The moonlight gave Ida's face an almost unearthly whiteness, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She had been crying.
"Aunt never wanted me to have anything to do with Edwardo," she began, in a low tone. "That isn't his real name, but I always call him that. She took me out of the Lexington school because he lived near there. She thought that sending me down here would put an end to our correspondence, but it didn't, of course. We kept on corresponding, just the same. Some way she has found it out. She doesn't know that we are engaged. I don't know what she would be tempted to do if she knew. She is angry enough just about the letters. I had one from her this morning, and I saw one on the table addressed to President Wells, in her handwriting. There is no mistaking it. I am sure she has written to him to watch my mail and intercept his letters. I wouldn't have her get hold of them for anything, because she scorns anything like sentiment. She seems to think it is something wicked for young people to care for each other, and Edwardo's letters simply breathe devotion in every word."
The faint strains of the distant violin swelled louder as Ida held out her hand from which she had taken all the rings but one. She turned her white fingers in the moonlight, to show the glimmer of a pearl.
"He has told me so many times that that is what my life seems like to him," she said, with a sob in her voice, " – a pearl. I know he has been awfully wild and fast, but when he tells me that only my influence over him can make him the man I want him to be, and that if it were not for my love and prayers he wouldn't care what became of him, or what he did, do you blame me for disregarding aunt's wishes? Don't you think it is cruel of her to interfere?"
Lloyd, listening with breathless interest to the friend whom she loved with all a little girl's adoring enthusiasm for an older one whom she has taken as her model, gave a passionate assent.
"Oh, I knew you'd feel that way about it," said Ida, reaching out to clasp Lloyd's hand with the white one on which glimmered the pearl. "It is so good to have some one to talk to who can understand and sympathize."
An eloquent silence fell between them, broken only by the rustle of the dead leaves and the wailing voice of the violin, repeating its plaintive refrain like a human cry. The music and the witchery of the moonlight laid an ever-deepening spell on the listening child, till she felt that she was part of some old tale in which Ida was the ladye fair, and Edwardo the most interesting of heroes, held apart by a cruel fate. She drank in every word eagerly, seeing in her imagination a tall, handsome man with a haughty, dark face, who stood with outstretched hands, murmuring, "Oh, my Pearl, you can make of my life what you will!"
When Ida took a tiny locket from a chain around her neck and opened it to show her his picture, Lloyd felt a distinct twinge of disappointment. It was not at all like the face she had pictured. But Ida explained that it was not a good likeness, only a head cut from a group picture in which he had been taken with the members of his football team. She had a fine photograph of him in her trunk, but had to keep it hidden, not knowing what day her aunt might swoop down upon her for a visit of inspection.
"Seems to me as if I had seen that face befoah somewhere," said the Little Colonel, studying it intently in the dim light. There was a familiarity about it that puzzled her.
Ida slipped the locket back and gathered up her cape about her. "We won't dare stay here much longer," she said. Then she hesitated. "Princess, I have told you all this because I need your help and am going to ask a great favour of you. Your mail doesn't have to go through the principal's hands. Will you be willing to let Edwardo address my letters to you? It couldn't do you any harm, simply to take them from the post-office box and hand them to me, and it would make a world of difference to me – and to him," she added, softly. "If I were to refuse to let him write to me, as aunt wants me to do, and were to break off our engagement, I think it would make him so reckless that he would do something desperate. Knowing that, I feel so responsible for him. Princess, I'd give my life to keep him straight."
As Ida rose in her earnestness, the tears glistening in her eyes, she seemed to Lloyd like some fair guardian angel, and from that moment she was set apart in her imagination as if she had been a saint on a pedestal. With such a noble example of devotion to one in need, it seemed a very small thing for Lloyd to consent to the favour she asked, and she gave her promise gladly.
"I shall do everything I can to keep any one from suspecting that he is sending letters to me through you," said Ida, as they strolled slowly back toward the house. "I can't let your friendship for me get you into trouble. They'll watch me very closely now, so maybe it will be as well for me not to appear so intimate with you as I have been. We'll not come off here alone any more at recess. By and by, when I feel that I can, I'll try to interest myself in the other girls. We'll still have our little confidential meetings just the same, but no one must suspect us.
"I wish Mrs. Walton would invite me to her house sometimes," she said, impulsively, when they had walked a few minutes in silence. "If I could fill up a long letter to aunt about that, it would make her feel that I was interested in something besides Edwardo, and would appease her wonderfully."
"I'll ask her to," said Lloyd, eagerly. "Mrs. Walton told mothah she intended to have Betty and me at The Beeches very often while she was away. The first time she invites us I'll ask her to have you too. She's so kind and sweet, that I'd as soon do it as not. All she seems to live for is just to make othah people happy."
"Oh, Princess, if you only would!" exclaimed Ida, giving her a delighted hug. "Aunt would be so pleased, for it would be in all the home papers that I had been entertained at the home of the late General Walton. She would consider it such an honour, and feel that in one way, at least, I was a credit to her. Aunt thinks so much of attentions from distinguished people. It is one of her hobbies. I would like to please her as much as possible in every way I can, as long as I have to disregard her wishes about – what I just told you, you know. Sh! We're too near the house to talk any more."
The rest of the way they slipped along in silence under the shadow of the trees. Up the creaking stairway they crept, pausing a moment before they opened the door. Then they shot the rusty bolt noiselessly back in place, dropped the portière, and listened again.
"It's all right," whispered Ida, giving Lloyd's hand a reassuring squeeze as they tiptoed down the hall. "Oh, you're such a comfort! You'll never know what a load you've taken off my mind. Good night!"
In those few moments of silence between the orchard and the house, Lloyd's thoughts travelled rapidly. Her quarrel with Betty had faded so far into the background, that it seemed ridiculously trivial now. She had forgotten her grievance in listening to the tale of larger trouble. And since Ida had made it clear to her that it would be to her interest to be friendly with all the girls, she was eager to enlist Betty's sympathies and help. She wished fervently that she could share her secret with her. She burst into the room, her eyes shining with excitement, and blinking as they met the bright lamplight.
Betty was standing in her nightgown, ready for bed. She saw at the first glance that Lloyd's anger was over, and she drew a great sigh of relief.
"Oh, Betty," began Lloyd, impetuously, "I'm awfully sorry I made such a mountain out of a mole-hill this mawning and got into a tempah about what you said. You were right, aftah all. Ida thinks just as you do, that we oughtn't to go off by ourselves all the time, and she wants to be friends with the othah girls if they'll let her. I'm going back to the old ways to-morrow, and try not to let anything spoil the good times you talked about. Ida is so unhappy. I wish I could tell you, but I haven't any right – what she told me was in confidence. But if you only knew, you'd do all you could to help make it easiah for her with the girls."
"I'll do anything on earth you want me to!" exclaimed Betty. "This has been the longest, miserablest day I ever spent."
"Oh," cried the Little Colonel, a look of distress in her face. "Then I've spoiled 'The Road of the Loving Heart'
