"Yes, I have waited. But it was because I have been trying to--to
arrange something," Margaret answered.
She had taken her hand from the old pillar, she stood erect now, with
the white shawl she was wearing folded closely round her.
"Something nicely calculated to make me suffer more, I suppose; I
haven't been punished enough for speaking as I did."
"It wasn't anything that concerned you."
"That everlasting self-possession of yours, Margaret! Here I come upon
you suddenly; you're not a hard-hearted woman at all, and yet, thanks to
that, you can receive me without a change of expression, you can see all
my trouble and grief, and talk to me about 'arrangements!'"
"You asked me--you accused me--" Her calmness was not as perfect as he
had represented it.
"What are the arrangements?" he said, abruptly.
"Do you think we had better discuss them?"
"We will discuss everything that concerns you. But don't be supposing I
haven't heard; I have seen Aunt Katrina, and forced it out of her, I
know you intend to go back to Lanse--intend to go to-morrow."
She did not reply.
"You don't deny it?"
"No, I don't deny it."
"And the arrangements?"
"I--I had thought of living here."
"Here, at East Angels, you mean? Oh, you wish to bring _him_ here? An
excellent idea; Aunt Katrina would not be separated longer from her dear
boy, and Lanse and his retinue would fit in nicely among all the
comforts and luxuries we have between us collected here. Yes; I see."
There was a quiver for an instant in Margaret's throat, though her face
did not alter. "My only thought was that perhaps it would be more of a
home for me," she answered, looking off over the green open space and
the thicket beyond it.
His hardness softened a little. "Of course it would. You surely cannot
have had the idea of living at Fernandina?"
"That would be as Lanse says."
"You are determined to go back to him?"
"Yes."
He changed his position so that he could have a better view of her face.
"Bring him here, then!" he exclaimed. "Anything is better than to have
you wandering about the world, homeless!"
"You would let me come and see you now and then?" he said, beginning
again. He spoke in what he himself would have called a reasonable tone.
"I could help you in a good many ways; of course, in saying this, you
understand that I agree to accept Lanse--as well as I can."
"You must never come."
"Do you mean that?"
"I mean it unalterably."
"It's because I spoke as I did--this is my punishment. But if I promise
never to speak in that way again?"
"You must not come."
"Tell me just what it is you intend to do--we'll have it out now. Tell
me the whole, you needn't spare."
"After to-day, I wish--I intend--never to see you again--that is, alone.
It is hard that you should make me speak it out in this way."
"Oh--make; you are capable of saying whatever you please without being
made; whatever will do me the most good and hurt me the most--the two
are synonymous in your opinion--that is what you delight in."
She had turned away with bent head.
"You are not as strong as you thought you were; it does hurt you,
Margaret, after all, to say such things to me."
There was an old stone seat, with a high back, near the pillar; she sank
down upon it.
"What you wish is to have me leave you--tire you and vex you no more.
But I cannot go quite yet. I tell you that I will accept Lanse, as well
as I can; I promise never again to open my lips as I did that last day;
and still you are going to shut your door in my face, and keep it shut;
and you assure me it is forever. This is unreasonable--a woman's
unreason. Why shouldn't I come occasionally?--what are you afraid of?
You will be surrounded by all your safeguards, your husband at the head.
But your own will is a safeguard no human power could break; you are
unassailable, taken quite by yourself, Mrs. Lansing Harold."
She did not look up.
"And you wouldn't be able, either, to carry it out--any such system of
blockade," he went on. "Aunt Katrina would send for me; leaving that
aside, Lanse himself would send; Lanse doesn't care a straw what my real
opinion of him may be, so long as he can get some talk, some
entertainment out of me, and it will be more than ever so now that he is
permanently laid up. And if you should tell him of my avowal even, what
would he say? 'Of course you know how to take rubbish of that
sort'--that is what he would say! And he would laugh delightedly to
think of _my_ being caught."
Still she did not move.
He walked off a few paces, then came back. "And here, again, Margaret,
even if you should be able to influence both Aunt Katrina and Lanse
against me, do you think that would prevent my seeing you--I don't mean
constantly, of course, but occasionally? Do you suppose I should obey
your rules--even your wishes? Not the least in the world! I should
always see you, now and then, in some way. I shouldn't make myself a
public annoyance; but--I give you warning--I shall never lose sight of
you as long as I breathe, as long as I am alive."
She stirred at last, she looked up at him.
"Yes, I see you are frightened; you wish to go--escape, go back to the
house and shut yourself up out of my reach, as you usually do. But this
time I'm merciless, I feel that it's my last chance; you cannot go (you
needn't try to pass me) until you have told me why it is that you wish
not to see me again, never again, in spite of the safety, the absolute
unapproachableness of your position."
She sat there, her eyes on his hard, insistent face.
"Why do you make me more wretched than I am?" she asked.
"Because I can't help it! There is a reason, then?"
"Yes." She had bent her head down again.
"I thought so. And I am prepared to hear it," he went on.
His voice had altered so as he brought this out that she looked up.
"What is it you expect to hear?" she asked in a whisper.
"It's a new idea, I admit--something that has just come to me; but it
explains everything--your whole course, conduct, which have been such a
mystery to me. You love Lanse, you have always loved him; that is the
solution! In spite of the insult of his long neglect of you, his second
desertion, you are glad to go back to him; there have been such cases of
miserable infatuation among women, yours is one of them. But you do not
wish _me_ to see the process of your winning him over, or trying to; so
_I_ am to be sent away."
She got up. "And if I should say yes to this, acknowledge it, that would
be the end? You would wish to see me no more?"
"Don't flatter yourself. Nothing of the kind. Recollect, if you please,
that I love you; with me, unfortunately, it's for life. You may be weak
enough--depraved enough, I might almost call it--to adore Lanse,--do you
suppose that makes any difference in my adoring you? Do you think it's a
matter of choice with me, my caring for you as I do? That I enjoy being
mastered in this way by a feeling I can't overcome?"
"I am going to tell you my life," she said, abruptly.
"I know it already.--How beautiful you look!"
"I ought to look hideous." She walked about for a moment or two, and
finally stopped, facing him, behind the old stone seat.
"It will make no difference what you say, I can tell you that now," he
said, warningly.
"I think it will make a difference. You are not cruel."
"Yes, I am."
"I never loved Lanse," she began, hurriedly. "In one way it was not my
fault; I was too young to appreciate what love meant, I was peculiarly
immature in my feelings--I see that now.
"When the blow came, the blow of my discovering--what Lanse has already
told you, I was crushed by it,--I had never known anything of actual
evil.
"He told me to 'take it as a lady should.' I didn't know what he meant.
"I had no mother to go to. I felt even then that Aunt Katrina wouldn't
be kind. In the overthrow of everything, the best I could think of to do
was to hold on to one or two ideas that were left--that seemed to me
right, and one of these was silence; I determined to tell nobody what
had really happened; I would be loyal to my husband, as far as I could
be, no matter what my husband was to me.
"So I went back to Aunt Katrina (as Lanse preferred). And I told
nothing.
"I have no doubt I appeared cold enough. In the beginning there _was_ a
good deal of coldness, though there was always suffering underneath; but
later it wasn't coldness, it was the constant effort to hide--I had
thought my life difficult. But I had yet to learn that there was
something more difficult still. I had not loved Lanse--no; but now I was
finding out what love meant, for--for I began to love--you."
Winthrop started, the color rushed up and covered his face in a flood;
in his eyes shone the transforming light of a happiness which had never
been there before. For this man, in spite of his successes, had never
attained much positive happiness for himself in life; Lanse, Lucian,
many another idler, attained more. Happiness is an inconsistent goddess,
by no means has she always a crown for strenuous effort; very often she
seems to dwell longest with those who do not think beyond the morrow;
there she sits and basks. However, she had come to Winthrop now, and
royally, bringing him that which he cared the most for. He thanked her
by his glowing face, his ardent eyes.
"It's nothing to be glad about," Margaret had said, quickly, when she
saw the change in his face. "I tell you because I cannot endure that you
should believe of me what you thought--about Lanse. And also because I
am weak--yes, I confess it. You said you intended to see me, follow me;
but now that you know how it is with me, you won't do that."
Winthrop's face remained triumphant. "Odd reasoning, Margaret."
"The best reasoning. So long as it was only you, you could do as you
pleased. But now that you know that--that others will suffer too--" She
paused. "I am sure I have not trusted you in vain?" she said,
appealingly.
But he shook his head, the triumph still animated him. "You can trust me
in one way; I won't take advantage, that is, not now. But you needn't
try to make me think, Margaret, that it's not something to be glad
about--to know that you care for me." He laughed a little from his sheer
satisfaction; then, in his old way, he put his hands compactly down in
the pockets of his coat, and stood there looking at her.
"Is it anything to be glad about--my wretchedness?" she asked,
strengthening herself for the contest.
"It makes you wretched? Strange!"
"I am so wretched--I have been wretched so long--that only my firm
belief that my Creator knows best has enabled me to live on, has kept me
from ending it."
"Why should you be more unhappy than I am? Nothing could make _me_ end
my life now."
She looked at him in silence.
"If you look at me in that way--" Winthrop began.
She left her place. He stood where he was, watching her, but he was not
paying much heed to what she was saying, now. He had the great fact,
man-like, he was enjoying it; it was enough for the present--after all
these years.
She seemed to see how little impression she had made. She came back to
the old stone a second time to complete her story. "I tried so hard--I
was so glad when I saw how you disliked me," she began.
"It wasn't dislike."
"I thought it was; and I was miserably glad. What did I take charge of
Garda for but because I thought you loved her? That should be my
penance, she should be like my own sister, and I would do everything
that I possibly could for her, for her sake and yours. She was so very
beautiful--"
He interposed here. "Yes, she was beautiful; but beautiful for
everybody. Your beauty is dearer, because it is kept, in its fullest
sweetness, for the man you love."
But no blush rose in her face, she was too unhappy for that; she was
absorbed, too, in trying to reach him, to touch him, so that he would
see what must be, as she saw it. "I did all I could for her," she went
on, earnestly--"you know I did; I tried to influence her, I tried to
love her; and I did love her. I was sure, too, that she cared for you--"
"It isn't everybody, you must remember, that has your opinion of me,"
interrupted her listener, delightedly.
"But she herself had told me--Garda had told me that she---- However, I
begin to think that I have never comprehended Garda."
"Don't try."
"I love her all the same. That afternoon when she was on her way to
Madam Giron's to see Lucian, and I took her place, it seemed to me that
day that an opportunity had been given to me to complete my penance to
the full, and crush out my own miserable folly. I could save her in your
eyes, and I could lose myself; for, after that, you could have, of
course, only contempt for me. I believed that you loved her, I didn't
see how you could help it (I don't see very well even now). And I
believed, too, that under all her fancies, her real affection was yours;
or would come back to you."
"All wrong, Margaret, the whole of it. Overstrained, exaggerated."
"It may be so, I was very unhappy, I had brooded over everything so
long. Next, Lanse came back. And that was a godsend."
"Godsend!" said Winthrop, his face darkening.
"Yes. It took me away from you."
"To him."
"You have never understood--I was only the house-keeper--he wished to be
made comfortable, that was all. It was a great deal better for me
there."
"Was it, indeed; you looked so well and happy all that time!" His
joyousness was gone now; anger had come again into his eyes.
"I could not be happy, how could I be? But at least I was safe. Then he
left me that second time. And you were there; that was the hardest of
all."
"You bore it well! I remember I found it impossible to get a word with
you. The truth is, Margaret, I have never known you to falter, you are
not faltering in the least even now. I can't quite believe, therefore,
that you care for me as you say you do; you certainly don't care as I
care for you, perhaps you can't. But the little you do give me is
precious; for even that, small as it is, will keep you from going back
to Lanse Harold."
"Keep me from going back? What do you suppose I have told you this for?
Don't you see that it is exactly this--my feeling for _you_--that sends
me, drives me back to him? On what plea, now, could I refuse to go? The
pretense of unhappiness, of having been wronged?" She paused. Then
rushed on again. "The law--of separation, I mean--is founded upon the
idea that a wife is outraged, insulted, by her husband's desertion; but
in my case Lanse's entire indifference to me, his estrangement--these
have been the most precious possessions I have had! If at any time since
almost the first moment I met you he _had_ come back and asked for
reconciliation, promised to be after that the most faithful of husbands,
what would have become of me? what should I have said? But he did not
ask--he does not now; I can only be profoundly grateful."
"Yes, compare yourself with a man of that sort--do; it's so just!"
"It is perfectly just. I am a woman, surrounded by all a woman's
cowardice and nervousness and fear of being talked about; and he is a
man, and not afraid; but at heart--at _heart_--how much better am I than
he? You do not know--" She stopped. "I consider it a great part of my
offense against my husband that I have never loved him," she added.
"The old story! Go on now and tell me that if you had loved him, he
himself would have been better."
"No, that I cannot tell you; even if I had cared for him, I might have
had no influence." She spoke with humility.
"Lanse knew perfectly that I did not love him, he knew it when I
didn't," she went on. "And I really think--yes, I must say it--that if I
had cared for him even slightly, he would have been more guarded, would
have concealed more, spared me more; in little things, Lanse is kind.
But he knew that I shouldn't suffer, in that way at least. And it was
quite true; my real suffering--the worst suffering--has not come from
him at all; it has come from you. At first I had plans--I was too young
to give up all hope of something brighter some time. But my plans soon
came to an end; when I knew--discovered--that I was beginning to care
for you, all my hope turned to keeping in the one straight track that
lay before me. I did not think I should fail--"
"I can well believe that!" he interrupted.
"Oh, do not be harsh to me! you do not know--You think my will is
strong. But oh! it isn't--it isn't. When Lanse left me that second time,
and you were there with me, I knew then that there was nothing for it
but to go as far away from you as possible, and to go instantly;
anything less, no matter how I should disguise it, would be staying
because I wished to stay. And I did try to go; I would not enter that
hotel when I saw you on the shore--I went back to the empty house. I
dared not stay then. I _will_ not now."
"You do well to change the terms," he answered, with unsparing
bitterness, "it's nothing but will to-day, whatever it may once have
been. I don't believe about your not daring; I don't, in fact,
believe--that is, fully--anything you have said."
"Why, then, should I stay here talking longer?" She left the place and
entered the orange grove, which she was obliged to pass through on her
way to the house.
But he overtook her, he stepped in front and barred the way. "You have
been remarkably skilful. I demanded an explanation, I was evidently
going to make trouble. So you gave me this one: you said that you had,
unfortunately for yourself, begun to love me, that was the explanation
of everything; you threw me this to stop me, like a bone to a dog, so
that you could get comfortably away. But I have this to tell you: if you
had really loved me, you couldn't have argued quite so well! And you
couldn't go now, either, so self-complacently, leaving me here in my
pain."
"So be it," she said. She looked through the blossoming aisles to the
right, to the left, as if in search of some rescuer, some one.
"But what does a woman like you know of love, after all--real love?" he
went on, with angry scorn. "As a general thing, the better she is, the
less she knows. And I have never denied that you were good, Margaret."
She moved to pass him.
"Not yet. You have reasoned the whole case out too well, there was
rather too much reason; a lawyer couldn't have done it better."
"I have had time to think of the reasons. How often each day do you
suppose I have gone over everything--over and over? And how many days
have there been in these long years?"
"It isn't the time. It's your nature."
"Very well. It's my nature."
"But you needn't suppose that your having that nature will stop me," he
said, with a certain violence of tone roused by her agreement with these
accusations. "You have confessed to some sort of liking for me, I shall
take advantage of it as far as it goes (not far, I fear); I shall make
it serve as the foundation of all I shall constantly attempt to do."
Her arms dropped by her sides. "Constantly? I believe there is nothing
in the world so cruel as a man when he pretends to care for you." She
moved off a step or two. "I do not love you, you say? I adore you. From
almost the first day I saw you--yes, even from then. It is the one love
of my life, and remember I am not a girl, it's a woman who tells you
this--to her misery. And it is everything about you that I love--that
makes it harder; not only what you say and how you say it, what you
think and do, but what you _are_--oh! what you are in everything. The
way you look at me, the tone of your voice, the turn of your head, your
eyes, your hands--I love them, I love them all. I suffer every moment,
it has been so for years. I am so miserable away from you, so desperate
and lonely! And yet when I am with you, that is harder. Whichever way I
turn, there is nothing but pain, it is so torturing that I wonder how I
can have lived! Yet would I give it up? Never."
The splendor of her eyes, as she poured forth these words, her rapt
expression, the slight figure, erect and tense--he could no more have
dared to touch her then than he could have touched a shining seraph that
had lighted for an instant in his path.
Her eyes suddenly changed. "When I have hurt you," she went on, "it has
been _so_ hard to do it--so hard!" She was the woman now; a mist had
suffused the blue.
He came towards her, he sank down at her feet. "I am not worthy," he
murmured, in real self-abasement.
"No, you are not. But--I love you."
He sprang up. "I _will_ be worthy. You shall do all you think right, and
I--will help you."
"Yes, help me by leaving me."
"For the present--I will go."
"For always."
"Margaret, do not be hard. And now, when I know--"
"You _do_ believe me, then?" she interrupted, with winning sweetness.
"Yes, I believe you! It makes me tremble to think what it would be if we
were married; they _say_ people do not die of joy."
She came out of her trance. Her face changed, apprehension returned--the
old fear and pain. She rallied her sinking courage. "We will not talk of
things that do not concern us," she said, gently. "All my life--that is,
the peace of it--is in your power, Evert, now that you know the truth
about me. But I am sure I have not put faith in you in vain."
"Don't you remember saying to me 'Do you wish me to die without ever
having been my full self once?' So now I say to you, Margaret, do you
wish to die without ever having lived? You have never lived yet with
anything like a full completeness. I am not a bad man, I declare it to
you, and you are the most unselfish of women; you have a husband who has
no claim upon you, either in right or law; Margaret, let us break that
false tie. And then!--see, I do not move a step nearer. But I put it
before you--I plead--"
"And do you think I have not felt the temptation too?" she murmured,
looking at him. "When Lanse left me, over there on the river, don't you
remember that I went down on my knees? It was the beating of my heart at
the thought of how easily after that I could be freed--freed, I mean, by
law--that was what I was trying to pray down. To be free to think of
you, though you should never know it, even that would have been like a
new life to me."
"Take it now," said Winthrop. He grasped her hand.
But she drew it from him. "Surely you know what I believe, what all this
means to me--that for such mistakes as a marriage like mine there is, on
this earth at least, no remedy."
"We'll _make_ a remedy."
Again she strengthened herself against him. "Do you think that a
separation--I will use plain words, a divorce--is right when it is
obtained, no matter what the outside pretext, to enable two persons who
have loved each other unlawfully to marry?"
"Unlawfully--you make me rage! _Lanse_ is the unlawful one."
"That doesn't excuse me."
"Don't put the word excuse anywhere near yourself when you are talking
of Lanse; I won't bear it. And nothing is wrong that we cannot possibly
help, Margaret; any one would tell you that. If it is something beyond
our wills, we are powerless."
"Against my love for you I may be powerless--I am. But not against the
indulgence of it."
"You are too strong," he began, "_I_ couldn't pretend--" then he saw how
she was trembling.
From head to foot a quiver had seized her, the lovely shoulders, the
long lithe length of limb which gave her the step he had always admired
so much, the little hands, though she had folded them closely as if
endeavoring to stop it, even the lips with their sweet curves--the
tremor had taken them all from her control; she stood there helpless
before him.
"I can't reason, Margaret, and I won't; in this case reason's wrong, and
you're wrong. You love me--that I know. And the power for good of such a
love as yours--you magnificent woman, not afraid to tell it--that power
shall _not_ be wasted and lost. Have you I will!" It was more than a
touch now; he held her white wrists with a grasp like iron, and drew
her towards him. "I hold you so, but it won't be for long. In reality I
am at your feet," he said.
She had not struggled, she made no effort to free herself. But her eyes
met his, full of an indomitable refusal. "I shall never yield," she
murmured.
Thus they stood for a moment, the two wills grappled in a mute contest.
Then he let her hands drop.
"Useless!" she said, triumphing sadly.
"Though you love me."
"Though I love you."
"It's enough to make a man curse goodness, Margaret; remember that."
"No, no."
"Oh, these good people!" He threw his arm out unconsciously with a force
that would have laid prostrate any one within its reach. "You are an
exception--you are going to suffer; but generally these good people, who
are so hard in their judgment of such things,--they have never suffered
themselves in the least from any of this pain; they have had all they
wish--in the way of love and home, and yet they are always the hardest
upon those who, like me, like you, have nothing--who are parched and
lonely and starved. They would never do so--oh no! they are too good.
All I can say is, let them try it! Margaret"--here he came back to
her--"think of the dreariness of it; leaving everything else aside, just
think of that. We are excited now; but, when this is over, think of the
long days and years without anything to brighten them, anything we
really care for. That breaks down the best courage at last, to have
nothing one really cares for."
She did not answer.
"I could make you so happy!" he pleaded.
Her face remained unmoved.
"I long for you so!" he went on; "without you, I don't know where to
turn or what to do." He said it as simply as a boy.
This overcame her; she left him, and hurried through the grove on her
way to the house, he could hear her sob as she went.
Dr. Kirby's figure had appeared at the end of one of the orange aisles;
when he saw Margaret hurrying onward, he hastened his steps. Winthrop
had now overtaken her, her foot had slipped and he had caught her. Both
her hands were over her face, her strength was gone.
The Doctor came panting up. "My dear Mrs. Harold--" he began.
But she seemed to hear nothing.
The Doctor put his hand on her pulse. "Will you go to the house for help
to carry her in?" he whispered. "Or shall I?"
"I can carry her myself," said Winthrop. He lifted her. Unconsciousness
had come upon her, her head with the closed eyes, her fair cheek, the
soft mass of her hair lay against his shoulder.
The Doctor went on with them for some distance; he was not sure that
Winthrop's strength would hold out.
But Winthrop's strength appeared to be perfect.
"I will hurry forward then, and warn them," said the Doctor. And he set
off at a round pace.
Winthrop walked steadily; at last he reached the end of the
white-blooming fragrant aisles, the path entered a thicket that lay
beyond.
The fresher unperfumed air brought Margaret to herself. She stirred,
then her eyes opened; they rested uncomprehendingly on his face.
Beyond this thicket lay the garden, where they would be in full view; he
was human, and he stopped. "You fainted. The perfume of the grove, I
suppose," he said, explaining.
Then everything came back to her, he could see remembrance dawn in her
eyes, her fear return.
She tried to put her hand up. But it fell lifelessly back.
This sign of weakness struck him to the heart,--what if she should die!
Women so slight in frame, and with that fair, pure whiteness like the
inside of a sea-shell, were often strangely, inexplicably delicate.
Her eyes had closed again. He held her closely; but now, save for the
holding, he would not touch her. For it seemed to him that if he should
allow himself to yield to his longing wish and put his lips down upon
hers, she might die there, after a moment, in his arms. It would be
taking advantage; in her present state of physical weakness her will
might not be able to help her as it had helped her before; she was
powerless to resist, and she loved him,--oh yes, he knew it fully now,
she loved him. But as soon as she should become conscious that she had
yielded, then the reaction would come. Between her love and her sense of
duty, this proud will of hers had held the balance. It seemed to him
that if he should break down by force that balance, her life might go as
well.
He went on therefore, he bore her through the garden towards the house.
Her face in its stillness had now an expression that frightened him, it
was like the lassitude of a person who has struggled to the utmost, and
then given up.
The Doctor and Celestine were waiting at the lower door.
Winthrop refused their aid, he carried Margaret up the stairs to her own
room, and laid her down upon the bed.
"I will wait below, Doctor. Come and tell me, please, what you make
out."
The Doctor had divined a good deal during this last quarter of an hour,
in this stricken woman, this abruptly speaking man, he felt the close
presence of something he fully believed in, old though he
was--overwhelming love; placed as they were, it could bring only
unhappiness. He had no confidence whatever in Winthrop, simply because
he was a man. In such situations men were selfish (he himself should
have been no better); of course at the time they did not call it
selfishness, they called it devotion. But in Margaret his confidence was
absolute. And it was with a deep, tender pity for her, for all she had
still to go through, that he now bent over her.
Winthrop had gone down-stairs; he paced to and fro in the stone-flagged
hall below. The door stood open, the deep soft blue of the Florida sky
filled the square frame. "If only she doesn't die!" This was the
paralyzing dread that held him like a suffocation. He kept thinking how
like a dead person she had looked as he laid her down. "If she comes
to,--revives, I will go away, and stay away." In his fear, he could
consent to anything.
The Doctor came down after a while. They were two men together, so their
words were few; they were just enough to answer the purpose. "I think I
can assure you that she will come out of it safely," the Doctor said.
"She seems unaccountably weak, she will have to keep her bed for a
while; but I am almost positive that it is not going to be one of those
long illnesses which sometimes follow attacks of this sort."
"But at best it's rather serious, isn't it?" Winthrop asked.
The Doctor looked at him. "Yes," he answered, gravely.
"If you would let me know from time to time? This is my New York
address. It will be more satisfactory to hear directly from you. You can
tell her I have gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes; back to New York."
"Oh," said Reginald Kirby. Then, "Ah," he added, this time with the
accepting falling inflection.
Winthrop was behaving much better than he had thought he would. All the
same, it was now the part of every one to speed him on his way. "I will
write with great regularity," he said, extending his hand in good-by. "I
will write three times a week," he added, with heartiness; he wanted to
do something for the man, and this was all he could do.
He returned to his patient. Winthrop went out to order the horses.
He came back while the negroes were making ready. The lower door still
stood open, the house was very quiet; he stole up-stairs and listened
for a moment near Margaret's room. There was no sound within; he had the
man's usual fear--non-comprehension--of a woman's illness. "Why are they
so quiet in there?" he thought; "why don't they speak? _What_ are they
doing to her?"
But there was a very good reason for the stillness; the Doctor had given
Margaret a powerful sedative, and he and Celestine were waiting for the
full effect.
Winthrop at length left the door; he realized that this was not a good
beginning in the carrying out of his promise to himself.
As he passed down the hall on his way to the stairs he happened to have
a glimpse into a room whose door stood partly open; here, ranged in
order, locked and ready, were Margaret's trunks, prepared for the
journey to Fernandina.
Well, if he was to get away at all, he must go at once!