"Why not?"

Helena lifted her head, suddenly, "It would take twenty-five minutes-- I'm sure it would."

She got up and walked a little way down the road, David tagging thoughtfully behind her. There was no stage in sight. "David, run down the hill to the turn, and look."

The little boy, nothing loath, ran, at the turn he shook his head, and called back, "No'm. Mrs. Richie, He _must_, 'cause there's nothing goes to heaven but us. Chickens don't," he explained anxiously. But she did not notice his alarm.

"I'll wait another five minutes," she said. She waited ten; and then another ten. "David," she said, in a smothered voice, "go; tell Maggie he isn't coming--to dinner. You have your dinner, dear little boy.

I--don't want any."

She went up-stairs to her own room, and shut and locked the door. All was over....

Yet when, in the early afternoon, the mail arrived, she had a pang of hope that was absolute agony, for he had written.

There were only a dozen lines besides the "Dearest Nelly":

"I am just starting out West, rather unexpectedly, on business. I am taking Alice along, and she is greatly delighted at the idea of a journey--her first. I don't know just when I'll get back; not for six weeks anyhow. Probably eight. Hope you and your youngster are all right.

"Yours, L. P.

"Your despatch received. We must talk things over the next time I come to Old Chester."

She pa.s.sed her hand over her eyes in a bewildered way; for a moment the words had absolutely no sense. Then she read them again: "We must talk things Over--"

What things? Why, their marriage, of course! Their marriage? She burst out laughing; and David, looking at her, shrank away.

CHAPTER XXII

The next few days were intolerable. But of course, after the first pa.s.sion of disappointment, she began to hope; he would write fully in a few days. She kept calculating how soon she might expect this fuller letter. She did not write to him, for as he had given no address it was evident that he did not wish to hear from her.

That week pa.s.sed, and then another, and though he wrote, he did not write "fully." In fact, he made no allusion whatever to Frederick, or the future. Helena was instant with explanation: he was absorbed with business; Alice was with him; he had no time. That these were absurd excuses she knew. But they were the best she could find, and she had to have excuses. It was at this time that she saw herself age. When still another week pa.s.sed, the tension lessened; indeed, she would have broken down under the strain if she had not fallen into a sort of apathy. She told herself that after all there was no reason why she should leave Old Chester immediately. Mr. Benjamin Wright's insolence had been outrageous and he was a horrible old man; but he had said that he would not speak of her affairs. So as far as he was concerned she could perfectly well wait until that Western trip was over; she would just try not to think of him. So she played with David, and talked to him, and listened to his confidences about the journey to Philadelphia which Dr. Lavendar planned. It was more than two months off, but that did not trouble David. He and Dr. Lavendar had long talks on the subject, of which, occasionally, the little boy dropped condescending hints.

"Maybe I'll take you to Philadelphia," Helena said once, jealously; "will you like that?"

"Yes'm," said David, without enthusiasm.

At which she reproached him; "I should think you would like to go with me, to see Liberty Bell?"

Silence.

"And maybe Mr. Pryor will take you to ride on a steamboat," she lured him.

"I like Dr. Lavendar best," said David, with alarm.

It was only David with whom Helena talked in these days of waiting; Old Chester found her still unsociable, and William King was obliged to admit that his party had not accomplished much. However, he insisted upon being sociable himself, and continued to come frequently to see her on the ground that she was not very well. Before she knew it she yielded again to the temptation of friendliness, and was glad to see the big, kind figure trudging up the garden path. He told her all the news Old Chester afforded, which was not extensive, and she replied with that listening silence which is so pleasant and that gave the doctor the opportunity--so valued by us all--of hearing himself talk; an opportunity not often allowed him in his own house. The silence covered bleak anxiety and often an entire absence of mind; but William, rambling on, could not know that. He was perfectly happy to look at her, although sometimes his face sobered, for hers had changed. It was paler; the delicate oval of her cheek had hollowed; the charming indolence had gone; the eyes had lost their sweet shallowness, something cowered in their depths that he could not clearly see--fear, perhaps, or pain. Or perhaps it was her soul.

Sometimes when the body relaxes its grip a little, the convict soul within struggles up to look with frightened bewilderment out of the windows of its prison. Dr. King watching the childlike droop of Helena's lip, admitted reluctantly that she had changed. "Depressed,"

he told himself. So he did his best to cheer her with Old Chester's harmless gossip; and one day--it was in September--she did show a quick and even anxious interest.

"Sam Wright's Sam has come back," the doctor said, "the young man arrived on the noon stage. I wonder what monkey-shines he'll be up to next!"

"_Oh!_" she said, and he saw her hands clasp in her lap; "I wonder if his grandfather knows?"

The color was hot in her face, and William said to himself that the cub ought to be thrashed! "Maybe he's got some sense by this journey in search of a publisher," he announced comfortingly.

In her consciousness of old Mr. Wright's dismay, she hardly heard what the doctor said; but she asked vaguely if Sam had found a publisher.

"Perhaps; I don't know. There are fools in every profession--except medicine, of course! But I believe he has not imparted any information on that point. His father merely told me he had come back." In spite of himself, William's face fell into its own kind lines. "His father is hard on him," he said; and then he began to tell her stories of the three generations of Wrights; ending with the statement that, in a dumb sort of fashion, Samuel loved his son like the apple of his eye.

"But he has always taken hold of him the wrong way," William said.

Certainly the doctor's opinion was borne out by the way in which Sam senior took hold of his son on his return. Reproaches were perhaps to be expected, but, alas, the poor, sore-hearted father tried sneers as well. A sneer is like a flame; it may occasionally be curative because it cauterizes, but it leaves a bitter scar. Of his dreadful anxiety in these seven or eight weeks of absence, of his sleepless nights, of his self-accusings, of his anguished affection, the senior warden could find nothing to say; but for anger and disappointment and contempt he had fluent and searing words. Such words were only the recoil from anxiety; but Sam could not know that; he only knew that he was a disgrace to his family. The information left him apparently unmoved.

He did not betray--very likely he really did not recognize in himself--the moral let-down that is almost always the result of such upbraiding. He was silent under his father's reproaches, and patient under his mother's embraces. He vouchsafed no information beyond, "I had to come back," which was really no information at all. Mr. Wright sneered at it, but Mrs. Wright was moved, she said, her mild eyes swimming in tears, "Of course, Sammy, dear. Mother understands. I knew you couldn't stay away from us."

Sam sighed, submitting to be kissed, and turned to go up-stairs; but something made him hesitate,--perhaps his mother's worn face. He came back, and bending down kissed her cheek. Mrs. Wright caught her breath with astonishment, but the boy made no explanation. He went on up to his own room and standing listlessly at the window, said again to himself, "I had to come back." After a while he added "But I won't bother her." He had already forgotten the two sore hearts down-stairs.

The next morning he hurried to church; but Mrs. Richie was not there, and in his disappointment he was as blind to Old Chester's curious glances as he was deaf to Dr. Lavendar's sermon.

The long morning loitered past. After dinner the Wright family dispersed for its customary Sunday afternoon nap. The senior warden, with _The Episcopalian_, as large as a small blanket, spread over his face, slept heavily in the library; Mrs. Wright dozed in her bedroom with one finger marking her place in a closed volume of sermons; the little girls wandered stealthily about the garden, memorizing by their father's orders their weekly hymn. The house was still, and very hot. All the afternoon young Sam lay upon his bed turning the pages of _The Wealth of Nations_, and brooding over his failures: he could not make Mrs. Richie love him; he could not write a great drama; he could not add up a column of figures; he could not understand his father's rages at unimportant things; "and n.o.body cares a continental whether I am dead or alive!--except mother," he ended; and his face softened. At five o'clock he reminded himself that he must go up to The Top for supper. But it was nearly six before he had energy enough to rise. The fact was, he shrank from telling his grandfather that the drama was no longer in existence. He had been somewhat rudely rebuffed by the only person who had looked at his ma.n.u.script, and had promptly torn the play up and scattered the fragments out of the window of his boarding-house. That was two days ago. The curious la.s.situde which followed this _acces_ of pa.s.sion was probably increased by the senior warden's reproaches. But Sam believed himself entirely indifferent both to his literary failure, and to his father's scolding. Neither was in his mind as he climbed the hill, and halted for a wistful moment at the green gate in the hedge; but he had no glimpse of Mrs. Richie.

He found his grandfather sitting on the veranda behind the big white columns, reading aloud, and gesticulating with one hand:

"'But if proud Mortimer do wear this crown, Heaven turn it to a blaze of quenchless fire Or like the snaky wreath of Sisiphon--'"

He looked up irritably at the sound of a step on the weedy driveway, then his eyes snapped with delight.

"Hullo--hullo! what's this?"

"I had to come back, grandfather," Sam said.

"Well! Well!" said Benjamin Wright, his whole face wrinkling with pleasure. "'Had to come back?' Money gave out, I suppose? Sit down, sit down! Hi, Simmons! d.a.m.n that n.i.g.g.e.r. Simmons, here's Master Sam.

What have you got for supper? Well, young man, did you get some sense knocked into you?" He was trembling with eagerness. Marlowe, in worm- eaten calf, dropped from his hand to the porch floor. Sam picked the book up, and sat down.

"If you wanted some more money, why the devil didn't you say so?"

"I had money enough, sir."

"Well--what about the drama?" his grandfather demanded.

"He said it was no good."

"Who said it was no good?" Mr. Wright pulled off his hat, fiercely, and began to chew orange-skin. Sam, vaguely turning over the leaves of the book upon his knee, mentioned the name of a publisher. "Fool!"

said Benjamin Wright; "what does he know? Well; I hope you didn't waste time over him. Then who did you send it to?"

"n.o.body."