Part 16
"So she declared herself, but she had on her neck under her coat a string of beads which were both valuable and of exquisite workmanship. I know, because it broke just as she was leaving, and the beads fell all over the floor, and one rolled my way and I picked it up, scamp that I was, when both their backs were turned in their search for the others."
"A bead--a costly bead--and you were not found out?"
"No, Mrs. Ocumpaugh, she never seemed to miss it. She was too excited over what she had just done to count correctly. She thought she had them all. But this has been in my pocket for six years. Perhaps you have seen its like; I never have, in jeweler's shop or elsewhere, till yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Her great eyes, haggard with suffering, rose to mine, then they fell on the bead which I had taken from my pocket. The cry she gave was not loud, but it effectually settled all my doubts.
"What did you know of Mrs. Carew before she came to ----?" I asked impressively.
For minutes she did not answer; she was trembling like a leaf.
"Her mother!" she exclaimed at last. "Her mother! her own mother! And she never hinted it to me by word or look. Oh, Valerie, Valerie, what tortures we have both suffered! and now you are happy while I--"
Grief seemed to engulf her. Feeling my position keenly, I walked to the window, but soon turned and came back in response to her cry: "I must see Mrs. Carew instantly. Give my orders. I will start at once to New York. They will think I have gone to be on hand to meet Mr. Ocumpaugh, and will say that I have not the strength. Override their objections. I put my whole cause in your hands. You will go with me?"
"With pleasure, madam."
And thus was that terrifying apathy broken up, to be succeeded by a spell of equally terrifying energy.
XXVII
THE FINAL STRUGGLE
She, however, did not get off that night. I dared not push the matter to the point of awakening suspicion, and when the doctor said that the ship was not due for twenty hours and that it would be madness for her to start without a night's rest and two or three good meals, I succumbed and she also to the few hours' delay. More than that, she consented to retire, and when I joined her in her carriage the following morning, it was to find her physically stronger, even if the mind was still a prey to deepest anguish and a torturing indecision. Her nurse accompanied us and the maid called Celia, so conversation was impossible--a fact I did not know whether to be thankful for or not. On the cars she was shielded as much as possible from every one's gaze, and when we reached New York we were driven at once to the Plaza. As I noticed the respect and intense sympathy with which her presence was met by those who saw nothing in her broken aspect but a mother's immeasurable grief, I wondered at the secrets which lie deep down in the hearts of humanity, and what the effect would be if I should suddenly shout aloud:
"She is more wretched than you think. Her suspense is one that the child's return would not appease. Dig deeper into mortal fear and woe if you would know what has changed this beautiful woman into a shadow in five days."
And I myself did not know her mind. I could neither foresee what she contemplated nor what the effect of seeing the child again would have upon her. I only knew that she must never for a moment be out of sight of some one who loved her. I myself never left the hall upon which her room opened, a precaution for which I felt grateful when, late in the evening, she opened the door and, seeing me, stepped out fully dressed for the street.
"Come and tell Sister Angelina that I may be trusted with you," she said. Sister Angelina was the nurse.
Of course I did as she bade me, and after some few more difficulties I succeeded in getting her into a carriage without attracting any special attention. Once there she breathed more easily, and so did I.
"Now take me to _her_," she said. Whether she meant Mrs. Carew or Gwendolen, I never knew.
I now saw that the hour had come for telling her that she no longer need have any fear of Doctor Pool. Whatever she contemplated must be done with a true knowledge of where she stood and to just what extent her secret remained endangered. I do not know if she felt grateful. I almost think that for the first few minutes she felt rather frightened than relieved to find herself free to act as her wishes and the preservation of her place in her husband's heart and the world's regard impelled her. For she never for a moment seemed to doubt that now the doctor was gone. I would yield to her misery and prove myself the friend she had begged me to be from the first. She turned herself toward me and sought to read my face, but it was rather to find out what I expected of her than what she had yet to fear from me. I noted this and muttered some words of confidence; but her mood had already changed, and they fell on deaf ears.
I was not present at the meeting of the two women. That is, I remained in what they would call a private parlor, while Mrs. Ocumpaugh passed into the inner room, where she knew she would find Mrs. Carew and the child. Nor did I hear much. Some words came through the partition. I caught most of Mrs. Carew's explanation of how she came to give up her new-born child. She was an actress at the time with a London success to her credit, but with no hold as yet in this country. She was booked for a tour the coming season; the husband who might have seen to the child was dead; she had no friends, no relatives here save a brother poorer than herself, and the mother instinct had not awakened. She bartered her child away as she would have parted with any other encumbrance likely to interfere with her career. But--here her voice rose and I heard distinctly: "A fortune was suddenly left me. An old admirer dying abroad bequeathed me two million dollars, and I found myself rich, admired and independent, with no one on earth to care for or to share the happiness of what seemed to me, after the brilliant life I had hitherto led, a dreary inaction. Love had no interest for me. I had had a husband, and that part of my nature had been satisfied. What I wanted now--and the wish presently grew into a passion--was my child. From passion it grew to mania. Knowing the name of her to whom I had yielded it (I had overheard it in the doctor's office), I hunted up your residence and came one day to Homewood.
"Perhaps some old servant can be found there to-day who could tell you of the strange, deeply veiled lady who was found one evening at sunset, clinging to the gate with both hands and sobbing as she looked in at the triumphant little heiress racing up and down the walks with the great mastiff, Don. They will say that it was some poor crazy woman, or some mother who had buried her own little darling; but it was I, Marion, it was I, looking upon the child I had sold for a half-year's independence; I who was broken-hearted now for her smiles and touches and saw them all given to strangers, who had made her a princess, but who could never give her such love as I felt for her then in my madness. I went away that time, but I came again soon with the titles of the adjoining property in my pocket. I could not keep away from the sight of her, and felt that the torture would be less to see her in your arms than not to see her at all."
The answer was not audible, but I could well imagine what it was. As every one knew, the false mother had not long held out against the attractions of the true one. Instinct had drawn the little one to the heart that beat responsive to its own.
What followed I could best judge from the frightened cry which the child suddenly gave. She had evidently waked to find both women at her bedside. Mrs. Carew's "Hush! hush!" did not answer this time; the child was in a frenzy, and evidently turned from one to the other, sobbing out alternately, "I will not be a girl again. I like my horse and going to papa and sailing on the big ocean, in trousers and a little cap," and the softer phrases she evidently felt better suited to Mrs. Ocumpaugh's deep distress: "Don't feel bad, mamma, you shall come see me some time. Papa will send for you. I am going to him." Then silence, then such a struggle of woman-heart with woman-heart as I hope never to be witness to again. Mrs. Ocumpaugh was pleading with Mrs. Carew, not for the child, but for her life. Mr. Ocumpaugh would be in port the next morning; if she could show him the child all would be well. Mr. Trevitt would manage the details; take the credit of having found Gwendolen somewhere in this great city, and that would insure him the reward and them his silence. (I heard this.) There was no one else to fear. Doctor Pool, the cause of all this misery, was dead; and in the future, her heart being set to rest about her secret, she would be happier and make the child happier, and they could enjoy her between them, and she would be unselfish and let Gwendolen spend an hour or more every day with Mrs. Carew, on some such plea as lessons in vocal-training and music.
Thus pleaded Mrs. Ocumpaugh.
But the mother hardly listened. She had eaten with the child, slept with the child and almost breathed with the child for three days now, and the ecstasy of the experience had blinded her to any other claim than her own. She pitied Mrs. Ocumpaugh, pitied most of all her deceived husband, but no grief of theirs could equal that of Rachel crying for her child. Let Mrs. Ocumpaugh remember that when the evil days come. She had separated child from mother! child from mother! Oh, how the wail swept through those two rooms!
I dared not prophesy to myself at this point how this would end. I simply waited.
Their voices had sunk after each passionate outbreak, and I was only able to catch now and then a word which told me that the struggle was yet going on.
But finally there came a lull, and while I wondered, the door flew suddenly open and I saw Mrs. Ocumpaugh standing on the threshold, pallid and stricken, looking back at the picture made by the other two as Mrs. Carew, fallen on her knees by the bedside, held to her breast the panting child.
"I can not go against nature," said she. "Keep Gwendolen, and may God have pity upon me and Philo."
I stepped forward. Meeting my eye, she faltered this last word:
"Your advice was good. To-morrow when I meet my husband I will tell him who found the child and why that child is not at my side to greet him."
* * * * *
That night I had a vision. I saw a door--shut, ominous. Before that door stood a woman, tall, pale, beautiful. She was there to enter, but to what no mortal living could say. She saw nothing but loss and the hollowness of a living death behind that closed door.
But who knows? Angels spring up unknown on the darkest road, and perhaps--
Here the vision broke; the day and its possibilities lay before me.
THE END
A LIST _of_ IMPORTANT FICTION THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
A ROMANCE OF AMERICAN CHIVALRY
* * * * *
THE LAW OF THE LAND
Of Miss Lady, whom it involved in mystery, and of John Eddring, gentleman of the South, who read its deeper meaning
By EMERSON HOUGH, Author of The Mississippi Bubble
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Romantic, unhackneyed, imaginative, touched with humor, full of spirit and dash.
_Chicago Record Herald_
So virile, so strong, so full of the rare qualities of beauty and truth.
_New York Press_
A powerful novel, vividly presented. The action is rapid and dramatic, and the romance holds the reader with irresistible force.
_Detroit Tribune_
Pre-eminently superior to any literary creation of the day. Its naturalness places it on the plane of immortality.
_New York American_
Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
A THOROUGHBRED GIRL
* * * * *
ZELDA DAMERON
By MEREDITH NICHOLSON Author of The Main Chance
* * * * *
Zelda Dameron is in all ways a splendid and successful story. There is about it a sweetness, a wholesomeness and a sturdiness that will commend it to earnest, kindly and wholesome people.
_Boston Transcript_
The whole story is thoroughly American. It is lively and breezy throughout--a graphic description of a phase of life in the Middle West.
_Toledo Blade_
A love story of a peculiarly sweet and attractive sort,--the interpretation of a girl's life, the revelation of a human heart.
_New Orleans Picayune_
With portraits of the characters in color By John Cecil Clay
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
LOVE IN LIVERY
* * * * *
THE MAN ON THE BOX
By HAROLD MACGRATH Author of The Puppet Crown and The Grey Cloak
* * * * *
This is the brightest, most sparkling book of the season, crisp as a new greenback, telling a most absorbing story in the most delightful way. There never was a book which held the reader more fascinated.
_Albany Times-Union_
The best novel of the year.
_Seattle Post-Intelligencer_
Satire that stops short of caricature, humor that never descends to burlesque, sentiment that is too wholesome and genuine to verge upon sentimentality, these are reasons enough for liking The Man on the Box, quite aside from the fact that it is a refreshing novelty in fiction.
_New York Globe_
Illustrated by Harrison Fisher
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
HEARTS, GOLD AND SPECULATION
* * * * *
BLACK FRIDAY
By FREDERIC S. ISHAM Author of The Strollers and Under the Rose
* * * * *
There is much energy, much spirit, in this romance of the gold corner. Distinctly an opulent and animated tale.
_New York Sun_
Black Friday fascinates by its compelling force and grips by its human intensity. No better or more absorbing novel has been published in a decade.
_Newark Advertiser_
The love story is handled with infinite skill. The pictures of "the street" and its thrilling, pulsating life are given with rare power.
_Boston Herald_
Illustrated by Harrison Fisher
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
WANTED: A COOK
BY ALAN DALE
* * * * *
An uproariously funny comedy-novel of a self-conscious couple in contact with the servant question. Their ludicrous predicaments with their cooks are described with a light, farcical quality and a satire that never fail to entertain.
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_New York American_
Bound in decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.50
FULL OF DAINTY CHARM
* * * * *
THE GIRL AND THE KAISER
BY PAULINE BRADFORD MACKIE
* * * * *
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_Philadelphia Item_
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A STORY OF THE SIMPLE LIFE
* * * * *
THE HAPPY AVERAGE
By BRAND WHITLOCK Author of The 13th District and Her Infinite Variety
* * * * *
Mr. Whitlock has done more than simply repeat his earlier success. He has achieved a new one. In The Happy Average he has voiced a deep-seated human sympathy for the unheroic.
_Life_
A most delightful romance that is as fresh as the flowers of May.
_Pittsburg Leader_
As an example of a good, healthy, entertaining and human story, The Happy Average must be given a place in the front rank.
_Nashville American_
Not only the best book that has come from Mr. Whitlock's pen, but a really noteworthy achievement in fiction.
_Chicago Tribune_
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
THE LIFE AND LOVES OF LORD BYRON
* * * * *
THE CASTAWAY
"Three great men ruined in one year--a king, a cad and a castaway."--_Byron_.
BY HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES Author of Hearts Courageous
* * * * *
Lord Byron's personal beauty, his brilliancy, his genius, his possession of a title, his love affairs, his death in a noble cause, all make him the most magnetic figure in English literature. In Miss Rives's novel the incidents of his career stand out in absorbing power and enthralling force.
The most profoundly sympathetic, vivid and true portrait of Byron ever drawn.
Calvin Dill Wilson, author of _Byron--Man and Poet_
Dramatic scenes, thrilling incidents, strenuous events follow one another; pathos, revenge and passion; a strong love; and through all these, under all these, is the poet, the man, George Gordon.
_Grand Rapids Herald_
With eight illustrations in color by Howard Chandler Christy
12mo, cloth, price, $1.00 everywhere
A BOOK TO MAKE THE SPHINX LAUGH
* * * * *
IN THE BISHOP'S CARRIAGE
BY MIRIAM MICHELSON
* * * * *
From the moment when, in another girl's chinchilla coat, Nance Olden jumps into the unknown carriage, and, snuggling up to the solemn owner, calls him "Daddy," till she makes her final bow, a happy wife and a triumphant actress, she holds your fancy captive and your heart in thrall.
If jaded novel readers want a new sensation, they will get it here.
_Chicago Tribune_
For genuine, unaffected enjoyment, read the adventures of this dashing desperado in petticoats.
_Philadelphia Item_
It is beguiling, bewitching, bristling with originality; light enough for the laziest invalid to rest his brain over, profound enough to serve as a sermon to the humanitarian.
_San Francisco Bulletin_
Illustrated by Harrison Fisher
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
A ROMANCE OF THE DOLLAR MARK
* * * * *
THE COST
BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS Author of Golden Fleece
* * * * *
A masterly novel, interesting to the point of fascination, analytic to the point of keenness, thoroughly well written with complete understanding, and entirely committed to advocacy of the best things in life.
Wallace Rice in _Chicago Examiner_
Rapid and vivid, sure and keen, light and graceful.
_New York Times_
It is a story full of virile impulse. It treats of men of hardy endeavor, battling for leadership in the world of commerce and politics. If you want a novel that is intensely modern and intensely full of speed and spirit, you have it in The Cost.
Bailey Millard in _San Francisco Examiner_
With sixteen illustrations by Harrison Fisher
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
LOVE, POLITICS AND PELF
* * * * *
THE GRAFTERS
BY FRANCIS LYNDE Author of The Master of Appleby
* * * * *
One of the best examples of a new and distinctly American class of fiction--the kind which finds romance and even sensational excitement in business, politics, finance and law.
_The Outlook_
Its sweeping sentences fire the blood like new wine.
_Boston Post_
Telephone, telegraph, locomotive, skirl, click, thunder through the pages in a way unprecedented in fiction. It is an amazingly modern book.
_New York Times_
Virile, with the rugged strength of the West, The Grafters is like the current of a deep river, vigorous and forceful.
_Louisville Courier-Journal_
Illustrated by Arthur I. Keller
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
A GOOD DETECTIVE STORY
* * * * *
THE FILIGREE BALL
By ANNA KATHERINE GREEN Author of "The Leavenworth Case"
* * * * *
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Illustrated by C. M. Relyea
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
AN ANGEL OF THE TEXAS PLAINS
* * * * *
HULDAH
Proprietor of the Wagon-Tire House and Genial Philosopher of the Cattle Country
By ALICE MACGOWAN and GRACE MACGOWAN COOKE
* * * * *
A book that will brighten your hope, broaden your charity, and keep you mellow with its humor.
_Minneapolis Journal_
It is cram full of human nature. There is nobody like Aunt Huldah in any other book, and it is a good thing that she got into this one.
_Washington Times_
The book with its western breezes, homely philosophy, queer characters and big hearts, is almost as exhilarating as the heroine must have been herself.
_Baltimore Herald_
Aunt Huldah is the kind of a woman loved by the whole world, and the novel is the most attractive since the days of David Harum.
_Indianapolis Star_
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
For the man who can rejoice at a book that is not trivial; For the man who feels the power of Egypt's marvelous past; For the man who is stirred at heart by the great scenes of the Bible; For the man who likes a story and knows when it is good.
* * * * *
THE YOKE
A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt
* * * * *
A theme that captures the imagination: Israel's deliverance from Egypt.
Characters famous for all time: Moses, the Pharaoh, Prince Rameses.
Scenes of natural and supernatural power; the finding of the signet, the turning of the Nile into blood, the passage of the Red Sea.
A background of brilliant color: the rich and varied life of Thebes and Memphis.
A plot of intricate interest: a love story of enduring beauty. Such is "The Yoke."
Ornamental cloth binding. 626 pages
Price $1.50
ART AND ARIZONA
* * * * *
A GINGHAM ROSE
By ALICE WOODS ULLMAN Author of Edges
* * * * *
The author has a strange power of looking into the workings of her own mind and heart, and of setting down what she finds there with freedom, humor and justice. The result is "something new under the sun"--a book with the tang of originality. Nothing could be more refreshing than this story of a girl who turned a cad into a man and a man into a hero.
Bizarre, fantastic, intensely individual, bright and interesting, with characters that have a trick of saying and doing unexpected things.
_Washington Times_
A remarkable book, sustained in power and interest, strong in its characterization and picturesque in its treatment of life. It is human, palpitating with reality, tensely alive.
_Harper's Weekly_
Frontispiece by the author
12mo, cloth, price, $1.50
HER INFINITE VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE
* * * * *
HER INFINITE VARIETY
By BRAND WHITLOCK
* * * * *
Not a little of the attractiveness of Her Infinite Variety by Brand Whitlock lies in its markedly handsome appearance. Howard Chandler Christy's illustrations are among the best he has drawn, and are, happily, quite numerous.--_Philadelphia Record._