Part 2

That did not offend him. He never seemed to be offended or impatient. He was always reasonable, kind, sympathetic; and yet, instead of being pleased or touched by this, Ethel found it disquieting and mysterious.

His polite endurance of her changing humors was more like that of indifference than that of love. Of course, he did love her. He must, and she was a very fortunate girl to have found, at the very beginning of her career, a man who loved her and who could and would help her so greatly.

This first venture was in itself a thing very displeasing to her. It was a vaudeville act of his own devising, in which, with several changes of costume, they would sing snatches from the most popular operas, all woven together to make a silly story. She tried to look beyond that, to the great triumphs of the future. She tried to feel that these triumphs would be ample compensation for the monstrous sacrifice she was making of her life.

Once in a while, in a brief flash, she half realized what she was doing. The memory of her mother came back to her—that gentle and quiet woman who had held so steadfastly to her own ideals.

No matter how ardent her desire for perfection in her beloved art, no matter how splendid her ambition, Ethel could not be rid of a secret and bitter sense of guilt. It was wrong—she knew it—it was wrong and unworthy to marry Ladislaw.

“But why?” she demanded of herself. “I don’t care anything about love, and men, and things like that. Ladislaw knows it, and if he doesn’t care, why should I? Anyhow, it’s too late now. I’ve promised, and I’m going to keep my word. Mother would want me to do that. Oh, but if mother had been here, she would have understood! She would never have let me get into such a dreadful, miserable, heartbreaking situation! If she could come now, just for one little minute, just to say one word—”

But there was no one there except Ladislaw. The lights of the railway station gleamed before them, and he drew close to her.

“Give me one kiss, Ethel!” he said, very low.

She hated his voice, she hated to have him so near her, she hated herself. The little wood seemed like a black and sinister forest.

“No!” she said brusquely, as she had often spoken to him before.

This time he was not patient and humble. He caught her arm, and tried to draw her to him.

“You shan’t treat me like a dog!” he muttered.

In growing alarm, she stared at him in the dark, and she fancied she saw his white teeth revealed by a wolfish grin. With a violent wrench, she freed herself. With the swiftness of terror, she ran out of that haunted wood into the safe, bright road before the station.

As she stood there, flushed and panting, trying to consider the situation, he came leisurely up to her.

“You can’t go back now—not after that telegram you sent your aunt,” he said. “There’s nowhere for you to go, except with me. You haven’t even your ticket or your purse. You gave them to me to keep —and I mean to keep them!”

“I don’t care—I’ll walk,” she retorted, in a trembling voice.

“Walk where?” he inquired. “You told your aunt you were going away to get married. You’ll have hard work explaining that you changed your mind; and you’ll have hard work getting home at all without a penny. Come! Here’s the train. Don’t be a little fool!”

The long, mournful hoot of the approaching engine came to her ears.

“Oh, give me my purse!” she cried in terror and despair. “Oh, please! Oh, please, Ladislaw!”

“I won’t,” he said. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll leave you here alone. You’ll be sorry, Ethel. You’ll lose your chance to be a singer, and you’ll lose more than that. Your aunt won’t take this very well.”

She looked around in anguish. The ticket office was closed for the night, and there were only strangers on the platform. All about that little lighted oasis were the woods and fields and tiny distant houses, filled with more strangers.

V

“Ethel!” cried a voice.

It was the voice of the one person who would understand and help and solace her—a voice she could never hear again in this world, strong, tender, and clear.

“Oh, mother!” she cried.

“Ethel!”

It came again, and not the voice of a spirit, but real, and close at hand.

“It’s some one in that taxi,” whispered Ladislaw. “Better not answer.”

“But it’s grandmother!” said Ethel, astounded.

She flew to the old lady like a stone from a catapult.

“Grandmother, what _are_ you doing here?” she demanded, wild with delight and relief.

“Nothing!” replied the old lady serenely. “Present your friend to me.”

“I—” began Ethel.

Ladislaw was already there, hat in hand.

“Mr. Metz, grandmother,” she said.

“Ah! Mr. Metz!” the old lady repeated, looking thoughtfully at him. Her calm old eyes seemed terrible to him. “Are you leaving?” she asked.

He hesitated for a moment. Then he remembered that Ethel had never seemed to regard her grandmother as especially important. She was old, and poor, and obscure; what harm could she do?

“Yes,” he said. “Ethel and I are going to be married. She’s already sent a telegram to her aunt in the city, to tell her.”

“You are a rash young man,” said the old lady, in a tone almost friendly.

“Rash?” he repeated, with a faint frown.

“Very!” said she. “It is a surprise to me, because I see that you are not American. Americans marry that way—for love; but with the people of Europe, it is often different. They think of how they shall live. They wish a dot—a dowry—something more than love. It is very beautiful, this; because the poor little Ethel will never have anything.”

Metz was too much taken aback to be discreet.

“But she will!” he said. “Her aunt will—”

“Her aunt has only the income of an estate. She leaves nothing to Ethel; and certainly she _gives_ nothing to Ethel when she is the wife of Mr. Metz.”

“But I thought—” he began.

Suddenly the frail little old creature blazed into magnificent wrath.

“Be off!” she cried, raising her hand in a threatening gesture. “Away with you, miserable, beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! _Bestia!_ Be off!”

He started back. She leaned out of the window, her voice wonderfully strong and vigorous for her years. As he retreated, even above the roar of the incoming train, he heard her only too plainly, and was aware that other people heard her, too.

“Beggarly fortune hunter! Wolf! _Bestia!_ Away with you!”

He was glad to climb on board.

The taxi went hastening back along the dark, still roads, and the old lady held the sobbing Ethel tight in her arms.

“But what is there to cry about?” she asked, in tears herself. “Foolish little one! You shall stay with me, my little bird, until you are ready to fly away. There was something put by for you to have— later. You shall have it now, for the singing lessons. Why do you cry, then? You shall sing, I tell you!”

Ethel was silent for a time.

“Grandmother!” she said. “The first time you called me—it sounded—I thought it was—mother!”

The old lady’s arm tightened about her.

“It is the same voice,” she said.

[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the October 1923 issue of Munsey’s Magazine.]