CHAPTER XXV

JOHN RYDER FORGIVES FATE

They might have arrived at the Pinewood Inn earlier had not the officer and her captive been met before they crossed the inlet to the hotel by a man with a bandage swathing his jaw. Ryder had considerable trouble in identifying the deputy sheriff, whom he had last seen struggling in the tide.

"Got him," said Miss Solomons briefly to the deputy. "He came back without making any trouble."

She seemed, Ryder thought, a little sorry that she was forced to hand him over to the mercy of the other officer. For that deputy did seem vindictive.

"Got a warrant, have you?" asked Miss Solomons, as an afterthought.

"Oh, I know my business. I'll get the warrant, all right," growled the man with the bruised jaw.

"You can't arrest without a warrant on such a charge," declared the house detective, suddenly taking up cudgels for John Ryder.

"Oh, I'll hold him all right. He's been stealing----"

"Who makes the complaint?" asked the culprit mildly. "Of course, old fellow, I'm sorry you obliged me to hit you. If anything I can do will salve your lacerated feelings----?" He drew out his wallet.

"You stole that coal," growled the man, his eyes glittering, however, when he saw the money Ryder carried.

"Oh, all right! If you insist," said John Ryder. "But who is the complainant in the case?"

"Why, the railroad, I s'pose."

"That is what you _suppose_," said the culprit. "Now, let me tell you what I know. The railroad was merely the carrier. It did not own the coal. The railroad was neither consignor nor consignee."

"Then the coal company will prosecute."

"No, they won't. They ship at consignee's risk. If anybody moves in the matter it will be the actual, legal owner of the coal. In other words, the Lossing Soap Company."

"What does it matter?" demanded the deputy with some heat. "Somebody will prosecute. You can't get out of that."

"Maybe. Just wait a moment, Mr. Sheriff. I happen to have a letter here from the Lossing Soap Company. It's on a private matter; but I'll show you the letter-head. Here, just read that aloud," and he tore off the printed heading of the letter and handed it to the officer.

"'Lossing Soap Company, Capitalization----'"

"Never mind that," interposed Ryder.

"'Rated----'"

"Skip that. Who's the president?"

"Why--er---- My goodness gracious!" gasped the deputy. "The--the president of the company is--is Mr. John Ryder."

"That's right," said Ryder quietly. "John Ryder. There is only one of us, and that's me. I may be a fool--as Miss Solomons here says I am--but I'm not fool enough to prosecute myself for stealing my own coal. You can go back and report, Mr. Deputy, to your superior; and when you find out how much you think that sore jaw is worth, let me know. We'll be able to settle it out of court."

He walked on to enter a boat that had come to transfer him across the inlet. Miss Solomons looked after him, and then at the deputy. Scorn made her voice fairly tremble as she viewed the abashed officer up and down his length.

"Huh!" he emitted, and stopped unable to go on, and even, seemingly, to close his mouth.

"Good-_night!_" muttered the house detective, and followed John Ryder into the boat.

She kept a discreet silence all the way across the inlet and as they walked up the path to the Pinewood Inn. There Ryder went immediately to the desk, to be hailed joyfully by George.

"Well, if we aren't all glad to see you again, Mr. Ryder!" exclaimed the clerk. "The guests are going to give you a testimonial banquet soon's it can be arranged."

"Good heavens, George! can't you get me out of that? Why--why! it's preposterous! Man alive! you've got to nip that!"

"Don't know how I can, Mr. Ryder. When Colonel Brack gets set on something he's hard to change. And then there's Pop Cudger--he's in this, too, and he never stops to hear what any other fellow has to say once he begins on a thing."

Ryder groaned dismally.

"Mr. Giddings has arrived and is anxious to see you," went on the clerk. "Say! I'm going to be manager here in place of Bangs. And if I make good I'll owe it all to you," declared the grateful young man.

"And say, your wife will be tickled to see you----"

"What!" Ryder for a moment lost control of himself, but George was too full of news to notice his emotion.

"Naturally she'd be lonely. She's been sticking as close to Mrs. Brack as though the old lady was her mother. And the colonel is evidently dead stuck on Mrs. Ryder. I think he'll even forgive you, sir," and George chuckled.

Ryder swallowed hard, and finally was able to speak without a noticeable tremor in his voice:

"Guess it is too early to go upstairs. Nobody will be up yet."

"No. Mrs. Ryder has not telephoned down for her breakfast. And I believe Mrs. Brack is with her, anyway."

"Tell 'em I'm here if they 'phone down," said Ryder, and went into the breakfast room.

Before he completed his leisurely meal Mrs. Judson swept into the room in a wonderful morning gown. She caught sight of Ryder, looked her astonishment for an instant, and then advanced down the room with the evident intention of speaking to him.

It was rude, but Ryder would have knocked her down had she been a man. As he could not do this, he deliberately turned his eyes away and ignored her. The cut direct could not be mistaken, and several noticed the widow's discomfiture.

A moment later one of the bellboys brought Ryder a note. He tried to seem undisturbed as he opened and read it:

"DEAR SIR:--

"Come to me in the parlor before seeing your wife. She does not know yet that you have returned.

"Sincerely, "ALICE J. BRACK."

He arose finally and made his way to the parlor, with an apparent ease of manner he did not at all feel. It was the same room that had been the scene of so many events on that night when Pop Cudger and his colored retainer had guarded Van Scamp's famous painting of "The Cheesemonger."

The tranquil countenance of the colonel's lady seemed to John Ryder one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. Her smile encouraged him. Her first words filled him with delight:

"Yes; she is well."

He could have hugged her! But Mrs. Brack added gravely:

"Before I let you go up to the poor child, you must tell me your side of the story. All of it. She has trusted everything to me. I understand her mistakes and her misery fully. And I tell you now that no shadow of wrong rests upon her conduct. Can you say as much, Mr. Ryder?

"I have promised that you shall not see her unless you can explain satisfactorily what you have done. Tell me, why did you, a perfect stranger as she declares, represent yourself to her as the man she expected to marry and for whom she was waiting on that dock?"

"Then Miss Mont was right!" exclaimed John Ryder.

"Miss Mont? Do you mean your wife?"

Ryder eagerly told Mrs. Brack in detail of the mystery of the two girls named Mont and of all Rose Mont had surmised. He knew now who Ruth must be. His listener sat enthralled until he had completed his story. Then she suddenly took him by both shoulders and gave him a little shake.

"John Ryder," she said, repeating (though in a more refined phrase) Miss Solomons' stated opinion of his character, "John Ryder, you are a particularly foolish man. There is one principle of married life which you have overlooked--it is the foundation, indeed, of wedded happiness.

"_Mutual confidence_. If two people possess that, happiness may come or go; that is a craft that sails with variable winds. But trust must remain if wedded comradeship is to last.

"The very first thing that started suspicion in your mind should have made you go to your wife for an explanation. Because you did not do this you both have got into much sorrow and anxiety.

"Tell me," the woman added suddenly: "Which of these two women do you love? You fell in love with that other Miss Mont on the steamship, and asked her to be your wife. You must have thought you loved her. But you met this poor child you have married and seem to have felt no difference in the two. And yet there must be a difference--a vast difference.

"Which of them do you really love?"

"There is no doubt in my mind, Mrs. Brack," he told her with earnestness. "I was attracted by Rose Mont's face and by her qualities of mind. I thought I loved her. Possibly, had I married her, I never should have known that I had mistaken admiration for love.

"But Ruth I have married. And from the moment I knew she was mine--yes, from the moment we clasped hands upon the wharf--my feeling for her was far different from that I had held for Rose.

"Rose has no power over me, Mrs. Brack. I cannot explain it very clearly; but it is true. There is no response in me when I touch her hand or when she is near me. But Ruth--I tell you I love my wife, Mrs. Brack, and I'll fight for the possession of her if any man tries to take her from me!"

"That is enough! I believe you!" the woman said, her eyes shining. "You need comfort as well as Ruth, for you, too, have suffered. And I am going to tell you something, that which will bring to your heart the assurance it needs.

"Your wife has been a poor girl all her life. Of late she has been a nurse, supporting herself entirely. She was tacitly adopted into the family of this John B. White when she was very small.

"Afterward the family suffered reverses and came to America, bringing Ruth with them. When the elder White died, this son was taken by an uncle and aunt to Europe to finish his education there. But Ruth was old enough when they separated for them to have felt some attachment.

"They corresponded. For two years now his letters have been loverlike. He had studied to be an artist and had gained some celebrity in Italy. The less the girl encouraged him the more eager he was to come to America and prove to her that she still loved him--as he claimed to love her. It was born of the man's romantic nature, I presume; yet he, poor fellow, has lost everything in this affair. Ruth agreed finally to marry him if, upon his appearance, she should be assured he was a man she could learn to love.

"Yes, you may well blush, Mr. Ryder," pursued Mrs. Brack, smiling. "She discovered instantly--in the flash of an eye--that she could love you. She did love you. She does love you. She declares vehemently if White had met her she would have run away from him.

"After their terrible scene the other day--did you know about that?" Ryder nodded. "She came to you for an explanation--for help. You are still a young man, John Ryder. You do not understand women. You left her alone--when she needed you--and without a word to comfort her.

"White might have been foolish enough to linger about and cause more trouble, but Miss Solomons, who overheard his talk with your wife, tells me she 'chased him.' That girl is dreadfully slangy and appears to be hard and unfeminine; but she has a soft heart under it all, Mr. Ryder."

"I can well believe it," agreed Ryder, thinking of "Little Laurel's Lovers."

"I met your wife in the corridor ready dressed to leave the hotel," pursued Mrs. Brack. "She had packed her trunks and would have been foolish enough to run away.

"It was by chance--no, it was providential--that I spoke to her. And because I am an old woman and have lived my life and have both suffered and been happy, she told me all. I saw that Mrs. Judson would succeed in making her scandalous story (that I had already heard and then understood) sound true if we were not careful. She has even been saying that you ran away from your bride----"

"Confound her!" ejaculated John Ryder. "And after all Ruth's kindness to her!"

"She is confounded--and by her own evil tongue. All gossips are in the end," said Mrs. Brack. "My husband and I have been in this hotel fourteen years. If _I_ approve of a person the guests at large are not very likely to believe the scandalous stories of such flutterbudgets as Mrs. Judson.

"I have made Ruth appear with us in the dining-room. That put a stop to all the gossip. And so--she is waiting for you in her rooms now, Mr. Ryder. She is a girl that any man--I do not care how high he may be--should be proud to secure for a wife, and----"

"I am going to her!" cried John Ryder, and darted away.

About a week later, one evening, as John Ryder and his wife were going up from dinner, the clerk handed him a letter. The envelope was creamy and very thick, and the writing, angular and firm, betrayed the feminine hand.

"This is from Miss Mont," he said to his wife, and when they reached their suite she sat eagerly upon the arm of the big chair while he opened the envelope.

Together they looked over the letter that threw light on important facts which correspondence on both sides had brought to view. In one place Rose Mont wrote:

"From what your wife writes me about her remembrance of her early years and from my own memory, I am confident that she is the sister Ruth whom I so dearly loved when our parents died and we children were scattered. I remember I almost cried my eyes out for her, although for the boys and for our older sister, Gertrude, I did not greatly care.

"And that we should grow up to look so much alike!"

Again she wrote:

"Your invitation, seconded by dear Ruth, is appreciated; but I must refuse it now. I could not come to disturb your new-made happiness. Besides, Mr. Marks has contracted for a seven-week engagement in Chicago and we start for the West to-morrow. When I return to New York in the spring or early summer we will have recovered our equilibrium, I fancy, and we all, as brother and sisters, may meet with more freedom. Until we meet, God bless you!

"Your sister, "ROSE MONT."

"Well, I'm sorry she's taken up that stage business," Ryder said with a sigh. "And yet she has talent for it and she's a good woman. We'll give her the time of her life when she does come East. We'll be in our own home then, honey."

Ruth was looking at him very closely, but he was quite unconscious of the meaning of this scrutiny. Suddenly she seized him around the neck and hugged him tightly.

"Well," she murmured, "I won't be jealous of my own sister."

Ryder did not hear. But he held her away from him for a moment and looked into her eyes. "Where's that chain and locket you used to wear?" he suddenly demanded.

A vivid blush flooded into her throat and cheeks. "That--that's put away. Johnny White gave it to me when I was a little girl. It--it had a lock of his hair in it I thought it was _your_ hair, dearest. How silly of me!"

Ryder smiled grimly. "And you used to kiss it, I'll be bound, thinking it was mine?"

"How did you know?" she demanded, starting up rather petulantly.

"Humph! I know a lot of things now--since I've been married. By thunder! Marriage _does_ open a man's eyes."

And then he laughed and drew her down against his breast again, and they were silent for a long while.

THE END