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CHAPTER XIX

On the afternoon of the second day following the rescue of Dorothy, Mr. Thorpe, accompanied by his child, visited Mr. Harris by urgent invitation. The trees were still dressed in their leafy glow of autumn glory and, with the luxuriant green velvety grass of the lawn, invited a pause for contemplation of the entrancingly serene and happy condition earth intended her children to enjoy. Above was a clear, infinitely beautiful blue sky, through which the radiant orb of day poured down its golden shafts of light in masses of exuberant splendor and warmth.

It was an environment singularly touching and persuasive in its appeal to human nature for “Peace on earth and good will toward men.”

As John Thorpe and his child walked up the path toward the house and arrived near the spot where his quarrel with Mr. Corway had taken place, just one week previous, he could not but halt, sensitive to the insidious influence so softly streaming about him – so gentle, yet so powerful in contra-distinction to the unhappy change that had so recently come into his life. Oh, for something to banish the bitter memories conjured up as his gaze riveted on the “damned spot” where his wife’s inconstancy had been told to him.

And as he looked, a far-off dreamy stare settled in his eyes, as there unrolled before his vision the sweet bliss of happy years fled – gone, as he thought, never to return.

“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, overwhelmed with sudden emotion, and he clapped his hand to his forehead as an involuntary groan of anguish welled up from his heart.

His composure slowly returned to him, but the eroding effect of his smothered anguish would not obliterate, and he found himself thinking, “It was unwise to come to this place – here where memory is embittered by recollections of what has been. Terrible revelation! Terrible! Yet – I could not have been brought to credit it but for the evidence of my eyes.”

These words seemed to startle him with a new light, for he paused, and then in a voice almost reduced to a whisper, fruitful with eager doubt, said, “What have my eyes proved to me? Is there room for a possibility of a mistake? No, no! The ring is evidence of her guilt. Oh, Constance, when I needed you, the world owned no purer or more perfect woman; but now – fallen, fallen, fallen!”

While deeply absorbed in sad reflection, Dorothy stole to his side and, looking up, wistfully, in his face, said:

“Dear papa, isn’t mama here, either?”

The question from the child, uppermost in her mind, aroused him from his heart-aching reverie. He looked at her sternly. “Mama,” he repeated; “child, breathe that name no more! Banish it from your memory! Oh, no, no, no! I did not mean that!” and he turned his head aside with downcast eyes, shocked and ashamed at his passionate outburst in the presence of his little child.

He sat down on a bench and put her on his knee, and as he did so became conscious of the child again looking wistfully in his eyes.

“Well, you are sorry for leaving mama in that old cabin, aren’t you?”

It forced him to turn his eyes away from her, and with a tremor of pain in his voice, muttered: “Twenty times the child has said that to me today,” and, turning to her, he said gently and with infinite compassion:

“Dorothy, you are too young to comprehend. It is my intention to remove you from the home of your birth, to take you East, and educate you there. Now, don’t trouble me with questions, dear,” and he kissed the fair young brow and, looking into her sweet innocent brown eyes, he saw reflected in them her mother’s.

Then he turned his head aside and muttered: “So much like her mother! Oh, Constance! Constance! My judgment condemns you, but my heart – my heart will not leave you!”

Down from the house leisurely strolled Mr. Harris and Hazel.

“His Grace has just communicated to me the most amazing information about Virginia. It is so absurd that I felt quite angry with him for mentioning it,” Hazel said quite seriously.

“And what did he tell you?” inquired Mr. Harris. “If it is no secret?”

“He told me that it is common talk that she was found in the cabin with Constance at the time of Dorothy’s rescue by her father, having just rewarded the Italian for abducting the child, and that they both swooned when uncle found them there.”

“Lord Beauchamp must have been misinformed,” broke in Mr. Harris, with a grave face. “If such were the case Sam would have told me. All idle tattle – mischievous gossip!”

“Ah! Mr. Thorpe and Dorothy!”

“Oh, darling!” exclaimed Hazel, and she gathered the child in her arms, kissed her, and flew off to the house with her.

“Well, John, I am glad to meet you again,” shaking his hand, “though to tell the truth, I did not expect you.”

“It has cost me bitter memories, Mr. Harris.”

“I have long since discovered,” continued Mr. Harris, “that while time cannot heal a deep-rooted sorrow, it softens many of its asperities. When do you depart for the East?”

“I have made arrangements to leave tomorrow.”

“You are doing just what would prompt any man in like position to do. I trust we shall hear from you occasionally.”

“It is now my purpose, after arranging for Dorothy’s education, to travel abroad for an indefinite period, but I shall endeavor to keep in communication with you.”

Linking his arm in that of his guest, Mr. Harris said: “Come, John, let us join Mrs. Harris on the piazza. She is anxious to have a chat with you.”

Turning in the direction of the house, to their surprise they confronted Virginia. Mr. Thorpe at once withdrew his arm from that of Mr. Harris, and stepping aside with an offended dignity, remarked reproachfully:

“I was not aware of having merited the honor you do me.”

Mr. Harris threw up his hands deprecatingly. He understood the purport of the allusion and was dumb. He had been quite unaware of the presence of Virginia, and knowing of the estrangement between brother and sister, felt embarrassed. He was rescued from his dilemma by Virginia, who addressed him in a grave voice.

“Please leave us, Mr. Harris.”

His respect and esteem for her was sincere and great. Her good sense and becoming modesty had often impressed him as a woman of sterling qualities. Utterly disbelieving and discrediting the insinuations and innuendoes which Rutley had set afloat to his own advantage concerning her antagonistic relation with her brother, he conceived her to be the unhappy subject of a combination of circumstances over which she had no influence. A prey to anxiety, she retained little of the color and less of the vivacity formerly so conspicuously her heritage; yet her broad brow glistened white with an intellectuality that beautified her with spiritual chastity.

He was struck, too, with her very serious and pallid face, and his heart went out to her. He bowed low in answer to her request, and without a word gravely turned away and left them.

John Thorpe saw that Virginia was suffering from some great mental strain, nevertheless he chose to appear icily indifferent. He attributed her contrite appearance to the fact that he had surprised her and Constance in the cabin with the abductor of his child. He could conceive of no reason for them being there other than collusion with the Italian, for he believed they were cognizant of Dorothy’s place of imprisonment all the time, and while it was possible the Italian held the child for ransom, they kept her place of concealment secret, under the belief that she was safer from seizure by Thorpe than at home or with friends, and also that it would draw the sympathy of acquaintances to Constance, and though Dorothy told him in her childish way that Virginia had given George Golda money, a minute search of his clothes and about the cabin failed to disclose it, and John Thorpe interpreted her defense of Dorothy as an unexpected contingency arising from the frenzied fury of the Italian to save himself from capture when he found escape cut off.

When Virginia swooned, it mercifully relieved her from a most embarrassing and painful position.

Such were his thoughts as he directed a stony stare of freezing haughtiness upon her – the woman, his sister, whom he now regarded as beyond the pale of blood relationship.

“I did not expect to meet you here,” he said in a voice grave with a sense of the worry from which he was suffering and from which wrong he could not, no matter how he reasoned, disassociate the name of his sister.

“I have tried to find you – to meet you – to – in short, to demand an explanation of this affair; but until now I have been unsuccessful.”

She spoke hesitatingly and with a slight tremor in her voice, otherwise there was no indication of the great emotion that she was laboring under. In short, her demeanor, while firm and of simple dignity, was of the gravest character imaginable.

“You have broken all ties between us,” he answered slowly.

“John, John! Don’t turn away! Stop!” and she held up a warning finger as, stepping in front of him, she barred his way.

“You shall hear me. For I believe what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance. But first, what cause have you for divorcing Constance?”

“You ask that question?” he slowly emphasized.

“Yes, I ask that question,” as steadily and definitely she regarded him.

“If on my return from China you had not concealed from me her infatuation for that man – that fellow Corway – this unhappy trouble would have been over long ago.”

“I have concealed nothing from you! John, I am sure it is all a mistake.”

“All a mistake?” he angrily repeated. “You concealed nothing from me! When her notoriety was of such common gossip that strangers were familiar with details!”

“If you had not degraded Constance by so meanly believing the palpable artifice of a – a stranger,” quietly and gravely replied Virginia – “if you had but given her an opportunity to defend herself, you would have found no cause for divorce; no cause even to fear the tainted breath of scandal could ever attach to Constance. Oh, John, it is all wrong! Constance is innocent! She has never been untrue to you!”

Excitedly he turned to her, his face ablaze with the fervor of his amazement, as he repeated:

“Innocent – Constance! Constance innocent!”

“Yes,” promptly responded Virginia. “I who know it, swear it is true – swear it is the truth in the sight of that high throne before which we shall all stand in the Judgment Day.

“It was I who originated the dreadful insinuations against Mr. Corway.”

“Yes, yes! That may be true – but – ” and Thorpe’s manner again relapsed to a heart-aching resignation, as he sadly added: “He wore my wife’s ring!”

“Yes, that is true, John, but unknown to her and most assuredly without her consent,” eagerly asserted Virginia, and she related the manner Corway obtained the ring, and how she subsequently had indiscreetly informed Beauchamp it was “your gift to Constance.”

Those of poor wayward humanity who, in moments of great passion have done a great wrong, know what torture is silently endured as day and night, in moments awake and in dreams asleep, the crime haunts them, and knocks, knocks, knocks, without ceasing, upon the soul’s door for release of the secret.

Such were Virginia’s feelings, and the sweet happiness experienced when she confessed her sin shone in her face with convincing truthfulness.

John listened to her with ever increasing amazement, and when she had concluded, his cold, austere demeanor had perceptibly softened. Yet Thorpe breathed hard.

“You vilified Corway’s character and I have heard recently of his – of her mad infatuation for him and of his frequent visits to our home while I was away in China.”

“The source of your information was a lie. You received it gratuitously from Beauchamp, did you not?”

“I have not mentioned the source of my information. Why do you think he was my informant?”

“Because he hated Corway.”

“And you conspired with him to ruin my home,” quickly interrupted Thorpe, and again coldly turned from her.

“You shall hear me!” and Virginia insistently gripped his coat sleeve and turned him toward her. “I have sought you too long to explain this unhappy affair, and now that I have found you, you must hear me out.”

Smothering his impatience, Thorpe said: “Well!”

“I loved Corway, oh, so fondly! – but, alas, too well, and I allowed myself to cherish the belief that in his endearing manifestations he reciprocated my love. But on my premature return from the farm, I unexpectedly heard him declare his passion for Hazel. Then an all absorbing desire for revenge possessed me.

“I resolved to break their engagement and first endeavor to estrange him – from your friendship. To accomplish that end I traduced his character and created a suspicion that his attention to Hazel was insincere and mercenary, expecting that after Corway was denied access to your home, I could smooth over the unpleasantness between you and Hazel and eventually annul his betrothal to her. But your informant juggled the names, made Constance the subject of Corway’s affection instead of Hazel, and led you to believe the ring was a love token from her to him.”

“He insisted and repeated that Constance was the guilty one and not Hazel,” dubiously commented Thorpe.

“I understand now, it was out of revenge,” she laconically replied.

“Revenge! What wrong have I done Lord Beauchamp?” questioned Thorpe, amazed at Virginia’s disclosures.

“You will understand when I disclose, as I have recently learned that he is Philip Rutley, masquerading as Lord Beauchamp.”

“God of our fathers!” exclaimed Thorpe, clapping his hand to his white forehead, to still the pain of sudden doubt of his wife’s inconstancy, that had seized him.

“What punishment is this inflicted on me?”

Then turning to Virginia with fierce light in his eyes, he sprang at her. In one bound he clutched her by the wrist, glared in her eyes, and said:

“And you, my only sister, have known all this and permitted him to wreak his vengeance upon my innocent wife, who never bore him malice, or did him wrong by thought, word or deed.”

“I did not think that harm would fall on Constance.” Yet even before she had finished speaking, a change came over Thorpe, and his grip on her wrist loosened. A victim of doubt and suspicion, his moods were as changing and variable as the coloring of a chameleon. Apparently he was not yet satisfied of the complete innocence of his wife or of the truthfulness of his sister, for he said, in a voice saddened by reflection: “That does not explain your connection with the abduction of Dorothy.”

“I have them with me,” she muttered, appreciating the importance of clearing herself. “Yes, they are here,” and she hastily produced from her corsage an envelope having had the foresight to preserve them as most precious testimony in case of need.

The moment had come and found her prepared. Handing him the two notes, with a winsome expression of thankfulness, she said:

“Read them, John, this one first, and you will know why I was in the cabin.”

She had handed to him the two notes received from George Golda, though in reality they had been penned by his colleague, Rutley. The first note asked for a meeting in the City park. The second demanded the amount of ransom that night on penalty of removal of Dorothy.

“The time was urgent in the extreme,” she continued. “Unable to secure the amount of ransom demanded, I resolved to go alone to the cabin, determined to rescue Dorothy.”

“You entered then.”

“But you were not alone; Constance was with you,” he corrected.

“When I told her my purpose, she pleaded so hard. Oh, so hard to go with me, that I could not deny her. I have told you all.”

John Thorpe was not the only listener to Virginia’s pleading. Intensely interested, neither of them noticed Sam Harris approach, and with him the little Scotch terrier, which had completely recovered from its painful experience on the launch at Ross Island. When he first caught sight of them confronting each other, he gave a low whistle of surprise, and then, as he drew near to address them, involuntarily he heard her last words. His eyelids twitched with pleasure as he listened to the idol of his heart vindicate Constance. Smothering a cry of joy, he turned and at once withdrew, muttering to himself: “Lord, how light my heart feels! Virginia is doing the right thing now, I guess. Come, Doctor” – the name he had given to the dog – “we’ll leave them for awhile, eh?” And the brown eyes of the grateful canine looked up at him with almost human intelligence and affection.

John Thorpe’s demeanor had undergone a great change in the few minutes he had listened to Virginia. His frigid haughtiness had softened, through successive stages, to a gentleness bordering on compassion.

“I will take care of these,” said he, in a voice of tenderness, as he placed the notes in his pocket. “But, oh, God in Heaven! What shall I say to my beloved wife?”

“You believe me, John?” Virginia cried, in a tone of heartfelt thankfulness – her eager gaze fastened on his face. Her pleading touched him deeply. He took her in his arms, gently kissed her fair brow, and in a broken voice, said:

“Virginia, we are only human, with human failings; but in your honor and truthfulness of this dreadful affair, God bear witness to my faith!”

A devout joy flushed the pallor of her beautiful face, as she responded with a thankful heart, purified as gold with fire: “My prayers are answered, and my brother is himself again.”

“Yes, Virginia,” he continued, with the fervor of family pride, as he thought of the part she had taken in Dorothy’s rescue – “And in that book which shall be opened in the last great day, there will be pointed out by the Recording Angel – my sister’s atonement.” Then, without releasing her, he went on in an altered, anxious voice: “And my darling wife! Where is Constance? Tell me, Virginia, that I may go to her at once and plead her forgiveness.”

“What shall I say?” she whispered, awestruck, caught in a moment of forgetfulness of the woman who suffered for it all. “I must not tell him where she is. No, no, no! Not yet!” and she battled to subdue her agitation that she might invent some plea to postpone the meeting with his wife. “Not now; not now, John,” and drawing away from him, unconsciously put out her hand as though to ward off some impending evil.

“Why not?” he asked in surprised tones. “I must see her. I must know where my darling wife is at once!”

A flash of pain shot athwart the girl’s features as she muttered under her breath: “Oh, dear! What shall I tell him, what shall I say? What shall I do now?”

Thorpe hastily stepped forward to her assistance, and with concern in his voice, said: “Virginia, you are ill!”

“Let me rest for a moment or two” – trying her utmost to appear unperturbed, and as she sank on a bench, continued brokenly: “I shall be all right presently. The long walk – the terrible strain” —

“My dear sister, you need assistance,” interrupted Thorpe. “You must let me help you to the house and obtain proper care for you,” and he tenderly attempted to lift her to her feet.

“No, no, no!” she quickly responded; “I – shall be better in a few moments. Just a little – quiet rest, John, and alone, please. I shall soon be well again.”

“As you desire, Virginia; but I shall tell Mrs. Harris.”

“No, no, John! Don’t tell her! I wish to be alone for awhile.”

“Very well, dear; as I have a message for Mr. Harris, shall seek him at the house; but I will return in a few moments,” and then, considerate for her wish to be alone, he left her.

Helpless to resist the impetus of her consuming desire to reunite John and his wife, Constance, she yet dreaded the aftermath of the shock his discovery must surely produce. Virginia knew not which way to turn or what course to pursue.

“Oh, Auntie! Auntie! I’m so glad you’ve come. Mamma is coming to see me, too. Isn’t she?” and Dorothy, having caught sight of Virginia, ran to her, and then, not to be denied, in her childish way climbed up on the bench beside her and affectionately clasped her little arms about her neck.

“Papa doesn’t like her,” she proceeded, in a low, serious, confidential manner, “and wants me not to like her, too. But I shall like her. I shall always love-dear mamma-as-long-as-I-live!” The last few words were uttered in a quivering voice, but with a decision that appeared marvelous in one so young.

Folding her arms about the child, Virginia fondly looked into her eyes. “God bless you, sweet, winsome soul!” And then they kissed.

“Aunty, won’t you take me to mamma?” pleaded the child. A ray of light had at last unexpectedly illumined a path for Virginia to pursue. Suddenly releasing the child, she arose to her feet and said, with animation: “Some good may come of it. I will seek Mrs. Harris and have her detain John while I bring Constance – and Dorothy together – before he meets her. Yes, darling,” she said, taking Dorothy’s hand; “you shall see your mother.”