Part 14 (2/2)
”I only wish one thing,” she had said. ”I only wish I might take the time to stop at the village of Pleasantdale and break the news to a certain Doctor McGlore who lives there. I trust I am not unduly cattish, but I dearly would love to watch the expression on his face when he heard it. I think I'd do it, too, if I were not starting on the most imperative errand that ever called me in my life.”
A week later, to the day, two expected visitors were ushered into the private chamber of the governor at Albany--one of them a small, exceedingly well-groomed and good-looking woman in her thirties, and one a slender pretty girl with big brown eyes and wonderful auburn hair.
”Governor,” said Miss Smith, ”I want the pleasure of introducing to you the gamest girl in the whole world--Margaret Vinsolving.”
He took the firm young hand she offered him. ”Miss Vinsolving,” he said, ”in the name of the State of New York and on behalf of it I ask your forgiveness for the great and cruel wrong which unintentionally was done to you.”
”And I want to thank you for what you have done for me, sir,” she answered him simply.
”Don't thank me,” he said. ”You know the one to thank. If I had not set the machinery of my office in motion on your behalf within five minutes after your benefactress here reached me the other day I should have deserved impeachment. But I should never have lived to face impeachment.
I'm sure the slightest sign of hesitation on my part would have been the signal for your advocate to brain me with my own inkstand.” His face sobered. ”But, my child, for my own information there are some things I want cleared up. Why in the face of the monstrous charges laid against you did you keep silent--that is one of the things I want to know?”
Before answering, the girl glanced inquiringly at her companion.
”Tell him,” counseled Miss Smith.
Steadily the girl made answer.
”When my poor mother accused me of trying to kill her I realized for the first time that her mind had become affected. No one else, though, appeared to suspect the real truth. Perhaps this was because she seemed so normal on every other subject. So I decided to keep silent. I thought that if I were taken away from her for a while possibly the separation and with it the lifting of the imaginary fear of injury at my hands, which had upset her, might help her to regain her reason and no outsider be ever the wiser for it. I am young and strong; I believed I could bear the imprisonment without serious injury to me. I believe yet--for her sake--I could have borne it. And I knew--I realized what would happen to her if she were placed in such surroundings as I have been in and made to pa.s.s through such experiences as those through which I have pa.s.sed. I felt that all hope of a cure for her would then be gone forever. And I love my mother.” She faltered, her voice trembling a bit, then added: ”That is why I kept silent, sir.”
”But, my dear child,” he said, ”what a wrong thing for you to have done.
It was a splendid, chivalrous, gallant sacrifice, but it was wrong. And if you don't mind I'd like to shake hands with you again.”
”You see, sir, there was no one with whom I might advise in the emergency that came upon me without warning,” she explained. ”I had no confidante except my mother, and she--through madness--had turned against me. I had no friend then--I have one now, though.”
And she went to Miss Smith and put her head on the elder woman's shoulder.
With her arms about the girl, Miss Smith addressed the governor.
”We are going away a while together for a rest,” she told him. ”We both need it. And when we come back she is going to join me in my work. Some day Margaret will be a better interior decorator than her teacher can ever hope to be.”
”Then from now on, so far as you two are concerned, this ghastly thing should be only an unhappy dream which you'll strive to forget, I'm sure,” he said. ”It's all over and done with, isn't it?”
”Over and done with for her--yes,” said Miss Smith. ”But how about your duty as governor? How about my duty as a citizen? Shouldn't we each of us, you in your big way and I in my small way, work to bring about a reform in the statutes under which such errors are possible? Think, governor, of what happened to this child! It may happen again to-day or to-morrow to some other equally innocent sufferer. It might happen to any one of us--to me or to someone dear to you.”
”Miss Smith,” he stated, ”if ever it happens to you I shall take the witness stand on your account and testify to two things: First, that you are the sanest human being in this state; and second, that you certainly do know how to play a hunch when you get one. If I had your intuition, plus my ambition, I wouldn't be governor--I'd be running for president.
And I'd win out too!”
CHAPTER V
THE RAVELIN' WOLF
When the draft came to our town as it came to all towns it enmeshed Jeff Poindexter, who to look at him might be any age between twenty-one and forty-one. Jeff had a complexion admirably adapted for hiding the wear and tear of carking years and as for those telltale wrinkles which betray care he had none, seeing that care rarely abode with him for longer than twenty-four hours on a stretch. Did worry knock at the front door Jeff had a way of excusing himself out of the back window. But this dread thing they called a draft was a worry which just opened the door and walked right in--and outside the window stood a jealous Government, all organized to start a rookus if anybody so much as stepped sideways.
Jeff had no ambition to engage in the jar and crash of actual combat; neither did the idea of serving in a labor battalion overseas appeal to one of his habits. The uniform had its lure, to be sure, but the responsibilities presaged by the putting on of the uniform beguiled him not a whipst.i.tch. Anyhow, his ways were the ways of peace. As a diplomat he had indubitable gifts; as a warrior he felt that he would be out of his proper element. So when answering a summons which was not to be disregarded Jeff appeared before the draft board he was not noticeably happy.
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