It was ten o'clock and bright moonlight when Tredennis reached his
destination, the train having brought him to a way-side station two
miles distant, where he had hired a horse, and struck out into the
county road. In those good old days when the dwelling of every Virginia
gentleman was his "mansion," the substantial pile of red brick before
whose gate-way he dismounted had been a mansion too, and had not been
disposed to trifle with its title, but had insisted upon it with a
dignified squareness which scorned all architectural devices to attract
attention. Its first owner had chosen its site with a view to the young
"shade-trees" upon it, and while he had lived upon his property had been
almost as proud of his trees as of his "mansion"; and when, long
afterward, changes had taken place, and the objects of his pride fell
into degenerate hands, as the glories of the mansion faded, its old
friends, the trees, grew and flourished, and seemed to close kindly in
about it, as if to soften and shadow its decay.
On each side of the drive which led down to the gateway grew an
irregular line of these trees, here and there shading the way from side
to side, and again leaving a space for the moonlight to stream upon. As
he tied his horse Tredennis glanced up this drive-way toward the house.
"There is a light burning in one of the rooms," he said. "It must be
there that"--He broke off in the midst of a sentence, his attention
suddenly attracted by a figure which flitted across one of the patches
of moonlight.
He knew it at once, though he had had no thought of seeing it before
entering the house. It was Bertha, in a white dress, and with two large
dogs following her, leaping and panting, when she spoke in a hushed
voice, as if to quiet them.
She came down toward the gate with a light, hurried tread, and, when she
was within a few feet of it, spoke.
"Doctor," she said, "oh, how glad I am--how glad!" and, as she said it,
came out into the broad moonlight again, and found herself face to face
with Tredennis.
She fell back from him as if a blow had been struck her,--fell back
trembling, and as white as the moonlight itself.
"What!" she cried, "is it _you_--_you_?"
He looked at her, bewildered by the shock his presence seemed to her.
"I did not think I should frighten you," he said. "I came to-night
because the professor was not well enough to make the journey. Doctor
Wentworth will be here in the morning. He would have come with me, but
he had an important case to attend."
"I did not think _you_ would come," she said, breathlessly, and put out
her hand, groping for the support of the swinging gate, which she caught
and held.
"There was no one else," he answered.
He felt as if he were part of some strange dream. The stillness, the
moonlight, the heavy shadows of the great trees, all added to the
unreality of the moment; but most unreal of all was Bertha herself,
clinging with one trembling hand to the gate, and looking up at him with
dilated eyes.
"I did not think _you_ would come," she said again, "and it startled
me--and"--She paused with a poor little effort at a smile, which the
next instant died away. "Don't--don't look at me!" she said, and,
turning away from him, laid her face on the hand clinging to the gate.
He looked down at her slight white figure and bent head, and a great
tremor passed over him. The next instant she felt him standing close at
her side.
"You must not--do that," he said, and put out his hand and touched her
shoulder.
His voice was almost a whisper; he was scarcely conscious of what his
words were; he had scarcely any consciousness of his touch. The feeling
which swept over him needed no sense of touch or sound; the one thing
which overpowered him was his sudden sense of a nearness to her which
was not physical nearness at all.
"Perhaps I was wrong to come," he went on; "but I could not leave you
alone--I could not leave you alone. I knew that you were suffering, and
I could not bear that."
She did not speak or lift her head.
"Has it been desolate?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered, in a hushed voice.
"I was afraid so," he said. "You have been alone so long--I thought of
it almost every hour of the day; you are not used to being alone.
Perhaps it was a mistake. Why do you tremble so?"
"I don't know," she answered.
"My poor child!" he said. "My poor child!" And then there was a pause
which seemed to hold a lifetime of utter silence.
It was Bertha who ended it. She stirred a little, and then lifted her
face. She looked as he remembered her looking when he had first known
her, only that she was paler, and there was a wearied softness in her
eyes. She made no attempt at hiding the traces of tears in them, and she
spoke as simply as a child.
"I thought it was the doctor, when I heard the horse's feet," she said;
"and I was afraid the dogs would bark and waken Janey. She has just
fallen asleep, and she has slept so little. She has been very ill."
"_You_ have not slept," he said.
"No," she replied. "This is the first time I have left her."
He took her hand and drew it gently through his arm.
"I will take you up to the house," he said, "so that you can hear every
sound; but you must stay outside for a little while. The fresh air will
do you good, and we can walk up and down while I tell you the reason the
professor did not come."
All the ordinary conventional barriers had fallen away from between
them. He did not know why or how, and he did not ask. Suddenly he found
himself once again side by side with the Bertha he had fancied lost
forever. All that had bewildered him was gone. The brilliant little
figure, with its tinkling ornaments, the unemotional little smile, the
light laugh, were only parts of a feverish dream. It was Bertha whose
hand rested on his arm--whose fair, young face was pale with watching
over her child--whose soft voice was tremulous and tender with innocent,
natural tears. She spoke very little. When they had walked to and fro
before the house for a short time, she said:
"Let us go and sit down on the steps of the porch," and they went and
sat there together,--he upon a lower step, and she a few steps above,
her hands clasped on her knee, her face turned half away from him. She
rarely looked at him, he noticed, even when he spoke to her or she spoke
to him; her eyes rested oftener than not upon some far-away point under
the trees.
"You are no better than you were when you went away," he said, looking
at her cheek where the moonlight whitened it.
"No," she answered.
"I did not think to find you looking like this," he said.
"Perhaps," she said, still with her eyes fixed on the far-away shadows,
"perhaps I have not had time enough. You must give me time."
"You have had two months," he returned.
"Two months," she said, "is not so long as it seems." And between the
words there came a curious little catch of the breath.
"It has seemed long to you?" he asked.
"Yes."
She turned her face slowly and looked at him.
"Has it seemed long to you?" she said.
"Yes," he replied, "long and dreary."
She swayed a little toward him with a sort of unconscious movement; her
eyes were fixed upon his face with a wistful questioning; he had seen
her look at her children so.
"Was it very hot?" she said. "Were you tired? Why did you not go away?"
"I did not want to go away," he answered.
"But you ought to have gone away," she said. "You were not used to the
heat, and--Let the light fall on your face so that I can see it!"
He came a little nearer to her, and as she looked at him the wistfulness
in her eyes changed to something else.
"Oh," she cried, "it has done you harm. Your face is quite changed. Why
didn't I see it before? What have you been doing?"
"Nothing," he answered.
He did not stir, or want to stir, but sat almost breathlessly still,
watching her, the sudden soft anxiousness in her eyes setting every
pulse in his body throbbing.
"Oh," she said, "you are ill--you are ill! How could you be so careless?
Why did not papa"--
She faltered--her voice fell and broke. She even drew back a little,
though her eyes still rested upon his.
"You were angry with me when you thought I did not take care of myself,"
she said; "and you have been as bad as I was, and worse. You had not so
many temptations. And she turned away, and he found himself looking only
at her cheek again, and the soft side-curve of her mouth.
"There is less reason why I should take care of myself," he said.
"You mean"--she asked, without moving--"that there are fewer people who
would miss you?"
"I do not know of any one who would miss me."
Her hands stirred slightly, as they lay in her lap.
"That is underrating your friends," she said, slowly. "But"--altering
her tone--"it is true, I have the children and Richard."
"Where is Richard?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"When you heard from him last," he began.
"He is a bad correspondent," she said.
"He always finds so much to fill his time when he is away. There is an
understanding between us that he shall write very few letters. I am
responsible for it myself, because I know it spoils everything for him
when he has an unwritten letter on his conscience. I haven't heard from
him first yet since he went West."
She arose from her seat on the step.
"I will go in now," she said. "I must speak to Mrs. Lucas about giving
you a room, and then I will go to Janey. She is sleeping very well."
He arose, too, and stood below her, looking up.
"You must promise not to think of me," he said. "I did not come here to
be considered. Do you think an old soldier, who has slept under the open
sky many a night, cannot provide for himself?"
"Have you slept so often?" she asked, the very triviality of the
question giving it a strange sweetness to his ears.
"Yes," he answered. "And often with no surety of wakening with my scalp
on."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and made an involuntary movement toward him.
He barely restrained his impulse to put out his hands, but hers fell at
her sides the next instant.
"I am a great coward," she said. "It fills me with terror to hear of
things like that. Is it at all likely that you will be ordered back?"
"I don't know," he replied, his uplifted eyes devouring all the
sweetness of her face. "Would that"--
The very madness of the question forming itself on his lips was his own
check.
"I don't want to think of it," he said. Then he added, "As I stand here
I look up at you. I never looked up at you before."
"Nor I down at you," she returned. "You are always so high above me. It
seems strange to look down at you."
It was all so simple and inconsequent, but every word seemed full of the
mystery and emotion of the hour. When he tried afterward to recall what
they had said he was bewildered by the slightness of what had been
uttered, even though the thrill of it had not yet passed away.
He went up the steps and stood beside her.
"Yes," he said, speaking as gently as he might have spoken to a child.
"You make me feel what a heavy-limbed, clumsy fellow I am. All women
make me feel it, but you more than all the rest. You look almost like a
child."
"But I am not very little," she said; "it is only because I am standing
near you."
"I always think of you as a small creature," he said. "I used to think,
long ago, that some one should care for you."
"You were very good, long ago," she answered softly. "And you are very
good now to have come to try to help me. Will you come in?"
"No," he said, "not now. It might only excite the child to-night if she
saw me, and so long as she is quiet I will not run the risk of
disturbing her. I will tell you what I am going to do. I am not going to
leave you alone. I shall walk up and down beneath your window, and if
you need me you will know I am there, and you have only to speak in your
lowest voice. If she should be worse, my horse is at the gate, and I
can go for the doctor at once."
She looked up at him with a kind of wonder.
"Do you mean that you intend to stand sentinel all night?" she said.
"I have stood sentinel before," was his reply. "I came to stand
sentinel. All that I can do is to be ready if I am wanted."
"But I cannot let you stay up all night," she began.
"You said it had been desolate," he answered. "Won't it be less desolate
to know that--that some one is near you?"
"Oh, yes! Oh, yes!" she said. "But"--
"Go upstairs," he said, "and promise me that, if she still sleeps, you
will lie down and let your nurse watch her."
The gentle authority of his manner seemed to impress her curiously. She
hesitated as if she scarcely understood it.
"I--don't--know," she faltered.
"You will be better for it to-morrow," he persisted, "and so will she."
"I never did such a thing before," she said, slowly.
"I shall be beneath the open window," he said, "and I have the ears of
an Indian. I shall know if she stirs."
She drew a soft, troubled breath.
"Well," she said, "I will--go."
And, without another word, she turned away. He stood and watched her as
she moved slowly across the wide porch. At the door she stopped and
turned toward him.
"But," she said, faint lines showing themselves on her forehead, "I
shall be remembering that you--are not asleep."
"You must not remember me at all," he answered.
And then he stood still and watched her again until she had entered the
house and noiselessly ascended the staircase, which was a few yards from
the open door, and then, when he could see her white figure in the
darkness no more, he went out to his place beneath the window, and
strode silently to and fro, keeping watch and listening until after the
moon had gone down and the birds were beginning to stir in the trees.