All this the son might have known could he have sat by his father in the carryall on this way to Moorlands.

CHAPTER XXIX

The sudden halting of two vehicles close to the horse-block of the Temple Mansion--one an aristocratic carryall driven by a man in livery, and the other a dilapidated city hack in charge of a negro in patched overcoat and whitey-brown hat, the discharge of their inmates, one of whom was Colonel Talbot Rutter of Moorlands carrying two pillows, and another a strange young man loaded down with blankets--the slow disembarking of a gentleman in so wretched a state of health that he was practically carried up the front steps by his body-servant, and the subsequent arrival of Dr. Teackle on the double quick--was a sight so unusual in and around peaceful Kennedy Square that it is not surprising that all sorts of reports--most of them alarming--reached the club long before St. George had been comfortably tucked away in bed.

Various versions were afloat: "St. George was back from Wesley with a touch of chills and fever--" "St. George was back from Wesley with a load of buckshot in his right arm--" "St. George had broken his collar-bone riding to hounds--" etc.

Richard Horn was the first to spring to his feet--it was the afternoon hour and the club was full--and cross the Square on the run, followed by Clayton, Bowman, and two or three others. These, with one accord, banged away on the knocker, only to be met by Dr. Teackle, who explained that there was nothing seriously the matter with Mr. Temple, except an attack of foolhardiness in coming up the bay when he should have stayed in bed--but even that should cause his friends no uneasiness, as he was still as tough as a lightwood knot, and bubbling over with good humor; all he needed was rest, and that he must have--so please everybody come to-morrow.

By the next morning the widening of ripples caused by the dropping of a high-grade invalid into the still pool of Kennedy Square, spread with such force and persistency that one wavelet overflowed Kate's dressing-room. Indeed, it came in with Mammy Henny and her coffee.

"Ma.r.s.e George home, honey--Ben done see Todd. Got a mis'ry in his back dat bad it tuk two gemmens to tote him up de steps."

"Uncle George home, and ill!"

That was enough for Kate. She didn't want any coffee--she didn't want any toast or m.u.f.fins, or hominy--she wanted her shoes and stockings and--Yes everything, and quick!--and would Mammy Henny call Ben and send him right away to Mr. Temple's and find out how her dear Uncle George had pa.s.sed the night, and give him her dearest love and tell him she would come right over to see him the moment she could get into her clothes; and could she send anything for him to eat; and did the doctor think it was dangerous--? Yes--and Ben must keep on to Dr. Teackle's and find out if it was dangerous--and say to him that Miss Seymour wanted to know IMMEDIATELY, and--(Here the poor child lost her breath, she was dressing all the time, Mammy Henny's fingers and ears doing their best) "and tell Mr. Temple, too," she rushed on, "that he must send word by Ben for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he needed" (strong accent on the two words)... all of which was repeated through the crack of the door to patient Ben when he presented himself, with the additional a.s.surance that he must tell Mr. Temple it wouldn't be five minutes before she would be with him--as she was nearly dressed, all but her hair.

She was right about her good intentions, but she was wrong about the number of minutes necessary to carry them out. There was her morning gown to b.u.t.ton, and her gaiters to lace, and her hair to be braided and caught up in her neck (she always wore it that way in the morning) and the dearest of snug bonnets--a "cabriolet" from Paris--a sort of hood, stiffened with wires, out of which peeped pink rosebuds quite as they do from a trellis--had to be put on, and the white strings tied "just so"--the bows flaring out and the long ends smoothed flat; and then the lace cape and scarf and her parasol;--all these and a dozen other little niceties had to be adjusted before she could trip down her father's stairs and out of her father's swinging gate and on through the park to her dear Uncle George.

But when she did--and it took her all of an hour--nothing that the morning sun shone on was quite as lovely, and no waft of air so refreshing or so welcome as our beloved heroine when she burst in upon him.

"Oh!--you dear, DEAR thing!" she cried, tossing her parasol on Pawson's table and stretching out her arms toward him sitting in his chair. "Oh, I am so sorry! Why didn't you let me know you were ill? I would have gone down to Wesley. Oh!--I KNEW something was the matter with you or you would have answered my letters."

He had struggled to his feet at the first sound of her footsteps in the hall, and had her in his arms long before she had finished her greeting;--indeed her last sentence was addressed to the collar of his coat against which her cheek was cushioned.

"Who said I was ill?" he asked with one of his bubbling laughs when he got his breath.

"Todd told Ben--and you ARE!--and it breaks my heart." She was holding herself off now, scanning his pale face and shrunken frame--"Oh, I am so sorry you did not let me know!"

"Todd is a chatterer, and Ben no better; I've only had a bad cold--and you couldn't have done me a bit of good if you had come--and now I am entirely well, never felt better in my life. Oh--but it's good to get hold of you, Kate,--and you are still the same bunch of roses. Sit down now and tell me all about it. I wish I had a better chair for you, my dear, but the place is quite dismantled, as you see. I expected to stay the winter when I left."

She had not given a thought to the chair or to the changes--had not even noticed them. That the room was stripped of its furniture prior to a long stay was what invariably occurred in her own house every summer: it was her precious uncle's pale, shrunken face and the blue veins that showed in the backs of his dear transparent hands which she held between her own, and the thin, emaciated wrists that absorbed her.

"You poor, dear Uncle George!" she purred--"and n.o.body to look after you." He had drawn up Pawson's chair and had placed her in it beside the one he sat in, and had then dropped slowly into his own, the better to hide from her his weakness--but it did not deceive her. "I'm going to have you put back to bed this very minute; you are not strong enough to sit up. Let me call Aunt Jemima."

St. George shook his head good-naturedly in denial and smoothed her hands with his fingers.

"Call n.o.body and do nothing but sit beside me and let me look into your face and listen to your voice. I have been pretty badly shaken up; had two weeks of it that couldn't have been much worse--but since then I have been on the mend and am getting stronger every minute. I haven't had any medicine and I don't want any now--I just want you and--" he hesitated, and seeing nothing in her eyes of any future hope for Harry, finished the sentence, with "and one or two others to sit by me and cheer me up; that's better than all the doctors in the world. And now, first about your father and then about yourself."

"Oh, he's very well," she rejoined absently. "He's off somewhere, went away two days ago. He'll be back in a week. But you must have something to eat--GOOD things!"--her mind still occupied with his condition. "I'm going to have some chicken broth made the moment I get home and it will be sent fresh every day: and you must eat every bit of it!"

Again St. George's laugh rang out. He had let her run on--it was music to his ears--that he might later on find some clue on which he could frame a question he had been revolving in his mind ever since he heard her voice in the hall. He would not tell her about Harry--better wait until he could read her thoughts the clearer. If he could discover by some roundabout way that she would still refuse to see him it would be best not to embarra.s.s her with any such request; especially on this her first visit.

"Yes--I'll eat anything and everything you send me, you dear Kate--and many thanks to you, provided you'll come with it--you are the best broth for me. But you haven't answered my question--not all of it. What have YOU been doing since I left?"

"Wondering whether you would forgive me for the rude way in which I left you the last time I saw you,--the night of Mr. Horn's reading, for one thing. I went off with Mr. Willits and never said a word to you. I wrote you a letter telling you how sorry I was, but you never answered it, and that made me more anxious than ever."

"What foolishness, Kate! I never got it, of course, or you would have heard from me right away. A number of my letters have gone astray of late. But I don't remember a thing about it, except that you walked off with your--" again he hesitated--"with Mr. Willits, which, of course, was the most natural thing for you to do in the world. How is he, by the way?"

Kate drew back her shoulders with that quick movement common to her when some antagonism in her mind preceded her spoken word.

"I don't know--I haven't seen him for some weeks."

St. George started in his chair: "You haven't! He isn't ill, is he?"

"No, I think not," she rejoined calmly.

"Oh, then he has gone down to his father's. Yes, I remember he goes quite often," he ventured.

"No, I think he is still here." Her gaze was on the window as she spoke, through which could be seen the tops of the trees glistening in the sunlight.

"And you haven't seen him? Why?" asked St. George wonderingly--he was not sure he had heard her aright.

"I told him not to come," she replied in a positive tone.

St. George settled back in his chair. Had there been a clock in the room its faintest tick would have rung out like a trip-hammer.

"Then you have had a quarrel: he has broken his promise to you and got drunk again."

"No, he has never broken it; he has kept it as faithfully as Harry kept his."

"You don't mean, Kate, that you have broken off your engagement?"

She reached over and picked up her parasol: "There never was any engagement. I have always felt sorry for Mr. Willits and tried my best to love him and couldn't--that is all. He understands it perfectly; we both do. It was one of the things that couldn't be."

All sorts of possibilities surged one after the other through the old diplomat's mind. A dim light increasing in intensity began to shine about him. What it meant he dared not hope. "What does your father say?"

he asked slowly, after a pause in which he had followed every expression that crossed her face.

"Nothing--and it wouldn't alter the case if he did. I am the best judge of what is good for me." There was a certain finality in her cadences that repelled all further discussion. He remembered having heard the same ring before.

"When did all this happen?--this telling him not to come?" he persisted, determined to widen the inquiry. His mind was still unable to fully grasp the situation.

"About five weeks ago. Do you want to know the very night?" She turned her head as she spoke and looked at him with her full, deep eyes.

"Yes, if you wish me to."

"The night Mr. Horn read 'The Cricket on the Hearth,'" she answered in a tone of relief--as if some great crisis had marked the hour, the pa.s.sing of which had brought her infinite peace. "I told him when I got home, and I have never seen him since."

For some seconds St. George did not move. He had turned from her and sat with his head resting on his hand, his eyes intent on the smouldering fire: he dare not trust himself to speak; wide ranges opened before him; the light had strengthened until it was blinding. Kate sat motionless, her hands in her lap, her eyes searching St. George's face for some indication of the effect of her news. Then finding him still silent and absorbed in his thoughts, she went on:

"There was nothing else to do, Uncle George. I had done all I could to please my father and one or two of my friends. There was nothing against him--he was very kind and very considerate--but somehow I--" She paused and drew a long breath.

"Somehow what?" demanded St. George raising his head quickly and studying her the closer. The situation was becoming vital now--too vital for any further delay.