A Daughter of the Forest by Evelyn Raymond (best classic novels txt) 📖

“But, Margot, little girl, don’t be so sure. It’s scarcely probable——” began Adrian, compassionately, shrinking from sight of her bitter disappointment, should disappointment come. Alas! it would be almost as great to him, and whether a glad or sorry one he could not yet realize.

“His face! Look at your father’s face. That tells the story. The bonds are there, and ’tis Philip Romeyn’s daughter shall bring them to the light.”

Indeed, the banker’s expression confirmed her faith. Its frenzied eagerness had given place to a satisfied expectation, and a normal color tinged his cheeks. But he still watched intently, saying nothing.

“Catch them, Adrian, catch them! But hold them fast, the horrible, accursed things!”

One after one, stooping, the exultant daughter lifted and flung them out. The folded papers seemingly so worthless but of such value; the little canvas bags of gold; the precious documents and vouchers, hidden from all other men by one unhappy man, in his miserly aberration. The price of fifteen years of agony and shame. Now, fifteen years to be forgotten, and honor restored.

In that far past Philip Romeyn’s story had been simple and it had been true. He had been unaccountably anxious and had risen in the night and gone to the bank. He believed that the safe had not been locked, though he had been assured it should be by Mr. Wadislaw, the only other person who had a key to it. To his surprise he had found the banker in his office, but in dire mishap. He was lying on the floor, unconscious, bleeding from a wound upon his temple. The safe was open, empty. The steel bar which, at night, was padlocked upon it for extra security lay on the floor, beside the senseless man. Mr. Romeyn had picked this up and was standing with it in his hand, horrified and half-stupefied by the shocking affair, when the watchman, discovering light and noise, had entered and found them. It was his hasty, accusing voice which started the cry of robbery and murder; and the circumstances had seemed so aggravated, the circumstantial evidence so strong, that the judge had imposed the heaviest penalty within his power. The hypothesis that Mr. Wadislaw had himself put the contents of the safe away, had even perverted them to his own use; and that he had injured himself by falling against the sharp corner of the safe’s heavy and open door, had been set aside as too trivial for consideration.

The hypothesis had been correct, the circumstantial evidence incorrect; yet in the name of justice, the latter had prevailed.

“Count them! have you counted them, Adrian?”

“Yes, Margot. It is all here. The very sum of which I have so often heard. Thank God, that it is found!”

“My father! Come, Joe, we’re going to my father.”

“And I go with you. In my father’s name and to begin his lifelong reparation.”

Swift the way and joyous now, that same road over which Adrian had journeyed on the day before, so grudgingly. Yet not half swift enough that through express by which they left the city limits for the little town of Sing Sing, or as would have better suited Indian Joe, of Ossining. Scene of so many tragedies and broken hearts; to be, to-day, a scene of unutterable gladness.

Margot’s eyes were on the flying landscape, counting the lessening landmarks as one counts off the stitches of a tedious seam, and with each mile of progress her impatience growing.

“Oh! Adrian! shall we never be there! I can hardly breathe. My heart beats so—I cannot wait, I cannot!”

In the seat behind them Joe still carefully held the old-fashioned shawl and bonnet, which Angelique had decided her young traveler should—but never would—wear. Her hair was out of that decorous plait which had been commanded, and there had been neither time nor friend to substitute new clothes for old. Therefore, it was just as she looked in the woodland that Margot looked now when she was first to meet her father’s eyes; and neither she, nor even Adrian, cared one whit for the curious glances which scrutinized her unusual, comfortable attire.

What were clothes? Money could soon buy those, if they were needed, and there would be money abundant, Adrian thought, fingering the “specimens” which the girl desired old Joseph to produce from that wonderful pocket of his, which held so few, yet just the very things that were important.

“Copper, Margot. I’m sure of it. I have a friend, a man who deals in mining stocks, and I’ve seen samples at his office which do not look as pure to me as this.”

“These pieces came from the deep cave under the island. Where I was that day during the great storm, the day you came to us. I don’t see why there shouldn’t be plenty of the metal there, for we’re in nearly the same latitude as the copper regions of the great lakes. I hope we may find it in large enough quantities to pay for getting it out.”

Adrian was surprised and not wholly pleased by what seemed a mercenary taint upon her fine character, but was ashamed of his momentary misjudgment when she added:

“Because, you see, we’ve suffered so much for money’s sake that we want to use it ourselves to make other people happy. I know what I will do with it, if I ever have much, or even little.”

“What is that?”

“I will use it to defend the wrongfully imprisoned. To help the poor men when they come out, even if they have been wicked once. To comfort the families of those who suffer disgrace and poverty. To forward justice—justice. Oh! Adrian, how far now?”

“Fifteen minutes, now. Only fifteen minutes!”

“They will never pass! They are longer than the fifteen years of my ignorance, when I didn’t know I had a father. My father. My father.”

Over and over, she said the words softly, caressingly, as if she could never have enough of all they meant to her; and the listening lad asked once, a trifle warningly:

“Are you not at all afraid, Margot, that this unknown father will be different from your anticipations? Remember, though so close of kin, you are still strangers.”

“Why, Adrian! My mother loved him and my uncle. I love him, too, unknowing; but I tell you now, this minute, if I found him all that was bad and repulsive, I should still love him and all the more. So love him that he would grow good again and forget all the evil he must have seen in that evil place. For he is my father, my father.”

“Have no fear, I only meant to try you. He is all that you dream and more. He has the noblest face I ever looked on; yes, not even excepting your uncle’s.”

“What? you—have seen him?”

“Yes. Yesterday;” at which she sat in silent wonder till he said: “Now come. We’re there!”

When they stepped out at the final station Adrian called for the swiftest horses waiting possible fares, and burst in upon his sister’s presence with the demand, almost breathlessly spoken:

“Number 526, at once, Kate. This is Margot—— Ah! mother! Margot! The money’s found—Number 526—quick!”

The excitement was all his by then. The girl to whom this moment was so much more eventful stood pale and quiet, with a luminous joy in her blue eyes that was more pathetic than tears.

“Adrian, are you crazy? Upon my word, I almost believe you are! Running away as you did last night and coming back again to-day, in this wild fashion. What do you mean? Who is this—this young person? And what in the world do you, can you, possibly, want of Number 526?”

He paid no attention to her many questions, nor even to his mother who clutched his arm in extreme agitation. He had caught the tones of a violin played softly, tenderly, and oh! so sadly.

“Yes, that’s Number 526, since you wish to see him, though it’s quite against the rules and—he’s practicing with his men——”

“Come, Margot. Come.”

The player was in the little alcove behind the screen and palms, and did not even look up as the two entered his presence, for his own soul had floated far away from that dread place, on the strains of that music which no prison bars could confine.

“Father!”