Part 60 (1/2)
”Let me see you alone, and I will.”
”Here and now, or not at all.”
”Phil!”
”What did you say to the girl I love?”
Then Edith Carr stretched out her arms.
”Phil, I am the girl you love!” she cried. ”All your life you have loved me. Surely it cannot be all gone in a few weeks of misunderstanding. I was jealous of her! I did not want you to leave me an instant that night for any other girl living. That was the moth I was representing. Every one knew it! I wanted you to bring it to me. When you did not, I knew instantly it had been for her that you worked last summer, she who suggested my dress, she who had power to take you from me, when I wanted you most. The thought drove me mad, and I said and did those insane things. Phil, I beg your pardon! I ask your forgiveness. Yesterday she said that you had told her of me at once. She vowed both of you had been true to me and Phil, I couldn't look into her eyes and not see that it was the truth. Oh, Phil, if you understood how I have suffered you would forgive me. Phil, I never knew how much I cared for you! I will do anything--anything!”
”Then tell me what you said to Elnora yesterday that drove her, alone and friendless, into the night, heaven knows where!”
”You have no thought for any one save her?”
”Yes,” said Philip. ”I have. Because I once loved you, and believed in you, my heart aches for you. I will gladly forgive anything you ask. I will do anything you want, except to resume our former relations. That is impossible. It is hopeless and useless to ask it.”
”You truly mean that!”
”Yes.”
”Then find out from her what I said!”
”Come, father,” said Philip, rising.
”You were going to show Miss Comstock's letter to Edith!” suggested Mr.
Ammon.
”I have not the slightest interest in Miss Comstock's letter,” said Edith Carr.
”You are not even interested in the fact that she says you are not responsible for her going, and that I am to call on you and be friends with you?”
”That is interesting, indeed!” sneered Miss Carr.
She took the letter, read and returned it.
”She has done what she could for my cause, it seems,” she said coldly.
”How very generous of her! Do you propose calling out Pinkertons and inst.i.tuting a general search?”
”No,” replied Philip. ”I simply propose to go back to the Limberlost and live with her mother, until Elnora becomes convinced that I am not courting you, and never shall be. Then, perhaps, she will come home to us. Good-bye. Good luck to you always!”
CHAPTER XXIV
WHEREIN EDITH CARR WAGES A BATTLE, AND HART HENDERSON STANDS GUARD
Many people looked, a few followed, when Edith Carr slowly came down the main street of Mackinac, pausing here and there to note the glow of colour in one small booth after another, overflowing with gay curios.
That street of packed white sand, winding with the curves of the sh.o.r.e, outlined with brilliant shops, and thronged with laughing, bare-headed people in outing costumes was a picturesque and fascinating sight.