ADAM FLOYD.
It was the warmest day of the season, and from the moment when the first robin chirped in the maple tree growing by the door, to the time when the shadows stretching eastward indicated that the sultry afternoon was drawing to a close, Adam Floyd had been busy. Indeed, he could not remember a day when he had worked so continuously and so hard, neither could he recall a time when he had been so perfectly happy, except upon one starlight night when last winter’s snow was piled upon the ground. The events of that night had seemed to him then like a dream, and they were scarcely more real now, whenpausing occasionally in his work and leaning his head upon his broad, brown hands, he tried to recall just the awkward words he had spoken and the graceful answer she had given; answer so low that he would hardly have known she was speaking, had not his face been so near to hers that he could hear the murmured response,
“I am not half good enough for you, Adam, and shall make a sorry wife; but, if you will take me with all my faults, I am yours.”
That was what she had said, the only she in all the world to Adam Floyd, now that the churchyard grass was growing over the poor old blind mother, to whom he had been the tenderest, best of sons, and who had said to him when dying,
“I’m glad I’m going home, my boy, for now you can bring Anna here. She is a bonny creature, I know by the sound of her voice and the touch of her silky hair. Tell her how with my last breath I blessed her, and how glad I was to think that when she came, the old blind woman’s chair would be empty, and that she would be spared a heavy burden which she is far too young to bear. God deal by her as she deals by you, my noble boy.”
The March winds were blowing when they made his mother’s grave, and Adam’s heart was not assore now as on that dismal, rainy night, when he first sat alone in his little cottage and missed the groping hand feeling for his own. Anna was coming within a week, Anna who had said, “I am not half good enough for you.” How the remembrance of these words even now brought a smile to the lips where the sweat drops were standing as he toiled for her, putting the last finishing strokes to the home prepared for his future bride, Anna Burroughs, the Deacon’s only daughter, the fairest maiden in all the goodly town of Rhodes—Anna, who had been away to school for a whole year, who could speak another language than her own, whose hands were soft and white as wool, whom all the village lads coveted, and at whom it was rumored even Herbert Dunallen the heir of Castlewild, where Adam worked so much, had cast admiring glances. Not good enough for him? She was far too good for a great burly fellow like himself, a poor mechanic, who had never looked into the Algebras and Euclids piled on Anna’s table the morning after she came from school. This was what Adam thought, wondering why she had chosen him, and if she were not sorry. Sometimes of late he had fancied a coldness in her manner, a shrinking from his caresses; but the very idea had madehis great, kind heart, throb with a pang so keen that he had striven to banish it, for to lose his darling now would be worse than death. He had thought it all over that August day, when he nailed down the bright new carpet in what was to be her room. “Our room,” he said softly to himself, as he watched his coadjutor, old Aunt Martha Eastman, smoothing and arranging the snowy pillows upon the nicely made up bed, and looping with bows of pure white satin the muslin curtains which shaded the pretty bay window. That window was his own handiwork. He had planned and built it himself, for Anna was partial to bay windows. He had heard her say so once when she came up to Castlewild where he was making some repairs, and so he had made her two, one in the bed-room, and one in the pleasant parlor looking out upon the little garden full of flowers. Adam’s taste was perfect, and many a passer by stopped to admire the bird’s nest cottage, peeping out from its thick covering of ivy leaves and flowering vines. Adam was pleased with it himself, and when the last tack had been driven and the last chair set in its place, he went over it alone admiring as he went, and wondering how it would strike Anna. Would her soft blue eyes light up with joy, or would they wearthe troubled look he had sometimes observed in them? “If they do,” and Adam’s breath came hard as he said it, and his hands were locked tightly together, “If they do, I’ll lead her into mother’s room; she won’t deceive me there. I’ll tell her that I would not take a wife who does not love me; that though to give her up is like tearing out my heart, I’ll do it if she says so, and Anna will answer——”
Adam did not know what, and the very possibility that she might answer, as he sometimes feared, paled his bronzed cheek, and made him reel, as, walking to his blind mother’s chair, he knelt beside it, and prayed earnestly for grace to bear the happiness or sorrow there might be in store for him. In early youth, Adam had learned the source of all true peace, and now in every perplexity, however trivial, he turned to God, who was pledged to care for the child, trusting so implicitly in him.
“If it is right for Anna to be mine, give her to me, but, if she has sickened of me, oh, Father, help me to bear.”
This was Adam’s prayer, and when it was uttered, the pain and dread were gone, and the childlike man saw no cloud lowering on his horizon.
It was nearly time for him to be going now, if he would have Anna see the cottage by day-light, and hastening to the chamber he had occupied since he was a boy, he put on, not his wedding suit, for that was safely locked in his trunk, but his Sunday clothes, feeling a pardonable thrill of satisfaction when he saw how much he was improved by dress. Not that Adam Floyd was ever ill-looking. A stranger would have singled him out from a thousand. Tall, straight and firmly built, with the flush of perfect health upon his frank, open face, and the sparkle of intelligence in his dark brown eyes, he represented a rare type of manly beauty. He was looking uncommonly well, too, this afternoon, old Martha thought, as from the kitchen door she watched him passing down the walk and out into the road which lead to the red farm-house, where Deacon Burroughs lived, and where Anna was waiting for him.
CHAPTER II.ANNA.
Waiting for him, we said, but not exactly as Adam Floyd should have been waited for. Never had a day seemed so long to her as that which to Adam had passed so quickly. Restless and wretched she had wandered many times from the garden to the brook, from the brook back to the garden, and thence to her own little chamber, from whose window, looking southward could be seen the chimney of the cottage, peeping through the trees. At this she looked often and long, trying to silence the faithful monitor within, whispering to her of the terrible desolation which would soon fall upon the master of that cottage, if she persisted in her cruel plan. Then she glanced to the northward, where, from the hill top, rose the pretentious walls of Castlewild, whose young heir had come between her and her affianced husband; then she compared them, one with the other—Adam Floyd with Herbert Dunallen—one the rich proprietorof Castlewild, the boyish man just of age, who touched his hat so gracefully, as in the summer twilight he rode in his handsome carriage past her father’s door, the youth, whose manners were so elegant, and whose hands were so white; the other, a mechanic, a carpenter by trade, who worked sometimes at Castlewild—a man unversed in etiquette as taught in fashion’s school, and who could neither dress, nor dance, nor flatter, nor bow as could Dunallen, but who she knew he was tenfold more worthy of her esteem. Alas, for Anna; though our heroine, she was but a foolish thing, who suffered fancy to rule her better judgment, and let her heart turn more willingly to the picture of Dunallen than to that of honest Adam Floyd, hastening on to join her.
“If he were not so good,” she thought, as with a shudder she turned away from the pretty little work-box he had brought her; “if he had ever given me an unkind word, or suspected how treacherous I am, it would not seem so bad, but he trusts me so much! Oh, Adam, I wish we had never met!” and hiding her face in her hands, poor Anna weeps passionately.
There was a hand upon the gate, and Anna knew whose step it was coming so cheerfully up the walk,and wondered if it would be as light and buoyant when she was gone. She heard him in their little parlor, talking to her mother, and, as she listened, the tones of his voice fell soothingly upon her ear, for there was music in the voice of Adam Floyd, and more than Anna had felt its quieting influence. It seemed cruel to deceive him so dreadfully, and in her sorrow Anna sobbed out,
“Oh, what must I do?” Once she thought to pray, but she could not do that now. She had not prayed aright since that first June night when she met young Herbert down in the beech grove, and heard him speak jestingly of her lover, saying “she was far too pretty and refined for such an odd old cove.” It had struck her then that this cognomen was not exactly refined, that Adam Floyd would never have called Dunallen thus, but Herbert’s arm was round her waist, where only Adam’s had a right to rest. Herbert’s eyes were bent fondly upon her, and so she forgave the insult to her affianced husband, and tried to laugh at the joke. That was the first open act, but since then she had strayed very far from the path of duty, until now she had half promised to forsake Adam Floyd and be Dunallen’s bride. That very day, just after sunset he would be waiting in the beech wood grove for her final decision.No wonder that with this upon her mind she shrank from meeting her lover, whom she knew to be the soul of truth and honor. And yet she must school herself to go with him over the house he had prepared for her with so much pride and care. Once there she would tell him, she thought, how the love she once bore him had died out from her heart. She would not speak of Herbert Dunallen but she would ask to be released, and he, the generous, unselfish man, would do her bidding.
Anna had faith in Adam’s goodness, and this it was which nerved her at the last to wash the tear-stains from her face and rearrange the golden curls falling about her forehead. “He’ll know I’ve been crying,” she said, “but that will pave the way to what I have to tell him;” and with one hasty glance at the fair young face which Adam thought so beautiful, she ran lightly down the stairs, glad that her mother was present when she first greeted Adam. But the mother, remembering her own girlish days, soon left the room, and the lovers were alone.
“What is it, darling? Are you sick?” and Adam’s broad palm rested caressingly upon the bowed head of Anna, who could not meet his earnest glance for shame.
She said something about being nervous and tired because of the excessive heat, and then, steadying her voice, she continued:
“You have come for me to see the cottage, I suppose. We will go at once, as I must return before it’s dark,”
Her manner troubled him, but he made no comment until they were out upon the highway, when he said to her timidly, “If you are tired, perhaps you would not mind taking my arm. Folks will not talk about it, now we are so near being one.”
Anna could not take his arm, so she replied: “Somebody might gossip; I’d better walk alone,” and coquettishly swinging the hat she carried instead of wore, she walked by his side silently, save when he addressed her directly. Poor Adam! there were clouds gathering around his heart, blacker far than the dark rift rising so rapidly in the western sky. There was something the matter with Anna more than weariness or heat, but he would not question her there, and so a dead silence fell between them until the cottage was reached, and standing with her on the threshold of the door, he said, mournfully, but oh! so tenderly, “Does my little Blossom like the home I have prepared for her, and is she willing to live here with me?”
CHAPTER III.IN THE COTTAGE.
She seemed to him so fair, so pure, so like the apple blossoms of early June, that he often called her his little Blossom, but now there was a touching pathos in the tones of his voice as he repeated the pet name, and it wrung from Anna a gush of tears. Lifting her blue eyes to his for an instant, she laid her head upon his arm and cried piteously:
“Oh, Adam, you are so good, so much better than I deserve. Yes, I like it, so much.”
Was it a sense of his goodness which made her cry, or was it something else? Adam wished he knew, but he would rather she should tell him of her own accord, and winding his arm around her, he lifted up her head and wiping her tears away, kissed her gently, saying, “Does Blossom like to have me kiss her?”
She did not, but she could not tell him so whenhe bent so fondly over her, his face all aglow with the mighty love he bore her. Affecting not to hear his question she broke away from his embrace and seating herself in the bay window, began talking of its pretty effect from the road, and the great improvement it was to the cottage. Still she did not deceive Adam Floyd, who all the while her playful remarks were sounding in his ear was nerving himself to a task he meant to perform. But not in any of the rooms he had fitted up for her could he say that if she would have it so she was free from him, even though the bridal was only a week in advance and the bridal guests were bidden. Only in one room, his dead mother’s, could he tell her this. That had been to him a Bethel since his blind mother left it. Its walls had witnessed most of his secret sorrows and his joys, and there, if it must be, he would break his heart by giving Anna up.
“I did not change mother’s room,” he said, leading Anna to the arm-chair where none had sat since an aged, withered form, last rested there. “I’d rather see it as it used to be when she was here, and I thought you would not mind.”
“It is better to leave it so,” Anna said, while Adam continued,
“I’m glad you like our home. I think myself itis pleasant, and so does every one. Even Dunallen complimented it very highly.”
“Dunallen; has he been here?” and Anna blushed painfully.
But Adam was not looking at her. He had never associated the heir of Castlewild with Anna’s changed demeanor, and wholly unconscious of the pain he was inflicting, he went on, “He went all over the house this morning, except indeed in here. I could not admit him to the room where mother died. Did I tell you that he had hired me for a long and profitable job? He is going to make some repairs at Castlewild before he brings home his bride. You know he is engaged to a young heiress, Mildred Atherton.”
It was well for Anna that her face was turned from Adam as she replied,
“Yes, I’ve heard something of an engagement made by the family when he was a mere boy. I thought perhaps he had tired of it.”
“Oh, no; he told me only to-day that he expected to bring his wife to Castlewild as early as Christmas. We were speaking of you and our marriage.”
“Of me?” and Anna looked up quickly, but poor, deluded Adam, mistook her guilty flush for akind of grateful pride that Dunallen should talk of her.
“He said you were the prettiest girl he ever saw, and when I suggested, ‘except Miss Atherton,’ he added, ‘I will not except any one; Milly is pretty, but not like yourfiancee.’”
Anna had not fallen so low that she could not see how mean and dastardly it was for Herbert Dunallen to talk thus of her to the very man he was intending to wrong so cruelly; and for a moment a life with Adam Floyd looked more desirable than a life with Herbert Dunallen, even though it were spent in the midst of elegance of which she had never dreamed. Anna’s good angel was fast gaining the ascendency, and might have triumphed had not the sound of horse’s feet just then met her ear, and looking from the window she saw Herbert Dunallen riding by, his dark curls floating in the wind and his cheek flushing with exercise. He saw her, too, and quickly touching his cap, pointed adroitly towards the beechwood grove. With his disappearance over the hill her good angel flew away, and on her face there settled the same cold, unhappy look, which had troubled Adam so much.
“Darling,” he said, when he spoke again, “there is something on your mind which I do not understand.If you are to be my wife, there should be no secrets between us. Will you tell me what it is, and if I can help you I will, even though—though——”
His voice began to falter, for the white, hard look on Anna’s face frightened him, and at last in an agony of terror, he grasped both her hands in his and added impetuously:
“Even though it be to give you up, you whom I love better than my life—for whom I would die so willingly. Oh, Anna!” and he sank on his knees beside her, and winding his arms around her waist, looked her imploringly in the face. “I sometimes fear that you have sickened of me—that you shrink from my caresses. If it is so, in mercy tell me now, before it is too late; for, Anna, dear as you are to me, I would rather to-morrow’s sunshine should fall upon your grave and mine, than take you to my bosom an unloving wife! I have worked for you, early and late, thinking only how you might be pleased. There is not a niche or corner in my home that is not hallowed by thoughts of you whom I have loved since you were a little child and I carried you in the arms which now would be your resting place forever. I know I am not your equal, I feel it painfully, but I can learn with you as myteacher, and, my precious Anna, whatever I may lack in polish, Iwill, Iwillmake up in kindness!”
He was pleading now for her love, forgetting that she was his promised wife—forgetting everything, save that to his words of passionate appeal there came no answering response in the expression of her face. Only the same fixed, stony look, which almost maddened him; it was so unlike what he deserved and had reason to expect.
“I shall be lonely without you, Anna—more lonely than you can guess, for there is no mother here now to bless and cheer me as she would have cheered me in my great sorrow. She loved you, Anna, and blessed you with her dying breath, saying she was glad, for your sake, that the chair where you sit would be empty when you came, and asking God to deal by you even as you dealt by me.”
“Oh, Adam, Adam!” Anna gasped, for what had been meant for a blessing rang in her ears like that blind woman’s curse. “May God deal better by me than I meant to deal by you!” she tried to say, but the words died on her lips, and she could only lay her cold hands on the shoulder of him who still knelt before her, with his arms around her waist.
Softly, gladly came the good angel back, and’mid a rain of tears which dropped on Adam’s hair, Anna wept her hardness all away, while the only sound heard in the room was the beating of two hearts and the occasional roll of thunder muttering in the distance. In reality it was only a few moments, but to Anna it seemed a long, long time that they sat thus together, her face bent down upon his head, while she thought of all the past since she could remember Adam Floyd and the blind old woman, his mother. He had been a dutiful son, Anna knew, for she had heard how tenderly he would bear his mother in his strong arms or guide her uncertain steps, and how at the last he sat by her night after night, never wearying of the tiresome vigil until it was ended, and the sightless eyes, which in death turned lovingly to him, were opened to the light of Heaven. To such as Adam Floyd the commandment of promise was rife with meaning. God would prolong his days and punish those who wronged him. He who had been so faithful to his mother, would be true to his wife—aye, truer far than young Dunallen, with all his polish and wealth.
“Adam,” Anna began at last, so low that he scarcely could hear her. “Adam forgive me all that is past. I have been cold and indifferent, havetreated you as I ought not, but I am young and foolish, I—I—oh! Adam, I mean to do better. I—”
She could not say, “will banish Dunallen from my mind”—it was not necessary to mention him, she thought; but some explanation must be made, and so, steadying her voice, she told him how dearly she had loved him once, thinking there was not in all the world his equal, but that during the year at a city school she had acquired some foolish notions and had sometimes wished her lover different.
“Not better at heart. You could not be that,” she said, looking him now fully in the face, for she was conscious of meaning what she said, “but—but—”
“You need not finish it, darling; I know what you mean,” Adam said, the cloud lifting in a measure from his brow. “I am not refined one bit, but my Blossom is, and she shall teach me. I will try hard to learn. I will not often make her ashamed. I will even imitateDunallen, if that will gratify my darling.”
Why would he keep bringing in that name, when the sound of it was so like a dagger to Anna’s heart, and when she wished she might never hear it again? He was waiting for her now in the beech woods she knew, for she was to join him there ere long, not tosay what she would have said an hour ago, but to say that she could not, would not wrong the noble man who held her to his bosom so lovingly as he promised to copyDunallen. And as Anna suffered him to caress her, she felt her olden love coming back. She should be happy with him—happier far than if she were the mistress of Castlewild, and knew that to attain that honor she had broken Adam’s heart.
“As a proof that you trust me fully,” she said, as the twilight shadows deepened around them, “you must let me go home alone, I wish it for a special reason. You must not tell me no,” and the pretty lips touched his bearded cheek.
Adam wanted to walk with her down the pleasant road, where they had walked so often, but he saw she was in earnest, and so he suffered her to depart alone, watching her until the flutter of her light dress was lost to view. Then kneeling by the chair where she had sat so recently, he asked that the cup of joy, placed again in his eager hand, might not be wrested from him, that he might prove worthy of Anna’s love, and that no cloud should ever again come between them.
CHAPTER IV.IN THE BEECH WOODS.
Herbert Dunallen had waited there a long time, as he thought, and he began to grow impatient. What business had Anna to stay with that old fellow, if she did not mean to have him, and of course she did not. It would be a most preposterous piece of business for a girl like Anna to throw herself away upon such as Adam Floyd, carpenter by trade, and general repairer of things at Castlewild. Whew-ew! and Herbert whistled contemptuously, adding in a low voice, “and yet my lady mother would raise a beautiful rumpus if she knew I was about to make this little village rustic her daughter-in-law. For I am; if there’s one redeeming trait in my character, it’s being honorable in my intentions toward Anna. Most men in my position would only trifle with her,particularly when there was in the background a Mildred Atherton, dreadfully in love with them. I wonder what makes all the girls admire me so?” and the vain young man stroked his mustache complacently, just as a rapid footstep sounded near.
It was Anna’s, and the next moment he held her in his arms. But she would not suffer him to keep her there, and with a quiet dignity which for an instant startled him beyond the power to speak or act, she put his arm away, and standing apart from him, told him of her resolution, and reproached him with his duplicity, asking him how he could tell Adam that he was about to be married.
“Because I am,” he replied. “I am not to blame for his believing silly little Milly to be the bride elect. Won’t it be famous, though, for you to order round your former lover? I’ve engaged him for a long job, and you ought to have seen how glad he was of the work, thinking, of course, how much he should earn for you. I came near laughing in his face when he hoped I should be as happy with Miss Mildred as he expected to be with you.”
“You shan’t speak so of Adam Floyd!” and Anna’s little foot beat the ground impatiently, while indignant tears glittered in her blue eyes as sheagain reiterated that Adam Floyd should be her husband.
“Not while I live!” Herbert responded almost fiercely, for he saw in her manner a determination he had never witnessed before.
As well as he was capable of doing he loved Anna Burroughs, and the fact that she was pledged to another added fuel to the flame.
“What new freak has taken my fickle goddess?” he asked, looking down upon her with a mocking sneer about his mouth as she told him why she could not go with him.
He knew she was in earnest at last, and, dropping his jesting tone, he made her sit down beside him, while he used every possible argument to dissuade her from her purpose, working first upon her pride, flattering her vanity, portraying the happiness of a tour through Europe, a winter in Paris, and lastly touching upon the advantages of being lady supreme at Castlewild, with a house in the city, for winter. And as changeable, ambitious, Anna listened, she felt her resolution giving way, felt the ground which she had taken slipping from beneath her feet without one effort to save herself.
“It seems terrible to wrong Adam,” she said,and, by the tone of her voice, Herbert knew the victory was two thirds won.
“Adam will do well enough,” he replied. “People like him never die of broken hearts! He’s a good fellow, but not the one for you; besides, you know he’s what they call pious, just like Milly; and, I presume, he’ll say it was not so wicked for you to cheat him as to perjure yourself, as you surely would, by promising to love and honor and all that when you didn’t feel a bit of it!”
“What was that you said of Miss Atherton?” Anna asked eagerly, for she had caught the word pious, and it made her heart throb with pain, for she knew that Herbert Dunallen could not say as much of her!
Once, indeed, it had been otherwise, but that was before she had met him in the woods,—before she ceased to pray. Oh, that happy time when she had dared to pray! How she wished it would come back to her again; but it had drifted far away, and left a void as black as the night closing around her or the heavy thunder clouds rolling above her head.
Tightly her hands clenched each other as Herbert answered jestingly.
“She’s one of the religious ones, Milly is; writes me such good letters. I’ve one of them in mypocket now. She’s coming to see me; is actually on the way, so to-morrow night, or never, my bride you must be.”
“Miss Atherton coming here! What do you mean?” Anna asked, and Herbert replied,
“I mean, Mildred has always been in a fever to see Castlewild, and as she is intimate with Mrs. Judge Harcourt’s family, she is coming there on a visit. Will arrive to-morrow, her note said; and will expect to see me immediately after her arrival.”
Herbert’s influence over Anna was too great for her to attempt to stop him, so she offered no remonstrance, when he continued!
“I suppose Milly will cry a little, for I do believe she likes me, and always has; but I can’t help it. The match was agreed upon by our families when she was twelve and I fifteen. Of course I’m awfully sick of it, and have been ever since I knew you,” and Herbert’s lips touched the white brow where only half an hour before Adam Floyd’s had been.
Thicker, and blacker, grew the darkness around them, while the thunder was louder and nearer, and still they sat together, Anna hesitating, while Herbert urged upon her the necessity of going with him the following night, if ever.
Mildred in the neighborhood would be as formidable an obstacle to him as Adam was to Anna, while he feared the result of another interview between the affianced pair. With all his love for Anna he was not blind to the fact that the last one with whom she talked had the better chance of eventually winning. He could not lose her now, and he redoubled his powers of persuasion, until, forgetting everything, save the handsome youth beside her, the wealthy heir of Castlewild, Anna said to him,
“I will meet you at our gate when the village clock strikes one!” and as she said the words the woods were lighted up by a flash of lightning so fearfully bright and blinding that with a scream of terror she hid her face in her lap and stopped her ears to shut out the deafening roll of the thunder. The storm had burst in all its fury, and hurrying from the woods, Herbert half carried, half led the frightened Anna across the fields in the direction of her father’s door. Depositing her at the gate, he paused for an instant to whisper his parting words and then hastened rapidly on.
On the kitchen hearth a cheerful wood fire had been kindled, and making some faint excuse for having been out in the storm, Anna repaired thither,and standing before the blaze was drying her dripping garments, when a voice from the adjoining room made her start and tremble, for she knew that it was Adam’s.
He seemed to be excited and was asking for her. An accident had occurred just before his door. Frightened by the lightning which Anna remembered so well, a pair of spirited horses had upset a traveling carriage, in which was a young lady and her maid. The latter had sustained no injury, but the lady’s ankle was sprained, and she was otherwise so lamed and bruised that it was impossible for her to proceed any farther that night. So he had carried her into his cottage and dispatching the driver for the physician had come himself for Anna as the suitable person to play the hostess in his home.
“Oh, I can’t go,—mother, you!” Anna exclaimed, shrinking in terror from again crossing the threshold of the home she was about to make so desolate.
But Adam preferred Anna. The lady was young, he said, and it seemed to him more appropriate that Anna should attend her. Mrs. Burroughs thought so, too, and, with a sinking heart, Anna prepared herself for a second visit to the cottage. In herexcitement she forgot entirely to ask the name of the stranger, and as she was not disposed to talk, nothing was said of the lady until the cottage was reached and she was ushered into the dining-room, where old Martha and a smart looking servant were busy with the bandages and hot water preparing for the invalid who had been carried to the pleasant bed-room opening from the parlor.
CHAPTER V.MILDRED ATHERTON.
“How is Miss Atherton?” Adam asked of Martha, while he kindly attempted to assist Anna in removing the heavy shawl her mother had wrapped around her.
“Who? What did you call her?” Anna asked, her hands dropping helplessly at her side.
“Why, I thought I told you. I surely did your mother. I beg pardon for my carelessness. It’s Mildred Atherton,” and Adam’s voice sank to a whisper. “She was on her way to visit Mrs. Harcourt. I suppose it would be well to send for Dunallen, but I thought it hardly proper for me to suggest it. I’ll let you get at it somehow, and see if she wants him. You girls have a way of understanding each other.”
Knowing how, in similar circumstances, he should yearn for Anna’s presence, Adam haddeemed it natural that Mildred’s first wish would be for Herbert, and one reason for his insisting that Anna should come back with him was the feeling that the beautiful girl, whose face had interested him at once, would be more free to communicate her wishes to one of her own age.
“Mildred Atherton,” Anna kept repeating to herself, every vestige of color fading from her cheeks and lips, as she wondered how she could meet her, or what the result of the meeting would be.
“Sarah, where are you? Has everybody left me?” came from the bed, where the outline of a girlish form was plainly discernible to Anna, who started at the tones of what seemed to her the sweetest voice she had ever heard.
“Go to her,” Adam whispered, and Anna mechanically obeyed.
Gliding to the bedside, she stood a moment gazing upon the beautiful face nestled among the snowy pillows. The eyes were closed, and the long, silken lashes shaded the fair, round cheek, not one half so white as Anna’s, notwithstanding that a spasm of pain occasionally distorted the regular features, and wrung a faint cry from the pretty lips. Masses of soft black curls were pushed back fromthe forehead, and one hand lay outside the counterpane, a little soft, fat hand, on whose fourth finger shone the engagement ring, the seal of her betrothal to the heir of Castlewild! Oh, how debased and wicked Anna felt standing by that innocent girl, and how she marveled that having known Mildred Atherton, Herbert Dunallen could ever have turned to her. Involuntarily a sigh escaped her lips, and at the sound the soft black eyes unclosed, and looked at her wonderingly. Then a smile broke over the fair face, and extending her hand to Anna, Mildred said,
“Where am I? My head feels so confused. I remember the horses reared when that flash of lightning came, the carriage was overturned, and some young man, who seemed a second Apollo in strength and beauty, brought me in somewhere so gently and carefully, that I could have hugged him for it, he was so good. Are you his sister!”
“No, I am Anna Burroughs. He came for me,” Anna replied, and looking her full in the face, Mildred continued,
“Yes, I remember now, his nurse or housekeeper told me he had gone for the girl who was to be his wife; and you are she. It’s pleasant to be engaged, isn’t it?” and Mildred’s hand gave Anna’s a littleconfidential squeeze, which, quite as much as the words she had uttered, showed how affectionate and confiding was her disposition.
The entrance of the physician put an end to the conversation, and withdrawing to a little distance where in the shadow she could not be well observed Anna stood while the doctor examined the swollen ankle, and his volatile patient explained to him in detail how it all happened, making herself out quite a heroine for courage and presence of mind, asking if he knew Mrs. Harcourt, and if next morning he would not be kind enough to let her know that Mildred Atherton was at the cottage. The doctor promised whatever she asked, and was about to leave the room, when Adam stepped forward and said,
“Is there any one else whom Miss Atherton would like to see—any friend in the neighborhood who ought to be informed?”
Eagerly Anna waited for the answer, watching half jealously the crimson flush stealing over Mildred’s face, as she replied,
“Not to-night; it would do no good; to-morrow is soon enough. I never like to make unnecessary trouble.”
The head which had been raised while Mildred spoke to Adam lay back upon the pillow, but notuntil with a second thought the sweet voice had said to him,
“I thank you, sir, you are so kind.”
As a creature of impulse, Anna felt a passing thrill of something like pride in Adam as Mildred Atherton spoke thus to him, and when as he passed her he involuntarily laid his hand a moment on her shoulder she did not shake it off, though her heart throbbed painfully with thoughts of her intended treachery. They were alone now, Mildred and Anna, and beckoning the latter to her side, Mildred said to her.
“He meant Herbert Dunallen. How did he know that I am to be Herbert’s wife?”
There was no tremor in her voice. She spoke of Herbert as a matter of course, while Anna could hardly find courage to reply.
“Mr. Floyd works at Castlewild sometimes, and probably has heard Mr. Dunallen speak of you.”
“Mr. Floyd—Adam Floyd, is that the young man’s name?” was Mildred’s next question, and when Anna answered in the affirmative, she continued, “I have heard of him. Herbert wrote how invaluable he was and how superior to most mechanics—his prime minister in fact. I am gladthe accident happened here, and Herbert too will be glad.”
For a moment Mildred seemed to be thinking, then starting up, she said, abruptly,
“And it was Anna—Anna Burroughs, yes, I’m sure that’s the name. Would you mind putting that lamp nearer to me, and coming yourself where I can see just how you look?”
Anna shrank from the gaze of those clear, truthful eyes, but something in Mildred’s manner impelled her to do as she was requested, and moving the lamp she came so near that Mildred placed a hand on either side of her burning face and gazed at it curiously; then, pushing back the golden hair, and twining one of the curls a moment about her finger, she laid it by her own long, black shining tresses, saying sadly, “I wish my curls were light and fair like yours. It would suit Herbert better. He fancies a blonde more than a brunette, at least he told me as much that time he wrote to me of you.”
“Of me?” Anna asked anxiously, the color receding from her cheek and lip. “Why did he write of me, and when?”
The dark eyes were shut now and Anna could see the closed lids quiver, just as did the sweet voicewhich replied, “It’s strange to talk so openly to you as if we were dear friends, as we will be when I come to Castlewild to live. It is my nature to say right out what I think, and people sometimes call me silly. Herbert does, but I don’t care. When I like a person I show it, and I like you. Besides, there’s something tells me there is a bond of sympathy between us greater than between ordinary strangers. I guess it is because we are both engaged, both so young, and both rather pretty, too. You certainly are, and I know I am not bad looking, if Aunt Theo. did use to try and make me think I was. Her story and the mirror’s did not agree.”
Anna looked up amazed at this frank avowal, which few would ever have made, even though in their hearts they were far vainer of their beauty than was Mildred Atherton of hers. Was she really silly, or was she wholly artless and childlike in her manner of expression? Anna could not decide, and with a growing interest in the stranger, she listened while Mildred went on: “In one of his letters last May Herbert said so much of Anna Burroughs, with her eyes of blue and golden hair, calling her a ‘Lily of the Valley,’ and asking, all in play, you know, if I should feel very badly if he should elope some day with his Lily. It shocksyou, don’t it!” she said, as Anna started with a sudden exclamation, “But he did not mean it. He only tried to tease me, and for a time it did make in my heart a little round spot of pain which burned like fire, for though Herbert has some bad habits and naughty ways, I love him very dearly. He is always better with me. He says I do him good, though he calls me a puritan, and that time when the burning spot was in my heart, I used to go away and pray, that if Herbert did not like me as he ought, God would incline him to do so. Once I prayed for you, whom I had never seen,” and the little soft hand stole up to Anna’s bowed head smoothing the golden locks caressingly, “You’ll think me foolish, but thoughts of you really troubled me then, when I was weak and nervous, for I was just recovering from sickness, and so I prayed that the Lily of the Valley might not care for Herbert, might not come between us, and I know God heard me just as well as if it had been my own father of whom I asked a favor. Perhaps it is not having any father or mother which makes me take every little trouble to God. Do you do so, Anna? Do you tell all your cares to him?”
Alas for conscience-stricken Anna, who had not prayed for so very, very long! What could shesay? Nothing, except to dash the bitter tears from her eyes and answer, sobbingly,
“I used to do so once, but now—oh, Miss Atherton! now I am so hard, so wicked, I dare not pray!”
In great perplexity Mildred looked at her a moment, and then said, sorrowfully.
“Just because I was hard and wicked, I should want to pray—to ask that if I had done anything bad I might be forgiven, or if I had intended to do wrong, I might be kept from doing it.”
Mildred little guessed how keen a pang her words “orintendedto do wrong” inflicted upon the repenting Anna, who involuntarily stretched her hands toward the young girl as towards something which, if she did but grasp it, would save her from herself. Mildred took the hands between her own, and pressing them gently, said:
“I don’t know why you feel so badly, neither can I understand how anything save sin can make you unhappy when that good man is almost your husband. You must love him very much, do you not?”
“Yes,” came faintly from Anna’s lips, and laying her face on the pillow beside Mildred’s, she murmured, inaudibly: “God help me, and forgivethat falsehood, I will love him, if I do not now.”
Anna did not know she prayed, but He who understands our faintest desire knew it, and from that moment dated her return to duty. She should not wrong that gentle, trusting girl. She could not break Milly’s heart with Adam’s as break it she surely should if her wicked course were persisted in. And then there flashed upon her the conviction that Herbert had deceived her in more ways than one. He had represented Mildred as tiring of the engagement as well as himself—had said that though her pride might be a little wounded, she would on the whole be glad to be rid of him so easily, and all the while he knew that what he said was false. Would he deal less deceitfully by her when the novelty of calling her his wife had worn away? Would he not weary of her and sigh for the victim sacrificed so cruelly? Anna’s head and heart both seemed bursting with pain, and when Mildred, alarmed at the pallor of her face, asked if she were ill, there was no falsehood in the reply, “Yes, I’m dizzy and faint—I cannot stay here longer,” and scarcely conscious of what she was doing, Anna quitted the room, leaning for support against the banisters in the hall and almost fallingagainst old Martha who was carrying hot tea to Mildred Atherton.
“Let me go home, I am sick,” Anna whispered to Adam, who, summoned by Martha, bent anxiously over her, asking what was the matter.
It was too late to go home, he said. She must stay there till morning; and very tenderly he helped her up to the chamber she was to occupy, the one next to his own, and from which, at a late hour, she heard him, as, thinking her asleep, he thanked his Heavenly Father for giving her to him, and asked that he might be more worthy of her than he was.
“No, Adam, oh, no—pray that I may be more worthy of you,” trembled on Anna’s lips, and then lest her resolution might fail, she arose and striking a light, tore a blank leaf from a book lying on a table, and wrote to Herbert Dunallen that she could never meet him again, except as a friend and the future husband of Mildred Atherton.
Folding it once over, she wrote his name upon it, then, faint with excitement, and shivering with cold, threw herself upon the outside of the bed, and sobbed herself into a heavy sleep, more exhausting in its effects than wakefulness would have been.