CHAPTER XIII.AN INVOLUNTARY BATH.
Strolling thus in front of the old house with its big chimneys and verandas, Lawrence thought he would go and sit down on one of those verandas: people who saw him would suppose he was enjoying the scenery, and he was conscious of an imperative desire to think calmly. That was what he had been trying to do all the way down here,—think calmly. He called himself an idiot, an unmitigated idiot, for coming at all. How should he better things by coming?
He rose from the old bench on which he had been sitting, and walked around the corner of the house. Walking, thus, he came upon a man and a woman standing there within the shade of some thick clambering vines.
The man's back was towards Lawrence but the woman's face was plain to his sight, with upraised eyes and—he could not be sure of the expression, for Prudence instantly advanced, saying, briskly:
"So nice of you, Rodney, to come, after all. Mr. Meramble was just suggesting that we go back to the launch and take a turn outside and see where Menendez and his ruffians came in."
"Capital idea," responded Lawrence, a trifle too pleasantly. "I always thought Menendez was rather overestimated as a scamp. You remember we looked the whole thing up when we came to Augustine, Prudence?"
He glanced at his wife with a most amiable expression. Meramble hastened to ask Lawrence to go in the launch, and Lawrence accepted with rather profuse thanks. He talked glibly as the three made their way to the bit of a craft, which required no work save what its owner could do himself.
Two or three times Prudence gave her husband a swift look in which perhaps there was a hint of questioning terror. She had never seen him in the least like this. She recalled, for the first time since she had heard it, the remark her Aunt Letitia had once made to the effect that Rodney had a terrible temper when he was roused, but that he usually kept it under control.
You would have said that these three people were on the best of terms with one another as they wenttalking and laughing down to the launch, and as they embarked and the little craft began to glide out into the open sea. Prudence afterward told some one that, as her husband looked full at her with such extremely pleasant eyes, she didn't know why she should think of Bluebeard and a few other characters noted for amiability to their wives.
At any rate, there was something in the suavity of Lawrence's manner that soon made it a great effort for Prudence to speak at all, try as she would. Her smile became constrained; her heart beat heavily. She sat under the little awning and looked at the two men.
Lawrence was telling a story with good effect; sometimes he smiled as he talked; he was really very entertaining and very good-humored. His wife endeavored to forget the time when she had given him a certain promise. Were such promises ever kept, any more than the false vows that men were continually making?
The launch was going quite fast, straight out on the smooth water to sea. The land was already two or three miles away.
Prudence saw Lawrence turn and look towards the coast that lay low, its white sand glittering in the bright light. Then he glanced towards Meramble.
"Can you swim, Mr. Meramble?" he asked, presently.
"Certainly," the man replied, with a slight accent of surprise.
"So fortunate," returned Lawrence.
"Why fortunate?"
"Because I am presently going to throw you into the sea," was the suave answer.
The other man thought this was a joke, and a very poor joke. But he laughed, and said there might be a difference of opinion about that.
"Oh, no, I think not; I think I can do it easily."
"Ah!"
Meramble's white teeth glittered in his black beard. Yes, it was a joke in the very worst possible taste, and before Mrs. Lawrence, too. But he smiled all the same as he uttered the interjection.
The sense of electricity in the clear air suddenly became almost intolerable.
"Damn him!" Meramble was saying to himself, "what's he talking like that for?"
Lawrence sat silent for a few moments, gazing towards the shore. Prudence made an effort to keep up some kind of conversation. Though Rodney terrified her, she was secretly admiring him.She was thinking that she had not known he could be exactly like this.
Lawrence turned from his contemplation of the receding shore to objects nearer.
He rose with the utmost quietness of movement. He stooped slightly, and, notwithstanding the quick and furious warding motion made by Meramble, that gentleman was lifted bodily up, and flung over the boat's side, where he fell splashing into the water.
The boat darted away from him, but not so soon that the two in it could not hear the terrible oath he uttered.
"Oh, Rodney!" cried Prudence, starting from her seat.
"Sit down," said Rodney, calmly, but his face was not quite steady. Now that his anger had done something to satisfy itself, he must begin to feel the reaction in some way.
"He will drown," said Prudence.
"No matter."
"But you will be hanged."
"In that case you will be a widow."
Here Lawrence began to laugh. Drops of moisture appeared on his forehead.
Prudence rose again. This time she came andwas going to sit down by her husband, but he made a gesture for her to go back.
"He won't drown,—never fear," he said.
"As if I cared whether he drowned or not!" she cried. "It's you I care for."
At this Lawrence laughed again. He was watching Meramble, who was swimming after them, his black head shining on top of the water.
Now he withdrew his eyes from Meramble, and fixed them on his wife. He felt as if a devil were in him that was not yet satisfied. And why should he still have that furious, unreasoning love for this woman? Had she not jilted him once, and when she could not get her English lord, had she not won him again? Did she love him? Had she ever loved him? Good God! it was dreadful to look at her now and doubt her. There was terror in her face, but there was something else, too, the thing which had lured him and held him, and which he was afraid would always hold him; and it seemed to be love for him,—some cruel passion which a woman like her was capable of feeling, even while she coquetted with other men. He did not understand; he was not going to endure it.
Lawrence was sitting in the place just occupied by Meramble. He wished to be ready to attend to thelaunch; he had put it about directly, and they were now returning to the shore. Prudence had taken her seat near him. With some appearance of timidity she leaned forward and touched his sleeve.
"I would never testify against you," she said, in an awed whisper, her terror plainly visible.
"Testify?" he repeated, scornfully; "never fear about that. That creature won't drown; and he'll never tell how he came to have this bath. I didn't seem to have any opportunity to thrash him, so I threw him over. If you think he's going to drown, I'll stop and pick him up. I'm afraid he won't love me any the better for this. I had to do it, however, or kill him outright."
Lawrence spoke so rapidly that his words were hardly distinguishable. He no longer attempted to seem amiable. There was a ferocious light in his eyes, and he was very pale. Altogether he looked as a man may look who for the time has given himself over to the devil. Being an honorable man with an unseared conscience, he would have to pay a good price in self-contempt for the last half-hour. But the time for the self-contempt had not yet struck.
Prudence sat quietly trembling,—nay, she was almost cowering,—watching her companion withgreat eyes that made her face wild and strange. Why is it that an outbreak of savage Berserker blood so often excites admiration in the spectator? Does a drop of that same barbarian blood mingle yet with the milder current of civilization?
It was not the way of Prudence to keep silent, no matter what was happening. But she was afraid to speak now, and afraid to remain silent. She hesitated; she wanted to grasp her husband's arm, but the slight touch she had given him was all she dared. Was this the man whom she had been able to influence? Odd that she should be so proud of him because he had picked up Meramble and tossed him over the boat's side. Odd that she should be sure that she should never have any interest in Meramble again. How contemptible he had looked, flying over the side! But he had had a great way with his eyes, and he was said to be dangerous.
Here she laughed hysterically.
Meramble, swimming along behind, happened to hear that laugh, and he gnashed his teeth as if he were the villain of a melodrama. And he swore also, and swam still faster through the smooth water. If he had had a pistol in his hand at that moment, it is quite probable that he would have fired at those two in the launch, and I am quitecertain he would have aimed at the woman first. Fortunately, however, in these days of high enlightenment we do not usually have revolvers within reach every time we are indignant.
"Do let him get in, Rodney," Prudence at length exclaimed, as soon as she could stop laughing.
At this Lawrence literally glared at her. Then he asked if she were so anxious concerning her friend's safety.
"No," she answered, hardily; "I don't care a penny whether he drowns or not. But you—oh, I'm afraid for you! He won't love you after this."
Then, in spite of herself, she began to laugh again, and then she burst into a violent fit of weeping, bending forward and hiding her face in her hands as she did so.
"No," said Lawrence, grimly; "I don't think I've done anything to win his affection."
As he spoke, he slowed the launch. Its owner presently came up alongside and laid hold of the boat's edge.
"Do you want to get aboard?" inquired Lawrence.
It was an instant before Meramble could reply. Poor devil, it was hard on him!
"Is there any other craft near?" he asked, finally.
Lawrence gazed leisurely about him. "None within five miles, I should say," was the answer.
To this Meramble made no reply in words. The launch came to a stand, and he scrambled aboard. It is dreadful when a human being has within him quite so much of a wild-beast rage. Meramble knew that he had been made ridiculous before this woman. He knew that he was dripping and ridiculous now. He had not been in any real danger; real danger would have eliminated the ridiculous.
Lawrence rose, bowed, and relinquished the charge of the launch to its owner.
Meramble sat down without a word. Since he could not use the violent oaths which were all the words he wanted to use, he did not know why he should speak at all.
So it was in entire silence that the three went back to land. The group on the shore came down to the wharf, uttering exclamations and inquiries.
Meramble explained that he had been awkward enough to fall into the water, but that Lawrence (with a look at that gentleman) had been kind enough to rescue him, and he added that he, Meramble, should never rest until he had been able to do as much for Mr. Lawrence.
Somebody on the wharf affirmed that, at thisspeech, Mrs. Lawrence shuddered unmistakably. Therefore, a wise few immediately asserted that there was more in Meramble's falling into the water than met the eye.
When Lawrence tried to recall how he and his wife reached St. Augustine and the Ponce that night, he could never remember the slightest thing. Apparently they did get back the same as the rest of the party.
The next day the owner of the sailboat came to Lawrence and demanded to know what had become of it. Then Lawrence endeavored to carry his mind back to the sailboat, and to explain. But it ended in his paying the man an exorbitant price for the boat, and so settling the matter that way.
CHAPTER XIV.A BULL TERRIER.
After this Prudence said she would not stay in St. Augustine another day; she affirmed that the place was hateful to her. She said she expected to find Rodney with a dagger stuck through him, if he left her for a moment.
Lawrence listened calmly to all this. The two were on the water-battery of the old fort again, and he was smoking. It was the week following the expedition to Matanzas.
Prudence looked pale and very charming in a white suit that fitted as her clothes always fitted. Lawrence once told her, with a suspicion of bitterness in his tone, that if she were to be led out to execution she would not pray, she would only ask if her gown were becoming, and was her hair right?
"Where do you want to go?" he inquired.
"I don't care."
"That means you do care."
He reached forward, and knocked the ash from his cigar against a stone. To-day his face was almost colorless, and his eyes were hard; and the dreadful thing about his eyes was that when they were turned upon his wife they did not change.
As for Prudence, she would have said that her heart was like lead. She dared not soften her voice when she addressed her husband, lest he might turn savagely upon her, though his manner now was as gentle and cold as a flake of snow. She glanced at him shyly, and was inwardly irritated that she should feel timid. She did not wish to be afraid of anything. One is not comfortable when one is afraid. And she was admiring him also; and she wished to tell him of that admiration, and hang upon him, and smile, and caress him.
"No," she said, at last, in response to his words; "it means exactly what I say."
"Since when have you meant what you say?"
He turned his cool, veiled eyes upon her, scanning her interrogatively.
She plucked up courage, and replied, lightly:
"Oh, I've always had seasons of meaning what I say."
"Indeed! But how is one to know when it is the season for truth?"
He spoke carelessly, as if he had no interest in the reply, whatever it should be. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and watched it float away.
Prudence drew her light mantle closely about her. She would not press her hands together beneath it, though she was tempted to do so.
She had expected an explanation, storm, tears, renewed tenderness. Surely he could not be tired of her so soon.
She did not answer his question, but apparently he did not notice this.
"Rodney, let us go away," she said, earnestly. "I hoped Mr. Meramble would go, but, since he stays, I can't endure my anxiety about you. I can't—I can't!"
Her voice grew unsteady. She looked at her husband entreatingly; tears gathered in her eyes.
"I am sorry to have you suffer from anxiety on my account," he responded, courteously; "but I think we will remain here. Augustine is a small place, I know, but it will hold Mr. Meramble and me."
"Please go!"
She moved a little nearer. A faint flush came to his face.
"Sorry to refuse you, Prudence, but you ought tosee that after having flung Meramble into the water I can't run away as if I were afraid of him. Still, we don't fight duels nowadays, you know."
"But sometimes folks kill some other folks," she returned.
Lawrence shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
"And Mr. Meramble's smile is so very glittering; it makes my backbone cold," Prudence went on; "and when he looks at you I feel like screaming."
"I wouldn't scream, if I were you," Lawrence remarked.
"I sha'n't, if I can help it; but I'm sure the time will come when I can't help it."
"In that case I'll call you insane and put you into an asylum."
Lawrence spoke these words so calmly that his wife shivered again, though she knew he was jesting. The glance she gave him now was not pleasant.
She turned towards the river and gazed at it, while her companion smoked. Already it seemed months since the other day when he and she had sat there and she had made him look at her with love.
"I'm nearly certain that it has leaked out that Mr. Meramble didn't fall into the water," said Prudence, after a silence. "I suppose somebody must have been looking through a glass at us. People arealways looking through a glass at the ocean and telling each other what they see. That man will do something, I tell you. He isn't smiling in such a shining way for nothing."
"Very well; let us wait and see what he does. We shall have thus some interest in life left to us; that will be something for which to be grateful to your friend."
"My friend!"
"Certainly; and he may thank you for his ducking."
Lawrence again puffed out a cloud of smoke and watched it dissipate in the blue air. But his wife refrained from speaking.
A few more days passed. On one of them Prudence remarked that they had made a great mistake in leaving Europe; in Europe they wouldn't have met Mr. Meramble.
"It might as well be Meramble as another; it was sure to be somebody," Lawrence returned.
That afternoon a great many of the winter residents attended a tennis match. Of course Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence were there; so was Meramble; and just as the game was over this latter gentleman suddenly appeared near Lawrence, who was in the midst of a group of men and women.
Meramble's face was crimson, and he was smiling. People looked at him curiously as he made his way among them. He carried a dog-whip in his hand; but then there was a bull-terrier at his heels, following closely, his red eyes watching his master.
"How do you do, Mr. Lawrence?" Meramble asked.
His voice was a trifle loud; but Lawrence spoke very low as he answered, distinctly, "How do you do, Mr. Meramble?"
"Never was better in my life, thanks. I owe you one. Sometimes I have a fancy to pay my debts—as now."
There was quite a theatrical air about the man as he spoke; indeed, his appearance usually savored of the melodrama.
"Ah! That so?" said Lawrence, calmly. He was thinking, "That fellow knows that people know I flung him in."
He had barely time to finish this thought when Meramble started forward and swung his dog-whip square across Lawrence's face. Lawrence felt a stinging blindness that confused him and made him reel for the instant. And he could not gather himself before something else had come upon him. Meramble's dog was at his throat; the brute hadfastened himself there and was swinging by his hold.
There was a rush, a shouting, a scramble of several men forward to get the dog off.
Meramble stood back and looked on; he was still smiling with a glitter of black eyes and white teeth.
Somebody got hold of the dog's legs. But somebody else was nearer still, and in the utter confusion in Lawrence's senses he yet heard a voice say, sharply, "No! no! His throat! His throat!"
And all the time he himself was trying to find the dog's throat; but he was like a man whose hands would not obey him. The stroke so near his eyes had cut like a knife, and his brain was still reeling from it, and from the onset of the dog.
But he thought he recognized the voice crying out thus; and, curiously, in the hurrying blackness of the moment he was aware that he inhaled the odor of iris.
It was really but a second before he knew that his wife's fingers, strong and unflinching, were choking the beast from him. He heard him panting, then he heard the gurgle in the dog's throat; the teeth had to let go.
The terrier dropped to the ground, and was caught up by some masculine grasp and flung somewhere.
Lawrence blindly opened his arms and gathered his wife unto them. She lay trembling on his breast.
Some irrepressible in the crowd uttered a cheer for Mrs. Lawrence; the cheer was taken up, and every man there, save two, roared lustily in another "cheer for Mrs. Lawrence."
In the midst of it all, Lawrence, holding Prudence, heard her whisper, with her lips on his face:
"My dearest!"
In that instant his heart gave a glorious bound of ecstatic happiness.
Immediately she withdrew from his arms; somebody went off for a physician, for Lawrence's throat was torn and bleeding; somebody else offered an arm to him to assist him back to the hotel. There was a babel of talk and exclamation, and in the midst of it Meramble, still almost purple in the face, and still smiling, walked away.
When he was well clear of the crowd this gentleman paused and looked about him. Then he whistled a long-drawn-out note. A moment after this note had died on the air a black and white bull-terrier with red eyes, and with some drops of blood on his muzzle and chest, came at a slow sling trot from some place unseen and ranged at his master's heels. Then dogand man walked out of sight, and I think out of the pages of this chronicle.
Lawrence's lacerated throat kept him in his room for some days. He lay on a lounge and tried to listen to Prudence as she read or talked to him. She was very sweet and very lovely. Lawrence felt the old charm of her presence, her smile, and her voice; he thrilled as he recalled over and over again her voice, and her words, and her act when the dog was at his throat.
But all the time, notwithstanding everything, there was with him the dull memory of her wantonly broken promise about her behavior to Meramble. He could remember too vividly her face as she had been talking with Meramble on the veranda of the old house at Matanzas.
When this remembrance was at its keenest, it was only by great self-restraint that Lawrence refrained from starting up and shouting out a curse for the woman who could do such a thing. But she loved him? The old, dreadful question; she loved him? Even now, in the midst of smiles and tears and kisses, she could make him believe her.
For the first three days Prudence was devotedly attentive; she scarcely left his side, and her devotion was plainly spontaneous.
A slight fever had set in, though the wounded throat was doing as well as such a hurt could do. Prudence began to grow listless in the very slightest degree.
Lawrence made her leave him and go down into the court, where a party were heard laughing and talking. After she had gone, with painful intentness he listened for her voice.
Ah! there it was. He raised himself on his elbow. Yes, honey sweet, gay, seductive, suggestive. He listened, his wounded throat throbbing as he did so. It was not that he desired to know what she said, it was only her tones that he must hear. And he groaned as he heard them.
He wished he might be able to understand her. He was not the first man who has wished to be able to understand a woman.
As Lawrence sank again on his couch, another day came back to his mind,—that day when he had been lying in his room at Savin Hill and had heard Prudence laugh outside.
Then he had been going to marry Carolyn Ffolliott. Then—he groaned again and moved uneasily.
It was terrible for a man like Lawrence to have one spot in his life which he dared not touch. He winced every time he came near that place in hismind. He wished that it might be covered up, encysted like some morbid growth in the body, and not remain so atrociously alive. As a man runs away from some place where he knows he will be hurt, so Lawrence's mind always ran away from the thought of Carolyn. Yet somehow, within the last few weeks, he could not help thinking of her.
He had stopped his ears against any news from Savin Hill. He even shrank from looking too closely at a Boston newspaper, lest he should see the name of Ffolliott.
Not a week ago Prudence had silently put before him a paper with her finger on a paragraph. This was the paragraph:
"At a reception lately given by Mrs. Letitia Ffolliott at her residence on Commonwealth Avenue, among the prominent guests was Lord Maxwell. His lordship came to the States some months ago, bringing an invalid wife. His friends will learn with regret that Lady Maxwell has since died. We understand that Lord Maxwell will remain in Boston for some weeks."
Lawrence's lip curled as he read these lines, and Mrs. Lawrence laughed.
"His lordship!" she exclaimed, and laughed again.
"How the fair women will smile upon him!" cynically remarked Lawrence; and he added, "Well,he hasn't a teaspoonful of brains, but he has his title."
"Yes," said Prudence, "and now he has the brewer's money without the brewer's daughter. Perhaps he will marry Carolyn Ffolliott."
Having sent this shaft, Prudence refrained from looking to see if it went home.
Lawrence said quietly that he did not believe Carolyn would marry a man she did not love; but then, she might love Maxwell.
And here the subject had dropped; but neither of these two forgot it.
Lawrence grew very restless during those days when he was confined to his room at the hotel. The lacerated wound induced some fever, but still he was doing as well as possible. After the first, Prudence did not stay with him. She could bravely attack a dog in his behalf, but it appeared that she could not stop in a sick-room. Lawrence urged her to go, and, after a due amount of reluctance, she went. Her husband had plenty of time to think; he could not always thrust remembrance from him. He seemed to himself to be a very poor kind of a being. Where were his hopes for a career of usefulness and dignity in the world? Were they all lost for a woman's smile? And his self-respect? Had hebartered the peace of years for the rapture of moments?
And Prudence was getting tired of him. It was impossible any longer to doubt that fact; as impossible as it was to doubt that other fact that she had once had a passion for him which she was willing to indulge when she could not marry an English nobleman. She greatly preferred him, Lawrence. Here Lawrence uttered a very grim-sounding word.
In spite of himself, Lawrence did a great amount of thinking in those days, when he did not mean to think at all, and when he could often hear, in court or veranda, his wife's gay laugh mingling with the plash of fountains and the murmur of music.
But she said she was greatly bored, that it was hard to wait until Rodney could get out again.
The second time she said this, Lawrence responded by saying that as soon as he was able they would go North.
"What! before spring?" she asked, in surprise, and with a hint of indignation.
"Yes, before spring. I've been idle long enough. You've forgotten that I'm a lawyer. I had just begun to have a little success. I'll put on harness again."
Prudence glanced at him with an elevation ofeyebrow; she was wise in her way, and she knew that now was one of the times when it would do no good for her to plead.
Thinking over the matter afterwards, Prudence decided that it would, after all, be more interesting to go North.
CHAPTER XV."TOO MUCH FOR ANY WOMAN TO FORGIVE."
Though summer comes very slowly to New England, it yet does come, and when it has fully arrived its sumptuous beauty makes amends for all delays.
It was summer again at Savin Hill. There was the ocean in its splendor just as it had been the year before. The year before? Was it not rather a dozen years before? This was the question Lawrence put to himself as he stood on one of the cliffs from which he could see the towers of the Ffolliott summer residence. He and his wife had come down to Seaview to stay for awhile. He thought that, unless he chose, he would not be likely to see the Ffolliotts. He could hardly understand why he longed to be at the old familiar shore. He supposed it was because he was not quite well,—not ill, by any means, but not in his usual robust health. He hardly knew what was the trouble. He seemed to have recovered from the attack of the dog. Thephysician whom he consulted did not mention any disease, but he gave strong advice against work at present. "Just have a good time," he had said, at which Lawrence had laughed.
Now, as he stood on this cliff, his eyes dwelt upon that château-like house which had once been a home to him. Never a home to him again. Sometimes his dishonorable way of leaving that place so rankled in him that he wanted to cry aloud, or weep like a hysterical woman. That was because he was not well, of course, though not ill; no, indeed, not ill. He would soon be at work again. When he could once work he would cease to be so weak. As for Prudence, she no longer hung upon him with passionate caresses; she was careless, though good-natured. He fancied he had seen a half-concealed contempt in her glance of late. Well, no one could despise him as much as he despised himself. He sometimes thought that he was one of those poor creatures who could do evil, but who were not strong enough to stop thinking about it after it was done.
"In short," he said, aloud, "I haven't the courage of my wickedness."
At first Prudence had made him forget everything but herself; she was a kind of hasheesh to him.But she was getting weary of him,—nay, was already weary.
Lawrence had sat down on the cliff by this time. Somebody was coming up the other side. In a moment a boy's head appeared. Lawrence leaned forward quickly. Leander Ffolliott sprang up and came forward,—a little taller for one year's growth, but otherwise much the same.
"I bet ten to one 'twas you," he said, "when I saw you first."
He held out his hand, and the two greeted each other cordially. Lawrence was sorry for himself that he should be so glad to see this youth, but he perceived by Leander's manner that the boy knew nothing of any reason why they should not be on good terms. This knowledge touched the man. He leaned back and put his hands under his head as he gazed at his companion. How ridiculously glad he was to see him!
There stood the boy, feet wide apart, hands in his pockets, hat tipped to the back of his head.
"You ain't well, are you?" was Leander's first question.
"Pretty well, thank you. How is it with you?"
"Tip-top. I say, where's Devil? Is he alive?"
"Very much alive. We take him everywhere."
"That so? Wish you'd give him to me."
"I will."
"Golly! Will you?" The boy jumped on one foot, and then on the other. "I'll go back with you after him. But mebby you'll bring him?"
"No. You may take him."
Leander screwed up one eye and contemplated Lawrence on the rock before him.
"I will. Say, you married Prue, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"So I thought, near's I could tell. Folks been awful mum 'bout the whole thing. I s'pose 'twas kind of odd, wa'n't it?"
"Perhaps."
"Yes, I guess 'twas," was the response, "'cause I asked Caro one day if 'twas odd. She said 'twasn't odd, 'twas natural; but I didn't believe her, all the same. Been sick much?"
"I'm not sick."
"You don't look right, somehow. Let's go down to the house. Folks'll be awful glad to see you. Come on."
"I don't think I'll go now."
"Why not? I say, ain't it funny that the Britisher's there again this summer?"
"Is he?"
"Yes. Comes a lot. Sparkin' sis, I s'pose. Sparkin' Prue last summer, you know,—wife takin' sulphur somewhere. Wife dead now. I say, is Prue's much of a brick's ever."
"I think so."
"It must be awfully jolly, then, to have her around all the time, same's you have folks when you're married to 'em. I wanted Prue to wait for me, 'n' marry me. She said she would; but you see she didn't."
"Yes, so I see; but if I should happen not to live you might have a chance still."
Leander eyed the speaker for some seconds in silence before he said, "You wa'n't drowned when theVireowent to pieces?"
"Apparently not."
"Yes, it does seem so. Did she go on a rock?"
"No; run into."
"And what became of you 'n' Prue?"
"Picked up."
"So you thought you'd get married?"
"Yes."
"Well, the folks felt awful when they thought you were all dead; 'n' so did I. Afterward I overheard marmer say she didn't think it possible you could be such a scamp. I s'pose she meant as not to be drowned. Funny, though, wasn't it?"
"Very."
"They were goin' to put on black, but Caro wouldn't; she said you wa'n't drowned. I say, how do you lug the crow round?"
"We have a big cage and have it in the baggage-car."
Leander contemplated this fact in silence for a time. It was plain that some things puzzled him. Then he took out his watch, evidently something new, for he had already looked at it twice in this interview.
"I guess it's about time she was here," he remarked.
"Who?" asked Lawrence, quickly.
"Why, Caro, of course. I was going to show her how my new fish-pole works. It's down below there. Oh, there she is now."
Lawrence sprang to his feet. He was too late. Carolyn stepped up on to the rock where the two stood.
She had not noticed any sound of voices; she was there in front of this man, and could not retreat. But she gave no sign of wishing to retreat. After the first instantaneous and uncontrollable flutter offeatures, she was calm,—how calm she was! So Lawrence thought. He supposed it was the calmness of contempt. He knew that she ought to feel contempt for him; more than that, he ought to wish her to feel it.
If he had only been manly in his manner of desertion! If he had only told her that his old passion for Prudence had sprung into life again stronger than ever; that would have been bad enough, but that now seemed honor itself compared with what he had really done.
He gave one look into her steady, lovely eyes. Had she always been as beautiful as she was now?
He told himself, meanly and bitterly, that she couldn't have suffered much from what he had done. After all, he might have been very much mistaken in his estimate of her love for him. Perhaps women could not love deeply, anyway.
Lawrence did not know how pale he was; but he soon perceived that Carolyn was growing white after her glance at him.
"I hope you'll be kind enough to speak to me, Miss Ffolliott," he said, as soon as he could command his voice.
When he had spoken thus, he was afraid there was too much pleading in his tone.
He had often pictured himself as writing to her, explaining everything, and beseeching her to pardon him; but he had never quite dared, even in his thoughts, to stand before her as he did now. And yet he had come to this shore because he longed to come; he must have known in the bottom of his thoughts that here it would be possible to meet her, though he might guide his movements so as to make such a meeting improbable.
"Certainly," Carolyn answered, promptly, "I will speak to you. I am sorry to see you looking so ill."
"You need not be sorry. I have been ill, but I am greatly improved now. I hope to go to work in the fall."
He turned about somewhat confusedly to look for his hat, which was lying on the rock. He picked it up and seemed to be going. But he did not go. In the midst of his painful consciousness was the wish that Leander were not present. But the boy was quite visible, and was plainly listening to every word, while his eyes dwelt first upon one face and then upon the other. Was he scenting a "secret?" He still retained his love of secrets, and it must be a jolly one that could make these two people look precisely like this. Things had been very odd indeedthe time theVireodid not come back; perhaps he really would find out now.
"Did you bring your fishing-rod, Lee?" asked Carolyn.
"Yep," said the boy, but he did not stir.
The girl turned. "Come," she said, "and let us see how it works." She spoke with perfect steadiness, but a small, bright red spot had now appeared on each cheek.
"Miss Ffolliott!" exclaimed Lawrence.
She paused and looked back at him. Lawrence had now forgotten the boy; he had almost forgotten everything but that he must try and get this girl's forgiveness. For the instant nothing in the world, save her forgiveness, seemed worth anything.
"I wanted to ask you one question," he said, humbly.
He did not know that his hand which held his hat was trembling pitiably; but Carolyn saw it tremble. She seemed to hesitate, then she said, quickly:
"Leander, run down to the beach and wait for me."
Leander mumbled something, but he did not quite dare to disobey when his sister spoke like that. He walked away as slowly as he could possibly move, and he was continually turning his head back to lookat these two. But even at this gait he did in time reach the little sandy beach, and they saw him sitting there and piling up sand over his feet.
Now Carolyn turned and asked, "Did you wish to say something to me, Mr. Lawrence?" and immediately, "Will you please sit down? You look very ill."
"No; I will stand. I won't detain you long. I wanted to ask you if you think you can ever forgive me?"
Lawrence's voice was low and shaken; his hollow eyes, darkly marked beneath them, were fixed on the girl's face.
She hesitated; he hastened to say, "I hope you don't think I mean for not marrying you,—I know well enough that that was a happy chance for you,—but for the grossly insulting way in which I left you. It is very little to say it was not planned—that I did not seek—that it was a chance—that—"
But the man would not intimate what part Prudence had acted on that evening. He resumed, in a harsh tone, "Chance gave me the opportunity to be a villain, and I embraced the opportunity. Now can you forgive me?"
Still Carolyn was silent. She was standing without the least movement, save the tremulous motionof the knot of silk at her throat. She was not looking at her companion; her eyes were fixed on the ground.
Presently he began again. "I see how it is. It is too much to beg of any woman to forgive. Now I ought to ask you to forgive me for asking you to forgive. Can you do that?"
He did not wait for an answer to this last question. Still with his hat in his trembling hand, he turned away and began to descend the rock. But a sudden and imperative physical weakness made him stumble. He could have cursed that weakness.
Carolyn sprang forward; she caught hold of his arm.
"Youareill!" she said, in a half whisper. "Will you sit down here for a moment?"
From very helplessness Lawrence was obliged to comply. He sat down; he did not try to speak. He had nothing more to say; and he was beginning to know how foolish he had been to say as much as he had said.
Carolyn sat down also, a few feet away from him. The tide had turned, and the waves were splashing intermittently against the base of the rocks below them; out in the bay the water had assumed that look of new life which the incoming of the tideproduces. The girl dully wondered why, at such a moment, she should note all this. But she did think of these phenomena more keenly than when her mind was at liberty. And at the same time it seemed as if she saw nothing and knew nothing but that ghastly face with its terribly brilliant eyes that had been looking at her like eyes from some other world.
She moved her hands now, as if some movement, however slight, would be a help to her.
This was Prudence Ffolliott's husband. And it was plain that he was not happy. But perhaps that was because he was ill. She tried not to be confused by the pity his physical weakness excited in her. She wished to be kind, but not too kind. She wondered what was the exact way in which she ought to behave.
She glanced swiftly at Lawrence. He was sitting with his hands resting on his knees, his gaze fixed unseeingly before him; she knew that he did not see anything; and she knew how indignant he would be if he realized how weak he looked. She must not wound him. Her eyes melted, her whole face softened indescribably, and her voice, when she spoke, partook of this change.
"You see, don't you," he said, quickly, "that allthat I can say to you is to beg for pardon. After that I will not annoy you."
"I forgive you," she answered, at last. "I forgave you long ago."
"God bless you for that! Oh, Caro, God bless you for that!"
The words burst from his white lips, and the old familiar name came unconsciously.
How differently he was behaving from the way he had meant to behave if he ever saw Carolyn again! When he had spoken thus, some consciousness of this fact seemed to come to him. He sat up more erectly. Then he rose to his feet.
"It was all a mistake, our engagement," said Carolyn, now speaking as if she were referring to the affairs of some other woman. "I am to blame. I ought never to have allowed it. Let us not mention the subject again."
"Very well. But you have been to blame in nothing. Good-by."
Lawrence walked slowly down towards the beach where Leander was still piling up sand. He did not even see that youth, or hear him when he shouted, "Remember about Devil." The man walked on as fast as he could. The boy gazed after him, muttering that he should like to know what was the matter,anyhow. He immediately climbed the rocks again. Evidently his sister did not hear him, and Leander stood gazing at her in silence, with a growing conviction that he had by no means fathomed the matter, but that he would do so yet.
Carolyn was sitting crouched forward, with her knees drawn up and her hands over her face.
"If she's crying, she'll be whimpering so I can hear her," thought the boy. But she did not whimper so that any one could hear her.
Leander waited until he became impatient; then he called out that if she wanted to see the fishing-rod she had better come along.
The girl rose immediately and accompanied her brother; she succeeded in displaying a proper degree of interest in the rod, so that its owner offered no criticism on her conduct.
As for Lawrence, he did not stop in his walk, following the shore until he reached the hotel. He had not expected to find his wife in, but she was at a table in their sitting-room, apparently writing letters. The crow was on the back of her chair, occasionally thrusting his head about so that he could look over her shoulder, as if he could read the words she had written.
Lawrence sat down quickly. He thrust his handinto the breast-pocket of his coat and drew out his cigar-case. Having selected a cigar, he did not light it, but sat looking at it.
Prudence laid down her pen.
"You look rather done up," she remarked, in an indifferent voice.
"Yes, I feel so," was the response.
"I shouldn't think you'd walk so far," she said, with the same indifference.
There was no answer to this.
Presently Lawrence said, "I've given Devil away."
At this the bird drew himself up and looked at the speaker.
"What?" came somewhat sharply from Prudence.
Lawrence repeated his words.
"But I'm not going to part with the crow," said Prudence, positively. "He knows all my secrets,"—here she laughed,—"and, besides, he's my mascot. No, I sha'n't part with him."
"He hasn't brought you any great luck, it seems to me."
Lawrence put his unlighted cigar back in the case, stretched out his legs, and gazed at the toes of his shoes.
"That's true enough," returned Prudence, "butI'm always hoping he will. I'm going to keep him. To whom did you give him?"
"Leander Ffolliott."
Prudence started perceptibly. She looked for an instant intently at her husband, her eyes narrowing in their old way as she did so.
"Have you been there?" she asked.
"No; I saw the boy on the rocks."
"Perhaps you saw the boy's sister also."
"Yes, I did."
"Oh!"
Prudence tipped her head back and laughed ringingly, her eyes still upon her husband's face. There was a little added color on her cheeks. The laugh was somehow so exasperating, so strangely insulting, that Lawrence rose to his feet in a fury. But he sat down again directly and resumed his old position.
"You seem to be amused," he remarked, coldly.
"Yes." She laughed again. "I was imagining the meeting,—such astounding propriety as I know characterized it. You would do the right thing, and Caro is nothing if not proper. Caro is a darling girl, and I love her dearly, but you must confess that sheisproper, Rodney dear."
"Yes, I confess that," he said, grimly.
"Certainly; she would never take the least little part in a French novel."
"Never," he agreed, with emphasis.
Prudence gazed at her husband a moment without speaking. Her eyes changed. She rose and went to him; she stood by his side, put an arm lightly about his neck, and bent down slightly towards him. He sat perfectly quiet.
"I'm sorry you allowed yourself to get so tired," she said.
"Oh, I shall get over that," he replied, carelessly.
"Yes, but it hurts you."
He smiled in silence.
She moved slightly nearer. There was the old indefinite something in her manner which had once charmed him so.
"Don't reproach yourself," she said, pleadingly; "you know you didn't love her then."
No answer.
Prudence bent nearer and kissed her husband's lips. But they did not respond.
"You loved me," she murmured, kissing him again.
In the silence that followed, during which Lawrence sat like a stone, Prudence gradually drew awayfrom him. She stood looking at him, and the softness left her face.
"Perhaps you don't love me any more," she said, finally.
Lawrence roused himself. Everything seemed black before him, but he was conscious of trying to be gentle and courteous.
"Perhaps I never loved you," he answered.
"Oh!"
It was strange how the woman's countenance had darkened; it did not look grieved, but angry. At that instant, if her face had worn a different look, Lawrence's heart might have suddenly melted and some things have happened differently. But no, he told himself afterward, how could she change herself? What was to be would be. The old fatalistic saying recurred to him again and again. But what was he, that he should blame any one for anything?
"Prudence," he said. He put out his thin, burning hand and took hers; but in a moment she withdrew it. She stood before him, her graceful, erect figure in a blaze of sunshine that poured in through the window behind her.
Lawrence wondered that her touch could give him no thrill now; his blood ran coldly beneath her kiss.Was he beginning to know her? or was it that he had known her when she had so enthralled him?
These questions went through his mind so persistently that he was confused.
"I have been a puppet in your hands," he said. He added, with an inexplicable smile, "But then, there was Mark Antony."
He leaned wearily back in his chair. Prudence went to her own chair and sat down in it. The crow hopped round to her knee; he sat there looking at her, first with one eye and then with the other. She thought it was curious that she should recall, just at this moment, that night she had spent in the Boston hotel after theVireohad been run down, the night before she had been married. She and the crow had been together then, and she had thought of killing him. It seemed to her that the bird had called her a liar—a liar. She tried to throw off this remembrance.
She looked at the man sitting so wearily opposite her. So he believed he had never loved her? Well, she still believed that she had loved him. It was galling that he should have told her that. He ought to have known better than to say such a thing. So she had been a kind of Cleopatra to him? Well, he was not a Mark Antony to be held by love; but hehadn't loved, he said. She also was becoming confused. She put her cold fingers up to her temples and pressed them there for an instant.