'Then why did you marry him?'
'I was obliged to, after we'd proved each other by island custom.'
'You shouldn't have thought of such a thing. It is ridiculous and out of
date nowadays.'
'Ah, he's so old-fashioned in his notions that he doesn't think like
that. However, he's gone.'
'Ah--it is only a tiff between you, I dare say. I'll start him in
business if he'll come.... Is the cottage at home still in your hands?'
'Yes, it is my freehold. Grammer Stockwool is taking care o' it for me.'
'Good. And back there you go straightway, my pretty madam, and wait till
your husband comes to make it up with you.'
'I won't go!--I don't want him to come!' she sobbed. 'I want to stay
here with you, or anywhere, except where he can come!'
'You will get over that. Now, go back to the flat, there's a dear Avice,
and be ready in one hour, waiting in the hall for me.'
'I don't want to!'
'But I say you shall!'
She found it was no use to disobey. Precisely at the moment appointed
he met her there himself, burdened only with a valise and umbrella, she
with a box and other things. Directing the porter to put Avice and her
belongings into a four-wheeled cab for the railway-station, he walked
onward from the door, and kept looking behind, till he saw the cab
approaching. He then entered beside the astonished girl, and onward they
went together.
They sat opposite each other in an empty compartment, and the tedious
railway journey began. Regarding her closely now by the light of
her revelation he wondered at himself for never divining her secret.
Whenever he looked at her the girl's eyes grew rebellious, and at last
she wept.
'I don't want to go to him!' she sobbed in a miserable voice.
Pierston was almost as much distressed as she. 'Why did you put yourself
and me in such a position?' he said bitterly. 'It is no use to regret
it now! And I can't say that I do. It affords me a way out of a trying
position. Even if you had not been married to him you would not have
married me!'
'Yes, I would, sir.'
'What! You would? You said you wouldn't not long ago.'
'I like you better now! I like you more and more!'
Pierston sighed, for emotionally he was not much older than she. That
hitch in his development, rendering him the most lopsided of God's
creatures, was his standing misfortune. A proposal to her which crossed
his mind was dismissed as disloyalty, particularly to an inexperienced
fellow-islander and one who was by race and traditions almost a
kinswoman.
Little more passed between the twain on that wretched,
never-to-be-forgotten day. Aphrodite, Ashtaroth, Freyja, or whoever the
love-queen of his isle might have been, was punishing him sharply, as
she knew but too well how to punish her votaries when they reverted from
the ephemeral to the stable mood. When was it to end--this curse of his
heart not ageing while his frame moved naturally onward? Perhaps only
with life.
His first act the day after depositing her in her own house was to go
to the chapel where, by her statement, the marriage had been solemnized,
and make sure of the fact. Perhaps he felt an illogical hope that she
might be free, even then, in the tarnished condition which such freedom
would have involved. However, there stood the words distinctly: Isaac
Pierston, Ann Avice Caro, son and daughter of So-and-so, married on such
a day, signed by the contracting parties, the officiating minister, and
the two witnesses.