The Fatal Glove Part 2

In his new lodgings he became acquainted with a middle-aged man who represented himself as a retired army officer. His name was John Sharp--a sleek, keen-eyed, smooth-tongued individual, who never boasted or bl.u.s.tered, but who gave people the idea that at some time he had been a person of consequence. This man attached himself particularly to Arch Trevlyn. With insidious cunning he wormed himself into the boy's confidence, and gained, to a certain degree, his friendship. Arch did not trust him entirely, though. There was something about him from which he shrank--the touch of his white, jewelled hand made his flesh creep, like the touch of a serpent.

But Mr. Sharp had an object to gain, and set himself resolutely to work to carry his point. He made himself necessary to Arch. He bought him books, and taught him in the evenings, when neither was engaged otherwise. He had been well educated, and in Arch he had an apt scholar.

Every spare moment of the boy's life was absorbed in his books.

By-and-bye Sharp learned the whole history of the wrongs, inflicted on Arch's parents by old Mr. Trevlyn. He snapped at the story as a dog snaps at a bone. But he was, cautious and patient, and it was a long time before he showed himself to Arch in his true character. And then, when he did, the revelation had been made so much by degrees, that the boy was hardly shocked to find that his friend was a house-breaker and a highway robber.

Long before he had formed a plan to rob the house of Mr. Trevlyn. It was a field that promised well. Mr. Trevlyn, with the idiosyncrasy of age, had invested most of his fortune in diamonds, and these he kept in a chamber in his house. His chief delight consisted in gloating over these precious stones. Night after night he would sit handling his diamonds, chuckling over his wealth, and threatening imaginary plunderers with destruction.

So, his servants said, and Sharp repeated the story to Arch with sundry variations and alterations suited to the case. He had a persuasive tongue, and it is little wonder that the boy, hating his grandfather as he did, and resolved as he was upon revenging his father's wrongs, should fall into the snare. He wanted Mr. Trevlyn to suffer--he did not care how. If the loss of his diamonds would be to him a severer blow than any other, then let it fall.

Sharp used many specious arguments to induce Arch to become his accomplice in robbing the Trevlyn mansion, but the only one which had any weight was that he could thus revenge his father's wrongs.

"Only a.s.sist me, and secure your revenge," said the wily schemer, "and I will share the spoils with you. There will be enough to enrich us both for life!"

Arch drew himself up proudly, a fiery red on his cheek, a dangerous gleam in his dark eye.

"I am no thief, sir! I'd scorn to take a cent from that old man to use for my benefit! I would not touch his diamonds if they lay here at my feet! But if I can make him suffer anything like as my poor father suffered through him, then I am ready to turn robber--yes, pickpocket, if you will!" he added, savagely.

Sharp appointed the night. His plans were craftily laid. Mr. Trevlyn, he had ascertained, would be absent on Thursday night; he had taken a little journey into the country for his health, and only the servants and his ward would sleep in the house.

Thursday night was dark and rainy. At midnight Sharp and Arch stood before the house they were about to plunder. No thought of shame or sin entered Archer Trevlyn's heart; he did not seem to think he was about to disgrace himself for life; he thought only of Mr. Trevlyn's dismay when he should return, to find the bulk of his riches swept away from him at one blow.

"He took all my father had," he said, under his breath; "he would have sullied the fair fame of my mother; and if I could take from him everything but life, I would do it."

Sharp, with a dexterous skill, removed the fastenings of a shutter, and then the window yielded readily to his touch. He stepped inside; Arch followed. All was quiet, save the heavy ticking of the old clock on the hall stairs. Up the thickly carpeted stairway, along the corridor they pa.s.sed, and Sharp stopped before a closed door.

"We must pa.s.s through one room before reaching that where the safe is which contains the treasure," he said, in a whisper. "It is possible that there may be some one sleeping in that room. If so, leave them to me, that is all."

He opened the door with one of a bunch of keys which he carried, and noiselessly entered. The gas was turned down low, but a mellow radiance filled the place. A bed stood in one corner, and Sharp advanced toward it. The noise he had made, slight though it was, aroused the occupant, and, as she started up in affright, Arch met the soft, pleading eyes of Margie Harrison. She spoke to him, not to Sharp.

"Do not let him kill me!"

Sharp laid a rough hand on her shoulder, and put a knife at her throat.

Simultaneously, Arch sprang upon him like a tiger.

"Release that girl!" he hissed. "Dare to touch her with but the tips of your fingers, and by Heaven I will murder you!"

Sharp sprang back with an oath, and at the same moment a pistol-shot rang through the house, and Sharp, bathed in blood, fell to the floor. Old Mr.

Trevlyn, travel-stained and wet, strode into the room.

"I've killed him!" he said, in a cracked voice of intense satisfaction.

"He didn't catch old Trevlyn napping. I knew well enough they'd be after my diamonds, and I gave up the journey. Margie, child, are the jewels safe?"

She had fallen back on the pillows, pale as death, her white night-dress spattered with the blood of the dead robber.

Arch lifted a tiny glove from the carpet, thrust it into his bosom, and, before old Trevlyn could raise a hand to stop him, he had got clear of the premises.

Such a relief as he felt when the cool, fresh air struck his face. He had been saved from overt criminality. G.o.d had not permitted him to thus debase himself. Now that his excitement was gone, he saw the heinousness of the sin he had been about to commit in all its deformity.

Let old Trevlyn go! Let him gloat over his diamonds while yet he had opportunity. He would not despoil him of his treasures, but he could not give up his scheme of vengeance. It should be brought about some other way.

A large reward was offered by Mr. Trevlyn for the apprehension of Sharp's accomplice, but, as no description of his person could be given by any one except Margie, who could not or would not be explicit on that point, he was not secured.

Trevlyn recognized and appreciated her n.o.ble generosity in suffering him to go free, for in the one look she had given him on that disgraceful occasion, he had felt that she recognized him. But she pitied him enough to let him go free.

Well, he would show her that her confidence was not misplaced. He would deserve her forbearance. He was resolved upon a new life.

He left the saloon, and after many rebuffs succeeded in getting employment as errand-boy in a large importing house. The salary was a mere pittance, but it kept him in clothes and coa.r.s.e food, until one day, about a year after his apprenticeship there, he chanced to save the life of Mr. Belgrade, the senior partner. A gas-pipe in the private office of the firm exploded, and the place took fire, and Mr. Belgrade, smothered and helpless, would have perished in the flames, had not Arch, with a bravery few would have expected in a bashful, retiring boy, plunged through the smoke and flame, and borne him to a place of safety.

Mr. Belgrade was a man with a conscience, and, grateful for his life, he rewarded his preserver by a clerkship of importance. The duties of this office he discharged faithfully for three years, when the death of the head clerk left a vacancy, and when Arch was nineteen he received the situation.

Through these three years he had been a close student. Far into the night he pored over his books, and, too proud to go to school, he hired a teacher and was taught privately. At twenty he was quite as well educated as nine-tenths of the young men now turned out by our fashionable colleges.

Rumors of Margie Harrison's triumphs reached him constantly, for Margie was a belle and a beauty now. Her parents were dead, and she had been left to the guardianship of Mr. Trevlyn, at whose house she made her home, and where she reigned a very queen. Old Trevlyn's heart at last found something beside his diamonds to worship, and Margie had it all her own way.

She came into the store of Belgrade and Co. one day, and asked to look at some laces. Trevlyn was the only clerk disengaged, and with a very changeable face he came forward to attend to her. He felt that she would recognize him at once--that she would remember where she had seen him the last time--a house-breaker! She held his reputation in her keeping.

His hand trembled as he took down the laces--she glanced at his face. A start of surprise--a conscious, painful blush swept over her face. He dropped the box, and the rich laces fell over her feet.

"Pardon me," he said hurriedly, and, stooping to pick them up, the little glove he had stolen on that night, and which he wore always in his bosom, fell out, and dropped among the laces.

She picked it up with a little cry.

"The very glove that I lost four years ago! And you are--" she stopped suddenly.

He paled to the lips, but, lifting his head proudly, said: "Go on. Finish the sentence. I can bear it."

"No, I will not go on. Let the memory die, I knew you then, but you were so young, and had to bear so much among temptations! And the other was a villain. No, I am silent. You are safe."

He stooped, and, lifting the border of her shawl, kissed it reverently.

"If I live," he said solemnly, "you will be glad you have been so merciful. Some time I shall hear you say so."

She did not purchase any laces. She went out forgetful of her errand, and Arch was so awkward for the remainder of the day, and committed so many blunders, that his fellow-clerks laughed at him unrebuked, and Mr.

Belgrade seriously wondered if Trevlyn had not been taking too much champagne.

Margie Harrison and her guardian sat at breakfast. Mr. Trevlyn showed his years very plainly. He was nearly seventy-five--he looked eighty.

Margie looked very lovely this morning and it was of this the old man was thinking as he glanced at her across the table. She had more than fulfilled the promise of her childhood. The golden hair was chestnut now, and pushed behind her ears in heavy rippling ma.s.ses of light and shadow.

Her eyes had taken a deeper tone--they were like wells whose depth you could not guess at. Her features were delicately irregular, the forehead low, broad and white; her chin was dimpled as an infant's, and her mouth still ripe and red, as a damask rosebud. She wore a pink muslin wrapper, tied with white ribbons, and in her hair drooped a cl.u.s.ter of apple-blossoms.

"Margie dear," said Mr. Trevlyn, pausing in his work of b.u.t.tering a m.u.f.fin, "I want you to look your prettiest to-night. I am going to bring home a friend of mine--one who was also your father's friend--Mr.

Linmere. He arrived from Europe to-day."

Margie's cheek lost a trifle of its peachy bloom. She toyed with her spoon, but did not reply to his remark.