"The self-same Dannie," says she, her eyes steadfastly averted.
"I've _not_!" I cried, indignantly. That the maid should so flout my
new, proud walk! 'Twas a bitter reward: I remembered the long agony I
had suffered to please her. "I've _not_ come back the same," says I.
"I've come back changed. Have you not seen my foot?" I demanded.
"Look, maid!" I beat the rock in a passion with that new foot of
mine--straight and sound and capable for labor as the feet of other
men. It had all been done for her--all borne to win the love I had
thought withheld, or stopped from fullest giving, because of this
miserable deformity. A maid is a maid, I had known--won as maids are
won. "Look at it!" cries I. "Is it the same as it was? Is it crooked
any more? Is it the foot of a man or a cripple?" She would not look:
but smiled into my eyes--with a mist of tears gathering within her
own. "No," I complained; "you will not look. You would not look when I
walked up the path. I wanted you to look; but you would not. You would
not look when I put my foot on the table before your very eyes. My
uncle looked, and praised me; but you would not look." 'Twas a frenzy
of indignation I had worked myself into by this time. I could not see,
any more, the silent glow of sunset color, the brooding shadows, the
rising masses of cloud, darkening as they came: I have, indeed,
forgotten, and strangely so, the appearance of sea and sky at that
moment. "You would not look," I accused the maid, "when I leaped the
brook. I leaped the brook as other men may leap it; but you would not
look. You would not look when I climbed the hill. Who helped you up
the Lost Soul turn? Was it I? Never before did I do it. All my life I
have crawled that path. Was it the club-footed young whelp who helped
you?" I demanded. "Was it that crawling, staggering, limping travesty
of the strength of men? But you do not care," I complained. "You do
not care about my foot at all! Oh, Judith," I wailed, in uttermost
agony, "you do not care!"
I knew, then, looking far away into the sea and cloud of the world,
that the night was near.
"No," says she.
"Judith!" I implored. "Judith ... Judith!"
"No," says she, "I cannot care."
"Just _say_ you do," I pleaded, "to save me pain."
"I will not tell you otherwise."
I was near enough to feel her tremble--to see her red lips draw away,
in stern conviction, from her white little teeth.
"You do not care?" I asked her.
"I do not care."
'Twas a shock to hear the words repeated. "Not care!" I cried out.
"I do not care," says she, turning, all at once, from the sullen
crimson of the sky, to reproach me. "Why should I care?" she demanded.
"I have never cared--never cared--about your foot!"