"But, Mr. Marlboro', would it not be an admirable lesson to your people,
if Vane were sold?"
"A lesson to teach them all to go and do likewise, eh, Marlboro'?" said
St. George, passing, with Miss Humphreys on his arm.
"I have never sold, I never sell, a slave," replied Marlboro', in his
placid tone; but St. George was out of hearing. "Yet, Miss
Éloise,--if--if you will accept him"----
"Mr. Marlboro'! Indeed? Truly indeed? How happy you make me!"
"And you can make me as happy,--happier, by the infinity of heaven over
earth!"
"But ought I to accept such a gift?" asked Éloise, oblivious of his last
speech. "But can I?--may I?"--as St. George's warning stole into her
memory.
"Most certainly you can! most certainly you shall! he is yours!" And
before Éloise could pour forth one of her multitudinous thanks, he had
moved away.
Marlboro's, however, was not that noble nature that spurns to beg at the
moment when it grants. Directly, he had wheeled about, and with an eager
air was again beside her.
"And, Éloise," he said, "if in response I might have one smile, one
hope"----
Thoughtlessly enough, Éloise turned her smiling face upon him, and gave
him her hand.
"And you give it to me at last, this hand, to crown my life!" he
said,--for to his excited brain the trifling deed seemed the weighty
event, and when he looked up Éloise still was smiling. Only for a
second, though, for her processes of thought were not instantaneous,
while to him it was one of Mahomet's moments holding an eternity, and
she smiled while she was thinking, thinking simply of her little
handmaiden's pleasure. She tried to release her hand. But Mr. Marlboro'
did not know that his grasp upon it was that of a vice, for under an
artificial stimulus every action is as intense as the fired fancy
itself. And as she found it impossible to free it without visible
violence, other thoughts visited Éloise. Why should she not give it to
him? Who else cared for it? What object had her lonely life? Speak
sweetly as they might, what one of her old gallants forgot her loss of
wealth? Here was a man to make happy, here was a heart to rest upon,
here was a slave of his own passions to set free. Why should she
continue to live with Mr. St. George for her haughty master, when here
was this man at her feet? Why, but that suddenly the conviction smote
her that she loved the one and despised the other, that she adored the
master and despised the slave? And she snatched away her hand.
Just then Mr. St. George was coming down the piazza again, on his
promenade, his head bent low as he spoke to the clinging little lady on
his arm. Passing Éloise, as he raised his face, their eyes met. She was
doing, he thought, the very thing that he had disadvised, and, as if to
warn her afresh, he looked long, a derisive smile curling his proud lip.
That was enough. "He knows it!" exclaimed Éloise to herself. "He
believes it! He thinks I love him! He never shall be sure of it!" And
turning once more, her face hung down and away, she laid her hand in
Marlboro's, without a word or a glance. He bent low over it in the
shadow, pressing it with his fervent lips, murmuring, "Mine! mine at
last! my own!" And St. George saw the whole.
Just then a little sail crept in sight from where they stood, winding
down the creek at the foot of the lawn.
"Oh, how delightful to be on the water to-night!" cried Laura Murray.
"You have but to command," said Mr. St. George, with a certain gayety
that seemed struck out like sparks against the flinty fact of the late
occurrence,--and half the party trooped down the turf to the shore. The
boats were afloat and laden before one knew it. Mr. Marlboro' and Éloise
were just one instant too late. Laura Murray shook a triumphant
handkerchief at them, and St. George feathered his oar, pausing a moment
as if he would return, and then gave a great sweep and his boat fairly
leaped over the water.
Mr. Marlboro' did not hesitate. There was the sail they had first seen,
now on the point of being lowered beneath the alder-bushes by the young
hunters who had sought shore for the night. Gold slipped from one hand
to another, a word, a name, and a promise. Éloise was on board,
expecting Mrs. Arles and Mrs. Houghton to follow. Marlboro' sprang upon
the end, and drew in the rope behind him, waving the other ladies a
farewell; the sails were stretched again, the rudder shipped, and wing
and wing they went skimming down the channel, past the little fleet of
wherries, ploughing the shallow current into foam and spray on their
wild career.
"Marlboro' is mad!" said St. George, with a whitening cheek.
Marlboro', standing up, one arm about the mast, and catching the slant
beam of the late-rising moon on his face, that shone awfully rapt and
intent, saluted them with an ironical cheer, and dashed on. Éloise held
the tiller for the moment, still pulsating with her late emotions, not
above a trifling play of vanity, welcoming the exhilaration of a race,
where she might half forget her trouble, and pleased with a vague
anticipation of some intervention that might recall the word which even
in these five dragging moments had already begun to corrode and eat into
her heart like a rusting fetter. The oarsmen in the wherries bent their
muscles to the strife, the boats danced over the tiny crests, the ladies
sang their breeziest sea-songs to cheer them at the work. The sail-boat
rounded a curve and was almost out of sight.
"Oars never caught sails yet," muttered St. George, and he put his boat
to the shore. "There, Murray, try your lazy mettle, and take my oar. As
for me, I'm off,"--and he sprang upon the bank, sending the boat
spinning off into the current again from his foot. In ten minutes a
horseman went galloping by on the high-road skirting the shore, with a
pace like that of the Spectre of the Storm.
"Now, Mr. Marlboro'," said Éloise, "shall we not turn back, victorious?"
"Turn?" said Marlboro', shaking loose another fold of the linen. "I
never turn! Look your last on the tiny tribe,--we shall see them no
more!"
Éloise sprang to her feet. He caught her hand and replaced her; his face
was so white that it shone, there was a wild glitter in his eye, and the
smile that brooded over her had something in it absolutely terrific.
"We have gone far enough," said Éloise, resolutely. "I wish to rejoin my
friends."
"You are with me!" said Marlboro', proudly.
She was afraid to say another word, for to oppose him now in his
exultant rage might only work the mood to frenzy. The creek had widened
almost to a river,--the sea was close at hand, with its great tumbling
surf. She looked at the horizon and the hill for help, but none came;
destruction was before them, and on they flew.
Marlboro' stood now, and steadied the tiller with his foot.
"This is motion!" said he. "We fly upon the wings of the wind! The
viewless wind comes roaring out of the black region of the East, it
fills the high heaven, it roars on to the uttermost undulation of the
atmosphere, and we are a part of it! We are only a mote upon its breath,
a dust-atom driven before it, Éloise,--and yet one great happiness is
greater than it, drowns it in a vaster flood of viewless power, can
whisper to it calm!"
How should Éloise contradict him? With such rude awakening, he might
only snatch her in his arms and plunge down to death. Perhaps he half
divined the fear.
"Yes, Éloise," he said. "They are both here, life and death, at our
beck! I can take you to my heart, one instant the tides divide, then
they close above us, and you are mine for ever and ever and
only,--sealed mine beneath all this crystal sphere of the waters! We
hear the gentle lapping of the ripples on the shore, we hear the tones
of evening-bells swim out and melt above us, we hear the oar shake off
its shower of tinkling drops,--up the jewel-strewn deeps of heaven the
planets hang out their golden lamps to light our slumbers! Heart to
heart and lip to lip, we are at rest, we are at peace, nothing comes
between us, our souls have the eternities in which to mingle!"
He saw Éloise shudder, and turned from his dream, blazing full upon her.
"Life, then, is best!" he cried. "But life together and alone, life
where we count out its throbs in some far purple island of the main,
prolonged who knows how far?--love shall make for us perpetual youth,
there shall no gloom enter our Eden, perfect solitude and perfect bliss!
Alone, we two in our pride and our joy can defy the powers of any other
heaven, we shall become gods ourselves! Up helm and away! Life is best!"