From Jest to Earnest Part 23

"The majority is against me," laughed Harcourt. "I won't drive any more to-night. You take my place."

"Well, if you all wish it; but there's no need."

"Let me come over, too, and sit between you and Bel," said Addie, eagerly.

"No, she can sit with Julian," said Lottie, "and I will go to Mr.

Hemstead. He shall not be left alone."

"O Miss Lottie! please forgive me," pleaded De Forrest; "I did not mean what I said a moment since."

"Well, I'll forgive you, but shall punish you a little. Stop the horses again, Mr. Hemstead; that is, if you don't object to my company."

The horses stopped very suddenly.

"Please don't leave me," said De Forrest.

"It's only carrying out the mischief we plotted, you know," she whispered.

"Well, I submit on that ground only," he replied discontentedly, and with a shade of doubt in his mind. It seemed very strange, even to him, that Lottie could coolly continue to victimize one who had just rendered them so great a service. But the truth was, that she, in her desire to escape from him, had said what she thought would be apt to quiet his objections without much regard for the truth.

She hardly recognized her own motive for wishing to sit by Hemstead, beyond that she was grateful, and found him far more interesting than the egotistical lover, who to-day, for some reason, had proved himself very wearisome.

"Hemstead heard nothing of this, and was much pleased when Lottie stepped lightly over and took her place socially at his side.

"It's very kind of you," he said.

"I didn't come out of kindness," she replied, in a low tone for his ear alone.

"Why then?"

"Because I wanted to."

"I like that reason better still."

"And with good reason. Will you take me again over this awful road to see Mrs. Dlimm?"

"With great pleasure."

"But it's such a long drive! You will get cold driving."

"O, no! not if you will talk to me so pleasantly."

"I won't promise how I'll talk. In fact I never know what I'll do when with you. You made me act very silly this afternoon."

"Is a flower silly when it blooms?"

"What do you mean?"

"You wished you were better."

"O, I see; but suppose I would like to remain--for a while at least--a wicked, little undeveloped bud?"

"You can't. The bud must either bloom or wither."

"O, how dismal! Were you afraid, Mr. Hemstead, when the horses were running? I was."

"I was anxious. It certainly was a critical moment with that hill before us."

"How queer that we should have been talking of the future state just then! Suppose that, instead of sitting here cosily by you, I were lying on those rocks over there, or floating in that icy stream bleeding and dead?"

He turned and gave her a surprised look, and she saw the momentary glitter of a tear in his eye.

"Please do not call up such images," he said.

She was in a strangely excited and reckless mood, and did not understand herself. Forces that she would be long in comprehending were at work in her mind.

Partly for the sake of the effect upon him, and partly as the outgrowth of her strange mood, she continued, in a low tone which the others could not hear: "If that had happened, where should I have been now? Just think of it,--my body lying over there in this wild gorge, and I, myself, going away alone this wintry night.

Where should I have gone? Where should I be now?"

"In paradise, I trust," he replied, bending upon her a searching look. Either his imagination or her thoughts gave her face a strange expression as seen in the uncertain moonlight. It suggested the awed and trembling curiosity with which she might have gone forward to meet the dread realities of the unknown world. A great pity--an intense desire to shield and rescue her--filled his soul.

"Miss Marsden," he said, in a tone that thrilled her in connection with the image called up, "your own words seem to portray you standing on the brink of a fathomless abyss into which you are looking with fear and dread."

"You understand me perfectly," she said. "That is just where I stand; but it is like looking out into one of those Egyptian nights that swallow up everything, and there is nothing but a great blank of darkness."

"It must be so," said Hemstead, sighing deeply. "Only the clear eyes of faith can see across the gulf. But you are a brave girl to stand and look into the gulf."

"Why should I not look into it?" she asked, in a reckless tone.

"I've been brought face to face with it to-night, and perhaps shall soon be again. It's always there. If I had to go over Niagara, I should want to go with my eyes open."

"But if you were in the rapids above the falls, would you not permit a strong hand to lift you out? Why should you look down into the gulf? Why not look up to heaven? That is 'always there' just as truly."

"Do you feel sure that you would have gone to heaven if you had been killed to-night?"

"Yes, perfectly sure."

"You are very good."

"No; but G.o.d is."

"A good G.o.d ought to prevent such awful things."

"He did, in this case."

"No; you prevented it."

"Suppose the horses had started to run at the top of the hill instead of where it was level; suppose a line had broken; suppose the horses had taken the bits in their teeth,--I could not hold two such powerful animals. Do you not see that many things might have happened so that no human hand could do anything, and that it would be easy for an all-powerful Being to so arrange and shape events that we should either escape or suffer, as He chose, in spite of all that we could do. I am glad to think that I can never be independent of Him."

"If it was G.o.d's will that they should stop, what was the use of your doing anything?"