First and foremost her sacred promise to the dying woman stood out in all its nakedness, entirely robbed of its cloak of impulse and affection, in which it had been clad at the time of its making. And from that promise, radiating in every direction, she saw boundless possibilities for more than unpleasant consequences.

She knew she must make up her mind swiftly, and she did so in an astonishing manner. A sleepless night found her in the morning ready with her plans all clear in her mind. She still had nearly three weeks before taking up her new position in the office of the _Daily Citizen_.

This would be ample time to put everything in order. It was necessary to take the doctor into her confidence. He had been their doctor for as long as she could remember. He had attended her mother in her last illness, and knew their whole family history as well as she knew it herself. Therefore she did not antic.i.p.ate any difficulty with him.

So the third morning after her sister's death she visited him at his house, and confided sufficient of her sister's story to him to enlist his sympathy, without any breach of the confidence reposed in her. She pointed out her own position, and begged his help in hushing the whole matter up.

Dr. Bernard Strong was a man of wide sympathy and understanding, and in giving his promise of help, pointed out the gravity of the position which her quixotic promise had placed her in.

"My dear," he said, "this is almost a terrible business for you. Here you are, bound to this town for at least a year, with a newly born infant in your care, which you cannot explain away, without breaking your promise to poor Elsie. You are known. You have many friends. What in the world are you going to do?"

It was then that Monica displayed the quick, incisive working of her suddenly aroused mental faculties. She told him in brief, pointed words the plans she had made during the long, wakeful night.

"It does not seem so--so very difficult," she said.

Then she plunged into the details of her schemes. She pointed out that her tenement was a weekly one, which she could get rid of as soon as Elsie was buried. This she would do. Then she would take rooms far out on the outskirts of the town. She would first find a house for the baby in the country, a few miles out, where he was not likely to be brought into contact with the townsfolk. That would be a start. After that she would meet any emergency as it arose. The help she wanted from him was to arrange the funeral, with all the secrecy possible, and see that the law was complied with in regard to the baby. His registration, etc.

The quick practical manner in which she detailed all the minor details to this man of experience filled him with a profound admiration, and he told her so.

"It is astounding to me, Monica," he said kindly, "that you, a girl of seventeen, can handle such a matter in the calm manner you are doing.

Perfectly astounding. You certainly ought to do well in this business career you are about to begin. Really you have made things seem less--er--formidable. But, my dear child, I feel I must warn you. You see, I am so much older," he went on, with a smile. "I have seen so much of the world--the sadder side of the world, that I cannot let this moment pa.s.s without telling you of the rocks I can see ahead, waiting to break up your little boat. Your tale of an early marriage and all that, if the boy becomes a.s.sociated with you in the minds of people in the town, will never do. At once they will think the worst, and then--what of your position on the _Daily Citizen?_ Then when the time comes for you to marry? What then?"

"I shall never marry--now," was Monica's prompt and decided reply.

The doctor shook his head.

"It is so easy to say that. Believe me, my dear, you have tied a millstone about your neck that will take your utmost strength to bear.

I even doubt if you will be able to bear it for long. You are about to embark on a career of falsehood which will find you out at almost every turn. It is quite terrible to think of. Poor Elsie did you the greatest wrong, the greatest injury, when she extracted that promise from you.

And," he added, with a wry smile, "I fear, from my knowledge of you, you will carry it out to the bitter end--until it utterly overwhelms you."

Monica stepped off the veranda of the doctor's house with none of the lightness of gait with which she had mounted it. She realized the gravity of her position to the full now, and knew that, without breaking her sacred word to a dying woman, there was no means of remedying it. But she was quite determined, and walked away with her pretty lips tightly compressed, her blue eyes gazing out unflinchingly before her. Nothing should turn her from her purpose. It was Elsie's trust to her. It was the cross she had to bear. Come what might she would bear it to the end, even if at the last its weight were to crush the very life out of her.

The next three weeks pa.s.sed rapidly. Monica had no time to look back upon the trouble which had so involved her, she had little enough time to gaze ahead into the wide vista of troublous rocks the doctor had promised her. In fact she had no time at all for anything but the crowding emergencies of the moment, and keeping the well-meaning friends and curious neighbors as far from the secrets of her inner life as possible.

Nor was it easy; and without Dr. Strong's help many of her difficulties would have been well-nigh insurmountable. But he was as good, and even better, than his word. The whole of the funeral was achieved without any unnecessary publicity, and Monica and the doctor were the only mourners. Then the latter found a home for the boy on a farm, three miles out of the town, where a newly born babe had just died, and so, in the end, everything was accomplished just as Monica had planned, without one unnecessary question being asked. Thus, by the time the winner of the special prize took up her duties in the office of the _Daily Citizen_, of all San Sabatano, Dr. Strong alone shared Monica Hanson's secret. A secret, it was her future object in life to keep entirely hidden from the world.

Monica entered upon her duties with a lighter heart than she had known for weeks. Everything was as she could wish it. All traces of her sister's shame had been carefully covered. Practically no sign was left to delight the prying eyes of the curious scandalmongers. Her future lay before her, wide, and, to her, illimitable.

Her aims and ambitions were fixed plainly in her mind. She must succeed; she must rise in the commercial world; she must make money.

These things were not for herself. No, she required so little. They were for him, for the little life so cruelly wronged at its very outset. Henceforth her own life would be devoted to his. Her whole thought would be for him and his welfare, not only for the child's sake, but in memory of the love she had borne her dead sister.

How well the editor of the _Daily Citizen_ had judged the compet.i.tors for the special prize was quickly demonstrated. Monica's zeal was backed by the suddenly aroused acuteness of an unusually clever brain, and, before a month had pa.s.sed, the complacent individual in the editorial chair had excellent reason for again congratulating himself.

He had intended from the outset that the winner of the princely prize and unusual salary should earn every cent of it, but he found in his new clerk an insatiable hunger for work, and a capacity for simple organization quite astounding, and far beyond any demand he could make on it.

In this beginner he quickly detected a highly developed germ of commercial instinct; that germ so coveted, so rare. He tried her in many ways, seeking in a more or less fumbling way for the direction in which her abilities most surely pointed. Stenography and typing, he quickly saw, were mere incidents to her. She had other and larger abilities. Frequently in dictating letters he found himself discussing matters pertaining to them with her, and she never failed to center her mental eye upon the point at issue, driving straight to the heart of the matter in hand. The man was frankly delighted with her, and, in the shortest possible time, she became a sort of confidential secretary, whose views on the organization of his paper were often more than useful to him.

It was about this time that the editor's sanctum was invaded by a stranger; a big stranger of quite uncommon appearance. The man was simply dressed in good store clothes, which covered a powerful, burly figure. But the chief interest lay in the man's face and head. It was a strong face. To use Mr. Meakin's own description of him to his young clerk some time later, he possessed a "tow head and a face like emery cloth."

He gave no name, in fact he refused his name. He came to insert an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper, and to consult the editor upon the matter.

His objects were so definite that, in spite of the refusal to give his name, Mr. Meakin decided to see him. Monica was away at dinner, or he would probably have turned him over to her. However, when the man finally appeared the editorial mind was pleased at the study his unusual personality offered him.

The stranger very nearly filled up the doorway as he entered the inner office.

"Guess you're the editor?" he began at once, dropping into the chair Mr. Meakin kicked towards him.

"Sure," Mr. Meakin was always sparing of words to strangers.

"Ah."

Then, so long did the man remain silent that the editor found it necessary to spur him on by a method he usually adopted in such cases.

He pressed the b.u.t.ton of his dummy telephone with his foot. The bell rang out, and he lifted the receiver to his ear.

"Hullo! Who is it? Oh, that you, Allards? Oh, is it important? Well, I'm engaged just now. I shan't be three minutes. Yes, I'll come right along then. Goo'-bye!"

He looked across at his visitor as he put the receiver up.

"Sorry to interrupt you. I didn't just get what you said."

A flicker of a smile pa.s.sed across the visitor's serious face.

"It's of no consequence," he said. "Guess I must have been thinking aloud. You see it's kind of a fool trick having the b.u.t.ton of that dummy 'phone in sight under the table. Guess the feller who fixed it was a 'mutt.'"

"Eh?" Mr. Meakin's face went suddenly scarlet. He was about to make a hasty reply, but changed his mind, and laughed with a belated sense of humor.

"It's served its purpose anyhow," he said genially. "What can I do for you?"

The stranger responded to his humor at once.

"Don't guess you can do much. Maybe you can tell me a deal. I'm looking for some one who's lately come to this city. A lady. Maybe you get a list of visitors to this city in your paper."

"At the hotels--yes."

"Ah, I don't guess she's stopping at an hotel. Came to visit her sister. Her name's Audrey Thorne."

"Audrey Thorne," Mr. Meakin searched the back cells of memory. He seemed to have heard the name at some time or other, but for the life of him he could not recall where.

"Guess I'm not wise," he said at last, with a thoughtful shake of his head, while he eyed his visitor shrewdly. "Anyway, if I knew of the lady, tain't up to me to hand information to a stranger--without a name."

The stranger promptly rose from his seat.

"Just so," he said, with a sharp clip of his powerful jaws. "I'll ask you to read this over," he went on, producing a sheet of paper from his pocket, "and say what it'll cost to have it in your news-sheet for a week."

He handed the paper across the desk, and Mr. Meakin admired the bold handwriting in which the advertis.e.m.e.nt was set out.

"'Will Audie send her address to Box 4926 P. O. Winnipeg? Sign letter in full name.--Leo.'"

Mr. Meakin read it over twice. Then he looked up keenly.

"Guess it'll cost you ten dollars," he said. "Sunday edition two dollars extra. In advance."