Part 16

“We’ll go up to the grand stand,” David proposed. “One of my horses is going to race,” he added magnificently, “and you shall bet on him. Would you like to? I’ll pay, of course, if you lose.”

“Isn’t betting kind o’ wicked?” asked the girl innocently. “The Meth’dist minister said it was. Me an’ Gus went t’ church an’ heard a sermon las’ Sunday night.”

“Nothing would be wicked for you,” decided David, “except to throw yourself away on that greasy little cad, Bamber. Promise me you won’t, Jennie. You’re about ten times too pretty and good for such a chap.”

“I told you I wasn’t goin’ t’ marry him b’fore,” murmured the girl. “I—I couldn’t.”

She pulled off her white cotton glove and spread her short-fingered, blunt little hand for his inspection.

“There!” she whispered. “I didn’t never ’xpect you’d see it. But that’s what I’ve bought with all the money you’ve give me for makin’ your toast the way you like it an’ your coffee an’ all. I’m goin’ t’ keep it always, t’ remember you by.”

David glanced carelessly at the pink little hand, with its close-clipped, shallow nails and stubbed fingertips.

“Do you mean—that?” he asked, touching the trumpery little ring with its circle of blue stones, which glittered speciously on the third finger.

“Yes,” breathed the girl. “You—you ain’t—mad, are you? I—wanted somethin’ t’ keep always, t’ put me in mind o’ you, when—I can’t do things f’r you no more; I love t’ do things f’r you, an’ I don’t s’pose I’ll always have the chance, after—after she——”

David felt a sudden moisture in his eyes. There was something touching, lovely, pathetic about this innocent, unasking love. He felt a little proud of his own understanding of it. Almost unavoidably, too, there came to his remembrance Barbara’s proud refusal to wear the costly ring he had urged upon her acceptance.

“I am not angry, dear little girl,” he said gently, “But I wish the keepsake was better, more worth while.”

“One of the stones did come out,” confessed the girl; “but I had it put back in, ’n’ I’m only goin’ t’ wear it f’r best.”

David’s hand was fumbling in his pocket.

“I bought a ring for—a certain young lady,” he said bitterly, “and she didn’t like it—or me—well enough to wear it. I wonder what you’d think of a ring like that?”

He thrust the white velvet case into her hands with a carelessly magnificent gesture of disdain.

“Do you mean for me to—to look at it?” asked the girl uncertainly.

“Yes, of course; look at it and tell me what you think about it.”

The girl’s face was a study as the sunshine leaped in a burst of dazzling colors from the imbedded gem.

“Oh!” she cried passionately. “_Oh—my!_”

“Do you like it?” asked David morosely. “Do you think it’s pretty enough for a girl to wear?”

“Pretty enough? Oh—I——”

She snapped the case shut.

“Take it, please. I—I’m sorry you showed it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because—I shan’t like this—this cheap thing any more. It—isn’t fit to remember you by. It—isn’t like you, the same’s this one is.”

His face flushed. He bent toward her eagerly.

“Give me the little blue ring, Jennie; I’d like to keep it—just to remind me that there is a woman in the world who loved to do things for me—— That’s what you said, and I shan’t forget it in a hurry.”

She pulled the ring from her hand with a listless gesture.

“You c’n have it, if you want it,” she said.

She swallowed hard, her childish lips trembling piteously.

“I shan’t care ’bout it no more.”

“Try the other one on and see if it fits,” said David. “I’ve been carrying it about in my pocket for a couple of months. She wouldn’t have it, and I swore I wouldn’t offer it to her again. Take it, and wear it—or sell it; I don’t care what you do with it.”

The girl trembled, her round blue eyes on his face.

“Honest and truly, do you mean it?” she whispered. “I’m almost afraid; it—it’s so—lovely!”

“Put it on,” ordered David, frowning.

He was thinking confusedly of Barbara, of her coldness, her capriciousness, her bad temper, as he chose to term her rather pitiful attempts to curb his own lawlessness. It suddenly appeared to David that he had been abused, made light of, almost insulted, of late. What other construction could be put upon Barbara’s behavior that very afternoon? He still loved her, of course; but her treatment of him certainly merited this tardy reprisal.

“You ain’t had a scrap with her, have you?” Jennie asked timidly, “an’—broke off th’ engagement?”

“Well, not exactly,” he muttered, with a frown.

“Anyway, don’t—show her that ring o’ mine, please. I’m ’fraid—she’d laugh.”

“She won’t see it, ever. Don’t worry about that. And she won’t set eyes on that diamond again in a hurry. Take good care of it, little girl. It’s good for a house and lot—that ring.”

“Is it a real di’mon’?”

“Of course, goosie; you didn’t suppose I’d buy an imitation, did you? I guess not. It’s yours to do what you like with. But——”

He stared dubiously into her pretty, flushed face. “Keep it to yourself that I gave it to you, will you?”

“I—won’t tell,” she faltered. “I’ll do jus’ as you say, Mr. Whitcomb.”

“All right. Now you sit down here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ve got to look around a bit, and put some money on my horse. I’ll buy some candy, too, while I’m gone.”

The girl sat, where he had left her, in a daze of happiness. All about her the seats of the grand stand were filling with people for the afternoon races; but she did not see them, nor the arid stretch of the race-course, around which were circling various experimental trotters under the guidance of hunched men in two-wheeled vehicles. The subdued light of the shaded place brought out new and more vivid flashes of color in the marvellous white stone on her little pink hand—scarlet and green and blue. Jennie twisted it slowly on her finger, her eyes riveted upon its alien splendors.

“To think she didn’t like it!” she whispered to herself.

“Good-afternoon, Miss Jennie,” murmured a carefully modulated voice at her side. She turned with a start to gaze into Mr. Todd’s smiling face.

“Goodness!” exclaimed the girl petulantly. “How you made me jump!”

“You were thinking about that new ring of yours, I suppose,” said Mr. Todd, blinking pleasantly.

“Who told you I had a new ring, I’d like to know?” the girl demanded coldly.

“I don’t have to be told,” Mr. Todd said facetiously. “Say, but it’s handsome! I shouldn’t wonder if it cost as much as two hundred and fifty.”

“Not dollars?” exclaimed the girl, in an awestruck voice.

“Sure! He must have thought a lot of you to give you that—eh, Miss Jennie?”

The girl did not answer. She was putting on her gloves with an air of offended dignity.

“I guess it ain’t any of your affairs,” she said, her lips trembling, “if I’ve got a friend or two.”

“Don’t sit on me too hard,” begged Mr. Todd. “I didn’t mean anything out of the way. I couldn’t help noticing the sparkler on your hand. Most anybody would. Get it to-day?”

“Yes, I did,” admitted the girl. “But you don’t need t’ ask me who give it t’ me, for I shan’t tell; so there!”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” asserted Mr. Todd truthfully. “I—er—congratulate you, though. You’ll let me do that, won’t you?”

The girl hunched the shoulder nearest him and eyed him sulkily over its slender defence.

“I ain’t engaged; if that’s what you mean.”

“Not engaged—with that ring? Come, you’re fooling!”

“It does look some like an engagement ring,” said the girl, stealthily feeling her new treasure, “but it—it’s only an offerin’ o’ friendship. He—he’s got another girl. But I guess he don’t care s’ awful much ’bout her. She’s good-lookin’; but she don’t treat him right, an’ that makes him mad. I don’t blame him, neither.”

“Do I know the party?” inquired Mr. Todd, affecting a consuming curiosity.

“I ain’t a-goin’ t’ say, whether you do, er don’t,” and the girl tossed her head. “I wisht you’d let me alone.”

“W’y, I ain’t sayin’ anything out the way. What’s your hurry to get rid of me, I’d like to know?”

The girl moistened her red lips, with an anxious glance at the stair.

“The’s a party bought that seat you’re in. I got t’ save it fer him.”

“That’s all right, too,” said Mr. Todd affably. “I’ll get up an’ vamoose the minute you tell me he’s coming.”

“He’s cornin’ now,” said the girl anxiously. “He won’t like it, if he sees me talkin’ with you.”

Mr. Todd arose.

“He must be a great chap,” he said carelessly. “Well, so long. Hope you’ll treat him better’n you have me.”

Mr. Todd did not turn around to glimpse David seating himself in the vacant place at the girl’s side. He was whistling softly to himself as he wandered idly about the enclosure below where the last bets were being registered. The interest in the free-for-all race appeared to be rather languid; but he looked over the entries carefully; then fell into a desultory conversation regarding the event with the gate-keeper.

“‘Tain’t a-goin’ to be much of a race; never is,” opined that individual sagely. “The’s a lot o’ Rubes that like to speed their horses ’round the course; but it’s gen’ally a walkover fer one hoss. Bud Hawley’s drivin’ the winner t’-day.”

“No, he ain’t,” interrupted a raucous voice from the rear. “Bud Hawley’s a-goin’ t’ git left this time.”

“That so?” queried Mr. Todd. “Who’s goin’ to win?”

“I be,” said the owner of the voice. “Say, I’ve seen you somewheres b’fore, ain’t I?”

“W’y, yes,” agreed Mr. Todd cordially. “But your name’s gone from me just now. Let me see——”

“I know now who you be,” put in the farmer. “You’re the fellow ’at come int’ Hewett’s grocery a spell back one day when I was there. My name’s Plumb—Hiram Plumb.”

“And your horse is going to win—eh, Mr. Plumb?”

“Yas, sir. He’ll win, hands down. You’ll see!”

“Pretty tough on Whitcomb, if he does,” laughed the gateman. “He’s put quite a wad on his own horse.”

“He’s goin’ t’ part with his wad all right,” said the farmer, wagging his head. “I ain’t a bettin’ man m’self; but I’m willin’ t’ put down fi’ dollars on it.”

“I take you,” said Mr. Todd, with an agreeable smile.

This small matter being adjusted, the genial insurance man walked quietly away through the crowd, humming a little tune to himself. Among the vehicles drawn up inside the enclosure roped off for teams, he caught sight of Jarvis, sitting alone, in his usual red-wheeled sidebar. Mr. Todd made his way among the crowd and presently paused at Jarvis’s side.

“Our young friend is here to-day,” he observed, in a low voice.

“Yes, I saw him come in with the boy,” Jarvis replied.

“Since then he appears to have got rid of the boy and acquired a girl.”

“Where is the boy?” demanded Jarvis sharply.

Mr. Todd shook his head.

“I wasn’t looking after the boy,” he reminded his patron.

“What’s Whitcomb up to?” asked Jarvis after a silence.

His face was gray and set and his weary eyes wandered impatiently over the dusty race-track.

“Horse-racing, for one thing,” replied the detective. “He’s backing his own horse heavily; but there’s more doing than that. Do you want to hear it now?”

“No,” said Jarvis, “not here.”

Mr. Todd gathered his lips into a noiseless whistle.

“Our young friend,” he said slowly, “has appropriated about all the rope he needs. All you’ve got to do now is to let him alone.”

XXIII

IT was well on toward evening before Barbara found herself watching with strained attention for the return of David. Late in the afternoon she had been visited with tardy contrition, which concerned itself more particularly with the coldness of her refusal to accompany him. For the moment she refused to go deeper, and consoled herself with careful preparation for supper. She would urge David to stay, she told herself; he would be hungry after the long drive. But at twilight the delicate biscuit and boiled ham, that David loved, and the yellow squares of sponge cake and the rich home-made preserves, which he had approved, were all ready. The small round table was set daintily for three, with shining silver and napery and the long-cherished pink china.

The sun had set cold and still after a brilliant day of high winds and flying clouds, and the big yellow moon slowly shouldering itself from behind the dark woods looked in at her festal preparations like an inquisitive face. Barbara shivered a little in her loneliness; then thinking still of the belated merry-makers, she fetched firewood and kindled a blaze on the hearth. The leaping light flickered over the waiting table and cast warm, life-like reflections on the dim old portraits on the wall.

They would surely come soon, she concluded, with a glance at the tall clock in the corner. But this faithful monitor of dead and gone generations of Prestons presently became quite intolerable, so loudly did it proclaim the lagging minutes. There seemed to be vague stirrings, too, in the shadows, like whispers sunk below the rim of sound. The painted eyes of father and grandfather, preternaturally wise in their perpetual mute observance, appeared to be pitying her young ignorance. They drove her forth at length into the chill of the autumn moonlight. Down by the stone gateway she could see the empty road winding away into obscurity on either hand, like a gray ribbon unbound and flung carelessly across the valley. A faint wind shook gusts of fragrance from the cone-laden pines, and away off among the orchards a little brown owl gurgled a mocking defiance to the moon.

She would have said, perhaps, that she was worried because David had not brought Jimmy home early, as he had promised. The child would be cold, hungry, tired; his little jacket was too thin; his limbs unprotected; but beneath these quasi-maternal misgivings lurked a keener anxiety, a more consuming fear. This it was that held her there, listening, listening—her whole being an insistent question, which would not be denied. This clamorous doubt had long been slowly growing in the mind which lies directly beneath consciousness, stirring now and again, like a child unborn, to lapse once more into quiescence. To-night, grown big and lusty, it thrust itself upon her, a full-grown conviction.

She could have told no one, least of all herself, how long she remained alone in the wan darkness, fighting her losing battle; but her hair and clothing were wet with frosty dew when at last she heard in the far distance the unbroken beat of hoofs. It was a fast horse, driven at furious speed; yet long before the vehicle drew up with a muttered exclamation from its occupant, at sight of her standing there in the moonlight, she knew it was not David.

“I’ve got the boy here, and he’s all right,” Jarvis said. “Get in and I’ll—explain.”

But he said nothing further in the brief interval that elapsed before they reached the house. Barbara had drawn the sleeping child into her arms, and held him jealously close to her numbed breast. She felt strangely still, unnaturally composed, as Jarvis took the child from her and helped her to alight.

“I’m coming in,” he said. “I want to tell you how it happened that I am bringing him home.”

“Is David——?” she managed to articulate.

“Oh, nothing has happened to Whitcomb—no accident, I mean. Go in; you’re chilled through.”

She had taken off Jimmy’s coat and cap, and the child, half awake, was nestled in her arms, when Jarvis followed her into the lighted room, with its table daintily set for three, and its cheer of burning logs, which Barbara had stirred to a blaze.

She looked at him in piteous silence as he stood, a tall, sombre figure at her fireside, looking down at her with eyes full of a brooding tenderness of which he was only half aware. He was anxiously searching for words which would hurt least; for a balm of comfort which, he knew, did not exist.

Jimmy, rubbing the sleep out of his brown eyes, sat up suddenly in Barbara’s lap.

“David didn’t let me stay wiv him,” he quavered. “He—he made me det out ’n’—’n’ he dave me some money; ’n’ a big boy pushed me over and took it away. I ran after David ’n’ called him loud; but he didn’t hear me. ’Nen I got lost.”

“I found him,” said Jarvis, “asleep on some straw in the comer of an empty stall.”

He smiled reassuringly at Barbara.

“The boy appears to need a general washing and putting to rights, I should say; but he isn’t hungry.”

“Where,” asked Barbara, in a stifled voice, “is David?”

“He’s gone wiv the pretty lady, I guess,” said Jimmy sleepily. “She had roses in her hat. Why don’t you have roses in your hat, Barbara? I like roses.”

The little boy suddenly opened his eyes very wide; his mouth followed suit.

“Look, Barb’ra,” he shrilled excitedly. “A man dave me a sausage in the middle of a biscuit, ’n’ I was awful hungry an’ I fordot—I mean I forgot—t’ bite wiv my side teef—’n’—’n’—’n’ one o’ my front teef came right out. I lost it on the ground.”

Barbara’s questioning eyes were on Jarvis’s face. He turned abruptly as if unable to bear them.

“I called loud to David; but he was drinkin’ somethin’ brown out of a tumbler ’n’ he didn’t turn around,” chattered Jimmy, “but the lady, she looked at me, ’n’ she said——”

He broke into a nervous laugh.

“It feels funny in my mouf,” he complained. “Will my new toof come in right away? Will it, Barbara?”

Jarvis drew a deep breath.

“If you’ll put the boy to bed,” he said, “I’ll—wait.”

He sat down by the fire, a grim look of patient endurance on his face. In the room above he could hear the light tread of Barbara’s feet, and Jimmy’s high, childish treble upraised in excited speech.

“He’s telling her all he knows,” muttered Jarvis, a sick distaste for his own hateful task coming over him.

It was long before Barbara returned. Jarvis had decided that she wished him to go away without speaking, when he heard her re-enter the room.

He sprang to his feet.

“Sit down, won’t you? And let me—explain.”

Barbara lifted her head proudly.

“I think I—understand,” she said.

He gazed steadily at her, a frown of pain between his brows.

“I have known for a long time,” she went on, “that it was all a dreadful mistake; that he—did not love me.”

“And you?” leaped from his guarded lips.

She looked away, a slow crimson staining her white cheeks.

“I could not bear it, if——” she murmured, and was silent.

“I hope you will believe me,” Jarvis said gravely, “when I tell you that what took place was not intentional on Whitcomb’s part. I know him, perhaps, better than you think.”

A shadowy smile touched Barbara’s tense mouth.

“Nothing—was ever—intentional with David,” she said.

After a long silence she looked up at him, her eyes dry and bright.

“Will you tell me,” she asked, “just what happened?”

He drew a hardly controlled breath.

“I will tell you what I know,” he said reluctantly. But he seemed unable to go on with his shameful story in the light of her proud eyes.

“I already know,” she said quietly, “that he abandoned Jimmy early in the afternoon, and that later he was seen with——”

“The woman was a waitress at the Barford Eagle,” Jarvis admitted reluctantly. “She has attended Whitcomb at table during his stay there; and so, of course——”

“I know who the girl is,” Barbara told him, in a low, hurried voice.

“He met the young woman on the fair grounds quite by accident,” Jarvis went on quickly. “You ought to believe that; and what followed was also, I am convinced, wholly unpremeditated.”

“Well?” urged Barbara steadily.

Jarvis clenched his strong hands on his knees and bent forward to stare frowningly into the fire.

“Whitcomb backed his own horse heavily and won,” he said slowly. “Shortly afterward an altercation arose between himself and—a young man, who had previously been interested in the girl, Jennie Sawyer. This person Bamber, became very abusive, and——”

Jarvis’s voice, which had been dry and caustic, as if he were reviewing unsavory circumstantial evidence, suddenly broke.

“Barbara!” he cried. “My poor girl, must you hear it all?”

She was looking at him, her eyes burning beneath her long curved lashes, the red of her under-lip caught in her white teeth.

“Go on,” she said quietly. “Someone will have to tell me. I—would rather hear it from—you.”

The sweat of agony glistened on Jarvis’s forehead.

“If I must,” he said hoarsely. “It was an accident, Barbara. It would never have happened if David had not been excited, wild with success; Bamber attacked him first, without due provocation, it would seem, and Whitcomb retaliated—struck him, in self-defence.”

Barbara heard his voice as if from a great distance. She seemed to herself to be drifting away on a sea of strange dreams. Then she roused suddenly to find herself supported by Jarvis’s arm. He was holding a cup of water to her lips. She sat up, her face white and wan, her hands clutching the arms of her chair.

“You were saying——” she murmured.

“I ought to have told you in the beginning,” he reproached himself, “Bamber was not killed by the blow; but he fell and—struck his head against the edge of a stall.”

“And David?” she breathed.

“The girl dragged him away from the scene of the accident, and he—escaped. You know he had a fast horse.”

She was looking at him dizzily through a mist of pain.

“The girl went with him,” he said, reading aright the question in her eyes. “There was talk of a pursuit, of an arrest. But unless Bamber should—— I think I may assure you that David will not be molested.”

He did not tell her that he had used all the official power at his command to shield the fugitives from the fury of the crowd, and further that the injured man had already received the best medical attention procurable in the county. Barbara learned these things long, long afterward, when the pain of that hour had been assuaged.

* * * * *

It was more than three months afterward, and the first snow was flying past the windows in big, feathery flakes, when a letter came to Barbara from a town in the Far West. It was from David, she saw, with a painful throb of surprise, and postponed the reading of it for a difficult hour, during which she reviewed once more and for the last time all the futile anguish and passion of a love that had bruised and hurt her from its beginning. Then she opened the letter with fingers that trembled not at all.

“Dear Barbara [he wrote]: I suppose by this time you have set me down as a poor skate of a fellow. It probably hasn’t occurred to you that it is entirely your own fault that you will never see me again. If you had gone with me to the fair that day, as I wanted you to do, I should not have met Jennie, nor gotten into a squabble with that unutterable cad, Bamber. I hear he got off with nothing worse than a crack in his foolish skull to remind him what it is like to try conclusions with a gentleman.

“I want to tell you, Barbara, that I’ve married Jennie, and so far, neither of us is sorry. She is a dear little wife, sweet-tempered, and entirely devoted to your humble servant. And I don’t find myself so deucedly uncomfortable in her company as you used to make me feel sometimes. Let me tell you, Barbara, that you’ll never succeed in making any man happy till you get off that high horse of yours and stop trying to run the universe. But I don’t suppose you’ll care for what I say, any more than you cared for me, and I don’t flatter myself that was a little bit.

“Just one thing more before I say good-bye for always. If you want to know who your master is, I’ll tell you. _It is old Jarvis._ I knew it all along. But I let you go on deceiving yourself, since you seemed to prefer doing it. You can settle it with him any way you see fit and I shall be satisfied.

“With best wishes for your future happiness, I am, my dear Barbara,

Yours faithfully.

“DAVID WHITCOMB.”

Barbara read this letter once; then she thrust it deep down among the burning logs and watched it blaze and shrivel into a black and scarlet shred, which flitted stealthily up the chimney and out of sight, like a wicked wraith.