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had forgotten me."
"There is no danger of that, dear," he answered. "I wish to Heaven that I might forget. It would be so
much easier than to go through life always remembering what might have been. You will be happy,
though; I am sure you shall--you must be. You may tell the others of my decision to drive my car on to
New York--I don't feel equal to bidding Clayton good-bye. I want always to remember him kindly, but I
fear that I am too much of a wild beast yet to be trusted too long with the man who stands between me
and the one person in all the world I want."
As Clayton stooped to pick up his coat in the waiting room his eyes fell on a telegraph blank lying face
down upon the floor. He stooped to pick it up, thinking it might be a message of importance which some
one had dropped. He glanced at it hastily, and then suddenly he forgot his coat, the approaching
train--everything but that terrible little piece of yellow paper in his hand. He read it twice before he could
fully grasp the terrific weight of meaning that it bore to him.
When he had picked it up he had been an English nobleman, the proud and wealthy possessor of vast
estates--a moment later he had read it, and he knew that he was an untitled and penniless beggar. It was
D'Arnot's cablegram to Tarzan, and it read:
Finger prints prove you Greystoke. Congratulations. D'ARNOT.
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He staggered as though he had received a mortal blow. Just then he heard the others calling to him to
hurry--the train was coming to a stop at the little platform. Like a man dazed he gathered up his ulster.
He would tell them about the cablegram when they were all on board the train. Then he ran out upon the
platform just as the engine whistled twice in the final warning that precedes the first rumbling jerk of
coupling pins. The others were on board, leaning out from the platform of a Pullman, crying to him to
hurry. Quite five minutes elapsed before they were settled in their seats, nor was it until then that Clayton
discovered that Tarzan was not with them.
"Where is Tarzan?" he asked Jane Porter. "In another car?"
"No," she replied; "at the last minute he determined to drive his machine back to New York. He is
anxious to see more of America than is possible from a car window. He is returning to France, you
know."
Clayton did not reply. He was trying to find the right words to explain to Jane Porter the calamity that
had befallen him --and her. He wondered just what the effect of his knowledge would be on her. Would
she still wish to marry him--to be plain Mrs. Clayton? Suddenly the awful sacrifice which one of them
must make loomed large before his imagination. Then came the question: Will Tarzan claim his own? The
ape-man had known the contents of the message before he calmly denied knowledge of his parentage!
He had admitted that Kala, the ape, was his mother! Could it have been for love of Jane Porter?
There was no other explanation which seemed reasonable. Then, having ignored the evidence of the
message, was it not reasonable to assume that he meant never to claim his birthright? If this were so,
what right had he, William Cecil Clayton, to thwart the wishes, to balk the self-sacrifice of this strange
man? If Tarzan of the Apes could do this thing to save Jane Porter from unhappiness, why should he, to
whose care she was intrusting her whole future, do aught to jeopardize her interests?
And so he reasoned until the first generous impulse to proclaim the truth and relinquish his titles and his
estates to their rightful owner was forgotten beneath the mass of sophistries which self-interest had
advanced. But during the balance of the trip, and for many days thereafter, he was moody and distraught.
Occasionally the thought obtruded itself that possibly at some later day Tarzan would regret his
magnanimity, and claim his rights.
Several days after they reached Baltimore Clayton broached the subject of an early marriage to Jane.
"What do you mean by early?" she asked.
"Within the next few days. I must return to England at once--I want you to return with me, dear."
"I can't get ready so soon as that," replied Jane. "It will take a whole month, at least."
She was glad, for she hoped that whatever called him to England might still further delay the wedding.
She had made a bad bargain, but she intended carrying her part loyally to the bitter end--if she could
manage to secure a temporary reprieve, though, she felt that she was warranted in doing so. His reply
disconcerted her.
"Very well, Jane," he said. "I am disappointed, but I shall let my trip to England wait a month; then we
can go back together."
But when the month was drawing to a close she found still another excuse upon which to hang a
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postponement, until at last, discouraged and doubting, Clayton was forced to go back to England alone.
The several letters that passed between them brought Clayton no nearer to a consummation of his hopes
than he had been before, and so it was that he wrote directly to Professor Porter, and enlisted his
services. The old man had always favored the match. He liked Clayton, and, being of an old southern
family, he put rather an exaggerated value on the advantages of a title, which meant little or nothing to his
daughter.
Clayton urged that the professor accept his invitation to be his guest in London, an invitation which
included the professor's entire little family--Mr. Philander, Esmeralda, and all. The Englishman argued
that once Jane was there, and home ties had been broken, she would not so dread the step which she
had so long hesitated to take.
So the evening that he received Clayton's letter Professor Porter announced that they would leave for
London the following week.
But once in London Jane Porter was no more tractable than she had been in Baltimore. She found one
excuse after another, and when, finally, Lord Tennington invited the party to cruise around Africa in his
yacht, she expressed the greatest delight in the idea, but absolutely refused to be married until they had
returned to London. As the cruise was to consume a year at least, for they were to stop for indefinite
periods at various points of interest, Clayton mentally anathematized Tennington for ever suggesting such
a ridiculous trip.
It was Lord Tennington's plan to cruise through the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea to the Indian
Ocean, and thus down the East Coast, putting in at every port that was worth the seeing. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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