Martha Finley - Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“You will surely not be so ungenerous as to hold me to it against my will?” she said coldly, averting her face and moving farther from him.

A sudden suspicion flashed upon him, a pang of jealous rage stabbed him to the heart, and he grew white and rigid.

“You love another; you have played me false, and are glad of an excuse to get rid of me!” he said in cutting tones.

She made no reply, but drew herself up proudly, yet kept her face turned from him.

“Farewell, then, false girl; you are free!” he cried, rushing madly from the room.

Floy looked after him, with a dreary smile more pitiful than tears.

“Oh, Espy, Espy! must we part like this?” she sighed inwardly, putting her hand to her head.

“Miss Floy, are you sick? got a headache?” queried Susan, coming in. “What can I do for ye?”

“Nothing, thank you, Susan; I’ll be better soon.”

“Try a cup o’ tea; it’ll do ye good. I heard Mr. Espy go ’way, and I thought I’d just come and tell you that supper’s ready.”

Something in Susan’s tones jarred upon Floy’s sensitive nerves, and, with a sort of dull comprehension that the girl’s rising suspicions must be lulled to rest, she rose, went to the table, and forced herself to drink a cup of tea and swallow a few mouthfuls of food.

The blow dealt her by Espy’s parting words began to lose its stunning effects, and to be succeeded by a feverish impulse to fly from him and from these scenes of former happiness, of present sorrow and loss. She left the table with the sudden resolve that she would set out that very night on her intended journey in search of her long-lost mother.

Fortunately Mr. Crosby, thinking of some new question to ask, called at the door just as she was passing through the hall on her way upstairs.

“Have you any idea where to go, Miss Floy?” he asked, when she had told him of her intention to depart immediately.

“Yes,” she said, “I remember having heard what route father and mother took in coming out West, and she told me the name of the station where they met my own mother and obtained possession of me; I mean to go directly there and make inquiries.”

“You will find things greatly changed since then,” he remarked, meditatively stroking his beard. “Let me see: how many years?”

“Nearly sixteen.”

“Ah, yes! and these Western places grow so fast! The lonely little station may have become a city, and you are very young and – comely,” he added, with a look of kindly concern. “My child, I hardly like to see you start on this expedition alone, and yet I have no authority to forbid it. Do you think you can take care of yourself?”

“No, sir, I cannot,” she answered, low and tremulously, “but the Father of the fatherless will not leave me alone, and I am not afraid.”

A train going in the desired direction passed through Cranley at midnight; it was the one Floy must take. Mr. Crosby engaged to procure a ticket for her, and to see her and her luggage safely on board.

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