Chapter XXII…

Chapter XXII

That same evening Evert Winthrop was watching the storm on the St. John's River. It had begun to darken the north-western sky before sunset; rising higher and higher, at length it had come sweeping down the broad stream. First the broken lurid edge (like little puffs of white smoke) of the blackness that followed behind; and that was the wind. Then the blackness itself, pierced here and there by lightning. Then, last, in perpendicular columns extending from the sky to the smooth water below (water that had been pressed flat by wind that had gone on before), the rain falling straight downward densely and softly; the line across the river made by the advancing drops on one side and the smooth water which they had not yet reached on the other, was as distinct as one made across a piece of velvet when one half of its nap has been turned sharply back, while the other remains undisturbed.

The old white house, once a private residence, where Winthrop was spending the night, was now a reluctant hotel; that is, inmates were received there, and allowed to find their way about, to sit round a brilliant light-wood fire on the broad hearth of the pleasant old parlor on cold evenings, to bask in the sunshine on the piazzas during the day, or wander under the magnificent trees, which, draped in silver moss, formed long avenues on the river-bank north and south. They were also allowed to partake of food in the dining-room, where the mistress of the house, a dignified old lady, poured out her coffee herself at the head of her table, the cups being carried about by half-grown negro boys, whose appearance was not in the least an indication of the quality of the beverage, that quality being excellent. This old house, when it had thus changed itself, rather half-heartedly, into a hotel after the war, had been obliged to put out a dock; a sign it could dispense with; it could dispense with many things; but an inn of any sort it could not be on the St. John's without a dock, since the river was the highway, and its wide shallows near shore made it necessary for the steamers to land their passengers far out in the stream. All these "docks" on the St. John's were in reality long narrow piers, formed by spiles driven into the bed of the stream, over whose tops planks had been nailed down; and if a plank was missing here and there, was it not always easy to jump over.

Near the end of the pier belonging to Winthrop's present abode there was a little building about six feet square. This was the United States post-office; any one who should doubt its official character, had only to look at the legal notices written in ink and tightly tacked up on the outside. Generally these notices had been so blurred by the rain that all the "men" who were required to "know" the various matters written underneath by this proclamation thereof, could have made out a good defence for themselves in case of prosecution for failure to comply, since how could they "know" what they could not decipher? But even if the notices had been printed in fairest type, it is hardly probable that the inhabitants would have "known" them any better; they had always hunted and fished wherever and whenever they pleased; it was not likely that a piece of paper tacked up on a shanty a quarter of a mile out in the St. John's was going to change these rights now. The only proclamation they felt any interest in was that which offered bounties for the scalps of wild-cats, a time-honored and sensible ordinance, by which a little money could always be secured.

Winthrop had come down the river that afternoon; his steamer had left him here, as she did not touch at the Gracias landing, which was farther down-stream on the opposite shore; the next morning a boat would pass which did touch there, he must wait for that. The steamer that brought him had also brought the United States mails from the up-river country; the postmaster, a silent man in a 'coon-skin cap, received the bag with dignity; Winthrop watched the distribution of its contents; one limp yellow-enveloped letter and a coffee-pot. When he came down to the pier's end again at sunset the 'coon-skin-crowned official had gone home; but, in a friendly spirit, he had left the post-office unlocked--there was a chair there which some one might like to borrow. Winthrop borrowed it now--of the United States; he brought it outside and sat there alone, watching the approach of the storm. The beautiful river with its clear brown water lay before him, wide as a lake; on the opposite shore the soft foliage of palmettoes, like great ostrich plumes, rose against the sky. But he was not thinking of the river, he was not even thinking of the black cloud, though his eyes were apparently fixed upon it; he did not stir until the wind was fairly upon him, then he retreated to the post-office, placed his chair inside, and sat there under cover at the open door. For a moment he did think of the storm, for it seemed as if the little house over him would be carried off the pier, and sent floating up the stream like a miniature ark; but after the wind had passed on, his mind returned to the old subject, the subject which had engrossed him ever since he left East Angels fourteen days before.

His brief letters had stated that he was hunting, fishing, and sailing, that he had been through the Dummit orange grove. It was true that he had been engaged in all the ways he described, and it was probable also that his various guides and chance companions had not perceived any lack of interest, or at least of energy, in the northerner who had accompanied them; an active life was necessary to Winthrop, and never more necessary than when he was perplexed or troubled; not once during those two weeks had he sat down to brood, as he was apparently brooding now.

But though he had thus occupied himself from daylight to bedtime, though he had talked and listened to the talk of others, there had been always this under-consciousness, which had not left him. At times the consciousness had taken form, if not in actual words, then at least in thoughts and arguments that followed each other connectedly. Generally, however, it had been but a dull realization, like an ache, vivified at intervals by sudden heats of anger, which, he was sure--though he might be talking on other subjects at the moment--must bring the color to his face. Man-like, he preferred the anger, it was better than the ache; he should have liked to be angry all the time.

The ache and the anger had been caused by what he had with his own eyes beheld, namely, the secret visit of Margaret to Lucian Spenser. For it was secret. Lucian had said good-by to her before them all, it had been left clearly to be supposed that they were not to see each other again; this, then, had been a clandestine meeting. Margaret was no school-girl, she was not ignorant of the rules of the world. And she was not an exception, like Garda Thorne, full of sudden impulses, with an extraordinary openness in following them; he had never thought Margaret impulsive in the least. Yet there she was; she had slipped away without the knowledge of any one, to go over to that solitary house for a farewell interview with its occupant. Of course her being there at that last moment, woman of deliberate intentions as she was, proved that an acquaintance which she had not acknowledged existed between them; for she had never shown any especial interest in Lucian in the presence of others; on the contrary, she had appeared indifferent to him, she had acted a part; they had both acted a part, and they had acted it so well that he (Winthrop) had never once suspected them. A wrath rose within him as he thought of this.

He had always disapproved of Margaret in one way; but at least--so he kept telling himself--at least he had thought her entirely without traits of this kind. He had thought her cold; but he had thought, too, that she had principles, and strong ones. It was probably her principles, more than anything else, that had made her leave Lanse in the beginning; she might even be said to have been something of a martyr to them, because, with her regard for appearances, she would have infinitely preferred, of course, to have remained under the same roof with Lanse, had it been possible, to have avoided the comment which is roused by any long separation between a husband and wife, even though but that comparatively mild degree of it which follows a separation as carefully guarded and as undefined in duration as hers had been. For nothing was ever said about its being a permanent one; people might conclude, and they easily did conclude, that before long they should see Lansing Harold back again, and established somewhere with his wife as docilely as though he had never been away; this had happened in a number of cases when the separation had been even longer. Europe was full of American wives spending winters here and summers there, wives whose husbands had remained at home; it might almost be called an American method for infusing freshness into the matrimonial atmosphere, for of course they would be doubly glad to see each other, all these parted ones, when the travels should at last be over, and the hearth-fire re-established again. In this instance it was the husband who had gone. And in the mean while how well-ordered was the life led by Mrs. Harold! there was not, there never could be, a breath of reproach or comment concerning her.

Thus the world. And the world's opinion had been Winthrop's in so far that he had fully shared its belief in the irreproachableness of Margaret's life as regards what is sometimes defined as "a taste for society," or, arranged in another form, as "a love of gayety," or, with more frankness, "a love of admiration." Of course he had approved of this. But he had not realized how deeply he had approved of it (underneath disapprovals of another sort) until now, when, like a thunder-clap, the revelation had come upon him: he and the world had been mistaken! This Margaret, with her fair calm face, with her studiedly quiet life, had a capacity for the profoundest deceptions; she had deceived them all without the slightest difficulty, she was deceiving them now. The very completeness with which she had disguised her liking for Lucian showed what an actress she must be; if she had allowed her liking to come out in a natural way, if she had even let it be known that she intended to see him again, instead of going through that form of bidding him good-by before them all, it would have had another aspect; the present one, given the manner she had always maintained with him in public, and given the fact that she was the most unimpulsive of women, was ominous. In the moment of discovery it had given him a sick feeling,--he had been so sure of her!

The sick feeling had come back often during the two weeks that followed. Each time he had taken himself sharply to task for caring so much. But it was because he had cared that he had left East Angels.

As he sat there in the wood, staring at Madam Giron's house after she had entered it--as it seemed to him drawn in by Lucian--his first feeling, after the shock of surprise, had been one of indignation, he had started up with the intention of following her. Then he remembered that he had no possible authority over her, even though she was his cousin's wife; if he should go over there and confront her, could she not very well turn and ask him what any of it was to him? It would make a scene which could now benefit no one; for it was too late to prevent imprudences on her part; and with Lucian he should prefer to deal alone. Then, in another minute, he felt that he could not in any case endure seeing her openly discomfited; for of course if he and Lucian should exchange words in her presence, no matter how few, it would amount to publicity of a certain sort, publicity which it had not yet attained. At present Lucian had no idea that he, Winthrop, had discovered their meeting; of her own accord Margaret would never tell him, and it would be easier for her through all the future if Lucian should never know; it was this thought that made him go homeward instead of crossing the field to Madam Giron's, it drove him away. It was not until he was safe in his own room that his vision grew clearer, that he remembered that he need not have been so considerate of Margaret's feelings, since (what he had not thought of with any distinctness in the first shock of surprise) had she not deliberately braved him? For she had seen him sitting there when she passed the first time, he had clearly perceived that she had seen him. Yet, knowing that he was there, she had passed him that second time in full view; she had crossed the field knowing that he could see her plainly, had met Lucian on the piazza and entered the house with him, without the least attempt at concealment or disguise. It was true that no one else had seen her. But he had seen her; and she had known it, and had not cared.

This last reflection gave his mood a sharp turn in the other direction; he thought--he thought a thousand things. Chief among them came now the remembrance that he should see her at table, she would be obliged to appear there, she would be obliged to speak to him. But when in answer to Telano's summons he went to the dining-room, hardly knowing how he should bear himself towards her, she was not present; Garda brought word that she was suffering from headache, and could not appear.

That night Winthrop was awake until a late hour, he found himself unable to sleep. He was conscious of the depth of the disturbance that swayed him, but though he did his best to conquer it, he made no progress; dawn found him still under its influence. He decided to go away for a few days; he had been shut up at East Angels too long, the narrow little round of Gracias life was making him narrow as well. The evening before, he had felt a strong wish to see Margaret, to note how she would appear; but now his one desire was to get away without seeing her, if possible. Curiosity--if curiosity it had been--had died down; in its place was something that ached and throbbed, which he did not care to analyze further.

Lucian had really gone--he had ascertained that; East Angels was therefore safe for the present, as far as he was concerned. Winthrop remained very indifferent to Lucian personally, even now; he consigned his good looks to the place where the good looks of a strikingly handsome man are generally consigned by those of his less conspicuously endowed brethren who come in contact with him, and he felt that immense disgust which men of his nature are apt to feel in such cases, with no corresponding realization, perhaps, of the effect which has been observed to be produced sometimes by--item, a pair of long-lashed eyes; item, a pink young cheek; item, a soft dimpled arm--upon even the most inflexible of mankind. No, he did not care about Lucian. He said to himself that if it had not been Lucian, it would have been somebody else; he made himself say that.

Now, as he sat there at the end of the long pier, with the dense rain falling all round him, he went over again in his own mind all these things. Two states of feeling had gradually become more absorbing than the rest; one of these was a deep dumb anger against Margaret for the indifference with which she had treated him, was still treating him. What rank must he hold in her mind, then?--one which could leave her so untroubled as to his opinion of her. What estimation must she have of him that made her willing to brave him in this way? She had not written during his absence, expressing--or disguising--apprehension; making excuses; she had not even written (a woman's usual trick) to say that she knew it was not necessary to write, that she was safe with him, and that she only wrote now to assure him that she felt this. Was he such a nonentity in every way that she could remain unconcerned as to any fear of danger from him? Did she suppose him incapable of action?--too unimportant to reckon with, too unimportant to trouble, even if he should try, the well-arranged surface of her unperturbed life? Very possibly she might not like him, but he was at least a man; it seemed to him that she ought to have some regard for any man's opinion; even some fear of it, in a case of this kind.

Yes, he was very angry. And he knew that he was.

Then, adding itself to this anger, there came always a second, came against his will; this was a burning resentment against her personally, for falling so far below the idea he had had of her. He had thought her narrow, self-righteous,--yes; but he had also thought her life in other respects as pellucid (and cold) as a mountain brook; one of those brooks, if one wanted a comparison, that flow through the high valleys of the Alps, clear, cold, and dreary; he had had time to make comparisons in abundance, if that were any entertainment!

But it was not. And he found it impossible, too, to think of Margaret in any other than this his first way; the second, in spite of what he had with his own eyes beheld, remained unreal, phantasmagoric. This seemed to him folly, and he was now going back to East Angels to break it up; it would break it up to find her defiant. And it would amount to defiance--her looking at him and talking to him without giving any sign, no matter how calmly or even timidly she might do it; in his actual presence perhaps she would be timid. In all cases, in any case, he now wished to see her; the desire to find himself face to face with her had taken possession of him again.

He reached East Angels the next day at two o'clock. Betty Carew was the first to greet him, she had herself arrived from Gracias only an hour before. She was full of the intelligence she brought, and immediately repeated it to the new-comer: Mr. Moore had that morning received a letter, or rather a note of six lines; Rosalie Spenser was dead. Her illness had been brief, and she had not suffered; they thought it was the heart. Fortunately Lucian had been able to get to her; he had found the despatch at New Orleans, and had started immediately; they had had the last three days together, and she was conscious to the end. And then followed the good Betty's regrets, which were sincere; she had always liked Lucian, and, when he married, her affectionate, easily expanding heart had made room for Rosalie as well; "Lucian's wife" would have had to be a very disagreeable person indeed to have made Betty dislike her. For Betty's liking included the relatives of all her friends, simply because they were relatives. The relationship made them a whole, she accepted them in a body as one accepts "the French," "the Portuguese;" they did not present themselves to her as objects for criticism.

Winthrop had lunch alone, the others had had theirs. While he was still at the table, Garda came in. He had already seen her, as well as Betty, and he had been in to say a word of greeting to his aunt; but Margaret he had not yet seen.

"I should like to speak to you," Garda said. "Could you come out after lunch to the orange walk for a few moments?" There was nothing unusual in her tone.

When he entered that leafy aisle, later, she came to meet him.

"I am sorry to have made you take this trouble," she said, "when you are only just back from your journey. But I wanted to tell you at once, it seems unfair to wait; I wonder if you will be surprised? I don't care for you any more; don't you think it would be as well, then, to break our engagement?"

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXIII

Winthrop had literally made no answer to Garda's speech; he only looked at her.

After a moment the girl went on, gently enough: "If I don't care about you, I think I ought to tell you; you will feel more free. Don't you think it is better that I should tell you?"

"Certainly; if it is true."

After her first greeting, Garda had moved away a step or two; she now stood leaning back against the firm little trunk of one of the orange-trees, playing with a small spray of the bright leaves as she talked. At this answer of his, her gentleness turned to exasperation. "If it is true! And why shouldn't it be true?--do you think it impossible for anybody to stop caring for you? I have stopped, and very completely. I care no more for you now than I do for that twig." And she tossed it away with a little gesture of disdain.

Winthrop's eyes followed the motion. But he did not speak.

"Still don't you believe it?" she asked, in surprise; "you look as though you didn't. I think that rude."

"On the contrary, it seems to me that my being slow to believe it, Garda, is the best honor I can pay you."

"Oh, how could I ever have liked you!--how disagreeable you can be when you try!" Tears shone in her eyes. "Everybody in the world seems to tell lies but me," she went on, hotly. "And everybody else seems to prefer it. You yourself would like it a great deal better, and think it nicer in me, if I should tell lies now, pretend that this was the beginning of a change instead of the end, make it more gradual. Whereas I tell you simply the truth; and then you are angry."

"I am not angry."

"You are ever so much surprised, then, and that's worse. I call it almost insulting for you to be so much surprised by what seems to me perfectly natural. Have you never heard of people's changing? That is what has happened to me--I have changed. And I tell you the truth about it, just as I told you the truth when it was different--when I cared for you. For I did care for you once, ever so much; didn't you believe it? Didn't you know that I cared for you that night on the barren?"

A red rose in Winthrop's cheeks. After a moment he answered, humbly enough, "Yes, I thought you did."

"Of course you thought I did. And why? Because I did; that night, and for some time afterwards, I adored you, Evert. But I don't see why you should color up about it; wasn't it natural that I should be delighted to be engaged to you when I adored you? and isn't it just as natural that I should wish to break it off when I don't? You can't want me to pretend to care for you when it's all over?"

"No, no," said Winthrop, his eyes turning from her.

"I do believe you are embarrassed," said Garda, reverting to her usual good temper again. Then she broke into smiles. "You ought to thank me, for, really, you never cared for me at all." She leaned back against her tree again, and folded her arms. "I dare you to tell me that you ever really cared for me, even when I cared so much for you," she continued, in smiling challenge. "What you would answer if you spoke the truth (as I do), would be--'I did my duty, Garda.' As though I wanted duty! You ought to fall down on your knees in the sand this moment and thank me for releasing you; for you are much too honorable ever to have released yourself, you are the soul of honor. Just supposing we had been married--that we were married now--where should we be? I should have got over caring for you, probably (you see I have got over it without being married), and you never did really care for me at all; I think we've had a lucky escape."

"Perhaps we have," Winthrop answered.

"No 'perhaps,' it's a certainty. And yet," she went on, slowly, looking at him with musing eyes, "it might have had a different termination. For I adored you, and you could perhaps have kept it along if you had tried. But you never did try, the only thing you tried to do was to 'mould' me; you made me read things, or, if you didn't, you wanted to; you have treated me always as if I were a child. You have had an idea of me from the first (I don't know where you got it) that wasn't like me, what I really am, in the very least. And you never found out your mistake because you never took the trouble to study me, myself; you only studied your Idea. Your Idea was lovely, of course," pursued the girl, laughing; "so much the worse for me, I suppose, that I am not like her. Your Idea would have been willing to be moulded; and she would have read everything you suggested; and then in due course of time--when she should be at least eighteen"--interpolated the girl, with another burst of laughter, "she would have gratefully thanked you for admitting her to the privileges of being 'grown up.' Why--you didn't even want me to care for you as much as I did, because your Idea wouldn't have cared so much for anybody, of course, 'when she was only sixteen.'"

Winthrop flushed fiercely, as her mocking eyes met his, full of mirth. Then he controlled himself, and stopped where he was; he did not answer her.

"You are the best man in the world," said Garda, coming towards him and abandoning her raillery. "With your views (though I think them all wrong, you know), you could say the most dreadful things to me; yet you won't, because--because I'm a woman. You engaged yourself to me in the first place because you thought I cared for you (I did, then); and now, when I tease you because you have made the mistake of not understanding me--of having, that is, a higher idea of me than I deserve--you don't answer back and tell me that, or anything else that would be true and horrid. That's very good of you. I wish I could have gone on caring for you! But I don't, I can't; isn't it a pity?" She spoke with perfect sincerity.

Winthrop burst into a laugh.

"Don't laugh in that way," Garda went on; "I assure you I know perfectly that--that the person I care for now isn't what you are in many ways. But if I do care for him (as I cared for you once--you know what that was) shouldn't I be true to it and say so?"

"The--the person?" said Winthrop, looking at her inquiringly, a new expression coming into his face.

"Yes, Lucian, of course."

"Lucian!"

"Oh, very well, if you take that tone! And after I have said, too, that I knew he wasn't as--that he wasn't like you. It seems to me that I have been very honest."

"Very," replied Winthrop. Then his voice changed, it grew at once more serious and more gentle. "I hardly know, Garda, how to take what you say, I don't think you know what you are saying. You stand there and tell me that you care so much for Lucian Spenser--a married man--"

"He isn't married now," said Garda.

Winthrop gave her a look which made her rush towards him. "I didn't mean it--that is, I didn't mean that I was thinking about Rosalie's death; I wasn't thinking about that at all, I have never thought about Rosalie. Very likely I shall not see Lucian for ever and ever so long, and very likely he won't care for me when I do. He has never given the least sign that he cared--don't think that." And, clasping her hands round his wrist, she looked up in his face in earnest appeal. "Nothing has ever been said between us--not one word; it is only how I have felt."

"Whom are you defending now?" asked Winthrop, as coldly as a man may when a girl so beautiful is clinging to him pleadingly.

"Lucian," responded Garda, promptly.

The mention of his name seemed to give her thoughts a new direction; disengaging herself, she came round to stand in front of her companion in order to have a good position while she told her story. "Don't you remember that I began caring for Lucian first of all? you must remember that? Then I got over it. Next I cared for you. Then, when he came back, I began to care for him again--you have no idea how delightful he is!" she said, breaking off for a moment, and giving him a frank smile. "Well, I should have told you all about it long ago, only Margaret wouldn't let me; she has made me promise her twice, and faithfully, not to tell you. You see, Margaret thinks you care for me; therefore it would hurt you to know it. I have told her over and over again that you don't care at all, and that I don't care any longer for you. But it doesn't make any difference, she can't understand it; she thinks that if I cared once, it must last still; because that is the kind that Margaret is herself; if she cared, it would last. So she can't believe that I have really changed, she thinks (isn't it funny?) that I am mistaken about myself, that I don't know my own mind. And then, too, to change from you to Lucian--that she could never understand in a thousand years."

Winthrop had had his hands deep in the pockets of his morning-coat during this history. He stood looking steadily down, perhaps to keep her from seeing his expression.

But she divined it. "You needn't have such a stern face, I am sure everybody's very good to you. Here I've released you from an engagement you didn't desire, and Margaret, the sweetest woman in the world, cares so much for your feelings--what she supposes them to be--that she has done her best to hold me to you just because she thinks you would mind. Of course, too, on my own account a little--because she thinks it would be well for me to marry you, that it would be safe. Well, you know you are safe, Evert." And the rippling laugh broke forth again, meeting this time decided anger in Winthrop's gray eyes as he raised them to meet hers.

"There, you needn't crush me," Garda resumed. "And you needn't mind me, either me, or my laughing. For, of course, I know that if I could have cared for you, that is, gone on caring, and if in the end you could have cared for me, it would have been better for me than anything that could possibly happen; you ought not to be angry with a girl who tells you that?" And taking his arm, she looked up in his face very sweetly. "But the trouble was that you didn't care for me, you don't now. Yet you kept to your engagement, you took me and made the best of me; and I think that was very good. Well, it's over now." She had kept his arm, and now she began to stroll down the aisle towards the rose-garden. "There's something else I want to speak to you about, now that we've got through with our own affairs; and that's Margaret. Why have you such a wrong idea of her?--she is so noble as well as so sweet. She promised my mother to be like a sister to me; but, Heaven knows, few real sisters would have been as patient as she has been. I have never seen any one that could approach her. I didn't know a woman could be like that--so unchangeable and true. For we are not true to each other--women, I mean; that is, not when we care for somebody. Then we pretend, we pretend awfully; we tell things, or keep them back, or tell only half, just as we choose; and we always think that we have a perfect right to do it. But Margaret's different, Margaret's wonderful. Yet none of you, her nearest relatives, do her the least justice; it is left to me to appreciate her. Leaving Mrs. Rutherford out, this is more stupidity than I can account for in you."

"Men are all stupid, of course," Winthrop answered.

"What makes all she has done for me the more remarkable," Garda went on, not heeding his tone, "is the fact that she doesn't really like me, she cannot, I am so different. Yet she goes on being good to me just the same."

Winthrop made an impatient movement. "Suppose we don't talk any more about Mrs. Harold," he said.

"I must talk about her, when I love her and trust her more than anything."

"Don't trust her too much."

She drew her arm from his, indignantly. "One night she came way down the live-oak avenue after me, with only slippers on her poor little feet, to keep me from going out in the fog with Lucian--sailing, I mean. What do you think of that?"

"I don't think anything."

"Yes, you do; your face shows that you do."

"My face shows, perhaps, what I think of the extraordinary duplicity of women," said Winthrop.

"Duplicity? Do you call it duplicity for me to be telling you every single thing I think and feel, as I have done to-day?"

"I was speaking of Mrs. Harold."

"Duplicity and Margaret!" exclaimed Garda.

They had reached the end of the orange aisle, and she no longer had his arm. "I can't discuss her with you, Garda," he said. And he went out into the sunshine beyond.

But Garda followed him. She came round, placed her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him with soft violence back into the shade. "Why do you speak so of her? you shall tell me. Why shouldn't I trust her? But I do and I will in spite of you!"

"Do you mean to marry that man, Garda?" asked Winthrop, at last, as she stood there holding him, her eyes on his, thinking of her no longer as the young girl of his fancy, but as the woman.

"I don't know," answered Garda, her tone altering; "perhaps he won't care for me."

"But if he should care?"

"Oh!" murmured the girl, the most lovely, rapturous smile lighting up her face.

Winthrop contemplated her for a moment. "Very well, then, I think I ought to tell you: she cares for Lucian herself."

Garda's hands dropped. "It isn't possible that you believe that--that you have believed it! Margaret care for Lucian! She doesn't care a straw for him, and since I have begun to care for him again, I verily believe that she has detested him; he knows it too. Margaret care for him! What are you thinking of? I care, not Margaret; I've done nothing but try to be with him, and meet him, and I've seen him more times than she knows. Why--it gave her that fever just because she had to do something for him; that last afternoon before he went away (I promised her I wouldn't tell you; but I don't care, I shall), I had asked Lucian to meet me at the pool in the south-eastern woods, and then I thought that I should rather see him at the house after all, and so I started a little earlier, and was on my way to Madam Giron's, when I came upon Margaret. I had to tell her, because she wanted me to go home with her and of course I couldn't. And then, suddenly, we saw Dr. Kirby coming, and I knew it must be for me--he had found out in some way my plan--and I knew, too, that it would be dreadful if he should meet Lucian; I was sure he would shoot him! And I was going to run over and warn Lucian--there was just time--when Margaret said she would do it, and that I had better go back up the path and stop the Doctor, keep him away from there entirely, if possible, which was, of course, much the best plan. So I did. And she went to Madam Giron's. And I am convinced that it was the cause of her illness--it was so disagreeable to her to be mixed up in anything connected with Lucian."

Garda had poured out this narrative with all the eloquence of the warm affection she had for her friend. Now she stopped. "She doesn't like Lucian because she doesn't understand him," she said. Then she repented. "No, it isn't that, he isn't the person for her. Lucian will do for me; but not for Margaret." And she looked at Winthrop with one of her sudden comprehending glances, clear as a beam of light.

But he did not respond to this. "When you met her that afternoon, Garda, where was she?" he asked; he seemed to be thrusting Garda and her affairs aside now.

"I told you; in the south-eastern woods."

"Yes. But where?"

"In the eastern path, at the end of that long straight stretch beyond the pool--just before you get to the bend."

"And then?"

"Then I went back up the path to meet the Doctor. And Margaret went down the path and across the field to Madam Giron's."

At this instant appeared Celestine. She had gone to the entrance of the aisle which was nearest the house, and looked in; then, seeing that they were at the far end, she had left it and come round on the outside.

For something forbade Celestine to walk down that long vista alone. They would probably hear her and turn; and then there would be the necessity of approaching them for fully five minutes step by step, with the consciousness that they were looking; she could not stare back at them, and yet neither could she look all the time at the sand at her feet--which would be dizzying. Celestine always took care of her dignity in this way; she had a fixed regard for herself as a decent Vermont woman; you could see that in the self-respecting way in which her large neat shoes lifted themselves and came down again when she walked.

"Mrs. Rutherford would like to see you, Mr. Evert, if you please; she isn't so well, she says."

"Nothing serious, Minerva, I hope?"

"I guess there's no occasion to be scairt, Mr. Evert. But she wants you."

"I will come immediately."

Celestine disappeared.

Garda and Winthrop turned back towards the house through the orange aisle.

"Mrs. Rutherford has never known, has she, that we have been engaged?" asked Garda.

"No."

"There is no need that she should ever know, then; she isn't fond of me as it is, and she would detest me forever if she knew there had been a chance of my becoming in reality her niece. I don't want to trouble her any longer with even my unseen presence; I want to go away."

"Where?"

"It doesn't make much difference where. It is only that I am restless, and as I have never been restless before, I thought that perhaps if I should go away for a while, it would stop."

"Yes, you wish to see the world," said Winthrop, vaguely. His mind was not upon Garda now.

"I don't care for 'the world,'" the girl responded. "I only care for the people in it."

Then, in answer to a glance of his as his attention came back to her, "No, I am not going after Lucian," she said; "don't think that. I am almost sure that Lucian will go abroad now; he was always talking about it,--saying that he longed to spend a summer in Venice, and paint everything there. No--but I think I might go to Charleston--the Doctor could take me; he has a cousin there, Mrs. Lowndes; I could stay with her. Margaret will oppose it. But the Doctor is my guardian too, you know; and I hope you will take my part. Of course I should rather go with Margaret anywhere, if she could only go; but she cannot, you know Mrs. Rutherford would never let her. So she will feel called upon--Margaret--to oppose it."

They had now come to the end of the aisle. "Promise me to take my part," said Garda. Then, perceiving that his attention had left her again, "See what I am reduced to!" she confided to the last orange-tree.

Winthrop brought himself back. "I don't see any reason why you shouldn't go to Charleston if the Doctor will take you," he said; "you must speak to him about it."

"Well, I won't keep you; I see you want to go.--All the same, you know, I liked you," she called after him as he went out in the sunshine.

He glanced back, smiling.

But Garda looked perfectly serious. She stood there framed in the light green shade; "I should like ever so much to go back to the time when I first cared for you!" she said, regretfully.

Winthrop found Mrs. Rutherford much excited. Betty, tearful and distressed, met him outside the door, and in whispered words confessed that she had inadvertently betrayed the fact of his engagement, to dear Katrina; "I can't imagine, though, why she should feel about it as she does--as though it was something terrible," concluded the friend, plucking up a little spirit at the end of her confession, and wiping her eyes.

"She won't feel so long," said Winthrop,--"you can take comfort from that; my engagement is broken."

"BROKEN?"

"Yes; by Garda herself, ten minutes ago." And leaving Betty to digest this new intelligence, he went in to see his aunt.

His aunt had had herself put into an arm-chair: an arm-chair was more impressive than a bed. "I feel very ill, Evert," she began, in a faint voice; "I never could have believed that you would deceive me in this way."

"Let me undeceive you, then. My engagement--for I presume it is that you are thinking of--is broken."

"Did you break it, Evert?" pursued Aunt Katrina, still in affliction.

"No, Miss Thorne broke it. Ten minutes ago."

"A forward minx!" said the lady, veering suddenly to heat.

"It is done, at any rate. I suppose you are glad."

"Of course I am glad. But I should be gladder still if I thought I should never see her face again!"

"That is apropos--she is anxious to go to Charleston."

"Let her go," said Aunt Katrina, with majesty.

"She is afraid Margaret will object."

"I shall object if she stays! But oh, Evert, how could you have been caught in such a trap as that, by a perfectly unknown, shallow, mercenary girl?"

"Unknown--for the present, yes; shallow--I am not prepared to say; but mercenary? If she were mercenary, would she have let me off? Would she have broken the engagement herself, as she did ten minutes ago?"

"I wish you wouldn't keep repeating that 'ten minutes,'" said Aunt Katrina, irritably. "Who cares for ten minutes? I wish it were ten years." Then her mind reverted to Garda. "She has some plan," she said.

"I don't think she plans. And now that this trouble is off your mind, my dear aunt, will you excuse me if I leave you? I have still only just arrived, and I was up at dawn. Shall I send Celestine to you?"

"Celestine is busy; she is refolding some lace--Flemish church."

"Your Betty, then."

"My Betty has behaved in the most traitorous way."

"When she was the one to tell you?"

"She should have told me long before."

"Why she, more than any of the rest of us?" asked Winthrop, rising.

"Because she must have made a superhuman effort not to; because she must have fairly kept herself in a strait-jacket to prevent it--in a strait-jacket night and day; for eight long months has Elizabeth Gwinnet done that!"

"Don't you think, then, that you ought to have some pity for her?" suggested Winthrop.

He went out. And then Betty, who was sitting, dazed and dejected, on the edge of a chair outside the door, hurried in, handkerchief in hand, to make her peace with dearest Kate, her long limp black skirt (all Betty's skirts were long) trailing in an eager, humble way behind her.

Winthrop had said that he wished to go to his room. The way to it was not through the drawing-room; yet he found himself in the latter apartment.

Margaret sat there near one of the windows sewing, sewing with that even motion of hand, and absorbed gaze bent on the long seam, which he had told himself more than once that he detested. The heavy wooden shutter was slightly open, so that a beam of light entered and shone across her hair; the rest of the room was in shadow.

Winthrop came towards her; he had closed the door upon entering. She gave him her hand, and they exchanged a few words of formal greeting--inquiry and reply about his journey and kindred matters.

"Garda has broken her engagement to me; I presume you know it," he said.

"I knew she intended to do it."

"She tells me that you have tried to dissuade her?"

"Yes; I thought she did not, perhaps, fully know her own mind."

"We must give up the idea that she is a child," he said. "We have been mistaken, probably, about that all along."

Margaret sewed on without answering.

"You are very loyal to her; you don't let me see that you agree with me."

"I didn't suppose that you meant any disparagement, when you said it."

"She tells me that she doesn't care for me any more." He took a book from the table beside him, and looked absently at its title. "We must allow that she has a great facility as regards change."

"She has a great honesty."

Winthrop sat down--until now he had been standing; he threw aside the book. "You certainly can't approve of it," he said,--"such a disposition?"

He did not pay much heed to what he was saying, he was absorbed in the problem before him; face to face with Margaret, he was asking himself, and with more inward tumult than ever, why she had been so willing to have him think of her, as, after what he had seen, he must think? During his two weeks of absence--the evening before on that long pier in the rain--he had felt a hot anger against her for the unconcern with which she was treating him. But now that he knew the real history of that last afternoon, now that he knew that it was Garda who had planned the meeting with Lucian, Garda, not Margaret, who had been on her way to that solitary house, the problem was more strangely haunting even than before. She had saved Garda from compromising herself in the eyes of the man to whom she was engaged--yes; but she had done it at the expense of compromising herself, Garda, meanwhile, remaining ignorant of the greatness of the sacrifice, since she did not know, as Margaret did, that he, Winthrop, was sitting there in the wood beyond the bend.

Certainly it was an immense thing for one woman to have done for another; you might say, indeed, that there was nothing greater that a woman could do.

Then came again the galling thought that Margaret had not found the task so difficult, simply because she was indifferent as to what his opinion of her might be; she knew that she had not been in any sense of the word to blame--that was enough for her; what he knew, or thought he knew, troubled her little.

But no, that could not be. Margaret Harold was a proud woman--you could see that, quiet as she was, in every delicate line of her face; it was not natural, therefore, that she should willingly rest in the eyes of any one under such an imputation as that. Surely, now that Garda had, of her own accord, broken off her engagement, and confessed (only Garda never "confessed," she merely told) that her old liking for Lucian had risen again, surely now Margaret would throw off the false character that rested upon her, would hasten to do so, would be glad to do so; there was no necessity to shield Garda further. She had made the girl promise not to tell him the real version of the events of that last afternoon; didn't this mean that, if the circumstances should ever change so that it was possible to give the real version, she wished to give it to him herself? The circumstances had changed; and now, wouldn't she take advantage of it? Wouldn't she be glad to explain, at last, the reasons that took her to Madam Giron's that day? Of course she supposed that still he did not know; it would not occur to her that Garda might break her promise.

But still her hand came and went above the white seam. And still she said nothing.

He waited a long time--as long as it was possible to sit there without speaking. Then he went back to his last remark--which she had not answered; annoyed by her silence, he went from bad to worse. "I shall be surprised if you approve of it;--you have such a regard for appearances."

She colored. "I am not very successful in preserving them then, even if I have a regard."

"Oh, you don't mind me," answered Winthrop, in a tone which in spite of himself was openly bitter.

She looked up, he could see that she was much moved. "We must do everything we can for Garda now," she said, rather incoherently, her eyes returning to her work.

"You have done altogether too much for her as it is; I don't think you need trouble yourself so constantly about Garda, you might think for a moment of your other friends."

He was absolutely pleading--he could scarcely believe it of himself. But he wanted so to have her set him right! He wanted her to do it of her own accord--show that she was glad to be able to do it at last. There was no longer any question of saving Garda; Garda had, in her own eyes at least, saved herself. He waited for his answer.

She had given him a frightened glance as he spoke, the expression of his face seemed to take her by surprise, and break down her self-possession. She rose, murmuring something about being obliged to go.

"You are sure you have nothing to say to me, Margaret?" he asked, as she went towards the door.

"Say? What do you mean?"

"I am giving you a chance to explain, I long to have you explain. I find myself unable to believe--" He stopped. Then he began again. "I am sure there is some solution--If I have not always liked your course in other matters, at least I have never thought this of you. You know what I witnessed that afternoon, as I sat there in the woods; one word will be enough--tell me what I must think of it--and of you." He was trying her to the utmost now.

A painful red flush had darkened her face, but, except for that, she did not flinch. "You must think what you please," she answered.

Then she escaped; she had opened the door, and now she went rapidly down the hall towards her own room.

He stood gazing. If he had not known she was innocent, he should have set down her tone to defiance; it was exactly the sort of low-voiced defiance which he had expected from her when he had supposed--what he had supposed.

But his suppositions had been entirely false. Did she still wish him to believe that they were true!

It appeared so.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXIV

Garda Thorne went to Charleston. Margaret gave her consent only after much hesitation; but Dr. Kirby was from the first firmly in favor of the plan. He himself would take his ward to the South Carolina city (for Garda, the Doctor would draw upon his thin purse whether he were able to afford it or not), she should stay with his accomplished cousin Sally Lowndes; thus she would have the best opportunity to see the cultivated society of that dear little town.

This last sentence was partly the Doctor's and partly Winthrop's; the Doctor had spoken thus reverentially of Charleston society, and Winthrop thus admiringly of Charleston itself, which had seemed to him, the first time he beheld it, the prettiest place on the Atlantic coast, a place of marked characteristics of its own, many of them highly picturesque; his use of the word "little" had been affectionate, not descriptive. He had found a charm in the old houses, gable end to the street; in the jealous walls and great gardens; in St. Michael's spire; in the dusky library, full of grand-mannered old English authors in expensive old bindings; in the little Huguenot church; in the old manor-houses on the two rivers that come down, one on each side, to form the beautiful harbor; in the rice fields; in the great lilies. The Battery at sunset, with Fort Moultrie on one hand, the silver beaches round Wagner and the green marsh where the great guns had been on the other, and Sumter on its islet in mid-stream--this was an unsurpassed lounging-place; there was nothing fairer.

The Doctor had been much roused by the breaking of Garda's engagement. Garda had told him that Evert had not been to blame. But the Doctor was not so sure of that. He felt, indeed, that he himself had been to blame, they had all been to blame; ma, Betty Carew, the Moores, Madam Ruiz and the Senor Ruiz, Madam Giron--they had all been asleep, and had let this worst of modern innovations creep upon them unawares. For surely the foundations of society were shaken when the engagement of a young lady of Garda's position could be "broken." "And broken, ma," as he repeated solemnly to his little mother a dozen times, "without cause."

"Well, my son, would you rather have had it broken with?" asked ma at last.

The Doctor had had an interview with Winthrop. And he had been obliged to confess (still to ma) that the northerner had borne himself with courtesy and dignity, had given him nothing to take hold of; he had simply said, in a few words, that Garda had asked to be released, and that of course he had released her.

The Doctor himself had fervently desired that she should be freed. But this made no difference in his astonishment that the thing could really be done, had already been brought about. Garda had wished it; he himself had wished it; and Winthrop had obeyed their wish. Nevertheless, Reginald Kirby was a prey to rage, he was sure that somebody ought to be severely handled. In the mean while it seemed a wise course to take Garda to other scenes.

Adolfo Torres returned from Cuba before Garda's departure. He bade her good-by with his usual gravity; then, exactly three hours later, he started for Charleston himself. He kept punctiliously just that amount of time behind her, it was part of his method; on this occasion the method caused some discomfort, since, owing to the small number of trains in that leisurely land, it obliged him to travel with the freight all the way.

A week later a letter came to Evert Winthrop. It was a letter which gave him a sharp surprise.

It bore the postmark of the little post-office out in the St. John's where he had sat in the rain, and the contents were as follows:

"DEAR OLD LAD,--I am here--on the river. Could you come over for a day? I am very anxious to see you.

"LANSING HAROLD."

At the last intelligence, Lanse had been in Rome.

There was a scrawled postscript:

"Say nothing, I write only to you."

Winthrop's relations with Margaret since they had parted, on the day of his return, at the drawing-room door, had been of the scantiest; they had scarcely exchanged a word. She avoided him; he said to himself that she had turned into ice; but this was not a truthful comparison, for ice does not look troubled, and Margaret looked both troubled and worn. When he was present she was impassive; but her very impassiveness showed--but what did it show? He could think of no solution that satisfied him any more than he could think of a solution of the mystery of her apparent desire that he should continue to believe of her what he had believed.

And now, to make things more complicated, Lanse had dropped down upon them!

Winthrop made a pretext of another hunting expedition, drove over to the river, and embarked again upon the slow old Hernando, which brought him in due course to the long pier; here, sitting in the United States chair, was Harold.

It was a long time since Winthrop had seen Lanse. He thought him much altered. His figure had grown larger; though he was still but forty-one, none of the outlines of youth were left, there was only an impression of bulk. His thick dark hair was mixed with gray, as also his short beard; and the beard could not conceal the increased breadth of the lower part of the face, the slight lap-over of the cheeks above the collar. His dark eyes, with the yellow lights in them, were dull; his well-cut mouth was a little open, giving him a blank expression, as though he were half asleep.

But when this expression changed, as it did when the silent postmaster suggested, by a wave of the hand, that his guest should move the government chair a little in order not to be in the way of the passengers who might land, the alteration was so complete, though not a feature stirred, that Winthrop laughed; Lanse serenely stared at the 'coon-skin-hatted man as though he did not exist; his gaze restored perfectly, for himself at least, the space of light and air which that public servant was mistakenly filling.

All this Winthrop witnessed from the deck, as the Hernando was slowly swinging her broad careening side towards the pier. Lanse had not recognized his figure among the motley crowd of voyagers collected at the railing; it was not until the ropes had been made fast by the postmaster (who was also wharf-master, showing much activity in that avocation), and the plank put out, that the lessening crowd brought Winthrop's figure more into relief. He waved his hand again to Lanse; and then Lanse, springing up, responded, and all the old look came back; the dulness vanished, the heaviness became subordinate to the brightening eyes and the smile, he waved his hand in return. They met with gladness; Lanse seemed delighted to see his cousin, and Winthrop had never forgotten his old affection for the big, good-natured, handsome lad of his boyhood days.

The pier was soon left to them; every one else departed, and the two men, strolling up and down, talked together.

At length Lanse said: "Well, I'm glad Margaret's as you describe" (but Winthrop had not described her); "for I might as well tell you at once what I'm down here for--I want her to come back."

"Come back?"

"Yes. I have her promise to come; but women are so insufferably changeable."

"She isn't."

"Isn't she? So much the better for me, then; for she knew the worst of me when she made that promise, and if by a miracle she has remained in the same mind, my road will be easy."

"I don't mean to push myself into your confidence, Lanse," said Winthrop, after a moment's silence; "but I think I will say here that I have always as strongly as possible disapproved of her course in leaving you." He made himself say this. It was true, and say it he would.

Lanse laughed, and turned down the brim of his soft hat to keep the sun from his eyes. "I'm not going to lie about it," he answered. "I would have told you at any time if you had asked me; she couldn't help leaving me."

Winthrop stared.

"It's a funny world," Lanse went on. "Come along up and get something to eat; then we'll go off in the canoe, and I'll tell you the whole story; you've got to hear it if you're to help."

An hour later the two men were floating away from the pier in a small boat built upon the model of the Indian's birch-bark canoe. Lanse, an expert in this as in almost all kinds of out-door exercise, wielded the paddle with ease, while Winthrop faced him, reclining in the bottom of the boat; it could only hold two. Lightly it sped out towards deep water, the slightest motion sent it forward; its sides were of such slender thickness that the two men could feel the breathing of the great soft stream, which had here a breadth of three miles, though in sight, both above and below, it widened into six. These broad water stretches were tranquil; from shore to shore the slow, full current swept majestically on; and even to look across the wide, still reaches, with the tropical forests standing thickly on their low strands, was a vision of peace for the most troubled human soul.

Kildee plover flew chattering before the canoe while they were still near land. Far above in the blue a bald-headed eagle sailed along. Lanse chose to go out to the centre of the stream--Lanse never skirted the edge of anything; reaching it, he turned southward, and they voyaged onward for nearly an hour.

He did not appear disposed to begin his narrative immediately; and Winthrop asked no questions. Every now and then each indulged in a retrospective remark; but these remarks concerned themselves only with the days of their boyhood, they brought up the old jokes, and called each other by the old names. Winthrop, after a while, branching off a little, suggested that this warm brown tide, winding softly through the beautiful low green country, was something to remember--on a January day, say, in a manufacturing town at the North, when a raw wind was sweeping the streets, when the horse-cars were bumping along between miniature hills of muddy ice, when all complexions were dubious and harassed, and the constantly dropping flakes of soot from myriad chimneys failed to convey a suggestion of warmth, but rather brought up (to the initiated) a picture of chill half-heated bedrooms, where these same harassed complexions must undergo more torture from soap and water in the effort to remove the close-clinging marks of the "black snow."

"Oh, confound your manufacturing town!" Lanse answered.

"I can't; I'm a manufacturer myself," was Winthrop's response.

At length Lanse turned the canoe towards the western shore. A creek emptied into the river at this point, a creek which had about the breadth of the Thames at Westminster; Lanse entered the creek. Great ragged nests of the fish-hawks crowned many of the trees here, making them resemble a group of light-houses at the creek's mouth. They met an old negro on a raft, who held up a rattlesnake which he seemed to think they would admire. "Fibe foot en eight inch, boss, en ferteen rattles."

"That's African Joe," said Lanse. "I've already made his acquaintance; he was born in Africa.--You old murderer, what do you want for showing us that poor reptile you have put an end to?"

Old Joe, a marvel of negro old age, grinned as Lanse tossed him a quarter. "'Gater, massa," he said, pointing.

It was a black lump like the end of a floating log,--an alligator submerged all but that inch or two of head.

"That's the place I'm looking for, I think," said Lanse; "I was up here yesterday."

And with two or three strong strokes of the paddle he sent the canoe round a cape of lily-pads, into the mouth of a smaller creek which here came, almost unobserved, into the larger one. It was a stream narrow but deep, which took them into the forest. Here they floated over reflections so perfect of the trees draped in silver moss on shore that it was hard to tell where reality ended and the picture began. Great turtles swam along down below, water-moccasins slipped noiselessly into the amber depths from the roots of the trees as the canoe drew near; alligators began to show themselves more freely; the boat floated noiselessly over one huge fellow fifteen feet long.

Lanse was aroused. "I tell you, old lad, this isn't bad," he said.

"I don't care about it," Winthrop answered; "it's sensational."

Over this remark Lanse indulged in a retrospective grin. "Old!" he said. "You've been getting that off ever since you were twenty. Who was it that called Niagara 'violent?' The joke is that, at heart, you yourself are the most violent creature I know."

"Oh--talk about hearts!" said Winthrop.

The trees now began to meet overhead; when their branches interlaced so that the shade was complete, Lanse tied the boat-rope to a bough, stretched himself out in his end of the boat, lit a cigarette, and looked at his companion. "Now for the story," he said. "I tell you because I want your help; I am sure that Margaret has the highest opinion of you."

"She has none at all. She detests me."

"No!" said Lanse, using the word as an exclamation. "How comes that? You must have been very savage to her?"

"I have always been against her about you."

"Has Aunt Katrina been savage too?"

"She has given her a home, at any rate."

"And a pretty one it must have been, if she has looked, while about it, as you look now," Lanse commented.

"Never mind my looks. I don't know that your own are any better. What have you to say?"

"One thing more, first. How much has Margaret told?"

"Nothing. That is, nothing to me."

"I meant Aunt K."

"How should I know?" said Winthrop, shortly. Then he made himself speak with more truth. "Aunt Katrina complains that Margaret has never said a word."

"Yet you've all been disapproving of her all this time! Now I call that a specimen of the fixed injustice so common among nice people," said Lanse, musingly. He was sorry for the nice people.

"Before you criticise, let us see how well you have behaved," suggested his companion.

"Oh, I don't pretend to be a well-regulated character. Let me see--I shall have to go back to the beginning to make you understand. I don't know whether you know how Margaret was brought up? She had always lived in the country; not a village--the old Cruger place was three miles from everywhere; there she lived with her grandmother and her grandmother's friends, not a young person among them; she hadn't even been to school--always a governess at home. She was only seventeen when I first saw her; we were there in the house together--Aunt Katrina's--and I was at the time more in the dumps than I had ever been in my life. I had just come back from abroad, as you know; and the reason I had come back, which you don't know, was because some one (never mind who--not an American) had gone off and married under my nose a man with a million--several of them if you count in French. As I had expected to marry her myself, you may imagine whether I enjoyed it. Feeling pretty well cut up, smarting tremendously, if I must confess it, it seemed to me, after a while, that it wouldn't be a bad idea to marry Margaret Cruger. I couldn't feel worse than I did, and maybe I might feel better, she was very sweet in her way; I don't pretend that I was ever in love with her, but I liked her from the first. I have always had a fancy for young girls," pursued Lanse, taking off his hat and putting it behind his head as a pillow; "when they're not forward (American girls are apt to be forward, though without in the least knowing it), they're enchanting. The trouble is that they can't stay young forever; they don't know anything, and of course they have to learn, and that process is tiresome; it would be paradise if a girl of seventeen could sit down like a woman of thirty, and paradise isn't intended, I suppose, to come just yet."

"Don't talk your French to me," said Winthrop; "I don't admire it."

"That's another of your shams. Yes, you do. But it's perfectly true that a young girl can no more sit down with grace than she can listen with grace."

"Yes; you want to talk."

"On the contrary, I don't want to, I want to be silent; but I want them to know how to listen to my silence. Well, I won't go into the details. She was so young--Margaret--that I easily made her believe that I couldn't live without her, that I should go to the bad direct unless she would take charge of me--a thing that is apt to succeed with young girls when they're conscientious (as Margaret was), unless they happen to care for some one else; Margaret didn't care for any one else, and so she was caught. We were married; and I give you my word I fully intended to treat her as well as I knew how. But--ill luck got mixed with it."

Here Lanse changed his position again, and clasping his hands under his head, gazed up at the dense green above. "Let's hope a moccasin won't take a walk out on one of those branches and fall down; they do it sometimes, I know. We had not been married long, Margaret and I, when the other one wrote to me."

"Nice sort of person."

"Precisely. But I cared more about her than I did about any one in the world, and that makes a difference. I thought she wrote to me because she couldn't help it--in short, because she cared so much for me. That's taking. And now here's where ill luck took a hand. Did I intend to let any of this in the least touch Margaret--interfere with her? As far as possible from it; my intention was that she should never know or dream of it, it was all to be kept religiously from her. Why--I wouldn't have had her know it for anything, first on her own account, then on mine; the wife of Lansing Harold," went on Lanse, smiling a little at himself, yet evidently meaning exactly what he said, "must be above suspicion, by which I intend the verb, not the noun; up to thirty, she must be too innocent to suspect. But what do you suppose came next? By the most extraordinary chance in the world Margaret herself got hold of one of my letters to--to the other person. She came upon the loose sheets by accident, and thought it was something that I must have been writing some time to her; she never imagined that it was to any one else, or she wouldn't have read it, she was punctiliousness itself in such matters; but her eyes happened to fall first upon the middle sheet, where there was no name, and the--'the language,' as she afterwards expressed it, made her believe that it was addressed to herself; a man could only write in that way to his wife, she supposed. But at the end she was undeceived, for there she found the other name. Of course we had a scene when I came home. I was horribly annoyed by what had happened, but I did my best to be nice to her. I told her that it was a miserable accident in every way, her coming upon that letter, that I could never forgive myself for having left it where I did; I told her that I could perfectly understand that it had been a great shock to her--a shock that I was more sorry for than she could possibly be. But as it had happened, we must both make the best of it, and her 'best' was simply to forget all about it as soon as she could,--it was wonderful how much one could forget if one tried; I could assure her that nothing should ever touch her position as my wife, there should be no breath upon that; always I should give her in the eyes of all the world the first honor, the first place. You see, it was the best I could do. I couldn't deny the letter; it was in my own handwriting, it even had a date; and it wasn't a letter, either, that you could explain away. But I couldn't do anything with her. I don't mean that she argued or combated, she seemed all broken to pieces; she sat there looking at me with a sort of wonder and horror combined. Before night she was ill--a fever. She was ill three weeks, and I was as nice to her all that time as I possibly could be, I brought her lovely flowers every day. As she grew better, I hoped we were going to go on in peace; certainly the last thing I wanted was a quarrel with her. But--women are bound to be fools! no sooner was she able to sit up than she took the first chance to ask me (there had been a nurse about before) whether I had abandoned that dreadful affair. I suppose I could have lied to her, if I was going to do it, that was the time. But, as it happens, I don't lie, it has never been one of my accomplishments. So I told her that she ought to treat such things as a lady should,--that is, not descend to them; and I told her furthermore that she ought to treat this one as my wife should. When I said that, I remember she looked at me as if she were in a sort of stupor; you see, to her sense, she was treating it as my wife should," commented Lanse, telling his own story, as he felt himself, with much impersonal fairness. "All this time, of course, I had had to postpone everything; she continued to improve, and I took the ground of saying nothing. When another month had passed, and she was perfectly well again, I mentioned one day, carelessly, and before some one else, that I thought I should try a little summer trip of thirty days or so across the ocean and back; I shouldn't take her, because she wasn't as fond of the sea as I was, and twenty of the thirty days would be spent afloat; she would be much more comfortable at home--we had taken a pretty house at New Rochelle for the year. She didn't make any especial comment then, but as soon as she could get me alone I saw that it had all been of no use--my patience and my waiting; she was determined to talk. Her point was that I must not go. I am not very yielding, as you know; but she was even more obstinate than I was; it was owing to the ideas she had about such things, she wasn't a Roman Catholic, but she thought marriage a sacrament--almost. I got in a few words on that side myself, I told her that she seemed to have a singular idea of a wife's duties; one of them was generally supposed to be to guard her husband's name, which was also her own; but, that while I wished to occasion no talk, no scandal, she was doing her very best to stir up both by having an open quarrel with me. And then I asked her what she proposed to do? I suppose I looked ugly. She got up and stood there, holding on to the back of a chair; 'I must go with you,' she said. 'I can't take you,' I told her. And then she said that she could follow me. That, I confess, put me in a rage, I was never angrier in my life. I imagined her appearing upon the scene there in Paris! A pretty spectacle I should be, followed about and tracked down by a wife of that age--a wife, too, who was acting solely from a sense of duty; with her school-girl face, that was a combination rather too ridiculous for any man to stand. To cut the story short, I left her then and there. That night I slept at a hotel, and the next day I sailed; I had changed my plan of travel, in order that she should not know for some time where I was; but I think I frightened her sufficiently about following me before I left her. I not only expressly forbade it, but I told her that she wouldn't be received in case she should try it; there would be standing orders to that effect left with the servants. I should never touch any more of her money, I told her (I never have to this day); she could set going any story she pleased about me, and I wouldn't contradict it; that would leave her very easy; on my side I should simply say nothing, and I should cause no scandal, she might be sure of that So I went off. On the other side I found a letter from her--she didn't know my address, but she had sent it to my lawyer; I've brought that letter along for you to see, it will give you a better idea of her, as she was at the time, than any of my descriptions." And he took from his pocket-book an old envelope, and tossed it across.

Winthrop opened the envelope; it contained a small sheet of paper, upon which, in a youthful immature handwriting, these words were written:

"MY DEAR LANSE,--I have stayed here by myself all day. And I have been very unhappy. I have not let anybody know that you were gone.

"I feel as though I must have done wrong, and yet I don't know how.

"Perhaps you will come back. I shall hope that you will. I will wait here for your answer.

"I will come to you at any time if--you know what. And I hope you will soon send for me.

"Your affectionate wife,

"MARGARET."

"You see there's no trace of jealousy," Lanse commented, in his generalizing way; "she wasn't jealous, because she wasn't in love with me--never had been. Of course she thought she loved me--she never would have married me otherwise; but the truth was that at that time she had no more conception of what real love is than a little snow image: that was one of the reasons why I had first liked her. I've no doubt she was horribly miserable when she wrote that letter, as she says she was. But there was no love in her misery, it was all duty; I grant you that with her that was a tremendously strong feeling. Well, I answered her letter, I told her she had better go and live with Aunt Katrina as before, that that was the best place for her. I told her that I should stay where I was for the present, and on no account was she to try to follow me; that was the one thing I would not endure; I had to frighten her about that, because she had so much obstinacy--steadfastness if you like--that if I had not done so, and effectually, she would certainly have started in pursuit--prayer-book in hand, poor child! She wrote to me once more, repeating her offer to come whenever I should wish it; but I didn't wish it then, and didn't answer. Eight years have passed, and I haven't answered yet. But now I think I shall try it."

Winthrop had sat gazing at the little sheet, with the faded girlish handwriting. Hot feelings were surging within him, he felt that he must take a firm hold of himself; this made his manner calm. "What do you want of her?" he said. "Aunt Katrina couldn't get on a day without her."

"Aunt Katrina would give her up to me," said Lanse, securely. (And Winthrop knew that this was true.) "What do I want of her? I want to have a home of my own again, a place where I can be comfortable; I want to have a place where I can keep all my shoes. I am not as young as I once was; I don't mind telling you that I've had one or two pretty serious attacks--rheumatism threatening the heart. It's time to be old, to take in sail; I'm a reformed character, and I don't see why Margaret shouldn't come and carry on the good work--especially as she has promised. The one danger is that she may have begun to--But I hardly think that."

"That she may have begun to hate you?" said Winthrop. "Yes, I should think that highly probable." He still held the poor little letter, the childlike, bewildered appeal of the deserted young wife.

"No, I didn't mean that," Lanse answered; "I meant that she might have begun to care for some one else; really care, you know. But I don't believe it. If it were only that she had begun to hate me, that would be nothing; she would think it very wrong to hate me (though she might not be able to help it), and that would make her come back to me all the quicker."

Winthrop looked at him from under his tilted hat--he had tilted it forward over his eyes. "I should think it would make you sick to ask her," he said--"sick with shame!"

"It isn't the least shameful, it's the right thing to do," responded Lanse. "But which side are you on, Ev? You seem to be all over the field."

"Never mind which side I'm on. You can't take her up and drop her in that way."

"You've got it mixed. I dropped her eight years ago; now I'm taking her up again. And if she is as I think she is, she will be glad to come."

"Oh!" said Winthrop, with angry scorn.

"She'll be glad, because she's my wife--she's a stickler for that sort of thing. She is a very good woman; that's the advantage of having a really good woman for your wife--you can rely upon her whether she likes you or not--likes you very much, I mean. But I begin to think you don't know her as well as I do, in spite of the time you have had."

"Know her? I don't know her in the least! I have never known her--I see that now."

At this moment they heard the dip of an oar, and stopped. Coming down the narrow stream behind them, appeared a rude craft manned by a very black boy and a very white baby. The boat was a long, rough dug-out, and the boy was paddling; his passenger, a plump child of about three, had the bleached skin of the Florida cracker, and flaxen hair of the palest straw-color. An immense calico sun-bonnet lay across its knee, and, after a slow stare with twisted neck at the two strangers, it lifted and put on this penthouse; to put it on was probably its idea of "manners." The penthouse, in fact, represented the principal part of its attire, there was nothing else but a little red petticoat.

But if the passenger was dignified, the oarsman was not; delighted to see anybody, the little darky had showed his white teeth in a perpetual grin from the moment the canoe had appeared in sight.

Lanse always noticed children. "Where have you been, Epaminondas?" he said, with pretended severity. "What are you doing here?"

Epaminondas, at the first suggestion of conversation, had stopped paddling. He accepted with cheerfulness the improvised name. "Ben atter turkles, boss. But I 'ain't fin' none."

"What is the name of that young lady you have with you?"

"Gin," answered Epaminondas, with an even more extensive smile than before.

"The whole of it, I mean; I know there's more."

"Trufe, boss, der sholy is," responded Epaminondas, impressed by this omniscience. "Gin's wat dey calls her mosely; but Victoryne John Mungumry Gin--dat's de hull ob it. Victoryne en John Mungumry is folks wat her ma knew whar she come fum, up in Alabawm, en she wanted to membunce 'em someways, so she called Gin atter 'em. En Gin--dat's Virginny--wuz de name ob her daddy's folks, dey tole me."

"I am surprised that her family should allow Miss Montgomery to be out without her nurse," Lanse went on.

"She 'ain't got no nuss," Epaminondas answered. "En I hev to tote her mos' er der time, en she's hebby--she am dat! En so ter-day I 'lowed I'd rudder take her in de boat a wiles." He looked anxiously at Lanse as he made this explanation; he was a thin little fellow of about ten, and Miss Montgomery was decidedly solid.

"I'm inclined to think, my man, that you're out without leave; I advise you to go home as fast as you can. And mind you keep the boat straight."

"Yas, boss," answered Epaminondas, glad to escape, and plying his paddle again.

He gave a "Ki!" of delight as a silver coin fell at his feet. "Don't stop to pick it up now," said Lanse. "Go on with Miss Montgomery; restore her to her parents as soon as possible."

Epaminondas bent to his oar; the two men looked after him as the boat went on its way towards the outer creek.

Suddenly, "Good God!" cried Lanse, springing to his feet.

He had to unloose the rope; but he did that in an instant, and, seizing the paddle, he sent the canoe flying down-stream after the dug-out.

Epaminondas, toiling at his oar, had not gone thirty feet when Lanse had seen a large moccasin drop from a branch above directly into the long narrow boat as it passed beneath; the creature fell midway between the children, who occupied the two ends.

Quick as a flash the little negro had jumped overboard. But that was instinct; he would not desert the white child, and swam on, holding by the boat's side and screaming shrilly.

Meanwhile Miss Montgomery sat composedly in her place; she did not appear at all disturbed.

Winthrop had no oar, so he could not help. Lanse, standing up, forced the canoe through the water rapidly; but before he could bring it up where he could seize the child, the little darky, who had not ceased to swim round and round the drifting craft, announced with a yell, as his curly black head peered for one instant over the side, that the snake was coiling for a spring.

Then Lanse gave a mighty plunge into the stream, and, keeping himself up with one hand, snatched the girl and dragged her overboard by main force with the other, handing her in safety to Winthrop, who had taken the paddle and kept the canoe along. Lanse and the little darky then swam ashore, and stepped into the canoe again from the roots of a large tree, which served them for a landing.

They were both wet through, of course. But Epaminondas was amphibious, his single garment, a pair of trousers, could be as well dried upon his small person as upon a bush. With Lanse it was different. But at present Lanse was excited, nothing would do but to go after that snake which was now luxuriously voyaging down the stream in a boat of its own; taking the paddle, he sent the canoe in chase.

Standing up as he drew near, he announced that the moccasin was motionless in the bottom of the dug-out.

His next announcement was that it was "rather a pretty fellow."

Then, still standing up and gazing, "I can't kill the poor creature," he said; "I don't suppose he meant any harm when he dropped--had no idea there was a boat there." Sending the canoe towards the land again, he went ashore and found, after some search, a long branch; with this he paddled back, and then, brandishing it at arm's-length, he tilted the dug-out, by its aid, so far over on one side, that the moccasin, perceiving that the element he preferred was conveniently near, with silent swiftness joined it. Through all this scene, Miss Montgomery, plump and dry--Lanse had held her above the water--remained serenely indifferent; she sat in her sun-bonnet on Winthrop's knee, and preserved her dignity unbroken.

"Shucks!" said Epaminondas (now that the enemy had departed), expectorating, with an air of experience, into the stream; "I is seed 'em twicet ez bigger lots er times!"

Lanse, resuming his seat, wiped his forehead. His leap had been a strong exertion, and already his face showed the fatigue; he was a heavy man, and out of practice in such gymnastics.

"Have you any more notions to carry out?" inquired Winthrop. "I've been spinning back and forth in this boat about as long as I care for."

"Come, now, wasn't that a good deed?" asked Lanse (Lanse always wanted praise). "I call it brutal to kill a poor creature simply because he's got no legs."

"You didn't happen to have your revolver with you, I suppose," Winthrop answered, refusing to bestow the applause.

"Never carried one in my life; cowardly things!" responded Lanse, in a disgusted tone. He was hard at work paddling, in order to keep off a chill.

Epaminondas was put ashore at his own landing on the outer creek, and departed up a sandy path, leading Miss Montgomery, his pockets unwontedly heavy with coin. He looked back as long as he could see them, throwing up and waving his ragged straw hat.

But Miss Montgomery never turned; she plodded steadily homeward on her fat white legs--all of her that could be seen below the sun-bonnet.

Lanse's efforts to avoid a chill were apparently successful that night. But the next morning he sent for Winthrop at an early hour. Winthrop found him with a strange pallor on his face, he said he was in great pain. A physician staying in the house was summoned; it was the rheumatism Lanse had spoken of; but this time it did not merely threaten the heart, it had attacked it.

For twelve hours there was danger. Then there was a lull. The lull was followed by something which had the appearance of a partial paralysis of the lower limbs. Lanse's head was now clear, but he was helpless. The physician said that he could not be moved at present; in two weeks or so he should be better able to name a day for that.

To Winthrop, in confidence, he said that in two weeks or so he should be better able to tell whether there was a chance that the present benumbed condition would wear off; it might be that Lanse would never be able to sit erect again.

"A pretty fix, isn't it?" Lanse said, on the morning of the second day, as, opening his eyes, he found himself alone with his cousin. "Apparently I'm in for it this time; not going to die, but laid up with a vengeance. Well, the ship's fast in port at last. I suppose now you've no objection to bringing Margaret over--provided, of course, she will come?"

Great was Katrina Rutherford's joy and triumph when she heard that her "boy," her Lanse, was so near her; "only over on the river, a short day's journey from here." She had "always known" that he would come, and now it was proved that she had been right; she hoped they appreciated it (Her "they" meant Winthrop and Margaret.) Spare Margaret? Of course she could spare her. Margaret's place was with her husband; and especially now was it her place if he were not well (Aunt Katrina had not been told how ill Lanse was). It was a great mistake, besides, to suppose that Margaret was so necessary to her; Margaret was not in the least necessary, that was one of their fancies; Celestine was much more useful; Looth too. But the point now was, not to talk about who was useful, the point was to have Margaret go; what was she waiting for, Aunt Katrina would like to be informed.

Winthrop, upon reaching East Angels, had asked for Margaret.

"I want to speak to you," he said; "it won't take long, but we mustn't be interrupted. Any empty room will do."

His manner had changed; he did not wait for her answer, but led the way himself across the hall to the "boudoir" of the Old Madam, now never used; nothing had been altered there since the Old Madam's departure, even Mrs. Thorne, with her persistent desire to make everything serve some present use, had left this room untouched.

Winthrop closed the door, they stood there among the Old Madam's stiff chairs; everything was covered with embroidery, her own work; there was a fierce-looking portrait of her on the wall.

"Lanse is here," said Winthrop; "I mean over on the river. He is ill. He wants you to come to him."

At his first words Margaret had given a great start. For a moment she did not speak. Then she stammered, "Did you say--did you say he was ill?" She spoke almost inaudibly.

"It's something like paralysis. I don't know whether it's really that; but at any rate he's helpless."

"Has he asked for me?"

"He has sent me to bring you."

"Did he give you a letter--a note?"

"No; he told me to bring you."

"Are you sure he told you that?"

"Good heavens! if I were not sure I should be a great deal better off. Why do you keep asking me? Isn't it bad enough for me to have to say it at all? But he is ill, and that makes everything different. I couldn't have stood it otherwise."

"Stood--"

"Stood your going to him."

"I must go to him if he is ill."

"Ill--yes; that's the only thing that--" He stopped, and stood looking at her.

"I am afraid he is very ill."

"Yes, he is very ill. But I'm not thinking about Lanse now. I know everything, Margaret--everything except why you have wished, why you have been determined, that I should think of you in the way I have,--that is, with such outrageous, such cruel wrong. Lanse has told me the whole story of his leaving you, not your leaving him. And before that, Garda had told me what really happened that afternoon in the woods. Why have you treated me in this way! Why?"

Margaret, whiter than he had ever seen her, stood before him, her hands tightly clasped. She looked like a person strained up to receive a blow.

"If you could only know how I feel when I think what you have been through, and what the truth really was," Winthrop went on; "when I remember my own stupidity, and dense obstinacy, all those years. I can never atone for that, Margaret; never."

Lanse's wife put out her hand, like a person who feels her way, as she went towards the door. "Don't stop me," she said; "I cannot talk now."

Her voice was so strained and husky that he hardly knew it.

She went hastily out.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXV

Lansing Harold was unable to move from his bed, or in his bed, for a number of weeks. During much of this time, also, he suffered from severe pain.

Dr. Kirby assured Aunt Katrina that the pain was a favorable symptom; it indicated that there was no torpor; and with time, patience, and self-denial, therefore, there would be hope of a cure.

"Lanse isn't patient," Aunt Katrina admitted. "But I have always thought him extremely self-denying; see how he has allowed Margaret, for instance, to do as she pleased." For Aunt Katrina now regarded the Doctor as an intimate personal friend.

The Doctor went over to see Lanse three times a week, Winthrop's horses taking him to the river and bringing him back. On the other days the case was intrusted to the supervision of the local practitioner, or rather to his super-audition, for as Lanse, after the first interview, refused to see him again (he called him a water-wagtail), Margaret was obliged to describe as well as she could to the baffled man the symptoms and general condition of his patient--a patient who was as impatient as possible with every one, including herself.

But save for this small duty, Margaret had none of the responsibilities of a nurse; two men were in attendance. She had sent to Savannah for them, Lanse having declared that he infinitely preferred having men about him--"I can swear at them, you know, when the pain nips me. I can't swear at you yet--you're too much of a stranger." This he brought out in the scowling banter which he had used when speaking to her ever since her arrival. The scowl, however, came from his pain.

He was able to move only his head; in addition to the suffering, the confinement was intolerably irksome to a man of his active habits and fondness for out-door life. Under the course of treatment prescribed by Dr. Kirby he began to improve; but the improvement was slow, and he made it slower by his unwillingness to submit to rules. At the end of two months, however, he was able to use his hands and arms again, they could raise him to a sitting position; the attacks of pain came less frequently, and when they did come it was at night. This gave him his days, and one of the first uses he made of his new liberty was to have himself carried in an improvised litter borne by negroes, who relieved each other at intervals, to a house which he had talked about, when able to talk, ever since he was stricken down. This house was not in itself an attractive abode. But Lanse violently disliked being in a hotel; he had noticed the place before his illness, and thinking of it as he lay upon his bed, he kept declaring angrily that at least he should not feel "hived in" there. The building, bare and solitary, stood upon a narrow point which jutted sharply into the river, so that its windows commanded as uninterrupted a view up and down stream as that enjoyed by the little post-office at the end of the pier; it had the look of a signal-station.

It had not always been so exposed. Once it was an embowered Florida residence, shaded by many trees, clothed in flowering vines.

But its fate was to be purchased at the close of the war by a northerner, who, upon taking possession, had immediately stripped the old mansion of all its blossoming greenery, had cut down the stately trees which stood near, had put in a dozen new windows, and had then painted the whole structure a brilliant, importunate white. This process he called "making it wholesome."

This northerner, not having succeeded in teaching the southern soil how to improve itself, had returned to the more intelligent lands of colder climates; he was obliged to leave his house behind him, and he contemplated with hope the possibility of renting it "for a water-cure." Why a water-cure no one but himself knew. He was a man haunted by visions of water-cures.

Lansing Harold had no intention of trying hydropathy, unless the wide view of the river from all his windows could be called that. But he said that if he were there, at least he should not feel "jostled."

Jostled he certainly was not, he and his two attendants, Margaret and the colored servants she had with some difficulty obtained, had much more the air of Robinson Crusoes and Fridays on their island; for the hotel, which was the nearest house, was five miles distant, and not in sight, and the river was so broad that only an occasional smoke told that there were abodes of men opposite on the low hazy shore.

Once established in his new quarters, Lanse advanced rapidly towards a more endurable stage of existence. He was still unable to move his legs; but he could now bear being lifted into a canoe, and, once in, with a cushion behind him, he could paddle himself over the smooth water with almost as much ease as ever. He sent for a canoe which was just large enough to hold him; boat and occupant seemed like one person, so perfectly did the small craft obey the motion of his oar. One of his men was always supposed to accompany him; the two boats generally started together from the little home pier; but Lanse soon invented a way of ordering his follower to "wait" for him at this point or that, while he took "a run" up some creek that looked inviting. The "run" usually proved the main expedition of the day, and the "waiting" would be perhaps five hours long,--the two attendants could not complain of overwork; they soon learned, however, to go to sleep comfortably in the bottom of the boat. Oftenest of all, Lanse and his canoe went up the Juana; the Jana came from the Monnlungs Swamp; as the spring deepened, and all the flowers came out, Lanse and his little box went floating up to the Monnlungs almost every day.

Mrs. Rutherford had not seen her "boy;" he could not yet endure the motion of any carriage, even the easiest, across the long miles of pine-barren that lay between the river and East Angels, and it would require a brigade or two of negroes, so he said, to carry him all that distance in his litter. As soon as he should feel himself able to undertake so long a journey, he promised to go by steamer to the mouth of the St. John's; here the Emperadora could meet him and take him southward by sea to the harbor of Gracias, thence down the lagoon to the landing of East Angels itself.

Aunt Katrina was therefore waiting. But this was a condition of things which somebody was very apt to be enjoying where Lanse was concerned. Lanse had a marked contempt for what he called a "panting life." Under these circumstances, as he never panted himself, there was apt to be somebody else who was panting; by a little looking about one could have found, almost every day, several persons who had the reverse side of his leisurely tastes to bear.

Aunt Katrina, in bearing hers, at least had her Betty; now that Margaret was absent, this good soul remained constantly at East Angels, not returning to her home at all. She led a sort of camping-out existence, however, for dear Kate never asked her to bring down a trunk and make herself comfortable; dear Kate always took the tone that her friend would return home, probably, "about the day after to-morrow." Betty, therefore, had with her only her old carpet-bag, which, though voluminous, had yet its limits; she was constantly obliged to contrive secret methods of getting necessary articles down from Gracias. She lived in this make-shift manner for a long stretch of weeks, heroically wearing her best gown all the time, because to have sent for the second best would have appeared to dear Kate like preparation for a longer visit than she seemed to think she should at present require.

Every day dear Kate wrote a little note of affectionate inquiry to Lanse. These notes were piled up in a particular place in the house on the river; after the first three or four, Lanse never read them. About twice a week Margaret would take it upon herself to reply; and then Mrs. Rutherford would say, "As though I wanted Margaret Cruger's answers!" She explained to Betty that Margaret purposely kept Lanse from writing. And then Betty would shake her head slowly with her lips pursed up, but without venturing further answer; for she had already got herself into trouble with Katrina by expatiating warmly upon the "great comfort" it must be to "poor Mr. Harold" to have his wife with him once more.

"Nothing of the sort!" had been Katrina's brief response.

"Such a comfort to her, then, poor dear, to be able to devote herself to him in this time of trial."

"Margaret devote herself!"

"Well, at least, dear Kate, it must be a great comfort to you to have them together again, as they ought to be, of course," pursued Betty, hopefully. "It may be--who knows?--probably it will be without doubt, the beginning of a true reconciliation, a true home."

"True fiddle-sticks! It shouldn't be, then, in my opinion, even if it could be; Margaret Cruger has been much too leniently dealt with. After deserting her husband as she has done entirely all these years, she shouldn't have been taken back so easily, she should have been made to go down on her knees before he forgave her."

"Dear me! do you really think so?" said Betty, dismayed by this picture. "And Mrs. Harold has so much sweet dignity, too."

"It should be stripped from her then, it's all hum; what right has Margaret Cruger to such an amount of dignity? Is she Alexandra, Princess of Wales, may I ask?"

"Do you know, I have always thought she looked quite a deal like her," exclaimed Betty, delighted with this coincidence.

But Katrina's comparison had been an impersonal one, she was not thinking of the fair graceful Princess of the Danes. "My patience! Elizabeth Gwinnet, how dull you are sometimes!" she exclaimed, closing her eyes with a groan.

Elizabeth Gwinnet agreed that she was dull, agreed with an unresentful laugh. Katrina's epithets were a part of the vagaries of her illness, of course; if she, Betty, was sure of anything in this world, she was sure that she was an enormous comfort to her poor dear Kate. And under those circumstances one could agree to anything.

While helpless and in pain, Lansing Harold had been entirely absorbed in his own condition; even Margaret's arrival he had noticed but slightly. This strong, dark man took his illness as an extraordinary dispensation, a tragic miracle; he was surprised that Dr. Kirby was not more agitated, he was surprised that his two attendants, when they came, did not evince a deeper concern. Surely it was a case unprecedented, terrible; surely no one had ever had such an ordeal before. Not once did he emerge from his own personality and look upon his condition as part of the common lot; Lanse, indeed, had never believed that he belonged to the common lot.

He announced to everybody that Fate was treating him with frightful injustice. Why should he be maimed and shackled in this way--he, a man who had always led a wholly simple, natural life? He had never shut himself up in an office, burned his eyes out over law papers, or narrowed his chest over ledgers; he had never sacrificed his liberty in the sordid pursuit of money-getting. On the contrary, he had admired all beautiful things wherever they were to be found, he had breathed the fresh air of heaven, had seen all there was of life and nature, and enjoyed it all in a full, free, sane way. It was monstrous, it was ridiculous, to strike at him; strike, and welcome, at the men who kept their windows down! Thus he inveighed, thus he protested, and all in perfectly good faith; Lanse believed of himself exactly what he said.

But once established in a house of his own, and able to float about on the river, promptly his good-humor came back to him; for Lanse, while not in the least amiable, had always had an abundance of good-humor. He began to laugh again, he began to tell Margaret stories connected with his life abroad; Lanse's stories, though the language was apt to be as condensed as that of telegraphic despatches, were invariably good.

There had been no formal explanations between these two, no serious talk. Lanse hated serious talk; and as for explanations, as he had never in his life been in the habit of giving them, it was not likely that he was going to begin now. When Margaret first arrived, and he could scarcely see her from pain, he had managed to say, "Oh, you're back? glad to see you"--as though she had left him but the week before--and this matter-of-course tone he had adhered to ever since; it was the easier since his wife showed no desire to alter it.

He required no direct services from her, his men did everything. As he grew better, he gave her the position of a comrade whom it was a pleasure to meet when he came (in his wheeled chair) to the parlor in the evening; he thanked her gallantly for being there. In this way they lived on, Margaret had been for nine or ten weeks under the same roof with him before he made any allusion to their personal relations; even then it was only a remark or two, uttered easily, and as though he had happened to think of it just then. The remarks embodied the idea that the "interruption" (that was what he called it) which had occurred in their life together should be left undiscussed between them; it had happened, let it therefore remain "happened;" they couldn't improve it by chattering about it (an illusion of weak minds), but they could take up the threads again where they had left them, and go on without any "bother."

Later, he added a few words more; they were not taking up the threads, after all, just where they had left them, but in a much better place; for now they were relieved from any necessity for being sentimental. He admired her greatly, he didn't mind telling her that she had grown infinitely more interesting, as well as handsomer; but his having remained away from her as long as he had, and of his own accord, debarred him, of course, from expecting personal affection from her, at least at present; he certainly didn't expect it, she might rest secure about that; on the other hand, he didn't believe, either--no, not in the least--that she had broken her heart very deeply about him. There was no better foundation than this state of affairs for the most comfortable sort of years together, if she would look at it in the right way. What was the cause of most of the trouble between husbands and wives nowadays?--by "nowadays" he meant in modern times, since women had been allowed to complain. Their being so foolish, wasn't it? on one side or the other, as to wish to absorb each other, control each other, in a petty, dogmatic, jealous sort of way. Now in their case there would not be any clashing of that sort; when people had lived apart as they had, voluntarily and contentedly, for eight years, they must at least have got out of the habit of asking prying questions, of expecting a report of everything that happened, of trying to dictate and govern; as to jealousy, it would be rather late in the day to begin that.

These were the only approaches Lanse had made towards a discussion of intimate topics. The reserve was not so remarkable in him as it might have been in another man, for Lanse seldom talked on intimate topics with anybody; his principle, so far as it could be gathered from his life, appeared to have been to allow himself, in actual fact (quiet fact), the most radical liberty of action, while at the same time in speech, in tastes, in general manner, he remained firmly, even aggressively, a conservative; Lanse's "manner" had been much admired. Always, so he would have said, he behaved "as a gentleman should," which had seemed to mean (according to his own idea of it) that he had no local views of anything, that he was fond of the fine arts and good guns, that he had a taste for ablutions and fresh air, for laced shoes and shooting-jackets, and that he never (it had not happened since his early youth, at least) lost control of himself through drink. All this went perfectly with his apparent frankness. It also went perfectly with his real reserves.

On the occasions when he had said his few words to Margaret, he had given her no chance to reply; he had made his remarks as he took up a book. Lanse was sure that he read a great deal, that he was very fond of reading; in reality he read almost nothing, he only turned to reading as a last resort; he was barbarically ignorant regarding the authors of his day, he liked best personal memoirs and letters of the last century; when these failed him, he reread Fielding--fortunately Fielding was inexhaustible.

He was in the habit of saying this. But one evening even Fielding palled.

It was when they had been for nearly two months in the house on the river. He had been out during most of the afternoon in his canoe; his two attendants had now established him upon his sofa, placed everything which they thought he might want within his reach, had adjusted his reading lamp (he had announced that he was going to read), and had then left him. They were to return at ten o'clock and help him to bed; for Lanse was obliged to keep early hours, the night was the dangerous time, and one of the men always slept on a cot bed in the room with him, so as to be within call.

Margaret was sitting near the larger table, where there was a second lamp; she was sewing. Having thrown down his volume, with the sudden realization (it came to him occasionally) that he knew every word of it before beginning, Lanse sat among his cushions, watching her hand come and go.

"You are always sewing on such long things!" he said. "What is the use of your doing that sort of work nowadays, when there are sewing-machines?"

"That's like the American who asked, in Venice, what was the use of people's sketching there nowadays, when there were photographs?"

"Oh, your seam is a work of art, is it?" said Lanse. He was silent for a moment. Then he took up an old grievance. "Evert is abominably selfish not to come over here oftener. He might just as well come over and stay; do you know any earthly reason why he shouldn't?"

"I suppose he thinks he ought not to leave Aunt Katrina--I mean for any length of time."

"He comes for no length, long or short. Aunt Katrina? I thought you said she'd got a lot of people?"

"Only Mrs. Carew."

"Mrs. Carew and five or six servants; that's enough in all conscience. I shouldn't care in the least about Evert if it weren't for the evenings, they're confoundedly long, you must admit that they are--for a person who doesn't sew seams; if I had Ev here I could at least beat him at checkers,--that would be something."

Checkers was the only game Lanse would play, he hated games generally. His method of playing this one was hopelessly bad. That made no difference in his being convinced that it was excellent. He blustered over it always.

Margaret had not answered. After a while, still idly watching her hand come and go, Lanse began to laugh. "No, I'll tell you what it really is, Madge; I know it as well as if he had drawn up a formal indictment and signed his name; he's all off with me on account of the way I've treated you."

She started; but she kept on taking her stitches.

"Yes. What do you say to my having told him the whole story--just what really happened, and without a shade of excusing myself in any way? Don't you call that pretty good of me? But I found out, too, what I didn't know before--that you yourself have never said a word all this time either to him or to Aunt Katrina; that you have told nothing. I call that pretty good of you; I dare say, in the mean while, Aunt Katrina has led you a life!"

"I haven't minded that--she didn't know--"

"It was really very fine of you," said Lanse, appreciatively, after a moment or two of silence, during which he had seemed to review her course, and to sincerely admire it. "It would have been so easy to have considered it your duty to tell, to have called the telling 'setting yourself right;' everybody would have been on your side--would have taken your part. But I can't say, after all, that I'm surprised," he went on. "I have always had the most perfect confidence in you, Madge. If I hadn't, I shouldn't have been so easy, of course, about going away; but I knew I could leave you, I knew I could trust you; I knew you would always be the perfect creature you have shown yourself to be."

"I'm not perfect at all," answered Margaret, throwing her work down with a movement that was almost fierce. "Don't talk to me in that way."

"There! no need to flash out so; remember I'm only a cripple," responded Lanse, amiably. He sat there stroking his short beard with his strong, well-shaped hand, looking at her, as he did so, with some curiosity.

She rose. "Is there anything I can do for you before I go?" And she began to fold up her work.

"Oh, don't go! that's inhuman; it's only a little after nine--there's nearly an hour yet before the executioners come. I didn't mean to vex you, Madge; really I didn't. I know perfectly that you have done what you did, behaved as you have--so admirably (you must excuse my saying it again)--to please yourself, not me; you did it because you thought it right, and you don't want my thanks for it; you don't even want my admiration, probably you haven't a very high opinion of my admiration. I don't condole with you--you may have noticed that; the truth is, you have had your liberty, you have been rid of me, and there has been no disagreeable gossip about it. If you had loved me, there would have been the grief and all that to consider. But there has been no grief; you probably know now, though you didn't then, that you never seriously cared for me at all; of course you thought you did."

Margaret was standing, her folded work in her hand, ready to leave the room. "I should--I should have tried," she answered, her eyes turned away.

"Tried? Of course you would have tried, poor child," responded Lanse, laughing. "I should have had that spectacle! You were wonderfully good, you had a great sense of duty; you really married me from duty--because I told you that I should go to the bad without you, and you believed it, and thought you must try; and you mistook the interest you felt in me on that account for affection--a very natural mistake at your age. Never mind all that now, I only want you to admit that I might have been worse, I might have been brutal, tyrannical, in petty ways, I might have been a pig; instead of leaving you as I did, I might have stayed at home--and made you wish that I had left! Even now I scarcely touch your personal liberty; true, I ask you to keep house for me, set up a home and make me comfortable again; but outside of that I leave you very free, you shall do quite as you please. Luckily we've got money enough--that is, you have--not to be forced to sacrifice ourselves about trifles; if you want your breakfast at eight o'clock, and I mine at eleven, why, we can have it in that way; it won't be necessary for us to change our customs in the very least for each other, and I assure you in the long-run that tells. It's possible, of course, that you may hate me; but I don't believe you do; and, in case you don't, I see no reason why we shouldn't lead an easy life together. Really, looking at it in that way, it's a very pretty little prospect--for people of sense."

As he concluded with these words, genially uttered, Margaret dropped suddenly into a chair which was near her and covered her face with her hands.

Lanse looked at her, there was genuine kindness in his beautiful dark eyes with the yellow lights in them. "There's one question I might ask you, Margaret--but no, I won't; it's really none of my business. You will always act like an angel; your thoughts are your own affair."

Margaret still sat motionless, her face covered.

"I'm very sorry you feel so; I meant to be--I want to be--as considerate as possible. Great heavens!" Lanse went on, "what a fettered, restricted existence you women--the good ones--do lead! I have the greatest sympathy for you. When you're wretched, you can't do anything; you can't escape, and you can't take any of the compensations men take when they want to balance ill luck in other directions; all you can do is--sit still and bear it! I wonder you endure it as you do. But I won't talk about it, talking's all rot; short of killing myself, I don't know that there's anything I can do that would improve the situation; and that wouldn't be of any use either, at least to you, because it would leave you feeling guilty, and guilt you could never bear. Come, hold up your head, Madge; nothing in this stupid life is worth feeling so wretched about; life's nothing but rubbish, after all. Get the checker-board and we'll have a game."

Margaret had risen. "I can't to-night."

"But what am I to do, then?" began Lanse, in a complaining tone. He was as good as his word, he had already dismissed the subject from his mind. "Well, if you must go," he went on, "just hand me that book of poor Malleson's, first."

This was a book of sketches of the work of Mino da Fiesole, the loving, patient studies of a young American who had died in Italy years before, when Lanse was there. Lanse had been kind to him, at the last had closed his eyes, and had then laid him to sleep in that lovely shaded cemetery under the shadow of the pyramid outside the walls of Rome--sweet last resting-place that lingers in many a traveller's memory. The book of sketches had been left to him, and he was very fond of it.

As Margaret gave it to him he saw her face more clearly, saw the traces of tears under the dark lashes. "Yes, go and rest," he said, compassionately; "go to bed. I should reproach myself very much if I thought it was waiting upon me, care about me, that had tired you so."

"No, I have very little to do; the men do everything," Margaret answered. "I haven't half as much to attend to here as I have at home." She seemed to wish to reassure him on this point.

"At home?" said Lanse, jocularly. "What are you talking about? This is your home, isn't it?--wherever I happen to be."

But evidently his wife's self-control had been rudely shaken when her tears had mastered her, for now she could not answer him, she turned and left the room.

"Courage!" he called after her as she went towards the door. "You should do as I do--not mind trifles; you should shake them off."

She went with a swift step to her own room, and threw herself face downward upon a low couch, her head resting upon her clasped hands; the sudden movement loosened her hair, soon it began to slip from its fastenings and drop over her shoulders in a thick, soft, perfumed mass; then, falling forward, lock by lock, the long ends touched the floor.

As she lay thus behind her bolted doors, fighting with an unhappiness so deep that her whole heart was sobbing and crying, though now she did not shed outwardly a tear, her husband, stroking his brown beard meditatively, was getting a great deal of enjoyment out of poor Malleson's book. Lanse had a very delicate taste in such matters; he knew a beautiful outline when he saw it, from a single palmetto against the blue, on a point in the St. John's, to these low reliefs of the sweetest sculptor of the Renaissance. Long before, he had told Margaret that he married her for her profile; slim, unformed girl as she was, there had been, from the first moment he saw her, an immense satisfaction for his eyes in the poise of her head and the clearness of her features every time she entered the room.

Whether he would have found any satisfaction in these same outlines, could he have seen them prone in their present abandonment, only himself could have told.

He would have said, probably, that he found no satisfaction at all. Lansing Harold, as has been remarked before, had a great deal of benevolence.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXVI

"I don't know how to tell you, Mrs. Harold, what has happened," began Dr. Kirby. "I cannot explain it even to myself." The Doctor was evidently very unhappy, and much disturbed.

He was in the sitting-room of the house on the river--a place not so desolate after eight months of Margaret's habitation there. She could not restore the blossoming vines to the stripped exterior, she could not bring to life again the old trees; but within she had made a great change; the rooms were fairly comfortable now, green blinds gave a semblance of the former leafy shade.

But more than the rooms was the mistress of them herself transformed. The change was not one of manner or expression; it was the metamorphosis which can be produced by a complete alteration of dress. For Lanse had objected to the simplicity of his wife's attire, and especially to the plain, close arrangement of her hair. "You don't mean it, I know," he said, "but it has an appearance of affectation, a sort of 'holier than thou' air. I hate to see women going about in that way; it looks as if they thought themselves so beautiful that they didn't mind calling attention to it--with sanctimonious primness, of course; it's the most conspicuous thing a woman can do."

"It's not a matter of principle with me; it's only my taste," Margaret answered. "I have always liked simplicity in others, and so I have dressed in that way myself."

"Alter it, then; with your sort of face you couldn't possibly look flashy; and you might look prettier--less like a saint. There, don't be enraged, I know you haven't a grain of that kind of pose. But it seems to me, Margaret, that you might very well dress to please me, since I regard you as a charming picture, keeping my hands off." And he laughed.

The next steamer that touched at the long pier (it was not two hours afterwards) took from there half a dozen hastily written letters to carry north.

"What in the world--why, I hardly knew you," Aunt Katrina said, ten days later, when her niece came over to East Angels to see her; now that Lanse was better, she could come oftener.

"Lanse wished it," Margaret answered as she took her seat.

"And very properly. You certainly had a most tiresome way of having your things made--so deadly plain; it looked as if you wanted people to think you either very Quakerish or very miserable, I never knew which."

"If I had been miserable I shouldn't have paid so much attention to it, should I? It takes a great deal of attention to dress in that way." She spoke, if not smilingly, then at least in the even tone which people now called "always so cheerful."

"Oh, I don't know what you really were, I only meant how you looked. I am glad, at least, that you acknowledge that it takes a great stock of vanity to go against all the fashions. Well, you don't look Quakerish now!"

"You like the dress, then?"

"It's lovely," said Aunt Katrina, scanning every detail from the hat to the shoe. "Expensive, of course?"

"Yes."

"And Lanse likes that?"

"He wishes me to dress richly; he says it's more becoming to me."

"I think that's so nice of him, he wants you to look, I suppose, as well as you can" said Aunt Katrina, magnanimously. "And certainly you do look a great deal better."

Whether Margaret looked better was a question whose answer depended upon the personal taste of those who saw her; she looked, at least, very different. The sumptuous wrap with its deep fringes, the lace of the scarf, the general impression of costly fabrics and of color in her attire, brought out the outlines of her face, as the curling waves of her hair over her forehead deepened the blue of her eyes. On her white arms now, at home in the evenings, bracelets gleamed, the flash of rings came from her little hands; her slender figure trailed behind it rich silks of various light hues.

"You are a beautiful object nowadays, Margaret," Lanse said more than once. "Fancy your having known how, all this time, without ever having used your talent!"

"It's my dress-maker's talent."

"Yes; she must have a great deal to carry out your orders."

He was especially pleased one evening. She came in, bringing his newspaper, which had just arrived by the steamer; she was dressed in a long gleaming gown of satin, with long tight sleeves; she wore a little ruff of Venetian lace, there was a golden comb in her dark-hair. A fan made of the bright plumage of some tropical bird lay against the satin of her skirt; it hung by a ribbon from the broad satin belt, which, fastened by a golden buckle, defined her slender waist.

"You look like a fine old engraving," he said.

She stood holding the paper towards him. But for a moment he did not take it, he was surveying her critically; then he lifted his eyes to her face, there was a smile in them. "You did it--do it--to please me?" he said.

She did not answer.

"Because you think it your duty to do what I wish. And because, too, you are a trifle afraid of me!" He laughed. "It would have an even better effect, though, if you wouldn't take it quite so seriously; couldn't you contrive to get a little pleasure out of it on your own account?--I mean the looking so handsome."

She gave him the paper, and went across to her work-table. "I am delighted to look handsome," she said.

"No, you're not. It was probably easier for you to dress as you used to--plainly; more in accordance with your feelings, women like to be in accordance. When they're completely satisfied, or very unhappy, they brush their hair straight back from their faces. Well, yours curls enough now!"

"The truth is, Madge, you're too yielding," he resumed after a short silence. "I take advantage of it, of course--I always shall; but you would get on a great deal better yourself, you might even have had more influence over me (if you care about that), if you had been, if you were now, a little less--patient."

"I suppose there's no use in my repeating that I'm not patient at all," answered Margaret. She was taking some balls of silk from the drawer.

"You want me to think it's self-control. Well, perhaps it is. But then, you know, unbroken self-control--"

"Would you mind it if I should ask you not to discuss it--my self-control?" Her hands were beginning to tremble.

"Put your hands in your pocket if you don't want me to see them," said Lanse, laughing; "they always betray you--even when your voice is steady. What a temper you've got--though you do curb it so tightly! At least you're infinitely better off than you would have been if you had happened to care for me. That's been the enormous blessing of your life--your not caring; just supposing you had cared! You ought to be very thankful; and you ought to reckon up your blessings every now and then, for fear of forgetting some of them; we ought all to do that, I think."

He said this with great gravity. Not that he felt in the least grave; but it was a way Lanse had of amusing himself, once in a while,--to make remarks of this sort with a very solemn face.

He looked at her for a moment or two longer as she sat with her eyes bent upon her knitting. "You're in the right chair," he said at length, "but you're sitting too straight. Won't you please take that footstool, put your feet on it, and then lean back more? You long lithe women look better that way."

She did not move.

"Come," he said, "you're furious; but you know you ought to humor me. It's only that I want my picture more complete--that's all."

And then, with nervous quickness, she did what he asked.

It was upon the morning following this little conversation that Dr. Kirby made his appearance at the house on the river and declared that he could not "explain."

"Tell me without explaining," Margaret suggested.

But this at first seemed to the Doctor even more difficult than the other alternative; it would have been so much more in accordance with his sense of the fitness of things to ascend this stumbling-block which had fallen in their path by means of a proper staircase, carpeted steps of probabilities, things he had foreseen--intuitions. But in fact he had foreseen nothing; he felt that he could not make a staircase. So he gave one great hard bound.

"Garda is engaged," he announced. "To Lucian Spenser."

Margaret was greatly astonished. "I didn't know he was back," she said.

"He has only just come. She went up to Norfolk with my cousin, Sally Lowndes"--here the Doctor stopped, gazing at Margaret inquiringly.

"Yes, I left it to you to decide about her going--don't you remember?"

"I decided wrongly. Sally was obliged to go, and anxious to take Garda--I was in Charleston, and I allowed it. I had no business to!" said the Doctor, slapping his knee suddenly and fiercely. "I distinctly disapprove of much travelling for young girls--mere aimless gadding about. But I have been corrupted, to a certain degree, by the new nor--the new modern ideas that are making their way everywhere at present; I could bury my head in a hay-stack! When did you hear from her last?"

"I had a letter from Norfolk immediately after her arrival."

"Before she had met him. And nothing since?"

"Nothing."

"Yes, she said she should rather have me tell you than write herself."

"She thought you would be on her side."

"No, madam, no; she couldn't have thought that--that would be impossible. But she was good enough to say that I should, in the telling, be certain to make you laugh. And that was what she wanted."

Moisture glittered suddenly in his eyes as he brought this out. He pretended it was not there, and searching for his handkerchief, he coughed gruffly, complaining of "a cold."

"I certainly don't laugh," said Margaret. "But perhaps we need not be so--so troubled about it, Doctor. The first thing now is to have her come home."

"She's back in Charleston."

"Oh!"

"Yes. As soon as I received Sally's letter--she wrote at once--I started immediately for Norfolk. I saw Mr. Spenser--in my quality of guardian it was proper that I should see him. And I brought the two ladies home."

"And not Mr. Spenser too?"

"I don't know anything about Mr. Spenser!" Then, after a moment, "I reckon he will follow," the Doctor murmured, dejectedly.

"And I--who thought he was in Venice!"

"He was in Venice until a few weeks ago. I don't know in the least what brought him home. And I don't know in the least what brought him to Norfolk, unless it was, as I was told, some insane fancy for sketching the Dismal Swamp;--of all places in the world the miry old Dismal! And to think that I should have let Garda go there, at just that moment! It's a combination of fortuitous chances which seems to me absolutely infernal!--I beg your pardon, madam"--here the Doctor rose, bowing ceremoniously, with his hand on the broad expanse of beautifully starched linen, which kept its place unmoved over his disturbed breast. "It is not often that I am betrayed into language unsuited to a lady's presence. I ask you to excuse me."

"You do not like Mr. Spenser," said Margaret.

The Doctor stared. "Do you?"

"I suppose it is not so much whether we like him, as whether we approve of him for Garda. But I am afraid she would not listen to us even if we should disapprove."

"I think you are in error there," said the Doctor, beginning to walk to and fro with quick short steps. Much as he liked Margaret, it was with anger that he answered her now.

"I must tell you what I think, mustn't I?" said the other guardian, gently. "And I think she has cared for him a long time."

"It is impossible for me to agree with you. Long time? Permit me to ask how long you mean? In the mean while she has been engaged to another man--Evert Winthrop. Do you forget that?"

"I don't think she realized fully--she was very young; she is extremely impulsive always," answered his colleague, wandering rather helplessly for a moment among her phrases. Then she spoke more decidedly. "But now she knows, now she is sure; she is sure it is Lucian she cares for."

"She is fanciful, and this is only another fancy. Sally, too, has been much to blame."

"I do not think Garda is fanciful," said Margaret. "And--it is not a childish feeling, her liking for Lucian Spenser."

The Doctor stopped on the other side of the room. Then he came back and stood gazing at Margaret in silence. "You are a woman, and you are good," he said at last. "She is very fond of you, she tells you everything, and you must know. If therefore you say that she--"

"Yes," answered Margaret, "I do know. I am sure she cares for him very, very much." Here some of Garda's extraordinarily frank expressions about Lucian, and the delight it gave her to even look at him, coming suddenly into her memory, over all her fair face there rose a sweet deep blush.

The Doctor turned away and dropped into a chair.

"There is nothing against Mr. Spenser, I believe," Margaret began again, after a short pause.

"It isn't that. No, I believe there is nothing." He sat there, his figure looking unusually small, his eyes turned away.

Margaret asked some questions. By degrees the Doctor answered them. He said that Lucian was possessed of "a genteel income." He had not accepted his wife's large fortune; she had left everything to him, but he had immediately given the whole back to her relatives, retaining only the profits of some investments which she had made, since their marriage, under his advice; this sum the Doctor described as "a competence."

"When is Garda coming home?" Margaret asked.

"She says she isn't coming; she says she knows you have no place for her here--no time; and she doesn't wish to stay with any one but you."

"She does not mean that. I think she should come, she has been in Charleston a long time; Mrs. Lowndes has been wonderfully kind."

"Oh, as to that, Sally likes to have her there. She says it has made her 'young again' to see Garda. And to admire (I don't know what she meant by that) Adolfo Torres."

"Is he there still?"

"He is there still. He doesn't believe in the least in Garda's engagement."

"He didn't believe in the other one," said Margaret. And then she was sorry she had said it, for the Doctor jumped up and seized his hat; it was still insupportable to him, the thought of those two engagements.

"He's a hallucinated idiot!" he said, violently. Then, controlling himself, he took leave of Margaret, bowing over her hand with his old stately ceremony. Mr. Harold was in the garden? He would go out and see him there. It was most satisfactory, certainly, the improvement in Mr. Harold.

On the present occasion the Doctor found Lanse on a couch which he had had carried out to the garden; here he lay contentedly smoking, and looking at the river. Lanse liked the Doctor; it was an ever-fresh amusement to him to realize that his large, long, muscular self was committed to the care of that "pottering little man." The Doctor was not in the least "pottering." But Lanse really thought that all short men with small hands, who were without an active taste for guns, were of that description. The sad Doctor made but a brief visit this time; then he started homeward. He had still the news about Garda to tell in Gracias. At present it was known only to ma.

Garda did not comply with the wish of her friends, and return to them. She wrote a dozen letters about it, but in actual presence she remained away. Most of these epistles were to Margaret. As time went on she wrote to Margaret every day.

But her letters were not letters at all, in the usual sense of the word; they were brief diaries, rapidly jotted down, of the feelings of the moment; they were paeans, rhapsodies, bubbling exclamations of delight; none of them ever exceeded in length a page.

They seemed to Margaret very expressive. She did not know what Garda might be writing to the Kirbys, the Moores, and Mrs. Carew; but what Garda wrote to her she kept to herself.

This was the girl's first letter after Margaret's note urging her to return:

"Margaret, I can't come--don't ask me; for none of them there would sympathize with me--not even you. It isn't that I want sympathy--I never even think of it. But I don't want the least disagreeable thing now when I am so blissful--bliss is the only word. Lucian comes in every morning on the train. The Doctor said that of course he would not stay all the time in Charleston. So to satisfy him Lucian stays four miles out.

"Oh, Margaret, everything is so enchanting!

"GARDA."

"DEAR MARGARET,--Every morning I watch until he opens the gate" (she wrote a day later), "and then I run down to meet him in the hall. We don't stay in the house, we go into the garden. Mrs. Lowndes says she loves to have him come, because he reminds her so much of Mr. Lowndes--'Roger,' she calls him. And she says it makes her young again in her heart to see us. And perhaps it does in her heart, but the change hasn't reached the outside yet. I am expecting him every minute, there he comes now.

"GARDA."

"DEAR MARGARET,--If I could stay with you, I would come back to-morrow," she wrote in answer to a second letter from Margaret, which urged her strongly to return. "But I know you don't want me now--that is, you can't have me--and where else could I stay? The Doctor hates Lucian--he may pretend, but he does. If I should stay at the rectory, Mrs. Moore would be sure to say, how pleasant for Lucian and I to read poetry on the veranda, because that is what she and Middleton used to do when they were engaged. But Lucian and I don't want to read any poetry on verandas.

GARDA."

"DEAR MARGARET,--Lucian has gone for the night, and there's nothing else to do, so I thought I would write to you. Mrs. Lowndes has just been in. She brought a daguerreotype of Mr. Lowndes, taken when he was young, and she says she knows exactly how I feel, because she used to feel just the same; when she was at the window, and saw 'Roger' coming down the street, the very calves of her legs used to quiver, she says. Roger must have been stout--at least he is in the daguerreotype, and he wore glasses.

"Lucian is painting me; but I only wish I could paint him. Oh, Margaret, he is so beautiful!

GARDA."

"DEAREST MARGARET,--I'm so glad I am alive, it's so nice to be alive. People say life's dreadful, but to me it's perfectly delicious every single minute. I thought I would tell you how happy I was before going to bed,--I love to write it down.

GARDA."

The Doctor went up to Charleston again. He was much displeased with the course things were taking, he spoke with a good deal of severity to Sally Lowndes.

Sally, who was soft-bodied as well as soft-hearted (her figure was a good deal relaxed), shed tears. Then, recovering some spirit, she wished to know what the Doctor had expected her to do? It was true that that sweet Garda had left off her lessons (up to this time she had "had instruction," that is, teachers had arrived at fixed hours); but Sally was decidedly of the opinion that a girl who was so soon to be married should be relieved at least of "school-room drudgery."

"Nothing of the sort," said the Doctor; "she should be kept even more closely to her books. Your ideas are provincial and ridiculous, Sally; I don't know where you obtained them."

"From my mother," answered Sally, with a pink flush of excitement in her faded cheeks. "From my grandmother too--who was yours also. It is you who are changed, Reginald; it has never been the custom in our family to keep the girls down at their books after sixteen."

This was true. But the very truth of it made the Doctor more angry. "I shall take her back with me," he said.

"She doesn't wish to go."

"That makes no difference."

And then Sally "supposed" that it was not his intention to drag her back "in chains?" Mrs. Lowndes was evidently much displeased with Cousin Reginald.

The Doctor took Garda to a remote part of the garden. Here he placed before her in serious words the strong wish he had that she should return with him to Gracias.

Garda laughed out merrily. Then she came and kissed him. "Don't ask me to do anything so horribly disagreeable," she said, coaxingly.

"Would it be disagreeable?" asked the Doctor, his voice changing to pathos.

"Of course. For you're not nice to Lucian, you know you're not; how can I like that?"

"I will be--nice," said the Doctor, borrowing her word, though the use of it in that sense was to him like turning a somersault.

"Would you really try?" said Garda. She came behind him, putting her arms round his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. "You never could," she said, fondly. And then, as though he were some big good-natured animal, a magnanimous elephant or bear, she let him feel the weight of her little dimpled chin.

"I am weak because I have loved you so long, my child. I might insist; you are my ward. But it seems to me that you ought to care more about doing a little as we wish, Mrs. Harold agrees with me in thinking this."

"Margaret is sweet; I love her dearly. But, do you know"--here she disengaged herself, and began with a sudden inconsequent industry to gather flowers--"it's so funny to me that you should think, either of you, for one moment, that I would leave Lucian now."

"He could come too. A little later." The Doctor was driven to this concession.

"But I shouldn't see him as I do here, you know I shouldn't. Here we do quite as we please; no one ever comes to this part of the garden but ourselves; we might be on a desert island--only it would have to be an island of flowers."

"And you care more for this than for our wishes?" began the Doctor. Then he took a lighter tone. "Of course you don't; you will come home with me, my child; we will start this afternoon." Watching her move about among the bushes as she gathered her roses, he had fallen back into his old belief; this young face where to him were still so plainly visible the childish outlines of the little girl he had been used to lead about by the hand--even of the dimpled baby he remembered so well--he could not bring himself to realize that it had gained older expressions, expressions he did not know.

"I'm very sorry, dear," Garda answered, generally. And then she knelt down to peer through a bush which might perhaps be holding its best buds hidden.

The Doctor, completely routed by the word which she had without the least effort used--the maturity of that "dear," addressed her at last, though unconscious that he was doing so, in the tone of equality. "It isn't as though you had anything to bear, like the prospect of a long engagement, as though there were any difficulties in the way; your marriage is to come so soon," he pleaded.

"Soon?" said Garda. "Six long months! Do you call that 'soon?'" She stopped gathering roses, and sat down on a garden bench. "Six months! I must see him every day, and for a long while every day; that will be the only way to bear it." Then her words ceased; but her splendid eyes, meeting the Doctor's (she had forgotten that he was there), grew fuller and fuller of the loveliest dreaming expression, until the poor guardian--he realized that she would not perceive his departure--could not stand there and watch it any longer. He turned abruptly and went away.

"DEAR MARGARET,--The Doctor has gone" (Garda wrote the next day). "And I am afraid he is displeased. Apparently we please no one but ourselves and Sally Lowndes! Margaret, when my wedding-day really comes at last, nobody must touch me but you; you must dress me, and you must put on my veil, and the orange-blossoms (from the old East Angels grove--I won't have any others). And then, just before we go down-stairs, you must say you are pleased. And you must forgive me all I have done--and been too--because I couldn't help it. I shall come over from Gracias, and go down on my knees to Mr. Harold to beg him to let me be with you, or rather to let you; he must, he shall say yes."

But Lanse was not called upon to go through this ordeal.

He had already said, "You go!" in rather a high-noted tone of surprised remonstrance when Margaret suggested, some time before, that she should go herself to Charleston and bring Garda back. "And leave me shut up alone here!" he added, as if to bring home to her the barbarity of her proposal.

"The servants do very well at present."

"They don't look as you do," Lanse answered, gallantly. "I must have something to look at."

"But I think I ought to go."

"You can dismiss that 'ought' from your mind, there are other 'oughts' that come nearer. In fact, viewing the matter impartially, you should never have consented in the beginning, Madge, to take charge of that girl, without first consulting me." Lanse brought out this last touch with much judicial gravity. "Fortunately your guardianship, such as it is, will soon be over," he went on; "she will have a husband to see to her. Apparently she needs one."

"That won't be for six months yet."

"Call it two; as I understand it, there's nothing but dogmatic custom between them, and as Florida isn't the land of custom--"

"Yes, it is."

"Well, even grant that; the girl is, from all accounts, a rich specimen of wilfulness--"

"Of naturalness."

"Oh, if they're guided by naturalness," said Lanse, "they won't even wait two."

And it was not two, when early one morning, in old St. Michael's Church in Charleston, with Sally Lowndes, excited and tearful, as witness--their only one save an ancient little uncle of hers, who had come in from his rice plantation to do them the favor of giving the bride (whom he had never seen before) away, Edgarda Thorne and Lucian Spenser were married.

The Rev. Batton Habersham, as he came robed in his surplice from the vestry-room, could not help being conscious, even then and there, that he had never seen so beautiful a girl as the one who now stood waiting at the chancel-rail--not in the veil she had written about, or the orange-blossoms from East Angels, but in an every-day white frock, and garden hat covered with roses. The bridegroom was very handsome also. But naturally the clergyman was not so much impressed by Lucian's good points as by Garda's lovely ones. Sally Lowndes was impressed by Lucian, she gazed at him as one gazes at a portrait; Lucian looked very handsome, very manly, and very much in love--a happy combination, Sally thought. And then, with fresh sweet tears welling in her eyes, she knelt down for the benediction (though it was not given to her), and thought of "Roger," and the day when she should see him again in paradise.

The Rev. Batton Habersham, who was officiating in St. Michael's for a week only, during the absence of the rector, was a man unknown to fame even in his own diocese. But it is possible to do a great deal of good in the world without fame, and Batton Habersham did it; his little mission chapel was on one of the sea islands. Always thereafter he remembered the early morning marriage of that beautiful girl in the dim, empty old Charleston church as the most romantic episode of his life. Fervently he hoped that she would be happy; for even so good a man is more earnest (unconsciously) in his hopes for the happiness of a bride with eyes and hair like Garda's than he is for that of one with tints less striking. Though the relation, all the same, between the amount of coloring matter in the visual orbs or capillary glands, and the degree of sweetness and womanly goodness in the heart beneath, has never yet been satisfactorily determined.

An hour later the northward-bound train was carrying two supremely happy persons across the Carolinas towards New York--the Narrows--Italy.

"Well, we have all been young once, Sally," the little old rice planter had said to his weeping niece, as the carriage drove away from the hospitable old mansion of the Lowndes'. Garda had almost forgotten that they were there, Sally and himself, as they had stood for a moment at the carriage door; but she had looked so lovely in her absorbed felicity that he forgave her on the spot, though of course he wondered over her choice, and "couldn't imagine" what she could see in that "ordinary young fellow." He went back to his plantation. But he was restless all the evening. At last, about midnight, he got out an old miniature and some letters; and any one who could have looked into the silent room later in the night would have seen the little old man still in his arm-chair, his face hidden in his hand, the faded pages beside him.

"It is perhaps as well," said Margaret Harold. She was trying to administer some comfort to Dr. Kirby, when, two days later, he sat, a flaccid parcel of clothes, on the edge of a chair in her parlor, staring at the floor.

Mrs. Rutherford was triumphant. "A runaway match! And that is the girl you would have married, Evert. What an escape!"

"She has escaped," Winthrop answered, smiling.

"What do you mean? Escaped?--escaped from what?"

"From all of us here."

"Not from me," answered Aunt Katrina, with dignity. "I never tried to keep her, I always saw through her perfectly from the very first. Do you mean to say that you understand that girl even now?" she added, with some contradiction.

"Yes, I think I do--now," Winthrop answered.

"I don't envy you your knowledge! Poor Lucian Spenser--what could have possessed him?"

"He? He's madly in love with her, of course."

"I'm glad at least you think he's a fool," said Aunt Katrina, applying her vinaigrette disdainfully to her well-shaped nose.

"Fool? Not at all; he's only tremendously happy."

"The same thing--in such a case."

"I don't know about that. The question is, is it better to be tremendously happy for a little while, and unreasonable; or to be reasonable all the time, and never tremendously happy?"

"Oh, if you're going to talk rationalism--" said Aunt Katrina.

Immediately after her return from Norfolk, in the interval before Lucian came, Garda sent for Adolfo Torres. When he appeared she begged him to do her a favor, namely, to leave Charleston for the present.

"Is it that you wish me to return to Gracias?" asked Adolfo. "The place is a desperation without you."

"You need not go to Gracias if you don't want to; but please go away from here. Go to the Indian River," she suggested, with a sudden inspiration.

"I will go to the Indian River certainly--if that is your wish," replied the Cuban; "though I do not know"--this he added rather longingly--"what harm I do here."

"No harm at all. But I want you to go." She smiled brightly, though there was also a good deal of sympathy in her eyes as she surveyed his lack-lustre countenance.

"That is enough--your wish. I go--I go at once." He took leave of her.

She called him back, and looked at him a moment. Then she said, "Yes, go. And I will write to you."

This was a great concession, Adolfo felt it to be such.

The letter was long in coming; and when it did come at last, it dealt him, like an actual hand, a prostrating blow. It was dated several days after that morning which had seen the early marriage in St. Michael's, and the signature, when his dazed eyes reached it, was one he did not know--Edgarda Spenser.

The Cuban had received this note at dusk. He went out and wandered about all night. At daylight he came in, dressed himself afresh and carefully, and had his boots polished--a process not so much a matter of course on the Indian River at that day as in some other localities. Next he said a prayer, on his knees, in his rough room in the house where he was lodged. Then he went out and asked the old hunter, his host, for the favor of the loan of one of his guns for the morning.

With this gun he departed into the woods. He was no sportsman; but this did not matter, since the game he had in view was extremely docile, it was so docile that it would even arrange itself in the best possible position for the ball.

But the desperate young man--his manner was calm as he made his way through the beautiful southern forest--was not permitted to end his earthly existence then. A hand seized his shoulder. "Are you mad, Adolfo?" said Manuel Ruiz, tears gleaming in his eyes as he almost threw his friend to the ground in the quick, violent effort he made to get possession of the gun. Then, seeing that Adolfo was looking at him very strangely, "If you come another step nearer, I'll shoot you down!" he shouted.

The Cuban did not say, "That is what I want;" he did not move or speak.

Manuel immediately began to talk. "They sent me down here, Adolfo; they had heard, and they were afraid for you. I had just got home, and they asked me to come--your aunt asked me."

"My aunt asked you," repeated Torres, mechanically.

"Yes, Adolfo, your aunt. You must care something for her," said Manuel. He looked uneasily about him.

And then hurrying through the wood, came Madam Giron.

The loving-hearted, sweet-tempered woman was much moved. She took her dead sister's unhappy boy in her arms, and wept over him as though he had been her own child; she soothed him with motherly caresses; she said, tenderly, that she had not been kind enough to him, that she had been too much taken up with her own children; "But now--now, my dearest--" This all in Spanish, the sweetest sound in the world to poor Torres' ears.

A slight convulsion passed over his features, though no tears came. He was young enough to have felt acutely the loneliness of his suffering, the solitude of the death he was on his way to seek. He stood perfectly still; his aunt was now leaning against him as she wept, he put one arm protectingly round her; he felt a slow, slow return towards, not a less torturing pain, but towards greater courage in bearing it, in this sympathy which had come to him. Even Manuel had shown sympathy. "I feel--I feel that I have been--rather cowardly," he said at last in a dull tone.

"No, no, dear," said his aunt, putting up her soft hand to stroke his dark hair. "It was very natural, we all understand."

And then a mist did show itself for an instant in the poor boy's eyes.

* * * * *

That same evening, Garda, far at sea, sitting with her head on Lucian's shoulder under the brilliant stars, answered a question he asked. She did not answer it at first, she was too contented to talk. Then, as he asked it again, "What ever became of that mediaeval young Cuban of mine?"

"Oh, Adolfo?" she said. "I sent him down to the Indian River."

"To the Indian River? What in the world did you do that for?"

"He was in Charleston, and you were coming; I didn't want him there."

"Were you afraid he would attack me?" asked Lucian, laughing.

"I was afraid he would suffer,--in fact, I knew he would; and I didn't want to see it. He can suffer because he is like me--he can love."

"Poor fellow!"

"Yes. But I never cared for him; and he wouldn't see it."

"And ''way down there in the land of the cotton,' I don't suppose he knows yet what has happened, does he?" said Lucian.

"Oh yes; I wrote to him from New York."

"You waited till then? Wasn't that rather hard?"

"Are you finding fault with me?" she murmured, turning her head so that her lips could reach and rest against his bending face.

"Fault!" said Lucian, taking her in his arms.

Adolfo passed out of their memory.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXVII

"I cannot let you go alone," said Evert Winthrop, decidedly.

He was speaking to Margaret. They were in the East Angels drawing-room, Betty Carew hovering near, and agreeing with perfect sincerity now with one, now with the other, in the remarkable way which was part of the breadth of her sympathy.

"But it's not in the least necessary for you to go," Margaret repeated. "Even if the storm should break before I reach the river, the carriage can be made perfectly tight."

"From the look of the sky, I am almost sure that we shall have a blow before the rain," Winthrop responded; "in the face of such a probability, I couldn't allow you to start across the barrens alone--it's absurd to suppose I should."

Margaret stood hesitating. "You want me to give it up--postpone it. But I cannot get rid of the idea that something has happened--I have had no letter for so long; even if Lanse had not cared to write himself, one of the men, Elliot or Dodd, would have done so, it seems to me, under any ordinary circumstances."

"Lanse probably keeps them too busy."

"They always have their evenings."

But Winthrop showed scanty interest in the evenings of Elliot and Dodd. "For myself, I can't pretend to be anxious," he said--"I mean about Lanse; I am only anxious about you."

"But if I don't go now, I can't go until to-morrow noon; before that time I shouldn't meet a boat that stops at our landing. That would make a delay of twenty-four hours." She looked at him as she said this, with a sort of unconscious appeal.

"I doubt whether anything very exciting could happen over there in twice twenty-four; it isn't an exciting place."

"Of course you think me obstinate. But I cannot help feeling that I ought to go."

"Perfectly natural," said Betty. "I should feel just the same in your place--I know I should--not hearing for so long."

"It's that--the silence," said Margaret. "I have been disturbed about it for several days."

"Go, by all means, if you feel in that way," said Winthrop. "I haven't the least desire to prevent it--as you seem to think; I only say that I shall go too."

"Yes; and that is what I don't want." She turned away and stepped out on the balcony to scan the sky.

A dark haze edged the eastern horizon. It was far away at present, lying low down on the sea, but it would come, it was already coming, westward; a clear, empty-looking space of cold pearl-hued light preceded it. Here on the lagoon the atmosphere was breathlessly still, not a sound of any kind stirred the warm silence. "Perhaps it will be only a rain," said Margaret, rather helplessly. She looked very uncomfortable.

"Yes, I reckon that's all it will be," said Betty, who had followed her to the balcony door. "And then, too, if it should be anything more, Mr. Winthrop will be with you, of course; that is, in case you decide to go; and if you don't go, why then he won't, you know; so either way, it's all for the best."

Margaret turned and came back into the drawing-room. Winthrop was standing by the table where she had left him; his eyes met hers, she saw that he would not yield. "I don't dare give it up, I don't dare wait," she broke out with sudden agitation. "Something has happened, nothing less could have kept both of the men from writing, when I gave them my express orders. I don't understand why you don't agree with me."

"You see probabilities, and Lanse isn't a devotee of probabilities, as a general thing. Didn't the last letter say that he had begun to walk a little?--with the aid of two canes? By this time it is one cane, and he is camping out. And he has carried off the whole force of the house to cook for him."

Betty thought this an excellent joke, and laughed delightedly over it.

"If he is camping out, it is quite time I was back," answered Margaret, trying to speak lightly. She took up her gloves. "Good-by, Aunt Betty; you will write to me?"

"Yes, indeed, I will," said Betty, kissing her. "Poor dear, you're like Mahomet's coffin, aren't you? suspended between heaven and--and the other place. And I'm so glad you've decided as you have, because you will be much easier in your mind, though of course, too, Mr. Winthrop was quite right of course, about being afraid for you in case you were alone, for sometimes we do have the most dreadful gusts, and the pine-trees are blown down all over the barrens and right across the roads; but then, all the same, if you hadn't decided, you would be so uncomfortable, like the old man and his son and the donkey, who never got anywhere, you know, because they tried to please too many people, or was it that they had to carry the donkey at last? at any rate, certainly, there's no donkey here. Well, good-by, dear; I shall be so dreadfully anxious about you."

"I am quite sure"--this was called down the stairs after Margaret had descended--"I'm quite sure, dear, that it will be nothing but a rain."

A carriage was waiting at the lower door; Winthrop's man was to drive; but the horses were not his; they were a pair Margaret had sent for. Margaret took her place, and Winthrop followed her; Betty, who had now hurried out to the balcony, waved her handkerchief in farewell as long as she could see them.

Margaret had been at East Angels for nearly a month, called there by a sudden illness which had attacked Mrs. Rutherford. It was not a dangerous illness; but it was one that entailed a good deal of suffering, and Margaret had been immediately summoned.

By this time everybody in Gracias knew how dependent "dear Katrina" was in reality upon her niece, in spite of her own majestic statements to the contrary. No one was surprised therefore, when, after the new illness had declared itself, and Mrs. Rutherford had said, plaintively, that she should think Margaret would feel that she ought to be there, Betty immediately sat down and wrote a note.

After two weeks of suffering, Mrs. Rutherford had begun to improve. She had now almost attained her former comparatively comfortable condition, and Margaret was returning to the house on the river.

The light carriage crossed the barren rapidly; the same hushed silence continued, the pine-trees which Betty had seen in a vision, prostrate, did not stir so much as one of their green needles. Margaret and Winthrop spoke occasionally, but they did not talk; anything they should say would necessarily be shared by the man who was driving. But conversation between them was not much more free when the steamer was taking them up the river. They sat on the deck together at some distance from the other passengers, but their words were few; what they said had even a perfunctory sound. They exchanged some remarks about Garda which contained rather more of animation.

Garda's last letter to Margaret had borne at the head of the page the magic word "Venice." Garda had appeared to think life there magical indeed. "She admires everything; she is delightfully happy," was Margaret's comment.

"How does she say it?"

"You have heard her talk."

"Not as Mrs. Lucian Spenser. And from Venice!"

"I shall tell her to write her next letter to you."

"I have no doubt she would. I see you are afraid to quote."

"Afraid?" said Margaret, in a tone of cold inquiry. And then, with the same cold intonation, she repeated two or three of Garda's joyous phrases.

"Yes, she is happy! Of course it's magnanimous in me to say so, but I owe her no grudge; on the contrary, it has been refreshing to see, in this nineteenth century, a girl so frankly in love. She would have married Lucian Spenser just the same if they neither of them had had a cent; she would have made any sacrifice for him--don't you think so?"

"Yes; but it wouldn't have been a sacrifice to her."

"Bravo! I gave you such a chance to say insidious things."

Margaret smiled a little at this suggestion. Then, in the silence that followed, the old look came back to her face--a look of guarded reserve, which, however, evidently covered apprehension.

She had, indeed, been in great dread. The dread was lest the agitation which had overpowered her during that last conversation she had had with Winthrop before she went back to her husband, should reappear. This brief journey of theirs together was the first perfect opportunity he had had since then to call it forth again; up to to-day there had been no opportunity, she had prevented opportunity. But now she was at his mercy; any one of a hundred sentences which he could so easily say, would suffice to bring back that emotion which suffocated her, and made her (as she knew, though he did not) powerless. But, so far, he had said none of these things. She was grateful to him for every moment of the respite.

Thus they sat there, appearing no doubt to the other passengers a sufficiently happy and noticeably fortunate pair.

For Winthrop had about him a certain look which, in America, confers distinction--that intangible air that belongs to the man who, well educated to begin with, has gone forth into the crowded course, and directed and carried along his fortunes by his own genius and energy to the goal of success. It is a look of power restrained, of comprehension; of personal experience, personal knowledge; not theory. The unsuccessful men who met Winthrop--this very steamer carried several of them--were never angry with him for his good-fortune; they could see that he had not always been one of the idle, though he might be idle now; they could see that he knew that life was difficult, that he had, as they would have expressed it, "been through it himself," and was not disposed to underrate its perplexities, its oppressions. They could see, too, not a few of them, poor fellows! that here was the man who had not allowed himself to dally with the inertia, the dilatoriness, the self-indulgent weakness, folly, or worse, which had rendered their own lives so ineffectual. They envied him, very possibly; but they did not hate him; for he was not removed from them, set apart from them, by any bar; he was only what they might themselves have been, perhaps; at least what they would have liked to be.

And the women on board all envied Margaret. They thought her very fair as she sat there, her eyes resting vaguely on the water, her cheeks showing a faint, fixed flush, the curling waves of her hair rippling back in a thick mass above the little ear. Everything she wore was so beautiful, too--from the hat, with its waving plume, and the long soft gloves, to the rich shawl, which lay where it had fallen over the back of her chair. They were sure that she was happy, because she looked so fortunate; any one of them would have changed places with her blindly, without asking a question.

The steamer stopped at the long pier which was adorned with the little post-office. The postmaster had made a dim illumination within his official shanty by means of a lantern, and here Margaret waited while the boat was made ready by the negroes who were to row them down the five additional miles of coast which Lanse had considered the proper space between himself and the hotel, to keep him from feeling "hived in." The night was very dark, the water motionless, the men rowed at a good speed; the two passengers landed at the little home-pier in safety, and the negroes turned back.

As soon as Margaret had ascended the winding path far enough to come within sight of the house, "No lights!" she said.

"That's nothing," Winthrop answered; "Lanse is probably outside somewhere, smoking." Then, as the path made another turn, "If there are no lights in front, there are enough at the back," he said.

From the rear of the house light shone out in a broad glare from an open door. Margaret hurried thither. But the kitchen was empty; Dinah, the old cook, her equally ancient cousin Rose, and Primus, the black boy, all three were absent. Rapidly Winthrop went through the house, he found no one; Lanse's room, as well as the parlor and dining-room, appeared not to have been used that day, while the smaller rooms occupied by the two men who were in attendance upon him had an even more deserted air.

"Their trunks are gone," said Margaret, who met Winthrop here. "It is all so strange!" she murmured, looking at him as if for some solution, her eyes dark in the yellow light of the lamp she held.

Winthrop agreed with her in thinking it strange; but he did not tell her so. They went back to the kitchen, none of the servants had returned.

"They are probably somewhere about the grounds; but you must sit down and rest while I go and look for them; you are tired."

"No, I'm not tired," answered Margaret, contradicting this statement.

"Come," he said, authoritatively. Taking the lamp from her, he led the way towards the parlor which she had made so pretty.

She followed him, and sank into the easy-chair he drew forward. "Don't wait," she said.

"But if you feel ill--"

"It's nothing, I'm only nervous."

"I shall probably bring them back in five minutes."

But twenty minutes passed before he returned with Dinah and Rose, whom he had found some distance down the shore. The two old women were much excited, and voluble. Their story was that "Marse Horrel" must be "lorse;" he had started early that morning in his canoe to go up the Juana, and had not returned; when it grew towards evening, as he had never before been out so long, they had become alarmed, and had sent Primus over to East Angels; the steamer that had carried him, and the one that had brought "Mis' Horrel" back, must have passed each other on the way. They did not send Primus to the hotel, because "Marse Horrel," he "'spizes monstons fer ter hev de hotel fokes roun';" they evidently stood in awe of anything "Marse Horrel" should "'spize." And they did not send Primus up the Juana, because "Prime, he sech a borned fool," they "dassent" trust only to that. So not knowing what else to do, they had sent him to East Angels for orders; of course they had no idea that "Mis' Horrel" was on her way back.

Where were the two men? Dodd had been gone a week, "Marse Horrel" had dismissed him; he said he was so well now that he did not need the two. And Elliot? "Marse Horrel" had sent him "day befo' yesserday" up the river on an "arr'nd," they did not know what; he was to return, they did not know when.

"Something has happened to Lanse," said Margaret, drawing Winthrop away a few paces when at last she had extracted these facts from the mass of confusing repetitions, ejaculations, and long, unintelligible phrases in which Dinah and Rose had enveloped them. The little old creatures, who were of exactly the same height, wore scarlet handkerchiefs bound round their heads in the shape of high cones; as they told their story, standing close together, their skinny hands clasped upon their breasts, their great eyes rolling, they might have been two African witches, just arrived on broomsticks from the Cameroons.

"The nearest house is the hotel," said Winthrop; "of course that boat is beyond call." But there was a chance that it might not be, and he hurried down to the landing; Margaret followed.

There was no sound of oars. He hailed loudly, once, twice; no one answered. "I shall have to go to the hotel myself," he said.

"That would take too long, it's five miles; it would be at least two hours before a boat and men from there could get here, and in that two hours you could find Lanse yourself, and bring him in."

"You speak as though you knew where he was."

"So I do, he is in the Monnlungs swamp. For a long while he has been in the habit of going up there every day; I have been with him a number of times, that is, I have followed in the larger boat with one of the men to row. Lanse is there now, and something has happened to him; either the canoe has been wrecked, or else he has hurt himself in some way so that he can't paddle; the great thing is to get him in before the storm breaks; we can't possibly wait to send to the hotel."

The two negresses who had left them, now returned, each carrying a light; apparently they supposed that great illumination would be required, for they had brought out the two largest parlor-lamps, and now stood holding them carefully.

"Bring your lamps this way, since you've got them," said Winthrop. He went towards the boats.

"That is the best," said Margaret, touching the edge of one of them with the tip of her slender boot.

The negresses stood on the low bank above, by the light of the great globes they held, Winthrop examined the canoe. It was in good order, the paddle was lying within.

"Now tell me how to get there," he said.

"Oh, I forgot, you don't know the way!" Margaret exclaimed, a sudden realization that was almost panic showing itself in her voice.

"No, I don't know it. But probably you can tell me."

She stood thinking. "No, it's impossible. Dark as it is, you might not even find the mouth of the Juana, there are so many creeks. And all the false channels in the swamp--No, I shall have to go with you; I will take Rose, possibly she can be of use."

But quickly old Rose handed her great lamp to Dinah, and jerked herself down on her thin knees. "Please, missy, no. Not inter de Munloons in de night, no! Ghossesses dar!" She brought this out in a high shrill voice, her broad flat features working in a sort of spasm, her great eyes fixed beseechingly on her mistress's face.

"You, then, Dinah," said Margaret, impatiently. But in spite of her rheumatic joints, Rose was on her feet in an instant, and had taken the lamps, while Dinah, in her turn, prostrated herself.

"You're perfectly absurd, both of you!" Margaret exclaimed.

"Poor old creatures, you're rather hard on them, aren't you?" said Winthrop from the boat.

"Yes, I'm hard!" She said this with a little motion of her clinched hand backward--a motion which, though slight, was yet almost violent.

"We must lose no more time," she went on. "Go to the house, Rose--I suppose you can do that--and bring me the wraps I usually take when I go out in the canoe, the lantern and some candles----"

"No," said Winthrop, interposing; "let her bring pitch-pine knots, or, better still, torches, if they happen to have them."

It appeared that "Prime" always kept a supply of torches ready, and old Rose hurried off.

Margaret stepped into the boat; she stood a moment before taking her seat "I wish I could go by myself," she said.

"You know how to paddle, then?" Winthrop asked, shortly.

"No, that's it, I don't; at least I cannot paddle well. I should only delay everything, it would be ridiculous." She seated herself, and a moment later Rose appeared with the wraps and a great armful of torches.

Both of the old women were quivering with wild excitement; agitated by gratitude at being spared the ordeal of the haunted swamp by night, they were equally agitated by the thought of what their mistress would have to encounter there; they shuffled their great shoes against each other, they mumbled fragments of words; they seemed to have lost all control of their mouths, for they grinned constantly, though their breath came almost in sobs. As Winthrop pushed off, suddenly they broke out into a loud hymn:

"Didn't my Lawd delibber Dan-yell, Dan-yell? Didn't my Lawd delibber Dan-yell?"

For a long distance up the stream this protective invocation echoed after the voyagers, and the two grotesque figures holding the lamps remained brightly visible on the low shore.

"Turn in now, and coast along close to the land," said Margaret; "it's so dark that even with that I am almost afraid I shall miss the mouth."

But she did not miss it. In ten minutes she said, "Here it is;" and she directed him how to enter.

"I should never have found it myself; it's so narrow," Winthrop commented, as he guided the canoe towards an almost imperceptible opening in the near looming forest.

"That was what I couldn't guard you against."

But the mouth was the narrowest part; inside the stream widened out, and was broad and deep. Winthrop sent the boat forward with strong strokes, the pine torch which Margaret had fastened at the bow cast a short ray in advance.

"I think we shall escape the storm," she said.

"It's holding off wonderfully. But don't be too sure."

They did not speak often. Winthrop was attending to the boat's course, Margaret had turned and was sitting so that she could scan the water and direct him a little. Her nervousness had disappeared; either she had been able to repress it, or it had faded in the presence of the responsibility she had assumed in undertaking to act as guide through that strange water-land of the Monnlungs, whose winding channels she had heretofore seen only in the light of day. Even in the light of day they were mysterious; the enormous trees, thickly foliaged at the top, kept the sun from penetrating to the water, the masses of vines shut out still further the light, and shut in the perfumes of the myriad flowers. Channels opened out on all sides. Only one was the right one. Should she be able to follow it? the landmarks she knew--certain banks of shrubs, a tree trunk of peculiar shape, a sharp bend, a small bay full of "knees"--should she know these again by night? There came to her suddenly the memory of a little arena--an arena where the flowering vines hung straight down from the tree-tops to the water all round, like tapestry, and where the perfumes were densely thick.

"Are you cold?" said Winthrop. "You can't be--this warm night." The slightness of the canoe had betrayed what he thought was a shiver.

"No, I'm not cold."

"The best thing we can do is to make the boat as bright as possible," he went on. "But not in front, that would only be blinding; the light must be behind us." He took the torch from the bow, lighted three others, and stack them all into the canoe's lining of thin strips of wood at the stern. Primus had made his torches long; it would be an hour before they could burn down sufficiently to endanger the boat.

Thus, casting a brilliant orange-hued glow round them, lighting up the dark water vistas to the right and left, as they passed, they penetrated into the dim sweet swamp.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter XXVIII

They had been in the Monnlungs half an hour. Margaret acted as pilot; half kneeling, half sitting at the bow, one hand on the canoe's edge, her face turned forward, she gave her directions slowly, all her powers concentrated upon recalling correctly and keeping unmixed from present impressions her memory of the channel.

The present impressions were indeed so strange, that a strong exertion of will was necessary to prevent the mind from becoming fascinated by them, from forgetting in this series of magic pictures the different aspect of these same vistas by day. Even by day the vistas were alluring. By night, lighted up by the flare of the approaching torches, at first vaguely, then brilliantly, then vanishing into darkness again behind, they became unearthly, exceeding in contrasts of color--reds, yellows, and green, all of them edged sharply with the profoundest gloom--the most striking effects of the painters who have devoted their lives to reproducing light and shade.

Lanse had explored a part of the Monnlungs. He had not explored it all, no human eye had as yet beheld some of its mazes; but the part he had explored he knew well, he had even made a map of it. Margaret had seen this map; she felt sure, too, that she should know the channels he called the Lanes. Her idea, upon entering, had been to follow the main stream to the first of these lanes, there turn off and explore the lane to its end; then, returning to the main channel, to go on to the second lane; and so on through Lanse's part of the swamp. They had now explored two of the lanes, and were entering a third.

She had taken off her hat, and thrown it down upon the cloak beside her. "It's so oppressively warm in here," she said.

It was not oppressively warm--not warmer than a June night at the North. But the air was perfectly still, and so sweet that it was enervating.

The forest grew denser along this third lane as they advanced. The trees stood nearer together, and silver moss now began to hang down in long, filmy veils, thicker and thicker, from all the branches. Mixed with the moss, vines showed themselves in strange convolutions, they went up out of sight; in girth they were as large as small trees; they appeared to have not a leaf, but to be dry, naked, chocolate-brown growths, twisting themselves about hither and thither for their own entertainment.

This was the appearance below. But above, there was another story to tell; for here were interminable flat beds of broad green leaves, spread out over the outside of the roof of foliage--leaves that belonged to these same naked coiling growths below; the vines had found themselves obliged to climb to the very top in order to get a ray of sunshine for their greenery.

For there was no sky for anybody in the Monnlungs; the deep solid roof of interlocked branches stretched miles long, miles wide, like a close tight cover, over the entire place. The general light of day came filtering through, dyed with much green, quenched into blackness at the ends of the vistas; but actual sunbeams never came, never gleamed, year in year out, across the clear darkness of the broad water floor.

The water on this floor was always pellucid; whether it was the deep current of the main channel, or the shallower tide that stood motionless over all the rest of the expanse, no where was there the least appearance of mud; the lake and the streams, red-brown in hue, were as clear as so much fine wine; the tree trunks rose cleanly from this transparent tide, their huge roots could be seen coiling on the bottom much as the great vines coiled in the air above. These gray-white bald cypresses had a monumental aspect, like the columns of a Gothic cathedral, as they rose, erect and branchless, disappearing above in the mist of the moss. The moss presently began to take on an additional witchery by becoming decked with flowers; up to a certain height these flowers had their roots in the earth; but above these were other blossoms--air-plants, some vividly tinted, flaring, and gaping, others so small and so flat on the moss that they were like the embroidered flowers on lace, only they were done in colors.

"I detest this moss," said Margaret, as it grew thicker and thicker, so that there was nothing to be seen but the silver webs; "I feel strangled in it,--suffocated."

"Oh, but it's beautiful," said Winthrop. "Don't you see the colors it takes on? Gray, then silver, then almost pink as we pass; then gray and ghostly again."

For all answer she called her husband's name. She had called it in this way at intervals ever since they entered the swamp.

"The light we carry penetrates much farther than your voice," Winthrop remarked.

"I want him to know who it is."

"Oh, he'll know--such a devoted wife! Who else could it be?"

After a while the lane made a bend, and led them away from the moss; the canoe, turning to the right, left behind it the veiled forest, white and motionless. Margaret drew a long breath, she shook herself slightly, like a person who has emerged.

"You have on your jewels again," he said, as the movement caused the torch-light to draw a gleam from something in her hair.

She put up her hand as if she had forgotten what was there. "Jewels? Only a gold arrow." She adjusted it mechanically.

"Jewels enough on your hands, then. You didn't honor us with a sight of them--while you were at East Angels, I mean."

"I don't care for them; I put them on this morning before I started, because Lanse likes them."

"So do I. Unwillingly, you also please me; of course I never dreamed that I should have so much time to admire them--parading by torch-light in this way through a great morass."

She did not answer.

"They bring you out, you know, in spite of yourself--drag you out, if you like better; they show what you might be, if you would ever--let yourself go."

"Let myself go? You use strange expressions."

"A man isn't responsible for what he says in here."

"You say that a second time! You know there was no other way; the only hope of getting Lanse home before the storm was to start at once."

"The storm--to be sure. I don't believe it ever storms in here."

She turned towards him. "You know I had to come."

"I know you thought so; you thought we should find Lanse sitting encamped on two cypress knees, with the wreck of his canoe for a seat. We should dawn upon him like comets. And he would say, 'How long you've been! It's precious damp in here, you know!'"

She turned impatiently towards the channel again.

"Don't demand too much, Margaret," he went on. "Jesting's safe, at any rate. Sympathy I haven't got--sympathy for this expedition of yours into this jungle at this time of night."

She had now recovered her composure. "So long as you paddle the boat, sympathy isn't necessary."

"Oh, I'll paddle! But I shall have to paddle forever, we shall never get out. We've come to an antediluvian forest--don't you see? a survival. But we sha'n't survive. They'll write our biographies; I was wondering the other day if there was any other kind of literature so completely composed of falsehoods, owing to half being kept back, as biographies; I decided that there was one other--autobiographies."

On both sides of them now the trees were, in girth, enormous; the red light, gleaming out fitfully, did not seem to belong to them or to their torches, but to be an independent glow, coming from no one knew where.

"If we had the grace to have any imagination left in this bicycle century of ours," remarked Winthrop, "we should certainly be expecting to see some mammoth water creature, fifty feet long, lifting a flabby head here. For my own part, I am afraid my imagination, never very brilliant, is defunct; the most I can do is to think of the thousands of snakes there must be, squirming about under all this water,--not prehistoric at all, nor mammoths, but just nice natural every-day little moccasins, say about seven feet long."

Margaret shuddered.

He stopped his banter, his voice changed. "Do let me take you home," he urged. "You're tired out; give this thing up."

"I am not tired."

"You have been tired to the verge of death for months!"

"You know nothing about that," she said, coldly.

"Yes, I do. I have seen your face, and I know its expressions now; I didn't at first, but now I do. There's no use in your trying to deceive me Margaret, I know what your life is; remember, Lanse told me everything."

"That was long ago."

"What do you mean?" He leaned forward and grasped her arm as though he would make her turn.

For a moment she did not reply. Then, "A great deal may have happened since then," she said.

"I don't believe you!" He dropped her arm. "You say that to stop me, keep me back; you are afraid of me!" He took up his paddle again.

"Yes, I am afraid." Then, putting a little note of contempt into her voice: "And wasn't I right to be afraid?" she added. She drew the arm he had touched close to her waist, and held it there.

"No!" answered Winthrop, loudly and angrily; "you were completely wrong." He sent the canoe forward with rapid strokes.

They went to the end of the lane, then returned to the main channel, still in silence. But here it became necessary again for Margaret to give directions.

"Go as far as that pool of knees," she began; "then turn to the right."

"You are determined to keep on?"

"I must; that is, I must if you will take me."

He sat without moving.

"If anything should happen to Lanse that I might have prevented by keeping on now, how could I ever----"

"Oh, keep on, keep on; bring him safely home and take every care of him--he has done so much to deserve these efforts on your part!"

They went on.

And now the stream was bringing them towards the place Margaret had thought of upon entering--a bower in the heart of the Monnlungs, or rather a long defile like a chink between two high cliffs, the cliffs being a dense mass of flowering shrubs.

Winthrop made no comment as they entered this blossoming pass, Margaret did not speak. The air was loaded with sweetness; she put her hands on the edge of the canoe to steady herself. Then she looked up as if in search of fresher air, or to see how high the flowers ascended. But there was no fresher air, and the flowers went up out of sight.

The defile grew narrower, the atmosphere became so heavy that they could taste the perfume in their mouths. After another five minutes Margaret drew a long breath--she had apparently been trying to breathe as little as possible. "I don't think I can--I am afraid----" She swayed, then sank softly down; she had fainted.

He caught her in his arms, and laid her on the canoe's bottom, her head on the cloak. He looked at the water, but the thought of the dark tide's touching that fair face was repugnant to him. He bent down and spoke to her, and smoothed her hair. But that was advancing nothing, and he began to chafe her hands.

Then suddenly he rose, and, taking the paddle, sent the canoe flying along between the high bushes. The air was visibly thick in the red light of the torches, a miasma of scent. A branch of small blossoms with the perfume of heliotrope softly brushed against his cheek, he struck it aside with unnecessary violence. Exerting all his strength, he at last got the canoe free from the beautiful baleful place.

When Margaret opened her eyes they were outside; she was lying peacefully on the cloak, and he was still paddling vehemently.

"I am ashamed," she said, as she raised herself. "I suppose I fainted? Perfumes have a great effect upon me always. I know that place well, I thought of it before we entered the swamp; I thought it would make me dizzy, but I had no idea that it would make me faint away. It has never done so before, the scents must be stronger at night."

She still seemed weak; she put her hand to her head. Then a thought came to her, she sat up and looked about, scanning the trees anxiously. "I hope you haven't gone wrong? How far are we from the narrow place--the place where I fainted?"

"I don't know how far. But we haven't been out of it more than five or six minutes, and this is certainly the channel."

"Nothing is 'certainly' in the Monnlungs! And five minutes is quite enough time to get lost in. I don't recognize anything here--we ought to be in sight of a tree that has a profile, like a face."

"Perhaps you wouldn't know it at night."

"It's unmistakable. No, I am sure we are wrong. Please go back--go back at once to the narrow place."

"Where is 'back?'" murmured Winthrop to himself, after he had surveyed the water behind him.

And the question was a necessary one. What he had thought was "certainly the channel" seemed to exist only in front; there was no channel behind, there were only broad tree-filled water spaces, vague and dark. They could see nothing of the thicker foliage of the "narrow place."

Margaret clasped her hands. "We're lost!"

"No, we're not lost; at least we were not seven minutes ago. It won't take long to go over all the water that is seven minutes from here." He took out one of the torches and inserted it among the roots of a cypress, so that it could hold itself upright. "That's our guide; we can always come back to that, and start again."

Margaret no longer tried to direct; she sat with her face towards him, leaving the guidance to him.

He started back in what he thought was the course they had just traversed. But they did not come to the defile of flowers; and suddenly they lost sight of their beacon.

"We shall see it again in a moment," he said.

But they did not see it. They floated in and out among the great cypresses, he plunged his paddle down over the side, and struck bottom; they were out of the channel and in the shallows--the great Monnlungs Lake.

"We don't see it yet," she said. Then she gave a cry, and shrank towards him. They had floated close to one of the trees, and there on its trunk, not three feet from her, was a creature of the lizard family, large, gray-white in hue like the bark, flat, and yet fat; it moved its short legs slowly in the light of their torches; no doubt it was experiencing a sensation of astonishment, there had never been in its memory a bright light in the Monnlungs before.

Winthrop laughed, it did him good to see Margaret Harold cowering and shuddering over such a slight cause as that. The boat had floated where it listed for a moment or two while he laughed, and now he caught sight of their beacon again.

"That laugh was lucky," he said, as he paddled rapidly back towards the small light-house. "Now I shall go in exactly the wrong direction--I mean what seems such to me."

"Oh, must we go again?"

"I don't suppose you wish to remain permanently floating at the foot of this tree?" He looked at her. "You think we're lost, you're frightened. We're not lost at all, and I know exactly what to do; trust yourself to me, I will bring you safely out."

"You don't know this swamp, it's not so easy. I'm thinking of myself."

"I know you are not. But I think of nothing else." He said this impetuously enough.

They started on their second search. And at the end of five minutes they had again lost sight of their beacon. He paddled to the right and back again; then off to the left and back; he went forward a little way, then in the opposite direction; but they did not see the gleam of their guide, nor did they find the defile of flowers.

Suddenly there rose, close to them, a cry. It was not loud, but it was thrilling, it conveyed an impression of agonized fear.

"What was that?" said Margaret. She did not speak the words aloud, but syllabled them with her lips; involuntarily she drew nearer to him.

"I don't know what it was myself, exactly," he answered; "some bird or other small creature, probably, caught by a snake or alligator. It only sounded strange because it is so still here, our nerves are affected, I presume."

"You mean that mine are. I know they are, I will try to be more sensible."

He pursued his tentative course. But the watery vistas seemed only to grow wilder. They never had a desolate appearance; on the contrary there was something indescribably luxuriant, riotously so, in the still lake with its giant trees, its scented air, its masses of flowers. At length something dark, that was not a tree trunk, nor a group of tree trunks, loomed up on their right. Their torches outlined it more plainly; it was square and low.

"It's a house" Margaret said, in the same repressed whisper. "Oh, don't go near it!"

"Why--it's deserted, can't you see that? There's no living thing there, unless you count ghosts--there may be the ghost of some fugitive slave. The door, I suppose, is on the other side." And he paddled towards it.

The cabin--it was no more than a cabin--had been built upon the great roots of four cypresses, which had happened to stand in a convenient position for such a purpose; the planks of the floor had been nailed down across these, and the sides formed of rough boards braced by small beams which stretched back to the tree trunks; the roof was a network of the large vines of the swamp, thickly thatched with the gray moss, now black with age and decay. The door was gone; Winthrop brought the boat up towards the dark entrance; the sill was but an inch or two above the water.

They looked within, the light from their torches illuminating the central portion. And as they looked, they saw a slight waving motion on the floor. Were the planks oscillating a little, or was it dark water flowing over the place?

At first they could not distinguish; then in another instant they could. It was not water; it was the waving, squirming bodies of snakes.

Winthrop had given the canoe a quick swerve. But before they could have counted one, the creatures, soundlessly, had all disappeared.

"Men are queer animals," he said; "I should have liked one more good peep. But of course I won't go back."

"Yes--go."

"You are prepared to humor me in everything? Well, it won't take an instant." They were but ten feet away; he gave a stroke with his paddle and brought the canoe up to the entrance again.

Within there was now nothing, their torch-light shone on the bare glistening boards of the floor. But stay--yes, there was; something white in one corner; he took one of the torches, and held it within for a moment. Margaret gave a cry; the light was shining on bones--a white breastbone with the ribs attached, and larger bones near.

He threw the torch into the water, where it went out with a hiss, and sent the canoe rapidly away. This time he did not stop.

Margaret had hidden her face in her hands. "Well," he said, still urging the light boat along, "the last hunter who occupied that cabin was not as tidy in his habits as he might have been; he left the remains of the last bear he had had for dinner behind him."

"Are you sure?" she asked, without looking up, still shuddering.

"Perfectly."

Winthrop held that in some cases a lie was right.

He paddled on for a few minutes more.

"Here's your reward for humoring me. Isn't this the 'narrow place?'"

And it was.

"Now that we've found it, hadn't we better try to go back?" he suggested.

"I will do as you think best."

"You're thoroughly cowed, aren't you? By the skeleton of a bear."

"I think I am tired," she answered.

"Think? You mean you know you are." The mask of jesting had dropped again. "How much more of this horrible place is there--I mean beyond here?"

"We are a good deal more than half-way through; three quarters, I think."

"Can we get out at the other end? Is there an outlet?"

"Yes--a creek. It takes you, I believe--I have never been so far as that--to Eustis Landing, a pier on the St. John's beyond ours."

"If we try to go back we shall have to go through that damnable aisle of miasma again."

"Perhaps I should not faint this time," she said, humbly.

"You don't know whether you would or not; I can't take any risks."

He spoke with bluntness. She sat looking at him; her eyes had a pathetic expression, her womanish fears and her fatigue had relaxed her usual guard.

"You think I'm rough. Let me be rough while I can, Margaret!"

He sent the boat forward towards the outlet, not back through the aisle of flowers. "We'll go on," he said.

After a while she called her husband's name again.

"What's the use of doing that?" he asked. "He isn't here."

"Oh, but I am sure he is. Where else could he be?"

"How should I know?--Where he was for eight years, perhaps."

Presently they came to a species of canebrake, very dense and high; there was no green in sight, only the canes. The channel wound tortuously through the rattling mass, the slight motion of the water made by the canoe caused the canes to rattle.

"Keep watch, please," he said; "it's not so wet here. It wouldn't be amusing to set such a straw-stack on fire."

While they were making their way through this labyrinth, there came a crash of thunder.

"The storm at last, and we haven't heard the least sound of the tornado that came before it! That shows what a place this is," he said. "We might as well be in the heart of a mountain. Well, even if we do suffocate, at least we're safe from falling trees; if the lightning has struck one, it can't come down, wedged in as it is in that great tight roof overhead."

There came another crash. "I believe it grows hotter and hotter," he went on, throwing down his hat. "I am beginning to feel a little queer myself; I have to tell you, you know, in order that you may be able to act with--with discrimination, as Dr. Kirby would say."

She had turned quickly. "Do you feel faint?"

"Faint?" he answered, scoffingly. "Never in the world. Am I a woman? I feel perfectly well, and strong as an ox, only--I see double."

"Yes, that is the air of the swamp."

She took off the black lace scarf she was wearing, dipped it into the stream, and told him to bind it round his forehead above the eyes.

"Nonsense!" he said, impatiently.

But she moved towards him, and kneeling on the canoe's bottom, bound the lace tightly round his forehead herself, fastening it with her little gold pin.

"I must look like a Turk," he exclaimed when she released him.

But the wet bandage cleared his vision; he could see plainly again.

After another five minutes, however, back came the blur. "Shall we ever get out of this accursed hole?" he cried, pressing his hands on his eyes.

"I can paddle a little; let me take the oar."

But he dashed more water on his head, and pushed her hands away. "Women never know! It's much better for me to keep on. But you must direct me,--say 'one stroke on the right,' 'two on the left,' and so on."

"Oh, why did I ever bring you in here?" she moaned, giving no directions at all, but looking at his contracted eyes with the tears welling in her own.

"See here, Margaret,--I really don't know what would happen if I should put this oar down and--and let you pity me! I can tell you once. Now be warned." He spoke with roughness.

Her tears were arrested. "Two strokes on the right," she said, quickly.

They went on their course again, he putting his oar into the water with a peculiar deliberation, as though he were taking great care not to disturb its smoothness; but this was because he was guiding himself by sense of touch. It was not that all was dark before him, that he saw nothing, it would have been much easier if there had been nothing to see; but whether his eyes were open or closed he looked constantly and in spite of himself into a broad circular space of vivid scarlet, in the centre of which a smaller and revolving disk of colors like those of peacocks' feathers, continually dilating and contracting, wearied and bewildered him. In spite of this visual confusion he kept on.

Their progress was slow. "I think I'll stop for a while," he said, after a quarter of an hour had passed. They were still among the rattling canes, his voice had a drowsy tone.

"Oh, don't stop now; we're nearly out."

But he had stopped.

"If I had had any idea you would tire so soon---- Of course if I must take the oar--and blister my hands----"

"Keep back in your place," he cried, angrily, as she made a movement as though she were coming to take the paddle from him.

She went on giving the directions, she could scarcely keep the tremor from her voice, but she did keep it. When she looked at his closed eyes, and saw the effort he was making--every time he lifted his arms it was like lifting a gigantic weight, his fancy made it so--she longed to take the oar from him and let him rest. But she did not dare to, he must not sleep now. She put out her hand and touched an edge of his coat furtively, where he would not perceive it; the gentle little touch seemed to give her courage to say, in a tone of sarcastic compassion, "If, after all, you are going to faint, though you assured me----"

"Faint!" said Winthrop,--"what are you talking about?" He straightened himself and threw back his head. Her taunt had answered its purpose, it had made him angry and in his anger he sent the boat forward with more force.

Another anxious ten minutes, and then, "We're out!" she said, as she saw wide water in front. "Now it will be cooler." The channel broadened, they left the rattling canes behind.

Water was coming slowly down the trees, not in drops but in dark streaks; this was rain that had made its way through the roof of foliage, scanty fringe of the immense torrent now falling upon the drenched ground outside.

"I shall go through to that place you spoke of--Eustis Landing, wasn't it?" said Winthrop.

"Oh, you are better!"

Her relief showed itself in these words. But much more in her face; its strained tension gave way, her tears fell. She dried them in silence.

"Because I can speak of something outside of this infernal bog? Yes, I shall get you safely through now. And myself also. But--it hasn't been easy!"

"Oh, I know that."

"I beg your pardon, no, you don't; not the half."

In a moment or two more he announced that he was beginning to see "something besides fireworks." She still continued, however, to direct him.

The swamp had been growing more open. At length the channel brought them to a spectral lake, with a few dead trees in it here and there hung with white moss. "I remember this place, the creek opens out just opposite. At last it's over!"

"And at last I can see. But I must take this thing off; it binds me." And he unloosed and threw off her lace scarf.

They found the creek and entered. "It seems strange to see solid ground again, doesn't it?" he said.

"Then you can see it?"

"As well as ever."

The creek brought them to a waste that was open to the sky.

"Now we can breathe," he said; "I feel as though I should never want to be under a tree branch again!"

It was not very dark; there was a moon somewhere behind the gray clouds that closely covered the sky. The great storm had gone westward, carrying with it the tornado and the rain, and now a cool, moderate, New-England-feeling wind was beginning to blow.

Winthrop glanced back. The great trees of the Monnlungs loomed up in a long dark line against the sky; from the low level of the boat in the flat waste they looked like a line of mountains.

"All the same, you know," he said, contradictorily, "it was very beautiful in there."

The creek was wide; he went on rapidly. He was quite himself again. "You look fearfully worn," he said, after a while.

"Must we have all these torches now?" She spoke with irritation, she could not get away from their light.

"Not if you object to them." He extinguished all but one. "Now put on some of those wraps; it's cold."

"I do not need them."

"Don't be childish." (There was no doubt but that he was himself again.) "Here, let me help you on with this cloak."

She submitted.

It took them three-quarters of an hour to reach the landing.

"This is it, I presume," he said, as he saw the dim outlines of two white houses at a little distance on the low shore. "I will knock them up, and get some sort of a place where you can rest."

"If there is any one to row, I should much rather go directly home."

"Always unreasonable. Give me your hands." He leaned forward and took them. "Cold as ice,--I thought so. You must come up to the house and go to bed."

"I could not sleep. Let me go home; it is the only place for me."

He still held her hands. "Very well," he said.

"Perhaps they have found Lanse," she went on.

"Old Dinah and Rose? Very likely."

In a few minutes he returned, followed by two negroes, one of whom carried a lantern. They got out their own boat. Winthrop helped Margaret into it, and took his place beside her; their canoe was taken in tow. With strong regular strokes the men rowed down the creek, and out on the broad St. John's.

When they came in sight of the house on the point it was gleaming with light; Margaret gave an exclamation.

Dismissing the men, Winthrop went up the path after her. "I am sure he has come," she said, hurrying on.

"Who? Lanse? Oh no, it's those old goblins of yours who have illuminated in this way; it's their idea of keeping watch for you."

The doors had been left unfastened, they entered. Inside, everything was as brilliant as though the house had been made ready for a ball. But there was not a sound, no one stirred. They went through to the kitchen; and there, each on her knees before a wooden chair, with her head resting upon it on her folded arms, appeared the little Africans, sound asleep; the soles of their shoes, turned up behind them, seemed almost as long as they were.

Winthrop roused them. "Here," he said; "we're back. Make some coffee for your mistress as quickly as you can; and you, Rose, light a fire in the sitting-room."

The queer little old women ran about like frightened hens. They tumbled over each other, and let everything drop. Winthrop stood over them sternly, he took the pitch-pine from the distracted Rose and lighted the fire himself. "Now go and put out all those lights," he said; "and bring in the coffee the moment it's ready."

He had made Margaret sit down in a low easy-chair, still wrapped in her cloak, and had placed a footstool for her feet; the fire danced and sparkled, she sat with her head thrown back, her eyes closed.

"Are you warmer?" he asked. "You were chilled through all the way down the river; every now and then I could feel you shiver."

"It was more fatigue than cold." His voice had roused her, she sat up. "Oh, I ought to be doing something--trying--"

"You can do no more now; you must have some coffee, and then you must go to bed. But, in the mean while, I will do everything possible."

"But you don't believe--I don't know what you believe!" She rose.

He put her back in her chair. "I will believe nothing if you will go and rest--I mean my beliefs shall not interfere with my actions; I will simply do everything I can--all I should do if I were sure he was lost, somewhere about here."

She remained where he had placed her. After a while she said, "I was so certain he was in the swamp!" Her tired eyes, beginning to glisten a little with tears, had a childlike look as she raised them to his.

Old Rose now came hurrying in with the coffee, its fragrant aroma filled the room. Winthrop poured it out himself, and made Margaret swallow it, spoonful by spoonful, until the cup was empty.

"You have a little color now," he said.

She put the cup down, and rose.

"You're going? Yes, go; go to bed, and sleep as long as you can, it must be near dawn. I will meet you here for a late breakfast at eleven."

She still stood there. "But will you--will you really----"

"Haven't I given you my word?" he said. "Are you afraid that I shall not be tender enough to him? Don't you comprehend that no matter how much I may hate him myself, his being your husband protects him perfectly, because, so long as you persist in continuing so subservient, he could visit anything else upon you?"

She went out without reply.

He sank into the chair she had left vacant to rest for a moment or two; he was desperately tired.

When he came back to the room at eleven, she was already there. It was a dark day, with the same New-England-feeling wind blowing over river and land; there had been spurts of rain, and he was wet. "Why have you no fire?" he asked.

"It did not seem cold enough."

"It's not cold, but it's dreary. I don't believe you have slept at all?" he continued, looking at her. Opening the door, he called Rose, and told her to light the fire. When the old woman had finished her task--it was but a touch, and again the magic wood was filling the room with its gay light and faint sweet odor of the pine--he repeated his question. "I don't believe you have slept at all?"

"How could I sleep!"

He sat down before the fire. "You are wet. And you must be very tired," she went on.

"I am glad you have thought of it--I like sympathy. Yes, I am tired; but the room is cheery now. Let us breakfast in here?"

"You have found no trace?" Her nervousness showed itself in her tone.

"No."

She went to the door, and gave Rose an order. Then she closed it, and walked first to one window; then to another.

"Do come and sit down. You wander about like a ghost."

"I will step softly." She began to walk up and down the room with her light, rather long-paced step. "You are not afraid," she said at last.

"No, I am not afraid; if he were wrecked in mid-ocean, he would make the whales cook his dinner for him, and see to it, too, that it was a good one."

"Oh, don't speak in that tone; don't jest about him when we cannot tell--Here we are safe at home, safe and comfortable, when perhaps he--" she stopped.

"You are haunted by the most useless terrors. 'Safe,' are we? How 'safe' were we last night, for his sake too, in that deadly swamp?--how safe were you? And 'comfortable'--I sitting here wet and exhausted, and you walking up and down, white as a sheet, eating your heart out with anxiety! 'And home,' did you say? I like that! Pretty place it was to bring you to--hideous barrack miles from every living thing. Of course you've made it better, you would make a cave better; he knew you would do it when he brought you here!"

He changed his bitter tone into a laugh, "Instead of abusing him, I ought rather to admire him--admire him for his success--he has always done so entirely as he pleased! If one wishes to be virtuous or heroic, I don't know that it is the best way; but if one wishes simply to be comfortable, it most certainly is. You can't philosophize?" he went on, turning his head to look at her as she continued her walk.

"No, no. Would you mind telling me what you have done?"

"I have three parties out; one has gone up the shore, and one down; the third is across the river."

"You are very good. For I know you don't believe he is here."

"No, I don't."

"But where, then, can he be?"

"You have asked me that before. This time I will answer that he is probably where he intended to be when he left here early yesterday morning--after ridding himself of Eliot and Dodd."

"You think he planned it. But why should he have been so secret about it? No one could have prevented him from taking a journey if he wished to take one."

"You would have prevented it; you wouldn't have thought him strong enough."

"That would not have deterred him."

"You're right, it wouldn't. Probably he didn't care even to explain that he did not intend to be deterred, Lanse was never fond of explanations."

"I am not at all convinced."

"I didn't expect to convince you. You asked me, and I had to say something."

After breakfast--she could eat nothing--he said, "I have sent for a little steamer; it is to take me to all the landings within ten miles of here. I shall not be back until late, probably; don't sit up." He left the room.

Fifteen minutes later, he appeared again.

"I was waiting for the steamer down by the water, when I saw the boy who brings the mail going away; you have had a letter?"

She did not answer. Her hands were empty.

"You heard me coming and concealed it."

"I have nothing to conceal." She rose. "Yes, I have had a letter, Lanse is on his way to New York; he is taking a journey--for a change."

"You will let me see the letter?"

"Impossible." She was trembling a little, but she faced him inflexibly.

"Margaret, I beg you to let me see it. Show me that you trust me; you seem never to do that--yet I deserve--Tell me, then, of your own accord, what he says. If he has left you again, who should help you, care for you, if not I?"

"You last of all!" She walked away. "Of course now that I know, I am no longer anxious,--I was foolish to be so anxious. We are very much obliged to you for all you have done."

"Very well, if you take that tone, let me tell you that I too have had a letter--Primus has just brought it from East Angels--it was sent there."

She glanced at him over her shoulder with eyes that looked full of fear--a fear which he did not stop to analyze.

"It is possible that Lanse has written to me even more plainly than he has to you," he went on. "At any rate, he tells me that he is going to Italy--it is the old affair revived--and that he has no present intention of returning. What he has said in his letter to you, of course I don't know; but it can hardly be the whole, because he asks me to 'break' it to you. 'Break' it,--he has chosen his messenger well!"

"O my God," said Margaret Harold.

Her words were a prayer. She sank down on her knees beside the sofa, and buried her face in her clasped arms.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us