Datasets:
edwindvinas
/
testdataset

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
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to run away like that? When I came home last night and found your
letter I went quite mad. It was twelve o’clock—I knew it was too late
to come here then. I walked the floor all night. Then this morning Dad
came—I couldn’t get away till now. Valancy, whatever got into you?
Divorce, forsooth! Don’t you know——”
“I know you only married me out of pity,” said Valancy, brushing him
away feebly. “I know you don’t love me—I know——”
“You’ve been lying awake at three o’clock too long,” said Barney,
shaking her. “That’s all that’s the matter with you. Love you! Oh,
don’t I love you! My girl, when I saw that train coming down on you I
knew whether I loved you or not!”
“Oh, I was afraid you would try to make me think you cared,” cried
Valancy passionately. “Don’t—don’t! I _know_. I know all about Ethel
Traverse—your father told me everything. Oh, Barney, don’t torture me!
I can never go back to you!”
Barney released her and looked at her for a moment. Something in her
pallid, resolute face spoke more convincingly than words of her
determination.
“Valancy,” he said quietly, “Father couldn’t have told you everything
because he didn’t know it. Will you let _me_ tell you—everything?”
“Yes,” said Valancy wearily. Oh, how dear he was! How she longed to
throw herself into his arms! As he put her gently down in a chair, she
could have kissed the slender, brown hands that touched her arms. She
could not look up as he stood before her. She dared not meet his eyes.
For his sake, she must be brave. She knew him—kind, unselfish. Of
course he would pretend he did not want his freedom—she might have
known he would pretend that, once the first shock of realisation was
over. He was so sorry for her—he understood her terrible position. When
had he ever failed to understand? But she would never accept his
sacrifice. Never!
“You’ve seen Dad and you know I’m Bernard Redfern. And I suppose you’ve
guessed that I’m John Foster—since you went into Bluebeard’s Chamber.”
“Yes. But I didn’t go in out of curiosity. I forgot you had told me not
to go in—I forgot——”
“Never mind. I’m not going to kill you and hang you up on the wall, so
there’s no need to call for Sister Anne. I’m only going to tell you my
story from the beginning. I came back last night intending to do it.
Yes, I’m ‘old Doc. Redfern’s son’—of Purple Pills and Bitters fame. Oh,
don’t I know it? Wasn’t it rubbed into me for years?”
Barney laughed bitterly and strode up and down the room a few times.
Uncle Benjamin, tiptoeing through the hall, heard the laugh and
frowned. Surely Doss wasn’t going to be a stubborn little fool. Barney
threw himself into a chair before Valancy.
“Yes. As long as I can remember I’ve been a millionaire’s son. But when
I was born Dad wasn’t a millionaire. He wasn’t even a doctor—isn’t yet.
He was a veterinary and a failure at it. He and Mother lived in a
little village up in Quebec and were abominably poor. I don’t remember
Mother. Haven’t even a picture of her. She died when I was two years
old. She was fifteen years younger than Father—a little school teacher.
When she died Dad moved into Montreal and formed a company to sell his
hair tonic. He’d dreamed the prescription one night, it seems. Well, it
caught on. Money began to flow in. Dad invented—or dreamed—the other
things, too—Pills, Bitters, Liniment and so on. He was a millionaire by
the time I was ten, with a house so big a small chap like myself always
felt lost in it. I had every toy a boy could wish for—and I was the
loneliest little devil in the world. I remember only one happy day in
my childhood, Valancy. Only one. Even you were better off than that.
Dad had gone out to see an old friend in the country and took me along.
I was turned loose in the barnyard and I spent the whole day hammering
nails in a block of wood. I had a glorious day. When I had to go back
to my roomful of playthings in the big house in Montreal I cried. But I
didn’t tell Dad why. I never told him anything. It’s always been a hard
thing for me to tell things, Valancy—anything that went deep. And most
things went deep with me. I was a sensitive child and I was even more
sensitive as a boy. No one ever knew what I suffered. Dad never dreamed
of it.
“When he sent me to a private school—I was only eleven—the boys ducked
me in the swimming-tank until I stood on a table and read aloud all the
advertisements of Father’s patent abominations. I did it—then”—Barney
clinched his fists—“I was frightened and half drowned and all my world
was against me. But when I went to college and the sophs tried the same
stunt I didn’t do it.” Barney smiled grimly. “They couldn’t make me do
it. But they could—and did—make my life miserable. I never heard the
last of the Pills and the Bitters and the Hair Tonic. ‘After using’ was
my nickname—you see I’d always such a thick thatch. My four college
years were a nightmare. You know—or you don’t know—what merciless
beasts boys can be when they get a victim like me. I had few
friends—there was always some barrier between me and the kind of people
I cared for. And the other kind—who would have been very willing to be
intimate with rich old Doc. Redfern’s son—I didn’t care for. But I had
one friend—or thought I had. A clever, bookish chap—a bit of a writer.
That was a bond between us—I had some secret aspirations along that
line. He was older than I was—I looked up to him and worshipped him.
For a year I was happier than I’d ever been. Then—a burlesque sketch
came out in the college magazine—a mordant thing, ridiculing Dad’s
remedies. The names were changed, of course, but everybody knew what
and who was meant. Oh, it was clever—damnably so—and witty. McGill
rocked with laughter over it. I found out _he_ had written it.”