"I would not have come in on any account to disturb you if I had known ? I did not understand you were more than a trifle ill."
Fleda wished he would mend his .mistake, as his understanding certainly by this time was mended. But that did not seem to be his conclusion of the best thing to do.
"Since I am here, can you bear to hear me say three words, without too much pain? I do not ask you to speak."
A faint whispered "yes" gave him leave to go on. She had never looked at him. She sat like a statue; to answer by a motion of her head was more than could be risked.
He drew up a chair and sat down, while King looked at him with eyes of suspicious indignation.
"I am not surprised," he said gently, "to find you suffering.
I knew how your sensibilities must feel the shock of yesterday. I would fain have spared it you. I will spare you all further pain on the same score, if possible. Dear Miss Ringgan, since I am here, and time is precious, may I say one word before I cease troubling you? I take it for granted that you were made acquainted with the contents of my letter to Mrs. Rossitur? ? with _all_ the contents? ? were you?"
Again Fleda"s lips almost voicelessly gave the answer.
"Will you give me what I ventured to ask for?" said he, gently, "the permission to work _for you?_ Do not trouble those precious lips to speak ? the answer of these fingers will be as sure a warrant to me as all words that could be spoken, that you do not deny my request."
He had taken one of her hands in his own. But the fingers lay with unanswering coldness and lifelessness for a second in his clasp, and then were drawn away, and took determinate hold of the chair-back. Again the flush came to Fleda"s cheeks, brought by a sharp pain ? oh, bodily and mental too! ? and, after a moment"s pause, with a distinctness of utterance that let him know every word, she said, ?
"A generous man would not ask it, Sir."
Thorn sprang up, and several times paced the length of the room, up and down, before he said anything more. He looked at Fleda, but the flush was gone again, and nothing could seem less conscious of his presence. Pain and patience were in every line of her face, but he could read nothing more, except a calmness as unmistakably written. Thorn gave that face repeated glances as he walked, then stood still and read it at leisure. Then he came to her side again, and spoke in a different voice.
"You are so unlike anybody else," he said, "that you shall make me unlike myself. I will do freely what I hoped to do with the light of your smile before me. You shall hear no more of this affair, neither you nor the world ? I have the matter perfectly in my own hands ? it shall never raise a whisper again. I will move heaven and earth rather than fail ? but there is no danger of my failing. I will try to prove myself worthy of your esteem, even where a man is most excusable for being selfish."
He took one of her cold hands again ? Fleda could not help it without more force than she cared to use, and, indeed, pain would by this time almost have swallowed up other sensation if every word and touch had not sent it ill a stronger throb to her very finger-ends. Thorn bent his lips to her hand, twice kissed it fervently, and then left her, much to King"s satisfaction, who thereupon resigned himself to quiet slumbers.
His mistress knew no such relief. Excitement had dreadfully aggravated her disorder, at a time when it was needful to banish even thought as far as possible. Pain effectually banished it now, and Barby, coming in a little after Mr. Thorn had gone, found her quite unable to speak, and scarce able to breathe, from agony. Barby"s energies and fainting remedies were again put in use, but pain reigned triumphant for hours; and when its hard rule was at last abated, Fleda was able to do nothing but sleep like a child for hours more.
Towards a late tea-time she was at last awake, and carrying on a very one-sided conversation with Rolf, her own lips being called upon for little more than a smile now and then. King, not able to be in her lap, had curled himself up upon a piece of his mistress"s dress, and as close within the circle of her arms as possible, where Fleda"s hand and his head were on terms of mutual satisfaction.
"I thought you wouldn"t permit a dog to lie in your lap," said Marion.
Do you remember that?" said Fleda, with a smile. "Ah, I have grown tender-hearted, Marion, since I have known what it was to want comfort myself. I have come to the conclusion that it is best to let everything have all the enjoyment it can in the circ.u.mstances. King crawled into my lap one day when I had not spirits enough to turn him out, and he has kept the place ever since. Little King!" ?
In answer to which word of intelligence, King looked in her face and wagged his tail, and then earnestly endeavoured to lick all her fingers, which, however, was a piece of comfort she would not give him.
"Fleda," said Barby, putting her head in, "I wish you"d just step out here and tell me which cheese you"d like to have cut."
"What a fool !" said Marion. "Let her cut them all if she likes."
"She is no fool," said Fleda. She thought Barby"s punctiliousness, however, a little ill-timed, as she rose from her sofa, and went into the kitchen.
"Well, you _do_ look as if you wa"n"t good for nothing but to be taken care of," said Barby. "I wouldn"t have riz you up if it hadn"t been just tea-time, and I knowed you couldn"t stay quiet much longer;" and, with a look which explained her tactics, she put into Fleda"s hand a letter, directed to her aunt.
"Philetus give it to me," she said, without a glance at Fleda"s face; "he said it was give to him by a spry little shaver, who wa"n"t a mind to tell nothin" about himself."
"Thank you, Barby!" was Fleda"s most grateful return, and summoning her aunt up stairs, she took her into her own room, and locked the door before she gave her the letter, which Barby"s shrewdness and delicacy had taken such care should not reach its owner in a wrong way. Fleda watched her as her eye ran over the paper, and caught it as it fell from her fingers.
"My dear wife,
"That villain Thorn has got a handle of me which he will not fail to use ? you know it all, I suppose, by this time. It is true that in an evil hour, long ago, when greatly pressed, I did what I thought I should surely undo in a few days. The time never came ? I don"t know why he has let it lie so long, but he has taken it up now, and he will push it to the extreme. There is but one thing left for me ? I shall not see you again. The rascal would never let me rest, I know, in any spot that calls itself American ground.
"You will do better without me than with me.
"R. R."
Fleda mused over the letter for several minutes, and then touched her aunt, who had fallen on a chair, with her head sunk in her hands.
"What does he mean?" said Mrs. Rossitur, looking up with a perfectly colourless face.
"To leave the country."
"Are you sure? Is that it?" said Mrs. Rossitur, rising and looking over the words again. "He would do anything, Fleda."
"That is what he means, aunt Lucy; don"t you see he says he could not be safe anywhere in America?"
Mrs. Rossitur stood eyeing with intense eagerness, for a minute or two, the note in her niece"s hand.
"Then he is gone! now that it is all settled! ? And we don"t know where ? and we can"t get word to him!"
Her cheek, which had a little brightened, became perfectly white again.
"He isn"t gone yet ? he can"t be ? he cannot have left Queechy till to-day ? he will be in New York for several days yet, probably."
"New York? ? it may be Boston!"
"No, he would be more likely to go to New York ? I am sure he would ? he is accustomed to it."
"We might write to both places," said poor Mrs. Rossitur. "I will do it, and send them off at once."
"But he might not get the letters," said Fleda, thoughtfully; "he might not dare to ask at the post-office."
His wife looked at that possibility, and then wrung her hands.
"Oh, why didn"t he give us a clue?"
Fleda put an arm round her affectionately, and stood thinking; stood trembling, might as well be said, for she was too weak to be standing at all.
"What can we do, dear Fleda?" said Mrs. Rossitur, in great distress, "Once out of New York, and we can get nothing to him. If he only knew that there is no need, and that it is all over!"
"We must do everything, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, thoughtfully; "and I hope we shall succeed yet. We will write, but I think the most hopeful other thing we could do, would be to put advertis.e.m.e.nts in the newspapers ? he would be very likely to see them."
"Advertis.e.m.e.nts! But you couldn"t ? what would you put in?"
"Something that would catch his eye, and n.o.body"s else; that is easy, aunt Lucy."
"But there is n.o.body to put them in, Fleda; you said uncle Orrin was going to Boston?"