|THE following Sunday was a somber day for Paul Rundel. When he opened
his eyes in the gray of dawn, and lay watching the pink flood of light
as it widened and lengthened along the eastern horizon, his first
thought was the despondent one under which he had dropped to sleep--it
was the day Edward Peterson was to visit Ethel.
Paul rose and stood at the window and looked out over the lawn and
frowsy brown roofs of the tannery sheds. He was cringing under a
poignant agony that permeated his whole being, clogged the blood in his
veins, and sucked away the very breath of the life which had recently
been so full of indefinable content. The cause was not hard to find. He
was convinced that Ethel was absolutely necessary to his happiness. Had
he not met her again on his return to Georgia she might have remained in
his memory only as the young girl who had been so unexpectedly kind and
gentle to a poor outcast; but he had recently found himself more nearly
on a social level with her, and he had actually helped her. She had said
so. She had shown it in her words and actions, in her turning, under his
guidance, from despair to hope. Yet she was to be another man's wife,
a man who was evidently not disturbed by any fine-spun ideas of the
Infinite or of duty to humanity. Peterson would forge ahead in the happy
way such men have, surmounting obstacle after obstacle, climbing higher
and higher in the estimation of men, and reaping honor after honor.
Ethel would marry him. Her uncle wished it, all her friends counted
on it. To refuse Peterson would be madness. The man--especially a poor
man--who would ask her to do otherwise for his sake would be mad. Yes,
all thought of her as anything but a sympathetic friend must be crushed.
When Jeff Warren and his wife came to live in their sordid cabin on the
roadside Ethel and her mother would pass their door daily and realize
fully the caste to which Paul belonged.
He dressed himself and descended to the lawn. He raised his arms and
lowered them, and inhaled deep breaths in his usual morning exercise;
but it was done without zest and with the conviction that it would not
be of benefit while such morbid thoughts ran rife within him. He must
throw them off. He must face life as it was. He had suffered before. He
must suffer again. After all, might he not hold Ethel in his heart as
his ideal woman, even after she had become the wife of another? It must
be--that was all that was left him--and yet, and yet--A sharp pain shot
through him. His senses swam; the mocking rays of the rising sun flared
upon him. Ethel another man's wife! Ethel the recipient of another man's
caresses! Ethel the mother of another man's--
“O God, have mercy!” he moaned, and he turned down toward the gate,
almost swaying as he moved across the grass.
“Are you going for a walk?” It was Ethel's cheery voice, and it came
from the veranda. Glancing back he saw her lightly tripping down the
steps.
“Because if you are, I'll go too--if you will let me. I was up and
dressed, and saw you from the window. Oh, isn't the sunrise beautiful?”
As in a dream he stood waiting for her, and together they passed through
the gate out upon the grayish, stony road, which sloped gradually up
the mountain. He had smiled and bowed, but was unable to formulate any
suitable words of greeting. She was studying his face slowly, furtively,
and with an anxiety she was trying to hide.
“You look a little paler than you did yesterday,” she said,
hesitatingly. “Did you not sleep well?”
“I worked rather late last night,” was his evasive answer. “Night-work
sometimes has a rather depressing effect on me.”
“I suppose so,” she answered, still studying his features, “and
yet usually you are so full of happy spirits. Perhaps you”--she
hesitated--“would rather be alone?”
“Oh, how could you say that?” he exclaimed. “It is just the contrary.
I don't feel, however, that I have quite the right to intrude on you in
your--your--”
“You needn't look at it that way,” she broke in, not yet fully convinced
that she had fathomed his mood. “In fact, I want to see you. I want to
tell you how much you have helped me. You have made me realize my error.
I was depressing my mother and every one else by my gloomy hopelessness;
but now--well, I seem to have absorbed some of your wonderful
philosophy. I slept last night, as uncle would say, 'like a log,' and I
feel much better this morning.”
“Peterson is coming; that is the cause,” Paul groaned inwardly, and he
glanced away, that she might not read the thought in his eyes. To her
he said, aimlessly: “I am glad--very, very glad. Hope is the only thing.
Once one has it, all things become possible.”
“And you are so _full_ of it,” she ran on, glibly. “I was speaking to
my mother about you last night. She declared she did not think any one
could come in contact with you and be despondent. She said it was a
comfort just to watch the play of your features and hear the cheerful
ring of your voice. Perhaps you don't realize, Paul, how God has blessed
you. To go through life throwing out a radiance like yours is--well, it
is next to--divinity.”
“Divinity, divinity!” The words seemed to slip from his lips
incautiously. “There are philosophers, Ethel, who believe that God
Himself suffers in His hampered effort to bring things up to His ideal,
and that, as parts of Him, we, too, must suffer as long as He suffers.
It may be that the more we partake of His essence the more we have to
bear. Who knows? The person who can bury himself in the stirring affairs
of earth has a bliss which, if due to ignorance, is nevertheless bliss.”
“This is not like you a bit,” Ethel said, in pained reproachfulness;
and then a light broke upon her. She understood. Her heart beat more
quickly, and a hot flush mantled her brow. She hoped he would not note
her confusion. She must have time to think, to consider. Many grave
things might hang upon what he or she might impulsively say on the
crumbling edge of a precipice like that. She must not allow her
sympathies to rule her. She must never encourage a man whom she did not
love with her whole heart, and how was a girl to judge calmly when a man
was such a glorified sufferer?
“According to your views, Paul,” she continued, “faith in the goodness
of God _will_ bring all possible things.”
“Save the things of earth.” She saw his fine mouth writhe under a
sardonic smile as he recklessly plunged into what he knew was mad
indiscretion. “A jealous man cannot walk in the footsteps of a jealous
God.”
Ethel avoided his desperate and yet frankly apologetic eyes. She
shrank within herself. She was sure his words were becoming dangerously
pertinent. She kept silence for a moment. Then she paused at a
lichen-grown boulder, rested a white, throbbing hand on it, and
listlessly surveyed the trees about the farm-house.
“I am sure you cannot possibly realize the good you are doing,” she
said, with abrupt irrelevance. “I want to tell you something. It is
about my cousin Henry. You know I have never liked him very much, but
the other day I was thrown with him at the dinner-table after the others
had left. He was very downcast and sad over some recent trouble with his
father, and, to my great surprise, he spoke regretfully of his useless
life. He said you had talked to him, given him good advice, and that you
had helped him borrow money to go into business on at Grayson. Paul, I
am sure you won't lose by it. He told me, with tears in his eyes, that
he would rather die than disappoint you.”
“I am sure he will succeed,” Paul said. “He has energy and enthusiasm,
and is anxious to prove himself. I was surprised to have the bank accept
my indorsement, but they did quite readily. I really have great faith in
him. He is ashamed of himself, and that is a fine beginning.”
Ethel was turning, to proceed higher up on the road, but he stopped her.
“We must not get beyond the sound of the breakfast-bell,” he warned her.
“No, for I am hungry,” she answered, eying him still with anxious
studiousness. She turned back toward the farm-house, hesitated a
moment, and then said: “Did you happen to see the--the flowers on the
mantelpiece in your room? I gathered them and put them there yesterday.”
“Oh, did you?” he cried, eagerly. “That was very kind of you. I thought
that Mrs. Tilton did it. They fill the whole room with fragrance.”
“I'm glad you like them,” Ethel said. “By the way, I couldn't help
glancing at your books. I now know where you get your wisdom. What a
wholesome group of mental companions you have!”
“Those are my special favorites,” he answered. “If you wish to read any
of them please help yourself.”
“I was really hinting at that,” she laughed. “You have roused my
curiosity. I want to read what you have read and liked. There, that is
the breakfast-bell!”
She quickened her step, tripping on ahead of him with a little laugh
which held a note of vague uneasiness. Presently she slowed down, and
with a look of gentle concern in the glance which she directed to him
she faltered:
“I hope you won't get angry with my mother for something she is going to
inflict on you and me this morning. Being opposed to working on Sunday,
she remained up last night and arranged the table for dinner to-day. She
has it gleaming like a bank of snow, and fairly covered with evergreens,
ferns, and flowers. She insists that we take our breakfast this once in
the kitchen. She is afraid we will disarrange something. She thinks
a good deal of Mr. Peterson--_Colonel_ Peterson now, for you know the
paper yesterday said he was taken on the staff of the Governor. He
confided to us some time ago that he had hopes in that direction,
having worked hard and pulled wires for the Governor during his recent
campaign. On state occasions Mr. Peterson will wear a glittering
uniform, carry a sword, and be as stiff as a polished brass poker. Oh,
he will like it immensely, but I can never call him 'Colonel.'”
“It certainly would not do to put _him_ in the kitchen,” Paul said,
significantly; “at least not with his regalia on. Aunt Dilly might spill
something on his epaulets.”
“I see even you--good as you are--can make sport of people now and
then,” Ethel said, her eyes twinkling approvingly. “However, I am
not going to let you sit in the kitchen this morning. I'll bring your
breakfast and mine out to the table in the summer-house. It will be
great fun, won't it?”
“I certainly do not consider myself above the kitchen,” he returned, in
too bitter a tone to fall well into her forced levity. “I've eaten at
second table in a circus dining-tent, with the negro horse-feeders in a
gipsy camp, as a beggar at the kitchen door of a farm-house, and barely
escaped having my ration pushed through the iron wicket of a prison.
I am certainly unworthy of--of the summer-house and such--such gracious
company. I mean this--I mean it from the bottom of my heart.”
“You sha'n't talk that way--you sha'n't, you sha'n't!” Ethel's eyes
flashed and her round, full voice quivered. “You have said yourself that
all those unfortunate things were behind you for ever and ever things
of the past.”
“Except when I need sharp, personal discipline,” he smiled
significantly, “and I need that now. I need it to kill blind, hopeless,
impossible desire.”
“You mean--” But Ethel checked herself. He seemed such a riddle--such
a profound, alluring dangerous riddle as he walked beside her with that
gray look of desperate renunciation on his sensitive face, beneath the
surface of which smoldered unquenchable fires of passion.
Suddenly he stopped her. He laid his trembling fingers on her arm for a
bare, reverent instant.
“I am a coward at times, Ethel. You must forgive my weakness. I groan
under a burden that I know is right because it is from the Infinite.
No man should be as vain as I am tempted to be when I am with you. You
can't understand now, but some day you may--if not here, in Eternity.
There is only one way to look at it, and that is that God intends me to
suffer.”
Ethel found herself unable, wisely at least, to make any sort of
suitable response, and in awkward silence they walked along together
till the gate was reached. Then she said, nervously, and yet with
firmness that was quite evident: “I want you to meet my friend to-day
at dinner. I want him to know you. He belongs to a class of men who seem
too busy to think of deep things--things aside from an active routine,
but I am sure he will like you.”
Paul's face clouded over; he averted his eyes as he unlatched the gate
and swung it open. “Thank you, but I am afraid I can't to-day,” he said.
“Uncle Si and his wife have asked me to take dinner with them.”
“Oh, I'm sorry,” Ethel answered. “My mother will regret it, too, for
she admires you and likes you very much. But we shall have our breakfast
together in the summer-house, sha'n't we?” She glanced at the little
vine-clad structure and essayed a playful smile. “Now, run in and take a
seat, and let me attend to everything.”