Chapter 34

_THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE_

Ridgeway had been directed to the home of Mr. Henry Coleman. He was never able to describe his emotions as he drove through the streets toward that most important place in all the world at that hour. The cab drew up in front of the rather pretentious home and he stepped forth, dazed and uncertain, his knees stiff, his eyes set. Had some one shouted "Run!" he would have fled with his resolution.

Every window in the home seemed to present Grace Vernon's glad face to his misty eyes; she was in there somewhere, he knew, waiting as she had been waiting for a whole year.

Slowly he mounted the steps and stood before the screen door. After what seemed an hour of deliberation, during which he sought to resurrect the courage that had died, he timidly tapped on the casement with his knuckles. The sound could not have been heard ten feet, yet to him it was loud enough to wake people blocks away. There was no response and his heart, in its cowardice, took a hopeful bound. No one at home! He turned to leave the place, fearing that some one might appear to admit him before he could retreat. At the top of the steps he paused, reasoning that if no one was at home he could at least rap again. His conscience would be easier for the extra effort. He rapped once more, quite boldly. A man appeared in the doorway so suddenly that he caught his breath and put out his hand to steady himself.

The screen flew open and Henry Veath grasped him by the arms, fairly dragging him into the hallway.

"Hugh! Hugh! Is it really you?" For a moment he stood like one suddenly gone mad.

"Henry, I can't believe it!" gasped Ridgeway. Both of them stood looking at one another for more than a full minute. "What a wonderful escape!" fell hazily from the newcomer's stiff lips.

"How did you escape?" cried the other in the same breath. Pale as ghosts they wrung each other's hands spasmodically, dazed and bewildered.

"Where is Grace?" demanded Hugh.

"She is out just at present," said the other slowly and with an effort. "Come in and sit down. She will be here presently." He staggered as he drew back.

"Has--has my sister given up all hope of ever seeing me again?" said Ridgeway. Their hands were still clasped.

"Miss Vernon feared that you were lost, Hugh," said Veath. A cold perspiration was showing itself on his brow. "She has told me all. How ill and white you look. Sit down here and I'll get you some wine."

"Never mind, old man. I'm well enough. When will she return? Great heaven, man, I can't wait!" He sank limply into a chair. His companion's heart was freezing.

"Be calm, old friend. She shall be sent for at once."

"Break it to her gently, Veath, break it to her gently," murmured Hugh.

Veath excused himself and left the room. In the hall, out of Hugh's sight, he stopped, clenched his hands, closed his eyes and shivered as if his blood had turned to ice. Presently he returned to the room, having gone no farther than the hall.

"I have sent for her," he said in a strange voice.

Grace was coming down stairs when Veath admitted Hugh. Startled and almost completely prostrated, she fell back, where Veath found her when he went to announce the news. Finally, with throbbing heart, she crept to the curtain that hung in the door between the parlors and peered through at the two men. Ridgeway was standing in the centre of the room, nervously handling a book that lay on the table. His face was white and haggard; his tall, straight figure was stooped and lifeless. Veath stood on the opposite side of the table, just as pale and just as discomposed.

"Does she often speak of me?" she heard Hugh ask hoarsely. The other did not answer at once.

"Frequently, Hugh, of course," he said finally.

"And--do--you--think she--she loves me as much as ever?" There was fear in his voice; but poor Grace could only distinguish pathetic eagerness. Veath was silent, his hands clasped behind his back, his throat closed as by a vise. "Why don't you answer? Does she still love me?"

Grace glanced at the drawn face of Henry Veath and saw there the struggle that was going on in his mind. With a cry she tore aside the curtains and rushed into the room, confronting the questioner and the questioned.

"Grace!" gasped the former, staggering back as if from the effect of a mighty blow. Through his dizzy brain an instant later shot the necessity for action of some kind. There stood Grace, swaying before him, ready to fall. She loved him! He must clasp her to his heart as if he loved her. This feeble impulse forced him forward, his arms extended. "Don't be afraid, dear. I am not a ghost!"

Veath dropped into a chair near the window, and closed his eyes, his ears, his heart.

"Oh, Hugh, Hugh," the girl moaned, putting her hands over her face, even as he clasped her awkwardly, half-heartedly in his arms. He was saying distressedly to himself: "She loves me! I cannot break her heart!"

Neither moved for a full minute, and then Hugh drew her hands from her eyes, his heart full of pity.

"Grace, look at me," he said. "Are you happy?"

Their eyes met and there was no immediate answer. What each saw in the eyes of the other was strange and puzzling. She saw something like hopeless dread, struggling to suppress itself beneath a glassy film; he saw pitiful fear, sorrow, shame, everything but the glad lovelight he had expected. If their hearts had been cold before, they were freezing now.

"Happy?" she managed to articulate. "Happy?"

"Yes, happy," he repeated as witlessly.

"Don't look at me, Hugh. Don't! I cannot bear it," she wailed frantically, again placing her hands over her eyes. His arms dropped from their unwilling position and he gasped in amazement.

"What is it, Grace? What is the matter? What is it, Veath?" he gasped. She sank to her knees on the floor and sobbed.

"Oh, Hugh! I am not worthy to be loved by you." He tried to lift her to her feet, absolutely dumb with amazement. "Don't! Don't! Let me lie here till you are gone. I can't bear to have you see my face again.

"Grace!" he cried blankly.

"Oh, if I had been drowned this could have been avoided. Why don't you say something, Henry? I cannot tell him." Veath could only shake his head in response to Ridgeway's look of amazed inquiry.

"Is she mad?" groaned the returned lover.

"Mad? No, I am not mad," she cried shrilly, desperately. "Hugh, I know I will break your heart, but I must tell you. I cannot deceive you. I cannot be as I once was to you."

"Cannot be--deceived me--once was--" murmured he, bewildered.

"While I mourned for you as dead I learned to love another. Forgive me, forgive me!" It was more than a minute before he could grasp the full extent of her confession and he could not believe his ears.

Gradually his mind emerged from its oblivion and the joy that rushed to his heart passed into every vein in his body. At his feet the unhappy girl; at the window the rigid form of the man to whom he knew her love had turned; in the centre of this tableau he stood, his head erect, his lungs full, his face aglow.

"Say you will forgive me, Hugh. You would not want me, knowing what you do."

"For Heaven's sake, Hugh," began Veath; but the words choked him.

"So you love another," said Hugh slowly, and cleverly concealing his elation at the unexpected change in the situation. He was not without a sense of humor, and forgetting, for the moment, the seriousness of her revelation, he could not resist the temptation to play the martyr.

"My dear girl," he went on with mock gravity, "I would sacrifice my life to see you happy! Whoever he may be, I give you to him. Be happy, Grace;" and with decided histrionic ability concluded heart-brokenly: "Forget Hugh Ridgeway!"

A portrait of a buxom lady hanging on the wall received the full benefit of his dejected glance; and she could have told the unhappy lovers that the wretched man had winked at her most audaciously.

"When are you to be married?" he resumed solemnly.

"To-night," she choked out, then added quickly:

"But I won't, Hugh--I won't marry him if you say--"

"Not for the world! You must marry him, Grace, and I'll bless you," he interrupted quickly, even eagerly. Then there came a new thought: "Tell me truly, do you love him better than you loved me?"

"I love him better than the world!"

"Thank God!" exclaimed the discarded lover devoutly. "Give me your hand, Henry, old man--there is no one in all the world whom I'd rather see get her than you. You saved her and you deserve her. Take her and be good to her, that's all I ask; and think of me once in a while, won't you? you? Good-by."

Without waiting for an answer he broke away, as if starting for the hall.

"Please don't go away like that!"

The cry of anguish came from Grace, and she threw herself sobbing on Veath's breast.

Hugh turned like a flash. Contrition and the certainty of his power to dispel her grief showed plainly in his face.

"Don't cry, Grace dear," he begged, going over to them. "I was only fooling, dear. I'm not a bit unhappy." Grace looked up wonderingly at him through her tears. "You must take me for a brute," he stumbled on penitently. "You see--you see--er--the fact is, I'm in love myself." He did not know he could be so embarrassed. Veath actually staggered, and the girl's tear-stained face and blinking eyes were suddenly lifted from the broad breast, to be turned, in mute surprise, upon the speaker.

"What did you say?" she gasped.

"I'm in love--the very worst way," he hurried on, fingering his cap.

"And not with me?" she cried, as if it were beyond belief.

"Well, you see, I--I thought you were drowned--couldn't blame me for that, could you? So--I--she was awfully good and sweet and--by George! I'd like to know how a fellow could help it! You don't know how happy I am that you are in love with Veath, and you don't know how happy it will make her. We were to have been married a week ago but--" he gulped and could not go on.

Grace's eyes were sparkling, her voice was trembling with joy as she cried, running to his side:

"Is it really true--really true? Oh, how happy I am! I was afraid you would--"

"And I was equally afraid that you might--Whoop!" exploded Hugh, unable to restrain his riotous glee a second longer. Clasping her in his arms, he kissed her fervently; and all three joining hands, danced about the room like children, each so full of delight that there was no possible means of expressing it, except by the craziest of antics.

"But who is she?" broke out Grace excitedly, as soon as she could catch her breath.

"And where is she--can't we see her?" put in Veath, slapping Hugh insanely on the back.

"She's a goddess!" burst out Hugh, grabbing his cap and running out of the room, shouting hilariously: "Follow on, both of you, to the hotel, and see me worship at her shrine!"