Part 40 (1/2)
”But you must remember what he has since endured,” replied Archie, mildly.
”And there's been no explanation, of any sort?”
”Not the slightest. I'd give half I'm worth if I could get a clue. It worries me all the time. A life like that girl's ruined--simply ruined--in twenty-four hours, and n.o.body able to tell why! It's enough to drive a man frantic!”
Mr. Weil did not drive immediately to Oakhurst, which he learned was the name of the estate that Mr. Fern rented, but he enclosed his card in a hotel envelope and sent it there by mail, without a word of comment. If they thought it best to see him he would be glad to go, otherwise he would not intrude on their privacy.
Several days after--mails were slow in the South--an answer came. It briefly requested that Mr. Weil and Mr. Boggs, if the latter were still in town, would come to lunch on the following Wednesday. Boggs fumed slightly at the apparent difference made between him and Weil, but ended by going with his friend to Oakhurst.
Mr. Fern did not look any worse than when Archie had last seen him--indeed, if anything, he had improved in appearance. Time helps most griefs to put on a better face, and though the marks of what he had pa.s.sed through would not be likely to leave his countenance, the utter hopelessness had in a measure disappeared. When Daisy came into the parlor, she also wore a mien not quite so crushed as when she left the room at Midlands with her words of farewell. Whatever her trouble was, it had not left her without something to live for. Her youth was doing its work, and it seemed to the anxious eyes of the onlooker that time would restore her nearly, if not quite, to her former radiance.
In the presence of Mr. Boggs, neither father nor daughter cared to discuss the past. They talked of the plantation on which they resided, of the pleasant drives in the vicinity, and of matters connected with the world in general, of which they had learned through the newspapers.
But after the lunch was finished Archie found himself alone with Daisy, wandering through the extensive oak forest that gave the place its name.
”How long shall you stay here?” he asked her, as a prelude to the other questions he wanted to follow it.
”I don't know,” she replied. ”We shall probably go north during the warm weather, perhaps to the White Mountains.”
He suggested that it must be rather lonesome at Oakhurst.
”Not for us,” she said, quickly. ”We are all in all to each other, and require no thickly settled community to satisfy us.”
”Daisy,” he said, after a pause, ”there are things I must say to you, and I hope--with all my heart--you will find a way to answer them. In the first place, do you believe me, really, truly, your friend?”
She placed her hand in his for answer. The action meant more than any form of words.
”Then, tell me--tell me as freely as if I were your brother, your priest--why you stayed from home that night.”
She withdrew the hand he held, to place it with the other over her eyes.
”It is impossible,” she responded, with a gasp. ”I told you that I never could explain, and I never can.”
He looked sorely disappointed.
”I know no person on earth--not even my father,” she proceeded, giving him back the clasp she had loosened, ”that I would tell it to sooner than you. I have not given him the least hint. I know it leaves you to think a thousand things, and I can only throw myself on your mercy; I can only ask you to remember all you knew of me before that day, and decide whether a girl can change her whole mental and moral att.i.tude in a moment.”
He drew her arm caressingly through his, and breathed a sigh on her forehead.
”Not for one second have I doubted your truth!” he replied. ”Believe that, Daisy, through everything. But I hoped for an explanation, for something that might a.s.sist me to punish the guilty ones, for such there must have been.”
The face that she turned toward him was full of terror.
”Why do you say that?” she exclaimed.
”Because--”
”No, no!” she cried, interrupting him. ”I do not want to hear you! We must not talk on the subject! There is nothing to be told, nothing to be guessed. This must be alluded to no more between us. It must end here and now!”