The major had been a constant visitor, and Jack Hardy and his fiancée, Helen Shirley, had on more than one occasion hidden themselves, on moonlight nights, in the shadows of the big palms fringing her balcony overlooking the Park. Sanford had not seen her as often as he wished. Work on the Ledge had kept him at Keyport, and allowed him but little time in town.
With the setting of the derricks, however, he felt himself at liberty for a holiday, and he had looked forward with a feeling of almost boyish enthusiasm—which he never quite outgrew—to a few days’ leisure in town, and a morning or two with Mrs. Leroy.
When the maid brought up his card, Mrs. Leroy was at her desk in the little boudoir, with its heaps of silk cushions, its disorder of books, and bloom of mignonette and red geraniums filling the windows that looked straight into the trees of the Park. Here the sun shone in winter, and here the moonlight traced the outlines of bare branches upon her window-shades, and here in summer the coolest of cool shadows fell from tree and awning.
“Why, I expected you yesterday, Henry,” she said, holding out her hand, seating Sanford upon the divan, and drawing up a chair beside him. “What happened?”
“Nothing more serious than an elopement.”
“Not Jack and Helen Shirley?” she said, laughing.
“No; I wish it were; they would go on loving each other. This affair brings misery. It’s Caleb West’s wife. Captain Joe is half crazy about it, and poor Caleb is heartbroken. She has gone off with that young fellow she was nursing the day you came up with the major.”
“Eloped! Pretty doings, I must say. Yes, I remember her,—a trim, rather pretty little woman with short curly hair. I caught a glimpse of Caleb, too, you know, as he came in from the Ledge. He seemed years older than she. What had he done to her?”
“Nothing, so far as I know, except love her and take care of her. Poor Caleb!”
“What did he let her go for, then? I’m sorry for the old diver, but it was his fault, somewhere. The girl had as good a face as I ever looked into. She never left her husband without some cause, poor child. What else has happened at Keyport?”