Early in the week following the reception, Frederick Owen learned that
Dupont was about to take his departure from Far Edgerley, and with no
expectation of returning. This was good news. He was beginning to have
the feeling that the fellow would never go away, that he and his guitar
would become a permanent feature of Madam Carroll's receptions, his
lounging figure under the cream-colored umbrella a daily ornament of the
centre of Edgerley Street. Was he really, then, going? It seemed too
good to be true. But the tidings had been brought by Miss Dalley, who
was both good and true, and who was accurate as well; she had the very
hour--"On Friday, at nine."
"Hangman's day!" thought Owen, with satisfaction, doing his thinking
this time with the remnants of boyhood feelings; for though he was in
his third decade--the beginning of it--and a clergyman, the boy in him
was by no means entirely outgrown. Miss Dalley had come to return a
book, Longfellow's "Outre Mer," and to borrow anything he might have
about Ferrara.
"I was so much interested in our American poet's description of the
Italian poet's grave, on the Janiculum," she said. "It was such a
touching passage, and it contained this truly poetical sentence: 'He
sleeps midway between his cradle at Sorrento and his dungeon at
Ferrara.' I can never go in _person_, Mr. Owen; Fate has denied me that.
But I can think of the inscription, which Longfellow gives: 'Torquati
Tasso ossa hic jacet,' and be there in _mind_."
She had called it "hic jacket." "Jacent, I think," said the rector,
gently.
"Yes, certainly; that is what I meant--jacinth," said Miss Dalley,
correcting herself. "A beautiful word, is it not? And so appropriate,
too, for a poet's grave, mentioned, as it is, in Revelations!"
On Friday Dupont really did go. The rector himself saw him pass in the
high red wagon of the Washington Inn on his way down the mountain to the
lower town, the eastward-bound stage, and thence--wherever he pleased,
the gazer thought, so long as he did not return. But although the rector
gave this vagueness to the musician's destination, it was understood in
other quarters that he was going back to the West India Islands--"where
he used to live, you know."
"Upon which one did he live?" asked the junior warden. "There are about
fifty thousand of them, large and small; he can't have lived on them
all."
"For my part, I think him _quite_ capable of it," answered Miss Honoria,
grimly.
Having seen the musician depart, Owen jumped on his horse and went off
to one of his mission stations far up among the crags of Lonely
Mountain. For, not content with a rector's usual duties, all of which he
attended to with a modern promptness unknown in the days of good old
Parson Montgomery, he had established mission stations at various points
in the mountains above Far Edgerley. Wherever there were a few
log-houses gathered together, there he held services, or started a
Sunday-school. He was by far the most energetic rector the parish of St.
John in the Wilderness had ever had; so much so, indeed, that the parish
hardly knew how to take his energy, and thought that he was perhaps
rather too much in the wilderness--more than necessity demanded or his
bishop required. Miss Honoria Ashley had even called these journeyings
of his "itinerant;" but Miss Honoria was known to disapprove, on general
principles, of everything the rector did: she had once seen him wearing
a sack-coat.
On this particular Friday he was out all day among the peaks, close up
under the sky. Coming down at sunset, and entering Edgerley Street,
with its knolls and flower-gardens and rambling old houses, his home
seemed to him a peaceful and pleasant one. And then, as he passed
Carroll Farms, he became conscious that the cause for its seeming
especially peaceful to him this evening was the absence of the intruder,
that man from another world, who was no longer there to contaminate its
sweet, old-fashioned simplicity with his dubious beauty, his dangerous
character, and his enchanting voice. For Owen believed that the
musician's character was dangerous; his face bore the marks of
dissipation, and though indolent, and often full of gay good-nature, he
had at times a reckless expression in his eyes. Nothing deterred him
from amusing himself; and probably, in the same way, nothing would deter
him from any course towards which he should happen to feel an
inclination. He was not dangerous by plan or calculation; he was
dangerous from the very lack of them. He was essentially erratic, and
followed his fancies, and no one could tell whither they would lead him.
But he might have been all this, and the clergyman would still have felt
able to guard his parish and people from any harm his presence might do
them, had it not been for the favor shown him by Madam Carroll. This had
been a blow to Owen. He said to himself that the gentle lady's love of
music had blinded her judgment, and carried her astray. It was a
satisfaction that Miss Carroll's judgment remained unblinded. But it was
greatest satisfaction of all that the man was gone; he congratulated
himself upon this anew as he rode by the gateway of the Farms.
It was well that he had this taste of comfort. It did not last long.
Less than three weeks had passed when he learned one afternoon that
Dupont had returned. And not long afterwards he was in possession of
other knowledge, which troubled him more than anything that had happened
since he came to Far Edgerley.
In the meantime his parish, unaware of its rector's opinion, had
welcomed back the summer visitor with various graceful little
attentions. The summer visitor had been seriously ill, and needed
attentions, graceful or otherwise. He had journeyed as far as New York,
and there had fallen ill of a fever, which was not surprising, the
parish thought, when one considered the dangerously torrid climate of
that business metropolis at this season. Upon recovery, he had longed
with a great longing for "our pure Chillawassee air," and had returned
to pass the time of convalescence "among our noble peaks;" this was
repeated from knoll to knoll. Dupont's appearance bore testimony to the
truth of the tale. He had evidently been ill: his cheeks were hollow,
and he moved about slowly, as though he had not much strength; his eyes,
large and dark, looked larger and darker than ever, set in his thin,
brown face. But he was still Dupont; his moustache was still waxed, and
he had some new articles of finery, a gold watch-chain, and a seal-ring
on his long-fingered hand. This time he did not stay at the inn; he
preferred to try a farm-house, and selected Walley's Cove, a small farm
a little above the village, in one of the high ravines which, when wide
enough for a few fields along the mountain-brook that flowed through the
centre, were called coves. Dupont liked the place on account of the
view; and also, he said, because he could throw a stone from the cove's
mouth "into every chimney in Far Edgerley." This was repeated. "Do you
suppose," said Mrs. General Hibbard, solemnly--"do you suppose he is
going to do it?"
This lady had felt from the beginning a solemn curiosity about Dupont,
about all he said and did. But this was quite natural, the village
thought, when one considered the interesting proximity of the West India
Islands (where the musician used to live) to the glorious Mexican field
of her departed husband's fame. But, in return for her interest, Dupont
had irreverently made a caricature of the august widow, depicting her
as a mermaid, in her own duck-pond, surrounded by all her ducks, clad in
Mexican costumes; and then Far Edgerley society, which had been obliged
to listen for eight long years to many details about these birds of
Chapultepec--Far Edgerley society was corrupt enough to laugh.
But this incident belonged to Dupont's first visit; and, like other
incidents of his first visit, could be deemed amusing or impertinent
according to one's view of him. The new knowledge which had come to
Frederick Owen was something very different--different and grave: Sara
Carroll had changed. She now felt an interest in this stranger, and she
was showing it.
Was this the influence of Madam Carroll? But Owen could not long think
this. Miss Carroll was not a person to be easily influenced or led. She
was not yielding; whatever course she might follow, one could at least
be sure that, good or bad, it was her own. Her interest showed itself
guardedly; so much so that no one had observed it. The clergyman felt
sure that he was the only discoverer, and his own discovery he owed to a
rare chance. He was coming down Chillawassee on horseback, and in
bending to gather a flower from a bush, as he passed, he had lost a
small note-book from the breast pocket of his coat; dismounting to look
for it, he found that it was lying on a ledge not far below the road,
and that he could get it by a little climbing. He made his way down to
the ledge, and secured the book. Then he saw, a little farther down, one
of the isolated rocks called chimneys, and was seized with the fancy to
have a look from its top. He obeyed this fancy. And from its top he
found himself looking directly down into a small field on the edge of
Carroll Farms; here, standing together under a tree, were two figures
which he instantly recognized--they were the figures of Sara Carroll and
Dupont. This field was separated from the road by a hedge so high that
no one could look over it, and from the other fields and the orchard of
the Farms by a thicket of chincapins. The two were therefore well
hidden; they were safe from discovery save for the remote chance that
some one had climbed the chimney above them. And this one remote chance
had fallen to the lot of Frederick Owen.
He was much surprised, uncertain, unhappy. Shielded by the tall bushes
growing on top of the chimney, he had stood for several minutes looking
down upon the two. Then he left the rock, went back to his horse, and
rode home.
His uneasiness, after spoiling his night's sleep, took him to the Farms
the next afternoon. Madam Carroll received him in the drawing-room. She
offered an excuse for Miss Carroll; it seemed that she had a headache.
But on his way out the clergyman distinctly saw the shadow of a man
thrown across the dining-room floor by the bright sunshine shining
through the western windows. It might not be the shadow of Dupont, of
course; he was ashamed of himself for his quick suspicion. It might be
that of some other visitor, or of one of their poor pensioners, or of
Caleb Inches. But no masculine visitor came to the Farms at this hour
save, now and then, the junior warden, whose small figure never cast
shadow like that; and all the pensioners of whom he had knowledge were
women. He decided that, of course, it was Inches; and then, on his way
down Carroll Lane, he met Inches coming up. Still, it was but a
supposition. He forced himself to cast it aside.
Chance, however, seemed determined to disturb him, for she soon threw in
his way other knowledge, and this not a shadow, but reality. He caught a
glimpse of Sara Carroll turning into a little-used path, which led up
the mountain to a fir-wood. His own road (he was on horseback, as usual,
on his way to a mission station) led him by Walley's Cove, and here,
fifteen minutes later, he distinctly saw the figure of Louis Dupont
entering the same wood at its upper edge, and by the path which would
bring him directly to her, the same path she herself was following.
Owen's trouble now took complete possession of him; up to this time he
had fought it off. He felt that he ought to do something, to act. Dupont
was a dissipated, erratic adventurer, whose history no one knew. Should
he let this proud, fastidious, delicate-minded girl fall into such a
vulgar trap as this? Before his eyes, within reach of his hand? Yet
there it was again--if she were in reality as proud and fastidious as he
had supposed her to be (and he had thought her the proudest girl he had
ever known), how could she, of her own accord, endure Louis Dupont? At
one time she had not endured him. There had been a memorable moment when
the expression of her eyes (how well he remembered it!) had been
unmistakable; the moment when he had met her, coming from the
drawing-room, with that alluring voice floating forth behind her. What
could have changed her--changed her so completely as this?
The one answer presented itself with pitiless promptness: Dupont had
changed her. He had accomplished it himself, with the aid of a handsome
face, fine eyes, and an audacity which stopped at nothing; for the
clergyman had always felt sure that the audacity was there, although it
had not, in Far Edgerley, at least, been much exerted. This was so
acutely disagreeable to the man who was thinking of it, that there was
in his own eyes (handsome ones, too, in their way--a blue way) angry
moisture as he went over its possibilities. He clinched his hand and
rode on; it would have fared hardly with the musician had he crossed his
path just then. Owen was a clergyman. But he had been a man, and a free
one, first; he had not gone from college and seminary directly into the
ministry. He was thirty-one years old, and he had taken orders but two
years before; the preceding interval had not been spent in country
villages.
With all this surging feeling, however, he had as yet nothing definite
against this stranger--this stranger whose bad manners had been
protected by his "genius," and whose bad aspects had not been perceived
by the innocent little town. By nothing definite he meant nothing that
he could use. But now Chance, having given him three heavy burdens of
knowledge to carry (he had carried them as well as he could, with a
heavy heart as well)--the knowledge of those three meetings which, if
not clandestine, were at least concealed--this same Chance relented so
far as to present him with other knowledge--knowledge of a different
hue. She put in his possession some recent facts concerning the
musician which were proof, and proof positive, against him.
But what could Owen do with his facts? If he had not known what he knew
of Sara Carroll's interest in him, he could have proceeded against the
fellow at once; it needed but the statement which he was now able to
make to close every door in Far Edgerley against him, for the little
town, though not strait-laced, had a standard of morals as pure as its
own air. But if he should do this, might not Dupont take his revenge,
or, less than that, amuse himself, as he would call it, by letting the
village public learn of his intimate relations with the Farms, or rather
with Miss Carroll? Madam Carroll's liking for him, or, rather, for his
songs, was known and comprehended. But Miss Carroll's liking was not
known; and it had, too, an aspect--and here Frederick Owen felt that he
would rather go on forever in silence than have that aspect discussed.
Yet something he must do. He decided to go to Major Carroll himself.
Infirm as was his health, and secluded as was his life, he was the
natural protector of these two ladies, and would wish to know, ought to
know, everything that concerned them. He went to the Farms.
The Major was not feeling well that day; Madam Carroll hoped that the
rector would excuse him. The rector had no alternative but to do so. He
asked if he might not see him on the following day. Madam Carroll, with
regret, feared that this would not be possible; he had taken cold, and
his colds always lasted for a long time; he had not yet recovered his
strength fully after that illness of the preceding winter--as the rector
was probably aware. Disappointed, the rector went away. As he passed
down green Edgerley Street he met Dupont coming up, as usual, in the
centre of the roadway. The musician gave the clergyman a profound bow,
almost as profound as those with which he had disconcerted Miss Corinna.
As Owen returned it--as slightly as possible--he thought he saw in
Dupont's eyes a mocking gleam of amusement. Amusement? Or was it
triumph? He went on his way, walking rapidly; but at a certain point in
the road he could not help looking back. Yes, Dupont had turned into
Carroll Lane.
On the next day the rector of St. John's, having taken a new resolution,
started to pay a morning visit at the residence of his senior warden. In
answer to his knock Judith Inches opened the door. Without waiting for
words from him, this guardian of the Farms announced that the Major was
not well, and that the ladies were engaged, and would like to be
excused. She then seemed quite prepared to close the door.
"Perhaps Madam Carroll would see me, if she knew it was I," said Owen.
Judith Inches thought there was no probability of this.
The tall, blue-eyed man on the door-step did not accept her probability;
he suggested that she at least make it sure.
Judith surveyed him from head to foot; then, gradually, as much of a
smile as ever illumined her countenance stole across its lean,
high-cheek-boned expanse; she beckoned him in, and pointed with a long
forefinger down the hall towards a half-open door. "_Miss Sara's_
theer," she said.
It was the door of the dining-room. Visitors were not invited to enter
this room, save at the receptions, and Owen, after advancing a step or
two, stopped; the permission of Judith Inches seemed hardly enough.
And then this mountain maid, in her lank brown gown, drew near, and
murmured in his ear these mystic words: "Go right along in. What yer
feared of? I've noticed that you was feared of her before now. _That's_
no way. Brace up, man, brace up. Stiffen in an irun will, and you'll do
it." She then softly and swiftly withdrew down the hall, turning to give
him a solemn wink at a far door before she disappeared.
Owen felt a great schoolboy blush rising all over his face as he stood
there alone. Had the feminine eye of this serious spinster discovered
what he himself had not? But no; he always knew all about himself. She
had simply discovered, woman-fashion, more than existed. He went down
the hall, and entered the dining-room. There, at its western window, sat
Sara Carroll, sewing.
She answered his greeting, and gave him her hand. "I heard a knock, but
there was so long a delay that I supposed no one had entered," she said.
He took a seat, explaining that Judith Inches had told him to come to
this room. "My visit is more especially to either Major or Madam Carroll
this morning," he said. "But your tall handmaiden was sure that they
would not be able to receive me."
"My father is not well to-day, and mamma has a headache. Judith was
right," answered Miss Carroll. She took up her sewing again, and went on
with the seam.
Owen, who had brought himself up to the point of speaking to Madam
Carroll herself (for he had no hope, after yesterday, of seeing the
Major), was disappointed. It was a difficult task he had undertaken, and
he wanted to do it, and have it over. Foiled for this day at least, he
still sat there, his eyes on Miss Carroll's moving needle. He was
thinking a little, perhaps, of Judith Inches' remarkable imagination;
but far more of Miss Carroll herself. Her delicately cut face, with its
reserved expression, was there before him. Yet this was the same girl
who had received Dupont in this very room, who had talked with him in
that secluded meadow, who had gone to the fir-wood to meet him. His eyes
showed his inward trouble, they looked bluely dense and clouded. Miss
Carroll glanced at him once or twice, as it seemed to him, guardedly;
but he was aware that he was no longer a calm judge where she was
concerned; aware that he might easily mistake the importance or
significance of any little look or act. He fell into almost complete
silence, so that she was obliged to find topics herself, and keep up the
conversation; heretofore, when with her, this had always been his task.
He had sat there twenty minutes when there was a light step in the hall,
and Madam Carroll entered. She came towards him with her hand extended
and a smile of welcome. "Why did they not tell me you were here, Mr.
Owen? It was by mere chance that I happened to hear the sound of your
voice, and came down."
Sara had risen as her mother entered, her work dropping to the floor.
"Oh, mamma!" she murmured. Then, "I have told Mr. Owen that you have a
headache," she explained.
"A mere trifle. And it is over now. Besides, headache or no headache, I
always wish to see Mr. Owen," said the Major's wife, giving him her
hand.
Owen tried to recall his prearranged sentences, and summoned all his
coolness and skill. The opportunity he had sought was to be his after
all; now let him use it to the best advantage. But it was not easy to
tell a lady in her own house that both her taste and her judgment had
been at fault.
"I especially wished to see you this morning, Madam Carroll," he said;
"I am very glad you came down. I am anxious to speak with you upon a
subject which seems to me important."
"I am at your service," answered the lady, giving the ruffle of her
overskirt a pat of adjustment, and then drawing forward a low willow
chair.
"I think--I think, with your permission, we will go to another room,"
said the clergyman.
Miss Carroll was still standing; she made no offer to go. Again she
looked at their visitor, and this time it seemed to him that it was more
than guardedly, that it was defiance. "Mamma," she said, "with your
headache--for I know you have it still--are you not undertaking too
much? Mr. Owen will excuse you. Or could I not take your place?" And
she turned to Owen.
"No," he answered; "you could not." And he said no more. He was aware
that he was proceeding clumsily, but he could not help it. He found that
he cared too much about it to do it gracefully or with skill. He
recalled her slender, black-robed figure going towards the fir-wood, and
his eyes grew more clouded than before. He turned away. "Of course, if
Madam Carroll is suffering," he said--then he stopped; he did not want
to postpone it again.
Madam Carroll threw up her hands. "My dear Sara, you make so much of my
poor little headache that Mr. Owen will think I am subject to headaches.
But I am happy to say that I am not; as a general thing, they are mere
feminine affectations. Come to the drawing-room, Mr. Owen. At this hour
we shall not be interrupted." She led the way thither, and seated
herself in her favorite chair, having first rolled forward a larger one
for her guest. The spindle-legged furniture of the old-fashioned room
had been covered by her own deft fingers with chintz of cream-color,
enlivened with wreaths of bright flowers; over the windows and doors
hung curtains of the same material. In this garden-like expanse Owen
took his seat, collected himself and what he had to say in one quick
moment of review, and then began.
First, he asked her to pardon what was, in one way, the great liberty he
was taking in speaking at all; in excuse he could only say that it
seemed to him important--important to her own household. And in no
household the world held had he a deeper, a more sincere, interest than
in her own.
Madam Carroll begged to recall to his remembrance that that was saying a
great deal--"no household in the world."
He did not answer this little speech, archly made. He took up his main
subject. He told her that he had been unwilling to speak to her of it at
all; that he should have greatly preferred speaking to the Major; but
that had not been possible, at least for the present, as she was aware.
The matter concerned itself with some facts he had lately learned about
a person who had been generally received in Far Edgerley and also at the
Farms--a person of whose history they really knew nothing, this--this
musician--
"Are you pretending you do not know his name?" asked Madam Carroll. "I
can tell you what it is if you have forgotten; it will make your story
easier: Dupont--Louis Eugene Dupont."
Owen was astounded by her manner; he had never seen anything like it in
her before. Her large blue eyes--of a blue lighter than his own--looked
at him calmly, almost, it seemed to him, with a calm impertinence.
"I had not forgotten his name," he answered, gravely. "I have had too
much reason to remember it. He has given me anxiety for some time past,
Madam Carroll. I have felt that he was not the person to be received
among us as he has been received. We are rather a secluded mountain
village, you know, and there has been little here to tempt him into
betraying himself; but I have suspected him from the first, and now--"
"You are rather inclined to suspect people, aren't you?" said Madam
Carroll, with the same calm gaze.
"Major Carroll would have suspected him also had he ever met him."
"As it happens, my husband has met him. It was at one of our receptions;
early in the evening, I think, before you came."
"And he said nothing?"
"Nothing."
"I must go on in any case," said Owen; "I can do no otherwise. For it is
not for my own sake I am speaking--"
"Are you sure of that?" said his hostess, interrupting him again without
ceremony. This time her tone had an amusement in it, an amusement not
unmixed with sarcasm.
"I should do it just the same though I were on the eve of leaving Far
Edgerley forever, never expecting to see any of you again," he answered,
with some heat.
"It could hardly be a final parting, even then; for the world is not so
large as you suppose, Mr. Owen. It hardly seems necessary, on the whole,
to be so tragic," answered the lady, again adjusting the ruffle of her
overskirt, and laughing a little.
Owen was bewildered. He had thought that he knew her so well, he had
thought that she was of all his parish his best and kindest friend; yet
there she sat, within three feet of him, looking at him mockingly,
turning all his earnest words into ridicule, laughing at him.
He was no match for her in little sarcasms, and he was in no mood for
that kind of warfare. He said no more about himself and his feelings; he
simply gave her a plain outline of the facts which had recently come
into his possession.
Madam Carroll replied that she did not believe them. Such stories were
always in circulation about handsome young men like Louis Dupont. They
were told by other men--who were jealous of them.
Owen, who had grown a little pale, quietly gave her his proofs. The
scene of the affair was one of his own mission stations--the most
distant one; he knew the young girl's father, and even the young girl
herself.
"Oh, it seems _you_ knew her too, then," said Madam Carroll, laughing.
"I suppose she liked Dupont best."
The young clergyman was struck into silence. This little, gentle,
golden-haired lady, whom he had admired so long and so sincerely, was
this she? Were those her words? Was that her laugh? It seemed to him as
if some evil spirit had suddenly taken up his abode in her, and having
driven out her own sweet soul, was looking at him through her pretty
eyes, and speaking to him with her pretty, rose-leaf lips. Stinging,
under the circumstances insulting, as had been her speech, he was not
angry; he was too much grieved. He could have taken her in his arms and
wept over her. For what could it all mean save that Dupont had in some
way obtained such control of her, poor little woman, that she was ready
to attack everybody and anybody who attacked him?
He looked at her, still in silence. Then he rose. "I have told you all I
know, Madam Carroll," he said, sadly, taking his hat from the chair
beside him. "I had hoped that you would--I never dreamed that you could
receive me or speak to me in the way you have. I have had the greatest
regard for you; I have thought you my best friend."
Madam Carroll had also risen, with the air of wishing to close the
interview. She dropped her eyes as he said these last words, and lifted
her handkerchief to her mouth.
"I think as much of you as ever," she murmured. And then she began to
cough, a cough with a long following breath that was almost like a sob.
The door opened, and Sara Carroll entered. She came straight to her
mother, and put her arm round her as if to support her. "I knew you were
not well, mamma. Mr. Owen will certainly excuse you _now_" And she
looked at their guest with a glance which he felt to be dismissal.
Madam Carroll, exhausted by the cough, leaned against her daughter, her
face covered by her handkerchief. Owen turned to go. But when he saw the
daughter standing there so near him, when he thought of what he knew of
her interest in this man, and of the mother's recent tone about him, his
heart failed him. He could not go--go and leave her without one word of
warning, one effort to save her, to show her what he felt.
"I came to warn Madam Carroll against Louis Dupont," he said, abruptly.
"Madam Carroll has not credited what I have said, or, rather, she is not
impressed by it. Yet it is all true. And probably there is much more. He
is not a person with whom you should have intimate acquaintance, or,
indeed, any acquaintance. As Madam Carroll will not do so, will you let
_me_ warn you?"
Miss Carroll started slightly as he said this. Then she recovered
herself. "Surely it is nothing to me," she said, indifferently, with a
slight emphasis on the "me."
Owen watched the indifferent expression. "She is acting," he thought.
"She does it well!" Then aloud, "On the contrary, I suppose it to be a
great deal to you," he answered, his eyes, intent and sorrowful, fixed
full upon her over the little mother's head.
Madam Carroll took down her handkerchief, and the two women faced him
with startled gaze. Sara was calm; but Madam Carroll's eyes, at first
only startled, were now growing frightened. She turned her small face
towards her daughter dumbly, as if for help.
The girl drew her mother more closely to her side. "And what right have
you to suppose anything?" she said to Owen, with composure. "Are you our
guardian?"
"Would that I were!" answered Owen, with deepest feeling in his tone. "I
don't 'suppose' anything, Miss Carroll--I know. I have been unfortunate
enough to see you with this man, or going to meet him, and it has made
me wretched. But do not be troubled--no one else has seen it, and with
me you are perfectly safe; I would guard you with my life. I had
intended to expose him; I am in possession of some facts which tell
heavily against him (Madam Carroll knows what they are); but now how can
I, when I fear that he--when I know that you--" he paused; his voice was
trembling a little, and he wished to control the tremor.
"And if I should tell you that there was no occasion for either your
fears or your advice?" said Sara Carroll, after a moment's silence. She
raised her eyes again, and met his gaze steadily. "If I should tell you
that Mr. Dupont--to whom you object so strongly--had the right to be
with me as much as he pleased, and that I had given him this right,
surely you would then understand that your warning came quite too late,
and that both your opinion and your advice were superfluous? And you
would, perhaps, spare us further conversation on a matter that concerns
only ourselves."
"Am I to believe this?" said Owen.
[Illustration: "THE GIRL DREW HER MOTHER MORE CLOSELY TO HER SIDE."]
"You have it from me directly--I don't know what better authority you
would have. I tell you in order to show you, decisively, that further
interference on your part will be unnecessary. It is a secret as yet,
and, for the present, we wish it to remain one; we trust to you not
to betray it. And I think you will now keep to yourself, will you not,
what you know, or fancy you know, against him?" She looked at him
inquiringly.
"If I could only have seen your father!" said Owen, with bitterest
regret.
Her face changed, her arm dropped from her mother's shoulders; she
turned abruptly from him.
Left alone, Madam Carroll straightened herself, as if trying to resume
her usual manner. She looked after Sara, who had crossed the broad room
to a window opposite. Then she looked at Owen. She came closer to him.
"I am sure it will not last, this--this engagement of hers," she said,
in a whisper, shielding her lips with her hand as if to make her tone
still lower. "It is only a little fancy of the moment, you know, a fancy
founded upon his genius, his musical genius, and his lovely voice. But
it will pass, Mr. Owen; I am sure it will pass. And in the meantime our
course--yours and mine--should be just _silence_. Everything must go on
as usual, and you must say nothing against him to any one; that is the
most important of all. No one has suspected it but you. She _has_ been
rather incautious; but I will see that that is mended, so that no one
else shall suspect. If we are careful and silent, Mr. Owen, you and
I--the only ones who know--and if we simply have patience and _wait_,
all will yet be well; I assure you all will yet be well." She smiled,
and looked up anxiously into his face with her soft blue eyes; she was
quite her gentle self again.
"She is protecting her husband's daughter to the extent of her power,"
thought the young man, who was listening; "that has been the secret of
her enigmatical manner from the beginning." But while he thought this,
he was frowning with the pain her words had given him--a "fancy of the
moment"--Louis Dupont!
"Promise me to say nothing against him," continued Madam Carroll, in the
same earnest whisper, still smiling anxiously, and looking up in his
face.
"Of course I shall say nothing. How could I do otherwise now?" answered
Owen. "But my trouble is as great as ever, and my fear. You do not
comprehend him, Madam Carroll. You do not see what he really is."
"Oh, I comprehend him--I comprehend him," said Madam Carroll, in a
strained though still whispering tone. "I do my best, Mr. Owen," she
added, in a broken voice--"my very best."
These last words were uttered aloud. Sara Carroll left the window and
came back to her mother; she took her hands in hers. "Kindly excuse us
now," she said to the clergyman, with quiet dignity.
He bowed, and left the room, his face still full of trouble and pain.
They heard him close the front door behind him.
"I think he will say nothing," said Sara.
Madam Carroll had drawn her hands away; she stood motionless, looking at
the carpet.
"Yes, it is safe now; don't you think so?" Sara continued, musingly.
Her step-mother raised her eyes. There was a flash in them. "I bore it
because I had to. But it was the hardest thing of all to bear. You
despise him, you know you do. You always have. You have been pitiless,
suspicious, cruel."
"Not lately, mamma," said the girl. She put her arms round the little
figure, and, with infinite pity, drew it towards her. Madam Carroll at
first resisted; then the tense muscles relaxed, and she let her head
rest against her daughter's breast. The lashes fell over her bright, dry
eyes.
"You will never be able to keep it up," she murmured, after a moment,
her eyes still closed.
"Yes, I shall, mamma."
"Never, never."
"I could do a great deal more for my dear father's sake," answered the
girl, after a short hesitation.
Madam Carroll began to sob. "I have been a good wife to him, Sara," she
murmured, appealingly, piteously.
"Indeed you have, mamma. You are all his happiness, all his life; he
could not live without you. But you ought to rest; let me go with you
up-stairs."
"I must go alone," answered Madam Carroll. She had repressed her sobs,
but her breath still came and went unevenly. "It is not that I am angry,
Sara; do not think that. I was--but it has passed; I am quite reasonable
now--as you see. But, for a little while, I must be alone, quite alone."
She left the room with her usual quick, light step. After she had gone,
Sara stood for a few moments with her hands clasped over her eyes. Then
she went to the library.
Scar was playing dominoes, Roland against Bayard; and the Major was
watching the game. His daughter bent her head, and kissed his forehead;
then she sat down beside him, holding his hand in hers, and stroking it
tenderly.
"Well, my daughter, you seem to think a good deal of me to-day," said
the old man, smiling.
"Not only to-day, but always, papa--always," answered the girl, with
emotion.
"Roland is very dull this morning," said the Major, explaining the
situation. "He has lost three games, and is going to lose a fourth."