Читать книгу By the World Forgot: A Double Romance of the East and West - Brady Cyrus Townsend - Страница 7

The sudden disappearance of one of the principals in the Maynard-Beekman wedding was the sensation of the hour. John Maynard was deeply hurt and terribly concerned because he was very fond of Beekman, and because in spite of his bold front the young man's failure to appear had reflected upon his daughter. The lewd papers of the baser sort, playing up the bachelor dinner, did not hesitate to point this out, and insinuations, so thinly disguised that every one who read understood, appeared daily. That there was not a word of truth in them was of little consequence either to the writers who knew they were lying or to the public, which did not. The clientele of such papers was ready to believe anything or everything bad; especially of the idle rich.

Reportorial and even editorial-which is worse-imagination was unrestrained. As the newspapers had devoted so much space to the preparations, they did not stint themselves in discussing the aftermath of the affair. The police bent every energy to solve the mystery. Maynard was a big power in public affairs and they were stimulated by a reward of one hundred thousand dollars which Maynard offered for tidings of the missing man, a reward which made the wiseacres put their tongues in their cheeks as they read of it.

The gorgeous wedding presents were returned. The lovely lingerie of the bride, which had been so talked about, was laid away and the bride herself was denied to every caller. Even George Harnash sought access to her person in vain. The scandal, the humiliation, had made her seriously ill, and by her physician's orders she was allowed to see no one.

However, the first person she did admit was George Harnash. Indeed, so soon as she was able to be about she called him up and demanded his immediate presence. He had been waiting for such a summons. He knew it was unavoidable. It had to come. He dropped everything to go to her. He was horrified when he saw her. He had got back some of his nerve and equipoise to the casual observation, although he still showed what he had gone through to a close scrutiny. He had been catechized and cross-questioned, even put through a mild form of the third degree by the police, but little to their satisfaction. He could tell them nothing definite. They got no more out of him than he had volunteered at first. They were completely and entirely mystified.

Several steamers had sailed for various ports that day and night, but it was easily established, when they reached port, that they had not carried the missing man. They completely overlooked the Susquehanna for reasons which will appear. Beekman's disappearance remained one of those unexplained mysteries for which New York was notorious. The reward still stood and the authorities were still very much on the alert, but they were absolutely without any clue whatsoever. Derrick Beekman had disappeared from the face of the earth. Besides Harnash, there was only one person in the city who had any definite idea as to the cause of his departure, and that was Stephanie Maynard. A proud, high-spirited girl, she had suffered untold anguish in the publicity and scandal and innuendo.

"My God, Stephanie!" cried Harnash, as she received him in a lovely negligée in her boudoir. "You look like death itself."

"And I have passed through it," said the girl, "in the last week. Now, I want you to tell me where Derrick is."

"Stephanie," answered Harnash, "it would be foolish for me to pretend that I don't know."

"It certainly would."

"I told you that I meant to have you and that I would stop the wedding if I had to take you from the altar steps."

"But we didn't get that far."

"It amounts to the same thing. I-er-took him. It was easier."

"Where and how did you take him?"

"Don't ask. I can't tell."

"And you have covered me with shame inexpressible. I shall never get over it as long as I live. How could you do it? How could you?"

"Are you reproaching me?"

"Reproaching you!" cried Stephanie. "Do you think I could tamely endure this public scandal, this abandonment, without a word?"

"But I did it for you."

"Yes, I suppose so, but that doesn't make it any less humiliating."

"Stephanie, tell me, do you love Derrick Beekman?"

"No, I hate him."

"And me?"

"I hate you, too."

"Oh, don't say that."

"I wish I were dead," cried the girl. "I can never go out on the street again. I can never hold up my head anywhere any more, and it's your fault. What have you done with him?"

"Do you want him back? Do you want to go through with the marriage? Look here," said Harnash, "desperate diseases require desperate remedies. I'll tell you this, and that is all I will tell you. I am sure Derrick is all right. He will come to no harm."

"Are you holding him a prisoner somewhere?"

"I am not."

"I don't understand."

"It is better not. It isn't necessary," answered Harnash stubbornly.

"And you actually made away with him?"

"I got him out of the way, if that's what you mean. But he's alive, well, and in no danger. I caused it to be done-"

"Are you sure of that?"

"Absolutely."

"Don't you know that you've done a criminal act?"

"Of course I know it. Do you think I'm a fool because I'm crazy in love with you?"

"And don't you know you will have gained his eternal enmity and the enmity of my father when they find this out?"

"I don't care about anybody's enmity unless it's yours."

"Well, you've almost gained mine."

"Almost, but not quite. You feel horribly now. I understand. Do you think it has been joyful to me to have put my best friend out of the way and to have brought all this scandal and shame upon you? But there was no other way. You're mine in the sight of God and I'm going to make you mine in the sight of men."

"But my father will never forgive you when he knows."

"I don't think he will ever find out my part, or Beekman either."

"Why not?"

"I can't explain, but if your father does find out what can he do? In six months I'll be independent of anything and anybody and when we are married we can laugh at him and at the rest of the world."

"At Beekman, too?"

"Yes, even at him. Stephanie, you don't know what it is to love as I do. For you I'd stop at nothing short of murder. You didn't believe me when I said that, but I meant it. I've made myself a criminal, I admit, but for your sake. Now am I going to fail of my reward? Do you want me to produce Derrick Beekman? Do you want him to come back and throw me in jail and marry you? Well, I didn't expect it; I didn't count upon it-" this was only a bluff, of course, since by no means could Harnash have got back Beekman from the Susquehanna then-"but if that is what you really want say the word. Can you turn down a love like mine, that will stop at nothing for your happiness? I swear to you that I believe it is as much for your happiness as my own. I won't say it is all for you, because I want you, but I am thinking of you all the time. I couldn't bear to see you in his arms. What is the little bit of scandal? It will be forgotten. When you are my wife I'll take care of you. If you don't want to live here we'll live anywhere. If I pull off two or three big deals that are in the air I'll be able to do anything. Oh, Stephanie, you aren't going back on me now?"

"You know that I couldn't do that," answered the girl, greatly moved by his passionate pleading. After all, she did love this man and not the other.

"You're the kind of woman that a man will do anything for. I'm sorry for Beekman, I'm sorry for everything, but I'm going to have you." He came close to her as he spoke. "Do you understand that?" he asked, raising his voice. "I did it for you, you, and no man shall balk me of my reward. If you won't come willingly, you shall come unwillingly."

"Oh," said the girl, "how horribly determined and wicked you are, and yet-"

As she looked up at him the passion with which he spoke, rough, brutal as it was, quickened again her heart that she thought was dead. For the first time in weeks the color rushed into her face.

"That's right," said Harnash, watching her narrowly. "I can still bring the blood to your cheeks."

He bent over her, he dragged her almost rudely from her seat and crushed her against him. He kissed her as roughly as he had spoken.

"This," he said, "pays for everything. If I'm found out, if I have to go to jail, I don't care. I'm glad. You love me. You can't deny it and in your heart of hearts you're glad and you'll be gladder every hour of your life."

The girl gave up. After all, what possibility of happiness did she have except with Harnash? More and more she appeared before the world as a thing cast off and scorned. Harnash's position in society and business was improving every day, but it was not that which influenced her. She really loved him. She responded to his pleading. Mistaken though he was, vicious as had been his design, that effort, wrong as was his method, showed her how much he loved her.

"You're not going to fail me now, are you? You need not answer. I can feel it in the beat of your heart against mine."

"No," said the girl. "I'm yours, I suppose."

"Don't you know?"

"Yes, I know. No one else would want me, discarded."

"I want you. I'd want you if the whole world rejected you."

"And you won't tell me where Derrick is?"

"No, it's a heavy secret to carry in one's breast. I feared that they would worm it out of me. You can't know what I've gone through," he went on. "I've been suspected and questioned and cross-questioned, but I never gave it away. It was you who kept me up. The thought of you always, you, you, you! Meanwhile I'm slaving my life out, almost wrecking my brain, to carry out these big deals, and when it is over and I have you they can do their worst. Your father, Beekman when he comes back-"

"Oh, then he will come back?"

"Of course he will. And I'll face them all. I don't know whether I have damned myself for you or not, but if I have, I don't care," he went on recklessly.

"It was my fault, anyway," said the girl. "I should have been stronger. I should not have agreed to such a marriage, and I should not have kept the agreement when I loved you."

"You need not say that," said Harnash-there was good stuff in him-"It is all my own plan and scheme. You were bound, and there was only one way to break the bond. Now I give myself six months. By that time the talk will have died out and we will be married."

"I'll marry you," said the girl, "or I'll marry no one else on earth, but before I marry you you must bring Derrick Beekman into my presence and he must release me."

"That is a harder thing than what I have done, but I'll do it. Provided you will help me."

"I will, but how?"

"When you see him you must tell him that you don't love him and that you wish to marry me."

"Very well. I'll do that part."

"And I'll do the other."

"Promise me, on your word of honor."

"Honor!" exclaimed Harnash bitterly. "Do you think, after what I have done, that I've got any honor, that you could trust to?"

"I'll be trusting myself to you," said the girl, "and you know what that implies."

"Say that you are glad that it has happened as it has, despite the scandal."

Stephanie looked at him a long time.

"You poor boy," she said, drawing his head down and kissing his forehead in that motherly way which all women have toward the men they love until the maternal affection has a chance to vent itself in the right direction. "How you must have suffered for me."

"It was nothing."

"Yes, I am glad," she said at last.