Part 25 (2/2)
”Mr. Morton, you said that in spite of all we should be friends; let me claim my privilege at once. I'm sure I'm right in believing that you're overwrought and morbid, from the strange experiences you have just pa.s.sed through. Do not add to your exhaustion by starting off on another aimless walk to-day; though you may think it might lead you to a better fate, it cannot bring you to those who care so deeply for you.
We'll be merry, true-hearted friends after we've had time to rest and think it all over.”
”True-hearted, anyway,” I said emphatically. ”What's more, I'll be sane when we meet again--entirely matter-of-fact, indeed, since I already foresee that I shall be troubled by no more days of fate. Good-by now; go and sleep the sleep of the just; I'll rest quietly here;” and I held out my hand.
She took it in both of hers, and said gently: ”Mr. Morton, I believe you saved my--our lives last night.”
”I had some hand in it--yes, that should be happiness enough. I'll make it answer; but never speak of it again.”
”When I cease to think of it I shall cease to think at all,” she said, in strong emphasis; and with a lingering wistful glance she pa.s.sed slowly in and up the winding stairway.
I watched her as I would a s.h.i.+p that had left me on a desolate rock.
”She is one that could not change if she would,” I thought. ”It's all over. No matter; possibly I saved her life.”
I sat down again in a rustic chair on the piazza, too miserable and disheartened to do more than endure the pain of my disappointment.
Indeed there was nothing else to do, for seemingly I had set my heart on the impossible. Her words and manner had made but one impression--that she had given her love and faith to an earlier and more fortunate suitor.
”It would be strange if it were otherwise,” I muttered. ”I was the 'idiot,' in thinking that her gentlemen friends were blind; but I protest against a world in which men are left to blunder so fatally.
The other day I felt broken down physically; I now know that I'm broken and disabled in all respects. The zest and color have wholly gone out of life. If I ever go back to my work I shall find my counterpart in the most jaded and dispirited stage-horse in the city. Miss Warren will have no more occasion to criticise light, smart paragraphs. Indeed, I imagine that I shall soon be restricted to the obituary notices, and I now feel like writing my own. Confound these birds! What makes them sing so? Nature's a heartless jade anyway. Last night she would have burned us up with lightning, and this morning there would have been not a whit less of song and suns.h.i.+ne. Oh, well, it's far better that my hopes are in ashes than that this house should be. I, and all there is of me, is a small price to pay for this home and its inmates; and if I saved her little finger from being scorched, I should be well content.
But why the devil did I feel so toward her when it was of no use! That fact irritates me. Is my whole nature a lie, and are its deepest intuitions and most sacred impulses false guides that lead one out into the desert to perish? In the crisis of my life, when I had been made to see that past tendencies were wrong, and I was ready for any change for the better, my random, aimless steps led to this woman, and, as I said to her, the result was inevitable. All nature seemed in league to give emphasis to the verdict of my own heart, but the moment I reached the conviction that she was created for me and I for her, I am informed that she was created for another. I must therefore be one of the odd ones, for whom there is no mate. Curse it all! I rather feel as if another man were going to marry my wife, and I must admit that I have a consuming curiosity to see him.
”But this can't be. Her heart must have recognized the true kins.h.i.+p in this other man--blast him! no, bless him, if she marries him--for she's the last one in the world to enter into merely legal relations, unsanctioned by the best and purest instincts of her womanly nature.
”It's all the devil's own muddle.”
And no better conclusion did I reach that dismal morning--the most dismal I can remember, although the hour abounded in beauty and the glad, exuberant life that follows a summer rain. I once heard a preacher say that h.e.l.l could be in heaven and heaven in h.e.l.l. I thought him a trifle irreverent at the time, but now half believed him right.
My waking train of thought ended in a stupor in which I do not think I lost for a moment the dull consciousness of pain. I was aroused by a step upon the gravel-path, and, starting up, saw the woman who served Mrs. Yocomb in the domestic labors of the farmhouse. She stopped and stared at me a moment, and then was about to continue around the house to the kitchen entrance.
”Wait a moment, my good woman,” I said; ”and you'll now have a chance to prove yourself a good woman, and a very helpful and considerate one, too. The house was struck by lightning last night.”
”Lord a ma.s.sy!” she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and she struck an att.i.tude with her hands on her hips, and stared at me again, with her small eyes and capacious mouth opened to their utmost extent.
”Yes,” I continued, ”and all were hurt except Reuben. The doctor has been here, and all are now better and sleeping, so please keep the house quiet, and let us sleep till the doctor comes again. Then have a good fire, so that you can get ready at once whatever he orders for the patients.”
”Lord a ma.s.sy!” she again remarked very emphatically, and scuttled off to her kitchen domains in great excitement.
I now felt that my watch had ended, and that I could give the old farmhouse into the hands of one accustomed to its care. Therefore I wearily climbed the stairs to my room, and threw myself, dressed, on the lounge.
After a moment or two Miss Warren's door opened, and her light step pa.s.sed down to the kitchen. She, too, had been on the watch for the coming of the domestic, and, if aware that I had seen the woman, did not regard me as competent to enlighten her as to her duties for the day. The kitchen divinity began at once:
”Lord a ma.s.sy, Miss Em'ly, what a time yer's all had! The strange man told me. There hain't no danger now, is there?”
In response to some remark from Miss Warren she continued, in shrill volubility:
”Yes, he told me yer's all struck but Reub'n. I found him a-sittin' on the stoop, and a-lookin' all struck of a heap himself. Is that the way lightning 'fects folks? He looked white as a ghost, and as if he didn't keer ef he was one afore night. 'Twas amazin'--” and here Miss Warren evidently silenced her.
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