“TIME DOES NOT STOP FOR TEARS.”
While the wedding was going on at Wheatlands that evening, Doctor
Barnes, hastily summoned to the cottage, was sewing up a ghastly cut
on Chester Olyphant’s head, and explaining to Widow Gray that it had
barely escaped being a fracture of the skull. Even now he could not
tell what the outcome would be, for, though life still lingered, there
was no return to consciousness.
He made the four little heroes very proud and happy by telling them
that God himself must have prompted their expedition that day in order
to save the young man’s life, and they scampered off home in great
excitement, to spread the news of their wonderful adventure.
Meanwhile the doctor sent for the best nurse in town, and installed her
at the cottage to aid Mrs. Gray in caring for the patient.
But when Leola Mead and her father were driven down to the station
that night, to take the midnight train for New York, no hint of the
truth reached them, and Leola’s heartache over her lover’s falsity was
destined to last long, for from that hour, when she had fallen like
one dead in the arbor, no news of him transpired for many months. Too
proud to confess her heart wound to her father, she never called that
once loved name in his hearing; she only sought refuge from her pain in
change of scene, saying to him eagerly:
“Papa, darling, I have been buried in the country so long that I am
wild to see the world. If you are able to gratify my desires, I prefer
travel to anything else on earth.”
“I live only to gratify your wishes now, my precious daughter,”
answered Alston Mead, eager to atone for having neglected her so long
in his passionate grief over the loss of his lovely young wife.
He had planned to come back and settle down in a quiet home with his
lovely daughter, but he found it no hardship to gratify her desire for
travel, since wandering had become a second nature with him.
So in their leisurely wanderings through the United States, and
afterward abroad, the past became almost like a dream to Leola, who
told herself, bitterly, that doubtless Jessie Stirling and Olyphant
were married long ago, and that she did not care, for she hated him now
as much as she had once loved him.
Alston Mead, in all ignorance of the tragic love story of his fair
daughter, wondered a little that she remained so indifferent to the
suitors she attracted wherever she went, for to him it seemed very
natural for a young girl to fall in love; still he rejoiced that she
did not appear to be susceptible, saying to himself that he could keep
her all the longer to himself.
But all the time Leola was thinking with bitter pique and pain of
Jessie and Chester reconciled and happy, perhaps long ago wedded, his
love affair of that golden summer an almost forgotten episode.
It was bitter, for Leola knew in her heart that she had given the best
and truest love of her life, and that she could never know again the
bliss of those fleeting days, when she had loved and trusted as she
never could again, because her tenderness had been betrayed, her heart
trampled on like a withered flower thrown into the dust.
“Like the wild hyacinth flower, which on the hills is found,
Which the passing feet of the triflers forever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden in the ground.”
So strangely and completely had Leola’s life changed that sometimes she
felt as if she had died and come to life again in some new world--a
kaleidoscopic world of change, in which every face and scene was
new--if only, she said to herself, bitterly, she had not brought with
her into this new life the cruel memories of the past, that seemed
always crying aloud to her heart:
“Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;
I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell.
Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shell.
Cast up thy Life’s foam-fretted feet between;
Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seen
Which had Life’s form and Love, but by my spell
Is now a shaken shadow intolerable.”
But “time does not stop for tears,” and the days and months rolled
away and brought round golden June again, so that it was a year since
Leola had ridden out so joyfully on Rex to meet her fate in Chester
Olyphant’s dark blue eyes.
They were in Paris now, and everyone knows how charming Paris is in
June, but somehow Leola’s thoughts turned backward to the West Virginia
hills that she had vowed she never cared to see again--turned back with
a strange homesickness to the wild and picturesque scenes where her
joyous youth had been nurtured, to the old faces, the old pleasures,
and she thought that she should like to get on Rex’s back again for
a breezy canter into the country town, or on to the old Blue Sulphur
Spring for a draught of its cold, clear, sparkling water.
She could close her eyes and see just how it was looking, after the
long, cold winter, in its new summer gown of green, trimmed with
violets, blue and white--that dear old hillside back of the house; and
the orchard would be decked in pink and white, and the birds would be
singing like mad in the branches, and the sky would be blue and sunny,
and the sweet air seem like an elixir of life.
She opened her eyes, and she was in Paris again, and she had in her
hand a memorandum for the shopping she was going to do that week--gowns
and laces and jewels, to deck that wonderful beauty, to set off, like
a splendid frame, the peerless form, the flowerlike face, with its
somber dark eyes and thick waves of ruddy golden hair--the Titian shade
artists raved over.
Her father had had her portrait painted--full length, and all in
white--and all Paris had raved over it when the artist had it on
exhibition those few days before it was boxed to be shipped to America.
She had made many friends, been entertained at the homes of the rich
and great, had refused dazzling offers to the wonder of all, and here
she was, all at once, with a fit of nostalgia for the simple home and
kindly faces that were gone out of her life forever--or so she thought.
She had often thought of the new Mrs. Bennett, wondering if her simple
devotion had ever won her rotund husband’s heart, but she had never
written her a line in her eagerness to forget the grief over those last
days, and put them behind her forever.
Now she thought, tenderly, of the good woman, murmuring:
“How strange it seems I have never heard one word from all I left
behind! Some of them may be dead, some married--Jessie and Chester,
of course, long ago--but there are few I care for save my dear old
governess and Mrs. Gray!”
Putting all these thoughts behind her with a passing wonder why they
had come like ghosts from a dead past to disturb her present peace, she
rang for her maid and got ready for her shopping tour.
An hour later she knew why those subtle memories had overwhelmed her
this morning. It was the influence of telepathy.
Turning over some rare silks at the Arcade, her heart leaped, and her
blood turned cold in her veins at the sound of a familiar voice:
“Leola Mead, am I dreaming, or is it really you? What a charming
surprise! Why, only this morning I was thinking of you, wondering where
you were; and to find you here so soon, it’s like a dream!”
“My foe undreamed of by my side
Stood suddenly like fate--
To those who love, the world is wide,
But not to those who hate!”
Leola felt a small, gloved hand pressing hers very hard, looked into
bluebell eyes under flaxen waves of hair, and turned cold with dislike
and repulsion, dreading every moment to see over the blonde’s shoulder
her husband’s face, handsome and winning, with the laughing blue eyes
that had smiled her heart away.
With a strong effort she pulled herself together, calling her
passionate pride to her aid. They should not see her wince; she would
show them she had forgotten him. She said, coldly:
“So it is you, Jessie Stirling? How long have you been over?”
“Oh, since early spring shopping for my trousseau, you know,” twittered
Jessie, gayly.
“Then you are not married yet?” Leola cried, eagerly.
“No; but I shall be soon--in late July. Chester was ill so long,
you know,” she twittered on; then, at the startled look in Leola’s
dark eyes, “Oh, I forgot you went away so abruptly that night before
everything happened--the explosion and all! Tell me, haven’t you ever
heard from home? from any of them? Not a word, you say? How very
strange! Leola, is your carriage waiting? Yes? Then I will go for a
drive with you, and tell you everything. We can come back for our
shopping later”--dragging her out.