Part 7

"The Maid of the Haunted Well had hosts of lovers, but to one and all she gave one answer ’Wouldst wed me? Then drink with me one cup of water from the Haunted Well. Whosoever tastes this water shall never--’"

The monotonous voice ceased suddenly, and the sheets comprising the "Maid of the Haunted Well" strewed the carpet like gigantic snow-flakes. "Elaine!" cried Mrs. Marshall.

"I can’t go on with it. It chokes me. Peggy, don’t you think it’s silly?"

Peggy’s struggle between her candor and her sympathy resulted in something of compromise. "I didn’t know just what you were trying to bring out about the haunted well," she replied. "But it sounded rather ingenious, and interesting. At the same time--"

"Well?" It was Mrs. Marshall who insisted on the conclusion of the sentence. Elaine was staring gloomily at the carpet.

"O, I only wondered if nice breezy stories about jolly boys and girls wouldn’t take a little better, but, of course, I don’t know anything about it."

"They are not all children’s stories," said Mrs. Marshall, as Elaine preserved an uncompromising silence. "Read her the ’Daughter’s Defiance,’ Elaine."

For a moment Peggy feared Elaine was going to refuse. She looked ruefully at the dejected figure in the rocking-chair, wondering if her frankness was likely to cost her the friendship she had worked so hard to win. But, after a moment, Elaine reached automatically for another envelope, and drew out a second manuscript. "The Daughter’s Defiance," she read, "Or, True in Spite of All." Peggy tightened her grip on the arms of her chair, and prepared herself for the worst.

"’Leave me, if you have any mercy, I pray you leave me to myself.’ The Countess Rosalie stood trembling, her hands flashing with jewels, clasped in appeal. Beautiful as she always was, she seemed more beautiful than ever, now that grief had left her cheeks white as alabaster."

There was a ring at the doorbell. Peggy hurried to collect the scattered sheets of the "Maid of the Haunted Well," while "The Daughter’s Defiance" found a temporary hiding-place behind one of the couch cushions. Before the scramble was over the bell had rung for the second time, and Elaine, looking self-conscious almost to the point of guilt, went to answer it. Peggy heard a surprised exclamation, then a small voice piping resolutely.

"Want my aunt Peggy."

Even Mrs. Marshall joined in the laughter. "O, Dorothy," cried Peggy as her niece appeared, wearing an expression of triumph. "To think of all that excitement just for you." She put her arms about the little figure fondly. "What do you want, honey?"

"Want to stay with you."

"If you stay, you must be as still as a little mouse. I’m listening to a story."

"I likes stories!" Dorothy climbed upon Peggy’s knee and composed herself to listen. But long before the harrowing adventures of the Countess Rosalie had reached their tragic culmination she had grown restless. Slipping from Peggy’s arms she started on a tour of investigation of the room and its contents, and, to be quite honest, Peggy half wished she might follow her example.

But the Countess Rosalie was finally at peace, and Elaine turned a flushed face on her unwilling critic. "Tell me just what you think of it," she said.

Peggy drew a long breath. The temptation to be comforting and complimentary was for the instant almost irresistibly strong. She fortified herself for the ordeal by recalling the character of Elaine’s appeal. It was not right that the girl should waste her time, if a friendly caution could save her. Nevertheless Peggy heartily wished that the thankless task had fallen to somebody else.

"Of course it’s any amount better than anything I could write, Elaine. I think your imagination is really wonderful. But--"

"Go on." This time it was Elaine who did the prompting. Mrs. Marshall only compressed her lips.

"It seemed to me that there were a good many things in your story that girls can’t be expected to know much about, love and crime and remorse and all that sort of thing. And all the characters are counts and countesses and--Well, I never saw a countess--"

"And you’re wondering if I ever did. Well, no."

"I should think," suggested Peggy, feeling the beads of perspiration start on her forehead, "that it would be better to write about the things you know. That’s all."

"But I don’t know anything worth writing about," said Elaine sharply. Then in a changed voice, "O, I see! Probably that’s just the reason I oughtn’t to try it."

"It seems to me," floundered Peggy, wondering how editors ever lived through the ordeal of rejecting manuscripts, "that after you’ve lived longer--"

"I believe," interjected Mrs. Marshall witheringly, "that Bryant wrote ’Thanatopsis’ at eighteen."

"I believe he did," Peggy acknowledged meekly.

"But this isn’t ’Thanatopsis,’" said Elaine, surveying "The Daughter’s Defiance," with critical eye, "and I’m not Bryant. That’s all Peggy means." She smiled with a courage that did not conceal a quiver of pain, and Peggy looked at her with a contrition no less keen because she herself felt the need of sympathy.

Again a welcome diversion came from Dorothy. In her search for entertainment she had discovered a basket of photographs, placed upon a small stand. Engrossed in the possibilities of her discovery Dorothy had leaned against the basket’s frail support, with the result that the stand was overturned and the pictures strewn far and wide. For the second time during her call Peggy went down on hands and knees to gather up the scattered photographs, having satisfied herself by the agility with which Dorothy scrambled to her feet that she was uninjured.

"O, Elaine!" It was a relief to start a topic of conversation which bore no relation to literary pursuits. "Here’s a picture of you, I never saw before."

Elaine glanced up quickly. "O," she exclaimed, "I didn’t know that was downstairs."

Peggy’s discovery was a kodak picture, apparently a group of picnickers, gathered on the edge of a small lake. When she had removed all traces of the disorder caused by Dorothy’s mishap she carried the picture to the window, for a closer look.

"How heavy your hair used to be, Elaine. You’ve got plenty now, but it was lots heavier then."

No reply.

"I love kodak pictures," Peggy went on. "This is an awfully cute one, but really you look older in it than you look now. I suppose it is because there’s no retouching."

Something in the other’s silence caused her to look up. Elaine’s face was crimson, and her manner so indicative of perturbation that Peggy was on the point of demanding the reason.

Elaine saved her from that blunder. "It’s not a bit good picture," she said hastily. "I can’t bear it. I never mean to leave it where people can see it." She took the offending photograph from Peggy’s hand, and had locked it into the drawer of the desk before Peggy had recovered from her amazement.

On the whole, the afternoon had not been very successful. Peggy suggested to Dorothy that it was time to go home, and Dorothy pranced with uncomplimentary readiness to take her departure. Elaine followed them out into the hall, half closing the door behind them.

"Peggy," she said with an unmistakable effort, "if it isn’t too much trouble, I wish you’d tell Mrs. Ely that I’ll do those cuffs for her."

Peggy turned with a joyful exclamation, and caught Elaine in her arms. "You dear thing. I think that’s just splendid of you." Then, without giving her courage time to cool, she rushed on, "And, O, Elaine, you don’t know how I hated to say what I did. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?"

"I shouldn’t have forgiven you, if you’d said what you didn’t believe," Elaine returned, her lips trembling. "I didn’t want sugar-plums, Peggy. I wanted the truth. I’ve got to do something to earn money, and if I haven’t any chance one way, I’ve got to try another. And, besides," she added, voicing a truth which many people apparently lose sight of, "it’s a lot easier always to say something pleasant than to say what’s true."

Peggy went home in a glow. She was proud of the stand Elaine had taken, and grateful to her for realizing that friendly sincerity may be a costly gift. "And she’s such a sensitive girl, too," Peggy thought. "She was really annoyed because I didn’t quite like the kodak picture of her."

The recollection of Elaine’s face came before her as the thought took shape, and she seemed to see in its expression something more than annoyance. Why should Elaine have cared? Unconsciously Peggy laid the matter of the photograph away in some secret drawer of her memory, along with several other little perplexities, to await a future solution.

*CHAPTER X*

*RUTH IS PERPLEXED*

Peggy was in her room, combing her hair, when Ruth came in. At the sound of her voice in the hall, Peggy pushed the door ajar, and hailed her cheerily.

"Hello, there! Come on upstairs. I’m trying to do my hair Anna’s way, and I’m having such a time."

She had turned back to the mirror, and was struggling with the rebellious locks when Ruth burst into the room, somewhat out of breath after her hasty ascent of the stairs. "O, Peggy!" she panted. "The awfullest thing!"

"What’s happened?" Peggy demanded briskly. She knew Ruth well enough to be aware that the "awfullest thing" might mean that her father was bankrupt or that she had mislaid her thimble. People who habitually indulge in superlatives must not complain over belated sympathy.

"Just read this." Ruth checked herself suddenly. "It’s something," she said in an altered voice "that it would be better for small persons not to overhear."

Peggy turned hastily. Dorothy stood in the doorway, her resentful gaze fastened upon Ruth. Dorothy was extremely sensitive regarding any reference to her tender years, and seldom failed to grasp the import of a carefully veiled allusion to her presence, even though the words used were beyond her understanding.

"There aren’t any small persons over here," she announced, scowling darkly in Ruth’s direction. "There’s nobody here but free big girls."

Peggy discreetly dropped her hair over her face to veil a smile.

"I wonder what Taffy’s doing," she said diplomatically. "I hope he isn’t out on the front lawn where he’ll get into a quarrel with the butcher’s dog."

Dorothy looked stubbornly at the toes of her small shoes, and Peggy tried another tack.

"Let’s see! I wonder if I left any caramels on the plate in the pantry last night. Yes, I believe there were two or three."

"Maybe Dick ate ’em," suggested Dorothy, falling into the snare.

"He hadn’t eaten them fifteen minutes ago when I came upstairs. On the plate with the blue castle, Dorothy, dear, and Sally’ll hand it down to you if you can’t reach it." Peggy laughed out, as Dorothy clattered down the stairs. "Isn’t she quick?" she exclaimed admiringly. "That child knew in a second you wanted to get rid of her." She shook her hair back as she spoke, and, for the first time, caught sight of Ruth’s face.

"Why, Ruth!" Peggy took an impulsive step forward. "Then it’s really--"

"It’s something really dreadful," Ruth returned, biting the lip which would tremble, in spite of her efforts. She turned the key in the lock to secure the conference against further interruptions, and held a letter toward Peggy. "Read that," she said.

The sheet Peggy drew from the square envelope bore a showy monogram at the top. "My dear boy," Peggy read, and then looked up bewildered. "Why, I don’t see--"

"O, go on," Ruth cried, with, an impatient stamp of her foot. "_Do_ go on." And Peggy obediently read the communication aloud.

"MY DEAR BOY:--The charming little pendant came last evening, and I thank you a thousand times. The design is as unique and charming as that of the brooch you sent last week. I noticed that you purchased both at King and Kennedy’s, who are noted, I understand, for exclusive designs, as well as for the superior quality of their goods.

"By the way, I noticed a darling little ring, a combination of pearls and sapphires, in their window the other day. Ask to see it sometime when you are passing. They are most obliging and always ready to show their stock whether you wish to purchase or not.

"Again, with many thanks "Yours, "Maud."

Peggy’s blank stare met her friend’s disturbed gaze. "I don’t understand it," she cried. "Who wrote it, and whom is it written to, and why did you bring it to me, and what makes you act as if it was so dreadful?"

"Because it _is_ dreadful." Ruth’s voice was unnaturally hard. "I don’t know who wrote it, except that her name is Maud, but the letter is written to Graham."

Peggy glanced quickly at the envelope in her hand, and then let it fall to the floor, as if it had scorched her fingers. "O, Ruth," she exclaimed reproachfully, "why did you tell me to read it?"

"Peggy, hush! This isn’t a time for quibbling. You’ve got to help me and tell me what to do." The tears of utter misery began suddenly to course down Ruth’s cheeks, and Peggy hastily assumed the role of comforter.

"O, Ruth! You mustn’t feel that way about it. Of course you and Graham have always been great chums, but you must have known that some day there’d be somebody he’d care for more than for you."

"Peggy Raymond, I never thought you could be so stupid." Ruth’s voice told of exasperation. "Listen! This letter is written by a girl named Maud, and Graham never mentioned such a person to any of us. He has lots of girl friends, like all college boys, and their pictures are all around his room, and I know the names of every single one. But he never has said a word about Maud."

Peggy shook her head helplessly, unable to suggest any satisfactory explanation for Graham’s singular omission. Ruth continued, gradually losing her self-control, as she summed up the evidence against the brother she adored.

"That would be queer, Peggy, and it would make me feel dreadfully hurt, but, of course, Graham isn’t obliged to tell me about his friends unless he chooses to. That isn’t the worst part. You see he’s giving her presents, things that cost a lot. It was a pendant this week, and a brooch last, and now she’s hinting for a ring."

"Yes, he must think a great deal of her," Peggy acknowledged gravely.

"But Graham hasn’t any money of his own. Father’s doing it all, and the worst of it is, that Graham’s expenses are so heavy this year that father is having a real hard time. He spoke to Graham about it not a week ago, and asked him to be as careful as he could, and Graham talked so beautifully about it, and he wanted to give up lots of things, and father said no, and that he’d get hold of the money somehow. And after all that, Graham has bought jewelry for this Maud."

Peggy made no effort to check her friend’s wild outburst of weeping. Under the circumstances it would do Ruth good to cry. She looked with a sense of shrinking disgust at the letter on the floor, as if it had been some sort of loathsome creature. "How could he?" she said to herself, as Graham’s frank, handsome face flashed out on the screen of her memory. Only that morning she had seen Graham and his father pass. The older man was listening to something the younger was saying, smiling a little, and the look he bent upon his son was full of trust and confidence. And all the time Graham had been deceiving him, taking the money which meant sacrifices in the home, to buy costly presents for a girl whose name he had never mentioned to his sister. It was no wonder that Ruth cried. Sunny Peggy felt sick and disillusioned.

The door-knob rattled. "It’s me!" said a voice, which sounded very much as if the three caramels were simultaneously occupying one small mouth.

"Run along, Dorothy!" Peggy was too absorbed in the problem confronting her to make her request tactful. She went over to Ruth, who was making a brave struggle to regain her self-control, and possessing herself of the limp hand, stroked it tenderly. Then Peggy’s instinct to make excuses for everybody, led her to say, "After all, perhaps we’re making a mountain out of a mole-hill."

"Mole-hill!" exclaimed Ruth indignantly. "How you can call it a mole-hill for Graham to take his father’s money and pretend it’s for things at college when all the time--"

"O, yes, I know. But there’s a chance of a mistake," Peggy protested, "I don’t suppose you’ve talked with Graham about it?"

"Goodness, no! I went up to his room this morning to do the work and this letter lay on the floor, not even in the envelope."

"That doesn’t look as if he were ashamed of it," Peggy exclaimed triumphantly.

"O, that’s Graham all over. No matter what he did, he’d be too careless to cover his tracks. I picked it up and looked at it to see if it was meant to be thrown away or not, and then my eye caught that about the pendant, and I simply couldn’t stop. And after I saw what it meant it seemed to me that I should die if I didn’t tell somebody."

"But, Ruth," Peggy protested, alarmed, "you surely are going to talk to Graham about it. You can’t mean to let it go on, and not give him a chance to explain or anything."

Poor Ruth hid her face in her hands.

"O, Peggy!" she cried in a stifled voice, "if I thought he could explain, I’d be only too glad to give him the chance. But you know yourself he can’t. And how can I bear to tell him that I know all about it. If it was anything else, I wouldn’t feel so," she added despairingly. "But think, Peggy, of telling your brother that you know he has been cheating your father, and being mean and underhanded, all the time that he talked so beautifully about how grateful he was for what had been done for him, and how hard he was going to try to make us all proud of him."

It was a black picture. "Then, I suppose," said Peggy, after a long pause, "that you’ll tell your father."

"Father!" Ruth spoke the word with a little protesting cry. "Why, it would kill father to know such a thing about Graham. He never could bear it."

Peggy hesitated. Strong as her sympathy was for Ruth, her sturdy common sense refused to take her friend’s view of the case.

"Ruth, this is too serious a thing for two girls like us to keep to ourselves. Somebody’s got to know, somebody who’ll understand what to do."

Ruth sprang to her feet. "You don’t mean that you’ll tell. Peggy, you couldn’t be so--so dishonorable as to tell. I came to you because I had to confide in somebody. And, now, if I can’t trust you--"

"O, good gracious!" exclaimed Peggy with an irritation of which she was immediately ashamed. "Of course I’m not going to tell. But _you_ are. Ruth, you must."

Again and again they went over the ground, Peggy coaxing, persuading, trying vainly to bring her friend’s resolution to the sticking point, while Ruth squirmed and evaded and protested, and even accused Peggy of heartlessness.

"I tell you it would kill father. He’s wrapped up in Graham. If he found out that he had tricked and cheated him he’d never have another happy minute."

"Your mother, then."

"Mother! Why, that would be worse, if anything could be worse. Her heart isn’t strong, you know. The doctor says we must be careful about shocks--"

"Then, Ruth Wylie, there’s no two ways about it. You’ve got to pluck up your courage and have it out with Graham."

It was in the discussion of this point that Peggy was accused of heartlessness, a most unjust charge, for at the moment her heart was aching for poor Ruth in her misery.

"You don’t understand!" Ruth insisted. "You _can’t_ understand. Your brother is younger than you are, but if he were older, and you’d always looked up to him, and thought he was perfectly splendid, and felt sorry for other girls with ordinary brothers, just think what it would be like to face him and tell him that you’d found him out, and that he was mean and contemptible. O, it don’t seem as if I could be talking about Graham. O, Peggy, why did I ever read that letter?"

Peggy temporarily gave up the effort to bring Ruth to a realizing sense of her responsibility in the matter, and set herself to soothe her. Between indignation on her father’s account, and grief over the discovery of the glaring weakness in the brother, whom she had been accustomed to set on a pedestal, poor Ruth’s nerves were sadly unstrung. Peggy coaxed her to lie down upon the bed, and stroked her burning forehead with sympathetic fingers, cooing over her like a dove over its nestlings. All that was sweet and womanly in Peggy responded to the challenge of suffering, and her fingers had the deft tenderness which characterizes the born nurse, and is not always secured by a course of training in the hospitals.

She was just congratulating herself that Ruth’s tense muscles were relaxing somewhat, and that her breathing was less hurried and irregular, when a crash in the hall, followed by staccato screams, sent her flying to the door. Most unexpectedly she found her exit barred by a solid oak table and, when she pushed that impatiently aside, she stumbled over the upturned rockers of Dorothy’s little red chair. Dorothy herself was somewhere on the stairs, screaming lustily, while Mrs. Raymond and Sally were bending over her, imploring her to tell them where she was hurt.

"What is it? What has happened?" shrieked Peggy, plunging down the stairs, forgetful of everything except the possibility that Dorothy was seriously injured.

No one had time to explain, but gradually from scraps of information let fall, aided by her own intuition, Peggy reached an understanding of the catastrophe. Dorothy, aggrieved by the turning of the key in the lock, had pushed a table in front of Peggy’s door, and placed her own small rocking-chair on top, intending from this vantage ground to make a dramatic entrance through the transom. The rocking-chair had frustrated this maneuvre by swaying at the wrong moment, and Dorothy had plunged over the banisters while the chair had toppled to the floor with a crash worthy a more imposing piece of furniture.

"Can you move your arms and legs, dear? Let Grandma see you kick?" pleaded Mrs. Raymond, running her fingers anxiously over Dorothy’s plump little body in search of broken bones.

"It’s her insides that are hurt, most like. My ma had a cousin who got his insides hurt in a fall, and for seventeen years he never left his bed." Sally, who had a taste for the ghastly, contributed this information, and would have gone on to give the harrowing details had she not perceived that no one was paying any attention to her.

Dorothy’s screams were gradually subsiding into gasping sobs. She turned her pathetic, tear-stained little face toward Peggy, who crouched on the stairs beside her, a conscience-stricken heap, repeating miserably, "O, Dorothy, where does it hurt, darling?"

"I--I swallowed ’em," Dorothy volunteered at last, and burst into fresh lamentations.

"Swallowed what, dear?"

"The car’mels. I swallowed ’em quick. I didn’t have time to eat ’em."

Peggy and her mother exchanged wide-eyed glances.

"Don’t mind about that, dear," coaxed Peggy. "By and by, when you feel better, I’ll make you some more candy."

Dorothy’s sobs ceased with an abruptness that was uncanny. "Feel better now," she said.

"But where does it hurt, Dorothy?"

"Don’t hurt. But I like butter-scotch better’n car’mels."

"You shall have butter-scotch, you precious. But where--" Peggy’s solicitous inquiries were interrupted by Dorothy’s clapping her hands and beginning to frisk about in a manner which set at ease conclusively any fear as to broken bones.

"It’s struck into her brains most like," said Sally hopefully. "I knowed an idget boy onct. It was a fall striking into his brains that ailed him."