"And why?" she flashed back at him.
He did not answer that.
"A truce with your fancies, madam," said he. "Behold a soul of good nature! I have followed you through half the civilized countries of the globe--none of them are good enough. You must needs cross the ocean again, and come to the wilds. We nearly die on the trail, are picked up by a Samaritan in buckskin and taken into the bosom of his worthy family. And forsooth, you look at a backwoods urchin, and are nigh to swooning."
"Hush, Harry," she cried, starting forward and peering into my face; "he will hear you."
"Tut!" said Harry, "what if he does? London and Paris are words to him. We might as well be speaking French. And I"ll take my oath he"s sleeping."
The corner where I lay was dark, for the cabin had no windows. And if my life had depended upon speaking, I could have found no fit words then.
She turned from me, and her mood changed swiftly. For she laughed lightly, musically, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"Perchance I am ghost-ridden," she said.
"They are not ghosts of a past happiness, at all events," he answered.
She sat down on a stool before the hearth, and clasping her fingers upon her knee looked thoughtfully into the embers of the fire. Presently she began to speak in a low, even voice, he looking down at her, his feet apart, his hand thrust backward towards the heat.
"Harry," she said, "do you remember all our contrivances? How you used to hold my hand in the garden under the table, while I talked brazenly to Mr. Mason? And how jealous Jack Temple used to get?" She laughed again, softly, always looking at the fire.
"d.a.m.nably jealous!" agreed Mr. Riddle, and yawned. "Served him devilish right for marrying you. And he was a blind fool for five long years."
"Yes, blind," the lady agreed. "How could he have been so blind? How well I recall the day he rode after us in the woods."
""Twas the parson told, curse him!" said Mr. Riddle. "We should have gone that night, if your courage had held."
"My courage!" she cried, flashing a look upwards, "my foresight. A pretty mess we had made of it without my inheritance. "Tis small enough, the Lord knows. In Europe we should have been dregs. We should have starved in the wilderness with you a-farming."
He looked down at her curiously.
"Devilish queer talk," said he, "but while we are in it, I wonder where Temple is now. He got aboard the King"s frigate with a price on his head. Williams told me he saw him in London, at White"s. Have--have you ever heard, Sarah?"
She shook her head, her glance returning to the ashes.
"No," she answered.
"Faith," says Mr. Riddle, "he"ll scarce turn up here."
She did not answer that, but sat motionless.
"He"ll scarce turn up here, in these wilds," Mr. Riddle repeated, "and what I am wondering, Sarah, is how the devil we are to live here."
"How do these good people live, who helped us when we were starving?"
Mr. Riddle flung his hand eloquently around the cabin. There was something of disgust in the gesture.
"You see!" he said, "love in a cottage."
"But it is love," said the lady, in a low tone.
He broke into laughter.
"Sally," he cried, "I have visions of you gracing the board at which we sat to-day, patting journey-cakes on the hearth, stewing squirrel broth with the same pride that you once planned a rout. Cleaning the pots and pans, and standing anxious at the doorway staring through a sunbonnet for your lord and master."
"My lord and master!" said the lady, and there was so much of scorn in the words that Mr. Riddle winced.
"Come," he said, "I grant now that you could make pans shine like pier-gla.s.ses, that you could cook bacon to a turn--although I would have laid an hundred guineas against it some years ago. What then? Are you to be contented with four log walls? With the intellectual companionship of the McChesneys and their friends? Are you to depend for excitement upon the chances of having the hair neatly cut from your head by red fiends?
Come, we"ll go back to the Rue St. Dominique, to the suppers and the card parties of the countess. We"ll be rid of regrets for a life upon which we have turned our backs forever."
She shook her head, sadly.
"It"s no use, Harry," said she, "we"ll never be rid of regrets."
"We"ll never have a barony like Temple Bow, and races every week, and gentry round about. But, d.a.m.n it, the Rebels have spoiled all that since the war."
"Those are not the regrets I mean," answered Mrs. Temple.
"What then, in Heaven"s name?" he cried. "You were not wont to be thus.
But now I vow you go beyond me. What then?"
She did not answer, but sat leaning forward over the hearth, he staring at her in angry perplexity. A sound broke the afternoon stillness,--the pattering of small, bare feet on the puncheons. A tremor shook the woman"s shoulders, and little Tom stood before her, a quaint figure in a b.u.t.ternut smock, his blue eyes questioning. He laid a hand on her arm.
Then a strange thing happened. With a sudden impulse she turned and flung her arms about the boy and strained him to her, and kissed his brown hair. He struggled, but when she released him he sat very still on her knee, looking into her face. For he was a solemn child. The lady smiled at him, and there were two splashes like raindrops on her fair cheeks.
As for Mr. Riddle, he went to the door, looked out, and took a last pinch of snuff.
"Here is the mistress of the house coming back," he cried, "and singing like the shepherdess in the opera."
It was Polly Ann indeed. At the sound of his mother"s voice, little Tom jumped down from the lady"s lap and ran past Mr. Riddle at the door.
Mrs. Temple"s thoughts were gone across the mountains.
"And what is that you have under your arm?" said Mr. Riddle, as he gave back.
"I"ve fetched some prime bacon fer your supper, sir," said Polly Ann, all rosy from her walk; "what I have ain"t fit to give ye."
Mrs. Temple rose.
"My dear," she said, "what you have is too good for us. And if you do such a thing again, I shall be very angry.
"Lord, ma"am," exclaimed Polly Ann, "and you use" ter dainties an"
silver an" linen! Tom is gone to try to git a turkey for ye." She paused, and looked compa.s.sionately at the lady. "Bless ye, ma"am, ye"re that tuckered from the mountains! "Tis a fearsome journey."
"Yes," said the lady, simply, "I am tired."
"Small wonder!" exclaimed Polly Ann. "To think what ye"ve been through--yere husband near to dyin" afore yere eyes, and ye a-reskin"
yere own life to save him--so Tom tells me. When Tom goes out a-fightin"
red-skins I"m that fidgety I can"t set still. I wouldn"t let him know what I feel fer the world. But well ye know the pain of it, who love yere husband like that."