The Mystery of the Locks Part 19

But what is this which comes into the mind of Annie Dorris and causes her to start up in alarm? It is the recollection of Thompson Benton, her plain-spoken father.

"O Allan!" she said. "What will father say?"

"I will go over and hear what he says," Dorris replied promptly, putting on his hat. "You can go along if you like."

What a bold fellow he was! And how tenderly he adjusted the wraps around his wife, after she had signified her desire to accompany him, when they stepped out into the frosty morning air!

It was about Thompson Benton's time to start down town, and as they paused before his front door, not without misgivings, he opened it wide and stood before them. Evidently the girl had not been missed from the house, for there was genuine astonishment in the father's face as he looked from one to the other.

"What does this mean?" he said, looking at Dorris sharply from under his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows.

"That we were married this morning," Dorris replied, not in the least frustrated, though his wife trembled like a leaf.

He gave no evidence of the surprise which this announcement must have caused him, but looked sullenly at Dorris for several moments, as though he had a mind to try his strength with him; but when his eyes fell on his child, his manner changed for the better. Motioning them to follow him, they closed the door, and all sat down in the pleasant family room where the girl's recollection began, and where her father spent his little leisure in the evening. Here old Thompson looked hard at the floor until he had thought the matter over, when he said,--

"I have never found fault with the girl in my life; I have never had occasion to, and if she can justify what she has done I am content. Are you sure you are right, Annie?"

He looked up at her with such a softened manner, and there was so much tenderness in his words, that the girl forgot the fear which his hard look had inspired when they met him at the door, and going over to him she put her arm around his neck, and softly stroked his gray hair as she replied,--

"That which I have done has made me very happy. If that is justification, I am entirely justified."

"I require no other explanation," old Thompson answered. "From a little child you have been dutiful, sensible, and capable, and though my selfishness rebels because I am to lose you, a father's love is stronger than selfishness, and I am glad you have found a husband you regard as worthy of your affection. You have drawn a prize, sir."

He looked at Dorris as a defeated man might look at his rival when he thought it necessary to hide his mortification, and offer congratulations which he did not feel.

"There is no doubt of it," Dorris promptly answered.

"She is very much like her mother," old Thompson continued, "and her mother was the best woman in ten thousand. If I gave her a task to perform, she did it in a manner which pleased me, and she was always a pleasant surprise. _This_ is a surprise, but I find no fault; I cannot regret that Annie knows the happiness of a young wife. I am a rough man, but I made her mother a very happy woman, and in remembrance of that I am glad the daughter has found a husband she can honor. I have so much confidence in the girl's good sense that I do not question her judgment, and I wish you joy with all my heart."

He took both their hands in his for a moment, and hurried away, Dorris and his wife watching him until he disappeared in a bend of the street, when they went into the house to make their peace with the Ancient Maiden.

As Thompson Benton hurried along toward his store, swinging the respectable-looking iron key in his hand, who can know the regret he felt to lose his child? His practical mind would not help him now, and he must have felt that the only creature in all the world he cared for had deserted him, for the old forget the enthusiasm of the young.

It was a fortunate circ.u.mstance that the day was bad and customers few, for they would not have been treated well had they appeared.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PURSUING SHADOW.

Allan Dorris and his wife had been up in the hills watching the sunset, and at dusk were returning leisurely home. They were very fond of the unfrequented locality where he had first declared his pa.s.sion, and when the weather was fine they frequently visited it to imagine themselves lovers again, which was easy enough, for as man and wife they got along amazingly well. And now, when they were returning at nightfall, a shadow crept after them; from bush to rock, and from tree to shrub, crawling and stealing along like a beast watching its prey.

Pretty Annie Dorris, prettier than ever before, was expressing a fear in her winning way that their happiness was too great to last, and that something dreadful would happen to them. But she had no suspicion of the lurking, creeping shadow which had hurried forward, and now stood almost within arm's length, as her husband replied,--

"I have been so discontented all my life, and am so contented now, that I believe the Fates will guard me from it in pity. It is not much that I ask; a country girl to be my wife, and love me--nothing more. And it will always be my endeavor to be so useful to the country girl that she will be happy, too, so that the simple boon of peace is not too much to ask when it will make two people entirely happy. I cheerfully give up my place in the strife for greatness and riches in which men seem to be always engaged, and will be content with the good health and plenty which my simple life here will bring me. As for a living, I can make that easy enough; I am making more even now than we can possibly spend.

I hope your fears are not substantial."

The country girl had her arm through her husband's, and she looked up into his face with such a troubled expression that he stopped in the road.

"It may be that I am fearful only because I love you so much," she said.

"It almost kills me when I think that any harm might happen to you."

"I am glad to hear you say that," he replied, "but you are always saying something which pleases me. You look handsome to-night; you look prettier now than before you were married, and I think more of you. You don't fade out, and I love you for that; you are as fresh and as girlish as you ever were before we were married. I think it an evidence of good blood."

"Now you are pleasing me," his wife said laughingly. "I have feared very often that you would not like me so well when you knew me better, and that you would finally tire of me."

"But I don't," Dorris replied. "The more I know of you the better I like you. It's not usual, but I am more in love after marriage than I was before."

"I have mingled so little with women," the wife said seriously, "that I sometimes fear that I am not like others of my s.e.x in manners and dress and inclination. Did you ever notice it?"

"I think I have," he said.

She turned upon him with mock fierceness, and pretended to be very indignant.

"Because you are not like other women, who act by rule, and are nearly all alike, is the reason I have no greater ambition than to be tied to your ap.r.o.n-strings," he said. "I think your freshness and originality are your greatest charms."

"Long before I ever thought of becoming a wife myself," she said, seriously again, "I noticed that most men seemed to lack a knowledge of women; that they regarded them as angels while they were girls, and were disappointed because they turned out to be women as wives. I am not unjust, but I have thought the women were partly responsible for this, since many of them exhibit themselves like dolls, and pretend to be more than they are. This is the reason why I am pleased that you are not disappointed in me."

"As to your being an angel," he laughingly replied, "I know you are not one, and I am glad of it. I have an idea that an angel would soon tire of me, and fly away in disgust, to warn its companions that men were not worth saving. There are some women so amiable that no matter to what extent their affairs go wrong, they cannot muster up enough energetic regret to cause them to supply a remedy. I am not so fond of amiability as to desire it at that price. Whenever you find capacity you will find temper, and I imagine that it would be dangerous to stir you up, for you are as capable a woman as ever I knew. _Haven't_ you temper?"

"Plenty of it; too much," she answered.

They both laughed at this frank confession, and Dorris took occasion to say that there was not a spark of it in his nature, though there was temper written in every line of his countenance, and that he would have been an ugly man when once fully aroused was certain.

They walked on again, and the shadow followed, as if anxious to hear what they were saying.

"I can't account for it myself," Dorris continued, "but I enjoy your company as much now as I did before we were married. It does me as much good to talk love to you; I suppose it must be because you deserve it.

The fact that you are as careful to look well as you ever did may have something to do with it, but it is certainly the case. I have heard men abused a great deal for neglecting their wives after marriage, but it never occurs to me to neglect you. I don't want to neglect you; I think too much of you. If I should fail to be as considerate of you as you are of me, I know that I would no longer receive the full measure of your confidence and love, which is such a comfort to me, therefore it is my first ambition to be just and honest with you in everything. The ambition affords me a great deal of pleasure, too, for I am never so well satisfied as when in your company. With you by my side, there is nothing else that I crave in this world or the next."

"O Allan! Nothing in the next?"

They had seated themselves on a rough seat in a sort of park on the hillside, and Dorris considered the matter.

"Well, if you go to heaven, I want to go. Of course you will go, for you are good enough, therefore I intend to do the best I can, so that, when we come to be judged, the Master will realize how much we love each other, and conclude not to separate us. But I depend on you; He will let me in to please you--not because I deserve it."

"I know you do not think as I do about it," she answered, "but it is possible that you have not investigated as I have. I am not a foolish girl, but a serious woman, and have studied and thought a great deal, and I am certain there is something more than this life. I have never mentioned the subject to you before, because I know that a great many come to dislike religion because they hear so much of it from persons no better than themselves, but everything teaches us that we shall live again, and it worries me a great deal because you think lightly about a matter which seems so dreadfully serious. My mother's faith convinces me of it, though I cannot tell you why. I am not prepared, as she was, by a long life of purity to receive the evidence; but promise me that you will think about it, and not combat your own judgment."

"I have never thought about it much, and investigated but little," he answered. "It has always been natural for me to think of the grave as the end of everything, so far as I am concerned. But I have confidence in your intelligence and judgment; if you have investigated, and believe, that is enough for me; _I_ believe. Please do not worry about it any more; I will try very hard to remain with you."

He said it lightly, yet there was enough seriousness in his manner to convince her that his love for her was honest, even if his religion was not.

"Religion is not natural with me: I feel no necessity for it or lack of it," he said again. "But I have no objection to it; on the contrary, I have always liked the idea, but I lack the necessary faith. It would be pleasant for me to believe that, in the next country, a day's journey removed, good gifts might be found; but if I could not believe it, I could not be reasonably blamed for my refusal to attempt the journey. I might even regret that the accounts were not true; but I would not insist that they _were_ true against my honest convictions, because I _hoped_ they were. I am religious enough in sentiment, but my brain is an inexorable skeptic. Nothing is more pleasing to me than the promise of your faith. What a blessed hope it is, that after death you will live in a land of perpetual summer; and exist forever with your friends where there is only peace and content! I am sure I can never see as much of you as I want to in this life, and I cannot tell you how much I hope we will be reunited beyond the grave, and live forever to love each other, even as we do now. I am willing to make any sacrifice necessary to ensure this future; it would be a pleasure for me to make greater sacrifices than are required, according to common rumor, for they are not at all exacting, except in the particular of faith; but that I lack, to a most alarming extent, though I cannot help it. You cannot have faith because it is your duty any more than you can love because it is your duty. I only regret that I cannot be religious as naturally as I love you, but I cannot, though I try because you want me to. I want to believe that men do not grow old and become a burden to themselves and those around them; but I know differently, and while I hope that there will be a resurrection, I know that those who have gone away on the journey which begins with death send back no messenger, and that nothing is known of heaven except the declaration of pious people that they believe in it. I love to hear the laughter of children, but it does not convince me that all the world is in a laughing mood, and that there are no tears. No one can find fault with your religion except that they cannot believe in it. Everything in nature teaches us that we will return to dust, and that we will be resurrected only as dust by the idle winds. You don't mind that I speak freely?"

"No."