The Gentleman from Indiana Part 40

"It was about--me--wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"It said--it said--that I had won the love of every person in Carlow County."

Suddenly she found her voice. "Do not misunderstand me," she said rapidly. "I have done the little that I have done out of grat.i.tude." She faced him now, but without meeting his eyes. "I told you, remember, that you would understand some day what I meant by that, and the day has come. I owed you more grat.i.tude than a woman ever owed a man before, I think, and I would have died to pay a part of it. I set every gossip's tongue in Rouen clacking at the very start, in the merest amateurish preparation for the work Mr. Macauley gave me. That was nothing. And the rest has been the happiest time in my life. I have only pleased myself, after all!"

"What grat.i.tude did you owe me?"

"What grat.i.tude? For what you did for my father."

"I have only seen your father once in my life--at your table at the dance supper, that night."

"Listen. My father is a gentle old man with white hair and kind eyes.

You saw my uncle, that night; he has been as good to me as a father, since I was seven years old, and he gave me his name by law and I lived with him. My father came to see me once a year; I never came to see him.

He always told me everything was well with him; that his life was happy.

Once he lost the little he had left to him in the world, his only way of making his living. He had no friends; he was hungry and desperate, and he wandered. I was dancing and going about wearing jewels--only--I did not know. All the time the brave heart wrote me happy letters. I should have known, for there was one who did, and who saved him. When at last I came to see my father, he told me. He had written of his idol before; but it was not till I came that he told it all to me. Do you know what I felt? While his daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had taken his hand--and--" A sob rose in her throat and checked her utterance for a moment; but she threw up her head and met his eyes proudly.

"Grat.i.tude, Mr. Harkless!" she cried. "I am James Fisbee's daughter."

He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclamation, and stared at her through the gray twilight. She went on hurriedly, again not looking at him:

"When you showed me that you cared for me--when you told me that you did--I--do you think I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile neglect of him--something to show you his daughter could be grateful. If I had loved you, what I did would have been for that--and I could not have done it. And how could I have shown my grat.i.tude if I had done it for love? And it has been such dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it seems, after all, that I have done it for love of myself. But--but when you first told me--" She broke off with a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate little laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in another tone: "When you told me you cared that night--that night we were here--how could I be sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even if I could have been sure of myself, why, I couldn't have told you. Oh! I had so brazenly thrown myself at your head, time and again, those two days, in my--my worship of your goodness to my father and my excitement in recognizing in his friend the hero of my girlhood, that you had every right to think I cared; but if--but if I had--if I had--loved you with my whole soul, I could not have--why, no woman could have--I mean the sort of girl I am couldn't have admitted it--must have denied it. And what I was trying to do for you when we met in Rouen was--was courting you. You surely see I couldn't have done it if I had cared. It would have been brazen! And do you think that then I could have answered--'Yes'--even if I wanted to--even if I had been sure of myself?

And now--" Her voice sank again to a whisper. "And now----"

From the meadows across the creek, and over the fields, came a far tinkling of farm-bells. Three months ago, at this hour, John Harkless had listened to that sound, and its great lonesomeness had touched his heart like a cold hand; but now, as the mists were rising from the water and the small stars pierced the sky one by one, glinting down through the dim, immeasurable blue distances, he found no loneliness in heaven or earth. He leaned forward toward her; the bench was between them. The last light was gone; evening had fallen.

"And now--" he said.

She moved backward as he leaned nearer.

"You promised to remember on the day you understood," she answered, a little huskily, "that it was all from the purest grat.i.tude."

"And--and there is nothing else?"

"If there were," she said, and her voice grew more and more unsteady, "if there were, can't you see that what I have done--" She stopped, and then, suddenly, "Ah, it would have been _brazen_!"

He looked up at the little stars and he heard the bells, and they struck into his heart like a dirge. He made a singular gesture of abnegation, and then dropped upon the bench with his head bowed between his hands.

She pressed her hand to her bosom, watching him in a startled fashion, her eyes wide and her lips parted. She took a few quick, short steps toward the garden, still watching him over her shoulder.

"You mustn't worry," he said, not lifting his bent head, "I know you're sorry. I'll be all right in a minute."

She gave a hurried glance from right to left and from left to right, like one in terror seeking a way of escape; she gathered her skirts in her hand, as if to run into the garden; but suddenly she turned and ran to him--ran to him swiftly, with her great love shining from her eyes.

She sank upon her knees beside him. She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him on the forehead.

"Oh, my dear, don't you see?" she whispered, "don't you see--don't you see?"

When they heard the judge calling from the orchard, they went back through the garden toward the house. It was dark; the whitest asters were but gray splotches. There was no one in the orchard; Briscoe had gone indoors. "Did you know you are to drive me into town in the phaeton for the fireworks?" she asked.

"Fireworks?"

"Yes; the Great Harkless has come home."

Even in the darkness he could see the look the vision had given him when the barouche turned into the Square. She smiled upon him and said, "All afternoon I was wishing I could have been your mother."

He clasped her hand more tightly. "This wonderful world!" he cried.

"Yesterday I had a doctor--a doctor to cure me of love-sickness!"

They went on a little way. "We must hurry," she said. "I am sure they have been waiting for us." This was true; they had.

From the dining-room came laughter and hearty voices, and the windows were bright with the light of many lamps. By and by, they stood just outside the patch of light that fell from one of the windows.

"Look," said Helen. "Aren't they good, dear people?"

"The beautiful people!" he answered.