Part 34 (2/2)
”But she has improved.”
”Good, good. How?”
”She thinks of things around her--and--takes care of the cabin since Amalia's hurt.”
”Hurt? How's that?”
”She sprained her ankle--only, but enough to lay her up for a while.”
”I see. Shook her mother out of her dreams.”
”Not entirely. I think the improvement comes more from her firm conviction that you are to bring her husband with you, and Amalia agrees with me. If you have an excuse that will satisfy her--”
”I see. She was satisfied in her mind that he was alive and would come to her--I see. Keep her quiet until I wake up and then we'll find a way out--if the truth is impossible. Now I'll sleep--for a day and a night and a day--as long as I've been on that forced march. It was to go back, or try to push through--or die--and I pushed through.”
”Don't sleep until I've brought you some hot broth. I'm sure they have it down there.”
”I'll be glad of it, yes.”
But he could not keep awake. Before Harry could throw another log on the fire he was asleep. Then Harry gently drew an army blanket over him and went out to the stable. There he saddled his own horse and led him toward the cabin. Before he reached it he saw Amalia coming to meet him, hobbling on her crutch. She was bareheaded and the light of morning was in her eyes.
”Ah, 'Arry, 'Arry King! He has come. I see here marks of feet of horses in the snow--is not? Is well? Is safe? Larry Kildene so n.o.ble and kind! Yes. My mother? No, she prepares the food, and me, I shut the door when I run out to see is it sun to-day and the terrible snow no more falling. There I see the marks of horses, yes.” She spoke excitedly, and looked up in Harry's face with smiles on her lips and anxious appeal in her eyes.
”Throw down that crutch and lean on me. I'll lift you up--There! Now we'll go back to the cabin and lead Goldbug around a bit, so his tracks will cover the others and account for them. Then after breakfast I'll take you to the top of the trail and tell you.”
She leaned down to him from her seat on the horse and put her hand on his shoulder. ”Is well? And you--you have not slept? No?”
Looking up in her face so wonderful and beautiful, so filled with tender solicitude for him, and her glowing eyes fixed on his, he was covered with confusion even to scarcely comprehending what she said.
He took the hand from his shoulder and kissed the tips of her fingers, then dropped it and walked on ahead, leading the horse.
”I'm well, yes. Tired a bit, but, oh, yes! Larry Kildene? He's all right. We'll go out on the trail and consult--what is best to do about your mother--and say nothing until then.”
To Amalia a kiss on the finger tips meant no more than the usual morning greeting in her own country, and she rode on undisturbed by his demonstration, which he felt keenly and for which he would have knelt and begged her pardon. Ever since his first unguarded moment when he returned and found her fainting on the hillside, he had set such rigid watch over his actions that his adoration had been expressed only in service--for the most part silent and with averted eyes. This aloofness she felt, and with the fineness of her nature respected, letting her own play of imagination hover away from intimate intrusion, merely lightening the somber relations.h.i.+p that would otherwise have existed, like a breeze that stirs only the surface of a deep pool and sets dancing lights at play but leaves the depths undisturbed.
Yet, with all her intuitiveness, she found him difficult and enigmatic. An impenetrable wall seemed to be ever between them, erected by his will, not hers; therefore she would not try by the least suggestion of manner, or even of thought, to know why, nor would she admit to her own spirit the hurt of it. The walled inclosure of his heart was his, and she must remain without. To have attempted by any art to get within the boundaries he had set she felt to be unmaidenly.
In spite of his strength and vigor, Harry was very weary. But less from his long night's vigil than from the emotions that had torn him and left his heart heavy with the necessity of covering always this strong, elemental love that smoldered, waiting in abeyance until it might leap into consuming flame.
During the breakfast Harry sat silent, while the two women talked a little with each other, speculating as to the weather, and rejoicing that the morning was again clear. Then while her mother was occupied, Amalia, unnoticed, gave him the broth to carry up to the shed, and there, as Larry still slept, he set it near the fire that it might be warm and ready for him should he wake during their absence. At the cabin he brought wood and laid it beside the hearth, and looked about to see if there were anything more he could do before he spoke.
”Madam Manovska, Amalia and I are going up the trail a little way, and we may be gone some time, but--I'll take good care of her.” He smiled rea.s.suringly: ”We mustn't waste the sunny days. When Mr. Kildene returns, you also must ride sometimes.”
”Ah, yes. When? When? It is long--very long.”
”But, maybe, not so long, mamma. Soon now must he come. I think it.”
They left her standing in the door as they went off up the trail, the glistening snow making the world so dazzling in the sunlight, so blinding to her eyes, used to the obscurity of the cabin, that the many tracks past the door were unnoticed by her. In silence they walked until they had almost reached the turn, when Amalia spoke.
<script>