For Gold or Soul? Part 42

"Let me go home, please," she murmured, as her employer helped her from the carriage. "I am afraid I am too nervous to remain at the store."

"Certainly," said Mr. Denton, "and I shall soon follow your example, for if my wife is as ill as my son said, it is my duty to neglect everything and remain at her bedside."

"But has she really lost her reason?" asked Faith, a little timidly.

Mr. Denton sighed heavily before he answered.

"She is worrying unnecessarily to a great extent, I think," he said calmly. "She sees in my new methods and actions only the probable financial results; she cannot see that I am honestly trying to do my duty--to share my large fortune with my fellow-beings."

"But is it not possible to follow your conscience and still prosper?"

asked Faith, anxiously.

"That is a question that I cannot answer, Miss Marvin, at this stage of the experiment, but, judging from the present outlook, G.o.dliness cannot be profitable from a worldly point of view. But from the spiritual, I am satisfied that it is a success; the consciousness of well-doing is enough for the Christian."

Faith pondered over his words as she hurried home. She was glad that he had awakened a new train of thought, as it enabled her to compose herself from her late excitement.

When she reached her mother's home she found both Mr. Watkins and Mrs.

Graham, who had called to get acquainted with little d.i.c.k and to tell Mrs. Marvin their plans for his future. It was hard to part with him, but it was clearly for the best. Mrs. Graham could give him advantages that would be impossible to Mrs. Marvin.

This transaction permitted Faith to regain her composure entirely, so that when they were gone she was able to tell her mother all that had happened at the jail.

Mrs. Marvin was shocked and pained at the recital.

"Poor child," she said, sorrowfully, "to think she is really his wife. I wonder what could have been their motive for keeping it a secret!"

Faith shook her head. She did not care to even conjecture. It was a subject that cut her heart like a two-edged sword, for, try as she would, she could not condemn James Denton.

An hour later the maid brought her in a card. Faith could hardly control her feelings as she saw that her caller was no other than young Denton.

"He must have been following me," she said to her mother, "else how did he know that I was not at the store?"

Her mother smiled sadly, but did not answer.

Faith entered the parlor as calmly as she could, but her limbs were trembling and the tears were very near to falling. She knew that she should spurn the coward, whom her whole soul despised, but she could not do it; her strength deserted her.

James Denton rose suddenly as she entered the door. He looked like a ghost--he was so pale and haggard. Before she realized it, Faith extended her hand, then she drew it back quickly with a sudden revulsion.

"No, don't offer to shake hands with me," said James Denton, slowly. "I am not fit to touch the hem of your garment, Miss Marvin."

Faith looked at him as he stood there, pale, hollow-eyed and dejected, then with almost a cry she burst out impulsively:

"Oh, how could you do such a thing, Mr. Denton? How did you dare to wrong that poor girl as you have? Don't you know that in so doing you have branded yourself a coward?"

"So she has told you and saved me from doing so?"

Young Denton breathed a sigh of relief. He had come too late with his awful confession.

"Yes, she told us, your father and me," said Faith, faintly. "Oh, it is dreadful--dreadful; I can't understand it!"

"Neither can I," said James Denton, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. "I have never understood how I came to do it. I was a fool--an imbecile--a lunatic, Miss Marvin. I married the girl without even dreaming that I loved her."

Faith stared at him in surprise as he spoke the words. She was conscious even of a flutter of happiness as she listened to the confession.

"Then why did you marry her?" she asked at last. She watched eagerly to hear his answer.

"It was all done for a lark," began the young man. "We were out with some friends, Miss Brady and I, and I--I suppose we had all been drinking too much; then some one suggested a wedding, and I was fool enough to play the bridegroom."

"And you did not love her?"

Faith asked the question slowly.

"Not a bit, Miss Marvin; I liked her, of course. But she was in love with me; I discovered that later."

"Why did you not own her as your wife?"

Faith hardly knew her own voice as she asked this. It hardly seemed possible that she could speak so calmly.

Mr. Denton looked at her sharply before he replied.

"You can guess that surely," he said very softly. "Rascal that I was, I was ashamed to own her."

After a minute he went on with almost desperate calmness, as though he was determined to tell the whole of the distressing secret.

"I told her that dad would disown me if he knew that I had married her, but that if she would wait until I was twenty-one, that there would be no more danger of my losing my money. Mag likes money, you know, and she consented readily, but when she saw me flirting with the other girls, as I had to, you see, to make every one think that I was still single, her jealousy got the best of her, and you know what happened."

"Well, you will have to own her now," said Faith in almost a whisper.

She had been praying silently for strength to say it calmly.

"Never!" cried young Denton with a flash of anger in his eyes.

"Own a murderess for my wife--never! never! Miss Marvin!"

"Then I shall despise you," said Faith, with a flush of color in her cheeks. "For it is the only thing you can do to right the wrong that you have done her."

"But I can't. Indeed, I can't!" cried the young man, wildly. "Don't you see, Miss Marvin, that I have nothing to give her, no love, no respect, not even friendship?"

"But you must own her, just the same," said Faith, decidedly. "Maggie was a good girl once; it is love for you that has ruined her."

James Denton was even paler than when he entered as he answered her, and there was a tone in his voice that made Faith shudder.

"Two wrongs cannot make one right, Miss Marvin," he said, firmly, "and to live with Maggie would be as great a wrong as the first, for I cannot do so honorably while I love another."

Faith looked up at him quickly and found his gaze riveted on her face.

For a moment she seemed drawn to him as if by a magnet, then the revulsion came again and she raised both hands imploringly.

"Go, go, Mr. Denton!" she cried in a sharp whisper. "Please go before you say what is in your heart, for your words can only add cruel mockery to dishonor!"