Caroline sat by the library window, her chin in her hand, drearily watching the sleet as it beat against the panes, and the tops of the Park trees lashing in the wind. Below, in the street, the trolleys passed in their never-ending procession, the limousines and cabs whizzed forlornly by, and the few pedestrians pushed dripping umbrellas against the gale. A wet, depressing afternoon, as hopeless as her thoughts, and growing darker and more miserable hourly.
Stephen, standing by the fire, kicked the logs together and sent a shower of sparks flying.
"Oh, say something, Caro, do!" he snapped testily. "Don't sit there glowering; you give me the horrors."She roused from her reverie, turned, and tried to smile.
"What shall I say?" she asked.
"I don't know. But say something, for heaven's sake! Talk about the weather, if you can't think of anything more original.""The weather isn't a very bright subject just now.""I didn't say it was; but it's a subject. I hope to goodness it doesn't prevent Sylvester's keeping his appointment. He's late, as it is.""Is he?" wearily. "I hadn't noticed."
"Of course you hadn't. You don't notice anything. It doesn't help matters to pull a long face and go moping around wiping your eyes.
You've got to use philosophy in times like this. It's just as hard for me as it is for you; and I try to make the best of it, don't I?"She might have reminded him that his philosophy was a very recent acquisition. When the news of their poverty first came he was the one who raved and sobbed and refused to contemplate anything less direful than slow starvation or quick suicide. She had soothed and comforted then. Since the previous evening, when he had gone out, in spite of her protestations, and left her alone, his manner had changed. He was still nervous and irritable, but no longer threatened self-destruction, and seemed, for some unexplained reason, more hopeful and less desperate. Sylvester had 'phoned, saying that he would call at the apartment at two, and since Stephen had received the message he had been in a state of suppressed excitement, scarcely keeping still for five minutes at a time.
"It is just as hard for me as it is for you, isn't it?" he repeated.
"Yes, Steve, I suppose it is."
"You suppose? Don't you know? Oh, do quit thinking about Mal Dunn and pay attention to me."She did not answer. He regarded her with disgust.
"You are thinking of Mal, of course," he declared. "What's the use? You know what _I_ think: you were a fool to write him that letter.""Don't, Steve; please don't."
"Ugh!"
"Don't you know he didn't get the letter? I was so nervous and over-wrought that I misdirected it.""Pooh! Has he ever stayed away from you so long before? Or his precious mother, either? Why doesn't she come to see you? She scarcely missed a day before this happened. Nonsense! I guess he got it all right.""Steve, stop! stop! Don't dare speak like that. Do you realize what you are insinuating? You don't believe it! You know you don't! Shame on you! I'm ashamed of my brother! No! not another word of that kind, or I shall leave the room."She had risen to her feet. He looked at her determined face and turned away.
"Oh, well," he muttered, sullenly, "maybe you're right. I don't say you're not. Perhaps he didn't get the letter. You sent it to his office, and he may have been called out of town. But his mother--""Mrs. Dunn was not well when I last saw her. She may be ill.""Perhaps. But if you're so sure about them, why not let it go at that? What's the use of fretting?""I was not thinking of them--then."
As a matter of fact, she had been thinking of her uncle, Elisha Warren. As the time dragged by, she thought of him more and more--not as the uncouth countryman whose unwelcome presence had been forced into her life; nor as the hypocrite whose insult to her father's memory she never could forgive or whose double-dealing had been, as she thought, revealed; but as the man who, with the choke in his voice and the tears in his eyes, bade her remember that, whenever she needed help, he was ready and glad to give it.
She did not doubt Malcolm's loyalty. Her brother's hints and insinuations found no echo in her thoughts. In the note which she had written her fiancee she told of the loss of their fortune, though not of her father's shame. That she could not tell; nor did she ask Malcolm to come to her--her pride would not permit that.
She wrote simply of her great trouble and trusted the rest to him.
That he had not come was due--so she kept repeating to herself--solely to the fact that he had not received her letter. She knew that was it--she knew it. And yet--and yet he did not come.
So, in her loneliness and misery, her guardian's words returned again and again to her memory: "Sometimes when things look all right they turn out to be all wrong. If ever there comes a time like that to you and Steve, remember you've got me to turn to."The time had come when she must turn to someone.
She would never go to him; she vowed it. She would not accept his help if he came to her. But, if he was sincere, if he meant what he said, why did he not come again to proffer it? Because he was not sincere, of course. That had been proven long before. She despised him. But his face, as she last saw it, refused to be banished from her mind. It looked so strong, and yet gentle and loving, like the face of a protector, one to be trusted through good times and bad. Oh, this wicked, wicked world, and the shams and sorrows in it! "Malcolm, why don't you come to me?"Stephen uttered an exclamation. Looking up, she saw him hurrying toward the hall.
"Someone's at the door," he explained. "It's Sylvester, of course.
I'll let him in."
It was not the lawyer but a messenger boy with a note. Stephen returned to the library with the missive in his hand.