CHAPTER XXXII.

A week later, Margaret was out to walk on the barren.

She had walked far, though her step had been slow; it seemed to her that her step would always be slow now, her effort must be to keep it steady. She had reached a point where there rose on the green level a little mound-like island of a different growth, its top covered with palmetto-trees. She made her way to the summit; though the height of the little hill was low, the view one obtained there was extensive, like that from a small light-house in a salt-marsh. Where she stood there was a cleared space--the ground had been burned over not long before; on this brown surface the crosiers of new ferns were unrolling themselves, and when tired of the broad barren, her eyes rested on their little fresh stalks, green and woolly, though she no longer stooped to gather them. She did not come home now laden with flowers and vines to plant in the old East Angels garden; the life she had been trying to build up there was suddenly stopped, a completely different one was demanding her. She had been very free, but now she was called back--called back to the slavery, and the dread.

Oh, blessed, twice blessed, are the women who have no very deep feelings of any kind! they are so much happier, and so much better! This was what she was saying to herself over and over again, as, with one arm round a slender tree, so that she could lean her head against it, she stood there alone on the little island, looking over the plain. Not to care very deeply, too deeply, for anything, any one; and with that to be kind and gentle--this was by far the happiest nature for women to have, and of such the good were made. Mothers should pray for this disposition for their daughters. Anything else led to bitter pain.

She thought of her own mother, of whom she had no recollection. "If you had lived, mother, perhaps I should have been saved from this; perhaps I should not be so wretched--" this was her silent cry.

She heard a sound, some one was coming through the high bushes below; a moment more, and the person appeared. It was Evert Winthrop.

"_You?_" she said, breathlessly. "When did you come? How could you know I was here?"

"For once I've been fortunate, I have never been so before where you were concerned. I reached East Angels half an hour ago, Celestine said you were out on the barren somewhere, and Telano happened to know the road you had taken; then I met some negro children who had seen you pass, and, farther on, a boy who knew you had come this way; he brought me here. But I saw you a mile off myself, you are very conspicuous in that light dress on the top of this mound."

"We had no idea you were coming--"

"I couldn't let you know beforehand, because I came myself as quickly as a letter could have come; as soon as I knew you would need help, I started."

"Help?"

"Yes, about Lanse."

"Lanse is not here."

"Oh, I know where he is, he is in Fernandina; established there in the best rooms the hotel affords, with three attendants, and everything comfortable. But this time he did not tell me his plans; he arrived in New York, and then came southward, without letting me know a word of it. I heard of him, though, almost immediately, and I started at once."

Margaret did not reply.

"You will need help," he went on.

"No, I think not."

"Then he has not written to you?--has made no demands? I shall think better of him than I had expected to think, if that is the case; I supposed, from his coming south, that he had intentions of molesting you."

"It would not be molesting."

"_Has_ he written to you?"

"Yes."

"What demands, then, does he make--is it money?"

"He wishes me to come back to him, as I did before. But he will live wherever I prefer to live. He is quite willing to leave the choice of the place to me." She spoke slowly, as though she were repeating something she had learned.

"Very good. I suppose you told him that wherever you might prefer to live, there would at least be no place there for Lansing Harold?"

"I haven't told him anything yet. He was willing to wait--he wrote that he would give me a month."

"A month for what?"

"For my answer," she said, drearily.

"It won't take a month. That is what I have come down for--to answer in your place."

She began to look about for the best way to descend.

"I sent the boy who brought me here to East Angels for the phaeton; it will come before long, you won't have to walk back. Now, Margaret, let us have no more useless words; of course you do not dream of doing as Lanse wishes?"

"Yes, I think I shall do it."

"Do you mean to tell me that you wish to go back to that man--after all he has done?"

"I do not wish to. But I must."

"You _shall_ not!" he burst out. His face, usually so calm, was surprisingly altered; it was reddened and darkened.

"Nothing you can say will make any difference," she answered, in the same monotonous tone. Even his rage could not alter the helpless melancholy of her voice.

"Do you think he deserves it--deserves anything? You actually put a premium on loose conduct. You reward him for it, while--while other men, who are _trying_, at least, to lead decent lives, are thrust aside."

"He is my husband."

"So good a one!"

"That has nothing to do with it."

"_Nothing?_"

"No; not with my duty."

"I believe you have lost your wits, you are demented," he said, violently.

"Oh, I wish I _were_ demented! Then my troubles would be over."

The despair of these words softened him. She had turned away, he followed her. "Margaret, listen to reason. In some cases it _is_ right that a wife should go back to her husband, almost no matter what he has done. But yours is not one of them, it would kill you."

"No more than it did before."

"But it's worse for you now."

"It's exactly the same."

"He left you a _second_ time."

"I have only to thank him for that, haven't I? It gave me a respite. Over there on the river, when I learned--when I knew--that he had really gone, I could scarcely hide my joy--I had to hide myself to do it! It was the relief, the delight, of being free."

"The law, you know, would free you forever."

"I shall never take advantage of it."

"Do you think you know better than the law?"

"Yes; the law only touches part of the truth. Its plea would not do for me."

"This is pure excitement. Womanlike, you have wrought yourself up to this new view; but it is without a grain of foundation in either justice or common-sense."

"It isn't a new view, I have always known what I should do. That was the reason I wished to keep the house on the river--so that it could be ready in case he should come back. For I felt that he might come at any time, I was never deceived as to any permanent improvement in his health. I have thought it all over again and again; there isn't a loop-hole of escape for me. Let us say no more."

"I shall say a great deal more."

She put out both hands towards him, with a desperate repelling gesture. "Oh, _leave_ me!" she cried.

"I shall not leave you until you have given me an explanation that is reasonable; so far, you have not done it. Time and time again you have put me off, to-day you shall not."

Her own cry had seemed to restore to her her self-control.

"Very well," she said. She folded her arms in her mantle. "What explanations do you wish?" she asked, coldly.

"Why are you going back to Lansing Harold, when you are not in the least forced to go?"

"I am forced; my marriage forces me."

"Not after the ill treatment you have received from him."

"He has never illtreated me personally; in many ways he has never been unkind, many men called good husbands are much more so. He does not drink. If he drank, that would be an excuse for me--an excuse to leave him; but he does not, I have never had a fear of that sort, he has never struck me or threatened me in his life. And I have no children to think of--whether his influence over them would be bad. That too would have been an excuse, a valid one; but it is not mine. He leaves me my personal liberty as he left it to me before. In addition, he is now hopelessly crippled--he has sent me his physician's letter to prove it; his case is there pronounced a life-long one, he will never walk, or be any better than he is now. Are these explanations sufficient? or do you require more?"

"No explanations can ever be sufficient," Winthrop answered. He stood looking at her. "Oh, Margaret, it is such a fearful sacrifice!" He had abandoned for the moment both his anger and his efforts at argument.

"Yes; but that is what life is, isn't it?" she said, her voice trembling a little in spite of herself.

"No, it's not. And it shouldn't be. Why should an utterly selfish man of that kind, who has forfeited every claim upon you a hundred times over--why should he be allowed to dictate to you, to wither your whole existence? Yes, I am beginning again, I know it; but I cannot help it! It is true that I have always talked against separations--preached against them. But that was before my own feelings were brought in, and it makes a wonderful difference? When a woman you care for is made utterly wretched, you take a different view, and you want to seize your old preaching-self, and knock him against the wall! It is _not_ right that you should go back to Lanse, it is wicked, as murder is wicked. He does not strike you--that may be; but the life will kill you just as surely as though he should give you every day, with his own hand, a dose of slow poison. You have an excessively sensitive disposition--you pretend you have not, but you have; you would not be able to throw it off--the yoke he would put upon you, you would not be able to rise above it, become indifferent to it; you would never grow callous, he would always have the power of making you unhappy. This would wear upon you; at last it would wear you out; you would die, and _he_ would live on! And, besides, remember this--it isn't as though he really depended upon you for personal care; he doesn't need you, as far as that goes, he says so. Give him your money, if you like; give him houses and nurses and servants, every luxury, all you have; but do not, do not give him yourself."

She remained silent. She had steeled herself, so it seemed, against anything he could say.

"You are counting the minutes before the phaeton comes," he went on; "that is your only thought--to get away! Very well, then, you shall have the whole, which otherwise I would have kept from you; I love you, Margaret, I have loved you for a long time. If it is horrible to you that I should say it, and force you, too, to hear, bear this in mind: though I say it, I ask for nothing, I do not put myself forward. I tell you because I want you to understand how near your best interests are to me--how I consider them. I deserve some mercy, I have tried hard to hold myself in check--did I say a word all that night in the swamp? You may imagine whether I am happy, loving you hopelessly as I do! It began long ago; when I thought I disliked you so bitterly, that was the beginning; it was a dislike, or rather a pain, which came from your being (as I then supposed you were) so different from the sweet woman it seemed to me you ought to be--ought to be with that face and voice. I watched you; I was very severe in all I said; but all the time I loved you, it was stronger than I. I feel no shame in telling it; it has made me a better man--not so cold, not so sure of my own perfection. And now, if you will only tell me that you won't go back to Lanse, I will go. And I will stay away, I will not try to see you, I will not even write. And this shall last as long as you say, Margaret--for years; even always, if it must be so. What can I do or say more?"

She had stood still, looking at the ground, while he poured forth these urgent words; she might have been a statue.

"There's an icy stubbornness about you--" he began again. "What is it I ask? One promise, and for your own good too, and then I go out into the world again, bearing my pain as best I can, leaving you behind, and free. I don't believe you know what that pain is, because I don't believe you know, or can understand even, how much I love you. I am almost ashamed to put it into words--I am no longer a boy. I had no idea I could love in that way--an unreasoning, headlong feeling. There's no extravagant thing, Margaret--such as I have always laughed at--that I would not do at this moment; and to feel your cheek against mine--I would die to-morrow."

He had not moved towards her, but she shrank back even from his present distance; white-faced, with frightened eyes, she turned; she looked as if she were going to rush away.

"Don't go,--I will not say another word; I only wished you to know how it was with me, it is better that you should know."

He wished to help her, but she would not allow it, she pushed the close bushes aside with trembling hands, and made her way down alone. They reached the barren; the phaeton was approaching.

"I cannot bear to see you so frightened," he said.

"--I believe you are sorry for me," he went on--his voice was gentle now. "And that is why you are afraid to speak--lest you should show it."

She gave him one quick glance; her eyes were full of tears.

"That is it, you are sorry. I thank you for that; and I shall think from it that you have forgiven me those years when I made your life so much harder even than it was, than it need have been."

The phaeton was drawing near.

"I am going to trust you, Margaret, I believe that I can. You will not speak, you think I ought not to have spoken. But if I go away at once, and do not return, perhaps you will be influenced by what I have said, and by what is really the best course for you;--perhaps you will not go back to Lanse. At any rate I shall be showing you that _I_ am in earnest,--that I can, and will keep my promise."

The phaeton drew up before them.

"You must not come with me," she murmured.

"You are to drive, Telano," said Winthrop, as he helped her take her place. He stood there until the light carriage had disappeared.

Then he walked northward to Gracias.