Jupiter Lights Part 27

The judge looked at her with eyes of despair.

Cicely went on. "No; it is not his illness that made Ferdie tell me to stay here. He has some other reason. And I am _afraid._"

"What are you afraid of?"

"I don't know,--that is the worst of it! Since his letter, I have imagined everything. I cannot bear it any longer; you must take me to him to-morrow, or I shall start by myself; I could easily do it, I could outwit you twenty times over."

"Outwit? You talk in that way to _me?_"

Cicely watched him as his face quivered, all his features seeming to shrink together for an instant. "I suppose I seem selfish, grandpa." She threw out her hands with sudden pa.s.sion. "I don't want to be, I don't mean to be! It is you who are keeping me here. Can't you see that I _must_ go? _Can't_ you?"

"Why no, I can't," said the old man, terrified by her vehemence.

"There's no use talking, then." She left him, and went back through the woods towards the tents.

The judge came up from the beach alone. Hollis, who was sitting by the fire, noted his desolate face. "Euchre?" he proposed, good-naturedly.

(He called it "yuke.") But the judge neither saw him nor heard him.

As Cicely reached her tent, she met Eve coming out, with Jack in her arms. She seized the child, felt of his feet and knees, and then, holding him tightly, she carried him to the fire, where she seated herself on a bench. Eve came also, and stood beside the fire. After a moment the judge seated himself humbly on the other end of the bench which held his grandchild. There was a pause, broken only by the crackling of the flame. Then Cicely said, with a dry little laugh, "You had better go to your tent, Mr. Hollis. You need not take part in this family quarrel."

"Quarrel!" replied Hollis, cheerily. "Who could quarrel with you, Mrs.

Morrison? Might as well quarrel with a bobolink." No one answered him.

"Don't know as you've ever seen a bobolink?" he went on, rather anxiously. "I a.s.sure you--lively and magnificent!"

"It is a pity you are so devoted to Paul," remarked Cicely, looking at him.

"Devoted? Well, now, I never thought I should come to _that_," said Hollis, with a grin of embarra.s.sment, kicking the brands of the fire apart with, his boot.

"Because if you weren't, I might take you into my confidence--I need some one; I want to run away from grandpa and Eve."

"Oh, I dare say," said Hollis, jocularly. But his eyes happening to fall first upon Eve, then upon the judge, he grew suddenly disturbed. "Why don't you take Paul?" he suggested, still trying to be jocular. "He is a better helper than I am."

"Paul is my head jailer," answered Cicely. "Grandpa and Eve are only his a.s.sistants."

The judge covered his face with his hand. Hollis saw that he was suffering acutely. "Paul had better come and defend himself," he said, still clinging to his jocosity; "I am going to get him." And he started towards Paul's tent with long swinging strides, like the lope of an Indian.

"Cicely," said Eve, coming to the bench, "I will take you to Romney, if that is what you want; we will start to-morrow."

"Saul among the prophets!" answered Cicely, cynically. "Are you planning to escape from me with Jack, as I am planning to escape from grandpa?"

"I am not planning anything; I only want to help you."

Cicely looked at her. "Curiously enough, Eve, I believe you. I don't know what has changed you, but I believe you."

The judge looked up; the two women held each other's hands. The judge left his seat and hurried away.

He arrived at Paul's tent breathless. The hanging lamp within illuminated a rude table which held ink and paper; Paul had evidently stopped in the midst of his writing, for he still held his pen in his hand.

"I was saying to Paul that he really ought to come out now and talk to the ladies, instead of crooking his back over that writing," said Hollis.

But the judge waved him aside. "For G.o.d's sake, Tennant, come out, and see what you can do with Cicely! She is determined to go to that murdering brother of yours in spite of--"

"Hold up, if you please, about my brother," said Paul, putting down his pen.

"And Eve is abetting her;--says she will take her to-morrow."

"Not Miss Bruce? What has made her change so?--confound her!"

The judge had already started to lead the way back. But Hollis, who was behind, touched Paul's arm. "I say, don't confound her too much, Paul,"

he said, in a low tone. "She is a remarkably clever girl. And she thinks a lot of you."

"Sorry for her, then," answered Paul, going out. As Hollis still kept up with him, he added, "How do you know she does?"

"Because I like her myself," answered Hollis, bravely. "When you're that way, you know, you can always tell."

He fell behind. Paul went on alone.

When he reached the camp-fire, Cicely looked up. "Oh, you've come!"

"Yes."

"There are two of us now. Eve is on my side."

"So I have heard." He went to Eve, took her arm, and led her away almost by force to the shadow at some distance from the fire. "What in the world has made you change so?" he said. "Do you know--it's abject."

"Yes, it's abject," Eve answered. She could see him looking at her in the dusky darkness; she had never been looked at in such a way before.

"It's brave, too," she added, trying to keep back the tears.

"I don't understand riddles."

"I think you understand mine." She had said it. She had been seized with a sudden wild desire to make an end of it, to put it into words. The overweight of daring which nature had given her drew her on.

"Well, if I do, then," answered Paul, "why don't you want to please me?"

She turned her head away, suffocated by his calm acceptance of her avowal. "It would be of no use. And I want to make one woman happy; so few women are happy!"

"Do you call it happy to have Ferdie knocking her about?"

"She does."

"And knocking about Jack, too?"

"I shall be there, I can take care of Jack."

"I see I can do nothing with you. You have lost your senses!"

He went back to Cicely. "Ferdie has his faults, Cicely, as we both know; but you have yours too, you make yourself out too important. How many other women do you think he has cared for?"

"Before he saw me, five hundred, if you like; five thousand."