remember the banker’s letter, certainly,” she said, “and Captain Dornton—that was the name of Bobby’s father—asked me to sign my name in the body of it where HE had also written it with my address. But the likeness of the handwriting to your slip of paper may be only a fancied one. Have you shown it to any one,” she said quickly—“I mean,” she corrected herself as quickly, “any one who is an expert?”
“Not the two together,” said Randolph, explaining how he had shown the paper to Mr. Revelstoke.
But Miss Avondale had recovered herself, and laughed. “That that bit of paper should have been the means of getting you a situation seems to me the more wonderful occurrence. Of course it is quite a coincidence that there should be a child’s photograph and a letter signed ‘Bobby’ in the portmanteau. But”—she stopped suddenly and fixed her dark eyes on his—“you have seen Bobby. Surely you can say if it was his likeness?”
Randolph was embarrassed. The fact was he had always been so absorbed in HER that he had hardly glanced at the child. He ventured to say this, and added a little awkwardly, and coloring, that he had seen Bobby only twice.
“And you still have this remarkable photograph and letter?” she said, perhaps a little too carelessly.
“Yes. Would you like to see them?”
“Very much,” she returned quickly; and then added, with a laugh, “you are making me quite curious.”
“If you would allow me to see you home,” said Randolph, “we have to pass the street where my room is, and,” he added timidly, “I could show them to you.”
“Certainly,” she replied, with sublime unconsciousness of the cause of his hesitation; “that will be very nice?”
Randolph was happy, albeit he could not help thinking that she was treating him like the absent Bobby.
“It’s only on Commercial Street, just above Montgomery,” he went on. “We go straight up from the wharf”—he stopped short here, for the bulk of a bystander, a roughly clad miner, was pressing him so closely that he was obliged to resist indignantly—partly from discomfort, and partly from a sense that the man was overhearing him. The stranger muttered a kind of apology, and moved away.
“He seems to be perpetually in your way,” said Miss Avondale, smiling. “He was right behind you, and you nearly trod on his toes, when you bolted out of the cabin this morning.”
“Ah, then you DID see me!” said Randolph, forgetting all else in his delight at the admission.
But Miss Avondale was not disconcerted. “Thanks to your collision, I saw you both.”
It was still raining when they disembarked at the wharf, a little behind the other Passengers, who had crowded on the bow of the steamboat. It was only a block or two beyond the place where Randolph had landed that eventful night. He had to pass it now; but with Miss Avondale clinging to his arm, with what different feelings! The rain still fell, the day was fading, but he walked in an enchanted dream, of which the prosaic umbrella was the mystic tent and magic pavilion. He must needs even stop at the corner of the wharf, and show her the exact spot where his unknown benefactor appeared.
“Coming out of the shadow like that man there,” she added brightly, pointing to a figure just emerging from the obscurity of an overhanging warehouse. “Why, it’s your friend the miner!”
Randolph looked. It was indeed the same man, who had probably reached the wharf by a cross street.
“Let us go on, do!” said Miss Avondale, suddenly tightening her hold of Randolph’s arm in some instinctive feminine alarm. “I don’t like this place.”
But Randolph, with the young girl’s arm clinging to his, felt supremely daring. Indeed, I fear he was somewhat disappointed when the stranger peacefully turned into the junk shop at the corner and left them to pursue their way.
They at last stopped before some business offices on a central thoroughfare, where Randolph had a room on the third story. When they had climbed the flight of stairs he unlocked a door and disclosed a good-sized apartment which had been intended for an office, but which was now neatly furnished as a study and bedroom. Miss Avondale smiled at the singular combination.
“I should fancy,” she said, “you would never feel as if you had quite left the bank behind you.” Yet, with her air of protection and mature experience, she at once began to move one or two articles of furniture into a more tasteful position, while Randolph, nevertheless a little embarrassed at his audacity in asking this goddess into his humble abode, hurriedly unlocked a closet, brought out the portmanteau, and handed her the letter and photograph.
Woman-like, Miss Avondale looked at the picture first. If she experienced any surprise, she repressed it. “It is LIKE Bobby,” she said meditatively, “but he was stouter then; and he’s changed sadly since he has been in this climate. I don’t wonder you didn’t recognize him. His father may have had it taken some day when they were alone together. I didn’t know of it, though I know the photographer.” She then looked at the letter, knit her pretty brows, and with an abstracted air sat down on the edge of Randolph’s bed, crossed her little feet, and looked puzzled. But he was unable to detect the least emotion.
“You see,” she said, “the handwriting of most children who are learning to write is very much alike, for this is the stage of development when they ‘print.’ And their composition is the same: they talk only of things that interest all children—pets, toys, and their games. This is only ANY child’s letter to ANY father. I couldn’t really say it WAS Bobby’s. As to the photograph, they have an odd way in South America of selling photographs of anybody, principally of pretty women, by the packet, to any one who wants them. So that it does not follow that the owner of this photograph had any personal interest in it. Now, as to your mysterious patron himself, can you describe him?” She looked at Randolph with a certain feline intensity.
He became embarrassed. “You know I only saw him once, under a street lamp”—he began.
“And I have only seen Captain Dornton—if it were he—twice in three years,” she said. “But go on.”
Again Randolph was unpleasantly impressed with her cold, dryly practical manner. He had never seen his benefactor but once, but he could not speak of him in that way.
“I think,” he went on hesitatingly, “that he had dark, pleasant eyes, a thick beard, and the look of a sailor.”
“And there were no other papers in the portmanteau?” she said, with the same intense look.
“None.”
“These are mere coincidences,” said Miss Avondale, after a pause, “and, after all, they are not as strange as the alternative. For we would have to believe that Captain Dornton arrived here—where he knew his son and I were living—without a word of warning, came ashore for the purpose of going to a hotel and the bank also, and then unaccountably changed his mind and disappeared.”
The thought of the rotten wharf, his own escape, and the dead body were all in Randolph’s mind; but his reasoning was already staggered by the girl’s conclusions, and he felt that it might only pain, without convincing her. And was he convinced himself? She smiled at his blank face and rose. “Thank you all the same. And now I must go.”
Randolph rose also. “Would you like to take the photograph and letter to show your cousin?”
“Yes.
