"Would--would you like to hear something else?" she asked, in evident embarra.s.sment.

"Nothing is better than Hawthorne," I said. "I--I fear I'm not yet strong enough." Then, after a second's hesitation, I spoke out despairingly: "Miss Warren, I may as well recognize the truth at once, I never shall be strong enough. I've overrated myself. Good-by."

She trembled; tears came into her eyes, and she silently left the room.

So abrupt was her departure that it seemed like a flight.

After she had gone I tottered to my feet, with an imprecation on my weakness, and I took an amount of stimulant that Dr. Bates would never have prescribed; but it had little effect. In stony, sullen protest at my fate, I sat down again, and the hours pa.s.sed like eternities.

CHAPTER VII

OLD PLOD IDEALIZED

Adah brought me up my dinner, and I at once noted that she was in a flutter of unusual excitement. Her mother had undoubtedly prepared her for the arrival of the expected guest, and made known also his relations to one of whom she had been somewhat jealous, and it would seem that the simple-hearted girl could not disguise her elation.

I was in too bitter a mood to endure a word, and yet did not wish to hurt her feelings; therefore she found me more absorbed in my paper and preoccupied than ever before.

"Thank you, Miss Adah," I said, cordially but briefly. "Editors are wretched company; their paper is everything to them, and I've something on my mind just now that's very absorbing."

"Thee isn't strong enough to work yet," she said sympathetically.

"Oh, yes," I replied, laughing bitterly; "I'm a small edition of Samson. Besides, I'm as poor as Job's impoverished turkey, and must get to work again as soon as possible."

"There is no need of thee feeling that way; we--" and then she stopped and blushed.

"I know all about 'we,'" I laughed; "your hearts are as large as this wide valley, but then I must keep my self-respect, you know. You have no idea how happy you ought to be in such a home as yours."

"I like the city better," she replied, blushing, and she hastily left the room.

My greed for work departed as abruptly. "Poor child!" I muttered.

"'Life is a tangle,' as Miss Warren said, and a wretched one, too, for many of us."

Mrs. Yocomb soon after came in, and looked with solicitude at my almost untasted dinner.

"Why, Richard," she said, "thy appet.i.te flags strangely. Isn't thy dinner to thy taste?"

"The fault is wholly in me," I replied.

"Thee doesn't look so well--nothing like so well. Has Adah said anything to trouble thee?" she asked apprehensively.

"No, indeed; Adah is just as good and kind as she can be. She's becoming as good as she is beautiful. Every day increases my respect for her;" and I spoke earnestly and honestly.

A faint color stole into the matron's cheek, and she seemed pleased and relieved, but she remarked quietly:

"Adah's young and inexperienced." Then she added, with a touch of motherly pride and solicitude, "She's good at heart, and I think is trying to do right."

"She will make a n.o.ble woman, Mrs. Yocomb--one that you may well be proud of, or I'm no judge of character," I said, with quiet emphasis.

"She and Zillah have both been so kind to me that they already seem like sisters. At any rate, after my treatment in this home I shall always feel that I owe to them a brother's duty."

The color deepened in the old lady's face, that was still so fair and comely, and tears stood in her eyes.

"I understand thee, Richard," she said quietly. "I thought I loved thee for saving our lives and our home, but I love thee more now. Still thee cannot understand a mother's heart. Thee's a true gentleman."

"Dear Mrs. Yocomb, you must learn to understand me better or I shall have to run away in self-defence. When you talk in that style I feel like an arrant hypocrite. I give you my word that I've been swearing this very forenoon."

"Who was thee swearing at?" she asked, in much surprise.

"Myself, and with good reason."

"There is never good reason for such wickedness," she said gravely, but regarding me with deep solicitude. Presently she added, "Thee has had some great provocation?"

"No; I've been honored with unmerited kindness and trust, which I have ill requited." "Emily Warren has been to see thee?"

"Yes."

"Did she tell thee?"

"Yes; and I feel that I could throttle that man. Now you know what a heathen savage I am."

"Yes," she said dryly, "thee has considerable untamed human nature."

Then added, smiling, "I'll trust him with thee, nevertheless. I'm inclined to think that for her sake thee'd do more for him than for any man living. Now wouldn't thee?"

"Oh, Satan take him! Yes!" I groaned. "Forgive me, Mrs. Yocomb. I'm so unmanned, so desperate from trouble, that I'm not fit for decent society, much less your company. You believe in a Providence: why was this woman permitted to enslave my very soul when it was of no use?"

"Richard Morton," she said reproachfully, "thee is indeed unmanned.

Thee's wholly unjust and unreasonable. This gentleman has been Emily Warren's devoted friend for years. He has taken care of her little property, and done everything for her that her independent spirit would permit. He might have sought an alliance among the wealthiest, but he has sued long and patiently for her hand--"

"Well he might," I interrupted irritably. "Emily Warren is the peer of any man in New York."

"Thee knows New York and the world in general well enough to be aware that wealthy bankers do not often seek wives from the cla.s.s to which Emily belongs, though in my estimation, as well as in thine, no other cla.s.s is more respectable. But I'm not blinded by prejudice, and I think it speaks well for him that he is able to recognize and honor worth wherever he finds it. Still, he knew her family. The Warrens were quite wealthy, too, at one time."

"What is his name?" I asked sullenly.

"Gilbert Hearn." "What, Hearn the banker, who resides on Fifth Avenue?"

"The same."

"I know him--that is, I know who he is--well." Then I added bitterly, "It's just like him; he has always had the good things of this world, and always will. He'll surely marry her."

"Has thee anything against him?"

"Yes, infinitely much against him: I feel as if he were seeking to marry my wife."

"That's what thee said when out of thy mind," she exclaimed apprehensively. "I hope thee is not becoming feverish?" "Oh, no, Mrs.

Yocomb, I've nothing against him at all. He is pre-eminently respectable, as the world goes. He is shrewd, wonderfully shrewd, and always makes a ten-strike in Wall Street; but his securing Miss Warren was a masterstroke. There, I'm talking slang, and disgracing myself generally." But my bitter spirit broke out again in the words, "Never fear; Gilbert Hearn will have the best in the city; nothing less will serve him."