XXVII
Shewas still leaning there with a dumb kind of resistance to her inner restlessness, when she saw a visitor coming up the walk. Looking more closely at the tall figure, she recognized Overton with a shock of feeling. She knew that it was not unnatural for him to come to Mapleton, but the unexpected sight of him made her mind flash back to Diane, and she experienced a sensation akin to panic.
He had seen her, and she could not escape. She had to stand there bravely until the Norwegian maid opened the door and led him clumsily to the sitting-room, her square, peasant figure appearing in the background as he entered.
Fanny greeted him, trying to say something correct and conventional. She was secretly appalled at the thought that his resurrection from the polar snows had in it almost an element of tragedy. He seemed to have lost his place among mortal men, and to have assumed the guise of the departed. His return had put their little world all out of joint.
She felt as if he must know it, must feel awkward and out of place, even when she invited himto be seated and offered to despatch the hovering Norwegian for some hot tea. He shook his head at this, however, and Fanny disposed of the attendant by sending her away with the tea-tray. Then she came over to a seat nearer the window.
“Papa’s just gone over to the seminary,” she explained. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you very much.”
“Not as much as I want to see him,” Overton replied warmly. “It’s very good to be here and to see my friends again!”
Fanny felt a pang of guilt, and looked up at him for the first time with a seeing eye. He was, indeed, greatly changed. His strong face was worn, his eyes hollowed; but there remained the old look of genius that had glorified all he did. It was, indeed, accentuated. There was something in his tranquil, unstirred gaze that reassured her, and she felt at home with him again.
“We all thought you were lost,” she said simply. “Your coming back seems like a miracle, and no one quite understands.”
He was at once on his guard.
“That seems to be the trouble. There has been a great deal of misapprehension. I was lost in the ice, given up for dead, and finally rescued by my English friends. I can’t tell you how good they were to me,” he hurried on. “I was so nearly gone that they had no hope at first, and I was so ill and delirious afterward that they didn’tknow who I was. I had left my papers with my men, and I happened to have one of poor Rayburn’s diaries on me. They thought I was Rayburn—that’s why no word came back about me. It wasn’t until I recovered enough to know myself that the English nurses found out who I was.”
Fanny turned uneasily and broke off a spray of yellow buds that lay at the window-ledge.
“Mr. Faunce told us how terrible it all was. He couldn’t bear to speak of the worst of it. He said you were the best friend a man ever had. I think”—she looked at him—“the thought of your death nearly crazed him at first.”
She caught the expression in Overton’s eyes, but she could not fathom it; only the tension in his face increased.
“I’ve just seen Faunce. They were up in the Catskills when I went there to visit my old aunt.”
“Oh!” She pulled the yellow buds off one by one. “Then you’ve just seen Diane, too? We didn’t know where they went.”
“Yes, I saw her. When I met her I didn’t know that she was married. You see, we’d had no news.”
Fanny sank back in her chair.
“I never thought of that!”
He smiled grimly.
“It’s like being dead, you know,” he remarked, thinking how pretty she had grown to be, how slender and graceful. He noticed how prettilyher fair hair grew on her forehead and on the nape of her white neck. He was the more surprised when she turned a strangely searching look on him, and her face flushed.
“Did you know that Diane had left him?”
“What?”
She nodded.
“It’s true—the judge told mama.”
Overton made no reply at first; he seemed incapable of speech, and Fanny saw the blood rush up to his forehead.
“Are you sure?” he managed to gasp out at last.
“Oh, yes; mama just heard it from the judge. I—I shouldn’t have told. Please don’t tell her that I did!”
He commanded himself again with difficulty.
“She wouldn’t mind your telling me, Fanny. Of course, I sha’n’t give you away, though. You and I were always good pals, weren’t we? The trouble is that I—I can’t quite believe it. I saw them both only two days ago, and I know he’s in New York now.”
“She’s here with her father.”
He rose from his seat and began to walk about the room. Apparently he did not care what she might think of his agitation, which had returned with full force.
“You’re fond of her, you know her well—has she told you what’s the matter?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
He stopped short.
“Has her father anything to do with it?”
Fanny hesitated.
“I suppose he has; you know he’s always so domineering. I don’t know anything about it, but there’s been talk about the expedition. I believe they had set their hearts on Faunce commanding it, and—and, of course, it’s yours. It couldn’t go to any one but you now.”
“Yes, it can, for I’ve refused it.”
She gave him a startled look, her heart warming toward him. She knew well enough why he had refused.
“I’ve asked to have Faunce go,” he went on. “There’s no question of that, if she—if she——”
“It isn’t that with her!” Fanny interrupted.
“I thought you said you hadn’t seen her?”
“I haven’t, but I’m a woman, and I—I know that much myself!”
He stood looking at her, a little reassured, but with a keen subconsciousness that recalled Diane’s white face and her outstretched hands when she pushed him away. He had believed then that she loved Faunce. On that belief, to shelter her, he had tried to shield Faunce, and had surrendered his chance to command the new expedition, only to find that Diane had left her husband!
It was inexplicable, but his heart leaped up with a sudden and unchastened hope. He hadbeen plunged into misery, he had given up, and now, suddenly, as if a window had been opened in a dark room and the light of day let in, he caught a glimpse of the horizon. It awoke hopes that he had extinguished, it renewed thoughts that he had tried to drive out. After attaining the bleak immunity of despair, he was plunged back again into the turmoil of passion.
He could not find words to answer Fanny, and he was glad to see the black-clad figure of the little dean emerging from the golden glow on the campus and approaching at a rapid gait. It meant a resumption of the commonplace and a little while to recover the equilibrium he had lost.