A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5889, 22 July 1890, Page 4

A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL

| [BY BRET HARTE.] CHAPTER 111. (Continued). '> He ran out into the street. On one side . it terminated abruptly on the cliff oti which , no dwelling whs perched. On the oth»r it , descended more gradually into the next , thoroughfare ; but up and down the street, on either hand, no one was to bo seen. A slightly superstitious feeling for an instant ; crept over him. Then ho reflected that the , mysterious visitor could in tho interval of j his getting the key have easily slipped down the stepa of the cliff or entered the • shrubbery of ono of the adjacent houses. , But why had she not waited ? And what ij did she want ? As he re-entered his door , ii h6 mechanically raised his eyes to the win- ( ! dows of his neighbor's. This time ho cerI tainly was not mistaken. The two amused, | mischievous faces that suddenly disappeared S behind tho curttiin as he looked up showed ;■ that the incident had not been unwitnessed. j Yet it was impossible that it could have • been either of them. Their house was only accessible by a long detour. It might have been a trick of a confederate ; but the tone of half-familiarity and half-entreaty in the unseen visitor's voice dispelled tho idea of any collusion. He entered tho room and closed the door angrily. A grim smile stole over his face as he glanced around at tbe dainty, saint-like appointments of the absent Tappiugton, and thought what that irreproachable young man would have said to the indecorous intruder, even though it had been a mistake. Would those shameless Pike County girls have dared to laugh at him ? But he was again puzzled to know why he himself should havo been selected for this* singular experience. Why was he considered fair game for these girls ? Aud, for the matter of that, now that he reflected upon it, why had even this gentle, refined, and melancholy Cherry thought it necessary to talk slang to him on their first acquaintance, and offer to sing him the "Ham-fat Man F" It was true he had been a littlo gay, hut never dissipated. Of course he was not a, saint-like Tappington—oh, that was it! Ho believed he understood it now. He was suffering from that extravagant conception of what worldliness consists of so common to very good people with no [ knowledge of the world. Compared to Tappington ho was in their eyes, of course, a rake and roue. The explanation pleased him. He would not keep it to himself. Ho would gain Cherry's confidence and enlist her sympathies. Her gentio nature would revolt at this injustioo to their lonely lodger. She would see that there were degrees of goodness besides her brother's. She would perhaps .-it on that stool again and not sing tbe '■ Ham-fat Man." A day or more afterward the opportunity seemed offered to him. Ashe was coming home and ascending the long hilly street, his i-ye was taken by a tall, graceful figure just prei-edin.tr him. It was she. lit: had never before seen her in the street, and was now struck with her ladylike bearing and the grave superiority of her perfectly simple attire. In a ft- haunted by handsi.me w.-.meu and striking toilette-, the rerined jrrace of her mourning costume, and a certain sTateliness that gave her the look of a youritr widow, ivs< a contrast that evidetitlyaf.racted other, than hims-lf. it was with an odd minirling of pride and jeai-jii-iy that he watched tho admirin..- Vet ro-peotfiii glance;) of the' pn.«v-rs-by, some .if whom turned to look again, and one or two tj retrace their steps mid follower at a decorous distance. This cimi-ed him to quicken his own pace, with a new imxiffty and a remorseful* setuu of wasted opportunity. What a booby he had been, not to have "made more uf his contiguity to this charming girl—to have been frightened at t?'p cnivu decorum of her maidenly instincts! He reached her side, and raised his hat with a trepidation at her new found graces— with it boldness that was defiant ot her c:h> r admirers. She blushed slightly. " I thought you'd overtake me before," she said naively. ,; I saw you ever so long ago." Ho stammered, with an equal simplicity, j that he had not dared to. .ihe looked a littlo frightened again, and then said hurriedly, " I only thought that Iwould meet you" on Montgomery street, and we would walk home together. I don't liko to go out alone, and mother cannot always go with me. Tappington never can-d to take me out —I don't know why. I think he didn't line the people staring aud stop- j ping us. But they stare more-don't you think?—when one is alone. So I thought if you were coming straight home wo might, como together—unless you have .something else to do?" i Herbert impulsively reiterated his joy ut j meeting her—and averred that no other engagement, either of business or pleasure, could or would stand iv his way. Looking up, howiver, it was with some consternation that he saw they wero already within a block of the house. "Suppose we ta,ke a turn around the hill and come back by thu old street down the steps?" ho suggested earnestly. The next moment he regretted it; the j frightened look returned to her eyes; hir face became melancholy and formal again. "No !" .-he said quickly. "That would he taking a walk with you like these young girls and their young men on Saturdays, 'liiat's what Kllen docs with tho butcher's boy on Sundays. Tappington often used to meet them. Doing the • Come, Philanders.' as he savt« yon call it." It struck Herbert that the didactic Tappington'» method of inculcating a horror of ailing in his sister's breast was open to Home objection ; but they were already on the steps of their house, and he was too iimeh mortified at the reception of his last unhappy suggestion to make tho confidential disclosure he had intended—oven if therehad still been time. " There's mother waiting for rac," she said after an awkward pause, pointing to the figure of Mrs Brooks dimly outlined on tho verandah. " I supposa'she was beginning to bo worried about my being out alone. She'll be so glad I met you." It didn't appear to Herbert, however, that Mrs Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy over tho occurrence, and she almost instantly retired with her daughter into tho sitting-room, linking her arm in Cherry's, and, as it were, empanoplying her wit.ii her own invulnerable shawl. Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied with himself than ever. Two or three days elapsed without his seeing Cherry ; even tho well-known rustle of her dress in tho passage was missing. On the third evening ho resolved to bear the forma! terrors of the drawing-room again, and stumbled upon a decorous party consisting of Mrs Brooks, the doac. a and pastor's wife—but not Cherry. It struck hira on entering that the momentary awkwardness of the company and the formal beginning of a new topic indicated that he had been the subject of their previous conversation. In this idea he continued, through the vague spirit of opposition which attacks impulsive people in such circumstances, to generally disagree with them ou all subjects, and t > exaggerate what he chose to believe they thought ob- \ jeetionable iv him. He did no remain long; but lea.riiecl in that brief interva.l that Cherry had gone to visit a friend in Contra Costa, and would be aoseut v fortnight; aud he was conscious that the information was conveyed to him with a peculiar significance. Tho result of which was only to intensify his interest iv the absent Cherry, and for a week to plunge him in a s.ea of conlliating doubts aud resolutions. At one time lie thought seriously oi demanding an explanation, from Mrs Brooks, and of confiding to her—as he had intended to do Cherry—his fears that his character had beeu misiiner- ; ■'.:•■"•' ':-\ reason,, tor believing so. - . .• > met by the diilieuUy of iormul.-.tiiiii what he wished to have explained, and some doubts us to whether his confidences were prudiri't. A.t another time he contemplated a serious imitation ol Tappingtji.'s perfections, a renunciation of tho world, ana an entire change iv his habits. Ho would go regularly to church—her eburch, atid take up Tappington's desolate Bibie class. But hero the torturing doubt >irose whether a young lady who betrayed a certain .-ocular curiosity, and who had evidently depended on her brother for a knowledge of the world, would entirely like it. _tt times, ho thought of giving U p tntJ rG( , ai) and abandoning iorever ibid doubly dajigerous proximity ; but here again he was deterred by the diniculty of giving a '. satisfactory reason to his employer, who had procured it as a favor. His pulsion—tor such he begun to fear it to be—led him once j to the extravagance of asidng a day's holiday from the bank, which he vaguely pent in ihe stieets of Oakland in the hope _ of accidentally meeting thy exiled Cheiry. _ (TO BE CONTINUED.J '