The third evening after, Hollis came up the path to Paul's door. The judge, Eve, Cicely, and Porley with Jack, were sitting on the steps, after the Port aux Pins fashion. They had all been using their best blandishments to induce Master Jack to go to bed; but that young gentleman refused; he played patty-cake steadily with Porley, looking at the others out of the corner of his eye; and if Porley made the least attempt to rise, he set up loud bewailings, with his face screwed, but without a tear. It was suspected that these were pure artifice; and not one of his worshippers could help admiring his sagacity. They altogether refrained from punishing it.

"I was at the post-office, so I thought I'd just inquire for you," said Hollis. "There was only one letter; it's for Miss Bruce."

Eve took the letter and put it in her pocket. She had recognized the handwriting instantly.

Hollis, who also knew the handwriting, began to praise himself in his own mind as rapidly as he could for bringing it. "It was a good thing to do, and a kind thing; you must manage jobs like that for her often, C.

Hollis. Then you'll be sure that you ain't, yourself, a plumb fool. She doesn't open it? Of course she doesn't. Sit down, and stop your jawing!"

Eve did not open her letter until she reached her own room. It was eleven o'clock; when she was safely behind her bolted door, she took it from its envelope and read it. She read it and re-read it; holding it in her hand, she pondered over it. She was standing by the mantelpiece because her lamp was there. After a while she became half conscious that the soles of her feet were aching; she bore it some time longer, still half consciously. When it was one o'clock she sat down. The letter was as follows:

"DEAR EVE,--Now that I am away from her, I can see that Cicely is not so well as we have thought. All that laughing yesterday morning wasn't natural; I am afraid that she will break down completely when I start south. So I write to suggest that you take her off for a trip of ten days or so; you might go to St. Paul. Then she needn't see me at all, and it really would be better.

"As to seeing you again--

"Yours sincerely, PAUL TENNANT."

"Why did he write, 'As to seeing you again,' and then stop? What was it that he had intended to say, and why did he leave it unfinished? 'As to seeing you again--' Supposing it had been, 'As to seeing you again, I dread it!' But no, he would never say that; he doesn't dread anything--me least of all! Probably it was only, 'As to seeing you again, there would be nothing gained by it; it would be for such a short time.'"

But imagination soon took flight anew. "Possibly, remembering that day in the wood, he was going to write, 'As to seeing you again, do you wish to see me? Is it really true that you care for me a little? It was so brave to tell it! A petty spirit could never have done it.' But no, that is not what he would have thought; he likes the other kind of women--those who do not tell." She laid her head down upon her arms.

Presently she began again: "He had certainly intended to write something which he found himself unable to finish; the broken sentence tells that.

What could it have been? Any ordinary sentence, like, 'As to seeing you again, it is not necessary, as you know already my plans,'--if it had been anything like that, he _would_ have finished it; it would have been easy to do so. No; it was something different. Oh, if it could only have been, 'As to seeing you again, I _must_ see you, it must be managed in some way; I cannot go without a leave-taking!'" She sat up; her eyes were now radiant and sweet. Their glance happened to fall upon her watch, which was lying, case open, upon the table. Four o'clock. "I have sat here all night! I am losing my wits." She undressed rapidly, angrily. Clad in white, she stood brushing her hair, her supple figure taking, all unconsciously, enchanting postures as she now held a long lock at arm's-length, and now, putting her right hand over her shoulder, brushed out the golden ma.s.s that fell from the back of her head to her knees. "But he must have intended to write something unusual, even if not of any of the things I have been thinking of; then he changed his mind. That is the only solution of his leaving it unfinished--the only possible solution." This thought still filled her heart when daylight came.

The evening before, sitting in the bar-room of the Star Hotel, Lakeville, Paul had written his letter. He had got as far as, "Then she needn't see me at all, and it really would be better. As to seeing you again," when a voice said, "h.e.l.lo, Tennant!--busy?"

"Nothing important," replied Paul, pushing back the sheet of paper.

The visitor shook hands; then he seated himself, astride, on one of the bar-room chairs, facing the wooden back, which he hugged tightly. He had come to talk about Paul's Clay County iron; he had one or two ideas about it which he thought might come to something.

Paul, too, thought that they might come to something when he heard what they were. He was excited; he began to jot down figures on the envelope which he had intended for Eve. Finally he and the new-comer went out together; before going he put the letter in his pocket.

When he came in, it was late. "First mail to Port aux Pins?" he inquired.

"Five o'clock to-morrow morning," replied the drowsy waiter.

"Must finish it to-night, then," he thought. He took out the crumpled sheet, and, opening it, read through what he had written. "What was it I was going to add?" He tried to recall the train of thought. But he was sleepy (as Hollis said, Paul had a genius for sleep); besides, his mind was occupied by the new business plan. "I haven't the slightest idea what I was going to say.--A clear profit of fifty thousand in four years; that isn't bad. Ferdie will need a good deal. Ye-ough!" (a yawn).

"What _was_ it I was going to say?--I can't imagine. Well, it couldn't have been important, in any case. I'll just sign it, and let it go." So he wrote, "Yours sincerely, Paul Tennant;" and went to bed.

XXI.

PAUL came back to Port aux Pins five days before the time of his departure for the South. Cicely was still there. She had refused to go to St. Paul. "The only Paul I care for is the one here. What an i-dea, Eve, that I should choose just this moment for a trip! It looks as though you were trying to keep me away from him."

"I'm not trying; it's Paul," Eve might have answered.

"It must be curious to be such a cold sort of person as you are," Cicely went on, looking at her. "You have only one feeling that ever gives you any trouble, haven't you? That's anger."

"I am never angry with you," Eve answered, with the humility which she always showed when Cicely made her cutting little speeches.

Paul had been right. As the time of his departure for Romney drew near, Cicely grew restless. She was seized with fits of wild weeping. At last, when there were only two days left, Paul proposed a drive--anything to change, even if only upon the surface, the current of her thoughts. "We will go to Betsy Lake, and pay a visit to the antiquities."

The mine at Betsy Lake--the Lac aux Becs-Scies of the early Jesuit explorers--had been abandoned. Recently traces of work there in prehistoric times had been discovered, with primitive tools which excited interest in the minds of antiquarians. The citizens of Port aux Pins were not antiquarians; they said "Mound Builders;" and troubled themselves no more about it.

"We had better spend the night at the b.u.t.ter-woman's," Paul suggested.

"It is too far for one day."

Eve did not go with the party. They had started at three o'clock, intending to visit a hill from which there was an extensive view, before going on to the b.u.t.ter-woman's farm-house. At four she herself went out for a solitary walk.

As she was pa.s.sing a group of wretched shanties, beyond the outskirts of the town, a frightened woman came out of one of them, calling loudly, "Mrs. Halley! oh, Mrs. _Halley_, your _Lyddy is dying!_"

A second woman, who was hanging out clothes, dropped the garment she had in her hand and ran within; Eve followed her. A young girl, who appeared to be in a spasm, occupied the one bed, a poor one; the mother rushed to her. In a few minutes the danger was over, and the girl fell into a heavy sleep.

"That Mrs. Sullivan--she's too sprightly," said Mrs. Halley, after she had dismissed her frightened neighbor. "I just invited her to sit here _trenquilly_ while I put out me clothes, when lo! she begins and screams like mad. She's had no education, that's plain. There's nothing the matter with my Lyddy except that she's delicate, and as soon as she's a little better I'm going to have her take music lessons on the peanner."

Eve looked at Mrs. Halley's ragged, wet dress, and at the wan, pinched face of the sleeping girl. "It is a pity you have to leave her," she said. "Couldn't you get somebody to do your washing?"

"I take in washing, miss; I'm a lady-laundress. Only the best; I never wash for the boats."

"How much do you earn a week?"

"Oh, a tidy sum," answered Mrs. Halley. Then, seeing that Eve had taken out her purse, her misery overcame her pride, and she burst forth, suddenly: "_Never_ more than three dollars, miss, with me slaving from morning to night. And I've five children besides poor Lyddy there."

Eve gave her a five-dollar bill.

"Oh, may the Lord bless you!" she began to cry. "And me with me skirt all wet, and the house not clean, when the chariot of the Lord descended upon me!" She sank into a chair, her toil-worn hands over her face, her tired back bent forward, relaxed at last, and resting.

Eve pursued her investigations; she sent a boy to town for provisions, and waited to see a meal prepared. Mrs. Halley, still wet and ragged, but now refreshed by joy, moved about rapidly; at last there was nothing more to do but to sit down and wait. "She was the prettiest of all my children," she remarked, indicating the sleeping girl with a motion of her head.

"She is still pretty," Eve answered.

"Yet you never saw _her_ making eyes at gentlemen like some; there's a great deal of making eyes at Potterpins. Rose Bonham, now--she got a silk dress out of Mr. Tennant no longer ago as last March."

"Mr. Tennant?"

"Yes; the gentleman who superintends the mine. Not that I have anything to say against him; gentlemen has their priviluges. All I say is--_girls_ hasn't!"

Eve had risen. "I must go; I will come again soon."

"Oh, miss," said the woman, dropping her gossip, and returning to her grat.i.tude (which was genuine)--"oh, miss, mayn't I know your name? I want to put it in me prayers. There was just three cents in the house, miss, when you came; and Lyddy she couldn't eat the last meal I got for her--a cracker and a piece of mackerel."

"You can pray for me without a name," said Eve, going out.

She felt as though there were hot coals in her throat, she could scarcely breathe. She went towards the forest, and, entering it by a cart-track, walked rapidly on. Rose Bonham was the daughter of the b.u.t.ter-woman. Bonham had a forest farm about five miles from Port aux Pins on the road to Betsy Lake, and his wife kept Paul's cottage supplied with b.u.t.ter. Eve had seen the daughter several times; she was a very beautiful girl. Eve and Cicely thought her bold; but the women who eat the b.u.t.ter are apt to think so of those who bring it, if the bringers have sparkling eyes, peach-like complexions, and the gait of Hebe.

And Paul himself had suggested the spending the night there--an entirely unnecessary thing--under the pretence of gaining thereby an earlier start in the morning.