Part 3 (2/2)
”If I were only sure of that, sir!”
When the police took themselves off Jones proceeded to act upon those plans laid down by Hargreave early that night. When this was done he sought his bed and fell asleep, the sleep of the exhausted. When Hargreave picked up Jones to share his fortunes, he had put his trust in no ordinary man.
A dozen reporters trooped out to the Hargreave home, only to find it deserted. And while they were ringing bells and tapping windows, the man they sought was tramping up and down the platform of the railway station.
Through all this time Norton, the reporter, Hargreave's only friend, slept the sleep of the just and unjust. He rarely opened his eyes before noon.
Group after group of pa.s.sengers Jones eyed eagerly. Often, just as he was in the act of approaching a couple of young women, some man would hurry up, and there would be kisses or handshakes. At length the crowd thinned, and then it was that he discovered a young girl perhaps eighteen, accompanied by a young woman in the early thirties. They had the appearance of eagerly awaiting some one. Jones stepped forward with a good deal of diffidence.
”You are waiting for some one?”
”Yes,” said the elder woman, coldly.
”A broken bracelet?”
The distrust on both faces vanished instantly. The young girl's face brightened, her eyes sparkled with suppressed excitement.
”You are ... my father?”
”No, miss,” very gravely. ”I am the butler.”
”Let me see your part of the bracelet,” said the young girl's guardian, a teacher who had been a.s.signed to this delicate task by Miss Farlow, who could not bring herself to say good-by to Florence anywhere except at the school gates.
The halves were produced and examined.
”I believe we may trust him, Florence.”
”Let us hurry to the taxicab. We must not stand here.”
”My mother?”
”She is dead. I believe she died shortly after your birth. I have been with your father but fourteen years. I know but little of his life prior to that.”
”Why did he leave me all these years without ever coming to see me?
Why?”
”It is not for me, Miss Florence, to inquire into your father's act.
But I do know that whatever he did was meant for the best. Your welfare was everything to him.”
”It is all very strange,” said the girl, bewilderedly. ”Why didn't he come to meet me instead of you?”
Jones stared at his hands, miserably.
”Why?” she demanded. ”I have thought of him, thought of him. He has hurt me with all this neglect. I expected to see him at the station, to throw my arms, around his neck and ... forgive him!” Tears swam in her eyes as she spoke.
”Everything will be explained to you when we reach the house. But always remember this, Miss Florence: You were everything in this wide world to your father. You will never know the misery and loneliness he suffered that you might not have one hour of unrest. What are your plans?” he asked abruptly of the teacher from Miss Farlow's.
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