"Well?" asked John Crawford, to whom nothing had as yet been revealed.
"You do not understand," said the Virginian. "I think that your friend sees farther. I married Marion Hobart yesterday, at Toronto. You said that you held a right over her by the bequest of her last living relative—her grandfather: I tell you that I have to-night restored her to a dearer relative, in whose arms she lies——"
"Her mother," said Leslie, the two words breaking from his lips as if involuntarily.
"Her mother? Oh Lord!" broke out John Crawford, surprise completely overmastering him.
"Her mother—a French lady by birth, and something of whose character you know, Leslie. Her mother, the repudiated wife of Charles Hampden Hobart, from whom Marion has been separated since childhood, and to whom you unwittingly, and I of my own will, have just given her back. Have I a right to her, now? Are you satisfied?"
"Yes," said John Crawford. "My duty is done, though I should rather have seen it end differently. Good-night!"
"Good-night and good-bye!" said Tom Leslie, holding out his hand. Dexter Ralston shook it, bowed to Crawford, and entered the parlor, closing the door behind him, The two companions descended the stairs; and so closed Tom Leslie's long adventure, which it must be confessed that he had not brought to quite so practical an end as that reached by his female counterpart in another direction. But then who ever heard of a man managing a mystery or an intrigue with the same effective dexterity as a woman, or making as much good or evil out of it in the end?
Tom Leslie left Montreal almost as suddenly as he had arrived there, in company with John Crawford. He reached New York still in company with the Zouave. His re-union with Joe Harris took place at that auspicious time when the comedy at Judge Owen's had just come to a conclusion; and one can very well imagine what a clatter of tongues and a ringing of merry laughter there must have been in the parlor of Mrs. Harris's cozy little house, as the two compared notes since their separation at Utica, and as each revealed what had yet been necessarily kept hidden from the other. Mrs. Harris, good soul, listened to the two rattle-pates on that first evening, and laughed as merrily as either; but after a time the good lady stole away, perhaps to her early bed; and then, strangely enough, the merriment soon ceased, and they were silent. Were their voices only for others, and did eye speak to eye, lip to lip, and heart to heart, when they were alone together? One who knew both passed them closely by without being observed, and arrived at that impression, when they had stolen away from Mrs. Harris and the Ocean House at Newport, a month later, on the night of the full moon of August, and were sitting silent together, on the almost deserted piazza of the Stone Bridge House, at the extreme north end of Rhode Island, and under the shadow of Mount Hope, looking at the moon shining in placid beauty on the still waters of the East River, and thinking of Indian canoes and the romance of old history, as the little boats of the pleasure-seekers glided in and out among the wooded islands, and the shouts of merriment rung out ever and anon on the night air from lips that were bubbling over with enjoyment.
And this brings us to a matter of no slight embarrassment. If this narration has a heroine (which may be held as a matter of doubt) that heroine is Josephine Harris, the wild, impulsive, loving girl, ever ready for help or mischief, whose madcap pranks have played so important a part in the fortunes of all. And if we have not been all the while entirely without a hero, Tom Leslie, the journalist, cosmopolitan, lover of nature, and strange mixture of boyish gayety and manly experience, must supply that important place. The meeting of these two oddities has been narrated, and their lives have seemed to blend together from that moment; and yet the strange spectacle has been presented, of two who are talking always and on all subjects, saying no word of love to each other that reaches the pen of the narrator. There is one long pressure of the hand on the first day of their meeting—one long, confiding pressure, in which the two palms might almost grow together; and that is all. Thenceforth they belong to each other, and yet without a single question openly asked or answered. If the narrator should be asked, Why this reticence?—he might not be able to explain the restraint which holds his hand. They love each other dearly—so dearly that the blotting out of one from existence would be leaving that existence a blank to the other, for so many weary months and years that the very heart would grow sick at contemplating the long expanse of bereavement yet to be travelled over.