The End Of The Rainbow Part 25

"You may be sure your confidence will never be betrayed," said Roderick, and murmuring his grat.i.tude the young man went on.

"It was Miss Annabel Armstrong who put her against me from the first, I feel sure, though I must never bear a grudge against a lady. But you know, Roderick (I know you will never betray a confidence), Miss Annabel hates me. I proposed to her once, shortly after I came to Algonquin. It was just a mad infatuation on my part, not love at all.

I did not know then what real love was. But Miss Annabel--well, she is a lady--but I, I really couldn't tell you what she said to me when I offered her all a man could, my heart and my hand and all my property.

It was awful! I really sometimes wake up in the night yet and think about it. And she never forgave me. And I don't know why." He paused and drew a deep breath at the remembrance.

"And I know she poisoned Miss Murray's mind against me--but I shan't hold a grudge against a lady. Now, Miss Murray herself was so gentle and kind when she refused me--what? I--I didn't mean any harm." For his sympathetic listener had turned upon him.

"How dared you do such a thing?" Roderick cried indignantly.

"I just couldn't help it," wailed Alfred. "You couldn't yourself now, Roderick;" and Roderick was forced to confess inwardly that likely he couldn't.

"Well, never mind, go on," he said, all unabashed that he was taking advantage of the poor young man merely to be able to hear something about her.

"I just couldn't help it. But I only asked her twice and the first time she refused so nicely, I thought perhaps she'd change her mind. I never heard any one refuse a--person--so--so sweetly and kindly. But this last time was unmistakable, and I feel as if it were all over. I am not going to be trampled upon any more."

"That's right," said Roderick. "Just brace up and never mind; you'll soon get over it."

The young man shook his head. "I shall never be the same," he said.

"But I have pride. I am not going to let her see that she has made a wreck of my life. But I thought she might have had more sympathy when she had had a sorrow like that herself."

Roderick felt his resentment rising. He did not mind listening to poor Alfred's love stories, but he did not want to hear hers discussed. But before he could interrupt, Alfred was saying something that held his attention and made him long for more.

"But she is all over that now. She told me herself."

"All over what?" Roderick could not hold the question back.

"Caring about the young man she was engaged to. There was a young man named Richard Wells in Toronto, you know, and they were engaged. When she was away for her holidays last summer, I was so lonesome I just couldn't stand it, so I wrote to my cousin Flossy Wilbur and asked her to find out how she was or her address or something. And Flossy wrote such a comforting letter and said she was staying with her married brother, Norman Murray--he lives on Harrington Street, and Floss lives just a couple of blocks away on a beautiful avenue--"

"What were you saying about Wells?" Roderick interrupted.

"Flossy knows him and told me all about it. I had a letter just last week. He met another girl he liked better--no, that couldn't be true, n.o.body who once saw her could care for any one else, I am sure. But this other girl was rich, and so he broke the engagement. If I ever meet that man!" Afternoon Tea Willie stood on the side-walk, the electric light s.h.i.+ning through the autumn leaves making a golden radiance about his white face. "If I ever meet that man I--I shall certainly treat him with the coldest contempt, Roderick. I wouldn't speak to him!"

"But you said she didn't care," suggested Roderick impatiently.

"Not now. But Flossy said her poor little heart must have been broken at first, though she did not show it. She came up to Algonquin right away. I saw her on board the _Inverness_ the day she came and I knew then--"

"How do you know she doesn't care about Wells?"

"Oh, when Flossy wrote me that last week, I went to see her at the school--I don't dare go to Rosemount--and I asked her to forgive me for proposing to her. I told her, or at least I hinted at the tragedy in her life, and I said I wanted to beg her pardon on my knees for troubling her as I had done,--and that I couldn't forgive myself. Oh, she just acted like an angel--there is no other word to describe her.

She asked me at first how I found out and then she said so sweetly and gently, that she thanked me for my consideration. And then, just because she was so good--I did it again! I really didn't mean it, but before I knew what I was doing, I was asking her again if there was any hope for me. And, oh dear! oh dear! she said 'no' again. Gave me not the least hope. I was so overcome--you don't know how a man feels about such things, Roderick. I was so overcome I burst out and said I felt just as if I would have given all I possessed to meet that Wells man. I said I could just treat him with the coldest contempt if I ever met him on the street. And she answered so sweetly that I must not worry on her account. She said she had cared once, but that was all over, and that she was glad now that it had been so. And she added--and I don't see hew any one with such eyes could be so cruel--she said I must never, never speak of such a subject to her again, and that if I ever did she would not let me even come near her.

So it's all over with me. I am not going to follow her about any more.

I have still been coming down to Willow Lane, but I am coming no more after to-night. This is the end!"

They had reached the office door and paused. Roderick's sympathy seemed to have suddenly vanished. In the very face of the other young man's despair, he turned upon him ruthlessly.

"That's a wise resolution, Alf," he said distinctly. "And I'm going to advise you strongly to stick to it. You keep the width of the town between you and Miss Murray from now on, do you understand?"

"What--whatever do you mean?" stammered the boy, aghast at the cruelty of one who had seemed a friend.

"Just what I say. On your own showing, you've been tormenting her; and--I--well, I won't have it--that's all. I feel sure you have the good sense to stick to your resolution," his tone was a trifle kindlier, "and for your own sake I hope you do. If not, look out!" He made a significant gesture, that made the other jump out of his way in terror. "And look here, Alf," he added. "If you tell any soul in Algonquin that Miss Murray was engaged to any one I'll--I'll murder you. Do you hear?"

He ran up the steps and into the office. And the cruellest part of it all to poor Afternoon Tea Willie, as the door slammed in his face leaving him alone in the darkness, was that he could hear his false friend whistling merrily.

Roderick felt like whistling in the days that followed. He had found out something he had been longing to know for over a year. He did not have to stay away from her now. And the very next evening he marched straight up to Rosemount and asked to see Miss Murray. She was out, much to his disappointment, but the next Sunday he met her as they were leaving the church. And she expressed her regret so kindly that he was once more filled with hope. He had stood watching for her while his father paused for a word with Dr. Leslie, but as usual he had been joined by Alexander Graham and his daughter. There was a subtle air of triumph about the man, ever since Roderick had decided to go to Montreal, an air almost of proprietors.h.i.+p especially noticeable when Lawyer Ed was about.

"Good morning, Rod," he said genially. "All packed yet?"

"Not quite," said Roderick shortly. He winced, for the thought of the actual parting with his father was a subject upon which he did not care to speak.

"I don't believe you are a bit sorry you are going," said Leslie, shaking the heavy plumes of her velvet hat at him, and pouting, for never a regret had he expressed to her.

"I actually believe you're glad. And I don't blame you. I'd be just jumping for joy if I were going. It's a dreadfully dull little place here, in the winter especially."

He looked at her in surprise. It was so unlike her to express discontent. She had always seemed so happy. "Why, I thought you couldn't be ever induced to live any other place," he cried in surprise.

"The idea! I wish somebody'd try me!" she flashed out the answer, with just the faintest emphasis on a significant word.

Roderick looked down at her again in wonder, to see her eyes droop, her colour deepen. They pa.s.sed down the church steps, side by side; her father dropped behind with Dr. Blair, and they were left alone together. Roderick, always shy in a young woman's presence, was overcome with a vague feeling of dismay, which he did not at all understand and which rendered him speechless.

He was relieved when Miss Annabel Armstrong, with a girlish skip, came suddenly to her niece's side. "Good morning, Mr. Roderick McRae. Good morning, niecy dear! Come here a moment and walk with me, Leslie darling. I want to ask you something." She slipped her arm into the girl's and drew her back. "Here, Mr. McRae, you walk by Miss Murray, just for a moment, please."

She shoved Helen forward into Leslie's place, and pulling her niece close, whispered fiercely.

"You are a young idiot, Leslie Graham! I heard Mrs. Captain Willoughby and the Baldwin girls laughing and talking about you just this minute as they came out of church. I am just deadly ashamed. How can we ever keep our position in society if you act so? Anna Baldwin said you were simply throwing yourself at that young McRae's head--and his father a common farmer! And his _Aunt_!"

The girl jerked her arm from Miss Annabel's grasp, her eyes and cheeks blazing. "Anna Baldwin is crazy about him herself!" she cried violently. "And she's made a fool of herself more times than I can tell! And his father is far better than your father ever was, or mine either!" She stopped as some one looked at her in pa.s.sing. "I shall just do exactly as I please, Aunt Annabel Armstrong," she added determinedly. "It's just like an old maid to be always interfering in other people's affairs!"

Miss Annabel turned white with anger. She was proud of her niece, and yet she almost disliked her. Leslie, young and gay and successful, the inheritor of everything for which her aunt had scrimped and striven and hungered all her life and never attained, was a constant source of irritation and discontent to Miss Annabel. Her heart and hopes were as young as Leslie's, and she was forced to find herself pushed aside into the place of age, while this radiant girl walked all unheeding into everything that her girlhood should have been. And this intimation concerning her age and estate was unbearable. She grew intensely quiet.

"Leslie," she said, "you may heed me or not as you wish. But if you had eyes in your head, you would see for yourself that that young man doesn't care the snap of his finger for you and all your money. He's madly in love with Helen Murray. He's always hanging about Rosemount!"

she added, growing reckless. "He was there only last night. Just look at him now!"

The startled eyes of the girl obeyed. Roderick was walking beside Helen Murray, and looking down at her with the joy of her presence s.h.i.+ning in his face. He was not schooled in hiding his feelings, and his eyes told his secret so plainly that Leslie Graham could not but read.

She said not another word. They had reached a corner and she suddenly left her aunt and walked swiftly homeward alone. She had had a revelation. For a long time she had suspected and feared. Now she knew. In all her gay thoughtless life she had never wanted anything very badly that she had not been able to get. Now, the one thing she wanted most, the thing which had all unconsciously become the supreme desire of her life, she had learned in one flash was already another's.

She was as certain of it as though Roderick had proclaimed his feelings from the church pulpit. Her thoughts ran swiftly back over the months of their acquaintance and picked up here and there little items of remembrance that should have shown her earlier the true state of things. She was forced to confess that not once had he shown her any slightest preference, except as her father's daughter. And yet she had refused to look and listen. And then, upon knowledge, came shame and humiliation and rage at finding she had boldly proffered herself and was found undesirable. It was the birth of her woman's heart. The happy, careless girl's heart was dying, and the new life did not come without much anguish of soul.

As soon as she could escape from the dinner table she fled to her room to face this dread thing which had come upon her. All undisciplined and unused to pain, through her mother's careless indulgence, entirely pagan, too, for her religious experience had been but one of form, the girl met this crisis in her life alone.

At first the smarting sense of her humiliation predominated and her heart cried for recompense. She would show him what would happen If he dared set her aside. Well she knew she could injure Roderick's chances for success if she set her mind to the task; for was it not her influence that had helped to give him those chances?

The force of her anger drove her to action. She threw on her plumed hat and her velvet coat, and slipping out unseen, walked swiftly out of the town and up the lake sh.o.r.e. Every little breeze from the waters sent a shower of golden leaves dropping about her. But the air was still in the woods. It was a perfect autumn day, a true Sabbath day in Nature's world, with everything in a beautiful state of rest after labour. The bronze oaks, the yellow elms and the crimson maples along the sh.o.r.e, now and then dropped a jewel too heavy to be held into the coloured waters beneath. The tower of the little Indian church across the lake pointed a silver finger up out of a soft blue haze. The whole world seemed at peace, in contrast to the tumult within the girl's untrained heart.

She seated herself on a fallen log beside the water, the warm, hazy suns.h.i.+ne falling through the golden branches upon her. And sitting there, she felt the spirit of the serene day steal over hers. Wiser and n.o.bler thoughts came to her sorely tried young heart. Some strong unknown Spirit rose up within her and demanded that she do what was right. It was her only guide, she could not reason with it, but she blindly obeyed. There would be long days of pain and hard struggle ahead of her, she well knew, but the Spirit heeded them not at all.

She must do what was right. She must act the strong, the womanly part, let the future bring what it would.

And she went back from the soft rustling peace of the woods, not a careless, selfishly happy girl any more, but a strong, steady-purposed woman.

Roderick was so busy and happy during the ensuing week that he had almost forgotten the existence of Miss Leslie Graham, when she was brought to his dismayed senses by the sound of her voice over the telephone.