It was a chilly September evening. The early dark of the coming
autumn leaned from a clouded sky. The goldenrod and asters on
the side of the avenue looked dim under the glimmer of the hotel
lights; and the scarlet petals of the geraniums in the flower-beds
were falling. In the harbor the anchored fleets flung out their
headlights above a tossing sea. There was no rowing. The floats
were deserted.
The guests, few now, and elect, of the sort that know and love
the September Windover, clustered around the fireplace in the big
parlor of the Mainsail. On the piazza of the Flying Jib the trunks
stood strapped for the late evening porter and the early morning
train. Bayard heard Helen’s voice in the rooms overhead, while he
sat, with whirling brain, making such adieus as he could master to
Professor and Mrs. Carruth. He thought that the Professor looked
at him with unwonted keenness; he might have called it sternness,
if he had given himself time to reflect upon it. Reflect he did
not, would not. He asked distinctly for Miss Helen. Her mother
went to call her, and did not return. Professor Carruth lingered
a few moments, and excused himself. The proofs of the article on
the Unforgiven had come by the evening mail; he had six galleys
to correct that night. He shook hands with Bayard somewhat
abstractedly, and went over to the clam study, swinging a lantern
on his thin arm to light the meadow path.
“It is too cold for Father over there, to-night,” said Helen
immediately, when she and Bayard were left alone. “I don’t think he
ought to go. The Unforgiven are always up to some mischief. I would
accept the doctrine of eternal punishment to get rid of them. I’m
glad they’ve got as far along towards it as proof-sheets.”
“Am I keeping your father out of this warm room?” asked Bayard with
his quick perception. He glanced at the open fire on the hearth.
“That won’t do!” he said decidedly, rising.
“Oh, I didn’t mean _that_!” cried Helen, flushing.
“It is true, all the same, whether you meant it or not,” returned
Bayard. “I shall stay but a few moments. Would you mind putting on
something warm, and walking with me--for a little? We can go over
to the clam study and get him.”
“Very well,” said Helen somewhat distantly.
She wore a summer traveling-dress of purple serge, fastened at the
throat with a gold pansy. A long, thick cape with a hood lay upon
the sofa.
“Mother’s waterproof will do,” she said. She wrapped it quickly
around her, and they started out. Something in the utter absence
of vanity which led a girl at such a moment to wear the most
unbecoming thing that she could put hands on, roused a keen throb
of admiration in Bayard. Then he remembered, with a pang, the
anomaly of the situation. Why should she _wish_ to make herself
beautiful to him? What had he done--great heavens! what _could_ he
do, to deserve or to justify the innocent coquetries of a beloved
and loving woman?
Helen pulled the hood of the cloak far over her head. And yet,
what a look she had! The severity and simplicity of her appearance
added to the gravity of her face a charm which he had never seen
before. How womanly, how strong, how rich and ripe a being! He drew
her hand through his arm authoritatively. She did not resent this
trifling act of mastery. His fingers trembled; his arm shook as she
leaned upon it. They struck out upon the meadow path in the dark,
and, for a moment, neither spoke. Then he said:--
“I have something to say to you. I shall wait till we have sent the
Professor back.”
“That will be better,” said Helen, not without embarrassment. They
came to the clam study, and he waited outside while she said:--
“Come, Papa! Put the Unforgiven in your pocket, and go back to the
fire! Mr. Bayard and I are going to walk.”
The Professor meekly obeyed, and Helen locked the door of the
fish-house, and put the key in her pocket.
“I shall give it to Mr. Salt to-night,” she said. “We start at
7.20. Pepper is going to take us over.”
These trivial words staggered Bayard’s self-control.
“You always leave--so--early!” he stammered.
“Does that make it any worse?” she asked, trying to smile. It
was not a very successful smile, and Bayard saw it. They were
approaching the electric arc that lighted the entrance to the
beach. The cold, light lay white on her face. Its expression
startled him.
“Everything makes it worse!” he groaned. “It is as bad as it can
be!”
“I can see how it might have been worse,” said Helen.
“That’s more than I can do. What do you mean?”
“I would rather not tell you,” replied Helen with gentle dignity.
“Tell me what you mean!”
He turned about and lifted her averted face; he touched her with
the tip of one trembling finger under the chin.
“I prefer not to tell you, Mr. Bayard.”
She did not flush, nor blush. Her eyes met his steadily. Something
in them sent the mad color racing across his face.
“Forgive me! I have no right to insist--I forgot--I have none to
anything. I have no right to hear--to see--_anything_. God have
mercy upon me!”
He put out his shaking hand, and gently covered with it her
uplifted eyes; veiling from his own gaze the most sacred sight on
earth. It was a beautiful act, and so delicately done that Helen
felt as if a spirit had touched her.
But when she came to herself, and gave him her eyes again, with
their accustomed, calm, feminine disguise, she saw no spirit, but
the passionate face of a man who loved her and despaired of her as
she had seen no man love or despair before.
“I cannot even ask for the chance to _try_,” he cried. “I am as
much shut out as a beggar in the street. I ought to be as dumb
before you as the thousand-years’ dead! And yet, God help me--I am
a live man and I love you. I have no right to seek a right--I wrong
you and myself by every word I say, by every moment I spend in your
presence. Good-by!” he said with cruel abruptness, holding out his
hand.
Helen did not take it. She turned her back to the great arc, and
looked out to sea. Her figure, in its hooded cloak, stood strongly
against the cold, white light. The tide rose upon the deserted
beach insistently. The breakers roared on the distant shore.
“You must see--you must understand,” he groaned. “I am a poor
man--poorer than you ever took the trouble to think. A heretic,
unpopular, out of the world, an obscure, struggling fellow,
slighted, forgotten--no friends but a handful of fishermen and
drunkards--and living on--what do you suppose my salary is?”
“It never occurred to me to suppose,” said Helen, lifting her head
proudly.
“Five hundred dollars a year; to be collected if possible, to be
dispensed with if necessary.”
He jerked the words out bitterly. His fancy, with terrible
distinctness, took forbidden photographs by flashlight. He saw
this daughter of conventional Cesarea, this child of ease and
indulgence, living at Mrs. Granite’s, boarding on prunes and green
tea. He saw her trying to shake down the coal fire on a January
day, while he was out making parish calls; sitting in the bony
rocking-chair with the turkey-red cushion, beside the screen where
the paper Cupid forever tasted uneaten fruit. He saw the severe
Saint Michael looking down from the wall on that young, warm
woman-creature. He saw her sweep across the old, darned carpet in
her purple robes, with gold at her throat and wrists. He saw her
lift her soft arms. He saw--Now he put his hands before his own
eyes.
“Oh, do not suffer so!” said Helen, in a faltering voice. “Do not,
do not mind it--so much! It--it breaks my heart!”
These timid, womanly words recalled Bayard to himself.
“Before I break your heart,” he cried, “I ought to be sawn asunder!
“... Let us talk of this a little,” he said in a changed tone.
“Just a word. You must see--you _must_ understand my position. What
another man would say, in my place, I cannot say--to any woman.
What I would die for the right to ask, I may not ask.”
“I understand,” said Helen almost inaudibly.
She still stood with her back to the light, and her face to the sea.
“I love you! I love you!” he repeated. “It is _because_ I love
you--Oh, do you see? _Can_ you see?”
Helen made no reply. Was it possible that she dared not trust
herself, at that moment, to articulate? Her silence seemed to the
tortured man more cruel than the bitterest word which ever fell
from the lip of a proud and injured woman.
Now again the camera of his whirling brain took instantaneous
negatives. He saw himself doing what other men had done before him:
abandoning a doubtful experiment of the conscience to win a woman’s
love. He saw himself chopping the treadmill of his unpopular,
unsuccessful work to chips; a few strong blows would do it; the
discouraged people would merge themselves in the respectable
churches; the ripples that he had raised in the fishing-town would
close over, and his submerged work would sink to the bottom and
leave no sign. A few reformed drunkards would go on a spree; a few
fishermen would feel neglected for awhile: the scarlet and white
fires of the Church of the Love of Christ would go out on Angel
Alley. In a year Windover would be what Windover was. The eye of
the great Christ would gaze no more upon him through the veil of
coarse gauze; while he--free--a new man--with life before him, like
other men, and the right to love--like any other man--
“_That_,” he said solemnly, as if he had spoken aloud, “is
impossible. There could be only that one way. I cannot take it.”
“No,” she said, lifting her head, as if he had explained it all to
her; “no. You could never do _that_. I would not have you do that
for--for all that could happen--for--” she faltered.
“Great God!” thought Bayard, “and I cannot even _ask_ her how much
she cares--if she could ever learn or try to love me.”
He felt suddenly a strange weakness. He leaned against a boulder
for support, coughing painfully. It seemed to him as if he were
inwardly bleeding to death.
“Oh!” cried Helen, turning about swiftly and showing her own white
face. “You are not well--you suffer. This will not--must not--I
cannot bear it!” she said bravely, but with a quivering lip. “Give
me your arm, Mr. Bayard, and let us get home.”
He obeyed her in silence. He felt, in truth, too spent to speak.
They got back to the door of the cottage, and Helen led him in. Her
father was not in the parlor, and her mother had gone to bed. The
fire had fallen to embers. Helen motioned him to an easy-chair,
and knelt, coaxing the blaze, and throwing on pine wood to start
it. She looked so womanly, so gentle, so home-like, and love-like,
on her knees in the firelight there, caring for the comfort of
the exhausted man, that the sight was more than he could bear. He
covered his eyes.
“The fire flares so, coming in from the dark,” he said.
She stepped softly about, and brought him wine and crackers, but he
shook his head.
“My little tea-urn is packed,” she said, smiling, trying to look as
if nothing had happened. “I would have made you such a cup of tea
as you never tasted!”
“Spare me!” he pleaded. “Don’t you suppose I know that?”
He rose manfully, as soon as he could. She stood in the firelight,
looking up. A quiver passed over her delicate chin. He held out his
hand. She put her strong, warm clasp within it.
“I told you that I trusted you,” she said distinctly. “Believe me,
and go in peace.”
“I don’t know another woman in the world who would!” cried Bayard.
“Then let me be that only one,” she answered. “I am proud to be.”
He could not reply. They stood with clasped hands. Their eyes did
not embrace, but comradeship entered them.
“You will let me write?” he pleaded, at last.
“Yes.”
“And see you--sometimes.”
“Yes.”
“And trust me--in spite of all?”
“I have said it.”
“My blessing isn’t worth much,” he said brokenly, “but for what it
is--Oh, my Love, God go with you!”
“And stay with you!” she whispered.
He laid her hand gently down, and turned away. She heard him shut
the door, and walk feebly, coughing, up the avenue. He looked back,
once. He saw her standing between the lace curtains with her arms
upraised, and her hand above her eyes, steadily looking out into
the dark.