“I DID NOT MEAN TO BETRAY MYSELF.”
Gerald’s breath was almost taken away by this unexpected proposal. He had heard of the firm of “Lyttleton & Rand,” both members of which were registered as eminent lawyers in New York. He instantly recognized the fact that it would be a great thing for him to become associated with them, while eight hundred dollars, over and above all living expenses, would be quite a leap beyond fifteen dollars a week, and finding himself. Then, too, the prospect of travel and sightseeing was very alluring.
He was dazzled, almost paralyzed, for a moment, by such unexpected good fortune, coming to him just at this time, when he had seemed to be under such a cloud; but he managed to inquire with a good degree of outward composure:
“What will my duties be?”
“Well, I should say something like what they were with Mr. Brewster,” Mr. Lyttleton responded; “the writing of letters, both confidential and ordinary; the keeping of my private accounts; in fact, whatever of a clerical nature would naturally fall to a lawyer’s secretary, and—perfect loyalty and integrity. I warn you, also, that I shall have plenty of work for you to do.”
“I do not mind work,” said Gerald eagerly. “In fact, I like to be a little crowded. I think it keeps up one’s enthusiasm. The position is very tempting, Mr. Lyttleton, but——”
“But what?” demanded the gentleman, eying him sharply.
“I am wondering if it would be quite honest in me to accept it when you really know nothing of me or my qualifications; and going out of the country, too, it might be quite awkward for you if I should not fill the bill.”
Mr. Lyttleton gave vent to a little laugh.
“Now I begin to understand what Adam Brewster meant when he said you were ‘morbidly honest,’” he replied. “But, in case you do not fill the bill, as you express it, I suppose I could ship you back home again. However, if you are willing to come with me, upon so short an acquaintance, I will assume the responsibility of your ability, and we’ll settle the matter here and now. Is it a bargain?”
“Yes, sir, and thank you very much,” Gerald heartily replied.
“Oh, you needn’t feel under any obligation, for I am going to make you earn your money,” retorted his companion, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes, but in a very satisfied tone. “Will you have a glass of wine with your dessert?”
“Thank you—no; I never take wine—just a cup of coffee, if you please.”
“Coffee for two,” briefly ordered the lawyer; but the look which he bestowed upon his new clerk was one of unqualified approbation.
“Do you disapprove of wines?” he questioned, as the waiter disappeared.
“I disapprove of the abuse of them,” said Gerald, flushing; “and if one does not use them at all one can never be guilty of excess.”
“That is a self-evident fact, surely,” said his companion. “How about smoking?”
“I do not smoke.”
“H’m! you are what might be termed a ‘model young man,’” his employer dryly observed.
“I am nothing of the kind, if, by that, you mean to imply that I assume to have no faults,” Gerald retorted, with a little flash in his eyes, for he began to suspect that he was being quizzed; “but I have always claimed that I would never become a slave to any habit.”
“And you are right, Winchester—I wish there were more young men in the world who possessed just that spirit of independence,” said Mr. Lyttleton, in a friendly tone. “Wines and liquors I shun, but I smoke—my cigar I cannot do without; I wish I could. Now,” he added, as he pushed back his chair, “I have an engagement, and must hurry away; but I would like to have you come to my office to-morrow morning at nine, sharp, when I shall want to talk with you further about your duties.”
“Very well, sir. I will be on time,” Gerald returned, and then the two shook hands cordially, and separated.
It was a little after two when they left the restaurant, and Gerald thought he might as well go directly up-town to call upon Allison, and inform her of his flattering prospects.
But he sighed when he remembered that the ocean would soon roll between them, and it would be many months before he could see her again.
A servant admitted him, and conducted him to the drawing-room, and a few moments later, Allison came running down-stairs, with an eager elasticity in her steps that set her lover’s pulses leaping with secret joy.
As she entered the room, she sprang to meet him with outstretched hands and smiling lips, although the brilliant flush upon her cheeks and the shy drooping of her golden-fringed lids betrayed that she was not quite at ease.
“I am glad to see you, Gerald,” she said, cordially; “it is so long since you were here; and, oh! I can hardly realize all that has happened since that day,” she went on, with starting tears. “It breaks my heart, too, to think how you have been shut up in that dreadful place. Why didn’t you send me word, you bad, bad boy?”
“I did not like to trouble you, Allison—I thought you had enough to bear without adding to your burdens.”
“But it would have helped me to bear mine—it would have given me something else to think of,” said the fair girl; “and then I could have told what I knew, and you would have been set free.”
“No, that could not have been accomplished, for there was no one who would become my bondsman, and the affair had to come to trial; and, besides, Allison, I really did not think that you had overheard anything of importance that would make your testimony of any value,” Gerald explained.
“Well, you might at least have allowed me to prove my friendship for you, and show a little sympathy. I think it was just dreadful, Gerald, and I nearly cried my eyes out yesterday after I came home and had time to realize what you must have suffered. Now do tell me all about it, for I only heard a brief account of the case when I went to the bank. Mr. Phillips said that you were arrested for being found in the vault, with some valuables belonging to papa, and some jewels that were mama’s, besides doing something that I do not understand to some books. He said you were then on trial, and so I hurried away—remembering what I had heard papa say about your honesty—to see if I couldn’t help you.”
“You saved me, Allison—I should have had to serve a term in State’s prison but for you,” said the young man tremulously.
“Well, I want you to begin at the beginning and tell me all,” Allison commanded, as she seated herself upon the sofa beside her guest, and prepared to listen to his story.
Gerald began with the note which he had received from Mr. Brewster, and related all that had occurred in connection with his trouble, up to the time of the trial, while Allison hung almost breathless upon his words.
“And John Hubbard was the one who found you in the vault, and had you arrested, in spite of the fact that you had papa’s keys, and told him that he had sent you there to perform an errand for him?” she exclaimed excitedly, when he concluded.
“Yes.”
“Why, he must have known that you had been sent there?”
“He did know it, Allison; but he asserted, as you know, that I stole the keys from the drawer in the table, while I was here that Saturday afternoon.”
“But I proved that you did not,” cried Allison exultantly, “and he didn’t seem to be very well pleased about it, either.”
“No,” said Gerald gravely; “he had reasons of his own for wanting to ruin my reputation.”
“What reasons?”
“He has long hated me—he has been scheming for nearly two years to get me discharged from the bank, and I am confident that it was he who tampered with the books, to make them show that I had been dishonest, although, of course, I cannot prove this.”
“It was a bright idea of getting that expert,” said Allison.
“Yes, that was Professor Emerson’s idea, and it worked well. The professor returned from Washington only two days before the trial, and, upon learning the charges, immediately said he knew a man who, he thought, would help me. He looked him up, then the two demanded the books for examination, and it did not take Mr. Plum very long to decide that some very crooked work had been done by somebody whose name was not Winchester,” Gerald explained. “I watched Hubbard while he was making his statements,” he added, “and I knew by the look in his eyes that he had been balked in a game which he had felt pretty sure of winning.”
“And yet papa trusted him,” said Allison musingly.
“Surely, Allison, you do not think I doctored those books? You cannot believe that I would be guilty of defrauding your father after all his kindness to me?” he cried, in a wounded tone.
“Oh, no! I did not mean to imply that, Gerald,” she returned earnestly. “I would not have hurt you like that for all the world! No, indeed, Gerald, if all the world said you were guilty, I would never have believed it.”
“Could you have trusted me to such an extent, Allison?” he breathed, bending to look into her eyes, his face lighting with sudden joy.
“You know I could—nothing could ever make me lose faith in you. What I did mean, when I said that papa trusted Mr. Hubbard, was, it seemed strange to me that so shrewd a business man as my father was should have been so deceived in any one.”
“Allison, I do not believe that he was deceived; I imagine he knew he was not to be trusted implicitly,” said Gerald thoughtfully. “I used to fear, sometimes, that John Hubbard had managed to draw Mr. Brewster into some transactions that were beginning to complicate his business, and so made it necessary for him to retain the man.”
“Oh, I hate him with all my heart!” Allison suddenly burst forth, with startling vehemence; “and, Gerald, I am going to tell you something—I must tell somebody: that man asked me the other day to—don’t look at me so, please,” she interposed, averting her scarlet face—“he asked me to marry him.”
“Allison!” exclaimed Gerald, in breathless astonishment, and turning deathly pale; “has he dared—has he presumed upon the position he occupies toward you to do such a thing? Oh, he is a bigger rascal than I thought him. Allison, you will not let him either coax or force you to ruin your life in that way.”
“Why, of course not—I told him I couldn’t marry him; you know I could not, Gerald,” the ingenuous girl replied, and involuntarily moving a little nearer his companion, with a confiding air that thrilled him with joy, and yet what she had told him made him very uneasy.
“I cannot understand why papa should have given him authority over me for so many years,” she said.
“I cannot, either—it seems very strange to me,” Gerald observed thoughtfully. He then told her of Mr. Lyttleton’s proposition, and his contemplated tour abroad; but before he was through Allison dropped her face upon her hands and burst into tears.
“Oh, Gerald, don’t go!—I cannot spare you!” she sobbed.
A shock of joy went quivering through the young man at her words, although his own heart was almost rent in twain in view of the approaching separation. Yet he felt that he had no right to betray the great love he entertained for her. She was young—she was alone in the world, and he felt that it would not be quite honorable to take advantage of either her youth or loneliness to make her commit herself. But, oh! he longed, mightily, to gather her in his arms, tell her all, and ask her to wait until he could win a position worthy of her acceptance, when he would lay himself and all he possessed at her feet.
He was silent so long, thinking of this, and trying to control his yearning, that she finally lifted a wondering glance to him, and thus caught him unawares—reading all that was in his heart through the loving eyes which but too plainly told its story.
The next moment her golden head lay upon his breast, and his trembling arms enfolded her.
“My darling! my darling! I did not mean to betray myself; but you caught me napping,” he breathed, laying his cheek against her shining hair.
Allison lifted her head and flashed him a roguish look through her tears.
“You betrayed yourself a long time ago,” she whispered, a happy smile wreathing her red lips; “have you forgotten that night at Lakeview?”
“No, dear, but I half-hoped that you had, and I have had many a guilty twinge since, recalling it. I really had no right to betray my love for you, nor abuse the confidence and hospitality of your father in any such way; but it was done before I was hardly aware of it. But, Allison, now that the veil has been entirely rent asunder, I must tell you that I began to love you when I first came to your father, and every year has only served to strengthen my affection. But I am not going to ask you to bind yourself to me by any promise, even now. I feel it would not be fair to you. You are not yet through school, and after you graduate you will want to see something of the world; so I am going to leave you free to choose for yourself, in case you should ever meet any one else whom you might love more than you love me; I could better bear to lose you than to have you make a lifelong mistake.”
Allison here sat up and looked her lover full in the eye.
“Gerald, do you think it could be possible that you have made a mistake in what you have just told me?” she questioned.
“No, I am sure it would not be possible for me ever to love any one but you,” he earnestly returned.
“And do you think man capable of greater fidelity than woman?”
“N-o, perhaps not; still I will not exact any promise from you at present, Allison,” he gravely replied; “by and by, when you have completed your studies—when you have been out in society a while—when I have won my spurs, as the knights of old used to say—if you are then free, and of the same mind, I shall feel that I have a right to ask you to give yourself to me.”
“Oh, what a complicated and indefinite proposition!” said Allison, laughing, but with an impatient shrug of her graceful shoulders; “but what do you mean by ‘when you have won your spurs?’”
“Why, when I have made money enough to raise me above the suspicion of being a fortune-hunter,” was the smiling response.
“But suppose you do not achieve success by the time you have indicated?” queried Allison demurely.
“Then I suppose I must wait until I do,” with a sigh.
“Ah! I thought so,” she retorted saucily; “you are far too proud, my Gerald. Perhaps I am lacking in that quality, and I am very sure that I am not ‘morbidly conscientious,’ so I am going to make you promise me something, here and now.”
He smiled fondly down at her. She was so sweet and lovable, so charmingly frank, to let him see how dear he was to her, and yet not in the least unmaidenly about it.
“Very well; I will promise anything you ask,” he said tenderly; “but first, since I have confessed so much, let me hear you say that you love me.”
She leaned toward him with parted lips and gleaming eyes; she clasped her small, white hands, and laid them upon his breast.
“Gerald,” she breathed softly, “you know that I love you with all my heart.”
Again he folded her close, his face luminous with happiness.
“Bless you, my darling!” he said, with passionate earnestness. “Now you may ask me whatever you will.”