It was one fairly warm evening, three days after Jane had left for
Atlanta. Virginia had given Sam his supper, and he had strolled off down
to the store with his pipe. Then, with a light shawl over her shoulders,
the girl sat in the bright moonlight on the porch. She had not been
there long when she saw a man on a horse in the road reining in at the
gate. Even before he dismounted she had recognized him. It was Luke
King. Hardly knowing why she did so, she sprang up and was on the point
of disappearing in the house, when, in a calm voice, he called out to
her:
"Wait, Virginia! Don't run. I have a message for you."
"For me?" she faltered, and with unaccountable misgivings she stood
still.
Throwing the bridle-rein over the gate-post, he entered the yard and
came towards her, his big felt-hat held easily in his hand, his fine
head showing to wonderful advantage in the moonlight.
"You started to run," he laughed. "You needn't deny it. I saw you, and
you knew who it was, too. Just think of my little friend dodging
whenever she sees me. Well, I can't help that. It must be natural. You
were always timid with me, Virginia."
"Won't you come in and have a chair?" she returned. "Mother has gone
away to Atlanta, and there is no one at home but my uncle and me."
"I knew she was down there," King said, feasting his hungry and yet
gentle and all-seeing eyes on her. "That's what I stopped to speak to
you about. She sent you a message."
"Oh, you saw her, then!" Virginia said, more at ease.
"Yes, I happened to be at the big Union car-shed when her train came in,
and saw her in the crowd. The poor woman didn't know which way to turn,
and I really believe she was afraid she'd get lost or stolen, or
something as bad. When she saw me she gave a glad scream and fairly
tumbled into my arms. She told me where she wanted to go, and I got a
cab and saw her safe to the doctor's."
"Oh, that was very good of you!" Virginia said. "I'm so glad you met
her."
"She was in splendid spirits, too, when I last saw her," King went on.
"I dropped in there this morning before I left, so that I could bring
you the latest news. She was very jolly, laughing and joking about
everything. The doctor had not had time to make an examination, but he
has a way of causing his patients to look on the bright side. He told
her she had nothing really serious to fear, and it took a big load off
her mind."
They were now in the house, and Virginia had lighted a candle and he had
taken a seat near the open door.
"Doctors have a way of pretending to be cheerful, even before very
serious operations, haven't they?" she asked, as she sat down not far
from him.
She saw him hesitate, as if in consideration of her feelings, and then
he said, "Yes, I believe that, too, Virginia; still, he is a wonderful
man, and if any one can do your mother good he can."
"If _anybody_ can?--yes," she sighed.
"You mustn't get blue," he said, consolingly; "and yet how can you well
help it, here almost by yourself, with your mother away under such sad
circumstances?"
"Your own mother was not quite well recently," Virginia said,
considerately. "I hope she is no worse."
"Oh, she's on her feet again," he laughed, "as lively as a cricket,
moving about bossing that big place."
"Why, I thought, seeing you back so--so soon," the girl stammered; "I
thought that you had perhaps heard--"
"That she was sick again? Oh no!" he exclaimed, and then he saw her
drift and paused, and, flushed and embarrassed, sat staring at the
floor.
"You didn't--surely you didn't come all the way here to--to tell me
about my mother!" Virginia cried, "when you have important work to do
down there?"
There was a moment's hesitation on his part; then he raised his head and
looked frankly into her eyes.
"What's the use of denying it?" he said. "I don't believe in deception,
even in small things. It never does any good. I _did_ have work to do
down there, but I couldn't go on with it, Virginia, while you were here
brooding as you are over your mother's condition. So I stayed at my desk
till the north-bound train was ready to pull out. Then I made a break
for it, catching the last car as it whizzed past the crossing near the
office. The train was delayed on the way up, and after I got to Darley I
was afraid I couldn't get a horse at the stable and get here before you
were in bed; but you see I made it. Sam Hicks will blow me up about the
lather his mare is in. I haven't long to stay here, either, for I must
get back to Darley to catch the ten-forty. I'll reach the office about
four in the morning, if I can get the conductor to slow up in the
Atlanta switch-yard for me to hop off at the crossing."
"And you did all that simply to tell me about my mother?" Virginia said.
"Why, she could have written."
"Yes, but seeing some one right from the spot is more satisfying," he
said, with embarrassed lightness. "I wanted to tell you how she was, and
I'm glad, whether you are or not."
"I'm glad to hear from her," said Virginia. "It is only because I did
not want to put you to so much trouble."
"Don't bother about that, Virginia. I'd gladly do it every night in the
week to keep you from worrying. Do you remember the day, long ago, that
I came to you down at the creek and told you I was dissatisfied with
things here, and was going away off to begin the battle of life in
earnest?"
"Yes, I remember," Virginia answered, almost oblivious of the clinging,
invisible current which seemed to be sweeping them together.
He drew a deep breath, as if to take in courage for what he had to say,
and then went on:
"You were only a little girl then, hardly thirteen, and yet to me,
Virginia, you were a woman capable of the deepest feeling. I never shall
forget how you rebuked me about leaving my mother in anger. You looked
at me as straight and frank as starbeams, and told me you'd not desert
your mother in her old age for all the world. I never forgot what you
said and just the way you said it, and through all my turbulent life out
West your lecture was constantly before me. I was angry at my mother,
but finally I got to looking at her marriage differently, and then I
began to want to see her and to do my filial duty as you were doing
yours. That was one reason I came back here. The other was
because--Virginia, it was because I wanted to see _you_."
"Oh, don't, don't begin--" but Virginia's protest died away in her
pulsing throat. She lowered her head and covered her hot face with her
hands.
"But I have begun, and I must go on," he said. "Out West I met hundreds
of attractive women, but I could never look upon them as other men did
because of the--the picture of you stamped on my brain. I was not
hearing a word about you, but you were becoming exactly what I knew you
would become; and when I saw you out there in the barn-yard that first
day after I got back, my whole being caught fire, and it's blazing
yet--it will blaze as long as there is a breath of my life left to fan
it. For me there can be but one wife, little girl, and if she fails me
I'll go unmarried to my grave."
"Oh, don't! don't!" Virginia sobbed, her tones muffled by her hands
pressed tightly over her face. "You don't know me. I'm not what you
think I am. I'm only a poor, helpless, troubled--"
"Don't! don't!" he broke in, fearfully--"don't decide against me
hastily! I know--God knows I am unworthy of you, and if you don't feel
as I do you will never link your young life to mine. Sometimes I fear
that your shrinking from me as you often do is evidence against my
hopes. Oh, dear, little girl, am I a fool? Am I a crazy idiot asking you
for what you can't possibly give?"
A sob which she was trying to suppress shook her from head to foot, and
she rose and stepped to the door and stood there looking out on the
moonlit road, where his impatient horse was pawing the earth and
neighing. There was silence. King leaned forward, his elbows on his
knees, his strong fingers locked like prongs of steel in front of him,
his face deep cut with the chisel of anxiety. For several minutes he
stared thus at her white profile struck into sharp clearness by the
combined light from without and within.
"I see it all," he groaned. "I've lost. While I was away out there
treasuring your memory and seeing your face night after night, day after
day--holding you close, pulling these rugged old mountains about you for
protection, you were not--you were not--I was simply not in your
thoughts."
Then she turned towards him. She seemed to have grown older and stronger
since he began speaking so earnestly.
"You must not think of me that way any longer," she sighed. "You mustn't
neglect your work to come to see me, either."
"You will never be my wife, then, Virginia?"
"No, I could never be that, Luke--no, not that--never on earth."
He shrank together as if in sudden, sharp physical pain, and then he
rose to his full height and reached for his hat, which she had placed on
the table. His heavy-soled boots creaked on the rough floor; he tipped
his chair over, and it would have fallen had he not awkwardly caught it
and restored it to its place.
"You have a good reason, I am sure of that," he said, huskily.
"Yes, yes, I--I have a reason." Her stiff lips made answer. "We are not
for each other, Luke. If you've been thinking so, so long, as you say,
it is because you were trying to make me fit your ideal, but I am not
that in reality. I tell you I'm only a poor, suffering girl, full of
faults and weaknesses, at times not knowing which way to turn."
He had reached the door, and he stepped out into the moonlight, his
massive head still bare. He shook back his heavy hair in a determined
gesture of supreme faith and denial and said: "I know you better than
you know yourself, because I know better than you do how to compare you
to other women. I want you, Virginia, just as you are, with every sweet
fault about you. I want you with a soul that actually bleeds for you,
but you say it must not be, and you know best."
"No, it can't possibly be," Virginia said, almost fiercely. "It can
never be while life lasts. You and I are as wide apart as the farthest
ends of the earth."
He bowed his head and stood silent for a moment, then he sighed as he
looked at her again. "I've thought about life a good deal, Virginia," he
said, "and I've almost come to the conclusion that a great tragedy must
tear the soul of every person destined for spiritual growth. This may be
my tragedy, Virginia; I know something of the tragedy that lifted Ann
Boyd to the skies, but her neighbors don't see it. They are still
beating the material husk from which her big soul has risen."
"I know what she is," Virginia declared. "I'm happy to be one who knows
her as she is--the grandest woman in the world."
"I'm glad to hear you say that," King said. "I knew if anybody did her
justice it would be you."
"If I don't know how to sympathize with her, no one does," said the
girl, with a bitterness of tone he could not fathom. "She's wonderful;
she's glorious. It would be worth while to suffer anything to reach what
she has reached."
"Well, I didn't come to talk of her, good as she has been to me," King
said, gloomily. "I must get back to the grind and whir of that big
building. I shall not come up again for some time. I have an idea I know
what your reason is, but it would drive me crazy even to think about
it."
She started suddenly, and then stared steadily at him. In the white
moonlight she looked like a drooping figure carved out of stone, even to
every fold of her simple dress and wave of her glorious hair.
"You think you know!" she whispered.
"Yes, I think so, and the pronunciation of a single name would prove it,
but I shall not let it pass my lips to-night. It's my tragedy,
Virginia."
"And mine," she said to herself, but to him it seemed that she made no
response at all, and after a moment's pause he turned away.
"Good-bye," he said, from the gate.
"Good-bye, Luke," she said, impulsively.
But at the sound of his name he whirled and came back, his brow dyed
with red, his tender eyes flashing. "I'll tell you one other thing, and
then I'll go," he said, tremulously. "Out West, one night, after a big
ball which had bored the life out of me--in fact, I had only gone
because it was a coming-out affair of the daughter of a wealthy friend
of mine. In the smoking-room of the big hotel which had been rented for
the occasion I had a long talk with a middle-aged bachelor, a man of the
world, whom I knew well. He told me his story. In his younger days he
had been in love with a girl back East, and his love was returned, but
he wanted to see more of life and the world, and was not ready to settle
down, and so he left her. After years spent in an exciting business and
social life, and never meeting any one else that he could care for, a
sudden longing came over him to hear from his old sweetheart. He had no
sooner thought of it than his old desires came back like a storm, and he
could not even wait to hear from her. He packed up hastily, took the
train, and went back home. He got to the village only two days after she
had married another man. The poor old chap almost cried when he told me
about it. Then, in my sympathy for him, I told him of my feeling for a
little girl back here, and he earnestly begged me not to wait another
day. It was that talk with him that helped me to make up my mind to come
home. But, you see, I am too late, as he was too late. Poor old Duncan!
He'd dislike to hear of my failure. But I've lost out, too. Now, I'll go
sure. Good-bye, Virginia. I hope you will be happy. I'm going to pray
for that."
Leaning against the door-jamb, she saw him pass through the gateway,
unhitch his restive horse, and swing himself heavily into the saddle,
still holding his hat in his hand. Then he galloped away--away in the
still moonlight, the--to her--peaceful, mocking moonlight.
"He thinks he knows," she muttered, "but he doesn't dream the _whole_
truth. If he did he would no longer think that way of me. What am I,
anyway? He was loving me with that great, infinite soul while I was
listening to the idle simpering of a fool. Ah, Luke King shall never
know the truth! I'd rather lie dead before him than to see that wondrous
light die out of his great, trusting eyes."
She heard Sam coming down the road, and through the silvery gauze of
night she saw the red flare of his pipe. She turned into her own room
and sat down on the bed, her little, high-instepped feet on the floor,
her hands clasped between her knees.