Part 19 (2/2)

When I went to the door I could hardly turn the key, I felt so weak, and I stood in the pa.s.sage many minutes before I dared go on. If any one had appeared or spoken to me, I am quite sure I should have fainted, my nerves were in such a shaken state.

CHAPTER XVI.

AUGUST THIRTIETH.

Were Death so unlike Sleep, Caught this way? Death's to fear from flame, or steel, Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!

_Robert Browning_.

I met no one in the hall or on the piazza. The house was silent and deserted: one of the maids was closing the parlor windows. She did not look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably heard that I was ill.

Once in the open air I felt stronger. I took the river-path, and walked quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare: and my mind was filled with one thought. ”In a few moments I shall be beside him, I shall make him look at me, he cannot help but touch my hand.” I did not think of past or future, only of the greedy, pa.s.sionate present. My infatuation was at its height. I cannot imagine a pa.s.sion more absorbing, more unresisted, and more dangerous. I pa.s.sed quickly through the garden without even noticing the flowers that brushed against my dress.

As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning that he had met me here, just where the paths intersected. At that moment I heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill, I glanced in the direction of the sound. There, not ten yards from me, coming from the opposite direction, was Richard. I felt a shock of disappointment, then fear, then anger. What right had he to dog me so? He looked at me without surprise, but as if his heart was full of bitterness and sorrow.

He approached, and turned as if to walk with me.

”I want to be alone,” I said angrily, moving away from him.

”No, Pauline,” he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me, ”you do not want to be alone.”

Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I went on more slowly. The wood was so silent--the river through the trees lay so still and leaden. If it had not been for the fire burning in my heart, I could have thought the world was dead.

There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him, would he be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or would he be wandering along the dead, still river-bank? What should I say to him? O!

he would speak. If he saw me he would have to speak.

I soon forgot that I had met Richard, that I had been angry; and again I had but this one thought.

The pine cones were slippery under my feet. I held by the old trees as I went down the bank, step by step. I had to turn and pa.s.s a clump of trees before I reached the boat-house door.

I was there! With a beating heart I stepped up on the threshold. There were two doors, one that opened on the path, one that opened on the river. The house was empty. I had a little sinking pang of disappointment, but I pa.s.sed on to the door looking out on the river. By this door was a seat, empty, but on this lay a book and a straw hat. I could feel the hot blushes cover my face, my neck, as I caught sight of these. I stooped down, feeling guilty, and took up the book. It was a book which he had read daily to me in our lesson-hours. It had his name on the blank page, and was full of his pencil-marks. I meant to ask him to give me this book; I would rather have it than anything the world held, when I should be parted from him. _When!_ I sat down on the seat beside the door, with the book lying in my lap, the straw hat on the bench. I longed to take it in my hands--to wreathe it with the clematis that grew about the door, as I had done one foolish, happy afternoon, not three weeks ago. But with a strange inconsistency, I dared not touch it; my face grew hot with blushes as I thought of it.

How should I meet him? Now that the moment I had longed for had arrived, I wondered that I had dared to long for it. I felt that if I heard his step, I should fly and hide myself from him. The recollection of that last interview in the library--which I had lived over and over, nights and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh vehemence. But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to impress me strangely, and I looked about me. I don't know at what moment it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.

I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any distance).

I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was hardly a sound. I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river: there, about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying: empty --motionless. The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting slowly, slowly, down the stream.

The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice: even before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed. But it did not take many moments for the truth, or a dread of it, to reach my brain.

I covered my eyes with my hands, then sprang up the bank and called wildly.

My voice was like a madwoman's, and it must have sounded far on that still air. In less than a moment Richard came hurrying with great strides down the path. I sprang to him, and caught his arm and dragged him to the water's edge.

”Look,” I whispered--pointing to the hat and book--and then out to the boat. I read his face in terror. It grew slowly, deadly white.

”My G.o.d!” he said in a tone of awe. Then shaking me from him, sprang up the bank, and his voice was something fearful as he shouted, as he ran, for help.

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