CHAPTER XV.
TWO LOVERS.
Miss Murdock was seated at the piano in the drawing-room, her shapely fingers wandering dreamily over the keys, when a servant knocked at the door.
"A gintleman to see yer, Miss," said the maid.
"A caller!" exclaimed Agnes in surprise. "At this time of day? Did he give you his card?"
"No, miss. Nor his name nayther."
"Well then, Mary," said Agnes, with a mixture of amusement and severity, "why do you announce him? I think you would better keep an eye on the hat-rack."
"He aint no thafe, Miss," said the maid, positively; "he do be dressed up too foine fur that. Besoides, Oi've sane him here before. A hansum young feller wid rid hair——Mister——Mister——Cha——Chapman."
"Chatham!" suggested Agnes, with sudden seriousness.
"Yis, Miss; it do be the same."
"I cannot receive him," said Miss Murdock in frigid tones. "I am surprised that John should have admitted him, after the explicit instructions I gave him yesterday. Hereafter I am never at home to Mr. Chatham."
"Your butler is not at fault in this instance," said a voice from the hallway, and before either of the women could recover from her surprise, a flashily dressed young man with intensely red hair entered the room. He carried his left arm in a sling. His face was pale; his eyes glittered with a feverish light; his voice quivered with repressed excitement.
"I was waiting for your father in his office, when I heard your maid go by, and I asked her to announce me. I hoped for, but I can hardly say I expected, a more hospitable reception."
Miss Murdock, after the first shock of surprise, had drawn up her graceful figure to its full height, and stood looking at the young man with undisguised contempt in her flashing eyes.
Chatham paused as if expecting a reply; and then:
"Shall I explain the object of my visit before your servant?" he asked bitterly.
"You may leave, Mary, until I ring for you," said the young girl, turning to the maid.
The woman reluctantly left the room, casting curious glances upon her young mistress and her unwelcome guest as she went.
Chatham made a motion as if to take a chair; but Agnes remained significantly standing.
"Perhaps," she said coldly, "you will be good enough to explain as briefly as possible your object in forcing your presence upon me in this ungentlemanly way?"
"I suppose my conduct does strike you as ungentlemanly," said the young man piteously; "but what could I do? I love you devotedly, madly, and you will not allow me even to tell you so. You instruct your servants to turn me away from the door like a beggar. Is it a crime to love you?"
"No, Mr. Chatham," said the girl more gently, "it is not a crime to love a woman; but it is at least a serious blunder to adopt the method you have selected of showing your affection, and it is certainly not generous to force it upon her as you are doing."
"What else can I do?" he repeated doggedly. "Here am I suddenly obliged to leave New York for a long time,—perhaps for ever,—and unable to get a single word with you. I called yesterday morning and was informed that you were at that artist fellow's studio. Then I wrote you a letter asking for an interview and I left it there for you myself. The only notice you took of it was to give instructions to your butler not to admit me if I called again. I cannot go away like that, without a ray of hope to lighten my exile, and leave you here surrounded by a lot of men who are anxious to marry you."
The tender-hearted girl felt a growing pity for the awkward and vulgar young man in whom she began vaguely to discern a genuine suffering.
"I am sorry, Mr. Chatham," she said, "more sorry than I can say. But what can I do? I do not care for you in the way you wish, and affection is not to be coerced. I have done the best I could to discourage you, because——"
"I know you have," interrupted Chatham; "you have avoided me, and snubbed me, and taken every way you could to show that you do not like me."
"It would have been mistaken kindness to do otherwise," said Agnes gently.
"No, it wouldn't," exclaimed the accountant; "I don't ask you to love me; not at once, at any rate. But give me a show; give me time; give me a little hope——"
"I cannot do that," said the girl in a low tone.
"Why can't you?" urged the young man excitedly. "I have sacrificed everything for you; I have given up all I had; I have lost my position; I have risked my life——"
"I don't understand you," said Miss Murdock, looking at him in astonishment.
"Your father would," he replied huskily; "it was he egged me on to this; he promised me that you would have me——"
"My father promised——"
"Yes, your father; and by G——"
Chatham, who was growing more and more excited, brought down his clenched fist upon a table near which he stood, and with an evident effort repressed the oath which rose to his lips. Miss Murdock, startled and bewildered, observed him in speechless amazement.
After a momentary struggle, the accountant suddenly broke forth in piteous pleading:
"I don't ask much now. Tell me only one thing and I shall go away content for the present. Say that no other man has any better chance with you than I have. Say that you do not love any one else."
The young girl tried to avoid his ardent gaze.
"Say it!" he commanded in sudden sternness.
Agnes drew herself up proudly then.
"I don't know by what right you presume to catechize or to command me," she said coldly, at the same time making a motion as if to touch the button of the electric bell.
Chatham saw the motion and sprang before her to intercept it.
"Ah! that is the way of it, is it?" he exclaimed with passionate jealousy. "You are——in love—with another man!"
The words seemed to choke him in the utterance. The blood rushed to his head; the veins on his temples stood out in purple vividness, and, as he clutched spasmodically at his collar, a wild light came into his eyes.
Agnes caught their mad glitter and shrank back in sudden terror.
"I have been duped!" he shouted frantically. "I have been a catspaw, and now that I have done all that was wanted of me, I am to be turned off like a dog, with a kick. The dirty work is done, is it? We'll see about that; we'll see what your father has to say. But, at any rate, you can be sure of one thing."
His voice sank to a hoarse whisper, and the words fell with impressive distinctness:
"If I don't marry you, no one ever shall!"
As he spoke he leaned forward upon the table which stood near him, and his fingers closed nervously upon the handle of a jeweled paper knife. There was murder in his eye at that moment, and the frightened girl quailed before it.
Suddenly her ear caught the sound of footsteps in the hallway. She opened her lips to call for help, but before she could utter a sound the door opened, revealing the anxious face of the housemaid, who had heard enough to realize that it was time to interrupt the tête-à-tête without further ceremony.
"Mister Sprague, Miss," she announced, with a comforting nod at her young mistress, whose pale face and frightened eyes had not escaped her attention.
Sprague stood on the threshold in evident embarrassment, looking from Agnes to Chatham, and uncertain how to act.
"I fear I am intruding, Miss Murdock," he said at last; "your maid told me she thought you could receive me. Perhaps I would better call again."
"No, no, Mr. Sprague," replied the young girl effusively, coming toward him with outstretched hands; "I am so glad to see you."
And then, observing his inquiring glance toward Chatham,
"I think," she added coldly, "that this gentleman has said all that he has to say to me."
Chatham's excitement had subsided; in the reaction, he seemed ill and weak as he nervously clenched his tremulous right hand.
"I will wait to see Doctor Murdock," he said doggedly in a low voice.
"As you please," replied Agnes after a slight hesitation. "Mary, show Mr. Chatham to the Doctor's study."
As the accountant followed the servant from the room, blank despair was stamped in every feature, and it seemed to Sprague, as the door closed, that he heard something like a convulsive sob.
Unconsciously Agnes had clung to Sprague's hand. Now, as the sense of danger disappeared, she became aware of what she was doing; and, in sudden embarrassment, she withdrew her hand from his reassuring clasp.
The artist, recalling the object of his visit, at once became grave and formal.
"I am sorry to intrude upon you at this unconventional hour, Miss Murdock, but I found this letter in my studio to-day. It was evidently dropped by you yesterday; and, thinking it might be important, I——"
"A letter? What letter?" asked Agnes, puzzled.
Sprague held out the sealed envelope. The young girl tore it open and cast a hurried glance at its contents. Then suddenly understanding, she tore the paper to shreds, and threw these angrily into the fire which burned brightly in the large open fire-place.
"Oh, that!" she exclaimed contemptuously. And then after a pause:
"Do you mean to say you thought——?"
She stopped short, seized by a sudden shyness.
"What else could I think?" said Sprague softly.
He was watching the fragments of paper as they flared upon the hearth. The flame which consumed them seemed to shed a radiant glow upon his heart.
"Then," he added presently and still more softly, "if there is nothing between you and—and him—perhaps—perhaps I may hope—Miss Murdock—Agnes——"
His hand sought hers and found it.
But the reaction had come at last, and the brave girl who had been able to control herself in the presence of a threatening madman now gave way to a fit of hysterical weeping.
Sprague, not being a medical man, could hardly have known what remedies to employ in an emergency of this kind. All he did was to whisper soothing words in the young girl's ear and to kiss the tears from her eyes. But apparently that was enough. Evidently for a layman he must have possessed considerable medical intuition; for, after sobbing a while upon his shoulder, Agnes quieted down gradually and remained contentedly nestling in his arms, while the artist, doubtless fearful of a relapse, continued, for perhaps an unnecessarily long time, to ply the treatment whose effect had produced upon his patient so marked, so rapid, and so satisfactory a result.
The attention of the medical profession is respectfully called to a treatment which, though empirical, may possibly possess specific virtues.