The Puritans Part 21

She grew grave as she spoke. She seemed again to see the whole terrible sight. The wreck, thrusting out tongues of fire, the dead and the dying strewn about on the snow; Wynne, at her feet, insensible and ghastly in the uncertain light. She shuddered and drew in her breath.

"Oh, don't let's talk about it!" she exclaimed. "I can't bear to think of it, and I feel as if I should never get it out of my head!"

Stanford was silent a moment, pulling his mustache as if trying to find the right word.

"It must have been awful," he said hesitatingly; "and I'll never speak of it again if you don't wish. Only I must say that it was dreadful to me too. The thought of how near I came to losing you is more than I can stand."

She leaned back in her chair, suddenly chilled, yet moved by the feeling in his voice. Her conscience reproached her that she had allowed a false hope to grow up in his mind. She felt as if he were establishing a claim upon her, and that at any cost she must make him see things as they were.

"You are very kind," she responded, trying to keep her tones from being too cold; "but of course we always feel a shock when any friend has been through a great danger."

Her eyes were cast down, but she could divine his regard of disquiet and surprise.

"And especially those we love," he added, leaning forward, and endeavoring to take her hand.

"Oh, of course, Mr. Stanford," she said hastily. "That is of course true. Were people in Boston much excited about the accident?"

She felt herself a hypocrite, yet she could not help this one more effort to avoid the explanation she dreaded.

"I suppose so. I don't know. I was so taken up with thinking about you, that I paid very little attention to anything else."

"I'm afraid I didn't deserve it. I wasn't thinking of anybody but myself. It was very good of you."

"Of course you weren't thinking of anybody," Stanford responded, pulling his mustache more furiously than ever; "but I was at the club instead of being in a burning car. I was half crazy at the thought that my future wife"--

"Stop!" Berenice broke in. "You mustn't say such things. I'm not your future wife!"

"Forgive me. I know I haven't any right to say that when you haven't promised; but I can't help thinking of you so, and"--

"Oh, please don't!" she cried.

A wave of humiliation, of repulsion, of terror, swept over her. That this man had thought of her as his wife seemed almost like an inexorable bond. She shrank away from him with an impulse too strong to be controlled.

"But, Berenice, I"--

She sprang up and faced him.

"I have never promised you!" she declared with hurried vehemence. "I never will promise you! I can't marry you. If I've made you think so, I didn't mean to. I didn't know my own mind. I thought--O Mr. Stanford, if I have deceived you, I beg your pardon. I"--

The tears choked and blinded her. She broke off, and put her handkerchief to her eyes; but when she heard him rise and hurry toward her, she went on hastily.

"I've let you go on thinking I'd marry you; I know I have. I thought so myself; but I've found out that it's all a mistake. I didn't realize what I was doing. I'm so sorry. I do hope you'll forgive me."

He regarded her in amazement not unmingled with indignation.

"You have let me think so," he said. "Now I suppose there's somebody else."

"Oh, I shall never marry anybody," she answered quickly.

"When a girl tells one man she never'll marry," retorted he bitterly, "there's sure to be another man in her mind."

She felt herself burn with blushes to her brow; and then in very shame and anger to grow pale again. Her first impulse was to leave him; but she controlled herself. He was her guest, he had come all the way from Boston to a.s.sure himself that she was safe, and more than all she was sorely aware that she had not treated him well. To have injured a man is to a woman apt to be an excuse for continuing to treat him ill; but when the opposite occurs she can be very forbearing.

"There is no other man," she said with dignity. Then she added, more mildly: "Badly as I may have treated you, I don't think you've quite the right to say such a thing as that to me."

"I haven't," he acknowledged contritely. "I beg your pardon; but I surely have a right to ask what I've done to change you so. You were not like this yesterday."

Berenice forced herself to meet his eyes, but she ignored his question.

She sank back into the chair from which she had risen to face him.

"Come," said she, trying to speak lightly, "I don't see why we need stand. We are not rehearsing private theatricals. It was very kind of you to take the trouble to come all the way up here, but you must see that my nerves are all on edge. The shock has completely upset me."

"Poor girl!" he said.

There was a genuine ring in his voice which irritated while it touched her. She hated to feel that he was really hurt. It made her seem the more deeply guilty, and she unconsciously desired to discover in him some excuse for her own shortcomings.

"Oh, it's over now," she responded. "Let's talk of something else."

"I'd be glad to," Stanford replied, "but I can't seem to. I want to know how you escaped. I won't ask you to tell me now, but I keep thinking about it."

"I'm afraid I can't tell you much. I remember a tremendous crash, and being thrown against Mr. Wynne"--

"Mr. Wynne?"

The tone showed Berenice that Stanford did not attach especial importance to the question, but asked only from a natural curiosity.

Nevertheless she could not keep her voice from, hurrying a little as she answered:--

"Mr. Wynne is a young clergyman who was in the seat next to mine. He's a cousin of Mrs. Staggchase."

"Oh, a clergyman," Stanford echoed.

The tone seemed to her excited mood to be full of intolerable superiority.

"He may be a clergyman," she retorted with unnecessary warmth, "but he is a gentleman and a hero. He saved my life!"

"Oh, he did!"

The exclamation stung her beyond endurance. She sprang up with flashing eyes.

"Mr. Stanford," she exclaimed, "I don't know what you mean to insinuate, but you will please to remember that you are speaking of the man that saved me, and of my grandmother's guest."

"Your grandmother's guest? Do you mean that he is staying here?"

"Certainly he is. Why shouldn't he be?"

The young man rose, and stood looking at her a moment; then he began to pace up and down, his gaze fixed on the floor. Berenice felt herself being swept away by tumultuous feelings which she could neither compel nor understand. Her mind was in confusion, out of which rose most definitely the desire that Stanford would go and leave her in peace.

"There is no reason why I should question the right of Mrs. Morison to choose her own guests," said Stanford at length, pausing, and speaking with an evident effort to be entirely calm; "and as I know nothing of this Mr. Wynne, I shouldn't in any case have a right to say anything about him. You can't wonder, though, that I'm jealous of him for having had the luck to save your life, or that when I come here and find you so suddenly different and this man staying in the house and a hero in your eyes"--