Wickersham filled his gla.s.s and tossed off a drink. "I am not going down there any more, anyhow."

"I suppose not. But I don't believe you would be safe even up here.

There is that devil, Dennison: he hates you worse than poison."

"Oh--up here--they aren't going to trouble me up here."

"I don't know--if he ever got a show at you--Why don't you let me perform the ceremony?" he began persuasively. "She knows I've been a preacher. That will satisfy her scruples, and then, if you ever had to make it known--? But no one would know then."

Wickersham declined this with a show of virtue. He did not mention that he had suggested this to the girl but she had positively refused it. She would be married by a regular preacher or she would go home.

"There must be some one in this big town," suggested Plume, "who will do such a job privately and keep it quiet? Where is that preacher you were talking about once that took flyers with you on the quiet? You can seal his mouth. And if the worst comes to the worst, there is Montana; you can always get out of it in six weeks with an order of publication. _I_ did it," said Mr. Plume, quietly, "and never had any trouble about it."

"You did! Well, that's one part of your rascality I didn't know about."

"I guess there are a good many of us have little bits of history that we don't talk about much," observed Mr. Plume, calmly. "I wouldn't have told you now, but I wanted to help you out of the fix that--"

"That you have helped me get into," said Wickersham, with a sneer.

"There is no trouble about it," Plume went on. "You don't want to marry anybody else--now, and meantime it will give you the chance you want of controlling old Rawson's interest down there. The old fellow can't live long, and Phrony is his only heir. You will have it all your own way.

You can keep it quiet if you wish, and if you don't, you can acknowledge it and bounce your friend Keith. If I had your hand I bet I'd know how to play it."

"Well, by ----! I wish you had it," said Wickersham, angrily.

Wickersham had been thinking hard during Plume's statement of the case, and what with his argument and an occasional application to the decanter of whiskey, he was beginning to yield. Just then a sealed note was handed him by a waiter. He tore it open and read:

"I am going home; my heart is broken. Good-by."

"PHRONY."

With an oath under his breath, he wrote in pencil on a card: "Wait; I will be with you directly."

"Take that to the lady," he said. Scribbling a few lines more on another card, he gave Plume some hasty directions and left him.

When, five minutes afterwards, Mr. Plume finished the decanter, and left the hotel, his face had a crafty look on it. "This should be worth a good deal to you, J. Quincy," he said.

An hour later the Rev. Mr. Rimmon performed in his private office a little ceremony, at which, besides himself, were present only the bride and groom and a witness who had come to him a half-hour before with a scribbled line in pencil requesting his services. If Mr. Rimmon was startled when he first read the request, the surprise had pa.s.sed away.

The groom, it is true, was, when he appeared, decidedly under the influence of liquor, and his insistence that the ceremony was to be kept entirely secret had somewhat disturbed Mr. Rimmon for a moment. But he remembered Mr. Plume's a.s.surance that the bride was a great heiress in the South, and knowing that Ferdy Wickersham was a man who rarely lost his head,--a circ.u.mstance which the latter testified by handing him a roll of greenbacks amounting to exactly one hundred dollars,--and the bride being very pretty and shy, and manifestly most eager to be married, he gave his word to keep the matter a secret until they should authorize him to divulge it.

When the ceremony was over, the bride requested Mr. Rimmon to give her her "marriage lines." This Mr. Rimmon promised to do; but as he would have to fill out the blanks, which would take a little time, the bride and groom, having signed the paper, took their departure without waiting for the certificate, leaving Mr. Plume to bring it.

A day or two later a steamship of one of the less popular companies sailing to a Continental port had among its pa.s.sengers a gentleman and a lady who, having secured their accommodations at the last moment, did not appear on the pa.s.senger list.

It happened that they were unknown to any of the other pa.s.sengers, and as they were very exclusive, they made no acquaintances during the voyage. If Mrs. Wagram, the name by which the lady was known on board, had one regret, it was that Mr. Plume had failed to send her her marriage certificate, as he had promised to do. Her husband, however, made so light of it that it rea.s.sured her, and she was too much taken up with her wedding-ring and new diamonds to think that anything else was necessary.

CHAPTER XX

MRS. LANCASTER'S WIDOWHOOD

The first two years of her widowhood Alice Lancaster spent in retirement. Even the busy tongue of Mrs. Nailor could find little to criticise in the young widow. To be sure, that accomplished critic made the most of this little, and disseminated her opinion that Alice's grief for Mr. Lancaster could only be remorse for her indifference to him during his life. Every one knew, she said, how she had neglected him.

The idea that Alice Lancaster was troubled with regrets was not as unfounded as the rest of Mrs. Nailor's ill-natured charge. She was attached to her husband, and had always meant to be a good wife to him.

She was as good a wife as her mother and her friends would permit her to be. Gossip had not spared some of her best friends. Even as proud a woman as young Mrs. Wentworth had not escaped. But Gossip had never yet touched the name of Mrs. Lancaster, and Alice did not mean that it should. It was not unnatural that she should have accepted the liberty which her husband gave her and have gone out more and more, even though he could accompany her less and less.

No maelstrom is more unrelenting in its grasp than is that of Society.

Only those who sink, or are cast aside by its seething waves, escape.

And before she knew it, Alice Lancaster had found herself drawn into the whirlpool.

An attractive proposal had been made to her to go abroad and join some friends of hers for a London season a year or two before. Grinnell Rhodes had married Miss Creamer, who was fond of European society, and they had taken a house in London for the season, which promised to be very gay, and had suggested to Mrs. Lancaster to visit them. Mr.

Lancaster had found himself unable to go. A good many matters of importance had been undertaken by him, and he must see them through, he said. Moreover, he had not been very well of late, and he had felt that he should be rather a drag amid the gayeties of the London season. Alice had offered to give up the trip, but he would not hear of it. She must go, he said, and he knew who would be the most charming woman in London.

So, having extracted from him the promise that, when his business matters were all arranged, he would join her for a little run on the Continent, she had set off for Paris, where "awful beauty puts on all its arms," to make her preparations for the campaign.

Mr. Lancaster had not told her of an interview which her mother had had with him, in which she had pointed out that Alice's health was suffering from her want of gayety and amus.e.m.e.nt. He was not one to talk of himself.

Alice Lancaster was still in Paris when a cable message announced to her Mr. Lancaster's death. It was only after his death that she awoke to the unselfishness of his life and to the completeness of his devotion to her.

His will, after making provision for certain charities with which he had been a.s.sociated in his lifetime, left all his great fortune to her; and there was, besides, a sealed letter left for her in which he poured out his heart to her. From it she learned that he had suffered greatly and had known that he was liable to die at any time. He, however, would not send for her to come home, for fear of spoiling her holiday.

"I will not say I have not been lonely," he wrote. "For G.o.d knows how lonely I have been since you left. The light went with you and will return only when you come home. Sometimes I have felt that I could not endure it and must send for you or go to you; but the first would have been selfishness and the latter a breach of duty. The times have been such that I have not felt it right to leave, as so many interests have been intrusted to me.... It is possible that I may never see your face again. I have made a will which I hope will please you. It will, at least, show you that I trust you entirely. I make no restrictions; for I wish you greater happiness than I fear I have been able to bring you....

In business affairs I suggest that you consult with Norman Wentworth, who is a man of high integrity and of a conservative mind. Should you wish advice as to good charities, I can think of no better adviser than Dr. Templeton. He has long been my friend."

In the first excess of her grief and remorse, Alice Lancaster came home and threw herself heart and soul into charitable work. As Mr. Lancaster had suggested, she consulted Dr. Templeton, the old rector of a small and unfashionable church on a side street. Under his guidance she found a world as new and as diverse from that in which she had always lived as another planet would have been.

She found in some places a life where vice was esteemed more honorable than virtue, because it brought more bread. She found things of which she had never dreamed: things which appeared incredible after she had seen them. These things she found within a half-hour's walk of her sumptuous home; within a few blocks of the avenue and streets where Wealth and Plenty took their gay pleasure and where riches poured forth in a riot of splendid extravagance.

She would have turned back, but for the old clergyman's inspiring courage; she would have poured out her wealth indiscriminately, but for his wisdom--but for his wisdom and Norman Wentworth's.

"No, my dear," said the old man; "to give lavishly without discrimination is to put a premium on beggary and to subject yourself to imposture."

This Norman indorsed, and under their direction she soon found ways to give of her great means toward charities which were far-reaching and enduring. She learned also what happiness comes from knowledge of others and knowledge of how to help them.

It was surprising to her friends what a change came over the young woman. Her point of view, her manner, her face, her voice changed. Her expression, which had once been so proud as to mar somewhat her beauty, softened; her manner increased in cordiality and kindness; her voice acquired a new and sincerer tone.

Even Mrs. Nailor observed that the enforced retirement appeared to have chastened the young widow, though she would not admit that it could be for anything than effect.

"Black always was the most bewilderingly becoming thing to her that I ever saw. Don't you remember those effects she used to produce with black and just a dash of red? Well, she wears black so deep you might think it was poor Mr. Lancaster's pall; but I have observed that whenever I have seen her there is always something red very close at hand. She either sits in a red chair, or there is a red shawl just at her back, or a great bunch of red roses at her elbow. I am glad that great window has been put up in old Dr. Templeton's church to William Lancaster's memory, or I am afraid it would have been but a small one."

Almost the first sign that the storm, which, as related, had struck New York would reach New Leeds was the shutting down of the Wickersham mines. The _Clarion_ stated that the shutting down was temporary and declared that in a very short time, when the men were brought to reason, they would be opened again; also that the Great Gun Mine, which had been flooded, would again be opened.

The mines belonging to Keith's company did not appear for some time to be affected; but the breakers soon began to reach even the point on which Keith had stood so securely. The first "roller" that came to him was when orders arrived to cut down the force, and cut down also the wages of those who were retained. This was done. Letters, growing gradually more and more complaining, came from the general office in New York.

Fortunately for Keith, Norman ran down at this time and looked over the properties again for himself. He did not tell Keith what bitter things were being said and that his visit down there was that he might be able to base his defence of Keith on facts in his own knowledge.

"What has become of Mrs. Lancaster?" asked Keith, casually. "Is she still abroad?"