The Forsaken Inn Part 11

"'If he were not poor,' she now breathed rather than whispered, 'I would find it easier to rend myself free. But he has nothing but what lies in my future, and if I should make a mistake and do injustice to a man that is merely suffering under a temporary intoxication, I should rob him of his only hope, without adding one chance to my own.'

"I bowed, and made a movement toward the door. I could not stand much more of this strain.

"'You are going?' she cried. 'Well, I cannot keep you. But that dagger!

You will promise me to throw it away? You do not need it in defense, and you do not want to kill me before my time.'

"No, no; I did not want to kill her. Grief was doing that fast enough; so I thought at that time. Shuddering, but resolute, I drew the tiny steel from my breast and laid it in her hand.

"'It is all I can give you to show you my appreciation of your goodness.' And not trusting myself to linger longer lest I should take it again from her hand, I went out and walked hastily from the house.

"If you asked me what road I took, or through what streets I pa.s.sed, or whose eye I encountered in my next hour's walking through the town, I could not tell you. If jeers followed me, I heard them not; if I was the recipient of sympathizing looks and wondering conjectures, they were all lost upon eyes that were blind and ears that were deaf. I did not even feel; and did not realize till night that I had been wandering for hours without my cloak, which I had left in the carriage and forgotten to take again when I went out. The first knowledge I had of my surroundings was when I found an obstruction in my path, and looking up, saw myself in front of my own door, and not two feet from me, Edwin Urquhart."

CHAPTER XII.

EDWIN URQUHART.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I]

In that moment Mark Felt paused and cast a glance toward the Hudson far below us. Then he resumed his narrative.

"I drew back," he said, "and clenched my hands to keep myself from strangling Urquhart. Then I broke into hurried pants, that subsided gradually into words of perplexity and amazement as I met his eye, and realized that it contained nothing but a rude sort of sympathy and good fellowship.

"'How? Why? What do you mean by coming back?' I cried. 'You said you would be gone a week. You swore--'

"A gay laugh interrupted me.

"'And must a man keep every oath he makes, especially when it separates him from a charming betrothed, and a friend who swore that he would make this day his wedding one?'

"'Urquhart!'

"'Felt!'

"'Are you a monster or are you--'

"'A self-possessed man who is going to take in charge a crazy one. Come into the house, Mark, a dozen eyes can see us here.'

"He took me in charge; he piloted me into my own dwelling--he whose whole body I had always esteemed weaker than my little finger; my enemy too, or so I considered him; the cause of half my grief, of all my shame, the beginning and end of my hatreds.

"When we were closeted, as we soon were in the room I had expended so much upon to make worthy of my bride, he came and stood before me and uttered these unexpected words:

"'Felt, I like you. You are the only friend I have, and I am indebted to you. Now, what have you against me?'

"I was astonished. His whole look and bearing were so different from what I had expected, so different from anything I had ever seen in him before. I began to question my doubts, and dropped my eyes as he pursued:

"'You have been disappointed in your marriage, I hear; but that need not make you as downcast as this. A woman as capricious as Miss Leighton might easily imagine she was too ill to go through the ceremony to-day.

But she must have repented of her folly by this time, and in a week will reward you as your patience deserves. But what have I got to do with it?

For incredible as it appears, your every look and tone a.s.sures me that you blame me for this mishap.'

"Was he daring me? If so, he should find me his equal. I raised my eyes and surveyed him.

"'Shall I tell you why this is so--why I a.s.sociate Miss Leighton's caprice with your return, and regard both with suspicion? Because I have seen you look on her with love; because I have surprised the pa.s.sion in your face and beheld her--'

"'Well?'

"The tone was indescribable. It was as if a hand had taken me by the throat and choked me. I drew off and was silent.

"He seized the word at once.

"'You have seen nothing. If you think you have, then have you deceived yourself. Marah Leighton has beauty, but it is not a kind that moves me--'

"He paled. Was it horror of the lie he was uttering? I have never known, never shall know.

"'The woman I am going to marry is Honora Dudleigh.'

"I gazed at him, determined to find the truth if it were in him. He bore my look unflinchingly, though his color did not return, and his hands trembled nervously.

"'You love her?' I asked.

"'I love her,' he returned.

"'And your wedding day--'

"'Is set.'

"'May it have no interruptions,' I remarked.

"He laughed--an uneasy laugh, I thought--but jealousy was not yet dead within me.

"'And yours?' he inquired.

"'I have had mine,' I returned. 'I shall never have another.'

"He shook his head and looked at me inquisitively. I repeated my a.s.sertion.

"'I shall never approach the altar again with a woman. I am done with such things, and done with love.'

"He finished his laugh.

"'Wait till you see Marah Leighton smile again,' he cried; and with the first reappearance of his old manner that I had seen in him since the beginning of this interview, he caught up a wine gla.s.s off the table, and filling it with wine, exclaimed jovially: 'Here's to our future wives! May they be all that love paints them!'

"I thought his mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his gla.s.s by flinging it at my own reflection, in a gla.s.s I had bought to mirror her beauty; and before the day was spent, I had destroyed every destructible article in the house whose value or whose prettiness spoke of the attempt I had made to alter my home from a bachelor's abode to the nest I had thought in keeping with the dove I had failed to place there. As I did it I filled the house with mocking laughter; that I should have thought that this or that would please her, who would have found a palace open to criticism, and the splendors of a throne room scarce grand enough for her taste! I was but suffering the stings of a lifetime compressed into a day, and was miserable because I could see no prospect but further addition to my suffering."