CHAPTER XV.

A STARTLING APPARITION.

The next four months slipped swiftly away. They were filled full with joyous anticipations and pleasant occupations, while Helen, now that she no longer feared Dorothy's happiness or prospects would be disturbed, regained her accustomed serenity, and once more became absorbed in the numberless details involved in making ready for a wedding.

A great burden had been lifted from her heart, for all those menacing newspapers and photographs, with every other telltale evidence of the unhappy past, that had been treasured by the once popular opera favorite, had been destroyed, and nothing remained that could even remotely bear witness to it, save a small tablet, bearing the name of "Marie Duncan," that had been placed in a quiet corner of a distant churchyard outside the city.

The months of August and September Dorothy and her mother spent in the Berkshires, on a pleasant farm adjoining "Avondale," the fine estate and summer home of the Alexanders.

This arrangement was made for the benefit of the lovers, in order to enable them to see each other every day, and enjoy the pleasures of country life together, during the brief interval previous to their marriage.

The wedding had been set for the first of October, and, at the request of the bride-elect, who shrank from the confusion and excitement of a society function, was quietly solemnized at noon on that date, in the pretty near-by village church. Here Helen gave her daughter away to the man whom she believed to be in every way worthy of her one treasure, and the simple ceremony was followed by a reception and an elaborate breakfast at Avondale for the limited number of friends who were bidden to grace the occasion.

Thus, with apparently nothing to cast a shadow over her future, Dorothy Ford became the wife of Clifford Alexander, and the happy couple went away for a month or two of travel, while a beautiful home, adjoining the Alexander estate on the Hudson, was being prepared for their occupancy upon their return.

Mr. and Mrs. Alexander, Senior, returned immediately to their home on the Hudson, and Madam Ford to New York to resume her work and prepare for her winter engagements.

In planning his new residence, Clifford Alexander had arranged for a delightful suite of rooms which he placed at Helen's disposal, with a pressing invitation that she would make her future home with Dorothy and himself.

Helen was deeply touched by this evidence of his sincere regard for her, but she gently declined, telling him she thought a newly wedded couple should begin their life and home making alone with each other; while, too, she would not be willing to give up her work for a long while yet; hence she must have her studio in the city, and it would be better for her to live there, as usual.

"But you have labored continuously for many years--you have spent your life for this dear girl"--bending a fond look upon his fiancée--"whom I have won away from your nest. Now come and rest, and _play_ with us--at least, for a while," the young man had urged.

And Dorothy had also pleaded:

"Do come, mamma, dear; it will be lovely to have you with us."

"I do not deny that my 'nest' will be lonely without her," Helen had replied, smiling bravely through a mist of sudden tears; "but I could not be idle, and the nestling must learn to use her own wings. All the same," she went on, more brightly, "I am not going to allow you to forget in the days to come that you have added a mother-in-law to your list of responsibilities, and I warn you that I intend to drop in upon you often enough to keep you both upon your best behavior."

"Well, madam mother-to-be," said Mr. Alexander, smiling at her threat, "the rooms are there--they were planned for _you_, and I hope some time to see you very comfy in them. I would not impose any sense of obligation upon you; I wish you to be happy in your own way, but please bear in mind always that it would give us great pleasure to have you with us."

Helen lifted a searching look to his face.

"Pardon me; but are you sensitive regarding my occupation--my career?" she inquired.

He laughed out softly as he read her meaning.

"Pray do not fret yourself about that," he said. "I do not quite dare to tell you how exceedingly _proud_ I am of you and your career. I sometimes wish, though, that you did not keep so busy with _pupils_--I assure you there is not the slightest need----"

"Oh, but I love the dear things!" Helen eagerly interposed. "They bring so much brightness and joy into my life."

"Of which, believe me, I would not rob you in the least degree," the gentleman earnestly replied, and, seeing she was very much in earnest, he pressed the matter no further.

So Helen resumed her work, as usual, upon her return to New York. She was in perfect health, and still a very beautiful woman. She was also happy in Dorothy's happiness; life seemed very bright, and she looked forward to the coming season with much of anticipation, even enthusiasm.

One morning, about a week after the wedding, she went up the river to the new home, which was fast nearing completion. It was now in process of being decorated and furnished, under the supervision of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander, Senior, who insisted upon having her join them whenever she could spare the time, to give them the benefit of her taste and knowledge regarding Dorothy's preferences.

They spent a delightful day together, overseeing the placing of china and bric-a-brac, the hanging of draperies, pictures, et cetera, and attending to numerous other details. At noon they enjoyed a dainty lunch, prepared and sent over by the cook at the other house, in Dorothy's bright, luxuriously appointed kitchen; then they resumed their pleasant occupations, working busily until it was time for Helen to go, when she was whirled down to the steamer landing in Mr. Alexander's fine limousine, just in time to catch the early evening boat back to the city.

It was a balmy, almost summerlike, evening in spite of the fact that it was on the verge of November, and Helen, securing a camp chair, made her way to a sightly spot on the stern deck, and seated herself to enjoy the delightful atmosphere and lovely scenery as the steamer glided smoothly down the river. She was in a most harmonious frame of mind, for her heart was at rest and the future full of hope. There was a joyous light in her eyes, and a happy smile on her lips, as, in imagination, she looked forward to Dorothy's home-coming, and the delight she would experience in taking possession of that luxurious nest awaiting her among yonder beautiful hills, away from the dust and turmoil of the busy metropolis. As the boat drew near to its pier she rose and leisurely made her way inside to descend to the lower deck. She had just reached the head of the stairs, where she was forced to pause a moment because of the crowd ahead of her, when some one behind her gave utterance to a startled, but quickly repressed, exclamation.

Involuntarily she glanced back over her shoulder at the sound, when her features suddenly froze into a look of horror.

"Helen!" faltered a voice she could not fail to recognize, notwithstanding it was tremulous from emotion and hoarse from a heavy cold.

But the man! Could that haggard, white-faced creature--that emaciated, poorly clad figure, with his shabby hat, neglected beard and hair, ever have been the cultured, debonair, elegant John Hungerford, who had wooed and won her girlish heart and hand more than twenty-five years ago?

Instinctively she shrank away from him, and he, observing this involuntary act of repugnance, flushed scarlet from mingled pain and shame. Then the crowd surged in between them, and Helen, with a wildly throbbing heart and a sense of despair and hot rebellion almost suffocating her, forced her way on shore with all possible speed, sprang upon the first car she saw, and hoped she had effectually evaded that startling apparition.

But her peace of mind had been destroyed. All the brightness and joy of that happy day were suddenly blotted out, swallowed in by the terror inspired by this unlooked-for calamity which now threatened anew both herself and Dorothy.

It was a terrible, a crushing, blow. She could not sleep that night; she could not apply herself to work of any kind the following day; she dared not go out of the house, lest she meet that ghost of the past again, and every time her bell rang a shock of fear that he might be without, seeking entrance, went quivering through all her nerves.

"Would he hunt her down?" she was continually asking herself. "Would he dare intrude himself upon her life again, after all these years?" She turned faint and heartsick at the thought. But the day waned, the dinner hour passed, and, with the curtains drawn and lights all about her, she began to experience more of a feeling of security; to take courage, and try to assure herself that she had successfully eluded him, and he would not be able to ferret her out in that great city, even if he tried.

She had just settled herself for the evening with a new book--one of several that Dorothy had given her before going away, telling her, with a suspicion of tears in her voice: "For your evenings, mamma, dear, so you will not miss me quite so much"--and was beginning to get really interested in the plot of the story when her bell rang a sharp, shrill peal.

Her maid, who had been with her for several years, had sailed for Scotland for a long-promised visit home, when Helen went into the country for the summer, and, not yet having secured another to take her place, she was obliged to answer the summons herself, which she did with a quaking heart.

"A message for Mrs. Ford," came up through the tube.

Helen's fear was instantly turned into joy.

"A message from Dorothy," she thought, for she had received either a letter or a telegram from the happy bride almost every day since her departure.

"Come up," she eagerly responded, as she pressed the button governing the lower entrance. Presently, hearing steps on the stairs, she swung open the door of her suite, when, with a gasp of dismay, she found herself face to face with John Hungerford.

She would have shut the door upon him, but he was too quick for her. He forced his way inside, and then closed it himself.

"I must see you, Helen," he panted, as he sank, pale and breathless, upon a chair in the reception hall.

"Oh, why have you come?" she demanded, with white lips.

"Because I could not bear it any longer; I was starving to see you and Dorothy. Where is she?"

"She is married."

"Married! Dorothy married! When?"

"Two weeks ago yesterday."

"To whom?"

Helen straightened herself resolutely.

"I shall not tell you that," she replied, with sharp decision. "She is happy, and I will not have her life clouded by anything to recall the troubles of the past."

The man shivered at her words. He was but a miserable shadow of the John Hungerford of ten years ago. His form was shrunken, his clothing faded and worn, his face was pale, his cheeks hollow, and his eyes sunken and lusterless.

"But, Helen, I want to see Dorothy--she is my child. I must see her!" he faltered, a note of agonized appeal in his tones that ended abruptly in a hoarse, hollow cough.

"You must _not_ see her!" Helen emphatically returned, and thinking only of shielding Dorothy from the pain and shame of such a meeting.

Her words and her apparent indifference to the uncontrollable yearning within him seemed to anger him.

"She is as much my child as she is yours," he shot back, with a flash of his old-time doggedness.

Helen flushed an indignant scarlet.

"As much your child as she is mine!" she scathingly exclaimed. "You claim that! You, who deserted us both; who robbed her of her little fortune, and left me in poverty to rear and educate her as best I could, while you wasted your stolen thousands upon that woman and your degrading and sinful pleasures! Your child! _What_ have you ever done for her that entitles you to make the shameless boast?"

The man cringed abjectly beneath her words, but made no attempt to reply, and Helen resumed, her indignation still at the boiling point:

"I have spent my life for her; I have spared nothing to give her every advantage, to make her a noble, cultured woman, and to shield her from every sorrow. During the last ten years of her life she has known nothing but happiness; she has married a good man, and a gentleman in every sense of the word. He is prosperous, and belongs to a much-respected and well-known family here in New York. So Dorothy's future is very promising, and I will never allow you to cast a shadow upon it, or mar her joy in any way."

Her listener shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"You seemed rather happy yourself, when I saw you yesterday," he observed, with a covert sneer, after an interval of awkward silence; "and"--glancing curiously about him--"you appear to be remarkably prosperous, also."

"I am prosperous; I am well established in my profession here."

"As 'Madam Ford,' I perceived, as I rang your bell. So you dropped the old name?" said John Hungerford, in a tone of exceeding bitterness.

"Yes, the first half of it, as I also dropped that half of my life for all time; but for Dorothy, I would have retained no part of it," said Helen tersely.

Her companion's lips twitched, while his bony hands gripped the arms of his chair convulsively.

"You are handsomer than ever, Helen; you don't begin to show your years," he presently observed, as he swept her face and figure with yearning but gloomy eyes.

She did not deign to reply, although she moved restlessly where she stood, as if his words annoyed her beyond endurance.

"I suppose you haven't much love left for me?" he falteringly resumed, after a minute, the silence between them becoming embarrassing again.

"Love--for _you_!" she retorted, with an emphasis that caused him to shrink as from a blow.

"Well, I'm not claiming that I deserve anything of the kind from you," he remarked, in a weak voice, at the same time drawing in a quick, deep breath. "However, there is some solace in remembering that you were once fond of me. Maybe, not having heard from me for so long, you have believed me dead?"

"I have, of course, had no means of knowing whether you were living or dead," Helen coldly replied.

"Perhaps it might have been a relief to you if I had died," said John, as, with hopeless eyes, he searched her frozen face for some sign of the old-time gentleness. She made no answer. She was not quite heartless enough, even in her despair over his reappearance, to confirm this gruesome suggestion; yet she was keenly conscious that his presence was almost intolerable to her.

A low, bitter laugh escaped him at her silence, and again a cruel cough racked him.

"Have you a picture of Dorothy?" he inquired, when he recovered his breath.

"Yes, several."

"I want to see them," the man exclaimed, a mighty yearning in his voice; and, rising from his chair, he began to look eagerly around the room for some likeness of his child.

Helen neither moved nor spoke to hinder him. She felt dazed, helpless in this terrible dilemma. She was frightened, rebellious, desperate to be thus confronted with this appalling skeleton of her past, this menace to Dorothy's bright hopes. John Hungerford passed from the reception hall into the parlor, a lovely room, most artistic and dainty in its coloring, decorations, and furnishings; and, shoving his hands into his coat pockets, as if to brace himself against a consciousness of intrusion and rudeness, he began his search for Dorothy's pictures.

Helen, who had followed him, sank, quaking, upon a chair, too weak and unnerved to remain standing a moment longer, and wondering miserably what would be the outcome of this harrowing interview.

Suddenly the man paused, an exclamation of delight escaping him. He had espied a full-length photograph of Dorothy, taken in her wedding robes.

"This is----" he began tremulously, and turning a face quivering with uncontrollable emotion to Helen.

"Yes," she briefly replied.

"How beautiful she is! She looks as you looked the evening we were----"

Helen shivered, and her white teeth came together with a snap that arrested the word on his lips.

"Whom did she marry?" he demanded, almost fiercely, after studying the picture for a minute or two.

"I shall not tell you," Helen doggedly reiterated, and unutterably thankful that Mr. Alexander's likeness was not beside the other to tell its own story. She had found it was, for some reason, beginning to curl, and she had taken it down and laid a heavy book on it only that morning. "But I will tell you this," she presently resumed: "Her husband is a man to whom any father or mother might be proud to give a daughter, and Dorothy will never know a care or sorrow which an absorbing affection and most unselfish devotion can avert."