“Yes, there is no doubt of it. Mother suspected it, and was so miserable that I had to admit the truth. It almost drove her crazy. She was talking to me about it when that meddlesome woman, Mrs. Chumley, came in and overheard it. She lost no time in spreading the report broadcast over town. Everybody has known it for several days.”
“Oh, my God!” Galt pronounced the words in his throat. This thing, of all unexpected things, had burst upon him at the very crisis of his triumph, and it would ruin him—there was no denying that; it would ruin him! In his fancy he saw his hitherto irreproachable character torn to shreds by the men and women who, till now, had stood behind him. The dream of his life might be carried out some day, but not by a man of his stamp. He groaned aloud. For the moment it was impossible for him to show sympathy where sympathy most belonged. He stood as a man stands who loves life, and yet has been condemned to death. Love and the capacity for self-sacrifice in Kenneth Galt were best nourished by hope and happiness, and of these things he was now bereft.
“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best of it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of each other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I won't act the part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling—”
“Say of you?” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned your name. Not a soul—not even my mother—dreams that I ever met you in secret. You are the last human being on earth that would be—be accused. Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering deaths rather than drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I know full well what such an exposure would mean to you.”
A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of relief seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by horror now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned—you say—You—didn't tell your mother—that I—?”
“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me when we last met that even a bare report of our engage—our love for each other right now would harm your plans. Do you think that I'd let a horror like this come up against you? Even if you declared it was true, I'd say it was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They declare it was Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly. I've told them it wasn't—told them and told them, but they won't believe me. They may think what they please, but they sha'n't say it was you!”
“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's magnanimity to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A storm of incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in the coign of immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the sweet, stricken creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer derision of the escape she was offering him, and for one blind instant he actually believed in his own manhood.
“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his, and, although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and tenderly kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a scamp like Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with yours? Never! I want you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I succeeded with my paltry enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come here to-morrow and we'll be married, as we ought to have been months and months ago. Now, go to bed, and let me see roses on your pretty cheeks in the morning.”
“You are speaking without thought—without knowledge of yourself.” The girl sighed as she drew away from his embrace and forcibly put down his detaining hands. “You see, I know you, Kenneth, better than you know yourself. You love me in a way, I am sure; but when it was all over, and you'd paid the debt you think you owe me, you'd blame me for being the blight to your prospects that I would be. Listen! What is done is done. Because I am disgraced is no reason you should be. You are a man whose ambition is his life. Married to me, and hampered by the name I now bear, you'd not only fail in your present enterprise, but you would be held down to the end of life. Oh, I know you so well—so very well! The praise and adulation of the prominent men and women whose friendship you have are the very life-blood of your being. I've known you had this weakness for a long time, but I had to bear with it as a natural shortcoming.”
“How absurdly you talk!” he cried out, in dull, crushed admiration for such logic in one so young and frail. “But I assure you, Dora, I'll not listen to such silly stuff for a minute. You are going to be my wife. Do you hear me?—my wife! We will let the blamed railroad go. I'll tell General Sylvester in the morning that we are off for our honeymoon. Of course he'll drop me like a hot potato, but he may do it for all I care. You are more to me, darling, than he and all the trunk-lines in the world. Yes, I am coming for you to-morrow—to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock! Remember that—at three, sharp, and I'll—I'll bring a—a preacher and—everything necessary.”