“How do you know she is teaching then?” Georgie asked; and Roy replied:
“I know through an aunt of hers, to whom I wrote last Christmas, asking her to forward a box of jet to Edna.”
“Oh-h!” and Maude jumped as if she had been shot; then quickly recovering herself, she exclaimed: “That dreadful pin,” and put her hand to her collar as if the cause of her agitation were there.
Maude had received an impression, which made her quiver all over with excitement, and sent her at last to her own room, where she bounded about like a rubber ball.
“I knew there was something queer about her all the time, but I never suspected that. Poor little Dot; how I must have hurt her feelings with my foolish talk of Charlie, if she really is his widow, and I know she is, for I remember now how interested she was in the Leightons, and how many questions she asked me about Roy and his mother; and then that box of jet. I’m sure of it,—perfectly sure; but, Dotty, if I can ferret out a secret, I can keep one too: and if you don’t want Roy to know where you are, he never shall from me.”
Maude wrote to Edna that night, and told her everything about the Leightons which she thought would interest her, and then with feverish impatience waited for her summer’s vacation, when she meant to go again to Rocky Point, and satisfy herself.
Roy did not renew the conversation Maude had interrupted, but when in the spring he decided upon his trip to Europe, he half made up his mind to take Georgie Burton with him. He knew it would please his mother, and from all that had passed between himself and the lady he felt that he was in some sort bound to make her his wife; and why wait any longer? She was at Oakwood now. City air did not agree with her as formerly; she felt tired all the time, she told her aunt, who was ever ready to gratify her darling’s slightest whim, consented to leave New York at least a month earlier than usual, but never dreamed that the real cause of Georgie’s pretended weariness was to be found in the pleasant little house in Jersey City, where Jack Heyford was settling himself. Although constantly assuring herself that her fears were groundless, Georgie could not shake off the nervous dread that, by Jack’s presence in New York, the black page of her life might somehow come to light. She went over to Jersey several times, for she could not keep away; but she took the Hoboken Ferry, and then came in the street car to the corner near which Jack lived, thinking thus to avoid meeting any one who knew her, and would wonder what she was doing in Jersey City. Still it was not so much through herself as through Jack that she dreaded recognition; and until he was fairly settled and at work, and swallowed up in the great Babel, it was better for her to be away; and so she went to Oakwood, and saw Roy every day, and was so soft, and sweet, and pious, and interesting in her new rôle of half-invalid, that Roy made up his mind, and started one morning to settle the important question.
His route lay past the post-office, and there he found the letter Edna had written in answer to his own, acknowledging the receipt of the money. He read it in the shadow of an old elm-tree, which grew by the roadside, and under which he dismounted for a moment. There was nothing remarkable in it, but it turned Roy’s thoughts from Georgie for a time, and sent them after the frolicsome little girl whom he had once seen in the car, and who was now his sister. She wrote a very pretty hand, and seemed so grateful for the few crumbs of interest he had given her, that he wished so much he knew where she was. If he did, he believed he would take her to Europe, instead of Georgie; but not as his wife,—he never thought of such a thing in connection with Edna,—but as his sister, for such she was. And so, with her letter in his hand, he sat thinking of her, while his pony fed upon the fresh grass by the fence, and feeling no check from bit or bridle, kept going farther and farther away, until, when Roy’s reverie was ended, and he looked about for his horse, he saw him far down the road, in the direction of Leighton Place, instead of Oakwood. Roy started after him at once; but the pony did not care to be caught, and seeing his master coming, he pricked up his ears and started for home, where Roy found him at last, standing quietly by the stable door, as if nothing had happened. That circumstance kept Roy from Georgie’s side that day, and when on the morrow he saw her at his own house, he was guilty of a feeling of relief that he had not committed himself, and would have no one’s luggage but his mother’s and his own to look after in Europe.
He sailed early in June, and Georgie stood upon the wharf, and watched the vessel as it went down the bay, and felt such bitter pain in her heart as paled the roses on her cheek, and quenched some of the brightness of her eyes.
“Roy is lost to me forever,” she said to herself, as she re-entered her aunt’s carriage, and was driven back to Madison Square.