Miss Jessup was very eloquent in the paragraph which she devoted to the
announcement of the departure of Colonel Tredennis, "the well-known hero
of the plains, whose fine, bronzed face and soldierly figure have become
so familiar to us during the past three seasons." She could scarcely
express the regret felt by the many friends he had made, on losing him,
and, indeed, there ran throughout the flowers of speech a suggestion of
kindly, admiring sympathy and womanly good-feeling which quite went to
the colonel's heart, and made him wonder at his own good fortune when he
read the paragraph in question. He was far away from Washington when the
paper reached him. He had become tired of life at the Capital, it was
said, and had been glad to exchange with a man who found its gayeties
better suited to him.
"It is true," he said to himself when he heard of this report, "that
they were not suited to me, nor I to them."
How he lived through the weeks, performing the ordinary routine of his
duty, and bearing with him hour by hour, night and day, the load of
grief and well-nigh intolerable anguish which he knew was never to be
lighter, he did not know. The days came and went. It was morning, noon,
or night, and he did not feel the hours either long or short. There were
nights when, his work being done, he returned to his quarters and
staggered to his seat, falling upon it blind and sick with the heavy
horror of the day.
"This," he would say, again and again, "_this_ is unnatural. To bear
such torture and live through it seems scarcely human."
Sometimes he was so wrought upon by it physically that he thought he
should not live through it; but he bore so much that at last he gained a
hopeless faith in his own endurance. He was not alone. It was as he had
told her it would be. From the hour that he looked his last upon her, it
seemed that her face had never faded from before his aching eyes. He had
all the past to live over again, all its bitter mysteries to read in a
new light and to learn to understand.
There was time enough now for him to think it all over slowly, to recall
to his mind every look and change and tone; her caprices, her coldness,
the wounds she had given him, he bore them all again, and each time he
came back with a pang more terrible to that last moment--to that last
look, to her last, broken words.
"O God!" he cried, "does _she_ bear this too?"
He knew nothing of her save what he gained at rare intervals from Miss
Jessup's society column, which he read deliberately from beginning to
end as each paper reached him. The friends of Mrs. Amory, Miss Jessup's
first statement announced, would regret to learn that the health of that
charming young wife and mother was so far from being what was to be
desired, that it necessitated a temporary absence from those social
circles of which she was so bright and graceful an ornament. For a while
her name was missing from the lists of those who appeared at the various
entertainments, and then he began occasionally to see it again, and
found a little sad comfort in the thought that she must be stronger. His
kind, brown face changed greatly in these days; it grew lean and haggard
and hopeless, and here and there a gray thread showed itself in his
close, soldier-cropped hair. He planned out heavy work for himself, and
kept close in his quarters, and those of his friends who had known him
before his stay in Washington began to ask each other what had so broken
Philip Tredennis.
The first time that Mrs. Amory appeared in society, after her
indisposition, was at the house of her friend, Mrs. Sylvestre. During
her temporary seclusion she had seen Mrs. Sylvestre frequently. There
had been few days when Agnes had not spent some hours with her. When she
had been denied to every one else Agnes was admitted.
"It is only fatigue, this," Bertha had said; "but other people tire me
so! You never tire me."
She was not confined to her bed. She had changed her room, taking
possession of the pretty pink and blue chamber, and lay upon the sofa
through the days, sometimes looking at the fire, often with her eyes
closed.
The two conversed but little; frequently there was silence between them
for some time; but Agnes knew that she was doing as Bertha wished when
she came and sat with her.
At the end of a week Mrs. Sylvestre came in one morning and found Bertha
dressed and sitting in a chair.
"I am going downstairs," she said.
"Do you think you are strong enough?" Agnes asked. She did not look so.
"I must begin to try to do something," was the indirect reply. "One must
always begin. I want to lie still and not speak or move; but I must not
do that. I will go downstairs, and I think I should like to see
Laurence."
As she went down the staircase she moved very slowly, and Agnes saw that
she clung to the balustrade for support. When she reached the parlor
door she paused for a moment, then crossed the threshold a little
hurriedly, and went to the sofa and sat down. She was tremulous, and
tears had risen to her eyes from very weakness.
"I thought I was stronger," she said. But she said nothing more until, a
few moments later, she began to speak of Tom and Kitty, in whom she had
been much interested. It had been at her suggestion that, after divers
fruitless efforts, the struggle to obtain Tom a "place" had been
abandoned, and finally there had been procured for him a position,
likely to prove permanent, in a house of business, where principles
might be of value. Tom's lungs were still a trifle delicate, but he was
rapturously happy in the small home, to purchase which Mrs. Sylvestre
had advanced the means, and his simple bliss was greatly added to by the
advent of Kitty's baby.
So they talked of Tom and Kitty and the baby, and of Arbuthnot, and his
friendship for them, and the oddities of it, and his way of making his
efforts and kindness seem more than half a jest.
"No one can be kinder than Laurence," Bertha said. "No one could be a
truer friend."
"I think so now," Agnes answered, quietly.
"He is not so light, after all," said Bertha. "Perhaps few of us are
quite as light as we seem."
"I did him injustice at first," Agnes replied. "I understand him better
now."
"If he should go away you would miss him a little," said Bertha. "He is
a person one misses when he is absent."
"Does he"--Agnes began. "I have not heard him speak of going away."
"There is just a likelihood of it," Bertha returned. "Papa has been
making an effort for him with the Secretary of State. He might be sent
abroad."
"I have not heard him refer to the possibility," said Agnes. Her manner
was still quiet, but she had made a slight involuntary movement, which
closed the book she held.
"I do not think papa has spoken to him for some time," Bertha replied.
"And when he first referred to his plan Laurence thought it out of the
question, and did not appear to regard it seriously."
For a few moments Mrs. Sylvestre did not speak. Then she said:
"Certainly it would be much better for him than to remain here."
"If he should go," said Bertha, "no one will miss him as I shall. We
used to be so gay together, and now"--
She did not end her sentence, and for a while neither of them spoke
again, and she lay quite still. Agnes remained to dine with her, and in
the evening Arbuthnot came in.
When he entered the bright, familiar room he found himself glancing
round it, trying to understand exactly what mysterious change had come
upon it. There was no change in its belongings,--the touches of color,
the scattered trifles, the pictures and draperies wore their old-time
look of having been arranged by one deft hand; but it did not seem to be
the room he had known so long,--the room he had been so fond of, and had
counted the prettiest and most inspiring place he knew.
Bertha had not left the sofa; she was talking to Agnes, who stood near
her. She had a brilliant flush on her cheeks, her eyes were bright when
she raised them to greet him, and her hand, as he took it, was hot and
tremulous.
"Naturally," she said, "you will begin to vaunt yourself. You told me I
should break down if I did not take care of myself, and I have broken
down--a little. I am reduced to lying on sofas. Don't you know how I
always derided women who lie on sofas? This is retribution; but don't
meet it with too haughty and vainglorious a spirit; before Lent I shall
be as gay as ever."
"I don't doubt it," he answered. "But in the meantime allow me to
congratulate you on the fact that the sofa is not entirely unbecoming."
"Thank you," she said. "Will you sit down now and tell me--tell me what
people are saying?"
"Of"--he began.
She smiled.
"Of me," she answered. "They were saying a great deal of me a week ago;
tell me what they say now. You must hear in going your giddy rounds."
"_You_ are very well treated," he replied. "There is a certain great
lady who is most uncomfortably commented upon. I can scarcely imagine
that she enjoys it."
Her smile ended in a fatigued sigh.
"The tide turned very quickly," she said. "It is well for me that it
did. I should not have had much mercy if I had stood alone. Ah! it was a
good thing for me that you were all so brave. You might have deserted
me, too--it would have been very simple--and then--then the gates of
paradise would have been shut against me."
"That figure of speech meaning--?" suggested Arbuthnot.
"That I should have been invited to no more dinner-parties and
receptions; that nobody would have come up to my Thursday Evenings; that
Miss Jessup would never again have mentioned me in the _Wabash
Gazette_."
"That would have been very bitter," he answered.
"Yes," she returned, "it would have been bitter, indeed."
"Do you know," he said next, "that I have come to-night partly for the
reason that I have something to tell you?"
"I rather suspected it," she replied, "though I could scarcely explain
why."
"Am I to hear it, too?" inquired Agnes.
"If you are kind enough to be interested," he answered. "It will seem a
slight enough affair to the world at large, but it seems rather
tremendous to me. I feel a trifle overpowered and nervous. Through the
kind efforts of Professor Herrick I have been honored with the offer of
a place abroad."
Bertha held out her hand.
"Minister to the Court of St. James!" she said. "How they will
congratulate themselves in London!"
"They would," he replied, "if an ill-adjusted and singularly
unappreciative government had not particularized a modest corner of
Germany as standing in greater need of my special abilities." But he
took her offered hand.
When he glanced at Mrs. Sylvestre--truth to say he had taken some
precautions against seeing her at all as he made his announcement--he
found her bestowing upon him one of the calmest of her soft, reflective
looks.
"I used to like some of those quiet places in Germany," she said; "but
you will find it a change from Washington."
"I think," he answered, "that I should like a change from Washington;"
and as soon as he had spoken he detected the touch of acrid feeling in
his words.
"I should fancy myself," she said, her soft look entirely undisturbed,
"that it might be agreeable after one had been here some time."
He had always admired beyond expression that touch of half-forgetful,
pensive calmness in her voice and eyes, but he did not enjoy it just
now.
"It is a matter of temperament, I suppose," was his thought; "but, after
all, we have been friends."
Neither could it be said that he enjoyed the pretty and picturesque
stories of German life she told afterward. They were told so well that
they brought very near the life he might expect to lead, and he was not
exactly in the mood to care to stand face to face with it. But he
controlled himself sufficiently to make an excellent audience, and never
had been outwardly in better spirits than he was after the stories were
told. He was cool and vivacious; he told a story or two himself; he was
in good voice when he went to the piano and sang. They were all laughing
when Agnes left the room to put on her wraps to return home.
When she was gone the laugh died down with odd suddenness.
"Larry," said Bertha, "do you really want to go?"
"No," he answered, turning sharply, "I don't want to go. I loathe and
abhor the thought of it."
"You want," she said, "to stay here?"
"Yes, I do," was his reply, "and that decides me."
"To go?" she asked, watching his pale, disturbed face.
"Yes, to go! There is nothing to stay here for. I need the change. I
have been here long enough--too long!"
"Yes," she returned, "I think you have been here too long. You had
better go away--if you think there is nothing to stay for."
"When a man has nothing to offer"--he broke off and flushed up hotly.
"If I had a shadow of a right to a reason for staying," he exclaimed,
"do you suppose I should not hold on to it, and fight for it, and demand
what belonged to me? There might be a struggle--there would be; but no
other man should have one jot or tittle that persistence and effort
might win in time for me! A man who gives up is a fool! I have nothing
to give up. I haven't even the right to surrender! I hadn't the right to
enter the field and take my wounds like a man! It is pleasant to reflect
that it is my own--fault. I trifled with my life; now I want it, and I
can't get it back."
"Ah!" she said, "that is an old story!"
And then Agnes returned, and he took her home.
On their way there they talked principally of Tom and Kitty.
"They will miss you greatly," Agnes said.
"They will be very kind to do it," was his reply.
"We shall all miss you," she added.
"That will be kinder still," he answered. "Might I be permitted to quote
the ancient anecdote of the colored warrior, who, on running away in
battle, was reproached and told that a single life counted as nothing on
such great occasions, and that if he had fallen he would not have been
missed,--his reply to this heroic statement of the case being, that he
should have been likely to miss himself. I shall miss myself, and
already a gentle melancholy begins to steal over me. I am not the
gleesome creature I was before good luck befell me."
But, despite this lightness of tone, their walk was not a very cheerful
one; indeed, after this speech they were rather quiet, and they parted
with few words at the door, Arbuthnot declining to go into the house.
When Agnes entered alone Mrs. Merriam looked up from her novel in some
surprise.
"I thought I heard Mr. Arbuthnot," she said.
"He left me at the door," Mrs. Sylvestre answered.
"What!" said Mrs. Merriam, "without coming to say good-night to me! I
wanted to tell him what a dissipated evening I have been spending with
my new book."
"He has been telling us good news," said Agnes, standing before the fire
and loosening her furs. "He has been offered a consulship."
Mrs. Merriam closed her book and laid it on the table.
"Will he accept it?" she asked.
"He could scarcely refuse it," Agnes replied. "It is a decided advance;
he likes the life abroad, and it might even lead to something better in
the future; at least one rather fancies such things are an opening."
"It is true," reflected Mrs. Merriam, "that he seems to have no
particular ties to hold him in one place rather than another."
"None," said Agnes. "I don't know whether that is his fortune or his
misfortune."
"His fortune," said Mrs. Merriam. "He is of the nature to know how to
value them. Perhaps, after all, he may form them if he goes abroad. It
is not too late."
"Perhaps so," said Agnes. "That would be another reason why it would be
better for him to go."
"Still," remarked Mrs. Merriam, "for my own part, I don't call it good
news that he is going."
"I meant," said Agnes, "good news for him."
"It is bad news for us," Mrs. Merriam replied. "He will leave a gap. I
have grown inconveniently fond of him myself."
But Agnes made no response, and soon afterward went to her room in
silence. She was rather silent the next day when she made her visit to
Bertha. Mrs. Merriam observed that she was rather silent at home; but,
having seen her retire within herself before, she was too just to assign
a definite reason for her quiet mood. Still she watched her with great
interest, which had a fashion of deepening when Laurence Arbuthnot
appeared upon the scene. But there was no change in her manner toward
Arbuthnot. She was glad to see him; she was interested in his plans. Her
gentle pleasure in his society seemed neither greater nor less than
usual; her gentle regret at his approaching absence from their circle
said absolutely nothing. In the gayeties of the closing season they saw
even more of each other than usual.
"It will be generous of you to allow me a few additional privileges,"
Arbuthnot said; "an extra dance or so, for instance, on occasion; a few
more calls that I am entitled to. Will you kindly, if you please, regard
me in the light of a condemned criminal, and be lenient with me in my
last moments?"
She did not refuse to be lenient with him. Much as he had been in the
habit of enjoying the evenings spent in her parlor, he had never spent
evenings such as fell to him in these last days. Somehow it happened
that he found her alone more frequently. Mrs. Merriam had letters to
write, or was otherwise occupied; so it chanced that he saw her as it
had not been his fortune to see her very often.
But it was decided that he was to spend no more winters in Washington,
for some time, at least; and, though he spent his evenings thus
agreeably, he was making daily preparation for his departure, and it
cannot be said that he enjoyed the task. There had been a time, it is
true, when he would have greeted with pleasure the prospect of the
change before him; but that time was past.
"I am having my bad quarter of an hour," he said, "and it serves me
right."
But as the days slipped by he found it even a worse quarter of an hour
than he had fancied it would be. It cost him an effort to bear himself
as it was only discretion that he should. His one resource lay in
allowing himself no leisure. When he was not otherwise occupied, he
spent his time with his friends. He was oftenest with the professor and
Bertha. He had some quiet hours in the professor's study, and in the
parlor, where Bertha sat or lay upon the sofa before the fire. She did
not allow herself to lie upon the sofa often, and refused to be regarded
as an invalid; but Arbuthnot never found himself alone with her without
an overpowering realization of the change which had taken place in her.
But she rarely spoke of herself.
"There is nothing more," she said, once, "to say about _me_."
She was willing enough to speak of him, however, and of his future, and
her gentleness often moved him deeply.
"We have been such good friends," she would say,--"such good friends. It
is not often that a man is as true a friend to a woman as you have been
to me. I wish--oh, I wish you might be happy!"
"It is too late," he would reply, "but I shall not waste time in
complaining. I will even try not to waste it in regretting."
But he knew that he did waste it so, and that each passing day left a
sharper pang behind it, and marked a greater struggle.
"There is a great deal of trouble in this world," the professor said to
him, simply, after watching him a few minutes one day. "I should like to
know what _you_ are carrying with you to Germany."
"I am carrying nothing," Arbuthnot answered. "That is my share."
They were smoking their cigars together, and through the blue haze
floating about him the professor looked out with a sad face.
"Do you," he said,--"do you leave anything behind you?"
"Everything," said Arbuthnot. The professor made a disturbed movement.
"Perhaps," he said, "this was a mistake. Perhaps it would be better if
you remained. It is not yet too late"--
"Yes, it is," Arbuthnot interposed, with a faint laugh. "And nothing
would induce me to remain."
It was on the occasion of a reception given by Mrs. Sylvestre that he
was to make his last appearance in the social world before his
departure. He had laid his plans in such a manner that, having made his
adieus at the end of the evening, half an hour after retiring from the
parlors he would be speeding away from Washington on his way to New
York.
"It will be a good exit," he said. "And the eye of the unfeeling world
being upon me, I shall be obliged to conceal my emotions, and you will
be spared the spectacle of my anguish."
There were no particular traces of anguish upon his countenance when he
presented himself, the evening in question having arrived. He appeared,
in fact, to be in reasonably good spirits. Nothing could have been more
perfect than the evening was from first to last: the picturesque and
charming home was at its best; Mrs. Sylvestre the most lovely central
figure in its picturesqueness; Mrs. Merriam even more gracious and
amusing than usual. The gay world was represented by its gayest and
brightest; the majority of those who had appeared on the night of the
ball appeared again. Rather late in the evening Blundel came in, fresh
from an exciting debate in the Senate, and somewhat flushed and elated
by it. He made his way almost immediately to Bertha. Those who stood
about her made way for him as he came. She was not sitting alone
to-night; there seemed no likelihood of her being called upon to sit
alone again. She had not only regained her old place, but something
more. The professor had accompanied her, and at no time was far away
from her. He hovered gently about in her neighborhood, and rarely lost
sight of her. He had never left her for any great length of time since
the night Tredennis had gone away. He had asked her no questions, but
they had grown very near to each other, and any mystery he might feel
that he confronted only made him more tender of her.
When Senator Blundel found himself standing before her he gave her a
sharp glance of scrutiny.
"Well," he said, "you are rested and better, and all the rest of it.
Your pink gown is very nice, and it gives you a color and brightens you
up."
"I chose the shade carefully," she answered, smiling. "If it had been
deeper it might have taken some color away from me. I am glad you like
it."
"But you are well?" he said, a little persistently. He was not so sure
of her, after all. He was shrewd enough to wish she had not found it
necessary to choose her shade with such discretion.
She smiled up at him again.
"Yes, I am well," she said. "And I am very glad to see you again."
But for several seconds he did not answer her; standing, he looked at
her in silence as she remembered his doing in the days when she had felt
as if he was asking himself and her a question. But she knew it was not
the same question he was asking himself now, but another one, and after
he had asked it he did not seem to discover the answer to it, and looked
baffled and uncertain, and even disturbed and anxious. And yet her
pretty smile did not change in the least at any moment while he regarded
her. It only deserted her entirely once during the evening. This was
when she said her last words to Arbuthnot. He had spent the previous
evening with her in her own parlor. Now, before she went away,--which
she did rather early,--they had a few minutes together in the deserted
music-room, where he took her while supper was in progress.
Neither of them had any smiles when they went in together and took their
seats in a far corner.
Bertha caught no reflected color from her carefully chosen pink.
Suddenly she looked cold and worn.
"Laurence!" she said, "in a few hours"--and stopped.
He ended for her.
"In a few hours I shall be on my way to New York."
She looked down at her flowers and then up at him.
"Oh!" she said, "a great deal will go with you. There is no one now who
could take from me what you will. But that is not what I wanted to say
to you. Will you let me say to you what I have been thinking of for
several days, and wanting to say?"
"You may say anything," he answered.
"Perhaps," she went on, hurriedly, "it will not make any difference when
it is said; I don't know." She put out her hand and touched his arm with
it; her eyes looked large and bright in their earnest appeal.
"Don't be angry with me, Larry," she said; "we have been such good
friends,--the best, _best_ friends. I am going home soon. I shall not
stay until the evening is over. You must, I think, until every one is
gone away. You might--you might have a few last words to say to Agnes."
"There is nothing," he replied, "that I could say to her."
"There might be," she said tremulously, "there might be--a few last
words Agnes might wish to say to you."
He put his head down upon his hand and answered in a low tone:
"It is impossible that there should be."
"Larry," she said, "only you can find out whether that is true or not,
and--don't go away before you are quite sure. Oh! do you remember what I
told you once?--there is only one thing in all the world when all the
rest are tried and done with. So many miss it, and then everything is
wrong. Don't be too proud, Larry; don't reason too much. If people are
true to each other, and content, what does the rest matter? I want to
know that some one is happy like that. I wish it might be you. If I have
said too much, forgive me; but you may be angry with me. I will let
you--if you will not run the risk of throwing anything away."
There was a silence.
"Promise me," she said, "promise me."
"I cannot promise you," he answered.
He left his seat.
"I will tell you," he said. "I am driven to-night--driven! I never
thought it could be so, but it is--even though I fancied I had taught
myself better. I am bearing a good deal. I don't know how far I may
trust myself. I have not an idea about it. It is scarcely safe for me to
go near her. I have not been near her often to-night. I am _driven_. I
don't know that I shall get out of the house safely. I don't know how
far I can go, if I _do_ get out of it, without coming back and making
some kind of an outcry to her. One can't bear everything indefinitely.
It seems to me now that the only decent end to this would be for me to
go as quickly as possible, and not look back; but there never was a more
impotent creature than I know I am to-night. The sight of her is too
much for me. She looks like a tall, white flower. She is a little pale
to-night--and the look in her eyes--I wish she were pale for sorrow--for
me. I wish she was suffering; but she is not."
"She could not tell you if she were," said Bertha.
"That is very true," he answered.
"Don't go away," she said, "until you have said good-by to her alone."
"Don't you see," he replied, desperately, "that I am in the condition
to be unable to go until I am actually forced? Oh," he added, bitterly,
"rest assured I shall hang about long enough!" But when he returned to
the supper-room, and gave his attention to his usual duties, he was
entirely himself again, so far as his outward bearing went. He bore
about ices and salads, and endeared himself beyond measure to dowagers,
with appetites, who lay in wait. He received their expressions of grief
at his approaching departure with decorum not too grave and sufficiently
grateful. He made himself as useful and agreeable as usual.
"He is always ready and amiable, that Mr. Arbuthnot," remarked a
well-seasoned, elderly matron, who recognized useful material when she
saw it.
And Agnes, who had chanced to see him just as his civilities won him
this encomium, reflected upon him for a moment with a soft gaze, and
then turned away with a secret thought her face did not betray.
At last the rooms began to thin out. One party after another took its
departure, disappearing up the stairs and reappearing afterward,
descending and passing through the hall to the carriages, which rolled
up, one after another, as they were called. Agnes stood near the
door-way with Mrs. Merriam, speaking the last words to her guests as
they left her. She was still a little pale, but the fatigues of the
evening might easily have left her more so. Arbuthnot found himself
lingering with an agonizing sense of disgust at his folly. Several times
he thought he would go with the rest, and then discovered that the step
would cost him a struggle to which he was not equal. Agnes did not look
at him; Mrs. Merriam did.
"You must not leave us just yet," she said. "We want your last moments.
It would be absurd to bid you good-night as if we were to see you
to-morrow. Talk to me until Agnes has done with these people."
He could have embraced her. He was perfectly aware that, mentally, he
had lost all his dignity, but he could do nothing more than recognize
the fact with unsparing clearness, and gird at himself for his weakness.
"If I were a boy of sixteen," he said inwardly, "I should comport myself
in something the same manner. I could grovel at this kind old creature's
feet because she has taken a little notice of me."
But at length the last guest had departed, the last carriage had been
called and had rolled away. Agnes turned from the door-way and walked
slowly to the fireplace.
"How empty the rooms look!" she said.
"You should have a glass of wine," Mrs. Merriam suggested. "You are
certainly more tired than you should be. You are not as strong as I was
at your age."
Arbuthnot went for the glass of wine into the adjoining room. He was
glad to absent himself for a moment.
"In ten minutes I shall be out of the house," he said; "perhaps in
five."
When he returned to the parlor Mrs. Merriam had disappeared. Agnes stood
upon the hearth, looking down. She lifted her eyes with a gentle smile.
"Aunt Mildred is going to ask you to execute a little commission for
her," she said. "She will be down soon, I think."
For the moment he was sufficiently abandoned and ungrateful to have lost
all interest in Mrs. Merriam. It seemed incredible that he had only ten
minutes before him and yet could retain composure enough to reply with
perfect steadiness.
"Perhaps," he thought, desperately, "I am not going to do it so
villanously, after all."
He kept his eyes fixed very steadily upon her. The soft calm of her
manner seemed to give him a sort of strength. Nothing could have been
sweeter or more unmoved than her voice.
"I was a little afraid you would go away early," she said, "and that we
could not bid you good-by quietly."
"Don't bid me good-by too quietly," he answered. "You will excuse _my_
emotion, I am sure?"
"You have been in Washington," she said, "long enough to feel sorry to
leave it."
He glanced at the clock.
"I have spent ten years here," he said; "one grows fond of a place,
naturally."
"Yes," she replied.
Then she added:
"Your steamer sails"--
"On Wednesday," was his answer.
It was true that he was driven. He was so hard driven at this moment
that he glanced furtively at the mirror, half fearing to find his face
ashen.
"My train leaves in an hour," he said; "I will bid you"--
He held out his hand without ending his sentence. She gave him her
slender, cold fingers passively.
"Good-by!" she said.
Mrs. Merriam was not mentioned. She was forgotten. Arbuthnot had not
thought once of the possibility of her return.
He dropped Agnes' hand, and simply turned round and went out of the
room.
His ten minutes were over; it was all over. This was his thought as he
went up the staircase. He went into the deserted upper room where he had
left his overcoat. It was quite empty, the servant in charge having
congratulated himself that his duties for the night were over, and
joined his fellows downstairs. One overcoat, he had probably fancied,
might take care of itself, especially an overcoat sufficiently familiar
with the establishment to outstay all the rest. The garment in question
hung over the back of a chair. Arbuthnot took it up and put it on with
unnecessary haste; then he took his hat; then he stopped. He sank into
the chair and dropped his brow upon his hand; he was actually
breathless. He passed through a desperate moment as he sat there; when
it was over he rose, deliberately freed himself from his coat again, and
went downstairs. When he reëntered the parlor Agnes rose hurriedly from
the sofa, leaving her handkerchief on the side-cushion, on which there
was a little indented spot. She made a rapid step toward him, her head
held erect, her eyes at once telling their own story, and commanding him
to disbelieve it; her face so inexpressibly sweet in its sadness that
his heart leaped in his side.
"You have left something?" she said.
"Yes," he answered, "I left--you."
She sat down upon the sofa without a word. He saw the large tears well
up into her eyes, and they helped him to go on as nothing else would
have done.
"I couldn't go away," he said. "There was no use trying. I could not
leave you in that cold way, as if our parting were only an ordinary,
conventional one. There is nothing conventional about my side of it. I
am helpless with misery. I have lost my last shred of self-respect. I
had to come back and ask you to be a little kinder to me. I don't think
you know how cold you were. It was like death to drop your hand and turn
away like that. Such a thing must be unendurable to a man who loves a
woman."
He came nearer.
"Beggars should be humble," he said. "I am humble enough. I only ask you
to say good-by a little more kindly."
Her eyes were full and more beautiful than ever. She put out her hand
and touched the sofa at her side.
"Will you sit here?" she said.
"What!" he cried,--"I?"
"Yes," she answered, scarcely above her breath, "no one else." He took
the place and her slender hand.
"I have no right to this," he said. "No one knows that so well as I. I
am doing a terrible, daring thing."
"It is a daring thing for us both," she said. "I have always been
afraid; but it cost me too much when you went out of the door."
"Did it?" he said, and folded her hand close against his breast. "Oh!"
he whispered, "I will be very tender to you."
She lifted her soft eyes.
"I think," she said, "that is what I need."