Part 30 (2/2)
One night, as we sat about the grate in the Trescott library, some veiled insinuations on Alice's part caused a turning of the worm.
”If there is anything you want to say, Alice,” said Josie, ”there seems to be no good reason why you shouldn't speak out. I have asked your advice--yours and Albert's--frequently, having really no one else to trust; and therefore I am willing to hear your reproof, if you have it for me. What is it?”
”Oh, Josie,” said I, seeking cover. ”You are too sensitive. There isn't anything, is there, Alice?”
Here I scowled violently, and shook my head at my wife; but all to no effect.
”Yes, there is,” said Alice. ”We have a dear friend, the best in the world, and he has an enemy. The whole town is divided in allegiance between them, about nine on one side to one on the other--”
”Which proves nothing,” said Josie.
”And now,” Alice went on, ”you, who have had every opportunity of seeing, and ought to know, that one of them is, in every look, and thought, and act, a _man_, while the other is--”
”A friend of mine and of my mother's,” said Josie; ”please omit the character-sketch. And remember that I refuse even to consider these business differences. Each claims to be right; and I shall judge them by other things.”
”Business differences, indeed!” scoffed Alice, albeit a little impressed by the girl's dignity. ”As if you did not know what these differences came from! But it isn't because you remain neutral that we com--”
”_You_ complain, Alice,” said I; ”I am distinctly out of this.”
”That I complain, then,” amended Alice reproachfully. ”It is because you dismiss the _man_ and keep the--other! You may say I have no right to be heard in this, but I'm going to complain Josie Trescott, just the same!”
This seemed to approach actual conflict, and I was frightened. Had it been two men, I should have thought nothing of it, but with women such differences cut deeper than with us. Josie stepped to her writing-desk and took from it a letter.
”We may as well clear this matter up,” said she, ”for it has stood between us for a long time. I think that Mr. Elkins will not feel that any confidences are violated by my showing you this--you who have been my dearest friends--”
She stopped for no reason, unless it was agitation.
”Are,” said I, ”I hope, not 'have been.'”
”Well,” said she, ”read the letter, and then tell me who has been 'dismissed.'”
I shrank from reading it; but Alice was determined to know all. It was dated the day before I left New York.
”Dear Josie,” it read, ”I have told you so many times that I love you that it is an old story to you; yet I must say it once more. Until that night when we brought your father home, I was never able to understand why you would never say definitely yes or no to me; but I felt that you could not be expected to understand my feeling that the best years of our lives were wasting--you are so much younger than I--and so I hoped on. Sometimes I feared that somebody else stood in the way, and do fear it now, but that alone would have been a much simpler thing, and of that I could not complain. But on that fearful night you said something which hurt me more than anything else could, because it was an accusation of which I could not clear myself in the court of my own conscience--except so far as to say that I never dreamed of doing your father anything but good. Surely, surely you must feel this!
”Since that time, however, you have been so kind to me that I have become sure that you see that terrible tragedy as I do, and acquit me of all blame, except that of blindly setting in motion the machinery which did the awful deed. This is enough for you to forgive, G.o.d knows; but I have thought lately that you had forgiven it. You have been very kind and good to me, and your presence and influence have made me look at things in a different way from that of years ago, and I am now doing things which ought to be credited to you, so far as they are good. As for the bad, I must bear the blame myself!”
Thus far Alice had read aloud.
”Don't, don't,” said Josie, hiding her face. ”Don't read it aloud, please!”
”But now I am writing, not to explain anything which has taken place, but to set me right as to the future. You gave me reason to think, when we met, that I might have my answer. Things which I cannot explain have occurred, which may turn out very evilly for me, and for any one connected with me. Therefore, until this state of things pa.s.ses, I shall not see you. I write this, not that I think you will care much, but that you may not believe that I have changed in my feelings toward you. If my time ever comes, and I believe it will, and that before very long, you will find me harder to dispose of without an answer than I have been in the past. I shall claim you in spite of every foe that may rise up to keep you from me. You may change, but I shall not.
”'Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.'
And mine will not alter. J. R. E.”
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