Part 27 (1/2)

CHAPTER XVI

WHEREIN SEVERAL LARGE DIFFICULTIES ARE SMOOTHED AWAY

He had sat upright, his hands over his chair-arms, his mind and muscle tense; but at that unbelievable sight, he fell back in his chair relaxed, staring and dazed like one who sees a G.o.ddess in a vision.

”Good evening,” said this G.o.ddess, looking decidedly embarra.s.sed and remarkably pretty. ”I--I am so glad that we've found you.”

”You were looking for _me_?” he said incredulous, utterly mystified; and the instinct of long training, working on with no guidance from him, impelled him to rise with a stiff and somewhat belated bow.

”Yes. And there are two men with me who are anxious to help....”

Her fragrant presence seemed to fill and transform the dingy office; and he was at once aware that her manner had lost that cool remoteness which at their last meeting had set him so far away.

He pulled himself sharply together, entirely missing the implication in her speech, and struck abruptly to the one point that mattered.

”Some one has convinced you since last night that I am not that man.”

”Yes,” she answered, looking away from him with faintly heightened color. ”I--I must ask you to forgive me for--last night.”

He bowed stiffly from behind the table.

”But who--if I may know--persuaded you, where I appeared so--”

”My mother,” she said, simply. ”She caught a glimpse of you on the street yesterday. I did not know of it till to-day--never dreamed that she knew you. I'm glad,” she added hurriedly, resolutely contrite, ”of the chance to--to say this--”

”It is extraordinarily kind,” said Varney. He looked at her steadily, as far from understanding the mystery of her coming as ever.

”But I came,” she went on at once, as though reading the question in his eyes, ”for quite another reason. We happened to stop just now at poor Jim Hackley's.”

The name riveted his attention. A quality in her voice had already told him that something troubled her.

”At Hackley's?”

She stood just behind Peter's deserted chair and rested her ungloved right hand upon it. He noticed, as though it were a matter which was going to be vital to him later on, that she wore no rings, and that there was a tiny white spot on the nail of her thumb.

”Some men are waiting on this dark street somewhere, Mr. Varney,” she began hurriedly, ”waiting, I'm afraid, for you to come out--four or five--I don't know how many. You know--what that means. But oh, it isn't their fault!--they don't know any better, you see!--”

The sudden anxiety in her voice cleared his wits and braced him like a tonic: and so he came front to front with the fact that it was to help him--to help _him_--that Uncle Elbert's daughter had come to the _Gazette_ office that night.

”I appreciate that perfectly, of course. But--the rest is not so clear.

I don't quite understand--how did you happen to learn of this?”

”I? Oh, my learning about it was the purest chance. It was told me two minutes ago by a visitor here, a Mr. Higginson, whom I met last night.

He is outside in the car now, and--”

”Mr. Higginson!” echoed Varney, astounded.