Part 17

"After what you've made us put up with I should say yes!" snorted Mr. Davidson. "But there was somebody else; we've got evidence. It was the other man who tried to rob Witherbee's--the same night! You've been keeping bad company, young man."

Billy glanced again at Rosalind, but her face was averted from him.

"And, Morton, I'm surprised at you," continued Mr. Davidson. "If you really knew him, why didn't you tell me?"

"Um--ah! But--don't you see?--it would have been hardly sporting. Oh, not a bit!"

"And you deliberately let me go on making a fool of myself!"

The Englishman shrugged.

"And it was you who sent the customs men to look up Morton, I suppose," added Mr. Davidson, turning again to his nephew.

"I'm sorry I did that; it was just an impulse. I only wanted to bother him some."

Uncle Henry made an exasperated gesture.

"Well, you're disgraced, and so am I," he growled. "You're a worse scapegrace than I believed. You've made a fool out of everybody, including Miss Chalmers, who I understand has been employing you."

Rosalind looked up from the book and shook her head.

"Billy didn't make a fool out of me," she said.

The ex-boatman blinked.

"You see, I knew him from the first," she added. "In fact, I've known him a good while. But--although perhaps it wasn't very considerate of the others--I didn't say anything because-- Well, for the same reason that Mr. Morton gave. It hardly seemed sporting."

Billy bit his tongue savagely; but he could not hide the little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

"What's she up to now?" he thought.

"So I just let the joke go on. If it was wrong, I'm sorry," concluded Rosalind.

"And you mean that you two have known each other all the time?" cried Polly, staring from one to the other.

"All the time," confirmed Billy. "Why, I've known Rosalind since she was a tomboy and--and climbed trees."

Rosalind flushed, but she nodded what was interpreted as a confirmation.

"Well," demanded Mr. Davidson, after a pause, "what am I going to tell the police when they come?"

"Try to head 'em off," suggested his nephew.

The master of the house accepted the suggestion and moved toward the telephone. As he lifted the instrument the bell began ringing.

"Well?" he asked, the receiver at his ear. "Yes, it's Mr. Davidson. What? Say it again. Richardson? Who-- Oh, yes. I understand--yes.

"Tried to get Witherbee? Yes, he's here; we're all here. Yes, Mr. Morton is here, too.

"What's that? Well, what do you know about that?

"Huh? Sure!

"What? Yes; I'll tell him.

"Oh, certainly! It'll be all right. Glad you got him. Congratulations! Yeh--fine! Uh-huh! All--right!"

He replaced the instrument on the table.

"Customs men," he explained. "They wanted to apologize for bothering Morton the other day. They've got their man."

"Who?"

"Fellow that's been smuggling diamonds. Got him with the goods only an hour ago. A chap named Schmidt."

Rosalind and Billy exchanged swift looks.

"Why, that's the man they thought was a spy!" cried Polly.

"Well, he wasn't. He was just a plain smuggler."

"But, Billy, he used to hire your boat."

The ex-boatman made a weary motion with his hands.

"It's getting too many for me," he said. "He told me he was a grain-broker. A right decent sort of cuss, too."

"So you've been aiding and abetting a smuggler," remarked Mr. Davidson slowly as he glared at the boatman. "That's fine business for a nephew of mine. What else have you been doing? Any murders or embezzlements, or anything like that? Any highway robberies? Or maybe you were a pirate--eh? Well, why don't you answer?"

"What's the use? You're covering all the main points, I guess. I can't think of anything else."

Uncle Henry abandoned in disgust the task of cataloguing the probable misdeeds of his nephew and turned to the telephone in an effort to head off the police.

"Well, I suppose we may as well be going back," observed Mr. Witherbee. "There doesn't seem to be anything more to find out."

That reminded Polly.

"But the bracelet!" she exclaimed. "Rosalind! How in the world--"

Polly broke off abruptly and looked about the room.

"Why, where is she?"

Rosalind had disappeared.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

*CURTAIN!*

Billy Kellogg to find her! He did. She was down in the boat-house, trying to smash a padlock that detained one of Mr. Davidson's skiffs. There was no doubt she was tremendously anxious to leave the island.

At his approach she looked up defiantly.

"Well?" she demanded.

"I did my best," he said contritely.

It was impossible to miss the resentment in her eyes.

"Your best!"

"I didn't tell any more than I had to," he explained. "You see, Rosalind--"

"Mr. Kellogg!"

"Oh, well! You called me Sam not so very long ago. And only a few minutes back I was Billy--and you said you had known me a good while."

"In self-defense."

"I don't see how--"

"It forestalled endless explanation," she said in a chilled voice.

"But you don't suppose all the explaining is over, do you?" objected Billy. "Polly was still asking about the bracelet when I left."

Rosalind sat on a nail-keg and stared at him combatively.

"I hope you are satisfied after having disgraced me," she said.

"I got your bracelet."

"And made a fool of me from beginning to end!"

"You dared me."

"I?"

"Yes--ma'am."

He smiled in a way that merited annihilation.

"Of course you dared me," added Billy. "Everything you did or said was a dare. Every time you were so scornful and so superior it was a dare. Why, I couldn't have helped it if I'd tried. And I didn't try, as a matter of fact."

Rosalind was in a strange plight of mind. She tried to summon haughtiness, but the mood would not respond. Her armor seemed to have fallen from her.

"You--you were brutally insulting," she faltered.

"I suppose I wasn't very polite," he admitted. "Nevertheless, you'll have to admit you weren't very polite to me. Let's forget the whole business."

"Forget?"

"Why not? What's the use of rehashing it?"

"You expect me to forget--after what has happened? The tree--and the water--and the por--portrait!"

"It wasn't a portrait," he said mildly. "I made a mistake. As for the telegram--Bob misunderstood when I wired him. I only wanted to be sure who you were. I wasn't bidding. At first I thought it wasn't a bad picture. But I found out I was wrong."

She looked up at him.

"Why, that portrait didn't begin to resemble you--ma'am."

"Please--I asked you!"

"Not to say 'ma'am.' I remember now. But it's so hard not to say 'Rosalind.'"

She made no answer to that.

"I wish you'd lash out at me just as you did when I was a boatman," he went on. "I was getting used to that."

Still Rosalind had no answer. She was groping blindly for her old footing, but could not find it. Everything had gone in the crash.

"Please unfasten the skiff," she said after a pause.

"What for?"

"I--I wish it. I'm going home."

"In a skiff?"

She met his glance with a flash of her old disdain.

"I'll go if I have to swim," she said. "Haven't I undergone enough? Haven't I been humiliated and made ridiculous and--"

"Not necessarily. It all depends on whether we're going to confess the whole business or stand on our constitutional rights. They don't know a tenth of it--yet. Why should they? We told 'em we'd known each other a long time. Why not play the hand out?"

Rosalind's eyes questioned him.

"I mean, why not resume the voyage--for Ogdensburg?"

She gasped.

"Certainly; why not?"

She rallied swiftly from the shock of the proposal.

"I think you forget yourself," she said sternly.

"Not a bit." He shook his head. "I haven't forgotten anything. On the contrary, I'm remembering all that happened and all that was said. I'm remembering about our being pals. You needn't jump at that. It's not a bad word, after all--pals. I say, let's go ahead."

"Mr. Kellogg!"

"Make it 'Billy.'"

She shook her head.

"'Sam,' then."

She remained silent.

"I suppose I ought to apologize for a lot of it," he muttered. "But somehow I can't. You know as a matter of fact you deserved most of it."

Rosalind sat very straight on the nail-keg.

"Yes; you did. You were so all-fired scornful of everybody and everything--particularly me. You rubbed it in. You just carved me into slivers every time you spoke--and I guess you thought I wasn't even good enough to furnish slivers.

"I'll admit I'm not much use in the world; I'm about as useless as the first six rows in a movie house. But that wasn't any reason for climbing me every time I did something or said something. So far as usefulness goes I'll stack up with Reggy, anyhow.

"Wait a minute now. I'm not going to hurt your feelings. That was just a preface. Here's the rest of it: All the time you were carving me and climbing me I was strong for you. That's Gospel. I just had to be. You bullyragged me into loving you.

"Perhaps that doesn't sound quite right. I don't mean that you tried to. But I mean that every time you clouted me I loved you some more.

"Wait--please wait! We'll cut out the trip to Ogdensburg. I see you're not ready for that--yet.

"Yes; I said, 'yet.' I'm filing a claim. Some day I'm going to take it up, perhaps after we've known each other a conventional time.

"I'll admit it may not seem very promising now. But the gold's there, Rosalind. I know it. You may have hidden it from a lot of other people, but you can't hide it from me."

Rosalind's nineteenth--or was it the eighteenth, or twentieth?--proposal bewildered her.

"So remember! It stands this way: I love you, and some day I'm going to marry you. I'll wait--but I won't quit."

He paused and watched her for some sign, but she was mute, motionless. Suddenly his voice changed.

"Oh, if you'd only let yourself go, Rosalind! If you'd only throw off the mask! You nearly did, back in the launch, when it was all touch and go for a few minutes.

"I don't love you because you're brave or capable or wonderful. That's only part of you--the part everybody sees. But there's a lot more than that. You've tried to bury it out of sight in your woman's heart, but it won't stay there always. It's the real you--and I'm going to have it!"

There was a moment of silence. Then Kellogg spoke with his old briskness.

"Well, let's see if we can get the skiff loose. You want to get over to Witherbee's a soon as possible, I guess. Your gown isn't dry yet."

Rosalind nodded. She watched him as he fumbled with the padlock. She had the sensation that something extraordinary was happening to her--a sort of transmigration from one existence to another.

Her mind was not working very clearly; it groped. Through it all ran a faint and vague whisper of alarm. She wondered if she was losing her sure and steady grip on Rosalind Chalmers. It was so absurd, too; so unthinkable--so--

"Funny about Schmidt, wasn't it?" remarked Billy, still struggling with the lock. "I never had the least idea. Did you?"

She shook her head mechanically and without the least thought of the boatman's patron.

"I'm getting Uncle Henry to fix things up for Bob," he went on. "He's going to keep the banking-job. Poor devil! He's been scared stiff for the last two days. What did you think of him, anyhow?"

This time she did not hear his question at all.

The padlock came loose in his hand, and he unchained the skiff.

"All ready," he said. "I'll row."

But Rosalind did not take the hand that he reached to steady her. It was busy, unclasping the bracelet on her arm. An instant later she flung the golden treasure far out into the river.

"Rosalind!"

She looked at Billy with a smile of contentment.

"There goes the last of my lies," she said with a luxurious sigh. "I've told so many that I'm completely ashamed of myself. And most of them were all on account of that."

She pointed to where the bracelet had disappeared forever.

"It seemed to chain me to so many things I want to get rid of," she added thoughtfully. "It was not only the lies--it was almost everything. And I simply had to do something physical to break away."

The incompetent boatman nodded to signify that he understood--but he didn't. Something in her eyes baffled him.

"Well, hop in," he said shortly, breaking the tension.

Rosalind drew back a step from the skiff.

"I object to being ordered to do things," she said firmly.

"I beg your pardon. I meant--"

"You mean to ask, of course," she broke in.

"Yes; certainly."

"That's better," she said softly. "It is very much nicer to be asked."

She was about to embark when he gripped her suddenly by the shoulders and stared into her face.

"What did you mean by that?" he demanded, shaking her gently. "Am I dreaming--or crazy. 'Nicer to be asked!' Rosalind! Why--I'm a fool! Did you mean--"

"Ask me."

He got his answer, too, even if it was slightly muffled.

In the latest print of Hamersly's "Social Register" there is a cross-index on a certain page among the C's that refers the reader to a certain other page among the K's; or if you happen to hit the K page first, an equally obliging cross-index will send you back to the C's, if you are at all curious. If you look under "Sam," you'll find there's nothing at all. It is because of that very omission that two certain persons have agreed that Hamersly's is trashy, unreliable and incomplete, and have canceled their subscription.

THE END