Chapter IX: Part 9

Disregarding Lillian's clutch upon my arm I moved swiftly to the side of the bed and looked down into the sick girl's eyes, brilliant with fever.

"Did you wish to speak to me?" I asked gently.

"Yes," she said abruptly, "I release you from your promise, and you are free to believe or not what I have said during my--delirium."

She emphasized the last word with a little mocking smile. The same smile was on her lips as she added, slowly, sneeringly:

"But you will never know, will you, Madgie dear, just how much of what I said was false and how much true?"

Her eyes held mine a moment longer, and the malignance in their feverish brightness frightened me. Then she closed them wearily.

As I turned away from her bedside I realized that she had prophesied only too truthfully. There would be times in my life when I would believe Dicky only. But I was also afraid there would be others when her words would come back to me with intensified power to sear and scar.

XXX

THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED

Grace Draper did not die. Thanks to the assiduous care of Dr. Pettit and the two trained nurses Dicky had provided she gradually struggled up from the "valley of the shadow of death" in which she had lain to convalescence.

As soon as she was able to travel she went to the home of the relative in the country whom she had visited in the summer. One of the nurses went with her to see that she was settled comfortably, and upon returning reported that she was getting strong fast, and in a month or two more would be her usual self again.

Neither Dicky nor I had seen her before she left. Indeed, Dicky appeared to have taken an uncontrollable aversion to the girl since her attempt to kill him and herself and disliked hearing even her name mentioned. As for me, I had a positive dread of ever looking into the girl's beautiful false face again.

It was Lillian who made all the necessary arrangements both for the girl's stay in her own home and her transfer to the country.

But between the time of my mother-in-law's arrival at our house in Marvin and the departure of Grace Draper from Lillian's home lay an interval of a fortnight in which what we all considered the miraculous happened. My mother-in-law grew to like Lillian Underwood.

For the first three or four days after the ultimatum which I had given her that she should respect our guests if she stayed in our house she was like a sulky child. She kept to her room, affecting fatigue, and demanding her meals be carried up to her by Katie.

Of course Lillian and Harry wanted to go away at once, but Dicky and I overruled them. I was resolved to see the thing through. I felt that if my mother-in-law did not yield her prejudices at this time she never would, and that I would simply have to go through the same thing again later.

Lillian saw the force of my reasoning and agreed to stay, although I knew that the sensitive delicacy of feeling which she concealed beneath her rough and ready mask made her uncomfortable in a house which held such a disapproving element as my mother-in-law.

Then, one day the little god of chance took a hand. Harry and Dicky had gone to the city. It was Katie's afternoon off, and she and Jim, who had become a regular caller at our kitchen door, had gone away together.

Mother Graham was still sulking in her room, and Lillian was busy in Dicky's improvised studio with some drawings and jingles which were a rush order.

The day was a wonderful autumn one, and I felt the need of a walk.

"I think I will run down to the village," I said to Lillian. "This is the day the candy kitchen makes up the fresh toasted marshmallows. I think we could use some, don't you?"

"Lovely," agreed Lillian enthusiastically.

"I don't think Mother Graham will come out of her room while I'm gone," I went on. "Just keep an eye out for her if she should need you."

"She'd probably bite me if I offered her any assistance," returned Lillian, laughing, "but I'll look out for her."

But when I came back with the marshmallows, after a longer walk than I had intended, I found Lillian sitting by my mother-in-law's bedside, watching her as she slept. When she saw me she put her finger to her lips and stole softly out into the hall.

"She had a slight heart attack while you were gone, and I was fortunate enough to know just what to do for her. It was not serious at all. She is perfectly all right now and"--she hesitated and smiled a bit--"I do not think she dislikes me any more."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" I exclaimed, ecstatically hugging her. "Everything will come out all right now."

During the rest of the Underwoods' stay it seemed as if my words had come true. The ice once broken, my mother-in-law's heart thawed perceptibly toward Lillian.

By the time the day came when Harry and Lillian left us to go back to their apartment the elder Mrs. Graham had so far gotten over her prejudices as to bid Lillian a reluctant farewell and express a sincere wish that she might soon see her again.

Toward Harry Underwood my mother-in-law's demeanor remained rigid. She treated him with formal, icy politeness which irritated Dicky, but appeared greatly to amuse Mr. Underwood. He took delight in paying her the most elaborate attentions, laying fresh nosegays of flowers at her plate at each meal. If he had been a lover besieging a beautiful girl's heart he could not have been more attentive, while he was absolutely impervious to all the chilling rebuffs she gave him.

I think that the touch of malice which is always a part of this man's humor was gratified by the frigid annoyance which the elder Mrs. Graham exhibited toward his attentions. At any rate, he kept them up until the very hour of his departure.

It was when he happened to be alone with me on the veranda a few moments before the coming of the taxi which was to bear them to their homeward train that he gave me the real explanation of his conduct.

"Tell me, loveliest lady," he said, with the touch of exaggeration which his manner always holds toward me, "tell me, haven't I squared up part of your account with the old girl this last week?"

"Why, what do you mean?" I stammered.

"Don't pretend such innocence," he retorted. "If you want me to tell you in so many words, I beg leave to inform you that I've been doing my little best to annoy your august mother-in-law to pay her off for her general cussedness toward you, and, incidentally, me."

"But she hasn't been cross to me," I protested.

"Not the last three or four days perhaps, but I'll bet you've had quite a dose since she came to live at your house, and you'll have another if she ever finds out my wicked designs upon you." He smiled mockingly and took a step nearer to me. "Don't forget you owe me a kiss," he said, with teasing maliciousness, referring to the time when he had threatened to "kiss me under water." "Don't you think you had better give in to me now?"

Dicky's step in the hall prevented my rebuking him as I wished. I told myself that, of course, his persistent reference to that kiss was simply one of mockery and I also admitted to myself that as much as I loved Lillian I was glad that her husband was to be no longer a guest in our house.

XXXI

A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

"Well, my dear, what are you mooning over that you didn't see me come in? I beg your pardon, Madge, what is the matter? Tell me."

Lillian Underwood stood before me a week after her visit to us. Lillian, whose entrance into the small reception room of the Sydenham, at which we had an appointment, I had not even seen. She stood looking down at me with an anxious, alarmed expression in her eyes.

"There is nothing the matter," I returned, evasively.

"Don't tell me a tarradiddle, my dear," Lillian countered smoothly. "You're as white as a sheet, and I can see your hands trembling this minute. Something has happened to upset you. But, of course, if you'd rather not tell me--"

There was a subtle hint of withdrawal in her tone. I was afraid that I had offended her. After all, why not tell her of the stranger who had so startled me?

"Look over by the door, Lillian," I said, in a low voice, "not suddenly as if I had just spoken to you about it, but carelessly. Tell me if there is a man still standing there staring at us."

Lillian whistled softly beneath her breath, a little trick she has when surprised.

"Oh-h-h!" she breathed, and turning, she looked swiftly at the place I had indicated.

"I see a disappearing back which looks as though it might belong to a 'masher.' I just caught sight of him as he turned--well set-up man about middle age, hair sprinkled with gray, rather stunning looking."

"Yes, that is the man," I returned, faintly, "but, Lillian, I'm sure he isn't an ordinary 'masher.' He had the strangest, saddest, most mysterious look in his eyes. It was almost as if he knew me or thought he did, and I have the most uncanny feeling about him, as if he were some one I had known long ago. I can't describe to you the effect he had upon me."

"Nonsense," Lillian said, brusquely, "the man is just an ordinary common lady-killer of the type that infests these hotels, and ought to be horsewhipped at sight. You're getting fanciful, and I don't wonder at it. You've had a terrible summer, with all that trouble the Draper caused you, and I imagine you haven't been having any too easy a time with dear mamma-in-law, I'm mighty glad you're going to get away with Dicky by yourself. A week in the mountains ought to set you up wonderfully, and you certainly need it when you start weaving mysterious tragedies about the commoner garden variety of 'masher.'"

Lillian's rough common sense steadied me, as it always does. I felt ashamed of my momentary emotion.

"I fancy you're right, Lillian," I said nonchalantly. "Let's forget about it and have some lunch. Where shall we go?"

"There's a bully little tea room down the street here." she said. "It's very English, with the tea cozies and all that sort of frills, and some of their luncheon dishes are delicious. Shall we try it?"

"By all means," I returned, and we went out of the hotel together.

Although I looked around furtively and fearfully as we left the hotel entrance, I could see no trace of the man who had so startled me. Scoring myself for being so foolish as to imagine that the man might still be keeping track of me, I put all thought of his actions away from me and kept up with Lillian's brisk pace, chatting with her gayly over our past experience in buying hats and the execrable creations turned out by milliners generally.

The tea room proved all that Lillian had promised. Fortunately, we were early enough to escape the noon hour rush and secure a good table near a window looking out upon the street.

"I like to look out upon the people passing, don't you?" Lillian said, as she seated herself.

"Yes, I do," I assented, and then we turned our attention to the menu cards.

"I'm fearfully hungry," Lillian announced. "I've been digging all morning. Oh! it's chicken pie here today." Her voice held all the glee of a gormandizing child. "I don't think these individual chicken pies they serve here can be beaten in New York," she went on. "You know the usual mess--potatoes and onions, and a little bit of chicken mixed up with a sauce they insult with the name gravy. These are the real article--just the chicken meat with a delicious gravy covering it, baked in the most flaky crust you can imagine. What do you say to those, with some baked potatoes, new lima beans, sliced tomatoes and an ice for dessert?"

"I don't think it can be improved upon," I said, gayly, and then I clutched Lillian's arm. "Look quickly," I whispered, "the other side of the street!"

Lillian's eyes followed mine to the opposite side of the street, where, walking slowly along, was the man I had seen in the hotel. He did not once look toward the tea room, but as he came opposite to it he turned from the pavement and crossed the street leisurely toward us.

"Oh! I believe he is coming in," I gasped, and my knees began to tremble beneath me.

"Suppose he is," Lillian snapped back. Her tone held a contemptuous impatience that braced me as nothing else could. "The man has a right to come in here if he wishes. It may be a mere coincidence, or he may have followed you. You're rather fetching in that little sport rig, my dear, as your mirror probably told you this morning. Unless he obtrudes himself there is nothing you can do or say, and if he should attempt to get fresh--well, I pity him, that's all."

Lillian's threatening air was so comical that I lost my nervousness and laughed outright at her belligerency. The laugh was not a loud one, but it evidently was audible to the man entering the door, for he turned and cast a quick, sharp look upon me before moving on to a table farther down the room. The waitress indicated a chair, which, if he had taken it, would have kept his back toward us. He refused it with a slight shake of the head, and passing around to the other side of the table, sat down in a chair which commanded a full view of us.

Lillian's foot beat a quick tattoo beneath the table. "The insolent old goat," she murmured, vindictively. "He'd better look out. I'd hate to forget I'm a perfect lady, but I'm afraid I may have to break loose if that chap stays around here."

"Oh, don't say anything to him, Lillian," I pleaded, terribly distressed and upset at the very thought of a possible scene. "Let's hurry through our luncheon and get out."

"We'll do nothing of the kind," Lillian said. "Don't think about the man at all, just go ahead and enjoy your luncheon as if he were not here at all. I'll attend to his case good and plenty if he gets funny."

In spite of Lillian Underwood's kindly admonition I could not enjoy the delicious lunch we had ordered. The presence of a mysterious man at the table opposite ours robbed the meal of its flavor and me of my self-possession.

I could not be sure, of course, that the man had purposely followed me from the little reception room of the Sydenham, where I had waited for Lillian. There I had first seen him staring frankly at me with such a sad, mysterious, tragic look in his eyes that I had been most bewildered and upset by it. But his appearance at the tea room within a few minutes of our entering it, and his choice of a chair which faced our table indicated rather strongly that he had purposely followed me.

Whether or not Lillian's flashing eyes and the withering look she gave him deterred him from gazing at me as steadily as he had at the hotel I had no means of knowing. At any rate, he did not once stare openly at me. I should have known it if he had, for his position was such that unless I kept my eyes steadily fixed upon my plate, I could not help but see him. He was unobtrusive, but I received the impression that he was keeping track of every movement in the furtive glances he cast at us from time to time.

Although he had ordered after us, his meal kept pace with our own. In fact, he called for his check, paid it and left the restaurant before we did. As he passed out of the door I drew a breath of relief and fell to my neglected lunch.

"I hope I've seen the last of him," I said vindictively.

Lillian did not answer. I looked up surprised to see her chin cupped in her hands, in the attitude which was characteristic of her when she was studying some problem, her eyes following the man as he made his way slowly down the street, swinging his stick with a pre-occupied air. She continued to stare after him until he was out of sight, then with a start, she came back to herself.

"You were right, Madge, and I was wrong," she said reflectively, still as if she were studying her problem; "that man is no 'masher.'"

I looked up startled. "What makes you think so?" I asked breathlessly.

"I don't know," she returned, "but he either thinks he knows you, or you remind him of some dead daughter, or sister--or sweetheart, or--oh, there might be any one of a dozen reasons why he would want to stare at you. I think he's harmless, though. He probably won't ever try to speak to you--just take it out in following you around and looking at you."

"Oh," I gasped, "do you think he's going to keep this up?"

"Looks like it," Lillian returned, "but simply ignore him. He has all the ear-marks of a gentleman. I don't think he will annoy you. Now forget him and enjoy your ice, and then we'll go and get that hat."

Under Lillian's guidance the selection of the hat proved an easy task.

Lillian bade me good-by at the door of the hat shop.

"You don't need me any longer, do you?" she asked, "now that this hat question is settled?"

"No, no, Lillian," I returned, "and I am awfully grateful to you for giving me so much of your time."

"'Til Wednesday, then," Lillian said, "good-by."

I had quite a long list in my purse of small purchases to be made. At last even the smallest item on my list was attended to, and, wearied as only shopping can tire a woman, I went over to the railroad station. In my hurry of departure in the morning I had forgotten my mileage ticket, so that I had to go to the ticket office to purchase a ticket to Marvin.

I had forgotten all about the man who had annoyed me in the reception room of the Sydenham, and the little English tea room, so, when I turned from buying my ticket to find him standing near enough to me to have heard the name of Marvin, I was startled and terrified.

He did not once glance toward me, however, but strolled away quickly, as if in finding out the name of my home town he had learned all he wished.

I was thoroughly upset as I hurried to my train, and all through my hour's journey home to Marvin the thought of the man troubled me. What was the secret of his persistent espionage? The coincidences of the day had been too numerous for me to doubt that the man was following me around with the intention of learning my identity.

When the train stopped at Marvin I was aghast to see the mysterious stranger alight from it hurriedly and go into the waiting room of the station. I thought I saw his scheme. From the window of the station he could see me as I alighted, and either ascertain my identity from the station agent or from the driver of whatever taxi I took.

I had only felt terror of the man before, but now I was thoroughly indignant. "The thing had gone far enough," I told myself grimly. Instead of getting off the train I passed to the next car, resolving to stop at the next village, Crest Haven, and take a taxi home from there.

The ruse succeeded. As the train sped on toward Crest Haven I had a quiet little smile at the way I had foiled the curiosity of the mysterious stranger.

I debated for some time whether or not I ought to tell Dicky of the incident. I had so much experience of his intensely jealous temperament that I feared he might magnify and distort the incident.

Finally I temporized by resolving to say nothing to Dicky unless the man's tracking of me reached the point of attempting to speak to me. But the consciousness of keeping a secret from Dicky made me pre-occupied during our dinner.

Dicky reached home an hour after I did, and all through the dinner hour I noticed him casting curious glances at me from time to time.

"What's the matter?" he asked, as after dinner he and I went out to the screened porch to drink our coffee.

"Why, nothing," I responded guiltily. "Why do you ask?"

"You act as if you thought you had the responsibility of the great war on your shoulders," Dicky returned.

"I haven't a care in the world," I assured him gayly, and arousing myself from my depression I spent the next hour in gay, inconsequential chatter in an attempt to prove to Dicky that I meant what I said.

In the kitchen I heard the voices of Jim and Katie. They were raised earnestly as if discussing something about which they disagreed. Presently Katie appeared on the veranda.

"Plees, Missis Graham, can you joost coom to kitchen, joost one little meenit."

"Certainly, Katie," I replied, rising, while Dicky mumbled a half-laughing, half-serious protest.

"I'll be back in a minute, Dicky," I promised, lightly.

It was full five before I returned, for Jim had something to tell me, which confirmed my impression that the mysterious stranger's spying upon me was something to be reckoned with.

"I didn't think I ought to worry you with this, Mrs. Graham, but Katie thinks you ought to know it, and what she says goes, you know." He cast a fatuous smile at the girl, who giggled joyously. "To-night, down at Crest Haven, I overheard one of the taxi drivers telling another about a guy that had come down there and described a woman whom he said must have gotten off at Crest Haven and taken a taxi back to Marvin. The description fitted you all right, and the driver gave him your name and address. He said he got a five spot for doing it."

My face was white, my hands cold, as I listened to Jim, but I controlled myself, and said, quietly:

"Thank you, Jim, very much for telling me, but I do not think it amounts to anything."

XXXII

"THE DEAREST FRIEND I EVER HAD"

Dinner with Dicky in a public dining room is almost always a delight to me. He has the rare art of knowing how to order a perfect dinner, and when he is in a good humor he is most entertaining. He knows by sight or by personal acquaintance almost every celebrity of the city, and his comments on them have an uncommon fascination for me because of the monotony of my life before I met Dicky.

But the very expression of my mother-in-law's back as I followed her through the glittering grill room of the Sydenham told me that our chances for having a pleasant evening were slender indeed.

"Well, mother, what do you want to eat?" Dicky began genially, when an obsequious waiter had seated us and put the menu cards before us.

"Please do not consider me in the least," my mother-in-law said with her most Christian-martyr-like expression. "Whatever you and Margaret wish will do very well for me."

Dicky turned from his mother with a little impatient shrug.

"What about you, Madge?" he asked.

"Chicken a la Maryland in a chafing dish and a combination salad with that anchovy and sherry dressing you make so deliciously," I replied promptly. "The rest of the dinner I'll leave to you."

My mother-in-law glared at me.

"It strikes me there isn't much left to leave to him after an order of that kind," she said, tartly.

"You haven't eaten many of Dicky's dinners then," I said audaciously, with a little moue at him. "He orders the most perfect dinners of any one I know."

"Of course, with your wide experience, you ought to be a critical judge of his ability," my mother-in-law snapped back.

Her tone was even more insulting than her words. It tipped with cruel venom her allusion to the quiet, almost cloistered life of my girlhood.

I drew a long breath as I saw my mother-in-law adjust her lorgnette and proceed to gaze through it with critical hauteur at the other diners. I hoped that her curiosity and interest in the things going on around her would make her forget her imaginary grievances, but my hope was destined to be short lived.

It was while we were discussing our oysters, the very first offered of the season, that she spoke to me, suddenly, abruptly:

"Margaret, do you know that man at the second table back of us? He hasn't taken his eyes from you for the last ten minutes."

My heart almost stopped beating, for my intuition told me at once the identity of the gazer. It must be the man whose uncanny, mournful look had so distressed me when I was waiting for Lillian Underwood in the little reception room at the Sydenham the preceding Monday, the man who had followed us to the little tea room, who had even taken the same train to Marvin with me.

I felt as if I could not lift my eyes to look at the man my mother-in-law indicated, and yet I knew I must glance casually at him if I were to avert the displeased suspicion which I already saw creeping into her eyes.

When my eyes met his he gave not the slightest sign that he knew I was looking at him, simply continued his steady gaze, which had something of wistful mournfulness in it. I averted my eyes as quickly as possible, and tried to look absolutely unconcerned.

"I am sure he cannot be looking at me," I said, lightly. "I do not know him at all."

I hoped that my mother-in-law would not notice my evasion, but she was too quick for me.

"You may not know him, but have you ever seen him before?" she asked, shrewdly.

"Really, mother," Dicky interposed, his face darkening, "you're going a little too far with that catechism. Madge says she doesn't know the man, that settles it. By the way, Madge, is he annoying you? If he is, I can settle him in about two seconds."

"Oh, no," I said nervously, "I don't think the man's really looking at me at all; he's simply gazing out into space, thinking, and happens to be facing this way. It would be supremely ridiculous to call him to account for it."

My mother-in-law snorted, but made no further comment, evidently silenced by Dicky's reproof.

I may have imagined it, but it seemed to me that Dicky looked at me a little curiously when I protested my belief that the man was simply absorbed in thought and not looking at me at all.

When we were dallying with the curiously moulded ices which Dicky had ordered for dessert, I saw his eyes light up as he caught sight of some one he evidently knew.

"Pardon me just a minute, will you?" he said, turning to his mother and me, apologetically, "I see Bob Simonds over there with a bunch of fellows. Haven't seen him in a coon's age. He's been over across the pond in the big mixup. Didn't know he was back. I don't want any more of this ice, anyway, and when the waiter comes, order cheese, coffee and a cordial for us all."

He was gone in another instant, making his way with the swift, debonair grace which is always a part of Dicky, to the group of men at a table not far from ours, who welcomed him joyously.

My mother-in-law's eyes followed mine, and I knew that for once, at least, we were of one mind, and that mind was full of pride in the man so dear to, us both. He was easily the most distinguished figure at the table full of men who greeted him so joyously. I knew that his mother noted with me how cordial was the welcome each man gave Dicky, how they all seemed to defer to him and hang upon his words.

Then across my vision came a picture most terrifying to me. It was as if my mother-in-law and I were spectators of a series of motion picture films. Toward the table, where Dicky stood surrounded by his friends, there sauntered the mysterious stranger, who had attracted my mother-in-law's attention by his scrutiny of me.

But he was no stranger to the men surrounding Dicky. Most of them greeted him warmly. Of course, I was too far away to hear what was said, but I saw the pantomime in which he requested an introduction to Dicky of one of his friends!

Then I saw the stranger meet Dicky and engage him in earnest conversation. I did not dare to look at my mother-in-law. I knew she was gazing in open-mouthed wonder at her son, but I hoped she did not know the queer mixture of terror and interest with which I watched the picture at the other table.

For it was no surprise to me when, a few minutes later, Dicky came back toward our table. With him, talking earnestly, as if he had been a childhood friend, walked the mysterious stranger. I told myself that I had known it would be so from the first.

From the moment I had first seen this man's haunting eyes gazing at me in the reception room of the Sydenham I had felt that a meeting with him was inevitable. How or where he would touch my life I did not know, but that he was destined to wield some influence, sinister or favorable, over me, I was sure, and I trembled with vague terror as I saw him drawing near.

"Mother, may I present Mr. Gordon? My wife, Mr. Gordon."

Dicky's manner was nervous, preoccupied, as he spoke. His mother's face showed very plainly her resentment at being obliged to meet the man upon whose steady staring at me she had so acidly commented a few minutes before.

For my own part, I was so upset that I felt actually ill, as the eyes of the persistent stranger met mine. How had this man, who had so terrified me by his persistent pursuit and scrutiny, managed to obtain an introduction to Dicky?

Dicky made a place for the man near me, and signalled the waiter.

"I know you have dined," he said, courteously, "but you'll at least have coffee and a cordial with us, will you not?"

"Thank you," Mr. Gordon said, in a deep, rich voice, "I have not yet had coffee. If you will be so kind, I should like a little apricot brandy instead of a cordial."

Dicky gave the necessary order to the waiter, and we all sat back in our chairs.

I, for one, felt as though I were a spectator at a play, waiting for the curtain to run up upon some thrilling episode. For the few minutes while we waited for our coffee, Dicky had to carry the burden of the conversation. His mother, with her lips pressed together in a tight, thin line, evidently had resolved to take no part in any conversation with the stranger. I was really too terrified to say anything, and, besides the briefest of assents to Dicky's observations, the stranger said nothing.

There was something about the man's whole personality that both attracted and repelled me. With one breath I felt that I had a curious sense of liking and admiration for him, and was proud of the interest in me, which he had taken no pains to conceal. The next moment a real terror and dislike of him swept over me.

I waited with beating heart for him to finish his coffee. It seemed to me that I could hardly wait for him to speak. For I had a psychic presentiment that before he left the table he would make known to us the reason for his rude pursuit of me.

His first words confirmed my impression:

"I am afraid, Mrs. Graham," he said, courteously, turning to me, as he finished his coffee, "that I have startled and alarmed you by my endeavor to ascertain your identity."

I did not answer him. I did not wish to tell him that I had been frightened; neither could I truthfully deny his assertion. And I wished that I had not evaded my mother-in-law's query concerning him.

He did not appear to heed my silence however, but went on rapidly:

"It is a very simple matter, after all," he said. "You see, you resemble so closely a very dear friend of my youth, in fact, the dearest I ever had, that when I caught sight of you the other day in the reception room of the Sydenham, it seemed as if her very self stood before me."

There was a vibrant, haunting note in his voice that told me, better than words, that, whoever this woman of his youth might have been, her memory was something far more to him than of a mere friend.

"I could not rest until I found out your identity, and secured an introduction to you," he went on. "You will not be offended if I ask you one or two rather personal questions, will you?"

"Indeed, no," I returned mechanically.

Mr. Gordon hesitated. His suave self-possession seemed to have deserted him. He swallowed hard twice, and then asked, nervously:

"May I ask your name before you were married, Mrs. Graham?"

"Margaret Spencer," I returned steadily.

There was a cry of astonishment from Dicky. Mr. Gordon had reeled in his chair as if he were about to faint, then, with closed eyes and white lips, he sat motionless, gripping the table as if for support.

"Do not be alarmed--I am all right--only a momentary faintness, I assure you."

Mr. Gordon opened his eyes and smiled at us wanly.

I knew that Dicky was as much relieved as I at our guest's return to self-command. That he was resentful as well as mystified at the singular behavior of Mr. Gordon I also gleaned from his darkened face, and a little steely glint in his eyes.

"I hope that you will forgive me," Mr. Gordon went on, and his rich voice was so filled with regret and humility that I felt my heart soften toward him.

"I trust you have not gained the impression that my momentary faintness had anything to do with your name," he said. "My attack at that time was merely a coincidence. I am subject to these spells of faintness. I hope this one did not alarm you."

He looked at me directly, as if expecting an answer.

"I am not easily alarmed," I returned, trying hard to keep out of my voice anything save the indifferent courtesy which one would bestow upon a stranger, for the atmosphere of mystery seemed deepening about this stranger and me. I did not believe he had spoken the truth, when he said that my utterance of my maiden name, in response to his question, had nothing to do with his faintness. I was as certain as I was of anything that it was the utterance of that name, the revelation of my identity thus made to him, that caused his emotion. I sat thrilled, tense, in anticipation of revelations to follow.

Mr. Gordon's voice was quiet, but a poignant little thrill ran through it, which I caught as he spoke again.

"Was not your mother's name Margaret Bickett and your father's, Charles Spencer?" he asked.

"You are quite correct." I forced the words through lips stiffened by excitement.

I saw Dicky look at me curiously, almost impatiently, but I had no eyes, no ears, save for the mysterious stranger who was quizzing me about my parents.

One of Mr. Gordon's hands was beneath the table; as he was sitting next to his I saw what no one else did--that the long, slender, sensitive fingers pressed themselves deeply, quiveringly, into the palm at my affirmation of his question. But except for that momentary grip there was no evidence of excitement in his demeanor as he turned to me.

"I thought so," he said quietly. "I have found the daughter of the dearest friends I ever had. Your resemblance to your mother is marvelous. I remember that you looked much like her when you were a tiny girl."

"You were at our home in my childhood, then?" I asked, wondering if this might be the explanation of my uncanny notion that I had sometime in my life seen this man bending over his demitasse as he had done a few minutes before.

"Oh, yes," he said, "your mother, as I have told you, was the dearest friend I ever had. And your father was my other self--then--"

His emphasis upon the word "then" gave me a quick stab of pain, for it recalled the odium with which every one who had known my childhood seemed to regard the memory of my father.

I, myself, had no memories of my father. My mother had never spoken of him to me but once, when she had told me the terrible story of his faithlessness.

When I was four years old he had run away from us both with my mother's dearest friend, and neither she, nor any of his friends, had ever heard of him afterward. I had always felt a sort of hatred of my unknown father, who had deserted me and so cruelly treated my mother, and the knowledge that this man was an intimate of his turned me faint.

But if Mr. Gordon's inflection meant anything it meant that even if he had been my father's "other self," my mother's desertion had aroused in him the same contempt for my father that all the rest of our little world had felt. I felt my indefinable feeling of repulsion against the man melt into warm approval of him. He had loved the mother I had idolized, had resented her wrongs, and I felt my heart go out to him.

"I cannot tell you what this finding of your wife means to me," said Mr. Gordon, turning to Dicky. The inflection of his voice, the movement of his hand, spelled a subtle appeal to the younger man.

"I have been a wanderer for years," the deep, rich voice went on. "I have no family ties"--he hesitated for a moment, with a curious little air of indecision--"no wife, no child. I am a very lonely man. I wonder if it would be asking too much to let me come to see you once in a while and renew the memories of my youth in this dear child?"

He turned to me with the most fascinating little air of deferential admiration I had ever seen.

But I looked in vain for any answer to his appeal in Dicky's eyes. My husband still retained the air of formal, puzzled courtesy with which he had brought Mr. Gordon to our table and introduced him to us. I could see that the mysterious stranger's appeal to be made an intimate of our home did not meet with Dicky's approval.

I could not understand the impulse that made me turn toward the stranger and say, earnestly: "I shall be so glad to have you come to see us, Mr. Gordon. I want you to tell me about my mother's youth."

XXXIII

"MOTHER" GRAHAM HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

It may have been the preparation we were making for an autumn vacation in the Catskills, or it may have been that Dicky was becoming more the master of himself, that he did not voice to me the very real uneasiness with which I knew he viewed Robert Gordon's attitude toward me. But whatever may have been the cause, the fact is that during the preparations for our trip and during the vacation itself in the gorgeous autumn-clad mountains Dicky did not refer to Robert Gordon.

It was my mother-in-law who brought his name up the day of our return. She had moved from the hotel where we had left her in the city to the house at Marvin, and when we arrived there her greeting of me was almost icy. As soon as we had taken off our wraps, she explained her departure from the hotel without any questioning from us.

"I never have been so insulted and annoyed in my life," she began abruptly, "and it is all your fault, Richard. If you never had brought the unspeakable person over he would not have had the chance to annoy me. And as for you, Margaret, I cannot begin to tell you what I think of your conduct in leading your husband to believe you had never seen the man before--"

"For heaven's sake, mother!" Dicky exploded, his slender patience evidently worn to its last thread by his mother's incoherence, "what on earth are you talking about?"

"Don't pretend ignorance," she snapped. "You introduced the man to me yourself the night before you went on your trip. You cannot have forgotten his name so soon."

"Robert Gordon!" Dicky exclaimed in amazement.

"Yes, Robert Gordon!" his mother returned grimly. "And let me tell you, Richard Graham, that if you do not settle that man he will make you the laughing stock and the scandal of everybody. The way he talks of Margaret is disgusting."

Dicky's face became suddenly stern and set.

"He didn't exhibit his lack of good taste the first time he came over to my table in the dining room," my mother-in-law went on. "But the second time he sat down with me he began to talk of Margaret in the most fulsome, extravagant manner. From that time his sole topic of conversation was Margaret, the wonderful woman she had grown into, the wonderful attraction she has for him. You would have thought him a man who had discovered his lost sweetheart after years of wandering. Imagine the lack of decency and good taste the man must have to say such things to me, the mother of Margaret's husband!"

"Is that all you have to say, mother?" he asked.

She looked at him in amazement.

"Are you lost to all decency that you do not resent such extravagant praise and admiration of your wife from the lips of another man?" she demanded, and then in the same breath went on rapidly:

"Richard, you are perfectly hopeless! The man may have been in love with Margaret's mother, I do not doubt that he was, but have you never heard of such men falling in love with the daughters of the women they once loved hopelessly?"

"Don't make the poor man out a potential Mormon, mother!" Dicky jibed.

"Jeer at your old mother if you wish, Richard," his mother went on icily, "but let me tell you that Mr. Gordon is madly in love with Margaret and if you do not look out you will have a scandal on your hands."

"You are going a bit too far in your excitement, mother," Dicky said sternly. "You may not realize it, but you are insinuating that there might be a possible chance of Madge's returning the man's admiration."

"I am not insinuating anything," his mother returned, white-lipped with anger, "but I certainly think Margaret owes both you and me an explanation of the untruth she told us at the supper table the night you introduced Mr. Gordon to us."

I sprang to my feet with my cheeks afire.

"Mother Graham, I have listened to you with respect as long as I can," I exclaimed. "Whatever else you have to say to my husband about me you can say in my absence. If he at any time wishes an explanation of any action of mine he has only to ask me for it."

White with rage I dashed out of the room, up the stairs and into my own room, locking the door behind me. In a few minutes Dicky's step came swiftly up the stairs; his knock sounded on my door.

"Madge, let me in," he commanded, but the note of tenderness in his voice was the influence that hurried my fingers in the turning of the key.

As I opened the door he strode in past me, closed and locked the door again, and, turning, caught me in his arms.

"Don't you dare to cry!" he stormed, kissing my reddened eyelids. "Aren't you ever going to get used to mother's childish outbursts? You know she doesn't mean what she says in those tantrums of hers. She simply works herself up to a point where she's absolutely irresponsible, and she has to explode or burst. You wouldn't like to see a perfectly good mother-in-law strewn in fragment all over the room, simply because she had restrained her temper, would you?" he added, with the quick transition from hot anger to whimsical good nature that I always find so bewildering in him.

I struggled for composure. My mother-in-law's words had been too scathing, her insult too direct for me to look upon it as lightly as Dicky could, but the knowledge that he had come directly after me, and that he had no part in the resentment his mother showed, made it easy for me to control myself.

"I ought to remember that your mother is an old woman, and an invalid, and not allow myself to get angry at some of the unjust things she says," I returned, swallowing hard. "So we'll just forget all about it and pretend it never happened."

"You darling!" Dicky exclaimed, drawing me closer, and for a moment or two I rested in his arms, gathering courage for the confession I meant to make to him.

"Dicky, dear," I murmured at last, "there is something I want to tell you about this miserable business, something I ought to have told you before, but I kept putting it off."

Dicky held me from him and looked at me quizzically, "'Confession is good for the soul,'" he quoted, "so unburden your dreadful secret."

He drew me to an easy chair and sat down, holding me in his arms as if I were a little child. "Now for it," he said, smiling tenderly at me.

"It isn't so very terrible," I smiled at him reassured by his tenderness. "It is only that without telling you a deliberate untruth, that I gave both you and your mother the impression I had never seen Mr. Gordon before that night at the Sydenham."

"Is that all?" mocked Dicky. "Why, I knew that the moment you spoke as you did that night! You're as transparent as a child, my dear, and besides, your elderly friend let the cat out of the bag when he said he feared he had annoyed you by trying to find out your identity. I knew you must have seen him somewhere."

"You don't know all," I persisted, and then without reservation I told him frankly the whole story of Mr. Gordon's spying upon me. I omitted nothing.

When I had finished, Dicky's face had lost its quizzical look. He was frowning, not angrily, but as if puzzled.

"Don't think I blame you one bit," he said slowly; "but it looks to me as if mother's dope might be right, as if the old guy is smitten with you after all."

"I cannot hope to make your understand, Dicky," I began, "how confused my emotions are concerning Mr. Gordon. I think perhaps I can tell you best by referring to something about which we have never talked but once--the story I told you before we were married of the tragedy in my mother's life."

"I believe you told me that neither your mother nor you had ever heard anything of your father since he left." Dicky's voice was casual, but there was a note in it that puzzled me.

"That is true," I answered, and then stopped, for the conviction had suddenly come to me that while I had never seen nor heard from my father since he left us--indeed, I had no recollection of him--yet I was not sure whether or not my mother had ever received any communication from him. I had heard her say that she had no idea whether he was living or dead, and I had received my impression from that. But even as I answered Dicky's question there came to my mind the memory of an injunction my mother had once laid upon me, an injunction which concerned a locked and sealed box among her belongings.

I felt that I could not speak of it even to Dicky, so put all thought of it aside until I should be alone.

"I do not think I can make you understand," I began, "how torn between two emotions I have always been when I think of my father. Of course, the predominant feeling toward him has always been hatred for the awful suffering he caused my mother. I never heard anything to foster this feeling, however, from my mother. She rarely spoke of him, but when she did it was always to tell me of the adoration he had felt for me as a baby, of the care and money he had lavished on me. But while with one part of me I longed to hear her tell me of those early days, yet the hatred I felt for him always surged so upon me as to make me refuse to listen to any mention of him.

"But since she went away from me the desire to know something of my father has become almost an obsession with me. My hatred of his treachery to my mother is still as strong as ever, but in my mother's last illness she told me that she forgave him, and asked me if ever he came into my life to forget the past and to remember only that he was my father. I am afraid I never could do that, but yet I long so earnestly to know something of him.

"So now you see, Dicky," I concluded, "why Mr. Gordon has such a fascination for me. He knew my father and my mother--from his own words I gather that he was the nearest person to them. He is the only link connecting me with my babyhood, for Jack Bickett, my nearest relative, was but a young boy himself when my father left, and remembered little about it. I don't want to displease you, Dicky, but I would so like to see Mr. Gordon occasionally."

Dicky held me close and kissed me.

"Why, certainly, sweetheart," he exclaimed. "Whenever you wish I'll arrange a little dinner down-town for Mr. Gordon. What do you think about inviting the Underwoods, too? They could entertain me while you're talking over your family history."

"That would be very nice," I agreed, but I had an inward dread of talking to Robert Gordon with the malicious eyes of Harry Underwood upon me. Indeed, I felt intuitively that if ever Mr. Gordon were to reveal the history of his friendship for my mother to me, it would be when no other ears, not even Dicky's, were listening.

Dicky kissed me again and then he rose and went out of the room quickly, closing the door behind him. I waited until I heard his footsteps descending the stairs before turning the key in the lock. Then I went directly to a little old trunk which I had kept in my own room ever since my mother's death, and, kneeling before it unlocked it with reverent fingers.

XXXIV

A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST

It was my mother's own girlhood trunk, one in which she had kept her treasures and mementoes all her life. The chief delight of my childhood had been sitting by her side when she took out the different things from it and showed them to me.

Dear, thoughtful, little mother of mine! Almost the last thing she did before her strength failed her utterly was to repack the little trunk, wrapping and labeling each thing it contained, and putting into it only the things she knew I would not use, but wished to keep as memories of her and of my own childhood.

"I do not wish you to have to look over these things while your grief is still fresh for me," she had said, with the divine thoughtfulness that mothers keep until the last breath they draw. "There is nothing in it that you will have to look at for years if you do not wish to do so--that is, except one package that I am going to tell you about now."