THE TERROR OF A GREAT FEAR.
Long before Harcourt reached his law-office, he was satisfied that
he had blundered foolishly, and done Miss Martell great injustice. Her
right to refuse his unwelcome love was perfect, and her manner of
doing so, as he understood her, had been most delicate, even in his
estimation. At the same time she had never given him the slightest
ground for his implied aspersion that in her pure, Christian life
she shone down upon him with the cold distance of a "star."
He recalled her words and bearing in Mrs. Byram's conservatory, and
the degree in which his unreasonable passion had blinded him grew
more apparent.
"Why should I expect her to love me?" he asked himself in bitterness.
"It is a hundred-fold more than I deserve, or had a right to hope,
that she should put out her hand to save me."
He was on the point of returning twenty times, and asking her
pardon for his folly, but that bane of our life,--that hinderance
to more good and happiness than perhaps any other one cause,--pride,
deterred, and Monday evening passed, an unhappy one to the object
of his thoughts as well as to himself.
On Tuesday pride was vanquished, and as soon as his business permitted
he repaired to the Martell mansion, eager to ask forgiveness. To his
deep disappointment, he learned that Mr. Martell and his daughter
had driven up to town, crossed on the ferry-boat, and were paying
some visits on the other side of the river.
He now purposed to call again as soon as they returned, but was
unexpectedly detained until quite late in the evening. He approached
the familiar place that now enshrined, to him, the jewel of the
world, in both a humble and an heroic mood. He would not presume
again, but in silence live worthily of his love for one so lovely.
He would be more than content--yes, grateful--if she would deign
to help him climb toward her moral height.
As he stood on the piazza, after ringing the door-bell, he was in
greater trepidation than when he had made his first plea in court,
and was so intent in trying to frame his thoughts into appropriate
language that he did not note for the moment that no one answered.
Again he rang, but there was no response. There were lights in the
house, and he knocked upon the door quite loudly. A housemaid soon
after appeared, with a scared and anxious face.
"Is Miss Martell at home?" he asked, a sudden boding of evil chilling
his heart.
"Indade an' she is not. Would to God she was!"
"What do you mean?"
"Faix, an' I'm sure I'm glad ye's come, Misther Harcourt. The
coachman is down at the shore, and he'll tell ye all."
Harcourt dashed through the snow and shrubbery, over rocks and
down steeps that gave him one or two severe falls, that he might,
the nearest way, reach Mr. Martell's boat-house. Here he found the
coachman peering out upon the dark waters, and occasionally uttering
a hoarse, feeble shout, which could scarcely be heard above the
surf that beat with increasing heaviness upon the icy beach.
The man seemed nearly exhausted with cold and anxiety, and was
overjoyed at seeing Harcourt; but he told the young man a story
which filled him with deepest alarm. It was to this effect:
Mr. and Miss Martell had been delayed in leaving a friend's house
on the opposite side of the river until it was too late to reach
the boat on which it was their intention to cross. They had been
prevailed upon by their hospitable host to send their sleigh up
to a later boat, while they remained for an early supper, and then
should cross in a boat rowed by an experienced oarsman, who was a
tenant on the gentleman's place.
"It was quite a bit after dark when I got back, but Mr. Martell
and the young lady hadn't come over yet. I first thought they was
goin' to stay all night, and that I should go arter them in the
mornin'; but the woman as sews says how she was sittin' at one of
the upper winders, and how she sees, just afore night, a light push
out from t'other side and come straight across for a long while,
and then turn and go down stream. I'm afeard they've caught in the
ice."
"But what became of the light?" asked Harcourt, half desperate with
fear and anxiety.
"Well, the woman as sews says it went down and down as long as she
could see."
A faint scream from the house now arrested their attention, and
hastening up the bank they heard the servants crying from the upper
windows of the mansion, "There it comes! there it comes again!"
Harcourt rushed to the second story of the house. A door leading
into an apartment facing the river was open, and without a thought
he entered and threw open the blinds. Away to the south, where the
river enters the Highlands, he saw a faint light, evidently that
of the lantern carried in the boat. Familiar with the river, the
whole state of things flashed upon him. In the last of the ebb tide
their boat had become entangled in the ice, but had been carried
down no very great distance. Now that the tide had turned, it was
coming back, with the mass of ice in which it had become wedged.
And could that faint glimmer indicate the presence of the one who
never before had been so dear? Could Miss Martell, the child of
luxury, so beautiful and yet so frail and delicate, be out in the
darkness and cold of this winter night, perishing perhaps, with
the lights of this her elegant home full in view?
Then, for the first time, he recognized that the room he was in
must be Miss Martell's sleeping apartment. Though the light was
low and soft, it revealed an exquisite casket, in keeping with the
jewel it had once held, but might no more enshrine. On every side
were the evidences of a refined but Christian taste, and also
a certain dainty beauty that seemed a part of the maiden herself,
she having given to the room something of her own individuality.
It would be hard to describe Harcourt's sensation as a hasty glance
revealed the character of the place. He felt somewhat as a devout
Greek might, had he stumbled into the sacred grotto of his most
revered goddess.
But this thought was uppermost in his mind,--"Here is where she
should be; yonder--terrible thought--is where she is. What can I
do?"
Again he dashed back to the shore, calling the coachman to follow
him. When the man reached the water's edge, he found that Harcourt
had broken open the boat-house, and was endeavoring to get out the
boat.
"Ye'll gain nothing there, wid that big boat," said the coachman.
"The master has been away so long that it's all out o' order. The
water can get in it as soon as yerself. The young lady's little
scollop--the one as is called Naughty Tillus--is sent away for the
winter."
"Stop your cursed croaking," cried Harcourt, excitedly, "and help
me out with this boat. If I can't save her, I can at least drown
with her."
"Divil a lift will I give ye. It will do the master and young lady
no good, and I'll not have your drownding on my conscience."
Harcourt soon found that he could not manage the large boat alone,
and the matches he struck to guide him revealed that the man had
spoken truly, and that the craft was in no condition for the service
he proposed.
"Great God!" he cried, "is there no way to save her?"
He sprang upon the boat-house, and there, away to the south, was
the dim light coming steadily up the stream. The moon had not yet
risen; the sky was overcast with wildly flying clouds; the wind
was rising, and would drive and grind the ice more fiercely. It
was just the night for a tragedy, and he felt that if he saw that
light disappear, as a sign that the boat had been crushed and its
occupants swallowed up by the wintry tide, the saddest tragedy of
the world would have taken place.
He groaned and clenched his hands in his impotent anguish.
"O God!" he cried, "what can I do to save her."
He clasped his throbbing temples, and tried to think. It soon occurred
to him that Mrs. Marchmont's boat might be in better condition.
Hemstead was strong and brave, and would assuredly join him in the
effort to rescue them. Without a word he rushed up the bank, sprang
into his cutter, gave his spirited horse a cut from the whip, which
caused him at once to spring into a mad gallop, and so vanished
from the eyes of the bewildered and terrified servants, who were
left alone to their increasing fears.
"Save her,--save her," muttered the coachman, as, stiff and numb
with cold, he followed Harcourt more slowly to the house. "It's
kind o' queer how he forgits about the old man."