I looked at my aunt's face and listened to her voice in bewilderment. The whole world had for years called her, and with apparent justice, "a hard and unsympathizing woman." No human being had ever seen a really free unconstrained smile on her face, or heard from her lips an impulsive word.

When it was known that the genial, rollicking, open-hearted Henry Ware was to marry her, everybody shuddered. As years went on, everybody who sat by Henry Ware's fireside, and was kindled and made welcome by his undiminished and unconquerable cheeriness, felt at the same time chilled and paralyzed by the courteous, unexceptionable dignity of Mrs. Ware. Even I, having the freedom of a daughter in their house, and loving my uncle hardly less than I loved my father, had never once supposed that anybody could love Aunt Ann, or that she would permit it. I always felt a little terror when I saw Annie kiss her, or my uncle put his arm around her. My own loving, caressing, over-flowing mother had given me by inheritance, and had taught me by example, a type of love which knew no life without expression. And very well I knew that that sweet mother of mine, whom the whole town loved, and who herself loved the whole world, seemed always turned into stone by the simple presence of Aunt Ann.

And now Aunt Ann was sitting on the floor by my side, clinging to my hand, resting my head on her bosom, and, as I felt instantly and instinctively, revealing in her every tone, look, word, such intensity and pa.s.sionateness of feeling as I had never in my whole life seen before. I saw then that she had always held me side by side with her own child in her heart, and that she knew the rare quality of the love I had for Annie.

"I ought not to have let you come here," she said, more as if speaking to herself than to me; "they, too, have but one."

"But, Aunt Ann, you could not have kept me out," I whispered.

"Yes, I knew that, my child," she replied; "but no one else would know it."

From that moment there was between my Aunt Ann and me a subtle bond which partook of all the holiest mysteries of love. There were both motherhood and the love of lovers in my love for Annie. Annie's mother felt them, and was willing to have her own motherhood added to and ministered to by them.

From that moment I believe not even her husband seemed so near to her in her relation with her child as I.

I will not write out the record of the next two weeks. They seemed, as they pa.s.sed, a thousand years; and yet, in looking back on them, they seem only like one terrible breathless night. My aunt and I alone did all that was done for Annie. There were whole days and whole nights during which she talked incessantly, sometimes with such subtle semblance of her own sweet self that we could hardly believe she did not know what she said; sometimes with such wild ravings that we shook in terror, and could not look at her nor at each other. There were other days and nights through which she lay in a sleep, which seemed-no more like real sleep than the shrill voice of her ravings had seemed like her real voice. These were most fearful of all. Through all these days and nights, two men with white faces and folded arms walked up and down in the rooms below, or crouched on the thresholds of our doors, listening for sign or word from us. One was Annie's father, and the other was her lover, George Ware. He was her second cousin, fifteen years older than she, and had loved her since the day she was one year old, when at the ceremony of her christening, he, a proud shy boy of sixteen, had been allowed to carry her up-stairs with her sweet name resting fresh and new on her little dewy forehead. Ah, seldom does such love spring and grow and blaze on this earth as had warmed the very air around Annie from the moment of her birth. George Ware was a man of rare strength, as this love showed; and with just such faithfulness as his faithfulness to Annie, he had loved and cared for his mother, who had been for twenty years a widow. They lived on the outskirts of the town, in a small house almost buried in the heart of a pine wood. The wood was threaded in all directions by miles of narrow paths which shone in the shaded sunlight as if they were satin-floored. For nineteen years it had been George Ware's joy to roam these paths with his cousin Annie; first, the baby whom he drew in her wicker wagon; next, the wayward little child who walked with stumbling steps and clung to his finger; next, the gay school-girl who brought all her perplexities and all her joys to be confided to him under the pines; next, the shyer and more silent maiden who came less often, but lingered helplessly until twilight made the fragrant aisles solemn and dim as cloisters; at last, the radiant, the child-like woman, the promised wife!

No winter could set a barrier across these pine-wood paths. When the whole country about lay blocked and drifted, and half buried with snow, all these spicy foot-roads were kept clear and level, and ready for Annie's feet. Whole days of George Ware's strength went into the work and the joy of doing this. In open s.p.a.ces where the snow had drifted deep, he wrought it into solid walls almost as high on either hand as Annie's head. In dark nooks, where the spreading pines and hemlocks lay low and wide, he tossed the snow into fantastic and weird ma.s.ses on the right and left, and cleared great s.p.a.ces where he knew the partridge-berry would be ready with a tiny scarlet glow to light up the spot.

This was George Ware's wooing. It never stepped into the glare, the contention of profaner air. It was not a seeking, a finding, a conquest; but a slow, sure growth of possession, which had as eternal foundation and seemed as eternally safe as the results of organic law.

George's picture hung in Annie's room, opposite the foot of her bed.

Opposite the foot of the bed in her mother's room hung a large engraving of the Sistine Madonna. I fancied that in Annie's quieter moments her eyes rested with a troubled look upon this picture, and one day, when she was in a deep sleep, I exchanged the pictures. I felt as if even lifeless canvas which had George's face painted upon it, might work her good.

At last there came a night,--they said it was the fourteenth, but the words conveyed no meaning to me,--there came a night when Dr. Fearing, who had been sitting by Annie's bed for two hours, watching her every breath, sprang suddenly to his feet, and beckoned to my aunt and me to follow him into the next room. He shut the door, walked very swiftly up to us, looked first into her face then into mine; then felt her pulse, and then mine, and then turning to me, said,--

"It will have to be you." We looked at him in sudden terror. The tears were rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.

"What is it, William?" gasped Aunt Ann.

"It will have to be you," he went on, looking me in the face, and taking no notice of her question; "your pulse can be trusted. There has been a change. When Annie wakes out of this sleep she will know you. It may be in two hours, and it may not be for six. But if in that first moment she is alarmed, or agitated in any way, she will die."

"O William, let me stay. I will be calm," moaned my poor aunt.

Then I observed, for the first time, that she had called him "William."

And then, for the first and last time, I heard Dr. Fearing call my Aunt Ann "darling," and I remembered in that instant that it had been said once in my hearing, that it was because of his love for Mrs. Henry Ware that Dr. William Fearing had lived and would die a lonely man.

"Darling," he said, and put one hand on her shoulder, "you would kill your child. I forbid you to cross the threshold of that room till I come back.

You will thank me to-morrow. Can you not trust me, Ann?" and he looked down from his full height, this brave old man, into the face of the woman he had loved, with a look like the look of one who dies to save another.

It was but for one second, and then he was again the physician, and turning to me, went on, "I have another patient to whom I must instantly go, and whom I may not be able to leave for hours. You can do all that I would do,--I believe,"--then he felt my pulse again, and nodding his head with a sort of grim professional satisfaction, which no amount of emotion could wholly divert from its delight in the steady nerves and undisturbed currents of a healthy body,--resumed, "You have but one thing to do: when she wakes, look perfectly composed; if she speaks, answer her in a perfectly natural voice; give her two drops of this medicine, and tell her to go to sleep again. If you do this, she will fall asleep at once. If you show the least agitation, she may die,--probably will!"--and Dr.

Fearing was gone.

My aunt sat silently weeping. I kissed her without speaking, and went back to my chair by Annie's bed. I dropped the two drops of medicine into a spoon, and propped the spoon carefully on a little silver tray, so that I could reach it instantly. It was just three o'clock in the morning. Hour after hour pa.s.sed. I could not hear Annie's breath. My own dinned in my ears like the whir of mills. A terror such as I can never describe took possession of me. What if I were to kill Annie? How could I look composed?

speak naturally? What would she say? If I could but know and have my answer ready!

I firmly believe that the dawn of light saved my senses and Annie's life.

When the first red beam shot through the blinds at the farther end of the room, tears came into my eyes. I felt as if angels were watching outside.

A tiny sunbeam crept between the slats and fell on the carpet. It was no more than a hair's breadth, but it was companionship to me. Slowly, steadily it came towards me. I forgot all else in watching it. To this day I cannot see a slow-moving sunbeam on a crimson floor without a shudder.

The clock struck six, seven, eight, nine. The bells rang for schools; the distant hum of the town began. Still there was no stir, no symptom of life, in the colorless face on the pillow. The sunbeam had crept nearly to my feet. Involuntarily I lifted my right foot and stretched it out-to meet the golden messenger. Had I dared to move I should have knelt and reached my hand to it instead. Perhaps even the slight motion I did make, hastened Annie's waking, for at that instant she turned her head uneasily on the pillow and opened her eyes. I saw that she knew me. I wondered how I could have distrusted my own strength to meet her look. I smiled as if we were at play together, and said,--

"Good morning, dear."

She smiled languidly and said, "How came I in mamma's bed?"

I said, quietly, "Take this medicine, darling;" and almost before the drops had pa.s.sed her lips her eyes closed, and she had fallen asleep again.

When Dr. Fearing came into the room at noon, he gave one swift, anxious glance at her face, and then fell on his knees and folded his face in his hands. I knew that Annie was safe.

Then he went into the next room, silently took Aunt Ann by the hand, and leading her back to Annie's bedside, pointed to the little beads of moisture on her forehead and said,--

"Saved!"

The revulsion was too much for the poor mother's heart. She sank to the floor. He lifted her in his arms and carried her out, and for the rest of that day my Aunt Ann, that "hard and unsympathizing woman," pa.s.sed from one strange fainting-fit into another, until we were in almost as great fear for her life as we had been for Annie's.

At twilight Annie roused from her sleep again. She was perfectly tranquil, but too weak to lift even her little hand, which had grown so thin and so wrinkled that it looked like a wilted white flower lying on the white counterpane.

Hour by hour she gained strength under the powerful restoratives which were used, and still more from the wonderful elasticity of her temperament. From the very first day, however, an indefinable terror of misgiving seized me as often as I heard her voice or looked into her eyes.

In vain I said to myself: "It is the weakness after such terrible illness;" "it is only natural." I felt in the bottom of my heart that it was more.

On the fourth day she said suddenly, looking up at the picture of George Ware,--

"Why! Why is Cousin George's picture in here? Where is the Madonna?"

I replied: "I moved it in here, dear, for you. I thought you would like it."

"No," she said, "I like the Madonna best: the dear little baby! Please carry George back into my room where he belongs."

My heart stood still with terror. She had never called George Ware her cousin since their engagement. She especially disliked any allusion to their relationship. This was her first mention of his name, and it was in all respects just what it would have been a year before. Dr. Fearing had forbidden us to allude to him, or to her wedding-day, or, in fact, to any subject calculated to arouse new trains of thought in her mind. I wondered afterward that we did not understand from the first how he had feared that her brain might not fully recover itself, as the rest of her exquisitely organized body seemed fast doing.

Day after day pa.s.sed. Annie could sit up; could walk about her room; she gained in flesh and color and strength so rapidly that it was a marvel.

She was gentle and gay and loving; her old rare, sweet self in every little way and trait and expression; not a look, not a smile, not a tone was wanting; but it was the Annie of last year, and not of this. She made no allusion to her wedding, the day for which had now pa.s.sed. She did not ask for George. The whole year had dropped out of her memory; part of her brain was still diseased. No human touch could venture to deal with it without the risk of the most terrible consequences.

Dr. Fearing's face grew day by day more and more anxious; he was baffled; he was afraid. He consulted the most eminent physicians who had had experience in diseases of the brain. They all counseled patience, and advised against any attempt to hasten her recollections upon any point; they all had known similar cases, but never one so sharply defined or so painful as this. Still they were unanimous in advising that nothing should be said to startle her; that all must be trusted to time.

Through these terrible days George Ware was braver than any one else. His faith in the absoluteness of his hold on Annie was too great to be disturbed. He was by nature as patient as he was resolute. He had not wooed his wife for eighteen years to lose her now in any way except by death, he thought. He comforted us all.

"Do be brave, sweet mother of Annie," he used to say to my poor Aunt Ann; "all will be well. It is nothing to me to wait another year, after having waited all these. It is not even hard for me to go without seeing her, if that is best."

Nevertheless, his face grew thin and his eye heavy and his form bent, as week after week pa.s.sed, and he came daily to the house, only to be told the same weary thing, that Annie had not asked for him. The physicians had said that it would be better that she should not see him until she had of her own accord mentioned his name. Her nerves were still in such a state that any surprise threw her into palpitation and alarm which did not pa.s.s off for hours. No human being could tell how great might be the shock of seeing his face; how much it might recall to her; and whether, if it recalled all, she could bear it. From the outset George believed the physicians were wrong in this; but he dared not urge his instinct against their knowledge; and he was patient of nature, and so the days went on, on, on; and there was no change except that Annie grew steadily better and our hearts grew steadily sicker and sicker until we almost looked back with longing on the days when we feared she would die. And yet in every respect, except the memory of her lover, Annie was the same as before. The closest scrutiny could discover no other change in her, except perhaps that she seemed even gayer than she used to seem, and a shade less tender, but this also was as she had been before she had promised to be George Ware's wife.

One morning George brought me a small bunch of lovely wild things from the pine woods, Tiarella leaves just tipped with claret color by the early frosts, sprays of Linnea, two or three tiny white maiden's hair ferns, all tied by a knot of patridge-berry vines thick-set with scarlet berries.

"Give these to Annie for me, will you, dear Helen?" he said, "and observe very carefully how she is affected by them."

I remembered that it was just one year ago that day, that he had asked her to be his wife, and I trembled to think of what hidden meanings I might be messenger in carrying her this silent token. But I too felt, as George did, that she was drifting farther and farther away from the memories we desired she should regain; and that no physician's knowledge could be so true as love's instinct; and I asked no counsel of any one, but went swiftly to Annie with the leaves in my hand.

"O you darling! How perfectly lovely," she exclaimed with a laugh of delight. "Why these must have come from George's woods. Have you been up there?"

"No, dear," I said, "George brought them for you, this morning."