A Woman Intervenes - Robert Barr (good book recommendations TXT) 📗

seriously; 'I wish she were.'

'Well, cheer up. Everything will come out right; you see, it always does. Nothing looked blacker than this matter about the telegram a few days ago, and see how beautifully it has turned out.'

Kenyon said nothing. He did not desire to discuss the matter even with his best friend. The two went up on deck together, and took a few turns along the promenade, during which promenade the eyes of Kenyon were directed to the occupants of the deckchairs, but he did not see the person whom he sought. Telling Wentworth he was going below for a moment, he left him to continue his walk alone, and on reaching the saloon Kenyon spoke to a stewardess.

'Do you know if Miss Longworth is in her stateroom?'

'Yes, sir, I think she is,' was the answer.

'Will you take this note to her?'

John sat down to wait for an answer. The answer did not come by the hand of the stewardess. Edith herself timorously glanced into the saloon, and, seeing Kenyon alone, ventured in. He sprang up to meet her.

'I was afraid,' he said, 'that you had been ill.'

'No, not quite, but almost,' she answered. 'Oh, Mr. Kenyon, I have done the most terrible thing! You could not imagine that I was so bold and wicked;' and tears gathered in the eyes of the girl.

Kenyon stretched out his hand to her, and she took it.

'I am afraid to stay here with you,' she said, 'for fear----'

'Oh, I know all about it,' said Kenyon.

'You cannot know about it; you surely do not know what I have done?'

'Yes, I know exactly what you've done; and we all very much admire your pluck.'

'It hasn't, surely, been the talk of the ship?'

'No, it has not; but Miss Brewster charged me with being an accomplice.'

'And you told her you were not, of course?'

'I couldn't tell her anything, for the simple reason that I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about; but that's how I came to know what had happened, and I am here to thank you, Miss Longworth, for your action. I really believe you have saved the sanity of my friend Wentworth. He is a different man since the incident we are speaking of occurred.'

'And have you seen Miss Brewster since?'

'Oh yes; as I was telling you, she met me on the deck. Dear me! how thoughtless of me! I had forgotten you were standing. Won't you sit down?'

'No, no; I have been in my room so long that I am glad to stand anywhere.'

'Then, won't you come up on deck with me?'

'Oh, I'm afraid,' she said. 'I am afraid of a public scene; and I am sure, by the last look I caught in that girl's eyes, she will stop at no scandal to have her revenge. I am sorry to say that I am too much of a coward to meet her. Of course, from her point of view I have done her eternal wrong. Perhaps it was wrong from anybody's point of view.'

'Miss Longworth,' said John Kenyon cordially, 'you need have no fear whatever of meeting her. She will say nothing.'

'How do you know that?'

'Oh, it is a long story. She went to the captain with her complaint, and received very little comfort there. I will tell you all about it on deck. Get a wrap and come with me.'

As Kenyon gave this peremptory order, he realized that he was taking a liberty he had no right to take, and his face flushed as he wondered if Edith would resent the familiarity of his tones; but she merely looked up at him with a bright smile, and said:

'I will do, sir, as you command.'

'No, no,' said Kenyon; 'it was not a command, although it sounded like one. It was a very humble request; at least, I intended it to be such.'

'Well, I will get my wrap.'

As she left for her state-room, a rousing cheer was heard from on deck. She stopped, and looked at Kenyon.

'What does that mean?' she asked.

'I do not know,' was the answer. 'Please get your things on and we will go up and see.'

When they reached the deck they saw everybody at the forward part of the ship. Just becoming visible in the eastern horizon were three trails of black smoke, apparently coming towards them.

The word was whispered from one to the other: 'It is the tug-boats. It is relief.'

Few people on board the steamer knew that their very existence depended entirely on the good weather. The incessant pumping showed everybody, who gave a thought to the matter, that the leak had been serious; but as the subsidence of the vessel was imperceptible to all save experts, no one but the officers really knew the grave danger they were in. Glad as the passengers were to see those three boats approach, the one who most rejoiced was the one who knew everything respecting the disaster and its effects--the captain.

Edith Longworth and John Kenyon paced the deck together, and did not form two of the crowd who could not tear themselves away from the front of the ship, watching the gradually approaching tug boats. Purposely, John Kenyon brought the girl who was with him past Miss Jennie Brewster, and although that person glared with a good deal of anger at Edith, who blushed to her temples with fear and confusion, yet nothing was said; and Kenyon knew that afterwards his companion would feel easier in her mind about meeting the woman with whom she had had such a stormy five minutes. The tug boats speedily took the big steamer in tow, and slowly the four of them made progress towards Queenstown, it having been resolved to land all the passengers there, and to tow the disabled vessel to Liverpool, if an examination of the hull showed such a course to be a safe one. The passengers bade each other good-bye after they left the tender, and many that were on board that ship never saw each other again. One at least, had few regrets and no good-byes to make, but a surprise was in store for her. Jennie Brewster found a cablegram from New York waiting for her. It said 'Cable nothing respecting mines. Letter follows.'


CHAPTER XV.


London again! Muddy, drizzly, foggy London, London, with its well filled omnibuses tearing along the streets, more dangerous than the chariots of Rome, London, with its bustling thoroughfares, with its traffic blocked at the corners by the raised white gloved hand of the policeman, London, with the four wheeled growler piled high with luggage, and the dashing hansom whirling along, missing the wheels of other vehicles by half an inch, while its occupant sits serenely smoking, or motioning his directions to his cabman with an umbrella; London, with its constantly moving procession of every sort of wheeled carriage, from the four-horsed coach to the coster barrow. London, London, London, London! the name seemed to ring in John Kenyon's ears as he walked briskly along the crowded pavement towards the City. The roar of its busy streets was the sweetest music in the world to him, as it is to every man who has once acquired the taste for London. Drink of the fountain of Trevi, and you will return to Rome. Drink of the roar and the bustle of London, and no other metropolis in the world, can ever satisfy the city-hunger in you again. London is London, and John Kenyon loved its very disadvantages as he strode along the streets.

He called at the office of George Wentworth, took that young man with him, and together they went to the place where the adjourned meeting of the London Syndicate was to be held. There were questions to be asked of the two young men, and the directors couldn't quite see why the reports had been so suddenly precipitated upon them, before the arrival of the experts they had sent out. So they had merely read the documents at the former meeting and adjourned until such time as the two young men could appear in person. Most of the directors were there, but, though Kenyon looked anxiously among them, he did not see the face of old Mr. Longworth. Questions were asked Kenyon about the position of the mines, about their output, and such other particulars as the directors wished to know. Then Wentworth underwent a similar examination. He pointed out the discrepancies which he had found in the accounts. He showed that there was an evident desire on the part of the owners of the different mines to make it appear that the properties paid better than they actually did, and he answered in a clear and satisfactory way all the questions asked him. The chairman thanked the young men for the evident care with which they had done their work, and the meeting then went into a private session to consider what action should be taken respecting the mines. When the two friends got out of the building, Kenyon said:

'Well, thank goodness that is over and done with. Now, George, what have you to suggest with reference to the mica-mine?'

'I think,' said Wentworth, 'we had better adjourn to my office and have a talk over the matter quietly there. Let us go into private session as the directors have done. I feel rich after having got my cheque, and the vote of thanks from the chairman; so I will spend a shilling on a hansom and get there with speed and comfort. Actually, since I have got back to London, I am spending all my surplus cash on hansoms. They are certainly the best and cheapest vehicles in the world. Think of what that pirate charged us for a ride from the hotel to the steamer in New York.'

'I don't like to think of it,' said Kenyon; 'it makes me shudder!'

'Do you know, John, I should not be inconsolable if I never saw the great city of New York again. London is good enough for me.'

'Oh, I don't know! New York is all right. I confess there are one or two of her citizens that I do not care much about.'

'Ah,' said Wentworth; then, after a few moments' reflection, he remarked suddenly, apropos of nothing: 'Do you know, John, I was very nearly in love with that girl?'

'I thought you were drifting in that direction.'

'Drifting! It wasn't drifting. It was a mad plunge down the rapids, and it is only lately I have begun to think what a close shave I had of it. The horror of those days, when I thought that despatch was going to New York, completely obliterated any other feeling in regard to her. If I had found she was a hopeless flirt, or something of that kind, who was trifling with me, I should have been very much shocked, of course, but I should have thought about my own feelings. Now, the curious thing is that I never began to think about them till I got to London.'

'Very well, Wentworth; I wouldn't think about them now, if I were you.'

'No, I don't intend to, particularly. The fact that I talk over them with you shows that the impression was not very deep.'

Wentworth drew a long breath that might have been mistaken for a sigh, if he had not just before explained how completely free he was from the thraldom in which