Three millions! or, The way of the world
object in looking him up was, to establish his relations with the
doctor. But up to Tuesday night, though I had the means of showing that
the witness had lied a dozen times, I had no actual proof that he was
the stranger.”
“Why did he confess?”
“He whined around me until I told him I should overwhelm him the next
day. He confessed the whole then, and seemed to be very penitent.”
“I have no doubt he was.”
“It was good policy to be so.”
“I think he was really sorry.”
“I hope he was.”
“He is going away for a time.”
“Indeed? Will he return?”
“If he thinks he shall be well received, he will.”
“I hope he will remain. Julia, I dare say, will not be quite willing
to have him go,” added Dick, trying to look indifferent, which was as
impossible as for water to run up hill.
“Julia is a mystery to me. I don’t know what she thinks.”
Dick took this answer as a rebuff, and he said no more of Julia. Eugene
was not willing to speak for her, and he changed the subject. He talked
about his chapel and his missionaries, his model houses, and his battle
with the mill people. But these were dry topics after the exciting
events of the day; and at midnight both of them retired.
The next day the Poppleton Mercury came, with a full account of the
trial of Ross Kingman; but this was already an old story, and Eugene’s
thought was soon riveted to a paragraph which called the attention
of the reader to the appropriate column where would be found the
announcement of the marriage of Eliot Buckstone and Mary Kingman. The
article stated that Mrs. Buckstone had her marriage certificate and
other papers to confirm the fact of her union with the unfortunate man
who had sought to rob her of her title of wife. These papers had been
sent to Mrs. Buckstone at a late hour on the day of the trial, up to
which time she had been entirely ignorant of their existence.
Of course Dr. Lynch was the author of the paragraph, and the people of
Poppleton must by this time be satisfied that Mary had been a wife, and
was now a widow.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DOCTOR HIMSELF AGAIN.
On the morning after his return to Poppleton, Dick Birch went down to
the Port, and resumed his duties as the business man of Eugene, just
as though nothing had happened. People were glad to see him; they said
so, and most of them knew he was “all right” from the beginning. There
was not the shadow of a stain resting upon him. Some enthusiastic
individuals proposed to give him a public reception--welcome him with
speeches, and glorify him in the choicest rhetoric of the Poppleton
orators; but those who knew Dick best were sure that he would not
submit to the operation.
Eugene’s income had been accumulating with fearful rapidity, and the
balance in his favor in the Poppleton Bank was absolutely appalling.
The affrighted _millionnaire_ began to reproach himself for his own
laziness. The chapel and the church, the missionaries and the Sisters
of Charity, seemed hardly to affect the mighty balance, and the model
houses paid their own way. Something must be done to mitigate the
severity of the balance, which reproached the unfortunate owner for his
want of enterprise.
Dick sympathized with him, and before dinner time the balance was
happily disposed of, and the bewildered man of money dined in peace. A
public library and reading-room were projected. A site for an elegant
building was agreed upon, and an investment for its perpetual support
and improvement was arranged. Several vacant rooms in the bank
building were at once hired for the temporary accommodation of the
library, for the projected edifice could not be completed before the
autumn of the next year.
“Of course this will be called the ‘Hungerford Library,’” said Dick
Birch, when the plan was satisfactorily adjusted.
“Bah!”
“Why not?”
“I will not permit my name to be applied to any public institution.”
“But the people who are to receive the benefit of this library will
insist upon it.”
“I will never consent. It shall be called the ‘Poppleton Library,’ or
something of that sort.”
“Just think of the immense value of this institution to the people.
Here will be a large library, from which the whole town may take books
without cost. Here will be a great hall, warmed and lighted, open day
and evening, supplied with all the newspapers and magazines of the
day, where the citizens can sit and read publications which would
cost them a hundred dollars a year to obtain individually. Here is a
conversation-room, where they can meet to talk politics, religion,
ships, and factories. Don’t you think they will be grateful to you?”
“Doubtless.”
“They will insist upon having your name in connection with the
enterprise.”
“If that were the alternative, I wouldn’t do it at all. I intend to
do this thing for the public good, not for my own glory. Giving my
own name to such an institution, seems to me very much like putting
‘esquire’ to my own signature. I will not do it, or let it be done.”
“Of course you will do as you please.”
“I know of nothing that would make me feel cheaper and more
insignificant, than to see my name in great letters on the proposed
building. I abhor the very idea.”
Eugene was decided, and he was sincere. He was not the man who offered
to give a large sum of money to any town that would adopt his name;
he could not have been even a friend of such a man. The balance was
effectually used up, and Hungerford and his friend went to dinner with
better appetites for the good work they had done. Dick had dropped back
very easily into his old position, which was not less satisfactory to
the family than to himself.
Julia was in no respect altered from what she had been before Dick’s
withdrawal from the mansion. She treated him now with the intimacy
of friendship, but he did not seem at all disposed to improve his
opportunity. He did not attempt to make love to her, resorted to no
expedients to win her favor; in fact, he conducted himself in the most
commonplace manner, precisely as though he did not intend to take
advantage of Dr. Lynch’s absence.
“Dick, we must get up a list of books for the public library,” said
Eugene, after dinner.
“That is no small matter.”
“No; and as you and I have enough to do, I propose to leave the
selection to another.”
“I am entirely willing.”
“I will carry what catalogues we have to Mary, and let her do this
work. She has good taste and good judgment.”
“Excellent!” laughed Dick.
“John Porter will assist her.”
“I think you had better assist her yourself.”
Eugene took the catalogues and went to The Great Bell. He laid his
bundle on the table in the parlor, and came away without saying a word
about the public library. He forgot it.
“To-morrow has come, Mary,” said he, as he took her hand, and kissed
her cheek.
Mary was troubled.
“It has come too soon.”
“Don’t you love me?”
“I cannot deny it.”
“Would you deny it?”
“If I could I might be more true and just to you.”
“If you love me, it is all I ask. You consent?”
“I do not--yet.”
“Why not, Mary?”
“I do not deserve you.”
“Do I deserve you?”
“O, yes!”
“Then would you deprive me of my desert?”
“Eugene, my heart says yes; my reason says no.”
“The heart before the reason, Mary.”
“I am afraid that, months or years hence, when this step cannot be
recalled, you will see me as I am. You will think of the odious events
which once separated us, and wish you had passed me by on the other
side.”
“You wrong me, Mary.”
“It would not be unnatural, Eugene. You know what a break there was in
the love which began while we were children. Even now you wish this had
not happened.”
“I do,” replied Eugene, candidly. “If I could to-day be reduced to
poverty, and possess you as you were before Buckstone stepped into your
path, I would take the poverty, and rejoicingly clasp my treasure to my
heart.”
Mary shrank from him.
“Then you do not regard me as you did before?” said she, sadly, and
with quivering lip.
“I love you the same; do not shrink from me. I have only said that I
would give the poor boon of wealth to have you as you were. This cannot
be. Mary, I am cool, self-possessed; I am not carried away by any silly
enthusiasm. I have thought calmly and dispassionately of our marriage.
I have compared you with all the women I know--with all I have seen
here and abroad. You are beautiful; if it were for your beauty alone I
sought you, I could distrust myself. It is not. You have a Christian
heart. You were my ideal of a woman. You are still. What has happened
does not affect the qualities for which I seek you. Morally, mentally,
spiritually, you are the same. I love you in spite of what has come
between us. I cannot love another. I could not help looking coldly upon
the fairest and most accomplished, even after I knew that you were the
wife of another. If I had been doomed never to see you again, I should
still have cherished the Mary I loved, and never thought of supplying
her place with another. I feel what I say; I mean it. I am not making a
special plea; I am only telling the simple truth.”
She did not shrink from him now.
“Could I have known that you still loved me,” replied she, as he took
her hand again, “I should not have done violence to my own heart as I
did. I would have slept in the woods, and fed upon acorns, rather than
be false to the love that was in my heart. I thought you repelled me. I
gave you up, and believed that I had conquered my heart.”
“It was my fault; but let us not speak of these things. They are
loathsome to me. Let me atone for my error.”
“I wish you to know the whole truth. The past is more painful to me
than it can be to you.”
“Let the dead bury their dead; let us never allude to these things
again.”
“Never, Eugene.”
“You are mine, Mary?”
“I cannot say no, and I dare not say yes.”
His arm encircled her waist, as she leaned her head upon his shoulder.
There were tears in her eyes--why they came she could not tell.
“Do not rob me of this highest earthly joy, Mary.”
“I can rob you of nothing, Eugene; no word or deed of mine can add a
joy to your lot.”
“The word can hardly add to the consent your looks and actions give,
Mary, but speak.”
“Yes, Eugene! Do with me as you will. I am not worthy, but such as I
am, I am yours, since you desire it.”
She smiled through her tears, as he printed his warm kiss upon her
lips, and the compact was sealed.
They were to be married in the spring; to no earlier time than this
would she willingly consent. When he had gone, Mary wondered what the
bundle of catalogues could mean; but Eugene came every day after this,
and in a week the list of books for the Poppleton library was ready.
Mary still applied herself with unremitting diligence to her missionary
duties in connection with the chapel. John Porter preached and labored
among the Protestant poor, and Father McCafferty and the Sisters of
Charity among the Catholic. The keepers of grog shops complained of
hard times. The reading-room was opened; the books of the library began
to circulate; a course of lectures was commenced; and then the keepers
of the billiard and bowling saloons began to grumble, as their patrons
decreased in number.
“I have it!” exclaimed Eugene, as soon as the effects of his enterprise
began to be apparent.
“What, Hungerford?” asked Dick, taking his cigar from his mouth.
“We must have the library building three stories high.”
“Is that all?” laughed Dick, who did not regard this as a very
brilliant idea.
“The structure will be on a side hill. We can have it two stories on
the street, and three in the rear.”
“No doubt we can; what are you talking about, Hungerford?”
“In the lower story we will have a bowling alley and a billiard-room.”