Margaret did not tell what she thought on this point. "Of course you want to know what I said," she answered. "For one thing, I said nothing whatever about you, I made no allusion to your proposed meeting at the pool, or----"

"That's fortunate, since Lucian knew nothing about it."

"Nothing about it? Didn't you ask him in your note--?"

"He never got the note. I've been thinking about it, and I'm convinced of that. I'll tell you afterwards; please go on now about what you said."

"I said as little as I could, I had no desire for a long conversation. I told Mr. Spenser that it would be well if he could start immediately, as I had reason to fear that Dr. Kirby, who, as he knew, had many old-fashioned ideas, might think it necessary to come over, and take him to task in---- in various ways. It would be better, of course, to avoid so absurd a proceeding."

"And then did he go?"

"Yes. He said, 'Anything you think best, Mrs. Harold, of course,' and made his preparations immediately."

"Didn't he ask any questions?"

"No; as I told you, I had no desire to talk, and I presume he saw it. I waited until he was ready, and it was time to call Cajo and order the wagon; then I slipped out through one of the long windows on the east side of the house, as I didn't care to have the servants see me. I went through the grove that skirts the water, and as I came into the main avenue again, just at the gate, the wagon pa.s.sed me, and he was in it; he did not see me, as I had stepped back among the trees when I heard the sound of wheels. Then I came home."

"Yes--and went to bed and had a fever!"

"It's over now."

"Didn't Lucian think it odd--your coming?" Garda went on.

"Very likely. I don't know what he thought."

"And you don't care, I suppose you mean. Well, Margaret, I know you don't think there was any real danger; but I can a.s.sure you that there was. You may call Dr. Kirby absurd. But absurd or not, _I_ was horribly frightened when I saw him coming, and you cannot say that I am frightened easily; I don't think there is any doubt as to what he would have done if he had met Lucian!"

"I can't agree with you about that, Garda, though I confess that for a moment, when I first came upon Mr. Spenser at the door, I was as frightened as you were. But it didn't last, there was no ground for it."

Garda shook her head. "You don't understand--"

"Perhaps I don't," answered Margaret, with rather a weary intonation.

"If Lucian didn't get your note, where is it?"

"The Doctor got it. That is the way he knew, don't you see? Pablo gave it to him."

"Pablo--the servant who could not betray you?"

"You mean that for sarcasm; but there's no cause," Garda answered. "Poor old Pablo was never more devoted to me, according to his light, than when he went to the Doctor; he knew he could trust the Doctor as he trusted himself. You don't comprehend our old servants, Margaret; you haven't an idea how completely they identify themselves with 'de fambly,' as they call it. Well, Pablo didn't tell the Doctor anything in actual words, and in fact he had nothing to tell except 'the eastern path;' I told him that myself, you remember. I presume he suggested in some roundabout way that the Doctor should take an evening walk through that especial 'nigh-cut.'" And Garda laughed. "And of course he gave him the note--nothing less than that would have brought the Doctor out there at that hour; Pablo probably pretended that he couldn't take the note himself on account of his rheumatism, and asked the Doctor to send somebody else with it; and then the Doctor said he would take it himself. And, through the whole, you may be sure that neither of them made the very least allusion to _me_. The Doctor had the 'eastern path'

to guide him, and the certainty that I had written to Lucian--for of course he saw the address; with that he started off."

"You think that he did not open the note?"

"Open it? Nothing could have made him open it."

"But he is your guardian, and as such, under the circ.u.mstances--"

"He might be twenty guardians, and under a thousand circ.u.mstances, and he would never do it," said Garda, securely. "I presume he burned it just as it was; I have no doubt he did. Margaret, I wonder if you remember how strange and cold you were to me that night when you came home? Of course I knew that the Doctor would go straight back to Madam Giron's as soon as he had seen me safely inside my own door, and I couldn't help being dreadfully anxious. I waited, and waited. And at last you came. But you were so silent! you scarcely spoke to me; you wouldn't tell me anything except that Lucian was safely gone."

"I couldn't; I was ill," Margaret answered. She put her hand over her eyes.

"Yes, I understood; or if I didn't that night, I did the next morning, when the fever appeared. You are a wonderful woman, Margaret," the girl went on. She had clasped her hands round her knees, and was looking at the blaze. "How you did go and do that for me without a moment's hesitation, when you hated to, so! I was going to tell you something more," she went on. "But I don't dare to; I am afraid." And she laughed.

Margaret's hand dropped. "What is it you were going to say?" She sat erect now. Her eyes showed a light which appeared like apprehension.

"I should like you to know it first," said Garda, her gaze still on the hearth. "Evert is coming home to-morrow, and I want to tell you beforehand: I am going to break my engagement. I don't care for him; why, then, should I stay engaged?"

"You mean that you think it's wrong?"

"I mean that I think it's tiresome. I have only let it go on as long as it has to please you; you must know that. I should have told him long ago, only you wouldn't let me--don't you remember? You have made me promise twice not to tell him."

"Because I thought you would come to your senses."

"I have come to them--now! The difficulty with you is, Margaret, that you think it will hurt him. But it won't hurt him at all, he doesn't care about it. He never did really care for me in the least."

"And if you don't care for him, as you say, may I ask how your engagement was formed?"

Garda laughed. "I don't wonder you ask! I'll tell you, I _did_ care for him then. For some time before that night on the barren I had been thinking about him more and more, and I ended by thinking of nothing but just that one idea--how queer it would be, and how--how exciting, if I could only make him change a little; make him do as _I_ wanted him to do. You know how cool he is, how quiet; I think it was that that tempted me, I wanted to see if I could. And, besides, I _did_ care for him then; I liked him ever so much. I can't imagine what has become of the feeling; but it was certainly there at the time. Well, when you're lost on a barren all night, everything's different, you can say what you feel. And that's what I did; or at least I let him see it, I let him see how much I had been thinking about him, how much I liked him. I am afraid I told him in so many words," added the girl, after a moment's pause. "I only say 'afraid' on your account; on my own, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't say it if it was true."

Then, in answer, not to any words from Margaret, but to some slight movement of hers, "You don't believe it," she went on; "you don't believe I cared for him. _He_ believed me, at any rate; he couldn't help it! At that moment I cared for him more than I cared for anybody in the world, and he saw that I did; it was easy enough to see. So that was the way of it. We came back engaged. And I _did_ like him so much!--isn't it odd? I thought him wonderful. I don't suppose he has changed. But I have. He is probably wonderful still; but I don't care about him any more. And that is what I cannot understand--that he has not seen in all this time how different I am, has not seen how completely the feeling, whatever it was, that I had for him has gone. It seems to me that anybody not blind ought to have seen it long ago, for it didn't last but a very little while. And then, too, not to have seen it since Lucian came back!"

"He wouldn't allow himself to think such things of you."

"Now you are angry with me," said Garda, not turning her head, but putting up one hand caressingly on Margaret's arm. "Why should you be angry? What have I done but change? Can I help changing? _I_ don't do it; it does itself; it _happens_. You needn't try to tell me that one love, if a true one, lasts forever, because it's nothing of the kind.

Look at second marriages. I really cared for Evert. And now I don't care for him. But I don't see that I am to blame for either the one or the other; people don't care for people because they _try_ to, but because it comes in spite of them; and it's the same way when it stops. I acknowledge, Margaret, that _you_ are one of the kind to care once and forever. But there are very few women like you, I am sure."

She turned as she said this, in order to look up at her friend; then she sprang from her place on the rug and stood beside her, her att.i.tude was almost a protecting one. "Oh," she said, "how I hate the people who make you so unhappy!"

"No one does that," said Margaret. She rose.

"Are you going?"

"Yes; I am tired."

"I suppose I oughtn't to keep you," said Garda, regretfully, "Well,--it's understood, then, that I tell Evert to-morrow."

Margaret, who was going towards the door, stopped. She waited a moment, then she said--"Even if you break the engagement, Garda, it isn't necessary to say anything about Lucian, is it?--this feeling that you think you have for him; I wish you would promise me not to speak of Lucian at all."

"Think I have!" said Garda. "_Know_ is the word. But I'm afraid I can't promise you that, because, don't you see" (here she came to her friend, who was standing with one hand on the door)--"don't you see that I shall _have_ to speak of Lucian?--I shall have to say how much I like him.

Because, after what I let Evert think that night on the barrens, nothing less will convince _him_ that I don't care for _him_ any more, that I've got over it. For he believed me then--as well he might! and he has never stopped believing. And he never will stop--he wouldn't know how--until I tell him in so many words that I adore somebody else; perhaps he will stop then; he knew what it was when I adored _him_."

Margaret looked at her without speaking.

"Dear me! Margaret, don't _hate_ me," said Garda, abandoning her presentation of the case and clinging in distress to her friend.

"Promise me at least not to tell Evert anything about that last afternoon before Lucian left--your plan for meeting him at the pool, your going on towards the house and coming upon me, our seeing Dr.

Kirby, and your fear--in short, all that happened. Promise me faithfully."

"I suppose I can promise that, if you care about it. But you mustn't hate me, Margaret."