Paul Ralston

by Mary Jane Holmes

“Hold our tongues and trust to the Lord,” was Miss Hansford’s answer, and that night, long after Paul was asleep, she was kneeling in her room and sobbing. “My boy, my boy, will the good Father, who knows how it happened, make him speak out and clear himself?”

Elithe, too, was awake and sitting by her window, which faced the woods. On her return from the Percy Cottage she had read Jack’s letter, in which he told her who he was,—what he had been,—why he had taken another name,—and of his love for her,—when it began,—how it had grown,—and how for her sake he had tried to be a man. He told her of his mortification at the slight Clarice put upon him,—of his resolution to attend her wedding, more to see her again than to be a guest where he was not wanted. Of his downfall in Chicago, where he tore up his pledge,—his experience on the boat and what he heard of himself,—his taking the brandy which made him worse,—his determination to leave without seeing any one. This was written in the Beach House, where he spent the night. The encounter with Paul in the morning he described in the P. S., telling how it happened, saying he was sorry,—saying he was a brute, and had sunk so low that now he had no hope, no star to guide him,—nothing to remember of a journey from which he had hoped so much but her face as he saw it in church that morning and the sound of her voice, which he could never forget.

Over this letter Elithe’s tears fell so fast that the words were blurred and blotted almost past the possibility of deciphering them. Miss Hansford did not ask what was in the letter, but Elithe read her parts of it calculated to exculpate Jack from intentional wrong doing, and the two sore-hearted women wept together until the clock struck twelve. Then they separated, each going to her own room, where, in an agony of grief and fear, Miss Hansford prayed for her boy, while Elithe sat by the window from which she had talked with Paul, and asked herself again and again: “Could I be mistaken?”

The answer was always the same: “I saw him; I saw him.”

CHAPTER XXX.
THE FUNERAL.

Very early the next morning crowds of people were making their way to the Percy Cottage, which was soon filled to its utmost capacity. The yard, also, was full, and the sidewalk; those on the outer edge speaking together in low tones, as if saying what they ought not to say and afraid of being heard. Somebody had talked, and there were strange rumors afloat. A few whispered them to each other under ban of secrecy, while others discussed them more openly and stamped them a lie, or, at least, something which would be explained when Jack was buried. Miss Hansford was late at the funeral and held her head high in the air as she made her way through the crowd, which fell apart to let her pass and stared at her as if she were a stranger. Her name was mixed with the rumors and the revolver, which, it was said, she had found and secreted and those in the secret would not have been surprised to have seen Max Allen, the constable, who was present, place his hand on her shoulder as she pushed past him into the house.

Paul was one of the chief mourners, sitting with Mrs. Percy and Clarice, his face pale and tired, but wearing no look of guilt and meeting the curious eyes around him fearlessly. All his thoughts were centered on Clarice and the dead man lying in his coffin, with so many flowers heaped around him that they seemed a mockery to those who believed he had taken his own life. Mrs. Percy and Clarice were draped in crape, and the grief of the latter was not feigned as she looked her last upon the brother to whom she had never been very kind. Paul walked between the two to the carriage when the services were over and followed them into it unmolested. Had he been stopped there were those present ready to do battle for him and rescue him, for, as yet, the rumors were only rumors, which needed verifying. Judge Ralston and his wife were to accompany Mrs. Percy and Clarice to Washington. They had heard nothing. No one in the household had heard anything, except Tom Drake, who was in a white heat of anger as he drove behind the hearse and then acted as body guard to the mourners, seeing them on to the boat and keeping close to Paul until the last possible moment, as if fearing harm might come to him.

Elithe did not attend the funeral. She had scarcely been more tired when she reached the end of her journey from the Rockies than she was that morning, and, had she wished to go, her aunt would not have allowed it.

“Lock the doors and don’t let anybody in,” Miss Hansford said to her, and Elithe obeyed.

Then going to an upper window, which commanded a view of Oceanside, she saw the hearse and the carriages and a multitude of people following them to the wharf. She heard the last warning bell and watched the boat until it disappeared from view, sending after it a tearful good-bye to the dead man who had loved her, and a prayer for the living man who was more to her than Jack Percy had ever been. Miss Hansford went to the boat with the crowd, impelled by a force she could not resist. Her bones told her she must see and hear all she could, if there was anything to be heard or seen. She did see people whispering to each other and directing glances towards Paul, and while struggling with the crowd she heard the missing revolver mentioned as something which would “prove or disprove,” the man said who was talking of it. With a sinking heart she hurried home to see if it were safe at the bottom of her chest. It was there, and she took it out and looked at it in a kind of terror, as if it were Jack himself, reproving her that all her thought was for Paul and none for him, cut off in his young manhood just as he was trying to reform.