Читать книгу The Thing Beyond Reason - Elisabeth Sanxay Holding - Страница 6

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“Do you mind if I go out for a walk?” asked the crestfallen Lexy; for that was her instinct in any sort of trouble—to get out into the fresh air and walk.

“No,” answered Mrs. Enderby; “but I shall ask you to return in half an hour. There is much to be done.”

“Done!” cried Lexy. “But what can be done—now?”

“That I shall tell you when you return,” said Mrs. Enderby. “In the meantime, I trust you to say nothing of all this to any person whatever. You understand, Miss Moran?”

Miss Moran certainly did not understand, but she gave her promise to keep silent, and, putting on her hat and coat, hurried out of the house. Mighty glad she was to get out, too!

“But why make a mystery of it like this?” she thought. “Every one has to know, sooner or later, and it’s so—so ghastly, pretending that Caroline’s there! Oh, it doesn’t seem possible, Caroline running off like that, and I never even dreaming she was the least bit interested in any man! I don’t see how she could have seen any one or written to any one without my knowing it. It doesn’t seem possible!”

She had reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, and was waiting for a halt in the traffic, when she became aware of a young man who was standing near her and staring at her. She glanced carelessly at him, and he took off his hat, but he got no acknowledgment of his salute. He was a stranger, and she meant him to remain a stranger. The bright-haired, sturdy little Lexy was a very pretty girl, and she was not unaccustomed to strange young men who stared. She knew how to handle them.

As she crossed the avenue, he crossed, too. When she entered the park, he followed. Now Lexy was never tolerant of this sort of thing, and to-day, in her anxiety and distress, she was less so than ever. She turned her head and looked the young man squarely in the face with a scornful and frigid look; and he took off his hat again!

“Just you say one word,” said she to herself, “and I’ll call a policeman!”

Yet, as she walked briskly on, something in the man’s expression haunted her. He didn’t look like that sort of man. His sunburned face somehow seemed to her a very honest one, and the expression on it was not at all flirtatious, but terribly troubled and unhappy.

“Perhaps he thinks he knows me,” she thought. “Well, he doesn’t, and he’s not going to, either!”

And she dismissed him from her mind.

“When did Caroline go?” she pondered, continuing her own miserable train of thought. “While I was doing cross words in the library? If she went out by the front door, she must have gone right past the library. She must have known I was there—and not even to say good-by!”

It hurt. She had grown very fond of the shy, quiet Caroline, and she had firmly believed that Caroline was fond of her. What is more, she had thought Caroline trusted her.

“She didn’t though. All the time, when we were so friendly together, she must have been planning this and—what?”

She stopped short, her dark brows meeting in a fierce frown, for the unknown man had come up beside her and spoken to her.

“Excuse me!” he said.

Lexy only looked at him, but he did not wither and perish under her scorn.

“I’ve got to speak to you,” he said.

“It’s—look here! I’ve been waiting outside the house all morning. Look here, please! You’re Lexy, aren’t you?”

This was a little too much!

“If you don’t stop bothering me this instant—” she began hotly, but he paid no heed.

“Where’s Miss Enderby?” he cried.

Lexy grew very pale. Those were the words she had heard over the telephone last night, and this was the same voice.

For a moment she was silent, staring at him, while he looked back at her, his blue eyes searching her face with a look of desperate entreaty. All her doubts vanished. She had not been wrong. She had been right—she was sure of it. She knew that something had happened—something inexplicable and dreadful.

“Please tell me!” he said. “You don’t know—you can’t know—she told me you were her friend.”

“But who are you?” cried Lexy.

His face flushed under the sunburn.

“I—” he began, and stopped. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” he went on. “I’d like to, but, you see, I can’t. If you’ll just tell me where Car—Miss Enderby is! She’s safe at home, isn’t she? She—of course she is! She must be! She—she is, isn’t she?”

“Well,” said Lexy slowly, “I don’t see how I can tell you anything at all. I don’t know what right you have to ask any questions. I don’t know who you are, or anything about you.”

“No,” he replied, “I know that; but, after all, it’s not much of a question, is it—just if Miss Enderby’s all right?”

Lexy felt very sorry for him, in his obvious struggle to speak quietly and reasonably. She wanted to answer him promptly and candidly, for his sake and for her own, because she felt sure that he could tell her something about Caroline; but she had promised Mrs. Enderby to say nothing.

“It’s so silly!” she thought, exasperated. “If I could tell him, I might find out—”

“Find out what? Hadn’t Caroline written to say that she had gone away to get married? In a day or two, probably to-morrow, they would learn all the details from Caroline herself. This unhappy young man couldn’t know anything. Indeed, he was asking for information. Who could he possibly be? A rival suitor? Lexy remembered Caroline’s pitifully restricted life. Two suitors of whom she had never heard? It wasn’t possible!

“No,” she thought. “There’s something queer—something wrong!”

“Look here!” the young man said again. “Aren’t you going to answer me? Just tell me she’s all right, and—”

“What makes you think she isn’t?” asked Lexy cautiously.

He looked straight into her face.

“You’re playing with me,” he said. “You’re fencing with me, to make me give myself away; and it’s a pretty rotten thing to do!”

“Rotten?” Lexy repeated indignantly. “Rotten, not to answer questions from a perfect stranger?”

“Yes,” he said, “it is; because that’s a question you could answer for any one. I’ve only asked you if Miss Enderby is—all right.”

This high-handed tone didn’t suit Lexy at all. He was actually presuming to be angry, and that made her angry.

“I shan’t tell you anything at all,” she said, and began to walk on again.

He put on his hat and turned away, but in a moment he was back at her side.

“Look here!” he said. “Caroline told me you were her friend. She said you could be trusted. All right—I am trusting you. I’ve felt, all along, that there was—something wrong. I’ve got to know! If you’ll give me your word that she’s safe at home, I’ll clear out, and apologize for having made a first-class fool of myself; but if she’s not, I ought to know!”

Lexy stopped again. Their eyes met in a long, steady glance.

“I can’t answer any questions this morning,” she told him. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

“Then there is something wrong!” the young man exclaimed.

He was silent for a long time, staring at the ground, and Lexy waited, with a fast beating heart, for some word that would enlighten her. At last he looked up.

“I’ve got to trust you,” he said simply. “Caroline meant to tell you, anyhow. You see”—he paused—“I’m Charles Houseman, the man she’s going to marry.”

“Oh!” cried Lexy.

“Now you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

She stared and stared at him, filled with amazement and pity. Such a nice-looking, straightforward, manly sort of fellow—and such a look of pain and bewilderment in his blue eyes!

“But—did she say she would marry you?”

“Of course she did! She—look here! You don’t know what I’ve been through. It was I who telephoned last night. I—”

“But why did you? Oh, please tell me! I am Caroline’s friend—truly her friend. I want to understand!”

“All right!” he said. “I telephoned because I was waiting for her, and she didn’t come.”

“Waiting for—Caroline?”

“We had arranged to get married last night. She was to meet me, but she didn’t come,” he said, a little unsteadily. “Perhaps she just changed her mind. Perhaps she doesn’t want to see me any more. If that’s the case, I’ll trust you not to mention anything about me—to any one. You see now, don’t you, that I—I had to know?”

Lexy’s eyes filled with tears. Moved by a generous impulse, she held out her hand.

“I’m so awfully sorry!” she cried.

“Why? You mean—for God’s sake, tell me! You mean she has changed her mind?”

“I can’t tell you—not now.”

“You can’t leave it at that,” said he. He had taken her outstretched hand, and he held it tight. “I ought to know what has happened. I can’t believe that Caroline would let me down like that. She—she’s not that sort of girl. Something’s gone wrong. She wouldn’t leave me waiting and waiting there for her at Wyngate.”

“Wyngate!” cried Lexy. “But that was—”

She stopped abruptly. Caroline’s letter had been postmarked “Wyngate.” She had gone there to meet—some one. She had married—some one.

“I can’t understand,” Lexy went on. “It’s terrible! I can’t tell you now; but I’ll meet you here this afternoon, after lunch—about two o’clock—and I’ll tell you then.”

She turned away, then, in haste to get back to Mrs. Enderby, but he stopped her.

“Remember!” he said sternly. “I’ve trusted you. If Caroline hasn’t told her people about me, you mustn’t mention my name. I gave her my word that I would let her do the telling. I didn’t want it that way, but I promised her, and you’ve got to do the same. If she hasn’t told about me, you’re not to.”

“Oh, Lord!” cried poor Lexy. “Well, all right, I won’t! Now, for goodness’ sake, go away, and let me alone—to do the best I can!”