The Deliverance Part 55

Releasing herself, she put her hand upon his lips to silence him.

"You have made your confession," she said earnestly, with the serene dignity which had impressed him in the first moment of their meeting, "and now I will make mine. You must not stop me; you must not look at me until I finish. Promise."

"I promise to keep silent," he answered, with his gaze upon her.

She drew away from him, keeping her eyes full on his, and holding him at arm's length with the tips of her fingers. He felt that she was still shaken by his embrace--that she was still in a quiver from his kisses; but to all outward seeming she had regained the n.o.ble composure of her bearing.

"No, no. Ah, listen, my friend, and do not touch me. What I must tell you is this, and you must hear me patiently to the end. I have loved you always--from the first day; since the beginning.

There has never been any one else, and there has never been a moment in my life when I would not have followed you had you lifted a finger anywhere. At first I did not know--I did not believe it. It was but a pa.s.sing fancy, I thought, that you had murdered. I taught myself to believe that I was cold, inhuman, because I did not warm to other men. Oh, I did not know then that I was not stone, but ice, which would melt at the first touch of the true flame ."

"Maria!" he burst out in a cry of anguish.

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ Remember your promise. It was not until afterward,"

she went on in the same quiet voice; "it was not until my marriage--not until my soul shuddered back from his embraces and I dreamed of you, that I began to see--to understand."

"Oh, Maria, my beloved, if I had known!"

She still held him from her with her outstretched arm.

"It was the knowledge of this that made me feel that I had wronged him--that I had defrauded him of the soul of love and given him only the poor flesh. It was this that held me to him all those wretched years--that kept me with him till the end, even through his madness. At last I buried your memory, told myself that I had forgotten."

"We will let the world go, dearest," he said pa.s.sionately. "Come to me."

But she shook her head, and, still smiling, held him at a distance.

"It will never go," she answered, "for it is not the world's way.

But whatever comes to us, there is one thing you must remember--that you must never forget for one instant while you live. In good or evil, in life or death, there is no height so high nor any depth so low that I will not follow you."

Then waving him from her with a decisive gesture, she turned from him and went swiftly home across the moonlit fields.

CHAPTER VI. Treats of the Tragedy Which Wears a Comic Mask

As she hastened on, Christopher's presence was still with her--his arm still enveloped her, his voice still spoke in her ears; and so rapt was the ecstasy in which she moved that it was with a positive shock that she found herself presently before the little area which led into the brick kitchen in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Hall. Here from the darkness her name was spoken in a stifled voice, while a hand reached out and clutched her by the shoulder.

"I say, Maria, I've been waiting hours to speak to you."

Forcing back the cry upon her lips, she opened the door and stole softly into the kitchen. Then, turning, she faced Will with a frightened gesture.

"How reckless--how very reckless!" she exclaimed in a whisper.

He closed the door that led up into the house, and coming over to the stove, where the remains of a fire still smouldered in a deep red glow, stood looking at her with nervous twitches of his reddened eyelids. There was a wildness in his face before which she fell back appalled, and his whole appearance, from the damp hair lying in streaks upon his forehead to his restless feet which he shuffled continually as he talked, betrayed an agitation so extreme as to cause her a renewed pang of foreboding.

"Oh, Will, you have been drinking again!" she said, in the same frightened whisper.

"And why not?" he demanded, throwing out his words between thick breaths. "What business is it of yours or of anybody else's if I have been? A pretty sister you are--aren't you?--to let a fellow rot away on a tobacco farm while you wear diamonds on your fingers."

She looked at him steadily for a moment, and his s.h.i.+fting glance fell slowly to the floor.

"If you are in any fresh trouble you may as well tell me at once," she said. "It is a mere waste of time and breath to reproach me. You can't possibly make me angry to-night, for I wear an armour of which you do not dream, and so little a thing as abuse does not even touch me. Besides, grandfather may hear us and come down at any moment. So speak quickly."

Her coolness sobered him instantly, as if a splash of icewater had been thrown into his face, and his tone lost its aggressiveness and sank into a whimpering complaint.

It was the same old thing, he went on, only worse and worse.

Molly had been ill again, and the doctor ordered medicine he couldn't buy. Yes, he had tried to take the diamond from her, but she flew into hysterics at the mere mention of selling it. Once he had dragged it off her finger, and had given it back again because her wildness frightened him, "Why on earth did you ever let her have it?" he finished querulously.

"Well, I never imagined she would be quite so silly," returned Maria, distressed by what she heard. "But it may be that jewels are really her pa.s.sion, and the bravest of us, I suppose, are those who sacrifice most for their dearest desire. I really don't see what is to be done, Will. I haven't any money, and I don't dare ask grandfather, for he makes me keep a strict account of every cent I spend. Only yesterday he told me he couldn't allow me but two postage stamps a week, and yet I believe that he is worth considerably more than half a million dollars. Sometimes I think it is nothing short of pure insanity, he grows so miserly about little things. Aunt Saidie and I have both noticed that he would rather spend a hundred dollars--though it is like drawing out an eyetooth--than keep a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter from the market."

"And yet he likes you?"

"Oh, he tolerates me, as far as that goes; but I don't believe he likes anything on earth except his money. It's his great pa.s.sion, just as Molly's love of jewelry is hers. There is something so tremendous about it that one can't help respect it. As for me, he only bears with my presence so long as I ask him for absolutely nothing. He knows I have my little property, and we had a dreadful scene when I refused to let him keep my check-book. I gave you all the interest of the last six months, you know, and the other isn't due until November. If he finds out that it goes to you, heaven help us!"

"And there's not the faintest hope of his coming to his senses?

Have you spoken of me again?"

"I've mentioned your name twice, that was all. He rose and stamped out of the room, and didn't speak for days. Aunt Saidie and I have planned to bring the baby over when it comes. That may soften him--especially if it should be a boy."

"Oh, the bottom will drop out of things by that time," he returned savagely, tearing pieces of straw from his worn hat-brim. "If this keeps up much longer, Maria, I warn you now I'll run away. I'll go off some day on a freight train and hide my head until he dies; then I'll come back to enjoy his precious money."

She sighed, thinking hopelessly of the altered will.

"And Molly?" she questioned, for lack of a more effectual argument.

"I can't stop to think of Molly: it drives me mad. What use am I to her, anyway, I'd like to know? She'd be quite as well off without me, for we do nothing but quarrel now night and day; and yet I love her--I love her awfully," he added in a drunken whimper.

"Oh, Will, Will, be a man for her sake!"

"I can't; I can't," he protested, his voice rising in anger. "I can't stand the squalor of this life; it's killing me. Why, look at the way I was brought up, never stopping an instant to ask whether I could have a thing I wanted. He had no right to accustom me to luxuries till I couldn't do without them and then throw me out upon the world like this!"

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ Your voice is too loud. It will bring him down."

"I'll be hanged if I care!" he retorted, but involuntarily he lowered his tone.

"You mustn't stay here five minutes longer," urged Maria. "I'll give you a diamond brooch I still have left, and you may take it to town yourself and sell it. Only promise me on your honour that you will spend the money on the things Molly needs."

"Oh, I promise," he replied roughly. "Where is it?"

"In my room. I must get it now. Be perfectly quiet until I return."

Opening the door and closing it carefully behind her, she stole noiselessly up the dark staircase, while Will, twitching nervously, paced restlessly up and down the brick floor. A pile of walnuts which Miss Saidie had been sh.e.l.ling for cake lay on the hearth, and, picking up the heavy old hammer she had used, he cracked a nut and ate it hurriedly. Hungry as he was--for he had not been home to supper--he found difficulty in swallowing, and, laying the hammer down upon the bricks, he rose and stood waiting beside the stove. Though the night was warm, a s.h.i.+ver ran suddenly through him, and, stirring the fading embers with a splinter of resinous pine, he held out his shaking hands to the blaze.

In a moment Maria entered and handed him the brooch in a little box.

"Try to keep up courage, Will," she said, pus.h.i.+ng him into the area under the back steps; "and above all things, do not come here again. It is so unsafe."

He promised lightly that he would not, and then told her good-by with an affectionate pat upon the arm.

"Well, you are a bully good chap, after all," he added, as he stepped out into the night.