Doubly false

The first step that Virginia Lander took in the business that brought her to town was, as we have seen, to visit Lawyer Stone, who gave her some vague encouragement about raising the money. He asked a good many embarrassing questions, which she was not prepared to answer, and which excited a little distrust in that acute mind with regard to things that had gone before. Ellen had answered for her once or twice, and that rather added to the general bad effect of the visit. In fact, Virginia left the lawyer’s office a little disheartened. This helping a fellow creature out of the results of a crime is no easy matter, as she was doomed to learn.

“Now,” said Ellen, “let us go to him. Oh! lady, my heart aches with desire; I so long to look on his face again.”

They were near the Park now, and Virginia beckoned a carriage. When she gave her orders to the driver, Ellen interposed.

“Not to the house, lest we draw attention to it. Let him stop at the corner.”

Virginia acquiesced, and they were set down in Madison Avenue, where the man was ordered to wait. There was a shade of mystery in all this which troubled Virginia.

When they opened the gate, Brian Nolan came to the door and held it open, gazing at them wistfully as they came up the walk. Ellen answered his look with a smile which brought glad light into his eyes.

“Go up,” said Brian, “he is in the back room, close by the stairs. If the lady pleases, she can wait in the drawing room.”

He opened the drawing-room door, and Virginia, amazed by all she saw, went in. Was this the home of Ellen Nolan’s brother, the man who was in such abject need of money? For a moment all sympathy for him went out of her heart. Those sumptuous surroundings revolted her, for with all those changes the girl did not recognize the house as one that had belonged to her father.

Ellen went up stairs, trembling in every limb. This brother had been, since she could remember, the romance of her family, the being for whom they had all made sacrifices and endured those haunting anxieties which frequently knit an offender closest to the family heart. To Ellen this young man had been a sort of hero, splendid even in his faults; she did not allow even the crime which she knew of to shake her faith in his fine qualities, utterly. It wounded her to the soul, but she said to herself, “He must have been fearfully tempted.”

Into the room she went, half afraid and so overcome by a rush of affection that she could hardly stand. Seymour was lying on the dainty couch where Cora had so often idled her time away. His face was turned to the wall, one hand was thrust under the silken pillow and the other lay clenched upon his bosom.

Ellen stole to the couch, and, kneeling down, took the clenched hand between both hers.

“My brother!”

Seymour turned instantly, fixed his eyes on that face and cried out:

“Is it Ellen? Is it the poor girl he loved little better than all the rest?”

“Yes, brother Alfred, it is Ellen. He loved me better than the rest because of this.”

She touched her shoulder with a simplicity that was more than pathetic.

“He knew that I should have so much need of love,” she added, answering the mournful glance of his eyes.

“Who could help loving you, child?”

It was natural to call Ellen a child; everybody did it, though in thought and feeling she was so old.

“Oh! if I could make you love me, brother!”

“I do—I do; between us there is a terrible sympathy which united us closest in our father’s love.”

“I know what you mean!” said Ellen, with a smile that brought tears into the young man’s eyes.

“That was nothing to the deformity which lay here,” he said, with bitter emphasis, striking the clenched hand against his heart. “You awoke all the tenderness of his soul, I tortured him through his entire life, robbed his little ones of their natural rights, and lie here accursed in my own mind—little better than a convict, Ellen Nolan!”

“Hush,” she said, gently, “I will not hear you talk so. This one act, which preys upon us all, can be retrieved. She is below.”

“She! Who? Not—not—Ellen, dear, tell me who it is.”

“My young mistress!”

“Which? Who are you talking of?”

“Miss Virginia Lander!”

Seymour fell back on the couch, great beads of perspiration started to his forehead. He absolutely panted for breath.

“I thought it had been—had been—but no matter, it is before the time. I am mad to dream of it yet. This other lady, what is she doing here?”

“She has come to save you—to save us all. This morning she has been to raise the money you want.”

Seymour started up wild and pale.

“What!”

“She is my friend—she saved my life. She saw my father when he prepared us all to die. Now she comes here to save his son from something worse than death.”

“You know it—she knows it?”

“Yes, she knows it. I could not ask help without giving confidence.”

“She will betray me!”

“She would die first.”

“Are you sure—are you sure, Ellen Nolan?”

“Oh, brother, you do not know her!”

“And she will give me this money? Remember, it is three thousand dollars.”

“I know; that is what she asked for.”

“And will she get it? Are you sure?”

“I think so; the gentleman the same as promised.”

Seymour threw both arms over his head and burst into a wild passion of tears.

“Saved! saved! Oh, my God, I am grateful, so grateful!”

His whole frame shook. He clasped both hands over his face and the tears streamed like rain from beneath them.

“She does not know all the good she is doing; she has lifted a human soul out of a plight so desperate that he was ready to kill himself.”

“No, no! not that! You could not have thought it!” cried Ellen, clinging to him.

“She has redeemed me—that which the prayers and entreaties of a good father failed to do, this young girl has accomplished. From this day, with God Almighty’s help, I will be a good man.”

He was in earnest. Those clasped hands uplifted to Heaven—those features, quivering with strong emotion, bespoke the energy of a fixed resolution.

“Our father knew that this day would come, and believing it, sent you his last blessing,” said Ellen, almost in a whisper.

Seymour turned his wet face and looked mournfully into her eyes.

“Did he? My poor father! my poor father!”

“They were the last words he ever spoke.”

“And I so unworthy! God forgive me!”

“I knew,” said Ellen, speaking low and with tears in her voice, “I knew, from that awful hour, how it would end. The duties he laid down were given to me: I am feeble and hardly worth the life she saved; but God sometimes gives great purposes into weak hands.”

“You came here with a noble purpose, Ellen.”

“She came with a noble purpose; this three thousand dollars is all she has got in the world.”

“And is ready to give it to a man she never saw?”

“She offers it of her own free will.”

“Ellen, is this lady a woman or an angel?”

“Both, I think.”

“God bless her! God forever bless her! She has saved me! she has saved me!”

“God has blessed her, for she is dearly beloved,” said Ellen.

The poor girl spoke very sadly. Seymour leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

“I will love you dearly, little sister.”

She lifted those wistful eyes to his.

“You and I will be all the world to each other yet,” she said. “I know it.”

The young man smiled for the first time that day. He was thinking of another love which would forever stand pre-eminent with him—of the sweet promises given during that midnight ride. Now that his secret might be kept from her and the whole world, there was love for him deeper and far more precious than Ellen ever dreamed of. In a week, a single week, he would stand without fear before the whole world and openly claim Cora Lander, the most beautiful woman and richest heiress in New York, as his wife. The iron chain of his crime was about to fall from him. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he bent over Ellen with a pity in his eyes that almost broke her heart.

“Heaven so deal with me as I am kind and generous to you little sister!”

Ellen arose; he also stood up, caressing her with his hand.

“I wish you knew how happy I am! What a dead, heavy weight has been lifted from my heart!”

“I do know; it brightens all your face. I too am happy. It is the sweetest thing in life to be grateful. Good-bye, brother; we shall come again the moment that money is paid. Then you will have cause for joy.”

“Are you going, Ellen?”

“My lady is below, will you go speak with her?”

“Not now, dear; this news has unmanned me; I could not thank her without making a child of myself. Say this for me, Ellen, and say also that, while I live, I shall be grateful to her. Some day soon I will prove it.”

Ellen went down stairs and found Virginia looking through the lace curtains of the drawing-room window. A close carriage stood on the opposite side of the street from which a man was stepping to the pavement.

“Come here, Ellen,” said Virginia, in a low voice. “It is very strange, but I thought—you know it is impossible—but a face like that of Mr. Brooks seemed to be taking a survey of this house.”

Ellen caught her breath, but went up to the window and looked out, with Virginia’s arm over her shoulder. They did not know it, but that moment Seymour was looking out of the upper window, just above them. He saw nothing but a close carriage driving up the street. The man who had stepped from it was walking quietly along the sidewalk, but this conversation had passed between him and Clarence Brooks, who had just driven away:

“That is the man, but do not arrest him while ladies are in the house. When they leave, lose no time.”

“All right. You can depend on it, I’ll make a neat job of the affair. It isn’t often one has a chance at so handsome and gentlemanly a fellow.”

So the man walked on in a careless, idle way, which disturbed no one, until Virginia and Ellen left the house. Then he turned and followed them to the carriage, doing a little amateur business of his own, not set down in the programme.

“Now that the Canary birds have flown, I may as well go to work in earnest,” he muttered. “What a jolly nest the fellow has got into! Upon my word I hate to spring the trap on him, and so did the gentleman, or I’m no judge of a man’s face. How deadly white he was when that girl came to the window. His jaw closed like iron—jealous, I wonder? Robbed him double. I’ll be sworn. I may as well begin.”

With a soft step, the man paused at the gate, stopped at the fountain, and, picking a sprig of myrtle from one of the plants still left in the open air, fastened it daintily into his button-hole. Then he sauntered leisurely up to the door and rang the bell.

Brian Nolan opened the door with a frightened face. It was not often that strangers called to see any one there, and the least sound agitated him.

“Was Mr. Seymour in?”

The man did not wait for an answer, but gently pushed by the boy and entered the hall.

“Tell him that I have a letter, or rather a scrap of writing, from a lady who could not say all she wished when she saw him. It is only a line, and in pencil.”

“Give it to me, I—I will deliver it, should he come here.”

“Beg your pardon, promised not to let it go out of my hands. Up stairs—yes, I am sure she told me I would find him up stairs.”

Again the man pushed by Brian, who attempted to intercept him, and quietly walked up stairs. Seymour heard the sound of voices and stood on the threshold of the boudoir listening. The hand with which he held the half open door grew cold and white, and he was about to retreat into the room, when some word about a lady’s letter brought the blood again to his scared face. He took a single eager step into the hall, hesitated, and was drawing back again, when the strange man came swiftly up the stairs and laid a hand on his arm.

“Mr. Seymour, excuse the intrusion, but here is a paper for you to read.”

Seymour reached out his hand slowly for the paper, looked at the man for a minute, turned deadly white, opened it with terrible quietness and read a warrant for his arrest.

“I wish you had come two hours earlier, it would not have seemed so hard. Give me a few moments for preparation,” he said, after a little; “I will not keep you long.”

“As many as you like,” answered the man, seating himself among the silken cushions of Cora’s couch. “One might find much more unpleasant places to wait in.”

The man punched one of the pillows into a compact shape and planted his elbow on it as he spoke. Seymour saw the action with a dreary look of despair. At another time he would have flung any man headlong from the window for daring to seat himself among the cushions her cheek had touched. But now—now he turned aside with a groan and went into his chamber. With a slowness that seemed like composure, it was so awful and still, he took from one of his bureau drawers a revolver and examined it. The barrels were all loaded, a single movement of the finger and he would be far beyond the reach of that man. He lifted the weapon to a level with his forehead, turned it and placed the muzzle between his knitted brows. A hand struck the weapon upward and wrenched it from his grasp. Brian Nolan’s face, whiter than whiteness, looked into his.

“Coward!”

Seymour shook from head to foot.

“Brother!”

The boy flung himself upon that wretched man’s bosom and cried out, in the anguish of his self-reproach:

“Oh, forgive me! forgive me, I did not mean to call you that!”

“Anything unpleasant going on?” questioned a calm voice close by them.

“No, sir; nothing. I am his brother,” said Brian; “pray, leave us alone.”

“Oh, I understand,” said the man, glancing at the revolver. “Often the case when one of my customers happens to be a real gentleman. Rather unfair to me, though; Coroner’s inquest, and all that, hurts a man in his profession. Didn’t think of that, I dare say!”

Seymour turned his face all white, and withered, upon the man; he was wondering how careless words could come from human lips when he was in such mortal distress.

“Do go!” pleaded Brian, “you are killing him.”

“And have that bit of tragedy over again? No, I must not lose sight of him.”

“I must speak with my brother!” said Seymour, in a husky voice.

“Leave us! leave us, I beg of you!” added Brian. “He shall not harm himself.”

“Give me that trinket, then,” said the officer, pointing to the pistol.

Brian handed it to him, and once more the brothers were alone.

“What shall I do? What can I do?” said Brian.

“Keep it from her, for God’s sake, keep it from her!”

“And from Ellen?”

“Tell her later, but not yet. Poor girl! poor girl! better for her that I perish in prison unknown! Thank God, our father’s honorable name has been spared!”

“Can I make no effort to save you, my brother?”

“None—listen. I was a coward, but it was only for her sake. Save her from a knowledge that would break her proud heart, and you shall see how much I can endure. Come to me in the prison, Brian; I shall have plenty of time for thought there. Oh! my God, my God, help me to endure it!”

“I would suggest,” said the calm voice again, “that this conversation is too exciting for any good to come from it. Better take a night’s sleep on the gentleman’s affair. If your brother is at all sensitive about appearances, I have no objection to a carriage. Covered up my star on purpose to make the whole thing as genteel as possible. In fact, the gentleman who thinks himself aggrieved made that a special request. He even left a sum of money in my hands to buy up the reporters—not that I think it can be done for money—most of those chaps are kind-hearted fellows as ever lived, and are ready enough to spare a man. If they all agree to it, he is safe.”

“Ask them to spare me for the sake of—of my friends,” said Seymour, in a low voice. “If death could do it, I would die.”

“Never fear, we will arrange that. When all parties agree upon one point, it is easily settled; never met with a more amicable case in all my experience. Oh here is the carriage; I will trust to your honor. You and I will walk out of this house like two friends going for a sociable drive, say in the Central Park. Lovely spot—think I have seen you driving there—pair of chestnut horses, superb—always alone, though—thought that rather singular, upon my honor I did.”

Chatting thus in an airy, pleasant fashion, the officer led the way through the hall and into the yard, where the fountain was still throwing up water drops like a child at play.

“Some people looking out of that window opposite; suppose we gather a bouquet from these plants; looks innocent, and will satisfy any curiosity that two carriages and my walking up and down has excited among the crinolines. Charming institution, but curious—very.”