The Ely Miner

The Story

By chance James Lee meets Lucy Gresham, daughter of Sir John Gresham, wealthy ship builder. Lee, unjustly accused of robbing the Gresham firm, was sent to prison. He blames Oliver Ames, Lucy's cousin, and Gresham's manager, and seeks revenge. Lee inherits wealth, and, in compliance with the will, changes his name from Warrington. He secures an invitation to the girl's birthday party. Lucy is practically engaged to Ames. She meets Lee, who makes love to her. With Gresham's approval, Lucy and Lee are married. Lee stuns the girl by telling her he does not love her, and hates her "whole breed." She hears the story of his wrongs, and his determination to be avenged. She believes in his innocence of the crime for which he was convicted. "Linforths," rival of Gresham's, shows a determination to crush its competitor. Lee tells Lucy he is Linforths, and means to ruin her father.

CHAPTER V—Continued

All this is how it came about that next day, Lucy, sitting alone in her room and very much occupied with her thoughts, was surprised to be rung up by Jocelyn and asked to tea.

"I most particularly want to see you, Lucy," she said. "Most particularly. About something that is absolutely vital. It's something you ought to know and you'll be a fool if you don't come."

Lucy found her heart knocking. She had had so much to bear lately that this hint of something still more gave her a desperate little feeling of fear.

"Very well. I'll come," she said in a subdued voice, and Jocelyn at the other end put down the receiver, saying to herself triumphantly: "I've terrified her, anyway," as if it were a really noteworthy achievement. It was, at least, a little bit true. Lucy was afraid. Ever since she had found out that Jim was Linforths, her mind had been in a chaos of questions. What ought she to do about it? She couldn't give him away to her father, her whole soul shrank from that. And yet oughtn't she somehow to put Gresham's on guard? If she could warn Oliver in some way, without letting him know Jim's part of it... Then there was Jim's confession that he had been in love. That was another question that brought its own train of utter perplexities. Perhaps it was the question that occupied her mind most insistently. When had he loved this unknown girl? Who had she been? What had she been like? And—had he really got over it, or did it make him suffer still? There was hope for any man who could love. Was it through this one tender spot in his nature that his salvation was to be won? But even though he might be ready to take salvation that way, there was herself... He was married to her, no matter how meaningless a ceremony their marriage had been.

And now, she thought, as she was getting ready to go to Jocelyn's, now Jocelyn had suggested that there was yet some other angle of her disastrous marriage affairs that was becoming threatening. Still, Jocelyn was such a scaremonger. It might all mean nothing at all.

Jocelyn was looking thin and peaky, and there was a curious restlessness in her manner as she greeted Lucy. At first she talked very quickly about everything under the sun, and with the sort of superficial smartness she affected. Lucy began to wonder whether there really was a "vital" matter, and was half inclined to hurry through tea and go, leaving the whole question at that. But suddenly Jocelyn looked across the little tea table and said:

"You aren't happy with Jim, are you?"

Lucy had been prepared for a good deal, but she hadn't thought of this.

"What an extraordinary question!" she managed to say, with well-assumed lightness.

"It wasn't a question really," said Jocelyn sharply. "It was a statement of fact. What was his reason for marrying you?"

But if Jocelyn hoped by the shock-attack method to jar Lucy into unwary admissions, she found that, so far at least, she hadn't succeeded.

"The best reason I know of, is that he happened to want to." Lucy gave this reason perfectly smoothly, but her heart was beating fast and the tell-tale color was dyeing her cheeks. Jocelyn looked at her steadily.

"I know your marriage is a farce... I know it, and I'll tell you how I know it; because Jim loves me..." Jocelyn got as far as that and stopped to watch for the effect of her words upon Lucy. Lucy drew a breath and for a moment remained quite still; then she said:

"In that case, Jocelyn, farce is scarcely the word to describe my marriage. To Jim, at least, it must be a good deal more like a tragedy." She said it composedly, but for the life of her, couldn't put the lightness into it that she had tried for. Jocelyn laughed.

"Jim simply lived here... before he met you," went on Jocelyn. "He spent all his time with me. It was an open secret that he was... well, my property. And then, the moment he met you..." She broke off.

Lucy couldn't find anything to say. This revelation of Jocelyn's had come too quickly on top of Jim's own. Her mind was a whirl of questions. Remembering back to the evening of her birthday ball, Lucy thought of what Jocelyn had said then; she had wondered at the time whether the strange girl cared for Jim... She remembered, too, what Jocelyn had said about knowing what Jim was where women were concerned. Had it been his treatment of herself that had made her speak so bitterly of him? It all fitted terribly well and easily. And Jim...? Had Jim really loved this queer girl? And sacrificed himself and her, just for the satisfaction of his spirit of revenge? Was this what Jocelyn meant? Was it what Jim himself had meant?

Jocelyn leaned suddenly nearer, her peaky little face white in its frame of shining dark hair.

"Do you think I'm going to let this stupid marriage of yours keep him from me? Do you think I'm going to let my life be cheated by you? I tell you, I'm not. I'm going to get Jim back. I know he doesn't care two straws for you."

"Get him back?" broke in Lucy.

"You are talking rather extravagantly, aren't you, Jocelyn? Have you forgotten that, whether my wedding was a farce or not, he is married to me?"

"Oh, that's all my eye, these days. Legal ceremonies are quite easily unpicked..."

Lucy rose abruptly. If it hadn't seemed to her that Jocelyn's outrageous words held a very big element of fantastic absurdity, she would have been unable to keep her temper. She had some difficulty as it was, but managed to say quietly enough:

"If I could take what you have been saying the least seriously, Jocelyn, I might be rather concerned. As it is, it only seems to me that you have worked yourself up to a very hysterical pitch over nothing. I'm sorry if you are unhappy on Jim's account. But do remember that it's utterly hopeless, and try to... pull yourself together a little... Showy talk never helps anything..."

But Jocelyn, now, was a great deal more sure of her ground. All that she had managed to glean from St. Abb was confirmed by what Lucy had said; or, rather, by what she had left unsaid. All that Jocelyn did not know was just exactly what was the inner secret of the Lee marriage. But bluff had helped her with Perry, and she relied upon bluff to help her now.

"Showy talk! Showy talk!" she echoed, in a low, trembling voice. "You'll find it's something more than showy talk! What would you say if you knew that half the time when he seems to be so busy with his work, he is really with me? What would you say if you knew that he has told me all about the stupid business of his marriage with you? Told me what a silly mess it is; told me that if he could get rid of you..."

"Jocelyn!" Lucy's voice rang clear and sharp through the room, but Jocelyn went on, low-voiced, and stormy:

"Yes, and told me that he is only waiting to get rid of you, to come back to me... I don't care if he is married to you. He loves me. He's mine. And it's darned hard on us both. You only got him away from me by... Well, we both know why he married you, I fancy... He admits it was just a madness..."

That held Lucy still; still and staring. Here was something new; something that changed the face of the whole situation. Jocelyn knew why Jim had married her. Jim had told her. Jim had been with her. Had said that he was only waiting... Could this be true...? Up to now, Jocelyn had talked in generalities; this was something positive.

Lucy went to her quickly, caught her shoulders, forced her to look up, and said quickly, her voice scarcely more than a whisper:

"Jocelyn, is this true? Jocelyn, think before you answer me. I beg of you, think: and, if you never told the truth before, for God's sake, tell it now. Has Jim been with you a lot? Oh, I'm not asking from jealousy, or anything of that sort... Just tell me, and tell me honestly."

"I have told you."

"But was it true? Did you mean it? Or were you just talking wildly. Tell me, Jocelyn, because it's most desperately important—to both of us."

An almost imperceptible moment of hesitation and then:

"Of course it was true! Would I say such a thing if it weren't true! What would be the good of saying it? If I seemed to talk wildly just now, it was because I'm so ghastly hurt and unhappy. So... so overwrought."

Her face quivered pitifully; and quite suddenly she slid her thin, wiry arms tight around Lucy, hid her face on her shoulder, and burst into tears; saying brokenly:

"Oh, Lucy! I'm glad you know at last! I'm glad you know. The tension has been ghastly. The secrecy and... and underhandedness of... of my meetings with Jim. It has been... awful... I love him so, Lucy, and to know that he loves me and yet is tied to you... Oh, Lucy, you don't know what it has been!"

Lucy stood quite still, her heart beating hard. Here again was something new and—something genuine. Or, so it seemed. Jocelyn was so utterly broken down. She seemed like a poor, broken-hearted little girl. If it were acting, Lucy argued, it was acting of the most consummate perfection and finish.

Jocelyn moved presently, drew away, turned, and flung herself in the corner of the couch, looking drawn and miserable. Lucy looked at her a moment, then asked:

"What do you know of Jim's reason for marrying me, Jocelyn?"

"Everything," said Jocelyn, sharply.

"Jim has told you?"

"Yes."

"And has he really said that he is only waiting... to get rid of me... to... come back to you?"

The words would not come smoothly. Not so... brutally as that.

"When I said all that, I was beside myself, Lucy. You would not believe... you sneered and laughed at me and spoke of... showy talk..."

Jocelyn broke off on a sharply drawn breath.

"But, brutally or not, he did say it?" persisted Lucy. Jocelyn nodded.

"Oh, Lucy, I hate to hurt you. Really I do. I'm not heartless, truly. I've just had... about as much as I can stand; that's all. You don't know what it is to long for him and know that he is longing for me... And that there's just this mad, impulsive marriage of his between us... And he knows now that it was a mad business and that... that it... oh, that it hasn't been worth it!"

It was some moments before Lucy spoke again; then she said, slowly:

"Jocelyn, that night of my party, you hinted to me that Jim was a... philanderer. You said that some people knew just what he happened to be, where women were concerned."

"Oh, Lucy, I was racked with jealousy. I admit it. I had thought he was so absolutely mine. Remember that only an hour before he had been... well, letting me think that nothing could ever take him from me... And then to see him, apparently bowled over by you... Of course, if I had known the truth of his reason for making love to you, I should have known that his heart was still with me in spite of everything."

Jocelyn bowed her head into her hands. "It's so awfully hard on us both," came her muffled voice. "So awfully hard, Lucy. To miss the only thing in life that is worth while... It's so... so darned hard on us, Lucy."

It was rather hard on Lucy, too; but that aspect of it didn't seem to have struck Jocelyn. And Lucy had determined to think only of Jim, and so she didn't let it strike her either.

"Jocelyn," she said slowly. "Will you leave things as they are for a while? Perhaps only for a day or two... Just to give me time to think and get this clear. It isn't altogether easy to straighten things out, all in a moment... Don't try to see Jim... Or if you do, don't say anything of what has happened today. I must think. But I promise you, I'll try all I know, to make things easier... to be fair to you—both."

Her voice shook slightly. Jocelyn was silent a moment; then she said:

"You are right. Much better to leave it for a while. I... I will be brave... If I see him... I'll... not say anything. I promise that, Lucy."

Jocelyn took Lucy to the door. There Lucy hesitated; then turned swiftly, caught Jocelyn's arm and said quickly:

"Jocelyn, you have told me the truth? You wouldn't... you couldn't say such things if they were not true?"

Jocelyn's queer, perky little face took on a hurt, almost martyred look.

"You... Lucy, I think you might know I couldn't," she said, in a low, indescribably pained voice.

Lucy said no more; she nodded her head, but the adieux she tried to speak would make no sound. She turned away, and went out into the street, holding her head high and proudly.

But once she was out of sight of the house her posture of proud carriage crumpled somewhat. She felt shaky and wretched as if she had been actually physically beaten. She tried to think and didn't know where to begin. That Jocelyn should be the girl Jim loved!... That he should have talked everything out with her so freely! Told her even the reason of his marriage with herself... That, more than anything, convinced her of the truth of what Jocelyn had said. Besides, no woman could say such things if they were not true. Her own utter honesty supplied this argument. It was not possible. No one could lie to such a ghastly extent about anything so terribly important. Besides, it had sounded like truth, all the last part of it. Jocelyn's break-down had held the poignancy of genuine torture... Questions revolved so dizzily in her brain that she felt she would go mad with them.

She turned homeward, saying half aloud:

"Heavens, what an unearthly muddle life is! And where's the truth to be found?" It was a cry from the depths of her poor, puzzled heart, and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)