Read Trent's Trust, and Other Stories Page 1

  Produced by Donald Lainson

  TRENT'S TRUST AND OTHER STORIES

  By Bret Harte

  CONTENTS

  TRENT'S TRUST

  MR. MACGLOWRIE'S WIDOW

  A WARD OF COLONEL STARBOTTLE

  PROSPER'S "OLD MOTHER"

  THE CONVALESCENCE OF JACK HAMLIN

  A PUPIL OF CHESTNUT RIDGE

  DICK BOYLE'S BUSINESS CARD

  TRENT'S TRUST

  I

  Randolph Trent stepped from the Stockton boat on the San Franciscowharf, penniless, friendless, and unknown. Hunger might have been addedto his trials, for, having paid his last coin in passage money, he hadbeen a day and a half without food. Yet he knew it only by an occasionallapse into weakness as much mental as physical. Nevertheless, he wasfirst on the gangplank to land, and hurried feverishly ashore, in thatvague desire for action and change of scene common to such irritation;yet after mixing for a few moments with the departing passengers, eachselfishly hurrying to some rendezvous of rest or business, he insensiblydrew apart from them, with the instinct of a vagabond and outcast.Although he was conscious that he was neither, but merely anunsuccessful miner suddenly reduced to the point of soliciting work oralms of any kind, he took advantage of the first crossing to plunge intoa side street, with a vague sense of hiding his shame.

  A rising wind, which had rocked the boat for the last few hours, had nowdeveloped into a strong sou'wester, with torrents of rain which sweptthe roadway. His well-worn working clothes, fitted to the warmerSouthern mines, gave him more concern from their visible, absurdcontrast to the climate than from any actual sense of discomfort,and his feverishness defied the chill of his soaking garments, as hehurriedly faced the blast through the dimly lighted street. At the nextcorner he paused; he had reached another, and, from its dilapidatedappearance, apparently an older wharf than that where he had landed,but, like the first, it was still a straggling avenue leading toward thehigher and more animated part of the city. He again mechanically--for apart of his trouble was a vague, undefined purpose--turned toward it.

  In his feverish exaltation his powers of perception seemed to bequickened: he was vividly alive to the incongruous, half-marine,half-backwoods character of the warehouses and commercial buildings;to the hull of a stranded ship already built into a block of rudetenements; to the dark stockaded wall of a house framed of corrugatediron, and its weird contiguity to a Swiss chalet, whose galleries wereused only to bear the signs of the shops, and whose frame had beencarried across seas in sections to be set up at random here.

  Moving past these, as in a nightmare dream, of which even the turbulencyof the weather seemed to be a part, he stumbled, blinded, panting,and unexpectedly, with no consciousness of his rapid pace beyond hisbreathlessness, upon the dazzling main thoroughfare of the city. Inspite of the weather, the slippery pavements were thronged byhurrying crowds of well-dressed people, again all intent on their ownpurposes,--purposes that seemed so trifling and unimportant beside hisown. The shops were brilliantly lighted, exposing their brightest waresthrough plate-glass windows; a jeweler's glittered with precious stones;a fashionable apothecary's next to it almost outrivaled it with itsgorgeous globes, the gold and green precision of its shelves, andthe marble and silver soda fountain like a shrine before it. All thisspecious show of opulence came upon him with the shock of contrast, andwith it a bitter revulsion of feeling more hopeless than his feverishanxiety,--the bitterness of disappointment.

  For during his journey he had been buoyed up with the prospect offinding work and sympathy in this youthful city,--a prospect foundedsolely on his inexperienced hopes. For this he had exchanged the povertyof the mining district,--a poverty that had nothing ignoble about it,that was a part of the economy of nature, and shared with his fellow menand the birds and beasts in their rude encampments. He had given up thebrotherhood of the miner, and that practical help and sympathy whichbrought no degradation with it, for this rude shock of self-interested,self-satisfied civilization. He, who would not have shrunk from askingrest, food, or a night's lodging at the cabin of a brother miner orwoodsman, now recoiled suddenly from these well-dressed citizens. Whatmadness had sent him here, an intruder, or, even, as it seemed to him inhis dripping clothes, an impostor? And yet these were the people to whomhe had confidently expected to tell his story, and who would cheerfullyassist him with work! He could almost anticipate the hard laugh orbrutal hurried negative in their faces. In his foolish heart he thankedGod he had not tried it. Then the apathetic recoil which is apt tofollow any keen emotion overtook him. He was dazedly conscious of beingrudely shoved once or twice, and even heard the epithet "drunken lout"from one who had run against him.

  He found himself presently staring vacantly in the apothecary's window.How long he stood there he could not tell, for he was aroused only bythe door opening in front of him, and a young girl emerging with somepurchase in her hand. He could see that she was handsomely dressed andquite pretty, and as she passed out she lifted to his withdrawing figurea pair of calm, inquiring eyes, which, however, changed to a look ofhalf-wondering, half-amused pity as she gazed. Yet that look of pitystung his pride more deeply than all. With a deliberate effort herecovered his energy. No, he would not beg, he would not ask assistancefrom these people; he would go back--anywhere! To the steamboat first;they might let him sleep there, give him a meal, and allow him to workhis passage back to Stockton. He might be refused. Well, what then?Well, beyond, there was the bay! He laughed bitterly--his mind was saneenough for that--but he kept on repeating it vaguely to himself, as hecrossed the street again, and once more made his way to the wharf.

  The wind and rain had increased, but he no longer heeded them in hisfeverish haste and his consciousness that motion could alone keep awaythat dreadful apathy which threatened to overcloud his judgment. And hewished while he was able to reason logically to make up his mind to endthis unsupportable situation that night. He was scarcely twenty, yet itseemed to him that it had already been demonstrated that his life wasa failure; he was an orphan, and when he left college to seek his ownfortune in California, he believed he had staked his all upon thatventure--and lost.

  That bitterness which is the sudden recoil of boyish enthusiasm, and isnone the less terrible for being without experience to justify it,--thatmelancholy we are too apt to look back upon with cynical jeers andlaughter in middle age,--is more potent than we dare to think, andit was in no mere pose of youthful pessimism that Randolph Trent nowcontemplated suicide. Such scraps of philosophy as his education hadgiven him pointed to that one conclusion. And it was the only refugethat pride--real or false--offered him from the one supreme terror ofyouth--shame.

  The street was deserted, and the few lights he had previously noted inwarehouses and shops were extinguished. It had grown darker with thestorm; the incongruous buildings on either side had become misshapenshadows; the long perspective of the wharf was a strange gloom fromwhich the spars of a ship stood out like the cross he remembered as aboy to have once seen in a picture of the tempest-smitten Calvary. Itwas his only fancy connected with the future--it might have been hislast, for suddenly one of the planks of the rotten wharf gave waybeneath his feet, and he felt himself violently precipitated towardthe gurgling and oozing tide below. He threw out his arms desperately,caught at a strong girder, drew himself up with the energy ofdesperation, and staggered to his feet again, safe--and sane. For withthis terrible automatic struggle to avoid that death he was courtingcame a flash of reason. If he had resolutely thrown himself from thepier head as he intended, would he have undergone a hopeless revulsionlike this? Was he sure that this might not be, after all, the terriblepenalty of self-destruction--this inevitable fierce protest of mind
andbody when TOO LATE? He was momentarily touched with a sense of gratitudeat his escape, but his reason told him it was not from his ACCIDENT, butfrom his intention.

  He was trying carefully to retrace his steps, but as he did so he sawthe figure of a man dimly lurching toward him out of the darkness of thewharf and the crossed yards of the ship. A gleam of hope came over him,for the emotion of the last few minutes had rudely displaced his prideand self-love. He would appeal to this stranger, whoever he was; therewas more chance that in this rude locality he would be a belated sailoror some humbler wayfarer, and the darkness and solitude made him feelless ashamed. By the last flickering street lamp he could see that hewas a man about his own size, with something of the rolling gait of asailor, which was increased by the weight of a traveling portmanteauhe was swinging in his hand. As he approached he evidently detectedRandolph's waiting figure, slackened his speed slightly, and changed hisportmanteau from his right hand to his left as a precaution for defense.

  Randolph felt the blood flush his cheek at this significant proof ofhis disreputable appearance, but determined to accost him. He scarcelyrecognized the sound of his own voice now first breaking the silence forhours, but he made his appeal. The man listened, made a slight gestureforward with his disengaged hand, and impelled Randolph slowly up to thestreet lamp until it shone on both their faces. Randolph saw a man afew years his senior, with a slightly trimmed beard on his dark,weather-beaten cheeks, well-cut features, a quick, observant eye, and asailor's upward glance and bearing. The stranger saw a thin, youthful,anxious, yet refined and handsome face beneath straggling damp curls,and dark eyes preternaturally bright with suffering. Perhaps hisexperienced ear, too, detected some harmony with all this in Randolph'svoice.

  "And you want something to eat, a night's lodging, and a chance of workafterward," the stranger repeated with good-humored deliberation.

  "Yes," said Randolph.

  "You look it."

  Randolph colored faintly.

  "Do you ever drink?"

  "Yes," said Randolph wonderingly.

  "I thought I'd ask," said the stranger, "as it might play hell with youjust now if you were not accustomed to it. Take that. Just a swallow,you know--that's as good as a jugful."

  He handed him a heavy flask. Randolph felt the burning liquor scald histhroat and fire his empty stomach. The stranger turned and looked downthe vacant wharf to the darkness from which he came. Then he turned toRandolph again and said abruptly,--

  "Strong enough to carry this bag?"

  "Yes," said Randolph. The whiskey--possibly the relief--had given himnew strength. Besides, he might earn his alms.

  "Take it up to room 74, Niantic Hotel--top of next street to this, oneblock that way--and wait till I come."

  "What name shall I say?" asked Randolph.

  "Needn't say any. I ordered the room a week ago. Stop; there's the key.Go in; change your togs; you'll find something in that bag that'll fityou. Wait for me. Stop--no; you'd better get some grub there first."He fumbled in his pockets, but fruitlessly. "No matter. You'll find abuckskin purse, with some scads in it, in the bag. So long." And beforeRandolph could thank him, he lurched away again into the semi-darknessof the wharf.

  Overflowing with gratitude at a hospitality so like that of his recklessbrethren of the mines, Randolph picked up the portmanteau and startedfor the hotel. He walked warily now, with a new interest in life,and then, suddenly thinking of his own miraculous escape, he paused,wondering if he ought not to warn his benefactor of the perils of therotten wharf; but he had already disappeared. The bag was not heavy, buthe found that in his exhausted state this new exertion was telling,and he was glad when he reached the hotel. Equally glad was he in hisdripping clothes to slip by the porter, and with the key in his pocketascend unnoticed to 74.

  Yet had his experience been larger he might have spared himself thatsensitiveness. For the hotel was one of those great caravansariespopular with the returning miner. It received him and his gold dust inhis worn-out and bedraggled working clothes, and returned him the nextday as a well-dressed citizen on Montgomery Street. It was hard indeedto recognize the unshaven, unwashed, and unkempt "arrival" one met onthe principal staircase at night in the scrupulously neat stranger onesat opposite to at breakfast the next morning. In this daily whirl ofmutation all identity was swamped, as Randolph learned to know.

  At present, finding himself in a comfortable bedroom, his first actwas to change his wet clothes, which in the warmer temperature andthe decline of his feverishness now began to chill him. He opened theportmanteau and found a complete suit of clothing, evidently a foreignmake, well preserved, as if for "shore-going." His pride would havepreferred a humbler suit as lessening his obligation, but there was noother. He discovered the purse, a chamois leather bag such as miners andtravelers carried, which contained a dozen gold pieces and some papernotes. Taking from it a single coin to defray the expenses of a meal, herestrapped the bag, and leaving the key in the door lock for the benefitof his returning host, made his way to the dining room.

  For a moment he was embarrassed when the waiter approached himinquisitively, but it was only to learn the number of his room to"charge" the meal. He ate it quickly, but not voraciously, for hisappetite had not yet returned, and he was eager to get back to theroom and see the stranger again and return to him the coin which was nolonger necessary.

  But the stranger had not yet arrived when he reached the room. Over anhour had elapsed since their strange meeting. A new fear came uponhim: was it possible he had mistaken the hotel, and his benefactor wasawaiting him elsewhere, perhaps even beginning to suspect not only hisgratitude but his honesty! The thought made him hot again, but he washelpless. Not knowing the stranger's name, he could not inquire withoutexposing his situation to the landlord. But again, there was the key,and it was scarcely possible that it fitted another 74 in anotherhotel. He did not dare to leave the room, but sat by the window, peeringthrough the streaming panes into the storm-swept street below. Graduallythe fatigue his excitement had hitherto kept away began to overcome him;his eyes once or twice closed during his vigil, his head nodded againstthe pane. He rose and walked up and down the room to shake off hisdrowsiness. Another hour passed--nine o'clock, blown in fitful, far-offstrokes from some wind-rocked steeple. Still no stranger. How invitingthe bed looked to his weary eyes! The man had told him he wanted rest;he could lie down on the bed in his clothes until he came. He wouldwaken quickly and be ready for his benefactor's directions. It was agreat temptation. He yielded to it. His head had scarcely sunk upon thepillow before he slipped into a profound and dreamless sleep.

  He awoke with a start, and for a few moments lay vaguely staring at thesunbeams that stretched across his bed before he could recall himself.The room was exactly as before, the portmanteau strapped and pushedunder the table as he had left it. There came a tap at the door--thechambermaid to do up the room. She had been there once already,but seeing him asleep, she had forborne to wake him. Apparently thespectacle of a gentleman lying on the bed fully dressed, even to hisboots, was not an unusual one at that hotel, for she made no comment. Itwas twelve o'clock, but she would come again later.

  He was bewildered. He had slept the round of the clock--that was naturalafter his fatigue--but where was his benefactor? The lateness of thetime forbade the conclusion that he had merely slept elsewhere; hewould assuredly have returned by this time to claim his portmanteau. Theportmanteau! He unstrapped it and examined the contents again. They wereundisturbed as he had left them the night before. There was a furtherchange of linen, the buckskin bag, which he could see now containeda couple of Bank of England notes, with some foreign gold mixed withAmerican half-eagles, and a cheap, rough memorandum book clasped withelastic, containing a letter in a boyish hand addressed "Dear Daddy"and signed "Bobby," and a photograph of a boy taken by a foreignphotographer at Callao, as the printed back denoted, but nothing givingany clue whatever to the name of the owner.

  A strange idea seized him:
did the portmanteau really belong to the manwho had given it to him? Had he been the innocent receiver of stolengoods from some one who wished to escape detection? He recalled now thathe had heard stories of robbery of luggage by thieves "Sydney ducks"--onthe deserted wharves, and remembered, too,--he could not tell why thethought had escaped him before,--that the man had spoken with an Englishaccent. But the next moment he recalled his frank and open manner, andhis mind cleared of all unworthy suspicion. It was more than likely thathis benefactor had taken this delicate way of making a free, permanentgift for that temporary service. Yet he smiled faintly at the return ofthat youthful optimism which had caused him so much suffering.

  Nevertheless, something must be done: he must try to find the man; stillmore important, he must seek work before this dubious loan was furtherencroached upon. He restrapped the portmanteau and replaced it under thetable, locked the door, gave the key to the office clerk, saying thatany one who called upon him was to await his return, and sallied forth.A fresh wind and a blue sky of scudding clouds were all that remainedof last night's storm. As he made his way to the fateful wharf, stilldeserted except by an occasional "wharf-rat,"--as the longshore vagrantor petty thief was called,--he wondered at his own temerity of lastnight, and the trustfulness of his friend in yielding up his portmanteauto a stranger in such a place. A low drinking saloon, feebly disguisedas a junk shop, stood at the corner, with slimy green steps leading tothe water.

  The wharf was slowly decaying, and here and there were occasional gapsin the planking, as dangerous as the one from which he had escaped thenight before. He thought again of the warning he might have given tothe stranger; but he reflected that as a seafaring man he must have beenfamiliar with the locality where he had landed. But had he landed there?To Randolph's astonishment, there was no sign or trace of any lateoccupation of the wharf, and the ship whose crossyards he had seen dimlythrough the darkness the night before was no longer there. She mighthave "warped out" in the early morning, but there was no trace of herin the stream or offing beyond. A bark and brig quite dismantled at anadjacent wharf seemed to accent the loneliness. Beyond, the open channelbetween him and Verba Buena Island was racing with white-maned seas andsparkling in the shifting sunbeams. The scudding clouds above him drovedown the steel-blue sky. The lateen sails of the Italian fishing boatswere like shreds of cloud, too, blown over the blue and distant bay.His ears sang, his eyes blinked, his pulses throbbed, with the untiring,fierce activity of a San Francisco day.

  With something of its restlessness he hurried back to the hotel. Stillthe stranger was not there, and no one had called for him. The room hadbeen put in order; the portmanteau, that sole connecting link with hislast night's experience, was under the table. He drew it out again, andagain subjected it to a minute examination. A few toilet articles, notof the best quality, which he had overlooked at first, the linen, thebuckskin purse, the memorandum book, and the suit of clothes he stoodin, still comprised all he knew of his benefactor. He counted the moneyin the purse; it amounted, with the Bank of England notes, to aboutseventy dollars, as he could roughly guess. There was a scrap of paper,the torn-off margin of a newspaper, lying in the purse, with an addresshastily scribbled in pencil. It gave, however, no name, only a number:"85 California Street." It might be a clue. He put it, with the purse,carefully in his pocket, and after hurriedly partaking of his forgottenbreakfast, again started out.

  He presently found himself in the main thoroughfare of last night, whichhe now knew to be Montgomery Street. It was more thronged than then,but he failed to be impressed, as then, with the selfish activity ofthe crowd. Yet he was half conscious that his own brighter fortune,more decent attire, and satisfied hunger had something to do with thischange, and he glanced hurriedly at the druggist's broad plate-glasswindows, with a faint hope that the young girl whose amused pity he hadawakened might be there again. He found California Street quickly, andin a few moments he stood before No. 85. He was a little disturbedto find it a rather large building, and that it bore the inscription"Bank." Then came the usual shock to his mercurial temperament, and forthe first time he began to consider the absurd hopelessness of his clue.

  He, however, entered desperately, and approaching the window of thereceiving teller, put the question he had formulated in his mind: Couldthey give him any information concerning a customer or correspondentwho had just arrived in San Francisco and was putting up at the NianticHotel, room 74? He felt his face flushing, but, to his astonishment, theclerk manifested no surprise. "And you don't know his name?" said theclerk quietly. "Wait a moment." He moved away, and Randolph saw himspeaking to one of the other clerks, who consulted a large register.In a few minutes he returned. "We don't have many customers," he beganpolitely, "who leave only their hotel-room addresses," when he wasinterrupted by a mumbling protest from one of the other clerks. "That'svery different," he replied to his fellow clerk, and then turned toRandolph. "I'm afraid we cannot help you; but I'll make other inquiriesif you'll come back in ten minutes." Satisfied to be relieved from thepresent perils of his questioning, and doubtful of returning, Randolphturned away. But as he left the building he saw a written notice onthe swinging door, "Wanted: a Night Porter;" and this one chance ofemployment determined his return.

  When he again presented himself at the window the clerk motioned him tostep inside through a lifted rail. Here he found himself confronted bythe clerk and another man, distinguished by a certain air of authority,a keen gray eye, and singularly compressed lips set in a closely clippedbeard. The clerk indicated him deferentially but briefly--everybodywas astonishingly brief and businesslike there--as the president. Thepresident absorbed and possessed Randolph with eyes that never seemedto leave him. Then leaning back against the counter, which he lightlygrasped with both hands, he said: "We've sent to the Niantic Hotel toinquire about your man. He ordered his room by letter, giving no name.He arrived there on time last night, slept there, and has occupied theroom No. 74 ever since. WE don't know him from Adam, but"--his eyesnever left Randolph's--"from the description the landlord gave ourclerk, you're the man himself."

  For an instant Randolph flushed crimson. The natural mistake ofthe landlord flashed upon him, his own stupidity in seeking thisinformation, the suspicious predicament in which he was now placed, andthe necessity of telling the whole truth. But the president's eye was atonce a threat and an invitation. He felt himself becoming suddenly cool,and, with a business brevity equal to their own, said:--

  "I was looking for work last night on the wharf. He employed me to carryhis bag to the hotel, saying I was to wait for him. I have waited sincenine o'clock last night in his room, and he has not come."

  "What are you in such a d----d hurry for? He's trusted you; can't youtrust him? You've got his bag?" returned the president.

  Randolph was silent for a moment. "I want to know what to do with it,"he said.

  "Hang on to it. What's in it?"

  "Some clothes and a purse containing about seventy dollars."

  "That ought to pay you for carrying it and storage afterward," said thepresident decisively. "What made you come here?"

  "I found this address in the purse," said Randolph, producing it.

  "Is that all?"

  "Yes."

  "And that's the only reason you came here, to find an owner for thatbag?"

  "Yes."

  The president disengaged himself from the counter.

  "I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble," said Randolphconcludingly. "Thank you and good-morning."

  "Good-morning."

  As Randolph turned away he remembered the advertisement for the nightwatchman. He hesitated and turned back. He was a little surprised tofind that the president had not gone away, but was looking after him.

  "I beg your pardon, but I see you want a night watchman. Could I do?"said Randolph resolutely.

  "No. You're a stranger here, and we want some one who knows thecity,--Dewslake," he returned to the receiving teller, "who's takenLarkin's place?"


  "No one yet," returned the teller, "but," he added parenthetically,"Judge Boompointer, you know, was speaking to you about his son."

  "Yes, I know that." To Randolph: "Go round to my private room and waitfor me. I won't be as long as your friend last night." Then he added toa negro porter, "Show him round there."

  He moved away, stopping at one or two desks to give an order to theclerks, and once before the railing to speak to a depositor. Randolphfollowed the negro into the hall, through a "board room," and into ahandsomely furnished office. He had not to wait long. In a few momentsthe president appeared with an older man whose gray side whiskers, cutwith a certain precision, and whose black and white checked neckerchief,tied in a formal bow, proclaimed the English respectability of theperiod. At the president's dictation he took down Randolph's name,nativity, length of residence, and occupation in California. Thisconcluded, the president, glancing at his companion, said briefly,--

  "Well?"

  "He had better come to-morrow morning at nine," was the answer.

  "And ask for Mr. Dingwall, the deputy manager," added the president,with a gesture that was at once an introduction and a dismissal to both.

  Randolph had heard before of this startling brevity of San Franciscobusiness detail, yet he lingered until the door closed on Mr. Dingwall.His heart was honestly full.

  "You have been very kind, sir," he stammered.

  "I haven't run half the risks of that chap last night," said thepresident grimly, the least tremor of a smile on his set mouth.

  "If you would only let me know what I can do to thank you," persistedRandolph.

  "Trust the man that trusts you, and hang on to your trust," returned thepresident curtly, with a parting nod.

  Elated and filled with high hopes as Randolph was, he felt sometrepidation in returning to his hotel. He had to face his landlord withsome explanation of the bank's inquiry. The landlord might consider himan impostor, and request him to leave, or, more dreadful still, insistupon keeping the bag. He thought of the parting words of the president,and resolved upon "hanging on to his trust," whatever happened. But hewas agreeably surprised to find that he was received at the office witha certain respect not usually shown to the casual visitor. "Your callerturned up to-day"--Randolph started--"from the Eureka bank," continuedthe clerk. "Sorry we could not give your name, but you know youonly left a deposit in your letter and sent a messenger for your keyyesterday afternoon. When you came you went straight to your room.Perhaps you would like to register now." Randolph no longer hesitated,reflecting that he could explain it all later to his unknown benefactor,and wrote his name boldly. But he was still more astonished when theclerk continued: "I reckon it was a case of identifying you for adraft--it often happens here--and we'd have been glad to do it for you.But the bank clerk seemed satisfied with out description of you--you'reeasily described, you know" (this in a parenthesis, complimentarilyintended)--"so it's all right. We can give you a better room lower down,if you're going to stay longer." Not knowing whether to laugh or to beembarrassed at this extraordinary conclusion of the blunder, Randolphanswered that he had just come from the bank, adding, with a pardonabletouch of youthful pride, that he was entering the bank's employment thenext day.

  Another equally agreeable surprise met him on his arrival there the nextmorning. Without any previous examination or trial he was installed atonce as a corresponding clerk in the place of one just promoted toa sub-agency in the interior. His handwriting, his facility ofcomposition, had all been taken for granted, or perhaps predicatedupon something the president had discerned in that one quick, absorbingglance. He ventured to express the thought to his neighbor.

  "The boss," said that gentleman, "can size a man in and out, and allthrough, in about the time it would take you and me to tell the color ofhis hair. HE don't make mistakes, you bet; but old Dingy--the dep--yousettled with your clothes."

  "My clothes!" echoed Randolph, with a faint flush.

  "Yes, English cut--that fetched him."

  And so his work began. His liberal salary, which seemed to himmunificent in comparison with his previous earnings in the mines,enabled him to keep the contents of the buckskin purse intact, andpresently to return the borrowed suit of clothes to the portmanteau. Themysterious owner should find everything as when he first placed it inhis hands. With the quick mobility of youth and his own rather mercurialnature, he had begun to forget, or perhaps to be a little ashamed of hiskeen emotions and sufferings the night of his arrival, until that nightwas recalled to him in a singular way.

  One Sunday a vague sense of duty to his still missing benefactorimpelled him to spend part of his holiday upon the wharves. He hadrambled away among the shipping at the newer pier slips, and had gazedcuriously upon decks where a few seamen or officers in their Sundayapparel smoked, paced, or idled, trying vainly to recognize the faceand figure which had once briefly flashed out under the flickering wharflamp. Was the stranger a shipmaster who had suddenly transferred himselfto another vessel on another voyage? A crowd which had gathered aroundsome landing steps nearer shore presently attracted his attention. Helounged toward it and looked over the shoulders of the bystanders downupon the steps. A boat was lying there, which had just towed in the bodyof a man found floating on the water. Its features were alreadyswollen and defaced like a hideous mask; its body distended beyond allproportion, even to the bursting of its sodden clothing. A tremulousfascination came over Randolph as he gazed. The bystanders made theirbrief comments, a few authoritatively and with the air of nauticalexperts.

  "Been in the water about a week, I reckon."

  "'Bout that time; just rucked up and floated with the tide."

  "Not much chance o' spottin' him by his looks, eh?"

  "Nor anything else, you bet. Reg'larly cleaned out. Look at hispockets."

  "Wharf-rats or shanghai men?"

  "Betwixt and between, I reckon. Man who found him says he's got an uglycut just back of his head. Ye can't see it for his floating hair."

  "Wonder if he got it before or after he got in the water."

  "That's for the coroner to say."

  "Much he knows or cares," said another cynically. "It'll just be a caseof 'Found drowned' and the regular twenty-five dollars to HIM, and fiveto the man who found the body. That's enough for him to know."

  Thrilled with a vague anxiety, Randolph edged forward for a nearer viewof the wretched derelict still gently undulating on the towline. Thecloser he looked the more he was impressed by the idea of some frightfulmask that hid a face that refused to be recognized. But his attentionbecame fixed on a man who was giving some advice or orders and examiningthe body scrutinizingly. Without knowing why, Randolph felt a suddenaversion to him, which was deepened when the man, lifting his head, metRandolph's eyes with a pair of shifting yet aggressive ones. He bore,nevertheless, an odd, weird likeness to the missing man Randolph wasseeking, which strangely troubled him. As the stranger's eyes followedhim and lingered with a singular curiosity on Randolph's dress, heremembered with a sudden alarm that he was wearing the suit of themissing man. A quick impulse to conceal himself came upon him, but he asquickly conquered it, and returned the man's cold stare with an anger hecould not account for, but which made the stranger avert his eyes. Thenthe man got into the boat beside the boatman, and the two again towedaway the corpse. The head rose and fell with the swell, as if nodding afarewell. But it was still defiant, under its shapeless mask, that evenwore a smile, as if triumphant in its hideous secret.

  II

  The opinion of the cynical bystander on the wharf proved to be a correctone. The coroner's jury brought in the usual verdict of "Found drowned,"which was followed by the usual newspaper comment upon the insecurity ofthe wharves and the inadequate protection of the police.

  Randolph Trent read it with conflicting emotions. The possibility he hadconceived of the corpse being that of his benefactor was dismissed whenhe had seen its face, although he was sometimes tortured with doubt, anda wonder if he
might not have learned more by attending the inquest. Andthere was still the suggestion that the mysterious disappearance mighthave been accomplished by violence like this. He was satisfied that ifhe had attempted publicly to identify the corpse as his missing friendhe would have laid himself open to suspicion with a story he couldhardly corroborate.

  He had once thought of confiding his doubts to Mr. Revelstoke, the bankpresident, but he had a dread of that gentleman's curt conclusionsand remembered his injunction to "hang on to his trust." Since hisinstallation, Mr. Revelstoke had merely acknowledged his presence bya good-humored nod now and then, although Randolph had an instinctivefeeling that he was perfectly informed as to his progress. It was wiserfor Randolph to confine himself strictly to his duty and keep his owncounsel.

  Yet he was young, and it was not strange that in his idle moments histhoughts sometimes reverted to the pretty girl he had seen on the nightof his arrival, nor that he should wish to parade his better fortunebefore her curious eyes. Neither was it strange that in this city, whoseday-long sunshine brought every one into the public streets, he shouldpresently have that opportunity. It chanced that one afternoon, beingin the residential quarter, he noticed a well-dressed young girl walkingbefore him in company with a delicate looking boy of seven or eightyears. Something in the carriage of her graceful figure, something ina certain consciousness and ostentation of coquetry toward her youthfulescort, attracted his attention. Yet it struck him that she was neitherrelated to the child nor accustomed to children's ways, and that shesomewhat unduly emphasized this to the passers-by, particularly those ofhis own sex, who seemed to be greatly attracted by her evident beauty.Presently she ascended the steps of a handsome dwelling, evidently theirhome, and as she turned he saw her face. It was the girl he remembered.As her eye caught his, he blushed with the consciousness of their formermeeting; yet, in the very embarrassment of the moment, he lifted hishat in recognition. But the salutation was met only by a cold, criticalstare. Randolph bit his lip and passed on. His reason told him shewas right, his instinct told him she was unfair; the contradictionfascinated him.

  Yet he was destined to see her again. A month later, while seated at hisdesk, which overlooked the teller's counter, he was startled to see herenter the bank and approach the counter. She was already withdrawinga glove from her little hand, ready to affix her signature to thereceipted form to be proffered by the teller. As she received the goldin exchange, he could see, by the increased politeness of that official,his evident desire to prolong the transaction, and the sidelongglances of his fellow clerks, that she was apparently no stranger but arecognized object of admiration. Although her face was slightly flushedat the moment, Randolph observed that she wore a certain proud reserve,which he half hoped was intended as a check to these attentions. Hereyes were fixed upon the counter, and this gave him a brief opportunityto study her delicate beauty. For in a few moments she was gone; whethershe had in her turn observed him he could not say. Presently he rose andsauntered, with what he believed was a careless air, toward the payingteller's counter and the receipt, which, being the last, was plainlyexposed on the file of that day's "taking." He was startled by a titterof laughter from the clerks and by the teller ironically lifting thefile and placing it before him.

  "That's her name, sonny, but I didn't think that you'd tumble to itquite as quick as the others. Every new man manages to saunter roundhere to get a sight of that receipt, and I've seen hoary old depositorsoutside edge around inside, pretendin' they wanted to see the dep, jestto feast their eyes on that girl's name. Take a good look at it andpaste a copy in your hat, for that's all you'll know of her, you bet.Perhaps you think she's put her address and her 'at home' days on thereceipt. Look hard and maybe you'll see 'em."

  The instinct of youthful retaliation to say he knew her address alreadystirred Randolph, but he shut his lips in time, and moved away. His deskneighbor informed him that the young lady came there once a month anddrew a hundred dollars from some deposit to her credit, but that was allthey knew. Her name was Caroline Avondale, yet there was no one of thatname in the San Francisco Directory.

  But Randolph's romantic curiosity would not allow the incident to restthere. A favorable impression he had produced on Mr. Dingwall enabledhim to learn more, and precipitated what seemed to him a singulardiscovery. "You will find," said the deputy manager, "the statementof the first deposit to Miss Avondale's credit in letters in yourown department. The account was opened two years ago through a SouthAmerican banker. But I am afraid it will not satisfy your curiosity."Nevertheless, Randolph remained after office hours and spent some timein examining the correspondence of two years ago. He was rewarded atlast by a banker's letter from Callao advising the remittance of onethousand dollars to the credit of Miss Avondale of San Francisco. Theletter was written in Spanish, of which Randolph had a fair knowledge,but it was made plainer by a space having been left in the formal letterfor the English name, which was written in another hand, together witha copy of Miss Avondale's signature for identification--the usualproceeding in those early days, when personal identification wasdifficult to travelers, emigrants, and visitors in a land of strangers.

  But here he was struck by a singular resemblance which he at first putdown to mere coincidence of names. The child's photograph which hehad found in the portmanteau was taken at Callao. That was a merecoincidence, but it suggested to his mind a more singular one--that thehandwriting of the address was, in some odd fashion, familiar to him.That night when he went home he opened the portmanteau and took from thepurse the scrap of paper with the written address of the bank, and oncomparing it with the banker's letter the next day he was startled tofind that the handwriting of the bank's address and that in which thegirl's name was introduced in the banker's letter were apparently thesame. The letters in the words "Caroline" and "California" appeared asif formed by the same hand. How this might have struck a chirographicalexpert he did not know. He could not consult the paying teller, who wassupposed to be familiar with signatures, without exposing his secret andhimself to ridicule. And, after all, what did it prove? Nothing. Evenif this girl were cognizant of the man who supplied her address to theCallao banker two years ago, and he was really the missing owner of theportmanteau, would she know where he was now? It might make an openingfor conversation if he ever met her familiarly, but nothing more. YetI am afraid another idea occasionally took possession of Randolph'sromantic fancy. It was pleasant to think that the patron of his ownfortunes might be in some mysterious way the custodian of hers. Themoney was placed to her credit--a liberal sum for a girl so young. Thelarge house in which she lived was sufficient to prove to the optimisticRandolph that this income was something personal and distinct from herfamily. That his unknown benefactor was in the habit of mysteriouslyrewarding deserving merit after the fashion of a marine fairy godmother,I fear did not strike him as being ridiculous.

  But an unfortunate query in that direction, addressed to a cynicalfellow clerk, who had the exhaustive experience with the immaturemustaches of twenty-three, elicited a reply which shocked him. To hisindignant protest the young man continued:--

  "Look here; a girl like that who draws money regularly from some manwho doesn't show up by name, who comes for it herself, and hasn't anyaddress, and calls herself 'Avondale'--only an innocent from Dutch Flat,like you, would swallow."

  "Impossible," said Randolph indignantly. "Anybody could see she's a ladyby her dress and bearing."

  "Dress and bearing!" echoed the clerk, with the derision of blase youth."If that's your test, you ought to see Florry ----."

  But here one may safely leave the young gentleman as abruptly asRandolph did. Yet a drop of this corrosive criticism irritated hissensitiveness, and it was not until he recalled his last meeting withher and her innocent escort that he was himself again. Fortunately, hedid not relate it to the critic, who would in all probability have addeda precocious motherhood to the young lady's possible qualities.

  He could now only look forward t
o her reappearance at the bank, and herehe was destined to a more serious disappointment. For when she made hercustomary appearance at the counter, he noticed a certain businesslikegravity in the paying teller's reception of her, and that he wasconsulting a small register before him instead of handing her the usualreceipt form. "Perhaps you are unaware, Miss Avondale, that your accountis overdrawn," Randolph distinctly heard him say, although in a politelylowered voice.

  The young girl stopped in taking off her glove; her delicate faceexpressed her wonder, and paled slightly; she cast a quick andapparently involuntary glance in the direction of Randolph, but saidquietly,--

  "I don't think I understand."

  "I thought you did not--ladies so seldom do," continued the payingteller suavely. "But there are no funds to your credit. Has not yourbanker or correspondent advised you?"

  The girl evidently did not comprehend. "I have no correspondent orbanker," she said. "I mean--I have heard nothing."

  "The original credit was opened from Callao," continued the official,"but since then it has been added to by drafts from Melbourne. There maybe one nearly due now."

  The young girl seemed scarcely to comprehend, yet her face remainedpale and thoughtful. It was not until the paying teller resumed withsuggestive politeness that she roused herself: "If you would like to seethe president, he might oblige you until you hear from your friends. Ofcourse, my duty is simply to"--

  "I don't think I require you to exceed it," returned the young girlquietly, "or that I wish to see the president." Her delicate little facewas quite set with resolution and a mature dignity, albeit it was stillpale, as she drew away from the counter.

  "If you would leave your address," continued the official withpersistent politeness, "we could advise you of any later deposit to yourcredit."

  "It is hardly necessary," returned the young lady. "I should learn itmyself, and call again. Thank you. Good-morning." And settling her veilover her face, she quietly passed out.

  The pain and indignation with which Randolph overheard this colloquy hecould with the greatest difficulty conceal. For one wild moment hehad thought of calling her back while he made a personal appeal toRevelstoke; but the conviction borne in upon him by her resolute bearingthat she would refuse it, and he would only lay himself open to anotherrebuff, held him to his seat. Yet he could not entirely repress hisyouthful indignation.

  "Where I come from," he said in an audible voice to his neighbor, "ayoung lady like that would have been spared this public disappointment.A dozen men would have made up that sum and let her go without knowinganything about her account being overdrawn." And he really believed it.

  "Nice, comf'able way of doing banking business in Dutch Flat," returnedthe cynic. "And I suppose you'd have kept it up every month? Rathera tall price to pay for looking at a pretty girl once a month! But Isuppose they're scarcer up there than here. All the same, it ain't toolate now. Start up your subscription right here, sonny, and we'll allante up."

  But Randolph, who seldom followed his heroics to their ultimate prosaicconclusions, regretted he had spoken, although still unconvinced.Happily for his temper, he did not hear the comment of the two tellers.

  "Won't see HER again, old boy," said one.

  "I reckon not," returned the other, "now that she's been chucked by herfancy man--until she gets another. But cheer up; a girl like that won'twant friends long."

  It is not probable that either of these young gentlemen believed whatthey said, or would have been personally disrespectful or uncivil to anywoman; they were fairly decent young fellows, but the rigors of businessdemanded this appearance of worldly wisdom between themselves. Meantime,for a week after, Randolph indulged in wild fancies of taking hisbenefactor's capital of seventy dollars, adding thirty to it from hisown hard-earned savings, buying a draft with it from the bank for onehundred dollars, and in some mysterious way getting it to Miss Avondaleas the delayed remittance.

  The brief wet winter was nearly spent; the long dry season was due,although there was still the rare beauty of cloud scenery in thesteel-blue sky, and the sudden return of quick but transient showers.It was on a Sunday of weather like this that the nature-loving Randolphextended his usual holiday excursion as far as Contra Costa by thesteamer after his dutiful round of the wharves and shipping. It was witha gayety born equally of his youth and the weather that he overcame hisconstitutional shyness, and not only mingled without restraint amongthe pleasure-seekers that thronged the crowded boat, but, in theconsciousness of his good looks and a new suit of clothes,even penetrated into the aristocratic seclusion of the "ladies'cabin"--sacred to the fair sex and their attendant swains or chaperones.

  But he found every seat occupied, and was turning away, when he suddenlyrecognized Miss Avondale sitting beside her little escort. She appeared,however, in a somewhat constrained attitude, sustaining with one handthe boy, who had clambered on the seat. He was looking out of the cabinwindow, which she was also trying to do, with greater difficulty onaccount of her position. He could see her profile presented with suchmarked persistency that he was satisfied she had seen him and wasavoiding him. He turned and left the cabin.

  Yet, once on the deck again, he repented his haste. Perhaps she had notactually recognized him; perhaps she wished to avoid him only becauseshe was in plainer clothes--a circumstance that, with his knowledge ofher changed fortunes, struck him to the heart. It seemed to him thateven as a humble employee of the bank he was in some way responsible forit, and wondered if she associated him with her humiliation. He longedto speak with her and assure her of his sympathy, and yet he was equallyconscious that she would reject it.

  When the boat reached the Alameda wharf she slipped away with the otherpassengers. He wandered about the hotel garden and the main street inthe hope of meeting her again, although he was instinctively consciousthat she would not follow the lines of the usual Sunday sight-seers, buthad her own destination. He penetrated the depths of the Alameda, andlost himself among its low, trailing oaks, to no purpose. The hope ofthe morning had died within him; the fire of adventure was quenched, andwhen the clouds gathered with a rising wind he felt that the promise ofthat day was gone. He turned to go back to the ferry, but on consultinghis watch he found that he had already lost so much time in his deviouswanderings that he must run to catch the last boat. The few drops thatspattered through the trees presently increased to a shower; he put uphis umbrella without lessening his speed, and finally dashed into themain street as the last bell was ringing. But at the same moment aslight, graceful figure slipped out of the woods just ahead of him, withno other protection from the pelting storm than a handkerchief tied overher hat, and ran as swiftly toward the wharf. It needed only one glancefor Randolph to recognize Miss Avondale. The moment had come, theopportunity was here, and the next instant he was panting at her side,with the umbrella over her head.

  The girl lifted her head quickly, gave a swift look of recognition, abrief smile of gratitude, and continued her pace. She had not takenhis arm, but had grasped the handle of the umbrella, which linked themtogether. Not a word was spoken. Two people cannot be conversational orsentimental flying at the top of their speed beneath a single umbrella,with a crowd of impatient passengers watching and waiting for them.And I grieve to say that, being a happy American crowd, there was someirreverent humor. "Go it, sis! He's gainin' on you!" "Keep it up!""Steady, sonny! Don't prance!" "No fancy licks! You were nearly over thetraces that time!" "Keep up to the pole!" (i. e. the umbrella). "Don'tcrowd her off the track! Just swing on together; you'll do it."

  Randolph had glanced quickly at his companion. She was laughing, yetlooking at him shyly as if wondering how HE was taking it. The paddlewheels were beginning to revolve. Another rush, and they were on boardas the plank was drawn in.

  But they were only on the edge of a packed and seething crowd. Randolphmanaged, however, to force a way for her to an angle of the paddle box,where they were comparatively alone although still exposed to the rain.She recognized t
heir enforced companionship by dropping her grasp of theumbrella, which she had hitherto been holding over him with a singularkind of mature superiority very like--as Randolph felt--her manner tothe boy.

  "You have left your little friend?" he said, grasping at the idea for aconversational opening.

  "My little cousin? Yes," she said. "I left him with friends. I could notbear to make him run any risk in this weather. But," she hesitated halfapologetically, half mischievously, "perhaps I hurried you."

  "Oh, no," said Randolph quickly. "This is the last boat, and I must beat the bank to-morrow morning at nine."

  "And I must be at the shop at eight," she said. She did not speakbitterly or pointedly, nor yet with the entire familiarity of custom.He noticed that her dress was indeed plainer, and yet she seemed quiteconcerned over the water-soaked state of that cheap thin silk pelerineand merino skirt. A big lump was in his throat.

  "Do you know," he said desperately, yet trying to laugh, "that this isnot the first time you have seen me dripping?"

  "Yes," she returned, looking at him interestedly; "it was outside of thedruggist's in Montgomery Street, about four months ago. You were wetterthen even than you are now."

  "I was hungry, friendless, and penniless, Miss Avondale." He had spokenthus abruptly in the faint hope that the revelation might equalize theirpresent condition; but somehow his confession, now that it was uttered,seemed exceedingly weak and impotent. Then he blundered in a differentdirection. "Your eyes were the only kind ones I had seen since Ilanded." He flushed a little, feeling himself on insecure ground,and ended desperately: "Why, when I left you, I thought of committingsuicide."

  "Oh, dear, not so bad as that, I hope!" she said quickly, smilingkindly, yet with a certain air of mature toleration, as if she wereaddressing her little cousin. "You only fancied it. And it isn't verycomplimentary to my eyes if their kindness drove you to such horridthoughts. And then what happened?" she pursued smilingly.

  "I had a job to carry a man's bag, and it got me a night's lodging anda meal," said Randolph, almost brusquely, feeling the utter collapse ofhis story.

  "And then?" she said encouragingly.

  "I got a situation at the bank."

  "When?"

  "The next day," faltered Randolph, expecting to hear her laugh. But MissAvondale heaved the faintest sigh.

  "You are very lucky," she said.

  "Not so very," returned Randolph quickly, "for the next time you saw meyou cut me dead."

  "I believe I did," she said smilingly.

  "Would you mind telling me why?"

  "Are you sure you won't be angry?"

  "I may be pained," said Randolph prudently.

  "I apologize for that beforehand. Well, that first night I saw a youngman looking very anxious, very uncomfortable, and very weak. The secondtime--and not very long after--I saw him well dressed, lounging like anyother young man on a Sunday afternoon, and I believed that he took theliberty of bowing to me then because I had once looked at him under amisapprehension."

  "Oh, Miss Avondale!"

  "Then I took a more charitable view, and came to the conclusion that thefirst night he had been drinking. But," she added, with a faint smile atRandolph's lugubrious face, "I apologize. And you have had your revenge;for if I cut you on account of your smart clothes, you have tried to dome a kindness on account of my plain ones."

  "Oh, Miss Avondale," burst out Randolph, "if you only knew how sorryand indignant I was at the bank--when--you know--the other day"--hestammered. "I wanted to go with you to Mr. Revelstoke, you know, who hadbeen so generous to me, and I know he would have been proud to befriendyou until you heard from your friends."

  "And I am very glad you did nothing so foolish," said the younglady seriously, "or"--with a smile--"I should have been still moreaggravating to you when we met. The bank was quite right. Nor have I anypathetic story like yours. Some years ago my little half-cousin whomyou saw lost his mother and was put in my charge by his father, witha certain sum to my credit, to be expended for myself and the child.I lived with an uncle, with whom, for some family reasons, the child'sfather was not on good terms, and this money and the charge of the childwere therefore intrusted entirely to me; perhaps, also, because Bobbyand I were fond of each other and I was a friend of his mother. Thefather was a shipmaster, always away on long voyages, and has been homebut once in the three years I have had charge of his son. I have notheard from him since. He is a good-hearted man, but of a restless,roving disposition, with no domestic tastes. Why he should suddenlycease to provide for my little cousin--if he has done so--or if hisomission means only some temporary disaster to himself or his fortunes,I do not know. My anxiety was more for the poor boy's sake than formyself, for as long as I live I can provide for him." She said thiswithout the least display of emotion, and with the same mature air ofalso repressing any emotion on the part of Randolph. But for her sizeand girlish figure, but for the dripping tangles of her hair and hersoft eyes, he would have believed he was talking to a hard, middle-agedmatron.

  "Then you--he--has no friends here?" asked Randolph.

  "No. We are all from Callao, where Bobby was born. My uncle was amerchant there, who came here lately to establish an agency. We livedwith him in Sutter Street--where you remember I was so hateful to you,"she interpolated, with a mischievous smile--"until his enterprise failedand he was obliged to return; but I stayed here with Bobby, that hemight be educated in his father's own tongue. It was unfortunate,perhaps," she said, with a little knitting of her pretty brows, "thatthe remittances ceased and uncle left about the same time; but, likeyou, I was lucky, and I managed to get a place in the Emporium."

  "The Emporium!" repeated Randolph in surprise. It was a popular "magasinof fashion" in Montgomery Street. To connect this refined girl with itsgarish display and vulgar attendants seemed impossible.

  "The Emporium," reiterated Miss Avondale simply. "You see, we usedto dress a good deal in Callao and had the Paris fashions, and thatexperience was of great service to me. I am now at the head of what theycall the 'mantle department,' if you please, and am looked up to asan authority." She made him a mischievous bow, which had the effect ofcausing a trickle from the umbrella to fall across his budding mustache,and another down her own straight little nose--a diversion that madethem laugh together, although Randolph secretly felt that the younggirl's quiet heroism was making his own trials appear ridiculous. Buther allusion to Callao and the boy's name had again excited his fancyand revived his romantic dream of their common benefactor. As soon asthey could get a more perfect shelter and furl the umbrella, he plungedinto the full story of the mysterious portmanteau and its missing owner,with the strange discovery that he had made of the similarity of thetwo handwritings. The young lady listened intently, eagerly, checkingherself with what might have been a half smile at his enthusiasm.

  "I remember the banker's letter, certainly," she said, "and CaptainDornton--that was the name of Bobby's father--asked me to sign my namein the body of it where HE had also written it with my address. But thelikeness of the handwriting to your slip of paper may be only a fanciedone. Have you shown it to any one," she said quickly--"I mean," shecorrected herself as quickly, "any one who is an expert?"

  "Not the two together," said Randolph, explaining how he had shown thepaper to Mr. Revelstoke.

  But Miss Avondale had recovered herself, and laughed. "That that bit ofpaper should have been the means of getting you a situation seems to methe more wonderful occurrence. Of course it is quite a coincidence thatthere should be a child's photograph and a letter signed 'Bobby' inthe portmanteau. But"--she stopped suddenly and fixed her dark eyes onhis--"you have seen Bobby. Surely you can say if it was his likeness?"

  Randolph was embarrassed. The fact was he had always been so absorbedin HER that he had hardly glanced at the child. He ventured to say this,and added a little awkwardly, and coloring, that he had seen Bobby onlytwice.

  "And you still have this remarkable photograph and letter?" she sai
d,perhaps a little too carelessly.

  "Yes. Would you like to see them?"

  "Very much," she returned quickly; and then added, with a laugh, "youare making me quite curious."

  "If you would allow me to see you home," said Randolph, "we have to passthe street where my room is, and," he added timidly, "I could show themto you."

  "Certainly," she replied, with sublime unconsciousness of the cause ofhis hesitation; "that will be very nice?"

  Randolph was happy, albeit he could not help thinking that she wastreating him like the absent Bobby.

  "It's only on Commercial Street, just above Montgomery," he went on. "Wego straight up from the wharf"--he stopped short here, for the bulk of abystander, a roughly clad miner, was pressing him so closely that he wasobliged to resist indignantly--partly from discomfort, and partly from asense that the man was overhearing him. The stranger muttered a kind ofapology, and moved away.

  "He seems to be perpetually in your way," said Miss Avondale, smiling."He was right behind you, and you nearly trod on his toes, when youbolted out of the cabin this morning."

  "Ah, then you DID see me!" said Randolph, forgetting all else in hisdelight at the admission.

  But Miss Avondale was not disconcerted. "Thanks to your collision, I sawyou both."

  It was still raining when they disembarked at the wharf, a little behindthe other Passengers, who had crowded on the bow of the steamboat. Itwas only a block or two beyond the place where Randolph had landed thateventful night. He had to pass it now; but with Miss Avondale clingingto his arm, with what different feelings! The rain still fell, the daywas fading, but he walked in an enchanted dream, of which the prosaicumbrella was the mystic tent and magic pavilion. He must needs evenstop at the corner of the wharf, and show her the exact spot where hisunknown benefactor appeared.

  "Coming out of the shadow like that man there," she added brightly,pointing to a figure just emerging from the obscurity of an overhangingwarehouse. "Why, it's your friend the miner!"

  Randolph looked. It was indeed the same man, who had probably reachedthe wharf by a cross street.

  "Let us go on, do!" said Miss Avondale, suddenly tightening her hold ofRandolph's arm in some instinctive feminine alarm. "I don't like thisplace."

  But Randolph, with the young girl's arm clinging to his, felt supremelydaring. Indeed, I fear he was somewhat disappointed when the strangerpeacefully turned into the junk shop at the corner and left them topursue their way.

  They at last stopped before some business offices on a centralthoroughfare, where Randolph had a room on the third story. When theyhad climbed the flight of stairs he unlocked a door and disclosed agood-sized apartment which had been intended for an office, but whichwas now neatly furnished as a study and bedroom. Miss Avondale smiled atthe singular combination.

  "I should fancy," she said, "you would never feel as if you had quiteleft the bank behind you." Yet, with her air of protection and matureexperience, she at once began to move one or two articles of furnitureinto a more tasteful position, while Randolph, nevertheless a littleembarrassed at his audacity in asking this goddess into his humbleabode, hurriedly unlocked a closet, brought out the portmanteau, andhanded her the letter and photograph.

  Woman-like, Miss Avondale looked at the picture first. If sheexperienced any surprise, she repressed it. "It is LIKE Bobby," she saidmeditatively, "but he was stouter then; and he's changed sadly since hehas been in this climate. I don't wonder you didn't recognize him. Hisfather may have had it taken some day when they were alone together. Ididn't know of it, though I know the photographer." She then looked atthe letter, knit her pretty brows, and with an abstracted air sat downon the edge of Randolph's bed, crossed her little feet, and lookedpuzzled. But he was unable to detect the least emotion.

  "You see," she said, "the handwriting of most children who are learningto write is very much alike, for this is the stage of development whenthey 'print.' And their composition is the same: they talk only ofthings that interest all children--pets, toys, and their games. Thisis only ANY child's letter to ANY father. I couldn't really say it WASBobby's. As to the photograph, they have an odd way in South Americaof selling photographs of anybody, principally of pretty women, by thepacket, to any one who wants them. So that it does not follow that theowner of this photograph had any personal interest in it. Now, as toyour mysterious patron himself, can you describe him?" She looked atRandolph with a certain feline intensity.

  He became embarrassed. "You know I only saw him once, under a streetlamp"--he began.

  "And I have only seen Captain Dornton--if it were he--twice in threeyears," she said. "But go on."

  Again Randolph was unpleasantly impressed with her cold, dryly practicalmanner. He had never seen his benefactor but once, but he could notspeak of him in that way.

  "I think," he went on hesitatingly, "that he had dark, pleasant eyes, athick beard, and the look of a sailor."

  "And there were no other papers in the portmanteau?" she said, with thesame intense look.

  "None."

  "These are mere coincidences," said Miss Avondale, after a pause, "and,after all, they are not as strange as the alternative. For we would haveto believe that Captain Dornton arrived here--where he knew his son andI were living--without a word of warning, came ashore for the purpose ofgoing to a hotel and the bank also, and then unaccountably changed hismind and disappeared."

  The thought of the rotten wharf, his own escape, and the dead body wereall in Randolph's mind; but his reasoning was already staggered bythe girl's conclusions, and he felt that it might only pain, withoutconvincing her. And was he convinced himself? She smiled at his blankface and rose. "Thank you all the same. And now I must go."

  Randolph rose also. "Would you like to take the photograph and letter toshow your cousin?"

  "Yes. But I should not place much reliance on his memory." Nevertheless,she took up the photograph and letter, and Randolph, putting theportmanteau back in the closet, locked it, and stood ready to accompanyher.

  On their way to her house they talked of other things. Randolph learnedsomething of her life in Callao: that she was an orphan like himself,and had been brought from the Eastern States when a child to live witha rich uncle in Callao who was childless; that her aunt had died and heruncle had married again; that the second wife had been at variance withhis family, and that it was consequently some relief to Miss Avondaleto be independent as the guardian of Bobby, whose mother was a sisterof the first wife; that her uncle had objected as strongly as abrother-in-law could to his wife's sister's marriage with CaptainDornton on account of his roving life and unsettled habits, and thatconsequently there would be little sympathy for her or for Bobby in hismysterious disappearance. The wind blew and the rain fell upon theseconfidences, yet Randolph, walking again under that umbrella offelicity, parted with her at her own doorstep all too soon, althoughconsoled with the permission to come and see her when the childreturned.

  He went back to his room a very hopeful, foolish, but happy youth. As heentered he seemed to feel the charm of her presence again in the humbleapartment she had sanctified. The furniture she had moved with herown little hands, the bed on which she had sat for a half moment, wasglorified to his youthful fancy. And even that magic portmanteau whichhad brought him all this happiness, that, too,--but he gave a suddenstart. The closet door, which he had shut as he went out, was unlockedand open, the portmanteau--his "trust"--gone!

  III

  Randolph Trent's consternation at the loss of the portmanteau was partlysuperstitious. For, although it was easy to make up the small sumtaken, and the papers were safe in Miss Avondale's possession, yet thisdisplacement of the only link between him and his missing benefactor,and the mystery of its disappearance, raised all his old doubts andsuspicions. A vague uneasiness, a still more vague sense of someremissness on his own part, possessed him.

  That the portmanteau was taken from his room during his absence withMiss Avondale that afternoon was evident. The door
had been opened by askeleton key, and as the building was deserted on Sunday, there had beenno chance of interference with the thief. If mere booty had been hisobject, the purse would have satisfied him without his burdening himselfwith a portmanteau which might be identified. Nothing else in the roomhad been disturbed. The thief must have had some cognizance of itslocation, and have kept some espionage over Randolph's movements--acircumstance which added to the mystery and his disquiet. He placed adescription of his loss with the police authorities, but their only ideaof recovering it was by leaving that description with pawnbrokers andsecond-hand dealers, a proceeding that Randolph instinctively felt wasin vain.

  A singular but instinctive reluctance to inform Miss Avondale of hisloss kept him from calling upon her for the first few days. When he did,she seemed concerned at the news, although far from participating in hissuperstition or his suspicions.

  "You still have the letter and photograph--whatever they may beworth--for identification," she said dryly, "although Bobby cannotremember about the letter. He thinks he went once with his father to aphotographer and had a picture taken, but he cannot remember seeingit afterward." She was holding them in her hand, and Randolph almostmechanically took them from her and put them in his pocket. He wouldnot, perhaps, have noticed his own brusqueness had she not looked alittle surprised, and, he thought, annoyed. "Are you quite sure youwon't lose them?" she said gently. "Perhaps I had better keep them foryou."

  "I shall seal them up and put them in the bank safe," he said quickly.He could not tell whether his sudden resolution was an instinct or theobstinacy that often comes to an awkward man. "But," he added, coloring,"I shall always regret the loss of the portmanteau, for it was the meansof bringing us together."

  "I thought it was the umbrella," said Miss Avondale dryly.

  She had once before halted him on the perilous edge of sentiment by asimilar cynicism, but this time it cut him deeply. For he could notbe blind to the fact that she treated him like a mere boy, and indispelling the illusions of his instincts and beliefs seemed as ifintent upon dispelling his illusions of HER; and in her half-smilingabstraction he read only the well-bred toleration of one who isbeginning to be bored. He made his excuses early and went home.Nevertheless, although regretting he had not left her the letter andphotograph, he deposited them in the bank safe the next day, and triedto feel that he had vindicated his character for grown-up wisdom.

  Then, in his conflicting emotions, he punished himself, after thefashion of youth, by avoiding the beloved one's presence for severaldays. He did this in the belief that it would enable him to make up hismind whether to reveal his real feelings to her, and perhaps therewas the more alluring hope that his absence might provoke somemanifestations of sentiment on her part. But she made no sign. And thencame a reaction in his feelings, with a heightened sense of loyaltyto his benefactor. For, freed of any illusion or youthful fancy now, apurely unselfish gratitude to the unknown man filled his heart. In thelapse of his sentiment he clung the more closely to this one honestromance of his life.

  One afternoon, at the close of business, he was a little astonished toreceive a message from Mr. Dingwall, the deputy manager, that he wishedto see him in his private office. He was still more astonished when Mr.Dingwall, after offering him a chair, stood up with his hands under hiscoat tails before the fireplace, and, with a hesitancy half reserved,half courteous, but wholly English, said,--

  "I--er--would be glad, Mr. Trent, if you would--er--give me the pleasureof your company at dinner to-morrow."

  Randolph, still amazed, stammered his acceptance.

  "There will be--er--a young lady in whom you were--er--interested sometime ago. Er--Miss Avondale."

  Randolph, feeling he was coloring, and uncertain whether he should speakof having met her since, contented himself with expressing his delight.

  "In fact," continued Mr. Dingwall, clearing his throat as if he werealso clearing his conscience of a tremendous secret, "she--er--mentionedyour name. There is Sir William Dornton coming also. Sir Williamhas recently succeeded his elder brother, who--er--it seems, was thegentleman you were inquiring about when you first came here, and who,it is now ascertained, was drowned in the bay a few months ago. Infact--er--it is probable that you were the last one who saw him alive.I thought I would tell you," continued Mr. Dingwall, settling his chinmore comfortably in his checked cravat, "in case Sir William shouldspeak of him to you."

  Randolph was staggered. The abrupt revelation of his benefactor's nameand fate, casually coupled with an invitation to dinner, shocked andconfounded him. Perhaps Mr. Dingwall noticed it and misunderstood thecause, for he added in parenthetical explanation: "Yes, the man whoseportmanteau you took charge of is dead; but you did your duty, Mr.Trent, in the matter, although the recovery of the portmanteau wasunessential to the case."

  "Dead," repeated Randolph, scarcely heeding him. "But is it true? Arethey sure?"

  Mr. Dingwall elevated his eyebrows. "The large property at stake ofcourse rendered the most satisfactory proofs of it necessary. His fatherhad died only a month previous, and of course they were seeking thepresumptive heir, the so-called 'Captain John Dornton'--your man--whenthey made the discovery of his death."

  Randolph thought of the strange body at the wharf, of the coroner'svague verdict, and was unconvinced. "But," he said impulsively, "therewas a child." He checked himself as he remembered this was one of MissAvondale's confidences to him.

  "Ah--Miss Avondale has spoken of a child?" said Mr. Dingwall dryly.

  "I saw her with one which she said was Captain Dornton's, which had beenleft in her care after the death of his wife," said Randolph in hurriedexplanation.

  "John Dornton had no WIFE," said Mr. Dingwall severely. "The boy is anatural son. Captain John lived a wild, rough, and--er--an eccentriclife."

  "I thought--I understood from Miss Avondale that he was married,"stammered the young man.

  "In your rather slight acquaintance with that young lady I shouldimagine she would have had some delicacy in telling you otherwise,"returned Mr. Dingwall primly.

  Randolph felt the truth of this, and was momentarily embarrassed. Yet helingered.

  "Has Miss Avondale known of this discovery long?" he asked.

  "About two weeks, I should say," returned Mr. Dingwall. "She was of someservice to Sir William in getting up certain proofs he required."

  It was three weeks since she had seen Randolph, yet it would have beeneasy for her to communicate the news to him. In these three weeks hisromance of their common interest in his benefactor--even his own dreamof ever seeing him again--had been utterly dispelled.

  It was in no social humor that he reached Dingwall's house the nextevening. Yet he knew the difficulty of taking an aggressive attitudetoward his previous idol or of inviting a full explanation from herthen.

  The guests, with the exception of himself and Miss Avondale, were allEnglish. She, self-possessed and charming in evening dress, nodded tohim with her usual mature patronage, but did not evince the leastdesire to seek him for any confidential aside. He noticed the undoubtedresemblance of Sir William Dornton to his missing benefactor, and yetit produced a singular repulsion in him, rather than any sympatheticpredilection. At table he found that Miss Avondale was separated fromhim, being seated beside the distinguished guest, while he was placednext to the young lady he had taken down--a Miss Eversleigh, the cousinof Sir William. She was tall, and Randolph's first impression of her wasthat she was stiff and constrained--an impression he quickly correctedat the sound of her voice, her frank ingenuousness, and her unmistakableyouth. In the habit of being crushed by Miss Avondale's unrelentingsuperiority, he found himself apparently growing up beside this tallEnglish girl, who had the naivete of a child. After a few commonplacesshe suddenly turned her gray eyes on his, and said,--

  "Didn't you like Jack? I hope you did. Oh, say you did--do!"

  "You mean Captain John Dornton?" said Randolph, a little confused.

  "Yes, of course; HIS
brother"--glancing toward Sir William. "We alwayscalled him Jack, though I was ever so little when he went away. No onethought of calling him anything else but Jack. Say you liked him!"

  "I certainly did," returned Randolph impulsively. Then checking himself,he added, "I only saw him once, but I liked his face and manner--and--hewas very kind to me."

  "Of course he was," said the young girl quickly. "That was only likehim, and yet"--lowering her voice slightly--"would you believe thatthey all say he was wild and wicked and dissipated? And why? Fancy! Justbecause he didn't care to stay at home and shoot and hunt and race andmake debts, as heirs usually do. No, he wanted to see the world and dosomething for himself. Why, when he was quite young, he could manage aboat like any sailor. Dornton Hall, their place, is on the coast, youknow, and they say that, just for adventure's sake, after he went away,he shipped as first mate somewhere over here on the Pacific, and madetwo or three voyages. You know--don't you?--and how every one wasshocked at such conduct in the heir."

  Her face was so girlishly animated, with such sparkle of eye andresponsive color, that he could hardly reconcile it with her firstrestraint or with his accepted traditions of her unemotional race, or,indeed, with her relationship to the principal guest. His latent feelingof gratitude to the dead man warmed under the young girl's voice.

  "It's so dreadful to think of him as drowned, you know, though eventhat they put against him," she went on hurriedly, "for they say hewas probably drowned in some drunken fit--fell through the wharf orsomething shocking and awful--worse than suicide. But"--she turned herfrank young eyes upon him again--"YOU saw him on the wharf that night,and you could tell how he looked."

  "He was as sober as I was," returned Randolph indignantly, as herecalled the incident of the flask and the dead man's caution. Fromrecalling it to repeating it followed naturally, and he presentlyrelated the whole story of his meeting with Captain Dornton to thebrightly interested eyes beside him. When he had finished, she leanedtoward him in girlish confidence, and said:--

  "Yes; but EVEN THAT they tell to show how intoxicated be must have beento have given up his portmanteau to an utter stranger like you." Shestopped, colored, and yet, reflecting his own half smile, she added:"You know what I mean. For they all agree how nice it was of you not totake any advantage of his condition, and Dingwall said your honesty andfaithfulness struck Revelstoke so much that he made a place for you atthe bank. Now I think," she continued, with delightful naivete, "it wasa proof of poor Jack's BEING PERFECTLY SOBER, that he knew whom he wastrusting, and saw just what you were, at once. There! But I suppose youmust not talk to me any longer, but must make yourself agreeable to someone else. But it was very nice of you to tell me all this. I wish youknew my guardian. You'd like him. Do you ever go to England? Do come andsee us."

  These confidences had not been observed by the others, and Miss Avondaleappeared to confine her attentions to Sir William, who seemed to beequally absorbed, except that once he lifted his eyes toward Randolph,as if in answer to some remark from her. It struck Randolph that he wasthe subject of their conversation, and this did not tend to allay theirritation of a mind already wounded by the contrast of HER lack ofsympathy for the dead man who had befriended and trusted her to thesimple faith of the girl beside him, who was still loyal to a merechildish recollection.

  After the ladies had rustled away, Sir William moved his seat besideRandolph. His manner seemed to combine Mr. Dingwall's restraint witha certain assumption of the man of the world, more notable for itsfrankness than its tactfulness.

  "Sad business this of my brother's, eh," he said, lighting a cigar;"any way you take it, eh? You saw him last, eh?" The interrogating word,however, seemed to be only an exclamation of habit, for he seldom waitedfor an answer.

  "I really don't know," said Randolph, "as I saw him only ONCE, and heleft me on the wharf. I know no more where he went to then than where hecame from before. Of course you must know all the rest, and how he cameto be drowned."

  "Yes; it really did not matter much. The whole question wasidentification and proof of death, you know. Beastly job, eh?"

  "Was that his body YOU were helping to get ashore at the wharf oneSunday?" asked Randolph bluntly, now fully recognizing the likeness thathad puzzled him in Sir William. "I didn't see any resemblance."

  "Precious few would. I didn't--though it's true I hadn't seen him foreight years. Poor old chap been knocked about so he hadn't a featureleft, eh? But his shipmate knew him, and there were his traps on theship."

  Then, for the first time, Randolph heard the grim and sordid detailsof John Dornton's mysterious disappearance. He had arrived the morningbefore that eventful day on an Australian bark as the principalpassenger. The vessel itself had an evil repute, and was believed tohave slipped from the hands of the police at Melbourne. John Dorntonhad evidently amassed a considerable fortune in Australia, althoughan examination of his papers and effects showed it to be in drafts andletters of credit and shares, and that he had no ready money--a factborne out by the testimony of his shipmates. The night he arrived wasspent in an orgy on board ship, which he did not leave until the earlyevening of the next day, although, after his erratic fashion, he hadordered a room at a hotel. That evening he took ashore a portmanteau,evidently intending to pass the night at his hotel. He was never seenagain, although some of the sailors declared that they had seen him onthe wharf WITHOUT THE PORTMANTEAU, and they had drunk together at a lowgrog shop on the street corner. He had evidently fallen through somehole in the wharf. As he was seen only with the sailors, who also knewhe had no ready money on his person, there was no suspicion of foulplay.

  "For all that, don't you know," continued Sir William, with a forcedlaugh, which struck Randolph as not only discordant, but as having aninsolent significance, "it might have been a deuced bad businessfor YOU, eh? Last man who was with him, eh? In possession of hisportmanteau, eh? Wearing his clothes, eh? Awfully clever of you togo straight to the bank with it. 'Pon my word, my legal man wanted topounce down on you as 'accessory' until I and Dingwall called him off.But it's all right now."

  Randolph's antagonism to the man increased. "The investigation seems tohave been peculiar," he said dryly, "for, if I remember rightly, at thecoroner's inquest on the body I saw you with, the verdict returned wasof the death of an UNKNOWN man."

  "Yes; we hadn't clear proof of identity then," he returned coolly, "butwe had a reexamination of the body before witnesses afterward, anda verdict according to the facts. That was kept out of the papersin deference to the feelings of the family and friends. I fancy youwouldn't have liked to be cross-examined before a stupid jury about whatyou were doing with Jack's portmanteau, even if WE were satisfied withit."

  "I should have been glad to testify to the kindness of your brother,at any risk," returned Randolph stoutly. "You have heard that theportmanteau was stolen from me, but the amount of money it contained hasbeen placed in Mr. Dingwall's hands for disposal."

  "Its contents were known, and all that's been settled," returned SirWilliam, rising. "But," he continued, with his forced laugh, which toRandolph's fancy masked a certain threatening significance, "I say,it would have been a beastly business, don't you know, if you HAD beencalled upon to produce it again--ha, ha!--eh?"

  Returning to the dining room, Randolph found Miss Avondale alone on acorner of the sofa. She swept her skirts aside as he approached, as aninvitation for him to sit beside her. Still sore from his experience,he accepted only in the hope that she was about to confide to him heropinion of this strange story. But, to his chagrin, she looked at himover her fan with a mischievous tolerance. "You seemed more interestedin the cousin than the brother of your patron."

  Once Randolph might have been flattered at this. But her speechseemed to him only an echo of the general heartlessness. "I found MissEversleigh very sympathetic over the fate of the unfortunate man, whomnobody else here seems to care for," said Randolph coldly.

  "Yes," returned Miss Avondale composedly; "I believe she was a
greatfriend of Captain Dornton when she was quite a child, and I don't thinkshe can expect much from Sir William, who is very different from hisbrother. In fact, she was one of the relatives who came over here inquest of the captain, when it was believed he was living and the heir.He was quite a patron of hers."

  "But was he not also one of yours?" said Randolph bluntly.

  "I think I told you I was the friend of the boy and of poor Paquita, theboy's mother," said Miss Avondale quietly. "I never saw Captain Dorntonbut twice."

  Randolph noticed that she had not said "wife," although in her previousconfidences she had so described the mother. But, as Dingwall had said,why should she have exposed the boy's illegitimacy to a comparativestranger; and if she herself had been deceived about it, why should heexpect her to tell him? And yet--he was not satisfied.

  He was startled by a little laugh. "Well, I declare, you look as ifyou resented the fact that your benefactor had turned out to be abaronet--just as in some novel--and that you have rendered a serviceto the English aristocracy. If you are thinking of poor Bobby," shecontinued, without the slightest show of self-consciousness, "SirWilliam will provide for him, and thinks of taking him to England torestore his health. Now"--with her smiling, tolerant superiority--"youmust go and talk to Miss Eversleigh. I see her looking this way, and Idon't think she half likes me as it is."

  Randolph, who, however, also saw that Sir William was lounging towardthem, here rose formally, as if permitting the latter to take thevacated seat. This partly imposed on him the necessity of seeking MissEversleigh, who, having withdrawn to the other end of the room, wasturning over the leaves of an album. As Randolph joined her, she said,without looking up, "Is Miss Avondale a friend of yours?"

  The question was so pertinent to his reflections at the moment that heanswered impulsively, "I really don't know."

  "Yes, that's the answer, I think, most of her acquaintances would give,if they were asked the same question and replied honestly," said theyoung girl, as if musing.

  "Even Sir William?" suggested Randolph, half smiling, yet wondering ather unlooked-for serious shrewdness as he glanced toward the sofa.

  "Yes; but HE wouldn't care. You see, there would be a pair of them." Shestopped with a slight blush, as if she had gone too far, but correctedherself in her former youthful frankness: "You don't mind my saying whatI did of her? You're not such a PARTICULAR friend?"

  "We both owe a debt of gratitude to your cousin Jack," said Randolph, insome embarrassment.

  "Yes, but YOU feel it and she doesn't. So that doesn't make youfriends."

  "But she has taken good care of Captain Dornton's child," suggestedRandolph loyally.

  He stopped, however, feeling that he was on dangerous ground. But MissEversleigh put her own construction on his reticence, and said,--

  "I don't think she cares for it much--or for ANY children."

  Randolph remembered his own impression the only time he had ever seenher with the child, and was struck with the young girl's instinct againcoinciding with his own. But, possibly because he knew he could neveragain feel toward Miss Avondale as he had, he was the more anxious tobe just, and he was about to utter a protest against this generalassumption, when the voice of Sir William broke in upon them. He wastaking his leave--and the opportunity of accompanying Miss Avondaleto her lodgings on the way to his hotel. He lingered a moment over hishandshaking with Randolph.

  "Awfully glad to have met you, and I fancy you're awfully glad to getrid of what they call your 'trust.' Must have given you a beastly lot ofbother, eh--might have given you more?"

  He nodded familiarly to Miss Eversleigh, and turned away with MissAvondale, who waved her usual smiling patronage to Randolph, evenincluding his companion in that half-amused, half-superior salutation.Perhaps it was this that put a sudden hauteur into the young girl'sexpression as she stared at Miss Avondale's departing figure.

  "If you ever come to England, Mr. Trent," she said, with a prettydignity in her youthful face, "I hope you will find some people notquite so rude as my cousin and"--

  "Miss Avondale, you would say," returned Randolph quietly. "As to HER,I am quite accustomed to her maturer superiority, which, I am afraid,is the effect of my own youth and inexperience; and I believe that, incourse of time, your cousin's brusqueness might be as easily understoodby me. I dare say," he added, with a laugh, "that I must seem to thema very romantic visionary with my 'trust,' and the foolish importance Ihave put upon a very trivial occurrence."

  "I don't think so," said the girl quickly, "and I consider Bill veryrude, and," she added, with a return of her boyish frankness, "I shalltell him so. As for Miss Avondale, she's AT LEAST thirty, I understand;perhaps she can't help showing it in that way, too."

  But here Randolph, to evade further personal allusions, continuedlaughingly: "And as I've LOST my 'trust,' I haven't even that to show indefense. Indeed, when you all are gone I shall have nothing to remind meof my kind benefactor. It will seem like a dream."

  Miss Eversleigh was silent for a moment, and then glanced quicklyaround her. The rest of the company were their elders, and, engaged inconversation at the other end of the apartment, had evidently left theyoung people to themselves.

  "Wait a moment," she said, with a youthful air of mystery andearnestness. Randolph saw that she had slipped an Indian bracelet,profusely hung with small trinkets, from her arm to her wrist, and wasevidently selecting one. It proved to be a child's tiny ring with asmall pearl setting. "This was given to me by Cousin Jack," said MissEversleigh in a low voice, "when I was a child, at some frolic orfestival, and I have kept it ever since. I brought it with me when wecame here as a kind of memento to show him. You know that is impossiblenow. You say you have nothing of his to keep. Will you accept this?I know he would be glad to know you had it. You could wear it on yourwatch chain. Don't say no, but take it."

  Protesting, yet filled with a strange joy and pride, Randolph took itfrom the young girl's hand. The little color which had deepened onher cheek cleared away as he thanked her gratefully, and with a quietdignity she arose and moved toward the others. Randolph did not lingerlong after this, and presently took his leave of his host and hostess.

  It seemed to him that he walked home that night in the whirling cloudsof his dispelled dream. The airy structure he had built up for the lastthree months had collapsed. The enchanted canopy under which he hadstood with Miss Avondale was folded forever. The romance he had evolvedfrom his strange fortune had come to an end, not prosaically, as suchromances are apt to do, but with a dramatic termination which, however,was equally fatal to his hopes. At any other time he might haveprojected the wildest hopes from the fancy that he and Miss Avondalewere orphaned of a common benefactor; but it was plain that herinterests were apart from his. And there was an indefinable something hedid not understand, and did not want to understand, in the story she hadtold him. How much of it she had withheld, not so much from delicacy orcontempt for his understanding as a desire to mislead him, he did notknow. His faith in her had gone with his romance. It was not strangethat the young English girl's unsophisticated frankness and simpleconfidences lingered longest in his memory, and that when, a few dayslater, Mr. Dingwall informed him that Miss Avondale had sailed forEngland with the Dornton family, he was more conscious of a loss in thestranger girl's departure.

  "I suppose Miss Avondale takes charge of--of the boy, sir?" he saidquietly.

  Mr. Dingwall gave him a quick glance. "Possibly. Sir William has behavedwith great--er--consideration," he replied briefly.

  IV

  Randolph's nature was too hopeful and recuperative to allow him tolinger idly in the past. He threw himself into his work at the bank withhis old earnestness and a certain simple conscientiousness which, whileit often provoked the raillery of his fellow clerks, did not escape theeyes of his employers. He was advanced step by step, and by the endof the year was put in charge of the correspondence with banks andagencies. He had saved some money, and had made one or two profitable
investments. He was enabled to take better apartments in the samebuilding he had occupied. He had few of the temptations of youth. Hisfear of poverty and his natural taste kept him from the speculative andmaterial excesses of the period. A distrust of his romantic weaknesskept him from society and meaner entanglements which might have besethis good looks and good nature. He worked in his rooms at night andforbore his old evening rambles.

  As the year wore on to the anniversary of his arrival, he thought muchof the dead man who had inspired his fortunes, and with it a sense ofhis old doubts and suspicions revived. His reason had obliged him toaccept the loss of the fateful portmanteau as an ordinary theft; hisinstinct remained unconvinced. There was no superstition connectedwith his loss. His own prosperity had not been impaired by it. On thecontrary, he reflected bitterly that the dead man had apparently diedonly to benefit others. At such times he recalled, with a pleasure thathe knew might become perilous, the tall English girl who had defendedDornton's memory and echoed his own sympathy. But that was all over now.

  One stormy night, not unlike that eventful one of his past experience,Randolph sought his rooms in the teeth of a southwest gale. As hebuffeted his way along the rain-washed pavement of Montgomery Street, itwas not strange that his thoughts reverted to that night and the memoryof his dead protector. But reaching his apartment, he sternly banishedthem with the vanished romance they revived, and lighting his lamp, laidout his papers in the prospect of an evening of uninterrupted work.He was surprised, however, after a little interval, by the sound ofuncertain and shuffling steps on the half-lighted passage outside, thenoise of some heavy article set down on the floor, and then a tentativeknock at his door. A little impatiently he called, "Come in."

  The door opened slowly, and out of the half obscurity of the passagea thickset figure lurched toward him into the full light of the room.Randolph half rose, and then sank back into his chair, awed, spellbound,and motionless. He saw the figure standing plainly before him; he sawdistinctly the familiar furniture of his room, the storm-twinklinglights in the windows opposite, the flash of passing carriage lamps inthe street below. But the figure before him was none other than the deadman of whom he had just been thinking.

  The figure looked at him intently, and then burst into a fit ofunmistakable laughter. It was neither loud nor unpleasant, and yetit provoked a disagreeable recollection. Nevertheless, it dissipatedRandolph's superstitious tremor, for he had never before heard of aghost who laughed heartily.

  "You don't remember me," said the man. "Belay there, and I'll freshenyour memory." He stepped back to the door, opened it, put his armout into the hall, and brought in a portmanteau, closed the door, andappeared before Randolph again with the portmanteau in his hand. It wasthe one that had been stolen. "There!" he said.

  "Captain Dornton," murmured Randolph.

  The man laughed again and flung down the portmanteau. "You've gotmy name pat enough, lad, I see; but I reckoned you'd have spotted MEwithout that portmanteau."

  "I see you've got it back," stammered Randolph in his embarrassment. "Itwas--stolen from me."

  Captain Dornton laughed again, dropped into a chair, rubbed his hands onhis knees, and turned his face toward Randolph. "Yes; I stole it--or hadit stolen--the same thing, for I'm responsible."

  "But I would have given it up to YOU at once," said Randolphreproachfully, clinging to the only idea he could understand in hisutter bewilderment. "I have religiously and faithfully kept it for you,with all its contents, ever since--you disappeared."

  "I know it, lad," said Captain Dornton, rising, and extending a brown,weather-beaten hand which closed heartily on the young man's; "no needto say that. And you've kept it even better than you know. Look here!"

  He lifted the portmanteau to his lap and disclosed BEHIND the usualsmall pouch or pocket in the lid a slit in the lining. "Between thelining and the outer leather," he went on grimly, "I had two or threebank notes that came to about a thousand dollars, and some papers, lad,that, reckoning by and large, might be worth to me a million. When I gotthat portmanteau back they were all there, gummed in, just as I had leftthem. I didn't show up and come for them myself, for I was lying low atthe time, and--no offense, lad--I didn't know how you stood with a partywho was no particular friend of mine. An old shipmate whom I set towatch that party quite accidentally run across your bows in the ferryboat, and heard enough to make him follow in your wake here, where hegot the portmanteau. It's all right," he said, with a laugh, wavingaside with his brown hand Randolph's protesting gesture. "The oldbag's only got back to its rightful owner. It mayn't have been got inshipshape 'Frisco style, but when a man's life is at stake, at least,when it's a question of his being considered dead or alive, he's got totake things as he finds 'em, and I found 'em d--- bad."

  In a flash of recollection Randolph remembered the obtruding miner onthe ferry boat, the same figure on the wharf corner, and the advantagetaken of his absence with Miss Avondale. And Miss Avondale was the"party" this man's shipmate was watching! He felt his face crimsoning,yet he dared not question him further, nor yet defend her. CaptainDornton noticed it, and with a friendly tact, which Randolph had notexpected of him, rising again, laid his hand gently on the young man'sshoulder.

  "Look here, lad," he said, with his pleasant smile; "don't you worryyour head about the ways or doings of the Dornton family, or any oftheir friends. They're a queer lot--including your humble servant.You've done the square thing accordin' to your lights. You've riddenstraight from start to finish, with no jockeying, and I shan't forgetit. There are only two men who haven't failed me when I trusted them.One was you when I gave you my portmanteau; the other was Jack Redhillwhen he stole it from you."

  He dropped back in his chair again, and laughed silently.

  "Then you did not fall overboard as they supposed," stammered Randolphat last.

  "Not much! But the next thing to it. It wasn't the water that I took inthat knocked me out, my lad, but something stronger. I was shanghaied."

  "Shanghaied?" repeated Randolph vacantly.

  "Yes, shanghaied! Hocused! Drugged at that gin mill on the wharf bya lot of crimps, who, mistaking me for a better man, shoved me,blind drunk and helpless, down the steps into a boat, and out to ashort-handed brig in the stream. When I came to I was outside the Heads,pointed for Guayaquil. When they found they'd captured, not a poor Jack,but a man who'd trod a quarterdeck, who knew, and was known at everyport on the trading line, and who could make it hot for them, they wereglad to compromise and set me ashore at Acapulco, and six weeks later Ilanded in 'Frisco."

  "Safe and sound, thank Heaven!" said Randolph joyously.

  "Not exactly, lad," said Captain Dornton grimly, "but dead and satupon by the coroner, and my body comfortably boxed up and on its way toEngland."

  "But that was nine months ago. What have you been doing since? Whydidn't you declare yourself then?" said Randolph impatiently, a littleirritated by the man's extreme indifference. He really talked like anamused spectator of his own misfortunes.

  "Steady, lad. I know what you're going to say. I know all that happened.But the first thing I found when I got back was that the shanghaibusiness had saved my life; that but for that I would have really beenoccupying that box on its way to England, instead of the poor devil whowas taken for me."

  A cold tremor passed over Randolph. Captain Dornton, however, wastolerantly smiling.

  "I don't understand," said Randolph breathlessly.

  Captain Dornton rose and, walking to the door, looked out into thepassage; then he shut the door carefully and returned, glancing aboutthe room and at the storm-washed windows. "I thought I heard some oneoutside. I'm lying low just now, and only go out at night, for I don'twant this thing blown before I'm ready. Got anything to drink here?"

  Randolph replied by taking a decanter of whiskey and glasses from acupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the samegentle but exasperating nonchalance, "Mind my smoking?"

  "Not at all," said Randolph,
pushing a cigar toward him. But the captainput it aside, drew from his pocket a short black clay pipe, stuffed itwith black "Cavendish plug," which he had first chipped off in thepalm of his hand with a large clasp knife, lighted it, and took a fewmeditative whiffs. Then, glancing at Randolph's papers, he said, "I'mnot keeping you from your work, lad?" and receiving a reply in thenegative, puffed at his pipe and once more settled himself comfortablyin his chair, with his dark, bearded profile toward Randolph.

  "You were saying just now you didn't understand," he went on slowly,without looking up; "so you must take your own bearings from whatI'm telling you. When I met you that night I had just arrived fromMelbourne. I had been lucky in some trading speculations I had outthere, and I had some bills with me, but no money except what I hadtucked in the skin of that portmanteau and a few papers connected withmy family at home. When a man lives the roving kind of life I have, helearns to keep all that he cares for under his own hat, and isn't aptto blab to friends. But it got out in some way on the voyage that I hadmoney, and as there was a mixed lot of 'Sydney ducks' and 'ticket ofleave men' on board, it seems they hatched a nice little plot to waylayme on the wharf on landing, rob me, and drop me into deep water. To makeit seem less suspicious, they associated themselves with a lot of crimpswho were on the lookout for our sailors, who were going ashore thatnight too. I'd my suspicions that a couple of those men might be waitingfor me at the end of the wharf. I left the ship just a minute or twobefore the sailors did. Then I met you. That meeting, my lad, wasmy first step toward salvation. For the two men let you pass with myportmanteau, which they didn't recognize, as I knew they would ME, andsupposed you were a stranger, and lay low, waiting for me. I, who wentinto the gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink,and was drugged and crimped as they were. I hadn't thought of that. Apoor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked downfor me, and," he added, suppressing a laugh, "will be buried, deeplylamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on,the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream,and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what theythought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope thatthe crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailorwitnesses. But my brother Bill, who had just arrived here from Callao,where he had been hunting for me, hushed it up to prevent a scandal.All the same, Bill might have known the body wasn't mine, even though hehadn't seen me for years."

  "But it was frightfully disfigured, so that even I, who saw you onlyonce, could not have sworn it was NOT you," said Randolph quickly.

  "Humph!" said Captain Dornton musingly. "Bill may have acted on thesquare--though he was in a d----d hurry."

  "But," said Randolph eagerly, "you will put an end to all this now. Youwill assert yourself. You have witnesses to prove your identity."

  "Steady, lad," said the captain, waving his pipe gently. "Of course Ihave. But"--he stopped, laid down his pipe, and put his hands doggedlyin his pockets--"IS IT WORTH IT?" Seeing the look of amazement inRandolph's face, he laughed his low laugh, and settled himself back inhis chair again. "No," he said quietly, "if it wasn't for my son, andwhat's due him as my heir, I suppose--I reckon I'd just chuck the wholed----d thing."

  "What!" said Randolph. "Give up the property, the title, the familyhonor, the wrong done to your reputation, the punishment"--He hesitated,fearing he had gone too far.

  Captain Dornton withdrew his pipe from his mouth with a gesture ofcaution, and holding it up, said: "Steady, lad. We'll come to THAT byand by. As to the property and title, I cut and run from THEM tenyears ago. To me they meant only the old thing--the life of a countrygentleman, the hunting, the shooting, the whole beastly business thatthe land, over there, hangs like a millstone round your neck. They meantall this to me, who loved adventure and the sea from my cradle. I cutthe property, for I hated it, and I hate it still. If I went back Ishould hear the sea calling me day and night; I should feel the breathof the southwest trades in every wind that blew over that tight littleisland yonder; I should be always scenting the old trail, lad, the trailthat leads straight out of the Gate to swoop down to the South Seas. Doyou think a man who has felt his ship's bows heave and plunge under himin the long Pacific swell--just ahead of him a reef breaking white intothe lagoon, and beyond a fence of feathery palms--cares to follow houndsover gray hedges under a gray November sky? And the society? A man who'sgot a speaking acquaintance in every port from Acapulco to Melbourne,who knows every den and every longshoreman in it from a South Americantienda to a Samoan beach-comber's hut,--what does he want with society?"He paused as Randolph's eyes were fixed wonderingly on the first signof emotion on his weather-beaten face, which seemed for a moment to glowwith the strength and freshness of the sea, and then said, with a laugh:"You stare, lad. Well, for all the Dorntons are rather proud of theirfamily, like as not there was some beastly old Danish pirate among themlong ago, and I've got a taste of his blood in me. But I'm not quite asbad as that yet."

  He laughed, and carelessly went on: "As to the family honor, I don'tsee that it will be helped by my ripping up the whole thing and perhapsshowing that Bill was a little too previous in identifying me. As to myreputation, that was gone after I left home, and if I hadn't been thelegal heir they wouldn't have bothered their heads about me. My fatherhad given me up long ago, and there isn't a man, woman, or child thatwouldn't now welcome Bill in my place."

  "There is one who wouldn't," said Randolph impulsively.

  "You mean Caroline Avondale?" said Captain Dornton dryly.

  Randolph colored. "No; I mean Miss Eversleigh, who was with yourbrother."

  Captain Dornton reflected. "To be sure! Sibyl Eversleigh! I haven't seenher since she was so high. I used to call her my little sweetheart. SoSybby remembered Cousin Jack and came to find him? But when did youmeet her?" he asked suddenly, as if this was the only detail of the pastwhich had escaped him, fixing his frank eyes upon Randolph.

  The young man recounted at some length the dinner party at Dingwall's,his conversation with Miss Eversleigh, and his interview with SirWilliam, but spoke little of Miss Avondale. To his surprise, the captainlistened smilingly, and only said: "That was like Billy to take a riseout of you by pretending you were suspected. That's his way--a littlerough when you don't know him and he's got a little grog amidships. Allthe same, I'd have given something to have heard him 'running' you, whenall the while you had the biggest bulge on him, only neither of youknew it." He laughed again, until Randolph, amazed at his levity andindifference, lost his patience.

  "Do you know," he said bluntly, "that they don't believe you werelegally married?"

  But Captain Dornton only continued to laugh, until, seeing hiscompanion's horrified face, he became demure. "I suppose Bill didn't,for Bill had sense enough to know that otherwise he would have to take aback seat to Bobby."

  "But did Miss Avondale know you were legally married, and that your sonwas the heir?" asked Randolph bluntly.

  "She had no reason to suspect otherwise, although we were marriedsecretly. She was an old friend of my wife, not particularly of mine."

  Randolph sat back amazed and horrified. Those were HER own words. Or wasthis man deceiving him as the others had?

  But the captain, eying him curiously, but still amusedly, added: "I eventhought of bringing her as one of my witnesses, until"--

  "Until what?" asked Randolph quickly, as he saw the captain hadhesitated.

  "Until I found she wasn't to be trusted; until I found she was too thickwith Bill," said the captain bluntly. "And now she's gone to Englandwith him and the boy, I suppose she'll make him come to terms."

  "Come to terms?" echoed Randolph. "I don't understand." Yet he had aninstinctive fear that he did.

  "Well," said the captain slowly, "suppose she might prefer the chance ofbeing the wife of a grown-up baronet to being the governess of one whowas only a minor? She's a cute girl," he added dryly.

  "But," said Randolph indignantly, "you
have other witnesses, I hope."

  "Of course I have. I've got the Spanish records now from the Callaopriest, and they're put in a safe place should anything happen to me--ifanything could happen to a dead man!" he added grimly. "These proofswere all I was waiting for before I made up my mind whether I shouldblow the whole thing, or let it slide."

  Randolph looked again with amazement at this strange man who seemed soindifferent to the claims of wealth, position, and even to revenge. Itseemed inconceivable, and yet he could not help being impressed with hisperfect sincerity. He was relieved, however, when Captain Dornton rosewith apparent reluctance and put away his pipe.

  "Now look here, my lad, I'm right glad to have overhauled you again,whatever happened or is going to happen, and there's my hand upon it!Now, to come to business. I'm going over to England on this job, and Iwant you to come and help me."

  Randolph's heart leaped. The appeal revived all his old boyishenthusiasm, with his secret loyalty to the man before him. But hesuddenly remembered his past illusions, and for an instant he hesitated.

  "But the bank," he stammered, scarce knowing what to say.

  The captain smiled. "I will pay you better than the bank; and at the endof four months, in whatever way this job turns out, if you still wish toreturn here, I will see that you are secured from any loss. Perhaps youmay be able to get a leave of absence. But your real object must be kepta secret from every one. Not a word of my existence or my purpose mustbe blown before I am ready. You and Jack Redhill are all that know itnow."

  "But you have a lawyer?" said the surprised Randolph.

  "Not yet. I'm my own lawyer in this matter until I get fairly under way.I've studied the law enough to know that as soon as I prove that I'malive the case must go on on account of my heir, whether I choose to cryquits or not. And it's just THAT that holds my hand."

  Randolph stared at the extraordinary man before him. For a moment, asthe strange story of his miraculous escape and his still more wonderfulindifference to it all recurred to his mind, he felt a doubt of thenarrator's truthfulness or his sanity. But another glance at thesailor's frank eyes dispelled that momentary suspicion. He held out hishand as frankly, and grasping Captain Dornton's, said, "I will go."

  V

  Randolph's request for a four months' leave of absence was granted withlittle objection and no curiosity. He had acquired the confidence of hisemployers, and beyond Mr. Revelstoke's curt surprise that a young fellowon the road to fortune should sacrifice so much time to irrelevanttravel, and the remark, "But you know your own business best," there wasno comment. It struck the young man, however, that Mr. Dingwall's slightcoolness on receiving the news might be attributed to a suspicion thathe was following Miss Avondale, whom he had fancied Dingwall disliked,and he quickly made certain inquiries in regard to Miss Eversleigh andthe possibility of his meeting her. As, without intending it, and to hisown surprise, he achieved a blush in so doing, which Dingwall noted, hereceived a gracious reply, and the suggestion that it was "quite proper"for him, on arriving, to send the young lady his card.

  Captain Dornton, under the alias of "Captain Johns," was ready to catchthe next steamer to the Isthmus, and in two days they sailed. The voyagewas uneventful, and if Randolph had expected any enthusiasm on the partof the captain in the mission on which he was now fairly launched, hewould have been disappointed. Although his frankness was unchanged, hevolunteered no confidences. It was evident he was fully acquainted withthe legal strength of his claim, yet he, as evidently, deferred makingany plan of redress until he reached England. Of Miss Eversleigh he wasmore communicative. "You would have liked her better, my lad, it youhadn't been bewitched by the Avondale woman, for she is the whitest ofthe Dorntons." In vain Randolph protested truthfully, yet with an evenmore convincing color, that it had made no difference, and he HADliked her. The captain laughed. "Ay, lad! But she's a poor orphan, withscarcely a hundred pounds a year, who lives with her guardian, anold clergyman. And yet," he added grimly, "there are only three livesbetween her and the property--mine, Bobby's, and Bill's--unless HEshould marry and have an heir."

  "The more reason why you should assert yourself and do what you can forher now," said Randolph eagerly.

  "Ay," returned the captain, with his usual laugh, "when she was a childI used to call her my little sweetheart, and gave her a ring, and Ireckon I promised to marry her, too, when she grew up."

  The truthful Randolph would have told him of Miss Evereleigh's gift,but unfortunately he felt himself again blushing, and fearful lest thecaptain would misconstrue his confusion, he said nothing.

  Except on this occasion, the captain talked with Randolph chiefly of hislater past,--of voyages he had made, of places they were passing, andports they visited. He spent much of the time with the officers, andeven the crew, over whom he seemed to exercise a singular power,and with whom he exhibited an odd freemasonry. To Randolph's eyes heappeared to grow in strength and stature in the salt breath of the sea,and although he was uniformly kind, even affectionate, to him, he wasbrusque to the other passengers, and at times even with his friends thesailors. Randolph sometimes wondered how he would treat a crew of hisown. He found some answer to that question in the captain's manner toJack Redhill, the abstractor of the portmanteau, and his old shipmate,who was accompanying the captain in some dependent capacity, but whoreceived his master's confidences and orders with respectful devotion.

  It was a cold, foggy morning, nearly two months later, that they landedat Plymouth. The English coast had been a vague blank all night, onlypierced, long hours apart, by dim star-points or weird yellow beaconflashes against the horizon. And this vagueness and unreality increasedon landing, until it seemed to Randolph that they had slipped into aland of dreams. The illusion was kept up as they walked in the weirdshadows through half-lit streets into a murky railway station throbbingwith steam and sudden angry flashes in the darkness, and then drew awayinto what ought to have been the open country, but was only gray plainsof mist against a lost horizon. Sometimes even the vague outlook wasobliterated by passing trains coming from nowhere and slipping intonothingness. As they crept along with the day, without, however, anylightening of the opaque vault overhead to mark its meridian, therecame at times a thinning of the gray wall on either side of the track,showing the vague bulk of a distant hill, the battlemented sky line ofan old-time hall, or the spires of a cathedral, but always melting backinto the mist again as in a dream. Then vague stretches of gloomagain, foggy stations obscured by nebulous light and blurred and movingfigures, and the black relief of a tunnel. Only once the captain,catching sight of Randolph's awed face under the lamp of the smokingcarriage, gave way to his long, low laugh. "Jolly place, England--sovery 'Merrie.'" And then they came to a comparatively lighter, broader,and more brilliantly signaled tunnel filled with people, and as theyremained in it, Randolph was told it was London. With the sensationof being only half awake, he was guided and put into a cab by hiscompanion, and seemed to be completely roused only at the hotel.

  It had been arranged that Randolph should first go down to Chillingworthrectory and call on Miss Eversleigh, and, without disclosing hissecret, gather the latest news from Dornton Hall, only a few miles fromChillingworth. For this purpose he had telegraphed to her that evening,and had received a cordial response. The next morning he arose early,and, in spite of the gloom, in the glow of his youthful optimism enteredthe bedroom of the sleeping Captain Dornton, and shook him by theshoulder in lieu of the accolade, saying: "Rise, Sir John Dornton!"

  The captain, a light sleeper, awoke quickly. "Thank you, my lad, all thesame, though I don't know that I'm quite ready yet to tumble up to thatkind of piping. There's a rotten old saying in the family that onlyonce in a hundred years the eldest son succeeds. That's why Bill was sococksure, I reckon. Well?"

  "In an hour I'm off to Chillingworth to begin the campaign," saidRandolph cheerily.

  "Luck to you, my boy, whatever happens. Clap a stopper on your jaws,though, now and then. I'm glad yo
u like Sybby, but I don't want you tolike her so much as to forget yourself and give me away."

  Half an hour out of London the fog grew thinner, breaking into lace-likeshreds in the woods as the train sped by, or expanding into lustroustenuity above him. Although the trees were leafless, there was somerecompense in the glimpses their bare boughs afforded of clusteringchimneys and gables nestling in ivy. An infinite repose had been laidupon the landscape with the withdrawal of the fog, as of a veil liftedfrom the face of a sleeper. All his boyish dreams of the mother countrycame back to him in the books he had read, and re-peopled the vastsilence. Even the rotting leaves that lay thick in the crypt-like woodsseemed to him the dead laurels of its past heroes and sages. Quaintold-time villages, thatched roofs, the ever-recurring square towers ofchurch or hall, the trim, ordered parks, tiny streams crossed by heavystone bridges much too large for them--all these were only pages ofthose books whose leaves he seemed to be turning over. Two hours of thisfancy, and then the train stopped at a station within a mile or two ofa bleak headland, a beacon, and the gray wash of a pewter-colored sea,where a hilly village street climbed to a Norman church tower and theivied gables of a rectory.

  Miss Eversleigh, dignifiedly tall, but youthfully frank, as heremembered her, was waiting to drive him in a pony trap to the rectory.A little pink, with suppressed consciousness and the responsibilities ofpresenting a stranger guest to her guardian, she seemed to Randolph morecharming than ever.

  But her first word of news shocked and held him breathless. Bobby, thelittle orphan, a frail exotic, had succumbed to the Northern winter. Acold caught in New York had developed into pneumonia, and he died on thepassage. Miss Avondale, although she had received marked attention fromSir William, returned to America in the same ship.

  "I really don't think she was quite as devoted to the poor child as allthat, you know," she continued with innocent frankness, "and Cousin Billwas certainly most kind to them both, yet there really seemed to be somecoolness between them after the child's death. But," she added suddenly,for the first time observing her companion's evident distress, andcoloring in confusion, "I beg your pardon--I've been horribly rude andheartless. I dare say the poor boy was very dear to you, and of courseMiss Avondale was your friend. Please forgive me!"

  Randolph, intent only on that catastrophe which seemed to wreck allCaptain Dornton's hopes and blunt his only purpose for declaringhimself, hurriedly reassured her, yet was not sorry his agitation hadbeen misunderstood. And what was to be done? There was no train back toLondon for four hours. He dare not telegraph, and if he did, could hetrust to his strange patron's wise conduct under the first shock of thisnews to his present vacillating purpose? He could only wait.

  Luckily for his ungallant abstraction, they were speedily at therectory, where a warm welcome from Mr. Brunton, Sibyl's guardian, andhis family forced him to recover himself, and showed him that thestory of his devotion to John Dornton had suffered nothing from MissEversleigh's recital. Distraught and anxious as he was, he could notresist the young girl's offer after luncheon to show him the church withthe vault of the Dorntons and the tablet erected to John Dornton, and,later, the Hall, only two miles distant. But here Randolph hesitated.

  "I would rather not call on Sir William to-day," he said.

  "You need not. He is over at the horse show at Fern Dyke, and won't beback till late. And if he has been forgathering with his boon companionshe won't be very pleasant company."

  "Sibyl!" said the rector in good-humored protest.

  "Oh, Mr. Trent has had a little of Cousin Bill's convivial mannersbefore now," said the young girl vivaciously, "and isn't shocked. But wecan see the Hall from the park on our way to the station."

  Even in his anxious preoccupation he could see that the church itselfwas a quaint and wonderful preservation of the past. For four centuriesit had been sacred to the tombs of the Dorntons and their effigies inbrass and marble, yet, as Randolph glanced at the stately sarcophagus ofthe unknown ticket of leave man, its complacent absurdity, combined withhis nervousness, made him almost hysterical. Yet again, it seemed to himthat something of the mystery and inviolability of the past now investedthat degraded dust, and it would be an equal impiety to disturb it. MissEversleigh, again believing his agitation caused by the memory ofhis old patron, tactfully hurried him away. Yet it was a more bitterthought, I fear, that not only were his lips sealed to his charmingcompanion on the subject in which they could sympathize, but his anxietyprevented him from availing himself of that interview to exchange thelighter confidences he had eagerly looked forward to. It seemed cruelthat he was debarred this chance of knitting their friendship closer byanother of those accidents that had brought them together. And he wasaware that his gloomy abstraction was noticed by her. At first shedrew herself up in a certain proud reserve, and then, perhaps, his ownnervousness infecting her in turn, he was at last terrified to observethat, as she stood before the tomb, her clear gray eyes filled withtears.

  "Oh, please don't do that--THERE, Miss Eversleigh," he burst outimpulsively.

  "I was thinking of Cousin Jack," she said, a little startled at hisabruptness. "Sometimes it seems so strange that he is dead--I scarcelycan believe it."

  "I meant," stammered Randolph, "that he is much happier--you know"--hegrew almost hysterical again as he thought of the captain lyingcheerfully in his bed at the hotel--"much happier than you or I," headded bitterly; "that is--I mean, it grieves me so to see YOU grieve,you know."

  Miss Eversleigh did NOT know, but there was enough sincerity and realfeeling in the young fellow's voice and eyes to make her color slightlyand hurry him away to a locality less fraught with emotions. In a fewmoments they entered the park, and the old Hall rose before them. It wasa great Tudor house of mullioned windows, traceries, and battlements; ofstately towers, moss-grown balustrades, and statues darkening with thefog that was already hiding the angles and wings of its huge bulk. Apeacock spread its ostentatious tail on the broad stone steps before theportal; a flight of rooks from the leafless elms rose above its stackedand twisted chimneys. After all, how little had this stately incarnationof the vested rights and sacred tenures of the past in common with thelaughing rover he had left in London that morning! And thinking of thedestinies that the captain held so lightly in his hand, and perhaps nota little of the absurdity of his own position to the confiding younggirl beside him, for a moment he half hated him.

  The fog deepened as they reached the station, and, as it seemed toRandolph, made their parting still more vague and indefinite, and itwas with difficulty that he could respond to the young girl's frank hopethat he would soon return to them. Yet he half resolved that he wouldnot until he could tell her all.

  Nevertheless, as the train crept more and more slowly, with haltingsignals, toward London, he buoyed himself up with the hope that CaptainDornton would still try conclusions for his patrimony, or at least cometo some compromise by which he might be restored to his rank and name.But upon these hopes the vision of that great house settled firmly uponits lands, held there in perpetuity by the dead and stretched-out handsof those that lay beneath its soil, always obtruded itself. Then thefog deepened, and the crawling train came to a dead stop at the nextstation. The whole line was blocked. Four precious hours were hopelesslylost.

  Yet despite his impatience, he reentered London with the same dazedsemi-consciousness of feeling as on the night he had first arrived.There seemed to have been no interim; his visit to the rectory and Hall,and even his fateful news, were only a dream. He drove through the sameshadow to the hotel, was received by the same halo-encircled lights thathad never been put out. After glancing through the halls and readingroom he hurriedly made his way to his companion's room. The captain wasnot there. He quickly summoned the waiter. The gentleman? Yes; CaptainDornton had left with his servant, Redhill, a few hours after Mr. Trentwent away. He had left no message.

  Again condemned to wait in inactivity, Randolph tried to resist acertain uneasiness that was creeping over him,
by attributing thecaptain's absence to some unexpected legal consultation or the gatheringof evidence, his prolonged detention being due to the same fog that haddelayed his own train. But he was somewhat surprised to find that thecaptain had ordered his luggage into the porter's care in the hall belowbefore leaving, and that nothing remained in his room but a few toiletarticles and the fateful portmanteau. The hours passed slowly. Owing tothat perpetual twilight in which he had passed the day, there seemedno perceptible flight of time, and at eleven o'clock, the captain notarriving, he determined to wait in the latter's room so as to be surenot to miss him. Twelve o'clock boomed from an adjacent invisiblesteeple, but still he came not. Overcome by the fatigue and excitementof the day, Randolph concluded to lie down in his clothes onthe captain's bed, not without a superstitious and uncomfortablerecollection of that night, about a year before, when he had awaitedhim vainly at the San Francisco hotel. Even the fateful portmanteau wasthere to assist his gloomy fancy. Nevertheless, with the boom of oneo'clock in his drowsy ears as his last coherent recollection, he sankinto a dreamless sleep.

  He was awakened by a tapping at his door, and jumped up to realize byhis watch and the still burning gaslight that it was nine o'clock. Butthe intruder was only a waiter with a letter which he had brought toRandolph's room in obedience to the instructions the latter hadgiven overnight. Not doubting it was from the captain, although thehandwriting of the address was unfamiliar, he eagerly broke the seal.But he was surprised to read as follows:--

  DEAR MR. TRENT,--We had such sad news from the Hall after you left.Sir William was seized with a kind of fit. It appears that he had justreturned from the horse show, and had given his mare to the groom whilehe walked to the garden entrance. The groom saw him turn at the yewhedge, and was driving to the stables when he heard a queer kind of cry,and turning back to the garden front, found poor Sir William lying onthe ground in convulsions. The doctor was sent for, and Mr. Bruntonand I went over to the Hall. The doctor thinks it was something like astroke, but he is not certain, and Sir William is quite delirious, anddoesn't recognize anybody. I gathered from the groom that he had beenDRINKING HEAVILY. Perhaps it was well that you did not see him, but Ithought you ought to know what had happened in case you came down again.It's all very dreadful, and I wonder if that is why I was so nervous allthe afternoon. It may have been a kind of presentiment. Don't you thinkso?

  Yours faithfully,

  SIBYL EVERSLEIGH.

  I am afraid Randolph thought more of the simple-minded girl who, in themidst of her excitement, turned to him half unconsciously, than he didof Sir William. Had it not been for the necessity of seeing the captain,he would probably have taken the next train to the rectory. Perhapshe might later. He thought little of Sir William's illness, and wasinclined to accept the young girl's naive suggestion of its cause.He read and reread the letter, staring at the large, grave, childlikehandwriting--so like herself--and obeying a sudden impulse, raised thesignature, as gravely as if it had been her hand, to his lips.

  Still the day advanced and the captain came not. Randolph found theinactivity insupportable. He knew not where to seek him; he had nomore clue to his resorts or his friends--if, indeed, he had anyin London--than he had after their memorable first meeting in SanFrancisco. He might, indeed, be the dupe of an impostor, who, at theeleventh hour, had turned craven and fled. He might be, in the captain'sindifference, a mere instrument set aside at his pleasure. Yet he couldtake advantage of Miss Eversleigh's letter and seek her, and confesseverything, and ask her advice. It was a great and at the moment itseemed to him an overwhelming temptation. But only for the moment.He had given his word to the captain--more, he had given his youthfulFAITH. And, to his credit, he never swerved again. It seemed to him,too, in his youthful superstition, as he looked at the abandonedportmanteau, that he had again to take up his burden--his "trust."

  It was nearly four o'clock when the spell was broken. A large packet,bearing the printed address of a London and American bank, was broughtto him by a special messenger; but the written direction was inthe captain's hand. Randolph tore it open. It contained one or twoinclosures, which he hastily put aside for the letter, two pages offoolscap, which he read breathlessly:--

  DEAR TRENT,--Don't worry your head if I have slipped my cable withouttelling you. I'm all right, only I got the news you are bringing me,JUST AFTER YOU LEFT, by Jack Redhill, whom I had sent to Dornton Hallto see how the land lay the night before. It was not that I didn't trustYOU, but HE had ways of getting news that you wouldn't stoop to. Youcan guess, from what I have told you already, that, now Bobby is gone,there's nothing to keep me here, and I'm following my own idea ofletting the whole blasted thing slide. I only worked this racket forthe sake of him. I'm sorry for him, but I suppose the poor little beggarcouldn't stand these sunless, God-forsaken longitudes any more thanI could. Besides that, as I didn't want to trust any lawyer with mysecret, I myself had hunted up some books on the matter, and found that,by the law of entail, I'd have to rip up the whole blessed thing, andBill would have had to pay back every blessed cent of what rents he hadcollected since he took hold--not to ME, but the ESTATE--with interest,and that no arrangement I could make with HIM would be legal on accountof the boy. At least, that's the way the thing seemed to pan out to me.So that when I heard of Bobby's death I was glad to jump the rest, andthat's what I made up my mind to do.

  But, like a blasted lubber, now that I COULD do it and cut right away,I must needs think that I'd like first to see Bill on the sly, withoutletting on to any one else, and tell him what I was going to do. I'd nofear that he'd object, or that he'd hesitate a minute to fall in with myplan of dropping my name and my game, and giving him full swing, while Istood out to sea and the South Pacific, and dropped out of his mess forthe rest of my life. Perhaps I wanted to set his mind at rest, if he'dever had any doubts; perhaps I wanted to have a little fun out of himfor his d----d previousness; perhaps, lad, I had a hankering to see theold place for the last time. At any rate, I allowed to go to DorntonHall. I timed myself to get there about the hour you left, to keepout of sight until I knew he was returning from the horse show, and towaylay him ALONE and have our little talk without witnesses. I daren'tgo to the Hall, for some of the old servants might recognize me.

  I went down there with Jack Redhill, and we separated at the station. Ihung around in the fog. I even saw you pass with Sibyl in the dogcart,but you didn't see me. I knew the place, and just where to hide whereI could have the chance of seeing him alone. But it was a beastly jobwaiting there. I felt like a d----d thief instead of a man who wassimply visiting his own. Yet, you mayn't believe me, lad, but I hatedthe place and all it meant more than ever. Then, by and by, I heard himcoming. I had arranged it all with myself to get into the yew hedge, andstep out as he came to the garden entrance, and as soon as he recognizedme to get him round the terrace into the summer house, where we couldspeak without danger.

  I heard the groom drive away to the stable with the cart, and, sureenough, in a minute he came lurching along toward the garden door. Hewas mighty unsteady on his pins, and I reckon he was more than halffull, which was a bad lookout for our confab. But I calculated that thesight of me, when I slipped out, would sober him. And, by ---, itdid! For his eyes bulged out of his head and got fixed there; his jawdropped; he tried to strike at me with a hunting crop he was carrying,and then he uttered an ungodly yell you might have heard at the station,and dropped down in his tracks. I had just time to slip back into thehedge again before the groom came driving back, and then all hands werepiped, and they took him into the house.

  And of course the game was up, and I lost my only chance. I was thankfulenough to get clean away without discovering myself, and I have to trustnow to the fact of Bill's being drunk, and thinking it was my ghost thathe saw, in a touch of the jimjams! And I'm not sorry to have given himthat start, for there was that in his eye, and that in the stroke hemade, my lad, that showed a guilty conscience I hadn't reckoned on. Andit cured me of my wish to set
his mind at ease. He's welcome to all therest.

  And that's why I'm going away--never to return. I'm sorry I couldn'ttake you with me, but it's better that I shouldn't see you again, andthat you didn't even know WHERE I was gone. When you get this I shallbe on blue water and heading for the sunshine. You'll find two lettersinclosed. One you need not open unless you hear that my secret wasblown, and you are ever called upon to explain your relations with me.The other is my thanks, my lad, in a letter of credit on the bank, forthe way you have kept your trust, and I believe will continue to keepit, to

  JOHN DORNTON.

  P.S. I hope you dropped a tear over my swell tomb at Dornton Church.All the same, I don't begrudge it to the poor devil who lost his lifeinstead of me.

  J. D.

  As Randolph read, he seemed to hear the captain's voice throughout theletter, and even his low, characteristic laugh in the postscript. Thenhe suddenly remembered the luggage which the porter had said the captainhad ordered to be taken below; but on asking that functionary he wastold a conveyance for the Victoria Docks had called with an order, andtaken it away at daybreak. It was evident that the captain had intendedthe letter should be his only farewell. Depressed and a little hurtat his patron's abruptness, Randolph returned to his room. Opening theletter of credit, he found it was for a thousand pounds--a munificentbeneficence, as it seemed to Randolph, for his dubious services, anda proof of his patron's frequent declarations that he had money enoughwithout touching the Dornton estates.

  For a long time he sat with these sole evidences of the reality of hisexperience in his hands, a prey to a thousand surmises and conflictingthoughts. Was he the self-deceived disciple of a visionary, a generous,unselfish, but weak man, whose eccentricity passed even the bounds ofreason? Who would believe the captain's story or the captain's motives?Who comprehend his strange quest and its stranger and almost ridiculoustermination? Even if the seal of secrecy were removed in after years,what had he, Randolph, to show in corroboration of his patron's claim?

  Then it occurred to him that there was no reason why he should not godown to the rectory and see Miss Eversleigh again under pretense ofinquiring after the luckless baronet, whose title and fortune had,nevertheless, been so strangely preserved. He began at once hispreparations for the journey, and was nearly ready when a servantentered with a telegram. Randolph's heart leaped. The captain had senthim news--perhaps had changed his mind! He tore off the yellow cover,and read,--

  Sir William died at twelve o'clock without recovering consciousness.

  S. EVERSLEIGH.

  VI

  For a moment Randolph gazed at the dispatch with a half-hystericallaugh, and then became as suddenly sane and cool. One thought alone wasuppermost in his mind: the captain could not have heard this news yet,and if he was still within reach, or accessible by any means whatever,however determined his purpose, he must know it at once. The only clueto his whereabouts was the Victoria Docks. But that was something. Inanother moment Randolph was in the lower hall, had learned the quickestway of reaching the docks, and plunged into the street.

  The fog here swooped down, and to the embarrassment of his mind wasadded the obscurity of light and distance, which halted him after a fewhurried steps, in utter perplexity. Indistinct figures were here andthere approaching him out of nothingness and melting away again into thegreenish gray chaos. He was in a busy thoroughfare; he could hear theslow trample of hoofs, the dull crawling of vehicles, and the warningoutcries of a traffic he could not see. Trusting rather to his own speedthan that of a halting conveyance, he blundered on until he reachedthe railway station. A short but exasperating journey of impulses andhesitations, of detonating signals and warning whistles, and he at laststood on the docks, beyond him a vague bulk or two, and a soft, opaqueflowing wall--the river!

  But one steamer had left that day--the Dom Pedro, for the RiverPlate--two hours before, but until the fog thickened, a quarter of anhour ago, she could be seen, so his informant said, still lying, withsteam up, in midstream. Yes, it was still possible to board her. Buteven as the boatman spoke, and was leading the way toward the landingsteps, the fog suddenly lightened; a soft salt breath stole in from thedistant sea, and a veil seemed to be lifted from the face of the graywaters. The outlines of the two shores came back; the spars of nearervessels showed distinctly, but the space where the huge hulk had restedwas empty and void. There was a trail of something darker and moreopaque than fog itself lying near the surface of the water, but the DomPedro was a mere speck in the broadening distance.

  A bright sun and a keen easterly wind were revealing the curling ridgesof the sea beyond the headland when Randolph again passed the gates ofDornton Hall on his way to the rectory. Now, for the first time, he wasable to see clearly the outlines of that spot which had seemed to himonly a misty dream, and even in his preoccupation he was struck by itsgrave beauty. The leafless limes and elms in the park grouped themselvesas part of the picturesque details of the Hall they encompassed, andthe evergreen slope of firs and larches rose as a background to thegray battlements, covered with dark green ivy, whose rich shadows werebrought out by the unwonted sunshine. With a half-repugnant curiosity hehad tried to identify the garden entrance and the fateful yew hedge thecaptain had spoken of as he passed. But as quickly he fell back upon theresolution he had taken in coming there--to dissociate his secret, hisexperience, and his responsibility to his patron from his relationsto Sibyl Eversleigh; to enjoy her companionship without an obtrudingthought of the strange circumstances that had brought them togetherat first, or the stranger fortune that had later renewed theiracquaintance. He had resolved to think of her as if she had merelypassed into his life in the casual ways of society, with only herpersonal charms to set her apart from others. Why should his exclusivepossession of a secret--which, even if confided to her, would only giveher needless and hopeless anxiety--debar them from an exchange of thoseother confidences of youth and sympathy? Why could he not love her andyet withhold from her the knowledge of her cousin's existence? So he haddetermined to make the most of his opportunity during his brief holiday;to avail himself of her naive invitation, and even of what he daredsometimes to think was her predilection for his companionship. And if,before he left, he had acquired a right to look forward to a timewhen her future and his should be one--but here his glowing fancy wasabruptly checked by his arrival at the rectory door.

  Mr. Brunton received him cordially, yet with a slight businesspreoccupation and a certain air of importance that struck him aspeculiar. Sibyl, he informed him, was engaged at that moment with somefriends who had come over from the Hall. Mr. Trent would understand thatthere was a great deal for her to do--in her present position.Wondering why SHE should be selected to do it instead of older and moreexperienced persons, Randolph, however, contented himself with inquiriesregarding the details of Sir William's seizure and death. He learned, ashe expected, that nothing whatever was known of the captain's visit, norwas there the least suspicion that the baronet's attack was the resultof any predisposing emotion. Indeed, it seemed more possible that hismedical attendants, knowing something of his late excesses and theireffect upon his constitution, preferred, for the sake of avoidingscandal, to attribute the attack to long-standing organic disease.

  Randolph, who had already determined, as a forlorn hope, to writea cautious letter to the captain (informing him briefly of the newswithout betraying his secret, and directed to the care of the consigneesof the Dom Pedro in Brazil, by the next post), was glad to be able toadd this medical opinion to relieve his patron's mind of any fear ofhaving hastened his brother's death by his innocent appearance. But herethe entrance of Sibyl Eversleigh with her friends drove all else fromhis mind.

  She looked so tall and graceful in her black dress, which set off herdazzling skin, and, with her youthful gravity, gave to her figure thecharming maturity of a young widow, that he was for a moment awed andembarrassed. But he experienced a relief when she came eagerly towardhim in all her old girlish frankness, and with
even something ofyearning expectation in her gray eyes.

  "It was so good of you to come," she said. "I thought you would imaginehow I was feeling"--She stopped, as if she were conscious, as Randolphwas, of a certain chill of unresponsiveness in the company, and saidin an undertone, "Wait until we are alone." Then, turning with a slightcolor and a pretty dignity toward her friends, she continued: "LadyAshbrook, this is Mr. Trent, an old friend of both my cousins when theywere in America."

  In spite of the gracious response of the ladies, Randolph was awareof their critical scrutiny of both himself and Miss Eversleigh, ofthe exchange of significant glances, and a certain stiffness inher guardian's manner. It was quite enough to affect Randolph'ssensitiveness and bring out his own reserve.

  Fancying, however, that his reticence disturbed Miss Eversleigh, heforced himself to converse with Lady Ashbrook--avoiding many of herpointed queries as to himself, his acquaintance with Sibyl, and thelength of time he expected to stay in England--and even accompanied herto her carriage. And here he was rewarded by Sibyl running out with acrape veil twisted round her throat and head, and the usual femininelyforgotten final message to her visitor. As the carriage drove away, sheturned to Randolph, and said quickly,--

  "Let us go in by way of the garden."

  It was a slight detour, but it gave them a few moments alone.

  "It was so awful and sudden," she said, looking gravely at Randolph,"and to think that only an hour before I had been saying unkind thingsof him! Of course," she added naively, "they were true, and the groomadmitted to me that the mare was overdriven and Sir William couldhardly stand. And only to think of it! he never recovered completeconsciousness, but muttered incoherently all the time. I was with him tothe last, and he never said a word I could understand--only once."

  "What did he say?" asked Randolph uneasily.

  "I don't like to say--it was TOO dreadful!"

  Randolph did not press her. Yet, after a pause, she said in a low voice,with a naivete impossible to describe, "It was, 'Jack, damn you!'"

  He did not dare to look at her, even with this grim mingling of farceand tragedy which seemed to invest every scene of that sordid drama.Miss Eversleigh continued gravely: "The groom's name was Robert, butJack might have been the name of one of his boon companions."

  Convinced that she suspected nothing, yet in the hope of changing thesubject, Randolph said quietly: "I thought your guardian perhaps alittle less frank and communicative to-day."

  "Yes," said the young girl suddenly, with a certain impatience, andyet in half apology to her companion, "of course. He--THEY--all andeverybody--are much more concerned and anxious about my new positionthan I am. It's perfectly dreadful--this thinking of it all the time,arranging everything, criticising everything in reference to it, and thepoor man who is the cause of it all not yet at rest in his grave! Thewhole thing is inhuman and unchristian!"

  "I don't understand," stammered Randolph vaguely. "What IS your newposition? What do you mean?"

  The girl looked up in his face with surprise. "Why, didn't you know? I'mthe next of kin--I'm the heiress--and will succeed to the property insix months, when I am of age."

  In a flash of recollection Randolph suddenly recalled the captain'swords, "There are only three lives between her and the property."Their meaning had barely touched his comprehension before. She was theheiress. Yes, save for the captain!

  She saw the change, the wonder, even the dismay, in his face, and herown brightened frankly. "It's so good to find one who never thought ofit, who hadn't it before him as the chief end for which I was born! Yes,I was the next of kin after dear Jack died and Bill succeeded, butthere was every chance that he would marry and have an heir. And yet themoment he was taken ill that idea was uppermost in my guardian's mind,good man as he is, and even forced upon me. If this--this propertyhad come from poor Cousin Jack, whom I loved, there would have beensomething dear in it as a memory or a gift, but from HIM, whom Icouldn't bear--I know it's wicked to talk that way, but it's simplydreadful!"

  "And yet," said Randolph, with a sudden seriousness he could notcontrol, "I honestly believe that Captain Dornton would be perfectlyhappy--yes, rejoiced!--if he knew the property had come to YOU."

  There was such an air of conviction, and, it seemed to the simple girl,even of spiritual insight, in his manner that her clear, handsome eyesrested wonderingly on his.

  "Do you really think so?" she said thoughtfully. "And yet HE knowsthat I am like him. Yes," she continued, answering Randolph's look ofsurprise, "I am just like HIM in that. I loathe and despise the lifethat this thing would condemn me to; I hate all that it means, and allthat it binds me to, as he used to; and if I could, I would cut and runfrom it as HE did."

  She spoke with a determined earnestness and warmth, so unlike her usualgrave naivete that he was astonished. There was a flush on her cheek anda frank fire in her eye that reminded him strangely of the captain; andyet she had emphasized her words with a little stamp of her narrow footand a gesture of her hand that was so untrained and girlish that hesmiled, and said, with perhaps the least touch of bitterness in histone, "But you will get over that when you come into the property."

  "I suppose I shall," she returned, with an odd lapse to her formergravity and submissiveness. "That's what they all tell me."

  "You will be independent and your own mistress," he added.

  "Independent," she repeated impatiently, "with Dornton Hall and twentythousand a year! Independent, with every duty marked out for me!Independent, with every one to criticise my smallest actions--every onewho would never have given a thought to the orphan who was contentedand made her own friends on a hundred a year! Of course you, who area stranger, don't understand; yet I thought that you"--shehesitated,--"would have thought differently."

  "Why?"

  "Why, with your belief that one should make one's own fortune," shesaid.

  "That would do for a man, and in that I respected Captain Dornton'sconvictions, as you told them to me. But for a girl, how could she beindependent, except with money?"

  She shook her head as if unconvinced, but did not reply. They werenearing the garden porch, when she looked up, and said: "And as YOU'REa man, you will be making your way in the world. Mr. Dingwall said youwould."

  There was something so childishly trustful and confident in herassurance that he smiled. "Mr. Dingwall is too sanguine, but it gives mehope to hear YOU say so."

  She colored slightly, and said gravely: "We must go in now." Yet shelingered for a moment before the door. For a long time afterward he hada very vivid recollection of her charming face, in its childlikegravity and its quaint frame of black crape, standing out against thesunset-warmed wall of the rectory. "Promise me you will not mind whatthese people say or do," she said suddenly.

  "I promise," he returned, with a smile, "to mind only what YOU say ordo."

  "But I might not be always quite right, you know," she said naively.

  "I'll risk that."

  "Then, when we go in now, don't talk much to me, but make yourselfagreeable to all the others, and then go straight home to the inn, anddon't come here until after the funeral."

  The faintest evasive glint of mischievousness in her withdrawn eyes atthis moment mitigated the austerity of her command as they both passedin.

  Randolph had intended not to return to London until after the funeral,two days later, and spent the interesting day at the neighboring town,whence he dispatched his exploring and perhaps hopeless letter tothe captain. The funeral was a large and imposing one, and impressedRandolph for the first time with the local importance and solidstanding of the Dorntons. All the magnates and old county families wererepresented. The inn yard and the streets of the little village werefilled with their quaint liveries, crested paneled carriages, andsilver-cipher caparisoned horses, with a sprinkling of fashion fromLondon. He could not close his ears to the gossip of the villagersregarding the suddenness of the late baronet's death, the extinction ofthe title, the accession of the
orphaned girl to the property, and even,to his greater exasperation, speculations upon her future and probablemarriage. "Some o' they gay chaps from Lunnon will be lordin' it overthe Hall afore long," was the comment of the hostler.

  It was with some little bitterness that Randolph took his seat in thecrowded church. But this feeling, and even his attempts to discover MissEversleigh's face in the stately family pew fenced off from the chancel,presently passed away. And then his mind began to be filled with strangeand weird fancies. What grim and ghostly revelations might pass betweenthis dead scion of the Dorntons lying on the trestles before them andthe obscure, nameless ticket of leave man awaiting his entrance in thevault below! The incongruity of this thought, with the smug complacencyof the worldly minded congregation sitting around him, and the probablesmiling carelessness of the reckless rover--the cause of all--even nowidly pacing the deck on the distant sea, touched him with horror. Andwhen added to this was the consciousness that Sibyl Eversleigh wasforced to become an innocent actor in this hideous comedy, it seemedas much as he could bear. Again he questioned himself, Was he right towithhold his secret from her? In vain he tried to satisfy his consciencethat she was happier in her ignorance. The resolve he had made tokeep his relations with her apart from his secret, he knew now, wasimpossible. But one thing was left to him. Until he could disclose hiswhole story--until his lips were unsealed by Captain Dornton--he mustnever see her again. And the grim sanctity of the edifice seemed to makethat resolution a vow.

  He did not dare to raise his eyes again toward her pew, lest a sight ofher sweet, grave face might shake his resolution, and he slipped awayfirst among the departing congregation. He sent her a brief note fromthe inn saying that he was recalled to London by an earlier train, andthat he would be obliged to return to California at once, but hopingthat if he could be of any further assistance to her she would writeto him to the care of the bank. It was a formal letter, and yet he hadnever written otherwise than formally to her. That night he reachedLondon. On the following night he sailed from Liverpool for America.

  Six months had passed. It was difficult, at first, for Randolph to pickup his old life again; but his habitual earnestness and singleness ofpurpose stood him in good stead, and a vague rumor that he had made somepowerful friends abroad, with the nearer fact that he had a letter ofcredit for a thousand pounds, did not lessen his reputation. He wasreinstalled and advanced at the bank. Mr. Dingwall was exceptionallygracious, and minute in his inquiries regarding Miss Eversleigh'ssuccession to the Dornton property, with an occasional shrewdness of eyein his interrogations which recalled to Randolph the questioning of MissEversleigh's friends, and which he responded to as cautiously. For theyoung fellow remained faithful to his vow even in thinking of her, andseemed to be absorbed entirely in his business. Yet there was a vagueambition of purpose in this absorption that would probably have startledthe more conservative Englishman had he known it.

  He had not heard from Miss Eversleigh since he left, nor had he receivedany response from the captain. Indeed, he had indulged in little hopesof either. But he kept stolidly at work, perhaps with a larger trustthan he knew. And then, one day, he received a letter addressed in ahandwriting that made his heart leap, though he had seen it but once,when it conveyed the news of Sir William Dornton's sudden illness. Itwas from Miss Eversleigh, but the postmark was Callao! He tore open theenvelope, and for the next few moments forgot everything--his businessdevotion, his lofty purpose, even his solemn vow.

  It read as follows:--

  DEAR MR. TRENT,--I should not be writing to you now if I did not believethat I NOW understand why you left us so abruptly on the day of thefuneral, and why you were at times so strange. You might have been alittle less hard and cold even if you knew all that you did know. ButI must write now, for I shall be in San Francisco a few days after thisreaches you, and I MUST see you and have YOUR help, for I can have noother, as you know. You are wondering what this means, and why I amhere. I know ALL and EVERYTHING. I know HE is alive and never was dead.I know I have no right to what I have, and never had, and I have comehere to seek him and make him take it back. I could do no other. I couldnot live and do anything but that, and YOU might have known it. But Ihave not found him here as I hoped I should, though perhaps it was afoolish hope of mine, and I am coming to you to help me seek him, forhe MUST BE FOUND. You know I want to keep his and your secret, andtherefore the only one I can turn to for assistance and counsel is YOU.

  You are wondering how I know what I do. Two months ago I GOT A LETTERFROM HIM--the strangest, quaintest, and yet THE KINDEST LETTER--exactlylike himself and the way he used to talk! He had just heard of hisbrother's death, and congratulated me on coming into the property, andsaid he was now perfectly happy, and should KEEP DEAD, and never, nevercome to life again; that he never thought things would turn out assplendidly as they had--for Sir William MIGHT have had an heir--and thatnow he should REALLY DIE HAPPY. He said something about everything beinglegally right, and that I could do what I liked with the property. Asif THAT would satisfy me! Yet it was all so sweet and kind, and so likedear old Jack, that I cried all night. And then I resolved to come here,where his letter was dated from. Luckily I was of age now, and coulddo as I liked, and I said I wanted to travel in South America andCalifornia; and I suppose they didn't think it very strange thatI should use my liberty in that way. Some said it was quite like aDornton! I knew something of Callao from your friend Miss Avondale, andcould talk about it, which impressed them. So I started off with only amaid--my old nurse. I was a little frightened at first, when I came tothink what I was doing, but everybody was very kind, and I really feelquite independent now. So, you see, a girl may be INDEPENDENT, afterall! Of course I shall see Mr. Dingwall in San Francisco, but he neednot know anything more than that I am traveling for pleasure. And I maygo to the Sandwich Islands or Sydney, if I think HE is there. Of courseI have had to use some money--some of HIS rents--but it shall be paidback. I will tell you everything about my plans when I see you.

  Yours faithfully,

  SIBYL EVERSLEIGH.

  P. S. Why did you let me cry over that man's tomb in the church?

  Randolph looked again at the date, and then hurriedly consulted theshipping list. She was due in ten days. Yet, delighted as he was withthat prospect, and touched as he had been with her courage and naivedetermination, after his first joy he laid the letter down with a sigh.For whatever was his ultimate ambition, he was still a mere salariedclerk; whatever was her self-sacrificing purpose, she was still the richheiress. The seal of secrecy had been broken, yet the situation remainedunchanged; their association must still be dominated by it. And heshrank from the thought of making her girlish appeal to him for help anopportunity for revealing his real feelings.

  This instinct was strengthened by the somewhat formal manner in whichMr. Dingwall announced her approaching visit. "Miss Eversleigh will staywith Mrs. Dingwall while she is here, on account of her--er--position,and the fact that she is without a chaperon. Mrs. Dingwall will, ofcourse, be glad to receive any friends Miss Eversleigh would like tosee."

  Randolph frankly returned that Miss Eversleigh had written to him, andthat he would be glad to present himself. Nothing more was said, but asthe days passed he could not help noticing that, in proportion as Mr.Dingwall's manner became more stiff and ceremonious, Mr. Revelstoke'susually crisp, good-humored suggestions grew more deliberate, andRandolph found himself once or twice the subject of the president'spenetrating but smiling scrutiny. And the day before Miss Eversleigh'sarrival his natural excitement was a little heightened by a summons toMr. Revelstoke's private office.

  As he entered, the president laid aside his pen and closed the door.

  "I have never made it my business, Trent," he said, with good-humoredbrusqueness, "to interfere in my employees' private affairs, unless theyaffect their relations to the bank, and I haven't had the least occasionto do so with you. Neither has Mr. Dingwall, although it is on HISbehalf that I am now speaking." As Ran
dolph listened with a contractedbrow, he went on with a grim smile: "But he is an Englishman, you know,and has certain ideas of the importance of 'position,' particularlyamong his own people. He wishes me, therefore, to warn you of whatHE calls the 'disparity' of your position and that of a young Englishlady--Miss Eversleigh--with whom you have some acquaintance, and inwhom," he added with a still grimmer satisfaction, "he fears you are toodeeply interested."

  Randolph blazed. "If Mr. Dingwall had asked ME, sir," he said hotly, "Iwould have told him that I have never yet had to be reminded that MissEversleigh is a rich heiress and I only a poor clerk, but as to hisusing her name in such a connection, or dictating to me the manner of"--

  "Hold hard," said Revelstoke, lifting his hand deprecatingly, yet withhis unchanged smile. "I don't agree with Mr. Dingwall, and I have everyreason to know the value of YOUR services, yet I admit something is dueto HIS prejudices. And in this matter, Trent, the Bank of Eureka, whileI am its president, doesn't take a back seat. I have concluded to makeyou manager of the branch bank at Marysville, an independent positionwith its salary and commissions. And if that doesn't suit Dingwall,why," he added, rising from his desk with a short laugh, "he has abigger idea of the value of property than the bank has."

  "One moment, sir, I implore you," burst out Randolph breathlessly, "ifyour kind offer is based upon the mistaken belief that I have the leastclaim upon Miss Eversleigh's consideration more than that of simplefriendship--if anybody has dared to give you the idea that I haveaspired by word or deed to more, or that the young lady has evercountenanced or even suspected such aspirations, it is utterly false,and grateful as I am for your kindness, I could not accept it."

  "Look here, Trent," returned Revelstoke curtly, yet laying his hand onthe young man's shoulder not unkindly. "All that is YOUR private affair,which, as I told you, I don't interfere with. The other is a questionbetween Mr. Dingwall and myself of your comparative value. It won't hurtyou with ANYBODY to know how high we've assessed it. Don't spoil a goodthing!"

  Grateful even in his uncertainty, Randolph could only thank him andwithdraw. Yet this fateful forcing of his hand in a delicate questiongave him a new courage. It was with a certain confidence now in hiscapacity as HER friend and qualified to advise HER that he called at Mr.Dingwall's the evening she arrived. It struck him that in the Dingwalls'reception of him there was mingled with their formality a certainrespect.

  Thanks to this, perhaps, he found her alone. She seemed to him morebeautiful than his recollection had painted her, in the development thatmaturity, freedom from restraint, and time had given her. For a momenthis new, fresh courage was staggered. But she had retained her youthfulsimplicity, and came toward him with the same naive and innocentyearning in her clear eyes that he remembered at their last meeting.Their first words were, naturally, of their great secret, and Randolphtold her the whole story of his unexpected and startling meeting withthe captain, and the captain's strange narrative, of his undertaking thejourney with him to recover his claim, establish his identity, and, asRandolph had hoped, restore to her that member of the family whom shehad most cared for. He recounted the captain's hesitation on arriving;his own journey to the rectory; the news she had given him; thereason of his singular behavior; his return to London; and the seconddisappearance of the captain. He read to her the letter he had receivedfrom him, and told her of his hopeless chase to the docks only to findhim gone. She listened to him breathlessly, with varying color, withan occasional outburst of pity, or a strange shining of the eyes, thatsometimes became clouded and misty, and at the conclusion with a calmand grave paleness.

  "But," she said, "you should have told me all."

  "It was not my secret," he pleaded.

  "You should have trusted me."

  "But the captain had trusted ME."

  She looked at him with grave wonder, and then said with her olddirectness: "But if I had been told such a secret affecting you, Ishould have told you." She stopped suddenly, seeing his eyes fixed onher, and dropped her own lids with a slight color. "I mean," she saidhesitatingly, "of course you have acted nobly, generously, kindly,wisely--but I hate secrets! Oh, why cannot one be always frank?"

  A wild idea seized Randolph. "But I have another secret--you have notguessed--and I have not dared to tell you. Do you wish me to be franknow?"

  "Why not?" she said simply, but she did not look up.

  Then he told her! But, strangest of all, in spite of his fears andconvictions, it flowed easily and naturally as a part of his othersecret, with an eloquence he had not dreamed of before. But when he toldher of his late position and his prospects, she raised her eyes to hisfor the first time, yet without withdrawing her hand from his, and saidreproachfully,--

  "Yet but for THAT you would never have told me."

  "How could I?" he returned eagerly. "For but for THAT how could I helpyou to carry out YOUR trust? How could I devote myself to your plans,and enable you to carry them out without touching a dollar of thatinheritance which you believe to be wrongfully yours?"

  Then, with his old boyish enthusiasm, he sketched a glowing picture oftheir future: how they would keep the Dornton property intact until thecaptain was found and communicated with; and how they would cautiouslycollect all the information accessible to find him until such timeas Randolph's fortunes would enable them both to go on a voyage ofdiscovery after him. And in the midst of this prophetic forecast, whichbrought them so closely together that she was enabled to examine hiswatch chain, she said,--

  "I see you have kept Cousin Jack's ring. Did he ever see it?"

  "He told me he had given it to you as his little sweetheart, and thathe"--

  There was a singular pause here.

  "He never did THAT--at least, not in that way!" said Sybil Eversleigh.

  And, strangely enough, the optimistic Randolph's prophecies came true.He was married a month later to Sibyl Eversleigh, Mr. Dingwall givingaway the bride. He and his wife were able to keep their trust in regardto the property, for, without investing a dollar of it in the bank,the mere reputation of his wife's wealth brought him a flood of otherinvestors and a confidence which at once secured his success. In twoyears he was able to take his wife on a six months' holiday to Europevia Australia, but of the details of that holiday no one knew. It is,however, on record that ten or twelve years ago Dornton Hall, which hadbeen leased or unoccupied for a long time, was refitted for the heiress,her husband, and their children during a brief occupancy, and thatin that period extensive repairs were made to the interior of theold Norman church, and much attention given to the redecoration andrestoration of its ancient tombs.