The Argonauts of North Liberty Read online

  CHAPTER III

  Mrs. Blandford entered the side door boldly. Luckily for her, theausterities of the Sabbath were manifest even here; the bar-room wasclosed, and the usual loungers in the passages were absent. Withoutrisking the recognition of her voice in an inquiry to the clerk, sheslipped past the office, still muffled in her veil, and quickly mountedthe narrow staircase. For an instant she hesitated before the publicparlor, and glanced dubiously along the half-lit corridor. Chancebefriended her; the door of a bedroom opened at that moment, and RichardDemorest, with his overcoat and hat on, stepped out in the hall.

  With a quick and nervous gesture of her hand she beckoned him toapproach. He came towards her leisurely, with an amused curiosity thatsuddenly changed to utter astonishment as she hurriedly lifted her veil,dropped it, turned, and glided down the staircase into the street again.He followed rapidly, but did not overtake her until she had reached thecorner, when she slackened her pace an instant for him to join her.

  "Lulu," he said eagerly; "is it you?"

  "Not a word here," she said, breathlessly. "Follow me at a distance."

  She started forward again in the direction of her own house. He followedher at a sufficient interval to keep her faintly distinguishable figurein sight until she had crossed three streets, and near the end of thenext block glided up the steps of a house not far from the one wherehe remembered to have left Blandford. As he joined her, she had justsucceeded in opening the door with a pass-key, and was awaiting him.With a gesture of silence she took his hand in her cold fingers, andleading him softly through the dark hall and passage, quickly enteredthe kitchen. Here she lit a candle, turned, and faced him. He could seethat the outside shutters were bolted, and the kitchen evidently closedfor the night.

  As she removed the veil from her face he made a movement as if to regainher hand again, but she drew it away.

  "You have forced this upon me," she said hurriedly, "and it may be ruinto us both. Why have you betrayed me?"

  "Betrayed you, Lulu--Good God! what do you mean?"

  She looked him full in the eye, and then said slowly, "Do you mean tosay that you have told no one of our meetings?"

  "Only one--my old friend Blandford, who lives--Ah, yes! I see it now.You are neighbors. He has betrayed me. This house is--"

  "My father's!" she replied boldly.

  The momentary uneasiness passed from Demorest's resolute face. His oldself-sufficiency returned. "Good," he said, with a frank laugh, "thatwill do for me. Open the door there, Lulu, and take me to him. I'm notashamed of anything I've done, my girl, nor need you be. I'll tell himmy real name is Dick Demorest, as I ought to have told you before, andthat I want to marry you, fairly and squarely, and let him make theconditions. I'm not a vagabond nor a thief, Lulu, if I have met you onthe sly. Come, dear, let us end this now. Come--"

  But she had thrown herself before him and placed her hand upon his lips."Hush! are you mad? Listen to me, I tell you--please--oh, do--no youmust not!" He had covered her hand with kisses and was drawing her facetowards his own. "No--not again, it was wrong then, it is monstrous now.I implore you, listen, if you love me, stop."

  He released her. She sank into a chair by the kitchen-table, and buriedher flushed face in her hands.

  He stood for a moment motionless before her. "Lulu, if that is yourname," he said slowly, but gently, "tell me all now. Be frank with me,and trust me. If there is anything stands in the way, let me know whatit is and I can overcome it. If it is my telling Ned Blandford, don'tlet that worry you, he's as loyal a fellow as ever breathed, and I'm adog to ever think he willingly betrayed us. His wife, well, she's one ofthose pious saints--but no, she would not be such a cursed hypocrite andbigot as this."

  "Hush, I tell you! WILL you hush," she said, in a frantic whisper,springing to her feet and grasping him convulsively by the lapels ofhis overcoat. "Not a word more, or I'll kill myself. Listen! Do you knowwhat I brought you here for? why I left my--this house and dragged youout of your hotel? Well, it was to tell you that you must leave me,leave HERE--go out of this house and out of this town at once, to-night!And never look on it or me again! There! you have said we must end thisnow. It is ended, as only it could and ever would end. And if you openthat door except to go, or if you attempt to--to touch me again, I'll dosomething desperate. There!"

  She threw him off again and stepped back, strangely beautiful in theloosened shackles of her long repressed human emotion. It was as if thepassion-rent robes of the priestess had laid bare the flesh of the womandazzling and victorious. Demorest was fascinated and frightened.

  "Then you do not love me?" he said with a constrained smile, "and I am afool?"

  "Love you!" she repeated. "Love you," she continued, bowing her brownhead over her hanging arms and clasped hands. "What then has brought meto this? Oh," she said suddenly, again seizing him by his two arms, andholding him from her with a half-prudish, half-passionate gesture, "whycould you not have left things as they were; why could we not have metin the same old way we used to meet, when I was so foolish and so happy?Why could you spoil that one dream I have clung to? Why didn't you leaveme those few days of my wretched life when I was weak, silly, vain, butnot the unhappy woman I am now. You were satisfied to sit beside me andtalk to me then. You respected my secret, my reserve. My God! I usedto think you loved me as I loved you--for THAT! Why did you break yourpromise and follow me here? I believed you the first day we met, whenyou said there was no wrong in my listening to you; that it should go nofurther; that you would never seek to renew it without my consent. Youtell me I don't love you, and I tell you now that we must part, thatfrightened as I was, foolish as I was, that day was the first day I hadever lived and felt as other women live and feel. If I ran away from youthen it was because I was running away from my old self too. Don't youunderstand me? Could you not have trusted me as I trusted you?"

  "I broke my promise only when you broke yours. When you would not meetme I followed you here, because I loved you."

  "And that is why you must leave me now," she said, starting from hisoutstretched arms again. "Do not ask me why, but go, I implore you. Youmust leave this town to-night, to-morrow will be too late."

  He cast a hurried glance around him, as if seeking to gather some reasonfor this mysterious haste, or a clue for future identification. He sawonly the Sabbath-sealed cupboards, the cold white china on the dresser,and the flicker of the candle on the partly-opened glass transom abovethe door. "As you wish," he said, with quiet sadness. "I will go now,and leave the town to-night; but"--his voice struck its old imperativenote--"this shall not end here, Lulu. There will be a next time, and Iam bound to win you yet, in spite of all and everything."

  She looked at him with a half-frightened, half-hysterical light in hereyes. "God knows!"

  "And you will be frank with me then, and tell me all?"

  "Yes, yes, another time; but go now." She had extinguished the candle,turned the handle of the door noiselessly, and was holding it open. Afaint light stole through the dark passage. She drew back hastily."You have left the front door open," she said in a frightened voice. "Ithought you had shut it behind me," he returned quickly. "Good night."He drew her towards him. She resisted slightly. They were for an instantclasped in a passionate embrace; then there was a sudden collapse of thelight and a dull jar. The front door had swung to.

  With a desperate bound she darted into the passage and through the hall,dragging him by the hand, and threw the front door open. Without, thestreet was silent and empty.

  "Go," she whispered frantically.

  Demorest passed quickly down the steps and disappeared. At the samemoment a voice came from the banisters of the landing above. "Who'sthere?"

  "It's I, mother."

  "I thought so. And it's like Edward to bring you and sneak off in thatfashion."

  Mrs. Blandford gave a quick sigh of relief. Demorest's flight had beenmistaken for her husband's habitual evasion. Knowing that her motherwould not refer to the subject again, sh
e did not reply, but slowlymounted the dark staircase with an assumption of more than usualhesitating precaution, in order to recover her equanimity.

  The clocks were striking eleven when she left her mother's house andre-entered her own. She was surprised to find a light burning in thekitchen, and Ezekiel, their hired man, awaiting her in a dominant andnasal key of religious and practical disapprobation. "Pity you wern'ttu hum afore, ma'am, considerin' the doins that's goin' on in perfessedChristians' houses arter meetin' on the Sabbath Day."

  "What's the difficulty now, Ezekiel?" said Mrs. Blandford, who hadregained her rigorous precision once more under the decorous security ofher own roof.

  "Wa'al, here comes an entire stranger axin for Squire Blandford. Andwhen I tells he warn't tu hum--"

  "Not at home?" interrupted Mrs. Blandford, with a slight start. "I lefthim here."

  "Mebbee so, but folks nowadays don't 'pear to keer much whether theybreak the Sabbath or not, trapsen' raound town in and arter meetin'hours, ez if 'twor gin'ral tranin' day--and hez gone out agin."

  "Go on," said Mrs. Blandford, curtly.

  "Wa'al, the stranger sez, sez he, 'Show me the way to the stables,' sezhe, and without taken' no for an answer, ups and meanders through thehall, outer the kitchen inter the yard, ez if he was justice of thepeace; and when he gets there he sez, 'Fetch out his hoss and harnessup, and be blamed quick about it, and tell Ned Blandford that DickDemorest hez got to leave town to-night, and ez ther ain't a blamedpuritanical shadbelly in this hull town ez would let a hoss go on hireSunday night, he guesses he'll hev to borry his.' And afore I couldsay Jack Robinson, he tackles the hoss up and drives outer the yard,flinging this two-dollar-and-a-half-piece behind him ez if I wur aVirginia slave and he was John C. Calhoun hisself. I'd a chucked itafter him if it hadn't been the Lord's Day, and it mout hev provokeddisturbance."

  "Mr. Demorest is worldly, but one of Edward's old friends," said Mrs.Blandford, with a slight kindling of her eyes, "and he would not haverefused to aid him in what might be an errand of grace or necessity. Youcan keep the money, Ezekiel, as a gift, not as a wage. And go to bed. Iwill sit up for Mr. Blandford."

  She passed out and up the staircase into her bedroom, pausing on her wayto glance into the empty back parlor and take the lamp from the table.Here she noticed that her husband had evidently changed his clothesagain and taken a heavier overcoat from the closet. Removing her ownwraps she again descended to the lower apartment, brought out the volumeof sermons, placed it and the lamp in the old position, and withher abstracted eyes on the page fell into her former attitude. Everysuggestion of the passionate, half-frenzied woman in the kitchen of thehouse only four doors away, had vanished; one would scarcely believe shehad ever stirred from the chair in which she had formally receivedher husband two hours before. And yet she was thinking of herself andDemorest in that kitchen.

  His prompt and decisive response to her appeal, as shown in this lastbold and characteristic action, relieved, while it half piqued her. Butthe overruling destiny which had enabled her to bring him from his hotelto her mother's house unnoticed, had protected them while there, hadarrested a dangerous meeting between him and herself and her husband inher own house, impressed her more than all. It imparted to her a hideoustranquillity born of the doctrines of her youth--Predestination! Shereflected with secret exultation that her moral resolution to fly fromhim and her conscientiously broken promise had been the direct means ofbringing him there; that step by step circumstances not in themselvesevil or to be combated had led her along; that even her husband andmother had felt it their duty to assist towards this fateful climax! IfEdward had never kept up his worldly friendship, if she had never beenrestricted and compassed in her own; if she had ever known the freedomof other girls,--all this might not have happened. She had been electedto share with Demorest and her husband the effects of their ungodliness.She was no longer a free agent; what availed her resolutions? ToDemorest's imperious hope, she had said, "God knows." What more couldshe say? Her small red lips grew white and compressed; her face rigid,her eyes hollow and abstracted; she looked like the genius of asceticismas she sat there, grimly formulating a dogmatic explanation of herlawless and unlicensed passion.

  The wind had risen to a gale without, and stirred even the sealedsepulchre of the fireplace with dull rumblings and muffled moans. Attimes the hot-air drum in the corner seemed to expand as with somepent-up emotion. Strange currents of air crossed the empty room like thepassage of unseen spirits, and she even fancied she heard whispers atthe window. This caused her to rise and open it, when she found that thesleet had given way to a dry feathery snow that was swarming throughthe slits of the shutter; a faint reflection from the already whitenedfences glimmered in the panes. She shut the window hastily, with alittle shiver of cold. Where was Demorest in this storm? Would itstop him? She thought with pride now of the dominant energy that hadfrightened her, and knew it would not. But her husband?--what kept him?It was twelve o'clock; he had seldom stayed out so late before. Duringthe first half hour of her reflections she had been relieved by hisabsence; she had even believed that he had met Demorest in the town,and was not alarmed by it, for she knew that the latter would avoidany further confidence, and cut short any return to it. But why had notEdward returned? For an instant the terrible thought that something hadhappened, and that they might both return together, took possessionof her, and she trembled. But no; Demorest, who had already taken suchextreme measures, could not consistently listen to any suggestion fordelay. As her only danger lay in Demorest's presence, the absence of herhusband caused her more undefinable uneasiness than actual alarm.

  The room had become cold with the dying out of the dining-room fire thatwarmed the drum. She would go to bed. She nevertheless arranged the roomagain with a singular impression that she was doing it for the last timein her present existing circumstances, and placing the lamp on the tablein the hall, went up to her own room. By the light of a single candleshe undressed herself hastily, said her prayers punctiliously, and gotinto bed, with an unexpected relief at finding herself still occupyingit alone. Then she fell asleep and dreamed of Demorest.