a firm, but sweet voice
“‘Wait!’ cried a firm, but sweet voice.†Page 229.
She had seen her maid, dressed in her clothes, join Marrion in the street and had followed them. She could not doubt Marrion Latham’s honor, and her woman’s instinct—that almost unerring guide which God has bestowed upon the sex—told her to follow.
One glance at the assembled party, and another at the empty frame and the canvas that lay beside it, and she comprehended the situation.
“I know you, Willard Frost,†she said, with a calmness that surprised herself as well as all present.
“I trust you have a good opinion of me,†sneered the baffled scoundrel.
“I have doubted you,†she went on, not heeding the interruption, “for two years, but I never thought you capable of such as this.†She paused and pointed to the canvas upon the floor.
“Under a false pretense you first deceived me; you borrowed all the money I had that you might make me easy prey to your designs,†she continued, her voice gathering fulness, and swelling with indignation.
“Worst of all, with a wickedness that devils might admire and imitate, you sought my husband’s ruin, by tempting him to drink. You succeeded; but that your success fell short of your expectation he and I have this devoted friend to thank,†she turned and laid her hand upon Marrion’s.
“You! always you!†shrieked Frost, “you have baffled me for the last time.â€
There was a flash—a loud report—and Marrion Latham, clutching at his breast, sank heavily to the floor. Without waiting to note the full results of his terrible work, Willard Frost rushed out into the night.
“Oh! my God! my God! save him!†burst from Cherokee’s white, groaning lips, as she raised her eyes and cried in fierce despair.
“God save you and your home, is all I ask,†he gasped.
Robert, too, knelt by his side, crying: “How could the foul traitor deal such a merciless blow? Friend, brother, live to see the result of your work. You are my savior,†cried Robert.
“Then death is unutterably sweet,†dropped from Marrion’s lips. He gazed imploringly at Cherokee; his power of utterance was gone; he could give no answering pressure to the fond hands, yet his last words had filtered like a single drop of sweet, through all the sea of woe. While the dear ones bent above, they felt that in that stroke fierce fate had spent her last shaft. There was no drop of worm-wood left in this bitter, bitter cup.
The wounded man was removed to Robert’s home. The attendant physician looked grave; he was dealing with a tremendous enemy that assaulted with sapping and draining of strength, with poisoning of the blood and brain. But he was young and fresh in his wrestle with evil in disease; he had the latest words of science; he knew how to work, so he called up all his powers, and neither slumbered nor slept.
He left the room for only brief intervals, and allowed no one in there except the servant. Occasionally the patient slept, and then he rested, too. A whistle from a rushing train far out in the night, or carriages rolling home from late pleasures, were welcome sounds to break the stillness, though how foreign to Robert and Cherokee they seemed. Full of solicitude, full of anxiety, they came to the door at all hours to ask of the patient’s condition. Time and time again they were turned away without a comforting answer.
At last, one day, the physician told them he would live and be himself in health again. Sweetly fell these words, like dew on dying flowers—their hearts’ throbbing chords were softly soothed.
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They were sitting together in their own room. Robert’s face had greatly changed.
“Cherokee,†he began, “it isn’t long ago that I promised, before God, to love and cherish you always. I have learned that that didn’t mean just to-day, or a year from to-day. It meant this: that we must make the fulfillment of our sacred promise to each other the supreme effort of our lives, so long as we both live. I know I have erred, but I promised Marrion on that terrible night that I would be a man. It is two years, to-day, since he risked his own life to save you and me. Tell me, have I kept the faith?â€
He held out his hand in a half pleading gesture; she put her’s on his shoulders, and throwing her head back with the exuberant happiness of a child, said, with enthusiasm:
“You have! you have! and I do—do love you.†She glanced over his shoulder into the mirror.Was the bright face she saw there her very own? What had become of its sallowness, its lines of care, its yearning melancholy?
A wave of golden consciousness sweetly swept her face. In the fulness of contentment, long withheld, Cherokee’s glad youth had come back to reward her husband.
Transcriber’s Note:Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
Transcriber’s Note:Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.