A Terrible Secret Part 20

One snowy February night, just two years before, Edith Darrel and Charles Stuart had met for the first time--met in a very odd and romantic way.

Before relating that peculiar first meeting, let me premise that Edith Darrell's mother had been born a Miss Eleanor Stuart, the daughter of a rich New York merchant, who had fallen in love at an early period of her career with her father's handsome book-keeper, Frederic Darrell, had eloped with him, and been cast off by her whole family from thenceforth, forever. Ten years' hard battling with poverty and ill-health had followed, and then one day she kissed her husband and little daughter for the last time, and drifted wearily out of the strife. Of course Mr. Darrell, a year or two after, married again for the sake of having some one to look after his house and little Edith as much as anything else. Mrs. Darrell No. 2 was in every respect the exact contrast of Mrs. Darrell No. 1. She was a brisk little woman, with snapping black eyes, a sharp nose, a complexion of saffron, and a tongue like a carving-knife. Frederic Darrell was by nature a feeble, helpless sort of man, but she galvanized even him into a spasmodic sort of life. He was master of three living languages and two dead ones.

"If you can't support your family by your hands, Mr. Darrell," snapped his wife, "support them by your head. There are plenty young men in the world ready to learn French and German, Greek and Latin, if they can learn them at a reasonable rate. Advertise for these young men, and I'll board them when they come."

He obeyed, the idea proved a good one, the young men came, Mrs.

Darrell boarded and lodged them, Mr. Darrell coached them in cla.s.sics and languages. Edith shot up like a hop-vine. Five more little Darrells were added in the fulness of time, and the old problem, that not all the mathematics he knew could ever solve, how to make both ends meet, seemed as knotty as ever. For his daughter he felt it most of all. The five great noisy boys who called Mrs. Darrell "ma," he looked at through his spectacles in fear and trembling. His handsome daughter he loved with his whole heart. Her dead mother's relatives were among the plutocracy of New York, but even the memory of the dead Eleanor seemed to have faded utterly out of their minds.

One raw February afternoon two years before this March morning, Edith Darrell set out to walk from Millfield, a large manufacturing town, five miles from Sandypoint, home. She had been driven over in the morning by a neighbor, to buy a new dress; she had dined at noon with an acquaintance, and as the Millfield clocks struck five, set out to walk home. She was a capital walker; she knew the road well; she had the garnet merino clasped close in her arms, a talisman against cold or weariness, and thinking how well she would look in it next Thursday at the party, she tripped blithely along. A keen wind blew, a dark drifting sky hung low over the black frozen earth, and before Miss Darrell had finished the first mile of her pilgrimage, the great feathery snow flakes began whirling down. She looked up in dismay--snow! She had not counted on that. Her way lay over hills and down valleys, the path was excellent, hard and beaten, but if it snowed--and night was coming on fast. What should she do? Prudence whispered, "turn back;" youth's impatience and confidence in itself cried out, "go on," Edith went on.

It was as lonely a five-mile walk as you would care to take in an August noontide. Think what it must have been this stormy February evening. She was not entirely alone. "Don Caesar," the house dog, a big English mastiff, trotted by her side. At long intervals, down by-paths and across fields, there were some half dozen habitations, between Millfield and Sandypoint--that was all. Faster, faster came the white whirling flakes; an out-and-out February snow storm had set in.

Again--should she turn back? She paused half a minute to debate the question. If she did there would be a sleepless night of terror for her nervous father at home. And she _might_ be able to keep the path with the "Don's" aid. Personal fear she felt none; she was a thoroughly brave little woman, and there was a spice of adventure in braving the storm and going on. She shook back her cl.u.s.tering curls, tied her hood a little tighter, wrapped her cloak more closely around her, whistled cheerily to Don Caesar, and went on.

"In the bright lexicon of youth there is no such word as 'Fail'," she said gayly, patting the Don's s.h.a.ggy head. "_En avant_, Don Caesar, _mon brave_!" The Don understood French; he licked his mistress's hand and trotted contentedly before.

"As if I _could_ lose the path with the Don," she thought; "what a goose I am. I shall make Mamma Darrell cut out my garnet merino, and begin it before I go to bed to-night."

She walked bravely and brightly on, whistling and talking to Don Caesar at intervals. Another mile was got over, and the night had shut down, white with whirling drifts. It was all she could do now, to make her way against the storm, and it grew worse every instant. Three miles of the five lay yet before her. Her heart began to fail her a little; the path was lost in the snow, and even the Don began to be at fault. The drifting wilderness nearly blinded her, the deep snow was unutterably fatiguing. There was but one thing in her favor--the night, for February, was mild. She was all in a glow of warmth, but what if she should get lost and flounder about here until morning? And what would papa think of her absence?

She stopped short again. If she could see a light she would make for it, she thought, and take refuge from the night and storm. But through the white whirl no light was to be seen. Right or wrong, nothing remained but to go on.

Hark! what was that? She stopped once more--the Don p.r.i.c.ked up his sagacious ears. A cry unmistakably--a cry of distress.

Again it came, to the left, faint and far off. Yes--no doubt about it, a cry for help.

She did not hesitate a moment. Strangers, who had tried this hillpath before now, had been found stark frozen next day.

"Find him, Don--find him, good fellow!" she said and turned at once in the direction of the call.

"Coming!" she shouted, aloud. "Where are you? Call again."

"Here," came faintly over the snow. "Here, to the left."

She shouted back a cheery answer. Once more came a faint reply--then all was still.

Suddenly the Don stopped. Impossible to tell where they were, but there, prostrate in a feathery drift, lay the dark figure of a man.

The girl bent down in the darkness, and touched the cold face with her hand.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "How do you come to be lying here?"

There was just life enough left within him, to enable him to answer faintly.

"I was on my way to Sandypoint--the night and storm overtook me. I missed the path and my footing; I slipped, and have broken my leg, I'm afraid. I heard you whistling to your dog and tried to call. I didn't dream it was a woman, and I am sorry I have brought you out of your way. Still, as you _are_ here, if you will tell them at the nearest house, and--" his voice died entirely away, in the sleepy cadence of a freezing man.

The nearest house--where _was_ the nearest house? Why, this poor fellow would freeze to death in half an hour if left to himself.

Impossible to leave him. What should she do? She thought for a moment.

Quick and bright of invention, she made up her mind what to do, she had in her pocket a little pa.s.sbook and pencil. In the darkness she tore out a leaf--in the darkness she wrote, "Follow Don. Come at once."

She pinned the note in her handkerchief--tied the handkerchief securely round the dog's neck, put her arms about him, and gave his black head a hug.

"Go home, Don, go home," she said, "and fetch papa here."

The large, half-human eyes looked up at her. She pushed him away with both hands, and with a low growl of intelligence he set off. And in that sea of snow, lost in the night, Edith Darrell was alone with a freezing man.

In her satchel, among her other purchases, she had several cents'

worth of matches for household consumption. With a girl's curiosity, even in that hour, to see what the man was like, she struck a match and looked at him. It flared through the white darkness a second or two, then went out. That second showed her a face as white as the snow itself, the eyes closed, the lips set in silent pain. She saw a s.h.a.ggy great coat, and fur cap, and--a gentleman, even in that briefest of brief glances.

"You mustn't go to sleep," she said, giving him a shake; "do you hear me, sir? You mustn't go to sleep."

"Yes--mustn't I?" very drowsily.

"You'll freeze to death if you do." A second shake. "Oh, do rouse up like a good fellow, and try to keep awake. I've sent my dog for help, and I mean to stay with you until it comes. Does your leg pain you much?"

"Not now. It did, but I--feel--sleepy, and--"

"I tell you, you _mustn't_!" She shook him so indignantly this time that he did rouse up. "Do you want to freeze to death? I tell you, sir, you must wake up and talk to _me_."

"Talk to you? I beg your pardon--it's awfully good of you to stay with me, but I can't allow it. You'll freeze yourself."

"No, I won't. _I'm_ all right. It isn't freezing hard to-night, and if you hadn't broken your leg, you wouldn't freeze either. I wish I could do something for you. Let me rub your hands--it may help to keep you awake. And see, I'll wrap this round your feet to keep them out of the snow."

And then--who says that heroic self-sacrifice has gone out of fas.h.i.+on?--she unfurled the garnet merino and twisted its glowing folds around the boots of the fallen man.

"It's awfully good of you, you know," he could but just repeat. "If I am saved I shall owe my life to you. I think by your voice you are a young lady. Tell me your name?"

"Edith."

"A pretty name, and a sweet voice. Suppose you rub my other hand? How delightfully warm yours are! I begin to feel better already. If we _don't_ freeze to death, I shouldn't much mind how long this sort of thing goes on. If we do, they'll find us, like the babes in the wood, under the snow-drifts to-morrow."

Miss Darrell listened to all this, uttered in the sleepiest, gentlest of tones, her brown eyes open wide. What manner of young man was this who paid compliments while freezing with a broken leg? It was quite a new experience to her and amused her. It was an adventure, and excited all the romance dormant in her nature.

"You're a stranger hereabouts?" she suggested.

"Yes, a stranger, to my cost, and a very foolhardy one, or I should never have attempted to find Sandypoint in this confounded storm.

Edith--you'll excuse my calling you so, _my_ name is Charley--wouldn't it have been better if you had left me here and gone for some one.

I'm dreadfully afraid you'll get your death."

His solicitude for her, in his own danger and pain, quite touched Miss Edith. She bent over him with maternal tenderness.

"There is no fear for me. I feel perfectly warm as I told you, and can easily keep myself so. And if you think I could leave you, or any one else with a broken leg, to die, you mistake me greatly, that is all. I will stay with you if it be till morning."

He gave one of her hands a feebly grateful squeeze. It was a last effort. His numbed and broken limb gave a horrible twinge, there was a faint gasp, and then this young man fainted quietly away.

She bent above him in despair. A great fear filled her--was he dead, this stranger in whom she was interested already? She lifted his head on her lap, she chafed his face and hands in an agony of pity and terror.

"Charley!" she called, with something like a sob; "O Charley, don't die! Wake up--speak to me."