Part 4 (1/2)

”And yet, see how beautifully widows manage it, even taking the thirty-third degree and here you are, complaining before you are initiated, and kindly remember, Mrs. Lennox Sanderson, if I take but one lump of sugar in my coffee, there are other ways of sweetening it.”

Presumably he got it sweetened to his satisfaction, for the proprietor of the ”White Rose,” who attended personally to the wants of ”Mr. and Mrs. Lennox” had to cough three times before he found it discreet to enter and inquire if everything was satisfactory.

He bowed three times like a disjointed foot rule and then retired to charge up the wear and tear to his backbone under the head of ”special attendance.”

”H-m-m!” sighed Sanderson, as the door closed on the bowing form of the proprietor, ”that fellow's presence reminds me that we are not absolutely alone in the world, and you had almost convinced me that we were, darling, and that by special Providence, this grim old earth had been turned into a second Garden of Eden for our benefit. Aren't you going to kiss me and make me forget in earnest, this time?”

”I'm sure, Lennie, I infinitely prefer the 'White Rose Inn' with you, to the Garden of Paradise with Adam.” She not only granted the request, but added an extra one for interest.

”You'll make me horribly vain, Anna, if you persist in preferring me to Adam; but then I dare say, Eve would have preferred him and Paradise to me and the 'White Rose.'”

”But, then, Eve's taste lacked discrimination. She had to take Adam or become the first girl bachelor. With me there might have been alternatives.”

”There might have been others, to speak vulgarly?”

”Exactly.”

”By Jove, Anna, I don't see how you ever did come to care for me!” The laughter died out of his eyes, his face grew prefer naturally grave, he strode over to the window and looked out on the desolate landscape.

For the first time he realized the gravity of his offense. His crime against this girl, who had been guilty of nothing but loving him too deeply stood out, stripped of its trappings of sentiment, in all its foul selfishness. He would right the wrong, confess to her; but no, he dare not, she was not the kind of woman to condone such an offense.

”Needles and pins, needles and pins, when a man's married his trouble begins,” quoted Anna gayly, slipping up behind him and, putting her arms about his neck; ”one would think the old nursery ballad was true, to look at you, Lennox Sanderson. I never saw such a married-man expression before in my life. You wanted to know why I fell in love with you. I could not help it, because you are YOU.”

She nestled her head in his shoulder and he forgot his scruples in the sorcery of her presence.

”Darling,” he said; taking her in his arms, with perhaps the most genuine affection he ever felt for her, ”I wish we could spend our lives here in this quiet little place, and that there were no troublesome relations or outside world demanding us.”

”So do I, dear,” she answered, ”but it could not last; we are too perfectly happy.”

Neither spoke for some minutes. At that time he loved her as deeply as it was possible for him to love anyone. Again the impulse came to tell her, beg for forgiveness and make reparation. He was holding her in his arms, considering. A moment more, and he would have given way to the only unselfish impulse in his life. But again the knock, followed by the discreet cough of the proprietor. And when he entered to tell them that the horses were ready for their drive, ”Mrs. Lennox” hastened to put on her jacket and ”Mr. Lennox” thanked his stars that he had not spoken.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WAYS OF DESOLATION.

”Oh! colder than the wind that freezes Founts, that but now in suns.h.i.+ne play'd, Is that congealing pang which seizes The trusting bosom when betray'd.”--_Moore_.

Four months had elapsed since the honeymoon at the White Rose Tavern, and Anna was living at Waltham with her mother who grew more fretful and complaining every day. The marriage was still the secret of Anna and Sanderson. The honeymoon at the White Rose had been prolonged to a week, but no suspicion had entered the minds of Mrs. Moore or Mrs.

Standish Tremont, thanks to Sanderson's skill in sending fict.i.tious telegrams, aided by so skilled an accomplice as the ”Rev.” John Langdon.

Week after week, Anna had yielded to Sanderson's entreaties and kept her marriage a secret from her mother. At first he had sent her remittances of money with frequent regularity, but, lately, they had begun to fall off, his letters were less frequent, shorter and more reserved in tone, and the burden of it all was crus.h.i.+ng the youth out of the girl and breaking her spirit. She had grown to look like some great sorrowful-eyed Madonna, and her beauty had in it more of the spiritual quality of an angel than of a woman. As the spring came on, and the days grew longer she looked like one on whom the hand of death had been laid.

Her friends noticed this, but not her mother, who was so engrossed with her own privations, that she had no time or inclination for anything else.

”Anna, Anna, to think of our coming to this!” she would wail a dozen times a day--or, ”Anna, I can't stand it another minute,” and she would burst into paroxysms of grief, from which nothing could arouse her, and utterly exhausted by her own emotions, which were chiefly regret and self-pity, she would sink off to sleep. Anna had no difficulty in accounting to her mother for the extra comforts with which Lennox Sanderson's money supplied them. Mrs. Standish Tremont sometimes sent checks and Mrs. Moore never bothered about the source, so long as the luxuries were forthcoming.

”Is there no more k.u.myss, Anna?” she asked one day.

”No, mother.”