“Well, do you want to stop Rob from being an aconite?”
“No-o. You know better. It’s,—oh, Paul! I don’t want father to marry Clarice! It would be so ridiculous!”
“That’s it, is it?” Paul said, beginning to laugh again. “Don’t be alarmed,” he continued, “Clarice must amuse herself some way, and just now it suits her to help your father run the church. But she will never marry him. Don’t let that trouble you. We hav’n’t half done Europe yet. Next summer will be time enough to go home, and I doubt if we find Clarice there.”
Paul was right in his conclusions. One winter, with nothing more exciting than helping run a church was enough for Clarice, and as early in the spring as they could get their house she and her mother returned to Washington and a more congenial atmosphere. When last heard from, a millionaire, old enough to be her father, was in constant attendance upon her, and rumor said, with more truth than it frequently does, that she was soon to be mistress of his handsome home on Massachusetts Avenue.
For more than a year Paul and Elithe staid in Europe, accompanied by Tom, whose devotion to them knew no bounds. He did not, however, take kindly to foreign customs and foreign languages, and was glad when at last, on a bright day in July, the boat which had taken him from Oak City drew up to the wharf, where as great a crowd was assembled to meet the returning party as had been there when Paul came home with Clarice. Elithe was with him now, radiant with happiness, as she stepped ashore and was surrounded by her father and brothers and aunt and Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, all talking at once to her and then to Paul and then to Tom, who had never been so happy in his life. Max Allen was there, not in the capacity of constable. He had resigned that office, and during Tom’s absence had been Mr. Ralston’s coachman.
“Hello, Tom,” he said, with a hearty hand grasp. “Here’s the hosses and the kerridge. I’ve been mighty proud to drive ’em, but I give ’em up to you, or would you rather walk this once?”
Tom preferred to walk, and followed the carriage to the house, where the more intimate friends of the family were waiting to receive them. That was a very happy summer for all the parties concerned. The Ralston House was filled with guests. The Smuggler’s room was thrown open to the air and the light of heaven. From the look-out on the roof a flag was always floating as a welcome to the coming guests and a farewell to the parting. Paul was more popular than ever and an object of so much attention from his friends and curiosity to the strangers in the place that he was glad when the season was over, and they returned to their home in Boston, where they were to pass the winter.
The story of the tragedy is still told in Oak City, the place pointed out where Jack was shot and Tom pointed out as the man who shot him. The window from which Paul escaped and the cell where he was confined is visited by the curious ones, fond of the marvelous. Miss Hansford pursues the even tenor of her way, scolding and petting and spoiling the boys, glad that she has nothing to fear from Clarice and watching vigilantly every marriageable woman who is polite to Roger. If not reconciled to his candles and cassocks and cottas and intoning, she holds her peace, satisfied that he is a good man. Her bones still do their duty, and she has had a chance to wear her gray silk gown to a reception at the Ralston House, where she helped receive the guests and was reported in the papers. Paul and Elithe are very happy, although the memory of the terrible days which he passed in prison and in hiding sometimes casts a shadow over Paul and makes him very sad. But when he looks at Elithe he says: “Only for that she would not have been my wife, and so I thank God for it!”
THE END.
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