When Jack Darcy left Miss Lawrence on that fateful evening, his whole soul was full of unrest. He paced the quiet streets in that tense mood which makes thought and breath alike torture. Now that it was over, he said, with the inconsequence of love, that he had been a weak, cowardly fool to fear his fate too much; and yet the next instant he knew he would surely have lost it all, and that in time she _must_ come to need him. If he _could_ wait! Well, he _would_ wait. He had not trained himself heretofore in these long reaches of patience for no purpose.

That richly satisfying, inward sight, she could not take from him, that exultant faith which was warmed and fed from a thousand secret rills.

He understood why she shunned him, why she had resolved to leave Yerbury; and he was thankful now that he had not ruined his cause by impatience. To think of not seeing her, of not hearing her voice, was like madness! His face grew thin, there were tense lines about his mouth and a set resolve in his eyes; yet to his fine temper came no moodiness or irritability. The task he had set for himself must be accomplished.

He was as absolute in his self-denial as he would be in his happiness when that came.

So she went away with the merest friendly farewell, and asked herself angrily, an hour after, what power this man had over her, and why she feared him? Surely there was not much of the lover in that calm face!

He threw himself into the business with renewed energy. As I said, the September account was inspiriting. Prospects began to look brighter, only it was admitted on all hands that the days of large profits and quick fortunes were over for a long while, if not for all time. Industry was coming to be respected, and you heard less talk about luck.

The outside world kept watch of them narrowly, jealously. If they turned out thieves and swindlers, it would not be for the lack of advice.

However, they tramped on and on. Their store gained a little, and was productive of much good. Keppler went to a different part of the town.

Boyd sold the ground, and a row of decent cottages were to be put up.

Kit Connelly had been reimbursed by the town for her damages, and with Ben Hay's advice and counsel built an addition to her house, which he and Rose took for housekeeping purposes. The lunch and coffee room was a regular and profitable inst.i.tution, and would be a business for one of the boys as he grew up to manhood.

Sylvie and Fred went to the city for a winter holiday. Fred's book was elegantly brought out, and won him much praise and a little money.

Sylvie achieved her ambition, and sold two pictures at what she considered marvellous prices, but she wisely confessed it only to her husband. They were invited to clubs and soirees; and Mrs. Minor was extremely affable, though she did blame Fred for allowing Irene to take such an idiotic step.

Darcy and Maverick indulged in two or three flying trips. Miss McLeod liked nothing better than to get these young people together, and listen to the animated conversations, herself as spicy and sharp as any one.

Miss Lothrop was married; and in the slim, fair, blushing girl the old lady had for companion now, he saw no danger.

So the winter wore away, and the spring came again; and the man who was counting the days wondered wearily at times what his summer harvest might be.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE regal woman who stepped from the car to the station-platform at Yerbury, one balmy day in early June, to be greeted by Fred and Sylvie Lawrence with the warmest of welcomes, was indescribably different from the pale, cold, haughty statue that had gone away. There was an elasticity in her step, a self-reliance in her air, and the peculiar confidence discipline wisely used inevitably imparts.

Yet there had been no romantic or highly-wrought change in her. She had not taken up teaching from any heroic motive or the possible benefit to any one, but simply to protect herself from what she considered the weakness of her own soul, to get away from a danger she could not fight.

Oh, how she had hated French verbs and exercises! If hers had been a susceptible musical temperament, she would have gone quite crazy with the blunders and sentimentalisms of young girls.

After a month of it, she would have welcomed any relief, even the face-to-face conflict with Darcy. But she could not well run away from here, and her physical health was perfect: so there was nothing but to go straight on, and find that circ.u.mstances had to govern, that she could not shut herself up in sullen majesty, or fling off the daily duties for some wiser and more patient hands to pick up, and restore to beauty and harmony.

She had a friend, the best and truest that a young woman could have, perhaps; a woman so admirably adapted to the training of girls, that it was no marvel she succeeded. Out of the ruins of her life she had built up another, wise, sweet, and strong. As Irene began to comprehend what Mrs. Trenholme had suffered and achieved, for the first time she paid an honest reverence to the n.o.bility of character. And now she despised her own petty, shallow thoughts and beliefs. Her lofty despising of the world and the vain and selfish people therein had been only a kind of scornful regret for the treasures wrested from her, the glitter of fashion, the gauds of society. Fred had made a braver stand than she. He had not sought to poise himself on the easy, graceful rounds of past promises, and to dream futile weakening dreams, nor shut himself up in morbid isolation.

After all, how little the great world really cared! It was the few friends, the small circle, the near influences, that were of importance.

And when she found that here in cultured, delightful Beverly, she was sought out as an entertaining guest, that she had not lost caste because the great bubble of fortune had shivered into fragments, that dressing and shopping and flirting were not the highest of human enjoyments, she came to a very rational frame of mind, and to a certain extent enjoyed her life. But nature had not made her a teacher of children, and never does such women, until, informed by that highest of all love, they teach their own.

She came back beautiful, strong, and brave, resolute to dare any thing.

She dazzled them at the little tea-table by her swift, easy animation, her brilliancy, the color that went and came, the smiles that were like rippling billows over a sea. And Sylvie's heart went down like lead, though it was such a fair picture. "For now," she thought, "Jack will never dare to love her!"

Perhaps not, if he had to begin now. But the love was in him and of him, and would be hers all his life long, whether she took it or no.

He did not come for a day or two. She wondered a little: she even laughed lightly at her own past fear, the shadow she had conjured up, the warm blood ran so healthily through her veins now.

He sauntered in one morning to find her cutting roses with Sylvie, the two the fairest flowers in all the garden. He was in no wise abashed at this vision of loveliness: if she had a dower of beauty, he had his unstained manhood.

They chatted and laughed. Sylvie pinned a pale bud and geranium-leaf in his coat. He held out his hand to Irene with a curious little gesture.

She had two or three great royal purple pansies clasped lightly in her fingers.

She meant to refuse courteously, but their eyes met. Was it the old spell working?

Surely, surely all these fine-spun barriers, all these cunning Alps that she had thrown up day after day, were over-leaped at a supple bound.

Master herself she might; but he stood in his man's power and pride and love, a suppliant, yet king, asking with wordless lips a little favor, taking with calm yet pa.s.sionate eyes a royal largess. Her heart sank; her breath came in one long, tremulous sweep. Whether she gave, or he took, she could not have told; but he went away with the pansies in his fingers, despite Sylvie's pleading for a longer stay.

When he was quite out of sight, he kissed them, sweet, tender, longing kisses. Then he dropped them between the white leaves of a little book, to be sacred forever. Sylvie's _boutonniere_ might keep him company outwardly, but those no eye must feast upon.

He took the fine right of a lover, not declared, yet certain of his ground, not using any power that she could disdain or wound, it was so delicate, intangible, the perfume without the flower, the little thoughtfulness for her, reaching for her fan, folding her shawl about her if the evening blew up cool, seeming to know her wants the very instant they occurred to herself. And though she rebelled in secret, though she resolved heroically to put an end to it all, the golden moment never came.

It seemed as if the four were always together. Not but what Yerbury opened s.p.a.cious doors to them, and proffered flattering welcomes; but they could not tone themselves to the insipidities of society. There were more complete and intense enjoyments. Sylvie and Irene took long drives through country lanes, or of a moonlight summer evening they all went. They sat on the porch, and Jack came strolling by: they went within, and there were books, music, desultory talking, and that wondrous, unseen guest in their midst.

Sylvie rarely left her alone. They were not the women to tease one another by flippant jests or allusions; and Mrs. Fred, of all others, had a dread of thrusting any vulgar face on this colorless, yet delicious, atmosphere. Love knew his own, and was sacredly known of them.

Irene Lawrence could no more help blossoming under the intense yet steady warmth of his temperament, the vivid creative life in every feature, than she could have helped being at all; and to have refused or destroyed the love would have been as sure spiritual suicide as a poison to the body. He understood that she came to see this presently; and then his suit was half won,--more than half: he had only to go on to the royal fruition of hope and patience. She no longer shunned him: she dropped that pointed, distant "Mr. Darcy," and in the soul's own language, gave him no outward name.

And, when he took her at her royal flood-tide, the words of asking and answering mattered little. A look, a tone, a clasp of hands, a last struggle of her pride, and she was his.

The wide, warm summer night closed about them: the dusk was rich with floating dewy perfumes, and golden stars dazzled in the clear, moonless sky. Out in the trees a little bird, startled from her nap, sang a brief, sweet song to her little ones. He drew the proud yet yielding figure closer: their hearts beat, their flushed cheeks touched, their lips met in one long, heavenly caress, their hands clasped until pulse throbbed with pulse in impa.s.sioned unison.

Only a death and a great love can so change the aspect of life. As in the grave lies buried the dearest promises of love, hope, existence itself, and we learn in time to cling to every faint dream, so, like a resurrection, love sweeps away the sins and follies and weaknesses of the past, and rises from the dust and ashes transformed, renewed, nay, born again to the most sacred purposes.

A strange, swift impression rushed over her as she met the eager, intense eyes. Was it in another world these arms had closed about her with their strong, restful clasp? She started abruptly: she seemed to listen, to puzzle herself with the bewildering impression.

"What is it, my darling?" in a deep, ardent voice.

"I don't know"--with a nervous laugh and shiver. "Have we met in some other country? Did you carry me over mountains, or through valleys, or hide me from a storm? Was this why I could never get away, try as I might?"

Oh the wordless, entreating beauty of those eyes!

"My queen, my own, you will never try again."

"Never!" with a long, delicious, sobbing breath. "Why are you so irresistibly, so powerfully strong, Jack? Do you know,--you _must_ know how wicked I have been! If you cast me out, it would only be a proper punishment. I don't mean that my lips or my hands are blurred with other men's kisses. I never could endure that," shuddering. "But they laid down their hearts, and I walked over them: they were weak, and I was strong! And one night I tried"--her voice sank to a beseeching, half-shamed murmur.

"Yes," he gave a pure, genial laugh, rich in his own sustaining strength. "You would have broken my heart, your own too; for I think, even then, you loved me."

"I surely have never been indifferent. It was either love or hate. Do you remember the first evening I saw you in the parlor yonder?"

She learned ere long, that he had never forgotten any thing; but the depth and perfectness of his love she could not learn in a day.

If Jack Darcy had been patient hitherto, that grand quality seemed suddenly exhausted. He absolutely hurried her into a marriage,--hurried Sylvie too, who wanted the courtship to proceed with measured, golden steps.

"As if it were not to be a courtship all one's life!" said radiant Jack.

"Now the moments break in the middle, there are tangled ends, and endless beginnings, and one can hardly remember where one left off. Were you sorry to go to Fred?"

"Why, no!" with wide-open, surprised eyes.