From Jest to Earnest Part 50

Twice now she had been told that Harcourt was "beside himself,"

and yet never had madness seemed so rational; and her eyes dwelt on the marks of his frenzy before her with unmixed satisfaction.

If he had been cool then, her heart now would be cold.

She could not rest, and at last thought that the frosty air would cool the fever in her cheeks, and so wrapped herself for a walk upon the broad piazza. Moreover, she felt, as Lottie had, that she would be glad to have no eyes, not even her father's, witness their meeting. She felt that she could act more naturally and composedly if alone with him, and at the same time show the almost sisterly regard through which she hoped to win him to his better self.

As she paced up and down the piazza, in the early twilight, her attention was attracted to a spot where some one, instead of going deliberately down the steps, had plunged off into the piled-up snow, and then just opposite and beyond the broad path were tracks wide apart, as if some one had bounded rather than run towards the river.

She ceased her walk, and stood as one who had discovered a treasure.

Did these footprints and the torn curtain belong together? She felt that it could not be otherwise. There was, then, no cold-blooded, cowardly Harcourt, and traces of the real man grew clearer.

"But how could he reach the river in that direction without risking his neck?" and she indulged hi quite a panic as she remembered the intervening steeps. She longed yet dreaded to see him, that she might ask an explanation of the traces she had found; for, having done him injustice, she generously meant to make him full amends.

But to her great disappointment the sleigh now returned without him.

"I left the message, miss," said the coachman, "but they told me that Mr. Harcourt had a sudden business call to New York."

Alice sought to draw the man out a little, and it was also her habit to speak kindly to those in her employ; so she said: "I fear, Burtis, you will be a little jealous of Mrs. Marchmont's coachman.

If it had not been for him we could not have escaped, I think."

"Well, thank G.o.d, I'm not much behind him. If he stopped two funerals, I stopped one."

"Why, how is that, Burtis?"

"Faix, miss, an' do ye see thim tracks there? They go straight to the river, and it was Misther Harcourt as made them. He was jist one second on the way after he saw the light, and by rinnin' an'

rollin' an' tumblin' he was at the boat-house in a wink. When I gets there, a-puffin' an' a-blowin', he's unlocked the door by taeakin'

it in, and is a-haulin' at the ould boat; and because I wouldn't lend a band in gettin' out the crazy ould craft that wouldn't float a hundred foot, he swears at me in the most onchristian manner, and tries to get it out alone. But ye know, miss, how he couldn't do that, and soon he gives it up and falls to gnawin' his nails like one beside himself, an' a-mutterin' how he must either 'save her or drown with her.' Then he dashed up the bank ag'in, and he and his black hoss was off like a whirlwind. If the Naughty Tillus, or any other thing as would float was here, ye'd had no need of Mrs.

Marchmont's coachman. But I thought he'd off wid me head because I wouldn't help out wid the ould boat."

Not a word or sign did Alice place in the way of the man's garrulity, but rather manifested breathless interest, as with parted lips she bent forward, encouraging him to go on.

Was he not reciting an epic poem of which she was the heroine and Harcourt the hero? The true epics of the world are generally told in the baldest prose.

"There was one thing I didn't like," continued the man, gathering up his reins, "and I've thought I ought to speak of it to ye or ye's father. All his talk was about savin' yerself, and not a whisper of the ould gentleman, who has been so kind to him all his life.

It sounded kinder onnatteral like."

"Very well, Burtis; you have done your duty in speaking to me, and so need not say anything to Mr. Martell about it. I rather think you have prevented a funeral, and perhaps I owe you as many thanks as Mrs. Marchmont's coachman. At any rate you will find on Christmas that you have not been forgotten."

So the man drove to the stable with the complacent consciousness of having done his duty and warned his mistress against a "very onnatteral feelin'" in the young man.

The moment he disappeared around the corner, Alice stood undecided a moment, like a startled deer, and then sped down the path to the boat-house. The snow was tramped somewhat by the big lumbering feet of the coach-man, but had it not been, Alice now had wings.

The twilight was deepening, and she could not wait till the morrow before following up this trail that led to the idol of her heart.

She paused in the winding path when half-way down the bank, that she might gloat over the mad plunges by which Harcourt had crossed it, straight to the river. She followed his steps to the brink of a precipice, and saw with a thrill of mingled fear and delight where he had slid and fallen twenty feet or more.

"How cruelly I have misjudged him!" she thought. "When he was here eager to risk his life for me, my false fancy pictured him at Addie Marchmont's side. And yet it was well I did not know the truth, for it would have been so much harder to look death in the face so long, with this knowledge of his friendship. How strangely he and Addie act when together! But come, that is no affair of mine. Let me be thankful that I have not lost the friend of my childhood."

A little later she stood at the boat-house. The door hung by one hinge only, and the large stone lay near with which he had crashed it in. She entered the dusky place as if it had been a temple. Had it not been consecrated by a service of love,--by the costliest offering that can be made,--life? Here he had said he would save her or perish with her; here he had sought to make good his words.

She picked up one of the matches he had dropped, and struck it, that she might look into the neglected boat. Never was the utter unseaworthiness of a craft noted with such satisfaction before.

"While I vilely thought he would not venture to our aid at all, he strained every nerve to launch this old sh.e.l.l. Thanks to obstinate Burtis, who would not help him."

She struck another match, that she might look more closely; then uttered a pitiful cry.

"Merciful heaven! is this blood on this rope? It surely is. Now I think of it, he kept his right hand gloved this morning, and offered his left to Mr. Hemstead in salutation. Father and I, in our cruel wrong, did not offer to take his hand. And yet it would seem that he tugged with bleeding hands at these ropes, that he might almost the same as throw away his life for us.

"I can scarcely understand it. No brother could do more. He was braver than Mr. Hemstead, for he had a stanch boat, and experienced help, while my old playmate was eager to go alone in this wretched thing that would only have floated him out to deep water where he would drown.

"Ah, well, let the future be what it may, one cannot be utterly unhappy who has loved such a man. If he is willing to give his life up for me, I surely can get him to give up his evil, wayward tendencies, and then I must be content."

She now began to experience reaction from her strong excitement, and wearily made her way back to the house.

Her father met her at the door, and exclaimed, "Why, Alice, where have you been? You look ready to sink!"

"I have been to the boat-house, father," she replied, in a low, quick tone; "and I wish you would go there to-morrow, for you will there learn how cruelly we have misjudged Mr. Harcourt."

"But, my child, I am troubled about you. You need quiet and rest after all you have pa.s.sed through"; and he hastily brought her a gla.s.s of wine.

"I needed more the a.s.surance that my old friend and playmate was not what we thought this morning," she said, with drooping eyes.

"Well, my darling, we will make amends right royally. He will be here to-morrow evening, and you shall have no occasion to find fault with me. But please take care of yourself. You do not realize what you have pa.s.sed through, and I fear you are yet to suffer the consequences."

But more exhilarating than the wine which her father placed to her lips was the memory of what she had seen. Hers was one of those spiritual natures that suffer more through the mind than through the body. She encountered her greatest peril in the fear of Harcourt's unworthiness.

Letters in the evening mail summoned her father to the city on the morrow, and he left her with many injunctions to be very quiet. It was evident that his heart and life were bound up in her.

But as the day grew bright and mild she again found her way to the boat-house. With greater accuracy she marked his every hasty step from the house to the sh.o.r.e. Harcourt little thought in his wild alarm that he was leaving such mute but eloquent advocates.

Poor fellow! he was groaning over their harsh judgment, but vowing in his pride that he would never undeceive them. He did not remember that he had left a trail clear to dullest eyes, and conclusive as a demonstration to the unerring instinct of a loving heart.

He had gone to the city and accomplished his business in a mechanical way. He returned with the first train, though why he scarcely knew.

He felt no inclination to visit at Mrs. Marchmont's any more, for since he had come more fully under Miss Martell's influence Addie had lost her slight hold upon him, and now her manner was growing unendurable. He also felt that after Mr. Martell's coldness he could not visit there again, and he doggedly purposed to give his whole time to his business till events righted him, if they ever did.

But his stoical philosophy was put to immediate rout by Mr. Martell's message, which he received on his return. Five minutes later he was urging his black horse towards the familiar place at a pace but a little more decorous than when seeking Hemstead's a.s.sistance on the memorable even ing of the accident.

"Miss Martell is out," stolidly said the woman who answered his summons.

As he was turning away in deep disappointment, Burtis appeared on the scene, and with a complacent grin, remarked, "She's only down by the boat-house, a-seein' howl saved ye from drownding."

Harcourt slipped a bank-note into his hand, and said, "There's for your good services now if not then," and was off for the water's edge with as much speed as he dared use before observant eyes.

"They must have found out from the old coachman that I was not the coward they deemed me," he thought. "If so, I'll see he has a merry Christmas."

He saw Alice standing with her back towards him, looking out upon the river, that now rippled and sparkled in the sunlight as if a dark, stormy night had never brooded over an icy, pitiless tide.

The soft snow m.u.f.fled his steps, until at last he said, hesitatingly, "Miss Martell."

She started violently, and trembled as if shaken by the wind.