LOVE'S PROTESTATIONS.
During the rest of the dreary winter the memory of that enchanted walk
through mire and darkness and driving snow, kept two hearts--Rose's
and Allan's--fully awake. A pity, too; for sleep covers a multitude of
sufferings, and when the most impressible part of our being is wrapped
in unconsciousness, we can make shift to go through the world with
only an endurable number of the usual aches and ailments. If these
young hearts had ever really slumbered since their owners met for the
first time, less than a year before, it had been rather an uneasy
repose; and now that they were fully awake, it was to find not the
glory of the dawn, but a dark bleak day, whose beginning could
scarcely be distinguished from the night out of which it emerged,
whose end was so far--so drearily far away. Things went on as before
in their old monotonous manner. Winter relented into spring, and the
intimacy that had warmed almost into acknowledged love that wild March
evening had apparently died of its own intensity. Rose and Allan met
occasionally, but with mutual avoidance; she from innate loyalty to
her father--he from a pride that was too strong to plead. So the
endless conflict went on, but not alone in the minds of the lovers.
The doughty Commodore was daily suffering in his own person the just
punishment, which is but too apt to overtake the man, who in a point
of difference with a woman ends by having his own way. This stern
parent liked to think of himself as generous, compassionate, and
tender-hearted; and he had been grievously cheated out of this
agreeable sensation. His daughter's absolute and sweet-natured loyalty
to his will sharpened his sense of deprivation. Was it possible that
he was unnatural and tyrannical? The answer to this question was what
Rose's pale cheeks seemed to require of him, and he chafed under the
mute, unconscious, persistent repetition of the query. He recommended
her to take long walks, but she came back from them paler and more
lifeless than before. He began to see that it was possible to gain
one's own point and lose something infinitely more precious. It hurt
him to see her suffer, and he despised himself as the suspected cause
of her sufferings. He asked himself how he could have endured it if,
in his courting days, he had been shut out from the woman he loved.
She was infinitely his superior, he thought with a swelling heart, and
then his arm fell on the back of the chair beside him, and his hand
clenched, as he grimly wondered what bolts or bars would suffice to
have kept them apart. If she was alive now would she have taken this
cruelly peremptory course with their daughter? He revolved the
question with a sore heart. It admitted of but one answer. In all her
sweet and gentle life his wife had never been either peremptory or
cruel.
Unknown to Rose her father's stout heart showed signs of thawing with
the weather. He began to inform himself warily, and by indirect means,
with regard to the character, circumstances, and prospects of Allan
Dunlop, in much the same way as we make a study of the drug, hitherto
supposed to be a poison, but now believed capable of saving the life
of a loved one. In his present mood of despondency and anxiety it
seemed that every fresh fact that he learned served to raise Allan and
lower himself in his own estimation. It is difficult to atone for a
wrong so delicate that one shrinks from expressing it in words, and
yet the need of making at least one attempt at reparation was pressing
sorely upon him.
So it was with almost a girlish bound of the heart that the Commodore
read aloud, one morning, in all the polysyllabic glory of newspaper
English, an account of the heroic way in which a young child was saved
from drowning by the prompt and daring action of Allan Dunlop. It was
an opportunity for praising his enemy, and the worthy gentleman was
almost as relieved and happy as the rescued child. "Upon my word,
Rose," he said, turning to the silent girl at the other end of the
breakfast table, "that young Dunlop is a much finer fellow than I
supposed him to be."
"Yes, Papa," she assented meagrely. She had no idea of undoing the
work of weeks--the work of steeling herself against the sweetness of
recollection--by too warm an interest in the subject.
"The idea of a child paddling about alone in a boat during that
horrible storm," continued the Commodore, more impatient, if the truth
were known, with his daughter's lukewarmness than with the waifs
recklessness. "Not one man in a thousand," he continued abruptly,
"would have ventured out on Lake Ontario in that raging tempest."
"People of plebeian origin usually have a well-developed muscular
system," remarked Rose.
"But they are not fond of risking their life in the interest of their
muscles," returned the gentleman, annoyed at the girl's obstinacy, nor
dreaming how sweet from his lips sounded his praise of her lover.
"It depends upon what their life is worth. Common folks, who suffer
under the well-merited contempt of their social superiors, must grow
at last to despise what better educated people know to be despicable."
"No doubt, it is as you say," replied her father. He was thoroughly
irritated, and all his benevolent notions took flight, as they are apt
to do when the object of our philanthropy proves perverse. "I was
about to suggest that you invite him to your party to-morrow night;
but in the present state of feeling perhaps it would be better not."
"I haven't the least idea that he would come," returned the girl. "He
isn't the sort of person to allow himself to be taken up and dropped
at random."
"Well, settle it to suit yourself," he concluded. She reflected
bitterly that this privilege came when it was too late. Nevertheless,
she was grateful for it, and scolded herself soundly for giving her
father undutiful replies. She also remarked in the solitude of her own
room that she did not care a particle whether Allan came or not, and
then with a fluttering heart she wrote him a note of invitation. When
Tredway was requested to deliver it that ancient servitor manifested
so much interest in his errand that the blue eyes of his young
mistress lingered on him a moment in surprise.
"I am under very great obligations to Mr. Dunlop," he said. "I may say
that I owe my life to him?"
"You, too!" laughed the girl. "Why it was only the other day that he
rescued a strange child from the wild waves."
"He rescued me from the wild woods," said the man, with the
impressiveness of one who wishes to celebrate the most remarkable
escape on record. Tredway had a profound objection to the woods. In
the previous summer he had, with great reluctance, served as
commissary general to a party of young men, who went in pursuit of a
week's sport to Burlington Bay. Edward and Allan were of the number,
and when Tredway was lost on a little expedition of his own, to the
nearest shanty in quest of provisions, it was Allan who went in search
of him, and after some difficulty brought him back to camp. The event
had been a source of some amusement to the rest; but to the mind of
its hero it had lost nothing of its tragic aspect. "The woods are
very confusing to a person of my life and habits," he observed
deprecatingly.
"Oh, yes, indeed," returned Rose, "and so very different from England."
The gratitude with which Tredway listened to this remark was not
unmixed with regret that the tone in which it was uttered was sportive
rather than serious. He was consoled, however, by the reflection that
national differences could not be expected to oppress the heart of
unthinking youth as it did that of sad maturity.
The unreasoning joy that flamed in Allan Dunlop's face, as he glanced
over the dainty note, faded into ashen paleness as he remembered what
its response must be. "Sit down, Tredway," he said mechanically, "I
will have an answer ready in a moment." Grateful to be relieved of the
pains of indecision by the necessity for prompt action he took up a
pen and wrote rapidly:
"DEAR MISS MACLEOD:
It is very hard for me to refuse your kind invitation to be with you
to-morrow night, but it is impossible to accept it. If I were invited
to Paradise, 'for one night only,' with the knowledge that I must
forego my share of its delights thenceforth, I should wish to return
the same answer. Have I no right to hint that your presence is my
Paradise? Forgive me for it, and for my rudeness and perverseness,
which all arises out of my consuming and indestructible love for you.
The only thing I can say that can condone this offence is that I never
cease trying to destroy your image in my heart. So far the results are
extremely discouraging; but I cannot resign the hope that Time, the
great healer, may also prove, like other notable physicians, the great
destroyer. Ah! what am I saying? I can never say enough to you, and
yet already I have said too much. God bless the sweet ruler of my life
and heart forever, and grant that every ill that threatens her may
fall instead upon the head of her unworthy lover.
Will you not write me a word of forgiveness for resisting the
temptation to go to you?
Ever your worshipper,
ALLAN DUNLOP."
He ended with a strange feeling of the incongruity of this declaration
of passion with his surroundings, the stuffy unhomelike chambers on
King Street, and the rather severe presence of a man, whose existence
emphasized all the hated social distinction that never weighed so
heavily on him as at present. This rigorous representative of his
class took the message delivered to him, and stood for a moment
hesitatingly in the doorway.
"Your people are quite well, I hope, Tredway," said Allan.
"Yes, sir, thank you. Quite well, with the exception of Miss Rose. She
is looking badly."
"I am very sorry. I made no inquiries about her, because, since her
accident last summer, she has never been otherwise than well. I wish,"
and his tones were sad and sincere as his meaning, "that I could do
something for her."
"Thank you, sir. It is taking a great liberty to say so, but your
visits are so infrequent that I believe Miss Rose is under the
impression that you did not greatly care."
"Oh, I _care_ enough, quite enough," he added mentally. "The fact is
there is danger of my caring too much, and nobody knows better than
you, Tredway, that that would be the greatest piece of folly I could
perpetrate. Miss Rose is vastly my social superior."
The old man bowed his head as though this were too obvious a truth to
need comment. Then he said encouragingly:
"Ah, there is nothing but the remains of their former greatness left
to the Macleods. They are growing more and more _bourgeois_ since
coming to this degenerate country.
"Yes, I imagine that their family dignity, in such times as these, may
be a little out of repair; but I can hardly venture to build vain
hopes on the ruins. You are a good fellow, Tredway; good-bye!"
A few days later the coveted answer to his missive came.
"DEAR MR. DUNLOP:
Since I am to see you no more it seems unnecessary if not unkind of me
to write and prolong the pain of parting. But if you were dying, and
should tell me with nearly your latest breath what you wrote in your
letter, I should want you to know that the confession was dear and
sacred to me--something I should remember all the rest of my life.
I am not willing to believe that your future will be wholly bereft of
consolation. One who is capable of imperiling his life to save that of
an unknown child ought to know that he can never find any better
company than his own. But you need never be lonely; I hear your name
and career frequently spoken of with warm appreciation by your
friends, among whom I hope you will always number
Yours very sincerely,
ROSE MACLEOD."
"Ah!" ejaculated Allan, as he read and re-read this brief epistle,
"she does not despise my love, but she recognizes its hopelessness."
With the usual bluntness of masculine perception he failed to see that
it was impossible for her to ignore what he himself was accustomed to
dwell upon at such dreary length. If he was profoundly convinced that
there was no hope, she could scarcely condescend to suggest that there
might be a glimmer. So the young man continued to be wrapped in the
darkness which was largely born of his own imagination.
"What rank," he wrote, in immediate response, "shall I assign you
among my friends? One's friend may be simply an acquaintance of long
standing, who cherishes no special animosity toward one, or it may be
the stranger of a year ago, who now is knit into the very fibre of
one's being. Just so closely woven with my inmost self have you grown,
dear, and to put the thought of you away from me is like putting my
own eyes from me. Do you think I can be trusted as a friend? I foresee
that I shall be the most faithless one ever known, for I have never
been your friend, and I don't know how to begin to be one, whereas I
have had nearly a year's experience in loving you. But I am jesting
with a sore heart. It is strange that I can jest at all; and yet I
know that I am richer and happier in owning the smallest corner of
your heart, than if I possessed the whole of any other woman's."
He wrote a great deal more of the same sort, by turns light, fanciful,
woful or desperate. But all this Rose ignored. "I am very glad," she
wrote demurely, "that you are rich and happy on such insufficient
grounds. I could scarcely deny a corner of my heart to any of my
friends, but the rest of them are well enough acquainted with me to
know that the possession is not a source of unmixed joy. This illusion
of yours must be destroyed, and, as you will see, my share of this
correspondence is going to tend gently but inexorably towards that
end. I still cherish hopes of retaining your friendship. It is so much
more difficult for a man to be a woman's friend than it is for him to
be by turns her worshipper and oppressor--and you are made to conquer
difficult things, and be made stronger by them. You have admirable
qualities--self-forgetfulness, lofty purpose, a will that never
falters, a heart that never faints. I discovered all these before I
received your letters. Otherwise, do you think I would have discovered
them at all?"
Thus preached this adorable little high-priest of heroic self-denial,
and when she had made an end she burst into tears, and wished that
Allan were there to wipe them away.