Chapter V: “Ethel!” cried a voice

It was the voice of the one person who would understand and help and solace her—a voice she could never hear again in this world, strong, tender, and clear.

“Oh, mother!” she cried.

“Ethel!”

It came again, and not the voice of a spirit, but real, and close at hand.

“It’s some one in that taxi,” whispered Ladislaw. “Better not answer.”

“But it’s grandmother!” said Ethel, astounded.

She flew to the old lady like a stone from a catapult.

“Grandmother, what _are_ you doing here?” she demanded, wild with delight and relief.

“Nothing!” replied the old lady serenely. “Present your friend to me.”

“I—” began Ethel.

Ladislaw was already there, hat in hand.

“Mr. Metz, grandmother,” she said.

“Ah! Mr. Metz!” the old lady repeated, looking thoughtfully at him. Her calm old eyes seemed terrible to him. “Are you leaving?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he remembered that Ethel had never seemed to regard her grandmother as especially important. She was old, and poor, and obscure; what harm could she do?

“Yes,” he said. “Ethel and I are going to be married. She’s already sent a telegram to her aunt in the city, to tell her.”

“You are a rash young man,” said the old lady, in a tone almost friendly.

“Rash?” he repeated, with a faint frown.

“Very!” said she. “It is a surprise to me, because I see that you are not American. Americans marry that way—for love; but with the people of Europe, it is often different. They think of how they shall live. They wish a dot—a dowry—something more than love. It is very beautiful, this; because the poor little Ethel will never have anything.”

Metz was too much taken aback to be discreet.

“But she will!” he said. “Her aunt will—”

“Her aunt has only the income of an estate. She leaves nothing to Ethel; and certainly she _gives_ nothing to Ethel when she is the wife of Mr. Metz.”

“But I thought—” he began.

Suddenly the frail little old creature blazed into magnificent wrath.

“Be off!” she cried, raising her hand in a threatening gesture. “Away with you, miserable, beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! _Bestia!_ Be off!”

He started back. She leaned out of the window, her voice wonderfully strong and vigorous for her years. As he retreated, even above the roar of the incoming train, he heard her only too plainly, and was aware that other people heard her, too.

“Beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! _Bestia!_ Away with you!”

He was glad to climb on board.

The taxi went hastening back along the dark, still roads, and the old lady held the sobbing Ethel tight in her arms.

“But what is there to cry about?” she asked, in tears herself. “Foolish little one! You shall stay with me, my little bird, until you are ready to fly away. There was something put by for you to have— later. You shall have it now, for the singing lessons. Why do you cry, then? You shall sing, I tell you!”

Ethel was silent for a time.

“Grandmother!” she said. “The first time you called me—it sounded—I thought it was—mother!”

The old lady’s arm tightened about her.

“It is the same voice,” she said.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 1923 issue of Munsey’s Magazine.]