Robert sat in his studio, when presently the door opened.
“My dear Latham,” cried the artist.
“Well, Milburn, how are you?”
They were, at last, alone together. Involuntarily, and as if by an irresistible impulse, Marrion began at once:
“Robert, I must speak to you on a delicate subject. You are my friend, a man for whose interests I would all but give up my life,” and his mission flashed across the other’s mind.
“What are you driving at?”
“At the question whether or not you will stop to think.”
“I most frequently stop and forget,” was the good-natured reply.
“That is too true; you surely do not realize how you have behaved the past few months.”
“Well, and what of it? I should like to know whom I have hurt besides myself.”
“Everyone who cares for you.”
“But, look here, Latham, I am able to take care of myself.”
“It is a little remarkable you do not prove that statement.” Here he assumed a more dignified manner.
“You mean my drinking; well, I pay for it, and——”
“If the matter ended with the price, there would not be so much harm done,” retorted Latham.
“Very few know I ever touch a drop.”
“But those who know are your nearest and best friends, or should be.”
“Oh, well! the best of us are moulded out of faults;” the other eyed him fixedly.
“And these faults have a tendency to produce blindness. I believe you fail to see that your morbid cravings for drink and fame are making your domestic life trite and dull—more than that, miserable. You are losing sight of home-life in this false fever of ambition, and,” he added gravely, “grieved, ashamed I am to say it.”
“This is startling, to say the least of it,” Robert exclaimed, as he nervously thrummed the desk by his side. “Here I have been imagining myself the model husband. True, I drink occasionally.”
“You mean, occasionally you do not drink,” Marrion interrupted.
“Look here, Latham; if this came from another than you, I should say it is none of your —— business.”
“Say it to me, if you feel so disposed. I only speak the truth.”
“But I must be walked with, not driven; bear that in mind, old boy.”
“I want to ask you, Robert, if you ever observed that the desire for distinction grows upon us like a disease?”
“I believe it does, since you speak of it.”
“You know it, for you have been gradually growing weaker in everything else, since your ambition has been set stark mad over that contest.”
“Why should not I let everything else go? Think of it; who ever paints the acceptable ‘Athlete’ is to be acknowledged famous, even more famous than he ever dreamed.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do I know it? By the fact that it gets the mention honorable in the palace of art, which is a great step—a veritable leap I would say—towards fame.”
“What good are words of applause echoing through the empty walls of a ruined home?”
“Ruined home,” Robert repeated, “preposterous! My wife has all the money she wants;dresses second to none in the set in which she moves. What more could a woman want?”
“A husband and his love,” said Marrion, emphatically. “Would you say you had a wife and that wife’s love, if half the time she was in no condition to care for your home?”
“That is not a parallel case. Drinking in a man is not so bad, it is a popular evil; more men drink than sin in any other way.”
“And all the other sins follow in its train.”
“You know, Latham, I am moral in the main. I need a stimulant; it is something a brain worker must have. Besides——”
“Besides what?”
“I am not happy since I became so ambitious,” said Robert, gloomily, and, continuing—“I cannot stand the bitterness of self-reproach. When reason is wide awake, remorse fastens its fangs upon it. I—” His head fell heavily upon the table, and he lay there in silent suffering.
“It is your yielding to temptation, more than your ambition, that hurts a refined nature like yours; but as long as you can feel sorrow you are not wholly bad.”
“I don’t know, Marrion, for brooding over this unfortunate habit I have all unconsciously drifted into, sometimes drives me almost mad; it is thenthat the tempter gets in his work. Something tells me there is but one way to get swift relief—drink and forget.”
“But what of the wife? Does it speak to you of the wearing ache of her waking—of the lonely hours of her watching alone, while your conscience rests in soothing sleep?”
“Yes, I think of her love, her patience, but the best of us have our faults, and a woman should not demand from the busy, anxious spirit of man all that romance promises and life but rarely yields.”
“You have been blessed with one who demands nothing; she suffers in silence. Her very gentleness, her patient womanliness should win you to right. But, my friend, she pines for your attention—those little things that would tell her she was appreciated. She is like a tendril, accustomed to cling, which must have something to twine around, and make wholly its own.”
“I never give her a cross word; I leave her to do as it best pleases her.”
“There, that is the mistake. The secret of the danger lies in that one act of yours. How many have I known, lovely and pure like your wife, who have suffered their unguarded affections—the very beauty of their nature—to destroy them.”
“That is true; I have known many such cases,” admitted Robert.
“Then, in the name of God, pull yourself together, man; brace up, I will help you all I can.”
Robert raised his head:
“Marrion, I have never esteemed you half so much as I do now; your interest is unselfish and sincere, I know that.”
“It is, Milburn, and I am glad you take it as I meant it. It has been said, the loves and friendships of life are its sweetest resources. All else—special achievements, creative genius in any form of manifestation—ministers to them. To live in an atmosphere of sympathy is to live in an atmosphere of heaven, and often it is true that a man must hold his friends unjudged, accepted, trusted to the end.”
The artist reached out his hand, and the other quit speaking.
“There is my hand and promise to leave drink alone when I have finished my picture. Even now, I would give the world to look straight into God’s good face and smile with the glad lips my mother used to kiss.”
Cherokee was sad; what wife is not who has a drunken husband? Drearily broke the winter days, and drearily fell the winter nights. One by one, she often watched the neighboring lights go out, and human sounds grow still. When the phantom-peopled dark closed around her companionless hours, then would come the frightful waiting—in the watches of the night.
Waiting in that awful hush that stifles the breath of hope; then, day after day of longing; can you imagine it? Forever busy at the one unending task of dragging through the weary hours, from the early, painful waking of dawn, alone with sorrow, to the tardy, feverish, midnight sleep—alone with sorrow still.
Like a good woman she sought to hide her husband’s faults, and keep the watch alone; but Marrion was like one of the family; he was there at any and all hours, and she could not keep the truth from him; he was sorry for her, and had such a sweet, gentle way of ministering. To the anguishof her face he often made reply, “Yes, I know how you feel about it, and I will try to help you if there is a way.”
Cherokee had somehow learned to expect everything from him. She looked to him for advice and assistance. At first she could see no harm in his guidance—his help. But Marrion had that vivid, intense nature which gives out emotional warmth as inevitably as the glow-worm sheds its light when stirred. She had discovered this, and had endeavored to cool the relationship, but the tingling feeling was there, and in both herself and him she had detected a sense of mutual dependence.
His voice and step thrilled her, and her smiles were brighter when he came about. He always had an amusing story, a ready reminiscence; for, having been the world over, he had gleaned something from everywhere that had possibly escaped the eyes of others.
To Cherokee he seemed the most original person, acquaintance with him being like the doorway of a new life—to another world. Such was the dangerous channel into which they had drifted, neither discovering their peril until escape seemed almost impossible.
“What shall I do?” she questioned herself, so many countless, maddening times. Herdetermination arrived at again and again, was to fly from the glowing thistle that might stunt all Life’s roses, and make them come to the dropping at half blow. About Marrion Latham she was insane.
“Insane?” you say. That’s a harsh word isn’t it? But in love are any of us particularly sane? Something said to her, “try to realize that happiness is not for woman, but as years go on you will not mind that. Only be true to your sense of right and you will find sweet peace, and a great content will be sure to come at last.”
She felt that the best plan for her was to take her husband away from his associates, herself away from hers, and let time and change bring about a reformation, and, in spite of the warning, she hoped that the old fond love would come to them again.
There is no period in life when we are more accessible to friendship than in the interval which succeeds the disappointment of the passions. There is then, in those gentler feelings, something that keeps alive but does not fever the affections. Marrion had influenced himself to believe that such was his interest in Cherokee, but he was never more deceived.
Cherokee’s trouble in regard to her husband, and her fear of the growing regard for Marrion werenot her only annoyances; occasionally she met Willard Frost.
She could not avoid treating him politely, her duty towards her husband forced her to do that; but she regarded him with veritable repugnance.
One evening, Robert had invited Marrion to dinner, and the latter had arrived before her husband. As he and Cherokee sat waiting, the maid entered with a package. It was an exquisite surprise. Though it was well into March, winter’s keen blast had not so subdued the spring warmth as to keep it from bringing into quick bloom the pansies and jasmines.
“Robert knows how dearly I love flowers; he has sent them on to make me happier and announce his coming, the dear boy,” she exclaimed with a touch of her old time impulsiveness. She kissed them, and questioned if they had brought back her lost faith—her girl’s joy in loving.
“I wish I could keep them alive always,” she sighed, sweetly.
While she began to arrange them in the vase, her maid, whose eyes appeared like leaves of dusty mullein, stared at her because she had kept her waiting.
“What shall I say to the messenger?”
“Tell him there is no answer.”
“Here is his card, madam.”
Cherokee stared wildly, as if a serpent had wriggled around her feet.
“It is from Mr. Frost—this gift,” and she ventured an imploring glance into Marrion’s face.
“What would you do with them?” he asked.
“Do? What can I do but send them back.”
As Marrion watched her admiringly, and saw her take each flower and lay it carefully back into the box, he felt that his quiet friendship was tottering above a molten furnace.
“I trust you approve of my course, Mr. Latham?” she queried, as Annie took the box away.
“It would make me perfectly happy if I were the husband.” He supplemented the impulsive words with a decided blush, in which Cherokee could not choose but join. Then he cried:
“Why didn’t we meet before, you and I?”
She didn’t answer this, for, hearing steps in the passage, she ran out to meet her husband; whether he was drunk or sober she never failed in her little tenderness, that should have brought to him an over-payment of delight.
It was six o’clock, and the lowering sun had singed the western sky with a scallop of faded brown.
April, with her wreathed crook, was leading her glad flock about the hem of the city’s skirt, winding a golden mist away into the country’s lushways. Nature’s voice sounded: “Oh heart, your winter’s past.”
But it was not true with Cherokee, as she sat by the window waiting for her husband. The room was quite still; she was only half admitting to herself that it had come—the divide; in her hand she held a dainty pair of white gloves; in one of the fingers there was a crumpled paper—a note, maybe—but this she did not know, though what husband would believe it?
Presently he came in, and she greeted him as usual, though he had been cross that morning.
“I can’t imagine why I am so tired all the time, it seems I do very little,” he said, as he dropped wearily down on a couch near by.
“It is not so wonderful to me that you are tired, you are overworked,” she said, sitting beside him, “once in a while you should call a halt.”
“I mean to sometime, but not yet, I cannot stop yet.”
“Have you secured your model for the Athlete?”
“Not yet, they are hard to find. I must have a man with solid and graceful curves of beauty and strength, and they are not picked up every day. Few men are of perfect build.”
“Mr. Latham has a fine physique, why don’t you get him?”
“What an idea! Do you suppose for a moment that a man of his means would hire himself out by the hour for such a price as I could afford to pay? Don’t let me hear you speak of it again, he would positively be insulted.”
Presently Robert’s eyes were attracted toward the floor:
“What is that?” he asked, pointing to a white something.
“I did not know I dropped them,” and she sprang hastily, as if to conceal what it was.
“Bring it to me. What is it?”
She bowed her head low and made no answer.
“Look here, Cherokee, I will see what it is,” and he laid his hand on her arm.
She raised her eyes to him and began bravely enough:
“Robert, it is best that you do not see——”
“What, you refuse? It is not necessary for my wife to keep anything from me.”
“Even if it could only annoy you?”
“Yes, if it half killed me, I would insist upon knowing.”
“I don’t mean that you ought not, that I—Oh!”
“Come, Cherokee, don’t get so confused, you can’t make a success of deceiving me. I presume I know it anyway. Anna said you had received flowers last night from Frost—I guess that is the love letter that came with them.”
Suddenly her gentle eyes looked startled; she was humiliated.
“I would not have believed that you would question the maid about the conduct of your wife.”
He watched her for a moment in troubled silence, but did not speak.
“Robert, do you think this is a manly, honorable way to act?”
“It is—is what you deserve,” he answered coldly.
“You are mistaken; while Anna Zerner was making her report, did she inform you that I returned Mr. Frost’s flowers?”
“No. She did not tell me that; I supposed you kept them.”
He looked at her squarely.
“Nothing has ever shaken my faith in you, Cherokee, until now, and this I must and will understand. Take your choice between force and persuasion.”
A deep wave of self-conscious color rushed over her face; suddenly she grew very pale, and her whole attitude toward him stiffened.
She laid the little white gloves in his hands, saying:
“I did not care to worry or accuse you.”
He shrank back, and they eyed each other fixedly.
“I call this a mean, contemptible trick,” he said, bitterly, “and now what are you going to do about it?”
“I have done all I intend to do,” she said, calmly.
“And pray what’s that?”
“Mended a rent in the fore-finger.”
Robert felt abashed at this, though there were still some ugly lines between his brows.
“Let’s kiss and make up,” he said, and as she wound her arms about him, his whole manner changed, softened into melting.
“I did not read the note in the glove, if you believe me.”
“I do believe you, for it was not a note, but a programme of ‘Ogallalahs’;” then he laughed. “And the gloves belong to Marrion’s sweetheart; he left them at the studio and I just——”
“Oh! that will do,” she said merrily, as she supplemented his explanation with kisses.
They were christening Marrion’s new spider, Robert and Cherokee.
“We will drive an hour or so longer, if you are not too tired.”
“I am not at all tired; let us go on,” she insisted.
“I will show you where Latham’s fiancee lives,” he carelessly proposed.
“When are they to be married?” she asked, scarcely above her breath.
“I don’t know the date, but she will get one of the finest boys on earth. They will have this magnificent country home to spend their summers in, and that is such a blessing—the air out there is so pure and sweet and healthful. It is a great pity that everybody can’t get an occasional taste of country life.”
“I did not know we had come so far, but here we are in the woods—the real country. I can almost hear the frogs calling from slushy banks, and the faint, intermittent tinkle of cow-bellsstealing over pasture lands. I do love the country!” she exclaimed, fervently.
“So do I,” laughed Robert, “but the country has its tragedies, too. For example: my old-maid Aunt once made me weed the onion bed on circus day. I would have had to ride a stick horse to the town, four miles away, where the tent was pitched, but children would do almost anything to get to a circus.”
“Yet you did not get to that one?” asked Cherokee, gaily.
“No, and for fifteen years I treasured that against my Aunt.”
“And I should not wonder if you hold it still.”
He dropped his voice to the register of tenderness and said, sadly: “I hold nothing against her now. The dear old creature had sorrow enough—she died unmarried.”
Then they came to the home he was to show her.
After that there was a lull in the conversation.
If Cherokee had but known that the plighted troth was broken—had gone all to pieces, in fact—she might have felt some relief for that dull ache she felt. Suddenly she turned to her husband:
“Robert, I have a great favor to ask?”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s take a vacation. Change would help us both.”
“I am too busy, Cherokee, I cannot leave my work now. People are never contented. Those in the depths of the country sigh for the city excitement, and those in the city long to be soaked in sunshine and tangled in green fields.”
“I suppose it is selfish. I shall not ask you again,” she answered, resignedly.
“If things were different, nothing would please me more than to take an outing by mountains or seaside.”
“Neither for me,” she answered. “I would rather spend the summer down at my old home in Kentucky; you know my cousin owns it, and no one lives there at present. I should like to go back where I could sit again beneath a big, low moon, and hear the reapers sing—where I could see the brown gabled barns, and smell the loose hay-mows’ scented locks.”
“If that’s all, you can go to any farm and see as much.”
“That isn’t half; I want to see my mother’s grave, with its headstone that briefly tells her record, ‘She made home happy,’” and then she said, with a little sigh: “There is still another reason—I would have you all to myself a whole season.”
“Would you really like that?” he asked, brightening.
“More than anything.”
“Then I promise you, you shall go.”
As they drove up to the stoop, upon their return, they saw Marrion waiting.
When he assisted Cherokee to the street, he fancied he never had seen in her manner so much softness, so much of that sweet, wonted look that goes with domestic charm. Her fine, regular features expressed nothing sadder than a pleased pensiveness.
They had gone to the country—to Kentucky. The wind seemed to blow out of all the heavens across the greening world. With what light touch it lifted the hazel, bent to earth at morning. How gentle to the wind-flower—its own spoiled child.
Quiet brooded over the wide, gray farm-house. All the doors stood open to the soft air, and Cherokee had gone into the garden, where the commonplace flowers were in disarray. Her straying foot crushed memoried fragrance from borders all overgrown; wild thyme ran vagrantly in happy tangle everywhere. She did not like to see such riotous growth where once had been borders, clean and kept.
The breeze came to her like the soothing touch of a friendly hand; the tall elms, nodding, seemed to outstretch their arms in blessings on her head, murmuring, in leaf music, “Be kind to her.” The effect was subtle as the viewless winds that in theirvery tenderness are uplifting. Those same trees had bent their strengthening shade in those other days, when she was but a learner in the infant school of sorrow, and scarcely able to spell its simplest signs. She rambled through the laurel greenery, her soul full-charged with its own feelings, nor able to restrain their passionate flow. Pretty soon Robert joined her, saying:
“I have a surprise for you; my model is coming to-day.”
“Why, who on earth?”
“Bless the dear old boy, it is Latham.”
Striving to be strong, she said, softly: “I trust you are hopeful, now.”
“Yes, I am greatly helped up. He will likely not be here until the night train. I am going for a short hunt,” and shouldering his gun he walked towards the woodland.
When Cherokee had watched him out of sight she went into the house. So Marrion was coming into her life again—the wound must be cauterized before it had time to heal. She wearily dropped her head upon the broad window-sill.
The train had already whistled for the station, and Marrion was on his way to the farm-house; he could see the red roof and chimney tops, half hid in leaves, as he passed down a road where wild elders bloomed by rail fences.
The glimmering water-line flowed on westward between broad fields of corn and clover. Down in the deep wood he crossed the stream; here he got out, unreined his horse to let it drink, then he lay down on the cool brink and let the living water lave his lips.
This was surely a place of delight. The creek was no sluggish stream, crawling between muddy banks, but a young water-giant, turbulent and full of crystal bravery. A vernal harmony of subtle sweets loaded all the air, while the winds echoed their chant of rejoicing that mingled with the waters’ sweep and swell, and away up among the tallest trees the forest organ was playing the anthem of resurrection.
Somehow there stole over him a spell of rhythmic motion; the scene was wholly intoxicating. It seemed that he had escaped from the soulless tumult of the blistering street and found himself in a virgin world. Wood-birds bathing in the ripples left them dimpling with delight as they, twittering, flew away. Ivy dangled wantonly about him,while trailing moss seemed grasping him with its waxen tendrils.
Overhead, in the intense blue, where soft clouds drifted like mantles that angels had thrown away, a wizard haze quivered and quivered. The great dark shadow of the present was lifted, and light beamed in where light might never be again. He forgot, for the moment, that he held two lives in the hollow of his hand; he forgot that just ahead of him lay the untried road where he would surely stagger, maybe fall.
Arousing himself from the reverie, he reined his horse and drove on. The remainder of the road was even prettier than the first part had been. Riotous bees stole sweets from blooms before unkissed, and the blossoming peach shed warm its rosy flush against pale drifts of apple boughs.
* * * * * *
Sundown was stealing through the land as he reached the door where Cherokee met him. Latham’s greeting was grateful, apologetic, most painfully self-reproachful.
“I want you to know it was in his interest that I came.”
“Yes, I know that,” and her face strangely softened.
“I just couldn’t refuse him, though I knew it might cost——”
“Hush,” she warned, “we must bear it,” then her eyes fell; she held her breath, and this electrical sympathy between heart and heart told her that she had betrayed herself to him.
Only a moment he hesitated, the next he laid his hand on the back of the chair she had just taken.
“Cherokee, I have a question to ask you; it is best that all should be clear between us, for I want to be your friend—want you to come to me feeling that I would protect you in all things except——”
“Except that I will allow you to advise me.”
“Then tell me, what is Willard Frost to you?” he asked, with quick breath.
“Nothing at all, I only tolerate him because Robert says he needs his influence,” she answered, solemnly.
“Well, I can’t understand how a man like that could help anyone, and I was shocked when I heard of your going with him to visit that patient.”
“Marrion, I thought my husband wished me to go.”
“On the contrary, he was hurt. It was not themere fact of going; it was how it looked to the world, such things are so often misjudged. Forgive me if I talk plainly, but a woman can defend her virtue easier than her reputation. Frost is publicly over-fond of you. He names your beauty to low men at clubs, and that is calculated to injure you.”
“Yes, I wish he lived in another part of the world. He has done me more harm than everybody else in it.”
Then they talked of other things.
“How glad I am that you will pose for the Athlete. Robert will surely win now, for I don’t think you have a counterpart presentment on earth,” she declared.
“To the world’s advantage, no doubt; but tell me,” he said, suddenly changing the subject, “are you happier here?”
“Happier than I have been for some time”—her voice trembled.
In her expression Marrion caught an attempt at excess of content and he wondered at it, for he knew so much of her inner life, though he had never questioned her. In that life he found a great deal to keep her from being glad. He felt a sudden twinge of conscience, too, for he knew that much of the satisfaction he saw upon her face was assumed,lest her sad looks might be construed into a reproach for his coming.
“And how is Robert doing?” he paused, looking at her with half-pitying fondness.
“When he first came he did remarkably well; we spent a short time with our friends, the McDowells, at Ashland. They sent over and had everything arranged here before our coming, even the dinner served the day we arrived. Robert was, or seemed to be, highly pleased with the way we live in this part of the world. During our stay at Ashland, we went with our friends to one of the Governor’s Friday receptions; it was an affair of State, but under Southern auspices seemed almost our own. A congenial, pleasant party, each endeavoring to make you feel at home. Fresh, pretty girls served the ices, and chatted merrily a moment or so, then passed on.
“Robert looked at this dazzling South-scene, and in its stead fancied the gray-robed eastern zone dropping stiff, scentless, pensive-hued flowers. I use this illustration to you because you appreciate things high-sounding. But the joke on him and his metropolitan training was this—the first thing he remarked on was the unusual brightness and pretty gowning of the attendant waiters, ‘But the cool effrontery of their conduct,’ he said, ‘rousedmy ire and almost took away my presence of mind—why they even dared ask me if the evening had been an enjoyable one, and hoped to see me there often.’ He told us how he wiped the perspiration from his brow, and told himself the confounded impudence and intrusion ought to be swiftly checked, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of an effectual way of doing it. We asked him what he finally did. ‘I just took it all, and smiled back,’ he answered, with a crestfallen air.
“What was his astonishment when we told him he was smiling at the Governor’s daughters, and the queens of the social world. We quite enjoyed his discomfort, but he could not reconcile the difference in our ways and the ones he had known.
“Of late he seems to be falling back in his old ways,” she went on, her voice sinking lower yet. “I hope your presence will be strength in his weakness”—she sighed deeply, but the expression on her face was one of kindly resignation rather than hopeless grief.
Marrion started; every syllable of that sweet tremulous voice seemed to unnerve him utterly.
“I don’t want it to make your days darker, at least”——then he added:
“It is better not to be too good to men,” and there was in his voice an accent of kindly warning.
Cherokee listened pensively the while; she could see the path to be trodden by Robert’s side, uphill, rough, bristling with thorns.
“I have tried to do what is my part, my duty always.”
“And let me tell you how grandly you have succeeded.”
Thrilling and flushing she heard this compliment.
“We are Rebels, both of us; perhaps you are partial,” she suggested.
“I do admire you, that you are a Southerner, and more because you are a Kentuckian, but surely you would not accuse me of running my political prejudice into individual instance; I want to give you justice, that’s all.”
He met her eyes wide open to his, and he read, even then, something of the genuine unalterableness of her estimate of him. It was not necessary for her to return a word.
“Speaking of our home, Kentucky,” Cherokee began, “why is it that writers quote us as illiterate and droll? It rather makes me lose interest in stories, or books, when I see such gross errors, whether they are willful or not.”
“It is but a crop of rank weeds—this class of literature, people have no right to represent others they know nothing of, or discuss a subject to whichthey have scarcely been introduced. My characters are actual men and women. I have one they cannot fail to appreciate; you will see yourself as others see you,” he said, in softer tones.
An ecstacy of hope lighted her face.
“Will my husband appreciate me then?”—she regretted the question before she had voiced it.
“Will he appreciate you then? Listen, don’t think that I speak to praise my own powers as a playwright. I have been a moderate success, but I don’t regard myself as a genius. The play will be a success on account of the leading character which I hope to draw true to life. Robert loves you now, but when he sees my play he will worship you then.”
There was that in his earnest, enthusiastic face that told her Robert would not be alone in his devotion.
“What do you call your play?”
“I’ve not determined yet; though I’ve thought of dubbing it ‘A Womanly Woman, or My Heroine.’”
“Don’t do that, for I am anything but a heroine.”
“No woman was ever a truer one. What title would you propose?”
“You want something that would suggest my real character—my striking characteristics?”
“Most assuredly.”
“Then, remember, that I am always stumbling along, allowing myself to be deceived and duped into doing silly things, and sometimes, as you have just told me, compromising things; weigh all these and call your play ‘A Fool in Spots.’” She laughed merrily, but there was a certain earnestness in her jest.
“But where is Robert?” Latham suddenly asked. While avowing his devotion to his friend, he had not until now thought of asking this question, nor had it occurred to Cherokee to explain his absence.
“He took his rifle and went out for a hunt,” she said, after a moment’s silence. “He begged that you would excuse him.”
“I find ample excuse in the pleasure of being alone with you.”
“Don’t say that; we must do nothing but what will profit and further the end he seeks.”
“Trust me, I hope to be strong; we must see a little of each other.”
“This is surely best,” she answered, with suppressed emotion.
“And yet, and yet,” he added, as if speaking to himself, “I have much to communicate to you, but loyalty to my friend forbids confidences, though itis not wrong of me to say I want to see you perfectly happy.”
Her lips moved nervously.
“Oh, how sweet your words, and uplifting, I shall keep heart, and work; I have much on my hands, as you see,” and so saying she pointed to a litter of correspondence on the table.
The old home rose coldly gray ’gainst the darkness of a threatening sky. But yesterday the scene had been one of almost unearthly sweetness and placidity. Ideal summer seemed to have enthroned herself never more to be dislodged, but the morrow brought a storm, phenomenal in its force and destructiveness.
At first one could see, away to the west, but a broad gash of crimson, a seeming wound in the breast of heaven, and could scarcely hear the rising wind moan sobbingly through the trees that with knotted roots clung undisturbed to their vantage ground. Electricity, very like an uplifted dagger, kept piercing with sharp glitter the density of the low hanging haze. Gradually the wind increased, and soon, with fierce gusts, shook the trees with shuddering anxiety. An appalling crash of thunder followed almost instantly, its deep boom vibratingin suddenly grand echoes; then, with a whirling, hissing rush of rain, the unbound storm burst forth, alive and furious. After an hour there was a temporary lull, the wind no longer surged with violence, rain fell at intervals, a sullen mist obscured earth and heaven.
Robert was preparing to confront the weather when there came a loud knock on the door. Throwing it wide open there stood, in bold relief against the back-ground of dense fog, a sturdy, seafaring figure, dripping like a water dog. Rain was running in little rivers from his soft slouched hat, his weather-beaten face glowing like a hot coal, the only bit of color in this neutral-tinted picture.
“Come inside, the sight of a fire on such a day as this won’t hurt you,” said Robert, cheerily, motioning his visitor toward the kitchen where a warm fire blazed.
“Much obliged to you, sir,” returned the intruder, stepping onto the door-mat, and shaking the rain from his hat.
“Another time I’ll come in,” and once more shaking the rain from his dripping garments he fumbled for something in the farthest end of his capacious pockets.
“Here’s a note—they’ll be waiting at the station for you, sir.” These words followed in theuncontrolled audibility of a man’s voice. There was a rustle of paper, and the next minute Robert told the man:
“That’s all right; I’ll be there by eight.”
The light all gone out of her face, Cherokee turned appealingly to Marrion:
“What does this mean—where is he going?”
Shaking his head, sadly:
“I can’t tell what he ever means of late.”
Closing the door with an impatient bang, the husband was saying:
“I can’t wait for breakfast; I am going away.”
“Isn’t this rather sudden—what is so important as to make you go without your breakfast?” she questioned.
“A matter that concerns me alone. Don’t worry if I am not back by nightfall,” and before she could reply he was gone.
Cherokee bit her lips to conceal a quiver; turning almost appealingly to Marrion, she urged:
“Won’t you please go, too?”
He did not answer.
“Please go, and look after him.”
He was calm almost to coldness, and he replied, tentatively:
“Robert would have asked me if he had wanted me along.”
“Oh, dear friend,” she murmured, brokenly, as she sank into a chair, “how much better it would have been if I had never known loving or wedding.”
Marrion looked through the windows into the bleared, vague, misty world, the familiar landscape was unrecognizable in the clinging fog. He understood, as she did, what had taken Robert from his work. He did not look at her, as he returned:
“I hope he’ll quit this, sometime.”
“Sometime,” she repeated, “pain and struggle will give place to death, and then the soft shroud of forgetting will help me bear this grief.”
“But I am looking forward to the change to bless this life,” he tried to impress upon her. “He will get through this great work which he considers the effort of a life, and pretty soon he will leave off the old way, and then his past will be atoned for by a future of tenderness and devotion to you.”
“But, dearest friend,” she broke in, greatly agitated, “help me to live in the present, I am weary of waiting. I hunger for repose. Memories crush me while longing has worn my youth away. I know my one longing is hopeless—hopeless as though I should stretch these hungry arms to clasp the sun above us. I have given up hope at last!” Meeting his troubled look her face showed tracesof tears. She handed him a paper and pointed to a bit of verse.
He read to himself: