Part 10 (2/2)

”I hate lightning,” she explained, ”and I detest a storm--don't you? I don't see how any one can ever choose to be a sailor.”

He smiled grimly. ”I am a sailor,” he said.

”And are you going to sea again soon?” she returned. ”I shall miss you dreadfully. I'm glad I sha'n't be here in New York when you are gone.

Perhaps I shall leave first.”

”Where are you going?” he asked, eagerly.

”I've got to go somewhere,” she answered, ”now that I've had to change all my plans. I'm going to Milwaukee.”

”To Milwaukee?” he repeated. ”I did not know you had any friends there.”

”I haven't,” she answered, with a repet.i.tion of the hard little laugh.

”Not a friend in Milwaukee, and not a friend in New York.”

”Then why are you going?”

”I must earn my living, somehow,” she responded, ”and I can't paint, and I can't embroider, and I can't teach whist, and I'm not young enough to go on the stage--so I'm to settle down as the matron of a girl's school in Milwaukee. The place has been offered to me, and I intend to accept it.”

”When must you be there?” he inquired.

”Oh, I don't know,” she answered. ”Next week some time, or perhaps not till next month. I'm not sure when.”

John Stone rose to go. ”Then I may come to see you again--Evelyn?” he asked.

Her heart throbbed a little as she heard her name from his lips.

”Oh yes,” she replied, cordially. ”Come and see me as often as you can.

I hate to be as lonely as I was this afternoon.”

And she held out her hand.

”Good-by, then,” he responded, and he raised her hand again and kissed it.

When he had gone she walked restlessly to and fro for several minutes.

At last she opened her desk and took out the unfinished letter and tore it up impatiently. Then she went to the window and peered out.

Twilight was settling down over the city, but the sky was leaden, with not a gleam of sunset along the horizon. Lights were already twinkling here and there over the vast expanse of irregular roofs across which she was looking. The rain was heavier than ever, and it fell in sheets, now, as though it would never cease.

Yet the solitary woman looking out at the dreary prospect did not feel so lonely as she had felt two hours earlier. She had meant to accept John Stone, and she had rejected him. But it was a comfort to her to know that somewhere in the immense city that spread out before her there was a man who really loved her.

(1898)

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