The Hollow of Her Hand Part 68

"No, she must not be told," said Sara, with finality.

"She is almost sure to find this out for herself some time,"

said the lawyer dubiously. "I think we'd better take her into our confidence. It is only right and just, you know."

"Not at present, not at present," said Sara irritably. "It would ruin everything."

Booth appreciated her reasons for delay much more clearly than they appeared to the matter-of-fact lawyer.

"The girl may die at any time," he explained, addressing Mr.

Carroll, but not without a queer thrill of shame.

"That is not what I meant, Brandon," she exclaimed. "I want Hetty to come back with but one motive in her heart. Can't you see?"

As Booth and the lawyer walked down Fifth Avenue toward the club where they were to dine together, the latter, after a long silence, made a remark that disturbed the young man vastly.

"She's going all to pieces, Booth. Bound to collapse. That's the way with these strong-minded, secret, pent-up natures. She has brooded all these months and she's been living a lie. Well, the break has come. She's told you and me. Now, do you know what I'm afraid will happen?"

"I think I know what's in your mind," said the younger man seriously.

"You are afraid she'll tell others?"

The lawyer tapped his forehead significantly. "It may result in THAT."

"Never!" cried the other emphatically. "It will never be that way with her, Mr. Carroll. Her head is as clear as--"

"Brain fever," interrupted Carroll, with a gloomy shake of his head.

"Delirium and all that sort of thing. Haven't you noticed how ill she looks? Feverish, nervous, irritable? Well, there you are."

"It is a dreadful state of affairs," groaned Booth.

"Not especially pleasant for you, my friend."

"G.o.d knows it isn't!"

"I believe, if I were in your place, I'd rather have the truth told broadcast than to live for ever with that peril hanging over me. It would be better for Miss Castleton, too."

"I am not worrying over that, sir," said the other earnestly. "I shall be able and ready to defend her, no matter what happens. To be perfectly honest with you, I don't believe she's accountable to any one but G.o.d in this matter. The law has no claim against her, except in a perfunctory way. I don't deny that it is only right and just that Wrandall's family should know the truth, if she chooses to reveal it to them. If she doesn't, I shall be the last to suggest it to her."

"On that point I thoroughly agree with you. The Wrandall family should know the truth. It is--well, I came near to using the word diabolical--to keep them in ignorance. There is something owing to the Wrandalls, if not to the law."

"Of course they would make a merciless effort to prosecute her,"

said Booth, feeling the cold sweat start on his brow.

"I am not so sure of that, my friend," was the rather hopeful opinion of the old man. He appeared to be weighing something in his mind, for as they walked along he shook his head from time to time and muttered under his breath, the while his companion maintained a gloomy silence.

The perceptions of the astute old lawyer were not far out of the way, as developments of the next day were to prove. When Booth called in the afternoon at Sara's apartment, he was met by the news that she was quite ill and could see no one,--not even him. The doctor had been summoned during the night and had returned in the morning, to find that she had a very high temperature. The butler could not enlighten Booth further than this, except to add that a nurse was coming in to take charge of Mrs. Wrandall, more for the purpose of watching her symptoms than for anything else, he believed. At least, so the doctor had said.

Two days pa.s.sed before the distressed young man could get any definite news concerning her condition. He unconsciously began to think of it as a malady, not a mere illness, due of course to the remark Carroll had dropped. It was Carroll himself who gave a definite report of Sara. He met the lawyer coming away from the apartment when he called to inquire.

"She isn't out of her head, or anything like that," said Carroll uneasily, "but she's in a bad way, Booth. She is worrying over that girl out West, of course, but I'll tell you what I think is troubling her more than anything else. Down in her heart she realises that Hetty Castleton has got to be brought face to face with the Wrandalls."

"The deuce you say!"

"To-day I saw her for the first time. Almost immediately she asked me if I thought the Wrandalls would treat Hetty fairly if they ever found out the truth about her. I said I thought they would. I didn't have the heart to tell her that their grievance undoubtedly would be shifted from Hetty to her, and that they wouldn't be likely to forgive her for the stand she'd taken. She doesn't seem to care, however, what the Wrandalls think of her. By the way, have you any influence over Hetty Castleton?"

"I wish I were sure that I had," said Booth.

"Do you think she would come if you sent her a cablegram?"

"I am going over--"

"She will have your letter in a couple of days, according to Sara, who seems to have a very faithful correspondent in the person of that maid. I shudder to think of the cable tolls in the past few months! I sometimes wonder if the maid suspects anything more than a loving interest in Miss Castleton. What I was about to suggest is this: Couldn't you cable her on Friday saying that Sara is very ill? This is Tuesday. We'll be having word from Smith to-morrow, I should think."

"I will cable, of course, but Sara must not know that I've done it."

"Can you come to my office to-morrow afternoon?"

"Yes. To-morrow night I shall go over to Philadelphia, to be gone till Friday. I hope it will not be necessary for me to stay longer.

You never can tell about these operations."

"I trust everything will go well, Brandon."

Several things of note transpired before noon on Friday.

The Wrandalls arrived from Europe, without the recalcitrant Colonel.

Mr. Redmond Wrandall, who met them at the dock, heaved a sigh of relief.

"He will be over on the Lusitania, next sailing," said Leslie, who for some reason best known to himself wore a troubled look.

Mr. Wrandall's face fell. "I hope not," he said, much to the indignation of his wife and the secret uneasiness of his son. "These predatory connections of the British n.o.bility--"

"Predatory!" gasped Mrs. Wrandall.

"--are a blood-sucking lot," went on the old gentleman firmly. "If he comes to New York, Leslie, I'll stake my head he won't be long in borrowing a few thousand dollars from each of us. And he'll not seek to humiliate us by attempting to pay it back. Oh, I know them."

Leslie swallowed rather hard. "What's the news here, Dad?" he asked hastily. "Anybody dead?"

"Sara is quite ill, I hear. Slow fever of some sort, Carroll tells me."

"Is she going to marry Brandy Booth?" asked his son.

Mr. Wrandall's face stiffened. "I fear I was a little hasty in my conclusions. Brandon came to the office a few days ago and informed me in rather plain words that there is absolutely nothing in the report."

"The deuce you say! 'Gad, I wrote her a rather intimate letter--"

Leslie got no farther than this. He was somewhat stunned and bewildered by his private reflections.

Mr. Wrandall was lost in study for some minutes, paying no attention to the remarks of the other occupants of the motor that whirled them across town.

"By the way, my dear," he said to his wife, a trifle irrelevantly, "don't you think it would be right for you and Vivian to drop in this afternoon and see Sara? just to let her know that she isn't without--"