Part 54 (2/2)
”Leave me,” she said faintly.
”Never,” he cried; ”I'd sooner cast myself down from this height.”
By visible and painful effort she at last grew calm enough to say firmly:
”Mr. Arnold, I do pity you. Even at this moment I will try to do you justice. My heart seems broken, and yet, I fear you will suffer more than I. My own womanhood would make your words the sufficient cause for our final separation, and had I not a friend in the world we could never meet again. But I have a friend, a brother to whom I owe more than life, and whom I love better than life. He would have made me rich if I would have let him, but I loved you too well. Not for my hope of heaven would I make him blush for me. I would have married you and lived in a single room in a tenement. I would have supported you with my own hands. The weaknesses for which you were not to blame drew my heart toward you, but you have shown a defect in your character to-night which creates an impa.s.sable gulf between us. In view of the wrong done you by others I forgive you--I shall pray G.o.d to forgive you--but we have fatally misunderstood each other. If you have any manhood at all, if you have the ordinary instincts of a gentleman, you will respect the commands of an orphan girl, and leave me, never to approach me again.”
Speechless, almost paralyzed in his despair, he tottered to the steps and disappeared.
CHAPTER XLVII
LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
AS Mrs. Wheaton crossed the hallway from a brief call on a neighbor, Vinton Arnold pa.s.sed her. She noted by the light of the lamp in her hand that his pallor was ghostlike, and she asked quickly:
”Vere is Miss Jocelyn?”
He paid no more heed to her than if he were a shadow of a man, and went by her with wavering, uncertain steps, without a word. In sudden alarm she hastened to the roof, and found Mildred kneeling by her chair, weeping and almost speechless from grief. She took the girl in her arms, and said excitedly, ”Vat did he say to you?”
”Oh,” sobbed Mildred, ”my heart is broken at last. I feel as mamma did when she said her heart was bleeding away. Mrs. Wheaton, I shall stay with you now as long as I live, and it seems as if it wouldn't be very long. Never speak of him again--never speak of it to a living soul. He asked that which would banish you and Roger--dear, brave, patient Roger--from my side forever, and I will never see his face again. Oh, oh, I wish I could die!”
”I'm a plain voman,” Mrs. Wheaton said grimly, ”but I took the measure of 'im soon as I clapped my heyes on 'im; but, Millie, me darlin', you couldn't be so cruel as to break hour 'earts by dying for sich a man. You vould make the vorld black for us hall, yer know. Come, dear, come vith me. I'll take care hof yer. I'm not fine like 'im that's gone, thank the Lord, but I'll never ax ye to do haught that Mr. Ventvorth vouldn't bless,” and she half supported the exhausted, trembling girl to her room, and there was tender and tireless in her ministrations. In the early dawn, when at last Mildred slept for an hour or two, she wrote, in a half-eligible scrawl, to Roger, ”Come back. Millie wants you.”
His presence in response was prompt indeed. On the second morning after the events described, Mildred sat in her chair leaning back with closed eyes. Mrs. Wheaton was away at work, and her eldest daughter was watching the little brood of children on the sidewalk.
A decided knock at the door caused the young girl to start up with apprehension. She was so nervously prostrated that she trembled like a leaf. At last she summoned courage and opened the door slightly, and when she saw Roger's sun-burned, honest face she welcomed him as if he were a brother indeed.
He placed her gently in her chair again, and said, with a keen look into her eyes, ”How is this, Millie? I left you happy and even blooming, and now you appear more pale and broken than ever before.
You look as if you had been seriously ill. Oh, Millie, that couldn't be, and you not let me know,” and he clasped her hand tightly as he spoke.
She buried her burning face on his shoulder, and said, in a low, constrained tone, ”Roger, I've told Mr. Arnold this much about you--I said I'd die ten thousand deaths rather than cause you to blush for me.”
He started as if he had been shot. ”Great G.o.d!” he exclaimed, ”and did he ask you aught that would make you blush?”
Bitter tears were Mildred's only answer.
The young man's pa.s.sion for a few moments was terrible, but Mildred's pallid face soon calmed him. ”You could not harm him,” she said sadly. ”What is one blow more to a man who is in torture? I pity him from the depths of my soul, and you must promise me to let him alone. Never for a moment did I forget that you were my brother.”
In strong revulsion of feeling he bent one knee at her side and pleaded, ”Oh, Millie, give me the right to protect you. I'll wait for you till I'm gray. I'll take what love you can give me. I'll be devotion itself.”
”Don't, Roger,” she said wearily. ”I love you too well to listen.
Such words only wound me. Oh, Roger, be patient with me. You don't understand, you never will understand. I do give you the right to protect me; but don't talk that way again. I just long for rest and peace. Roger, my friend, my brother,” she said, lifting her eyes appealingly to his, and giving him both of her hands, ”don't you see? I can give you everything in this way, but in the way you speak of--nothing. My heart is as dead as poor Belle's.”
”Your wish shall be my law,” he said gently.
”And you'll not harm Mr. Arnold?”
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