A Husband by Proxy Part 46

Garrison ordered the dinner--and his taste was both excellent and generous.

"Mr. Durgin," he said at last with startling candor, "it looked for a time as if you yourself were concerned in the death of Mr. Hardy. More than half the pleasure that Dorothy will experience in the outcome of to-day's affairs will arise from her knowledge of your innocence."

Foster met his gaze steadily.

"I am sorry for many of the worries I have caused," he said, in a quiet, unresentful manner, free alike from surprise or anger. "I've been trying to do better. You knew I'd been away?"

"That was one of the features of the case that looked a little suspicious," answered Garrison.

"I didn't care to tell where I was going, in case my mission should fail," the young fellow imparted. "I went after work--good, clean, well-paying work--and I got it. I can hold up my head at last."

A look of pride had come upon his face, but his lip was trembling.

That the fight he had waged with himself was manly, and worthily won, to some considerable extent, was a thing that Garrison felt. He had no intention of preaching and no inclination for the task.

"'Nuff said," he answered. "Shake. Here comes the soup."

They shook hands over the table. No further reference was made to a personal subject. Some way Garrison felt that a man had come to take the place of a boy, and while he reflected that the fight was not yet absolutely finished, and the bitterness of it might remain for some time yet to come, nevertheless he was thoroughly convinced that through some great lesson, or some awakening influence, Foster had come to his manhood and could henceforth be trusted to merit respect and the trust of all his fellow-beings.

Garrison, alone, at nine o'clock, had an impulse to hasten off to Branchville. In the brief time of lying unconscious on the floor when Wicks struck him down, he had felt some strange psychic sense take possession of his being, long enough for the room that Hardy had occupied in Hickwood to come into vision, as if through walls made transparent.

He had merely a dim, fading memory that when he awoke he had spoken to Dorothy, telling her to help him to go, that the hiding-place of Hardy's will had been at last revealed. As he thought of it now, on his way to Dorothy's abiding place, he shook his head in doubt. It was probably all an idle dream.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE RICHES OF THE WORLD

Dorothy was waiting to see him. She was still excited, still anxious concerning himself. She had quite forgotten his words about the will in her worry lest the blow on his head had proved more serious than had at first appeared.

He met her quietly in a large, common parlor--the duplicate of a thousand such rooms in New York--and was thoroughly determined to curb the impetuous surging of his feelings. She was wearing a bunch of his carnations, and had never seemed more beautiful in all her wondrous moods of beauty.

Just to have sat where he could look upon her all he wished, without restraint or conventions, would almost have satisfied his soul. But she gave him her hand with a grace so compelling, and her eyes asked their question so tenderly--a question only of his welfare--that riot was loosed in his veins once more and love surged over him in billows.

"I was afraid you might not come," she said. "I have never been more worried or afraid. Such a terrible moment--all of it--and that creature striking you down! If you hadn't come I'd have been so sure you were very badly hurt. I'd have felt so guilty for all I've done to jeopardize your life in my petty affairs."

"It's all right. I was ashamed for going out so easily," said Garrison, turning away in self-defense and seating himself in a chair.

"He struck me so suddenly I had no time to guard. But that part isn't worth another thought."

"I thought it the _only_ part worth anything," said Dorothy in her honesty. "It came upon me suddenly that nothing I was after was worth the risks you've been a.s.suming in my behalf. And they may not be ended. I wish they were. I wish it were all at an end! But Foster is innocent. If you knew how glad I am of that you would feel a little repaid."

"I feel thoroughly repaid and gratified," said Garrison. "I have told you before that I am glad you came into my existence with your need--your case. I have no regret over anything that has happened--to myself. It has been life to me--life! And I take a certain pride in feeling that when you come to dismiss me, at the end, I shall not have been an absolute disappointment."

She looked at him in a new alarm. He had purposely spoken somewhat bluntly of his impending dismissal. She had come to a realizing sense that she could never dismiss him from her life--that to have him near, to know he was well--to love him, in a word--had become the one motive of her life.

Nevertheless she was helpless. And he was treating the matter as if her fate were sealed to that of Fairfax indissolubly. What little timid hopes she might have entertained of gaining her freedom, some time in the future, and saving herself, soul and body, for him--all this he had somewhat dimmed by this reference to going from her ken.

"But I--I haven't said anything about dismissing--anyone," she faltered. "I hadn't thought----" She left her sentence incomplete.

"I know," said Jerold. "There has been so much to think about, the subject may have been neglected. As a matter of fact, however, I am already out of it, supplanted by your genuine husband. We can no longer maintain the pretense.

"The moment Mr. Fairfax and Theodore chance to meet, our bit of theatricalism goes to pieces. We would scarcely dare to face a court, in a will probation, with Fairfax on the scene. So, I say, I am practically eliminated already."

The one thing that remained in her mind at the end of his speech was not in the least the main concern. She looked at him with pain in her eyes.

"Has it been nothing but a bit of theatricalism, after all?"

He dared not permit himself to answer from his heart. He kept up his show of amus.e.m.e.nt, or indifference to sentiment.

"We have played theatric roles to a small but carefully selected audience," he said. "I for a fee, and you--for needful ends. We might as well be frank, as we were the day it all began."

It was the way of a woman to be hurt. She felt there was something of a sting in what he said. She knew she had halted his impa.s.sioned declaration of love--but only because of the right. She had heard it, despite her protest--and had treasured it since, and echoed it over in her heart repeatedly.

She wished him to say it all again--all of it and more--but--not just yet. She wanted him to let her know that he loved her more than anything else in the world, but not by spoken words of pa.s.sion.

"I am sorry if I've seemed so--so heartless in it all," she said. "I hadn't the slightest intention of--of permitting you to----"

"I know," he interrupted, certain he knew what she meant. "I haven't accused anyone. It was all my own fault. We'll drop it, if you wish."

"You haven't let me finish," she insisted. "I started to say that I had no intention of making you feel like--like nothing more than an agent--toward me--I mean, I had no intention of appearing to you like a selfish, heartless woman, willing to sacrifice the sweetest--the various things of life to gain my ends. I want you to believe that I--I'd rather you wouldn't call it all just mere theatrics."

Garrison gripped his chair, to restrain the impulse to rise and take her in his arms. He could almost have groaned, for the love in his heart must lie there, dumb and all but hopeless.

"Dorothy," he said when he felt his mastery complete, "I have already made it hard enough for myself by committing a folly against which you gave me ample warning. I am trying now to redeem myself and merit your trust and regard."

Her eyes met his in a long, love-revealing look--a look that could bridge all the gulfs of time and the vast abyss of s.p.a.ce itself--and words would have been but a jar. Whatever the outcome, after this, nothing could rob them of the deep, supernal joy that flashed there between them for a moment.

Even when her lashes fell, at last, the silence was maintained.

After a time Garrison spoke again, returning to earth and the unfinished labor before him.

"I must go," he said, consulting his watch. "I hope to catch a train for Branchville in order to be there early in the morning."

"On our--this business?" she inquired.

He felt it quite impossible to raise her hopes--or perhaps her fears--by announcing he felt he should find John Hardy's latest will.

Moreover, he had undergone a wakeful man's distrust of the "dream" he had experienced after falling at the hands of Wicks. He resorted to a harmless deceit, which, after all, was not entirely deceitful.

"Mr. Fairfax left for Branchville--he said to spring a surprise," he imparted. "I thought it would do no harm to be on hand and prepare for his moves, as far as possible."

He had risen. Dorothy did likewise. A slight suggestion of paleness overspread her face, followed at once by a faint, soft flush of color.

"I hope you will try to avoid him--avoid anything that might be dangerous," she faltered. "I feel already I shall never be able to forgive myself for the dangers into which I have sent you."

"This is the surest way to avoid any possible dangers," he a.s.sured her.

"And, by the way, there is no particular reason now why you should longer remain away from Ninety-third Street. The newspaper men have done their worst, and the Robinsons will be entirely disarmed by the various events that have happened--unless Theodore should happen to spring a new surprise, and in any event you might be far more comfortable."

"Perhaps I will return--some time to-morrow," she said. "I'll see."