“If you please,” said Gilead.
“My father,” said the visitor, looking down, and appearing to deliberate her phrases, “was once a distinguished financier in the City. Somewhat late in life he married, for his second wife, a lady connected with the stage. She was extremely beautiful, and I was the only pledge of their union. It has always been a grief to me to be told I took after her; for indeed, though I say it as shouldn’t, she disgraced herself as a lady by eloping with her husband’s best friend. My father never got over the blow, but retired from business and to the Continent, taking me with him who was then no more than a child of nine. We lived at Flushing, where I grew up. One day a gentleman called, and had a private interview with my father; and from that moment everything went wrong with us. He had discovered, as I know now, something umbrageous about my dear father’s transactions in the past, and, though as a fact my father had only been victimized by a sneak, he used the knowledge to get money out of him. He was a terrible man, and his name, which was like himself, was Dark. Presently he quartered himself on us, and, to cut a long story short, ended by getting my father completely under his thumb. He controlled all our expenses, ran the household as he liked, and, worst of all, compelled me, at the price of silence, to listen to his hateful addresses. Sometimes my father, in a wild effort to escape from his clutches, would flame up and defy him; but these convulsions of his were always succeeded by a state of prostration, which enabled our enemy to rivet more firmly than ever the chains in which he held us. And then at last came the crash. One day, after a terrible scene between them, my father had a stroke.”
The young lady, pausing, and taking a little silken sachet from her skirt, touched her pretty cheeks with it, as if to dry from them any suggestion of emotion.
“That,” she continued after a little, “quieted things for a time, but I could not believe that the end was more than postponed. In this dreadful situation I was sitting one morning with my poor father, when he suddenly turned to me, and in a low eager voice told me to give him all my ears. Naturally startled, I looked at him. His face was as white as a tea-cup, but a new resolution had come to it. ‘Hush!’ he said; ‘hush, my little innocent Daisy. I am much better; but I do not wish it to be suspected. We have reached a crisis, and must either dare or perish. Mr Dark has gone away for a few days, leaving me, as he thinks, helpless. We must seize the opportunity to secure to ourselves what remnant of our fortune remains. There are my first wife’s jewels, the existence of which I have concealed from you, and which a natural sentiment has hitherto prevented me from turning into capital. Now at last they must be used to provide for us in our extremities. I am innocent, my sweet child, though appearances are made by that villain to tell against me—’ and he informed me for the first time of the nature of the wicked hold on him, which I will not wrong him by mentioning, for, if the truth were told, it was something greatly to his credit. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘the plan I have formed to baffle him is this: You must cross, at once and by yourself, to England, taking with you the jewels and what cash I can provide. You must go straight to London, to a certain humble lodging I will tell you, where you must wait for me in hiding until I am recovered enough to follow. In the meantime I will tell Dark when he returns that you have heard of a situation across the water that required your immediate application, and so will hope to keep him quiet until I am in a condition to give him the slip and join you. Heaven, my darling child, prosper us in this venture, which seems to be our last resource in the vortex of gloom and despair into which we are plunged. Go, and if all is well, expect to welcome me to your arms in the course of a few days.’”
The young lady, greatly agitated, rose to her feet at this point, and faced her attentive listener.
“Startled, overcome as I was,” she said in a low voice, “by the suddenness of the proposal, a short reflection convinced me that my dear father was right. After a little hesitation, a few natural tears, I obeyed his wishes, and, carrying the jewels with me in a red morocco handbag, hurried down to the quay, and took my passage for Queenboro’ in the boat which, fortunately or unfortunately, was on the point of starting. Followed by a thousand apprehensions, faced by as many of the strange unknown life that lay before me, my journey was not, as you may suppose, a happy one. But Fate had worse in store for me. Near Sheerness we ran into a thick fog, and, colliding with another vessel, our own was sunk in a few minutes.”
Gilead rose in his turn.
“Great heaven!” he cried—“the Prinz Karl? Were you a passenger by her? But she foundered in shallow water, and all on board escaped in time?”
“I believe every one,” said the visitor. “I was in the ladies’ saloon at the moment, and, distracted with fear, rushed on deck, leaving all my little belongings on the seat which I had occupied. I forgot everything in the terror of the shock. It was only when we had been hurriedly transferred to the vessel which had struck us, and had backed from the sinking steamer, that I came slowly to realize how our fortune had gone down in her, and that this was the news with which I had to greet my father.”
Gilead drew a relieved breath, and smiled.