第87章 THE INEVITABLE(2)

"Think about it?"said Lurida."Why should n't you go to see a brother as well as a sister,I should like to know?If you are afraid to go to see Maurice Kirkwood,I am not afraid,at any rate.

If you would rather have me go than go yourself,I will do it,and let people talk just as much as they want to.Shall I go instead of you?"Euthymia was not quite sure that this would be the best thing for the patient.The doctor had told her he thought there were special reasons for her own course in coming daily to see him."I am afraid,"she said,"you are too bright to be safe for him in his weak state.Your mind is such a stimulating one,you know.A dull sort of person like myself is better for him just now.I will continue visiting him as long as the doctor says it is important that I should;but you must defend me,Lurida,--I know you can explain it all so that people will not blame me."Euthymia knew full well what the effect of Lurida's penetrating head-voice would be in a convalescent's chamber.She knew how that active mind of hers would set the young man's thoughts at work,when what he wanted was rest of every faculty.Were not these good and sufficient reasons for her decision?What others could there be?

So Euthymia kept on with her visits,until she blushed to see that she was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to look too well to be called an invalid.It was a dangerous condition of affairs,and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their comments.Free,but kindly,for the story of the rescue had melted every heart;and what could be more natural than that these two young people whom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should find it hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past?When gratitude is a bankrupt,love only can pay his debts;and if Maurice gave his heart to Euthymia,would not she receive it as payment in full?

The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole,and the austral the boreal.It was well,perhaps,that this change took place while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness.

For all the long-defeated,disturbed,perverted instincts had found their natural channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which throbs in response to every profound emotion.As his health gradually returned,Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek,a glitter in his eyes,a something in the tone of his voice,which altogether were a warning to the young maiden that the highway of friendly intercourse was fast narrowing to a lane,at the head of which her woman's eye could read plainly enough,"Dangerous passing.""You look so much better to-day,Mr.Kirkwood,"she said,"that Ithink I had better not play Sister of Charity any longer.The next time we meet I hope you will be strong enough to call on me."She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she thought.There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs.Butts looked up from the stocking she was knitting.They had forgotten the good woman's presence.

Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly,but Mrs.Butts dropped a stitch at the first word,and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened to what followed.

"No!you must not leave me.You must never leave me.You saved my life.But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can ever know.To you I owe it that I am living;with you I live henceforth,if I am to live at all.All I am,all I hope,--will you take this poor offering from one who owes you everything,whose lips never touched those of woman or breathed a word of love before you?

What could Euthymia reply to this question,uttered with all the depth of a passion which had never before found expression.

Not one syllable of answer did listening Mrs.Butts overhear.But she told her husband afterwards that there was nothing in the tableaux they had had in September to compare with what she then saw.

It was indeed a pleasing picture which those two young heads presented as Euthymia gave her inarticulate but infinitely expressive answer to the question of Maurice Kirkwood.The good-hearted woman thought it time to leave the young people.Down went the stocking with the needles in it;out of her lap tumbled the ball of worsted,rolling along the floor with its yarn trailing after it,like some village matron who goes about circulating from hearth to hearth,leaving all along her track the story of the new engagement or of the arrival of the last "little stranger."Not many suns had set before it was told all through Arrowhead Village that Maurice Kirkwood was the accepted lover of Euthymia Tower.