"Burn it if you wish to, then. It represents only the product of my
fancy; but _you_ are my life," I said.
"Do you mean that?" he asked me, and I replied:
"Oh, yes, I do, I do."
"If I asked you to give up your writing, as I asked you to give up
Bennet, would you do it for me?"
"Yes, everything and every one, Roger," I replied, "if only you will
love me. Won't you?" In a voice full of emotion, he then said:
"Can you doubt it?"
A moment later he seemed to regret having revealed himself like that,
and he swiftly made ready to go. He was taking an early train for
Richmond. His man was waiting for him at some hotel. I wanted to go
down to the door with him, but he would not let me, and we said good-by
before mama, who had come up to say dinner was ready. He didn't kiss
me, but I kissed him right before mama, on his hand and sleeve. If I
could have reached his face, I would have kissed him there. He kept
smoothing my hair. He said he would be back very soon, that he would
never stay away from me long now.
I watched him from the window. The rain of the previous day had frozen
on the trees, and everything was glistening and slippery. A wind was
coming from the north, and the people went along the street as if blown
against their will.
Roger looked up before getting into the cab and waved to me at the
window, and I thought, as once before I had thought, as I watched his
carriage disappear, that perhaps it would always be like this. He would
always go. Would there ever come a day when he would not come again?
That was on the twenty-sixth of February. He could not have stayed in
Richmond more than a few hours, for at ten o'clock the following night
he came back to me.
I was running over some new pieces at the piano when I heard the bell
ring; but I had no idea it was he until he came into the room without
knocking. There was something about his whole appearance and attitude
that startled me. His face had a grayish, haggard look, as if he had
not slept. I ran up to him, but he held me back and began to speak
rapidly:
"Nora, I've only a few minutes in Chicago. I must catch the 11:09
back to Richmond. It's after ten now. My cab's at the door. This is
what I've come for. I want you to go to-morrow, on as early a train as
you can get, to a little hunting-lodge of mine in the Wisconsin woods.
Holmes [his valet] will come and take you, and I want you to stay there
for a week or ten days."
The oddness of his request naturally puzzled me, and of course I
exclaimed about it, and wanted to know why he wished me to go there. He
said irritably:
"What does it matter why? I want you to go. I insist upon it, in fact."
"But what will I do up there?" I asked.
"Anything you wish. Write, if you like. I've a man and woman there.
You'll not be entirely alone. The change will do you good."
"Aren't you going to be there, too?"
"I'm afraid not. I'll try to get there for the weekend if I possibly
can."
"But I don't want to go to a place all alone, Roger."
"I tell you, you won't be alone. I have a man and a woman there, and
Holmes will take you."
"But I don't see the sense in going away out there in the middle of
winter."
"I particularly want you to go. Are my wishes nothing to you, then? I
want you out of Chicago for a few days. You've not been well and--"
"I never felt better in my life."
"Nora, I want you to go. You must go. Do this thing to please me."
As, puzzled, I still hesitated, he began to promise that he would
join me there the next day, and when I still did not assent, he tried
coaxing me in another way. He said he'd bring Verley and a hunting-dog,
and he'd teach me how to ride horseback and to shoot. He had horses,
too, somewhere near there; a big stock farm, I think. I told him I
didn't want to shoot or kill things.
By this time he had worked himself up to a state of exasperation at my
stubbornness, and his request really seemed to me so ridiculous and
capricious that I began to laugh at him, saying jokingly:
"You're worse than a dog in a manger: you're a Turk. You want to shut
me up in a box."
"That's true enough," he replied. "I wish I'd done it long ago."
He was standing very tall and stiff by the door, with his coat still
on, and his arms folded grimly across his breast. I looked at him, and
a half-mischievous, half-tender impulse overwhelmed me. I went closer
to him, and put my hands on his folded arms as I said:
"I'll go, Roger, if you'll take me in your arms and kiss me."
He gave me _such_ a look at that, and then his face broke, and he
opened his arms. I went into them. I don't know how long I was in his
arms. I never wanted to leave them again.
I presently heard his voice, low and husky, and felt he was trying to
release himself from my hands. He said:
"I must go. I'll miss my train."
"O Roger, please don't leave me now!" I begged.
"I must," he replied, and then he went quickly out of the room. I
followed him into the hall, though he was striding along so swiftly I
could not keep pace with him. Just where the stairs began, I caught at
his arm and held him.
"O Roger, you do love me, don't you?" I asked sobbingly, and he said
hoarsely:
"Yes, I _do_."
Then he went down the stairs, and I after him. At the door he said I
must go back; but I was still clinging to his hand, and when he opened
the door I, too, went out.
Snow was falling densely, and the great north wind had brought on its
wing a blizzard and storm such as Chicago had seldom known; but Roger
and I, in that porch, saw nothing but each other.
He kept urging me to go in, saying I would catch my death of cold, and
stooping down, and without my asking him this time, he took me in his
arms and kissed me again and again.
"I love you, Nora," he said. "You're the only thing in the world I have
ever loved. I swear that to you, darling."
Then he kissed me again, opened the door, and turned me back.
"Roger, tell me just this, at least," I pleaded. "Is there any other
woman in your life?"
The question was out now. Like a haunting shadow that I dared not face
there had always been that horrible thought in my mind, and now for the
first time I had voiced it. With his arms still about me, looking down
into my face, he said:
"No; no one that counts. I swear that, too, Nora."
Then I went in. I was like one in a beautiful trance. That room
seemed to me the loveliest place on earth. Everything about it spoke
of him. He had chosen the softly tinted Oriental rugs, the fine
paintings,--there were paintings by great masters there,--my piano, and
the great long table where I wrote. He had chosen all these things for
me, and now I knew why he had done it. He loved me; he had said so at
last.
I went about the room touching everything, and gathering up little
things of his--papers and books; I went into his bedroom, and found his
bath-robe. I put it on, and for the first time--though he had said the
rooms were mine, I had not used them--I threw myself down there in the
room where he had slept and all night long I lay dreaming of him.