Very unwilling Rena went, shaking like a leaf when the door closed and she found herself with Rex. The particulars of that interview Tom never knew, nor asked, but Rena’s face was stained with tears when it was over, and she was greatly agitated as she said to him:
“I’ve consented, and I feel so mean; but I couldn’t help it, he was so nice—so like a brother, which he says he wants to be to us, and he almost made me believe that a part of that eighty thousand dollars was mine by right—that Sandy McPherson wished it so, and Colin, too; and we are to stay at the McPherson place when we please and he will be there some of the time and here with us in his house. I can’t help feeling it is his, and in spite of it all I am so happy, for truly I did not want the flat, it is so small and stuffy. He reminded me that twenty thousand dollars are lawfully mine according to the will, but I won’t touch it. He shall keep it and give it to Irene, if he wants to. I know she did some things which surprised me, but I was to blame for getting her into the plot. She liked Mr. Travers and she had reason to think he liked her. I am sorry for her—and I——”
She did not finish for Tom stopped her mouth with kisses, saying:
“Never mind Irene. She shall not suffer. I am glad the thing is settled.”
He seemed relieved, and Rena at last became quite composed and consented to dine that night in Rex’s private parlor. He proved an admirable host and not at all like the timid man whom Tom had once almost dragged through the fields to call upon the Misses Burdick. It was decided that Rena and her aunt were to select the furniture for the house, or a part of it, before going home, and in the excitement of shopping Rena forgot the humiliation she thought she should always feel when she remembered how her handsome home came to her. They stayed a week in Newton and Boston and then returned to New York, where preparations for the wedding went on rapidly. Mrs. Graham would have liked a church affair with a grand reception, but Rena shrank from it.
“We’ll be married at home in the morning with only a few friends here—Irene, Mr. Travers, Mr. McPherson, Miss Bennett, Mrs. Parks, Lottie and Sam.”
“Oh, horror!” Mrs. Graham exclaimed, but she gave in and the wedding took place the day before Christmas with all the invited guests present except Irene, who declined on the pretense that she was just recovering from the grippe, and no one seemed to miss her.
I was there, with Colin and Rex and Mrs. Parks and Lottie and Sam, to the last of whom Rex was very gracious, feeling that he owed him something for exposing the farce at the well and thus saving from which he would have found it hard to extricate himself.
After the bride and groom were gone and Sam was about to leave Rex drew him aside and asked:
“Are you much of a farmer?”