The Tides of Barnegat Part 13

interwoven with the pain which the announcement had given him was the sharper sorrow of her neglect of him. In forming her plans she had never once thought of her lifelong friend.

"Why did you not tell me something of this before?" The inquiry was not addressed to Jane, but to the smouldering coals. "How have I ever failed you? What has my daily life been but an open book for you to read, and here you leave me for years, and never give me a thought."

Jane started in her seat.

"Forgive me, my dear friend!" she answered quickly in a voice full of tenderness. "I did not mean to hurt you. It is not that I love all my friends here the less--and you know how truly I appreciate your own friends.h.i.+p--but only that I love my sister more; and my duty is with her. I only decided last night. Don't turn your back on me. Come and sit by me, and talk to me," she pleaded, holding out her hand. "I need all your strength." As she spoke the tears started to her eyes and her voice sank almost to a whisper.

The doctor lifted his head from his palm and walked quickly toward her.

The suffering in her voice had robbed him of all resentment.

"Forgive me, I did not mean it. Tell me," he said, in a sudden burst of tenderness--all feeling about himself had dropped away--"why must you go so soon? Why not wait until spring?" He had taken his seat beside her now and sat looking into her eyes.

"Lucy wants to go at once," she replied, in a tone as if the matter did not admit of any discussion.

"Yes, I know. That's just like her. What she wants she can never wait a minute for, but she certainly would sacrifice some pleasure of her own to please you. If she was determined to be a musician it would be different, but it is only for her pleasure, and as an accomplishment."

He spoke earnestly and impersonally, as he always did when she consulted him on any of her affairs, He was trying, too, to wipe from her mind all remembrance of his impatience.

Jane kept her eyes on the carpet for a moment, and then said quietly, and he thought in rather a hopeless tone:

"It is best we go at once."

The doctor looked at her searchingly--with the eye of a scientist, this time, probing for a hidden meaning.

"Then there is something else you have not told me; someone is annoying her, or there is someone with whom you are afraid she will fall in love. Who is it? You know how I could help in a matter of that kind."

"No; there is no one."

Doctor John leaned back thoughtfully and tapped the arm of the sofa with his fingers. He felt as if a door had been shut in his face.

"I don't understand it," he said slowly, and in a baffled tone. "I have never known you to do a thing like this before. It is entirely unlike you. There is some mystery you are keeping from me. Tell me, and let me help."

"I can tell you nothing more. Can't you trust me to do my duty in my own way?" She stole a look at him as she spoke and again lowered her eyelids.

"And you are determined to go?" he asked in his former cross-examining tone.

"Yes."

Again the doctor kept silence. Despite her a.s.sumed courage and determined air, his experienced eye caught beneath it all the shrinking helplessness of the woman.

"Then I, too, have reached a sudden resolve," he said in a manner almost professional in its precision. "You cannot and shall not go alone."

"Oh, but Lucy and I can get along together," she exclaimed with nervous haste. "There is no one we could take but Martha, and she is too old.

Besides she must look after the house while we are away."

"No; Martha will not do. No woman will do. I know Paris and its life; it is not the place for two women to live in alone, especially so pretty and light-hearted a woman as Lucy."

"I am not afraid."

"No, but I am," he answered in a softened voice, "very much afraid." It was no longer the physician who spoke, but the friend.

"Of what?"

"Of a dozen things you do not understand, and cannot until you encounter them," he replied, smoothing her hand tenderly.

"Yes, but it cannot be helped. There is no one to go with us." This came with some positiveness, yet with a note of impatience in her voice.

"Yes, there is," he answered gently.

"Who?" she asked slowly, withdrawing her hand from his caress, an undefined fear rising in her mind.

"Me. I will go with you."

Jane looked at him with widening eyes. She knew now. She had caught his meaning in the tones of his voice before he had expressed it, and had tried to think of some way to ward off what she saw was coming, but she was swept helplessly on.

"Let us go together, Jane," he burst out, drawing closer to her. All reserve was gone. The words which had pressed so long for utterance could no longer be held back. "I cannot live here alone without you.

You know it, and have always known it. I love you so--don't let us live apart any more. If you must go, go as my wife."

A thrill of joy ran through her. Her lips quivered. She wanted to cry out, to put her arms around his neck, to tell him everything in her heart. Then came a quick, sharp pain that stifled every other thought.

For the first time the real bitterness of the situation confronted her.

This phase of it she had not counted upon.

She shrank back a little. "Don't ask me that!" she moaned in a tone almost of pain. "I can stand anything now but that. Not now--not now!"

Her hand was still under his, her fingers lying limp, all the pathos of her suffering in her face: determination to do her duty, horror over the situation, and above them all her overwhelming love for him.

He put his arm about her shoulders and drew her to him.

"You love me, Jane, don't you?"

"Yes, more than all else in the world," she answered simply. "Too well"--and her voice broke--"to have you give up your career for me or mine."

"Then why should we live apart? I am willing to do as much for Lucy as you would. Let me share the care and responsibility. You needn't, perhaps, be gone more than a year, and then we will all come back together, and I take up my work again. I need you, my beloved. Nothing that I do seems of any use without you. You are my great, strong light, and have always been since the first day I loved you. Let me help bear these burdens. You have carried them so long alone."

His face lay against hers now, her hand still clasped tight in his. For an instant she did not answer or move; then she straightened a little and lifted her cheek from his.

"John," she said--it was the first time in all her life she had called him thus--"you wouldn't love me if I should consent. You have work to do here and I now have work to do on the other side. We cannot work together; we must work apart. Your heart is speaking, and I love you for it, but we must not think of it now. It may come right some time--G.o.d only knows! My duty is plain--I must go with Lucy. Neither you nor my dead father would love me if I did differently."

"I only know that I love you and that you love me and nothing else should count," he pleaded impatiently. "Nothing else shall count. There is nothing you could do would make me love you less. You are practical and wise about all your plans. Why has this whim of Lucy's taken hold of you as it has? And it is only a whim; Lucy will want something else in six months. Oh, I cannot--cannot let you go. I'm so desolate without you--my whole life is yours--everything I do is for you. O Jane, my beloved, don't shut me out of your life! I will not let you go without me!" His voice vibrated with a certain indignation, as if he had been unjustly treated. She raised one hand and laid it on his forehead, smoothing his brow as a mother would that of a child. The other still lay in his.

"Don't, John," she moaned, in a half-piteous tone. "Don't! Don't talk so! I can only bear comforting words to-day. I am too wretched--too utterly broken and miserable. Please! please, John!"

He dropped her hand and leaning forward put both of his own to his head. He knew how strong was her will and how futile would be his efforts to change her mind unless her conscience agreed.

"I won't," he answered, as a strong man answers who is baffled. "I did not mean to be impatient or exacting." Then he raised his head and looked steadily into her eyes. "What would you have me do, then?"

"Wait."

"But you give me no promise."