Dangerous Ground Part 87

That evening he made his first voluntary call at Warburton place.

Alan and Winnie, two months later, were married, and Stanhope was among the wedding-guests.

"Warburton Place will have a new mistress, Mr. Stanhope," Leslie said to him. "I am going to abdicate in Winnie's favor."

"Entirely, Mrs. Warburton?"

"Entirely; I have fought it out, and I have conquered, after a hard struggle. Alan and Winnie, when they return, will reign here. Papa and I are already preparing our new home. We shall not be far away, and we will divide Daisy between us."

Later in the evening, Mrs. Follingsbee captured him and inquired:

"Have you heard Leslie's last bit of Quixotism?"

"No, madam."

"She has made this house over to Winnie as a bridal gift. And every dollar of her husband's legacy she has set aside for Daisy Warburton."

"I'm glad of it," blurted out Stanhope; and then he colored hotly and bit his lips.

When Alan and his fair little bride were installed as master and mistress of Warburton Place, Leslie and her father received their friends in a new home. It was not so large as the mansion Leslie had "abdicated;" not so grand and stately; but it was elegant, dainty, homelike.

"It suits me better," said Leslie to Stanhope. "The other was too grand.

Winnie can throw upon her mother the burden of its stateliness, and Mrs.

French will make a charming dowager. I am going to leave my past behind in the old home; and begin a new life in this."

"Are you going to leave me behind, with the rest of your past?" he asked.

"No," she said smilingly, "you have not lost your value; and if I should turn you out, fresh troubles would arise. I should have to contend with Daisy, and Papa too."

And indeed Daisy had given him a prominent place in her affections.

"Some of my friends," he said after a pause, "are advising me to abandon the Agency, and embark in some quieter enterprise."

"Do you mean that they wish you to give up your profession? to cease to be a detective?"

"Yes."

"And what did you answer?"

"I am seeking advice; give it me."

"Any man may be a tradesman," she said slowly. "Nine tenths of mankind can be or are doctors, lawyers, clergymen. The men who possess the skill, the sagacity, and the courage to do what you have done, what you can do again, are very few. To restore lost little ones; to reunite families; to bring criminals to justice, and to defeat injustice,--what occupation can be n.o.bler! If I were such a detective as you, I would never cease to exercise my best gifts."

"I never will," he said, taking her hand in his.

Months pa.s.sed on; winter went and summer came. Walter Parks lingered in America, his society dearly valued by John Ainsworth and Mr.

Follingsbee, his presence always a welcome one in Leslie's dainty parlors, and at Warburton Place. Winnie, who had been a saucy sweetheart and piquant bride, had become a sweetly winsome wife. John Ainsworth was renewing his youth; and Leslie, having pa.s.sed the period of her widowhood, once more opened her doors to society.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A man of your calling should have guessed that long ago!"--page 461.]

Richard Stanhope had become a frequent and welcome guest at Leslie's home, and all his visits little Daisy appropriated at once to herself.

Indeed she and Stanhope stood upon a wondrously confidential footing.

"Next month comes Mamma's birthday," said Daisy to him one day, when she sat upon his knee in Leslie's pretty flower-decked room. "We're going to have a festival, and give her lots of presents. Are you going to give her a present, Mr. Stanhope?"

"I don't know," he said, looking over at Leslie; "your Mamma is such a very particular lady, Daisy, that she might be too proud to accept my offering."

"Why," cried the child, "that's just what Uncle Ainsworth says about you: that you are too proud to take a gift from him, and it vexes him, too."

"Daisy, Daisy!" cried Leslie, holding up a warning finger.

"Your uncle is a very unreasonable man, Daisy," laughed Stanhope. "Now tell me, do you think I had better offer your Mamma a birthday present?"

"Why"--and Daisy opened wide her blue eyes--"Uncle Alan says that everybody who loves Mamma will remember her birthday. Don't you love my Mamma?"

"Yes," said Stanhope slowly, and fixing his eyes upon Leslie's face, "I love her very much."

Leslie's cheeks were suffused with blushes, and she sat quite silent, with downcast eyes.

"Daisy," said Stanhope, putting the child down quickly, "go to your uncle Ainsworth, and tell him that I have changed my mind; that I want the best part of his fortune. Run, dear."

And as the child flew from the room, he rose and stood before Leslie.

"If your father yields to my demand," he said softly, "what will be your verdict?"

A moment of stillness. Then she lifts her brown eyes to his, a smile breaking through her blushes.

"A man of your calling," she said, "should have guessed that long ago!"

Papa Francoise never came to trial. His terror overcame his reason, and in his insanity he did what he never would have found the courage to do had he retained his senses. He hanged himself in his prison cell.

But Mamma lived on. Through her trial she raved and cursed; and she went to a life-long imprisonment raving and cursing still. Her viciousness increased with her length of days. She was the black sheep of the prison. Nothing could break her temper or curb her tongue. She was feared and hated even there. Hard labor, solitary confinement, severe punishment, all failed, and she was at last confined in a solitary cell, to rave out her life there and fret the walls with her impotent rage.

Millie, the faithful incompetent, remained in Leslie's service until she went to a home of her own, bestowed upon her by a good-looking and industrious young mechanic.

Nance, the one-time drunkard, became the object of Leslie's pitying care, and did not relapse into her former poverty and evil habits.

The Follingsbees, the Warburtons--all these who had been drawn together by trials and afflictions--remained an unbroken coterie of friends, who never ceased to chant Stanhope's praises.

And little Daisy pa.s.sed the years of her childhood in the firm belief that,

"G.o.d will do anything you want him to, if you only pray loud enough."