Mavis of Green Hill Part 45

Before I could speak, he was gone. He had not changed for dinner, a real innovation, and was in riding things. I heard the ring of the little spurs he wore on the tiles, and the sound of a closing door.

"The Bible meaning of Charity?" But that was--that was--Love. What did he mean--a love-patient?

I sat, my hands under my chin, while Wing came and went with the untasted food. A love-patient?

Something terribly sweet and keen pierced my heart. It couldn't be.

Love wasn't like that--cruel and wounding and hurting. Love "suffereth long and is kind." That was in the Bible too. "Love suffereth long and is kind--seeketh not its own--beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth."

The big tears ran down my cheeks. "_Love never faileth._"

If it was true then--"Oh, G.o.d, let it be true!" I prayed, mutely. If it were true then, how blind I had been! Sacrifice--patience--hope--.

Would he have done so much for someone he despised--even for revenge?

I began to remember--

There were voices outside--loud, excited, almost hysterical--Was Bill there? I waited for him in my chair. I had not moved. He would find me as he had left me. Perhaps he had come back to tell me what he had meant. Charity--Love.

The door flew open and Sarah burst in. She was crying. I saw that at once, and wanted to say to her,

"So you have heard? It isn't true, Sarah, it wasn't charity, after all, it was love--"

But she came straight to me and caught desperately at my hands,

"Miss Mavis,--the cane--it's been set afire--Silas is down there, and Dr. Denton--"

Then I awoke.

"Dr. Denton!" I had her by the shoulders, I was shaking her--"Not Dr.

Denton!"

"Yes, Miss Mavis. Juan crept up here to warn him. But those devils fired the cane while he was in this very house. Fields of it in flame, and Silas there--"

She was in a chair now, her ap.r.o.n twisted between her work-worn fingers, the sobs taking her by the throat.

Funny that she could cry like that, I thought, watching her. I must give her something to make her stop--if Bill were here--

_Bill! Bill!_

I must have screamed. Sarah, her arms around me, was herself in a minute, had herself in hand.

"There, there," she said soothingly. "They'll be all right, I am sure.

You're to be calm, Miss Mavis, and not take on so."

Calm! With the Far Country just within reach--and the fire sweeping across the cane-fields.

I put her away from me.

"Go to the kitchen, Sarah dear," I said very quietly, "and wait for news. Have Wing and Fong gone too?"

She nodded.

"I'll wait here," I said. "I had better get out the Doctor's kit and all the first-aid things. Someone may be burned--"

She sobbed at that, but turned and went to the kitchen.

I went into Bill's room.

For a minute I did nothing--only touched the things on his bureau--his brush, his comb--

A little snap-shot of me stood there. Of me, in a wheel-chair--I had forgotten that--

I opened a leather case which stood on the bureau, it had his initials on it, and a small key lay beside it. Opened it and saw my letters to Richard Warren. They were tossed together, as if he had been reading them. He had told me that he never kept letters.

Somehow, I found the first-aid things and the little emergency case.

They were on the table by his bed. And then, taking them into the living-room, I called out to Sarah to find some linen and tear it into sheets--we had very little gauze in the house.

My hands on the first-aid kit, I sat down to think. It was too bad Wright was not here. He would not lose his head. But Mercedes would. I was glad she was in Havana. Suddenly I laughed to think of them, dancing at the Mendez ball--

Sarah came in, her hands full of an old sheet.

"Any news?" I asked, steadily.

"It's going fast," she said dully. "You can see it--"

I went to the window. The whole sky was crimson. I saw the smoke wreathing up through the flame, fancied that I heard shouts--strained my eyes for the sight of a tall, lean figure. He would come soon, I knew, and tell me that it had been a nightmare, that he was safe, that he had been in no danger--

I looked around. Sarah had gone out, quietly. No one was there.

Softly I went across the room, opened the door, and slipped like a ghost into the menacing night.

I walked at first. Then ran. The plants and trees caught at my dress.

They wanted to hold me back. I shook myself free and went on. Nearer and nearer. How much smoke there was! The whole last crop gone.

Thousands of arrobas of sugar, gone in a breath! Good, loyal Juan, I thought, as I went on, stumbling, falling once to my knees. My dress was ruined. Bill will buy me another, I said aloud. Not Charity--Love.

Suddenly I was in the midst of it. The flame and the smoke, the hurrying figures, black with soot and sweat, digging the trenches that might save the cane.

"Bill!"

My own voice pierced through the smoke and crackle. I was going on. I would not stop until I had found him.

Was that Bill, blackened, a figure in a dream, his s.h.i.+rt burned away from one bare shoulder. There were red marks on his shoulder--

He didn't hear me? Didn't he want to? Was he angry? I was sorry I had been so foolish, but I hadn't known that he cared. Why hadn't he told me? Or had he tried to, and I wouldn't listen?

"Bill!"

A spark on my dress--a glare and a flame. I was part of the roaring and the smoke and the crimson glare about me, beating at the little, licking, red tongues with ineffectual hands.

Death then? But I wanted to live! It wasn't fair!