A Ward of the Golden Gate Part 15

"Pendleton."

At the sound of the colonel's voice Don Caesar fell back. Paul opened the door, admitted the tall figure of the colonel, and was about to turn the key again. But Pendleton lifted his hand in grim deprecation.

"That will do, Mr. Hathaway. I know all. But I wish to speak with Briones elsewhere, alone."

"Excuse me, Colonel Pendleton," said Paul firmly, "but I have the prior claim. Words have pa.s.sed between this gentleman and myself which we are now on our way to the station and the frontier to settle. If you are willing to accompany us, I shall give you every opportunity to converse with him alone, and arrange whatever business you may have with him, provided it does not interfere with mine."

"My business," said Pendleton, "is of a personal nature, that will not interfere with any claim of yours that Mr. Briones may choose to admit, but is of a private quality that must be transacted between us now."

His face was pale, and his voice, although steady and self-controlled, had that same strange suggestion of sudden age in it which Paul had before noticed. Whether Don Caesar detected it, or whether he had some other instinctive appreciation of greater security, Paul could not tell. He seemed to recover his swagger again, as he said,--

"I shall hear what Colonel Pendleton has to say first. But I shall hold myself in readiness to meet you afterwards--you shall not fear, sir!"

Paul remained looking from the one to the other without speaking. It was Don Caesar who returned his glance boldly and defiantly, Colonel Pendleton who, with thin white fingers pulling his moustache, evaded it. Then Paul unlocked the door, and said slowly, "In five minutes I leave this house for the station. I shall wait there until the train arrives. If this gentleman does not join me, I shall be better able to understand all this and take measures accordingly."

"And I tell to you, Meester Hathaway, sir," said Don Caesar, striking an att.i.tude in the doorway, "you shall do as I please--Caramba!--and shall beg"--

"Hold your tongue, sir--or, by the Eternal!"--burst out Pendleton suddenly, bringing down his thin hand on the Mexican's shoulder. He stopped as suddenly. "Gentlemen, this is childish. Go, sir!" to Don Caesar, pointing with a gaunt white finger into the darkened hall. "I will follow you. Mr. Hathaway, as an older man, and one who has seen a good deal of foolish altercation, I regret, sir, deeply regret, to be a witness to this belligerent quality in a law-maker and a public man; and I must deprecate, sir--deprecate, your demand on that gentleman for what, in the folly of youth, you are pleased to call personal satisfaction."

As he moved with dignity out of the room, Paul remained blankly staring after him. Was it all a dream?--or was this Colonel Pendleton the duelist? Had the old man gone crazy, or was he merely acting to veil some wild purpose? His sudden arrival showed that Yerba must have sent for him and told him of Don Caesar's threats; would he be wild enough to attempt to strangle the man in some remote room or in the darkness of the pa.s.sage? He stepped softly into the hall: he could still hear the double tread of the two men: they had reached the staircase--they were DESCENDING! He heard the drowsy accents of the night porter and the swinging of the door--they were in the street!

Wherever they were going, or for what purpose, HE must be at the station, as he had warned them he would be. He hastily threw a few things into his valise, and prepared to follow them. When he went downstairs he informed the porter that owing to an urgent call of business he should try to catch the through express at three o'clock, but they must retain his room and luggage until they heard from him.

He remembered Don Caesar's letter. Had either of the gentlemen, his friends who had just gone out, left a letter or message? No, Excellency; the gentlemen were talking earnestly--he believed, in the South American language--and had not spoken to him.

Perhaps it was this that reminded Paul, as he crossed the square again, that he had made no preparation for any possible fatal issue to himself in this adventure. SHE would know it, however, and why he had undertaken it. He tried to think that perhaps some interest in himself had prompted her to send the colonel to him. Yet, mingled with this was an odd sense of a certain ridiculousness in his position: there was the absurdity of his prospective antagonist being even now in confidential consultation with his own friend and ally, whose functions he had usurped, and in whose interests he was about to risk his life.

And as he walked away through the silent streets, the conviction more than once was forced upon him that he was going to an appointment that would not be kept.

He reached the station some ten minutes before the train was due. Two or three half-drowsy, wrapped-up pa.s.sengers were already on the platform; but neither Don Caesar nor Colonel Pendleton was among them.

He explored the waiting-rooms and even the half-lit buffet, but with no better success. Telling the Bahnhof Inspector that his pa.s.sage was only contingent upon the arrival of one or two companions, and describing them minutely to prevent mistakes, he began gloomily to pace before the ticket-office. Five minutes pa.s.sed--the number of pa.s.sengers did not increase; ten minutes; a distant shriek--the hoa.r.s.e inquiry of the inspector--had the Herr's companions yet gekommt? the sudden glare of a Cyclopean eye in the darkness, the ongliding of the long-jointed and gleaming spotted serpent, the train--a hurried glance around the platform, one or two guttural orders, the slamming of doors, the remounting of black uniformed figures like caryatides along the marchepieds, a puff of vapor, and the train had come and gone without them.

Yet he would give his adversary fifteen minutes more to allow for accident or delay, or the possible arrival of the colonel with an explanation, and recommenced his gloomy pacing, as the Bahnhof sank back into half-lit repose. At the end of five minutes there was another shriek. Paul turned quickly to the inspector. Ah, then, there was another train? No; it was only the up express for Basle, going the other way and stopping at the Nord Station, half a mile away. It would not stop here, but the Herr would see it pa.s.s in a few moments at full speed.

It came presently, with a prolonged despairing shriek, out of the darkness; a flash, a rush and roar at his side, a plunge into the darkness again with the same despairing cry; a flutter of something white from one of the windows, like a loosened curtain, that at last seemed to detach itself, and, after a wild attempt to follow, suddenly soared aloft, whirled over and over, dropped, and drifted slowly, slantwise, to the ground.

The inspector had seen it, ran down the line, and picked it up. Then he returned with it to Paul with a look of sympathizing concern. It was a lady's handkerchief, evidently some signal waved to the well-born Herr, who was the only pa.s.senger on the platform. So, possibly, it might be from his friends, who by some stupid mischance had gone to the wrong station, and--Gott im Himmel!--it was hideously stupid, yet possible, got on the wrong train!

The Herr, a little pale, but composed, thought it WAS possible. No; he would not telegraph to the next station--not yet--he would inquire.

He walked quickly away, reaching the hotel breathlessly, yet in a s.p.a.ce that seemed all too brief for his disconnected thought. There were signs of animation in the hall, and an empty carriage was just reentering the courtyard. The hall-porter met him with demonstrative concern and apology. Ah! if he had only understood his Excellency better, he could have saved him all this trouble. Evidently his Excellency was going with the Arguello party, who had ordered a carriage, doubtless, for the same important journey, an hour before, yet had left only a few moments after his Excellency, and his Excellency, it would appear, had gone to the wrong station.

Paul pushed hurriedly past the man and ascended to his room. Both windows were open, and in the faint moonlight he could see that something white was pinned to his pillow. With nervous fingers he relit his candles, and found it was a note in Yerba's handwriting. As he opened it, a tiny spray of the vine that had grown on the crumbling wall fell at his feet. He picked it up, pressed it to his lips, and read, with dim eyes, as follows:--

"You know now why I spoke to you as I did to-day, and why the other half of this precious spray is the only memory I care to carry with me out of this crumbling ruin of all my hopes. You were right, Paul: my taking you there WAS AN OMEN--not to you, who can never be anything but proud, beloved, and true--but to ME of all the shame and misery. Thank you for all you have done--for all you would do, my friend, and don't think me ungrateful, only because I am unworthy of it. Try to forgive me, but don't forget me, even if you must hate me. Perhaps, if you knew all--you might still love a little the poor girl to whom you have already given the only name she can ever take from you--YERBA BUENA!"

CHAPTER VII.

It was already autumn, and in the city of New York an early Sunday morning breeze was sweeping up the leaves that had fallen from the regularly planted ailantus trees before the brown-stone frontage of a row of monotonously alike five-storied houses on one of the princ.i.p.al avenues. The Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, that uplifted its double towers on the corner, stopped before one of these dwellings, ran up the dozen broad steps, and rang the bell. He was presently admittted to the sombre richness of a hall and drawing-room with high-backed furniture of dark carved woods, like cathedral stalls, and, hat in hand, somewhat impatiently awaited the arrival of his hostess and paris.h.i.+oner. The door opened to a tall, white-haired woman in l.u.s.treless black silk. She was regular and resolute in features, of fine but unbending presence, and, though somewhat past middle age, showed no signs of either the weakness or mellowness of years.

"I am sorry to disturb your Sabbath morning meditations, Sister Argalls, nor would I if it were not in the line of Christian duty; but Sister Robbins is unable today to make her usual Sabbath hospital visit, and I thought if you were excused from the Foreign Missionary cla.s.s and Bible instruction at three you might undertake her functions.

I know, my dear old friend," he continued, with bland deprecation of her hard-set eyes, "how distasteful this promiscuous mingling with the rough and unG.o.dly has always been to you, and how reluctant you are to be placed in the position of being liable to hear coa.r.s.e, vulgar, or irreverent speech. I think, too, in our long and pleasant pastoral relations, you have always found me mindful of it. I admit I have sometimes regretted that your late husband had not more generally familiarized you with the ways of the world. But so it is--we all have our weaknesses. If not one thing, another. And as Envy and Uncharitableness sometimes find their way in even Christian hearts, I should like you to undertake this office for the sake of example.

There are some, dear Sister Argalls, who think that the rich widow who is most liberal in the endowment of the goods that Providence has intrusted to her hands claims therefore to be exempt from labor in the Christian vineyard. Let us teach them how unjust they are."

"I am willing," said the lady, with a dry, determined air. "I suppose these patients are not professedly bad characters?"

"By no means. A few, perhaps; but the majority are unfortunates--dependent either upon public charity or some small provision made by their friends."

"Very well."

"And you understand that though they have the privilege of rejecting your Christian ministrations, dear Sister Argalls, you are free to judge when you may be patient or importunate with them?"

"I understand."

The Pastor was not an unkindly man, and, as he glanced at the uncompromising look in Mrs. Argalls's eyes, felt for a moment some inconsistency between his humane instincts and his Christian duty.

"Some of them may require, and be benefited by, a stern monitress, and Sister Robbins, I fear, was weak," he said consolingly to himself, as he descended the steps again.

At three o'clock Mrs. Argalls, with a reticule and a few tracts, was at the door of St. John's Hospital. As she displayed her testimonials and announced that she had taken Mrs. Robbins's place, the officials received her respectfully, and gave some instructions to the attendants, which, however, did not stop some individual comments.

"I say, Jim, it doesn't seem the square thing to let that grim old girl loose among them poor convalescents."

"Well, I don't know: they say she's rich and gives a lot o' money away, but if she tackles that swearing old Kentuckian in No. 3, she'll have her hands full."

However, the criticism was scarcely fair, for Mrs. Argalls, although moving rigidly along from bed to bed of the ward, equipped with a certain formula of phrases, nevertheless dropped from time to time some practical common-sense questions that showed an almost masculine intuition of the patients' needs and requirements. Nor did she betray any of that over-sensitive shrinking from coa.r.s.eness which the good Pastor had feared, albeit she was quick to correct its exhibition. The languid men listened to her with half-aggressive, half-amused interest, and some of the satisfaction of taking a bitter but wholesome tonic.

It was not until she reached the bed at the farther end of the ward that she seemed to meet with any check.

It was occupied by a haggard man, with a long white moustache and features that seemed wasted by inward struggle and fever. At the first sound of her voice he turned quickly towards her, lifted himself on his elbow, and gazed fixedly in her face.

"Kate Howard--by the Eternal!" he said, in a low voice.

Despite her rigid self-possession the woman started, glanced hurriedly around, and drew nearer to him.

"Pendleton!" she said, in an equally suppressed voice, "What, in G.o.d's name, are you doing here?"

"Dying, I reckon--sooner or later," he said grimly, "that's what they do here."

"But--what," she went on hurriedly, still glancing over her shoulder as if she suspected some trick--"what has brought you to this?"

"YOU!" said the colonel, dropping back exhaustedly on his pillow. "You and your daughter."

"I don't understand you," she said quickly, yet regarding him with stern rigidity. "You know perfectly well I have NO daughter. You know perfectly well that I've kept the word I gave you ten years ago, and that I have been dead to her as she has been to me."

"I know," said the colonel, "that within the last three months I have paid away my last cent to keep the mouth of an infernal scoundrel shut who KNOWS that you are her mother, and threatens to expose her to her friends. I know that I'm dying here of an old wound that I got when I shut the mouth of another hound who was ready to bark at her two years after you disappeared. I know that between you and her I've let my old n.i.g.g.e.r die of a broken heart, because I couldn't keep him to suffer with me, and I know that I'm here a pauper on the State. I know that, Kate, and when I say it I don't regret it. I've kept my word to YOU, and, by the Eternal, your daughter's worth it! For if there ever was a fair and peerless creature--it's your child!"

"And she--a rich woman--unless she squandered the fortune I gave her--lets you lie here!" said the woman grimly.

"She don't know it."

"She SHOULD know it! Have you quarreled?" She was looking at him keenly.