CHAPTER XI

AT THE OLD BURYING POINT

By the next morning the incident just recorded had taken on to Rachel a somewhat different tinge. Her sense of humiliation had so far abated as to admit of her entertaining a feeling of pity for Emil. He certainly had appeared a disconsolate and astounded figure as he stood there gazing after her as she drove away. She wished now that she had not left so precipitately, or, at least, that she had not declined his proffered assistance when mounting into the cart.

By an altered reasoning the apology which had offended her yesterday, now gratified her. As a gentleman who had been guilty of the grave misdemeanour of kissing a lady, he could not have acted differently; for she now thrust the entire blame of the incident on his masculine shoulders. "It certainly was his fault in the first place," she argued. And, having shifted the ground of resentment from the apology for the kiss to the kiss itself, she resolved to forgive the wrong-doer.

The greater part of the day she spent in wandering on the shore of the bay. Whenever she went there, instinctively she glanced at the mound of sand where, on the occasion of their first meeting, she had seen Emil bury the torn scraps of a letter. Not that she would have touched the mound for the world, but the strictest would not censure a glance of curiosity in that direction. Owing to its protection from the wind, the little grave, strangely enough, had remained intact. But this morning a scrap of paper appeared on the beach bearing, in what was incontestably a woman's handwriting, the single word "Dearest."

Scarcely cognizant of what she did, Rachel, like a feminine Crusoe, hovered over this bit of evidence on the sand. Like the legendary hero her consciousness of being alone was destroyed, but with different effect, for instead of an expression of surprise not unmixed with fear, her look was one of suspicious misery.

"That letter was never from his mother," flashed through her mind. "Old ladies don't make D's that way, so big and round,--but small and trembly. No, whoever she is, she's young. Of course," reason suggested, "the letter may have been written by some relative--by a cousin, perhaps." The supposition was barely tenable.

With the keen brightness of eye that betokens jealousy, she remained poised for the briefest fraction of time above the tantalizing find, then she turned and pranced away. The instant devoted to the scrutiny had been so short as to admit of scarcely more than half a heart-throb, so short as scarcely to be termed a look at all, yet a sense of dishonour was not lacking in her suffering.

She walked, stopped to think, shed a tear or two, and eventually grew calm. What comforted her was the thought that Emil cared so little for its writer that he had torn the letter into bits.

By afternoon her anxiety to forgive him for the misdemeanour of the day previous had grown to such proportions as to drive her to the place of meeting much earlier than usual; and waiting there still further increased the feeling. When she saw him coming, she rose. Her arms, hanging down her sides, trembled. She was all languor, all expectancy; she was the desire for reconciliation incarnate. Yet even from a distance, she knew that something was wrong. She turned upon him a look of inquiry as he drew near with his hands sunk in his pockets and his head lowered.

His face was clouded, his moustache curved downward, though when he lifted his eyes to hers, into them flashed a warm and intensely grateful smile. But the expression was succeeded by a gloomy one.

"Well, it's all over," he announced. "No need for me to have slaved so. I'm thrown aside and someone else goes ahead and reaps the profits."

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"Mean? Why I mean that my delightful employers have stolen the press, the sheets, the whole scheme. I wasn't quick enough and they got someone else to finish the thing and applied for the patent."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, I've been informed all right," he said and from his pocket he drew a letter.

Involuntarily Rachel extended her hand; then her face went white. On the sheet that fluttered in his fingers she beheld the same childish chirography that had appeared on the scrap of paper on the beach. Her hand dropped.

"It's always the same," he went on, without noticing the change that had come over her. And seating himself on the tomb, he took out his pipe. Having filled it, he commenced to smoke, his eyes widely opened, full of profound thought, fixed on vacancy.

"Not that it makes any difference," he continued philosophically after a pause. "The world gets the benefit of the invention; as for me, I've plenty of other things in my head. I'm not crying over spilt milk," and he looked up at her and laughed while the shining returned to his glance. Reaching out toward her he tried to take her hand. This movement, while bold, was not destitute of an appealing grace. It was a mute reference to the kiss, to their changed relations; it was also a demand for sympathy.

At any other time Rachel would not have resisted it, but now she stepped out of his reach. "Who is it that informs you?" Her voice was implacable.

He hesitated. "The daughter of one of my employers," he said in a low tone. "She's stood by me from the first," he admitted. "She's been in fact a--little trump." And then he sighed.

Rachel turned away her head. "I should think you'd go to her at once," she said. "I don't see why you wait here. There's a train at six."

Disconcerted, he got to his feet. Their eyes locked. He glowered upon her.

"You might be able to protect your rights," she continued in a stinging voice. "Then I should think, on _her_ account, if not on your mother's, you'd make the attempt."

She saw the visible pang the mention of his mother occasioned.

"I will," he cried, "I'll go." And he held out his hand.

She saw that he shook from head to foot, and she knew that she had hurt him mortally. But every force of her passionate nature had become negative to all appeal from him. She could but stand with an impassive face and bid him go, lest he court worldly failure instead of success.

And so they parted like strangers.

When he had passed from her sight, Rachel sank in a little heap on the tomb. She bent her face on her knees. She felt as if a sounding-instrument had gone to the very depths of her heart and explored there among ambiguous weeds and mud, and as she listened to the message that came back, she rocked backward and forward in a very ecstasy of barren grief and shame. It seemed to her that she had reached the burying point of life, and her sobs, quick with the agony of youthful living, sounded small and piteous in that quiet place of the dead.