"I do. I do, with all my heart." She turned and gave him an impa.s.sioned look from the height of her inapproachability.
"Then I won"t ask you to be my wife, Suzette! I know how you feel; I won"t be such a liar as to pretend I don"t. And I will respect your feeling, as the holiest thing on earth. And if you wish, we will be engaged as no other lovers ever were. You shall promise nothing but to let me help you all I can, for our love"s sake, and I will promise never to speak to you of our love again. That shall be our secret--our engagement. Will you promise?"
"It will be hard for you," she said, with a pitying look, which perhaps tried him as sorely as anything could.
"Not if I can believe I am making it easy for you."
They walked along, and she said with averted eyes, that he knew had tears in them, "I promise."
"And I promise, too," he said.
She impulsively put out her left hand toward him, and he held its slim fingers in his right a moment, and then let it drop. They both honestly thought they had got the better of that which laughs from its innumerable disguises at all stratagems and all devices to escape it.
"And now," he said, "I want to talk to you about what brought me over here to-day. I thought at first that I was only going to see your lawyer."
XVIII.
Matt felt that he need now no longer practise those reserves in speaking to Sue of her father, which he had observed so painfully hitherto.
Neither did she shrink from the fact they had to deal with. In the trust established between them, they spoke of it all openly, and if there was any difference in them concerning it, the difference was in his greater forbearance toward the unhappy man. They both spoke of his wrong-doing as if it were his infirmity; they could not do otherwise; and they both insensibly a.s.sumed his irresponsibility in a measure; they dwelt in the fiction or the persuasion of a mental obliquity which would account for otherwise unaccountable things.
"It is what my sister has always said," Sue eagerly a.s.sented to his suggestion of this theory. "I suppose it"s what I"ve always believed, too, somehow, or I couldn"t have lived."
"Yes; yes, it _must_ be so," Matt insisted. "But now the question is how to reach him, and make some beginning of the end with him. I suppose it"s the suspense and the uncertainty that is breaking your sister down?"
"Yes--that and what we ought to do about giving up the property.
We--quarrelled about that at first; we couldn"t see it alike; but now I"ve yielded; we"ve both yielded; and we don"t know what to do."
"We must talk all that over with your lawyer, in connection with something I"ve just heard of." He told her of Pinney"s scheme, and he said, "We must see if we can"t turn it to account."
They agreed not to talk of her father with Adeline, but she began it herself. She looked very old and frail, as she sat nervously rocking herself in a corner of the cottage parlor, and her voice had a sharp, anxious note. "What I think is, that now we know father is alive, we oughtn"t to do anything about the property without hearing from him. It stands to reason, don"t you think it does, Mr. Hilary, that he would know better than anybody else, what we ought to do. Any rate, I think we ought to wait and consult with him about it, and see what he says. The property belonged to mother in the first place, and he mightn"t like to have us part with it."
"I don"t think you need trouble about that, now, Miss Northwick," said Matt. "Nothing need be done about the property at present."
"But I keep thinking about it. I want to do what Sue thinks is right, and to see it just in the light she does; and I"ve told her I would do exactly as she said about it; but now she won"t say; and so I think we"ve got to wait and hear from father. Don"t you?"
"Decidedly, I think you ought to do nothing now, till you hear from him," said Matt.
"I knew you would," said the old maid, "and if Sue will be ruled by me, she"ll see that it will all turn out right. I know father, and I know he"ll want to do what is sensible, and at the same time honorable. He is a person who could never bear to wrong any one out of a cent."
"Well," said Sue, "we will do what Mr. Hilary says; and now, try not to worry about it any more," she coaxed.
"Oh, yes! It"s well enough to say not to worry _now_, when my mind"s got going on it," said the old maid, querulously; she flung her weak frame against the chair-back, and she began to wipe the gathering tears. "But if you"d agreed with me in the first place, it wouldn"t have come to this. Now I"m all broken down, and I don"t know _when_ I shall be well again."
It was a painful moment; Sue patiently adjusted the cushion to her sister"s shoulders, while Adeline"s tongue ran helplessly on. "You were so headstrong and stubborn, I thought you would kill me. You were just like a rock, and I could beat myself to pieces against you, and you wouldn"t move."
"I was wrong," said the proud girl, meekly.
"I"m sure," Adeline whimpered, "I hate to make an exhibition before Mr.
Hilary, as much as any one, but I can"t help it; no, I can"t. My nerves are _all_ gone."
The doctor came, and Sue followed Matt out of doors, to leave her, for the first few confidential moments, sacred to the flow of symptoms, alone with the physician. There was a little sequestered s.p.a.ce among the avenue firs beside the lodge, with a bench, toward which he led the way, but the girl would not sit down. She stood with her arms fallen at her side, and looked him steadily in the face.
"It"s all true that she said of me. I set myself like a rock against her. I have made her sick, and if she died, I should be her murderer!"
He put his arms round her, and folded her to his heart. "Oh, my love, my love, my love!" he lamented and exulted over her.
She did not try to resist; she let her arms hang at her side; she said, "Is _this_ the way we keep our word?--Already!"
"Our word was made to be broken; we must have meant it so. I"m glad we could break it so soon. Now I can truly help you; now that you are to be my wife."
She did not gainsay him, but she asked, "What will you think when you know--you must have known that I used to care for some else; but he never cared for me? It ought to make you despise me; it made me despise myself! But it is true. I did care all the world for him, once. _Now_ will you say--"
"Now, more than ever," said the young man, silencing her lips with his own, and in their trance of love the world seemed to reel away from under their feet, with all its sorrows and shames, and leave them in mid-heaven.
"Suzette!" Adeline"s voice called from within. "Suzette! Where are you?"
Sue released herself, and ran into the cottage. She came out again in a little while, and said that the doctor thought Adeline had better go to bed for a day or two and have a thorough rest, and relief from all excitement. "We mustn"t talk before her any more, and you mustn"t stay any longer."
He accepted the authority she instinctively a.s.sumed over him, and found his dismissal already of the order of things. He said, "Yes, I"ll go at once. But about--"
She put a card into his hand. "You can see Mr. Putney, and whatever you and he think best, will _be_ best. Haven"t you been our good angel ever since--Oh, I"m not half good enough for you, and I shouldn"t be, even if there were no stain--"
"Stop!" he said; he caught her hand, and pulled her toward him.
The doctor came out, and said in a low voice, "There"s nothing to be anxious about, but she really must have quiet. I"ll send Mrs. Morrell down to see you, after tea. She"s quiet itself."
Suzette submitted, and let Matt take her hand again in parting.
"Will you give me a lift, doctor, if you"re going toward town?"
"Get in," said the doctor.
Sue went indoors, and the two men drove off together.
Matt looked at the card in his hand, and read: "Mr. Putney: Please talk to Mr. Hilary as you would to my sister or me." Suzette"s printed name served for signature. Matt put the card in his pocket-book, and then he said, "What sort of man is Mr. Putney, doctor?"
"Mr. Putney," said the doctor, with a twinkle of his blue eyes, "is one of those uncommon people who have enemies. He has a good many because he"s a man that thinks, and then says what he thinks. But he"s his own worst enemy, because from time to time he gets drunk."
"A character," said Matt. "Do you think he"s a safe one? Doesn"t his getting drunk from time to time interfere with his usefulness?"
"Well, of course," said the doctor. "It"s bad for him; but I think it"s slowly getting better. Yes, decidedly. It"s very extraordinary, but ever since he"s been in charge of the Miss Northwicks" interests--"
"Yes; _that"s_ what I was thinking of."