Early on the morning of the third day after Mr. Britton's arrival at
camp he and Darrell set forth for The Pines. But little snow had fallen
within the last two days, and the trip was made without much difficulty,
though progress was slow. Late in the day, as they neared The Pines, the
clouds, which for hours had been more or less broken, suddenly
dispersed, and the setting sun sank in a flood of gold and crimson light
which gave promise of glorious weather for the morrow.
Arriving at the house, they found it filled with guests invited to the
wedding from different parts of the State, the rooms resounding with
light badinage and laughter, the very atmosphere charged with excitement
as messengers came and went and servants hurried to and fro, busied with
preparations for the following day.
Kate herself hastened forward to meet them, a trifle pale, but calm and
wearing the faint, inscrutable smile which of late was becoming habitual
with her. At sight of Darrell and his friend, however, her face lighted
with the old-time, sunny smile and her cheeks flushed with pleasure. She
bestowed upon Mr. Britton the same affectionate greeting with which she
had been accustomed to meet him since her childhood's days. He was
visibly affected, and though he returned her greeting, kissing her on
brow and cheek, he was unable to speak. Her color deepened and her eyes
grew luminous as she turned to welcome Darrell, but she only said,--
"I am inexpressibly glad that you came. It will be good to feel there is
one amid all the crowd who knows."
"He knows also, Kathie," Darrell replied, in low tones, indicating Mr.
Britton with a slight motion of his head.
"Does he know all?" she asked, quickly.
"Yes; I thought you could have no objection."
"No," she answered, after a brief pause; "I am glad that it is so."
There was no opportunity for further speech, as Mr. Underwood came
forward to welcome his old friend and Darrell, and they were hurried off
to their rooms to prepare for dinner.
Mr. Underwood was not a man to do things by halves, and the elaborate
but informal dinner to which he and his guests sat down was all that
could be desired as a gastronomic success. He himself, despite his
brusque manners, was a genial host, and Walcott speedily ingratiated
himself into the favor of the guests by his quiet, unobtrusive
attentions, his punctilious courtesy to each and all alike.
Darrell and his friend felt ill at ease and out of place amid the gayety
that filled the house that evening, and at an early hour they retired to
their rooms.
"It is awful!" Darrell exclaimed, as they stood for a moment together at
the door of his room listening to the sounds of merriment from below;
"it is all so hollow, such a mockery; it seems like dancing over a
hidden sepulchre!"
"And we are to stand by to-morrow and witness this farce carried out to
the final culmination!" Mr. Britton commented, in low tones; "it is
worse than a farce,--it is a crime! My boy, how will you be able to
stand it?" he suddenly inquired.
Darrell turned away abruptly. "I could not stand it; I would not attempt
it, except that my presence will comfort and help her," he answered. And
so they parted for the night.
The following morning dawned clear and cloudless, the spotless, unbroken
expanse of snow gleaming in the sunlight as though strewn with myriads
of jewels; it seemed as if Earth herself had donned her bridal array in
honor of the occasion.
"An ideal wedding-day!" was the universal exclamation; and such it was.
The wedding was to take place at noon. A little more than an hour before
the bridal party was to leave the house Darrell was walking up and down
the double libraries upstairs, whither he had been summoned by a note
from Kate, begging him to await her there.
His thoughts went back to that summer night less than six months gone,
when he had waited her coming in those very rooms. Not yet six months,
and he seemed to have lived years since then! He recalled her as she
appeared before him that night in all the grace and witchery of lovely
maidenhood just opening into womanhood. How beautiful, how joyous she
had been! without a thought of sorrow, and now----
A faint sound like the breath of the wind through the leaves roused him,
and Kate stood before him once more. Kate in her bridal robes, their
shimmering folds trailing behind her like the gleaming foam in the wake
of a ship on a moonlit sea, while her veil, like a filmy cloud,
enveloped her from head to foot.
There was a moment of silence in which Darrell studied the face before
him; the same, yet not the same, as on that summer night. The childlike
naivete, the charming piquancy, had given place to a sweet seriousness,
but it was more tender, more womanly, more beautiful.
She came a step nearer, and, raising her clasped hands, placed them
within Darrell's.
"I felt that I must see you once more, John," she said, in the low,
sweet tones that always thrilled his very soul; "there is something I
wish to say to you, if I can only make my meaning clear, and I feel sure
you will understand me. I want to pledge to you, John, for time and for
eternity, my heart's best and purest love. Though forced into this union
with a man whom I can never love, yet I will be true as a wife; God
knows I would not be otherwise; that is farthest from my thoughts. But I
have learned much within the past few months, and I have learned that
there is a love far above all passion and sensuality; a love tender as a
wife's, pure as a mother's, and lasting as eternity itself. Such love I
pledge you, John Darrell. Do you understand me?"
As she raised her eyes to his it seemed to Darrell that he was looking
into the face of one of the saints whom the old masters loved to portray
centuries ago, so spiritual was it, so devoid of everything of earth!
"Kathie, darling," he said, clasping her hands tenderly, "I do
understand, and, thank God, I believe I am able to reciprocate your love
with one as chastened and pure. When I left The Pines last fall I did so
because I could not any longer endure to be near you, loving you as I
did. I felt in some blind, unreasoning way that it was wrong, and yet I
knew that to cease to love you was an impossibility. But in the solitude
of the mountains God showed me a better way. He showed me the true
meaning of those words, 'In the resurrection they neither marry nor are
given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.' Those words
had always seemed to me austere and cold, as though they implied that
our poor love would be superseded by higher attributes possessed by the
angelic hosts, of which we knew nothing. Now I know that they mean that
our human love shall be refined from all the dross of earthly passion,
purified and exalted above mortal conception. I prayed that my love for
you might be in some such measure refined and purified, and I know that
prayer has been answered. I pledge you that love, Kathie; a love that
will never wrong you even in thought; that you can trust in all the days
to come as ready to defend or protect you if necessary, and as always
seeking your best and highest happiness."
"Thank you, John," she said, and bowed her head above their clasped
hands for a moment.
When she raised her head her eyes were glistening. "We need not be
afraid or ashamed to acknowledge love such as ours," she said, proudly;
"and with the assurance you have given me I shall have strength and
courage, whatever may come. I must go," she added, lifting her face to
his; "I want your kiss now, John, rather than amid all the meaningless
kisses that will be given me after the ceremony."
Their lips met in a lingering kiss, then she silently withdrew from the
room.
As she crossed the hall Walcott suddenly brushed past her breathlessly,
without seeing her, and ran swiftly downstairs. His evident excitement
caused her to pause for an instant; as she did, she heard him exclaim,
in a low, angry tone and with an oath,--
"You dog! What brings you here? How dare you come here?"
There came a low reply in Spanish, followed by a few quick, sharp words
from Walcott in the same tongue, but which by their inflection Kate
understood to be an exclamation and a question.
Her curiosity aroused, she noiselessly descended to the first landing,
and, leaning over the balustrade, saw a small man, with dark olive skin,
standing close to Walcott, with whom he was talking excitedly. He spoke
rapidly in Spanish. Kate caught only one word, "Senora," as he handed a
note to Walcott, at the same time pointing backward over his shoulder
towards the entrance. Kate saw Walcott grow pale as he read the missive,
then, with a muttered curse, he started for the door, followed by the
other.
Quickly descending to the next landing, where there was an alcove window
looking out upon the driveway, Kate could see a closed carriage standing
before the entrance, and Walcott, holding the door partially open,
talking with some one inside. The colloquy was brief, and, as Walcott
stepped back from the carriage, the smaller man, who had been standing
at a little distance, sprang in hastily. As he swung the door open for
an instant Kate had a glimpse of a woman on the rear seat, dressed in
black and heavily veiled. As the man closed the door Walcott stepped to
the window for a word or two, then turned towards the house, and the
carriage rolled rapidly down the driveway. Kate slowly ascended the
stairs, listening for Walcott, who entered the house, but, instead of
coming upstairs, passed through the lower hall, going directly to a
private room of Mr. Underwood's in which he received any who happened to
call at the house on business.
Kate went to her room, her pulse beating quickly. She felt intuitively
that something was wrong; that here was revealed a phase of Walcott's
personality which she in her innocence had not considered, had not even
suspected. She knew that her father believed him to be a moral man, and
hitherto she had regarded the lack of affinity between herself and him
as due to a sort of mental disparity--a lack of affiliation in thought
and taste. Now the conviction flashed upon her that the disparity was a
moral one. She recalled the sense of loathing with which she
instinctively shrank from his touch; she understood it now. And within
two hours she was to have married this man! Never!
Passing a large mirror, she paused and looked at the reflection there.
Was her soul, its purity and beauty symbolized by her very dress, to be
united to that other soul in its grossness and deformity? Her cheek
blanched with horror at the thought. No! that fair body should perish
first, rather than soul or body ever be contaminated by his touch!
Her decision was taken from that moment, and it was irrevocable.
Nothing--not even her father's love or anger, his wishes or his
commands--could turn her now, for, as he himself boasted, his own blood
flowed within her veins.
Swiftly she disrobed, tearing the veil in her haste and throwing the
shimmering white garments to one side as though she hated the sight of
them. Taking from her jewel casket the engagement ring which had been
laid aside for the wedding ceremony, she quickly shut it within its own
case, to be returned as early as possible to the giver; it seemed to
burn her fingers like living fire.
A few moments later her aunt, entering her room, found her dressed in
one of her favorite house gowns,--a camel's hair of creamy white. She
looked at Kate, then at the discarded robes on a couch near by, and
stopped speechless for an instant, then stammered,--
"Katherine, child, what does this mean?"
"It means, auntie," said Kate, putting her arms about her aunt's neck,
"that there will be no wedding and no bride to-day."
Then, looking her straight in the eyes, she added: "Really, auntie, deep
down in your heart, aren't you glad of it?"
Mrs. Dean gasped, then replied, slowly, "Yes; it will make me very glad
if you do not have to marry that man; but, Katherine, I don't
understand; what will your father say?"
Before Kate could reply there was a heavy knock at the door, which Mrs.
Dean answered. She came back looking rather frightened.
"Your father wishes to see you, Katherine, in your library. Something
must have happened; he looks excited and worried. I don't know what
he'll say to you in that dress."
"I'm not afraid," Kate replied, brightly.
A moment later she entered the room where less than half an hour before
she had left Darrell. Mr. Underwood was walking up and down. As Kate
entered he turned towards her with a look of solicitude, which quickly
changed to one of surprise, tinged with anger.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, looking at his watch; "it is
within an hour of the time set for your wedding; you don't look much
like a bride. Do you expect to be married in that dress?"
"I am not to be married to-day, papa; nor any other day to Mr. Walcott,"
Kate answered, calmly.
"What!" he exclaimed, scarcely comprehending the full import of her
words; "isn't the matter bad enough as it is without your making it
worse by any foolish talk or actions?"
"I don't understand you, papa; to what do you refer?"
"Why, Mr. Walcott has just been called out of town by news that his
father is lying at the point of death; it is doubtful whether he will
live till his son can reach him. He has to take the first train south
which leaves within half an hour; otherwise, he would have waited for
the ceremony to be performed."
"Did he tell you that?" Kate asked, with intense scorn.
"Certainly, and he left his farewells for you, as he hadn't time even to
stop to see you."
"It is well that he didn't attempt it," Kate replied, with spirit; "I
would have told him to his face that he lied."
"What do you mean by such language?" her father demanded, angrily; "do
you doubt his word to me?"
"I haven't a doubt that he was called away suddenly, but I saw him when
he received the message, and he didn't appear like a man called by
sickness. He was terribly excited,--so excited he did not even see me
when he passed me; and he was angry, for he cursed both the message and
the man who brought it."
"Excited? Naturally; he was excited in talking with me, and his anger,
no doubt, was over the postponement of the wedding. You show yourself
very foolish in getting angry in turn. This is a devilishly awkward
affair, though, thank heaven, there's no disgrace or scandal attached to
it, and we must make the best we can of it. I have already sent
messengers to the church to disperse the guests as they arrive, and have
also sent a statement of the facts to the different papers, so there
will be no garbled accounts or misstatements to-morrow morning."
"Father," said Kate, drawing herself up with new dignity as he paused,
"I want you to understand that this is no childish anger or pique on my
part. I have not told all that I saw, nor is it necessary at present;
but I saw enough that my eyes are opened to his real character. I want
you to understand that I will never marry him! I will die first!"
Her father's face grew dark with anger at her words, but the eyes
looking fearlessly into his own never quailed. Perhaps he recognized his
own spirit, for he checked the wrathful words he was about to speak and
merely inquired,--
"Are you going to make a fool of yourself and involve this affair in a
scandal, or will you allow it to pass quietly and with no unpleasant
notoriety?"
"You can dispose of it among outsiders as you please, papa, but I want
you to understand my decision in this matter, and that it is
irrevocable."
"Until you come to your senses!" he retorted, and left the room.
With comparatively little excitement the guests dispersed, and no one,
not even Darrell or Mr. Britton, knew aught beyond the statement made by
Mr. Underwood.
Some particular friends of Kate's, living in a remote part of the State,
thinking it might be rather embarrassing for her to remain in Ophir,
invited her to their home for two or three months, and she, realizing
that she had incurred her father's displeasure, gladly accepted.
The next morning found Darrell on his way to the camp, looking longingly
forward to his busy life amid the mountains, and firmly believing that
it would be many a day before he again saw The Pines.
_Chapter XXIII_