IN THE EDITOR'S OFFICE.
A few moments later Meg was walking by her grandfather's side. He had refused to drive. Sir Malcolm never said a word, but he seemed in hot haste. Meg's thoughts were in a tumult. What was he going to do? How would he meet his former enemy? Had he been softened?
The old baronet gripped his stick as he went along and planted it firmly on the road. She would have given anything to have questioned him; but fear on the one hand lest she should exasperate him, on the other a failing heart lest if he were inclined to conciliation she might balk the impulse by some well-meant blunder kept her silent.
When they reached the office, and her grandfather asked the clerk if Mr. Standish was at home, she tried to judge his mood by the tone of his voice. For an instant she hoped the clerk's answer would be in the negative; but the young man, leaving his desk, replied that Mr. Standish was at home, adding with an air of bewilderment: "Sir Malcolm Loftdale, I believe?"
"Take my card up," said the baronet, pulling out his cardcase.
They climbed up the narrow stairs, and Meg saw her lover standing by his table to receive them. With a bow as cold, Mr. Standish returned the old gentleman's frigid salutation. He was stretching out his hand to her, but with a little anxious frown she signaled to him to take no notice of her at present.
"You are, I believe, sir, the responsible editor of the Greywolds Mercury," said the baronet with a chill civility that brought a sorrowful anticipation to Meg.
Mr. Standish in a constrained voice acknowledged his position. "I am afraid that this places me in an unfavorable light before you, sir," he continued in a half-apologetic tone.
Sir Malcolm moved his hand. "You mistake the object of my visit if you think, sir, that I ask for an explanation—if you suppose that articles upon myself which appeared some months ago, and which no doubt had literary merit, have produced upon me the slightest impression. I am ready to admit the right of every man to his opinions. I have my own opinions on a subject which I would prefer not to express."
He paused, and Mr. Standish remained silent, waiting for his visitor to continue.
"My motive for entering a publishing office," the baronet went on, looking round him with a cold smile, "is from a widely different motive. I will refer to one of those articles only for the simple sake of illustration. You were very indignant, sir, at my stringent suppression of a poacher. Now, sir, I beg you in justice to give me your opinion of a poacher in a moral sense—one who, by assignations, by means at his command, contrives to inveigle the affections of a young girl, almost a child, intruding himself thus dishonestly into a gentleman's family."
"Sir Malcolm Loftdale," said Mr. Standish firmly yet courteously, "I perfectly understand your meaning. This young lady occupies an honorable position in your household, and she has always led me to understand that you treated her with the utmost kindness and consideration; but she is not a member of your family."
"Such being your impression, I will not presume to blame you," said the baronet with the cynical courtesy one uses to an inferior. "Your honorable intentions I take for granted. It only remains for me to inform you, in the presence of this young lady—who has herself been made acquainted by me within the hour of the position she holds in my house—that Miss Beecham is my granddaughter."
"Your granddaughter!" repeated Mr. Standish with a movement of surprise. "I thought, sir, you had but one child—a son?"
"She is the daughter and only child of that son," answered the baronet with lofty curtness. "There is no necessity for me to enter with you into the details of a family history. Suffice it to say that I beg of you, as an honorable literary man"—the old gentleman laid a slight sarcastic stress on the word literary—"never again to address this lady, and to terminate from this moment an acquaintance which, if pursued, must be henceforth termed clandestine, treacherous, and dishonorable."
At these words Mr. Standish drew himself up with a dignity as cold and stern as was that of his visitor. "Sir Malcolm Loftdale," he said, "this comes rather late. It is not for me to give the pledge you exact; I will give it at the request of Miss Beecham only."
For a moment irritation seemed about to surprise the old gentleman. He clinched his stick and reared his grand old head as for a rebuke; then he turned mutely toward Meg.
"You have applied the word dishonorable to me, Sir Malcolm Loftdale. Allow me to say it is the last word, I think, you should have employed," resumed Mr. Standish.
"Sir, your protestations are thrown away upon me. I have no more to say to you," replied the baronet. "Meg, my child, it is now for you to decide. You have heard the expression of my positive wishes; you know how I feel on this subject; you know better than any one how your decision one way or the other will affect me. I confide in you."
Meg wrung her hands and remained silent. In her despair she confusedly felt she was called upon to make her choice between two duties. One was heavy to follow, the other meant all the happiness of her young heart. She gave an inarticulate moan—a word of that primal language common to all creation in its moments of anguish.
"I do not ask you to speak," said Sir Malcolm. "Put your hand on my arm, Meg, and let me take you home—that will suffice."
"I cannot—I cannot!" she moaned, moving a few irresolute steps away from the two between whom her fate lay. She could not speak the word that must bring sorrow to one who was weak, lonely, and already heavily stricken, still less that other word which must crush the young, the strong, and the beloved one.
"Before you ask this young lady to retract," she heard the voice of her lover say; then he paused as if to change the phrase to one more generously worded: "Before you ask her to refuse me for your sake, will you grant me a few moments' private conversation?"
"No, sir," answered the baronet. "I repeat I have said all I have to say to you. I wish this interview to end. Come back with me, Meg."
"You have addressed me as one capable of dishonorable conduct," Mr. Standish resumed quietly. "This young lady's father, sir, if he were alive, would have been the last to apply such a term to me."
"Her father! What do you know of her father?" said Sir Malcolm savagely.
"If Philip Loftdale was her father, I knew him well. He often called me his dearest friend."
Meg, leaning back against the wall, saw her grandfather staring vacantly at the speaker. "What do you mean? Who are you, sir?" he asked.
"Again I ask you, sir," said Mr. Standish with sudden gentleness, "for a few moments' private conversation."
"No, sir; if you have anything to say, speak out before this young lady. I took the step of leading Miss Beecham here that she might judge the merits of the case for herself. I am sorry to have to add that the assertion you have just made, that you were my son's friend, is no recommendation to me. He was unfortunate in his associates."
Mr. Standish did not reply. He took out a bunch of keys and fitted one into a drawer. Meg saw him draw out a bundle of letters. He kept his eyes averted from her as he said:
"I shrink from telling the particulars I must now state, or of hinting at an obligation. But I am playing for a great stake—one that is all the world to me; and I see no means of moving you, sir, but by referring to this fact, and bringing evidences of its truth before you."
He laid his hand upon the letters.
"It is your wish, sir, that I should speak before Miss Beecham. Perhaps it is as well that she should hear what I have to say."
"It is my wish. Go on, sir!" said Sir Malcolm fiercely as Mr. Standish paused.
"Your son was adjutant of his regiment. Whatever were his follies and recklessness, he was a good soldier. He was trusted by his comrades, and he was proud of their trust. You were stern with him, sir—I shall not say overstern. It is not for me to judge."
"Go on, sir," said the old man.
"Since his marriage, if you remember, you held no communication with him——"
"If your claim upon me," interrupted the baronet fiercely, "is that you are a relation of the unhappy woman he married, I think you must admit that the fact that I have recognized her daughter, and that I mean publicly to declare her my grandchild, is a reparation which answers all claims and silences all appeals."
"I make no claim upon you. I think I will establish that I am no—" Mr. Standish paused, then resumed: "If you remember, your son wrote to you shortly before his death a letter that you returned unopened, as you had done others before."
Sir Malcolm did not reply, and for a moment there was a dead silence. Mr. Standish resumed with difficulty:
"That letter, sir, was to ask you for three hundred pounds, that in a reckless moment he had taken from the money belonging to his regiment, convinced that he would be able to repay it."
Still the old man remained silent as death, looking with a fixed gaze upon the speaker.
"Your son came to me. Dishonor faced him. He told me of his folly. The next day he would be disgraced if he failed to raise the money."
Sir Malcolm drew a heavy breath; he parted his lips as if to speak, but no words came; and he listened intently.
"God knows, sir," resumed the young man, "that I tell you what follows with the utmost unwillingness. I had the money he needed so sorely, and I let him have it. His honor was saved. His act remained unknown to his brother-officers and to the world, but he felt the stigma too bitterly to live."
The old man sat down and took the proffered documents. He read them through hurriedly, and Meg noticed that once he brushed away a tear. Then he rose, and with a large and liberal action put out a trembling hand to the editor, who clasped it in his.
"Mr. Standish," said the baronet, "you have saved what is dearer to me than life—my family honor. I will do, sir, what I have never done before. I ask your pardon. I acknowledge an obligation to you that I can never repay."
"You can repay it, grandfather," said Meg through tears.
"You can repay it, sir—ay, and brimming over," said Mr. Standish. "The stake I have played for, as I said, is all the world to me. I love this lady with a love that can never change. I loved her as a child, I love her as a girl, I will love her as a woman all her life. Do not part us!"
"Grandfather, do not part us!" repeated Meg in a voice hoarse with pleading. "I will never desert you!"
The old gentleman hesitated. He resumed his seat, and putting his elbow on the table he covered his eyes with his hand. There was anxious silence in the room. At last Sir Malcolm rose, and with a grave dignity he went to Meg, and taking her hand he placed it in that of her lover.
THE END.