maria hurried away to the basement with her tray, then, all unmindful of the fact that as yet her own fast had not been broken, sought cliff, who was in the library, his landlady having considerately offered him the freedom of the house while he was excluded from his own room.
"is it anything particular, maria?" the young man inquired when she had delivered her message, while he glanced at his watch, for he had an engagement with mollie for nine o'clock.
"yes, 'tis," the woman replied with an emphatic nod of her head; "it's very particular, and i'd advise you to 'tend to it now, while the squire's in the right mood."
cliff regarded her curiously a moment; but, as she did not seem inclined to say more, he observed:
"very well, i will go to him at once," and, following her from the room, he mounted the stairs and was soon knocking for admission at the door of the room above.
"good evening, squire talford, how do you find yourself to-night?" he inquired pleasantly upon entering at the man's bidding.
"i'm getting on very well," was the somewhat laconic reply.
"maria told me that you wished to see me. what can i do for you?" clifford asked, but instinctively scenting something unusual in the atmosphere.
"sit down," briefly commanded the squire and pointing at a chair opposite him. clifford obeyed, smiling indulgently at the peremptory tone.
"i've got a story to tell you," began the squire plunging at once into the disagreeable task before him, "and i expect it may surprise you a bit in some ways. my father died when i was a baby. he was a rich man, owning the place which has always been my home, besides considerable other property. he made a will before he died giving everything he possessed to my mother, and leaving her free to do with it just what she chose. two years afterward she married a second time—a man with no means, a bookworm and would-be literary man, who sometimes earned a little by his pen, though for the most part he was a failure from a pecuniary point of view.
"less than a year later there came another boy into the family—my half-brother—and at the end of another twelve months my mother was again a widow. from that time she lived only to rear and educate her children, who grew up together, nominally as brothers, but secretly antagonistic to each other from their earliest youth. from my boyhood i was thrifty and ambitious; all my interest and my pride were centered in my home, and i was always planning and working to improve it and make it yield a handsome income. my brother, on the contrary, would not work; he was fond of books, like his father, and, more than all, of a rollicking good time.
"he had no interest in the farm or in anything that pertained to the ways and means of living, and, as he grew toward manhood, he became wild and unmanageable, giving our mother many a heartache because of his reckless habits and extravagance. he always managed to get the lion's share of everything, and, although i know my mother did not mean to be unfair to me, she favored him in many ways, and denied herself almost every luxury to keep his pockets well filled. we both went to college, but when i was through i settled down to manage the estate and make the most out of it and what other property my mother owned. when bill finished his education he insisted that he must have a trip to europe. he had his way, and spent a pile of money—more than he had any right to—while i trudged on at home and bore all the burdens. about six months after he went away i became attracted to a—a handsome girl in new haven. her name was isabelle abbot."
"my mother!" exclaimed cliff with a sudden start and thrill of dismay, while he grew first crimson, then white.
"yes, your mother," sharply repeated the squire, "and, as i said, she lived in new haven, her father doing a good business there in gents' furnishing goods. she returned—or appeared to return—my regard for her, and we shortly became engaged and planned to be married the next fall, as soon as the harvesting was over. in june my brother returned from europe—the same rollicking, pleasure-loving, indolent fellow he had always been. my mother urged him to settle down to some business or profession, but he kept putting her off, telling her that when he found something that suited him he'd dip in, as he expressed it; but he didn't find what he wanted and continued to live his lazy life, but spending money just as freely as ever. it was a bitter day for me when i introduced him to the girl i expected to marry. he expressed a great deal of admiration for her, called me a 'lucky dog' and said he should 'be very fond of his pretty sister-in-law.'"
the bitterness in squire talford's tones as he repeated these sayings of his brother plainly betrayed that his heart was still very sore from these painful experiences of the past.
"well, it is the old story of treachery, and confidence betrayed," he resumed after a short pause. "he began to visit belle on the sly, and wormed himself into her affections, and i, while i could see that she was not quite the same as she was before he came home, never dreamed of what was going on between them, until one day—just a month before the day set for our wedding—they both disappeared, leaving only this to tell what had occurred."
the squire paused again and drew from the inner pocket of his dressing-gown a small, square leather case, which he passed over to clifford.
the young man took it with fingers that were trembling visibly, opened it and drew forth a soiled and yellow envelope addressed to mr. alfred h. talford and in a hand which he instantly recognized to be his mother's.
slipping the missive from the envelope, he unfolded it and read the following brief letter:
"alfred: i know that you can never forgive me the wrong i am doing you, but, too late, i have learned that i love another and not you. when you receive this i shall be the wife of that other—you well know who. i wish i could have saved you this blow, so near the day that was set for our wedding; but i should have doubly wronged you had i remained and fulfilled my pledge to you, with my heart irrevocably elsewhere. forget and forgive if you can. t.a."
clifford was very pale as he perused these lines; which had crushed all the brightest hopes of the man before him and embittered and warped his whole life.
he sighed, and a feeling of sympathy thrilled his heart as he returned the epistle to its worn, leathern receptable and handed it back to his companion, while he told himself that there must be depths to the man's nature that he had never suspected, or he would not have preserved and carried about with him for so many years this relic of an old-time love.
the squire hesitated before taking it, glancing irresolutely from it to clifford, as if half-ashamed of the tenacity with which he had clung to it, and was inclined to repudiate any further interests in it, but he finally put forth his hand to receive it and returned it to the pocket from which he had taken it.
"then, my mother married your half-brother, squire talford," clifford gravely observed, after a thoughtful pause, "and that makes you—"
"yes, it makes me your uncle, or half-uncle, though perhaps the least said about the relationship the better," was the somewhat bitter reply. then he resumed with pale, pain-drawn lips, which betrayed that it was no easy matter for him to lay bare these secrets of his heart; "you can, perhaps, imagine something of what that letter meant to me—it changed in one moment of time my whole life; it made a devil of me, and all the affection which i had previously entertained for those who had so wronged me turned to rankest hatred, and i vowed that i would some day make them conscious of the fact; that i would spare neither of them if the time ever came when i could set my heel upon them.
"that time came, at least for one, sooner than i expected. meantime, i married a thrifty, sensible girl who made me a good wife. i'd got to have somebody to keep house for me and look out for things generally, for my mother was giving out; that last act of bill's broke her heart as well as turned mine to stone. but she—my wife—didn't live so very long. i expect she found life rather disappointing, for she never seemed very chipper after the first month or two. so, when she died, i concluded i was better off alone, and, as maria had been thoroughly trained in the ways of the house and farm, i concluded i'd fight it out by myself. but, to go back a little," he continued, his voice suddenly hardening again, a little note of regret having crept into it while he was speaking of his mother and his dead wife. "mr. abbot, belle's father, was all broken up over her elopement; he had a long sickness, during which his business went to rack and ruin, and when he finally got out again he settled up the best he could and bought that little place where you spent the first thirteen years of your life, paying down what he could and giving a mortgage for the rest. i bought up that mortgage just as soon as i got wind of it, and that was the first grip i got toward paying off old scores. he and his wife lived there very quietly for a couple of years; then mrs. abbot died. her husband struggled on alone for ten or eleven months longer, and then he gave up the battle.
"he made his will only a few weeks previous, leaving his interest in his house to his daughter, if she ever came back, and made me administrator of the estate—that was another grip for me. you see, i held the mortgage, and as i'd never let on about my state of mind regarding that old disappointment, he naturally thought i'd be the best one to manage the business, if i could ever get trace of his daughter. ha!"
clifford moved uneasily in his chair, for the vindictiveness in his companion's voice rasped almost beyond endurance. the squire observed it, and a wintry smile flitted over his face.
"that strikes you as rather vicious, doesn't it?" he said. "but i told you that that wrong made a devil of me. well, mr. abbot hadn't been gone two months when his daughter came home, bringing her four-weeks'-old baby—you—with her."
"but, my father—where was he?" questioned clifford in an eager tone.
"that was more than any one could tell; he had deserted his wife nearly a year previous, and she never saw or heard from him afterward. here is the letter he wrote her, informing her of his intention. i found it among her papers after she died, and, as it struck me as being something rather unique, i have kept it as a curiosity and with the thought that it might prove useful to me at some time or other. it may, perhaps, serve to give you an inkling regarding his character."
he lifted a letter from the table beside him and handed it to clifford with a grim smile on his face.
this is what the young man read;
"i'm off. there is no use in longer trying to conceal the fact that i am tired of the continual grind of the last two years. it was a great mistake that we ever married, and i may as well confess what you have already surmised, that i never really loved you. why did i marry you, then? well, you know that i never could endure to be balked in anything, and as i had made up my mind to cut a certain person out, i was bound to carry my point. you know who i mean, and that he and i were always at cross-purposes. the best thing you can do will be to go back to your own people—tell whatever story you choose about me. i shall never take the trouble to refute it, neither will i ever annoy you in any way. get a divorce if you want one. i will not oppose it; as i said before, i am tired of the infernal grind and bound to get out of it. i'll go my way, and you may go yours; but don't attempt to find or follow me, for i won't be hampered by any responsibilities in the future."
"wretch!" he muttered between his tightly locked teeth. "and have you never heard anything of him since?"
"wait; let me tell my story in my own way and you will know all there is to know when i am through," the squire replied, and then resumed: "i told you that belle abbott came home with her baby, to find her father and mother both gone and with no resources for herself except the interest in the house where her parents had died. but she was thankful for even a roof to cover her, and, being a woman of considerable energy and strength of character, she began to look about for something to do to support herself and her child, and—to pay the interest on the mortgage, which, even then, was overdue."
again clifford moved restlessly, for the man's malice irritated him excessively, for he began to realize now, as he never had before, something of what his mother's wrongs and sufferings had been, and how this vindictive man had oppressed her to gratify a mean revenge.
"you think i was a 'wretch,' too, no doubt," said the squire. "i don't deny it; but you know the old saying that 'even a worm will turn when trod upon,' and my heart had been trampled to adamant and i had sworn that i would have my pay for it. your mother never went by her husband's surname after she came back—she called herself mrs. faxon, for she did not want you to know anything about the troubles of her life until you were old enough to comprehend them clearly. that was why she would never talk with you about your father. she had a first-rate education, having stood at the head of her class when she graduated from the normal school in new haven, and so she decided to open a private school in her own house and try to get her living that way. she managed to just about cover her expenses, except that she couldn't meet the interest on that mortgage, during the last few years, and so the place came into my hands, as you know, when she died. i didn't press her for the money, and i didn't show my hoofs to her very much. i—well, i had my reasons for it, as you will see." the man faltered and changed color here a trifle.
"so," he went on, bracing himself after a moment, "she naturally believed that i had wiped out old scores; but i hadn't. i simply wanted to work out certain plans which i had in view for you, and when i proposed that she should bind you to me for a term of years she fell into the trap without a suspicion, believing that i would look out for your future interests, and, if at any time your father's death could be proved, you would come in for a certain share of the property. but that was the very thing that i was determined should never happen, and so, when, the night before she died, she sent for me and gave me a box of letters and other papers explaining your parentage to keep for you until your time was out——"
"what!" cried clifford, flushing crimson with sudden indignation, "and you never gave them to me! why have you done this—this wicked, inhuman thing—why have you kept them from me?"
"because of that old devil in me, i suppose," was the dogged response. "the hatred which i had been nursing against your father and mother for so many years seemed to concentrate upon you. i never meant you should know who your father was, nor your relationship to me, nor that you should get a penny of your grandmother's property, if i could help it."
"did my grandmother make a will?" clifford briefly inquired.
"no, there was no will; but as nothing was ever heard of my brother, and as i had managed everything for years, the property has all remained in my hands," the squire replied.
"why have you told me all this now—why have you changed your mind and revealed these secrets?" clifford demanded as he leaned forward and gazed steadily into his companion's face. something about him seemed to fascinate the man, for he regarded him with a peculiar, searching look for a full minute.
"your eyes are very like your mother's," he musingly observed. "she had the most beautiful eyes i ever saw, and your features are something like hers. i used to think you looked like your father, but you have changed during the last few years, and you make me think of her to-night. oh!"—with a sudden start and giving himself a rough shake—"why have i told you this story now? well, for one reason, i was compelled to do so. i thought that box of papers would never see the light again—i meant to have burned it long ago, but kept putting it off—but fate has taken the matter entirely out of my hands. i had it safely locked away in an old trunk, with a lot of other papers, but while maria was cleaning house, after i came to washington, the trunk got a fall, was smashed, and she found it. she brought it along with her, and this morning she informed me that i must relate the facts of your history to you or she should take the matter into her own hands. of course, i preferred to face the inevitable," he concluded stoically.
"what are the papers in the box?" queried clifford.
"some old love-letters that passed between your father and mother while they were fooling me to the top of their bent, the certificate of their marriage, and another of your baptism, with some other things of minor importance."
"oh! then there is proof that my mother was legally married?" said clifford eagerly.
"yes, they were married, straight enough; though it wouldn't have surprised me at all if my scapegrace of a brother had made a fool of her. i never knew him to consult his conscience much where his own pleasure was concerned," said the squire dryly.
"i once inferred from something you said that there was some doubt about it," said clifford flushing.
"well, i was pretty mad at you that night, and i didn't care much what i said."
"you have said that my father was your half-brother, and that faxon was not his surname. what was his name?" the young man inquired with a clouded brow.
"well, it is natural that you should want to know, and these papers will tell you. i'll call maria and she will bring them to you," squire talford replied, and he rang the little handbell by his side, and which was to summon mrs. kimberly to the scene.
