Stories by American Authors Volume VI Part 14

He glanced again like a flash. She shrank, and put her hands upon the bolt. Presently he began to stir. He put out one foot, and gradually moved forward. He made another step. He was going away. He had almost reached the door, when Miss Eunice articulated, in a confused whisper, "My--my glove; I wish you would give me my glove."

He stopped, fixed his eyes upon her, and after pa.s.sing his fingers up and down upon the outside of his coat, said, with deliberation, in a husky voice, "No, mum. I'm goin' fur to keep it as long as I live, if it takes two thousand years."

"Keep it!" she stammered.

"Keep it," he replied.

He gave her an untranslatable look. It neither frightened her nor permitted her to demand the glove more emphatically. She felt her cheeks and temples and her hands grow cold, and midway in the process of fainting she saw him disappear. He vanished quietly. Deliberation and respect characterized his movements, and there was not so much as a jar of the outer door.

Poor philanthropist!

This incident nearly sent her to a sick-bed. She fully expected that her secret would appear in the newspapers in full, and she lived in dread of the onslaught of an angry and outraged society.

The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got. She grew thin and spare of flesh. Her friends became frightened. They began to dose her and to coddle her. She looked at them with eyes full of supreme melancholy, and she frequently wept upon their shoulders.

In spite of her precautions, however, a thunder-bolt slipped in.

One day her father read at the table an item that met his eye. He repeated it aloud, on account of the peculiar statement in the last line:

"Detained on suspicion.--A rough-looking fellow, who gave the name of Gorman, was arrested on the high-road to Tuxbridge Springs for suspected complicity in some recent robberies in the neighborhood. He was fortunately able to give a pretty clear account of his late whereabouts and he was permitted to depart with a caution from the justice. Nothing was found upon him but a few coppers and an old kid glove wrapped in a bit of paper."

Miss Eunice's soup spilled. This was too much, and she fainted this time in right good earnest; and she straightway became an invalid of the settled type. They put her to bed. The doctor told her plainly that he knew she had a secret, but she looked at him so imploringly that he refrained from telling his fancies; but he ordered an immediate change of air. It was settled at once that she should go to the "Springs"--to Tuxbridge Springs. The doctor knew there were young people there, also plenty of dancing. So she journeyed thither with her pa and her ma and with pillows and servants.

They were shown to their rooms, and strong porters followed with the luggage. One of them had her huge trunk upon his shoulder. He put it carefully upon the floor, and by so doing he disclosed the ex-prisoner to Miss Eunice and Miss Eunice to himself. He was astonished, but he remained silent. But she must needs be frightened and fall into another fit of trembling. After an awkward moment he went away, while she called to her father and begged piteously to be taken away from Tuxbridge Springs instantly. There was no appeal. She hated, _hated_, HATED Tuxbridge Springs, and she should die if she were forced to remain. She rained tears. She would give no reason, but she could not stay. No, millions on millions could not persuade her; go she must. There was no alternative. The party quitted the place within the hour, bag and baggage. Miss Eunice's father was perplexed and angry, and her mother would have been angry also if she had dared.

They went to other springs and stayed a month, but the patient's fright increased each day, and so did her fever. She was full of distractions.

In her dreams everybody laughed at her as the one who had flirted with a convict. She would ever be pursued with the tale of her foolishness and stupidity. Should he ever recover her self-respect and confidence?

She had become radically selfish. She forgot the old ideas of n.o.ble-heartedness and self-denial, and her temper had become weak and childish. She did not meet her puzzle face to face, but she ran away from it with her hands over her ears. Miss Crofutt stared at her, and therefore she threw Miss Crofutt's book into the fire.

After two days of unceasing debate, she called her parents, and with the greatest agitation told them _all_.

It so happened, in this case, that events, to use a railroad phrase, made connection.

No sooner had Miss Eunice told her story than the man came again. This time he was accompanied by a woman.

"Only get my glove away from him," sobbed the unhappy one, "that is all I ask!" This was a fine admission! It was thought proper to bring an officer, and so a strong one was sent for.

Meanwhile the couple had been admitted to the parlor. Miss Eunice's father stationed the officer at one door, while he, with a pistol, stood at the other. Then Miss Eunice went into the apartment. She was wasted, weak, and nervous. The two villains got up as she came in, and bowed.

She began to tremble as usual, and laid hold upon the mantelpiece. "How much do you want?" she gasped.

The man gave the woman a push with his forefinger. She stepped forward quickly with her crest up. Her eyes turned, and she fixed a vixenish look upon Miss Eunice. She suddenly shot her hand out from beneath her shawl and extended it at full length. Across it lay Miss Eunice's glove, very much soiled.

"Was that thing ever yours?" demanded the woman, shrilly.

"Y-yes," said Miss Eunice, faintly.

The woman seemed (if the apt word is to be excused) staggered. She withdrew her hand, and looked the glove over. The man shook his head, and began to laugh behind his hat.

"And did you ever give it to him?" pursued the woman, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb.

Miss Eunice nodded.

"Of your own free will?"

After a moment of silence she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in a whisper, "Yes."

"Now wait," said the man, coming to the front; "'nough has been said by you." He then addressed himself to Miss Eunice with the remains of his laugh still illuminating his face.

"This is my wife's sister, and she's one of the jealous kind. I love my wife" (here he became grave), "and I never showed her any kind of slight that I know of. I've always been fair to her, and she's always been fair to me. Plain sailin' so far; I never kep' anything from her--but this."

He reached out and took the glove from the woman, and spread it out upon his own palm, as Miss Eunice had seen him do once before. He looked at it thoughtfully. "I wouldn't tell her about this; no, never. She was never very particular to ask me; that's where her trust in me came in.

She knowed I was above doing anything out of the way--that is--I mean--"

He stammered and blushed, and then rushed on volubly. "But her sister here thought I paid too much attention to it; she thought I looked at it too much, and kep' it secret. So she nagged and nagged, and kept the pitch boilin' until I had to let it out: I told 'em" (Miss Eunice shivered). "'No,' says she, my wife's sister, 'that won't do, Gorman.

That's chaff, and I'm too old a bird.' Ther'fore I fetched her straight to you, so she could put the question direct."

He stopped a moment as if in doubt how to go on. Miss Eunice began to open her eyes, and she released the mantel. The man resumed with something like impressiveness:

"When you last held that," said he, slowly, balancing the glove in his hand, "I was a wicked man with bad intentions through and through. When I first held it I became an honest man, with good intentions."

A burning blush of shame covered Miss Eunice's face and neck.

"An' as I kep' it my intentions went on improvin' and improvin', till I made up my mind to behave myself in future, forever. Do you understand?--forever. No backslidin', no hitchin', no slippin'-up. I take occasion to say, miss, that I was beset time and again; that the instant I set my foot outside them prison-gates, over there, my old chums got round me; but I shook my head. 'No,' says I, 'I won't go back on the glove.'"

Miss Eunice hung her head. The two had exchanged places, she thought; she was the criminal and he the judge.

"An' what is more," continued he, with the same weight in his tone, "I not only kep' sight of the glove, but I kep' sight of the generous sperrit that gave it. I didn't let _that_ go. I never forgot what you meant. I knowed--I knowed," repeated he, lifting his forefinger--"I knowed a time would come when there wouldn't be any enthoosiasm, any 'hurrah,' and then perhaps you'd be sorry you was so kind to me; an' the time did come."

Miss Eunice buried her face in her hands and wept aloud.

"But did I quit the glove? No, mum. I held on to it. It was what I fought by. I wasn't going to give it up, because it was asked for. All the police-officers in the city couldn't have took it from me. I put it deep into my pocket, and I walked out. It was differcult, miss. But I come through. The glove did it. It helped me stand out against temptation when it was strong. If I looked at it, I remembered that once there was a pure heart that pitied me. It cheered me up. After a while I kinder got out of the mud. Then I got work. The glove again. Then a girl that knowed me before I took to bad ways married me, and no questions asked. Then I just took the glove into a dark corner and blessed it."

Miss Eunice was belittled.

A noise was heard in the hallway. Miss Eunice's father and the policeman were going away.

The awkwardness of the succeeding silence was relieved by the moving of the man and the woman They had done their errand, and were going.

Said Miss Eunice, with the faint idea of making a practical apology to her visitor, "I shall go to the prison once a week after this, I think."

"Then may G.o.d bless ye, miss," said the man. He came back with tears in his eyes and took her proffered hand for an instant. Then he and his wife's sister went away.

Miss Eunice's remaining spark of charity at once crackled and burst into a flame. There is sure to be a little something that is bad in everybody's philanthropy when it is first put to use; it requires to be filed down like a faulty casting before it will run without danger to anybody. Samaritanism that goes off with half a charge is sure to do great mischief somewhere; but Miss Eunice's, now properly corrected, henceforth shot off at the proper end, and inevitably hit the mark. She purchased a new Crofutt.

BROTHER SEBASTIAN'S FRIENDSHIP.

BY HAROLD FREDERIC.