第88章 The Awakening (6)

"Thar warn't anybody to stay in it," she answered, as she sat down in a deep, cretonne-covered chair and pushed back the hickory log with her foot."I declare, Maria, I don't see what you want to traipse around with that little poor-folksy yaller dog for.He puts me in mind of the one that old blind nigger up the road used to have.""Does he?" asked Maria absently, in the voice of one whose thoughts are hopelessly astray.

She was standing by the window, holding aside the curtain of flowered chintz, and after a moment she added curiously: "There's a light in the fields, Aunt Saidie.What does it mean?"Crossing the room, Miss Saidie followed the gesture with which Maria pointed into the night.

"That's on the Blake place," she said; "it must be Mr.

Christopher moving about with his lantern.""You call him Mr.Christopher?"

"Oh, it slipped out.His father's name was Christopher before him, and I used to open the gate for him when I was a child.Many and many a time the old gentleman's given me candy out of his pocket, or a quarter to buy a present, and one Christmas he brought me a real wax doll from the city.He wasn't old then, Ican tell you, and he was as handsome as if he had stepped out of a fashion plate.Why, young Mr.Christopher can't hold a candle to him for looks.""He was a gentleman, then? I mean the old man.""Who? Mr.Christopher's father? I don't reckon thar was a freer or a finer between here and London."Maria's gaze was still on the point of light which twinkled faintly here and there in the distant field.

"Then how, in heaven's name, did he come to this?" she asked, in a voice that was hardly louder than a whisper.

"I never knew; I never knew," protested Miss Saidie, going back to her chair beside the hearth."Brother Bill and he hate each other worse than death, and it was Will's fancy for Mr.

Christopher that brought on this awful trouble.For a time, Ideclare it looked as if the boy was really bewitched, and they were together morning, noon, and night.Your grandpa never got over it, and I believe he blames Mr.Christopher for every last thing that's happened--Molly Peterkin and all.""Molly Peterkin?" repeated Maria inquiringly."Why, how absurd!

And, after all, what is the matter with the girl?" Dropping the curtain, she came over to the fire, and sat listening attentively while Miss Saidie told, in spasmodic jerks and pauses, the foolish story of Will's marriage.

"Your grandpa will never forgive him--never, never.He has turned him out for good and all, and he talks now of leaving every cent of his money to foreign missions.""Well, we'll see," said Maria soothingly."I'll go over there to-morrow and talk with Will, and then I'll try to bring grandfather to some kind of reason.He can't let them starve, rich as he is, there's no sense in that--and if the worst comes, I can at least share the little I have with them.It may supply them with bread, if Molly will undertake to churn her own butter.""Then your money went, too?"

"The greater part of it.Jack was fond of wild schemes, you know.

I left it in his hands." She had pronounced the dead man's name so composedly that Miss Saidie, after an instant's hesitation, brought herself to an allusion to the girl's loss.

"How you must miss him, dear," she ventured timidly; "even if he wasn't everything he should have been to you, he was still your husband.""Yes, he was my husband," assented Maria quietly.

"You were so brave and so patient, and you stuck by him to the last, as a wife ought to do.Then thar's not even a child left to you now."Maria turned slowly toward her and then looked away again into the fire.The charred end of a lightwood knot had fallen on the stones, and, picking it up, she threw it back into the flames.

"For a year before his death his mind was quite gone," she said in a voice that quivered slightly; "he had to be taken to an asylum, but I went with him and nursed him till he died.There were times when he would allow no one else to enter his room or even bring him his meals.I have sat by him for two days and nights without sleeping, and though he did not recognise me, he would not let me stir from my place.""And yet he treated you very badly--even his family said so.""That is all over now, and we were both to blame.I owed him reparation, and I made it, thank God, at the last."As she raised her bare arms to the cushioned back of her chair Miss Saidie caught a glimpse of a deep white scar which ran in a jagged line above her elbow.

"Oh, it is nothing, nothing," said Maria hastily, clasping her hands again upon her knees."That part of my life is over and done with and may rest in peace.I forgave him then, and he forgives me now.One always forgives when one understands, you know, and we both understand to-day--he no less than I.The chief thing was that we made a huge, irretrievable mistake--the mistake that two people make when they think that love can be coddled and nursed like a domestic pet--when they forget that it goes wild and free and comes at no man's call.Folly like that is its own punishment, I suppose.""My dear, my dear," gasped Miss Saidie, in awe-stricken sympathy before the wild remorse in Maria's voice.

"I did my duty, as you call it; I even clung to it desperately, and, much as I hated it, I never rebelled for a single instant.