“Dr. Edward,” said Nettie, trembling, half with terror, half with resolution, “you have no authority over me. We are two people—we are not one. I should not have gone away without a word or a sign. I should have said goodbye to you, whatever had happened; but that is different from permitting or forbidding. Let us say goodbye now and get it over, if that will please you better,” she cried, drawing her hands from his grasp; “but I do not interfere with your business, and I must do mine my own way.”
The doctor was in no mood to argue. He thrust the big box she had packed away into a corner, and closed it with a vindictive clang. It gave him a little room to move in that little commonplace hall, with its dim lamp, which had witnessed so many of the most memorable scenes of his life. “Look here,” cried Dr. Rider; “authority has little to do with it. If you had been my wife, Nettie, to be sure you could not have deserted me. It is as great a cruelty—it is as hard upon me, this you are trying to do. I have submitted hitherto, and heaven knows it has been bitter enough; and you scorn me for my submission,” said the doctor, making the discovery by instinct. “When a fellow obeys you, it is only contempt you feel for him; but I tell you, Nettie, I will bear it no longer. You shall not go away. This is not to be. I will neither say goodbye, nor think of it. What is your business is my business; and I declare to you, you shall not go unless I go too. Ah—I forgot. They tell me there is a fellow, an Australian, who ventures to pretend—I don’t mean to say I believe it. You think he will not object to your burdens! Nettie! Don’t let us kill each other. Let us take all the world on our shoulders,” cried the doctor, drawing near again, with passionate looks, “rather than part!”
There was a pause—neither of them could speak at that moment. Nettie, who felt her resolution going, her heart melting, yet knew she dared not give way, clasped her hands tight in each other and stood trembling, yet refusing to tremble; collecting her voice and thoughts. The doctor occupied that moment of suspense in a way which might have looked ludicrous in other circumstances, but was a relief to the passion that possessed him. He dragged the other vast Australian box to the same corner where he had set the first, and piled them one above the other. Then he collected with awkward care all the heaps of garments which lay about, and carried them off in the other direction to the stairs, where he laid them carefully with a clumsy tenderness. When he had swept away all these encumbrances, as by a sudden gust of wind, he came back to Nettie, and once more clasped the firm hands which held each other fast. She broke away from him with a sudden cry—
“You acknowledged it was impossible!” cried Nettie. “It is not my doing, or anybody’s; no one shall take the world on his shoulders for my sake—I ask nobody to bear my burdens. Thank you for not believing it—that is a comfort at least. Never, surely, anyone else—and not you, not you! Dr. Edward, let us make an end of it. I will never consent to put my yoke upon your shoulders, but I—I will never forget you or blame you—any more. It is all hard, but we cannot help it. Goodbye—don’t make it harder, you, who are the only one that—; goodbye—no more—don’t say any more.”
At this moment the parlour door opened suddenly; Nettie’s trembling mouth and frame, and the wild protest and contradiction which were bursting from the lips of the doctor, were lost upon the spectator absorbed in her own affairs, and full of excitement on her own account, who looked out. “Perhaps Mr. Edward will walk in,” said Mrs. Fred. “Now he is here to witness what I mean, I should like to speak to you, please, Nettie. I did not think I should ever appeal to you, Mr. Edward, against Nettie’s wilfulness—but, really now, we, none of us, can put up with it any longer. Please to walk in and hear what I’ve got to say.”
The big Bushman stood before the little fire in the parlour, extinguishing its tiny glow with his vast shadow. The lamp burned dimly upon the table. A certain air of confusion was in the room. Perhaps it was because Nettie had already swept her own particular belongings out of that apartment, which once, to the doctor’s eyes, had breathed of her presence in every corner—but it did not look like Nettie’s parlour tonight. Mrs. Fred, with the broad white bands of her cap streaming over her black dress, had just assumed her place on the sofa, which was her domestic throne. Nettie, much startled and taken by surprise, stood by the table, waiting with a certain air of wondering impatience what was to be said to her—with still the sleeves turned up from her tiny wrists, and her fingers unconsciously busy expressing her restless intolerance of this delay by a hundred involuntary tricks and movements. The doctor stood close by her, looking only at Nettie, watching her with eyes intent as if she might suddenly disappear from under his very gaze. As for the Australian, he stood uneasy under Nettie’s rapid investigating glance, and the slower survey which Dr. Rider made on entering. He plucked at his big beard, and spread out his large person with a confusion and embarrassment rather more than merely belonged to the stranger in a family party; while Mrs. Fred, upon
