"Yes, you will. You"ll come, some day, to think it was best and right, for you and--and for others. I know you think you"ll never get over it, but you will. Somehow or other you will, same as the rest of us have had to do. The Lord tries us mighty hard sometimes, but He gives us the strength to bear it. There! there! don"t, deary, don"t."
Dr. Parker was very anxious.
"She must rest," he told Mrs. Coffin. "She must, or her brain will give way. I"m going to give her something to make her sleep and you must get her to take it."
So Keziah tried and, at last, Grace did take the drug. In a little while she was sleeping, uneasily and with moans and sobbings, but sleeping, nevertheless.
"Now it"s your turn, Keziah," said the doctor. "You go home now and rest, yourself. We don"t need you any more just now."
"Where"s--where"s Cap"n Nat?" asked Keziah.
"He"s in there with his father. He bears it well, although he is mighty cut up. Poor chap, he seems to feel that he is to blame, somehow. Says Cap"n Eben and he had disagreed about something or other and he fears that hastened the old man"s death. Nonsense, of course. It was bound to come and I told him so. "Twas those blasted Come-Outers who really did it, although I shan"t say so to anyone but you. I"m glad Nat and the girl have agreed to cruise together. It"s a mighty good arrangement. She couldn"t have a better man to look out for her and he couldn"t have a better wife. I suppose I"m at liberty to tell people of the engagement, hey?"
"Yes. Yes, I don"t see any reason why not. Yes--I guess likely you"d better tell "em."
"All right. Now you go home. You"ve had a hard night, like the rest of us."
How hard he had no idea. And Keziah, as she wearily entered the parsonage, realized that the morning would be perhaps the hardest of all. For upon her rested the responsibility of seeing that the minister"s secret was kept. And she, and no other, must break the news to him.
The dining room was dark and gloomy. She lighted the lamp. Then she heard a door open and Ellery"s voice, as he called down the stairs.
"Who is it?" he demanded. "Mrs. Coffin?"
She was startled. "Yes," she said softly, after a moment. "Yes, Mr.
Ellery, it"s me. What are you doin" awake at such an hour"s this?"
"Yes, I"m awake. I couldn"t sleep well to-night, somehow. Too much to think of, I imagine. But where have you been? Why weren"t you at meeting? And where--Why, it"s almost morning!"
She did not answer at once. The temptation was to say nothing now, to put off the trying scene as long as possible.
"It"s morning," repeated the minister. "Are you sick? Has anything happened?"
"Yes," she answered slowly, "somethin" has happened. Are you dressed?
Could you come down?"
He replied that he would be down in a moment. When he came he found her standing by the table waiting for him. The look of her face in the lamplight shocked him.
"Why, Mrs. Coffin!" he exclaimed. "What IS it? You look as if you had been through some dreadful experience."
"Maybe I have," she replied. "Maybe I have. Experiences like that come to us all in this life, to old folks and young, and we have to bear "em like men and women. That"s the test we"re put to, Mr. Ellery, and the way we come through the fire proves the stuff we"re made of. Sorrows and disappointments and heartbreaks and sicknesses and death--"
She paused on the word. He interrupted her.
"Death?" he repeated. "Death? Is some one dead, some one I know? Mrs.
Coffin, what is it you are trying to tell me?"
Her heart went out to him. She held out both her hands.
"You poor boy," she cried, "I"m trying to tell you one of the hardest things a body can tell. Yes, some one is dead, but that ain"t all. Eben Hammond, poor soul, is out of his troubles and gone."
"Eben Hammond! Captain Eben? Dead! Why, why--"
"Yes, Eben"s gone. He was took down sudden and died about ten o"clock last night. I was there and--"
"Captain Eben dead! Why, he was as well as--as--She said--Oh, I must go!
I must go at once!"
He was on his way to the door, but she held it shut.
"No," she said gravely, "you mustn"t go. You mustn"t go, Mr. Ellery.
That"s the one thing you mustn"t do."
"You don"t understand. By and by I can tell you why I must be there, but now--"
"I do understand. I understand it all. Lord help us! if I"d only understood sooner, how much of this might have been spared. Why DIDN"T you tell me?"
"Mrs. Coffin--"
"John--you won"t mind my callin" you John. I"m old enough, pretty nigh, to be your mother, and I"ve come to feel almost as if I was. John, you"ve got to stay here with me. You can"t go to that house. You can"t go to her."
"Mrs. Coffin, what are you saying? Do you know--Have you--"
"Yes, I know all about it. I know about the meetin"s in the pines and all. Oh, why didn"t you trust me and tell me? If you had, all would have been SO much better!"
He looked at her in utter amazement. The blood rushed to his face.
"You know THAT?" he whispered.
"Yes, I know."
"Did she tell--"
"No, n.o.body told. That is, only a little. I got a hint and I suspicioned somethin" afore. The rest I saw with my own eyes."
He was now white, but his jaw shot forward and his teeth closed.
"If you do know," he said, "you must realize that my place is with her.
Now, when she is in trouble--"
"Would you want to make that trouble greater? More than she could bear?"
"I think I might help her to bear it. Mrs. Coffin, you have been my truest friend, but one, in Trumet. You HAVE been like a mother to me.
But I have thought this out to the end and I shall go through with it.
It is my affair--and hers. If my own mother were alive and spoke as you do, I should still go through with it. It is right, it is my life. I"m not ashamed of anything I"ve done. I"m proud. I"m proud of her. And humble only when I think how unworthy I am to be her husband. I suppose you are fearful of what my congregation will say. Well, I"ve thought of that, too, and thought it through. Whatever they say and whatever they do will make no difference. Do you suppose I will let THEM keep me from her? Please open that door."
He was very tragic and handsome--and young, as he stood there. The tears overflowed the housekeeper"s eyes as she looked at him. If her own love story had not been broken off at its beginning, if she had not thrown her life away, she might have had a son like that. She would have given all that the years had in store for her, given it gladly, to have been able to open the door and bid him go. But she was firm.
"It ain"t the congregation, John," she said. "Nor Trumet, nor your ministry. That means more"n you think it does, now; but it ain"t that.
You mustn"t go to her because--well, because she don"t want you to."