""Alarmed?" Why should I be?"
"No reason why, sir," answered Mr. Fabian, who then stooped to the woman and whispered: "Nor need you be so. You are safe for the present."
"Will you get out of my way and let me come to my place?" demanded the Iron King.
"Pardon me, sir," said Fabian, stepping backward from the carriage.
"Fainting?" said the old man, in a tone of annoyance, as he took his seat beside his new wife--"fainting? The first Mrs. Rockharrt never fainted in her life; nor ever gave any sort of trouble. What"s the matter with you, Rose? Don"t be a consummate fool and turn nervous. I won"t stand any nonsense," he said roughly, as he peered into the pale face of his new slave.
"Oh, it is nothing," she faltered--"nothing. I was overcome by heat. It is a very hot day."
"Why, it is a very cool afternoon. What do you mean?" he demanded.
"It has been a very hot day, and the heat and fatigue--"
"Rubbish!" he interrupted. "If I were to give any attention to your faints, you would be fainting every day just to have a fuss made over you. Now this fainting business has got to be stopped. Do you hear? If you are out of order, I will send for my family physician and have you examined. If you are really ill, you shall be put under medical treatment; if you are not, I will have no fine lady airs and affectations. The first Mrs. Rockharrt was perfectly free from them."
"I would not have given way to the weakness if I could have helped it--indeed I would not!" said the poor woman, very sincerely.
"We"ll see to that!" retorted the Iron King.
Ah, poor Rose! She was not the old man"s darling and sovereign, as she had hoped and planned to be. She was the tyrant"s slave and victim.
A man of Aaron Rockharrt"s temperament seldom, at the age of seventy-seven, becomes a lover; and never, at any age, a woman"s slave.
Mr. Fabian now got into the carriage, and sat down on the front cushion opposite his father and step-mother. Mr. Clarence was following him in, when Mr. Rockharrt roughly interfered.
"What are you about here, Clarence? What are you going to do?"
"Take my seat in the carriage, of course, sir," answered the young man, with a surprised look.
"You are going to do nothing of the sort! I don"t choose to have the horses overtasked in this manner. I myself, with Fabian and my coachman, to say nothing of Mrs. Rockharrt, are weight enough for one pair of horses, and you can"t come in here. Where"s Sylvan?"
"On the box seat beside the driver."
"Really?" demanded the Iron King, in a sarcastic tone, "How many more of you desire to be drawn by one pair of horses? Tell Sylvan to come down off that."
"But, sir, there is not a single conveyance of any description at the station," urged Clarence.
"Indeed! And pray what do you call your own two pairs of st.u.r.dy legs?
Are they not strong enough to convey you from here to North End, where you can get the hotel hack? And, by the way, why did you not engage the hack to come here and take you back?"
"Because it was out, sir."
"Then you two should not have come here to over-load the horses. But as you have come, you must walk back. Has Sylvan got off his perch? Ah, yes; I see. Well, tell the coachman to drive first to the North End Hotel. And do you two long-legged calves walk after it. If the hack should be still out when we get there, you can stay at the hotel until it comes in."
"All right, sir," said Clarence, good humoredly; and he closed the door, and gave the order to the coachman, who immediately started his horses on the way to North End.
On the way home Mr. Clarence inquired of his nephew when he expected to receive his commission and where he expected to be ordered.
"How can I tell you? I must wait for a vacancy, I suppose, and then be sent to the Devil"s Icy Peak or Fort Jumping Off Place, or some such other pleasant post of duty on the confines of terra incognita. But the farther off, the stranger and the savager it is, the better I shall like it for my own sake, but it will be rough on Cora," said the youth.
"But you do not dream of taking Cora out there?" exclaimed Clarence, in pained surprise.
"Oh, but I do! She insists on going where I go. She is bent on being a voluntary, unsalaried missionary and school-mistress to the Indians just because Rule died a martyred minister and teacher among them."
"She is mad!" exclaimed Mr. Clarence; "mad."
"She has had enough to make her mad, but she is sane enough on this subject, I can tell you, Uncle Clarence. She is the most level-headed young woman that I know, and the plan of life that she has laid out for herself is the best course she could possibly pursue under the present circ.u.mstances. She is very miserable here. This plan will give her the most complete change of scene and the most interesting occupation. It will cure her of her melancholy and absorption in her troubled past, and when she shall be cured she may return to her friends here, or she may meet with some fine fellow out there who may make her forget the dead and leave off her weeds. That is what I hope for, Uncle Clarence."
And for the rest of their walk they trudged on in silence or with but few words pa.s.sed between them. It was sunset when they reached North End.
That evening when Sylvan and Cora found themselves together for a moment at Rockhold House, the youth said:
"Corona Rothsay, the sooner I get my orders and you and I depart for Scalping Creek or Perdition Peak, or wherever I am to be shoveled off to, the better, my dear," said the young soldier.
"What do you think of it all now, Sylvan?" she inquired.
"I think, Cora, that while we do stay here it would be Christian charity to be very good to "the Rose that all admire." n.o.body will admire her any more, I think."
"Why?" inquired Cora, in surprise.
"Oh, you didn"t see her face. She had her mask veil, do you call it?--down, so you couldn"t see. But, oh, my conscience! how she is changed in these last six weeks! She is not a blooming rose any more.
She is a snubbed, trampled on, crushed, and wilted rose. Her face looks pale; her hair dull; her eyes weak; her beauty nowhere; her cheerfulness nowhere else."
Early the next morning, after a hasty breakfast, Mr. Rockharrt entered his carriage to drive to the works. Young Mrs. Rockharrt, under the plea of fatigue from her long journey, retired to her own room.
Cora said to her brother:
"Sylvan, I wish you would order the little carriage and take me to the Banks to see Violet. I should have paid her this attention sooner but for the pressure of work that has been upon me. I must defer it no longer, but go this morning."
"All right, Cora!" answered the young man, and he left the room to do his errand.
Cora went up stairs to get ready for her drive.
In about fifteen minutes the two were seated in the little open landau, that had been the gift of the late Mrs. Rockharrt to her beloved granddaughter, and that the latter always used when driving out in the country around Rockhold during the summer.
They did not have to cross the ferry, as the new house of Fabian Rockharrt was on the same side of the river as was Rockhold.
The road on this west side was, however, much rougher, though the scenery was much finer.
They drove on through the woods, which here clothed the foot of the mountain and grew quite down to the water"s edge, meeting over their heads and casting the road into deep shadow.
They drove on for about three miles, when they came to a point where another road wound up the mountain side, through heavy woods, and brought them to a beautiful plateau, on which stood the handsome house of Fabian Rockharrt, in the midst of its groves, flower gardens, arbors, orchards and conservatories.
It was a double, two-storied house, of brown stone, with a fine green background of wooded mountain, and a front view of the river below and the mountains beyond. There were bay windows at each end and piazzas along the whole front.
As the carriage drew up before the door, Violet was discovered walking up and down the front porch. She looked very fragile, but very pretty with her slight, graceful figure in a morning dress of white muslin, with blue ribbons at her throat and in her pale gold hair.