Far Above Rubies

But the necessity for disclosure was strongest in Annie, and drove her to encounter what risk might be involved. So when at last she heard a certain step of the stair creak, she darted to the door, and left the room even while the hand of her mistress, coming to say the coffee was ready, was on that which communicated with the drawing room.

"I thought I heard Annie at the sideboard: is she gone?" she said.

"She left the room this moment, I believe," answered Hector.

"What is she gone for?"

"I cannot say, mother," replied Hector indifferently, in the act himself of leaving the room also, determined on yet another attempt to speak to Annie. In the meantime, however, Annie had found her opportunity. She had met Mr. Macintosh halfway down the last flight of stairs, and had lifted to him such a face of entreaty that he listened at once to her prayer for a private interview, and, turning, led the way up again to the room he had just left. There he shut the door, and said to her pleasantly:

"Well, Annie, what is it?"

I am afraid his man-imagination had led him to anticipate some complaint against Hector: he certainly was nowise prepared for what the poor self-accusing girl had to say.

For one moment she stood unable to begin; the next she had recovered her resolution: her face filled with a sudden glow; and ere her master had time to feel shocked, she was on her knees at his feet, holding up to him a new pound-note, one of those her mistress had just given her. Familiar, however, as her master was with the mean-looking things in which lay almost all his dealings, he did not at first recognize the object she offered him; while what connection with his wife's parlor-maid it could represent was naturally inconceivable to him. He stood for a moment staring at the note, and then dropped a pair of dull, questioning eyes on the face of the kneeling girl. He was not a man of quick apprehension, and the situation was appallingly void of helpful suggestion. To make things yet more perplexing, Annie sobbed as if her heart would break, and was unable to utter a word. "What must a stranger imagine," the poor man thought, "to come upon such a tableau?" Her irrepressible emotion lasted so long that he lost his patience and turned upon her, saying:

"I must call your mistress; she will know what to do with you!" Instantly she sprang to her feet, and broke into passionate entreaty.

"Oh, please, please, sir, have a minute's patience with me," she cried; "you never saw me behave so badly before!"

"Certainly not, Annie; I never did. And I hope you will never do so again," answered her master, with reviving good-nature, and was back in his first notion, that Hector had said something to her which she thought rude and did not like to repeat. He had never had a daughter, and perhaps all the more felt pitiful over the troubled woman-child at his feet.

But, having once spoken out and conquered the spell upon her, Annie was able to go on. She became suddenly quiet, and, interrupted only by an occasional sob, poured out her whole story, if not quite unbrokenly, at least without actual intermission, while her master stood and listened without a break in his fixed attention. By-and-by, however, a slow smile began to dawn on his countenance, which spread and spread until at length he burst into a laugh, none the less merry that it was low and evidently restrained lest it should be overheard. Like one suddenly made ashamed, Annie rose to her feet, but still held out the note to her master.

How was it possible that her evil deed should provoke her master to a fit of laughter? It might be easy for him in his goodness to pardon her, but how could he treat her offense as a thing of no consequence? Was it not a sin, which, like every other sin, could nowise at all be cleansed? For even God himself could not blot out the fact that she had done the deed! And yet, there stood her master laughing! And, what was more dreadful still, despite the resentment of her conscience, her master's merriment so far affected herself that she could not repress a responsive smile! It was no less than indecent, and yet, even in that answering smile, her misery of six months' duration passed totally away, melted from her like a mist of the morning, so that she could not even recall the feeling of her lost unhappiness. But, might not her conscience be going to sleep? Was it not possible she might be growing indifferent to right and wrong? Was she not aware in herself that there were powers of evil about her, seeking to lead her astray, and putting strange and horrid things in her mind?

But, although he laughed, her master uttered no articulate sound until she had ended her statement, by which time his amusement had changed to admiration. Another minute still passed, however, before he knew what answer to make.

"But, my good girl," he began, "I do not see that you have anything to blame yourself for—at least, not anything worth blaming yourself about. After so long a time, the money found was certainly your own, and you could do what you pleased with it."

"But, sir, I did not wait at all to see how it had happened, or whether it might not be claimed. I believe, indeed, that I hurried away at once, lest anyone should know I had it. I ran to spend it at once, so for whatever happened afterward I was to blame. Then, when it was too late, I learned that the money was yours!"

"What did you do with it, if I may ask?" said the master.

"I gave it to a school-fellow of mine who had married a helpless sort of husband and was in want of food."

"I am afraid you did not help them much by that," murmured the banker.

"Please, sir, I knew no other way to help them; and the money seemed to have been given me for them. I soon came to know better, and have been sorry ever since. I knew that I had no right to give it away as soon as I knew whose it was."

She ceased, but still held out the note to him.

Mr. Macintosh stood again silent, and made no movement toward taking it.

"Please, sir, take the money, and forgive me," pleaded Annie. "And please, sir, please do not say anything about it to anybody. Even my mother does not know."

"Now there you did wrong. You ought to have told your mother."

"I see that now, sir; but I was so glad to be able to help the poor creatures that I did not think of it till afterwards."

"I dare say your mother would have been glad of the money herself; I understand she was not left very well off."

"At that time I did not know she was so poor. But now that my mistress has paid me such good wages, I am going to take her every penny of them this very afternoon."

"And then you will tell her, will you not?"

"I shall not mind telling her when you have taken it back. I was afraid to tell her before! It was to pay you back that I asked Mrs. Macintosh to take me for parlor-maid."

"Then you were not in service before?"

"No, sir. You see, my mother thought I could earn my bread in a way we should both like better."

"So now you will give up service and go back to her?"

"I am not sure, sir. It would be long, I fear, before the school would pay me as well. You see, I have my food here too. And everything tells. Please, sir, take the pound."

"My dear girl," said her master, "I could not think of depriving you of what you have so well earned. It is more than enough to me that you want to repay it. I positively cannot take it."

"Indeed, I do want to repay it, sir," rejoined Annie. "It's anything but willing I shall be not to repay it. Indeed, there is no other way to get my soul free."

Here it seems time I should mention that Hector, weary of waiting Annie's return, had left the dining room to look for her; and running up the stair, not without the dread of hearing his mother's foot behind him, had slid softly into his father's room, to find Annie on her knees before him, and hear enough to understand her story before either his father or she was aware of his presence.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but indeed you must take it," urged Annie. "Surely you would not be so cruel to a poor girl who prays you to take the guilt off her back. Don't you see, sir, I never can look my father in the face till I have paid the money back!"

Here his father caught sight of Hector, and, perceiving that Annie had not yet seen him, and possibly glad of a witness, put up his hand to him to keep still. "Where is your father, then?" he asked Annie.

"In heaven somewhere," she answered, "waiting for my mother and me. Oh, father!" she broke out, "if only you had been alive you would soon have got me out of my shame and misery! But, thank God! it will soon be over now; my master cannot refuse to set me free."

"Certainly I will set you free," said Mr. Macintosh, a good deal touched. "With all my heart I forgive you the—the—the debt, and I thank you for bringing me to know the honestest girl—I mean, the most honorable girl I have ever yet had the pleasure to meet."

Hector had been listening, hardly able to contain his delight, and at these last words of his father, like the blundering idiot he was, he rushed forward, and, clasping Annie to his heart, cried out:

"Thank God, Annie, my father at least knows what you are!"

He met with a rough and astounding check. Far too startled to see who it was that thus embraced her, and unprepared to receive such a salutation, least of all from one she had hitherto regarded as the very prince of gentleness and courtesy, she met it with a sound, ringing box on the ear, which literally staggered Hector, and sent his father into a second peal of laughter, this time as loud as it was merry, and the next moment swelled in volume by that of Hector himself.

"Thank you, Annie!" he cried. "I never should have thought you could hit so hard. But, indeed, I beg your pardon. I forgot myself and you too when I behaved so badly. But I'm not sorry, father, after all, for that box on the ear has got me over a difficult task, and compelled me to speak out at once what has been long in my mind, but which I had not the courage to say. Annie," he went on, turning to her, and standing humbly before her, "I have long loved you; if you will do me the honor to marry me, I am yours the moment you say so."

But Annie's surprise and the hasty act she had committed in the first impulse of defense had so reacted upon her in a white dismay that she stood before him speechless and almost ready to drop. Awakening from what was fast growing a mere dream of offense to the assured consciousness of another offense almost as flagrant, she stared as if she had suddenly opened her eyes on a whole Walpurgisnacht of demons and witches, while Hector, recovering from his astonishment to the lively delight of having something to pretend at least to forgive Annie, and yielding to sudden Celtic impulse, knelt at her feet, seized her hand, which she had no power to withdraw from him, covered it with eager kisses and placed it on his head. Little more would have made him cast himself prone before her, lift her foot, and place it on his neck.

But his father brought a little of his common sense to the rescue.

"Tut, Hector!" he said; "give the lass time to come to her senses. Would you woo her like a raving maniac? I don't, indeed, wonder, after what you heard her tell me, that you should have taken such a sudden fancy to her; but—"

"Father," interrupted Hector, "it is no fancy—least of all a sudden one! I fell in love with Annie the very first time I saw her waiting at table. It is true I did not understand what had befallen me for some time; but I do, and I did from the first, and now forever I shall both love and worship Annie!"

"Mr. Hector," said Annie, "it was too bad of you to listen. I did not know anyone was there but your father. You were never intended to hear; and I did not think you would have done such a dishonorable thing. It was not like you, Mr. Hector!"

"How was I to know you had secrets with my father, Annie? Dishonorable or not, the thing is done, and I am glad of it—especially to have heard what you had no intention of telling me."