Part 21 (2/2)

He was as pale as she had become flushed, and again he pa.s.sed his hand over his brow confusedly and almost helplessly. ”It is all like a horrid dream,” he muttered.

”Mr. Merwyn, you have brought this on yourself,” she said, more calmly. ”You have sought to wrong me in my own home. Your words and manner have ever been an insult to the cause for which my father may die--O G.o.d!” she exclaimed, with a cry of agony--”for which he may now be dead! Go, go,” she added, with a strong repellent gesture. ”We have nothing in common: you measure everything with the inch-rule of self.”

As if pierced to the very soul he sprung forward and seized her hand with almost crus.h.i.+ng force, as he cried: ”No, I measure everything hereafter by the breadth of your woman's soul. You shall not cast me off in contempt. If you do you are not a woman,--you are a fanatic, worse than my mother;” and he rushed from the house like one distraught.

Panting, trembling, frightened by a volcanic outburst such as she had never dreamed of, Marian sunk on a lounge, sobbing like a child.

CHAPTER XVI.

AWAKENED AT LAST.

IT may well be imagined that Mrs. Vosburgh was not far distant during the momentous interview described in the last chapter, and, as Merwyn rushed from the house as if pursued by the furies, she appeared at once on the scene, full of curiosity and dismay.

Exclamations, questionings, elicited little from Marian. The strain of the long, eventful day had been too great, and the young girl, who might have been taken as a type of incensed womanhood a few moments before, now had scarcely better resources than such remedies as Mrs. Vosburgh's matronly experience knew how to apply. Few remain long on mountain-tops, physical or metaphorical, and deep valleys lie all around them. Little else could be done for the poor girl than to bring the oblivion of sleep, and let kindly Nature nurse her child back to a more healthful condition of body and mind.

But it would be long before Willard Merwyn would be amenable to the gentle offices of nature. Simpson, the footman, flirting desperately with the pretty waitress in the kitchen below, heard his master's swift, heavy step on the veranda, and hastened out only in time to clamber into his seat as Merwyn drove furiously away in the rain and darkness. Every moment the trembling lackey expected they would all go to-wreck and ruin, but the sagacious animals were given their heads, and speedily made their way home.

The man took the reeking steeds to the stable, and Merwyn disappeared.

He did not enter the house, for he felt that he would stifle there, and the thought of meeting his mother was intolerable. Therefore, he stole away to a secluded avenue, and strode back and forth under the dripping trees, oblivious, in his fierce perturbation, of outward discomfort.

Mrs. Merwyn waited in vain for him to enter, then questioned the attendant.

”Faix, mum, I know nothin' at all. Mr. Willard druv home loike one possessed, and got out at the door, and that's the last oi've seen uv 'im.”

The lady received the significant tidings with mingled anxiety and satisfaction. Two things were evident. He had become more interested in Miss Vosburgh than he had admitted, and she, by strange good fortune, had refused him.

”It was a piece of folly that had to come in some form, I suppose,”

she soliloquized, ”although I did not think Willard anything like so sure to perpetrate it as most young men. Well, the girl has saved me not a little trouble, for, of course, I should have been compelled to break the thing up;” and she sat down to watch and wait. She waited so long that anxiety decidedly got the better of her satisfaction.

Meanwhile the object of her thoughts was pa.s.sing through an experience of which he had never dreamed. In one brief hour his complacency, pride, and philosophy of life had been torn to tatters. He saw himself as Marian saw him, and he groaned aloud in his loathing and humiliation. He looked back upon his superior airs as ridiculous, and now felt that he would rather be a private in Strahan's company than the scorned and rejected wretch that he was. The pa.s.sionate nature inherited from his mother was stirred to its depths. Even the traits which he believed to be derived from his father, and which the calculating lawyer had commended, had secured the young girl's most withering contempt; and he saw how she contrasted him with her father and Mr. Lane,--yes, even with little Strahan. In her bitter words he heard the verdict of the young men with whom he had a.s.sociated, and of the community. Throughout the summer he had dwelt apart, wrapped in his own self-sufficiency and fancied superiority. His views had been of gradual growth, and he had come to regard them as infallible, especially when stamped with the approval of his father's old friend; but the scathing words, yet ringing in his ears, showed him that brave, conscientious manhood was infinitely more than his wealth and birth. As if by a revelation from heaven he saw that he had been measuring everything with the little rule of self, and in consequence he had become so mean and small that a generous-hearted girl had shrunk from him in loathing.

Then in bitter anger and resentment he remembered how he was trammelled by his oath to his mother. It seemed to him that his life was blighted by this pledge and a false education. There was no path to her side who would love and honor only a MAN.

At last the mere physical manifestations of pa.s.sion and excitement began to pa.s.s away, and he felt that he was acting almost like one insane as he entered the house.

Mrs. Merwyn met him, but he said, hoa.r.s.ely, ”I cannot talk with you to-night.”

”Willard, be rational. You are wet through. You will catch your death in these clothes.”

”Nothing would suit me better, as I feel now;” and he broke away.

He was so haggard when he came down late the next morning that his mother could not have believed such a change possible in so short a time. ”It is going to be more serious than I thought,” was her mental comment as she poured him out a cup of coffee.

It was indeed; for after drinking the coffee in silence, he looked frowningly out of the window for a time; then said abruptly to the waiter, ”Leave the room.”

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