A Husband by Proxy Part 7

"I knew absolutely nothing of her prospects," said Garrison, who thought he foresaw some money struggle impending. "She can tell you that up to the present moment I have never asked her a word concerning her financial status or future expectations."

"Why don't you tell us you never knew she had an uncle?" demanded Robinson, with no abatement of acidity.

"As a matter of fact," replied Garrison, "I have never known the name of any of Dorothy's relations till to-night."

"This is absurd!" cried the aggravated Mr. Robinson. "Do you mean to tell me----"

Garrison cut in upon him with genuine warmth. He was fencing blindly in Dorothy's behalf, and instinct was guiding him with remarkable precision.

"I should think you might understand," he said, "that once in a while a young woman, with a natural desire to be esteemed for herself alone, might purposely avoid all mention both of her relatives and prospects."

"We've all heard about these marriages for love," sneered Dorothy's uncle. "Where did you suppose she got this house?"

Garrison grew bolder as he felt a certain confidence that so far he had made no particular blunders. His knowledge of the value of half a truth, or even the truth entire, was intuitive.

"I have never been in this house before tonight," he said. "Our 'honeymoon,' as you called it earlier, has, as you know, been brief, and none of it was spent beneath this roof."

"Then how did you know where to come?" demanded Mr. Robinson.

"Dorothy supplied me the address," answered Garrison. "It is not uncommon, I believe, for husband and wife to correspond."

"Well, here we are, and here we'll stay," said Mr. Robinson, "till the will and all the business is settled. Perhaps you'll say you didn't even know there was a will."

Garrison was beginning to see light, dimly. What it was that lay behind Dorothy's intentions and her scheme he could not know; he was only aware that to-night, stealing a glance at her sweet but worried face, and realizing faintly that she was greatly beset with troubles, his whole heart entered the conflict, willingly, to help her through to the end.

"You are right for once," he answered his inquisitor. "I have known absolutely nothing of any will affecting Dorothy, and I know nothing now. I only know you can rely upon me to fight her battles to the full extent of my ability and strength."

"What nonsense! You don't know!" exclaimed Mr. Robinson. "Why----"

"It's the truth," interrupted Dorothy. "I have told him nothing about it."

"I don't believe it!" said her uncle. "But whatever he knows, I'll tell him this, that I propose to fight that will, day and night, before my brother's property shall go to any scheming stranger!"

Garrison felt the need for enlightenment. It was hardly fair to expect him to struggle in the dark. He looked at his watch ostentatiously.

"I did not come here expecting this sort of reception," he said truthfully. "I hoped at least for a few minutes' time with Dorothy, alone."

"To cook up further stories, I presume," said Mr. Robinson, who made no move to depart.

Garrison rose and approached Mr. Robinson precisely as he might have done had his right been more than a fiction.

"Do you require Dorothy to go down in the hall, in her own house, to obtain a moment of privacy?" he demanded. "We might as well understand the situation first as last."

It was a half-frightened look, full of craft and hatred, that Robinson cast upward to his face. He fidgeted, then rose from his seat.

"Come, my dear," he said to his wife, "the persecutions have commenced."

He led the way from the room to another apartment, his wife obediently following at his heels. The door they left ajar.

CHAPTER IV

UNSPOKEN ANTAGONISM

Garrison crossed the room with an active stride and closed the door firmly.

Dorothy was pale when he turned. She, too, was standing.

"You can see that I've got to be posted a little," he said quietly.

"To err has not ceased to be human."

"You have made no mistakes," said Dorothy in a voice barely above a whisper. "I didn't expect them. When I found they had come I hardly knew what to do. And when they declared I had no husband I had to request you to come."

"Something of the sort was my conclusion," Garrison told her. "I have blundered along with fact and fiction as best I might, but what am I supposed to have done that excites them both to insult me?"

Dorothy seemed afraid that the very walls might hear and betray her secret.

"Your supposed marriage to me is sufficient," she answered in the lowest of undertones. "You must have guessed that they feel themselves cheated out of this house and other property left in a relative's will."

"Cheated by your marriage?" said Garrison.

She nodded, watching to see if a look of distrust might appear in the gaze he bent upon her.

"I wouldn't dare attempt to inform you properly or adequately to-night, with my uncle in the house," she said. "But please don't believe I've done anything wrong--and don't desert me now."

She had hardly intended to appeal to him so helplessly, but somehow she had been so glad to lean upon his strength, since his meeting with her relatives, that the impulse was not to be resisted. Moreover she felt, in some strange working of the mind, that she had come to know him as well within the past half-hour as she had ever known anyone in all her life. Her trust had gone forth of its own volition, together with her grat.i.tude and admiration, for the way he had taken up her cause.

"I left the matter entirely with you this afternoon," he said. "I only wish to know so much as you yourself deem essential. I feel this man is vindictive, cowardly, and crafty. Are you sure you are safe where he is?"

"Oh, yes, I'm quite safe, even if it is unpleasant," she told him, grateful for his evident concern. "If need be, the caretaker would fight a pack of wolves in my defense."

"This will?" asked Garrison. "When is it going to be settled--when does it come to probate?"

"I don't quite know."

"When is your real husband coming?" he inquired, more for her own protection than his own.

She had not admitted, in the afternoon, that she had a husband. She colored now as she tried to meet his gaze.

"Did I tell you there was such a person?"

"No," said Garrison, "you did not. I thought---- Perhaps that's one of the many things I am not obliged to know."

"Perhaps." She hesitated a moment, adding: "If you'd rather not go on----"

She lowered her eyes. He felt a thrill that he could not a.n.a.lyze, it lay so close to jealousy and hope. And whatever it was, he knew it was out of the bargain, and not in the least his right.