“What?” said Virginia.

He repeated his assertion.

“Ef that’s true,” she said, slowly, “I ain’ goin’ to bother my head ’bout ’em; such fools oughter die.”

(Be that as it may, she “bothered” herself enough to tramp on foot all the way to Annesville, some eight miles, that very afternoon, and offer her services as sick-nurse. The house fortunately was under quarantine, and there was assistance enough.)

“But that ain’ nothin’ ter th’ skyarlet-fever over the mounting,” Mr. Scott pursued, in a tone whose threadbare lugubriousness revealed the morbid satisfaction which lined it. “That’s fyar howlin’; an’ they sez, moresomeover, ez how it can be kyard an’ took from a little bit o’ rag.”

Old Herrick, who had come again to the window, was listening intently. “’S that so?” he said, finally. “Well, consequently were, the beauty of that question air, thar ain’ much rag trade goin’ on between that side o’ th’ mounting an’ t’other. Hyeah! hyeah!”

“How can you laugh, father?” said the girl.

“Godamighty, gyrl! I ain’ laufin’ at the folks as is got the fever, but at them as ain’t.”

“They says as how it kin be kep’ in a piece o’ ribbon or sich fur over twenty year,” pursued Mr. Scott, who, apparently not content with his own fragrance, continued from time to time to bury his long nose in the bunch of johnny-jump-ups which he still held.

“’S that so?” said old Herrick again. “I tell yo’ what, darter, ’f that thar’s true, yo’d better have them things ez th’ las’ Englisher’s wife lef up in th’ attic burned up.”

“Why?” said Mr. Scott, before Virginia could reply.

“’Case thar baby died o’ th’ red fever, and thar’s some o’ its belonging up thar inter a cradle—some little odds an’ eens ez they furgot ter take away with ’em in their trouble.”

“Yo’d cert’n’y better burn ’em,” said Mr. Scott, with knowing gloom. “I’d as soon sleep with a bar’l o’ gunpowder over my hade.”

“Well, seems to me ef there’s danger ’n either, ’twouldn’t be in th’ gunpowder,” said Miss Herrick, dryly, “seein’ as it don’ never blow down, an’ yo’d be onder it.”

“G’long, Miss Faginia!” exclaimed her not-to-be-rebuffed admirer. “Yo’d have yo’ joke ’bout a dyin’ minister!”

He left a half-hour afterwards, all unconscious of the seeds of disaster which he had sown, and the next day Roden returned from New York in excellent spirits. On the following Tuesday he went into the kitchen and had a private conference with Aunt Tishy, which resulted in his leaving it with pockets considerably lightened, and shoulders laden with the thanks and praise of its proprietress. He also confided in Virginia, and asked her assistance. He wished to give his bride-elect and her mother a little dinner—wouldn’t Virginia help him? She was so very clever about such things. He knew if she would only help him that everything would be perfectly satisfactory. She promised, and he went off on Bonnibel to Windemere entirely content.

Miss Erroll drove her mother over to Caryston in a village-cart, and, as luck would have it, a sudden shower caught them about a quarter of a mile from the house. Mary, however, got the brunt of the shower, as she was driving, and had at once wrapped her mother in all available rugs and wraps.

Mrs. Erroll stepped out upon the front porch at Caryston with the ruffle at her throat, and a little damp, and the plumes in her bonnet somewhat limp; but Mary’s dress of white wool was soaked through and through, and her hat a sodden mass of white lace and straw.

Roden relapsed at once into the agonies of alarm in which newly engaged men are apt to indulge when the health of their fiancées is called into question. He went again to Virginia, and overwhelmed her with instruction and entreaties. Miss Erroll was conducted to a bedroom bright with blue chintz and many wax-candles, and Virginia, having provided her with some of her own clothes, went off to dry the soaked garments. That, however, Roden would not hear of. It was too far to Windemere to send back for dry garments. Then Virginia must lend Miss Erroll one of her dresses.

Virginia had three dresses besides the one she wore. She brought them all in and laid them on the bed. Miss Mary, who had an artistic eye, chose a gown of garnet wool with plain round waist and short skirt. When she had turned it in a little at the throat, and fastened a bit of cambric, which Virginia brought her, kerchiefwise about her neck, she looked like a charming Cinderella who had resumed her humble attire to please her Prince. Mary’s throat, however, could not stand the severe test of laceless exposure. It was too slender and long. Where Virginia’s massive column of cream-hued flesh rose from the clasp of such a kerchief with infinite suggestions of mythical forests and Amazonian warriors, Miss Erroll announced that she looked “scraggy.” She took up the bit of black velvet with its buckle of Scotch pebbles which she had worn about her throat when she arrived. But the wet stuff left dark stains on her fingers, and had assumed a cottony, lack-lustre hue. “If only I had a bit of velvet to go about my throat!” she said, regretfully. “I can’t go down this way—I’m so indecently thin!” She laughed a little and sat down as in despair.

A sudden thought leaped hot in Virginia’s breast. A bit of velvet? She had no velvet of any kind, but she knew where a piece was. A bit of dark-blue velvet ribbon, just such a bit as Miss Erroll wanted. True, it had been used to loop a baby’s sleeve, but around that slender throat it would reach most amply.

“I—kin—get—you a piece,” she heard herself saying.

Her voice sounded strange and disembodied to herself, as though it did not issue from her own lips. She thought that she to whom she spoke must start up with horror for the change. But no, she only smiled blandly, sweetly, with that faint suggestion of patronage which was as perceptible, though not as palatable, as the dash of bitter in orange marmalade.

“Thank you so much!” she said. “I shall quite suit myself then.”

Virginia took a candle and went up into the attic, as ten days ago she had gone. The damp, dusty smell brought back to her that terrible memory as only a perfume can recall the past.

Her veins throbbed ever hotter and fiercer. Her time was come. Revenge was in her hands. What fever could be more virulent, more deadly, than the fever that dark-haired girl had set raging in her veins? What was the verse that she had read only last night to Aunt Tishy out of what the old negress called “de Holy Wud?” An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Joe Scott was not the only person she had ever heard speak of such a thing. It had simply served to recall it to her mind. Ha! ha! She had never liked Joe Scott before, and she had been very rude about those johnny-jump-ups. Poor Joe! She would thank him the very best she knew how when next she saw him. Poor Joe! good Joe! dear Joe! Yes, there it was, the pretty bassinet cradle, with its faded blue and pink ribbons. That little English baby had died full four years ago. She walked towards it, shielding the candle with one scooped hand from the playful assaults of the night wind. The cradle stood just in front of an old hair-covered chest. As she neared it, a consciousness of eyes regarding her came upon her. Ah! there they were. A rat, paralyzed for the moment by the sudden light, had paused on the edge of the old chest, and fixed her with his little, protruding, evil-looking eyes. She made a spasmodic, terrified movement with her hand, and he leaped down, his sleek, tight-skinned body striking the floor with a repulsive sound as of unsavorily nurtured corpulence. The girl turned with a strong, uncontrollable fit of shivering towards the cradle. It was rocking slowly back and forth in the uncertain light, its pink and blue ribbons fluttering with a ghostly and ill-timed gayety. A cry almost broke from between her gripped lips, but she remembered suddenly that the rat must have set it in motion when he leaped from the top of the chest. Setting the candle on the floor beside her, she stooped over and began lifting out the little sheets and blankets and bundles of linen and silk. One of those sudden noises which disturb sleep at night in an old house jarred through the room. She stuffed the things hastily back and looked behind her. Nothing there. But as her glance went round the room she saw before her, black, assertive, monstrous, the likeness of a huge cradle, cast by the candle against the whitewashed wall of the garret. Her heart beat with laboring, heavy thuds. If it were not quite so black, she thought, or if it had only been more the size of the real cradle; but its vast presence in the low-roofed room seemed like the presence of some presiding fate. She tore away her look from it by sheer force of will, found what she wanted, caught up the candle, and rushed headlong from the room.

Miss Erroll received her with the same sweet smile. “You were pretty long,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve given you a lot of trouble.”

“No, none,” said Virginia. She cleared her throat and repeated the words. They were indistinct at first, because of the dryness of her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She watched with hot, moveless eyes the slim fingers of Miss Erroll as she first crimped the curling bit of velvet between her fingers, with a deft, almost imperceptible movement, and forced the teeth of her little buckle through it.

“How damp it smells!” she said, as she lifted it to her throat to put it on; “just as if it had been stuffed away in some old attic.”

Virginia’s knees smote together. She put out her hand to steady herself, and sank heavily into a chair.

“’Taint nuthin’—’tain’t nuthin’,” she said, roughly, as Mary ran to her side. “I’m better jess so. Don’ tech me, please. An’ please ter scuse me. I kyarn’ bear no one to tech me when—when I’m like this.”

Alas! alas! Virginia, when were you ever “like this” before, in the whole course of your seventeen years of strength and health and placid, if bovine, contentment?

The dinner, thanks to Virginia, was a success. Roden’s wines were excellent. They were going to ask Virginia to sing for them. Roden said he thought it would please her so much. After dinner Mrs. Erroll sat down to the piano, and the sweethearts wandered off into the “greenhouse,” leaving open the door between the rooms. A rhomboid of pale yellow light from the candles on the dinner-table fell into the narrow, flower-crowded corridor, touching the great geranium-leaves into a soft distinctness, and showing here and there the flame-colored and snow-white glomes of blossom.

Roden, out of sight of Mrs. Erroll, had straightway put an arm about the supple waist of his betrothed, and one of her hands had found its way to his short curls with a movement as of long habit. As the slanting light from the room beyond caught the sheen of her delicate throat above its velvet ribbon, he bent his head and pressed down his lips upon it and upon the bit of velvet.

Virginia, by some strange coincidence or freak of fate, was at this moment crossing the lawn to put the mastiff pup into his kennel. Attracted by the unusual light in the greenhouse, she looked up. Looking up, she saw Roden as he stooped and kissed his sweetheart’s throat. She gave a fierce broken cry, like an angered beast, and turning, ran with all her might into the house.

Poor Mrs. Erroll, summoning up musical ghosts from her maidenhood’s répertoire on the old piano, thought that one of Roden’s horses had gone mad and galloped through the room.

In the mean time Virginia, panting, wordless, seized Mary with one strong hand, and with the other tore off the velvet from about her neck. “I—I—I’ve read as how it was pizen; I jess remembered. Here’s yo’ buckle.”

She rushed madly out again, and flinging herself upon the bare floor of her little bedroom, beat the hard boards with her hand and dragged at her loosened hair.

VII.

There is One who hath said that to Him belongeth vengeance. When His creatures take into their incapable grasp the javelins of His wrath it is generally with as impotent and baleful a result as when young Phaëton, seeking to guide the chariot of the sun, brought to himself despair, and scorched to cinders the unoffending earth. Thus was it with Virginia. With the nearness of her unbridled love and anger she had forever seamed as if with fire the fair world of her content. It seemed to her that space itself would be too narrow to hold her apart from such women as were good and true.

Just God! could it be that her sin was to be visited upon the being whom of all the world she loved best, because of whom that sin had been committed? Was Roden going to suffer, perhaps to die, in the stead of the woman she had sought to slay? He was not often at Caryston now; most of his days were spent with his betrothed. He did not notice the change which was stealing over Herrick’s daughter. He had no time to wonder that she did not sing now at her spinning as once she had sung. He would not have paused to listen to her had she done so.

He was called away again to the North on the last of May, and on the day after his departure Aunt Tishy burst into Virginia’s room with flour-covered hands. “Gord! Gord! honey,” she said, tossing her blue-checked apron up and down with wild, savage gestures of dismay and grief, “what yuh think?—Marse Jack’s sweetheart’s dun got de rade fever, an’ dey don’ think as how she’ll live.”

Virginia stood and stared at her with eyes which saw nothing. Her face took on a ghastly greenish pallor. About her brow and mouth there stole a cold moisture. She opened her lips, and seemed to speak. Her lips framed the same words stupidly over and over again.

“Gord! honey,” cried the old negress, seizing her, as she swayed backward as if about to fall, “is yuh gwine be sick yuhsef?”

Virginia pushed her away, walked steadily over to an old oak cupboard, took out a jug of whiskey, and drank from its green glass throat as she had seen men do. The stinging liquid filled her veins with a hot, false strength. She spoke quickly now, in a harsh tone, seizing the old nurse by the shoulders, and thrusting her white face, with its lambent, distended eyes, close to that of the terrified Aunt Tishy.

“When was she took? Who tol’ yuh? Are yuh lyin’? Ef yuh’re lyin’ I’ll curse yuh with such curses yuh won’ be able to be still when yuh’re dead. But yuh wouldn’ lie tuh me, would yuh, mammy? You wouldn’ lie to me to send me tuh hell in th’ spirit ’fo’ I was called there fur good. Yuh hear me? Why didn’ yuh tell me befo’? Who’s with her? Who’s nursin’ her? Put up my clo’es. I’m goin’—I’m goin’ right now. God! Air yuh a-tryin’ to hold me? Ha! ha! That’s good—that cert’n’y is good. I’ll make father larf at that when—when I come back. Why, you pore old thing, I could throw you outer that winder ef I tried. Well, don’t cry. What a’ you cryin’ fur? God! God! God! have mercy on me!”

She fell upon her knees, wringing her hands and throwing backward her agonized face, as though with her uplooking, straining eyes she would pierce the very floor of heaven and behold that mercy for which she pleaded. Then she leaped again to her feet. All at once a calmness fell upon her. She resumed the old dull listlessness of some days past as though it had been a garment.

“I’m goin’ to Mis’ Erroll’s,” she said, quietly. “I wan’ some clo’es. Send ’em; I ain’t er-goin’ tuh wait. Tell father.”

Virginia, arrived at Windemere, went down the basement steps into the kitchen. The cook, a young mulatto woman named Lorinda, came forward to meet her on cautious, brown-yarn toes.

“Miss Mary’s a-dyin’,” she announced, in a sepulchral whisper. “De doctor seh ez how she kyarn’ live nohow. She’s jess ez rade ez a tomarker fum hade tuh foots. An’ she’s jess pintly ’stracted. Yuh never heah sich screechin’ an’ tuh-doin’ in all yuh life.”

“Kin I see Mis’ Erroll?” Virginia said, shortly. She sat down on an upturned half-barrel near the door, and leaned with her forehead in her locked palms. Lorinda, rebuffed but obliging, went to see. Virginia was not surprised when she returned shortly, followed by Mrs. Erroll herself. Her heart would never quicken its beat again for anything this side of torment, she thought. Poor, erring, repentant, suffering little savage, what are you enduring now if it be not torment?

Mrs. Erroll, nervous and hysterical, took the girl’s hands in hers, and scarcely knowing what she did, bent forward and kissed her cheek. Virginia started back with a harsh cry, which was born and died in her throat.

“Poor child!” Mrs. Erroll said, humbly. “I beg your pardon. But if you feared contagion you ought not to have come here.”

“’Tain’t that—’tain’t that,” said Virginia. “Don’ min’ me; I’m queer like sometimes. I didn’ mean nuthin’. Ev’ybordy in this neighborhood ’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse. I’ve come to he’p yo’. I’ve come to take kyar of her. I’ve come to make her live!”

She lifted one arm with a gesture of command almost threatening. The next moment it dropped heavily to her side. The old dull look crept like a shadow over the momentary animation of her face. “They’ll tell yo’ I’m a good nurse,” she said, in her slow monotone.

Mrs. Erroll was only too thankful for the proffered services. She had no assistance from the whites in the neighborhood; indeed, all of the neighboring families had left for the Virginia Springs.

Virginia, after removing her shoes, went at once to the sick-room. As her eyes fell upon the flushed face on the pillow it was as if every drop of blood in her body turned first to fire and then to ice.

She stood with her hands against her breast and looked down at her own work. The beautiful dark tresses, formerly so smoothly braided about the small head, now ever turning from side to side as though in search of rest which it found not, were tangled and matted until no trace of their former lustre remained; the red lips, ever moving, gave forth wild, incoherent cries and mutterings.

About the slender throat coiled the wraith of a dark-blue velvet ribbon.

“Take it off, take it off,” whispered Virginia. “She kyarn’ git well while that’s there—she kyarn’.” Reason came back to her with a sudden rush, and she knew that only her mind’s eye saw the velvet ribbon.

She then took her place by the bedside, from which she did not move to eat or sleep for twelve days and nights. They brought her bouillon and made her drink it under penalty of being turned from the room. For twelve times four-and-twenty hours she listened to those senseless ravings. She was mistaken in turn by the sick girl for her mother, for some of her school-room friends, for Roden. Mary would sometimes put up both narrow, fever-wasted hands to her little throat, and cry out that she was choking—that Virginia had brought her a band of fire and locked it about her throat. By what strange coincidence such a fancy should have possessed her who shall say?

Thus they went together, those two, through the Valley of the Shadow—the all but murdered, the almost murderess—and she who had sought to slay brought back to life.

Roden, detained by some business complication in New York, heard nothing of his sweetheart’s illness until telegraphed for on the day of the crisis. It was just the balance of a mote in sunshine between life and death. Life brought the mote that won. They told him he must thank Virginia. They had all thanked her, and blessed her, with thanks and blessings which burned her guilty soul with twice the fire of red-hot maledictions. That they should bless her whom God had cursed! Ah, God, she prayed not! She would but know if God himself wept not because of the sad mockery.

A wild thought came to her with healing in its wings, as when a blade of grass forces its way between the stones in a prisoner’s cell. She had read of atonement: might she not atone?

Perhaps God would let her buy forgiveness with her life. Why had she not taken the fever; or was this fever now which rioted through her veins? She was walking homeward with her shoes slung across her shoulders. The grass felt cool and damp against her bare feet. Would it not wither where she trod? She looked backward over her shoulder with a laugh. It seemed to her that her footprints would be set as with fire across that lush June field.

Then came a curse upon her eyes. For her the earth lost all its summer green; the heavens above her bent not bluely down to meet the blue horizon. The birds ceased singing, and echoed her mirthless laugh; all nature took it up—a monstrous harmony of jovial sounds. At what were they making merry, these creatures large and small—the crickets, the wild birds, the many voices of field and forest, of air and water?

Was it at her they laughed? Did they jeer at her because she had lost her soul? Ah, for the cool green to look upon! Ah, that its blue would return to the lurid heavens! The curse of blood was upon her. Because of it she looked on all things as through a scarlet veil. Red was the vault above her; red the far-reaching line of well-loved hills; red, red, the whirling earth.

Virginia did not die. A week after her recovery she sent and asked if Roden would come to her father’s room; she wished to speak with him.

He went most willingly, having never felt as though he had sufficiently thanked her for what she had done for one who was to him as the life in his veins.

As he entered the room, in spite of all his self-control he could not restrain a slight start. Was this Virginia Herrick?—this snow maiden with eyes of fire, and tangled hair that seemed to flame about her white face as though it would consume it?—this fragile, wasted, piteous memory of a woman? She was as poor a likeness of her former self as a sketch in white chalk would be of one of Fortuny’s sunlit glares of canvas.

He came and stood beside her, wordless, and then put one of his strong brown hands kindly on her hair.

“Wait,” she said, drawing herself away from him—“wait.”

“Ah, Miss Virginia,” he said, in his breezy, gentle voice, “we will soon have you out of this. You won’t know yourself in two weeks.”

“Wait,” she said, her great eyes burning into his.

“My poor little girl,” he said, almost with tenderness, “I am afraid you have over-estimated your strength. You had better let me go now. I will come to-morrow whenever you send for me.”

“Wait,” she said a fourth time, in that strange, still voice.

He had a horrified doubt in regard to her reason as he took the chair to which she pointed and sat down facing her.

“Well,” he said, with an assumption of gayety which he was far from feeling, “what is it? Am I to be scolded for anything?”

“Do you believe in torment?” said the girl. She kept her hollow, stirless eyes on his. There was an absence of movement about her almost oppressive. She seemed not even to breathe.

“My dear child,” said Roden, nervously, “do choose a more cheerful subject. Really, you know, it isn’t good for you to be morbid now. Let’s talk of something jolly and pleasant. Don’t you want to hear how the mokes are coming along? And Bonnibel, poor old girl! I’m afraid her feelings will be awfully hurt when I tell her you didn’t ask after her.”

“I s’pose ev’ybordy bleeves in torment that has felt it,” said the girl. She had not moved in anywise. Her deep, still eyes yet rested on his face. She seemed drinking his looks with hers. “I’ve sorter come ter think as hell’s in th’ hearts o’ people,” she went on. “There ain’t no flames ez kin burn like them in people’s hearts.”

Roden jumped to his feet, and went over beside her. “Virginia,” he said, kindly but firmly, “I’m not going to let you talk like this. Good Heaven! those country quacks know as little about medicine as I do; not as much, by Jove! for I’d not have let you leave your bed for a month yet. Come, dear, let me persuade you. Go back to bed. I’ll come and see you to-morrow in your room, if your father’ll let me. You must, Virginia!”

“It ain’t no worse, do you reckon,” she went on, dully, “tuh be in hell than tuh have hell in you? I’ve thought er heap ’bout it. I’ve most answered it, but I’d rather—”

“Hush! hush!” said Roden, imperatively. He thought her delirious, and started to the door to call her nurse.

“Wait!” rang out her voice, with all its old, clear strength. She had risen to her feet. She was there before him. The light from the window behind her struck through her hair, so that she seemed standing between rows of living flame. “I want tuh tell you,” she said. “I didn’t use tuh think I was a coward, but I am—I am!” She beat the palms of her hands together, and tossed back her head as though seeking to be rid of the superflux of agony which tore her. “I kyarn’ bear to say it tuh yo’; I kyarn’ bear to hear yo’ curse me, ez I have so often hearn yo’ in my dreams. I kyarn’ bear—O God!—I kyarn’ bear fur yo’ tuh know me ez I am. O God! O God! this’ll wipe it out, won’t it? This’ll buy me peace?”

“Virginia! Virginia!” said Roden, beside himself. He tried to force her again into her chair.

“Ah! don’t touch me!” she cried out—“don’t yuh touch me, tuh hate me worse than ever when yuh know—Listen—listen hard, ’cause yuh ain’t a-goin’ to bleeve me when first yuh hear. Yuh come here tuh thank me fur savin’ her life. Listen: ’twas me ez tried to kill her—’twas me! me! me!” The last word broke from her with a wild sob, almost vindictive in its urgent violence. She seemed like one who scourges mercilessly his own flesh for its sins against his soul. “I done it—I done it. I tried ter kill her. Listen! You’ve hearn o’ fever bein’ cyar’d in bits o’ ribbon—in leetle bits o’ velvet ribbon—one, two, ten, twenty years? There was a leetle baby died here onc’t. It died o’ th’ fever she liked tuh ’a’ died of. I give her that piece o’ velvet to w’ar roun’ her pretty throat. I went up intuh th’ attic, an’ hunted an’ hunted till I found it in th’ baby’s cradle. I give it to her. I tried to kill her. O my God! Do yo’ want tuh touch me—now?”

He stood and stared on her like one dazed by a sudden blow, though not quite stunned.

“You are crazy,” he said, thickly. “Poor Virginia, you are crazy.”

“O God!” she wailed. “I wisht I wuz—I wisht I wuz! Oh, ef I wuz only like them dumb beasts in th’ stables out thar! Ef I wuz only Bonnibel, then—then—then yuh wouldn’ hate me; an’ ef yuh did, I wouldn’ know.”

“You are raving,” he said again.

“Ask her—ask her, if yo’ don’ bleeve me. Ask her ’f Faginia Herrick didn’ bring her a leetle bit o’ blue velvet to w’ar round her throat the night she got wet in th’ rain. She said then it smelt damp like it had been in a attic. Ask her—ask her.”

“God in heaven!” said Roden, between his teeth, “can you be telling me the truth?”

“He knows I am!—He knows I am!” she said, wildly.

Roden turned from her, resting his hand on the back of the chair in which he had sat when he first entered the room. His head drooped. The double horror seemed like a palpable thing at his side.

“D’ yo’ bleeve me?” she said, with panting eagerness.

“Yes,” he said. She would not have recognized his voice had he spoken in the dark.

She waited a few moments, motionless, frozen, as it were, with suspense and dread. Then she leaned forward, and holding fast her bosom with her crossed arms in the gesture usual with her, fixed her dilating eyes upon him. Was it possible, could it be true, that after all he could not curse her? Nay, dear God! was he even going to forgive her?

“Say something,” she said, in a bated voice—“say somethin’. Jess so you don’ curse me, say somethin’.”

Still he spoke not. She fell upon her knees and laid her head upon his feet. “O my God! my God!” she sobbed, “air yuh goin’ tuh furgive me?”

Then he spoke to her. “Forgive you?” he repeated—“forgive you?” He laughed a short, rough laugh. “By G—!” he said, turning away from her, so that her forehead rested on the bare floor instead of on his feet, “it’s all I can do not to curse you!”

When she rose again to her knees she was alone in the darkening room.

VIII.

Roden did not return to Caryston that night, nor the next day, nor the day after that. A boy was sent from Windemere to bring over some of his boxes. On Monday of the next week he went with the Errolls to Old Point Comfort, where Mary had been ordered to stop during her convalescence.

As much as he despised Virginia for her confession, that pathetic, joyous cry of hers as she thought him about to forgive her would sometimes ring in his ears; her deep, still, pleading look, as of some dumb beast, for mercy haunted him at times. He could feel her forehead on his feet, and the eager grasp of her hands upon them. It was not pleasant, all this; for while it annoyed and even pained him, he could not say honestly to himself that he felt any disposition to forgive her. Forgiveness is no doubt divine. Roden was quite sure that it was an attribute which, like happiness, belonged solely to the gods. As for himself, he was distinctly, vehemently, entirely human. He did not forgive—almost he did not wish to feel forgiveness. What! forgive a creature who had sought to murder his manhood’s one love? Verily he would be no better than herself did he so much as dream of pardon. Between her and her God must rest that question. He would none of it. And yet why did that earnest, wistful voice, so thrilling with a timid exultation, come ever to his mental ears: “O my God! my God! air you goin’ ter furgive me?” Pshaw! what balderdash! He had not cursed her. Let her comfort herself with that. He did not know many other men who would have been as forbearing. And yet again—those hands about his feet, that huddled form prone before him in humblest entreaty! It made him irritable at times. He was conscious of having acted with perfect justness, and yet he felt that his justness had not been tempered with overmuch mercy.

In the mean time Virginia lived on, if one can be said to live whose heart is dead within her. She did not dare to pray for death; she did not dare to hope for peace; she feared to die, poor ignorant child, because of the roaring flame which waited to devour her. She feared even more to live, because of the fire with which she was already consumed. She never moved save to go to bed and get up again. Sometimes she would sit all day out-of-doors under the great horse-chestnuts, already shrivelling in the June sunlight. Nothing roused her; nothing moved her in anywise. Poor old Herrick would recount to her his drollest stories, ending with a vociferous “Hyeah! hyeah!” in hopes of eliciting some answering mirth from her. But when he had reached the most excruciatingly funny climax, and paused to hear her laugh, she would turn on him her vague, gentle eyes, and say, “What’s that, father?” or sometimes, “Were you a-talkin’ ter me, father dear?”

The old man went heavily about his work. He was like some willing beast too late in life called upon to support a heavy burden. He was disgusted and angry to feel the big tears on his cheeks.

“The beauty of the question air,” he quoth, angrily, to himself one day, “I ain’t wuth th’ victuals I eat. I’m a pore ole fool ez oughter be a-suckin’ ov a sugar rag, ’stead o’ tendin’ ter er beeg place like this; but, Godamighty! ef that thar gyrl don’ git a heap peerter ’fo’ long, I’m gwine plumb crazy. My sakes! who’d ’a’ ever thought Faginia would a-set all day like that a-studyin’ her own han’s like they wuz the book o’ Gord! Howsomdever, ’tain’t many ez studies th’ book o’ Gord ez faithful ez my pore leetle gyrl studies them han’s o’ hern. Somethin’ cert’n’y is out o’ kelter with that thar chile. Godamighty! ef Faginia wuz ter die—”

He stopped blankly in the midst of the cornfield through which he was walking, and thrusting his hands deep in his brown jeans trousers-pockets, looked up appealingly at the hot blue sky.

That same evening he was summoned as juryman to Charlottesville, a village some fifteen miles from Caryston, and as he kissed Virginia good-by his heart rose in his throat. The face she lifted to his was so wan, so patient, so like the face of her young mother just ere she died, twenty-one years ago.

“Leetle gyrl—leetle gyrl,” said the old man, brokenly, “ef you don’ want tuh hurry yo’ father tuh his grave, yo’ll hurry en take them purty leetle foots out o’ yourn. Darter, honey, try ’n’ git some o’ them ole red roses in them white cheeks. Please, Faginia, honey, I’m ’mos’ worrited to death ’long o’ you.”

“Pore father!” she said, stroking his face—“pore father!” that was all. Her listless hand fell again into her lap. Her eyes fixed themselves with their vague, uncomprehending look upon the far blue distance. She was as much apart from him as though she were already dead. He rose to his feet, strangling a sob in his brave old throat, that he might not distress her, and rode manfully away to his unpleasant duty.

That night a dreadful thing occurred at Caryston. The “mill stable,” as it was generally called, from being built on a hill just above the mill-pond, caught on fire. There were four of Roden’s most valuable horses in it, together with Bonnibel, who had been moved from the house stables while they were undergoing alteration.

Virginia was sitting silent by her bedroom window when the first copper glare began to tinge the dense upward column of black smoke. She knew in a minute what it was, although Aunt Tishy muttered something about “bresh” fires.

She leaped to her feet, her heart once more renewing its old-time measure. “Mammy!” she called—“Mammy! that’s th’ mill stable! th’ mill stable’s on fire! O God above! Th’ pore horses—an’ Bonnibel! O pore Mr. Jack—pore Mr. Jack! Ef Bonnibel’s hurt, it’ll break his heart.” She had forgotten everything in her thought for him. Her own sin, his harsh words—all that had passed between them since first he gave Bonnibel into her glad keeping.

“Here!” she called, tossing on her clothes with nervous, eager fingers, “han’ me my shoes—quick!—Lord God!—ef only I ken git thar in time!”

She was down-stairs and out of the house almost before the old negress knew what she was about to undertake. Out at a side gate she dashed, and down a grassy hill at the back of the house. Some catalpa-tree roots caught at her flying feet with their knotty fingers as though, fiend-like, they would hinder her on her errand of mercy. On, on; her breath came quick and laboring. She was on the open road now, straining with all her might up a steep, stone-roughed hill. All the northern heavens were ablaze with an angry orange. As she gained the top of the hill a little fan of lilac flames burst from the stable roof against the night. There was yet time—Bonnibel was in a loose-box near the door. O God, the other horses! Must they roast alive—the beautiful, agile creatures that he so loved?

Below, in the placid breast of the large pond, the lurid mass above was reflected with an effect as incongruous as when some world-tossed soul pours out its hot confession into the calm keeping of a saintly heart.

The shallow stream shoaled into fire among the black stems of the water-reeds, and tossed the flames upon its mimic waves. She gained the rough bridge which spanned it; her feet passed with a swift, hollow sound across it. She was there—at the stable, and her breath had not yet given out. Then all at once she remembered. Oh, joy! joy! If she saved Bonnibel, and was herself hurt to death, would not that be atonement? Might he not forgive her then? Poor little savage child—poor, sweet, uncivilized, true heart! I think indeed he would forgive you if he knew.

There were men running frantically about—omnipresent—useless: they had delayed so long to set about extinguishing the fire that it was now beyond all bounds. The wild, dull trampling of the hoofs of the terrified horses made horror in the air. They whinnied and nickered like children pleading for help. One of the English grooms was dashing into the smoke and heat. Virginia seized him by the arm.

“I’m coming with you,” she said; “let me keep hold of your coat.”

Alas! alas! the maddened, silly brutes refused to follow. They reared madly whenever approached, and struck with their fore-feet at the plucky little lad. In no way could he approach them; threats and cajolery were in vain. Virginia snatched a whip from the stable wall and tried to beat them out. Usurper, vicious to the last, rushed furiously at her, and but for the lad’s striking him over the head with a pitchfork, would inevitably have dashed her brains out with his wicked hoofs. There was no further time to be lost. One side of the roof was blazing ominously, and the wall on the eastern side began to tremble.

Virginia, in spite of entreaties and hands held out to stop her, turned her skirts about her head and went into Bonnibel’s box. “Six of us ’ave tried to get ’er out, miss,” said the panting lad, who had followed her. “Don’t you venture in, for God’s sake, miss; she’s that mad she’ll kill you—th’ poor hussy!”

Bonnibel was in truth like a horse distraught. She was leaping back and forth, and trotting from side to side of her capacious box, nickering from time to time, with head aloft and tail held like a plume above her satin quarters. No sooner did she hear Virginia’s voice than she stopped short, quivering in every splendid limb and sinew.

“Bonnibel!” said Virginia, in that soft monotone the frightened creature had not now heard for many a day—“Bonnibel!” There was a second’s pause; then stooping her bright head, with a low whinny as of welcome and trust, the gallant mare came to the well-known voice.

Virginia tore off her woollen shawl and blindfolded the bright eyes.

In the mean time the rest of the English lads and the head groom had arrived, with fire-engines and more help. They had already succeeded in getting the horse out. The vicious Usurper they were compelled to leave to his awful fate.

“Boys, Bonnibel’s coming!” yelled the lad who had entered the stable with Virginia, dashing out ahead of her; “Miss Herrick’s got her, and she’s coming kind as a lamb!”

A hearty, roaring cheer went up from without, mingled with exultant warwhoops from the negroes gathered around.

Almost they were safe. Why do things happen with only an inch between safety and destruction? One instant more and horse and woman would have been free. But in that tarrying instant a heavy beam from the front of the stable fell crashing down, bringing with it a great mass of bricks and mortar. Virginia and Bonnibel were half buried under the reeking mass. The flames sent up an exultant roar as of triumph. There was a smothered, horrified groan from the men, and then Bonnibel, freeing herself by one powerful effort of her iron quarters, galloped off into the coolness of the night.

They pulled Virginia out, with such gentleness as they could spare to the encroaching flames, and a bed was instantly made for her on the damp turf by means of the men’s hastily torn-off coats. She lay there, still, white, most beautiful, with peace at last upon her tired face. Did she dream, perchance, that he forgave her?

Ah! but the horror that followed—the crash succeeding crash, the hideous rioting of the vengeful flames about the poor brutes within. Some were suffocated, some jammed to death beneath the continually falling masses of stone and brick. Usurper, dauntless, rebellious to the last, struck with his iron-shod feet at the flames that made too free with him. He was so magnificent in his fierce disdain that more than one of the grooms sobbed like girls at the fate which had overtaken him. All at once a cry, piercing, shrill, terrible above any sound which had ever come upon their hearing, shook the stillness of the night to shuddering echoes. It was the one and only sign of pain that Usurper gave ere he sank to an awful death among the blazing ruins.

Virginia’s senses returned to her as they were carrying her home in solemn silence and with bared heads. She tried to lift herself on one elbow, and sank back with a moan of pain; but even for that there went up some muttered thanks from the men who carried her. They had thought her dead.

“Does the moving pain you, miss?” asked the lad who had been with her in Bonnibel’s box.

“It hurts some,” she said, bravely. “What’s happened?”

They had to tell her all about the fire, as though it were a thing new to her, and how she had saved Bonnibel.

“Oh, did I?” she said. “Did I?—air yuh sure?”

“Sure, miss?” echoed the admiring Hicks. “Sure? Well, I think we be pretty sure o’ that ’ere! Bean’t we, boys?”

They could not say enough.

One thought was making music in Virginia’s heart. “Perhaps he’ll forgive me now,” she said over and over to herself. She looked upward at the starry heavens through the broad leaves of the catalpa-trees, as they bore her up the last hill to the house, with a feeling closely akin to joy. “I’ve saved Bonnibel,” she thought—“I’ve saved Bonnibel, anyways; ef he don’t forgive me, I’ve done, somethin’ to make him glad. ’Twas awful in that burnin’ place; but I saved her—I saved her—I saved her.” She said the last three words out loud.

“That you did, miss,” said the boy Hicks, who walked close beside her. “Tell her again, boys.”

They told her over and over again, first one and then the other; she seemed never tired of listening. For the first time in many, many days her white lips fell into the gracious curves they used to know so well. She was smiling—smiling for sheer happiness. She was hurt to death, she knew that; something whispered it in her glad ears as distinctly as though the good God had bent from his great heavens himself to tell her so; and she knew—ah! she knew—that her God had forgiven her. Death had brought her two gifts so sweet in his chill arms that his embrace scarcely frightened her. As they carried her with slow carefulness up the front steps and into the wide hall an innocent fancy seized her; she would like so much to die in Mr. Jack’s room—on his little iron bed. There couldn’t be any harm, could there? She looked so wistfully up into the face of little Hicks that he felt she wanted something, and asked her what it was.

“Kyar me into Mr. Jack’s room,” she whispered. “It’s—it’s nearer the ground.”

The pretty subterfuge was also a very good one. It would have been almost mortal anguish to her, had they sought to bear her poor wrecked body up that winding stair-way.

So into “Mr. Jack’s room” they carried her, and placed her full gently on his forsaken bed.

Aunt Tishy came hurrying with inarticulate cries. They hushed her as best they might, telling her that any disturbance might kill the girl. Then little Hicks mounted one of Roden’s best horses and dashed off in search of a surgeon.

Virginia lay quiet and quite content, staring with wide-open eyes at the well-known objects in the airy room. Another delightful fancy seized upon her. Ah! it was good to lie there and die, and pretend that she had been his wife, and that it was her right to die in there with all those much-loved manly kickshaws about her: the Scotch deer-stalker’s cap, which hung on one of the sconces of a little mirror over the mantle; that heap of glittering spurs on a table near at hand; his whip; his boots; an old blue flannel shirt on the bed’s foot. She had not allowed any one to enter his room since he left for Windemere, nor had she herself been in it.

And even if he didn’t forgive her, she saved Bonnibel. Suddenly there came upon her an awful, crashing agony.

“Mammy! mammy!” she called, in her childhood’s voice. She clung to her old nurse with might and main. “Oh, mammy, mammy, I’m payin’ fur it! Yuh don’ know, but I’m payin’ fur it. I’m so glad—I’m so glad! Mammy, sing me ’bout ’though yo’ sins be as scarlet’—sing! sing!”

The old negress, as well as she could for sobbing, sang to her in such words as these: