Viola Gwyn Part 51

they were ready and eager to ride out into the terrorized Northwest.

Kenneth Gwynne was a private in "The Guards."

During the thrilling days of preparation for the expedition, he saw little of the women next door. Doubtless for reasons of their own, Viola and her mother maintained a strange and persistent aloofness. It was not until the evening before the departure of the "Guards" that he took matters into his own hands and walked over to Rachel's house.

The few glimpses he had had of Viola during these busy days and nights served not only to increase his ardent craving for her but caused him the most acute misery as well. Utter despond had fallen upon him.

It was significant of her new att.i.tude toward life that she had cast aside the sombre habiliments of mourning. She was now appearing in bright, though not gay, colours,--unmistakable evidence of her decision to abandon all pretence of grief for the man she had looked upon for so many years as her father.

There was a strange, new vivacity in her manner, too,--something that hurt rather than cheered him. He heard her singing about the house,--gay, larksome little s.n.a.t.c.hes,--and she whistled merrily as she worked in the garden. Somehow her very light-heartedness added to his despair. What right had she to be happy and gay and cheerful whilst he was so miserable? Had he not told her in so many words that he loved her? Did that mean nothing to her? Why should she sing and whistle in her own domain when she must have known that he was suffering in his, not twenty rods away? He was conscious at times of a sense of injury, and as the time drew near for his departure without so much as a sign of regret or even interest on her part, this feeling deepened into resentment.

He was very stiff and formal as he approached the porch on which Viola and her mother were seated, enjoying the cool evening breeze that had sprung up at the end of the hot and sultry day. A strange woman and two small children, refugees from the Grand Prairie, had been given shelter by Mrs. Gwyn, but they had already gone to bed.

"We are off at daybreak," he said, standing before them, his hat in his hand. "I thought I would come over to say good-bye."

His hungry gaze swept over the figure of the girl, shadowy and indistinct in the semi-darkness. To his amazement, he saw that she was attired in the frock she had worn on that unforgettable night at Striker's. She leaned forward and held out her hand to him. As he took it he looked up into her dusky face and caught his breath.

Good heaven! She was actually smiling! Smiling when he was going away perhaps never to return alive!

She did not speak. It was Rachel Carter who said, quietly:

"Thank you for coming over, Kenneth. We would not have allowed you to go, however, without saying good-bye and wishing you well on this hazardous undertaking. May G.o.d protect you and all the brave men who go out with you."

He had not released Viola's hand. Suddenly her grip tightened; her other hand was raised quickly to her face, and he was dumbfounded to see that she was dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. His heart swelled. She had been smiling bravely all the while her eyes were filled with tears. And now he knew why she was silent. He lifted her hand to his lips.

"I want you to know, Viola dear, before I go away," he said huskily, "that I can and will give you back the name of Gwynne, and with my name I give more love than ever any man had for woman before in all this world. I lay my heart at your feet. It is yours whether you choose to pick it up or not."

She slowly withdrew her hand. Neither of them heard the long, deep sigh in the darkness beside them.

"I don't know what to say to you, Kenny," she murmured, almost inaudibly.

"There is nothing for you to say, Viola, unless you love me. I am sorry if I have distressed you. I only wanted you to know before I go away that I love you."

"I--I am glad you love me, Kenny. It makes me very happy. But it is all so strange, so unreal. I can't seem to convince myself that it is right for you to love me or for me to love you. Some day, perhaps, it will all straighten itself out in my mind and then I will know whether it is love,--the kind of love you want,--or just a dear, sweet affection that I feel for you."

"I understand," he said gravely. "It is too soon for you to know.

A brother turned into a lover, as if by magic, and you are bewildered.

I can only pray that the time will come when your heart tells you that you love me as I want you to, and as I love you."

They spoke thus freely before the girl's mother, for those were the days when a man's courting was not done surrept.i.tiously. It is doubtful, however, if they remembered her presence.

"There have been times--" she began, a trace of eagerness in her voice, "when something seemed to tell me that--that I ought to keep away from you. I used to have the queerest sensations running all over--" She did not complete the sentence; instead, as if in a sudden panic over the nearness of unmaidenly revelations, she somewhat breathlessly began all over again: "I guess it must have been a--a warning, or something."

"They say there is such a thing as a magnetic current between human beings," he said. "It was that, Viola. You felt my love laying hold upon you, touching you, caressing you."

"The other night, when you held me so close to you, I--I couldn't think of you as my brother."

Out of the darkness spoke Rachel Carter.

"You love each other," she said. "There is no use trying to explain or account for your feelings. The day you came here, Kenneth Gwynne, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I knew that this would happen.

It was as certain as the rising of the sun. It would have been as useless for me to attempt to stop the rising sun as to try to keep you two from falling in love with each other. It was so written long ago."

"But, mother, I am not sure,--how can you say that I am in love with him when I don't know it myself?" cried Viola.

"When you came, Kenneth, I knew that my days were numbered," went on the older woman, leaning forward in her chair. "The truth would have to come out. A force I could not stand up against had entered the field. For want of a better word we will call it Fate. It is useless to fight against Fate. If I had never told you two the truth about yourselves, you would have found it out anyway. You would have found it out in the touch of your hands, in the leap of the blood, in the strange, mysterious desire of the flesh over which the soul has no control. You began loving him, Viola,--without knowing it,--that night at Phineas Striker's. You--"

"How can you say such a thing, mother?" cried Viola hotly. "I was in love with Barry Lapelle at that--"

"You were never in love with Barry," broke in her mother calmly.

"I think I ought to know when I am in love and when I am not!"

"Be that as it may, you now know that you were never in love with him,--so it comes to the same thing."

Kenneth's heart gave a joyous bound. "I--I wish I could believe that. I wish I knew that you are not thinking of him now, Viola, and wanting him back in spite of all he has done."

Viola arose suddenly. "I am going in the house," she said haughtily.

"Neither of you seems to think I have a grain of sense. First mother says I am in love with you without knowing it, and now you are wondering if I am in love with Barry without knowing it, I suppose.

Don't you give me credit for having a mind of my own? And, mother, I've just got to say it, even if it is insolent,--I will be very much obliged to you if you will allow me to make up my own mind about Kenny. It is not for you or anybody else to say I am in love with him."

"Oh, don't go away angry, Viola," cried Kenneth, distressed. "Let's forget all we've said and--"

"I don't want to forget all we've said," she exclaimed, stamping her foot. "How dare you come over here and tell me you love me and then ask me to forget--Oh, if that's all it amounts to with you, Kenneth, I dare say I can make up my mind right now. I--"

"You will find, Kenneth," broke in her mother drily, "that she has a temper."

"I guess he has found that out before this," said Viola, from the doorstep. "He has had a taste of it. If he doesn't like--"

"I am used to tempers," said he, now lightly. "I have a devil of a temper myself."

"I don't believe it," she cried. "You've got the kindest, sweetest, gentlest nature I've ever--"

"Come and sit down, Viola," interrupted her mother, arising. "I am going in the house myself."

"You needn't, mother. I am going to bed. Good night, Kenny."

"I came to say good-bye," he reminded her.

She paused with her hand on the latch. He heard the little catch in her breath. Then she turned impulsively and came back to him.

He was still standing on the ground, several feet below her.

"What a beast I am, Kenny," she murmured contritely. "I waited out here all evening for you to come over so that I could say good-bye and tell you how much I shall miss you,--and to wish you a speedy and safe return. And you paid me a great compliment,--the greatest a girl can have. I don't deserve it. But I will miss you, Kenny,--I will miss you terribly. Now, I MUST go in. If I stay another second longer I'll say something mean and spiteful,--because I AM mean and spiteful, and no one knows it better than I do. Good-bye, Kenneth Gwynne."

"Good-bye, Minda Carter," he said softly, and again raised her hand to his lips. "My little Minda grown up to be the most beautiful queen in all the world."

She turned and fled swiftly into the house. They heard her go racing up the stairs,--then a door open and slam shut again.

"She would be very happy to-night, Kenneth, if it were not for one thing," said Rachel. "I still stand in the way. She cannot give herself to you except at a cost to me. There can be nothing between you until I stand before the world and say there is no reason why you should not be married to each other. Do you wonder that she does not know her own heart?"

"And I would not deserve her love and trust if I were to ask you to pay that price, Rachel Carter," said he steadily.