Chapter 12

"He's walked with me through four States and never whined. He's gone without food for days at a time, and never complained. He's been cold and hungry, and we've slept together, more than once, on the ground in the snow, with only one blanket between us. He's kept me from freezing to death with his warm body, he's suffered from thirst the same as I, and never so much as whimpered. We've been comrades and we've fared together, as only man and dog may fare.

"When every man's face was set against you, did you never have a dog to trust you? When there was never a man nor a woman you could call your friend, did a dog never come to you and lick your hand? When you've been bent with grief you couldn't stand up under, did a dog never come to you and put his cold nose on your face? Did a dog never reach out a friendly paw to tell you that you were not alone--that it was you two together?

"When you've come home alone late at night, tired to death with the world and its ways, was there never a dog to greet you with his bark of welcome? Did a dog never sit where you told him to sit, and guard your property till you came back, though it might be hours? When you could trust no man to guard your treasures, could you never trust a dog? Man, man, the world has fair been cruel if you've never known the love of a dog!

"I've heard these things of you, but I thought folks were prattling, as folks will, but dogs never do. I thought they were lying about you--that such things couldn't be true. They said you were cutting up dogs to learn more of people, and I'm thinking, if we're so much alike as that, 't is murder to kill a dog."

"You killed him," said Anthony Dexter, speaking for the first time. "I didn't."

"Yes," answered the Piper, "I killed him, but 't was to keep him from being hurt. I'd do the same for a man or a woman, if there was need. If 't was a child you had tied down here with your blood-stained straps, cut open to see an innocent heart, your own being black past all pardon, I'd do the same for the child and all the more quickly if it was my own. I never had a child--I've never had a woman to love me, but I've been loved by a dog. I've thought that even yet I might know the love of a woman, for a man who deserves the love of a dog is worthy of a woman, and a man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too.

"Laddie," said the Piper, laying his hand upon the blood-stained body, "no man ever had a truer comrade, and I'll not insult your kind by calling this brute a cur. Laddie, it was you and I, and now it's I alone. Laddie--" here the Piper's voice broke, and, taking up the knife again, he cut the straps. With the tears raining down his face, he stumbled out of the laboratory, the mutilated body of his pet in his arms.

Anthony Dexter looked after him curiously. The mask-like expression of his face was slightly changed. In a corner of the laboratory, seeming to shrink from him, stood the phantom black figure, closely veiled. Out of the echoing stillness came the passionate accusation: "A man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too."

He carefully removed the blood stains from the narrow table, and pushed it back in its place, behind a screen. The straps were cut, and consequently useless, so he wrapped them up in a newspaper and threw them into the waste basket. He cleaned his knife with unusual care, and wiped an ugly stain from his forceps.

Then he took off his linen coat, folded it up, and placed it in the covered basket which held soiled linen from the laboratory. He washed his hands and copied the notes he had made, for there was blood upon the page. He tore the original sheet into fine bits, and put the pieces into the waste basket. Then he put on his cuffs and his coat, and went out of the laboratory.

He was dazed, and did not see that his own self-torture had filled him with primeval lust to torture in return. He only knew that his brilliant paper must remain forever incomplete, since his services to science were continually unappreciated and misunderstood. What was one yellow dog, more or less, in the vast economy of Nature? Was he lacking in discernment, because, as Piper Tom said, he had never been loved by a dog?

He sat down in the library to collect himself and observed, with a curious sense of detachment, that Evelina was walking in the hall instead of in the library, as she usually did when he sat there.

An hour--or perhaps two--went by, then, unexpectedly, Ralph came home, having paused a moment outside. He rushed into the library with his face aglow.

"Look, Dad," he cried, boyishly, holding it at arm's length; "see what I found on the steps! It's a pearl necklace, with a diamond in the clasp! Some of the stones are discoloured, but they're good and can be made right again, I've found it, so it's mine, and I'm going to give it to the girl I marry!"

Anthony Dexter's pale face suddenly became livid. He staggered over to Ralph, snatched the necklace out of his hand, and ground the pearls under his heel. "No," he cried, "a thousand times, no! The pearls are cursed!"

Then, for the second time, he fainted.

XVIII

Undine

"It's almost as good as new!" cried Araminta, gleefully. She was clad in a sombre calico Mother Hubbard, of Miss Mehitable's painstaking manufacture, and hopping back and forth on the bare floor of her room at Miss Evelina's.

"Yes," answered Doctor Ralph, "I think it's quite as good as new." He was filled with professional pride at the satisfactory outcome of his first case, and yet was not at all pleased with the idea of Araminta's returning to Miss Mehitable's, as, perforce, she soon must do.

"Don't walk any more just now," he said "Come here and sit down. I want to talk to you."

Araminta obeyed him unquestioningly. He settled her comfortably in the haircloth easy-chair and drew his own chair closer. There was a pause, then she looked up at him, smiling with childish wistfulness.

"Are you sorry it's well?" he asked.

"I--I think I am," she answered, shyly, the deep crimson dyeing her face.

"I can't see you any more, you know," said Ralph, watching her intently.

The sweet face saddened in an instant and Araminta tapped her foot restlessly upon the floor. "Perhaps," she returned, slowly, "Aunt Hitty will be taken sick. Oh, I do hope she will!"

"You miserable little sinner," laughed Ralph, "do you suppose for a moment that Aunt Hitty would send for me if she were ill? Why, I believe she'd die first!"

"Maybe Mr. Thorpe might be taken sick," suggested Araminta, hopefully. "He's old, and sometimes I think he isn't very strong."

"He'd insist on having my father. You know they're old friends."

"Mr. Thorpe is old and your father is old," corrected Araminta, precisely, "but they haven't been friends long. Aunt Hitty says you must always say what you mean."

"That is what I meant. Each is old and both are friends. See?"

"It must be nice to be men," sighed Araminta, "and have friends. I've never had anybody but Aunt Hitty--and you," she added, in a lower tone,

"'No money, no friends, nothing but relatives,'" quoted Ralph, cynically. "It's hard lines, little maid--hard lines." He walked back and forth across the small room, his hands clasped behind his back--a favourite attitude, Araminta had noted, during the month of her illness.

He pictured his probable reception should he venture to call upon her. Personally, as it was, he stood none too high in the favour of the dragon, as he was wont to term Miss Mehitable in his unflattering thoughts. Moreover, he was a man, which counted heavily against him. Since he had taken up his father's practice, he had heard a great deal about Miss Mehitable's view of marriage, and her determination to shield Araminta from such an unhappy fate.

And Araminta had not been intended, by Dame Nature, for such shielding. Every line of her body, rounding into womanhood, defied Aunt Hitty's well-meant efforts. The soft curve of her cheek, the dimples that lurked unsuspected in the comers of her mouth, the grave, sweet eyes--all these marked Araminta for love. She had, too, a wistful, appealing childishness.

"Did you like the story book?" asked Ralph.

"Oh, so much!"

"I thought you would. What part of it did you like best?"

"It was all lovely," replied Araminta, thoughtfully, "but I think the best part of it was when she went back to him after she had made him go away. It made him so glad to know that they were to talk together again."

Ralph looked keenly at Araminta, the love of man and woman was so evidently outside her ken. The sleeping princess in the tower had been no more set apart. But, as he remembered; the sleeping princess had been wakened by a kiss--when the right man came.

A lump came into his throat and he swallowed hard. Blindly, he went over to her chair. The girl's flower-like face was lifted questioningly to his. He bent over and kissed her, full upon the lips.

Araminta shrank from him a little, and the colour surged into her face, but her eyes, still trustful, still tender, never wavered from his.

"I suppose I'm a brute," Ralph said, huskily, "but God knows I haven't meant to be."

Araminta smiled--a sweet, uncomprehending smile. Ralph possessed himself of her hand. It was warm and steady--his own was cold and tremulous.

"Child," he said, "did any one ever kiss you before?"

"No," replied Araminta; "only Aunt Hitty. It was when I was a baby and she thought I was lost. She kissed me--here." Araminta pointed to her soft cheek. "Did you kiss me because I was well?"

Ralph shook his head despairingly. "The man in the book kissed the lady," went on Araminta, happily, "because he was so glad they were to talk together again, but we--why, I shall never see you any more," she concluded, sadly.

His fingers tightened upon hers. "Yes," he said, in a strange voice, "we shall see each other again."

"They both seem very well," sighed Araminta, referring to Aunt Hitty and Mr. Thorpe, "and even if I fell off of a ladder again, it might not hurt me at all. I have fallen from lots of places and only got black and blue. I never broke before."

"Listen, child," said Ralph. "Would you rather live with Aunt Hitty, or with me?"

"Why, Doctor Ralph! Of course I'd rather live with you, but Aunt Hitty would never let me!"

"We're not talking about Aunt Hitty now. Is there anyone in the world whom you like better than you do me?"

"No," said Araminta, softly, her eyes shining. "How could there be?"

"Do you love me, Araminta?"

"Yes," she answered, sweetly, "of course I do! You've been so good to me!"

The tone made the words meaningless. "Child," said Ralph, "you break my heart."

He walked back and forth again, restlessly, and Araminta watched him, vaguely troubled. What in the world had she done?

Meanwhile, he was meditating. He could not bear to have her go back to her prison, even for a little while. Had he found her only to lose her, because she had no soul?

Presently he came back to her and stood by her chair. "Listen, dear," he said, tenderly. "You told me there was no one in the world for whom you cared more than you care for me. You said you loved me, and I love you--God knows I do. If you'll trust me, Araminta, you'll never be sorry, never for one single minute as long as you live. Would you like to live with me in a little house with roses climbing over it, just us two alone?"

"Yes," returned Araminta, dreamily, "and I could keep the little cat."

"You can have a million cats, if you like, but all I want is you. Just you, sweetheart, to love me, with all the love you can give me. Will you come?"

"Oh," cried Araminta, "if Aunt Hitty would only let me, but she never would!"

"We won't ask her," returned Ralph. "We'll go away to-night, and be married."

At the word, Araminta started out of her chair. Her face was white and her eyes wide with fear. "I couldn't," she said, with difficulty. "You shouldn't ask me to do what you know is wrong. Just because my mother was married, because she was wicked--you must not think that I would be wicked, too."

Hot words were struggling for utterance, but Ralph choked them back. The fog was thick before him and he saw Araminta as through a heavy veil. "Undine," he said, moistening his parched lips, "some day you will find your soul. And when you do, come to me. I shall be waiting."

He went out of the room unsteadily, and closed the door. He stood at the head of the stairs for a long time before he went down. Apparently there was no one in the house. He went into the parlour and sat down, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, and trying to regain his self-control.

He saw, clearly, that Araminta was not in the least to blame; that almost ever since her birth, she had been under the thumb of a domineering woman who persistently inculcated her own warped ideas. Since her earliest childhood, Araminta had been taught that marriage was wrong--that her own mother was wicked, because she had been married. And of the love between man and woman, the child knew absolutely nothing.

"Good God!" muttered Ralph. "My little girl, oh, my little girl!" Man-like, he loved her more than ever because she had denied him; man-like, he wanted her now as he had never wanted her before. Through the weeks that he had seen her every day, he had grown to feel his need of her, to hunger for the sweetness of her absolute dependence upon him. Yet, until now, he had not guessed how deeply he cared, nor guessed that such caring was possible.

He sat there for the better part of an hour, slowly regaining command of himself. Miss Evelina came through the hall and paused just outside the door, feeling intuitively that some one was in the house. She drew down her veil and went in.

"I thought you had gone," she said. "Did you wish to see me?"

"No," returned Ralph, wearily; "not especially."

She sat down opposite him silently. All her movements were quiet, for she had never been the noisy sort of woman. There was something soothing in the veiled presence.

"I hope I'm not intruding," ventured Ralph, at length. "I'll go, presently. I've just had a--well, a blow. That little saint upstairs has been taught that marriage is wicked."

"I know," returned Miss Evelina, instantly comprehending. "Mehitable has very strange ideas. I'm sorry," she added, in a tone she might have used in speaking to Anthony Dexter, years before.

Her sympathy touched the right chord. It was not obtrusive, it had no hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood the hurt of another. Ralph felt a mysterious kinship.

"I've wanted for some time to ask you," he began awkwardly, "if there was not something I could do for you. The--the veil, you know--" He stopped, at a loss for further words.

"Yes?" Miss Evelina's voice was politely inquiring. She thought it odd for Anthony Dexter's son to be concerned about her veil. She wondered whether he meditated giving her a box of chiffon, as Piper Tom had done.

"Believe me," he said, impetuously, "I only want to help. I want to make it possible for you to take that--to take that thing off."

"It is not possible," returned Miss Evelina, after a painful interval. "I shall always wear my veil."

"You don't understand," explained Ralph. It seemed to him that he had spent the day telling women they did not understand. "I know, of course, that there was some dreadful accident, and that it happened a long time ago. Since then, wonderful advances have been made in surgery--there is a great deal possible now that was not dreamed of then. Of course I should not think of attempting it myself, but I would find the man who could do it, take you to him, and stand by you until it was over."

The clock ticked loudly and a little bird sang outside, but there was no other sound.

"I want to help you," said Ralph, humbly, as he rose to his feet; "believe me, I want to help you."

Miss Evelina said nothing, but she followed him to the door. At the threshold, Ralph turned back. "Won't you let me help you?" he asked. "Won't you even let me try?"

"I thank you," said Miss Evelina, coldly, "but nothing can be done."

The door closed behind him with a portentous suggestion of finality. As he went down the path, Ralph felt himself shut out from love and from all human service. He did not look back to the upper window, where Araminta was watching, her face stained with tears.

As he went out of the gate, she, too, felt shut out from something strangely new and sweet, but her conscience rigidly approved, none the less. Against Aunt Hitty's moral precepts, Araminta leaned securely, and she was sure that she had done right.

The Maltese kitten was purring upon a cushion, the loved story book lay on the table nearby. Doctor Ralph was going down the road, his head bowed. They would never see each other again--never in all the world.

She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had asked her to marry him; she would shield him, even though he had insulted her. She would not tell Aunt Hitty that Doctor Ralph had kissed her, as the man in the story book had kissed the lady who came back to him. She would not tell anybody. "Never in all the world," thought Araminta. "We shall never see each other again."

Doctor Ralph was out of sight, now, and she could never watch for him any more. He had gone away forever, and she had broken his heart. For the moment, Araminta straightened herself proudly, for she had been taught that it did not matter whether one's heart broke or not--one must always do what was right. And Aunt Hitty knew what was right.

Suddenly, she sank on her knees beside her bed, burying her face in the pillow, for her heart was breaking, too. "Oh, Lord," she prayed, sobbing wildly, "keep me from the contamination of marriage, for Thy sake. Amen."

The door opened silently, a soft, slow step came near. The pillow was drawn away and a cool hand was laid upon Araminta's burning cheek. "Child," said Miss Evelina, "what is wrong?"

Araminta had not meant to tell, but she did. She sobbed out, in disjointed fragments, all the sorry tale. Wisely, Miss Evelina waited until the storm had spent itself, secretly wishing that she, too, might know the relief of tears.

"I knew," said Miss Evelina, her cool, quiet hand still upon Araminta's face. "Doctor Ralph told me before he went home."

"Oh," cried Araminta, "does he hate me?"

"Hate you?" repeated Miss Evelina. "Dear child, no. He loves you. Would you believe me, Araminta, if I told you that it was not wrong to be married--that there was no reason in the world why you should not marry the man who loves you?"

"Not wrong!" exclaimed Araminta, incredulously. "Aunt Hitty says it is. My mother was married!"

"Yes," said Miss Evelina, "and so was mine. Aunt Hitty's mother was married, too."

"Are you sure?" demanded Araminta. "She never told me so. If her mother was married, why didn't she tell me?"

"I don't know, dear," returned Miss Evelina, truthfully. "Mehitable's ways are strange." Had she been asked to choose, at the moment, between Araminta's dense ignorance and all of her own knowledge, embracing, as it did, a world of pain, she would have chosen gladly, the fuller life.

The door-bell below rang loudly, defiantly. It was the kind of a ring which might impel the dead to answer it. Miss Evelina fairly ran downstairs.

Outside stood Miss Mehitable. Unwillingly, in her wake, had come the Reverend Austin Thorpe. Under Miss Mehitable's capable and constant direction, he had made a stretcher out of the clothes poles and a sheet. He was jaded in spirit beyond all words to express, but he had come, as Roman captives came, chained to the chariot wheels of the conqueror.

"Me and the minister," announced Miss Mehitable, imperiously, "have come to take Minty home!"

XIX

In the Shadow of the Cypress

The house seemed lonely without Araminta. Miss Evelina missed the child more than she had supposed she could ever miss any one. She had grown to love her, and, too, she missed the work.

Miss Evelina's house was clean, now, and most of the necessary labour had been performed by her own frail hands. The care of Araminta had been an added burden, which she had borne because it had been forced upon her. Slowly, but surely, she had been compelled to take thought for others.

The promise of Spring had come to beautiful fulfilment, and the world was all abloom. Faint mists of May were rising from the earth, and filmy clouds half veiled the moon. The loneliness of the house was unbearable, so Miss Evelina went out into the garden, her veil fluttering, moth-like, about her head.

The old pain was still at her heart, yet, in a way, it was changed. She had come again into the field of service. Miss Mehitable had been kind to her, indeed, more than kind. The Piper had made her a garden, and she had taken care of Araminta. Doctor Ralph, meaning to be wholly kind, had offered to help her, if he could, and she had been on the point of doing a small service for him, when Fate, in the person of Miss Mehitable, intervened. And over and above and beyond all, Anthony Dexter had come back, to offer her tardy reparation.

That hour was continually present with her. She could not forget his tortured face when she had thrown back her veil. What if she had taken him at his word, and gone with him, to be, as he said, a mother to his son? Miss Evelina laughed bitterly.

The beauty of the night brought her no peace as she wandered about the garden. Without knowing it, she longed for human companionship. Piper Tom had finished his work. Doctor Ralph would come no more, Araminta had gone, and Miss Mehitable offered little comfort.

She went to the gate and leaned upon it, looking down the road. Thus she had watched for Anthony Dexter in years gone by. Memories, mercilessly keen, returned to her. As though it were yesterday, she remembered the moonlit night of their betrothal, felt his eager arms about her and his bearded cheek pressed close to hers. She heard again the music of his voice as he whispered, passionately: "I love you, oh, I love you--for life, for death, for all eternity!"

The rose-bush had been carefully pruned and tied up, but it promised little, at best. The cypress had grown steadily, and, at times, its long shadow reached through the door and into the house. Heavily, too, upon her heart, the shadow of the cypress lay, for sorrow seems so much deeper than joy.

A figure came up the road, and she turned away, intending to go into the house. Then she perceived that it was Piper Tom, and, drawing down her veil, turned back to wait for him. He had never come at night before.

Even in the darkness, she noted a change in him; the atmosphere of youth was all gone. He walked slowly, as though he had aged, and the red feather no longer bobbed in his hat.

He went past her silently, and sat down on the steps.

"Will you come in?" asked Evelina.

"No," answered the Piper, sadly, "I'll not be coming in. 'T is selfish of me, perhaps, but I came to you because I had sorrow of my own."

Miss Evelina sat down on the step beside him, and waited for him to speak.

"'T is a small sorrow, perhaps, you'll be thinking," he said, at last. "I'm not knowing what great ones you have seen, face to face, but 't is so ordered That all sorrows are not the same. 'T is all in the heart that bears them. I told you I had known them all, and at the time, I was thinking I spoke the truth. A woman never loved me, and so I have lost the love of no woman, but," he went on with difficulty, "no one had ever killed my dog."

"How?" asked Miss Evelina, dully. It seemed a matter of small moment to her.