XX
WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE?
"Reuther, sit up here close by mother and let me talk to you for alittle while."
"Yes, mother; oh, yes, mother." Deborah felt the beloved head pressedclose to her shoulder and two soft arms fall about her neck.
"Are you very unhappy? Is my little one pining too much for the olddays?"
A closer pressure of the head, a more vehement clasp of the encirclingarms, but no words.
"You have seemed brighter lately. I have heard you sing now and then asif the joy of youth was not quite absent from your heart. Is that true,or were you merely trying to cheer your mother?"
"I am afraid I was trying to cheer the judge," came in low whisper toher ear. "When I hear his step in the study--that monotonous tramp,tramp, which we both dread, I feel such an ache here, such a desire tocomfort him, that I try the one little means I have to divert him fromhis thoughts. He must be so lonely without--"
"Reuther, you forget how many years have passed since he had acompanion. A man becomes used to loneliness. A judge with heavy cases onhis mind must think and think very closely, you know."
"Oh, mamma, it's not of his cases our judge is thinking when he walkslike that. I know him too well, love him too well, not to feel thetrouble in his step. I may be wrong, but all the sympathy andunderstanding I may not give to Oliver I devote to his father, and whenhe walks like that he seems to drag my heart after him. Mamma, mamma, donot blame me. I have just as much affection for you, and I suffer justas keenly when I see you unhappy. And, mamma, are you sure that you arequite happy to-day? You look as if something had happened to troubleyou--something more than usual, I mean."
They were sitting in the dark, with just the light of the stars shiningthrough the upper panes of the one unshaded window. Deborah, therefore,had little to fear from her daughter's eye, only from the sensitivenessof her touch and the quickness of her ear. Alas, in this delicatelyorganised girl these were both attuned to the nicest discrimination, andbefore the mother could speak, Reuther had started up, crying:
"Oh, how your heart beats! Something has happened, darling mother;something which--"
"Hush, Reuther; it is only this: When I came to Shelby it was with ahope that I might some day smooth the way to your happiness. But it wasonly a wild dream, Reuther; and the hour has come for me to tell you so.What joys are left us must come in other ways; love unblessed must beput aside resolutely and forever."
She felt the shudder pass through the slender form which had thrownitself again at her side; but when the young girl spoke it was withunexpected bravery and calm.
"I have long ago done that, mamma. I've had no hopes from the first. Thelook with which Oliver accepted my refusal to go on with the ceremonywas one of gratitude, mother. I can never forget that. Relief struggledwith grief. Would you have me cherish any further illusions after that?"
Mrs. Scoville was silent. So, after all, Reuther had not been so blindon that day as she had always feared.
"Oliver has faults--Oh, let me talk about him just for once, darlingmother," the poor, stricken child babbled on. "His temper is violent, orso he has often told me, coming and going like a gust of--No, mamma,don't make me stop. If he has faults he has good traits too. He wasalways gentle with me and if that far-away look you did not like wouldcome at times and take him, as it were, out of our world, such a sweetawakening would follow when he realised that I was waiting for hisspirit to come back, that I never minded the mystery, in my joy at thecomfort which my love gave him."
"My child, my child!"
"Mother, I can soothe the father, but I can no longer soothe Oliver.That is my saddest thought. It makes me wish, sometimes, that he wouldfind another loving heart on which he could lean without anyself-reproach. I should soon learn to bear it. It would so assure hisfuture and rid me of the fear that he may fail to hold the place he haswon by such hard work and persistence."
A moment's silence, then a last appeal on the part of the mother.
"Reuther, have I ever been harsh to you?"
"No, no."
"Then you will not think me unkind or even untender if I say that everyloving thought you give now to Oliver is hurtful both to yourself and tome. Don't indulge in them, my darling. Put your heart into work or intomusic, and your mother will bless you. Won't it help you to know this,Reuther? Your mother, who has had her griefs, will bless you."
"Mother, mother!"
* * * * *
That night, at a later hour, Deborah struggled with a great temptation.
The cap which hung in Oliver's closet--the knife which lay in the drawerof Oliver's desk--were to her mind positive proofs of his actualconnection with the crime she now wished to see buried for all time inher husband's grave. The threat of that unknown indicter of mysteriousletters, I KNOW A WITNESS, had sunk deep into her mind. A witness ofwhat? Of anything which the discovery of these articles mightsubstantiate? If so, what peril remained in their continued preservationwhen an effort on her part might so easily destroy them.
Sleep, long a stranger to her pillow, forsook her entirely as she facedthis question and realised the gain in peace which might be hers if capand knife were gone. Why then did she allow them to remain, the one inthe closet, the other in the drawer? Because she could not help herself.Instinct was against her meddling with these possible proofs of crime.
But this triumph of conscience cost her dear. The next morning found herpale--almost as pale as Reuther. Was that why the judge surveyed her sointently as she poured out the coffee, and seemed more than once on thepoint of addressing her particularly, as she went through the usualroutine of tidying up his room?
She asked herself this question more than once, and found it answeredevery time she hurried by the mirror. Certainly she showed a remarkablepallor.
Knowing its cause herself, she did not invite his inquiries; and anotherday passed. With the following morning she felt strong enough to openthe conversation which had now become necessary for her peace of mind.
She waited till the moment when, her work all done, she was about toleave his presence. Pausing till she caught his eye, which seemed alittle loth, she thought, to look her way, she observed, with perhapsunnecessary distinctness:
"I hope that everything is to your mind, Judge Ostrander. I should besorry not to make you as comfortable as is possible under thecircumstances."
SILENCE! NOT EVEN HEAVEN SPOKE]
Roused a little suddenly, perhaps, from thoughts quite disconnected withthose of material comfort, he nodded with the abstraction of one whorecognises that some sort of acknowledgment is expected from him; then,seeing her still waiting, added politely:
"I am very well looked after, if that is what you mean, Mrs. Scoville.Bela could not do any better--if he ever did as well."
"I am glad," she replied, thinking with what humour this would havestruck her once. "I--I ask because, having nothing on my mind buthousekeeping, I desire to remedy anything which is not in accordancewith your exact wishes."
His attention was caught and by the very phrase she desired.
"Nothing on your mind but housekeeping?" he repeated. "I thought you hadsomething else of a very particular nature with which to occupyyourself."
"I had; but I have been advised against pursuing it. The folly was toogreat."
"Who advised you?"
The words came short and sharp just as they must have come in those olddays when he confronted his antagonists at the bar.
"Mr. Black. He was my husband's counsel, you remember. He says that Ishould only have my trouble for my pains, and I have come to agree withhim. Reuther must content herself with the happiness of living underthis roof; and I, with the hope of contributing to your comfort."
Had she impressed him? Had she played her part with success? Dare shelift her eye and meet the gaze she felt concentrated upon her? No. Hemust speak first. She must have some clew to the effect she had producedbefore she risked his penetratio
n by a direct look.
She had to wait longer than her beating heart desired. He had his ownagitation to master, and possibly his own doubts. This was not thefiery, determined woman he had encountered amid the ruins of Spencer'sFolly. WHAT HAD MADE THE CHANGE? Black's discouraging advice? Hardly.Why should she take from that hard-faced lawyer what she had not beenwilling to take from himself? There must have been some otherinfluencing cause.
His look, his attitude, his voice, betrayed his hesitations, as hefinally remarked:
"Black is a man of excellent counsel, but he is hard as a stone and notof the sort whose monitions I should expect to have weight with one likeyou. What did he put in the balance,--or what have others put in thebalance, to send your passionate intentions flying up to the beam? Ishould be glad to hear."
Should she tell him? She had a momentary impulse that way. Then theirrevocableness of such a move frightened her; and, pale with dismay atwhat she felt to be a narrow escape from a grave error of judgment, sheanswered with just enough truth, for her to hope that the modicum offalsehood accompanying it would escape his attention:
"What has changed my intentions? My experience here, Judge Ostrander.With every day I pass under this roof, I realise more and more themistake I made in supposing that any change in circumstances would makea union between our two children proper or feasible. Headstrong as I amby nature, I have still some sense of the fitness of things, and it isthat sense awakened by a better knowledge of what the Ostrander namestands for, which has outweighed my hopes and mad intentions. I am sorrythat I ever troubled you with them."
The words were ambiguous; startlingly so, she felt; but, in hope thatthey would strike him otherwise, she found courage at last to raise hereyes in search of what lay in his. Nothing, or so she thought at first,beyond the glint of a natural interest; then her mind changed, and shefelt that it would take one much better acquainted with his moods thanherself to read to its depths a gaze so sombre and inscrutable.
His answer, coming after a moment of decided suspense, only deepenedthis impression. It was to this effect:
"Madam, we have said our say on this subject. If you have come to seethe matter as I see it, I can but congratulate you upon your good sense,and express the hope that it will continue to prevail. Reuther is worthyof the best--" he stopped abruptly. "Reuther is a girl after my ownheart," he gently supplemented, with a glance towards his papers lyingin a bundle at his elbow, "and she shall not suffer because of thisdisappointment to her girlish hopes. Tell her so with my love."
It was a plain dismissal. Mrs. Scoville took it as such, and quietlyleft the room. As she did so she was approached by Reuther who handedher a letter which had just been delivered. It was from Mr. Black andread thus:
We have found the rogue and have succeeded in inducing him to leave town. He's a man in the bill-sticking business and he owns to a grievance against the person we know.
Deborah's sleep that night was without dreams.