The best man

by Grace Livingston Hill

The door closed and he was gone. She heard his quick step down the hall, heard the elevator door slide and slam again, and then she knew he was gone down. Outside an automobile sounded and she seemed to hear again his words at the phone, “The rear door.” Why had he gone to the rear door? Was he in hiding? Was he flying from some one? What, oh what, did it mean?

Without stopping to reason it out, she flew across the room and opened the door of the bedroom he had just left, then through it passed swiftly to a bath-room beyond. Yes, there was a window. Would it be the one? Could she see him? And what good would it do her if she could?

She crowded close to the window. There was a heavy sash with stained glass, but she selected a clear bit of yellow and put her eye close. Yes, there was a closed automobile just below her, and it had started away from the building. He had gone, then. Where?

Her mind was a blank for a few minutes. She went slowly, mechanically back to the other room without noticing anything about her, sat down in the chair, putting her hands to her temples, and tried to think. Back to the moment in the church where he had appeared at her side and the service had begun. Something had told her then that he was different, and yet there had been those letters, and how could it possibly be that he had not written them? He was gone on some dangerous business. Of that she felt sure. There had been some caution given him by the man to whom he first ’phoned. He had promised to take precaution—that meant the little, wicked, gleaming thing in his pocket. Perhaps some harm would come to him, and she would never know. And then she stared at the opposite wall with wonder-filled eyes. Well, and suppose it did? Why did she care? Was he not the man whose power over her but two short days ago would have made her welcome death as her deliverer? Why was all changed now? Just because he had smiled upon her and been kind? Had given her a few wild flowers and said her eyes were like them? Had hair that waved instead of being straight and thin? And where was all her loyalty to her dear dead father’s memory? How could she mind that danger should come to one who had threatened to tell terrible lies that should blacken him in the thoughts of people who had loved him? Had she forgotten the letters? Was she willing to forgive all just because he had declared that he did not write them? How foolish! He said he could prove that he did not, but of course that was all nonsense. He must have written them. And yet there was the wave in his hair, and the kindness in his eyes. And he had looked—oh, he had looked terrible things when he had read that letter; as if he would like to wreak vengeance on the man who had written it. Could a man masquerade that way?

And then a new solution to the problem came to her. Suppose this—whoever he was—this man who had married her, had gone out to find and punish George Hayne? Suppose—— But then she covered her eyes with her hands and shuddered. Yet why should she care? But she did. Suppose he should be killed, himself! Who was he if not George Hayne and how did he come to take his place? Was it just another of George’s terrible tricks upon her?

A quick vision came of their bringing him back to her. He would lie, perhaps, on that great crimson leather couch over there, just as he had lain in the dawning of the morning in the stateroom of the train, with his hands hanging limp, and one perhaps across his breast, as if he were guarding something, and his bright waves of brown hair lying heavy about his forehead—only, his forehead would be white, so white and cold, with a little blue mark in his temple perhaps.

The footsteps of the man Henry brought her back to the present again. She smiled at him pleasantly as he entered, and answered his questions about what she would have for breakfast; but it was he who selected the menu, not she, and after he had gone she could not have told what she had ordered. She could not get away from the vision on the couch. She closed her eyes and pressed her cold fingers against her eyeballs to drive it away, but still her bridegroom seemed to lie there before her.

The colored man came back presently with a loaded tray, and set it down on a little table which he wheeled before her, as though he had done it many times before. She thanked him, and said there was nothing else she needed, so he went away.

She toyed with the cup of delicious coffee which he had poured for her, and the few swallows she took gave her new heart. She broke a bit from a hot roll, and ate a little of the delicious steak, but still her mind was at work at the problem, and her heart was full of nameless anxiety.

He had gone away without any breakfast himself, and he had had no supper the night before, she was sure. He probably had given to her everything he could get on the train. She was haunted with regret because she had not shared with him. She got up and walked about the room, trying to shake off the horror that was upon her, and the dread of what the morning might bring forth. Ordinarily she would have thought of sending a message to her mother and brother, but her mind was so troubled now that it never occurred to her.