After The Storm, T. S. Arthur [best summer reads txt] 📗

have lived about here pretty much all my life."

"Then you knew Miss Delancy before she was married?"

"No, sir; I can't say that I knew much about her before that time. I used to see her now and then as she rode about the neighborhood. She was a gay, wild girl, sir. But that unhappy marriage made a great change in her. I cannot forget the first time I saw her after she came back to her father's. She seemed to me older by many years than when I last saw her, and looked like one just recovered from a long and serious illness. The brightness had passed from her face, the fire from her eyes, the spring from her footsteps. I believe she left her husband of her own accord, but I never knew that she made any complaint against him. Of course, people were very curious to know why she had abandoned him. But her lips must have been sealed, for only a little vague talk went floating around. I never heard a breath of wrong charged against him as coming from her."

Emerson's face was turned still more away from his companion, his eyes bent down and his brows firmly knit. He did not ask farther, but the man was on a theme that interested him, and so continued.

"For most of the time since her return to Ivy Cliff the life of Miss Delancy has been given to Christian charities. The death of her father was a heavy stroke. It took the life out of her for a while. Since her recovery from that shock she has been constantly active among us in good deeds. Poor sick women know the touch of her gentle hand and the music of her voice. She has brought sunlight into many wintry homes, and kindled again on hearths long desolate the fires of loving kindness. There must have been some lack of true appreciation on the part of her husband, sir. Bitter fountains do not send forth sweet waters like these. Don't you think so?"

"How should I know?" replied Emerson, a little coldly. The question was sprung upon him so suddenly that his answer was given in confusion of thought.

"We all have our opinions, sir," said the man, "and this seems a plain case. I've heard said that her husband was a hot-headed, self-willed, ill-regulated young fellow, no more fit to get married than to be President. That he didn't understand the woman—or, maybe, I should say child—whom he took for his wife is very certain, or he never would have treated her in the way he did!"

"How did he treat her?" asked Mr. Emerson.

"As to that," replied his talkative companion, "we don't know anything certain. But we shall not go far wrong in guessing that it was neither wise nor considerate. In fact, he must have outraged her terribly."

"This, I presume, is the common impression about Ivy Cliff?"

"No," said the man; "I've heard him well spoken of. The fact is, people are puzzled about the matter. We can't just understand it. But, I'm all on her side."

"I wonder she has not married again?" said Emerson. "There are plenty of men who would be glad to wed so perfect a being as you represent her to be."

"She marry!" There was indignation and surprise in the man's voice.

"Yes; why not?"

"Sir, she is a Christian woman!"

"I can believe that, after hearing your testimony in regard to her," said Emerson. But he still kept his face so much turned aside that its expression could not be seen.

"And reads her Bible."

"As we all should."

"And, what is more, believes in it," said the man emphatically.

"Don't all Christian people believe in the Bible?" asked Mr. Emerson.

"I suppose so, after a fashion; and a very queer fashion it is, sometimes."

"How does this lady of whom you speak believe in it differently from some others?"

"In this, that it means what it says on the subject of divorce."

"Oh, I understand. You think that if she were to marry again it would be in the face of conscientious scruples?"

"I do."

Mr. Emerson was about asking another question when one of the party to which he belonged joined him, and so the strange interview closed. He bowed to the man with whom he had been conversing, and then passed to another part of the boat.

With slow steps, that were unsteady from sudden weakness, Irene moved along the road that led to her home. After reaching the grounds of Ivy Cliff she turned aside into a small summer-house, and sat down at one of the windows that looked out upon the river as it stretched upward in its gleaming way. The boat she had just left was already far distant, but it fixed her eyes, and they saw no other object until it passed from view around a wooded point of land. And still she sat motionless, looking at the spot where it had vanished from her sight.

"Miss Irene!" exclaimed Margaret, the faithful old domestic, who still bore rule at the homestead, breaking in upon her reverie, "what in the world are you doing here? I expected you up to-day, and when the boat stopped at the landing and you didn't come, I was uneasy and couldn't rest. Why child, what is the matter? You're sick!"

"Oh no, Margaret, I'm well enough," said Irene, trying to smile indifferently. And she arose and left the summer-house.

Kind, observant old Margaret was far from being satisfied, however. She saw that Irene was not as when she departed for the city a week before. If she were not sick in body, she was troubled in her mind, for her countenance was so changed that she could not look upon it without feeling a pang in her heart.

"I'm sure you're sick, Miss Irene," she said as they entered the house. "Now, what is the matter? What can I do or get for you? Let me send over for Dr. Edmondson?"

"No, no, my good Margaret, don't think of such a thing," replied Irene. "I'm not sick."

"Something's the matter with you, child," persisted Margaret.

"Nothing that won't cure itself," said Irene, trying to speak cheerfully. "I'll go up to my room for a little while."

And she turned away from her kind-hearted domestic. On entering her chamber Irene locked the door in order to be safe from intrusion, for she knew that Margaret would not let half an hour pass without coming up to ask how she was. Sitting down by the window, she looked out upon the river, along whose smooth surface had passed the vessel in which, a little while before, she met the man once called by the name of husband—met him and looked into his face for the first time in ten long years! The meeting had disturbed her profoundly. In the cabin of that vessel she had seen him by the side of a fair young girl in earnest conversation; and she had watched with a strange, fluttering interest the play of his features. What was he saying to that fair young girl that she listened with such a breathless, waiting air? Suddenly he turned toward her, their eyes met and were spell-bound for moments. What did she read in his eyes in those brief moments? What did he read in hers? Both questions pressed themselves upon her thoughts as she retreated among the crowd of passengers, and then hid herself from the chance of another meeting until the boat reached the landing at Ivy Cliff. Why did she pause on the shore, and turn to look upon the crowded decks? She knew not. The act was involuntary. Again their eyes met—met and held each other until the receding vessel placed dim distance between them.

In less than half an hour Margaret's hand was on the door, but she could not enter. Irene had not moved from her place at the window in all that time.

"Is that you, Margaret?" she called, starting from her abstraction.

"Do you want anything, Miss Irene?"

"No, thank you, Margaret."

She answered in as cheerful a tone as she could assume, and the kind old waiting-woman retired.

From that time every one noted a change in Irene. But none knew, or even guessed, its cause or meaning. Not even to her friend, Mrs. Everet, did she speak of her meeting with Hartley Emerson. Her face did not light up as before, and her eyes seemed always as if looking inward or gazing dreamily upon something afar off. Yet in good deeds she failed not. If her own heart was heavier, she made other hearts lighter by her presence.

And still the years went on in their steady revolutions—one, two, three, four, five more years, and in all that time the parted ones did not meet again.

CHAPTER XXV. BORN FOR EACH OTHER.

"I SAW Mr. Emerson yesterday," said Mrs. Everet. She was sitting with Irene in her own house in New York.

"Did you?" Irene spoke evenly and quietly, but did not turn her face toward Mrs. Everet.

"Yes. I saw him at my husband's store. Mr. Everet has engaged him to conduct an important suit, in which many thousands of dollars are at stake."

"How does he look?" inquired Irene, without showing any feelings but still keeping her face turned from Mrs Everet.

"Well, I should say, though rather too much frosted for a man of his years."

"Gray, do you mean?" Irene manifested some surprise.

"Yes; his hair and beard are quite sprinkled with time's white snow-flakes."

"He is only forty," remarked Irene.

"I should say fifty, judging from his appearance."

"Only forty." And a faint sigh breathed on the lips of Irene. She did not look around at her friend but sat very still, with her face turned partly away. Mrs. Everet looked at her closely, to read, if possible, what was passing in her mind. But the countenance of Irene was too much hidden. Her attitude, however, indicated intentness of thought, though not disturbing thought.

"Rose," she said at length, "I grow less at peace with myself as the years move onward."

"You speak from some passing state of mind," suggested Mrs. Everet.

"No; from a gradually forming permanent state. Ten years ago I looked back upon the past in a stern, self-sustaining, martyr-spirit. Five years ago all things wore a different aspect. I began to have misgivings; I could not so clearly make out my case. New thoughts on the subject—and not very welcome ones—began to intrude. I was self-convicted of wrong; yes, Rose, of a great and an irreparable wrong. I shut my eyes; I tried to look in other directions; but the truth, once seen, could not pass from the range of mental vision. I have never told you that I saw Mr. Emerson five years ago. The effect of that meeting was such that I could not speak of it, even to you. We met on one of the river steamboats—met and looked into each other's eyes for just a moment. It may only be a fancy of mine, but I have thought sometimes that, but for this seemingly accidental meeting, he would have married again."

"Why do you think so?" asked Mrs. Everet.

Irene did not answer for some moments. She hardly dared venture to put what she had seen in words. It was something that she felt more like hiding even from her own consciousness, if that were possible. But, having ventured so far, she could not well hold back. So she replied, keeping her voice into as dead a level as it was possible to assume:

"He was sitting in earnest conversation with a young lady, and from the expression of her face, which I could see, the subject on which he was speaking was evidently one in which more than her thought was interested. I felt at the time that he was on the verge of a new life-experiment—was about venturing upon a sea on which he had once made shipwreck. Suddenly he turned half around and looked at me before I had time to withdraw my eyes—looked at me with a strange,