The professor had the faults of an absent-minded man, and the
peculiarities of a reticent one! Once his confidence was gained, there
was little he withheld, and he never quite remembered what he had told
or not told, and so, sometimes, blurted out a secret unwittingly.
It was with no thought of mischief that he said to Montague, "The
fellow's wife is dead!"
"Whose?" asked that young man in astonishment.
"Why, Lawson's!"
"Lawson's!" in incredulous horror; "he was not married?"
"Divorced, you know!"
Montague stopped short, the hazy, misty, spring-tide world reeled about
him.
"He met me on the quadrangle this morning and told me." The professor
did not add that his haughty manner of doing so had been a most
unpleasant and rankling memory all the day; nor did he know that his
uneasiness was the cause of his confidence.
"Said that, as I had known the other, he wished me to know this; as if
it mattered," testily.
"How long have you known?"
"Since--since Christmas." The professor was hot and cold, and saw with
lightning glance his blunder.
But Montague's manner assured him quickly. His instant return to the
subject in hand, his quick and voluble speaking on the affairs they had
come out to discuss, blinded him. He had been a fool, he told himself,
but it made no difference. It did.
They had been sauntering about the farm and out to the edge of the
corn-field. Bill at the farther end was replanting. The crows overhead
called raucously, the mountain at their side ran sheer to the sky-line
with its waves of color, gray, green, and vivid green. The valley far
below shimmered in the heat, and the far-off mountains beyond it lifted
slumberous peaks into the veiling blue haze. Montague had felt all its
beauty to the full; with his soft hat pulled over his eyes, and his
hands thrust in his pockets, he had been loitering happily about showing
the professor his spring work.
It had been a season of unnamable happiness to him; joy after joy
undreamed, because it was unknown, had blossomed in his heart, like the
sweet spring flowers in the circle of the flower-plot, unseen,
unthought-of, until they lifted their heads into the sunny atmosphere,
and all the world was more beautiful for their coming; hopes and plans
were unfolding about his life like the leaves on the old oaks, slowly,
sturdily, of beautiful growth, and steady persistence; the sunny
atmosphere of love enwrapped him and brought into his life--restrained
and chary of giving its best gifts, though steadfast, true, and
deep--thoughts beautiful as the butterflies unfolding their wings, and
sweet as the apple-blossoms flushing the orchard behind the great
house, which was no longer empty and lonely, but was filled with a
visionary presence.
Now its sunshine was blotted out at a word. He shivered a little as they
turned back. "Bring the mare around to the front!" he called as they
passed the stable. "I think I will ride back with you!" he added to Mr.
Holloway.
He left the professor to attend to some affairs in town, and when he got
out to the University he found that Frances was lazily asleep. He sent
to ask if she would take a ride, and waited with no show of impatience
until she came running down the stair, habited and gloved.
"A ride!" she called. "How delightful! If I had had Starlight, I should
not have been so lazy, but father was out with you. Has he any new
suggestions?"
"Not one!" Montague smiled, and in the darkened room, Frances did not
notice how white he was.
"We had better hurry!" she said, "or we will lose the sunset."
Montague opened the door as she spoke. The shadows of the maples
stretched long across the quadrangle, and the corridor and houses across
the way shimmered in the low and golden sunlight. The vine about the
pillar stretched brave new tendrils upward, and proudly waved its glossy
leaves.
Frances, with quick sight for each beauty of the outside world and ready
speech of field and flower and wayside growth and bloom, kept her own
blithe atmosphere about her, as they rode.
Far out where the road climbed high, she drew rein. They were in time
for the sunset glory. It flooded the valley below them with mystic
light, kindled the skies beyond the hill-tops with scarlet fires,
against which the peaks loomed dark, and sent banners of trailing clouds
far over the zenith.
With hands clasped upon the pommel, she watched the scene with delighted
eyes. Montague pulled his horse close to hers, and leaned over, his hand
on Starlight's mane. So, with the golden light of the sun streaming
around her, he could see every line of her face.
What he had to say to her he had determined to say shortly, bravely,
with no embroidery of verbiage.
"Frances," he said as he watched her intently, "I heard to-day that
Lawson's wife was dead; did you know it?"
Frances straightened in her saddle as if she had been struck. Her eyes,
which had been dark and dreamy, flashed. "Yes," she said shortly, "I
knew it!"
"Does it make any difference with you?"
"How dare you?"
"It's not a question of daring," he said simply, "but of truth. You
remember last winter--" he went on mercilessly.
Frances pulled up her loosened reins. "We had better turn here," she
said coldly.
But Montague never moved his hand. "'Turn here'?" He spoke of the way of
their love and she read his hidden meaning aright. "_Perhaps_, but not
now. You know, I know that you know, that I value your own happiness
beyond my own. I have thought--but maybe your happiness does not lie
with me, Frances?"
She was silent, a curve on her lips he had never seen and did not like
to see.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.
"No!" she flashed, "I am sure of nothing, certainly of nothing a man
will say or do!"
"It is no time for such words," said Montague; "you know I love you, I
could never tell you how much! Day by day I might show you, prove to
you--
"I believe," he flushed a little as he spoke, "I could make you happy.
But I must give you this opportunity; if there has been any mistake
you--you can turn back.
"Only if you wish." He had begun with renunciation; manlike he was
ending with pleading. "We have been so happy," he pleaded. He saw the
tremble of her lip, "I believe, I believe I could make you happy," he
pleaded the old words again.
The reins hung loosened on Starlight's neck, Montague's hand slipped
along the horse's mane until it rested on hers.
"Knows so little, knows so little!" rang a voice in Frances' ears. She
stole a glance at him as he waited. She knew, looking through veiled
lids, the lithe figure, the strong, earnest face and grave, serious
eyes; knew his sunny nature, his strength, his clean, honest love for
her. She remembered the agony of the day she thought him dead; she
remembered the joy of finding him alive; she remembered the happiness of
the days afterward--for they had been happy.
"Frances!" he pleaded, "I am waiting."
She straightened herself in her saddle, and picked up the reins. There
was a demure smile on her red lips, and a flash of amusement in the dark
eyes the young man could not see for the drooping lashes.
"Suppose we take the road ahead and ride around the other way
home--then," with a careless look along the road behind her, "then we
need not turn back."