CHAPTER XXII.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
After Sprague had left her, Agnes, shaken by the conflicting emotions of the day, had gone to her room to rest and to prepare for the interview which she meant to have with her father on the subject of her lover and of Chatham.
Having received word that Murdock would remain in his study during the rest of the afternoon, she had taken time to reflect upon what she meant to say, and how she meant to say it. Her visit was not prompted by the desire of a daughter to confide the great happiness of her life to the loving sympathy of an affectionate parent; but Agnes was punctilious in the performance of what she considered to be her duties, great and small, and she counted it among those duties to obtain, or at any rate to seek, the paternal sanction of her choice of a husband.
Her knock at the door of Murdock's study was answered in the chemist's quiet voice:
"Come in."
As she opened the door, Murdock advanced to meet her. He seemed to come from the direction of the extension.
Miss Murdock sniffed the air.
"Isn't there a leak of gas?" she inquired.
"Yes," replied Murdock; "I have just stopped a leak in the laboratory. Won't you take a chair, Agnes?"
She felt his calm searching glance upon her; and, in spite of her preparation, she grew embarrassed, as was her wont, in her father's presence.
"Did Mr. Chatham wait to see you this afternoon?" she asked, after a momentary silence.
Murdock observed her narrowly.
"Yes; Chatham has been here to-day. I did not know that you had seen him."
"I could not help seeing him; for he forced his way into the parlor, in spite of all the servants could do to prevent him."
An almost imperceptible furrow appeared between the chemist's eyes.
"Has he been annoying you with his attentions?"
The words were spoken in Murdock's usual tones; but Agnes saw something in her father's eyes and in the firm lines of his mouth which sent a cold shiver down her spine, and caused her pity to go out to the unfortunate young man who had offended her.
"Perhaps he is more to be pitied than blamed," she suggested gently. "My interview with him was certainly not pleasant; but I bear him no malice."
"Tell me about it," said Murdock slowly.
Agnes gave her version of the visit, in which, instinctively, she softened, as much as possible, the passion and brutality displayed by the accountant.
Murdock listened in silence until she had quite finished. Then Agnes noticed that his right hand was clenched upon the arm of his chair with a force which caused the muscles to stand out in hard knots. She looked up into his face in sudden surprise.
His features gave no indication of what his feelings might be; and his voice, as usual, was steady and deliberate.
"I am sorry all this should have happened, Agnes. As I told you yesterday, I hoped to save you from this man's importunities. It cannot be helped now. But I think I made it clear to the gentleman that his attentions are as distasteful to me as they are to you. As he seems to have told you, he has been obliged to leave the country—I understand that he has done something or other which makes it safer for him to undertake a long journey. At any rate, we are well rid of him for some time to come, and I think you need have no fear of further molestation."
"What did he mean by saying that he had had encouragement from you?" asked the young girl.
"I am sure I do not know. That was of course a lie out of whole cloth. He came to me with letters of recommendation from good friends of mine, and I therefore occasionally invited him to the house; but that is all the encouragement he ever got from me. We live in the United States and at the close of the nineteenth century. The selection of a husband is no longer performed by a stern parent, but is left entirely to the young girl herself. That is certainly my way of looking at the matter. When you find the man of your choice, my only function will be to give my advice, if you seek it, and my best assistance in any event."
The turn of the conversation thus suddenly brought to the surface the topic which occupied the young girl's mind, to the exclusion of all others; and which, for that very reason, had been kept severely in the background up to that point.
"That reminds me," said Agnes consciously, as a charming flush suffused her beautiful face, "that I have not yet broached the principal object of this interview——"
Murdock observed her closely and waited for her to proceed. But Agnes was once more laboring under a strange embarrassment and could not find words in which to frame the confidence she was so reluctant to offer.
Perhaps the chemist divined something of the nature of what she was struggling to find expression for. At any rate, he noticed her embarrassment and endeavored to come to her assistance with a few encouraging words, spoken with unusual gentleness. Agnes, engrossed with her own thoughts, did not notice it; but there was in his manner as near an approach to tender wistfulness as his nature was capable of.
At last the young girl seemed to gather courage, and she was about to speak, when there was a knock upon the door.
"Plaze, sur; there do be two gintlemin in the hall."
"Who are they, Mary?"
"Shure, thin, sir, I dunno, barrin' wan uv 'em do be a polacemun."
"Did they ask to see me?"
"They did not, sur; shure they asked if Mr. Chapman was in."
"Mr. Chatham?"
"Yis, sur. And I told 'em he wuz here this afthernoon, and I wud see wuz he here now, fur I aint seen him go yit."
"Well, Mary, you see he has gone, since he is no longer here," said Murdock quietly. "Take the gentlemen into the parlor, and tell them I shall be with them in a minute."
"All right, sur."
After the maid had left the room, the chemist rose from his chair and walked toward the door leading to the library.
"If you will excuse me for a few minutes, Agnes, I shall see what these men want. Wait for me here, if you will. I shall be back directly."
So saying, he noiselessly opened the folding-doors and passed into the library, closing the doors carefully behind him.
Freed from the presence of her father, Agnes almost instantly regained her composure. She had not, however, had much time to collect her thoughts, when she was suddenly startled by a loud shrill whistle, which brought her to her feet in alarm.
It is a well-known fact that there is, in the ring of a door bell, a complex range of expression, which differentiates to an observant ear the characteristics of the ringer. No one is likely to mistake the postman's ring for that of the beggar; and no young girl is liable to confound her father's ring with that of her lover; but, to a careful observer, the gradations of quality, of intensity, of duration, in a ringing door bell, are almost as great as in the voices of the ringers themselves. Perhaps the range of expression in the whistle of a speaking-tube is less extended; but in the whistle which reached Agnes Murdock's ears there was something that struck a chill of terror to her heart, like a wild despairing cry of anguish, and which caused her to spring without hesitation to the tube, the mouthpiece of which protruded from the wall of Murdock's study.
"Well?"
She asked the question in anxious tones, as if realizing that life and death were in the balance. Then she placed her ear to the mouthpiece.
At first, she could not make out the words spoken by her invisible interlocutor. Then, gradually, they fell upon her ear with terrible distinctness; and she stood spellbound, as in a horrible nightmare, with sudden terror in her staring eyes, and with the fearful sense of impotence in her trembling limbs.