"Not quite, sir. You see-"
"But I don't see!"
"It had occurred to me that as Mr. Pickering's allowance
wasn't what you might call generous it was better
to augment it-Well, sir, I took the liberty of advancing
a trifle, as you might say, to the estate. Your
grandfather would not have had you starve, sir."
He left hurriedly, as though to escape from the consequences
of his words, and when I came to myself
Larry was gloomily invoking his strange Irish gods.
"Larry Donovan, I've been tempted to kill that fellow
a dozen times! This thing is too damned complicated
for me. I wish my lamented grandfather had left
me something easy. To think of it-that fellow, after
my treatment of him-my cursing and abusing him
since I came here! Great Scott, man, I've been enjoying
his bounty, I've been living on his money! And
all the time he's been trusting in me, just because of
his dog-like devotion to my grandfather's memory.
Lord, I can't face the fellow again!"
"As I have said before, you're rather lacking at times
in perspicacity. Your intelligence is marred by large
opaque spots. Now that there's a woman in the case
you're less sane than ever. Bah, these women! And
now we've got to go to work."
Bah, these women! My own heart caught the words.
I was enraged and bitter. No wonder she had been
anxious for me to avoid Pickering after daring me to
follow her!
We called a council of war for that night that we
might view matters in the light of Pickering's letter.
His assuredness in ordering me to leave made prompt
and decisive action necessary on my part. I summoned
Stoddard to our conference, feeling confident of his
friendliness.
"Of course," said the broad-shouldered chaplain, "if
you could show that your absence was on business of
very grave importance, the courts might construe in
that you had not really violated the will."
Larry looked at the ceiling and blew rings of smoke
languidly. I had not disclosed to either of them the
cause of my absence. On such a matter I knew I should
get precious little sympathy from Larry, and I had,
moreover, a feeling that I could not discuss Marian
Devereux with any one; I even shrank from mentioning
her name, though it rang like the call of bugles in
my blood.
She was always before me,-the charmed spirit of
youth, linked to every foot of the earth, every gleam of
the sun upon the ice-bound lake, every glory of the winter
sunset. All the good impulses I had ever stifled
were quickened to life by the thought of her. Amid the
day's perplexities I started sometimes, thinking I heard
her voice, her girlish laughter, or saw her again coming
toward me down the stairs, or holding against the light
her fan with its golden butterflies. I really knew so
little of her; I could associate her with no home, only
with that last fling of the autumn upon the lake, the
snow-driven woodland, that twilight hour at the organ
in the chapel, those stolen moments at the Armstrongs'.
I resented the pressure of the hour's affairs, and chafed
at the necessity for talking of my perplexities with the
good friends who were there to help. I wished to be
alone, to yield to the sweet mood that the thought of her
brought me. The doubt that crept through my mind
as to any possibility of connivance between her and
Pickering was as vague and fleeting as the shadow of a
swallow's wing on a sunny meadow.