Thurston of Orchard Valley

"There is not a straighter man in the Dominion, and one could stake their last cent on the honor of Geoffrey Thurston," she declared. "From several things I've heard, I've settled that's just a dangerous woman."

Helen heard, and, knowing her friendship for the young engineer, guessed her aunt's motive. The explanation, in any case, would not have improved the position much, for if the woman were utterly unprincipled, which she could well believe, why should the man who had, of his own will, pledged himself to her? – but she flushed again as she refused to follow that line of thought further. Nevertheless, she clenched a little hand in a manner that boded ill for Thurston when next he sought speech with her. Afterwards she endeavored to treat the incident with complete indifference, and succeeded in deceiving her uncle only, for in spite of her efforts, her face and carriage expressed outraged dignity. Her aunt was not in the least deceived, and her eyes twinkled now and then as she chattered on diverse topics, while the party drove leisurely towards the city.

When Leslie returned home from his office he found his wife awaiting him with the disdainful look upon her face which he had learned to hate.

"What's the matter now, Millicent? Has something upset your usually pacific temper?" he asked with a sneer.

"Yes," was the direct answer. "When you last asked my assistance you, as usual, lied to me. I helped you to trace your – your confederate, because you told me it was the only way to escape ruin. For once I believed you, which was blindly foolish of me. I met Mr. Thurston and learned from him how somebody had plotted to destroy his machinery. He did not know it was you, and I very nearly told him."

"Don't be a fool, Millicent," Leslie admonished. "I'm sick of these displays of temper – they don't become you. I tell you I plotted nothing except to get my man into my own hands again. The other rascals exceeded their orders on their own responsibility. Oh, you would wear out any poor man's patience! Folks in my position don't do such childish things as hire people to upset wagons loaded with machinery."

"I do not believe you," replied Millicent, and Leslie laughed ironically.

"I don't know that it greatly matters whether you do or not. Have you any more such dutiful things to say?"

"Just this. One hears of honor among thieves, and it is evident you cannot rise even to that. You have once more tricked me, and henceforward I warn you that you must carry on your work in your own way. Further, if I hear of any more plotting to do Thurston injury, I shall at once inform him."

"Then," Leslie gripped her arm until his fingers left their mark on the soft white flesh, "I warn you that it will be so much the worse for you. Good heavens, why don't you – but go, and don't tempt me to say what I feel greatly tempted to."

Millicent shook off his grasp, moved slowly away, turning to fling back a bitter answer from the half-opened door.

"Confound her!" said Leslie, refilling the glass upon the table. "Now, what the devil tempted me to ruin all my prospects by marrying that woman?"

CHAPTER XXI

REPARATION

"You will have to go," said Henry Leslie, glancing sharply at his wife across the breakfast-table as he returned her an open letter which had lately arrived by the English mail. "I hardly know where to find the money for your passage out and home just now, and you will want new dresses – women always seem to. Still, we can't afford to miss an opportunity, and it may prove a good investment," he added, reflectively.

Millicent sighed as she took the letter, and, ignoring her husband's words, read it through again. It had been written by a relative, a member of the legal profession, and requested her to return at once to England. The stern old man, who had reared her, was slowly dying, and had expressed an urgent wish to see her.

"Isn't that the man who wanted you to marry Thurston, and when you disappointed him washed his hands of both of you?" Leslie inquired. "There were reasons why I hadn't the pleasure of duly making the acquaintance of your relatives, but I think you said he was tolerably wealthy, and, as he evidently desires a reconciliation, you must do your best to please him. Let me see. You might catch the next New York Cunarder or the Allan boat from Quebec."

Millicent looked up at him angrily. She was not wholly heartless, and her kinsman had not only provided for her after her parents died in financial difficulties, but in his own austere fashion he had been kind to her. Accordingly, her husband's comments jarred upon her.

"I should certainly go, even if I had to travel by Colonist car and steerage," she declared. "I should do so if there were no hope of financial benefit, which is, after all, very uncertain, for Anthony Thurston is not the man to change his mind when he has once come to a determination. The fact that he is dying and asks for me is sufficient – though it is perhaps useless to expect you to believe it."

"We must all die some day," was the abstracted answer. "Hardly an original observation, is it? But it would be folly to let such a chance pass, and I must try to spare you. If you really feel it, I sympathize with you, and had no intention of wounding your sensibilities, but as, unfortunately, circumstances force us to consider these questions practically, you will – well, you will do your best with the old man, Millicent. To put it so, you owe a duty to me."

Leslie and his wife had by this time learned to see each other's real self, naked and stripped of all disguise, and the sight was not calculated to inspire either with superfluous delicacy. The man, however, overlooked the fact that his partner in life still clung to a last grace of sentiment, and could, on occasion, deceive herself.

"I owe you a duty! How have you discharged yours to me?" she said, reproachfully. "Do not force me to oppose you, Harry, but if you are wise, go around to the depot and find out when the steamers sail."

"Yes, my dear," Leslie acquiesced with a smile, which he did not mean to be wholly ironical. "Would it be any use for me to say that I shall miss you?"

"No," answered Millicent, though she returned his smile. "You really would not expect me to believe you. Still, if only because of the rareness of such civility, I rather like to hear you say so."

Mrs. Leslie sailed in the first Cunarder, and duly arrived at a little station in the North of England where a dogcart was waiting to drive her to Crosbie Ghyll. She had known the man, who drove it long before, and he told her, with full details, how Anthony Thurston, having come down from an iron-working town to visit the owner of the dilapidated mansion had been wounded by a gun accident while shooting. The wound was not of itself serious, but the old man's health was failing, and he had not vitality enough to recover from the shock.

Meantime, while Millicent Leslie was driven across the bleak brown moorlands, Anthony Thurston lay in the great bare guest-chamber at Crosbie Ghyll. He had been a hard, determined man, a younger son who had made money in business, while his brothers died poor, clinging to the land, and it was with characteristic grimness that he was quietly awaiting his end. The narrow, deep-sunk window in front of him was open wide, though the evening breeze blew chilly from the fells, which rose blackly against an orange glow. Though he manifested no impatience, the sunset light beating in showed an expectant look in his eyes. A much younger man sat at a table close by and laid down the pen he held, when the other said:

"That will do, Halliday. Is there any sign of the dog-cart yet? You are sure she will come to-night?"

"There is a vehicle of some kind behind the larches, but I cannot see it clearly," was the answer. "You can rest satisfied, sir, for if Mrs. Leslie has missed the train, she will arrive early to-morrow."

"To-morrow may be too late," said the old man. "I do not feel well to-night. Yes, she will come. Millicent is like her father, and, though he ruined himself, it was not because he hadn't a keen eye for the main chance. Because I was a lonely man and because, in my struggling days her mother was kind to me, I was fond of her. You needn't be jealous, Halliday. You will have the winding up of my estate, and it won't affect your share."

There was a vein of misanthropic irony in most of what Anthony Thurston said, but the other man had the same blood in him, and answered quickly:

"My own business is flourishing, and I have tried to serve you hitherto because of the relationship. I have no other reason, sir."

"No," assented Thurston, with something approaching a laugh. "There is no doubt you are genuine. Millicent took after her father and, in spite of it, I was fond of her. Tell me again. Did you consider her happy when you saw her in Canada?"

"As I said before, it is a delicate question, but I did not think so. Her husband struck me as a particularly poor sample, sir."

"Ah! She married the rascal suddenly out of pique, perhaps, when Geoffrey left her. I could never quite get at the truth of that story, which, of course, was framed in the conventional way, but even now, though he's nearer of kin than Millicent, I can't quite forgive Geoffrey. You saw him, you said, on your last visit to those mines."

The speaker's tone was indifferent, but his eyes shoved keen interest, and Halliday answered:

"If ever the whole truth came out I don't think you would blame Geoffrey, sir. Individually, I would take his word against – well, against any woman's solemn declaration. Yes, I saw him. He was making a pretty fight single-handed against almost overwhelming natural difficulties."

"Why?" asked Anthony Thurston. "A woman out there, eh? Are you pleading his cause, Halliday? Remember, if you convince me, he may be another participant in the property."

"He did not explain all his motives to me, and nobody ever gained much by attempting to force a Thurston's confidence. If you were not my kinsman and were in better health I should feel tempted to recommend you to place your affairs in other hands. Confound the property!"

There was a curious cackle in the sick man's throat, and the flicker of a smile in his sunken eyes.

"I can believe it. You are tarred with the same brush as Geoffrey. The obstinate fool must go out there with a couple of hundred pounds or so, when he knew he had only to humor me by marrying Millicent and wait for prosperity. And yet, in one way, I'm glad he did. He never wrote me to apologize or explain – still, that's hardly surprising either. I don't know that any of us ever troubled much about other folks' opinions or listened to advice. Here am I, who might have lived another ten years, dying, because, when an officious keeper warned me, I went the opposite way. I hear wheels, Halliday."

"It is the dogcart," Halliday announced. "Yes – I see Mrs. Leslie."

"Thank God!" said the sick man. "Bring her here as soon as she's ready. Meantime, send in the doctor. I feel worse to-night."

The light was dying fast when Millicent Leslie came softly into the great bare room, and, for Anthony Thurston had paid for overtaxing his waning strength, her heart smote her as she looked upon him. She could recognize the stamp of fast approaching death. There was an unusual gentleness in his eyes, which brightened at her approach, and with the exception of Geoffrey, whose sympathy filled her with shame, it was long since anyone had looked upon her with genuine kindliness. So it was with real sorrow she knelt beside the bed and kissed him.

"I was shocked to hear of your accident, but it was some time ago, and you are recovering," she remarked, trying to speak hopefully, but with a catch in her breath.

"I am dying," was the answer, and Millicent sobbed when the withered fingers rested on her hair.

"I wanted to see you before I went. I was fond of you, Milly, and you – you and Geoffrey angered me. It was not your fault," the somewhat strained voice added wistfully. "He – I don't wish to hurt you, or hear the stereotyped version he of course endorsed. He left you?"

Millicent Leslie was not wholly evil. She had a softer side, and, in the moment of reconciliation, dreaded to inflict further pain upon one to whom she owed much. If the truth was not in her, there was one thing in her favor, so at least the afterwards tried to convince herself. Prompted by a desire to soothe a dying man's last hours, she voluntarily accepted a very unpleasant part. She was thankful her head was bent as she said: "It was perhaps my fault. I would not – I could not consent to humor him in what appeared a senseless project – and so Geoffrey went to Canada."

She felt the old man's hand move caressingly across her hair. "Poor Millicent," he sympathized. "And you chose another husband. Are you happy with him out there? But stay, it is twilight and the old place is gloomy. If you would like them, ask for candles. Geoffrey – Geoffrey left you!"

Millicent did not desire candles, but gently drew herself away. Anthony Thurston's tenderness had touched her, and, with sudden compunction, she remembered that she had deceived a dying man. He believed her, but she did not wish him to see her face. She drew a chair towards the bed, and for a moment looked about her, striving to collect her scattered thoughts. Framed by the stone-ribbed window, the afterglow still shimmered, a pale luminous green, and one star twinkled over the black shoulder of Crosbie Fell. Curlews called mournfully down in the misty mosses, and when she turned her head the sick man's face showed faintly livid against the darker coverings of the bed. For a moment she felt tempted to make full confession, or at least excuses for Geoffrey, but Anthony Thurston spoke again just then and the moment was lost.

"I asked are you happy in Canada, Millicent," he repeated, and there was command as well as kindness in his tone. Anthony Thurston, mine owner and iron works director, was dying, but he had long been a ruler of stiff-necked men, and the habit of authority still remained with him. It struck Millicent that he was in many ways very like Geoffrey.