“These canoes never tip over when left alone; it’s only when people try to guide them,” said Cicely, confidently. “Now Jack’s just like no one; he’s so very light, you know.”
Words were becoming difficult, their canoe rose on the crest of one wave, then plunged down into the hollow behind it; then rose on the next. A light flared out on their left; it was low down, seeming below their own level.
“They have kindled—a fire—on the beach,” called Eve. She was obliged to call now, though Cicely was so near.
“Yes. Porley,” Cicely answered.
They were not so far out as they had thought; the light of the fire showed that. Perhaps they had been going round in a circle.
Eve was now letting the boat drift; Jack’s canoe was drifting, the same currents and wind might take theirs in the same direction; it was not very long since they had heard his last cry, he could not be far away. The lightning had begun to come in great sheets of white light; these were blinding, but if one could bear to look, they lit up the surface of the water for an instant with extraordinary distinctness. Cicely, from her babyhood so impressionable to lightning, let its glare sweep over her unmoved; but her beautiful eyes were near-sighted, she could not see far. Eve, on the contrary, had strong eyesight, and after what seemed a long time (it was five minutes), she distinguished a dark, low outline very near at hand; she sent the boat in that direction with all her might.
“It’s Jack!” she called to Cicely.
Cicely, holding on to the sides of the canoe, kept her head turned, peering forward with her unseeing eyes into the alternating darkness and dazzling glare. The flashes were so near sometimes that it seemed as if they would sweep across them, touch them, and shrivel them up.
Now they approached the other boat; they came up to it on the crest of a wave. Cicely took hold of its edge, and the two boats went down into the hollow behind together.
“Sit—in the centre—as much—as you can,” Eve shouted. Then, being the taller, she rose, and in the next flash looked within. There lay Jack in the bottom, probably unconscious, a still little figure with a white face.
“He’s there,” she called, triumphantly. And then they went up on the next wave together, and down again.
“Slip—your hand—along—to the end,” Eve called.
Cicely obeyed.
The second canoe, which all her strength had scarcely been able to hold alongside, now accompanied them more easily, towed by its stern. If it could have followed them instead of accompanying them, that would have been easier still; but Cicely’s seat was at the bow, and Eve did not dare to risk a change of places; with the boat in tow, she paddled towards the shore as well as she could, guided by the fire, which was large and bright, poor Porley, owing to whose carelessness in the second place the accident had occurred (Eve’s in the first place), expending in the collecting of dry fuel all the energy of her repentance and her grief. They were not very far out, but progress was difficult; Eve was not an expert; she did not know how to allow for the opposition, the dead weight, of the second canoe attached to the bow of her own; every now and then, owing to her lack of skill, the wind would strike it, and drive it from her so strongly that it seemed as if the connecting link, Cicely’s little arm, would be drawn from its socket. The red glow of the fire looked human and home-like to these wanderers,—should they ever reach it? The waves grew more formidable as they approached the beach,—they were like breakers; Eve did her best, yet their progress seemed snail-like. At length, when they were so far in that she could distinguish the figures of Porley and the Irishman outlined against the fire, there came a breaker which struck the second canoe full on its side, filling it with water. Cicely gave a wild shriek of rage as it was forced from her grasp. At the same instant the aunt, leaving the paddle behind her, sprang into the sinking craft, and, seizing the child, went down with him into the dark lake.
She came up again, grasping the side of the boat; with one arm she lifted the boy, and gave him to his mother, an enormous effort, as his little body was rigid and heavy—like death.
And then they got ashore, they hardly knew how, though it took a long time, Eve clinging to the stern and Cicely paddling, her child at her feet; the Irishman came to their assistance as soon as he could, the wind drove them towards the beach; Porley helped when it came to the landing. In reality they were blown ashore.
Jack was restored. As Eve ceased her rubbing—she had worked over him for twenty minutes—and gave him alive and warm again to his mother’s arms, Cicely kissed her cheek. “Bend down your head, Eve; I want to tell you that I forgive you everything. There is nothing the matter with me now; I understand and know—all; yet I forgive you,—because you have saved my child.”
XXIX.
PRISCILLA MILE, close-reefed as to her skirts, and walking solidly, reached the shipwrecked party soon after nine o’clock; as she came by the beach, the brilliant light of Porley’s fire guided her, as it had guided Cicely and Eve out on the dark lake. Priscilla asked no questions, her keen eyes took in immediately Eve’s wet clothes and Jack’s no clothes, the child being wrapped merely in a shawl. She said to the Irishman, who was wet also: “Patrick Carty, you go back to the camp, you run just as fast as you can split; tell them what’s happened, and let them send for us as soon as they can. ’Taint going to rain much, I guess.”
The man hesitated.
“Well, what are you about?” asked Mrs. Mile, walking up to him threateningly, her beetle shawl-pins shining in the fire-light.
The Irishman, who had been in a confused state ever since Cicely had forced his canoe into the water again after he had hauled it up on the beach, and had beaten his hands off fiercely with the oar when he had tried to stop her progress—a little creature like that turning suddenly so strong—answered, hurriedly, “It’s goin’ I am; ye can see it yersilf!” and was off like a shot. “Wan attack from a fimmale will do!” was his thought.
The nurse then effected a change of dress; with the aid of part of her own clothing and part of Cicely’s and Porley’s, she got Eve and Jack into dry garments of some sort, Jack being wrapped in a flannel petticoat. The wind had grown much more violent, but the strange atmospheric conditions had passed away; the lightning had ceased. It was now an ordinary gale, the waves dashed over the beach, and the wind drove by with a shriek; but it was not cold. The four women sheltered themselves as well as they could, Cicely holding Jack closely; she would not let any one else touch him.
A little after two o’clock the crouched group heard a sound, and Hollis appeared in the circle of light shed by the flaring wind-swept fire. He bore a load of provisions and garments in baskets, in a sack suspended from his neck, in bags dangling from his arms, as well as in his hands and pockets; he had even brought a tea-kettle; it was a wonder how he had come so far with such a load, the wind bending him double. Priscilla Mile made tea as methodically as though the open beach, with the roaring water and the shrieking gale, had been a quiet room. Hollis watched them eat with an eagerness so intense that unconsciously his face made masticating movements in sympathy. When they had finished, a start passed over him, as if he were awakening, and, making a trumpet of his hands, he shouted to Cicely: “Must go now; ’f I don’t, the old judge ’ll be trying to get here. Back—with boat—soon as ca-a-an.”
“I’ll take your coat, if you don’t mind,” said Mrs. Mile, shrieking at him in her turn; “then Miss Bruce can have this shawl.” And she tapped her chest violently to show him her meaning. Hollis denuded himself, and started.
With the first light of dawn he was back. They reached the camp about ten o’clock the next morning.
At three in the afternoon Cicely woke from a sleep of four hours. Her first movement was to feel for Jack.
Jack was sitting beside her, playing composedly with four spools and a little wooden horse on rollers.
“We’d better dress him now, hadn’t we?” suggested Mrs. Mile, coming forward. She spoke in her agreeing voice; Mrs. Mile’s voice agreed beforehand that her patients should agree with her.
“I will dress him,” said Cicely, rising.
“I wouldn’t, now, if I were you, Mrs. Morrison; you’re not strong enough.”
“Where is my dress?” asked Cicely, looking about her.
“You don’t want anything, surely, but your pretty blue wrapper?” said Mrs. Mile, taking it from its nail.
“Bring me my thick dress and my walking-shoes, please.”
Eve came in while Cicely was dressing.
“Eve, who is this person?” Cicely demanded, indicating the nurse with a sideward wave of her head.
“Oh, I’m just a lady’s maid—they thought you’d better have one; Porley, in that way, you know, isn’t good for much,” answered Mrs. Mile, readily.
“Whatever you are, I shall not need your services longer,” said Cicely. “Do you think you could go to-night?”
“Certainly, ma’am; by the evening boat.”
“There is no evening boat. I must have been ill a long while,—you talk in such a wheedling manner. I am well now, at any rate, and you can return to Port aux Pins whenever you like; no doubt you have been much missed there.”
Mrs. Mile, giving Eve a significant look, went out.
The storm was over, but the air had turned much colder; the windows of the lodge were closed. Eve seated herself by the east window.
“I have been ill, then?” asked Cicely.
“Yes.”
“I have been out of my mind?”
“Yes,” Eve answered again, in a listless voice.
“I’m not so any longer,—you understand that?”
“I understand,” Eve responded.
Her cheeks were white, the lines of her face and figure had fallen; she looked lifeless.
Cicely stopped her work of dressing Jack, and gazed at her sister-in-law for a moment or two; then she came and stood before her. “Perhaps you didn’t understand what I said on the beach? I told you that I remembered everything, knew everything. And that I forgave you because you had saved baby; you jumped into the lake and saved him.” She paused a moment; “I forgive you—yes; but never let us speak of it again—never on this earth;—do you hear?” And, putting her hands on Eve’s shoulders, she pressed the palms down violently, as emphasis.
Then going back to Jack, she resumed the dressing. “It’s the strangest thing in the world about a child. When it comes, you think you don’t care about it—little red thing!—that you love your husband a million times more, as of course in many ways you do. But a new feeling comes too, a feeling that’s like no other; it takes possession of you whether you want it to or not; it’s stronger than anything else—than life or death. You would let yourself be cut to pieces, burned alive, for your child. Something came burning right through me when I knew that Jacky was in danger.—Never mind, Jacky, play away; mamma’s not frightened now, and Jacky’s her own brave boy.—It made everything clear, and I came to myself instantly. I shall never lose my senses again; though I might want to, I’m so miserable.”
“And I, who think you fortunate!” said Eve.
Cicely turned her head and looked at her with parted lips.
“Ferdie loved you—”
“Oh, he cared for others too,” said Cicely, bringing her little teeth together. “I know more than you think;—than Paul thinks.” She went on hurriedly with her task.
A quiver had passed over Eve at the name. “You loved him, and he was your husband. But Paul can never take me for his wife; you forgive, but he couldn’t.”
“You love Paul, then; is that it?” said Cicely, turning round again. “Now I remember—that day when I saw you in the woods. Why, Eve, he did forgive you, he had you in his arms.”
“He did not know. He does not know now.”
“You haven’t told him?”
“I couldn’t.”
Cicely paused, consideringly. “No, you could not,” she said, with conviction. “And he can never marry you.” She sat down on the side of the bed and folded her hands.
“Not when he knows,” Eve answered.
“And were you going to deceive him, not let him know?”
“That is what I tried to do,” said Eve, sombrely. “You were the only person who knew (you knew because I had told you), and you were out of your mind; his love came to me,—I took it.”
“Especially as you loved him!”
“Yes, I loved him.”
“I’m glad you do,” said Cicely; “now you won’t be so lofty. Now you understand, perhaps, how I felt about Ferdie, and why I didn’t mind, no matter what he did?”
“Yes, now I understand.”
“Go on; what made you change your mind? Was it because I had got back my senses, and you were afraid I should tell?” She spoke with a jeer in her voice.
“No; it changed of itself when I saw baby out in that boat alone—my brother’s poor little child. I said then,‘O, let me save him, and I’ll give up everything!’”
“And supposing that nothing had happened to Jack, and that I had not got back my senses, how could you even then have married Paul, Eve Bruce?—let let him take as his wife a woman who did what you did?”
“What I did was not wrong,” said Eve, rising, a spot of red in each cheek. She looked down upon little Cicely. “It was not wrong,” she repeated, firmly.
“‘Blood for blood’?” quoted Cicely, with another jeer.
“Yes, that is what Paul said,” Eve answered. And she sank down again, her face in her hands.
“You say you have given him up;—are you going to tell him the reason why you do it?” pursued Cicely, with curiosity.
“How can I?”
“Well, it would keep him from pursuing you,—if he does pursue.”
“I don’t want him to stop!”
“Oh! you’re not in earnest, then; you are going to marry him, after all? See here, Eve, I’ll be good; I’ll never tell him, I’ll promise.”
“No,” said Eve, letting her hands fall; “I gave him up when I said, ‘If I can only save baby!’” Her face had grown white again, her voice dull.
“What are you afraid of? Hell? At least you would have had Paul here. I should care more for that than for anything else.”
“We’re alike!” said Eve.
“If we are, do it, then; I should. It’s a muddle, but that is the best way out of it.”
“You don’t understand,” Eve replied. “What I’m afraid of is Paul himself.”
“Yes.”
“I told you I wouldn’t tell.”
“Oh, any time; after death—in the next world.”
“You believe in the next world, then?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I should take all the happiness I could get in this,” remarked Cicely.
“I care for it more than you do—more than you do?” said Eve, passionately.
Cicely gave a laugh of pure incredulity.
“But I cannot face it—his finding out,” Eve concluded.
Cicely gazed at her. “How handsome you are to-day! What are men, after all? Poor things compared to us. What wouldn’t we do for them when we love them?—what don’t we do? And what do they ever do for us in comparison? Paul—he ought to be at your feet for such a love as you have given him; instead of that, we both know that he would mind; that he couldn’t rise above it, couldn’t forget. See here”—she ran to Eve, and put her arms round her, excitedly—“supposing that he is better than we think,—supposing that I should go to him and tell him the whole, and that he should come here and say: ‘What difference does that make, Eve? We will be married to-morrow.’” And she looked up at Eve, her dark little face flushed for the moment with unselfish hopefulness.
“No,” answered Eve, slowly, “he couldn’t, he loved Ferdie so!” She raised her right hand and looked at it. “He would see me holding it—taking aim—”
Cicely drew away, she struck Eve’s hand down with all her force. Then she ran sobbing to the bed, where Jack, half dressed, had fallen asleep again, and threw herself down beside him. “Oh, Ferdie! Ferdie!” she sobbed, in a passion of grief.
Eve did not move.
After a while Cicely dried her eyes and rose; she woke Jack, and finished dressing him in silence; kneeling down, she began to put on his shoes.
The child rolled his little wooden horse over her shoulder. Then he called: “Old Eve! old Eve! Pum here, an’ det down; I want to roll de hortie on you, too.”
Eve obeyed; she took up the other little shoe.
“Oh, well,” said Cicely, her voice still choked with sobs, “we can’t help it, Eve—as long as we’ve got him between us; he’s a tie. We shall have to make the best of each other, I suppose.”
“May I go with you to Romney?” Eve asked, in a low tone.
“How can you want to go there?” demanded Cicely, her eyes beginning to flash again.
“I know.—But I don’t want to leave Jack and you. If you would take me—”
They said but a few words more. Yet it was all arranged; they would go to Romney; Paul was to know nothing of it.
XXX.
CICELY thought of everything, she ordered everything; she and Eve had changed places. It was decided that they should take a North Shore steamer; this would carry them eastward to the Sault by a route far away from Port aux Pins. Mrs. Mile was to be sent back to that flourishing town on the day of their own departure, but preceding it in time by several hours; she would carry no tidings because she would know none. Hollis was to be taken into their confidence in a measure—he was to be informed that this change of plan was a necessity, and that Paul must not hear of it.
“He will do what we tell him to do,” Cicely remarked.
“Oh, yes,” said Eve, assentingly.
The first North Shore steamer would not pass before the morning of the third day. For twenty-four hours Eve remained inert, she did nothing. The judge, troubled, but inexpressibly excited at the prospect of never seeing Port aux Pins again; of getting away from these cold woods, and in a few days from these horrible great lakes; of soon breathing once more the air of his dear, warm, low-lying country, with its old plantations, its old towns, its old houses and old friends, hurried about wildly, trotting hither and thither on many errands, but without accomplishing much. On the second day Eve’s mood changed, and a feverish activity took possession of her also; she was up and out at dawn, she did everything she could think of, she worked incessantly. By noon there was nothing more left to do, and there still remained the whole half of the day, and the night.
“I think I’ll go out on the lake,” she said to Cicely.
“Yes, row hard; tire yourself,” Cicely answered.
She spoke coldly, though the advice she offered was good. She was trying hard to be kind to Eve during these difficult last hours when Paul was still so near; but though she did her best, she often failed. “You’d better not come back until nearly dark,” she added; “we’ve got to be together through the long journey, you know.”
“Very well,” Eve replied.
It was a brilliant afternoon, the air was clear; already the woods had an autumn look. Eve paddled eastward for some time; then she came back and went out to Jupiter Light. Beaching her canoe, she strolled to and fro for a while; then she sat down. The water came up and laved the reef with a soft, regular sound, the Light loomed above her; presently a man came out of the door and locked it behind him.
“Good-afternoon, mum,” he said, pausing on his way to his boat. “From the camp down below, ain’t yer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m going the other way myself. Want to be light-keeper for an hour or two?” This jocularly.
It was the man who had come down with a lantern and preceded her and Paul up the stairs to the little room at the top.
“There’s some one else above, isn’t there?” she asked.
“No, mum; all three of us off ter-day. But me and John Rail’ll be back afore dark; you won’t tell on us, I guess?” He gave a toothless smile and pushed off, nodding slightly in farewell as the distance between them increased. He went eastward round the point; his boat was soon out of sight.
Eve sat gazing at the Light; she recalled the exact tones of Paul’s voice as he said, “Don’t you want to go up?” Then they had climbed up, and down again; and how sweet and strange and exciting it was! Then he had rowed the canoe home; how delightful it had been to sit there and feel the boat dart forward under his strong strokes in the darkness!—for night had come on while they lingered on the reef. Then she remembered her anger when he said, as he was helping her out, “I saw how much you wanted to go!” It seemed so strange that she should ever have been angry with him; she could never be so again, no matter what he might do. She tried to think of the things he might do; for instance, he might marry (she had almost said “marry again”). “I ought to wish that he might find some one—” But she could go no further, that was the end of that line of thought; she could not wish anything of the kind. She pressed her hands together in bitter, hot rebellion. But even her rebellion was without hope. She had been sitting with her feet crossed before her; she drew up her knees, put her arms upon them, and her head on her arms. She sat thus a long time.
A voice said, “Eve!”
With a start she raised her head. Paul stood there beside her.
“You did not expect to see me. But I had word. Hollis got one of the men off secretly as soon as he could; he was ashamed to see me treated so.”
“No,” said Eve; “he wanted to give me a pleasure.” Nothing could have been more dreary than her tone, more desperate than her eyes, as she looked at him.
“Oh, why did you come here?” she went on.
“I didn’t believe it, Eve; I thought it was all gammon.”
“That you were going to leave me?—Going off without letting me know?”
“Yes.”
“Who has been talking to you? Cicely—now that she is herself again? She’s a murderous little creature.”
“I talked to her, I asked her to take me with her.”
“What is the matter with you?” said Paul. He bent and took her hands, and drew her to her feet. “Now I can look at you.—Tell me what you mean.”
“Baby came near being drowned. And it was my fault. That brought me to my senses.”
“It took you out of them!”
“I saw then that I had been thinking only of myself, my own happiness.”
“Oh, it would have been some happiness, would it?” said Paul, with a touch of sarcasm. He took her in his arms.
“Have you the least doubt about my love for you?” Eve asked.
He looked deep into her eyes, so near his own. “No, I haven’t.” And he rested his lips on hers.
She did not resist, she returned his kiss. Then she left him. “It’s like death to me, but I must. I shall never marry you.” She went towards her canoe.
Paul gave a laugh. “That’s a nice way to talk when I’ve been slaving over the house, and got all sorts of suffocating things you’ll like.” He came and took her hands off the boat’s edge. “Why, Eve,” he said, with sudden passion, “a week from to-day we shall be living there together.”
“Never together.”
“I can’t tell you, because it’s against myself.—I haven’t the strength to tell you.”
“Because it will make me think less of you? Not so much so as your trying to slip away from me unawares.”
“You think it wouldn’t. But it would.”
“Try me!”
She released herself from the grasp of his hands. “Oh, if the cases had been reversed, how little I should have minded! No matter what you had done, you would have been the same to me—God knows you would! In life, in death, before anything and everything, I should have adored you always, you would always have come first.”
“So it is with me,” said Paul.
“No, it is not. And it’s for that reason I am leaving you.”
Paul made no more use of words. What she had said had left no impression upon him—no impression of importance. He had never been so much in love with her as at this moment.
“Don’t you see how I am suffering?—I cannot bear it. Oh, leave me! let me go! Another minute and I shall not have the strength.—Don’t kiss me again. Listen! I shot Ferdie, your brother. I—I!”
Paul’s arms dropped. “Ferdie? Poor Ferdie?” The tears rushed to his eyes. “Why, some negroes did it.”
“There were no negroes. It was I.”
He stood there as if petrified.
With desperate courage, she launched her canoe. “You see now that I had to go. You could not marry a woman who—Not even if she did it to save—“ She waited an instant, looking at him. He did not speak. She pushed off, lingering a moment longer. “Forgive me for trying to deceive you those few days,” she said. Then, with quick strokes, she sent the boat westward. After a while, she changed her position, and, taking the other paddle, she began to row, so that she could look back the longer. His figure remained motionless for many minutes; then he sat down on the edge of his canoe. Thus she left him, alone under Jupiter Light.
XXXI.
WHEN Eve reached the camp, after her parting with Paul, Cicely was waiting for her on the beach, alone; apparently she had sent every one away. “Well?” she said, as the canoe grated on the sand.
“I told him,” Eve answered.
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“And he did not—?”
“No, he did not.”
For an instant Cicely’s face expressed keen sympathy. Then her expression changed. “You did it, you know. You’ll have to pay for it!”
“Will you help me to get away?” Eve asked.—“I cannot see him again.”
“And do you imagine that by any chance he wishes to see you?” demanded Cicely, sarcastically.
“But he will have to come back here—he must; let me go away before he comes. We were leaving to-morrow in any case; help me off now,” Eve pleaded.
Cicely surveyed her with pitiless eyes; the once strong Eve now looked at her imploringly, her face despairing, her voice broken. Having had her satisfaction, the vindictive little creature turned, and, going back to the lodge, began to issue orders with imperative haste, as though she had but one wish in the world, namely, to help Eve; Mrs. Mile found herself working as she had never worked before; the Irishmen tumbled over each other; Porley and the cook constantly gallopaded—no other word could describe their gait. The judge worked fiercely; he helped in launching the canoes until the blood rushed to his head; he ran after the Irishmen; he carried Jack, he scolded Porley. And then, during one of these journeys, his strength failed so suddenly that he was obliged to sit down; as there was no bench near, he sat down on the ground.
Soon afterwards Mrs. Mile came by.
“Dear me! Do let me assist you,” she said sweetly.
“I am merely looking at the lake; it is charming this morning,” replied the judge, waving his hand.
“I could assist you so well,” said the nurse, coming nearer, “knowing, as I do, the exact position of all the muscles.”
“Muscles, madam? It’s more than I do! May I ask you to pass on?”
One of the Irishmen next appeared, carrying Jack’s pillows and toys.
“Can you tell me where Mr. Hollis is?” demanded the judge, still seated.
“Mr. Hollis, surr? Yes, surr. Think he’s gone fishing, surr.”
“D—n him! He takes a nice time for it—when we’re sweating here,” muttered the judge, angrily.
But poor Hollis was fishing only in a figurative sense, and in bitter waters. He had sent for Paul—yes; but he could not stay to witness his return with Eve; (he had not the slightest doubt but that Eve would return with him). He shook hands with Paul upon his arrival, and made a number of jokes, as usual. But soon after the younger man’s canoe had started eastward in search of Eve, a second canoe, with Hollis paddling, stole quietly away, going in the opposite direction. Its occupant reached Port aux Pins, in due time. He remained there but a few hours.
A month later a letter came to Paul from a small town near the base of the Rocky Mountains. “You see, when I got back to Port aux Pins, it sort of came over me that I’d go west. People are more lively out here, and not so crowded. I’ve got hold of a capital thing in raisins, in southern California. If that fails, there is stock-raising, and plenty of other things; and the same old auctioneer line. I’ve left a trifle in the savings-bank for Jacky. Perhaps you’ll take charge of it for him? You’ll hear from me again soon.—C. HOLLIS.”
But Paul never heard from him; from that moment all trace of him was lost. Ferdie, if he had known Hollis, would have had a vision of him making his way year by year farther westward, always attired in the black coat and tall hat (which marked his dignity as a lawyer), whether voyaging in a prairie schooner, chopping wood at a camp, hunting elk, or searching for ore. But Paul had no such visions, he did not see human lives as tableaux-vivants. He was sincerely sorry that Hollis had vamosed in that way. But he understood it too.
The trifle turned out to be eight hundred dollars. It was regularly entered to little Jack’s account, and there was a pass-book with his full name, “John Frederick Bruce.” “Bruce,—that did it,” thought Paul; “he could give it to the child. Poor old Kit! it must have been all he had.”
Cicely’s generalship was excellent; in less than half an hour the three canoes were ready, and the judge, Porley and Jack, Eve, Cicely herself, with three of the men to row, took their places; the boats glided out from the shore, turning towards the west. Mrs. Mile bowed gravely to the judge, with an air of compunction; she knew what an impression she had made upon that poor old man; she was afraid that she had not done right! Mrs. Mile was left in charge of the camp to await the arrival of Paul Tennant.
The canoes were out all night. At dawn the little party found refuge on one of the North Shore steamers, and began the long voyage down the chain of lakes, stopping again at the beautiful city of Cleveland, thence by railway to New York, and from there southward by sea. On the ninth morning of their journey their ocean steamer turned her bows towards the distant land, a faint line on the right; by noon, she was making her way along a winding channel, which was indicated here and there in the water by buoys painted white, which looked like ducks; the Atlantic was very calm, its hue was emerald green; it was so clear that one could see the great jelly-fish floating down below. The judge, with his hands clasped on his cane’s head, stood looking eagerly at everything. His joy was deep, he felt himself an exile returning home. And oh! how beautiful home was! To him, this Southern coast was fair as Paradise; he welcomed the dark hue of the Southern trees, he welcomed the neglected fields, he even welcomed the broken-down old houses here and there. For at least they were not staring, they were not noisy; to the judge, the smart new houses of Port aux Pins—those with Mansard roofs—had seemed to shout and yell. Three negro fishermen, passing in a row-boat with a torn sail, were eminently worthy creatures; they were not the impudent, well-dressed mulattoes of the North, who elbowed him off the pavements, who read newspapers on steamers with the air of men of the world. When the winding channel—winding through water—came to an end at the mouth of an inlet, the white sand-hills on each hand were more beautiful to his eyes than the peaks of the Alps, or the soft outline of Italian mountains. “God bless my country!” was the old man’s fervent thought. But his “country” was limited; it was the territory which lies between the St. Mary’s River and the Savannah.
At the little port within the inlet they disembarked, and took the small steamer of the Inside Route, which was to carry them through the sounds to Romney. Night had come on, dark and quiet; clouds covered the sky; the air was warm, for it was still summer here. The dusky shores, dimly visible on either hand, gave a sense of protection after the vastness of the ocean; the odors of flowers reached them, and seemed sweet after its blank, cold purity. Cicely, with Porley and Jack, was on the deck near the stern; the judge was now with them, now at the prow, now up-stairs, now down-stairs; he could not be still. Eve sat by herself on the forward deck, gazing through the darkness at the water; she could not see it save here and there in broken gleams, where the lights from the lower cabin shone across it; she heard the rushing sound made by the great paddle-wheels as they revolved unseen behind her, and the fancy came to her that she should like to be lashed to the outer rim of one of them, and be carried up and down through the cool water. Towards ten o’clock a beam shone out ahead. “See it?” said the judge, excitedly, coming to show it to her. “Jupiter Light!”
And Eve remembered that less than a year before she had landed here for the first time, a woman imperious, sufficient to herself; a woman who was sure that she could direct her own course; in addition, a woman who supposed herself to be unhappy. How like child’s play did this all seem now—her certainties, and her pride, and her supposed sorrow! “If I could die, wouldn’t that be the best thing for me, as well as for Paul? A way out of it all? The first shock over, I should be but a memory to him; I should not be a miserable haunting presence, wretched myself, and making him wretched too. I wonder—I wonder—is it wrong to try to die?”
The stern Puritan blood of her father in her answered, “One must not give up until one has exhausted every atom of one’s strength in the contest.”
“But if it is all exhausted? If—” Here another feeling came sweeping over her. “No, I cannot die while he is in the world; in spite of my misery, I want to be here if he is here. Perhaps no knowledge of anything that happens here penetrates to the next world; if that is the case, I don’t want to be there, no matter how beautiful it may be. I want to stay where I can hear of Paul.”
After they had left the boat, and Pomp and Plato were hoisting the trunks into one of the wagons, Cicely came up.
“Eve, you must stay with me more, now that we are here; you mustn’t be always off by yourself.”
“I thought you preferred it.”
“Yes, through the journey. But not now. It’s a great deal worse for me now than it is for you; you have left Paul behind, but I am going to see Ferdie in a moment or two. I shall see him everywhere—in the road, at the door, in our own room; he will stand and look at me.”
“Well, you will like that.”
“No, for it will be only a mockery; I shall not be able to put my arms round him; he won’t kiss me.”
“Cecilia,” called the judge, his voice ringing out happily, “everything is ready now, and Cesh is restive.”
Cicely gave one of her sudden little laughs. “Poor grandpa! he is so frantic with joy that he even says ‘Cesh,’—though he loathes abbreviations!”
Secession, the mule, started on his leisurely walk towards Romney.
In the same lighted doorway where Eve had been received upon her first arrival, now appeared again the tall figure of Miss Sabrina. The poor lady was crying.
“Oh, my darling Cicely, what sorrow!” she said, embracing her niece fondly.
As they entered the hall: “Oh, my darling Cicely, what a home-coming for you! And to think—“ More tears.
As they came into the lighted parlor: “Oh, my darling Cicely—What! no mourning?” This last in genuine surprise.
Cicely closed the door. She stood in the centre of the room. “This is not a charnel-house, Sabrina. No one is to speak to me of graves. As to mourning, I shall not wear an inch of it; you may wear as many yards as you like—you always loved it; did you begin to mourn for Ferdie before he was dead?”
“Oh, pa, she said such terrible things to me—our own Cicely. I don’t know how to take it!” moaned poor Miss Sabrina to her father when they were left alone.
“Well, you are pretty black, Sabrina,” suggested the judge, doubtfully. “Those tossels now—”
“I got them because they were cheap. I hope they look like mourning?”
“You needn’t be afraid; they’re hearse-like!”
“Are they, really?” said Miss Sabrina, with gratification. “The choice at the mainland store is so small.” But presently the tears came again. “Oh, pa, everything is so sad now. Do you remember when I used to ride my little pony by your side, and you were on your big black horse? How kind you have always been to me, pa; and I have been such a disappointment to you!”
“No, no, Breeny; no, little girl,” said the judge.
They kissed each other, the old man and his gray-haired child. Their minds went back to brighter days; they understood each other’s sorrow.
At two o’clock Eve had not yet gone to bed. There was a tap at her door. She spoke. “Cicely?”
“Yes.”
She drew back the bolt, and Cicely entered, carrying a small lamp. “You haven’t gone to bed? So much the better; you are to come with me.”
“Where?”
“To all the places where we went that night.”
“I cannot.”
“There is no question of ‘cannot;’ I wish you to go, and you must, if I say so.”
Eve looked at her with forlorn eyes. But Cicely was inflexible. She opened the door; Eve followed her.
“First, I want to see that Jacky is all right,” Cicely said. She led the way to her own room. Jack was asleep, his dimpled arms thrown out on the pillow. Cicely bent over him for a moment. Then she looked at Eve. “You won’t ever be troubled by this sort of thing, will you? You’ll never have a child!” She laughed, and, taking the lamp, turned towards the door. “This was Ferdie’s dressing-room; don’t you see him over there by the window?” Eve shrank. “Now he has gone. But we shall hear him following us along the corridor presently, and across the ballroom. Then, in the thicket, he will come and look at us;—do you remember his eyes, and the corners of his mouth,—how they were drawn down?” And the corners of her own mouth took the same grimace.
“I cannot go with you,” said Eve, stopping.
“You will do what I wish you to,” answered Cicely;—“one generally does when one has injured a person as you have injured me. For I loved Ferdie, you know; I really had the folly to love him.” (She said this insolently.) Turning to Eve, with the same insolent smile, “At last you know what love is, don’t you?” she added. “Has it brought you much happiness?”
Eve made no answer, she followed humbly; together they went through the labyrinth of small rooms at the end of the corridor and entered the ballroom.
Its empty space was dark, a glimmering gray alone marking the unshuttered windows. The circle of light from their lamp made the blackness still blacker.
“Do you remember when I put on that ball-dress of my grandmother’s, and came jumping along here?” said Cicely. “How strange it is!—I think I was intended to be happy.”
After a moment she went on: “Now we must begin to listen; he will come in behind us, we shall hear his step. You ought to hear it all your life!” she added.
They reached the window at last; it had seemed to Eve an endless transit. Cicely drew back the bolt, threw up the sash, and, with the aid of a chair, stepped out.
“Wait here,” she said, when Eve had joined her outside; “then, when I have reached the thicket, draw the window down, just as he did; I want to hear the sound.”
She went quickly towards the thicket, carrying her lamp. Eve was left alone on the veranda.
After a few minutes Eve tried to draw down the sash. It resisted, and she was obliged to use all her strength. A shiver came over her as she lifted her arms to try a second time, she almost expected to see a hand come stealing over her shoulder (or under it), and perform the task for her; and the hand would be—Ferdie’s. She hurried after Cicely.
Cicely came out from the thicket. “Now take the lamp and walk down the road a little way; I wish to see the gleam moving over the bushes,—don’t you remember?”
Eve obeyed. It seemed to her as if she should never be free from this island and its terror; as if she should spend the rest of her life here following Cicely, living over again their dreadful flight.
When she came back, Cicely said, “Now for the north point;” she led the way along the road; their footsteps made crunching sounds in the sand.
Cicely said, “I was in hopes that the moon would come out from behind those clouds. Oh, I’m so glad! there it is! Now it will light up the very spot where you shot him. I will leave the lamp here on the sand; that will give the yellow gleam that we saw behind us. Now go into the woods. Then, in a few moments, you must come out and look about, just as you did then, and you must put out your hand and make a motion of shooting.”
“I will not,” said Eve, outraged. “I shall leave you and go back.”
Cicely saw that she had come to the end of her power. She put her arms round Eve’s neck, and held her closely. “To please me, Eve; I shall never be content without it; I want to see how it all was, how you looked. Just this once, Eve; never again, but just this once.”
“I thought you had forgiven me, Cicely?”
“I have, I have.” She kissed Eve again. “Do content me.”
Eve went slowly towards the trees. As she disappeared within the shadow, Cicely instantly concealed herself on the other side of the road. There was a silence.
The moon, emerging still further from the clouds, now silvered the forest, the path, and the sound with its clear light; there was no boat drawn up at the point’s end; the beach sloped smoothly to the water, unbroken by any dark outline, and the water stretched smoothly towards Singleton Island, with only the track of the moon across it.
Eve stood in the shadow under the trees. The spell of the place was upon her; like a somnambulist, she felt herself forced by some inward compelling power to go through the whole scene. The thought of Cicely had passed from her mind; there was but one person there now—Ferdie; in another moment she should see him; she listened; then she went forward to the edge of the wood and looked down the road.
Something came rushing from the other side, and with quick force bore her to the ground. Not Ferdie, but Cicely, like a tigress, was upon her, her hands at her throat. In a strange suffocated voice, she cried, “Do you like it? Do you like it? Do you like to be dead?”
And Eve did not struggle; she lay motionless in Cicely’s grasp—motionless under the weight of her body keeping her down. The thing did not seem to her at all incredible; suddenly it seemed like a remedy for all her troubles—if Cicely’s grasp should tighten. Passively she closed her eyes.
But Cicely’s grasp did not tighten; the fury that had risen within her had taken all her strength, and now she lay back white and still. Eve, like a person in a dream, went down to the beach and dipped her handkerchief in the water; slowly she came back, and bathed Cicely’s forehead and wrists. But still Cicely did not stir. Eve put her hand on her heart. It was beating faintly. She stooped, and lifted Cicely in her arms, holding her as one holds a child, with one arm round her shoulders and the other under her knees, Cicely’s head lying against her breast. Then she began her long walk back.
XXXII.
THE stars were fading, there was a band of clear light in the east over the sea, when Eve reached the veranda of Romney again; with pauses for rest, she had carried her sister all the way. Cicely was small and light, her weight was scarcely more than that of a child; still, owing to the distance, the effort had been great, and Eve’s strength was exhausted. She put her burden gently down on the floor of the veranda, and stood leaning against one of the wooden pillars, with her arms hanging by her sides to rest them; they were numb and stiff, almost paralyzed; she began to be afraid lest she should not be able to raise them again; she went to the window to try. The effort of lifting the sash drew a groan of anguish from her. But Cicely did not hear it; she remained unconscious. The dawn grew brighter, soon the sun would appear. It was not probable that at this early hour any one would pass this uninhabited end of the house; still, negroes were inconsequent; Pomp and Plato might be seized with a fancy to come; if she could only get Cicely back to her room unseen, there need be no knowledge of their midnight expedition. She knelt down beside her, and chafed her hands and temples; she spoke her name with insistence: “Cicely! Cicely!”—she put the whole force of her will into the effort of reaching the dormant consciousness, wherever it was, and compelling it to waken. “Cicely!” She looked intently at Cicely’s closed eyes.
Cicely stirred, her dark-fringed lids opened; her vague glance caught the gleam of the sound. “Where are we?” she asked.
“We came out for a walk,” Eve answered. “Do you think you could climb in—I mean by the window? I am afraid I cannot lift you.”
“Of course I can. Why shouldn’t I?”
She did it as lightly and easily as ever; she was in perfect possession of all her faculties. Eve followed her. Then she drew down the sash with the same effort.
“What is the matter with your arms?” Cicely asked. “You move them as though they were rusty.”
“I think they are rusty.”
They went through the ballroom, now looking very prosaic, flooded with the light of the rising sun. “We’re always tramping through this old room,” said Cicely.
When she reached the door of her own chamber, she abruptly drew Eve in. “Well—are you going to leave me forever?”
“Not unless you send me away.”
“Is it on baby’s account that you stay?”
“Not more now than at any time.”
“You don’t mind what I did, then?”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“That’s brave of you, Eve, when you hate lies so. You are trying to make me believe that nothing happened out there in the road—that I was just as usual. But I remember perfectly—I sprang at you; if I had been a man—my hands stronger—you wouldn’t be here now!”
“Fortunately you are not a man, nor anything like one,” Eve answered, in the tone of a person who makes a joke. She turned towards the door.
“Wait, I want to tell you,” said Cicely, going after her, and turning her round with her hands on her shoulders. “This is it, Eve; it comes over me with a rush sometimes, when I look at you—that here you are alive, and Ferdie dead! He was a great deal more splendid than you are, he was so handsome and so young! And yet there he is, down in the ground; and you walking about here! Nothing seems too bad for you then; my feeling is, ‘Let her die too! And see how she likes it.’”
“I should like it well enough, if somebody else did it,” Eve answered. “Death wouldn’t be a punishment, Cicely; it would be a release.”
Cicely’s grasp relaxed. “Oh, very well. Then why haven’t you tried it?”
“Because Paul Tennant is still in the world! I am pusillanimous enough to wish to breathe the same air.”
“You do love him!” said Cicely. She paused. “Perhaps—after a little—”
“No, I have thought it all out; it can never be. If he should come to me this moment, and tell me that he loved me in spite of everything, it wouldn’t help me; for I should know that it could not last; I should know that, if I should marry him, sooner or later he would hate me; it would be inevitable. Ferdie’s face would come always between us.”
“I hope it may,” said Cicely, savagely. “Why do you keep on staying with me? I don’t wish you to stay. Not in the least.”
“I thought that I could perhaps be of some use. You were so dear to my brother—”
“Much you care for poor old Jack now! Even I care more.”
“Yes, I have changed. But—Jack understands.”
“A convenient belief!”
“And you have his child.”
—“And I am Paul’s sister!”
“Yes; I can sometimes hear of Paul through you.”
Eve’s voice, as she said this, was so patient that Cicely was softened. She came to Eve and kissed her. “I am sorry for you, Eve.”
“Will you promise me to go to bed?” Eve answered, resuming her usual tone, as she turned towards the door. “I must go now, I am tired.”
Cicely went with her. “I am never sure of myself, Eve,” she said, warningly; “I may say just the same things to you to-morrow,—remember that.”
Once in her own room, Eve did not follow the advice which she had given to Cicely; finding that she could not sleep, she dressed herself afresh, and sought the open air again. It was still early, no one was stirring save the servants. Meeting Porley, she asked the girl to bring her some tea and a piece of corn-bread; after this frugal breakfast, taken in the shade of the great live-oaks, she wandered down one of the eastern roads. Her bath had brought no color to her cheeks; her eyes had the contracted look which comes after a night of wakefulness; though the acute pain had ceased, her weary arms still hung lifelessly by her side, her step was languid; only her golden hair looked bright and young as the sun’s rays shone across it.
She walked on at random; after a while, upon looking down one of the tracks, bordered by the glittering green bushes, she recognized Miss Sabrina’s figure, and, turning, followed it.
Miss Sabrina had come out to pay an early visit to her temple of memories. She heard Eve’s step, and looked up. “Oh, is it you, my dear? It’s St. Michael and All-Angels; I have only brought a few flowers, I hope you don’t mind?” Her voice was apologetic.
“Do you mean for my brother? I wish you had brought more, then; I wish you would always remember him,” said Eve, going over and sitting down beside the mound. “He has the worst time of any of us, after all!”
“Oh, my dear, how can we know?” murmured Miss Sabrina, shocked.
“I don’t mean that he is in hell,” said Eve.
Miss Sabrina had no idea what she meant; she returned to the subject of her temple. “Cicely thinks I come here too often,—she spoke of charnel-houses. Perhaps I do come often; but it has been a comfort to me.”
“Miss Sabrina, do you believe in another world?”
“My dear child, most certainly.”
“And have we the same feelings, the same affections, there as here?”
“Is love one of these?”
“The best, isn’t it?”
“Well, then, my brother took his love for Cicely; if she should die to-day, how much would she care for him, when she met him?”
“I think that something else would be provided for your brother, probably,” said Miss Sabrina, timidly.
“Another wife? Why not arrange that for Ferdie Morrison, and give Cicely to Jack?”
“She loved Ferdie the best. Aren’t you inclined to think that it must be when they both love?” suggested the maiden lady.
“And when they both love, should anything be permitted to come between them?”
“Oh, nothing! nothing!” said Miss Sabrina, with fervor. “That is, of course, when there is no barrier; when it would be no crime.”
“What is crime?” demanded Eve, looking at her sombrely. “I don’t think I know.”
“Surely the catechism tells us, doesn’t it?”
“What does it tell?”
Miss Sabrina murmured reverently: “Idolatry, isn’t it?—and blasphemy; desecration of the Lord’s Day and irreverence to parents; murder, adultery, theft; falsehood and covetousness.”
“And which is the worst? Murder?”
“I suppose so.”
“Have you ever spoken to a murderer?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Miss Sabrina. She glanced with suffused eyes towards Ferdie’s grave. “It is such a comfort to me to think that though he was in effect murdered, those poor ignorant nig-roes had probably no such intention; it was not done deliberately, by some one who wished to harm him.”
“I don’t believe his murderer will be afraid to face him in the next world,” said Eve. She, too, looked towards the mound; she seemed to see Ferdie lying down below, with closed eyes, but the same grimacing lips.
“Oh, as to that, they would have so little in common that they wouldn’t be thrown much together, I reckon,” said Miss Sabrina, hopefully; “I doubt if they even meet.”
“Your heaven is not like the Declaration of Independence, is it?” said Eve.
Miss Sabrina did not understand. She pinched her throat with her thumb and forefinger, and looked vaguely at Eve.
“I mean that all men ‘are created equal;’ your heaven has an outside colony for negroes, and once or twice a week white angels go over there, I suppose, ring the Sunday-school bell, and hold meetings for their improvement.”
Miss Sabrina colored; she took up her basket.
“Forgive me!” said Eve, dropping her sarcasms. “I am unhappy. That is the reason I talk so.”
“I feared so, my dear; I feared so,” answered the gentle lady, melted at once.
Eve left her, and wandered across the island to the ocean beach. Low waves came rolling in and broke upon the sand; no ship was in sight; the blue of the water met the horizon line unbroken. She walked southward with languid step; every now and then she would stop, then walk slowly on again. After half an hour a sound made her turn; Paul Tennant was close upon her, not twenty feet distant; the wash of the waves had prevented her from hearing his approach. She stood still, involuntarily turning towards him as if at bay.
Paul came up. “Eve, I know what I am about now. I didn’t know out there at Jupiter Light; I was dazed; but I soon understood. I went back to the camp, but you were gone. As soon as I could I started after you. Here I am.”
“You understood? What did you understand?” said Eve, her face deathly white.
“That I loved you,” said Paul, taking her in his arms. “That is enough for me; I hope it is for you.”
“That you love me in spite of—”
“There is no ‘in spite of;’ what you did was noble, was extraordinarily brave. A woman is timid; you are timid, though you may pretend not to be; yet with your own hand—”
Eve remembered how Cicely had struck her hand down. “You will strike it down, too!” she said, incoherently, bursting into tears.
Paul soothed her, not by words, but by his touch. Her whole being responded; she leaned her head against his breast.
“To save Cicely you crushed your own feelings; you did something utterly horrible to you. And you faced all the trouble and grief which would certainly come in consequence of it. Why, Eve, it was the bravest thing I have ever heard of.”
Eve gave a long sigh. “I have been so unhappy—”
“Never again, I hope,” said Paul; “from this moment I take charge of you. We will be married as soon as possible; we will go to Charleston.”
“Don’t let us talk of that. Just love me here;—- now.”
“Well—don’t I?” said Paul, smiling.
He found a little nook between two spurs of the thicket which had invaded the beach; here he made a seat for her with a fragment of wreck which had been washed up by the sea.
“Let us stay here all day,” she said, longingly.
“You will have me all the days of your life,” said Paul. He had seated himself at her feet. “We shall have to live in Port aux Pins for the present; you won’t mind that, I hope?”
She drew his head down upon her breast. “How I have loved you!”
“I know it,” he said, flushing. “It was that which made me love you.” He rose (it was not natural to Paul to keep a lowly position long), and, taking a seat beside her, lifted her in his arms. “I’m well caught,” he murmured, looking down upon her with a smile. “Who would ever have supposed that you could sway me so?”
“Oh,” cried Eve, breaking away from him, “it’s of no use; my one day that I counted on—my one short day—I cannot even dare to take that! Good women have the worst of it; if I could pretend that I was going to marry you, all this would be right; and if I could pretend nothing, but just take it, then at least I should have had it; a remembrance for all the dreary years that have got to come. Instead of that, as I have been brought up a stupid, good woman, I can’t change—though I wish I could! I shall have to tell you the truth: I can never marry you; the sooner we part, then, the better.” She turned and walked northward towards the Romney road.
With a stride Paul caught up with her. “What are you driving at?”
“I shall never marry you.”
He laughed.
She turned upon him. “You laugh—you have no idea what it is to me! I think of you day and night, I have longed to have you in my arms—on my heart. No, don’t touch me; it is only that I won’t have you believe that I don’t know what love is, that I don’t love you. Why, once at Port aux Pins, I walked miles at night because I was so mad with jealousy; and I found you playing whist! If I could only have known beforehand—if I could only have seen you once, just once, Ferdie might have done what he chose with Cicely; I shouldn’t have stirred!”
“Yes, you would,” said Paul.
“No, I shouldn’t have stirred; you might as well know me as I am. What I despise myself for now is, that I haven’t the force to make an end of it, to relieve you of the thought of me—at least as some one living. But as long as you are alive, Paul—” She looked at him with her eyes full of tears.
“You don’t know what you are talking about,” said Paul, sternly. “You will live, and as my wife; we will be married here at Romney to-morrow.”
“Would you really marry me here?” said Eve, the light of joy coming into her wan face.
“It’s a tumble-down old place, I know. But won’t it do to be married in?”
“Oh, it is so much harder when you seem to forget,—when for the moment you really do forget! But of course I know that it could not last.”
She moved away a step or two. “If I should marry you, you would hate me. Not in the beginning. But it would come. For Ferdie was your brother, and I did kill him; nothing can alter these facts—not even love. At first you wouldn’t remember; then, gradually, he would come back to you; you would think of the time when you were boys together, and you would be sorry. Then, gradually, you would realize that I killed him; whenever I came near you, you would see—” Her voice broke, but she hurried on. “You said I was brave to do it, and I was. You said it was heroic, and it was. Yet all the same, he was your brother; and I killed him. In defence of Cicely and the baby? Nothing makes any difference. I killed him, and you would end by hating me. Yet I shouldn’t be able to leave you; once your wife, I know that I should stay on, even if it were only to fold your clothes,—to touch them; to pick up the burnt match-ends you had dropped, and your newspapers; to arrange the chairs as you like to have them. I should be weak, weak—I should follow you about. How you would loathe me! It would become to you a hell.”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Paul; “I’ll see to my own hells; at present I’m thinking of something very different. We will be married to-day, and not wait for to-morrow; I will take you away to-night.”
Eve looked at him.—“Haven’t you heard what I’ve been saying?”
“Yes, I heard it; it was rubbish.” But something in her face impressed him. “Eve, you are not really going to throw me over for a fancy like that?”
“No; for the horrible truth.”
“My poor girl, you are all wrong, you are out of your mind. Let us look at only one side of it: what can you do in the world without me and my love as your shield? Your very position (which you talk too much about) makes me your refuge. Where else could you go? To whom? You speak of staying with Cicely. But Cicely—about Ferdie—is a little devil. The boy will never be yours, she will not give him to you; and, all alone in the world, how desolate you will be! You think yourself strong, but to me you are like a child; I long to take care of you, I should guard you from everything. And there wouldn’t be the least goodness in this on my part; don’t think that; I’m passionately in love with you—I might as well confess it outright.”
Eve quivered as she met his eyes. “I shall stay with Cicely.”
“You don’t care whether you make me suffer?”
“I want to save you from the far greater suffering that would come.”
“As I told you before, I’ll take care of that,” said Paul. “You needn’t be so much concerned about what my feelings will be after you are my wife—I know what they will be. Women are fools about that sort of thing—what the future husband may or may not feel, may or may not think; when he has got the woman he loves, he doesn’t think about her at all; he thinks about his business, his affairs, his occupations, whatever he has to do in the world. As to what he feels, he knows. And she too. There comes an end to all her fancies, and generally they’re poor stuff.” Drawing her to him, he kissed her. “That’s better than a fancy! Now we will walk back to the house; there is a good deal to do if we are to be married this afternoon—as we certainly shall be; by this time to-morrow it will be an old story to you—the being my wife. And now listen, Eve, let me make an end of it; Ferdie was everything to me, I don’t deny it; he was the dearest fellow the world could show, and I had always had the charge of him. But he had that fault from boyhood. The time came when it endangered Cicely’s life and that of her child; then you stepped forward and saved them, though it was sure to cost you a lifetime of pain. I honor you for this, Eve, and always shall. Poor Ferdie has gone, his death was nobody’s fault but his own; and it wasn’t wholly his own, either, for he had inherited tendencies which kept him down. He has gone back to the Power that made him, and that Power understands his own work, I fancy; at any rate, I am willing to leave Ferdie to Him. But, in the meantime, we are on the earth, Eve, we two,—and we love each other; let us have all there is of it, while we are about it; in fact, I give you warning, that I shall take it all!”
Two hours later, Paul came back from the mainland, where he had been making the necessary arrangements for the marriage, which was to take place at five o’clock; so far, he had told no one of his intention.
A note was handed to him. He opened it.