Matt Hilary gave himself time, on his way to the Northwick place, or at
least as much time as would pass between walking and driving, but that
was because he was impatient, and his own going seemed faster to his
nerves than that of the swiftest horse could have seemed. At the crest
of the upland which divides Hatboro' from South Hatboro', and just
beyond the avenue leading to Dr. Morrell's house, he met Sue Northwick;
she was walking quickly, too. She was in mourning, but she had put aside
her long, crape veil, and she came towards him with her proud face
framed in the black, and looking the paler for it; a little of her
yellow hair showed under her bonnet. She moved imperiously, and Matt was
afraid to think what he was thinking at sight of her. She seemed not to
know him at first, or rather not to realize that it was he; when she
did, a joyful light, which she did not try to hide from him, flashed
over her visage; and "Mr. Hilary!" she said as simply and hospitably as
if their last parting had not been on terms of enmity that nothing could
clear up or explain away.
He ran forward and caught her hand. "Oh, I am so glad," he said. "I was
going out to see you about something--very important; and I might have
missed you."
"No. I was just coming to the doctor's, and then I was going back. My
sister isn't at all well, and I thought she'd better see the doctor."
"It's nothing serious, I hope?"
"Oh, no. I think she's a little worn out."'
"I know!" said Matt, with intelligence, and nothing more was said
between them as to the cause or nature of Adeline's sickness. Matt asked
if he might go up the doctor's avenue with her, and they walked along
together under the mingling elm and maple tops, but he deferred the
matter he wished to speak of. They found a little girl playing in the
road near the house, and Sue asked, "Is your father at home, Idella?"
"Mamma is at home," said the child. She ran forward, calling toward the
open doors and windows, "Mamma! Mamma! Here's a lady!"
"It isn't their child," Sue explained. "It's the daughter of the
minister who was killed on the railroad, here, a year or two ago--a very
strange man, Mr. Peck."
"I have heard Wade speak of him," said Matt.
A handsome and very happy looking woman came to the door, and stilled
the little one's boisterous proclamation to the hoarse whisper of, "A
lady! A lady!" as she took her hand; but she did not rebuke or correct
her.
"How do you do, Mrs. Morrell," said Suzette, with rather a haughty
distance; but Matt felt that she kept aloof with the pride of a person
who comes from an infected house, and will not put herself at the risk
of avoidance. "I wished to see Dr. Morrell about my sister. She isn't
well. Will you kindly ask him to call?"
"I will send him as soon as he comes," said Mrs. Morrell, giving Matt
that glance of liking which no good woman could withhold. "Unless," she
added, "you would like to come in and wait for him."
"Thank you, no," said Suzette. "I must go back to her. Good-by."
"Good-by!" said Mrs. Morrell.
Matt raised his hat and silently bowed; but as they turned away, he said
to Suzette, "What a happy face! What a lovely face! What a _good_ face!"
"She is a very good woman," said the girl. "She has been very kind to
us. But so has everybody. I couldn't have believed it." In fact, it was
only the kindness of their neighbors that had come near the defaulter's
daughters; the harshness and the hate had kept away.
"Why shouldn't they be kind?" Matt demanded, with his heart instantly in
his throat. "I can't imagine--at such a time--Don't you know that I love
you?" he entreated, as if that exactly followed; there was, perhaps, a
subtle spiritual sequence, transcending all order of logic in the
expression of his passion.
She looked at him over her shoulder as he walked by her side, and said,
with neither surprise nor joy, "How can you say such a thing to me?"
"Because it is true! Because I can't help it! Because I wish to be
everything to you, and I have to begin by saying that. But don't answer
me now; you need never answer me. I only wish you to use me as you would
use some one who loved you beyond anything on earth,--as freely as that,
and yet not be bound or hampered by me in the least. Can you do that? I
mean, can you feel, 'This is my best friend, the truest friend that any
one can have, and I will let him do anything and everything he wishes
for me.' Can you do that,--say that?"
"But how could I do that? I don't understand you!" she said, faintly.
"Don't you? I am so glad you don't drive me from you--"
"I? _You!_"
"I was afraid--But now we can speak reasonably about it; I don't see why
people shouldn't. I know it's shocking to speak to you of such a thing
at such a time. It's dreadful; and yet I can't feel wrong to have done
it! No! If it's as sacred as it seems to me when I think of it, then it
couldn't be wrong in the presence of death itself. I do love you; and I
want you some day for my wife. Yes! But don't answer that now! If you
never answer me, or if you deny me at last, still I want you to let me
be your true lover, while I can, and to do everything that your accepted
lover could, whether you ever look at me again or not. Couldn't you do
that?"
"You know I couldn't," she answered, simply.
"Couldn't you?" he asked, and he fell into a forlorn silence, as if he
could not say anything more. He forced her to take the word by asking,
"Then you are offended with me?"
"How could I be?"
"Oh--"
"It's what any girl might be glad of--"
"Oh, my--"
"And I am not so silly as to think there can be a wrong time for it. If
there were, you would make it right, if you chose it. You couldn't do
anything I should think wrong. And I--I--love you, too--"
"Suzette! Suzette!" he called wildly, as if she were a great way off. It
seemed to him his heart would burst. He got awkwardly before her, and
tried to seize her hand.
She slipped by him, with a pathetic "Don't! But you know I never could
be your wife. You _know_ that."
"I don't know it. Why shouldn't you?"
"Because I couldn't bring my father's shame on my husband."
"It wouldn't touch me, any more than it touches you!"
"It would touch your father and mother--and Louise."
"They all admire you and honor you. They think you're everything that's
true and grand."
"Yes, while I keep to myself. And I shall keep to myself. I know how;
and I shall not give way. Don't think it!"
"You will do what is right. I shall think that."
"Don't praise me! I can't bear it."
"But I love you, and how can I help praising you? And if you love me--"
"I do. I do, with all my heart." She turned and gave him an impassioned
look from the height of her inapproachability.
"Then I won't ask you to be my wife, Suzette! I know how you feel; I
won't be such a liar as to pretend I don't. And I will respect your
feeling, as the holiest thing on earth. And if you wish, we will be
engaged as no other lovers ever were. You shall promise nothing but to
let me help you all I can, for our love's sake, and I will promise never
to speak to you of our love again. That shall be our secret--our
engagement. Will you promise?"
"It will be hard for you," she said, with a pitying look, which perhaps
tried him as sorely as anything could.
"Not if I can believe I am making it easy for you."
They walked along, and she said with averted eyes, that he knew had
tears in them, "I promise."
"And I promise, too," he said.
She impulsively put out her left hand toward him, and he held its slim
fingers in his right a moment, and then let it drop. They both honestly
thought they had got the better of that which laughs from its
innumerable disguises at all stratagems and all devices to escape it.
"And now," he said, "I want to talk to you about what brought me over
here to-day. I thought at first that I was only going to see your
lawyer."