A Speckled Bird Part 41

"My lawyers know absolutely nothing about it, and as your father must not suspect you heard the conversation, you will scarcely ask him. I have some letters to write, memoranda to arrange for Martin, and several telegrams to send immediately. Our train starts at two A.M., and you can get a sound sleep, which you sadly need. I ordered your dinner sent here. Do you wish your trunk?"

She shook her head.

"Try to get a good rest. You will be called in time for the train. I have papers to prepare that will keep me busy until then. Eglah--poor little girl--"

She looked up at him defiantly, but the peculiar expression in his brilliant eyes she could not understand.

He caught his mustache between his teeth, picked up the tin box, and left her.

CHAPTER XXII

The weather had changed. After rain a keen north wind curled the waters of the great lake into wreaths of foam, breaking against the terrace, and the old Scotch clock in the lower hall struck midnight as Mr.

Herriott's carriage drew up before the open door of his house. When he stepped to the ground a wild uproar of rejoicing dogs greeted him, and it was some seconds before he could rid himself of caressing paws. He a.s.sisted Eglah out, and turning toward the light met Amos Lea.

"Why, old man! It was kind of you to sit up for us. You should be asleep in your bed. Here is Mrs. Herriott. You saw her one summer."

The gardener held out his rough, hard hand, and she laid hers in it.

"Welcome home, madam. I hope you will be good to the lad; he will always do right by you."

Mr. Herriott laughed as he led her up the stone steps.

"Amos, you can not lecture her as you do me."

The housekeeper and one of the maids came forward for wraps and satchels.

"Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Herriott is very tired. Did you receive my telegram from Carville?"

"Yes, sir; the blue room is in order; bath, fire, supper, everything all ready."

Drawing Eglah's arm through his, he ascended the wide oak staircase, saying:

"I had it papered and arranged especially for you that summer you came for a few days, and since then no one has been allowed to occupy it."

At the landing he called over the railing:

"Mrs. Orr, as it will be late when the trunks come, do not send up Mrs.

Herriott's until morning. She needs rest, and I do not wish her disturbed before she rings her bell."

On a table drawn near the fire in the "blue room" a decanter and gla.s.ses glittered in the glow from an open hearth. Mr. Herriott poured out some Tokay.

"I am sorry I could not make your home-coming less dismal; but for you the worst is over, and, if you please, we will not refer to it again.

To-morrow I shall be engaged with two committees, one relating to a scientific scholarship I wish to establish, and my time is so limited I can be with you very little. The necessity for going via New York, where I must stop, shortens my stay here; and I am compelled to allow some margin for delay _en route_ from Boston to Sydney, where the vessel is due on the fifteenth. This is not exactly a 'loving-cup,' but you must join me."

He touched her gla.s.s with his, and a deep undercurrent of suppressed emotion surged through the quietly spoken words.

"Complete oblivion of all that has distressed you during the last forty-eight hours. Put me entirely out of your thoughts, and remember that now you can be happy with your father."

He emptied his gla.s.s and replaced it on the salver.

"No. I would not forget it if I could. I pray G.o.d that you may escape every danger; that you will come back in safety to your home; and while I may never see you again, I hope to hear you are far happier than I could ever have made you."

She sipped the wine, put it aside, and continued:

"You can not understand the utter ruin of hopes, ambitions, beliefs, that heretofore made my life worth living. In the awful wreck one thing survives--my faith in you, who walk always in the light of 'the high white star of Truth.' I honor and I trust you now as I never did before the ordeal of the last few hours. The fault was mine, not yours; and as I deserve, I wish I could bear all the pain, all the consequences, of my desperate rashness. You do not understand what I suffer."

She stood with her hands folded on her breast, so close to him that he noted how wan and drawn the young face had grown, how measureless the misery in eyes peering hopelessly into futurity.

"At least I fully and sorrowfully understand one thing--you know no more about love than that baby you nursed on the train."

In avoidance of his cold scrutiny, her strained gaze had wandered to the frieze of silver lilies on the wall, but now she looked at him.

"Mr. Herriott, you may be sure that when you go away and leave me forever, I shall never learn."

There was a sudden glint in his eyes, like a blue blade flash, but after a moment he listened to the clock, and turned away.

"Good-night. Get all the sleep you can. You will need it for your journey South to-morrow."

He closed the door, and she heard his quick step ring down the long stairway; then the joyful bark of the dogs told he had left the house.

She was an unusually healthy woman, and, impatient of the teasing pain in her temples, shook out her heavy coil of hair. She walked from door to fireplace, from bed to bathroom, up and down, around and around, too restless to lie down, dominated by a strange feeling she made no attempt to a.n.a.lyze. As the clock struck four, she still walked to and fro, never suspecting that Mr. Herriott stood in the hall, close to her door, listening to the slow sound of her feet on the polished oak floor, fighting down his longing to enter and take her in his arms.

The "blue room" looked out on the sickle-shaped beach and upon the lake, and when the sun rose above cliffs at the rear of the house, the racing waves leaped, crooned, flashed in golden light.

Looping back the lace draperies at the window, Eglah stood watching the flight of a loon, the quivering, silver flicker of ducks' wings against the pale pink sky-line, the gliding of a sloop with sails bending like a huge white b.u.t.terfly balancing over some vast blue flower.

Walking slowly up the beach, Mr. Herriott was approaching the stile, and with him the collie Pilot, the Polish wolfhound Tzar, one on each side, and the wiry black-and-white Skye terrier Snap wriggling in front. At the stile Amos Lea sat waiting, and master and gardener talked for some minutes.

After a little the latter rose, put one hand on Mr. Herriott's shoulder, raised the other, and turned his rugged face toward heaven.

Eglah knew he was praying for the man now hurrying away to mult.i.tudinous dangers, and her eyes grew strangely humid. When the mist cleared, she saw they were shaking hands, and Amos disappeared behind the garden wall. As the master neared the terrace steps he glanced up at her window, took off his cap, and saluted her. He had never looked so commanding, so n.o.bly built, so superior to all other men. Something stirred, quivered, woke up in her heart, and a swift spasm of pain seized her.

A half hour later Mr. Herriott knocked at her door. She opened it, and one quick glance at the ivory bed and its lace hangings told him she had not lain down.

"Good morning. Will you come down and give me my coffee, or shall I send breakfast to you here?"

"I prefer to come down."

He held up a bouquet of heliotrope, daintily arranged.

"Amos Lea's 'compliments to the madam,' and he hopes she will wear these flowers, as he always cut heliotrope for her when she visited here."

Afraid to trust her voice, she took the bouquet, inhaled its fragrance, and slipped the stems into the girdle of her silk morning gown.