“It was dear to me when I thought I had lost you. And since then, the pride of conceiving and accomplishing it, the labor and pain, kept it dear to me. But now that I am sure of you, I can resign it without a murmur. From the moment when I decided to sacrifice it, it has been nothing to me, provided I could only regain you.”
“But the old failure, the old ill luck, the old unrewarded drudgery,—no, you sha'n't go back to them. You shall be true to the illusion—we shall be true to it—I will help you in it, strengthen you in it! I needed only to see the old Murray Davenport appear in you one moment. Hereafter you shall be Francis Turl, the happy and fortunate! But you and I will have our secret—before the world you shall be Francis Turl—but to me you shall be Murray Davenport, too—Murray Davenport hidden away in Francis Turl. To me alone, for the sake of the old memories. It will be another tie between us, this secret, something that is solely ours, deep in our hearts, as the knowledge of your old self would always have been deep in yours if you hadn't told me. Think how much better it is that I share this knowledge with you; now nothing of your mind is concealed from me, and we together shall have our smile at the world's expense.”
“For being so kind to Francis Turl, the fortunate, after its cold treatment of Murray Davenport, the unlucky,” said Turl, smiling. “It shall be as you say, sweetheart. There can be no doubt about my good fortune. It puts even the old proverb out. With me it is lucky in love as well as at cards.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“The Bagley money—”
“Ah, that money. Listen, dear. Now that I have some right to speak, you must return that money. I don't dispute your moral claim to it—such things are for you to settle. But the danger of keeping it—”
“There's no longer any danger. The money is mine, of Bagley's own free will and consent. I encountered him last night. He is in my secret now, but it's safe with him. We cut cards for the money, and I won. I hate gambling, but the situation was exceptional. He hoped that, once the matter was settled by the cards, he should never hear a word about it again. As he hadn't heard a word of it from me—Davenport—for years, this meant that his own conscience had been troubling him about it all along. That's why he was ready at last to put the question to a toss-up; but first he established the fact that he wouldn't be 'done' out of the money by anybody. I tell you all this, dear, in justice to the man; and so, exit Bagley. As I said, my secret—our secret—is safe with him. So it is, of course, with Miss Hill and Larcher. Nobody else knows it, though others besides you three may have suspected that I had something to do with the disappearance.”
“Only Mr. Bud.”
“Larcher can explain away Mr. Bud's suspicions. Larcher has been a good friend. I can never be grateful enough—”
A knock at the door cut his speech short, and the servant announced Larcher himself. It had been arranged that he should call for Edna's orders. That young lady had just intercepted him in the hall, to prevent his breaking in upon what might be occurring between Turl and Miss Kenby. But Florence, holding the door open, called out to Edna and Larcher to come in. Something in her voice and look conveyed news to them both, and they came swiftly. Edna kissed Florence half a dozen times, while Larcher was shaking hands with Turl; then waltzed across to the piano, and for a moment drowned the outside noises—the jingle of sleigh-bells, and the shouts of children snowballing in the sunshine—with the still more joyous notes of a celebrated march by Mendelssohn.