They had been in the Monnlungs half an hour. Margaret acted as pilot;
half kneeling, half sitting at the bow, one hand on the canoe's edge,
her face turned forward, she gave her directions slowly, all her powers
concentrated upon recalling correctly and keeping unmixed from present
impressions her memory of the channel.
The present impressions were indeed so strange, that a strong exertion
of will was necessary to prevent the mind from becoming fascinated by
them, from forgetting in this series of magic pictures the different
aspect of these same vistas by day. Even by day the vistas were
alluring. By night, lighted up by the flare of the approaching torches,
at first vaguely, then brilliantly, then vanishing into darkness again
behind, they became unearthly, exceeding in contrasts of color--reds,
yellows, and green, all of them edged sharply with the profoundest
gloom--the most striking effects of the painters who have devoted their
lives to reproducing light and shade.
Lanse had explored a part of the Monnlungs. He had not explored it all,
no human eye had as yet beheld some of its mazes; but the part he had
explored he knew well, he had even made a map of it. Margaret had seen
this map; she felt sure, too, that she should know the channels he
called the Lanes. Her idea, upon entering, had been to follow the main
stream to the first of these lanes, there turn off and explore the lane
to its end; then, returning to the main channel, to go on to the second
lane; and so on through Lanse's part of the swamp. They had now explored
two of the lanes, and were entering a third.
She had taken off her hat, and thrown it down upon the cloak beside her.
"It's so oppressively warm in here," she said.
It was not oppressively warm--not warmer than a June night at the
North. But the air was perfectly still, and so sweet that it was
enervating.
The forest grew denser along this third lane as they advanced. The trees
stood nearer together, and silver moss now began to hang down in long,
filmy veils, thicker and thicker, from all the branches. Mixed with the
moss, vines showed themselves in strange convolutions, they went up out
of sight; in girth they were as large as small trees; they appeared to
have not a leaf, but to be dry, naked, chocolate-brown growths, twisting
themselves about hither and thither for their own entertainment.
This was the appearance below. But above, there was another story to
tell; for here were interminable flat beds of broad green leaves, spread
out over the outside of the roof of foliage--leaves that belonged to
these same naked coiling growths below; the vines had found themselves
obliged to climb to the very top in order to get a ray of sunshine for
their greenery.
For there was no sky for anybody in the Monnlungs; the deep solid roof
of interlocked branches stretched miles long, miles wide, like a close
tight cover, over the entire place. The general light of day came
filtering through, dyed with much green, quenched into blackness at the
ends of the vistas; but actual sunbeams never came, never gleamed, year
in year out, across the clear darkness of the broad water floor.
The water on this floor was always pellucid; whether it was the deep
current of the main channel, or the shallower tide that stood motionless
over all the rest of the expanse, no where was there the least
appearance of mud; the lake and the streams, red-brown in hue, were as
clear as so much fine wine; the tree trunks rose cleanly from this
transparent tide, their huge roots could be seen coiling on the bottom
much as the great vines coiled in the air above. These gray-white bald
cypresses had a monumental aspect, like the columns of a Gothic
cathedral, as they rose, erect and branchless, disappearing above in the
mist of the moss. The moss presently began to take on an additional
witchery by becoming decked with flowers; up to a certain height these
flowers had their roots in the earth; but above these were other
blossoms--air-plants, some vividly tinted, flaring, and gaping, others
so small and so flat on the moss that they were like the embroidered
flowers on lace, only they were done in colors.
"I detest this moss," said Margaret, as it grew thicker and thicker, so
that there was nothing to be seen but the silver webs; "I feel strangled
in it,--suffocated."
"Oh, but it's beautiful," said Winthrop. "Don't you see the colors it
takes on? Gray, then silver, then almost pink as we pass; then gray and
ghostly again."
For all answer she called her husband's name. She had called it in this
way at intervals ever since they entered the swamp.
"The light we carry penetrates much farther than your voice," Winthrop
remarked.
"I want him to know who it is."
"Oh, he'll know--such a devoted wife! Who else could it be?"
After a while the lane made a bend, and led them away from the moss; the
canoe, turning to the right, left behind it the veiled forest, white and
motionless. Margaret drew a long breath, she shook herself slightly,
like a person who has emerged.
"You have on your jewels again," he said, as the movement caused the
torch-light to draw a gleam from something in her hair.
She put up her hand as if she had forgotten what was there. "Jewels?
Only a gold arrow." She adjusted it mechanically.
"Jewels enough on your hands, then. You didn't honor _us_ with a sight
of them--while you were at East Angels, I mean."
"I don't care for them; I put them on this morning before I started,
because Lanse likes them."
"So do I. Unwillingly, you also please me; of course I never dreamed
that I should have so much time to admire them--parading by torch-light
in this way through a great morass."
She did not answer.
"They bring you out, you know, in spite of yourself--drag you out, if
you like better; they show what you might be, if you would ever--let
yourself go."
"Let myself go? You use strange expressions."
"A man isn't responsible for what he says in here."
"You say that a second time! You know there was no other way; the only
hope of getting Lanse home before the storm was to start at once."
"The storm--to be sure. I don't believe it ever storms in here."
She turned towards him. "You _know_ I had to come."
"I know you thought so; you thought we should find Lanse sitting
encamped on two cypress knees, with the wreck of his canoe for a seat.
We should dawn upon him like comets. And he would say, 'How long you've
been! It's precious damp in here, you know!'"
She turned impatiently towards the channel again.
"Don't demand too much, Margaret," he went on. "Jesting's safe, at any
rate. Sympathy I haven't got--sympathy for this expedition of yours into
this jungle at this time of night."
She had now recovered her composure. "So long as you paddle the boat,
sympathy isn't necessary."
"Oh, I'll paddle! But I shall have to paddle forever, we shall never get
out. We've come to an antediluvian forest--don't you see? a survival.
But _we_ sha'n't survive. They'll write our biographies; I was wondering
the other day if there was any other kind of literature so completely
composed of falsehoods, owing to half being kept back, as biographies; I
decided that there _was_ one other--autobiographies."
On both sides of them now the trees were, in girth, enormous; the red
light, gleaming out fitfully, did not seem to belong to them or to their
torches, but to be an independent glow, coming from no one knew where.
"If we had the grace to have any imagination left in this bicycle
century of ours," remarked Winthrop, "we should certainly be expecting
to see some mammoth water creature, fifty feet long, lifting a flabby
head here. For my own part, I am afraid my imagination, never very
brilliant, is defunct; the most I can do is to think of the thousands of
snakes there must be, squirming about under all this water,--not
prehistoric at all, nor mammoths, but just nice natural every-day little
moccasins, say about seven feet long."
Margaret shuddered.
He stopped his banter, his voice changed. "Do let me take you home," he
urged. "You're tired out; give this thing up."
"I am not tired."
"You have been tired to the verge of death for months!"
"You know nothing about that," she said, coldly.
"Yes, I do. I have seen your face, and I know its expressions now; I
didn't at first, but now I do. There's no use in your trying to deceive
me Margaret, I know what your life is; remember, Lanse told me
everything."
"That was long ago."
"What do you mean?" He leaned forward and grasped her arm as though he
would make her turn.
For a moment she did not reply. Then, "A great deal may have happened
since then," she said.
"I don't believe you!" He dropped her arm. "You say that to stop me,
keep me back; you are afraid of me!" He took up his paddle again.
"Yes, I am afraid." Then, putting a little note of contempt into her
voice: "And wasn't I right to be afraid?" she added. She drew the arm he
had touched close to her waist, and held it there.
"No!" answered Winthrop, loudly and angrily; "you were completely
wrong." He sent the canoe forward with rapid strokes.
They went to the end of the lane, then returned to the main channel,
still in silence. But here it became necessary again for Margaret to
give directions.
"Go as far as that pool of knees," she began; "then turn to the right."
"You are determined to keep on?"
"I must; that is, I must if you will take me."
He sat without moving.
"If anything should happen to Lanse that I might have prevented by
keeping on now, how could I ever----"
"Oh, keep on, keep on; bring him safely home and take every care of
him--he has done so much to deserve these efforts on your part!"
They went on.
And now the stream was bringing them towards the place Margaret had
thought of upon entering--a bower in the heart of the Monnlungs, or
rather a long defile like a chink between two high cliffs, the cliffs
being a dense mass of flowering shrubs.
Winthrop made no comment as they entered this blossoming pass, Margaret
did not speak. The air was loaded with sweetness; she put her hands on
the edge of the canoe to steady herself. Then she looked up as if in
search of fresher air, or to see how high the flowers ascended. But
there was no fresher air, and the flowers went up out of sight.
The defile grew narrower, the atmosphere became so heavy that they could
taste the perfume in their mouths. After another five minutes Margaret
drew a long breath--she had apparently been trying to breathe as little
as possible. "I don't think I can--I am afraid----" She swayed, then
sank softly down; she had fainted.
He caught her in his arms, and laid her on the canoe's bottom, her head
on the cloak. He looked at the water, but the thought of the dark tide's
touching that fair face was repugnant to him. He bent down and spoke to
her, and smoothed her hair. But that was advancing nothing, and he began
to chafe her hands.
Then suddenly he rose, and, taking the paddle, sent the canoe flying
along between the high bushes. The air was visibly thick in the red
light of the torches, a miasma of scent. A branch of small blossoms with
the perfume of heliotrope softly brushed against his cheek, he struck it
aside with unnecessary violence. Exerting all his strength, he at last
got the canoe free from the beautiful baleful place.
When Margaret opened her eyes they were outside; she was lying
peacefully on the cloak, and he was still paddling vehemently.
"I am ashamed," she said, as she raised herself. "I suppose I fainted?
Perfumes have a great effect upon me always. I know that place well, I
thought of it before we entered the swamp; I thought it would make me
dizzy, but I had no idea that it would make me faint away. It has never
done so before, the scents must be stronger at night."
She still seemed weak; she put her hand to her head. Then a thought came
to her, she sat up and looked about, scanning the trees anxiously. "I
hope you haven't gone wrong? How far are we from the narrow place--the
place where I fainted?"
"I don't know how far. But we haven't been out of it more than five or
six minutes, and this is certainly the channel."
"Nothing is 'certainly' in the Monnlungs! And five minutes is quite
enough time to get lost in. I don't recognize anything here--we ought to
be in sight of a tree that has a profile, like a face."
"Perhaps you wouldn't know it at night."
"It's unmistakable. No, I am sure we are wrong. Please go back--go back
at once to the narrow place."
"Where is 'back?'" murmured Winthrop to himself, after he had surveyed
the water behind him.
And the question was a necessary one. What he had thought was "certainly
the channel" seemed to exist only in front; there was no channel behind,
there were only broad tree-filled water spaces, vague and dark. They
could see nothing of the thicker foliage of the "narrow place."
Margaret clasped her hands. "We're lost!"
"No, we're not lost; at least we were not seven minutes ago. It won't
take long to go over all the water that is seven minutes from here." He
took out one of the torches and inserted it among the roots of a
cypress, so that it could hold itself upright. "That's our guide; we can
always come back to that, and start again."
Margaret no longer tried to direct; she sat with her face towards him,
leaving the guidance to him.
He started back in what he thought was the course they had just
traversed. But they did not come to the defile of flowers; and suddenly
they lost sight of their beacon.
"We shall see it again in a moment," he said.
But they did not see it. They floated in and out among the great
cypresses, he plunged his paddle down over the side, and struck bottom;
they were out of the channel and in the shallows--the great Monnlungs
Lake.
"We don't see it yet," she said. Then she gave a cry, and shrank
towards him. They had floated close to one of the trees, and there on
its trunk, not three feet from her, was a creature of the lizard family,
large, gray-white in hue like the bark, flat, and yet fat; it moved its
short legs slowly in the light of their torches; no doubt it was
experiencing a sensation of astonishment, there had never been in its
memory a bright light in the Monnlungs before.
Winthrop laughed, it did him good to see Margaret Harold cowering and
shuddering over such a slight cause as that. The boat had floated where
it listed for a moment or two while he laughed, and now he caught sight
of their beacon again.
"That laugh was lucky," he said, as he paddled rapidly back towards the
small light-house. "Now I shall go in exactly the wrong direction--I
mean what seems such to me."
"Oh, _must_ we go again?"
"I don't suppose you wish to remain permanently floating at the foot of
this tree?" He looked at her. "You think we're lost, you're frightened.
We're not lost at all, and I know exactly what to do; trust yourself to
me, I will bring you safely out."
"You don't know this swamp, it's not so easy. I'm thinking of myself."
"I know you are not. But _I_ think of nothing else." He said this
impetuously enough.
They started on their second search. And at the end of five minutes they
had again lost sight of their beacon. He paddled to the right and back
again; then off to the left and back; he went forward a little way, then
in the opposite direction; but they did not see the gleam of their
guide, nor did they find the defile of flowers.
Suddenly there rose, close to them, a cry. It was not loud, but it was
thrilling, it conveyed an impression of agonized fear.
"What was that?" said Margaret. She did not speak the words aloud, but
syllabled them with her lips; involuntarily she drew nearer to him.
"I don't know what it was myself, exactly," he answered; "some bird or
other small creature, probably, caught by a snake or alligator. It only
sounded strange because it is so still here, our nerves are affected, I
presume."
"You mean that mine are. I know they are, I will try to be more
sensible."
He pursued his tentative course. But the watery vistas seemed only to
grow wilder. They never had a desolate appearance; on the contrary there
was something indescribably luxuriant, riotously so, in the still lake
with its giant trees, its scented air, its masses of flowers. At length
something dark, that was not a tree trunk, nor a group of tree trunks,
loomed up on their right. Their torches outlined it more plainly; it was
square and low.
"It's a _house_" Margaret said, in the same repressed whisper. "Oh,
don't go near it!"
"Why--it's deserted, can't you see that? There's no living thing there,
unless you count ghosts--there may be the ghost of some fugitive slave.
The door, I suppose, is on the other side." And he paddled towards it.
The cabin--it was no more than a cabin--had been built upon the great
roots of four cypresses, which had happened to stand in a convenient
position for such a purpose; the planks of the floor had been nailed
down across these, and the sides formed of rough boards braced by small
beams which stretched back to the tree trunks; the roof was a network of
the large vines of the swamp, thickly thatched with the gray moss, now
black with age and decay. The door was gone; Winthrop brought the boat
up towards the dark entrance; the sill was but an inch or two above the
water.
They looked within, the light from their torches illuminating the
central portion. And as they looked, they saw a slight waving motion on
the floor. Were the planks oscillating a little, or was it dark water
flowing over the place?
At first they could not distinguish; then in another instant they could.
It was not water; it was the waving, squirming bodies of snakes.
Winthrop had given the canoe a quick swerve. But before they could have
counted one, the creatures, soundlessly, had all disappeared.
"Men are queer animals," he said; "I should have liked one more good
peep. But of course I won't go back."
"Yes--go."
"You are prepared to humor me in everything? Well, it won't take an
instant." They were but ten feet away; he gave a stroke with his paddle
and brought the canoe up to the entrance again.
Within there was now nothing, their torch-light shone on the bare
glistening boards of the floor. But stay--yes, there was; something
white in one corner; he took one of the torches, and held it within for
a moment. Margaret gave a cry; the light was shining on bones--a white
breastbone with the ribs attached, and larger bones near.
He threw the torch into the water, where it went out with a hiss, and
sent the canoe rapidly away. This time he did not stop.
Margaret had hidden her face in her hands. "Well," he said, still urging
the light boat along, "the last hunter who occupied that cabin was not
as tidy in his habits as he might have been; he left the remains of the
last bear he had had for dinner behind him."
"Are you sure?" she asked, without looking up, still shuddering.
"Perfectly."
Winthrop held that in some cases a lie was right.
He paddled on for a few minutes more.
"Here's your reward for humoring me. Isn't this the 'narrow place?'"
And it was.
"Now that we've found it, hadn't we better try to go back?" he
suggested.
"I will do as you think best."
"You're thoroughly cowed, aren't you? By the skeleton of a bear."
"I think I am tired," she answered.
"Think? You mean you know you are." The mask of jesting had dropped
again. "How much more of this horrible place is there--I mean beyond
here?"
"We are a good deal more than half-way through; three quarters, I
think."
"Can we get out at the other end? Is there an outlet?"
"Yes--a creek. It takes you, I believe--I have never been so far as
that--to Eustis Landing, a pier on the St. John's beyond ours."
"If we try to go back we shall have to go through that damnable aisle of
miasma again."
"Perhaps I should not faint this time," she said, humbly.
"You don't know whether you would or not; I can't take any risks."
He spoke with bluntness. She sat looking at him; her eyes had a pathetic
expression, her womanish fears and her fatigue had relaxed her usual
guard.
"You think I'm rough. Let me be rough while I can, Margaret!"
He sent the boat forward towards the outlet, not back through the aisle
of flowers. "We'll go on," he said.
After a while she called her husband's name again.
"What's the use of doing that?" he asked. "He isn't here."
"Oh, but I am sure he is. Where else could he be?"
"How should I know?--Where he was for eight years, perhaps."
Presently they came to a species of canebrake, very dense and high;
there was no green in sight, only the canes. The channel wound
tortuously through the rattling mass, the slight motion of the water
made by the canoe caused the canes to rattle.
"Keep watch, please," he said; "it's not so wet here. It wouldn't be
amusing to set such a straw-stack on fire."
While they were making their way through this labyrinth, there came a
crash of thunder.
"The storm at last, and we haven't heard the least sound of the tornado
that came before it! That shows what a place this is," he said. "We
might as well be in the heart of a mountain. Well, even if we _do_
suffocate, at least we're safe from falling trees; if the lightning has
struck one, it can't come down, wedged in as it is in that great tight
roof overhead."
There came another crash. "I believe it grows hotter and hotter," he
went on, throwing down his hat. "I am beginning to feel a little queer
myself; I have to tell you, you know, in order that you may be able to
act with--with discrimination, as Dr. Kirby would say."
She had turned quickly. "Do you feel faint?"
"Faint?" he answered, scoffingly. "Never in the world. Am I a woman? I
feel perfectly well, and strong as an ox, only--I see double."
"Yes, that is the air of the swamp."
She took off the black lace scarf she was wearing, dipped it into the
stream, and told him to bind it round his forehead above the eyes.
"Nonsense!" he said, impatiently.
But she moved towards him, and kneeling on the canoe's bottom, bound the
lace tightly round his forehead herself, fastening it with her little
gold pin.
"I must look like a Turk," he exclaimed when she released him.
But the wet bandage cleared his vision; he could see plainly again.
After another five minutes, however, back came the blur. "Shall we ever
get out of this accursed hole?" he cried, pressing his hands on his
eyes.
"I can paddle a little; let me take the oar."
But he dashed more water on his head, and pushed her hands away. "Women
never know! It's much better for me to keep on. But you must direct
me,--say 'one stroke on the right,' 'two on the left,' and so on."
"Oh, why did I ever bring you in here?" she moaned, giving no directions
at all, but looking at his contracted eyes with the tears welling in her
own.
"See here, Margaret,--I really don't know what would happen if I should
put this oar down and--and let you pity me! I can tell you once. Now be
warned." He spoke with roughness.
Her tears were arrested. "Two strokes on the right," she said, quickly.
They went on their course again, he putting his oar into the water with
a peculiar deliberation, as though he were taking great care not to
disturb its smoothness; but this was because he was guiding himself by
sense of touch. It was not that all was dark before him, that he saw
nothing, it would have been much easier if there had been nothing to
see; but whether his eyes were open or closed he looked constantly and
in spite of himself into a broad circular space of vivid scarlet, in the
centre of which a smaller and revolving disk of colors like those of
peacocks' feathers, continually dilating and contracting, wearied and
bewildered him. In spite of this visual confusion he kept on.
Their progress was slow. "I think I'll stop for a while," he said, after
a quarter of an hour had passed. They were still among the rattling
canes, his voice had a drowsy tone.
"Oh, don't stop now; we're nearly out."
But he had stopped.
"If I had had any idea you would tire so soon---- Of course if I _must_
take the oar--and blister my hands----"
"Keep back in your place," he cried, angrily, as she made a movement as
though she were coming to take the paddle from him.
She went on giving the directions, she could scarcely keep the tremor
from her voice, but she did keep it. When she looked at his closed eyes,
and saw the effort he was making--every time he lifted his arms it was
like lifting a gigantic weight, his fancy made it so--she longed to take
the oar from him and let him rest. But she did not dare to, he must not
sleep now. She put out her hand and touched an edge of his coat
furtively, where he would not perceive it; the gentle little touch
seemed to give her courage to say, in a tone of sarcastic compassion,
"If, after all, you _are_ going to faint, though you assured me----"
"Faint!" said Winthrop,--"what are you talking about?" He straightened
himself and threw back his head. Her taunt had answered its purpose, it
had made him angry and in his anger he sent the boat forward with more
force.
Another anxious ten minutes, and then, "We're out!" she said, as she saw
wide water in front. "Now it will be cooler." The channel broadened,
they left the rattling canes behind.
Water was coming slowly down the trees, not in drops but in dark
streaks; this was rain that had made its way through the roof of
foliage, scanty fringe of the immense torrent now falling upon the
drenched ground outside.
"I shall go through to that place you spoke of--Eustis Landing, wasn't
it?" said Winthrop.
"Oh, you _are_ better!"
Her relief showed itself in these words. But much more in her face; its
strained tension gave way, her tears fell. She dried them in silence.
"Because I can speak of something outside of this infernal bog? Yes, I
shall get you safely through now. And myself also. But--it hasn't been
easy!"
"Oh, I know that."
"I beg your pardon, no, you don't; not the half."
In a moment or two more he announced that he was beginning to see
"something besides fireworks." She still continued, however, to direct
him.
The swamp had been growing more open. At length the channel brought them
to a spectral lake, with a few dead trees in it here and there hung with
white moss. "I remember this place, the creek opens out just opposite.
_At last_ it's over!"
"And at last I can see. But I must take this thing off; it binds me."
And he unloosed and threw off her lace scarf.
They found the creek and entered. "It seems strange to see solid ground
again, doesn't it?" he said.
"Then you _can_ see it?"
"As well as ever."
The creek brought them to a waste that was open to the sky.
"Now we can breathe," he said; "I feel as though I should never want to
be under a tree branch again!"
It was not very dark; there was a moon somewhere behind the gray clouds
that closely covered the sky. The great storm had gone westward,
carrying with it the tornado and the rain, and now a cool, moderate,
New-England-feeling wind was beginning to blow.
Winthrop glanced back. The great trees of the Monnlungs loomed up in a
long dark line against the sky; from the low level of the boat in the
flat waste they looked like a line of mountains.
"All the same, you know," he said, contradictorily, "it was very
beautiful in there."
The creek was wide; he went on rapidly. He was quite himself again.
"You look fearfully worn," he said, after a while.
"Must we have all these torches now?" She spoke with irritation, she
could not get away from their light.
"Not if you object to them." He extinguished all but one. "Now put on
some of those wraps; it's cold."
"I do not need them."
"Don't be childish." (There was no doubt but that he was himself again.)
"Here, let me help you on with this cloak."
She submitted.
It took them three-quarters of an hour to reach the landing.
"This is it, I presume," he said, as he saw the dim outlines of two
white houses at a little distance on the low shore. "I will knock them
up, and get some sort of a place where you can rest."
"If there is any one to row, I should much rather go directly home."
"Always unreasonable. Give me your hands." He leaned forward and took
them. "Cold as ice,--I thought so. You must come up to the house and go
to bed."
"I could not sleep. Let me go home; it is the only place for me."
He still held her hands. "Very well," he said.
"Perhaps they have found Lanse," she went on.
"Old Dinah and Rose? Very likely."
In a few minutes he returned, followed by two negroes, one of whom
carried a lantern. They got out their own boat. Winthrop helped Margaret
into it, and took his place beside her; their canoe was taken in tow.
With strong regular strokes the men rowed down the creek, and out on the
broad St. John's.
When they came in sight of the house on the point it was gleaming with
light; Margaret gave an exclamation.
Dismissing the men, Winthrop went up the path after her. "I am sure he
has come," she said, hurrying on.
"Who? Lanse? Oh no, it's those old goblins of yours who have illuminated
in this way; it's their idea of keeping watch for you."
The doors had been left unfastened, they entered. Inside, everything was
as brilliant as though the house had been made ready for a ball. But
there was not a sound, no one stirred. They went through to the kitchen;
and there, each on her knees before a wooden chair, with her head
resting upon it on her folded arms, appeared the little Africans, sound
asleep; the soles of their shoes, turned up behind them, seemed almost
as long as they were.
Winthrop roused them. "Here," he said; "we're back. Make some coffee for
your mistress as quickly as you can; and you, Rose, light a fire in the
sitting-room."
The queer little old women ran about like frightened hens. They tumbled
over each other, and let everything drop. Winthrop stood over them
sternly, he took the pitch-pine from the distracted Rose and lighted the
fire himself. "Now go and put out all those lights," he said; "and bring
in the coffee the moment it's ready."
He had made Margaret sit down in a low easy-chair, still wrapped in her
cloak, and had placed a footstool for her feet; the fire danced and
sparkled, she sat with her head thrown back, her eyes closed.
"Are you warmer?" he asked. "You were chilled through all the way down
the river; every now and then I could feel you shiver."
"It was more fatigue than cold." His voice had roused her, she sat up.
"Oh, I ought to be doing something--trying--"
"You can do no more now; you must have some coffee, and then you must go
to bed. But, in the mean while, I will do everything possible."
"But you don't believe--I don't know _what_ you believe!" She rose.
He put her back in her chair. "I will believe nothing if you will go and
rest--I mean my beliefs shall not interfere with my actions; I will
simply do everything I can--all I should do if I were sure he was lost,
somewhere about here."
She remained where he had placed her. After a while she said, "I was so
certain he was in the swamp!" Her tired eyes, beginning to glisten a
little with tears, had a childlike look as she raised them to his.
Old Rose now came hurrying in with the coffee, its fragrant aroma filled
the room. Winthrop poured it out himself, and made Margaret swallow it,
spoonful by spoonful, until the cup was empty.
"You have a little color now," he said.
She put the cup down, and rose.
"You're going? Yes, go; go to bed, and sleep as long as you can, it must
be near dawn. I will meet you here for a late breakfast at eleven."
She still stood there. "But will you--will you really----"
"Haven't I given you my word?" he said. "Are you afraid that I shall not
be tender enough to him? Don't you comprehend that no matter how much I
may hate him myself, his being your husband protects him perfectly,
because, so long as you persist in continuing so subservient, he could
visit anything else upon you?"
She went out without reply.
He sank into the chair she had left vacant to rest for a moment or two;
he was desperately tired.
When he came back to the room at eleven, she was already there. It was a
dark day, with the same New-England-feeling wind blowing over river and
land; there had been spurts of rain, and he was wet. "Why have you no
fire?" he asked.
"It did not seem cold enough."
"It's not cold, but it's dreary. I don't believe you have slept at all?"
he continued, looking at her. Opening the door, he called Rose, and told
her to light the fire. When the old woman had finished her task--it was
but a touch, and again the magic wood was filling the room with its gay
light and faint sweet odor of the pine--he repeated his question. "I
don't believe you have slept at all?"
"How could I sleep!"
He sat down before the fire. "You are wet. And you must be very tired,"
she went on.
"I am glad you have thought of it--I like sympathy. Yes, I am tired; but
the room is cheery now. Let us breakfast in here?"
"You have found no trace?" Her nervousness showed itself in her tone.
"No."
She went to the door, and gave Rose an order. Then she closed it, and
walked first to one window; then to another.
"Do come and sit down. You wander about like a ghost."
"I will step softly." She began to walk up and down the room with her
light, rather long-paced step. "_You_ are not afraid," she said at last.
"No, I am not afraid; if he were wrecked in mid-ocean, he would make the
whales cook his dinner for him, and see to it, too, that it was a good
one."
"Oh, don't speak in that tone; don't jest about him when we cannot
tell--Here we are safe at home, safe and comfortable, when perhaps he--"
she stopped.
"You are haunted by the most useless terrors. 'Safe,' are we? How 'safe'
were we last night, for his sake too, in that deadly swamp?--how safe
were _you_? And 'comfortable'--I sitting here wet and exhausted, and you
walking up and down, white as a sheet, eating your heart out with
anxiety! 'And home,' did you say? I like that! Pretty place it was to
bring you to--hideous barrack miles from every living thing. Of course
you've made it better, you would make a cave better; he knew you would
do it when he brought you here!"
He changed his bitter tone into a laugh, "Instead of abusing him, I
ought rather to admire him--admire him for his success--he has always
done so entirely as he pleased! If one wishes to be virtuous or heroic,
I don't know that it is the best way; but if one wishes simply to be
comfortable, it most certainly is. You can't philosophize?" he went on,
turning his head to look at her as she continued her walk.
"No, no. Would you mind telling me what you have done?"
"I have three parties out; one has gone up the shore, and one down; the
third is across the river."
"You are very good. For I know you don't believe he is here."
"No, I don't."
"But where, then, can he be?"
"You have asked me that before. This time I will answer that he is
probably where he intended to be when he left here early yesterday
morning--after ridding himself of Eliot and Dodd."
"You think he planned it. But why should he have been so secret about
it? No one could have prevented him from taking a journey if he wished
to take one."
"You would have prevented it; you wouldn't have thought him strong
enough."
"That would not have deterred him."
"You're right, it wouldn't. Probably he didn't care even to explain that
he did not intend to be deterred, Lanse was never fond of explanations."
"I am not at all convinced."
"I didn't expect to convince you. You asked me, and I had to say
something."
After breakfast--she could eat nothing--he said, "I have sent for a
little steamer; it is to take me to all the landings within ten miles of
here. I shall not be back until late, probably; don't sit up." He left
the room.
Fifteen minutes later, he appeared again.
"I was waiting for the steamer down by the water, when I saw the boy who
brings the mail going away; you have had a letter?"
She did not answer. Her hands were empty.
"You heard me coming and concealed it."
"I have nothing to conceal." She rose. "Yes, I have had a letter, Lanse
is on his way to New York; he is taking a journey--for a change."
"You will let me see the letter?"
"Impossible." She was trembling a little, but she faced him inflexibly.
"Margaret, I beg you to let me see it. Show me that you trust me; you
seem never to do that--yet I deserve--Tell me, then, of your own accord,
what he says. If he has left you again, who should help you, care for
you, if not I?"
"You last of all!" She walked away. "Of course now that I know, I am no
longer anxious,--I was foolish to be so anxious. We are very much
obliged to you for all you have done."
"Very well, if you take that tone, let me tell you that I too have had
a letter--Primus has just brought it from East Angels--it was sent
there."
She glanced at him over her shoulder with eyes that looked full of
fear--a fear which he did not stop to analyze.
"It is possible that Lanse has written to me even more plainly than he
has to you," he went on. "At any rate, he tells me that he is going to
Italy--it is the old affair revived--and that he has no present
intention of returning. What he has said in his letter to you, of course
I don't know; but it can hardly be the whole, because he asks me to
'break' it to you. 'Break' it,--he has chosen his messenger well!"
"O my God," said Margaret Harold.
Her words were a prayer. She sank down on her knees beside the sofa, and
buried her face in her clasped arms.