"Well, upon my word," said Elmore, to whom his wife had transferred the
letter, "this is very indelicate of Hoskins! I must say, I expected
something better of him." He looked at the note with a face of disgust.
"I don't know why you had a right to expect anything better of him, as
you call it," retorted his wife. "It's perfectly natural."
"Natural!" cried Elmore. "To put this upon us at the last moment, when
he knows how much trouble I've----"
Lily re-entered the room as precipitately as she had left it, and saved
him from betraying himself as to the extent of his confidences to
Hoskins. "Professor Elmore," she said, bending her reddened eyes upon
him, "I want you to answer this letter for me; and I don't want you to
write as you--I mean, don't make it so cutting--so--so--Why, I _like_
Mr. Hoskins! He's been so _kind_! And if you said anything to wound his
feelings--"
"I shall not do that, you may be sure; because, for one reason, I shall
say nothing at all to him," replied Elmore.
"You won't write to him?" she gasped.
"No."
"Why, what shall I do-o-o-o?" demanded Lily, prolonging the syllable in
a burst of grief and astonishment.
"I don't know," answered Elmore.
"Owen," cried his wife, interfering for the first time, in response to
the look of appeal that Lily turned upon her, "you _must_ write!"
"Celia," he retorted boldly, "I _won't_ write. I have a genuine regard
for Hoskins; I respect him, and I am very grateful to him for all his
kindness to you. He has been like a brother to you both."
"Why, of course," interrupted Lily, "I never thought of him as anything
_but_ a brother."
"And though I must say I think it would have been more thoughtful
and--and--more considerate in him not to do this--"
"We did everything we could to fight him off from it," interrupted Mrs.
Elmore, "both of us. We saw that it was coming, and we tried to stop it.
But nothing would help. Perhaps, as he says, he _did_ have to do it."
"I didn't dream of his--having any such--idea," said Elmore. "I felt so
perfectly safe in his coming; I trusted everything to him."
"I suppose you thought his wanting to come was all unconscious
cerebration," said his wife disdainfully. "Well, now you see it wasn't."
"Yes; but it's too late now to help it; and though I think he ought to
have spared us this, if he thought there was no hope for him, still I
can't bring myself to inflict pain upon him, and the long and the short
of it is, I _won't_."
"But how is he to be answered?"
"I don't know. _You_ can answer him."
"I could never do it in the world!"
"I own it's difficult," said Elmore coldly.
"Oh, _I_ will answer him--I will answer him," cried Lily, "rather than
have any trouble about it. Here,--here," she said, reaching blindly for
pen and paper, as she seated herself at Elmore's desk, "give me the ink,
quick. Oh, dear! What shall I say? What date is it?--the 25th? And it
doesn't matter about the day of the week. 'Dear Mr. Hoskins--Dear Mr.
Hoskins--Dear Mr. Hosk'--Ought you to put Clay Hoskins, Esq., at the top
or the bottom--or not at all, when you've said Dear Mr. Hoskins?
Esquire seems so cold, anyway, and I _won't_ put it! 'Dear Mr.
Hoskins'--Professor Elmore!" she implored reproachfully, "tell me what
to say!"
"That would be equivalent to writing the letter," he began.
"Well, write it, then," she said, throwing down the pen. "I don't _ask_
you to dictate it. Write it,--write anything,--just in pencil, you know;
that won't commit you to anything; they say a thing in pencil isn't
legal,--and I'll copy it out in the first person."
"Owen," said his wife, "you shall not refuse! It's inhuman, it's
inhospitable, when Lily wants you to, so! Why, I never heard of such a
thing!"
Elmore desperately caught up the sheet of paper on which Lily had
written "Dear Mr. Hoskins," and groaning out "Well, well!" he added,--
I have your letter. Come to the station to-morrow and say good-by
to her whom you will yet live to thank for remaining only
Your friend,
ELIZABETH MAYHEW.
"There! there, that will do beautifully--beautifully! Oh, thank you,
Professor Elmore, ever and ever so much! That will save his feelings,
and do everything," said Lily, sitting down again to copy it; while Mrs.
Elmore, looking over her shoulder, mingled her hysterical excitement
with the girl's, and helped her out by sealing the note when it was
finished and directed.
It accomplished at least one purpose intended. It kept Hoskins away till
the final moment, and it brought him to the station for their adieux
just before their train started. A consciousness of the absurdity of his
part gave his face a humorously rueful cast. But he came pluckily to the
mark. He marched straight up to the girl. "It's all right, Miss Lily,"
he said, and offered her his hand, which she had a strong impulse to cry
over. Then he turned to Mrs. Elmore, and while he held her hand in his
right, he placed his left affectionately on Elmore's shoulder, and,
looking at Lily, he said, "You ought to get Miss Lily to help you out
with your history, Professor; she has a very good style,--quite a
literary style, I should have said, if I hadn't known it was hers. I
don't like her subjects, though." They broke into a forlorn laugh
together; he wrung their hands once more, without a word, and, without
looking back, limped out of the waiting-room and out of their lives.
They did not know that this was really the last of Hoskins,--one never
knows that any parting is the last,--and in their inability to conceive
of a serious passion in him, they quickly consoled themselves for what
he might suffer. They knew how kindly, how tenderly even, they felt
towards him, and by that juggle with the emotions which we all practise
at times, they found comfort for him in the fact. Another interest,
another figure, began to occupy the morbid fancy of Elmore, and as they
approached Peschiera his expectation became intense. There was no reason
why it should exist; it would be by the thousandth chance, even if
Ehrhardt were still there, that they should meet him at the railroad
station, and there were a thousand chances that he was no longer in
Peschiera. He could see that his wife and Lily were restive too: as the
train drew into the station they nodded to each other, and pointed out
of the window, as if to identify the spot where Lily had first noticed
him; they laughed nervously, and it seemed to Elmore that he could not
endure their laughter.
During that long wait which the train used to make in the old Austrian
times at Peschiera, while the police authorities _viséd_ the passports
of those about to cross the frontier, Elmore continued perpetually
alert. He was aware that he should not know Ehrhardt if he met him; but
he should know that he was present from the looks of Lily and Mrs.
Elmore, and he watched them. They dined well in waiting, while he
impatiently trifled with the food, and ate next to nothing; and they
calmly returned to their places in the train, to which he remounted
after a last despairing glance around the platform in a passion of
disappointment. The old longing not to be left so wholly to the effect
of what he had done possessed him to the exclusion of all other
sensations, and as the train moved away from the station he fell back
against the cushions of the carriage, sick that he should never even
have looked on the face of the man in whose destiny he had played so
fatal a part.