Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 49

"_Fellers, what's the matter with Varney_?"

Instantly a thousand voices pulverized the man's fatuous anxiety. Hard after, as the gallant slogan swept on to make a.s.surance doubly sure, they gave back the name in a roar like the rush of waters....

But the man for whom all the voices strained themselves did not hear their doubt-destroying response, tumultuous though it was. Another voice, close beside him, had taken up that refrain, making all others inaudible, a shy, glad, whispering voice of chimes.

"_He's all right_."

The common words were glorified by that voice, made over into a sweet and solemn benediction. He sat very silent, humbled and awed by the revealed visage of his own great happiness. At last she found courage to venture a look at him; and she saw that over his pale and disfigured face there had come a kind of glory, the joy of sudden peace out of pain.

Soon he spoke; and his words at first seemed to her very far afield, though there was that in his unsteadied voice which rea.s.sured her beyond speech.

"Would you mind stopping at the hotel--only a minute? I--have an old enemy there, and I feel that I _must_ see him."

"Oh, no, no!--must you? Oh, please--I can't let you go now! And I am afraid--afraid of what might happen--"

She stopped on that, somehow gathering without looking at him that she had not followed his thought.

"I want to take him by the hand," said Varney, "and tell him that it's all right now."

There was a light carriage-robe about them, for the vanished sun had left the breath of autumn in the air; and beneath it her hand, from which the white glove had been stripped, touched and was suddenly gathered into his own. A glorious tremble shot through his body; and now he could turn his shining face fully toward her.

"You aren't thinking that I could keep an enemy _to-day_!"

As the carriage stopped before the hotel entrance, he added:

"And I must tell him not to bother Peter any more. You see, Peter's a fine man, but he hasn't got my reasons for being--in love with all the world. I--I--I hate to go. Our first parting has come soon. But--this is a duty, and--and--good-bye!"

She never forgot the look upon his face.

"Good-bye. And oh! would you please _hurry_?"

With an herculean effort he detached himself from the carriage and rushed into the hotel. The same bored-looking clerk was sitting behind the desk, paring the same nails with the same office scissors. But this time, at sight of Varney, he sprang instantly to his feet, all smiles and eagerness to serve.

"Why, _good_ evening, Mr. Varney! Well, sir! You're lookin' better'n we expected, and I tell you Hunston's mighty glad to see you up and about again."

Varney marveled how he had ever formed such a mean opinion of the clerk, whom he now saw to be a decidedly likable young man.

"Thank you--thank you! It's a wonderful little city--Hunston--wonderful!

Try a few of these cigars--that's right; fill your pocket. And would you be good enough to send my card up to Mr. Higginson? Perhaps I'd better write just a line--"

"Mr. Higginson's in the small parlor, Mr. Varney--straight down the corridor. Yes, sir! Just came down and went in--I think he saw you coming--"

"And ran away again? Why, bless me, what's the old chap afraid of?"

He started gayly down the dim hall to the right of the desk, swinging his stick and humming to himself; and presently became aware that a man was following silently at his elbow.

"It's me--Callery," said the man apologetically, as Varney turned. "I--I 'll just be here, Mr. Varney, you know, if anything's wanted."

Varney laughed again. "You're mighty good to me, Mr. Callery," he said cordially--"you and Mr. Stobo--I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. But it isn't a bit of use, you know! I'm positively not going to kill anybody to-day."

"Yes, sir," said Callery. "Here's the door, Mr. Varney."

"This one?"

"Yes, sir. He come runnin' down the steps, spoke a word to the clerk, and then he dodges down here and slams the door behind him. Seen you through the window, I guess--"

"Well, I'll just step in and have a look at him, Mr. Gallery. Excuse me a minute."

He rapped on the closed door and called in a loud cheery voice: "Mr.

Higginson."

"Come in," said a voice from within--a rather agitated voice which had a curiously familiar ring in the young man's ears.

Varney swung open the door, stepped into the small parlor, and (greatly to the disappointment of Mr. Gallery) closed the door behind him.

In the middle of the room, staring nervously toward the door, stood a handsome elderly gentleman, of distinguished presence and clothes of a rather notable perfection. At sight of him the young man's advance halted in utter bewilderment, and he fell back limply against the shut door.

But the elderly gentleman came running toward him with a suppressed cry, and seizing the young man's hand disarmingly in both his own, threw himself almost hysterically upon his apologia.

"Can you forgive me, my boy? Ah, I'll confess that I've dreaded this meeting, while longing for it, too! You look badly--ah, very badly!--yet--not bitter, not resentful--thank G.o.d, not unhappy! My boy, can you find it in your heart to forgive an old man who has suffered deeply for his sins?"

Out of his whirling confusion, his insane sense of the world suddenly gone upside down and the familiar order stood upon its head, the young man laughed dazedly. But he kept tight hold of the old one's hand, and fell to patting it with wild rea.s.surance.

"Everything's all right--all right! Yes, indeed, sir. Of course! But I don't understand--I don't grasp--I came here looking for--Are you--_you_--Mr. Higginson?"

"Ah, you hadn't guessed then? And yet who could wonder, such a terrible, frightful mix-up as it all became! You see," the old gentleman hurried on, lowering his gaze, yet already recovering something of his normal composure, "you had scarcely started before I--I became strangely uneasy over the--seriousness of the matter and the possible consequences, and--and decided that I had best come on myself in--in a private manner, merely to have an eye on things. Believe me, that was all I meant. But I did not dare let you know that I was here, even in that way, having promised you that I would not interfere, and besides--I feared that you might think I had--ah--withheld the full facts about--her age."

In an access of nervous self-consciousness, the old man's voice trailed to an uncertain pause; and Varney comforted him with a burst of bewildered laughter.

"Forgive my gla.s.sy stare--no offence intended, but my head's going around, Mr. Higginson! It's all still nebulous, you know--topsy-turvy--incredible! That day of the luncheon, now--the mysterious warning--the bribe to Ferguson to smash up the yacht--"

A fine flush spread over the old man's face to the roots of his silvered hair. Yet it was obvious that the young man's unaffected cordiality had heartened him immensely.

"Well, you see, my dear boy," he began, embarra.s.sedly, "by that time I had met her--she was so sweet to me from the start--and I began to hope that such heroic, such painful, measures might not be necessary. Yet perhaps they would be, after all, and so--ah, I did wrong, I know--wrong!--and yet--don't you see how inevitably it all came about? I did not dare communicate with you, begging you to let matters stand a few days--fearing that upon learning of my presence you would simply abandon the commission entirely, and G.o.d knows you would have been justified in doing so. Yet I longed to postpone the--the final step, holding it in reserve, in the ardent hope that it might be avoided entirely. So I--gave instructions to Ferguson. It was wrong not to trust you, and oh, I have been punished for it, suffered miserably--"

"_Dear_ sir! I'm so sorry! But that is all past now--all past--and to-day all's right with the world!"

The old man's hands tightened their earnest clasp. Tears sprang suddenly into his fine eyes.

"But oh, I have been richly blest, too--far beyond my deserts! The night that you were hurt--I came quite unexpectedly face to face with Mrs.

Carstairs at the cottage. We had a long talk that night--a wonderful talk, which gave me a totally new point of view, brought me new light and peace. And now--everything is arranged, and if you have truly forgiven me, I am happy as I never dreamed for happiness again."

"Forgiven you! For what, dear sir? Why, don't you begin to guess yet what you have done for me?"

He tucked the old man's hand masterfully under his arm, and drew him to the door.

"G.o.d bless you, boy, for what _you've_ done for me and mine.

But--where--where are we going?"