Part 35 (1/2)
”Miss Warren,” I said gravely, ”that laugh isn't natural. I never heard you laugh so before. Something _did_ happen.”
A flash of lightning gleamed across the window, and the girl gave an involuntary and apprehensive start.
Almost as instantaneously the events I had forgotten pa.s.sed through my mind. In strong and momentary excitement I rose on my elbow, and looked for their confirmation in her troubled face.
”Oh, forget--forget it all!” she exclaimed, in a low, distressed voice, and she came and stood before me with clasped hands.
”Would to G.o.d I had died!” I said, despairingly, and I sank back faint and crushed. ”I had no right to speak--to think of you as I did.
Good-by.”
”Mr. Morton--”
”Please leave me now. I'm too weak to be a man, and I would not lose your esteem.”
”But you will get well--you promised me that.”
”Well!” I said, in a low, bitter tone. ”When can I ever be well?
Good-by.”
”Mr. Morton, would you blight my life?” she asked, almost indignantly.
”Am I to blame for this?”
”Nor am I to blame. It was inevitable. Curses on a world in which one can err so fatally.”
”Can you not be a brave, generous man? If this should go against you--if you will not get well--you promised me to live.”
”I will exist; but can one whose heart is stone, and hope dead, _live?_ I'll do my best. No, yon are not to blame--not in the least. Take the whole comfort of that truth. Nor was I either. That Sunday _was_ the day of my fate, since for me to see you was to love you by every instinct and law of my being. But I trust, as you said, you will find me too honorable to seek that which belongs to another.”
”Mr. Morton,” she said, in tones of deep distress, ”you saved this home; you saved Mrs. Yocomb's life; you--you saved mine. Will you embitter it?”
”Would to G.o.d I had died!” I groaned. ”All would then have been well. I had fulfilled my mission.”
She wrung her hands as she stood beside me. ”I can't--oh, I can't endure this!” she murmured, and there was anguish in her voice.
I rallied sufficiently to take her hand as I said: ”Emily Warren, I understand your crystal truth too well not to know that there is no hope for me. I'll bear my hard fate as well as I can; but you must not expect too much. And remember this: I shall be like a planet hereafter.
The little happiness I have will be but a pale reflection of yours. If you are unhappy, I shall be so inevitably. Not a shadow of blame rests on you--the first fair woman was not truer than you. I'll do my best--I'll get up again--soon, I trust, now. If you ever need a friend--but you would not so wrong me as to go to another--I won't be weak and lackadaisical. Don't make any change; let this episode in your life be between ourselves only. Good-by.”
”Oh, you look so ill--so changed--what can I say--?”
Helpless tears rushed into her eyes. ”You saved my life,” she breathed softly; but as she turned hastily to depart she met our hostess.
”Oh, Mrs. Yocomb,” she sobbed, ”he knows all.”
”Thee surely could not have told him--”
”Indeed I did not--it came to him like a flash.”