Part 57 (1/2)

Miss Dandridge, mounting the hill from the quarter, and sitting down to rest upon a great, sun-bathed stone beside the foot-path, heard a quick step and looked up to greet her betrothed. ”It is so warm and bright,”

she said, ”in this fence-corner that I feel as though summer were on the way. The stone is large--there's room for you, too, here in the suns.h.i.+ne.”

He sat down beside her. ”You have been making Christmas for the quarter?”

”I've been telling them that Christmas is to be bright. I have not seen you for a week.”

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. ”Unity, I have been sitting there at home at Greenwood, thinking, thinking! Page came to see me, but I was such poor company that he did not tarry long. I rode here to-day to say something to you--Unity, don't you think you had better give me up?”

”No! I don't--”

”I do not think it is fair to you. I am not the man you knew--except in loving you I am not the man who sat with you beneath the catalpa. I am bereaved of the better part of me, and I see one object held up before me like a wand. I must reach that wand or all effort is fruitless, and there is no achievement and no harvest in my life. I may be years in reaching it. I love you dearly and deeply, but I am not given over to love. I am given over to reaching that wand. It has seemed to me, sitting there at Greenwood, it has seemed to me after Page's visit, that I should give you freedom--”

”It seems to me, sitting here upon this stone,” answered Unity, ”that I will not take it! And what under the sun Mr. Page's visit--I will wait until you are at leisure to love me as--as--as you loved me that day under the catalpa when you flung Elosa to Abelard into the rosebushes!

Don't--don't! I like to cry a little.”

”I have determined,” he said, ”to tell you what I am doing. You know that I seek to discover my brother's murderer, but you have not guessed that I know his name. It is Lewis Rand whom I pursue, and it is Lewis Rand whom I will convict of that deed on Indian Run!”

She gave a cry. ”Lewis Rand! Fair, Fair, that's impossible!”

”Is it?” he asked sombrely. ”Impossible to prove, perhaps, though I'm not prepared to grant that either, but true, Unity, true as many another black 'impossible' has been!”

”But--but--No one thinks--no one suspects. Fair, Fair! are you not mistaken?”

”No. Nor am I quite alone in my conviction. And one day the world that suspects nothing shall know.”

There was a silence; then, ”But Jacqueline,” she whispered, with whitening lips. ”Jacqueline”--

”She chose,” he answered. ”I cannot help it. She took her road and her companion.”

”And you mean--you mean--”

”I mean to bring him to justice.”

”To break her heart and ruin her life--to bring down wretchedness, misery, disgrace! Oh!” She caught her breath. ”And Deb--and Uncle d.i.c.k and Uncle Edward--Fair, Fair, leave him alone!”

”You must not ask me that.”

”But Ludwell would--Ludwell would have asked it! Oh, do you think he would have endured to bring woe like that upon her! Oh, Fair, Fair,--”

Cary sprang to his feet, walked away, and stood with his back to the great stone and his face toward Greenwood. He saw but one thing there, the graveyard on the hill beneath the leafless trees. When he came back to Unity, he looked as he had looked beside the dead, that day on Indian Run.

”We are alike, Ludwell and I,” he said, ”but we are not that much alike.

I am little now but an avenger of blood. I shall be that until this draws to an end.” He came closer and touched her shoulder with his hand.

”Take me or leave me as I am, Unity. I shall not change, not even for you.”

”But for tenderness,” she cried, ”for mercy, for consideration of an old house, for Jacqueline whom your brother loved as you love--as once you said you loved--me! For just pity, Fair!”