"Unfortunately, the two things seem to run together," she replied; "which encourages me to hope that you will prove to be a pattern of virtue.""Don't hope too hard.I may merely have lost the one trait without developing the other.""At least, it does no harm to believe the best," she returned in the same careless tone.Ahead of them, where the great oaks were massed darkly against the sky, he saw the steep road splotched into the surrounding blackness.Her soft breathing came to him from the obscurity at his side, and he felt his arm burn beneath the light pressure of her hand.For the first time in his lonely and isolated life he knew the quickened emotion, the fulness of experience, which came to him with the touch of the woman whom, he still told himself, he could never love.Not to love her had been so long for him a point of pride as well as of honour that even while the wonderful glow pervaded his thoughts, while his pulses drummed madly in his temples, he held himself doggedly to the illusion that the appeal she made would vanish with the morning.It was a delirium of the senses, he still reasoned, and knew even as the lie was spoken that the charm which drew him to her was, above all things, the spirit speaking through the flesh.
"I fear I have been a great bother to you," said Maria, after a moment, "but you will probably solace yourself with the reflection that destiny would have prepared an equal nuisance had you gone along another road.""Perhaps," he answered, smiling; "but philosophy sometimes fails a body, doesn't it?""It may be.I knew a man once who said he leaned upon two crutches, philosophy and religion.When one broke under him he threw his whole weight on the other--and lo! that gave way.""Then he went down, I suppose."
"I never heard the end--but if it wasn't quite so dark, you would find me really covered with confusion.I have not only brought you a good mile out of your road, but I am now prepared to rob you of your light.Can you possibly find your way home in the dark?"As she looked up, the lantern shone in his face, and she saw that he wore a whimsical smile.
"I have been in the dark all my life," he answered, "until to-night."
"Until to-night?"
"Until now--this very minute.For the first time for ten years Ibegin to see my road at this instant--to see where I have been walking all along.""And where did it lead you?"
He laughed at the seriousness in her voice.
"Through a muck-heap--in the steps of my own cattle.I am sunk over the neck in it already."Her tone caught the lightness of his and carried it off with gaiety.
"But there is a way out.Have you found it?""There is none.I've wallowed so long in the filth that it has covered me.""Surely it will rub off," she said.
For a moment the lantern's flash rested upon his brow and eyes, relieving them against the obscurity which still enveloped his mouth.
The high-bred lines of his profile stood out clear and fine as those of an ivory carving, and their very beauty saddened the look she turned upon him.Then the light fell suddenly lower and revealed the coarsened jaw, with the almost insolent strength of the closed lips.The whole effect was one of reckless power, and she caught her breath with the thought that so compelling a force might serve equally the agencies of good or evil.
They had reached the lawn, and as he responded to her hurried gesture of silence they passed the house quickly and entered the great open door of the barn.Here he hung the lantern from a nail, and then, pulling down some straw from a pile in one corner, arranged it into the rude likeness of a pallet.
"I don't think the mice will trouble you," he said at last, as he turned to go, "but if they do--why, just call out and I'll come to slaughter--""You won't go home, then?" she asked, amazed.
He nodded carelessly.
"Not till daybreak.Remember, if you feel frightened, that I'm within earshot."Then, before she could protest or detain him for an explanation, he turned from her and went out into the darkness.
CHAPTER V.Maria Stands on Christopher's Ground A broad yellow beam sliding under the door brought Maria into sudden consciousness, and rising hastily from the straw, where her figure had shaped an almost perfect outline, she crossed the dusky floor smelling of trodden grain and went out into the early sunshine, which slanted over the gray fields.A man trundling a wheelbarrow from the market garden, and a milkmaid crossing the lawn with a bucket of fresh milk, were the only moving figures in the landscape, and after a single hurried glance about her she followed the straight road to the house and entered the rear door, which Malindy had unlocked.
Meeting Fletcher a little later at breakfast, she found, to her surprise, that he accepted her presence without question and made absolutely no allusion to the heated conversation of the evening before.He looked sullen and dirty, as if he had slept all night in his clothes, and he responded to Maria's few good-humoured remarks with a single abrupt nod over his coffee-cup.As she watched him a feeling of pity for his loneliness moved her heart, and when he rose hastily at last and strode out into the hall she followed him and spoke gently while he paused to take down his hat from one of the old antlers near the door.
"If I could only be of some use to you, grandfather," she said;"are you sure there is nothing I can do?"With his hand still outstretched, he hesitated an instant and stood looking down upon her, his heavy features wrinkling into a grin.
"I've nothing against you as a woman," he responded, "but when you set up and begin to charge like a judge, I'll be hanged if Ican stand you."
"Then I won't charge any more.I only want to help you and to do what is best.If you would but let me make myself of some account."He laughed not unkindly, and flecked with his stubby forefinger at some crumbs which had lodged in the folds of his cravat.
"Then I reckon you'd better mix a batch of dough and feed the turkeys," he replied, and touching her shoulder with his hat-brim, he went hurriedly out of doors.
