He shook his head. "There are reasons why my faith might be questioned, my motives doubted; and I couldn"t bear that."
"But if you are perfectly sure of your own feelings, if there is absolutely no doubt in your mind that you love her--"
"Love her? I never thought," he said, "that any woman could mean so much to a man! I never dreamed that just one woman could be in herself all that a man needs to hold fast to! Love her? I have been all over the world and I have seen many women in many lands, but never any woman of them all, save that one, for me! It was a revelation to me, that I could care so much. Ah! I wish I could make it plain just how much I do care!"
I had not known until that moment how much the heart can bear of anguish and not break.
"I hope she loves you just as much in return, Mr. Jelnik. I hope with all my heart you will be happy, both of you."
"I hope she does! I hope we shall!" he cried, with ardor. "Why, if I could be sure she cares for me, like that, if I could know that all other men counted as little with her as all other women count with me! But I am not sure. And I do not take it lightly, for my woman must be more to me than most women mean to most men. Well, it is on the knees of the G.o.ds."
I stole a covert glance at him as he walked beside me. It seemed to me he had never been so beautiful. But his beauty hurt me. I felt old, very, very old, and sad, and tired. The salt taste of tears was in my mouth. My feet dragged.
We entered that strip of land which on a time old Sophronisba barb-wired and barricaded against her neighbors, and which touched the Jelnik grounds in the rear. We were to cut through his garden and enter mine by the gap in the hedge behind the spring-house and I hoped to get into the house and up-stairs to my own room unperceived.
The gray cottage lay dark and silent, but there were lights in Hynds House although the night was upon the verge of morning. A gray light, upon which was stealing a primrose tinge, was already in the sky. It was, in fact, four o"clock. I was so mortally tired that for a moment I sat down on his steps.
"It"s been pretty rough on you, Sophy. One woman in a thousand could have gone through this night"s experience without going to pieces," said Mr. Jelnik, with feeling. And then:
"Sophy!" cried a frightened and hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you, at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia, Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as would turn any actor green with envy. Ensued a pregnant pause. It was a lovely situation! It reduced me, for one, to idiocy.
"Sophy! Jelnik!" exploded Doctor Geddes, with a gesture of rage and astonishment.
"Yes. It is I. What is the matter? Why aren"t you home and in bed?
What are you doing here, at this hour?" I asked, stupidly.
Here The Author, all in red tights, cape, and doublet, s.n.a.t.c.hed his red cap with the c.o.c.k"s feather in it off his head, and bowed diabolically:
"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren"t _you_ home and in bed? What are _you_ doing here at this hour?"
"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room, Sophy--and--and you were gone. You weren"t in the house. I looked everywhere; and you"d disappeared, as if the earth had opened and swallowed you." Alicia"s voice was trembling.
"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waiting, and still you didn"t come. I telephoned Doctor Geddes, when I couldn"t stand it any longer. And then The Author came down-stairs. And oh, Sophy, there was such an unearthly, clammy, waiting sort of feeling in the house--all those lights, all those empty rooms--I felt as if something terrible must be happening!" She clung to me as she spoke, kissing me, and shook, and wept. "And when you still didn"t come, and we couldn"t find you anywhere, The Author suggested that we should come over here and enlist Mr. Jelnik.
"When we got here, there wasn"t a soul in this house. Not even the dog. We went back to Hynds House, and walked through our garden, and then came back here, because we didn"t know what else to do. Oh, Sophy!" I patted her shoulders, mumbling that she mustn"t cry, it was ail right.
"Miss Gaines, I am dreadfully sorry you should have been frightened.
But there really wasn"t the least occasion for alarm. Because Miss Smith was with _me_," said Mr. Jelnik calmly.
Alicia looked at him, trying to read his face in the wan light. Her world, as it were, was rocking under her feet. She looked at me; and I said nothing. To save my life I couldn"t speak of Jessamine Hynds then, nor talk coherently of that night"s experience. I couldn"t betray Nicholas Jelnik"s secrets, nor mention the Watcher in the Dark, nor that dreadful red-walled room. So I merely patted Alicia"s shoulder, while she held fast to me as if I might again disappear.
"That is exactly what we should like you to explain, Mr. Jelnik, if you please," said The Author, with deadly politeness. "You must pardon us if we disagree with your a.s.sertion that Miss Gaines had no real occasion for alarm."
"Miss Smith and I," said Mr. Jelnik, stiffening, at the tone, "found it absolute necessary to leave Hynds House for a short while to-night, to attend to--an affair of some importance to us both, but which concerns no one else on earth." Under the grave politeness his voice had an edge of irritation. "I repeat that I am sincerely sorry Miss Alicia was frightened. For my share in that, I crave her pardon. I ask all of you to accept this apology as an explanation which is final."
"I for one shall do no such thing!" cried The Author, hotly. "Are we impertinent children to be thus lightly dismissed? Of course, if Miss Smith herself--"
"You have neither right nor authority to cross-question Miss Smith,"
interposed Mr. Jelnik, sharply. But Doctor Geddes broke in, with mounting anger and astonishment:
"Of course we"ve got the right and the reason to question both of you! You might just as well come off your high horse; you"ve behaved very badly, Jelnik! To induce Sophy to scuttle off in the middle of the night, without a word to anybody, and go wild-goose-chasing with you, was an unworthy action. I wouldn"t have believed it of you, Jelnik; I thought you had more common sense--not to speak of Sophy herself. Gad, I"d like to shake the pair of you!" And he stamped his feet.
"Doctor Richard Geddes," said Mr. Jelnik, in dangerously low and honeyed tones, "I find you insufferable. You have the instincts and the manners of a navvy."
"Mr. Jelnik!" cried The Author. "Mr. Jelnik, honor me, please, by considering my instincts and manners infinitely worse than Doctor Geddes"s. I, Mr. Jelnik, at this instant feel within me the instincts of a cave man and I hone for the thigh-bone of an aurochs to prove it to you. Do you know what I think of you, Mr. Jelnik? I consider you a man without conscience and without scruples, sir!"
"My faith! The man even talks like a serial!" said Mr. Jelnik, weariedly. "My dear, good sir, while we"re by way of indulging in personalities permit me to inform you that you annoy me by existing.
As to your behavior to Miss Smith--"
"_My_ behavior to Miss Smith?" shrieked The Author, stamping with fury, "_my_ behavior to Miss Smith? You had better set about explaining _your_ behavior to Miss Smith! You"re a rascal, Mr.
Jelnik!"
"You, my dear sir, are worse: you"re an a.s.s," said Mr. Jelnik, and fetched a sigh of tiredness. "Would to heaven somebody would fetch you a halter!"
"Jelnik," choked Doctor Geddes, "a man who behaves as you"re behaving to-night runs the risk of getting himself shot. You"re my own cousin, but--"
Mr. Jelnik turned at bay.
"Doctor Geddes," said he, in a razor-edged voice, "it is no light affliction to be kin to the Hyndses!--What do you want me to explain? I have already told you it was necessary for Miss Smith and me to attend to a matter that is none of your business. In return, you hold us up like brigands. Would it make a dent in your armor of righteous meddling, if I were to remind you that you are seriously annoying Miss Smith?"
"Not a dent!" roared the doctor. "And if it annoys Sophy to be asked a straight question by those who have her interest at heart, let her be annoyed and take shame to herself!"
Alicia began to cry.
"Oh, Sophy!" wailed Alicia, "whatever is the matter with us, anyhow?
What is wrong, Sophy? Why are we quarreling? What are we quarreling about, Sophy?"
I put my hands to my head. "I don"t know. That is. I can"t tell. I mean. I can"t think, at all!
"Doctor Geddes has spoken like an honest man," said The Author, standing flat-footed in his pointed red shoes. "Mr. Jelnik, I ask you plainly: Why do I find Miss Smith here at this hour? Why and wherefore the mystery? Let me remind you that I have asked Miss Smith to marry me, and that she hasn"t as yet given me her answer,"
he finished, significantly.
"Why, Sophy!" gasped Alicia. "Why, Sophy Smith!"
"Holy Moses!" gasped Doctor Geddes. "What, man, you too? Well, then, if it comes to that, I can call you to account, Jelnik, because _I_ asked Sophy to marry me, too. In my case she had sense enough to say "No" at once."
"You know he did, Sophy!" Alicia corroborated him tearfully. "You told me so yourself, though you never so much as opened your mouth about The Author; and I don"t think that was a bit like you, Sophy.
And why you refused the doctor, I can"t for the life of me imagine!"
"Can"t you? Well, _I_ can," snorted the doctor, and drew Alicia closer to him. She put both her hands around his arm.
"What!" gulped The Author, rocking on his red toes, and wrinkling his nose until his waxed mustache stood out with infernal effect, and his corked eyebrows climbed into his hair. "What! You, Geddes?
My sainted aunt! Why, man alive, I thought that you--that is I"d have sworn that you--" Here The Author"s breath mercifully failed him.
I was dumb as a sheep in the hands of the slayers. I could only blink at these dear people who were tormenting me. I thought of Jessamine Hynds in her brown silk frock, with the crucifix in her skeleton fingers and the earth fresh over her. And I couldn"t say a word. And while I stood thus silent, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik walked up and took my hand in his warm and comforting clasp, and looked at me with kindling, starry eyes, and laughed a deep-chested laugh.
"Gentlemen and Miss Gaines," said Mr. Jelnik, in a ringing and vibrant voice, "permit me to inform you that I also have asked Miss Smith to marry me. And she has done me the honor to accept me."