St. Elmo Part 17

"Stop, my dear child; you do not mean what you say. You know very well that you earnestly hope Gordon will escape the tender mercies of silly Maud and the machinations of her most amiable mamma; if you don't, I do. Understand that you are not to visit Susan Montgomery's sins on Gordon's head. I shall come home early, and make you go to bed at nine o'clock, to punish you for your obstinacy. By the by, Edna, Hagar tells me that you frequently sit up till three or four o'clock, poring over those heathenish doc.u.ments in my son's cabinet.

This is absurd, and will ruin your health; and beside, I doubt if what you learn is worth your trouble. You must not sit up longer than ten o'clock. Give me my furs."

Edna ate her dinner alone, and went into the library to practise a difficult music lesson; but the spell of her new project was stronger than the witchery of music, and closing the piano, she ran into the "Egyptian Museum," as Mrs. Murray termed her son's sitting- room.

The previous night she had been reading an account of the doctrines of Zoroaster, in which there was an attempt to trace all the chief features of the Zendavesta to the Old Testament and the Jews, and now she returned to the subject with unflagging interest.

Pus.h.i.+ng a cus.h.i.+oned chair close to the window, she wrapped her shawl around her, put her feet on the round of a neighboring chair, to keep them from the icy floor and gave herself up to the perusal of the volume.

The sun went down in a wintry sky; the solemn red light burning on the funeral pyre of day streamed through the undraped windows, flushed the fretted facade of the Taj Mahal, glowed on the marble floor, and warmed and brightened the serene, lovely face of the earnest young student. As the flame faded in the west, where two stars leaped from the pearly ashes, the fine print of Edna's book grew dim, and she turned the page to catch the mellow, silvery radiance of the full moon, which, s.h.i.+ning low in the east, threw a ghastly l.u.s.tre on the awful form and floating white hair of the Cimbrian woman on the wall. But between the orphan and the light, close beside her chair, stood a tall, dark figure, with uncovered head and outstretched hands.

She sprang to her feet, uttering a cry of mingled alarm and delight, for she knew that erect, stately form and regal head could belong to but one person.

"Oh, Mr. Murray! Can it be possible that you have indeed come home to your sad, desolate mother? Oh! for her sake I am so glad!"

She had clasped her hands tightly in the first instant of surprise, and stood looking at him, with fear and pleasure struggling for mastery in her eloquent countenance.

"Edna, have you no word of welcome, no friendly hand, to offer a man who has been wandering for four long years among strangers in distant lands?"

It was not the harsh, bitter voice whose mocking echoes had haunted her ears during his absence, but a tone so low and deep and mournful, so inexplicably sweet, and she could not recognize it as his, and, unable to utter a word, she put her hand in his outstretched palm. His fingers closed over it with a pressure that was painful, and her eyes fell beneath the steady, searching gaze he fixed on her face.

For fully a minute they stood motionless; then he took a match from his pocket, lighted a gas globe that hung over the Taj, and locked the door leading into the rotunda.

"My mother is dining out, Hagar informed me. Tell me, is she well?

And have you made her happy while I was far away?"

He came back, leaned his elbow on the carved top of the cus.h.i.+oned chair, and partly shading his eyes with his hand, looked down into the girl's face.

"Your mother is very well indeed, but anxious and unhappy on your account, and I think you will find her thinner and paler than when you saw her last."

"Then you have not done your duty, as I requested?"

"I could not take your place, sir, and your last letter led her to believe that you would be absent for another year. She thinks that at this instant you are in the heart of Persia. Last night, when the servant came from the post-office without the letter which she confidently expected, her eyes filled with tears, and she said, 'He has ceased to think of his home, and loves the excitement of travel better than his mother's peace of mind.' Why did you deceive her?

Why did you rob her of all the joy of antic.i.p.ating your speedy return?"

As she glanced at him, she saw the old scowl settling heavily between his eyes, and the harshness had crept back to the voice that answered:

"I did not deceive her. It was a sudden and unexpected circ.u.mstance that determined my return. Moreover, she should long since have accustomed herself to find happiness from other sources than my society; for no one knows better my detestation of settling down in any fixed habitation."

Edna felt all her childish repugnance sweeping over her as she saw the swift hardening of his features, and she turned toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"To send a messenger to your mother, acquainting her with your arrival. She would not forgive me if I failed to give her such good tidings at the very earliest moment."

"You will do no such thing. I forbid any message. She thinks me in the midst of Persian ruins, and can afford to wait an hour longer among her friends. How happened it that you also are not at Mrs.

Inge's?"

Either the suddenness of the question, or the intentness of his scrutiny, or the painful consciousness of the true cause of her failure to accept the invitation, brought back the blood which surprise had driven from her cheeks.

"I preferred remaining at home."

"Home! home!" he repeated, and continued vehemently: "Do you really expect me to believe that a girl of your age, with the choice of a dinner-party among the elite, with lace, silk, and feathers, champagne, bon-mot, and scandal, flattering speeches and soft looks from young gentlemen, biting words and hard looks from old ladies, or the alternative of a dull, lonely evening in this cold, dreary den of mine, shut up with mummies, MSS., and musty books, could deliberately decline the former and voluntarily select the latter?

Such an anomaly in sociology, such a lusus naturae, might occur in Bacon's 'Bensalem,' or in some undiscovered and unimagined realm, where the men are all brave, honest, and true, and the women conscientious and constant! But here! and now? Ah! pardon me!

Impossible!"

Edna felt as if Momus' suggestion to Vulcan, of a window in the human heart, whereby one's thoughts might be rendered visible, had been adopted; for, under the empaling eye bent upon her, the secret motives of her conduct seemed spread out as on a scroll, which he read as well.

"I was invited to Mrs. Inge's, yet you find me here, because I preferred a quiet evening at home to a noisy one elsewhere. How do you explain the contradiction if you disbelieve my words?"

"I am not so inexperienced as to tax my ingenuity with any such burden. With the Penelope web of female motives may fates and furies forbid rash meddling. Unless human nature here in America has undergone a radical change, nay, a most complete transmogrification, since I abjured it some years ago; unless this year is to be chronicled as an Avatar of truth and unselfishness, I will stake all my possessions on the a.s.sertion that some very peculiar and cogent reason, something beyond the desire to prosecute archaeological researches, has driven you to decline the invitation."

She made no reply, but opened the book-case and replaced the volume which she had been reading; and he saw that she glanced uneasily toward the door, as if longing to escape.

"Are you insulted at my presumption in thus catechising you?"

"I am sorry, sir, to find that you have lost none of your cynicism in your travels."

"Do you regard travelling as a panacea for minds diseased?"

She looked up and smiled in his face--a smile so bright and arch and merry, that even a stone might have caught the glow.

"Certainly not, Mr. Murray, as you are the most incorrigible traveller I have ever known."

But there was no answering gleam on his darkening countenance as he watched her, and the brief silence that ensued was annoying to his companion, who felt less at ease every moment, and convinced that with such antagonism of character existing between them, all her peaceful, happy days at Le Bocage were drawing to a close.

"Mr. Murray, I am cold, and I should like to go to the fire if you have no more questions to ask, and will be so kind as to unlock the door."

He glanced round the room, and taking his grey travelling shawl from a chair where he had thrown it, laid it in a heap on the marble tiles, and said:

"Yes, this floor is icy. Stand on the shawl, though I am well aware you are more tired of me than of the room."

Another long pause followed, and then St. Elmo Murray came close to his companion, saying:

"For four long years I have been making an experiment--one of those experiments which men frequently attempt, believing all the time that it is worse than child's play, and half hoping that it will prove so and sanction the wisdom of their skepticism concerning the result. When I left home I placed in your charge the key of my private desk or cabinet, exacting the promise that only upon certain conditions would you venture to open it. Those contingencies have not arisen, consequently there can be no justification for your having made yourself acquainted with the contents of the vault. I told you I trusted the key in your hands; I did not. I felt a.s.sured you would betray the confidence. It was not a trust--it was a temptation, which I believed no girl or woman would successfully resist. I am here to receive an account of your stewards.h.i.+p, and I tell you now I doubt you. Where is the key?"

She took from her pocket a small ivory box, and opening it drew out the little key and handed it to him.

"Mr. Murray, it was a confidence which I never solicited, which has caused me much pain, because it necessitated concealment from your mother, but which--G.o.d is my witness--I have not betrayed. There is the key, but of the contents of the tomb I know nothing. It was ungenerous in you to tempt a child as you did; to offer a premium as it were for a violation of secrecy, by whetting my curiosity and then placing in my own hands the means of gratifying it. Of course I have wondered what the mystery was, and why you selected me for its custodian; and I have often wished to inspect the interior of that marble cabinet; but child though I was, I think I would have gone to the stake sooner than violate my promise."

As he took the key she observed that his hand trembled and that a sudden pallor overspread his face.

"Edna Earl, I give you one last chance to be truthful with me. If you yielded to the temptation--and what woman, what girl, would not?--it would be no more than I really expected, and you will scarcely have disappointed me; for, as I told you, I put no faith in you. But even if you succ.u.mbed to a natural curiosity, be honest and confess it!"

She looked up steadily into his inquisitorial eyes, and answered:

"I have nothing to confess."

He laid his hand heavily on her shoulder, and his tone was eager, vehement, pleading, tremulous: