"Because-" He stopped, and his quizzical look changed into something deeper. "I believe I ought to. I've had a sort of an offer out West, and it's time I made a change."

"Is it to lead a new life?" asked Dosia, with deep and tender solemnity.

Mrs. Leverich's words came back to her; this, then, had been all planned.

"Oh, let us always hope so!" said Lawson lightly. "Who knows? Perhaps I'll turn into a highly respectable individual and make money. You can't be respectable without money, I've tried it, and I know. I had a sort of an opening in Central Africa which my dear brother-in-law pressed upon me, but I decided against it."

"Central Africa!"

"Yes. I appreciated Leverich's feelings in the plan-you can't get back easily from Central Africa, if you get back at all. So I'm going, for good or bad, to a nice little mining-camp in Nevada, where you get your mail every six weeks or so, and where you can go down into your grave any way you please without scandalizing your friends. I'll be really quite out of the way."

"Out of the way!" Her heart leaped with pride in him. How little William knew of this man!

"Yes, out of everybody's way-and yours, dear little girl. I'm not good enough for much, but perhaps I'm good enough for that."

"Oh," said Dosia, distressed and fascinated by his tone of real feeling.

"But why-oh, I shall miss you so much-and think of you-so much!" Her voice broke. "I can't bear to think of your going off in this way-so lonely."

There was a shriek from farther down the barge. "It's beginning to rain, it's beginning to rain!" A wild scramble ensued for cloaks and umbrellas. A furious shower was descending almost with the words, and the whole party slid off the two long seats into the straw on the bottom of the barge, and cowered under the carriage-robes pulled up around them for a shelter, showing only a ma.s.s of umbrellas above.

Lawson's quick movements had insured Dosia's protection.

"You are not getting wet at all?" He bent over her tenderly under the enveloping umbrella.

"Not at all," she whispered.

It was as if everything were a confidence now. She reverted to the subject of their conversation:

"Oh, do you think you will really not come back?"

He laughed. "Yes, I mean it-now. Of course, you know that's my chief fault-my resolutions are too frequently writ on sand." He spoke of his own weakness with the bitter yet facile contempt which too often enervates still more instead of strengthening. "Yes, I mean it. Do you wonder I took your hand? Are you sorry I'm going-? is my little friend sorry? She mustn't be sorry; you know, n.o.body is sorry-she must be glad to get rid of inc. Speak-and say it."

"No," whispered Dosia.

He pressed her arm close to him, as he held her hand and pulled the wraps around her, shifting the umbrella as the wind changed. One of the men in front lighted a lantern and held it out in the rain at arm's length, to glimmer ahead in the pitchy darkness and show the road to the driver, who held the horses at a walk. The wagon lurched and tipped in mud-holes and unexpected ridges and depressions, running up once on the edge of a bank, while the couples on the floor of it screamed and laughed. There were muttered rolls of thunder in the distance. Rain in the night had always brought back the scene of the disaster to Dosia, but she only thought now that she could not think. All of her that lived was living at this moment here.

"Why are you so silent?" he murmured headily, after an interval.

"I don't know."

"Is there anything else that you want to tell me?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, yes, you do." His voice had grown dangerously tender. "What is it?"

He waited again, bending nearer. "Don't you want me to leave you-is that it? Don't you want me to leave you?"

"No," whispered Dosia.

"Then I'll stay!"

His arm slid exultingly around her waist, and his hand pressed her head down upon his shoulder, while she submitted pa.s.sively, a thing of suffocating heart-beats and burning blushes, captive to she knew not what. "You oughtn't to have said that, you know, for now I'll never go.

I'll stay with you. Hush-keep still!" He held her firmly as some one spoke from the front, and he answered in a loud tone:

"Yes, Mrs. Malcolmson, it's the right road. Swing the lantern a little further around, Billy. Yes, that's the old white house; we turn there-it's all right."

He kept his att.i.tude of attention for a few minutes, looking from under the cover of his umbrella at the huddled heaps and the umbrellas in front of him. Then Dosia felt that he was coming back to her. She tried desperately to rally her forces, to think if this was the man with whom she wanted to spend her life, her husband for all her days. Alas, she could not think! Some giant, unknown force had sapped her power of thought. She weakly took his two hands and tried to push his arm from around her waist and to raise her head from his shoulder. His arm did not move; her head sank back again. His lips were on hers-which no man had ever touched before,-and those lips now were Lawson's.

"There was _one_ girl kissed to-night," announced Mrs. Snow, as she took off her numerous layers of shawls and worsted head-coverings in household conclave after her return from the Leverichs'.

"It was perfectly disgraceful! Is there any hot water on the stove, Bertha? I want a gla.s.sful to drink. I hope you left a piece of stale bread in the oven for me, I feel a little need of something. Oh, yes, of course there was a supper, we had lobster Newburg and champagne, but I didn't take any; a cup of beef-tea or a little cereal would have suited me much better. It's a mercy if I haven't taken my death of cold. It was Dosia Linden's goings-on that I was speaking of; she's a bold sort of a piece, evidently, quite different from what I thought. Sh-William's gone up-stairs, hasn't he?" Mrs. Snow dropped her voice mysteriously.

"My dear, she and Lawson Barr sat hidden under an umbrella all the way home, and never spoke a word. You can't tell _me_! Never said a word that anyone could hear. When she came into the dining-room at the Leverichs', her face was scarlet, and she couldn't even look at anyone, though she talked enough for ten while he played some queer thing on the piano. You can just ask Ada."

Miss Bertha had preserved an immovable countenance throughout the monologue, but her eye now sought her sister's and received a swift glance of confirmation from that silent and discreet damsel. The confirmation brought a shock to Miss Bertha-fond of the trivial and unimportant in gossip, the scandal which hurt the young devolved a hurt on her, too. As mothers who have lost children feel a tenderness for those who do not belong to them, so Miss Bertha, who had lost her youth, felt toward the youth in others. Her mother's small mind yet had an uncanny power of partial divination, gained from years of experience and espial, that irritated while it impressed.

"Her face was probably red from the wind and the rain," said Miss Bertha, in a matter-of-fact tone, regardless of her mother's contemptuous sniff. "What kind of a time did you have, Ada? Did you see anything of Mr. Sutton?"

"Just a little," replied Ada temperately.

This time it was the mother's and Miss Bertha's eyes that telegraphed.

"Ada, my dear, you may take my shawls up-stairs. She was with him _all_ the time. I hope he saw enough of Dosia Linden's bold actions to disgust him, at any rate. Yes, my dear, everything was managed very beautifully at the Leverichs', and it was all very elegant; but she is a little common-Mrs. Leverich, I mean. She was really quite put out because we hadn't driven back faster. There was a Mr. Girard who had come out from the city, and she wanted Miss Dosia to meet him before he left-he had just come back from somewhere in the West. She really made quite a time about it. And there's a sort of vulgar display about her that I don't care for; you can see she's Lawson's brother. Oh, well, don't take me up so, Bertha; you know what I mean, well enough. You have such a sharp way with you sometimes, like your dear father's family.

William-_Wil-liam_!"

"Yes, mother."

"I want you to come down and put the cat out and lock up at once,-oh, you did, did you?-and kissed me good night, too, you say? I didn't notice it. And did you empty the water-pan under the ice-box, and bank up the fire, and water the big palm? Oh, very well. Then, William-Wil-liam! I want you to come down again, now, and take a rhinitis tablet, after the dampness of to-night."

There was an emphatic sound from above.

"He's shut his door," said Miss Bertha.

Ah, what does a girl think who has given up all her bright antic.i.p.ations for a man whom she knows is not worthy? Lawson had pressed Dosia's hand only when he said good night,-there were others around,-but he had looked at her lips. She knew how his felt upon them; their touch-more than all the murmured elusive questions and answers-had made her his.

She knelt down by the big chair in her room, and buried her hot face in the cushions, to try and think at last, with a suddenly sinking heart that feared when it should have rejoiced. He had told her that no one could make him go, now that she loved him; he would stay here. "And work for me?" she had asked, and he had answered, "Yes, and work for you."

She should be so happy now, so happy! The perspective down which she had always seen her future was suddenly shortened; this was the end. Lawson Barr, the man she had been playing with at a delightful, enthralling, forbidden game, he was the man with whom she had promised to spend her life, her husband for all her days; that which was to have been her uplifting was instead something for her to carry. Suppose that she had more of those awful, clear-sighted moments which had disenchanted her when his sister spoke? No, no; that must not happen, that must not!

Dosia had acquiesced in what was said about him, with the large-eyed uncomprehension of the girl who pretends that she understands what everyone expects her to; it meant something-she was afraid to have anyone tell her what; she pretended to understand, because she was afraid some one would let her know of half-divined, unmentionable things. He was not-good; he drank-people despised him: but he clung to her, and she had let him kiss her, oh, not only once or twice, but many, many times. She knew in her heart, she knew, that he was what they said; but it was to be her work to help him always. When she had been with him hitherto, there had always been the excitement of feeling that the claim was temporary, to hold or not, at will, a mere pretense of a claim. Now it was real. She was bound forever!

Was the moment of disenchantment upon her now? She did not deceive herself-too late she owned the truth. What was the worst? He was weak-then she must be strong. She thought of herself in years to come.

People said you couldn't reform a man who drank-her father had been very strong on this point. She had thought of it all before, to be sure; but now-now it came home. She imagined herself keeping his house for him, getting his meals-perhaps with children; waiting, listening suspiciously for his returning footsteps; trying to keep him "straight,"-perhaps not succeeding. Yes, she must succeed! People looked down on him-so they would look down on her. And while her clear and pure nature rea.s.serted itself, and thought and tried pathetically to find out truth alone, her cheeks still burned, her senses owned his sway. Those intoxicating moments forced themselves upon her, whether she would or no. But the truth-the truth below that, the truth was that she did not love him. You can carry any burden if you have the strong wings of love, but she had them not. What was to have been the crowning of her maidenhood had come to this-a sacrifice to the baser, and without love.

Nay, not that, not quite that! The maternal spirit in Dosia rose and yearned over this outcast, whom n.o.body loved, with a tenderness which owned no thought of self; she must never think of herself any more, but only what was best for him. She was to be his wife. The word brought a choking feeling, with its thrill of mystery. She was so young-so young!

Could she keep up a sacrifice always? Why had she not been able to think in this way until now? The answer came clearly in her search for truth: because she would not let herself do so. She had been warned-she had been warned.

"Pray-it helps." That was what she had said to him. Ah, yes! She slid to her knees; her only real help was in Heaven. She must keep her promise! She must always love him whom n.o.body loved, and trust him whom n.o.body trusted. Perhaps-perhaps when he kissed her again-She put the thought away, so that she, a child, might speak straight to G.o.d. And while she prayed Lawson was coming down-stairs with his hat on.

"You are not going out?" His sister barred the way, in a purple velvet gown, and laid a plump jeweled hand on his sleeve. The lights were already out in the drawing-room, and, beyond, the servants were removing the last traces of the supper.

He did not answer for a moment, looking at her with hard eyes, void of expression save for a certain tenseness. It was a look she knew. Then he answered roughly:

"I'm going in on the twelve-o'clock train with some of the boys. It's no good to talk."