For the Major Part 8

"I should do it just the same though I were on the eve of leaving Far Edgerley forever, never expecting to see any of you again," he answered, with some heat.

"It could hardly be a final parting, even then; for the world is not so large as you suppose, Mr. Owen. It hardly seems necessary, on the whole, to be so tragic," answered the lady, again adjusting the ruffle of her overskirt, and laughing a little.

Owen was bewildered. He had thought that he knew her so well, he had thought that she was of all his parish his best and kindest friend; yet there she sat, within three feet of him, looking at him mockingly, turning all his earnest words into ridicule, laughing at him.

He was no match for her in little sarcasms, and he was in no mood for that kind of warfare. He said no more about himself and his feelings; he simply gave her a plain outline of the facts which had recently come into his possession.

Madam Carroll replied that she did not believe them. Such stories were always in circulation about handsome young men like Louis Dupont. They were told by other men--who were jealous of them.

Owen, who had grown a little pale, quietly gave her his proofs. The scene of the affair was one of his own mission stations--the most distant one; he knew the young girl's father, and even the young girl herself.

"Oh, it seems _you_ knew her too, then," said Madam Carroll, laughing.

"I suppose she liked Dupont best."

The young clergyman was struck into silence. This little, gentle, golden-haired lady, whom he had admired so long and so sincerely, was this she? Were those her words? Was that her laugh? It seemed to him as if some evil spirit had suddenly taken up his abode in her, and having driven out her own sweet soul, was looking at him through her pretty eyes, and speaking to him with her pretty, rose-leaf lips. Stinging, under the circ.u.mstances insulting, as had been her speech, he was not angry; he was too much grieved. He could have taken her in his arms and wept over her. For what could it all mean save that Dupont had in some way obtained such control of her, poor little woman, that she was ready to attack everybody and anybody who attacked him?

He looked at her, still in silence. Then he rose. "I have told you all I know, Madam Carroll," he said, sadly, taking his hat from the chair beside him. "I had hoped that you would--I never dreamed that you could receive me or speak to me in the way you have. I have had the greatest regard for you; I have thought you my best friend."

Madam Carroll had also risen, with the air of wis.h.i.+ng to close the interview. She dropped her eyes as he said these last words, and lifted her handkerchief to her mouth.

"I think as much of you as ever," she murmured. And then she began to cough, a cough with a long following breath that was almost like a sob.

The door opened, and Sara Carroll entered. She came straight to her mother, and put her arm round her as if to support her. "I knew you were not well, mamma. Mr. Owen will certainly excuse you _now_" And she looked at their guest with a glance which he felt to be dismissal.

Madam Carroll, exhausted by the cough, leaned against her daughter, her face covered by her handkerchief. Owen turned to go. But when he saw the daughter standing there so near him, when he thought of what he knew of her interest in this man, and of the mother's recent tone about him, his heart failed him. He could not go--go and leave her without one word of warning, one effort to save her, to show her what he felt.

"I came to warn Madam Carroll against Louis Dupont," he said, abruptly.

"Madam Carroll has not credited what I have said, or, rather, she is not impressed by it. Yet it is all true. And probably there is much more. He is not a person with whom you should have intimate acquaintance, or, indeed, any acquaintance. As Madam Carroll will not do so, will you let _me_ warn you?"

Miss Carroll started slightly as he said this. Then she recovered herself. "Surely it is nothing to me," she said, indifferently, with a slight emphasis on the "me."

Owen watched the indifferent expression. "She is acting," he thought.

"She does it well!" Then aloud, "On the contrary, I suppose it to be a great deal to you," he answered, his eyes, intent and sorrowful, fixed full upon her over the little mother's head.

Madam Carroll took down her handkerchief, and the two women faced him with startled gaze. Sara was calm; but Madam Carroll's eyes, at first only startled, were now growing frightened. She turned her small face towards her daughter dumbly, as if for help.

The girl drew her mother more closely to her side. "And what right have you to suppose anything?" she said to Owen, with composure. "Are you our guardian?"

"Would that I were!" answered Owen, with deepest feeling in his tone. "I don't 'suppose' anything, Miss Carroll--I know. I have been unfortunate enough to see you with this man, or going to meet him, and it has made me wretched. But do not be troubled--no one else has seen it, and with me you are perfectly safe; I would guard you with my life. I had intended to expose him; I am in possession of some facts which tell heavily against him (Madam Carroll knows what they are); but now how can I, when I fear that he--when I know that you--" he paused; his voice was trembling a little, and he wished to control the tremor.

"And if I should tell you that there was no occasion for either your fears or your advice?" said Sara Carroll, after a moment's silence. She raised her eyes again, and met his gaze steadily. "If I should tell you that Mr. Dupont--to whom you object so strongly--had the right to be with me as much as he pleased, and that I had given him this right, surely you would then understand that your warning came quite too late, and that both your opinion and your advice were superfluous? And you would, perhaps, spare us further conversation on a matter that concerns only ourselves."

"Am I to believe this?" said Owen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GIRL DREW HER MOTHER MORE CLOSELY TO HER SIDE."]

"You have it from me directly--I don't know what better authority you would have. I tell you in order to show you, decisively, that further interference on your part will be unnecessary. It is a secret as yet, and, for the present, we wish it to remain one; we trust to you not to betray it. And I think you will now keep to yourself, will you not, what you know, or fancy you know, against him?" She looked at him inquiringly.

"If I could only have seen your father!" said Owen, with bitterest regret.

Her face changed, her arm dropped from her mother's shoulders; she turned abruptly from him.

Left alone, Madam Carroll straightened herself, as if trying to resume her usual manner. She looked after Sara, who had crossed the broad room to a window opposite. Then she looked at Owen. She came closer to him.

"I am sure it will not last, this--this engagement of hers," she said, in a whisper, s.h.i.+elding her lips with her hand as if to make her tone still lower. "It is only a little fancy of the moment, you know, a fancy founded upon his genius, his musical genius, and his lovely voice. But it will pa.s.s, Mr. Owen; I am sure it will pa.s.s. And in the meantime our course--yours and mine--should be just _silence_. Everything must go on as usual, and you must say nothing against him to any one; that is the most important of all. No one has suspected it but you. She _has_ been rather incautious; but I will see that that is mended, so that no one else shall suspect. If we are careful and silent, Mr. Owen, you and I--the only ones who know--and if we simply have patience and _wait_, all will yet be well; I a.s.sure you all will yet be well." She smiled, and looked up anxiously into his face with her soft blue eyes; she was quite her gentle self again.

"She is protecting her husband's daughter to the extent of her power,"

thought the young man, who was listening; "that has been the secret of her enigmatical manner from the beginning." But while he thought this, he was frowning with the pain her words had given him--a "fancy of the moment"--Louis Dupont!

"Promise me to say nothing against him," continued Madam Carroll, in the same earnest whisper, still smiling anxiously, and looking up in his face.

"Of course I shall say nothing. How could I do otherwise now?" answered Owen. "But my trouble is as great as ever, and my fear. You do not comprehend him, Madam Carroll. You do not see what he really is."

"Oh, I comprehend him--I comprehend him," said Madam Carroll, in a strained though still whispering tone. "I do my best, Mr. Owen," she added, in a broken voice--"my very best."

These last words were uttered aloud. Sara Carroll left the window and came back to her mother; she took her hands in hers. "Kindly excuse us now," she said to the clergyman, with quiet dignity.

He bowed, and left the room, his face still full of trouble and pain.

They heard him close the front door behind him.

"I think he will say nothing," said Sara.

Madam Carroll had drawn her hands away; she stood motionless, looking at the carpet.

"Yes, it is safe now; don't you think so?" Sara continued, musingly.

Her step-mother raised her eyes. There was a flash in them. "I bore it because I had to. But it was the hardest thing of all to bear. You despise him, you know you do. You always have. You have been pitiless, suspicious, cruel."

"Not lately, mamma," said the girl. She put her arms round the little figure, and, with infinite pity, drew it towards her. Madam Carroll at first resisted; then the tense muscles relaxed, and she let her head rest against her daughter's breast. The lashes fell over her bright, dry eyes.

"You will never be able to keep it up," she murmured, after a moment, her eyes still closed.

"Yes, I shall, mamma."

"Never, never."

"I could do a great deal more for my dear father's sake," answered the girl, after a short hesitation.

Madam Carroll began to sob. "I have been a good wife to him, Sara," she murmured, appealingly, piteously.

"Indeed you have, mamma. You are all his happiness, all his life; he could not live without you. But you ought to rest; let me go with you up-stairs."

"I must go alone," answered Madam Carroll. She had repressed her sobs, but her breath still came and went unevenly. "It is not that I am angry, Sara; do not think that. I was--but it has pa.s.sed; I am quite reasonable now--as you see. But, for a little while, I must be alone, quite alone."

She left the room with her usual quick, light step. After she had gone, Sara stood for a few moments with her hands clasped over her eyes. Then she went to the library.

Scar was playing dominoes, Roland against Bayard; and the Major was watching the game. His daughter bent her head, and kissed his forehead; then she sat down beside him, holding his hand in hers, and stroking it tenderly.

"Well, my daughter, you seem to think a good deal of me to-day," said the old man, smiling.