Opening a Chestnut Burr Part 46

"Evidently so in your estimation."

Then for the first time she noted his jealousy, and it hurt her sorely.

She took a step nearer and looked very gravely into his face for a moment without speaking, and then said, with that calmness which is more effective than pa.s.sion, "Charles, take care. I'm one that will be trusted. Though it seems a light matter to you that he has saved my life, at perhaps the cost of his own, it does not to me."

The cool and usually cautious man had for once lost his poise, and he said, with sudden irritation, "I hear that and nothing else. What else could he have done? If you had stayed at your father's side you would have been safe. He took you out to walk, and any man would have risked his life to bring you back safely."

He now saw in Annie a spirit he could never control as he managed people in Wall Street, for, with a sudden flash in her eyes, she said, hotly, "I do not reason thus coldly about those to whom I owe so much,"

and abruptly left him.

In bitterness of fear and self-reproach he at once realized his blunder. He followed her, but she was with her father, and he could not speak there. He looked imploringly at her, but could not catch her eye, for she was deeply incensed. Had she not heard him she would not have believed that he could be so ungenerous.

He wrote on a sc.r.a.p of paper, "Annie, forgive me. I humbly ask your pardon. I'm not myself to-day, and that man's conduct, which you so n.o.bly resented in my behalf, vexed me to that degree that I acted like a fool. I am not worthy of you, but you will perceive that my folly arises from my excess of love for you. I'm going for a walk. Please greet me with pardon in your face on my return."

Impulsive, loving, warm-hearted Annie could not resist such an appeal.

She at once relented, and began to make a thousand better excuses for her lover than he could for himself. But she had taught him a lesson, and proved that she was not a weak, willowy creature that would cling to him no matter what he was or did. He saw that he must seem to be worthy of her.

Gregory greeted his partner with a momentary glow of grat.i.tude that he had come so far to see him, and began talking about his business.

"Not a word of that, old fellow," said Mr. Seymour. "Your business is to get well. It seems to me that you have everything here for comfort --good medical attendance, eh?"

"Yes; if anything, too much is done for me."

"I don't understand just how it happened."

Gregory told him briefly.

"By Jove! this Miss Walton ought to be very grateful to you."

"She is too grateful."

"I don't know about that. I met that infernal Hunting downstairs. Of course I couldn't treat him with politeness, and do you know the little lady s.p.u.n.ked up about it to that degree that she almost turned her back upon me and left the room."

"Of course," said Gregory, coolly, s.h.i.+elding his secret by a desperate effort; "they are engaged."

"Oh, I understand now. Well, I rather like her spirit. Does she know how accomplished her lover is in Wall Street?"

"No. Hunting is a distant relative of the family. They believe him to be a gentleman, and would not listen to a word against him."

"But they ought to know. He lied like a scoundrel to us, and in your trying all summer to make up the losses, he has nearly been the death of you. I wouldn't let my daughter marry him though he had enough money to break the Street: and it is a pity that a fine girl, as this Miss Walton seems, should throw herself away on him."

"Well, Seymour, that's not our affair," said Gregory, pale and faint from his effort at self-control. "They would listen to nothing."

"Well, good-by, old fellow. I see it won't do to talk with you any more. Get well as soon as you can, for we want you woefully in town.

Get well, and carry off this Miss Walton yourself. It would be a neat way of turning the tables on Hunting."

"Don't set your heart on seeing me at the office again," said Gregory, feelingly. "I have a presentiment that I shan't pull through this, and I don't much care. Give my kindest regards to Mr. Burnett, and tell him I shall think of him to the last as among my best friends."

Seymour made a few hearty remonstrances against such a state of mind, and took his departure with many misgivings. Gregory relapsed into his old dreary apathy. Life had so many certain ills that upon the whole he felt he would rather die. But he was too stunned and weak to think much, save when Annie came to him. Her presence was always life, but now it was a sharp revival of the consciousness of his loss. Left to himself, his mind sank down into a sort of painless lethargy, from which he did not wish to be aroused.

Mr. Walton pa.s.sed a quieter night, but was clearly failing fast. He sent frequent messages of love and sympathy to Gregory, and had an abiding faith that all would be well with him in the next life, if not in this. Annie had not the heart to undeceive him. When he thought it a little strange that Hunting was not with Gregory, Annie explained by saying that the doctor insisted on perfect quiet of mind, and the presence of Hunting might unpleasantly revive old memories, and so unduly excite him.

After the physician saw his patients the following morning, he looked grave and dissatisfied. Annie followed him to the door, and said, "Doctor, I don't like the expression of your face."

"Well, Miss Annie," said the doctor, discontentedly, "I've a difficult task on my hands, in trying to cure two patients that make no effort to live. Your father seems homesick for heaven, and mere drugs can't rouse Mr. Gregory out of his morbid, gloomy apathy. I could get him ash.o.r.e if he would strike out for himself, but he just floats down stream like driftwood. But really I'm doing all that can be done, I think."

"I believe you are," she said, sadly. "Good-by."

"O merciful G.o.d!" she exclaimed when alone. "What shall I do--what shall I do to save him? Father's going to heaven and mother. Where is _he_ going?"

CHAPTER x.x.x

KEPT FROM THE EVIL

With the light of the following day Annie gave up all hope of her father's recovery. He was sinking fast, and conscious himself that death was near. But his end was like the coming into harbor of a stately s.h.i.+p after a long, successful voyage. He looked death in the face with that calmness and dignity, that serene certainty that it was a change for the better, which Christian faith alone can inspire. His only solicitude was for those he was leaving, and yet he had no deep anxiety, for his strong faith committed them trustingly to G.o.d.

Annie tried to feel resigned, since it was G.o.d's will. But the tie that bound her to him was so tender, so interwoven with every fibre of her heart, that she shrunk with inexpressible pain from its sundering. She knew that she was not losing her father, that the worst before them was but a brief separation, but how could she, who had lived so many happy years at his side, endure even this? It seemed as if she could not let him go, and in the strong, pa.s.sionate yearning of her heart, she was almost ready to leave youth, friends, lover, and all, to go with him.

She was one who lived in her affections rather than her surroundings.

The latter would matter little to her could she keep her heart-treasures. It would have touched the coldest to see how she clung to him toward the last. All else was forgotten, even Gregory, who might be dying also. The instinct of nature was strong, and her father was first.

Moreover, the relation between this parent and child was peculiarly close, for they were not only in perfect sympathy in views, character, and faith, but Annie had stepped to the side of the widowed man years before and sought successfully to fill the place of one who had reached home before him. Though so young, she had been his companion and daily friend, interesting herself in that which interested him, and thus he had been saved from that terrible loneliness which often breaks the heart even in the midst of a household. It was therefore with a love beyond words that his eyes rested most of the time on her and followed her every movement.

She also had a vague and peculiar dread in looking forward to her bereavement. An antic.i.p.ating sense of isolation and loneliness chilled her heart.

Though she would not openly admit it to herself, Hunting had disappointed her since his return. She did not get from him the support and Christian sympathy she expected. She tried to excuse him, and charged herself with being too exacting, and yet the sense of something wanting pained her. She had hoped that in these dark days he would be serene and strong, and yet abounding in the tenderest sympathy. She had expected words of faith and consolation that would have sustained her spirit, fainting under a double and peculiar sorrow. She had felt sure that before this his just grat.i.tude, like a torrent, would have overwhelmed and destroyed Gregory's enmity. But all had turned out so differently! Instead of being a help, he had almost added to her burden by his hostile feeling toward her preserver, which he had not been able wholly to disguise. Such a feeling on his part seemed both unnatural and wrong. He professed himself ready to do anything she wished for Gregory, but it was in a half-hearted way, to oblige her, and not for the sake of the injured man. When she went to him for Christian consolation, his words, though well-chosen, lacked heartiness and the satisfying power of truth.

Why this was so can be well understood. Hunting could not give what he did not possess. Of necessity there would be a hollow ring when he spoke of that which he did not understand or feel. During his brief visits, and in his carefully written letters, he could appear all she wished. He could honestly show his sincere love for her, and there was no special opportunity to show anything else. In her vivid, loving imagination she supplied all else, and she believed that when they were more together, or in affliction, he would reveal more distinctly his deeper and religious nature, for such a nature he professed to have; and his letters, which could be written deliberately, abounded in Christian sentiment. Self-deceived, he meant to be honestly religious as soon as he could afford to give up his questionable speculations.

But when a man least expects it the test and strain will come, that clearly manifest the character of his moral stamina. It had now come to Hunting, and though he strove with all the force and adroitness of a resolute will and though he was a practiced dissembler, he was not equal to the searching demands of those trying days, and steadily lost ground. The only thing that kept him up was his sincere love for Annie.

That was so apparent and honest that, loving him herself, she was able to forgive the rest. But it formed no small part of her sorrow at that dark time, that she must lower her lofty ideal of her lover. Hunting and Gregory seemed nearer together morally than she could have believed possible. Thus she already had the dread that she would not be able to "look up" to Hunting as she had expected, and that it would be her mission to deepen and develop his character instead of "leaning" upon it.

It seemed strange to her as she thought of it, during her long hours of watching, that after all she would have to do for Hunting something like what poor Gregory had asked her to do for him. She prayerfully purposed to do it, for the idea of being disloyal to her engagement never entered her mind.

"Unless men have a Christian home, in which their religious life can be daily strengthened and fostered, they cannot be what they ought," she said to herself. "In continual contact with the world, with nothing to counteract, it's not strange that they act and feel as they do."

Thus she was more disposed to feel sorry for both Hunting and Gregory than to blame them. And yet she looked upon the two men very differently. She regarded Hunting as a true Christian who simply needed warming and quickening into positive life, while she thought of Gregory with only fear and trembling. Her hope for the latter was in the prayers stored up in his behalf.

But now upon this day that would ever be so painfully memorable she had thoughts only for her father, and nothing could tempt her from his side.

Hunting also saw that the crisis was approaching, and made but a formal semblance of a breakfast. He then entered the sick-room, and was thinking how best to broach the subject of an immediate marriage, when a thumping of crutches was heard in the hall.

Miss Eulie entered and said that Daddy Tuggar had managed to hobble over, and had set his heart upon seeing his old friend.

"Certainly," said Mr. Walton; "he shall come in at once."