Part 42 (1/2)
CHAPTER XXVII.
ABSOLUTELY BLAMELESS.
Most men who are by nature excitable surprise their friends on occasions by exhibiting great calmness. s.h.i.+rley Roseleaf, who had often been thrown into the greatest heat by far less important happenings than the one just narrated, seemed a picture of repose as he walked through the wood with his friend in the direction of the horses they had tethered.
”How did you discover they were going to have this meeting?” asked Weil, nervously. ”I am all at sea.”
”I have been on his track ever since the day I was to have been married,” was the reply. ”I didn't intend to leave a mystery like that unsolved. I discovered that the Ferns were living here, and that Hannibal originated a few miles further on. I found that Miss Daisy was still a little afraid of him, that he was using an influence over her which was to say the least strange. Before I got at the truth I had some queer misgivings, you may believe.”
Mr. Weil stared at his companion.
”But how did you learn all this?” he demanded.
”Oh,” said Roseleaf, with a slight laugh, ”I've been in this neighborhood for two months. They haven't met once but I heard every word they said. Little by little I gained the truth of the matter. And to-night, as it was perhaps the last time they would be together, I wanted you to understand it perfectly.”
Archie frowned at the thoughts that crept in upon his brain.
”Excuse me for saying that you don't appear to mind it much,” he muttered. ”If you have heard many conversations like the one to which I just listened, and could go away without expressing the thoughts you ought to feel, you are made up differently from me.”
”That may be so, too,” smiled the other, good-humoredly. ”But remember that things are changed. I once was a man in love--now I am simply a writer of romance.”
The elder man s.h.i.+vered.
”Could one be actually in love with a girl like that and then recover from it?” he asked, half to himself.
”I don't think I ever was very much in love,” was the quick reply. ”But never mind that. Let us talk of Hannibal. You spoke of going after him.
What would you have done had you carried out that intention?”
Weil had not thought of the matter in this concrete form. He had wanted to punish the negro for his crimes against the woman he so dearly loved, against the old man for whom he had such a warm affection. How he would have accomplished this he had not decided. The first thing was to follow and tax the wretch with his offense. Subsequent events would have depended on the way Hannibal met the accusation. Certainly the temper of the pursuer would have been warm, and his conduct might have been severe.
”I don't know,” he said. ”I should have told him for one thing that he would have to reckon with something more than a weak girl or a poor old man if he annoyed that family again. In case he had been impertinent I cannot say what I might have been tempted to do.”
”All the more reason for congratulating yourself,” replied Roseleaf, as they reached the horses, ”that you did not follow him. He has promised to keep away from the Ferns, and I think they have seen the last of him.
What is done can't be undone, ugly as it is. Now,” he continued, vaulting into his saddle, ”your course is reasonably plain. You must visit Miss Daisy soon, let her know that the extent of her misfortune is in your possession, and after a reasonable time, ask her to marry you.”
Archie Weil, who had also mounted his horse, came near falling from the back of the animal at this very abrupt suggestion.
”That is just what you should do,” continued Roseleaf, without allowing him to speak. ”You are desperately in love. Daisy likes you very well, and it would take but little effort on your part to induce even a warmer sentiment. Her father thinks you one of the angels that came down to earth and forgot to return to heaven. She ought not to go through life alone. Her only trouble is the suspicion that rests on her name--a suspicion she considers herself bound in honor to do nothing to lift.
Show her that you know how innocent she is, and you will bring a new light to her eyes, a new smile to her lips.”
”But,” asked Archie, catching at the straw, ”how can I tell her--how can I explain the source of my information?”
Roseleaf laughed.
”By the novel method of using the truth, or at least a part of it,” he said. ”Tell her you were out riding and saw Hannibal, and followed him.
You needn't count me into it. Why, you've got to let her know, or else I have. It's a thing she would almost give her life to have revealed without her aid. Go like a man and take that heavy weight off her young soul.”