If she had not been standing in the doorway Juliet would have run away,
but she had to welcome Dr. Roger Barnes, a traveler whom she had not seen
for almost a year. Her presence, however, after one glad greeting, seemed
not to bother him much. He turned from her to Rachel, who had risen, and
took her outstretched hand in both his.
"It's been rather a long evening," he said, "wandering around and around
this place, waiting for the other man to go. I explored the orchard and
the willow path, and every familiar haunt. I had to refresh myself
occasionally by stealing up for a glimpse of your face between the vines.
But, somehow, that only made it harder to wait. I had to march myself off
again with my fists gripped tight in my pockets to keep them off that
fellow, eating you up with his eyes--confound him--you, who belong only to
me."
He did not smile as he said the last words, but stood looking eagerly at
her with a gaze that never faltered. She tried to draw her hands away; it
was useless. Juliet slipped off, knowing that neither of them would see
her go.
"Come down on the lawn with me," he said, but she resisted.
"Please stay here, Doctor Barnes," she said, "and please let me have my
hand. I can't talk so."
"You needn't talk--for a while," he answered. He sat down facing her. "At
six o'clock I found out you were here. At eight--as soon as I could get
away--I came out. I told you how I spent the evening. If I had needed
anything to sharpen my longing for you that would have done it--but I
think I had reached about the limit of what I could bear in that line
already. It has been one constant augmenting thirst for a draught that was
out of my reach. I shouldn't have kept my promise not to write you another
day after I had been here this time and heard--what I have heard,
Rachel."
She did not answer. Her face was turned away; she was very still. Only a
slightly quickened breathing, of which he was barely conscious, betrayed
to him that this was not listening of an ordinary sort.
"I shouldn't have said anything could make any difference with my feeling,
to strengthen it," he went on very quietly, after a while, "but I find it
has. I don't try to explain it to myself, except by the one thing I am
sure of--that Alexander Huntington was the noblest and most heroic of men,
and deserved to the full those last few hours of knowledge that you had
taken his name. And I can understand your loyalty to him in wishing to
wear it these three years. But, Rachel, I can't let you wear it any
longer."
She turned her face a shade farther away.
"I am leaving to-morrow night for another year's absence." He spoke as
simply as if he were discussing the most ordinary of subjects. "So I can
see but one thing to do, and that is----"
He got up and came around behind her, standing in the shadow of the vines,
where the light did not touch him--"and that is, to take you with me."
He had not said it doubtfully, although his inflection was very gentle.
She moved quickly, startled.
"Doctor Barnes----"
"Yes, I'm ready for them. You can't raise an objection that I'm not ready
for, not one that I can't meet--except one. And that you can't raise,
Rachel."
She was silent, the words upon her lips held in check by this last bold
declaration.
"You see you can't, being truthful," he said, smiling a little. "If I seem
too confident, forgive me; but I've carried with me all these years that
one look, when you forgot to veil your eyes away from me as you always
had--and always have since then. When I get that look from you again----"
He paused, drawing a long breath. "I don't dare dream of it. Rachel, will
you go?"
She tried to glance at him, and managed it, but no higher than his
shoulders.
"I am engaged to take the training for nurses at the Larchmont
Memorial----" she began.
But he interrupted her joyfully. "You don't say, 'I don't love you'--it's
only, 'I was intending to be a nurse.' I told you you couldn't say it,
because it isn't true. You do love me, Rachel. Tell me so."
Her hurried breathing was plainly perceptible now. She rose quickly, as if
she could not bear the telltale lamplight upon her face any longer, and
went hurriedly across the porch and down upon the lawn, into the
starlight. He followed her, his pulses bounding.
"Oh, give up to me," he said in her ear, his own breath coming fast.
"You've been fighting it four years now--it's no use. We were made for
each other, and we've known it from the first. You stood heroically by
your first promise--you gave him all you could; but that's all over. You
don't have to be true to anything or anybody now but me. Give up, dear,
and let me know what it feels like to have you pull a man toward you
instead of pushing him away."
They had reached the edge of the orchard--in deep shadow; and she
stopped.
"I don't know what I came down here for," she said, in confusion.
"I do; you were running away. It's your instinct to run away--I love you
for it--it's what first made me want to follow. But I can't stand your
running away much longer. Look, Rachel, can you see? I'm holding out my
arms. Rachel--I can't wait----"
For an instant longer she held out, while he stood silent, holding himself
that he might have the long-dreamed-of joy of receiving her surrender.
Then, all at once, he realised that it had been worth all his days of
patient and impatient waiting, for turning to him at last she gave
herself, with the abandon such natures are capable of showing when they
yield after long resistance, into the arms which closed hungrily around
her.
* * * * *
If anybody could have told what happened during the next twenty-four hours
it would have been Juliet, for it was she who took the helm of affairs.
She lay awake half the night, or what there was left of it after the
doctor had come back with Rachel and told his friends what had happened
and what was yet to happen, planning to make the hasty wedding as ideal as
might be. She was a wonderful planner, and a most energetic and
enthusiastic young matron as well, so by five in the afternoon she had
accomplished all that had seemed to her good. Rachel's part was only to
see that her trunk was packed, her explanations offered and good-byes
said, and her choice made of several exquisite white gowns which Juliet
had had sent out from town.
"But I can't be married in white, Mrs. Robeson," she had said protestingly
when Juliet had opened the boxes.
"Yes, you can--and must. This is your only bridal, dear. The other--you
know that was only what the doctor said of it once--'your hand in his to
the last'--the hand of a friend. But this--isn't this different?"
Rachel had turned away her face. "Yes, this is different," she had owned.
"But----"
"He asked me to beg you for him to have it so," Juliet urged, and Rachel
was silent. So the simplest of the white frocks it was, and in it Rachel
looked as Juliet had meant she should.
Only Judith and Wayne Carey were asked down to see them married. To humour
the doctor the ceremony was performed in the orchard, near the entrance to
the willow path. The time afterward was short, and before she knew it
Juliet was bidding the two good-bye.
"I've got her," said the doctor, looking from Juliet to Rachel, who stood
at his side. "She's mine--all mine. I have to keep saying it over and over
to make sure."
"For your comfort," answered Juliet, smiling at them both, "I'll tell you
that she looks as if she were yours."
"Does she?" he cried, laughing happily. "How does she look?" He turned and
surveyed her. "She looks very proud and sweet and still--she's always been
those things--and very beautiful--more beautiful than ever before. But do
you think she really looks as if she were mine? Tell me how."
Juliet turned from him, big and eager like a boy, to his bride, "proud and
sweet and still," as he had said. "I've never seen Rachel look absolutely
happy before," she told him. "There's always been a bit of a shadow. But
now--look down into her eyes, Roger; there's no shadow there now."
But when he would have looked Rachel's lashes fell. "Not yet? By-and-by
then, Rachel," he whispered. Then he turned to Juliet--and Anthony, who
had come up to stand beside her.
"If it hadn't been for you and your home-making this day would never have
come for me," he said. "You have been good friends and true, to us both.
Let us keep you so--and good-bye."