"Isn"t Ida coming down?" whispered Stanton to his aunt.
"No. I can"t make her out at all, and she looks dreadfully. You must go for a doctor, right after dinner."
Van Berg could not hear their words, but their ominous looks added greatly to his disquietude. He had been too ill at ease to seek even Miss Burton"s society during the morning, and had spent the time in making a sketch of Ida as she stood in the doorway before entering the parlor the previous evening.
But Jennie Burton did not seem to feel or resent his neglect in the slightest degree. Indeed, her thoughts, like his own, were apparently engrossed with the one whose chair had been vacant so often of late, and who, when present, seemed so unlike her former self.
"I fear you daughter is more seriously indisposed than you think,"
she said anxiously to Mrs. Mayhew.
"I"m going to take Ida in hand," replied the matter-of-fact lady.
"She IS ill--far more so than she"ll admit. I"m going to have the doctor at once and put her under a course of treatment."
"Curse it all!" thought Van Berg, "that is just the trouble. She has been under a course of treatment that would make any woman ill, save her mother, and I"m inclined to think that I was the veriest quack of them all in my treatment."
"I wish she would let me call upon her this afternoon," said Miss Burton, gently.
"Oh, I think she"ll be glad to see you!--at least she ought to be;"
but it was too evident that Mrs. Mayhew was at last beginning to grow very anxious, and she made a simpler meal than usual. Stanton in his solicitude, hastened through dinner, and started at once for the physician who usually attended the guests of the house.
Ida, in the meantime, had forced herself to eat a little of the food sent to her, and then informing the woman who had charge of their floor that she was going out for a walk, stole down and out unperceived, and soon gained a secluded path that led into an extensive tract of woodland.
Stanton brought the doctor promptly, but no patient could be found.
All that could be learned was that "Miss Mayhew had gone for a walk."
"Her case cannot be very critical," the physician remarked, smilingly; "I will call again."
Stanton and his aunt looked at each other in a way that proved the case was beginning to trouble them seriously.
"She knew the doctor would be here," said Mrs. Mayhew.
"I fear her complaint is one that the doctors can"t help, and that she knows it," replied the young man, gloomily. "But you seem to know less about her than any one else. I shall try to find her."
But he did not succeed.
"Miss Burton," said Van Berg, after dinner, "I wish you would call on Miss Mayhew. I think she is greatly in need of a little of your inimitable tact and skill. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" And in such an emergency, you are the best surgeon I know of. I think some of us wounded her deeply and unpardonably by continuing to a.s.sociate her with Sibley, after he revealed what an unmitigated rascal he was. Strong as appearances were against her, I feel that I cannot forgive myself that I took anything for granted in a case like that."
"I am glad," she answered, "that you have come to my own conclusion, that Miss Mayhew, with all her faults, is too good a girl to be guilty of a pa.s.sion for a man like Sibley. If she regards him in any such way as I do, I do not wonder that it has made her ill to be so misjudged. I must plead guilty also to having wronged her in my thoughts. While I try to exercise the broadest charity, my calling, as a teacher, has brought me in contact with many girls that--through immaturity and innate foolishness--are guilty of conduct that taxes one"s faith in human nature severely. Goodish sort of girls are sometimes infatuated with very bad men. I suppose it is evident to all that Miss Mayhew"s early and, indeed, present influences are sadly against her; but unfortunate as have been her a.s.sociations of late, I am coming to the belief that, however faulty she may be, she is not naturally either silly or weak. But my acquaintance with her is very slight, and I must confess I do not understand her very well. For some reason she shuns me and has evidently disliked me from the first."
"I don"t understand her at all," said Van Berg, in a tone that proved him greatly annoyed with himself. "I have thought that I had sounded the shallow depths of her character several times, and then some new and perplexing phase would present itself, and put me all to sea again. It may seem ludicrous to you that her beauty should irritate me so greatly because of its incongruous a.s.sociations."
"Not at all," she replied, with a little nod. "I was not long in discovering that you were a pagan, and that beauty was your divinity."
"Correct in all respects save the divinity," he answered promptly; and he would have said more, but she pa.s.sed into the parlor among the other guests.
Ida found herself too weak and unnerved to walk far, but she discovered a secluded nook into which the sunlight streamed with a grateful warmth; for although the day was warm, she shivered with cold as if the chill in her heart had diffused itself even to her hands and feet. Dense shrubbery hid her from the path along which she saw Stanton pa.s.s in his fruitless quest.
For a long time she sat in dreary apathy, almost as motionless as the mossy rock beneath her, and was conscious only of her throbbing forehead and aching heart. Gradually, however, nature"s vital touch began to revive her. The sunlight warmed and tranquilized the exquisite form that had been entering its shuddering protest against the chill and corruption of the grave. The south wind, laden with fresh woodland odors, fanned her cheeks, and whispered that there were flowers blooming that she could not see, and that the future also might reveal joys now hidden and unknown, if she would only be patient. Every rustling leaf that fluttered in the gale, but did not fall, called to her with its tiny voice: "Cling to your place, as we do, till the frost of age or the blight of disease brings the end in G.o.d"s own time and way." A partridge with her brood rustled by along the edge of the forest, and the poor girl imagined she saw in the parent bird, as she led forward her plump little bevy, the pride and complacency of a happy motherhood, which now would never be hers; and from the depths of her woman"s heart came nature"s protest. Then her heavy eyes were attracted by the sport of two gray squirrels that were racing to the top of one tree, scrambling down another, falling and catching again, and tumbling over each other in their mad excitement. She felt that, at her age, their exuberant life and enjoyment should be a type of her own, but their wild, innocent fun, in contrast with her despair, became so unendurable that she sprang up and frightened them away.
But after she was quiet they soon returned, barking vociferously, and sporting with their old abandon. It was not long since they had left the next in the old hemlock tree, and they were still like Ida, before she had learned that there was anything in the world that could harm her. Other wild creatures flew or scampered by, some stopping to look at her with their bright quick eyes, as if wondering why she was so still and sad. the woods seemed full of joyous midsummer life, and Ida sighed:
"Innocent, happy little things; but if they knew what was in my heart, they would be so frightened they could scarcely creep away to hide."
Then with a sudden rush of pa.s.sionate grief, she cried:
"Oh, why cannot I life and be happy, too?" and she sobbed till she lay exhausted on the mossy rock.
Whether she had swooned, or from weakness had become unconscious, she did not know, when, considerably later, she roused herself from what seemed like a heavy and unrefreshing sleep. Her dress was damp with dew, the sun had sunk so low as to fill the forest with a sombre shade; the happy life that had sported around her was hushed and hidden, and the wind now sighed mournfully through the trees. Gloom and darkening shadows had taken the place of the light and joyousness she first had seen. In the face and voices of nature, as in those of earthly friends, the changes are often so great that we are tempted to ask in dismay, are they--can they be the same?
She was stiff and cold as she rose from her rocky couch, but she wearily turned her face towards the hotel, muttering, as she plodded heavily along,
"The little people of the woods are happy while they can be, as I was, but the sportsman"s gun, or the hawk, or winter"s cold, will soon bring to them bitter pain, and death. their brief day will soon be over, as mine is."
"Ah, the sun is sinking behind that cloud," she said, in a low tone, as she came out into the open fields. "I shall not see it again; it will not be able to warm me to-morrow;" and with a slight gesture of farewell, she continued on her way with bowed head.
Chapter x.x.xVIII. A Good Man Speaks.
As Ida approached the hotel, Van Berg and Stanton saw her, and the latter hastened down the steps to join her.
"Why, Ida!" he exclaimed, "where have you been? I"ve searched for you high and low."
"You had no right to do so, sir," she said coldly, as she pa.s.sed on.
"Wait a moment, Ida, please. I wish to speak with you--to ask your pardon--to apologize in the strongest terms."
She would not break again her ominous silence, but continued on with bowed head, up the steps, and through the hall. Stanton, to save appearances before the guests who were near, walked at her side, but her manner chilled and embarra.s.sed him so greatly, that only as she was about to enter her room did he again address her, and now entreatingly:
"Ida, won"t you speak to me?"
"No!" was her stern, brief response; and she locked her door against him.
"Van," said Stanton gloomily, "I"d give a year"s income if I had not spoken to my cousin as I did last night. She"ll never forgive me. It seems as if my words had turned her into ice, she is so cold and calm; and yet her eyes were red with weeping. I have strange misgivings about the girl."
"Yes, Ik," said the artist, gloomily, "we have both made an unpardonable blunder. If Miss Burton cannot thaw her out, I shall not dare to try."
"With her usual perversity," replied Stanton, "she dislikes Miss Burton, and I doubt if she will listen to her."
"I have great faith in her tact and genuine goodwill. It was wonderful how quickly she brought Mr. Mayhew under her genial spells. She has promised to see your cousin this evening."
"I"m sorry," said Stanton, gloomily, "that it should have been at your request rather than mine. But I suppose your wishes are becoming omnipotent with her."
"No, Ik; I regret to say that they weigh with her only as those of a friend," was Van Berg"s quiet response.