A Day of Fate Part 24

"Yes."

"How did you revive me?"

"I carried you to the sofa under the window, which I opened. I then chafed your hands, but I think the wind and spray restored you."

"I don't remember fainting before; and--oh, well, this whole experience has been so strange that I can't realize it."

"Don't try to. If I'm a little out of my head, your soul will be out of your body if you don't take better care of yourself. You might as well be killed by lightning as over-fatigue. That doctor seems to think you are made of india-rubber."

"I've laughed to myself more than once at your injunctions to the doctor since Zillah revived. We've had such a narrow escape that I feel as if I ought not to laugh again for a year, but I can't help it. I won't thank you as I meant to--it might make you vain. Good-night," and she gave my hand a quick, strong pressure, and went swiftly back to Mrs. Yocomb's room.

Had my hand clasped only flesh and blood, bone and sinew? No, indeed. I felt that I had had within my grasp a grat.i.tude and friendly regard that was so full and real that the warm-hearted, impulsive girl would not trust herself to express it in words. Her manner, however, was so frank and unconstrained that I knew her feelings to be only those of grat.i.tude and friendly regard, seeing clearly that she entertained no such thoughts as had come unbidden to me.

In spite of my fatigue, the habit of my life and the strong coffee would have banished all thought of sleep for hours to come, if there had been no other cause, but the touch of a little hand had put more glad awakening life within me than all the stimulants of the world.

I went downstairs and looked through the old house to see that all was right, with as much solicitude as if it were indeed my own home.

Excepting the disorder I had caused in the kitchen and hall, it had the midnight aspect of quiet and order that might have existed for a century.

"I would not be afraid of the ghosts that came back to this home," I muttered. "Indeed, I would like to see Mr. and Mrs. Yocomb's ancestors; and, now I think of it, some one of them should wear a jaunty, worldly hat to account for Adah. By Jove! but she was beautiful as she lay there, with her perfect physical life suspended instantaneously. If the lightning would only create a woman within the exquisite casket, the result would well repay what we have pa.s.sed through. Her mother would say, as I suppose, that another and subtler fire from heaven were needed for such a task."

As I came out into the hall the great clock began to strike, in the slow, dignified manner befitting its age--

"One, two, three--twelve."

The day of fate had pa.s.sed. I knew Emily Warren was laughing at me softly to herself as she and the physician watched with the patients in Mrs. Yocomb's room.

I was in no mood to laugh, for every moment the truth was growing clearer that I had met my fate.

I looked into the parlor, in which a lamp was burning, and conjured up the scene I had witnessed there. I saw a fair young face, with eyes turned heavenward, and heard again the words, "My faith looks up to Thee."

Their faith had been sorely tried. The burning bolt from heaven seemed a strange response to that faith; the cras.h.i.+ng thunder a wild, harsh echo to the girl's sweet, reverent tones.

"Is it all chance?" I queried, "or all inexorable law? Who or what is the author of the events of this night?" As if in answer, Mrs. Yocomb's text came into my mind: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."

"Well," I muttered, "perhaps there is as much reason in their philosophy as in any other. Somebody ought to be in charge of all this complex life and being."

I went out on the piazza. The rain was still falling, but softly and lightly. A freshening breeze was driving the thin, lingering clouds before it, and star after star looked out, as if lights were being kindled in the western sky. The moon was still hidden, but the vapor was not dense enough to greatly obscure her rays. In the partial light the valley seemed wider, the mountains higher, and everything more beautiful, in contrast with the black tempest that had so recently filled the scene.

I sat down on the piazza to watch with those who were watching with the child. I made up my mind that I certainly should not retire until the physician departed; and in my present mood I felt that my midsummer night's dream would be to me more interesting than that of Will Shakespeare. Hour after hour pa.s.sed almost unnoted. The night became serene and beautiful. The moon, like a confident beauty, at last threw aside her veil of clouds, and smiled as if a.s.sured of welcome.

Raindrops gemmed every leaf; and when the breeze increased, myriads of them sparkled momentarily through the silver light. As morning approached the air grew so sweet that I recognized the truth that the new flowers of a new day were opening, and that I was inhaling their virgin perfume.

I rose and went softly to the ivy-covered gateway of the old garden, and the place seemed transfigured in the white moonlight. Even the kitchen vegetables lost their homely, prosaic aspect. I stole to the lilac-bush, and peered at the home that had been roofless through all the wild storm. My approach had been so quiet that the little brown mother sat undisturbed, with her head under her wing; but the paternal robin, from an adjacent spray, regarded me with unfeigned surprise and alarm. He uttered a note of protest, and the mother-bird instantly raised her head and fixed on me her round, startled eyes. I stole away hastily, smiling to myself as I said:

"Both families will survive unharmed, and both nests are safe."

I went to the spot where I had stood with Emily Warren at the time I had half-jestingly, half-earnestly indulged my fancy to reproduce a bit of Eden-like frankness. Under the influence of the hour and my mood I was able to conjure up the maiden's form almost as if she were a real presence. I knew her far better now. With her I had pa.s.sed through an ordeal that would test severely the best and strongest. She had been singularly strong and very weak; but the weakness had left no stain on her crystal truth, and her strength had been of the best and most womanly kind. As in the twilight, so in the white moonlight, she again made perfect harmony in the transfigured garden.

"There is but one woman in the world for me," I murmured, "as truly as there was only one for the first lonely man. I know not how it is with her, but I hope--oh, what would life now be to me without this hope!--that she cannot have inspired this absolute conviction that she is essential to my being without some answering sympathy in her own woman's heart. But whether this is true or not, or whether it ever can be true, _I have met my fate_."

As I returned from the garden I saw that the dawn was coming, and I sat down and watched it brighten with the feeling that a new and happy life was also coming.

THE END OF BOOK FIRST

_BOOK SECOND_

CHAPTER I

THE DAY AFTER

The epochs of one's life are not divided according to the calendar, nor are they measured by the lapse of time. Within a few brief hours I had reached a conclusion that left no shadow of doubt on my mind. As I sat there in the beautiful June dawn I turned a page in my history. The record of future joys and ills would have to be kept in double entry, for I felt with absolute conviction that I could entertain no project and decide no question without instinctively and naturally consulting the maiden who had quietly and as if by divine right obtained the mastery of my soul. But a day since I would have said that my present att.i.tude was impossible, but now it seemed both right and inevitable.

The doubt, the sense of strangeness and remoteness that we justly a.s.sociate with a comparative stranger, had utterly pa.s.sed away, and in their place was a feeling of absolute trust and rest. I could place in her hands the best treasures of my life, without a shadow of hesitancy, so strongly had I been impressed with her truth.

And yet it all was a beautiful mystery, over which I could have dreamed for hours.

I had not shunned society in the past, and had greatly admired other ladies. Their voices had been sweet and low, as a woman's tones should be, and their glances gentle and kind, but not one of them had possessed the power to quicken my pulse or to disturb the quiet slumber of my heart; but this woman spoke to me as with authority from heaven.

"My whole being," I murmured, "bows down to her by a constraint that I could scarcely resist, and no queen in the despotic past ever had a more loyal subject than I have become. To serve her, even to suffer for her and to stand between her and all evils the world could inflict, are privileges that I covet supremely. My regard is not a sudden pa.s.sion, for pa.s.sion is selfish and inconsiderate. My love is already united with honor and reverence, and my strongest impulse is to promote her happiness before my own. The thought of her is an inspiration toward a purer, better manhood than I have yet known. Her truth and innate n.o.bility produce an intense desire to become like her, so that she may look into my eyes and trust also."

I scarcely know how long my bright-hued dream would have lasted, but at length the door of Mrs. Yocomb's room opened, and steps were on the stairs. A moment later the physician came out, and Miss Warren stood in the doorway.

"They are all sleeping quietly," he said, in answer to my inquiry.

"Yes; all danger in Zillah's case is now pa.s.sed, I think; but she's had a serious time of it, poor little thing!"

"There's no need of your walking home to-night," protested Miss Warren.

"We can make you comfortable here, and Reuben will gladly drive you over in the morning."

"It's morning now," he said, smiling, "and I'll enjoy the walk in the fresh air. I'll call again before very long. Good-day!" and he walked lightly down the path, as if all were very satisfactory to him.

"What are you doing here, Mr. Morton?" Miss Warren asked, a.s.suming an expression of strong surprise.

"Helping to watch."

"What a waste! You haven't done Zillah a bit of good."

"Didn't you know I was here?"

"Yes; but I hope you don't think that I need watching?"

"I was within call." "So you would have been if sleeping. I could have blown the great tin horn if it had been necessary to waken you, and you had remained undisturbed by other means."

"Oh, well, then, if it made no difference to you, I'll merely say I'm a night editor, and kept awake from habit."