The Ordeal Part 11

Knowing of Bayne's hobby for linguistics, the oculist jocularly turned these archaic curios over to him. In that connection Bayne recounted that after the child had departed with his mother from the mountains, he himself being detained by final arrangements with the authorities, his interest in researches into the arcana of old Cherokee customs had been revived by seeing the sibyl seated on the ground, swaying and wailing and moaning, and casting ashes on her head as if making her mourning for the dead. At the time he had marked the parity of the observance with the Hebraic usage, and he intended to make an examination into the origin of the curious tradition of the ident.i.ty of the American Indians with the lost tribes of Israel.

Train-time forced the oculist to a hasty leave-taking, and it was only after he was gone that Bayne noticed the evidence of restrained emotion in Lillian's face. Bayne had been about to conclude his own call, which concerned a matter of business, the claim of a reward which he considered fraudulent, but he turned at the door, his hat in his hand and came back, leaning against the mantel-piece opposite her. He noted that the tears stood deep in her eyes.

"I can't bear to think of her unhappiness," she said, "when I consider all I owe to her."

"You had better consider what you owe to me," Bayne gayly retorted, seeking to effect a diversion.

"Oh, you, you! But for _you_! When I think of what you have done for Archie, and for me, I could fall down at your feet and wors.h.i.+p you!" she exclaimed with tearful fervor.

"Oh, oh, this is so sudden!" he cried, with a touch of his old whimsicality.

"Don't--don't make fun of me!" she expostulated.

"Bless you, I am serious indeed! I expected something like this, but not so soon; and, in fact, I expected to say it _myself_--but I could not have done it better!"

"Did you really intend to say it, to come back to me?" She gazed appealingly at him.

"As soon as we had time for such trifles." He would not enter into her saddened mood.

"But one thing I want to know: did you _really_ intend it, or was it only my cruel affliction that brought you back to me--motives of sheer humanity--because no one else would help me, because they thought I was the prey of frenzied fancies to believe that Archie still lived?"

Julian was silent for a moment, obviously hesitating. Then he reluctantly admitted, "No, I should never have come back."

She threw herself back in the chair with a little pathetic sigh. He looked at her with a smile at once tender and whimsical. She too smiled faintly, then took up the theme anew.

"But, Julian," she persisted, "it is very painful to reflect that you had deliberately shut me out of your heart forever; that when you saw me again you had no impulse to renew the past. Had you none, really?"

The temptation was strong to give her the rea.s.surance she craved. She had suffered so bitterly that a pang of merely sentimental woe seemed a gratuitous cruelty. Yet he was resolved that there should never come the shadow of falsehood between them. He was glad--joyous! The future should make brave amends for the past. He sought to cast off the bitter retrospection with which she had invested the situation. His gay laughter rang out. "Madam, I will not deceive you! I intended that you should _never_ get another shot at me; but circ.u.mstances have been too much for me--and I have ceased to struggle against them."