Dornton had no WIFE,” said Mr. Dingwall severely. “The boy is a natural son. Captain John lived a wild, rough, and—er—an eccentric life.”
“I thought—I understood from Miss Avondale that he was married,” stammered the young man.
“In your rather slight acquaintance with that young lady I should imagine she would have had some delicacy in telling you otherwise,” returned Mr. Dingwall primly.
Randolph felt the truth of this, and was momentarily embarrassed. Yet he lingered.
“Has Miss Avondale known of this discovery long?” he asked.
“About two weeks, I should say,” returned Mr. Dingwall. “She was of some service to Sir William in getting up certain proofs he required.”
It was three weeks since she had seen Randolph, yet it would have been easy for her to communicate the news to him. In these three weeks his romance of their common interest in his benefactor—even his own dream of ever seeing him again—had been utterly dispelled.
It was in no social humor that he reached Dingwall’s house the next evening. Yet he knew the difficulty of taking an aggressive attitude toward his previous idol or of inviting a full explanation from her then.
The guests, with the exception of himself and Miss Avondale, were all English. She, self-possessed and charming in evening dress, nodded to him with her usual mature patronage, but did not evince the least desire to seek him for any confidential aside. He noticed the undoubted resemblance of Sir William Dornton to his missing benefactor, and yet it produced a singular repulsion in him, rather than any sympathetic predilection. At table he found that Miss Avondale was separated from him, being seated beside the distinguished guest, while he was placed next to the young lady he had taken down—a Miss Eversleigh, the cousin of Sir William. She was tall, and Randolph’s first impression of her was that she was stiff and constrained—an impression he quickly corrected at the sound of her voice, her frank ingenuousness, and her unmistakable youth. In the habit of being crushed by Miss Avondale’s unrelenting superiority, he found himself apparently growing up beside this tall English girl, who had the naivete of a child. After a few commonplaces she suddenly turned her gray eyes on his, and said,—
“Didn’t you like Jack? I hope you did. Oh, say you did—do!”
“You mean Captain John Dornton?” said Randolph, a little confused.
“Yes, of course; HIS brother”—glancing toward Sir William. “We always called him Jack, though I was ever so little when he went away. No one thought of calling him anything else but Jack. Say you liked him!”
“I certainly did,” returned Randolph impulsively. Then checking himself, he added, “I only saw him once, but I liked his face and manner—and—he was very kind to me.”
“Of course he was,” said the young girl quickly. “That was only like him, and yet”—lowering her voice slightly—“would you believe that they all say he was wild and wicked and dissipated? And why? Fancy! Just because he didn’t care to stay at home and shoot and hunt and race and make debts, as heirs usually do. No, he wanted to see the world and do something for himself. Why, when he was quite young, he could manage a boat like any sailor. Dornton Hall, their place, is on the coast, you know, and they say that, just for adventure’s sake, after he went away, he shipped as first mate somewhere over here on the Pacific, and made two or three voyages. You know—don’t you?—and how every one was shocked at such conduct in the heir.”
Her face was so girlishly animated, with such sparkle of eye and responsive color, that he could hardly reconcile it with her first restraint or with his accepted traditions of her unemotional race, or, indeed, with her relationship to the principal guest. His latent feeling of gratitude to the dead man warmed under the young girl’s voice.
“It’s so dreadful to think of him as drowned, you know, though even that they put against him,” she went on hurriedly, “for they say he was probably drowned in some drunken fit—fell through the wharf or something shocking and awful—worse than suicide. But”—she turned her frank young eyes upon him again—“YOU saw him on the wharf that night, and you could tell how he looked.”
“He was as sober as I was,” returned Randolph indignantly, as he recalled the incident of the flask and the dead man’s caution. From recalling it to repeating it followed naturally, and he presently related the whole story of his meeting with Captain Dornton to the brightly interested eyes beside him. When he had finished, she leaned toward him in girlish confidence, and said:—
“Yes; but EVEN THAT they tell to show how intoxicated be must have been to have given up his portmanteau to an utter stranger like you.” She stopped, colored, and yet, reflecting his own half smile, she added: “You know what I mean. For they all agree how nice it was of you not to take any advantage of his condition, and Dingwall said your honesty and faithfulness struck Revelstoke so much that he made a place for you at the bank. Now I think,” she continued, with delightful naivete, “it was a proof of poor Jack’s BEING PERFECTLY SOBER, that he knew whom he was trusting, and saw just what you were, at once. There! But I suppose you must not talk to me any longer, but must make yourself agreeable to some one else. But it was very nice of you to tell me all this. I wish you knew my guardian. You’d like him. Do you ever go to England? Do come and see us.”
These confidences had not been observed by the others, and Miss Avondale appeared to confine her attentions to Sir William, who seemed to be equally absorbed, except that once he lifted his eyes toward Randolph, as if in answer to some remark from her. It struck Randolph that he was the subject of their conversation, and this did not tend to allay the irritation of a mind already wounded by the contrast of HER lack of sympathy for the dead man who had befriended and trusted her to the simple faith of the girl beside him, who was still loyal to a mere childish recollection.
After the ladies had rustled away, Sir William moved his seat beside Randolph. His manner seemed to combine Mr. Dingwall’s restraint with a certain assumption of the man of the world, more notable for its frankness than its tactfulness.
“Sad business this of my brother’s, eh,” he said, lighting a cigar; “any way you take it, eh? You saw him last, eh?” The interrogating word, however, seemed to be only an exclamation of habit, for he seldom waited for an answer.
“I really don’t know,” said Randolph, “as I saw him only ONCE, and he left me on the wharf. I know no more where he went to then than where he came from before. Of course you must know all the rest, and how he came to be drowned.”
“Yes; it really did not matter much. The whole question was identification and proof of death, you know. Beastly job, eh?”
“Was that his body YOU were helping to get ashore at the wharf one Sunday?” asked Randolph bluntly, now fully recognizing the likeness that had puzzled him in Sir William. “I didn’t see any resemblance.”
“Precious few would. I didn’t—though it’s true I hadn’t seen him for eight years. Poor old chap been knocked about so he hadn’t a feature left, eh? But his shipmate knew him, and there were his traps on the ship.”
Then, for the first time, Randolph heard the grim and sordid details of John Dornton’s mysterious disappearance. He had arrived the morning before that eventful day on an Australian bark as the principal passenger. The vessel itself had an evil repute, and was believed to have slipped from the hands of the police at Melbourne. John Dornton had evidently amassed a considerable fortune in Australia, although an examination of his papers and effects showed it to be in drafts and letters of credit and shares, and that he had no ready money—a fact borne out by the
