“You ought to drop work and take a good vacation, Endicott,” he said kindly. “You’re in bad shape. You’ll break down and be ill. If I were in your place I’d cancel the rent of that office and not try to start out for yourself until fall. It’ll pay you in the end. You’re taking things too seriously.”
But Michael smiled and shook his head. He was to open his own office the following week. It was all ready, with its simple furnishings, in marked contrast to the rooms that would have been his if he had acceded to his benefactor’s request. But Michael had lost interest in office and work alike, and the room seemed now to him only a refuge from the eyes of men where he might hide with his great sorrow and try to study out some way to save Starr. Surely, surely, her father would do something when he received his letter! It was long past, time for an answer to have come. But then there was the hope that he was already doing something, though he was unwilling to afford Michael the satisfaction of knowing it.
He gave much thought to a possible cablegram, that he might send, that would tell the story to the father while telling nothing to the world, but abandoned the idea again and again.
Sam came up from the farm and saw Michael’s face and was worried.
“Say, pard, wot yer bin doin’ t’yersef? Better come down t’ th’ farm an’ git a bit o’ fresh air.”
The only two people who did not notice the change in Michael’s appearance were Hester and Will. They were too much engrossed in each other by this time to notice even Michael.
They had fallen into the habit of leaving the rooms in the alley earlier than Michael and going home by themselves.
They left him thus one night about three weeks after Starr’s engagement had been announced. Michael stayed in the room for an hour after all the others had gone. He was expecting Sam to return. Sam had been up from the farm several times lately and this time without any apparent reason he had lingered in the city. He had not been to the room that night save for ten minutes early in the evening when he had mumbled something about a little business, and said he would be back before Michael left.
Michael sat for a long time, his elbow on the table, his head in his hands, trying to think. A way had occurred to him which might or might not do something to prevent Starr from throwing away her happiness. The morning paper had hinted that plans for a speedy wedding were on foot. It was rumored that Miss Endicott was to be married as soon as her father reached home. Michael was desperate. He feared that now the father would arrive too late for him to get speech with him. He had begun to know that it was hard to convince people of the evil of those they had chosen as friends. It would take time.
There was a way. He might have the whole story published in the papers. A public scandal would doubtless delay if not altogether put a stop to this alliance; but a public scandal that touched Mr. Carter would now also touch and bring into publicity the girl whose life was almost linked with his. Not until the very last resort would Michael bring about that publicity. That such a move on his part would beget him the eternal enmity of the entire Endicott family he did not doubt, but that factor figured not at all in Michael’s calculations. He was not working for himself in this affair. Nothing that ever happened could make things right for him, he felt, and what was his life, or good name even, beside Starr’s happiness?