Janice Meredith Part 18

Janice's eyes sought the floor, as she hesitatingly said, "I --I came to--to ask a favour of you."

"'T is but for you to name," replied the man, eagerly.

"Will you let me--I want--I should like Tibbie to see the--the picture of me, and I wondered if--if you would let me take it to Trenton--I'll bring it back, you know, and--"

"Ah, Miss Janice," exclaimed the servant, as the girl halted, "if you 'd but take it as a gift, 't would pleasure me so!"

While he spoke, without pretence of concealment he unb.u.t.toned the top b.u.t.ton of his s.h.i.+rt and taking hold of a string about his neck pulled forth a small wooden case, obviously of pocket-knife manufacture. Snapping the cord, he offered its pendant to Janice.

"I--I would keep it, Charles," replied Janice, "but you know mommy told me--"

"And what right has she to prevent you?" broke in Charles, warmly. "It does her no wrong, nor can it harm you to keep it. What right have they to tyrannise over you? 'T is all of a piece with their forcing you to marry that awkward, ignorant put. Here, take it." The groom seized her hand, put the case in her palm, closed her fingers over, and held them thus, as if striving to make her accept the gift.

"Oh, Charles," cried the girl, very much fl.u.s.tered, "you should n't ask--"

"Ah, Miss Janice," he begged, "won't you keep it?

They need never know."

"But I only wanted to show it to Tibbie," explained the girl, "to ask her if mommy was right when she said 't was monstrous flattered."

"'T is an impossibility," responded the man, earnestly, though he was unable to keep from slightly smiling at the unconscious naivete of the question. "I would she could see it in a more befitting frame, to set it off. If thou 't but let me, I'd put it in the other setting. Then 't would show to proper advantage."

"Would it take long?"

"A five minutes only."

The girl threw open the shawl, and thrusting her hand under her neckerchief into the V-cut of her bodice, produced the miniature.

The servant recoiled a step as she held it out to him.

Then s.n.a.t.c.hing rather than taking the trinket from her hand, he said, "That is no place for this."

"Why not?" asked Janice.

"Because she is unfit to rest there," cried the man. He pulled out a knife, and with the blade pried up the rim, and shook free the protective gla.s.s and slip of ivory. "Now 't is purged of all wrong," he said, touching the setting to his lips. "I would it were for me to keep, for 't has lain near your heart, and 't is still warm with happiness."

The speech and act so embarra.s.sed Janice that she hurriedly said, "I really must n't stay. I've been too long as 't is, and--"

"'T will take but a moment," the servant a.s.sured her hastily. "Wilt please give me t' other one?" Throwing the miniature he had taken from the frame on the floor, he set about removing that of Janice from its wooden casing and fitting it to its new setting.

"Don't," cried Janice, in alarm, stooping to pick up the slip of ivory. "'T is not owing to you that 't was n't spoiled," she added indignantly, after a glance at it.

"Small loss if 't were!" responded the man, bitterly.

"Promise me, Miss Janice, that you'll not henceforth carry it in your bosom?"

"'T is a monstrous strange thing to ask."

"I tell thee she's not fit to rest near a pure heart."

"How know you that?"

"How know I?" cried the man, in amazement. "Why--"

There he stopped and knit his brows.

"I knew thou wert deceiving us when thee said 't was not thine," charged the girl.

"Nay, Miss Janice, 't was the truth I told you, though a quibble, I own. The miniature never was mine, tho' 't was once in my possession."

"Then how came you by it?"

"I took it by force from--never mind whom." The old bitter look was on the man's face, and anger burned in his eyes.

"You stole it!" cried the girl, drawing away from him.

"Not I," denied the man. "'T was taken from one who had less right to 't than I."

"You knew her?" questioned the girl.

"Ay," cried the man, with a kind of desperation. "I should think I did!"

"And--and you--you loved her?" she asked with a hesitancy which might mean that she was in doubt whether to ask the question, or perhaps that she rather hoped her surmise would prove wrong.

The young fellow halted in his work of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the ivory to fit the frame, and for a moment he stood, apparently looking down at his half-completed job, as it lay on the top of the meal-box. Then suddenly he put his hand to his throat as if he were choking, and the next instant he leaned forward, and, burying his face in his arms, as they rested on the whilom desk, he struggled to stifle the sobs that shook his frame.

"Oh, I did n't mean to pain you!" she cried in an agony of guilt and alarm.

Charles rose upright, and das.h.i.+ng his s.h.i.+rt sleeve across his eyes, he turned to the girl. "'T is over, Miss Janice," he a.s.serted, "and a great baby I was to give way to 't."

"I can understand, and I don't think 't was babyish," said Janice, her heart wrung with sympathy for him. "She is so lovely!"

The man's lips quivered again, despite of his struggle to control himself. "That she is," he groaned. "And I--I loved her--My G.o.d! how I loved her! I thought her an angel from heaven; she was everything in life to me. When I fled from London, it seemed as if my heart was--was dead for ever."

"She was untrue?" asked Janice, with a deep sigh.

The servant's face darkened. "So untrue--Ah! 'T is not to be spoken. The two of them!"

"You challenged and killed him!" surmised Janice, excitedly.

"And that's why you came to America."

The groom shook his head sadly. "Not that, Miss Janice.

They robbed me of both honour and revenge. I was powerless to punish either--except by--Bah! I've done with them for ever."

"Foh mussy's sakes, chile," came Sukey's voice, "what youse dam' hyar? Run quick, honey, foh your mah is 'quirin'

foh youse."

"Oh, Luddy!" cried the girl, reaching out for the miniature.

"'T is not done, but I'll see to 't that you get it this evening,"

exclaimed Charles.