The Earth Trembled Part 43

"No. Gladness has banished sleep from my eyes, and I must be at Ella's side when she wakes."

Mara was glad to obey, for no divine exhilaration had come to her. She was not strong, and a reaction approaching exhaustion was setting in.

In the dawn of the following day Ella began to stir uneasily in her sleep, to moan and sigh. Vaguely the unspent force of her grief was rea.s.serting itself, as the benumbing effects of anodynes pa.s.sed from her brain. Her father motioned Hannah to leave the apartment, and then took Ella's hand.

At last she opened her eyes, and looked at him in a dazed, troubled way.

"Oh!" she moaned, "I've had such dreadful dreams. Have I been ill?"

"Yes, Ella dear, very ill, but you are better now. The worst is well over."

"Dear papa, have you been watching all night?"

"That's a very little thing to do, Ella darling."

She lay silent for a few moments, and then began to sob, "Oh, I remember all now. He's dead, dead, dead."

"Ella," said her father gently, taking her hands from her face, "I do not believe he is dead. There is a report that he escaped--that he was picked up by a steamer."

She sat up instantly, as if all her strength had returned, and, with her blue eyes dilating through her tears, exclaimed, "Oh, papa, don't keep me on the rack of suspense! Give me life by telling me that he lives."

"Yes, Ella, he is alive. He has written to me, and I have answered in the way that you would wish."

She threw her arms about his neck in an embrace that was almost convulsive, and then sank back exhausted.

"Now, Ella darling, for all our sakes you must keep quiet and composed;"

and he gave her a little of the strong nourishment which the physician had ordered.

For a long time she lay still with a smile upon her lips. In her feebleness one happy thought sufficed, "He is not dead!"

At last a faint color stole into her cheeks, and she asked: "What did you write, papa?"

He repeated his letter almost verbatim.

"That was enough, papa," she said, with a sigh of relief. "It was very n.o.ble in you to write in that way."

"No, Ella, it was simple justice."

She gave him a smile which warmed his heart. After a little while she again spoke. "Go and rest, papa. I feel that I can sleep again. Oh, thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d! His sun is rising on a new heaven and a new earth."

Kissing her fondly, her father halted away. Old Hannah resumed her watch, but was soon relieved by Mara.

When George read Captain Bodine's letter the night grew luminous about him. He had not expected any such acknowledgment. With characteristic modesty he had underrated his own action, and he had not given Bodine credit for the degree of manhood possessed by him. Indeed, he had almost feared that both father and daughter might be embarra.s.sed and burdened by a sense of obligation, whose only effect would be to make them miserable.

Generous himself, he was deeply touched by the proud man's absolute surrender, and he at once appreciated the fine nature which had been revealed by the letter.

"Now," he reasoned, "as far as her father is concerned, the way is open for me to seek Ella's love by patient and devoted attentions. I shall at last have the chance which was impossible when I could not approach her at all. After this experience I believe that my own dear father will be softened, and be led to see how much better are happiness and content than ambitious schemes."

But Mr. Houghton was destined to disappoint his son. He awoke very feeble in body, and not very clear in mind. His one growing desire was to get away from Charleston. "I don't ever wish to look on that accursed harbor again," he repeated over and over.

"We must humor him in every way possible," Dr. Devoe said to George, "and as soon as he is strong enough you must take him North."

George's heart sank at these words, and at others which his father constantly reiterated.

"I wish to get away from this city, George," he would say feebly. "I will go anywhere, only to be away from this town and its people. Oh, I've had such a warning! This is no place for you or me. Its people are aliens.

They destroyed one of my boys, and they have nearly cost you your life, as well as your happiness and success in life. Oh, that terrible old woman, with her tongue of fire! She looked and talked like an accusing fiend. I want to go away from it all, and forget it all--that such a place and people exist. Help me get strong, doctor, and then George and I will go, as Lot fled from Sodom."

"Yes, Mr. Houghton," Dr. Devoe would answer, "all your wishes shall be carried out;" and this a.s.surance would pacify the old man for a time.

When alone with George the physician would add: "You see how it is, my young friend. Your father is in such a feeble, wavering state of mind and body that we must make it all clear sailing for him. Even if he asks for what is impossible, we must appear to gratify him. Anything which disturbs his mind will be injurious to his physical health."

George could not but admit the truth of the doctor's words, and he manfully faced his duty, hoping that the future still had possibilities.

After getting some much-needed sleep the day following his escape, he wrote:

"MY DEAR CAPTAIN BODINE--If I had known you better your letter would not have been such an agreeable surprise. Please do me the favor not to over-estimate my effort for you and those with you--an effort which any man would have made. That it was successful, is as much a cause for grat.i.tude in my own case as in yours. Please present my compliments to the ladies, and express my hope that they suffered no ill effects from their hasty exchange of boats. I trust that the stupid boatman, who was to blame for your disaster, will not attempt to navigate anything more complicated than a wheelbarrow hereafter. I regret to say that my father is still very ill, and that his physician enjoins the utmost care and quiet until he recovers from his nervous shock. With much respect, I am, Gratefully yours,

"GEORGE HOUGHTON."

When Ella's physician came the following day, he found his patient so much better that he could not account for it until he had heard the glad news.

The healthful, elastic nature of the girl rallied swiftly. George's second letter was handed her to read, and she kept it. Being clever with her pencil, she made a ludicrous caricature of the colored boatman caught in a gale with a wheelbarrow. Her smile was glad now, for hope grew stronger every moment. Her right to love was now unquestioned, and even her proud father and cousin had only words of respect and admiration for the lover who, in a few brief moments, had vindicated the manhood which she had recognized in the first moments of their chance encounter.

She could not believe that Mr. Houghton would remain obdurate when he recovered sufficiently to think the matter over calmly. "Our papas," she thought, with a little sigh and a smile, "have learned that burying their children is a rather serious matter after all."

When two or three days pa.s.sed, however, and no further communication had been received from George, her father thought it wise to say a few words of caution. "Ella," he began, "you are now strong enough to look at this matter in all its bearings. Young Mr. Houghton probably finds that his father is as adverse to his thoughts of you as ever. He has himself also had time for many second thoughts, and--"

"Papa," said the girl, with a reproachful glance, "you have not yet learned to do George Houghton justice. At the same time I wish neither you nor any one else to give him the slightest hint of my feelings, nor to say anything to him of my illness and what occurred in the boat. He asked permission to pay his addresses, and he's got to pay them, princ.i.p.al and interest, if I wait till I am as gray as you are. Dear papa, how you must have suffered! To think that one's hair should turn white so soon! Haven't I got a little gray, too?"

She looked at herself in the mirror, but the late afternoon sun turned her light tresses, which she never could keep smooth, into an aureole of gold.

Mr. Houghton rallied slowly, but grew calmer and more rational with time.

He wished to see his confidential clerk on business, but Dr. Devoe said gently but firmly, "Not yet." He began to permit, however, a daily written statement from the office that all was going well. During this convalescence George felt that he must take no middle course. He resolved to have no further communication with Captain Bodine, and not to do anything which, if it came to his father's knowledge, would r.e.t.a.r.d his recovery. One thing, however, he was resolved upon. In carrying out his father's wishes he would draw the line at an ambitious alliance at the North. "Since I have conquered Captain Bodine," he muttered, with a little resolute nod of his head: "I will subdue my own paternal ancestor; then the way will be open for a siege of the fair citadel, the peerless little baker. No wonder her cakes seemed all sugar and spice." Thus George often mused, complacently regardless of the incongruous terms bestowed upon Ella in his thoughts.

Sometimes these reveries brought smiles to his face, and more than once he started and flushed as he observed his father looking at him searchingly yet wistfully.

Meanwhile he scarcely left the old man night or day. He slept on a cot by his side, and at the slightest movement was awake, and ready to antic.i.p.ate wishes before they could be spoken. On the last day of August his father was well enough to be up and dressed most of the forenoon.

George began to read the beloved Boston papers, but Mr. Houghton soon said: "That will do, I'm in no mood for dog-day politics. Go off and amuse yourself, as long as you don't go near the harbor."

"I've no wish to go out, father. When the sun is low I'll take a tramp of a mile or two."

"In a week or so more I think I'll be able to travel, George."

"I hope so."

"I fear you don't wish to leave Charleston."

"I wish to do what is best for your health."

Then a long silence followed, each busy with his own thoughts.