Bricks Without Straw Part 46

CHAPTER L.

FACE ANSWERETH TO FACE.

"How do you do, Miss Mollie?"

She caught her breath as she heard his ringing, tone and noted his expectant air. Oh, if he had only come before! If he had not left her to face alone--he knew not what peril! But he had done so, and she could not forget it. So she went forward, and, extending her hand, took his without a throb as she said, demurely,

"I am very well, Mr. Le Moyne. How are you, and how have you left all at home?"

She led the way back to the table and pointed to a chair opposite her own as she spoke.

Hesden Le Moyne had grown to love Mollie Ainslie almost as unconsciously as she had given her heart to him. The loss of his son had been a sore affliction. While he had known no pa.s.sionate love for his cousin-wife, he yet had had the utmost respect for her, and had never dreamed that there were in his heart deeper depths of love still unexplored. After her death, his mother and his child seemed easily and naturally to fill his heart. He had admired Mollie Ainslie from the first. His attention had been first particularly directed to her accomplishments and attractions by the casual conversation with Pardee in reference to her, and by the fact that the horse she rode was his old favorite. He had watched her at first critically, then admiringly, and finally with an unconscious yearning which he did not define.

The incident of the storm and the bright picture she made in his somewhat somber home had opened his eyes as to his real feelings.

At the same time had come the knowledge that there was a wide gulf between them, but he would have bridged it long before now had it not been for his affliction, which, while it drew him nearer to the object of his devotion than he had ever been before, also raised an imperative barrier against words of love. Then the time of trial came. He found himself likely to be stripped of all hope of wealth, and he had been goaded into declaring to others his love for Mollie, although he had never whispered a word of it to her.

Since that time, however, despite his somewhat dismal prospects, he had allowed his fancy greater play. He had permitted himself to dream that some time and somehow he might be permitted to call Mollie Ainslie his wife. She seemed so near to him! There was such a calm in her presence!

He had never doubted that his pa.s.sion was reciprocated. He thought that he had looked down into her heart through the soft, gray eyes, and seen himself. She had never manifested any consciousness of love, but in those dear days at the Hill she had seemed to come so close to him that he thought of her love as a matter of course, as much so as if it had been already plighted. He felt too that her instinct had been as keen as his own, and that she must have discovered the love he had taken no pains to conceal. But the events which had occurred since she went to Red Wing had to his mind forbidden any further expression of this feeling. For her sake as well as for his own honor it must be put aside. He had no wish to conceal or deny it. The fact that he must give her up was the hardest element of the sacrifice which the newly discovered will might require at his hands.

So he had come to tell her all, and he hoped that she would see where honor led him, and would hold him excused from saying, "I love you. Will you be my wife?" He believed that she would, and that they would part without distrust and with unabated esteem for each other. Never, until this moment, had he thought otherwise.

Perhaps he was not without hope still, but it was not such as could be allowed to control his action. He could not say now why it was; he could not tell what was lacking, but somehow there seemed to have been a change. She was so far away--so intangible. It was the same lithe form, the same bright face, the same pleasant voice; but the life, the soul, seemed to have gone out of the familiar presence.

He sat and watched her keenly, wonderingly, as they chatted for a moment of his mother. Then he said:

"We have had strange happenings at Mulberry Hill since you left us, Miss Mollie."

"You don't tell me!" she said laughingly. "I cannot conceive such a thing possible. Dear me! How strange to think of anything out of the common happening there!"

The tone and the laugh hurt him.

"Indeed," said he, gravely, "except for that I should have made my appearance here long ago."

"You are very kind. And I a.s.sure you, I am grateful that you did not entirely forget me." Her tone was mocking, but her look was so guileless as almost to make him disbelieve his ears.

"I a.s.sure you, Miss Mollie," said he, earnestly, "you do me injustice. I was so closely engaged that I was not even aware of your departure until the second day afterward."

He meant this to show how serious were the matters which claimed his attention. To him it was the strongest possible proof of their urgency. But she remembered her exultant ride to Red Wing, and said to-herself, "And he did not think of me for two whole days!" As she listened to his voice, her heart had been growing soft despite her; but it was hard enough now. So she smiled artlessly, and said:

"Only two days? Why, Mr. Le Moyne, I thought it was two weeks. That was how I excused you. Charles said you were too busy to ride with me; your mother wrote that you were too busy to ask after me; and I supposed you had been too busy to think of me, ever since."

"Now, Miss Mollie," said he, in a tone of earnest remonstrance, "please do not speak in that way. Things of the utmost importance have occurred, and I came over this evening to tell you of them.

You, perhaps, think that I have been neglectful."

"I had no right to demand anything from Mr. Le Moyne."

"Yes, you had, Miss Ainslie," said he, rising and going around the table until he stood close beside her. "You know that only the most pressing necessity could excuse me for allowing you to leave my house unattended."

"That is the way I went there," she interrupted, as she looked up at him, laughing saucily.

"But that was before you had, at my request, risked your life in behalf of my child. Let us not hide the truth, Miss Ainslie.

We can never go back to the relation of mere acquaintanceship we held before that night. If you had gone away the next morning it might have been different, but every hour afterward increased my obligations to you. I came here to tell you why I had seemed to neglect them. Will you allow me to do so?"

"It is quite needless, because there is no obligation--none in the least--unless it be to you for generous hospitality and care and a pleasant respite from tedious duty."

"Why do you say that? You cannot think it is so," he said, impetuously. "You know it was my duty to have attended you hither, to have offered my services in that trying time, and by my presence and counsel saved you such annoyance as I might. You know that I could not have been unaware of this duty, and you dare not deny that you expected me to follow you very speedily after your departure."

"Mr. Le Moyne," she said, rising, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, "you have no right to address such language to me! It was bad enough to leave me to face danger and trouble and horror alone; but not so bad as to come here and say such things. But I am not ashamed to let you know that you are right. I _did_ expect you, Hesden Le Moyne. As I came along the road and thought of the terrors which the night might bring, I said to myself that before the sun went down you would be here, and would counsel and protect the girl who had not shrunk from danger when you asked her to face it, and who had come to look upon you as the type of chivalry.

Because I thought you better and braver and n.o.bler than you are, I am not ashamed to confess what I expected. I know it was foolish.

I might have known better. I might have known that the man who would fight for a cause he hated rather than be sneered at by his neighbors, would not care to face public scorn for the sake of a 'n.i.g.g.e.r-teacher'--no matter what his obligations to her."

She stood before him with quivering nostrils and flashing eyes. He staggered back, raising his hand to check the torrent of her wrath.

"Don't, Miss Ainslie, don't!" he said, in confused surprise.

"Oh, yes!" she continued bitterly, "you no doubt feel very much surprised that a 'Yankee n.i.g.g.e.r-teacher' should dare to resent such conduct. You thought you could come to me, now that the danger and excitement have subsided, and resume the relations we held before.

I know you and despise you, Hesden Le Moyne! I have more respect for one of those who made Red Wing a scene of horror and destruction than for you. Is that enough, sir? Do you understand me now?"

"Oh, entirely, Miss Ainslie," said Hesden, in a quick, husky tone, taking his hat from the table as he spoke. "But in justice to myself I must be allowed to state some facts which, though perhaps not sufficient, in your opinion, to justify my conduct, will I hope show you that you have misjudged me in part. Will you hear me?"

"Oh, yes, I will hear anything," she said, as she sat down. "Though nothing can be said that will restore the past."

"Unfortunately, I am aware of that. There is one thing, however, that I prize even more than that, and that is my honor. Do not take the trouble to sneer. Say, what I _call_ my honor, if it pleases you better, and I will not leave a stain upon that, even in your mind, if I can help it."

"Yes, I hear," she said, as he paused a moment. "Your _honor_, I believe you said."

"Yes, Miss Ainslie," he replied with dignity; "my honor requires that I should say to you now what I had felt forbidden to say before--that, however exalted the opinion you may have formed of me, it could not have equalled that which I cherished for you--not for what you did, but for what you were--and this feeling, whatever you may think, is still unchanged."

Mollie started with amazement. Her face, which had been pale, was all aflame as she glanced up at Hesden with a frightened look, while he went on.

"I do not believe that you would intentionally be unjust. So, if you will permit me, I will ask you one question. If you knew that on the day of your departure, and for several succeeding days, a human life was absolutely dependent upon my care and watchfulness, would you consider me excusable for failure to learn of your unannounced departure, or for not immediately following you hither on learning that fact?" He paused, evidently expecting a reply.

"Surely, Mr. Le Moyne," she said, looking up at him in wide-eyed wonder, "you know I would."

"And would you believe my word if I a.s.sured you that this was the fact?"

"Of course I would."

"I am very glad. Such was the case; and that alone prevented my following you and insisting on your immediate return."

"I did not know your mother had been so ill," she said, with some contrition in her voice.

"It was not my mother. I am sorry, but I cannot tell you now who it was. You will know all about it some time. And more than that,"

he continued, "on the fourth day after you had gone, one who had saved my life in battle came and asked me to acknowledge my debt by performing an important service for him, which has required nearly all my time since that."

"Oh, Mr. Le Moyne!" she said, as the tears came into her eyes, "please forgive my anger and injustice."

"I have nothing to forgive," he said. "You were not unjust--only ignorant of the facts, and your anger was but natural."