“Why, of course not.”
“Why did you run away so?”
Raoul looked at me as who should say, “Oh, these Northerners!”
“Perhaps it wasn’t necessary,” he added, with that faint tinge of
sarcasm which is akin to humor. “Is that your ring you wear upon your
finger?”
I know I started; and I felt myself blush. “It--it was given to me to
wear,” I gasped.
“Exactly--and by Miss Jeanie Bruce--and Mr. Kirk Bruce gave it to
Miss Jeanie. Of course he thought--when he heard a Miss Bruce and a
gentleman had gone off to get married----”
“Kirk Bruce gave it to her?” I said. My mind works slowly at such
times.
“Certainly. Did she not tell you so?”
“She said a gentleman gave it her----”
“Well, he was the gentleman.”
“Who had shot a schoolmate at boarding-school----”
“Same man, I assure you.”
“For being attentive to a young lady who----”
“Kirk Bruce, to a T.”
“Went out without a revolver----”
“As you did yourself. I think,” concluded Raoul, “you had better give
Miss Jeanie her ring back.”
“If I do,” said I, “I’m damned.”
10.
THEY were married the next day in the pretty little Episcopal
church in Spartanburg, by the Bishop of Georgia. They left the same
afternoon on their wedding journey back to “Old White” and the North.
Miss Jeanie Bruce and I accompanied them--or rather, they us--as far as
the junction station (I forget its name), where they met the east-bound
train, and we were to keep on to Knoxville.
Jeanie’s sweet face was very pale, but her eyes were like deep
wells--so deep now that they indeed “unravelled the coiled night and
saw the stars by noon.” She had to sit by me now; but her silence
appealed even to a blunted Northern sense of chivalry. I foresaw that
I, too, should have to keep silence until I had brought her home to
Knoxville. But not a day longer! Not an hour, I finally vowed.
But oh, the beauty of that immediate future! The long twenty hours’
journey after they left us at the junction--where she was under my
protection, and no Kirk Bruce could say me nay! Even chivalry at such
times is like a _sordine_ on one harp-string--heart-string I had
almost said. And one’s being is so resonant that the note of speech is
hardly missed.
So, I had my two-hours’ day-dream, and then Mrs. Judge Pennoyer turned
up on that east-bound train, as chaperone to bring us home.
“You telegraphed for her?” I said to Jeanie.
She did not deny it; and I thought Mrs. Pennoyer cast one look at me as
of contempt.
Then I saw her see the ring upon my finger, and her expression seemed
to change.
We saw the happy pair go off, and we went back to our seats in the
returning train. We three; and one of us most miserable, and that was I.
I had given up all hope of talking with Jeanie any more. She went
off with Mrs. Pennoyer to a front seat, where I saw them in earnest
consultation; and that ancient relict of justice tempered by mercy
appeared to be speaking of me. I watched them; and I heard the words
“Mr. Bruce” and “the ring;” and I saw Jeanie grow still more pale.
Finally, to my glad astonishment, she rose, and like a brave lady--not
like those Northern girls I knew in Salem, who would not dare throw a
man a life preserver to save him from drowning--sweet and gracious, she
came back to me.
“Mr. Higginbotham” (what a name to set by Raoul, or even Bruce), “I
must have my ring again,” said she.
“Never,” I answered. “It is not your ring, but mine.”
“I only lent it to you. I did not give it.”
“Then lend it to me a little longer--till I have seen you home,” I said.
Her eyes filled with tears, and my heart was drowned in them.
“But Mrs. Pennoyer says Cousin Kirk is waiting for us there. Oh,
please.”
“Let him wait,” I said.
“But, please. I implore you--as you----”
“As I love you,” I said. “As I love you, I shall keep it. Will you
marry me?”
“I--I do not love you,” she answered, almost in a whisper. “Now, will
you give it back?”
“No,” I said.