he turned off the remaining light, leaving only
the flicker of the firelight behind, shot back the bolt and strode from the
room.
As he passed Margaret's door there came softly:
"Is that you, daddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Come in, daddy, dear." Her clear young voice was confident and
tender.
He stopped, pushed back the door and entered her dainty room. She lay
propped up among the snowy whiteness of the pillows, smiling at him.
Like her mother, Margaret in her womanhood--she was eighteen--was
well made; her figure being as firm and well knit as that of a boy. For
an instant his eyes wandered over her simple gown of white mull, tied
at the throat with the daintiest of pink ribbons, her well shaped ears and
the wealth of auburn hair that sprang from the nape of her shapely neck
and lay in an undulating mass of gold all over her pretty head.
Whatever sorrows life had for him were nothing compared to the joy of
this daughter.
All his anger was gone in an instant.
"Little girl, you know it's against orders, this reading in bed," he said in
his kindly tone. Never in all her life had he spoken a cross word to her.
"You'll ruin your eyes and you must be tired."
She closed her book. "Tired--yes, I am tired. Mother's dinners are such
dreadfully long ones, and, then, daddy, to-night I've been worrying
about you. You seemed so silent at dinner--it made my heart ache. Are
you ill, daddy? or has something happened? I tried to sleep, but I
couldn't. I've been waiting for you. Tell me what has happened--you
will tell me, won't you, daddy?" Her smooth, young arms were about
his neck now. "Tell me," she pleaded in his ear.
"There's nothing to tell, little girl," he said. "I'm tired too, I suppose;
that's all. Come--you must go to sleep. Pouf!" and he blew out the
flame of the reading candle at her bedside.
* * * * *
For a long time that night Thayor sat staring into the fire in his room,
his mind going over the events of the day--the luncheon--the talk of
those around the table--the tones of Holcomb's voice as he said, "It was
about his wife," and then the added refrain: "He couldn't get away; his
little girl fell ill." How did his case differ?
Suddenly he roused himself and sprang to his feet. No! he was wrong;
there was nothing in it. Couldn't be anything in it. Alice was
foolish--vain--illogical--but there was Margaret! Nothing
would--nothing could go wrong as long as she lived.
With these new thoughts filling his mind, his face brightened. Turning
up the reading lamp on his desk he opened his portfolio, covered half a
page and slipped it into an envelope.
This he addressed to Mr. William Holcomb, ready for Blakeman's hand
in the morning.
CHAPTER THREE
Two days subsequent to these occurrences--and some hours after his
coupe loaded with his guns and traps had rumbled away to meet
Holcomb, in time for the Adirondack express--Thayor laid a note in his
butler's hands with special instructions not to place it among his lady's
mail until she awoke.
He could not have chosen a better messenger. While originally hailing
from Ireland, and while retaining some of the characteristics of his
race--his good humor being one of them--Blakeman yet possessed that
smoothness and deference so often found in an English servant. In his
earlier life he had served Lord Bromley in the Indian jungle during the
famine; had been second man at the country seat of the Duke of
Valmoncourt at the time of the baccarat scandal, and later on had risen
to the position of chief butler in the establishment of an unpopular
Roumanian general.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he was at forty-five past
master in domestic diplomacy, knowing to a detail the private history
of more than a score of families, having studied them at his ease behind
their chairs, or that he knew infinitely more of the world at large than
did his master.
Blakeman had two absorbing passions--one was his love of shooting
and the other his reverent adoration of Margaret, whom he had seen
develop into womanhood, and who was his Madonna and good angel.
At high noon, then, when the silver bell on Alice's night table broke the
stillness of her bedroom, her French maid, Annette, entered noiselessly
and slid back the soft curtains screening the bay window. She, like
Blakeman, had seen much. She was, too, more self-contained in many
things than the woman she served, although she had been bred in
Montmartre and born in the Rue Lepic.
"Did madame ring?" Annette asked, bending over her mistress.
Alice roused herself lazily.
"Yes--my coffee
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