Heriot's Choice Part 85

'All the same, over-haste brings early repentance,' returned Dr. Heriot, a little bitterly, as he rose.

'Are you going?' asked Mildred, feeling disappointed by the shortness of his visit.

'I am poor company to-night,' he returned, hastily. 'I am in no mood for general talk. I daresay I shall see you some time to-morrow. By the bye, how is it Polly has never answered my last letter?'

'She has sent a hundred apologies. I a.s.sure you, she is thoroughly ashamed of herself; but Roy is such a tyrant, the child has not an hour to herself.'

A smile broke over his face. 'I suppose not; it must be very amusing to watch them. Roy runs a chance of being completely spoiled;' but this Mildred would not allow.

She went to bed feeling dissatisfied with herself for her dissatisfaction. After all, what did she expect? He had behaved just as any other man would have behaved in his position; he had been perfectly kind and friendly, had questioned her about her health, and had spoken of the length of her journey with a proper amount of sympathy. It must have been some fancy of hers that he had evaded her eyes. After all, what right had she to meddle with his moods, or to be uneasy because of his uneasiness? Was not this the future she had planned? a fore-taste of the long evenings, when the gray-haired friend should quietly sit beside her, either speaking or silent, according to his will.

Mildred scolded herself into quietness before she slept. After all, there was comfort in the thought of seeing him the next day; but this hope was doomed to be frustrated. Dr. Heriot did not make his appearance; he sent an excuse by Richard, whom he carried off with him to Nateby and Winton; an old college friend was coming to dine with him, and Richard and Hugh Marsden were invited to meet him. Mildred found her _tete-a-tete_ evening with Chriss somewhat hara.s.sing, and would have gladly taken refuge in silence and a book; but Chriss had begged so hard to read a portion of the translation of a Greek play on which she was engaged that it was impossible to refuse, and a noisy hour of declamation and uncertain utterance, owing to the illegibility of the ma.n.u.script and the screeching remonstrances of Fritter-my-wig, whose rightful rest was invaded, soon added the discomfort of a nervous headache to Mildred's other pains and penalties; and when Chriss, flushed and panting, had arrived at the last blotted page, she had hardly fort.i.tude enough to give the work all the praise it merited. The quiet of her own room was blissful by comparison, though it brought with it a fresh impulse of tormenting thoughts. Why was it that, with all her strength of will, she had made so little progress; that the man was still so dangerously dear to her; that even without a single hope to feed her, he should still be the sum and substance of her thoughts; that all else should seem as nothing in comparison with his happiness and peace of mind?

That he was far from peace she knew; her first look at him had a.s.sured her of that. And the knowledge that it was so had wrought in her this strange restlessness. Would he ever bring himself to speak to her of this fresh blank in his existence? If it should be so, she would bid him go away for a little time; in some way his life was too monotonous for him; he must seek fresh interests for himself; the vicarage must no longer inclose his only friends. He had often spoken to her of his love for travel, and had more than once hinted at a desire to revisit the Continent; why should she not persuade him that a holiday lay within the margin of his duty; she would willingly endure his absence, if he would only come back brighter and fresher for his work.

Fate had, however, decreed that Mildred's patience should be sorely tested, for though she looked eagerly for his coming all the next day, the opportunity for which she longed did not arrive. Dr. Heriot still held aloof, and the word in season could not be spoken. The following day was Sunday, but even then things were hardly more satisfactory; a brief hand-shake in the porch after evening service, and an inquiry after Roy, was all that pa.s.sed between them.

'He is beyond any poor comfort that I can give him,' thought Mildred, sorrowfully, as she groped her way through the dark churchyard paths.

'He looks worn and hara.s.sed, but he means to keep his trouble to himself. I will try to put it all out of my head; it ought to be nothing to me what he feels or suffers,' and she lay awake all night trying to put this prudent resolve into execution.

The next afternoon she walked over to Nateby to look up some of her old Sunday scholars. It was a mild, wintry afternoon; a gray haziness pervaded everything. As she pa.s.sed the bridge she lingered for a moment to look down below on the spot which was now so sacred to her; the sight of the rocks and foaming water made her cover her face with a mute thanksgiving. Imagination could not fail to reproduce the scene. Again she felt herself crashing amongst the cruel stones, and saw the black, sullen waters below her. 'Oh, why was I saved? to what end--to what purpose?' she gasped, and then added penitently, 'Surely not to be discontented, and indulge in impossible fancies, but to devote a rescued life to the good of others.'

Mildred was so occupied with these painful reflections that she did not hear carriage-wheels pa.s.sing in the road below the bridge, and was unaware that Dr. Heriot had descended and thrown the reins to a pa.s.sing lad, and was now making his way towards her.

His voice in her ear drove the blood to her heart with the sudden start of surprise and pleasure.

'We always seem fated to meet in this place,' he laughed, feigning not to notice her embarra.s.sment, but embarra.s.sed himself by it. 'Coop Kernan Hole must have a secret attraction for both of us. I find myself always driving slowly over the bridge, as though I were following a friend's possible funeral.'

'As you might have done,' she returned, with a grateful glance that completed her sentence.

'Shall we go down and look at it more closely?' he asked, after a moment's silence, during which he had revolved some thought in his mind.

'I have an odd notion that seeing it again may lay the ghost of an uneasy dream that always haunts me. After a harder day's work than usual, this scene is sure to recur to me at night; sometimes I have to leave you there, you have floated so far out of my reach,' with a meaning movement of his hand. Mildred shuddered.

'Shall we come--that is--if you do not much dislike the idea,' and as Mildred saw no reason for refusing, she overcame her feelings of reluctance, and followed him through the little gate, and down the steep steps beyond which lay the uneven ma.s.ses of gray brockram. There he waited for her with outstretched hand.

'You need not think that I shall trust you to your own care again,' he said, with rather a whimsical smile, but as he felt the trembling that ran through hers, it vanished, and he became unusually grave. In another moment he checked her abruptly, and almost peremptorily. 'We will not go any farther; your hand is not steady enough, you are nervous.' Mildred in vain a.s.sured him to the contrary; he insisted that she should sit down for a few moments, and, in spite of her protestations, took off his great-coat and spread it on the rock. 'I am warm, far too warm,' he a.s.serted, when he saw her looks of uneasiness. 'This spot is so sheltered;' and he stood by her and lifted his hat, as though the cool air refreshed him.

'Do you remember our conversation on the other side of the bridge?' he asked presently, turning to her. Mildred flushed with sudden pain--too well she remembered it, and the long night of struggle and well-nigh despair that had followed it.

'I wonder what you thought of me; you were very quiet, very sweet-voiced in your sympathy; but I fancied your eyes had a distrustful gleam in them; they seemed to doubt the wisdom of my choice. Mildred,' with a quick touch of pa.s.sion in his voice such as she had never heard before, 'what a fool you must have thought me!'

'Dr. Heriot, how can you say such things?' but her heart beat faster; he had called her Mildred again.

'Because I must and will say them. A man must call himself names when he has made such a pitiful thing of life. Look at my marrying Margaret--a mistake from beginning to end; and yet I must needs compa.s.s a second piece of folly.'

'There, I think you are too hard on yourself.'

'What right had I at my age, or rather with my experience and knowledge of myself, to think I could make a young girl happy, knowing, as I ought to have known, that her endearing ways could not win her an entrance into the deepest part of my nature--that would have been closed for ever,' speaking in a suppressed voice.

'It was a mistake for which no one could blame you--Polly least of all,'

she returned, eager to soothe this wounded susceptibility.

'Dear Polly, it was her little fingers that set me free--that set both of us free. Coop Kernan Hole would have taught me its lesson too late but for her.'

'What do you mean?' asked Mildred, startled, and trying to get a glimpse of his face; but he had turned it from her; possibly the uncontrolled muscles and the flash of the eye might have warned her without a word.

'What has it taught you?' she repeated, feeling she must get to the bottom of this mystery, whatever it might cost her.

'That it was not Polly whom I loved,' he returned, in a suppressed voice, 'but another whom I might have lost--whom Coop Kernan Hole might have s.n.a.t.c.hed from me. Did you know this, Mildred?'

'No,' she faltered. 'I do not believe it now,' she might have added if breath had not failed her. In her exceeding astonishment, to think such words had blessed her ear, it was impossible--oh, it was impossible--she must hear more.

'I am doubly thankful to it,' he repeated, stooping over her as she sat, that the fall might not drown his voice; 'its dark waters are henceforth glorified to me. Never till that day did I know what you were to me; what a blank my life would be to me without you. It has come to this--that I cannot live without you, Mildred--that you are to me what no other woman, not even Margaret, not even my poor wife, has been to me.'

She buried her face in her trembling hands. Not even to him could she speak, until the pent-up feelings in her heart had resolved themselves into an inward cry, 'My G.o.d, for this--for these words--I thank thee!'

He watched her anxiously, as though in doubt of her emotion. Love was making him timid. After all, could he have misunderstood her words? 'Do not speak to me yet. I do not ask it; I do not expect it,' he said, touching her hand to make her look at him. 'You shall give me your answer when you like--to-morrow--a week hence--you shall have time to think of it. By and by I must know what you have for me in return, and whether my blindness and mistake have alienated you, but I will not ask it now.' He moved from her a few steps, and came hurriedly back; but Mildred, still pale from uncontrollable feeling, would not raise her eyes. 'I may be wrong in thinking you cared for me a little. Do you remember what you said? "John, save me!" Mildred, I do not deserve it; I have brought it all on myself, and I will try and be patient; but when you can come to me and say, "John, I love you; I will be your wife," you will remove a mountain-load of doubt and uncertainty. Ah, Mildred, Mildred, will you ever be able to say it?' His emotion, his sensitive doubts, had overmastered him; he was as deadly pale as the woman he wooed. Again he turned away, but this time she stopped him.

'Why need you wait? you must know I----,' but here the soft voice wavered and broke down; but he had heard enough.

'What must I know?--that you love me?'

'Yes,' was all her answer; but she raised her eyes and looked at him, and he knew then that the great loneliness of his life was gone for ever.

And Mildred, what were her thoughts as she sat with her lover beside her, looking down at the sunless pool before them? here, where she had grappled with death, the crowning glory of her life was given to her, the gray colourless hues had faded out of existence, the happiness for which she had not dared to ask, which the humble creature had not whispered even in her prayers, had come to her, steeping her soul with wondrous content and grat.i.tude.

And out of her happiness came a great calm. For a little while neither of them spoke much, but the full understanding of that sacred silence lay like a pure veil between them. They were neither young, both had known the mystery of suffering--the man held in his heart a dreary past, and Mildred's early life had been pa.s.sed in patient waiting; but what exuberance of youthful joy could equal the quietude of their entire satisfaction?

'Mildred, it seems to me that I must have loved you unconsciously through it all,' he said, presently, when their stillness had spent itself; 'somehow you always rested me. It had grown a necessity with me to come and tell you my troubles; the very sound of your voice soothed me.'

One of her beautiful smiles answered him. She knew he was right, and she had been more to him than he had guessed. Had not this consciousness added the bitterest ingredient to her misery, the knowledge that he was deceiving himself, that no one could give him what was in her power to give?

'But I never thought it possible until lately that you could care enough for me,' he continued; 'you seemed so calm, so beyond this sort of earthly pa.s.sion. Ah, Mildred,' half-gravely, half-caressingly, 'how could you mislead me so? All my efforts to break down that quiet reserve seemed in vain.'

'I thought it right; how could I guess it would ever come to this?' she answered, blushing. 'I can hardly believe it now'; but the answer to this was so full and satisfactory that Mildred's last lingering doubt was dispelled for ever.

It was late in the afternoon when they parted at the vicarage gate; the dark figure in the wintry porch escaped their observation in the twilight, and so the last good-bye fell on Ethel Trelawny's astonished ear.

'It is not good-bye after all, Mildred; I shall see you again this evening,' in Dr. Heriot's voice; 'take care of yourself, my dearest, until then;' and the long hand-clasp that followed his words spoke volumes.

When Mildred entered the drawing-room she gave a little start at the sight of Ethel. The girl held out her hand to her with a strange smile.

'Mildred, I was there and heard it. What he called you, I mean.

Darling--darling, I am so glad,' breaking off with a half-sob and suddenly closing her in her arms.

For a moment Mildred seemed embarra.s.sed.

'Dear Ethel, what do you mean? what could you have heard?'