The Mountain Girl Part 22

"I reckon I could." She laughed a little. "Do they ride that way where you come from? It must look right funny. I don't guess I'd like it."

"But just try--to please me? Why not?"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather walk, please, suh. Don't wait."

"Then I will walk with you. I may do that, may I not?" He caught the bridle-rein on the saddle, leaving the horse to browse along behind as he would, and walked at her side. She made no further protest, but was silent.

"You don't object to this, do you?" he insisted.

"It's pleasanter than being alone, but it's right far to walk, seems like, for you."

"Then why not for you?" She smiled her mysterious, quiet smile. "You must know that I am stronger than you?" he persisted.

"I ought to think so, since that day we rode over to Cate Irwin's, but I was right afraid for you that time, lest you get cold; and then it was me--" she paused, and looked squarely in his eyes and laughed. "You wouldn't say 'it was me,' would you?"

He joined merrily in her laughter. "I never corrected you on that."

"You never did, but you didn't need to. I often know, after I've said something--not--right--as you would say it."

"Do you, indeed?" he walked nearer, boyishly happy because she was close beside him. He wanted to touch her, to take her hand and walk as children do, but could not because of the subtile barrier he felt between them. He determined to break it down. "Finish what you were saying? And then it was me--what?"

"And then it was I who gave out, not you."

"But you were a heroine--a heroine from the ground up, and I love you."

He spoke with such boyish impulsiveness that she took the remark as one of his extravagances, and merely smiled indulgently, as if amused at it.

She did not even flush, but accepted it as she would an outburst from Hoyle.

David was amazed. It only served to show him how completely outside that charmed circle within which she lived he still was. He was maddened by it. He came nearer and bent to look in her face, until she lifted her eyes to look fairly in his.

"That's right. Look at me and understand me. I waited there only that I might tell you. Why do you put a wall between us? I tell you I love you.

I love you, Ca.s.sandra; do you understand?"

She stood quite still and gazed at him in amazement, almost as if in terror. Her face grew white, and she pressed her two hands on her heart, then slowly slid them up to her round white throat as if it hurt her--a movement he had seen in her twice before, when suffering emotion.

"Why, Ca.s.sandra, does it hurt you for me to tell you that I love you?

Beautiful girl, does it?"

"Yes, suh," she said huskily.

He would have taken her in his arms, but refrained for very love of her.

She should be sacred even from his touch, if she so wished, and the barrier, whatever it might be, should halo her. He had spoken so tenderly he had no need to tell her. The love was in his eyes and his voice, but he went on.

"Then I must be cruel and hurt you. I love you all the days and the nights--all the moments of the days--I love you."

In very terror, she flung out her hands and placed them on his breast, holding him thus at arm's-length, and with head thrown back, still looked into his eyes piteously, imploringly. With trembling lips, she seemed to be speaking, but no voice came. He covered her hands with his, and held them where she had placed them.

"You have put a wall between us. Why have you done it?"

"I didn't--didn't know; I thought you were--as far--as far away from us as the star--the star of gold is--from our world in the night--so far--I didn't guess--you could come so--near." She bowed her head and wept.

"You are the star yourself, you beautiful--you are--"

But she stopped him, crying out. She could not draw her hands away, for he still held them clasped to his heart.

"No, no! The wall is there. It must be between us for always, I am promised." The grief wailed and wept in her tones, and her eyes were wide and pleading. "I must lead my life, and you--you must stay outside the wall. If you love me--Doctor,--you must never know it, and I must never know it." Her beating heart stopped her speech and they both stood thus a moment, each seeing only the other's soul.

"Promised?" The word sank into his heart like lead. "Promised?" Slowly he released her hands, and she covered her face with them and sank at his feet. He bent down to her and asked almost in a whisper: "Promised?

Did you say that word?"

She drooped lower and was silent.

All the chivalry of his nature rose within him. Should he come into her life only to torment and trouble her? Ought he to leave the place? Could he bear to live so near her? What had she done--this flower? Was she to be devoured by swine? The questions clamored at the door of his heart.

But one thing could he see clearly. He must wait without the wall, seeking only to serve and protect her.

With the unerring instinct which led her always straight to the mark, she had seen the only right course. He repeated her words over and over to himself. "If you love me, you must never know it, and I must never know it." Her heart should be sacred from his personal intrusion, and their old relations must be reestablished, at whatever cost to himself.

With flash-light clearness he saw his difficulty, and that only by the elimination of self could he serve her, and also that her manner of receiving his revelation had but intensified his feeling for her. The few short moments seemed hours of struggle with himself ere he raised her to her feet and spoke quietly, in his old way.

He lifted her hand to his lips. "It is past, Miss Ca.s.sandra. We will drop these few moments out of your life into a deep well, and it shall be as if they had never been." He thought as he spoke that the well was his own heart, but that he would not say, for henceforth his love and service must be selfless. "We may be good friends still? Just as we were?"

"Yes, suh," she spoke meekly.

"And we can go right on helping each other, as we have done all these weeks? I do not need to leave you?"

"Oh, no, no!" She spoke with a gasp of dismay at the thought. "It--won't hurt so much if I can see you going right on--getting strong--like you have been, and being happy--and--" She paused in her slowly trailing speech and looked about her. They were down in a little glen, and there were no mountain tops in sight for her to look up to as was her custom.

"And what, Ca.s.sandra? Finish what you were saying." Still for a while she was silent, and they walked on together. "And now won't you say what you were going to say?" He could not talk himself, and he longed to hear her voice.

"I was thinking of the music you made. It was so glad. I can't talk and say always what I think, like you do, but seems like it won't hurt me so here," she put her hand to her throat, "where it always hurts me when I am sorry at anything, if I can hear you glad in the music--like you were that--night I thought you were the 'Voices.'"

"Ca.s.sandra, it shall be glad for you, always."

She looked into his eyes an instant with the clear light of understanding in her own. "But for you? It is for you I want it to be glad."

CHAPTER XIV

IN WHICH DAVID VISITS THE BISHOP, AND FRALE SEES HIS ENEMY

The bishop was seated in a deep canvas chair on his wide veranda, looking out over his garden toward a distant line of blue hills. His little wife sat close to his side on a low rocker, very busy with the making of b.u.t.tonholes in a small girl's frock of white dimity and lace.

Betty Towers loved lace and pretty things.

The small girl was playing about the garden paths with her puppy and chattering with Frale in her high, happy, childish voice, while he bent weeding among the beds of okra and egg-plant. His face wore a more than usually discontented look, even when answering the child with teasing banter. Now and then he lifted his eyes from his work and watched furtively the movements of David Thryng, who was pacing restlessly up and down the long veranda in earnest conversation with the bishop and his wife.

The two in the garden could not understand what was being said at the house, but each party could hear the voices of the other, and by calling out a little could easily converse across the dividing hedge and the intervening s.p.a.ce.