DARK DAYS
"If I only knew!" That was Echo's mental cry in the long days that
followed Chilly's burial. "If I only knew whether Harry cared for me
any longer!" Sharp as was her grief for her brother, this pang was the
sharper, and it did not dull with time.
After the meeting in the corridor of the Convention Hall, when the
barrier had risen, so icily cold, between them, she had been unable to
blame him. The very depth of his hurt and resentment only showed her
how much he had once cared, and she had longed fiercely for an
opportunity of speech with him, which, it seemed to her, must set all
right. This opportunity she had discerned in Brent's invitation to the
theatre, since he had let fall that he had asked Harry also. She had
known the character of the play to be presented and otherwise would
have shrunk from the painful memories it must evoke, even though her
personal dread had been exercised by the escape from prison of the
convict from whose plight had come her own pain of conscience. But the
possibility of Harry's presence had outweighed other considerations.
In that moment in the box, when his lips had spoken her name, when she
had felt his hand tremble against her arm, the ice had seemed about to
melt in understanding. For an instant her heart had leaped up with
glad certainty, only to drop to anguished slowness again at his sudden
stricken silence.
"If I only knew!" Through the months of the early summer the question
sat incarnate by Echo's side. By night and by day it never left her.
She had no confidant, could have none. From this trouble her father
himself was barred. It was some relief that she had no longer to wear
a smiling motley, but could give her grief free rein, and there were
times when she wept till the very fount of her tears seemed to be
exhausted--when it seemed to her that all her life was darkened and her
love lay stark with its death-tapers licking the gloom.
As time wore on, and her father threw himself again into the work of
the political campaign, she was mentally more alone than ever. There
were few of those old hours when she had been used to sit with him in
the dusky library; for this room had become, gradually, the habitual
meeting-place of the leaders, the clearing-house of county news, the
forum in which were discussed and decided the varying policies of the
struggle. Occasionally Harry took part in these gatherings--not often,
for he was now away during long periods, speaking in various parts of
the state. By the newspapers Echo followed his every step. He made no
speech that she did not read with eagerness and pride. She knew that
he was making a whirlwind campaign that had steadily increased in
vigour and effect as the day of election drew nearer, and that, however
the issues might fall, he was stamping his individuality deeply upon a
wide community. She thrilled with the thought of his success, and in
the unselfishness of her love, this was some recompense.
She found a kind of comfort, too, in the realisation that the relations
of her father and mother had subtly altered. In her whole life she had
never witnessed the smallest discourtesy of word or deed between them,
yet there was now a positive element in their intercourse which she had
never distinguished. Often now they sat together as the Judge wrote or
scanned his reports, sometimes he discussed with his wife the phases of
the political situation and once--with what Echo realised afterward was
almost a guilty start--she had come upon them sitting in the lamplight
hand in hand. She had turned away to discover that her eyes had
unaccountably filled with tears.
Most of all that sustained her spirits in this period were her talks
with Brent. Trained newspaperman and observer as he was, he had thrown
himself into the battle with all ardour. Day after day, in trenchant
editorials, he preached the Gospel of the new party, and many times he
swung his long legs down the Avenue for a cup of tea at Midfields. His
admiration for the fight Harry was making was immense and he found in
Echo a perfect listener, sympathetic and comprehending.
And so the months passed till there remained but a fortnight before
election day, and so deeply had Echo's imagination entered into the
great issue, so intimately were all her thoughts engaged with Harry's
tangible success, that even the dread of Craig's recovery, even the
pain and puzzle of her heart, were thrust into the background.
That evening she sat at the piano in the drawing-room, her fingers
wandering in long dreamy _arpeggios_, when her maid brought her a
letter. It was from Nancy Eveland. She opened and read it through, to
the postscript on the last page:
"The evening papers have a telegram from Buda-Pesth about Mr. Craig.
He left the hospital there yesterday. The operation was completely
successful."
She sat for some minutes with the paper held tight in her hand, with a
weird feeling that it was a warning, and when she tried again to play
her fingers stumbled into discord.
It was long before she slept that night, and then the fear swooped upon
her in her dreaming. She thought it was her wedding-day and that she
was pacing up a church aisle, over rose-leaves red as blood strewn with
seed-pearls that had been her tears. Turned toward her were the faces
of her father and mother, of Chilly and of a myriad friends, who filled
every pew. At the altar Harry was standing waiting for her. But every
countenance wore a look of astonishment and trepidation, and she knew
that it was because the gown she was wearing was not white but black,
and her bride's veil of black crepe. This, however, had been necessary
because she had wished that Craig would die, and the wish had somehow
brought his death about. She thought she tried to explain this, in a
whisper, to Harry, but he shrank from her. She turned to the rector,
who had been ready, but as she looked at him, he took off his surplice
and dashed it on the floor, and she saw that he was really Craig
himself. Then the organ crashed and lights flared up about her and
Harry vanished and all that was left was Craig's face, sneering at her,
with a red blotch on his temple.
She awoke in the darkness with a start, trembling in every limb--to
hear a lone hound howling from the stable.