Chapter 28. The Trail Of Love

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_ CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TRAIL OF LOVE

Miss Martell improved visibly, for a most depressing fear had been removed. Though Harcourt might not return her love, he had not proved himself unworthy of it, by actual cowardice, or even by unmanly regard for personal ease. It also appeared that more than general philanthropy must have spurred him on, or he could not have acted as if "beside himself."

The hungry heart will take even the crumbs of regard that fall from the hand which alone can satisfy. The thought that her old friend and playmate had been far from indifferent to her fate was like a subtile, exhilarating wine to Miss Martell.

Her rising spirits, and her wish to show appreciation of Mrs. Marchmont's courtesy, made her as brilliant as beautiful at the dinner-table, while Lottie, in contrast, was silent and depressed. The new-fledged little saint soon became conscious that for some reason she was very jealous and very envious,--emotions which she seldom had even imaginary cause to cherish towards any of her sex.

Nor were Mrs. Marchmont and her daughter disposed to be very friendly and responsive to Miss Martell's genial mood; but the young lady was possessed of that strength of mind and high-bred courtesy which enabled her to ignore the weaknesses and infelicities of those around her, and to shine with her own pure light on all objects alike.

Hemstead again was charmed with her,--a fact that his frankness made plainly evident. Her bright thoughts elicited corresponding ones from him, and Lottie was reluctantly compelled to admit to herself that she had never before known Mrs. Marchmont's viands to be seasoned with Attic salt of such high flavor. For the first time the proud and flattered belle felt, in the presence of another woman, a humiliating sense of her own inferiority. She clearly recognized that Miss Martell was far in advance of her. How could the student fail to be fascinated? Her mind was the equal of his in force, and as highly cultivated. They were congenial in their views and feelings, and of course she would be very grateful.

Lottie's manner had puzzled Hemstead greatly. He was even more disappointed than she had been over their prosaic meeting. In his honest modesty, broad eulogy from the others was exceedingly distasteful; and yet one of his chief incentives the evening before had been the hope of a welcome back from Lottie, in which her eyes, if not her tongue, would suggest the reward his heart craved. But he had said "good morning," and she a little coldly had responded "good afternoon." Moreover, she was strangely silent and depressed. What could it mean? and what the cause? That it was himself never entered his mind.

Her bearing towards De Forrest, which was anything but genial, finally led him to believe that she was again deeply mortified by her lover's lack of manhood, and that she was depressed because of her relation to one who had failed so signally, the evening before, in those qualities that women most admire.

While lingering over the dessert, Mr. Martell's sleigh was announced.

"It as my purpose to send you home," exclaimed Mrs. Marchmont. "Indeed, I had ordered my horses to be at the door within half an hour."

"I appreciate your kindness," said Mr. Martell, "but after the heroic efforts of your amphibious coachman last night, I should feel guilty if we broke in upon his rest to-day."

"I'm glad you recognize his merit," said Hemstead, quickly. "You owe far more to him than to me"; and he launched out into the most hearty eulogy of the ex-sailor.

Then, for the first time, Lottie's old, mirthful laugh was heard, as she said: "Well, in one respect, Mr. Hemstead, you and the coachman are birds of a feather, and rare birds at that. He gives you all the credit of the rescue, and you insist that you had nothing to do with it, but only went along for company, as it were. But I think we all surmised the truth, when you fainted from exhaustion at Miss Martell's feet. That was a very happy chance, and so it all turned out as well as any knight of old could have desired."

This sudden speech from Lottie bewildered Hemstead more than ever. What could she mean? But Miss Martell understood her better, and gave a keen thrust in return as she smilingly answered, "With the only exception that Mr. Hemstead fainted at the feet of the wrong lady."

This unexpected retort threw both Hemstead and Lottie into disastrous confusion, which Mrs, Marchmont was not slow to observe, and which was not allayed by Mr. Dimmerly's cackling laugh, as he chuckled, "A well-flown arrow."

"Well," said Hemstead, trying to laugh it off, "all I can say in self-defence is, that in either case my faint could not be spelled with an e. It was the first, and I hope it will be the last time I ever do anything so melodramatic."

"Mr. Hemstead must be an ideal knight, as we learn from his phrase 'in either case,'" said Lottie. "He would have us believe that he is entirely impartial in his homage to our sex. And, now I think of it, he was more polite to old Auntie Lammer than ever he has been to me."

"Now, Miss Marsden," said Hemstead, reproachfully, "you are again indulging in orientalism."

"Certainly," chimed in De Forrest; "that sylph so filled his eye that she became his ideal, as you told us, Miss Lottie."

"I told you?" she answered in sudden annoyance; "your memory is better than mine."

Soon after, Mr. Martell and his daughter took their departure, with many sincere and graceful acknowledgments of the kindness they had received.

Many were the words of force and wisdom that Miss Martell had read and heard, but never had any made so profound an impression upon her as the vain vaporings of De Forrest, as he insisted on claiming all the credit he could for his action the evening before.

"Did he exaggerate," she asked herself a hundred times, "when he said, 'It was well I was there; for Mr. Harcourt was beside himself, and was ready to venture out upon a plank to your aid'? I fear he did."

Her father surmised something of her thoughts and said gently, "I fear we have done Mr. Harcourt injustice."

"Yes, father," she answered, "I think we have."

"Well," he said, after a moment, "I never had a pleasanter duty than the amends I purpose making. It cut me to the heart to think the son of my old friend had permitted a stranger to come to our rescue."

"I feel sure that Mr. Harcourt would have come also, had it been in his power," she said, with quiet emphasis.

"You always stood up for Tom," said her father, gently.

But she made no answer.

Mr. Martell then questioned his coachman somewhat.

"Indade, sir, we was all putty nigh crazy when Mr. Harcourt druv in late last night and said you were safe. He told me to come-over this morning and get your orders, and to have the house ready for yez."

"Now that was considerate. I feel, my daughter, that we owe Mr. Harcourt an apology. Do you feel equal to entertaining him at supper?"

"I will try, father."

"Drive right on up to town," said Mr. Martell, a little later, from the steps of his piazza, "and present my compliments to Mr. Harcourt, and ask him if he will favor us with his company at supper."

Alice gave him a shy, grateful glance, and then sought her room.

As she was unwrapping herself before her mirror, she noted that a pane of glass in the window near was badly cracked, and that the lace curtain above was torn partially from its fastening.

As her maid entered she asked how it happened.

The woman in evident confusion answered: "Indeed, miss, I meant to mend the curtain this morning, but I've not had me head straight since last evening."

"But how did it happen?" persisted Alice. "Who could have been so rough and careless?"

"Well," said the maid, hesitatingly, "it must have been Mr. Harcourt."

"Mr. Harcourt!"

"Well, you see, miss, he came last night to see you, for one of the girls said he asked for you, and when he found you was out on the river he just seemed beside himself. We was a-lookin' out upstairs, and we first saw the light a-coming up after the tide turned, and we screamed to him and the coachman, and Mr. Harcourt he came upstairs like a gust o' wind. Your door stood open, and in he rushed in a way that I thought he'd break everything."

"There, that will do. I understand. You need not mend the curtain. You must be tired after all your fright, and can rest awhile this afternoon, as I shall."

A beautiful color dawned in Alice's face. She was recovering from her languor and weakness with marvellous rapidity. It was not strange, for no elixir was ever distilled so potent as that which now infused its subtile spirit into heart and brain.

But a few hours before, the wayward but good-hearted companion of her childhood, the manly friend of the present and future,--she would permit herself to think of him in no other light,--had seemed lost to her forever; to have had in fact no real existence; for if Harcourt had been content to act De Forrest's part the evening before, Alice Martell would have soon shaken off even his acquaintance. But De Forrest's words had suggested that the Harcourt of her dreams still existed. She had seen another trace of manly, considerate feeling in his thoughtfulness of the servants' fears, and of their comfort. And now the torn curtain and broken glass suggested the impetuous action of one who thought of her peril rather than of the trifles around him.

Twice now she had been told that Harcourt was "beside himself," and yet never had madness seemed so rational; and her eyes dwelt on the marks of his frenzy before her with unmixed satisfaction. If he had been cool then, her heart now would be cold.

She could not rest, and at last thought that the frosty air would cool the fever in her cheeks, and so wrapped herself for a walk upon the broad \ piazza. Moreover, she felt, as Lottie had, that she would be glad to have no eyes, not even her father's, witness their meeting. She felt that she could act more naturally and composedly if alone with him, and at the same time show the almost sisterly regard through which she hoped to win him to his better self.

As she paced up and down the piazza, in the early twilight, her attention was attracted to a spot where some one, instead of going deliberately down the steps, had plunged off into the piled-up snow, and then just opposite and beyond the broad path were tracks wide apart, as if some one had bounded rather than run towards the river.

She ceased her walk, and stood as one who had discovered a treasure. Did these footprints and the torn curtain belong together? She felt that it could not be otherwise. There was, then, no cold-blooded, cowardly Harcourt, and traces of the real man grew clearer.

"But how could he reach the river in that direction without risking his neck?" and she indulged hi quite a panic as she remembered the intervening steeps. She longed yet dreaded to see him, that she might ask an explanation of the traces she had found; for, having done him injustice, she generously meant to make him full amends.

But to her great disapointment the sleigh now returned without him.

"I left the message, miss," said the coachman, "but they told me that Mr. Harcourt had a sudden business call to New York."

Alice sought to draw the man out a little, and it was also her habit to speak kindly to those in her employ; so she said: "I fear, Burtis, you will be a little jealous of Mrs. Marchmont's coachman. If it had not been for him we could not have escaped, I think."

"Well, thank God, I'm not much behind him. If he stopped two funerals, I stopped one."

"Why, how is that, Burtis?"

"Faix, miss, an' do ye see thim tracks there? They go straight to the river, and it was Misther Harcourt as made them. He was jist one second on the way after he saw the light, and by rinnin' an' rollin' an' tumblin' he was at the boat-house in a wink. When I gets there, a-puffin' an' a-blowin', he's unlocked the door by taeakin' it in, and is a-haulin' at the ould boat; and because I wouldn't lend a band in gettin' out the crazy ould craft that wouldn't float a hundred foot, he swears at me in the most onchristian manner, and tries to get it out alone. But ye know, miss, how he couldn't do that, and soon he gives it up and falls to gnawin' his nails like one beside himself, an' a-mutterin' how he must either'save her or drown with her.' Then he dashed up the bank ag'in, and he and his black hoss was off like a whirlwind. If the Naughty Tillus, or any other thing as would float was here, ye'd had no need of Mrs. Marchmont's coachman. But I thought he'd off wid me head because I wouldn't help out wid the ould boat."

Not a word or sign did Alice place in the way of the man's garrulity, but rather manifested breathless interest, as with parted lips she bent forward, encouraging him to go on.

Was he not reciting an epic poem of which she was the heroine and Harcourt the hero? The true epics of the world are generally told in the baldest prose.

"There was one thing I didn't like," continued the man, gathering up his reins, "and I've thought I ought to speak of it to ye or ye's father. All his talk was about savin' yerself, and not a whisper of the ould gentleman, who has been so kind to him all his life. It sounded kinder onnatteral like."

"Very well, Burtis; you have done your duty in speaking to me, and so need not say anything to Mr. Martell about it. I rather think you have prevented a funeral, and perhaps I owe you as many thanks as Mrs. Marchmont's coachman. At any rate you will find on Christmas that you have not been forgotten."

So the man drove to the stable with the complacent consciousness of having done his duty and warned his mistress against a "very onnatteral feelin'" in the young man.

The moment he disappeared around the corner, Alice stood undecided a moment, like a startled deer, and then sped down the path to the boat-house. The snow was tramped somewhat by the big lumbering feet of the coach-man, but had it not been, Alice now had wings. The twilight was deepening, and she could not wait till the morrow before following up this trail that led to the idol of her heart.

She paused in the winding path when half-way down the bank, that she might gloat over the mad plunges by which Harcourt had crossed it, straight to the river. She followed his steps to the brink of a precipice, and saw with a thrill of mingled fear and delight where he had slid and fallen twenty feet or more.

"How cruelly I have misjudged him!" she thought. "When he was here eager to risk his life for me, my false fancy pictured him at Addie Marchmont's side. And yet it was well I did not know the truth, for it would have been so much harder to look death in the face so long, with this knowledge of his friendship. How strangely he and Addie act when together! But come, that is no affair of mine. Let me be thankful that I have not lost the friend of my childhood."

A little later she stood at the boat-house. The door hung by one hinge only, and the large stone lay near with which he had crashed it in. She entered the dusky place as if it had been a temple. Had it not been consecrated by a service of love,--by the costliest offering that can be made,--life? Here he had said he would save her or perish with her; here he had sought to make good his words.

She picked up one of the matches he had dropped, and struck it, that she might look into the neglected boat. Never was the utter unseaworthiness of a craft noted with such satisfaction before.

"While I vilely thought he would not venture to our aid at all, he strained every nerve to launch this old shell. Thanks to obstinate Burtis, who would not help him."

She struck another match, that she might look more closely; then uttered a pitiful cry.

"Merciful heaven! is this blood on this rope? It surely is. Now I think of it, he kept his right hand gloved this morning, and offered his left to Mr. Hemstead in salutation. Father and I, in our cruel wrong, did not offer to take his hand. And yet it would seem that he tugged with bleeding hands at these ropes, that he might almost the same as throw away his life for us.

"I can scarcely understand it. No brother could do more. He was braver than Mr. Hemstead, for he had a stanch boat, and experienced help, while my old playmate was eager to go alone in this wretched thing that would only have floated him out to deep water where he would drown.

"Ah, well, let the future be what it may, one cannot be utterly unhappy who has loved such a man. If he is willing to give his life up for me, I surely can get him to give up his evil, wayward tendencies, and then I must be content."

She now began to experience reaction from her strong excitement, and wearily made her way back to the house.

Her father met her at the door, and exclaimed, "Why, Alice, where have you been? You look ready to sink!"

"I have been to the boat-house, father," she replied, in a low, quick tone; "and I wish you would go there to-morrow, for you will there learn how cruelly we have misjudged Mr. Harcourt."

"But, my child, I am troubled about you. You need quiet and rest after all you have passed through"; and he hastily brought her a glass of wine.

"I needed more the assurance that my old friend and playmate was not what we thought this morning," she said, with drooping eyes.

"Well, my darling, we will make amends right royally. He will be here to-morrow evening, and you shall have no occasion to find fault with me. But please take care of yourself. You do not realize what you have passed through, and I fear you are yet to suffer the consequences."

But more exhilarating than the wine which her father placed to her lips was the nfemory of what she had seen. Hers was one of those spiritual natures that suffer more through the mind than through the body. She encountered her greatest peril in the fear of Harcourt's unworthiness.

Letters in the evening mail summoned her father to the city on the morrow, and he left her with many injunctions to be very quiet. It was evident that his heart and life were bound up in her.

But as the day grew bright and mild she again found her way to the boat-house. With greater accuracy she marked his every hasty step from the house to the shore. Harcourt little thought in his wild alarm that he was leaving such mute but eloquent advocates.

Poor fellow! he was groaning over their harsh judgment, but vowing in his pride that he would never undeceive them. He did not remember that he had left a trail clear to dullest eyes, and conclusive as a demonstration to the unerring instinct of a loving heart.

He had gone to the city and accomplished his business in a mechanical way. He returned with the first train, though why he scarcely knew. He felt no inclination to visit at Mrs. Marchmont's any more, for since he had come more fully under Miss Martell's influence Addie had lost her slight hold upon him, and now her manner was growing unendurable. He also felt that after Mr. Martell's coldness he could not visit there again, and he doggedly purposed to give his whole time to his business till events righted him, if they ever did.

But his stoical philosophy was put to immediate rout by Mr. Martell's message, which he received on his return. Five minutes later he was urging his black horse towards the familiar place at a pace but a little more decorous than when seeking Hemstead's assistance on the memorable even ing of the accident.

"Miss Martell is out," stolidly said the woman who answered his summons.

As he was turning away in deep disappointment, Burtis appeared on the scene, and with a complacent grin, remarked, "She's only down by the boat-house, a-seein' howl saved ye from drownding."

Harcourt slipped a bank-note into his hand, and said, "There's for your good services now if not then," and was off for the water's edge with as much speed as he dared use before observant eyes.

"They must have found out from the old coachman that I was not the coward they deemed me," he thought. "If so, I'll see he has a merry Christmas."

He saw Alice standing with her back towards him, looking out upon the river, that now rippled and sparkled in the sunlight as if a dark, stormy night had never brooded over an icy, pitiless tide.

The soft snow muffled his steps, until at last he said, hesitatingly, "Miss Martell."

She started violently, and trembled as if shaken by the wind.

"Pardon me," he said hastily. "It was very stupid in me to thus startle you, but you seemed so intent on something upon the river that I thought you would never see me."

"I--I was not expecting you," she faltered.

"Then I have done wrong--have been mistaken in coming."

"O, no; I did not mean that. I thought you were in New York. We expected you this evening."

"Shall I go away then, and come back this evening?"

"Yes; come back this evening, but do not go now,--that is, just yet. I have something to say to you. Please forgive my confusion. I fear my nerves have been shaken by what I have passed through."

And yet such "confusion" in one usually so composed did puzzle him, but he said hastily, feeling that it would be better to break the ice at once, "I came here not to 'forgive,' but to seek your forgiveness."

"You seeking my forgiveness!" she said in unfeigned surprise.

"Yes," he replied, humbly bowing his head. "Heaven knows that I am weak and faulty enough, but when I have wronged any one, I am willing to make acknowledgment and reparation. I cannot tell you how eager I have been to make such acknowledgment to you, whom I revere as my good angel. I acted like a fool in the chapel last Monday afternoon, and did you great injustice. You have never shone on me 'coldly and distantly like a star,' but again and again have stooped from the height of your heavenly character that you might lift me out of the mire. It's a mystery to me how you can do it. But believe me, when I am myself, I am grateful; and," he continued slowly, his square jaw growing firm and rigid, and a sombre, resolute light coming into his large dark eyes, "if you will have patience with me, I will yet do credit to the good advice, written in a school-girl's hand, which I keep treasured in my room. Weak and foolish as I have been, I should have been far worse were it not for those letters, and--and your kindness since. But I am offending you," he said sadly, as Alice averted her face. "However the future may separate us, I wanted you to know that I gratefully appreciate all the kindness of the past. I sincerely crave your forgiveness for my folly last Monday. For some reason I was not myself. I was blinded with--I said what I knew to be untrue. Though you might with justice have shone on me as 'coldly and distantly as a star,' you have treated me almost as a sister might. Please say that I am forgiven, and I will go at once."

Imagine his surprise when, as her only response, she said abruptly, "Mr. Harcourt, come with me."

His wonder increased as he saw that her eyes were moist with tears.

She took him to the bluff, behind the boat-house, where in the snow were the traces of one who had slid and fallen from a perilous height.

"What do these marks mean?" she asked,

"It didn't hurt me any," he replied with rising color.

"Did you stop to think at the time whether it would or not? Have you thought what a chain of circumstantial evidence you left against you on that dreadful night? Now come with me into the boat-house, and let me tell you in the mean time that a lace curtain in my room is sadly torn, and one of my window-panes broken."

While he yet scarcely understood her, every fibre of his being was beginning to thrill with hope and gladness; but he said deprecatingly: "Please forgive my intrusion. In my haste that night I blundered into a place where I had no right to be. No doubt I was very rough and careless, but I was thinking of the pain of cold and fear which you were suffering. I would gladly have broken that to fragments."

"O, I am not complaining. The abundant proof that you were not deliberate delights me. But come into the boat-house, and I will convict both you and myself, and then we shall see who is the proper one to ask forgiveness. What is this upon these ropes, Mr. Harcourt? and how did it come here?"

"O, that is nothing; I only bruised my hand a little breaking in the door."

"Is it nothing that you tugged with bleeding hands at these ropes, that you might go alone in this wretched shell of a boat to our aid? Why, Mr. Harcourt, it would not have floated you a hundred yards, and Burtis told you so. Was it mere vaporing when you said, 'If I cannot save them, I can at least drown with them'?"

"No," he said impetuously, the blood growing dark in his face; "it was not vaporing. Can you believe me capable of hollow acting on the eve, as I feared, of the most awful tragedy that ever threatened?"

"O, not the 'most awful'!"

"The most awful to me."

"No, I cannot. As I said before, I have too much circumstantial evidence against you. Mr. Harcourt, true justice looks at the intent of the heart. You unconsciously left abundant proof here of what you intended, and I feel that I owe my life to you as truly as to Mr. Hemstead. And yet I was so cruelly unjust yesterday morning as to treat you coldly, because I thought my old friend and playfellow had let strangers go to our help. With far better reason I wish to ask your forgive--"

"No, no," said Harcourt, eagerly; "circumstances appeared against me that evening, and you only judged naturally. You have no forgiveness to ask, for you have made amends a thousand-fold in this your generous acknowledgment. And yet, Miss Martell, you will never know how hard it was that I could not go to your rescue that night. I never came so near cursing my destiny before."

"I cannot understand it," said Alice, turning away her face.

"It's all painfully plain to me," he said with a spice of bitterness. "Miss Martell, I am as grateful to Hemstead as you are, for when he saved you he also saved me. If you had perished, I feel that I should have taken the counsel of an ancient fool, who said, 'Curse God and die.'"

She gave him a quick look of surprise, but said only, "That would be folly indeed."

He took her hand, and earnestly, indeed almost passionately continued: "Miss Alice, I pray you teach me how to be a true man. Have patience with me, and I will try to be worthy of your esteem. You have made me loathe my old, vile self. You have made true manhood seem so noble and attractive that I am willing to make every effort, and suffer any pain,--even that of seeing you shine upon me in the unapproachable distance of a star. Make me feel that you do care what I become. Speak to me sometimes as you did the other evening among the flowers. Give me the same advice that I find in the old yellow letters which have been my Bible, and, believe me, you will not regret it."

Alice's hand trembled like a frightened bird as he held it in both of his, and she faltered, "I never had a brother, but I scarcely think I could feel towards one differently--" and then the truthful girl stopped in painful confusion. Her love for Harcourt was not sisterly at all, and how could she say that it was?

But he, only too grateful, filled out the sentence for her, and in a deep, thrilling tone answered, "And if my love for you is warmer than a brother's,--more full of the deep, absorbing passion that comes to us but once,--I will try to school it into patience, and live worthily of my love for her who inspired it."

Again she gave him a quick look of startled surprise, and said hastily, "You forget yourself, sir. Such language belongs to another."

"To another?"

"Yes; to Miss Marchmont."

"Miss Marchmont can claim nothing from me, save a slight cousinly regard."

"It is reported that you are engaged."

"It's false," he said passionately. "It is true, that before you returned, and while I was reckless because I believed you despised me, I trifled away more time there than I should. But Miss Marchmont, in reality, is as indifferent towards me as I towards her. I am not bound to her by even a gossamer thread."

Alice turned away her face, and was speechless.

"And did you think," he asked reproachfully, "that I could love her after knowing you?"

"Love is blind," she faltered after a moment, "and is often guilty of strange freaks. It does not weigh and estimate."

"But my love for you is all that there is good in me. My love is the most rational thing of my life."

She withdrew her hand from his, and, snatching the rope that was stained with his blood, she kissed it and said, "So is mine."

"O Alice! what do you mean?" and he trembled as violently as she had done when he startled her on the beach.

She shyly lifted her blue eyes to his, and said, "Foolish Tom, surely your love is blind."

Then to Harcourt the door of heaven opened.

When Mr. Martell returned, he saw by the firelight in his dusky study that his daughter had made such ample amends that but little was left for him to do; but he did that right heartily.

Then the Christian man said, "Alice, compare this with the shadow of 'Storm King,' and the grinding ice. Let us thank God."

She gently replied, "I have, father."

"But I have more reason to thank Him than either of you," said Harcourt, brokenly, "for had you perished I should have been lost, body and soul."

"Then serve Him faithfully, my son,--serve Him as my old friend your father did."

"With His help I will." _

Read next: Chapter 29. Hemstead's Advice, And Lottie's Colors

Read previous: Chapter 27. The Meeting And Greeting

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