Chapter 19. Her Father's Ring

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_ CHAPTER XIX. HER FATHER'S RING

It was late the next night before Bettina found time to write a letter to Anthony. The town clock had struck ten, and Miss Matthews was asleep in the inner room. As Bettina settled herself at her desk there came through the open window the fragrance of the sea--the night was very still; she could hear across the harbor the beat of the music in the yacht club ballroom, and there was the tinkle of a mandolin on some anchored boat.

She found it difficult to put on paper the things which she decided must be said. Striving to explain she tore up sheet after sheet, then, growing restless at her repeated failure, she rose from her desk and crossed the room to the cabinet in the corner. In one of the drawers was a packet of letters from her mother. They were exquisite in phrasing and in sentiment. She wondered if she might not borrow from them something of their grace.

As she opened the drawer, her eyes fell on the little carved box. Mechanically she reached for it, and touched the spring. Then she stood staring down at her father's ring!

The words which she had once said to Diana echoed insistently in her ears: "People who can love many times, who can go from one person to another, aren't worth thinking about."

Why--she was like her father! He had loved once, and then he had loved again--and he had broken her mother's heart!

Shuddering, she flung the ring from her, and it rolled under the cabinet. She knelt to grope for it, and, having found it, she shut the box. But, like Pandora, she had let out a whole army of evil fancies, and they continued to oppress her.

When she went back to her desk she could not write, and at last she put away her papers and, wrapping herself in her long white coat, climbed to the cupola.

She had slept there many times with her mother. With only the stars above them, and on each side a view of the wide stretches of the sea, they had talked together, and Bettina had learned the beauty of the older woman's nature; having suffered much, she had forgiven everything.

"Your father," she would say, "was like a child seeking the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He was always looking for romance, forgetting that the most wonderful romance is that of the hearthstone and of the quiet heart. If he had ever really loved he would have known the joy of self-sacrifice, of self-effacement--but he did not love----"

"Love is self-sacrifice." Such had been the verdict of the woman who had given all, and who had received nothing. It was a hard philosophy, acquired after years of dreariness, and the child had listened and absorbed and believed. She had heard nothing of love's fulfilment, of the raptures of mutual tenderness. Hence she had been content with Anthony's somewhat somber wooing, until that moment when she had drifted with Justin through infinite space, and had learned the things which might be.

The thought of herself as mistress of Anthony's big house by the sea weighed heavily upon her. In those great rooms she would move softly for the rest of her days. Anthony would work and read and ponder, and when he was at Harbor Light she would sit lonely through the gray winter evenings, and the sad summer twilights. But with Justin--oh, the limitless possibilities!

With him each day would bring its wealth of vivid experience--there would be always the glory of his strength, the uplift of his radiant youth!

She put the vision from her. So had her father striven for joy, and he had missed all the great meanings of life--and she would not be like her father.

The wind was rising, and wailed fretfully above the waters. The stars were blotted out.

Bettina shivered. What a dark world it was!

She rose and went down-stairs. Again she sat down to her desk. But this time she wrote rapidly, and the letter that she wrote was not to Anthony!

When she had sealed and stamped it, she crept down the shadowy stairway, thence to the narrow street.

The mail box was at the corner, and she sped toward it; as she came back on flying feet, a whisper reached her from the darkness of the garden--a whisper which made her heart stand still.

"Betty----"

"_Justin_----"

He emerged from the shadows. "I didn't dare to hope I should see you. I ran away from the yacht club dance--and I'm due back there now. But I wanted you. I think I must have wished so hard that I wished you here. I wouldn't ring for fear I should wake poor Miss Matthews."

His eager whisper met no like response. "You shouldn't have come," she said, dully.

He bent down to look at her. Under the light from the street lamp he could see the disorder of her fair hair, the frightened look in her eyes.

"Dear one--what is it?"

"You mustn't call me that. Did you get my letter?"

"Yes. That's why I came--I knew that by this time you would have written to Anthony--that you were--free----"

"But I haven't written to Anthony."

"You haven't? Wasn't that the letter you just mailed?"

"No--I was mailing a letter to you----"

A sudden fear clutched him. "What did you have to say to me?"

"That--oh, Justin, I can't give Anthony up----"

"Why not?"

"Oh----We can't talk here. Come up-stairs quietly--we mustn't disturb Letty."

She glided ahead of him, and when he came into the shadowy room she was standing by the cabinet.

"I've something to show you," she said, and opened the carved box and held it out to him.

"It's my father's ring," she said; "he broke my mother's heart--and I won't break Anthony's."

Then, in halting sentences, she told him how that day she had come upon the ring. She told him her mother's history. And he listened, and insisted at last, tenderly, that she had made mountains out of mole-hills. But he found her obstinate.

"I must not break my promise," she insisted. "Happiness could never come to us."

And, white and wistful in the face of his flaming arguments, she held to her determination until he left her.

He had turned away wrathfully, and had reached the top of the winding stairway, when he heard her sobbing.

He came back swiftly, and gathered her in his arms.

"You're mine," he said, holding her close. "You know that, Betty."

She drew back from him. "Please," she begged, and so he let her go, and made his way blindly out of the room.

Miss Matthews sleeping feverishly, became aware above the sighing of the wind of an intermittent sound of woe.

She sat up and listened, put one foot out of bed, then the other, and throwing on her old gray wrapper, wavered toward the threshold of the door between the two rooms.

By the flickering light of the candle which burned on Bettina's desk she could see the little shaking white figure on the floor.

"Betty child," she said in a hoarse whisper, "dear child--what's the matter?"

"Oh," Bettina sat up and pushed her hair back from her tear-wet face, "oh, I've waked you up. I think I just forgot that there was any one in the whole wide world except myself----"

The expression on her tragic face told keen Miss Matthews that there was some deep trouble which needed help.

"You come right into my room," she said. "I don't dare stay up another minute. But I couldn't sleep if I tried, with a storm coming, and you can tell me all about it----"

But when she was settled luxuriously once more among her pillows, and with Betty curled up at the foot of the bed, an awkward silence fell between them.

At last Betty said, "Justin Ford was here. He's in love with me--Letty--but I sent him away----"

"Why did you send him away?"

"Because--because I'm not going to marry him, Letty----"

"Why not----"

"There's some one else. Some one who gave me these--Letty----"

She lifted her left hand with its burden of sparkling jewels.

"Who on earth?" Miss Matthews demanded.

"Anthony."

"Anthony _Blake_?"

"Yes."

Miss Matthews dropped back limply.

"You'll have to tell me from the beginning," she said, faintly. "I can't quite grasp it----"

And Bettina told--of her loneliness, of Anthony's wonderful offer, and of her glad acceptance of it.

"Well, your mother would have been delighted," Miss Matthews said; "but somehow it doesn't seem right."

"Why not----?"

"Oh, I'd fixed it up that you were going to marry Justin Ford. Captain Stubbs and I watched you that day we went fishing, and if ever two young things seemed to be in love--well----"

"I--we are in love, Letty."

"Then why in the world are you going to marry Anthony Blake?"

"Because I've promised--and I can't be like my--father. And I can't hurt Anthony--not when he has been so good to me."

She was sobbing again, and into the eyes of the little woman who had never had a daughter came a look of motherly solicitude.

"Dear child," she said, "if you are just going to marry Anthony Blake because you are grateful, don't you do it. No man wants a woman who feels that way--and you wouldn't make him happy----"

"But--I've sent Justin away--and he's angry with me. That is why I was crying when you found me----"

She was on her knees now beside the bed, and the old maid's arms were about her.

"There--there, dearie, you've thought too much about it, and you've come to believe that it's the things you like to do which are wrong. And it's really the other way."

Miss Matthews was thinking rapidly. There was some mystery. Anthony Blake was in love with Diana Gregory. He had always been in love with her. No one need try to tell her that he was not, for she _knew_. Then why was he engaged to Betty, and why had Diana gone away?

She had a sudden inspiration.

"Listen, Betty, there's just one person who can straighten things out, and that person is Diana Gregory. Men aren't any good at a time like this. They think with their heads, but women think with their hearts, and that's the kind of thinking that you need most now----"

"But, Letty----"

Miss Matthews waved her away. "You go and write to Diana and mail it to-night, and then come back and keep me company. I'm afraid of the storm."

It was at that very moment that Anthony was also writing to Diana. When he had left Bettina he had gone straight to Harbor Light and into a little inner office where he was guarded from all intruders by the assistant who sat in the anteroom. Not even a telephone could sound its insistent note in this place where the doctor gained, in a reclining chair, his few brief moments of rest, or where he worked out the intricacies of perplexing problems. Now and then he saw a patient there, but rarely. Usually he shut his door against all distracting influences, and gave his attention to the things which concerned himself alone.

What Sophie had told him about Diana had sent his thoughts flying to the wonder-woman up there in the woods. Even when he had talked to Bettina he had felt the consciousness of his thought of her.

Out of a full heart he wrote, holding back nothing, and when he had sealed and stamped his bulky missive, he, like Bettina, went forth to mail it.

As he passed through the garden a sudden gust of wind scattered a shower of rose petals in his path. That there were storms in the distance was evidenced by the low rumble of thunder and the vivid flashes of light.

It was on nights like this that his patients grew restless--poor abnormal things they were, afraid of life, afraid of death, seeing in wind and rain and in the battle of the elements the terrors of the supernatural.

But the night fitted in with Anthony's mood. He still wore his white linen office coat. His hat was off, and his gray hair was blown back from his forehead. The salt air exhilarated him. He felt a sudden lightness of heart. He wanted to shout like a boy. He had been grave for so long--but now his message had gone forth to Diana--to-morrow she would read it, and in two short days the answer would come.

He made his way to the beach; the vivid flashes showed the heaving blackness of the waters--the waves came in with a sullen roar.

He thought of the night when he had stood there with Diana, and when the moon had made a silver track. To-night there was no light--except Minot's--like a star. "I-love-you," it said to the lonely man who stood there in the darkness.

From somewhere in the garden a voice called him, then a nurse came running.

"I saw you go out," she panted; "perhaps you'd better come, doctor--they are getting all worked up about the storm."

Thus was his life made up of duty. There was never an uninterrupted moment. His strength was always being drawn upon to uphold the weakness of others. To-night his whole nature craved the tumult of the wild night. Yet he must calm himself to meet the needs of those who leaned upon him.

As he turned to follow the nurse, a big car whirled through the gate, and there sounded the trilling laughter of girls, the deeper jovial bass of young men.

Beneath the brilliantly-lighted entrance of Harbor Light the car stopped, and as Anthony came up, Sara and Doris descended with much shaking out of filmy dancing frocks.

Sophie, with seeming unconsciousness of the havoc which the rain had wrought on her lovely black gown, made a smiling explanation to Anthony.

"Justin and Bobbie tried to get the top up--but something caught and I thought we should all be drenched. And then your Harbor Light shone out to welcome us----"

Anthony was glad that they had come. He craved the lightness and brightness. He seemed suddenly to be one of them again--not a sad and somber being set apart. He had a sense of relief in Bettina's absence. It was as if her youth and beauty showed the contrast of his age.

He took them up to his sitting-room, then excused himself to make his rounds. "I'm going to have something sent up for you to eat--I know what slim fare they give at the club on the nights of the dances. I'll be with you soon."

While they waited for him Sara played; Bobbie and Doris danced--and Justin talked with Sophie.

He looked worn and white, and a line cut deeply into his forehead.

"I owe you an apology," he said, "for yesterday. But I couldn't help it. Bettina was so little and lovely--you know I wouldn't harm a hair of her head----"

Something in his voice made Sophie lay her hand on his. "My dear boy, my dear boy----"

"I'm awfully hard hit," he said, "but she--she's turned me down. I fancy it was our last flight together. Do you remember Browning's 'Last Ride'--

"'And heaven just prove that I and she,
Ride, ride--together--forever ride----'?

"Well, my heaven will be a place where she and I shall drift through infinite space--together----"

He stood up. Sara was coming toward them--a brilliant little figure in a flame-colored gown.

"I'm not going to bore you with my worries," Justin said, quickly--"but--I--I wish you'd be awfully good--to Bettina."

Sophie carried away with her that night the vision of his tragic young face, and before she went to bed she wrote to Diana, and her letter ended thus:

"Oh, dearest girl, oh, dearest girl, what have we done, what have we done----!" _

Read next: Chapter 20. The "Gray Gull"

Read previous: Chapter 18. Penance

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