True and Other Stories Part 17

Her voice permeated the dusk slowly and hesitatingly: "Yes. But how do you know?"

"I have seen your father, and he has told me." Lance rose and stepped toward the window. "Gertrude Wylde was your ancestress," he declared, "and she was the same woman as Ewayea in your legend. It is I who have discovered this, and I have brought you, at last, out of all that mystery!"

Flinging the shutters open he stood there, looking toward her. Adela at the same instant left her seat and placed herself before him. Then, for the first time, he could see the change that had crept over her features.

"Good G.o.d!" he cried. "What has happened?"

Adela spread her hands out in timid deprecation. "I don't know," she said. "What do you mean?"

"You are so much more--you have grown so like Jessie since I saw you,"

Lance returned, well-nigh gasping. "If it were not for that darker tint--"

"Mr. Lance," she interrupted, "what can you be thinking of? Why do you talk so excitedly, and why did you come here to tell me this?"

"Because," he said, "I have been intensely interested in the problem. I believe you belong to the line of Gertrude Wylde. If you do, you represent the woman whom my ancestor loved, and you are closely related to Jessie Floyd. Do you suppose it makes any difference to me that Indians came into that line? No; I see in you the lineal descendant of Gertrude, and a kinswoman of the Floyds. I wish to have it clearly understood that you and they are of one family. You must take the place that belongs to you."

"What place?" Adela sighed. "Can you tell what place mine is?"

"Of course I can. Haven't I said what I thought?" But while Lance uttered these words, he noticed how sad and wan she looked, and he also felt the difficulty of bringing her within the circle of life to which he belonged.

"You have made a great mistake," she replied. "I am only Adela Reefe, and I cannot be anything else. Did Sylv tell you? I am going away from here. I shall not stay any longer, for I promised to be Dennie's wife, and I am going to marry him as soon as he comes for me."

"To be Dennie's wife!" exclaimed Lance, instinctively treating the idea as though he had not heard of it before. "Yes; yes; I suppose you are to be. But why should that prevent your being one of us? You will be a kinswoman, a cousin, just the same."

Adela gathered herself up, and spoke with resolution. "I don't know if you are right," she said, "but any way, Mr. Lance, if I _am_ a kinswoman and a cousin, do you think Miss Jessie will want to have me for one?"

The best that Lance could do was to parry this direct thrust. "If you are so," he answered, "what difference can her wish make?"

"I will tell you, easy enough," Adela retorted, proudly. "It is just that I won't have anything to do with people who don't want me for one of them. If I had ever supposed that coming up here to school would make it seem as if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have come. Oh, I didn't know all this when I came! No, no! And I'm sorry I did it. I tried to be grateful to you, Mr. Lance, and I do thank you for your good meaning; but I'm sorry I came."

"Adela," he said, rather coldly, "I can't let you talk in this way. You are proud and angry, and don't know what you're saying. Remember that, whatever happens, I stand by you."

"I don't want any one to stand by me," she returned. "I am all alone, and I will stay so. Suppose you had never come here, Mr. Lance; who would have guessed that I had anything to do with that old English family? I could not have guessed it myself, even. I know you've tried to help me, and now you want to make something different of me from what I always was before. But I'm going back to marry Dennie, and the best thing you can do is to leave me where you found me, and forget all about me. I shall just be Dennie's wife; that's all. I don't ask to be anything else."

It may seem to you unreal that Lance should have been so much exercised regarding Adela's happiness and her future, especially since he was bound to Jessie Floyd by the most sacred promises. Unreal it is, I grant, to people who live by the tinkle of the horse-car, the tick of the clock, and the reading of the newspaper. But this individual, impracticable man--so like many other men who, in dissimilar circ.u.mstances, conceive themselves to be prodigiously practical--was bent upon an idea. And he was determined to carry out his idea. He cared more for his theory than he did for himself or for any one besides. It was his ambition to be impartial--to secure the recognition of all rights which he thought were in need of vindication. And so far did he carry that desire, that he was really somewhat bewildered by it; in consequence whereof he held himself ready, at this especial moment, to sacrifice one great obligation to a lesser obligation.

"I'm not going to be satisfied with this result," he said. "I am determined that it shall not be in vain that I have sought you out and found you. Listen to me, Adela! It is a question of justice--in fact, of simple humanity--and I'm bound to have justice done. You may go back to Hunting Quarters, if you like, any day, and marry Dennie; but you ought not to ask to be dropped out of our lives. I wish to see you put where you belong. If you have changed your mind, and do not want to marry Dennie, only tell me so. Your happiness is at stake, and it shall be preserved at all hazards."

"How can you preserve it better than I can?" Adela demanded.

Lance delayed his answer, inwardly trembling. It may be that we ought not to inquire into the wild and erratic impulses that a.s.sailed him at that instant; but, amid their dizzying influence, he held fast to the ideal of honesty on all sides.

"Very likely I can't," he replied, calmly. "But I wish to say that, if anything should go wrong, if any trouble should come to you, I may be counted on as your friend--no matter who opposes."

Adela melted at once into frank dependence. "Oh, Mr. Lance," she said, "I have sorrows, like other people, and I don't know what they will bring at last; so if you _will_ help me when I need help, I shall be glad! But please don't think about me now; only let me go--let me go!"

And with this sorry climax the interview ended, Lance retiring with an inexplicable sense of defeated endeavor. In some way, which he was not able to a.n.a.lyze as yet, his dream had been exploded. The unravelling of the mystery of Gertrude Wylde had been to him a romance of the most fascinating kind; but now that the romance had culminated, no one seemed to know what to do with it. Apparently he had followed a will-o'-the-wisp, when he expected any good to attend his success in ferreting out Adela's ident.i.ty; for it had put him at odds with Jessie, and it brought no pleasure to Adela herself.

CHAPTER XIV.

DENNIE'S TROUBLE.

With heavy hearts both Lance and Sylv accomplished their journey to Beaufort late that afternoon; and on the way Lance explained to his companion the new light in which Adela must be regarded.

Sylv, however, said little, and appeared anxious to reach home, where he could consult with Dennie.

He found his brother busily engaged in completing a ditch across the neck of the headland, which he had finally, in deference to the wishes of Aunty Losh, undertaken to dig, to the end that her live-stock might be kept from straying over to the mainland. "I am fearsome o' the tides," said Dennie, as he had said long ago; "but aunty wants this hyar for to be done, and so I am doin' on it."

The docile, plodding industry of his brother smote upon Sylv with a singular reproach. He could not throw off the conviction that he himself had been essentially idle in his devotion to book-learning, while Dennie had remained so faithful to the dull duties at home.

"Dennie," he said, "I got some good news for you."

"Ye mean that ar?" queried Dennie, halting in his toil, with his shovel in the loose ground. "I ain't had no good news for a long sight, Sylv.

What mout it be?"

"Deely's coming back to you."

Dennie stood stock still and wiped the sweat from his brow. Then he touched his grimy knuckles to his eyelids; but, without betraying emotion in any other way, except by the softening of his voice, he said: "I'm glad on't, Sylv. Ar' she a-comin' back because she want to?"

"Yes; oh yes! There couldn't be any other reason, could there, Dennie?"

"Well, I warn't right sure," said Dennie. "No; I reckon they aren't no other reason." Seizing the shovel, he made a few more plunges with it into the soil. "Well, I'm right glad on't, Sylv. When ar' she comin'?"

"Now, I'll tell you how it is," Sylv returned, a.s.suming an expository manner. "Deely thinks you've been a right good boy, and she allows she was impatient with you. But, then, you were impatient too. She's made up her mind to let go the rest of her school term, and she's waiting for you now up at the city. All you've got to do is to go there and get her."

Dennie abandoned his work for the moment, and gazed at his brother affectionately. "Thank ye kindly, Sylv. Ye been a good brother to me.

Oh, it don't 'pear true! I don't make out how it's so; but I waited and sarved kind o'patient, Sylv, and all to once it comes out squar'.

Deely's been fair to me, old man, and so ha' you been. Wall, it's more'n I desarve."

With the guilty knowledge of a hidden love for Adela in his heart, Sylv would rather have faced the threatening muzzle of his brother's gun, as it had once been pointed at him, than to have stood up before the glance of trust and affection which Dennie now directed toward him. But, thank Heaven, his conscience was clean. He had not betrayed the trust. He had preserved his honor, and had left Adela free.

"Don't think about what you deserve," he said, "but just you go and do what she expects you to. You go up there and fetch her back."

"Did she ask ye to tell me that, Sylv?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll do it! But I ar' got to dig this hyar ditch first off, don't you see I have? 'Cause I tole aunty I would, and she'd be a heap sight put out if I didn't. But ye'll go up to the city with me, won't ye, Sylv? I'd feel lonesome and quar' ef ye didn't."

"I'm right sorry, Dennie; but I can't. I've got to do some work for Mr.

Lance, and I ought not to go back."

However, when Dennie was ready to take his departure Sylv came to him with a sealed letter. "I can't go with you, Dennie," he repeated; "but there's a few words I wanted to say to Deely, and you might as well carry them, I thought."