Maida was filled with tender solicitude, and he would have been overwhelmed with her inquiries and suggestions, if he had been attending to what she said; but it scarcely seemed as if he were. "Was it a qualm? Was he faint? Did he feel better now? Perhaps his heart was weak, and he had over-exerted himself in the sun. She would never forgive herself for taking him so long a walk. Would he not try some wine?" which last was an ill-advised question, seeing they were then in the State of Maine, where strong drink is not partaken of in public. Not that an innkeeper's guests must go without--far from it; but they must imbibe their stimulants _sub rosa_, though the concealment is merely of a conventional kind.

Gilbert ate very little dinner, and poor Maida never taxed her skill to interest and enliven, with less success than during that meal.

Her companion attempted to eat one thing and another, and he drank ice-water, but he had become deaf as the adder which refuses to hear the voice of the charmer. He parted from her at the dining-room door, saying he would go in search of brandy, as he really felt ill; and Maida ended the Sunday which had begun so brightly, in solicitude and wretchedness. She might have had as much sympathy as she pleased from her elderly friend, but the unending Denwiddie babble was more than she could endure. It was easier to be alone and nurse her anxiety.

There was a foreboding on her spirit which she could not define, a clouding over of the future and its dawning hopes, which she felt but could not explain. Nothing had happened, so far as she knew, but she felt a frost in the air, which had been so warm and bland, and it was nipping the blossoms in her poor fool's paradise.

CHAPTER XXV.

ROSE AND THE RING.

When Rose was left alone with Margaret in the fisherman's hut, she sat down upon a bench before the fire and gazed into the embers, falling into a reverie in which ideas not all pleasurable chased each other as fitfully as the leaping flames which licked the new-laid log, as if searching for a spot on which they might fasten and take hold. Her companion sat by and wondered at her silence. She had been so gay a little before, while the men were still with them, and now her lips were tightly closed, and there came an angry frown upon her brow. That changed into a look of triumph and disdain, which faded in its turn into one almost soft and pitiful; and that in time gave place to one of sadness, and she sighed, and her features fell into the desponding look of one who bids adieu to hope. She moved impatiently, as if to shake off brooding thoughts which were settling down to oppress and stifle her--as some stricken animal might struggle to beat back the greedy kites swooping down to tear their prey, ere death had prepared the feast. She roused herself with an effort, and turned to speak.

"You have had a good time, Margaret, have you not?"

"Perhaps I might say the same to you, Rose. You were very long of returning from your stroll. But I will not deny that I am glad we missed the boat."

"You might tell a blind man that, my dear. The rest of us can see it.

I admire your taste. He is a good fellow, I am sure, and handsome; and devoted too, if signs tell anything."

"We have known each other all our lives--at least, since I was quite a little girl. It must be five years that we have known one another now."

"A long time."

"But you will promise me, Rose dear, not to say anything to anybody when we get back? n.o.body knows that he came here. Still, Uncle Joseph is here too--my guardian as well as my uncle, you know--and you are here, another girl to keep me in countenance, so there is nothing Mrs Grundy can disapprove. If he and you had not joined us, I should not have missed the steamer, you may be sure; or if I had--but that is no matter.

"Mamma is very fond of him, you must know--or she used to be. But she is afraid of our becoming engaged, and she has been bothering, ever since we came to Clam Beach.... Uncle Joseph is safe, I am sure, though he will not acknowledge that he approves. I know he will not cause trouble. So it all rests with you, dear. Promise me. You will not make mischief? A careless word might do it, you see. But you will forget his being here? It is Jake's boat, you know, we are to go home in tomorrow morning.... He is a fisherman, you know, who fortunately was here when the storm overtook us."

"I know, dear. We won't spoil sport, I promise you; and we will help you all we can--all _I_ can, I ought to say. What right have I to promise for your uncle? I am talking nonsense. What help can I--I declare my mind is astray--I must be growing sleepy. Let us see how we are to dispose ourselves for the night. They are to call us at daylight, you know, and it must be late."

Margaret had shot an intelligent glance at Rose when that "we" slipped out unawares. Her lips parted in a smile at the endeavour to correct it. She understood it all. Rose changed colour, though she said nothing more; but both were unwontedly affectionate when they said good night, and composed themselves to sleep.

The early morning saw the party afloat again on the bay, under all the sail their boat would carry, making straight for Lippenstock, and in the best of spirits. Even Peter Wilkie was gay; there was breakfast in prospect, and a bath, at Lippenstock. As for the others, the present was enough, and they did not waste thought upon the future: cutting smoothly through the gla.s.sy tide which babbled at their prow, fanned by cool airs, and seated where it was best to be, exchanging short sentences in undertones, with long and pleasant gaps of silence in between. If any brow betrayed a line of discontent, it was Blount's.

Things had not ended altogether as he had hoped or wished. When he had hired Jake and his boat, he had thought that perhaps he should meet Margaret wandering by herself, that he might persuade her to an elopement, and sail away; and this was all which had come of it. They were sailing, indeed, but the "away" was only for Margaret, while he, "poor devil," as he told himself with deep compa.s.sion, must stay behind at Lippenstock. However, there would be other chances, more excursions and merrymakings at which he might surrept.i.tiously a.s.sist, and some time win his point. She was worth it, as he told himself, lying gazing up in her face, while her eyes roved idly across the dancing water; and even if it should come to her mother's ears that he had been on the island that night, the news would aid his hopes, rather than hinder. It would incite her to worry the girl worse than ever, and Margaret was not of the kind to be worried for long. There was the look in her nostril of one who could take the bit in her teeth and bolt, if fretted too far by injudicious reining.

Rose and Joseph sat behind the other two, Rose calmly, even impa.s.sively perhaps, accepting the a.s.siduous little cares of which it seemed as if Joseph could not lavish enough. At last he took her hand, lying nerveless on her lap, and began to examine it.

"Take off your glove, dearest," he whispered; "I want to measure your finger. How can I feel secure of this treasure I so little deserve, till I have fettered it with a link? When I see my ring upon your hand, I shall feel better a.s.sured that we are indeed engaged."

There came a line of faint contraction between her eyebrows, which was scarcely a frown. It may have been mere impatience, or perhaps it was dread or remorse.

"Not now," she said abruptly, withdrawing her hand and looking away to the harbour, which was wearing near. "My glove is tight; my hands feel hot and swollen this morning. Another time," and drew a quick short breath which seemed half a sob. Then turning round to him, as though she feared he might feel vexed, she added, with a doubtful smile, "There's time enough, you know. We shall be at the wharf before I could draw it on again;" and then, hurried and constrained, plunged into voluble expression of such commonplaces as occurred to her.

Joseph felt chilled, though he told himself there was no ground for feeling so. It seemed as if the first thin cloud had come between him and the sun, the sun so lately risen, in whose beams he had been warming his poor starved heart. He had little to answer to the commonplaces; they ran themselves out ere long, and both were lapsing into silence when they reached the sh.o.r.e.

The party of four which drove from Lippenstock was not a very talkative one; in fact, if the truth were told, all were more or less sleepy. The hour was still on the early side of noon; but when the day begins between three o'clock and four, for persons whose waking hour is seven--when those persons, instead of breaking their fast when they get up, spend hours in the keen morning air and on the water before breakfast, a heaviness supervenes, and the system of the individual makes it late in the day, however early be the time which the clock may indicate. Wilkie, as was not unnatural, began to feel the expedition something of a bore. He had not been admired so much by the ladies, or consulted by the men, as to compensate for irregular meals or hours, and indifferent repose on the open sh.o.r.e. Margaret had parted from Walter, and for her the pleasure was over--something to remember and think about, but all of the past. Rose was pensive and very still, though it did not appear from her behaviour of what nature were her thoughts. Joseph was yet under the influence of that chilling sensation which had fallen on him in the boat--a creeping melancholy which stole on him in spite of every consideration which good sense could suggest, the reaction perhaps from his transports of the night before. He found himself sinking into despondent broodings, from which every now and then he would awaken with a start, and tip up his horses with an unnecessary flick of the whip. How much these dumb servants have to bear from the wayward moods of their masters, and how many an unmerited cut descends upon their patient sides!

Rose spent the remainder of the morning in her room, sitting listless and despondent where she had sunk on entering it. There was no eye present before whom she must hang out the veils and disguises of conventional life. Her head hung forward on her breast, her hands lay folded on her lap. The light had faded from her eyes, her features were drawn and set, and she looked as unlike a promised bride, a woman who, of her own free will, has accepted an offer of marriage, as it was possible to imagine.

The man was all she could desire, she told herself. The disparity in their years did not once present itself to her mind. She felt very friendly to him, liked him, respected him; but she could not love.

"Could she ever love any one?"--that was the miserable thought which rose before her mind; and she was no inexperienced maid whose heart still sleeps, to fool herself into the belief that such liking as hers was the mysterious visitant she had read about in books, and awaited to descend and stir the waters of her being. It was duty, not love, which she was taking to her breast. She knew it, and looked forward to her life in the greyness of the coming years with an overflowing sense of pity. But she did not falter or think of drawing back. No; she would go on with it, and do her duty, and no one should ever know. But it was pitiful, all the same; though it must be--for she would have it so. Here in her solitary chamber there needed no disguise; and she looked hopelessly around her, wondering if there could be any escape, or if this weary part she was undertaking to play would last for long.

It might last for fifty years, she thought, looking down at her hands.

How shapely and strong they looked--so firm, and with so full a tide of vigorous life tingling in every pulse! And the ring--she remembered the morning's episode in the boat. It was not there yet; the jeweller had not begun to make it. How it would scorch, that little hoop of gold and brilliants, and confine and shackle her! There was respite for the present, but it would not be for long--and she scarcely desired that it should be.

The gong sounded sooner than she could have believed. She must go down and face the world again, and play her part; but there was consolation even in this. It showed how quickly time could wear away. The years, be they ever so grey, would run their course with the same even and imperceptible current, and there would be an end at last. She rose to resume the armour of conventional life. She bathed her temples, smoothed her hair before the gla.s.s, and arrayed herself as usual; and when the next gong sounded, she was once more her ordinary self--bright, proud, and confident, without a sign of care, or seemingly a wish left unfulfilled.

The Deanes had heard of her return, and were awaiting her in the drawing-room to go down to dinner. Lettice and the rest bantered her on her escapade.

"Staying out o' nights, Miss Rose," the Senator cried, jocosely. "And without a latch-key! What next?"

The next, for her, was to meet Gilbert Roe's eyes looking straight into her own. It was like the sudden onslaught of an ambushed foe, on a band marching in careless order. They form square if they can, and stand to their arms. It was well for her she had so recently looked to her armour. The shock to her nerves was severe, but her spirit rose in defiance. She recovered, without betraying herself before the crowded room, and was more than usually gay all through dinner. It was a relief, however, when the repast was ended, and she could saunter with Lettice along the sands away from curious eyes, and feel at ease.

"What a shock it must have been to you, Rose! I meant to have given you warning, but you came down so late, and the old folks were so hungry and impatient, that there was no chance.... However, you bore up splendidly--and now, it is over."

"Yes, I am glad it is over; and glad I did not know beforehand."

"If he is a gentleman, he will go first thing to-morrow morning."

"It is no matter whether he goes or stays."

"To think of his a.s.surance! He came to me in the parlour, last night when I was dancing, to ask if you were here."

"Yes?" and there was a tone of softening in Rose's voice as she said it.

"But you may be sure I gave him no satisfaction."

Rose sighed a little, but not audibly.

"This morning, again, when we were walking to church, what does he do, do you think, but join me?--which, after the setting down I had given him last night, was really more than a girl could be expected to stand."

Rose looked interested now and softened. "And? Well?" she said.

"Well, I just treated him as he deserved; would have nothing to do with him; got round to the other side of my escort, and ignored him altogether."

Rose's sigh was audible this time.

"But you need not pity him, Rose, dear; or not much, at any rate. He is not inconsolable; and, what is better, he has a consoler. And such a one! You could not imagine an odder belle for the dashing Bertie Roe we can remember. He is no longer hypercritical as to good looks, I can tell you."

"Who is it?"

"Whom would you suppose? You know the washed-out little Yankee schoolma'am with the blue goggles? That's her!"

"You must be mistaken."

"So I was sure myself, at first. But no. I came home from church in the omnibus, and an old thing sat opposite me, who takes a most motherly interest in the pair--a friend of the schoolma'am. You should have heard her talk about them! It was just too altogether rich and comical. She says the sweet young things have been faithfully attached for the last ten years. To think of Bertie's constancy, you know! And they are going to be married. And in the meantime they spend their time gathering sh.e.l.ls and grubbing in the sand together, for she mentioned their having little spades."