Norston's Rest Part 55

"Ruth Jessup in the park at this time of night? You cannot make me believe that."

"In the park and at 'Norston's Rest,' down upon her knees by a window, with ivy all around it, looking in upon the sick heir like a hungry cat watching a canary."

"You saw this, Judith--saw it with your own eyes?" cried Storms, sitting upright on the bench.

"Saw it! I should think so. She was so busy trying to open the window, that I went close under the balcony and could see her face plain enough by the light that came through the gla.s.s."

"Trying to open the window--did you say that?"

"Yes, again and again. She grew desperate at last, and shook it, calling out, 'Walton! Walton!'"

"She called that name?"

"Yes, more than once. It didn't wake the young man inside though, but some one else must have heard, for the door opened and a man came into the chamber."

"What did she do then?"

"Do! Why she shrunk back and came down some stone steps that are hid away in the ivy, and was half across the flower garden before I dared to move."

"But you overtook her?"

"Of course I did; though my feet got tangled in with the ivy, and I almost fell down; but, once safe on the ground, I tracked her swift enough, for she seemed to scorn moving beyond a walk."

"But she did not see you?"

"No, I can move quietly enough when it suits me. So she knew nothing of me, though I longed to give her a sharp bit of my tongue."

"I'll be bound you did," said Storms, with a disagreeable laugh.

The girl took this as a compliment, and gave the hand, which was dropped listlessly into hers, a grateful pressure.

"'It was awful ungrateful of the young gentleman, though, to be so sound asleep,' I was longing to say. If it had been my Richard, now."

"Did you think to say that?" cried Storms, starting up in sudden wrath. "Would you have dared to say that to her?"

Judith started to her feet also. He had jerked his hand from hers, and stood frowning on her in the moonlight, while defiance kindled in her eyes.

"That's just what I would 'a' been glad to say; not that she would have cared a bra.s.s farthing, for my opinion is, that girl hates your very name, for all your talk that she's dying for you. But such words from her would have been red-hot coals to me."

"Do you think she would stoop to bandy words with such as you?" said Storms, softening his wrath into a malicious enjoyment of her jealous pa.s.sion.

"Such as me, indeed! What is the difference, I should like to know?

Only this. I come here because you ask me and urge me to it, while she hasn't the courage, but sits wors.h.i.+pping her sweetheart like a rabbit peeping into a garden it has not the spirit to enter."

"Wors.h.i.+pping! As if she cared for the man!" said Storms, with supreme disdain. "There is nothing in it. She only wants to make me jealous, thinking to bring me back again in that way."

"It seems to me as if you were jealous."

"Jealous!" repeated the young man, growing cautious on reflection. "As if I cared enough for Ruth Jessup for that!"

"I am not so sure," answered Judith, as if talking to herself; "but when I am, it will be a dark day for one of us."

Storms laughed.

"Always threatening some terrible thing," he said, "as if there were any need of that; but how came you, my own sweetheart, Judith Hart, to be wandering about 'The Rest?'"

"I saw her as I was coming this way. She was standing in the cottage porch, giving frightened looks around. The moon was not up yet, though it is climbing into the sky now, but a light streamed through the pa.s.sage, and I saw her plain enough. Then she stole out, as if in search of some one. I thought she was going into the wilderness."

"Ah, ha! Who was jealous then?"

"Who denies it? That minute I could have killed her. She turned toward 'The Rest.' I followed, thinking--"

"Thinking that I might come that way."

"Well, yes. I did think just that; and followed her softly as one of your own hounds would have crept. When I saw where she was going, the fire all went out of my heart. I could have cried for joy that--that it was no worse."

"Still you hated her!"

"Because she dared to love where I did."

"Do you indeed love me so, Judith?"

"Do I love myself, so common and worthless, compared to you? Do I love the air I breathe? Do I love sleep, after a hard day's work? Oh, oh, Richard, why ask such silly questions?"

"Why? Oh, because one is never certain. Girls are so fickle now-a-days."

"As if any girl who ever loved you could be fickle."

Storms looked into the girl's face as she nestled close to him, and a strange, fond glow came into his eyes. He was thinking how much she looked like Ruth Jessup, with that warm love-light in her face--how beautiful she really was in the l.u.s.tre of that rising moon. Tenderness with him at the moment was not all a pretence. But Storms was a man to bring the worst as well as the best pa.s.sions of a heart down to his own interests, and never, for a moment, since he had seen old Jessup's letter in Judith's hand, had he ceased to devise some means of gaining possession of it.

"Words are so easily spoken," he said; "but I like deeds. I want the girl I love to trust me."

"And don't I trust you? What other girl would be here at this time of the night, risking her character, when she has nothing else in the world, just because you want things to be kept secret, while I can't for the life of me see the reason of it?"

"That is what I complain of. True love asks no questions."

"How can you say that when you have done nothing but ask questions ever since I came here? All about her too," retorted the quick-witted girl.

"That is because I am interested in everything you do," was the prompt answer. "How could I watch here half an hour, and at last see you rush in so wildly, half out of breath and panting, to tell all that you had seen, without feeling some curiosity?"

"Yes, indeed, I can understand that."

"Then there is another thing."

"Well," said Judith, more quietly; for she guessed what was coming.

"What is it?"

"That paper. It is of no use to you, and might help me a good deal."