Part 51

"I wonder why?"

"It's strange, isn't it?--after all these years. To be really up-to-date, we should long since have become interested each in some other----"

A hand came gently but effectually upon his mouth. He kissed the hand. "No, I won't say it. It's a cynical philosophy, and I'll not take its language on my lips--not with my wife in my arms, giving the lie to that sort of thing. Julie, we're not sentimentalists because we still care----"

"Who thinks we are?"

"Plenty of envious skeptics, I'll wager. I see it in their green-eyed glances. They can't believe it's genuine. Dear--is it genuine? Look up, and tell me."

She looked up, and seeing his heart in his eyes, met his deep caress with a tenderness which told him more than she could have put into the words she suddenly found it impossible to speak.

XXVII.--LOCKWOOD PAYS A CALL

"Did you know Roger Barnes was back?" asked Wayne Carey of Anthony Robeson, on the evening of the twenty-fifth of June, as the two met on the street corner from which Anthony was to take his car. Electrics ran within a few rods of his home now, but they ran only at fifteen-minute intervals and were difficult to catch.

"No. To stay this time, I hope?"

"Off again to-morrow. Never saw such a fellow--restless as a fish. Been working all winter in Vienna--off to-morrow on the Overland Limited to sail Saturday for Hongkong. Goes to do a special operation on the Emperor's brother or some swell of the sort. He's been doing some mighty slick operating, according to the medical review I ran across in a throat specialist's office."

"I must see him. Where is he?"

"At your house now, more than likely. Said he'd got to see you, and if you haven't seen him yet you're sure to before he goes to-morrow night. By the way, Anthony, do you know what we heard lately about Rachel Redding--Huntington? That she wasn't married to Huntington till the night he died, almost three years ago."

Anthony stared.

"Guess it's straight, too," pursued Carey. "Queer she should have kept it all this time. Didn't Juliet hear from her at all?"

"Only once or twice, I believe."

"Her father and mother both died last winter."

"Are you sure?"

"The man who told me was a traveller. Said she and Huntington's mother were coming back to live East again. He was an Eastern man himself--knew Huntington, and got interested when he heard the name out in Arizona. 'Alexander Huntington's' rather an uncommon name, you know. But what could have been her motive for keeping everything so still?"

"I've no idea," said Anthony, and let Carey talk on by himself till the car came. He was unwilling to discuss Rachel Redding's affairs on a street corner even with Wayne Carey, because she was Juliet's friend. But he had an idea as to why Rachel had been so reserved about herself. There were three men in the East whose interest in Huntington's life or death had not been an altogether unbiased one. He could understand that the girl would not be eager to declare herself free to them, though the fact of Huntington's death had reached them soon after its occurrence. But this other fact--that she had married him only at the last moment--it was obvious that the sort of girl Rachel Redding was would never make capital out of that strange occurrence, whatever its explanation might be. That Roger Barnes knew nothing of it he was quite certain.

He missed Juliet from the corner where she and the boy usually met him, and hurrying on to the house came upon his wife just as she was leaving.

"Oh, I didn't realise I was late, dear," she said, while Anthony swung his little son up to his shoulder, eliciting triumphant shouts as a reward. "Tony, Rachel is here."

"Rachel?"

"Hush--yes; she's upstairs, and her window is open. Walk down the orchard with me and I'll tell you. Her coming, an hour ago, was what made me forget the time."

"Carey was talking about her this afternoon," said Anthony, strolling by her side and carrying on a frolic with the boy at the same time. "He'd just heard a singular thing--that she wasn't married to Huntington till the very night he died."

"She told me. She's going away to-night, she insists; but I shall not let her. No, Mr. Huntington wouldn't let her marry him. After they went away he said he wouldn't take her unless he got well. Tony, he was a fine character; in our sympathy for Roger Barnes we haven't appreciated him. It was only at the last that he let her do it. She found out how happy it would make him then, and she would have it so."

"I'm glad she did--poor fellow. Juliet, Roger Barnes is in town."

"Really?" Juliet stopped, her breath catching. "Oh, Tony----"

"Came day before yesterday--leaves to-morrow night for Hongkong."