by Zane Grey
“God bless my soul, if I don’t almost believe my little girl thought I was coming home to murder her!” he cried. “I guess she thought I’d hate you for stealing her away from me the way you did. I have contemplated disliking you, quite seriously, too. But you’re not the sort of looking chap I thought you’d be with that oily French name. You’ve shown good judgment. There isn’t a man in the world good enough for my Jo. And if you’ll excuse my frankness, I like your looks!”
As he spoke he held out a hand, and Josephine eagerly faced Philip. A flush grew in her cheeks as the two men shook hands. Her eyes were on Philip, and her heart beat a little quicker. She had not hoped that he would rise to the situation so completely. She had feared that there would be some betrayal in voice or action. But he was completely master of himself, and the colour in her face deepened beautifully. Before this moment she had not wholly perceived how splendidly clear and fearless were his eyes. His long blond hair, touched with its premature gray, was still windblown from his rush out into the night, giving to his head a touch of leonine strength as he faced her father.
Quietly she slipped aside and looked at them, and neither saw the strange, proud glow that came like a flash of fire into her eyes. They were wonderful, these two strong men who were hers. And in this moment they were her own. Neither spoke for a space, as they stood, hand clasping hand, and in that space, brief as it was, she saw that they measured each other as completely as man ever measured man; and that it was not satisfaction alone, but something deeper and more wonderful to her, that began to show in their faces. It was as if they had forgotten her presence in this meeting, and for a moment she, too, forgot that everything was not real. Moved by an impulse that made her breath quicken, she darted to them and caught their two clasped hands in both her own. Her face was glorious as she looked up at them.
“I’m glad, glad that you like each other,” she cried softly. “I knew that it would be so, because—”
The master of Adare House had drawn her to him again. She put out a hand, and it rested on Philip’s shoulder. Her eyes turned directly to him, and he alone saw the swift ebbing of the joyous light from them. John Adare’s voice rumbled happily, and with his grizzled face bowed in Josephine’s hair he said:
“I guess I’m not sorry—but glad, Mignonne.” He looked at Philip again. “Paul, my son, you are welcome to Adare House!”
“Philip, Mon Pere,” corrected Josephine. “I like that better than Paul.”
“And you?” said Philip, smiling straight into Adare’s eyes. “I am almost afraid to keep my promise to Josephine. It was that I should call you mon pere, too.”
“There was one other promise, Philip,” replied Adare quickly. “There must have been one other promise, that you would never take my girl away from me. If you did not swear to that, I am your enemy!”
“That promise was unnecessary,” said Philip. “Outside of my Josephine’s world there is nothing for me. If there is room for me in Adare House—”
“Room!” interrupted Adare, beginning to throw off his great fur coat. “Why, I’ve dreamed of the day when there’d be half a dozen babies under my feet. I—” His huge frame suddenly stiffened. He looked at Josephine, and his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper: “Where’s the kid?” he asked.
Philip saw Josephine turn at the question. Silently she pointed to the curtained bed. As her father moved toward it she went to the door, but not before Philip had taken a step to intercept her. He felt her shuddering.
“I must go to my mother,” she whispered for him alone. “I will return soon. If he asks—tell him that we named the baby after him.” With a swift glance in her father’s direction she whispered still lower: “He knows nothing about you, so you may tell him the truth about yourself—except that you met me in Montreal eighteen months ago, and married me there.”
With this warning she was gone. From the curtains Philip heard a deep breath. When he came to the other’s side John Adare stood staring down upon the sleeping baby.
“I came in like a monster and didn’t wake ’im,” he was whispering to himself. “The little beggar!”
He reached out a great hand behind him, gropingly, and it touched a chair. He drew it to him, still keeping his eyes on the baby, and sat down, his huge, bent shoulders doubled over the edge of the bed, his hands hovering hesitatingly over the counterpane. In wonderment Philip watched him, and he heard him whisper again:
“You blessed little beggar!”
Then he looked up suddenly. In his face was the transformation that might have come into a woman’s. There was something awesome in its animal strength and its tenderness. He seized one of Philip’s hands and held it for a moment in a grip that made the other’s fingers ache.
“You’re sure it’s a boy?” he asked anxiously.
“Quite sure,” replied Philip. “We’ve named him John.”
The master of the Adare House leaned over the bed again. Philip heard him mumbling softly in his thick beard, and very cautiously he touched the end of a big forefinger to one of the baby’s tiny fists. The little fingers opened, and then they closed tightly about John Adare’s thumb. The older man looked again at Philip, and from him his eyes sought Josephine. His voice trembled with ecstasy.
“Where is Josephine?”
“Gone to her mother,” replied Philip.
“Bring her—quick!” commanded Adare. “Tell her to bring her mother and wake the kid or I’ll yell. I’ve got to hear the little beggar talk.” As Philip turned toward the door he flung after him in a sibilant whisper: “Wait! Maybe you know how to do it—”
“We’d better have Josephine,” advised Philip quickly, and before Adare could argue his suggestion he hurried into the hall.
Where he would find her he had no idea, and as he went down the hall he listened at each of the several doors he passed. The door into the big living-room was partly ajar, and he looked in. The room was empty. For a few moments he stood silent. From the size and shape of the building whose outside walls he had followed in his hunt for Jean he knew there must be many other rooms, and probably other shorter corridors leading to some of them.
Just now his greatest desire was to come face to face with Croisset—and alone. He had already determined upon a course of action if such a meeting occurred. Next to that he wanted to see Josephine’s mother. It had struck him as singular that she had not accompanied her husband to Josephine’s room, and his curiosity was still further aroused by the girl’s apparent indifference to this fact. Jean Croisset and the mistress of Adare House had hung behind when the older man came into the room where they were standing. For an instant Jean had revealed himself, and he was sure that Adare’s wife was not far behind him, concealed in the deeper gloom.
Suddenly the sound of a falling object came to his ears, as if a book had dropped from a table, or a chair had overturned. It was from the end of the hall—almost opposite his room. At his own door he stopped again and listened. This time he could hear voices, a low and unintelligible murmur. It was quite easy for him to locate the sound. He moved across to the other door, and hesitated. He had already disobeyed Josephine’s injunction to remain with her father. Should he take a further advantage by obeying John Adare’s command to bring his wife and daughter? A strange and subdued excitement was stirring him. Since the appearance of the threatening face at his window—the knowledge that in another moment he would have invited death from out of the night—he felt that he was no longer utterly in the hands of the woman he loved. And something stronger than he could resist impelled him to announce his presence at the door.
At his knock there fell a sudden silence beyond the thick panels. For several moments he waited, holding his breath. Then he heard quick steps, the door swung slowly open, and he faced Josephine.
“Pardon me for interrupting you,” he apologized in a low voice. “Your fa
ther sent me for you and your mother. He says that you must come and wake the baby.”
Slowly Josephine held out a hand to him. He was startled by its coldness.
“Come in, Philip,” she said. “I want you to meet my mother.”
He entered into the warm glow of the room. Slightly bending over a table stood the slender form of a woman, her back toward him. Without seeing her face he was astonished at her striking resemblance to Josephine—the same slim, beautiful figure, the same thick, glowing coils of hair crowning her head—but darker. She turned toward him, and he was still more amazed by this resemblance. And yet it was a resemblance which he could not at first define. Her eyes were very dark instead of blue. Her heavy hair, drawn smoothly back from her forehead, was of the deep brown that is almost black in the shadow. Slimness had given her the appearance of Josephine’s height. She was still beautiful. Hair, eyes, and figure gave her at first glance an appearance of almost girlish loveliness.
And then, all at once, the difference swept upon him. She was like Josephine as he had seen her in that hour of calm despair when she had come to him at the canoe. Home-coming had not brought her happiness. Her face was colourless, her cheeks slightly hollowed, in her eyes he saw now the lustreless glow which frequently comes with a fatal sickness. He was smiling and holding out his hand to her even as he saw these things, and at his side he heard Josephine say:
“Mother, this is Philip.”
The hand she gave him was small and cold. Her voice, too, was wonderfully like Josephine’s.
“I was not expecting to see you to-night, Philip,” she said. “I am almost ill. But I am glad now that you joined us. Did I hear you say that my husband sent you?”
“The baby is holding his thumb,” laughed Philip. “He says that you must come and wake him. I doubt if you can get him out of the baby’s room to-night.”
The voice of Adare himself answered from the door: “Was holding it,” he corrected. “He’s squirming like an eel now and making grimaces that frightened me. Better hurry to him, Josephine!” He went directly to his wife, and his voice was filled with an infinite tenderness as he slipped an arm about her and caressed her smooth hair with one of his big hands. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” he asked gently. “The jaunt was almost too much for my little girl, wasn’t it? It will do you good to see the baby before you go to bed. Won’t you come, Miriam?”
Josephine alone saw the look in Philip’s face. And for one moment Philip forgot himself as he stared at John Adare and his wife. Beside this flowerlike slip of a woman Adare was more than ever a giant, and his eyes glowed with the tenderness that was in his voice. Miriam’s lips trembled in a smile as she gazed up at her husband. In her eyes shone a responsive gentleness; and then Philip turned to find Josephine looking at him from the door, her lips drawn in a straight, tense line, her face as white as the bit of lace at her throat. He hurried to her. Behind him rumbled the deep, joyous voice of the master of Adare House, and passing through the door he glanced behind and saw them following, Adare’s arm about his wife’s waist. Josephine caught Philip’s arm, and whispered in a low voice:
“They are always like that, always lovers. They are like two wonderful children, and sometimes I think it is too beautiful to be true. And now that you have met them I am going to ask you to go to your room. You have been my true knight—more than I dared to hope, and to-morrow—”
She interrupted herself as Adare and his wife appeared at the door.
“To-morrow?” he persisted.
“I will try and thank you,” she replied. Then she said, and Philip saw she spoke directly to her father: “You will excuse Philip, won’t you, Mon Pere? I will go with you, for I have taken the care of baby from Moanne to-night. Her husband is sick.”
Adare shook hands with Philip.
“I’m up mornings before the owls have gone to sleep,” he said. “Will you breakfast with me? I’m afraid that if you wait for Miriam and Mignonne you will go hungry. They will sleep until noon to make up for to-night.”
“Nothing would suit me better,” declared Philip. “Will you knock at my door if I fail to show up?”
Adare was about to answer, but caught himself suddenly as he looked from Philip to Josephine.
“What! this soon, Mignonne?” he demanded, chuckling in his beard. “Your rooms at the two ends of the house already! That was never the way with Miriam and me. Can you remember such a thing, Ma Cheri?”
“It—it is the baby,” gasped Josephine, backing from the light to hide the wild rush of blood to her face. “Philip cannot sleep,” she finished desperately.
“Then I disapprove of his nerves,” rejoined her father. “Good-night, Philip, my boy!”
“Good-night!” said Philip.
He was looking at Adare’s wife as they moved away. In the dim light of the hall a strange look had come into her face at her husband’s jesting words. Was it the effect of the shadows, or had he seen her start—almost as if for an instant she had been threatened by a blow? Was it imagination, or had he in that same instant caught a sudden look of alarm, of terror, in her eyes? Josephine had told him that her mother knew nothing of the tragedy of the child’s birth. If this were so, why had she betrayed the emotions which Philip was sure he had seen?
A chaotic tangle of questions and of doubts rushed through his mind. John Adare alone had acted a natural and unrestrained part in the brief space that had intervened since his home-coming. Philip had looked upon the big man’s love and happiness, his worship of the woman who was his wife, his ecstasy over the baby, his affection for Josephine, and it seemed to him that he knew this man now. The few moments he had stood in the room with mother and daughter had puzzled him most. In their faces he had seen no sign of gladness at their reunion, and he asked himself if Josephine had told him all the truth—if her mother were not, after all, a partner to her secret.
And then there swept upon him in all its overwhelming cloud of mystery that other question which until now he had not dared to ask himself: had Josephine herself told him all the truth? He did not dare to tell himself that it was possible that she was not the mother of the child which she had told him was her own. And yet he could not kill the whispering doubt deep back in his brain. It had come to him in the room, quick as a flashlight, when she had made her confession; it was insistent now as he stood looking at the closed door through which they had disappeared.
For him to believe wholly and unquestioned Josephine’s confession was like asking him to believe that da Vinci’s masterpiece hanging in the big room had been painted by a blind man. In her he had embodied all that he had ever dreamed of as pure and beautiful in a woman, and the thought came now. Had Josephine, for some tremendous reason known only to herself and Jean, tried to destroy his great love for her by revealing herself in a light that was untrue?
Instantly he told himself that this could not be so. If he believed in Josephine at all, he must believe that she had told him the truth. And he did believe, in spite of the whispering doubt. He felt that he could not sleep until he had seen Josephine alone. In her room John Adare had interrupted them a minute too soon. In spite of the mysterious and unsettling events of the night his heart still beat with the wild and joyous hope that had come with Josephine’s surrender to his arms and lips.
Instead of accepting the confession of her misfortune as the final barrier between them, he had taken it as the key that had unlocked the chains of her bondage. If she had told him the truth—if this were what separated them—she belonged to him; and he wanted to tell her this again before he slept, and hear from her lips the words that would give her to him forever.
Despairing of this, he opened the door to his room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Scarcely had he crossed the threshold when an exclamation of surprise rose to Philip’s lips. A few minutes before he had left his
room even uncomfortably warm. A cold draught of air struck his face now, and the light was out. He remembered that he had left the lamp burning. He groped his way through the darkness to the table before he lighted a match.
As he touched the flame to the wick he glanced toward the window. It was open. A film of snow had driven through and settled upon the rug under it. Replacing the chimney, he took a step or two toward the window. Then he stopped, and stared at the floor. Some one had entered his room through the open window and had gone to the door opening into the hall. At each step had fallen a bit of snow, and close to the door was a space of the bare floor soppy and stained. At that point the intruder had stood for some moments without moving.
For several seconds Philip stared at the evidences of a prowling visitor without making a move himself. It was not without a certain thrill of uneasiness that he went to the window and closed it. It did not take him long to assure himself that nothing in the room had been touched. He could find no other marks of feet except those which led directly from the window to the door, and this fact was sufficient proof that whoever had visited his room had come as a listener and a spy and not as a thief.
It occurred to Philip now that he had found his door unlatched and slightly ajar when he entered. That the eavesdropper had seen them in the hall and had possibly overheard a part of their conversation he was quite certain from the fact that the window had been left open in a hurried flight.
