FETZER'S EYE IS OPENED
During the short spring vacation Ellen went with Miss Grammer to visit
Niagara Falls. Stephen thought with satisfaction of Miss Grammer,
placing her in the same class with Miss Knowlton and Miss MacVane, whom
he admired and pitied and with whom he liked to work.
He suggested that Ellen should spend the summer with Fetzer in his
absence. He had begun to believe, by a strange and childish variety of
logic, that if he did not attempt to see her he would receive a reward,
the nature of which was clearly defined in his thoughts. It would
have been the height of cruelty to wish that Hilda should survive; it
would be the height of absurdity to pretend that her death could bring
anything but relief. He had pretended even to himself for many years,
and for a still longer term to others; now he would be frank with
himself at least. If Hilda died, he could marry Ellen Levis; rather,
when Hilda died, he would marry Ellen. He did not believe that Hilda's
life could be prolonged beyond a few years.
In May he went abroad to a meeting of ophthalmists. He was to be one of
many speakers, and he became, with the first paragraph of his address,
the chief speaker. Conscious of his triumph, he believed that he had
succeeded because he was intensely happy, or, rather, because he
anticipated intense happiness.
Afterwards, sitting in a café, he watched the passers-by. There was but
one real happiness in the world and that was to be his. To have Ellen
with him, vivifying his days and filling his nights with peace--no man
could ask for more.
When he reached his hotel he found a cablegram awaiting him. He
connected it foolishly with the mood from whose influence he had not
yet passed; he believed that his happiness was premonitory and he tore
open the envelope with a shaking hand. It could bring but one message;
he experienced in anticipation as he unfolded the sheet the inevitable
shock which the announcement of death brings, even a death long
expected and desired.
But Mayne's cablegram did not announce Hilda's death; it urged Stephen
to wait in Paris and go with him on a motor trip.
In August at last he came home. The house went through its usual
transformation; it seemed to Ellen now not that a machine had begun
to run, but that a heart had begun to beat. She had studied and had
sewed and had visited Ephrata. The half of her father's property had
been delivered to her and Matthew would henceforth pay her an income
from the farm. Stephen had explained her presence to the same few
friends whom he had told directly of Hilda's condition, and she had
been invited to ride with them and had a few times been asked to
their houses. Fetzer grew pale; her year of grace was approaching its
end and she lifted more and more ardently her justifiable prayer for
deliverance.
Stephen's arrival, unlike his arrivals with Hilda, was heralded only by
the sound of his key in the latch. The time was late afternoon of an
intensely warm day. Still feeling the motion of the ship, and oppressed
by the heat, he walked from the station through the almost deserted
business section, across the burning square to the cool shade of Front
Street, beyond which the quiet river studded with islands appeared to
be a lake. His pace slackened. He thought of the dimness of his shaded
house, of his own bed, of his offices where everything lay ready to his
hand, of one-eyed Fetzer and homely Miss Knowlton and poor Miss MacVane
and Fickes. They would be there, too, as well as Ellen. Ellen did not
come into his mind as did the comforts of his house and those who made
it comfortable; she was already there.
As he went up the steps he experienced a moment of fright lest his
home-coming should not be complete. She might have gone to visit her
kin; she might merely have stepped out for a half-hour. In either case
his satisfaction would be imperfect.
But Ellen was at home. She heard the turning of a key in the latch and
looked up from her book. She did not move, but fixed her eyes on the
door which opened from the library into the hall. If it was he, he
would in a moment appear there. The breath seemed to leave her body;
she was conscious of a feeling of constriction in her heart. Then she
bent a little forward and saw him looking at her. He seemed to speak,
but she did not hear.
Stephen did not come forward, but leaned his shoulder against the door
and looked down at her, his attitude one of deliberate contemplation,
his hand thrust lightly into his pocket. His eyes were keen; he saw
clearly and with gloating joy what had befallen her. He would have
patience now!
The sound of his key in the latch had not been heard by Ellen alone,
but by another pair of ears as keen as hers. Fetzer's heart leaped. She
rose from her chair in the second-story hall, letting the curtain which
she was mending slide to the floor together with thimble and scissors,
and started downstairs. Even in her joyful confusion she remembered the
proprieties and sought the service stairs and so came into the library
from a rear door. She saw Stephen standing in the doorway and wondered
whether he was ill; she hurried forward and saw Ellen. Though she was
blind in one eye, the other was perfectly sound, and her perceptions
were all the keener for the blindness of her eye. She did not see
Stephen's face, she saw only Ellen, and Stephen recognized no more
clearly than she what had befallen Ellen.
At once she withdrew backward to the open door and through it to the
passageway, still walking backward, until a wall stopped her.
"Oh, the poor, poor girl!" she whispered, aghast, lifting her gaze
toward the ceiling. "I can't understand how things are as they are,"
she said, for the first time in her life with solemn reproach.
Without realizing the origin of the gentle sound of her departure,
Ellen and Stephen were disturbed.
"I'm glad to see you home again," said Ellen.
He came forward and took her hand in both of his. Fetzer advancing for
a second time heard him ask, "Where's Fetzer?" and moved forward. It
was for her he inquired! Surely he had not seen in poor Ellen's eyes
that betraying look which she had seen!