“Well, here I am facing it: all through my later childhood, and all through my girlhood, I believe what really occupied me most—with the thought of it underlying all things else, though often buried very deep—was the prospect of my marriage. I regarded it as a certainty: I would grow up, fall in love, get engaged, and be married—of course! So I grew up and fell in love with You—but it stops there, and I must learn how to be an Old Maid and not let anybody see that I mind it. I know this is the hardest part of it, the beginning: it will get easier by-and-by, of course. If I can just manage this part of it, it’s bound not to hurt so much later on.
“Yes, I grew up and fell in love with You—for you will always be You. I’ll never, never get over THAT, my dear! You’ll never, never know it; but I shall love You always till I die, and if I’m still Me after that, I shall keep right on loving you then, of course. You see, I didn’t fall in love with you just to have you for myself. I fell in love with You! And that can never bother you at all nor ever be a shame to me that I love unsought, because you won’t know, and because it’s just an ocean of good-will, and every beat of my heart sends a new great wave of it toward you and Cora. I shall find happiness, I believe, in service—I am sure there will be times when I can serve you both. I love you both and I can serve her for You and you for her. This isn’t a hysterical mood, or a fit of `exaltation’: I have thought it all out and I know that I can live up to it. You are the best thing that can ever come into her life, and everything I can do shall be to keep you there. I must be very, very careful with her, for talk and advice do not influence her much. You love her—she has accepted you, and it is beautiful for you both. It must be kept beautiful. It has all become so clear to me: You are just what she has always needed, and if by any mischance she lost you I do not know what would become–-“
“Good God!” cried Richard. He sprang to his feet, and the heavy book fell with a muffled crash upon the floor, sprawling open upon its face, its leaves in disorder. He moved away from it, staring at it in incredulous dismay. But he knew.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Memory, that drowsy custodian, had wakened slowly, during this hour, beginning the process with fitful gleams of semi-consciousness, then, irritated, searching its pockets for the keys and dazedly exploring blind passages; but now it flung wide open the gallery doors, and there, in clear light, were the rows of painted canvasses.
He remembered “that day” when he was waiting for a car, and Laura Madison had stopped for a moment, and then had gone on, saying she preferred to walk. He remembered that after he got into the car he wondered why he had not walked home with her; had thought himself “slow” for not thinking of it in time to do it. There had seemed something very “taking” about her, as she stopped and spoke to him, something enlivening and wholesome and sweet—it had struck him that Laura was a “very nice girl.” He had never before noticed how really charming she could look; in fact he had never thought much about either of the Madison sisters, who had become “young ladies” during his mourning for his brother. And this pleasant image of Laura remained with him for several days, until he decided that it might be a delightful thing to spend an evening with her. He had called, and he remembered, now, Cora’s saying to him that he looked at her sometimes as if he did not like her; he had been surprised and astonishingly pleased to detect a mysterious feeling in her about it.
He remembered that almost at once he had fallen in love with Cora: she captivated him, enraptured him, as she still did—as she always would, he felt, no matter how she treated him or what she did to him. He did not analyze the process of the captivation and enrapturement—for love is a mystery and cannot be analyzed. This is so well known that even Richard Lindley knew it, and did not try!
… Heartsick, he stared at the fallen book. He was a man, and here was the proffered love of a woman he did not want. There was a pathos in the ledger; it seemed to grovel, sprawling and dishevelled in the circle of lamp- light on the floor: it was as if Laura herself lay pleading at his feet, and he looked down upon her, compassionate but revolted. He realized with astonishment from what a height she had fallen, how greatly he had respected her, how warmly liked her. What she now destroyed had been more important than he had guessed.
Simple masculine indignation rose within him: she was to have been his sister. If she had been unable to stifle this misplaced love of hers, could she not at least have kept it to herself? Laura, the self-respecting! No; she offered it—offered it to her sister’s betrothed. She had written that he should “never, never know it”; that when she was “cured” she would burn the ledger. She had not burned it! There were inconsistencies in plenty in the pitiful screed, but these were the wildest—and the cheapest. In talk, she had urged him to “keep trying,” for Cora, and now the sick-minded creature sent him this record. She wanted him to know. Then what else was it but a plea? “I love you. Let Cora go. Take me.”
He began to walk up and down, wondering what was to be done. After a time, he picked up the book gingerly, set it upon a shelf in a dark corner, and went for a walk outdoors. The night air seemed better than that of the room that held the ledger.
At the corner a boy, running, passed him. It was Hedrick Madison, but Hedrick did not recognize Richard, nor was his mind at that moment concerned with Richard’s affairs; he was on an errand of haste to Doctor Sloane. Mr. Madison had wakened from a heavy slumber unable to speak, his condition obviously much worse.
Hedrick returned in the doctor’s car, and then hung uneasily about the door of the sick-room until Laura came out and told him to go to bed. In the morning, his mother did not appear at the breakfast table, Cora was serious and quiet, and Laura said that he need not go to school that day, though she added that the doctor thought their father would get “better.” She looked wan and hollow-eyed: she had not been to bed, but declared that she would rest after breakfast. Evidently she had not missed her ledger; and Hedrick watched her closely, a pleasurable excitement stirring in his breast.
She did not go to her room after the meal; the house was cold, possessing no furnace, and, with Hedrick’s assistance, she carried out the ashes from the library grate, and built a fire there. She had just lighted it, and the kindling was beginning to crackle, glowing rosily over her tired face, when the bell rang.
“Will you see who it is, please, Hedrick?”
He went with alacrity, and, returning, announced in an odd voice. “It’s Dick Lindley. He wants to see you.”
“Me?” she murmured, wanly surprised. She was kneeling before the fireplace, wearing an old dress which was dusted with ashes, and upon her hands a pair of worn-out gloves of her father’s. Lindley appeared in the hall behind Hedrick, carrying under his arm something wrapped in brown paper. His expression led her to think that he had heard of her father’s relapse, and came on that account.
“Don’t look at me, Richard,” she said, smiling faintly as she rose, and stripping her hands of the clumsy gloves. “It’s good of you to come, though. Doctor Sloane thinks he is going to be better again.”
Richard inclined his head gravely, but did not speak.
“Well,” said Hedrick with a slight emphasis, I guess I’ll go out in the yard a while.” And with shining eyes he left the room.
In the hall, out of range from the library door, he executed a triumphant but noiseless caper, and doubled with mirth, clapping his hand over his mouth to stifle the effervescings of his joy. He had recognized the ledger in the same wrapping in which he had left it in Mrs. Lindley’s vestibule. His moment had come: the climax of his enormous joke, the repayment in some small measure for the anguish he had so long endured. He crept silently back toward
