"It would kill me," answered Judith. "It seems as if a world of happiness had been crowded into these days, when I am made sure of being your wife! Can it be? Am I certain of that? Ah, what changes a day may bring!"
"Yes, many things may be done in less than a day," said Storms, in a light if not mocking tone. "It only takes a minute or two sometimes for a man to yoke himself up for life. If one could only wrench himself free as easily, now!"
"You speak as if I were not quite forgiven for keeping back that paper," she said with a look of swift apprehension.
"Do I? Well, you will soon learn how I can forgive.
"What do you mean, Richard?"
"Nothing. But this is the station nearest to "Norston"s Rest." We get out here."
The whistle of a train coming from the east was just then sounding sharp and clear in the distance.
Storms left his train just as it began to move, and Judith followed him. When she reached the platform he turned his face upon her in the starlight, and she saw that he was smiling.
"Come," he said, drawing her toward the track.
"Step back! Step back! Here comes another train," cried Judith. "How awfully human that red light blazes in front of the engine! It frightens me! Oh, be careful."
Storms had flung one arm around the girl"s waist and forced her to the very edge of the platform, as if about to help her leap across the rails, but she pressed back in terror and clung to him till the train pa.s.sed by.
"Why, what makes you tremble so? What did you shriek for?"
"I was so near the edge the hot steam swept over me."
"Over me, too. The engine lurched up so suddenly that I nearly lost my balance; but that was nothing to get frightened about. Come, now, the coast is clear, and the old people will be expecting us. You are not so tired that we cannot walk from the station?"
Judith laughed.
"Tired? Oh, no. I could walk twenty miles if they only ended at your home. You don"t know how I have longed for a sight of it!"
"Come, then. We will go across the park. It is the nearest way, and you know it best."
Judith did not answer; her usual high spirits were dampened. She only folded the scarlet sacque over her bosom, and prepared to follow Storms, breathing heavily, she could not have told why.
No other pa.s.sengers left the train at that station, and, without entering the building, these two pa.s.sed into the village in mutual stillness. Once beyond that, Storms kept the highway until they reached the side-gate in the park wall.
"This is our nearest way to the old house. It saves a good bit of road," he said, opening the gate with his key.
Judith followed him. She knew the path well and took it willingly.
This really was the nearest way to the farm-house.
They were in the wilderness now, threading it by a path that made a sudden descent to the Black Lake.
"Richard! Richard!" Judith cried out, in nervous haste. "How fast you walk! It quite takes away my breath."
Storms slackened the rapid pace with which he was walking and threw his arms around her; then kissed her fiercely upon the lips, so fiercely that she was not aware that his hand pressed the paper hidden in her bosom, and she struggled away from him, for the kiss brought shuddering with it, as if an asp had stung her.
"Why, girl, I thought you loved me."
"I do--I do! Oh, how dearly!"
"But you do not know yet how I can love."
They were descending the path that led to the lake. Now the young man girded her waist with one arm and hurried her forward almost beyond her power of walking. When they reached the lake she was panting for breath.
"One minute--let me rest a minute," she pleaded, holding back from the bank, which they were walking dangerously near.
"A minute? Oh, yes. I will give you that," he said. "Indeed, I feel tired myself. Come in here. It will seem like old times."
CHAPTER LXXI.
THE SPIDER"S WEB.
Storms turned at once and led the way to the dilapidated old summer-house where so many of his interviews with the girl had taken place.
There was something secretly sinister in the man"s voice that might have warned Judith of danger; but for his previous expressions of tenderness, she would have been on her guard. As it was, she hurried past him, and went into the little building first; then flinging off her scarlet jacket, she tossed her pretty hat, with its cl.u.s.ter of red poppies, upon the bench, and pushed the black ma.s.ses of hair away from her temples, with the dash of a prize-fighter going into action.
"It is so warm," she said, "and we have walked so fast. Ah! how natural the old place looks!"
Storms paused at the door, and looked back along the path he had trod, and around the lake cautiously.
"You needn"t trouble yourself. If a gamekeeper should see us they"ll take me for that Jessup girl," she said, laughing.
"While we are here," he said, with soft insinuation, "let me read that letter you spoke of--Jessup"s last. There is moonlight enough, and I haven"t seen it yet."
There was something in the man"s face, or in his voice, that warned Judith, who pressed both hands to her bosom in quick alarm.
"No, no, not here--the light is not strong enough. I have promised to give it up on our wedding-day, and I will."
"And not before?"
"No, I will not give it up before."
Judith Hart drew toward the dilapidated window that opened upon that balcony which overhung the deepest portion of the lake. She made a singularly wild figure, standing there, with her bloodless face, and all the thick ma.s.ses of her hair thrust back, while the rays of a fitful moon streamed over her.
Storms came close to her, speaking low, and with unusual gentleness.
"Judith, I thought that you loved me."
"So I do; better than myself; better than my own soul!"
"Yet you keep a paper from me that might destroy me."
"It never shall. You could not keep it safer than I will."