"Is it wicked to go under other names than your own?"

Miss Blake flushed as she bent forward to place her empty cup upon the table by her side. She was far from strong yet; the slightest exertion brought the blood to her cheeks.

"Not necessarily," she said. "But as a general rule people whose lives have been simple and upright do not need to live under an assumed name. Of course there might be exceptional cases—and there is a difference between an alias and an incognito."

"What's an incognito?" questioned Nan.

"Why, if a person of rank or importance travels through a country and wishes to escape publicity, he often does so incognito—that is, unknown. He will drop his official title and take his family name or part of his family name with a simple prefix. For instance, a king might care to be known as the Duke of So-and-so; a Duke as Mr. ——, whatever his surname chanced to be. That would not be wicked and it would not be an alias. And sometimes people who are not nobles find it desirable to remain unrecognized for a time. Take it for granted that I was not, in reality, a governess at all; I mean that I was not forced by circumstances to take such a position, but that I for some reason chose to assume it. That I cared to come here and be with you because I had known and loved your parents long ago and wished to do my best for their child. Then suppose I did not care to disclose my identity to—to—people because of—well, no matter—I simply came here giving you but part of my name—not the whole, why it might not be a wise course, but it certainly could not be called a wicked."

"Oh, how I wish you had," cried Nan. "It would be splendid fun. Just like a princess in disguise and things. Say you aren't a governess and that your name isn't Blake. Oh, please do. It'll be just like fairy-stories if you will."

"How can I, dear, when I am and it is?" replied the governess, slowly. "I am no princess in disguise, I assure you. I am simply a very prosaic little woman and your devoted friend. I don't think I could possibly discover anything at all resembling a fairy-tale in my life. But some time, perhaps, when you are older, and when—I mean, if we meet again, I will tell you all there is to tell about myself—that is, if you care to listen. It will not be exciting—but you might care to know it."

"Oh, I would, I would!" the girl exclaimed heartily. "But I hate to have you talk of 'if we meet again.' Why, we must, Miss Blake. Don't you know I couldn't live and know I wasn't to see you any more? It's like the most awful thing that could happen to have you go way at all, and the only way I can bear it is thinking of how we'll see each other often and often. Why, my father will be so thankful to you for taking such care of me! I guess he won't know what to do. And when you see him and find how good he is, you won't be afraid a bit. You'll just as lief stay here as not. He's the best, the dearest—oh, you couldn't help but like my father."

A soft hand patted her head in loving appreciation, but not one word said the governess, and the two sat together in silence for some time thinking rather sober thoughts, until the sound of the door-bell broke in upon the stillness and brought Nan to her feet and sent her flying to the balusters to peep over and discover who the late caller might be.

"It's Mr. Turner, and he asked for you," she said, coming back into the room and bending to gather up the scattered news sheets that strewed the floor. "He looked as solemn as an owl, and he asked for you in a voice that made me feel ever so queer—it was so trembly."

"He may be cold," suggested Miss Blake.

She rose and settled the pillows upon the divan. She would have to receive her guest up here. She was not yet permitted to venture below. She and Nan stood ready to receive him as he entered the room, and after the first greetings the girl was about to sit down beside her friend when the lawyer said abruptly:

"My dear, I must ask you to permit me to talk to Miss Blake alone to-day. I have some private business to transact with her. You will pardon me for asking you to leave us."

Nan rose immediately with a smile of good-natured understanding, but as she turned to leave the room she saw that the face of the governess was deathly white, and she ran back to her, crying:

"What is it; oh, what is it? Are you faint? Let me get you something."

She was in a sudden bewilderment of alarm. Miss Blake gently put her aside, saying calmly,

"Why, nothing is the matter, Nan. Nothing at all, my dear. I am strong and well now, you know. Quite strong and well. You must not make Mr. Turner think I am ill, else he will go away again, and I shall not know what he has to say to me. I am quite able to hear—whatever it is. So go away, dear."

The girl obeyed, and the next moment the door had closed behind her, and only the sound of her voice from without, singing in happy reassurance, broke the stillness of the room where the lawyer and the governess stood facing each other silently.



CHAPTER XX

THROUGH DEEP WATERS

Mr. Turner was the first to speak. "Sit down," he said kindly. "You must not stand."

Miss Blake sank into her place upon the divan, but she did not lean back. She sat stiffly upright, nervously locking and unlocking her fingers in her lap and compressing her lips tightly, but asking no questions—saying no word.

The lawyer drew a chair beside her and slowly, deliberately seated himself in it.

"You remember," he began at length, in a hesitating sort of way, "that I told you some time ago that I had some reason to fear that affairs were not prospering at Bombay. I wish to come to the point at once; to spare you all suspense. I am afraid Mr. Cutler is in some serious difficulty, and—"

He paused. The governess leaned forward, and her breath came quickly.

"Go on," she whispered.

"For some time past his letters have been most unsatisfactory. He has seemed depressed and discouraged. What word I have received from him during the past few months has been of such a character as to lead one to form the gravest suspicions. His letters have been short and hurried—written, evidently, under great mental strain. And latterly they have ceased altogether. For the last two months, ever since you have been ill, I have heard literally nothing from him. His plan was to leave Bombay in September. That he kept to his original purpose I have no reason to doubt. He was on the steamer, or, at least, his name was on its passenger list. Of course while you were so ill I could say nothing to you of this—besides I had only my suspicions then. But as time passed, and no communication from him reached me I grew apprehensive. Within the last two weeks I have sent numberless dispatches to him to his London address, but not one of them has received a reply—in fact, no one of them has been delivered to him. The people there do not know where he is. I have cabled to Bombay, thinking he might have been detained there unexpectedly, but that, too, has proved of no avail. The Bombay house know nothing of his whereabouts. He left them as he intended to do in September, and since then they have heard from him as little as I."

Miss Blake's eager eyes seemed to search the lawyer through and through. He shifted uneasily in his place.

"It is very difficult to go on," he said, with a nervous, constrained cough.

"Quick! Quick!" whispered the governess. "Tell me everything now—this minute. Tell me! Tell me!"

"There is little more to tell," said Mr. Turner sadly. "This afternoon I received a wire from his London banker, and it seems—that—he, William Cutler, is—is—dead."

There was a low cry. Miss Blake had leaped to her feet at his words, and now she was swaying forward as though too faint to stand. The lawyer sprang forward to save her from falling, but she pushed him away with both hands almost savagely.

"No, no!" she gasped. "I am strong. I am strong. But—God pity us! My poor little Nan—and—oh, my poor little Nan!"

She sank back upon the divan and buried her face in her outstretched arms.

The lawyer rose and went to the window.

Outside the wind blew drearily. The bare trees showed but dimly through the gathering dusk. It was a bleak, cold outlook. Presently down the street came a man with a lighted torch and set the gas-flames to flickering in every lamp along his way.

Mr. Turner watched him until he had passed out of sight—then he turned about and came back to the sofa once more.

Miss Blake had raised her head and sat staring blankly before her, dry-eyed, but with an expression far sadder than tears; the dull, lifeless look of helpless misery that has not yet been touched with submission.

"Shall I leave you now?" asked the lawyer softly. "Perhaps you would rather be alone. I can come again—whenever you wish. Perhaps it would be better for me to come again when you are stronger—better able to bear it."

She turned her large eyes upon him in a sort of mute supplication. All the light had gone out of them now. Mr. Turner reseated himself and continued:

"He died in a hospital in London of a malignant fever. No one saw him. He was buried within twenty-four hours, I presume according to the law in such cases. Of course, I have no particulars, only the barest outline of facts. Undoubtedly I shall receive a letter by the next steamer, giving details. It is all desperately sad—heart-breakingly sad. Poor fellow! So young and to die alone among strangers."

Miss Blake stretched out her hands supplicatingly.

"Don't," she pleaded.

"Shall I tell Nan?" Mr. Turner asked after a moment. "Perhaps it would be better if I should. You have undergone enough."

"No, no!" she cried. "No one must tell her but myself. But first I must talk to you about—about—you know when I came here I had reasons for wishing her not to know who I was. Now I will tell her. There is no more need to withhold anything. Delia always knew—from the first—but she never told Nan and she never would have told. But that is all over now. There is no need for secrecy any more. And I will stay with her. I will keep her with me always. She has no one else now, and I—I—I am free to do as I please. If—if he has left her unprovided for, why, that shall make no difference to her. I have plenty and she shall share it with me. She shall never feel the care or want of anything that I can supply. Ah, Mr. Turner, I am glad I came. It has been hard, but I am glad I came."

She broke down completely. Her frail figure shook with shuddering sobs.

But she was not a woman to give way long, and in a moment she regained her self-control.

"I must have time to think," she said. "Everything seems so changed and strange. I scarcely know where I stand. The suddenness of it has been so horrible. I suppose he must have been ill for a long time—too ill to write. And by and by when they took him to the hospital he must have been unconscious, and so they could not communicate with his friends. That would account for it all, his not writing nor receiving the dispatches—and his friends not knowing where he was."

Mr. Turner nodded. Then he rose.

"I will leave you now," he said. "You are completely worn out. If you will take my advice you will defer telling Nan until tomorrow. I fear the strain will prove too great for you."

She smiled faintly.

"Oh, no," she replied. "I am stronger than you think. But the child shall not be told tonight. I will leave her in peace for one night longer. I will let her get one more good night's rest. Then to-morrow, when she is refreshed and strengthened by her sleep she can learn it all."

The lawyer held out his hand. "This has been one of the hardest trials of my life," he said. "But you have helped me by your bravery and fortitude. I thank you from my heart. Good night!" and in a moment he was gone.

That evening Miss Blake bade Delia take Nan to the Andrews'. She wrote a short note to Ruth's mother in which she begged her to keep the girl through the evening and make her as happy as she could. She briefly stated the reason for her request.

Nan knew that something was being kept from her but she never suspected what. She fancied it must be connected with Miss Blake's private affairs, and she asked no questions. When she reached the Andrews' her exuberant spirits reasserted themselves and she spent a gay evening with Ruth, Mrs. Andrews leading in the fun and seeing that no one passed a dull moment. They played all sorts of games, and then finally Bridget appeared with the crowning delight, a tray upon which a tempting array of good things was set forth. How Nan enjoyed it! She often thought afterward what a happy evening it was. At ten o'clock Delia called for her and she went home through the still night, thinking all sorts of merry thoughts. Miss Blake listened with apparent interest to her description of her evening's jollification, and when she had finished gave her an especially tender good-night kiss, saying:

"God bless you, my Nan. Sleep well, dear, and let us both pray for strength to bear God's will."

The next morning after breakfast Nan discovered why Miss Blake had bade her especially to pray for strength.

Poor child! She felt so utterly weak and helpless in her misery. At first she could scarcely realize what had befallen her and she kept insisting, "It isn't my father that has died. It is some one else. How can I feel that he isn't alive? He can't be dead! He isn't! He isn't! Why, only yesterday I was expecting he would soon be home. It's some other man who hasn't got a daughter that loves him so."

But by and by she grew desperate in her wretchedness and then it took all Miss Blake's influence to restrain her from really wearing herself out in the abandon of her grief.

But by evening the house was quiet. Nan's loud sobbing had ceased and she lay quite still and exhausted, stretched upon the divan in Miss Blake's room, with her throbbing head in the governess' lap. A tender hand stroked her disheveled hair, a tender voice spoke words of comfort to her, and she was soothed and solaced by both.

"Shall I tell you a story, Nan?" asked Miss Blake at length.

The girl gave a silent nod of assent.

"Well, once upon a time," began the governess in a gentle monotone, "there lived two girls and they were friends. They loved each other dearly. One was tall and fair and beautiful, and the other was small and dark, and if people ever thought her even pretty it was because love lighted their kind eyes and made it seem that what they looked upon was sweet.

"The first girl had father and mother and a happy home. The second was an orphan, having nothing to remind her of the parents she had lost when she was a baby but the fortune they had left her. She never knew what love meant until she met her beautiful friend. Then she learned. Oh, how those two girls loved each other! When Florence, the beautiful one, found that Isabel had no home she pleaded with her parents to take her into theirs, and they not only took her to their home but to their hearts as well. And so she and her dear friend grew up together like sisters, and the little lonely girl was not lonely any more, but very, very happy among those she loved. Well, time went on, and by and by when the two girls had become quite young women, the first more beautiful than ever, the other a little less plain, maybe, something happened that, in the end, caused them to be separated forever.

"God sent into their lives the self-same experience and into their hearts the self-same thought. It was a beautiful experience and a beautiful thought, but if it was to mean happiness for one, it must be at the cost of grief to the other. Perhaps it was because they both knew this that neither of them told her secret. But presently it was decided which was to have the happiness. It came to the one who expected it least—who had the least right to expect it. It came to Isabel, and for a moment she thought she might accept it. But it was only for a moment. Then she knew that she must relinquish it. It would have been base, would it not, my Nan, to have defrauded the friend who had done so much for her? And so she, Isabel, left the house that had been her home for so many years, and quite solitary and alone sailed across the sea to the other side of the world, and there she stayed for—well, over a dozen years, my dear.

"It was soon after she went away that your mother—I mean Florence—was married. Isabel heard of it and was glad. And later, when she learned that a dear little daughter had been born to Florence, she was happier still. But then came sad news. Oh, such sad news! The beautiful young mother died, died and left her little baby girl behind her with only the poor father to take care of it.

"Then, after that, Isabel heard nothing more for a long, long time, for Florence's good parents were dead and her husband and Isabel were—well, not at enmity, Nan, but not at peace together. It was all owing to a misunderstanding, but that did not alter it. They were not friends and Isabel was too proud to write and ask him whether all went well with him and the little daughter or whether she might perhaps help to care for the child. And so years passed and then one day Isabel felt that she could remain away from America no longer. All the time there had been a great longing in her heart to return, but she had tried to smother it and tell herself that she had no Fatherland; that America was no more to her than any of the strange countries she had lived in; that her acquaintances abroad were as much to her as her friends at home. But, as I say, by and by she could resist her desire no longer, and so one day she set sail for America—I think it must have been after she had been absent for quite fourteen years—and oh! how her heart beat when she saw the dear land once more. Well, I must make my story short, Nan, so I will not tell you how it came about that she first heard that Florence's little daughter had grown into a tall girl; that she was living in the old house where Isabel had spent so many happy years; that her father had gone to some far Eastern country and left her in the charge of a faithful servant of her mother's who had loved them all in days gone by. But she learned all this and more beside and then something told her that it was her duty to go to Florence's child and care for her and show her as well as she might how to be a noble, true, and lovely woman, as her mother had been before her. So she went to the little girl as governess and at first the child was opposed to her, but by and by she—I really think she grew to love her almost as much as the governess loved the child. And all this time the father never knew who was caring for his girl because in the letters that went to him the governess was spoken of by but part of her name. She chose to live incognito, you know what that is, Nan, because she feared if he knew who was serving his child as governess he would write to her in his proud fashion and say:

"No; I need no one to care for my daughter for love. Whomever I employ I will pay. You are a wealthy woman. You need not work for money. My few poor dollars are nothing to you. Besides—"

"And then I think, Nan, he would have referred to the old disagreement and it would all have been very painful, and she would have had to go away and been lonely ever after and have left undone her duty to Florence's child. So she lived quietly in the old house with the little girl and the servant and all went well for a year and then—well, then, dear Nan, I think I need not tell what happened then. But, oh, my dear, you are my own little girl—Florence's child and I loved her, ah! I loved her so. For her sake you are mine now. Never say that you are 'all alone' again. I have taken you as a sacred trust. Come to me, Nan, for I am lonely too, I am lonely too."



CHAPTER XXI

ANOTHER CHRISTMAS

It was Christmas eve. Nan was sitting before the dining-room fire curled up in a huge arm chair thinking. Her pale face had grown wonderfully sweet during the last few weeks; the curves about her mouth had softened; her eyes had lost their keen sparkle and gained a softer light instead. She seemed to have undergone a complete transformation, and any one seeing the headstrong hoyden of the year before would have found it difficult to recognize her in this gentle-mannered girl with her serene brow and patient eyes, to whom suffering had taught so hard a lesson. Her black dress and her parted hair gave her a wonderfully meek look. But Nan was not meek. She was merely controlled. The same hot passions still rose in her breast, but she tried to restrain them now.

This evening she was thinking over all that had happened during the past year; especially she was trying to project her thoughts into the future, and to imagine what would occur in the years to come. She had not yet become accustomed to the idea of life without her father. It seemed to her that he must be alive, and she often waked up in the night from such a vivid dream of him that it seemed as though he really stood beside her, and that she might feel his hand if she stretched forth her own in the dark. It was difficult to reconcile herself to living without the hope of his return; it was hard to convince herself that she must never look forward to receiving a letter from him again. But she knew it must be accomplished, and the effort would help to make a noble woman of her.

As she sat there in the dim room, with only the fire to light it, she wondered whether anything could make of her as noble a woman as was her "Aunt Isabel." In her heart she felt not. Aunt Isabel was simply perfect in the girl's sight, and if she could ever have been brought to doubt her perfection, why, there was Delia to prove it with her emphatic:

"No, ma'am! There ain't no one in this world like her. She is the best, the generousest, the most self-sacrificin' soul on earth—that she is, and I've known her ever since she was a child. If any one was to ask me the name of the woman I've most call to honor an' love, I'd say 'twas Isabel Blake Severance an' never stop a minute to think it over."

And both Nan and Delia had long ago decided that while other women might be more beautiful, no one could have softer, sunnier hair than Aunt Isabel, nor truer, tenderer eyes, nor a prettier nose nor a sweeter mouth. And Nan was quite confident that if one hunted the whole globe over one could not find dimples more entirely winning nor hands whose touch was so absolutely soothing and soft.

But Miss Severance could never be brought to admit these important facts, though Nan often sought to convince her of their truth. She was too busy a woman to have time to think whether she were beautiful or not.

"Good is the thing," she would say, in her brisk fashion. "If I can look in the glass and see the reflection of a good woman there, I have no right to regret that she is not a beautiful one."

Just now she was upstairs, busied with some matter of mysterious importance from which Nan was excluded. She and Delia had been shut into her room all the afternoon. Nan had ample time and opportunity for the manufacture of her own Christmas gifts, Aunt Isabel being so much occupied, behind closed door, with hers.

For quite a time now Nan had been forced to station herself in the regions below stairs, where she would hear the bell if it rang, so that Delia might be free to give all her attention to Miss Severance. Evidently great things were in operation above. Nan wondered what it could all be about.

Christmas had lost much of its joyousness this year, but still there was a little flavor of merriment left. Aunt Isabel had no sympathy with the hark-from-the-tombs-a-doleful-sound attitude. She thought it was one's duty to be as cheery and hopeful as possible, and not to add to the misery of the world at large by forcing it to witness one's private grief. She and Nan had their hours of tender mourning and sincere regret, but it was always Miss Severance's desire that no unwholesome brooding should be indulged in by either of them.

So the girl tried to restrain the tears that would rise at the thought of these saddened holidays, and endeavored to bring her mind to bear on more happy subjects. She thought of her plans for the next day; she made a mental recount of the gifts she had prepared, and then, somehow against her will, her memory took her back to that morning when she had heard of her father's death and listened to Miss Severance's story, and she lived over again those intense moments when it almost seemed to her her mother had been restored to her in this rare friend. The simple history had a peculiar fascination for the girl, and she liked to think that it was here, in these very rooms, that it all had been enacted.

She liked to look into those books of Miss Severance's that had her mother's name upon the fly-leaf, and she liked to think that they were given to "Bell with Florence's fond love."

Miss Severance had several photographs of her mother as a girl that Nan had never seen, and she was fond of looking them over and exclaiming at the "old-fashioned" frocks and quaintly arranged hair, and wondering whether this happy-looking girl ever discovered the sacrifice her friend had made for her.

One day Nan asked Miss Severance as much, but Aunt Isabel had shaken her head gravely and said:

"No, Nan, she never did. And don't think of that part of the story, my dear. It was no more than I ought to have done. You must not make a piece of heroism of it. I only told it to you because unless I had, it would have been difficult to explain why I left her and went so far away."

"Aunt Isabel," Nan said, "won't you tell me just what it was you gave up?" But Miss Severance shook her head.

What the girl could not at all comprehend was the fact of any one's being "not at peace" with Aunt Isabel. Aunt Isabel, who never was unjust nor unkind, nor anything but generous and good to every one. She thought if she could have spoken to her father she could have convinced him that he was mistaken about Aunt Isabel. But that was impossible now. Her father—again the hot tears came surging up, and her breast began to heave.

Suddenly she started. What was that? She jumped to her feet. Somebody was turning the knob of the street door and fitting a key in the lock. At first it was her impulse to cry out, but she mastered herself and ran quickly through the parlor and stood bravely on the threshold waiting for the door to open and admit the intruder. Her heart beat like a trip-hammer in her side, and the pulses in her wrists and temples throbbed painfully. She saw the door move inward, she felt the rush of cold outer air upon her face, and then—

In a moment she was locked in two strong arms, her head was pressed against a dear, broad chest, and she was crying "Father! Father!" in a perfect ecstasy of rapture and a tempest of tears.

For a few moments neither of them said a single word. They just clung to each other and wept—the strong man as well as the slender girl.

They seemed to lose all other thought in the joy of the meeting. Then somehow they found themselves in the library, and Nan, still sobbing for very happiness, was listening to her father as he told her how, for many months, he had been ill, but had tried to fight it off and overcome it, because he was so anxious to get home, and he could not bear to think he might be prevented. Then, just before his ship sailed, and after he had enrolled himself among the list of passengers, and bidden good-bye to those he knew, he was stricken down and for weeks lay unconscious, between life and death, as utterly unbefriended as though he had been in the midst of a wilderness. How he came to recover he never knew, but it seemed as though his great longing for home gave him strength to battle through the dreadful fever. Then, almost too feeble to stand, he was taken to the ship and borne to England, his body weak from suffering, but his heart strong with hope.

The voyage was a severe one, and before he reached London he had a relapse, so that when they entered port he had to be carried ashore, and, too ill to know or care what happened to him, was taken to a lodging-house and nursed back to health once more by the keeper herself, whose son was the steward of the ship on which he had crossed.

"You can fancy, Nannie, that I had only one thought all that time—to get back to you. The first move I was able to make was to the ship, and I sailed without having seen or spoken to a soul I knew in London. Then on board I met a friend, who told me of the report of my death, and I knew that you must have heard it. The people at the bank would communicate with Turner, I felt sure. Ah, what days those were! It seemed as though we should never reach land. But we got in to-day, and you can imagine that I have not lost one moment in coming to you, sweetheart. But how my girl has changed. Grown so tall and womanly. I'm afraid I've lost my little Wildfire. But the girl I've found in her stead is a hundred times dearer."

Then Nan clung to him again and they were very happy, feeling how good God was, and how very blessed it felt to be together.

For a while they both stopped talking and sat quite still, holding hands, while each heart offered up a prayer of gratitude.

They did not hear an upper door open, nor did they notice a light footstep in the hall above. But at the sound of a gentle voice calling "Nan!" they both started up, and the girl's grasp of her father's hand tightened, for she felt him suddenly start and tremble. She tried to answer but could not for the joy she felt and the quick fear of this other loss she would have to suffer now.

"Nan!"

Still the girl could not reply, though she tried, and her father's face had grown rigid and white, as though it were carved in marble.

Then down the stairs and through the hall came Aunt Isabel, stopping at the threshold of the dining-room door for a moment to accustom her eyes to the dimness within.

There she stood—the bright light from the hall lamp falling full upon her head and the ruddy glow of the fire illuminating her face.

Nan caught up her father's hand, for she felt him suddenly shrink and falter.

The little figure in the doorway neither stirred or moved.

For an instant there was perfect silence in the room, and then Nan saw her father stride forward with a look of the most wonderful happiness upon his face, and heard him utter one word in a tone that set her heart to beating.

"Bell!"

And somehow then she knew it all. In one brief flash she read the whole story, and she saw that it was to be completed at last, and that the loss she had feared she would not know at all, but something infinitely happier and more sweet.

THE END