A Perilous Secret Part 37

Hope came to Mary and said, tenderly, "What can I say or do to comfort you?"

Mary shook her head. "I asked you to mend my prospects; but you can't do that. They are desperate. You can do nothing for me now but comfort me with your kind voice. And mend my poor wrist--ha! ha! ha! oh! oh!"

(Hysterical.)

"What?" cried Hope, in sudden alarm; "is it hurt? Is it sprained?"

Mary recovered her composure. "Oh no," said she; "only twisted a little.

Papa was so rough."

Hope went into a rage again. "Perdition!" cried he. "I'll go and end this once for all."

"You will do nothing of the kind," said the quick-witted girl. "Oh, Mr.

Hope, would you break my heart altogether, quarrelling with papa? Be reasonable. I tell you he couldn't help it, that old monster insulted him so. It hurts, for all that," said she, naively, and held him out a lovely white wrist with a red mark on it.

Hope inspected it. "Poor little wrist," said he. "I think I can cure it."

Then he went into his office for something to bind it with.

But he had spoken those few words as one speaks to an afflicted child.

There was a mellow softness and an undisguised paternity in his tones--and what more natural, the girl being in pain?

But Mary's ear was so acute that these tones carried her out of the present situation, and seemed to stir the depths of memory. She fell into a little reverie, and asked herself had she not heard a voice like that many years ago.

She was puzzling herself a little over this when Hope returned with a long thin band of white Indian cotton, steeped in water, and, taking her hand gently, began to bind her wrist with great lightness and delicacy.

And as he bound it he said, "There, the pain will soon go."

Mary looked at him full, and said, slowly, "I believe it will." Then, very thoughtfully, "It did--before."

These three simple words struck Hope as rather strange.

"It did before?" said he, and stared at her. "Why, when was that?"

Mary said, in a hopeless sort of way, "I don't know when, but long before your time."

"Before my time, Mary? What, are you older than me?" And he smiled sweetly on her.

"One would think not. But let me ask you a question, Mr. Hope?"

"Yes, Mary."

"Have you lived _two lives_?"

Said Hope, solemnly, "I have lived through great changes, but only one life."

"Well, then," said Mary, "I have lived two; or more likely it was one life, only some of it in another world--my other world, I mean."

Hope left off binding her wrist, and said, "I don't understand you." But his heart began to pant.

The words that pa.s.sed between them were now so strange that both their voices sank into solemnity, and had an acute observer listened to them he would have noticed that these two mellow voices had similar beauties, and were pitched exactly in the same key, though there was, of course, an octave between them.

"Understand me? How should you? It is all so strange, so mysterious: I have never told a soul; but I will tell you. You won't laugh at me?"

"Laugh at you? Only fools laugh at what they don't understand. Why, Mary, I hang on every word you say with breathless interest."

"Dear Mr. Hope! Well, then, I will tell you. Sometimes in the silent night, when the present does not glare at one, the past comes back to me dimly, and I seem to have lived two lives: one long, one short--too short. My long life in a comfortable house, with servants and carriages and all that. My short life in different places; not comfortable places, but large places; all was free and open, and there was always a kind voice in my ear--like yours; and a tender touch--like yours."

Hope was restraining himself with difficulty, and here he could not help uttering a faint exclamation.

To cover it he took her wrist again, and bending his head over it, he said, almost in a whisper, "And the face?"

Mary's eyes turned inward, and she seemed to scan the past.

"The face?" said she--"the face I can not recall. But one thing I do remember clearly. This is not the first time my wrist--yes--and it was my right wrist too--has been bound up so tenderly. He did it for me in that other world, just as you do in this one."

Hope now thrilled all over at this most unexpected revelation. But though he glowed with delight and curiosity, he put on a calm voice and manner, and begged her to tell him everything else she could remember that had happened in that other life.

Finding him so serious, so sympathetic, and so interested, put this remarkable girl on her mettle. She began to think very hard, and show that intense power of attention she had always in reserve for great occasions.

"Then you must not touch me nor speak to me," said she. "The past is such a mist."

He obeyed, and left off binding her wrist; and now he literally hung upon her words.

Then she took one step away from him; her bright eyes veiled themselves, and seemed to see nothing external, but looked into the recesses of the brain. Her forehead, her hand, her very body, thought, and we must try, though it is almost hopeless, to convey some faint idea of her manner and her words.

"Let--me--see."

Then she paused.

"I remember--WHITE SWANS."

A pause.

"Were they swans?"

"Or s.h.i.+ps?"

"They floated down the river to the sea."

She paused.

"And the kind voice beside me said, 'Darling!' Papa never calls me 'darling.'"

"Yes, yes," whispered Hope, almost panting.

"'Darling, we must go with them to some other land, for we are poor.'"

She paused and thought hard. "Poor we must have been; very poor. I can see that now that I am rich." She paused and thought hard. "But all was peace and love. There were two of us, yet we seemed one."

Then in a moment Mary left the past, her eyes resigned the film of thought, and shone with the l.u.s.tre of her great heart, and she burst at once into that simple eloquence which no hearer of hers from John Baker to William Hope ever resisted. "Ah! sweet memories, treasures of the past, why are you so dim and wavering, and this hard world so clear and glaring it seems cut out of stone? Oh, if I had a fairy's wand, I'd say, 'Vanish fine house and servants--vanish wealth and luxury and strife; and you come back to me, sweet hours of peace--and poverty--and love.'"

Her arms were stretched out with a grace and ardor that could embellish even eloquence, when a choking sob struck her ear. She turned her head swiftly, and there was William Hope, his hands working, his face convulsed, and the tears running down his cheeks like the very rain.