Part 10 (2/2)
”There is time enough for that,” said Mrs. Wrandall quickly. ”And if they are not there, you will return to me? You will not desert me now?”
The girl's eyes grew wide with wonder. ”Desert you? Why do you put it in that way? I don't understand.”
”You will come back to me?” insisted the other.
”Yes. Why,--why, it means everything to me. It means life,--more than that, most wonderful friend. Life isn't very sweet to me. But the joy of giving it to you for ever is the dearest boon I crave.
I DO give it to you. It belongs to you. I--I could die for you.”
She dropped to her knees and pressed her lips to Sara Wrandall's hand; hot tears fell upon it.
Mrs. Wrandall laid her free hand on the dark, glossy hair and smiled; smiled warmly for the first time in--well, in years she might have said to herself if she had stopped to consider.
”Get up, my dear,” she said gently. ”I shall not ask you to die for me--if you DO come back. I may be sending you to your death, as it is, but it is the chance we must take. A few hours will tell the tale. Now listen to what I am about to say,--to propose. I offer you a home, I offer you friends.h.i.+p and I trust security from the peril that confronts you. I ask nothing in return, not even a word of grat.i.tude. You may tell the people at your lodgings that I have engaged you as companion and that we are to sail for Europe in a week's time if possible. Now we must prepare to go to my own home.
You will see to packing my--that is, our trunks--”
”Oh, it--it must be a dream!” cried Hetty Castleton, her eyes swimming.
”I can't believe--” Suddenly she caught herself up, and tried to smile. ”I don't see why you do this for me. I do not deserve--”
”You have done me a service,” said Mrs. Wrandall, her manner so peculiar that the girl again a.s.sumed the stare of perplexity and wonder that had been paramount since their meeting: as if she were on the verge of grasping a great truth.
”What CAN you mean?”
Sara laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and looked steadily into the puzzled eyes for a moment before speaking.
”My girl,” she said, ever so gently, ”I shall not ask what your life has been; I do not care. I shall not ask for references. You are alone in the world and you need a friend. I too am alone. If you will come to me I will do everything in my power to make you comfortable and--contented. Perhaps it will be impossible to make you happy. I promise faithfully to help you, to s.h.i.+eld you, to repay you for the thing you have done for me. You could not have fallen into gentler hands than mine will prove to be. That much I swear to you on my soul, which is sacred. I bear you no ill-will. I have nothing to avenge.”
Hetty drew back, completely mystified.
”Who are you?” she murmured, still staring.
”I am Challis Wrandall's wife.”
CHAPTER IV
WHILE THE MOB WAITED
The next day but one, in the huge old-fas.h.i.+oned mansion of the Wrandalls in lower Fifth Avenue, in the drawing-room directly beneath the chamber in which Challis was born, the impressive but grimly conventional funeral services were held.
Contrasting sharply with the sombre, absolutely correct atmosphere of the gloomy interior was the exterior display of joyous curiosity that must have jarred severely on the high-bred sensibilities of the chief mourners, not to speak of the invited guests who had been obliged to pa.s.s between rows of gaping bystanders in order to reach the portals of the house of grief, and who must have reckoned with extreme distaste the cost of subsequent departure. A dozen raucous-voiced policemen were employed to keep back the hundreds that thronged the sidewalk and blocked the street. Curiosity was rampant. Ever since the moment that the body of Challis Wrandall was carried into the house of his father, a motley, varying crowd of people s.h.i.+fted restlessly in front of the mansion, filled with gruesome interest in the absolutely unseen, animated by the sly hope that something sensational might happen if they waited long enough.
Men, women, children struggled for places nearest the tall iron fence surrounding the spare yard, and gazed with awed but wistful eyes at the curtained windows and at the huge bow of crepe on the ma.s.sive portals. In hushed voices they spoke of the murder and expressed a single opinion among them all: the law ought to make short work of her! If this thing had happened in England, said they who scoff at our own laws, there wouldn't be any foolishness about the business: the woman would be buried in quick-lime before you could know what you were talking about. The law in this country is a joke, said they, with great irritability. Why can't we do the business up, sharp and quick, as they do in England? Get it over with, that's the ticket. What's the sense of dragging it out for a year? Send 'em to the chair or hang 'em while everybody's interested, not when the thing's half forgotten. Who wants to see a person hanged after the crime's been forgotten? And then, think of the saving to the State? Hang 'em, men or women, and in a couple of years' time there wouldn't be a tenth part of the murders we have now. Statistics prove, went on the wise ones, that only one out of every hundred is hanged. What's that? The jury system is rotten!
No sirree, we are 'way behind England in that respect. Just look at that big murder case in London last month! Remember it? Murderer was hanged inside of three weeks after he was caught. That's the way to do it! And the London police catch 'em too. Our police stand around doing nothing until the criminal has got a week's start, and then--oh, well, what can you expect? ”Now if I was at the head of the New York department I'd have that woman behind the bars before night, that's what I'd do. You bet your life, I would,” said more than one. And no one questioned his ability to do so.
And then all of them would growl at the policemen who pushed them back from the gates, and call them ”scabs” and ”mutts” in repressed tones, and snarl under their breath that they wouldn't be pus.h.i.+ng people around like that if they didn't have stars and clubs and a great idea of their own importance. ”If it wasn't for the family at home dependin' on me for support, I'd take a punch at that stiff, so help me G.o.d, even if I went to the Island for it!”
And so it WAS and ever shall be, world without end.
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