Part 21

"You don't mind what I did, then?"

"You didn't do anything."

"That's brave of you, Eve, when you hate lies so. You are trying to make me believe that nothing happened out there in the road--that I was just as usual. But I remember perfectly--I sprang at you; if I had been a man--my hands stronger--you wouldn't be here now!"

"Fortunately you are not a man, nor anything like one," Eve answered, in the tone of a person who makes a joke. She turned towards the door.

"Wait, I want to tell you," said Cicely, going after her, and turning her round with her hands on her shoulders. "This is it, Eve; it comes over me with a rush sometimes, when I look at you--that here you are alive, and _Ferdie_ dead! He was a great deal more splendid than you are, he was so handsome and so young! And yet there he is, down in the ground; and _you_ walking about here! Nothing seems too bad for you then; my feeling is, 'Let her die too! And see how she likes it.'"

"I should like it well enough, if somebody else did it," Eve answered. "Death wouldn't be a punishment, Cicely; it would be a release."

Cicely's grasp relaxed. "Oh, very well. Then why haven't you tried it?"

"Because Paul Tennant is still in the world! I am pusillanimous enough to wish to breathe the same air."

"You _do_ love him!" said Cicely. She paused. "Perhaps--after a little--"

"No, I have thought it all out; it can never be. If he should come to me this moment, and tell me that he loved me in spite of everything, it wouldn't help me; for I should know that it could not last; I should know that, if I should marry him, sooner or later he would hate me; it would be inevitable. Ferdie's face would come always between us."

"I hope it may," said Cicely, savagely. "Why do you keep on staying with me? I don't wish you to stay. Not in the least."

"I thought that I could perhaps be of some use. You were so dear to my brother--"

"Much you care for poor old Jack now! Even _I_ care more."

"Yes, I have changed. But--Jack understands."

"A convenient belief!"

"And you have his child."

--"And I am Paul's sister!"

"Yes; I can sometimes hear of Paul through you."

Eve's voice, as she said this, was so patient that Cicely was softened. She came to Eve and kissed her. "I am sorry for you, Eve."

"Will you promise me to go to bed?" Eve answered, resuming her usual tone, as she turned towards the door. "I must go now, I am tired."

Cicely went with her. "I am never sure of myself, Eve," she said, warningly; "I may say just the same things to you to-morrow,--remember that."

Once in her own room, Eve did not follow the advice which she had given to Cicely; finding that she could not sleep, she dressed herself afresh, and sought the open air again. It was still early, no one was stirring save the servants. Meeting Porley, she asked the girl to bring her some tea and a piece of corn-bread; after this frugal breakfast, taken in the shade of the great live-oaks, she wandered down one of the eastern roads. Her bath had brought no color to her cheeks; her eyes had the contracted look which comes after a night of wakefulness; though the acute pain had ceased, her weary arms still hung lifelessly by her side, her step was languid; only her golden hair looked bright and young as the sun's rays shone across it.

She walked on at random; after a while, upon looking down one of the tracks, bordered by the glittering green bushes, she recognized Miss Sabrina's figure, and, turning, followed it.

Miss Sabrina had come out to pay an early visit to her temple of memories. She heard Eve's step, and looked up. "Oh, is it you, my dear? It's St. Michael and All-Angels; I have only brought a few flowers, I hope you don't mind?" Her voice was apologetic.

"Do you mean for my brother? I wish you had brought more, then; I wish you would always remember him," said Eve, going over and sitting down beside the mound. "He has the worst time of any of us, after all!"

"Oh, my dear, how _can_ we know?" murmured Miss Sabrina, shocked.

"I don't mean that he is in hell," said Eve.

Miss Sabrina had no idea what she meant; she returned to the subject of her temple. "Cicely thinks I come here too often,--she spoke of charnel-houses. Perhaps I do come often; but it has been a comfort to me."

"Miss Sabrina, do you believe in another world?"

"My dear child, most certainly."

"And have we the same feelings, the same affections, there as here?"

"The good ones, I suppose."

"Is love one of these?"

"The best, isn't it?"

"Well, then, my brother took his love for Cicely; if she should die to-day, how much would she care for him, when she met him?"

"I think that something else would be provided for your brother, probably," said Miss Sabrina, timidly.

"Another wife? Why not arrange that for Ferdie Morrison, and give Cicely to Jack?"

"She loved Ferdie the best. Aren't you inclined to think that it must be when they _both_ love?" suggested the maiden lady.

"And when they both love, should anything be permitted to come between them?"

"Oh, nothing! nothing!" said Miss Sabrina, with fervor. "That is, of course, when there is no barrier; when it would be no crime."

"What is crime?" demanded Eve, looking at her sombrely. "I don't think I know."

"Surely the catechism tells us, doesn't it?"

"What does it tell?"

Miss Sabrina murmured reverently: "Idolatry, isn't it?--and blasphemy; desecration of the Lord's Day and irreverence to parents; murder, adultery, theft; falsehood and covetousness."

"And which is the worst? Murder?"

"I suppose so."

"Have you ever spoken to a murderer?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Miss Sabrina. She glanced with suffused eyes towards Ferdie's grave. "It is _such_ a comfort to me to think that though he was in effect murdered, those poor ignorant nig-roes had probably no such intention; it was not done deliberately, by some one who _wished_ to harm him."

"I don't believe his murderer will be afraid to face him in the next world," said Eve. She, too, looked towards the mound; she seemed to see Ferdie lying down below, with closed eyes, but the same grimacing lips.

"Oh, as to that, they would have so little in common that they wouldn't be thrown much together, I reckon," said Miss Sabrina, hopefully; "I doubt if they even meet."

"Your heaven is not like the Declaration of Independence, is it?" said Eve.

Miss Sabrina did not understand. She pinched her throat with her thumb and forefinger, and looked vaguely at Eve.

"I mean that all men 'are created equal;' your heaven has an outside colony for negroes, and once or twice a week white angels go over there, I suppose, ring the Sunday-school bell, and hold meetings for their improvement."

Miss Sabrina colored; she took up her basket.

"Forgive me!" said Eve, dropping her sarcasms. "I am unhappy. That is the reason I talk so."

"I feared so, my dear; I feared so," answered the gentle lady, melted at once.

Eve left her, and wandered across the island to the ocean beach. Low waves came rolling in and broke upon the sand; no ship was in sight; the blue of the water met the horizon line unbroken. She walked southward with languid step; every now and then she would stop, then walk slowly on again. After half an hour a sound made her turn; Paul Tennant was close upon her, not twenty feet distant; the wash of the waves had prevented her from hearing his approach. She stood still, involuntarily turning towards him as if at bay.

Paul came up. "Eve, I know what I am about now. I didn't know out there at Jupiter Light; I was dazed; but I soon understood. I went back to the camp, but you were gone. As soon as I could I started after you. Here I am."

"You understood? What did you understand?" said Eve, her face deathly white.

"That I loved you," said Paul, taking her in his arms. "That is enough for me; I hope it is for you."

"That you love me in spite of--"

"There is no 'in spite of;' what you did was noble, was extraordinarily brave. A woman is timid; you are timid, though you may pretend not to be; yet with your own hand--"

Eve remembered how Cicely had struck her hand down. "You will strike it down, too!" she said, incoherently, bursting into tears.

Paul soothed her, not by words, but by his touch. Her whole being responded; she leaned her head against his breast.

"To save Cicely you crushed your own feelings; you did something utterly horrible to you. And you faced all the trouble and grief which would certainly come in consequence of it. Why, Eve, it was the bravest thing I have ever heard of."

Eve gave a long sigh. "I have been so unhappy--"

"Never again, I hope," said Paul; "from this moment I take charge of you. We will be married as soon as possible; we will go to Charleston."

"Don't let us talk of that. Just love me here;--- now."

"Well--don't I?" said Paul, smiling.

He found a little nook between two spurs of the thicket which had invaded the beach; here he made a seat for her with a fragment of wreck which had been washed up by the sea.

"Let us stay here all day," she said, longingly.

"You will have me all the days of your life," said Paul. He had seated himself at her feet. "We shall have to live in Port aux Pins for the present; you won't mind that, I hope?"

She drew his head down upon her breast. "How I have loved you!"

"I know it," he said, flushing. "It was that which made me love you." He rose (it was not natural to Paul to keep a lowly position long), and, taking a seat beside her, lifted her in his arms. "I'm well caught," he murmured, looking down upon her with a smile. "Who would ever have supposed that you could sway me so?"

"Oh," cried Eve, breaking away from him, "it's of no use; my one day that I counted on--my one short day--I cannot even dare to take that! Good women have the worst of it; if I could pretend that I was going to marry you, all this would be right; and if I could pretend nothing, but just _take_ it, then at least I should have had it; a remembrance for all the dreary years that have got to come. Instead of that, as I have been brought up a stupid, good woman, I _can't_ change--though I wish I could! I shall have to tell you the truth: I can never marry you; the sooner we part, then, the better." She turned and walked northward towards the Romney road.

With a stride Paul caught up with her. "What are you driving at?"

"I shall never marry you."

He laughed.

She turned upon him. "You laugh--you have no idea what it is to me! I think of you day and night, I have longed to have you in my arms--on my heart. No, don't touch me; it is only that I won't have you believe that I don't know what love is, that I don't love you. Why, once at Port aux Pins, I walked miles at night because I was so mad with jealousy; and I found you playing whist! If I could only have known beforehand--if I could only have seen you once, just once, Ferdie might have done what he chose with Cicely; I shouldn't have stirred!"

"Yes, you would," said Paul.

"No, I shouldn't have stirred; you might as well know me as I am. What I despise myself for now is, that I haven't the force to make an end of it, to relieve you of the thought of me--at least as some one living. But as long as you are alive, Paul--" She looked at him with her eyes full of tears.

"You don't know what you are talking about," said Paul, sternly. "You will live, and as my wife; we will be married here at Romney to-morrow."

"Would you really marry me _here_?" said Eve, the light of joy coming into her wan face.

"It's a tumble-down old place, I know. But won't it do to be married in?"

"Oh, it is so much harder when you seem to forget,--when for the moment you really do forget! But of course I know that it could not last."

"What could not last?"

She moved away a step or two. "If I should marry you, you would hate me. Not in the beginning. But it would come. For Ferdie was your brother, and I _did_ kill him; nothing can alter these facts--not even love. At first you wouldn't remember; then, gradually, he would come back to you; you would think of the time when you were boys together, and you would be sorry. Then, gradually, you would realize that _I_ killed him; whenever I came near you, you would see--" Her voice broke, but she hurried on. "You said I was brave to do it, and I was. You said it was heroic, and it was. Yet all the same, he _was_ your brother; and _I_ killed him. In defence of Cicely and the baby? Nothing makes any difference. I killed him, and you would end by hating me. Yet I shouldn't be able to leave you; once your wife, I know that I should stay on, even if it were only to fold your clothes,--to touch them; to pick up the burnt match-ends you had dropped, and your newspapers; to arrange the chairs as you like to have them. I should be weak, weak--I should follow you about. How you would loathe me! It would become to you a hell."

"I'll take care of that," said Paul; "I'll see to my own hells; at present I'm thinking of something very different. We will be married to-day, and not wait for to-morrow; I will take you away to-night."

Eve looked at him.--"Haven't you heard what I've been saying?"

"Yes, I heard it; it was rubbish." But something in her face impressed him. "Eve, you are not really going to throw me over for a fancy like that?"

"No; for the horrible truth."

"My poor girl, you are all wrong, you are out of your mind. Let us look at only one side of it: what can you do in the world without me and my love as your shield? Your very position (which you talk too much about) makes _me_ your refuge. Where else could you go? To whom? You speak of staying with Cicely. But Cicely--about Ferdie--is a little devil. The boy will never be yours, she will not give him to you; and, all alone in the world, how desolate you will be! You think yourself strong, but to me you are like a child; I long to take care of you, I should guard you from everything. And there wouldn't be the least goodness in this on my part; don't think that; I'm passionately in love with you--I might as well confess it outright."

Eve quivered as she met his eyes. "I shall stay with Cicely."

"You don't care whether you make _me_ suffer?"

"I want to save you from the far greater suffering that would come."

"As I told you before, I'll take care of that," said Paul. "You needn't be so much concerned about what my feelings will be after you are my wife--I know what they will be. Women are fools about that sort of thing--what the future husband may or may not feel, may or may not think; when he has got the woman he loves, he doesn't _think_ about her at all; he thinks about his business, his affairs, his occupations, whatever he has to do in the world. As to what he _feels_, he knows. And she too. There comes an end to all her fancies, and generally they're poor stuff." Drawing her to him, he kissed her. "That's better than a fancy! Now we will walk back to the house; there is a good deal to do if we are to be married this afternoon--as we certainly shall be; by this time to-morrow it will be an old story to you--the being my wife. And now listen, Eve, let me make an end of it; Ferdie was everything to me, I don't deny it; he was the dearest fellow the world could show, and I had always had the charge of him. But he had that fault from boyhood. The time came when it endangered Cicely's life and that of her child; then you stepped forward and saved them, though it was sure to cost you a lifetime of pain. I honor you for this, Eve, and always shall. Poor Ferdie has gone, his death was nobody's fault but his own; and it wasn't wholly his own, either, for he had inherited tendencies which kept him down. He has gone back to the Power that made him, and that Power understands his own work, I fancy; at any rate, I am willing to leave Ferdie to Him. But, in the meantime, we are on the earth, Eve, we two,--and we love each other; let us have all there is of it, while we are about it; in fact, I give you warning, that I shall take it all!"

Two hours later, Paul came back from the mainland, where he had been making the necessary arrangements for the marriage, which was to take place at five o'clock; so far, he had told no one of his intention.

A note was handed to him. He opened it.

"It is of no use. In spite of all you have said, I feel sure that in time you could not help remembering. And it would make you miserable beyond bearing.

"Once your wife, I should not have the strength to leave you--as I can now.

EVE."

XXXIII.

The judge was waiting for the steamer at Warwick Landing. Attired in white duck, with his boy Pomp (Pomp was sixty) waiting respectfully in the background, he was once more himself. As the steamer drew near, he bowed with all his old courtliness, and he was immediately answered by the agitated smile of a lady on the deck, who, with her shawl blowing off and her veil blowing out, was standing at the railing, timid in spite of her fifty-three years. It could be no one but Miss Leontine, who had come over from Gary Hundred, with her maid, to pay a visit to her dear Sabrina at Romney. The maid was a negro girl of thirteen, attired in a calico dress and sun-bonnet; she did nothing save strive to see how far she could straddle on the deck, whose flat surface seemed to attract her irresistibly. Miss Leontine carried her own travelling-bag. Occasionally she would say: "Clementine, shush! draw yourself together immediately." But Clementine never drew herself.

The judge assisted his guest to disembark--she ambled across the plank, holding his hand; they drove to Romney in the one-seated wagon, the judge acting as charioteer. Pomp and the maid were supposed to walk.

"Clementine, whatever you do, don't cling on behind," said Miss Leontine, turning her head once or twice unseemingly, to blink at the offender. But Clementine clung all the way; and brayed at intervals.

The judge, in his present state of joy, almost admired Miss Leontine,--she was so unlike Parthenia Drone! "Ah, my dear Miss Wingfield, how changed is society in these modern days!" he said, flicking the flank of the mule. "In my time who ever heard a lady's voice three feet away? Who ever knew her opinions--if she had any? Who ever divined, at least in the open air, the texture of her cheek, modestly hidden under her bonnet, or saw more than the tip of her slipper under the hem of her robe? Now women think nothing of speaking in public--at least at the North; they attend conventions, pass resolutions, appear in fancy-dress at Fourth of July parades; their bonnets for the most part" (not so Miss Leontine's) "are of a brazen smallness; and their feet, if I may so express it, are the centre of every room! When I was young, the most ardent suitor could obtain as a sign of preference, only a sigh;--at most some startled look, some smile, some reppurtee. All was timidity--timidity and retirement."

Miss Leontine, in her gratification at this description of her own ideal, clasped her hands so tightly together under her shawl that her corset-board made a long red mark against her ribs in consequence.

As they came within sight of the house, a figure was walking rapidly across the lawn. "Is that Mr. Singleton?" inquired Miss Leontine. "Dear Nannie wrote that they would come over to-day."

"No, that's not Singleton; Singleton's lame," said the judge.

"And yet it looks _so_ much like him," murmured Miss Leontine, with conviction, still peering, with the insistence of a near-sighted person.

"It's a man named Watson," said the judge, decidedly.

Watson was a generic title, it did for any one whom the judge could not quite see. He considered that a name stopped unnecessary chatter,--made an end of it; if you once knew that it was Watson or Dunlap, you let it alone.

In reality the figure was that of Paul Tennant. After reading Eve's note he crushed the sheet in his hand, and turned towards the house with rapid stride. There was no one in the hall; he rang the parlor bell.

"Do you know where Miss Bruce is?" he asked, when Powlyne appeared.

"In her room, marse, I spex."

"Go and see. Don't knock; listen." He paced to and fro until Powlyne came back.

"Ain't dere, marse. Nor yet, periently, she ain't in de house anywhuz; spex she's gone fer a walk."

"Go and find out if any one knows which way she went."

But no one had seen Eve.

"Where is Mrs. Morrison?"

"_She's_ yere, safe enough. I know whur _she_ is," answered Powlyne. "Mis' Morrison she's down at de barf-house, taken a barf."

"Is any one with her?"

"Dilsey; she's dere."

"Go and ask Dilsey how soon Mrs. Morrison can see me."

Powlyne started. As she did not come back immediately, he grew impatient, and went himself to the bath-house. It was a queer little place, a small wooden building, near the sound. It seemed an odd idea to bathe there, in a tank filled by a pump, when, twenty feet distant, stretched the lagoon, and on the other side of the island the magnificent sea-beach, smooth as a floor.

Paul knocked. "How soon can Mrs. Morrison see me?"

"She's troo her barf," answered Dilsey's voice at the crack. "Now she's dess a-lounjun."

"Tell her who it is;--that it's important."

In another moment Dilsey opened the door, and ushered him into the outer room. It was a square apartment, bare and rough, lighted only from above; its sole article of furniture was a divan in the centre; an inner door led to the bath-room beyond. Upon the divan Cicely was lying, her head propped by cushions, the soft waves of her hair loose on her shoulders. Delicate white draperies, profusely trimmed with lace, enveloped her, exhaling an odor of violets.

"Cicely, where is Eve?" demanded Paul.

"Wait outside, Dilsey," said Cicely. Then, when the girl had disappeared, "She has gone to Charleston," she answered.

"And from there?"

"I don't know."

"When did she start!"

"Two hours ago."

--"Immediately after leaving me," Paul reflected, audibly.

"Yes."

"But there's no steamer at this hour."

"One of the field hands rowed her up to Mayport; there she was to take a wagon, and drive inland to a railway station."

"She could only hit the Western Road."

"Yes; but she can make a connection, farther on, which will enable her to reach Charleston by to-morrow night."

"I shall be twelve hours behind her, then; the first steamer leaves this evening. You are a traitor, Cicely! Why didn't you let me know?"

"She did not wish it."

"I know what she wishes."

"Yes, she loves you--if you mean that. But--I agree with her."

"Agree with her how?"

"That the barrier is too great. You would end by hating her," said Cicely.

"I'm the judge of that! If any one hates her, it is you; you constantly torture her, you are merciless."

"She shot my husband."

"She shot your murderer! Another moment and Ferdie might have killed you."

"And if I preferred it? At any rate, _she_ had no right to interfere," cried Cicely, springing up.

"Why were you running away from him, then, if you preferred it? You fled to her room, and asked for help; you begged her to come out with you."

"It was on account of baby," answered Cicely, her voice like that of a little girl, her breast beginning to heave.

"And she saved your child's life a second time--on Lake Superior."

"I know it--I know it. But you cannot expect--"

"I expect nothing; you are absolutely unreasonable, and profoundly selfish."

"I'm not selfish. I only want to make her suffer!" cried Cicely, with sparkling eyes.

Paul looked at her sternly. "In that dress you appear like a courtesan; and now you talk like one. It is a good thing my brother was taken off, after all--with such a wife!"