about in search of them, she beheld Mr. Arbuton, who had missed her on
his return to the inn, coming with a frightened face to look for her.
She had hoped, somehow never to see him again in the world; but since it
was to be, she stood still and waited his approach in a strange
composure; while he drew nearer, thinking how yesterday he had silenced
her prophetic doubt of him: "I have one answer to all this; I love you."
Her faltering words, verified so fatally soon, recalled themselves to
him with intolerable accusation. And what should he say now? If
possibly,--if by some miracle,--she might not have seen what he feared
she must! One glance that he dared give her taught him better; and while
she waited for him to speak, he could not lure any of the phrases, of
which the air seemed full, to serve him.
"I wonder you came back to me," she said after an eternal moment.
"Came back?" he echoed, vacantly.
"You seemed to have forgotten my existence!"
Of course the whole wrong, if any wrong had been done to her, was tacit,
and much might be said to prove that she felt needlessly aggrieved, and
that he could not have acted otherwise than as he did; she herself had
owned that it must be an embarrassing position to him.
"Why, what have I done," he began, "what makes you think... For heaven's
sake listen to me!" he cried; and then, while she turned a mute
attentive face to him, he stood silent as before, like one who has lost
his thought, and strives to recall what he was going to say. "What
sense,--what use," he resumed at last, as if continuing the course of
some previous argument, "would there have been in making a display of
our acquaintance before them? I did not suppose at first that they saw
us together."... But here he broke off, and, indeed, his explanation had
but a mean effect when put into words. "I did not expect them to stay. I
thought they would go away every moment; and then at last it was too
late to manage the affair without seeming to force it." This was better;
and he paused again, for some sign of acquiescence from Kitty, and
caught her eye fixed on his face in what seemed contemptuous wonder. His
own eyes fell, and ran uneasily over her dress before he lifted them and
began once more, as if freshly inspired: "I could have wished you to be
known to my friends with every advantage on your side," and this had
such a magnanimous sound that he took courage; "and you ought to have
had faith enough in me to believe that I never could have meant you a
slight. If you had known more of the world,--if your social experience
had been greater you would have seen.... Oh!" he cried, desperately, "is
there nothing you have to say to me?"
"No," said Kitty, simply, but with a languid quiet, and shrinking from
speech as from an added pang. "You have been telling me that you were
ashamed of me in this dress before those people. But I knew that
already. What do you want me to do?"
"If you give me time, I can make everything clear to you."
"But now you don't deny it."
"Deny what? I--"
But here the whole fabric of Mr. Arbuton's defence toppled to the
ground. He was a man of scrupulous truth, not accustomed to deceive
himself or others. He had been ashamed of her, he could not deny it, not
to keep the love that was now dearer to him than life. He saw it with
paralyzing clearness; and, as an inexorable fact that confounded quite
as much as it dismayed him, he perceived that throughout that ignoble
scene she had been the gentle person and he the vulgar one. How could it
have happened with a man like him! As he looked back upon it, he seemed
to have been only the helpless sport of a sinister chance.
But now he must act; it could not go so, it was too horrible a thing to
let stand confessed. A hundred protests thronged to his lips, but he
refused utterance to them all as worse even than silence; and so, still
meaning to speak, he could not speak. He could only stand and wait while
it wrung his heart to see her trembling, grieving lips.
His own aspect was so lamentable, that she half pitied him, half
respected him for his truth's sake. "You were right; I think it won't be
necessary for me to go to Boston," she said with a dim smile. "Good by.
It's all been a dreadful, dreadful mistake."
It was like him, even in that humiliation, not to have thought of losing
her, not to have dreamed but that he could somehow repair his error, and
she would yet willingly be his. "O no, no, no," he cried, starting
forward, "don't say that! It can't be, it mustn't be! You are angry now,
but I know you'll see it differently. Don't be so quick with me, with
yourself. I will do anything, say anything, you like."
The tears stood in her eyes; but they were cruel drops. "You can't say
anything that wouldn't make it worse. You can't undo what's been done,
and that's only a little part of what couldn't be undone. The best way
is for us to part; it's the only way."
"No, there are all the ways in the world besides! Wait--think!--I
implore you not to be so--precipitate."
The unfortunate word incensed her the more; it intimated that she was
ignorantly throwing too much away. "I am not rash now, but I was very
rash half an hour ago. I shall not change my mind again. O," she cried,
giving way, "it isn't what you've done, but what you _are_ and what _I_
am, that's the great trouble! I could easily forgive what's
happened,--if you asked it; but I couldn't alter both our whole lives,
or make myself over again, and you couldn't change yourself. Perhaps you
would try, and I know that I would, but it would be a wretched failure
and disappointment as long as we lived. I've learnt a great deal since I
first saw those people." And in truth he felt as if the young girl whom
he had been meaning to lift to a higher level than her own at his side
had somehow suddenly grown beyond him; and his heart sank. "It's foolish
to try to argue such a thing, but it's true; and you must let me go."
"I _can't_ let you go," he said in such a way, that she longed at least
to part kindly with him.
"You can make it hard for me," she answered, "but the end will be the
same."
"I won't make it hard for you, then," he returned, after a pause, in
which he grew paler and she stood with a wan face plucking the red
leaves from a low bough that stretched itself towards her.
He turned and walked away some steps; then he came suddenly back. "I
wish to express my regret," he began formally, and with his old air of
doing what was required of him as a gentleman, "that I should have
unintentionally done anything to wound--"
"O, better not speak of _that_," interrupted Kitty with bitterness,
"it's all over now." And the final tinge of superiority in his manner
made her give him a little stab of dismissal. "Good by. I see my cousins
coming."
She stood and watched him walk away, the sunlight playing on his figure
through the mantling leaves, till he passed out of the grove.
The cataract roared with a seven-fold tumult in her ears, and danced
before her eyes. All things swam together, as in her blurred sight her
cousins came wavering towards her.
"Where is Mr. Arbuton?" asked Mrs. Ellison.
Kitty threw her arms about the neck of that foolish woman, whoso loving
heart she could not doubt, and clung sobbing to her. "Gone," she said;
and Mrs. Ellison, wise for once, asked no more.
She had the whole story that evening, without asking; and whilst she
raged, she approved of Kitty, and covered her with praises and
condolences.
"Why, of course, Fanny, I didn't care for _knowing_ those people. What
should I want to know them for? But what hurt me was that he should so
postpone me to them, and ignore me before them, and leave me without a
word, then, when I ought to have been everything in the world to him and
first of all. I believe things came to me while I sat there, as they do
to drowning people, all at once, and I saw the whole affair more
distinctly than ever I did. We were too far apart in what we had been
and what we believed in and respected, ever to grow really together. And
if he gave me the highest position in the world, I should have only
that. He never could like the people who had been good to me, and whom I
loved so dearly, and he only could like me as far as he could estrange
me from them. If he could coolly put me aside _now_, how would it be
afterwards with the rest, and with me too? That's what flashed through
me, and I don't believe that getting splendidly married is as good as
being true to the love that came long before, and honestly living your
own life out, without fear or trembling, whatever it is. So perhaps,"
said Kitty, with a fresh burst of tears, "you needn't condole with me so
much, Fanny. Perhaps if you had seen him, you would have thought he was
the one to be pitied. _I_ pitied him, though he _was_ so cruel. When he
first turned to meet them, you'd have thought he was a man sentenced to
death, or under some dreadful spell or other; and while he was walking
up and down listening to that horrible comical old woman,--the young
lady didn't talk much,--and trying to make straight answers to her, and
to look as if I didn't exist, it was the most ridiculous thing in the
world."
"How queer you are, Kitty!"
"Yes; but you needn't think I didn't feel it. I seemed to be like two
persons sitting there, one in agony, and one just coolly watching it.
But O," she broke out again while Fanny held her closer in her arms,
"how could he have done it, how could he have acted so towards me; and
just after I had begun to think him so generous and noble! It seems too
dreadful to be true." And with this Kitty kissed her cousin and they had
a little cry together over the trust so done to death; and Kitty dried
her eyes, and bade Fanny a brave good-night, and went off to weep again,
upon her pillow.
But before that, she called Fanny to her door, and with a smile breaking
through the trouble of her face, she asked, "How do you suppose he got
back? I never thought of it before."
"_Oh!_" cried Mrs. Ellison with profound disgust, "I hope he had to
_walk_ back. But I'm afraid there were only too many chances for him to
ride. I dare say he could get a calash at the hotel there."
Kitty had not spoken a word of reproach to Fanny for her part in
promoting this hapless affair; and when the latter, returning to her own
room, found the colonel there, she told him the story and then began to
discern that she was not without credit for Kitty's fortunate escape, as
she called it.
"Yes," said the colonel, "under exactly similar circumstances she'll
know just what to expect another time, if that's any comfort."
"It's a _great_ comfort," retorted Mrs. Ellison; "you can't find out
what the world is, too soon, I can tell you; and if I hadn't maneuvered
a little to bring them together, Kitty might have gone off with some
lingering fancy for him; and think what a misfortune that would have
been!"
"Horrible."
"And now, she'll not have a single regret for him."
"I should think not," said the colonel; and he spoke in a tone of such
dejection, that it went to his wife's heart more than any reproach of
Kitty's could have done. "You're all right, and nobody blames you,
Fanny; but if _you_ think it's well for such a girl as Kitty to find out
that a man who has had the best that the world can give, and has really
some fine qualities of his own, can be such a poor devil, after all,
then _I_ don't. She may be the wiser for it, but you know she won't be
the happier."
"O _don't_, Dick, don't speak seriously! It's so dreadful from _you_. If
you feel so about it, why don't you do something."
"O yes, there's a fine opening. We know, because we know ever so much
more, how the case really is; but the way it seems to stand is, that
Kitty couldn't bear to have him show civility to his friends, and ran
away, and then wouldn't give him a chance to explain. Besides, what
could I do under any circumstances?"
"Well, Dick, of course you're right, and I wish I could see things as
clearly as you do. But I really believe Kitty's glad to be out of it."
"What?" thundered the colonel.
"I think Kitty's secretly relieved to have it all over. But you needn't
_stun_ me."
"You _do_?" The colonel paused as if to gain force enough for a reply.
But after waiting, nothing whatever came to him, and he wound up his
watch.
"To be sure," added Mrs. Ellison thoughtfully, after a pause, "she's
giving up a great deal; and she'll probably never have such another
chance as long as she lives."
"I hope she won't," said the colonel.
"O, you needn't pretend that a high position and the social advantages
he could have given her are to be despised."
"No, you heartless worldling; and neither are peace of mind, and
self-respect, and whole feelings, and your little joke."
"O, you--you sickly sentimentalist!"
"That's what they used to call us in the good old abolition days,"
laughed the colonel; and the two being quite alone, they made their
peace with a kiss, and were as happy for the moment as if they had
thereby assuaged Kitty's grief and mortification.
"Besides, Fanny," continued the colonel, "though I'm not much on
religion, I believe these things are ordered."
"Don't be blasphemous, Colonel Ellison!" cried his wife, who represented
the church if not religion in her family. "As if Providence had anything
to do with love-affairs!"
"Well, I won't; but I will say that if Kitty turned her back on Mr.
Arbuton and the social advantages he could offer her, it's a sign she
wasn't fit for them. And, poor thing, if she doesn't know how much she's
lost, why she has the less to grieve over. If she thinks she couldn't be
happy with a husband who would keep her snubbed and frightened after he
lifted her from her lowly sphere, and would tremble whenever she met any
of his own sort, of course it may be a sad mistake, but it can't be
helped. She must go back to Eriecreek, and try to worry along without
him. Perhaps she'll work out her destiny some other way."
XIV.
AFTERWARDS.
Mrs. Ellison had Kitty's whole story, and so has the reader, but for a
little thing that happened next day, and which is perhaps scarcely
worthy of being set down.
Mr. Arbuton's valise was sent for at night from the Hôtel St. Louis, and
they did not see him again. When Kitty woke next morning, a fine cold
rain was falling upon the drooping hollyhocks in the Ursulines' Garden,
which seemed stricken through every leaf and flower with sudden autumn.
All the forenoon the garden-paths remained empty, but under the porch by
the poplars sat the slender nun and the stout nun side by side, and held
each other's hands. They did not move, they did not appear to speak.
The fine cold rain was still falling as Kitty and Fanny drove down
Mountain Street toward the Railway Station, whither Dick and the baggage
had preceded them, for they were going away from Quebec. Midway, their
carriage was stopped by a mass of ascending vehicles, and their driver
drew rein till the press was over. At the same time Kitty saw advancing
up the sidewalk a figure grotesquely resembling Mr. Arbuton. It was he,
but shorter, and smaller, and meaner. Then it was not he, but only a
light overcoat like his covering a very common little man about whom it
hung loosely,--a burlesque of Mr. Arbuton's self-respectful overcoat, or
the garment itself in a state of miserable yet comical collapse.
"What is that ridiculous little wretch staring at you for, Kitty?" asked
Fanny.
"I don't know," answered Kitty, absently.
The man was now smiling and gesturing violently. Kitty remembered having
seen him before, and then recognized the cooper who had released Mr.
Arbuton from the dog in the Sault au Matelot, and to whom he had given
his lacerated overcoat.
The little creature awkwardly unbuttoned the garment, and took from the
breast-pocket a few letters, which he handed to Kitty, talking eagerly
in French all the time.
"What _is_ he doing, Kitty?"
"What is he saying, Fanny?"
"Something about a ferocious dog that was going to spring upon you, and
the young gentleman being brave as a lion and rushing forward, and
saving your life." Mrs. Ellison was not a woman to let her translation
lack color, even though the original wanted it.
"Make him tell it again."
When the man had done so, "Yes," sighed Kitty, "it all happened that day
of the Montgomery expedition; but I never knew, before, of what he had
done for me. Fanny," she cried, with a great sob, "may be I'm the one
who has been cruel? But what happened yesterday makes his having saved
my life seem such a very little matter."
"Nothing at all!" answered Fanny, "less than nothing!" But her heart
failed her.
The little cooper had bowed himself away, and was climbing the hill, Mr.
Arbuton's coat-skirts striking his heels as he walked.
"What letters are those?" asked Fanny.
"O, old letters to Mr. Arbuton, which he found in the pocket. I suppose
he thought I would give them to him."
"But how are you going to do it?"
"I ought to send them to him," answered Kitty. Then, after a silence
that lasted till they reached the boat, she handed the letters to Fanny.
"Dick may send them," she said.
THE END.