SEMI-MONTKLY MAGAZINE SECTION
P
Crawford Pat motionless for ft long
while. At last lie paused his hands over
hi ryes, loaning forward and looking
io her face. "I've pimply got to ho
honest with you," he said; "I know
thorp is a mistake. "
"No, thorp, is no mistake," she paid,
bonding her head and looking him in
the oyos "unless you have made the
mistake unless," she Paid, quickly
"you do not want mo."
"Want you I" he stammered, catching
fire of a sudden "want you, you beau
tiful child! 1 love you if ever man
loved on earth! Want you?" His hand
fell heavily on hers and closed. For
an instant their palms lay close to
gether; her heart almost stopped; then
a swift flame few to her face and she
Pt niggled to withdraw her fingers
twisted in his.
"You must not do that," phc said,
breathlessly. "I do not love you
I warned you!"
lie said: "You must love me! Can't
you understand. You made me love
you you made me! Listen to me! it
is all a mistake but it is too late now.
I did not dare even think of you
I have simply got to toll you the
truth I did not dare think of you I
must say it and 1 can't understand
how I could ever have soon you and not
loved you. But when you spoke
when I touched you "
"Please, please," she said, faintly,
"lot me go! It is not a mistake; I
1 am glad that you love mo; I will try
to love you. I want to I believe I
can "
"You must!"
"Yes, ... I will. . . . Please let rne
go!"
Breathless and crimson, she fell back
into her corner, staring at him. He
dropped his arm on the back of the
rustic seat.
Presently he laughed uncertainly,
and struck his forehead with his open
hand.
"It's a mistake," he said; "and if it is
a mistake, Heaven help the other man!"
She watched him with curious dis
may. Never could she have believed
that the touch of a man's hand could
thrill her; never had she imagined that
the words of a man could set her heart,
leaping to meet his stammered vows.
A new shame set her very limbs quak
ing as she strove to rise. The distress
in her eyes, the new fear, the pitiful
shyness, called to him for mercy.
For a miracle he understood the mute
appeal, ami he took her hand in his
quietly and bade her good-night, say
ing he would stay and smoke a while.
"Good-night," she said; "I am really
tired. I would rather you stayed here.
Do you mind?"
"No," he said.
"Then I shall go back alone."
He watched her across the lawn.
When she had gone half-way, she looked
back and saw him standing there in the
moonlight.
And that night, as her little silver
hnnd-glass reflected her brilliant chocks
she veiled her face in her bright hair
ami knelt down by her bedside.
But all she could say was, "I love
him truly I love him!" which was
one kind of prayer, after all.
IV.
A deep, sweet happiness awoke her
ere the earliest robin chirped. Never
since the first pink light touched Eden
had such a rose day dawned for any
maid on earth.
She awoke in love; her enchanted
eyes unclosed oil a world she had never
known.
Unashamed, she held out her arms
to the waking world and spoke her
lover's name aloud. Then the young
bl'd leaped in her, and her eyes were
like stars after u ruin.
Oh, she must hasten now, for there
w-as po little time to live in the world
and every second counted. Healthy
of body, wholesome of soul, innocent
and ardent in her new-born happiness,
she could scarcely endure the rush of
golden moments lost in an impetuous
bath, in twisting up her bright hair, in
the quick knotting of a ribbon, the clink
of a buckle on knee and shoo.
Then, as she slipped down the stairs
into the darkened hall, trepidation
seized he, for she heard his step.
He came swinging along the hallway;
she ptood still, trembling. He came up
quickly and took her hands; she did
not move; his arm encircled her waist;
he lifted her head; it lay back on his
shoulder, and her eyes met his.
"All day together," he was saying;
and her soul leaped to meet his words,
but she could Hot Speak.
He held her at arms'-length, laughing
a little troubled.
"Mystery of mysteries," he said,
under his breath; "there is some
blessed Heaven-directed mistake in
this. Is there, sweetheart?"
"No," she sai.l.
"And if there was?"
"Can you ask?"
"Then come to breakfast, heart of
my heart! the moments are flying
very swiftly, and there is only this
day left until to-morrow. Listen!
I hear the steward moving like a gray
rat in the pantry. Can we endure a
steward in F.dcn?"
"Only during breakfast," she said,
laughing. "I smell the whoaten flap
jacks, ami, oh, 1 am famished!"
There have been other breakfasts
Barmecide breakfasts compared with
their first crust broken in love.
But they ate oh, indeed, they ate
everything before them, from flapjacks
to the piles of little, crisp trout. And
they might have called for more, but
there came, on tiptoe, the steward,
bowing, presenting a telegram on a
tray of silver; and Crawford's heart
stopped, and he stared at the bit of
paper as though it concealed a coiled
snake.
She, too, suddenly apprehensive, sat
rigid, the smile dying out in her eyes;
and when he finally took the envelope
and tore it open, she shivered.
"Crawford, Sagamore Club:
"Ophir has consolidated with
Steel Plank. You take charge of
London office. Make arrange
ments to catch steamer leaving
a week from to-morrow., Gar
cide and I will be at Sagamore
to-night.
James J. Crawford."
He sat staring at the telegram; she,
vaguely apprehensive for the safety
of this new happiness of hers, clasped
her hands tightly in her lap and waited.
"Any answer, sir?" asked the steward.
Crawford took the offered telegram
blank and mechanically wrote:
"Instructions received. Will
expect you and Garcide to
night. James Crawfokd."
She sat, twisting her fingers on her
knees, watching him in growing appre
hension. The steward took the tele
gram. Crawford looked at her With a ghastly
smile.
They rose together, instinctively, and
walked to the porch.
"Oh yes," he said, under his breath,
"such happiness was too perfect. Magic,
is magic it never lasts."
"What is it?" she asked, faintly.
He picked up his cap, which was
lying on a chair.
"Let's get away, somewhere," he
said. "Do you mind coming with me
alone?"
"No," she said.
There was a canoe on the river-bank
below the lawn. He took a paddle and
sotting pole from the veranda wall,
and they wont down to the river, side
by side.
Heedless of the protests of the scan
dalized belted kingfishers, they em
barked on Sagamore Water.
The paddle flashed in the piinlight;
the quirk river caught the blade, the
ppray floated shoreward.
V.
Late in the afternoon the canoe,
heavily festooned with dripping water
lilies, moved like a shadow over the
shining sands. The tall hemlocks walled
the river with palisades unbroken; the
calm water stretched away into the
forest's sombre depths, barred here
and there by dusty sunbeams.
Over them, in the highest depths of
the unclouded blue, towered an eagle,
suspended from mid-zenith. Vnder
them the shadow of their craft swept
the yellow gravel.
Knee to knee, vis-a-vis, wrapped to
their souls in 'the enchantment of each
other, sat the entranced voyagers.
Their rods lay idle beside them; life was
serious just then for people who stood
on the threshold of separation.
"I simply shall depart this life if you
go to-morrow," she said, looking at
him.
The unfeigned misery in his face
made her smile adorably, but she would
not permit him to touch her.
"See to what you have brought me!"
she said. "I'm utterly unable to live
without you. And now what are going
to do with me?"
Her eyes were very tender. He caught
her hand and kissed it, and laid it
against his face.
"There Is a way," he said.
"A wav?"
"Shall I lead? Would you follow?"
"What do you mean?" she asked,
amused.
"There is a way," he repeated.
"That thread of a brook loads to it."
He pointed off to the westward,
whore through the forest a stream,
scarcely wider than the canoe, flowed
deep and silent between its mounds of
moss.
He picked up the paddle and touched
the blade to the water; the canoe swung
westward.
"Where are you taking me?" she
asked.
But the canoe was already in the
narrow stream, and he was laughing
recklessly, setting-pole poised to swing
round the short turns.
"If we turned back now," she said,
"it would be sunset before we reached
the club."
"What do we care?" he laughed.
Look."
Without warning, a yellow glory
broke through the trees, and the
canoe shot out into a vast, flat country,
drenched with the rays of the sinking
sun.
Blue woods belted the distance; all in
front of them was deep, moist meadow
land, carpeted with thickets of wild
iris, through which the stream wound
in pools of gold.
The beauty of it held her speechless;
the spoil was upon him, too, and he
sat motionless, the water dripping from
his steel-tipped setting-pole in drops of
fire.
There was afigure moving in the dis
tant meadow; the sun glimmered on
something that might have boon a
long reed quivering.
"An old friend fishing yonder," he
said, quietly, "I knew he would be
there." He touched her and pointed
t.o the distant figure. "That is the par
son of Foxville," ho said. "Wo will need
him before wo go to London."
She looked across the purple fields
of iris. Suddenly his meaning flashed
out like a sunbeam.
"Do do you wish that now?" she
faltered.
lie picked up the paddle; she caught
his hand, trembling.
"No, no!" she whispered, with bent
head "1 cannot; don't take me so-so
quickly. Truly we must be mad to
think of it."
Ho hold the paddle poised; after a
while her hand slid from the blade
and she looked up into his eyes. The
canoe moved on.
" Hi. we are quite mad," she said, un
steadily. ' I am glad we are," he said.
The mellow dip! dip! of the paddle
woke the drowsing red-winged black
birds from the roods; the gray snipe
wheeled out across the marsh in
flickering flight.
The aged parson of Foxville, intent on
his bobbing cork, looked up in mild
surprise to see a canoe, heavily hung
with water-lilies, glide into his pool
and swing shoreward.
The parson of Foxville was a very
old man almost too old to fish for
trout.
Crawford led him a pace aside, leav
ing Miss Castle, somewhat frightened,
knee-deep in the purple iris.
Then the old parson came toddling to
her and took her hand, and peered at
her with his aged eyes, saying, "You
are quite mad, my child, and very lovely,
and very, very young. So 1 think, after
all, you would be much safer if you
were married."
Somebody encircled her w aist ; she
turned and looked into the eyes of her
lover, and still looking at him, she
laid her hands in his.
A wedding amid the iris, all gray with
the hovering, misty wings of moths
that was her fate with the sky a can
opy of fire above her, and the curlew
calling through the kindling dusk, and
the blue processional of the woods
lining the corridors of the coming night.
And at last the aged parson kissed
her and shook hands with her husband
and shambled away across the meadows.
Slowly northward through the dusk
stole the canoe once more, bearing the
bride of an hour, her head on her
husband's knees. The stars came out to
watch them; a necklace of bubbles
trailed in the paddle's wake, stringing
away, twinkling in the starlight.
Slowly through the perfumed gloom
they glided, her warm head on his knees,
his oyos fixed on the vague water ahead.
A stag crashed through the roods
ashore; the June fawn stared with eyes
like rubies in the dark.
Onward, onward, through the spell
bound forest ; and at last 1 he windows of
tin? house glimmered, reflected in the
water.
Garcide and Crawford awaited them
on the veranda as they came up, rising
in chilling silence, ignoring the offered
hands of greeting.
"I've a word to say to you," snarled
the Hon. John Garcide, in his ward's
ear "and another word for your fool
of an aunt !"
She shrank back against her hus
band, amazed and hurt. "What do you
mean?" she stammered; "we we are
married. Will you not speak to my
my husband?"
A silence, too awful to last, was broken
by a hoarse laugh.
"You're all riht, Jim" said the elder
Crawford, slowly. "Ophir Steel won't
slip through your fingers when I'm
under the sod. Been married long,
Jim?"
THE END
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