SHE CRIED ALOUD SHE WAS A GUILTY CREATURE.
For a moment Mark had yielded to the rapture of the first pure pressure
of lips he had ever known. From the window he had seen Natalie advancing
toward the house, and had involuntarily gone to meet her. The sight of
her had quickened his blood, but if, for an instant, he had reveled in
the bliss of the welcome she had granted him, almost in the same instant
he recognized and regretted that he had dishonored her in accepting
caresses not intended for him.
He drew her somewhat hastily into the drawing-room. Before he could say
a word she had recognized him.
"Mark," she exclaimed, amazed, and then a rosy blush spread over her
face.
"I startled you," he said. "It was absurd in me, unpardonable."
"I thought it was----" her voice faltered.
"Leonard, of course. Now welcome me for myself," and he took her hand
and shook it warmly, after a proper, cousinly fashion, perhaps sadly
noting the contrast, but striving to shield her embarrassment.
He succeeded, as far as appearances went. But both were conscious of
emotion, though each strove gallantly to hide it.
"I am so surprised," she faltered. "You must have made a remarkable
passage. Your mother did not expect you yet. In fact, Paula----"
"I took an earlier steamer than I had originally intended, and had a
quick passage besides."
"How glad they must have been at Stormpoint!"
"They seemed so. I arrived last night."
"I am sorry Leonard is not home yet. I expected him this morning. He has
been in New York."
"So the maid told me. Of course, I should not have disturbed you at
this hour had I been aware of his absence. I rode over, and knowing that
Leonard is, like myself, an early bird, thought I would say
good-morning."
"I am very glad you did, Mark."
"Yet, it is always foolish to run outside of conventional grooves. The
maid told me you were gone for a walk, and so I waited."
"Which was right. I am glad you waited."
Plainly she was uneasy and so, feeling rather foolish, he explained that
in order to fulfil the duty of breakfasting at Stormpoint he must be
going. Her suggestion that he remain and breakfast with her was made
rather faintly. "Good-bye, Natalie," he said. "Remember me to Leonard.
Next time I shall call in proper form."
And so he rode away, watched a little while by her, who then went to her
own now belated breakfast. She sat at the table, eating hardly at all,
seemingly lost in thought. Then she went slowly upstairs to her own
room.
She sat down upon the bed, suddenly catching her breath, as one stifling
a sob. Then she twitched her body with an impatient shake, like a
naughty child. Then she rose quickly and began to rectify or complete
various small duties, neglected by the maid, who had arranged the
chamber while she had been out. Ornaments were to be lifted and dusted,
pillows more carefully smoothed, chairs to be moved an inch forward then
replaced. Mirrors to be wiped clear of invisible dust, but not, for some
inscrutable reason, to be looked into; in short, pretended duty must be
indulged in--a poor pretense, which died away as she sank into a chair
and, with listless hands lying in her lap, permitted thought to have its
way.
Had she known him or not? Of course she had not known him. Not even when
(here she blushed and her lips parted slightly)----She was angry at her
impetuosity, honestly angry. It was silly, but she had no other reproach
to make to herself. It had not been her fault, coming from the sunny
street, that she had not recognized the man who had advanced so eagerly
to meet her,--the last person she could have expected to see in her own
house. It would be absurd to feel more than passing annoyance at such a
contretemps. Only a morbid conscience could find reproach for an
episode in which there was no fault, which naturally she regretted----
No! She did _not_ regret. Had her heart not fluttered with joy every
moment since it had happened? Was it true or was it not--she did not
know, but, alas, she wished it true--that for one brief instant, ere he
had released her, she had known him and had been happy? Happy! What a
barren word was "happy."
Her thoughts wandered far--farther than ever before. The secret casket
in her heart, wherein heretofore they had been hidden, was opened, and
they rushed forth, to roam in regions forbidden, yet so fair that her
feeble protests were unheeded; and she smiled upon them, these bright
children of fancy, wandering with them in the paradise where Love has
made his home. She closed her eyes and strove to realize again the brief
ecstasy of an hour ago. She knew--she must have known--in whose arms she
had been enfolded. She wished it so; it must be so. Again she felt his
beating heart against her own, his arms once more about her, his breast
pressed close to hers. "Mark," she whispered, stretching forth her arms
and pouting lips as one prepares for meeting other lips----
The morning grew old, and she still sat thinking of many things. She
knew that she loved the man that had left her, with a love that must be
his, and his only, shared by no other. She had known it as she had that
morning stood upon the strand, seeing in the fleeting rainbows of the
spray pictures of a life that might have been, but which could never be.
She had turned her back upon the vision, well knowing why she turned
away. She had seen it again in the cemetery and had denied it, bidding
it begone forever; and she had met it on the threshold of her home, no
longer a vision, but a fact so rapturous and so mighty that she dared no
longer deny the truth. She loved him; she had always loved him.
She sat long, dreaming her pleasant dreams, which only slowly merged
with the facts with which she was environed. Very gradually the full
import of her thoughts came home to her, but it came surely, disclosing
an abyss so evil and so deep that she was appalled, and sinking upon
her knees she cried aloud that she was a guilty creature, and prayed
fervently and long for aid to be that which she had only that morning
resolved to be, a faithful wife in thought as in deed.
At last she went downstairs. Entering the library, she discovered her
husband.
He still slept, the deep sleep of exhaustion. She watched him, noting
the careworn face, the disheveled dress. To her he looked like a man who
had passed through a crisis of illness, he was so changed.
And now the regret and penitence for all the wrong she had done him
pressed upon her as a heavy weight. She was his wife, yet had driven him
from her side. She was his wife, yet had, within an hour, dreamed her
dreams of love and happiness in which he had no share.