Rose O'Paradise Part 87

"You've lost your mind, Molly," he said harshly. "You're mad, completely mad."

"No, I'm not. Listen, Theodore, I'm here at your feet, miserable, unhappy; I want to be forgiven----"

"Then tell me what you did to Jinnie Grandoken."

"I can't! I can't!"

When another knock sounded on the door, Theodore opened it and took the papers through the smallest imaginable crack. Molly crawled to a chair and leaned her head upon the seat. Without a word, Theodore sat down and began to turn the pages of the papers nervously. As he read both accounts of Lafe's trial, bitter e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns fell from his lips.

The story of Bobbie's dramatic death and Morse's suicide brought forth a groan. When he placed the papers slowly beside him on the floor, Molly raised her face, white and torn with grief.

"Now you know it all, forgive me!"

"Never, while I live!" he cried. "What unG.o.dly wretchedness you've made that child suffer! And you were married all the time to Morse, and the mother of that poor little boy!"

"Yes," sobbed Molly.

Then a sudden thought took possession of him.

"You and Morse made Jinnie write me that first letter."

Molly nodded.

"May G.o.d forgive you both!" he stammered, and whirled out of the room.

An hour later, with new strength and purpose, Theodore threw a few clothes into a suitcase, ordered the fastest motor in the garage, and was standing on the porch when Molly came swiftly to him.

"Theodore," she said, with twitching face, "if you go away now, you won't find me here when you get back."

He glanced her over with curling lip.

"As you please," he returned indifferently. "You've done enough damage as it is. If you've any heart, stay here with the only person in the world who has any faith in you."

Vacantly the woman watched the motor glide away over the smooth white road, and then limply slid to the floor in a dead faint.

All the distance from Bellaire to Mottville Theodore was tortured with doubt. He brought to mind Jinnie's girlish embarra.s.sment when they had been together; the fluttering white lids as his kisses brought a blue flash from the speaking love-lit eyes. She had loved him then; did she now? Of course she must love him! She had brought to him the freshness of spring--the love of the mating birds among the blossoms--the pa.s.sionate desire of a heaven-wrought soul for its own, to whom could be entrusted all that was his dearest and best. He would follow her and win her,--yea, _win_ the woman G.o.d had made for him and him alone, and into his eyes leapt the expression of the conquering male, the force G.o.d had created within him to reach for the woman sublime and cherish her.

When the car entered Mottville, rain was falling and the wind was mourning ceaselessly.

By inquiry, Theodore found the road to the Singleton farm, and again, as he impatiently sank back in the motor, he mentally vowed, with the vow of a strong man, that the girl should listen to him. He never realized, until they were climbing the rain-soaked hill, how starved was the very soul of him.

The road was running with water, but they ploughed on, until through the trees the farmhouse loomed up darkly. Bennett stopped the car at the gate and Theodore jumped out. A light twinkling in the upper part of the house told him she was there. Harmonious echoes were sounding and resounding in his ears. They were notes from Jinnie's fiddle, and for a moment, as they sobbed out through the attic window, he leaned back against the wet fence, feeling almost faint. The wild, sweet, unearthly melody surged over him with memories of the past.

Then he pa.s.sed under the thras.h.i.+ng pines, mounted the broken steps, and entered the house.

It took but a minute to find the stairs by which to reach her, and there he stood in the gloom of the attic door, watching the swaying young figure and noting the whole pitiful dejection of her. In the single little light her eyes were as blue as the wing of a royal bird, and oh, what suffering she must have gone through! Then Jinnie ceased playing, and, as if drawn by a presence she knew not of, she turned her eyes slowly toward the door, and when she saw him, she fell, huddled with her violin on the garret floor, staring upward with frightened eyes.

"If you're there," she panted, "if--if--speak to me!"

He bounded forward and gathered her up, and the light of an adoring love shone full upon him.

"My sweet, my sweet, my beautiful, my little wonder-woman!" he breathed. "Did you think I could live without you?"

She was leaning, half fainting, against his breast, like a wind-blown flower.

"I've come for you," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "Dearest, sweetest Jinnie!"

She pressed backward, loyalty for another woman rising within her.

"But Molly, Molly the Merry----" she breathed.

Theodore shook his head.

"I only know I love you, sweetheart, that I've come for you," and as his lips met hers, Jinnie clung to him, a very sweet young thing, and between those warm, pa.s.sionate kisses she heard him murmur:

"G.o.d made you mine, littlest love!"

And so they went forth from the lonely farmhouse, with none but the cobbler's angels watching over them.

THE END