"That's strange, isn't it?"
"Yes, a most unfortunate complication for me, their being where my wife can – and she will – pump Mrs. Honey. It was to get the chance to do that, I fully believe, which made my wife invite them; hence the absolute need of my having some plausible story with which to satisfy Edna. You, by reason of your age and respectability, can better do this than anyone else."
"But, 'pon my soul, Rutherford," expostulated Plowden, "much as I would like to serve you, I'm afraid I can't. What can I say to your wife?"
"You can tell her that the girl was yours; that to hide her from your wife I secretly put her into the school, for you, under an assumed name."
"But what will my wife say – she who never suspected that I had a wife before her, much less a child?"
"Oh, it will be all right after Christmas. I can then square myself with my wife, and you can make a clean breast of it to yours."
"Why don't you make a clean breast of it at once? It happened before your marriage, you know."
"Oh, as for that, it would be all the same to Edna, if it had happened in a previous existence. But that isn't the question. It is a professional secret. I am under a pledge to an old client of mine for whom I acted. He is now in Boston, and I'm going to telegraph him that domestic peace demands my release from my pledge. So you see, Plowden, that if you can stave off my wife's suspicions until after Christmas, I will – "
"What?"
"Stave off Mrs. Plowden Number One."
"I'll do my best," groaned Plowden, "though the Lord has not gifted me with the art of deception."
"Inspiration will spring from necessity. Remember, it will bring us a peaceful Christmas and you – relief from Number One."
Together they entered the telegraph office, and Rutherford sent off his message to Boston.
II.
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Miss Helen Fithian, a poor, elderly relative of Edna's, was spending the season – much more than the holidays – with the Rutherfords. She and Edna were sitting together in the library that afternoon, while the perturbed Plowden was learning his hard lesson of enforced duplicity. Mrs. Rutherford was in no humor for conversation. Miss Fithian nestled into the depths of a big arm-chair in a shadowy corner, clutched her lank red fingers over the tidy she was eternally crocheting and never finishing, dropped the eye-glasses from her bony nose into her lap, and went to sleep.
"Can I speak with you alone, Mrs. Rutherford?" tremulously asked Plowden, stopping at the threshold.
"Certainly, Mr. Plowden; come in," Edna replied, trying her best to speak pleasantly. Plowden glanced at Miss Fithian. "Oh, I am as good as alone," continued Edna, following his look. "Helen is asleep; and even if she were awake, she could not hear you if you spoke in an undertone."
"True," assented Plowden. "I forgot that she's as deaf as a post. Well, the trouble is just this. Your husband has confided to me that a little difference has arisen between you, owing to a slight misunderstanding – "
"Ah, indeed! 'A slight misunderstanding,' eh? Well?" interpolated Mrs. Rutherford, icily, but with fire in her eye.
Plowden was very nervous, but he struggled on bravely: "As I alone can set the matter right, he appealed to me to do so."
"Ah! You think you can. I am curious to know how. I presume I shall understand as you go on."
He shuddered, but continued: "In order that you may do so, I must reveal to you my secret – one that I have locked up for many years. When I came to this country, I left a wife in England."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Edna, drawing away from him in surprise, and saying to herself, "Ah! is he too a villain?"
Involuntarily he raised his voice a little, to span the distance that now separated them, and went on: "Yes; but I had some excuse, I assure you." He then related the story of his married life as he had told it to Rutherford, carefully omitting, however, to mention the age of his daughter.
When he had finished, Edna remarked: "Well, I am surprised, Mr. Plowden. But still I do not see what all this has to do with me and my husband."
"I am coming to that. You will see. Fearing that my wife might follow, trace, and reclaim my daughter if she remained with me, I prevailed upon your husband to place her in a boarding-school in New York, where she remained, under a false name, until, upon the death of her mother, I removed her. Now, do you see?"
"I do, I do!" exclaimed Mrs. Rutherford, her clouded face clearing. "How simple it all is, in the light of this explanation! What a weight you have lifted from my heart! I was looking forward to a wretched Christmas, but now I shall have such a happy one. How can I ever repay you, Mr. Plowden, for your noble frankness?"
"By keeping my secret, as your husband has done all these years."
"I will; I promise you that. Only, I do not see the necessity for secrecy, since your trouble is over and done for, and you are happily married to another woman."
"That's just the reason, dear friend. You see, I allowed people to think I was a bachelor, if I did not actually tell them so. Gertrude became my wife under that belief."
"Why did you not tell her the truth before marriage?"
"I tried to; but my dear, sweet, young Gertrude was so romantic that, while she could and did overlook the disparity in our ages, she never would have done the fact that I had been married before and was a father. It would have disenchanted her completely, and I should have lost her. So, you will keep my secret, my dear madam, will you not?"
"That I will. Oh, how shall I ever forgive myself for wronging my own dear, innocent, faithful, self-sacrificing love by my cruel suspicions and hateful jealousy?"
"Freely confess to him your fault."
"That I will. I will fly to him and ask his forgiveness."
And "fly" she did, as literally as she could, but in the wrong direction. As the last whisk of her skirts was heard in the direction of Mr. Rutherford's study den, that wily gentleman emerged from a door on the opposite side of the library.
"Well?" he demanded anxiously. "Don't keep me on thorns. Have you made it all right with her?"
"I have," replied Mr. Plowden.
"You don't mean to say she swallowed it all!"
Plowden nodded.
"And didn't even drop on the weak point in the story – that when I was supposed to be placing in school your little girl, aged six years, I was not much older myself?"
"No."
The two gentlemen exchanged a smile; then the elder, becoming serious, said:
"But of course you will keep faith with me, Rutherford, and as soon as you obtain your telegraphic release you will tell her the whole truth, whatever that may be?"
"Yes; but I can't get that, you know, until the day after Christmas. I had to wire to my client's business address, so it was too late to connect to-day. To-morrow is a holiday. It will be the day after before I can hear."
"And what about my affair?"
"That is not so easily managed. Still, I have a suspicion that – but I'll say nothing about that at present. The woman is very determined. I told her I could do nothing in the matter until after the holidays. She said she didn't care 'three ha'pence for holidays,' and if I wouldn't take her case and push it, there were plenty of lawyers who would jump at the chance of prosecuting the rich Robert Plowden for bigamy."
"Hush! for heaven's sake!" gasped Plowden, in a hoarse whisper, as, with an expression of terror in his countenance, he pointed at the old maid. Rutherford also looked frightened as, wheeling round, he for the first time descried her; but seeing who it was, and that she was asleep, he was reassured, and replied indifferently:
"Oh, it's all right – nobody but that mischief-making old cat who foists herself upon us six months