Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/526

520 flushed slightly under the cold eyes of Grace Conroy. But only for a moment. Coming to Gabriel's side, he said, kindly:

"Gabriel, I congratulate you. The acting District Attorney has entered a nolle prosequi, and you are discharged."

"Ye mean I kin go?" said Gabriel, suddenly lifting his face.

"Yes. You are as free as air."

"And ez to her?" asked Gabriel quickly.

"What do you mean?" replied Arthur, involuntarily glancing in the direction of Grace, whose eyes dropped scornfully before him.

"My wife—July—is she clar too ?"

"As far as this trial is concerned, yes," returned Arthur, with a trifle less interest in his voice, which Gabriel was quick to discern. "Then I'll go," said Gabriel, rising to his feet.

He made a few steps to the door, and then hesitated, stopped, and turned toward Grace. As he did so, his old apologetic, troubled, diffident manner returned.

" Ye'll exkoos me, Miss," he said, looking with troubled eyes upon his newly found sister, "ye'll exkoos me, ef I haven't the time now to do the agreeable and show ye over yer property on Conroy's Hill. But it's thar! It's all thar, ez Lawyer Maxwell kin testify. It's all thar, and the house is open, ez it always was to ye, ez the young woman who keeps the house kin tell ye. I'd go thar with ye ef I hed time, but I'm startin' out now, to-night, to see July. Toe see my wife, Miss Conroy—to see July ez is expectin'! When I say 'expectin',' I don't mean me—far from it. But expectin' a little stranger—my chile! And I reckon afore I get thar thar'll be a baby—a pore little, helpless new-born baby—ony so long !" added Gabriel, exhibiting his fore-finger as a degree of mensuration, "and ez a famerly man, being ladies, I reckon you reckon I oughter be thar." (I grieve to state that at this moment the ladies appealed to exchange a glance of supreme contempt, and am proud to record that Lawyer Maxwell and Mr. Poinsett exhibited the only expression of sympathy with the speaker that was noticeable in the group.) Arthur detected it, and said, I fear none the less readily for that knowledge:

"Don't let us keep you, Gabriel; we understand your feelings. Go at once."

"Take me along, Gabe," said Olly, flashing her eyes at her sister, and then turning to Gabriel with a quivering upper lip.

Gabriel turned, swooped his tremendous arm around Olly, lifted her bodily off her feet, and saying, "You're my own little girl," vanished through the door-way.

This movement reduced the group to Mrs. Markle and Grace Conroy, confronted by Mr. Poinsett and Maxwell. Mrs. Markle relieved an embarrassing silence by stepping forward and taking the arm of Lawyer Maxwell and leading him away. Arthur and Grace were left alone.

For the first time in his life, Arthur lost his readiness and self-command. He glanced awkwardly at the woman before him, and felt that neither conventional courtesy nor vague sentimental recollection would be effective here. "I am waiting for my maid," said Grace, coldly; "if, as you return to the court-room, you will send her here, you will oblige me."

Arthur bowed confusedly.

"Your maid—" "Yes, you know her, I think, Mr. Poinsett," continued Grace, lifting her arched brows with cold surprise. "Manuela!"

Arthur turned pale and red. He was conscious of being not only awkward, but ridiculous.

"Pardon me—perhaps I am troubling you—I will go myself," said Grace, contemptuously.

"One moment, Miss Conroy," said Arthur, instinctively stepping before her as she moved as if to pass him, "one moment, I beg."

He paused, and then said, with less deliberation and more impulsively than had been his habit for the last six years:

"You will, perhaps, be more forgiving to your brother if you know that I, who have had the pleasure of meeting you since—since—you were lost to us all—I, who have not had his preoccupation of interest in another—even I, have been as blind, as foolish, as seemingly heartless as he. You will remember this, Miss Conroy—I hope quite as much for its implied compliment to your complete disguise, and an evidence of the success of your own endeavors to obliterate your identity, as for its being an excuse for your brother's conduct, if not for my own. I did not know you."

Grace Conroy paused and raised her dark eyes to his.

"You spoke of my brother's preoccupation with—with the woman for whom he would have sacrificed anything—me—his very life! I can—I am a woman—I can