The Grey Monk. T. W. Speight
Think! Six thousand pounds!"
Father and daughter looked meaningly at each other. In the eyes of both sparkled the same cold avaricious gleam. At that moment the likeness between them was almost startling.
Giuseppe Rispani had prophesied rightly. At the hour of sunset Alec Clare sought Giovanna and found her where she sat under the grape trellis in the far garden. Nowhere could there have been a spot more suitable for the purpose he had in view. Vanna might have had a prevision that he would look for her there.
Alec had dreaded lest, when the crucial moment should have come, his tongue would fail him and that he should find himself the prey of a silence, at once painful and absurd. But no such mishap befell him.
How the declaration brought itself about he could hardly have told afterwards; all he knew was that he found it surprisingly easy and simple to give utterance to what he wanted to say. But it may have been that Vanna smoothed the way for him after a fashion which, in his preoccupation, he was scarcely conscious of. In any case, he spoke with an ardour and a manly earnestness which did not fail to carry conviction to his listener's heart. It was impossible to doubt his sincerity.
Vanna had already been made love to by more than one impulsive Italian, but she now discovered that this Englishman, ordinarily so undemonstrative and phlegmatic, could, the occasion being given him, rise to a height of passionate fervour which transformed him for the time being into a veritable son of the sunny South. Taking both the girl's unresisting hands in his, and devouring her with his eyes, he ended with the words, "Giovanna, will you be mine?"
No faintest tinge of superadded emotion flushed the clear olive of Vanna's cheek, but the heavy fringes of her eyelids lifted and the midnight orbs behind them gave back Alec look for look.
Then the full ripe lips curved into a siren-like smile, the cool brown fingers softly returned her lover's clasp, and in a whisper came the words:
"I will be yours."
CHAPTER V.
AT ONE FELL BLOW.
We are under other skies and the time is again two years later. "Alec Clare, by all that's wonderful!"
The exclamation came from one of two men who, happening to be bent on getting into a street car at the same moment, found themselves unexpectedly face to face. It was followed next moment by a hearty hand-grip, and then the long-parted acquaintances--friends, in the best sense of the word, they could hardly have been termed--sat down side by side.
It was at Pineapple City, a thriving and intensely go-ahead township on the borders of Lake Michigan, that the meeting just recorded took place.
Denis Boyd and Alec Clare had been intimate at college, without being exactly chums. Their fathers had been friends of long standing, and it seemed only natural to the two young men that they should copy their sires' example. Boyd had read far more assiduously than the heir of Withington Chase had ever cared to do: his father was far from being a rich man and he was anxious about his degree. Their college career had come to an end at the same time, they had gone down together and had parted with mutual good wishes and an implied promise to meet again in town later on, since which time till now they had not set eyes on each other.
"And now tell me what fortune, good or bad, has landed you in this out-of-the-way spot," began Boyd. "Of course I assume that, like myself, you are merely a bird of passage."
"On the contrary, this place is my home. I am engaged in business here."
Denis Boyd gave vent to a low whistle.
"Strange how things turn out, is it not?" continued Alec. "But before I add to your surprise, suppose you make your own confession, and tell me how it comes to pass that you happen to be here."
Boyd laughed. "My confession--to accept your own term--will be of the briefest and baldest. You may, or may not, remember that I was destined for the Law, but shortly after you and I parted my father came to grief over a bank failure, and I was compelled to look out for some immediate means of earning a living. A situation in a commercial house in Liverpool offered itself, which I gladly accepted, and there I have been ever since, working my way up by slow but sure degrees. I am over in the States on a matter of business for my firm, which admits of my combining a little holiday-making with it. I reached here late last evening, got through my business a couple of hours ago, and am killing time while waiting to be picked up by a train going East in exactly half an hour and five minutes from now. But here we are at the depot. Won't you alight and keep me company for my remaining thirty-five minutes? My portmanteau is in the cloakroom, or whatever they call the place in this part of the world."
Accordingly they alighted and proceeded to stroll up and down the station platform.
While the other had been talking, Alec had had time to pull himself together and to decide how far he should, or should not, take Boyd into his confidence. For various reasons he would much have preferred not meeting him, but that was beyond help now; and, after all, Boyd was a gentleman and the least hint would suffice to seal his lips.
"I suppose," began Alec, with a little laugh, "that I am not the first fellow by many who has contrived to find himself at odds with his father, or whose father thought he had just cause to find fault with the error of his ways; at any rate, the pater and I came to the conclusion that we should be better apart for at least a few years to come. For a time I wandered about the Continent, leading a free-and-easy Bohemian sort of life. At length I grew tired of doing nothing, and having had a certain amount of capital placed at my command, which I was desirous of tripling, or quadrupling, as the case might be, I determined to try my fortune in the States. That was two years ago. The result, considering my utter lack of business knowledge, was only what might have been expected. I gained a certain amount of experience, it is true, but it was at the expense of half my capital. I was disheartened, but by no means despairing. Leaving the scene of my ill fortune, I came West. I had no particular object in halting even for an hour at Pineapple City, beyond being tired with a long railway journey and intolerably bored by a fellow traveller who persisted in clinging to me like a leech, and whom I was determined to get rid of at any cost. Well, I had not been here many hours before I made the acquaintance of an Englishman of the name of Travis, a gentleman by birth and education, who, like yourself, had lighted on evil days, and had been lured all this way from home in the hope of being able to make a living, and ultimately, perhaps, a competence. The profession he had set up in was that of a breeder and trainer of horses for riding and carriage purposes. It was a business which he believed to be capable of considerable extension, and, just then, he was looking out for a partner who was prepared to invest a certain number of dollars in the concern. The opportunity seemed to me one which I should have been foolish to let pass me, more especially as I happen to know something about horseflesh; and, not to bore you with details, I will merely add that, after due investigation, I became Frank Travis's partner. That happened two months ago."
"From what you have just told me," said Boyd, "I conclude that you have no present intention of returning to England."
"None whatever," answered Alec drily.
"And have you never regretted your self-imposed expatriation?"
Alec shook his head. "So far I have had no cause whatever for doing so."
At this juncture they were all but run down by a man who was coming full tilt out of the refreshment buffet. "Ah, Mr. Alexander, glad to see you," he exclaimed. "Have only time to say that the pair of chestnuts you and your partner sold me a fortnight ago have turned out perfect rippers--yes, sir, rippers. My wife--ah-ha!--hasn't once been out of temper with me since I bought 'em. By-bye." And with that he was gone.
Denis Boyd looked at Alec, and the latter read a certain question in his eyes.
"When I came out to the States I chose to drop my surname. I am known to everybody here simply as John Alexander," he said quietly. "And look here, Boyd," he added, "I shall be glad if, when you get back home, you will make no mention of having met me. I have certain reasons for asking this of