CHAPTER XIV.

PERCY SEABRIGHT’S ADVICE.

While she was musing, with gentle regret, over her absent friend, Emmett, the little bell-boy reappeared with a card that bore the name: “Percy Seabright.”

Mr. Seabright had been absent from Boston nearly six weeks, visiting a brother out West, he said, and Italy had not thought of him during his absence. The episode of that day at Winthrop when she had asked him, as her father’s dearest friend, to help her trace her father’s murderer, had almost passed from her mind, in the stress of later hurrying events. But everything rushed back upon her now, and she descended in eager haste to meet and welcome the caller.

Fresh, bright, debonair as the morning, he took her hand, exclaiming:

“It is a great pleasure to meet you again, my little friend.”

His beaming smile, his friendly voice went like a ray of sunshine to Italy’s sore heart.

“I only returned yesterday, and called on Mrs. Dunn last evening, of course,” he went on, in his blithe fashion, his bright eyes searching hers almost tenderly. “I saw Alexie, and she told me where to find you, so I came at the earliest permissible hour this morning. Have you forgotten our compact of friendship, little one?”

She smiled in answer, and he chattered on:

“You have thought hardly of me, perhaps, for appearing to neglect the earnest request you made of me the day we went yachting. Well, there were reasons--and I came here to-day to explain them. And I brought these as peace-offerings.”

The peace-offerings were a new novel by a fashionable author, and an exquisite bunch of hothouse flowers.

“Alexie told me you were going to the theater to-night, so I thought the flowers would be very welcome.”

“They are. Thank you very much for remembering me,” she answered gratefully.

She was so lonely, poor child! and kindness went straight to her sad heart.

His keen eyes were regarding her expressive face intently.

“You don’t look happy,” he said tenderly. “Never mind, I will try to cheer you up, now that I am back in Boston. So you are intimate with the Audenreids, eh?”

“Only with Alexie. Alys and her aunt seem to dislike me.”

“Jealous of you,” he commented gaily. “Ever been to their house, Miss Vale? Ever seen Mrs. Dunn’s mother?”

“No,” she answered.

“Well, you ought to. ‘Ma,’ as Mrs. Dunn calls her, is such an oddity she would amuse you, only they keep her so carefully in the background. Give you my word, I was engaged to Ione before she ever permitted me to see her ma. Kind old soul, but ridiculous--very. Shoddy in the extreme. Parlor hung round with glaring, cheap chromos.”

There rushed over Italy the words Emmett Harlow had said to her:

“Percy Seabright is not true nor sincere. He makes fun of everything about Mrs. Dunn, yet pretends to be her friend, even her lover.”

The smile froze on her sweet lips, and her glance grew severe.

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Seabright,” she exclaimed, “but I do not like to hear you ridicule Mrs. Dunn in that fashion. It is not fair. She is your fiancée, is she not?”

“It is nothing but a flirtation, I assure you, Miss Vale. I am not a marrying man. I like my liberty too well. But I have offended you by my levity. I am sorry.”

Her fair face was still very grave.

“I have no right to lecture you,” she said, “and yet, since you were my father’s friend and mine, I will speak out. Your levity grieves me, makes me distrustful of your sincerity. For since you can speak so lightly of the woman you profess to love, how can I trust to your friendship? Perhaps you will go back to her this evening and hold me up to her idle laughter.”

“Heaven forbid!” he exclaimed earnestly. “Miss Vale, will you believe that I gave vent to all that nonsense just because I wanted to brighten that grave little face with some laughter and dimples? But I have offended you instead. I will go.”

But he did not move to do so. He sat still, fixing his bright, dark eyes on hers with a gaze so strange and intent that it made her shiver, although she could not take her eyes away. Gradually a hard, cold gleam crept into his bright gaze. It was a serpent charming a bird.

Suddenly Italy seemed to realize that he was trying to dominate her mind by a subtle will-power of his own. With an effort she turned aside her head, avoiding that baleful gaze.

Percy Seabright gave a low, strange laugh.

“So you will not forgive me?” he said regretfully; “and yet you have no call to take Mrs. Dunn’s part; she has always openly hated you.”

“And for that reason I can but pity her more. Her ignoble nature can but evoke the pity of a nobler mind,” Italy answered gravely, then continued: “If you wish me really for your friend, you must give over these witticisms at the expense of your friends. They pain me, they turn my heart cold with distrust of your professions.”

It was true. At that moment her heart felt a strange recoil against the man whom she wished to like for her dead father’s sake.

Perhaps Emmett Harlow’s warning was working in her mind; perhaps it was the strange expression with which he looked at her, a sneering smile and a strong uplifting of the black, arched brows that gave him a startling resemblance to Mephistopheles in “Faust,” completely transforming the usual sweet, winning expression into something positively uncanny.

“Oh, don’t look like that!” she cried, lifting her hand with a gesture of strong repulsion. “I--am--afraid--of--you.”

Percy Seabright threw back his head and laughed convulsively.

“What do you mean, Miss Vale, you amusing little girl? How did I look?”

“This way----” she replied frankly, and quoted the lines:

“‘There was a laughing devil in his sneer, That raised emotions both of hate and fear; And where his glance of hatred darkly fell, Hope writhing fled, and mercy sighed farewell.’”

Again he laughed convulsively, but her grave expression presently restored his composure.

“Thanks for your compliment. You are very candid, I am sure,” he replied gaily. “You tempt me to go upon the stage. I might get an engagement in ‘Faust.’”

“Yes, if you could act the part as well as you looked it just now,” she replied spiritedly.

Suddenly Percy Seabright’s smile faded, and he assumed a repentant air.

“A truce to jesting,” he exclaimed. “My little friend, you are rather hard on me, I think. I assure you that ridicule of each other is current coin in society, and that it holds no real malice, only simple pleasantry. Mrs. Dunn, whose part you so nobly take, doubtless makes fun of me to her intimates, and I am positively certain that her ma detests me. So let us forget this little episode, and permit me to remind you that your noble father loved and trusted me to the hour of his death, so that you ought to consider his judgment equal to your own.”

It was his trump-card, and he played it skilfully. The cold lines of her lovely face softened insensibly, and he looked up with a flickering smile.

“If I have been too harsh you must pardon me,” she said. “I am but little versed in the ways of society. My mother’s gentle teachings and my own instincts are the only guides I have had to what is right and just.”

At the mention of her mother’s name he turned aside his head to hide a frown of sullen anger, and did not look back at her until he had summoned an artificial smile.

“I am sure that these guides have been the most correct ones, Miss Vale; better, far better than the hollow teachings of society,” he exclaimed. “In future I will try to restrain those faults that arise only from a thoughtless levity, not from a vicious mind, and perhaps I may better deserve the boon of your sweet friendship.”

With a graceful gesture he lifted her small hand and pressed his lips upon it, then let it fall, with a deep sigh. He was, in fact, dropping suddenly, as was his wont, from levity into a mood of profound melancholy.

Italy took it for sincere repentance, and softened toward him more and more. Somewhat embarrassed by remembering the impulsive lecture she had given him, she dropped her eyes to the pages of her book and was cursorily reading when he said gently:

“Now that we are good friends again, let us return to the subject on which we were interrupted in August, and to resume which I came here this morning.”

“Yes,” she answered eagerly, her eyes bright with interest.

He continued, low and earnestly:

“You asked me to help you to find a clue to your father’s murderer that the stain of unmerited disgrace might be washed from your mother’s name.”

“Yes, oh, yes,” breathed the eager young girl.

“Miss Vale, or Italy, if I may call you so--it seems so much more friendly--you cannot guess what a thorn was implanted in my heart by your request. I had loved your father dearly--dearly, and it was but natural I should wish to bring his slayer to justice. Yet--yet--suppose that my suspicions pointed to another friend whom I also loved? Can you fancy a situation more harrowing?”

His face was deathly pale, his eyes gleamed wildly, his voice was low and intense.

“Tell me,” he said persuasively, “have you not suspected a certain man we both know? Yes, I see it in your eyes.”

“No, no, I was wrong--I feel that I was wrong. I must seek elsewhere for the clue,” she cried wildly.

“No, you were right, Italy. Your instinct was correct, although now you wish to deny it out of a chivalrous respect for the memory of the dead--yes, the dead, for he whom we both suspect is no longer amenable to the law for his crime. He has passed to his dread account.”

Her eyes grew dim, her face ghastly.

“Oh, you cannot mean Francis Murray?” she breathed, in a voice of absolute agony.

“Alas! that I must answer yes, for it is plain to me that you gave him more regard than was his due. But, Italy, who else was benefited by your father’s death?”

“That is no proof of crime,” she cried desperately. She who had come to Winthrop to fasten that guilt upon Francis Murray was now mad to prove him innocent.

“True,” answered Percy Seabright sadly, “but suppose I tell you that Francis Murray, then a poor young man, at odds with fate, living far from Winthrop, was at The Lodge secretly the night of your father’s murder--came there secretly, went away secretly, and the next morning found himself heir to the Vale millions--what then?”

“If he were alive he could prove his innocence, no matter how dark the cloud of circumstantial evidence!” she cried.

“Poor child! you loved him, and your love blinds you. How can I blame you? for I loved him, too, he was so winning. In spite of what I knew I tried to believe him innocent, and I would never, while he lived, have betrayed my knowledge of the hidden crime of which I feared--not believed--he must be guilty. Yet he is dead--betrayal cannot harm him now--and how can I withhold from your desolate, orphaned heart the evidence of your mother’s innocence? But it is yours to do with as you will, to make public or keep secret as you will. Yet my own advice would be--let them rest, those two--your mother and the man you loved--in their quiet graves. By so doing you can shield his memory; and as for her, the jury found her innocent, and public opinion does not matter.”

“It does matter. Alas! you do not understand!” she cried out, in bitter anguish; then, desperately:

“What did that secret visit count against him? He was poor, you say? Perhaps he came to ask his kinsman for assistance.”

“And being refused took a dastardly revenge, eh?” returned Percy Seabright, with a grim pleasantry that made her shudder, it was so heartless.

“Oh, this is terrible!” she cried helplessly; then, with sudden, strange defiance: “You cannot prove what you have declared!”

“I _can_ prove it--to Francis Murray’s face, if he were alive. Yet I do not say I can prove the murder. It is circumstantial evidence, you see, the same as it was against your mother. But both of them might be perfectly innocent. Suppose you employ a detective to ferret out the affair--only the publicity would break the loving heart of Francis Murray’s mother.”

“True, true, I will do nothing yet. I will wait--a little while--until I can make sure of something,” she declared, and Percy Seabright eagerly applauded her resolution.