The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,4
minutes before had been melted away by this dear glimpse of him.
Sometime, when he was in one of those gentle moods, and they were all alone—they had had so little time actually alone of late! There had always been so many other things to be done! But sometime, soon perhaps, when he was giving her soft kisses on her eyelids, and in the palm of her hand as he held her fingers back with his own strong ones, then she would draw him down with his face close to hers and tell him how she had watched him, and loved him—!
But—! What was happening? The door of the back hall, which was set next to the nearest window, was opening slowly, without sound, and a face was appearing in the opening! Could it be a servant, having mistaken her way? How blundering! How annoyed he would be to have his privacy broken in upon!
And then the face came into the light and she started.
It was a face she had seen before, a really pretty face, if the makeup on it had not been so startling. There was something almost haggard about it, too, and wistful, and the eyes were frightened, pleading eyes. They scanned the room hurriedly and rested upon the man, who still stood with his back to the room and his face to the mirror. Then the girl stepped stealthily within the room and closed the door as noiselessly as she had opened it.
Who was it? Sherrill held her breath and stared. Then swift memory brought the answer. Why, that was Miss Prentiss, Carter’s secretary! But surely no one had invited her! Carter had said she was comparatively new in the office. He had not put her name on the list. How dared she follow him here? Had something come up at the last minute, some business matter that she felt he must know about before he left for his trip to Europe? But surely no one could have directed her to follow him to the room where he was dressing!
This all went swiftly through Sherrill’s mind as she stood that instant and watched the expression on the girl’s face, that hungry desperate look, and something warned her with uncanny prescience. So Sherrill stood holding that foolish bouquet of baby roses and swinging lily-bells during what seemed an eon of time, till suddenly Carter McArthur saw something in the mirror and swung around, a frozen look of horror and anger on his handsome face, and faced the other girl.
“What are you doing here, Arla?” he rumbled in an angry whisper, and his bride, standing within the shadow, trembled so that all the little lily-bells swayed in the dark and trembled with her. She had never heard him speak in a voice like that. She shivered a little, and a sudden thought like a dart swept through her. Was it conceivable that he would ever speak so to her? But—of course this intruder ought to be rebuked!
“I have come because I cannot let this thing go on!” said the girl in a desperate voice. “I have tried to do as you told me. Oh, I have tried with all my might”—and her voice broke in a helpless little sob—“but I can’t do it. It isn’t right!”
“Be still, can’t you? You will rouse the house. Do you want to bring disgrace upon us all?”
“If that is the only way,” said the girl desperately, lifting lovely darkly circled eyes to his face, and suddenly putting her hands up with a caressing motion and stealing them around his neck—desperate clinging arms that held him fast.
“I can’t give you up, Cart! I can’t! I can’t! You promised me so long ago you would marry me, and you’ve always been putting me off—and now—this! I can’t!”
“Hush!” said the man sternly with a note of desperation in his voice. “You are making me hate you, don’t you know that? Don’t you know that no good whatever can come of this either for me or yourself? How did you get here anyway? Have you no shame? Who saw you? Tell me quick!”
“Nobody saw me,” breathed the girl between sobs. “I came up the fire escape and along the back hall. This was the room I came to that day to take dictation for you when you had a sprained ankle and had to stay out here. Don’t you remember? Oh, Cart! You told me then that someday you and I would have a house just like