O'HALLORAN'S AGAIN.--A STARTLING REVELATION.--THE LADY OF THE ICE.
--FOUND AT LAST.--CONFUSION, EMBARRASSMENT, RETICENCE, AND SHYNESS,
SUCCEEDED BY WIT, FASCINATION, LAUGHTER, AND WITCHING SMILES.
After waiting impatiently all day, and beguiling the time in various
ways, the hour at length came when I could go to O'Halloran's. I
confess, my feelings were of rather a tumultuous description. I would
see the ladies again. I would renew my endeavors to find out the great
mystery of the ice. Such were my intentions, and I had firmly resolved
to make direct questions to Nora and Marion, and see if I couldn't
force them, or coax them, or argue them, into an explanation of their
strange agitation. Such an explanation, I felt, would be a discovery of
the object of my search.
Full of these thoughts, intentions, and determinations, I knocked at
O'Halloran's door, and was ushered by the servant into the comfortable
parlor. O'Halloran stood there in the middle of the room. Nora was
standing not far from him. Marion was not there; but O'Halloran and
Nora were both looking at me, as I entered, with strange expressions.
O'Halloran advanced quickly, and caught me by the hand.
"D'ye know what ye've done?" said he, abruptly, without greeting or
salutation of any kind. "D'ye know what ye've done? Ye seeved my loife
at the concert. But are you aweer what you've done be-soides?"
He looked at me earnestly, and with so strange an expression that for a
moment I thought he must be mad.
"Well, really," said I, somewhat confusedly, "Mr. O'Halloran, I must
confess I'm not aware of any thing in particular."
"He doesn't know!" cried O'Halloran. "He doesn't know. 'Tis'n't the
sloightest conception that he has! Will, thin, me boy," said he--and
all this time he held my hand, and kept wringing it hard--"will, thin
--I've another dibt of gratichood, and, what's more, one that I nivir
can raypay. D'ye know what ye've done? D'ye know what re are? No? Will,
thin, I'll tell ye. Ye're the seevior of me Nora, me darlin', me
proide, me own. She was the one that ye seeved on the oice, and riscued
from desthruction. There she stands. Look at her. But for you, she'd be
now lost forivir to the poor owld man whose light an' loife an' trisure
she always was. Nora, jewel, there he is, as sure as a gun, though whoy
he didn't recognoize ye last noight passes moy faible comprayhinsion,
so it docs."
Saying this, he let go my hand and looked toward Nora.
At this astounding announcement I stood simply paralyzed. I stared at
each in succession. To give an idea of my feelings is simply
impossible. I must refer every thing to the imagination of the reader;
and, by way of comparison to assist his imagination, I beg leave to
call his attention to our old friend, the thunder-bolt. "Had a
thunder-bolt burst," and all that sort of thing. Fact, sir.
Dumbfounded. By Jove! that word even does not begin to express the
idea.
Now for about twenty hours, in dreams as well as in waking moments, I
bad been brooding over the identity of the lady of the ice, and had
become convinced that the O'Halloran ladies knew something about it;
yet so obtuse was I that I had not suspected that the lady herself
might be found in this house. In fact, such an event was at once
so romantic and so improbable that it did not even suggest itself. But
now here was the lady herself. Here she stood. Now I could understand
the emotion, the agitation, and all that, of the previous evening. This
would at once account for it all. And here she stood--the lady herself
--and that lady was no other than Miss O'Halloran.
By Jove!
Miss O'Halloran looked very much confused, and very much embarrassed.
Her eyes lowered and sought the floor, and in this way she advanced and
took my proffered hand. 'Pon my life, I don't think I ever saw any
thing more beautiful than she was as this confusion covered her lovely
face; and the eyes which thus avoided mine seemed to my imagination
still more lovely than they had been before.
And this was the one--I thought, as I took her hand--this was the one
--the companion of my perilous trip--the life that I had saved. Yet
this discovery filled me with wonder. This one, so gay, so genial, so
laughter-loving--this one, so glowing with the bloom of health, and the
light of life, and the sparkle of wit--this one! It seemed impossible.
There swept before me on that instant the vision of the ice, that
quivering form clinging to me, that pallid face, those despairing eyes,
that expression of piteous and agonizing entreaty, those wild words of
horror and of anguish. There came before me the phantom of that form
which I had upraised from the ice when it had sunk down in
lifelessness, whose white face rested on my shoulder as I bore it away
from the grasp of death; and that vision, with all its solemn, tragic
awfulness seemed out of keeping with this. Miss O'Halloran? Impossible!
But yet it must be so, since she thus confessed it My own memory had
been at fault. The face on the ice which haunted me was not the face
that I saw before me; but, then, Miss O'Halloran in despair must have a
different face from Miss O'Halloran in her happy and peaceful home. All
these thoughts passed through me as I took her hand; but they left me
with the impression that my vision was a mistake, and that this lady
was in very deed the companion of that fearful journey.
I pressed her hand in silence. I could not speak. Under the pressure of
thoughts and recollections that came sweeping in upon me, I was dumb;
and so I wandered away, and fell into a seat. Yet, in my stupefaction,
I could see that Hiss O'Halloran showed an emotion equal to mine. She
had not spoken a word. She sat down, with her eyes on the floor, and
much agitation in her manner.
"Nora, me pet," said O'Halloran, "haven't ye any esprission of
gratichood?"
Miss O'Halloran raised her face, and looked at me with earnest eyes.
"Indeed--indeed," she said--"it is not from want of gratitude that I am
silent. My gratitude is too strong for words. Lieutenant Macrorie needs
no assurance of mine, I know, to convince him how I admire his noble
conduct--"
The sound of her voice roused me from my own abstraction.
"Oh, of course," said I, "a fellow knows all that sort of thing, you
know; and I feel so glad about the service I was able to render you,
that I'm positively grateful to you for being there. Odd, though
--wasn't it?--that I didn't recognize you. But then, you see, the fact
is, you looked so different then from what you do now. Really, you seem
like another person--you do, by Jove!"
At this Miss O'Halloran looked down, and seemed embarrassed.
"But what made you clear out so soon from the Frenchman's?" said I,
suddenly. "You've no idea how it bothered me. By Jove! it didn't seem
altogether fair to me, you know. And then you didn't even leave your
address."
Miss O'Halloran's confusion seemed to increase. She murmured something
about having to hurry home--pressed for time--fear of her friends being
anxious--and all that.
Then I asked her anxiously if she had been any the worse for it.
"Oh, no," she said; "no ill consequences had resulted."
By this time I had sense enough to perceive that the subject was an
extremely unpleasant one. A moment's further thought showed me that it
couldn't be any thing else. Unpleasant! I should think so. Was it not
suggestive of sorrow and of despair? Had she not witnessed things which
were never to be forgotten? Had she not seen her hapless driver go down
beneath the icy waters? Had she not herself stood face to face with an
awful doom? Had she not twice--yes, and thrice--tasted of the
bitterness of death?
"I beg pardon," said I, as these thoughts came to me--"it's a painful
subject. I spoke thoughtlessly; but I won't allude to it again. It was
bad enough for me; but it must have been infinitely worse for you. The
fact is, my curiosity got the better of my consideration for your
feelings."
"That's thrue," said O'Halloran; "it's a peenful subjict."
At this Miss O'Halloran looked immensely relieved. She raised her head,
and involuntarily cast upon me a touching look of gratitude. Yes; it
must, indeed, have been a painful subject. The consciousness of this
made me eager to make amends for my fault, and so I began to rattle on
in a lively strain about a thousand things; and Miss O'Halloran,
seizing the opportunity thus held out of casting dull care away, at
once rose superior to her embarrassment and confusion, and responded to
my advances with the utmost liveliness and gayety. The change was
instantaneous and marked. A moment ago she had been constrained and
stiff and shy; now she was gay and lively and spirited. This change,
which thus took place before my eyes, served in some measure to explain
that difference which I saw between the Lady of the Ice and Miss
O'Halloran in her own home.
O'Halloran himself joined in. He was gay, and genial, and jocose. At
about nine o'clock Marion came in. She seemed dull and distrait. She
gave me a cold hand, and then sat down in silence. She did not say any
thing whatever. She did not seem even to listen, but sat, with her head
leaning on her hand, like one whose thoughts are far away. Yet there
was a glory about her sad and melancholy beauty which could not but
arrest my gaze, and often and often I found my eyes wandering to that
face of loveliness. Twice--yes, three times--as my gaze thus wandered,
I found her eyes fixed upon me with a kind of eager scrutiny--a fixed
intensity which actually was startling to encounter. And strange,
vague, wild, unformed memories arose, and odd ideas, and fantastic
suspicions. Her face became thus like one of those which one sees in a
crowd hastily, and then loses, only to rack his brain in vain endeavors
to discover who the owner of the face might be. So it was with me as I
saw the dark face and the lustrous eyes of Marion.
And now, 'pon my life, I cannot say which, one of these two excited the
most of my admiration. There was Nora, with her good-nature, her wit,
her friendliness, her witchery, her grace, the sparkle of her eye, the
music of her laugh. But there, too, was Marion, whose eyes seemed to
pierce to my soul, as twice or thrice I caught their gaze, and whose
face seemed to have some weird influence over me, puzzling and
bewildering me by suggestions of another face, which I had seen before.
I was fascinated by Nora; I was in love with her; but by Marion I was
thrown under a spell.
On the whole, Nora seemed to me more sympathetic. With all her
brightness and joyousness, there was also a strange timidity, at times,
and shyness, and furtive glances. An occasional flush, also, gave her a
sweet confusion of manner, which heightened her charms. All these were
signs which I very naturally interpreted in my own favor. What else
should I do?
I have been calling her indiscriminately Miss O'Halloran and Nora. But
to her face I did not call her by any name. Nora, of course, was not to
be thought of. On the other hand, Miss O'Halloran seemed too distant
For the memory of our past experience made me feel very near to her,
and intimate. Had we not been together on a journey where hours create
the familiarities of years? Was not her life mine? In fact, I felt to
her as a man feels when he meets the old flame of his boyhood. She is
married, and has passed beyond him. But her new name is too cold, and
her old name may not be used. So he calls her nothing. He meets her as
a friend, but does not know how to name her.
As we talked, O'Halloran sat there, and sometimes listened, and
sometimes chimed in. An uncommonly fine-looking old fellow he was, too.
Although about sixty, his form was as erect as that of a young man, and
his sinewy limbs gave signs of great strength. He sat in an easy-chair
--his iron-gray hair clustering over his broad brow; his eyes keen,
penetrating, but full of fun; his nose slightly curved, and his lips
quivering into smiles; small whiskers of a vanished fashion on either
cheek; and small hands--a right royal, good fellow--witty,
intellectual, and awfully eccentric--at once learned and boyish, but
for all that perhaps all the better adapted for social enjoyment, and
perhaps I may add conviviality. There was a glorious flow of animal
spirits in the man, which could not be repressed, but came rolling
forth, expressed in his rich Leinster brogue. He was evidently proud of
his unparalleled girls; but of these all his tenderness seemed to go
forth toward Nora. To her, and apparently to her alone, he listened,
with a proud affection in his face and in his eyes; while any little
sally of hers was always sure to be received with an outburst of
rollicking laughter, which was itself contagious, and served to
increase the general hilarity.
But the general hilarity did not extend to Marion. She was like a star,
and sat apart, listening to every thing, but saying nothing. I caught
sometimes, as I have said, the lustrous gleam of her eyes, as they
pierced me with their earnest gaze; and when I was looking at Nora, and
talking, with her, I was conscious, at times, of Marion's eyes.
O'Halloran did not look at her, or speak to her. Was she under a cloud?
Was this her usual character? Or was she sad and serious with the
pressure of some secret purpose? Such were my thoughts; but then I
suddenly decided that by such thoughts I was only making an ass of
myself, and concluded that it was nothing more than her way. If so, it
was an uncommonly impressive way.
The ladies retired early that evening. Marion, on leaving, gave me a
last searching glance; while Nora took leave with her most bewildering
smile. The glance and the smile both struck home; but, which affected
me most, it is impossible to say.