Part 72 (2/2)
He threw the reins on the horse's neck, caring not what became of him, and stepping to her side, he said, impetuously, ”I never doubted that I should receive hospitality at your home,--that is refused to no one,--but I did hope for a different greeting.”
Again there was a quick, auroral flush, and then, with increased pallor and coldness, she asked, ”Have I failed in courtesy?”
”No.”
”What reason had you to expect more?”
”Because, almost from the first hour we met, I had given you esteem and reverence as a n.o.ble woman,--because I promised you honest friends.h.i.+p and have kept my word.”
Still more coldly she replied: ”I fear there can be no friends.h.i.+p between us. My father and brothers lie in nameless graves in your proud and triumphant North, and my heart and hope are buried with them. My mother has since died, broken-hearted; Roberta's husband, the colonel you sent to prison, is a crippled soldier, and both are so impoverished that they know not how to live. And you,--you have been so busy in helping those who caused these woes that you evidently forgot the once light-hearted girl whom you first saw on this veranda. Why speak of friends.h.i.+p, Captain Lane, when rivers of blood flow between us,--rivers fed from the veins of my kindred?”
Her words were so stern and sad that Lane sat down on the steps at her feet and buried his face in his hands. His hope was withering and his tongue paralyzed in the presence of such grief as hers.
She softened a little as she looked down upon him, and after a moment or two resumed: ”I do not blame you personally. I must try to be just in my bitter sorrow and despair. You proved long ago that you were obeying your conscience; but you who conquer cannot know the hearts of the conquered. Your home does not look like mine; your kindred are waiting to welcome you with plaudits. You have everything to live for,--honor, prosperity, and love; for doubtless, long before this, the cold-hearted Northern girl has been won by the fame of your achievements. Think of me as a ghost, doomed to haunt these desolate scenes where once I was happy.”
”No,” he replied, springing to his feet, ”I shall think of you as the woman I love. Life shall not end so unhappily for us both; for if you persist in your morbid enmity, my future will be as wretched as yours. You judge me unheard, and you wrong me cruelly. I have never forgotten you for an hour. I wrote to you again and again, and received no answer. The moment I was released from the iron rule of military duty in the West I sought you before returning to the mother who bore me. No river of blood flows between us that my love could not bridge. I admit that I was speechless at first before the magnitude of your sorrows; but must this accursed war go on forever, blighting life and hope? What was the wound you did so much towards healing compared to the one you are giving me now? Many a blow has been aimed at me, but not one has pierced my heart before.”
She tried to listen rigidly and coldly to his impa.s.sioned utterance, but could not, and, as he ceased, she was sobbing in her chair.
He sought with gentle words to soothe her, but by a gesture she silenced him.
At last she said, brokenly: ”For months I have not shed a tear. My heart and brain seemed bursting, yet I could get no relief. Were it not for some faith and hope in G.o.d, I should have followed my kindred. You cannot know, you never can know.”
”I know one thing, Suwanee. You were once a brave, unselfish woman.
I will not, I cannot believe that you have parted with your n.o.ble, generous impulses. You may remain cold to me if I merely plead my cause for your sake, that I may bring consolation and healing into your life; but I still have too much faith in your large, warm, Southern heart to believe that you will blight my life also. If you can never love me, give me the right to be your loyal and helpful friend. Giving you all that is best and most sacred in my nature how can you send me away as if I had no part or lot in your life?
It is not, cannot be true. When I honor you and would give my life for you, and shall love you all my days, it is absurd to say that I am nothing to you. Only embodied selfishness and callousness could say that. You may not be able to give what I do, but you should give all you can. 'Rivers of blood flowing between us' is morbid nonsense. Forgive me that I speak strongly,--I feel strongly. My soul is in my words. I felt towards my cause as you towards yours, and had I not acted as I have, you would be the first to think me a craven. But what has all this to do with the sacred instinct, the pure, unbounded love which compels me to seek you as my wife?”
”You have spoken such words to another,” she said, in a low tone.
”No, never such words as I speak to you. I could not have spoken them, for then I was too young and immature to feel them. I did love Miss Vosburgh as sincerely as I now respect and esteem her.
She is the happy wife of another man. I speak to you from the depths of my matured manhood. What is more I speak with the solemnity and truth which your sorrows should inspire. Should you refuse my hand it will never be offered to another, and you know me well enough to be sure I will keep my word.”
”Oh, can it be right?” cried the girl, wringing her hands.
”One question will settle all: Can you return my love?”
With that query light came into her mind as if from heaven. She saw that such love as theirs was the supreme motive, the supreme obligation.
She rose and fixed her lovely, tear-gemmed eyes upon him searchingly as she asked, ”Would you wed me, a beggar, dowered only with sorrow and bitter memories?”
”I will wed you, Suwanee Barkdale, or no one.”
”There,” she said, with a wan smile, holding out her hand; ”the North has conquered again.”
”Suwanee,” he said, gravely and gently, as he caressed the head bowed upon his breast, ”let us begin right. For us two there is no North or South. We are one for time, and I trust for eternity.
But do not think me so narrow and unreasonable as to expect that you should think as I do on many questions. Still more, never imagine that I shall chide you, even in my thoughts, for love of your kindred and people, or the belief that they honestly and heroically did what seemed to them their duty. When you thought yourself such a hopeless little sinner, and I discovered you to be a saint, did I not admit that your patriotic impulses were as sincere as my own?
As it has often been in the past, time will settle all questions between your people and ours, and time and a better knowledge of each other will heal our mutual wounds. I wish to remove fear and distrust of the immediate future from your mind, however. I must take you to a Northern home, where I can work for you in my profession, but you can be your own true self there,--just what you were when you first won my honor and esteem. The memory of your brave father and brothers shall be sacred to me as well as to you. I shall expect you to change your feelings and opinions under no other compulsion than that of your own reason and conscience. Shall you fear to go with me now? I will do everything that you can ask if you will only bless me with your love.”
”I never dreamed before that it could be so sweet to bless an enemy,” she said, with a gleam of her old mirthfulness, ”and I have dreamed about it. O Fenton, I loved you unsought, and the truth nearly killed me at first, but I came at last to be a little proud of it. You were so brave, yet considerate, so fair and generous towards us, that you banished my prejudices, and you won my heart by believing there was some good in it after all.”
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