A Husband by Proxy Part 25

Then she waked, as it were, and shyly withdrew her hand.

Garrison had felt himself transported literally, more by the ecstasy of having her thus put dependence upon him than by any mere flight of the car. He underwent a sense of loss when the strain subsided, and her trembling hold relaxed and fell from his arm.

Nevertheless, she clung to the roses. His heart had taken time to beat a stroke in joy during that moment of stress at the house, when she had caused a few seconds' added delay to gather up the crushed and faded flowers.

Since speaking to the driver last Garrison had been content to sit beside the girl in silence. There was much he must ask, and much she must tell, but for this little time of calm and delight he could not break the spell. Once more, however, his abounding confidence in her goodness, her innocence, and deep-lying beauty of character rose triumphant over fears. Once more the spell of a mighty love was laid upon his heart. He did not know and could not know that Dorothy, too, was Cupid's victim--that she loved him with a strange and joyous intensity, but he did know that the whole vast world was no price for this moment of rapture.

She was the first to speak.

"Why did we have to run away? Aren't you supposed to have a perfect right to--to take me wherever you please--especially from a place like that, and such outrageous treatment?"

"I am only supposed to have that right," he answered. "As a matter of fact, I committed a species of violence in Theodore's house, compelling him to act at the point of the gun. Technically speaking, I had no right to proceed so far. But, aside from that, when they sprung the alarm--well, the time had come for action.

"Had the constable dragged me away, as a legal offender--which he would doubtless have done on the charge of two householding citizens--the delay would have been most annoying, while a too close investigation of my status as a husband might have proved even more embarra.s.sing."

A wave of crimson swept across her face.

"Of course." She relapsed into silence for a moment. Then she added: "What does it all mean, anyway? How dared they carry me off like this?

How did you happen to come? When did you find that I had gone? What do you think we'd better do?"

"Answer one question at a time," said Garrison, stuffing his handkerchief into the tube, lest the driver overhear their conversation. "There is much to be explained between us. In the first place, tell me, Dorothy, what happened just after I 'phoned you last evening, and you made an appointment to meet me in the park."

"Why, I hardly know," she said, her face once more a trifle pale. "I went upstairs to get ready, thinking to slip out un.o.bserved. In the act of putting on my hat, I was suddenly smothered in the folds of a strong-smelling towel thrown over my head, and since that time I have scarcely known anything till this morning, when I waked in the bed at Theodore's house, fully dressed, and chained as you saw me."

"But--these roses?" he said, lightly placing his hand upon them. "How did you happen to have them along?"

It was not a question pertinent to the issues in hand, but it meant a great deal to his heart.

"Why--I--I was wearing them--that's all," she stammered. "No one stopped to take them off."

He was satisfied. He wished they might once and for all dismiss the world, with all its vexations, its mysteries, and pains, and ride on like this, through the June-created loveliness bathed in its sunlight--comrades and lovers, forever.

The hour, however, was not for dreaming. There were grim facts affecting them both, and much to be cleared between them. Moreover he was merely hired to enact a role that, if it sometimes called for a show of tender love, was still but a role, after all. He attacked the business directly.

"We require an understanding on a great many topics," he said to her slowly. "After I 'phoned you I went to the park, was caught in the rain, and attacked by two ruffians, who knocked me down, and left me to what they supposed would be certain destruction."

"Jerold!" she said, and his name thus on her lips, with no one by to whom she was acting, gave him an exquisite pleasure. There was no possibility of guilty knowledge on her part. Of this he was thoroughly convinced. "You? Attacked?"

"Later," he resumed, "when I recovered, I went to the house in Ninety-third Street, was admitted by the woman in charge, and remained all night, after taking the liberty of examining all the apartments."

She looked at him in utter amazement.

"Why--but what does it---- You, attacked in the park--these lawless deeds--you stayed all night---- And you found I had been carried away?"

"No; I merely thought so. The woman knew nothing. But I presently discovered a number of interesting things. Theodore has installed a private 'phone in his closet, and by means thereof had overheard our appointment. Your bureau and dressing-case had both been searched----"

"For the necklaces!" she cried. "You have them safe?"

"I thought it might have been the jewels--or your marriage certificate," he said, alive to numerous points in the case which, he felt, were about to develop.

She turned a trifle pale.

"I've sewn the certificate--where I'm sure they'd never find it," she said. "But the jewels are safe?"

"Quite safe," he said, making a mental note of her insistence on the topic. "I then discovered the address of the Woodsite house, and you know the rest."

"It's terrible! The whole thing is terrible!" she said. "I wouldn't have thought they'd dare to do such things! I don't know what we're going to do. We're neither of us safe!"

"You must help me all you can," he said, laying his hand for a moment on her arm. "I've been fighting in the dark. I must find you apartments where you will not be discovered by the Robinsons, whose criminal designs on the property inheritance will halt at nothing, and--you must tell me all you can."

"I will," she said; "only----"

And there she halted, her eyes raised to his in mute appeal, a dumb fear expressed in their depths.

They had both avoided the topic of the murder, at the news of which she had fainted. Garrison almost feared it, and Dorothy evidently dreaded its approach.

More than anything else Garrison felt he must know she was innocent.

That was the one vital thing to him now, whether she could ever return his love or not. He loved her in every conceivable manner, fondly, pa.s.sionately, sacredly, with the tenderest wishes for her comfort and happiness. He believed in her now as he always had, whensoever they were together. Nevertheless, he could not abandon all his faculties and plunge into folly like a blind and confident fool.

"I'd like to ask about the jewels first," he said. "The night I first came to your home I entered the place next door by accident. A fancy-dress party was in progress."

"Yes--I knew it. They used to be friends of Theodore's."

"So I guessed," he added dryly. "Theodore was there."

"Theodore--there?" she echoed in surprise he felt to be genuine. "Why, but--don't you remember you met him with the others in my house, soon after you came?"

"I do, perfectly. Nevertheless, I saw him in the other house, in mask, I a.s.sure you, dressed to represent _Mephistopheles_. Last night I found the costume in his closet, and the stairs at the rear were his, of course, to employ."

"I remember," said Dorothy excitedly, "that he came in a long gray overcoat, though the evening was distinctly warm."

"Precisely. And all of this would amount to nothing," Garrison resumed, "only that while I stood in the hall of the house I had entered, that evening, I saw a young woman, likewise in mask, wearing your necklaces--your pearls and diamonds."

Dorothy stared at him in utter bewilderment. Her face grew pale. Her eyes dilated strangely.

"You--you are sure?" she said in a tone barely audible.

"Perfectly," said Garrison.

"And you never mentioned this before?"

"I awaited developments."

"But--what did you think? You might almost have thought that Theodore had stolen them, and handed them to me," she said. "Especially after the way I put them in your charge!"

"I told you we have much to clear between us," he said. "Haven't I the right to know a little----"

"But--how did they come to be there?" she interrupted, abruptly confronted by a phase of the facts which she had momentarily overlooked. "How in the world could my jewels have been in that house and also in my bureau at the very same time?"