Part 72 (1/2)

”Farvie,” said she, ”shouldn't you think Jeff would come?”

”Why, no,” said he, looking at her over his gla.s.ses, doing the benevolent act, Lydia called it. ”There's a moon, and he'll probably get something to eat somewhere or even come back by train. It isn't his night at the school.”

At six o'clock Lydia began to realise that if Esther were going that day she would take the next train. It would not be at all likely that she took the ”midnight” and got into New York jaded in the early morning.

She put on her hat and coat, and was going softly out when Anne called to her:

”Lyd, if you've got a cold you stay in the house.”

Lydia shut the door behind her and sped down the path. She thought she should die--Lydia had frequent crises of dying when the consummations of life eluded her--if she did not know whether Esther was going. Yet she would not tell Jeff until it was too late, even if he were there on the spot and if he blamed her forever for not telling him. This time she stayed in a sheltering corner of the station, and not many minutes before the train a dark figure pa.s.sed her, Esther, veiled, carrying her hand-bag, and walking fast. Lydia could have touched her arm, but Esther, in her desire of secrecy, was trying to see no one. She, too, stopped, in a deeper shadow at the end of the building. Either she had her ticket or she was depending on the last minute for getting it.

Lydia, with a leap of conjecture concluded, and rightly, that she had sent Sophy for it in advance. The local train came in, bringing the workmen from the bridge, still being repaired up the track, and Lydia shrank back a little as they pa.s.sed her. And among them, finis.h.i.+ng a talk he had taken up on the train, was, incredibly, Jeff. Lydia did not parley with her dubieties. She slipped after them in the shadow, came up to him and touched him on the arm.

”Jeff!” she said.

He turned, dropped away from the men and stood there an instant looking at her. Lydia's heart was racing. She had never felt such excitement in her life. It seemed to her she should never get her breath again.

”What's the matter?” said Jeff. ”Father all right?”

”She's going to run away with Reardon,” said Lydia, her teeth clicking on the words and biting some of them in two. ”He went this afternoon.

They're going to meet.”

”How do you know?”

Neither of them, in the course of their quick sentences, mentioned Esther's name.

”Madame Beattie told me. Look over by that truck. Don't let her see you.”

Jeff turned slightly and saw the figure by the truck.

”She's going to take this train,” said Lydia. ”She's going to Reardon. O Jeff, it's wicked.”

Lydia had never thought much about things that were wicked. Either they were brave things to do and you did them if you wanted to, or they were underhand, hideous things and then you didn't want to do them. But suddenly Esther seemed to her something floating, tossed and driven to be caught up and saved from being swamped by what seas she knew not.

Jeff walked over to the dark figure by the truck. Whether he had expected it to be Esther he could not have said, but even as it shrank from him he knew.

”Come,” said he. ”Come home with me.”

Esther stood perfectly silent like a shrinking wild thing endowed with a protective catalepsy.

”Esther,” said he, ”I know where you're going. You mustn't go. You sha'n't. Come home with me.”

And as she did not move or answer he put his arm through hers and guided her away. Just beyond the corner of the station in a back eddy of solitude, she flung him off and darted three or four steps obliquely before he caught her up and held her. Lydia, standing in the shadow, her heart beating hard, heard his unmoved voice.

”Esther, you're not afraid of me? Come home with me. I won't touch you if you'll promise to come. I can't let you go. I can't. It would be the worst thing that ever happened to you.”

”How do you know,” she called, in a high hysterical voice, ”where I'm going?”

”You were going with somebody you mustn't go with,” said Jeff. ”We won't talk about him. If he were here I shouldn't touch him. He's only a fool. And it's your fault if you're going. But you mustn't go.”

”I am going,” said Esther, ”to New York, and I have a perfect right to.

I shall spend a few days and get rested. Anybody that tells you anything else tells lies.”