A Speckled Bird Part 53

With her face hidden on his shoulder, he held her close, his cheek against her hair, and each knew how fiercely the heart of the other throbbed. After some moments, he tightened the arm clasping her waist, and his deep, pa.s.sionately tender tone caressed like a velvet glove.

"I don't know how many years I have longed for the touch of your lips.

Even as a child you never allowed me to kiss you; and, except your father, I am sure no man ever has. My sweetheart, if indeed you are learning to love me, can you, will you give me now what I want--my own wife's pure lips?"

She crimsoned to the tips of her small ears, and clung to him, not daring to meet his eyes.

"One memorable night, when two of my dogs froze at my feet, I sat under the lee of my sledge, waiting for a gale of sleet to howl itself to rest. I fell asleep and had a heavenly dream, in which you came and kissed me."

"Mr. Herriott, you cannot love me now as you did before that horrible journey on the cars when your words seemed to scorch--brand me. I am afraid--I am afraid----"

He felt her tremble.

"My darling, I love you infinitely more. You were never so sacred, so dear as to-day. Of what can you feel afraid now? In my dream you were more generous. I can take, but I prefer to receive the blessed seal I hope you will give me, as holy a.s.surance that you are entirely my own."

Shyly she turned her flushed face towards his, one hand, quivering like a frightened bird, softly drew his brown cheek closer, and the proud, beautiful, vestal lips nestled and clung to her husband's.

Sitting beside her on the bench, he said, as his brilliant, happy eyes studied her face:

"Will you please tell me when you began really to care for me?"

"What can that matter now? Do not make me look back into shadows I wish to forget. All our light shines ahead."

"I should like to fix the date of my coronation, that I may compute accurately my despotic reign from the hour I entered into possession of my kingdom. Tell me, sweetheart; why should you shrink?"

"Do you recall that last morning at home, when you came from the beach followed by the dogs? Seeing me at the window, you took off your cap and waved it. As I looked down at you then, something strange seemed suddenly to stir and wake up and tremble in my heart. I did not understand; it was a new feeling, and I was so wounded and tortured over many things I could not a.n.a.lyze it; supposed it a part of my punishment.

I had seen you look better. Your boating suit and full evening dress were certainly more becoming, but in some unaccountable, extraordinary way that grey cap wave, and the peculiar expression I had never before seen in your eyes, brought you closer to me than you had ever been. When I sat alone in your smoking-room and saw the strapped trunks and your fur overcoat--like a coffin and a pall--a terribly bitter wave rolled over me at the thought of giving you up. I began to be jealous of Amos, and I envied the dear old dogs the tender caress of your stroking hand.

At the last you coldly said good-bye; but when you caught, strained me against you, I found out what it all meant. I knew then that woman's heritage of sorrow was mine, and that my heart followed you into Polar night. The ache that began that day at Greyledge grew and tortured me until--I felt your arms around me once more."

He lifted her left hand and kissed it, pressing the ring against his face.

"Why did not you tell me? I should have been spared so much brutal bitterness of feeling."

"It was impossible after all the harsh, cruel things you had deemed it your duty to say to me, and you would have scouted such a sudden change of feeling as inconceivable, as absurd. The strangeness of the revelation overwhelmed, frightened me; I was more astonished than you would have been. Tell you? Mr. Noel, I would sooner have gone to the stake."

"Your silence tied me to one. Men are perverse devils. I hated the sight of this wedding ring; I longed to melt it in a crucible in my laboratory. You will never understand the storm that raged within me that day on the train when you hummed Kucken and laid the baby on your breast. Every time you lifted your hand and patted the poor little creature, that gold band danced and flashed in my eyes like a mocking imp. But your ring had its innings. After a year my temper cooled. Day and night I found myself drifting back more hopelessly to you; and always before me your little white hand flashed that circle--signet of my ownership--because you had clung to it and declared 'it was the badge of your loyalty.' I saw it in the blue gulfs of icebergs, in the wonderful orange radiance of auroral arches, in the glare of low, tired suns that could not set, in the unearthly l.u.s.tre of moons holding vigil over a silent desert wrapped in its shroud of ice, and in the ghostly phosph.o.r.escence of snow-mantled glaciers. Always, everywhere, that dear ringed hand beckoned like a beacon. I knew you did not love me; I was grimly sure you never would; but the a.s.surance that no other man could ever claim lips denied to me, that you would proudly hold and keep your precious self sacred to one whose name you bore, comforted me."

He took her face in his palms, bending close his handsome head, and a mist dimmed the sparkle in his magnetic eyes.

"My darling, the coldest night I ever spent, when lost on the 'Great Ice,' where a snow-storm obliterated sledge tracks and death seemed inevitable, the remembered touch of your dear arms clinging around my neck, the pressure of your face on my breast, thrilled my heart, fired my blood, and warmed my freezing body. I missed the Pole; I nearly lost my life; but, ah, thank G.o.d, better than either, more precious than all, I have found at last, and I own the pure heart of my wife."

POPULAR NOVELS

BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON.

INEZ BEULAH MACARIA ST. ELMO VASHTI INFELICE AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS A SPECKLED BIRD

"Who has not read with rare delight the novels of Augusta Evans? Her strange, wonderful and fascinating style; the profound depths to which she sinks the probe into human nature, touching its most sacred chords and springs; the intense interest thrown around her characters, and the very marked peculiarities of her princ.i.p.al figures, conspire to give an unusual interest to the works of this eminent Southern auth.o.r.ess."

ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS

By Major J. B. Pond.

READ WHAT IS SAID OF IT.

"It is distinctly one of the most interesting books of the year from any point of view."--_Rochester Sunday Herald._

"It is many a day since I have read so fascinating a book of reminiscences. Many a day--or perhaps I should have said a 'night'--for this volume has given me delight during hours, when, according to the laws of nature, I should have been asleep."--_Newell Dwight Hillis._

"One of the most simple, naive and straightforward books ever written.

It fairly reeks with personality.... No man living has had such interesting a.s.sociation with so many interesting people."--_Home Journal._

"Adorned by many pictures, never before published."--_Detroit Journal._

"Possesses unparalleled attractions."--_Boston Journal._

"Major Pond goes deep into his subject, furnishing pen-portraits that are admirably clear and graphic."--_The Mail and Express._

"The whole book, stuffed as it is with anecdotes and extracts from personal letters, is marvelously interesting."--_Boston Transcript._

"All the world loves a teller of stories, and readers will surely take approvingly to the man who gives them so much of entertaining reading as is found in Major Pond's 600 pages of bright personal description."--_N.Y. Times._

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"Originality stamps the volume, copiously ill.u.s.trated with portraits."--_The Boston Globe._

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THE VOYAGE OF ITHOBAL

BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

Ithobal was the first African explorer we know about. He was a sea captain of Tyre, who rescued and married an African Princess, and then induced the King of Egypt to put him in charge of a voyage of exploration of the wonderful land of his wife's birth.

After a voyage of fifteen thousand miles around Africa, he returns after numerous and exciting adventures, which bring out almost every feature of African life and scenery. Ithobal relates the story of his enterprise in a discourse of seven days before the throne of Pharaoh, who crowns him with honors.

SIR HENRY M. STANLEY, in a letter to the author, says of it:--"You have added greatly to the happiness of many of your race by the production of so unique a poem, so rich in the beauties of the sweet English language."

Other able critics who have read the blind poet's new epic poem unite in calling it even better than the old favorite, "The Light of Asia."