CHAPTER XXI.
FRANK VISITS COTTAGE PLACE.
Cottage Place is one of the by-ways.
No man in his sober senses would attempt to describe it otherwise.
Starting from Bleecker street, and running in a winding mannersouth-easterly to Houston, it affords with its snug little dwellings,its blossoming gardens in the grass-plat centers before the low, redbrick cottages, from which it derives its name, a quiet abode for a fewold-time families of moderate means, whose necessities compel them tolive and maintain some show of respectability in this most undesirablequarter of New York.
But the flowers do not blossom in the winter before the brick dwellingsof Cottage Place, and as the evening we are about to speak of is thatof the day upon which Miss Edna Callister visited her father's officein Broad street, winter is the season with which we have to deal.
It was still early--the factory whistles had not yet blown for six,when the lithe, well-dressed figure of Maxwell, Mr. Callister's newclerk might have been seen to drop from a Bleecker street car, and,turning into Cottage Place, enter the gate of the snug little cottagebearing the number "9" over its doorway, and hastily ring the bell.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was already dark, he seemed to displaya familiarity with the house and its surroundings which indicated withperfect plainness that this was by no means his first visit.
Standing upon the little stoop while awaiting the answer to his ring,the eyes of the young man wandered toward the windows of the firstor parlor floor, which, as the house was without basement, stood butslightly raised from the level of the ground.
The blinds were thrown back, but the curtains were drawn, a lightburning brightly, suggesting a comfortable, home-like interior within.
"I wonder if she's there," escaped the young man's lips as he gazedupon the curtains. "I feel sure she is, and though I am acting indirect opposition to Mr. Hook's express instructions, I know, I couldstand it no longer--I had to come.
"Dear Edna! Never did I fully realize the depth of love until now.Never----"
The door was opened suddenly.
A stout, motherly-looking woman stood gazing inquiringly upon his face.
"Mrs. Brown! It's an age since I've seen you. Is Edna here to-night!"
The young man had sprung eagerly forward, extending his hand toward thewoman as he spoke.
"Edna! Who are you, sir? I don't know what you mean."
Frank Mansfield laughed.
All eagerness to meet once more the girl he loved, he had for themoment forgotten his disguise.
"Mrs. Brown, don't you know me?"
"It's Frank Mansfield's voice. Can this be you?"
"It's no one else, auntie," replied Frank, laughing, at the same timeclosing the door behind him. "I forgot that my face had changed."
"I should have never known you," replied the woman, doubtfully. "She'sinside, and expecting you, Frank. But, good gracious me! I don't knowwhether I'm doing right or wrong to let you meet here so. What aterrible scrape you've got yourself into! We thought you had run away."
"Not yet, auntie, not yet. When I get ready to do such a thing as thatI shall let you, my dear old nurse, into the secret first, now you maydepend. But where is she? In the little parlor as usual? I'm just dyingto hold my darling in my arms again."
The woman threw open a door without a word, displaying a small butneatly furnished room.
"Edna!"
The daughter of Elijah Callister stood before the open grate.
Frank rushed toward her with extended hand.
"My love! my darling!" he cried, impetuously. "Thank God, we aretogether again!"
The young girl drew back.
Her face was pale, her bosom heaved--there were tears resting in hereyes.
"One moment," she said, with an evident struggle. "It seems to me,Frank Mansfield, that, before admitting you to your old-time place inmy heart, some explanation is due to me."
At the same instant the door was heard to close.
Mrs. Brown had discreetly retired, leaving the lovers alone.
Frank drew back abashed.
"I thought after what you said this afternoon--" he began, hesitatingly.
"That I stood ready to receive you, without explanation, on your oldfooting? No, sir, nothing of the sort! I have some questions to put toyou before that can be done."
"Edna, I am yours--yours body and soul! Ask me what questions youplease."
"Then, sir, where have you been during all these weeks? You standaccused of a terrible crime before the world. If you are innocent, whyhave you not communicated with me? Why have you not come to tell me sobefore?"
"Edna, I am innocent. I swear it before Almighty God and you, the womanI love."
"I believe it. I maintained it against my father, against all thesneers and reproaches that he heaped upon your name. But when day afterday passed, and I heard nothing from you, what was I to believe? Whatam I to believe now, finding you in my father's office and in disguise?"
For the space of a moment Frank stood gazing upon her beautiful form ina maze of perplexity and doubt.
What should he do? What should he say?
To betray his plans to the daughter of his enemy was to frustrate them.He could see it at a glance.
"Hook was right," he thought, bitterly. "I have made a mistake. I oughtnot to have come at all."
He gazed sadly upon the girl for an instant, and then taking his hatfrom the table upon which he had thrown it, motioned to withdraw.
"Edna, I--I----"
He stood hesitating now, his hand upon the knob of the door.
Instantly the girl's manner changed.
Springing forward, she threw herself in the arms of her lover, andburst into a flood of tears.
"Frank! Frank! Don't go. I can forgive anything, everything, but yourslight to me."
"My slight to you, dearest?"
He led her gently toward a sofa near the window, and seated himself byher side.
"It's weeks since I have seen you, Frank. In your trouble could you nottrust me?"
"Can you trust me, little girl?" he cried, clasping both her handswithin his own.
"Can you trust me, when I tell you that I did not rob the Webster Bank,that I am not guilty of the terrible crime with which the newspapershave had me charged?"
"Frank, I can trust you in anything; but only think! It is three weekssince you left me in this very room--left me to seek my father and askhis consent to our marriage. I have not seen you since."
"Dearest. I could not help it. I saw your father. He refused myrequest. I--I--that is--I have been so situated that I could neithersee nor communicate with you since."
The cheeks of the youth blushed red as he spoke.
The memory of his dissipation and folly in the presence of thisinnocent girl seemed to crowd upon him with crushing force.
How unworthy he was of love like this? How----
But his thoughts were interrupted.
Edna Callister had spoken again.
"Frank, I believe your innocence firmly," she said, in clear, decidedtones, "I believe it first because I know your heart, second,because--because--oh, how can I say it! Because--Frank, you will notbetray me--because my father tries to make me think you guilty, and Iknow my father to be a very wicked man."
"Edna!"
"It is true, Frank. You know it is true. It is my firm belief that heis at the bottom of a plot against you, and that you know this to bethe fact. Is it not so?"
"Edna, I cannot tell you."
"But you must. I insist upon knowing. It is because you have discoveredhis baseness at last, because you know what I say to be true that youhave kept away from me, and hate me for all I know. It is for thisreason that you are watching him in his office in this disguise."
"Edna, I love you and shall love you always, no matter what your fathermay be to me. I promise faithfully---- Hark! what noise was that?"
It was the sound of some one without the window tapp
ing gently upon thepane.
Rising hastily, Frank strode to the window and raised the shade.
"Great Heaven! again!"
With face the color of death the young man leaped back from the window,the perspiration starting in great drops from his pallid brow.
"Look--look! Do you see her?" he breathed, hoarsely, pointing with onefinger toward the window facing which both the lovers now stood.
"Why, Frank, it's your mother! What in the world can she be doing here?"
It was a woman who stood in the little courtyard without, her facepressed against the pane.
It was the strange woman who has already figured very prominently inthis tale--the mother of Frank Mansfield, whom he believed as firmly ashe believed in his own existence to be now lying in her grave.
The face, form, figure were all the same.
The apparition of Trinity church-yard stood before him now.
With one hand, she struck the window feebly as with the other sheraised what appeared to be a piece of paper before the eyes of theastonished pair.
Then, laying the paper against the glass, she drew back into thedarkness and disappeared.
"Remain where you are, Edna!" cried Frank, springing toward the door."In a moment I will return."
He was in the street in an instant.
Too late!
The woman was nowhere to be seen.
But there upon the window-sill, leaning against the glass, stillrested a folded parchment, affording the most positive evidence of herpresence before the house.
Search was useless.
Whoever the strange creature might be--if a being of this worldindeed--she had but to turn the corner of Bleecker street to loseherself in the crowd.
With his mind filled with a thousand doubts and fears, Frank seized theparchment and returned to the room.
Without speaking a word he strode toward the table, and spread it outbeneath the lighted lamp.
His eyes had scarce rested upon it than he uttered an exclamation ofjoyful surprise.
And no wonder.
It was the description of the treasure hidden by old JeremiahMansfield, his grandfather, which lay before him.
As though a gift from Heaven, it had been restored to him.
He had watched and waited.
The missing parchment had been placed in his hands.