With a smile so bitter that it quite transformed his genial, handsome
face, he read and re-read these lines.
"Yes," he said aloud, "it is the right way, the only way," and he
sealed and directed the letter, and went back to his reverie by the
fire.
Lilly O'Connell's death made a deep impression in the village. That
which her life, with all its pain and humiliation and loneliness, its
heroic struggles, its quiet, hard-won victories, had failed to do,
the simple story of her death accomplished. It was made the subject
of at least two eloquent discourses, and for a time her name was on
every tongue. But it was only for a time, for when, in the course of
years, the graves in the pasture were opened, and the poor remains of
mortality removed by surviving friends to sacred ground, her grave
remained undisturbed.
It was not forgotten, however. One day in June, when the happy, teeming
earth was at her fairest, Dr. Horton drove out of the village, and
turning into the grass-grown, untraversed road, went on to the scene
of the past winter's tragedy of suffering and death. The old house was
no longer in existence. By consent of the owner (whose whereabouts had
been discovered), and by order of the selectmen of the town, it had
been burned to the ground. Where it had stood, two crumbling chimneys
rose from the mass of blackened bricks and charred timbers which
filled the cellar, the whole draped and matted with luxuriant woodbine
and clinging shrubs. Birds brooded over their nests in every nook
and cranny of the ruin, and red roses flaunted in the sunshine and
sprinkled the gray door-stone with splashes of color. The air was as
sweet about it, the sky as blue above it, as if crime and plague were
things which had no existence.
Dr. Horton left his horse to browse on the tender leaves of the young
birches which grew along the wall, and went down into the pasture. The
sod above the graves was green, and starred with small white flowers.
There were fifteen graves in all, distinguished only by a number rudely
cut upon rough stakes driven into the ground at their heads.
He went slowly among them until he came to one a little apart from the
others, in the shadow of the woods which bordered the field. A slender
young aspen grew beside it, its quivering leaves shining in the sun.
Soft winds blew out from the fragrant woods, and far off in their green
depths echoed the exquisite, melancholy note of the wood-thrush. At the
foot of the grave, where the grass, nourished by some hidden spring,
grew long and lush, a single tiger-lily spread its glowing chalice.
The young man stood there with uncovered head a long, long time. Then,
laying his hand reverently upon the sod for one instant, he went away.
Several years have passed since these events. Dr. Horton is still
unmarried. This is a source of great regret in the community with which
he has become so closely allied, and by which he is held in universal
regard and honor. There are some prematurely whitened locks upon his
temples, and two or three fine straight lines just above his warm,
steadfast eyes, but he is neither a morose nor a melancholy man, and
there are those who confidently hope that the many untenanted rooms in
the old homestead may yet open to the sunshine of a wife's smile, and
echo to the music of childish voices.
It was two years before he met Miss Fairfield, she having spent that
time in Europe with her mother and "Aunt Kitty." It was a chance
meeting, upon Tremont Street, in Boston. He was in the act of leaving
a store as she entered, accompanied by her mother. He recognized them
with a friendly and courteous bow, and passed on.
Miss Fairfield leaned against the counter with a face white as snow.
"He is not--changed--so very much," she whispered to her mother.
Mrs. Fairfield, who had had her own ideas all along, kept a discreet
silence.
The Fairfields spend a part of their time in Ridgemont, and the elegant
little phaeton and the doctor's buggy often pass each other on the
street; the occupants exchange greetings, and that is all.
Miss Fairfield is Miss Fairfield still. Always elegant and artistic in
her dress, she is not quite the same, however. The porcelain tints
have faded, and there is a sharpness about the delicate features, and
a peevishness about the small pink lips. She is devoted to art. She
paints industriously, and with fair result. Her tea-sets are much
sought after, and she "spends her winters in Boston."