"But the doctor--dear, blundering man! is amenable to no laws of conventionality," she subjoined, with an indulgent shrug and sigh.

It is questionable whether either of the persons addressed regretted the breach of etiquette. The time had gone by more swiftly and comfortably than if they had been left to themselves. As it was, an embarra.s.sing silence followed the visitors' departure. Roy stood on the rug, facing the fire, motionless and thoughtful. Jessie, trembling in a nervous chill that changed her fingers into shaking icicles, durst not attempt to speak.

Fordham finally came out of his reverie with a start, and turned toward her apologetically.

"You are sadly tired! Our good friends were very welcome, but they have kept you up beyond your strength. May I take you to your room?"

She murmured a disclaimer of the imputation of excessive fatigue, but took his proffered arm, and they mounted the stairs together.

A bright fire burned in the large front chamber, flashed gayly back from the gilt fleur-de-lis of the delicately tinted wallpaper and the frames of the few pictures. A cosey armchair stood ready for Jessie, with a foot-cushion below it, and the marble slabs of bureau and mantel bore fragile wealth of Bohemian and frosted gla.s.s and Parian ornaments.

"Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?" inquired Roy, not offering to sit down. "Wouldn't a gla.s.s of wine do your head good?"

"I think not. I need nothing, thank you!" without raising her eyes from the carpet.

"I hope you will be quite rested by morning," he continued, with the same ceremonious gentleness. "I may as well explain to you that, foreseeing how frequently I shall be obliged to sit up late at my studies, I have had the chamber opposite prepared for myself. So I will bid you good-night now."

He held out his hand. She placed hers within it, silently, eyes still averted.

"Good-night, and pleasant dreams!" he repeated, with a kindly pressure of the chill fingers.

An impulse she could not control or define drew her to her feet.

"Won't you kiss me, Roy?" she asked, in sorrowful humility.

She did not see how bloodless were the lips that obeyed. The salute was, to her apprehension, cold and reluctant, and, without another syllable, he pa.s.sed on to the outer door. There he stopped--hesitated, with a backward glance at the drooping figure, standing where he had left her--and returned.

"I had not intended to say it yet," he said, agitatedly. "There have been times when I questioned the propriety of any attempt at self-justification. But I would not have you think worse of me than I deserve for my selfish recklessness in hurrying on our marriage. I received this letter"--giving it to her--"last night. It furnishes the clue to much that I now see ought to have checked my unseemly impatience to claim the right I believed was still mine. This was the communication to which you referred when you pleaded that the contents of your last letter should have hindered my proposal. I supposed, in the haste and excitement of the moment, that you meant the false rumor of your mother's insanity which had been treated of in a former communication, the receipt of which, let me say here, hastened my return. Not that I dreaded insanity for you, but because I gathered from your letter that you were unhappy and a prey to morbid fancies, and I hoped to be able to do you good by diverting these. If this 'last letter' which you hold had reached me in season, your request should have been granted."

He paused to master his own emotion, or to give her opportunity for reply. He may have hoped yet, in the face of the evidence to the contrary he had had, that she would retract her declaration. "I love you no longer" might represent that she was possessed by "morbid fancies" when it was penned; that under the sharp tutelage of sorrow, her affections had regained their balance.

She only sat still, her face hidden in her hands. There was a crouch in her att.i.tude that suggested an unpleasant idea to the observer.

It was that she _feared_ him--his wrath and the results of this explanation. He forgot his sufferings in the desire to remove this apprehension if it existed.

"My only hope now is, that since I know what I should have perceived from the beginning, I may spare you annoyance, if not misery, by consulting your wishes and respecting your repugnances. If I could set you free, I would. My heaviest burden is the consciousness that this is impracticable. But it is my desire that, from this time, you should cease to regard me as your husband, and try to think of me as your friend. For we may still be _that_ to each other--may we not, dear Jessie?"

She was moaning as in mortal pain.

"This kindness kills me! I had rather you should say that you hated me!"

"But that would not be true," said the gentle voice. "And henceforward we will be very frank and just in our dealings with one another. We will try, moreover, to put vain regrets out of sight, and to do the duty of the day; to serve our fellows and honor HIM who has some merciful intent in leading us through these dark waters. Now, my child, this subject need never be renewed. Our Father knows our sorrows. To HIM we will look for strength. HE knows, too, the sincerity of my sad heart when I say how deeply it afflicts me to feel how much more grievous is your trial than mine."

Folding in his the hands she extended in a speechless pa.s.sion of tears--her lips trying vainly to form a pet.i.tion for pardon--he prayed the G.o.d of all consolation to have her in His holy keeping; to give her joy for weeping, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Then, bidding her again "Be comforted and sleep," he went out.

CHAPTER XXI.

"I knocked at Mr. Fordham's door, ma'am, as you bid, and he said that he wasn't well enough to leave his room, and would you be pleased to eat breakfast without him. And he said, ma'am, that you needn't be uneasy the leastest bit in the world, for it's only a cold and sore throat he's got, and, indeed, if I may make so bold as to say it, he's that hoa.r.s.e I could scarcely hear him at all."

Phoebe eyed her mistress slyly and keenly when she had delivered her message. Although not particularly given to prying and gossip, her curiosity was excited by certain peculiarities in the home life of Mr. and Mrs. Fordham, for which the supposition that the master of the house had "picked up German ways," while abroad, did not fully account. They had distinctly separate apartments, carrying the rule of division so far that Mr. Fordham never entered his wife's sitting-room without knocking at the door, and if she invaded the library when he was in, she not only asked admittance in the same way, but apologized for interrupting his studies.

"They are too polite by half!" Phoebe estimated, judging them by her not very extensive observation and experience. "There's Mrs.

Baxter will make more fuss over her dried-up atomy of a man in one day, than Mrs. Fordham does about her fine figure of a husband in a year."

She had never seen Mr. Fordham kiss or otherwise caress his bride, or indulge in any of the romping fondling which the lately wedded are p.r.o.ne to forget may be less interesting to spectators than to themselves. Yet, she was ready to affirm stoutly that, in her parlance, "they thought the world and all of one another;" that Mr.

Fordham studied his wife's inclinations, antic.i.p.ated her wishes, and ministered to her comfort more than any other gentleman she knew; while "Mr. Fordham likes this," or, "he is not fond of that," were decisive phrases in Jessie's mouth in the conduct of her domestic affairs, and her many devices to make his home-coming at noon and evening, an ever-new pleasure, called forth the continual admiration of the handmaiden.

It was a puzzle past her finding out. But here was a test that could hardly fail. The wife should, according to Phoebe's creed, fly on the wings of love and anxiety to the bedside of her sick lord; become his nurse and servitor until he recovered.

To the girl's grieved disappointment,--for she was sincerely attached to the whilom "Miss Jessie," and wanted to think well of her in all things--Mrs. Fordham said, composedly, if not coolly--"Very well, Phoebe! Bring in breakfast!" and turned again to the window at which she was standing, when the news was brought to her of her husband's sad case.

"I'm right down sorry--that I am!" grumbled the servant over the kitchen range. "I did hope she'd show some feeling for him when he's maybe took for dipthery or quincy or something else awful. And he such a good provider and well-spoken gentleman, and never so much as raising his voice in a temper with her, but treating her like a queen! I've a mind to slip up myself, and ask what he'll have to eat. These are the beautifullest m.u.f.fins ever I see! She is a master hand at the like. And I know she made these, as she does all sorts of nice things, because he likes 'em. Queer she never lets on but what I get up the dishes he praises. Mistresses mostly is glad enough to pocket the compliments as belongs to their girls. She's a genuwine lady, and no mistake, but it cuts me to see her so cold-hearted to _him_. I suppose they're what folks call a 'fashionable couple.'"

While this soliloquy was going on, the subject of it stood still at the window, gazing into the street. It was a bleak December day.

There had been rain in the night; then the thermometer sank abruptly, and by morning the sidewalks were glazed with ice. The earth was black and grim, the clouds, grayly sullen, seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, and while Jessie looked, it began to snow, gently for a while, then so fast that a wavering sheet soon shut out her view of distant objects. The cottage was on a corner, and this being a side-window, gave upon the college-grounds on one hand, Judge Provost's house, garden, and lawn on the other. By changing her position never so slightly, the lady could have beheld the balconied front and imposing cupola of the Wyllys' residence, of which the happy pair had taken formal possession ten days before, postponing their bridal tour until Spring. "For," as the bride eagerly explained to everybody--"both of us have been everywhere on this side of the water, and winter-travelling is an awful bore. To be sure, we've been abroad, too, and seen everything that is worth seeing. So we are beating our brains to devise something _recherche_" (p.r.o.nounced _rechurchy_) "in the way of a wedding-trip.

And it is _so_ sweet and romantic to come to our own home, right away! Indeed, as I told Orrin, it isn't safe to leave such carpets and furniture as ours unprotected."

Jessie had heard all this fanfaronade, and much more from Mrs.

Baxter, but she was not thinking of it now. Nor did she move so as to bring the "new and superb mansion of our popular fellow-citizen, Orrin Wyllys, Esq.," within the range of her vision; only seemed to watch the falling snow, and the few pa.s.sers-by who dotted the whitening streets at this early hour. In reality, she was speculating upon the meaning of the stillness in the chamber overhead. Was Roy, then, too ill to get up? Was his room comfortable? What attention from nurse or physician did he need? How was she to learn and supply his wants? It would be barbarous unkindness, if he were very sick, to stand aloof and leave the charge of him to hirelings. Yet her personal attendance would be awkward for both. She was not sure that he would approve of it, so fastidious had been his care to excuse her from such offices. He had spoken, in an off-hand way, overnight, of feeling chilly, and apologized for not offering to read the new number of a magazine to her by saying that his throat was sore. Without consulting him, she had brewed a pitcher of hot lemonade, and insisted upon his drinking it after he went to his room. He had thanked her with the invariable courtesy that met her every effort to serve him, and "was sure it was all he needed. A most agreeable prescription too!" he added, as he bore off the pitcher. It was a shock, after this pleasant parting, to hear that he was sick in bed. What if he were to be seriously ill? Her heart gave a great bound, then ceased moving for a moment. He was so robust, so full of life and energy, that this could not be.

What if he were to _die_! She too thought of diphtheria. There had been several fatal cases of it in Hamilton recently. She was pale and faint; her limbs giving way under her as she admitted the frightful supposition. What would she be--what would she do if the strong staff of his protection, the solace of his companionship, were reft from her?

For she knew that, little cause as she had given him in the circ.u.mstances attending their marriage, to cherish her as all men should--as some men do the women who love them fervently and constantly, there was hardly a wife in the land who was surrounded by the atmosphere of chivalrous devotion which encompa.s.sed her in the secluded life she led as the nominal mistress of Roy Fordham's home. Her deep mourning was a sufficient excuse for declining to enter the gay circle in which Mrs. Wyllys fluttered and her diamonds and husband shone. But Roy saw to it that she was not lonely. The Baxters, Provosts, and others of his friends were often with them during the day, and he spent his evenings, as a rule, at home.

"Will you favor me with your company in the library, or shall I come to your sitting-room?" he would ask, when supper was over.

They wrote and studied together as two friends of the same s.e.x might; talked freely upon all subjects suggested by either--each watchful that no chance touch should wound the other; make him or her swerve quickly aside lest the next step should be upon the fresh grave that lay ever between them. In all their intercourse, Roy's apparent ease far surpa.s.sed his wife's. Cheerful, cordial, always kind and more than kind in manner and language, he yet comported himself as if there were nothing abnormal in this sort of a.s.sociation; as if pa.s.sion and regret were alike things of the Past, to which he had said they need never again recur. No warmer love-name than "Jessie, dear," ever pa.s.sed his lips, and after the night of the home bringing, he had never offered to kiss or embrace her. A hand-clasp, night and morning; a smiling bow and lively phrase, when he came in to dinner and tea, were the most affectionate courtesies exchanged. But no distraught lover, at the height of his lunacy, ever studied his mistress's fantasies, sought to penetrate and fulfil her will, as did this quiet and courtly husband that of the woman who had confessed that her heart was none of his when he married her. Flowers, fruits, birds, and books were lavished upon her; pa.s.sed into her hands through other than his, but were always procured by him in response to some expressed liking on her part, or in accordance with what he imagined were her wishes or needs. Nor was his un.o.btrusive attention to her health less constant. In the same friendly style, he regulated exercise, diet, and work; saw that her habits were not too sedentary, and that she did not expose herself imprudently to cold, damp, or fatigue.

Her review of all this was rapid and circ.u.mstantial.

"He deserves all that I can do for him. False delicacy nor pride shall keep me back from ministering to the wants of one who is to me father, brother, friend. I may, at least, wait upon him as a hostess might tend an honored guest--a housekeeper the master of the house!"

she had decided by the time Phoebe set coffee, m.u.f.fins, and steak upon the table.

Then to the serving-girl's increased chagrin, she sat down, with Roy's vacant chair opposite her, and break-fasted alone.

"Not much of a breakfast, to be sure!" said Phoebe, returning at the end of ten minutes, to find the room deserted. "Half a m.u.f.fin, and a cup of coffee, and she clean forgot to carve the steak! Looks like she was in love--but that can't be!"

"Come in!" said the changed voice that had wrought upon Phoebe's womanly compa.s.sion, as Jessie awaited the warrant to enter the sick-room--a faint-hearted lingerer upon the threshold. She buoyed up her courage by remembering that she was the housekeeper who had come for the orders for the day; the diffidence she railed at inwardly, as ridiculous and uncalled for, had no visible effect, except to heighten her color, and make her carry her head a trifle less loftily.

Already Mrs. Wyllys had been heard to say that, "if Mrs. Fordham were worth a million in her own right, she could not look more haughty and indifferent to people who were richer and better bred.

When, as everybody knew, she was a poor preacher's daughter with just money enough to buy her wedding-clothes. Though, pity knows, they couldn't have cost much! Was there ever such awful taste, as not to lighten her mourning to suit the circ.u.mstances? Who ever heard of a bride's wearing crepe?"

There were red spots upon Roy's cheeks, when he saw who his visitor was--probably hectic, for his demeanor was natural. With instant thought of her probable embarra.s.sment, he put out his hand, smilingly.

"Ah! Jessie, dear! Good-morning! You are very good to visit a poor fellow in his affliction. For such a throat and head as I have to-day _are_ an affliction. I seldom strike my colors to a common cold."

"This seems to me to be an uncommon one!" Jessie said, feeling his pulse with the practised touch she had learned in her parish-visiting. "You have fever. You ought to have medical advice.