HEARTS LAID BARE.
They sat in the breakfast room--the family and Cherokee.
“Did I tell you, wife, that when Mr. Frost was here he brought me news
of Robert Milburn?”
The tall, graceful woman thus addressed looked from the head of the
table, and showing much interest, questioned:
“Indeed! well, how was he doing? I grew very fond of the boy when he
was here.”
“The news is sad; he has gone to drinking,” said the Major, sorrowfully.
“I don’t believe it; we have no reason to take this stranger’s word; we
don’t know who he is.” Turning to Cherokee she asked:
“Did you ever hear of Mr. Frost in New York?”
With a suppressed sigh, she answered:
“He is an artist of considerable note, I knew him very well.”
Suddenly Mrs. McDowell remembered that this was the bold man of whom
Cherokee had told her much; so she questioned her no more, for she was
always tender and thoughtful of others.
The Major did not understand any connection of names, and he again
alluded to the subject.
“This New Yorker said it was about a girl; but the whole thing, to me,
savors of some man’s hand--one who did not like him well.”
Here the wife changed the subject by asking:
“Who got any letters? I didn’t see the boy when he brought the mail.”
“Cherokee must have had a love letter or a secret,” remarked the Major
cheerily. “I saw her tearing it into tiny bits, and casting them in a
white shower on the grass.”
“Come, come, girlie, tell us all about it;” then suddenly the lady
said: “How pale you are!”
“I do not feel well this morning,” she answered; “the letter was from a
friend of other days.” She stumbled to her feet in a dazed sort of way,
and hurried out of the house.
There was a touch of chill in the air, and the roses drooped; only
wild-flower scents greeted her as she stopped and leaned against
the matted honeysuckle arch by the garden gate. She searched the
vine-tangle through, without finding one single blooming spray. This
was Saturday; no school to-day. She felt a vague sense of relief in
the thought, but what should she do with her holiday. She had lost her
usual spirits, she had forgotten to be brave. The letter, maybe, or
the stranger guest, had made the pale color in her cheeks; the eyelids
drooped heavily on the tear-wet face, and checked the songs that most
days welled perpetually over unthinking lips.
She had never told of Robert’s treatment of her; of his cold
leave-taking, his altered look, for her to remember always. She had
been bearing it in silence. Bred to the nicest sense of honorable good
faith, she had kept it alone. But to-day she was weakening; she was
agitated, and in a condition of feverish suspense and changeful mind.
Sunrays shone upon her hair as she leaned against the arch, her head
bowed on her clasped hands, her slender figure shaken with grief. She
heard voices and quick treading on the gravel walk.
“You haven’t aged at all, though it has been eleven years since I was
here.”
“Life goes fairly smooth with me; and you have been well, I trust.”
She knew that was the Major’s voice, and in the lightning flash of her
unerring woman’s instinct she knew the other, as he said:
“I have been blessed with sound body, but life has passed roughly with
me since my mother died. You have heard it?”
“Yes.”
“She made home so dear to my boyhood; so real to my after years. She
was ever burning there a holy beacon, under whose guidance I always
came to a haven and to a refuge.”
Then they suddenly came upon Cherokee, partly concealed.
“I told him we would find you down among the flowers, you little
butterfly. Why didn’t you tell me Robert was coming, he is one of
my boys?” and the Major laid his hand affectionately on the man’s
shoulder; then, without waiting for an answer, he left them together.
Holding out one hand: “I am glad to see you, Cherokee,” and he drew
closer.
She crimsoned, faltered, and looked toward the ground, but did not
extend her own hand.
“Thank you,” was all she could utter.
He went on: “The very same; the Cherokee of old;” he mused, smiling
dreamily, “her own self, like no other.”
Moving a step within the vine covert she said with a shadowy smile:
“I wish I were not the old self. I want her to be forgotten.”
“That is impossible--utterly impossible; I tried to deceive myself
into the belief that this would be done; you see how I have failed?”
Raising her eyes full to his, but dropping them after the briefest
gaze, she said, timidly:
“Why have you come back?”
“I have come back to mend the broken troth-plight; I have come back to
be forgiven,” he answered, humbly.
“You have come back to find a wasted youth, a tired woman who has
been the victim of a lie, told in the dark, with the seeming verity
of intimate friendship. You have come back to find me stabbed by a
thousand disappointments, striving with grim indifference, learning to
accept, unquestioning, the bitter stone of resignation for my daily
bread. I would scarce venture now to spread poor stunted wings that
life has clipped so closely that they bleed when they flutter even
toward the smallest hope.”
He fiercely cried, and clinched his hands together, with one consuming
glance at her:
“I was to blame, Cherokee, for believing that you had promised to marry
Fred Stanhope; Willard Frost is charged with this as well”--he bit his
lips hard.
“And it was to the same man that I owe the death of innocence.” Her
voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
Robert Milburn turned upon her a piteous face, white with an intensity
of speechless anguish. He staggered helplessly backward, one hand
pressed to his eyes, as though to shut out some blinding blaze of
lightning.
“Innocence! great God! He shall die the death----”
“Ah, you do not understand,” she hastily interrupted. “I mean that I
thought all men were brave, honorable in everything, business as well
as socially; but he was not a brave man; it was a business transaction
in which he did me ill. I had measured him by you.”
This was a startling relief to him:
“Thank heaven I was mistaken in your expression of ‘death of
innocence.’ But you humiliate, crush me, with a sense of my own
unworthiness, to say I have been your standard. What made me listen to
idle gossip of the Club--why did I act a brute, a coward?” his lips
moved nervously.
“Dearest, show yourself now magnanimous, forgive it all, and forget it.
You are so brave and strong--so beautiful--take me back.”
“Was it I who sent you away?”
“Oh! do you not see how humiliating are these reminders? I have
confessed my wrong.”
“But would I not still be a burden; you said I could not bear poverty?”
she asked.
He looked up with an expression of painful surprise:
“Don’t, don’t! I know now that love is the crown and fulfillment of all
earthly good. Have you quit caring for me? I infer as much.”
Hastening to undo the effect of her last words, she said:
“Forgive me, Robert, what need I say? You read my utmost thoughts now
as always. I have not changed towards you.”
His sad expression gave place to exquisite joy and adoration.
“I am grateful for the blessing of a good woman’s love.”
They passed out of the gate, down through the browning woods, and all
things were now as they, of old, had been. The bracing, cool October
air was like rare old wine; it made their flagging pulses beat full and
strong. In such an atmosphere, hand in hand with such a companion--a
woman so sweet, so young, so pure--Robert could not fail to feel the
fires of love burn brighter and brighter. Her forgiveness was spoken
from her very soul. Rarely has a wave of happiness so illumined a
woman’s face as when she said, “I love you so now, I have never
understood you before.” There was a degree of love on her part that was
veritable worship--her nature could do nothing by halves. Her soul was
so thrilled by this surcharged enthusiasm, it could hold no more. There
is a supreme height beyond which no joy can carry one, and this height
Cherokee had attained. The restraint of her will was overthrown for the
moment, and now the pent-up passion of her heart swept on as a mountain
torrent:
“Oh, my dearest love, how have I lived until now? What a lovely place
this world is with you--you alone. Kiss me! kiss me!” She grasped his
hand with sudden tightness, until his ring cut its seal into the flesh.
He bent over her head, put her soft lips to his, and folded her in his
arms. “Sweetheart, I shall never go away without you.”
All this meant so much to Cherokee--these hours with him--these
hours of forgetfulness of all but him--these hours of abandon, of
unrestrained joy, flooded her life with a light of heaven. She
had given her happiness into his keeping; and he had accepted the
responsibility with a finer appreciation of all it meant than is shown
by most men.
Where could there have been a prettier trothing-place than here in the
free forest, where the good God had been the chief landscape gardener.
Here was the God-touch in everything. Well had the red man called
this month the “moon ’o falling leaves.” Softly they came shivering
down, down, down, at their feet, breathing the scent of autumn. Now,
and here, nature is seen in smoother, softer, mellower aspect than she
wears anywhere else in the world. It was nearing the nooning hour when,
together, the lovers’ steps tended homeward, and when they reached
the house, Robert vowed it would never again be in him to say that he
didn’t love the South and the country.
With what a young, young face Dorothy met the Major. As she looked up
she saw his wide kind eyes smiling; he leaned forward and laid his hand
upon her, saying, “My little girl, after all, love is life.”
At these words a tall, slight woman raised her head--a secret bond of
fellowship seemed to have stirred some strange, mysterious sympathy.
The Major crossed over to her; what though time had stolen away her
youth--her freshness gone, there was still sweet love gleaming in her
lined face--it could not be that they were old. Tenderly he took her
warm soft hand in his, and told her how he loved her. The sweethearts
looked on and rejoiced; neither whispered it to the other, but deep in
the heart each said, “So shall ours be forever.”
“Come, let me bless you my children,” and the Major’s wife slipped a
hand into one hand of each, and drew them closer. Robert’s eyes lit
up; his brave mouth was smiling quietly, while dimples broke out on
Cherokee’s face.
“I trust the dark is all behind, the light before, and that you are at
the threshold of a great, enduring happiness--but remember that Time
will touch you as your joy has done, but his fingers will weigh more
heavily--it is then that you must cling all the closer.”