Jupiter Lights Part 54

"Is love one of these?"

"The best, isn't it?"

"Well, then, my brother took his love for Cicely; if she should die to-day, how much would she care for him, when she met him?"

"I think that something else would be provided for your brother, probably," said Miss Sabrina, timidly.

"Another wife? Why not arrange that for Ferdie Morrison, and give Cicely to Jack?"

"She loved Ferdie the best. Aren't you inclined to think that it must be when they _both_ love?" suggested the maiden lady.

"And when they both love, should anything be permitted to come between them?"

"Oh, nothing! nothing!" said Miss Sabrina, with fervor. "That is, of course, when there is no barrier; when it would be no crime."

"What is crime?" demanded Eve, looking at her sombrely. "I don't think I know."

"Surely the catechism tells us, doesn't it?"

"What does it tell?"

Miss Sabrina murmured reverently: "Idolatry, isn't it?--and blasphemy; desecration of the Lord's Day and irreverence to parents; murder, adultery, theft; falsehood and covetousness."

"And which is the worst? Murder?"

"I suppose so."

"Have you ever spoken to a murderer?"

"Heaven forbid!" said Miss Sabrina. She glanced with suffused eyes towards Ferdie's grave. "It is _such_ a comfort to me to think that though he was in effect murdered, those poor ignorant nig-roes had probably no such intention; it was not done deliberately, by some one who _wished_ to harm him."

"I don't believe his murderer will be afraid to face him in the next world," said Eve. She, too, looked towards the mound; she seemed to see Ferdie lying down below, with closed eyes, but the same grimacing lips.

"Oh, as to that, they would have so little in common that they wouldn't be thrown much together, I reckon," said Miss Sabrina, hopefully; "I doubt if they even meet."

"Your heaven is not like the Declaration of Independence, is it?" said Eve.

Miss Sabrina did not understand. She pinched her throat with her thumb and forefinger, and looked vaguely at Eve.

"I mean that all men 'are created equal;' your heaven has an outside colony for negroes, and once or twice a week white angels go over there, I suppose, ring the Sunday-school bell, and hold meetings for their improvement."

Miss Sabrina colored; she took up her basket.

"Forgive me!" said Eve, dropping her sarcasms. "I am unhappy. That is the reason I talk so."

"I feared so, my dear; I feared so," answered the gentle lady, melted at once.

Eve left her, and wandered across the island to the ocean beach. Low waves came rolling in and broke upon the sand; no s.h.i.+p was in sight; the blue of the water met the horizon line unbroken. She walked southward with languid step; every now and then she would stop, then walk slowly on again. After half an hour a sound made her turn; Paul Tennant was close upon her, not twenty feet distant; the wash of the waves had prevented her from hearing his approach. She stood still, involuntarily turning towards him as if at bay.

Paul came up. "Eve, I know what I am about now. I didn't know out there at Jupiter Light; I was dazed; but I soon understood. I went back to the camp, but you were gone. As soon as I could I started after you. Here I am."

"You understood? What did you understand?" said Eve, her face deathly white.

"That I loved you," said Paul, taking her in his arms. "That is enough for me; I hope it is for you."

"That you love me in spite of--"

"There is no 'in spite of;' what you did was n.o.ble, was extraordinarily brave. A woman is timid; you are timid, though you may pretend not to be; yet with your own hand--"

Eve remembered how Cicely had struck her hand down. "You will strike it down, too!" she said, incoherently, bursting into tears.

Paul soothed her, not by words, but by his touch. Her whole being responded; she leaned her head against his breast.

"To save Cicely you crushed your own feelings; you did something utterly horrible to you. And you faced all the trouble and grief which would certainly come in consequence of it. Why, Eve, it was the bravest thing I have ever heard of."

Eve gave a long sigh. "I have been so unhappy--"

"Never again, I hope," said Paul; "from this moment I take charge of you. We will be married as soon as possible; we will go to Charleston."

"Don't let us talk of that. Just love me here;--- now."

"Well--don't I?" said Paul, smiling.

He found a little nook between two spurs of the thicket which had invaded the beach; here he made a seat for her with a fragment of wreck which had been washed up by the sea.

"Let us stay here all day," she said, longingly.

"You will have me all the days of your life," said Paul. He had seated himself at her feet. "We shall have to live in Port aux Pins for the present; you won't mind that, I hope?"

She drew his head down upon her breast. "How I have loved you!"

"I know it," he said, flus.h.i.+ng. "It was that which made me love you." He rose (it was not natural to Paul to keep a lowly position long), and, taking a seat beside her, lifted her in his arms. "I'm well caught," he murmured, looking down upon her with a smile. "Who would ever have supposed that you could sway me so?"

"Oh," cried Eve, breaking away from him, "it's of no use; my one day that I counted on--my one short day--I cannot even dare to take that!

Good women have the worst of it; if I could pretend that I was going to marry you, all this would be right; and if I could pretend nothing, but just _take_ it, then at least I should have had it; a remembrance for all the dreary years that have got to come. Instead of that, as I have been brought up a stupid, good woman, I _can't_ change--though I wish I could! I shall have to tell you the truth: I can never marry you; the sooner we part, then, the better." She turned and walked northward towards the Romney road.

With a stride Paul caught up with her. "What are you driving at?"

"I shall never marry you."

He laughed.

She turned upon him. "You laugh--you have no idea what it is to me! I think of you day and night, I have longed to have you in my arms--on my heart. No, don't touch me; it is only that I won't have you believe that I don't know what love is, that I don't love you. Why, once at Port aux Pins, I walked miles at night because I was so mad with jealousy; and I found you playing whist! If I could only have known beforehand--if I could only have seen you once, just once, Ferdie might have done what he chose with Cicely; I shouldn't have stirred!"

"Yes, you would," said Paul.

"No, I shouldn't have stirred; you might as well know me as I am. What I despise myself for now is, that I haven't the force to make an end of it, to relieve you of the thought of me--at least as some one living.

But as long as you are alive, Paul--" She looked at him with her eyes full of tears.