ELSIE BELLWOOD’S RESOLVE.
“How are you feeling to-night, Elsie?”
“No better.”
“That’s too bad, dear! I’m so sorry!”
Inza Burrage placed her arm lovingly about Elsie Bellwood and drew
Elsie’s head down upon her shoulder. They were in their room in the
home of John Loder, in Baltimore. It was evening.
“I’m so sorry!” repeated Inza sympathetically, as she softly patted
Elsie’s pale cheek. “What seems to be the matter?”
“I’m tired, tired. I seem to be tired all the time now, Inza. I can’t
get rested.”
“You’ll be better to-morrow, dear,” declared the dark-eyed girl
cheerfully; “I’m sure you’ll be better to-morrow.”
“I don’t know,” sighed Elsie. “I fear not. Each day I’ve thought
I would be better the next, but I improve so slowly it is very
discouraging. It doesn’t seem that I’ll ever be well and strong again,
as I used to be.”
“Oh, but you will—of course you will! You’re much better than you were
in Virginia.”
“I’d be dead now if I hadn’t improved at all,” returned Elsie, with a
faint smile. “I used to feel so well. Inza, you’re wasting your time
staying by me this way. I appreciate it, oh, so much! But, I know how
you must feel. You are well and strong and full of life. You make me
feel guilty over keeping you in like this. I feel that I am——”
“There, there!” exclaimed Inza laughingly, placing a soft hand over
Elsie’s lips. “I won’t listen to such nonsense! Are you not my dearest
friend! It’s a great satisfaction to me if I can do anything for you,
as I know how much you have done for me in the past and how much you
would do now if you had the opportunity.”
“But you would be with Frank a great deal more if you did not feel it
your duty to stay here with me. I am robbing you of that pleasure. It
is not right. You had a letter from him in the last delivery to-day.”
“Yes.”
“And I had one from Bart. Dear Bart! They have been very successful
with their lacrosse team, and now they are coming back from their trip.”
“And Frank must leave for Mexico in a very few days. He wants me to go
with him.”
Elsie started a little, and her face seemed to take on an added shade
of pallor.
“To go with him?” she murmured.
“As—as Mrs. Merriwell.”
Slowly Elsie lifted one not quite steady hand to her cheek.
“I am glad,” she finally said, in a voice that was very low. “You will
go with him, Inza?”
“Are you ready for the marriage?”
“Am I ready?”
“Yes, Elsie. I know Bart has urged you. You know it has been our plan
to be married together—to have a double marriage. Frank wants it; Bart
wants it; I want it. When will you be ready?”
Elsie did not reply immediately. It seemed that she was thinking. In
truth, she was summoning her strength.
“It will be a long time before I am ready, I fear,” she finally
answered. “You must not wait for me, Inza.”
“Oh, Elsie, that would spoil everything! Oh, we must wait! I shall
insist upon it.”
Elsie turned and looked into the dark eyes of her companion.
“Inza,” she said, “I may not be married for a year—I doubt very much
if I shall. I may not be married then. It is not right for you to wait
longer. Frank has asked you; he is impatient. Too many times something
has arisen to delay your union with him. Through it all your love has
been constant and his has never changed.”
“Oh, no matter what happened, my love for Frank would remain the same.”
“You have been tried as with fire. There is no reason why you should
permit anything to longer delay the consummation of your happiness and
his. It would not be right to Frank if you did permit anything. You
must marry him and go with him to Mexico for your wedding trip.”
“But why won’t you make it a double wedding? I do not understand——”
“When the boys were here in Baltimore I talked the matter over with
Bart. He almost insisted that I should set a date. He wanted us to get
together and agree on a date. I said no.”
“But why—why? I can’t understand why!”
“Don’t fancy for a moment, Inza, that you love Frank more than I love
Bart. It is not that my feelings have changed, but I have been ill
and——”
“You are much better now. At times you are quite strong for a little
while. Why, you attended the lacrosse game with me.”
“And was ill for two days after. I tried not to let you know how ill I
was. I did not wish you to think me spleeny, Inza.”
Inza laughed musically.
“I know you too well to think anything like that,” she said. “I have
known you to endure too much. Oh, no, no, no! you are not spleeny!
Anything but that!”
“I never knew my mother to remember her well,” said Elsie. “My father
told me lots about her. My mother was for many years a semi-invalid.
If she seemed pretty well for a day or two, she was ill for weeks
after. Father adored her. He told me that never was there a sweeter or
more patient woman. He told me I was like her as he knew her when they
first met. Even as a little girl I bore a remarkable resemblance to my
mother. One old-fashioned picture of her was precisely like a picture
I had taken, with the exception that there was a difference in our
dresses and the way our hair was arranged. Father often said it was his
prayer that I always remained well and strong.
“In every other way save in health he hoped I would exactly resemble
my mother. I’ve meditated often on his words. I used to fear that some
time I would become an invalid, the same as mother. That fear has grown
upon me. It has taken a firm hold of me, and I cannot shake it off.
Something seems to tell me that I shall never be wholly well and strong
after this. A young man burdened with an invalid for a wife has a
millstone about his neck, continually dragging him down. If he is a man
of ambition and ability his life may be ruined. He can never rise as he
would if he had a wife to cheer, encourage, and stimulate him to his
best efforts. I believe Bart was meant by fate to become a great man.
As his wife, if I were an invalid, I should hold him down. Therefore,
Inza, I have resolved not to marry him—now.”
Elsie had spoken earnestly, sincerely, from the bottom of her heart.
She meant the words she uttered. There was no shamming about it; she
was not posing. She really feared she would become an incumbrance upon
Bart Hodge, and, for that reason and that alone, she was not ready to
marry him. On her part it indicated a most remarkable attitude and
most astonishing self-sacrifice. Few girls, loving a man as she loved
Hodge, would have paused to consider—would have firmly held the cup of
happiness back—out of consideration for his future.
In these days it is seldom a girl thinks that she may make or mar the
man whose bride she is to be. As a rule, the one thought of the girl is
to gratify herself and her selfish desires for comfort, ease, position,
and happiness. Not one girl in a thousand hesitates to marry a man
through fear that she may become a burden to him.
For years Inza had known Elsie to be generous, unselfish, and
self-sacrificing to a wonderful degree; but now it seemed to Inza that
her dearest friend was carrying her self-denying inclination to a
mistaken extreme, and of this she attempted to convince her.
Elsie listened to Inza’s argument, but it did not alter her
determination.
“My dearest friend,” she said softly yet firmly, “I am not strong
enough now to pass through the excitement and strain of preparing for
such a wedding. It would overtax me, even were I willing to place such
a burden on Bart’s shoulders. But you must not permit me to delay your
own happiness and that of Frank. You must marry him now.”
This Inza was extremely loath to do.
“It ruins our plan, which we have talked over so many times,” she
murmured regretfully. “Does nothing ever transpire in this world as we
plan it?”
“I’m afraid few things come out just as we wish them,” answered Elsie;
“yet we should be happy. I am sure all will be well in the end. Promise
me that you will not put Frank off longer.”
It was no simple task to induce Inza to agree to this, but finally,
by her gentle persuasion, Elsie succeeded. Immediately a sweet smile
illumined her face.
“I am so glad!” she breathed. “Both you and Frank will be very happy
together.”
“But you, Elsie—how about you?”
“Don’t think of me. I am all right here, where I have a good home and
kind friends.”
“Bart——”
“It will be better for him than it would be if he found himself tied
to an invalid wife. It is my love for him that has led me to this
resolution. I have written him, explaining as well as possible the
situation, although I have not told him that I am putting off our union
for his sake. Promise me, Inza, that you will not tell him this. Let
him think, if he will, that it is on my own account that I ask the
delay.”
Again Inza flung her arms round Elsie.
“You are the dearest, sweetest girl in all the world!” she exclaimed;
“but I cannot believe that your fears for your own health have any
foundation. You have been so strong and well! It will all come out
right in time, and we will be together again, you as Bart’s wife and I
as Frank’s. We’ll have jolly times, as we have had in the past. Oh, but
we have had such splendid times, haven’t we, Elsie?”
“Surely we have. No matter what may happen to me now, I shall always
remember the past with unspeakable pleasure and be glad I have lived.”
They fell to talking over old times and the many scenes and adventures
through which they had passed since the wild night when Captain
Bellwood’s vessel was wrecked on Tiger Tooth Ledge, near Fardale. They
laughed lightly as they spoke of misunderstandings and jealousies, now
happily forever at an end.
Then, as was natural, they began to talk of Inza’s trousseau and plan
it, and both were very deeply engaged in this and very happy over it.
Finally they paused from sheer exhaustion.
“One thing has made me a bit unhappy,” Elsie finally observed.
Inza looked at her quickly.
“You mean——”
“Frank’s unfortunate trouble with Fred Fillmore. Fred is Mrs. Loder’s
brother. At first she didn’t know why he left Baltimore so suddenly
after the lacrosse game; but I think he has written her, placing the
blame on Frank.”
“Frank was not in the least to blame!” exclaimed Inza quickly. “They
were just foolish boys, both of them. Fred thought himself in love with
me, and I had to hold him at a distance. He must have been crazy, else
he would not have tried to knock Frank out in the game by hitting him
over the head. No one could blame Frank for being angry and threatening
to settle with Fred the next time they met. That was why Fred left
Baltimore. There was no need for him to do so, for I would not have
permitted Frank to quarrel with him.”
A little later Elsie said:
“I think I’ll go to bed now, Inza. I need rest. If I could only rest so
I would not feel tired in the morning!”
Inza remained to assist Elsie. The girl with the blue eyes and the
sweet, pale face sank back amid the pillows with a sigh.
“I’m so glad, Inza,” she breathed—“so glad all your dreams are going to
be realized. You will be very, very happy, and I shall be happy because
you are.”
Inza kissed her.
“Always thinking of others, you unselfish child!” she exclaimed. “What
a world this would be if there were more like you in it! I am going
down to the library for a book I am reading, dear. I will return soon.”
Lightly she descended the stairs. The library was dark as she stepped
in, but she pushed a button and turned on the electric lights. At the
same moment she detected an odor of tobacco smoke. The flood of light
showed her a person standing near the centre of the room, his feet
quite wide apart, smoking a cigarette.
“Fred!” she exclaimed, startled; “Fred Fillmore!”