“George,” said his mother, “when you’ve saved a man’s life it’ll be time for you to talk.”
So Molly would come in to her meals with much irregularity; and her remarks about the imperfections of her clock met with no rejoinder. And yet one can scarcely be so severe as had been Mrs. Taylor, and become wholly as mild as milk. There was one recurrent event that could invariably awaken hostile symptoms in the dame. Whenever she saw a letter arrive with the Bennington postmark upon it, she shook her fist at that letter. “What’s family pride?” she would say to herself. “Taylor could be a Son of the Revolution if he’d a mind to. I wonder if she has told her folks yet.”
And when letters directed to Bennington would go out, Mrs. Taylor would inspect every one as if its envelope ought to grow transparent beneath her eyes, and yield up to her its great secret, if it had one. But in truth these letters had no great secret to yield up, until one day—yes; one day Mrs. Taylor would have burst, were bursting a thing that people often did. Three letters were the cause of this emotion on Mrs. Taylor’s part; one addressed to Bennington, one to Dunbarton, and the third—here was the great excitement—to Bennington, but not in the little schoolmarm’s delicate writing. A man’s hand had traced those plain, steady vowels and consonants.
“It’s come!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor, at this sight. “He has written to her mother himself.”
That is what the Virginian had done, and here is how it had come about.
The sick man’s convalescence was achieved. The weeks had brought back to him, not his whole strength yet—that could come only by many miles of open air on the back of Monte; but he was strong enough now to get strength. When a patient reaches this stage, he is out of the woods.
He had gone for a little walk with his nurse. They had taken (under the doctor’s recommendation) several such little walks, beginning with a five-minute one, and at last today accomplishing three miles.
“No, it has not been too far,” said he. “I am afraid I could walk twice as far.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes. Because it means I can go to work again. This thing we have had together is over.”
For reply, she leaned against him.
“Look at you!” he said. “Only a little while ago you had to help me stand on my laigs. And now—” For a while there was silence between them. “I have never had a right down sickness before,” he presently went on. “Not to remember, that is. If any person had told me I could enjoy such a thing—” He said no more, for she reached up, and no more speech was possible.
“How long has it been?” he next asked her.
She told him.
“Well, if it could be forever—no. Not forever with no more than this. I reckon I’d be sick again! But if it could be forever with just you and me, and no one else to bother with. But any longer would not be doing right by your mother. She would have a right to think ill of me.”
“Oh!” said the girl. “Let us keep it.”
“Not after I am gone. Your mother must be told.”
“It seems so—can’t we—oh, why need anybody know?”
“Your mother ain’t ‘anybody.’ She is your mother. I feel mighty responsible to her for what I have done.”
“But I did it!”
“Do you think so? Your mother will not think so. I am going to write to her today.”
“You! Write to my mother! Oh, then everything will be so different! They will all—” Molly stopped before the rising visions of Bennington. Upon the fairytale that she had been living with her cowboy lover broke the voices of the world. She could hear them from afar. She could see the eyes of Bennington watching this man at her side. She could imagine the ears of Bennington listening for slips in his English. There loomed upon her the round of visits which they would have to make. The ringing of the doorbells, the waiting in drawing-rooms for the mistress to descend and utter her prepared congratulations, while her secret eye devoured the Virginian’s appearance, and his manner of standing and sitting. He would be wearing gloves, instead of fringed gauntlets of buckskin. In a smooth black coat and waistcoat, how could they perceive the man he was? During those short formal interviews, what would they ever find out of the things that she knew about him? The things for which she was proud of him? He would speak shortly and simply; they would say, “Oh, yes!” and “How different you must find this from Wyoming!”—and then, after the door was shut behind his departing back they would say—He would be totally underrated, not in the least understood. Why should he be subjected to this? He should never be!
Now in all these half-formed, hurried, distressing thoughts which streamed through the girl’s mind, she altogether forgot one truth. True it was that the voice of the world would speak as she imagined. True it was that in the eyes of her family and acquaintance this lover of her choice would be examined even more like a specimen than are other lovers upon these occasions: and all accepted lovers have to face this ordeal of being treated like specimens by the other family. But dear me! most of us manage to stand it, don’t we? It isn’t, perhaps, the most delicious experience that we can recall in connection with our engagement. But it didn’t prove fatal. We got through it somehow. We dined with Aunt Jane, and wined with Uncle Joseph, and perhaps had two fingers given to us by old Cousin Horatio, whose enormous fortune was of the greatest importance to everybody. And perhaps fragments of the other family’s estimate of us subsequently reached our own ears. But if a chosen lover cannot stand being treated as a specimen by the
