V
As Nellie jumped from the car at the courthouse a young man stepped out of the shadows instantly. Only a few words passed between them. Burgess opened the door for them and touched his hat as he snapped on the electric bulb in the tonneau. Glancing round when he had started the car, Burgess saw that Drake had clasped Nellie’s hand; and there was a resolute light in the young man’s eyes—his face had the convict’s pallor, but he looked sound and vigorous. On the whole, Robert Drake fulfilled the expectations roused by Gordon’s letter—he was neatly dressed, and his voice and manner bespoke the gentleman. One or two questions put by the banker he answered reassuringly. He had reached the city at five o’clock and had not been interfered with in any way.
As they rolled down Washington Street a patrol passed them, moving slowly toward the police station. Burgess fancied there was dejection in the deliberate course of the wagon homeward, and he grinned to himself; but when he looked around Nellie’s face was turned away from the street toward the courthouse clock, to which she had drawn Drake’s attention as the wagon passed.
“Are you and Nellie going to be married? That’s the first question.”
“Yes, sir; it’s all on the square. There’s a lawyer here who got me out of a scrape once and he helped me get the license. If you’ll take us to a minister—that’s all we want.”
“Oh, the minister will be easy!”
“Now,” he said as they reached his home, “come along with me and do exactly what I tell you. And don’t be scared!”
The evening had been full of surprises, but he meant now to cap the series of climaxes, that had mounted so rapidly, with another that should give perfect symmetry to the greatest day of his life. They entered the house through a basement door and gained the second floor by the back stairs. Nora, his wife’s maid, came from one of the rooms and he gave her some orders.
“This is Miss Murdock. She’s just come in from a long journey and I wish you would help her touch up a bit. Go into Mrs. Burgess’s room and get anything you need. Miss Murdock has lost her bag, and has to be off again in half an hour; so fix up a suitcase for her—you’ll know how. It will be all right with Mrs. Burgess. How far’s the dinner got? Just had salad? All right. Come with me, Drake.”
In his own dressing room he measured the young man with his eye. Mindful of Gordon’s injunction that Drake might be picked up by the police, he went into the guest-room, tumbled over the effects of the Bishop of Shoshone and threw out a worn sackcoat, a clerical waistcoat and trousers, and handed them to his guest.
Webster G. Burgess prided himself on being able to dress in ten minutes; in fifteen on this occasion he not only refreshed himself with a shower but tended his bruises and fitted a strip of invisible plaster to the bullet scratch above his ear. His doffed business suit and ulster he flung into the laundry basket in the bathroom; then he went into the guest-room to speak to Drake.
“It was bully of you to stand by Nellie in her trouble!” said Drake with feeling. “I guess you came near getting pinched.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” remarked Burgess, shooting his cuffs with the air of a gentleman to whom a brush with the police is only part of the day’s work.
“Nellie told me about it, coming up in the machine. I guess you’re a good sport, all right.”
Webster G. Burgess was conscious of the ex-convict’s admiration; he was not only aware that Drake regarded him admiringly but he found that he was gratified by the approbation of this man who had cracked safes and served time for it.
“Nellie is a great girl!” said Burgess, to change the subject. “I believe you mean to be good to her. You’re a mighty lucky boy to have a girl like that ready to stand by you! Here’s some money Gordon asked me to give you. And here’s something for Nellie, a check—one thousand—Saxby will cash it for you at New Orleans. Please tell your wife tomorrow that it’s my wife’s little wedding gift, in token of Nellie’s kindness in keeping me out of jail. Now where’s that marriage license? Good! There’s a bishop in this house who will marry you; we’ll go down and pull it off in a jiffy. Then you can have a nibble of supper and we’ll take you to the station. There’s a train for the South at eight-twenty.”
Nellie was waiting in the hall when they went out. Nora had dressed her hair, and bestowed upon her a clean collar and a pair of white gloves. She had exchanged her shabby, wet tan shoes for a new pair Mrs. Burgess had imported from New York. The mud acquired in the scramble through the lumber-yard had been carefully scraped from her skirt. Voices were heard below.
“They’ve just come in from dinner,” said the maid, “Shall I tell Bridget to keep something for you?”
“Yes—something for three, to be on the table in fifteen minutes.”
Mrs. Webster G. Burgess always maintains that nothing her husband may do can shock her. When her husband had not appeared at seven she explained to her guest that he had been detained by an unexpected meeting of a clearing-house committee, it being no harder to lie to a bishop than to any one else when a long-suffering woman is driven to it. She was discussing with the Bishop of Shoshone the outrageously feeble support of missionaries in the foreign field when she heard steps on the broad stair that led down to the ample hall. A second later her husband appeared at the door with a young woman on his arm—a young woman who wore a hat with a red feather. This picture had hardly limned itself upon her acute intelligence before she saw, just behind her husband and the strange girl, a broad-shouldered young clergyman who bore himself quite as though accustomed to appearing unannounced in strange houses.
The banker stepped forward, shook hands with the bishop cordially, and carried off the introductions breezily.
“Sorry to be late, Gertie; but you know how it is!” Whereas, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Burgess did not know at all how it was. “Bishop, these young people wish to be married. Their time is short, as they have a train to make. Just how they came to be here is a long story, and it will have to wait. If you see anything familiar in Mr. Drake’s clothes please don’t be distressed, I’ve always intended doing something for your new cathedral, and you shall have a check and the price of a new suit early in the morning. And, Gertie”—he looked at his watch—“if you will find a prayerbook we can proceed to business.”
Mrs. Burgess always marveled at her husband’s plausibility, and now she had fresh proof of it. She blinked as he addressed the girl as Nellie; but this was just like Web Burgess!
The Bishop of Shoshone, having married cowboys and Indians in all manner of circumstances in his rough diocese, calmly began the service.
At the supper table they were all very merry except Nellie, whose face, carefully watched by Mrs. Burgess, grew grave at times—and once her eyes filled with tears; her young bridegroom spoke hardly at all. Burgess and the bishop, however, talked cheerfully of old times together, and they rose finally amid the laughter evoked by one of the bishop’s stories. Burgess said he thought it would be nice if they all went to the station to give the young people a good sendoff for their long journey; and afterward they could look in at a concert, for which he had tickets, and hear Sembrich sing.
“After a busy day,” he remarked, meeting Nellie’s eyes at one of her tearful moments, “there’s nothing like a little music to quiet the nerves—and this has been the greatest day of my life!”