Gordon Keith Part 54

Wickersham sniffed. "All right." He drifted for a moment into reflection. "The little fool's got conscientious doubts," he said presently, with a half-smile. "Won't go unless--." His eyes rested on Plume's with a gauging expression in them.

"Well, why not? That's natural enough. She's been brought up right.

They're proud as anybody. Her grandfather--"

"You're a fool!" said Wickersham, briefly.

"You can get some one to go through a ceremony for you that would satisfy her and wouldn't peach afterwards--"

"What a d.a.m.ned scoundrel you are, Plume!" said Mr. Wickersham, coldly.

Plume's expression was between a smile and a scowl, but the smile was less pleasant than the frown.

"Get her to go to New York--When you've got her there you've got her.

She can't come back. Or I could perform it myself? I've been a preacher-am one now," said Plume, without noticing the interruption further than by a cold gleam in his eyes.

Wickersham laughed derisively.

"Oh, no, not that. I may be given to my own diversions somewhat recklessly, but I'm not so bad as to let you touch any one I--I take an interest in."

"As you like," said Plume, curtly. "I just thought it might be a convenience to you. I'd help you out. I don't see 't you need be so--squeamish. What you're doing ain't so pure an' lofty 't you can set up for Marcus Aurelius and St. Anthony at once."

"At least, it's better than it would be if I let you take a hand in it,"

sneered Wickersham.

The following afternoon Wickersham left New Leeds somewhat ostentatiously. A few strikers standing sullenly about the station jeered as he pa.s.sed in. But he took no notice of them. He pa.s.sed on to his train.

A few nights later a tremendous explosion shook the town, rattling the windows, awakening people from their beds, and calling the timid and the curious into the streets.

It was known next morning that some one had blown up the Great Gun Mine, opened at such immense cost. The dam that kept out the water was blown up; the machinery had been wrecked, and the mine was completely destroyed.

The _Clarion_ denounced it as the deed of the strikers. The strikers held a meeting and denounced the charge as a foul slander; but the _Clarion_ continued to denounce them as _hostes humani generis_.

It was, however, rumored around that it was not the strikers at all. One rumor even declared that it was done by the connivance of the company.

It was said that Bill Bluffy had boasted of it in his cups, But when Mr.

Bluffy was asked about it he denied the story in toto. He wasn't such a ---- fool as to do such a thing as that, he said. For the rest, he cursed Mr. Plume with bell, book, and candle.

A rumor came to Keith one morning a few days later that Phrony Tripper had disappeared.

She had left New Leeds more than a week before, as was supposed by her relatives, the Turleys, to pay a visit to friends in the adjoining State before returning home. To others she had said that she was going to the North for a visit, whilst yet others affirmed that she had given another destination. However this might be, she had left not long after Wickersham had taken his departure, and her leaving was soon coupled with his name. One man even declared that he had seen the two together in New York.

Another name was connected with the girl's disappearance, though in a different way. Terpsich.o.r.e suggested that Mr. Plume had had something to do with it, and that he could give information on the subject if he would. Mr. Plume had been away from New Leeds for several days about the time of Phrony's departure.

"He did that Wickersham's dirty work for him; that is, what he didn't do for himself," declared the young woman.

Plume's statement was that he had been off on private business and had met with an accident. The nature of this "accident" was evident in his appearance.

Keith was hardly surprised when, a day or two after the rumor of the girl's disappearance reached him, a heavy step thumping outside his office door announced the arrival of Squire Rawson. When the old man opened the door, Keith was shocked to see the change in him. He was haggard and worn, but there was that in his face which made Keith feel that whoever might be concerned in his granddaughter's disappearance had reason to beware of meeting him.

"You have heard the news?" he said, as he sank into the chair which Keith offered him.

Keith said that he had heard it, and regretted it more than he could express. He had only waited, hoping that it might prove untrue, to write to him.

"Yes, she has gone," added the old man, moodily. "She's gone off and married without sayin' a word to me or anybody. I didn't think she'd 'a' done it."

Keith gasped with astonishment. A load appeared to be lifted from him.

After all, she was married. The next moment this hope was dashed by the squire.

"I always thought," said the old man, "that that young fellow was hankerin' around her a good deal. I never liked him, because I didn't trust him. And I wouldn't 'a' liked him anyway," he added frankly; "and I certainly don't like him now. But--." He drifted off into reflection for a moment and then came back again--"Women-folks are curious creatures. Phrony's mother she appeared to like him, and I suppose we will have to make up with him. So I hev come up here to see if I can git his address."

Keith's heart sank within him. He knew Ferdy Wickersham too well not to know on what a broken reed the old man leaned.

"Some folks was a-hintin'," pursued the old fellow, speaking slowly, "as, maybe, that young man hadn't married her; but I knowed better then that, because, even if Phrony warn't a good girl,--which she is, though she ain't got much sense,--he knowed _me_. They ain't none of 'em ever intimated that to _me_," he added explanatorily.

Keith was glad that he had not intimated it. As he looked at the squire, he knew how dangerous it would be. His face was settled into a grimness which showed how perilous it would be for the man who had deceived Phrony, if, as Keith feared, his apprehensions were well founded.

But at that moment both Phrony and Wickersham were far beyond Squire Rawson's reach.

The evening after Phrony Tripper left New Leeds, a young woman somewhat closely veiled descended from the train in Jersey City. Here she was joined on the platform a moment later by a tall man who had boarded the train at Washington, and who, but for his spruced appearance, might have been taken for Mr. J. Quincy Plume. The young woman having intrusted herself to his guidance, he conducted her across the ferry, and on the other side they were met by a gentleman, who wore the collar of his overcoat turned up. After a meeting more or less formal on one side and cordial on the other, the gentleman gave a brief direction to Mr. Plume, and, with the lady, entered a carriage which was waiting and drove off; Mr. Plume following a moment later in another vehicle.

"Know who that is?" asked one of the ferry officials of another. "That's F.C. Wickersham, who has made such a pile of money. They say he owns a whole State down South."

"Who is the lady?"

The other laughed. "Don't ask me; you can't keep up with him. They say they can't resist him."

An hour or two later, Mr. Plume, who had been waiting for some time in the cafe of a small hotel not very far up-town, was joined by Mr.

Wickersham, whose countenance showed both irritation and disquietude.

Plume, who had been consoling himself with the companionship of a decanter of rye whiskey, was in a more jovial mood, which further irritated the other.

"You say she has balked? Jove! She has got more in her than I thought!"

"She is a fool!" said Wickersham.

Plume shut one eye. "Don't know about that. Madame de Maintenon said: 'There is nothing so clever as a good woman.' Well, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Take a drink," said Mr. Plume, to whom this was a frequent solvent of a difficulty.

Wickersham followed his advice, but remained silent.

In fact, Mr. Wickersham, after having laid most careful plans and reached the point for which he had striven, found himself, at the very moment of victory, in danger of being defeated. He had induced Phrony Tripper to come to New York. She was desperately in love with him, and would have gone to the ends of the earth for him. But he had promised to marry her; it was to marry him that she had come. As strong as was her pa.s.sion for him, and as vain and foolish as she was, she had one principle which was stronger than any other feeling--a sense of modesty.

This had been instilled in her from infancy. Among her people a woman's honor was ranked higher than any other feminine virtue. Her love for Wickersham but strengthened her resolution, for she believed that, unless he married her, his life would not be safe from her relatives.

Now, after two hours, in which he had used every persuasion, Wickersham, to his unbounded astonishment, found himself facing defeat. He had not given her credit for so much resolution. Her answer to all his efforts to overcome her determination was that, unless he married her immediately, she would return home; she would not remain in the hotel a single night. "I know they will take me back," she said, weeping.

This was the subject of his conversation, now, with his agent, and he was making up his mind what to do, aided by more or less frequent applications to the decanter which stood between them.

"What she says is true," declared Plume, his courage stimulated by his liberal potations. "You won't be able to go back down there any more.

There are a half-dozen men I know, would consider it their duty to blow your brains out."