The weather changed on the morrow.
Coming home at nightfall, Roy found Jessie standing at the western
window, surveying sorrowfully the unfavorable aspect of the heavens.
"It will be very unpleasant travelling in the rain!" she remarked as
he entered. "The sun went down behind a portentous bank of clouds.
And the wind is veering to the storm-quarter."
It was evident that the possibility of a single day's delay made her
restless and anxious.
"The signs portend nothing worse than April showers, I hope," he
encouraged her to believe. "Or, should there be a steady rain, you
will soon run out of it into the region of blue skies and milder
airs. I see no reason for altering your arrangements. You will be
sheltered and dry in the cars."
"True!" she answered, musingly, returning to her contemplation of
the unpromising horizon.
She was perturbed, however, and unusually taciturn while they were
at supper; dull and spiritless during the hour they spent together
in the sitting-room; arousing herself with apparent effort to reply
to his remarks, and rarely offering one of her own accord. Roy's
attempts at cheerful conversation were less evenly sustained than
was customary with him in her presence. It was not his intention
that this last evening should be one of gloomy constraint, but it
approximated this more nearly every moment. Both were abstracted,
and each was unwilling that the other should discover the direction
in which his and her thoughts were straying. So the pauses in the
sluggish flow of talk became more and more frequent, until, at nine
o'clock, Jessie arose, with a sigh of relief.
"I must get a good night's rest, if I am to travel, to-morrow. Will
you excuse me if I go upstairs, thus early?"
"Do not let me detain you a moment. Is there nothing I can do to
assist you?"
"Nothing--thank you! There will be time to strap my trunks in the
morning. You still think I had better go--whatever may be the
weather?" stopping with the door in her hand.
"I do, certainly; that is, if you are not afraid of adding to your
cold--if you are well enough."
"My cold is nothing. I have ordered breakfast at half-past six. I am
glad the train does not leave so early as it did last year.
Good-night!"
The cold, indifferent accents sank to the bottom of his heart like
lead. What a millstone about this woman's neck was her marriage vow!
His endeavors to make it lighter, and her existence endurable--the
work to which he had given his best energies and wisest
deliberations; the self-abnegation and prayerful struggle he had
accepted as the penalty of his grievous indiscretion, had proved
futile. He had guarded eye, tongue, and action for five months;
drilled them in friendly looks, words, and deeds, lest a glimmer of
the affection that glowed--a pent but consuming fire in his
soul--should offend or dismay her; had ministered to her with a
lover's constancy and tenderness without a hint of love's reward.
And this was the end! Some significant glance, an intonation, an
excess of solicitude for her welfare, had betrayed his design to win
her anew, and she had taken the alarm; was terrified and reluctant,
without the power of escape. Or her constitution--physical and
spiritual--had succumbed to the attrition of duty against womanly
instinct. With vain care he had kept her shackles out of sight.
Everything in her surroundings; the very pronunciation of her name
by acquaintances, had reminded her continually of her anomalous
position. Neither wife, nor maid, she stood, according to her morbid
perceptions, alone and banned, without so much as a title to the
shelter of his roof, except as a bondwoman. She could not forget
that she was a slave. The untamable heart--in which the "love of
liberty" was a "passion," was beating itself to death against the
bars he had foolishly hoped to cushion and wreathe until she should
cease to feel them as a restraint.
She had not loved him when she married him. That this change in her
sentiments was not a passing girlish caprice, he had evidence in the
words she had written to him while the right of free speech remained
to her.
"Months of doubt and suffering have brought me to the determination
to confess this without reserve."
"Doubt and suffering!" What were these to the horrors of her actual
bondage?
"From which I cannot release her!" he repeated, for the thousandth
time.
His habit was to go to the library when she left him for the night,
but he lingered, this evening, in the apartment he had fitted up for
her with such fond pride; which she had made a sacred place by her
abiding. There was a cruel pleasure in noting the tokens of her
recent presence; in inhaling the odors of the flowers she had
tended; in touching the books she had handled. She could never be
more to him than she was now. He believed that she must, from this
hour, be less; that the solace of her friendship would be withheld.
Else, why her anxiety to be away from him? her chafing at the
threatened delay of a day in her flight back to the only real home
she had ever known? Was the memory of the evanescent phantasy of her
girlhood--the brief space during which she had deluded herself into
the belief that she loved him, so sore and hateful that she would
shun the sight of one who kept it in constant remembrance? Could it
be true that he had, in the face of these frightful odds, cherished
a hope that he might yet persuade her into a preference for his
companionship?
A loud ring at the door-bell startled him into consciousness of the
hour and place. Phoebe had gone up to bed, and Mr. Fordham went
himself to admit the unseasonable visitor.
"Good-evening!" said a familiar voice when the door was unclosed,
and Dr. Baxter walked in as naturally and coolly as if it were not
ten o'clock at night, and he plentifully besprinkled with rain. "I
was out thinking--and walking, after the warm day--and chancing to
observe that I was at your door, I stopped to say 'Good-bye' to the
lassie--to your wife. Mrs. Baxter mentioned to-night, at tea, that
she was-going to Dundee to-morrow."
He had obeyed Roy's impulse in the direction of the sitting-room,
but declined to take a chair. His cravat was a damp string; the
handkerchief twisted about his left hand bore marks of terrific
usage, and when he removed his hat, every one of his stiff gray
hairs appeared to have gone into business on its own account, so
distinct was its independent existence. His eyes were like those of
a partially awakened somnambulist, and his voice had dreamy
inflections. Had his own mood been less sad, Roy must have smiled at
the grotesque apparition, uncouth even to one so familiar with the
peculiarities of the good man, as was his coadjutor in the business
of his life. As it was, he appreciated gratefully the love the old
scholar bore his former ward, and the new proof of this, evinced by
his stepping without the charmed circle of metaphysical or
scientific lucubrations to pay this, for him, rare visit of
neighborly courtesy and affectionate interest.
"I am sorry Jessie has retired," he said, sincerely. "She would have
been happy to see you. But, in view of to-morrow's journey, she went
up to her chamber an hour ago. I am afraid she is asleep by this
time."
The doctor shook himself out of a menacing relapse.
"Eh! asleep--is she? Ah, well! that is as it should be. Don't
disturb her! I merely called to kiss her, and bid her 'God speed.'
She is a dear and a good girl. Her price is above rubies. She
carries our love and best wishes with her into her retirement.
Since she is not up, I will leave my message with you. I believe--it
seems to me that I _had_ a message"--with an ominous twitch of the
handkerchief, and a dreamier accent.
"She will appreciate your kind remembrance of her, sir. She prizes
your friendship very fondly."
"Ah!" another mental shoulder-jog. "We shall hardly see her again
until autumn, I presume? I infer as much from what Mrs. Baxter has
told me of her plans."
"There has been no definite time set for her return," said Roy,
evasively, his heart heavier than before at the thought that Jessie
had expressed to her cousin a desire for a long sojourn in the
country.
Yet if he had failed to keep her with him now, what warrant had he
for confidence in his ability to lure her back?
"You will be lonely without her!" the worthy President observed,
something in the atmosphere of this, her especial apartment,
conveying to his straying wits an indistinct perception of the void
her absence would make in the daily life of the man before him. In
his own way, he missed his restless and faithful Jane when she was
not at home.
"I shall!"
Not another word before the lips were closely sealed.
The doctor looked at him quickly and keenly, then put out his hand
to pat his shoulder.
"Keep up a brave heart, my lad! although the desire of your eyes be
removed from your side, for a few weeks. Nothing cheats time of
heaviness, like work and hope. One you will find here in your
accustomed avocations. The second will culminate in fruition when
you are reunited to her you love, and, please GOD--in the
blessedness of a father's love and delight, when your firstborn is
given into your arms. It is a joy HE has seen fit to deny me. I
shall take my name down into the grave with me. HIS will be done!
But I have not, on that account, the less sympathy with you at this
juncture. Say to our Jessie that our prayers will follow her. You
will go to her at the beginning of vacation, of course. And should
you wish to run down to Dundee, for a day or two, each week during
the remainder of term-time, I will gladly take your classes. You can
recompense me by letting me christen the heir"--a fatherly smile
overspreading the dry face. "The advent is expected towards the last
of July, Mrs. Baxter says."
Conscious that, in the drunkenness of his astonishment, he returned
a lame and seemingly ungracious reply to offer and congratulations,
Roy made no movement to detain the eccentric guest, when he, after
another dazed look around the apartment, as if wondering how he had
got there, espied the door, and approached it with the briefest of
"Good-nights." While the master of the house stood rooted to the
floor, the visitant accomplished his exit, unchallenged and
unattended. Another man would have taken mortal offence at the lack
of respectful ceremony. The doctor, in his semi-trance, had not an
idea of the commotion he had excited.
"I am not surprised that I am an offence in her eyes--that she must
accuse me in her heart, of being less than man," muttered the
husband, at length, passing a shaking hand over his pale forehead.
"She ought to hate me for my seeming indifference--my unfeeling
silence. She would if she were not an angel. My poor girl! And she
has borne it all, without a murmur; like the brave, true woman she
is. GOD forgive me! I can never pardon myself!"
He was sitting, his arms crossed upon the table, and his head laid
upon them, when Jessie glided in stealthily. Over her white wrapper
she had thrown a crimson shawl, and her long hair was loose upon her
shoulders. Whatever resolve had drained her cheeks and lips of
bloom, and lighted the steady flame in her eyes, had been acted upon
with precipitancy, lest her nerve should fail.
She halted upon the threshold, on seeing the bowed figure; then
advanced more rapidly, but without noise.
"Roy! are you awake?"
"Yes."
But he did not lift his face.
"Are you sick?"
"No!"
"Can you listen to me for a few minutes!"
"As long as you wish."
His voice was hollow and tremulous to plaintiveness; but she took
heart from its exceeding, if mournful, gentleness.
"I cannot sleep to-night," she commenced, hurriedly, "still less can
I leave you to-morrow, without expressing to you, however feebly, my
sense of the goodness and mercy you have showed me from the hour I
entered this house, until now. I may have appeared unobservant and
unthankful; may have seemed to accept your benefits as if they were
my due, when, in reality, I was unworthy of the least of them all;
but it was because I did not know in what form to express my
gratitude. If, in my acquiescence in your proposal that I should go
to my sister for a season, I have used few words; have not thanked
you for this fresh proof of your delicate watchfulness over my
comfort and happiness, I beg you to attribute my shortcomings to
other reasons than insensibility or misconstruction of your motives.
I was entirely unprepared for the suggestion. It was a shock to me,
because I had dared to believe that you would see fit to let me
remain here with you until vacation, when we could go to Dundee
together."
Standing on the other side of the table, she saw a slight but eager
change in the expression of the mute form. It was as if his hearing
were strained for her next utterance, but the features were still
concealed.
On the roof of the bay-window, the soft, large drops of the April
shower were beginning to fall in musical whispers.
Jessie put out a hand upon the marble top of the table to steady
herself, as she resumed. There was that in this continued silence
that awed and made her incoherent. It was unlike Roy's usual
reception of her advances--his ready and indulgent courtesy. Her
heart beat painfully and fast, but she did not swerve from her
resolution.
"I know you so well--your purity of purpose; the standard of
excellence you set for your motive and deed; your earnest desire to
make me happy--that I fear you will, when I am gone, accuse yourself
of want of skill or judgment in your treatment of me. I want you to
remember then, that I broke through the reserve we have aided one
another to maintain, to assure you that, in no one particular would
I have had your action different from what it has been--that, in
language and demeanor you have been alike noble. Deserving your
reprobation, I have received tender respect; having forfeited by my
fickleness and falsehood all claim to kindness, I have been
cherished as the truest wife in the land might hope to be. Something
tells me that, when we part to-morrow, it will be to meet no more in
time. It may be that the presentiment is born of my distempered
imagination; but it has drawn my whole soul out in a longing I
cannot frame into speech, to be at peace with you; to feel your hand
again upon my head; to hear you call me once--just once more, by the
holy name of Wife!
"For I am your wife, Roy! Unworthy as I am of the title, it is the
only glory I have. Until yesterday, I had dreamed of saying this to
you in very different language and circumstances. It is just that
this expectation should be disappointed. I do not appeal from my
sentence of exile. But, by the memory of the love you once had for
me--and I was full of faults then as now--do not send me away,
unforgiven, and _starving_ for your affection--my husband!"
When he looked up, she was kneeling at his side, her eyes streaming
with the tears that had impeded her utterance.
Still dumbly, he drew her to him; put back the hair from her face,
every line of his own astir with a passion of pity and adoration she
hardly dared to look upon. It was a minute before he could
articulate. Then the tense lips were moved into womanly softness.
"You can forgive _me_, then, my Wife! Thank GOD!"
He laid his cheek to hers, and she felt the great sobs of the breast
against which she leaned.
But for a long time, there was nothing more said.
Except by the rain-drops whispering over their heads, broken, now
and then, by the wind into little gushes that sounded like laughter,
happy to tearfulness.