The Vaterland was advertised to sail at one o'clock, and it wanted but fifteen or twenty minutes of the hour. After assuring himself that his belongings were all together in his state-room, John made his way to the upper deck and leaning against the rail, watched the bustle of embarkation, somewhat interested in the people standing about, among whom it was difficult in instances to distinguish the passengers from those who were present to say farewell. Near him at the moment were two people, apparently man and wife, of middle age and rather distinguished appearance, to whom presently approached, with some evidence of hurry and with outstretched hand, a very well dressed and pleasant looking man.
"Ah, here you are, Mrs. Ruggles," John heard him say as he shook hands.
Then followed some commonplaces of good wishes and farewells, and in reply to a question which John did not catch, he heard the lady addressed as Mrs. Ruggles say, "Oh, didn't you see her? We left her on the lower deck a few minutes ago. Ah, here she comes."
The man turned and advanced a step to meet the person in question. John's eyes involuntarily followed the movement, and as he saw her approach his heart contracted sharply: it was Mary Blake. He turned away quickly, and as the collar of his ulster was about his face, for the air of the January day was very keen, he thought that she had not recognized him. A moment later he went aft around the deck-house, and going forward to the smoking-room, seated himself therein, and took the passenger list out of his pocket. He had already scanned it rather cursorily, having but the smallest expectation of coming upon a familiar name, yet feeling sure that, had hers been there, it could not have escaped him. Nevertheless, he now ran his eye over the columns with eager scrutiny, and the hands which held the paper shook a little.
There was no name in the least like Blake. It occurred to him that by some chance or error hers might have been omitted, when his eye caught the following:
It was plain to him then. She was obviously traveling with the people whom she had just joined on deck, and it was equally plain that she was Mrs. Edward Ruggles. When he looked up the ship was out in the river.
John had been late in applying for his passage, and in consequence, the ship being very full, had had to take what berth he could get, which happened to be in the second cabin. The occupants of these quarters, however, were not rated as second-class passengers. The Vaterland took none such on her outward voyages, and all were on the same footing as to the fare and the freedom of the ship. The captain and the orchestra appeared at dinner in the second saloon on alternate nights, and the only disadvantage in the location was that it was very far aft; unless it could be considered a drawback that the furnishings were of plain wood and plush instead of carving, gilding, and stamped leather. In fact, as the voyage proceeded, our friend decided that the after-deck was pleasanter than the one amidships, and the cozy second-class smoking-room more agreeable than the large and gorgeous one forward.
Consequently, for a while he rarely went across the bridge which spanned the opening between the two decks. It may be that he had a certain amount of reluctance to encounter Mrs. Edward Ruggles.
The roof of the second cabin deck-house was, when there was not too much wind, a favoriteplace with him. It was not much frequented, as most of those who spent their time on deck apparently preferred a place nearer amidships. He was sitting there on the morning of the fifth day out, looking idly over the sea, with an occasional glance at the people who were walking on the promenade-deck below, or leaning on the rail which bounded it. He turned at a slight sound behind him, and rose with his hat in his hand. The flush in his face, as he took the hand which was offered him, reflected the color in the face of the owner, but the grayish brown eyes, which he remembered so well, looked into his, a little curiously, perhaps, but frankly and kindly. She was the first to speak.
"How do you do, Mr. Lenox?" she said.
"How do you do, Mrs. Ruggles?" said John, throwing up his hand as, at the moment of his reply, a puff of wind blew the cape of his mackintosh over his head. They both laughed a little (this was their greeting after nearly six years), and sat down.
"What a nice place!" she said, looking about her.
"Yes," said John; "I sit here a good deal when it isn't too windy."
"I have been wondering why I did not get a sight of you," she said. "I saw your name in the passenger list. Have you been ill?"
"I'm in the second cabin," he said, smiling.
She looked at him a little incredulously, and he explained.
"Ah, yes," she said, "I saw your name, but as you did not appear in the dining saloon, I thought you must either be ill or that you didnot sail. Did you know that I was on board?" she asked.
It was rather an embarrassing question.
"I have been intending," he replied rather lamely, "to make myself known to you—that is, to—well, make my presence on board known to you. I got just a glimpse of you before we sailed, when you came up to speak to a man who had been saying good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles. I heard him speak their name, and looking over the passenger list I identified you as Mrs. Edward Ruggles."
"Ah," she said, looking away for an instant, "I did not know that you had seen me, and I wondered how you came to address me as Mrs. Ruggles just now."
"That was how," said John; and then, after a moment, "it seems rather odd, doesn't it, that we should be renewing an acquaintance on an ocean steamer as we did once before, so many years ago? and that the first bit of intelligence that I have had of you in all the years since I saw you last should come to me through the passenger list?"
"Did you ever try to get any?" she asked. "I have always thought it very strange that we should never have heard anything about you."
"I went to the house once, some weeks after you had gone," said John, "but the man in charge was out, and the maid could tell me nothing."
"A note I wrote you at the time of your father's death," she said, "we found in my small nephew's overcoat pocket after we had been some time in California; but I wrote a second one before we left New York, telling you ofour intended departure, and where we were going."
"I never received it," he said. Neither spoke for a while, and then:
"Tell me of your sister and brother-in-law," he said.
"My sister is at present living in Cambridge, where Jack is at college," was the reply; "but poor Julius died two years ago."
"Ah," said John, "I am grieved to hear of Mr. Carling's death. I liked him very much."
"He liked you very much," she said, "and often spoke of you."
There was another period of silence, so long, indeed, as to be somewhat embarrassing. None of the thoughts which followed each other in John's mind was of the sort which he felt like broaching. He realized that the situation was getting awkward, and that consciousness added to the confusion of his ideas. But if his companion shared his embarrassment, neither her face nor her manner betrayed it as at last she said, turning, and looking frankly at him:
"You seem very little changed. Tell me about yourself. Tell me something of your life in the last six years."
During the rest of the voyage they were together for a part of every day, sometimes with the company of Mrs. William Ruggles, but more often without it, as her husband claimed much of her attention and rarely came on deck; and John, from time to time, gave his companion pretty much the whole history of his later career. But with regard to her own life, and, as he noticed, especially the two years since the death of her brother-in-law, she was distinctly reticent. Shenever spoke of her marriage or her husband, and after one or two faintly tentative allusions, John forebore to touch upon those subjects, and was driven to conclude that her experience had not been a happy one. Indeed, in their intercourse there were times when she appeared distrait and even moody; but on the whole she seemed to him to be just as he had known and loved her years ago; and all the feeling that he had had for her then broke forth afresh in spite of himself—in spite of the fact that, as he told himself, it was more hopeless than ever: absolutely so, indeed.
It was the last night of their voyage together. The Ruggleses were to leave the ship the next morning at Algiers, where they intended to remain for some time.
"Would you mind going to the after-deck?" he asked. "These people walking about fidget me," he added rather irritably.
She rose, and they made their way aft. John drew a couple of chairs near to the rail. "I don't care to sit down for the present," she said, and they stood looking out at sea for a while in silence.
"Do you remember," said John at last, "a night six years ago when we stood together, at the end of the voyage, leaning over the rail like this?"
"Yes," she said.
"Does this remind you of it?" he asked.
"I was thinking of it," she said.
"Do you remember the last night I was at your house?" he asked, looking straight out over the moonlit water.
"Yes," she said again.
"Did you know that night what was in my heart to say to you?"
There was no answer.
"May I tell you now?" he asked, giving a side glance at her profile, which in the moonlight showed very white.
"Do you think you ought?" she answered in a low voice, "or that I ought to listen to you?"
"I know," he exclaimed. "You think that as a married woman you should not listen, and that knowing you to be one I should not speak. If it were to ask anything of you I would not. It is for the first and last time. To-morrow we part again, and for all time, I suppose. I have carried the words that were on my lips that night all these years in my heart. I know I can have no response—I expect none; but it can not harm you if I tell you that I loved you then, and have——"
She put up her hand in protest.
"You must not go on, Mr. Lenox," she said, turning to him, "and I must leave you."
"Are you very angry with me?" he asked humbly.
She turned her face to the sea again and gave a sad little laugh.
"Not so much as I ought to be," she answered; "but you yourself have given the reason why you should not say such things, and why I should not listen, and why I ought to say good-night."
"Ah, yes," he said bitterly; "of course you are right, and this is to be the end."
She turned and looked at him for a moment. "You will never again speak to me as you have to-night, will you?" she asked.
"I should not have said what I did had I not thought I should never see you again after to-morrow," said John, "and I am not likely to do that, am I?"
"If I could be sure," she said hesitatingly, and as if to herself.
"Well," said John eagerly. She stood with her eyes downcast for a moment, one hand resting on the rail, and then she looked up.
"We expect to stay in Algiers about two months," she said, "and then we are going to Naples to visit some friends for a few days, about the time you told me you thought you might be there. Perhaps it would be better if we said good-bye to-night; but if after we get home you are to spend your days in Homeville and I mine in New York, we shall not be likely to meet, and, except on this side of the ocean, we may, as you say, never see each other again. So, if you wish, you may come to see me in Naples if you happen to be there when we are. I am sure after to-night that I may trust you, may I not? But," she added, "perhaps you would not care. I am treating you very frankly; but from your standpoint you would expect or excuse more frankness than if I were a young girl."
"I care very much," he declared, "and it will be a happiness to me to see you on any footing, and you may trust me never to break bounds again." She made a motion as if to depart.
"Don't go just yet," he said pleadingly; "there is now no reason why you should for a while, is there? Let us sit here in this gorgeous night a little longer, and let me smoke a cigar."
At the moment he was undergoing a revulsion of feeling. His state of mind was like thatof an improvident debtor who, while knowing that the note must be paid some time, does not quite realize it for a while after an extension. At last the cigar was finished. There had been but little said between them.
"I really must go," she said, and he walked with her across the hanging bridge and down the deck to the gangway door.
"Where shall I address you to let you know when we shall be in Naples?" she asked as they were about to separate.
"Care of Cook & Son," he said. "You will find the address in Baedeker."
He saw her the next morning long enough for a touch of the hand and a good-bye before the bobbing, tubby little boat with its Arab crew took the Ruggleses on board.
How John Lenox tried to kill time during the following two months, and how time retaliated during the process, it is needless to set forth. It may not, however, be wholly irrelevant to note that his cough had gradually disappeared, and that his appetite had become good enough to carry him through the average table d'hôte dinner. On the morning after his arrival at Naples he found a cable dispatch at the office of Cook & Son, as follows: "Sixty cash, forty stock. Stock good. Harum."
"God bless the dear old boy!" said John fervently. The Pennsylvania property was sold at last; and if "stock good" was true, the dispatch informed him that he was, if not a rich man for modern days, still, as David would have put it, "wuth consid'able." No man, I take it, is very likely to receive such a piece of news without satisfaction; but if our friend's first sensation was one of gratification, the thought which followed had a drop of bitterness in it. "If I could only have had it before!" he said to himself; and indeed many of the disappointments of life, if not the greater part, come because events are unpunctual. They have a way of arriving sometimes too early, or worse, too late.
Another circumstance detracted from his satisfaction: a note he expected did not appear among the other communications waiting him at the bankers, and his mind was occupied for the while with various conjectures as to the reason, none of which was satisfactory. Perhaps she had changed her mind. Perhaps—a score of things! Well, there was nothing for it but to be as patient as possible and await events. He remembered that she had said she was to visit some friends by the name of Hartleigh, and she had told him the name of their villa, but for the moment he did not remember it. In any case he did not know the Hartleighs, and if she had changed her mind—as was possibly indicated by the omission to send him word—well——! He shrugged his shoulders, mechanically lighted a cigarette, and strolled down and out of the Piazza Martiri and across to the Largo della Vittoria. He had a half-formed idea of walking back through the Villa Nazionale, spending an hour at the Aquarium, and then to his hotel for luncheon. It occurred to him at the moment that there was a steamer from Genoa on the Monday following, that he was tired of wandering about aimlessly and alone, and that there was really no reason why he should not take the said steamer and go home. Occupied with these reflections, he absently observed, just opposite to him across the way, a pair of large bay horses in front of a handsome landau. A coachman in livery was on the box, and a small footman, very much coated and silk-hatted, was standing about; and, as he looked, two ladies came out of the arched entrance to the court of the building before which the equipage was halted, and the small footman sprang to the carriage door.
One of the ladies was a stranger to him, but the other was Mrs. William Ruggles; and John, seeing that he had been recognized, at once crossed over to the carriage; and presently, having accepted an invitation to breakfast, found himself sitting opposite them on his way to the Villa Violante. The conversation during the drive up to the Vomero need not be detailed. Mrs. Hartleigh arrived at the opinion that our friend was rather a dull person. Mrs. Ruggles, as he had found out, was usually rather taciturn. Neither is it necessary to say very much of the breakfast, nor of the people assembled.
It appeared that several guests had departed the previous day, and the people at table consisted only of Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles, Mary, Mr. and Mrs. Hartleigh and their two daughters, and John, whose conversation was mostly with his host, and was rather desultory. In fact, there was during the meal a perceptible air of something like disquietude. Mr. Ruggles in particular said almost nothing, and wore an appearance of what seemed like anxiety. Once he turned to his host: "When ought I to get an answer to that cable, Hartleigh? to-day, do you think?"
"Yes, I should say so without doubt," was the reply, "if it's answered promptly, and in fact there's plenty of time. Remember that we are about six hours earlier than New York by the clock, and it's only about seven in the morning over there."
Coffee was served on the balustraded platform of the flight of marble steps leading down to the grounds below.
"Mary," said Mrs. Hartleigh, when cigaretteshad been offered, "don't you want to show Mr. Lenox something of La Violante?"
"I shall take you to my favorite place," she said, as they descended the steps together.
The southern front of the grounds of the Villa Violante is bounded and upheld by a wall of tufa fifty feet in height and some four hundred feet long. About midway of its length a semicircular bench of marble, with a rail, is built out over one of the buttresses. From this point is visible the whole bay and harbor of Naples, and about one third of the city lies in sight, five hundred feet below. To the left one sees Vesuvius and the Sant' Angelo chain, which the eye follows to Sorrento. Straight out in front stands Capri, and to the right the curve of the bay, ending at Posilipo. The two, John and his companion, halted near the bench, and leaned upon the parapet of the wall for a while in silence. From the streets below rose no rumble of traffic, no sound of hoof or wheel; but up through three thousand feet of distance came from here and there the voices of street-venders, the clang of a bell, and ever and anon the pathetic supplication of a donkey. Absolute quiet prevailed where they stood, save for these upcoming sounds. The April sun, deliciously warm, drew a smoky odor from the hedge of box with which the parapet walk was bordered, in and out of which darted small green lizards with the quickness of little fishes.
John drew a long breath.
"I don't believe there is another such view in the world," he said. "I do not wonder that this is your favorite spot."
"Yes," she said, "you should see the grounds—the whole place is superb—but this is the gloryof it all, and I have brought you straight here because I wanted to see it with you, and this may be the only opportunity."
"What do you mean?" he asked apprehensively.
"You heard Mr. Ruggles's question about the cable dispatch?" she said.
"Yes."
"Well," she said, "our plans have been very much upset by some things he has heard from home. We came on from Algiers ten days earlier than we had intended, and if the reply to Mr. Ruggles's cable is unfavorable, we are likely to depart for Genoa to-morrow and take the steamer for home on Monday. The reason why I did not send a note to your bankers," she added, "was that we came on the same boat that I intended to write by; and Mr. Hartleigh's man has inquired for you every day at Cook's so that Mr. Hartleigh might know of your coming and call upon you."
John gave a little exclamation of dismay. Her face was very still as she gazed out over the sea with half-closed eyes. He caught the scent of the violets in the bosom of her white dress.
"Let us sit down," she said at last. "I have something I wish to say to you."
He made no rejoinder as they seated themselves, and during the moment or two of silence in which she seemed to be meditating how to begin, he sat bending forward, holding his stick with both hands between his knees, absently prodding holes in the gravel.
"I think," she began, "that if I did not believe the chances were for our going to-morrow, I would not say it to-day." John bit his lip andgave the gravel a more vigorous punch. "But I have felt that I must say it to you some time before we saw the last of each other, whenever that time should be."
"Is it anything about what happened on board ship?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes," she replied, "it concerns all that took place on board ship, or nearly all, and I have had many misgivings about it. I am afraid that I did wrong, and I am afraid, too, that in your secret heart you would admit it."
"No, never!" he exclaimed. "If there was any wrong done, it was wholly of my own doing. I was alone to blame. I ought to have remembered that you were married, and perhaps—yes, I did remember it in a way, but I could not realize it. I had never seen or heard of your husband, or heard of your marriage. He was a perfectly unreal person to me, and you—you seemed only the Mary Blake that I had known, and as I had known you. I said what I did that night upon an impulse which was as unpremeditated as it was sudden. I don't see how you were wrong. You couldn't have foreseen what took place—and——"
"Have you not been sorry for what took place?" she asked, with her eyes on the ground. "Have you not thought the less of me since?"
He turned and looked at her. There was a little smile upon her lips and on her downcast eyes.
"No, by Heaven!" he exclaimed desperately, "I have not, and I am not sorry. Whether I ought to have said what I did or not, it was true, and I wanted you to know——"
He broke off as she turned to him with asmile and a blush. The smile was almost a laugh.
"But, John," she said, "I am not Mrs. Edward Ruggles. I am Mary Blake."
The parapet was fifty feet above the terrace. The hedge of box was an impervious screen.
Well, and then, after a little of that sort of thing, they both began hurriedly to admire the view again, for some one was coming. But it was only one of the gardeners, who did not understand English; and confidence being once more restored, they fell to discussing—everything.
"Do you think you could live in Homeville, dear?" asked John after a while.
"I suppose I shall have to, shall I not?" said Mary. "And are you, too, really happy, John?"
John instantly proved to her that he was. "But it almost makes me unhappy," he added, "to think how nearly we have missed each other. If I had only known in the beginning that you were not Mrs. Edward Ruggles!"
Mary laughed joyously. The mistake which a moment before had seemed almost tragic now appeared delightfully funny.
"The explanation is painfully simple," she answered. "Mrs. Edward Ruggles—the real one—did expect to come on the Vaterland, whereas I did not. But the day before the steamer sailed she was summoned to Andover by the serious illness of her only son, who is at school there. I took her ticket, got ready overnight—I like to start on these unpremeditated journeys—and here I am." John put his armabout her to make sure of this, and kept it there—lest he should forget. "When we met on the steamer and I saw the error you had made I was tempted—and yielded—to let you go on uncorrected. But," she added, looking lovingly up into John's eyes, "I'm glad you found out your mistake at last."
A fortnight later Mr. Harum sat at his desk in the office of Harum & Co. There were a number of letters for him, but the one he opened first bore a foreign stamp, and was postmarked "Napoli." That he was deeply interested in the contents of this epistle was manifest from the beginning, not only from the expression of his face, but from the frequent "wa'al, wa'als" which were elicited as he went on; but interest grew into excitement as he neared the close, and culminated as he read the last few lines.
"Scat my CATS!" he cried, and, grabbing his hat and the letter, he bolted out of the back door in the direction of the house, leaving the rest of his correspondence to be digested—any time.
I might, in conclusion, tell how John's further life in Homeville was of comparatively short duration; how David died of injuries received in a runaway accident; how John found himself the sole executor of his late partner's estate, and, save for a life provision for Mrs. Bixbee, the only legatee, and rich enough (if indeed with his own and his wife's money he had not been so before) to live wherever he pleased. But as heretofore I have confined myself strictly to facts, I am, to be consistent, constrained to abide by them now. Indeed, I am too conscientious to do otherwise, notwithstanding the temptation to make what might be a more artistic ending to my story. David is not only living, but appears almost no older than when we first knew him, and is still just as likely to "git goin'" on occasion. Even "old Jinny" is still with us, though her master does most of his "joggin' 'round" behind a younger horse. Whatever Mr. Harum's testamentary intentions may be, or even whether he has made a will or not, nobody knows but himself and his attorney. Aunt Polly—well, there is a little more of her than when we first made her acquaintance, say twenty pounds.
John and his wife live in a house which they built on the shore of the lake. It is a settledthing that David and his sister dine with them every Sunday. Mrs. Bixbee at first looked a little askance at the wine on the table, but she does not object to it now. Being a "son o' temp'rence," she has never been induced to taste any champagne, but on one occasion she was persuaded to take the smallest sip of claret. "Wa'al," she remarked with a wry face, "I guess the' can't be much sin or danger 'n drinkin' anythin' 't tastes the waythatdoes."
She and Mrs. Lenox took to each other from the first, and the latter has quite supplanted (and more) Miss Claricy (Mrs. Elton) with David. In fact, he said to our friend one day during the first year of the marriage, "Say, John, I ain't sure but what we'll have to hitch that wife o' your'n on the off side."
I had nearly forgotten one person whose conversation has yet to be recorded in print, but which is considered very interesting by at least four people. His name is David Lenox.
I think that's all.