Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again, insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable procession of years.
An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later, and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished, brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine, hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with delicious, challenging fragrance.
With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red that nature hung out to bar the cold—a small cloud island of ruby near the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and soothing as a lullaby.
It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days before she had gone for a few hours to Y—— to see in his favorite church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose, purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God and in memory of Allison Kent."
Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal:
"RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'""After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'—theSermiksoak, but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in Polar regions at least another year—Professor Roy, the palæontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison them."
"RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'"
"After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'—theSermiksoak, but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in Polar regions at least another year—Professor Roy, the palæontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison them."
Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged. Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again; for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from "the lad."
To all of us come times when, self-surrendered to depression, some psychic imp drags from mental oblivion and shakes fiendishly before us ghoulish images long forgotten; and now, as purplish-grey shadows gathered in the mill, Eglah saw that vision of "Were-Wolves," the souls of wretched men fleeing from light, hiding in Polar midnight.
"Each panter in the darknessIs a demon-haunted soul,The shadowy, phantom were-wolves,Who circle round the Pole.Their tongues are crimson flaming,Their haunted blue eyes gleam,And they strain them to the utmostO'er frozen lake and stream;Their cry one note of agonyThat is neither yelp nor bark,These panters of the northern wasteWho hound them to the dark."
"Each panter in the darknessIs a demon-haunted soul,The shadowy, phantom were-wolves,Who circle round the Pole.Their tongues are crimson flaming,Their haunted blue eyes gleam,And they strain them to the utmostO'er frozen lake and stream;Their cry one note of agonyThat is neither yelp nor bark,These panters of the northern wasteWho hound them to the dark."
The voice of Mrs. Mitchell calling her name aroused Eglah, and she staggered to her feet, swaying slightly as from a stinging blow. That silent, yearning tenderness, to which she had gladly yielded for so many months, now appeared an insult to her womanly pride.
Rejected and despised, abandoned forever, made by her husband's repudiation a target for gossip and harsh comment, why should she love him? Why, when too hopelessly late, had her heart so unexpectedly followed him, refusing to relax its quest?
Gathering the scattered papers, she left the mill and walked toward the house. As the core of an opal the west showed bands of pearl, beryl, sapphire, rose, and when twilight stole over hillside and dingle, Venus glowed in a violet sea, so large, palpitating, brilliant, she seemed a golden torch flaring in interstellar currents, to light the way of the thin young moon swimming beneath her. Did both torture the were-wolves?
At the gate Eliza waited, and putting an arm around the girl drew her into the hall of the cottage, where a lamp hung from the low ceiling. Under its light Eglah's face showed white and rigid.
"Little mother, I must ask you to leave me to myself to-night. This has been a sad day in many ways. I miss my father, and one trouble of which I never speak, even to you—the only one who loves me—presses heavily upon me just now. There are the papers. You will find an account of the return of the 'Ahvungah,' but Mr. Herriott preferred to remain another year. Kiss me good-night, and ask God to take me soon, soon—to father."
The following winter was long and cold, with flurries of snow, and rattling of sleet, and it proved monotonously dull to the two women shut in the small house. The rooms were cosey, with curtains falling to the bright carpets; and roaring fires of oak and pine logs reddened the walls of the little parlor, where Eglah's upright piano enabled her to banish, at times, gloomy retrospection. Twice Mr. Whitfield came for a day and night, and cheered them with news of the outside world.
When the weather permitted Eliza to attend her Sabbath-school at Maurice, she occasionally persuaded Eglah to play the organ for the children, but she was annoyed by no obtrusive attention on the part of sympathetic country people, whose warm hearts respected the heavy mourning in which she was wrapped, and recognized her right to complete seclusion. At college one of her favorite studies had been Spanish, and without giving an explanation she now applied herself to it with renewed interest. When Eliza questioned her, she referred vaguely to the liquid melody that charmed her in Spanish poetry, and expressed a desire to translate a volume which pleased her.
No allusion to Mr. Herriott or his home now passed her lips. Mr. Whitfield's anxiety to understand the perplexing conditions, and Eglah's unwavering reticence, led him to interrogate Eliza.
"Mr. Whitfield, I can't tell you what I do not know. Mr. Herriott's name is never uttered by her, never mentioned now by me. She is so silent she would certainly forget how to talk if she were not a woman. She intends to go to Europe, and, as you know, keeps some business matters in readiness, but no date has been fixed. You will be advised in time to draw up her will, of which she talked to me about a week ago. The months come and go, and the dear child is always as you see her, calm, uncomplaining, with lips locked as a statue's, but I must say I feel all the time as if I am walking over a grave that may suddenly crumble and cave in under my feet."
Returning spring was welcome, and early summer brought once more the solace and diversion of long rides through solemn, lonely pine stretches, where only birds, nature's feathered syrinx, sounded in the silence, happy as human children prattling to their mother.
A mute acceptance of the inevitable, as far removed from resignation, as from pleading protest, had sealed Eglah's face in passionless repose, pathetic and inscrutable. Inflexibly she maintained her resolve,
"—to fly no signalThat the soul founders in a sea of sorrow,"
"—to fly no signalThat the soul founders in a sea of sorrow,"
and solitude was her refuge. A long delayed monument having been completed at her father's grave, the desire to visit and inspect it dominated her, and one hot day the two women went North. To the devoted child bowed at the feet of a marble angel, the carved lips seemed to whisper her father's farewell words of commendation and tender gratitude for her self-sacrifice in his behalf. Did he know now all it had cost—the branding humiliation, the fierce heart hunger she had found only when she offered herself on an altar that crumbled beneath her?
When the slab was covered with white violets, and she had pressed her lips to the name chiselled on the scroll, she put one hand on Mrs. Mitchell's shoulder and pointed to a grassy plot at her feet.
"Little mother, I hope it will not be long before I can shut my tired eyes forever, and when that happy day comes I want you to bring me here and lay me close to father, at his left side. One other thing you must not fail to do; after I am in my coffin be sure you take off my ring—my wedding ring—and if Mr. Herriott be living give it into his hand. He has wanted it back since the day he placed it on my finger, and only God knows how glad I shall be to surrender it. 'So long as ye both shall live' it is mine, but in the grave God gives us back our vows and sets us free."
The cold, hopeless renunciation in face and voice was more than the loving little woman could endure, and with a burst of tears she threw her arm about the girl, pressing her to her heart.
"My baby, have you no mercy for me, that you talk so cruelly? I shall be asleep by my Robert long before death calls one so young and strong and beautiful as my own dearie. Please have some consideration for me, and don't discuss such dreadful matters. I see from your eyes you want a promise. Well, if I outlive you—preposterous—I will forget nothing, provided you spare me all heart-sickening talk in future."
On the return journey Mrs. Mitchell wished to stop in New York, but Eglah shrank from the possibility of meeting old friends, dreading questions. As she intended to see her cousin Vernon Temple for a day, she went on to the hotel in the city near Calvary House, where her foster-mother joined her after a day's shopping tour in New York. At the time of Eglah's visit of a few hours here with her father, and while her cousin was at Nutwood, they had discussed plans for a new altar much needed in the chapel, and during her residence at the Dingle she had submitted a design duplicating in many respects a carved and pillared shrine she and Judge Kent had seen near Avignon. The Father Superior and her cousin gratefully accepted her offer, and before she started to New England a letter announced the completion of the altar, and expressed the hope that she would be able to see it. If Mr. Herriott never returned, she locked deep in her heart an intention to make it a memorial to him, the donor of house and estate to the Brotherhood. The Provençal model was guarded by two seraphs; these she would add later, if the White North kept the wanderer folded forever to her breast of snow.
Of celibate organizations, Romish or Protestant, Mrs. Mitchell distinctly disapproved, and she had listened with ill-concealed annoyance and uneasiness when at Nutwood Vernon Temple expatiated upon the noble work accomplished by Episcopal deaconesses in sisterhood homes. She had always dreaded his influence over his cousin, especially since her father's death. Calvary House was as the threshold of Rimmon, and when the carriage approached it she exclaimed:
"I have no intention of going inside that monkish den. How a sensible, level-headed man like Mr. Herriott could give away property for such fanatical use passes my understanding. I may be an ecclesiastical ignoramus; I certainly am a 'narrow Methodist'; but, my dear baby, I can't broaden even to please you, and you must excuse me. I had a catalogue from the great poultry farm that I hear is only a mile or two farther out on this road, and while you see your cousin and examine the things you gave the chapel, I will drive on and order some white guineas. Here, don't forget your box of embroideries. I shall wait at the gate for you."
The bell on the latch rang as Eglah passed under the gilt cross, and at the front door the porter, a young lay brother, looked at her in amazement.
"I wish to see Father Temple. I am his cousin, Eglah Kent."
"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday."
"Then tell the Father Superior—he knows me—that the lady who gave the new altar wishes to speak to him about it."
"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York."
"Where is the sacristan?"
"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives. I can call Father Phillips."
"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,' and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go into the chapel—I know the way—and then return to my carriage."
He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared.
Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns. From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris, one with passion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies.
She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine, while a vision of an added seraph, standingin memoriamat each end, shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations, sharing her long search, shared her sorrow.
Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now, sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart:
"He will come,—Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead."
"He will come,—Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead."
Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich, mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little oratory opening into the chapel:
"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over."
A feeble, nervous tone answered:
"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us, like a swooping bloody sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet, but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?"
"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was a bloody scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my impedimenta."
The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch; but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the oratory, admitted outside light.
Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his hands in his pockets.
He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver, colder, less magnetic.
As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow. "My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart, momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers over his friend's pulse.
"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers will help me lift your cot."
As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her features veiled, Mrs. Mitchell laid a hand on her knee.
"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find what you expected?"
She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered through the effort to strangle a dry sob.
"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father, my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come, and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible."
After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady.
"I have just seen Mr. Herriott—safe, strong, and well. He will never know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice, and looked through a curtain, and——"
Mrs. Mitchell had drawn her into her arms, but the black crêpe was held over her face.
"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him—so close—and yet——"
A wave of tenderness drowned words.
"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?"
After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in her tone:
"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him."
"Willow Creek Plantation,"Wednesday."Mr. Herriott."Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters that concern you—matters I am unwilling to mention unless we are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better for you to avoid Y—— and come directly to Sunflower, ten miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives. Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, or saw you. My child is absent in Y——, and will not return until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right a great wrong, it will not be my fault."Very respectfully,"Eliza Mitchell."
"Willow Creek Plantation,
"Wednesday.
"Mr. Herriott.
"Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters that concern you—matters I am unwilling to mention unless we are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better for you to avoid Y—— and come directly to Sunflower, ten miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives. Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, or saw you. My child is absent in Y——, and will not return until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right a great wrong, it will not be my fault.
"Very respectfully,
"Eliza Mitchell."
Allowing two days' margin for accidental delays, Eliza indulged no doubt that this letter would reach its destination in ample time to enable Mr. Herriott to keep the appointment, should he consent to meet her, and, after putting on a special delivery stamp, she mailed it at Maurice with her own hand.
The probability of a change of residence had been so fully discussed that preliminary arrangements had long been made; but the early date, suddenly fixed, necessitated great activity to insure readiness for departure.
Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y——, where Mr. Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, contentedly planning a future in which he assigned no niche to her, stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and repudiated her.
Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to sign kept her in Y—— longer than she had intended. He very carefully wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home "to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused association with Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave one plantation—Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitchell Willow Creek Bend was left, in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House.
Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitchell to meet her with the trap.
At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the overseer's wife, desiring to avoid the passenger train, went in the caboose of a local freight to Sunflower. It was an "excursion" day in honor of the opening of a Masonic hall just completed, and many strangers strolled about the village awaiting the hour fixed for the dedication ceremonies. At one o'clock, when the fast southbound train paused long enough to deliver the mail-bag, Eliza stood on the little platform, watching the line of dusty cars. As a tall figure, valise in hand, stepped from the Pullman sleeper, she did not promptly recognize the clean-shaven face, wearing grey goggles. Handing his valise to a negro porter sitting on the baggage truck, he glanced about him, and approached the little woman, who was trembling with suspense.
"How are you, Mrs. Mitchell?"
He held out his hand.
"Oh, Mr. Herriott! I was not sure it was you. Thank God! I was so afraid you would not come."
He took off the goggles and dropped them in his coat pocket.
"I dare say these glasses partly disguise, but snow-blindness left my eyes rather sensitive, and I wore them as guard against railroad dust."
"Come with me, Mr. Herriott. This little place is full of strangers to-day on account of a Masonic meeting, but there is a quiet spot in the grove yonder, where a recent picnic party left some benches."
In silence they reached the grove of old red oaks, and Eliza sat down on a rough, board seat; but he declined to share it, and stood before her, his eyes an interrogation.
"Mr. Herriott, I asked you to come here because you are pursuing a course I think you would abandon if you knew some facts that only I can give you. But first, I want your promise that no matter what the future holds, you will never let Eglah know or suspect that I wrote you, came here, or saw you. If she found it out she would never forgive me; she would desert me, and I am running a great risk. Give me your word of honor to keep this meeting always strictly confidential. If you promise, I shall feel easy."
"I promise. You may trust me."
"Thank you, sir. Before I say more, will you tell me if you still love your wife?"
His face hardened and his eyes narrowed.
"Pardon me, madam. I did not come here to be catechised."
"If you have ceased to love her, then I should betray a holy trust by lifting a very sacred veil. I can speak freely only to a man who loves her as she deserves—and as I have always believed you did. If you no longer love her, I have come on worse than a fool's errand."
There was a brief silence, and hot tears ran over the little woman's cheeks.
"And if I love her still? Go on, go on."
"Then why are you breaking her dear heart?"
"Madam, her heart has never been in my keeping. You must know that for years I made every effort to win it, and failing, I abandoned the hope. Our merely nominal relation was dissolved by mutual consent, and I gave her entire freedom before I started North. I have never been close enough to her heart to wound it."
"Please, Mr. Herriott, listen to me patiently. I must go back so far. She did not love you when she married you. Why she so suddenly took that awful step I don't know. She refused to explain. I believed that her father had persuaded her, but she assured me he had no knowledge of her intention until after she had voluntarily made her decision, and she is absolutely truthful. She is reticent and proud, but of false statements she is incapable. She has never confided the motive of her rash marriage to me, and what she is unwilling to have me know, nobody else can ever tell me. Better than any one living I understand her, and when she came back with her father from Greyledge I saw a great change in her; she was not the indifferent girl whom you had taken away. The estrangement between Judge Kent and herself had ended, and she rejoiced in the cordial reconciliation, but some sad mystery in the background overshadowed her and puzzled me. The day she received that express package from you she suddenly seemed to go frantic, and her distress was so overwhelming I was frightened. Never before or since has she shown such passionate grief. She told me she had wronged, wounded you, and that you would never forgive her. How she wronged you she would not explain, and I don't know any more now than I did then. But she insisted again and again that you were not to blame—that it was entirely her fault, and she must bear the sorrow she had brought upon herself. She wrung her hands and begged me to pray she might die before you came back and rejected her. When I tried to comfort her, and asked why you should do such a cruel, unjust thing, she wailed: 'You loved your husband; if you had wounded him past pardon, could you bear to talk about it? Don't question me. Think of your Robert, and try to realize how I feel.' All that night she walked the floor of her room, and next morning she looked years older—so white, so silent, as if gazing down into a grave. Since then she has never been the same Eglah. Something in your last message, which I did not see, slew her peace of mind for all time. She shut herself away from society, lived exclusively with her father and with me. When Judge Kent died I dreaded a total collapse in the child who had worshipped him from her babyhood; but she bore the awful strain silently, calmly, surprisingly. Mr. Whitfield put his arm around her shoulder as she stood by the coffin, and, with tears in his eyes, the old man praised her devotion and her bravery. She looked up at him with a strange smile on her bloodless lips.
"'One can suffer only so much, then numbness comes. After the misery of many months a last blow does not crush. The petrified are not always where they belong—in the grave.'
"After the funeral she closed Nutwood, moved her books, piano, and horses down to my little cottage in the heart of the pine woods, denied herself to every one, and there we have lived in strict seclusion. Day and night she pored over books of Arctic travel, and on the walls of her room she had maps and charts, and what she called her 'comfort calendar,' that she patched together from almanacs, to mark what time day and night began near the Pole and when the new moons were due. It made my heart ache to see her face each day as she searched the papers for some news of you. At last she ceased to expect any, and your name was not mentioned. Mr. Herriott, do you recollect your striped silk smoking-jacket, with pink poppies embroidered on collar and cuffs and down the front?"
"Yes. I had such a jacket."
"One sultry summer night, about one o'clock, I went on tiptoe into Eglah's room to get a vial of medicine that was kept in a closet there, and, as she slept poorly, I tried not to disturb her. Her window was open, the curtains looped back, and a full moon shone in. She was sitting up in bed, with her face buried in some bright wrapping, and a sort of strangled moan came from her. I went to the bed and asked what the trouble was. Had she neuralgia in her face, that she was muffling it on such a hot night? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have heard the quiver in her voice!
"'No, no. Heartache—heartache only the grave can ease.'
"Next day, while she was away, I searched for that striped thing which I had never seen before. She kept it in a long, satin-lined, sandalwood case, among her perfumed laces, and when I examined it I found a smoking-jacket, with a dog whistle in one pocket, and in the other a handkerchief marked 'Herriott.' I——"
Mr. Herriott had walked away, and after several moments recalled the search for the missing jacket on the day of his departure, and the pride with which Amos only three nights ago, had shown him a warm, quilted cashmere gown "the madam" had sent him because the jacket left for him had never been found. When he came back to the seat, he stood with his face turned from her, and she could see only his profile.
"Sir, if you don't hear me out, you can't understand why I came. Eglah would sit for hours, a book before her, her hands folded in a way peculiar to her—her wedding ring against her lips—so silent, so still, she seemed a stone; but she roused to a manifestation of interest when we heard your old gardener was ill and needed attention. While we were at your house she seemed more like herself than at any time since that express package reached her; but a deep undercurrent of sorrow she could not hide. Over the house and grounds she wandered continually, and that long lake beach was her favorite walk. Every evening she shut herself in one of the rooms downstairs—I think it was your smoking-room—and the last night we were there she spent locked in that room. She sent for a photographer from the city and had copies taken of your mother's portrait and of yours—that one hanging next to your father's in the drawing-room. To-day on her dressing-table stand two pictures of you and one she insists resembles you—the photograph of a French poet she saw once in Arles. She thinks the brow and eyes and nose are yours, and, though she does not like the lower portion of the face, she had the photograph enlarged and framed. I could not keep my tears back when, leaning from the carriage, she took her last look at your home. There was such a world of suffering in her sad eyes, and her dear lips and chin trembled like a little child's.
"'Being here is next best to seeing the master. I can never come again. When he returns I must be in Europe, out of his way.'"
Mr. Herriott turned suddenly and looked down steadily at his companion.
"Pardon me, Mrs. Mitchell. You prefer to stay at home? You do not wish to go abroad?"
His keen eyes searched hers, and their flash answered him.
"Whatever the child thinks is best for her peace I want above everything else; and I am ready and willing to go with her to Europe, Africa, the Fiji Islands—to the ends of the earth. I do love my little home, still more my husband's grave, almost in sight of it; I love my cows and my chickens; but first and last, and better than all, I love my baby, who came to my arms when she was three hours old, and who now, in turning her back upon an unjust world, clings only to me. I never took an oath before God that I would 'for better, for worse, love and cherish her till death,' but I rather think my love will abide, will stand all tests and trials that have crumbled some other vows she once trusted."
After a moment she added:
"Perhaps I have already said too much, and you may not care to hear more."
"Madam, I wish you to tell me everything you think it best I should know. I am here for that purpose, at your request."
"Eglah was terribly hurt to find Amos had heard twice from you while, consumed with suspense, she had received not even a line. After we went home she grew more and more restless, but I noticed she carefully avoided any allusion to you. One night I heard her moving about, and then she left her room. It is a lonely little place where we live, rather unprotected, and the servants—man and wife—do not wake easily. Eglah had a way of walking about the gallery and yard when she could not sleep that made me uneasy. I went out to expostulate, and found her sitting on the steps in the moonlight with that jacket of yours in her arms. I sat down and took her hand. In a horrible dream, she had seen you lying dead between two blue slabs of ice, a white owl on your breast, and she was hugging and stroking that striped silk as only those who love can caress the garments of lost darlings. You know she very rarely cries. In all her life I never saw tears on her face more than three or four times. I tried to soothe her, and said that full moon overhead was making the Pole itself bright. She turned suddenly to me, the tears dripping, and, oh, if I could give you the heartbroken tone in which she said:
'The broad noonday was night to me,The full-moon night was dark to me,The stars whirled and the poles spanThe hour God took him far from me.'
'The broad noonday was night to me,The full-moon night was dark to me,The stars whirled and the poles spanThe hour God took him far from me.'
"After that night she guarded herself more closely against any expression of feeling, and carefully abstained from all reference to you until the evening she learned from a Boston paper that your vessel had returned to Europe, and you had preferred to stay in Arctic regions. My poor baby! She looked so white, so stunned, as if some one had struck her a heavy blow."
Eliza sobbed and her tears streamed.
"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y—— was placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and then she asked me to be sure—after she was safe in her coffin—to take off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin Temple—the priest—and look at an altar she had given him. I waited outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible date—probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once."
"She saw me! When?"
Mr. Herriott had grown very pale.
"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every nerve has been strained to get away."
Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside her.
"To what portion of Europe are you going?"
"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has seen you safe and well—yet no word of remembrance has been sent to her—wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y——, anxious to get away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even you could wish."
He shook his head and swept his hand across his face.
"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as signally as I certainly did."
Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears.
"Mr. Herriott, since she was three hours old she has been my child. I know her as well as I know myself. I am a woman; I loved my husband better than my life, and when I see genuine, loyal, tender love in a wife I know it as surely as you know where the sun rises. My baby did not love you when she took her marriage vows, but you were deep in her heart when she came home; and her love has grown until it is now so strong it is a slow torture, from which she would gladly escape if she could. Do you suppose a woman proud, reserved, cold as Eglah is would treasure and caress, and sleep with her cheek on a man's faded old smoking-jacket if she did not tenderly love the wearer whose touch had made it sacred? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have seen her all these years—her patient, hopeless face! If you could realize the life she leads in the overseer's house and contrast it with that brilliant past when you saw her admired and sought in New York—even in London—you might perhaps understand how changed she is. I longed for you to know that your wife's heart is wholly yours, because I have believed you would always love her. If she ever suspects I have told you her secret she will never forgive—she will disown me. You must not cause me to lose my child. Just now she is sorely mortified and resentful, but——"
Eliza paused and looked at the man beside her, but she could not see his eyes.
"Please do me the kindness to finish your sentence."
"But if you could meet her and——"
Again she hesitated, discouraged by the expression settling around his mouth.
"In consequence of a voluntary pledge on my part, I could not now intrude upon her."
"If you called and asked to see her, I am sure she would decline to receive you; but if you really desire to see her before she sails, it could be arranged without her knowledge or co-operation. We go from Maurice to-morrow night at eight o'clock and pass through Y—— without stopping. Eglah comes from Y—— at eight to-night. To-morrow she will be at my house all day until four o'clock, when she goes over to the Willow Bend plantation to say good-bye to the Boyntons and negro tenants, and also the tenants and field hands from Canebrake plantation, whom Mr. Boynton will have present. Eglah usually takes a book and spends the morning under the trees in my front yard, or in the old mill, where she often sits for hours. If you merely want to see your wife again before she passes forever out of your life you can easily do so from the shelter of my butter-bean arbor, which is near the trees, and she will never know it. If you care to speak to her, you may be sure of no interruption. Mr. Herriott, God took my husband, but I could not have borne my loss if my Robert had voluntarily taken himself from me. My heart aches for Eglah. She is indeed my all in this world, and I have risked a great deal to put you in possession of the truth. She loves you as earnestly and tenderly as you could wish, but it remains for you to make her admit it—to compel her to confession. Her pride has been so sorely wounded she would die sooner than move one inch toward reconciliation."
She looked at her watch and rose.
"My train will soon be due."
As they walked toward the small station-house, Mr. Herriott held out his hand.
"Whatever the future may hold, I shall always thank you inexpressibly for the confidence, the sacred trust you have reposed in me, and I will never betray it. I doubt the wisdom of seeing Eglah. I know only too well the difference between true love and that regretful compassion her kind heart indulges. There are reasons that make me unwilling to violate my own pledge to her, but if I should decide to go to your house, will you direct me how to find it?"
"You can drive to Maurice, ten miles south, or take the night train, which will not stop here unless it is flagged. Once at Maurice, any one will show you Willow Bend road. When you pass the plantation, which is quite a settlement, cross the bridge, turn to the right, and you will soon see an old red mill in front of my gate. Here comes my train."
"No, madam; not your train. That is only a freight-engine and gravel cars."
"I came on it, and I go back the same way. For many reasons I prefer to keep this trip as secret as possible, at least until after to-morrow, when we leave home; so I avoided the passenger train that brought up some Maurice Masons. The smaller the place, the wider the eyes, the keener the ears, and the more nimble the tongues that dwell there. Rufus Boling, the conductor yonder, expects to marry my favorite Sunday-school pupil, Minna Gaines, to-morrow night, and I have done all I could for the child's wedding. Consequently, though the railroad officials grumble and forbid, he consented to let me ride in the caboose, provided I would not sit at the window, and promised not to sue for damages if I lost a limb or an eye on the trip. Are you ready, Rufus? Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I have done my best for my child and for you. God help you both!"
He took her hand and pressed it cordially.
"In any event, you may rest assured I never shall cease to thank you for your effort; and life will always be sweeter because of some facts you have given me."
He assisted her into the close, smoky caboose, lifted his hat and, as the engine pulled slowly out, he took off his glasses and walked back to the red-oak grove.
It was a cloudless, warm day when Mr. Herriott crossed the bridge, and walked up the road bordering a creek hidden by its vivid fringe of willows. At the ruined mill he paused; here the sandy road ended. Beyond on an upland towered a pine forest, its organ pipes whispering as the south wind touched the tremolo; in front nestled the small, white house, partly veiled by rose and yellow jasmine vines, and all the little hollow was brimmed with cool, green shadows cast by trees across clustering flower beds. A blended perfume distilled by dew from Hersé's crystal fingers hovered over the Dingle, the cold, unctuous odor of tuberoses, the warm spice of carnations, and that clinging breath of wan lilies that evokes white faces and folded fingers of the dead, but stronger than all, the fragrance of wild grapes in creamy bloom. More than cloistral quiet reigned; only the rippling monody of water feeling its way over the crumbling dam to the far-off sea, and the tinkle of the spring runnel sounding low, clear, elfish, as if some Malis or "April-eyed Nycheia" smote her tambourine and set silver bells ringing. Once from the green silken tent of willows a shy lark, hermit of dells, thrilled the silence with his resonant, sylvan roulade, and a locust under beech boughs answered, clashing his brazen sistrum.
The blinds and windows at the front of the cottage were open, and white muslin curtains stirred now and then, as the breeze swayed them. Pots of flowering geranium and heliotrope were grouped on the piazza, and among them slept Delilah. As Mr. Herriott looked at the humble nest of a home, and thought of stately Nutwood, of gilded ballrooms where Eglah had reigned an acknowledged beauty, he began to realize the monotony, the dreary loneliness of life here in the heart of almost primeval forests. She had elected to shut herself far away from the brilliant circle of former days, but he could not believe it was for his sake; grief for her father had made her a recluse.
The dazzling possibility with which Mrs. Mitchell enticed him, he had put aside as a delusion he could not indulge a second time, for behind it was the biting mockery with which he had once grappled. His nominal wife had led the life of a nun during his absence, but loyalty was far removed from love, and the steps of an altar suited her nature better than a husband's arms. For many hours he had fought the hope that would smile out of the folds of his old jacket, but the intense longing to see her again conquered reason, prudence, consistent adherence to the line of action he had voluntarily prescribed for both. He would secrete himself, and merely look once more at the face he had striven ineffectually to forget, and she should never suspect his presence.
At a little distance was the gate of the low wire fence, but he stepped across the wire, and passed through the open door of the dairy to a tall tulip tree, around the body of which coiled the brown serpent of the muscadine. Very near this tree, now all aglow with its orange-spotted cups, stood—on the edge of a verbena bed—an ancient mimosa in full bloom. Years before, an August gale had pollarded it, and lateral branches drooped almost to the ground, except on one side, where they were cut away to frame an arch, and this entrance showed a wooden bench set against the trunk of the tree. To-day it resembled a huge Japanese umbrella of olive-green lace thickly studded with pink silk aigrettes that shook out waves of sweetness, mellow, fruity, languorous. Looking around for the best coign of vantage, Mr. Herriott noticed the narrow arbor covered by a thick growth of butter-bean vines, where he stood secure from observation. On the ground, only five yards distant, lay a woman's broad black straw hat tied basket-fashion with its ribbon strings, and filled with spikes of tuberoses. By cautious pressure of the bean vines he could see very distinctly the front of the house and the mimosa seat.
With his head on his hand and a throbbing of his heart that defied control, he waited, his eyes on the hat, he never knew how long, until a sudden thrill shook him.
From an invisible corner of the garden, Eglah came slowly toward the arbor. Her mourning gown of lustreless, thin black silk fitted perfectly the curves of her finely moulded figure, and at her throat she had fastened a spray of white star jasmine. High on her head the glossy, gold-flecked chestnut hair was piled in soft loose coils and puffs that caught the sunshine as she walked, holding in the clasp of one arm a sheaf of long-stemmed lilies. Advancing until she reached the hat, she leaned down, swung the knotted ribbons over her right wrist, and stood a moment listening to the peaceful woodland message of the lark. Three years had wrought a marvellous change. The rich promise of her youth had expanded into an almost flawless loveliness. A certain girlish slimness had given place to the fuller, rounded lines of graceful, perfect womanhood, and over the pathetic, pale face had settled a passionless repose that comes only when hope is dead, and silent pride sits on its tombstone. As she held the lilies with her left arm, the hand gleamed white against the folds of her black dress, and the wedding ring flashed. Her cold, exquisite purity matched that of a Roman vestal on her way to shrines, but her large brown eyes, looking far away, were so darkened by shadows of mournful memory, of helpless yet uncomplaining renunciation, that Mr. Herriott could not endure the sight. He threw his hand across his face, and strangled the impulse to spring to her side, to catch her in his arms. When he looked again, she had walked away toward the house.
With a book in her hand, Mrs. Mitchell ran down the steps.
"I am waiting for the flowers, before I close the box for the little bride. These lilies are just what she needs for the altar. Give them to me."
Then a low, sweet, sad voice swept the heartstrings of the man who watched and listened.
"Do not forget to send my present. I put my card inside the case. Dear little Minna, I hope she may be happy. If her husband really loves her, she enters her heaven; but if not, the poor little thing will soon wish the burial instead of marriage service had been read over her to-night. I trust the child may never find out that a tolling bell is sweeter than a wedding peal. You found my Baedeker?"
"Yes, in the mill where you left it a week ago."
"I must look out one or two points in it, and the air is so deliciously sweet I think I shall stay a while in the garden on this last Dingle day, unless you need me to help you."
"There is nothing for you to do inside; everything is ready."
"Ma-Lila, you have been crying! What makes you so nervous? You are trembling."
"Oh, I feel upset! Leaving Robert's lonely grave, and all."
The girl stooped, and kissed her cheek.
"It seems very selfish to ask you to leave a place so dear to you; but I hope God will begin to pity me at last, and call me soon where I shall trouble no one any more. Then——"
Mrs. Mitchell laid the lilies on her lips to close them.
"Hush, my baby—hush! I am screwed up now like a frazzled fiddle-string, and if you give another twist I shall just go to pieces."
Taking the flower-laden hat, she placed it with the lilies on the step, and turned toward the dairy.
Baedeker in hand, Eglah moved away, but as she neared the arbor she looked back over her shoulder and called:
"Little mother, when Dorcas brings the clothes she kept to flute, please call me. I ought to finish packing my trunk by one o'clock. Mr. Boynton says the baggage should be at the station not later than five o'clock, and you know we have to shake hands with all the plantation folks at four. Where are you going?"
"Only to the spring house for the cream I promised Minna for charlotte-russe. I set the jug there to cool."
"Let me bring it. You will wear yourself out."
"As if you knew morning's cream from that two days old! Go read your book."
She sped toward the dairy like a running bird and though she did not turn her head, the black eyes were busy. In the shelter of the spring house she fell on her knees beside pans and bowls and with streaming eyes prayed that after the battle perpetual peace might come.
Under the canopy of the mimosa Eglah passed, seated herself on the bench, and opened the Baedeker. Through the lace meshes of the foliage filtered sunshine, dappling her mourning gown with gold, quivering in the waves of her hair, and after a while she pushed the book aside, laid her head back against the trunk of the tree, and her long, silky lashes touched her cheeks.
Mr. Herriott's glowing, hungry eyes watched every movement, noted the outline of the full white throat, the listless drooping of the hands at her side, the sad, proud curve of sensitive lips closed on ceaseless pain that no complaint could adequately voice. He was unable to bear any longer the look of patient hopelessness that each moment stabbed his heart. At the thought that this was possibly his last sight of her, that in obedience to his harsh dictates she was passing forever out of his life, a wave of invincible protest surged over him, and before its passionate fury pride, resolutions, his pledges of renunciation vanished. The longing of many years seized, mastered him. In the sight of God and man she was his. He would possess his own. With a quick, noiseless stride he crossed the narrow space that separated them, and entered the arch. His shadow was thrown forward, and she lifted her eyes.
For an instant, a bewildered expression drifted over her countenance, then her features settled into a marble mask. Her eyes shone suddenly with a jewel gleam, as when a lamp flashes over the face of a gem; her lids drooped, and she rose.
They stood only a few feet apart, a little belt of white verbena fluttering flags of truce between them. His bronze face locked, his eager grey eyes starred with the glint of battle probed hers for an instant; she calmly defiant, colorless as the jasmine on her breast.
He held out his hand.
"Eglah!" His voice was a passionate appeal.
She interlaced and clasped her own fingers, her hands hanging in front of her.
"Mr. Herriott, I am very glad you have reached home safely. I congratulate you upon escaping the dangers of your Arctic journey."
"You are not surprised to see me in the United States?"
"Not at all. I happened to call at Calvary House recently, and accidentally I saw and heard you talking in the cloister."
"You were so near, so near—yet gave me no intimation of your presence?"
"I have studied and learned thoroughly the lesson you selected and set for me; you wished to avoid me. My schooling was effectual, and I was glad to gratify you."
"When I landed I went first to Calvary House with a suffering human wreck whom I promised——"
"Why trouble yourself to explain what concerns only you and your sick friend? Your reasons I have neither the right to ask, nor any desire to hear."
"At least you will permit me to thank you for all your gracious kindness to Amos Lea. He tells me you saved his life, and thereby I am far more your debtor than is the poor old man."
"Never my debtor. Amos and I understand each other, and I was glad to help take care of him. You owe me absolutely nothing but the fulfilment of your own unsolicited pledges."
"Why do you suppose I came here?"
"Why—indeed; when you pressed on my acceptance the promise that my 'future should be spared your shadow'? I presume you came from a chivalric sense of imaginary duty, or possibly a courteous semi-recognition of what you may have conjectured I might regard as my legal claims. I have absolutely none of any kind, along any lines. Having renounced and banished me, perhaps you wished to assure yourself that the condemned is at least not needy in exile? By what right could you expect me—disowned, rejected, scorned—to desire ever to see again a man whom once I trusted, almost as I did my God? To whom I fled as sole refuge from the infamy that threatened one supreme in my life, and when like a frantic child I clung to him, believing he loved me, he shook me off, as if a worm crawled on his hand. After the whirlwind passed, after the black veil of death mercifully interposed and hid us from ruin, I came to my senses—I realized the magnitude of my error. My ideal world had crumbled, you alone survived the wreck; I honored you for your loyalty to the innocent man in his grave, and God knows I have rejoiced that you denied my prayer, that you refused to perjure yourself, but—your cruel words sank deep. While I could not blame you, my punishment has been as severe as I deserved, as keenly mortifying as you intended and desired. In my helplessness and sorrow you have humiliated me by every means at your command, made me a target for derision and for slander. Three long, sad years, without a line. Yet you found a way to write to your gardener."
"Yes, I knew Amos loved me. You did not."
"As you felt assured of that fact, I fail to understand why you have come."
"Not from the chivalric motives you have done me the honor to impute to me. I am no walking code of priggish courtesy; I am merely a man who knows exactly what he wants most, and, missing that, deceives himself with nothing less. I am here to-day solely to see, at least once more, the face that has held my heart in bondage since you were a child. To intrude upon you was not my purpose, and I did not intend to violate my self-imposed limit of absolute silence, but I could not resist the longing to look into your eyes, to hear your voice; and I thought I was strong enough to watch you a little while, without your knowledge, and go away forever, leaving you in peace. I might have known better. The sight of you shivered my own compact. I have suffered far more than you, and if my harshness wounded you beyond forgiveness, remember, oh, remember, how long I have loved you!"
"I can remember only that your last spoken words were a vehement request that I should forget you."
Her lower lip fluttered, and she caught it between her teeth.
"Yes, but if farewell utterances are inexorably binding, you must pardon me if I remind you of yours. All through the gloom and bitterness of our separation a sacred, sweet voice has sounded in my ears the precious words of promise you whispered when your arms clasped my neck, and your dear face lay on my heart: 'You will never be out of my life—my own Mr. Noel.'"
A vivid rose stole into her cheeks, and she leaned farther back to increase the space between them.
"I had not then received my text-book—had not learned the lesson assigned. After that, you wrote your final mandate: 'My freedom was complete,' and you urged me to use it in any way most 'conducive to the happiness so unwisely imperilled' by my rash marriage. I shall endeavor to follow your counsel, and if you had waited one day later, you would have been spared this unpleasant duty-visit. I go away to-night, and never again shall you be annoyed by even hearing of me. Mr. Herriott, in spite of all your wrongs, at the last you trusted your name to my keeping. I have indeed held it 'sacred as the Grail,' and now I return it to you as stainless as when you gave it. I am leaving America to find an obscure resting-place in a strange land where I shall be known only by the name to which I was born; and, once across the ocean, I can escape, perhaps, the social gibbet from which dangle, deservedly, 'women with histories.' I have no need of your name, noble though it is, to help me keep my oath to God. Divorce I hold a shameful blot on true womanhood, a menace to domestic and national morality, an insult to the Lord. Human law can no more annul my marriage than my baptismal vow; neither was made to man; both stand on that divine record only death can erase; they are locked among the sacraments of God,'so long as ye both shall live.'Your freedom is as unconditional as you may wish, and that court of release which you commended to me, is equally open to you."
The pulse in her lovely throat throbbed violently, and watching her lift one hand there with the old childish effort to loosen the stricture, his lips tightened and he stepped closer.
"And if I decline to accept, to permit your renunciation of my name, which is more sacred since you have worn it? To make a football of God's statute is as little my purpose as is yours. Sometimes I have cheated myself with the forlorn hope that absence might possibly help me to accomplish that which long association failed to bring me. After years of suffering, of sombre retrospection, I hope I have come back less a Tartar than when we parted. Then I surrendered you entirely—absolutely. I do so still. I claim no more rights or privileges than I possessed before that marriage ceremony made you nominally mine; but if your great pity for the lonely man who never loved any other woman can possibly grow into a deeper feeling, will you try to forgive my harshness that dreadful night? Knowing what you are to me, will you come to me?"
"Come to you who repudiated me! By what right dare you suppose, expect——"
"I have no right even to hope, but my hungry heart dares, and will dare desperate chances."
"You told me your confidence was dead as your love. The scar of that brand can never heal."
"Yes, I said many bitter, cruel things in the hot rage of my disappointment, that I should be glad to forget. In extenuation, you must remember that you beckoned me unexpectedly to heaven, and when I was thrust out the crash unhinged me. It was for your own sake I asked you to put me out of your life; to save you from the horrible martyrdom of unloving wifehood, from dragging through life the ball and chain of a galling, intolerable tie. To put you out of mine I knew was as impossible in future years as I had found it in the past. In my farewell note I considered your peace of mind, not my own. If you could realize all you are to me, perhaps you might understand better what that voluntary surrender of your precious self cost me, when, by the law of God and of man, you belonged to me."
She had avoided meeting his eyes; the strain set her lips to quivering, increased the strangling grip on her throat, and unconsciously her fingers clutched and wrung one another.
"After three years of dreary absence you have not even a friendly hand to offer to the man who has carried you in his heart ever since you wore muslin aprons—who holds you the one love of his life?"
"Mr. Herriott, you ceased to love me when you ceased to trust me, else all these years——"
She paused, warned by the treacherous quiver in her voice. He stood quite still, and after a moment opened his arms.
"My sweetheart, will you try me? Will you grant me the privilege of convincing you?"
She shook her head. Something in his eyes dazzled her, and an alarming pallor overspread her face, blanching her lips.
"If you have found happiness in forgetting and excluding me entirely from your life and your future, I cannot complain that you followed my counsel; but I will accept that positive assurance only from your own truthful lips. Your peace of mind is more to me than my own. Have you shut me out of your heart forever?"
She tried to move aside, to pass him, but he barred her escape with an outstretched arm, and she shrank back.
"If you care no more for me now than when I left you, I have no alternative but to live alone; and I will never again intrude, never annoy you by the sight of my face. I will not accept compassion, or friendly sympathy. All—or none. I want love—love that brings a pure woman gladly to her husband's breast. Once you took some solemn vows for me, invoking the presence of the Lord you worship. Now, trusting you implicitly, knowing you will not deceive me, I must ask you to give me one final pledge. If you cannot love me as I wish—if your heart, your whole heart will never belong to me—then, calling God to witness the truth of your words, look me straight in the eyes and tell me so."
She trembled, shut her eyes, and, as a rich red rushed into her white cheeks, she covered her face with her hands.