FullReads

“I wish that was all the bad news I have,” said Baron to himself as Hagar showed Mrs. Detlor to a landau. Mrs. Detlor asked to be driven to her hotel.

“I shall see you this afternoon at the excursion if you are well enough to go,” Hagar said to her.

“Perhaps,” she said with a strange smile. Then, as she drove away, “You have not read your letters this morning.” He looked after her for a moment, puzzled by what she said and by the expression on her face.

He went back to the house abstractedly. Baron was sitting in a chair, smoking hard. Neither men spoke at first. Hagar went over to the mantel and adjusted the mirror, thinking the while of Mrs. Detlor’s last words. “You haven’t read your letters this morning,” he repeated to himself. He glanced down and saw the letter which had so startled Mrs. Detlor.

“From Mrs. Gladney!” he said to himself. He glanced at the other letters. They were obviously business letters. He was certain Mrs. Detlor had not touched them and had, therefore, only seen this one which lay on top. “Could she have meant anything to do with this?” He tapped it upward with his thumb. “But why, in the name of heaven, should this affect her? What had she to do with Mrs. Gladney, or Mrs. Gladney with her?”

With this inquiry showing in his eyes he turned round and looked at Baron meditatively but unconsciously. Baron, understanding the look, said, “Oh, don’t mind me. Read your letters. My business’ll keep.”

Hagar nodded, was about to open the letter, but paused, went over to the archway and drew the curtains. Then he opened the letter. The body of it ran:

DEAR MR. HAGAR–I have just learned on my return from the Continent with the Branscombes that you are at Herridon. My daughter Mildred, whom you have never seen–and that is strange, we having known each other so long–is staying at the View House there with the Margraves, whom, also, I think, you do not know. I am going down to-morrow, and will introduce you all to each other. May I ask you to call on me there? Once or twice you have done me a great service, and I may prove my gratitude by asking you to do another. Will this frighten you out of Herridon before I come? I hope not, indeed. Always gratefully yours,

IDA GLADNEY.

He thoughtfully folded the letter up, and put it in his pocket. Then he said to Baron, “What did you say was the name of the pretty girl at the View House?”

“Mildred, Mildred Margrave–lovely, ‘cometh up as a flower,’ and all that. You’ll see her to-night.”

Hagar looked at him debatingly, then said, “You are in love with her, Baron. Isn’t it–forgive me–isn’t it a pretty mad handicap?”

Baron ran his hand over his face in an embarrassed fashion, then got up, laughed nervously, but with a brave effort, and replied: “Handicap, my son, handicap? Of course, it’s all handicap. But what difference does that make when it strikes you? You can’t help it, can you? It’s like loading yourself with gold, crossing an ugly river, but you do it. Yes, you do it just the same.”

He spoke with an affected cheerfulness, and dropped a hand on Hagar’s shoulder. It was now Hagar’s turn. He drew down the hand and wrung it as Baron had wrung his in the morning. “You’re a brick, Baron,” he said.

“I tell you what, Hagar. I’d like to talk the thing over once with Mrs. Detlor. She’s a wise woman, I believe, if ever there was one; sound as the angels, or I’m a Zulu. I fancy she’d give a fellow good advice, eh?–a woman like her, eh?”

To hear Mrs. Detlor praised was as wine and milk to Hagar. He was about to speak, but Baron, whose foible was hurriedly changing from one subject to another, pulled a letter out of his pocket and said: “But maybe this is of more importance to Mrs. Detlor than my foolishness. I won’t ask you to read it. I’ll tell you what’s in it. But, first, it’s supposed, isn’t it, that her husband was drowned?”