THE DESERTION OF A PARENT.

Comethup saw but little of his cousin during the week which followed. Once or twice he met him, riding wildly about in some of the country lanes on a horse he had hired, on which occasions he drew rein with a shout, and generally announced that he was having “a splendid time,” and that he would be able to go back to work feeling much better for the holiday.

During that week, too, Comethup was left very much with the captain, for ’Linda, without warning, broke several engagements she had made to go out with them, pleading afterward that she had had headaches or that there had been work to be done. One evening, as Comethup, after waiting all day in the hope of seeing her, was making his way to her house he met his cousin Brian swinging out through the gates. They stopped, in mutual surprise, and then Brian linked his arm in that of the other and began to lead him away.

“What a lucky meeting!” he exclaimed. “I was just wondering what I was to do with myself all the evening, and how I was to pass the time until I could decently go to bed. Come along. What shall we do?”

“I’m afraid you must excuse me,” said Comethup. “I can’t join you to-night; I’m just going to see ’Linda.”

“I’ve just seen her,” said Brian, looking at him with a smile. “You didn’t tell me, you rogue, anything about the business.”

“What business?” asked Comethup, a little coldly.

“Why, your engagement, of course. Well, I congratulate you. Our little friend has certainly grown into a lovely woman, but she always gave promise of that. My dear boy, you come in for all the good things; what have you done to deserve them?”

“Yes, I suppose I’m very lucky,” said Comethup. He hesitated for a moment, and then held out his hand. “Good-night!”

“Oh, but it’s no use your going in now,” said Brian; “she’s gone to bed; got a headache or something of the kind. You won’t be able to see her.”

“Well, I’m going to the house at all events,” said Comethup doggedly; “I can at least inquire how she is. Good-night!”

“Good-night,” said Brian, and shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

Comethup went through the garden, and stood under the balcony. A light was burning in the room in which he had once sat with ’Linda, but the long French windows were closed. He climbed the steps and walked to the windows and looked in; Mrs. Dawson sat beside the table sewing. He knocked upon the pane, and then thrust open the window and walked in. She looked up quietly, letting her work rest under her hands in her lap. For a moment neither of them spoke.

“’Linda?” he asked at last. “Where is she?”

“She’s gone to her room,” replied the woman, looking at him in some surprise.

“But she can not have gone long, and I want to see her,” said Comethup.

“She gave me strict instructions she was not to be disturbed.”

“Ah! but she didn’t know that I was coming to her. I must see her; I haven’t seen her all day, although she promised to meet me.”

The woman rose slowly from her seat and laid her work on the table; she came toward him, looking at him with a curious intentness. “You haven’t seen her all day? Then who was with her in the garden just now, and why did she run in crying? I saw that, although she hid her face from me.”

“I—I don’t know,” said Comethup, with a miserable pain beginning to gnaw at his heart. “I suspect—I know you’re mistaken, as you were before, when you thought she met some one. But will you please go and tell her that I am here, and that I should like to see her?”

Without another word Mrs. Dawson went out of the room, and he heard her quick feet ascending the stairs. Within a few minutes she returned, and stood just within the doorway of the room, looking at him. “She says you must forgive her, but she can not see you to-night. She will see you to-morrow. And she sends you her love.”

With that he had to be content, and he went away through the garden and through the streets back to the captain’s cottage. All night long he lay wide awake, turning over the matter in his mind, seeing again Brian coming striding out of the garden, picturing in imagination an interview between him and the girl which ended in tears for her. But with the morning, just as he was thinking of getting up, came a little rattle of pebbles at his window; he scrambled out of bed and looked from behind the curtain. Below, in the garden, was ’Linda, smiling up at him, and with that smile all the troublous doubts and fears of the night were gone in a flash.

He nodded to her, and scampered through his dressing and ran down to join her. She was in her most playful and bewitching mood; she caught both his hands and danced round him like a happy child, and dragged him into the house and kissed him before he had recovered breath to greet her.

“There, see what a change the morning brings!” she cried, her eyes dancing. “Last night I hated all the world, and hated myself most of all; this morning the world is lovely, and I am lovely—you might have said that, sir!—and I’m going to be good for evermore, and never, never give my dear boy the slightest cause for a heartache.” Between laughter and tears she kissed him again, and clung to him.

“But you never have given me cause for that,” he said. “When I feel your arms about me and your lips on mine—well, nothing that has happened can matter at all; you seem to sweep everything else away. I was a little disappointed yesterday that I did not see you, but this more than makes up for it.”

“And you’re quite sure that you forgive me—that this does make up for it? Oh, my dear, I want you always to think of these best moments of mine, and to forget all the bad ones. See, with this bright morning I’ll begin over again; I’ll be so good, so tender, so devoted to you that you shall never have cause to think badly of me; all my moments shall be best moments from this hour; everything else shall be forgotten. Here’s the captain coming; kiss me again.”

She was in the same mood during breakfast, and for all that long and happy day. She strove, in a hundred ways, to blot out the memory of pain she had caused him—strove, by her present tenderness, to cover up past moments of petulance or anger. Yet there was in it all such a striving, such a sense of trying to do that which should have come naturally, without any striving, that even the good captain, simple gentleman though he was, looked at her more than once in surprise, and wondered what Comethup thought. But Comethup was blissfully happy, and only found time to bitterly accuse himself more than once of having been unjust in his thoughts toward her.

A second completely happy day followed that first one, and at the end of it he walked home with her to her house, lingering with her until the last moment to put off their parting. As they walked slowly under the great trees toward the balcony, a man came strolling toward them, with the glow of the cigarette he was smoking making a little point of light in the darkness. The girl had had both hands locked on Comethup’s arm; she took the hands quickly away when they came face to face with Brian. He stopped, pulled off his hat with a flourish, and laughed.

“I’ve been dreaming of romantic things,” he said; “and lo and behold! I step suddenly—an intruder, I fear—into the very heart of romance itself. Happy lovers wandering in the starlight! Why, all the dreams I have dreamed and all the poor verses I have scribbled are as nothing to this; I have yet to learn the very first trick of my trade—love at first hand. And who shall teach me?” He glanced, with a sort of comical wistfulness, at the girl, who had drawn a little away from Comethup, and whose eyes were fixed on the ground.

“Oh, you’ll find some one to teach you, I’ve no doubt,” said Comethup, with a laugh. “What has brought you wandering here?”

“I came to see an old friend—’Linda,” responded Brian. “Will she forgive me if I suggest that, in these rose-coloured days, she is apt to forget a poor fellow who was once her friend?”

The girl looked up quickly, with a flush on her face. “Indeed, I forget none of my old friends,” she said. “Why should you think that?” Comethup, looking at her, saw in her eyes an appeal to the man, a look half of defiance and of a resolution to keep firmly to her promise of the previous day—half of a pity for him, and a fear of him or of what he might say.

“Well, perhaps I don’t quite think that,” said Brian carelessly. “Only it’s been my experience through life to find that one is so easily forgotten, so easily thrust out of remembrance, when one is penniless and—helpless. You think that unjust, perhaps? There, I’m sorry. I’m in a wrong mood to-night, and I’ve waited so long in this infernal garden, on the chance of seeing an old friend, that I’ve got the horrors. Good-night, happy lovers!”

He turned on his heel, and went swinging away down the avenue, singing a song softly to himself as he went. The girl stood looking after him for a moment—stood quite still until Comethup touched her arm and recalled her to herself.

“Come, it’s late,” he said.

“Yes, it’s late,” she answered, almost mechanically. She did not put her hand again on his arm as they walked toward the house, and, at the foot of the steps leading to the balcony, when he would have drawn her into his arms, she put out her hands and held him gently away from her. “You have had kisses enough for one day,” she said; “you will tire of me if I yield always so easily. Good-night!”

He looked at her wistfully for a moment, and then raised her hands to his lips and let her go. She ran up the steps and in through the window without once looking round at him.

A letter from Miss Charlotte Carlaw, written in the stiff round hand which the use of the writing frame demanded, awaited him at the captain’s cottage. She was suddenly possessed by an idea, she wrote, to visit the old town and to make the acquaintance of ’Linda Vernier, quite in an informal fashion, for herself. But she wanted her boy’s arm to lean upon, and she did not care to make the journey alone. Would he come to town to fetch her? If he could tear himself away from his sweetheart for so long, and would come to London the next day, he could sleep in town that night and they could go down together on the day following. She knew, she added, that the captain’s house was a small one, and would be glad, therefore, if Comethup would take rooms for her at the best inn he could find.

Comethup, reproaching himself that he had of late left her so much alone, showed the letter to the captain, who immediately proposed to turn out of his own house for her accommodation. But Comethup laughingly assured him that his aunt would never consent to that; the only question was about the choice of an inn. To take her to the Bell was clearly impossible, since Mr. Robert Carlaw and his son were apparently firmly established there. Finally, it was decided to engage rooms at a smaller place, the captain assuring the young man that the accommodation, although limited, was of the best. The next morning Comethup started for London.

Miss Charlotte Carlaw was filled with a pleasurable excitement at the prospect of meeting the girl—talked of nothing else, in fact, on the journey down. They came in the old fashion to Deal, and thence drove, arriving at the inn late in the afternoon. It had been arranged that Miss Carlaw, after tea and a rest, should proceed to the captain’s house for dinner; on this point the captain had firmly insisted, and had spent two sleepless nights over a consideration of the courses. There ’Linda was to meet her. Comethup had posted a letter to her before leaving for London explaining his hurried departure, and begging that she would meet his aunt, as suggested, at the captain’s house.

Miss Carlaw, who had asked a casual question as to why rooms had not been taken at the Bell, and had been informed that those she had formerly occupied were engaged, presented herself punctually at the hour appointed for dinner, supported by Comethup. The captain was in something of a flutter, and kept trotting in and out of the room and holding whispered consultations with Homer. ’Linda had not arrived, and Comethup glanced more than once anxiously at his watch. At last Miss Carlaw, seated in the chair of state and leaning her chin upon her stick, faced round upon him a little impatiently.

“Punctuality is a virtue, my dear boy,” she exclaimed, “and that lady-love of yours is twenty minutes late. I can understand modesty and shyness and all that kind of thing, although I don’t think I ever suffered with those complaints myself; but the captain’s dinner is spoilt, and I’m ravenously hungry. I think you had better go and look for her.”

Comethup gladly seized the opportunity. “Wouldn’t it be better,” he said, as he was going out of the room, “if you went on with dinner? ’Linda will only feel a thousand times more nervous if she thinks you have been waiting; whereas, if I bring her in quite in an ordinary way—well, she won’t feel so embarrassed.”

“Oh, these lovers!” ejaculated Miss Carlaw. “Well, I suppose you’re right; so I’ll ask the captain to have dinner in at once. And you’re both young—just make her run for it.”

Comethup ran at top speed to the house, and went plunging through the garden and up the steps to the balcony. Scarcely waiting to knock, he flung open the long window and stepped into the room. Mrs. Dawson was there, not sewing quietly as usual, but pacing up and down the room. She stopped in her walk for a moment and faced him.

“’Linda!” he exclaimed. “Is she ready?”

“I have not seen her for some hours,” replied the woman.

“Not seen her? But I——”

She took a note from the table and held it out to him. “I found this here just now; it is addressed to you. I had been out, and came back and found it here.”

There seemed a dreadful silence about the house and in the room; the very noise of the ripping of the envelope seemed to hurt him. He pulled the letter out, and came forward to the light to read it. And this is what he read:

He read it all through slowly, in a dazed fashion, and then quietly folded the paper, pleating it up small in his fingers and staring down at it. Mrs. Dawson had drawn nearer to him, and now laid her hand on his arm. He looked round at her like some great helpless animal that has been wounded, and can not understand why the blow should have been struck.

“Something is wrong. What has happened?” she asked, in a quick whisper.

“She—she’s gone!” he said. Then came the quick instinct, the very dawning of a purpose he was to keep so clearly before him afterward, that she must be protected; that her good name must be held high and clear in all men’s sight, that none might smirch it. He actually forced a laugh to his lips as he thrust the paper into his pocket. “There—there’s nothing wrong, nothing wrong at all; you needn’t look so frightened. It’s only—only a little love story—a love story none of us guessed. Curious, isn’t it? She tells me here as—as an old friend, that she’s run away—there, don’t cry out—she’s run away to get married. That’s all.”

“To get married! But who is the man? Are you sure that he——”

A sterner light came into Comethup’s eyes. “Yes,” he said, “I am quite sure. They will be married at once. You must be very fond of her,” he added gently, “to take the matter so much to heart. But I suppose any one could get fond of her quite easily. And you’ve been with her a number of years.”

The woman looked at him with a forlorn expression of countenance, and clasped her hands and began to weep, not with any violence but in a hopeless, helpless way that was more terrible than anything else could possibly have been. The secret she had borne so long, the story of that shameful flight which she had been compelled at first to keep from her child, and later had kept for her own sake, seemed to weigh more heavily now than it could have done at any other time. She had seen the child grow to girlhood, and then to womanhood; had been content with what tenderness she could win from her, in her position as a tried and faithful friend, fearing to jeopardize even that small happiness by any avowal of the true relationship between them.

Comethup left her, and went slowly out through the garden again. He had forgotten everything but that one thought—that she was gone—forgotten that, within two hundred yards of him, his aunt and the captain awaited his arrival, and would look for an explanation. In quite an aimless way he got into the streets, and walked until he found himself outside the Bell Inn. Scarcely knowing what he did, he went up the stairs, turned the handle of the door, and walked into the room in which he had seen Brian and his father. Mr. Robert Carlaw was standing by the fireplace, looking into the glass; he turned round sharply as Comethup entered the room.

“Brian has gone, I hear?” said Comethup, in a low voice.

Mr. Robert Carlaw flung out his hands with a despairing gesture. “It is true, sir. With that base ingratitude which has ever been his chief characteristic he has deserted me in the hour of my need. More than all, he has taken with him the whole of the money you were generous enough to place in our hands, and which I was foolish enough to leave in his keeping.”

“That’s well,” said Comethup half to himself. “I’m glad he’s got some money.”

“Glad, sir! And pray what is to become of me?” exclaimed Mr. Carlaw. “Have I lavished the tenderest care upon him for years past; have I sacrificed everything to him; have I raced, in my declining years, through strange and vile places of the earth, in order to be near him and to protect him; have I done all this to be deserted now, at the last, for a wretched jade——”

“Stop!” said Comethup quickly. “I’m afraid you don’t quite understand the situation. There is no question of any ‘wretched jade,’ as you describe her. Brian has merely decided to marry the sweetest and best girl that there is in the world. I don’t think you’re quite wise to talk in that fashion, and I don’t think I’d do it if I were in your place. I’ve no doubt you’ll see Brian again shortly. At the present moment, as he has been, well, let us say compelled to take the money for necessary expenses, perhaps you will allow me to replace what you consider you have lost.”

“You are very good, my dear nephew; you are always more than generous. Forgive me if I spoke in haste. But consider the position: my son, who is just entering, as I might say, into his kingdom, who has the ball, as it were, at his feet, to marry a girl like this, whom no one knows and who has never been heard of! Why, it’s shocking—positively terrible! With his face, and his figure, and his talents he might easily have gone one better than his poor old father, and been snapped up by a duchess. Such things have occurred.”

“I dare say,” said Comethup wearily. “I just—just called here to see you. I only heard a little while ago that Brian had left.”

“He left a note for me,” said Mr. Carlaw, “informing me coolly that he purposed getting married to-morrow, and that, as he wanted money for current expenses, he’d taken what there was, and had no doubt that I should ‘fall on my feet.’ Fall on my feet, indeed!—a fine expression to use to a father! What did he think was going to become of me?”

“I suppose he remembered that I was still in the town,” replied Comethup quietly. “When do you return to London?”

“Immediately; it is useless for me to stay here. I must discover my erring boy; I can not rest until I have effected a reconciliation with him.”

Comethup was glad to bring the interview to an end. He left Mr. Robert Carlaw smilingly fingering a cheque, and came out into the cool night air. Even then he did not care to go back to the cottage; he wandered on, stumbling now and then like a man half asleep, and came back presently to the broken gates of the garden in which he had walked so often with her. In the darkness of it he almost fancied that there hovered the white figure of the child he had seen as a boy; he almost thought he heard the piteous, pleading, childish voice calling to him from among the trees. He laid his arms against one of the trees, and rested his head upon them, and remained there in the solitary place for quite a long time. He did not weep; the bitterness of the thing lay too deep for tears. Young though he was, he looked up at the stars that were peeping through the branches, and wondered how he should live and what he should do, and how the world would go on, now that she had left it empty. He took the letter out of his pocket and put it to his lips, for she had written it, and there was some small consolation even in that.

How should he tell them? That was his next thought; how to get the miserable business explained, so that it might afterward be set aside and forgotten and done with. He waited for some time outside the captain’s cottage, debating what to do, and finally crept in cautiously and stood just within the doorway of the room, and beckoned to the captain. His aunt sat with her back to him, and was quite unaware of his presence.

The captain stared at him for a moment as though he had been a ghost, then rose, and, with a muttered word of apology to Miss Carlaw, came out to him. Not a word was said until they stood outside in the little garden, with the cottage door closed and the two men looking into each other’s eyes.

“She’s gone!” said Comethup; and for the first time, with his old friend’s hand in his, his fortitude gave way and he turned his head aside. “She’s gone away, this afternoon, with the man she loves—gone to be married. You see, sir, I made a mistake—put her in a false position, as it were. But, of course, it is all right now—and she’s gone to be married.”

The captain stood perfectly still for nearly a minute without speaking; then he said slowly, “And the man—who is the man?”

“My cousin, Brian. I suppose I ought to have known from the very first that she must love him, and not me. You see, he’s such a different sort of fellow——”

“Thank God for that!” murmured the captain, under his breath.

“And now all we have to think about is how to tell my aunt. You see, it’s rather a foolish business: we’ve brought her down here under false pretences, as it were, and there’ll be such a lot to explain, won’t there? And I want, for a little time at least, to forget all about it, just as though it hadn’t happened. Shall we go in and tell her?”

“Yes, I suppose we must,” said the captain. “You know her better than I do; but I think she will understand, and will not trouble you with many questions.”

They passed together into the cottage. Miss Charlotte Carlaw must have heard the sound of the voices outside, and must have recognised that something was wrong. She sat quite still, with her hands resting on her stick, but her face wore a curiously anxious expression. Comethup crossed to the window and stood there, at some distance from her, wondering how he should begin. She waited for some moments, and then turned piteously toward the captain, and from him to her nephew.

“Will no one speak? What has happened? Comethup, my dear boy——”

“There’s been a mistake,” said Comethup, speaking in slow, steady tones. “I suppose we all make mistakes some time or other in life, and I’ve read somewhere that a man makes them most of all when he’s in love. So you see, aunt, I’ve made a mistake; have dreamed a poor, foolish dream; have pictured to myself something that didn’t exist. The lady I—I thought I was in love with was all the time secretly in love with some one else, and to-day they’ve gone away to be married. Please don’t speak to me; please let me explain. And I want you, first of all, to remember that it is not her fault, and never has been; the blunder has been mine, in cheating myself into the belief that she cared for me. It really isn’t her fault, and I”—he gave a queer little laugh—“I’m quite happy, and I say, with all my heart, ‘God bless her and her husband!’”

Miss Charlotte Carlaw’s perception must have been keener even than the captain had imagined. At the first, when Comethup began his blundering explanation, she had shown signs of a rising indignation, but as the pitiful recital went on her face changed, and her head was bowed slowly over the top of her stick. The captain stole quietly from the room, and the old woman raised her head at last and held out her hand toward her nephew. “My dear boy,” was all she said, but in the words was a sympathy so great that he could scarce restrain his tears. He did not feel strong enough to go near her yet, and so he said, with what lightness he could call into his voice:

“Shall we have dinner?”

“Is there nothing more you wish to say to me?” she asked. “Oh, my dear boy, is there nothing you wish to say? You speak as lightly as though——”

“And think as lightly, I hope,” he replied. “I’ve made—made a blunder; that’s all.”

She dropped her stick, and stretched out both hands to him. He stepped forward then and took the hands and kissed her. “O Comethup!” she whispered, “I never wanted eyes so much as I want them to-night. I want to see your face!”