“Belle Worthington’ll be here before we know it; her and her husband

and that Lucilla of hers. David knows how Belle Worthington is, just

as well as I do; there’s no use saying he don’t. If she was to see a

speck of dirt in this house or on David’s clothes, or anything, why

we’d never hear the last of it. I got a letter from her,” she

continued, letting the coat fall to the floor, whilst she endeavored

to find her pocket.

“Is she coming to visit you?” asked Thérèse who had taken up a feather

brush, and was dusting and replacing the various ornaments that were

scattered through the room.

“She’s going down to Muddy Graw (Mardi-Gras) her and her husband and

Lucilla and she’s going to stop here a while. I had that letter--I

guess I must of left it in the other room.”

“Never mind,” Thérèse hastened to say, seeing that her whole energies

were centered on finding the letter.

“Let me look,” said Hosmer, making a movement towards the bedroom

door, but Fanny had arisen and holding out a hand to detain him she

went into the room herself, saying she knew where she’d left it.

“Is this the reason you’ve kept yourself shut up here in the house so

often?” Thérèse asked of Hosmer, drawing near him. “Never telling me a

word of it,” she went on, “it wasn’t right; it wasn’t kind.”

“Why should I have put any extra burden on you?” he answered, looking

down at her, and feeling a joy in her presence there, that seemed like

a guilty indulgence in face of his domestic shame.

“Don’t stay,” Thérèse said. “Leave me here. Go to your office or over

to the house--leave me alone with her.”

Fanny returned, having found the letter, and spoke with increased

vehemence of the necessity of having the house in perfect trim against

the arrival of Belle Worthington, from whom they would never hear the

last, and so forth.

“Well, your husband is going out, and that will give us a chance to

get things righted,” said Thérèse encouragingly. “You know men are

always in the way at such times.”

“It’s what he ought to done before; and left Suze and Minervy here,”

she replied with grudging acquiescence.

After repeated visits to the bedroom, under various pretexts, Fanny

grew utterly incapable to do more than sit and gaze stupidly at

Thérèse, who busied herself in bringing the confusion of the

sitting-room into some order.

She continued to talk disjointedly of Belle Worthington and her well

known tyrannical characteristics in regard to cleanliness; finishing

by weeping mildly at the prospect of her own inability to ever reach

the high standard required by her exacting friend.

It was far in the afternoon--verging upon night, when Thérèse

succeeded in persuading her that she was ill and should go to bed. She

gladly seized upon the suggestion of illness; assuring Thérèse that

she alone had guessed her affliction: that whatever was thought

singular in her behavior must be explained by that sickness which was

past being guessed at--then she went to bed.

It was late when Hosmer left his office; a rough temporary shanty, put

together near the ruined mill.

He started out slowly on his long cold ride. His physical malaise of

the morning had augmented as the day went on, and he was beginning to

admit to himself that he was “in for it.”

But the cheerless ride was lightened by a picture that had been with

him through the afternoon, and that moved him in his whole being, as

the moment approached when it might be changed to reality. He knew

Fanny’s habits; knew that she would be sleeping now. Thérèse would not

leave her there alone in the house--of that he was sure. And he

pictured Thérèse at this moment seated at his fire-side. He would find

her there when he entered. His heart beat tumultuously at the thought.

It was a very weak moment with him, possibly, one in which his

unnerved condition stood for some account. But he felt that when he

saw her there, waiting for him, he would cast himself at her feet and

kiss them. He would crush her white hands against his bosom. He would

bury his face in her silken hair. She should know how strong his love

was, and he would hold her in his arms till she yield back tenderness

to his own. But--Thérèse met him on the steps. As he was mounting

them, she was descending; wrapped in her long cloak, her pretty head

covered by the dark hood.

“Oh, are you going?” he asked.

She heard the note of entreaty in his voice.

“Yes,” she answered, “I shouldn’t have left her before you came; but I

knew you were here; I heard your horse’s tread a moment ago. She’s

asleep. Good night. Take courage and have a brave heart,” she said,

pressing his hand a moment in both hers, and was gone.

The room was as he had pictured it; order restored and the fire

blazing brightly. On the table was a pot of hot tea and a tempting

little supper laid. But he pushed it all aside and buried his face

down upon the table into his folded arms, groaning aloud. Physical

suffering; thwarted love, and at the same time a feeling of

self-condemnation, made him wish that life were ended for him.

Fanny awoke close upon morning, not knowing what had aroused her. She

was for a little while all bewildered and unable to collect herself.

She soon learned the cause of her disturbance. Hosmer was tossing

about and his outstretched arm lay across her face, where it had

evidently been flung with some violence. She took his hand to move it

away, and it burned her like a coal of fire. As she touched him he

started and began to talk incoherently. He evidently fancied himself

dictating a letter to some insurance company, in no pleased terms--of

which Fanny caught but snatches. Then:

“That’s too much, Mrs. Lafirme; too much--too much--Don’t let Grégoire

burn--take him from the fire, some one. Thirty day’s credit--shipment

made on tenth,” he rambled on at intervals in his troubled sleep.

Fanny trembled with apprehension as she heard him. Surely he has brain

fever she thought, and she laid her hand gently on his burning

forehead. He covered it with his own, muttering “Thérèse, Thérèse--so

good--let me love you.”

X

Perplexing Things.

“Lucilla!”

The pale, drooping girl started guiltily at her mother’s sharp

exclamation, and made an effort to throw back her shoulders. Then she

bit her nails nervously, but soon desisted, remembering that that

also, as well as yielding to a relaxed tendency of the spinal column,

was a forbidden indulgence.

“Put on your hat and go on out and get a breath of fresh air; you’re

as white as milk-man’s cream.”

Lucilla rose and obeyed her mother’s order with the precision of a

soldier, following the directions of his commander.

“How submissive and gentle your daughter is,” remarked Thérèse.

“Well, she’s got to be, and she knows it. Why, I haven’t got to do

more than look at that girl most times for her to understand what I

want. You didn’t notice, did you, how she straightened up when I

called ‘Lucilla’ to her? She knows by the tone of my voice what she’s

got to do.”

“Most mothers can’t boast of having such power over their daughters.”

“Well, I’m not the woman to stand any shenanigans from a child of

mine. I could name you dead loads of women that are just completely

walked over by their children. It’s a blessing that boy of Fanny’s

died, between you and I; its what I’ve always said. Why, Mrs. Laferm,

she couldn’t any more look after a youngster than she could after a

baby elephant. By the by, what do you guess is the matter with her,

any way?”

“How, the matter?” Thérèse asked; the too ready blood flushing her

face and neck as she laid down her work and looked up at Mrs.

Worthington.

“Why, she’s acting mighty queer, that’s all I can say for her.”

“I haven’t been able to see her for some time,” Thérèse returned,

going back to her sewing, “but I suppose she got a little upset and

nervous over her husband; he had a few days of very serious illness

before you came.”

“Oh, I’ve seen her in all sorts of states and conditions, and I’ve

never seen her like that before. Why, she does nothing in the God’s

world but whine and sniffle, and wish she was dead; it’s enough to

give a person the horrors. She can’t make out she’s sick; I never saw

her look better in my life. She must of gained ten pounds since she

come down here.”

“Yes,” said Thérèse, “she was looking so well, and--and I thought

everything was going well with her too, but--” and she hesitated to go

on.

“Oh, I know what you want to say. You can’t help that. No use

bothering your brains about that--now you just take my advice,”

exclaimed Mrs. Worthington brusquely.

Then she laughed so loud and suddenly that Thérèse, being already

nervous, pricked her finger with her needle till the blood came; a

mishap which decided her to lay aside her work.

“If you never saw a fish out of water, Mrs. Laferm, do take a peep at

Mr. Worthington astride that horse; it’s enough to make a cat expire!”

Mrs. Worthington was on the whole rather inclined to take her husband

seriously. As often as he might excite her disapproval, it was seldom

that he aroused her mirth. So it may be gathered that his appearance

in this unfamiliar rôle of horseman was of the most mirth-provoking.

He and Hosmer were dismounting at the cottage, which decided Mrs.

Worthington to go and look after them; Fanny for the time being--in

her opinion--not having “the gumption to look after a sick kitten.”

“This is what I call solid comfort,” she said looking around the well

appointed sitting-room, before quitting it.

“You ought to be a mighty happy woman, Mrs. Laferm; only I’d think

you’d die of lonesomeness, sometimes.”

Thérèse laughed, and told her not to forget that she expected them all

over in the evening.

“You can depend on me; and I’ll do my best to drag Fanny over;

so-long.”

When left alone, Thérèse at once relapsed into the gloomy train of

reflections that had occupied her since the day she had seen with her

bodily eyes something of the wretched life that she had brought upon

the man she loved. And yet that wretchedness in its refinement of

cruelty and immorality she could not guess and was never to know.

Still, she had seen enough to cause her to ask herself with a shudder

“was I right--was I right?”

She had always thought this lesson of right and wrong a very plain

one. So easy of interpretation that the simplest minded might solve it

if they would. And here had come for the first time in her life a

staggering doubt as to its nature. She did not suspect that she was

submitting one of those knotty problems to her unpracticed judgment

that philosophers and theologians delight in disagreeing upon, and her

inability to unravel it staggered her. She tried to convince herself

that a very insistent sting of remorse which she felt, came from

selfishness--from the pain that her own heart suffered in the

knowledge of Hosmer’s unhappiness. She was not callous enough to quiet

her soul with the balm of having intended the best. She continued to

ask herself only “was I right?” and it was by the answer to that

question that she would abide, whether in the stony content of

accomplished righteousness, or in an enduring remorse that pointed to

a goal in whose labyrinthine possibilities her soul lost itself and

fainted away.

Lucilla went out to get a breath of fresh air as her mother had

commanded, but she did not go far to seek it. Not further than the end

of the back veranda, where she stood for some time motionless, before

beginning to occupy herself in a way which Aunt Belindy, who was

watching her from the kitchen window, considered highly problematical.

The negress was wiping a dish and giving it a fine polish in her

absence of mind. When her curiosity could no longer contain itself she

called out:

“W’ats dat you’se doin’ dah, you li’le gal? Come heah an’ le’ me see.”

Lucilla turned with the startled look which seemed to be usual with

her when addressed.

“Le’ me see,” repeated Aunt Belindy pleasantly.

Lucilla approached the window and handed the woman a small square of

stiff writing paper which was stuck with myriad tiny pin-holes; some

of which she had been making when interrupted by Aunt Belindy.

“W’at in God A’Mighty’s name you call dat ’ar?” the darkey asked

examining the paper critically, as though expecting the riddle would

solve itself before her eyes.

“Those are my acts I’ve been counting,” the girl replied a little

gingerly.

“Yo’ ax? I don’ see nuttin’ ’cep’ a piece o’ papah plum fill up wid

holes. W’at you call ax?”

“Acts--acts. Don’t you know what acts are?”

“How you want me know? I neva ben to no school whar you larn all dat.”

“Why, an act is something you do that you don’t want to do--or

something you don’t want to do, that you do--I mean that you don’t do.

Or if you want to eat something and don’t. Or an aspiration; that’s an

act, too.”

“Go long! W’ats dat--aspiration?”

“Why, to say any kind of little prayer; or if you invoke our Lord, or

our Blessed Lady, or one of the saints, that’s an aspiration. You can

make them just as quick as you can think--you can make hundreds and

hundreds in a day.”

“My Lan’! Dat’s w’at you’se studyin’ ’bout w’en you’se steppin’ ’roun’

heah like a droopy pullet? An’ I t’ought you was studyin’ ’bout dat

beau you lef’ yonda to Sent Lous.”

“You mustn’t say such things to me; I’m going to be a religious.”

“How dat gwine henda you have a beau ef you’se religious?”

“The religious never get married,” turning very red, “and don’t live

in the world like others.”

“Look heah, chile, you t’inks I’se fool? Religion--no religion, whar

you gwine live ef you don’ live in de word? Gwine live up in de moon?”

“You’re a very ignorant person,” replied Lucilla, highly offended. “A

religious devotes her life to God, and lives in the convent.”

“Den w’y you neva said ‘convent’? I knows all ’bout convent. W’at you

gwine do wid dem ax w’en de papah done all fill up?” handing the

singular tablet back to her.

“Oh,” replied Lucilla, “when I have thousands and thousands I gain

twenty-five years’ indulgence.”

“Is dat so?”

“Yes,” said the girl; and divining that Aunt Belindy had not

understood, “twenty-five years that I don’t have to go to purgatory.

You see most people have to spend years and years in purgatory, before

they can get to Heaven.”

“How you know dat?”

If Aunt Belindy had asked Lucilla how she knew that the sun shone, she

could not have answered with more assurance “because I know” as she

turned and walked rather scornfully away.

“W’at dat kine o’ fool talk dey larns gals up yonda tu Sent Lous? An’

huh ma a putty woman; yas, bless me; all dress up fittin’ to kill.

Don’ ’pear like she studyin’ ’bout ax.”

XI

A Social Evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Duplan with their little daughter Ninette, who had

been invited to Place-du-Bois for supper, as well as for the evening,

were seated with Thérèse in the parlor, awaiting the arrival of the

cottage guests. They had left their rather distant plantation, Les

Chênières, early in the afternoon, wishing as usual to make the most

of these visits, which, though infrequent, were always so much

enjoyed.

The room was somewhat altered since that summer day when Thérèse had

sat in its cool shadows, hearing the story of David Hosmer’s life.

Only with such difference, however, as the change of season called

for; imparting to it a rich warmth that invited to sociability and

friendly confidences. In the depths of the great chimney glowed with a

steady and dignified heat, the huge back-log, whose disposal Uncle

Hiram had superintended in person; and the leaping flames from the dry

hickories that surrounded it, lent a very genial light to the

grim-visaged Lafirmes who looked down from their elevation on the

interesting group gathered about the hearth.

Conversation had never once flagged with these good friends; for,

aside from much neighborhood gossip to be told and listened to, there

was the always fertile topic of “crops” to be discussed in all its

bearings, that touched, in its local and restricted sense, the labor

question, cultivation, freight rates, and the city merchant.

With Mrs. Duplan there was a good deal to be said about the unusual

mortality among “Plymouth-Rocks” owing to an alarming prevalence of

“pip,” which malady, however, that lady found to be gradually yielding

to a heroic treatment introduced into her _basse-cour_ by one Coulon,

a piney wood sage of some repute as a mystic healer.

This was a delicate refined little woman, somewhat old-fashioned and

stranded in her incapability to keep pace with the modern conduct of

life; but giving her views with a pretty self-confidence, that showed

her a ruler in her peculiar realm.

The young Ninette had extended herself in an easy chair, in an

attitude of graceful abandonment, the earnest brown eyes looking

eagerly out from under a tangle of auburn hair, and resting with

absorbed admiration upon her father, whose words and movements she

followed with unflagging attentiveness. The fastidious little miss was

clad in a dainty gown that reached scarcely below the knees; revealing

the shapely limbs that were crossed and extended to let the well shod

feet rest upon the polished brass fender.

Thérèse had given what information lay within her range, concerning

the company which was expected. But her confidences had plainly been

insufficient to prepare Mrs. Duplan for the startling effect produced

by Mrs. Worthington on that little woman in her black silk of a

by-gone fashion; so splendid was Mrs. Worthington’s erect and imposing

figure, so blonde her blonde hair, so bright her striking color and so

comprehensive the sweep of her blue and scintillating gown. Yet was

Mrs. Worthington not at ease, as might be noticed in the unnatural

quaver of her high-pitched voice and the restless motion of her hands,

as she seated herself with an arm studiedly resting upon the table

near by.

Hosmer had met the Duplans before; on the occasion of a former visit

to Place-du-Bois and again at Les Chênières when he had gone to see

the planter on business connected with the lumber trade.

Fanny was a stranger to them and promised to remain such; for she

acknowledged her presentation with a silent bow and retreated as far

from the group as a decent concession to sociability would permit.

Thérèse with her pretty Creole tact was not long in bringing these

seemingly incongruent elements into some degree of harmony. Mr. Duplan

in his courteous and rather lordly way was presently imparting to Mrs.

Worthington certain reminiscences of a visit to St. Louis twenty-five

years before, when he and Mrs. Duplan had rather hastily traversed

that interesting town during their wedding journey. Mr. Duplan’s

manner had a singular effect upon Mrs. Worthington, who became

dignified, subdued, and altogether unnatural in her endeavor to adjust

herself to it.

Mr. Worthington seated himself beside Mrs. Duplan and was soon trying

to glean information, in his eager short-sighted way, of psychological

interest concerning the negro race; such effort rather bewildering

that good lady, who could not bring herself to view the negro as an

interesting or suitable theme to be introduced into polite

conversation.

Hosmer sat and talked good-naturedly to the little girls, endeavoring

to dispel the shyness with which they seemed inclined to view each

other--and Thérèse crossed the room to join Fanny.

“I hope you’re feeling better,” she ventured, “you should have let me

help you while Mr. Hosmer was ill.”

Fanny looked away, biting her lip, the sudden tears coming to her

eyes. She answered with unsteady voice, “Oh, I was able to look after

my husband myself, Mrs. Laferm.”

Thérèse reddened at finding herself so misunderstood. “I meant in your

housekeeping, Mrs. Hosmer; I could have relieved you of some of that

worry, whilst you were occupied with your husband.”

Fanny continued to look unhappy; her features taking on that peculiar

downward droop which Thérèse had come to know and mistrust.

“Are you going to New Orleans with Mrs. Worthington?” she asked, “she

told me she meant to try and persuade you.”

“No; I’m not going. Why?” looking suspiciously in Thérèse’s face.

“Well,” laughed Thérèse, “only for the sake of asking, I suppose. I

thought you’d enjoy Mardi-Gras, never having seen it.”

“I’m not going anywheres unless David goes along,” she said, with an

impertinent ring in her voice, and with a conviction that she was

administering a stab and a rebuke. She had come prepared to watch her

husband and Mrs. Lafirme, her heart swelling with jealous suspicion as

she looked constantly from one to the other, endeavoring to detect

signs of an understanding between them. Failing to discover such, and

loth to be robbed of her morbid feast of misery, she set her failure

down to their pre-determined subtlety. Thérèse was conscious of a

change in Fanny’s attitude, and felt herself unable to account for it

otherwise than by whim, which she knew played a not unimportant rôle

in directing the manner of a large majority of women. Moreover, it was

not a moment to lose herself in speculation concerning this woman’s

capricious behavior. Her guests held the first claim upon her

attentions. Indeed, here was Mrs. Worthington even now loudly

demanding a pack of cards. “Here’s a gentleman never heard of

six-handed euchre. If you’ve got a pack of cards, Mrs. Laferm, I guess

I can show him quick enough that it can be done.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt Mrs. Worthington’s ability to make any startling

and pleasing revelations,” rejoined the planter good humoredly, and

gallantly following Mrs. Worthington who had risen with the view of

putting into immediate effect her scheme of initiating these slow

people into the unsuspected possibilities of euchre; a game which,

however adaptable in other ways, could certainly not be indulged in by

seven persons. After each one proffering, as is usual on such

occasions, his readiness to assume the character of on-looker, Mr.

Worthington’s claim to entire indifference, if not inability--confirmed

by his wife--was accepted as the most sincere, and that gentleman was

excluded and excused.

He watched them as they seated themselves at table, even lending

assistance, in his own awkward way, to range the chairs in place. Then

he followed the game for a while, standing behind Fanny to note the

outcome of her reckless offer of “five on hearts,” with only three

trumps in hand, and every indication of little assistance from her

partners, Mr. Duplan and Belle Worthington.

At one end of the room was a long, low, well-filled book-case. Here

had been the direction of Mr. Worthington’s secret and stolen glances

the entire evening. And now towards this point he finally transported

himself by gradual movements which he believed appeared unstudied and

indifferent. He was confronted by a good deal of French--to him an

unfamiliar language. Here a long row of Balzac; then, the Waverley

Novels in faded red cloth of very old date. Racine, Moliere, Bulwer

following in more modern garb; Shakespeare in a compass that promised

very small type. His quick trained glance sweeping along the shelves,

contracted into a little frown of resentment while he sent his hand

impetuously through his scant locks, standing them quite on end.

On the very lowest shelf were five imposing volumes in dignified black

and gold, bearing the simple inscription “Lives of the Saints--Rev. A.

Butler.” Upon one of them, Mr. Worthington seized, opening it at

hazard. He had fallen upon the history of St. Monica, mother of the

great St. Austin--a woman whose habits it appears had been so closely

guarded in her childhood by a pious nurse, that even the quenching of

her natural thirst was permitted only within certain well defined

bounds. This mentor used to say “you are now for drinking water, but

when you come to be mistress of the cellar, water will be despised,

but the habit of drinking will stick by you.” Highly interesting, Mr.

Worthington thought, as he brushed his hair all down again the right

way and seated himself the better to learn the fortunes of the good

St. Monica who, curiously enough, notwithstanding those early

incentives to temperance, “insensibly contracted an inclination to

wine,” drinking “whole cups of it with pleasure as it came in her

way.” A “dangerous intemperance” which it finally pleased Heaven to

cure through the instrumentality of a maid servant taunting her

mistress with being a “wine bibber.”

Mr. Worthington did not stop with the story of Saint Monica. He lost

himself in those details of asceticism, martyrdom, superhuman

possibilities which man is capable of attaining under peculiar

conditions of life--something he had not yet “gone into.”

The voices at the card table would certainly have disturbed a man with

less power of mind concentration. For Mrs. Worthington in this

familiar employment was herself again--_con fuoco_. Here was Mr.

Duplan in high spirits; his wife putting forth little gushes of

bird-like exaltation as the fascinations of the game revealed

themselves to her. Even Hosmer and Thérèse were drawn for the moment

from their usual preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the

feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played

at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall

from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune

moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager

player and which oftener than once drew a sharp rebuke from Belle

Worthington.

“Don’t you wish we could play,” said Ninette to her companion from her

comfortable perch beside the fire, and looking longingly towards the

card table.

“Oh, no,” replied Lucilla briefly, gazing into the fire, with hands

folded in her lap. Thin hands, showing up very white against the dull

colored “convent uniform” that hung in plain, severe folds about her

and reached to her very ankles.

“Oh, don’t you? I play often at home when company comes. And I play

cribbage and _vingt-et-un_ with papa and win lots of money from him.”

“That’s wrong.”

“No, it isn’t; papa wouldn’t do it if it was wrong,” she answered

decidedly. “Do you go to the convent?” she asked, looking critically

at Lucilla and drawing a little nearer, so as to be confidential.

“Tell me about it,” she continued, when the other had replied

affirmatively. “Is it very dreadful? you know they’re going to send me

soon.”

“Oh, it’s the best place in the world,” corrected Lucilla as eagerly

as she could.

“Well, mamma says she was just as happy as could be there, but you see

that’s so awfully long ago. It must have changed since then.”

“The convent never changes: it’s always the same. You first go to

chapel to mass early in the morning.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Ninette.

“Then you have studies,” continued Lucilla. “Then breakfast, then

recreation, then classes, and there’s meditation.”

“Oh, well,” interrupted Ninette, “I believe anything most would suit

you, and mamma when she was little; but if I don’t like it--see here,

if I tell you something will you promise never, never, to tell?”

“Is it any thing wrong?”

“Oh, no, not very; it isn’t a real mortal sin. Will you promise?”

“Yes,” agreed Lucilla; curiosity getting something the better of her

pious scruples.

“Cross your heart?”

Lucilla crossed her heart carefully, though a little reluctantly.

“Hope you may die?”

“Oh!” exclaimed the little convent girl aghast.

“Oh, pshaw,” laughed Ninette, “never mind. But that’s what Polly

always says when she wants me to believe her: ‘hope I may die, Miss

Ninette.’ Well, this is it: I’ve been saving up money for the longest

time, oh ever so long. I’ve got eighteen dollars and sixty cents, and

when they send me to the convent, if I don’t like it, I’m going to run

away.” This last and startling revelation was told in a tragic whisper

in Lucilla’s ear, for Betsy was standing before them with a tray of

chocolate and coffee that she was passing around.

“I yeard you,” proclaimed Betsy with mischievous inscrutable

countenance.

“You didn’t,” said Ninette defiantly, and taking a cup of coffee.

“Yas, I did, I yeard you,” walking away.

“See here, Betsy,” cried Ninette recalling the girl, “you’re not going

to tell, are you?”

“Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell. Dun know ef I isn’t gwine tell Miss

Duplan dis yere ver’ minute.”

“Oh Betsy,” entreated Ninette, “I’ll give you this dress if you don’t.

I don’t want it any more.”

Betsy’s eyes glowed, but she looked down unconcernedly at the pretty

gown.

“Don’t spec it fit me. An’ you know Miss T’rèse ain’t gwine let me go

flyin’ roun’ wid my laigs stickin’ out dat away.”

“I’ll let the ruffle down, Betsy,” eagerly proposed Ninette.

“Betsy!” called Thérèse a little impatiently.

“Yas, ’um--I ben waitin’ fu’ de cups.”

Lucilla had made many an aspiration--many an “act” the while. This

whole evening of revelry, and now this last act of wicked conspiracy

seemed to have tainted her soul with a breath of sin which she would

not feel wholly freed from, till she had cleansed her spirit in the

waters of absolution.

The party broke up at a late hour, though the Duplans had a long

distance to go, and, moreover, had to cross the high and turbid river

to reach their carriage which had been left on the opposite bank,

owing to the difficulty of the crossing.

Mr. Duplan took occasion of a moment aside to whisper to Hosmer with

the air of a connoisseur, “fine woman that Mrs. Worthington of yours.”

Hosmer laughed at the jesting implication, whilst disclaiming it, and

Fanny looked moodily at them both, jealously wondering at the cause of

their good humor.

Mrs. Duplan, under the influence of a charming evening passed in such

agreeable and distinguished company, was full of amiable bustle in

leaving and had many pleasant parting words to say to each, in her

pretty broken English.

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Worthington to that lady, who had taken

admiring notice of the beautiful silver “Holy Angels” medal that hung

from Lucilla’s neck and rested against the dark gown. “Lucilla takes

after Mr. Worthington as far as religion goes--kind of different

though, for I must say it ain’t often he darkens the doors of a

church.”

Mrs. Worthington always spoke of her husband present as of a husband

absent. A peculiarity which he patiently endured, having no talent for

repartee, that he had at one time thought of cultivating. But that

time was long past.

The Duplans were the first to leave. Then Thérèse stood for a while on

the veranda in the chill night air watching the others disappear

across the lawn. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington and Lucilla had all shaken

hands with her in saying good night. Fanny followed suit limply and

grudgingly. Hosmer buttoned his coat impatiently and only lifted his

hat to Thérèse as he helped his wife down the stairs.

Poor Fanny! she had already taken exception at that hand pressure

which was to come and for which she watched, and now her whole small

being was in a jealous turmoil--because there had been none.

XII

Tidings That Sting.

Thérèse felt that the room was growing oppressive. She had been

sitting all morning alone before the fire, passing in review a great

heap of household linen that lay piled beside her on the floor,

alternating this occupation with occasional careful and tender offices

bestowed upon a wee lamb that had been brought to her some hours

before, and that now lay wounded and half lifeless upon a pile of

coffee sacks before the blaze.

A fire was hardly needed, except to dispel the dampness that had even

made its insistent way indoors, covering walls and furniture with a

clammy film. Outside, the moisture was dripping from the glistening

magnolia leaves and from the pointed polished leaves of the live-oaks,

and the sun that had come out with intense suddenness was drawing it

steaming from the shingled roof-tops.

When Thérèse, finally aware of the closeness of the room, opened the

door and went out on the veranda, she saw a man, a stranger, riding

towards the house and she stood to await his approach. He belonged to

what is rather indiscriminately known in that section of the State as

the “piney-woods” genus. A rawboned fellow, lank and long of leg; as

ungroomed with his scraggy yellow hair and beard as the scrubby little

Texas pony which he rode. His big soft felt hat had done unreasonable

service as a head-piece; and the “store clothes” that hung upon his

lean person could never in their remotest freshness have masqueraded

under the character of “all wool.” He was in transit, as the bulging

saddle-bags that hung across his horse indicated, as well as the rough

brown blanket strapped behind him to the animal’s back. He rode up

close to the rail of the veranda near which Thérèse stood, and nodded

to her without offering to raise or touch his hat. She was prepared

for the drawl with which he addressed her, and even guessed at what

his first words would be.

“You’re Mrs. Laferm I ’low?”

Thérèse acknowledged her identity with a bow.

“My name’s Jimson; Rufe Jimson,” he went on, settling himself on the

pony and folding his long knotty hands over the hickory switch that he

carried in guise of whip.

“Do you wish to speak to me? won’t you dismount?” Thérèse asked.

“I hed my dinner down to the store,” he said taking her proposal as an

invitation to dine, and turning to expectorate a mouth full of tobacco

juice before continuing. “Capital sardines them air,” passing his hand

over his mouth and beard in unctuous remembrance of the oily dainties.

“I’m just from Cornstalk, Texas, on mu way to Grant. An’ them roads as

I’ve traversed isn’t what I’d call the best in a fair and square

talk.”

His manner bore not the slightest mark of deference. He spoke to

Thérèse as he might have spoken to one of her black servants, or as he

would have addressed a princess of royal blood if fate had ever

brought him into such unlikely contact, so clearly was the sense of

human equality native to him.

Thérèse knew her animal, and waited patiently for his business to

unfold itself.

“I reckon thar hain’t no ford hereabouts?” he asked, looking at her

with a certain challenge.

“Oh, no; its even difficult crossing in the flat,” she answered.

“Wall, I hed calc’lated continooing on this near side. Reckon I could

make it?” challenging her again to an answer.

“There’s no road on this side,” she said, turning away to fasten more

securely the escaped branches of a rose-bush that twined about a

column near which she stood.

Whether there were a road on this side or on the other side, or no

road at all, appeared to be matter of equal indifference to Mr.

Jimson, so far as his manner showed. He continued imperturbably “I

’lowed to stop here on a little matter o’ business. ’Tis some out o’

mu way; more’n I’d calc’lated. You couldn’t tell the ixact distance

from here to Colfax, could you?”

Thérèse rather impatiently gave him the desired information, and

begged that he would disclose his business with her.

“Wall,” he said, “onpleasant news ’ll keep most times tell you’re

ready fur it. Thet’s my way o’ lookin’ at it.”

“Unpleasant news for me?” she inquired, startled from her indifference

and listlessness.

“Rather onpleasant ez I take it. I hain’t a makin’ no misstatement to

persume thet Grégor Sanchun was your nephew?”

“Yes, yes,” responded Thérèse, now thoroughly alarmed, and approaching

as close to Mr. Rufe Jimson as the dividing rail would permit, “What

of him, please?”

He turned again to discharge an accumulation of tobacco juice into a

thick border of violets, and resumed.

“You see a hot-blooded young feller, ez wouldn’t take no more ’an give

no odds, stranger or no stranger in the town, he couldn’t ixpect civil

treatment; leastways not from Colonel Bill Klayton. Ez I said to

Tozier--”

“Please tell me as quickly as possible what has happened,” demanded

Thérèse with trembling eagerness; steadying herself with both hands on

the railing before her.

“You see it all riz out o’ a little altercation ’twixt him and Colonel

Klayton in the colonel’s store. Some says he’d ben drinkin’; others

denies it. Howsomever they did hev words risin’ out o’ the colonel

addressing your nephew under the title o’ ‘Frenchy’; which most takes

ez a insufficient cause for rilin’.”

“He’s dead?” gasped Thérèse, looking at the dispassionate Texan with

horrified eyes.

“Wall, yes,” an admission which he seemed not yet willing to leave

unqualified; for he went on “It don’t do to alluz speak out open an’

above boards, leastways not thar in Cornstalk. But I’ll ’low to you,

it’s my opinion the colonel acted hasty. It’s true ’nough, the young

feller hed drawed, but ez I said to Tozier, thet’s no reason to

persume it was his intention to use his gun.”

So Grégoire was dead. She understood it all now. The manner of his

death was plain to her as if she had seen it, out there in some

disorderly settlement. Killed by the hand of a stranger with whom

perhaps the taking of a man’s life counted as little as it had once

counted with his victim. This flood of sudden and painful intelligence

staggered her, and leaning against the column she covered her eyes

with both hands, for a while forgetting the presence of the man who

had brought the sad tidings.

But he had never ceased his monotonous unwinding. “Thar hain’t no

manner o’ doubt, marm,” he was saying, “thet he did hev the sympathy

o’ the intire community--ez far ez they was free to express

it--barrin’ a few. Fur he was a likely young chap, that warn’t no two

opinions o’ that. Free with his money--alluz ready to set up fur a

friend. Here’s a bit o’ writin’ thet’ll larn you more o’ the

pertic’lars,” drawing a letter from his pocket, “writ by the Catholic

priest, by name of O’Dowd. He ’lowed you mought want proyer meetin’s

and sich.”

“Masses,” corrected Thérèse, holding out her hand for the letter. With

the other hand she was wiping away the tears that had gathered thick

in her eyes.

“Thar’s a couple more little tricks thet he sont,” continued Rufe

Jimson, apparently dislocating his joints to reach the depths of his

trouser pocket, from which he drew a battered pocket book wrapped

around with an infinity of string. From the grimy folds of this

receptacle he took a small paper parcel which he placed in her hand.

It was partly unfastened, and as she opened it fully, the pent-up

tears came blindingly--for before her lay a few curling rings of soft

brown hair, and a pair of scapulars, one of which was pierced by a

tell-tale bullet hole.

“Won’t you dismount?” she presently asked again, this time a little

more kindly.

“No, marm,” said the Texan, jerking his hitherto patient pony by the

bridle till it performed feats of which an impartial observer could

scarcely have suspected it.

“Don’t reckon I could make Colfax before dark, do you?”

“Hardly,” she said, turning away, “I’m much obliged to you, Mr.

Jimson, for having taken this trouble--if the flat is on the other

side, you need only call for it.”

“Wall, good day, marm--I wish you luck,” he added, with a touch of

gallantry which her tears and sweet feminine presence had inspired.

Then turning, he loped his horse rapidly forward, leaning well back in

the saddle and his elbows sawing the air.

XIII

Melicent Hears the News.

It was talked about and wept about at Place-du-Bois, that Grégoire

should be dead. It seemed to them all so unbelievable. Yet, whatever

hesitancy they had in accepting the fact of his death, was perforce

removed by the convincing proof of Father O’Dowd’s letter.

None could remember but sweetness and kindness of him. Even Nathan,

who had been one day felled to earth by a crowbar in Grégoire’s hand,

had come himself to look at that deed as not altogether blamable in

light of the provocation that had called it forth.

Fanny remembered those bouquets which had been daily offered to her

forlornness at her arrival; and the conversations in which they had

understood each other so well. The conviction that he was gone away

beyond the possibility of knowing him further, moved her to tears.

Hosmer, too, was grieved and shocked, without being able to view the

event in the light of a calamity.

No one was left unmoved by the tidings which brought a lowering cloud

even upon the brow of Aunt Belindy, to rest there the whole day. Deep

were the mutterings she hurled at a fate that could have been so

short-sighted as to remove from earth so bright an ornament as

Grégoire. Her grief further spent much of itself upon the inoffensive

Betsy, who, for some inscrutable reason was for twenty-four hours

debarred entrance to the kitchen.

Thérèse seated at her desk, devoted a morning to the writing of

letters, acquainting various members of the family with the unhappy

intelligence. She wrote first to Madame Santien, living now her lazy

life in Paris, with eyes closed to the duties that lay before her and

heart choked up with an egoism that withered even the mother

instincts. It was very difficult to withhold the reproach which she

felt inclined to deal her; hard to refrain from upbraiding a

selfishness which for a life-time had appeared to Thérèse as criminal.

It was a matter less nice, less difficult, to write to the

brothers--one up on the Red River plantation living as best he could;

the other idling on the New Orleans streets. But it was after all a

short and simple story to tell. There was no lingering illness to

describe; no moment even of consciousness in which harrowing last

words were to be gathered and recorded. Only a hot senseless quarrel

to be told about; the speeding of a bullet with very sure aim,

and--quick death.

Of course, masses must be said. Father O’Dowd was properly instructed.

Père Antoine in Centerville was addressed on the subject. The Bishop

of Natchitoches, respectfully asked to perform this last sad office

for the departed soul. And the good old priest and friend at the New

Orleans Cathedral, was informed of her desires. Not that Thérèse held

very strongly to this saying of masses for the dead; but it had been a

custom holding for generations in the family and which she was not

disposed to abandon now, even if she had thought of it.

The last letter was sent to Melicent. Thérèse made it purposely short

and pointed, with a bare statement of facts--a dry, unemotional

telling, that sounded heartless when she read it over; but she let it

go.

* * * * *

Melicent was standing in her small, quaint sitting-room, her back to

the fire, and her hands clasped behind her. How handsome was this

Melicent! Pouting now, and with eyes half covered by the dark shaded

lids, as they gazed moodily out at the wild snowflakes that were

hurrying like crazy things against the warm window pane and meeting

their end there. A loose tea-gown clung in long folds about her. A

dull colored thing, save for the two broad bands of sapphire plush

hanging straight before, from throat to toe. Melicent was plainly

dejected; not troubled, nor sad, only dejected, and very much bored; a

condition that had made her yawn several times while she looked at the

falling snow.

She was philosophizing a little. Wondering if the world this morning

were really the unpleasant place that it appeared, or if these

conditions of unpleasantness lay not rather within her own mental

vision; a train of thought that might be supposed to have furnished

her some degree of entertainment had she continued in its pursuit. But

she chose rather to dwell on her causes of unhappiness, and thus

convince herself that that unhappiness was indeed outside of her and

around her and not by any possibility to be avoided or circumvented.

There lay now a letter in her desk from David, filled with admonitions

if not reproof which she felt to be not entirely unjust, on the

disagreeable subject of Expenses. Looking around the pretty room she

conceded to herself that here had been temptations which she could not

reasonably have been expected to withstand. The temptation to lodge

herself in this charming little flat; furnish it after her own liking;

and install that delightful little old poverty-stricken English woman

as keeper of Proprieties, with her irresistible white starched caps

and her altogether delightful way of inquiring daily after that “poor,

dear, kind Mr. Hosmer.” It had all cost a little more than she had

foreseen. But the worst of it, the very worst of it was, that she had

already begun to ask herself if, for instance, it were not very

irritating to see every day, that same branching palm, posing by the

window, in that same yellow jardinière. If those draperies that

confronted her were not becoming positively offensive in the monotony

of their solemn folds. If the cuteness and quaintness of the

poverty-stricken little English woman were not after all a source of

entertainment that she would willingly forego on occasion. The answer

to these questions was a sigh that ended in another yawn.

Then Melicent threw herself into a low easy chair by the table, took

up her visiting book, and bending lazily with her arms resting on her

knees, began to turn over its pages. The names which she saw there

recalled to her mind an entertainment at which she had assisted on the

previous afternoon. A progressive euchre party; and the remembrance of

what she had there endured now filled her soul with horror.

She thought of those hundred cackling women--of course women are never

cackling, it was Melicent’s exaggerated way of expressing

herself--packed into those small overheated rooms, around those

twenty-five little tables; and how by no chance had she once found

herself with a congenial set. And how that Mrs. Van Wycke had cheated!

It was plain to Melicent that she had taken advantage of having fat

Miss Bloomdale for a partner, who went to euchre parties only to show

her hands and rings. And little Mrs. Brinke playing against her.

Little Mrs. Brinke! A woman who only the other day had read an

original paper entitled: “An Hour with Hegel” before her philosophy

class; who had published that dry mystical affair “Light on the

Inscrutable in Dante.” How could such a one by any possibility be

supposed to observe the disgusting action of Mrs. Van Wycke in

throwing off on her partner’s trump and swooping down on the last

trick with her right bower? Melicent would have thought it beneath her

to more than look her contempt as Mrs. Van Wycke rose with a

triumphant laugh to take her place at a higher table, dragging the

plastic Bloomdale with her. But she did mutter to herself now, “nasty

thief.”

“Johannah,” Melicent called to her maid who sat sewing in the next

room.

“Yes, Miss.”

“You know Mrs. Van Wycke?”

“Mrs. Van Wycke, Miss? the lady with the pinted nose that I caught

a-feeling of the curtains?”

“Yes, when she calls again I’m not at home. Do you understand? not at

home.”

“Yes, Miss.”

It was gratifying enough to have thus summarily disposed of Mrs. Van

Wycke; but it was a source of entertainment which was soon ended.

Melicent continued to turn over the pages of her visiting book during

which employment she came to the conclusion that these people whom she

frequented were all very tiresome. All, all of them, except Miss Drake

who had been absent in Europe for the past six months. Perhaps Mrs.

Manning too, who was so seldom at home when Melicent called. Who when

at home, usually rushed down with her bonnet on, breathless with “I

can only spare you a moment, dear. It’s very sweet of you to come.”

She was always just going to the “Home” where things had got into such

a muddle whilst she was away for a week. Or it was that “Hospital”

meeting where she thought certain members were secretly conniving at

her removal from the presidency which she had held for so many years.

She was always reading minutes at assemblages which Melicent knew

nothing about; or introducing distinguished guests to Guild room

meetings. Altogether Melicent saw very little of Mrs. Manning.

“Johannah, don’t you hear the bell?”

“Yes, Miss,” said Johannah, coming into the room and depositing a gown

on which she had been working, on the back of a chair. “It’s that

postman,” she said, as she fastened her needle to the bosom of her

dress. “And such a one as he is, thinking that people must fly when he

so much as touches the bell, and going off a writing of ‘no answer to

bell,’ and me with my hand on the very door-knob.”

“I notice that always happens when I’m out, Johannah; he’s ringing

again.”

It was Thérèse’s letter, and as Melicent turned it about and looked

critically at the neatly written address, it was not without a hope

that the reading of it might furnish her a moment’s diversion. She did

not faint. The letter did not “fall from her nerveless clasp.” She

rather held it very steadily. But she grew a shade paler and looked

long into the fire. When she had read it three times she folded it

slowly and carefully and locked it away in her desk.

“Johannah.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Put that gown away; I shan’t need it.”

“Yes, Miss; and all the beautiful passmantry that you bought?”

“It makes no difference, I shan’t use it. What’s become of that black

camel’s-hair that Mrs. Gauche spoiled so last winter?”

“It’s laid away, Miss, the same in the cedar chest as the day it came

home from her hands and no more fit, that I’d be a shame meself and no

claims to a dress-maker. And there’s many a lady that she never would

have seen a cent, let alone making herself pay for the spiling of it.”

“Well, well, Johannah, never mind. Get it out, we’ll see what can be

done with it. I’ve had some painful news, and I shall wear mourning

for a long, long time.”

“Oh, Miss, it’s not Mr. David! nor yet one of those sweet relations in

Utica? leastways not I hope that beautiful Miss Gertrude, with such

hair as I never see for the goldness of it and not dyed, except me

cousin that’s a nun, that her mother actually cried when it was cut

off?”

“No, Johannah; only a very dear friend.”

There were a few social engagements to be cancelled; and regrets to be

sent out, which she attended to immediately. Then she turned again to

look long into the fire. That crime for which she had scorned him, was

wiped out now by expiation. For a long time--how long she could not

yet determine--she would wrap herself in garb of mourning and move

about in sorrowing--giving evasive answer to the curious who

questioned her. Now might she live again through those summer months

with Grégoire--those golden afternoons in the pine woods--whose aroma

even now came back to her. She might look again into his loving brown

eyes; feel beneath her touch the softness of his curls. She recalled a

day when he had said, “Neva to see you--my God!” and how he had

trembled. She recalled--strangely enough and for the first time--that

one kiss, and a little tremor brought the hot color to her cheek.

Was she in love with Grégoire now that he was dead? Perhaps. At all

events, for the next month, Melicent would not be bored.

XIV

A Step Too Far.

Who of us has not known the presence of Misery? Perhaps as those

fortunate ones whom he has but touched as he passed them by. It may be

that we see but a promise of him as we look into the prophetic faces

of children; into the eyes of those we love, and the awfulness of

life’s possibilities presses into our souls. Do we fly him? hearing

him gain upon us panting close at our heels, till we turn from the

desperation of uncertainty to grapple with him? In close scuffle we

may vanquish him. Fleeing, we may elude him. But what if he creep into

the sanctuary of our lives, with his subtle omnipresence, that we do

not see in all its horror till we are disarmed; thrusting the burden

of his companionship upon us to the end! However we turn he is there.

However we shrink he is there. However we come or go, or sleep or wake

he is before us. Till the keen sense grows dull with apathy at looking

on him, and he becomes like the familiar presence of sin.

Into such callousness had Hosmer fallen. He had ceased to bruise his

soul in restless endeavor of resistance. When the awful presence bore

too closely upon him, he would close his eyes and brave himself to

endurance. Yet Fate might have dealt him worse things.

But a man’s misery is after all his own, to make of it what he will or

what he can. And shall we be fools, wanting to lighten it with our

platitudes?

My friend, your trouble I know weighs. That you should be driven by

earthly needs to drag the pinioned spirit of your days through rut and

mire. But think of the millions who are doing the like. Or is it your

boy, that part of your own self and that other dearer self, who is

walking in evil ways? Why, I know a man whose son was hanged the other

day; hanged on the gibbet; think of it. If you be quivering while the

surgeon cuts away that right arm, remember the poor devil in the

hospital yesterday who had both his sawed off.

Oh, have done, with your mutilated men and your sons on gibbets! What

are they to me? My hurt is greater than all, because it is my own. If

it be only that day after day I must look with warm entreaty into eyes

that are cold. Let it be but that peculiar trick of feature which I

have come to hate, seen each morning across the breakfast table. That

recurrent pin-prick: it hurts. The blow that lays the heart in twain:

it kills. Let be mine which will; it is the one that counts.

If Misery kill a man, that ends it. But Misery seldom deals so

summarily with his victims. And while they are spared to earth, we

find them usually sustaining life after the accepted fashion.

Hosmer was seated at table, having finished his breakfast. He had also

finished glancing over the contents of a small memorandum book, which

he replaced in his pocket. He then looked at his wife sitting opposite

him, but turned rather hastily to gaze with a certain entreaty into

the big kind eyes of the great shaggy dog who stood--the shameless

beggar--at his side.

“I knew there was something wrong,” he said abruptly, with his eyes

still fixed on the dog, and his fingers thrust into the animal’s

matted wool, “Where’s the mail this morning?”

“I don’t know if that stupid boy’s gone for it or not. I told him. You

can’t depend on any one in a place like this.”

Fanny had scarcely touched the breakfast before her, and now pushed

aside her cup still half filled with coffee.

“Why, how’s that? Sampson seems to do the right thing.”

“Yes, Sampson; but he ain’t here. That boy of Minervy’s been doing his

work all morning.”

Minervy’s boy was even now making his appearance, carrying a good

sized bundle of papers and letters, with which he walked boldly up to

Hosmer, plainly impressed with the importance of this new rôle.

“Well, colonel; so you’ve taken Sampson’s place?” Hosmer observed,

receiving the mail from the boy’s little black paws.

“My name’s Major, suh. Maje; dats my name. I ain’t tuck Sampson’s

place: no, suh.”

“Oh, he’s having a day off--” Hosmer went on, smiling quizzingly at

the dapper little darkey, and handing him a red apple from the dish of

fruit standing in the center of the table. Maje received it with a

very unmilitary bob of acknowledgment.

“He yonda home ’cross de riva, suh. He ben too late fu’ kotch de

flat’s mornin’ An’ he holla an’ holla. He know dey warn’t gwine cross

dat flat ’gin jis’ fu’ Sampson.”

Hosmer had commenced to open his letters. Fanny with her elbows on the

table, asked the boy--with a certain uneasiness in her voice--“Ain’t

he coming at all to-day? Don’t he know all the work he’s got to do?

His mother ought to make him.”

“Don’t reckon. Dat away Sampson: he git mad he stay mad,” with which

assurance Maje vanished through the rear door, towards the region of

the kitchen, to seek more substantial condiments than the apple which

he still clutched firmly.

One of the letters was for Fanny, which her husband handed her. When

he had finished reading his own, he seemed disposed to linger, for he

took from the fruit dish the mate to the red apple he had given Maje,

and commenced to peel it with his clasp knife.

“What has our friend Belle Worthington to say for herself?” he

inquired good humoredly. “How does she get on with those Creoles down

there?”

“You know as well as I do, Belle Worthington ain’t going to mix with

Creoles. She can’t talk French if she wanted to. She says Muddy-Graw

don’t begin to compare with the Veiled Prophets. It’s just what I

thought--with their ‘Muddy-Graw,’ ” Fanny added, contemptuously.

“Coming from such high authority, we’ll consider that verdict a final

clincher,” Hosmer laughed a little provokingly.

Fanny was looking again through the several sheets of Belle

Worthington’s letter. “She says if I’ll agree to go back with her,

she’ll pass this way again.”

“Well, why don’t you? A little change wouldn’t hurt.”

“ ’Tain’t because I want to stay here, Lord knows. A God-forsaken

place like this. I guess you’d be glad enough,” she added, with voice

shaking a little at her own boldness.

He closed his knife, placed it in his pocket, and looked at his wife,

completely puzzled.

The power of speech had come to her, for she went on, in an unnatural

tone, however, and fumbling nervously with the dishes before her. “I’m

fool enough about some things, but I ain’t quite such a fool as that.”

“What are you talking about, Fanny?”

“That woman wouldn’t ask anything better than for me to go to St.

Louis.”

Hosmer was utterly amazed. He leaned his arms on the table, clasping

his hands together and looked at his wife.

“That woman? Belle Worthington? What _do_ you mean, any way?”

“I don’t mean Belle Worthington,” she said excitedly, with two deep

red spots in her cheeks. “I’m talking about Mrs. Laferm.”

He thrust his hand into his pockets and leaned back in his chair. No

amazement now, but very pale, and with terrible concentration of

glance.

“Well, then, don’t talk about Mrs. Lafirme,” he said very slowly, not

taking his eyes from her face.

“I will talk about her, too. She ain’t worth talking about,” she

blurted incoherently. “It’s time for somebody to talk about a woman

passing herself off for a saint, and trying to take other women’s

husbands--”

“Shut up!” cried Hosmer maddened with sudden fury, and rising

violently from his chair.

“I won’t shut up,” Fanny cried excitedly back at him; rising also.

“And what’s more I won’t stay here and have you making love under my

very eyes to a woman that’s no better than she ought to be.”

She meant to say more, but Hosmer grasped her arm with such a grasp,

that had it been her throat she would never have spoken more. The

other hand went to his pocket, with fingers clutching the clasp knife

there.

“By heaven--I’ll--kill you!” every word weighted with murder, panted

close in her terrified face. What she would have uttered died upon her

pale lips, when her frightened eyes beheld the usually calm face of

her husband distorted by a passion of which she had not dreamed.

“David,” she faltered, “let go my arm.”

Her voice broke the spell that held him, and brought him again to his

senses. His fingers slowly relaxed their tense hold. A sigh that was

something between a moan and a gasp came with his deliverance and

shook him. All the horror now was in his own face as he seized his hat

and hurried speechless away.

Fanny remained for a little while dazed. Hers was not the fine nature

that would stay cruelly stunned after such a scene. Her immediate

terror being past, the strongest resultant emotion was one of

self-satisfaction at having spoken out her mind.

But there was a stronger feeling yet, moving and possessing her;

crowding out every other. A pressing want that only Sampson’s coming

would relieve, and which bade fair to drive her to any extremity if it

were not appeased.

XV

A Fateful Solution.

Hosmer passed the day with a great pain at his heart. His hasty and

violent passion of the morning had added another weight for his spirit

to drag about, and which he could not cast off. No feeling of

resentment remained with him; only wonder at his wife’s misshapen

knowledge and keen self-rebuke of his own momentary forgetfulness.

Even knowing Fanny as he did, he could not rid himself of the haunting

dread of having wounded her nature cruelly. He felt much as a man who

in a moment of anger inflicts an irreparable hurt upon some small,

weak, irresponsible creature, and must bear regret for his madness.

The only reparation that lay within his power--true, one that seemed

inadequate--was an open and manly apology and confession of wrong. He

would feel better when it was made. He would perhaps find relief in

discovering that the wound he had inflicted was not so deep--so

dangerous as he feared.

With such end in view he came home early in the afternoon. His wife

was not there. The house was deserted. Even the servants had

disappeared. It took but a moment for him to search the various rooms

and find them one after the other, unoccupied. He went out on the

porch and looked around. The raw air chilled him. The wind was blowing

violently, bringing dashes of rain along with it from massed clouds

that hung leaden between sky and earth. Could she have gone over to

the house? It was unlikely, for he knew her to have avoided Mrs.

Lafirme of late, with a persistence that had puzzled him to seek its

cause, which had only fully revealed itself in the morning Yet, where

else could she be? An undefined terror was laying hold of him. His

sensitive nature, in exaggerating its own heartlessness, was blindly

overestimating the delicacy of hers. To what may he not have driven

her? What hitherto untouched chord may he not have started into

painful quivering? Was it for him to gauge the endurance of a woman’s

spirit? Fanny was not now the wife whom he hated; his own act of the

morning had changed her into the human being, the weak creature whom

he had wronged.

In quitting the house she must have gone unprepared for the inclement

weather, for there hung her heavy wrap in its accustomed place, with

her umbrella beside it. He seized both and buttoning his own great

coat about him, hurried away and over to Mrs. Lafirme’s. He found that

lady in the sitting-room.

“Isn’t Fanny here?” he asked abruptly, with no word of greeting.

“No,” she answered looking up at him, and seeing the evident

uneasiness in his face. “Isn’t she at home? Is anything wrong?”

“Oh, everything is wrong,” he returned desperately, “But the immediate

wrong is that she has disappeared--I must find her.”

Thérèse arose at once and called to Betsy who was occupied on the

front veranda.

“Yas, um,” the girl answered to her mistress’ enquiry. “I seed ma’am

Hosma goin’ to’ads de riva good hour ’go. She mus’ crost w’en Nathan

tuck dat load ova. I yain’t seed ’er comin’ back yit.”

Hosmer left the house hastily, hardly reassured by Betsy’s

information. Thérèse’s glance--speculating and uneasy--followed his

hurrying figure till it disappeared from sight.

The crossing was an affair of extreme difficulty, and which Nathan was

reluctant to undertake until he should have gathered a “load” that

would justify him in making it. In his estimation, Hosmer did not meet

such requirement, even taken in company with the solitary individual

who had been sitting on his horse with Egyptian patience for long

unheeded moments, the rain beating down upon his back, while he waited

the ferryman’s pleasure. But Nathan’s determination was not proof

against the substantial inducements which Hosmer held out to him; and

soon they were launched, all hands assisting in the toilsome passage.

The water, in rising to an unaccustomed height, had taken on an added

and tremendous swiftness. The red turbid stream was eddying and

bulging and hurrying with terrific swiftness between its shallow

banks, striking with an immensity of power against the projection of

land on which stood Marie Louise’s cabin, and rebounding in great

circling waves that spread and lost themselves in the seething

turmoil. The cable used in crossing the unwieldly flat had long been

submerged and the posts which held it wrenched from their fastenings.

The three men, each with his long heavy oar in hand began to pull up

stream, using a force that brought the swelling veins like iron

tracings upon their foreheads where the sweat had gathered as if the

day were midsummer. They made their toilsome way by slow inches, that

finally landed them breathless and exhausted on the opposite side.

What could have been the inducement to call Fanny out on such a day

and such a venture? The answer came only too readily from Hosmer’s

reproaching conscience. And now, where to seek her? There was nothing

to guide him; to indicate the course she might have taken. The rain

was falling heavily and in gusts and through it he looked about at the

small cabins standing dreary in their dismantled fields. Marie

Louise’s was the nearest at hand and towards it he directed his steps.

The big good-natured negress had seen his approach from the window,

for she opened the door to him before he had time to knock, and

entering he saw Fanny seated before the fire holding a pair of very

wet smoking feet to dry. His first sensation was one of relief at

finding her safe and housed. His next, one of uncertainty as to the

kind and degree of resentment which he felt confident must now show

itself. But this last was soon dispelled, for turning, she greeted him

with a laugh. He would have rather a blow. That laugh said so many

things--too many things. True, it removed the dread which had been

haunting him all day, but it shattered what seemed to have been now

his last illusion regarding this woman. That unsounded chord which he

feared he had touched was after all but one in harmony with the rest

of her common nature. He saw too at a glance that her dominant passion

had been leading and now controlled her. And by one of those rapid

trains of thought in which odd and detached fancies, facts,

impressions and observations form themselves into an orderly sequence

leading to a final conviction--all was made plain to him that before

had puzzled him. She need not have told him her reason for crossing

the river, he knew it. He dismissed at once the attitude with which he

had thought to approach her. Here was no forgiveness to be asked of

dulled senses. No bending in expiation of faults committed. He was

here as master.

“Fanny, what does this mean?” he asked in cold anger; with no heat

now, no passion.

“Yaas, me tell madame, she goin’ fur ketch cole si she don’ mine out.

Dat not fur play dat kine wedder, no. Teck chair, M’sieur; dry

you’se’f leet beet. Me mek you one cup coffee.”

Hosmer declined the good Marie Louise’s kind proffer of coffee, but he

seated himself and waited for Fanny to speak.

“You know if you want a thing done in this place, you’ve got to do it

yourself. I’ve heard you say it myself, time and time again about

those people at the mill,” she said.

“Could it have been so urgent as to call you out on a day like this,

and with such a perilous crossing? Couldn’t you have found some one

else to come for you?”

“Who? I’d like to know. Just tell me who? It’s nothing to you if we’re

without servants, but I’m not going to stand it. I ain’t going to let

Samp_son_ act like that without knowing what he means,” said Fanny

sharply.

“Dat Samp_son_, he one leet dev’,” proffered Marie Louise, with

laudable design of shifting blame upon the easy shoulders of Sampson,

in event of the domestic jar which she anticipated. “No use try do

nuttin’ ’id Sampson, M’sieur.”

“I had to know something, one way or the other,” Fanny said in a tone

which carried apology, rather by courtesy than by what she considered

due.

Hosmer walked to the window where he looked out upon the dreary,

desolate scene, little calculated to cheer him. The river was just

below; and from this window he could gaze down upon the rushing

current as it swept around the bend further up and came striking

against this projection with a force all its own. The rain was falling

still; steadily, blindingly, with wild clatter against the shingled

roof so close above their heads. It coursed in little swift rivulets

down the furrows of the almost perpendicular banks. It mingled in a

demon dance with the dull, red water. There was something inviting to

Hosmer in the scene. He wanted to be outside there making a part of

it. He wanted to feel that rain and wind beating upon him. Within, it

was stifling, maddening; with his wife’s presence there, charging the

room with an atmosphere of hate that was possessing him and beginning

to course through his veins as it had never done before.

“Do you want to go home?” he asked bluntly, turning half around.

“You must be crazy,” she replied, with a slow, upward glance out the

window, then down at her feet that were still poised on the low stool

that Marie Louise had placed for her.

“You’d better come.” He could not have said what moved him, unless it

were recklessness and defiance.

“I guess you’re dreaming, or something, David. You go on home if you

want. Nobody asked you to come after me any way. I’m able to take care

of myself, I guess. Ain’t you going to take the umbrella?” she added,

seeing him start for the door empty handed.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter about the rain,” he answered without a look

back as he went out and slammed the door after him.

“M’sieur look lak he not please,” said Marie Louise, with plain regret

at the turn of affairs. “You see he no lak you go out in dat kine

wedder, me know dat.”

“Oh, bother,” was Fanny’s careless reply. “This suits me well enough;

I don’t care how long it lasts.”

She was in Marie Louise’s big rocker, balancing comfortably back and

forth with a swing that had become automatic. She felt “good,” as she

would have termed it herself; her visit to Sampson’s hut having not

been without results tending to that condition. The warmth of the room

was very agreeable in contrast to the bleakness of out-doors. She felt

free and moved to exercise a looseness of tongue with the amiable old

negress which was not common with her. The occurrences of the morning

were gradually withdrawing themselves into a distant perspective that

left her in the attitude of a spectator rather than that of an actor.

And she laughed and talked with Marie Louise, and rocked, and rocked

herself on into drowsiness.

Hosmer had no intention of returning home without his wife. He only

wanted to be out under the sky; he wanted to breathe, to use his

muscles again. He would go and help cross the flat if need be; an

occupation that promised him relief in physical effort. He joined

Nathan, whom he found standing under a big live-oak, disputing with an

old colored woman who wanted to cross to get back to her family before

supper time.

“You didn’ have no call to come ova in de fus’ place,” he was saying

to her, “you womens is alluz runnin’ back’ards and for’ards like

skeard rabbit in de co’n fiel’.”

“I don’ stan’ no sich talk is dat f’om you. Ef you kiant tin’ to yo’

business o’ totin’ folks w’en dey wants, you betta quit. You done

cheat Mose out o’ de job, anyways; we all knows dat.”

“Mine out, woman, you gwine git hu’t. Jis’ le’me see Mose han’le dat

’ar flat onct: Jis’ le’me. He lan’ you down to de Mouf ’fo’ you knows

it.”

“Let me tell you, Nathan,” said Hosmer, looking at his watch, “say you

wait a quarter of an hour and if no one else comes, we’ll cross Aunt

Agnes anyway.”

“Dat ’nudda t’ing ef you wants to go back, suh.”

Aunt Agnes was grumbling now at Hosmer’s proposal that promised to

keep her another quarter of an hour from her expectant family, when a

big lumbering creaking wagon drove up, with its load of baled cotton

all covered with tarpaulins.

“Dah!” exclaimed Nathan at sight of the wagon, “ef I’d ’a listened to

yo’ jawin’--what?”

“Ef you’d listen to me, you’d ’tin’ to yo’ business betta ’an you

does,” replied Aunt Agnes, raising a very battered umbrella over her

grotesquely apparelled figure, as she stepped from under the shelter

of the tree to take her place in the flat.

But she still met with obstacles, for the wagon must needs go first.

When it had rolled heavily into place with much loud and needless

swearing on the part of the driver who, being a white man, considered

Hosmer’s presence no hindrance, they let go the chain, and once again

pulled out. The crossing was even more difficult now, owing to the

extra weight of the wagon.

“I guess you earn your money, Nathan,” said Hosmer bending and

quivering with the efforts he put forth.

“Yas, suh, I does; an’ dis job’s wuf mo’ ’an I gits fu’ it.”

“All de same you done lef’ off wurking crap sence you start it,”

mumbled Aunt Agnes.

“You gwine git hu’t, woman; I done tole you dat; don’ wan’ listen,”

returned Nathan with halting breath.

“Who gwine hu’t me?”

Whether from tardy gallantry or from pre-occupation with his arduous

work, Nathan offered no reply to this challenge, and his silence left

Aunt Agnes in possession of the field.

They were in full mid-stream. Hosmer and the teamster were in the fore

end of the boat; Nathan in the rear, and Aunt Agnes standing in the

center between the wagon and the protecting railing, against which she

leaned her clasped hands that still upheld the semblance of umbrella.

The ill-mated horses stood motionless, letting fall their dejected

heads with apathetic droop. The rain was dripping from their

glistening coats, and making a great patter as it fell upon the

tarpaulins covering the cotton bales.

Suddenly came an exclamation: “Gret God!” from Aunt Agnes, so genuine

in its amazement and dismay, that the three men with one accord looked

quickly up at her, then at the point on which her terrified gaze was

fixed. Almost on the instant of the woman’s cry, was heard a shrill,

piercing, feminine scream.

What they saw was the section of land on which stood Marie Louise’s

cabin, undermined--broken away from the main body and gradually

gliding into the water. It must have sunk with a first abrupt wrench,

for the brick chimney was shaken from its foundation, the smoke

issuing in dense clouds from its shattered sides, the house toppling

and the roof caving. For a moment Hosmer lost his senses. He could but

look, as if at some awful apparition that must soon pass from sight

and leave him again in possession of his reason. The leaning house was

half submerged when Fanny appeared at the door, like a figure in a

dream; seeming a natural part of the awfulness of it. He only gazed

on. The two negroes uttered loud lamentations.

“Pull with the current!” cried the teamster, first to regain his

presence of mind. It had needed but this, to awaken Hosmer to the

situation.

“Leave off,” he cried at Nathan, who was wringing his hands. “Take

hold that oar or I’ll throw you overboard.” The trembling ashen negro

obeyed on the instant.

“Hold fast--for God’s sake--hold fast!” he shouted to Fanny, who was

clinging with swaying figure to the door post. Of Marie Louise there

was no sign.

The caved bank now remained fixed; but Hosmer knew that at any instant

it was liable to disappear before his riveted gaze.

How heavy the flat was! And the horses had caught the contagion of

terror and were plunging madly.

“Whip those horses and their load into the river,” called Hosmer,

“we’ve got to lighten at any price.”

“Them horses an’ cotton’s worth money,” interposed the alarmed

teamster.

“Force them into the river, I say; I’ll pay you twice their value.”

“You ’low to pay fur the cotton, too?”

“Into the river with them or I’ll brain you!” he cried, maddened at

the weight and delay that were holding them back.

The frightened animals seemed to ask nothing more than to plunge into

the troubled water; dragging their load with them.

They were speeding rapidly towards the scene of catastrophe; but to

Hosmer they crawled--the moments were hours. “Hold on! hold fast!” he

called again and again to his wife. But even as he cried out, the

detached section of earth swayed, lurched to one side--plunged to the

other, and the whole mass was submerged--leaving the water above it in

wild agitation.

A cry of horror went up from the spectators--all but Hosmer. He cast

aside his oar--threw off his coat and hat; worked an instant without

avail at his wet clinging boots, and with a leap was in the water,

swimming towards the spot where the cabin had gone down. The current

bore him on without much effort of his own. The flat was close up with

him; but he could think of it no longer as a means of rescue. Detached

pieces of timber from the ruined house were beginning to rise to the

surface. Then something floating softly on the water: a woman’s dress,

but too far for him to reach it.

When Fanny appeared again, Hosmer was close beside her. His left arm

was quickly thrown about her. She was insensible, and he remembered

that it was best so, for had she been in possession of her reason, she

might have struggled and impeded his movements. He held her

fast--close to him and turned to regain the shore. Another horrified

shriek went up from the occupants of the flat-boat not far away, and

Hosmer knew no more--for a great plunging beam struck him full upon

the forehead.

When consciousness came back to him, he found that he lay extended in

the flat, which was fastened to the shore. The confused sound of many

voices mingled with a ringing din that filled his ears. A warm stream

was trickling down over his cheek. Another body lay beside him. Now

they were lifting him. Thérèse’s face was somewhere--very near, he saw

it dimly and that it was white--and he fell again into insensibility.

XVI

To Him Who Waits.

The air was filled with the spring and all its promises. Full with the

sound of it, the smell of it, the deliciousness of it. Such sweet air;

soft and strong, like the touch of a brave woman’s hand. The air of an

early March day in New Orleans. It was folly to shut it out from nook

or cranny. Worse than folly the lady thought who was making futile

endeavors to open the car window near which she sat. Her face had

grown pink with the effort. She had bit firmly into her red nether

lip, making it all the redder; and then sat down from the

unaccomplished feat to look ruefully at the smirched finger tips of

her Parisian gloves. This flavor of Paris was well about her; in the

folds of her graceful wrap that set to her fine shoulders. It was

plainly a part of the little black velvet toque that rested on her

blonde hair. Even the umbrella and one small valise which she had just

laid on the seat opposite her, had Paris written plain upon them.

These were impressions which the little grey-garbed conventional

figure, some seats removed, had been noting since the striking lady

had entered the car. Points likely to have escaped a man, who--unless

a minutely observant one,--would only have seen that she was handsome

and worthy of an admiration that he might easily fancy rising to

devotion.

Beside herself and the little grey-garbed figure was an interesting

family group at the far end of the car. A husband, but doubly a

father, surrounded and sat upon by a small band of offspring. A

wife--presumably a mother--absorbed with the view of the outside world

and the elaborate gold chain that hung around her neck.

The presence of a large valise, an overcoat, a cane and an umbrella

disposed on another seat, bespoke a further occupant, likely to be at

present in the smoking car.

The train pushed out from the depôt. The porter finally made tardy

haste to the assistance of the lady who had been attempting to open

the window, and when the fresh morning air came blowing in upon her

Thérèse leaned back in her seat with a sigh of content.

There was a full day’s journey before her. She would not reach

Place-du-Bois before dark, but she did not shrink from those hours

that were to be passed alone. She rather welcomed the quiet of them

after a visit to New Orleans full of pleasant disturbances. She was

eager to be home again. She loved Place-du-Bois with a love that was

real; that had grown deep since it was the one place in the world

which she could connect with the presence of David Hosmer. She had

often wondered--indeed was wondering now--if the memory of those

happenings to which he belonged would ever grow strange and far away

to her. It was a trick of memory with which she indulged herself on

occasion, this one of retrospection. Beginning with that June day when

she had sat in the hall and watched the course of a white sunshade

over the tops of the bending corn.

Such idle thoughts they were with their mingling of bitter and

sweet--leading nowhere. But she clung to them and held to them as if

to a refuge which she might again and again return to.

The picture of that one terrible day of Fanny’s death, stood out in

sharp prominent lines; a touch of the old agony always coming back as

she remembered how she had believed Hosmer dead too--lying so pale and

bleeding before her. Then the parting which had held not so much of

sorrow as of awe and bewilderment in it: when sick, wounded and broken

he had gone away at once with the dead body of his wife; when the two

had clasped hands without words that dared be uttered.

But that was a year ago. And Thérèse thought many things might come

about in a year. Anyhow, might not such length of time be hoped to rub

the edge off a pain that was not by its nature lasting?

That time of acute trouble seemed to have thrown Hosmer back upon his

old diffidence. The letter he wrote her after a painful illness which

prostrated him on his arrival in St. Louis, was stiff and formal, as

men’s letters are apt to be, though it had breathed an untold story of

loyalty which she had felt at the time, and still cherished. Other

letters--a few--had gone back and forth between them, till Hosmer had

gone away to the sea-shore with Melicent, to recuperate, and June

coming, Thérèse had sailed from New Orleans for Paris, whither she had

passed six months.

Things had not gone well at Place-du-Bois during her absence, the

impecunious old kinsman whom she had left in charge, having a decided

preference for hunting the _Gros-Bec_ and catching trout in the lake

to supervising the methods of a troublesome body of blacks. So Thérèse

had had much to engage her thoughts from the morbid channel into which

those of a more idle woman might have drifted.

She went occasionally enough to the mill. There at least she was

always sure to hear Hosmer’s name--and what a charm the sound of it

had for her. And what a delight it was to her eyes when she caught

sight of an envelope lying somewhere on desk or table of the office,

addressed in his handwriting. That was a weakness which she could not

pardon herself; but which staid with her, seeing that the same

trifling cause never failed to awaken the same unmeasured delight. She

had even trumped up an excuse one day for carrying off one of Hosmer’s

business letters--indeed of the dryest in substance, and which, when

half-way home, she had torn into the smallest bits and scattered to

the winds, so overcome was she by a sense of her own absurdity.

Thérèse had undergone the ordeal of having her ticket scrutinized,

commented upon and properly punched by the suave conductor. The little

conventional figure had given over the contemplation of Parisian

styles and betaken herself to the absorbing pages of a novel which she

read through smoked glasses. The husband and father had peeled and

distributed his second outlay of bananas amongst his family. It was at

this moment that Thérèse, looking towards the door, saw Hosmer enter

the car.

She must have felt his presence somewhere near; his being there and

coming towards her was so much a part of her thoughts. She held out

her hand to him and made place beside her, as if he had left her but a

half hour before. All the astonishment was his. But he pressed her

hand and took the seat she offered him.

“You knew I was on the train?” he asked.

“Oh, no, how should I?”

Then naturally followed question and answer.

Yes, he was going to Place-du-Bois.

No, the mill did not require his presence; it had been very well

managed during his absence.

Yes, she had been to New Orleans. Had had a very agreeable visit.

Beautiful weather for city dwellers. But such dryness. So disastrous

to the planters.

Yes--quite likely there would be rain next month: there usually was in

April. But indeed there was need of more than April showers for that

stiff land--that strip along the bayou, if he remembered? Oh, he

remembered quite well, but for all that he did not know what she was

talking about. She did not know herself. Then they grew silent; not

from any feeling of the absurdity of such speech between them, for

each had but listened to the other’s voice. They became silently

absorbed by the consciousness of each other’s nearness. She was

looking at his hand that rested on his knee, and thinking it fuller

than she remembered it before. She was aware of some change in him

which she had not the opportunity to define; but this firmness and

fullness of the hand was part of it. She looked up into his face then,

to find the same change there, together with a new content. But what

she noted beside was the dull scar on his forehead, coming out like a

red letter when his eyes looked into her own. The sight of it was like

a hurt. She had forgotten it might be there, telling its story of pain

through the rest of his life.

“Thérèse,” Hosmer said finally, “won’t you look at me?”

She was looking from the window. She did not turn her head, but her

hand went out and met his that was on the seat close beside her. He

held it firmly; but soon with an impatient movement drew down the

loose wristlet of her glove and clasped his fingers around her warm

wrist.

“Thérèse,” he said again; but more unsteadily, “look at me.”

“Not here,” she answered him, “not now, I mean.” And presently she

drew her hand away from him and held it for a moment pressed firmly

over her eyes. Then she looked at him with brave loving glance.

“It’s been so long,” she said, with the suspicion of a sigh.

“Too long,” he returned, “I couldn’t have borne it but for you--the

thought of you always present with me; helping me to take myself out

of the past. That was why I waited--till I could come to you free.

Have you an idea, I wonder, how you have been a promise, and can be

the fulfillment of every good that life may give to a man?”

“No, I don’t know,” she said a little hopelessly, taking his hand

again, “I have seen myself at fault in following what seemed the only

right. I feel as if there were no way to turn for the truth. Old

supports appear to be giving way beneath me. They were so secure

before. It commenced, you remember--oh, you know when it must have

begun. But do you think, David, that it’s right we should find our

happiness out of that past of pain and sin and trouble?”

“Thérèse,” said Hosmer firmly, “the truth in its entirety isn’t given

to man to know--such knowledge, no doubt, would be beyond human

endurance. But we make a step towards it, when we learn that there is

rottenness and evil in the world, masquerading as right and

morality--when we learn to know the living spirit from the dead

letter. I have not cared to stop in this struggle of life to question.

You, perhaps, wouldn’t dare to alone. Together, dear one, we will work

it out. Be sure there is a way--we may not find it in the end, but we

will at least have tried.”

XVII

Conclusion.

One month after their meeting on the train, Hosmer and Thérèse had

gone together to Centerville where they had been made one, as the

saying goes, by the good Père Antoine; and without more ado, had

driven back to Place-du-Bois: Mr. and Mrs. Hosmer. The event had

caused more than the proverbial nine days’ talk. Indeed, now, two

months after, it was still the absorbing theme that occupied the

dwellers of the parish: and such it promised to remain till supplanted

by something of sufficient dignity and importance to usurp its place.

But of the opinions, favorable and other, that were being exchanged

regarding them and their marriage, Hosmer and Thérèse heard little and

would have cared less, so absorbed were they in the overmastering

happiness that was holding them in thralldom. They could not yet bring

themselves to look at it calmly--this happiness. Even the intoxication

of it seemed a thing that promised to hold. Through love they had

sought each other, and now the fulfillment of that love had brought

more than tenfold its promise to both. It was a royal love; a generous

love and a rich one in its revelation. It was a magician that had

touched life for them and changed it into a glory. In giving them to

each other, it was moving them to the fullness of their own

capabilities. Much to do in two little months; but what cannot love

do?

“Could it give a woman more than this?” Thérèse was saying softly to

herself. Her hands were clasped as in prayer and pressed together

against her bosom. Her head bowed and her lips touching the

intertwined fingers. She spoke of her own emotion; of a certain sweet

turmoil that was stirring within her, as she stood out in the soft

June twilight waiting for her husband to come. Waiting to hear the new

ring in his voice that was like a song of joy. Waiting to see that new

strength and courage in his face, of whose significance she lost

nothing. To see the new light that had come in his eyes with

happiness. All gifts which love had given her.

“Well, at last,” she said, going to the top of the steps to meet him

when he came. Her welcome was in her eyes.

“At last,” he echoed, with a sigh of relief; pressing her hand which

she held out to him and raising it to his lips.

He did not let it go, but passed it through his arm, and together they

turned to walk up and down the veranda.

“You didn’t expect me at noon, did you?” he asked, looking down at

her.

“No; you said you’d be likely not to come; but I hoped for you all the

same. I thought you’d manage it some way.”

“No,” he answered her, laughing, “my efforts failed. I used even

strategy. Held out the temptation of your delightful Creole dishes and

all that. Nothing was of any avail. They were all business and I had

to be all business too, the whole day long. It was horribly stupid.”

She pressed his arm significantly.

“And do you think they will put all that money into the mill, David?

Into the business?”

“No doubt of it, dear. But they’re shrewd fellows: didn’t commit

themselves in any way. Yet I could see they were impressed. We rode

for hours through the woods this morning and they didn’t leave a stick

of timber unscrutinized. We were out on the lake, too, and they were

like ferrets into every cranny of the mill.”

“But won’t that give you more to do?”

“No, it will give me less: division of labor, don’t you see? It will

give me more time to be with you.”

“And to help with the plantation,” his wife suggested.

“No, no, Madame Thérèse,” he laughed, “I’ll not rob you of your

occupation. I’ll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a

sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to

tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling.”

“Oh, that’s absurd, David. Do you know you’re getting to talk such

nonsense since we’re married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent.”

“Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her,” he said,

feeling in his breast pocket. “The size and substance of it have

actually weighted my pocket the whole day.”

“Melicent talking weighty things? That’s something new,” said Thérèse

interested.

“Is Melicent ever anything else than new?” he enquired.

They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda,

where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical

smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister’s letter--with

Thérèse still holding his arm and sitting very close to him.

“Well,” he said, glancing over the first few pages--his wife

following--“she’s given up her charming little flat and her quaint

little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc.,

etc. But here comes the gist of the matter,” he said, reading from the

letter--“ ‘I know you won’t object to the trip, David, I have my heart

so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of

us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts.

“ ‘If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I’d feel confident of your consent.

You’d be perfectly fascinated with her. She’s one of those highly

gifted women who knows everything. She’s very much interested in me.

Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism

(she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something

in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society.

She says it’s impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as

it is--which should be every one’s aim--without studying certain

fundamental truths and things.’ ”

“Oh,” breathed Thérèse, overawed.

“But wait--but listen,” said Hosmer, “ ‘Natural History and all

that--and we’re going to take that magnificent trip through the

West--the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is

especially interesting and we’re to carry those delicious little tin

boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and

daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn’t handsome; rather

the contrary; but so serene and collected--so intensely bitter--his

mother tells me he’s a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to

shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels

all her mother’s specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there’s so much to be

learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear glasses during the

trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves--that

they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I’m trying a pair,

and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they

don’t hold on very well, especially when I laugh.

“ ‘Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort’s the other day,

but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the

coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Thérèse. She said: “I

tell you what, my dear--” called me my dear at the highest pitch, and

that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to

examine a lace handkerchief. “That Mrs. Lafirme’s a trump,” she

said--“too good for most any man. Hope you won’t take offense, but I

must say, your brother David’s a perfect stick--it’s what I always

said.” Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?’

“Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor,” said

Hosmer amused and folding the letter. “That’s about all there is,

except a piece of scandal concerning people you don’t know; that

wouldn’t interest you.”

“But it would interest me,” Thérèse insisted, with a little wifely

resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that

excluded her.

“Then you shall hear it,” he said, turning to the letter again. “Let’s

see--‘conceive--shocking impertinence--’ oh, here it is.

“ ‘Don’t know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful

to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou

Dawson was a perfidious creature--and Bert Rodney! You never did like

him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his

manners--you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor

Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly

prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came

of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he

wasn’t; for he was right there following them around in their

perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty

spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But

poor, poor Mrs. Rodney!

“ ‘Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew

Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Thérèse as many kisses as she

will stand for me.

Melicent.’ ”

This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Thérèse asked

with a little puzzled air: “What do you suppose is going to become of

Melicent, anyway, David?”

“I don’t know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer.”

“Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there’s a streak

of perversity in you after all.”

“Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that ‘suppa’s gittin’

cole.’ ”

“Aunt B’lindy ’low suppa on de table gittin’ cole,” said Mandy,

retreating at once from the fire of their merriment.

Thérèse arose and held her two hands out to her husband.

He took them but did not rise; only leaned further back on the seat

and looked up at her.

“Oh, supper’s a bore; don’t you think so?” he asked.

“No, I don’t,” she replied. “I’m hungry, and so are you. Come, David.”

“But look, Thérèse, just when the moon has climbed over the top of

that live-oak? We can’t go now. And then Melicent’s request; we must

think about that.”

“Oh, surely not, David,” she said, drawing back.

“Then let me tell you something,” and he drew her head down and

whispered something in her pink ear that he just brushed with his

lips. It made Thérèse laugh and turn very rosy in the moonlight.

Can that be Hosmer? Is this Thérèse? Fie, fie. It is time we were

leaving them.