With a great gulp, and a long sigh like a grieved child, Billy dried his tears, of which he was much ashamed, and helping Jerrie into the cart drove her rapidly to the door of the cottage.
"I should not like Tom, nor d.i.c.k, nor Harold to know this," he said to her, as he stood a moment with her at the gate.
"Billy!" she exclaimed, "do you know me so little as to think I would tell them, or anybody? I have more honor than that," and she gave him her hand, which he held tightly in his while he looked earnestly into the sweet young face which could never be his, every muscle of his own quivering with emotion, and telling of the pain he was enduring.
"Good-bye. I shall be more like a ma-man, and less a ba-baby when I see you again," and springing into his cart he drove rapidly away.
Jerrie found her grandmother seated at a table and trying to iron.
"Grandma," she said, "this is too bad. I did not mean to stay so long.
Put down that flat-iron this minute. I am coming there as soon as I lay off my hat."
Running up the stairs to her room, Jerrie put away her hat, and then, throwing herself upon the bed, cried for a moment as hard as she could cry. The look on Billy"s face haunted her, and she pitied him now more than she had pitied d.i.c.k St. Claire.
"d.i.c.k will get over it, and marry somebody else, but Billy never," she said.
Then, rising up, she bathed her eyes, and pushing back her tangled hair, stood for a moment before the mirror, contemplating the reflection of herself in it.
"Jerrie Crawford," she said, "you must be a mean, heartless, good-for-nothing girl, for it certainly is not your Dutch face, nor yellow hair, nor great staring eyes, which make men think that you will marry them; so it must be your flirting, coquettish manners. I hate a flirt. I hate you, Jerrie Crawford."
Once when a little girl, Jerrie had said to Harold, "Why do all the boys want to kiss me so much?" and now she might have asked, "Why do these same boys wish to marry me?" It was a curious fact that she should have had three offers within twenty-four hours; and she didn"t like it, and her face wore a troubled look all that hot afternoon as she stood at the ironing table, perspiring at every pore, and occasionally smiling to herself as she thought, "Gra.s.sy Spring, Le Bateau, Tracy Park, I might take my choice, if I would, but I prefer the cottage," and then at the thought of Tracy Park her thoughts went off across the sea to Germany, and the low room with the picture upon the wall, and her resolve to find it some day.
"Far in the future it may be, but find it I will, and find, too, who I am," she said to herself, little dreaming that the finding was close at hand, and that she had that day lighted the train which was so soon to bear her on to the end.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
MAUDE.
Harold did not finish his work at the Allen farm-house until Tuesday, so it was not until Wednesday afternoon that he started to pay his promised visit to Maude. Jerrie had seen her twice, and reported her as much better, although still very weak.
"She is so anxious to see you. Don"t you think you can go this afternoon?" she said to Harold, in the morning, as she helped him weed the garden and pick the few strawberries left upon the vines.
"Ye-es, I guess I can--if you"ll go with me," he said.
He was so loth to be away from Jerrie when it was not absolutely necessary, that even a call upon Maude without her did not seem very tempting. But Jerrie could not go now, for Nina and Marian Raymond came down to the cottage to spend the afternoon, and Harold went alone to the park house, where he found Maude in the room she called her studio trying to finish a little water-color which she had sketched of the cottage as it was before the roof was raised.
"I mean it for Jerrie," she had said to Harold, who stood by her when she sketched it, "and I am going to put her under the tree, with her sun bonnet hanging down her back, as she used to wear it when she was a little girl, and you are to be over there by the fence, looking at me coming up the lane."
It was the best thing Maude had ever done, for the likeness to Jerrie and to herself was perfect, while the cottage, embowered in trees and flowers, made it a most attractive picture. Harold had praised it a great deal, and told her that it would make her famous. But when the carpenter work came in Maude put it aside until now, when she brought it out again, and was just beginning to retouch it in places, as Harold was announced.
She was looking very tired, and it seemed to Harold that she had lost many pounds of flesh since he saw her last. Her face was pale, and pinched, and wan, but it flushed brightly as Harold came in, and she went eagerly forward to meet him.
"Hally, you naughty boy!" she began, as she gave him her little, thin hand. "Why didn"t you come before? You don"t know how I have missed you.
You must not forget me now that Jerrie is at home."
She had led him to a seat, and then herself sank into a large cushioned easy chair, against which she leaned her head wearily, while she looked at him with eyes which ought to have told Harold how much he was to her, and so put him on his guard, and saved the misunderstanding which followed.
"No, Maude, I couldn"t forget you," he said; and without really knowing that he was doing it, he put his hand upon the little soft white one lying on the arm of the chair.
Every nerve in Maude"s body thrilled to the touch of that hand upon which she involuntarily laid her other one, noticing as she did so the signs of toil upon it, and feeling sorry for him. One would have thought them lovers, sitting there thus together, but nothing could have been farther from Harold"s mind. He was thinking only of Jerrie, and his resolve to confide in Maude, and get her opinion with regard to his chance.
"Now is as good a time as any," he thought, wondering how he should begin, and finding it harder than he had imagined it would he.
At last after a few commonplaces, Maude told him again that he must not neglect her now that Jerrie was at home.
"Neglect you? How can I do that?" he said, "when I look upon you as one of my best friends, and in proof of it, I am going to tell you something, or, rather, ask you something, and I hope you will answer me truly. Better that I know the worst at first than learn it afterward."
Maude"s face was aflame now with a great and sudden joy, and her soft eyes drooped beneath Harold"s as he went on stammeringly, for he began to feel the awkwardness of telling one girl that he loved another, even though that other were her dearest friend.
"I hardly know how to begin," he said, "it is such a delicate matter, and perhaps I"d better say nothing at all."
"Was he going to stop? Had he changed his mind--and would he not after all, say the words she had so longed to hear?" Maude asked herself, as she turned her eyes appealingly to him, while he sat silent and unmoved, his thoughts very, very far from her to whom he was all in all.
Poor Maude! She was weak and sick, and impulsive and mistaken in the nature of Harold"s feelings for her; so judge her not too harshly, my prudish reader, if she at last did what Arthur would have called "throwing herself at his head."
"I can guess what you mean," she said, after a long pause, during which he did not speak. "I have long suspected that you cared for me just as I care for you, and have wondered you did not tell me so, but supposed that you refrained because I was rich and you were poor; but what has that to do with those who love each other? I am glad you have spoken; and you have made me very happy; and even if we can never be more to each other than we are now, because I may die, as I sometimes fear I shall--"
"Oh, Maude, Maude, you are mistaken. I--," came from Harold like a cry of horror as he wrenched away his hand lying between hers, and to which her slender fingers hung caressingly.
What could she mean? How had she understood him? he asked himself, while great drops of sweat gathered upon his forehead and in the palms of his hands, as like lightning the past came back to him, and he could see as in a printed page that what he had thought mere friendship for himself was a far different and deeper feeling, while he unwittingly had fanned the flame; and was now reaping the result.
"What can I do?" he said aloud, unconsciously, while from the depths of the chair on which Maude was leaning back so wearily came a plaintive voice like that of a child:
"Ring the bell, and give me my handkerchief."
He was at her side in a moment, bending over her, and looking anxiously into the pallid face from which the bright color had faded, leaving it gray, and pinched, and drawn, it seemed to him. Had he killed her by blurting out so roughly that she was mistaken; and thus filling her with mortification and shame? No, that could not be, for as he brought her handkerchief and bent still closer to her, she whispered to him:
"I am not mistaken, Hally. I am going to die, but you have made the last days of my life very, very happy."
She thought he was referring to herself and her situation when he told her she was mistaken, and with a smothered groan he was starting for the camphor, as she bade him do, when the door opened, and Mrs. Tracy herself appeared.
"What is it?" she asked, sharply; then, as she saw Maude"s face she knew what it was, and going swiftly to her, said to Harold:
"Why did you allow her to talk and get excited? What were you saying to her?"
Instantly Maude"s eyes went up to Harold"s with an appealing look, as if asking him not to tell her mother then--a precaution which was needless, as he had no intention to tell Mrs. Tracy, or any one, of the terrible blunder he had made; and with a hope that the reality might dawn upon Maude, he answered, truthfully:
"I was talking to her of Jerrie. I am very sorry."
If Maude heard she did not understand, for drops of pinkish blood were oozing from her lips, and she looked as if she were already dead, as in obedience to Mrs. Tracy"s command, Harold took her in his arms and carried her to the couch near the open window, where he laid her down as tenderly as if she were indeed his affianced wife.
"Thanks," she sighed, softly, and her bright, beautiful eyes looked up at him with an expression which half tempted him to kiss the quivering lips from which he was wiping the stains so carefully, while Mrs. Tracy, at the door, gave some orders to a servant.
"You can go now," she said, returning to the couch, and dismissing him with her usual hauteur of manner; while Maude put up her hand and whispered: