be in no end of a scrape. What do they do to you when you come in late? Send you to the dean?”

His evident anxiety and utter ignorance of the rules of the College would have amused Miss Ronald if she had not been so hopelessly dejected. As it was, she made an heroic effort to brighten up and smiled sadly at Cunningham. “No--they only put us on bread and water for a week,” she said, at which feeble attempt at a joke they both laughed miserably.

Cunningham called the waiter again.

“Bring me a Boston and Albany time-table,” he said. When the man came back with the precious bit of paper, the girl and the youth bent anxiously over it.

“There’s a train at nine o’clock and one at nine-thirty,” he said. “The nine o’clock is a slow train, stops everywhere, and only gets you to the College ten minutes sooner than the other.”

Miss Ronald looked so miserable that Cunningham began to feel very desperate indeed. He determined to do something to lighten her despair.

“Suppose we go up-town and see Sothern in ‘Sheridan?’” he suggested. “We can get down to the station for the nine-thirty, and we can see the first two acts. It’s a charming play--ever seen it?”

Miss Ronald said “No--o,” and was not sure that they had better go to the theatre, but she did not wish to go to any of her friends and tell them of her rather ridiculous predicament, and there was nothing for it but to consent to the theatre plan. So Cunningham called for the bill and they strolled slowly up to the theatre to kill time. They took seats far back so as to be able to escape easily. “Sheridan” is a very pretty play, as everyone knows, but Cunningham felt so responsible for the girl that he was much too nervous properly to appreciate it. He saw, however, that Miss Ronald was enjoying herself very much, and he decided to stay till the last moment, but kept his watch open in his hand for fear of running over the time. He knew they could get to Kneeland Street in seven or eight minutes with a cab, and so, at exactly fifteen minutes after nine, he arose and told Miss Ronald it was time to go. They wasted a few moments getting out, and then Cunningham called a cab and told the driver to go to the Boston and Albany station as fast as he could.

It may have been these unfortunate directions, or it may have been Fate--at any rate, at the corner of Washington and Essex Streets there was a sudden commotion and noise; Cunningham and Miss Ronald felt a terrible jolt, and a great many people seemed to have sprung suddenly out of the earth and to be asking them if they were hurt. As they were not at all hurt they were rather indignant, and Cunningham jumped impatiently out of the cab to see what all the fuss was about. He was not long in ignorance. The horse lay on its side with a broken shaft sticking up and the harness half off him. The coachman was swearing impartially at the people about him, and an ice-wagon with which the cab had collided stood by unhurt, the driver of it in a hopeless state of intoxication and wrath. Cunningham looked anxiously around him, and to his consternation not another cab was in sight. There seemed to be a lull in the traffic of the street, and very few people or vehicles were to be seen except those collected around the scene of the accident. The two drivers were wrangling and swearing at each other, so that nothing was to be got out of them. Cunningham made use of some strong language for his private satisfaction. He looked at his watch. It was twenty-five minutes after nine, and they would have been at the station if the break-down had not occurred. He went quickly back to the cab.

“Miss Ronald,” he said, “the horse has fallen down and broken the shaft. There isn’t another cab in sight, and we mustn’t waste any time getting away, or the police may detain us to tell what we know of the accident. I don’t see anything to do but to run for it,” he added, with a frantic attempt to speak cheerfully.

The girl got quickly out of the cab. “This is terrible, Mr. Cunningham,” she gasped. “We _must_ catch that nine-thirty train. The College is locked at ten o’clock, and I am _obliged_ to be there by that time.”

Cunningham grabbed her hand firmly in his. “Now run!” he said. There were a great many people who stopped to look at the two figures tearing down Washington Street, and they particularly enlisted the sympathetic attention of a great many small boys along the way. One policeman, thinking it was a case of abduction, started after them but gave up the chase before long, having never gone in much for sprinting, and it being an unusually warm night in May. It was indeed a rather uncommon sight. The girl’s clothes and correct air made her particularly noticeable, while Cunningham in a silk hat, Bond Street coat, and patent leathers, was a conspicuous object as he swung lightly down the street under the lamps and electric lights.

When they turned into Kneeland Street, the girl’s courage and strength failed her. Kneeland Street itself is a disgrace to Boston. It is not by any means the street a young man would choose to walk on with a young lady in the evening--indeed it is not the street one would choose to walk on in broad daylight with a policeman in hailing distance. Cunningham could have cursed himself for the whole thing. He drew the girl closer to him and walked swiftly on. When they got in sight of the station he glanced fearfully at the big clock. It stood at exactly half after nine, but he comforted himself with the thought that the outside clock is always fast, though he was not sure just how much.

“Can you run any more?” he asked anxiously of the girl. For answer she started ahead feverishly.

The man was locking the gate. “Can’t open it--train just pulled out.” Cunningham looked viciously at the official.

“Can’t you whistle her back?” he demanded, furiously. The man smiled derisively, and commenced talking to a trainman who sauntered up just then with an oil-can and hammer in his hand. Cunningham went back to where Miss Ronald was standing. The girl burst out laughing somewhat hysterically.

“We need a chaperon badly, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, nervously. “We don’t seem able to take care of ourselves at all.”

“Yes,” assented Cunningham, gloomily. “It seems easy enough in the abstract to catch a train, but some way we don’t seem to understand quite how it’s done,” he added, ironically. “I will go and find out when the next train leaves, and may be if we are careful and start for it an hour before time, and if the station doesn’t burn up, or all the cab horses fall down dead, or the trains stop running, we may be able to make it.”

Cunningham walked up to the ticket-agent. “When is the next train out?” he demanded, sternly.

The man glanced up impatiently from a calculation he was making and said, shortly--“11.10.”

Cunningham strolled back to the girl. “It is obviously impossible to wait here an hour and forty minutes,” he said. “Suppose we go back to the theatre and see the last act. We’ve only missed one act at most, and the last is the prettiest of all.”

Miss Ronald was too miserable to object or make any suggestions, so they got into a cab and Cunningham gave minute instructions to the driver not to fall off the box and kill himself, or let the horse walk out of the harness, and to be particularly careful about the wheels coming off, and not to try to demolish any ice-wagons that might be harmlessly roving the streets. The driver took these remarks good-humoredly, but was naturally much mystified, and after thinking it over concluded that Cunningham was either very drunk or very crazy.

They got back to the theatre in a short time and saw the success of “The Rivals,” and the duel and the just exposure of the infamous Matthews, and wished heartily that their affairs were as happily wound up as those of the fair Miss Linley and Sheridan.

It was just ten minutes of eleven when they started back for the Boston and Albany station. Cunningham had retained the cab they had come in and had given still further and more minute directions to the driver, so that as they settled themselves back on the stuffy cushions, they thought they could reasonably hope to get the train in time and safety. When they entered the waiting-room Miss Ronald saw with a sigh of relief that it was just eleven o’clock. There was plenty of time, and it was with a somewhat triumphant air of having conquered immense difficulties, of having fought bravely a hard fight, that Cunningham walked up once more to the ticket-office.

“Two tickets, please,” he said briskly as he handed out a dollar bill. The man looked at him for a moment as if making an effort to remember where he had seen him before.

“This is the through express to New York. You’ll need more stuff than that to get two tickets,” he said, jocosely.

“You told me”--gasped Cunningham.

“Yes,” asserted the man. “You asked me when the next train went out and I told you. Of course I thought you knew where you were going,” he added, derisively.

Cunningham began to feel very desperate indeed.

“Well,” said he, slowly and carefully. “If there is a train that leaves any time to-night for Wellesley, break the news to me gently, and then come and put me on it half an hour before it starts, and tie my ticket to my coat, and put me in charge of the conductor. Otherwise--” he went on impressively, “I may get lost, or wreck the train, or stop the locomotive.”

Then he went back to Miss Ronald and told her the news. She had had a very pronounced liking for Mr. Perry Cunningham up to that time, but it occurred to her that he seemed terribly lacking in practicality, and that she was very much disappointed in him. She decided firmly what her answer would be to him if ever he should propose--though it is but fair to state that Mr. Cunningham had no thought of proposing, unless it was proposing how best to get back to College.

At 11.25 the last accommodation train pulled out with a very miserable young woman and a very remorseful young man on it.

At exactly 12.9 it left them standing on the platform of a pretty station, with not a cab to be seen, wondering how they could get up to “the College.” Miss Ronald said she thought they had better walk, by all means; that they had not had any excitement or fatigue all evening, and that a mile walk at midnight would be just the thing for them; that they might run part of the way if they found walking too slow, and that she often went out and ran around a while in the middle of the night just for the fun of the thing. (Miss Ronald was getting sarcastic--misfortune had embittered her naturally sweet disposition.)

Mr. Cunningham said hotly that he understood what she meant, and that no one could possibly be more sorry about the whole thing than himself, and that if necessary he would come over in person the next day and explain it to the President herself. But Miss Ronald said haughtily that, owing to the telegram they had sent, everyone probably thought her safe at the College, and that there would be no need of explanations. If any were to be made she preferred to make them herself.

After that they walked swiftly and quietly up the long shaded paths. The fresh, earthy smell of the sward and early spring flowers, and the cry of the night birds, and the big College buildings standing out every now and then sharply defined in the moonlight, or shadowed by the great trees, with here and there a solitary light shining at some professor’s window, made it a very beautiful and impressive scene. But Miss Ronald was too unhappy to think much about it and walked haughtily and silently on, and Cunningham could not enjoy it for the remorse he felt and the knowledge that Miss Ronald--however, unreasonably--was angry with him. Besides, he was wondering what on earth was to become of him for the rest of the night. It was three miles to the nearest hotel, he thought gloomily, and he would have to take the first train into Boston in order to get over to Cambridge in time for a lecture which he did not wish to miss.

* * * * *

Miss Clara Arnold awoke very suddenly and very thoroughly. Her heart gave an awful bound and then stood quite still in a most uncomfortable sort of way. There was no doubt about it--there were people on the piazza just outside her room and they were talking in low but excited tones. All the horror of her situation came upon her, and in one instant she wished more fervently than she ever thought she could wish for anything, that she had taken her friends’ advice and had not decided on a room on the ground floor opening on a piazza. All their warnings and talk of burglars and tramps came vividly to her as she lay there quaking with fear. She could hear quite distinctly the tread of feet outside, and the gentle but firm shaking of the big doors that opened from the broad corridor on the piazza. A sickening sense of fear possessed her and a suffocating pressure was on her lungs. She wondered with all her soul where the night-watchman was, and whether she had better scream or lie quite still. She was trying to decide this when she thought she heard her name called. She sat up, listening intently. And then she heard quite distinctly a girl’s voice saying, hopelessly:

“It’s no use--you can’t get that door open and I can’t make Clara hear!”

Miss Arnold gave a gasp and then jumped out of bed and into a tea-gown and Turkish slippers. She went quickly into her study and called softly to the girl outside.

“Elise, is that you? Just wait a minute!” and then there was more muffled talk outside and a man’s voice in a relieved way saying:

“Oh, it’s all right now--how glad I am! I--I wish I could begin to tell you, Miss Ronald, how awfully cut up I am about it”--but the girl stopped him.

“I quite understand, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, stiffly. “You had better go now. I am sorry there is no hotel nearer.” And then Miss Arnold heard a muttered good-night and the crunch of footsteps on the gravel, and as she opened the doors a moment later Miss Ronald fell limply into her arms.

They sat up and talked it all over for an hour, and Miss Ronald said she was intensely disappointed in Perry Cunningham, and that she could never, never forgive him. Miss Arnold contended that she did not quite see what there was to forgive; it had all been unfortunate, and she thought that Mr. Cunningham had done all he could--that he hadn’t kept the train from stopping at Allston, nor did he make the cab run into the ice-wagon, nor could he compel the New York express to stop for them, and that if he forgot to look at his watch at the Thorndyke--why, she did so too. And she told Miss Ronald frankly that she might have been more civil to him, considering that he had had all the trouble on her account and was now walking three miles in order to get a place in which to sleep for three hours. And she added that she thought if anyone was to be angry about the affair it was herself, since she had taken Miss Ronald for a burglar and had been frightened nearly to death. And finally Miss Ronald grew rather remorseful at the thought of how she had sent the boy off, and of how truly considerate he had been through the whole affair, and of what good friends they had once been, and she went to sleep with the good resolution to write him a very nice note the next day. And on the following morning, when an immense box of roses came with Mr. Perry Cunningham’s card tucked humbly in one corner and almost out of sight, Miss Ronald restored him to full favor and wrote him a charming letter inviting him out for the next week to Float-Day.