Part 32 (2/2)
”It is my father first, of course,” she said at last. ”But while you are arranging matters concerning him, I do not see any reason to keep me from helping a sick boy. I--yes, I will go with you now.”
He looked the grat.i.tude he could not speak, and fearful that in her mercurial mood she might change her mind, he accompanied her without delay to the street, and procured a cab, in which they were driven rapidly to Roseleaf's lodgings. On the way, with that loved form so near him, Archie Weil had a constant struggle. She might be his, if he would forget duty.
And he loved her! G.o.d, how he loved her! He could marry her, and perhaps after a fas.h.i.+on make her happy. The perspiration stood on his forehead as he dwelt on the bliss that he had resolutely cast aside.
Roseleaf's landlady came to the door in person and informed the callers that her guest was in about the same condition as he had been for some days. He was not ill in bed, but he did not leave his room. When she sent up his meals he received them mechanically, and they were often untouched when the domestic went for the dishes. He wrote several hours a day, though he was undoubtedly feeble. Did he have any visitors? Only one, Mr. Gouger, who was with him at the present moment. Should she go up and announce them? Very well, if it was not necessary. Mr. Weil could show the lady into the adjoining room, which was empty, until he had announced her presence in the house to his friend.
Archie whispered to Daisy when he left her at Roseleaf's door, that he would come for her as soon as possible. He did not enter the sick boy's chamber at once, for something in the conversation that came to his ears arrested his steps at the threshold. Mr. Gouger's voice was heard, and Archie's ears caught the sound of his own name.
”You should let me send to Mr. Weil,” said Gouger. ”I am sure he can explain everything. You have written all you ought for the present. He would take you to ride and bring the color to those white cheeks of yours.”
”But he cannot bring me the girl I love,” responded Roseleaf, with a profound sigh. ”Even if I have done him injustice, she is lost to me now. You know appearances were against him. Why, you agreed with me about it. I don't want to see any one. I want to go away from here, and forget my sorrows as best I can in some far distant place.”
There was a sadness in the tone that went to the listener's heart. The door was slightly ajar and Archie took the liberty of looking into the room. Roseleaf lay stretched out in a great chair, and Gouger leaned over him, appearing for all the world like some sinister bird of prey.
Mr. Weil felt for the first time in his life that there was something uncanny in the aspect of the book reviewer. He did not think he could ever be close friends with him again. And what did s.h.i.+rley mean by saying that Lawrence had ”agreed” with him when he heard such base opinions?
The critic was fingering with apparent satisfaction a pile of MSS. that lay on the table. It had grown vastly since Archie saw it the last time, and must be fifteen or twenty chapters in extent now.
”You must not go away until you have finished this wonderful work,”
replied Gouger, with concern. ”A few more months--a little further experience in life--and your reputation will be made! Ah, it is wonderful! It is magnificent! The world will ring with your praises before the year is ended. Such fidelity to nature! Such perfection of detail! In all my career I have never seen anything to approach it!”
s.h.i.+rley moved uneasily in his chair.
”Do you ever think at what cost I have done this?” he asked. ”I know the pain of a burn because I have held my hands in the fire. I know the agony of asphyxiation, because I have dangled at the end of a rope. I can write of the miner buried beneath a hundred feet of clay, because I have had the load fall on my own head. To love and find myself beloved; then to see happiness s.n.a.t.c.hed without explanation from my grasp; to feel that my best friend has been the one to betray me! That is what I have pa.s.sed through, and from the drops of misery thus distilled, I have penned those lines you so much admire. I have written all I can of these horrors. I will not begin again till I have caught somewhere in the great sky a glimpse of sunlight!”
Mr. Weil could wait no longer. He pushed open the door and went to the speaker's side.
”The sunlight is awaiting you,” he said, gazing down upon the figure in the armchair. ”You have only to raise your curtain.”
Mr. Gouger sprang up in astonishment at the sudden arrival, and perhaps a little in alarm also; for he could not tell how long the visitor had been eavesdropping at the portal. But Roseleaf turned his languid eyes toward his old friend, and was silent.
”s.h.i.+rley, my boy,” pursued Weil, with the utmost earnestness, ”I can prove to you now that Daisy Fern loves you and you alone.”
Roseleaf did not move. His lips opened and the words came stiffly.
”You can promise many things,” he said, ”but can you fulfill any of them?”
So cold, so unlike himself!
”What will convince you?” demanded Weil. ”Shall I bring a letter from her? Or would you rather she came in person, to tell you I speak the truth?”
The shadow of a smile, a smile that was not agreeable, hovered around the corners of the pale mouth.
”I shall write no more,” said the lips, when they opened, ”until I have seen her and heard the reason for my rejection. I will discover who my enemy is. I will unmask the man or the woman that has done me this injury. Till then, I shall write no more. No, not one line.”
Mr. Gouger was nonplussed by the new turn in affairs. He knew that Weil had some basis for what he said, that he was not the man to come with pretence on his tongue. Neither of the other persons in the room paid the least attention to him, any more than if he had not been present. It was like a play, at which Gouger was the only spectator.
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