The Mystery of Metropolisville Part 25

Ferret's side.

"I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I called to see her as an old friend." Charlton spoke with some irritation, the more that he knew all the while he was not speaking with candor.

"Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to have your sister marry a man just out of--well, just--just as you are, just out of penitentiary, you know? I have heard remarks already about Miss Marlay--that she had refused a very excellent and talented preacher of the Gospill--you know who I mean--and was about to take up with--well, you know how people talk--with a man just out of the--out of the penitentiary--you know. A _jail-bird_ is what they said. You know people will talk. And Miss Marlay is under my care, and I must do my duty as a Chrischen to her. And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her. You know the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be done by; and I wouldn't want a daughter of mine to marry a young man just--well--just out of--the--just out of the penitentiary, you know."

"Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss Marlay is not at all under your care, I have not proposed marriage to her, she is an old friend who was very kind to my mother and to me, and there is no harm in my seeing her when I please."

"Well, Mr. Charlton, I know your temper is bad, and I expected you'd talk insultingly to me, but I've done my duty and cleared my skirts, anyhow, and that's a comfort. A Chrischen must expect to be persecuted in the discharge of duty. You may talk about old friends.h.i.+ps, and all that; but there's nothing so dangerous as friends.h.i.+p. Don't I know? Half the marriages that oughtn't to be, come from friends.h.i.+ps. Whenever you see a friends.h.i.+p between a young man and a young woman, look out for a wedding.

And I don't think you ought to ask Isabel to marry you, and you just out of--just--you know--out of the--the penitentiary."

When Mrs. Ferret had gone, Albert found that while her words had rasped him, they had also made a deep impression on him. He was, then, a jail-bird in the eyes of Metropolisville--of the world. He must not compromise Isa by a single additional visit. He could not trust himself to see her again. The struggle was not fought out easily. But at last he wrote a letter:

"MY DEAR MISS MARLAY: I find that I can not even visit you without causing remarks to be made, which reflect on you. I can not stay here without wis.h.i.+ng to enjoy your society, and you can not receive the visits of a 'jail-bird,' as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to you, and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace so much as since I talked with you last night. If I could shake that off, I might hope for a great happiness, perhaps.

"I am going to Gray's Village to-morrow. I shall close up my business, and go away somewhere, though I would much rather stay here and live down my disgrace. I shall remember your kindness with a full heart, and if I can ever serve you, all I have shall be yours--I would be wholly yours now, if I could offer myself without dishonoring you, and you would accept me. Good-by, and may G.o.d bless you.

"Your most grateful friend, ALBERT CHARLTON."

The words about offering himself, in the next to the last sentence, Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded that he would better erase them, as he did not mean to give any place to his feelings. He drew his pen through them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination play with the sternest resolves!

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

THE LAST.

The letter was deposited at the post-office immediately. Charlton did not dare give his self-denying resolution time to cool.

Isa was not looking for letters, and Mrs. Ferret ventured to hint that the chance of meeting somebody on the street had something to do with her walk. Of course Miss Marlay was insulted. No woman would ever do such a thing. Consciously, at least.

And after reading Charlton's letter, what did Isa do? What could she do?

A woman may not move in such a case. Her whole future happiness may drift to wreck by somebody's mistake, and she may not reach a hand to arrest it. What she does must be done by indirection and under disguise. It is a way society has of training women to be candid.

The first feeling which Isa had was a sudden shock of surprise. She was not so much astonished at the revelation of Charlton's feeling as at the discovery of her own. With Albert's abrupt going away, all her heart and hope seemed to be going too. She had believed her interest in Charlton to be disinterested until this moment. It was not until he proposed going away entirely that she came to understand how completely that interest had changed its character.

But what could she do? Nothing at all. She was a woman.

As evening drew on, Charlton felt more and more the bitterness of the self-denial he had imposed upon himself. He inwardly abused Mrs. Ferret for meddling. He began to hope for all sorts of impossible accidents that might release him from his duty in the case. Just after dark he walked out. Of course he did not want to meet Miss Marlay--his mind was made up--he would not walk down Plausaby street--at least not so far as Mrs.

Ferret's house. There could be no possible harm in his going half-way there. Love is always going half-way, and then splitting the difference on the remainder. Isa, on her part, remembered a little errand she must attend to at the store. She felt that, after a day of excitement, she needed the air, though indeed she did not want to meet Charlton any more, if he had made up his mind not to see her. And so they walked right up to one another, as lovers do when they have firmly resolved to keep apart.

"Good-evening, Isabel," said Albert. He had not called her Isabel before.

It was a sort of involuntary freedom which he allowed himself--this was to be the very last interview.

"Good-evening--Albert." Isa could not refuse to treat him with sisterly freedom--now that she was going to bid him adieu forever. "You were going away without so much as saying good-by."

"One doesn't like to be the cause of unpleasant remarks about one's best friend," said Charlton.

"But what if your best friend doesn't care a fig for anybody's remarks,"

said Isabel energetically.

"How?" asked Albert. It was a senseless interrogatory, but Isa's words almost took his breath.

Isa was startled at having said so much, and only replied indistinctly that it didn't matter what people said.

"Yes, but you don't know how long such things might cleave to you. Ten years hence it might be said that you had been the friend of a man who was--in--the penitentiary." Charlton presented objections for the sake of having them refuted.

"And I wouldn't care any more ten years hence than I do now. Were you going to our house? Shall I walk back with you?"

"I don't know." Charlton felt his good resolutions departing. "I started out because I wanted to see the lake where Katy was drowned before I go away. I am ever so glad that I met you, if I do not compromise you. I would rather spend this evening in your company than in any other way in the world--" Albert hadn't meant to say so much, but he couldn't recall it when it was uttered--"but I feel that I should be selfish to bring reproach on you for my own enjoyment."

"All right, then," said Isa, laughing, "I'll take the responsibility. I am going to the lake with you if you don't object."

"You are the bravest woman in the world," said Albert with effusion.

"You forget how brave a man you have shown yourself."

I am afraid this strain of talk was not at all favorable to the strength and persistence of Charlton's resolution, which, indeed, was by this time sadly weakened.

After they had spent an hour upon the knoll looking out upon the lake, and talking of the past, and diligently avoiding all mention of the future, Charlton summoned courage to allude to his departure in a voice more full of love than of resolve.

"Why do you go, Albert?" Isa said, looking down and breaking a weed with the toe of her boot. They had called each other by their Christian names during the whole interview.

"Simply for the sake of your happiness, Isa. It makes me miserable enough, I am sure." Charlton spoke as pathetically as he could.

"But suppose I tell you that your going will make me as wretched as it can make you. What then?"

"How? It certainly would be unmanly for me to ask you to share my disgrace. A poor way of showing my love. I love you well enough to do anything in the world to make you happy."

Isa looked down a moment and began to speak, but stopped.

"Well, what?" said Albert.

"May I decide what will make me happy? Am I capable of judging?"

Albert looked foolish, and said, "Yes," with some eagerness. He was more than ever willing to have somebody else decide for him.

"Then I tell you, Albert, that if you go away you will sacrifice my happiness along with your own."

It was a real merry party that met at a _pet.i.t souper_ at nine o'clock in the evening in the dining-room of the City Hotel some months later.

There was Lurton, now pastor in Perritaut, who had just given his blessing on the marriage of his friends, and who sat at the head of the table and said grace. There were Albert and Isabel Charlton, bridegroom and bride. There was Gray, the Hoosier Poet, with a poem of nine verses for the occasion.

"I'm sorry the stage is late," said Albert. "I wanted Jim." One likes to have all of one's best friends on such an occasion.

Just then the coach rattled up to the door, and Albert went out and brought in the Superior Being.