THE TORN NEWSPAPER.
Clara Anderson had resolved to return to her friends at Richmond as soon
as Egbert Fletcher could be removed from the island. Bertha was safe
under the protection of Mrs. Forbes, and, in her new-born happiness, had
no need of her. In fact, it seemed as if she really had no place in the
world. The past had, to her, been full of bitterness; the present
offered nothing but a hopeless monotony, without love and devoid of
interest. Like Bertha, she felt only dull, cold loathing for the man who
had, in sheer vanity, taken the first bloom from her heart. If this was
mingled with some degree of self-contempt, it only proved that her cure
was complete.
Sometimes she thought of Edward Lane, of his chivalrous devotion, the
manliness with which he had turned from that downward path and exerted
the energies of a noble character. She remembered that day of bitter
misery when he had come, in the very depths of her humiliation, and
offered to sacrifice everything—brave everything for her sake. Now, when
her brain was clear from fever, and her heart was free to feel, these
memories came back upon her with tender force.
But all was over now. The man she had loved as a god had sunk beneath
her scorn. The man who loved her had, doubtless, shaken off his passion,
and, in doing this, redeemed himself before the world.
Yes, Bertha was happy in the chivalrous and most faithful love of a
brave, good man. Alice Forbes had no need of help from any one. What,
then, should detain her at the island? These thoughts had oppressed
Clara that morning with unusual persistence. There was no need of her in
the house, and a short time before the appearance of Mrs. Forbes and
Edward Lane, she had gone down into a remote part of the second island
to indulge in thoughts that might cast a shadow over the happiness of
her friends.
While Clara was lingering around the spring, listening dreamily to the
soft whispers of its waves among the grass, she saw Lydia coming across
the bridge with something grasped tightly in her hand. There was a keen
look in the girl’s face, a nervous spring in her walk, that drew Clara’s
attention.
The girl came down to the clump of trees that had sheltered the tent
that day of the picnic, and, seating herself at the foot of an old
forest oak, unfolded a mutilated paper on her lap, and carefully laid
the torn edges together.
Then she seemed to read diligently.
It was indeed Lydia reading that poem in which Waldon had written his
greatest infamy, from end to end.
Clara could see her face grow hard and stern, like that of an old woman,
as she laid it down in her lap and pondered over it.
What the girl thought, during the half hour that she sat on the earth,
so silent and immovable, no human being ever knew; but, after a time,
she folded the paper carefully, and put it in her pocket again.
There was something so strange in this proceeding that Clara left the
spring and was close to the girl before she became aware of her
presence.
“What is it, Lydia?” she said. “Something in that paper troubles you;
may I look at it?”
Lydia clapped her hand against her pocket, and shot a volley of defiant
glances up at the intruder’s face.
“If it is anything that interests our friends up yonder you can safely
trust it with me,” said Clara.
“No, I can’t—no, I won’t. ‘Burn it,’ he said, and burn it is. Only this,
Miss Clara, don’t you think of going back to Richmond just yet. You’ll
be wanted here, I tell you; so don’t go!”
“How came you to think I intended going, Lydia?”
“As if I didn’t know! What’s the use of eyes, Miss Clara—double
shooters, too—if one don’t see? Of course you meant to go; but it’s of
no use; you’d have to come back again, sure. Now just go on and take
your walk out, for I’m a going.”
On her way to the house, Lydia met the doctor, and spoke to him, as she
had frequently done when Fletcher’s illness made her anxious about his
life.
“Doctor,” she said, “can’t you tell by a person’s face when anything’s
the matter with them?”
“Sometimes, Lydia; and just now I should say that your face is not quite
natural—something about the eyes.”
“Oh, that’s nothing, doctor! I always was a cross-eyed little witch,
looking two ways for Sunday. It is worse than that. I believe there’s
some trouble here about my heart.”
Lydia laid one hand on the right side of her chest, with a rueful look
of inquiry at the doctor, who began to laugh.
“Why, that would be your liver, child. Your heart is on the other side,
lying a little crosswise; this fashion.”
“What! there? Almost under your vest pocket? Why, I can almost see it
stir. How strange! Could one feel it now?”
“Lay your hand here and try,” answered the doctor, putting the lappel of
his coat back, greatly amused by her curiosity.
Lydia pressed her hand on the white vest thus laid bare.
“How it beats—mine don’t stir like that, or I should know it. Well, my
pain is on the other side; so it can’t, in reason, be my heart.”
“Well, Lydia, I have told you where to find yours, when you are old
enough to have one, so don’t let any of the young fellows run away with
it.”
The doctor broke off short. He was astonished to see tears gathering
thick and fast into the girl’s eyes.
“Why, Lydia, child, are you really ill?”
“Yes, doctor. I shall never live to have any one want my heart!”
The girl spoke with inexpressible mournfulness, and scanning her face
closely, he saw that she was pale, and looking really ill.
“Come back with me to the house, child, and I’ll see what can be done
for you,” he said.
“Not to-day, doctor; I can wait. This is a pain that has been on me a
good many months now—some other time will do just as well.”
“As you please, only do not fail to remind me when I come again.
By-the-way, Lydia, there is to be a splendid barbecue down here, some
time next week, I think. All the darkies from Willow Bend and the near
plantations are coming down to celebrate Miss Noel’s wedding. The bride
and groom, with their white friends, are coming to show themselves. That
will be something worth seeing for you. Dear me, child, how pale you
are! Take care of yourself, or we shall have trouble.”
Lydia was indeed pale. She sat down on a log near the bridge, and
remained some minutes gazing down on the grass at her feet.
“Why, Lydia, what are you doing here?”
The girl jumped up in sharp haste.
“Oh, Mr. Lane! Oh, my! but won’t somebody be glad!”
“I have seen them all, Lydia, and am going home now.”
“Not now! Oh, Mr. Lane, not just yet!”
“But I must. We intend to remove my brother early in the morning, and
things must be got ready at the plantation.”
Lydia seemed to reflect a minute, then she brightened with some new
thought.
“But you needn’t go just yet, you know; a lot of people are coming down
here for a barbecue, and after that no gentleman, as is a gentleman,
will ever want to come over here again. Now there is a spring back of
them trees, that is worth looking at. You’ll find it down in a holler,
choked up with brakes and swamp lilies. Such a spring; it does one good
to drink of it!”
There was something in the girl’s manner that aroused Lane’s curiosity.
He was in no great haste to leave the island, and this description of
the spring interested him. Scarcely conscious that he was acting from
the suggestion of another, he crossed the bridge and sauntered down
toward the spring.
Then Lydia dropped back to her seat again.
“He’s read them verses. I can see ’em in his eyes. He’ll be the next one
sure. Oh, my! how dreadful close it comes!”
These were the only words Lydia spoke for half an hour, during which she
sat vacantly gazing on the earth. All at once she started.
“There they come, arm-in-arm. Light in her face, joy in his. It’ll be
hard for him to risk his life now, and the other is not well enough
yet.”
A few minutes later, Lane and Clara passed the spot where Lydia had been
sitting so long, but she was gone.