""I will read them, and remember all that you have said."
""Sweet woman, I thank you. If my poor words can touch a heart like yours, it is enough."
"He bent and kissed my hand, thus releasing it from his clasp. It seemed as if some of my strength went out as he did this. The intense eloquence of this man had inspired me for the time, now I was weak and silent.
""Tell me," he said, "what particular pa.s.sages you disliked in my poor volume."
"I could not answer; the book itself had gone out of my mind. I had only power to think of the man who stood before me, with that earnest protest burning on his lip, and those eyes, dark and luminous, bent upon me. I think that he did not observe my trepidation. He was carried away by a wish to protect the offspring of his brain from misconception or censure. I had read the volume hastily, and found it too brilliantly intense for the idle la.s.situde of my humor. It had startled me into more thought than I cared to exercise. The quiet of my home seemed like dulness after reading it. Now this man, its author, had come and completed the discontent his book had engendered. I had never seen a man of his cla.s.s before, and to me the charm of novelty and romance surrounded him with a sort of glory.
""Tell me," he repeated, "in what a thought of mine could have offended a creature so lovely and so rich in talent."
"Was he mocking me because of my absurd criticism? I looked up suddenly, and met the full glance of those eyes. The blood rushed to my face, and my eyelids drooped.
""You will not help me to amend a fault," he said, in a tone of reproach.
""Because I cannot. It was no particular thought--no description in itself that disturbed me; but, if I may so express it, the entire atmosphere of the book. It made me unhappy."
"I was driven to desperate frankness by his persistency, and spoke out almost with tears in my eyes.
""Then some thought in the volume, or the narrative itself, struck upon your heart, or disturbed your conscience?" he answered, in a low voice.
"I started. Was this true?
""Perhaps some points of the story were not unlike your own experience?"
he continued.
"I felt the tears starting to my eyes. Yes, he was right. It was a sense of the barrenness of my own future that had made me so restless. If the volume had produced this effect, how much greater was the disturbance when its author stood by my side, with looks and voice more eloquent than his writings. He waited in silence for my answer; it only came in low sobs.
""Forgive me; I have wounded you unthinkingly."
"His voice was like that of a penitent man in prayer; his face grew earnest and sad.
""Look on me, and say that I am forgiven."
"I did look at him, and met the tender penitence in his eyes with a thrill of pain. How had the man won the power of arousing such feelings in a few brief hours? Was it because I had been familiar with his thoughts so long? I could not answer; but the very presence of this stranger disturbed me. Sensations never dreamed of in my previous existence rose and swelled in my bosom. The impulse to flee from his presence seized upon me. I did turn to go, but he walked quietly forward at the same time.
"The sunset was now fading into soft violet and pale gray tints. Dew was falling thickly in the gra.s.s, and fire-flies began to sparkle all around us. In the stillness and beauty of coming night, we walked on together almost in silence. I had no words for conversation, and our guest seemed to have fallen into deep thought. As we drew near the house, Mr.
Dennison came out to meet us. He had been smoking a cigar in the veranda, and flung it away as he drew near us. How heavily he walked.
How dull his eyes seemed as he bent them upon me, after the pa.s.sion and feeling I had read so clearly in those of our guest.
"Mr. Dennison took my hand and placed it on his arm, laughing pleasantly, as he asked Lawrence how far we had been walking. Lawrence did not answer. He was regarding us with an earnest questioning look, from which I turned away half in anger. Was he reading me and my position so closely as that?
"Why should I think of this man so much? Has the isolation in which we have been living made the advent of a stranger of so great importance that his presence must fill all my being? The first thing this morning I looked out of my window, wondering if he would be visible anywhere in the grounds. Yes, there he was standing by Mr. Dennison, admiring a blood-horse that a colored groom had brought from the stable. It was a beautiful animal, coal-black, wonderfully symmetrical and full of graceful action. Mr. Dennison had bought him only the week before, and this groom had been ordered to break him for my use as a saddle-horse.
The gentlemen seemed to be examining him critically, as the groom led him to and fro upon the lawn. For the first time I took an interest in the beautiful animal. Being up to that time a timid and inexperienced rider, my husband"s purchase had afforded me little pleasure. He had long since given up horseback exercise, and a solitary ride, followed perhaps by a groom, did not hold forth much promise of happiness for me, so I had allowed his new purchase to stand in the stable unnoticed. But now I looked upon the creature with interest, as he stood restlessly, with the sun shining upon his glossy coat, and shimmering like quicksilver down his arched neck.
"All at once, I saw Lawrence spring upon the horse and dash off across the lawn, sitting bravely as if he and the beautiful animal were one creation. The horse was restive at first and plunged furiously, for they had put a sharp curb in his mouth, and Lawrence was bringing him to subjection with a heavy hand. I shrieked aloud at the first plunge, but there was little need of fear. The next moment horse and rider were in full career over the lawn. That day week I rode my new purchase for the first time."
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE WATERFALL.
"I did not know that the world was so beautiful. This spot is indeed like paradise to me now. There is joy in the very breath of the mornings. When I open my window and let in the gushing song of the mocking-birds, and the sweet breath of the flowers, sighs of exquisite delight break to my lips. Things that wearied me two weeks ago are taking new beauty in my eyes. It seems to me that I love everything in the world except this one old man.
"We have been riding every day miles and miles over the country. There is not a broad prospect or a pleasant nook within a ten-hours" ride, that we have not visited in company. Mr. Dennison encouraged these excursions. He is anxious that I should learn to ride freely, and seems grateful that Lawrence is willing to teach me. The weather has been more than pleasant, and these two weeks have gone by like a dream. How brief the time has been, yet how long it seems, one lives so much in a few hours.
"My heart is full, so full that I cannot write anything that it feels.
In fact, there is nothing tangible enough for words. Dreams, dreams all, but such delirious dreams. Last night I lay awake till a rosy flash broke through the curtains telling me that it was morning. All night long I lay with the curtains brooding over me like a cloud, and the silver moonlight shimmering through the windows half illuminating the room and the bed upon which I rested, which was all whiteness like a snow-drift. There I lay hour after hour, with both hands folded on my breast, whispering over the words that he had said to me. They were nothing when separated from his looks, or disentangled from the exquisite tenderness of his voice, but oh, how much, when so richly combined, for never in one human being, I am sure, were looks and voice so eloquent.
"I could hear the deep breathing of my husband in the next room, and this made me restless. But for him those words, meaningless in themselves perhaps, would have taken life and force. Ah, why is youth and ambition so rash. Had I only waited before these golden fetters were riveted upon me!
"A vase of moss-roses stood upon the little table near my bed. He had gathered them for me just as the sun was setting, while the first dew bathed them. I took some of these flowers together in my hands, and kissed away their perfume, with a delightful consciousness that he had given it to me. Out of all the wilderness of flowers, now fresh from the dew, these were the gems, for he had brought them to me.
"When daylight came, I arose and went down to the veranda, not weary from sleeplessness, but with a gentle languor upon me which was better than rest. For the first time since Lawrence had been with us, I opened the book he had written, and read pa.s.sages from it at random. How beautiful they were! and I not discover this before. The truth is, their very excellence carried with it exaltation.
"I read them with a new sense and a keener relish. Their very intensity had, at the first reading, disturbed me almost painfully, now each sentence brought thrills of appreciation. In all respects it was a new book to me.
"I felt that this second reading was dangerous, but the thoughts fascinated me, and I read on, while orioles and mocking-birds held a carnival of music in the thickets around me, and a bright sun drove all the rose-tints from the sky. All at once I looked up, a shadow had fallen across the page I was reading; I closed the book at once, blushing like a guilty creature.
""Confess," said Lawrence, with a gleam of laughing triumph in his eyes, "that you have in some degree changed your opinion."
""I have no opinion to change," was my answer; "for until now I never really understood your book."
""And you understand it now?"
""Yes."
""And feel it?"
""Too much."
"I felt the blood rush into my face with very shame at this hasty admission. When I ventured to look up, a faint wave of color was dying out from his face, leaving it grave and pale. Was he condemning me already? That moment Mr. Dennison came through the front door, looking cool and tranquil in his dress of pure linen, which was scarcely whiter than his hair.
""Come," he said, in jovial good humor, "throw by your books, and let us have breakfast."
"I was glad to see him,--grateful that he had released me from the thraldom of those eyes.
"We rode out that day. A waterfall some eight miles off was almost the only point of interest that I had not visited, and there our ride terminated. A colored groom always rode after us, but his presence was no check upon conversation, and sometimes he loitered behind so far that we lost sight of him altogether. In fact, our whole excursion was one long _tete-a-tete_.
"Lawrence had been grave and preoccupied all the way, but when we quitted our horses and went down to the fall, his spirits rose, and he looked around upon the scene with animation. The cataract, for it was little more, leaped through a chasm between two precipices, formed by a vast rock, which some convulsion of nature had split asunder. Down this chasm the crystal waters plunged nearly a hundred feet, like a stream of shooting diamonds, covering the sides of each precipice with fleeces of emerald-green moss. From these mosses sprung ferns that waved like ten thousand plumes in the current of air that blew coolly down the ravine, keeping every thing in graceful motion. Young trees added their luxuriance to the scene, crowning the summit of the rocks like a diadem, and a host of cl.u.s.tering vines fell over the edge of the precipice, streaming downwards like banners on a battlement, and sometimes sweeping out with the current.
"We entered the ravine first, and stood within the very spray of the cataract; for the stream widened out directly after it left the chasm, and went rioting off among boulders and broken rocks, across which a plank bridge had been flung, which commanded a full view of the fall. We stood a while enjoying the view, and then moved up a footpath that ran along the right-hand precipice, from which we could look down the ravine, and attain an entirely different view from the one we had left.
The path was broken and abrupt, but this was scarcely an objection to us. There was something exhilarating in the exercise, and I rather liked the vigorous climbing after so long a ride on horseback; even with the obstruction of a long skirt flung over one arm, it was scarcely fatiguing. We had nearly reached the top of the precipice, I had taken Mr. Lawrence"s arm, for he insisted that I must be out of breath, and I was protesting against his a.s.sertion, when a large dog rushed out of the undergrowth, which grew thickly on that side of the path, as if frightened at something, and made a plunge directly against me.
"My arm was torn from its support, I staggered--reeled on the verge of the precipice, flung out my arms, and plunged down--down--down into chaos. I had neither struck the earth nor water, something hard and firm girded my body. My face was smothered in green, damp leaves, and my hair already dripped with falling spray.