The Woman-Haters Part 32

"Of course I sha'n't," protested Brown. "It's my watch, and you need sleep yourself."

"No, I don't, neither," was the decided answer. "I slept between times up in the tower, off and on. You go and turn in. I've got to drive over to Eastboro by and by, and I want you to be wide awake while I'm away.

We ain't done with this spell of weather yet. We'll have rain and an easterly blow by night, see if we don't. You go right straight to bed."

"I shall do nothing of the sort."

"Yes, you will. I'm your boss and I order you to do it. No back talk, now. Go!"

So Brown went, unwilling but very tired. He was sound asleep in ten minutes.

Seth busied himself about the house, occasionally stepping to the window to look out at the weather. An observer would have noticed that before leaving the window on each of these occasions, his gaze invariably turned toward the bungalow. His thoughts were more constant than his gaze; they never left his little cottage across the cove. In fact, they had scarcely left it for the past month. He washed the breakfast dishes, set the room in order, and was turning once more toward the window, when he heard a footstep approaching the open door. He knew the step; it was one with which he had been familiar during other and happier days, and now, once more--after all the years and his savage determination to forget and to hate--it had the power to awaken strange emotions in his breast. Yet his first move was to run into the living room and close his helper's chamber door. When he came back to the kitchen, shutting the living-room door carefully behind him, Mrs. Bascom was standing on the sill. She started when she saw him.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed. "You? I cal'lated, of course, you was abed and asleep."

The lightkeeper waved his hands.

"S-sh-h!" he whispered.

"What shall I s-sh-h about? Your young man's gone somewhere, I s'pose, else you wouldn't be here."

"No, he ain't. He's turned in, tired out."

"Oh, then I guess I'd better go back home. 'Twas him I expected to see, else, of course, I shouldn't have come."

"Oh, I know that," with a sigh. "Where's your boss, Miss Graham?"

"She's gone for a walk along sh.o.r.e. I came over to--to bring back them eggs I borrowed."

"Did you? Where are they?"

The housekeeper seemed embarra.s.sed, and her plump cheeks reddened.

"I--I declare I forgot to bring 'em after all," she stammered.

"I want to know. That's funny. You don't often--that is, you didn't use to forget things hardly ever, Emeline."

"Hum! you remember a lot, don't you."

"I remember more'n you think I do, Emeline."

"That's enough of that, Seth. Remember what I told you last time we saw each other."

"Oh, all right, all right. I ain't rakin' up bygones. I s'pose I deserve all I'm gettin'."

"I s'pose you do. Well, long's I forgot the eggs I guess I might as well be trottin' back. . . . You--you've been all right--you and Mr. Brown, I mean--for the last few days, while the storm was goin' on?"

"Um-h'm," gloomily. "How about you two over to the bungalow? You've kept dry and snug, I judge."

"Yes."

"I didn't know but you might be kind of nervous and scart when 'twas blowin'. All alone so."

"Humph! I've got used to bein' alone. As for Miss Ruth, I don't think she's scart of anythin'."

"Well, I was sort of nervous about you, if you wa'n't about yourself.

'Twas consider'ble of a gale of wind. I thought one spell I'd blow out of the top of the tower."

"So did I. I could see your shadow movin' 'round up there once in a while. What made you come out on the gallery in the worst of it night afore last?"

"Oh, the birds was smas.h.i.+n' themselves to pieces against the gla.s.s same as they always do in a storm, and I . . . But say! 'twas after twelve when I came out. How'd you come to see me? What was your doin' up that time of night?"

Mrs. Bascom's color deepened. She seemed put out by the question.

"So much racket a body couldn't sleep," she explained sharply. "I thought the s.h.i.+ngles would lift right off the roof."

"But you wa'n't lookin' at the s.h.i.+ngles. You was lookin' at the lighthouses; you jest said so. Emeline, was you lookin' for me? Was you worried about me?"

He bent forward eagerly.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said, "you'll wake up the other woman-hater."

"I don't care. I don't care if I wake up all creation. Emeline, I believe you was worried about me, same as I was about you. More'n that,"

he added, conviction and exultation in his tone, "I don't believe 'twas eggs that fetched you here this mornin' at all. I believe you came to find out if we--if I was all right. Didn't you?"

"I didn't come to SEE you, be sure of that," with emphatic scorn.

"I know. But you was goin' to see Brown and find out from him. Answer me. Answer me now, didn't--"

She stepped toward the door. He extended an arm and held her back.

"You answer me," he commanded.

She tried to pa.s.s him, but his arm was like an iron bar. She hesitated a moment and then laughed nervously.

"You certainly have took to orderin' folks round since the old days,"

she said. "Why, yes, then; I did come to find out if you hadn't got cold, or somethin'. You're such a child and I'm such a soft-headed fool I couldn't help it, I cal'late?"

"Emeline, s'pose I had got cold. S'pose you found I was sick--what then?"

"Why--why, then I guess likely I'd have seen the doctor on my way through Eastboro. I shall be goin' that way to-morrer when I leave here."

"When you leave here? What do you mean by that?"

"Just what I say. Miss Graham's goin' to Boston to-morrer, and I'm goin'

with her--as far as the city."

"But--but you're comin' back!"